Chapter Twelve.

Chapter Twelve.A Strange Story Unfolded.I confess to having been half-inclined, when I returned home that night, to take Mabel into my confidence. But I hesitated, because I knew that her frankness and sense of justice would lead her to suggest that I should go to New Scotland Yard and lay the whole facts before the Criminal Investigation Department.I had no secrets from her—I loved her far too well. But in this crooked affair I had most foolishly given my word of honour to say nothing.All Kirk’s strange declarations and allegations now recurred to me. Hence I was compelled to abandon all idea of making Mabel my confidante.I knew, however, by the way she looked at me, that she was troubled and puzzled by my manner. Indeed, that evening when I returned and found her beside the fire in our cosy sitting-room, her slim fingers busy with some fancy needlework, I recognised by her pointed questions that she regarded me with considerable apprehension.Again she asked me what was the matter, and again I replied evasively that I had just then a good many business worries. And we dropped the subject because Gwen, her younger sister, entered the room.All next day I debated within myself what course I should now adopt, but, alas! I could not decide upon any. The whole affair was such an entire enigma. The more I had tried to probe the mystery, the more utterly inexplicable did it seem.Reflect for a moment, and you will fully realise the peril of my position. To me, it seemed quite plain that I had by my readiness to accept Kirk’s friendship, given myself entirely into the hands of the conspirators.If Kirk were truly an honest man and not afraid, he certainly would have called in the police. Yet had he not openly admitted his inability to prove an alibi?That afternoon, a damp and dismal one, I had to run out on a car to Tunbridge Wells to see a customer who was purchasing the car which I drove. I took Dick with me, and, the car being a “forty-eight,” we sped along pretty swiftly until we halted before the entrance to that old-world promenade, the Pantiles, near which my customer lived.Before we got home again it was near midnight, but on that night drive I resolved that on the morrow I would embark upon the work of amateur detective, and endeavour to discover something on my own account.To solve such a complete enigma as that now presented one must, I realised, begin at the beginning. And that was what I intended to do. Therefore, on the following night, at half-past eleven, I left King’s Cross in a sleeping-car for Edinburgh, having first ascertained that the conductor was the same who had travelled by that train on the night of the Professor’s alleged journey.He was a tall, lean, fair-whiskered Scot, whose uniform seemed too big for his shrunken frame, but who bustled up and down the corridor as soon as the train had started, inquiring of the passengers at what hour they would like to be called, and whether they would take tea.I waited until he came to my compartment, and then I put to him certain questions regarding his passengers on the night of Sunday, the thirteenth, asking whether he remembered Professor Greer.“Why, yes, sir,” was his answer with a strong northern accent. “Another gentleman asked me about the Professor when I got back to King’s Cross.”“Did you take the Professor up to Edinburgh?”“Certainly, sir. I remember the name. Indeed, here it is in my book,” and, turning back a few pages, he showed me the name among those who had secured sleeping-berths in advance. “As I told the other gentleman who inquired, he wouldn’t have any tea, and told me to call him at Dunbar.”“And when you called him did you then see him in his berth?”“Yes, sir, he pulled the door back and inquired what kind of a morning it was.”“Where did he alight?”“At Waverley, of course. I handed him out his bags, and one of the porters of the North British Hotel took them.”“You’re quite certain of that?”“As certain as we’re going north to-night, sir,” replied the man.Then I drew forth the Professor’s photograph from my pocket and showed it to him.“That’s the same gentleman, and a very nice gentleman he was, too, sir,” he declared, the instant his eyes fell upon it. “But for what reason do you ask this? You’re the second person who has made inquiries.”“Only—well, only because the Professor is a little eccentric,” I replied diplomatically, “and we are rather anxious to know of his doings up in Scotland. Nearly all great men of genius,” I added, “are slightly eccentric, you know.”“Well, he went to the North British,” replied the conductor. “They’ll be certain to recollect him there.”“Do you know the porter who took his bag?”“Yes, it was Walter Macdonald. I’ll call him when we get to Waverley in the morning, and you can ask what questions you like.”And the man left me and bustled away, while soon afterwards, as the great express began to gather speed towards Hatfield, I turned into the narrow little bed, while we roared along through the dark night.When I drew aside the blind next morning we were skirting the grey misty sea, within sight of the Bass Rock. Therefore I leisurely dressed, and, punctual to time, stepped out upon the long platform at Edinburgh at half-past seven.At a whistle from the conductor, a smartly-uniformed hotel porter stepped up, and I explained, in a few brief words, the object of my visit to Edinburgh.“I remember the gentleman quite well, sir,” replied Macdonald, after I had exhibited the photograph. “I took his suit-case and kit-bag and gave them over to the hall-porter. The gentleman did not engage a room, I think. But his first inquiry was for the telegraph-office, and I directed him to the General Post Office, which is almost next door here. That’s about all I know of his movements.”I gave the man a tip, and, ascending in the hotel lift, passed through the lounge and entered the big coffee-room which overlooks Princes Street, where I breakfasted.Afterwards I lounged about the main hall which opens upon Princes Street—the entrance from the station being from deep below at the back of the premises.I saw that outside the reception office, upon a green baize-covered board and placed beneath tapes, telegrams for visitors were exhibited, and the addressees took them themselves. It would, therefore, be quite easy for anyone not staying in the hotel to have a telegram addressed there, and to receive it in secret. It would also be just as easy for a person to take anybody else’s telegram that happened to be there.Two young lady clerks were behind the brass grille, and presently I addressed the elder of the pair, and showed her the photograph. Neither, however, recognised it.I turned up the visitors’-book, and saw that on Monday the fourteenth no person of the name of Greer had registered.“He was a chance customer, evidently,” remarked the elder of the girls in neat black. “He arrived, you say, by the morning East Coast express, therefore he may just have had breakfast and gone on. Many people do that, and catch their connections for the North. In such a case we never see them. Both myself and my friend here were on duty all day on Monday.”“I certainly have never seen the gentleman to my knowledge!” declared the other.“But he must, I think, have received two telegrams.”“I remember one telegram, but I do not recollect the other. We have so many wires here in the course of the day, you know,” the girl replied. “But what I do recollect is being rung up on the telephone from London on the following day, with an inquiry whether the gentleman was staying here.”“You don’t know who rang you up?” I asked.“I haven’t any idea!” she laughed. “It may have been the police. They’ve done so before now.”“Of course he might have stayed here in another name and taken telegrams addressed to him as Greer,” I suggested.“I scarcely think so,” replied the elder of the pair, a tall, smart, business-like woman. “If he had, one of us would, no doubt, have remembered him. I’d have a chat to the hall-porter at the station-entrance if I were you,” she added.I therefore sought out the tall, liveried man she had indicated, and again to him exhibited the portrait.He remembered the Professor quite distinctly, he told me. The visitor deposited in his charge a kit-bag and suit-case, remarking that he was not quite certain if he would remain the night, and passed on into the hotel. “That was about 7:35 in the morning.”“When did you see him again?”“About noon, when he passed through to the lift, and descended into the station. I noticed that he was then wearing a different hat from the one he had on when he arrived from London,” the hall-porter replied.“When did he take his luggage?”“About half-past three. A porter took it below, and it was placed in the cloak-room.”“You didn’t see him again?”“No, sir. He probably left by a later train that day.”That was all the information I could gather in that quarter. The remainder of the morning I spent idling about Princes Street, that splendid thoroughfare which has few equals in the world, trying to decide upon my next course of action. I had exhausted Edinburgh, it seemed, and clearly my way lay south again.Suddenly, on re-entering the hotel to get lunch, a thought occurred to me, and I sought out the hair-dressing department, making inquiry of the man in charge, a fair-haired, well-spoken German.As soon as I showed him the portrait, he exclaimed:“Ja! I recollect him—quite well.”“Tell me what you know of his movements,” I urged.I saw that the man regarded me with considerable suspicion.“I presume, sir,” he said, “that you are an agent of police?”“No, I’m not,” I assured him, rather surprised at his remark. “I’m simply making inquiry because—well, because my friend is now missing.”“Then I’ll tell you what occurred, sir,” answered the German, with a slight accent. “The gentleman came in about four o’clock and asked me to shave him. When I began to put on the soap I realised, however, that he had himself been cutting off his beard closely. But I shaved him, and made no comment. We hairdressers are used to such things, yet they sometimes cause us a little wonder.”“Ah!” I cried. “Then he left here with his beard shaven clean! He intended to disguise himself!”“No doubt, sir,” replied the man, who seemed a particularly intelligent fellow. “Because, earlier in the day, while crossing the corridor, I had noticed him standing near the lift. He then had a full beard. I recollected the clothes he was wearing.”“Did he talk to you?”“Very little, sir. He seemed a gloomy, rather silent man.”That was all he could tell me, though he declared that the gentleman had seemed very agitated and upset while he was being shaved. His hair was also cut, and his moustache trimmed.“Did it alter his appearance much?” I inquired. “Very greatly, sir. I should scarcely have known him when he left here.”“And you told nobody?”“It is not my business to pry into customers’ affairs,” responded the man, and very justly; “but I took good note of his countenance.”What he told me was certainly remarkable. The whole of the facts were, indeed, astounding.While the unfortunate Professor lay dead in his laboratory in London he was, at the same time, here, in Edinburgh, making an attempt at disguise, and sending a reassuring telegram to his daughter!That Professor Greer had been killed there was not the slightest doubt—killed, too, behind locked doors, in circumstances which themselves formed a complete and inscrutable mystery. Then, if so, who was this man who had left London with the Professor’s luggage, had arrived in Edinburgh, and whom the hotel-servants and others had identified by his portrait?If he were not the Professor, then who could he have been? One thing was certain, he could not have been the actual assassin. Yet if not, why had he taken such pains to disguise his appearance?The theory of Greer having a double I put aside at once. Doubles only exist in the realms of fiction. Here, however, I was dealing with hard, solid facts.Each phase of the intricate problem became more and more complicated as I endeavoured to analyse it. That grey, wintry afternoon I wandered about the damp streets of Edinburgh, gazing aimlessly in the shop windows, and afterwards sat for a full hour upon a seat in the deserted public gardens below the Castle, thinking and wondering until the gloomy twilight began to creep on, and the lights along Princes Street commenced to glimmer.Then, rising, I set off again across the North Bridge, and through High Street and Johnstone Terrace to the Caledonian Station, and by George Street and St. Andrew’s Street back to the Waverley, a tour of the centre of the city. I was merely killing time, for I had decided to take the night express back to King’s Cross.When I re-entered the hotel it was nearly seven o’clock, and, as I did so, the porter at the revolving door in Princes Street touched his cap and informed me that the hairdresser desired to see me again.I ascended to the first floor, and entered the saloon, where I found the German with whom before luncheon I had spoken. He was seated alone, reading a newspaper.“Ach, sir!” he exclaimed; “I thought perhaps you had left! I’m very glad you are still here! A most curious circumstance occurred this afternoon when I went off duty as usual from three till five. I live in Forth Street, at the back of the Theatre Royal, and while walking towards home along Broughton Street, I came face to face with the gentleman for whom you are searching.”“You’ve seen him!” I gasped, half-inclined to disbelieve the man’s story, for he was evidently on the look-out for a substantial tip.“Yes, he recognised me, and tried to avert his face. But I managed to get a good look at him, and am absolutely certain that I’m not mistaken. He was dressed differently, and looks many years younger than when I first saw him wearing his beard.”“Then he is still in hiding here!” I gasped quickly. “Did you follow him?”“I did. I had to exercise considerable caution, for he evidently fears that he is being traced. His attitude was essentially that of a man dreading recognition. He may be suspicious that you are here, sir.”“But have you discovered where he is living?” I demanded breathlessly, my heart leaping.“Yes, sir,” replied the German; “I have.”

