“Well,” he said after some hesitation, “it has occurred to a good many people—men I’ve met at the clubs—that Sir George was not a man to end his own life. There were, it seems, strong motives that he should still live. Besides, no financial difficulties have been revealed, have they?”
“None. In the safe in the library the police found a huge bundle of bank-notes. I saw them counted. There were fifty thousand pounds.”
“Then he certainly was not in any pecuniary trouble,” Cunningham remarked. “There seems no reason whatever for him to have taken his life.”
“But the coroner’s jury, after hearing the evidence, decided that it was an unfortunate case of suicide.”
“Yes,” he said; “I should have attended the inquest, only, as you know, I had to speak in Glasgow that evening.”
“But who has put these suspicions into your head, Gordon?” the girl asked with a fixed and serious look. Although young, beautiful, and beloved, melancholy was now the characteristic of her features. An ardent soul dwelt within her, but the tragic and gloomy atmosphere of that house had made its mark of deep depression.
“A stranger, first—an old man whom I met in the train this afternoon. He declared himself most positive that Sir George was murdered.”
“An old man!” echoed Maidee. “What could he know? Describe him.”
But by the description the girl did not recognise the stranger. Then Gordon added:
“He was extremely well dressed, and evidently an intimate friend of your uncle’s. He wore in his old-fashioned black cravat a curious cameo scarf-pin—a genuine antique gem without a doubt—two girls in classic flowing drapery before a pagan altar.”
Maidee held her breath, her eyes fixed upon the man she loved so dearly.
She recognised in an instant that the scarf-pin was the same she had seen so often worn by Uncle John!
But she cleverly kept her own counsel, and expressed a blank surprise that a mere stranger should be so positive in his assurance that Sir George had fallen beneath the hand of an assassin.
“Who could have struck him down?” she asked. “My dear uncle never harmed anybody. What could possibly have been the motive for such a crime as the one this stranger suggested?”
Her lover made no response. He—hailed as the man of to-morrow—was standing pale and motionless, staring straight before him, rigid as a statue.
CHAPTER X.
RICHARD GOODRICK’S SECRET
That evening, about the same hour, a rather florid-looking and somewhat over-dressed, elderly man, wearing round-rimmed, gold spectacles, and speaking with a strong American accent, paused at the steps of the house in Charlwood Street. With an effort he composed himself, then ascended the steps and rang the bell.
He wore a soft, grey felt hat, and a fancy vest showed beneath his well-cut black overcoat, while upon his hands were a pair of new dog-skin gloves.
“Say, madam, your name’s Ayres, isn’t it?” he inquired of the woman who answered the ring.
“Yes, sir,” responded the affable landlady inquiringly. “That’s me.”
“And I guess this is the house where a certain Mr. Goodrick, a rather eccentric old gentleman, died the other day—eh?”
The woman replied in the affirmative. Then, in response to another question, the stranger learnt that the body was now lying at the mortuary, and was to be interred at Kensal Green Cemetery the following day.
“Well,” said the American, “my name’s Silas H. Stilwell, of Kansas City. I’ve heard that the old gentleman was a collector of antiques, and, as I’m a collector also, I wondered if you’d mind me having a sight of them—for a consideration, of course,” and, with an ingratiating smile, he pressed a couple of sovereigns into the good woman’s ready hand, adding: “We Americans are always interested in old English curios, you know. We have none of our own. Pardon me coming at this hour, but I’m full up right along, and I sail from Liverpool next Saturday. Been over in Europe two months, you know, and I’ve done Parrus, Ber-line, and Rome, and am just doing London before crossing to the other side. Say, Mrs. Ayres, this is a real grand old city of yours!”
“Yes, sir, I suppose it is,” laughed the landlady, inviting him into the narrow hall. “But we cockneys don’t think so much of it.”
“Just as we don’t reckon much of New York,” said Mr. Stilwell.
“But, you know, sir, I’ve ’ad strick orders from the police not to let anyone see old Mr. Goodrick’s odds and ends. You may be a reporter!”
“Oh! I’m not a Press man,” laughed the American. “You needn’t fear me interviewing you, or anything of that sort. I merely want to have a look round to see what the old man collected. Perhaps some of his things’ll go to the hammer, and I’d like to see them before I go back home, as I could then leave a commission with someone to buy for me.”
“Yes, sir; I expect they’ll be sold. Mr. Medland—that’s the detective-inspector—told me they’re worth a lot o’ money, for it seems that our lodger was an expert in old things. All I knows is that ’e spent money over ’is ’obby when ’e could very ill afford it. ’E’d often go without ’is lunch, and buy some old cracked cup or some bit of old iron with the money.”
“Guess he was a true collector, Mrs. Ayres,” laughed the red-faced man. “To us who know a good piece of pottery when we see it, a really unique specimen is always irresistible. But, according to the papers, he committed suicide. Spent all his money upon his mania for collecting, like so many other educated men have done before him.”
Mrs. Ayres did not contradict him, remembering that she had been instructed by Inspector Medland to keep her own counsel.
The couple of sovereigns would, she was arguing, be honestly earned by showing the American the dead man’s collection, even though the police had forbidden her to allow anyone there. She saw that he was not a reporter, so she slipped the two coins into her apron pocket and requested the caller to follow her, ushering him into the stuffy little back-parlour, and turning up the gas.
The place was even in worse confusion than it had been when Richard Goodrick lived.
“The police have turned everything topsy-turvy,” remarked the woman.
“So I see,” exclaimed the American. “And they’ve broken one or two priceless specimens in their eager haste. Look at that beautiful Spode pastille-burner—quite unique—with the cover smashed.” And he took it from the floor and examined it. “Broken quite recently. It’s a shame—a very great shame.”
“I confess, sir, that I don’t know anything about these old things. Myself, I wouldn’t give ’em ’ouse room,” declared the woman.
“Guess you’d like the money they’ll fetch in a sale-room, Mrs. Ayres!” remarked the American laconically. “Why,” he declared, gazing admiringly around, “there are some things here worth a small fortune,” and, taking up a tiny porcelain bust, he added: “Ah! why here’s a Fulham portrait of ‘Prince Rupert.’ The only other known is in the British Museum!”
“I wouldn’t give such an ugly thing ’ouse room!” repeated Mrs. Ayres.
“My dear madam,” exclaimed her visitor quietly, “if you were a connoisseur you would recognise that this was one of Dwight’s, made about 1680, and his work was undoubtedly the finest and most original production of any English potter. And look!” he cried in admiration. “Say! look at that exquisite slip-ware posset-cup of about the same date. You see the rich yellow tint. That was due to the galena, or lead glaze.”
“Oh, sir, I suppose all the old things is very interestin’, but I must say I like new things I buy at the shop,” exclaimed the woman. “Poor old Mr. Goodrick was always a-talkin’ some of his gibberish about tygs—whatever they were—salt glaze, Delft, Liverpool, and Astbury.”
