The Red Room

Le Queux William

The Red Room

Chapter One

Three Inquisitive Men

The fifteenth of January, 1907, fell on a Tuesday. I have good cause to remember it.

In this narrative of startling fact there is little that concerns myself. It is mostly of the doings of others – strange doings though they were, and stranger still, perhaps, that I should be their chronicler.

On that Tuesday morning, just after eleven o’clock, I was busy taking down the engine of one of the cars at my garage in the High Road, Chiswick. Dick, one of my men, had had trouble with the “forty-eight” while bringing home two young gentlemen from Oxford on the previous night, and I was trying to locate the fault.

Suddenly, as I looked up, I saw standing at my side a man who lived a few doors from me in Bath Road, Bedford Park – a man who was a mystery.

He greeted me pleasantly, standing with his hands thrust into the pockets of his shabby black overcoat, while, returning his salutation, I straightened myself, wondering what had brought him there, and whether he wished to hire a car.

I had known him by sight for a couple of years or more as he passed up and down before my house, but we had not often spoken. Truth to tell, his movements seemed rather erratic and his shabbiness very marked, yet at times he appeared quite spruce and smart, and his absences were so frequent that my wife and I had grown to regard him with considerable suspicion. In the suburbs of London one doesn’t mix easily with one’s neighbours.

“Can I speak to you privately, Mr Holford?” he asked, with a slight hesitancy and a glance at my chauffeur Dick, who at that moment had his hand in the gear-box.

“Certainly,” I said. “Will you step into my office?” And I led the way through the long garage to my private room beyond, through the glass windows of which I could see all the work in progress.

My visitor was, I judged, about fifty, or perhaps fifty-five, an anxious, slight, intellectual-looking man, with hair and moustache turning grey, a pair of keen, dark, troubled eyes, a protruding, well-shaven chin, an aquiline face, sniffing dimly the uncertain future, a complexion somewhat sallow, yet a sinewy, athletic person whose vocation I had on many occasions tried to guess in vain.

Sometimes he dressed quite smartly in clothes undoubtedly cut by a West-End tailor. At others, he slouched along shabby and apparently hard up, as he now was.

My wife – for I had married three years before, just after I had entered the motor business – had from the first put him down as an adventurer, and a person to be avoided. Her woman’s instinct generally led to correct conclusions. Indeed, one night, when out with her sister, she had seen him in evening dress, seated in a box at a theatre with a lady, in pale blue and diamonds, and another man; and on a second occasion she had witnessed him at Charing Cross Station registering luggage to the Continent. He had with him two smartly-dressed men, who were seeing him off.

I myself had more than once seen him arrive in a hansom with well-worn suit-cases and travelling kit, and on several occasions, when driving a car through the London traffic, I had caught sight of him in silk hat and frock-coat walking in the West End with his smart friends.

Women are generally inquisitive regarding their neighbours, and my wife was no exception. She had discovered that this Mr Kershaw Kirk was a bachelor, whose home was kept by an unmarried sister, Miss Judith, about nine years his junior. They employed a charwoman every Friday, but, as Miss Kirk’s brother was absent so frequently, they preferred not to employ a general servant.

Now, I was rather suspicious of this fact. The man Kirk was a mystery, and servants are always prone to pry into their master’s affairs.

My visitor was silent for a few moments after he had taken the chair I had offered. His dark eyes were fixed upon me with a strange, intense look, until, with some hesitation, he at last said:

“I believe, Mr Holford, you are agent for a new German tyre – the Eckhardt it is called, is it not?”

“I am,” I replied. “I am sole agent in London.”

“Well, I want to examine one,” he exclaimed, “but in strict confidence. Other persons will probably come to you and beg to see this particular tyre, but I wish you to regard the fact that I have seen it as entirely between ourselves. Will you do so? A very serious issue depends upon your discretion – how serious you will one day realise.”

I looked at him in surprise. His request for secrecy struck me as distinctly peculiar.

“Well, of course, if you wish,” I replied, “I’ll regard the fact that you have seen the Eckhardt non-skid as confidential. Is it in connection with any new invention?” I asked suspiciously.

