The Pauper of Park Lane

Max had devoted the greater part of his time to endeavouring to elucidate the mystery, but had failed ignominiously. The statement made by Marion concerning what seemed to be some confession of Maud’s greatly puzzled him. His well-beloved was loyal to her friend, and would not betray her. Times without number he had reverted to the question, but she always evaded his questions.

Only a few evenings before, while they were seated at one of the little tables on the lawn of the Welcome Club at the Earl’s Court Exhibition, of which he was a member, he had again referred to Maud, and asked her, in the interests of his inquiry, to give him some idea of what she had stated on that night when they last met.

“I really cannot tell you, Max,” was her reply, as she lifted her eyes to his in the dim light shed by the coloured lamps with which the place was illuminated. “Have I not already told you of the promise I gave her? You surely do not wish me to break it! Would it be fair, or just? I’m sure you, who are always loyal to a woman, would never wish me to mention what she told me.”

“Of course. If it is anything against her reputation – her honour – then it is certainly best left unsaid,” he replied quickly. “Only – well, I – I thought, perhaps, it might give us a clue to the motive of their unaccountable flight.”

“Perhaps it might,” she admitted; “and yet I cannot tell you.”

“Does Charlie know? Would he tell me, do you think?”

“I don’t think Charlie knows. At any rate, she would not tell him. If he does know, it must be through some other source.”

“And you anticipate that what Maud told you had some connection with their sudden disappearance?” he asked, looking steadfastly into the face of the woman he dearly loved.

“I’ve already told you so.”

“But when you parted from her that night, did you believe that you would not meet her again?”

She was silent, looking straight before her at the crowd of idlers circulating around the illuminated bandstand and enjoying the music and the cool air after the stifling London day.

At last she spoke, saying in a low, rather strained voice:

“I can hardly answer that question. Had I suspected anything unusual I think I should have mentioned my apprehension to you.”

“Yes, I feel sure you would have done, dearest,” he declared. “I quite see the difficulty of your present position. And you understand, I’m quite sure, how anxious I feel regarding the safety of the doctor, who was such a dear friend of mine.”

“But why are you so anxious, Max?” she asked.

“Because if – well, if there had not been foul play, I should have heard from the doctor before this!” he said seriously.

“Foul play?” she gasped, starting forward. “Do you suspect some – some tragedy, then?”

“Yes, Marion,” was his low, earnest reply. “I do.”

“But why?” she queried. “Remember that the doctor was a diplomat and statesman. In Servia politics are very complex, as they are, I’m told, in every young nation. Our own English history was a strange and exciting one when we were the present age of Servia. The people killed King Alexander, it is true; but did we not kill King Charles?”

“Then you think that some political undercurrent is responsible for this disappearance?” he suggested.

“That has more than once crossed my mind.”

“Yet would he not have sent word to me in secret?”

“No. He might fear spies. You yourself have told me how secret agents swarm in the Balkan countries, and that espionage is as bad there as in Russia.”

“But we are in London – not in Servia.”

“There are surely secret agents of the Servian Opposition party here in London!” she said. “You were telling me something about them once – some facts which the doctor had revealed to you.”

“Yes, I remember,” he remarked thoughtfully, feeling that in her argument there was much truth. “Yet I have a kind of intuition of the occurrence of some tragedy, Marion,” he added, recollecting how her brother had stolen in secret from that denuded house.

“Well, I think, dear, that your fears are quite groundless,” she declared. “I know how the affair is worrying you, and how much you respected the dear old doctor. But, if I were you, I would wait in patience. He will surely send you word some day from some remote corner of the earth. Suppose he had sailed for India, South America, or South Africa, for instance? There would have been no time for him to write to you from his hiding-place.”

“Then he is in hiding – eh?” asked Max, eager to seize on any word of, hers that might afford a clue to the strange statement of Maud.

“He may be.”

“Is that your opinion?”

“I suspect as much.”

“Then you do not believe there has been a tragedy?”

“I believe only in what I know,” replied the girl with wisdom.

“And you know there has not been a tragedy?”

“Ah! no. There you are quite mistaken. I have no knowledge whatsoever.”

“Only surmise?”

“Only surmise.”

“Based upon what Maud told you – eh?” he asked at last, bringing the conversation to the point.

“What Maud told me has nothing whatever to do with my surmise,” was her quick reply. “It is a surmise, pure and simple.”

“And you have no foundation of fact for it?”

“None, dear.”

Max was disappointed. He sat smoking, staring straight before him. At the tables around, beneath the trees, well-dressed people were chatting and laughing in the dim light, while the military band opposite played the newest waltz. But he heard it not. He was only thinking of how he could clear up the mystery of the strange disappearance of his dearest friend. He glanced at the soft face of the sweet girl at his side, that was so full of affection and yet so sphinx-like.

She would tell him nothing. Again and again she had refused to betray the confidence of her friend.

For the thousandth time he reflected upon that curious and startling incident which he had seen with his own eyes in Cromwell Road, and of the inexplicable discovery he had made. He had not met Rolfe. That he should keep away from him was, in itself, suspicious. Without a doubt he knew the truth.

Max wondered whether Charlie had told his sister anything – whether he had told her the truth, and the reason of her determination not to speak was not to incriminate him. He knew in what strong affection she held her brother – how she always tried to shield his faults and magnify his virtues. Yet was it not only what might be very naturally supposed that she would do? Charlie was always very good to her. To him, she owed practically everything.

And so he pondered, smoking in silence while the band played and the after-dinner idlers gossiped and flirted on that dimly-lit lawn. He pondered when later on he took her to Oxford Street by the “tube,” and saw her to the corner of the street in which Cunnington’s barracks were situated, and he pondered as he drove along Piccadilly to the Traveller’s to have a final drink before going home.

Next morning, about eleven, he was in his pleasant bachelor sitting-room in Dover Street going over some accounts from his factor up in Scotland, when the door opened and Charlie Rolfe entered, exclaiming in his usual hearty way:

“Hulloa, Max, old chap, how are you?”

Barclay looked up in utter surprise. The visit was entirely unexpected, and so intimate a friend was Rolfe that he always entered unannounced.

In a moment, however, he recovered himself.