The Stolen Statesman: Being the Story of a Hushed Up Mystery

“I have brought you a message from my chief, Mr Smeaton,” he said, in his most urbane manner. “I have no doubt you have heard of him.”

Lord Wrenwyck looked on the point of indulging in another angry explosion, but something in the steady gaze of the self-possessed young man seemed to momentarily disconcert him. He only growled, and muttered something too low for Johnson to catch.

“My chief, Mr Smeaton, occupies a very special position,” resumed the imperturbable detective. “In virtue of that position, he becomes acquainted with many curious facts, some of them connected with persons in high positions. Some of these facts he has to make known, in accordance with his sense of public duty. There are others which never go beyond his own cognisance and that of a few of his trusted subordinates. I trust your lordship gathers my meaning, which I am trying to convey as pleasantly as possible.”

Lord Wrenwyck stirred his crippled limbs, and shook his fist vindictively at the other.

“Come to the point, curse you, and spare me all this rigmarole.”

“To come to the point, my lord, Mr Smeaton requests your attendance at Scotland Yard, where he proposes to give himself the pleasure of a short conversation with you.”

The hard, angry eyes were now sullen and overcast, but they were no longer defiant.

“Suppose I tell you and your precious Mr Smeaton to go to the devil! What then?”

“I don’t think either of us will hasten our journey in that direction on account of your lordship’s intervention,” replied Johnson with ready humour.

He paused a moment, and then added with a gravity that could not be mistaken: “The arm of the law is very long, and can reach a great nobleman like yourself. Take my advice. Lord Wrenwyck. Let me convey you in a taxi to Scotland Yard, to interview my chief. Come voluntarily while you can,” he paused and added in significant terms: “Believe me, you won’t have the option after to-day.”

Cursing and growling, the crippled peer stood up, and announced his readiness to accompany this imperturbable young man. A few minutes later, he and Smeaton were face to face.

On the evening of that day, Sheila and Wingate dined together at a small restaurant far removed from the haunts of the fashionable world.

Thanks to the strange and unexampled circumstances, their courtship had been conducted on very unconventional lines. But to-night an unobtrusive maiden aunt of Wingate’s played propriety.

At an early hour, they left the restaurant. The maiden aunt was first dropped at her modest house in Kensington, and then the car took them to Chesterfield Street.

When Grant had opened the door, Wingate had put out his hand in farewell. He was always punctilious and solicitous about the conventions, in Sheila’s unprotected position.

But she demurred to this early parting. “It is only a little after nine,” she told him. “You must come in for five minutes’ chat before you go.”

What lover could refuse such an invitation, proffered by such sweet lips? As they were going up the staircase to the drawing-room. Grant handed her a letter.

“It was left about an hour ago by that young person. Miss; the one who wouldn’t leave her name.”

She opened it, and, after perusal, handed it to her betrothed. “Oh, Austin, what can this mean?”

Austin Wingate read the brief words: “There is a great surprise in store. It may come at any moment.”

They sat down in silence, not trusting themselves to speak, to hazard a conjecture as to this mysterious message. At such a moment, so tense with possibilities, they almost forgot they were lovers. And while trying to read in their mutual glances the inmost thoughts of each other, there came the faint tinkle of the door-bell.

Sheila started up as her ears caught the sound. “Listen, Austin! Who’s that?” she asked breathlessly.

A few moments later they heard old Grant open the door. Next second a loud cry of alarm rang through the house. The voice was Grant’s.

Austin, hearing it, dashed from the room and down the stairs.

Chapter Twenty Nine.

Contains many Surprises

Wingate, hearing Grant’s cry as he opened the hall-door, had only reached the head of the stairs, followed by Sheila, when he met the faithful old butler rushing towards him, crying – “Oh, Miss Sheila, we have – we have a visitor! Come down.” In the hall stood Reginald Monkton! He was sadly and woefully changed from the alert, vigorous man from whom his daughter had parted on that fateful night which seemed so far distant. The once upright figure was stooping with fatigue and weariness, his face was thin and shrunken, his fine eyes, that used to flash forth scorn on his opponents, had lost their brilliant fire. Behind him stood Mrs Saxton, dressed in a sober garb of grey.

