CHAPTER XXXVII
DICK, with his ear to the floor, heard the words “Frog says he’s got to die,” and his cracked lips parted in a grin.
“Have you heard him moving about?” asked Hagn.
“No, he’s asleep, I expect,” said another voice. “We shall have to wait for light. We can’t do it in the dark. We shall be killing one another.”
This view commended itself to most of the men present. Dick counted six voices. He struck a match for another survey, and again his eye fell upon the cable. And then an inspiration came to him. Moving stealthily across the floor, he reached up, and, gripping the cable, pulled on it steadily. Under his weight, the supporting insulator broke loose. By great good luck it fell upon the heap of rubbish in the fireplace and made no sound. For the next half-hour he worked feverishly, unwrapping the rubber insulation from the wires of the cable, pulling the copper strands free. His hands were bleeding, his nails broken; but after half-an-hour’s hard work, he had the end of the cable frayed. The door opened outward, he remembered with satisfaction, and, lifting the steel plate, he laid it tight against the door, so that whoever entered must step upon it. Then he began to fasten the frayed copper wires of the cable to the rivet holes; and he had hardly finished his work before he heard a stealthy sound on the stairs.
Day had come now, and light was streaming through the glass roof of the factory. He heard a faint whisper, and even as faint a click, as the bolts of the door were pulled; and, creeping to the switch, he turned it down.
The door was jerked open, and a man stepped upon the plate. Before his scream could warn him who followed the second of the party had been flung senseless to the floor.
“What the devil’s wrong?” It was Hagn’s voice. He came running up the stairs, put one foot on the electric plate, and stood for the space of a second motionless. Then, with a gasping sob, he fell backward, and Dick heard the crash as he struck the stairs.
He did not wait any longer. Jumping over the plate, he leapt down the stairs, treading underfoot the senseless figure of Hagn. The little office was empty. On the table lay one of his pistols. He gripped it, and fled along the bare factory hall, through a door into the open. He heard a shout, and, looking round, saw two of the party coming at him, and, raising his pistol, he pressed the trigger. There was a click—Hagn had emptied the magazine.
A Browning is an excellent weapon even if it is not loaded, and Dick Gordon brought the barrel down with smashing force upon the head of the man who tried to grapple with him. Then he turned and ran.
He had made a mistake when he thought there were only six men in the building; there must have been twenty, and most of them were in full cry.
He tried to reach the road, and was separated only by a line of bushes. But here he blundered. The bushes concealed a barbed wire fence, and he had to run along uneven ground, and in his stockinged feet the effort was painful. His slow progress enabled his pursuers to get ahead. Doubling back, Dick flew for the second of the three buildings, and as he ran, he took out the magazine of his pistol. As he feared, it was empty.
Now they were on him. He could hear the leading man’s breath, and he himself was nearly spent. And then, before him, he saw a round fire-alarm, fixed to the wall, and in a flash the memory of an almost forgotten conversation came back to him. With his bare hands he smashed the glass and tugged at the alarm, and at that minute they were on him. He fought desperately, but against their numbers resistance was almost useless. He must gain time.
“Get up, you fellows!” he shouted. “Hagn’s dead.”
It was an unfortunate statement, for Hagn came out of the next building at that moment, very shaken but very alive. He was livid with rage, and babbled in some language which Dick did not know, but which he guessed was Swedish.
“I’ll fix you for that. You shall try electric shock yourself, you dog!”
He drove his fist at the prisoner’s face, but Dick twisted his head and the blow struck the brickwork of the building against which he stood. With a scream, the man leapt at him, clawing and tearing with open hands, and this was Dick’s salvation. For the men who were gripping his arms released their hold, that their chief might have freer play. Dick struck out, hitting scientifically for the body, and with a yell Hagn collapsed. Before they could stop him, Gordon was away like the wind, this time making for the gate.
He had reached it when the hand of the nearest man fell on him. He flung him aside and staggered into the roadway, and then, from down the straight road, came the clang of bells, a glitter of brass and a touch of crimson. A motor fire-engine was coming at full speed.
For a moment the men grouped about the gate stared at this intervention. Then, without taking any further notice of their quarry, they turned and ran. A word to the fire chief explained the situation. Another engine was coming, at breakneck speed, and firemen were men for whom Frogs had no terror.
