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Chapter Thirty Six.
The Locked Door in Park Lane

“Excuse me, Miss Lorena, I do not,” he declared quickly. “Only we have heard so many threats of exposure that to cease to regard them seriously. Mr Statham’s high reputation is sufficient guarantee to the public.”

“I quite admit that,” answered the girl. “It is not the present that is in question, but the past.”

“In these days of hustle, a man’s past matters but little. It is what he is, not what he was, which the public recognise.”

“Personally,” she said, “I hold Mr Statham in highest esteem. I have never met him, it’s true, but I have knowledge of certain kind and generous actions on his part, actions which have brought happiness and prosperity to those who have fallen upon misfortune. For that reason I resolved to speak to you and warn you of the plot in progress. Do you happen to know a certain Mr John Adams?”

Rolfe started, and stared at her. What could she know of the Damoclean sword suspended over the house of Statham?

“Well,” he answered guardedly, “I once met a man of that name, I think.”

“Recently?”

“About a month ago.”

“You knew nothing of him prior to that?”

Rolfe hesitated. “Well, no,” he replied.

“He made pretence of being friendly with you.”

“Yes. But to tell you the truth I was somewhat suspicions of him. What do you know of him? Tell me.”

“I happen to be well acquainted with him,” the girl responded. “It is he who has arisen like one from the grave, and intends to avenge the wrong which he declares that Mr Statham had done him.”

“Recently?”

“No, years ago, when they were abroad together – and Mr Statham was still a poor man.”

Charlie Rolfe was silent. He knew Adams; he knew, too, that evil was intended. He had warned old Sam Statham, but the latter had not heeded. Adams had had the audacity to approach him in confidence, believing that he might be bought over. When he had discovered that the millionaire’s secretary was incorruptible, he openly declared his sinister intentions.

“I had no idea you were acquainted with Adams,” he said, still puzzled to know who she was, and what was her motive.

“I happen to know certain details of the plot,” she answered.

“And you will reveal them to me?” he asked in quick anxiety.

“Upon certain conditions.”

“And what are they? I am all attention.”

“The first is that you will not seek to learn the identity of the person who is associated with Mr Adams in the forthcoming exposure; and the second is that you say nothing to Mr Statham regarding our secret meeting.”

“Why?” he asked, not quite understanding the reason of her last stipulation. “I thought you wished to warn Mr Statham?”

“No. I warn you. You can take measures of precaution, on Mr Statham’s behalf without making explanation.”

“Mr Statham has already seen John Adams and recognised him. He is already forewarned.”

“And he has not taken any steps in self-defence?” she cried quickly.

“Why need he trouble?”

“Why, because that man Adams has sworn to hound him to self-destruction.”

Rolfe shrugged his shoulders, and replied:

“Mr Statham has really no apprehension of any unpleasantness, Miss Lorena. It is true that in the old days the two men were friends, and, apparently, they quarrelled. Adams was lost for years to all who knew him, and now suddenly reappears to find his old acquaintance wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice, and seeks, as many more before him have done, to profit by his former friendship.”

“Or enmity,” added the girl, lowering her sunshade a little until for a moment it hid her features. “I do not think you realise the dastardly cunning of the plot in progress. It has not only as its object the ruin of the credit of the house of Statham Brothers, but the creation of a scandal which Mr Samuel Statham will not dare to face. He must either fly the country, or commit suicide.”

“Well?”

“The latter is expected by the two men who have combined and are now perfecting their ingenious conspiracy. It is believed by them that he will take his own life.”

Charlie Rolfe reflected for a moment. He recollected old Sam’s terrible agitation on the day when he recognised John Adams leaning against the railings of the Park. Of late, the great financier had betrayed signs of unusual nervousness, and had complained several times of insomnia. To his secretary knowledge he had spent two nights that very week in walking the streets of London from midnight until dawn, ostensibly to do charitable actions to the homeless, but in reality because his mind was becoming unbalanced by the constant strain of not knowing from one moment to another when Adams would deal his staggering blow.

Had there been any question of blackmail, the aid of solicitors and of Scotland Yard could have been invoked. But there had been no threat beyond the statement made openly to Rolfe by the man who intended to encompass the ruin of the eccentric millionaire and philanthropist.

“I think, Miss Lorena, that we need have no fear of Mr Statham doing anything rash,” he said. “But why is it hoped that he will prefer to take his life rather than face any exposure?”

