The Pauper of Park Lane

“Half an hour passed, but nothing unusual occurred, until just after the clock had struck three, a rather tall, thin man passed quietly along. He was in evening-dress, and wore pumps, for his tread was noiseless. The man describes him as an aristocratic-looking person, and evidently a foreigner. At Statham’s door he suddenly halted, looked up and down furtively to satisfy himself that he was not being watched, and then slipped inside.”

“And what then?” inquired Lyle, much interested.

“A very queer circumstance followed,” went on the cosmopolitan. “There was, an hour and a half later, an exact repetition of the scene witnessed by the chauffeur.”

“What! the black trunk?”

“Yes. A cab drove up near to the house, and, at signal from Levi, came up to the kerb. Then the long, heavy box was brought out by the servant and his master, heaved up on to the cab, which drove away in the direction of the Marble Arch.”

“Infernally suspicious,” remarked the hunchback, tossing his cigarette end into the grate. “Didn’t the washer take note of the number of the cab?”

“No. That’s the unfortunate part of it. Apparently he didn’t notice the crawling four-wheeler until he saw Levi come forth and give the signal.”

“And the aristocratic-looking foreigner? Could he recognise him again?”

“He says he could.”

“That was last night – eh?”

“Yes.”

“There may be some police inquiries regarding a missing foreigner,” remarked Lyle, thoughtfully. “If so, his information may be valuable. How did you obtain it?”

“From his own lips.”

“Then we had better wait, and watch to see if anybody is reported missing. Certainly that house is one of mystery.”

“Sam Statham is unscrupulous. I know him to my cost,” Adams remarked.

“And so do I,” Lyle declared. “If what I suspect is true, then we shall make an exposure that will startle and horrify the world.”

“You mean regarding the foreigner of last night?”

“Yes. I have a suspicion that I can establish the identity of the foreigner in question – a man who has to-day been missing?”

Chapter Fourteen.

Reveals a Clever Conspiracy

“And who was he?” asked Adams, quickly.

“For the present that is my own affair,” the hunchback replied. “Suffice it for you to know that we hold Samuel Statham in the hollow of our hand.”

“I don’t know so much about that,” remarked Adams, dubiously. “I thought so until this morning.”

“And why, pray, has your opinion changed?”

“Because when he came a second time to the window and looked out at me, there was a glance of defiance in his eye that I scarcely lie. He’s wealthy and influential – we are not, remember.”

“Knowledge is power. We shall be the victors.”

“You are too sanguine, my dear fellow,” declared the other. “We are angling for big game, and to my idea the bait is not sufficiently attractive.”

“Statham is unscrupulous – so are we. We can prove our story – prove it up to the hilt. Dare he face us? That’s the question.”

“I think he dare,” Adams replied. “You don’t know him as well as I do. His whole future now depends upon his bluff, and he knows it. We can ruin both the house of Statham Brothers and its principal. In the circumstances, it is only natural that he should assume an air of defiance.”

“Which we must combat by firmness. We are associated in this affair, and my advice is not to show any sign of weakness.”

“Exactly. That’s the reason I asked you here to-night, Lyle – to discuss our next step.”

The hunchback was silent and thoughtful for a few moments. Then he said:

“There is but one mode of procedure now, and that is to go to him and tell him our intentions. He’ll be frightened, and the rest will be easy.”

“Sam Statham is not very easily frightened. You wouldn’t be, if you were worth a couple of million pounds.” Adams remarked, with a dubious shake of the head.

“I should be if upon me rested the burden of guilt.”

“Then your suggestion is that I should go and tell him openly my intentions?”

“Decidedly. The more open you are, the greater will be the old man’s terror, and the easier our ultimate task.”

“He’ll refuse to see me.”

“He goes down to the City sometimes. Better call there and present a false card. He won’t care to be faced in the vicinity of his managers and clerks. It will show him from the first that the great home of Statham is tottering.”

“And it shall fall!” declared Adams, with a triumphant chuckle. “We hold the trump cards, it is true. The only matter to be decided is how we shall play them.”

“They must be played very carefully, if we are to win.”

“Win?” echoed the other. “Why, man, we can’t possibly lose.”

“Suppose he died?”

