CHAPTER VI
ELDOR STREET, Tottenham, was one of thousands of drab and ugly thoroughfares that make up the central suburbs of London. Imagine two rows of houses set on either side of a straight street, lighted at economic intervals by yellow lamps. Each house has a protuberance, called a bay window; each house is separated from the road by iron railings pierced by an iron gate. There is a tiny forecourt in which the hardiest of shrubs battle desperately for existence; there is one recessed door, and on the floor above two windows exactly alike.
Elk found himself in Eldor Street at nine o’clock that night. The rain was pelting down, and the street in consequence was a desert. Most of the houses were dark, for Eldor Street lives in its kitchens, which are back of the houses. In the front window of No. 47 one crack of light showed past the edge of the lowered blind, and, creeping up to the window, he heard, at long intervals, the mumble of conversation.
It was difficult to believe that he was standing at the door of Ezra Maitland’s home. That morning the newspapers had given prominence to the newest speculation of Maitlands Consolidated—a deal involving something over a million. And the master-mind of the concern lived in this squalor!
Whilst he was standing there, the light was extinguished and there came to him the sound of feet in the uncarpeted passage. He had time to reach the obscurity of the other side of the street, when the door opened and two people came out: Maitland and the old woman he had seen. By the light of a street-lamp he saw that Maitland wore an overcoat buttoned to his chin. The old woman had on a long ulster, and in her hand she carried a string bag. They were going marketing! It was Saturday night, and the main street, through which Elk had passed, had been thronged with late shoppers—Tottenham leaves its buying to the last, when food can be had at bargain prices.
Waiting until they were out of sight, Elk walked down the street to the end and turned to the left. He followed a wall covered with posters until he reached a narrow opening. This was the passage between the gardens—a dark, unlighted alleyway, three feet wide and running between tar-coated wooden fences. He counted the gates on his left with the help of his flash-lamp, and after a while stopped before one of them and pushed gently. The gate was locked—it was not bolted. There was a keyhole that had the appearance of use. Elk grunted his satisfaction, and, taking from his pocket a wallet, extracted a small wooden handle, into which he fitted a steel hook, chosen with care from a dozen others. This he inserted into the lock and turned. Evidently the lock was more complicated than he had expected. He tried another hook of a different shape, and yet another. At the fourth trial the lock turned and he pushed open the door gently.
The back of the house was in darkness, the yard singularly free from the obstructions which he had anticipated. He crossed to the door leading into the house. To his surprise it was unfastened, and he replaced his tools in his pocket. He found himself in a small scullery. Passing through a door into the bare passage, he came to the room in which he had seen the light. It was meanly and shabbily furnished. The arm-chair near the fireplace had broken springs, there was an untidy bed in one corner, and in the centre of the room a table covered with a patched cloth. On this were two or three books and a few sheets of paper covered with the awkward writing of a child. Elk read curiously.
“Look at the dog,” it ran. “The man goes up to the dog and the dog barks at the man.”
There was more in similar strain. The books were children’s primers of an elementary kind. Looking round, he saw a cheap gramophone and on the sideboard half a dozen scratched and chipped records.
The child must be in the house. Turning on the gas, he lit it, after slipping a bolt in the front door to guard against surprise. In the more brilliant light, the poverty of the room staggered him. The carpet was worn and full of holes; there was not one article of furniture which had not been repaired at some time or other. On the dingy sideboard was a child’s abacus—a frame holding wires on which beads were strung, and by means of which the young are taught to count. A paper on the mantelpiece attracted him. It was a copy of the million pound contract which Maitland had signed that morning. His neat signature, with the characteristic flourish beneath, was at the foot.
Elk replaced the paper and began a search of the apartment. In a cupboard by the side of the fireplace he found an iron money-box, which he judged was half-full of coins. In addition, there were nearly a hundred letters addressed to E. Maitland, 47 Eldor Street, Tottenham. Elk, glancing through them, recognized their unimportance. Every one was either a tradesman’s circular or those political pamphlets with which candidates flood their constituencies. And they were all unopened. Mr. Maitland evidently knew what they were also, and had not troubled to examine their contents. Probably the hoarding instincts of age had made him keep them. There was nothing else in the room of interest. He was certain that this was where the old man slept—where was the child?
Turning out the light, he went upstairs. One door was locked, and here his instruments were of no avail, for the lock was a patent one and was recently fixed. Possibly the child was there, he thought. The second room, obviously the old woman’s, was as meanly furnished as the parlour.
Coming back to the landing, his foot was poised to reach the first stair when he heard a faint “click.” It came from below, and was the sound of a door closing. Elk waited, listening. The sound was not repeated, and he descended softly. At first he thought that the old man had returned, and was trying his key on the bolted door, but when he crept to the door to listen, he heard no sound, and slipping back the bolt, he went to the second of the rooms on the ground floor and put his light on the door.
Elk was a man of keen observation; very little escaped him, and he was perfectly certain that this door had been ajar when he had passed it on entering the house. It was closed now and fastened from the inside, the key being in the lock.
Was it the child, frightened by his presence? Elk was wise enough a man not to investigate too closely. He made the best of his way back to the garden passage and into the street. Here he waited, taking up a position which enabled him to see the length of Eldor Street and the passage opening in the wall. Presently he saw Maitland returning. The old man was carrying the string bag, which now bulged. Elk saw the green of a cabbage as they passed under the light. He watched them until the darkness swallowed them up, and heard the sound of their closing door. Five minutes later, a dark figure came from the passage behind the houses. It was a man, and Elk, alert and watchful, swung off in pursuit.
The stranger plunged into a labyrinth of little streets with the detective at his heels. He was walking quickly, but not too quickly for Elk, who was something of a pedestrian. Into the glare of the main road the stranger turned, Elk a dozen paces behind him. He could not see his face, nor did he until his quarry stopped by the side of a waiting car, opened the door and jumped in. Then it was that Elk came abreast and raised his hand in cheery salutation.
