Then Adam had been entrapped there--and had lost his life!
Both men started as the tragic truth dawned upon them. Adam was old
Sam's most bitter enemy. He was dead--in his coffin--yet the
millionaire had, up to the present, been unable to dispose of the
remains. There was no medical certificate, therefore burial was
impossible.
The weird stories which both men had heard of nocturnal visitors to that
house who had never been seen to emerge, and of long boxes like coffins
which more than one person said they had seen being brought out and
loaded upon four-wheeled cabs all now flashed across their minds.
Of a verity that house was a house of grim shadows, for murder was
committed there. Men entered alive, and left it dead.
Max stood by the coffin of the man who had so cleverly sought to entice
him away to Constantinople with stories of easily obtained wealth, and
remained there breathless in wonder. He recollected Sam's words, and
saw in them a bitter hatred of the Franco-English adventurer. Had he
carried this hatred to the extreme limit--that of secret assassination?
Charlie, on his part, stood silent also. He knew well that upon the
death of Adam depended the future prosperity of his master. He was well
aware, alas! that Adam, having suddenly reappeared, had vowed a terrible
and crushing vengeance upon the head of the great firm of Statham
Brothers.
But old Sam, with his usual crafty forethought and innate cunning, had
forestalled him. The adventurer had been done to death, and was already
in his coffin!
In his cool audacity old Sam had actually prepared the lead-lined coffin
with its plate ready inscribed!
Its secret arrival at night had evidently been witnessed, and had given
rise to strange and embellished stories.
The last occasion Max had seen Adam was one night three weeks before
when, dining with two other men in the gallery of the Trocadero
Restaurant, he had seen him below seated with a rather young and
good-looking lady in an evening-dress of black net. The pair were
laughing together, and it struck him that the companion of the
adventurer might be French. He had afterwards discovered that she was
Lorena Lyle, daughter of the old hunchback engineer who was his partner
in certain ventures.
"The girl who met me in Paris and gave me warning!" Rolfe exclaimed.
"Yes, the same. They dined together that night and hurried out to get
to the theatre."
"And you've never seen him since?"
"No. Ten days ago, I wrote to the National Liberal Club giving him an
appointment, but he never kept it."
"Because he was lying here, I suppose," remarked Charlie with bated
breath, adding: "This, Max, is all utterly incomprehensible. How dare
the old man do such a thing?"
"He's been driven into a corner, and as long as he preserves his secret
he will still remain a power in the land."
"But his secret is out--we have laid it bare."
"At risk of our lives--eh?" remarked Max, shuddering again as he
recollected his own narrow escape of a few minutes before.
They stood before the mortal remains of the man who had sworn vengeance
upon Statham, neither of them speaking. Presently, however, Charlie
proposed that they should make further investigation on the floor above.
Closing the door of the death-chamber, they stole noiselessly up the
wide, thickly-carpeted staircase to the next landing, where four white
doors opened. Which they should enter first they were undecided. They
were faced by a serious problem. In either of those four chambers the
old millionaire might be asleep. To enter might awaken him.
This they had no desire to do. They expected to be able to open the
iron door from within and pass down the stairs into the hall, and so
into the street without detection. That was their intention. To return
by the way they had come would be impossible.
Together they consulted in low whispers, and, both agreed, Charlie very
carefully turned the handle of the door nearest them. It yielded, and
they crept forward and within. At first Max feared to show his light,
yet as they found no carpet beneath their feet, and as they felt a vague
sense of space in the darkness, he became bolder, and pressed the button
of his little lamp.
It was, like the other apartments, entirely devoid of furniture! The
upper part of those premises, believed by the world to be filled with
costly furniture and magnificent antiques, seemed empty. Charlie was
amazed. He had heard many romantic stories of why the old man never
allowed a stranger to ascend the stairs, but he had never dreamed that
the fine mansion was unfurnished.
The next room they examined was similar in character, rather larger,
with two long windows overlooking the Park. They were, however,
carefully curtained, and the blinds were down. Beyond a rusty old
fender before the fireplace and a roll of old carpet in a corner, it,
however, contained nothing.
They passed to the third apartment, likewise a front room, and Max
slowly turned the door-handle. In the darkness they stepped within, and
again finding it uncarpeted, he shone his light across the place.
Next instant the pair drew back, for sitting up upon a low, iron camp
bedstead, glaring at them with eyes haggard and terrified, was old Sam
Statham himself.
The room was bare save an old painted washstand and chest of drawers,
dirty, uncarpeted, and neglected. The low, narrow bed was covered by an
old blue and white counterpane, but its occupant sat glaring at the
intruders, too terrified to speak.
In the darkness he probably could not recognise who it was. The
electric light blinded him. Next second, however, he touched the switch
near his hand, and the wretched room became illuminated, revealing the
two intruders.
He tried to speak, but his lips refused to articulate. The old man's
tongue clave to the roof of his mouth.
He knew that his carefully-guarded secret was out!