“Yes. Of those I see some very remarkable specimens, and some beautiful pieces of lustre, too.”
“Well, I’ve got to see after my ’usband’s supper, or there’ll be trouble when ’e comes ’ome,” exclaimed the landlady. “I’ll leave you to have a look round yourself, sir.”
“You’re very trustful of me,” laughed the American. “You read honesty in my face—eh? Wal, you should never trust a collector,” he continued reproachfully.
“Oh, I trust you, sir,” replied the woman, her broad, ruddy face beaming as she turned and disappeared into the kitchen.
The stranger listened intently until she had closed the door, whereupon his manner instantly altered.
“What a dastardly shame to have broken that beautiful silver-mounted bellarmine!” he exclaimed, taking up a large fragment of a narrow-necked bottle which bore upon its neck the crude representation of the squat, bearded face of Cardinal Bellarmine, who was so determined a persecutor of the Protestants in 1615. “I expect the police suspected something secreted there.”
Bending, he eagerly turned over a heap of tarnished antique silver and old brass, big leather-bound black-letter books, and a quantity of other odds and ends.
“The old gossip doesn’t suspect me, that’s very evident,” he laughed to himself. “I’ve given off some of the same jargon used by the dead man, and I suppose I’ve impressed her that I possess a special knowledge of old-English pottery. She evidently doesn’t know a Toby jug from a slip-ware cruisken.”
Standing before the fireplace, he gazed around upon the disordered room. Upon the threadbare carpet he saw a dark brown stain—the mark of the life-blood of Richard Goodrick, the man who had formed that miscellaneous collection. It caused him to halt and shudder.
“How strange!” he exclaimed aloud to himself, drawing his hand across his brow. “How very strange it all is! Yes,” and he bent as though to recover something from beneath the table; “Goodrick was in this position, reading something, when his assailant crept up behind and killed him. Yes, I see now exactly.”
Then, detecting a sound, he instantly straightened himself and listened intently.
“I must be quick,” he added to himself in a low, hoarse whisper, “or that woman will return, and my chance may slip by. It is fortunate that she does not suspect. That couple of sovereigns put into her hand was indeed money very well spent.”
Then, rousing himself, he recommenced his eager investigation of the piles of curios heaped just as the police had heedlessly cast them.
With some difficulty he removed a quantity of rusty armour, swords, and helmets from a big, carved dowry-chest, and, lifting the heavy lid, revealed a quantity of parchment books within—volumes which emitted a strong musty odour. In frantic haste he turned them over, but the object which he sought was not there. And he then closed the long, heavy lid with a sigh of disappointment.
“Surely they can’t have found it already!” he gasped in deep anxiety, his accent being no longer that of the American.
He seemed nervous and apprehensive; his hands trembled in his feverish haste.
In his eagerness he turned over pictures, rolls of moth-eaten tapestry, little cases of rare coins, matrices of ancient bronze seals, and other things, until, at last, with a low cry of delight, he came across the centre column of the old Sheffield plate candelabrum of the days of Queen Anne.
It lay concealed beneath an ancient carved Bible-box, and with eager hands he drew it forth, half fearing, it seemed, that his search might, after all, have been in vain. Quickly he took the column in both hands, and, wrenching it, unscrewed the base, and peered breathlessly within.
“Excellent!” he cried in quick exultation. “It’s there. They haven’t seized it after all!”
And, carefully taking out the small roll of neatly-written manuscript, he hastily thrust it into the breast-pocket of his coat, while just at the same moment the shuffling footsteps of the garrulous landlady were heard out in the hall.
Next second she entered the room, ere he could re-screw the two pieces of old plate together.
“Wal,” he exclaimed, reassuming the drawl, with a short laugh, “have you done your cooking, Mrs. Ayres?”
“Almost, sir,” she replied. “I hope you’ve been interested in the old rubbish. I wish they’d clear it all away. I want to ’ave the room re-papered and whitewashed. As it is, it reminds me too much of the poor old gentleman—especially with that horrible stain on the carpet.”
“Who do you expect will clear it away?” asked her visitor, screwing the candlestick together, and replacing it upon the heap with well-feigned unconcern.
“The police will, I hope. The old man ’asn’t any relatives—as far as I know. So I suppose they’ll sell the things, and the proceeds’ll go to the Government. That’s what my ’usband says.”
“Well, when they are put up for sale, I shall be a buyer of some of them, I can assure you, Mrs. Ayres,” declared the American. “We never get such a splendid lot as this for sale on our side. I shall go to a man I know to-morrow, and commission him to buy for me. They are certain to be dispersed at Christie’s.”
“Well, sir, as you know all about such things, how much do you think this lot is worth?”
“Ah, I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,” laughed Mr. Stilwell. “But, as an instance, you see that little Madonna on the wall? The one on panel—of the early Florentine school. It’s a very good picture, is that. I’d give in dollars for it an equivalent in your English money up to five hundred pounds, and think it dirt cheap. It will fetch double at Christie’s.”
“Five hundred pounds!” gasped the woman, staring at him. “What, for that one dark old picture with the chipped frame!”
“Yes. And I can tell you, Mrs. Ayres, that you have in this room certain objects worth several thousands—things which will be bought eagerly by your British or South Kensington Museums. Of course, I see that your late lodger was an undoubted expert. He evidently purchased what was unique. He knew well what he was about.”
“ ’E was a crank, I tell you,” declared the woman. “He was very tryin’ sometimes, with ’is snarling ways and ’is snappy speeches—but I’m very sorry ’e’s gone, poor old gentleman. What a sad end!”
“Yes,” sighed the American; “a very sad end indeed. I only wish I had had the pleasure of knowing him. With such a knowledge as he betrays by his collection, he must have been a most intensely interesting person.”
“Lor, sir, ’e could talk on any subjec’ you liked. My ’usband used to say as ’ow ’e knew more about politics than even the newspapers did. ’E ’ad a most wonderful memory for people an’ dates an’ speeches an’ the like. ’E’d often, when talking with my ’usband, quote speeches wot were made in Parliament twenty years ago. In fact, sir, old Nosey Goodrick, as they called ’im, was a walkin’ wonder. ’E only ’ad one real friend. ’E was an Italian priest, a shabby, snappy old man.”
“How strange, with all this fine collection, which he could have turned into money at any hour, he chose to put an end to himself when he found his purse empty,” the man remarked. “By the way,” he added, “did you see much of this priest?”
But the woman remained silent. She recollected those strict injunctions of Medland’s to say nothing whatever concerning the actual truth. She knew that Don Mario could not be found. The public were to remain in complete ignorance concerning her lodger’s mysterious end.
“My ’usband ought to be ’ome by now. ’E’s a-workin’ late in the City. It’s just their busiest time at the warehouse now,” remarked Mrs. Ayres, turning the conversation.
“I’d much like to see him, but I fear I must be getting along. I’ve a lot to do before I sail, so I’ll wish you good-evening,” her visitor said in haste. “Be careful that nobody takes away any of these things, for there’s not one object, not even one of those rusty old daggers, which is not worth a good sum.”
