The Pauper of Park Lane
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For a full minute he waited the reply. At last it came, and he heard it to the end.
“No,” he said, putting down the receiver and turning to Barclay. “As I expected. They know nothing of the matter at the depository.”
“But how do you account for your vans – two pantechnicons and a covered van – being there?” he asked.
The manager shook his head.
“We have here the times when each job in London was finished, and when the vans returned to the yard. They were all in by 7:30. Therefore, they could not have been ours.”
“Well, that’s most extraordinary.”
“Is it somebody who has disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“Ah! the vans were, no doubt, painted with our names specially, in order to mislead the police,” he said. “There’s some shady transaction somewhere, sir, depend upon it. Perhaps the gentleman wanted to get his things away, eh?”
“No. He had no necessity for so doing. He was quite well off – no debts, or anything of that kind.”
“Well, it’s evident that if our name is registered in the police occurrences the vans were painted with our name for some illegal purpose. The gentleman’s disappeared, you say.”
“Yes. And – well, to tell you the truth, I suspect foul play.”
“Have you told the police that?” asked the man, suddenly interested.
“No; not yet. I’ve come to you first.”
“Then if I were you I’d tell the police the result of your inquiries,” the manager said. “No doubt there’s a crooked incident somewhere.”
“That’s just what I fear. Quite a number of men most have been engaged in clearing the place out.”
“Have you been over it? Is it entirely cleared?”
“Nearly. The grand piano and a big book-case have been; left.”
“I wonder if it’s been done by professional removers, or by amateurs?” suggested the manager.
“Ah! I don’t know. If you saw the state of the place you’d know, wouldn’t you?”
“Most probably.”
“Then if you’ll come with me I’ll be delighted to show you, and you can give me your opinion.”
So the pair entered a cab, and a quarter of an hour later were passing along the hall of the empty house. The manager of Harmer’s removals inspected room after room, noticed how the curtains had been torn down, and noted in the fire grate of the drawing-room a quantity of tinder where a number of papers seemed to have been burned.
“No,” he said presently. “This removal was carried out by amateurs, who were in a very violent hurry. Those vans were faked – bought, perhaps, and repainted with our name. It’s evident that they deceived the constable very cleverly.”
“But the whole affair is so extraordinary?” gasped Max, staring at his companion.
“Yes. It would appear so. Your friend, the Doctor, evidently wished to get his goods away with the least possible delay and in the greatest secrecy.”
“But the employment of so many men did not admit of much secrecy, surely!”
“They were only employed to load. They did not unload. Only the three drivers probably know the destination of the furniture. It was valuable old stuff, I should say, if one is to judge by what is remaining.”
“Yes, the place was well and comfortably furnished.”
“Then I really think, sir, that if you suspect foul play it’s your duty to tell the police. In cases like this an hour’s delay is often fatal to success in elucidating the mystery.” Max was undecided how to act. It was his duty to tell the police his suspicions and show them that blood-stained coat. And yet he felt so certain that the Doctor must in the course of the day take him into his confidence that he hesitated to make a suggestion of foul play and thus bring the affair into public prominence.
The fact that Harmer’s name had been upon vans not belonging to that firm was in itself sufficient proof that there had been a conspiracy somewhere.
But of what nature was it? What could possibly have been its object? What was Maud’s “terrible confession!”
The expert in removals was examining some litter in the dining-room.
“They evidently did not stop to pack anything,” he remarked, “but simply bundled it out with all possible speed. One fact strikes me as very peculiar.”
“What is that?”
“Well, if they wanted to empty the place they might have done so, leaving the curtains up, and the palms and things in the windows in order to lead people to believe that the house was still occupied. Apparently, however, they disregarded that precaution altogether.”
“Yes. That’s true. The object of the sudden flight is a complete mystery,” Max remarked. He had not taken the man to the top room, where, in the cupboard, the woman’s dress was hidden.
“You say that the Doctor was rich. Therefore, it wasn’t to escape from an execution threatened by the landlord.”
“Certainly not.”
