"Being the Story of a Hushed Up Mystery" (continued 2)

Another ten minutes had elapsed, and then a tall, bearded man came along. There was something peculiar in his gait: he seemed to walk stiffly with one leg.

He proceeded slowly in the direction of the post-office, and entered the swing-doors. A chill came over the ardent Wingate as he recognised that the man might be merely going in to buy stamps, or send a wire—not to receive one.

He stole across from the opposite side of the street, where he had been marching up and down for such an interminable time, and peered through the glass door.

A thrill of exultation swept through him as he saw the young woman hand the stranger a telegram, which he opened, read rapidly, and then thrust in his breast pocket. Wingate at once darted back to his previous post.

At a respectful distance he followed the stranger with the peculiar limping walk. They came on to the sea front, and his quarry finally disappeared into that well-known hostelry, “The Old Ship.”

It was now much more than an even chance, taking all the circumstances into consideration, that this was the man who was in communication with Mrs Saxton, and that the telegram he had seen him read was from her.

The man, further, answered to the description given by Davies of one of the two men who had hailed his taxi at Dean’s Yard. The taxi-driver had said nothing about the peculiarity in his walk, which had impressed Wingate at once, probably for the obvious reason that Davies had not had an opportunity of observing it. He had only seen him for a couple of minutes, during which time he was occupied in taking instructions for the disposal of his fare.

“The Old Ship” had been a favourite resort of Wingate’s for some years. In fact, until within the last few months, when his business occupations had permitted less leisure, there was hardly a week in which he had not motored down there.

The manager he knew well, also the head-waiter, and two or three of his subordinates. If the man he was tracking was staying there, it would be the easiest thing in the world to make a few judicious inquiries ere he again ’phoned Smeaton. The first person he met, as he stepped into the hall, was Bayfield, the portly and rubicund head-waiter himself.

“Good-day, Mr Wingate. Very pleased to see you, sir. We were saying only the other day that you had quite deserted us.”

“Been awfully busy, Bayfield; couldn’t get away. But it was such a lovely day that I made up my mind I would rush down for a breath of fresh air.”

“Quite right, sir,” cried the cheerful Bayfield, in an approving voice. “It will do you good. All work and no play—you know the old proverb, sir—eh? You are staying the night, I hope?”

Wingate hesitated. “I didn’t intend to when I started from town. Anyway, I will have dinner, and make plans afterwards. Have you many people stopping here?”

“Never knew the house so empty, although, of course, we don’t expect to have many this time of year. A lot of people come in to the table d’hôte, but at the moment, in the house itself, we’ve only an elderly couple, a few stray people, and a foreign gentleman, who has been a visitor, on and off, for the last few months.”

It was a fine opportunity to engage Bayfield in conversation upon the subject of the “foreign” gentleman, and pick up what he could. Bayfield was a chatty, old-fashioned creature nearly seventy, and could be trusted not to exhibit undue reticence when unfolding himself to a customer whom he had known for some years.

But Wingate made up his mind not to press matters too much. He would prospect a little on his own account first, before he availed himself of the head-waiter’s loquacity.

A minute later he entered the smoking-room, lit another cigar, and prepared to cogitate over matters. At the moment of his entrance there was nobody else in the apartment. A few seconds later the bearded stranger came in, rang the bell, ordered something, and seated himself before a small writing-table in the corner of the room. Then he pulled from his breast pocket a bundle of papers.

He read through some of them, various letters and memoranda they seemed to be, slowly and carefully, and laid them aside after perusal, making notes meanwhile.

Then, almost, but not quite, at the end of the packet, came the telegram which he had received at the post-office. He placed this on the top of the little pile, and went on with what remained.

It was a tantalising moment for Austin. There was the telegram within six feet of him. Wild thoughts coursed through his brain. An idea occurred to him. He stumped his cigar upon the ash-tray, till it failed to emit the feeblest glow. He had already observed that, through carelessness, nearly every match-box in the room was empty.

Noiselessly he stole across the few feet of space that divided him from the stranger, and stood on his right hand. Another document had been laid upon the pile, and only the corner of the telegram was peeping forth. A second or two sooner, and he could have read it. He was full of chagrin.

“Excuse me, sir, but can you oblige me with a match? They don’t seem to provide them in this establishment.”

The visitor turned, and for a moment regarded him keenly. What he saw seemed to impress him favourably: an open, honest English face, perfectly candid eyes that looked into his own, without a suspicion of guile in their direct gaze.

“With pleasure, sir. They seem very remiss.”

He spoke with a slight foreign accent, but his tones were cultivated, and his manner was courtesy itself. He held out his match-box. Wingate fancied his glance travelled uneasily to the pile of papers upon the table.

The young man turned half round to strike the match. There was hardly anything of the telegram to read, so obscured was it by the letter lying on the top of it, in which he was not interested.

But what he could see, with his abnormally quick vision, was sufficient. The signature showed distinctly, the same that had appeared on the previous wire—the name MAUDE!

He bowed and withdrew. The foreigner finished his examination of the pile of correspondence he had produced, gathered it up, and transferred it to his breast pocket. Then, with a courteous smile to Wingate, he quitted the room.

The young man breathed a sigh of relief. He was both astonished and delighted at his own resource, at the extent of his discovery. The contents of the telegram could be obtained by Smeaton at his leisure.

What he, Austin Wingate, amateur detective, had proved was that the mysterious man who was staying there was the same person who was in communication with Maude, otherwise Mrs Saxton, of Hyde Park Mansions.

He had done good spade work. Of that he was sure. It was now half-past seven. Plenty of time to ’phone Smeaton, tell him what he had discovered, and inquire how he was to proceed.

The detective decided on his campaign without a moment’s hesitation.

“Well done, Mr Wingate, an excellent result,” he said over the wire. “Stay the night and keep the fellow under observation. We must have him identified. I will send Davies down by the first train to-morrow morning. I will ’phone you full instructions, say, in a couple of hours. Meet him at the station in the morning, smuggle him into the hotel as quickly as you can; I leave the details to you. Let him see our foreign friend, and say if he is the man we think him to be.” He paused a moment, then added:

“You say the manager and Bayfield are well-known to you. They are also old friends of mine. I have unearthed more than one mystery with their help. Mention my name, show them my card, if you think it will ease matters. They will give you any assistance you want. Once again, bravo, and well-done. I’ll ring you up as soon as I have fixed Davies.”

Wingate felt he was walking on air as he returned to the hotel. With his new-born cunning he had not ’phoned from “The Old Ship,” but from the post-office.

The dining-room was not at all full. The elderly couple and the foreigner sat at their respective tables. A few other people were dotted about.

At the end of an hour Wingate had the room to himself, with the head-waiter, his old friend, hovering around, ready for a prolonged chat.

“I’m rather interested in that foreign chap, Bayfield,” he said carelessly. “What do you know about him? Is he a quiet sort of Anarchist, or what?”

Bayfield was quite ready to communicate all he knew, in confidential whispers, for Wingate was always very popular with his inferiors. He gave himself no airs, and he was more than liberal with tips.

“He’s a bit of a mystery, sir, but he’s a very quiet sort of a gentleman. He began coming here about three months ago. I should say, since he started, he has stayed two or three days out of every week. He has heaps of letters. Sometimes he goes off at a minute’s notice, and then we have to send his letters after him.”

“Where does he live, and what’s his name?”

“He lives in the Boundary Road, St. John’s Wood, and his name is Bolinski; a Russian, I suppose. All their names seem to end in ‘ski’ or ‘off.’”

So his name was Bolinski, and he lived in Boundary Road, St. John’s Wood. Here was valuable information for Smeaton. Wingate chatted a little longer with Bayfield, and then went for a walk along the front, returning in time to receive the detective’s message ’phoned to the hotel.

At this juncture he thought it was wise policy to take both the manager and Bayfield into his confidence. He showed them Smeaton’s card, and explained that for reasons he was not at liberty to disclose, he wanted to identify Bolinski. A man was coming down for that purpose by an early train to-morrow morning, and he wanted to smuggle him into the hotel as early as possible.

The manager smiled. “That’s all right, Mr Wingate. Inspector Smeaton is an old friend of mine, and I have helped him a bit here, and more in London. Our friend breakfasts on the stroke of half-past nine. Get your man in here a little before nine, and Bayfield will take him in charge, and give him a glimpse of the distinguished foreigner.”

Next morning the taxi-driver Davies arrived, attired in a brand new suit, and looking eminently respectable in mufti.

Wingate met him at the station, piloted him to “The Old Ship,” and handed him over to the careful guardianship of the astute Bayfield.

At nine-thirty, Bolinski, fresh and smart, came down to his breakfast, seating himself at his usual table. Davies crept in, and took a good look at him, unobserved by the object of his scrutiny.

Wingate was waiting in the hall, with the manager. The face of Davies was purple with emotion and the pleasurable anticipation of further and substantial reward.

“That’s the man, right enough, sir!” he said in an excited whisper. “I’d swear to him out of a thousand if they was all standin’ before me.”

Chapter Nine.

Rumours in London.

Some few days had elapsed, and the Monkton mystery remained in the same deep obscurity. The inquest had been resumed, and an “open verdict” was returned by the jury. But nothing as yet had been published in the Press. All that the public knew was by an obscure paragraph which stated that the Colonial Secretary had been suffering from ill-health, and, having been ordered complete rest by his doctor, he had gone abroad.

