The Stolen Statesman: Being the Story of a Hushed Up Mystery

by William Le Queux

guests?"

  The fat landlord glanced at him hesitatingly. Varney was attired in awell-cut Norfolk suit, and his plush Homburg hat must have hailed fromBond Street. He looked the sort of man for a fashionable hotel, not anobscure bacon-and-egg inn.

  "Well, sir, we do now and again. We don't pretend to do you like thebig places with French dishes and that sort of thing. But my wife is agood plain cook, and you won't get better meat and chickens than wehave."

  Terms were soon arranged. Varney--or Mr Franks as he announced himselfto the landlord--would come down to-morrow, bringing with him a fewsketching materials.

  Next day Varney returned with a portable easel, and other paraphernaliaappertaining to his supposed art. He had not been in the househalf-an-hour before he engaged the landlord in a conversation about thelocal gentry. And it was soon deftly focussed upon the owner of ForestView.

  Mr Peter Chawley was by nature a gregarious and communicative soul. Hewas only reticent when policy or prudence counselled such a course ofaction.

  "Mr Strange has been here about five months," he informed young Varney,in his fat, somewhat wheezy voice, "but we don't know very much abouthim. When he first came, he used to go up to London pretty often, butfor some time he has hardly stirred out of the house."

  "Has he any acquaintances in the place?"

  Mr Chawley shook his head. "Doesn't want any, so he told the Vicarwhen he called upon him. Said he had come here for a quiet life, andwanted to get away from his business in London and the friends he hadalready. Of course, that was a pretty broad hint--so nobody called. Hedoesn't deal with anybody here for a pennyworth of matches. Getseverything from London."

  "What household has he? And is he a widower, or bachelor, or married?"

  "Told the Vicar he was a widower. He has three maids: the cook, amiddle-aged woman, housemaid, and parlourmaid--all three he brought withhim. The gardener's a local man, a young chap, and comes in here oncein a while; but he knows no more than the rest of us. He hardly everenters the house, and the maids don't chatter."

  Forest View was a household that evidently kept its own secrets. Themaids did not chatter, even to the young local gardener. Mystery here,thought Varney, without a doubt. It was his business to fathom it. Washe really Stent? That was the point.

  "He got the house pretty cheap," went on Mr Chawley, who was not easilystopped when he indulged in reminiscence, "because it had been unlet forfive years. It's a funny old place, all nooks and corners, without anymodern convenience. Some people say it's haunted, and I've heard thatthere is a secret room in it, like what they used to hide the priests inin the old days."

  A mysterious house, with a mysterious owner, truly, thought Varney, asthe landlord rambled on.

  "Does he have anybody to see him?"

  "He never seems to have had but one visitor, a gentleman rather olderthan himself. He used to run down for two or three days at a time. Forsome time now he's been staying with him altogether."

  Varney pricked up his ears. Was he going to discover anything useful?

  "Do you know his friend's name?" he asked eagerly.

  "No, sir. The gardener has never heard it, but then, as I say, hehardly ever goes inside the house."

  The next day, and the day after, Varney watched Forest View closely.From the roadway he had a fairly clear view of the sloping lawn. Butneither its occupier nor his visitor were tempted out by the beautifulweather. They were certainly an extraordinary pair to shut themselvesup in a gloomy house on these bright sunshiny days.

  On the third day, however, both emerged from their seclusion, andsauntered on to the lawn. The visitor seemed to stoop slightly, andwalk with the languid air of a man who had recently recovered from anillness.

  They walked about only for a little while, and, as they went back intothe house, Varney, from his hiding-place behind the hedge, heard MrStrange say:

  "Well, if you think you feel fit enough, we will walk into Horsham afterlunch. We can drive back. It may do you good."

  An idea had formed itself in Varney's brain, fitting in with one of thetheories he had formed about this remarkable case.

  A little after one o'clock the supposed artist stole through the door ofthe inn, a basket in one hand, a good-sized bag in the other.