As he caught sight of Sheila, a broken cry escaped from him: “At last, at last, my beloved child.”

Sheila sprang forward, and in a moment they were locked in each other’s arms, tears of happiness raining down her face.

For some seconds nobody spoke a word. Austin Wingate was trying hard to control his emotion. Grant, in the background, was crying like a child. Then Mrs Saxton advanced, her own eyes dim with the pathos of the scene – of this sudden reunion of father and daughter.

“I have brought him back to you,” she said, in a voice that trembled. “But he is very weak and ill. Let us take him to the library at once. You shall learn everything from me.”

Tenderly, the two, Sheila and her lover, led the poor, worn man to the room in which he had spent so many happy hours, Mrs Saxton following. They placed him in the big arm-chair, and his daughter knelt beside him. Wingate standing in front.

Then suddenly, the girl pointed a trembling finger at the woman gowned in grey, and her eyes took on a hard, steely look. “What has she to do with it?” she asked, hoarsely.

Almost in a whisper came her father’s words: “Everything; she had to do with it from the beginning. But listen to her; for without her aid I should not be here to-night; perhaps I should never have been here, or, if so, such a hopeless wreck that life would have been no blessing.” His voice broke as he ended, and he raised Sheila’s hand to his lips.

And then Mrs Saxton spoke, at first hesitatingly, and in tones that trembled with her terrible emotion. But as she went on her courage came back, and she enunciated her words clearly and distinctly.

“I know you must hate me. Miss Monkton, and I deserve your hatred. Perhaps, later on, you will judge me a little less harshly, in consideration of the fact that I repented at the eleventh hour, and saved him from these fiends who were bent upon his undoing.”

Sheila and Wingate regarded her intently, but neither spoke a word to relieve her embarrassment, or give any indication that they regarded her with anything but the deepest loathing.

“Mr Monkton and I have been to Scotland Yard, and seen Smeaton, the detective. I know from him that you are acquainted with all the actors in this tragedy, including myself. He has told me of your coming across me at the post-office, of your reading the telegram which I sent to Brighton to the man known as Bolinski, who is now in the hands of justice, along with the partner of his crime.”

She paused a moment, and then resumed her narrative in the midst of a chilling and hostile silence.

“My connection with it all arose from my intimate acquaintance with the man Stent. It would not interest you to know how I fell under his influence and domination; it would reflect too much discredit on both – on him who persuaded, on me who yielded. You know already that Stent and Bolinski were the two men who abducted your father. What you do not know is that this plan was maturing for, at least, a couple of years. Further, you do not know that they were not the instigators, but the instruments of this outrage.”

“And their motive?” questioned Wingate sharply.

A bitter smile crossed the young woman’s face. “A motive ever dear to men of their criminal and rapacious type – greed! Offer them a big enough bribe, and they are the willing tools of the man who lures them. Scruples they have none.”

“And who was the instigator?” questioned Wingate again.

“I will come to that all in due course. But more than half-a-dozen times they tried to put their scheme into execution, and failed on every occasion but the last, through a series of accidents. I did not know this for some time after I came upon the scene, when it was revealed to me by Stent, in a moment of unusual confidence.”

Here Sheila interrupted. “We know that these two put the dying man dressed in my father’s clothes in the taxi. Presently you shall tell us who that man was, and why he was sent. But first let us go back a little before that. Why did my father dine at the Italian restaurant with Bolinski?”

Reginald Monkton lifted his hand. “I will explain that, if you please, Mrs Saxton. I received a letter from this man, signed with an assumed name, stating that he could supply me with some important information that would be of the greatest possible use to the Government. He insisted that absolute secrecy must be observed on his part for fear of unpleasant consequences, and suggested Luigi’s restaurant in Soho as the rendezvous. I have had information offered me in this way before, and did not entertain any suspicions. I guessed him to be a needy adventurer who would sell his friends for a consideration, and walked into the trap.”

“He kept up the rôle of the informer I suppose?” queried Wingate. He was perhaps just a little surprised that a man of the world and an astute lawyer should not have had his doubts as to the genuineness of the letter.

