CHAPTER XXXI
ELK had promised to dine at Gordon’s club. Dick waited for him until twenty minutes past the hour of appointment, and Elk had neither telephoned nor put in an appearance. At twenty-five minutes past he arrived in a hurry.
“Good Lord!” he gasped, looking at the clock. “I had no idea it was so late, Captain. I must buy a watch.”
They went into the dining-hall together, and Elk felt that he was entering a church, there was such solemn dignity about the stately room, with its prim and silent diners.
“It certainly has Heron’s beat in the matter of Dicky-Orum.”
“I don’t know the gentleman,” said the puzzled Dick. “Oh, do you mean decorum? Yes, this is a little more sedate. What kept you, Elk? I’m not complaining, but when you’re not on time, I worry as to what has happened to you.”
“Nothing has happened to me,” said Elk, nodding pleasantly to an embarrassed club waiter. “Only we had an inquiry in Gloucester. I thought we’d struck another Frog case, but the two men involved had no Frog marks.”
“Who are they?”
“Phenan is one—he’s the man that’s dead.”
“A murder?”
“I think so,” said Elk, spearing a sardine. “I think he was thoroughly dead when they found him at Ibbley Copse. They pinched the man who was with him; he was drunk. Apparently they’d been to Laverstock and had quarrelled and fought in the bar of theRed Lion. The police were informed later, and telephoned through to the next village, to tell the constable to keep his eye on these two fellows, but they hadn’t passed through, so they sent a bicycle patrol to look for them—there’s been one or two housebreakings in that neighbourhood.”
“And they found them?”
Elk nodded.
“One man dead and the other man bottled. Apparently they’d quarrelled, and the drunken gentleman shot the other. They’re both tramps or of that class. Identification marks on them show they’ve come from Wales. They slept at Bath last night, at Rooney’s lodging-house, and that’s all that’s known of ’em. Carter is the murderer—they’ve taken him to Gloucester Gaol. It’s a very simple case, and the Gloucester police gave a haughty smile at the idea of calling in Headquarters. It is a crime, anyway, that is up to the intellectual level of the country police.”
Dick’s lips twitched.
“Just now, the country police are passing unpleasant comments on our intelligence,” he said.
“Let ’um,” scoffed Elk. “Those people are certainly entitled to their simple pleasures, and I’d be the last to deny them the right. I saw John Bennett in town to-night, at Paddington this time. I’m always knocking against him at railway stations. That man is certainly a traveller. He had his old camera with him too. I spoke to him this time, and he’s full of trouble: went to sleep, pushed the gadget in his dreams and wasted a fortune in film. But he’s pleased with himself, and I don’t wonder. I saw a note about his pictures the other day in one of the newspapers. He looks like turning into a first-class success.”
“I sincerely hope so,” said Dick quietly, and something in his tone made his guest look up.
“Which reminds me,” he said, “that I had a note from friend Johnson asking me whether I knew Ray Bennett’s address. He said he called up Heron’s Club, but Ray hadn’t been there for days. He wants to give him a job. Quite a big position, too. There’s a lot that’s very fine in Johnson.”
“Did you give the address?”
Elk nodded.
“I gave him the address, and I called on the boy, but he’s out of town—went out a few days ago, and is not likely to be back for a fortnight. It will be too bad if he loses this job. I think Johnson was sore with the side young Bennett put on, but he doesn’t seem to bear any malice. Perhaps there’s another influence at work,” he said significantly.
Dick knew that he meant Ella, but did not accept the opening.
They adjourned to the smoke-room after dinner, and whilst Elk puffed luxuriously at one of his host’s best cigars, Dick wrote a brief note to the girl, who had been in his thoughts all that day. It was an unnecessary note, as such epistles are liable to be; but it might have had, as its excuse, the news that he had heard from Elk, only, for some reason, he never thought of that until after the letter was finished and sealed. When he turned to his companion, Elk propounded a theory.
“I sent a man up to look at some chemical works. It’s a fake company—less than a dozen hands employed, and those only occasionally. But it has a very powerful electrical installation. It is an old poison gas factory. The present company bought it for a song, and two fellows we are holding were the nominal purchasers.”
“Where is it?” asked Dick.
