Chapter Five.
What a Constable Saw
Slowly Max Barclay regained possession of his senses. The discovery had so staggered him that, for a few moments, he had stood there in that room, staring at the woman’s tweed coat, transfixed in horror.
There was some great and terrible mystery there, and with it Charlie Rolfe, the man whom he had so implicitly trusted, his most intimate friend, and brother of the woman who was all the world to him, was closely associated.
He glanced around the bare garret in apprehension. All was so weird and unexpected that a queer, uncanny feeling had crept over him. What could have occurred to have caused this revolution in the Doctor’s house?
Here in that house, only a few hours ago, he had smoked calmly with Petrovitch, the studious Servian patriot, the man whom the Servians worshipped, and who was the right hand of his sovereign the King. When they had chatted of Maud’s flirtation there had been no suggestion of departure. Indeed, the Doctor had invited him to return after dinner, as he so often did. Max was an easy, gay, careless man of the world, yet he was fond of study, and fond of the society of clever men like Petrovitch. The latter was well-known in literary circles on the Continent by reason of having written a most exhaustive history of the Ottoman Empire. That night Marion, his well-beloved, had no doubt dined at that house, prior to going to the concert with Maud. At least she would be aware of something that might give a clue to this extraordinary and hurried flight, if not to the ugly stain upon the woman’s dress lying upon the floor at his feet.
He was undecided how next to act. Should he go to the police-station and inquire of the inspector whether removing vans had been noticed by the constable on the beat, or should he take a cab to Queen’s Hall to try and find Marion and Maud?
He glanced at his watch, and saw that by the time he got to the concert they would in all probability have left. Marion was compelled to be in by eleven o’clock, therefore Maud would no doubt come out with her. Indeed, in a quarter of an hour his friend’s daughter would be due to return there.
This decided him, and, without more ado, he left the house. Was it worth while at present, he reflected, saying anything to the police regarding the blood-stained garment? Charlie might give the explanation. He would see him before the night was out.
Therefore, finding a constable at the corner of Earl’s Court Road, he inquired of him if he had noticed any removing vans before the house in question. The man replied that he had only come on duty at ten, therefore, it would be best if he went to the police-station, to which he directed him.
“If the man on duty saw any removing vans in the evening, he would certainly report it,” the constable added politely, and Barclay then went in the direction he indicated.
A quarter of an hour later he stood in the police-office, while the inspector turned over the leaves of the big book in which reports of every untoward or suspicious occurrence are entered for reference, in case of civil actions or other eventualities.
At first he could find nothing, but at last he exclaimed:
“There’s something here. I suppose this is it. Listen: P.C. Baldwin, when he came off duty, reported to the station-sergeant that two large pantechnicon vans and a small covered van of Harmer’s Stores, Knightsbridge, drove up at 8:10 to Number 127a, Cromwell Road, close to Queen’s Gate Gardens, and with seven men and a foreman removed the whole of the furniture. The constable spoke to the foreman, and learned that it was a sudden order given by the householder, a Dr Petrovitch, a foreigner, for his goods to be removed before half-past ten that night, and stored at the firm’s depository at Chiswick.”
“But they must have done it with marvellous alacrity!” Max remarked, at the same time pleased to have so quickly discovered the destination of the Doctor’s household goods.
“Bless you, sir,” answered the inspector, “Harmer’s can do anything. They’d have sent twenty vans and cleared out the place in a quarter of an hour if they’d contracted to do so. You know they can do anything, and supply anything from a tin-tack to a live monkey.”
“Then they’ve been stored at Chiswick, eh?”
“No doubt, sir. The constable would make all inquiry. You know Harmer’s place at Chiswick, not far from Turnham Green railway station? At the office in Knightsbridge they’d tell you all about it. This foreign doctor was a friend of yours, I suppose?”
“Yes, a great friend,” replied Barclay. “The fact is, I’m much puzzled over the affair. Only late this afternoon I was in his study, smoking and talking, but he told me nothing about his sudden removal.”
“Ah, foreigners are generally pretty shifty customers, sir,” was the officer’s remark. “If you’d seen as much as I have of ’em, when I was down at Leman Street, you’d think twice before you trusted one. Of course, no reflection intended on your friend, sir.”
“But there are foreigners who are gentlemen,” Max ventured to suggest.
“Yes, there may be. I haven’t met many, and we have to deal with all classes, you know. But tell me the circumstances,” added the inspector, scenting mystery in this sudden flight. “Petrovitch might be some City speculator who had suddenly been ruined, or a bankrupt who had absconded.”
Max Barclay was, however, not very communicative. Perhaps it was because of Charlie’s inexplicable presence in that deserted house, or perhaps on account of the inspector’s British antipathy towards foreigners; nevertheless, he said nothing regarding that woman’s coat with the tell-tale mark of blood.