For a second the man in the closed limousine was taken aback, and then he opened the door.
“Come right in out of the rain, Elk,” he said, and Elk obeyed.
“Been doing your Sunday shopping?” he asked innocently.
The man’s hawk-like face relaxed into a smile.
“I never eat on Sundays,” he said.
It was Joshua Broad, that rich American who peddled key-rings in Whitehall, lived in the most expensive flats in London, and found time to be intensely interested in Ezra Maitland.
He turned abruptly as Elk seated himself.
“Say, Elk, did you see the child?”
Elk shook his head.
“No,” he said, and heard the chuckle of his companion as the car moved toward the civilized west.
“Yes, I saw that baby,” said Mr. Broad, puffing gently at the cigar he had lit; “and, believe me, Elk, I’ve stopped loving children. Yes, sir. The education of the young means less than nothing to me for evermore.”
“Where was she?”
“It’s a ‘he,’ ” replied Broad calmly, “and I hope I’ll be excused answering your question. I had been in the house an hour when you arrived—I was in the back room, which is empty, by the way. You scared me. I heard you come in and thought it was old St. Nicholas of the Whiskers. Especially when I saw the light go on. I’d had it on when you opened the scullery door—I left that unfastened, by the way. Didn’t want to stop my bolt hole. Well, what do you think?”
“About Maitland?”
“Eccentric, eh? You don’t know how eccentric!”
As the car stopped before the door of Caverley House, Elk broke a long silence.
“What are you, Mr. Broad?”
“I’ll give you ten guesses,” said the other cheerfully as they got out.
“Secret Service man,” suggested Elk promptly.
“Wrong—you mean U.S.? No, you’re wrong. I’m a private detective who makes a hobby of studying the criminal classes—will you come up and have a drink?”
“I will come up, but I won’t drink,” said Elk virtuously, “not if you offer gin and orange. That visit to the United States has spoilt my digestion.”
Broad was fitting a key in the lock of his flat, when a strange cold sensation ran down the spine of the detective, and he laid his hand on the American’s arm.
“Don’t open that door,” he said huskily.
Broad looked round in surprise. The yard man’s face was tense and drawn.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know . . . just a feeling, that’s all. I’m Scot by birth . . . we’ve got a word ‘fey,’ which means something supernatural. And it says inside me, ‘don’t open that door.’ ”
Broad put down his hand.
“Are you being fey or funny?” he asked.
“If I look funny,” said Elk, “I’m entitled to sue my face for libel. There’s something at the other side of that door that isn’t good. I’ll take an oath on it! Give me that!”
He took the key from the unwilling hand of Joshua Broad, thrust it in the lock and turned it. Then, with a quick push, he threw open the door, pushing Broad to the cover of the wall.
Nothing happened for a second, and then:
“Run!” cried Elk, and leapt for the stairs.
The American saw the first large billow of greenish-yellowy mist that rolled from the open door, and followed.
The hall-porter was closing his office for the night when Elk appeared, hatless and breathless.
“Can you ’phone the flats?—good! Get on at once to every one on and below the third floor, and tell them on no account to open their doors. Tell ’em to close all cracks with paper, to stop up their letter-boxes, and open all windows. Don’t argue—do it! The building is full of poison gas!”
He himself ’phoned the fire station, and in a few seconds the jangle of bells sounded in the street outside, and men in gas-masks were clattering up the stairs.
Fortunately, every tenant except Broad and his neighbour was out of town for the week-end.
“And Miss Bassano doesn’t come in till early morning,” said the porter.
It was daylight before the building was cleared by the aid of high-pressure air-hoses and chemical precipitants. Except that his silver was tarnished black, and every window glass and mirror covered with a yellow deposit, little harm had been done. A musty odour pervaded the flat in spite of the open windows, but later came the morning breeze to dispel the last trace of this malodorous souvenir of the attempt.
Together the two men made a search of the rooms to discover the manner in which the gas was introduced.
“Through that open fireplace,” Elk pointed. “The gas is heavier than air, and could be poured down the chimney as easily as pouring water.”
A search of the flat roof satisfied him that his theory was right. They found ten large glass cylinders and a long rope, to which a wicker cradle was attached. Moreover, one of the chimney-pots (easily reached from the roof) was scratched and discoloured.
“The operator came into the building when the porter was busy—working the lift probably. He made his way to the roof, carrying the rope and the basket. Somebody in the street fixed the cylinders in the basket, which the man hauled to the roof one by one. It was dead easy, but ingenious. They must have made a pretty careful survey beforehand, or they wouldn’t have known which chimney led to your room.”
They returned to the flat, and for once Joshua Broad was serious.
“Fortunately, my servant is on a holiday,” he said, “or he would have been in heaven!”
“I hope so,” responded Elk piously.
The sun was tipping the roofs of the houses when he finally left, a sleepy and a baffled man. He heard the sound of boisterous voices before he reached the vestibule. A big car stood at the entrance of the flats, and, seated at the wheel, was a young man in evening dress. By him sat Lew Brady, and on the pavement was a girl in evening finery.
“A jolly evening, eh, Lola! When I get going, I’m a mover, eh?”
Ray Bennett’s voice was thick and unsteady. He had been drinking—was within measurable distance of being drunk.
With a yell he recognized the detective as he came into the street.
“Why, it’s old Elk—the Elk of Elks! Greetings, most noble copper! Lola, meet Elky of Elksburg, the Sherlock of Fact, the Sleuth——”
“Shut up!” hissed the savage-voiced Lew Brady in his ear, but Ray was in too exalted a mood to be silenced.
“Where’s the priceless Gordon?—say, Elk, watch Gordon! Look after poor old Gordon—my sister’s very much attached to Gordon.”