“Not at all,” he laughed. “I have nothing whatever to do with motor-cars or the motor trade. I merely wish to satisfy myself by looking at one of the new tyres.”

So I went upstairs, and brought down one of the German covers for his inspection.

He took it in his hands, and, very careful that Dick should not observe him from the outside, closely examined the triangular steel studs with which the cover was fitted.

From his pocket he took a piece of paper, and, folding it, measured the width of the tyre, making a break in the edge of the folded paper. Then he felt the edges of the studs, and began to ask questions regarding the life of the new tyre.

“The inventor, who lives at Cologne, was over here three months ago, and claimed for it that it lasted out three tyres of any of the present well-known makes,” I replied. “But, as a matter of fact, I must admit that I’ve never tried it myself.”

“You’ve sold some, of course?”

“Yes, several sets – and I believe they’ve given satisfaction.”

“You are, I take it, the only agent in this country?”

“No; Farmer and Payne, in Glasgow, have the agency for Scotland,” I replied, greatly wondering why this tyre should attract him if he had no personal interest in cars.

A second time he examined the cover, again very closely; then, placing it aside, he thanked me, apologising for taking up my time.

“Mind,” he said, “not a word to a soul that you have shown me this.”

“I have promised, Mr Kirk, to say nothing,” I said; “but your injunctions as to secrecy have, I must confess, somewhat aroused my curiosity.”

“Probably so.” And a good-humoured smile overspread his thin, rather melancholy face. “But our acquaintance is not very intimate, is it? I’ve often been on the point of asking you to run in and have a smoke with me. I’m a trifle lonely, and would be so delighted if you’d spend an hour with me.”

My natural curiosity to discover more about this man, who was such a mystery, prompted me to express a mutual desire for a chat.

So it was arranged that I should look in and see him after dinner that same evening.

“I travel a good deal,” he explained, in a careless way, “therefore I never like to make engagements far ahead. I always believe in living for to-day and allowing to-morrow to take care of itself.”

He spoke with refinement, and, though presenting such a shabby exterior, was undoubtedly a gentleman and well bred.

He looked around the garage, and I showed him the dozen or so cars which I let out on hire, as well as the number of private cars whose owners place them in my care. But by the manner he examined them I saw that, whatever ignorance he might feign regarding motors, he was no novice. He seemed to know almost as much about ignition, timing, and lubrication as I did.

And when I remarked upon it his face only relaxed into a smile that was sphinx-like.

“Well, Mr Holford,” he exclaimed at last, “I’m hindering you, no doubt, so I’ll clear out. Remember, I’ll expect you for a chat at nine this evening.” And, buttoning his frayed overcoat, he left, and walked in the direction of Turnham Green.

Half an hour later I was called on the telephone to the other side of London, where I had a customer buying a new car, and it was not before six o’clock that I was back again at the garage, where I found my manager, Pelham, who during the morning had been out trying a car on the Ripley road.

“Funny thing happened this afternoon, sir,” he said as I entered. “Two men, both mysterious persons, have come in, one after the other, to see an Eckhardt non-skid. They had no idea of buying one – merely wanted to see it. The second man wanted me to roll one along in the mud outside to show him the track it makes! Fancy me doing that with a new tyre!”

His announcement puzzled me. These were the persons whose visit had been predicted by Kirk!

What could it mean?

“Didn’t they give any reason why they wanted to see the cover?”

“Said they’d heard about it – that was all,” my manager replied. “Both men wanted to take all sorts of measurements, but I told them they’d better buy a set outright. I fancy it’s some inventor’s game. Somebody has got a scheme to improve on it, I expect, and bring it out as a British patent.”

But I kept my counsel and said nothing. I was already convinced that behind these three visits there was something unusual, and I determined to endeavour to extract the truth from Kershaw Kirk.

Little did I dream the reason why the Eckhardt tyre was being so closely scrutinised by strangers. Little, likewise, did I dream of the curious events which were to follow, or the amazing whirl of adventure into which I was to be so suddenly launched.

But I will set it all down just as it happened, and try to present you with the complete and straightforward narrative – a narrative which will show you what strange things can happen to a peaceful, steady-going, hard-working citizen in this Greater London of ours to-day.