“He won’t die, I’ll take care of that,” said Adams, with a fierce expression upon his somewhat evil countenance. “No; the old blackguard shall live, and his life shall be rendered a hell of terror and remorse. He made my life so bitter that a thousand times I’ve longed for death. He taunted me with my misfortunes, ruined me and laughed in my face, jeered at my unhappiness and flaunted his wealth before me when I was penniless. But through all these years I have kept silence, laughing within myself because of his ignorance that I alone held his secret, and that when I chose I could rise and crush him.

“He had no suspicion of my knowledge until one blazing day in a foreign city I betrayed myself. I was a fool, I know. But very soon afterwards I repaid the error by death. I died and was buried, so that he then believed himself safe, and has remained in self-satisfied security until this morning, when his gaze met mine through the window. I have risen from the dead,” he added, with a short, dry laugh; “risen to avenge myself by his ruin.”

“And his death,” added the hunchback.

“Don’t I tell you he shall not die?” cried Adams. “What satisfaction should I have were he to commit suicide? No; I mean to watch his agony, to terrify him and drive him to an existence constantly fearing exposure and arrest. He shall not enjoy a moment’s peace of mind, but shall be tortured by conscience and driven mad by terror. I will repay his evil actions towards me and mine a hundredfold.”

“How can you prevent him escaping you by suicide?”

“He’ll never do that, for he knows his suicide would mean the ruin of Statham Brothers, and perhaps the ruin of hundreds of families. The canting old hypocrite would rather do anything nowadays than ruin the poor investor.”

“Yet look at his operations in earlier days! Did he not lay the foundation of the house by the exercise of cunning and unscrupulous double-dealing? Was it not mainly by his influence that a great war was forced on, and did he not clear, it is declared, more than half a million by sacrificing the lives of thousands? And he actually has the audacity to dole out sums to charities, and contributions to hospitals and convalescent homes!”

“The world always looks at a man’s present, my dear old chap, never at his past,” responded the hunchback.

“Unfortunately that is so, otherwise the truth would be remembered and the name of Statham held up to scorn and universal disgust. Yet,” Adams went on, “I grant you that he is not much worse than others in the same category. The smug frock coat and light waistcoat of the successful City man so very often conceals a black and ungenerous heart.”

“But if you really make this exposure as you threaten, it will arouse the greatest sensation ever produced in England in modern years,” Lyle remarked, slowly lighting a fresh cigarette.

“I will make it – and more!” he declared, bringing his fist down heavily upon the table. “I have waited all these years for my revenge, and, depend upon it, it will be humiliating and complete.”

For a few moments neither man spoke. At last Lyle said: “I have more than once wondered whether you are not making a mistake in your association with that young man Barclay.”

“Max Barclay is a fool. He doesn’t dream the real game we are playing with him.”

“No. If he did, he wouldn’t have anything to do with us.”

“I suppose he wouldn’t. But the whole thing appears to him such a gilt-edged one that we’ve fascinated him – and he’ll be devilish useful to us in the near future.”

“You’ve inquired about that girl, I suppose?”

“Yes. She’s in a drapery shop – at Cunnington’s, in Oxford Street, and, funnily enough, is sister of old Sam’s secretary.”

“His sister! By Jove! we ought to know her – one of us. She might be able to find out something.”

“No: we must keep away from her at present,” Adams urged. Then, in a curious voice, he added: “We may find it necessary to become her enemy, you know. And if so, she ought not to be personally acquainted with either of us. Do you follow me?”

“You mean that we may find it necessary to secure Max Barclay’s aid at sacrifice of the girl – eh?”

His companion smiled meaningly.

“We must be careful how we use Barclay,” Lyle said. “The young man has his eyes open.”

“I know. I’m well aware of that,” Adams said, quickly. “He will be of the greatest assistance to us.”

“If he has no suspicions.”

“What suspicion can he have?” laughed the other. “All that we’ve told him he believes to be gospel truth. Only the night before last we dined together at Romano’s, and after an hour at the Empire he took me to his club to chat and smoke.”

“He, of course, believes the story of the railway concession to be genuine,” Lyle suggested. “Let me see, the concession is somewhere in the Balkans, isn’t it?”

“Yes; the railroad from Nisch, in Servia, across Northern Albania, to San Giovanni di Medua, on the Adriatic. A grand scheme that’s been talked of for years, and which the Sultan has always prevented by refusing to allow the line to pass through Turkish territory.