“I’ll be careful, sir, never fear, now that I know they’re so valuable,” she assured him.
“I wonder if you could get me a match,” he said, suddenly feeling in his pockets.
“With pleasure, sir,” answered the woman, at once hurrying to the kitchen.
The instant she had gone the American listened, and then bent to the floor near the fireplace, and with a quick movement tore up the corner of the old carpet, whence, from beneath a piece of tattered linoleum over which it had been tacked, he drew a long, faded, blue envelope containing some papers.
In breathless haste he took them out, glanced at them to make certain that they were what he sought, and, just as the woman was re-entering the room, thrust them hurriedly into his pocket.
Two minutes later, as he was hastening along Denbigh Street in the direction of Victoria Station, he laughed to himself and breathed more freely.
“Good!” exclaimed old Mr. Ambrose aloud, for, as the reader has no doubt surmised, the inquisitive American was none other than he, the mysterious man of marvellous evasiveness, of clever subterfuge, and sinister actions. “The fool of a woman suspects nothing! I need have had no fear—she never does. How fortunate that I recollected the envelope beneath the carpet! Had the police discovered it, everything would have been revealed. But I am quite safe—absolutely safe, now that they will not find Don Mario, and the secret of Richard Goodrick is mine—and mine alone!”
CHAPTER XI.
CONCERNS LOVE AND A MYSTERY
The sensation caused by the suicide of Sir George Ravenscourt had already died down. Events pass quickly nowadays in London.
His executors had discovered that her ladyship and Miss Irene had been left well provided for, and that pecuniary worry could not have been held responsible for the fatal act.
Moreover, there was much mystery attaching to a sum of fifty thousand pounds in notes found in his safe in the wall of the library. Inquiries revealed that this sum had, a few days before, been placed to his credit at his bank by a person who could not be traced, but whose name was Sutherland. The money was in the shape of a draft upon the Banque de Paris et Pays Bas, of Amsterdam, and two days later Sir George had withdrawn it personally in notes.
None of his accounts showed whence it had been derived, and his solicitors, as well as the two executors, both business men, were greatly mystified.
Lady Ravenscourt and Maidee had removed to the house of the former’s sister, Mrs. Beresford, in Gloucester Terrace, Hyde Park, while the house in Carlton House Terrace had been closed, and the faithful Burgess left in charge.
Maidee and Gordon met daily. London society was interested in their engagement. He usually called to see her each morning, for after noon he was compelled to be down at the House, where the sittings were just then usually late, and it was not until the early hours that, tired out, he was able to get back to his rooms in Bruton Street.
Mourning had compelled Maidee to cancel all her engagements—and they were many, for she was much sought after by the younger hostesses—while it also prevented her going to the theatre or out to supper. Indeed, the tragic affair had completely cut off the sudden round of gaiety which had followed her presentation, and time now hung heavily upon her hands amid gloomy surroundings.
She was, however, a great reader, and, finding herself debarred from dancing and pleasure-seeking, she turned to books as a solace, and read the solid works of Schopenhauer, Hebbel, Lessing and Hegel, volumes at the very sight of which Gordon shuddered.
With great care, and without exhibiting any undue anxiety, young Cunningham had endeavoured to learn from Scotland Yard what action was being taken regarding Sir George’s death. As a Member of Parliament, he had facilities for making inquiry; yet, though in a veiled manner he threatened to put a question in the House, all the information he could gather was that, in face of the coroner’s verdict, it was not any further a police matter.
By this response he became distinctly unnerved. His object had been to discover in what direction the inquiries of the police, if any, were being pushed. There was a suspicion abroad—a distinct suspicion he had heard expressed in the clubs, over dinner-tables, and in the drawing-rooms of London—that Sir George had not died by his own hand. And if such suspicions were general, then no doubt Scotland Yard would hear of it and investigate.
He kept his apprehensions to himself, but his friends, and Maidee more especially, noted how pale, worn-out, and anxious he had become, and how each day increased the serious expression upon his usually open, merry countenance.
One morning when he called at Gloucester Terrace, and they were standing before the drawing-room fire clasped in each other’s arms, she suddenly asked anxiously:
“What’s the matter, dear? Is anything troubling you—anything on your mind?”
“On my mind!” he echoed, with a start. “Why no, darling. What should there be?”
“Oh! I don’t know, Gordon, but of late you’ve seemed so preoccupied, so silent, so very thoughtful,” replied the girl. “The whole world seems to have suddenly become gloomy and overshadowed since poor uncle’s death.”
“Well, I really didn’t know I looked unusually sad,” laughed the young man, rousing himself with an effort. “Perhaps it is on account of working hard over my new book upon Albanian independence. I want to get it out in the spring, and therefore have to write each morning after I return from the House.”
“You ought not to work so hard, dear,” she declared, looking up into his face. “I’m sure you will injure your health. Uncle often said you were burning the candle at both ends.”
But Gordon only laughed.
“I really don’t feel it,” he declared. “I can never be idle. My only regret is that my duties at the House prevent me from travelling.”
“And leaving me!” she cried in reproach, gazing into his pale face with a look of fond affection which was unmistakable.
“No, not that,” he hastened to assure her with tenderness. “My intention is, after our marriage, that you shall come out with me to the East. You would be delighted with the quaint life in Albania and Macedonia.”
“I’d very much love it all, except those horrible massacres for which your friends the Turks are responsible.”
“Ah! not always,” he exclaimed reprovingly. “You must not misjudge the Mussulman. Come with me and see for yourself, then your prejudice against the Turk will be swept away, I feel assured. Once I was just as prejudiced as you are—until I saw the truth with my own eyes.”
“Well, I do wish you’d take my advice, dear, and have a rest,” exclaimed the girl earnestly. “Put your book aside. It will do as well if published in the autumn as in the spring. Your reputation will not suffer by its delay.”
“Ah! but the very question with which I am dealing will come before the House next month, and I must have it out as soon as possible,” answered her lover, gazing upon her in admiration.
“Then, why don’t you pair, and go for a rest—on the Riviera or somewhere?”
“Oh, I’m sick of Nice and Monte, and the tea-table tabbies of Cannes. I’ve been there three seasons in succession.”
“Then go to Algeria or Tunis—or else to Assouan,” she suggested.
“Ah! you want to get rid of me,” he declared, laughing. “No; I shall remain in London. I can’t leave the House just now—quite impossible,” he said with decision.
But he did not allow her to guess that the reason he would not take a holiday was because his ambition prompted him to remain with a view to securing high office. Truth to tell, the constant lionising to which he had of late been subjected had turned his head a little. Hitherto he had been modest and unspoiled by success, but he had now suddenly become seized by an overweening ambition. He held himself in the highest esteem, and hailed himself as the coming man whom everyone predicted.