Chapter Two

Some Strange Facts

Mr Kirk opened his front door himself that evening, and conducted me to a cosy study at the end of the hall, where a fire burned brightly.

In a black velvet lounge coat, a fancy vest, and bright, bead-embroidered slippers, he beamed a warm welcome upon me, and drew up a big saddle-bag arm-chair. From what I had seen of the house, I was surprised at its taste and elegance. There was certainly no sign of poverty there. The study was furnished with solid comfort, and the volumes that lined it were the books of a studious man.

The cigar he offered me was an exquisite one, though he himself preferred his well-coloured meerschaum, which he filled from an old German tobacco bowl. In one corner of the room stood his pet, a large grey parrot in a cage, which he now and then addressed in the course of his conversation.

One of his eccentricities was to think audibly and address his thoughts to his queer companion, whose name was Joseph.

We must have been chatting for fully half an hour when I mentioned to him that two other persons had called that afternoon to inspect the new Eckhardt tyre, whereupon he suddenly started forward in his chair and exclaimed:

“One of the men wore a dark beard and was slightly bald, while the other was a fair man, much younger – eh?”

I explained that my manager, Pelham, had seen them, whereupon he breathed more freely; yet my announcement seemed to have created within him undue consternation and alarm.

He pressed the tobacco very carefully and deliberately into his pipe, but made no further comment.

At last, raising his head and looking straight across at me, he said:

“I may as well explain, Mr Holford, that I had an ulterior motive in asking you in this evening. The fact is, I am sorely in want of a friend – one in whom I can trust. I suppose,” he added – “I suppose I ought to tell you something concerning myself. Well, I’m a man with many acquaintances, but very few friends. My profession? Well, that is surely my own affair. It often takes me far afield, and sometimes causes me to keep queer company. The fact is,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation, “I’m a dealer in secrets.”

“A dealer in secrets!” I echoed. “I don’t quite follow you.”

“The secrets sometimes confided to my keeping would, if I betrayed them, create a worldwide sensation,” he said slowly, looking straight into the fire. “At times I am in possession of ugly facts concerning my fellow-men which would eclipse any of the scandals of the past twenty years. And at this moment, as I tell you, I am in sad need of a friend.”

He was quick to notice the expression upon my face.

“I want no financial aid,” he hastened to assure me. “On the contrary, if at any time I can be of any little assistance to you, I generally have a few pounds lying idle.”

I thanked him, my curiosity growing greater. He was seated in a big, high-backed grandfather’s chair, his head leaning against the padded side, his gaze, a trifle melancholy, fixed upon the dancing flames. At his back was an open roll-top writing-table, very tidy, with a clean blotting-pad, and everything in its place, spick and span.

“To be quite frank with you, Mr Holford,” he said, “I may as well tell you that an incident has occurred which has rendered it necessary that I should come to you, a comparative stranger, for friendship and assistance. Ah,” he added, with a sharp and curious glance at me, “I see that you don’t trust me! You should never judge a man by his clothes.”

“I never do,” I protested. “But you haven’t explained the reason why you are so anxious for my friendship!”

For a few minutes he was silent. Then, of a sudden, he turned to the big grey parrot and asked in a shrill, squeaky tone, almost a croak: “Shall I tell him, Joseph? Shall I tell him?”

“Good night!” answered the loquacious bird. “Good night! Good night! Josef!”

“Well,” my host said slowly, knocking the ashes from his pipe into the fender, “it is a matter, a serious and very curious affair, of which as yet the public have no knowledge. Some things are not allowed to leak out to the papers. This is one of them. I wonder,” he went on thoughtfully, after a pause – “I wonder if I told you whether you would keep the secret?”

“Certainly,” I said, full of curiosity, for I could not see Kirk’s motive in asking my assistance, and my natural caution now asserted itself.

“By the way,” he echoed suddenly, “do you know any other language besides English?”

“I know French fairly well,” I replied, “and a smattering of Italian.”

“Nothing else? German, for instance?”

I replied in the negative.

