“I can give you a line to Number 7 that will put him into your hands,” his note had run.
“I can give you a line to Number 7 that will put him into your hands,” his note had run.
Number Seven! Elk caught a long breath. No. 7 was the hub on which the wheel turned.
He rubbed his hands cheerfully, for it seemed that the mystery of the Frog was at last to be solved. Perhaps “the line” would lead to the missing treaty—and at the thought of the lost document Elk’s face clouded. Two ministers, a great state department and innumerable under-secretaries spent their time in writing frantic notes of inquiry to headquarters concerning Lord Farmley’s loss.
“They want miracles,” said Elk, and wondered if the day would produce one.
He went to his overcoat pocket to find a cigar, and his hand touched a thick roll of papers. He pulled them out and threw them upon the desk, and as he did so the first words on the first sheet caught his eye.
“By the King’s Most Excellent Majesty in Council——”
Elk tried to yell, but his voice failed him, and then he snatched up the paper from the desk and turned the leaves with trembling hands.
It was the lost treaty!
Elk held the precious document in his hand, and his mind went back quickly over the night’s adventures. When had he taken off his top-coat? When had he last put his hand in his pocket? He had taken off the coat at Heron’s Club, and he could not remember having used the pockets since. It was a light coat that he either carried or wore, summer or winter. He had brought it to the office that morning on his arm.
At the club! Probably when he had parted with the garment to the cloak-room attendant. Then the Frog must have been there. One of the waiters probably—an admirable disguise for the chief of the gang. Elk sat down to think.
To question anybody in the building would be futile. Nobody had touched the coat but himself.
“Dear me!” said Elk, as he hung up the coat again.
At the touch of his bell, Balder came.
“Balder, do you remember seeing me pass your room?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I had my coat on my arm, didn’t I?”
“I never looked,” said Balder with satisfaction.
He invariably gave Elk the impression that he derived a great deal of satisfaction out of not being able to help.
“It’s queer,” said Elk.
“Anything wrong, sir?”
“No, not exactly. You understand what has to be done with Mills? He is to see nobody. Immediately he arrives he is to be put into the waiting-room—alone. There is to be no conversation of any kind, and, if he speaks, he is not to be answered.”
In the privacy of his office he inspected his find again. Everything was there—the treaty and Lord Farmley’s notes. Elk called up his lordship and told the good news. Later came a small deputation from the Foreign Office to collect the precious document, and to offer, in the name of the Ministry, their thanks for his services in recovering the lost papers. All of which Elk accepted graciously. He would have been cursed with as great heartiness if he had failed, and would have been equally innocent of responsibility.
He had arranged for Mills to be brought to Headquarters at noon. There remained an hour to be filled, and he spent that hour unprofitably in a rough interrogation of Hagn, who, stripped of his beard, occupied a special cell segregated from the ordinary places of confinement in Cannon Row Station—which is virtually Scotland Yard itself.
Hagn refused to make any statement—even when formally charged with the murder of Inspector Genter. He did, however, make a comment on the charge when Elk saw him this morning.
“You have no proof, Elk,” he said, “and you know that I am innocent.”
“You were the last man seen in Genter’s company,” said Elk sternly. “It is established that you brought his body back to town. In addition to which, Mills has spilt everything.”
“I’m aware what Mills has said,” remarked the other.
“You’re not so aware either,” suggested Elk. “And now I’ll tell you something: we’ve had Number Seven under lock and key since morning—now laugh!”
To his amazement the man’s face relaxed in a broad grin.
“Bluff!” he said. “And cheap bluff. It might deceive a poor little thief, but it doesn’t get past with me. If you’d caught ‘Seven,’ you wouldn’t be talking fresh to me. Go and find him, Elk,” he mocked, “and when you’ve got him, hold him tight. Don’t let him get away—as Mills will.”
Elk returned from the interview feeling that it had not gone as well as it might—but as he was leaving the station he beckoned the chief inspector.
“I’m planting a pigeon on Hagn this afternoon. Put ’um together and leave ’um alone,” he said.
The inspector nodded understandingly.
CHAPTER XVII
ON the morning that Elk waited for the arrival of the informer, elaborate precautions were being made to transfer the man to headquarters. All night the prison had been surrounded by a cordon of armed guards, whilst patrols had remained on duty in the yard where he was confined.
The captured Frog was a well-educated man who had fallen on evil times and had been recruited when “on the road” through the agency of two tramping members of the fraternity. From the first statement he made, it appeared that he had acted as section leader, his duty being to pass on instructions and “calls” to the rank and file, to report casualties and to assist in the attacks which were made from time to time upon those people who had earned the Frog’s enmity. Apparently only section leaders and trustees were given this type of work.