Whilst Hagn was being carried to one of the waiting wagons, Dick looked at his watch; it was six o’clock. He went in search of his car, fearing the worst. Hagn, however, had made no attempt to put the car out of gear; probably he had some plan for using it himself. Three minutes later, Dick, dishevelled, grimy, bearing the marks of Hagn’s talons upon his face, swung out into the road and set the bonnet of the car for Gloucester. He could not have gone faster even had he known that his watch was stopped.
Through Swindon at breakneck speed, and he was on the Gloucester Road. He looked at his watch again. The hands still pointed to six, and he gave a gasp. He was going all out now, but the road was bad, full of windings, and once he was nearly thrown out of the car when he struck a ridge on the road.
A tyre burst, and he almost swerved into the hedge, but he got her nose straight again and continued on a flat tyre. It brought his speed down appreciably, and he grew hot and cold, as mile after mile of the road flashed past without a sign of the town.
And then, with Gloucester Cathedral showing its spires above the hill, a second tyre exploded. He could not stop: he must go on, if he had to run in to Gloucester on the rims. And now the pace was painfully slow in comparison with that frantic rush which had carried him through Berkshire and Wiltshire to the edge of Somerset.
He was entering the straggling suburbs of the town. The roads were terrible; he was held up by a street car, but, disregarding a policeman’s warning, flew past almost under the wheels of a great traction engine. And now he saw the time—two minutes to eight, and the gaol was half a mile farther on. He set his teeth and prayed.
As he turned into the main street, with the gaol gates before him, the clocks of the cathedral struck eight, and to Dick Gordon they were the notes of doom.
They would delay the carrying out of the death penalty for nothing short of the reprieve he carried. Punctually to the second, Ray Bennett would die. The agony of that moment was a memory that turned him grey. He brought the bumping car to a halt before the prison gates and staggered to the bell. Twice he pulled, but the gates remained closed. Dick pulled off his sock and found the soddened reprieve, streaky with blood, for his feet were bleeding. Again he rang with the fury of despair. Then a little wicket opened and the dark face of a warder appeared.
“You’re not allowed in,” he said curtly. “You know what is happening here.”
“Home Office,” said Dick thickly, “Home Office messenger. I have a reprieve!”
The wicket closed, and, after an eternity, the lock turned and the heavy door opened.
“I’m Captain Gordon,” gasped Dick, “from the Public Prosecutor’s office, and I carry a reprieve for James Carter.”
The warder shook his head.
“The execution took place five minutes ago, sir,” he said.
“But the Cathedral clock!” gasped Dick.
“The Cathedral clock is four minutes slow,” said the warder. “I am afraid Carter is dead.”
CHAPTER XXXVIII
RAY BENNETT woke from a refreshing sleep and sat up in bed. One of the warders, who had watched him all night, got up and came over.
“Do you want your clothes. Carter?” he said. “The Governor thought you wouldn’t care to wear those old things of yours.”
“And he was right,” said the grateful Ray. “This looks a good suit,” he said as he pulled on the trousers.
The warder coughed.
“Yes, it’s a good suit,” he agreed.
He did not say more, but something in his demeanour betrayed the truth. These were the clothes in which some man had been hanged, and yet Ray’s hands did not shake as he fixed the webbed braces which held them. Poor clothes, to do duty on two such dismal occasions! He hoped they would be spared the indignity of a third experience.
They brought him his breakfast at six o’clock. Yet once more his eyes strayed toward the writing-pad, and then, with breakfast over, came the chaplain, a quiet man in minister’s garb, strength in every line of his mobile face. They talked awhile, and then the warder suggested that Ray should go to take exercise in the paved yard outside. He was glad of the privilege. He wanted once more to look upon the blue sky, to draw into his lungs the balm of God’s air.
Yet he knew that it was not a disinterested kindness, and well guessed why this privilege had been afforded to him, as he walked slowly round the exercise yard, arm in arm with the clergyman. He knew now what lay behind the third door. They were going to try the trap in the death house, and they wished to spare his feelings.
In half an hour he was back in the cell.
“Do you want to make any confession. Carter? Is that your name?”
“No, it is not my name, sir,” said Ray quietly, “but that doesn’t matter.”
“Did you kill this man?”
“I don’t know,” said Ray. “I wanted to kill him, and therefore it is likely that I did.”