The body of the dead man had not been identified. There was nothing to prove conclusively the cause of death, so the matter was left in the hands of the police for investigation.

Some little progress had been made in the direction of Bolinski. Luigi, the proprietor of the restaurant in Soho, had been taken to the Boundary Road in St. John’s Wood, and had waited for the mysterious foreigner to come out of the house.

When he appeared, limping along with that peculiar gait of his, Luigi unhesitatingly declared that he was the man who had dined on the eventful night with the missing Mr Monkton. He could have identified him anyway by his features and figure, but the dragging walk left no room for doubt. Luigi, like Wingate, had noticed it at once.

A few facts about him were established. He was either a bachelor or a widower, as the only other occupants of the house were a married couple, also foreigners, who looked after the establishment. Inquiries in the neighbourhood proved that he spent about half the week there, going up to business every morning.

They tracked him to his office in the city, a couple of rooms on the second floor of a big block of recently erected buildings in the vicinity of Liverpool Street Station. His staff was small, consisting of a young clerk of about eighteen, and a woman of about thirty-five, by her appearance a Jewess of foreign, probably Polish, nationality.

The name Bolinski was inscribed in large latters on a plate outside the door. No business or profession was stated. Patient investigation revealed the fact that he was supposed to be a financial agent, was connected with certain small, but more or less profitable, enterprises abroad, and had a banking account at the head office of one of the biggest banks in England.

Such facts as these rather deepened the mystery. What circumstances had produced an even momentary association between Reginald Monkton, a statesman of more than ordinary eminence, a man of considerable fortune, with a financier of fifth or sixth rate standing, who lived in a small house in St. John’s Wood.

While the Russian was being subjected to these investigations, the other man. Stent, had suddenly absented himself from the Savoy. This was annoying, as Smeaton had sworn to hunt him to his lair, with the aid of his old ally, the hall-porter.

Mrs Saxton was still being kept under strict surveillance, but she, too, was lying very low. She left the flat very seldom, and her movements had in them nothing suspicious. Her brother, James Farloe, went there every day, but she did not appear to be in further communication with Bolinski. Nothing had come to light since those two telegrams despatched to Brighton.

In the meantime rumour was growing in every direction, more especially in political and club circles. What had become of Monkton? Why was he no longer in his place in the House of Commons? Why had his name disappeared from the Parliamentary reports? Was he really ill and abroad?

At no place was the subject discussed with greater interest than at that celebrated resort of intellectual Bohemianism, the Savage Club. Here were gathered together the brightest spirits of the stage, the Bar, and modern journalism with its insatiable appetite for sensational news and thrilling headlines.

Prominent amongst the journalistic section was Roderick Varney, a brilliant young man of twenty-eight, of whom his friends predicted great things. After a most successful career at Oxford, he had entered the Middle Temple, and in due course been called to the Bar.

Having no connection among solicitors, briefs did not flow in, and he turned his attention to the Press. Here he speedily found his true vocation. He was now on the staff of a powerful syndicate which controlled an important group of daily and weekly newspapers.

The bent of his mind lay in the direction of criminal investigation. On behalf of one of the syndicated newspapers, he had helped to solve a mystery which had puzzled the trained detectives of Scotland Yard.

Thinking over the Monkton matter, he had come to the conclusion that there might be a great “scoop” in it.

Unfortunately, he knew so little of the actual facts; there were such slender premises to start from. Rumours, more or less exaggerated, were not of much use to him, and those were all that he had at his disposal.

And then, as he sat in the smoking-room of the Savage, overlooking the Thames, a big idea occurred to him. He would go to headquarters at once, to Chesterfield Street, and ask for Miss Monkton. He would send in a brief note first, explaining his errand.

He had dined, and it was getting on for half-past eight. No time to lose. In under ten minutes from the time the idea had struck him, he was at the door of Reginald Monkton’s house.

Grant showed him into the library, and took in the note. Sheila and Wingate had dined together, and were sitting in the drawing-room.

The sad events had drawn them so closely together that they might now be said to be acknowledged lovers. Austin had never made any pretence of his regard for her, and Sheila was no longer reserved or elusive.

She handed him the letter, and Wingate read it carefully.

“I know the man a little,” he said, when he had gathered the contents. “I belong to the Savage, and go there occasionally. He has the reputation of a brilliant journalist, and has written one or two quite good books on the subject of criminology. Suppose we have him in, and see what he wants. Smeaton is a first-class man, no doubt, but this chap unearthed the Balham mystery that baffled Scotland Yard; all London rang with it, at the time. A fresh brain might help us.”

Sheila yielded to her lover’s suggestion. Privately, she thought etiquette demanded that they should first ring up to consult Smeaton as to whether the newcomer should be shown the door or not. But Wingate had been so good, so tender to her in her hour of trial, that she did not like to oppose him.

Varney came in and at once made a good impression upon her. He was quite a gentleman; his voice and manner showed unmistakable signs of cultivation.

He plunged at once into the matter without insincere apologies.

Plenty of rumours were flying about, he explained, many of them, no doubt, quite baseless; most, or all of them, exaggerated. He had a faculty for this kind of investigation, and had been successful in a very complicated and baffling case at Balham. If they would give him first-hand information he would be pleased to place his services at their disposal.

“You know, of course, that nothing will be allowed to appear in the Press,” said Wingate, when the young journalist had finished. “The Home Secretary has given instructions to that effect.”

Varney admitted he was under the impression something of the kind had occurred. Otherwise his chief would have sent for him at once.

“So you see I am not out for immediate kudos,” he said, with a very frank smile. “Under different circumstances I daresay I should act very much like any other enterprising journalist anxious to establish a reputation.”

There was a moment’s pause. Wingate looked at Sheila, and she returned his glance of inquiry. Should they trust this singular young man, who spoke with such apparent frankness? Or should they refer him to the detective-inspector who had the case in hand?

Varney perceived their natural hesitation, and hastened to turn it in his favour.

“Let us make a bargain,” he said, in a voice of real heartiness. “Forget for the moment that I am a predatory journalist, on the prowl for sensational news. Just consider me as a man who has a bent for this particular form of investigation, and takes a delight in it. Treat me as a friend, and I will prove myself worthy of your confidence, and help you as far as my brains and resources will permit.”

It was Sheila who spoke first, with her woman’s impulse. “Austin,” she said, “I think we may trust Mr Varney.”

The journalist bowed. “Many thanks. Miss Monkton,” He smiled a little as he added: “Ring up my old friend Smeaton, who, I know, has charge of the case, and get his permission if you like. You know, that was your first thought—was it not?”

Sheila blushed. “Yes, you are quite right, it was. How did you guess?”

“Very easily. By putting myself in your place, and imagining how I should think and act under similar circumstances.”

Then Wingate followed his sweetheart’s lead.

“Well, Mr Varney, I agree with Miss Monkton. We accept you as an ally, without reference to Smeaton. What do you want us to do?”

“I want you to tell me, as fully as you can, everything that has happened, in the minutest detail, from the night of Mr Monkton’s strange disappearance until the present moment.”

It was a long recital. Varney listened attentively and made notes from time to time, as some point struck him. But he did not make many. He seemed to possess a marvellous and retentive memory.

The narrative finished, Varney rose.

“Thanks, I have got it all clear. Now, all this will want thinking over, and it will take me some hours. As soon as I have established something to work upon I will communicate with you. We don’t often see you at the Savage, Mr Wingate, or we might meet there.”

“I have not much leisure,” was Wingate’s reply, “and all I have at my disposal is at Miss Monkton’s service for the present.”

“I quite understand.” He could not fail to read in the slight glow on Sheila’s cheek that the pair were lovers. “Well, good-night. Many thanks for the cordial reception you have given me. I shall do my best. I shall hope to earn the compliments of my old friend Smeaton once again.”

It was close upon ten o’clock when he left the house in Chesterfield Street. Though it was summer time, the night was a dark one. There was no moon, and heavy clouds obscured the stars.

A man stepped out from under the street lamp nearly opposite, and walked quickly in the direction of Curzon Street. Varney had seen him many times in the House of Commons, and recognised him at once. It was James Farloe, the secretary.

Varney followed him up Curzon Street, through the narrow passage that runs past Lansdowne House. For a moment Farloe halted, as if undecided which direction to take. Then, his mind made up, he turned northward, and made his way into Oxford Street.

He walked along there for a little while, then crossed over to the north side, and, turning up one of the numerous side streets, took a devious route into Edgware Road.

It immediately struck Varney that he was going to visit Mrs Saxton at Hyde Park Mansions. In that case, he would have had his hunt for nothing. Smeaton had his men stationed there, and he was not wanted.

However, he would make sure, before he gave up the chase, and he was afterwards glad that he had not jumped too readily at conclusions.

It soon became apparent that this was not Farloe’s destination, for he passed Chapel Street, and continued straight along the Edgware Road till he came to where it joins on to Maida Vale. Here he turned to the right, and was immediately in the St. John’s Wood district.

