Late that same night, in the small and rather well-furnished dining-room
of a flat close to Addison Road station, the beetle-browed man known to
some as John Adams and to others as Jean Adam was seated in a
comfortable armchair smoking a cigarette.
He was no longer the shabby, half-famished looking stranger who had been
watching outside Statham's house in Park Lane, but rather dandified in
his neat dinner jacket, glossy shirt-front, and black tie. Adventurer
was written all over his face. He was a man whose whole life history
had been a romance and who had knocked about in various odd and
out-of-the-way corners of the world. A cosmopolitan to the backbone,
he, like his friend Leonard Lyle, whom he was at that moment expecting,
hated the trammels of civilised society, and their lives had mostly been
spent in places where human life was cheap and where justice was
unknown.
Alone in that small room where the dinner-cloth had been removed and a
decanter and glasses had been placed by his one elderly serving-woman,
who had now gone for the night, he was muttering to himself as he
smoked--murmuring incoherent words that sounded much like threats.
It was difficult to recognise in this well-groomed, gentlemanly-looking
man, with the diamond in his shirt-front and the sparkling ring upon his
finger, the low-looking tramp whose eyes had encountered those of the
man whose ruin he now sought to encompass.
In half a dozen capitals of the world he was known as Jean Adam, for he
spoke French perfectly, and passed as a French subject, a native of
Algiers; but in London, New York, and Montreal he was known as the
wandering and adventurous Englishman John Adams.
Whether he was really English was doubtful. True, he spoke English
without the slightest trace of accent, yet sometimes in his gesture,
when unduly excited, there was unconsciously betrayed his foreign birth.
His French was as perfect as his English. He spoke with an accent of
the South, and none ever dreamed that he could at the same time speak
the pure, unadulterated Cockney slang.
He had just glanced at his watch, and knit his brows when the electric
bell rang, and he rose to admit a short, triangular-faced, queer-looking
little old man, whose back was bent and whose body seemed too large for
his legs. He, too, was in evening-dress, and carried his overcoat
across his arm.
"I began to fear, old chap, that you couldn't come," Adams exclaimed, as
he hung his friend's coat in the narrow hall. "You didn't acknowledge
my wire."
"I couldn't until too late. I was out," the other explained, in a tone
of apology. "Well," he asked, with a sigh, as he stretched himself
before he seated himself in the proffered chair, "what has happened?"
"A lot, my dear fellow. We shall come out on top yet."
"Be more explicit. What do you mean?"
"What I say," was Adams' response. "I've seen old Statham to-day."
"And he's seen you--eh?"
"Of course he has. And he's scared out of his senses--thinks he's seen
a ghost, most likely," he laughed, in triumph. "But he'll find I'm much
more than a ghost before he's much older, the canting old blackguard."
Lyle thought for a second.
"The sight of you has forearmed him! It was rather injudicious just at
this moment, wasn't it?"
"Not at all. I meant to give him a surprise. If I'd have gone up to
the house, rung the bell, and asked to see him, I should have been
refused. He sees absolutely nobody, for there's a mystery connected
with the house. Nobody has ever been inside."
"What!" exclaimed the old hunchbacked mining engineer. "That's
interesting! Tell me more about it. Is it like the haunted house in
Berkeley Square about which people used to talk so much years ago?"
"I don't think it's ever been alleged to be haunted," responded Adams.
"Yet there are several weird and amazing stories told of it, and of the
grim shadows which overhang it both night and day."
"What stories have you heard?" asked his companion, taking a cigarette
from the box, for he had suddenly become much interested.
"Well, it is said that the place is the most gorgeously furnished of any
house in that select quarter, and that it is full of art treasures, old
silver, miniatures, and antique furniture, for old Statham is a
well-known collector and is known to have purchased many very fine
specimens of antiques during the past few years. They say that, having
furnished the place from kitchen to garret in the most costly manner
possible, he sought out the old love of his earlier days--a woman who
assisted him in the foundation of his fortune, and invited her to
inspect the house. They went round it together, and after luncheon he
proposed marriage to her. To his chagrin, she declined the honour of
becoming the wife of a millionaire."
"She was a bit of a fool, I should suppose," remarked the hunchback.
"They were fond enough of each other. She was nearly twenty years his
junior, and though they had been separated for a good many years, he was
still devoted to her. When she refused to marry him, there was a scene.