They brought him from his cell at eleven o’clock, and the man, despite his assurance, was nervous and apprehensive. Moreover, he had a cold and was coughing. This may have been a symptom of nerves also.
At eleven-fifteen the gates of the prison were opened, and three motor-cyclists came out abreast. A closed car followed, the curtains drawn. On either side of the car rode other armed men on motor-cycles, and a second car, containing Central Office men, followed.
The cortège reached Scotland Yard without mishap; the gates at both ends were closed, and the prisoner was rushed into the building.
Balder, Elk’s clerk, and a detective-sergeant, took charge of the man, who was now white and shaking, and he was put into a small room adjoining Elk’s office, a room the windows of which were heavily barred (it had been used for the safe holding of spies during the war). Two men were put on duty outside the door, and the discontented Balder reported.
“We’ve put that fellow in the waiting-room, Mr. Elk.”
“Did he say anything?” asked Dick, who had arrived for the interrogation.
“No, sir—except to ask if the window could be shut. I shut it.”
“Bring the prisoner,” said Elk.
They waited a while, heard the clash of keys, and then an excited buzz of talk. Then Balder rushed in.
“He’s ill . . . fainted or something,” he gasped, and Elk sprang past him, along the corridor into the guard-room.
Mills half sat, half lay, against the wall. His eyes were closed, his face was ashen.
Dick bent over the prisoner and laid him flat on the ground. Then he stooped and smelt.
“Cyanide of potassium,” he said. “The man is dead.”
That morning Mills had been stripped to the skin and every article of clothing searched thoroughly and well. As an additional precaution his pockets had been sewn up. To the two detectives who accompanied him in the car he had spoken hopefully of his forthcoming departure to Canada. None but police officers had touched him, and he had had no communication with any outsider.
The first thing that Dick Gordon noticed was the window, which Balder said he had shut. It was open some six inches at the bottom.
“Yes, sir, I’m sure I shut it,” said the clerk emphatically. “Sergeant Jeller saw me.”
The sergeant was also under that impression. Dick lifted the window higher and looked out. Four horizontal bars traversed the brickwork, but, by craning his head, he saw that, a foot away from the window and attached to the wall, was a long steel ladder running from the roof (as he guessed) to the ground. The room was on the third floor, and beneath was a patch of shrub-filled gardens. Beyond that, high railings.
“What are those gardens?” he asked, pointing to the space on the other side of the railings.
“They belong to Onslow Gardens,” said Elk.
“Onslow Gardens?” said Dick thoughtfully. “Wasn’t it from Onslow Gardens that the Frogs tried to shoot me?”
Elk shook his head helplessly.
“What do you suggest. Captain Gordon?”
“I don’t know what to suggest,” admitted Dick. “It doesn’t seem an intelligent theory that somebody climbed the ladder and handed poison to Mills—less acceptable, that he would be willing to take the dose. There is the fact. Balder swears that the window was shut, and now the window is open. You can trust Balder?”
Elk nodded.
The divisional surgeon came soon after, and, as Dick had expected, pronounced life extinct, and supported the view that cyanide was the cause.
“Cyanide has a peculiar odour,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt at all that the man was killed, either by poison administered from outside, or by poison taken voluntarily by himself.”
After the body had been removed. Elk accompanied Dick Gordon to his Whitehall office.
“I have never been frightened in my life,” said Elk, “but these Frogs are now on top of me! Here is a man killed practically under our eyes! He was guarded, he was never let out of our sight, except for the few minutes he was in that room, and yet the Frog can reach him—it’s frightening, Captain Gordon.”
Dick unlocked the door of his office and ushered Elk into the cosy interior.
“I know of no better cure for shaken nerves than aCabana Cesare,” he said cheerfully. “And without desiring to indulge in a boastful gesture, I can only tell you, Elk, that they don’t frighten me, any more than they frighten you. Frog is human, and has very human fears. Where is friend Broad?”
“The American?”
Dick nodded, and Elk, without a second’s hesitation, pulled the telephone toward him and gave a number.
After a little delay, Broad’s voice answered him.
“That you, Mr. Broad? What are you doing now?” asked Elk, in that caressing tone he adopted for telephone conversation.
“Is that Elk? I’m just going out.”
“Thought I saw you in Whitehall about five minutes ago,” said Elk.
“Then you must have seen my double,” replied the other, “for I haven’t been out of my bath ten minutes. Do you want me?”
“No, no,” cooed Elk. “Just wanted to know you were all right.”
“Why, is anything wrong?” came the sharp question.
“Everything’s fine,” said Elk untruthfully. “Perhaps you’ll call round and see me at my office one of these days—good-bye!”
He pushed the telephone back, and raising his eyes to the ceiling, made a quick calculation.
“From Whitehall to Cavendish Square takes four minutes in a good car,” he said. “So his being in the flat means nothing.”