“Perfectly, to all appearance. He told me various things about well-known people which, if they were true, would most certainly be useful. He assumed perfect frankness; he did not suggest that I should credit his statements till I had fully investigated them, and named a fairly modest sum in the event of my being satisfied. Of course, I now see that the whole thing was a pretence. He invented a lot of so-called facts to justify his having invited me to meet him.”

Both Sheila and Wingate looked puzzled. Mrs Saxton broke in:

“Of course, I see what is presenting itself to your minds. What object had he in meeting your father at all, when to all appearances they had carefully laid their plans in another direction? Well, their first idea was this, that, given a proper amount of luck, they might effect his capture outside the restaurant. But there were too many people about, and Mr Monkton was too quick for them. I told you just now they had tried to carry out their plan before in half-a-dozen likely places.”

Wingate nodded. “Yes, I see. It was one, probably, of several alternative schemes which they had ready for the same evening. Now, Mrs Saxton, will you tell us who was the dying man they put into the taxi and what was their object in putting him into Mr Monkton’s clothes?”

He looked at her steadily; it was with difficulty he could put any civility into his tones as he spoke. But she had turned King’s evidence, and he was bound to recognise the fact. The less he showed his hostility, the more he would get out of her.

“It was not for a long time that I was able to piece together certain facts which enable me to answer your question,” replied the woman, who had now perfectly recovered her composure.

“He was. I believe, an Irishman by birth, with no friends or relatives in the world. He had been mixed up with Stent and Bolinski for years, and he knew too much. They knew he was a dying man when they put him into the cab. Their object was to get him off their hands, to let him die elsewhere.”

“But why did they dress him up in Mr Monkton’s clothes,” queried Wingate.

“I suppose, in order that the superficial likeness might enable him to be earned into the house, where he was bound to collapse. He had been an inmate of Bolinski’s house for some time, and I expect for his own reason Bolinski did not wish him to die there.”

Wingate shuddered at a sudden idea that had occurred to him. “Do you think they gave him anything, any drug to hasten his death?” he asked hesitatingly.

“Who ran tell? They had no scruples, though I cannot honestly say I know of any instance in which their callousness led them to take human life.”

“Can you account for his repeating the word ‘Moly’ before he died?”

Mrs Saxton shook her head. “Perhaps you did not catch the word aright. I know he had been privy to this scheme. Perhaps, in his wandering state, he was trying to pronounce the name Monkton, and you mistook the first syllable. I can offer no other explanation.”

There was a brief pause before Wingate spoke again.

“You were on very early in the scene, were you not?”

Mrs Saxton bowed her head in assent. “To my shame I was. Stent made out to me at first that they were getting Mr Monkton away for a brief space to render him harmless. They were connected with some schemes abroad, so he said, which Mr Monkton was using his powerful influence to thwart. I believed him, not knowing the real instigator. I called on Miss Monkton, as you will remember, for the purpose of pumping her, of finding in what quarter suspicion was directed.”

“Yes, we know that. And what part did your brother play in it all?”

A shade of embarrassment crept into her manner. She was willing to sacrifice Stent and Bolinski, but it was natural she should shield her brother as far as she could.

“He believed the first story they told him, which at the beginning imposed upon me. He kept watch for them in a way, told them what he could pick up of the various rumours flying about. He was in a state of great alarm one night, when some Member of the House of Commons had told him that Mr Monkton was acquainted with a man of the name of Stent.”

Reginald Monkton lifted his head. “It is true. I had known him slightly for some years, as a man connected with one or two companies, respectable ones, in which I had shares. I had no idea that he made the greater part of his money by fraud.”

“And what became of Mr Monkton that night?” asked Wingate, turning to Mrs Saxton.

“They caught him unawares, as he was walking from the House, threw a cloth, saturated with a stupefying drug, over his face, put him in a cab, driven by a confederate, and took him to Bolinski’s house. They then took off his outer clothes, put them on the person you call the dying man, who could only just walk, and rushed back to Westminster. There they got out, waited a few seconds, hailed a taxi, put him inside, and directed the driver to take him to Chesterfield Street. The rest of that episode you know.”

