Chapter Nineteen. Gwen Reveals Something.

It struck me that this keen-eyed, crafty-faced, round-shouldered specialist in diseases of the throat intended to profit by information derived from me regarding the mysterious Kirk. Why, I did not know. We all of us have at times a strange intuition of impending evil, one that we cannot account for and cannot describe.

Recollect, I was only just an ordinary man, a hard-working industrious dealer in motor-cars, a man who made a fair income, who was no romancer, and was entirely devoted to his wife, who had, ever since his marriage, been his best friend and adviser.

The Professor was a scientist, I remembered, and this man Hamilton Flynn was apparently a doctor of some note. Could there be any connection between the pair, I wondered. Flynn, Langton’s most intimate friend, was no doubt aware of much, if not all, that transpired in the Professor’s household. That he knew Kershaw Kirk was apparent by his surprise when I mentioned his name.

“Kirk is a mere acquaintance of mine,” I responded, after a brief pause; “whether he is my friend, or my enemy, remains to be seen.”

“He’s your enemy, depend upon that, Mr Holford,” declared Flynn emphatically. “He is a marvellously clever schemer, and the friend of few.”

I bit my lip. Well did I know, alas! that the fellow whose asides to his pet “Joseph” were so entertaining was not my friend.

It was upon my tongue to explain how the description of that man who was travelling with my wife in search of me tallied with that of my strange neighbour who had, with such subtle cunning, drawn me into that mysterious tragedy. But next second I hesitated. This man Flynn I mistrusted. My impression was that he was not playing a straight game, either with myself or with his friend Leonard Langton.

A thousand questions I had to ask those men—and Langton especially—but I saw by their attitude that their intention was rather to mislead me than to reveal anything. When I presently bade them farewell neither of them offered to assist me in my search for Mabel.

Therefore I went forth into the darkness and silence of Wimpole Street—for it was now near midnight—and walked down into Oxford Street ere I could find a taxi-cab to convey me back to my now cheerless home.

Lying awake that night, I decided to postpone my journey to Germany. It was evident that the impostor passing himself off as the Professor had taken my telegram purporting to come from Kirk as a warning, and had escaped. I had been a fool to telegraph. I should have gone there instead. His reason for keeping up the fiction that the Professor was alive was, of course, obvious, for while he did so there would be no inquiry into the whereabouts of the missing man.

I had made a promise to Kershaw Kirk, yet now that he had so grossly deceived me, why should I keep it? Why should I not tell the truth?

I reflected; there were, I saw, three reasons why I should still preserve silence. The first was because, after that lapse of time, I should be suspected, perhaps arrested, as an accomplice and dragged through a criminal court. The second was that Ethelwynn herself was, for some amazing reason, pretending that her father still lived; and the third was by reason of the strange threat of Mabel’s death uttered by the evil-faced Italian, and repeated by that Harley Street specialist who was Leonard Langton’s closest friend.

The assassins were actually holding my dear wife as hostage against any revelation I dared to make! That, in a word, was the true position.

I paced my room that night in the agony of despair. Of nothing did I think but the dear, sweet-faced woman so suddenly enticed away from my side by reason of her eagerness to meet me. She was a woman of high ideals and of lofty sentiments; a womanly woman who, though fond of a little gaiety and of the theatre, realised that her place was in her own home, where she reigned supreme.

Before my marriage my father, as fathers will, had looked upon her with considerable misgiving. She was a little too flighty, too fond of dress, of dinners, and dances, he had said. But after our wedding and our honeymoon spent in a car touring up in Scotland, she had settled down, and never for a single instant had I regretted my choice. Few men could say that.

Indeed, up to that day when Kershaw Kirk called to inspect the Eckhardt tyre, I was one of the happiest men in all London; prosperous in my business, and contented in my love.

Now, alas! all had changed. I was obsessed by the knowledge of a great and startling secret, and at the same time I had lost all that to me was most dear and cherished.

Next morning Gwen, fresh in her clean cotton blouse, and the big black bow in her hair, sat in her accustomed place at the breakfast table, but after greeting me lapsed into a thoughtful silence.

At last she asked: “Have you packed your things, Harry?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you!” I exclaimed. “I’m not going to-day. I’ve changed my mind.”

“Not going? Why, I thought you intended to see the Professor in Strassburg?” she cried.

“He has left,” I sighed; “I learned last night that he is on his way to Hungary.”

“And will you not follow?” asked the girl in reproach. “Will you not try to discover where Mabel is?”

“I’ve tried, Gwen—and failed,” I answered despairingly.

“You have not told me all, Harry,” she said, looking across at me. At the head of the table was Mabel’s empty place. “You have concealed something from me,” she declared.

“It is nothing that you should know,” was my quick reply. “My own private business does not concern you, Gwen—or Mabel either.”

“But surely I ought to know the truth? Mabel has been decoyed away abroad, and there must be some motive for it,” she replied in bitter complaint.

“Of course, my dear girl, but even I, in the knowledge of what has passed, cannot discern what the motive can be. If I could, all would be plain sailing, and we would soon recover her,” I said.