He pulled the telephone toward him again, and this time called Headquarters.
“I want a man to shadow Mr. Joshua Broad, of Caverley House; not to leave him until eight o’clock to-night; to report to me.”
When he had finished, he sat back in his chair and lit the long cigar that Dick had pressed upon him.
“To-day is Tuesday,” he ruminated, “to-morrow’s Wednesday. Where do you propose to listen in, Captain Gordon?
“At the Admiralty,” said Dick. “I have arranged with the First Lord to be in the instrument room at a quarter to three.”
He bought the early editions of the evening newspapers, and was relieved to find that no reference had been made to the murder—as murder he believed it to be. Once, in the course of the day, looking out from his window on to Whitehall, he saw Elk walking along on the other side of the road, his umbrella hanging on his arm, his ancient derby hat at the back of his head, an untidy and unimposing figure. Then, an hour later, he saw him again, coming from the opposite direction. He wondered what particular business the detective was engaged in. He learnt, quite by accident, that Elk had made two visits to the Admiralty that day, but he did not discover the reason until they met later in the evening.
“Don’t know much about wireless,” said Elk, “though I’m not one of those people who believe that, if God had intended us to use wireless, telegraph poles would have been born without wires. But it seems to me that I remember reading something about ‘directional.’ If you want to know where a wireless message is coming from, you listen in at two or three different points——”
“Of course! What a fool I am!” said Dick, annoyed with himself. “It never occurred to me that we might pick up the broadcasting station.”
“I get these ideas,” explained Elk modestly. “The Admiralty have sent messages to Milford Haven, Harwich, Portsmouth and Plymouth, telling ships to listen in and give us the direction. The evening papers haven’t got that story.”
“You mean about Mills? No, thank heaven! It is certain to come out at the inquest, but I’ve arranged for that to be postponed for a week or two; and somehow I feel that within the next few weeks things will happen.”
“To us,” said Elk ominously. “I dare not eat a grilled sausage since that fellow was killed! And I’m partial to sausages.”
CHAPTER XVIII
HIS jaundiced clerk was, as usual, in a complaining mood. “Records have been making a fuss and have been blaming me,” he said bitterly. “Records give themselves more airs than the whole darned office.”
The war between Balder and “Records”—which was a short title for that section of Headquarters which kept exact data of criminals’ pasts,—was of long standing. “Records” was aloof, detached, sublimely superior to everything except tabulated facts. It was no respecter of persons; would as soon snap at a Chief Commissioner who broke its inflexible rules, as it would at the latest joined constable.
“What’s the trouble?” asked Elk.
“You remember you had a lot of stuff out the other day about a man called—I can’t remember his name now.”
“Lyme?” suggested Elk.
“That’s the fellow. Well, it appears that one of the portraits is missing. The morning after you were looking at them, I went to Records and got the documents again for you, thinking you wanted to see them in the morning. When you didn’t turn up, I returned them, and now they say the portrait and measurements are short.”
“Do you mean to say they’re lost?”
“If they’re lost,” said the morose Balder, “then Records have lost ’em! I suppose they think I’m a Frog or somethin’. They’re always accusing me of mislaying their finger-print cards.”
“I’ve promised you a chance to make a big noise, Balder, and now I’m going to give it to you. You’ve been passed over for promotion, son, because the men upstairs think you were one of the leaders of the last strike. I know that ‘passed over’ feeling—it turns you sour. Will you take a big chance?”
Balder nodded, holding his breath.
“Hagn’s in the special cell,” said Elk. “Change into your civilian kit, roughen yourself up a bit, and I’ll put you in with him. If you’re scared I’ll let you carry a gun and fix it so that you won’t be searched. Get Hagn to talk. Tell him that you were pulled in over the Dundee murder. He won’t know you. Get that story, Balder, and I’ll have the stripes on your arm in a week.”
Balder nodded. The querulous character of his voice had changed when he spoke again.
“It’s a chance,” he said; “and thank you, Mr. Elk, for giving it to me.”
An hour later, a detective brought a grimy-looking prisoner into Cannon Row and pushed him into the steel pen, and the only man who recognized the prisoner was the chief inspector who had waited for the arrival of the pigeon.
It was that high official himself who conducted Balder to the separate cell and pushed him in.
“Good night, Frog!” he said.
Balder’s reply was unprintable.
After seeing his subordinate safely caged, Elk went back to his room, locked the door, cut off his telephone and lay down to snatch a few hours’ sleep. It was a practice of his, when he was engaged in any work which kept him up at night, to take these intermediate siestas, and he had trained himself to sleep as and when the opportunity presented itself. It was unusual in him, however, to avail himself of the office sofa, a piece of furniture to which he was not entitled, and which, as his superiors had often pointed out, occupied space which might better be employed.