“And when was it that you went to Forest View, and masqueraded in the guise of a parlourmaid?”

A burning colour crept into her face at the question. It was easy to see that she was feeling her position acutely. It was some seconds before she could control herself sufficiently to order her speech.

“They had moved him very speedily from Bolinski’s to the house of one of their confederates. Then they took him down to Horsham, where Stent had a house. He came to me one day and said the affairs in which they were interested were maturing slowly. He had hoped to release Mr Monkton very quickly, but owing to the delay it was absolutely necessary they should keep him in custody until the coup came off. They kept him in a secret room there – what is called the priest’s room. A woman they trusted had been obliged to go abroad. Would I take her place? He said it would only be for a short time.”

“And you went?” cried Sheila, with a withering glance.

The woman’s voice was almost inaudible, as she answered with bowed head: “Yes, I went, but I swear that when I did so I did not know what was really meditated.”

They looked at her in horror, and Wingate repeated the words, “what was really meditated.”

“Yes,” she said, almost in a whisper. “It was a refined cruelty, the invention of a cunning and malignant mind. Their object was to break down his reason, to reduce him to a condition worse than that of death itself, and then to restore him to his home and child, shattered in health, mind and reputation.”

Chapter Thirty.

The Mystery Solved

At those dreadful words, spoken in a low, vibrating voice, a shudder ran through the listeners. Sheila laid her head upon her father’s shoulder, and sobbed unrestrainedly. Wingate uttered a cry of horror.

“And whose was the devilish mind that conceived this awful thing, and what was the motive?” he cried, when he had recovered from his stupefaction.

“You will know directly, but it is best I should tell the story in my own way, and in proper sequence. Well, I went to Forest View, to look after Mr Monkton. I may say that Stent never went near him himself, for fear of recognition. I found that he was being treated with drugs, so as to keep him more or less in a state of torpor. When I saw what was being done, I was horrified, and remonstrated. But Stent was always plausible, told me the effect was temporary, and that as soon as he could fix the time for his release, he would give him antidotes that would speedily restore him to his normal state.

“I very shortly conceived the idea of liberating him, but the means were hard to discover. Stent distrusted everybody, and it was only by acceding to all his humours that I was able to worm anything out of him. Half-a-dozen times he permitted me to administer the drug during his absence. It was one of his own preparation – for he was among other things a most skilled chemist. On these occasions I gave your father but a small portion of the dose intended for him. By these means I revived his benumbed faculties, and was able to assure him that I was his friend, and was eagerly seeking the means of restoring him to freedom.

“Then one day, when Stent was in an unusually good temper, he came to me, with that evil smile on his face which I had learned to know and dread. ‘A curious thing is going to happen to-morrow. A man is coming here to stay for a little time. Can you guess what he is coming for?’ Of course, I answered I could not.

”‘He will stay here under an assumed name, but he is rather a great personage in his own world. He will want, if I know him aright, to go to Monkton’s room every day, and gloat over his handiwork.’

“It was imprudent of me, but I could not help blurting out, ‘Yours as well as his.’

“His smile grew more evil as he said, ‘I am afraid you are a little too tender-hearted for this world, my dear. Anyway, I am paid a big price for the job, and you know I never refuse money.’

“I saw my mistake, and pretended to fall in with his mood, and succeeded in winning him back to amiability. I expressed great curiosity to know the real name of the man who, to use his own expression, was coming down ‘to gloat over his handiwork.’ To this day I shall never know what caused him to satisfy it. But at last he told me.”

Sheila and her lover gazed at the pale-faced woman intently. In their eagerness they almost forgot their loathing.

“The instigator of his abduction, the man who hired this fiend to carry out his deadly, malignant revenge, is a man well-known, wealthy, a peer of the realm. I daresay you have heard of him. He is called Lord Wrenwyck.”

Sheila gasped at this astounding revelation. “The husband of the popular Lady Wrenwyck, who in her youth was a celebrated beauty?”

Then she turned to her father, whose pale, worn face cut her to the heart. “But, dearest, what was his motive for such a dastardly deed?”

