Kitabı oku: «The Red Room», sayfa 7
Chapter Thirteen
I Learn Something Interesting
Ten minutes later I was with the German hairdresser on a tram-car, going up Regent Road, towards Abbey Hill. On turning into the London Road at the station, we descended, and, crossing the main thoroughfare, entered one of the narrow, ill-lit turnings on the left, the name of which I was unable to see.
“I don’t know whom to ask for,” I remarked to my companion, as we hurried along together.
“I can only point you out the house where your friend is in hiding,” replied the man. “You, of course, know more of his habits than I do.”
In a few moments we passed before a tall, drab, dingy-looking house, which the German pointed out was the false Professor’s secret abode.
I longed for the presence of Kershaw Kirk, for I knew not how to act. I reflected, however, that the reason of my journey to Edinburgh was to clear up the mystery, and this thought prompted me to action.
So while he waited in the semi-darkness at the next corner, I returned to the house and rang the bell. To the door came a rather dishevelled girl of about eighteen, evidently the daughter of the occupier.
“You have a gentleman living here,” I said. “Would you kindly tell him that Mr Kirk desires to see him?”
“The gentleman’s no longer here, sir,” replied the girl, in broad Scotch.
“Gone!” I ejaculated.
“Yes, sir. Mr Martin’s who you mean, I suppose, for he’s the only gentleman mother has had. He packed his things, and left for the station an hour ago.”
My heart fell. He had evidently realised that the German was following him, and had escaped us!
“Can I see your mother?” I asked. Whereupon I was invited into the small narrow hall of the musty-smelling house, and a thin-faced, angular woman in rusty black came forward.
“Pray pardon my troubling you,” I said apologetically, “but I have an urgent message to give to Mr Martin, who, I understand, has been staying with you.” It was an advantage that the girl had unwittingly betrayed the name which the false Professor had adopted.
“Mr Martin’s gone, sir. He left this evening.”
“So your daughter tells me. But haven’t you any idea where he intended going?”
The woman hesitated, and by that slight pause I felt convinced she knew something which she intended keeping to herself.
“No, sir, he left quite suddenly,” was her hurried reply. “He had been out all day, and, returning about five, packed up his things, paid me what he owed me, together with a week’s rent in lieu of notice, and, getting a cab, drove away.”
“To the station – eh?”
“Yes, I heard him tell the man to drive to Princes Street.”
“He hadn’t been very long with you, had he?”
“About a week. He came on the Monday, telling me that he had been recommended by a friend of his, an actor. I let rooms to professionals,” she added, in explanation.
“He is a very reticent man,” I remarked. “I suppose he seldom went out?”
“No; he used to read all day, and go for just half-an-hour’s stroll at night. He struck me as a rather eccentric man.”
“So he is,” I laughed. “I’m an old friend of his, so, of course, I know. I hope he is not in your debt. If so, please tell me and I’ll liquidate it.”
“Oh, not at all, sir. He’s paid for everything,” declared the woman, upon whom my ready offer to pay her lodger’s debts had evidently made an impression. “His sudden departure mystified us.”
“Did he receive many letters?”
“Only two – and a telegram you sent him – which I found dropped by the side of his dressing-table.”
“From me?” I echoed, yet next instant recollecting that I had given my name as Kirk.
“Yes, you telegraphed to him several days ago to meet you at the Caledonian Hotel in Glasgow. You are Mr Kirk, are you not?”
“Ah, of course, I recollect,” I laughed. “Do you think he’s gone to Glasgow?” I asked, as the sudden thought occurred to me.
“Well, sir,” replied the woman, “as you are such an intimate friend of Mr Martin’s, I think I ought to tell you that, before leaving to-night, he asked me in confidence to repeat any telegram that might come for him to the Caledonian in Glasgow, but asking me at the same time to give no information to anyone who might call and make inquiries as to his whereabouts.”
“Then he’s gone to Glasgow to-night!” I exclaimed, with sudden enthusiasm. “If I follow at once, I may find him!”
