The Red Room. Le Queux William

as how to obtain money during his enforced absence.”

      “Well?”

      Joseph, the parrot, set up a loud screeching, trying to attract his master’s attention.

      “Two hours later Antonio discovered upon the stairs leading up to the drawing-room a curious little gold and enamel charm in the form of a child’s old-fashioned wooden doll – a beautifully-made little thing,” he went on; “and half an hour later a maid, while cleaning the boudoir outside the locked door giving entrance to the laboratory, was surprised to find a small spot of blood upon the white goatskin mat. This seems to have aroused Antonio’s apprehensions. A telegram to the Professor at the North British Hotel in Edinburgh, sent by his daughter, brought, about three o’clock in the afternoon, a reply stating that he was quite well, and it was not until seven o’clock last evening that Ethelwynn communicated with me, her father having suggested this in the note she had received. I called upon her at once, and was shown the note, the little golden doll, and the ugly stain upon the mat. By then my curiosity became aroused. I went out to a telephone at a neighbouring public-house, and, unknown to anybody, got on to the reception clerk at the North British Hotel in Edinburgh. In answer to my inquiry, the young lady said that during the day a telegram had arrived addressed to Professor Greer, and it had been placed upon the board where telegrams were exhibited. Somebody had claimed it, but no one of the name was staying in the hotel.”

      “You have now said that the Professor was your friend,” I remarked. “I understood you to say that he was an enemy.”

      “I’ll explain that later,” said my companion impatiently, drawing hard at his pipe. “Let me continue to describe the situation. Well, on hearing this from Edinburgh, I drove to King’s Cross, and, somewhat to my surprise, found that Professor Greer had left London by the train he had intended. The sleeping-car attendant who had travelled with him up North was just back, and he minutely described his passenger, referring to the fact that he refused to have an early cup of tea, because tea had been forbidden by his doctor.”

      “A perplexing situation,” I said. “How did you account for the bloodstain? Had any of the servants met with an accident?”

      “No, none. Neither dog, nor cat, nor any other pet was kept, therefore the stain upon the mat was unaccountable. It was that fact which caused me, greatly against Miss Ethelwynn’s consent, to seek a locksmith and take down the two locked doors of the laboratory.”

      And he paused, gazing once more straight into the flames, with a curious expression in those deep-set brown eyes.

      “And what did you find?” I eagerly inquired.

      “I discovered the truth,” he said in a hard, changed tone. “The doors gave us a good deal of trouble. At the end of the laboratory, huddled in a corner, was the body of the Professor. He had been stabbed to the heart, while his face presented a horrible sight, the features having been burned almost beyond recognition by some terribly corrosive fluid – a crime which in every phase showed itself to be due to some fiendish spirit of revenge.”

      “But that is most extraordinary!” I gasped, staring at the speaker. “The sleeping-car conductor took him to Edinburgh! Besides, how could the two doors be locked behind the assassin? Were the keys still upon the victim?”

      “They are still upon the dead man’s watch-chain,” he said. “But, mark you, there is still a further feature of mystery in the affair. After her father’s departure for the station, his daughter put on a dressing-gown and, sending Morgan to bed, seated herself in her arm-chair before the fire in the Red Room, or boudoir, and took a novel. She read until past four o’clock, being in the habit of reading at night, and then, not being sleepy, sat writing letters until a drowsiness fell upon her. She did not then awake until a maid entered at seven to draw up the blinds.”

      “Then she was actually at the only entrance to the laboratory all the night!”

      “Within a yard and a half of it,” said Kershaw Kirk. “But the affair presents many strange features,” he went on. “The worst feature of it all, Mr Holford, is that a motive – a very strong motive – is known to certain persons why I myself should desire to enter that laboratory. Therefore I must be suspected of the crime, and – well, I admit at once to you I shall be unable to prove an alibi!”

      I was silent for a moment.

      “Unable to prove an alibi!” I echoed. “But the police have as yet no knowledge of the affair,” I remarked.

      “No; I have, however, reported it in another quarter. It’s a most serious matter, for I have suspicion that certain articles have been abstracted from the laboratory.”

      “And that means – what?”

      “It means, my dear sir, very much more than you ever dream. This is at once the strangest and the most serious crime that has been committed in England for half a century. You are a man of action and of honour, Mr Holford. Will you become my friend, and assist me in trying to unravel it?” he asked quickly, bending forward to me in his earnestness.

      “Most certainly I will,” I replied, fascinated by the amazing story he had just related, quite regardless of the fact that he was the suspected assassin.

      I wonder whether if I had known into what a vortex of dread, suspicion, and double-dealing that decision of mine would have led me I would have so lightly consented to render my help?

      I think not.

      “Well,” he said, glancing at his watch, “the place has not been touched. If you consent to help me, it would be best that you saw it and formed your own independent theory. Would you care to come with me now? You could run along and make some excuse to Mrs Holford.”

      The remarkable mystery, surrounding as it did one of the best-known scientists in the land, had already gripped my senses. Therefore I did as he suggested, and about an hour later alighted from one of my own cars at the portico of that house of tragedy.

      A white-faced, grave-eyed man in black, the man Antonio, opened the door in response to our ring, but on recognising my companion he gripped him quickly by the arm, gasping:

      “Ah, signore, I had just telephoned to you! I had no idea you were returning here to-night. Madonna Santa, signore, it’s terrible – terrible! Something else has happened. The young lady – she’s – ”

      “What do you mean? What has happened now?” asked Kirk quickly. “Tell me; she’s – what?”

      But the old Italian could not speak, so overcome and scared was he. He only pulled my companion forward into the dining-room on the left, and with his thin, bony finger pointed within.

      And as I entered the big room my eyes fell upon a sight that staggered me.

      Like the old servant, I, too, stood aghast.

      Truly Kershaw Kirk had spoken the truth when he had said that the mystery was no ordinary one.

      At that moment the problem seemed to me to be beyond solution. It already ranked in my mind as one of those mysteries to which the key is never discovered. Who did kill Professor Greer?

      Chapter Three

      The House of Mystery

      What I saw in the house of Professor Greer on the night of that fifteenth of January formed indeed a strange and startling spectacle.

      Ah, I am haunted by it even now!

      That sallow-faced man who had conducted me there was himself a mystery, and upon his own confession was suspected of a foul crime. Besides, it was being kept rigorously from the police, which, to say the least, was a proceeding most unusual.

      What could it all mean? Who was this Kershaw Kirk, this “dealer in secrets,” as he called himself, who was immune from public trial, even though not immune from arrest and imprisonment? The whole intricate problem launched upon me during those past few hours held me in fascination as nothing had ever held me before.

      I could see that the man Antonio held Mr Kirk in great fear or great regard, for he was urbanity itself.

      But what we saw within