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

Here the fluent Mr Boyle made another of his grotesque bows to lend point to the compliment, and again Smeaton inclined his head politely. He had not as yet quite taken his bearings with regard to this extraordinary creature.

“To such persons, Mr Smeaton, I do not take the trouble to reveal my identity; it would be a waste of time. It is my invariable practice to go straight to the fountain-head when I have anything of importance to communicate.” Here Mr Boyle swelled out his chest, and said in a voice of intense conviction: “I have no toleration for whipper-snappers, and those, sir, are what one finds, spreading like a fungus, in every department of our public life.”

It seemed to the police official’s well-balanced mind that his visitor was a pompous ass, with a slight suspicion of insanity thrown in. He was not a man to suffer fools gladly, but this particular fool had called on him for some purpose, and he must exercise patience till the purpose was revealed.

He must bear with him and coax him. For he felt intuitively that Boyle was one of those men who take a long time in coming to the point.

“We are always happy to receive information here,” he said courteously. “You will understand that I am a very busy man.”

If he thought such a direct hint would arrest the flow of his visitor’s fatal fluency, he was grievously mistaken. Boyle raised an arresting hand, and indulged in some more contortions of arms and hands.

“I recognise the fact, sir, I fully recognise it. A man in your responsible position must find the working hours all too short for what you have to do. You bear upon your shoulders, capable as they are, the weight of Atlas, if I may say so.”

Smeaton had to smile, in spite of himself, at the fanciful imagery. “Not quite so bad as that, Mr Boyle. But a lot has to be got into a limited time, and therefore – ”

But his sentence was not allowed to finish. “Say no more, sir, on that head. I can understand that the time of a valuable official is not to be wasted; in short, that you wish me to come to the point.”

Smeaton nodded his head vigorously. Perhaps there was some remnant of common-sense in the creature after all.

Mr Boyle gracefully threw one leg over the other, bestowed upon the detective an affable but somewhat mechanical smile, and resumed his discourse.

“Before coming to the reason of my visit, I must trouble you with a few details of my family history, in order that you may know something of the person you are dealing with. I promise you I shall not be prolix.”

Smeaton groaned inwardly, but he knew he was helpless. As well try to stop a cataract in full flood as arrest the resistless flow of Mr Boyle’s glib fluency.

“I may tell you I am something of an athlete. I played two years in the Winchester Eleven. I rowed in my College boat. If I had stopped on a year longer I should have rowed for the ‘Varsity.’”

He paused, probably to ascertain the effect produced upon his listener by these deeds of prowess. Smeaton exhorted him to proceed, in a faint voice.

“Enough of those early days, when the youthful blood ran in one’s veins like some potent wine. Manhood succeeded the school and college days. I am telling you all this because, as you will perceive presently, it has some bearing upon my visit to you.”

He paused again, to mark the effect of his glowing periods. And again Smeaton, in a voice grown fainter, bade him get on with his story.

Suddenly the weird visitor rose, stretched himself to his full height, and with a dramatic gesture pointed a long, lean finger at the harassed detective. His voice rose and fell with the fervour of his pent-up feelings.

“The man you look upon to-day is only the shadow of what he was in his early prime. The name of Caleb Boyle was well-known about town, in the busy haunts of men. I have sat at great men’s tables, I have partaken of delicate fare, I have quaffed rare wines, fair ladies have favoured me with their smiles.”

He paused for a moment, dropped the pointing hand, and sat down again on his chair, seemingly overcome with his own rhetoric. Smeaton regarded him steadily, uncertain as to what new form his eccentricity would take, but spoke no word.

In a few seconds he had recovered himself, and smiled wanly at his companion.

“Enough of that. You are a man of vast experience, and you have seen men and cities. But I bet you would never guess that not so many years ago I was one of the young bloods of this town, one of what our neighbours across the Channel call the jeunesse dorée.”

And at last Smeaton was moved to speech. He looked at the well-cut but worn clothes; he remembered Winchester and Cambridge; he recognised the flamboyant and ill-controlled temperament. He drew his deductions swiftly.

“You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth,” he said bluntly; “you had every advantage that birth and education could give you. Through some fatal tendency, perhaps inherited, you threw away all your chances, and are living on your memories – and very little else.”

So far from being offended with this plain exposition of facts, Mr Boyle smiled affably, and, leaning forward, patted the detective approvingly on the shoulder.

“You’re a man after my own heart, sir; you go to the very marrow of things. You have hit it off correctly. But mark you, I regret nothing; I would alter nothing if the time came over again. I have lived, sir: warmed both hands at the fire of life; filled the cup of enjoyment to the brim. Nothing has daunted me, nothing ever will daunt me. Old as I am, derelict as I may be, I still look the world in the face, and, in the words of the poet, ‘Stand four-square to all the winds that blow.’”

