Chapter Twenty Eight. “No Trumps.”

In the failing London light, as Kirk rose and stood near the window, his countenance was even more sinister and more mysterious than ever. About his lips played that enigmatical, sarcastic smile which so tantalised and irritated me. Here was a man who had actually deceived the hard-headed Sheffield magnate into a belief that he possessed power and influence, while, in reality, he was only a clever adventurer.

“Sit down, Holford,” he said, in a cheery voice, inviting me to a big leather arm-chair. “The time has come when it is very necessary for you and me to arrive at some clear and definite understanding.”

“Yes,” I cried, “I agree with you. Have I not asked you all along for a clear statement of facts? Have I not urged you to tell me where I can find my wife?”

“You have,” he said, leaning against the big, old-fashioned mahogany table piled with books and scientific periodicals. “But until the present I have been unable to satisfy you. Even now I am still in a great measure in the dark as to the—well, the unfortunate occurrence, shall we call it?—which took place in this house.”

“But you have, I understand, been acting in concert with the man who calls himself Greer?” I remarked. “You’ve been with him abroad!”

“I don’t deny that. Why should I?”

I shrugged my shoulders impatiently. His evasion was always cunning, always well-contrived.

“When you first brought me here,” I said, “it was to obtain my assistance to discover who killed Professor Greer, and—”

“And you made a promise which you did not keep!” he interrupted. “Hence I have been unable to keep faith with you. Is not that quite feasible?”

“My wife’s disappearance is the point which most concerns me,” I said. “The other matter is, to me, of secondary importance. If you cared to divulge, you could tell me my wife’s whereabouts. I happen to know that she has been in Vienna, staying at the Hôtel Continental, and she has been seen in your company, Mr Kirk.”

“Now that’s really quite smart of you!” he laughed, with a patronising air, his grey face changing slightly, I thought. “I wonder how you came to know that?”

“The source of my information does not matter,” I said sharply. “Suffice it that it is a reliable one.”

“Well,” he laughed, “since that evening when you sat with me in Bedford Park I’ve been compelled to be active, and I’ve discovered quite a number of things which at that time I never dreamed—facts that have amazed me, as they will, before long, amaze you, Holford.”

“Nothing can amaze me in this crooked affair,” I declared. “You sought my aid in an endeavour to discover who killed Professor Greer, yet, having gained my confidence, you at once abused it!” I cried, with bitter reproach.

“That is your present opinion,” he said, with a keen, crafty look.

“An opinion based upon your actions towards me!” I exclaimed hotly.

“My dear Holford,” he said, “now let us speak quite frankly, as man to man.” And he bent towards me in an eager attitude. “I put it to you whether, in the circumstances—not overlooking the fact that Scotland Yard has refused you assistance—to forget what you saw that night upstairs in the laboratory, to place it aside as though you never witnessed it, is not the best plan?”

“Ah, you wish still to hush up the tragedy!” I cried. “The reason is, of course, quite obvious.”

“You misinterpret my words. I wish to avoid bringing scandal upon innocent folk,” Kirk replied quickly. “You once gave me a pledge of secrecy, and you broke it. Will you give me another?”

“And if I gave it,” I asked, not without some hesitation, “would these precious friends of yours give me back my wife?”

“I cannot answer for others. Personally, I will do all I can to assist you,” was his somewhat evasive reply.

“Why do you wish to extract this promise from me?” I demanded dubiously.

“Because—well, because you must give it. You must remain silent, Holford. It is imperative!”

“You really ask too much of me,” I laughed sarcastically. “I know the ghastly truth. You showed it to me of your own accord—you yourself drew me into this dark, mysterious affair, and now you coolly demand my silence, because you are, I suppose, interested in the money realised by the sale of Professor Greer’s secret.”

“Ethelwynn Greer makes the same demand as myself,” he said calmly. “Surely you don’t believe that the girl has participated in any shamefully obtained profits?”

