The Red Room
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And he shook my hand, descended, and went forward into the yellow fog.
My curiosity was aroused; therefore in an instant I had resolved to follow him and ascertain whither he went.
In the direction he had taken towards Oxford Street, I started off, but before me the lights blurred in the misty obscurity. Foot-passengers on the pavement loomed up in the uncertain light and melted again, and as I hurried on I discerned the figures before me with difficulty. Where the shopfronts were lit were patches of red mist, but where they were closed it was almost complete darkness, for in that neighbourhood the fog was thicker than further westward, and Dick had had considerable trouble in finding his way there at a snail’s pace.
In my haste I collided with several persons coming my way, apologising and going forward again until I came to a corner where a shop was well lit. Of a sudden I distinguished the man I was following; he had halted in conversation with the shop-keeper, who was pointing up the side street.
In the fog, Kirk was evidently out of his bearings.
I drew back, so as to escape observation, but I watched him plunge into the darkness of the side street, and I was soon at his heels. It was a squalid neighbourhood into which we had entered. I had been through it before, but was not certain which street it might be down which we were going.
Guided by his footsteps I went on behind him. Fortunately my tread was soft, owing to the rubber heels I wore. At the crossing I listened, at first uncertain whether he had turned to the right or left, or gone straight on.
Again the footsteps sounded out of the obscurity, which now caused my eyes to smart, and I knew that he had gone straight forward, so on I went.
At the next corner I was nearer him, near enough to distinguish that he crossed the road and suddenly turned along the pavement to the right. We were evidently going in the direction of Fitzroy Square, though in which street I had no idea. In fear lest his quick ears should detect that I was following, I fell back a little, allowing him to get further in front. The houses we were then passing were good-sized private ones interspersed with shops, substantial houses of the usual style found in the decayed districts of London, dark, gloomy, and mysterious-looking. I recognised that we were in Cleveland Street. Then we turned again – the first turning on the left round the corner by a laundry.
Of a sudden I heard Kirk halt, as though in doubt. It seemed as though he was retracing his steps, having passed the house of which he was in search. Quick as thought, in order to avoid meeting him face to face, I stepped off the kerb into the roadway.
He passed by within a few yards of me, yet entirely unconscious of my proximity. Then he repassed, as though having satisfied himself that he had not yet reached his goal. In a London fog, one house is very much like another, especially in a side street. In the distance I saw a red glimmer – the light of a surgery.
Two dark, evil-looking men lurched past me, and then a woman, half-drunken and reeling. For a few seconds I lost his footsteps, but again they reached my ears. The sound was a different one. He had ascended one of the flights of steps!
I hurried forward, but as I did so I heard a door close sharply. He had entered one of those dark houses, but which of four or five I was, unfortunately, utterly at a loss to decide.
The exterior of each I examined carefully, taking note of their number. In two of them yellow gas-jets were burning over the grimy fanlights, throwing out a faint light into the pall of the fog, while in one a light was burning in the front room of the ground floor.
All were let in squalid apartments, for there seemed a general frowsiness about that undesirable neighbourhood, where the greater part of the inhabitants were foreigners of the working class. Each house, with its railings and deep area, had but little to distinguish it from its neighbours, all were dirty, neglected, and forbidding in that darkness and gloom.
I stood in chagrin at having thus lost sight of my mysterious friend, and could only wait for his exit. Two of the houses were within the zone of the weak light thrown by the street-lamp; the other three were in obscurity.
In one of them – which one I knew not – Kershaw Kirk had kept an appointment, arranged, perhaps, by that signal which he had made by the raising and lowering of the blind.
My position was most tantalising, yet I felt that if I remained there on watch I should most certainly see him come out, and then at least know the number of the one he had visited.
Midnight rang out from a church clock somewhere, but there had been no sign of him.
Dick must, I knew, have grown tired of waiting, and, thinking me lost in the fog, would slowly creep homeward. The ever-watchful vigil I was keeping in that terrible atmosphere fagged me. I became numbed with cold, and very hungry.
Yet I dare not leave the spot lest Kirk should come forth, so I stood leaning against the railings in patience, full of wonder and apprehension.
