CHAPTER XXIX
DICK ran to the bedside, and one glance at the still figures told him all he wanted to know.
“Both shot,” he said, and looked up at the filmy cloud under the ceiling. “May have happened any time—a quarter of an hour ago. This stuff hangs about for hours.”
“Hold every servant in the house,” said Elk in an undertone to the men who were with him.
A doorway led to a smaller bedroom, which was evidently that occupied by Maitland’s sister.
“The shot was fired from this entrance,” said Dick. “Probably a silencer was used, but we shall hear about that later.”
He searched the floor and found two spent cartridges of a heavy calibre automatic.
“They killed the woman, of course,” he said, speaking his thoughts aloud. “I was afraid of this. If I could only have got our men in!”
“You expected him to be murdered?” said Elk in astonishment.
Dick nodded. He was trying the window of the woman’s room. It was unfastened, and led on to a narrow parapet, protected by a low balustrade. From there, access could be had into another room on the same floor, and no attempt had been made by the murderer to conceal the fact that this was the way he had passed. The window was wide open, and there were wet footmarks on the floor. It was a guest room, slightly overcrowded with surplus furniture, which had been put there apparently by the housekeeper instead of in a lumber-room.
The door opened again into the corridor, and faced a narrow flight of stairs leading to the servants’ quarters above. Elk went down on his knees and examined the tread of the carpet carefully.
“Up here, I think,” he said, and ran ahead of his chief.
The third floor consisted entirely of servants’ rooms, and it was some time before Elk could pick up the footprints which led directly to No. 1. He tried the handle: it was locked. Taking a pace backward, he raised his foot and kicked open the door. He found himself in a servant’s bedroom, which was empty. An attic window opened on to the sloping roof of another parapet, and without a second’s hesitation Dick went out, following the course of that very precarious alleyway. Farther along, iron rails protected the walker, and this was evidently one of the ways of escape in case of fire. He followed the “path” across three roofs until he came to a short flight of iron stairs, which reached down to the flat roof of another house, and a guard fire-escape. Guarded it had been, but now the iron gate which barred progress was open, and Dick ran down the narrow stairs into a concrete yard surrounded on three sides by high walls and on the fourth by the back of a house, which was apparently unoccupied, for the blinds were all drawn.
There was a gate in the third wall, and it was ajar. Passing through, he was in a mews. A man was washing a motor-car a dozen paces from where he stood, and they hurried toward him.
“Yes, sir,” said the cleaner, wiping his streaming forehead with the back of his hand, “I saw a man come out of there about five minutes ago. He was a servant—a footman or something—I didn’t recognize him, but he seemed in a hurry.”
“Did he wear a hat?”
The man considered.
“Yes, sir, I think he did,” he said. “He went out that way,” and he pointed.
The two men hurried along, turned into Berkeley Street, and as they did so, the car-washer turned to the closed doors of his garage and whistled softly. The door opened slowly and Mr. Joshua Broad came out.
“Thank you,” he said, and a piece of crisp and crackling paper went into the washer’s hand.
He was out of sight before Dick and the detective came back from their vain quest.
No doubt existed in Dick’s mind as to who the murderer was. One of the footmen was missing. The remaining servants were respectable individuals of unimpeachable character. The seventh had come at the same time as Mr. Maitland; and although he wore a footman’s livery, he had apparently no previous experience of the duties which he was expected to perform. He was an ill-favoured man, who spoke very little, and “kept himself to himself,” as they described it; took part in none of their pleasures or gossip; was never in the servants’ hall a second longer than was necessary.
“Obviously a Frog,” said Elk, and was overjoyed to learn that there was a photograph of the man in existence.
The photograph had its origin in an elaborate and somewhat pointless joke which had been played on the cook by the youngest of the footmen. The joke consisted of finding in the cook’s workbasket a photograph of the ugly footman, and for this purpose the young servant had taken a snap of the man.
“Do you know him?” asked Dick, looking at the picture.
Elk nodded.
“He has been through my hands, and I don’t think I shall have any difficulty in placing him, although for the moment his name escapes me.”
