Chapter Twenty Three. Which Makes One Fact Plain.

Mr Johnson felt a pleasurable sense of elation when he embarked on the mission assigned him by his chief. If he could discover anything that would help to elucidate or solve what was known amongst the select few as “the Monkton Mystery,” rapid promotion was assured.

Smeaton was not a jealous man, and besides, if Johnson did score a success, it was his senior who had given him the materials to work upon.

Still, although pleasantly elated, he did not disguise from himself the difficulties of his task. He had to find out where Lady Wrenwyck was hiding—she was hiding, of course, or her whereabouts would have been known to her household. And he did not know the woman by sight.

He grappled with the smaller difficulty first, when he met his cousin the footman, at their usual meeting-place.

“Any chance of getting a peep at a photograph of her ladyship?” he asked. He had told Willet, such was his name, as much as it was good for him to know, and no more.

“I’m very friendly with several of the Wrenwyck lot,” was Willet’s reply. “I daresay I could smuggle one out for you for half-an-hour, but it’s exciting suspicion, isn’t it? And I suppose you don’t want to take too many people into your confidence?”

Johnson agreed with this sentiment emphatically. He could swallow any amount of confidence himself, but he hated reciprocity. Hear everything, and tell nothing, or, at the worst, as little as you can. That was his motto.

“It would lead to gossip, and we should have to fudge up some tale or other, Dick. We’ll let it alone for the present, and only use it as a last resource.”

Mr Willet reflected, and then he remembered. “Look here. I’ve just thought of the very thing! I’ve a lot of old illustrated newspapers by me. Not very long ago there was a full-page portrait of her, in fancy dress at the Devonshire House ball—Queen of Sheba or something. It’s a splendid likeness. If you once see it, you’d pick her out from a thousand. Stay here for ten minutes, and I’ll hunt it out and bring it round.”

Willet was as good as his word. In a little over the time he had stated, the portrait was in Johnson’s hands, and carefully scrutinised. In the words of his cousin, wherever he met Lady Wrenwyck he would “pick her out of a thousand.”

That little difficulty was solved without any loss of time. The important one remained: where was she at the present moment?

On this point Willet could give no information. Her maid had packed her boxes, and they had started off one afternoon when her husband was absent, without a hint of their destination from either of them.

“Doesn’t Lord Wrenwyck know? Surely she must have given him some information, even if it was misleading.”

“I doubt if Wrenwyck knows any more than we do,” replied Willet, alluding to this highly-descended peer with the easy familiarity of his class. “She’s disappeared half-a-dozen times since her marriage in this way, and come back when it suited her, just as if nothing had happened.”

“A rum household,” observed Johnson, who was not so used to high-class ways as his cousin. “But you told me that she had no money when she married him. You can’t travel about for weeks on nothing. What does she do for cash on these jaunts?”

Mr Willet shrugged his shoulders. “Not so difficult as you think. The old man made a handsome settlement on her, and I suppose she times her journeys when she’s got plenty in hand, and comes back when she’s broke. Besides, her bank would let her overdraw, if she wrote to them.”

“You’re right, I didn’t think of that. Her bankers have got her address right enough, and, of course, they wouldn’t give it. They would forward a letter though, if one could write one that would draw her.”

There was a pause after this. Johnson was pondering as to how it was possible to utilise her bankers—somebody in the household would be sure to know who they were. Willet was pondering too, and, as it appeared, to some purpose.

“Look here, you haven’t told me too much, and I don’t blame you either, under the circumstances, but I see you want to get on her track. I’ve an idea I’ll tell you.”

“You’re full of ’em,” said Johnson appreciatively.

“You may take my word for it, nobody at the Wrenwyck house knows; anyway, nobody I can get hold of. Now, she’s got a bosom friend, a Mrs Adair, rather rapid like herself, and married to just such another grumpy, half-cracked old chap as Wrenwyck himself.”

“I didn’t know he was half-cracked,” interposed Johnson, who never missed the smallest piece of information.

“They all say he is. Wheeler, his valet, tells me he has frightful fits of rage, and after they are over, sits growling and gnashing his teeth—most of ’em false, by the way.”

