CHAPTER LIV.
A CHIEF’S PERPLEXITIES.
On Wednesday, the day following that which witnessed the arrival of Walter Parks and John Ainsworth, Mr. Follingsbee, seated at a late breakfast, perused a letter, which, judging from the manner of its reception, must have contained something unusual and interesting.
He read it, re-read it, and read it again. Then pushing back his chair, and leaving his repast half finished, he hurried from the breakfast-room, and up stairs, straight to that cosey room which, for many days, had been occupied by a guest never visible below. This guest had also recently turned away from a dainty breakfast, the fragments of which yet remained upon the small table at his elbow, and he was now perusing the morning paper with the bored look of a man who reads only to kill time.
He glanced up as the lawyer entered, but did not rise.
“Well,” began his visitor, “at last I have something to wake you up with: orders to march.”
He held in his hand the open letter, and standing directly in front of the other, read out its contents with the tone and manner of a man pronouncing his own vindication after a long-suffering silence:
Dear Sir:
At last you may release your voluntary prisoner. It is best that he return at once to W—— place. Let him go quietly and without fear. By afternoon there may be other arrivals, whom he will be glad to welcome. For yourself, be at the Chief’s office this day at 4. P.M.
STANHOPE.
The reader paused and looked triumphantly at his audience of one.
“So,” commented this audience, “his name is Stanhope.”
Mr. Follingsbee started and then laughed.
“I don’t think he cared to keep his identity from you longer,” he said, “otherwise he would not have signed his name. I think this means that the play is about to end”—tapping the letter lightly with his two fingers. “You have heard of Dick Stanhope, I take it?”
“Stanhope, the detective? Yes; and I am somewhat puzzled. I have always heard of Stanhope in connection with Van Vernet.”
“Umph! so has everybody. They’re on opposite sides of this case, however. Well, shall you follow Mr. Stanhope’s advice?”
“I shall, although his advice reads much like a command. I shall take him at his word, and go at once.”
“Now?”
“This very hour, if your carriage is at my disposal.”
“That, of course.”
“I feel like a puppet in invisible hands”—rising and moving nervously about—“but, having pledged myself to accept the guidance of this eccentric detective, I will do my part.”
“Well,” said the lawyer dryly, “you seem in a desperate hurry. Be sure you don’t overdo it.”
“I won’t; I’ll go home and wait for what is to happen in the afternoon.”
Half an hour thereafter, a carriage drew up at the side entrance of the Warburton mansion, and a gentleman leaped out, ran lightly up the steps, opened the door with a latch-key held ready in his hand, and disappeared within. The carriage rolled away the moment its occupant had alighted.
In another moment, a man, who had been lounging on the opposite side of the street, faced about slowly, and sauntered along until he reached the street corner. Turning here he quickened his pace, increasing his speed as he went, until his rapid walk became a swift run just as he turned the second corner.
At ten o’clock of this same morning, the Chief of the detectives is sitting again in his sanctum, his brow knit and frowning, his hands tapping nervously upon the arms of his easy chair, his whole mind absorbed in intensest thought. Usually he meets the problems that come to him with imperturbable calm, and looks them down and through; but to-day the thought that he faces is so disagreeable, so perplexing, so baffling,—and it will not be looked down, nor thought down.
Up to the date of this present perplexity, he has found himself equal to all the emergencies of his profession. Living in a domain of Mysteries, he has been himself King of them all; has held in his hand the clue to each. His men may have worked in the dark, or with only a fragment of light, a glimmer of the truth, to guide them. But he, their Chief, has overlooked their work, seeing beyond their range of vision, and through it, to the end.
Always this had been the case until—yes, he would acknowledge the truth—until this all-demanding Englishman had swooped down upon him with his old, old mystery, and taken from the Agency, for his own eccentric uses, its two best men. Always, until Van Vernet and Richard Stanhope had arrayed themselves as antagonists, in seeking a solution of the same problem.
Following up the train of thought suggested by the re-reading of his diary, the Chief has been suddenly confronted with some unpleasant suspicions and possibilities.
He has pondered everything pertaining to the mystery surrounding Vernet’s improper use of his business letter-heads, and his visit to the Warburton mansion in the guise of Augustus Grip. And he has vainly tried to trace the connection between these manœuvres and some of Stanhope’s inconsistencies.
