His own activity had been, perhaps, unparalleled. The strain of such constant travel and continual excitement would have broken most men; but he possessed an iron constitution, and though he spent weeks on end in trains and steamboats, it never affected him in the least. He could snatch sleep at any time, and he could write anywhere.
Whether or not Enid had guessed the reason of his urgent appeal to her not to pass through France, she had nevertheless managed to excuse herself; but a week after Mrs. Caldwell's departure she had travelled alone by the Harwich-Antwerp route, evidently much to the annoyance of the alert doctor of Pimlico.
Walter had impressed upon her the desirability of not entering France—without, however, giving any plain reason. He left her to guess.
Through secret sources in Paris he had learnt how poor Paul Le Pontois was still awaiting trial. In order not to excite public opinion, the matter was being kept secret by the French authorities, and it had been decided that the inquiry should be held with closed doors.
A week after his arrest the French police received additional evidence against him in the form of a cryptic telegram addressed to the Château, an infamous and easily deciphered message which, no doubt, had been sent with the distinct purpose of strengthening the amazing charge against him. He protested entire ignorance of the sender and of the meaning of the message, but his accusers would not accept any disclaimer. So cleverly, indeed, had the message been worded that at the Sûreté it was believed to refer to the price he had received for certain bundles of spurious notes.
Without a doubt the scandalous telegram had been sent at Weirmarsh's instigation by one of his friends in order to influence the authorities in Paris.
So far as the doctor was concerned he was ever active in receiving reports from his cosmopolitan friends abroad. But since his quarrel with Sir Hugh he had ceased to visit Hill Street, and had, apparently, dropped the old general's acquaintance.
Sir Hugh was congratulating himself at the easy solution of the difficulty, but Walter, seated at that little marble-topped table in the winter sunshine, knowing Weirmarsh's character, remained in daily apprehension.
The exciting life he led in assisting to watch those whom Scotland Yard suspected was as nothing compared with the constant fear of the unmasking of Sir Hugh Elcombe. Doctor Weirmarsh was an enemy, and a formidable one.
The mystery concerning the death of Bellairs had increased rather than diminished. Each step he had taken in the inquiry only plunged him deeper and deeper into an inscrutable problem. He had devoted weeks to endeavouring to solve the mystery, but it remained, alas! inscrutable.