A search of the records, however, revealed the identity of the missing man, and by the evening an enlargement of the photograph, and his name, aliases and general characteristics, were locked into the form of every newspaper in the metropolis.
One of the servants had heard the shot, but thought it was the door being slammed—a pardonable mistake, because Mr. Maitland was in the habit of banging doors.
“Maitland was a Frog all right,” reported Elk after he had seen the body removed to the mortuary. “He’s well decorated on the left wrist—yes, slightly askew. That is one of the points that you’ve never cleared up to me, Captain Gordon. Why they should be tattooed on the left wrist I can understand, but why the frog shouldn’t be stamped square I’ve never understood.”
“That is one of the little mysteries that can’t be cleared up until we are through with the big ones,” said Dick.
A telegram had been received that afternoon by the missing footman. This fact was not remembered until after Elk had returned to headquarters. A ’phone message through to the district post-office brought a copy of the message. It was very simple.
“Finish and clear,” were the three words. The message was unsigned. It had been handed in at the Temple Post Office at two o’clock, and the murderer had lost no time in carrying out his instructions.
Maitland’s office was in the hands of the police, and a systematic search had already begun of its documents and books. At seven o’clock that night Elk went to Fitzroy Square, and Johnson opened the door to him. Looking past him, Elk saw that the passage was filled with furniture and packing cases, and remembered that early in the morning Johnson had mentioned that he was moving, and had taken two cheaper rooms in South London.
“You’ve packed?”
Johnson nodded.
“I hate leaving this place,” he said, “but it’s much too expensive. It seems as though I shall never get another job, and I’d better face that fact sensibly. If I live at Balham, I can live comfortably. I’ve very few expensive tastes.”
“If you have, you can indulge them,” said Elk. “We found the old man’s will. He has left you everything!”
Johnson’s jaw dropped, his eyes opened wide.
“Are you joking?” he said.
“I was never more serious in my life. The old man has left you every penny he had. Here is a copy of the will: I thought you’d like to see it.”
He opened his pocket-case, producing a sheet of foolscap, and Johnson read:
“I, Ezra Maitland, of 193, Eldor Road, in the County of Middlesex, declare this to be my last will and testament, and I formally revoke all other wills and codicils to such wills. I bequeath all my property, movable or immovable, all lands, houses, deeds, shares in stock companies whatsoever, and all jewellery, reversions, carriages, motor-cars, and all other possessions absolutely, to Philip Johnson, of 471, Fitzroy Square, in the County of London, clerk. I declare him to be the only honest man I have ever met with in my long and sorrowful life, and I direct him to devote himself with unremitting care to the destruction of that society or organization which is known as the Frogs, and which for four and twenty years has extracted large sums of blackmail from me.”
“I, Ezra Maitland, of 193, Eldor Road, in the County of Middlesex, declare this to be my last will and testament, and I formally revoke all other wills and codicils to such wills. I bequeath all my property, movable or immovable, all lands, houses, deeds, shares in stock companies whatsoever, and all jewellery, reversions, carriages, motor-cars, and all other possessions absolutely, to Philip Johnson, of 471, Fitzroy Square, in the County of London, clerk. I declare him to be the only honest man I have ever met with in my long and sorrowful life, and I direct him to devote himself with unremitting care to the destruction of that society or organization which is known as the Frogs, and which for four and twenty years has extracted large sums of blackmail from me.”
It was signed in a clerkly hand familiar to Johnson, and was witnessed by two men whose names he knew.
He sat down and did not attempt to speak for a long time.
“I read of the murder in the evening paper,” he said after a while. “In fact, I’ve been up to the house, but the policemen referred me to you, and I knew you were too busy to be bothered. How was he killed?”
“Shot,” said Elk.
“Have they caught the man?”
“We shall have him by the morning,” said Elk with confidence. “Now that we’ve taken Balder, there’ll be nobody to warn the men we want.”
“It is very dreadful,” said Johnson after a while. “But this”—he looked at the paper—“this has quite knocked me out. I don’t know what to say. Where was it found?”
“In one of his deed boxes.”
