I had commenced my inquiries when on going to Chelsea in the evening Quarles told me he had met Ewart Wilkinson about three years before, and under the circ.u.mstances he was very interested in the mystery.
"The fact that he was afraid of something happening to his daughter suggests that he had some reason for his fear," I said.
"It does, Wigan--it does! He mentioned this very thing to me three years ago, and I thought then there was some one in his past of whom he was afraid."
"And his past seems to be a closed book," I returned.
"Eva Wilkinson must be between eighteen and nineteen," Zena remarked. "Kidnaping a girl of that age is a different thing from kidnaping a child."
"True!" said Quarles.
"Isn"t it more probable that she went away willingly?" said Zena.
"You don"t help me, my dear," said the professor with a frown, and the suggestion seemed to irritate him. It stuck in his mind, however, for when we went to see Sir Michael the idea was evidently behind his first question.
"Is there any love affair?" asked Quarles. "Any reason which might possibly induce the girl to go away of her own accord?"
The suggestion seemed to bring a ray of hope into Sir Michael"s despair.
"I think she is too sensible a girl to do anything of the kind, but there was a little affair, not very serious on her side, I fancy, and there was probably a desire for money on the man"s part. Young Cayley has seen Eva at intervals since they were children, but in her father"s lifetime there was no question of love. Directly after Wilkinson"s death, however, Edward Cayley came prominently on the scene. I talked to Eva about him, and although she was inclined to be angry, I think it was rather with herself than at my interference."
"Cayley is quite a poor man, I presume?" said Quarles.
"Yes; but that did not influence me. He is not the kind of man I should like my niece to marry. Oh! I have nothing definite against him."
"May I ask whether, as guardian, you have control over your niece"s choice?" I asked.
"Until she is twenty-one, after that none at all," he answered. "If she marries without my consent before she is of age, I am empowered to distribute a million of money to certain specified hospitals and charities. She has only to wait until she is twenty-one to do exactly as she likes. It was my brother-in-law"s way of ensuring that his daughter should not act with undue haste. Perhaps, for my own sake, I ought to explain that in no way, nor under any circ.u.mstances, can I benefit under the will. When my sister married Mr. Wilkinson, he behaved very generously to my father, paying off the mortgages on our estate; in short, delivered us from a very difficult position. Naturally, we never expected any place in the will, but I hear the omission has caused some people to speculate, and now that this has happened there may be people who will speculate about me personally."
"You certainly have a very complete answer," I returned. "What is your own opinion of your niece"s disappearance?"
"I think she has been kidnaped, possibly for the sake of ransom, possibly because--" and then he paused for a moment. "You know Mr. Wilkinson was afraid of this very thing?"
"Three years ago he mentioned it to me," said Quarles.
"You knew him, then?"
"I was staying in the same house with him in Scotland; his daughter was not there. Such a fear, Sir Michael, suggests something in the past, something Mr. Wilkinson kept to himself."
"I do not know of anything," was the answer. "Of course, I have seen paragraphs in scandalous journals concerning his wealth, but I knew Ewart Wilkinson extremely well. He was, and always has been, I am convinced, a perfectly straightforward man."
This conversation took place early on the morning following the night of Eva Wilkinson"s disappearance, and afterwards Sir Michael journeyed down with us to Whiteladies. The local police were already scouring the country, and under intelligent supervision had accomplished a great deal of the spade work. I may just state the facts as far as they were known.
Mrs. Reville, who was in the drawing-room when the girl went out on the terrace, had heard nothing. A quarter of an hour or twenty minutes later she went out herself with the intention of telling Eva that she ought to put on a wrap. The girl was nowhere to be seen, and calling brought no answer. Becoming alarmed, Mrs. Reville summoned the servants, and their search proving fruitless, she had a telegram sent to Sir Michael. When I questioned her with regard to Cayley, she was sure there was nothing serious in the affair. He certainly could have had nothing to do with Eva"s disappearance, she declared, for he had gone to Paris two days before. Since Sir Michael had spoken to Eva about him he had hardly visited Whiteladies at all.
The servants had searched everywhere--in the house, in the grounds, and in the ruins, and later the police had gone over the same ground, and had searched everywhere on the estate; not a sign of the missing girl had been found. A footman, however, said he had heard a motor-car in the road about the time of the disappearance. He had listened, wondering who was coming to Whiteladies at that hour. The house stood in one corner of the estate, and there was a public road quite close to it, but it was a road little frequented. The marks of a car, which had stopped and turned at a point near the house, were plainly visible, and so far this was the only clue forthcoming. It proved an important one, because a tramp was found by the police who had seen a closed car traveling at a great speed toward the London road. The time, which he was able to fix very definitely, was about a quarter of an hour after Eva Wilkinson had gone on to the terrace.