“Between Newbury and Didcot. I found out a great deal about them for a curious reason. It appears there was some arrangement between the factory, when it was under Government control, that it should make an annual contribution to the Newbury Fire Brigade, and, in taking over the property, the company also took over that contract, which they’re now trying to get out of, for the charge is a stiff one. They told the Newbury Brigade, in so many words, to disconnect the factory from their alarm service, but the Newbury Brigade, being on a good thing and having lost money by the arrangement during the war, refused to cancel the contract, which has still three years to run.”
Dick was not interested in the slightest degree in the quarrel between the chemical factory and the fire brigade. Later, he had cause to be thankful that conversation had drifted into such a prosaic channel; but this he could not foresee.
“Yes, very remarkable,” he said absent-mindedly.
* * * * * *
A fortnight after the disappearance from town of Ray Bennett, Elk accepted the invitation of the American to lunch. It was an invitation often given, and only accepted now because there had arisen in Elk’s mind a certain doubt about Joshua Broad—a doubt which he wished to mould into assurance.
Broad was waiting for the detective when he arrived, and Elk, to whom time had no particular significance, arrived ten minutes late.
“Ten minutes after one,” said Elk. “I can’t keep on time anyhow. There’s been a lot of trouble at the office over the new safe they’ve got me. Somethin’s wrong with it, and even the lock-maker doesn’t know what it is.”
“Can’t you open it?”
“That’s just it, I can’t, and I’ve got to get some papers out to-day that are mighty important,” said Elk. “I was wondering, as I came along, whether, having such a wide experience of the criminal classes, you’ve ever heard any way by which it could be opened—it needs a proper engineer, and, if I remember rightly, you told me you were an engineer once, Mr. Broad?”
“Your memory is at fault,” said the other calmly as he unfolded his napkin and regarded the detective with a twinkle in his eye. “Safe-opening is not my profession.”
“And I never dreamt it was,” said Elk heartily. “But it has always struck me that the Americans are much more clever with their hands than the people in this country, and I thought that you might be able to give me a word of advice.”
“Maybe I’ll introduce you to my pet burglar,” said Broad gravely, and they laughed together. “What do you think of me?” asked the American unexpectedly. “I’m not expecting you to give your view of my character or personal appearance, but what do you think I am doing in London, dodging around, doing nothing but a whole lot of amateur police work?”
“I’ve never given you much thought,” said Elk untruthfully. “Being an American, I expect you to be out of the ordinary——”
“Flatterer,” murmured Mr. Broad.
“I wouldn’t go so far as to flatter you,” protested Elk. “Flattery is repugnant to me anyway.”
He unfolded an evening newspaper he had brought.
“Looking for those tailless amphibians?”
“Eh?” Elk looked up puzzled.
“Frogs,” explained the other.
“No, I’m not exactly looking for Frogs, though I understand a few of ’em are looking for me. As a matter of fact, there’s very little in the newspaper about those interesting animals, but there’s going to be!”
“When?”
The question was a challenge.
“When we get Frog Number One.”
Mr. Broad crumpled a roll in his hand, and broke it.
“Do you think you’ll get Number One before I get him?” he asked quietly, and Elk looked across the table over his spectacles.
“I’ve been wondering that for a long time,” he said, and for a second their eyes met.
“Do you think I shall get him?” asked Broad.
“If all my speculations and surmises are what they ought to be, I think you will,” said Elk, and suddenly his attention was focussed upon a paragraph. “Quick work,” he said. “We beat you Americans in that respect.”
“In what respect is that?” asked Broad. “I’m sufficient of a cosmopolitan to agree that there are many things in England which you do better than we in America.”
Elk looked up at the ceiling.
“Fifteen days?” he said. “Of course, he just managed to catch the Assizes.”
“Who’s that?”
“That man Carter, who shot a tramp near Gloucester,” said Elk.
“What has happened to him?” asked the other.
“He was sentenced to death this morning,” said the detective.
Joshua Broad frowned.
“Sentenced to death this morning? Carter, you say? I didn’t read the story of the murder.”
“There was nothing complicated about it,” said Elk. “Two tramps had a quarrel—I think they got drinking—and one shot the other and was found lying in a drunken sleep by the dead man’s side. There’s practically no evidence; the prisoner refused to make any statement, or to instruct a lawyer—it must have been one of the shortest murder trials on record.”
“Where did this happen?” asked Broad, arousing himself from the reverie into which he had fallen.