“I wish he hadn’t,” said Johnson with emphasis. “I mean, left me his money. I hate responsibility. I’m temperamentally unfitted to run a big business . . . I wish he hadn’t!”
“How did he take it?” asked Dick when Elk had returned.
“He’s absolutely hazed. Poor devil, I felt sorry for him, and I never thought I should feel sorry for any man who came into money. He was just getting ready to move into a cheaper house when I arrived. I suppose he won’t go to the Prince of Caux’s mansion. The change in Johnson’s prospects might make a difference to Ray Bennett: does that strike you, Captain Gordon?”
“I thought of that possibility,” said Dick shortly.
He had an interview in the afternoon with the Director of Public Prosecutions in regard to Balder. And that learned gentleman echoed his own fears.
“I can’t see how we’re going to get a verdict of murder against this man, although it is as plain as daylight that he poisoned Mills and was responsible for the bomb outrage. But you can’t hang a man on suspicion, even though the suspicion is not open to doubt. How did he kill Mills, do you think?”
“Mills had a cold,” said Dick. “He had been coughing all the way up in the car, and had asked Balder to close the window of the room. Balder obviously closed, or nearly closed the window, and probably slipped a cyanide tablet to the man, telling him it was good for his cold. It was a fairly natural thing for Mills to take and swallow the tablet, and that, I am sure, is what happened. We made a search of Balder’s house at Slough, and found a duplicate set of keys, including one to Elk’s safe. Balder got there early in the morning and planted the bomb, knowing that Elk and I would be opening the bags that morning.”
“And helped Hagn to escape,” said the Public Prosecutor.
“That was much more simple,” explained Dick. “I gather that the inspector who was seen walking out at half-past-two was Hagn. When Balder went into the cell to keep the man company, he must have been dressed underneath in the police uniform, and have carried the necessary handcuffs and pass-keys with him. He was not searched—a fact for which I am as much responsible as Elk. The chief danger we had to fear from Balder came from his closeness to us, and his ability to communicate immediately to his chief every movement which we made. His name is Kramer, and he is by birth a Lithuanian. He was expelled from Germany at the age of eighteen for his revolutionary activities, and came to this country two years later, where he joined the police. At what time he came into contact with the Frogs I do not know, but it is fairly clear, from evidence we have obtained, that the man has been engaged in various illegal operations for many years past. I’m afraid you are right about Balder: it will be immensely difficult to get a conviction until we have caught Frog himself.”
“And will you catch the Frog, do you think?”
Dick Gordon smiled cryptically.
No fresh news had come about the murder of Maitland and his sister, and he seized the opportunity which the lull gave to him. Ella Bennett was in the vegetable garden, engaged in the prosaic task of digging potatoes when he appeared, and she came running toward him, stripping her leather gloves.
“This is a splendid surprise,” she said, and flushed at the consciousness of her own enthusiasm. “Poor man, you must be having a terrible time! I saw the newspaper this morning. Isn’t it dreadful about poor Mr. Maitland? He was here yesterday morning.”
He nodded.
“Is it true that Mr. Johnson has been left the whole of Maitland’s money? Isn’t that splendid!”
“Do you like Johnson?” he asked.
“Yes, he’s a nice man,” she nodded. “I don’t know a great deal about him; indeed, I’ve only met him once or twice, but he was very kind to Ray, and saved him from getting into trouble. I am wondering whether, now that he is rich, he will induce Ray to go back to Maitlands.”
“I wonder if he will induce you——” He stopped.
“Induce me to what?” she asked in astonishment.
“Johnson is rather fond of you—he’s never made any disguise of the fact, and he’s a very rich man. Not that I think that would make any difference to you,” he added hastily. “I’m not a very rich man, but I’m comfortably off.”
The fingers in his hand stole round his, and pressed them tightly, and then suddenly they relaxed.
“I don’t know,” she said, and drew herself free.
“Father said——” She hesitated. “I don’t think father would like it. He thinks there is such a difference between our social positions.”
“Rats!” said Dick inelegantly.
“And there’s something else.” She found it an effort to tell him what that something was. “I don’t know what father does for a living, but it is . . . work that he never wishes to speak about; something that he looks upon as disgraceful.”
