"Being the Story of a Hushed Up Mystery" (continued 3)

He held the small sheet up to the light, and made further observations.

“A peculiar paper, peculiar, I mean, as to the texture. The watermark, in its entirety, is, fortunately for us, on this half-sheet. That enables us to trace where it comes from. Come here for a moment and stand beside me.”

They did so, followed his pointing finger, and saw a shield bearing a coat-of-arms, and beneath, the words: “Westford Mill.”

“That will help you,” cried Sheila eagerly.

“I hope so. It is, as I said, a paper of peculiar texture, and doubtless many tons of it have been sold. If, as I guess, it is now off the market, I shall be compelled to fix a date. If I do that, it would considerably narrow the field of my inquiries.”

After a little further conversation, Smeaton took his leave with the letter in his possession. Sheila and Wingate, when they were alone, indulged in mutual admiration of his powers of analysis and deduction.

The detective, an hour later, looked in upon Mr Newsom-Perry, with whom he was slightly acquainted, and handed him the document.

“We found this amongst the papers you sent to Miss Monkton,” he explained. “I called on the chance of finding that your client had spoken to you, at one time or another, of some man who sent him a threatening letter. I may say that we have found no allusion to it amongst the other papers.”

“Which seems to show that Monkton did not attach any importance to it himself, I should say,” remarked the solicitor. “No, so far as I am concerned he never alluded to the matter. You attach some importance to it—eh?”

“Some,” replied Smeaton guardedly.

“Of course, you have a wider experience of these things than I, and you are wise to neglect no possible clue. Still, I should think that any big counsel in extensive practice has many letters of this kind from impulsive and angry litigants, who regard him as the author of their ruin.”

Smeaton rose. “It may be so,” he said quietly. “This man was angry, but he was not impulsive; the handwriting alone proves that. He wrote the letter at white heat, but he is of a resolute and determined character.”

Even though the writer of the anonymous threat had overlooked the fact that a watermark was on the paper, the latter point was not half so easy to clear up as Sheila and Wingate expected.

To the chief firms of paper makers and paper agents in the City Smeaton, through the following days, showed a tracing of the watermark, but without result.

Nobody could identify it.

The managing director of one firm of paper agents in Queen Victoria Street declared it to be a foreign paper, even though it was marked “Westford Mill.”

“The vogue for English notepaper on the Continent has led French and German mills to produce so-called ‘English writing paper’,” he added. “And if I am not mistaken this is a specimen.”

For nearly a week Smeaton prosecuted his inquiries of stationers, wholesale and retail, in all parts of the metropolis, taking with him always the tracing of the watermark. He did not carry the letter, for obvious reasons.

One day at a small retail stationer’s in the Tottenham Court Road, when he showed the tracing to the elderly shopkeeper, the man exclaimed:

“Oh, yes! I’ve seen that before. It’s foreign. When I was an assistant at Grimmel and Grice’s in Bond Street, Mr Grice bought a quantity of it from Paris because of its unusual colour and texture. It was quite in vogue for a time, and it could only be obtained from us.”

“Then all of this particular paper came from Grimmel and Grice’s?”

“Certainly, sir, I recollect the ‘Westford Mill’ well. We supplied it to half the aristocracy of London.”

Smeaton, much pleased with his discovery, took a taxi to Bond Street, and entering the fashionable stationers’ addressed himself to the first person he saw, a young man of about twenty-five.

“Do you make this paper nowadays?” he asked.

The shopman examined it, and shook his head. “No, sir, that paper has not been sold here since I’ve been in the business.”

“And how long would that be?”

“A matter of six years or so.”

“I am anxious to make some further inquiries,” said Smeaton, after a moment’s pause. “Who is the oldest assistant in the shop?”

“Mr Morgan, sir. He’s been with Grimmel and Grice a matter of nearly fifty years, man and boy. He’s on the other side. I will take you to him.”

Smeaton was introduced to the veteran Mr Morgan, an alert-looking man, in spite of his years. Smeaton explained his name and errand, adding that he was from Scotland Yard. Morgan at once became interested. He looked at the watermark.

“I remember that paper well,” he said at length. “It had a tremendous vogue for a little time; we couldn’t get it over from Paris fast enough. Then it went as suddenly out of fashion.”

“I suppose you can’t help me with any dates?”

“Oh, but indeed I can, Mr Smeaton. I have a wonderful memory for everything connected with the business. Old Mr Grice used to say that my memory was as good as the firm’s books. The paper started just twenty-five years ago, and it ran for five years. After that, no more was made.”

Smeaton expressed his gratitude. Mr Morgan’s excellent memory would shorten his labours considerably.

“Can you give me any clue to these letters on the envelope, I wonder?”

But here Mr Morgan was at fault. “We supplied hundreds upon hundreds of customers at the time. And all our old ledgers were burnt in our fire fifteen years ago. But I think I recognise the workmanship of the cipher. I should say that stamp was cut by Millingtons in Clerkenwell Road. They made a speciality of that kind of thing years ago. If you go there, they may have some record. They’re new people there now; old Mr Millington is my senior by ten years or more. He sold the business about fifteen years ago. But he is still alive, and lives somewhere in the Camberwell direction.”

Smeaton entered the address in his notebook, and shook Mr Morgan cordially by the hand. He would go to the Clerkenwell Road, and, if necessary, hunt up the ancient Mr Millington. If he possessed as good a memory as his friend some very useful information might be gathered.

Chapter Sixteen.

Who was Monkton’s Enemy?

At the dingy little shop in Clerkenwell Smeaton received a check. The proprietor was out, and a stupid-looking youth who was in charge could give no information. He turned the envelope listlessly in his fingers, handed it back to the detective, and suggested that he should call later in the day, when his master would be in.

The business bore the appearance of decay, Smeaton thought, and if the master should prove no more intelligent than his assistant, it would only be a waste of time to question him.

Subsequently he called and saw the head of the declining firm, and from him learnt that the last he had heard of old Mr Millington was that he was living in New Church Road, Camberwell.

He at once took a taxi there, but on arrival was sadly disappointed to see that the house was to let, and that inquiries were to be made of a firm of house-agents.

He was soon at their office, and here he found an intelligent clerk, to whom he explained that he wished to make a few inquiries.

“I seem to remember the name,” said the clerk at length. “I believe he was the tenant when I first came into this business; a nice, quiet old man, who paid his rent on the day. The house has been let to two people since then.”

“Do you know where Millington went when he left?”

But the clerk’s mind was a blank on the subject. A bright idea, however, struck him, which, in a moment, would have occurred to Smeaton.

“Look here, sir. Why don’t you go and see the landlord, Mr Clarke? His house is in the Camberwell Road, only five minutes’ walk from here.”

The detective thanked him, and armed with the address set forth on a fresh pilgrimage. In a few moments he was interviewing the landlord, a retired builder who had invested his savings in small property.

“Pleased to give you any help I can,” he said heartily, when the detective had explained the object of his visit. “I remember Millington well; very decent old chap he was too; paid his rent punctually. He moved away some years ago. I don’t know where he went. But I don’t think it matters much. I heard about twelve months ago that the old man was dead.”

Smeaton’s face clouded. So all his inquiries had been waste of time. Millington would never throw any light upon the anonymous and threatening letter.

He went back to Bond Street and saw Mr Morgan.

“I am told that Mr Millington is dead,” he said to him. “I suppose you had not heard of it?”

Morgan looked surprised. “When did he die, sir?”

“My informant told me he heard of it about a year ago.”

“A mistake, sir, a mistake, somebody of the same name,” cried Mr Morgan. “Two months ago I met him in the Strand, and we chatted for a few seconds. We didn’t say much to each other for I was in a hurry to get back to the shop.”

“He never mentioned to you that he had left Camberwell?”

“No; as he said nothing about it I took it for granted that he was still there. But I don’t suppose we exchanged a couple of dozen words altogether. I remember I told him he was looking as well as ever, and he laughed, and said he came of a long-lived family.”

Smeaton breathed again. An hour later he was back again at Camberwell, on the track of the retired engraver.

A man cannot move a houseful of furniture without leaving some traces. After visits to half-a-dozen moving establishments, he hit upon the right one in the Walworth Road. The proprietor referred to his books, and gave Smeaton the information he wanted. The goods had been taken down by road to Beech Cottage, Lower Halliford, a little village in the Thames Valley.

So far, so good. Unless he had been seized with another desire for change, Millington would be found at Beech Cottage, Lower Halliford.

It was too late to pursue the affair further that day. Smeaton would run down the next morning. Millington was an old man; his wits would probably be brighter in the early hours.

The morning found him knocking at the door of Beech Cottage, a pretty little cottage overhung with climbing roses, facing the river. The door was opened by a stout, pleasant-faced woman, whom he at once discovered to be Millington’s niece and housekeeper.

“My uncle is not very well this morning,” she told him; “he suffers a good deal from asthma. But if you’ll come into the parlour, I’ll take your card in. He likes to see people when he can, for it’s terribly dull down here.”

A moment later she reappeared. “My uncle will be glad to see you, sir. I was afraid he was a bit too poorly, but a visitor brightens him up at once. Please step this way.”

Mr Millington was seated in a small room overlooking a somewhat rough and uncultivated piece of garden at the back. He was a bright-looking old man, of small stature, with a wonderfully pink complexion, and small twinkling eyes. He was dressed in a nondescript sort of attire, a long frock-coat, a skullcap, and a pair of carpet slippers.

