The Red Room

“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.