“I certainly think so, sir,” was the woman’s response, whereupon I made a hurried adieu, and, rejoining the German, into whose palm I slipped a sovereign, was quickly back at the hotel.
I left Princes Street Station at ten minutes to ten that night by the express due in Glasgow at eleven. That hour’s journey was full of excitement, for I was now upon the heels of the false Professor, whose whereabouts and assumed name Kirk knew, and with whom he had made an appointment.
Was this man, known as Martin, about to meet Kirk?
I laughed within myself when I reflected upon the awkward surprise which my presence there would give them. What the lodging-house keeper had told me proved conclusively that Kershaw Kirk had conspired to cause the death of poor Greer, and that the story he had told me was untrue.
Yet, again, there arose in my mind the problem why, if he were the assassin, or an accomplice of the assassin, should he introduce me into that house of death – myself a comparative stranger! Alone I sat in the corner of the railway carriage, thinking it all over, and trying, as I had so continuously tried, to discern light in the darkness.
I had been a fool – a confounded fool, not to inform the police of my suspicions at the outset. The girl Ethelwynn, whom I had seen lying apparently dead, whose chill flesh I had touched, was alive and well at Broadstairs! Was not that, in itself, a staggering mystery, exclusive of that secret visit of Kirk’s to Foley Street, and the woman’s cry in that foggy night?
Was it any wonder, then, that I was neglecting my business, leaving all to Pelham, with whom I had communicated by telegram several times? Was it any wonder that, the circumstances being of so uncanny and intricate a nature, I hesitated to tell Mabel, my wife, lest I should draw her into that web of doubt, uncertainty, and grim tragedy?
I had watched the columns of the Times each day to discover the advertised message promised by Kirk; but there had been none. I now saw how I had been as wax in the hands of that clever, smooth-spoken cosmopolitan. I believed in men’s honesty, a most foolish confidence in these degenerate days, when morality is sneered at, and honesty is declared openly to be “the worst policy.”
Alas! in this dear old England of ours truth and justice are to-day rapidly disappearing. Now that Mammon rules, that divorce is a means of notoriety, and that charity begins abroad with Mansion House funds for undeserving foreigners, while our starving unemployed clamour in their thousands for bread, the old order of things has, alas! changed.
The honest man – though, be it said, there are still honest, sterling men in business and out of it – goes to the wall and is dubbed a fool; while the master-thief, the smug swindler, the sweater, and the promoter of bogus companies may pay his money and obtain his baronetcy, or his seat in the House of Lords, and thus hall-mark himself with respectability.
While money talks, morality is an absent factor in life, and truth is but a travesty. Glance only at the list of subscribers to a Mansion House Fund, the very basis of which is the desire of the Lord Mayor who may happen to be in office to get his baronetcy, while its supporters are in the main part self-advertisers, or donations are given in order to establish an unstable confidence and extend a false credit. Thus, even in our charities, we have become humbugs, because the worship of the Golden Calf has bred cant, hypocrisy, and blatant self-confidence, which must ere long be the cause of our beloved country’s downfall beneath the iron-heel of far-seeing, business-like Germany.
Such reflections as these ran through my mind as that night I sat in the train watching the lights as we neared the great industrial centre on the Clyde. I was trying to peer into the future, but I only saw before me a misty horizon of unutterable despair.
I longed to meet Ethelwynn Greer, and put to her certain questions. Was it not a complete enigma, startling and inscrutable, that she, having seen her beloved father lying lifeless, should utter no word – even to young Langton, to whom she was evidently devoted? That fact was utterly incomprehensible.
At last the train slowed and drew into the great echoing station. On alighting I gave my bag to a porter and entered the big Caledonian Hotel adjoining. I had stayed there on previous occasions, and knew its huge dining-room, its long corridors, and its wide ramifications.
I registered in the name of Lamb, deeming it best to conceal my presence, and while writing in the book, scanned the page for Martin’s name. It was not, however, there. I turned back to earlier arrivals that day, but with no better result. So I ascended in the lift to my room on the second floor.