“Sit down, sir, please,” he said, in a voice that was cordial, if a trifle wheezy. “I see by your card you are from Scotland Yard—eh? What can I do for you?”

Smeaton went to the point at once.

“I heard of you from Morgan, of Grimmel and Grice. I went there to make a few inquiries, and he recommended me to you.”

Mr Millington nodded his head.

“A very good fellow, Morgan; he always put as much business in my way as he could.”

“He directed me to you,” Smeaton said, and he pulled out the envelope and handed it to Millington. “This kind of cipher Mr Morgan tells me was in great vogue between twenty and twenty-five years ago. He thinks that you cut it. Will you kindly examine it, and tell me if you recognise it as your handiwork?”

The answer came readily: “It’s mine, sure enough.”

“Good. The envelope itself is quite an ordinary one, as you see. Now, can you carry your mind back, and give me any particulars of the transaction? Can you tell for whom those letters were cut, and what they stand for?”

Mr Millington put his hand to his forehead. “Let me think a moment,” he said in the quavering voice of old age. “Let me think for a moment, and something will come back to me. At my time of life it’s a good way to go back.”

Smeaton waited in silence for some little time, and then it seemed the old man had struck some chord of memory.

Suddenly he sat upright in his easy-chair, and his eyes sparkled. “It is coming back by degrees,” he said in his thin, husky voice; “it is coming back.”

There was another pause, in which it seemed he was trying to arrange his ideas clearly. Then he spoke slowly but distinctly.

“I remember I had a lot of trouble over the job. The order was first given to some stationers in the City, but the gentleman was so fussy and confused in his instructions that they sent him down straight to me. I thought I understood what he wanted, but I had to engrave it three times before he was satisfied. That’s why I happen to remember it so well.”

“Now, do you remember, or did you ever know, the name of this fussy person who was so hard to please?”

“I ought to remember it,” said Millington plaintively. “It was not an uncommon name either; I should recall it in a moment if I heard it. But it has escaped me.”

Smeaton’s face clouded. “That’s unfortunate, but it may come back to you presently. Proper names are the hardest things to remember as we get on in life.”

Millington struggled for a little time longer with the ebbing tide of reminiscence, but to no purpose.

Smeaton went on another tack.

“Did you bring away from your business any documents or memoranda that would throw light upon this particular transaction?”

The old man reflected for a little while.

“I’m afraid I was a very poor man of business, sir,” he said at length. “I made rough notes from time to time as I received and executed orders, but that was all. I trusted to my memory, which in those days was a good one.”

“Have you any of those old note-books left?”

“Yes, I’ve got some of them upstairs in a couple of boxes which have never been opened since I left the Clerkenwell Road. Would you like me to run through them? It would only mean half-a-day’s work, or less.”

“I should be infinitely obliged if you would, Mr Millington. I will run down here about the same time to-morrow morning. Just one thing more before I go. Were you acquainted with your customer’s handwriting? Did you ever receive any letters from him?”

“He wrote me several times with regard to the work I did for him, but I shouldn’t be able to recognise his hand, even if I saw it.”

Smeaton left, very much chagrined at the result of his visit.

Next morning he, however, presented himself at Beech Cottage. Millington received him with an apologetic air. He explained that he had searched his note-books diligently, but he could find nothing that referred to the cipher letters, the two C’s entwined, or the man who had ordered them.

“I’ve a notion,” he said, when he had finished his rather rambling statement, “that the gentleman who gave the order came from Manchester or Liverpool. But there I may be mixing it up with something else.”

And Smeaton left, knowing that nothing more could be got out of him. The identity of the writer of the threatening letter had yet to be discovered.

Another point had suddenly occurred to him. Was the man who had had the cipher engraved the actual writer of the letter? And the greatest point of all was the whereabouts of the Stolen Statesman: was he dead, or was he still living?

Smeaton ascended in the lift to his room at Scotland Yard, where a surprise awaited him, in the shape of a telegram from Varney, handed in at a village five miles from Horsham, in Sussex, three hours before. It read:

“Come down here at once. Something unexpected.—Varney.”

Chapter Seventeen.

The Room of Secrets.

Smeaton at once hunted up the time-table. There was a fast train to Horsham in twenty minutes and he could just catch it.

He ordered a telegram to be despatched to Varney at the inn which he had given as a rendezvous, stating the time at which he would arrive, and later found the young man at the door, awaiting him.

“Thought I had better stop here till you arrived,” he said as they shook hands, “otherwise I would have come to Horsham Station. But the Forest View people know me now, and I didn’t want one of them to see me talking to a stranger. They might put two and two together.”

The two men ordered some refreshment, and adjourned to the snug little parlour, which was empty.

“No fear of being disturbed here, Smeaton, at this time of day; I know the place well. There will be nobody near for hours, except a passing carter for a glass of beer, and he won’t disturb us.”

“I was glad to have your wire,” said the detective, “for I was beginning to get a bit anxious. For several hours now I have been on the track of what I thought was a warm scent, only to find it a cold one. I’ll tell you about it when you have had your say.”

Varney plunged at once into his narrative. And certainly the story he had to tell was a very thrilling one. The main points were these.

Having been in the neighbourhood for some time, and being of a gregarious disposition, he had picked up a few acquaintances, with whom he indulged in an occasional chat when the opportunity offered.

All these people, he was sure, accepted his own explanation of his presence there, and did not for a moment suspect in the soi-disant artist who rambled about with his sketching materials the young journalist so well-known in Fleet Street.

He had become acquainted with a local doctor, Mr Janson, a man a few years older than himself, who had bought a practice in the neighbourhood quite recently. They had met, in the first instance, at the inn where Varney was staying, the doctor having been called in by the landlady to prescribe for some trifling ailment from which she was suffering.

The two men had exchanged a few commonplace remarks, and bidden each other good-bye. Next day Varney overtook him on the road, and they walked into Horsham together. In the course of their journey a little personal history was exchanged, of course utterly fictitious on the side of the pretended artist.

From the casual conversation there emerged certain facts. Mr Janson was a man of considerable culture, and of strong artistic leanings. More especially was he an ardent worshipper of the Old Masters. For several years his annual holiday had been spent in Italy, for which country, its galleries, and its associations he expressed the most fervent admiration.

Varney, little knowing what was to come out of this chance acquaintance, soon established common grounds of interest. His mother had been an Italian, and he had spent ten years of his boyhood in that delightful land. He could speak the language like a native. Janson, who was a poor linguist, expressed his envy of the other’s accomplishment.

“I can read any Italian book you put before me, and I can make them understand what I want,” he had told Varney. “But when they talk to me, I am lost. I can’t catch the words, because the accent baffles me. If an Englishman were to talk Italian, I daresay I could follow him.”

They met several times afterwards, and the acquaintance ripened to such an extent that the doctor asked the young stranger to come round to his house, after the day’s round was over, for a chat and a smoke. Janson was a bachelor; he had only been a few months in the neighbourhood, and had not as yet made many friends.

A man who knew a good deal about the subject which interested him most, and could talk fairly well on art—for Varney was a connoisseur of no mean order—was a godsend to the man of medicine, sitting by himself in his lonely house.

All this was the prelude to the startling facts which were the cause of Varney’s urgent telegram.

The previous morning just before his dinner hour, the gardener had looked in at the inn for his morning glass of beer, and informed the landlord that a visitor was expected at Forest View.

“Mr Strange comes to me after breakfast, and tells me to take in a picking of some special peas we planted, for lunch. He ain’t much of a one to talk at the best of times, but he was quite affable and chatty this morning. He tells me he is expecting a foreign gentleman who’s very particular about his food, and he wants to show him what we can do.”

This piece of news was retailed to Varney, who was, of course, immediately interested. According to local report, this was only the second occasion on which Forest View had received a visitor.

He kept a hidden watch on the house. A few minutes past twelve. Strange, to give him the name he was known by down there, drove his motor-car in the direction of Horsham. Evidently he was going to meet the visitor at the station.

In due course the car came back with its two occupants. The stranger was a man of small stature, with grey moustache and beard, of a dark complexion, and unmistakably a foreigner.

They dismounted at the gate, the garage being approached by an entrance a little lower down. Varney noticed that the foreigner got out very slowly, leaning heavily on his host’s arm as he did so. It was plain that this visitor, like the other, was in indifferent health.

Varney hung about during the greater part of the day, but he saw nobody. All the inmates of this singular establishment seemed to prefer the seclusion of the house.

After the inn had closed, he smoked a last pipe, and then went to bed. He was rather wakeful that night, and did not go to sleep for an hour or so.

Suddenly he was awakened by a loud knocking. Jumping up, he looked at his watch—it was two o’clock. He was evidently the first to hear it, for he could distinguish no sounds from the room at the other end of the passage, where the landlord and his wife slept.

He flung up his window and called out: “Hullo! Who’s that?”

He was answered by the familiar voice of Janson.

“Sorry to disturb you like this, Mr Franks,” cried the doctor, addressing him by his assumed name. “But I want your help. A foreign gentleman, an Italian, arrived at Forest View this morning, and he was taken alarmingly ill about half-an-hour ago. The poor chap’s hours are numbered. I have been trying to talk to him in his own language; he seems to understand me all right, but I can hardly follow a sentence of his, and there’s nobody in the house who understands him either.”

