Chapter Twenty Two. Defiance Proves Defence.

I had, I confess, allowed my anger to rise above my gorge. That action of mine in attacking Kirk was both ill-timed and very injudicious, for in an instant—before even those frantic words had left my lips—I found myself looking down the ugly black barrel of a big Browning revolver, that most effective and deadly of all man-killing weapons.

“Kindly release me, Holford,” he said, rather hoarsely and with some difficulty, as my muscular fingers had closed upon his scraggy throat. “Come, this is all very foolish! Let me go! I have no desire to harm you,” he added, quite calmly.

“Then tell me where I can find my wife,” I repeated.

“I would—if I could.”

“Tell me who can!” I demanded fiercely, my fingers still closed upon his throat, so that he breathed only with great difficulty.

“Give me time—time to make—inquiry!” he gasped. “I’ve only just returned, and am in ignorance of a great deal of what has transpired.”

“Upon your own admission, Mabel has fallen a victim of a plot merely because I became too active and too inquisitive. You feared lest I might discover something.”

“I have admitted nothing, my dear sir!” he cried. “One day you will withdraw all these malicious words—mark me,” he added, in a hard voice, lowering his weapon and replacing it in his hip-pocket as I released my convulsive grip.

“I’ve lost my wife, Mr Kirk, and you know where she is,” I said.

“In that you are quite mistaken,” he declared. “As I’ve already explained, I’ve not yet had opportunity for making inquiry. I believed,” he added in reproach, “that you would assist me in this strange affair concerning Professor Greer. Yet my confidence in you, Holford, has been sadly misplaced. Recall for one moment what I told you—of the seriousness of what was at stake, and of the absolute necessity for complete secrecy. Yet to-night you threaten to bungle the whole affair by going to the police.”

“I’ve lost my wife!” I interrupted. “She’s the victim of some plot or other, and it is to find her that I intend to invoke the aid of Scotland Yard.”

“Well, by adopting that course, you would not find her—but you’d lose her,” was the old fellow’s brief response.

“Antonio told me the very same thing when we met in Rome!” I exclaimed. “Your threat shows me that you are in league in this conspiracy of silence.”

Kershaw Kirk burst out laughing, as though he considered my anger a huge joke. It annoyed me that he did not take me seriously, and that he regarded the loss of Mabel so lightly.

“Look here, Mr Holford,” he said at last, looking straight into my face. “It’s plain that you suspect me of being the assassin of Professor Greer. That being so, I’ve nothing more to say. Yet I would ask you to regard the present situation both logically and calmly. Do you for one moment suppose that were I guilty I would have taken you to Sussex Place and explained the whole affair in detail? Is it, indeed, to be supposed that I would place myself so entirely and completely in the hands of a stranger?”

I shook my head dubiously.

“Well,” he went on, “I repeat to you now all that I told you that night, and assert that all I told you was the truth.”

“But how do you account for Ethelwynn being still alive?” I interrupted quickly.

“There is an explanation of that,” he declared; “one that you will probably be told very shortly. Fortunately, the poor girl was not dead, though I confess I was entirely deceived by the symptoms. You will remember that the mirror remained unclouded by her breath?”

“I remember every incident, alas! only too vividly,” was my slow, distinct reply. “But,” I asked very pointedly, “pray tell me, Mr Kirk, what was your object in calling upon me and inducing me to go to Sussex Place?”

He thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and smiled.

“An ulterior one—as you may imagine. But one which was as much in your interests as in ours.”

“Ours!” I echoed. “You mean you and your accomplices?”

“Call them so, if you wish,” he laughed. “I, unfortunately, am not in a position to enlighten you upon the actual reason I invoked your aid.”

“And your action has only brought upon me a great misfortune—bitter despair, and the loss of the woman I loved!” I cried, dismayed.

“Ah!” he said. “You judge me a little too hastily, Mr Holford. It is your failing, Mr Holford, that you are given to rushing to premature conclusions. That is always fatal in any delicate negotiation. When you’ve had my experience—that of a traveller and thorough-going cosmopolitan—you will learn how to repress your own opinions until they are fully and entirely corroborated.”

I looked into the grey face of the clever adventurer, and there saw craft, cunning, and an ingenuity that was superhuman. A look was in his eyes such as I had never before seen in those of any human being.

“But I am in search of my wife!” I cried frantically. “I am in no mood to hear this philosophy of yours.”

“Well—how do you know she is not here—in London?” he asked, waving his thin hand towards the window where showed the glimmering lights of the Thames bank.

To the right, where I stood, I could see the gleam of electric light from the summit of Big Ben, showing that the House, which had assembled only a few days before, was sitting late after the Christmas recess.

“I suppose you wish to mislead me into the idea that she is back again in London, hiding from me, eh?” I exclaimed resentfully. “No, Mr Kirk, I tell you plainly that I’ve had enough of this tragic-comedy of yours, I’ve watched you this evening with your precious friends, Flynn and Langton.”

“And, pray, why should I not possess friends?” he asked, looking at me with some surprise.

“To me Langton denied all knowledge of you.”

“Well—and am I to be blamed for Langton’s pretended ignorance?”

“No; but it shows me that you are not dealing with me in a straightforward manner!” I declared, without mincing words.