At ten minutes to eight came the Governor to shake hands, and with him the Sheriff. The clock in the prison hall moved slowly, inexorably forward. Through the open door of the cell Ray could see it, and, knowing this, the Governor closed the door, for it was one minute to eight, and it would soon open again. Ray saw the door move. For a second his self-possession deserted him, and he turned his back to the man who came with a quick step, and, gripping his hands, strapped them.
“God forgive me! God forgive me!” murmured somebody behind him, and at the sound of that voice Ray spun round and faced the executioner.
The hangman was John Bennett!
Father and son, executioner and convicted murderer soon to be launched to death, they faced one another, and then, in a voice that was almost inaudible, John Bennett breathed the word:
“Ray!”
Ray nodded. It was strange that, in that moment, his mind was going back over the mysterious errands of his father, his hatred of the job into which circumstances had forced him.
“Ray!” breathed the man again.
“Do you know this man?” It was the Governor, and his voice was shaking with emotion.
John Bennett turned.
“He is my son,” he said, and with a quick pull loosed the strap.
“You must go on with this, Bennett.” The Governor’s voice was stern and terrible.
“Go on with it?” repeated John Bennett mechanically. “Go on with this? Kill my own son? Are you mad? Do you think I am mad?” He took the boy in his arms, his cheek against the hairy face. “My boy! Oh, my boy!” he said, and smoothed his hair as he had done in the days when Ray was a child. Then, recovering himself instantly, he thrust the boy through the open door into the death chamber, followed him and slammed the door, bolting it.
There was no other doorway except that, to which he had the key, and this he thrust into the lock that it might not be opened from the other side. Ray looked at the bare chamber, the dangling yellow rope, the marks of the trap, and fell back against the wall, his eyes shut, shivering. Then, standing in the middle of the trap, John Bennett hacked the rope until it was severed, hacked it in pieces as it lay on the floor. Then:
Crack, crash!
The two traps dropped, and into the yawning gap he flung the cut rope.
“Father!”
Ray was staring at him; oblivious to the thunderous blows which were being rained on the door, the old man came towards him, took the boy’s face between his hands and kissed him.
“Will you forgive me, Ray?” he asked brokenly. “I had to do this. I was forced to do it. I starved before I did it. I came once . . . out of curiosity to help the executioner—a broken-down doctor, who had taken on the work. And he was ill . . . I hanged the murderer. I had just come from the medical school. It didn’t seem so dreadful to me then. I tried to find some other way of making money, and lived in dread all my life that somebody would point his finger at me, and say: ‘There goes Benn, the executioner.’ ”
“Benn, the executioner!” said Ray wonderingly. “Are you Benn?”
The old man nodded.
“Benn, come out! I give you my word of honour that I will postpone the execution until to-morrow. You can’t stay there.”
John Bennett looked round at the grating, then up to the cut rope. The execution could not proceed. Such was the routine of death that the rope must be expressly issued from the headquarter gaol. No other rope would serve. All the paraphernalia of execution, down to the piece of chalk that marks the “T” on the trap where a man must put his feet, must be punctiliously forwarded from prison headquarters, and as punctiliously returned.
John shot back the bolts, opened the door and stepped out.
The faces of the men in the condemned cell were ghastly. The Governor’s was white and drawn, the prison doctor seemed to have shrunk, and the Sheriff sat on the bed, his face hidden in his hands.
“I will telegraph to London and tell them the circumstances,” said the Governor. “I’m not condemning you for what you’re doing, Benn. It would be monstrous to expect you to have done—this thing.”
A warder came along the corridor and through the door of the cell. And behind him, entering the prison by virtue of his authority, a dishevelled, dust-stained, limping figure, his face scratched, streaks of dried blood on his face, his eyes red with weariness. For a second John Bennett did not recognize him, and then:
“A reprieve, by the King’s own hand,” said Dick Gordon unsteadily, and handed the stained envelope to the Governor.
CHAPTER XXXIX
THROUGHOUT the night Ella Bennett lay, half waking, half sleeping. She remembered the doctor coming; she remembered Elk’s urgent request that she should drink the draught he had prepared; and though she had suspected its nature and at first had fought against drinking that milky-white potion, she had at last succumbed, and had lain down on the sofa, determined that she would not sleep until she knew the worst or the best. She was exhausted with the mental fight she had put up to preserve her sanity, and then she had dozed.