Varney was now pretty certain in his own mind as to the secretary’s goal, and a few moments more confirmed his conjectures. He halted at a house in the Boundary Road, and knocked gently at the door. It was opened by a tall man, whom Varney at once recognised as Bolinski, from the description given of him by Wingate.

He waited about for an hour, but Farloe did not come out. Theirs was evidently a long conference. The secretary was apparently the channel of communication between the Russian and Mrs Saxton. This accounted for the sudden cessation of telegrams. The astute lady had found out she was being watched.

Varney walked back to Baker Street Station, where he took a ticket for Charing Cross, the nearest halting-place for the Savage Club in the Adelphi.

“I wonder if Smeaton has left Farloe altogether out of his calculations,” was his inward comment on the night’s proceedings. “But it can’t be; he is too old a bird for that. Well, it’s evident he is in with the gang, whoever they are—as well as his sister.”

Chapter Ten.

In the Lobby of the House.

The weeks had slipped by. Smeaton was not at all satisfied with the progress he was making. His inquiries had led him into a cul-de-sac. The absence of the man Stent from the Savoy worried him. It looked as though the man had received a hint from Mrs Saxton, and taken the alarm. In addition, he had constant inquiries from the Home Secretary as to what progress he was making.

He paid a visit to Chesterfield Street to talk over matters. Before he left, Sheila screwed up her courage to tell him of Varney’s visit, and their acquiescence in his proposal to investigate on his own account.

She had expected that he would display resentment at their having taken such a step before consulting him. But, to her relief, he did nothing of the kind.

“Varney is a rather clever young chap,” he admitted, “and if he devoted himself entirely to detective work, and acquired plenty of experience, I believe he would be as good as, if not better than, many of us. In the Caxley mystery he certainly got on the right track, while we went blundering on wrong lines altogether. And the revelations in the Balham affair were entirely due to him.”

“He spoke very highly of you,” said Sheila, with woman’s finesse. “I am glad you don’t think we did wrong.”

“Not at all, my dear young lady. Tell him not to hesitate to come to me—if he is in need of any special facilities that I can give.”

“No news of Mrs Saxton, I suppose?” asked Sheila, as Smeaton was on the point of leaving the drawing-room.

“None at all. She is at home, and nobody seems to go near her but her brother. I told you how she put me on the wrong scent about Stent. Once or twice I have thought of going there again and taxing her with it. But what would be the good? She would still stick to her story that she knew next to nothing about him. In giving me the St. Albans clue she would swear she had mixed him up with somebody else. My men seem cooling their heels to no purpose. She knows she is being watched, and she won’t give us a chance. I expect she does all her necessary work on the telephone, and we must attend to that point at once.”

Next morning Mrs Saxton aroused herself from her apparent inactivity, and gave her watchers a big surprise, which added to Smeaton’s growing dissatisfaction with the state of affairs.

At about eleven o’clock her maid whistled up a taxi. Mason, the head detective on duty, immediately communicated with his own taxi-driver, waiting in readiness round the corner, and entered the cab, giving instructions to follow the other when it started.

She came out without any luggage, simply carrying a small vanity bag. She might be going shopping, to pay a visit, to send a telegram, or a hundred-and-one things. His duty was to follow her.

The woman’s cab drove down the Edgware Road, crossed the Park, and stopped at the Hyde Park Tube Station. Here Mrs Saxton paid the fare, and went into the booking-office. Mason at her heels. She took a ticket to Piccadilly Circus, and Mason did the same. They went down together in the same lift, Mrs Saxton near the door of exit, he at the other end of the lift.

He was puzzled as to her movements. If she wanted to get to Piccadilly Circus, why had she taken this roundabout route? The taxi would have taken her there direct.

The train was full. For a few seconds he was separated from her by a surging and struggling crowd blocking the entrances to the long cars. By dint of hard fighting he managed to get in the same carriage.

So far, luck seemed in his favour. It was a non-stop train, and went past Down Street. At the next station, Dover Street, he saw her turn half round, and cast a furtive glance in his direction. She was evidently debating within herself if she would chance getting out there.

While thus deliberating, the train re-started. At Piccadilly Circus there was a considerable exodus, as there always is. The process of disembarking was slow, owing to the number of passengers.

They both emerged into Jermyn Street, and went along to the Haymarket. Here she looked round, apparently for a taxi, but there was not one in sight. It struck him, as he caught a side glimpse of her features, that she was looking worried and harassed. Evidently his persistent dogging had shaken her nerves.

She walked slowly, with the deliberate gait of a person who was perturbed, and thinking hard. She entered a big drapery shop, where Mason was compelled to follow her for reasons.

Had it been an ordinary kind of shop, he would have waited outside, till she came out. This particular establishment, however, had two entrances, one in Regent Street and one in Piccadilly. She knew this, of course, and would slip out of the one he was not watching. So he followed her in.

Having bought a pair of long cream gloves she glanced furtively around, and then left the shop, passing into Regent Street. Afterwards she spent some time looking into the shop windows up and down that busy thoroughfare, ultimately returning to the Piccadilly Tube Station, where she took a ticket for Knightsbridge, Mason following all the while.

Her face was wan and haggard with the relentless chase, but her eyes expressed indomitable resolution. They seemed to flash across at him as they sat in the same car the unspoken message: “I will outwit you yet.”

At Knightsbridge both watcher and watched ascended in the same lift, with its clanging lattice gate, and it was quite plain that Mrs Saxton was now in a quandary how to escape. In a careless attitude she passed from the street back into the booking-hall, where she pretended to idle up and down, as though awaiting someone. Now and then she looked up at the clock as though anxious and impatient.

Mason believed her anxiety to be merely a ruse, but was both surprised and interested when a small ragged urchin entering the place suddenly recognised her, and handed her a note.

She took it eagerly, and without examining it crushed it hurriedly into her little black silk bag, giving the little fellow a shilling, whereupon he thanked her and ran merrily out.

Next instant Mason slipped forth after the lad in order to question him, leaving the woman safely in the booking-hall. In a few seconds he stopped the boy and asked good-humouredly who had given him the letter.

“A gentleman in Notting ’Ill,” was the urchin’s prompt reply. “I don’t know ’im. ’E only said that a lady in a big black ’at, and dressed all in black and carryin’ a bag, would be waitin’ for me, and that I were to give the note to ’er.”

“Is that all you know, my good lad?” Mason inquired quickly, giving him another shilling.

“Yus. That’s all I knows, sir,” he replied.

While speaking, the detective had kept his eye upon the booking-hall, and swiftly returned to it, only, however, to find that the woman was not there.

The descending lift was full, the lattice gates were closed and it had just started down when he peered within.

In the lift was Mrs Saxton, who, with a smile of triumph, disappeared from his view.

Mason, in a sorry and chastened frame of mind, took the next lift, which, as always happens under such circumstances, was unusually long in arriving. To him, it seemed an eternity.

He got down to the platform, in time to see the tail of a departing train. Mrs Saxton had not waited in the booking-hall in vain. She had two minutes’ start of him, and he might hunt London over before he would again find her.

Only one thing was certain: Mrs Saxton was certainly a very clever woman, who, no doubt, had prepared that very clever ruse of the arrival of the letter, well-knowing that the messenger must draw off the detective’s attention, and thus give her time to slip away.

That same evening James Farloe, who had been chatting in the Lobby of the House of Commons with a couple of Members of the Opposition, was suddenly called aside by Sir Archibald Turtrell, Member for North Canterbury, who, in a low, mysterious whisper, asked:

“Look here, Farloe, is this rumour true?”

“What rumour?” inquired the private secretary, who was a well-known figure about the House, as are those of all secretaries to Ministers of the Crown.

“Why, that Mr Monkton is missing, and that he is not at Cannes as the papers say. Everyone is discussing it.”

The sleek, well-dressed young man in a morning suit with a white slip within his waistcoat, laughed sarcastically, as he replied:

“I wonder. Sir Archibald, who it is who spreads such ridiculous rumours. I had a letter from Mr Monkton only this morning from Cannes. That’s all I know.”

“And yet a telegram that I sent to the Beau Site yesterday has been returned to-night undelivered!”

For a second Farloe held his breath. Serious inquiry was apparently being made by Members of the House, in spite of all the precautions of the Home Secretary.

“Oh,” he replied, with well-feigned carelessness. “The Colonial Secretary left the Beau Site over a fortnight ago. People were worrying him, so his doctor sent him to a furnished villa.”

“What is his address?”

“I’m very sorry. Sir Archibald, but I am unable to give it. I have instructions to that effect,” was the secretary’s cautious reply. “If you give me your note, or write to his club, I will see that it is attended to. Doctor Monier wrote me three days ago asking me not to send his patient any matters concerning public affairs that might worry him.”

“But his daughter still remains in Chesterfield Street,” observed the Baronet. “It is strange she is not with him. The rumour is growing that Monkton has disappeared, and that the police are searching for him.”

“I know,” laughed the other. “I have heard so. It is all too ridiculous. The truth has already been published in the Press. Mr Monkton has had a very serious nervous breakdown, and is on the Riviera—even though it is summer.”

“You are quite certain of that—eh, Farloe?”

“Why should I tell you an untruth?” asked the secretary blandly.

They were standing near the Members’ post-office, and the Baronet, having exchanged a nod with the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, who was just passing into the House itself, gazed full into the secretary’s eyes.