The incongruity of the situation forced itself upon Varney immediately. “What in the world makes a man come to a house where he can understand nobody, and nobody can understand him,” he whispered down.

“The same thought occurred to me,” came the answering whisper. “Mr Strange explained it. He said that their parlourmaid understood Italian perfectly, having lived in Italy for some years. She had gone up to London early yesterday morning and would not be back till late to-morrow.”

It flashed instantly across Varney’s mind that his suspicions about the young woman were correct: that she belonged to a different class from that which furnishes parlourmaids. She was a lady masquerading as a servant. Strange’s fiction of her having lived abroad was invented to keep up appearances.

“He is very rambling, but I ran gather this much,” went on Janson in low tones. “He wants to leave some instructions before he dies. I thought of you at once.”

“Right; I will be with you in a couple of minutes.”

By this time the landlord and his wife were awake, and he heard the man’s heavy footsteps along the passage. He opened his door, and briefly explained the situation.

In a very short time he and the doctor were in the bedroom of the dying man. Strange was at the bedside, looking intently at the prostrate figure, without a trace of emotion in his sharp, inscrutable features. He withdrew a little distance as Janson approached, and murmured something in a low voice to the other. It was an apology for disturbing him.

The man lay motionless for some few minutes, the pallor of death settling deeper over the once swarthy features. Janson turned to Varney.

“I’m afraid it is too late, Mr Franks. He is sinking rapidly. If you could have been here when I first came.”

Was it fancy, or did he see an expression of relief steal across Strange’s impenetrable mask?

If so, he was doomed to disappointment. The dying man stirred, and his lips moved. Varney leaned over, and his quick ear caught some muttered words, growing fainter and fainter with the waning of the flickering strength.

The words were in the bastard tongue of Piedmont, difficult to understand by anyone who has not lived in Northern Italy.

“Dio!” gasped the dying man. “Forgive me. The doctors have long ago told me I should die suddenly, but—I—I never expected this. Oh, that somebody here could understand me?” he whispered to himself.

“I do. Signore,” said Varney, as he leaned over him.

In the dying man’s eyes came a gleam of satisfaction and hope.

“Ah! Thank Heaven! Then listen,” he said. “I want you to do something for me—something—” and he halted as though in reflection. “Well,” he went on, “twenty years ago I did a great wrong in conjunction with another man. Go to him and tell him that Giovanni Roselli, his old comrade, implores him, from his deathbed, to make reparation. You will find him in Manchester. He was the head of the Compagnia Corezzo, and his name is James—”

The surname was never told. As he strove to utter it, the end came. Giovanni Roselli had delivered his message, but he had gone into the shadows, before he could utter the full name of the man to whom it was conveyed. Varney translated the dying man’s message to Strange, but he made no comment.

Smeaton sat in silence for a long time when the recital was finished.

“A house of sinister inmates with sinister secrets,” he said at length. “What you have told me may have a bearing upon something that has gone before.”

Briefly he narrated to Varney the discovery of the threatening letter, and his visit to the engraver and stationer.

Varney saw at once what had occurred to him.

“The Compagnia Corezzo gives us a clue—eh?—the initials ‘C.C.,’ which are the initials on the envelope. Was it an envelope from the company’s office? You say that the old engraver thought the man who ordered the cipher came from Manchester or Liverpool. Roselli tells us we can find his man in Manchester?” Smeaton rose. “I’m in hopes that something may come out of it all,” he said, as they shook hands. “Anyway, stay down here, and keep a close watch on the place. An inquest will be held and sooner or later something of importance will happen. I’ve kept the taxi waiting; shall I give you a lift to Horsham? But I noticed a bike outside the inn-door. I suppose it is yours.” Varney nodded. “Yes, it is part of my machinery. I shall go for a good long spin, and think over all that has happened.”

As Smeaton put his foot on the step of the taxi a sudden thought struck him. He turned back, and drew the young man aside.

“Keep your eye on the parlourmaid especially,” he whispered. “If we ever get to the bottom of it, we shall find she plays an important part in this mystery.”

“I quite agree,” was Varney’s answer, as the two men finally parted.

Chapter Eighteen.

Another Mystery.

Next day Smeaton sat in his official room, puzzling over the Monkton case, and sorely perplexed.

He had followed several trails now, but all, it seemed, to no purpose. Farloe and his sister had been shadowed without any result. The visit to Millington had ended in failure.

Varney had discovered something, and he would follow the clue with the pertinacity of a bloodhound pursuing a faint and elusive scent. But he himself was thoroughly disheartened.

There suddenly came a tap at the door, and a constable entered.

“A very old gentleman wants to see you, sir. He says you will remember him,” and he handed the detective a slip of paper on which was written “Mr Millington.”

“The gentleman seems to have one foot in the grave, and half of the other, to judge by appearances,” the constable went on. “The journey has tried him terribly. He’s wheezing so, that you’d think each moment would be his last. I made him sit down, and he’s trying to recover himself and get his breath.”

Smeaton sprang up. It was with difficulty he could retain his official calm. This plucky old man had not made the journey up to town for nothing. He had remembered something, or discovered something.

“That’s right. Baker,” he said. “Give him time, and when he is ready, show him in.”

It was a full five minutes before Millington was in a fit state to present himself. At last he entered, still husky of voice, but with a beaming aspect.

Smeaton greeted him cordially. “Mr Millington, this is indeed good of you. But why did you distress yourself with the journey? If you had sent me a wire, I would have run down to you,” he said.

“I owe you some amends, sir, for my failure yesterday. And besides, a little jaunt does me good.”

He smiled cheerfully, evidently wishing to convey that, at his time of life, an excursion up to London was a tonic.

“Again many thanks,” cried the grateful Smeaton. “Well, you came to see me, because you have remembered something—or found something fresh—eh?”

The old man spoke earnestly.

“All day after you left, sir, I was wild with myself to think what a useless old cumber-ground I was; me that used to have such a good memory, too. I thought and thought again, hoping that something would come back from that twenty or twenty-five years ago.”

“There was no need to distress yourself,” said Smeaton kindly.

“And then in a flash I remembered another box in which I had stuffed a lot of odd papers. Well, sir, I opened that box, went over those papers one by one, and this is what I found.”

He held out in his shaking hand an old letter. Smeaton took it from him.

“Before you read it, Mr Smeaton, I must explain that this gentleman always treated me in a very friendly way. We were both very fond of heraldry, and he used often to come to my shop and chat over our hobby. That accounts for the familiar way in which he addresses me.”

This is what Smeaton read:

“Dear Mr Millington,—I enclose you a cheque for the last work you did for me, which is as satisfactory as ever. It will be news to you that my company, the Compagnia Corezzo, is about to go into voluntary liquidation. I have accepted the position of manager of a big firm in Manchester, and shall take up my new post in the course of a few weeks. If I can possibly find time between now and then, I shall run in to say good-bye.

“I may have an opportunity of putting further work in your way. If that opportunity arises, I shall have the greatest pleasure in availing myself of it. I am afraid I shall not come across anybody who takes such a keen interest in my favourite hobby.—Yours truly, James Whyman.”

Over Smeaton’s face came a glow of satisfaction. He had got the name he wanted. Was he on the right track at last? He took the threatening letter out of his pocket, and compared the handwritings.

But here disappointment awaited him. They were totally dissimilar. Whyman wrote a small and niggling hand, the hand of a mean man. The other calligraphy was large, bold and free.

One thing was clear: James Whyman was not the writer of the threatening letter. That letter had been put in an envelope which belonged to the Compagnia Corezzo. Mr Whyman was, at that period, connected with that company, and the man who had given instructions for the cutting of the cipher. A visit to Manchester was the next item on the programme.

“It all came back to me with that letter,” remarked the old man presently. “I can see him standing in my shop, as if it were yesterday, quite a young man, not a day over thirty, I should say; very fussy, very precise, and always beating you down to the last farthing. But very pleasant withal.”

He was thirty at that time; he would, then, be in the ’fifties now, reasoned Smeaton. The odds therefore were that Mr James Whyman was still in the land of the living.

“Mr Millington, you have helped me very much,” said the detective, as the old gentleman rose to go. “Now, in your state of health I am not going to allow you to fatigue yourself by catching ’buses and trains. I shall get a taxi here, and it will drive you straight to Lower Halliford, at my expense.”

Poor Millington’s frugal soul cried out aloud at such wanton expenditure, but he was overborne by Smeaton. He departed in the vehicle, beaming with the sense of his own importance, and conscious that he was still of some use in the world.

The evening of that same day found the detective at the Queen’s Hotel, Manchester. It was pleasant to him to find that his investigations produced a speedy result. Mr Whyman was a well-known citizen, so the head-waiter informed him. He had been first manager and then director of one of the largest businesses there. Two years ago he had retired from active participation in the concern, and had, he believed, taken a big house at Southport. He was a widower with two children. The son had a post in Hong-Kong. The daughter had married and was living in Cheshire.

The waiter added that he was popular, and highly respected by all who knew him, perhaps a bit close-fisted, and hard at a bargain. Since his retirement he was often a visitor at the Hotel.

The next morning Smeaton, having found Mr Whyman’s address in the telephone directory, rang him up. He announced his name and profession, explaining that some documents had me into his possession which he would like to submit for inspection. Might he take the liberty of coming over to Southport during the day at some hour convenient to himself?

