Thence I dispatched a telegram addressed to Professor Greer at the address in Strassburg which his daughter had given me, appending Kirk’s name, and asking for a reply to be sent to the Albion Hotel at Broadstairs, where I intended staying.
Afterwards I strolled to the hotel, ate my luncheon, and idled along the deserted jetty and promenade throughout the bleak, bright afternoon in eager expectation of a response from the impostor. My thought was ever on my dear lost Mabel. Fettered by ignorance and mystery, I knew not in which direction to search, nor could I discern any motive by which we should be thus parted.
My tea I took in the hotel, and afterwards smoked a cigar, until just before six the waiter handed me a message, a brief reply to mine, which read:
“Why are you running risks in Broadstairs, when you should be elsewhere? Be judicious and leave.—Greer.”
I read the message over a dozen times. What risks could Kirk be running by coming to Broadstairs? Was not that telegram essentially a word of warning given by one accomplice to another?
And yet Ethelwynn trusted Kirk just as blindly and foolishly as her father had done.
But was not the truth a strange one? She had concealed from me, as she was concealing from the world, that the Professor had died at the hand of an unknown assassin.
Or was it that she herself was an accomplice?
No, I could never believe that. I refused to give credence to any such suggestion.
I ascended the long hill to Broadstairs Station, and half an hour later left for Victoria. My intention was to go direct to Strassburg and there to discover and unmask the impostor. But ere I reached London the night mail for the Continent had already left Charing Cross, so I took a taxi-cab to my lonely home, where Gwen was awaiting me, still anxious and expectant.