"Has the tramp been detained?" Quarles asked, and being answered in the negative, said he ought to have been.
The professor examined the marks of the car minutely. There were two cars at Whiteladies, but neither of the tire markings were those of the car which had turned in the road.
It is only natural, I suppose, that when a number of persons are brought in contact with a mystery their behavior should tend to become unnatural.
It is one of a detective"s chief difficulties to determine between innocent and suspicious actions, the latter being often the result of temperament or of a desire to emphasize innocence. I never found a decision more difficult than in the case of Eva Wilkinson"s maid, a girl named Joan Perry; and because I could not decide in her case I was also suspicious of her young man Saunders, a gamekeeper on the estate. Joan Perry, a little later in the day, claimed to have made a remarkable discovery. A coat and skirt and a pair of walking shoes had been removed from her mistress"s wardrobe.
"What made you inspect her wardrobe?" I asked.
The question seemed to confuse her, but she finally said it was because she wondered whether Miss Eva had gone away on purpose. According to Perry the affair with Edward Cayley was a serious one. To some extent her young mistress had confided in her, she declared.
"Then she would hardly have gone away without letting you into the secret," I said.
"That is what I cannot understand," she answered.
Quarles agreed with me that this lent color to the idea that Eva Wilkinson had gone of her own accord.
"It is possible--even probable," he said, "but if she did, I take it she has been deceived and walked into a trap. If we can find that car we shall be on the right road."
When we set out on this quest in one of the motors at Whiteladies we had considerable success. The car had taken the direct road to London. We heard of it at an inn on the outskirts of Beading. It had stopped there, and a man had had his flask filled with brandy. A lady who was with him was not very well, he said. Chance helped us farther. The car had stopped by a roadside cottage. A man had come to the door full of apologies, but seeing a light in the window he ventured to ask if they could oblige him with a box of matches. He was quite a gentleman--young, dark, and very merry--the woman told us. He had led her to suppose that he and a lady were making a runaway match of it, because he had declared that there would certainly be a chase after them, but they had got a good start. The car had been drawn up on the side of the road at a little distance from the cottage, and it was undoubtedly the car we were after. The tire markings were quite distinct in the damp ground. At Hounslow we found the car itself. There had been an accident. Two men had walked into a garage, saying they had left the car on the roadside. Would the garage people have it brought in and repaired? The car should be sent for in a day or two. One man made a payment on account, and gave his name as Julius Hoffman, staying at the Langham Hotel.
The car was of an old type, but the man at the garage said the engines were in good condition. The tires were burst, otherwise there was nothing much the matter with the car beyond its age.
"Was anything found in the car?" I asked.
"An old glove and a handkerchief," and the man took them out of a drawer.
The glove told us nothing, but the handkerchief was a lady"s, and had "E.
W." embroidered on it.
"This is a police matter," I told the man. "A watch will be kept on the premises in case the car is claimed, which is very unlikely, I fancy."
Quarles was perplexed.
"I don"t understand it, Wigan. That car looks to me as if it had been purposely abandoned. Had they another car waiting, or was Hounslow their destination? Of course you must warn the police here, but--well, I do not understand it. I am going straight back to Chelsea."
"I will see the Hounslow police, and then go on to the Langham," I returned.
"Of course, that"s just ordinary detective work, and out of my line,"
Quarles said somewhat curtly, "but I don"t suppose your inquiries will lead anywhere."
In this surmise he was perfectly correct. No one of the name of Julius Hoffman was known at the Langham. The Hounslow police made no discovery, and the car was not claimed.
Later, the press circulated a description of Eva Wilkinson, with the result that scores of letters were received, most of them obviously written by amateur detectives, or by those peculiar kind of imbeciles whose imagination is so vivid that any person seems to fit the description of the person missing. The information in a few of these letters seemed definite enough to follow up, but in every case I drew blank. I gave my chief attention to learning the recent movements of known gangs who might be concerned in an enterprise of this sort, and at the end of two days this persistency brought a result. I received a letter posted in the West-central district, written, or rather scrawled, in printed letters. It was as follows:
"You may be on the right scent or you may not, but take warning. If you got to know anything, it would be the worse for E.W. We are in earnest, and our advice is, leave the job alone. No harm will come to the old devil"s daughter, if you mind your own business. She"ll turn up again all right. If you don"t mind your own business you"ll probably find her presently, and can bury her. You"ll find her dead,--THE LEAGUE."
With this letter I went to Chelsea, and the professor met me with a letter in his hand. He had received a like communication--word for word the same.
"An exact copy shows a barrenness of ideas," said I.