I confess to having been half-inclined, when I returned home that night, to take Mabel into my confidence. But I hesitated, because I knew that her frankness and sense of justice would lead her to suggest that I should go to New Scotland Yard and lay the whole facts before the Criminal Investigation Department.

I had no secrets from her—I loved her far too well. But in this crooked affair I had most foolishly given my word of honour to say nothing.

All Kirk’s strange declarations and allegations now recurred to me. Hence I was compelled to abandon all idea of making Mabel my confidante.

I knew, however, by the way she looked at me, that she was troubled and puzzled by my manner. Indeed, that evening when I returned and found her beside the fire in our cosy sitting-room, her slim fingers busy with some fancy needlework, I recognised by her pointed questions that she regarded me with considerable apprehension.

Again she asked me what was the matter, and again I replied evasively that I had just then a good many business worries. And we dropped the subject because Gwen, her younger sister, entered the room.

All next day I debated within myself what course I should now adopt, but, alas! I could not decide upon any. The whole affair was such an entire enigma. The more I had tried to probe the mystery, the more utterly inexplicable did it seem.

Reflect for a moment, and you will fully realise the peril of my position. To me, it seemed quite plain that I had by my readiness to accept Kirk’s friendship, given myself entirely into the hands of the conspirators.

If Kirk were truly an honest man and not afraid, he certainly would have called in the police. Yet had he not openly admitted his inability to prove an alibi?

That afternoon, a damp and dismal one, I had to run out on a car to Tunbridge Wells to see a customer who was purchasing the car which I drove. I took Dick with me, and, the car being a “forty-eight,” we sped along pretty swiftly until we halted before the entrance to that old-world promenade, the Pantiles, near which my customer lived.

Before we got home again it was near midnight, but on that night drive I resolved that on the morrow I would embark upon the work of amateur detective, and endeavour to discover something on my own account.

To solve such a complete enigma as that now presented one must, I realised, begin at the beginning. And that was what I intended to do. Therefore, on the following night, at half-past eleven, I left King’s Cross in a sleeping-car for Edinburgh, having first ascertained that the conductor was the same who had travelled by that train on the night of the Professor’s alleged journey.

He was a tall, lean, fair-whiskered Scot, whose uniform seemed too big for his shrunken frame, but who bustled up and down the corridor as soon as the train had started, inquiring of the passengers at what hour they would like to be called, and whether they would take tea.

I waited until he came to my compartment, and then I put to him certain questions regarding his passengers on the night of Sunday, the thirteenth, asking whether he remembered Professor Greer.

“Why, yes, sir,” was his answer with a strong northern accent. “Another gentleman asked me about the Professor when I got back to King’s Cross.”

“Did you take the Professor up to Edinburgh?”

“Certainly, sir. I remember the name. Indeed, here it is in my book,” and, turning back a few pages, he showed me the name among those who had secured sleeping-berths in advance. “As I told the other gentleman who inquired, he wouldn’t have any tea, and told me to call him at Dunbar.”

“And when you called him did you then see him in his berth?”

“Yes, sir, he pulled the door back and inquired what kind of a morning it was.”

“Where did he alight?”

“At Waverley, of course. I handed him out his bags, and one of the porters of the North British Hotel took them.”

“You’re quite certain of that?”

“As certain as we’re going north to-night, sir,” replied the man.

Then I drew forth the Professor’s photograph from my pocket and showed it to him.

“That’s the same gentleman, and a very nice gentleman he was, too, sir,” he declared, the instant his eyes fell upon it. “But for what reason do you ask this? You’re the second person who has made inquiries.”

“Only—well, only because the Professor is a little eccentric,” I replied diplomatically, “and we are rather anxious to know of his doings up in Scotland. Nearly all great men of genius,” I added, “are slightly eccentric, you know.”

“Well, he went to the North British,” replied the conductor. “They’ll be certain to recollect him there.”

“Do you know the porter who took his bag?”

“Yes, it was Walter Macdonald. I’ll call him when we get to Waverley in the morning, and you can ask what questions you like.”

And the man left me and bustled away, while soon afterwards, as the great express began to gather speed towards Hatfield, I turned into the narrow little bed, while we roared along through the dark night.

When I drew aside the blind next morning we were skirting the grey misty sea, within sight of the Bass Rock. Therefore I leisurely dressed, and, punctual to time, stepped out upon the long platform at Edinburgh at half-past seven.

At a whistle from the conductor, a smartly-uniformed hotel porter stepped up, and I explained, in a few brief words, the object of my visit to Edinburgh.

“I remember the gentleman quite well, sir,” replied Macdonald, after I had exhibited the photograph. “I took his suit-case and kit-bag and gave them over to the hall-porter. The gentleman did not engage a room, I think. But his first inquiry was for the telegraph-office, and I directed him to the General Post Office, which is almost next door here. That’s about all I know of his movements.”

I gave the man a tip, and, ascending in the hotel lift, passed through the lounge and entered the big coffee-room which overlooks Princes Street, where I breakfasted.

Afterwards I lounged about the main hall which opens upon Princes Street—the entrance from the station being from deep below at the back of the premises.

I saw that outside the reception office, upon a green baize-covered board and placed beneath tapes, telegrams for visitors were exhibited, and the addressees took them themselves. It would, therefore, be quite easy for anyone not staying in the hotel to have a telegram addressed there, and to receive it in secret. It would also be just as easy for a person to take anybody else’s telegram that happened to be there.

Two young lady clerks were behind the brass grille, and presently I addressed the elder of the pair, and showed her the photograph. Neither, however, recognised it.

I turned up the visitors’-book, and saw that on Monday the fourteenth no person of the name of Greer had registered.

“He was a chance customer, evidently,” remarked the elder of the girls in neat black. “He arrived, you say, by the morning East Coast express, therefore he may just have had breakfast and gone on. Many people do that, and catch their connections for the North. In such a case we never see them. Both myself and my friend here were on duty all day on Monday.”

“I certainly have never seen the gentleman to my knowledge!” declared the other.

“But he must, I think, have received two telegrams.”

“I remember one telegram, but I do not recollect the other. We have so many wires here in the course of the day, you know,” the girl replied. “But what I do recollect is being rung up on the telephone from London on the following day, with an inquiry whether the gentleman was staying here.”

“You don’t know who rang you up?” I asked.

“I haven’t any idea!” she laughed. “It may have been the police. They’ve done so before now.”

“Of course he might have stayed here in another name and taken telegrams addressed to him as Greer,” I suggested.

“I scarcely think so,” replied the elder of the pair, a tall, smart, business-like woman. “If he had, one of us would, no doubt, have remembered him. I’d have a chat to the hall-porter at the station-entrance if I were you,” she added.

I therefore sought out the tall, liveried man she had indicated, and again to him exhibited the portrait.

He remembered the Professor quite distinctly, he told me. The visitor deposited in his charge a kit-bag and suit-case, remarking that he was not quite certain if he would remain the night, and passed on into the hotel. “That was about 7:35 in the morning.”

“When did you see him again?”

“About noon, when he passed through to the lift, and descended into the station. I noticed that he was then wearing a different hat from the one he had on when he arrived from London,” the hall-porter replied.

“When did he take his luggage?”

“About half-past three. A porter took it below, and it was placed in the cloak-room.”

“You didn’t see him again?”

“No, sir. He probably left by a later train that day.”

That was all the information I could gather in that quarter. The remainder of the morning I spent idling about Princes Street, that splendid thoroughfare which has few equals in the world, trying to decide upon my next course of action. I had exhausted Edinburgh, it seemed, and clearly my way lay south again.

Suddenly, on re-entering the hotel to get lunch, a thought occurred to me, and I sought out the hair-dressing department, making inquiry of the man in charge, a fair-haired, well-spoken German.

As soon as I showed him the portrait, he exclaimed:

“Ja! I recollect him—quite well.”

“Tell me what you know of his movements,” I urged.

I saw that the man regarded me with considerable suspicion.

“I presume, sir,” he said, “that you are an agent of police?”

“No, I’m not,” I assured him, rather surprised at his remark. “I’m simply making inquiry because—well, because my friend is now missing.”