Monkton spoke in a low voice, but he did not meet his daughter’s eyes. “A fancied wrong, my child. We crossed each other many years ago, and he has brooded over it till he grew half insane, and thought of this scheme of vengeance.”

“But you will have him punished,” cried his daughter loudly. “You must! You cannot mete out to him what he has done to you, but you will deal with him as the law allows you.”

Monkton turned uneasily in his chair. “It is the dearest wish of my heart to bring him low, but, in my position, one cannot afford scandal. In a few weeks I shall be restored to my old place, to my old strength. That there has been a mystery is only known to a few. To the public, Reginald Monkton has recovered from a brief illness induced by overstrain and over-work. It is better so.”

Sheila gazed at him almost wildly. “That is your resolve. But it seems to me folly; forgive me if I question your decision, if I criticise you.”

For a moment the glances of Wingate and Mrs Saxton met, and they read each other’s thoughts. Monkton must let Lord Wrenwyck go unpunished; it would be political death to him to have that old folly brought into public gaze.

He interposed hastily. “Dearest Sheila, your father is right. I understand his reasons perfectly. He is not an ordinary man. If he is to keep his position, he must forgo the revenge to which he is so justly entitled.”

Sheila looked at him with puzzled eyes. Austin was wise beyond his years, but surely he was wrong in this. She pressed her hand to her head, and murmured faintly, “I do not understand. But I suppose it must be as you say.”

Mrs Saxton went on swiftly with her story.

“According to all accounts. Lord Wrenwyck is half insane. He had been mixed up with some financial transactions with Stent, and had taken the man’s measure, had satisfied himself that he would carry out any villainous scheme, so long as he was well paid for the risk. He it was who suggested the abduction of Mr Monkton, the systematic drugging at Forest View, where he would come in while his unhappy prisoner was asleep, and watch him with a fiendish smile spreading over his repulsive countenance.”

At this point Sheila raised her hands with a gesture of despair. “And yet this fiend is to go scot-free, and live to work further evil.”

“He will not do that,” said Mrs Saxton quickly. “Smeaton, after our interview, compelled him to go to Scotland Yard. Depend upon it. Lord Wrenwyck will not risk his fate a second time. He will be rendered powerless by the fact that his cunningly laid scheme was frustrated, and also that it is known to those who could set the law in motion at any moment they chose.”

And again Sheila murmured, “You may be right, but I cannot understand.”

“I am coming now to the end of my story,” Mrs Saxton continued, after this interruption. “I was walking one day into Horsham, and was accosted by a young man who seemed desirous of striking up an acquaintance. I rebuffed him, of course, and learned afterwards that he made similar advances to the young woman who was supposed to be my fellow-servant. At once it struck me that he was spying upon us. He lodged at a small inn a little distance away, and gave out that he was an artist. I mentioned the matter to Stent, but he rather laughed at the idea; told me I had got detectives on the brain. He was destitute of nerves himself, and had an exaggerated belief in his own capacity to outwit everybody.

“Pondering upon the means by which I could extricate my patient – if I may call him so – from a position which I felt convinced was growing more perilous, the idea of using this young man came into my mind. Day after day I impressed upon Stent that my fears were well grounded, and that at any moment he might be faced with discovery. At last I invented a story that I had seen this man who called himself Franks standing outside the house with another person, obviously a detective, and had heard the latter say distinctly; ‘Smeaton himself thinks we have given them rope enough.’

“You know the story of the removal in the dead of night?”

She addressed her question to Wingate, appreciating the fact that he showed his hostility less plainly than did his sweetheart.

The young man nodded. “Yes, we know that.”

“Stent was at last impressed, and agreed that we must leave Forest View as quickly and secretly as possible. Stent and the other maid – Lord Wrenwyck had left us by then – travelled in the van. I drove Mr Monkton in the motor by a roundabout route – I may tell you I am an expert driver. My destination was supposed to be the house of the confederate where he had first been taken.

“The game was now in my hands, and I knew I could play it. I drove to a different place altogether, some miles from London. I had, fortunately, plenty of money with me. We stayed at an hotel for the night. Next morning we came up to London and took up our quarters in a small inn at Hampstead.”