The Red Room

“Said they’d heard about it – that was all,” my manager replied. “Both men wanted to take all sorts of measurements, but I told them they’d better buy a set outright. I fancy it’s some inventor’s game. Somebody has got a scheme to improve on it, I expect, and bring it out as a British patent.”

But I kept my counsel and said nothing. I was already convinced that behind these three visits there was something unusual, and I determined to endeavour to extract the truth from Kershaw Kirk.

Little did I dream the reason why the Eckhardt tyre was being so closely scrutinised by strangers. Little, likewise, did I dream of the curious events which were to follow, or the amazing whirl of adventure into which I was to be so suddenly launched.

But I will set it all down just as it happened, and try to present you with the complete and straightforward narrative – a narrative which will show you what strange things can happen to a peaceful, steady-going, hard-working citizen in this Greater London of ours to-day.

Chapter Two

Some Strange Facts

Mr Kirk opened his front door himself that evening, and conducted me to a cosy study at the end of the hall, where a fire burned brightly.

In a black velvet lounge coat, a fancy vest, and bright, bead-embroidered slippers, he beamed a warm welcome upon me, and drew up a big saddle-bag arm-chair. From what I had seen of the house, I was surprised at its taste and elegance. There was certainly no sign of poverty there. The study was furnished with solid comfort, and the volumes that lined it were the books of a studious man.

The cigar he offered me was an exquisite one, though he himself preferred his well-coloured meerschaum, which he filled from an old German tobacco bowl. In one corner of the room stood his pet, a large grey parrot in a cage, which he now and then addressed in the course of his conversation.

One of his eccentricities was to think audibly and address his thoughts to his queer companion, whose name was Joseph.

We must have been chatting for fully half an hour when I mentioned to him that two other persons had called that afternoon to inspect the new Eckhardt tyre, whereupon he suddenly started forward in his chair and exclaimed:

“One of the men wore a dark beard and was slightly bald, while the other was a fair man, much younger – eh?”

I explained that my manager, Pelham, had seen them, whereupon he breathed more freely; yet my announcement seemed to have created within him undue consternation and alarm.

He pressed the tobacco very carefully and deliberately into his pipe, but made no further comment.

At last, raising his head and looking straight across at me, he said:

“I may as well explain, Mr Holford, that I had an ulterior motive in asking you in this evening. The fact is, I am sorely in want of a friend – one in whom I can trust. I suppose,” he added – “I suppose I ought to tell you something concerning myself. Well, I’m a man with many acquaintances, but very few friends. My profession? Well, that is surely my own affair. It often takes me far afield, and sometimes causes me to keep queer company. The fact is,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation, “I’m a dealer in secrets.”

“A dealer in secrets!” I echoed. “I don’t quite follow you.”

“The secrets sometimes confided to my keeping would, if I betrayed them, create a worldwide sensation,” he said slowly, looking straight into the fire. “At times I am in possession of ugly facts concerning my fellow-men which would eclipse any of the scandals of the past twenty years. And at this moment, as I tell you, I am in sad need of a friend.”

He was quick to notice the expression upon my face.

“I want no financial aid,” he hastened to assure me. “On the contrary, if at any time I can be of any little assistance to you, I generally have a few pounds lying idle.”

I thanked him, my curiosity growing greater. He was seated in a big, high-backed grandfather’s chair, his head leaning against the padded side, his gaze, a trifle melancholy, fixed upon the dancing flames. At his back was an open roll-top writing-table, very tidy, with a clean blotting-pad, and everything in its place, spick and span.

“To be quite frank with you, Mr Holford,” he said, “I may as well tell you that an incident has occurred which has rendered it necessary that I should come to you, a comparative stranger, for friendship and assistance. Ah,” he added, with a sharp and curious glance at me, “I see that you don’t trust me! You should never judge a man by his clothes.”

“I never do,” I protested. “But you haven’t explained the reason why you are so anxious for my friendship!”

For a few minutes he was silent. Then, of a sudden, he turned to the big grey parrot and asked in a shrill, squeaky tone, almost a croak: “Shall I tell him, Joseph? Shall I tell him?”

“Good night!” answered the loquacious bird. “Good night! Good night! Josef!”

“Well,” my host said slowly, knocking the ashes from his pipe into the fender, “it is a matter, a serious and very curious affair, of which as yet the public have no knowledge. Some things are not allowed to leak out to the papers. This is one of them. I wonder,” he went on thoughtfully, after a pause – “I wonder if I told you whether you would keep the secret?”

“Certainly,” I said, full of curiosity, for I could not see Kirk’s motive in asking my assistance, and my natural caution now asserted itself.

“By the way,” he echoed suddenly, “do you know any other language besides English?”

“I know French fairly well,” I replied, “and a smattering of Italian.”

“Nothing else? German, for instance?”

I replied in the negative.

He rose, and relit his pipe with a spill. Then he chatted for some minutes with Joseph, all the time, it seemed, reflecting upon what he should say to me. At last, reseating himself in his old-fashioned chair, he again looked me straight in the face and said:

“You have given me your promise of silence, Mr Holford. I accept it from one whom I have watched closely for a long time, and whom I know to be a gentleman. Now I am going to tell you something which will probably alarm you. A crime, a very serious crime, has been committed in London during the past forty-eight hours, and I, Kershaw Kirk, am implicated in it – or, rather, suspected of it!”

I sat staring at the man before me, too surprised to reply. He had always been an enigma, and the mystery about him was increasing.

“Tell me more,” I urged at last, looking into the face of the suspected criminal. “Who is the victim?”

“At present I am keeping the affair a strict secret,” he said. “There are reasons, very potent reasons, why the public should not know of the tragedy. Nowadays publicity is the curse of life. At last the Home Office have recognised this. I told you that I am a holder of secrets. Well, besides myself, not more than three persons are aware of the astounding affair.”

“And you are suspected as the assassin?” I remarked.

“Unfortunately, I shall be,” was his reply, and I saw that his countenance fell; “I foresee it. That is why I require your aid – the aid of a man who is honest, and who is a gentleman as well.”

And he broke off again to chatter to Joseph, who was keeping up a continual screeching.

“I am anxious to hear details of the affair,” I said eagerly.

“I wish I could tell you the details,” he answered, with a bitter smile; “but I am not aware of them myself. The affair is a mystery – one of which even the police must be kept in ignorance.”

“Haven’t the police been informed?”

“No,” was his prompt reply. “In certain cases information to the police means publicity. In this case, as I’ve already told you, there must be no publicity. Therefore, though a crime has been committed, it is being kept from the police, who, not knowing the facts, must only bungle the inquiries, and whose limited scope of inquiry would only result in failure.”

“You interest me, Mr Kirk. Relate the known facts to me,” I said. “Why, pray, will you be suspected of being a murderer?”

“Well,” he said, with a long-drawn sigh, “because – well, because I had everything to gain by the death of the murdered person. He had filched from me a very valuable secret.”

“Then the murdered person was not your friend?”

“No; my enemy,” he replied. “You, Mr Holford, as an Englishman, will no doubt think it impossible that I may be arrested, tried in secret, and sent to penal servitude for life for a crime of which I am innocent. You believe that every man in this isle of unrest of ours must have a fair trial by judge and jury. Yet I tell you that there are exceptions. There are certain men in England who would never be brought before a criminal court. I am one of them.”

At first I was inclined to regard Kirk as a madman, yet on looking into his face I saw an expression of open earnestness, and somehow I felt that he was telling me the curious truth.

“I certainly thought there were no exceptions,” I said.

“I am one of the few,” he replied. “They dare not place me in a criminal dock.”