Chapter Twenty. One Traveller Returns.

One fact was quite plain. It was the false Professor who had written to my wife. For aught I knew, the man whom I had followed from Edinburgh to Glasgow might have already been in London, and she might have met him by appointment.

During the morning I took the “forty-eight,” and ran over to Regent’s Park, passing slowly before both front and back of the house in Sussex Place. The blinds were up, but from the condition of the doorsteps it was plain that the place was tenantless.

From the “London Directory” I obtained the number of Lady Mellor’s, in Upper Brook Street, and called. The fat butler told me that Morgan, Miss Greer’s maid, had left with her mistress, and as far as he knew was down at Broadstairs with her. Her ladyship was at Bordighera.

I inquired if he knew anything of the other servants at Professor Greer’s.

“No, nothing,” was the man’s answer. “At least, nothing except that the Professor went abroad suddenly, and that they were all discharged and given wages in lieu of notice.”

“That Italian fellow discharged them, didn’t he?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. I never liked him. He’s gone abroad with his master, they say, and they’ve left a caretaker in charge.”

“Oh, there is someone there, eh?”

“Yes, a policeman named Murphy and his wife. They used to take care of this house for her ladyship, and Miss Ethelwynn has now given her father’s house over to them. They’re a very steady pair, and live on the premises.”

Surely it was a master-stroke of the girl’s to give over to the police that house of tragedy! Why was she concealing the fact of her father’s death?

I drove back to Chiswick with that one thought uppermost in my mind.

That afternoon I sat in my own office trying to attend to the details of a business too long neglected, and listening mechanically to Pelham, to Dick Drake, and to the others in my employment, who were complaining of the unsatisfactory trials of a new car I had recently purchased.

Professor Greer was dead, and every trace of the crime removed, save for those grim, indisputable relics which I had recovered from the ashes and now held most sacred. But further, my dear wife, whose knowledge of the impostor was so amazing, was also missing.

The one point which, I confess, caused me some qualms, was the reason why, not discovering me, she had not telegraphed to Gwen. That, surely, would be her first thought. If she had missed me, she would surely have let either Gwen or Pelham know.

Hence I could only think that she had either fallen into some fatal trap—and there are many in the by-ways of certain Continental cities—or else she was forcibly held from communicating with the outer world. If so, by whom? Probably by the Professor’s false friend, Kershaw Kirk.

I could not put away from my mind the curious altitude of Hamilton Flynn. Why had he endeavoured to frighten me from going to Scotland Yard? What motive had he in this? In what manner was he assisting his friend, Leonard Langton?

Again, was Langton in ignorance of the Professor’s end, or had he knowledge of it, and was it by his persuasion that his beloved was so cleverly feigning ignorance of all the past?

I began to suspect that these two men, bosom chums that they were, had some hidden motive for concealing the Professor’s death. Yet, after all, the point most amazing was the reason why, in the face of facts now revealed, my mysterious neighbour should have taken such pains to reveal the truth to me.

That evening, after a hasty meal at home with Gwen, I went back to the garage, put on a greasy engineer’s suit which I sometimes wore when doing dirty work around the cars, and buttoned over it a frayed tweed coat belonging to one of the men. Then, with a cap on and a pipe in my mouth, I went forth, and made my way on the top of a motor-’bus to the corner of Wimpole Street.

If Flynn went out I intended to watch his proceedings, for though I entertained only a vague suspicion of Langton, yet I felt confident that his friend was not acting squarely.

Have you ever been seized with misgivings of a person whom you have no just cause to doubt? Is not such a feeling the result of some unseen evil influence radiating from the person suspected—often quite rightly?

My first impression of this specialist in diseases of the throat and nose was a bad one.

Therefore, I strolled up the long, eminently respectable street, crossing Wigmore Street and Queen Anne Street, until a few doors on the left before coming into Great Marylebone Street, I halted before the house wherein the pair shared chambers.

There were bright lights in their big sitting-room on the first floor, the room wherein Flynn had made those covert threats. It was then half-past eight. They would have dined by that hour, and if they were going out they would certainly very soon make an appearance.

I strolled to the corner of Great Marylebone Street, and idled at the corner, watching. The evening was bright and cold, and many cabs were passing and repassing. I lit my pipe, and sauntered up and down, my eye ever upon the front door of the house wherein the two men lived.

The time hung heavily, as it ever does when one is watching. An hour dragged by, but no one came out. At last, however, a maid ran up the area steps and came in my direction with a letter in her hand ready for posting in the pillar-box near which I was standing.

As she stopped I spoke to her, but at first she hesitated to answer. After slipping five shillings into her hand, however, I induced her to tell me that the doctor had dined alone, and was sitting upstairs. Mr Langton had, she said, left London early in the afternoon, but she was unaware of where he had gone.

“Tell me,” I asked the girl, “do they ever have a visitor named Kirk?”

“Kirk!” she echoed. “Oh, yes, I recollect, ’e used to often call, but of late ’e ’asn’t been.” And she described my mysterious neighbour exactly.

“When did he last call?” I asked.

“Oh, I should say it ’ud be quite a month ago. ’E always used to arsk for the doctor.”

“Never for Mr Langton?”

“Not to my knowledge. Indeed, one afternoon when ’e called I told ’im that the doctor was out, but that Mr Langton was at ’ome; but ’e told me that ’e wished to see the doctor an’ nobody else.”

“How long has Doctor Flynn lived there?” I inquired.

