Kitabı oku: «The Red Room», sayfa 5
Chapter Nine
I Discover Something
On the light being switched on in the dining-room, I held my breath, expecting that Langton would there find the body of the girl he loved.
It had, however, been removed.
The yellow cushion was still there, flung upon the leather couch where the unfortunate girl had lain, but there was no sign of any tragedy having been enacted.
Strangely enough, however, a bright fire burned in the grate, while upon the table were the remains of a repast – dinner, no doubt – of which three persons had partaken. Dessert had been finished, and the three coffee-cups had been drained, while about the room was a strong odour of cigars.
Who had been entertained there by Kirk?
The set table did not, of course, strike any of my companions as at all unusual, and so they passed across to the morning-room on the opposite side of the hall, one of the constables remaining at the foot of the stairs in order to prevent the escape of any persons who might be secreted in the house.
In the dining-room I loitered, for I had noticed in the grate a quantity of burnt paper. Therefore, when I was alone, I stooped, and snatched up a few half-consumed scraps – leaves of a manuscript-book they appeared to be. But at the moment, having no time to examine them, I crushed them into the pocket of my jacket, and followed the quartet on their tour of investigation.
Every nook and corner, behind chairs, in cupboards, everywhere they searched, expecting to discover somebody secreted. But they, of course, found the house untenanted.
In the smaller drawing-room, where the clean-shaven young man had noticed the light, there was a fire burning and an odour of cigars, showing that some man or men had been in the room. What consultation, I wondered, had taken place there?
The large drawing-room – the room from whence the Professor had signalled – was cold and cheerless, while in the study nothing had apparently been disarranged.
“I think, sir,” remarked the inspector to young Langton, “that you must have been mistaken. I don’t see any evidence of the presence of thieves here. The master is away, and the servants are all out for this evening. That’s all.”
“But I’m quite certain there was a light when I first rang,” declared Langton.
“Then if anyone was here, he or she must still be here,” replied the officer with a slightly incredulous smile, while at the same moment I recollected that as dinner had been served in the dining-room, there must also have been servants there during that evening.
“Is there no other door – no back door?” I queried.
“No,” replied Langton promptly; “both front and back doors are in Sussex Place. The door leading to the park was bricked up by the Professor, as he was always afraid that undesirable people might enter and steal the secrets of his experiments. There are two locked doors leading to the laboratory, of which he always keeps the keys. I’ll show you them in a moment.” And he led the way across the landing from the study to the boudoir.
Here I noticed that the drawers of Miss Greer’s little rosewood escritoire stood open, and that upon the table was a miscellaneous collection of odds and ends; letters, fancy needlework, and other things, as though a hasty search had been made among the dead girl’s effects. To me it appeared that whoever had been making the investigation had been disturbed in the act and had escaped.
The police noticed it, while Langton exclaimed:
“Look! Ethelwynn is usually so very tidy! Somebody has, no doubt, been turning over her treasures. For what reason?” and he halted before the open door leading to the passage to the laboratory. “Look!”
Inspector, sergeant, and constable all looked, but saw nothing unusual. The door stood open – that was all.
“Don’t you see!” cried the young man excitedly. “This door – the door which Professor Greer always keeps fastened – has been burst open. Somebody has been here! I was not mistaken after all!”
And he made his way along the passage, opening the second door and entering the darkness of the great lofty room. The constable followed with his lamp, while I held behind, knowing that in a few seconds the ghastly truth must be discovered.
Langton quickly found the switch, and the place was flooded with light.
At the same moment a strong and pungent smell of some acid greeted our nostrils, causing us to catch our breath. It was due, we noticed, to a bottle of some liquid which had been knocked off the table nearest us, and lay smashed upon the tiled floor.
Full of fear and trembling, I glanced to the corner in which I had seen the Professor’s huddled-up body; but my heart gave a quick bound of joy. It was not there!
Already evidences of the double tragedy had been removed. Was it for that reason, in order to remove them, that Kershaw Kirk had been there?
“Why!” exclaimed Langton. “Look! the furnace is alight. The Professor certainly cannot be in Scotland!”