Clever enough not to betray to Maidee the extent of his own ambition, he knew that if he did so he must fall in her estimation. The blindness and ignorance of most women make them the victims of fancied perfections. Love, in the common acceptation of the term, is a folly. Love, in its purity, its loftiness, its unselfishness, as was Maidee’s affection, is not only a consequence, but a proof of moral excellence—the sensibility of moral beauty, the forgetfulness of self in the admiration engendered by it. Such love proves its claim to a high moral influence—the triumph of the unselfish over the selfish in a young girl’s nature.
She was sorely puzzled by her lover’s apparent apprehensiveness. He seemed pale, nervous, and expectant—quite unlike his usual self. In conversation he often remained silent, apathetic, thoughtful. What, she wondered, could be the reason?
No man in the fevered political world of London led a more strenuous life, she was well aware. He was constant in his attendance at divisions, he went everywhere, and was highly popular in the smartest set. As an orator he addressed great meetings in various parts of the country, and was already one of the best speakers his party possessed.
But many shook their heads. There was an unhealthy look about his face. Some whispered that he took opiates to soothe his overwrought brain, while others hinted at speculation and serious financial trouble in consequence.
As he bent and kissed his well-beloved good-bye, for it was already past noon, she felt somehow that his caress was not so warm or so passionate as it used to be. But she made no remark—she only wondered.
Crossing to a big bowl of sweet-smelling lilies of the valley upon a side-table, she picked him several, deftly made them into a buttonhole, tied them with cotton and placed them in the lappel of his black morning-coat, saying:
“There! Wear them to-day and think sometimes of me!”
“I always think of you, Maidee,” he declared with truth. “Always—always!” And, again kissing her fondly upon the lips, he added: “Never an hour passes but my thoughts turn to you, my well-beloved.”
The girl held in his embrace sighed slightly. She was very happy—and yet that curious anxiety of Gordon’s puzzled her.
He bade her adieu, holding her a long time close to his breast, crushing the lilies slightly. Then he kissed her once more, and, turning, left the warm, flower-scented room.
As, ten minutes later, he was seated in a taxi driving down Park Lane, staring straight before him, his pale, fevered lips moved, but at first no sound escaped them.
At last, however, he suddenly held his breath, and exclaimed aloud:
“Maidee—ah! my own Maidee—my darling—my own well-beloved! What would you think of me if you knew the bitter truth! But you must never know—never—never! I would rather kill myself first!”
Then he sat silent, his face white and haggard, his gloved hand clenched.
At Boodle’s he called for his letters, and gulped down a glass of neat brandy.
As he drove along the Mall he caught sight of those drab, drawn blinds of the house in Carlton House Terrace.
He started with a cry of horror, and placed both his hands before his eyes to shut out the view.
Yet, when he alighted at the House, he walked with firm step and smiling face past the saluting constable as though his conscience were perfectly at ease and he had no trouble in the world.
He obtained his letters at the post-office in the lobby, and then went along to one of the committee-rooms, where he had an appointment, nodding to men he knew and exchanging hurried words with one of the whips, easily and merrily, his manner entirely changed from that of twenty minutes before.
Alone in Mrs. Beresford’s drawing-room in Gloucester Terrace, Maidee, sweet, pensive, and neat in her sombre black, sat moodily looking out of the window, thinking and wondering.
“There is something wrong with Gordon,” she declared to herself. “He has never been the same since the night of poor uncle’s death. How strange it was that Uncle John should urge me to tell him nothing! What does the old fellow know, I wonder? Why has he taken so great and so secret an interest in me all these years? There is a mystery—a very great mystery somewhere. Of that I feel convinced.”
CHAPTER XII.
TO FACE THE MUSIC
By the firelight that same afternoon in the narrow, dingy sitting-room in Walworth old John Ambrose sat at ease in his shabby arm-chair. The tall, thin, sad-faced Roman Catholic priest with whom he had been chatting earnestly had just risen and left him.
Ambrose had resided there nearly two months, and, as he mused, he contemplated changing his abode.
“I’ve been here too long. Mario is right!” he croaked to himself as he warmed his hands, for outside it was bitterly cold, with a rough wind and driving sleet.
The quiet back street, the lamps of which were not yet lighted, looked inexpressibly dull and dismal.
With his white beard, his longish, silvery hair and his tall, spare figure, he presented the exact replica of the appearance of Richard Goodrick, the man now in his grave at Kensal Green. Yet only at home, at his lodgings, or wherever he met Maidee, did he assume that patriarchal appearance. He was a man of a hundred faces and as many disguises—a past-master in the art of assuming various characters and acting the parts to perfection.
A book lay open on the table—a dry-as-dust volume upon ecclesiastical architecture—while beside it were his big spectacles, and the Hitopadesa in the original Sanscrit text, which, until Don Mario had called to consult him in confidence, he had been diligently studying. From a room somewhere at the back of the house came the muffled twanging of a mandoline played by a young Italian waiter of the Hotel Cecil, who was a fellow-lodger, and had brought his instrument with him from his native Tuscany.
“In some senses I’m safe enough here,” the old man argued with himself. “Yet it would certainly be judicious to make a move. Would that I dare leave London! But I cannot. No; I must remain near Maidee. Yet is it not almost time I threw off this disguise? Someone might perchance recognise my close resemblance to old Goodrick; and, if so, then any explanation would be exceedingly awkward. Each hour that I live in the disguise of the dead man increases my peril. Yes; I will take Mario’s advice. I must end it. I shall be safer—far safer—in the guise of a gentleman.”
The twanging of the mandoline recommenced in the back room as the young man sang one of the old stornelli of the Tuscan peasantry:
La mattina pel fresco e un bel cantare,
Quando le Dame sentono l’amore;
E stanno in su quell’ uscio a ragionare:
Chi l’avera di noi quel bel garzone?
E stanno in su quell’ uscio a far consiglio:
Chi l’avera di noi quel fresco giglio?
“Ah!” sighed the old man, listening intently to the words. “How often, years ago, have I heard that sung in the maizefields and vineyards of the glorious Val d’Arno! The merry laughter of the women at work before their doors, plaiting the straws; the jangling of the convent bells; the slow tread of the white oxen at the plough—yes—they all come back to me now, those days of my bright, careless youth in the sunny land of the olive and the vine. I wonder whence the young fellow comes?” he added. “I must speak to him one day—he might be useful.”
Scarcely had the words fallen from his lips when he heard someone ascend the front-door steps and ring. Quickly he glanced out of the window, and saw, to his surprise, that it was Maidee.
In a moment he put on his heavy-rimmed spectacles, and opened the door, welcoming her warmly.
“Why, you’re in total darkness, Uncle John!” cried the girl, groping along the mantelshelf for the matches.
“Because of my eyes, my dear,” was the old man’s response. “I rest them all I can. But light the gas—of course.”
Maidee did as she was bid, while he lowered the dirty venetian blinds, and then drew a chair beside the fire for her.