Besides, the Doctor and Maud must be somewhere in the vicinity. No doubt he would come round to Dover Street in the morning and explain his unusual removal. The discovery of Rolfe’s presence there was nevertheless inexplicable. The more he reflected upon it, the more suspicious it seemed. The inspector’s curiosity had been aroused by Max’s demeanour. The latter had briefly related how he had called, to find the house empty, and both occupier, his daughter, and the servants gone.
“Did you see any servant when you were there this evening?”
“Yes; the man-servant Costa.”
“Ah, a foreigner! Old or young?”
“Middle-aged.”
“A devoted retainer of his master, of course.”
“I believe so.”
“Then he may have been in his master’s secret – most probably was. When a master suddenly flies he generally confides in his man. I’ve known that in many instances. What nationality was this Petrovitch?”
“Servian.”
“Oh, we don’t get many of those people in London. They come from the East somewhere, don’t they – a half-civilised lot?”
“Doctor Petrovitch is perfectly civilised, and a highly-cultured man,” Max responded. “He is a statesman and diplomat.”
“What! Is he the Minister of Servia?”
“He was – in Berlin, Constantinople, and other places.”
“Then there may be something political behind it,” the officer suggested, beaming as though some great flash of wisdom had come to him. “If so, it don’t concern us. England’s a free country to all the scum of Europe. This doctor may be flying from some enemy. Russian refugees often do. I’ve heard some queer tales about them, more strange than what them writers put in sixpenny books.”
“Yes,” remarked Barclay, “I expect you’ve had a pretty big experience of foreigners down in Whitechapel.”
“And at Vine Street, too, sir,” was the man’s reply, as he leaned against the edge of his high desk, over which the flaring gas jets hissed. “Nineteen years in the London police gives one an intimate acquaintance with the undesirable alien. Your story to-night is a queer one. Would you like me to send a man round to the house with you in order to give it a look over?”
Max reflected in an instant that if that were done the woman’s dress would be discovered.
“Well – no,” he replied. “At present I think it would be scarcely worth while. I think I know where I shall find the Doctor in the morning. Besides, a friend of mine is engaged to his daughter, so he’ll be certain to know their whereabouts.”
“Very well – as you wish. But,” he said, “if you can’t find where they’re all disappeared to, give us a call again, and we’ll try to assist you to the best of our ability.”
Max thanked him. A ragged pickpocket, held by two constables, was at that moment brought in and placed in the railed dock, making loud protests of “I’m quite innocent, guv’nor. It warn’t me at all. I was only a-lookin’ on!”
So Barclay, seeing that the inspector would be occupied in taking the charge, thanked him and left.
Outside, he reflected whether he should go direct to Charlie’s chambers in Jermyn Street. His first impulse was to do so, but somehow he viewed Rolfe with suspicion. If his friend had not seen him – and he believed he had not – then for the present it was best that he should hold his secret.
Perhaps the Doctor had sent a telegram to his own chambers. He would surely never leave London without sending him word. Therefore Max hailed a passing cab and drove to Dover Street.
His chambers, on the first floor, were cosy and well-furnished, betraying a taste in antique of the Louis XIV period. Odd articles of furniture he had picked up in out-of-the-way places, while several of the pictures were family portraits brought from Kilmaronock Castle.
The red-carpeted sitting-room, with its big inlaid writing-table, bought from an old château on the Loire, its old French chairs and modern book-case, was lit only by the green-shaded reading lamp, beneath which were some letters where his man had placed them.
On a small table at the side was a decanter of whisky, a syphon, glasses, and cigars, and beside them his letters. Eagerly he turned them over for a telegram, but there was none. Neither was there a letter from the Doctor. On the writing-table stood the telephone instrument. It might have been rung while his man Gustave had been absent. That evening he had sent him on a message down to Croydon, and he had not yet returned.
He pushed his opera-hat to the back of his head, and stood puzzled as to how he should act. Green had told him that is master had left for the Continent, and yet had he not with his own eyes seen him fly from that house in Cromwell Road?
Yes; there was a mystery – a deep, inexplicable mystery. There was not a doubt of it!
Chapter Six.
Mentions a Curious Confession
When about ten o’clock next morning Mr Warner, buyer of the costumes at Cunnington’s, noticed the tall, athletic figure of the young man in brown tweeds known as Mr Evans of Dover Street advance across the drab carpet with which the “department” was covered, he smiled within himself.