Mr Whyman’s reply was given cordially and unhesitatingly. “With pleasure, Mr Smeaton. Shall we say five o’clock? I am afraid I cannot make it earlier, as I have got a very full day in front of me. I am retired from business in a sense, but I am still interested in a lot of things that require personal attention.”

At five o’clock to the minute Smeaton was at the fine house of Mr Whyman, near the end of the Esplanade at Southport, commanding a splendid view of the Welsh and Cumberland hills. It was evident that Mr Whyman had prospered in a worldly sense. The house was an imposing one. A butler opened the door, and ushered him into the morning-room, a square, lofty apartment, solidly and handsomely furnished.

A moment later the owner entered. He was a tall, finely-built man, with regular, handsome features.

Smeaton regarded him closely as they shook hands. There was an obvious frankness and geniality about his manner that fully accounted, for his general popularity. The face was honest, its expression open. His eyes met yours unwaveringly.

And yet this was the man who, according to the dead man, Giovanni Roselli, had been the perpetrator of a great wrong to some person or persons unknown. Well, Smeaton had too vast an experience to trust overmuch to outside appearances. Still, he had never seen anybody who looked less like a rogue than Mr James Whyman, as he stood smiling at him with the most cordial expression in his clear blue eyes.

If he was, or had been at some period of his career, a rogue. Nature had taken the greatest pains to disarm the suspicions of those on whom he practised his rascality.

Whyman pointed to the table, on which were laid glasses, a decanter of whisky, soda-water, and cigars.

“Let me offer you some refreshment after your journey. You smoke? Good. I think you will like those cigars. Let me help you. Now, sir, sit down, and we will get at once to the matter which brings you here.”

Smeaton produced the envelope, and handed it to his genial host. “I think you will recognise those entwined letters, Mr Whyman. I may tell you that I traced the man who cut them—a man named Millington.”

Whyman interrupted him in his brisk, bluff way, and there was not a shade of embarrassment in voice or manner:

“Ah, my dear old friend Millington! Why, he must be quite ancient by now, for he wasn’t a chicken when I knew him.”

“A very old man, and his memory is treacherous. At first he could remember very little. But later on he found a letter from you which brought it all back to him. I was then able to establish the two things I wanted: your own name, and the name of the Italian company you represented.”

Whyman turned the envelope in his hand, after having cast a glance at the cipher. The candid blue eyes regarded the detective steadily as he spoke.

“Yes, that die was cut by my instructions, certainly. Now, in what way can I assist you, Mr Smeaton, beyond confirming that fact?”

Smeaton passed him the threatening letter. “There is no question the envelope came out of your office. Now, do you recognise this handwriting?”

The other man read it carefully, and then passed it back, without a trace of confusion.

“I am certain that I have never seen that handwriting before. How the envelope was obtained I cannot pretend to guess. Hundreds of people, of course, were in and out of my office during the time I was with the company.”

“I presume you had several clerks in your employ?”

Mr Whyman smiled. “Quite the opposite. It was a small and struggling concern, unprosperous from the start. I only had three assistants at the London branch: an elderly man, and two juniors. I should recognise the writing of any one of those if it were put before me.”

Was he speaking the truth or not? Was he honestly puzzled as he appeared, or shielding the writer of that threatening epistle with his assumption of ignorance? Smeaton could not be sure. The only evidence he possessed as to character was that furnished by the deathbed revelations of Roselli, and that was unfavourable.

He resolved to try a random shot. “I think at one time you were acquainted with a man of the name of Giovanni Roselli, an Italian.”

The shot went home. There was a flicker in the steady blue eyes, the voice had lost its bluff and genial ring. He spoke hesitatingly, picking his words.

“Ah, yes. Many years ago I knew a fellow named Roselli, in Turin—not very intimately; we did a little deal in marble together on one occasion. What do you know about him?”

Smeaton shrugged his shoulders carelessly. “Not much. In our business we come across many little things that we have not set out to find, but which emerge from greater issues. However, I did not come here to talk about this foreigner, but in the hope that you might be able to help me with that letter.”

When Whyman spoke again all traces of his momentary embarrassment had passed.

“I am only too sorry that I cannot. I should say that envelope must have been stolen from my office.”

“Very likely,” said Smeaton quietly. Then he rose to go.

Whyman at once became effusively hospitable. “I wish you would dine and stay the night with me. I should be most delighted to have a good long chat with you, especially if you could tell me some of your experiences which are no longer secrets. To-morrow, perhaps, I could take you for a spin in the country in my car.”

Smeaton hesitated. Why did this man, whom he suspected of being a rogue under all this genial veneer, suddenly develop such a partiality for the society of an utter stranger? Did he want to pump him as to what he knew concerning Roselli, whom of course, he did not know was dead?

He decided he would stay. If it came to pumping, Smeaton flattered himself he would prove the better of the two at that particular game. He might even make Whyman betray himself in an unguarded moment.

They spent quite a pleasant time together. Smeaton was shown over the house and grounds. The dinner was good, the wines and cigars excellent. The detective entertained his host with reminiscences of work at “the Yard” that involved no indiscretion. They sat up chatting till past midnight. But the name of Roselli was not mentioned again on either side.

“Good-night, Mr Smeaton, good-night. I have enjoyed your company immensely. Breakfast at half-past nine—eh?”

He might be a rogue at bottom, and his wealth might not have been acquired honestly, but he was a very pleasant one. And as a host he was beyond reproach.

When Smeaton entered the dining-room the next morning, the butler was waiting for him with a letter in his hand.

“Mr Whyman was called away early this morning, sir. He has left this note for you.”

“Dear Mr Smeaton,” ran the brief epistle. “A thousand apologies for treating you in this discourteous fashion. I received a letter just now calling me abroad on urgent business that brooks no delay. I may be absent some few weeks. Trusting we shall meet again—Yours sincerely, James Whyman.”

Smeaton was too accustomed to surprises to exhibit any emotion. He sat down and ate an ample breakfast, and cogitated over the sudden departure of his host.

The one obvious fact was that Whyman had flown. He need not waste time over that. The important thing remained: what was the reason of his hurried flight?

Before he left the room Smeaton crossed over to a writing-desk in the window, and peered into the waste-paper basket at the side. A forlorn hope—it was empty. A torn-up envelope might have revealed the postmark.

But Mr Whyman was evidently too old a bird to leave anything behind him that would enlighten one of the keenest detectives in England.

Chapter Nineteen.

Still Another Club.

“Now that we are alone, sir, permit me to present myself in proper form. My name is Caleb Boyle, profession gentleman, educated at that glorious old school, Winchester, and graduate of Trinity College. Cambridge.”

Mr Boyle made a low bow as he completed his self-introduction, which took place in Smeaton’s room at Scotland Yard. He was full of gesture, employing a pantomime of arms, hands and face to accentuate his remarks.

Smeaton bowed, pointed to a chair, and examined him with minute attention. He was a tall, angular man, thin almost to emaciation. Judging by his figure, you might have put him at forty, but the lines on his face suggested another ten or fifteen years.

“I intended no discourtesy to you personally when I declined to give my card to your satellites or subordinates, or whatever name you give to the hangers-on of a great man.”

Here the fluent Mr Boyle made another of his grotesque bows to lend point to the compliment, and again Smeaton inclined his head politely. He had not as yet quite taken his bearings with regard to this extraordinary creature.

“To such persons, Mr Smeaton, I do not take the trouble to reveal my identity; it would be a waste of time. It is my invariable practice to go straight to the fountain-head when I have anything of importance to communicate.” Here Mr Boyle swelled out his chest, and said in a voice of intense conviction: “I have no toleration for whipper-snappers, and those, sir, are what one finds, spreading like a fungus, in every department of our public life.”

It seemed to the police official’s well-balanced mind that his visitor was a pompous ass, with a slight suspicion of insanity thrown in. He was not a man to suffer fools gladly, but this particular fool had called on him for some purpose, and he must exercise patience till the purpose was revealed.

He must bear with him and coax him. For he felt intuitively that Boyle was one of those men who take a long time in coming to the point.

“We are always happy to receive information here,” he said courteously. “You will understand that I am a very busy man.”

If he thought such a direct hint would arrest the flow of his visitor’s fatal fluency, he was grievously mistaken. Boyle raised an arresting hand, and indulged in some more contortions of arms and hands.

“I recognise the fact, sir, I fully recognise it. A man in your responsible position must find the working hours all too short for what you have to do. You bear upon your shoulders, capable as they are, the weight of Atlas, if I may say so.”

Smeaton had to smile, in spite of himself, at the fanciful imagery. “Not quite so bad as that, Mr Boyle. But a lot has to be got into a limited time, and therefore—”

But his sentence was not allowed to finish. “Say no more, sir, on that head. I can understand that the time of a valuable official is not to be wasted; in short, that you wish me to come to the point.”

Smeaton nodded his head vigorously. Perhaps there was some remnant of common-sense in the creature after all.

Mr Boyle gracefully threw one leg over the other, bestowed upon the detective an affable but somewhat mechanical smile, and resumed his discourse.

“Before coming to the reason of my visit, I must trouble you with a few details of my family history, in order that you may know something of the person you are dealing with. I promise you I shall not be prolix.”

Smeaton groaned inwardly, but he knew he was helpless. As well try to stop a cataract in full flood as arrest the resistless flow of Mr Boyle’s glib fluency.