“Fine car, Mr. Bennett,” said Elk, regarding the machine thoughtfully. “Present from your father?”
The mention of his father’s name seemed to sober the young man.
“No, it isn’t,” he snapped, “it belongs to a friend. ’Night, Lola.” He pumped at the starter, missed picking up, and stamped again. “S’long, Elk!”
With a jerk the car started, and Elk watched it out of sight.
“That young fellow is certainly in danger of knocking his nut against the moon,” he said. “Had a good time, Lola?”
“Yes—why?”
She fixed her suspicious eyes upon him expectantly.
“Didn’t forget to turn off the gas when you went out, did you? If I was Shylock Holmes, maybe I’d tell from the stain on your glove that you didn’t.”
“What do you mean about gas? I never use the cooker.”
“Somebody does, and he nearly cooked me and a friend of mine—nearly cooked us good!”
He saw her frown. Since she was a woman he expected her to be an actress, but somehow he was ready to believe in her sincerity.
“There’s been a gas attack on Caverley House,” he explained, “and not cooking gas either. I guess you’ll smell it as you go up.”
“What kind of gas—poison?”
Elk nodded.
“But who put it there—emptied it, or whatever is done with gas?”
Elk looked at her with that wounded expression which so justly irritated his victims.
“If I knew, Lola, would I be standing here discussing the matter? Maybe my old friend Shylock Holmes would, but I wouldn’t. I don’t know. It was upset in Mr. Broad’s flat.”
“That is the American who lives opposite to us—to me,” she said. “I’ve only seen him once. He seems a nice man.”
“Somebody didn’t think so,” said Elk. “I say, Lola, what’s that boy doing—young Bennett?”
“Why do you ask me? He is making a lot of money just now, and I suppose he is running a little wild. They all do.”
“I didn’t,” said Elk; “but if I’d made money and started something, I’d have chosen a better pacemaker than a dud fighting man.”
The angry colour rose to her pretty face, and the glance she shot at him was as venomous as the gas he had fought all night.
“And I think I’d have put through a few enquiries to central office about my female acquaintances,” Elk went on remorselessly. “I can understand why you’re glued to the game, because money naturally attracts you. But what gets me is where the money comes from.”
“That won’t be the only thing that will get you,” she said between her teeth as she flounced into the half-opened door of Caverley House.
Elk stood where she had left him, his melancholy face expressionless. For five minutes he stood so, and then walked slowly in the direction of his modest bachelor home.
He lived over a lock-up shop, a cigar store, and he was the sole occupant of the building. As he crossed Gray’s Inn Road, he glanced idly up at the windows of his rooms and noted that they were closed. He noticed something more. Every pane of glass was misty with some yellow, opalescent substance.
Elk looked up and down the silent street, and at a short distance away saw where road repairers had been at work. The night watchman dozed before his fire, and did not hear Elk’s approach or remark his unusual action. The detective found in a heap of gravel, three rounded pebbles, and these he took back with him. Standing in the centre of the road, he threw one of the pebbles unerringly.
There was a crash of glass as the window splintered. Elk waited, and presently he saw a yellow wraith of poison-vapour curl out and downward through the broken pane.
“This is getting monotonous,” said Elk wearily, and walked to the nearest fire alarm.
CHAPTER VII
OUTWARDLY, John Bennett accepted his son’s new life as a very natural development which might be expected in a young man. Inwardly he was uneasy, fearful. Ray was his only son; the pride of his life, though this he never showed. None knew better than John Bennett the snares that await the feet of independent youth in a great city. Worst of all, for his peace of mind, he knew Ray.
Ella did not discuss the matter with her father, but she guessed his trouble and made up her mind as to what action she would take.
The Sunday before, Ray had complained bitterly about the new cut to his salary. He had been desperate and had talked wildly of throwing up his work and finding a new place. And that possibility filled Ella with dismay. The Bennetts lived frugally on a very limited income. Apparently her father had few resources, though he always gave her the impression that from one of these he received a fairly comfortable income.
The cottage was Bennett’s own property, and the cost of living was ridiculously cheap. A woman from the village came in every morning to do heavy work, and once a week to assist with the wash. That was the only luxury which her father’s meagre allowance provided for. So that she faced the prospect of an out-of-work Ray with alarm and decided upon her line of action.
One morning Johnson, crossing the marble floor of Maitland’s main office, saw a delicious figure come through the swing doors, and almost ran to meet it.
“My dear Miss Bennett, this is a wonderful surprise—Ray is out, but if you’ll wait——”
“I’m glad he is out,” she said, relieved. “I want to see Mr. Maitland. Is it possible?”
The cheery face of the philosopher clouded.
“I’m afraid that will be difficult,” he said. “The old man never sees people—even the biggest men in the City. He hates women and strangers, and although I’ve been with him all these years, I’m not so sure that he has got used to me! What is it about?”
She hesitated.
“It’s about Ray’s salary,” and then, as he shook his head, she went on urgently: “It is so important, Mr. Johnson. Ray has extravagant tastes, and if they cut his salary it means—well, you know Ray so well!”
He nodded.
“I don’t know whether I can do anything,” he said dubiously. “I’ll go up and ask Mr. Maitland, but I’m afraid that it is a million to one chance against his seeing you.”
When he came back, the jovial face of Mr. Johnson was one broad smile.
“Come up before he changes his mind,” he said, and led her to the lift. “You’ll have to do all the talking, Miss Bennett—he’s an eccentric old cuss and as hard as flint.”
He showed her into a small and comfortably furnished room, and waved his hand to a writing-table littered with papers.
“My little den,” he explained.
From the “den” a large rosewood door opened upon Mr. Maitland’s office.
Johnson knocked softly, and, with a heart that beat a little faster, Ella was ushered into the presence of the strange old man who at that moment was dominating the money market.
