"Set about by those with whom he has refused to a.s.sociate--eh?"

"Probably concocted by spiteful gossips, I should think. Some of them bear upon the face of them their own refutation. For instance, I've heard that the reason lights are seen upstairs is because there's a mysterious Mrs Statham and her family living there in secret. n.o.body has seen them, and they never go out."

"Oh! And what reason is given for that?"

"Because they say she's a Turkish woman, and that he still keeps her secluded as she has been ever since a child. The story goes that she's a very beautiful woman, daughter of one of the most powerful Pashas in Constantinople, who escaped from her mother's harem and got away over the frontier into Bulgaria, where Statham joined her, and they were married in Paris."

Rolfe laughed aloud. The idea of old Sam being an actor in such a love-romance was distinctly amusing.

"They call him Statham Pasha, I suppose! Well, really, it is the very latest, just as though there may not be lights upstairs when the old man goes to bed."

"Of course," said Max. "But the fact that the old man refuses to allow anybody in the house has given rise to all these stories. You really ought to tell him."

"What shall I tell him? Is there any other gossip?"

"Yes," replied Max, looking the secretary straight in the face in suspicion that he knew more about the mysteries of that house than he really did. "There's another strange story, which I heard two or three days ago, to the effect that one night recently a person was seen to go there secretly, being admitted at once. Then, after the lapse of an hour or so, old Levi came forth, signalled to a four-wheeled cab which was apparently loitering about on the chance of a fare. Then from out of the house was carried a long, heavy box, which was placed on the cab and driven away to an unknown destination."

"A box!" gasped Rolfe in surprise, bending quickly across to the speaker. "What do you mean--what do you suggest?"

"Well the natural suggestion is that the body of the midnight visitor was within that box?"

Charlie Rolfe did not reply. He sat staring open-mouthed, as though Max's story had supplied the missing link in a chain of suspicions which had for a long time existed in his mind--as though he now knew the terrible and astounding truth.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

TRUTH OR UNTRUTH.

The two men exchanged glances, each suspicious of the other.

Max tried to imagine the motive of his friend's visit, while Rolfe, on his part, was undecided as to the extent of the other's knowledge. To come there and boldly face Max had cost him a good many qualms. At one moment he felt certain that Max suspected, but at the next he laughed at his own fears, and declared himself to be a chicken-hearted fool. And so days had gone on until, unable to stand it further, he had at last resolved to call at Dover Street.

"You're quite a stranger, Charlie," Max remarked at last. "I haven't seen you since the doctor disappeared so mysteriously."

He watched Rolfe's face as he spoke, yet save a very slight flush upon the cheeks he was in no way perturbed.

"Well, I've been away nearly the whole time," was the other's reply.

"The whole affair is most curious."

"And haven't you seen Maud since?"

He hesitated slightly, and in that hesitation Max detected falsehood.

"No," was his reply.

"What? And haven't you endeavoured to find out her whereabouts?" cried Max, staring at him. "If Marion had disappeared, I think I should have left no stone unturned in order to discover the truth."

"I have tried to solve the mystery, and failed," was his rather lame response.

"But where are they--where can they be? It's most extraordinary that the doctor should not send me word in confidence of their secret hiding-place. I was his most intimate friend."

"Well," he said. "The fact is that until this moment I believed you were well aware of their whereabouts, but could not, in face of your friendship, betray them."

Max looked him straight in the face. Was he lying?

Such a statement was, indeed, ingenious, to say the least. Yet how, recollecting that he had left the empty house in secret, could he believe that Max knew the truth and was concealing it? Was it really possible that he was in ignorance? Barclay thought. Had he gone to Cromwell Road expecting to find the doctor at home, just as he had done?

If he had, then why had he crept out of the place and made his escape so hurriedly?

Again, he recollected the result of the search in company with the man from Harmer's, and the finding of the open safe. Somebody had been there after his visit; somebody who had robbed the safe! That person must have been aware of the departure of the doctor. Who was it if not the man seated there before him?

"Well, Rolfe," Max remarked at last. "You're quite mistaken. I haven't the slightest notion of where they are. I've done my best to try and discover some clue to the direction of their flight, but all in vain.

The more I have probed the affair, the more extraordinary and more mystifying has it become."

"What have you discovered?" asked Charlie quickly.

"Several strange things. First, I have found that the furniture was removed in vans painted with the name of Harmer's Stores, but they were not Harmer's vans. The household goods were spirited away that night, n.o.body knows whither."

"And with them the Doctor and Maud."

"Exactly. But--well, tell me the truth, Charlie. Have you had no message of whatever sort from Maud?"

"None," he replied, his face full of pale anxiety.

"But, my dear fellow she loved you, did she not? It was impossible for her to conceal it."

"Yes, I know. That's why I can't make it out at all. I sometimes think that--"

"That what?"

"Well, that there's been foul play, Max," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "You know what the people of those Balkan countries are--so many political conspirators in every walk of life. And the doctor was such a prominent politician in Servia."

Was he telling an untruth? If so, he was a marvellous actor.

"Then you declare that you have received no word from either Maud or the Doctor."

"I have heard nothing from them."

"But, Charlie," he said slowly, "has it not struck you that Marion knows something--that if she liked she could furnish us with a clue to the solution of the mysterious affair?"

"Yes," he said, his face brightening at once. "How curious! That thought struck me also. She knows something, evidently, but refuses to say a word."

"Because she is Maud's most intimate friend."

"Yet she ought, merely to set my mind at rest. She knows how fondly I love Maud."

"What has she told you?"

"She's merely urged me to be patient. That's all very well, because I feel sure that if Maud were allowed to do so she would write to me."

"Her father may prevent her. He does not write to me, remember," said Max.