For once, however, he could not sleep. His mind ranged from Balder to Dick Gordon, from Lola Bassano to the dead man Mills. His own position had been seriously jeopardized, but that worried him not at all. He was a bachelor, had a snug sum invested. His mind went to the puzzling Maitland. His association with the Frogs had been proved almost up to the hilt. And Maitland was in a position to benefit by these many inexplicable attacks which had been made upon seemingly inoffensive people.
The old man lived a double life. By day the business martinet, before whom his staff trembled, the cutter of salaries, the shrewd manipulator of properties; by night the associate of thieves and worse than thieves. Who was the child? That was another snag.
“Nothing but snags!” growled Elk, his hands under his head, looking resentfully at the ceiling. “Nothing but snags.”
Finding he could not sleep, he got up and went across to Cannon Row. The gaoler told him that the new prisoner had been talking a lot to Hagn, and Elk grinned. He only hoped that the “new prisoner” would not be tempted to discuss his grievances against the police administration.
At a quarter to three he joined Dick Gordon in the instrument room at the Admiralty. An operator had been placed at their disposal; and after the preliminary instructions they took their place at the table where he manipulated his keys. Dick listened, fascinated, hearing the calls of far-off ships and the chatter of transmitting stations. Once he heard a faint squeak of sound, so faint that he wasn’t sure that he had not been mistaken.
“Cape Race,” said the operator. “You’ll hear Chicago in a minute. He usually gets talkative round about now.”
As the hands of the clock approached three, the operator began varying his wave lengths, reaching out into the ether for the message which was coming. Exactly at one minute after three he said suddenly:
“There is your L.V.M.B.”
Dick listened to the staccato sounds, and then:
“All Frogs listen. Mills is dead. Number Seven finished him this morning. Number Seven receives a bonus of a hundred pounds.”
The voice was clear and singularly sweet. It was a woman’s.
“Twenty-third district will arrange to receive Number Seven’s instructions at the usual place.”
Dick’s heart was beating thunderously. He recognized the speaker, knew the soft cadences, the gentle intonations.
There could be no doubt at all: it was Ella Bennett’s voice! Dick felt a sudden sensation of sickness, but, looking across the table and seeing Elk’s eyes fixed upon him, he made an effort to control his emotions.
“There doesn’t seem to be any more coming through,” said the operator after a few minutes’ wait.
Dick took off the headpiece and rose.
“We must wait for the direction signals to come through,” he said as steadily as he could.
Presently they began to arrive, and were worked out by a naval officer on a large scale map.
“The broadcasting station is in London,” he said. “All the lines meet somewhere in the West End, I should imagine; possibly in the very heart of town. Did you find any difficulty in picking up the Frog call?” he asked the operator.
“Yes, sir,” said the man. “I think they were sending from very close at hand.”
“In what part of town would you say it would be?” asked Elk.
The officer indicated a pencil mark that he had ruled across the page.
“It is somewhere on this mark,” he said, and Elk, peering over, saw that the line passed through Cavendish Square and Cavendish Place and that, whilst the Portsmouth line missed Cavendish Place only by a block, the Harwich line crossed the Plymouth line a little to the south of the square.
“Caverley House, obviously,” said Dick.
He wanted to get out in the open, he wanted to talk, to discuss this monstrous thing with Elk. Had the detective also recognized the voice, he wondered? Any doubt he had on that point was set at rest. He had hardly reached Whitehall before Elk said:
“Sounded very like a friend of ours, Captain Gordon?”
Dick made no reply.
“Very like,” said Elk as if he were speaking half to himself. “In fact, I’ll take any number of oaths that I know the young lady who was talking for old man Frog.”
“Why should she do it?” groaned Dick. “Why, for the love of heaven, should she do it?”
“I remember years ago hearing her,” said Elk reminiscently.
Dick Gordon stopped, and, turning, glared at the other.
“You remember . . . what do you mean?” he demanded.
“She was on the stage at the time—quite a kid,” continued Elk. “They called her ‘The Child Mimic.’ There’s another thing I’ve noticed, Captain: if you take a magnifying glass and look at your skin, you see its defects, don’t you? That wireless telephone acts as a sort of magnifying glass to the voice. She always had a little lisp that I jumped at straight away. You may not have noticed it, but I’ve got pretty sharp ears. She can’t pronounce her ‘S’s’ properly, there’s a sort of faint ‘th’ sound in ’um. You heard that?”
Dick had heard, and nodded.
“I never knew that she was ever on the stage,” he said more calmly. “You are sure, Elk?”
“Sure. In some things I’m . . . what’s the word?—infall-i-able. I’m a bit shaky on dates, such as when Henry the First an’ all that bunch got born—I never was struck on birthdays anyway—but I know voices an’ noses. Never forget ’um.”