She was dimly conscious, as she came back to understanding, that she was lying on a bed, and that somebody had taken off her shoes and loosened her hair. With a tremendous effort she opened her eyes and saw a woman, sitting by a window, reading. The room was intensely masculine; it smelt faintly of smoke.
“Dick’s bed,” she muttered, and the woman put down her book and got up.
Ella looked at her, puzzled. Why did she wear those white bands about her hair, and that butcher-blue wrapper and the white cuffs? She was a nurse, of course. Satisfied with having solved that problem, Ella closed her eyes and went back again into the land of dreams.
She woke again. The woman was still there, but this time the girl’s mind was in order.
“What time is it?” she asked.
The nurse came over with a glass of water, and Ella drank greedily.
“It is seven o’clock,” she said.
“Seven!” The girl shivered, and then, with a cry, tried to rise. “It is evening!” she gasped. “Oh, what happened?”
“Your father is downstairs, miss,” said the nurse. “I’ll call him.”
“Father—here?” She frowned. “Is there any other news?”
“Mr. Gordon is downstairs too, miss, and Mr. Johnson.”
The woman was faithfully carrying out the instructions which had been given to her.
“Nobody—else?” asked Ella in a whisper.
“No, miss, the other gentleman is coming to-morrow or the next day—your brother, I mean.”
With a sob the girl buried her face in the pillow.
“You are not telling the truth!”
“Oh yes, I am,” said the woman, and there was something in her laugh which made Ella look up.
The nurse went out of the room and was gone a little while. Presently the door opened, and John Bennett came in. Instantly she was in his arms, sobbing her joy.
“It is true, it is true, daddy?”
“Yes, my love, it is true,” said Bennett. “Ray will be here to-morrow. There are some formalities to be gone through; they can’t secure a release immediately, as they do in story-books. We are discussing his future. Oh, my girl, my poor girl!”
“When did you know, daddy?”
“I knew this morning,” said her father quietly.
“Were you—were you dreadfully hurt?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Johnson wants to give Ray the management of Maitlands Consolidated,” he said. “It would be a splendid thing for Ray. Ella, our boy has changed.”
“Have you seen him?” she asked in surprise.
“Yes, I saw him this morning.”
She thought it was natural that her father should have seen him, and did not question him as to how he managed to get behind the jealously guarded doors of the prison.
“I don’t think Ray will accept Johnson’s offer,” he said. “If I know him as he is now, I am sure he will not accept. He will not take any ready-made position; he wants to work for himself. He is coming back to us, Ella.”
She wanted to ask him something, but feared to hurt him.
“Daddy, when Ray comes back,” she said after a long silence, “will it be possible for you to leave this—this work you hate so much?”
“I have left it, dear,” he replied quietly. “Never again—never again—never again, thank God!”
She did not see his face, but she felt the tremor that passed through the frame of the man who held her.
Downstairs, the study was blue with smoke. Dick Gordon, conspicuously bandaged about the head, something of his good looks spoiled by three latitudinal scratches which ran down his face, sat in his dressing-gown and slippers, a big pipe clenched between his teeth, the picture of battered contentment.
“Very good of you, Johnson,” he said. “I wonder whether Bennett will take your offer. Honestly, do you think he’s competent to act as the manager of this enormous business?”
Johnson looked dubious.
“He was a clerk at Maitlands. You can have no knowledge of his administrative qualities. Aren’t you being just a little too generous?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps I am,” said Johnson quietly. “I naturally want to help. There may be other positions less important, and perhaps, as you say, Ray might not care to take any quite as responsible.”
“I’m sure he won’t,” said Dick decidedly.
“It seems to me,” said Elk, “that the biggest job of all is to get young Bennett out of the clutches of the Frogs. Once a Frog, always a Frog, and this old man is not going to sit down and take his beating like a little gentleman. We had a proof of that yesterday morning. They shot at Johnson in this very street.”
Dick took out his pipe, sent a cloud of blue smoke toward the haze that lay on the room.
“The Frog is finished,” he said. “The only question now is, what is the best and most effective way to make an end? Balder is caught; Hagn is in gaol; Lew Brady, who was one of their most helpful agents, though he did not hold any executive position—Lew is dead; Lola——”
“Lola is through.” It was the American who spoke. “She left this morning for the United States, and I took the liberty of facilitating her passage—there remains Frog himself, and the organization which Frog controls. Catch him, and you’ve finished with the gang.”
