The two men exchanged glances, each suspicious of the other.
Max tried to imagine the motive of his friend's visit, while Rolfe, on
his part, was undecided as to the extent of the other's knowledge. To
come there and boldly face Max had cost him a good many qualms. At one
moment he felt certain that Max suspected, but at the next he laughed at
his own fears, and declared himself to be a chicken-hearted fool. And
so days had gone on until, unable to stand it further, he had at last
resolved to call at Dover Street.
"You're quite a stranger, Charlie," Max remarked at last. "I haven't
seen you since the doctor disappeared so mysteriously."
He watched Rolfe's face as he spoke, yet save a very slight flush upon
the cheeks he was in no way perturbed.
"Well, I've been away nearly the whole time," was the other's reply.
"The whole affair is most curious."
"And haven't you seen Maud since?"
He hesitated slightly, and in that hesitation Max detected falsehood.
"No," was his reply.
"What? And haven't you endeavoured to find out her whereabouts?" cried
Max, staring at him. "If Marion had disappeared, I think I should have
left no stone unturned in order to discover the truth."
"I have tried to solve the mystery, and failed," was his rather lame
response.
"But where are they--where can they be? It's most extraordinary that
the doctor should not send me word in confidence of their secret
hiding-place. I was his most intimate friend."
"Well," he said. "The fact is that until this moment I believed you
were well aware of their whereabouts, but could not, in face of your
friendship, betray them."
Max looked him straight in the face. Was he lying?
Such a statement was, indeed, ingenious, to say the least. Yet how,
recollecting that he had left the empty house in secret, could he
believe that Max knew the truth and was concealing it? Was it really
possible that he was in ignorance? Barclay thought. Had he gone to
Cromwell Road expecting to find the doctor at home, just as he had done?
If he had, then why had he crept out of the place and made his escape
so hurriedly?
Again, he recollected the result of the search in company with the man
from Harmer's, and the finding of the open safe. Somebody had been
there after his visit; somebody who had robbed the safe! That person
must have been aware of the departure of the doctor. Who was it if not
the man seated there before him?
"Well, Rolfe," Max remarked at last. "You're quite mistaken. I haven't
the slightest notion of where they are. I've done my best to try and
discover some clue to the direction of their flight, but all in vain.
The more I have probed the affair, the more extraordinary and more
mystifying has it become."
"What have you discovered?" asked Charlie quickly.
"Several strange things. First, I have found that the furniture was
removed in vans painted with the name of Harmer's Stores, but they were
not Harmer's vans. The household goods were spirited away that night,
nobody knows whither."
"And with them the Doctor and Maud."
"Exactly. But--well, tell me the truth, Charlie. Have you had no
message of whatever sort from Maud?"
"None," he replied, his face full of pale anxiety.
"But, my dear fellow she loved you, did she not? It was impossible for
her to conceal it."
"Yes, I know. That's why I can't make it out at all. I sometimes think
that--"
"That what?"
"Well, that there's been foul play, Max," he said hoarsely. "You know
what the people of those Balkan countries are--so many political
conspirators in every walk of life. And the doctor was such a prominent
politician in Servia."
Was he telling an untruth? If so, he was a marvellous actor.
"Then you declare that you have received no word from either Maud or the
Doctor."
"I have heard nothing from them."
"But, Charlie," he said slowly, "has it not struck you that Marion knows
something--that if she liked she could furnish us with a clue to the
solution of the mysterious affair?"
"Yes," he said, his face brightening at once. "How curious! That
thought struck me also. She knows something, evidently, but refuses to
say a word."
"Because she is Maud's most intimate friend."
"Yet she ought, merely to set my mind at rest. She knows how fondly I
love Maud."
"What has she told you?"
"She's merely urged me to be patient. That's all very well, because I
feel sure that if Maud were allowed to do so she would write to me."
"Her father may prevent her. He does not write to me, remember," said
Max.
"I can't understand Marion; she is so very mysterious over it all. Each
time I've seen her I've tried to get the truth from her, but all in
vain," Rolfe declared. "My own idea is that on the night in question,
when they went together to Queen's Hall, Maud told Marion something--
something that is a secret."
Max pondered. His friend's explanation tallied exactly with his own
theories; but the point still remained whether or not there had been
foul play.
"But why doesn't the Doctor send me word of his own safety?" asked
Barclay. "I was with him only a few hours before, smoking and chatting.
He surely knew then of his impending flight. It had all been most
ingeniously and cleverly arranged."
