a fortnight later—to be accurate, on the 21st of may—i did a thing i rarely do, and went down to south london on a county court case. it was an ordinary taxi-cab accident, and, as the solicitors for the company were good clients of mine, and the regular county-court junior was ill in bed, i took the case to oblige them. there was the usual dull conflict of evidence. an empty taxi-cab, proceeding slowly on the right side of the road and hooting decorously at the corners, had been run into by a private motor-car, which had darted down a side street. the taxi had been swung round and its bonnet considerably damaged, while its driver had suffered a dislocated shoulder. the bad feature in the case was that the motor-car had not halted to investigate the damage, but had proceeded unconscientiously on its way, and the assistance of the london police had been called in to trace it. it turned out to be the property of a mr. julius pavia, a retired east india merchant, who lived in a large villa in the neighbourhood of blackheath, and at the time of the accident it had been occupied by his butler. the company brought an action for damages against its owner.
the butler, tuke, by name, was the only witness for the defence. he was a tall man, with a very long, thin face, and a jaw the two parts of which seemed scarcely to fit. he was profuse in his apologies on behalf of his master, who was abroad. it seemed that on the morning in question—it was the 8th of may—he had received instructions from mr. pavia to convey a message to a passenger by the continental express from victoria, and had been hot on this errand when he met the taxi. he was not aware that there had been any damage, thought it only a slight grazing of the two cars, and on his master's behalf consented to the judgment of the court.
it was a commonplace business, but tuke was by no means a commonplace witness. he was very unlike the conventional butler, much liker one of those successful financiers whose portraits you see in the picture papers. his little eyes were quick with intelligence, and there were lines of ruthlessness around his mouth, like those of a man often called to decisive action. his story was simplicity itself, and he answered my questions with an air of serious candour. the train he had to meet was the 11 a.m. from victoria, the train by which tommy had travelled. the passenger he had to see was an american gentleman, mr. wright davies. his master, mr. pavia, was in italy, but would shortly be home again.
the case was over in twenty minutes, but it was something unique in my professional experience. for i took a most intense and unreasoning dislike to that bland butler. i cross-examined with some rudeness, was answered with steady courtesy, and hopelessly snubbed. the upshot was that i lost my temper, to the surprise of the county court judge. all the way back i was both angry and ashamed of myself. half way home i realised that the accident had happened on the very day that tommy left london. the coincidence merely flickered across my mind, for there could be no earthly connection between the two events.
that afternoon i wasted some time in looking up pavia in the directory. he was there sure enough, as the occupier of a suburban mansion called the white lodge. he had no city address, so it was clear that he was out of business. my irritation with the man had made me inquisitive about the master. it was a curious name he bore, possibly italian, possibly goanese. i wondered how he got on with his highly competent butler. if tuke had been my servant i would have wrung his neck or bolted before a week was out.
have you ever noticed that, when you hear a name that strikes you, you seem to be constantly hearing it for a bit. once i had a case in which one of the parties was called jubber, a name i had never met before, but i ran across two other jubbers before the case was over. anyhow, the day after the blackheath visit i was briefed in a big stock exchange case, which turned on the true ownership of certain bearer bonds. it was a complicated business which i need not trouble you with, and it involved a number of consultations with my lay clients, a famous firm of brokers. they produced their books and my chambers were filled with glossy gentlemen talking a strange jargon.
i had to examine my clients closely on their practice in treating a certain class of bearer security, and they were very frank in expounding their business. i was not surprised to hear that pitt-heron was one of the most valued names on their lists. with his wealth he was bound to be a good deal in the city. now i had no desire to pry into pitt-heron's private affairs, especially his financial arrangements, but his name was in my thoughts at the time, and i could not help looking curiously at what was put before me. he seemed to have been buying these bonds on a big scale. i had the indiscretion to ask if mr. pitt-heron had long followed this course, and was told that he had begun to purchase some six months before.
"mr. pitt-heron," volunteered the stockbroker, "is very closely connected in his financial operations with another esteemed client of ours, mr. julius pavia. they are both attracted by this class of security."
at the moment i scarcely noted the name, but after dinner that night i began to speculate about the connection. i had found out the name of one of charles's mysterious new friends.
it was not a very promising discovery. a retired east india merchant did not suggest anything wildly speculative, but i began to wonder if charles's preoccupation, to which tommy had been witness, might not be connected with financial worries. i could not believe that the huge pitt-heron fortune had been seriously affected, or that his flight was that of a defaulter, but he might have got entangled in some shady city business which preyed on his sensitive soul. somehow or other i could not believe that mr. pavia was a wholly innocent old gentleman; his butler looked too formidable. it was possible that he was blackmailing pitt-heron, and that the latter had departed to get out of his clutches.
