"Well, it"s evident that you suspect me of sneaking into the house, breaking open the Doctor"s safe, and taking the contents," he said plainly, annoyed.
"The Doctor may have returned himself in secret," Max replied. "But such could hardly be the case, for the door had been blown open by explosives."
"That would have created a noise," Charlie remarked quickly. "Shows that whoever did it was a blunderer."
"Exactly. That"s just my opinion. What I want to establish is the motive for the secret visit, and who made it."
"Well, I can a.s.sure you that I"m in entire ignorance of the existence of any safe in the Doctor"s house."
"And so was I. It was concealed by the furniture until my second visit, on the following morning."
"Curious," Rolfe said. "Very curious indeed. The whole thing is most remarkable--especially how both father and daughter got away without leaving the least trace of their flight."
"Then you don"t antic.i.p.ate foul play?" Max asked quickly.
"Why should one?"
"The Doctor had a good many political enemies."
"We all have enemies. Who has not? But they don"t come and murder one and take away one"s household goods."
"Then I am to take it that it was not you I saw at Cromwell Road, Charlie?" asked his friend in deep earnestness, at the same time filled with suspicion. He felt that his eyes could not deceive him.
"In all seriousness," was the other"s reply. "I was not there. This personation of myself shows that there was some very clever and deeply-laid scheme."
"But you"ve just declared that a falsehood was permissible where a woman"s honour was concerned?"
"Well, and will not every man with a sense of honour towards a woman hold the same opinion? You yourself, Max, for instance, are not the man to give a woman away?"
"I know! I know--only--"
"Only what? Surely you do not disagree with me!"
"In a sense I don"t, but I"m anxious to clear up this matter as far as you yourself are concerned."
Rolfe saw that he had shaken his friend"s fixed belief that he had seen him in Cromwell Road. Max was now debating in his mind whether he had not suspected Charlie unjustly. It is so easy to suspect, and so difficult to satisfy one"s self of the actual truth. The mind is, alas!
too apt to receive ill-formed impressions contrary to fact.
"It is already cleared up," Rolfe answered without hesitation. "I was not there. You were entirely mistaken. Besides, my dear chap, why should I go there when I had been particularly asked by Maud not to visit the house?"
"When did she ask you?"
"Only the night before. That very fact is, in itself, curious. She urged me that whatever might occur, I was not to go to the house."
"Then she antic.i.p.ated something--eh?"
"It seems as though she did."
"And she told Marion something on the night when she and her father disappeared."
"I know."
"You know what she told her?"
"No. Marion refuses to tell me, I wish I could induce her to speak.
Marion knows the truth--that"s my firm belief."
"And mine also."
"The two girls have some secret in common," Rolfe said. "Can"t you get Marion to tell you?"
"She refuses. I"ve asked her half a dozen times already."
"I wonder why! There must be some reason."
"Of course there is. She is loyal to her friend. But tell me honestly, Charlie. Do you know the Doctor"s whereabouts?"
"I tell you honestly that I haven"t the slightest idea. The affair is just as great a mystery to me as to you."
"But why have you kept away from me till to-day?" Barclay asked. "It isn"t like you."
"Well," answered Rolfe, with a slight hesitation, "to tell you the truth, because I thought your manner had rather changed towards me of late."
"Why, my dear fellow, I"m sure it never has."
"But you suspected me of being in that house on the night of the disappearance!"
"Of course, because I saw you."
"Because you thought you saw me," Charlie said, correcting him. "You surely would not misjudge me for that."
"No. But your theory regarding falsehoods has, I must admit, caused some suspicion in my mind."
"Of what?"
"Well, of prevaricating in order to shield a woman--Maud it may be."
"I am not shielding her!" he declared. "There is nothing to shield. I love her very dearly indeed, and she loves me devotedly in return.
Cannot you imagine, Max, my perturbed state of mind now that she has disappeared without a word?"
"Has she sent you no secret message of her safety?" Max asked, seriously.
"Not a word."
"And you do not know, then, if she has not met with foul play?"
"I don"t. That"s just it! Sometimes--" And he rose from his chair and paced the room in agony of mind. "Sometimes--I--I feel as if I shall go mad. I love her--just as you love Marion! Sometimes I feel a.s.sured of her safety--that she and her father have been compelled to disappear for political or other reasons--and then at others a horrible idea haunts me that my love may be dead--the victim of some vile, treacherous plot to take from me all that has made my life worth living!"
"Stop!" cried Max, starting to his feet and facing him. "You love her-- eh?"