“Near Gloucester. There was little in the paper; it wasn’t a really interesting murder. There was no woman in it, so far as the evidence went, and who cared a cent about two tramps?”
He folded the paper and put it down, and for the rest of the meal was engaged in a much more fascinating discussion, the police methods of the United States, on which matter Mr. Broad was, apparently, something of an authority.
The object of the American’s invitation was very apparent. Again and again he attempted to turn the conversation to the man under arrest; and as skilfully as he introduced the subject of Balder, did Elk turn the discussion back to the merits of the third degree as a method of crime detection.
“Elk, you’re as close as an oyster,” said Broad, beckoning a waiter to bring his bill. “And yet I could tell you almost as much about this man Balder as you know.”
“Tell me the prison he’s in?” demanded Elk.
“He’s in Pentonville, Ward Seven, Cell Eighty-four,” said the other immediately, and Elk sat bolt upright. “And you needn’t trouble to shift him to somewhere else, just because I happen to know his exact location; I should be just as well informed if he was at Brixton, Wandsworth, Holloway, Wormwood Scrubbs, Maidstone, or Chelmsford.”
CHAPTER XXXII
THERE is a cell in Gloucester Prison; the end cell in a long corridor of the old building. Next door is another cell, which is never occupied, for an excellent reason. That in which Ray Bennett sat was furnished more expensively than any other in the prison. There was an iron bedstead, a plain deal table, a comfortable Windsor chair and two other chairs, on one of which, night and day, sat a warder.
The walls were distempered pink. One big window, near the ceiling, heavily barred, covered with toughened opaque glass, admitted light, which was augmented all the time by an electric globe in the arched ceiling.
Three doors led from the cell: one into the corridor, the other into a little annexe fitted with a washing-bowl and a bath; the third into the unoccupied cell, which had a wooden floor, and in the centre of the floor a square trap. Ray Bennett did not know then how close he was to the death house, and if he had known he would not have cared. For death was the least of the terrors which oppressed him.
He had awakened from his drugged sleep, to find himself in the cell of a country lock-up, and had heard, bemused, the charge of murder that had been made against him. He had no clear recollection of what had happened. All that he knew was that he had hated Lew Brady and that he had wanted to kill him. After that, he had a recollection of walking with him and of sitting down somewhere.
They told him that Brady was dead, and that the weapon with which the murder was committed had been found in his hand. Ray had racked his brains in an effort to remember whether he had a revolver or not. He must have had. And of course he had been drugged. They had had whisky at theRed Lion, and Lew must have said something about Lola and he had shot him. It was strange that he did not think longingly of Lola. His love for her had gone. He thought of her as he thought of Lew Brady, as something unimportant that belonged to the past. All that mattered now was that his father and Ella should not know. At all costs the disgrace must be kept from them. He had waited in a fever of impatience for the trial to end, so that he might get away from the public gaze. Fortunately, the murder was not of sufficient interest even for the ubiquitous press photographers. He wanted to be done with it all, to go out of life unknown. The greatest tragedy that could occur to him was that he should be identified.
He dared not think of Ella or of his father. He was Jim Carter, without parents or friends; and if he died as Jim Carter, he must spend his last days of life as Jim Carter. He was not frightened; he had no fear, his only nightmare was that he should be recognized.
The warder who was with him, and who was not supposed to speak to him, had told him that, by the law, three clear Sundays must elapse between his sentence and execution. The chaplain visited him every day, and the Governor. A tap at the cell door told him it was the Governor’s hour, and he rose as the grey-haired official came in.
“Any complaints, Carter?”
“None, sir.”
“Is there anything you want?”
“No, sir.”
The Governor looked at the table. The writing-pad, which had been placed for the condemned prisoner’s use, had not been touched.
“You have no letters to write? I suppose you can write?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve no letters to write.”
“What are you, Carter? You’re not an ordinary tramp. You’re better educated than that class.”
“I’m an ordinary tramp, sir,” said Ray quietly.
“Have you all the books you need?”
Ray nodded, and the Governor went out. Every day came these inevitable inquiries. Sometimes the Governor made reference to his friends, but he grew tired of asking questions about the unused blotting-pad.
