The Red Room

“But, if you disbelieve me, go to Kershaw Kirk, in Whitehall Court, or to the Professor’s daughter down at Broadstairs, or to Pietro Merli, who keeps a newsagent’s in the Euston Road. Each of these persons knows the truth, and would speak – if compelled.”

“The Commissioner has had all those names before him, but in face of that he has decided not to enter into this matter. His decision,” said the officer, “is irrevocable.”

“Then our police system is a perfect farce!” I cried. “No wonder, indeed, we have in London a host of undiscovered crimes! The man Kirk laughed at you here as blunderers!” I added.

But the pair only exchanged glances and grinned, causing me increased anger.

“In any other city but London the police would, upon my information, at once institute inquiry!” I declared. “I’m a tax-payer, and am entitled to assistance and protection.”

“We have already offered to assist you to discover the whereabouts of Mrs Holford,” the elder man pointed out politely.

“Then inquire of this man Kirk, or Seymour, as he calls himself, in Whitehall Court,” I said. “He can tell you where she is – if he chooses.”

“You suspect him of having a hand in her disappearance? Why?” inquired the other detective officer.

I related clearly and succinctly the facts upon which my belief was based and of the description given of my wife’s companion by the hotel-manager in Florence.

The officer slowly shook his head.

“That’s scarcely conclusive, is it? The description is but a vague one, after all.”

“Well,” I said bitterly as I rose, “if you refuse to assist me, I must, I suppose, seek redress elsewhere. May I see the Commissioner myself?”

“You can make formal application, if you like. But I don’t expect he will see you. He has already fully considered the matter.” And that was all the satisfaction accorded me.

“Then I’ll do something!” I cried. “I’ll get a question asked in the House. It’s a scandal that, with Professor Greer killed in his own home, you refuse to bestir yourselves. After all, it seems quite true, as has been recently alleged, that the police are nowadays so fully occupied in regulating the speed of motor-cars that they have no time for the investigation of crime.”

I noticed that at my threat to have a question asked in the House, one of the officers pulled a rather wry face. The Metropolitan Police were not fond, I knew, of questions being put about them. I chanced to know rather intimately a member for a country division, though to get the question put would necessitate my explaining the whole affair.

Yet was not Mabel’s liberty – nay, perhaps her very life – at stake?

“You’ve told us very little regarding this friend of yours, Mr Kershaw Kirk, whom you appear to suspect so strongly,” the younger of the two men remarked at last. “Who is he?”

“An adventurer,” I replied quickly. “I have no doubt whatever upon that point.”

The man pursed his lips dubiously.

“May it not be that you are somewhat prejudiced against him?” he ventured to suggest.

“No. He was in the house at the time when the Professor’s body was cremated in his own furnace. If you went to Sussex Place you would probably discover some remains among the ashes.”

“Do you allege, then, that you were an actual witness of the cremation?” asked the officer.

“No; I found him in the house.”

“And, later on, you discovered the furnace alight, eh?”

“Yes.”

“Then it is only a surmise on your part, after all, my dear sir,” remarked the detective, twisting a pen between his fingers as his dark eyes were fixed upon mine. “The actual evidence is really nil. That is just the view taken by the Commissioner.”

“But my wife is in the hands of the assassins,” I cried. “You can’t deny that!”

“Is there any actual, evidence of it? None, as far as we can see,” he declared. “Would it not be natural for your wife, on failing to find you in Florence, either to wire to her sister at home or to return home at once? She did neither, which only goes far to prove that she did not desire to return to London.”

“You suggest that she has purposely left me?” I cried, staring at the man in a frenzy of angry resentment.

“I suggest nothing, Mr Holford. Pray don’t misunderstand me. I merely put before you the facts in order to obtain a logical conclusion. Only one can be arrived at – she had some motive for not returning to her home. If she had, then how are we to find her? She would, no doubt, purposely cover her tracks.”

“But she was with that man, the man who – ”

“And that just bears out my argument,” interrupted the detective.

“But may she not have been prevented from sending any message home?” I suggested, though that very point he had made had, I confess, been the one which had continually obsessed me.

Both the detectives shook their heads.

“No,” replied the elder of the two. “We are both agreed, as the Commissioner also believes, that your wife would not be held a prisoner. Criminals do not hold women prisoners nowadays, except in works of fiction. No,” he added, “depend upon it, Mr Holford, when you discover the truth, you will find that your wife was acquainted with one or other of these friends of yours, and that her disappearance was part of a plan.”

The story of the message received by Mabel while I was in Scotland flashed across my mind. I recollected all that Gwen had so guardedly related to me.

But I stirred myself quickly. No, a thousand times no! I would never believe evil of Mabel before I had absolute proof in black and white. The mystery of her disappearance was as great and inexplicable as the problem of who killed Professor Greer?

Chapter Twenty Four

Two Men Consult

Beside myself with fear and anxiety regarding the woman I loved so well, I again called that very same evening upon Kirk at Whitehall Court, but on doing so was informed by the lift man that he was out.

A suggestion then occurred to me that he might have gone over to his other abode at Bedford Park, therefore I returned, and at last knocked at his door.

His sister answered my summons, and saying that her brother was at home, ushered me into his presence.

I found him in his old velvet jacket seated in his high-backed arm-chair before a glowing fire, his pet parrot near him; and as I entered he greeted me coldly, without deigning to shake my hand.

“Well, Holford,” he exclaimed, stretching his slippered feet lazily towards the fire, “so you have, after all, proved a traitor, eh?”

“A traitor? How?” I asked, standing near the fireplace and facing him.

“You have been telling some extraordinary stories about me at Scotland Yard, I hear,” he said with a grin.

“Ah!” I cried. “Then you are a detective, after all? My surmise was right from the first!”

“No,” he replied very quietly, “you were quite wrong, my dear sir; I’m not a detective, neither professional nor amateur, nor have I anything whatever to do with Scotland Yard. They may be sad blunderers there, but they do not accept every cock-and-bull story that may be told them.”

“I told them no cock-and-bull story!” I protested angrily. “I told them the actual truth!”

“And that after all the warnings I have given you!” he said in a tone of bitterest reproach. “Ah! you are unaware of the extreme gravity of that act of yours. You have broken faith with me, Holford, and by doing so, have, I fear, brought upon me, as upon others, a great calamity.”