Of course, it was quite within the bounds of possibility that the false Professor might use yet another name if he wished to avoid being followed from Edinburgh. Besides, I had noticed that just as at the North British at Edinburgh, so here, telegrams were exhibited upon a board, and could be taken. Therefore, if a wire came in the name of Martin, he could quite easily claim it.
After a wash I wandered about the hotel, through the lounge, smoking-room, and the other of the public apartments. Yet how could I recognise a man who was disguised, and whom I had never seen?
I was placed at a disadvantage from the very first by never having met this man who had posed as the dead Professor. Yet with the knowledge that Kirk desired particularly to see him, I felt that there was a probability of their meeting, and that, if only I remained wary and watchful, I should come across, amid the hundreds of persons staying there, the mysterious dweller in Bedford Park.
From my arrival at eleven till half-past one I remained on the alert, but saw no one I knew. Therefore I retired to bed, thoroughly worn-out by that constant vigil. Yet I was in no way disheartened. The false Professor had started from Edinburgh for that destination, and was, I felt confident, staying there under another name. It only lay with me to unmask him, or to wait until the pair met clandestinely, and then to demand to know the truth.
Surely in all the annals of crime there had never been one so surrounded by complex circumstances as the tragedy of Sussex Place, and assuredly, too, no innocent man had been more ingeniously misled than my unfortunate self.
Next day, from eight o’clock in the morning till late at night, I idled about the big hotel, ever anxious and ever watchful. I kept an eye upon each arrival and each departure.
Then I became slowly and against my will, convinced that the false Professor had not come to that hotel, but had put up somewhere else, well knowing that he could obtain the telegraphic message from Kirk whenever he cared to step in and take it from the board.
Again, even though at the heels of the conspirators, was I yet being outwitted – a fact which became the more impressed upon me on the third day of my futile expectancy.
Hourly I watched that telegraph-board, intending to annex quietly any message addressed to Martin, and act upon any appointment it contained.
But, alas! my watchfulness remained unrewarded.
Twice there had arrived men slightly resembling the dead Professor, clean-shaven and active, but by careful observation I discovered that one was a commercial traveller whose samples had been left below in the station, and the other was a well-known iron merchant of Walsall.
The false Professor, the man who was plainly in association with the mysterious Kirk, was clearly in Glasgow, yet how was it possible for me to do more than I was doing towards his unmasking?
Put to yourself that problem, you, my friend, for whom I have chronicled this plain, unvarnished story of what actually occurred to me in the year of grace 1907, and inquire of yourself its solution.
“Who killed Professor Greer?”
Chapter Fourteen
A Remarkable Truth
The morning was cold, with fine driving rain, when at eight o’clock I alighted from a hansom before my own house in Bath Road, and entered with my latch-key. In the dining-room I found Annie, the housemaid, in the act of lighting the fire, but turning suddenly upon me with surprise, she exclaimed:
“Oh, sir! You gave me quite a turn! We didn’t expect to see you back again just yet.”
“Why not?” I inquired, with some surprise. “We thought you were with the mistress, sir.”
“With my wife. What do you mean?”
“Mrs Holford obeyed your telegram, sir, and has left for Italy.”
“For Italy!” I gasped. “Where’s Miss Gwen? Go and ask her if she can see me at once.” And I followed the maid upstairs.
In a few moments Gwen Raeburn, my wife’s sister, a young, pretty, dark girl of seventeen, who wore a big black bow in her hair, came out of her room wrapped in a blue kimono.
“Why, Harry!” she cried. “What’s the matter? I thought Mabel had gone to join you.”
“I’ve just come down from Glasgow, where I’ve been on business,” I explained. “Where is Mabel?”
“I don’t know, except that I saw her off from Victoria at eleven the day before yesterday.”
“But why has she gone?”
“To meet you,” replied the girl. “The morning before last, at a few minutes past eight, she received a telegram signed by you, urging her to meet you at the Hôtel Grande Bretagne in Florence at the earliest possible moment. Therefore she obeyed it at once, and left by the eleven o’clock train. It was a terrible rush to get her off, I can tell you. But haven’t you been in Florence?”