I glanced to the left where he had indicated, and saw that the good-sized brick furnace built in the right-hand wall, in which, by means of a great electric fan, the Professor could generate, by forced draught, the intense heat he sometimes required for his experiments, was aglow. A fierce fire had evidently been burning there, but it was now slowly dying out. The warmth of the laboratory and of the brickwork of the furnace showed that the draught fan must have been used.
“I wonder what the Professor has been doing to-day?” remarked the inspector, examining the place with considerable curiosity.
“I wonder rather what intruders have been doing here!” exclaimed Langton. “You forget that both doors have been forced.”
The inspector stood gazing round the place in silent wonder.
“Well,” he exclaimed at last, “I don’t see the slightest evidence of burglars here, sir.”
“They may be hidden upstairs,” suggested the young man. “Remember there are many people very anxious to obtain knowledge of the Professor’s discoveries. That is why he is always so careful to keep these doors locked. His daughter, Ethelwynn, is the only person he ever allows in here. He and she even carry in the coal for the furnace, the servants being excluded.”
“But thieves would hardly light up the furnace!” said the officer.
“Unless they wished to destroy something in the fire,” responded the other.
That suggestion held me aghast. Upon me, like a flash, came the astounding suspicion that that furnace might have been lit for the purpose of destroying the evidence of the mysterious crime. I remembered Kirk’s curious and guarded response when I had referred to the burial of the body.
Was this, then, the reason why I had found him alone in the house?
I stood staggered by the suggestion.
I was near the furnace – nearer than the others.
Then, when I found speech again, I said:
“If there are intruders in this place, they could not have escaped; they must certainly be upstairs. I agree with Mr Langton that it is certainly very curious that these doors should have been forced.”
“How did you know that the Professor is in Scotland?” he inquired of me eagerly.
In an instant I had a ready reply.
“Antonio told me so when I called on Monday.”
“Did he say when his master would be back?” asked the inspector.
“He said he expected him to return last night, as he had an engagement to go with his daughter to a ball.”
“Then he may have returned and gone to the dance,” remarked the officer. “He may also have lost his keys and been compelled to break open the doors – quite a likely circumstance. Three persons dined downstairs to-night. He and his daughter and a friend probably dined and afterwards went out; while the servants, knowing they would not return before midnight, may have followed them out to spend the evening. That at least is my theory at the present.”
“That certainly seems to be the most logical conclusion, inspector,” I remarked.
“We must search the upper premises before I accept it,” exclaimed Langton, who, I could see, was still very suspicious that something unusual had happened. The meeting with Antonio in the buffet at Calais had caused him to doubt, and most naturally so.
My eager eyes were fixed upon the glowing furnace, the large, square, iron door of which was still red-hot, though the heat was now decreasing. At the side was a large air-shaft, in which were fitted electric fans, while on the wall were three switches by which a strong forced draught could be obtained.
Before the furnace door was a portion of the tiled floor railed off, to prevent the cinders from being trodden about, and in there I saw a quantity of ashes. At the side were several large crucibles, one of which, still gripped by the iron tongs or holders, contained some metal which looked like steel.
Carelessly I made a tour of the place, passing the corner where had lain the Professor’s body. I saw that all traces of blood had been carefully removed from the tiles. No one would suspect that any tragedy had occurred there.
Was this Kirk’s work? Had the man who had such a contempt for the police – whom he denounced as red-taped blunderers – succeeded in removing all trace of the crime?
If so, was not that sufficient proof of his own guilt? Was he not fooling me when, all the time, he was the actual assassin?
Every fresh fact as presented in that house that night increased rather than elucidated the mystery.
I longed to take the dead girl’s lover into my confidence and tell him, there and then, all I knew, just as I have told you; but I hesitated. Had I not given my word of honour to be silent? And, moreover, like a confounded fool, I had allowed Kirk to escape!
So now, more than ever, were my lips sealed. I was bound hand and foot.
In a few moments the four men passed out of the laboratory, while I, as I had done below, remained behind for a moment.
I stood before the furnace peering into the ashes.
I saw there something which they had overlooked, or, if they had seen it, could convey nothing to them.
Among those grey ashes lay a black horn overcoat button!
This I snatched up and transferred to my pocket.
Had that bottle of acid been purposely smashed in order to dispel any unpleasant odour arising from the furnace?
I longed to throw myself upon my knees and examine those ashes, but, alas! I dare not.
So I was compelled to follow my companions, rigid and speechless.
