He was in doubt, and uncertain as to how much, or how little, was known by this man who loved his sister.
"I saw you there, Rolfe, with my own eyes," repeated Max, looking straight into his face.
He tried to speak. What could he say? For an instant his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth.
"I--I don"t quite understand you," he faltered. "What do you mean?"
"Simply that I saw you at the Doctor"s house on the night of their disappearance."
"My dear fellow," he laughed, in a moment, perfectly cool, "you must have been mistaken. You actually say you saw me?"
"Most certainly I did," declared Max, his eyes still upon his friend.
"Then all I can say is that you saw somebody who resembled me. Tell me exactly what you did see."
Max was for a moment silent. He never expected that Rolfe would flatly deny his presence there. This very fact had increased his suspicions a hundredfold.
"Well, the only person I saw, Charlie, was you yourself--leaving the house. That"s all."
"Somebody who closely resembled me, I expect."
"Then you deny having been at the house that evening?" asked Max in great surprise.
"Why, of course I do. You"re absolutely mistaken, old chap," was Charlie"s response. "Of course, I can quite see how this must have puzzled you. But what now arises in my mind is whether someone has not endeavoured to personate me. It seems very much as though they have.
You say that I left the house. When?"
"After the removal. You were in the empty house, which you left secretly."
"And you were there also, then?" he asked.
"Of course. I called, ignorant that they had left." Charlie Rolfe did not speak for several moments.
"Well," he exclaimed at last, "it seems that somebody has been impersonating me. I certainly was not there."
"Why should they impersonate you?"
"Who knows? Is there not mystery in the whole affair?"
"But if somebody went there dressed to resemble you, there must have been a motive in their visit," Max said.
"Well, old fellow, as you know, I have kept away from the house of late--at Maud"s request. She feared that her father did not approve of my too frequent visits."
"And so you met her at dusk in the quiet streets about Nevern Square and the adjacent thoroughfares?"
"Certainly. I told you so. I made no secret of it to you. Why should I?"
"Then why make a secret about your visit to the house on that particular evening?"
"I don"t make any secret of it," he protested. "As I"ve already told you, I was not there."
"But you didn"t leave Charing Cross, as you made people believe you had done. You didn"t even go to the station," returned Max.
"Certainly I did not."
"You had no intention, when you saw Marion at Cunnington"s, of leaving at all. Come, admit that."
"You are quite right. I did not intend to leave London."
"But Statham had given you orders to go."
"I do not always obey his orders when it is to his own interest that I should disregard them," he replied enigmatically.
"Then you had a reason for not going to Servia?"
"I had--a very strong one."
"Connected with Maud Petrovitch?"
"In no way whatever. It was a purely personal motive."
"And you thought fit to disregard Statham"s injunctions in order to attend to your own private business!"
"It was his business, as well as mine," declared Charlie, who, after a pause, asked: "Now tell me, Max, why are you cross-examining me like a criminal lawyer? What do you suspect me of?"
"Well--shall I be frank?"
"Certainly. We are old enough friends for that."
"Then I"m sorry to say, Charlie, that I suspect you of telling a lie."
"Lies are permissible in certain cases--for instance, where a woman"s honour is at stake," he replied, fixing his eyes steadily upon those of his friend.
"Then you admit that what you have just told me is not the truth?"
"I admit nothing. I only repeat that I was not in Cromwell Road on the evening in question."
"But my eyes don"t deceive me, man! I saw your face, remember."
"If it was actually my face, it was not in Cromwell Road. That"s quite certain?" laughed old Statham"s secretary. "But it was your face."
"It was, I repeat, somebody who resembled me," he declared. "But you haven"t told me what the person was doing in the empty house."
"That"s just what I don"t know," Barclay replied. "I only know this: When I entered that night I saw nothing of a safe let into the wall.
But on going there the next day the safe stood revealed, the door was open, and it was empty."
"And so you charge me with being a thief!" cried Rolfe, his cheek flushing.
"Not at all. You asked me for the truth, and I"ve told you."