More than once I feared that the “dealer in secrets” might notice me from within if he chanced to look out. Hence from time to time I changed my position.
My impression was that he had entered with a latch-key, for scarce had he reached the top of the steps when he was inside, with the door closed behind him; either that, or else someone was waiting there to admit him.
Another hour had nearly passed, when suddenly I was startled by a loud scream – a woman’s piercing scream – which appeared to come from the first of the houses which lay in the darkness.
Twice was that cry repeated, and I sped to the house whence it emanated. The place was in complete darkness. No light shone from any window of the gloomy, dismal house.
A third time was the shriek repeated, coming from the room behind the railing on a level with the door. As I stood upon the pavement I was only a few feet from the window.
“Help! Help! For God’s sake, help! You brute! I thought I had escaped you. No! Ah! Don’t! I beg – I implore you! Ah!” shrieked a refined voice, the voice of a young woman. And then, in despairing tones that grew fainter with every syllable, I heard the words long drawn out. “Ah! You – you’ve – killed – me! Killed me! – just as you killed my – dear – father!”
I stood listening to that dying appeal, bewildered, utterly staggered.
What could I think? Place yourself in my position and ask yourself what you, in those circumstances, would have thought?
Chapter Seven
Another Person Becomes Inquisitive
I was uncertain what to do. Was it best to ascend the steps, knock boldly at the door, and inquire the reason of that frantic appeal? Or should I remain silent and watch?
If Kirk had caused the Professor’s death, then why had he enlisted my aid? But was I not a complete novice, in the detection of crime, and might not all his protestations of friendship be a mere blind, a clever ruse to cover the truth?
I stood on the pavement, my ears strained to catch any sound within. But all was silent again.
Those final words of the woman’s desperate appeal for help rang in my ears: “You’ve killed me, just as you killed my dear father!”
The woman who had shrieked could surely have no connection with the tragedy in Sussex Place, for, alas! Ethelwynn Greer was dead. I had, with my own eyes, seen her stiff and stark.
Then what did it all mean? Was this an additional phase of the already inscrutable problem?
I gazed at the window, where no light escaped through the lowered Venetian blinds. The very darkness struck me as strange, for either there were closed shutters upon the blinds, or some heavy curtains had been drawn carefully across to exclude any ray of light from being seen without.
In the neighbourhood wherein I was, I recollected there were many mysterious houses – secret clubs where waiters and foreigners of the lower class danced, drank, and played faro, and were often raided by the police. Those streets bore a very bad reputation.
After all, I was not exactly certain that the house whence emanated the shrieks was the actual house into which Kirk had entered. Hence I was both undecided and bewildered. For that reason I waited, my eyes glued upon the dark door and house-front.
Suddenly, above the fanlight, I saw the flickering light of a candle carried down the hall, and a moment later the door opened. In fear of recognition I sprang back into the roadway, where, at that distance, the fog obscured me.
Someone descended the steps, and, turning to the left, went in the direction whence I had come. I followed stealthily for some distance until I at last made out the figure in the weak light of a street-lamp.
It was not Kirk, only a forbidding-looking old woman in faded bonnet and shawl – a typical gin-drinking hag of a type one may see in hundreds in that neighbourhood. I had followed her down into Cleveland Street, where she turned to the left, when it suddenly occurred to me that, in my absence, Kirk might make his exit. Therefore I rather foolishly abandoned pursuit, and retraced my steps.
Judge my chagrin, my utter disgust with myself when, on returning, I failed to recognise from which house the woman had come! In that puzzling pall of fog, which grew thicker and more impenetrable every moment, I hesitated to decide which of three or four houses was the place whence the woman’s cries had emanated.
That hesitation was fatal to my success. In my excitement I had taken no notice of the number upon the door, and now I paced backwards and forwards before the railings of four houses, all almost exactly similar, all in darkness, all equally dingy and mysterious. Which of those houses held Kershaw Kirk I knew not, neither could I decide from which of the four had come those despairing cries.
I had been a fool, a very great fool, for not going boldly to the door and demanding an explanation, even though I might have received a rough handling, alone and unarmed as I was. So I returned to the street-lamp and tried to recognise the house from the point where I had stood when the first cry had fallen upon my ears. But, alas! again I could not decide.