Mr Willet paused for a moment to accept his cousin’s offer of another drink, and then resumed.

“I don’t want to raise your hopes too high, old man. If she’s on the strict q.t. it’s long odds she won’t let a soul know where she is. But if she has told anybody, it’s Mrs Adair, who, if necessary, would help her with money if she’s short. They’ve been bosom friends for years; when in town they see each other every day.”

Johnson nodded his head judiciously. “It’s an even chance that Mrs Adair knows, if everybody else is in the dark. But how the devil are we to get at Mrs Adair? If we could, she wouldn’t give her away.”

Mr Willet grinned triumphantly. “Of course not, I see that as well as you do; I’m not a juggins. Now this is just where I come in to help the great London detective.”

“You are priceless, Dick,” murmured Mr Johnson in a voice of unfeigned admiration.

“Mrs Adair’s maid is a girl I’ve long had a sneaking regard for. But I had to lie low because she was keeping company with an infernal rotter, who she thought was everything her fancy painted. Two months ago, she found him out, and gave him the chuck. Then I stepped in. We’re not formally engaged as yet, but I think she’s made up her mind she might do worse. It’s a little early yet. I’m taking her out to-morrow night. I’ll pump her and see if Mrs Adair receives any letters from Lady Wrenwyck. My young woman knows the handwriting, and the postmark will tell you what you want—eh?”

Johnson again expressed his admiration of his cousin’s resource, suggested a little douceur for his trouble, and gallantly invited him and his sweetheart to take a bit of dinner with him.

But Willet, who was of a jealous disposition, waved him sternly away. “After marriage, if you like, my lad, not before. You’re too good-looking, and not old enough. Never introduce your young lady to a pal. No offence, of course. You’d do the same in my place, or you haven’t got the headpiece I give you credit for.”

Johnson admitted meekly that in the case of an attractive young woman it was wise to take precautions. They parted on the understanding that they would meet at the same place two nights later.

They met at the time appointed, and there was an almost offensive air of triumph about Mr Willet’s demeanour that argued good things. He started by ordering refreshment.

“Now to business,” he said, in his sharp, slangy way. “I’ve pumped Lily all right, and this job seems as easy as falling off a house. No letters have come from the lady, or gone to her, since she left, but—” he made a long pause here. “Every week a letter comes to Mrs Adair with the Weymouth postmark on it and every week Mrs Adair writes to a Mrs Marsh, whom Lily never heard of, and the letter is addressed to the Weymouth post-office. The writing on the envelope that comes to Mrs Adair is not Lady W.’s. Do you tumble?”

“It’s a hundred chances to one that her ladyship is at Weymouth, and her maid addresses the envelope,” was Johnson’s answer.

“I say ditto. Mrs Adair’s letter is posted every Thursday. To-day is Wednesday. Put yourself in the Weymouth train to-morrow, keep a watch on the post-office next morning, and the odds are that letter will be fetched by Lady Wrenwyck, or her maid.”

“Thanks to the portrait I know the mistress, but I don’t know the maid. Describe her to me.”

Mr Willet produced a piece of paper and pencil. “I’m a bit of an artist in my spare time. I’ll draw her for you so exactly that you can’t mistake her.”

He completed the sketch and handed it to his cousin. Later, they parted with mutual expressions of good will.

Friday morning saw Johnson prowling round the Weymouth post-office. He had to wait some time, but his patience was rewarded—he saw both Lady Wrenwyck and her maid.

After issuing from the post-office, they went together to several shops, strolled for a few minutes up and down the sea front, and then returned home.

He had not expected to find them at a hotel, for obvious reasons. He was not therefore surprised when they entered one of the bigger houses facing the sea. They wanted privacy, and their only chance of getting that was in lodgings.

He snatched a hasty lunch, and kept observation on the house till about six o’clock, in the hope that her ladyship would come out again with a companion. But he was disappointed in this expectation.

He made up his mind to force matters a little. He went up boldly to the door and knocked.

“Is Mrs Marsh at home?” he asked the servant who answered the summons.

The girl answered in the affirmative. “Who shall I say, please?” she added.