“Then I’ll tell you what occurred, sir,” answered the German, with a slight accent. “The gentleman came in about four o’clock and asked me to shave him. When I began to put on the soap I realised, however, that he had himself been cutting off his beard closely. But I shaved him, and made no comment. We hairdressers are used to such things, yet they sometimes cause us a little wonder.”

“Ah!” I cried. “Then he left here with his beard shaven clean! He intended to disguise himself!”

“No doubt, sir,” replied the man, who seemed a particularly intelligent fellow. “Because, earlier in the day, while crossing the corridor, I had noticed him standing near the lift. He then had a full beard. I recollected the clothes he was wearing.”

“Did he talk to you?”

“Very little, sir. He seemed a gloomy, rather silent man.”

That was all he could tell me, though he declared that the gentleman had seemed very agitated and upset while he was being shaved. His hair was also cut, and his moustache trimmed.

“Did it alter his appearance much?” I inquired. “Very greatly, sir. I should scarcely have known him when he left here.”

“And you told nobody?”

“It is not my business to pry into customers’ affairs,” responded the man, and very justly; “but I took good note of his countenance.”

What he told me was certainly remarkable. The whole of the facts were, indeed, astounding.

While the unfortunate Professor lay dead in his laboratory in London he was, at the same time, here, in Edinburgh, making an attempt at disguise, and sending a reassuring telegram to his daughter!

That Professor Greer had been killed there was not the slightest doubt—killed, too, behind locked doors, in circumstances which themselves formed a complete and inscrutable mystery. Then, if so, who was this man who had left London with the Professor’s luggage, had arrived in Edinburgh, and whom the hotel-servants and others had identified by his portrait?

If he were not the Professor, then who could he have been? One thing was certain, he could not have been the actual assassin. Yet if not, why had he taken such pains to disguise his appearance?

The theory of Greer having a double I put aside at once. Doubles only exist in the realms of fiction. Here, however, I was dealing with hard, solid facts.

Each phase of the intricate problem became more and more complicated as I endeavoured to analyse it. That grey, wintry afternoon I wandered about the damp streets of Edinburgh, gazing aimlessly in the shop windows, and afterwards sat for a full hour upon a seat in the deserted public gardens below the Castle, thinking and wondering until the gloomy twilight began to creep on, and the lights along Princes Street commenced to glimmer.

Then, rising, I set off again across the North Bridge, and through High Street and Johnstone Terrace to the Caledonian Station, and by George Street and St. Andrew’s Street back to the Waverley, a tour of the centre of the city. I was merely killing time, for I had decided to take the night express back to King’s Cross.

When I re-entered the hotel it was nearly seven o’clock, and, as I did so, the porter at the revolving door in Princes Street touched his cap and informed me that the hairdresser desired to see me again.

I ascended to the first floor, and entered the saloon, where I found the German with whom before luncheon I had spoken. He was seated alone, reading a newspaper.

“Ach, sir!” he exclaimed; “I thought perhaps you had left! I’m very glad you are still here! A most curious circumstance occurred this afternoon when I went off duty as usual from three till five. I live in Forth Street, at the back of the Theatre Royal, and while walking towards home along Broughton Street, I came face to face with the gentleman for whom you are searching.”

“You’ve seen him!” I gasped, half-inclined to disbelieve the man’s story, for he was evidently on the look-out for a substantial tip.

“Yes, he recognised me, and tried to avert his face. But I managed to get a good look at him, and am absolutely certain that I’m not mistaken. He was dressed differently, and looks many years younger than when I first saw him wearing his beard.”

“Then he is still in hiding here!” I gasped quickly. “Did you follow him?”

“I did. I had to exercise considerable caution, for he evidently fears that he is being traced. His attitude was essentially that of a man dreading recognition. He may be suspicious that you are here, sir.”

“But have you discovered where he is living?” I demanded breathlessly, my heart leaping.

“Yes, sir,” replied the German; “I have.”

Chapter Thirteen.I Learn Something Interesting.Ten minutes later I was with the German hairdresser on a tram-car, going up Regent Road, towards Abbey Hill. On turning into the London Road at the station, we descended, and, crossing the main thoroughfare, entered one of the narrow, ill-lit turnings on the left, the name of which I was unable to see.“I don’t know whom to ask for,” I remarked to my companion, as we hurried along together.“I can only point you out the house where your friend is in hiding,” replied the man. “You, of course, know more of his habits than I do.”In a few moments we passed before a tall, drab, dingy-looking house, which the German pointed out was the false Professor’s secret abode.I longed for the presence of Kershaw Kirk, for I knew not how to act. I reflected, however, that the reason of my journey to Edinburgh was to clear up the mystery, and this thought prompted me to action.So while he waited in the semi-darkness at the next corner, I returned to the house and rang the bell. To the door came a rather dishevelled girl of about eighteen, evidently the daughter of the occupier.“You have a gentleman living here,” I said. “Would you kindly tell him that Mr Kirk desires to see him?”“The gentleman’s no longer here, sir,” replied the girl, in broad Scotch.“Gone!” I ejaculated.“Yes, sir. Mr Martin’s who you mean, I suppose, for he’s the only gentleman mother has had. He packed his things, and left for the station an hour ago.”My heart fell. He had evidently realised that the German was following him, and had escaped us!“Can I see your mother?” I asked. Whereupon I was invited into the small narrow hall of the musty-smelling house, and a thin-faced, angular woman in rusty black came forward.“Pray pardon my troubling you,” I said apologetically, “but I have an urgent message to give to Mr Martin, who, I understand, has been staying with you.” It was an advantage that the girl had unwittingly betrayed the name which the false Professor had adopted.“Mr Martin’s gone, sir. He left this evening.”“So your daughter tells me. But haven’t you any idea where he intended going?”The woman hesitated, and by that slight pause I felt convinced she knew something which she intended keeping to herself.“No, sir, he left quite suddenly,” was her hurried reply. “He had been out all day, and, returning about five, packed up his things, paid me what he owed me, together with a week’s rent in lieu of notice, and, getting a cab, drove away.”“To the station—eh?”“Yes, I heard him tell the man to drive to Princes Street.”“He hadn’t been very long with you, had he?”“About a week. He came on the Monday, telling me that he had been recommended by a friend of his, an actor. I let rooms to professionals,” she added, in explanation.“He is a very reticent man,” I remarked. “I suppose he seldom went out?”“No; he used to read all day, and go for just half-an-hour’s stroll at night. He struck me as a rather eccentric man.”“So he is,” I laughed. “I’m an old friend of his, so, of course, I know. I hope he is not in your debt. If so, please tell me and I’ll liquidate it.”“Oh, not at all, sir. He’s paid for everything,” declared the woman, upon whom my ready offer to pay her lodger’s debts had evidently made an impression. “His sudden departure mystified us.”“Did he receive many letters?”“Only two—and a telegram you sent him—which I found dropped by the side of his dressing-table.”“From me?” I echoed, yet next instant recollecting that I had given my name as Kirk.“Yes, you telegraphed to him several days ago to meet you at the Caledonian Hotel in Glasgow. You are Mr Kirk, are you not?”“Ah, of course, I recollect,” I laughed. “Do you think he’s gone to Glasgow?” I asked, as the sudden thought occurred to me.“Well, sir,” replied the woman, “as you are such an intimate friend of Mr Martin’s, I think I ought to tell you that, before leaving to-night, he asked me in confidence to repeat any telegram that might come for him to the Caledonian in Glasgow, but asking me at the same time to give no information to anyone who might call and make inquiries as to his whereabouts.”“Then he’s gone to Glasgow to-night!” I exclaimed, with sudden enthusiasm. “If I follow at once, I may find him!”“I certainly think so, sir,” was the woman’s response, whereupon I made a hurried adieu, and, rejoining the German, into whose palm I slipped a sovereign, was quickly back at the hotel.I left Princes Street Station at ten minutes to ten that night by the express due in Glasgow at eleven. That hour’s journey was full of excitement, for I was now upon the heels of the false Professor, whose whereabouts and assumed name Kirk knew, and with whom he had made an appointment.Was this man, known as Martin, about to meet Kirk?I laughed within myself when I reflected upon the awkward surprise which my presence there would give them. What the lodging-house keeper had told me proved conclusively that Kershaw Kirk had conspired to cause the death of poor Greer, and that the story he had told me was untrue.Yet, again, there arose in my mind the problem why, if he were the assassin, or an accomplice of the assassin, should he introduce me into that house of death—myself a comparative stranger! Alone I sat in the corner of the railway carriage, thinking it all over, and trying, as I had so continuously tried, to discern light in the darkness.I had been a fool—a confounded fool, not to inform the police of my suspicions at the outset. The girl Ethelwynn, whom I had seen lying apparently dead, whose chill flesh I had touched, was alive and well at Broadstairs! Was not that, in itself, a staggering mystery, exclusive of that secret visit of Kirk’s to Foley Street, and the woman’s cry in that foggy night?Was it any wonder, then, that I was neglecting my business, leaving all to Pelham, with whom I had communicated by telegram several times? Was it any wonder that, the circumstances being of so uncanny and intricate a nature, I hesitated to tell Mabel, my wife, lest I should draw her into that web of doubt, uncertainty, and grim tragedy?I had watched the columns of theTimeseach day to discover the advertised message promised by Kirk; but there had been none. I now saw how I had been as wax in the hands of that clever, smooth-spoken cosmopolitan. I believed in men’s honesty, a most foolish confidence in these degenerate days, when morality is sneered at, and honesty is declared openly to be “the worst policy.”Alas! in this dear old England of ours truth and justice are to-day rapidly disappearing. Now that Mammon rules, that divorce is a means of notoriety, and that charity begins abroad with Mansion House funds for undeserving foreigners, while our starving unemployed clamour in their thousands for bread, the old order of things has, alas! changed.The honest man—though, be it said, there are still honest, sterling men in business and out of it—goes to the wall and is dubbed a fool; while the master-thief, the smug swindler, the sweater, and the promoter of bogus companies may pay his money and obtain his baronetcy, or his seat in the House of Lords, and thus hall-mark himself with respectability.While money talks, morality is an absent factor in life, and truth is but a travesty. Glance only at the list of subscribers to a Mansion House Fund, the very basis of which is the desire of the Lord Mayor who may happen to be in office to get his baronetcy, while its supporters are in the main part self-advertisers, or donations are given in order to establish an unstable confidence and extend a false credit. Thus, even in our charities, we have become humbugs, because the worship of the Golden Calf has bred cant, hypocrisy, and blatant self-confidence, which must ere long be the cause of our beloved country’s downfall beneath the iron-heel of far-seeing, business-like Germany.Such reflections as these ran through my mind as that night I sat in the train watching the lights as we neared the great industrial centre on the Clyde. I was trying to peer into the future, but I only saw before me a misty horizon of unutterable despair.I longed to meet Ethelwynn Greer, and put to her certain questions. Was it not a complete enigma, startling and inscrutable, that she, having seen her beloved father lying lifeless, should utter no word—even to young Langton, to whom she was evidently devoted? That fact was utterly incomprehensible.At last the train slowed and drew into the great echoing station. On alighting I gave my bag to a porter and entered the big Caledonian Hotel adjoining. I had stayed there on previous occasions, and knew its huge dining-room, its long corridors, and its wide ramifications.I registered in the name of Lamb, deeming it best to conceal my presence, and while writing in the book, scanned the page for Martin’s name. It was not, however, there. I turned back to earlier arrivals that day, but with no better result. So I ascended in the lift to my room on the second floor.Of course, it was quite within the bounds of possibility that the false Professor might use yet another name if he wished to avoid being followed from Edinburgh. Besides, I had noticed that just as at the North British at Edinburgh, so here, telegrams were exhibited upon a board, and could be taken. Therefore, if a wire came in the name of Martin, he could quite easily claim it.After a wash I wandered about the hotel, through the lounge, smoking-room, and the other of the public apartments. Yet how could I recognise a man who was disguised, and whom I had never seen?I was placed at a disadvantage from the very first by never having met this man who had posed as the dead Professor. Yet with the knowledge that Kirk desired particularly to see him, I felt that there was a probability of their meeting, and that, if only I remained wary and watchful, I should come across, amid the hundreds of persons staying there, the mysterious dweller in Bedford Park.From my arrival at eleven till half-past one I remained on the alert, but saw no one I knew. Therefore I retired to bed, thoroughly worn-out by that constant vigil. Yet I was in no way disheartened. The false Professor had started from Edinburgh for that destination, and was, I felt confident, staying there under another name. It only lay with me to unmask him, or to wait until the pair met clandestinely, and then to demand to know the truth.Surely in all the annals of crime there had never been one so surrounded by complex circumstances as the tragedy of Sussex Place, and assuredly, too, no innocent man had been more ingeniously misled than my unfortunate self.Next day, from eight o’clock in the morning till late at night, I idled about the big hotel, ever anxious and ever watchful. I kept an eye upon each arrival and each departure.Then I became slowly and against my will, convinced that the false Professor had not come to that hotel, but had put up somewhere else, well knowing that he could obtain the telegraphic message from Kirk whenever he cared to step in and take it from the board.Again, even though at the heels of the conspirators, was I yet being outwitted—a fact which became the more impressed upon me on the third day of my futile expectancy.Hourly I watched that telegraph-board, intending to annex quietly any message addressed to Martin, and act upon any appointment it contained.But, alas! my watchfulness remained unrewarded.Twice there had arrived men slightly resembling the dead Professor, clean-shaven and active, but by careful observation I discovered that one was a commercial traveller whose samples had been left below in the station, and the other was a well-known iron merchant of Walsall.The false Professor, the man who was plainly in association with the mysterious Kirk, was clearly in Glasgow, yet how was it possible for me to do more than I was doing towards his unmasking?Put to yourself that problem, you, my friend, for whom I have chronicled this plain, unvarnished story of what actually occurred to me in the year of grace 1907, and inquire of yourself its solution.“Who killed Professor Greer?”