He rose, and relit his pipe with a spill. Then he chatted for some minutes with Joseph, all the time, it seemed, reflecting upon what he should say to me. At last, reseating himself in his old-fashioned chair, he again looked me straight in the face and said:

“You have given me your promise of silence, Mr Holford. I accept it from one whom I have watched closely for a long time, and whom I know to be a gentleman. Now I am going to tell you something which will probably alarm you. A crime, a very serious crime, has been committed in London during the past forty-eight hours, and I, Kershaw Kirk, am implicated in it – or, rather, suspected of it!”

I sat staring at the man before me, too surprised to reply. He had always been an enigma, and the mystery about him was increasing.

“Tell me more,” I urged at last, looking into the face of the suspected criminal. “Who is the victim?”

“At present I am keeping the affair a strict secret,” he said. “There are reasons, very potent reasons, why the public should not know of the tragedy. Nowadays publicity is the curse of life. At last the Home Office have recognised this. I told you that I am a holder of secrets. Well, besides myself, not more than three persons are aware of the astounding affair.”

“And you are suspected as the assassin?” I remarked.

“Unfortunately, I shall be,” was his reply, and I saw that his countenance fell; “I foresee it. That is why I require your aid – the aid of a man who is honest, and who is a gentleman as well.”

And he broke off again to chatter to Joseph, who was keeping up a continual screeching.

“I am anxious to hear details of the affair,” I said eagerly.

“I wish I could tell you the details,” he answered, with a bitter smile; “but I am not aware of them myself. The affair is a mystery – one of which even the police must be kept in ignorance.”

“Haven’t the police been informed?”

“No,” was his prompt reply. “In certain cases information to the police means publicity. In this case, as I’ve already told you, there must be no publicity. Therefore, though a crime has been committed, it is being kept from the police, who, not knowing the facts, must only bungle the inquiries, and whose limited scope of inquiry would only result in failure.”

“You interest me, Mr Kirk. Relate the known facts to me,” I said. “Why, pray, will you be suspected of being a murderer?”

“Well,” he said, with a long-drawn sigh, “because – well, because I had everything to gain by the death of the murdered person. He had filched from me a very valuable secret.”

“Then the murdered person was not your friend?”

“No; my enemy,” he replied. “You, Mr Holford, as an Englishman, will no doubt think it impossible that I may be arrested, tried in secret, and sent to penal servitude for life for a crime of which I am innocent. You believe that every man in this isle of unrest of ours must have a fair trial by judge and jury. Yet I tell you that there are exceptions. There are certain men in England who would never be brought before a criminal court. I am one of them.”

At first I was inclined to regard Kirk as a madman, yet on looking into his face I saw an expression of open earnestness, and somehow I felt that he was telling me the curious truth.

“I certainly thought there were no exceptions,” I said.

“I am one of the few,” he replied. “They dare not place me in a criminal dock.”

“Why?”

“For certain reasons” – and he smiled mysteriously – “reasons which you, if you become my friend, may some day discover. I live here in this by-road of a London suburb, but this is not my home. I have another – a long way from here.”

And, turning from me suddenly, he addressed questions to Joseph, asking him his opinion of me.

“Where’s your coat?” screeched the bird. “Where’s your coat? Good night!”

The whole scene was strangely weird and incongruous. Kirk at one moment speaking of a remarkable tragedy and at the next chaffing his pet.

At last, however, I fixed my host to the point, and asked him straight out what had occurred.

“Well,” he said, placing down his pipe and resting His protruding chin upon his right hand, as he gazed across at me, “just follow me for a few moments, and I’ll describe, as best I can, all that is known of the affair – or, rather, all I know of it. Do you happen to know Sussex Place, Regent’s Park?”

I replied in the affirmative. It was, as you probably know yourself, a highly respectable crescent of large houses overlooking the park. Entrance was gained from the road in the rear, for the houses faced the park, perhaps one of the pleasantest rows of residences in London. The occupiers were mostly City merchants or well-to-do ladies.

“Well,” he said, “in one of those houses there has lived for the past five years or so Professor Ernest Greer, the well-known chemist, who, among other appointments, holds the Waynflete Professorship of Chemistry at Oxford University. Though his age is only about fifty-five, his whole career has been devoted to scientific research, with the result that he has amassed a considerable fortune from royalties gained from the new process he patented four years ago for the hardening of steel. I dare say you’ve often seen his name mentioned in the papers. He was a most popular man, and, with his daughter Ethelwynn, often went into society. In addition to the Regent’s Park house, they had a pretty seaside cottage down at Broadstairs.”

