The Red Room. Le Queux William

speech, I recognised was well educated, “I made no mistake. There’s some mystery here. I wired from Paris to Miss Greer this morning, making an appointment this evening. It’s curious that she’s out.”

      “You are a friend of the family, I suppose?” I asked, eager to know who the young fellow was.

      “Yes,” he replied; “and you?”

      “I am also,” was my answer. What other reply could I make? “I believe the Professor is up in Scotland,” I added.

      “But where is Antonio and all the other servants?” he argued.

      “Well,” I said, “their master being absent, they may all be out, spending the evening; servants have a habit of doing so in the absence of their masters.”

      “Then how do you account for the movements I have heard inside?” he asked. “No; if the servants are out, then the thieves are within. Will you stay here to bar their exit, while I go out and find a constable?”

      Mention of the police caused me to wince. This young man was in ignorance of what had really occurred.

      “I should remain patient a little while if I were you,” I said. “Antonio may return at any moment; he surely cannot have gone far.”

      “On the contrary, I think he has.”

      “Why?”

      “Well, curiously enough, this afternoon, when I alighted from the Paris express and was passing through the buffet at Calais, I caught sight of a man who strangely resembled him. He turned his head and hurried away. At the moment I failed to recognise the likeness, and not until half an hour later, when the boat was already on its way across to Dover, did I recollect that he was very like the Professor’s faithful Antonio.”

      I held my breath.

      Chapter Eight

      A Fresh Turn in Affairs

      Here was the whole affair in danger of being exposed to the police and public by this young man’s encounter with the Professor’s servant! If it were exposed, then I should be compelled to give some account of myself. It would certainly be difficult to convince the police that I had no knowledge of the Professor’s death.

      “Well,” I remarked, “that Antonio should be leaving Calais seems somewhat curious, but perhaps it may have only been somebody resembling him.”

      “Of course, I’m not quite sure,” the young man replied; “but is it not curious that Miss Greer and the servants are all out? The Professor is always so very careful of his experiments and the contents of his laboratory that the house is never left untenanted.”

      “I’ve called quite by chance and upon business,” I explained. “I’m a motor-car engineer, and I live in Chiswick. My name is Holford.”

      “Mine’s Langton – Leonard Langton,” he answered. Then, after a second’s hesitation, he added, “Ethelwynn – Miss Greer – is to become my wife. That’s why I’m surprised that she hasn’t kept the appointment I made.”

      I was silent. What if I told him of the girl’s mysterious death? What would he say? How would he act?

      He seemed a smart, active, well-set-up fellow, quick, energetic, with a pair of merry grey eyes and a good-natured smile. Indeed, I took to him from the first. Yet how dare I divulge a word of what I knew?

      “The only thing is to wait,” I suggested.

      “But if the Professor is in Scotland, as you say, why have you called this evening?” he asked, with some little suspicion, I thought.

      For the moment I was nonplussed.

      “I wondered whether he had returned,” was my rather lame reply. “I simply called on the off-chance of seeing him.”

      “Was your business of a pressing nature?” he asked, still wondering, I think, whether I might not have some connection with thieves who might be within. Perhaps he now suspected me of being an accomplice, set to watch outside. My hesitation when he suggested calling the police had no doubt aroused his suspicion. Besides, I suppose my agitation had caused him some surprise, for I was in deadly fear lest the police should be called, and should enter there.

      The dead girl’s lover was a man of strongly marked character, that I could see. When once he learned the truth I should surely be suspected of having secret knowledge of the crime!

      “Well?” he asked, as we still stood before the closed door, “what shall we do?”

      “Wait,” I again suggested, “the Professor is evidently still away. He may have sent Antonio across to the Continent upon some business.”