The room was large, and the luxury of the fittings took her breath away. The walls were of rosewood inlaid with exquisite silver inlay. Light came from concealed lamps in the cornice as well as from the long stained-glass windows. Each article of furniture in the room was worth a fortune, and she guessed that the carpet, into which her feet sank, equalled in costliness the whole contents of an average house.
Behind a vast ormolu writing-table sat the great Maitland, bolt upright, watching her from under his shaggy white brows. A few stray hairs of his spotless beard rested on the desk, and as he raised his hand to sweep them into place, she saw he wore fingerless woollen gloves. His head was completely bald . . . she looked at his big ears, standing away from his head, fascinated. Patriarchal, yet repulsive. There was something gross, obscene, about him that hurt her. It was not the untidiness of his dress, it was not his years. Age brings refinement, that beauty of decay that the purists call caducity. This old man had grown old coarsely.
His scrutiny lacked the assurance she expected. It almost seemed that he was nervous, ill at ease. His gaze shifted from the girl to his secretary, and then to the rich colouring of the windows, and then furtively back to Ella again.
“This is Miss Bennett, sir. You remember that Bennett is our exchange clerk, and a very smart fellow indeed. Miss Bennett wants you to reconsider your decision about that salary cut.”
“You see, Mr. Maitland,” Ella broke in, “we’re not particularly well off, and the reduction makes a whole lot of difference to us.”
Mr. Maitland wagged his bald head impatiently.
“I don’t care whether you’re well off or not well off,” he said loudly. “When I reduces salaries I reduces ’um, see?”
She stared at him in amazement. The voice was harsh and common. The language and tone were of the gutter. In that sentence he confirmed all her first impressions.
“If he don’t like it he can go, and if you don’t like it”—he fixed his dull eyes on the uncomfortable-looking Johnson—“you can go too. There’s lots of fellers I can get—pick ’um up on the streets! Millions of ’um! That’s all.” Johnson tiptoed from the presence and closed the door behind her.
“He’s a horror!” she gasped. “How can you endure contact with him, Mr. Johnson?”
The stout man smiled quietly.
“ ‘Millions of ’um,’ ” he repeated, “and he’s right. With a million and a half unemployed on the streets, I can’t throw up a good job——”
“I’m sorry,” she said, impulsively putting her hand on his arm. “I didn’t know he was like that,” she went on more mildly. “He’s—terrible!”
“He’s a self-made man, and perhaps he would have been well advised to have got an artisan to do the job,” smiled Johnson, “but he’s not really bad. I wonder why he saw you?”
“Doesn’t he see people?”
He shook his head.
“Not unless it is absolutely necessary, and that only happens about twice a year. I don’t think there is anybody in this building that he’s ever spoken to—not even the managers.”
He took her down to the general office. Ray had not come back.
“The truth is,” confessed Johnson when she asked him, “that Ray hasn’t been to the office this morning. He sent word to say that he wasn’t feeling any too good, and I fixed it so that he has a day off.”
“He’s not ill?” she asked in alarm, but Johnson reassured her.
“No. I got on the telephone to him—he has a telephone at his new flat.”
“I thought he had an ordinary apartment!” she said, aghast, the housewife in her perturbed. “A flat—where is it?”
“In Knightsbridge,” replied Johnson quietly. “Yes, it sounds expensive, but I believe he has a bargain. A man who was going abroad sub-let it to him for a song. I suppose he wrote to you from the lodgings in Bloomsbury where he intended going. May I be candid, Miss Bennett?”
“If it is about Ray, I wish you would,” she answered quickly.
“Ray is rather worrying me,” said Johnson. “Naturally I want to do all that I can for him, for I am fond of him. At present my job is covering up his rather frequent absences from the office—you need not mention this fact to him—but it is rather a strain, for the old man has an uncanny instinct for a shirker. He is living in better style than he ought to be able to afford, and I’ve seen him dressed to kill with some of the swellest people in town—at least, they looked swell.”
The girl felt herself go cold, and the vague unrest in her mind became instantly a panic.
“There isn’t . . . anything wrong at the office?” she asked anxiously.
“No. I took the liberty of going through his books. They’re square. His cash account is right to a centimo. Crudely stated, he isn’t stealing—at least, not from us. There’s another thing. He calls himself Raymond Lester at Knightsbridge. I found this out by accident, and asked him why he had taken another name. His explanation was fairly plausible. He didn’t want Mr. Bennett to hear that he was cutting a shine. He has some profitable outside work, but he won’t tell me what it is.”
Ella was glad to get away, glad to reach the seclusion which the wide spaces of the park afforded. She must think and decide upon the course she would take. Ray was not the kind of boy to accept the draconic attitude, either in her or in John Bennett. His father must not know—she must appeal to Ray. Perhaps it was true that he had found a remunerative sideline. Lots of young men ran spare time work with profit to themselves—only Ray was not a worker.
She sat down on a park chair to wrestle with the problem, and so intent was she upon its solution that she did not realize that somebody had stopped before her.
“This is a miracle!” said a laughing voice, and she looked up into the blue eyes of Dick Gordon. “And now you can tell me what is the difficulty?” he asked as he pulled another chair toward her and sat down.
“Difficulty . . . who . . . who said I was in difficulties?” she countered.
“Your face is the traitor,” he smiled. “Forgive this attire. I have been to make an official call at the United States Embassy.”
She noticed for the first time that he wore the punctilious costume of officialdom, the well-fitting tail-coat, the polished top-hat and regulation cravat. She observed first of all that he looked very well in them, and that he seemed even younger.
“I have an idea it is your brother,” he said. “I saw him a few minutes ago—there he is now.”