but on what ground? i had no notion as to the blackmailable thing that might lurk in charles's past, and the guesses which flitted through my brain were too fantastic to consider seriously. after all, i had only the flimsiest basis for conjecture. pavia and pitt-heron were friends; tommy had gone off in quest of pitt-heron; pavia's butler had broken the law of the land in order, for some reason or other, to see the departure of the train by which tommy had travelled. i remember laughing at myself for my suspicions, and reflecting that, if tommy could see into my head, he would turn a deaf ear in the future to my complaints of his lack of balance.
but the thing stuck in my mind, and i called again that week on mrs. pitt-heron. she had had no word from her husband, and only a bare line from tommy, giving his moscow address. poor child, it was a wretched business for her. she had to keep a smiling face to the world, invent credible tales to account for her husband's absence, and all the while anxiety and dread were gnawing at her heart. i asked her if she had ever met a mr. pavia, but the name was unknown to her. she knew nothing of charles's business dealings, but at my request she interviewed his bankers, and i heard from her next day that his affairs were in perfect order. it was no financial crisis which had precipitated him abroad.
a few days later i stumbled by the merest accident upon what sailors call a "cross-bearing." at the time i used to "devil" a little for the solicitor-general, and "note" cases sent to him from the different government offices. it was thankless work, but it was supposed to be good for an ambitious lawyer. by this prosaic channel i received the first hint of another of charles's friends.
i had sent me one day the papers dealing with the arrest of a german spy at plymouth, for at the time there was a sort of epidemic of roving teutons who got themselves into compromising situations, and gravely troubled the souls of the admiralty and the war-office. this case was distinguished from the common ruck by the higher social standing of the accused. generally the spy is a photographer or bagman who attempts to win the bibulous confidence of minor officials. but this specimen was no less than a professor of a famous german university, a man of excellent manners, wide culture, and attractive presence, who had dined with port officers and danced with admirals' daughters.
i have forgotten the evidence or what was the legal point submitted for the law officers' opinion; in any case it matters little, for he was acquitted. what interested me at the time was the testimonials as to character which he carried with him. he had many letters of introduction. one was from pitt-heron to his wife's sailor uncle; and when he was arrested one englishman went so far as to wire that he took upon himself the whole costs of the defence. this gentleman was a mr. andrew lumley, stated in the papers sent me to be a rich bachelor, a member of the athenæum and carlton clubs, and a dweller in the albany.
remember, that till a few weeks before i had known nothing of pitt-heron's circle, and here were three bits of information dropping in on me unsolicited, just when my interest had been awakened. i began to get really keen, for every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective. i was on the look-out for charles's infrequent friends, and i argued that if he knew the spy and the spy knew mr. lumley, the odds were that pitt-heron and lumley were acquaintances. i hunted up the latter in the red book. sure enough, he lived in the albany, belonged to half a dozen clubs, and had a country house in hampshire.
i tucked the name away in a pigeon-hole of my memory, and for some days asked every one i met if he knew the philanthropist of the albany. i had no luck till the saturday, when, lunching at the club, i ran against jenkinson, the art critic.
i forget if you know that i have always been a bit of a connoisseur in a mild way. i used to dabble in prints and miniatures, but at that time my interest lay chiefly in old wedgwood, of which i had collected some good pieces. old wedgwood is a thing which few people collect seriously, but the few who do are apt to be monomaniacs. whenever a big collection comes into the market it fetches high prices, but it generally finds its way into not more than half a dozen hands. wedgwoodites all know each other, and they are less cut-throat in their methods than most collectors. of all i have ever met jenkinson was the keenest, and he would discourse for hours on the "feel" of good jasper and the respective merits of blue and sage-green grounds.
that day he was full of excitement. he babbled through luncheon about the wentworth sale, which he had attended the week before. there had been a pair of magnificent plaques, with a unique flaxman design, which had roused his enthusiasm. urns and medallions and what not had gone to this or that connoisseur, and jenkinson could quote their prices, but the plaques dominated his fancy, and he was furious that the nation had not acquired them. it seemed that he had been to south kensington and the british museum and all sorts of dignitaries, and he thought he might yet persuade the authorities to offer for them if the purchaser would re-sell. they had been bought by lutrin for a well-known private collector, by name andrew lumley.
i pricked up my ears and asked about mr. lumley.
jenkinson said he was a rich old buffer who locked up his things in cupboards and never let the public get a look at them. he suspected that a lot of the best things at recent sales had found their way to him, and that meant that they were put in cold storage for good.
i asked if he knew him.
no, he told me, but he had once or twice been allowed to look at his things for books he had been writing. he had never seen the man, for he always bought through agents, but he had heard of people who knew him. "it is the old silly game," he said. "he will fill half a dozen houses with priceless treasures, and then die, and the whole show will be sold at auction and the best things carried off to america. it's enough to make a patriot swear."
there was balm in gilead, however. mr. lumley apparently might be willing to re-sell the wedgwood plaques if he got a fair offer. so jenkinson had been informed by lutrin, and that very afternoon he was going to look at them. he asked me to come with him, and, having nothing to do, i accepted.
jenkinson's car was waiting for us at the club door. it was closed, for the afternoon was wet. i did not hear his directions to the chauffeur, and we had been on the road ten minutes or so before i discovered that we had crossed the river and were traversing south london. i had expected to find the things in lutrin's shop, but to my delight i was told that lumley had taken delivery of them at once.
