The Red Room. Le Queux William

lying, removes her hat carefully, and then – ”

      “Yes,” I said. “And then? What do you believe occurred?”

      He was silent, his deep-set eyes downcast in thought.

      “Well, I – I hardly know what to think,” he declared. “It almost seems as though she shared the same fate as her father. That horrible disfiguration is most remarkable.”

      “Her entry here in secret and the strange fate that has overtaken her increases the mystery tenfold!” I declared. “Why didn’t she call Antonio?”

      “Perhaps that was her intention, but she was prevented,” suggested my friend. And I saw that his glance was fixed upon me curiously, as though he were deliberately gauging my character and intelligence.

      “But to me it appears as though her intention might have been to reach the laboratory unobserved,” I said. “She may, indeed, have been up here for aught we know to the contrary.”

      “I hardly think so. She was far too horrified at sight of the body of her father, to whom she was so devoted. The scene when she saw him dead was very painful.”

      “But might she not have been induced to return by morbid curiosity?” I suggested.

      “You’ve already told me that she was beside herself with grief.”

      “Well,” he replied, with a sigh and a final glance across to where the dark object was huddled in the opposite corner, “no purpose, I think, can be served by remaining here longer to-night. We must return in the morning. I only brought you here in order that you might fully understand the exact problem now before us. Come along.”

      “But I don’t see, Mr Kirk, how it is possible for me to help you. I’m quite a novice in this kind of thing,” I said.

      “You are not a detective. If you were, I should not seek your aid,” he snapped, as he led the way to the door and switched off the lights. “I know you think it rather strange that I have not called a doctor and the police, and had a post-mortem, and allowed the newspaper reporters to ‘work up’ a big sensation; but, as I’ve already told you, our success depends upon absolute secrecy. The affair is a startling one to you, no doubt; but if you were aware of what the tragedy really means you would be dumbfounded. Why, the newspapers could make a worldwide sensation of it if only they got at the true facts; but they never will, I assure you – never.”

      “Then even I may not know the true facts?” I asked, as I stood with him again in the boudoir.

      “As far as the tragedy is concerned, you already know them. They are just as I have told you. But there are other facts – facts concerning myself and also the Professor – which I am not permitted to divulge. They must,” he added, “remain a secret.”

      “Well – if you are not perfectly frank with me, Mr Kirk,” I protested, “I cannot see how I can regard you as a sincere friend. This is a serious and complicated problem, in which you require my assistance in an endeavour to seek a solution. How can I form any conclusions or help you if you deliberately hold back from me some of the circumstances?”

      “I have held back none,” was his hasty response – “at least, none which have any bearing whatever upon the tragedy. It is of myself and my own connection with Greer that I am speaking. I was the first person called, before there was even a suspicion of anything wrong. The fact is, the dead man trusted me implicitly.”

      “And, according to your showing, certain enemies of yours suspected the truth – that your friendship for the Professor was only feigned.”

      My companion looked me straight in the face with his narrow-set eyes, and replied:

      “My dear Mr Holford, what my enemies say was, I admit, perfectly correct. I have sought to conceal nothing. Greer believed that I was his friend, but I hated him. I had good cause to do so!”

      The man’s crafty eyes again met mine, and I saw in them an expression which I had never noticed before. Was it possible that he was the unknown assassin, and was only misleading me by clever and cunning devices?

      I recollected that he had told me that the Professor had stolen from him some valuable secret. Well, if he did not fear the crime of retaliation being brought home to him, why did he not go openly and lay the facts before the police? His evasive replies and thin excuses appeared to be utterly ridiculous. In my foolish ignorance I still believed Kershaw Kirk to be an ordinary individual, much like myself. The remarkable truth had not then been revealed to me – as it was later.

      We descended to the dining-room, where Antonio and his brother Pietro were still watching beside the couch whereon lay the poor girl who had met with such a strange and inexplicable fate.

      Kirk again knelt beside her, and for a long time searched for any wound she might bear. But he found none.

      “Remember, Antonio, no person must enter this house under any pretext whatever,” my companion ordered. “You are responsible.”

      “No one shall know anything, signore,” replied the man. “Morgan and the maids are all in ignorance – for you, signore, kept it so cleverly from them.”

      “A woman never can keep a secret,” Kirk answered sharply, “and if we are to fathom the mystery of your master’s death not a word must leak out. You know what I have told you.”

      “I recollect, signore,” the man replied. And, using the Italian oath, he said, “I have promised you, upon the tomb of my sainted mother.”

      “Then close this room, and with your brother keep a watchful vigil until to-morrow.”

      And we both went out, and were soon running in the car back towards Bedford Park.

      Arrived at his house, he insisted that I should enter for a “night-cap,” it being then just past three o’clock. Therefore, reluctantly, I accompanied him within.

      In his study a tantalus-stand and glasses were upon the table. He had thrown off his overcoat, and was about to pour me out some whisky, when the telephone bell suddenly rang. He put down the glass, and, walking to the instrument, answered the summons.

      “Hulloa? Yes?” he said.

      Then, as he listened intently, his face blanched. He spoke some quick words in German, which, unfortunately, I could not follow. They seemed like instructions.

      Again he listened, but suddenly whatever he heard so appalled him that the receiver dropped from his thin, nerveless fingers, and with a low, hoarse cry he staggered across to his big grandfather chair, near which I was standing, and sank into it, rigid, staring, open-mouthed.

      If ever guilt were written upon a man’s face, it assuredly was written upon that of Kershaw Kirk at that moment.

      Chapter Five

      Certain Suspicions Strengthened

      To Mabel, my wife, I said nothing. In the circumstances, I deemed silence golden.

      Kirk’s attitude at the telephone had filled me with suspicion.

      During the hours I spent in bed before the dawn I lay thinking. The problem was utterly inexplicable, the more so now that the dead man’s daughter was also dead.

      I was convinced, as I lay there in the darkness, that there was something very suspicious in the fact that Kirk, who seemed to rule the household, would not allow the police to have any knowledge of what had occurred. Indeed, my own position was somewhat unenviable, for, being aware that a murder had been committed, was I not legally bound to give information? Was I not liable to prosecution if I failed to do so?

      The mystery surrounding Kershaw Kirk had increased rather than diminished in that final quarter of an hour I had spent with him as he had sat staring straight into the fire, uttering scarce a word.

      What had been told him over the telephone had caused an entire change in his manner. Previously he had been dictatorial and defiant. He was now cringing, crushed, terror-stricken.

      The grim scenes I had witnessed surged through my brain. The mystery of it all had gripped my senses. Carefully