Chapter Ten
Leonard Langton Makes a Statement
Search of the upper portion of the premises revealed nothing – nothing, at least, to arouse the undue suspicions of the searchers.
My eager glance was everywhere, but I discerned nothing further of an unusual nature. The one great truth had become impressed upon me that the man Kirk, madman or master criminal, had got rid of the evidences of his crime.
He must have disposed of the poor girl’s body in the same manner as that of her father!
I recollected that when seated with him in Bath Road, Bedford Park, he had admitted that he possessed another home. Was it in Foley Street, that squalid house where I had heard a woman’s frantic screams?
I knew my duty, yet I still hesitated to perform it. My duty as a good citizen was to tell the police, openly and frankly, all that I knew. Yet if I did so, would I be believed? Now, after I had allowed them to search the place, I should, if I spoke, surely be suspected of trying to shield myself.
No, having assumed an attitude of ignorance, I saw I was now compelled to retain it. Kirk, clever, crafty, and far-seeing, had most ingeniously sealed my lips.
Yet why, if he were the actual criminal, had he taken me, a perfect stranger, into his confidence? And again, what connection could the Eckhardt tyre have with the strange affair?
Who were those two mysterious callers who had followed his visit, and whom Pelham had seen? What could have been their object?
I stood in the large drawing-room listening to the discussion between the searchers, who had now returned there disappointed.
“I can only repeat, sir,” remarked the inspector, addressing Langton, “that you must have been mistaken regarding the light in the window of the next room.”
“I’m certain I was not,” replied the young man doggedly. “Someone was in this house – someone who, when I rang, extinguished the light and escaped!”
“But how could he have escaped?” queried the officer.
“Ah! that’s the mystery. By the roof, perhaps.”
“The trap-door is bolted on the inside,” declared the constable; “I examined it, sir.”
“Or by a window leading out on to some leads somewhere?” I suggested.
“There are no windows unfastened by which anyone could have escaped,” the sergeant exclaimed; “I’ve looked at them all.”
“Well,” exclaimed the young man with a puzzled air, “nothing will ever convince me that I’ve brought you all here upon a fool’s errand. I still maintain that something unusual has happened. Why has Antonio fled to France?”
“We must ask the Professor,” replied the inspector. “He may have been sent by his master upon perfectly legitimate business. He was entirely trusted, you say.”
“But he saw me in the buffet at Calais, and, turning, hurried away,” Langton said. “In other circumstances he would certainly have raised his hat in greeting; he is a most polite, tactful man.”
“Well, sir,” laughed the officer, “I don’t think we can assist you any further. Just go out, 403,” he added, turning to the constable, “and tell the two men in the park that we’ve finished, and they can go back to their beats.”
“Very well, sir,” responded the man, replacing his truncheon as he left the room.
Both inspector and sergeant soon followed him, leaving Langton and myself alone.
After the front door had closed, we returned to the big dining-room.
“Well,” he exclaimed, “I don’t know what your theory is, Mr Holford, but I’m absolutely certain that something has happened here. There is some crooked circumstance,” and I saw deep lines of thought upon his shrewd, clever, clean-shaven countenance.
Why dare not Kirk meet him?
“The absence of everybody is certainly mysterious,” I admitted.
“Doubly mysterious when one takes into consideration the fact that the doors leading into the laboratory have been forced,” he remarked quickly. “Three persons dined here to-night. The Professor entertained a man-friend. Who was he?”
“That we can only discover when the servants return,” I said.
“Or from the Professor himself,” he suggested.
I held my breath. What would he have said if I had told him the truth – that the Professor was dead, and that a button from his overcoat had been lying among the ashes of the furnace?
I glanced around the comfortable room where the fire glowed cheerfully and the electric lights were so cunningly shaded. The Professor was, among other things, a connoisseur of old silver, and upon the sideboard were a number of fine Georgian pieces, tankards, salvers, candelabra, salt-cellars, decanter stands, and other things, all of which I recognised as perfect specimens.
My hand went to my jacket pocket, and I there felt the button. I withdrew my fingers in horror.
We had decided to await the return of the Professor. Await his return! Surely we would have a long time to wait for his arrival?
I was on my mettle. I alone knew the truth, and to conceal my secret knowledge from this shrewd and active young man would, I saw, be difficult.