"No doubt. When I knew of it I was absolutely staggered," Rolfe said.
It was curious, thought his friend, that he did not admit visiting the
house after the furniture had been removed.
"I thought you left at nine that night to go to Belgrade. Marion told
me you had gone," Max remarked.
"Yes. I had intended to go, but I unfortunately missed my train. The
next day the old gentleman sent somebody else, as he wanted me at home
to look after affairs up in Glasgow."
"And how did you first know of Maud's disappearance?" asked Max,
thinking to upset his calm demeanour.
"I called at the house," he replied, vouchsafing no further fact.
"And after that?" Max inquired, recollecting that tell-tale stain upon
the woman's bodice.
"I made inquiries in a number of likely quarters, without result."
"And what's your theory?" Max asked, looking him straight in the face,
now undecided whether he was lying or not.
"Theory? Well, my dear fellow, I haven't any. I'd like to hear yours.
The doctor and his daughter have suddenly disappeared, as though the
earth has swallowed them, and they've not left the least trace behind.
What do you believe the real truth to be?"
"At present I'm unable to form any actual theory," his friend replied.
"There has either been foul play, or else they are in hiding because of
some act of political vengeance which they fear. That not a word has
come from either tends to support the theory of foul play. Yet if there
has been a secret tragedy, why should the furniture have been made to
disappear as well as themselves?" Then, after a pause, he fixed his
eyes suspiciously upon Charlie, and added, "I wonder if the Doctor kept
any valuables or securities that thieves might covet in his house?"
Rolfe shrugged his shoulders. Mention of that point in no way disturbed
him.
"I have never heard Maud speak of her father having any valuable
possessions there," he said simply.
"But he may have done so, and a theft may have been committed!"
"Of course. But the whole affair from beginning to end is most
puzzling. I wonder the papers didn't get hold of it. They could have
concocted lots of theories if it had become known."
"And now, at this lapse of time, the Press could not mention it for fear
of libel. They'll think that the Doctor had done a moonlight flit,
instead of paying his rent."
"It certainly looks like that," remarked Max with a laugh. "But I only
wish we could induce Marion to tell us all she knows."
Charlie sighed.
"Yes," he said. "I only wish she would say something. But she refuses
absolutely, and so we're left entirely in the dark."
"Well, all I can say is, that the Doctor would never wilfully leave me
in ignorance of his whereabouts, especially at this moment. We have
certain business matters together involving a probable gain of a good
round sum. Therefore, it was surely to his interest to keep me in touch
with him!" Max declared.
The man before him was silent.
Was it possible that he had misjudged him? Was he lying; or had he
really gone to Cromwell Road in search of the Doctor and found the house
untenanted and empty?
"It is a complete mystery," was all that Rolfe could say.
"Do you know, Charlie, a curious thought struck me the other day, and I
mention it to you in all confidence. It may be absurd--but--well,
somehow I can't get it out of my head."
"And what is it?" asked his friend with an eagerness just a little
unusual.
Max paused. Should he speak? Or should he preserve silence? The
mystery now held him bewildered. What had become of the dear old Doctor
and the pretty girl with the tiny wisp of hair straying across her white
brow? Yes. He would speak the vague impression that had, of late, been
uppermost in his mind.
"Well," he said, "old Statham has financial interests in Servia, has he
not?"
"Certainly. Quite a number. He floated their loan a few years ago."
"And has it not struck you then that he and the Doctor might be
acquainted?"
"They were strangers," he exclaimed quickly, darting a strange look
across at Barclay.
Max was somewhat surprised at the vehement and decisive nature of
Charlie's declaration.
"And Maud never met the old fellow?"
"Never--to my knowledge."
"Statham has a number of friends and acquaintances whom you do not know.
The Doctor may have been one of them."
"Oh, Sam has very few secrets from me. I am his confidential
secretary," was the other's rather cold response.
"I know--I know. But would it not be to Statham's interest to be on
friendly terms with such a powerful factor in the Servian political
world as Dr Petrovitch?"
"Well, it might. But you know how independent he is. He never goes
into society, and has no personal friends. He's utterly alone in the
world--the loneliest man in London."
"Then let us go a trifle further," said Max at last. "Answer me one
question. Is it or is it not, a fact that you were at the house in
Cromwell Road on the night of--of their disappearance?"
Rolfe's countenance changed in an instant. His lips went white.
"Why?" he faltered--"what do you mean to imply?--why--?"
"Because, Rolfe," the other said in a hard, determined voice, "because I
saw you there--saw you with my own eyes!"