John Bennett came back at that moment, and the conversation took another turn; soon after, Joshua Broad and Johnson went away together.
“You have not told Ella anything, Mr. Bennett?”
“About myself?—no. Is it necessary?”
“I hope you will not think so,” said Dick quietly. “Let that remain your own secret, and Ray’s secret. It has been known to me for a very long time. The day Elk told me he had seen you coming from King’s Cross station, and that a burglary had been committed, I saw in the newspapers that a man had been executed in York Prison. And then I took the trouble to look up the files of the newspapers, and I found that your absences had certainly coincided with burglaries—and there are so many burglaries in England in the course of a year that it would have been remarkable if they had not coincided—there were also other coincidences. On the day the murder was committed at Ibbley Copse, you were in Gloucester, and on that day Waldsen, the Hereford murderer, was executed.”
John Bennett hung his head.
“You knew, and yet . . .” he hesitated.
Dick nodded.
“I knew none of the circumstances which drove you to this dreadful business, Mr. Bennett,” he said gently. “To me you are an officer of the law—no more and no less terrible than I, who have helped send many men to the scaffold. No more unclean than the judge who sentences them and signs the warrant for their death. We are instruments of Order.”
Ella and her father stayed that night at Harley Terrace, and in the morning drove down to Paddington Station to meet the boy. Neither Dick nor Elk accompanied them.
“There are two things which strike me as remarkable,” said Elk. “One is, that neither you nor I recognized Bennett.”
“Why should we?” asked Dick. “Neither you nor I attend executions, and the identity of the hangman has always been more or less unknown except to a very few people. If he cares to advertise himself, he is known. Bennett shrank from publicity, avoided even the stations of the towns where the executions took place, and usually alighted at some wayside village and tramped into the town on foot. The chief warder at Gloucester told me that he never arrived at the gaol until midnight before an execution. Nobody saw him come or go.”
“Old man Maitland must have recognized him.”
“He did,” nodded Dick. “At some period Maitland was in gaol, and it is possible for prisoners, especially privileged prisoners, to catch a glimpse of the hangman. By ‘privileged prisoners’ I mean men who, by reason of their good conduct, were allowed to move about the gaol freely. Maitland told Miss Bennett that he had been in ‘quod,’ and I am certain that that is the true explanation. All Bennett’s official letters came to him at Dorking, where he rented a room for years. His mysterious journeys to town were not mysterious to the people of Dorking, who did not know him by sight or name.”
To Elk’s surprise, when he came back to Harley Terrace, Dick was not there. His servant said that his master had had a short sleep, had dressed and gone out, and had left no message as to where he was going. Dick did not, as a rule, go out on these solitary expeditions, and Elk’s first thought was that he had gone to Horsham. He ate his dinner, and thought longingly of his comfortable bed. He did not wish to retire for the night until he had seen his chief.
He made himself comfortable in the study, and was fast asleep, when somebody shook him gently by the shoulder. He looked up and saw Dick.
“Hullo!” he said sleepily. “Are you staying up all night?”
“I’ve got the car at the door,” said Dick. “Get your top-coat. We’re going to Horsham.”
Elk yawned at the clock.
“She’ll be thinking of bed,” he protested.
“I hope so,” said Dick, “but I have my fears. Frog was seen on the Horsham Road at nine o’clock to-night.”
“How do you know?” asked Elk, now wide awake.
“I’ve been shadowing him all the evening,” said Dick, “but he slipped me.”
“You’ve been watching Frog?” repeated Elk slowly. “Do you know him?”
“I’ve known him for the greater part of a month,” said Dick Gordon. “Get your gun!”
CHAPTER XL
THERE is a happiness which has no parallel in life—the happiness which comes when a dear one is restored. Ray Bennett sat by his father’s chair, and was content to absorb the love and tenderness which made the room radiant. It seemed like a dream to be back in this cosy sitting-room with its cretonnes, its faint odour of lavender, the wide chimney-place, the leaded windows, and Ella, most glorious vision of all. The rainstorm that lashed the window-panes gave the comfort and peace of his home a new and a more beautiful value. From time to time he fingered his shaven face absently. It was the only sure evidence to him that he was awake and that this experience belonged to the world of reality.