“Because they will profit by his death – profit to an enormous degree.”

“But how can Adams profit? He has had no dealings with Mr Statham of late.”

“Not Adams, but his friend. The latter will become wealthy.”

“And may I not know his name?”

“No. That is the stipulation which I make. For the present it is sufficient that you should be made aware of the broad lines of the plot, and that its main object is the death of Samuel Statham.”

“And you wish me to tell him all this?”

“Certainly, only without explaining that I was your informant.”

“Why do you wish to conceal the fact, Miss Lorena?” he asked. “Surely he would be only too delighted to be able to thank you for your warning?”

She shook her head, saying:

“If it were known that I had exposed their plans it would place me in peril. They are determined and relentless men, who would willingly sacrifice a woman in order to gain their ends, which in this case is a large fortune.”

“And you will not tell me the name of Adams’s associate in the matter?”

“No. I – I cannot do that. Please do not ask me,” she answered hurriedly.

Rolfe was again silent for a few moments. At last he asked:

“Cannot you tell me something of the past relations between Adams and Statham? You seem to know all the details of the strange affair.”

“Adams makes certain serious allegations which he can substantiate. There is a certain witness whom Mr Statham believes to be dead, but who is still alive, and is now in England.”

“A witness – of what?” asked Rolfe quickly.

“Of the crime which Adams alleges.”

“Crime – what crime?” ejaculated the young man in surprise, staring at his pretty companion.

“Some serious offence, but of what nature I am not permitted to explain to you.”

“Why not, Miss Lorena? You must! Remember that Mr Statham is in ignorance of this – I mean that Adams intends to charge him with a crime. Surely the position is most serious! I imagined that Adams’s charges were criticism of Mr Statham’s methods of finance.”

“Finance does not enter into it at all,” said the girl. “The delegation is a secret crime by which the millionaire laid the foundation of his fortune; a crime committed abroad, and of which there are two witnesses still living, men who were, until a few weeks ago, believed to be dead.

“But you tell me that Adams’s associate will, if Mr Statham commits suicide, profit to an enormous amount. Will you not explain? If this is so, why have they not attempted to levy blackmail? If the charge has foundation – which I do not for one moment believe – then surely Mr Statham would be prepared to make payment and hush up the affair? He would not be human if he refused.”

“The pair are fully alive to the danger of any attempt to procure money by promise of secrecy,” she replied. “They have already fully considered the matter, and arrived at the conclusion that to compel Mr Statham to take his own life is the wiser and easier course.”

“You seem to be in their confidence, Miss Lorena?” he said, gazing at the pretty girl at his side.

“Yes, I am. That is why I am unable to reveal to you the name of Adams’s companion,” she replied. “All I can tell you is that the intention is to make against him a terrible charge of which they possess evidence which is, apparently, overwhelming.”

“Then you know the charge it is intended to bring against him – eh?”

“Yes,” was her prompt answer. “To me it seems outrageous, incomprehensible – and yet – ”

“Well?”

“And yet, if it is really true, it would account to a very great degree for Mr Statham’s eccentricity of which I’ve so often read in the papers. No one enters his house in Park Lane. Is not that so?”

“He is shy, and does not care for strangers,” was Rolfe’s response.

“But it said in the paper only a week ago that nobody has ever been upstairs in that house except himself. There is a door on the stairs, they say, which is always kept locked and bolted.”

“And if that is so?”

“Well – have you ever been upstairs, Mr Rolfe. Tell me; I’m very anxious to know.”

“I make no secret of it,” was his reply, smiling the while. “I have never been upstairs. Entrance there is forbidden.”

“Even to you – his confidential secretary?”

“Yes, even to me.”

“And yet there are signs of the upstairs’ rooms being occupied,” she remarked. “I have seen lights there myself, as I’ve passed the house. I was along Park Lane late one evening last week.”

“So you have been recently in London?”

“London is my home. I am only here on a visit,” was her reply. “And ascertaining you were coming here, I resolved to see you.”

“And has this serious allegation which Adams intends to bring any connection with the mystery concerning the mansion?”

“Yes. It has.”

“In what way?”

She paused, as though uncertain whether or not to tell the truth.

“Because,” she said at last, “because I firmly believe, from facts known to me, that confirmation of the truth of Adams’s charge will be discovered beyond that locked door!”

Chapter Thirty Seven.
Max Barclay is Inquisitive

“Miss Rolfe has left the firm’s employ, sir.”