We seated ourselves beside the fire, and, having offered me a cigarette from his case, he began to endeavour to learn more about me. But at first I was very wary, and exercised caution in my replies.
He apologised for mistaking me for an accomplice of thieves, whereat I laughed, saying:
“When we meet the Professor he will perhaps tell you of our long friendship.”
“Curiously enough,” he said, looking straight across at me, “I never recollect Ethelwynn speaking of you.”
“I knew very little of the young lady,” I hastened to explain; “the Professor is my friend. He has, on several occasions, told me what a great help she was to him in his experiments.”
“She is his right hand,” declared the young man. “Her knowledge of certain branches of chemistry is, perhaps, unequalled in a woman.”
“And yet she is delightful and charming, and nothing of a blue-stocking, I understand,” I remarked.
He smiled, for was he not the happy lover! Ah! what an awakening must be his ere long!
But we gossiped on. His face, however, betrayed a great anxiety, and time after time he expressed wonder why Ethelwynn had not remained at home to keep the appointment, or left him some message.
Indeed, we searched both her boudoir and her bedroom to find his telegram, but all in vain. Then again we returned to the dining-room.
“I suppose you’ve known the Professor for some years,” I remarked, hoping that he would tell me the story of their acquaintance.
“Oh, yes,” answered the young man, twisting a fresh cigarette between his fingers. “I first met him and Ethelwynn at the Gandolfi Palace, in Rome, four years ago. I was staying with my aunt, the Marchesa Gandolfi, and they were at the Grand Hotel. I saw quite a lot of them all through the Roman season. The Professor gave some lectures before one of the Italian learned societies, and I had frequent opportunities to take Ethelwynn out to see the sights of the Eternal City. I happen to know Rome very well, for I spent all my youth there with my aunt, an Englishwoman, who married into the Roman nobility, and who, like every other Englishwoman who takes such a step, repented it afterwards.”
“You mean she was not very happy with her husband?” I said. “I’ve heard before that mixed marriages in Italy are never very successful.”
“No,” he sighed; “my poor aunt, though she became a Marchesa and possessed a dozen different titles and probably the finest palazzo in Rome, was very soon disillusioned. The Marchese was an over-dressed elegant, who lived mostly at his club, ogled women each afternoon in the Corso, or played baccarat till dawn. And Roman society was not at all kind to her because she was just a plain Englishwoman of a county family. Gandolfi was thrown from his horse while riding over one of his estates down in Calabria two years ago.”
“The Professor was a friend of your aunt’s, I suppose?”
“Yes, an old friend. At the time when we met, Ethelwynn had, I found, an ardent admirer in a young Italian lieutenant of infantry, who had met her once or twice at the Grand and in the English tea-rooms on the Corso, and had fallen desperately in love with her.
“The Professor told me of this, and in confidence asked whether I knew the grey-trousered popinjay. I did not. He had apparently told the Professor of his family and high connections in Bologna, had declared his love for Ethelwynn, and with her consent had asked the Professor for her hand in marriage.
“I consulted my aunt, who was much against the matrimonial union of English and Italians, and in secret I went to Bologna to investigate the lieutenant’s story. What I found was rather interesting. Instead of being the son of a noble but decayed family, he was the only child of an old man employed as a gardener at a big villa out on the Via Imola, and so erratic had been his career and so many his amours, that his father had disowned him.
“I returned to Rome with the father’s written statement in black and white.”
“And what happened then?” I asked, interested.
“The amorous fortune-hunter spent a rather bad quarter of an hour in the Professor’s sitting-room, and was then quickly sent to the right-about. He quietly got transferred to another regiment up in Cremona, while Ethelwynn, of course, shed a good many tears.”
“And, her disillusionment over, she repaid you for your exertions on her behalf by becoming engaged to you, eh?”
“Exactly,” was his answer as his mouth relaxed into a smile. “A very strong attachment exists between the Professor and myself. I am happy to believe, indeed, that I am one of his closest friends – at least, that is what he declared when I asked his permission to marry Ethelwynn. Perhaps as regards finance I am not all that he might desire,” he said frankly. “I’m not by any means rich, Mr Holford. In fact, I’m simply a hard-working business man, but I have a very generous and kind employer in Sir Albert Oppenheim, and my position as his confidential secretary is one of great trust.”