My impulse to follow the woman had been my undoing, for I somehow felt a strong conviction that Kirk had escaped during my absence in Cleveland Street, for though I waited in that dense and choking blackness beneath the red lamp of a surgery at the further corner for still another hour, he came not.
Therefore I was compelled very reluctantly to grope my way back into the Tottenham Court Road, where at last I found a hansom, and with a man leading the horse, I fell asleep as we went westward, so fagged and exhausted was I by that long and unpleasant vigil.
The wife of a motorist like myself is used to her husband’s late hours, therefore I had little difficulty in excusing myself to Mabel, yet when I retired to bed no sleep came to my eyes.
That woman’s shrill, despairing cry rang ever in my ears. Those words of hers were so mysterious, so ominous.
“You’ve killed me, just as you killed my dear father!”
Should I go to the police in the morning and make a clean breast of the whole affair?
At dawn I found the fog had lifted, therefore, after looking in at the garage, I called upon Kirk, resolved to pretend ignorance of his visit to the house off the Tottenham Court Road. But again I was disappointed, for he had been absent all night. His sister was ignorant of his whereabouts, but, as she explained, his movements were ever erratic.
This caused me to make another visit to the house, which, in the light of day, I found to be in Foley Street, an even more squalid neighbourhood than I had believed.
At the corner of Cleveland Street was the laundry, the windows of which were painted grey so that the passer-by could not peer within. The street seemed to be the play-ground of numberless dirty children, while the houses, all of which were let in tenements, were smoke-grimed and dismal.
At some of the windows the cheap lace curtains hung limp and yellow, and at others the windows had been white-washed to prevent people looking in. The neighbourhood was one that had sadly decayed, for even the public-house a little way up the street was closed and to let.
I stood outside the easily recognised surgery in order to take my bearings, and quickly discovered the three or four houses from one of which had come that cry in the night.
Yet which house it was, I knew not. Therefore what could I do? To remain there might attract Kirk’s attention if he were within. Hence I was afraid to loiter, so I passed on into Langham Street, and thus out into Portland Place.
I had become obsessed by the mystery of it all. I returned to Chiswick, and tried to give my mind to the details of my business, but all without avail. I saw that Pelham, my manager, was surprised at my apparent absent-mindedness. I knew it was incumbent upon me to go to the police-station, which was only a few hundred yards from me on the opposite side of the road, and tell the inspector on duty the whole story. Yet somehow the affair, with all its mysterious features, had fascinated me, and Kershaw Kirk most of all. The information was mine, and it was for me to solve this remarkable enigma.
Kirk’s absence from home, and his failure to communicate with me, showed that either he mistrusted me, or that he was purposely misleading me for the attainment of his own ends.
He had sought my friendship and assistance, and yet next day he had abandoned me in doubt and ignorance.
I managed to get through the day at the garage, and eagerly bought the evening paper, anxious to see whether the tragedy had become public property; but as yet it was unknown. I dined at home, and I suppose my manner was so preoccupied that Mabel, my wife, asked:
“What’s the matter, Harry? You seem unusually worried?”
“Oh! I don’t know, dear,” I replied, trying to laugh. “I’ve had a lot of things to do at the office to-day,” I added in excuse; “I’ve got to go back this evening.”
Mabel pouted, and I knew the reason. I had promised to run her and her sister over to Teddington to see some friends with whom we had promised to spend the evening.
But I was in no mood for visiting friends. I went along to Kirk’s house, and, finding him still absent, took the train from Hammersmith to Baker Street, and walked through Clarence Gate to Sussex Place.
It had just struck nine when I halted at the Professor’s door, but I drew back suddenly when I saw a tall, well-dressed, clean-shaven young man in hard felt hat and overcoat, standing in the doorway.
He had rung, and was evidently awaiting an answer to his summons.
The place was, I noticed, in darkness. Antonio had evidently omitted to switch on the light in the hall.
What could that young man want at the house of death?
Unfortunately, I had not been quick enough, for as I halted he turned upon me, realising that to call there was my intention.