The last words were spoken so low that he hardly caught them.
“Suppose I know the worst about your father?” he asked quietly, and she stood back, looking at him from under knit brows.
“Do you mean that? What is it, Dick?”
He shook his head.
“I may know or I may not. It is only a wild guess. And you’re not to tell him that I know, or that I’m in any way suspicious. Will you please do that for me?”
“And knowing this, would it make any difference to you?”
“None.”
She had plucked a flower, and was pulling it petal from petal in her abstraction.
“Is it very dreadful?” she asked. “Has he committed a crime? No, no, don’t tell me.”
Once more he was near her, his arm about her trembling shoulders, his hand beneath her chin.
“My dear!” murmured the youthful Public Prosecutor, and forgot there was such a thing as murder in the world.
John Bennett was glad to see him, eager to tell the news of his triumph. He had a drawer full of press cuttings, headed “Wonderful Nature Studies. Remarkable Pictures by an Amateur,” and others equally flattering. And there had come to him a cheque which had left him gasping.
“This means—you don’t know what it means to me, Mr. Gordon,” he said, “or Captain Gordon—I always forget you’ve got a military title. When that boy of mine recovers his senses and returns home, he’s going to have just the good time he wants. He’s at the age when most boys are fools—what I call the showing-off age. Sometimes it runs to pimples and introspection, sometimes to the kind of life that a man doesn’t like to look back on. Ray has probably taken the less vicious course.”
It was a relief to hear the man speak so. Dick always thought of Ray Bennett as one who had committed the unforgiveable sin.
“This time next year I’m going to be an artist of leisure,” said John Bennett, who looked ten years younger.
Dick offered to drive him to town, but this he would not hear of. He had to make a call at Dorking. Apparently he had letters addressed to him in that town (Dick learnt of this from the girl) concerning his mysterious errands. Dick left Horsham with a heart lighter than he had brought to that little country town, and was in the mood to rally Inspector Elk for the profound gloom which had settled on him since he had discovered that there was not sufficient evidence to try Balder for his life.
CHAPTER XXX
LEW BRADY sat disconsolately in Lola Bassano’s pretty drawing-room, and a more incongruous figure in that delicate setting it was impossible to imagine. A week’s growth of beard had transfigured him into the most unsavoury looking ruffian, and the soiled old clothes he wore, the broken and discoloured boots, the grimy shirt, no less than his own personal uncleanliness of appearance made him a revolting object.
So Lola thought, eyeing him anxiously, a foreboding of trouble in her heart.
“I’m finished with the Frog,” growled Brady. “He pays—of course he pays! But how long is it going on, Lola? You brought me into this!” He glowered at her.
“I brought you in, when you wanted to be brought into something,” she said calmly. “You can’t live on my savings all your life, Lew, and it was nearly time you made a little on the side.”
He played with a silver seal, twiddling it between his fingers, his eyes gloomily downcast.
“Balder’s caught, and the old man’s dead,” he said. “They’re the big people. What chance have I got?”
“What were your instructions, Lew?” she asked for the twentieth time that day.
He shook his head.
“I’m taking no risks, Lola. I don’t trust anybody, not even you.”
He took a small bottle from his pocket and examined it.
“What is that?” she asked curiously.
“Dope of some kind.”
“Is that part of the instructions too?”
He nodded.
“Are you going in your own name?”
“No, I’m not,” he snapped. “Don’t ask questions. I’m not going to tell you anything, see? This trip’s going to last a fortnight, and when it’s finished, I’m finished with Frog.”
“The boy—is he going with you?”
“How do I know? I’m to meet somebody somewhere, and that’s all about it.” He looked at the clock and rose with a grunt. “It’s the last time I shall sit in a decent parlour for a fortnight.” He gave a curt nod and walked to the door.
There was a servants’ entrance, a gallery which was reached through the kitchen, and he passed down the stairs unobserved, into the night.
It was dark by the time he reached Barnet; his feet were aching; he was hot and wretched. He had suffered the indignity of being chased off the pavement by a policeman he could have licked with one hand, and he cursed the Frog with every step he took. There was still a long walk ahead of him once he was clear of Barnet; and it was not until a village clock was striking the hour of eleven that he ambled up to a figure that was sitting on the side of the road, just visible in the pale moonlight, but only recognizable when he spoke.