They were turning into the dark entrance of Scotland Yard when Dick said in a tone of despair:
“It was her voice, of course. I had no idea she had been on the stage—is her father in this business?”
“She hasn’t a father so far as I know,” was the staggering reply, and again Gordon halted.
“Are you mad?” he asked. “Ella Bennett has a father——”
“I’m not talking about Ella Bennett,” said the calm Elk. “I’m talking about Lola Bassano.”
There was a silence.
“Was it her voice?” asked Gordon a little breathlessly.
“Sure it was Lola. It was a pretty good imitation of Miss Bennett, but any mimic will tell you that these soft voices are easy. It’s the pace of a voice that makes it . . .”
“You villain!” said Dick Gordon, as a weight rolled from his heart. “You knew I meant Ella Bennett when I was talking, and you strung me along!”
“Blame me,” said Elk. “What’s the time?”
It was half-past three. He gathered his reserves, and ten minutes later the police cars dropped a party at the closed door of Caverley House. The bell brought the night porter, who recognized Elk.
“More gas trouble?” he asked.
“Want to see the house plan,” said Elk, and listened as the porter detailed the names, occupations and peculiarities of the tenants.
“Who owns this block?” asked the detective.
“This is one of Maitland’s properties—Maitlands Consolidated. He’s got the Prince of Caux’s house in Berkeley Square and——”
“Don’t worry about giving me his family history. What time did Miss Bassano come in?”
“She’s been in all the evening—since eleven.”
“Anybody with her?”
The man hesitated.
“Mr. Maitland came in with her, but he went soon after.”
“Nobody else?”
“Nobody except Mr. Maitland.”
“Give me your master-key.”
The porter demurred.
“I’ll lose my job,” he pleaded. “Can’t you knock?”
“Knocking is my speciality—I don’t pass a day without knocking somebody,” replied Elk, “but I want that key.”
He did not doubt that Lola would have bolted her door, and his surmise proved sound. He had both to knock and ring before the light showed behind the transom, and Lola in a kimono and boudoir cap appeared.
“What is the meaning of this, Mr. Elk?” she demanded. She did not even attempt to appear surprised.
“A friendly call—can I come in?”
She opened the door wider, and Elk went in, followed by Gordon and two detectives. Dick she ignored.
“I’m seeing the Commissioner to-morrow,” she said, “and if he doesn’t give me satisfaction I’ll get on to the newspapers. This persecution is disgraceful. To break into a single girl’s flat in the middle of the night, when she is alone and unprotected——”
“If there is any time when a single girl should be alone and unprotected, it is in the middle of the night,” said Elk primly. “I’m just going to have a look at your little home, Lola. We’ve got information that you’ve been burgled, Lola. Perhaps at this very minute there’s a sinister man hidden under your bed. The idea of leaving you alone, so to speak, at the mercy of unlawful characters, is repugnant to our feelin’s. Try the dining-room, Williams; I’ll search the parlour—andthe bedroom.”
“You’ll keep out of my room if you’ve any sense of decency,” said the girl.
“I haven’t,” admitted Elk, “no false sense, anyway. Besides, Lola, I’m a family man. One of ten. And when there’s anything I shouldn’t see, just say ‘Shut your eyes’ and I’ll shut ’um.”
To all appearances there was nothing that looked in the slightest degree suspicious. A bathroom led from the bedroom, and the bathroom window was open. Flashing his lamp along the wall outside, Elk saw a small glass spool attached to the wall.
“Looks to me like an insulator,” he said.
Returning to the bedroom, he began to search for the instrument. There was a tall mahogany wardrobe against one of the walls. Opening the door, he saw row upon row of dresses and thrust in his hand.
It was the shallowest wardrobe he had ever seen, and the backing was warm to the touch.
“Hot cupboard, Lola?” he asked.
She did not reply, but stood watching him, a scowl on her pretty face, her arms folded.
Elk closed the door and his sensitive fingers searched the surface for a spring. It took him a long time to discover it, but at last he found a slip of wood that yielded to the pressure of his hand.
There was a “click” and the front of the wardrobe began to fall.
“A wardrobe bed, eh? Grand little things for a flat.”
But it was no sleeping-place that was revealed (and he would have been disappointed if it had been) as he eased down the “bed.” Set on a frame were row upon row of valve lamps, transformers—all the apparatus requisite for broadcasting.
Elk looked, and, looking, admired.
“You’ve got a licence, I suppose?” asked Elk. He supposed nothing of the kind, for licences to transmit are jealously issued in England. He was surprised when she went to a bureau and produced the document. Elk read and nodded.
“You’ve gotsomepull,” he said with respect. “Now I’ll see your Frog licence.”
“Don’t get funny, Elk,” she said tartly. “I’d like to know whether you’re in the habit of waking people to ask for their permits.”