“Our story is,” added Adams, “that his Majesty has at last signed an iradé granting permission, and that within a month or so the whole concession will be given over to an English group of whom I am the representative. I saw that the scheme appealed to him from the very first. He recognised that there was money in it, for such a line would tap the whole trade of the Balkans, and by a junction near the Iron Gates of the Danube, take the trade of Roumania, Hungary, and South-Western Russia to the Adriatic instead of as at present into the Black Sea.

“For the past week I’ve met Barclay nearly every day. He suggested that, as the railway would be a matter of millions, he should approach old Sam Statham and ask him to lend us his support.”

“Does he know Statham?”

“Slightly. But I at once declined to allow him to speak about the scheme.”

“Why?”

“Because old Sam, with the aid of his spies and informants in diplomatic circles, could in three days satisfy himself whether our story was true or false. It would have given the whole story away at once. So I made an excuse for continued secrecy.”

“Quite right. We must not court failure by allowing any inquiry to be prematurely made,” said Lyle. “Make the project a secret one, and speak of it with bated breath. Hint at diplomatic difficulties between Turkey and England, if the truth were known.”

“That’s just what I have done, and he’s completely misled. I explained that Germany would try and bring pressure upon the Sultan to withdraw the iradé as soon as it were known that the railway had fallen into British hands. And he believed me implicitly!”

“He had no suspicion of whom you really are?”

“Certainly not. He believes that I’ve never met Statham but that I have the greatest admiration for his financial stability and his excellent personal qualities,” Adams replied: “He knows me as Jean Adam, of Paris, as they do here in these flats – a man who has extensive business relations in the Near East, and therefore well in with the pashas of the Sublime Porte and the officials of the Yildiz. I tell you, Lyle, the young fellow believes in me.”

“Because you’re such a confoundedly clever actor, Adams. You’d deceive the cutest business man in London, with your wonderful documents, your rosy prospectuses, and your tales of fortunes ready to be picked up if only a few thousands are invested. You’ve thoroughly fascinated young Max Barclay, who, believing that you’ve obtained a very valuable concession, is seized with a laudable desire to share the profits and to obtain a lucrative occupation as a director of the company in question.”

“Once he has fallen entirely in our power, the rest will be easy,” answered the adventurer. “I mean to have my revenge, and you receive thirty thousand as your share.”

“But what form is this revenge of yours to take?” the hunchback inquired. “You have never told me that.”

“It is my own affair,” answered Adams, leaning back against the mantelshelf.

“Well, I think between friends there should not be any distrust,” Lyle remarked. “You don’t think I’d give you away, do you? It’s to my interest to assist you and obtain the thirty thousand.”

“And you will, if you stick to me,” Adams answered.

“But I’d like to know your main object.”

“You know that already.”

“But only yesterday you told me that you don’t want a farthing of old Statham’s money.”

“Nor do I. His money has a curse upon it – the money filched from the pockets of widows and orphans, money that has been obtained by fraud and misrepresentation,” cried Adams. “To-day he is respected and lauded on account of his pious air and his philanthropy; yet yesterday he floated rotten concerns and coolly placed hundreds of thousands in his pocket by reason of the glowing promises that he never fulfilled. No!” cried the man, clenching his strong, hard fist; “I don’t want a single penny of his money. You, Lyle, may have what you want of it – thirty thousand to be the minimum.”

“You talk as though you contemplated handling his fortune,” the other remarked, in some surprise.

“When I reveal to him my intentions, his banking account will be at my disposal, depend upon it,” Adams said. “But I don’t want any of his bribes. I shall refuse them. I will have my revenge. It shall be an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. He showed me no mercy – and I will show him none – none. But it is Max Barclay who will assist me towards that end, and the girl at Cunnington’s, Marion Rolfe, who must be made the catspaw.”

Lyle remained thoughtful, his eyes upon the carpet.

“Yes,” he said, slowly, at last. “I quite follow you and divine your intentions. But, remember she’s a woman. Is it just – is it human?”

“Human!” echoed the cosmopolitan, removing his cigarette as he shrugged his shoulders with a nonchalant air. “To me it matters nothing, so long as I attain my object. Surely you are not chicken-hearted enough to be moved by a woman’s tears.”