“Tell me, Farloe—tell me in strict confidence,” he urged. “I’ll not whisper a word, but—well, do you happen to know anyone of the name of Stent?”

The young man hesitated, though he preserved the most complete and remarkable control.

“Stent? Stent?” he repeated. “No. The name is quite unfamiliar to me.”

“Are you quite certain? Think.”

“I have already thought. I have never heard that name,” was the reply.

“You are quite positive that he is not acquainted with Mr Monkton in some peculiar and mysterious way?”

“How should I possibly know? All the Colonial Minister’s friends are not known to me. Mr Monkton is a very popular man, remember. But why,” he added, “do you ask about this man Stent?”

“Because it is told to me that he is a mysterious friend of Monkton’s.”

“Not as far as I am aware,” declared Farloe. “I certainly have no knowledge of their friendship, and the name is so unusual that one would certainly recollect it.”

The Baronet smiled. Farloe, seeing that he was unconvinced, was eager to escape from any further awkward cross-examination.

“I really wish that you would be frank with me,” said Sir Archibald, who was one of Britain’s business magnates and a great friend of Monkton’s. “I am informed that this person Stent is in possession of the true and actual facts concerning the Minister’s curious disappearance.”

Farloe realised that something was leaking out, yet he maintained a firm attitude of pretended resentment.

“Well, Sir Archibald,” he protested. “I cannot well see how I can be more frank with you. I’ve never heard of this mysterious person.”

“H’m!” grunted the Baronet, unconvinced. “Perhaps one day, my dear Farloe, you will regret this attempt to wriggle out of a very awkward situation.” Then, after a pause, he added: “You know quite as well as I, with others, know, that my friend Monkton is missing!” and the Baronet turned abruptly, leaving Farloe standing in the Lobby. He passed the two police constables and the idling detective, and entered the House itself.

Farloe, utterly aghast at Sir Archibald’s remarks and the knowledge he evidently possessed, walked blindly out of St. Stephen’s full of grave thoughts.

Not only were the police hot upon the trail which might lead them to the astounding truth concerning the death of the man who, dressed in the Colonial Minister’s clothes, had expired in the house in Chesterfield Street, but the facts were being rumoured that night in the world of politics, and to-morrow the chattering little world which revolves in the square mile around Piccadilly and calls itself Society, would also be agog with the sinister story.

At the corner of Dean’s Yard, not a hundred yards from where the taxi-man Davies had been hailed and the unidentified stranger had been put into his cab, Farloe found a passing taxi and in it drove to his rooms, a cosy little first-floor flat in Ryder Street, St. James’s.

So eager was he that, without taking off his hat, he went at once to the telephone on his writing-table and asked for “trunk.” Ten minutes later he spoke to somebody.

“Get in your car, and come here at once!” he said. “There’s not an instant to be lost. I’ll wait up for you, but don’t delay a moment. I can’t talk over the ’phone, but the situation is very serious. Bring a suit-case. You may have to go to the Continent by the nine o’clock train in the morning.”

He listened attentively to the reply.

“Eh—what? Oh!—yes. I sent a boy with a letter to Knightsbridge station. She’s got away all right. Do get here as quickly as you can—won’t you? Leave your car in some garage, and walk here. Don’t stop the car outside. I’ll leave the hall-door ajar for you. No—I can’t tell you anything more over the ’phone—I really can’t.”

Chapter Eleven.

Mainly Concerns Mr Stent.

James Farloe hung up the telephone receiver, and, lighting a cigar, sat down to think, while wailing for his visitor.

He was rather a good-looking young fellow, but, examined closely, his face was not prepossessing. There was a certain furtive expression about him, as of a man continually on the watch lest he should betray himself, and the eyes were shifty. His sister was probably as insincere as himself, but, on the whole, she made a better impression.

He was too perturbed to sit for long, for, truth to tell, his thoughts were not pleasant company. Two or three times he got up and paced the room, with a noiseless stealthy tread that was characteristic of him. Then, tired of the monotony of waiting, he selected a book from the limited store in a small revolving bookcase, and tried to read.

But the words danced before his unquiet eyes, and conveyed no meaning. Again and again he had to resort to his noiseless pacings of the thickly-carpeted room, to allay the tedium of waiting.

But the slow minutes passed at last. He drew out his watch, noted the time, and drew a sigh of relief. It was one-thirty a.m.

“He can’t be long now,” he muttered. “At this hour of the night he can put on any speed he likes. He’s an obstinate devil, but he would be pretty sure to start straight away, after my urgent summons.”

Even as he spoke, the figure of a man in a motor-cap and heavy overcoat was stealing quietly along Ryder Street. A moment more, and footsteps were heard on the stairs.

Farloe hastened to open the hall-door of his cosy little suite, and closed it noiselessly after the entrance of his visitor. They nodded to each other. The man advanced, and stood under the electric light suspended from the middle of the ceiling.

He was of medium height, well-dressed, and of gentlemanly appearance. He had aquiline features, and piercing dark eyes.

He was the man who had been identified by Davies the driver as one of the two who had put the dying man in his taxi at Dean’s Yard, with instructions to drive him to Chesterfield Street—the man known to the police, through the information given by Mrs Saxton, by the name of Stent.

They did not waste time in preliminary remarks or greetings; they were probably too old acquaintances to indulge in such trivial formalities, but proceeded to business at once.

“So she got clear away?” remarked the man known as Stent. “I always said she was one of the smartest women in England. How did she outwit the detective?”

Farloe smiled. “It was beautifully simple,” he replied. “She ’phoned me up in the morning to say she was starting in a few moments, and that she was sure this fellow would hang on to her as long as he could. She asked me if I could suggest any way of outwitting him. At the moment I couldn’t.”

Stent darted a glance at his companion which was not exactly one of appreciation. “Your sister is quicker at that sort of thing than you,” he said briefly.

Farloe did not appear to notice the slight conveyed in the words and tone, and went on in his smooth voice:

“I expect so. Anyway, she had it cut and dried. She was going to lead him a nice little dance till it was time to get rid of him. She would take him down to Piccadilly Circus, trot him about there for some little time, and then get back to the Knightsbridge Tube Station.”

“Yes—and then?”

“I was to send a boy with a note to the Tube station at a certain time. I picked up a boy, giving him a full description of her, and packed him off. All happened as she expected. The man was tempted away by the boy, out of whom he could get nothing that would be of any use to him, and for a few moments left her unwatched. Hers was a bold stroke. While he was interviewing the urchin, she slipped into a descending lift, and left Mr Detective glaring at her from outside.”

Stent laughed appreciatively. “Well done!” he remarked. “But I have no doubt she would have hit upon something else had that failed.”

Farloe assented briefly. He was very fond of his sister, but it had always been rather a sore point with him to know that she had impressed everybody with the fact that she was much the cleverer and subtler of the two.

There was a brief pause. Then Farloe pointed to the table, upon which stood glasses, a decanter of whisky, and a syphon of soda-water.

“Help yourself, and sit down while we chat,” he said pleasantly. “I’m sorry to have brought you out so late.”

Stent helped himself liberally to the spirit, took a long draught, and sat down in one of the two big saddle-bag chairs. When he had entered the room, Farloe had noticed certain signs of irritation. Perhaps the soothing influence of the whisky helped to restore him to a more equable frame of mind. Anyway, when he answered Farloe his voice was quite smooth and amiable.

“Yes, I was deucedly put out at having to start off at a minute’s notice. If I hadn’t said good-bye to nerves long ago, you would have made me feel quite jumpy, with your talk about bringing a suit-case with me, and having to cross the Channel. Now let me know the meaning of it all. I’ve brought the suit-case in the car. Tell me,” he urged, fixing the younger man with his keen piercing gaze. Farloe shifted a little uneasily under that intense glance. Somehow, he never felt quite at his ease in Stent’s presence.

“I haven’t your nerves, or, rather the want of them, that I admit. And perhaps I take fright a little too easily. Still, I think you ought to be informed of this: that certain people are beginning to know—well—a bit too much.”

Stent’s hard, resolute mouth curved in a smile that was half incredulous, half contemptuous.

“Certain people always know too much—or too little. In this case, I should say it was the latter.”

But Farloe stuck to his guns. “I was tackled to-night at the House by Sir Archibald Turtrell. You know of him, of course?”

The other nodded. There was vindictiveness in his tone, as he replied: “A regular old cackler and bore.”

“I don’t dispute he is both, but that doesn’t alter the fact that he pushed me very hard with some searching questions. I parried them as best I could, but from his last remarks I could see he didn’t believe a word I was saying.”

Stent shifted uneasily in his chair; his ill-humour was evidently returning.

“My dear Farloe, you must excuse me for saying that you don’t always act with the greatest discretion. Why the devil do you want to go to the House at all for, laying yourself open to be cross-examined by anybody and everybody you meet? Look how differently your sister has acted; she has lain as low as possible, and finally shown them a clean pair of heels. I don’t advise you to do exactly the same, for obvious reasons, but it would be advisable to keep very much out of the way till things have blown over.”

