As Quarles says, she is a genius, and it would be a thousand pities if she were in prison.
CHAPTER II
THE KIDNAPING OF EVA WILKINSON
The Queen's Square affair seemed to have exhausted Quarles's enthusiasm. I tried to interest him in several cases without success, and I began to think we really had done our last work together, when on his own initiative he mentioned Ewart Wilkinson to me. He had a personal interest in the man; I had only just heard his name.
The multi-millionaire is not such a figure in this country as he is in America, but Ewart Wilkinson was undoubtedly on the American scale. He had made his money abroad, how or exactly where remained matters of uncertainty, and if one were inclined to believe the stories told in irresponsible journals, there must have been much in the past which he found it wiser not to talk about. With such tales I have nothing to do. I never met the millionaire, was, in fact, quite uninterested in him until his wealth was concerned in a case which came into my hands.
With Christopher Quarles it was different. For a few days on one occasion he had stayed in the same house with the millionaire in Scotland, and had been impressed with him. Wilkinson was rough, but a diamond under the rough, according to Quarles. He may have had his own ideas of what constituted legitimate business, but whatever his shortcomings, the professor found in him a vein of sentiment which was attractive. He had a passion for his only daughter which appealed to Quarles, partly, no doubt, because it made him think of Zena, and there was a strain of melancholy in him which made him apprehensive that his wealth would not be altogether for his daughter's good. He had talked in this way to Quarles. For all we knew to the contrary, conscience may have been pricking him, but the fact remained that he was prophetic.
Wherever and in whatever way Ewart Wilkinson made his money, he undoubtedly had it. He rented a house in Mayfair, and purchased Whiteladies in Berkshire. The Elizabethan house, built on to the partial ruins of an old castle, has no doubt attracted many of you when motoring through South Berkshire. Having bought a beautiful home, he looked for a beautiful wife to put in it. Perhaps she was in the nature of a purchase, too, for he married Miss Lavory, the only daughter of Sir Miles Lavory, Bart., who put his pride in his pocket when he consented to an alliance with mere millions. It was said that Miss Lavory was driven into the match, but however this may be, Ewart Wilkinson proved a devoted husband, and his wife had ten years of a happy married life in the midst of luxury. She died when her daughter was eight.
For ten years after her mother's death Eva Wilkinson and her father were hardly ever separated, and then Ewart Wilkinson died suddenly. He left practically the whole of his vast fortune to his daughter; and her uncle, Mrs. Wilkinson's brother Michael, who had recently succeeded his father in the baronetcy, was left her guardian. There was a curious clause in the will. Wilkinson, possibly because one or two cases had happened in America at the time the will was made—half a dozen years before his death—seemed particularly afraid that the heiress might be kidnaped, and her guardian was enjoined to watch over her in this respect especially. Within six months of his death the very thing he feared happened. Eva Wilkinson was at Whiteladies at the time with her companion, Mrs. Reville. After dinner one evening she went alone on to the terrace, and from that moment had entirely disappeared. A telegram was sent that night to Sir Michael, who was in London, Scotland Yard was informed, and the mystery was given me to solve.
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 circumstances 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.