“No, I’ve been in Scotland,” I repeated. “Did you read the telegram she received?”
“Yes; it was very brief, but to the point. Mabel was annoyed that you had not told her the reason you had gone abroad without explanation. She feared that, in view of your preoccupied manner of late, something disastrous had happened to you. That’s why she left so hurriedly. I wanted to go with her, but she wouldn’t allow me.”
“I wish you had gone, Gwen,” I said. “There’s some plot here – some deep and treacherous conspiracy.”
“Why, what has happened?”
“A lot has happened,” I said. “You shall know it all later on. At present I haven’t time to explain. I suppose the telegram isn’t left about anywhere?”
“Mabel took it with her.”
“You didn’t notice whence it had been despatched?” I asked.
“From Turin. We concluded that you had halted there, on your way from Paris.”
I was silent. What plot had those blackguards formed against me and mine! Why had my dear wife Mabel been decoyed out to Italy by them? I grew apprehensive and furious.
My sister-in-law descended with me to the dining-room. She saw my agitation, and after the first surprise had worn off tried to calm me.
“There’s a perfectly feasible explanation, I’m sure, Harry,” she said. “Perhaps it is some practical joke being played upon you and Mabel by your friends. They want you out in the South for a week or two to escape from the cold and wet of the London spring. I wouldn’t worry, if I were you.”
“Ah, Gwen!” I sighed. “You are unaware of all the grim circumstances,” I said. “There’s a serious conspiracy here, I’m convinced. The hand of a secret enemy has been lifted against me.”
Had that crafty servant at Sussex Place dispatched the false message, I wondered? Or was it Kirk himself? And if so, with what motive? Was Mabel, my beloved and devoted wife, to fall helplessly into their unscrupulous hands? My blood rose within me when I reflected how innocently I had walked into the trap which my mysterious neighbour had prepared for me.
I took up a Bradshaw, and saw that if I left Charing Cross by the boat-train at 2:20 I might, by good chance, catch the night mail for Italy by the Mont Cenis from the Gare de Lyon. I could only do it if we ran into the Gare du Nord in time. But from experience I knew that the afternoon service to Paris was pretty punctual, and one usually arrived in the French capital about 9:20. Then, by the aid of a taxi-cab, I could get across to the Lyons station in time.
So I decided to make the attempt. I had been in Italy several times when a youth, and knew Italian fairly well. My father, before the smash in his fortunes, had rented a villa for several years up at Vallombrosa, in the chestnut-clad mountains above Florence.
“May I come with you, Harry?” pleaded my sister-in-law. “If Mabel is in any danger it is only right that you should take me to her.”
I knew how devoted the girl was to her sister. A year ago she had come to us from Caen, where she had been at school, and among the languages in which she was proficient was Italian. I hardly cared, in the circumstances, to leave her alone; therefore, although a big hole must be made in my slender bank account, I resolved to take a second ticket for her.
When I announced my decision her dark eyes sparkled with delight, and she clapped her hands.
“You are a real good brother, Harry!” she cried. “I don’t want any breakfast. I’ll go and begin to pack at once. I’ve never been in Italy, you know.”
I told her that in the circumstances of the rush we must make across Paris I could only allow her hand-luggage, and she sped away upstairs to put on her frock and to commence placing her necessaries together.
Afterwards, greatly agitated and full of dark apprehension, I got on, by telephone, to the Wagon-Lit office in Pall Mall, and reserved berths for us both on the Rome express from Paris as far as Pisa, where I knew we would be compelled to change. Then I addressed a long telegram to Mabel at the Hôtel Grande Bretagne, on the Lung’ Arno, at Florence, explaining that she was the victim of a bogus message, but that we were rejoining her at once, in order to bring her home.
I judged that she must already have arrived in Florence, but unfortunately there would be no time to receive a reply ere we left London.
Having despatched the message, I went round to the garage, and, telling Pelham of my sudden call abroad, gave him certain instructions, drew a cheque for wages, and otherwise left things in order.
Then I called upon Miss Kirk, but she denied all knowledge of her brother’s whereabouts. The Times, which I had just bought in the High Road, Chiswick, contained no advertised message from him. Nor did I expect any.