“I don’t understand you,” his friend declared.

“No; I suppose you don’t,” he answered. “And, to be frank with you, Lyle, I don’t intend at this moment that you shall. My intention is my own affair. I merely foreshadow to you the importation into the affair of a woman who will, through no fault of her own, be compelled to suffer in order to allow me to achieve the object I have in view.”

The hunchback turned slightly towards the curtained window. He moved quickly in order to conceal an expression upon his face, which, had it been detected by his companion, the startling and amazing events recorded in the following chapters would surely never have occurred.

But John Adams, standing there in ignorance, was chuckling over the secret of the terrible triumph that was so very soon to be his – a triumph to be secured by the sacrifice of an honest woman!

Chapter Fifteen.

More about Marion

The following Sunday afternoon was warm and bright, perfect for up-river excursions, and, as was their usual habit, Max and Marion were spending the day together.

Released from the eternal bustle of Oxford Street, the girl looked forward with eager anticipation to each Saturday afternoon and Sunday – the weekly period of rest and recreation. To the assistant in shops where the “living-in” system pertains, Sunday is the one bright interval in an otherwise dull, dreary, and monotonous life, the day when he or she gets away from the weariness of being businesslike, the smell of the “goods,” and the keen eye of the buyer or shop-walker, and when one is one’s own master for a few happy hours.

To those not apprenticed in their youth to shop-life who, being born in a higher status, have been compelled to enter business as a means of livelihood, the long hours are terribly irksome, especially in winter, when artificial light is used nearly the whole day. The work is soul-killing in its monotony and the pay very meagre, therefore customers need hardly be surprised when a tired assistant does not take the trouble to exert herself unduly to satisfy her requirements.

In summer, Marion loved the river. The air was fresh and healthful, after the vitiated atmosphere of the costume department at Cunnington’s. Usually Max brought his little motor-boat from Biffen’s, at Hammersmith Bridge, where he kept it, up to Kew, and there they would embark in the morning and run up to Hampton Court, Staines, or even Windsor, getting their luncheon or tea at one or other of the old riverside inns, and spending a lazy afternoon up some quiet, leafy backwater, where, though so near the metropolis, the king-fishers skimmed the surface of the stream and the water-lilies lay upon their broad, green leaves.

Those lazy hours spent together were always delightful, therefore, to the devoted pair, a wet Sunday was indeed a calamity. On the afternoon in question they had met at Kew Bridge at four o’clock, and as she sat upon the crimson cushions in the stern, they were ascending the broad Thames, the motor running as evenly as a clock, and leaving a small wash in their wake. Marion could not meet her lover before, because she had spent the morning with a poor girl who had been a fellow assistant at Cunnington’s, and was now in Guy’s Hospital. The girl was friendless and in a dangerous condition, therefore Marion had given up her morning and taken her some grapes.

There were not many people on the river, for pleasure-seekers usually prefer the reaches above Richmond. The craft they passed was mostly sailing boats, belonging to the club Chiswick, and the inevitable launch of the Thames Conservancy.

In a well-cut gown of plain white cotton, with lace and muslin at the throat, a straw hat of mushroom shape, with a band of pale blue velvet, and a white sunshade over her shoulder, she looked delightfully fresh and cool. He was in navy serge suit and a peaked cap, and in his mouth a pipe.

Seated sideways in the boat, with the throbbing motor at his feet, he thought he never had seen her looking so chic and indescribably charming. Those stiff black dresses, which custom forced her to wear in business, did not suit her soft beauty. But in her river dress she looked delightfully dainty, and he tried to conjure up a vision of what figure she would present in a well-cut evening gown. The latter, however, she did not possess. The shop-assistant has but little need of décolleté, and, indeed, its very possession arouses comment among the plainer, more prudish, and more elderly section of the girls in the “house.”

More than once Max had wanted to take her to the stalls of a theatre in an evening gown, but she had always declared that she preferred wearing a light blouse. As a man generally is, he was a blunderer, and she could not well explain how, by the purchase of evening clothes, she would at once debase herself in the eyes of her fellow-assistants. As was well-known, her salary at Cunnington’s certainly did not allow of such luxuries as theatre gowns, and from the very first she had always declined to accept Max’s well-meant presents.