Ten minutes later I was with the German hairdresser on a tram-car, going up Regent Road, towards Abbey Hill. On turning into the London Road at the station, we descended, and, crossing the main thoroughfare, entered one of the narrow, ill-lit turnings on the left, the name of which I was unable to see.

“I don’t know whom to ask for,” I remarked to my companion, as we hurried along together.

“I can only point you out the house where your friend is in hiding,” replied the man. “You, of course, know more of his habits than I do.”

In a few moments we passed before a tall, drab, dingy-looking house, which the German pointed out was the false Professor’s secret abode.

I longed for the presence of Kershaw Kirk, for I knew not how to act. I reflected, however, that the reason of my journey to Edinburgh was to clear up the mystery, and this thought prompted me to action.

So while he waited in the semi-darkness at the next corner, I returned to the house and rang the bell. To the door came a rather dishevelled girl of about eighteen, evidently the daughter of the occupier.

“You have a gentleman living here,” I said. “Would you kindly tell him that Mr Kirk desires to see him?”

“The gentleman’s no longer here, sir,” replied the girl, in broad Scotch.

“Gone!” I ejaculated.

“Yes, sir. Mr Martin’s who you mean, I suppose, for he’s the only gentleman mother has had. He packed his things, and left for the station an hour ago.”

My heart fell. He had evidently realised that the German was following him, and had escaped us!

“Can I see your mother?” I asked. Whereupon I was invited into the small narrow hall of the musty-smelling house, and a thin-faced, angular woman in rusty black came forward.

“Pray pardon my troubling you,” I said apologetically, “but I have an urgent message to give to Mr Martin, who, I understand, has been staying with you.” It was an advantage that the girl had unwittingly betrayed the name which the false Professor had adopted.

“Mr Martin’s gone, sir. He left this evening.”

“So your daughter tells me. But haven’t you any idea where he intended going?”

The woman hesitated, and by that slight pause I felt convinced she knew something which she intended keeping to herself.

“No, sir, he left quite suddenly,” was her hurried reply. “He had been out all day, and, returning about five, packed up his things, paid me what he owed me, together with a week’s rent in lieu of notice, and, getting a cab, drove away.”

“To the station—eh?”

“Yes, I heard him tell the man to drive to Princes Street.”

“He hadn’t been very long with you, had he?”

“About a week. He came on the Monday, telling me that he had been recommended by a friend of his, an actor. I let rooms to professionals,” she added, in explanation.

“He is a very reticent man,” I remarked. “I suppose he seldom went out?”

“No; he used to read all day, and go for just half-an-hour’s stroll at night. He struck me as a rather eccentric man.”

“So he is,” I laughed. “I’m an old friend of his, so, of course, I know. I hope he is not in your debt. If so, please tell me and I’ll liquidate it.”

“Oh, not at all, sir. He’s paid for everything,” declared the woman, upon whom my ready offer to pay her lodger’s debts had evidently made an impression. “His sudden departure mystified us.”

“Did he receive many letters?”

“Only two—and a telegram you sent him—which I found dropped by the side of his dressing-table.”

“From me?” I echoed, yet next instant recollecting that I had given my name as Kirk.

“Yes, you telegraphed to him several days ago to meet you at the Caledonian Hotel in Glasgow. You are Mr Kirk, are you not?”

“Ah, of course, I recollect,” I laughed. “Do you think he’s gone to Glasgow?” I asked, as the sudden thought occurred to me.

“Well, sir,” replied the woman, “as you are such an intimate friend of Mr Martin’s, I think I ought to tell you that, before leaving to-night, he asked me in confidence to repeat any telegram that might come for him to the Caledonian in Glasgow, but asking me at the same time to give no information to anyone who might call and make inquiries as to his whereabouts.”

“Then he’s gone to Glasgow to-night!” I exclaimed, with sudden enthusiasm. “If I follow at once, I may find him!”

“I certainly think so, sir,” was the woman’s response, whereupon I made a hurried adieu, and, rejoining the German, into whose palm I slipped a sovereign, was quickly back at the hotel.

I left Princes Street Station at ten minutes to ten that night by the express due in Glasgow at eleven. That hour’s journey was full of excitement, for I was now upon the heels of the false Professor, whose whereabouts and assumed name Kirk knew, and with whom he had made an appointment.

Was this man, known as Martin, about to meet Kirk?

I laughed within myself when I reflected upon the awkward surprise which my presence there would give them. What the lodging-house keeper had told me proved conclusively that Kershaw Kirk had conspired to cause the death of poor Greer, and that the story he had told me was untrue.

Yet, again, there arose in my mind the problem why, if he were the assassin, or an accomplice of the assassin, should he introduce me into that house of death—myself a comparative stranger! Alone I sat in the corner of the railway carriage, thinking it all over, and trying, as I had so continuously tried, to discern light in the darkness.

I had been a fool—a confounded fool, not to inform the police of my suspicions at the outset. The girl Ethelwynn, whom I had seen lying apparently dead, whose chill flesh I had touched, was alive and well at Broadstairs! Was not that, in itself, a staggering mystery, exclusive of that secret visit of Kirk’s to Foley Street, and the woman’s cry in that foggy night?

Was it any wonder, then, that I was neglecting my business, leaving all to Pelham, with whom I had communicated by telegram several times? Was it any wonder that, the circumstances being of so uncanny and intricate a nature, I hesitated to tell Mabel, my wife, lest I should draw her into that web of doubt, uncertainty, and grim tragedy?

I had watched the columns of theTimeseach day to discover the advertised message promised by Kirk; but there had been none. I now saw how I had been as wax in the hands of that clever, smooth-spoken cosmopolitan. I believed in men’s honesty, a most foolish confidence in these degenerate days, when morality is sneered at, and honesty is declared openly to be “the worst policy.”

Alas! in this dear old England of ours truth and justice are to-day rapidly disappearing. Now that Mammon rules, that divorce is a means of notoriety, and that charity begins abroad with Mansion House funds for undeserving foreigners, while our starving unemployed clamour in their thousands for bread, the old order of things has, alas! changed.