“Is that you?” said a voice.
“Yes, it’s me. You’re Carter, aren’t you?”
“Good Lord!” gasped Ray as he recognized the voice. “It’s Lew Brady!”
“It’s nothing of the kind!” snarled the other man. “My name’s Phenan. Yours is Carter. Sit down for a bit. I’m dead beat.”
“What is the idea?” asked the youth as they sat side by side.
“How the devil do I know?” said the other savagely as, with a tender movement, he slipped off his boots and rubbed his bruised feet.
“I had no idea it was you,” said Ray.
“I knew it was you, all right,” said the other. “And why I should be called upon to take a mug around this country, God knows!”
After a while he was rested sufficiently to continue the tramp.
“There’s a barn belonging to a shopkeeper in the next village. He’ll let us sleep there for a few pence.”
“Why not try to get a room?”
“Don’t be a fool,” snapped Lew. “Who’s going to take in a couple of tramps, do you think? We know we’re clean, but they don’t. No, we’ve got to go the way the tramps go.”
“Where? To Nottingham?”
“I don’t know. If they told you Nottingham, I should say that’s the last place in the world we shall go to. I’ve got a sealed envelope in my pocket. When we reach Baldock I shall open it.”
They slept that night in the accommodating barn—a draughty shed, populated, it seemed, by chickens and rats, and Ray had a restless night and thought longingly of his own little bed at Maytree Cottage. Strangely enough, he did not dwell on the more palatial establishment in Knightsbridge.
The next day it rained, and they did not reach Baldock until late in the afternoon, and, sitting down under the cover of a hedge, Brady opened the envelope and read its contents, his companion watching him expectantly.
“You will branch from Baldock and take the nearest G.W. train for Bath. Then by road to Gloucester. At the village of Laverstock you will reveal to Carter the fact that you are married to Lola Bassano. You should take him to theRed Lionfor this purpose, and tell him as offensively as possible in order to force a quarrel, but in no circumstances are you to allow him to part company from you. Go on to Ibbley Copse. You will find an open space near where three dead trees stand, and there you will stop, take back the statement you made that you are married to Lola, and make an apology. You are carrying with you a whisky flask; you must have the dope and the whisky together at this point. After he is asleep, you will make your way to Gloucester, to 289 Hendry Street, where you will find a complete change of clothing. Here you will shave and return to town by the 2.19.”
“You will branch from Baldock and take the nearest G.W. train for Bath. Then by road to Gloucester. At the village of Laverstock you will reveal to Carter the fact that you are married to Lola Bassano. You should take him to theRed Lionfor this purpose, and tell him as offensively as possible in order to force a quarrel, but in no circumstances are you to allow him to part company from you. Go on to Ibbley Copse. You will find an open space near where three dead trees stand, and there you will stop, take back the statement you made that you are married to Lola, and make an apology. You are carrying with you a whisky flask; you must have the dope and the whisky together at this point. After he is asleep, you will make your way to Gloucester, to 289 Hendry Street, where you will find a complete change of clothing. Here you will shave and return to town by the 2.19.”
Every word, every syllable, he read over and over again, until he had mastered the details. Then, striking a match, he set fire to the paper and watched it burn.
“What are the orders?” asked Ray.
“The same as yours, I suppose. What did you do with yours?”
“Burnt them,” said Ray. “Did he tell you where we’re going?”
“We are going to take the Gloucester Road; I thought we should. That means striking across country till we reach the Bath Road. We can take a train to Bath.”
“Thank goodness for that!” said Ray fervently. “I don’t feel I can walk another step.”
At seven o’clock that night, two tramps turned out of a third-class carriage on Bath station. One, the younger, was limping slightly, and sat down on a station seat.
“Come on, you can’t stay here,” said the other gruffly. “We’ll get a bed in the town. There’s a Salvation Army shelter somewhere in Bath.”
“Wait a bit,” said the other. “I’m so cramped with sitting in that infernal carriage that I can hardly move.”