The younger man was evidently not thin-skinned, or he would have indulged in some outburst at those very candid remarks. Stent went on, in his hard, but not altogether unpleasant voice:

“It has often struck me that this sort of thing is not quite suitable to a man of your temperament. But now you are in it, you must cultivate the art of keeping your nerves in better order, as I have done. Don’t start at shadows. What you have told me doesn’t disturb me in the least; it is just what might be expected.”

“You haven’t forgotten that young beggar Varney is on the track?” put in Farloe quietly. “I saw him go into Monkton’s house as late as yesterday. He is more to be feared than Smeaton, in my opinion.”

“I don’t care a snap of the finger for the young pup,” cried the other, in his most obstinate voice, and a tightening of the resolute jaw that was so well-matched with the dark, piercing eyes.

Farloe waited till his companion’s momentary irritation had subsided, then he put a question.

“You are quite sure that the police have not traced you yet?”

“Absolutely,” came Stent’s reply. He added, in his grimmest manner; “I’ve not given them a chance.”

They talked on for a long time, the elder man combating sometimes half humorously, sometimes with ill-concealed irritation, the pessimism of the other. At length when he rose it was nearly three o’clock.

“You will let me put you up for the night,” urged Farloe.

“To be in time for the Paris train in the morning?” laughed the other. “No, thanks, my friend. I want to be somewhere else about that time.”

He had drunk a good deal during the interview, and Farloe knew that he was getting into one of those dare-devil moods, in which it was rather dangerous to play with him, or to cross him.

“As you please,” he said, a little sullenly. “I hope you are quite right in your confidence that they have not got on our tracks yet.”

“Make your mind easy, my dear chap. Your sister took care of that by putting our friend Smeaton on a wrong scent. I have often laughed when I thought of them hunting every nook and corner around St. Albans for the gentleman with whom she had only a casual acquaintance.”

Farloe made no reply. Stent held out one hand, and with the other clapped the young man on the shoulder with rough good humour.

“Good-night, old man. Go to bed and sleep soundly, for I’m going. And, I say, don’t bring me out again on a midnight ride like this unless there is very strong reason. Now, just a last word—and I say it in all seriousness—I am not a bit discouraged by what you have told me. Let them smell about, but they’ll find nothing.”

He turned to the door, and fired a parting shot:

“Now, you follow my advice not to give way to idle fancies, and you’ll turn out as well as any of us. And we shall all be proud of you. Once again, good-night.”

As he spoke the last word, the telephone bell rang, and he paused, and turned round.

Farloe looked at the clock on the mantelpiece.

“Past three, by Jove! There’s only one person would ring me up at this time of night. It’s Maude. Perhaps it is important; you had better stay a moment,” he said.

Stent stayed. Farloe took off the receiver, and listened for a little time to the voice at the other end. Although Stent could not distinguish the words, now and then he caught an inflection that he recognised. Farloe’s conjecture was right. It was Mrs Saxton who had rung him up.

Then Stent heard the young man’s reply.

“Hold on a minute, he is here. He was just going when you rang.”

He beckoned to Stent. “She wanted me to send you word that she wished to meet you. You can arrange it with her yourself.”

They talked for a few seconds. At one of her remarks Stent laughed heartily. He turned to Farloe.

“She is suggesting that we don’t make it the Knightsbridge Tube Station.” Then he turned again to the instrument.

“That was a capital move of yours; your brother has just been telling me about it. Really, I think just now it might be as convenient a place as any; they would never think you would have the cheek to go there again so soon. Let us meet at the old spot. That’s safe enough. To-morrow then. All right. Good-bye.”

Chapter Twelve.

The Occupier of Forest View.

When Mason, Detective-Sergeant, C.I.D., with crestfallen air narrated the history of his adventures with the elusive Mrs Saxton, he had expected his chief to indulge in a few sarcastic comments. But Smeaton only shrugged his shoulders expressively. After all, he had come off only second best in his encounter with her himself.

“A very clever woman, Mason,” he said, after some hesitation. “I found that out at the start. It means she has made a bolt of it. It will be some time before Hyde Park Mansions sees her again.”

He was right. Three days elapsed, and the fugitive did not return. On the fourth, Mason, acting in accordance with instructions, went boldly up to the flat and rang the bell.

The neat-looking maid told him that her mistress had gone abroad.

Mason affected to be very much put out. “Dear me, it’s very annoying. I wanted to see her on most urgent business. Can you oblige me with her address?”

“She didn’t leave one, sir. She said she would be back in a month or six weeks, and would be travelling about from place to place all the time. She told us that any letters could wait till her return.”

Mason observed her sharply while she gave this information in quite a natural manner. She seemed a simple, innocent kind of girl. Of course, she might be in league with the escaped woman, but he was rather inclined to believe she was telling the truth.

Mrs Saxton had begun to find the atmosphere a trifle uncomfortable, and had duped her servants with this story of going abroad, he reasoned with himself. She might give London itself a wide berth, but she was somewhere near where she could be in pretty close touch with her friends. Of that he was certain.

Things, therefore, were at a deadlock as concerned Stent and this woman.

Meanwhile, young Varney, confident that Farloe was a mysterious and important connecting link, kept a steady watch upon the chambers in Ryder Street.

For the first three days his exertions went unrewarded. But on the fourth he followed Farloe in a taxi to the Great Eastern Hotel, in Liverpool Street, where he was joined by a man whom, by his strongly marked aquiline features and piercing eyes, he suspected to be the elusive Stent.

When the pair left the hotel, he followed them. It was the luncheon hour, and the city streets were crowded. For full five minutes he kept them in sight, and then he became separated and lost them.

On the second occasion he was more fortunate. About three o’clock one afternoon the pair came forth from Farloe’s chambers, and together walked leisurely, talking earnestly the while.

As far as Victoria Station they went together to the Brighton line. There they parted. The elder man entered the booking-hall of the London and Brighton line, and asked for a ticket to Horsham. Varney did the same.

It was a slow train, and half-empty. When Horsham was reached, only three passengers alighted: himself, the man he was watching, and a young woman.

He inquired of the ticket-collector if at any place near he could hire a cycle, as he thought of coming down for a week’s holiday, and would like to explore the country for an hour or so.

The man directed him to a shop close by. He seemed a very civil young fellow, and Varney chatted with him for a few seconds.

“By the way,” he said, as he moved away. “That gentleman who went out just now—isn’t he Mr Emerson, the well-known barrister?”

The young man shook his head. “No, sir. Mr Strange has recently come to live here, about five months ago. He’s taken Forest View, an old-fashioned house a mile and a half away.”

“Curious,” remarked the amateur detective, in a voice of well-feigned surprise. “Really, how very easily one may be mistaken. I see Mr Emerson three or four times each week, and I could have sworn it was he.”

The ticket-collector smiled civilly, but made no reply. He was not interested in this sudden creation of Varney’s lively imagination.

The journalist crossed to the cycle shop and there hired a machine, paying down the usual deposit. He wheeled it until he met a small boy, from whom he inquired the whereabouts of Forest View.

He was on the right road, the boy informed him. The house with green iron gates lay on the left-hand side. His machine would take him there in a few minutes.

However, he did not mount it, as in that case he would quickly overtake Mr Strange, who was proceeding there on foot. He preferred that this gentleman should get there first, so as to give him an opportunity of having a good look round.

Twenty minutes’ easy walking brought him to the big iron gates of Forest View. He had seen the man disappear within, about a couple of hundred yards in front of him. There was not a soul in sight; he could reconnoitre at his leisure.

The house, old-fashioned, low and rather rambling, lay well back from the white high road, at right angles to it. A thick hedge led up to within a few feet of the entrance. It seemed to boast a fair piece of ground, at least three acres. The entrance to some rather dilapidated stabling was lower down the road.

He felt a sense of triumph. Smeaton, he knew, was still searching for Stent, and he, the amateur, had forestalled him. Was he right, after all, in his surmise that by some curious lapse the man of wider experience had left Farloe out of his calculations, and the man Stent was identical with the man Strange?

His survey finished, he mounted his machine, and rode along, thinking out his plans.

“Find a nice comfortable inn somewhere near, but not too close, pose as an artist out for a brief holiday, and find out all there is to be found about the mysterious Mr Strange,” was the result of his meditations.

A mile lower down the road he came upon a small, old-fashioned inn, with a swinging sign, and trailing roses over the porch and walls. There he entered, and called for some refreshment.

“Thirsty with your ride—eh, sir?” asked the landlord pleasantly.

“A bit, although I haven’t ridden very far yet. I hired a machine in the town in order to have a look round. I want a week’s holiday badly, and I should like to hit upon some quiet quarters about here. It seems a nice piece of country.”

The landlord pricked up his ears. “Perhaps it’s the George in Horsham you might prefer.”

“Oh dear no! I want an old-fashioned inn, like this. But I suppose you don’t take guests?”

The fat landlord glanced at him hesitatingly. Varney was attired in a well-cut Norfolk suit, and his plush Homburg hat must have hailed from Bond Street. He looked the sort of man for a fashionable hotel, not an obscure bacon-and-egg inn.

“Well, sir, we do now and again. We don’t pretend to do you like the big places with French dishes and that sort of thing. But my wife is a good plain cook, and you won’t get better meat and chickens than we have.”

Terms were soon arranged. Varney—or Mr Franks as he announced himself to the landlord—would come down to-morrow, bringing with him a few sketching materials.