The honest man—though, be it said, there are still honest, sterling men in business and out of it—goes to the wall and is dubbed a fool; while the master-thief, the smug swindler, the sweater, and the promoter of bogus companies may pay his money and obtain his baronetcy, or his seat in the House of Lords, and thus hall-mark himself with respectability.

While money talks, morality is an absent factor in life, and truth is but a travesty. Glance only at the list of subscribers to a Mansion House Fund, the very basis of which is the desire of the Lord Mayor who may happen to be in office to get his baronetcy, while its supporters are in the main part self-advertisers, or donations are given in order to establish an unstable confidence and extend a false credit. Thus, even in our charities, we have become humbugs, because the worship of the Golden Calf has bred cant, hypocrisy, and blatant self-confidence, which must ere long be the cause of our beloved country’s downfall beneath the iron-heel of far-seeing, business-like Germany.

Such reflections as these ran through my mind as that night I sat in the train watching the lights as we neared the great industrial centre on the Clyde. I was trying to peer into the future, but I only saw before me a misty horizon of unutterable despair.

I longed to meet Ethelwynn Greer, and put to her certain questions. Was it not a complete enigma, startling and inscrutable, that she, having seen her beloved father lying lifeless, should utter no word—even to young Langton, to whom she was evidently devoted? That fact was utterly incomprehensible.

At last the train slowed and drew into the great echoing station. On alighting I gave my bag to a porter and entered the big Caledonian Hotel adjoining. I had stayed there on previous occasions, and knew its huge dining-room, its long corridors, and its wide ramifications.

I registered in the name of Lamb, deeming it best to conceal my presence, and while writing in the book, scanned the page for Martin’s name. It was not, however, there. I turned back to earlier arrivals that day, but with no better result. So I ascended in the lift to my room on the second floor.

Of course, it was quite within the bounds of possibility that the false Professor might use yet another name if he wished to avoid being followed from Edinburgh. Besides, I had noticed that just as at the North British at Edinburgh, so here, telegrams were exhibited upon a board, and could be taken. Therefore, if a wire came in the name of Martin, he could quite easily claim it.

After a wash I wandered about the hotel, through the lounge, smoking-room, and the other of the public apartments. Yet how could I recognise a man who was disguised, and whom I had never seen?

I was placed at a disadvantage from the very first by never having met this man who had posed as the dead Professor. Yet with the knowledge that Kirk desired particularly to see him, I felt that there was a probability of their meeting, and that, if only I remained wary and watchful, I should come across, amid the hundreds of persons staying there, the mysterious dweller in Bedford Park.

From my arrival at eleven till half-past one I remained on the alert, but saw no one I knew. Therefore I retired to bed, thoroughly worn-out by that constant vigil. Yet I was in no way disheartened. The false Professor had started from Edinburgh for that destination, and was, I felt confident, staying there under another name. It only lay with me to unmask him, or to wait until the pair met clandestinely, and then to demand to know the truth.

Surely in all the annals of crime there had never been one so surrounded by complex circumstances as the tragedy of Sussex Place, and assuredly, too, no innocent man had been more ingeniously misled than my unfortunate self.

Next day, from eight o’clock in the morning till late at night, I idled about the big hotel, ever anxious and ever watchful. I kept an eye upon each arrival and each departure.

Then I became slowly and against my will, convinced that the false Professor had not come to that hotel, but had put up somewhere else, well knowing that he could obtain the telegraphic message from Kirk whenever he cared to step in and take it from the board.

Again, even though at the heels of the conspirators, was I yet being outwitted—a fact which became the more impressed upon me on the third day of my futile expectancy.

Hourly I watched that telegraph-board, intending to annex quietly any message addressed to Martin, and act upon any appointment it contained.

But, alas! my watchfulness remained unrewarded.

Twice there had arrived men slightly resembling the dead Professor, clean-shaven and active, but by careful observation I discovered that one was a commercial traveller whose samples had been left below in the station, and the other was a well-known iron merchant of Walsall.

The false Professor, the man who was plainly in association with the mysterious Kirk, was clearly in Glasgow, yet how was it possible for me to do more than I was doing towards his unmasking?

Put to yourself that problem, you, my friend, for whom I have chronicled this plain, unvarnished story of what actually occurred to me in the year of grace 1907, and inquire of yourself its solution.

“Who killed Professor Greer?”

Chapter Fourteen.A Remarkable Truth.The morning was cold, with fine driving rain, when at eight o’clock I alighted from a hansom before my own house in Bath Road, and entered with my latch-key. In the dining-room I found Annie, the housemaid, in the act of lighting the fire, but turning suddenly upon me with surprise, she exclaimed:“Oh, sir! You gave me quite a turn! We didn’t expect to see you back again just yet.”“Why not?” I inquired, with some surprise. “We thought you were with the mistress, sir.”“With my wife. What do you mean?”“Mrs Holford obeyed your telegram, sir, and has left for Italy.”“For Italy!” I gasped. “Where’s Miss Gwen? Go and ask her if she can see me at once.” And I followed the maid upstairs.In a few moments Gwen Raeburn, my wife’s sister, a young, pretty, dark girl of seventeen, who wore a big black bow in her hair, came out of her room wrapped in a blue kimono.“Why, Harry!” she cried. “What’s the matter? I thought Mabel had gone to join you.”“I’ve just come down from Glasgow, where I’ve been on business,” I explained. “Where is Mabel?”“I don’t know, except that I saw her off from Victoria at eleven the day before yesterday.”“But why has she gone?”“To meet you,” replied the girl. “The morning before last, at a few minutes past eight, she received a telegram signed by you, urging her to meet you at the Hôtel Grande Bretagne in Florence at the earliest possible moment. Therefore she obeyed it at once, and left by the eleven o’clock train. It was a terrible rush to get her off, I can tell you. But haven’t you been in Florence?”“No, I’ve been in Scotland,” I repeated. “Did you read the telegram she received?”“Yes; it was very brief, but to the point. Mabel was annoyed that you had not told her the reason you had gone abroad without explanation. She feared that, in view of your preoccupied manner of late, something disastrous had happened to you. That’s why she left so hurriedly. I wanted to go with her, but she wouldn’t allow me.”“I wish you had gone, Gwen,” I said. “There’s some plot here—some deep and treacherous conspiracy.”“Why, what has happened?”“A lot has happened,” I said. “You shall know it all later on. At present I haven’t time to explain. I suppose the telegram isn’t left about anywhere?”“Mabel took it with her.”“You didn’t notice whence it had been despatched?” I asked.“From Turin. We concluded that you had halted there, on your way from Paris.”I was silent. What plot had those blackguards formed against me and mine! Why had my dear wife Mabel been decoyed out to Italy by them? I grew apprehensive and furious.My sister-in-law descended with me to the dining-room. She saw my agitation, and after the first surprise had worn off tried to calm me.“There’s a perfectly feasible explanation, I’m sure, Harry,” she said. “Perhaps it is some practical joke being played upon you and Mabel by your friends. They want you out in the South for a week or two to escape from the cold and wet of the London spring. I wouldn’t worry, if I were you.”“Ah, Gwen!” I sighed. “You are unaware of all the grim circumstances,” I said. “There’s a serious conspiracy here, I’m convinced. The hand of a secret enemy has been lifted against me.”Had that crafty servant at Sussex Place dispatched the false message, I wondered? Or was it Kirk himself? And if so, with what motive? Was Mabel, my beloved and devoted wife, to fall helplessly into their unscrupulous hands? My blood rose within me when I reflected how innocently I had walked into the trap which my mysterious neighbour had prepared for me.I took up a Bradshaw, and saw that if I left Charing Cross by the boat-train at 2:20 I might, by good chance, catch the night mail for Italy by the Mont Cenis from the Gare de Lyon. I could only do it if we ran into the Gare du Nord in time. But from experience I knew that the afternoon service to Paris was pretty punctual, and one usually arrived in the French capital about 9:20. Then, by the aid of a taxi-cab, I could get across to the Lyons station in time.So I decided to make the attempt. I had been in Italy several times when a youth, and knew Italian fairly well. My father, before the smash in his fortunes, had rented a villa for several years up at Vallombrosa, in the chestnut-clad mountains above Florence.“May I come with you, Harry?” pleaded my sister-in-law. “If Mabel is in any danger it is only right that you should take me to her.”I knew how devoted the girl was to her sister. A year ago she had come to us from Caen, where she had been at school, and among the languages in which she was proficient was Italian. I hardly cared, in the circumstances, to leave her alone; therefore, although a big hole must be made in my slender bank account, I resolved to take a second ticket for her.When I announced my decision her dark eyes sparkled with delight, and she clapped her hands.“You are a real good brother, Harry!” she cried. “I don’t want any breakfast. I’ll go and begin to pack at once. I’ve never been in Italy, you know.”I told her that in the circumstances of the rush we must make across Paris I could only allow her hand-luggage, and she sped away upstairs to put on her frock and to commence placing her necessaries together.Afterwards, greatly agitated and full of dark apprehension, I got on, by telephone, to the Wagon-Lit office in Pall Mall, and reserved berths for us both on the Rome express from Paris as far as Pisa, where I knew we would be compelled to change. Then I addressed a long telegram to Mabel at the Hôtel Grande Bretagne, on the Lung’ Arno, at Florence, explaining that she was the victim of a bogus message, but that we were rejoining her at once, in order to bring her home.I judged that she must already have arrived in Florence, but unfortunately there would be no time to receive a reply ere we left London.Having despatched the message, I went round to the garage, and, telling Pelham of my sudden call abroad, gave him certain instructions, drew a cheque for wages, and otherwise left things in order.Then I called upon Miss Kirk, but she denied all knowledge of her brother’s whereabouts. TheTimes, which I had just bought in the High Road, Chiswick, contained no advertised message from him. Nor did I expect any.My intention now was one of bitter retaliation. I had been befooled by the man who I had proved held secret knowledge of the mode of the poor Professor’s tragic end. By this message to my wife someone had touched my honour, and I intended that he should dearly pay for it.Gwen, girl-like, was all excitement at the prospect of this flying journey to the south. At one moment she endeavoured to reassure me that nothing was wrong, while at the next she expressed wonder at the motive of the mysterious message.At last, however, we found ourselves seated in the corners of a first-class carriage, slowly crossing the Thames on the first stage of our dash to Italy. The outlook was grey and cheerless, precursory, indeed, of a dismal conclusion to our journey to the far-off land of sunshine. We got out at Folkestone Harbour, however, well to time, and that evening were fortunately only seven minutes late in arriving at the Gare du Nord. We had dined in the train, so, therefore, entering a taxi-cab, we were soon whirled across Paris to the Gare de Lyon, where we had only eight minutes to spare before the departure of therapidefor Rome.All that night, as I lay alone in my sleeping-berth while the great express rocked and rolled on its way to the Alpine frontier, my mind was full of gravest apprehensions. Gwen had been given a berth with another lady at the further end of the car, and I had already seen that she was comfortable for the night. Then I had turned in to spend those long dreary hours in wakeful fear.I could discern no motive for inveigling my wife—with whom Kirk had never spoken—to a destination abroad. Yet one curious point was quite plain. That mysterious dweller in Bath Road—the man with the pet parrot—was well aware of my absence in the north. Otherwise he would not have forged my name to a message sent from Turin.For what reason could he desire Mabel’s presence in Florence? He must have some object in her absence. Perhaps he foresaw that her absence meant also my absence—and that my enforced journey meant a relaxation of the vigil I had established upon the man who had gone north on the night of the Professor’s assassination. That was the only feasible theory I could form, and I accepted it for want of any better. But in what a whirlwind of doubt and fear, of dark apprehensions and breathless anxiety I now existed you may well imagine.Gwen, looking fresh and bright and smart in her blue serge gown, came to me next morning, and we had our coffee together at a wayside station. Though we sat together through the morning hours until we stopped at the frontier at Modane, she refrained from referring to the reason of Mabel’s call abroad. The young girl was devoted to her sister, yet she did not wish to pain or cause me any more anxiety than was necessary.After passing through the great tunnel, emerging on the Italian side and coming to Turin, where we waited an hour, the journey became uneventful through the afternoon and evening until the great bare station of Pisa was reached, shortly before midnight.Here we exchanged into a very cold and very slow train which, winding its way in the moonlight through the beautiful Arno valley all the night, halted at the Florence terminus early in the glorious Italian morning.“Fi-renze! Fi-renze!” cried the sleepy porters; and we alighted with only about half a dozen other passengers who had travelled by thattreno lumaca—or snail-train, as the Tuscans justly call it.Then, taking one of those little open cabs so beloved by the Florentines, we drove at once to the well-known hotel which faces the Arno, close to the Ponte Vecchio.Florence, in the silence of early morning, looked delightful, her old churches and ponderous palaces standing out sharply against the clear, blue sky, while, as we passed a side street we caught sight, at the end of the vista, of the wonderful black-and-white façade of the Duomo, of Giotto’s Campanile, and Brunelleschi’s wondrous red-tiled dome.A few moments later we stepped from the cab and entered the wide, marble-floored hall of the hotel.“You have a Mrs Holford staying here?” I asked in English of the manager, who was already in his bureau.“Hol-ford,” he repeated, consulting the big frame of names and numbers before him. “Ah, yes, sir; I remember! But—” He hesitated, and then inquired, “Will you pardon me if I ask who you may be?”“I’m Henry Holford, madame’s husband,” I replied promptly.And then the man told us something which caused us to stare at each other in speechless amazement.The man was a liar—and I told him so openly to his face.His astounding words rendered the remarkable enigma more complex than ever!