“Who is this Professor of whom you have spoken?” she asked, leaning her elbows upon the table, and gazing straight into my eyes.

“Professor Greer, the well-known chemist.”

“Greer?” echoed the girl, staring at me strangely.

“Yes, why?”

But she hesitated, as though disinclined to tell me something which was upon her mind.

“You know the Professor, eh, Harry?”

“I’ve met him once,” I replied, which was perfectly true.

“And only once?” she asked.

“Only once,” was my quick response.

“That’s curious.”

“Why?”

“Well—well, I suppose I ought not to tell you, for, of course, Harry—it’s no business of mine,” remarked the girl, “but as Mabel is now missing, no fact should be concealed, and I think you really ought to know that—”

“That what?” I cried. “Tell me quickly, Gwen! Conceal nothing from me!”

“Well, that Mabel one morning received a note delivered by express messenger, and I asked her whom it was from. She seemed unusually flurried, and told me that it was from Professor Greer.”

“But she never knew him!” I gasped. “What day was that?”

“The day before you returned from Glasgow.”

“The same day on which she received that telegram from Italy purporting to be signed by me!”

I exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me this before, Gwen?”

“Mabel’s affairs have nothing to do with me. I am not interested in her correspondents, Harry,” she replied. “Surely it is not my place to carry tales to you, is it?”

“No; pardon me,” I said, hastening to excuse myself, “but in this affair the truth must be told.”

“Then why haven’t you told it to me?” asked the girl. “Why are you so carefully hiding other facts?”

“Because they are of concern only to myself—a secret which is mine, and mine alone.”

“And it does not concern Mabel?” she demanded.

“No,” I replied hoarsely, “except that her acquaintance with the Professor has placed a new phase upon the mystery. Tell me all that happened concerning that note.”

“It came about eleven o’clock in the morning,” she said. “I saw a telegraph-boy come up the steps, and believed he had a message from you. Annie took the note and brought it here into the dining-room, where Mabel signed for it. She read it through, and I saw that it caused her a great shock of surprise. Her hands were trembling. I inquired what was the matter, but she made some evasive reply. I demanded to know whom it was from, and she replied that her correspondent’s name was Greer. ‘He ought never to have written to me,’ she added. ‘Men are sometimes most injudicious.’ Then she rose and placed the letter in the flames, watching it until it had been burned.”

“And is that all?” I demanded, astounded at the girl’s story.

“Yes, except that for some hours afterwards she seemed very upset. To me it appeared as though she had received word of some unusual occurrence. At noon she called a taxi by telephone, and went out. She did not return for luncheon, so I was alone. At three she came back, and I saw that she looked pale and distressed, while her eyes were red, as though she had been crying. But I attributed that to our ignorance of where you were. You know, Harry, how upset she is if when you are away you don’t write or wire to her every day,” added the girl.

The story held me utterly speechless. That Mabel was acquainted in secret with the Professor astounded me. But it had been the false Professor who had written to her. Possibly the fellow was already in London while I was searching for him in Glasgow, and, if so, what was more probable than that she should have met him by appointment?

Not one single instant did I doubt Mabel’s truth and love. If she had met this impostor, then she had been the victim of some cleverly-planned plot. I was incensed only against the perpetrators of that foul crime in Sussex Place, not against the sweet, soft-spoken woman who was so near my heart. Mabel was my wife, my love, my all-in-all.

Poor Gwen, watching my face intently, believed that she had acted as a sneak towards her sister, but I quickly reassured her that it was not so. Her revelations had sent my thoughts into a different channel.

“The telegram summoning her to Italy came after her return?” I asked.

“Yes, she was upset, and would eat no tea,” the girl answered. “Her conversation was all the time of you. ‘Harry is in danger,’ she said several times. ‘Something tells me that he is in the greatest danger.’ Then, when the message came, she became almost frantic in her anxiety for your welfare, saying, ‘Did I not tell you so? My husband is in peril. He is the victim of a plot!’”

“You never heard her speak of the Professor before?” I inquired.

“Never, Harry; and, truth to tell, I was surprised that she should receive a letter from a man who she admitted to me was unknown to you.”

“She told you that?” I cried.

“She said that you were not acquainted with the Professor, and that you might object to him writing to her, if you knew.”

“Then she was in fear of discovery, eh?” I asked in a husky voice.

“Yes,” faltered the girl. “It—it almost seemed as though she was. But really, Harry, I—I know I’ve done wrong to tell you all this. I—I’m quite ashamed of myself. But it is because I am in such great fear that something has happened to my sister.”

“You have done quite right, Gwen,” I assured her. “The circumstances have warranted your outspokenness. Some men might perhaps misjudge their wives in such a case, but I love Mabel, and she loves me. Therefore I will believe no ill of her. She is the innocent victim of a plot, and by Heaven!” I cried fiercely, “while I live I’ll devote my whole life to its exposure, and to the just punishment of any who have dared to harm her!”