“Sir Albert Oppenheim!” I echoed. “Why, he’s supposed to be one of the wealthiest men in England!”
“He probably is,” laughed my friend. “Every rich man, however, has enemies, and he is no exception. I’ve read and heard spoken many very unkind libels about him; but take it, from one who knows, that no man in all England performs more charitable work in secret than he.”
The name recalled several rumours I had heard, ugly rumours of dishonourable dealings in the City, where he was one of the greatest, shrewdest, and most powerful of modern financiers.
I had grown to like Leonard Langton for his frankness. That he was devoted to the unfortunate girl was very plain, and naturally he was anxious and puzzled at her failure to be at home to receive him after an absence of a month in Portugal, where he had, he told me, been engaged upon the purchase of the tramways of Lisbon by an English syndicate formed by Sir Albert.
He lived in chambers in Wimpole Street, with a great chum of his who was a doctor, and he invited me to look him up, while I began to tell him a little about myself, my motor business, and my friends.
He was a motor enthusiast, I quickly found; therefore I, on my part, invited him to come down to Chiswick and go out for a day’s run on the “ninety.”
Thus it occurred that, seated in that house of mystery, nay, in that very room where I had seen his well-beloved lying cold and dead, we became friends.
Ah! if I had but known one tithe of what that hastily-formed friendship was to cost me! But if the future were not hidden, surely there would be neither interest nor enjoyment in the present.
Suddenly, and without warning, I launched upon him the one question which had been ever uppermost in my mind during all the time we had sat together.
“I have met on several occasions,” I said, “a great friend of the Professor’s, a man you probably know – Kirk – Kershaw Kirk.”
I watched his face as I uttered the words. But, quite contrary to my expectations, its expression was perfectly blank. The name brought no sign of recognition of the man to his eyes, which met mine unwaveringly.
“Kirk?” he repeated thoughtfully. “No, I’ve never met him – at least, not to my knowledge. Was he young – or old?”
“Elderly, and evidently he is a very intimate friend of Greer’s.”
The young man shook his head. If he was denying any knowledge he possessed, then he was a most wonderful actor.
Perhaps Kirk himself had lied to me! Yet I remembered that towards him Antonio had always been most humble and servile.
I tried to discern any motive Langton could have to disclaim knowledge of the mysterious Kirk. But I failed to see any.
As far as I could gather, my companion was not acquainted with the man whom I had so foolishly allowed to escape from the house.
Yet had not Kirk himself expressed a fear at meeting him? Had he not told me plainly that by mere mention of his name to that young man, all hope of solving the enigma would be at an end?
Perhaps, after all, I had acted very injudiciously in admitting my knowledge of Kirk. For aught I knew my remarks might now have aroused further suspicion in his mind concerning myself. Yet was not the temptation to put the question too great to be resisted?
At my suggestion we again ascended the stairs, and re-entered the forbidden chamber.
I gave as an excuse that I was curious to examine some of the delicate apparatus which the Professor used in his experiments. My real reason, however, was again to examine those ashes before the furnace.
Circumstances, fortunately, favoured me, for almost as soon as we were inside the laboratory we heard the telephone bell ringing out upon the landing.
“I wonder who’s ringing up?” Langton exclaimed quickly. “I’ll go and see,” and he hurried away to the study where I had noticed the instrument stood upon a small side-table near the window.
The moment he had gone I bent swiftly and poked over the dust and ashes with my hand.
Yes! Among them were several small pieces of cloth and linen only half-consumed, some scraps of clothing, together with a silver collar-stud, blackened by fire.
I feared lest my companion should observe the unusual interest I was taking in the furnace-refuse, therefore I cleaned my hand quickly with my handkerchief and followed him.
He had his ear to the telephone, still listening, when I entered the study.
Then he placed the receiver upon its hook, for the person with whom he had been conversing had evidently gone.
Turning, with his eyes fixed upon mine, he made in a few clear words an announcement which fell upon my ears like a thunderbolt.
I believe I fell back as though I had been struck a blow. By that plain, simple declaration of his, the dark vista of doubt and mystery became instantly enlarged a thousand-fold.
I stood staring blankly at the young man, absolutely refusing to believe my own ears.
What he told me was beyond all credence.