“Well, you may rest assured, sir, that the removal was not effected by professional men. The way in which carpets have been torn up and damaged, curtains torn from their rings, and crockery smashed in moving, shows them to have been amateurs.”
They had ascended to the front bedroom, wherein remained a large, heavy old-fashioned mahogany chest of drawers, and he had walked across to them.
“Indeed,” he added. “It almost looks as though it were the work of thieves?”
“Thieves! Why?”
“Well – look at this. They had no keys, so they broke open the drawers, and removed the contents,” he answered. “And look across there!”
He pointed to a small iron fireproof safe let into the wall – a safe evidently intended originally as a place for the lady of the house to keep her jewels.
The door stood ajar, and Max, as he opened it, saw that it was empty.
The curious part of the affair was that Max was convinced within himself that when he had searched the house on the previous night that safe was not there. If it was, then the door must have been closed and concealed.
He remembered most distinctly entering that room and looking around. The chest of drawers had been moved since he was last there. When he had seen them they had been standing in their place concealing the iron door of the safe, which, when shut, closed flush with the wall. Someone had been there since! And whoever it was, had moved the heavy piece of furniture and found the safe.
He examined the door, and from its blackened condition, the twisted iron, and the broken lock, no second glance was needed to ascertain that it had been blown open by explosives.
Whatever valuables Dr Petrovitch had kept there had disappeared.
The theory of theft was certainly substantiated by these discoveries. Max stood by the empty safe silent and wondering.
“I noticed downstairs in the study that a board had been prised up, as though somebody has been searching for something,” the man from Harmer’s remarked. “Probably the Doctor had something in his possession of which the thieves desired to get possession.”
“Well,” said Max, “I must say that this safe being open looks as though the affair has actually been the work of thieves. If so, then where is the Doctor, where is his daughter Maud, and where are the servants?”
“Yes. I agree. The whole affair is a complete mystery, sir,” the other replied. “There have been thieves here without a doubt. Perhaps the Doctor knows all about it, but for some reason dare not utter a word of complaint. Indeed, that’s my theory. He may be in fear of them, you know. It’s a gang that have done it, without a doubt.”
“And a pretty ingenious gang, too,” declared Max, with knit brows.
“They evidently made short work of all the furniture. I wonder why they took it, and where it is at present.”
“If it has gone to a sale room the police could trace it,” Max suggested.
“Certainly. But suppose it was transferred from the vans it was taken away in to the vans of some depository, and removed, say, to Portsmouth or Plymouth, and there stored? It could be done quite easily, and would never be traced.”
“Yes. But it’s a big job to have made a whole houseful of furniture disappear in a couple of hours.”
“It is not so big as it first seems, sir. I’d guarantee to clear a house of this size in one hour, if necessary. And the way they turned out the things didn’t take them very long. They were in a desperate hurry, evidently.”
“Do you think that thieves did the work?”
“I’m very strongly of that opinion. Everything points to it. If I were you I’d go back to the police and tell them about the safe, about that chest of drawers, and the flooring in the study. Somebody’s been prying about here, depend upon it.”
Max stood, still undecided. Did it not seem very much as though the thieves had visited there after Charles Rolfe had fled so hurriedly?
Chapter Eight.
The Pauper of Park Lane
About half-way up Park Lane – the one-sided row of millionaires’ residences that face Hyde Park – not far from the corner of that narrow little turning, Deanery Street, stood a great white house, one of a short row. The windows were protected from the sun by outside blinds of red and buff-striped holland, and the first floor sills were gay with, geraniums.
The house was one of imposing importance, and dwarfed its neighbours, being both higher, larger, and more artistic. On the right side dwelt one of Manchester’s cotton kings, and on the other a duke whose rent-roll was one of the biggest in the United Kingdoms. The centre house, however, was far more prosperous-looking than the others, and was often remarked upon by country cousins as they passed up and down upon omnibuses. It was certainly one of the finest in the whole of that select thoroughfare where rents alone were ruinous, and where the possession of a house meant that one’s annual income must run into six figures. The mere nobility of England cannot afford to live in Park Lane nowadays. It is reserved for the kings of Britain’s commerce, the Stock Exchange speculator, or the get-rich-quick financier.