She followed the direction of his eyes, and half rose from her chair in her astonishment. Riding on the tan track which ran parallel to the park road, were a man and a girl. The man was Ray. He was smartly dressed, and from the toes of his polished riding-boots to the crown of his grey hat, was all that was creditable to expensive tailoring. The girl at his side was young, pretty, petite.
The riders passed without Ray noticing the interested spectators. He was in his gayest mood, and the sound of his laughter came back to the dumbfounded girl.
“But . . . I don’t understand—do you know the lady, Mr. Gordon?”
“Very well by repute,” said Dick drily. “Her name is Lola Bassano.”
“Is she—a lady?”
Dick’s eyes twinkled.
“Elk says she’s not, but Elk is prejudiced. She has money and education and breed. Whether or not these three assets are sufficient to constitute a lady, I don’t know. Elk says not, but, as I say, Elk is considerably prejudiced.”
She sat silent, her mind in a whirl.
“I have an idea that you want help . . . about your brother,” said Dick quietly. “He is frightening you, isn’t he?”
She nodded.
“I thought so. He is puzzlingme. I know all about him, his salary and prospects and his queer masquerade under analias. I’m not troubling about that, because boys love those kinds of mysteries. Unfortunately, they are expensive mysteries, and I want to know how he can afford to keep up this suddenly acquired position.”
He mentioned a sum and she gasped.
“It costs all that,” said Dick. “Elk, who has a passion for exact detail, and who knows to a penny what the riding suit costs, supplied me with particulars.”
She interrupted him with such a gesture of despair that he felt a brute.
“What can I do . . . what can I do?” she asked. “Everybody wants to help—you, Mr. Johnson, and, I’m sure, Mr. Elk. But he is impossible—Ray, I mean. It will be fighting a feather bed. It may seem absurd to you, so much fuss over Ray’s foolish escapade, but it means, oh, so much to us, father and me!”
Dick said nothing. It was too delicate a matter for an outsider to intrude upon. But the real delicacy of the situation was comprised in the boy’s riding companion. As though guessing his thoughts, she asked suddenly:
“Is she a nice girl—Miss Bassano? I mean, is she one whom Ray should know?”
“She is very charming,” he answered after a pause, and she noted the evasion and carried the subject no farther. Presently she turned the talk to her call on Ezra Maitland, and he heard her description without expressing surprise.
“He’s a rough diamond,” he said. “Elk knows something about him which he refuses to tell. Elk enjoys mystifying his chiefs even more than detecting criminals. But I’ve heard about Maitland from other sources.”
“Why does he wear gloves in the office?” she asked unexpectedly.
“Gloves—I didn’t know that,” he said, surprised. “Why shouldn’t he?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know . . . it was a silly idea, but I thought—it has only occurred to me since . . .”
He waited.
“When he put up his hand to smooth his beard, I’m almost sure I saw a tattoo mark on his left wrist—just the edge of it showing above the end of the glove—the head and eyes of a frog.”
Dick Gordon listened, thunderstruck.
“Are you sure it wasn’t your imagination, Miss Bennett?” he asked. “I am afraid the Frog is getting on all our nerves.”
“It may have been,” she nodded; “but I was within a few feet of him, and a patch of light, reflected from his blotter, caught the wrist for a second.”
“Did you speak to Johnson about it?”
She shook her head.
“I thought afterwards that even he, with all his long years of service, might not have observed the tattoo mark. I remember now that Ray told me Mr. Maitland always wore gloves, summer or winter.”
Dick was puzzled. It was unlikely that this man, the head of a great financial corporation, should be associated with a gang of tramps. And yet——
“When is your brother going to Horsham?” he asked.
“On Sunday,” said the girl. “He has promised father to come to lunch.”
“I suppose,” said the cunning young man, “that it isn’t possible to ask me to be a fourth?”
“You will be a fifth,” she smiled. “Mr. Johnson is coming down too. Poor Mr. Johnson is scared of father, and I think the fear is mutual. Father resembles Maitland in that respect, that he does not like strangers. I’ll invite you anyway,” she said, and the prospect of the Sunday meeting cheered her.
Elk came to see him that night, just as he was going out to a theatre, and Dick related the girl’s suspicion. To his surprise, Elk took the startling theory very coolly.
“It’s possible,” he said, “but it’s more likely that the tattoo mark isn’t a frog at all. Old Maitland was a seaman as a boy—at least, that is what the only biography of him in existence says. It’s a half-column that appeared in a London newspaper about twelve years ago, when he bought up Lord Meister’s place on the Embankment and began to enlarge his offices. I’ll tell you this, Mr. Gordon, that I’m quite prepared to believe anything of old Maitland.”
“Why?” asked Dick in astonishment. He knew nothing of the discoveries which the detective had made.
“Because I just should,” said Elk. “Men who make millions are not ordinary. If they were ordinary they wouldn’t be millionaires. I’ll inquire about that tattoo mark.”
Dick’s attention was diverted from the Frogs that week by an unusual circumstance. On the Tuesday he was sent for by the Foreign Minister’s secretary, and, to his surprise, he was received personally by the august head of that department. The reason for this signal honour was disclosed.
“Captain Gordon,” said the Minister, “I am expecting from France the draft commercial treaty that is to be signed as between ourselves and the French and Italian Governments. It is very important that this document should be well guarded because—and I tell you this in confidence—it deals with a revision of tariff rates. I won’t compromise you by telling you in what manner the revisions are applied, but it is essential that the King’s Messenger who is bringing the treaty should be well guarded, and I wish to supplement the ordinary police protection by sending you to Dover to meet him. It is a little outside your duties, but your Intelligence work during the war must be my excuse for saddling you with this responsibility. Three members of the French and Italian secret police will accompany him to Dover, when you and your men will take on the guard duty, and remain until you personally see the document deposited in my own safe.”