Ray Bennett had reached the stage of sane understanding where he did not even regret. It was inevitable. He had been caught up in the machinery of circumstance, and must go slowly round to the crashing-place. Every morning and afternoon he paced the square exercise yard, watched by three men in uniform, and jealously screened from the observation of other prisoners; and his serenity amazed all who saw him. He was caught up in the wheel and must go the full round. He could even smile at himself, observe his own vanity with the eye of an outsider. And he could not weep, because there was nothing left to weep about. He was already a dead man. Nobody troubled to organize a reprieve for him; he was too uninteresting a murderer. The newspapers did not flame into headlines, demanding a new trial. Fashionable lawyers would not foregather to discuss an appeal. He had murdered; he must die.
Once, when he was washing, and was about to put his hand in the water, he saw the reflection of his face staring back at him, and he did not recognize himself, for his beard had grown weedily. He laughed, and when the wondering warders looked at him, he said:
“I’m only now beginning to cultivate a sense of humour—I’ve left it rather late, haven’t I?”
He could have had visitors, could have seen anybody he wished, but derived a strange satisfaction from his isolation. He had done with all that was artificial and emotional in life. Lola? He thought of her again and shook his head. She was very pretty. He wondered what she would do now that Lew was dead; what she was doing at that moment. He thought, too, of Dick Gordon, remembered that he liked him that day when Dick had given him a ride in his big Rolls. How queerly far off that seemed! And yet it could have only been a few months ago.
One day the Governor came in a more ceremonial style, and with him was a gentleman whom Ray remembered having seen in the court-house on the day of the trial. It was the Under Sheriff, and there was an important communication to be made. The Governor had to clear his throat twice.
“Carter,” he said a little unsteadily, “the Secretary of State has informed me that he sees no reason for interfering with the course of the law. The High Sheriff has fixed next Wednesday morning at eight o’clock as the date and hour of your execution.”
Ray inclined his head.
“Thank you, sir,” he said.
CHAPTER XXXIII
JOHN BENNETT emerged from the wood-shed, which he had converted into a dark room, bearing a flat square box in either hand.
“Don’t talk to me for a minute, Ella,” he said as she rose from her knees—she was weeding her own pet garden—“or I shall get these blamed things mixed. This one”—he shook his right hand—“is a picture of trout, and it is a great picture,” he said enthusiastically. “The man who runs the trout farm, let me take it through the glass side of the trench, and it was a beautifully sunny day.”
“What is the other one, daddy?” she asked, and John Bennett pulled a face.
“That is the dud,” he said regretfully. “Five hundred feet of good film gone west! I may have got a picture by accident, but I can’t afford to have it developed on the off-chance. I’ll keep it by, and one day, when I’m rolling in money, I’ll go to the expense of satisfying my curiosity.”
He took the boxes into the house, and turned round to his stationery rack to find two adhesive labels, and had finished writing them, when Dick Gordon’s cheery voice came through the open window. He rose eagerly and went out to him.
“Well, Captain Gordon, did you get it?” he asked.
“I got it,” said Dick solemnly, waving an envelope. “You’re the first cinematographer that has been allowed in the Zoological Gardens, and I had tocrawlto the powers that be to secure the permission!”
The pale face of John Bennett flushed with pleasure.
“It is a tremendous thing,” he said. “The Zoo has never been put on the pictures, and Selinski has promised me a fabulous sum for the film if I can take it.”
“The fabulous sum is in your pocket, Mr. Bennett,” said Dick, “and I am glad that you mentioned it.”
“I am under the impression you mentioned it first,” said John Bennett. Ella did not remember having seen her father smile before.
“Perhaps I did,” said Dick cheerfully. “I knew you were interested in animal photography.”
He did not tell John Bennett that it was Ella who had first spoken about the difficulties of securing Zoo photographs and her father’s inability to obtain the necessary permission.
John Bennett went back to his labelling with a lighter heart than he had borne for many a day. He wrote the two slips, wetted the gum and hesitated. Then he laid down the papers and went into the garden.
“Ella, do you remember which of those boxes had the trout in?”
“The one in your right hand, daddy,” she said.
“I thought so,” he said, and went to finish his work.
It was only after the boxes were labelled that he had any misgivings. Where had he stood when he put them down? On which side of the table? Then, with a shrug, he began to wrap the trout picture, and they saw him carrying it under his arm to the village post-office.
“No news of Ray?” asked Dick.
The girl shook her head.
“What does your father think?”
“He doesn’t talk about Ray, and I haven’t emphasized the fact that it is such a long time since I had a letter.”