  A few yards down the road he disappeared up a side road, crossed afield, and advanced towards an old disused barn which he had noted onthe previous day, and slipped inside.

  A few moments later there issued a strange and shabbily dressed figure,with a slouching walk. On his left arm hung a basket, full of roses,which had been bought a short time ago from Mrs Chawley. They were sobeautiful, Varney told her, that he must paint them.

  In the guise of a decrepit flower-seller he limped along to the narrowmain street of Horsham, and hung about till the pair from Forest Viewarrived, when he faced them and advancing towards them with his basketbefore him, he whined when he had got up to them:

  "Buy a bunch of roses, sir. Threepence a bunch. All fresh picked,sir."

  "No," said Strange gruffly, "we don't want any, got lots of them," andthe pair turned away in ignorance that within that basket, concealed bythe flowers, was a small detective camera by which a snapshot of both ofthem had already been cleverly secured in secret.

  Varney made his way back at once to the old barn, where he discarded hisshabby jacket and cap.

  Early next morning he was on his way to Smeaton. He had a hope that hisinvestigations had been fruitful, but he could not be sure. Certainlythe face and figure of the man Strange answered to the description ofthe person named Stent whom Scotland Yard had been unable to trace.

  Having developed and printed the photograph at his own rooms, he wasshown into Smeaton's bare official sanctum which overlooked WestminsterBridge, when the celebrated official rose and gripped his hand.

  "Well, Varney?" he asked, "have you done anything in the Monktonmystery--eh?"

  "Yes. A bit. Look here. Is this Stent--or not? If it is. I've foundhim."

  The detective took the damp print and examined it curiously in the lightby the window.

  "Well--the only man who can really identify it is our friend at theSavoy Hotel. Let's take a taxi and go and see him."

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

  CONTAINS FURTHER DISCOVERIES.

  They found the hall-porter at the Savoy hotel, and showed him the print.It was not a very wonderful specimen of the photographer's art, but itwas enough for Smeaton's old friend.

  "That's him--right enough!" the man in uniform exclaimed. "And you saythat you were told his name was Stent by the lady we spoke about, andthis gentleman has discovered him under another name. Well, I alwaysthought there was something mysterious about him."

  After such confirmation it could no longer be doubted that Varney hadrun the supposed Stent to earth. He felt a distinct sense of triumph.He had hoped his exertions might have produced some startling results,but still, he had done something.

  Smeaton was not an envious man, and congratulated him heartily. "It'sreally a feather in your cap, my dear Varney," he said amiably. "Yougot on the right track this time."

  Varney thanked him for his encouraging words. "Now, what's the nextmove? I leave it to you."

  Smeaton thought a few seconds before he answered. When he spoke, hevoiced the man's inmost thoughts.

  "I think the best thing you can do is to go back and keep up thesketching business. We want to find out all we can about that house andits mysterious inmates. And we especially want to know something aboutthat invalid visitor. There is just a chance, of course, that you mayfind Mrs Saxton popping up there."

  As all this exactly coincided with his own theory, Varney acquiescedreadily. He would go back to Horsham the next day, and resume his watchon Forest View.

  "You can't be watching in two places at once," added Smeaton presently."So we will take up Farloe."

  So it was decided. Mrs Saxton having disappeared, with smalllikelihood of her return, t
here remained three people to be shadowed:the secretary, Bolinski, and the man who went by the name of Strange,and who, for reasons of his own, was keeping away from the Savoy, andcoming to London as seldom as possible.

  Varney's discovery, of which he was not a little proud, was dulyreported to Sheila by the young man himself, who called upon her as soonas he had left Smeaton.

  She could not but admire his energy and determination, and she told himso, in no measured terms. But when he had gone, she could not helpthinking how futile it all seemed.

  "They all find a little something, and then they seem to come up againsta dead end," she said to Wingate, when he paid her his usual dailyvisit. "Weeks have gone by, and the mystery is as deep as ever. Howcan it be otherwise? What have they got to go