“Do you recollect ever meeting a French gentleman named Monsieur Suzor?” I asked her presently.
Instantly she exchanged glances with the woman Alford.
“No,” was her slow reply, her eyes again downcast. “I have no knowledge of any such man.”
It was upon the tip of my tongue to point out that they had met that mysterious Frenchman in Kensington Gardens, but I hesitated. They certainly were unaware that I had watched them.
Again, my French friend was a mystery. I did not lose sight of the fact that our first meeting had taken place on the day before my startling adventure in Stretton Street, and I began to wonder whether the man from Paris had not followed me up to York and purposely joined the train in which I had travelled back to London.
Why did both the woman Alford and Gabrielle Tennison deny all knowledge of the man whom they had met with such precautions of secrecy, and who, when afterwards he discovered that I was following him, had so cleverly evaded me? The man Suzor was evidently implicated in the plot, though I had never previously suspected it! Twice he had travelled with me, meeting me as though by accident, yet I now saw that he had been my companion with some set purpose in view.
What could it be?
It became quite plain that I could not hope to obtain anything further from either Gabrielle or the servant, therefore I assumed a polite and sympathetic attitude and told them that I hoped to call again on Mrs. Tennison’s return. Afterwards I left, feeling that at least I had gained some knowledge, even though it served to bewilder me the more.
Later I called upon Sir Charles Wendover in Cavendish Square, whom I found to be a quiet elderly man of severe professional aspect and demeanour, a man whose photograph I had often seen in the newspapers, for he was one of the best-known of mental specialists.
When I explained that the object of my visit was to learn something of the case of my friend Miss Tennison, he asked me to sit down and then switched on a green-shaded reading-lamp and referred to a big book upon his writing table. His consulting room was dull and dark, with heavy Victorian furniture and a great bookcase filled with medical works. In the chair in which I sat persons of all classes had sat while he had examined and observed them, and afterwards given his opinion to their friends.