My intention now was one of bitter retaliation. I had been befooled by the man who I had proved held secret knowledge of the mode of the poor Professor’s tragic end. By this message to my wife someone had touched my honour, and I intended that he should dearly pay for it.
Gwen, girl-like, was all excitement at the prospect of this flying journey to the south. At one moment she endeavoured to reassure me that nothing was wrong, while at the next she expressed wonder at the motive of the mysterious message.
At last, however, we found ourselves seated in the corners of a first-class carriage, slowly crossing the Thames on the first stage of our dash to Italy. The outlook was grey and cheerless, precursory, indeed, of a dismal conclusion to our journey to the far-off land of sunshine. We got out at Folkestone Harbour, however, well to time, and that evening were fortunately only seven minutes late in arriving at the Gare du Nord. We had dined in the train, so, therefore, entering a taxi-cab, we were soon whirled across Paris to the Gare de Lyon, where we had only eight minutes to spare before the departure of the rapide for Rome.
All that night, as I lay alone in my sleeping-berth while the great express rocked and rolled on its way to the Alpine frontier, my mind was full of gravest apprehensions. Gwen had been given a berth with another lady at the further end of the car, and I had already seen that she was comfortable for the night. Then I had turned in to spend those long dreary hours in wakeful fear.
I could discern no motive for inveigling my wife – with whom Kirk had never spoken – to a destination abroad. Yet one curious point was quite plain. That mysterious dweller in Bath Road – the man with the pet parrot – was well aware of my absence in the north. Otherwise he would not have forged my name to a message sent from Turin.
For what reason could he desire Mabel’s presence in Florence? He must have some object in her absence. Perhaps he foresaw that her absence meant also my absence – and that my enforced journey meant a relaxation of the vigil I had established upon the man who had gone north on the night of the Professor’s assassination. That was the only feasible theory I could form, and I accepted it for want of any better. But in what a whirlwind of doubt and fear, of dark apprehensions and breathless anxiety I now existed you may well imagine.
Gwen, looking fresh and bright and smart in her blue serge gown, came to me next morning, and we had our coffee together at a wayside station. Though we sat together through the morning hours until we stopped at the frontier at Modane, she refrained from referring to the reason of Mabel’s call abroad. The young girl was devoted to her sister, yet she did not wish to pain or cause me any more anxiety than was necessary.
After passing through the great tunnel, emerging on the Italian side and coming to Turin, where we waited an hour, the journey became uneventful through the afternoon and evening until the great bare station of Pisa was reached, shortly before midnight.
Here we exchanged into a very cold and very slow train which, winding its way in the moonlight through the beautiful Arno valley all the night, halted at the Florence terminus early in the glorious Italian morning.
“Fi-renze! Fi-renze!” cried the sleepy porters; and we alighted with only about half a dozen other passengers who had travelled by that treno lumaca– or snail-train, as the Tuscans justly call it.
Then, taking one of those little open cabs so beloved by the Florentines, we drove at once to the well-known hotel which faces the Arno, close to the Ponte Vecchio.
Florence, in the silence of early morning, looked delightful, her old churches and ponderous palaces standing out sharply against the clear, blue sky, while, as we passed a side street we caught sight, at the end of the vista, of the wonderful black-and-white façade of the Duomo, of Giotto’s Campanile, and Brunelleschi’s wondrous red-tiled dome.
A few moments later we stepped from the cab and entered the wide, marble-floored hall of the hotel.
“You have a Mrs Holford staying here?” I asked in English of the manager, who was already in his bureau.
“Hol-ford,” he repeated, consulting the big frame of names and numbers before him. “Ah, yes, sir; I remember! But – ” He hesitated, and then inquired, “Will you pardon me if I ask who you may be?”
“I’m Henry Holford, madame’s husband,” I replied promptly.
And then the man told us something which caused us to stare at each other in speechless amazement.
The man was a liar – and I told him so openly to his face.
His astounding words rendered the remarkable enigma more complex than ever!