Without invitation she threw off her long seal-skin coat, took off her gloves, and then sat with her neat feet upon the fender, laughing merrily at the man who, through all those years, had been her close friend and confidant.
“I didn’t expect you on such a night, child,” the old fellow said, looking straight into her face with his strangely sinister expression.
“I came because I want particularly to see you, Uncle John,” she replied seriously. “I want to ask you about Gordon.”
“About Gordon!” echoed Ambrose in surprise. “What about him?”
“Well, I feel certain there is something very wrong. Of late he is pale, agitated, nervous—quite unlike his usual self. What does it all mean? Why did you forbid me the other day to tell him anything concerning the real cause of poor uncle’s death?”
Ambrose—the man of many faces—held his breath. The girl’s question was a facer.
But, with that marvellous cunning which characterised his every utterance, he merely remarked:
“He seems nervous and pale, you say? Perhaps it is owing to overwork. He leads a very strenuous life, you must recollect.”
“No,” the girl declared, “it is more than overwork. He has some terrible anxiety upon his mind. I’ve watched him—and I’m quite certain of it.”
“Of what nature do you suspect—eh?”
“Oh, how can I tell!” she cried. “I’m terribly worried over him. He excuses himself by saying that he is hard at work upon another book. But surely that would not account for his extreme anxiety and nervousness. He starts in terror at the least sound or unusual movement.”
“Nerves unstrung—wants a change,” the old man almost snapped.
“He won’t take my advice, and go away. He is wanted in the House, he declares. But, Uncle John,” she added in a changed voice, “you’ve always been so open and straightforward with me, do tell me the reason I may not explain to him that my poor uncle did not take his own life?”
“My dear, there is a very strong reason,” he replied evasively.
“But what is it? Surely the secret need not be withheld from him!”
“Have not the police given you the strictest injunctions to preserve silence?” he asked. “You and I intend to bring the assassin to justice; therefore our very first duty is to regard the instructions of the authorities. They are utterly in the dark, it is true, while we are—or, at least, I am—in possession of certain facts. These, however, will be rendered entirely useless the instant the true cause of Sir George’s death leaks out.”
“I hardly understand,” she said. “I do not follow you.”
“My child,” he exclaimed a trifle impatiently, “as I told you the other day, act as I direct you, and leave the rest to me. You surely know me sufficiently well to be aware that I have your welfare at heart—as well as that of your lover.”
“Ah, yes,” she sighed. “You have been so very good to me, Uncle John. I know you are acting for my welfare, and with a view to avenging the death of my dear uncle. Yet, somehow, strange apprehensions have seized me—why, I cannot tell.”
“Not at all surprising!” exclaimed the old man in a thin voice. “The shock of the horrible discovery, no doubt, upset your nerves, and you now imagine all kinds of wild things.”
“But the point I want to clear up is: Who killed Sir George?”
The old man, his thin lips a trifle pale, shrugged his shoulders.
“At present,” he said in a low voice, “we cannot tell.”
“Someone entered the house with him on that fateful night—I feel certain of it,” cried the girl. “And the person who entered must have been one of his friends!”
“Perhaps so. But—well, what is the use of forming any theories without some firm basis for them, my child?” he said. “At present it is too early to discuss the affair. We have only to remain silent—to wait and to watch.”
“But are you certain of success, Uncle John?” asked the girl, looking into the old man’s shrewd eyes.
“In this world nothing is certain, my dear,” was the quiet reproof. “I can only do my utmost. So leave everything to me. By the way,” he added, as though in afterthought, “I have something to show you. I wonder if I can find it,” and, rising, he took a candle from the cupboard beside the fireplace and lit it. Then he went to the other cupboard near where she was seated, and began rummaging among some books.
Suddenly as he did so there was a flash of bright light, a sharp fizzling sound, and an odour of burnt hair filled the place.
“Ah!” shrieked the old fellow in dismay. “Look at what I’ve done!”
And Maidee, turning quickly, saw that his handsome white beard had been nearly wholly destroyed by the flare of the candle.
He looked hideously grotesque as he straightened himself and faced her.
“What a great pity!” she exclaimed. “How very unfortunate!”
“Yes,” he said, with a laugh. “I must shave it all off now, I suppose. It is, after all, very annoying. How I managed it I don’t know.”
“Why, when you have shaved it off, Uncle John, I really shan’t know you,” declared his fair visitor.
“Well, if you’ll wait a minute or two, I’ll just take it all off. I can’t go about like this, can I? Phew! What a horrid smell!”
And he opened the door and ascended to the stuffy little back bedroom on the second floor, leaving her seated before the fire to ruminate upon his refusal to satisfy her suspicions. On his way he met his landlady, showed her the evidences of his misfortune, and received her condolences. The handsome white beard in which her lodger took such pride had been utterly destroyed.
Upstairs, the cunning old fellow quickly removed its remains bodily, and, having scraped his chin over with a razor, clipped his hair short in the best manner he could—rendering it rather ragged withal—then returned to Maidee.
His changed appearance caused her to stare aghast. Then she burst out laughing.
“Well, Uncle John!” she cried, “if I had met you in the street I certainly should never have known you. The absence of beard has made you look twenty years younger. You must always remain so. You look quite smart!”
“Do I?” asked the old fellow, smiling contentedly. “Then my misfortune is beneficial, after all—eh?”
“Most beneficial. Your appearance has entirely changed, and certainly for the better. You look now just as you used to look when I was a little girl, and we used to sit together in the parks.”
“Ah! you remember, then, that I had no beard in those days!”
“Of course, I remember! How can I ever forget my dear Uncle Jack, who was almost as a father to me, even though we had to meet in secret and bribe nurses and governesses not to tell,” she laughed. “Lately I’ve often thought of your friend Don Mario. He was always so kind to me. Where is he?”
Ambrose was silent, looking at her strangely with a fond, loving expression, which showed how deeply he was attached to the child now grown to be a woman.
And she, ignorant that the sudden and complete change in his personal appearance had been purposely effected, was greatly gratified by it.
“Oh,” he replied at last, “Mario went back to Italy long ago. He was very fond of you.”
Presently the fat landlady brought in the tea-tray, with two cups, and the strange pair sat over their meal in cosy comfort, the sweet-faced girl pouring out tea daintily, and handing it to the man so suddenly rejuvenated.
“What was it that you intended to show me?” she asked suddenly.
“Oh, nothing,” he replied. “Only a rather rare little book of poems I bought the other day, which I thought you would like. I’ll find it, and give it to you when next you call,” was his careless reply, as he attacked a piece of toast.
Then, after about half an hour, Maidee put on her furs and gloves, and they both went forth to seek a taxi.
“You do look strange, Uncle John!” she declared, laughing merrily as together they turned into the busy Walworth Road. “I can’t help looking at you!”
“Well, I’m glad my appearance is not rendered more hideous,” he said, as he hailed a passing cab. And then, bidding her adieu, saw her into the vehicle, which sped away back to Gloucester Terrace.