They had joined the London train at Reading, and the passengers were pouring down the steps to the subway. Ray looked at them enviously. They had homes to go to, clean and comfortable beds to sleep in. The thought of it gave him a pain. And then he saw a figure and shrank back. A tall, angular man, who carried a heavy box in one hand and a bag in the other.
It was his father.
John Bennett went down the steps, with a casual glance at the two unsavoury tramps on the seat, never dreaming that one was the son whose future he was at that moment planning.
John Bennett spent an ugly night, and an even more ugly early morning. He collected the camera where he had left it, at a beerhouse on the outskirts of the town, and, fixing the improvised carrier, he slipped the big box on his back, and, with his bag in his hand, took the road. A policeman eyed him disapprovingly as he passed, and seemed in two minds as to whether or not he should stop him, but refrained. The strength and stamina of this grey man were remarkable. He breasted a hill and, without slackening his pace, reached the top, and strode steadily along the white road that was cut in the face of the hill. Below him stretched the meadow lands of Somerset, vast fields speckled with herds, glittering streaks of light where the river wound; above his head a blue sky, flecked white here and there. As he walked, the load on his heart was absorbed. All that was bright and happy in life came to him. His hand strayed to his waistcoat pocket mechanically. There were the precious press cuttings that he had brought from town and had read and re-read in the sleepless hours of the night.
He thought of Ella, and all that Ella meant to him, and of Dick Gordon—but that made him wince, and he came back to the comfort of his pictures. Somebody had told him that there were badgers to be seen; a man in the train had carefully located a veritable paradise for the lover of Nature; and it was toward this beauty spot that he was making his way with the aid of a survey map which he had bought overnight at a stationer’s shop.
Another hour’s tramp brought him to a wooden hollow, and, consulting his map, he found he had reached his objective. There was ample evidence of the truth that his chance-found friend had told him. He saw a stoat, flying on the heels of a terrified rabbit; a hawk wheeled ceaselessly on stiff pinions above him; and presently he found the “run” he was looking for, the artfully concealed entrance to a badger’s lair.
In the years he had been following his hobby he had overcome many difficulties, learnt much. To-day, failure had taught him something of the art of concealment. It took him time to poise and hide the camera in a bush of wild laurel, and even then it was necessary that he should take a long shot, for the badger is the shyest of its kind. There were young ones in the lair: he saw evidence of that; and a badger who has young is doubly shy.
He had replaced the pneumatic attachment which set the camera moving, by an electrical contrivance, and this enabled him to work with greater surety. He unwound the long flex and laid it to its fullest extent, taking a position on the slope of the hill eighty yards away, making himself comfortable. Taking off his coat, which acted as a pillow on which his arms rested, he put his field-glasses near at hand.
He had been waiting half an hour when he thought he saw a movement at the mouth of the burrow, and slowly focussed his glasses. It was the tip of a black nose he saw, and he took the switch of the starter in his hand, ready to set the camera revolving. Minutes followed minutes; five—ten—fifteen—but there was no further movement in the burrow, and in a dull way John Bennett was glad, because the warmth of the day, combined with his own weariness and his relaxed position, brought to him a rare sensation of bodily comfort and well-being. Deeper and deeper grew the languorous haze of comfort that fell on him like a fog, until it obscured all that was visible and audible. John Bennett slept, and, sleeping, dreamed of success and of peace and of freedom from all that had broken his heart, and had dried up the sweet waters of life within him. In his dream he heard voices and a sharp sound, like a shot. But he knew it was not a shot, and shivered. He knew that “crack,” and in his sleep clenched his hands convulsively. The electric starter was still in his hand.
* * * * * *
At nine o’clock that morning there had come into Laverstock two limping tramps, though one limped more than the other. The bigger of the two stopped at the door of theRed Lion, and an unfriendly landlord surveyed the men over the top of the curtain which gave the habitués of the bar a semi-privacy.
“Come in,” growled Lew Brady.
Ray was glad to follow. The landlord’s bulk blocked the entrance to the bar.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I want a drink.”
“There’s no free drinks going in this parish,” said the landlord, looking at the unpromising customer.