“Pull up your chair, boy,” said John Bennett, as Ella carried in a steaming teapot and put it on the table.
Ray rose obediently and placed the big Windsor chair where it had always been when he lived at home, on his father’s right hand.
John Bennett sat at the table, his head bent forward. It was the old grace that his father had said for years and years, and which secretly amused him in other days, but which now was invested with a beautiful significance that made him choke.
“For all the blessings we have received this day, may the Lord make us truly thankful!”
It was a wonderful meal, more wonderful than any he had eaten at Heron’s or at those expensive restaurants which he had favoured. Home-cured tongue, home-made bread, and a great jar of home-made preserves, tea that was fragrant with the bouquet of the East. He laid down his knife and fork and leant back with a happy smile.
“Home,” he said simply, and his father gripped his hand under cover of the table-cloth, gripped and held it so tightly that the boy winced.
“Ray, they want you to take over the management of Maitlands—Johnson does. What do you think of that, son?”
Ray shook his head.
“I’m no more fit to manage Maitlands than I am to be President of the Bank of England,” he said with a little laugh. “No, dad, my views are less exalted than they were. I think I might earn a respectable living hoeing potatoes—and I should be happy to do so!”
The older man was looking thoughtfully at the table.
“I—I shall want an assistant if these pictures of mine are the success that Silenski says they will be. Perhaps you can hoe potatoes between whiles—when Ella is married.”
The girl went red.
“Is Ella going to be married? Are you, Ella?” Ray jumped up and, going to the girl, kissed her. “Ella, it won’t make a difference, will it—about me, I mean?”
“I don’t think so, dear. I’ve promised.”
“What is the matter?” asked John Bennett, as he saw the cloud that came to the girl’s face.
“I was thinking of something unpleasant, daddy,” she said, and for the first time told of the hideous visitation.
“The Frog wanted to marry you?” said Ray with a frown. “It is incredible! Did you see his face?”
She shook her head.
“He was masked,” she said. “Don’t let us talk about it.”
She got up quickly and began to clear away the meal, and, for the first time for many years, Ray helped her.
“A terrible night,” she said, coming back from the kitchen. “The wind burst open the window and blew out the lamp, and the rain is coming down in torrents!”
“All nights are good nights to me,” said Ray, and in his chuckle she detected a little sob.
No word had been spoken since they met of his terrible ordeal; it was tacitly agreed that that nightmare should remain in the region of bad dreams, and only now and again did he betray the horror of those three weeks of waiting.
“Bolt the back door, darling,” said John Bennett, looking up as she went out.
The two men sat smoking, each busy with his own thoughts. Then Ray spoke of Lola.
“I do not think she was bad, father,” he said. “She could not have known what was going to happen. The thing was so diabolically planned that even to the very last, until I learnt from Gordon the true story, I was under the impression that I had killed Brady. This man must have the brain of a general.”
Bennett nodded.
“I always used to think,” Ray went on, “that Maitland had something to do with the Frogs. I suppose he had, really. I first guessed that much after he turned up at Heron’s Club—what is the matter?”
“Ella!” called the old man.
There was no answer from the kitchen.
“I don’t want her to stay out there, washing up. Ray, boy, call her in.”
Ray got up and opened the door of the kitchen. It was in darkness.
“Bring the lamp, father,” he called, and John Bennett came hurrying after him.
The door of the kitchen was closed but not bolted. Something white lay on the floor, and Ray stooped to pick it up. It was a torn portion of the apron which Ella had been wearing.
The two men looked at one another, and Ray, running up to his room, came down with a storm lantern, which he lit.
“She may be in the garden,” he said in a strained voice, and, throwing open the door, went out into the storm.
The rain beat down unmercifully; the men were wet through before they had gone a dozen yards. Ray held the light down to the ground. There were tracks of many feet in the soft mud, and presently he found one of Ella’s. The tracks disappeared on to the edge of the lawn, but they were making straight for the side gate which opened into a narrow lane. This passage-way connected the road with a meadow behind Maytree Cottage, and the roadway gate was usually kept chained and padlocked. Ray was the first to see the car tracks, and then he found that the gate was open and the broken chain lay in the muddy roadway. Running out into the road, he saw that the tracks turned to the right.
“We had better search the garden first to make absolutely sure, father,” he said. “I will arouse some of the cottagers and get them to help.”