“I may tell you I am something of an athlete. I played two years in the Winchester Eleven. I rowed in my College boat. If I had stopped on a year longer I should have rowed for the ‘Varsity.’”

He paused, probably to ascertain the effect produced upon his listener by these deeds of prowess. Smeaton exhorted him to proceed, in a faint voice.

“Enough of those early days, when the youthful blood ran in one’s veins like some potent wine. Manhood succeeded the school and college days. I am telling you all this because, as you will perceive presently, it has some bearing upon my visit to you.”

He paused again, to mark the effect of his glowing periods. And again Smeaton, in a voice grown fainter, bade him get on with his story.

Suddenly the weird visitor rose, stretched himself to his full height, and with a dramatic gesture pointed a long, lean finger at the harassed detective. His voice rose and fell with the fervour of his pent-up feelings.

“The man you look upon to-day is only the shadow of what he was in his early prime. The name of Caleb Boyle was well-known about town, in the busy haunts of men. I have sat at great men’s tables, I have partaken of delicate fare, I have quaffed rare wines, fair ladies have favoured me with their smiles.”

He paused for a moment, dropped the pointing hand, and sat down again on his chair, seemingly overcome with his own rhetoric. Smeaton regarded him steadily, uncertain as to what new form his eccentricity would take, but spoke no word.

In a few seconds he had recovered himself, and smiled wanly at his companion.

“Enough of that. You are a man of vast experience, and you have seen men and cities. But I bet you would never guess that not so many years ago I was one of the young bloods of this town, one of what our neighbours across the Channel call the jeunesse dorée.”

And at last Smeaton was moved to speech. He looked at the well-cut but worn clothes; he remembered Winchester and Cambridge; he recognised the flamboyant and ill-controlled temperament. He drew his deductions swiftly.

“You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth,” he said bluntly; “you had every advantage that birth and education could give you. Through some fatal tendency, perhaps inherited, you threw away all your chances, and are living on your memories—and very little else.”

So far from being offended with this plain exposition of facts, Mr Boyle smiled affably, and, leaning forward, patted the detective approvingly on the shoulder.

“You’re a man after my own heart, sir; you go to the very marrow of things. You have hit it off correctly. But mark you, I regret nothing; I would alter nothing if the time came over again. I have lived, sir: warmed both hands at the fire of life; filled the cup of enjoyment to the brim. Nothing has daunted me, nothing ever will daunt me. Old as I am, derelict as I may be, I still look the world in the face, and, in the words of the poet, ‘Stand four-square to all the winds that blow.’”

Smeaton stirred uncomfortably. Was the man simply an original kind of beggar, and was all this the preface to a request for a modest loan? He had assurance enough for anything!

“Mr Boyle, my time is really very much occupied. May I beg you to come to the point, and state the object of your visit? These personal reminiscences and reflections are, of course, highly interesting, but—” He made an eloquent pause.

“I have transgressed, I have abused your patience,” observed this singular man, in a voice of contrition; “I came to ask you a simple question, and here it is, plain, straight, and put as briefly as possible: What is at the bottom of Reginald Monkton’s disappearance?”

Smeaton looked up sharply. “Who says that he has disappeared?” he asked with some asperity.

Mr Boyle smiled blandly. “Why beat about the bush? Monkton is not in his place in the House. There is not a line in the papers about his movements, except that he is on the Riviera. The public may not yet have tumbled to it. But Fleet Street knows. The House of Commons knows. The clubs know. And last—you and I know. I still have some connection with the world in which I was once not an insignificant figure.”

Smeaton hardly knew what to answer. The man had every quality that offended his well-ordered mind, but he was not the absolute fool he had taken him for.

“Cannot a statesman, worn out and weary with hard work, take a brief holiday without letting loose all these absurd rumours?” he asked with pretended petulance.

Mr Boyle shrugged his shoulders. “My dear sir, I know as well as you do that this matter is in your hands, and you are hushing it up in the hopes that you will find a solution, and avoid a scandal. So far you have failed. If you had succeeded, either Monkton would have been back by now, or you would know of his death, and there would have been a public explanation. You have failed, and do you know why?”

“I shall be very glad to know why,” Smeaton replied, goaded into a half-admission by the contemptuous tone of the other man.

“Because, although you have some very clever men here you want a leavening of men of different calibre. It is good to know every corner of the slums, to be acquainted with every incident in the career of burglar Bill and light-fingered Jack, to know the haunts of all the international thieves and forgers and anarchists. That is sound and useful knowledge.”

“I am glad you think so,” said Smeaton sarcastically.

“In a case like this, however, you want another sort of knowledge altogether,” pursued Mr Boyle, callously indifferent to the detective’s sarcasm. “You want a man who has mixed in the big world from his boyhood, who knows all the ins and outs, all the intrigue of social life, all the gossip, all the scandal that has been going round the clubs and drawing-rooms for the last forty years.”

“In other words, men like yourself—eh? We have plenty such in our pay.”

“But they are not a recognised part of your official organisation,” rejoined Mr Boyle quickly. “As you are kind enough to suggest myself,” he added modestly, “I think I may say that in certain cases I should earn my salary. But I admit that at the burglar business I should be no use at all.”

There was a long silence. Smeaton was trying to smother his indignation. He had taken a dislike to the man from the first moment he had set eyes upon him. His long-windedness, his self-conceit, his grotesque gestures, his assumption of superiority, his gibes at Scotland Yard methods, had added to it. But he must bear with him; he was sure that Boyle had something more to say before he took his leave.

Mr Boyle pursued his discourse, quite unconscious of the other’s antipathy.

“In spite of troubles that would have crushed a weaker man, I think I have worn well: I am frequently taken for ten years younger than I am. As a fact, there is only one year’s difference between Monkton and myself. We were at a tutor’s together, and we went up to Cambridge in the same year.”

Smeaton breathed a sigh of relief. He had an intuition that at last this exasperating person was coming to the point.

“The Monkton of those days was very different from the Monkton of later years—the keen politician, the statesman conscious of the grave responsibilities of office. He was full of fun and go, one of a band of choice spirits who kept things lively, and, as a matter of course, got into many scrapes, and came more than once into conflict with the authorities.”

Smeaton listened intently. This was certainly not the prevalent idea of the statesman who had so mysteriously disappeared.

“I saw a great deal of him afterwards. We moved in much the same set. He married early, and everybody said that he was devotedly attached to his wife. So, no doubt, he was. At the same time, he had been a great admirer of the fair sex, and it was rumoured that there had been tender passages between him and several well-known ladies occupying high positions in society.”

The flamboyant manner had departed. For the moment he seemed an ordinary, sensible man, setting forth a sober statement of actual fact.

“There was one lady, in particular, with whom his name was especially connected. She was at that time some live or six years younger than Monkton, and married—people said, against her will—to a very unpopular nobleman much older than herself, who was madly jealous of her. It was reported at the clubs that the husband strongly resented Monkton’s attentions, and that on one occasion a fracas had taken place between the two men, in which Monkton had been severely handled. Some corroboration was lent to the statement by the fact that he did not appear in the Courts for a week after the occurrence was supposed to have taken place.”

“Did this fracas to which you allude take place before or after his marriage?” asked the detective.

“Speaking from memory, I should say about a year before.”

And at this point Mr Boyle rose, drew a pair of faded gloves from his pocket, and put them on preparatory to his departure.

“In a case of this kind, Mr Smeaton, it is well to remember the French proverb, ‘Look out for the woman.’ You, no doubt, have followed several clues, and evidently to no purpose. Well, I will give you one gratis—keep your eye upon Lady Wrenwyck, now a middle-aged woman, but, at the time to which I refer, one of the most celebrated beauties of her day, and, according to rumour, wildly in love with Reginald Monkton. It may lead to nothing, of course, but I think the tip is worth following.”

“I am obliged to you, and will certainly act upon your advice,” said Smeaton gravely, as he held out his hand.

As Mr Boyle took it his former eccentricities of manner returned. He bowed profoundly, and spoke in his high, artificial voice.

“Sir, I am more than flattered. I shall go later on to Miss Monkton. I should much like to make the acquaintance of my old friend’s daughter.”

Smeaton was aghast at this declaration. He had a shrewd suspicion that his real object in interviewing Sheila was to trade on his old acquaintance with her father, and probably obtain a loan. It was a hundred to one that such a mercurial creature would drop some disquieting hints about Lady Wrenwyck.

“I would beg of you to postpone your call, Mr Boyle. Miss Monkton is, naturally, in a state of great depression and anxiety. I should, however, very much like you to see Mr Austin Wingate, who is her best friend. If you will favour me with your address, I will arrange a meeting.”

Mr Boyle, indulged in another of his grotesque bows. He scribbled on a piece of paper, and handed it to the detective.

“I should be glad to have that meeting arranged as soon as possible, Mr Smeaton.” There was a shade of anxiety in his voice. Smeaton was sure that philanthropy was not the sole motive of his visit. “Once more, good-bye.”

He advanced to the door, hesitated, with his hand upon the knob, and half turned round, as if about to say something more. Apparently he changed his mind.

“A random thought occurred to me, but it is nothing—not worth pursuing,” he said airily, and passed out.

But Smeaton knew instinctively the reason of that pause. Boyle had screwed up his courage to borrow money, but he could not bring it to the sticking-point.

Had he told the truth or were his statements pure invention?

Chapter Twenty.

A Conference at Downing Street.