“The girl saw her father dead, and now refuses to admit it,” I responded.

“How do you know that she did?” he asked. “What actual evidence have you upon that point, beyond my word—repeated from the story told to me by Antonio?”

“Ah! so Antonio is changing his tale in order to fit the new order of events—is he?”

“Well,” Kirk said, after a brief pause, “that there is a new order of events—as you put it—I admit. Yet, whatever they may be, your silence, Holford, as well as mine, is imperative. You hear that!” he added, looking straight into my face.

“To hear and to heed are scarcely synonymous,” I remarked in anger. I was incensed with this man who refused to give me any satisfaction concerning Mabel, and yet commanded my silence.

Was it not a very curious feature of the affair, I reflected, that Ethelwynn had ingeniously approached me, offering me news of Mabel in return for my undertaking to make no further inquiry into her father’s secret death? How much did Langton know, and what was the extent of the knowledge of that friend of his, the specialist in diseases of the throat and nose?

For a few moments I sat in silence, longing for the return of the bogus Professor, the man whom I had followed through Edinburgh and Glasgow, yet who had so very cleverly escaped my vigilance.

I was anxious to meet him, and to see what kind of man he could be. As an impostor he was, it seemed, shameless and bold beyond human credence.

How many thousands had Edwards and Sutton paid to him for that great secret that was not his own?

Antonio, suave and cringing, suddenly put his head in at the door, asking:

“Did you ring, signore?”

“No!” I cried, rising angrily, “Mr Kirk did not ring. I suppose you’ve been listening outside—eh? You are one of the accomplices in the murder of your master—and by Heaven, you shall pay for it! If Scotland Yard will not help me, then I’ll take the law into my own hands and give the public an illustration of the red-tape and the uselessness of the police!”

“The signore is a little excited!” was the man’s quiet remark to Kirk.

“Excited, by Heaven!” I cried. “I’ll be fooled no longer by any of you—band of assassins that you are! You ask me to believe that black is white, and tell me that my own eyes deceive me. But I’ll be even with you yet—mark me!”

“Pray calm yourself, Holford,” said Kirk, shifting his position slightly and still leaning easily against the table, “No good can be served by recrimination.”

The man’s cunning was unequalled; his ingenuity almost superhuman. Once I had held him in awe, but now, knowing the truth, that I held information which it was his earnest desire to suppress, I felt triumphant.

“I admit,” he said, still speaking calmly, as Antonio disappeared and shut the door—“I admit that there are certain ugly facts—very ugly facts which are difficult to forget, but is it not better to be merciful to the innocent and living than to revenge the dead?”

“You desire to seal my lips, my dear sir,” I said. “Why don’t you speak quite plainly?”

“Yes,” he admitted, “I make that appeal to you because—well, for several very strong reasons—Ethelwynn’s future being one.”

“And what, pray, need I care for that girl’s future, now that mine has been wrecked by the devilish machinations of you and your gang?” I cried in bitter anger.

“Your denunciation is quite uncalled for, Holford!” he exclaimed.

“It is not,” I protested. “You know where my wife is, and you refuse to tell me!” was my quick answer.

“Please don’t let us discuss that further,” he urged. “The point is whether you will, or you will not, regard all you saw in this house a couple of months ago as entirely confidential.”

“Why?”

“For reasons which you shall know later. I regret that I cannot explain at this moment, because I should be breaking a confidence,” he responded. “But,” he added, looking at me very seriously, “a life—a woman’s life—depends upon your silence!”

I hesitated a moment.

“Ah, I see!” I cried. “Then the girl conspired to encompass her father’s end, and is now in fear of the impostor!”

“I must leave you to your own opinion,” he said, with a shrug of his thin shoulders. Then, turning away to the window, he thrust his hands into his pockets, and, with that cosmopolitan air of his, he hummed a verse of that catchy song of the boulevards he so often sang.