Smeaton stirred uncomfortably. Was the man simply an original kind of beggar, and was all this the preface to a request for a modest loan? He had assurance enough for anything!

“Mr Boyle, my time is really very much occupied. May I beg you to come to the point, and state the object of your visit? These personal reminiscences and reflections are, of course, highly interesting, but – ” He made an eloquent pause.

“I have transgressed, I have abused your patience,” observed this singular man, in a voice of contrition; “I came to ask you a simple question, and here it is, plain, straight, and put as briefly as possible: What is at the bottom of Reginald Monkton’s disappearance?”

Smeaton looked up sharply. “Who says that he has disappeared?” he asked with some asperity.

Mr Boyle smiled blandly. “Why beat about the bush? Monkton is not in his place in the House. There is not a line in the papers about his movements, except that he is on the Riviera. The public may not yet have tumbled to it. But Fleet Street knows. The House of Commons knows. The clubs know. And last – you and I know. I still have some connection with the world in which I was once not an insignificant figure.”

Smeaton hardly knew what to answer. The man had every quality that offended his well-ordered mind, but he was not the absolute fool he had taken him for.

“Cannot a statesman, worn out and weary with hard work, take a brief holiday without letting loose all these absurd rumours?” he asked with pretended petulance.

Mr Boyle shrugged his shoulders. “My dear sir, I know as well as you do that this matter is in your hands, and you are hushing it up in the hopes that you will find a solution, and avoid a scandal. So far you have failed. If you had succeeded, either Monkton would have been back by now, or you would know of his death, and there would have been a public explanation. You have failed, and do you know why?”

“I shall be very glad to know why,” Smeaton replied, goaded into a half-admission by the contemptuous tone of the other man.

“Because, although you have some very clever men here you want a leavening of men of different calibre. It is good to know every corner of the slums, to be acquainted with every incident in the career of burglar Bill and light-fingered Jack, to know the haunts of all the international thieves and forgers and anarchists. That is sound and useful knowledge.”

“I am glad you think so,” said Smeaton sarcastically.

“In a case like this, however, you want another sort of knowledge altogether,” pursued Mr Boyle, callously indifferent to the detective’s sarcasm. “You want a man who has mixed in the big world from his boyhood, who knows all the ins and outs, all the intrigue of social life, all the gossip, all the scandal that has been going round the clubs and drawing-rooms for the last forty years.”

“In other words, men like yourself – eh? We have plenty such in our pay.”

“But they are not a recognised part of your official organisation,” rejoined Mr Boyle quickly. “As you are kind enough to suggest myself,” he added modestly, “I think I may say that in certain cases I should earn my salary. But I admit that at the burglar business I should be no use at all.”

There was a long silence. Smeaton was trying to smother his indignation. He had taken a dislike to the man from the first moment he had set eyes upon him. His long-windedness, his self-conceit, his grotesque gestures, his assumption of superiority, his gibes at Scotland Yard methods, had added to it. But he must bear with him; he was sure that Boyle had something more to say before he took his leave.

Mr Boyle pursued his discourse, quite unconscious of the other’s antipathy.

“In spite of troubles that would have crushed a weaker man, I think I have worn well: I am frequently taken for ten years younger than I am. As a fact, there is only one year’s difference between Monkton and myself. We were at a tutor’s together, and we went up to Cambridge in the same year.”

Smeaton breathed a sigh of relief. He had an intuition that at last this exasperating person was coming to the point.

“The Monkton of those days was very different from the Monkton of later years – the keen politician, the statesman conscious of the grave responsibilities of office. He was full of fun and go, one of a band of choice spirits who kept things lively, and, as a matter of course, got into many scrapes, and came more than once into conflict with the authorities.”

Smeaton listened intently. This was certainly not the prevalent idea of the statesman who had so mysteriously disappeared.

“I saw a great deal of him afterwards. We moved in much the same set. He married early, and everybody said that he was devotedly attached to his wife. So, no doubt, he was. At the same time, he had been a great admirer of the fair sex, and it was rumoured that there had been tender passages between him and several well-known ladies occupying high positions in society.”

The flamboyant manner had departed. For the moment he seemed an ordinary, sensible man, setting forth a sober statement of actual fact.

“There was one lady, in particular, with whom his name was especially connected. She was at that time some live or six years younger than Monkton, and married – people said, against her will – to a very unpopular nobleman much older than herself, who was madly jealous of her. It was reported at the clubs that the husband strongly resented Monkton’s attentions, and that on one occasion a fracas had taken place between the two men, in which Monkton had been severely handled. Some corroboration was lent to the statement by the fact that he did not appear in the Courts for a week after the occurrence was supposed to have taken place.”

“Did this fracas to which you allude take place before or after his marriage?” asked the detective.