Ambrose, on his return to his room, threw off his overcoat, and gave vent to a low laugh of triumph.
“One change has been satisfactorily effected,” he muttered to himself. “There is still another thing. Shall I do it?” he asked himself, standing by the fire and gazing thoughtfully upon the carpet. “Shall I do it? Is it really wise?”
He removed his spectacles and paced the room deep in thought, a strange, weird figure with aquiline features, roughly cut hair, and clean-shaven face.
Then, lighting his candle, he ascended to his room.
Returning presently, he ordered the tea-things to be cleared away, and, locking the door very carefully after the landlady had left, he sat down at the table, and drew from his pocket the faded blue envelope which he had secured from beneath the carpet of the dead man’s room in Pimlico.
The papers it contained—thin, flimsy papers, covered with minute writing, with two official-looking documents bearing signatures and seals—he spread before him, and slowly read them. For his age, he possessed wonderfully keen eyesight, being able to read the smallest print by gas-light.
Presently he rose, and, taking a stubby piece of pencil from the mantelpiece, he re-seated himself, and made rapid calculations upon the back of the envelope, which, from its appearance, had been carried in the pocket for a long time before being concealed.
The calculations were of money, and ran into thousands of pounds.
As he placed them on paper a grim smile crossed his thin lips and a strange expression lit up his crafty eyes.
Then, from the same pocket, he drew forth the precious piece of paper which the dead man had so cunningly concealed within the stem of the old Queen Anne candelabrum, and, unrolling it, he read it through from end to end—three times, as though in order to impress it upon his memory.
As he did so the third time he sighed, his brows slowly knit, and he appeared both puzzled and apprehensive.
“Suppose he suspected!” exclaimed the strange old man aloud in a low, half-frightened whisper. “Suppose the police—but—but no!” he laughed; “I am again merely raising a phantom in order to terrify myself. Nobody suspects—nobody can possibly know. Therefore I am safe—quite safe! Ah!” he chuckled weirdly to himself, as his thin fingers clenched into his palms. “Revenge! Yes, I shall have my revenge, after waiting all these long years—living unknown and unforgotten.”
Slowly the man of subterfuge rose to his feet, his face pale, hard drawn, with an expression upon it of hate and anger.
“Yes—yes!” he said hoarsely. “I’ll do it. Then I shall be quite safe. Nobody must learn the secret written here—nobody. I have no person in whom I can trust, upon whom I can rely—except Don Mario and Maidee, and—and, alas! she’s in love with Gordon!”
He turned to the table, and his thin, claw-like hands closed upon the precious papers which he had so cleverly contrived to secure. With his pale, thin lips pressed together, he tore the papers into pieces, and then, with an exultant cry, he cast them upon the fire.
“And so,” he chuckled to himself as he watched the sparks brighten and die from the blackened tinder, “and so the strange secret of Richard Goodrick and the mystery of his death will ever remain concealed from all the world—save myself!”
Hardly had the words fallen from his lips when there came a loud rap at the door and the sharp voice of his landlady, saying:
“There’s a gentleman here to see you, Mr. Ambrose.”
The old man started, slipped on his spectacles, unlocked the door noiselessly, and threw it open.
As he did so he found a figure upon the threshold, which, though differently dressed, he instantly recognised.
He fell back in speechless amazement.
It was the man whom he had seen giving evidence at the inquest upon the body of Richard Goodrick, the very last man he desired to face—Detective-Inspector Medland!
CHAPTER XIII.
FACE TO FACE
“Mr. Ambrose?” inquired the well-dressed detective, politely standing, silk hat in hand.
“That’s my name,” snapped the old man, recovering his marvellous self-control and looking inquiringly at his visitor.
“I’ve ventured to call, and I want to have a few words with you. I may as well introduce myself. My name is March, and I am a solicitor.”
“Yes,” replied the old man, inviting his visitor inside, but instantly upon his mettle. He eyed him from head to foot and then laughed within himself at the thinness of the detective’s disguise. “And upon what do you wish to consult me?” he asked, when his visitor had seated himself.
“Well,” said March, “I suppose I had better explain that my firm, March and Edwards, of 28 Bedford Row, are solicitors to a certain family who are interested in the estate of a person who committed suicide recently—an eccentric man named Richard Goodrick, who lived in obscurity at Charlwood Street, Pimlico. You may, perhaps, have seen an account of it in the papers?”
“No,” snapped the old man. “I never read the papers. They contain mostly lies nowadays. I can’t stand the modern journalism.”
“Mr. Goodrick was apparently a very eccentric man who had lived in the same lodgings for the past eighteen years or so, and had had only one or two visitors the whole time. When he died he left a collection of antiques, which experts have since valued roughly at twenty to twenty-five thousand pounds, and in his room a will was discovered—a very curious will——”
“A will!” gasped the old man leaning forward eagerly.
“Yes—a will which contained certain very strange revelations.”
“Concerning whom?”
“Concerning himself.”
Ambrose slowly rubbed his clean-shaven chin and pursed his lips.
“Well?” he asked.
“Well, the purpose of my visit to-day is to have a confidential chat with you,” said March, looking the wily old fellow straight in the face. “In the course of my inquiries concerning the deceased I have reason to believe that you were acquainted with him.”
“I!” cried Ambrose, opening his eyes in wonder.
The truth was this. On that morning there had been received at Scotland Yard an ill-spelt anonymous letter in what appeared to be a foreign handwriting, asserting that Mr. John Ambrose, living in Wansey Street, Walworth Road, possessed considerable knowledge of the mysterious recluse of Pimlico. It had been placed in Medland’s hands, and he had resolved to interview the person in question.
It was perhaps fortunate for Ambrose that the officer had not called there a quarter of an hour earlier. Had he done so he would have come face to face with Maidee Lambton.
Medland’s sharp, penetrating gaze was fixed upon the shrewd old fellow’s countenance, but so well did the latter express blank astonishment that he felt at once that there was perhaps nothing after all in the anonymous allegation. The public is, alas! too fond of sending bogus clues to Scotland Yard, for hardly a day passes but endeavours are made to hoax the police.
“I am told,” said the visitor, “that you were upon friendly terms with the old gentleman who led such a secluded and mysterious life.”
“What did you say the name was?” asked Ambrose.
“Goodrick—Richard Goodrick, late of 78 Charlwood Street, Pimlico.”
“Don’t know anybody of that name,” grunted the old man. “Did you say that he committed suicide?”
“Yes. He was a great collector of antiques. I believe you are an expert, too, are you not?”
“Expert!” cried the old man. “No, I’m not an expert. I know a little about old English pottery and something regarding mediæval manuscripts—but there my knowledge ends.”
“You may have met him in connection with collecting,” March suggested. “Search your memory. He was an old man with white hair and a long, white beard—quite a patriarch, in fact.”
“A good many old men in London correspond with that description,” Ambrose remarked. “I fear, sir, that I cannot help you. I do not recollect ever meeting the eccentric gentleman in question.”
