The Sign of Silence. Le Queux William
a sample bottle – from a friend of his in the perfume trade."
Not on the market! Those words of hers condemned her. Little did she dream that I had smelt that same sweet, subtle odour as I descended the stairs from Sir Digby's flat. She, no doubt, had recognised my silhouette in the half darkness, yet nevertheless she felt herself quite safe, knowing that I had not seen her.
Why had she been lurking there?
A black cloud of suspicion fell upon me. She kept up a desultory conversation as we went along Piccadilly in the dreary gloom of that dull January afternoon, but I only replied in monosyllables, until at length she remarked:
"Really, Teddy, you're not thinking of a word I'm saying. I suppose your mind is centred upon your friend – the man who has turned out to be an impostor."
The conclusion of that sentence and its tone showed a distinct antagonism.
It was true that the man whom I had known as Sir Digby Kemsley – the man who for years past had been so popular among a really good set in London – was according to the police an impostor.
The detective-inspector had told me so. From the flat in Harrington Gardens the men of the Criminal Investigation Department had rung up New Scotland Yard to make their report, and about noon, while I was resting at home in Albemarle Street, I was told over the telephone that my whilom friend was not the man I had believed him to be.
As I had listened to the inspector's voice, I heard him say:
"There's another complication of this affair, Mr. Royle. Your friend could not have been Sir Digby Kemsley, for that gentleman died suddenly a year ago, at Huacho, in Peru. There was some mystery about his death, it seems, for it was reported by the British Consul at Lima. Inspector Edwards, of the C.I. Department, will call upon you this afternoon. What time could you conveniently be at home?"
I named five o'clock, and that appointment I intended, at all hazards, to keep.
The big, heavily-furnished drawing-room in Cromwell Road was dark and sombre as I stood with Phrida, who, bright and happy, pulled off her gloves and declared to her mother – that charming, sedate, grey-haired, but wonderfully preserved, woman – that she had had such "a jolly lunch."
"I saw the Redmaynes there, mother," she was saying. "Mr. Redmayne has asked us to lunch with them at the Carlton next Tuesday. Can we go?"
"I think so, dear," was her mother's reply. "I'll look at my engagements."
"Oh, do let's go! Ida is coming home from her trip to the West Indies. I do want to see her so much."
Strange it was that my well-beloved, in face of that amazing mystery, preserved such an extraordinary, nay, an astounding, calm. I was thinking of the little side-comb of green horn, for I had seen her wearing a pair exactly similar!
Standing by I watched her pale sweet countenance, full of speechless wonder.
After the first moment of suspense she had found herself treading firm ground, and now, feeling herself perfectly secure, she had assumed a perfectly frank and confident attitude.
Yet the perfume still arose to my nostrils – the sweet, subtle scent which had condemned her.
I briefly related to Mrs. Shand my amazing adventures of the previous night, my eyes furtively upon Phrida's countenance the while. Strangely enough, she betrayed no guilty knowledge, but fell to discussing the mystery with ease and common-sense calm.
"What I can't really make out is how your friend could have had the audacity to pose as Sir Digby Kemsley, well knowing that the real person was alive," she remarked.
"The police have discovered that Sir Digby died in Peru last January," I said.
"While your friend was in London?"
"Certainly. My friend – I shall still call him Sir Digby, for I have known him by no other name – has not been abroad since last July, when he went on business to Moscow."
"How very extraordinary," remarked Mrs. Shand. "Your friend must surely have had some object in posing as the dead man."
"But he posed as a man who was still alive!" I exclaimed.
"Until, perhaps, he was found out," observed Phrida shrewdly. "Then he bolted."
I glanced at her quickly. Did those words betray any knowledge of the truth, I wondered.
"Apparently there was some mystery surrounding the death of Sir Digby at Huacho," I remarked. "The British Consul in Lima made a report upon it to the Foreign Office, who, in turn, handed it to Scotland Yard. I wonder what it was."
"When you know, we shall be better able to judge the matter and to form some theory," Phrida said, crossing the room and re-arranging the big bowl of daffodils in the window.
I remained about an hour, and then, amazed at the calmness of my well-beloved, I returned to my rooms.
In impatience I waited till a quarter past five, when Haines ushered in a tall, well-dressed, clean-shaven man, wearing a dark grey overcoat and white slip beneath his waistcoat, and who introduced himself as Inspector Charles Edwards.
"I've called, Mr. Royle, in order to make some further inquiries regarding this person you have known as Sir Digby Kemsley," he said when he had seated himself. "A very curious affair happened last night. I've been down to Harrington Gardens, and have had a look around there myself. Many features of the affair are unique."
"Yes," I agreed. "It is curious – very curious."
"I have a copy of your statement regarding your visit to the house during the night," said the official, who was one of the Council of Seven at the Yard, looking up at me suddenly from the cigarette he was about to light. "Have you any suspicion who killed the young lady?"
"How can I have – except that my friend – "
"Is missing – eh?"
"Exactly."
"But now, tell me all about this friend whom you knew as Sir Digby Kemsley. How did you first become acquainted with him?"
"I met him on a steamer on the Lake of Garda this last summer," was my reply. "I was staying at Riva, the little town at the north end of the lake, over the Austrian frontier, and one day took the steamer down to Gardone, in Italy. We sat next each other at lunch on board, and, owing to a chance conversation, became friends."
"What did he tell you?"
"Well, only that he was travelling for his health. He mentioned that he had been a great deal in South America, and was then over in Europe for a holiday. Indeed, on the first day we met, he did not even mention his name, and I quite forgot to ask for it. In travelling one meets so many people who are only of brief passing interest. It was not until a week later, when I found him staying in the same hotel as myself, the Cavour, in Milan, I learnt from the hall-porter that he was Sir Digby Kemsley, the great engineer. We travelled to Florence together, and stayed at the Baglioni, but one morning when I came down I found a hurried note awaiting me. From the hall-porter I learned that a gentleman had arrived in the middle of the night, and Sir Digby, after an excited controversy, left with him for London. In the note he gave me his address in Harrington Gardens, and asked me not to fail to call on my return to town."
"Curious to have a visitor in the middle of the night," remarked the detective reflectively.
"I thought so at the time, but, knowing him to be a man of wide business interests, concluded that it was someone who had brought him an urgent message," I replied. "Well, the rest is quickly told. On my return home I sought him out, with the result that we became great friends."
"You had no suspicion that he was an impostor?"
"None whatever. He seemed well known in London," I replied. "Besides, if he was not the real Sir Digby, how is it possible that he could have so completely deceived his friends! Why, he has visited the offices of Colliers, the great railway contractors in Westminster – the firm who constructed the railway in Peru. I recollect calling there with him in a taxi one day."
Edwards smiled.
"He probably did that to impress you, sir," he replied. "They may have