Next day Varney returned with a portable easel, and other paraphernalia appertaining to his supposed art. He had not been in the house half-an-hour before he engaged the landlord in a conversation about the local gentry. And it was soon deftly focussed upon the owner of Forest View.

Mr Peter Chawley was by nature a gregarious and communicative soul. He was only reticent when policy or prudence counselled such a course of action.

“Mr Strange has been here about five months,” he informed young Varney, in his fat, somewhat wheezy voice, “but we don’t know very much about him. When he first came, he used to go up to London pretty often, but for some time he has hardly stirred out of the house.”

“Has he any acquaintances in the place?”

Mr Chawley shook his head. “Doesn’t want any, so he told the Vicar when he called upon him. Said he had come here for a quiet life, and wanted to get away from his business in London and the friends he had already. Of course, that was a pretty broad hint—so nobody called. He doesn’t deal with anybody here for a pennyworth of matches. Gets everything from London.”

“What household has he? And is he a widower, or bachelor, or married?”

“Told the Vicar he was a widower. He has three maids: the cook, a middle-aged woman, housemaid, and parlourmaid—all three he brought with him. The gardener’s a local man, a young chap, and comes in here once in a while; but he knows no more than the rest of us. He hardly ever enters the house, and the maids don’t chatter.”

Forest View was a household that evidently kept its own secrets. The maids did not chatter, even to the young local gardener. Mystery here, thought Varney, without a doubt. It was his business to fathom it. Was he really Stent? That was the point.

“He got the house pretty cheap,” went on Mr Chawley, who was not easily stopped when he indulged in reminiscence, “because it had been unlet for five years. It’s a funny old place, all nooks and corners, without any modern convenience. Some people say it’s haunted, and I’ve heard that there is a secret room in it, like what they used to hide the priests in in the old days.”

A mysterious house, with a mysterious owner, truly, thought Varney, as the landlord rambled on.

“Does he have anybody to see him?”

“He never seems to have had but one visitor, a gentleman rather older than himself. He used to run down for two or three days at a time. For some time now he’s been staying with him altogether.”

Varney pricked up his ears. Was he going to discover anything useful?

“Do you know his friend’s name?” he asked eagerly.

“No, sir. The gardener has never heard it, but then, as I say, he hardly ever goes inside the house.”

The next day, and the day after, Varney watched Forest View closely. From the roadway he had a fairly clear view of the sloping lawn. But neither its occupier nor his visitor were tempted out by the beautiful weather. They were certainly an extraordinary pair to shut themselves up in a gloomy house on these bright sunshiny days.

On the third day, however, both emerged from their seclusion, and sauntered on to the lawn. The visitor seemed to stoop slightly, and walk with the languid air of a man who had recently recovered from an illness.

They walked about only for a little while, and, as they went back into the house, Varney, from his hiding-place behind the hedge, heard Mr Strange say:

“Well, if you think you feel fit enough, we will walk into Horsham after lunch. We can drive back. It may do you good.”

An idea had formed itself in Varney’s brain, fitting in with one of the theories he had formed about this remarkable case.

A little after one o’clock the supposed artist stole through the door of the inn, a basket in one hand, a good-sized bag in the other.

A few yards down the road he disappeared up a side road, crossed a field, and advanced towards an old disused barn which he had noted on the previous day, and slipped inside.

A few moments later there issued a strange and shabbily dressed figure, with a slouching walk. On his left arm hung a basket, full of roses, which had been bought a short time ago from Mrs Chawley. They were so beautiful, Varney told her, that he must paint them.

In the guise of a decrepit flower-seller he limped along to the narrow main street of Horsham, and hung about till the pair from Forest View arrived, when he faced them and advancing towards them with his basket before him, he whined when he had got up to them:

“Buy a bunch of roses, sir. Threepence a bunch. All fresh picked, sir.”

“No,” said Strange gruffly, “we don’t want any, got lots of them,” and the pair turned away in ignorance that within that basket, concealed by the flowers, was a small detective camera by which a snapshot of both of them had already been cleverly secured in secret.

Varney made his way back at once to the old barn, where he discarded his shabby jacket and cap.

Early next morning he was on his way to Smeaton. He had a hope that his investigations had been fruitful, but he could not be sure. Certainly the face and figure of the man Strange answered to the description of the person named Stent whom Scotland Yard had been unable to trace.

Having developed and printed the photograph at his own rooms, he was shown into Smeaton’s bare official sanctum which overlooked Westminster Bridge, when the celebrated official rose and gripped his hand.

“Well, Varney?” he asked, “have you done anything in the Monkton mystery—eh?”

“Yes. A bit. Look here. Is this Stent—or not? If it is. I’ve found him.”

The detective took the damp print and examined it curiously in the light by the window.

“Well—the only man who can really identify it is our friend at the Savoy Hotel. Let’s take a taxi and go and see him.”

Chapter Thirteen.

Contains Further Discoveries.

They found the hall-porter at the Savoy hotel, and showed him the print. It was not a very wonderful specimen of the photographer’s art, but it was enough for Smeaton’s old friend.

“That’s him—right enough!” the man in uniform exclaimed. “And you say that you were told his name was Stent by the lady we spoke about, and this gentleman has discovered him under another name. Well, I always thought there was something mysterious about him.”

After such confirmation it could no longer be doubted that Varney had run the supposed Stent to earth. He felt a distinct sense of triumph. He had hoped his exertions might have produced some startling results, but still, he had done something.

Smeaton was not an envious man, and congratulated him heartily. “It’s really a feather in your cap, my dear Varney,” he said amiably. “You got on the right track this time.”

Varney thanked him for his encouraging words. “Now, what’s the next move? I leave it to you.”

Smeaton thought a few seconds before he answered. When he spoke, he voiced the man’s inmost thoughts.

“I think the best thing you can do is to go back and keep up the sketching business. We want to find out all we can about that house and its mysterious inmates. And we especially want to know something about that invalid visitor. There is just a chance, of course, that you may find Mrs Saxton popping up there.”

As all this exactly coincided with his own theory, Varney acquiesced readily. He would go back to Horsham the next day, and resume his watch on Forest View.

“You can’t be watching in two places at once,” added Smeaton presently. “So we will take up Farloe.”

So it was decided. Mrs Saxton having disappeared, with small likelihood of her return, there remained three people to be shadowed: the secretary, Bolinski, and the man who went by the name of Strange, and who, for reasons of his own, was keeping away from the Savoy, and coming to London as seldom as possible.

Varney’s discovery, of which he was not a little proud, was duly reported to Sheila by the young man himself, who called upon her as soon as he had left Smeaton.

She could not but admire his energy and determination, and she told him so, in no measured terms. But when he had gone, she could not help thinking how futile it all seemed.

“They all find a little something, and then they seem to come up against a dead end,” she said to Wingate, when he paid her his usual daily visit. “Weeks have gone by, and the mystery is as deep as ever. How can it be otherwise? What have they got to go upon?”

And Wingate, taking her slender hand in his and pressing it, agreed that it was so. He felt, as she did, that anything would be better than this horrible uncertainty.

They had grown very dear to each other in these dark and dismal days. She had liked him from the first, and recognised in him one of those straight, clean-living young Englishmen to whom a girl might safely entrust her life and happiness. He was so tender, so chivalrous, so sympathetic.

If, for a few moments, she threw off the heavy load of sorrow weighing upon her, and showed some semblance of her former bright spirit, he fell at once into her mood. And if she preferred silence, her sorrow-laden eyes filled with tears, he sat silent too, only evincing by a glance, or the pressure of her hand, that he understood and sympathised.

It was not a time for ardent love-making. But for this tragedy in her life, he might never have summoned courage to make love to her at all. The daughter of Reginald Monkton, the rich and popular statesman, seemed so far out of his reach. With her beauty and her advantages, she could aspire to a brilliant match.

Her position now, that of a lonely and orphaned girl, had altered everything, and swept away social barriers. Insensibly, she had been drawn to him, till it seemed he was part of her life.

And a time came when he could tell her of the desire of his heart. One evening, when they had been saying good-bye, she had suddenly broken down, and burst into bitter sobbing.

He had taken her in his arms, and whispered soothing words, while his pulses beat at the contact of her slender form. She had lain in the big chair, crying more quietly as he strove to comfort her. And then she had lifted up her pitiful face to his, and said:

“Oh! Austin, how good and gentle you are with me. How could I have borne it without you?”

He took heart of grace at those tender words. His clasp round her tightened.

“I have been of some help to you, then, dearest?”

“The greatest,” she answered fervently. “If you did not come to me every day, I think I should go mad.”

He bent down and laid his lips upon her bowed head.

“Dearest, if I have been able to comfort you now, could you let me comfort and cherish you all my life? It is hardly a time to speak of such things, but I have loved you from the first moment we met—do you remember that day on the river, and afterwards, when I saw you at Hendon, and you asked me to call?”

“Yes, I remember,” she said in a low whisper.

“Well, dearest, even if the worst should befall, you will want somebody to share your grief with you till time heals your sorrow. I shall not press you till the first bitterness has passed. Then, when you feel you can take up your life again, may I come to you, and repeat what I have said to-night?”

“Yes. Come again some day when my tears have had time to dry, and I will answer as you wish.”