In the search, he has made a discovery: Alan Warburton, the uncle of the lost child for whom his men have been vainly searching, and Leslie Warburton, the widow of the late Archibald Warburton, have both sailed for Europe. Business connected with the search has been transacted through Mr. Follingsbee; and this voyage across the sea, at so inopportune a time, has been treated by the lawyer with singular reticence, not to say secrecy.
What could have caused these two to make such a journey at such a time? Why did Van Vernet enter their house in disguise? Who were the two that had sailed to Europe by proxy? What was this mystery which, he instinctively felt, had taken root on the night of the fruitless Raid?
“It was young Warburton who had secured Vernet’s services, and afterwards dismissed him in such summary fashion. It was Mr. Follingsbee who had engaged Stanhope, for that self-same night, for a masquerade. If I could question Stanhope,” he muttered. “Oh! I need not wait for that; I’ll interview Follingsbee.”
He dashed off a note, asking the lawyer to wait upon him that afternoon, and having dispatched it, was about to resume the study of his new problem, when Sanford entered with a memorandum in his hand.
“Beale has come in,” he said in a low tone. “He has been the rounds, and gives a full report of Vernet’s movements.”
“Has Beale been out alone?”
“Not since the first two hours; he has three men out now.”
“Phew! Well, read your minutes, Sanford; I see you have taken them down from word of mouth.”
“Yes, it was the shortest way. Vernet is watching three localities.”
“Oh!”
“Beale shadowed him, first, to the residence of Mr. Follingsbee, the lawyer.”
“Umph!” The Chief started, then checked himself, and sank back in his chair.
“Here,” continued Sanford, “he had a man on guard. They exchanged a few words, and Vernet went away, the shadower staying near the lawyer’s house. From there Vernet went direct to Warburton Place.”
The Chief bit his lips and stirred uneasily.
“Here he had another shadower. They also conferred together. Then Vernet took a carriage and went East to the suburbs; out to the very edge of the city, where the houses are scattering and inhabited by poor laborers. At the end of K. street, he left his carriage, and went on foot to a little saloon, the farthest out of any in that vicinity. There he had a long talk with a fellow who seemed to be personating a bricklayer. He left the saloon and went back to his carriage, seemingly in high spirits, and the bricklayer departed in the opposite direction.”
“Away from the city?”
“Yes; toward the furthermost houses.”
The Chief bent his head and meditated.
“This happened, when?” he asked.
“Yesterday.”
“And Beale; what did he do?”
“Set three men to watch three men. One at Follingsbee’s, one at Warburton Place, and one at the foot of K. street.”
“Good; and these shadowers of Vernet’s—could Beale identify either of them?”
“No; he is sure they do not belong to us, and were never among our men.”
“Very well. Beale has done famously. Let him keep a strict watch until further orders.”
Once more the Chief knits his brow and ponders. The mystery grows deeper, and he finds in it ample food for meditation.
But he is doomed to interruption. This time it is Vernet’s report.
He eyes it askance, and lays it upon the desk beside him. Just now it is less interesting, less important, than his own thoughts.
But again his door opens. He lifts his head with a trace of annoyance. It is George, the office boy. He comes forward and proffers a note to his Chief.
The latter takes it slowly, looks languidly at the superscription, then breaks the seal.
One glance, and the expression of annoyance and languor is gone; the eyes brighten, and the whole man is alive with interest.
And yet the note contains only these two lines:
Send three good men, in plain clothes, to the last saloon at the foot of K. street, 2 P. M. sharp.
Dick S.
“Oh!” ejaculates the Chief, “Dick at last! Something is going to happen.”
And then he calls the office boy back.
“Go to this address,” he says, hastily writing upon a card; “ask for Mr. Parks, and say to him that I am obliged to beg himself and friend to put off their interview with me until this afternoon, say three o’clock.”
When the boy had departed, he turned to the desk and took up Vernet’s report. As he opened it, he frowned and muttered:
“Vernet’s doing some queer work. If it were any one else, I should say he was in a muddle. As it is, I shall not feel sure that all is right until I know what his manœuvres mean. I’ll have no more interviews until I have seen Follingsbee, and studied this matter out.”