“Wait a moment. Is she alone?”

It was a random shot, but it had the effect he intended.

“Quite alone. Mr Williams is very bad again to-day. He’s in bed.”

Mr Williams! Just the sort of ordinary name a man would assume under the circumstances.

“She won’t know my name. Just say a Mr Johnson from London wishes to see her on urgent private business.”

As he waited in the hall, he wondered whether she would refuse to see him? Well, if she did, it only meant delay. He would stay on at Weymouth till his business was done.

The maid interrupted his reflections by calling over the banisters, “Will you come up, please?”

The next moment, he was bowing to Lady Wrenwyck, who was seated in an easy-chair, a book, which she had just laid down, on her lap. She was a very beautiful woman still, and although she sat in a strong light, did not look over thirty-five.

She received him a little haughtily. “I do not remember to have seen you before. What is your business with me?”

Johnson fired his first shot boldly. “I believe I have the honour of addressing Lady Wrenwyck?”

Her face went a shade paler. “I do not deny it. Please explain your object in seeking me out. Will you sit down?”

The detective took a chair. “You have no doubt, madam, heard of the mysterious disappearance of an old friend of yours, Mr Monkton.”

He had expected to see her start, or show some signs of embarrassment. She did nothing of the kind. Her voice, as she answered him, was quite calm.

“I have heard something of it—some wild rumour. I am sorry for his daughter and his friends, for himself, if anything terrible has happened. But why do you come to me about this?”

It was Johnson’s turn to feel embarrassment now. Her fine eyes looked at him unwaveringly, and there was just the suspicion of a contemptuous smile on her beautiful face.

“I knew you were close friends once,” he stammered. “It struck me you might know something—he might have confided something to you.”

He broke down, and there was a long pause. For a space Lady Wrenwyck turned her face away, and looked out on the sea front. Suddenly she divined his errand, and a low ripple of laughter escaped her.

“I think I see the meaning of it all now. You have picked up some ancient rumours of my friendship with Mr Monkton, and you think he is with me here; that I am responsible for his disappearance.”

The detective was too embarrassed to answer her. He was thankful that she had seen things so quickly.

“I don’t know why I should admit anything to you,” she went on, in a contemptuous voice, “but I will admit this much. There was a time when I was passionately in love with him. At that time, if he had lifted up his little finger I would have followed him to the end of the world. He never asked me—he had water in his veins, not blood. That was in the long ago. To-day he is nothing to me—barely a memory. Go back to London, my good man. You will not find Reginald Monkton here.”

Her scornful tone braced the detective, and dispelled his momentary embarrassment.

“Who then is Mr Williams?” he asked doggedly.

“Oh, you know that, do you?—you seem full of useless knowledge. Mr Williams, an assumed name like my own, is my youngest and favourite brother. There is a tragic family history which I shall not tell you. It suffices to say I am the only member of his family who has not severed relations with him. He is very ill. I am here to nurse him back to health and strength.”

Johnson looked dubious. She spoke with the ring of truth, but these women of the world could be consummate actresses when they chose.

She rose from her chair, a smile half contemptuous half amused upon her charming face.

“You don’t believe me. Wait a moment, and I will convince you.”

She left the room, returning after a moment’s absence.

“Follow me and see for yourself,” she said coldly, and led the way into a bedroom adjoining the room in which they had been talking.

“Look here,” she pointed to the bed. “He is asleep; I gave him a composing draught an hour ago.”

Johnson looked. A man of about thirty-five, bearing a remarkable likeness to herself, was lying on his side, his hand supporting his head. The worn, drawn features spoke of pain and suffering from which, for the moment, he was relieved.

The detective stole from the room on tiptoe, followed by Lady Wrenwyck. “You know Mr Monkton by sight, I presume? Have you seen enough? If so, I beg you to relieve me of your presence and your insulting suspicions.” She pointed to the stairs with an imperious hand.

Johnson had never felt a bigger fool in his life—he would have liked the earth to open and swallow him.

“I humbly apologise,” he faltered, and sneaked down the stairs, feeling like a whipped mongrel.