They were strolling through the garden toward the little summer-house that John Bennett had built in the days when Ray was a schoolboy.
“You have not heard?” she asked. “I credit you with an omniscience which perhaps isn’t deserved. You have not found the man who killed Mr. Maitland?”
“No,” said Dick. “I don’t expect we shall until we catch Frog himself.”
“Will you?” she asked quietly.
He nodded.
“Yes, he can’t go on for ever. Even Elk is taking a cheerful view. Ella,” he asked suddenly, “are you the kind of person who keeps a promise?”
“Yes,” she said in surprise.
“In all circumstances, if you make a promise, do you keep it?”
“Why, of course. If I do not think I can keep it, I do not make a promise. Why?”
“Well, I want you to make me a promise—and to keep it,” he said.
She looked past him, and then:
“It depends what the promise is.”
“I want you to promise to be my wife,” said Dick Gordon.
Her hand lay in his, and she did not draw it from him.
“It is . . . very . . . businesslike, isn’t it?” she said, biting her unruly underlip.
“Will you promise?”
She looked round at him, tears in her eyes, though her lips were smiling, and he caught her in his arms.
John Bennett waited a long time for his lunch that day. Going out to see where his daughter was, he met Dick, and in a few words Dick Gordon told him all. He saw the pain in the man’s face, and dropped his hand upon the broad shoulder.
“Ella has promised me, and she will not go back on her promise. Whatever happens, whatever she learns.”
The man raised his eyes to the other’s face.
“Will you go back on your promise?” he asked huskily. “Whatever you learn?”
“I know,” said Dick simply.
Ella Bennett walked on air that day. A new and splendid colour had come into her life; a tremendous certainty which banished all the fears and doubts she had felt; a light which revealed delightful vistas.
Her father went over to Dorking that afternoon, and came back hurriedly, wearing that strained look which it hurt her to see.
“I shall have to go to town, dearie,” he said. “There’s been a letter waiting for me for two days. I’ve been so absorbed in my picture work that I’d forgotten I had any other responsibility.”
He did not look for her in the garden to kiss her good-bye, and when she came back to the house he was gone, and in such a hurry that he had not taken his camera with him.
Ella did not mind being alone; in the days when Ray was at home, she had spent many nights in the cottage by herself, and the house was on the main road. She made some tea and sat down to write to Dick, though she told herself reprovingly that he hadn’t been gone more than two or three hours. Nevertheless, she wrote, for the spirit of logic avoids the lover.
There was a postal box a hundred yards up the road; it was a bright night and people were standing at their cottage gates, gossipping, as she passed. The letter dropped in the box, she came back to the cottage, went inside, locked and bolted the door, and sat down with a workbasket by her side to fill in the hour which separated her from bedtime.
So working, her mind was completely occupied, to the exclusion of all other thoughts, by Dick Gordon. Once or twice the thought of her father and Ray strayed across her mind, but it was to Dick she returned.
The only illumination in the cosy dining-room was a shaded kerosene lamp which stood on the table by her side and gave her sufficient light for her work. All outside the range of the lamp was shadow. She had finished darning a pair of her father’s socks, and had laid down the needle with a happy sigh, when her eyes went to the door leading to the kitchen. It was ajar, and it was opening slowly.
For a moment she sat paralysed with terror, and then leapt to her feet.
“Who’s there?” she called.
There came into the shadowy doorway a figure, the very sight of which choked the scream in her throat. It looked tall, by reason of the tightly-fitting black coat it wore. The face and head were hidden behind a hideous mask of rubber and mica. The reflection of the lamp shone on the big goggles and filled them with a baleful fire.
“Don’t scream, don’t move!” said the masked man, and his voice sounded hollow and far away. “I will not hurt you.”
“Who are you?” she managed to gasp.
“I am The Frog,” said the stranger.
For an eternity, as it seemed, she stood helpless, incapable of movement, and it was he who spoke.
“How many men love you, Ella Bennett?” he asked. “Gordon and Johnson—and The Frog, who loves you most of all!”
He paused, as though he expected her to speak, but she was incapable of answering him.
“Men work for women, and they murder for women, and behind all that they do, respectably or unrespectably, there is a woman,” said the Frog. “And you are that woman for me, Ella.”
“Who are you?” she managed to say.