Those who read these lines know well the exterior of many of the houses of notable people who live there. Some are in excellent taste, while others betray the blatant arrogance of the man who, risen from penury, has suddenly found himself a controller of England’s destinies, a Birthday Knight, and the husband of a woman whom the papers have suddenly commenced to dub “the beautiful Lady So-and-So.” Other houses are quiet and sober in their exterior, small, modest, and unobstructive, the town residences of men of great wealth, who, posing as gentlemen, are hoping for a peerage.
The hopes in Park Lane are many. Almost every household possesses a secret ambition, some to shine in Society, other in politics, and some even in literature. The really wealthy man sneers at a baronetcy, an honour which his tea-merchant received last year, and as for a knighthood, well, he can plank down his money this afternoon and buy one just as he bought a cigar half an hour ago in Bond Street. He must have a title, for his wife wants to be known by the name of his country place, and he has secret ambitions for a seat in the Lords. And so in every house in that long, one-sided row are hopes eternal which rise regularly every year towards the end of June.
Diamond, copper, soap, pork, and railway “kings” who dwell there are a curious assortment, yet the combined wealth of that street alone would be sufficient to pay off our National Debt and also run a respectable-sized kingdom for a year or two.
Almost every man could realise a million sterling, and certainly one of the very wealthiest among them was old Samuel Statham, the man who owned and lived in that house with the red-striped sun-blinds.
While Max Barclay was engaged in his investigations at the deserted house in Cromwell Road, old Sam was standing at the window of his study, a large front room on the ground floor overlooking the Park. It was a quiet, soberly-furnished apartment, the carpet of which was so soft that one’s feet fell noiselessly, while over the mantelshelf was a large life-sized Venus by a modern French artist, the most notable picture in the Salon five years ago.
The leather-covered chairs were all heavy and old-fashioned, the books in uniform bindings of calf and gold, and the big writing-table of the early Victorian period. Upon the table stood a great silver candelabra fitted with electric lamps, while littered about the floor were quantities of folded papers and business documents of various kinds.
There was but little comfort about the room. Artistic taste and luxury are commonly associated with Park Lane, therefore the stranger would have been greatly surprised if he had been allowed a peep within. But there was a curious bet about the house.
No stranger had ever been known to pass beyond the big swing-glass doors half-way down the hall. No outsider had ever set foot within.
Levi, the hook-nosed old butler, in his well-cut clothes and spotless linen, was a zealous janitor. No one, upon any pretext whatsoever, was allowed to pass beyond the glass doors. His master was a little eccentric, it was said, and greatly disliked intruders. He hated the inquisitiveness of the modern Press, and always feared lest his house should be described and photographed as those of his neighbours constantly were. Therefore all strangers were rigorously excluded.
Some gossip had got about concerning this. A year ago the wealthy old financier had been taken suddenly ill, and his doctor was sent for from Cavendish Square. But even he was not allowed to pass the rigidly-guarded frontier. His patient saw him in the hall, and there he diagnosed the ailment and prescribed. The doctor in question, a well-known physician, remarked upon old Sam’s eccentricity over a dinner-table in Mayfair, and very soon half smart London were talking and wondering why nobody was ever invited to the table of Samuel Statham.
In the City, as head of Statham Brothers, foreign bankers, whose offices in Old Broad Street are known to every City man, he was always affable, yet very shrewd. He and his brother could drive hard bargains, but they were always charitable, and the name of the firm constantly figured for a substantial amount in the lists in response to any charitable appeal.
From small beginnings – the early days of both brothers being shrouded in mystery – they had risen to become what they now were, a house second only to the Rothschilds in financial power, a house whose assistance was sought by kings and emperors, and whose interests were world-wide.
That morning old Sam Statham appeared unusually agitated. Rising at five o’clock, as was his habit summer and winter, he had been hard at work for hours when Levi brought him his tiny cup of black Turkish coffee. Then, glancing at the clock upon his desk, he had risen, gone to the window, and gazed out eagerly, as though in search of someone.