But the strange old fellow only laughed. “My dear sir,” he said a few moments afterwards, “I can quite understand your distrust of me, therefore it is as well that I hesitated to place a further confidence in you. You might have betrayed it.”

“Betrayed it!” I echoed angrily. “Have you not betrayed me? Is it not due to you, and you alone, that my wife is missing?”

“That I emphatically deny, my dear sir,” he replied, still quite unperturbed. “But why let us discuss it? Any denial of mine you’ll regard as false. It’s a great pity that my judgment led me to seek your aid. Had you carried out my request and refrained from prying into matters which did not concern you, you might have found it to your distinct advantage.”

“You mean that I should have profited pecuniarily by concealing the fact that Professor Greer is dead and that an impostor has assumed his identity? You intended that I also should be an accomplice of the assassin!”

“No—not exactly,” he replied with an evil, triumphant grin. “But, really, my dear sir,” he added, “I’ve had a very long journey, and I’m tired. Is it any use prolonging this argument?”

“Not unless you wish!” I snapped. “I have given you full warning of my intention to reveal the whole affair to the police.”

“Ah! Then that will be very unfortunate—for you,” replied the queer old man; “and for your wife most of all.”

“Yes, I know. You intend to bring disaster upon me and upon her if I dare to go to Scotland Yard!” I cried.

In my ignorance of the truth I believed my threats would be of avail. Ah, had I but known the actual facts, how differently would I have acted! But surely that enigma was one that was beyond human power to elucidate. Upon every hand I found complications. Plot lay within plot—all directed against myself and against poor innocent Mabel, who had flown to me on receipt of what she had believed to be my urgent telegram.

“My intentions, Mr Holford, entirely depend upon your actions,” said Kirk, very plainly. “If you are foolish—well, then I cannot guarantee the safety of your wife. My advice to you, however, is to recall all I told you, believe in the truth of my statements, and act with slow discretion.”

“But my wife?” I cried. “I must—I will save her. She is in peril, I am sure of that!”

“She may be in grave peril if you go to the police,” he said enigmatically; “and, believe me, they cannot assist us in the least to discover who killed Professor Greer.”

“Why?”

Kirk hesitated. In that pause I scented an intention further to prevent me from speaking.

“Well, regard the matter calmly and without prejudice,” he said at last. “As a matter of fact, what evidence is there that the Professor is dead?”

“Evidence!” I cried. “Why, did not you and I see him dead? Did not his daughter stand before his lifeless body?”

“Ah, she would never tell what she saw!” he said, with a mysterious smile.

“Why not?” I asked, much surprised at his remark.

But my mysterious neighbour only shrugged his shoulders vaguely, answering:

“There is a reason why she will never admit his death—a strong reason.”

“Well,” I said, “I recovered from the ashes of the furnace certain remains—coat buttons and other scraps of clothing.”

“And you think they would be accepted as evidence that Professor Greer was done to death?” he laughed. “You are evidently unaware of the great caution exercised by the Criminal Investigation Department in accepting any evidence such as that which you could furnish. No,” he added, “only Antonio and Ethelwynn were the actual witnesses, in addition to ourselves, of the Professor’s tragic end. And as they refuse to admit that he is dead, any information you may lodge at Scotland Yard must only reflect upon yourself and bring greater peril upon Mrs Holford. I simply tell you the truth—believe me, or believe me not.”

“Well,” I exclaimed, “I disbelieve you, Mr Kirk.”

“Then I wish you good evening!” he exclaimed abruptly. “Act as you think proper!” he added defiantly, as, turning from me in disregard he walked to his large writing-table, where he took up some letters, at the same time singing, with that careless cosmopolitan air of his, Lucien Fugere’s popular chanson, which at the moment one heard everywhere in the streets of Paris.

“Then that’s your last word, eh, Mr Kirk?”

I asked when he had concluded the verse.

“It is,” he replied determinedly. “If you must act as a fool, then I can’t assist you further. Good night!” And he sat down and busied himself with his accumulated correspondence.

I now realised that he was utterly defiant, and thoughts of my loss of Mabel caused my blood to boil within me. His light, careless manner irritated me beyond measure.

“Very well,” I cried. “Good night, Mr Kirk!” And turning swiftly upon my heel, I left the room and found my way down the great staircase and out into Whitehall.

Too late at that hour to call at New Scotland Yard, close by, I hailed a hansom and drove straight home, almost beside myself with rage at the calm, unruffled, defiant attitude with which the adventurer had met me.

Next morning, after writing some letters, I went round to the garage, where I found Pelham, somewhat excited.

“This morning, when I arrived at eight o’clock,” he said. “I found awaiting me a rather shabbily-dressed old man who said he wanted to see an Eckhardt tyre. Recollecting my previous experiences of people who’ve come in to handle them, I told him that if he wished to buy one I could sell him one, but I hadn’t time to waste on sightseers. Whereupon the old fellow promptly paid for a cover before seeing it, and took it away on a cab which he had waiting.”

“Well?” I asked, rather, surprised. “And who was he?”

“That’s the curious point. He was an old chap I’ve seen about the neighbourhood many times—thin, rather shabby and disreputable, grey hair and moustache—lives in your road, I think. Drake says you know him.”

“Kershaw Kirk!” I gasped.

“Yes; that’s the name Drake said before he went out with the ‘sixty,’” replied my manager.

“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.