“And yet my information certainly goes to prove that you do know him—know him quite intimately.”
The sharp features of the old fellow were a perfect blank.
“What you have told me is greatly interesting,” he remarked. “The old man left twenty thousand pounds worth of antiques, you say. A good thing he left a will, eh?”
“Yes—for the relatives.”
“Who are they?” queried Ambrose.
“Well, clients of mine who do not yet wish their identity to be disclosed. The old man committed suicide, as I have said, and they naturally feel some little hesitation,” replied the pseudo-solicitor, believing that the old man credited his explanation.
“Ah, of course, I quite understand. Naturally they do not desire the world to know they are inheriting a suicide’s estate, eh?”
March nodded in the affirmative, twisting his gold signet-ring around the little finger of his left hand.
“I understood you to say that the will made certain revelations, eh?” old Ambrose asked. “Most interesting. What did it reveal—some secret?”
“Yes; a very curious secret concerning himself—one which, if divulged, would create an enormous sensation.”
Ambrose knit his brows and was silent for a few seconds. How much, he wondered, did the detective know?
“Then I take it that the dead man was not what he had represented himself to be, eh?” he remarked.
“No. His will has made clear several points which have been hitherto regarded as mysterious,” replied the solicitor.
“Well,” remarked the shrewd old man of mystery, “the will must be proved in due course, and these remarkable revelations of which you speak will then be made public. There will be no suppressing them then, will there?”
His visitor saw that he had made an unfortunate slip and hastened to recover himself. Old Ambrose was, however, as wary as his interrogator.
“The revelations will have to become public, whatever they are,” he went on. “Surely it is very unfortunate for your clients that they are contained in the will. Many men very foolishly make confessions or place records in their wills which are both injudicious and improper, and in dying bring pain upon the living.”
“Yes, I quite agree,” declared March. “It is extremely unfortunate for my clients, because the revelation has reference to a serious crime.”
“A crime!” exclaimed Ambrose quickly, looking straight into the detective’s face.
“Yes—a mysterious affair, the truth of which is revealed by Goodrick’s statement.”
“Was this Goodrick a criminal, then?”
“No. I’m glad, for my clients’ sake, that he was not. But by this statement the dead man wrote before his death a terrible crime has been placed upon the shoulders of one who has hitherto been entirely unsuspected.”
Ambrose held his breath. What his visitor said would have caused any other man in a similar position, and holding the secret knowledge which he held, to betray some signs of nervousness. But even under his visitor’s hard gaze he remained perfectly calm, unperturbed, unflinching.
“Not a nice prospect for the unsuspected person,” he merely remarked with a careless laugh.
“Not very,” admitted the other. “But I was certainly given to understand that you were well acquainted with the man Goodrick, and for that reason I ventured to call, in order to see if you could give me any information regarding him or his recent movements.”
“I thought you said he was eccentric, and something of a recluse.”
“So he was. But his actions on the night of his death appear to have been mysterious,” March said. “Are you really quite certain that you have no knowledge of him?” he added, looking inquiringly into the dark eyes.
“My dear sir, if I had, I would most willingly render you any assistance possible,” declared the old man. “I expect your information concerns someone else of my name. Ambrose is not uncommon.”
“No. It is certainly quite clear,” declared the detective positively. “John Ambrose of Wansey Street.”
“Well, that’s certainly me,” laughed the old fellow. “I quite anticipate that if I could furnish you with information you would readily pay for it, eh?”
“Most willingly,” the other assured him at once.
“And most eagerly would I be ready to earn a trifle,” Ambrose remarked; “for I am by no means well off.”
“But are you quite positive that you’ve never met Richard Goodrick?”
“Never met him in my life, I much regret to say.”
“Or a Catholic priest, Don Mario Mellini?”
“I don’t like priests,” snapped the other. “I hate Catholics.”
The detective was nonplussed. He prided himself that he could always tell when a man spoke the truth, and certainly, as far as he could see, this old fellow, blinking at him through his spectacles, did not seem to be concealing any knowledge of the mysterious recluse of Pimlico.
“Well!” he exclaimed at last. “My information was so exact that I confess I came here in the full expectation of learning something of interest. See, here!” he added, taking some five-pound notes from his pocket. “I brought a hundred pounds in readiness to pay you for any information you could furnish me.”
“In order to earn the money it would be quite easy for me to fake up some information, my dear sir,” replied the cunning old fellow. “But I am an honest man, and though I’m sorely in need of money I do not desire to gain it by such means.”
“Then you really can tell me absolutely nothing?” asked March, bending persuasively towards the old man in spectacles.
“Absolutely nothing. I have never met this mysterious person—at least, not to my knowledge. Of course, we may have met casually in some sale-room, or some place where our common tastes may have led us. But as to possessing any knowledge of him—well, I do not. Is the inquiry you are making so very important that you can afford to pay so generously for information?”
“Yes,” was the prompt reply. “My clients are sparing no expense in order to get at the exact truth.”
“It, of course, means money to them.”
“They are not regarding that; they are seeking to preserve the honour of the dead.”
“Not exactly a profitable proceeding sometimes, eh?” growled the old fellow in a rather changed manner. “When a man dies, his honour dies with him. Men who achieve great honours are usually the mere favourites of fortune. Actual personal merit seldom, alas! brings with it deserved honour. Did not Dryden say that honour was an empty bubble?”
“The personal honour of my clients—or, rather, one of them—is at stake, and it is for me to gather information which will remove any stigma which may have been placed upon it,” Mr. March said, his quick eyes wandering about the dim, shabby room, for he was still unconvinced, even though the old man had been so blank in his knowledge of Richard Goodrick.
“Well, I regret very much that, for my own sake pecuniarily, I am unable to furnish you with information,” declared Ambrose, with a clever affectation of ignorance. “What you have told me is certainly most interesting. I shall look forward to the proving of the will, and the sensation which you say the revelation must cause. The papers will be full of it—eh?”
“Yes,” replied March slowly, looking the man straight in the face. “I suppose, in due course, they will.”
“I expect that your informant, whoever he was, either mistook me for some other person, or else he made a blunder in the name. I’ve lived here a couple of months, and before that I lived in Albany Road, Clerkenwell. If it is somebody named Ambrose who knew this mysterious man in Pimlico, it certainly was not myself!”
With this the detective had to be satisfied. So cleverly, and with such cool disregard of his own peril, did the wily old man deny all knowledge of the mysterious Richard Goodrick that at last, after some further discussion, he convinced Medland that the anonymous communication was, after all, only a mischievous hoax.
So, full of disappointment, the detective apologised and departed from the house, leaving John Ambrose to rub his thin, bony hands and laugh weirdly at his own success.
“But I mustn’t remain here much longer!” he croaked to himself, adding in a low, hard voice: “Don Mario must get away at once. I wonder who has given me away—who it is who can possibly suspect? Has Maidee the least suspicion, I wonder, that I am not the Uncle John she once knew?”
