Part 35 (1/2)
”Well, it's evident that you suspect me of sneaking into the house, breaking open the Doctor's safe, and taking the contents,” he said plainly, annoyed.
”The Doctor may have returned himself in secret,” Max replied. ”But such could hardly be the case, for the door had been blown open by explosives.”
”That would have created a noise,” Charlie remarked quickly. ”Shows that whoever did it was a blunderer.”
”Exactly. That's just my opinion. What I want to establish is the motive for the secret visit, and who made it.”
”Well, I can a.s.sure you that I'm in entire ignorance of the existence of any safe in the Doctor's house.”
”And so was I. It was concealed by the furniture until my second visit, on the following morning.”
”Curious,” Rolfe said. ”Very curious indeed. The whole thing is most remarkable--especially how both father and daughter got away without leaving the least trace of their flight.”
”Then you don't antic.i.p.ate foul play?” Max asked quickly.
”Why should one?”
”The Doctor had a good many political enemies.”
”We all have enemies. Who has not? But they don't come and murder one and take away one's household goods.”
”Then I am to take it that it was not you I saw at Cromwell Road, Charlie?” asked his friend in deep earnestness, at the same time filled with suspicion. He felt that his eyes could not deceive him.
”In all seriousness,” was the other's reply. ”I was not there. This personation of myself shows that there was some very clever and deeply-laid scheme.”
”But you've just declared that a falsehood was permissible where a woman's honour was concerned?”
”Well, and will not every man with a sense of honour towards a woman hold the same opinion? You yourself, Max, for instance, are not the man to give a woman away?”
”I know! I know--only--”
”Only what? Surely you do not disagree with me!”
”In a sense I don't, but I'm anxious to clear up this matter as far as you yourself are concerned.”
Rolfe saw that he had shaken his friend's fixed belief that he had seen him in Cromwell Road. Max was now debating in his mind whether he had not suspected Charlie unjustly. It is so easy to suspect, and so difficult to satisfy one's self of the actual truth. The mind is, alas!
too apt to receive ill-formed impressions contrary to fact.
”It is already cleared up,” Rolfe answered without hesitation. ”I was not there. You were entirely mistaken. Besides, my dear chap, why should I go there when I had been particularly asked by Maud not to visit the house?”
”When did she ask you?”
”Only the night before. That very fact is, in itself, curious. She urged me that whatever might occur, I was not to go to the house.”
”Then she antic.i.p.ated something--eh?”
”It seems as though she did.”
”And she told Marion something on the night when she and her father disappeared.”
”I know.”