“This is strange!” he remarked to me, “I’ve been ringing here nearly half an hour, and can get no reply. Yet when I passed the front of the house there was a light in the small drawing-room. I’ve never before known the place to be left; there are always servants here, even if the Professor and his daughter are absent.”
It occurred to me that Antonio had detected him from within, and that he might be an unwelcome visitor. I recollected Kirk’s strict injunctions to the faithful Italian.
“Antonio may be out,” I suggested.
“But the maids would surely be at home,” he argued. “I wonder if thieves are inside? I somehow suspect it,” he whispered.
“Why?”
“Because I distinctly heard a movement in the hall about ten minutes ago,” he answered. “Will you go round to the front and see if there are lights in any of the rooms, while I remain here? You’ll soon see the house – the first with the long columns at the drawing-room windows.”
I consented, and was quickly round at the front.
But the whole place was in total darkness. Not a light showed anywhere.
I returned, and suggested that in passing he might have been mistaken. There were lights in the windows of the adjoining house.
“No,” declared the young man, who, by his 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.”
“If so, then there are undoubtedly thieves within. Since I’ve been waiting here the light in the small drawing-room overlooking the Park has been extinguished – put out, no doubt, immediately I rang. No,” he went on, “we must call the police. Will you go and get a constable – or shall I?”
“You go,” I said, in a blank voice. “I – I’ll wait here.”
I saw that the game was up. His suspicions were aroused, and he intended to take immediate action.
“There’s sure to be a policeman along at Clarence Gate,” he said; “I’ve often noticed a man on point-duty there. But,” he added, suddenly facing me and looking straight into my eyes, for the street-lamp shone brightly upon the spot where we were standing, “tell me, Mr Holford, have you told me the actual truth?”
“The truth!” I echoed. “Why, of course I have! Here is my card,” and I gave him one from my cigarette-case, wherein I always carried them.
He read it eagerly, and in exchange gave me one of his, laughing as he said:
“I feared, perhaps, that you might be in association with the men inside. Forgive me for suspecting you, won’t you?”
“Of course. I knew you doubted me,” I answered, smiling. “I’ll remain here until you return, though, to be frank, I don’t see very much cause for alarm.”
“I do. There’s a mystery here – one which we must fathom. Keep watch. I’ll be back in a few moments.”
And he left the steps and, turning to the left, disappeared round the corner.
I stood outside the door, my ears strained to catch the slightest sound. The young man’s presence there was indeed an unfortunate contretemps.
In the silence I could hear my own heart thumping. Of a sudden, however, I thought I could detect a sound of movement within. I listened attentively. Yes, I was not mistaken, someone was actually in the hall! What if it were the unknown assassin, returned to the scene of his crime?
My heart-beats quickened. The dead girl’s lover had not been mistaken. The lights had been put out when the person or persons inside were disturbed by his ring. In a few moments he would be there with the police, and the crime would be properly investigated. But what account could I myself give of the reason of my call? If I were suspected, the police might inquire into my movements during the past few days and gain knowledge of my visits there!
My position was growing to one of great seriousness. Every moment increased my peril.
Across the narrow road rose the great blank wall of a mews, while in the room on the first floor above where showed the high, dark window stretching across nearly the whole frontage of the house, lay huddled, I knew, the body of the dead Professor.
I was still listening, full of wonder as to who might be lurking in that house of death, when, of a sudden, I heard the latch touched, and slowly and silently the big door opened.
I drew back, prepared for a fight, but next second a cry of amazement escaped my lips when I saw in the darkness of the cautiously-opened door a man’s face – the thin, sallow, frightened face of Kershaw Kirk.
“It’s I, Holford?” he gasped. “I must get away. Langton must not see me. Remember you must not breathe a single word of your knowledge of myself! Success now depends entirely upon your silence. I will wire an appointment with you to-morrow. Be careful, or you yourself may now be suspected.”
“But why not tell the police?” I demanded, barring his way.
“Police be hanged!” he cried impatiently. “Have I not already told you? I have no time to argue. Langton must not see me – he must know nothing of me. A word from you would mean loss incalculable, and all hope of elucidating the mystery would instantly be at an end. Which way did young Langton go?”
“Towards Clarence Gate,” I replied almost mechanically, for his sudden appearance there had startled me.