CHAPTER XIV.
INTRODUCES A VISITOR
The police, in the absence of any direct clue to the perpetrator, or perpetrators, of the double crime, were working very slowly.
The death of the mysterious Richard Goodrick had puzzled them greatly. Though the heads of Scotland Yard—all of them experts in detection of various branches of crime—had sat in council several times, yet they had failed to discover anything tangible upon which to base any theory.
Medland believed that the old priest might know something concerning the eccentric man. But he still could not be found, although the aid of the Italian Consul had been invoked.
“Lor’ bless yer, sir; why, yes!” cried Mrs. Ayres when Medland on the following morning called and showed her a photograph of the late Sir George Ravenscourt. “That’s certainly the gentleman wot called and saw Mr. Goodrick! I opened the door to ’im. They sat together for nearly two hours, I think.”
“You didn’t overhear anything, I suppose?” asked the detective eagerly.
“Only that they seemed excited after a bit; an’ I ’eard their voices raised, as though they were a-quarrellin’.”
“What did they say? It’s most important that I should know.”
“Oh, I don’t know, sir. To me it seemed as ’ow the gentleman who called wanted Mr. Goodrick to do somethink, an’ ’e wouldn’t. ’E was a-offerin’ ’im money to do somethink—commit a crime, perhaps.”
“Money!” echoed the detective, pricking up his ears. “Why haven’t you told me this before?”
“Well, because I thought you wouldn’t believe me, sir. You seems so disbelievin’,” replied the woman.
“No, I’m not. You are mistaken. Tell me everything, my good woman, now come,” said Medland persuasively.
“Well, I didn’t ’ear much, but what I did was rather startlin’. The gentleman was actually offerin’ my lodger fifty thousand pounds!”
“Fifty thousand! What for?”
“Ah! that I can’t tell you, sir. It was to do somethink, but I couldn’t understand what,” was the woman’s reply.
“And that Italian priest?”
“Old Don Mario? Oh! I don’t know anythink about ’im.”
Medland reflected, and by doing so grew more puzzled. Fifty thousand pounds was the sum he had found in the safe in Carlton House Terrace.
What possible action of old Goodrick’s could be worth such a sum to the Baronet? He recollected, too, the mysterious source from which the money had come.
“Is this all that you know, Mrs. Ayres?” he asked persuasively. “Tell me everything, won’t you?”
“I’ve told you everythink, sir. But I do wish you’d have the old man’s room cleared out. I can’t abear to go into it now. And I want to have it done up and let it again.”
“But we are paying you the rent, Mrs. Ayres,” replied the detective. “Don’t worry about that. Keep it locked for the present.” Then he added: “I presume Goodrick refused to comply with Sir George’s wish—refused to accept the money offered him; and could it be for that reason that he was killed?”
“That’s my idea, sir.”
Medland was silent. Don Mario’s disappearance was curious; and yet he was a foreigner, and had evidently left London. All along, the detective’s theory had been that the motive of the mysterious old man’s murder was in order to suppress some secret.
Presently he left the house and returned to the police headquarters, where the information he had gathered completely baffled those who were busy in endeavouring to unravel the mystery.
If the fifty thousand pounds had been missing, then the crime would be rendered more easy of solution. But as matters stood, the problem had, to the police, been rendered all the more complex.
One man alone knew the truth, that man of marvellous craft and cunning, so clever, far-seeing and fearless; the man of many disguises, the past-master of deceit, one of the shrewdest, if not the shrewdest, and most remarkable person in the whole metropolis.
And he had snapped his fingers at the police, and laughed at their ignorance. Both the boldness of his defiance and the cleverness of his imposture were proof of his amazing impudence and wonderful versatility.
A few evenings after Medland’s visit to Mrs. Ayres and her identification of the photograph, Gordon Cunningham was seated in the smoking-room at the Marquis of Portslade’s, in Grosvenor Square, in conversation with Mr. Bridgman, the Home Secretary, an elderly, clean-shaven, legal-looking man in sombre black.
They had been sitting in a corner discussing a matter concerning Ireland, at that moment the subject of a heated debate in the House, when suddenly the Home Secretary turned to the young man and, looking straight into his face, asked:
“By the way, why are you so infernally inquisitive, Cunningham, regarding that recent affair in Carlton House Terrace—eh? They tell me you’ve been worrying them constantly at Scotland Yard for information.”
“Which I don’t get,” added Gordon, removing the after-dinner cigar from his lips. There had been a political dinner, and a dozen other well-known politicians were in the room.
“No, I don’t suppose you do,” replied the Minister. “I had a report from the Commissioner of Police to-day, saying that you are threatening to ask a question in the House regarding the death of our old friend Sir George.”
“Yes, and I intend to do so if I receive no satisfactory reply,” declared the young man frankly. “I’m sorry to worry you, Bridgman, but I feel very strongly upon the point.”
“Why?” asked the famous lawyer, suddenly interested. “Is it wise to criticise the action of the police, do you think?”
“My dear sir, in this case the police are wilfully hushing up a very remarkable case. I admit that the coroner’s jury returned a verdict of suicide, but Sir George never took his own life. Of that I’m positive!”
“Why, at Lady Andover’s, ten days ago, I recollect you declaring across the dinner-table that Sir George was in a financial hole, and no doubt committed suicide,” remarked the Cabinet Minister in surprise.
“Yes, but I find I had been misinformed. I am quite certain now that it was not a case of suicide,” Gordon declared. “Fifty thousand pounds were found in the safe in his room.”
“Why are you so certain? Have you any evidence?”
“Nothing that I can bring forward.”
“But Sir George’s wife, his niece, his butler—all three were there as soon as the body was discovered. How is it they have not protested against the verdict?”
“Because they have been forbidden to say anything,” was the reply. “I have, however, discovered certain curious facts which compel me to believe that Sir George fell by the hand of an assassin. You know quite well that he left some remarkable statement or other behind him—which was not put in evidence.”
“Officially, I only know that a verdict of suicide was returned, in which case it does not further concern the police.”
“That is the curt reply I have received from the Commissioner,” said Gordon; “but I intend to put down a question, and demand an inquiry. The whole organisation at Scotland Yard is antiquated and rotten.”
“No, no,” replied the Minister. “I don’t think you can condemn the Metropolitan Police so entirely as that. Remember that in the present state of the law they often have a very difficult and delicate task.”
“I do not condemn the men of the Criminal Investigation Department. It is the system to which I object. Nowadays the Metropolitan Police cannot compare with that of Paris, Berlin or Rome. Why? Excess of caution is one of its worst failings, and that is due to the unwritten rule which decrees that if a detective makes an error he is rarely, if ever, given an opportunity of repeating the offence, as he is at once relegated to the uniform branch of the service. The result is that your average detective, rather than act in the interests of justice, always gives the suspected one the benefit of the doubt. So hundreds of delinquents yearly go scot free for this reason. In every other detective service an arrest would be made, and the suspected one interrogated.”