The morning was cold, with fine driving rain, when at eight o’clock I alighted from a hansom before my own house in Bath Road, and entered with my latch-key. In the dining-room I found Annie, the housemaid, in the act of lighting the fire, but turning suddenly upon me with surprise, she exclaimed:

“Oh, sir! You gave me quite a turn! We didn’t expect to see you back again just yet.”

“Why not?” I inquired, with some surprise. “We thought you were with the mistress, sir.”

“With my wife. What do you mean?”

“Mrs Holford obeyed your telegram, sir, and has left for Italy.”

“For Italy!” I gasped. “Where’s Miss Gwen? Go and ask her if she can see me at once.” And I followed the maid upstairs.

In a few moments Gwen Raeburn, my wife’s sister, a young, pretty, dark girl of seventeen, who wore a big black bow in her hair, came out of her room wrapped in a blue kimono.

“Why, Harry!” she cried. “What’s the matter? I thought Mabel had gone to join you.”

“I’ve just come down from Glasgow, where I’ve been on business,” I explained. “Where is Mabel?”

“I don’t know, except that I saw her off from Victoria at eleven the day before yesterday.”

“But why has she gone?”

“To meet you,” replied the girl. “The morning before last, at a few minutes past eight, she received a telegram signed by you, urging her to meet you at the Hôtel Grande Bretagne in Florence at the earliest possible moment. Therefore she obeyed it at once, and left by the eleven o’clock train. It was a terrible rush to get her off, I can tell you. But haven’t you been in Florence?”

“No, I’ve been in Scotland,” I repeated. “Did you read the telegram she received?”

“Yes; it was very brief, but to the point. Mabel was annoyed that you had not told her the reason you had gone abroad without explanation. She feared that, in view of your preoccupied manner of late, something disastrous had happened to you. That’s why she left so hurriedly. I wanted to go with her, but she wouldn’t allow me.”

“I wish you had gone, Gwen,” I said. “There’s some plot here—some deep and treacherous conspiracy.”

“Why, what has happened?”

“A lot has happened,” I said. “You shall know it all later on. At present I haven’t time to explain. I suppose the telegram isn’t left about anywhere?”

“Mabel took it with her.”

“You didn’t notice whence it had been despatched?” I asked.

“From Turin. We concluded that you had halted there, on your way from Paris.”

I was silent. What plot had those blackguards formed against me and mine! Why had my dear wife Mabel been decoyed out to Italy by them? I grew apprehensive and furious.

My sister-in-law descended with me to the dining-room. She saw my agitation, and after the first surprise had worn off tried to calm me.

“There’s a perfectly feasible explanation, I’m sure, Harry,” she said. “Perhaps it is some practical joke being played upon you and Mabel by your friends. They want you out in the South for a week or two to escape from the cold and wet of the London spring. I wouldn’t worry, if I were you.”

“Ah, Gwen!” I sighed. “You are unaware of all the grim circumstances,” I said. “There’s a serious conspiracy here, I’m convinced. The hand of a secret enemy has been lifted against me.”

Had that crafty servant at Sussex Place dispatched the false message, I wondered? Or was it Kirk himself? And if so, with what motive? Was Mabel, my beloved and devoted wife, to fall helplessly into their unscrupulous hands? My blood rose within me when I reflected how innocently I had walked into the trap which my mysterious neighbour had prepared for me.

I took up a Bradshaw, and saw that if I left Charing Cross by the boat-train at 2:20 I might, by good chance, catch the night mail for Italy by the Mont Cenis from the Gare de Lyon. I could only do it if we ran into the Gare du Nord in time. But from experience I knew that the afternoon service to Paris was pretty punctual, and one usually arrived in the French capital about 9:20. Then, by the aid of a taxi-cab, I could get across to the Lyons station in time.

So I decided to make the attempt. I had been in Italy several times when a youth, and knew Italian fairly well. My father, before the smash in his fortunes, had rented a villa for several years up at Vallombrosa, in the chestnut-clad mountains above Florence.

“May I come with you, Harry?” pleaded my sister-in-law. “If Mabel is in any danger it is only right that you should take me to her.”

I knew how devoted the girl was to her sister. A year ago she had come to us from Caen, where she had been at school, and among the languages in which she was proficient was Italian. I hardly cared, in the circumstances, to leave her alone; therefore, although a big hole must be made in my slender bank account, I resolved to take a second ticket for her.

When I announced my decision her dark eyes sparkled with delight, and she clapped her hands.

“You are a real good brother, Harry!” she cried. “I don’t want any breakfast. I’ll go and begin to pack at once. I’ve never been in Italy, you know.”

I told her that in the circumstances of the rush we must make across Paris I could only allow her hand-luggage, and she sped away upstairs to put on her frock and to commence placing her necessaries together.

Afterwards, greatly agitated and full of dark apprehension, I got on, by telephone, to the Wagon-Lit office in Pall Mall, and reserved berths for us both on the Rome express from Paris as far as Pisa, where I knew we would be compelled to change. Then I addressed a long telegram to Mabel at the Hôtel Grande Bretagne, on the Lung’ Arno, at Florence, explaining that she was the victim of a bogus message, but that we were rejoining her at once, in order to bring her home.

I judged that she must already have arrived in Florence, but unfortunately there would be no time to receive a reply ere we left London.

Having despatched the message, I went round to the garage, and, telling Pelham of my sudden call abroad, gave him certain instructions, drew a cheque for wages, and otherwise left things in order.

Then I called upon Miss Kirk, but she denied all knowledge of her brother’s whereabouts. TheTimes, which I had just bought in the High Road, Chiswick, contained no advertised message from him. Nor did I expect any.

My intention now was one of bitter retaliation. I had been befooled by the man who I had proved held secret knowledge of the mode of the poor Professor’s tragic end. By this message to my wife someone had touched my honour, and I intended that he should dearly pay for it.

Gwen, girl-like, was all excitement at the prospect of this flying journey to the south. At one moment she endeavoured to reassure me that nothing was wrong, while at the next she expressed wonder at the motive of the mysterious message.

At last, however, we found ourselves seated in the corners of a first-class carriage, slowly crossing the Thames on the first stage of our dash to Italy. The outlook was grey and cheerless, precursory, indeed, of a dismal conclusion to our journey to the far-off land of sunshine. We got out at Folkestone Harbour, however, well to time, and that evening were fortunately only seven minutes late in arriving at the Gare du Nord. We had dined in the train, so, therefore, entering a taxi-cab, we were soon whirled across Paris to the Gare de Lyon, where we had only eight minutes to spare before the departure of therapidefor Rome.