“I’ve seen the Professor’s name very often in the papers,” I remarked, “in connection, I think, with the British Association. I read, not long ago, an account of one of his interesting lectures at the London Institution.”

“Then you realise his high standing,” said Kirk, interpolating an aside to Joseph. “Well, Mrs Greer is dead, and the household at Regent’s Park consists of the Professor, Ethelwynn, her maid Morgan, two housemaids, a female cook, and the butler Antonio Merli, an elderly Italian, who has been in the Professor’s service for nearly twenty years. On the evening before last – that was Sunday – at twenty minutes to five o’clock, the Professor and his daughter were together in the large upstairs drawing-room, which overlooks the park, where Antonio served tea. Five minutes later Antonio re-entered and handed his master a telegram. The Professor, having read it, placed it upon the fire, and remarked that he would be compelled to go to Edinburgh that night by the 11:30 from King’s Cross, but would return in three days’ time, for the girl had accepted an invitation for the grand ball at Sutherland House to-morrow.”

“The Professor sent no reply to the message?” I asked, much interested.

“No; but half an hour later his actions struck his daughter as somewhat peculiar, for, having suddenly glanced up at the clock, he rose, crossed to one of the three long windows – the end one – and drew up the blind. Then, after a pause, he lowered it again. Then twice he pulled it up and down quickly, and returned again to where he was sitting. At least, that is his daughter’s story.”

“He signalled to somebody – using the Morse code, I should say.”

“Exactly my theory, Mr Holford. I note that you follow me,” exclaimed the friendless man. “You possess a keen sense of deduction, I see!”

“Apparently you don’t believe this statement of Miss Ethelwynn’s?” I said.

He sniffed quickly, but did not at first reply.

“The fact that he drew the blinds up and down at a preconcerted hour shows that he communicated with somebody who was awaiting the signal outside in Regent’s Park,” he remarked at last.

“Well, what then?”

“At eight he dined, as usual, with his daughter, and after dinner the faithful Antonio packed his kit-bag and suit-case, putting in only sufficient clothes for a stay of three days. At her father’s order Ethelwynn telephoned to the station-master’s office at King’s Cross and secured a sleeping-berth in the 11:30 express for Edinburgh. At a quarter to eleven o’clock he kissed his daughter good night, and went away in a cab to the station, promising faithfully to be back to take her to the ball.”

“And he disappeared – I suppose?”

“No, he didn’t,” my companion exclaimed, as, turning to the bird, he said, “Mr Holford jumps to conclusions just a little too quickly, doesn’t he, Joseph?” And he slowly relit his pipe, which had again gone out.

“First,” he went on, “let me tell you of the arrangement of the Professor’s house. The whole of the ground and first floors are devoted to reception rooms. The remaining two floors and attics are bedrooms. Now, on the first floor, reached by passing through what is known as the Red Room, a small boudoir at the back, and then through a short passage, one comes to a large and spacious studio, an addition made by a former owner, a well-known artist. The only entrance is through the Red Room. The Professor rented the house on account of this studio, and had it fitted up as a laboratory. Here, secure from intrusion, he frequently carried on his experiments, making those remarkable discoveries which have rendered him world-famous. The laboratory is shut off from the boudoir by this short passage, there being two doors, one in the boudoir itself and one at the entrance to the Professor’s workshop. To both these doors are patent locks, of which the Professor keeps the keys, carrying them upon his watch-chain. No one else has a key, while the door from the conservatory over the porch is walled up. This is in order that no prying person shall enter in his absence and discover what experiments are in progress – a very natural precaution.”

“Then they were secret experiments he was making?” I remarked.

“Yes. And now for the mysterious sequence of facts. They are as follows: Next morning, when the servants opened the house, one of the maids found, lying upon the hall table, a note addressed to Miss Greer. When Ethelwynn opened it, she found it to be from her father, telling her with regret that he must be absent abroad for several months, but that she was not to feel uncomfortable, and giving her certain directions, as well as how to obtain money during his enforced absence.”