Reverently he kissed the lips that were still trembling from her recent emotion. That night he seemed to walk on air when he left the house, where he had spent so many happy hours before this terrible tragedy had overtaken them.

He had loved her in the bloom and brightness of her youthful beauty, courted and caressed by all who knew her, the idol of her father, the light of his home, moving like a young princess among her subjects. But he loved her ten times more now—pale and sad, with sorrow for her companion day and night.

Meanwhile, down at Forest View things were going very quietly. Varney had long chats with the landlord, and of an evening he picked up a few acquaintances in the inn, and talked with them, always leading the conversation round to the subject of Mr Strange.

But he could discover nothing of any value. Nobody knew anything of the man’s antecedents. As a matter of fact, he did not seem to interest anybody in the place. They simply regarded him as an eccentric sort of person who wished to have nothing to do with his neighbours.

He learned that, immediately on his arrival. Strange had ordered a telephone to be installed. He also gathered from the local postman, whose acquaintance he cultivated, that very few letters were received. Further, that most of them were in a feminine hand. And these had been coming rather more frequently of late.

He at once jumped to the conclusion that the female correspondent was Mrs Saxton. But that did not help him much. They knew already that Strange and she were closely connected.

The two maids walked down to Horsham occasionally. So far he had not set eyes upon the cook, who, apparently, did not require any change of scene.

He was a presentable young fellow enough, and he imagined it would not be difficult to scrape up an acquaintance with the young women. The one whom he took to be the parlourmaid, by her superior bearing, was a good-looking girl.

He tried her first. He opened his campaign by overtaking her on the road, and remarking on the pleasantness of the weather. If she resembled the majority of her class, she would not object to exchanging a few remarks with a decent-looking member of the other sex.

For himself, he was quite prepared to indulge in a flirtation, even a little mild love-making, if it would enable him to worm something out of her about the mysterious inmates of Forest View.

But the parlourmaid was one too many for him. She made no answer to his remark, and when he continued to walk along beside her, in the hope that her silence was only meant for coquetry, she stopped suddenly and faced him.

“Look here, young man,” she said, regarding him with a distinctly hostile countenance; “I’ll thank you not to address any more remarks to me. I suppose you think yourself a gentleman, and because I’m in service I shall be flattered by your taking notice of me. Well, just understand I’m not that sort. When you meet me again, perhaps you’ll remember it.”

She quickened her footsteps, and left Varney feeling very foolish. It was a rebuff alike to the man and the amateur detective. Yes, he had blundered.

She had a good figure, and she carried herself well, walking with a light springy step. She was dressed plainly in neat but evidently inexpensive clothes, such as were suitable to her class. If she had been attired in proper garments, she would have been taken for a young lady immediately.

The thing that puzzled him most was her voice. She had addressed him as “young man,” and there was a certain blunt insolence in her remarks which negatived the idea of refinement.

But even if her speech had been absolutely vulgar, the voice was unmistakably high-bred and cultivated; in a word, the voice of a lady. How came it that Mr Strange’s parlourmaid wore the clothes of a servant, and spoke in the tones of a highly educated young woman? It was one more mystery.

Nothing daunted, he pursued the same tactics with the housemaid when he met her walking alone. She was a plain girl, evidently of a different class. At the start she was more civil, but after a minute or two, during which she had given the briefest answers to his ingratiating questions, she had turned upon him like the other, only in a less hostile manner, and explained to him that she did not desire either his conversation or his company.

She was a little more polite than the parlourmaid, but that was all. She addressed him respectfully but firmly.

“Excuse me, sir, but if it’s the same to you, I’d rather walk alone. I’m not fond of making the acquaintance of gentlemen I know nothing about.”

Poor Varney felt he was not a success with the fair sex. Or did they suspect him?

A further piece of information, however, he got from his friend the postman. He had asked Wingate and Sheila to occasionally put a blank sheet of paper in an envelope, and address it to him under the name of Franks, to keep up appearances.

He met the man one morning outside Forest View and asked if there were any letters for him.

“None by this post, sir. Never had such a light round. This is the last; it’s for Mr Gregory, at Forest View, the gentleman what’s staying there.”

So Gregory was the name of the invalid, who kept so closely to the house.

But Gregory, no doubt, was an assumed name, like Stent alias Strange.

Chapter Fourteen.

The Cipher of the Two C’s.

“I am going to ask you a question, dearest; I fear it is a painful one, but I think it ought to be put.”

It was Austin Wingate who spoke. He had dined with Sheila at Chesterfield Street, and after dinner the lovers had gone to her own sitting-room, which was on the first floor.

She looked at him steadfastly. “Painful or not, Austin, please put it. You would not hurt me, I know, unless you felt it was absolutely necessary.”

“Of course not, Sheila,” answered the young man fervently. “In our anxiety to solve this mystery concerning your father we must shrink from nothing. The question I am going to ask you, dear, is this: Have you ever had any cause to suspect there was some hidden mystery in your father’s life? Do not be offended—will you?”

She smiled faintly. “What is called a skeleton in the cupboard, you mean—eh? It seems impossible when one comes to consider the kind of man he was. In political matters he was reserved; that was natural. I have heard him laugh often over the efforts of people to draw him. But, in every other respect he seemed as frank and open as the day.”

“He gave me that impression certainly,” assented Wingate. “During my mother’s lifetime I don’t know that I counted greatly in his life. He was so wrapped up in her that he seemed to have no room for anybody else,” went on the girl, in a musing voice. “Then, after her death, and when his first passionate grief died down, he listened to me. I could not hope to fill her place, but I became very necessary to him. He has told me many times that but for me he would have been the most miserable man on earth. I gave him new interests, and weaned him away from his sad thoughts.”

Wingate leaned forward, and kissed her tenderly upon the brow. “You were born for the rôle of ministering angel, my darling,” he declared.

She thanked him with a grateful glance for the pretty compliment. “You ask me if I ever had cause to suspect that there was some hidden mystery in his life. I can only answer, none. His life seemed to me like an open book, that all who ran might read.”

Wingate was silent for a little time. This was the impression made upon his daughter, an only child, who would have the most intimate opportunity of judging him. It was the impression he had made upon close friends and casual acquaintances alike.

And yet who could be sure? A man trained to the law, versed in public affairs, was he likely to wear his heart upon his sleeve?

When he spoke, it was in a hesitating voice: “I agree that intuition is a very safe guide in many instances. And I believe with you that your father’s life was a blameless one. Still, there is one little thing we must not overlook.”

“And that little thing?” she questioned in a low voice.

“What was the connection between him and the man whom they have identified as Bolinski? Why does a man in his position make an appointment with a person so evidently not of his own world, unless to discuss something of a secret and mysterious nature? Remember where they met, in a little hole-and-corner restaurant in Soho.”

“It has puzzled me, I admit,” replied Sheila. “It is strange, too, that he told me nothing of the appointment, for he used to inform me of his most trivial movements. Thinking over it, as I have over every other incident, I believe it was connected with politics—there are plenty of under-currents in them, as we know. He would not say anything to me about this meeting for fear I might drop an incautious word to some of our friends.”

“It is evident that he apprehended no treachery from this man,” was Wingate’s next remark, “or he would have taken some means to safeguard himself. I mean, for one thing, he would not have left the House of Commons alone. It may be, as you suggest, that this curious meeting, in an out-of-the-way and obscure restaurant, may have had some political motive. But I can hardly bring myself to believe it. I am sure that what brought such a strangely assorted couple together was a private and personal matter.”

“And that we have no means of knowing,” said Sheila sadly.

He was glad that she had not resented his question, and the suggestions that arose from it. It emboldened him to proceed.

“As I have said, it is our duty to leave no stone unturned, to look even in unlikely places for any fresh evidence which might afford a clue. There must be a mass of papers in this house I think you ought to go through them, darling.”

She gave a little cry. “Oh!” she said in a tearful voice. “It seems almost like sacrilege.”

“If such a search were conducted by other hands, it might be so, but assuredly not in your case.”

She thought a little, and her common-sense came to her aid.

“You are quite right, Austin, as you always are. It will be a terrible task, but, as you say, we must leave no stone unturned. I will begin to-morrow, and keep on till I have finished.”

He called late next day, and found that she had got about half-way through the various piles. But so far she had found nothing of importance.

“I came across a few diaries. He seems to have kept them for the best part of five years, and then dropped the practice. They contain records of appointments, whom he met, and political events, but there’s not a single entry that throws any light upon this affair.”

“I wonder if Farloe has any of his papers, or, more likely still, has abstracted any?” said Wingate in a musing voice.

Sheila shuddered at the name. “No wonder that I always hated him,” she cried vehemently. “Shall we ever learn the part he played in this mystery?”

It took her a few days to go through her task, for she was fearful of missing a line in those carefully docketed piles of papers. But it was all to no purpose.

If there had been a secret in Reginald Monkton’s life, no evidence had been preserved in these documents.

“Newsom-Perry is pretty sure to have some papers in his possession,” said Wingate, when she had finished her futile task. “I want to spare you everything I can, dear. Will you give me a note to him, and I will ask him to hand them over to you?”

Mr Newsom-Perry was Monkton’s solicitor, the head of the firm which had acted for the missing statesman, and his father before him.