All that night, as I lay alone in my sleeping-berth while the great express rocked and rolled on its way to the Alpine frontier, my mind was full of gravest apprehensions. Gwen had been given a berth with another lady at the further end of the car, and I had already seen that she was comfortable for the night. Then I had turned in to spend those long dreary hours in wakeful fear.

I could discern no motive for inveigling my wife—with whom Kirk had never spoken—to a destination abroad. Yet one curious point was quite plain. That mysterious dweller in Bath Road—the man with the pet parrot—was well aware of my absence in the north. Otherwise he would not have forged my name to a message sent from Turin.

For what reason could he desire Mabel’s presence in Florence? He must have some object in her absence. Perhaps he foresaw that her absence meant also my absence—and that my enforced journey meant a relaxation of the vigil I had established upon the man who had gone north on the night of the Professor’s assassination. That was the only feasible theory I could form, and I accepted it for want of any better. But in what a whirlwind of doubt and fear, of dark apprehensions and breathless anxiety I now existed you may well imagine.

Gwen, looking fresh and bright and smart in her blue serge gown, came to me next morning, and we had our coffee together at a wayside station. Though we sat together through the morning hours until we stopped at the frontier at Modane, she refrained from referring to the reason of Mabel’s call abroad. The young girl was devoted to her sister, yet she did not wish to pain or cause me any more anxiety than was necessary.

After passing through the great tunnel, emerging on the Italian side and coming to Turin, where we waited an hour, the journey became uneventful through the afternoon and evening until the great bare station of Pisa was reached, shortly before midnight.

Here we exchanged into a very cold and very slow train which, winding its way in the moonlight through the beautiful Arno valley all the night, halted at the Florence terminus early in the glorious Italian morning.

“Fi-renze! Fi-renze!” cried the sleepy porters; and we alighted with only about half a dozen other passengers who had travelled by thattreno lumaca—or snail-train, as the Tuscans justly call it.

Then, taking one of those little open cabs so beloved by the Florentines, we drove at once to the well-known hotel which faces the Arno, close to the Ponte Vecchio.

Florence, in the silence of early morning, looked delightful, her old churches and ponderous palaces standing out sharply against the clear, blue sky, while, as we passed a side street we caught sight, at the end of the vista, of the wonderful black-and-white façade of the Duomo, of Giotto’s Campanile, and Brunelleschi’s wondrous red-tiled dome.

A few moments later we stepped from the cab and entered the wide, marble-floored hall of the hotel.

“You have a Mrs Holford staying here?” I asked in English of the manager, who was already in his bureau.

“Hol-ford,” he repeated, consulting the big frame of names and numbers before him. “Ah, yes, sir; I remember! But—” He hesitated, and then inquired, “Will you pardon me if I ask who you may be?”

“I’m Henry Holford, madame’s husband,” I replied promptly.

And then the man told us something which caused us to stare at each other in speechless amazement.

The man was a liar—and I told him so openly to his face.

His astounding words rendered the remarkable enigma more complex than ever!

Chapter Fifteen.A Man Deceives a Woman.The story told me by the bald-headed Italian hotel-keeper was that another man had usurped my place!He said that Mrs Holford, accompanied by her husband, had arrived at about seven o’clock on the morning of the day before yesterday, remained there the day, and had left by the express for Rome at five o’clock that same evening.“You don’t believe it, sir!” the man exclaimed with some warmth. “Well, here is the gentleman’s signature!” And he showed me upon a printed slip, whereon hotel visitors in Italy write their names according to the police regulations, boldly inscribed in a firm hand, “Mr and Mrs Henry Holford. Profession, automobile engineer. Domicile, London. British subject.”I stared at the words utterly confounded. Somebody had assumed my identity! Yet how was that possible with Mabel present?“What kind of man was madame’s husband?” I inquired, while my sister-in-law stood by astounded.“He was slightly older than yourself, sir, with a moustache turning grey.”Surely it could not be that arch-scoundrel Kershaw Kirk!“Was he about fifty, and rather thin?”“Yes,” replied thehôtelier. “He spoke Italian very well; indeed, with scarcely any accent.”My suspicion at once fell upon Kirk. Yet how could he so impose upon Mabel as to be allowed to pass as her husband? She had never before spoken to the fellow, and had, I knew, held him in instinctive dislike.“They were out all yesterday morning driving up to Fiesole,” he added.“You don’t happen to know to which hotel they’ve gone in Rome?” I asked.“No. There is a telegram here for madame. It arrived half an hour after their departure. They would leave no word with the hall-porter regarding the forwarding of letters.”“I am her husband,” I said, “and that telegram is evidently mine, which has been delayed in transmission, as messages so often are in this country. As her husband, I have a right to open it, I suppose.”“I regret, sir, that I cannot allow that,” said the man. “You have given me no proof that you are madame’s husband.”“But I am!” I cried. “This lady here is my wife’s sister, and will tell you.”“Yes,” declared the girl, “this is Harry, my brother-in-law. The other man, whoever he may be, is an impostor.”The short, bald-headed Italian in his long frock-coat, grew puzzled. He was faced by a problem. Therefore, after some further declarations on my part, he handed me the message, and I found, as I had expected, it was my own, which, unfortunately, had never reached her to reassure her.Of course, I was not certain that Mabel’s companion was actually Kirk. Indeed, as I reflected, I grew to doubt whether she would accept any word he told her as the truth. Yet whatever the story related about myself to her it must be a strange and dramatic one, that it should induce her to travel across Europe in company with a stranger.I had never had the slightest reason to doubt Mabel’s fidelity. She had always been a good, honest and true wife to me, and our strong affection was mutual. Indeed, few men and women led more blissful, even lives than we had done. Thoroughly understanding each other’s temperaments, we were content in each other’s affection.No, even though this man might tell me this astounding story, I refused to give it credence. The grey-moustached stranger, whoever he might be, was a scoundrel bent upon entrapping my wife, and had done so by relating some fictitious story about myself.This theory I expounded to her young sister Gwen as we sat at our coffee half an hour later. We had resolved to rest until eleven, when an express left for Rome. I intended to follow her and rescue her from the hands of those who were most certainly conspirators.More mystified than ever, we therefore travelled south to the Eternal City, arriving there in the early hours of the next morning, and going to the Grand Hotel, which was full to overflowing, the Roman season having already commenced.To find my beloved wife was now my sole aim. I thought naught of the startling mystery of Sussex Place, or of the strange identity of the false Professor. I had abandoned the inquiry in order to recover from peril the woman I loved so dearly.The young girl, my companion, was beside herself with fear, dreading what had occurred; while I myself became more and more puzzled as to the motive for inveigling Mabel abroad. She had not the slightest connection with the secret tragedy; she was, indeed, in ignorance of it all. For what reason, therefore, was she being misled, and why, oh, why, did she allow this perfect stranger to pose as myself?I hardly slept at all that night, having searched all the published visitors’ lists in vain, and as early as seven o’clock next morning I started upon a tour of the hotels to make personal inquiry. At the Russia, the Modern, the Continental, the Milan, and other well-known houses of that class I conned the names of the visitors for my own, but though I was occupied the whole day upon the task, snatching a hasty luncheon at a littletrattoriaI knew just behind the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, all was, alas! in vain.Part of the time Mabel’s sister was with me, until she grew tired, and returned alone to the hotel in a cab.Earlier in the day I had telegraphed to Pelham to inquire whether Mabel had sent me any message at home, but the reply came that neither telegram nor letter had been received.Though there seemed no connection whatever between the tragedy in Sussex Place and my wife’s flight, yet I could not help suspecting that there was, and that my apparent abandonment was due to the subtle, satanic influence of my mysterious neighbour. I was now all the more anxious to condemn him to the police. The remains of the poor Professor had been cremated in his own furnace, and by the blackguardly hands of the assassin.Yet, before I could raise the finger of denunciation, I had to discover the fellow’s whereabouts, and this seemed a task impossible to accomplish. I had kept my eye upon theTimesdaily in the course of my quick journeys during that most eventful week, but no advertisement had appeared.Next day, and the next, I spent alternately searching the hotels and idling in the Corso, on the Pincian, among the tourists in the Forum, or in the broad Piazza Colonna, the hub of Roman life. Among the hosts of foreigners who walked and drove in the Corso at the hour of thepasseggiata, my eyes, and those of my bright little companion, were ever eager to find my dear wife’s handsome face.But we saw her not. She and the man posing as myself had entirely and completely disappeared.I sought counsel of the Questore, or chief of police, who, on hearing that I was in search of my wife, ordered the register of foreigners in Rome to be searched. But two days later he informed me with regret that the name of Holford did not appear.In face of that my only conclusion was that, after leaving Florence, they had suddenly changed the course of their flight.Their flight! Why had Mabel fled from me, after speeding so swiftly to meet me? Ay, that was the crucial question.Late one afternoon I was standing upon the Pincian, leaning upon the balustrade of that popular promenade of the Romans, and watching the crowd of winter idlers who, in carriage and afoot, were taking the fresh, bright air. I had been there every day, hoping against hope either to recognise Mabel or the man Kirk among the crowd of wealthy cosmopolitans who thronged the hillside.Before me moved the slow procession of all sorts and conditions of carriages, from the gaudily-coloured, smart motor-car of the young Italian elegant to the funereal carozza of the seedy marchesa, or the humble vettura of the tweed-skirted “Cookite.” Behind showed the soft grey rose of the glorious afterglow with the red roofs, tall towers and domes of the Eternal City lying deep below. Against the sky stood the tall cypresses—high, gloomy, sombre—and over all spread that light film of mist that rises from old Tiber when the dusk is gathering.The scene was, perhaps, one of the most picturesque in all Italy, even surpassing that from the Piazza Michelangelo in Firenze, but to me, hipped and bewildered as I was, the chatter in a dozen tongues about me was irritating; and I turned my back upon the crowd, leaning my elbows upon the stone parapet, and gazing over the gay, light-hearted capital whence at that moment came up the jangling of bells started by the great bell at St. Peter’s and echoing from every church tower, the solemn call to evening prayer that is, alas! ever unheeded. In modern Italy only the peasant is pious; in thealto mondoreligion is unfashionable.Perhaps you have driven in the Corso, that narrow and most disappointing of thoroughfares, gossiped in the English tea-shop at five o’clock, taken your vermouth and bitters in the Aregno, and climbed the Pincian to see the sunset. If you have, then you know that life, you recognise amid that crowd faces of both sexes that you have seen at Aix, at Vichy, at Carlsbad, at Ostend, or in the rooms at Monte Carlo, many of them vicious, sin-hardened faces, careless, indolent, blasé; few, alas! with the freshness of youth or the open look indicated by pure-mindedness.On the Pincian you have the light-hearted thoughtless world which exists only to be amused, the world which laughs at grim poverty because it obtains its wherewithal from the labours of those poor, underpaid and sweated millions in other countries who must work in order that these few favoured ones may indulge in their extravagances.Sick to death, disappointed, worn out by a continual vigilance and with a deep anxiety gnawing ever at my heart-strings, I had turned from the scene, and was gazing across into the rose-tinted mists, when of a sudden I heard a voice at my elbow, exclaiming in broken English:“Why, surely it’s the Signor Holford!”I turned quickly, and to my amazement found myself confronted by the thin, sinister face of the dead Professor’s servant, Antonio Merli.