The “young ladies” of Cunnington’s were not allowed any flirtations. It was “the sack” at a moment’s notice for any girl being found flirting either with one of the male assistants or with an outsider, though he be a good customer. Cunnington’s hundred and one rules, with fines ranging from threepence to half-a-crown, were stringent ones. Mr Cunnington himself, a short, black-bearded man, of keen business instinct, was a kindly master; but in such a huge establishment with its hundreds of employees, rules must of necessity, be adhered to. Nevertheless, the buyers or headmen of the various departments each controlled their own assistants, and some being more lenient than others towards the girls, rules were very often broken.
Cunnington’s was, therefore, known to be one of the most comfortable “cribs” in the trade. Assistants who came up to London in search of a billet always went to see Mr Cunnington, and happy he or she who obtained a personal introduction to him. He had earned his success by dint of hard work. Originally an assistant himself in a Birmingham shop, he had gone into business for himself in Oxford Street, in one small establishment, and had, by fair dealing and giving good value, prospered, until great rows of windows testified to the fortune he had amassed.
Unlike most employers in the drapery trade, he was generous to a degree, and he appreciated devoted service. In his great shops he had many old hands. Some, indeed, had been with him ever since his first beginning. Those were his trusted lieutenants, of whom “Warner of the Costumes” was one.
What Warner said was never queried, and, being a kindly man, the girls in his department did pretty much as they liked.
Max Barclay, or Mr Evans as he had several times given his name, had run the gauntlet of the shopwalkers of the outer shops, and penetrated anxiously to the costumes. At that hour there were no customers. Before eleven there is but little shopping in Oxford Street. Buyers then see travellers, who come in their broughams, and assistants re-arrange and display their stocks.
On entering the department, Max at once caught sight of the tall fair-haired girl who, with her back to him, was arranging a linen costume upon a stand.
Two other girls glanced across at him, but, knowing the truth, did not ask what he required. He was Miss Rolfe’s admirer, they guessed, for men did not usually come in alone and buy twenty-guinea ready-made costumes for imaginary relatives as he had done.
He was standing behind her before she turned suddenly, and blushed in surprise. Warner, sitting in his little glass desk, noticed the look upon the girl’s face and fully realised the situation. He liked Marion’s brother, while the girl herself was extremely modest and an excellent saleswoman. He knew that Charles Rolfe and this Mr Evans were friends, and that fact had prevented him from forbidding the flirtation to continue.
Evans was evidently a gentleman. Of that he had no doubt.
“Why!” she exclaimed to her lover. “This is really a great surprise. You are early?”
“Because I wanted to see you, Marion,” he answered, quickly.
She noticed his anxiety, and in an instant grew alarmed.
“Why, what’s the matter?” she asked, glancing round to see whether the other girls were watching her. “You ought not to come here, you know, Max. I fear Mr Warner will object to you seeing me in business hours.”
“Oh! never mind him, darling,” he replied, in a low voice. “I want to ask you a question or two. Where did you see Maud last night?”
“I met her at the door at Queen’s Hall. I was to go to Cromwell Road to call for her, but she telegraphed to me at the last moment. She was with Charlie, she told me.”
“And where is Charlie?”
“Gone to Servia. He left Charing Cross by the mail last night.”
Max reflected that his friend had not left as his sister supposed.
“And where did you leave Maud?”
“I walked to the ‘tube’ station at Piccadilly Circus, and left her there. She went to Earl’s Court Station, and I took a bus home. She told me that you’d been to see the Doctor earlier in the evening. But why do you ask all this?”
“Because – well, because, Marion, something unusual has occurred,” he replied.
“Unusual!” she echoed. “What do you mean?”
“Did Maud tell you anything about her future movements last night – or mention her father’s intentions?”
“Intentions of what?”
“Of leaving the house in Cromwell Road.”
“No; she told me nothing. Only – ”
“Only what?”
“Well, it struck me that she had something on her mind. You know how bright and merry she usually is. Well, last night she seemed very thoughtful, and I wondered whether she had had any little difference with Charlie.”
“You mean that they may have quarrelled?”
“I hardly think that likely,” she said, quickly. “Charlie is far too fond of her, as you know.”
“And her father does not altogether approve of it,” Max remarked. “He has told me so.”
“Poor Charlie!” the girl said, for she was very fond of her brother. He was always a good friend to her, and gave her money to buy her dresses and purchase the few little luxuries which her modest stipend as a shop-assistant would not allow her to otherwise possess. “I’m sure he’s devoted to Maud. And she’s one of the best girls I know. They’d make a perfect pair. But the Doctor’s a foreigner, and doesn’t really understand Englishmen.”
“Perhaps that’s it,” Max said, trying to assume a careless air, for he felt that a hundred eyes were upon him.
Their position was not a very comfortable one, to say the least. He knew that he ought not to have come there during business hours, but the mystery had so puzzled him that he felt he must continue his inquiries. He had fully expected the morning post to bring him a line from the Doctor. But there had been nothing.