“About nine months.”

“Does he have many callers?”

“No; they all go round to ’is consulting room in ’Arley Street, I believe.”

“All except Kirk.”

“Yes, Mr Kirk used to call at all hours, and they used to sit together arf through the night sometimes—after Mr Langton ’ad gone to bed. ’E’s never up very late, ’e ain’t.”

And then, after a few more questions, I allowed the cockney girl to return to the house, first, however, impressing upon her the need for secrecy, and adding another five shillings to that I had already given her.

Half an hour later I saw the front door open, and Flynn, in dark overcoat and hard felt hat, ran down the steps and turned towards Oxford Street.

Soon I was at his heels. He presently turned into Wigmore Street, crossed Cavendish Square, and continued through Mortimer Street into Wells Street, quite unconscious of being followed. He walked with an air of preoccupation, twice stopping to light his cigarette.

Now that he was under my observation I did not intend that he should escape me. Besides, there was nothing suspicious about me, for I was merely a plain motor-mechanic, such as is seen about the London streets in dozens at all hours.

Continuing down Wardour Street he came into Coventry Street, where he ascended the carpeted stairs to a saloon well known to a certain class of the habitués of the West End. In my mechanic’s clothes I knew that the uniformed janitor at the bottom of the stairs would direct me to the public bar, therefore I was compelled to remain outside and await the doctor’s exit.

The place was evidently crowded, as it usually is, for it is one of the recognised nocturnal rendezvous in the neighbourhood of Leicester Square.

I crossed the road and stood near the entrance to the Motor Club, of which I was a member. Many men I knew passed and repassed within its swing doors, but none recognised me. Therefore I was quite satisfied that, with my dirty face, Doctor Flynn would not easily identify me.

At last he came forth, and alone.

I saw by his hesitation on the kerb that he was disappointed. Someone he had expected had not turned up, and he was now undecided in which direction to walk.

It was then about half-past ten, the quietest hour of the evening in that neighbourhood, yet the illuminated signs lent an air of gaiety to that scene so typical of London as the middle-class know it.

Having lit a cigarette the doctor strolled down the Haymarket, and turning up Charles Street, passed the “Junior,” crossed St. James’s Square, where he entered the “Sports,” made inquiry for someone, but found the person was not in. Then, continuing his way—while I walked at a respectable distance behind—he turned into Duke Street, where at a door about half-way up he paused and tugged at a bell.

I took careful note of that door, one with a semi-circular fanlight above and a painted number, and then turned quickly on my heel to avoid passing him as he stood in my way upon the pavement.

He was admitted and the door was closed. Then I passed the house, and saw that it was a good-sized one, probably let in sets of chambers, as are many of the houses in that vicinity.

I walked on to Jermyn Street and stood at the corner, lighting my pipe. A white-faced man passed—a wretched, decrepit old fellow whose hollow cough told its own tale, and who offered me matches. I bought a box, and began to chat with him. All loafers are fond of a gossip, and I did this in order not to appear to the watchful constable, who was trying the locked doors of shops in the vicinity, that I was loitering. A well-dressed man may linger as long as he likes, but one who appears as a mechanic, or as a shabby idler, is very soon moved on unless he, in turn, is, a “nark,” or police-informer.

The old man related to me a pitiable story of misfortune which might or might not be true, but it served to while away the time, while I, on my part, kept an ever-watchful vigilance upon the door just down the street.

I must have been there nearly an hour, for the traffic at the end of the street in Piccadilly had awakened, and every moment the lights of hansoms and taxis were flitting past. The theatres were just over, and the pleasure-seekers were already westward bound.

At length, just as I had grown inexpressibly weary, the door I was watching reopened, and from it emerged Flynn, accompanied by a man in evening dress with a white muffler around his neck and wearing a crush-hat—a man whom, in an instant, I recognised as Leonard Langton.

He blew a whistle for a taxi; but, seeing their intention was to drive away, I sped along into Piccadilly, and, finding one, gave the man swift instructions to wait until they entered a conveyance, and then to follow them.

The driver, noticing my clothes, looked askance at me, but I added:

“They owe me some money for work done on a car, and I mean to see where they go.”

There is a clannishness about motor-men, therefore the instant I had told my story he declared himself ready to assist me.

And as I sat back in the cab Langton and his friend, who had now gained Piccadilly, passed in search of a cab.

In a few moments they found one, and soon we had turned the corner of St. James’s Street, and were running down to Pall Mall, where we turned to the left, and after a sharp drive, swung into the station yard at Charing Cross.

Here the pair alighted, and, watching, I saw them stroll upon the arrival platform where, according to the chalked figures on the board, the boat-train from the Continent, already over an hour late, was now expected.

The usual crowd was waiting there, friends of passengers, porters, Customs officers, and the women agents of the various female rescue societies—an expectant crowd which, year in, year out, never differs.

The pair halted in earnest conversation about half-way along the platform, while I strolled slowly at some distance away, with my eyes upon them.

Flynn was arguing something, emphasising his words with his hands, while Langton stood by listening in silence.

Then there was the sudden movement of the porters who had noticed some signal fall, and looking towards the dark bridge I saw the headlight of the engine slowly approaching.

The doctor raised his finger to his friend, an action expressive of an injunction of silence.

Whom were they expecting to arrive?

With bated breath I stood motionless, watching in eager wonder.

From the arrival, whoever it might be, these men intended to preserve some secret.