The only present of his that she had kept was the pretty ring now upon her slim, white hand, a ring set with sapphires and diamonds and inscribed within “From Max to Marion,” with the date.

As she leaned back enjoying the fresh air, after the dust and stifling heat of London, she was relating how pleased the poor invalid had been at her visit, and he was listening to her description of her friend’s desperate condition. A difficult operation had turned out badly, and the surgeons held out very little hope. Not a soul had been to see the poor girl all the week, the nurse had said, for she had no relatives, and all her friends were in business and unable to get out, except on Sunday.

“I very much fear she won’t live to see next Sunday,” Marion was saying, with a sigh, a cloud passing over her bright face. “It is so very sad. She’s only twenty, and such a nice girl. Her father was a naval officer, but she was left penniless, and had to earn her own living.”

“Like you yourself, dearest,” he answered. “Ah! how I wish I could take you from that life of drudgery. I can’t bear to think of you being compelled to slave as you do, and to wait upon those crotchety old cats, as many of your customers are. It’s a shame that you should ever have gone into Cunnington’s.”

“Mr Statham, Charlie’s employer, holds the controlling interest in our business. It was through him that I got in there. Without his influence they would never have taken me, for I had no experience. As a matter of fact,” she added, “I’m considered very lucky in obtaining a situation at Cunnington’s, and Mr Warner, our buyer, is extremely kind to me.”

“I know all that; but it’s the long hours that most wear you out,” he said, “especially in this close, muggy weather.”

“Oh! I’m pretty strong,” she declared lightly, her beautiful eyes fixed upon him. “At first I used to feel terribly tired about tea-time, but nowadays I can stand it very much better.”

“But you really must leave the place,” Max declared. “Charlie should so arrange things that you could leave. His salary from old Statham is surely sufficient to enable him to do that!”

“Yes; but if he keeps me, how can he keep a wife as well?” asked Marion. “Dear old Charlie is awfully good to me. I never want for anything; but he’ll marry Maud before long, I expect, and then I shall – ”

“Marry me, darling,” he exclaimed, concluding her sentence.

She blushed slightly and smiled.

“Ah!” she said, in mock reproof. “That may occur perhaps in the dim future. We’ll first see how Charlie’s marriage turns out – eh?”

“No, Marion,” he cried. “Come, that isn’t fair! You know how I love you – and you surely recollect your promise to me, don’t you?” he asked seriously.

“Of course I do,” she replied. “You dear old boy, you know I’m only joking.”

He seemed instantly relieved at her words, and steered across to the Middlesex banks as they approached Brentford Dock in order to get the full advantage of the rising tide.

“Has Charlie seen Maud of late?” he asked, a few moments later.

“I don’t know at all. I suppose he’s in the East. I haven’t seen him since he came to the shop to say good-bye to me.”

“I wonder if the Doctor and his daughter have returned to their own country?” he suggested.

“What! Have you heard nothing of them?”

“Nothing,” he replied. “I have endeavoured to discover where their furniture was taken, or where they themselves went, but all has been in vain. Both they and their belongings have entirely disappeared.”

The girl did not utter a word. She was leaning back, with her fine eyes fixed straight before her, reflecting deeply.

“It is all very extraordinary,” she remarked at last.

“Yes. I only wish, darling, you were at liberty to tell me the whole truth regarding Maud, and what she has told you,” he said, his gaze fixed upon her pale, beautiful face.

“I cannot do that, Max,” was her prompt answer, “so please do not ask me. I have already told you that in this matter my lips are sealed by a solemn promise – a promise which I cannot break.”

“I know! Yet I somehow cannot help thinking that you could reveal to me some fact which might expose the motive of this strange and unaccountable disappearance,” he said. “Do you know, I cannot get rid of the suspicion that the Doctor, and possibly Maud herself, have been victims of foul play. Remember that as a politician he had many enemies in his own country. A political career in the Balkans is not the peaceful profession it is here at St. Stephen’s. Take Bulgaria, for instance, and recall the political assassinations of Stambuloff, Petkoff, and a dozen others. The same in Servia and in Roumania. The whole of the Balkans is permeated by an air of political conspiracy, for there life is indeed cheap, more especially the life of the public man.”