The story told me by the bald-headed Italian hotel-keeper was that another man had usurped my place!

He said that Mrs Holford, accompanied by her husband, had arrived at about seven o’clock on the morning of the day before yesterday, remained there the day, and had left by the express for Rome at five o’clock that same evening.

“You don’t believe it, sir!” the man exclaimed with some warmth. “Well, here is the gentleman’s signature!” And he showed me upon a printed slip, whereon hotel visitors in Italy write their names according to the police regulations, boldly inscribed in a firm hand, “Mr and Mrs Henry Holford. Profession, automobile engineer. Domicile, London. British subject.”

I stared at the words utterly confounded. Somebody had assumed my identity! Yet how was that possible with Mabel present?

“What kind of man was madame’s husband?” I inquired, while my sister-in-law stood by astounded.

“He was slightly older than yourself, sir, with a moustache turning grey.”

Surely it could not be that arch-scoundrel Kershaw Kirk!

“Was he about fifty, and rather thin?”

“Yes,” replied thehôtelier. “He spoke Italian very well; indeed, with scarcely any accent.”

My suspicion at once fell upon Kirk. Yet how could he so impose upon Mabel as to be allowed to pass as her husband? She had never before spoken to the fellow, and had, I knew, held him in instinctive dislike.

“They were out all yesterday morning driving up to Fiesole,” he added.

“You don’t happen to know to which hotel they’ve gone in Rome?” I asked.

“No. There is a telegram here for madame. It arrived half an hour after their departure. They would leave no word with the hall-porter regarding the forwarding of letters.”

“I am her husband,” I said, “and that telegram is evidently mine, which has been delayed in transmission, as messages so often are in this country. As her husband, I have a right to open it, I suppose.”

“I regret, sir, that I cannot allow that,” said the man. “You have given me no proof that you are madame’s husband.”

“But I am!” I cried. “This lady here is my wife’s sister, and will tell you.”

“Yes,” declared the girl, “this is Harry, my brother-in-law. The other man, whoever he may be, is an impostor.”

The short, bald-headed Italian in his long frock-coat, grew puzzled. He was faced by a problem. Therefore, after some further declarations on my part, he handed me the message, and I found, as I had expected, it was my own, which, unfortunately, had never reached her to reassure her.

Of course, I was not certain that Mabel’s companion was actually Kirk. Indeed, as I reflected, I grew to doubt whether she would accept any word he told her as the truth. Yet whatever the story related about myself to her it must be a strange and dramatic one, that it should induce her to travel across Europe in company with a stranger.

I had never had the slightest reason to doubt Mabel’s fidelity. She had always been a good, honest and true wife to me, and our strong affection was mutual. Indeed, few men and women led more blissful, even lives than we had done. Thoroughly understanding each other’s temperaments, we were content in each other’s affection.

No, even though this man might tell me this astounding story, I refused to give it credence. The grey-moustached stranger, whoever he might be, was a scoundrel bent upon entrapping my wife, and had done so by relating some fictitious story about myself.

This theory I expounded to her young sister Gwen as we sat at our coffee half an hour later. We had resolved to rest until eleven, when an express left for Rome. I intended to follow her and rescue her from the hands of those who were most certainly conspirators.

More mystified than ever, we therefore travelled south to the Eternal City, arriving there in the early hours of the next morning, and going to the Grand Hotel, which was full to overflowing, the Roman season having already commenced.

To find my beloved wife was now my sole aim. I thought naught of the startling mystery of Sussex Place, or of the strange identity of the false Professor. I had abandoned the inquiry in order to recover from peril the woman I loved so dearly.

The young girl, my companion, was beside herself with fear, dreading what had occurred; while I myself became more and more puzzled as to the motive for inveigling Mabel abroad. She had not the slightest connection with the secret tragedy; she was, indeed, in ignorance of it all. For what reason, therefore, was she being misled, and why, oh, why, did she allow this perfect stranger to pose as myself?

I hardly slept at all that night, having searched all the published visitors’ lists in vain, and as early as seven o’clock next morning I started upon a tour of the hotels to make personal inquiry. At the Russia, the Modern, the Continental, the Milan, and other well-known houses of that class I conned the names of the visitors for my own, but though I was occupied the whole day upon the task, snatching a hasty luncheon at a littletrattoriaI knew just behind the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, all was, alas! in vain.

Part of the time Mabel’s sister was with me, until she grew tired, and returned alone to the hotel in a cab.

Earlier in the day I had telegraphed to Pelham to inquire whether Mabel had sent me any message at home, but the reply came that neither telegram nor letter had been received.

Though there seemed no connection whatever between the tragedy in Sussex Place and my wife’s flight, yet I could not help suspecting that there was, and that my apparent abandonment was due to the subtle, satanic influence of my mysterious neighbour. I was now all the more anxious to condemn him to the police. The remains of the poor Professor had been cremated in his own furnace, and by the blackguardly hands of the assassin.

Yet, before I could raise the finger of denunciation, I had to discover the fellow’s whereabouts, and this seemed a task impossible to accomplish. I had kept my eye upon theTimesdaily in the course of my quick journeys during that most eventful week, but no advertisement had appeared.

Next day, and the next, I spent alternately searching the hotels and idling in the Corso, on the Pincian, among the tourists in the Forum, or in the broad Piazza Colonna, the hub of Roman life. Among the hosts of foreigners who walked and drove in the Corso at the hour of thepasseggiata, my eyes, and those of my bright little companion, were ever eager to find my dear wife’s handsome face.

But we saw her not. She and the man posing as myself had entirely and completely disappeared.

I sought counsel of the Questore, or chief of police, who, on hearing that I was in search of my wife, ordered the register of foreigners in Rome to be searched. But two days later he informed me with regret that the name of Holford did not appear.

In face of that my only conclusion was that, after leaving Florence, they had suddenly changed the course of their flight.

Their flight! Why had Mabel fled from me, after speeding so swiftly to meet me? Ay, that was the crucial question.

Late one afternoon I was standing upon the Pincian, leaning upon the balustrade of that popular promenade of the Romans, and watching the crowd of winter idlers who, in carriage and afoot, were taking the fresh, bright air. I had been there every day, hoping against hope either to recognise Mabel or the man Kirk among the crowd of wealthy cosmopolitans who thronged the hillside.

Before me moved the slow procession of all sorts and conditions of carriages, from the gaudily-coloured, smart motor-car of the young Italian elegant to the funereal carozza of the seedy marchesa, or the humble vettura of the tweed-skirted “Cookite.” Behind showed the soft grey rose of the glorious afterglow with the red roofs, tall towers and domes of the Eternal City lying deep below. Against the sky stood the tall cypresses—high, gloomy, sombre—and over all spread that light film of mist that rises from old Tiber when the dusk is gathering.

The scene was, perhaps, one of the most picturesque in all Italy, even surpassing that from the Piazza Michelangelo in Firenze, but to me, hipped and bewildered as I was, the chatter in a dozen tongues about me was irritating; and I turned my back upon the crowd, leaning my elbows upon the stone parapet, and gazing over the gay, light-hearted capital whence at that moment came up the jangling of bells started by the great bell at St. Peter’s and echoing from every church tower, the solemn call to evening prayer that is, alas! ever unheeded. In modern Italy only the peasant is pious; in thealto mondoreligion is unfashionable.

Perhaps you have driven in the Corso, that narrow and most disappointing of thoroughfares, gossiped in the English tea-shop at five o’clock, taken your vermouth and bitters in the Aregno, and climbed the Pincian to see the sunset. If you have, then you know that life, you recognise amid that crowd faces of both sexes that you have seen at Aix, at Vichy, at Carlsbad, at Ostend, or in the rooms at Monte Carlo, many of them vicious, sin-hardened faces, careless, indolent, blasé; few, alas! with the freshness of youth or the open look indicated by pure-mindedness.

On the Pincian you have the light-hearted thoughtless world which exists only to be amused, the world which laughs at grim poverty because it obtains its wherewithal from the labours of those poor, underpaid and sweated millions in other countries who must work in order that these few favoured ones may indulge in their extravagances.

Sick to death, disappointed, worn out by a continual vigilance and with a deep anxiety gnawing ever at my heart-strings, I had turned from the scene, and was gazing across into the rose-tinted mists, when of a sudden I heard a voice at my elbow, exclaiming in broken English:

“Why, surely it’s the Signor Holford!”

I turned quickly, and to my amazement found myself confronted by the thin, sinister face of the dead Professor’s servant, Antonio Merli.

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