The Red Room

“He vaguely answers that certain matters concerning a great scientific discovery he has made compel him at present to hold aloof from both family and friends. He fears, I think, that someone who has discovered his secret may betray it.”

“But surely Ethelwynn would not?” I cried. “I desire to see the Professor because I feel confident he can, if he will, explain the motive of the trap into which my wife has fallen.”

“If he refuses to see his own daughter he will hardly see you,” remarked the dark-faced doctor. “Under exactly what circumstances has Mrs Holford disappeared?”

I briefly explained, at the same time regarding the round-shouldered specialist with some antagonism. To me, it appeared as though he were erecting an invisible barrier between myself and the knowledge of the truth. He seemed entirely Langton’s friend, corroborating his every word.

And the more curious became his attitude when at last I remarked with firm and resolute air:

“Well, if Professor Greer refuses to see me, then I shall invoke the aid of the police. They will probably very soon discover him, wherever he may be.”

“I hardly think that would be a wise policy,” remarked Flynn, tossing his cigar-end into the fire, and rising quickly from his chair, “unless, of course, you could make some direct charge against him.”

I was silent for a moment.

“And if I did? What then?” I asked, speaking boldly in a clear voice, my eyes fixed upon his, for remember I was fighting for knowledge of my dear wife’s whereabouts.

“Well – if you did,” was his deliberate reply, “it would be you yourself that would suffer, Mr Holford, and no one else.”

Was it not astounding, startling?

This doctor, the bosom friend of Ethelwynn’s lover, had given me exactly the same threatening reply as Antonio had given me on the Pincian in Rome.

What could it mean? The reason why the false Professor was avoiding friends and enemies alike was, of course, sufficiently plain to me. But for what reason was my well-beloved Mabel, the loving wife whom I adored, held in the unscrupulous hands of those who killed Professor Greer?

And why was every effort of mine to discover her met only by threats of impending disaster?

I gazed at the two men before me in silent defiance.

If it cost me my own life I intended to discover her and hold her dear form once again in my arms.

She was mine – mine before God and before man; and these persons seeking for some mysterious motive to shield the false Professor should not further stand in the way of justice.

“You think I dare not go to the police!” I cried at last. “Very well, if you care to come with me to Scotland Yard now – for I am going straight there – I will, in the presence of both of you, unfold a strange tale which they’ll be very much surprised to hear.”

“You believe you know the truth!” laughed Langton. “No, my dear Holford. Don’t be such a fool! The police cannot help in this affair, for the mystery is far too complicated. Keep your own counsel.”

“Yes,” I sneered, “and depend upon the man of whom you have denied all knowledge – the man Kershaw Kirk.”

“Kershaw Kirk!” gasped the doctor, and I saw that he went pale, his dark eyes starting from his head. “Do you know him? Is he – is he your friend, Mr Holford – or —or your enemy?”

Chapter Nineteen

Gwen Reveals Something

It struck me that this keen-eyed, crafty-faced, round-shouldered specialist in diseases of the throat intended to profit by information derived from me regarding the mysterious Kirk. Why, I did not know. We all of us have at times a strange intuition of impending evil, one that we cannot account for and cannot describe.

Recollect, I was only just an ordinary man, a hard-working industrious dealer in motor-cars, a man who made a fair income, who was no romancer, and was entirely devoted to his wife, who had, ever since his marriage, been his best friend and adviser.

The Professor was a scientist, I remembered, and this man Hamilton Flynn was apparently a doctor of some note. Could there be any connection between the pair, I wondered. Flynn, Langton’s most intimate friend, was no doubt aware of much, if not all, that transpired in the Professor’s household. That he knew Kershaw Kirk was apparent by his surprise when I mentioned his name.

“Kirk is a mere acquaintance of mine,” I responded, after a brief pause; “whether he is my friend, or my enemy, remains to be seen.”

