The Red Room

“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!

Chapter Fifteen

A Man Deceives a Woman

The story told me by the bald-headed Italian hotel-keeper was that another man had usurped my place!

He said that Mrs Holford, accompanied by her husband, had arrived at about seven o’clock on the morning of the day before yesterday, remained there the day, and had left by the express for Rome at five o’clock that same evening.

“You don’t believe it, sir!” the man exclaimed with some warmth. “Well, here is the gentleman’s signature!” And he showed me upon a printed slip, whereon hotel visitors in Italy write their names according to the police regulations, boldly inscribed in a firm hand, “Mr and Mrs Henry Holford. Profession, automobile engineer. Domicile, London. British subject.”

I stared at the words utterly confounded. Somebody had assumed my identity! Yet how was that possible with Mabel present?

“What kind of man was madame’s husband?” I inquired, while my sister-in-law stood by astounded.

“He was slightly older than yourself, sir, with a moustache turning grey.”

Surely it could not be that arch-scoundrel Kershaw Kirk!

“Was he about fifty, and rather thin?”

“Yes,” replied the hôtelier. “He spoke Italian very well; indeed, with scarcely any accent.”

My suspicion at once fell upon Kirk. Yet how could he so impose upon Mabel as to be allowed to pass as her husband? She had never before spoken to the fellow, and had, I knew, held him in instinctive dislike.

“They were out all yesterday morning driving up to Fiesole,” he added.

“You don’t happen to know to which hotel they’ve gone in Rome?” I asked.