“You’ve been using this to-night to broadcast the Frogs,” Elk nodded accusingly; “and perhaps you’ll explain to Captain Gordon why?”
She turned to Dick for the first time.
“I’ve not used the instrument for weeks,” she said. “But the sister of a friend of mine—perhaps you know her—asked if she might use it. She left here an hour ago.”
“You mean Miss Bennett, of course,” said Gordon, and she raised her eyebrows in simulated astonishment.
“Why, how did you guess that?”
“I guessed it,” said Elk, “the moment I heard you giving one of your famous imitations. I guessed she was around, teaching you how to talk like her. Lola, you’re cooked! Miss Bennett was standing right alongside me when you started talking Frog-language. She was right at my very side, and she said ‘Now, Mr. Elk, isn’t she the artfullest thing!’ You’re cooked, Lola, and you can’t do better than sit right down and tell us the truth. I’ll make it right for you. We caught ‘Seven’ last night and he’s told us everything. Frog will be in irons to-day, and I came here to give you the last final chance of getting out of all your trouble.”
“Isn’t that wonderful of you?” she mocked him. “So you’ve caught ‘Seven’ and you’re catching the Frog! Put a pinch of salt on his tail!”
“Yes,” said the imperturbable Elk, untruthfully, “we caught Seven and Hagn’s split. But I like you, Lol—always did. There’s something about you that reminds me of a girl I used to be crazy about—I never married her; it was a tragedy.”
“Not for her,” said Lola. “Now I’ll tellyousomething, Elk! You haven’t caught anybody and you won’t. You’ve put a flat-footed stool pigeon named Balder into the same cell as Hagn, with the idea of getting information, and you’re going to have a jar.”
In other circumstances Dick Gordon would have been amused by the effect of this revelation upon Elk. The jaw of the unhappy detective dropped as he glared helplessly over his glasses at the girl, smiling her triumph. Then the smile vanished.
“Hagn wouldn’t talk, because Frog could reach him, as he reached Mills and Litnov. As he will reach you when he decides you’re worth while. And now you can take me if you want. I’m a Frog—I never pretend I’m not. You heard all the tale that I told Ray Bennett—heard it over the detectaphone you planted. Take me and charge me!”
Elk knew that there was no charge upon which he could hold her. And she knew that he knew.
“Do you think you’ll get away with it, Bassano?”
It was Gordon who spoke, and she turned her wrathful eyes upon him.
“I’ve got a Miss to my name, Gordon,” she rapped at him.
“Sooner or later you’ll have a number,” said Dick calmly. “You and your crowd are having the time of your young lives—perhaps because I’m incompetent, or because I’m unfortunate. But some day we shall get you, either I or my successor. You can’t fight the law and win because the law is everlasting and constant.”
“A search of my flat I don’t mind—but a sermon I will not have,” she said contemptuously. “And now, if you men have finished, I should like to get a little beauty sleep.”
“That is the one thing you don’t require,” said the gallant Elk, and she laughed.
“You’re not a bad man, Elk,” she said. “You’re a bad detective, but you’ve a heart of gold.”
“If I had, I shouldn’t trust myself alone with you,” was Elk’s parting shot.
CHAPTER XIX
DICK GORDON, in the sudden lightening of his heart which had come to him when he realized that his horrible fears were without foundation, was inclined to regard the night as having been well spent. This was not Elk’s view. He was genuinely grave as they drove back to headquarters.
“I’m frightened of these Frogs, and I admit it,” he confessed. “There’s a bad leakage somewhere—how should she know that I put Balder in with Hagn? That has staggered me. Nobody but two men, in addition to ourselves, is in the secret; and if the Frogs are capable of getting that kind of news, it is any odds on Hagn knowing that he is being drawn. They frighten me, I tell you, Captain Gordon. If they only knew a little, and hadn’t got that quite right, I should be worried. But they know everything!”
Dick nodded.
“The whole trouble, Elk, is that the Frogs are not an illegal association. It may be necessary to ask the Prime Minister to proclaim the society.”
“Perhaps he’s a Frog too,” said Elk gloomily. “Don’t laugh, Captain Gordon! There are big people behind these Frogs. I’m beginning to suspect everybody.”
“Start by suspecting me,” said Gordon good-humouredly.
“I have,” was the frank reply. “Then it occurred to me that possibly I walk in my sleep—I used to as a boy. Likely I lead a double life, and I am a detective by day and a Frog by night—you never know. It is clear that there is a genius at the back of the Frogs,” he went on, with unconscious immodesty.
“Lola Bassano?” suggested Dick.