“Left – left Cunnington’s?” gasped Max Barclay, staring open-mouthed at Mr Warner, the buyer.

“Yes, sir. She left suddenly yesterday morning,” repeated the dapper little man with the pen behind his ear.

“But this is most extraordinary – to leave at a moment’s notice! I thought she was so very comfortable here. She always spoke so kindly of you, and for the consideration with which you always treated her.”

“It was very kind of her, I’m sure,” replied the buyer; “but it is the rule here – a moment’s notice on either side.”

“But why? Why has she left?”

Warner hesitated. He, of course, knew the truth, but he was not anxious to speak it.

“Some little misunderstanding, I think.”

“With you?”

“Oh, dear no. She was called down to the counting-house yesterday morning, and she did not return.”

“Then she’s been discharged – eh?” asked Max in a hard voice.

“I believe so, sir. At least, it would appear so.”

“And are they in the habit of discharging assistants in this manner – throwing them out of a home and out of employment at a moment’s notice? Is Mr Cunnington himself aware of it?”

“It would be Mr Cunnington himself who discharged her,” was the buyer’s answer. “No other person has authority either to engage or discharge.”

“But there must be a reason for her dismissal!” exclaimed Max.

“Certainly. But only Mr Cunnington knows that.”

“Can I see him?”

“Well, at this hour he’s generally very busy indeed; but if you go down to the counting-house in the next building, and ask for him, he may give you a moment.”

“Thank you, Mr Warner,” Barclay said, a little abruptly, and, turning on his heel, left the department.

“She hasn’t told him evidently,” remarked one girl-assistant to the other. “I’m sorry Rolfie’s gone. She wasn’t half a bad sort. She was old Warner’s favourite, too, or her young gentleman would never have been allowed to talk to her in the shop. If you or I had had a young man to come and see us as she had, we’d have been fired out long ago.”

“I wonder who her young man really is,” remarked the second girl, watching him as he strode out, a lithe figure in a well-cut suit of grey tweeds.

“Well, he’s a thorough gentleman, just like her brother,” remarked her companion. “I saw him in his motor-boat up at Hampton the Sunday before last. He’s completely gone on her. I wonder what’ll happen now. I don’t think much of the new girl; do you? Does her hair awfully badly.” Unconscious of the criticism he had evoked, Max Barclay descended the stairs, passed through the long shops – crowded as they always were in the afternoon – into the adjoining building, and sought audience of the titular head of the great firm.

After waiting for some time in an outer office he was shown in. The moment he asked his question Mr Cunnington grasped the situation.

“I very much regret, sir, that it is not my habit to give information to a second party concerning the dismissal of any of my assistants. If the young lady applies for her character, she is perfectly entitled to have it.”

“But I apply for her character,” said Max promptly.

“You are not an employer, sir. She has not applied to you for a situation.”

“No; but I may surely know the reason she has left your service?” Max pointed out. “Her brother, who is abroad just now, is my most intimate friend.”

Mr Cunnington stroked his dark beard thoughtfully, but shook his head, saying:

“I much regret, Mr Barclay, that I am unable to give you the information you seek. Would it not be better to ask the young lady herself?”

“But she has left, and I have no idea of her address!” exclaimed Barclay. “Can you furnish me with it?”

The head of Cunnington’s, Limited, took up the telephone receiver and asked for a certain Mr Hughes, of whom he made inquiry if Miss Rolfe had left her address.

There was a wait of a few moments, then Mr Cunnington turned and said:

“The young lady left no address. She was asked, but refused to give one.”

Max’s heart sank within him. She had been dismissed at an instant’s notice, and was lost to him. He turned upon Mr Cunnington in quick anger and said:

“So I am to understand that you refuse me all information concerning her?”

“I merely adhere to my rule, sir. Any dismissal of my assistants is a matter between myself and the person dismissed. I am not called upon to give details or reasons to outsiders. I regret that I am very busy, and must wish you good afternoon.”

Max Barclay bit his lip. He did not like the brisk, business-ike air of the man.

“I shall call upon Mr Statham, whom I happen to know,” he said. “And I shall invoke his aid.”

“You are perfectly at liberty to do just as you like, my dear sir. Even Mr Statham exercises no authority over the assistants in this establishment. It is my own department and I brook no interference.”

Max did not reply, but left the office and strode out into Oxford Street, pushing past the crowd of women around the huge shop-windows admiring the feminine finery there displayed so temptingly.

