“If I had I shouldn’t tell a journalist,” Johnson answered with a smile. “No, not even you, Hopford.”
The lad laughed.
“And I can’t blame you,” he said, “though personally when I promise not to print news told me in confidence I never do print it. But there are a lot of little mysteries we both know about which have not yet been cleared up, and somehow several seem to me to be directly or indirectly connected with one another.
“First, there was the epidemic of unaccountable suicides between a year and eighteen months ago, when Lord Hope-Cooper, Sir Stephen Lethbridge, Viscount Molesley, Lord Froissart and his daughter, that queer woman, Leonora Vandervelt, Henry Hartsilver, and half-a-dozen more put an end to themselves apparently for no reason, and then there was the second epidemic of the same sort only a month or two ago.
“In addition there are the queer stories concerning Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson and her two inseparables; Levi Schomberg’s strange death; the rumors to do with Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s husband—some say he is alive and some say he isn’t; that affair regarding La Planta’s being obviously drugged, though to this day nobody knows who drugged him, why he was drugged, or even where he was drugged; Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s fainting fit at her own house on the same night, followed by the theft of her jewels; the robbery and recovery at the Albert Hall ball of Mrs. Stringborg’s necklace; Stapleton’s anxiety that the theft of Mrs. Robertson’s jewels should be attributed to Mrs. Hartsilver; oh, and several other things.
“The clerk I mentioned just now also told me that at one time Archie La Planta represented an insurance firm in Amsterdam of which Lord Froissart was the principal director, and that before his death Froissart had been a good deal upset at what seems to have been a trick played upon his Company by some of the policy holders—apparently they insured valuable jewels and uncut precious stones which subsequently were stolen by the very men who had insured them, or rather by some of their accomplices; but as nothing could be proved the Company had to pay the full claim, though it did so under protest. Altogether, Johnson, there is a good deal I want to find out, but it will be a fine scoop for my paper if I succeed, and I feel confident I shall do so when I get to Paris.”
“You did not tell me you were going to Paris,” Johnson said, smiling at the lad’s enthusiasm. “Or for that matter that you meant to try to solve the bunch of problems you have just enumerated.”
“Didn’t I?” Hopford exclaimed. “Well, that is the idea. I am here for a short holiday, then I go to Paris where I have a friend on the staff of Le Matin, an extraordinarily clever fellow with a genius for putting together puzzles of this sort. He was in London last month, and when in course of conversation I chanced to speak about the two epidemics of suicide there had been among our society people, and mentioned the names of some of the victims, he became greatly interested, and started asking me all sorts of questions.
“He referred to the subject several times again while in town, and finally told me that if I could go to Paris he thought he would be able to put me on to at least one useful clue, and suggested we might work the thing together—the subject would interest Le Matin too, he said. Thereupon I consulted my chief who, though skeptical as to the likelihood of my succeeding, gave me leave to go to Paris for a week or two. Tell me, Johnson, have you any friends there who might be of use to me?”
The doctor pondered for some moments.