The Red Room

“What does he want with a tyre when he hasn’t got a car?”

I stood in silence. What, indeed, did that man want with one of the new tyres? Had he merely come down there to have further words with me, or did he require a cover for some specific purpose?

My mind, however, was made up. I had resolved to go to New Scotland Yard, and, even though tardily, to place the whole of the facts before the Criminal Investigation Department. Therefore I got out the “forty-eight” and drove along the Hammersmith Road and Knightsbridge, across St. James’s Park, and through Storey’s Gate to Whitehall. I alighted in the big courtyard of the police headquarters, where a number of motor-’buses were drawn up for inspection, and entered the large stone hall, when a constable came forward to inquire my business.

I handed him my card, explaining that I wished to see one of the detective inspectors upon a confidential matter, and was shown upstairs and along a wide corridor to a bare waiting-room.

For some ten minutes I remained there, when the door opened, and I found myself face to face with a middle-aged, pleasant-faced man, who was one of the most noted and experienced officers of the department.

For a moment I held my breath. I recollected all the threats that had been made of Mabel’s peril if I dared to speak the truth.

The detective-inspector closed the door behind him, and, wishing me a polite “Good morning,” inquired my business.

I told him. Yes; I blurted forth the truth, and made a clean breast of the whole matter.

But the instant I had done so I bitterly repented it.

I realised something which I had not before recognised.

I saw that, even though my dear wife were missing and in peril, I was a fool – an utter idiot – for having dared to breathe a word.

My injudicious statement had only rendered the enigma still more complicated than hitherto.

Chapter Twenty Three

The Unexpected Happens

The shrewd officer seated at the table with me, a pen in his hand, heard my narrative to the end, now and then making brief memoranda.

Presently he exclaimed:

“Would you kindly excuse me? I’d like another gentleman to hear this story.” And he rose and left.

A few minutes later he returned with a rather taller, clean-shaven man, slightly younger, who had on a dark overcoat and carried a silk hat in his hand.

“This is Mr Holford,” said the first officer, introducing me. “He’s just told me a very remarkable story, which I’d like you to hear for a moment.”

Then, turning to me, he asked me to repeat briefly what I had alleged.

The new-comer, seating himself, listened attentively to every word which fell from my lips. I noticed that he exchanged curious glances with his brother officer.

“Your main reason, then, for telling us this story is in order to compel those responsible for your wife’s absence to reveal her whereabouts, I take it?” asked the younger man.

“Exactly.”

“The false telegram was dispatched from Turin, eh?”

“Yes. Cannot you communicate with the Italian police concerning it?”

“And pray what good would result?” he queried. “After long delay we might perchance get the original of the telegram, but I don’t see that that would assist us very far. When people send bogus messages they generally disguise their handwriting.”

“Well, I leave it to you to take what steps you like to assist me,” I said. “My sole object is to find my lost wife.”

“Naturally, my dear sir,” observed the officer. “We’ll first take down your statement in writing.” And then the man I had first seen wrote at my dictation a brief summary of the mysterious death of Professor Greer and its attendant complications and my suspicion of Kershaw Kirk.

“Well, we’ll place this before the Commissioner to-day. Perhaps you’ll call to-morrow; say about this time. We will then let you know our opinion and our intentions.”

With that I was compelled to be satisfied, and I left the waiting-room full of hope that by that bold move of mine I might gain knowledge of the whereabouts of my well-beloved.

How I existed throughout that day I cannot tell. I tried to attend to my business, but in vain. I was wondering what action was being taken by my sinister-faced neighbour who lived in Whitehall Court under another name, and who seemed to possess a dual personality.

At last the hour came when again I turned the car into Scotland Yard, and once more was ushered upstairs into that bare waiting-room wherein so many stories of crime are related.

Presently, after a lengthy wait, the two officers entered together and greeted me.

“Well,” commenced the elder of the pair with some slight hesitation, “we’ve placed your statement before the Commissioner, Mr Holford, and he has very carefully considered it. He has, however, decided that it is not a matter for our department.”

“What?” I gasped. “A man can be foully done to death here in London, and yet the police refuse to believe the story of an honest man – a man who is a witness!”

“We do not doubt you in the least degree, Mr Holford,” the other assured me, speaking very quietly.

“But you do!” I exclaimed in quick anger. “I’ve told you that a crime has been perpetrated.”

“My dear sir,” said the officer, “we get many startling stories told here almost hourly, and if we inquired into the truth of them all, why, we’d require a department as big as the whole of Whitehall.”

“What I told you yesterday is so strange and extraordinary that you believe I’m a madman,” I said. “I see it in your faces.”

“Excuse me, but that is not the point,” he protested. “We are only officers, Mr Holford. We are not the commander. The chief has given his decision, and we are compelled to obey, however much we may regret our inaction.”

“So you refuse your aid in assisting me to find my wife?”

“No. If we can help you to discover Mrs Holford, we willingly will. Perhaps you’ll kindly give us her description, and we’ll at once circulate it through all our channels, both here and abroad. But,” added the man, “I must first tell you that we can hold out very little hope. The number of missing wives reported to us, both here at headquarters and at the various local stations in the metropolitan area, is sometimes dozens in a day. Most of the ladies have, we find on inquiry, gone away of their own accord.”

“But this case is different. My wife has not!” I asserted. “She has been enticed away by a telegram purporting to come from me.”

“And that’s really nothing unusual. We have heard of ladies arranging with other people to send urgent messages in the names of their husbands. It is an easy way of escape sometimes.” And he smiled rather grimly.

“Then, to put it plainly, I’ve nothing to hope for from you?” I snapped.

“Very little, I fear, sir.”

“And this is our police system which was only recently so highly commended by the Royal Commission of Inquiry!” I blurted forth. “It’s a scandal!”

“It is not for us to make any comment, my dear Mr Holford,” said the elder of the two officers. “The Commissioner himself decides what action we take upon information we may receive. I dare say,” he added, “our decision in this case does appear to you somewhat strange, but – well, I may as well point out that there is a special feature in it which does not appear to you – an outsider.”

“What special feature can there be, pray? A well-known man has been assassinated. Surely, therefore, it is the duty of the police to stir themselves and make every inquiry!”

“We have only your statement for that. As far as we or the public are aware, Professor Greer is travelling somewhere on the Continent.”