It was eight o’clock, and there were plenty of people about. But, though he looked up and down the thoroughfare, he was disappointed. So he snapped his thin fingers impatiently and returned to his writing.
His personal appearance was truly insignificant. When, in the street, he was pointed out to people as the great Samuel Statham, they invariably expressed astonishment. There was nothing of the blatant millionaire about him. On the contrary, he was a thin, grey, sad-looking man, rather short of stature, with a face very broad in the brow and very narrow at the chin, ending with a small, scraggy white beard clipped to a point. His cheeks were hollow, his dark eyes sunken, the skin upon his brow tightly stretched, his lips pale and thin, and about his clean-shaven upper lip a hardness that was in entire opposition with his generous instincts towards his less fortunate fellow men.
One of his peculiarities of dress was that he always wore a piece of greasy black satin ribbon, tied loosely in a bow as a cravat. The same piece did duty both by day and at evening.
His clothes, for the most part, hung upon his lean, shrunken limbs as though they had been made for a much more robust man, and his hats were indescribably greasy and out of date. When he went to the City Levi compelled him to put on his best silk hat and a decent frock coat, but often of an afternoon he might be seen sitting alone in the Park and mistaken for some poor, broken-down old man the sadness of whose face compelled sympathy.
This carelessness of dress appears to be one of the inevitable results of great fortune. A man should never be judged by his coat nowadays. The struggling clerk who lives in busy Brixton or cackling Croydon usually gives himself greater airs, and dresses far better than the head of the firm, while the dainty typewriter wears prettier blouses and neater footgear than his own out-door daughters, with their slang, their “pals,” and their distorted ideas of maiden modesty.
But old Sam Statham had neither kith nor kin. He was a lonely man – how utterly lonely only he himself knew. He had only his perpetual calculations of finance, his profit and loss accounts, and occasional chats with the ever-faithful Levi to occupy his days. He seldom if ever left London. Even the stifling August days, when his clerks went to the mountains or the sea, he still remained in London, because, as he openly declared, he hated to mix with strangers.
Curiously enough, almost the only man he trusted was his private secretary, Charlie Rolfe, the smart young man who came there from ten o’clock till two each day, wrote his private letters, and was paid a very handsome salary.
Usually old Sam was a very quiet-mannered man whom nothing disturbed. But that morning he was distinctly upset. He had scarcely slept a single wink, and his deep-sunken eyes and almost haggard face told of a great anxiety wearing out his heart.
He tried to add up a long column of figures upon a sheet of paper before him, but gave it up with a deep sigh. Again he rose, glanced out of the window, audibly denounced in unmeasured terms a motor-’bus which, tearing past, caused his room to shake, and then returned to his table.
But he was far too impatient to sit there long, for again he rose and paced the room, his grey brows knit in evident displeasure, his thin, bony hands clenched tightly, and from his lips escaping muttered imprecations upon some person whom he did not name.
Once he laughed – a hard little laugh. His lip curled in exultant triumph as he stuck his hands into the pockets of his shabby jacket and again went to look over the brisé-brisé curtains of pale pink silk into the roadway.
For a moment he looked, then, with a start, he stood glaring out. Next instant he sprang back from the window with a look of terror upon his blanched cheeks. He had caught sight of somebody whose presence there was both unwelcome and unexpected, and the encounter had filled him with anxiety and dismay.
As he had gazed inquiringly forth, with his face close to the window-pane, his eyes had met those of a man of about his own age, shabby, with grey, ragged hair, threadbare clothes, broken boots, and a soft grey felt hat, darkly stained around the band – a tramp evidently. The stranger was leaning idly against the park railings, evidently regarding the house with some wonder, when the sad face of its master had appeared.
The pair glared at each other for one single second. Then Sam Statham, recognising in the other’s crafty eyes a look of cruel, relentless revenge, started back into the room, breathless and deathly pale. He staggered to his chair, supporting himself by clutching at its back.