“I’ve thought of her, but she’s no organizer. She had a company on the road when she was nineteen, and it died the death from bad organization. I suppose you think that that doesn’t mean she couldn’t run the Frogs—but it does. You want exactly the same type of intelligence to control the Frogs as you want to control a bank. Maitland is the man. I narrowed the circle down to him after I had a talk with Johnson. Johnson says he’s never seen the old man’s pass-book, and although he is his private secretary, knows nothing whatever of his business transactions except that he buys property and sells it. The money old Maitland makes on the side never appears in the books, and Johnson was a very surprised man when I suggested that Maitland transacted any business at all outside the general routine of the company. And it’s not a company at all—not an incorporated company. It’s a one man show. Would you like to make sure, Captain Gordon?”
“Sure of what?” asked Dick, startled.
“That Miss Bennett isn’t in this at all.”
“You don’t think for one moment she is?” asked Dick, aghast at the thought.
“I’m prepared to believe anything,” said Elk. “We’ve got a clear road; we could be at Horsham in an hour, and it is our business to make sure. In my mind I’m perfectly satisfied that it was not Miss Bennett’s voice. But when we come down to writing out reports for the people upstairs to read” (‘the people upstairs’ was Elk’s invariable symbol for his superiors) “we are going to look silly if we say that we heard Miss Bennett’s voice and didn’t trouble to find out where Miss Bennett was.”
“That is true,” said Dick thoughtfully, and, leaning out to the driver, Elk gave new directions.
The grey of dawn was in the sky as the car ran through the deserted streets of Horsham and began the steady climb toward Maytree Cottage, which lay on the slope of the Shoreham Road.
The cottage showed no signs of life. The blinds were drawn; there was no light of any kind. Dick hesitated, with his hand on the gate.
“I don’t like waking these people,” he confessed. “Old Bennett will probably think that I’ve brought some bad news about his son.”
“I have no conscience,” said Elk, and walked up the brick path.
But John Bennett required no waking. Elk was hailed from one of the windows above, and, looking up, saw the mystery man leaning with his elbows on the window-sill.
“What’s the trouble, Elk?” he asked in a low voice, as though he did not wish to awaken his daughter.
“No trouble at all,” said Elk cheerfully. “We picked up a wireless telephone message in the night, and I’m under the impression that it was your daughter’s voice I heard.”
John Bennett frowned, and Dick saw that he doubted the truth of this explanation.
“It is perfectly true, Mr. Bennett,” he said. “I heard the voice too. We were listening in for a rather important message, and we heard Miss Bennett in circumstances which make it necessary for us to assure ourselves that it was not she who was speaking.”
The cloud passed from John Bennett’s face.
“That’s a queer sort of story, Captain Gordon, but I believe you. I’ll come down and let you in.”
Wearing an old dressing-gown, he opened the door and ushered them into the darkened sitting-room.
“I’ll call Ella, and perhaps she’ll be able to satisfy you that she was in bed at ten o’clock last night.”
He went out of the room, after drawing the curtains to let in the light, and Dick waited with a certain amount of pleasurable anticipation. He had been only too glad of the excuse to come to Horsham, if the truth be told. This girl had so gripped his heart that the days between their meetings seemed like eternity. They heard the feet of Bennett on the stairs, and presently the old man came in, and distress was written largely on his face.
“I can’t understand it,” he said. “Ella is not in her room! The bed has been slept in, but she has evidently dressed and gone out.”
Elk scratched his chin, avoiding Dick’s eyes.
“A lot of young people like getting up early,” he said. “When I was a young man, nothing gave me greater pleasure than to see the sun rise—before I went to bed. Is she in the habit of taking a morning stroll?”
John Bennett shook his head.
“I’ve never known her to do that before. It’s curious I did not hear her, because I slept very badly last night. Will you excuse me, gentlemen?”
He went upstairs and came down in a few minutes, dressed. Together they passed out into the garden. It was now quite light, though the sun had not yet tipped the horizon. John Bennett made a brief but fruitless search of the ground behind the cottage, and came back to them with a confession of failure. He was no more troubled than Dick Gordon. It was impossible that it could have been she, that Elk was mistaken. Yet Lola had been emphatic. Against that, the hall-porter at Caverley House had been equally certain that the only visitor to Lola’s flat that night was the aged Mr. Maitland; and so far as he knew, or Elk had been able to discover, there was no other entrance into the building.
“I see you have a car here. You came down by road. Did you pass anybody?”
Dick shook his head.
“Do you mind if we take the car in the opposite direction toward Shoreham?”
“I was going to suggest that,” said Gordon. “Isn’t it rather dangerous for her, walking at this hour? The roads are thronged with tramps.”
The older man made no reply. He sat with the driver, his eyes fixed anxiously upon the road ahead. The car went ten miles at express speed, then turned, and began a search of the side roads. Nearing the cottage again, Dick pointed.
“What is that wood?” he asked pointing to a dense wood to which a narrow road led.
“That is Elsham Wood; she wouldn’t go there,” he hesitated.
