The Pauper of Park Lane

“Why, Charlie,” he exclaimed, motioning him to a low easy-chair on the other side of the fireplace, “you’re quite a stranger. Where have you been all this long time?”

“Oh! I thought you knew through Marion. I’ve been up in Glasgow. Had a lot of worries at the works – labour trouble and all that sort of thing,” he replied. “Those Scotch workmen are utterly incorrigible, but I must say that it’s due to agitators from our side of the border.”

“Yes; I saw something in the papers the other day about an impending strike. Have a cigar?” and he pushed the box towards his friend.

“There would have been a strike if the old man hadn’t put his foot down. The men held a meeting and reconsidered their position. It’s well for them they did, otherwise I had orders to close down the whole works for six months – or for a year, if need be.”

“But you’d have lost very heavily, wouldn’t you?”

“Lost? I should rather think so. We should have had to pay damages for breach of contract with the Italian railways to the tune of a nice round sum. But what does it matter to the guv’nor. When he takes a stand against what he calls the tyranny of labour he doesn’t count the cost.”

“Well,” sighed Max, looking across at Marion’s brother, “it’s rather nice to be in such a position, and yet – ”

“And yet it isn’t all honey to be in his shoes – eh? No, Max, it isn’t,” he said. “I know more about old Sam than most men, and I tell you I’d rather be as I am than stifled by wealth as he is. He’s a millionaire in gold, but a pauper in happiness.”

“I can’t help thinking that his unhappiness must, in a great measure, be due to himself,” Max remarked, wondering why Charlie had visited him after this length of time. “I think if I had his money I should try and get some little enjoyment out of it. Other wealthy men have yachts, or motor cars, or other hobbies. Why doesn’t he?”

“Because he doesn’t care for sport. He told me once that in his younger days abroad he was as keen a sportsman as anybody. But now-a-days he’s too old for it, and prefers his armchair.”

“And yet he isn’t a very old man, is he?”

“Sometimes wealth rejuvenates a man, but more often the worry of it ages him prematurely,” Rolfe remarked. “I only got back from Glasgow again last night, and I thought I’d look in and see you. Seen Marion lately?”

“I was with her at Earl’s Court last night. She’s all right.”

Then a silence fell between the pair. Rolfe lit the cigar he had been slowly twisting between his fingers. Max looked furtively into his friend’s face, trying to read what secret thought lay behind. Charlie, however, preserved his usual easy, nonchalant air as he leaned back in his chair, his weed between his teeth and his hands clasped behind his head.

“Look here, Charlie,” Max exclaimed at last, in a tone of confidence. “I want to ask you something.”

The other started visibly, and his cheeks went just a trifle paler.

“Well, go on, old chap.” He laughed uneasily. “What is it?” And then he held his breath.

“It’s about old Statham.”

“About old Statham!” the other echoed, breathing freely again.

“Yes. Do you know that there are going about London a lot of queer stories regarding that house of his in Park Lane – I mean a lot more stories.”

“More stories!” laughed the private secretary. “Well, what are people saying now?”

“Oh, all sorts of weird and ridiculous thing.”

“What is one of them? I’m interested, for they never tell me anything.”

“Because they know you to be connected with the place,” Max remarked. “Well, just now there are about a dozen different tales going the rounds, and all sorts of hints against the old man.”

“Set about by those with whom he has refused to associate – eh?”

“Probably concocted by spiteful gossips, I should think. Some of them bear upon the face of them their own refutation. For instance, I’ve heard that the reason lights are seen upstairs is because there’s a mysterious Mrs Statham and her family living there in secret. Nobody has seen them, and they never go out.”

“Oh! And what reason is given for that?”

“Because they say she’s a Turkish woman, and that he still keeps her secluded as she has been ever since a child. The story goes that she’s a very beautiful woman, daughter of one of the most powerful Pashas in Constantinople, who escaped from her mother’s harem and got away over the frontier into Bulgaria, where Statham joined her, and they were married in Paris.”

Rolfe laughed aloud. The idea of old Sam being an actor in such a love-romance was distinctly amusing.

“They call him Statham Pasha, I suppose! Well, really, it is the very latest, just as though there may not be lights upstairs when the old man goes to bed.”

“Of course,” said Max. “But the fact that the old man refuses to allow anybody in the house has given rise to all these stories. You really ought to tell him.”

“What shall I tell him? Is there any other gossip?”

“Yes,” replied Max, looking the secretary straight in the face in suspicion that he knew more about the mysteries of that house than he really did. “There’s another strange story, which I heard two or three days ago, to the effect that one night recently a person was seen to go there secretly, being admitted at once. Then, after the lapse of an hour or so, old Levi came forth, signalled to a four-wheeled cab which was apparently loitering about on the chance of a fare. Then from out of the house was carried a long, heavy box, which was placed on the cab and driven away to an unknown destination.”

“A box!” gasped Rolfe in surprise, bending quickly across to the speaker. “What do you mean – what do you suggest?”

“Well the natural suggestion is that the body of the midnight visitor was within that box?”

Charlie Rolfe did not reply. He sat staring open-mouthed, as though Max’s story had supplied the missing link in a chain of suspicions which had for a long time existed in his mind – as though he now knew the terrible and astounding truth.

Chapter Twenty Four.

Truth or Untruth

The two men exchanged glances, each suspicious of the other.

Max tried to imagine the motive of his friend’s visit, while Rolfe, on his part, was undecided as to the extent of the other’s knowledge. To come there and boldly face Max had cost him a good many qualms. At one moment he felt certain that Max suspected, but at the next he laughed at his own fears, and declared himself to be a chicken-hearted fool. And so days had gone on until, unable to stand it further, he had at last resolved to call at Dover Street.

“You’re quite a stranger, Charlie,” Max remarked at last. “I haven’t seen you since the doctor disappeared so mysteriously.”

He watched Rolfe’s face as he spoke, yet save a very slight flush upon the cheeks he was in no way perturbed.

“Well, I’ve been away nearly the whole time,” was the other’s reply. “The whole affair is most curious.”

“And haven’t you seen Maud since?”

He hesitated slightly, and in that hesitation Max detected falsehood.

“No,” was his reply.

“What? And haven’t you endeavoured to find out her whereabouts?” cried Max, staring at him. “If Marion had disappeared, I think I should have left no stone unturned in order to discover the truth.”

“I have tried to solve the mystery, and failed,” was his rather lame response.

“But where are they – where can they be? It’s most extraordinary that the doctor should not send me word in confidence of their secret hiding-place. I was his most intimate friend.”

“Well,” he said. “The fact is that until this moment I believed you were well aware of their whereabouts, but could not, in face of your friendship, betray them.”