“Where did you get that ‘free drink’ stuff from?” snarled Lew. “My money’s as good as anybody else’s, isn’t it?”
“If it’s honestly come by,” said the landlord. “Let us have a look at it.”
Lew pulled out a handful of silver, and the master of theRed Lionstood back.
“Come in,” he said, “but don’t make a home of my bar. You can have your drink and go.”
Lew growled the order, and the landlord poured out the two portions of whisky.
“Here’s yours, Carter,” said Lew, and Ray swallowed the fiery dram and choked.
“I’ll be glad to get back,” said Lew in a low voice. “It’s all right for you single men, but this tramping is pretty tough on us fellows who’ve got wives—even though the wives aren’t all they might be.”
“I didn’t know you were married,” said Ray, faintly interested.
“There’s a lot you don’t know,” sneered the other. “Of course I’m married. You were told once, and you hadn’t the brains to believe it.”
Ray looked at the man open-mouthed.
“Do you mean—what Gordon said?”
The other nodded.
“You mean that Lola is your wife?”
“Why, certainly she’s my wife,” said Lew coolly. “I don’t know how many husbands she’s had, but I’m her present one.”
“Oh, my God!”
Ray whispered the words.
“What’s the matter with you? And take that look off your face,” said Lew Brady viciously. “I’m not blaming you for being sweet on her. I like to see people admire my wife, even such kids as you.”
“Your wife!” said Ray again. He could not believe the man was speaking the truth. “Is she—is she a Frog?”
“Why shouldn’t she be?” said Brady. “And keep your voice down, can’t you? That fat old devil behind the counter is trying hard to listen. Of course she’s Frog, and she’s crook. We’re all crooks. You’re crook too. That’s the way with Lola, she likes the crooks best. Perhaps you’ll have a chance, after you’ve done a job or two——”
“You beast!” hissed Ray, and struck the man full in the face.
Before Lew Brady could come to his feet, the landlord was between them.
“Outside, both of you!” he shouted, and, dashing to the door, roared half a dozen names. He was back in time to see Lew Brady on his feet, glaring at the other.
“You’ll know all about that, Mr. Carter, one of these days,” he said. “I’ll settle with you!”
“And, by God, I’ll settle with you!” said Ray furiously, and at that moment a brawny ostler caught him by the arm and flung him into the road outside.
He waited for Brady to come out.
“I’ve finished with you,” he said. His face was white, his voice was quivering. “Finished with the whole rotten shoot of you! I’m going back.”
“You’re not going back,” said Lew. “Oh, listen, boy, what’s making you mad? We’ve got to go on to Gloucester, and we might as well finish our job. And if you don’t want to be with me after that—well, you can go ahead just as you like.”
“I’m going alone,” said Ray.
“Don’t be a fool.” Lew Brady came after him and seized his arm.
For a second the situation looked ugly to the onlookers, and then, with a shrug, Ray Bennett suffered the arm to remain.
“I don’t believe you,” he said—the first words he spoke for half an hour after they had left theRed Lion. “Why should you have lied?”
“I’ve got sick of your good temper, that’s the whole truth, Ray—just sick to death of it. I had to make you mad, or I’d have gone mad myself.”
“But is it true about Lola?”
“Of course it’s not true,” lied Brady contemptuously. “Do you think she’d have anything to do with a chap like me? Not likely! Lola’s a good girl. Forget all I said, Ray.”
“I shall ask her myself. She wouldn’t lie to me,” said the boy.
“Of course she wouldn’t lie to you,” agreed the other.
They were nearing their rendezvous now—the tree-furred cut in the hills—and his eyes were searching for the three white trunks that the lightning had struck. Presently he saw them.
“Come on in, and I’ll tell you all about it,” he said. “I’m not going to walk much farther to-day. My feet are so raw you couldn’t cook ’em!”
He led the way between the trees, over the age-old carpet of pine needles, and presently he stopped.
“Sit down here, boy,” he said, “and let us have a drink and a smoke.”
Ray sat with his head on his hands, a figure so supremely miserable that any other man than Lew Brady would have felt sorry for him.
