“When I make a promise, Miss Rolfe, I keep it,” was his grave response. “Only forgive me for saying so, but you appear to be a little evasive regarding the Doctor’s daughter.”
“Evasive?” she echoed. “I don’t understand you, Mr Statham.”
“Well, you are trying to mislead me,” he answered, knitting his brows and looking her straight in the face. “And let me say that when you try to mislead Sam Statham you have a difficult task.”
She started at his sudden change of manner, and again became confused.
“Now,” he said, bending forward to her from his chair, “let us understand each other at the outset. You were the most intimate friend of this girl Maud who, with her father, suddenly disappeared from London. The facts of their disappearance are already known to me, I may as well tell you that much. They vanished, and took their household goods with them. Perhaps they were afraid of anarchists or political enemies, or perhaps the Doctor is wanted by the police. Who knows? It was a mystery, and as such remains, is not that so?”
She nodded. This knowledge of his astounded her. She had believed that the disappearance was only known to the two or three persons who had been the Petrovitchs’ personal friends. She little dreamed of the many spies in the pay of the great financier, men and women who reported to him any political move at home or abroad which might influence the markets. The world had often believed that Sam Statham was omnipresent. They knew nothing of his agents, or of their secret visits.
“Now, Miss Rolfe, let us advance one step further,” the old man said, still keeping his keen gaze upon hers. “If you will kindly carry your mind back to the day of their disappearance, you will remember that you accompanied the Doctor’s daughter to a concert at Queen’s Hall.”
“How do you know that?” she cried, starting up from her chair.
“How I know it is immaterial,” he said firmly. “Kindly re-seat yourself.”
“I will not,” she declared boldly. “You are cross-examining me as though I were a criminal. This is outrageous!”