“He’s a blatant idiot, with lucid moments. And in one of those rare moments of lucidity he told me about Lady Wrenwyck. You agree with me, I am sure, that, at any cost, he must be kept from Miss Monkton.”

Such was Smeaton’s pithy summing-up of his late visitor to Austin Wingate, who had hurried round on receipt of an urgent note from the detective.

“I agree absolutely,” was Wingate’s emphatic response. “She believes in her father so utterly that it would cut her to the heart to think he was anything short of immaculate, that he had ever shared the weaknesses of ordinary men. You know all good women make idols of their male-folk. Now, tell me a little more about this person Boyle. Is he what we should call a gentleman?”

Smeaton shrugged his shoulders. “I have nothing but his own statement to go upon, you understand. But I should say you might have described him as such once. Now, he is broken down, slightly shabby, has got the ‘seen-better-days’ look, and is, I surmise, hard-up. You will see him, of course, and I give you this hint beforehand: I think he will want to borrow money. I’m sure he was within an ace of tapping me.”

“He can borrow what he likes, in reason, so long as I can keep him away from Chesterfield Street,” said Austin fervently.

Smeaton looked at him approvingly. He was a gallant young lover. No wonder that the girl’s heart had gone out to him in her loneliness and misery.

Wingate scribbled a brief but polite note to Boyle, inviting him to dinner the following day at a Bohemian club in Shaftesbury Avenue of which he was a member. In this tolerant atmosphere his guest’s eccentricities of manner and shabbiness of attire were less likely to provoke comment.

Having arranged this, he took his leave of Smeaton, whom he left cogitating over the new development of affairs.

The detective had no doubt in his own mind that Boyle, flighty and feather-brained as he seemed, could be level-headed on occasions. The story he told him about Lady Wrenwyck certainly bore the impress of truth, but it was impossible for a man of such peculiar mentality to avoid exaggeration. Before going further into the matter, he would like some corroboration. To whom could he apply?

And at once he thought of Mr Chesterton, the Prime Minister. He and Monkton were life-long friends, had been at Cambridge together. Although not actually “born in the purple,” having come from commercial stock, he had been adopted into society from his earliest youth. His rare eloquence and commanding gifts had done the rest, and raised him to his present high position.

An hour later he was closeted with the Premier in the big, heavily-furnished room at Downing Street.

Mr Chesterton received him with that easy and graceful cordiality which was one of his greatest charms.

“I have ventured to intrude upon your time, sir, with reference to the matter which is still baffling us—the mysterious disappearance of your colleague Mr Monkton, the Colonial Secretary. I have had a visit from a peculiar person who calls himself Caleb Boyle, and he has given me some information that may or may not prove valuable. He says he knew Mr Monkton intimately. I am aware that you were life-long friends. Do you happen to know anything of the man Boyle?”

An amused smile flitted over the Prime Minister’s features. “I remember him well, a harum-scarum, chattering, frothy fellow—utterly devoid of brains. Stay, I think perhaps I do him an injustice. I would rather say he suffered from an excess of brain—of the ill-balanced sort. So he has turned up again—eh? I thought he had disappeared for good.”

“I take it, from that remark, that he has had a somewhat chequered career?” queried Smeaton.

“Most chequered,” was Mr Chesterton’s reply. In a few brief sentences he gave the history of Caleb Boyle, so far as he had known it.

He was a man of good family, and possessed of some small fortune. These advantages were nullified by the possession of nearly every quality that made for failure in life. He was headstrong, prodigal, full of an overwhelming conceit in his own capacity. He dabbled a little in everything—and could do nothing well.

He fancied himself an orator, and spouted on politics till he bored everybody to death. Believed himself a poet, and wrote execrable verses. Flattered himself he was an artist of a high order, and painted daubs that moved his friends to mirth.

The Premier paused. Then proceeding, he said:

“He came to London after leaving Cambridge, and went the pace. In a few years he had run through his money. Then began the downward progress. He became a sponger and a leech, borrowed money in every likely quarter—cadged for his luncheons and dinners. He had been very generous and hospitable in his day, and his friends put up with him as long as they could. One by one, they fell away, wearied by his importunities. Then he came to the last stage—he took to drinking to excess. Through the influence of the stauncher of his acquaintance, who still pitied him, he had secured three or four good positions. One after another he had to relinquish them, owing to his intemperate habits. That was the actual finish. He disappeared from a world in which he had once held a very decent footing, and joined the great army of degenerates who live nobody knows where, and Heaven knows how.”

“I take it he is not speaking the truth when he says that he knew Mr Monkton intimately?” asked Smeaton, when Mr Chesterton had finished the brief narrative.

The Premier shrugged his shoulders. “We were all at Cambridge together. He knew Monkton and he knew me, in the way that undergraduates know each other. We met afterwards, occasionally, in some of the many sets that constitute Society. But I am sure that Monkton was never intimate with him. He was one of dozens of men that he had known at school and college. Boyle always built up his supposed friendships on very slender material. It used to be said that if he knocked against an Archbishop by accident, and begged his pardon, he would swear afterwards that he was on terms of intimacy with him.”

There was a pause before Smeaton put his next question.

“This man tells me that at one time there was a scandal about Mr Monkton and a certain Lady Wrenwyck—a woman of fashion and a noted beauty. I take the liberty of asking you to confirm or refute that.”

Mr Chesterton frowned slightly. “I take it, Mr Smeaton, you have a good reason for asking me this. But, frankly, I am not fond of raising old ghosts.”

Smeaton answered him a little stiffly. “In my calling, sir. we are often compelled to put inconvenient questions, but only when, in our judgment, they are absolutely necessary.”

“I accept your statement on that head, unreservedly, Mr Smeaton.” The frown cleared from the Premier’s brow, and his tone was marked with that fine courtesy which had secured him so many friends.

He paused a moment, drew a sigh, and resumed. “I will be quite frank with you, Smeaton. That chatterbox Boyle has told you the truth. He was not in our particular set, but of course the common rumours reached him. There was a scandal—a very considerable scandal. It distressed his friends greatly, especially those who, like myself, appreciated his exceptional talents, and predicted for him a great career.”

Again he paused. Then he resumed:

“I am glad to say our counsels and influence prevailed in the end. We weaned him from this fascinating lady—who fought very hard for him, I must tell you. In the end we won. A year later he married a very charming girl, who made him the best of wives, and to whom, I have every reason to believe, he was devotedly attached.”

Smeaton rose, and expressed his thanks for the candid way in which Mr Chesterton had treated him.

“One last question, sir, and I have done,” he said. “What would be the present age of this lady?”

“She is ten years or so Monkton’s junior, and looks ten years younger than that. At least, she did the last time I saw her, and that was a few months ago.”

As he walked across back to Scotland Yard, Smeaton turned it all over in his mind. Lady Wrenwyck was ten years younger than Monkton, and looked ten years younger than her real age. Therefore, without doubt, she was a beautiful and fascinating woman, and still dangerous.

Had he cared to question the Prime Minister more closely, he could have gleaned more information about the Wrenwyck household. But Mr Chesterton was obviously disinclined to raise “old ghosts,” as he called them. He would obtain what he wanted by other methods.

He hunted up Lord Wrenwyck in the peerage, and found him to be a person of some importance, who possessed three houses in the country, and lived in Park Lane. He was also twelfth Baron.

Smeaton summoned one of his subordinates, a promising young fellow, keen at this particular kind of work, and showed him the page in the peerage.

“I want you to find out as quickly as possible all you can about this family. You understand, Johnson—every detail you can pick up.”

Detective-sergeant Johnson, qualifying for promotion, smiled at his chief and gave him his assurance.

“I’ve had more difficult jobs, and perhaps a few easier ones, Mr Smeaton. I’ll get on it at once, and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed,” he said.

Mr Johnson omitted to mention, with a reticence that must be commended, that a cousin of his was a footman next door to the Wrenwyck establishment, and accustomed to look in of an evening at a select hostelry adjacent to Park Lane.

That same evening—for Johnson’s methods were swift and sure—he waited on his chief at Smeaton’s house, with an unmistakable air of triumph on his usually impassive features.

“I have got up some facts, sir. I will read you from my notes. Lady Wrenwyck was a girl when she married; her husband some twenty years older. She was forced into the marriage by her parents, who were of good family, but poor as church mice. Her ladyship was a beautiful girl, she soon went the pace, and had heaps of admirers, young and old. The husband, horribly jealous, thought he had bought her with his money. Terrible scenes between the pair, in which her ladyship held her own.”

Smeaton offered the subordinate his rare meed of praise. “You have done devilish well, Johnson. Go on.”

Sergeant Johnson proceeded, refreshing himself from his notes. “For several years past they have lived in a sort of armed truce. They live together, that is to say, in the same house, but they never exchange a word with each other, except before guests. If they have to hold communication, it is by means of notes, conveyed through the valet and the lady’s maid.”

“An extraordinary house, Johnson—eh?” interjected Smeaton, thinking of his own little comfortable household.

“It’s a bit funny, sir, to ordinary people, but in Society nothing is uncommon,” replied Johnson. “Shall I go on with my notes?”

“Please do,” said Smeaton cordially. Johnson was of the younger generation, but he was shaping well. Perhaps it is possible that youngsters have a wider outlook than their elders.