“I am The Frog,” he replied again, “and you shall know my name when I have given it to you. I want you! Not now”—he raised his hand as he saw the terror rising in her face. “You shall come to me willingly.”
“You’re mad!” she cried. “I do not know you. How can I—oh, it’s too wicked to suggest . . . please go away.”
“I will go presently,” said the Frog. “Will you marry me, Ella?”
She shook her head.
“Will you marry me, Ella?” he asked again.
“No.” She had recovered her calm and something of her self-possession.
“I will give you——”
“If you gave me all the money there was in the world, I would not many you,” she said.
“I will give you something more precious.” His voice was softer, scarcely audible. “I will give you a life!”
She thought he was speaking of Dick Gordon.
“I will give you the life of your brother.”
For a second the room spun round and she clutched a chair to keep her feet.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I will give you the life of your brother, who is lying in Gloucester Gaol under sentence of death!” said the Frog.
With a supreme effort Ella guided herself to a chair and sat down.
“My brother?” she said dully. “Under sentence of death?”
“To-day is Monday,” said the Frog. “On Wednesday he dies. Give me your word that when I send for you, you will come, and I will save him.”
“How can you save him?” The question came mechanically.
“A man has made a confession—a man named Gill, a half-witted fellow who thinks he killed Lew Brady.”
“Brady?” she gasped.
The Frog nodded.
“It isn’t true,” she breathed. “You’re lying! You’re telling me this to frighten me.”
“Will you marry me?” he asked.
“Never, never!” she cried. “I would rather die. You are lying to me.”
“When you want me, send for me,” said the Frog. “Put in your window a white card, and I will save your brother.”
She half lay on the table, her head upon her folded arms.
“It’s not true, it’s not true,” she muttered.
There was no reply, and, looking up, she saw that the room was empty. Staggering to her feet, she went out into the kitchen. The kitchen door was open; and, peering into the dark garden, she saw no sign of the man. She had strength to bolt the door, and dragged herself up to her room and to her bed, and then she fainted.
Daylight showed in the windows when she sat up. She was painfully weary, her eyes were red with weeping, her head was in a whirl. It had been a night of horror—and it was not true, it could not be true. She had heard of no murder; and if there had been, it could not be Ray. She would have known; Ray would have sent for her father.
She dragged her aching limbs to the bathroom and turned the cold-water tap. Half an hour later she was sane, and looking at her experience dispassionately. Ray was alive. The man had tried to frighten her. Who was he? She shivered.
She saw only one solution to her terrible problem, and after she had made herself a cup of tea, she dressed and walked down into the town, in time to catch an early train. What other thought came to her, she never dreamt for one moment of surrender, never so much as glanced at the window where a white card could be placed, might save the life of her brother. In her heart of hearts, she knew that this man would not have come to her with such a story unless it was well founded. That was not the Frog’s way. What advantage would he gain if he had invented this tragedy? Nevertheless, she did not even look for a white card, or think of its possible use.
Dick was at breakfast when she arrived, and a glance at her face told him that she brought bad news.
“Don’t go, Mr. Elk,” she said as the inspector pushed back his chair. “You must know this.”
As briefly as she could, she narrated the events of the night before, and Dick listened with rising wrath until she came to the climax of the story.
“Ray under sentence?” he said incredulously. “Of course it isn’t true.”
“Where did he say the boy was?” asked Elk.
“In Gloucester Prison.”
In their presence her reserve had melted and she was near to tears.
“Gloucester Prison?” repeated Elk slowly. “Thereisa man there under sentence of death, a man named”—he strove to remember—“Carter,” he said at last. “That is it—Carter, a tramp. He killed another tramp named Phenan.”
“Of course it isn’t Ray,” said Dick, laying his hand on hers. “This brute tried to frighten you. When did he say the execution had been fixed for?”
“To-morrow.” She was weeping; now that the tension had relaxed, it seemed that she had reached the reserve of her strength.
“Ray is probably on the Continent,” Dick soothed her, and here Elk thought it expedient and delicate to steal silently forth.
He was not as convinced as Gordon that the Frog had made a bluff. No sooner was he in his office than he rang for his new clerk.
“Records,” he said briefly. “I want particulars of a man named Carter, now lying under sentence of death in Gloucester Prison—photograph, finger-prints, and record of the crime.”
The man was gone ten minutes, and returned with a small portfolio.
“No photograph has been received yet, sir,” he said. “In murder cases we do not get the full records from the County police until after the execution.”
