The Stolen Statesman: Being the Story of a Hushed Up Mystery

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

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

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

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

Chapter Ten.

In the Lobby of the House

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What is his address?”