“Let us try it,” said Dick, and the bonnet of the car was turned on to a narrow road. In a few minutes they were running through a glade of high trees, the entwining tops of which made the road a place of gloom.
“There are car tracks here,” said Dick suddenly, but John Bennett shook his head.
“People come here for picnics,” he said, but Dick was not satisfied.
These marks were new, and presently he saw them turn off the road to a ‘ride’ between the trees. He caught no glimpse of a car, however. The direction of the tracks supported the old man’s theory. The road ended a mile farther along, and beyond that was a waste of bracken and tree stumps, for the wood had been extensively thinned during the war.
With some difficulty the car was turned and headed back again. They came through the glade into the open, and then Dick uttered a cry.
John Bennett had already seen the girl. She was walking quickly in the centre of the road, and stepped on to the grassy border without looking round as the car came abreast of her. Then, looking up, she saw her father, and went pale.
He was in the road in a moment.
“My dear,” he said reproachfully, “where have you been at this hour?”
She looked frightened, Dick thought. The eyes of Elk narrowed as he surveyed her.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I dressed and went out, father,” she said, and nodded to Dick. “You’re a surprising person, Captain Gordon. Why are you here at this hour?”
“I came to interview you,” said Dick, forcing a smile.
“Me!” She was genuinely astonished. “Why me?”
“Captain Gordon heard your voice on a wireless telephone in the middle of the night, and wanted to know all about it,” said her father.
If he was relieved, he was also troubled. Looking at him, Elk suddenly saw the relief intensified, and with his quick intuition guessed the cause before John Bennett put the question.
“Was it Ray?” he asked eagerly. “Did he come down?”
She shook her head.
“No, father,” she said quietly. “And as to the wireless telephone, I have never spoken into a wireless telephone, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen one,” she said.
“Of course you haven’t,” said Dick. “Only we were rather worried when we heard your voice, but Mr. Elk’s explanation, that it was somebody speaking whose voice was very much like yours, is obviously correct.”
“Tell me this, Miss Bennett,” said Elk quietly. “Were you in town last night?”
She did not reply.
“My daughter went to bed at ten,” said John Bennett roughly. “What is the sense of asking her whether she was in London last night?”
“Were you in town in the early hours of this morning, Miss Bennett?” persisted Elk, and to Dick’s amazement she nodded.
“Were you at Caverley House?”
“No,” she answered instantly.
“But, Ella, what were you doing in town?” asked John Bennett. “Did you go to see that wretched brother of yours?”
Again the hesitation, and then:
“No.”
“Did you go by yourself?”
“No,” said Ella, and her lip trembled. “I wish you wouldn’t ask me any further questions. I’m not a free agent in the matter. Daddy, you’ve always trusted me: you’ll trust me now, won’t you?”
He took her hand and held it in both of his.
“I’ll trust you always, girlie,” he said; “and these gentlemen must do the same.”
Her challenging eyes met Dick’s, and he nodded.
“I am one who will share that trust,” he said, and something in her look rewarded him.
Elk rubbed his chin fiercely.
“Being naturally of a trusting nature, I should no more think of doubting your word, Miss Bennett, than I should of believing myself.” He looked at his watch. “I think we’ll go along and fetch poor old Balder from the house of sin,” he said.
“You’ll stop and have some breakfast?”
Dick looked pleadingly at Elk, and the detective, with an air of resignation, agreed.
“Anyway, Balder won’t mind an hour more or less,” he said.
Whilst Ella was preparing the breakfast, Dick and Elk paced the road outside.
“Well, what do you think of it, Captain?”
“I don’t understand, but I have every confidence that Miss Bennett has not lied,” said Dick.
“Faith is a wonderful thing,” murmured Elk, and Dick turned on him sharply.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what I say. I have got faith in Miss Bennett,” he said soothingly; “and, after all, she’s only another little bit of the jigsaw puzzle that will fall into place when we fix the piece that’s shaped like a Frog. And John Bennett’s another,” he said after a moment’s thought.
From where they stood they could see, looking toward Shoreham, the opening of the narrow Elsham Wood road.
“The thing that puzzles me,” Elk was saying, “is why she should go into that wood in the middle of the night——” He stopped, lowering his head. There came to them the soft purr of a motor-car. “Where is that?” he asked.
The question was answered instantly. Slowly there came into view from the wood road the bonnet of a car, followed immediately by the remainder of a large limousine, which turned toward them, gathering speed as it came. A moment later it flashed past them, and they saw the solitary occupant.
“Well, I’m damned!” said Elk, who very infrequently indulged in profanity, but Dick felt that on this occasion at least he was justified. For the man in the limousine was the bearded Ezra Maitland; and he knew that it was to see Maitland that the girl had gone to Elsham Wood.