Elk cursed the County police fluently, and addressed himself to the examination of the dossier. That told him little or nothing. The height and weight of the man tallied, he guessed, with Ray’s. There were no body marks and the description “Slight beard——”
He sat bolt upright. Slight beard! Ray Bennett had been growing a beard for some reason. He remembered that Broad had told him this.
“Pshaw!” he said, throwing down the finger-print card. “It is impossible!”
It was impossible, and yet——
He drew a telegraph pad toward him and wrote a wire.
“Governor, H.M. Prison, Gloucester. Very urgent. Send by special messenger prison photograph of James Carter under sentence of death in your prison to Headquarters Records. Messenger must leave by first train. Very urgent.”
“Governor, H.M. Prison, Gloucester. Very urgent. Send by special messenger prison photograph of James Carter under sentence of death in your prison to Headquarters Records. Messenger must leave by first train. Very urgent.”
He took the liberty of signing it with the name of the Chief Commissioner. The telegram despatched, he returned to a scrutiny of the description sheet, and presently he saw a remark which he had overlooked.
“Vaccination marks on right forearm.”
That was unusual. People are usually vaccinated on the left arm, a little below the shoulder. He made a note of this fact, and turned to the work that was waiting for him. At noon a wire arrived from Gloucester, saying that the photograph was on its way. That, at least, was satisfactory; though, even if it proved to be Ray, what could be done? In his heart Elk prayed most fervently that the Frog had bluffed.
Just before one, Dick telephoned him and asked him to lunch with them at the Auto Club, an invitation which, in any circumstances, was not to be refused, for Elk had a passion for visiting other people’s clubs.
When he arrived—on this occasion strictly on time—he found the girl in a calm, even a cheerful mood, and his quick eye detected upon her finger a ring of surprising brilliance that he had not seen before. Dick Gordon had made very good use of his spare time that morning.
“I feel I’m neglecting my business, Elk,” he said after he had led them into the palatial dining-room of the Auto, and had found a cushion for the girl’s back, and had placed her chair exactly where it was least comfortable, “but I guess you’ve got through the morning without feeling my loss.”
“I certainly have,” said Elk. “A very interesting morning. There is a smallpox scare in the East End,” he went on, “and I’ve heard some talk at Headquarters of having the whole staff vaccinated. If there’s one thing that I do not approve of, it is vaccination. At my time of life I ought to be immune from any germ that happens to be going round.”
The girl laughed.
“Poor Mr. Elk! I sympathize with you. Ray and I had a dreadful time when we were vaccinated about five years ago during the big epidemic, although I didn’t have so bad a time as Ray. And neither of us had such an experience as the majority of victims, because we had an excellent doctor, with unique views on vaccination.”
She pulled back the sleeve of her blouse and showed three tiny scars on the underside of the right forearm.
“The doctor said he would put it where it wouldn’t show. Isn’t that a good idea?”
“Yes,” said Elk slowly. “And did he vaccinate your brother the same way?”
She nodded, and then:
“What is the matter, Mr. Elk?”
“I swallowed an olive stone,” said Elk. “I wonder somebody doesn’t start cultivating olives without stones.” He looked out of the window. “You’ve got a pretty fine day for your visit, Miss Bennett,” he said, and launched forth into a rambling condemnation of the English climate.
It seemed hours to Elk before the meal was finished. The girl was going back to Gordon’s house to look at catalogues which Dick had ordered to be sent to Harley Terrace by telephone.
“You won’t be coming to the office?” asked Elk.
“No: do you think it is necessary?”
“I wanted to see you for ten minutes,” drawled the other, “perhaps a quarter of an hour.”
“Come back to the house.”
“Well, I wasn’t thinking of coming back to the house,” said Elk. “Perhaps you’ve got a lady’s drawing-room. I remember seeing one as I came through the marble hall, and Miss Bennett would not mind——”
“Why, of course not,” she said. “If I’m in the way, I’ll do anything you wish. Show me your lady’s drawing-room.”
When Dick had come back, the detective was smoking, his elbows on the table, his thin, brown hands clasped under his chin, and he was examining, with the eye of a connoisseur, the beautifully carved ceiling.
“What’s the trouble, Elk?” said Gordon as he sat down.
“The man under sentence of death is Ray Bennett,” said Elk without preliminary.