Wingate presented himself at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and sent in his sweetheart’s note.

The solicitor, a genial, kindly-looking man of fifty or thereabouts, welcomed the young man cordially.

“Pleased to see you, Mr Wingate,” he said, as they shook hands. “Poor Monkton has spoken to me several times of you, in warm terms. I understand that you were a frequent visitor at the house before the sad event.”

Wingate explained that he was with Sheila awaiting her father, on the night when the dying man was brought to Chesterfield Street.

The shrewd, kindly eyes watched him as he made the explanation. Mr Newsom-Perry had his own ideas as to how matters stood between the young couple.

“And what can I do for you, Mr Wingate?”

“We thought it pretty certain that you would have some papers of Mr Monkton’s here. If that is the case, would you let his daughter look through them, in the hope of finding something that might throw a light upon the case?”

“Under the circumstances, by all means, Mr Wingate. Of course, we have got all his business documents, leases, and that kind of thing. Those would be useless for your purpose?”

“I should say, quite useless.”

“But I have a couple of boxes of private papers which he brought about two years ago. He had been sorting out, he said, and his own house was as full as it could hold. Knowing we had plenty of room, he thought we would not mind storing them. I will send them round some time to-day. When she has gone through them perhaps Miss Monkton will let me have them back until, until—” He laughed, and did not finish the sentence.

“I quite understand. Now I will take up as little time as possible, but there are one or two questions I should like to ask you, if I may.”

The solicitor nodded genially. “Go on, sir.”

“I take it that, having known Mr Monkton all your life, and your firm having acted for his father, you were entirely in your client’s confidence.”

“That is so. Monkton and I were personal friends, as well as solicitor and client. We were at Cambridge together, before either of us commenced our respective careers.”

“Has he, to your knowledge, ever made any active enemies?”

“Not that I know of. Political enemies, no doubt, he has by the score—myself included. But you know what English politics are. It’s a fair stand-up fight, and the loser grumbles a bit, but bears no rancour. Men abuse each other across the floor of the House, and are good friends again in the smoking-room.”

“One other question, a somewhat delicate one, and I have done. Had he ever an entanglement of any kind, the effects of which might pursue him in later life?”

The solicitor rubbed his chin, and quite frankly replied:

“Not to my knowledge. That does not, however, conclusively prove a negative.”

“But you were close personal friends, in addition to your business relation. Would it not be natural that, under such circumstances, he would come to you for advice?”

There seemed an extra gleam of shrewdness in the solicitor’s eyes as he answered:

“In such circumstances as you suggest it is by no means easy to predict what course a man would take. If Monkton had got into some entanglement that, to put it bluntly—although, mind you, I don’t believe such a thing occurred—reflected some doubt either on his character or on his intelligence, it is just as likely as not that his old friend would be the last person to whom he would care to expose himself. He would be equally likely to go to a stranger.”

Wingate was fain to admit the force of the argument.

“One can never be sure of any man, even if you have known him all your life,” he added, as they shook hands. “Nobody knows that better than our profession. But I would stake my existence that there were no skeletons in Monkton’s cupboard. The man was as straight as a die, and he was passionately attached to his beautiful wife. Well, Mr Wingate, give my best regards to dear Miss Sheila. I will send those boxes round to-day.”

He was as good as his word. Late in the afternoon they arrived, and Sheila at once set to work reading the various papers, not, it must be confessed, in a very hopeful spirit.

But when Wingate came round in the evening he found her in a state of greatest excitement.

She took from an envelope a letter containing only a few words and passed it to him. “Read that, and tell me what you make of it,” she said. “There is no formal beginning, and no signature. But you see it is addressed to my father, and was evidently delivered by hand.”

Upon the flap of the faded envelope Wingate saw some initials, two C’s in a cipher scroll embossed in black, an old-fashioned monogram such as was in vogue in the early “sixties.”

Then he read upon the half-sheet of notepaper, traced in a bold hand in ink that was brown, as follows:

“You have ruined and disgraced me, and forced me to fly the country and become a wanderer on the face of the earth. Well, I will be even with you. I will wait, if necessary all my life, till my turn comes. Then, when it does, I will strike you at the zenith of your career, and mete out to you the suffering you have dealt to me.”

Chapter Fifteen.

In which Smeaton Makes a Discovery.

Wingate laid down the letter and looked at Sheila, who was regarding him expectantly.

“What do you make of it?” she repeated.

“It is evident that he had an enemy, and a very bitter one,” answered her lover. “The sentences are deliberate, but they appear to have been written by a man who was in a white heat of passion when he penned them.”

“Smeaton ought to see that letter, without loss of time, dear,” she said.

“I quite agree. His trained intelligence may get more out of it than we can. I will make an appointment with him for to-morrow morning, and I will be here when he comes.”

Smeaton arrived next morning, hoping that at last he might discover a substantial clue. He read the brief note carefully and deliberately.

“Is it important, do you think?” inquired Sheila eagerly.

“In my opinion it is of very considerable importance. Miss Monkton,” he replied. “I think it will help us.”

“It certainly proves that he had a secret enemy,” interjected Wingate, “and one who would hesitate at nothing that would secure him revenge.”

“I quite agree, sir. The letter breathes the most intense hatred in every line. The motive of that hatred we have got to discover.”

Then the detective, turning to Sheila, said: “Now, Miss Monkton, there is a little information that I am sure you will be able to give us. I am not so well posted in your father’s biography as I ought to be. But, before he became a prominent politician, I understand that he was a barrister with an extensive and lucrative practice.”

“That is so,” corroborated Sheila. “He did not often talk about those times, but I have always understood that he made quite a big income at the Bar.”

“And when did he retire from his profession?”

“About fifteen years ago.”

“And he resolved to say good-bye to the Bar and devote himself entirely to politics?”

Sheila nodded. “That is quite true. He had a very firm opinion that a man could not serve two masters.”

“Was he on the Chancery or the Common Law side?” was Smeaton’s next question.

“On the Common Law,” replied Sheila. “But why do you ask that question?”

“You shall know in good time. Miss Monkton. Well, we may take it, then, that this vindictive letter was written more than fifteen years ago.”

“While he was still at the Bar,” interrupted Wingate, who was beginning to realise the point of the detective’s reasoning. “You are assuming that this venomous epistle did not come from a political enemy.”

“It is an assumption for which I have reasonable grounds,” was Smeaton’s answer. “There has been no bitterness in party politics ever since Mr Monkton became a conspicuous figure in the House. And we know that, while he was most popular with his own side, he was respected and liked by his political opponents.”

“Is it too much to ask you to give us the benefit of any theory you have formed, Mr Smeaton?” suggested Sheila, in her pretty, gracious way.

“With all the pleasure in life, my dear young lady. This letter goes back, in my opinion, to your father’s barrister days, when he was one of the foremost counsel in England. I asked you just now whether he was on the Equity or the Common Law side, and you wondered why I asked the question.”

“I am still wondering,” said Sheila simply.

“On the Equity side they try all sorts of cases concerned with points of law, the majority of them of a very dry and uninteresting character. I should not look in an Equity case for a defeated litigant who would turn into a vindictive enemy of the type of the writer of this letter.”

The young people began to see, as yet very dimly, whither he was leading them.

“On the Common Law side, on the contrary, we are brought into the world of human passion and emotion; one in which the issues of life or death are at stake. We will suppose that your father, in the plenitude of his powers, is retained as counsel against some adroit rogue, some swindling company promoter, for example, who up to that moment had managed to keep himself well on the right side of the law.”

They began to see light, and listened with the closest attention.

“We will say this swindler, a more than usually clever rascal, is living in luxury with his ill-gotten gains, when he makes a slip that brings him within reach of the long arm of justice. One of his victims (or perhaps several in combination) brings an action against him for the return of the money he has inveigled out of him by his lying prospectuses. He employs big counsel to defend him, but your father wins his case. The wealthy rogue is forced to disgorge, finds his occupation gone, and is reduced to penury.”

Sheila nodded to show that she was following his argument.

“I am assuming for a moment that it is a civil action, and that it disclosed sufficient evidence to justify his arrest on a criminal charge later on. I deduce that from the fact that he was not a convicted felon at the time of writing that letter, otherwise he would not have been able to write and send it to your father. The meaning of the words ‘forced me to fly the country’ indicate, in my opinion, that he was in hourly fear of arrest.”

“It seems a very feasible theory,” remarked Wingate.

“The rest is easy to understand. He nourishes a morbid hatred for the man who has been the means of menacing his liberty, and driving him from the society he polluted. He regards him as a personal enemy, not merely the instrument of the justice he has defied. While smarting under this, to his distorted ideas, sense of wrong, he pens the letter and has it conveyed to your father by some trusted confederate. As there is no stamp or postmark on it, it was conveyed by hand.”

Wingate looked at Sheila, and she returned his glance. They were both greatly impressed by the detective’s clear reasoning.

Smeaton took up the half-sheet of notepaper, and submitted it to a close observation.

“The man who wrote it is, I should judge, a keen business man of methodical habits, inclined to neatness, of a strong but not impulsive character. An impulsive man would have torn the sheet across, leaving a rough and jagged edge. It has been pressed down with the finger and thumb, and then carefully cut.”