The Red Room
Chapter One
Three Inquisitive Men
The fifteenth of January, 1907, fell on a Tuesday. I have good cause to remember it.
In this narrative of startling fact there is little that concerns myself. It is mostly of the doings of others – strange doings though they were, and stranger still, perhaps, that I should be their chronicler.
On that Tuesday morning, just after eleven o’clock, I was busy taking down the engine of one of the cars at my garage in the High Road, Chiswick. Dick, one of my men, had had trouble with the “forty-eight” while bringing home two young gentlemen from Oxford on the previous night, and I was trying to locate the fault.
Suddenly, as I looked up, I saw standing at my side a man who lived a few doors from me in Bath Road, Bedford Park – a man who was a mystery.
He greeted me pleasantly, standing with his hands thrust into the pockets of his shabby black overcoat, while, returning his salutation, I straightened myself, wondering what had brought him there, and whether he wished to hire a car.
I had known him by sight for a couple of years or more as he passed up and down before my house, but we had not often spoken. Truth to tell, his movements seemed rather erratic and his shabbiness very marked, yet at times he appeared quite spruce and smart, and his absences were so frequent that my wife and I had grown to regard him with considerable suspicion. In the suburbs of London one doesn’t mix easily with one’s neighbours.
“Can I speak to you privately, Mr Holford?” he asked, with a slight hesitancy and a glance at my chauffeur Dick, who at that moment had his hand in the gear-box.
“Certainly,” I said. “Will you step into my office?” And I led the way through the long garage to my private room beyond, through the glass windows of which I could see all the work in progress.
My visitor was, I judged, about fifty, or perhaps fifty-five, an anxious, slight, intellectual-looking man, with hair and moustache turning grey, a pair of keen, dark, troubled eyes, a protruding, well-shaven chin, an aquiline face, sniffing dimly the uncertain future, a complexion somewhat sallow, yet a sinewy, athletic person whose vocation I had on many occasions tried to guess in vain.
Sometimes he dressed quite smartly in clothes undoubtedly cut by a West-End tailor. At others, he slouched along shabby and apparently hard up, as he now was.
My wife – for I had married three years before, just after I had entered the motor business – had from the first put him down as an adventurer, and a person to be avoided. Her woman’s instinct generally led to correct conclusions. Indeed, one night, when out with her sister, she had seen him in evening dress, seated in a box at a theatre with a lady, in pale blue and diamonds, and another man; and on a second occasion she had witnessed him at Charing Cross Station registering luggage to the Continent. He had with him two smartly-dressed men, who were seeing him off.
I myself had more than once seen him arrive in a hansom with well-worn suit-cases and travelling kit, and on several occasions, when driving a car through the London traffic, I had caught sight of him in silk hat and frock-coat walking in the West End with his smart friends.
Women are generally inquisitive regarding their neighbours, and my wife was no exception. She had discovered that this Mr Kershaw Kirk was a bachelor, whose home was kept by an unmarried sister, Miss Judith, about nine years his junior. They employed a charwoman every Friday, but, as Miss Kirk’s brother was absent so frequently, they preferred not to employ a general servant.
Now, I was rather suspicious of this fact. The man Kirk was a mystery, and servants are always prone to pry into their master’s affairs.
My visitor was silent for a few moments after he had taken the chair I had offered. His dark eyes were fixed upon me with a strange, intense look, until, with some hesitation, he at last said:
“I believe, Mr Holford, you are agent for a new German tyre – the Eckhardt it is called, is it not?”
“I am,” I replied. “I am sole agent in London.”
“Well, I want to examine one,” he exclaimed, “but in strict confidence. Other persons will probably come to you and beg to see this particular tyre, but I wish you to regard the fact that I have seen it as entirely between ourselves. Will you do so? A very serious issue depends upon your discretion – how serious you will one day realise.”
I looked at him in surprise. His request for secrecy struck me as distinctly peculiar.
“Well, of course, if you wish,” I replied, “I’ll regard the fact that you have seen the Eckhardt non-skid as confidential. Is it in connection with any new invention?” I asked suspiciously.
“Not at all,” he laughed. “I have nothing whatever to do with motor-cars or the motor trade. I merely wish to satisfy myself by looking at one of the new tyres.”
So I went upstairs, and brought down one of the German covers for his inspection.
He took it in his hands, and, very careful that Dick should not observe him from the outside, closely examined the triangular steel studs with which the cover was fitted.
From his pocket he took a piece of paper, and, folding it, measured the width of the tyre, making a break in the edge of the folded paper. Then he felt the edges of the studs, and began to ask questions regarding the life of the new tyre.
“The inventor, who lives at Cologne, was over here three months ago, and claimed for it that it lasted out three tyres of any of the present well-known makes,” I replied. “But, as a matter of fact, I must admit that I’ve never tried it myself.”
“You’ve sold some, of course?”
“Yes, several sets – and I believe they’ve given satisfaction.”
“You are, I take it, the only agent in this country?”
“No; Farmer and Payne, in Glasgow, have the agency for Scotland,” I replied, greatly wondering why this tyre should attract him if he had no personal interest in cars.
A second time he examined the cover, again very closely; then, placing it aside, he thanked me, apologising for taking up my time.
“Mind,” he said, “not a word to a soul that you have shown me this.”
“I have promised, Mr Kirk, to say nothing,” I said; “but your injunctions as to secrecy have, I must confess, somewhat aroused my curiosity.”
“Probably so.” And a good-humoured smile overspread his thin, rather melancholy face. “But our acquaintance is not very intimate, is it? I’ve often been on the point of asking you to run in and have a smoke with me. I’m a trifle lonely, and would be so delighted if you’d spend an hour with me.”
My natural curiosity to discover more about this man, who was such a mystery, prompted me to express a mutual desire for a chat.
So it was arranged that I should look in and see him after dinner that same evening.
“I travel a good deal,” he explained, in a careless way, “therefore I never like to make engagements far ahead. I always believe in living for to-day and allowing to-morrow to take care of itself.”
He spoke with refinement, and, though presenting such a shabby exterior, was undoubtedly a gentleman and well bred.
He looked around the garage, and I showed him the dozen or so cars which I let out on hire, as well as the number of private cars whose owners place them in my care. But by the manner he examined them I saw that, whatever ignorance he might feign regarding motors, he was no novice. He seemed to know almost as much about ignition, timing, and lubrication as I did.
And when I remarked upon it his face only relaxed into a smile that was sphinx-like.
“Well, Mr Holford,” he exclaimed at last, “I’m hindering you, no doubt, so I’ll clear out. Remember, I’ll expect you for a chat at nine this evening.” And, buttoning his frayed overcoat, he left, and walked in the direction of Turnham Green.
Half an hour later I was called on the telephone to the other side of London, where I had a customer buying a new car, and it was not