DEAR Mr. LEDSAM:
I am in a very strange predicament and I have come to ask your advice. You know my brother Andrew well, and you may remember playing tennis with me last year. I am compelled—
At that point the letter terminated abruptly. There was a blot and a smudge. The pen lay where it seemed to have rolled—on the floor. The ink was not yet dry. Francis called to his clerk.
“Angrave,” he said, “Mr. Wilmore is not here.”
The clerk looked around in obvious surprise.
“It isn’t five minutes since he came out to my office, sir!” he exclaimed. “I heard him go back again afterwards.”
Francis shrugged his shoulders.
“Perhaps he decided not to wait and you didn’t hear him go by.”
Angrave shook his head.
“I do not see how he could have left the place without my hearing him, sir,” he declared. “The door of my office has been open all the time, and I sit opposite to it. Besides, on these stone floors one can hear any one so distinctly.”
“Then what,” Francis asked, “has become of him?”
The clerk shook his head.
“I haven’t any idea, sir,” he confessed.
Francis plunged into his work and forgot all about the matter. He was reminded of it, however, at luncheon-time, when, on entering the dining-room of the club, he saw Andrew Wilmore seated alone at one of the small tables near the wall. He went over to him at once.
“Hullo, Andrew,” he greeted him, “what are you doing here by yourself?”
“Bit hipped, old fellow,” was the depressed reply. “Sit down, will you?”
Francis sat down and ordered his lunch.
“By-the-bye,” he said, “I had rather a mysterious visit this morning from your brother Reggie.”
Wilmore stared at him for a moment, half in relief, half in amazement.
“Good God, Francis, you don’t say so!” he exclaimed. “How was he? What did he want? Tell me about it at once? We’ve been worried to death about the boy.”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I didn’t see him,” Francis explained. “He arrived before I reached my rooms—as you know, I don’t live there—waited some time, began to write me this note,”—drawing the sheet of paper from his pocket—“and when I got there had disappeared without leaving a message or anything.”
Wilmore adjusted his pince nez with trembling fingers. Then he read the few lines through.
“Francis,” he said, when he had finished them, “do you know that this is the first word we’ve heard of him for three days?”
“Great heavens!” Francis exclaimed. “He was living with his mother, wasn’t he?”
“Down at Kensington, but he hasn’t been there since Monday,” Andrew replied. “His mother is in a terrible state. And now this, I don’t understand it at all.”
“Was the boy hard up?”
“Not more than most young fellows are,” was the puzzled reply. “His allowance was due in a few days, too. He had money in the bank, I feel sure. He was saving up for a motorcar.”
“Haven’t I seen him once or twice at restaurants lately?” Francis enquired. “Soto’s, for instance?”
“Very likely,” his brother assented. “Why not? He’s fond of dancing, and we none of us ever encouraged him to be a stay-at-home.”
“Any particular girl was he interested in?”
“Not that we know of. Like most young fellows of his age, he was rather keen on young women with some connection with the stage, but I don’t believe there was any one in particular. Reggie was too fond of games to waste much time that way. He’s at the gymnasium three evenings a week.”
“I wish I’d been at the office a few minutes earlier this morning,” Francis observed. “I tell you what, Andrew. I have some pals down at Scotland Yard, and I’ll go down and see them this afternoon. They’ll want a photograph, and to ask a few questions, I dare say, but I shouldn’t talk about the matter too much.”
“You’re very kind, Francis,” his friend replied, “but it isn’t so easy to sit tight. I was going to the police myself this afternoon.”
“Take my advice and leave it to me,” Francis begged. “I have a particular pal down at Scotland Yard who I know will be interested, and I want him to take up the case.”
“You haven’t any theory, I suppose?” Wilmore asked, a little wistfully.
Francis shook his head.
“Not the ghost of one,” he admitted. “The reason I am advising you to keep as quiet as possible, though, is just this. If you create a lot of interest in a disappearance, you have to satisfy the public curiosity when the mystery is solved.”
“I see,” Wilmore murmured. “All the same, I can’t imagine Reggie getting mixed up in anything discreditable.”
“Neither can I, from what I remember of the boy,” Francis agreed. “Let me see, what was he doing in the City?”
“He was with Jameson & Scott, the stockbrokers,” Wilmore replied. “He was only learning the business and he had no responsibilities. Curiously enough, though, when I went to see Mr. Jameson he pointed out one or two little matters that Reggie had attended to, which looked as though he were clearing up, somehow or other.”
“He left no message there, I suppose?”
“Not a line or a word. He gave the porter five shillings, though, on the afternoon before he disappeared—a man who has done some odd jobs for him.”
“Well, a voluntary disappearance is better than an involuntary one,” Francis remarked. “What was his usual programme when he left the office?”
“He either went to Queen’s and played racquets, or he went straight to his gymnasium in the Holborn. I telephoned to Queen’s. He didn’t call there on the Wednesday night, anyhow.”
“Where’s the gymnasium?”
“At 147 a Holborn. A lot of city young men go there late in the evening, but Reggie got off earlier than most of them and used to have the place pretty well to himself. I think that’s why he stuck to it.”
Francis made a note of the address.
“I’ll get Shopland to step down there some time,” he said. “Or better still, finish your lunch and we’ll take a taxi there ourselves. I’m going to the country later on, but I’ve half-an-hour to spare. We can go without our coffee and be there in ten minutes.”
“A great idea,” Wilmore acquiesced. “It’s probably the last place Reggie visited, anyway.”
CHAPTER XVII
The gymnasium itself was a source of immense surprise to both Francis and Wilmore. It stretched along the entire top storey of a long block of buildings, and was elaborately fitted with bathrooms, a restaurant and a reading-room. The trapezes, bars, and all the usual appointments were of the best possible quality.