“Then they did not lie!” he gasped aloud. “He – he’s alive – therefore so it’s all over! I – I saw his intentions plainly written in his face. I’ve played the game and lost! He has returned, therefore I must face the inevitable. Yes,” he added, with that same bitter laugh, only this time it was the hoarse, discordant laugh of a man who found himself cornered, without any possible means of escape. “Yes – this is the end – I must die! – to-day!” And he whispered, glancing round the room as though in terror of his own voice, “Yes – before the sun sets.”
Chapter Nine.
In which Levi Gives Advice
For fully five minutes Samuel Statham stood steadying himself by the back of his chair. His face was white and rigid, his jaw set, his breathing quick and excited, his hands trembling, his face full of a sudden horror.
He had entirely changed. The sight of that shabby stranger had filled him with fear.
Once or twice he glanced furtively at the window. Then, straightening himself in a vain endeavour to remain calm, he bent and crept back to the window in order to ascertain whether the man still remained. Bent and out of sight he approached the lace-edged curtain and peered through unseen.
Yes; the fellow was still there. He had lit his pipe with calm unconcern, and was leaning back against the railings in full view of the house. The man’s attitude was that of complete triumph. Ah! what a fool he had been to have shown himself so openly as he had done! To think that this man of all men was still alive!
He crept back again, trembling. His face was haggard and bloodless, the countenance of a man whose future was but a blank – the dismal blank of the grave.
His whole body trembled as he sank into his writing-chair, and, leaning his elbows upon the desk, he buried his face in his hands and sobbed. Yes; he, the hard-headed financier, whose influence was felt in every corner of the world, the man who controlled millions and who loaned great sums to certain of the rulers of Europe, sobbed aloud.
“Ah!” he cried to himself, “I was a fool when I disbelieved them. I thought that blackmail was their object in telling me the story of how that man was alive and had been seen. Therefore I only laughed at them and took no precaution. Ah! I was a fool, and my foolishness must end fatally. There is no way out of it for me – only death. I’ve been a fool – a confounded fool. I ought to have made certain; I ought not to have taken any risk. I’m wiser now than I was then. Age has brought me wisdom as well as destroying my belief in the honesty of men and the loyalty of friends”; and as he sighed heavily, his brow still bent upon his hand, he touched the bell, and old Levi appeared.
“Levi,” he said, in a low unusual voice, “go quietly to that window and, without attracting attention, look outside at a man opposite.”
The faithful old servant, somewhat surprised at these rather unusual instructions, walked stealthily to the window and peered through the lace insertion of the brisé-brisé.
Scarcely had he done so than, with a cry, he withdrew, and facing his master, stood staring at him.
“Did you see anyone, Levi?” asked his master, raising his head suddenly.
“Yes,” was the hoarse whisper of the man who stood there, white-faced in fear. “It’s him! I – I thought you said he was dead.”
“No; he isn’t! He’s there in the flesh.”
“And what are we to do?”
“What can we do? He recognised me a moment ago, and he’s watching the house.”
“Which means that you had better leave England for a considerable time.”
“What!” cried Statham, in quick reproof. “What – run away? Never!”
“But – well, in the circumstances, don’t you scent danger – a very grave danger?” asked the old servant whose devotion to his master had always been so marked.
“When I am threatened I always face my accuser. I shall do so now,” was the great man’s calm reply, even though it were in absolute contradiction to his attitude only a few moments before. Perhaps it was that he did not wish old Levi to know his fear.
“But – but that can only result in disaster,” remarked the old servant, who never addressed his master as “sir” – the pair were on too intimate terms for that. “If I might presume to advise, I think – ”
“No, Levi,” snapped the other; “you haven’t any right to give advice in this affair. I know my own business best, surely?”
“And that man knows as much as you do – and more.”
“They told me he was alive, and I – fool that I was – disbelieved them!” the old millionaire cried. “And there he is now, watching outside like a terrier outside a rat-hole. And I’m the rat, Levi – caught in my own trap!”
“Is there no way out of this?” asked the other. “Surely you can escape if you so desire – get away to America, or to the Continent.”
“And what’s the use. He’d follow. And even if he didn’t, think of what he can tell if he goes to the police.”
“Yes; he could tell sufficient to cause Statham Brothers to close their doors – eh?” remarked the old servant very seriously.