"he keeps very few of his things in the albany except his books," i was told. "but he has a house at blackheath which is stuffed from cellar to garret."
"what is the name of it?" i asked with a sudden suspicion.
"the white lodge," said jenkinson.
"but that belongs to a man called pavia," i said.
"i can't help that. the things in it belong to old lumley, all right. i know, for i've been three times there with his permission."
jenkinson got little out of me for the rest of the ride. here was excellent corroborative evidence of what i had allowed myself to suspect. pavia was a friend of pitt-heron, lumley was a friend of pitt-heron; lumley was obviously a friend of pavia, and he might be pavia himself, for the retired east india merchant, as i figured him, would not be above an innocent impersonation. anyhow, if i could find one or the other, i might learn something about charles's recent doings. i sincerely hoped that the owner might be at home that afternoon when we inspected his treasures, for so far i had found no one who could procure me an introduction to that mysterious old bachelor of artistic and philo-teutonic tastes.
we reached the white lodge about half-past three. it was one of those small, square, late-georgian mansions which you see all around london—once a country-house among fields, now only a villa in a pretentious garden. i looked to see my super-butler tuke, but the door was opened by a female servant, who inspected jenkinson's card of admission, and somewhat unwillingly allowed us to enter.
my companion had not exaggerated when he described the place as full of treasures. it was far more like the shop of a bond street art-dealer than a civilised dwelling. the hall was crowded with japanese armour and lacquer cabinets. one room was lined from floor to ceiling with good pictures, mostly seventeenth-century dutch, and had enough chippendale chairs to accommodate a public meeting. jenkinson would fain have prowled around, but we were moved on by the inexorable servant to the little back room where lay the objects of our visit. the plaques had been only half-unpacked, and in a moment jenkinson was busy on them with a magnifying glass, purring to himself like a contented cat.
the housekeeper stood on guard by the door, jenkinson was absorbed, and after the first inspection of the treasures i had leisure to look about me. it was an untidy little room, full of fine chinese porcelain in dusty glass cabinets, and in a corner stood piles of old persian rugs.
pavia, i reflected, must be an easy-going soul, entirely oblivious of comfort, if he allowed his friend to turn his dwelling into such a pantechnicon. less and less did i believe in the existence of the retired east indian merchant. the house was lumley's, who chose to pass under another name during his occasional visits. his motive might be innocent enough, but somehow i did not think so. his butler had looked too infernally intelligent.
with my foot i turned over the lid of one of the packing-cases that had held the wedgwoods. it was covered with a litter of cotton-wool and shavings, and below it lay a crumpled piece of paper. i looked again, and saw that it was a telegraph form. clearly somebody, with the telegram in his hand, had opened the cases, and had left it on the top of one, whence it had dropped to the floor and been covered by the lid when it was flung off.
i hope and believe that i am as scrupulous as other people, but then and there came on me the conviction that i must read that telegram. i felt the gimlet eye of the housekeeper on me, so i had recourse to craft. i took out my cigarette case as if to smoke, and clumsily upset its contents amongst the shavings. then on my knees i began to pick them up, turning over the litter till the telegram was exposed.
it was in french and i read it quite clearly. it had been sent from vienna, but the address was in some code. "suivez a bokhare saronov"—these were the words. i finished my collection of the cigarettes, and turned the lid over again on the telegram, so that its owner, if he chose to look for it diligently, might find it.
when we sat in the car going home, jenkinson absorbed in meditation on the plaques, i was coming to something like a decision. a curious feeling of inevitability possessed me. i had collected by accident a few odd disjointed pieces of information, and here by the most amazing accident of all was the connecting link. i knew i had no evidence to go upon which would have convinced the most credulous common jury. pavia knew pitt-heron; so probably did lumley. lumley knew pavia, possibly was identical with him. somebody in pavia's house got a telegram in which a trip to bokhara was indicated. it didn't sound much. yet i was absolutely convinced, with the queer sub-conscious certitude of the human brain, that pitt-heron was or was about to be in bokhara, and that pavia-lumley knew of his being there and was deeply concerned in his journey.
that night after dinner i rang up mrs. pitt-heron.
she had had a letter from tommy, a very dispirited letter, for he had had no luck. nobody in moscow had seen or heard of any wandering englishman remotely like charles, and tommy, after playing the private detective for three weeks, was nearly at the end of his tether and spoke of returning home.
i told her to send him the following wire in her own name. "go on to bokhara. have information you will meet him there."
she promised to send the message next day and asked no further questions. she was a pearl among women.