Like many other important duties, this proved to be wholly unexciting. The Messenger was picked up on the quay at Dover, shepherded into a Pullman coupé which had been reserved for him, and the passage-way outside the coupé was patrolled by two men from Scotland Yard. At Victoria a car, driven by a chauffeur-policeman and guarded by armed men, picked up the Messenger and Dick, and drove them to Calden Gardens. In his library the Foreign Secretary examined the seals carefully, and then, in the presence of Dick and the Detective-Inspector who had commanded the escort, placed the envelope in the safe.
“I don’t suppose for one moment,” said the Foreign Minister with a smile, after all the visitors but Dick had departed, “that our friends the Frogs are greatly interested. Yet, curiously enough, I had them in my mind, and this was responsible for the extraordinary precautions we have taken. There is, I suppose, no further clue in the Genter murder?”
“None, sir—so far as I know. Domestic crime isn’t really in my department. And any kind of crime does not come to the Public Prosecutor until the case against an accused person is ready to be presented.”
“It is a pity,” said Lord Farmley. “I could wish that the matter of the Frogs was not entirely in the hands of Scotland Yard. It is so out of the ordinary, and such a menace to society, that I should feel more happy if some extra department were controlling the investigations.”
Dick Gordon might have said that he was itching to assume that control, but he refrained. His lordship fingered his shaven chin thoughtfully. He was an austere man of sixty, delicately featured, as delicately wrinkled, the product of that subtle school of diplomacy which is at once urbane and ruthless, which slays with a bow, and is never quite so dangerous as when it is most polite.
“I will speak to the Prime Minister,” he said. “Will you dine with me, Captain Gordon?”
Early in the next afternoon, Dick Gordon was summoned to Downing Street, and was informed that a special department had been created to deal exclusively with this social menace.
“You havecarte blanche, Captain Gordon. I may be criticized for giving you this appointment, but I am perfectly satisfied that I have the right man,” said the Prime Minister; “and you may employ any officer from Scotland Yard you wish.”
“I’ll take Sergeant Elk,” said Dick promptly, and the Prime Minister looked dubious.
“That is not a very high rank,” he demurred.
“He is a man with thirty years’ service,” said Dick; “and I believe that only his failure in the educational test has stopped his further promotion. Let me have him, sir, and give him the temporary rank of Inspector.”
The older man laughed.
“Have it your own way,” he said.
Sergeant Elk, lounging in to report progress that afternoon, was greeted by a new title. For a while he was dazed, and then a slow smile dawned on his homely face.
“I’ll bet I’m the only inspector in England who doesn’t know where Queen Elizabeth is buried!” he said, not without pride.
CHAPTER VIII
IT was perfectly absurd, Dick told himself a dozen times during the days which followed, that a grown man of his experience should punctiliously and solemnly strike from the calendar, one by one, the days which separated him from Sunday. A schoolboy might so behave, but it would have to be a very callow schoolboy. And a schoolboy might sit at his desk and dream away the time that might have been devoted to official correspondence.
A pretty face . . . ? Dick had admired many. A graciousness of carriage, an inspiring refinement of manner . . . ? He gave up the attempt to analyse the attraction which Ella Bennett held. All that he knew was, that he was waiting impatiently for Sunday.
When Dick opened the garden gate, he saw the plump figure of philosophical Johnson ensconced cosily in a garden chair. The secretary rose with a beaming smile and held out his hand. Dick liked the man. He stood for that patient class which, struggling under the stifling handicap of its own mediocrity, has its superlative virtue in loyalty and unremitting application to the task it finds at hand.
“Ray told me you were coming, Mr. Gordon—he is with Miss Bennett in the orchard, and from a casual view of him just now, he is hearing a few home truths. What do you make of it?”
“Has he given up coming to the office?” asked Dick, as he stripped his dust-coat.
“I am afraid he is out for good.” Johnson’s face was sad. “I had to tell him to go. The old man found out that he’d been staying away, and by some uncanny and underground system of intelligence he has learnt that Ray was going the pace. He had an accountant in to see the books, but thank heaven they were O.K.! I was very nearly fired myself.”
This was an opportunity not to be missed.
“Do you know where Maitland lives—in what state? Has he a town house?”
Johnson smiled.
“Oh yes, he has a town house all right,” he said sarcastically. “I only discovered where it was a year ago, and I’ve never told a single soul until now. And even now I won’t give details. But old Maitland is living in some place that is nearly a slum—living meanly and horribly like an unemployed labourer! And he is worth millions! He has a cheap house in one of the suburbs, a place I wouldn’t use to stable a cow! He and his sister live there; she looks after the place and does the housekeeping. I guess she has a soft job. I’ve never known Maitland to spend a penny on himself. I’m sure that he is wearing the suit he wore when I first came to him. He has a penny glass of milk and a penny roll for lunch, and tries to swindle me into paying for that, some days!”
“Tell me, Mr. Johnson, why does the old man wear gloves in the office?”
Johnson shook his head.
“I don’t know. I used to think it was to hide the scar on the back of his hand, but he’s not the kind of man to wear gloves for that. He is tattooed with crowns and anchors and dolphins all up his arms. . . .”
“And frogs?” asked Dick quietly, and the question seemed to surprise the other.
“No, I’ve never seen a frog. There’s a bunch of snakes on one wrist—I’ve seen that. Why, old man Maitland wouldn’t be a Frog, would he?” he asked, and Dick smiled at the anxiety in his tone.
“I wondered,” he said.
Johnson’s usually cheerful countenance was glum.
“I reckon he is mean enough to be a Frog or ’most anything,” he said, and at that minute Ray and his sister came into view. On Ray’s forehead sat a thundercloud, which deepened at the sight of Dick Gordon. The girl was flushed and obviously on the verge of tears.