“He’s your enemy, depend upon that, Mr Holford,” declared Flynn emphatically. “He is a marvellously clever schemer, and the friend of few.”

I bit my lip. Well did I know, alas! that the fellow whose asides to his pet “Joseph” were so entertaining was not my friend.

It was upon my tongue to explain how the description of that man who was travelling with my wife in search of me tallied with that of my strange neighbour who had, with such subtle cunning, drawn me into that mysterious tragedy. But next second I hesitated. This man Flynn I mistrusted. My impression was that he was not playing a straight game, either with myself or with his friend Leonard Langton.

A thousand questions I had to ask those men – and Langton especially – but I saw by their attitude that their intention was rather to mislead me than to reveal anything. When I presently bade them farewell neither of them offered to assist me in my search for Mabel.

Therefore I went forth into the darkness and silence of Wimpole Street – for it was now near midnight – and walked down into Oxford Street ere I could find a taxi-cab to convey me back to my now cheerless home.

Lying awake that night, I decided to postpone my journey to Germany. It was evident that the impostor passing himself off as the Professor had taken my telegram purporting to come from Kirk as a warning, and had escaped. I had been a fool to telegraph. I should have gone there instead. His reason for keeping up the fiction that the Professor was alive was, of course, obvious, for while he did so there would be no inquiry into the whereabouts of the missing man.

I had made a promise to Kershaw Kirk, yet now that he had so grossly deceived me, why should I keep it? Why should I not tell the truth?

I reflected; there were, I saw, three reasons why I should still preserve silence. The first was because, after that lapse of time, I should be suspected, perhaps arrested, as an accomplice and dragged through a criminal court. The second was that Ethelwynn herself was, for some amazing reason, pretending that her father still lived; and the third was by reason of the strange threat of Mabel’s death uttered by the evil-faced Italian, and repeated by that Harley Street specialist who was Leonard Langton’s closest friend.

The assassins were actually holding my dear wife as hostage against any revelation I dared to make! That, in a word, was the true position.

I paced my room that night in the agony of despair. Of nothing did I think but the dear, sweet-faced woman so suddenly enticed away from my side by reason of her eagerness to meet me. She was a woman of high ideals and of lofty sentiments; a womanly woman who, though fond of a little gaiety and of the theatre, realised that her place was in her own home, where she reigned supreme.

Before my marriage my father, as fathers will, had looked upon her with considerable misgiving. She was a little too flighty, too fond of dress, of dinners, and dances, he had said. But after our wedding and our honeymoon spent in a car touring up in Scotland, she had settled down, and never for a single instant had I regretted my choice. Few men could say that.

Indeed, up to that day when Kershaw Kirk called to inspect the Eckhardt tyre, I was one of the happiest men in all London; prosperous in my business, and contented in my love.

Now, alas! all had changed. I was obsessed by the knowledge of a great and startling secret, and at the same time I had lost all that to me was most dear and cherished.

Next morning Gwen, fresh in her clean cotton blouse, and the big black bow in her hair, sat in her accustomed place at the breakfast table, but after greeting me lapsed into a thoughtful silence.

At last she asked: “Have you packed your things, Harry?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you!” I exclaimed. “I’m not going to-day. I’ve changed my mind.”

“Not going? Why, I thought you intended to see the Professor in Strassburg?” she cried.

“He has left,” I sighed; “I learned last night that he is on his way to Hungary.”

“And will you not follow?” asked the girl in reproach. “Will you not try to discover where Mabel is?”

“I’ve tried, Gwen – and failed,” I answered despairingly.

“You have not told me all, Harry,” she said, looking across at me. At the head of the table was Mabel’s empty place. “You have concealed something from me,” she declared.

“It is nothing that you should know,” was my quick reply. “My own private business does not concern you, Gwen – or Mabel either.”

“But surely I ought to know the truth? Mabel has been decoyed away abroad, and there must be some motive for it,” she replied in bitter complaint.