Both he and Maud had disappeared suddenly, leaving no trace behind – no trace except that woman’s coat with the stain of blood upon the breast.
Was it one of Maud’s dresses, he wondered. In the band he had noticed the name of its maker – Maison Durand, of Conduit Street – one of the best dressmakers in London. True he had found it in the servants’ quarters, but domestics did not have their clothes made by Durand.
“But tell me, Max,” said the girl, her fine eyes fixed upon her lover, “what makes you suggest that the Doctor is about to leave Cromwell Road.”
“He has left already,” was Max’s reply. “That’s the curious part of it.”
“Left! Moved away!”
“Yes. I came to ask you what you know about it. They’ve gone away without a word!”
“How? Why, you were there last evening!”
“I was. But soon after I left, and while Maud was with you at the concert, three vans came from Harmer’s Stores and cleared out the whole of the furniture.”
“There wasn’t a bill of sale, or something of that sort, I suppose?” she suggested.
“Certainly not. The Doctor is a wealthy man. The copper mines of Kaopanik bring him in a splendid income in themselves,” Max said. “No; there’s a mystery – a very great mystery about the affair.”
“A mystery! Tell me all about it!” she cried, anxiously, for Maud was her best friend, while the Doctor had also been extremely kind to her.
“I don’t know anything,” he responded. “Except that the whole place by half-past ten last night had been cleared out of furniture. Only the grand piano and a few big pieces have been left. Harmer’s have taken the whole of it to their depository at Chiswick.”
“Well, that’s most extraordinary, certainly,” she said, opening her eyes in blank surprise. “Maud must have known what was taking place. Possibly that is why she was so melancholy and pensive.”
“Did she say nothing which would throw any light upon their sadden disappearance?”
Marion reflected for a few moments, her brows slightly knit in thought.
“Well, she said something about her father being much worried, but she did not tell me why. About a fortnight ago she told me that both she and her father had many enemies, one of whom would not hesitate to kill him if a chance occurred. I tried to get from her the reason, but she would not tell me.”
“But you don’t think that the Doctor has been the victim of an assassin, do you?” Max asked in apprehension.
“No; but Maud may have been,” she answered. “Killed?”
“I hope not, yet – ”
“Why do you hesitate, Marion, to tell me all you know?” he urged. “There is a mystery here which we must fathom.”
“My brother knows nothing yet, I suppose.”
Barclay hesitated.
“I suppose not,” was his reply.
“Then, before I say anything, I must see him.”
“But he’s away in Servia, is he not? He won’t be back for six months.”
“Then I must wait till he returns,” she answered, decisively.
“Maud has told you something. Come, admit it,” he urged.
The girl was silent for a full minute.
“Yes,” she sighed. “She did tell me something.”
“When?”
“Last night, as we were walking together to the station – something that I refused to believe. But I believe it now.”
“Then you know the truth,” he cried. “If there had not been some unfair play, the Doctor would never have disappeared without first telling me. He has many times entrusted me with his secrets.”
“I quite believe that he would have telegraphed or written,” she said. “He looked upon you as his best friend in London.”
“And, Marion, this very fact causes me to suspect foul play,” he said, the recollection of that fugitive in the night flashing across his brain. “What do you, in the light of this secret knowledge, suspect?”
Her lips were closed tightly, and there was a strange look in her eyes.
“I believe, Max,” she replied, in a low, hard voice, “that something terrible must have happened to Maud!”
“Did she apprehend something?”
“I cannot tell. She confessed to me something under a bond of secrecy. Before I tell you I must consult Charlie – the man she loved so dearly.”
“But are we not lovers, Marion?” he asked, in a low intense voice. “Cannot you tell me what she said, in order that I may institute inquiries at once. Delay may mean the escape of the assassin if there really has been foul play.”
“I cannot betray Maud’s confidence, Max,” was her calm answer.
This response of hers struck him as implying that Maud had confessed something not very creditable to herself, something which she, as a woman, hesitated to tell him. If this were actually true, however, why should she reveal the truth to Maud’s lover? Would she not rather hide it from him?
“But you will not see Charlie for months,” he exclaimed, in dismay. “What are we to do in the meantime?”
“We can only wait,” she answered. “I cannot break my oath to my friend.”
“Then you took an oath not to repeat what she told you?”
“She told me something amazing concerning – ”
And she hesitated.
“Concerning herself,” he added. “Well?”
“It was a confession, Max – a – a terrible confession. I had not a wink of sleep last night for her words rang in my ears, and her face, wild and haggard, haunted me in the darkness. Ah! it is beyond credence – horrible! – but – but, Max – leave me. These people are noticing us. I will see you to-night, where you like. Only go – go! I can’t bear to talk of it! Poor Maud! What that confession must have cost her! And why? Ah, I see it all now! Because – because she knew that her end was near!”