“Hallo, Gordon!” the boy began without preliminary. “I fancy you’re the fellow that has been carrying yarns to my sister. You set Elk to spy on me—I know, because I found Elk in the act——”
“Ray, you’re not to speak like that to Mr. Gordon,” interrupted the girl hotly. “He has never told me anything to your discredit. All I know I have seen. You seem to forget that Mr. Gordon is father’s guest.”
“Everybody is fussing over me,” Ray grumbled. “Even old Johnson!” He grinned sheepishly at the bald man, but Johnson did not return the smile.
“Somebody has got to worry about you, boy,” he said.
The strained situation was only relieved when John Bennett, camera on back, came up the red path to greet his visitors.
“Why, Mr. Johnson, I owe you many apologies for putting you off, but I’m glad to see you here at last. How is Ray doing at the office?”
Johnson shot a helpless and pathetic glance at Dick.
“Er—fine, Mr. Bennett,” he blurted.
So John Bennett was not to be told that his son had launched forth on a new career? The fact that he was fathering this deception made Dick Gordon a little uncomfortable. Apparently it reduced Mr. Johnson to despair, for when a somewhat tense luncheon had ended and they were alone again in the garden, that worthy man unburdened himself of his trouble.
“I feel that I’m playing it low on old Bennett,” he said. “Ray should have told him.”
Dick could only agree. He was in no mood to discuss Ray at the moment. The boy’s annoyance and self-assurance irritated him, and it did not help matters to recognize the sudden and frank hostility which the brother of Ella Bennett was showing toward him. That was disconcerting, and emphasized his anomalous position in relation to the Bennetts. He was discovering what many young men in love have to discover: that the glamour which surrounds their dears does not extend to the relations and friends of their dears. He made yet another discovery. The plump Mr. Johnson was in love with the girl. He was nervous and incoherent in her presence; miserable when she went away. More miserable still when Dick boldly took her arm and led her into the rose-garden behind the house.
“I don’t know why that fellow comes here,” said Ray savagely as the two disappeared. “He isn’t a man of our class, and he loathes me.”
“I don’t know that he loathes you, Ray,” said Johnson, waking from the unhappy daydream into which he seemed to have fallen. “He’s an extremely nice man——”
“Fiddlesticks!” said the other scornfully. “He’s a snob! Anyway, he’s a policemen, and I hate cops! If you imagine the he doesn’t look good on you and me, you’re wrong. I’m as good as he is, and I bet I’ll make more money before I’m finished!”
“Money isn’t everything,” said Johnson tritely. “What work are you doing, Ray?”
It required a great effort on his part to bring his mind back to his friend’s affairs.
“I can’t tell you. It’s very confidential,” said Ray mysteriously. “I couldn’t even tell Ella, though she’s been jawing at me for hours. There are some jobs that a man can’t speak about without betraying secrets that aren’t his to tell. This is one of them.”
Mr. Johnson said nothing. He was thinking of Ella and wondering how long it would be before her good-looking companion brought her back.
Good-looking and young. Mr. Johnson was not good-looking, and only just on the right side of fifty. And he was bald. But, worst of all, in her presence he was tongue-tied. He was rather amazed with himself.
In the seclusion of the rose-garden another member of the Bennett family was relating her fears to a more sympathetic audience.
“I feel that father guesses,” she said. “He was out most of last night. I was awake when he came in, and he looked terrible. He said he had been walking about half the night, and by the mud on his boots I think he must have been.”
Dick did not agree.
“Knowing very little about Mr. Bennett, I should hardly think he is the kind of man to suffer in silence where your brother is concerned,” he said. “I could better imagine a most unholy row. Why has your brother become so unpleasant to me?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know. Ray has changed suddenly. This morning when he kissed me, his breath smelt of whisky—he never used to drink. This new life is ruining him—why should he take a false name if . . . if the work he is doing is quite straight?”
She had ceased addressing him as “Mr. Gordon.” The compromise of calling him by no name at all was very pleasant to Dick Gordon, because he recognized that itwasa compromise. The day was hot and the sky cloudless. Ella had made arrangements to serve tea on the lawn, and she found two eager helpers in Dick and Johnson, galvanized to radiant activity by the opportunity of assisting. The boy’s attitude remained antagonistic, and after a few futile attempts to overcome this, Dick gave it up.
Even the presence of his father, who had kept aloof from the party all afternoon, brought no change for the better.
“The worst of being a policeman is that you’re always on duty,” he said during the meal. “I suppose you’re storing every scrap of talk in your mind, in case you have to use it.”
Dick folded a thin slice of bread and butter very deliberately before he replied.
“I have certainly a good memory,” he said. “It helps me to forget. It also helps me keep silent in circumstances which are very difficult and trying.”
Suddenly Ray spun round in his chair.
“I told you he was on duty!” he cried triumphantly. “Look! There’s the chief of the spy corps! The faithful Elk!”
Dick looked in astonishment. He had left Elk on the point of going north to follow up a new Frog clue that had come to light. And there he was, his hands resting on the gate, his chin on his chest, gazing mournfully over his glasses at the group.
“Can I come in, Mr. Bennett?”
John Bennett, alert and watchful, beckoned.
“Happened to be round about here, so I thought I’d call. Good afternoon, miss—good afternoon, Mr. Johnson.”
“Give Sergeant Elk your chair,” growled John Bennett, and his son rose with a scowl.
“Inspector,” said Elk. “No, I’d rather stand, mister. Stand and grow good, eh? Yes, I’m Inspector. I don’t realize it myself sometimes, especially when the men salute me—forget to salute ’em back. Now, in America I believe patrol men salute sergeants. That’s as it should be.”
His sad eyes moved from one to the other.
“I suppose your promotion has made a lot of crooks very scared, Elk?” sneered Ray.
