Chapter XXIII: Gone!

La Florette was hardly out of the house before Toby Marsh had followed her. He saw the lights of her car turn the corner, and regretted that he had not the same form of transportation, for he was in a desperate hurry.

There was no light in Bullott’s parlour, but his continuous knocking brought Bill Holbrook, clad sketchily in a dressing-gown and his pyjamas.

“Come right in. Bullott’s not at home. What’s the hurry? Have they found the murderer? Bullott is a pathetic spectacle--did I tell you that this was his first case?” he asked, as he preceded the visitor up the stairs.

So naturally had events followed one another that it did not seem strange to Bill, even at that moment, that he should be entertaining a notable member of the criminal classes. Toby Marsh more than interested him. The mysteries of the man were fascinating.

“Who is Betty Carew?” asked Toby, when they had reached the sitting-room, and Bill had turned on the lights and drawn down the window shades.

“Who is Betty Carew?” said the astonished reporter. “The last time I heard of her, she was Betty Carew!”

“You told me to-day that old man Laffin had a hold on her, and I’ve discovered what it is,” said Toby Marsh, speaking rapidly. “She is supposed to be the daughter of a man named Caren, who was executed for the murder of his wife. I didn’t know that till to-night.”

Bill gaped at him, but Toby did not pause.

“Laffin adopted her when she was a kid, and I’ll bet he’s never stopped telling her about her grisly past.”

“But is it true?”

“I wish you’d known all about it before,” said Mr. Marsh regretfully, “and then I’d have created a bigger sensation when I told you it wasn’t true! She’s the daughter of an American who came to this country, married and was called back home, leaving his wife in the care of Mrs. Caren. The American was taken ill, and, for some reason or other, did not communicate with his young wife until after the baby was born, when he learnt that wife and child had both died. Apparently the woman in whose care she had been left had grown to like the baby, and did not want to be parted from her. That is only the skeleton of the story, but the man’s name was Leiff Stone.”

Bill leapt up from his chair.

“Leiff? Why, that’s Lambert Stone’s brother! Then Betty Carew is his niece! Moses!”

“Leiff doesn’t mean anything to me, and Lambert means less,” said Toby Marsh, but the other interrupted him with a demand for his source of information.

“They say that listeners hear no good of themselves,” began Toby, “which may or may not be true. They certainly hear a whole lot that’s bad about other people; and though eavesdropping is repugnant to me----”

Presently Bill had the story as far as his informant could tell him.

“Wait here. We’ll go round and see Stone right away,” he said, and dashed off to his room to dress.

He returned in a miraculously short space of time.

They found Lambert Stone, who had just returned from the theatre, and in a few brief words Bill told him all that they had learnt.

“It sounds true,” he said. “All the circumstances fit. I know Leiff did marry a girl here, and that he came back to America at about the time of his daughter’s birth. I also know that he left her in Bath.”

“Was he ill in America?” asked Bill, and Stone nodded.

“It happened at sea,” he said. “The ship ran into a gale, and Leiff was thrown down a companionway on to his head; there was a bad concussion, and practically he did not regain consciousness until after he arrived in New York, and then his condition was so serious that we thought he had lost his mind. It was six months before he became normal. He never told me the name of the people with whom he left his wife, but I know that a letter came saying that she was dead, and I can well remember the terrible time we had. I’ve hated myself ever since, because it was I who brought him to England, and through my instrumentality that he was introduced to the woman, who eventually became his wife. Betty Carew! Why, I met her only to-day! The story is true--I feel it. And verification is fairly easy; she would have been registered in her father’s name within a few days of her birth, before Mrs. Caren could have ever dreamt of her scheme of deception. Poor soul! Do you know where my--my niece lives?”

Bill nodded.

“I must see her to-night.”

It was near midnight when they stopped before the house where Betty lived, and Bill rang the bell, expecting that it would be some time before he received an answer. To his surprise, the landlady opened the door almost immediately.

“Is that Miss Carew?” she asked, peering out into the dark.

A premonition of danger quickened the reporter’s pulse.

“Isn’t she at home?” he asked.

“No, sir. I can’t understand it. I came home about half an hour ago, and found the table in the hall broke--look!” She pointed to the wreckage of a small table. “Miss Carew’s room was empty. She’d been to bed, too.”

Bill flew up the stairs, and into the room, which instinct told him was the girl’s. The bedclothes were thrown on the floor, and here too a small table had been overturned. There was no other sign of a struggle.

“Perhaps somebody came for her?” suggested the landlady.

“I think they did,” said Bill, speaking slowly.

He looked round at the serious face of Lambert Stone.

“What do you think?” asked the American in a low voice.

“I think the mystery of the desk-selling campaign and the locked room on the top floor of Laffin’s house, has been continued for yet another chapter,” he said.