Mr Johnson read on, in a deferential voice:

“His lordship is an invalid—suffers from some affection of the joints, an aggravated form of rheumatism, walks with a stick. Has been absent from Park Lane for a little time. Nobody knows where he is. His confidential man of business, steward or secretary or something, runs the house in his absence.”

“And her ladyship?” queried Smeaton eagerly.

“I’m coming to that, sir. Her ladyship has been away for some time; travelling abroad they think. My informant gave me the date of her departure. Here it is, sir.”

Smeaton looked at the little pencilled note. He rose, and shook his subordinate cordially by the hand, saying:

“Really you’ve done more than well. You forget nothing, I see. I shall watch your career with great interest. If I can push you I will. You may rely on that.”

Johnson bowed low at the great man’s praise. “A word here from you, Mr Smeaton, and I’m made in the Service.”

His voice faltered skilfully here, and he withdrew, leaving Smeaton to his reflections.

The great detective meditated long and carefully. He was not a person to jump hastily at conclusions. He sifted the actual from the obvious.

One fact emerged clearly, and it was this: Lady Wrenwyck had left her home, to which she had not returned, two days before the mysterious disappearance of Reginald Monkton—two days.

That feather-headed fool, Caleb Boyle, had told him to “find the woman.” Was the feather-headed fool right, and he, Smeaton, upon the wrong road?

Chapter Twenty One.

Shades of Soho.

Wingate smiled as he read the flamboyant note from Caleb Boyle, accepting his invitation to dinner. It concluded with a characteristic flourish. “Trusting that our meeting may prove as agreeable to you, as it is in anticipation to myself. Yours sincerely, C. Boyle.”

It was a beautiful summer morning. His thoughts flew to his well-beloved. What was she doing at this particular moment? He could guess too well. Sitting, with that far-away look in her dear eyes, brooding and lonely amid the ruins of her once happy home.

He did not usually call so early, but to-day must be an exception. A brilliant idea had occurred to the fond young lover; he hastened to put it into execution.

She sprang up when he entered, and the light in her beautiful eyes, the faint flush on her cheek, told him that he was welcome. The soft lips returned his fervent kiss.

“We are going to take a holiday, darling,” he cried gaily. “This is a perfect day; it’s a shame to be stifled in London. We will run down by train to Shepperton. I’ll get a boat and pull you to Hampton Court. We’ll lunch there, and afterwards stroll round the gardens. Then I will bring you back home, I wonder if you remember that day—it seems such a little while ago—when we first met?”

“Shall I ever forget it?” she whispered softly. “I think, perhaps, I fell a little bit in love with you then. And afterwards we met at Hendon, and you came to call on us at Chesterfield Street. And my dear father took a great fancy to you. And now—” she looked at him shyly, and did not finish the sentence.

He took her in his arms and kissed her. “And now, my darling, we are sweethearts for ever and ever.”

A couple of hours later they were on the river. The beauty of the warm summer day, the pleasurable excitement of the journey, the change of scene, had momentarily lifted the shadows and induced forgetfulness. For that brief space she was her old joyous self, a girl in the glorious fulness of her youth, living and beloved.

Her thoughts were such as come to pure girls in such moments.

As they glided down the placid stream, the golden afternoon warm and odorous with the mingled scents of the summer air, so would they journey through life together. She remembered how her father had adored her mother. Austin would be such another true lover to the end of his days.

They returned to Chesterfield Street. She was loth to part with him and pressed him to stay to dinner. He pleaded a business engagement. He could not break faith with Boyle, although he was sorely tempted to do so.

“You will be sure to come to-morrow?” she said, as she kissed him good-night. It cut him to the quick to leave her alone in that sad house, but he had no choice. At all costs, he must keep Boyle away from her.

“Quite sure, my darling. You love me a little?” he whispered as they parted.

“Oh! so much,” she answered with a sweet smile. “Didn’t I tell you this morning that I fell in love with you a long time ago? You have been so kind, so patient, so good. I fear I am a very sad sweetheart, but I know you understand. The ties between my dear father and myself were so close. We were all the world to each other.”

He hastened away, more firmly resolved than ever that Caleb Boyle should never put his foot in Chesterfield Street. That trusting heart must never be pierced by doubts of her father’s rectitude.

Wingate was a few minutes late at the club that evening. He found Mr Boyle awaiting him, in the full glory of evening attire. His host could not help observing that the suit had seen good service, and that the shirt was frayed and dingy as to colour. But Boyle’s ready assurance was not in the least dashed by these circumstances. He advanced with outstretched hand, and greeted Wingate in his usual fulsome manner.

“I am sorry you troubled to dress, Mr Boyle. This is quite a Bohemian club. I ought to have told you.”

Boyle waved a deprecatory hand. And his self-satisfied manner seemed to imply that, at this hour, evening attire was natural to him, and that he would have assumed it in any case.

They went in to dinner. Boyle began talking at once. He admired the dining-room, the service, the club and its arrangements generally.

“It is some years since I entered these portals,” he remarked in his pompous, affected manner. “I used to know some good fellows in the old days.”

He named Jimmy this, Dicky that, and Tommy the other. Wingate noted that all the members with whom he boasted acquaintance had joined the majority.

“I belonged to a lot of Bohemian clubs when I first started my London career,” he explained. “I was a member of the Garrick, and at the Savage I believe I am still remembered. Ah! that those good old days could come again.”

He heaved a deep sigh, and for a few minutes applied himself to the very excellent meal that was set before him. He ate heartily, consuming big portions of each dish. His host had a shrewd notion that he had economised in the matter of lunch.

When dinner was over, they passed to the smoking-room, where Mr Boyle very speedily disposed of a few whiskies, taking two to the other’s one.

It was here that Wingate touched lightly and delicately upon the visit to Smeaton.

“I would like to impress upon you, Mr Boyle, that, under ordinary circumstances. Miss Monkton would be delighted to receive any old friend of her father’s; but I fear such a visit at present would pain her very much.”

Boyle rose to the occasion. “It is I who am in fault. It was a thoughtless suggestion on my part, made on the spur of the moment, and prompted, I assure you, by the sincerest feelings of sympathy for her, and esteem for my dear old friend.”

If his motives been of the nature suggested by Smeaton, he was certainly taking it very well. Wingate pressed on him another whisky-and-soda. The offer was accepted with his usual alacrity. His powers of absorption appeared to be unbounded.

Wingate proposed a change of scene. “What do you say to an hour or two at the Empire? We’ll stroll round and get a couple of stalls.”

Mr Boyle was delighted at the suggestion. “Excellent,” he cried, with the glee of a schoolboy. “Dear old Empire, dear old mad and sad Empire, what visions it conjures up! Let us go at once. I will tread again the merry lounge, forget all gnawing care, and summon back the light-heartedness of youth.”

He revelled in it all so much that it was eleven o’clock before Wingate could get him away. And then he had not exhausted his capacity for enjoyment.

“Let us make a night of it,” he cried cheerfully. “You don’t know what a delight it is to mix for a few hours with a man of my own world, like yourself. We had an excellent dinner, but I am sure we could do a little supper together.”

Wingate would have preferred to decline, but, if he did so, Boyle might be offended. And it was, above all things, necessary to keep him in good humour.

“Good man,” cried Mr Boyle, with one of his sweeping gestures. “The night is young. A few paces from here is a snug little restaurant, presided over by my old and excellent friend, Luigi. You will be my guest.”

Wingate started at the name. It was the little house in Soho where Monkton had dined with the bearded Russian on the night of his disappearance.

The smiling proprietor welcomed Boyle with extreme cordiality. They were very well acquainted.

They had a light supper, and at the conclusion Boyle drew aside the waiter, and whispered something in his ear. Wingate caught the words: “Put it down. I’ll call and pay to-morrow.”

The gentleman in the worn evening suit and the dingy shirt was evidently short of cash. Wingate took advantage of the opportunity. Smeaton had taken a dislike to the man, but what the poor broken-down creature had told him might be of service.

“Pardon me, Boyle,” he said, dropping the formal prefix, “but I could not help overhearing. If you have come out without money, please let me be your banker for the time being.”

There was a long pause. Boyle seized the tumbler of whisky-and-soda that stood at his elbow, and drained it at a draught. For a few seconds he seemed struggling with some hidden emotion. Then his usual flamboyancy returned. He hailed the waiter in a loud voice, and ordered more refreshment.

Then he laid his long, lean hand on the other’s shoulder, and spoke in his deep, rolling tones.

“Why should I play the hypocrite to a good fellow like yourself, Wingate. I’m as poor as a church-rat—you can guess that from my clothes. I asked you to supper on the spur of the moment with eighteenpence in my pocket, knowing that my old friend Luigi would give me credit. I have a roof over my head for the rest of the week. Next week I may not have that. But I don’t moan and whine; I set my teeth and smile, as I am smiling now. Whatever men may think of me, they shall never say that Caleb Boyle showed the white feather.”

He took another deep draught as he finished the pathetic outburst. Wingate felt in his pockets.

“I haven’t much with me, only a couple of sovereigns. But you can square the bill with that. I have a cheque-book with me, and I shall be delighted to tide you over immediate difficulties, if you will name a sum.”

“Would ten pounds be too much?” asked Boyle, in a strangely hesitating voice. For the moment, his assurance seemed to have forsaken him; he seemed to realise to what he had fallen.

“Not at all.” The cheque was written and handed to the poor derelict, together with the two pounds in cash.

For once, the usual flow of words did not come. It was a quiet and subdued Boyle who called the waiter, and bade him bring the bill.