CHAPTER XXXIV
DICK’S face went white.
“How do you know this?”
“Well, there’s a photograph coming along; it will be in London this afternoon; but I needn’t see that. This man under sentence has three vaccination marks on the right forearm.”
There was a dead silence.
“I wondered why you turned the talk to vaccination,” said Dick quietly. “I ought to have known there was something in it. What can we do?”
“I’ll tell you what you can’t do,” said Elk. “You can’t let that girl know. For good and sufficient reasons, Ray Bennett has decided not to reveal his identity, and he must pass out. You’re going to have a rotten afternoon, Captain Gordon,” said Elk gently, “and I’d rather be me than you. But you’ve got to keep up your light-hearted chatter, or that young woman is going to guess that something is wrong.”
“My God! How dreadful!” said Dick in a low voice.
“Yes, it is,” admitted Elk, “and we can do nothing. We’ve got to accept it as a fact that he’s guilty. If you thought any other way, it would drive you mad. And even if he was as innocent as you or I, what chance have we of getting an inquiry or stopping the sentence being carried into execution?”
“Poor John Bennett!” said Dick in a hushed voice.
“If you’re starting to get sentimental,” snarled Elk, blinking furiously, “I’m going into a more practical atmosphere. Good afternoon.”
“Wait. I can’t face this girl for a moment. Come back to the house with me.”
Elk hesitated, and then grudgingly agreed.
Ella could not guess, from their demeanour, the horror that was in the minds of these men. Elk fell back upon history and dates—a prolific and a favourite subject.
“Thank heaven those catalogues have arrived!” said Dick, as, with a sigh of relief, he saw the huge pile of literature on his study table.
“Why ‘thank heaven’?” she smiled.
“Because his conscience is pricking him, and he wants an excuse for working.” Elk came to the rescue.
The strain was one which even he found almost insupportable; and when, after a pleading glance at the other, Dick nodded, he got up with a sense of holiday.
“I’ll be going now, Miss Bennett,” he said. “I expect you’ll be busy all the afternoon furnishing your cottage. I must come down and see it,” he went on, wilfully dense. “Though it struck me that there wouldn’t be much room for new furniture at Maytree.”
So far he got when he heard voices in the hall—the excited voice of a woman, shrill, insistent, hysterical. Before Dick could get to the door, it was flung open, and Lola rushed in.
“Gordon! Gordon! Oh, my God!” she sobbed. “Do you know?”
“Hush!” said Dick, but the girl was beside herself.
“They’ve got Ray! They’re going to hang him! Lew’s dead.”
The mischief was done. Ella came slowly to her feet, rigid with fear.
“My brother?” she asked, and then Lola saw her for the first time and nodded.
“I found out,” she sobbed. “I had a suspicion, and I wrote . . . I’ve got a photograph of Phenan. I knew it was Lew at once, and I guessed the rest. The Frog did it! He planned it; months in advance he planned it. I’m not sorry about Lew; I swear I’m not sorry about Lew! It’s the boy. I sent him to his death, Gordon——” And then she broke into a fit of hysterical sobbing.
“Put her out,” said Gordon, and Elk lifted the helpless girl in his arms and carried her into the dining-room.
“True!” Ella whispered the word, and Dick nodded.
“I’m afraid it’s true, Ella.”
She sat down slowly.
“I wonder where I can find father,” she said, as calmly as though she were discussing some everyday event.
“You can do nothing. He knows nothing. Do you think it is kind to tell him?”
She searched his face wonderingly.
“I think you’re right. Of course you’re right, Dick. I’m sure you’re right. Father mustn’t know. Couldn’t I see him—Ray, I mean?”
Dick shook his head.
“Ella, if Ray has kept silent to save you from this, all his forbearance, all his courage will be wasted if you go to him.”
Again her lips drooped.
“Yes. It is good of you to think for me.” She put her hand on his, and he felt no tremor. “I don’t know what I can do,” she said. “It is so—stunning. What can I do?”
“You can do nothing, my dear.” His arm went round her and her tired head fell upon his shoulder.
“No, I can do nothing,” she whispered.
Elk came in.
“A telegram for Miss Bennett,” he said. “The messenger just arrived with it. Been redirected from Horsham, I expect.”
Dick took the wire.
“Open it, please,” said the girl. “It may be from father.”
He tore open the envelope. The telegram ran: