have again passed her on leaving.
Did she awake and recognise him, or had she herself been an accomplicein securing her father's sudden and tragic end? Who could tell? Inthat startling suggestion I found much food for deep reflection.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
I SCENT THE IMPOSTOR.
A whole fortnight went past. Mabel's silence was inexplicable.
The house in Sussex Place was still in the hands of the caretaker, and,though I watched both Doctor Flynn and Leonard Langton in secret, theresults of my vigilance were nil.
I was in despair. Refused assistance by Scotland Yard, and treated asan enemy by Kershaw Kirk, I could only sit with Gwen at home and form athousand wild conjectures.
Advertisements for news of Mabel had brought no word of response.Indeed, it seemed much as though the theory of those two detectives wasthe correct one, namely, that she had left me of her own will, and didnot intend to return. Gwen, indeed, suggested this one day, but I madepretence of scouting it. Mabel's mother, who now lived up inAberdeenshire, had written two letters, and I had been compelled toreply, to tell a lie and say that she was away at Cheltenham.
My business I neglected sadly, for nowadays I seldom went to the garage.Kirk was, I understood, living in Whitehall Court, but I did not callupon him. What was the use? I had tried every means of learning whereMabel was, but, alas! there seemed a conspiracy of silence against me.I had left no effort unexerted. Yet all had been in vain.
Antonio had, according to Ethelwynn, joined "the Professor" in Hungary.Was not that, in itself, sufficient evidence of collusion? As forPietro, inquiry I made in the Euston Road showed that he had not yetreturned to England.
Many times I felt impelled to go out to Buda-Pesth and endeavour totrace the pair. But I hesitated, because, finding Ethelwynn'sstatements unreliable in some particulars, I feared to accept what shesaid as the truth. Would it not be to her interest to mislead me andsend me off upon a wild-goose chase?
No man in the whole of our great feverish London was so full of constantanxiety, frantic fear, and breathless bewilderment as myself. Ah, how Iexisted through those grey, gloomy March days I cannot explain. Themystery of it all was inscrutable.
I should, I knew, be able to satisfy myself as to poor Mabel's fate ifonly I could clear up the mystery of who killed Professor Greer.
This tension of nerves and constant longing for the return of the onefor whom I held such a great and all-absorbing love was now telling uponmy health. I ate little, and the mirror revealed how pale, careworn,and haggard I had become. Since the dawn of the New Year I was, alas! achanged man. In two months I had aged fully ten years.
From inquiries I made of men interested in science and in chemistry Ihad discovered how great a man was the dead Professor, and howbeneficial to mankind had been certain of his discoveries. Fate--or isit some world spirit of tragic-comedy?--plays strange pranks with humanlives now and then, and surely nothing more singular ever happened inour London life of to-day than what I have already narrated in thesepages.
And to that thin, grey-faced neighbour of mine--the man who led a doublelife--was due the blame for it all. Though I made every endeavour andevery inquiry, I could not learn what was his profession. That he was aman of means, a constant traveller, and well known in clubland, was allthe information I could obtain.
You will wonder, perhaps, why I did not go again to Whitehall Court andforce the truth from the fellow's lips. Well, I hesitated, because inevery argument I had had with him he had always won and always turnedthe tables upon myself. I had made a promise which, however justifiablemy action, I had, nevertheless, broken. I had denounced him to thepolice, believing that I should see him arrested and charged. Yet, onthe contrary, the authorities refused to lift a finger against him.
What could I think? What, indeed, would you have thought in thecircumstances? How would you have acted?
One morning I had gone out early with Drake, trying the chassis of a new"twenty-four," and finding ourselves in front of the grey old cathedralat Chichester, we pulled up at the ancient "Dolphin" to have luncheon.My mind had been full of Mabel all the way, and though I had driven Ihad paid little or no attention to the car's defects. Dick Drake, motorenthusiast as he was, probably regarded my preoccupied manner ascurious, but he made no comment, though he had no doubt noted all thedefects himself.
I had lunched in the big upstairs room--a noble apartment, as well knownto travellers in the old coaching days as to the modern motorist--andhad passed along into another room, where I lit a cigarette andstretched myself lazily before the fire.
A newspaper lay at hand, and I took it up. In my profession I have butlittle leisure to read anything save the motor-journals; therefore,except a glance at the evening paper, I, like hundreds of other busymen, seldom troubled myself with the news of the day.
I was smoking and scanning the columns of that morning's journal when myeyes fell upon a heading which caused me to start in surprise. Thewords read, "Steel Discovery: New High-Speed Metal with Seven TimesCutting Power of Old."
The short article read as follows:
"Few prophecies have been more quickly justified than that of Professor Greer at the Royal Institution on December 16th last. He then said:
"`As to Mr. Carnegie's prophecy on the decadence of British steel metallurgy, this exists only in the imagination of that gentleman. So far as quality is concerned, Britain is still first in the race for supremacy.
"`I am strongly of opinion that in a very short time the best high-speed steel will be a back number. It is probable that a year hence there will be on the market British steel with a quadruple cutting power of any now known to metallurgy.'
"The prophecy has come true. Professor Greer, lecturing again at the Birmingham Town Hall last night, stated that the firm of Edwards and Sutton, of the Meersbrook Works, Sheffield, of which Sir Mark Edwards is the head, have, after his lengthened experiments, placed on the market a steel with from three to seven times the cutting power of existing high-speed steel, and which, in contradistinction to present material, can be hardened in water, oil, or blast.
"The new steel, whose cutting power is almost incredible, said the Professor, will not call for any alteration in present machinery."
The impostor had actually had the audacity to lecture before aBirmingham audience! His bold duplicity was incredible.
I re-read that remarkable statement, and judged that this new process ofhis must have been purchased by the great firm of Edwards and Sutton,whose steel was of world repute. His was, I presumed, an improvementupon the Bessemer process.
That a man could have the impudence to pass himself off as Greer wasbeyond my comprehension. As Waynflete Professor at Oxford he would, Isaw, be well known, even if he did not go much into society. And yet hehad stood upon the platform in the Town Hall of Birmingham and boldlyannounced a discovery made by the man whose identity he had soaudaciously assumed.
This action of the impostor, who had no doubt sold the Professor'ssecret at a high figure to a well-known firm, absolutely staggeredbelief.
I called Drake, mounted upon the ugly chassis again, and together wesped post-haste back to London. At ten that night I was in the GrandHotel at Birmingham, and half an hour later I called at the house of acertain Alderman named Pooley, who was a member of the society beforewhich the bogus Professor had lectured on the previous evening.
I had some little difficulty in inducing him to see me at that latehour. He was a busy solicitor, and his servant referred me to hisoffice in Bull Street, where, she said, he would see me in the morning.But, being pushful, Mr. Pooley at last consented to see me.
"Yes," he said, as I sat with him in his diningroom, "it is quite truethat Professor Greer lectured before us last night, and made a mostinteresting announcement--one which seems to have caused a good deal ofstir in the world of metallurgy. The papers were full of it to-day."
"I understood the Professor w
as abroad," I remarked rather lamely.
"So he was. He came home specially to fulfil a long-standingengagement. He promised us to lecture, and gave us the date as far backas November last."
"Do you know where he arrived from?" I inquired.
"Yes. He dined with us here before the lecture, and stayed with us thenight. He told us at dinner that he had just returned from Roumania."
"Then he did not leave Birmingham until this morning!" I cried. "Ah,how I wish I had known! Have you any idea where he has gone?"
"I went with him to the station this morning, and he took a ticket toSheffield--to visit Sir Mark Edwards, I believe. He met at the stationa friend who had been to the lecture and who had stayed at the Grandthat night. He was introduced to me as Mr. Kirk. Do you know him?"
"Kirk?" I gasped. "Yes; a tall, thin, grey-haired man--Mr. KershawKirk."
"Yes. They