“I cannot find words to thank you,” he told his benefactor, “I can only say, God bless you. I have done the same to many a poor devil myself, in olden days, but never in a more kindly and generous fashion. I should like, if I may, to tell you a little bit of history.”

Wingate nodded. He could not but feel sorry for the poor broken-down creature, who tried to hide his sorrows under this brave and pompous front.

“I was ruined by a devil whom I first met here, before Luigi took the place. He called himself Bellamy, but that was not his real name. He was a foreign fraudulent company promoter by profession. I was young and gullible. He dazzled me with his swindling schemes, until he had stripped me of every penny.”

Wingate murmured his sympathy. He surmised that Boyle was exaggerating when he accused the foreigner of having been the sole cause of his ruin. There was no doubt he had contributed pretty considerably towards his own downfall. But was there ever a spendthrift yet who would admit as much?

“But thank Heaven, he was trapped at last. He went a step too far, and was beggared by a lawsuit brought against him by the shareholders of a company he had promoted, and which never paid a dividend. Our old friend Monkton led against him, and trounced him thoroughly, I can tell you. Every penny he possessed was seized, and he fled the country for fear of arrest.”

Wingate pricked up his ears.

“You say this man was a foreigner. Would you recognise his handwriting, if you saw it?”

“Certainly. I have more than a dozen of his letters in my possession. If you would care to come round to my rooms, I will show you them to-night.”

Wingate rose quickly. “Is it far?”

Boyle answered without a shade of embarrassment, “Shepherd’s Bush. Not, I regret to say, what you would call a fashionable suburb.”

In another two minutes they were in a taxi speeding towards Boyle’s residence.

Chapter Twenty Two.

One Fact is Established.

Boyle had directed the driver to stop at Uxbridge Road Station, where the two roads branch off, the one on the left leading into Chiswick, that on the right passing through Hanwell and Uxbridge.

He got out, and insisted on paying the fare, out of his newly-acquired wealth.

“We are now at the beginning of Shepherd’s Bush. The Carthorne road, where I live—I should rather say exist—is a few minutes’ walk from here. It would have been impossible to direct the driver. It would require the exploring instinct of a Stanley or a Livingstone to track me to my lair,” he laughed.

He led Wingate through various mean streets, consisting of two long rows of narrow three-storied houses. Several of them were to let. Most of them bore cards in their windows with the words “Furnished apartments.” Poverty everywhere betrayed its ugly features.

Boyle paused before the door of one of these ill-favoured tenements, and applied a latchkey. Wingate stepped into a narrow hall, covered by a strip of oil-cloth, full of holes, the pattern worn away with hard wear. An evil-smelling lamp hung from the ceiling, shedding a feeble light that was little removed from darkness.

Boyle led him to the end of the passage, and took him into a chamber that extended the width of the house. Quickly he struck a match, and lit a lamp.

Wingate felt terribly depressed. But Boyle, fortified, no doubt, by the unexpected possession of those few providential sovereigns, had recovered his accustomed buoyancy. He waved his hand round the faded apartment with a theatrical air.

“Welcome to my poor abode, the present pied-à-terre of Caleb Boyle, once a member of exclusive clubs, and not an unknown figure in London society.”

Wingate looked round and shuddered inwardly at what he saw. A horsehair sofa, black and stained with age, a carpet, worn threadbare and full of holes, three cane chairs, one easy-chair, worn and bulged out of shape, a cheap chest of drawers, with half the knobs missing. And at the side of the wall opposite the fire-place, a low, narrow single bedstead covered with a darned and patched counterpane. This was flanked by a yellow deal washstand.

Was it possible that anybody who had once lived decently, could draw a breath in this musty and abominable hole? Certainly there was a courage and power of endurance in the man that compelled Wingate’s admiration.

Boyle pushed one of the rickety chairs towards his guest, and crossed to a small hanging cupboard, from the recesses of which he produced a black bottle, which he held up to the lamp.

“There is corn in Egypt,” he cried gaily; he seemed in the highest spirits amid these depressing surroundings. “We will carouse while the night is still young. I am sorry I have no soda, and I fear all the houses are shut. But the whisky is good.”

He poured out two liberal portions, added some water, and drained his off at a draught. Then he stooped, and lifted the lid of a dilapidated tin box.

“Now for the letters,” he said.

In a few moments he had found them, tied together in a packet with a thin piece of twine. On a strip of paper within was: “Letters from Charles Bellamy to Caleb Boyle.”

Wingate took them, and rapidly scanned the contents of the first two. There were about a dozen in all. They related to purely business matters, dwelling upon the magnificent prospects of a certain company in which Boyle had taken shares, and exhorting him to patience under the present non-payment of dividends.

Read by the light of subsequent events, they were obviously the letters of a swindler to the victim he had entrapped in his financial meshes.

But, of course, to Wingate the supreme matter of interest was the handwriting. And here, he could not be positive. He had read the threatening letter, and he knew the contents of it by heart. But that was some time ago, and he could not form a mental picture of it.

“Can you trust me with one of those, Mr Boyle, to show to our friend Smeaton, so that he may compare it with a letter in his possession. I think, so far as my memory serves me, they were written by the same man, but I want to see the two together. If you would rather not part with it, bring it down yourself to-morrow to Scotland Yard, and I will meet you there.”

Boyle was hurt at the suggestion. “My dear Wingate, take the whole packet, if you wish. After the noble way in which you have behaved to-night, is it likely I should refuse such a trifling thing?”

“Thanks, they shall be returned to you directly Smeaton has done with them. A thousand thanks, and now I will say good-night. I have to be up betimes to-morrow morning.”

He left, after refusing Boyle’s earnest request to join him in a final whisky. He fancied there would not be much left in that bottle when the poor broken-down gentleman stumbled into his uninviting bed.

Wingate took the precious packet round to Smeaton next morning. And the detective, after a minute and lengthy examination, declared there could be no doubt that Charles Bellamy was the writer of the threatening letter.

“I will put all the documents in the hands of an expert for confirmation,” he said, “but I am quite certain in my own mind, and I shall follow up the clue at once.”

“You have also another clue, that concerning Lady Wrenwyck,” observed Austin. “Strange that we should be indebted to this peculiar creature, Boyle, for both!”

“He seems to grow more useful as we cultivate his further acquaintance,” said the detective, a humorous smile softening for a moment his rather harsh features.

“To which of the two do you attach the greater importance?” was Wingate’s next question.

“It is hard to say. But by following both we may arrive at a solution. They must be pursued simultaneously and that requires two men. Personally I think the Bellamy track may produce the better result, and naturally I should like to choose that for myself. On the other hand, the Wrenwyck one requires some experience and finesse, both of which qualities I flatter myself I possess. Anyway, I must trust one of the two to a subordinate.”

He passed, and remained silent for a few moments, then made up his mind. He rang the bell, and requested that Johnson should come to him at once.

“I have resolved to take the Bellamy clue,” he explained to Wingate. “It will require some research, possibly lengthy communications with the police of other countries. Here I shall be better equipped than a comparatively new man. Johnson has so far acted with great promptitude in the Wrenwyck matter.”

Detective-sergeant Johnson appeared almost immediately, and to him Smeaton issued brief instructions.

“About Lady Wrenwyck. You have lost no time over this, and I want you to follow it up. This is Mr Wingate, before whom we can speak quite freely. Find out where the lady is and, equally important, if she is alone, or with a companion. I exclude, of course, her maid.”

Mr Johnson bowed. “I quite understand, sir. I know, as a fact, her maid left with her. She was with her ladyship before her marriage, and is, no doubt, entirely in her mistress’s confidence.”

The detective paused a second, and then added a little touch of his own which, he was sure, would not be lost on his chief. Besides, it showed his knowledge of high society, and of the ways of ladies who were a trifle unconventional.

“Of course, sir, in circumstances of a delicate nature, ladies have been known to give their maids a holiday.”

“I quite appreciate that point, Johnson. Well, get on to the job at once, and confer with me when necessary.”

Johnson withdrew, well pleased that his chief had entrusted him with so important a mission. Smeaton turned to his visitor.

“Well, Mr Wingate, we ought to find out something in the next few days. I will get on to the track of Bellamy at once. Kindly drop a note to Boyle that I will keep his letters for a little time. Good-bye for the present. I will communicate with you the moment there is anything worth telling.”

He set to work at once on the Bellamy dossier. Up to a certain point the task was comparatively easy. The man was of Polish origin, his real name being Ivan Bolinski. A little further investigation revealed the fact that he was the elder brother of the Bolinski who lived in the Boundary Road, St. John’s Wood, the man who had dined with Monkton at the Soho restaurant, and according to the evidence of Davies, the taxi-driver, one of the pair who had hailed his vehicle for the conveyance of the dying man to Chesterfield Street.

So far, the scent seemed a warm one. Bellamy, to give him his assumed name, was born of an English mother, and, in marked contrast to his brother, betrayed very little of the foreigner in his appearance. He spoke English with a perfect accent.

He had started his career as a money-lender, his operations, which were on a small scale, being confined chiefly to his compatriots. He next blossomed out, in conjunction with a couple of scoundrels of the same kidney, into a promoter of small and shady concerns. Success attended his efforts, and he then flew at higher game. But although he amassed money he was never connected with a single flourishing company. He made thousands out of his victims, but they never saw a penny of their money back until just at the end.