“The whole truth is,” began Lew slowly, “that Lola’s very strong for you, boy.”
“Then why did you tell me the other thing? Who was that?” He looked round.
“What is it?” asked Lew. His own nerves were on edge.
“I thought I heard somebody moving.”
“A twig broke. Rabbits, it may be; there are thousands of ’em round here,” said Lew. “No, Lola’s a good girl.” He fished from his pocket a flask, pulled off the cup at the bottom and unscrewed the stopper, holding the flask to the light. “She’s a good girl,” he repeated, “and may she never be anything else.”
He poured out a cupful, looked at the remainder in the bottle.
“I’m going to drink her health. No, you drink first.”
Ray shook his head.
“I don’t like the stuff,” he said.
The other man laughed.
“For a fellow who’s been pickled night after night, that’s certainly an amusing view to take,” he said. “If you can’t hold a dram of whisky for the sake of drinking Lola’s health, well, you’re a poor——”
“Give it to me.” Ray snatched the cup, but spilt a portion, and, drinking down the contents at a draught, he threw the metal holder to his companion.
“Ugh! I don’t care for that whisky. I don’t think I care for any whisky at all. There’s nothing harder to pretend you like than drinking, if you don’t happen to like it.”
“I don’t think anybody likes it at first,” said Lew. “It’s like tomatoes—a cultivated taste.”
He was watching his companion keenly.
“Where do we go from Gloucester?” asked Ray.
“We don’t go anywhere from Gloucester. We just stop there for a day, and then we change and come back.”
“It’s a stupid idea,” said Ray Bennett, screwing up his eyes and yawning. “Who is this Frog, Lew?” He yawned again, lay back on the grass, his hands under his head.
Lew Brady emptied the remainder of the flask’s contents upon the grass, screwed up the stopper and shook the cup before he rose and walked across to the sleeping boy.
“Hi, get up!” he said.
There was no answer.
“Get up, you!”
With a groan, Ray turned over, his head on his arms, and did not move again. A sudden misgiving came to Lew Brady. Suppose he was dead? He went livid at the thought. That quarrel, so cleverly engineered by the Frog, would be enough to convict him. He whipped the flask from his pocket and slipped it into the coat pocket of the sleeper. And then he heard a sound, and, turning, saw a man watching him. Lew stared, opened his mouth to speak, and:
“Plop!”
He saw the flash of the flame before the bullet struck him. He tried to open his mouth to speak, and:
“Plop!”
Lew Brady was dead before he touched the ground.
The man removed the silencer of the pistol, walked leisurely across to where Ray Bennett was sleeping, and put the pistol by his hand. Then he came back and turned over the body of the dead man, looking down into the face. Taking one of three cigars from his waistcoat pocket, he lit it, being careful to put the match in the box whence he had taken it. He liked smoking cigars—especially other men’s cigars. Then, without haste, he walked back the way he had come, gained the main road after a careful reconnaissance, and reached the car he had left by the roadside.
Inside the car a youth was sitting in the shelter of the curtained hood, loose-mouthed, glassy-eyed, staring at nothing. He wore an ill-fitting suit and one end of his collar was unfastened.
“You know this place, Bill?”
“Yes, sir.” The voice was guttural and hoarse. “Ibbley Copse.”
“You have just killed a man: you shot him, just as you said you did in your confession.”
The half-witted youth nodded.
“I killed him because I hated him,” he said.
The Frog nodded obediently and got into the driver’s seat. . . .
John Bennett woke with a start. He looked at the damp bell-push in his hand with a rueful smile, and began winding up the flex. Presently he reached the bush where the camera was concealed, and, to his dismay, found that the indicator showed the loss—for loss it was—of five hundred feet. He looked at the badger hole resentfully, and there, as in mockery, he saw again the tip of a black nose, and shook his fist at it. Beyond, he saw two men lying, both asleep, and both, apparently, tramps.
He carried the camera back to where he had left his coat, put it on, hoisted the box into position and set off for Laverstock village, where, if his watch was right, he could catch the local that would connect him with Bath in time for the London express; and as he walked, he calculated his loss.