Marion – his Marion – had disappeared. She had been dismissed – in disgrace evidently; probably for some petty fault or for breaking one of the hundred rules by which every assistant was bound. He had always heard Mr Cunnington spoken of as a most lenient, and even generous, employer, yet his treatment of Marion had been anything but just or humane.

When he thought of it his blood boiled. Charlie was away, he knew. He had telephoned to his rooms that very morning, but his man had replied that his master had left hurriedly for the Continent – for Paris, he thought.

At the corner of Bond Street he halted, and glanced at his watch. Should he try and find Charlie by telegraph or should he take the bull by the horns and go and see old Sam Statham. His well-beloved had disappeared. Would the old financier assist him to discover the truth?

He was well aware that for a comparative stranger to be deceived in that big house in Park Lane was exceptional. Old Levi had his orders, and few among the many callers ever placed their foot over the carefully-guarded threshold. Still, he resolved to make the attempt, and, with that object, jumped into a taxi-cab which happened at the moment to be passing.

Alighting at the house, he presented his card to old Levi, who opened the door, and asked the favour of a few moments’ conversation with Mr Statham? The old servant scrutinised the card closely, and took stock of the visitor, who, noticing his hesitation, added: “Mr Statham will remember me, I believe.”

Levi asked him into the hall, with a dissatisfied grunt, and disappeared, to return a few moments later, and usher the visitor into the presence of the millionaire.

Old Samuel, who had been dozing over a newspaper in the his easy-chair near the fireplace, rose, and, through his spectacles, regarded his visitor with some suspicion. The blinds were drawn, shading the room from the afternoon sun, therefore Max found the place was in comparative darkness after the glare outside.

In a few moments, however, when his eyes grew accustomed to the semi-darkness, he saw the old fellow wave his hand in the direction of a chair, saying:

“I’m very glad you called, Mr Barclay – very glad. Indeed, curiously enough, I intended to write to you only yesterday upon a business matter, but I was too busy.”

Barclay seated himself, full of surprise that the great financier should wish to consult him upon any business matter.

“Well, Mr Statham,” he said, “I may as well tell you at once that I am here to seek your kind assistance and help in a purely personal matter – a matter which closely concerns my own happiness.”

Statham pricked up his ears. He knew what was coming. Marion Rolfe had told him of her visit there.

“Well?” he asked coldly, in a changed manner.

“You possibly are unaware that I am engaged to be married to Marion Rolfe, the sister of your secretary, a young lady in whom you were kind enough to take an interest am obtain for her a situation at Cunnington’s.”

The old man nodded, his countenance sphinx-like.

“The lady in question has been dismissed by Mr Cunnington at a moment’s notice, and he refuses to tell me the reason of his very remarkable action. I want you to be good enough to obtain a response for me.”

“And where is the young lady?” asked the wary Statham.

“Nobody knows. She would leave no address.”

“Then you are unaware of her whereabouts?”

“She has disappeared.”

“Extraordinary!” the old fellow remarked, reflecting deeply for a moment.

“Yes. I cannot imagine why, in the circumstances, she has not written to me,” Max declared, the expression upon his face betraying his deep distress.

“It is certainly somewhat strange,” the old man agreed. “Girls at Cunnington’s are not often discharged in that manner. Cunnington himself is always most lenient. Have you seen him?”

“Yes; and he absolutely refuses any information.”

“In that case, Mr Barclay, I don’t see very well how I can assist you. The management and organisation of the concern are left to him, as managing director. I really cannot interfere.”

“But was it not through you that Marion, without previous experience or apprenticeship, was engaged there?”

“Yes; I have some recollection of sending a line of recommendation to Cunnington,” was the millionaire’s response. “But, of course, my interest ended there. My secretary asked me to write the note, and I did so.”

“Then you really cannot obtain for me the information I desire?”

“But why are you so inquisitive – eh?” snapped the old man. “Surely the lady will tell you the reason of her dismissal!”

“I don’t know where she is.”

“A fact which is – well – rather curious – shall we designate it?” the old man remarked meaningly.

“You mean to imply that her instant dismissal has cast a slur upon her character, and that she fears to meet me lest she be compelled to tell me the truth?” he said slowly as the suggestion dawned upon him. “Ah! I see. You refuse to help me, Mr Statham, because – because I love her.”

And his face became pale, hard-set, and determined.