“Why, yes. I believe it has. Especially the amatchoors,” said Elk. “The crooks that are only fly-nuts. The fancy crooks, who think they know it all, and will go on thinking so till one day somebody says, ‘Get your hat—the chief wants you!’ Otherwise,” confessed Elk modestly, “the news has created no sensation, and London is just as full as ever of tale-pitchers who’ll let you distribute their money amongst the poor if you’ll only loan ’em a hundred to prove your confidence. And,” Elk continued after a moment’s cogitation, “there’s nearly as many dud prize-fighters living on blackmail an’ robbery, an’ almost as many beautiful young ladies running faro parlours and dance emporiums.”
Ray’s face went a dull red, and if looks could blast, Inspector Elk’s friends would have been speaking of him in hushed tones.
Only then did he turn his attention to Dick Gordon.
“I was wondering, Captain, if I could have a day off next week—I’ve a little family trouble.”
Dick, who did not even know that his friend had a family was startled.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Elk,” he said sympathetically.
Elk sighed.
“It’s hard on me,” he said, “but I feel I ought to tell you, if you’ll excuse me, Miss Bennett?”
Dick rose and followed the detective to the gate, and then Elk spoke in a low tone.
“Lord Farmley’s house was burgled at one o’clock this morning, and the Frogs have got away with the draft treaty!”
Watching the two furtively, the girl saw nothing in Dick Gordon’s demeanour to indicate that he had received any news which was of consequence to himself. He came slowly back to the table.
“I am afraid I must go,” he said. “Elk’s trouble is sufficiently important to take me back to town.”
He saw the regret in Ella’s eyes and was satisfied. The leave-taking was short, for it was very necessary that he should get back to town as quickly as his car could carry him.
On the journey Elk told all that he knew. Lord Farmley had spent the week-end in his town house. He was working on two new clauses which had been inserted on the private representation of the American ambassador, who, as usual, held a watching brief in the matter, but managed (also as usual) to secure the amendment of a clause dealing with transshipments that, had it remained unamended, would have proved detrimental to his country. All this Dick learnt later. He was unaware at the time that the embassy knew of the treaty’s existence.
Lord Farmley had replaced the document in the safe, which was a “Cham” of the latest make, and built into the wall of his study, locked and double-locked the steel doors, switched on the burglar alarm, and went to bed.
He had no occasion to go to the safe until after lunch. To all appearances, the safe-doors had not been touched. After lunch, intending to work again on the treaty, he put his key in the lock, to discover that, when it turned, the wards met no resistance. He pulled at the handle. It came away in his hand. The safe was open in the sense that it was not locked, and the treaty, together with his notes and amendments, had gone.
“How did they get in?” asked Dick as the car whizzed furiously along the country road.
“Pantry window—butlers’ pantries were invented by a burglar-architect,” said Elk. “It’s a real job—the finest bit of work I’ve seen in twenty years, and there are only two men in the world who could have done it. No finger-prints, no ugly holes blown into the safe, everything neat and beautifully done. It’s a pleasure to see.”
“I hope Lord Farmley has got as much satisfaction out of the workmanship as you have,” said Dick grimly, and Elk sniffed.
“He wasn’t laughing,” he said, “at least, not when I came away.”
His lordship was not laughing when Elk returned.
“This is terrible, Gordon—terrible! We’re holding a Cabinet on the matter this evening; the Prime Minister has returned to town. This means political ruin for me.”
“You think the Frogs are responsible?”
Lord Farmley’s answer was to pull open the door of the safe. On the inside panel was a white imprint, an exact replica of that which Elk had seen on the door of Mr. Broad’s flat. It was almost impossible for the non-expert to discover how the safe had been opened. It was Elk who showed the fine work that had extracted the handle and had enabled the thieves to shatter the lock by some powerful explosive which nobody in the house had heard.
“They used a silencer,” said Elk. “It’s just as easy to prevent gases escaping too quickly from a lock as it is from a gun barrel. I tell you, there are only two men who could have done this.”
“Who are they?”
“Young Harry Lyme is one—he’s been dead for years. And Saul Morris is the other—and Saul’s dead too.”
“As the work is obviously not that of two dead men, you would be well advised to think of a third,” said his lordship, pardonably annoyed.
Elk shook his head slowly.
“There must be a third, and he’s the cleverest of the lot,” he said, speaking his thoughts aloud. “I know the lot—Wal Cormon, George the Rat, Billy Harp, Ike Velleco, Pheeny Moore—and I’ll take an oath that it wasn’t any of them. This is master work, my lord. It’s the work of a great artist such as we seldom meet nowadays. And I fancy I know who he is.”
Lord Farmley, who had listened as patiently as he could to this rhapsody, stalked from the library soon after, leaving the men alone.
“Captain,” said Elk, walking after the peer and closing the door, “do you happen to know where old Bennett was last night?”
Elk’s tone was careless, but Dick Gordon felt the underlying significance of the question, and for a moment, realizing all that lay behind the question, all that it meant to the girl, who was dearer to him than he had guessed, his breath came more quickly.
“He was out most of the night,” he said. “Miss Bennett told me that he went away on Friday and did not return until this morning at daybreak. Why?”
Elk took a paper from his pocket, unfolded it slowly and adjusted his glasses.
“I’ve had a man keeping tag of Bennett’s absences from home,” he said slowly. “It was easy, because the woman who goes every morning to clean his house has a wonderful memory. He has been away fifteen times this past year, and every time he has gone there’s been a first-class burglary committed somewhere!”
Dick drew a long breath.
“What are you suggesting?” he asked.
“I’m suggesting,” replied Elk deliberately, “that if Bennett can’t account for his movements on Saturday night, I’m going to pull him in. Saul Morris I’ve never met, nor young Wal Cormon either—they were before I did big work. But if my idea is right, Saul Morris isn’t as dead as he ought to be. I’m going down to see Brother Bennett, and I think perhaps I’ll be doing a bit of resurrecting!”