And at last she was compelled to admit the truth--she was the wife of
another! A quarter of an hour later she left the house in tears, and
from that moment the beautiful mansion, with the exception of two or
three rooms, has been closed. He will allow nobody to pass upstairs,
and the place remains the same as on that day when all his hopes of
happiness were shattered."
"But you said there were stories concerning the house," Lyle remarked,
between the whiffs of his cigarette.
"So there are. Both yesterday and to-day I've been making inquiries and
been told many curious things. A statement, for instance, made to me is
to the effect that one night about a month ago the chauffeur of the
great Lancashire cotton-spinner living a few doors away was seated on
the car at two o'clock in the morning, ready to take two of his master's
guests down to their home near Epsom, when he noticed Statham's windows
all brilliantly lit.
"From the drawing-room above came the sounds of waltz music--a piano
excellently played. This struck the man as curious, well knowing the
local belief that the upper portion of the house was kept rigorously
closed. Yet, from all appearances, the old millionaire was that night
entertaining guests, which was further proved when a quarter of an hour
later the door opened and old Levi, the man-servant, came forth. As he
did so, a four-wheeled cab, which had been waiting opposite, a little
further up the road, drew across, and a few moments later both Levi and
Statham appeared, struggling with a long, narrow black box, which, with
the cabman's aid, was put on top of the vehicle. The box much resembled
a coffin, and seemed unusually heavy.
"So hurried and excited were the men that they took no notice of the
motor car, and the cab next moment drove away, the man no doubt having
previously received his orders. The music had ceased, and as soon as
the cab had departed the lights in the windows were extinguished, and
the weird home remained in darkness."
"Very curious. Looks about as though there had been some foul play,
doesn't it?" Lyle suggested.
"That's what the chauffeur suspects. I've spoken with him myself, and
he tells me that the box was so like a coffin that the whole incident
held him fascinated," Adams said. "And, of course, this story getting
about, has set other people on the watch. Indeed, only last night a
very curious affair occurred. It was witnessed by a man who earns his
living washing carriages in the mews close by, and who has for years
taken an interest in the mysterious home of Samuel Statham.
"He had been washing carriages till very late, and at about half-past
two in the morning was going up Park Lane towards Edgware Road, where he
lives, when his attention was drawn to the fact that as he passed
Statham's house the front door was slightly ajar. Somebody was waiting
there for the expected arrival of a stranger, and, hearing the carriage
washer's footstep, had opened the door in readiness. There was no light
in the hall, and the man's first suspicion was that of burglars about to
leave the place.
"Next instant, however, the reputation for mystery which the place had
earned, occurred to him, and he resolved to pass on and watch. This he
did, retiring into a doorway a little farther down, and standing in the
shadow unobserved he waited.
"Half an hour passed, but nothing unusual occurred, until just after the
clock had struck three, a rather tall, thin man passed quietly along.
He was in evening-dress, and wore pumps, for his tread was noiseless.
The man describes him as an aristocratic-looking person, and evidently a
foreigner. At Statham's door he suddenly halted, looked up and down
furtively to satisfy himself that he was not being watched, and then
slipped inside."
"And what then?" inquired Lyle, much interested.
"A very queer circumstance followed," went on the cosmopolitan. "There
was, an hour and a half later, an exact repetition of the scene
witnessed by the chauffeur."
"What! the black trunk?"
"Yes. A cab drove up near to the house, and, at signal from Levi, came
up to the kerb. Then the long, heavy box was brought out by the servant
and his master, heaved up on to the cab, which drove away in the
direction of the Marble Arch."
"Infernally suspicious," remarked the hunchback, tossing his cigarette
end into the grate. "Didn't the washer take note of the number of the
cab?"
"No. That's the unfortunate part of it. Apparently he didn't notice
the crawling four-wheeler until he saw Levi come forth and give the
signal."
"And the aristocratic-looking foreigner? Could he recognise him again?"
"He says he could."
"That was last night--eh?"
"Yes."
"There may be some police inquiries regarding a missing foreigner,"
remarked Lyle, thoughtfully. "If so, his information may be valuable.
How did you obtain it?"
"From his own lips."
"Then we had better wait, and watch to see if anybody is reported
missing. Certainly that house is one of mystery."
"Sam Statham is unscrupulous. I know him to my cost," Adams remarked.
"And so do I," Lyle declared. "If what I suspect is true, then we shall
make an exposure that will startle and horrify the world."
"You mean regarding the foreigner of last night?"
"Yes. I have a suspicion that I can establish the identity of the
foreigner in question--a man who has to-day been missing?"