By the time he came back to the house, John Bennett had made a thorough search of the garden and the house, but the girl had disappeared.
“Go down to the town and telephone to Gordon,” he said, and his voice was strangely calm.
In a quarter of an hour Ray Bennett jumped off his old bicycle at the door of Maytree Cottage, to tell his grave news.
“The ’phone line has been cut,” he said tersely. “I’ve ordered a car to be sent up from the garage. We will try to follow the tracks.”
The machine had arrived when the blazing head-lamps of Dick’s car came into view. Gordon knew the worst before he had sprung to the ground. There was a brief, unemotional consultation. Dick went rapidly through the kitchen and followed the tracks until they came back to the road, to find Elk going slowly along the opposite side, examining the ground with an electric lamp.
“There’s a small wheel track over here,” he said. “Too heavy for a bicycle, too light for a car; looks to me like a motor-cycle.”
“It was a car,” said Dick briefly, “and a very big one.”
He sent Ray and his father to the house to change; insisted on this being done before they moved a step. They came out, wrapped in mackintoshes, and leapt into the car as it was moving.
For five miles the tracks were visible, and then they came to a village. A policeman had seen a car come through “a little time ago”—and a motor-cyclist.
“Where was the cyclist?” asked Elk.
“He was behind, about a hundred yards,” said the policeman. “I tried to pull him up because his lamp was out, but he took no notice.”
They went on for another mile, and then struck the hard surface of a newly tarred road, and here all trace of the tracks was lost. Going on for a mile farther, they reached a point where the road broke into three. Two of these were macadamized and showed no wheel tracks; nor did the third, although it had a soft surface, offer any encouragement to follow.
“It is one of these two,” said Dick. “We had better try the right-hand road first.”
The macadam lasted until they reached another village. The road was undergoing repair in the village itself, but the night watchman shook his head when Dick asked him.
“No, sir, no car has passed here for two hours.”
“We must drive back,” said Dick, despair in his heart, and the car spun round and flew at top speed to the juncture of the roads.
Down this they went, and they had not gone far before Dick half leapt at the sight of the red tail-lamp of the machine ahead. His hopes, however, were fated to be dashed. A car had broken down on the side of the road, but the disgruntled driver was able to give them valuable information. A car had passed him three-quarters of an hour before; he described it minutely, had even been able to distinguish its make. The cyclist was driving a Red Indian.
Again the cyclist!
“How far was he behind the car?”
“A good hundred yards, I should say,” was the reply.
From now on they received frequent news of the car, but at the second village, the motor-cyclist had not been seen, nor at subsequent places where the machine had been identified, was there any reference to a motor-cyclist.
It was past midnight when they came up with the machine they were chasing. It stood outside a garage on the Shoreham Road, and Elk was the first to reach it. It was empty and unattended. Inside the garage, the owner of that establishment was busy making room for the last comer.
“Yes, sir, a quarter of an hour ago,” he said, when Elk had produced his authority. “The chauffeur said he was going to find lodgings in the town.”
With the aid of a powerful electric lamp they made an examination of the car’s interior. There was no doubt whatever that Ella had been an inmate. A little ivory pin which John Bennett had given her on her birthday, was found, broken, in a corner of the floor.
“It is not worth while looking for the chauffeur,” said Elk. “Our only chance is that he’ll come back to the garage.”
The local police were called into consultation.
“Shoreham is a very big place,” said the police chief. “If you had luck, you might find your man immediately. If he’s with a gang of crooks, it is more likely that you’ll not find him at all, or that he’ll never come back for the machine.”
One matter puzzled Elk more than any other. It was the disappearance of the motor-cyclist. If the story was true, that he had been riding a hundred yards behind and that he had fallen out between two villages, they must have passed him. There were a few cottages on the road, into which he might have turned, but Elk dismissed this possibility.
“We had better go back,” he said. “It is fairly certain that Miss Bennett has been taken out somewhere on the road. The motor-cyclist is now the best clue, because she evidently went with him. This cyclist was either the Frog, or one of his men.”
“They disappeared somewhere between Shoreham and Morby,” said Dick. “You know the country about here, Mr. Bennett. Is there any place where they’d be likely to go near Morby?”
“I know the country,” agreed Bennett, “and I’ve been trying to think. There is nothing but a very few houses outside of Morby. Of course, there is Morby Fields, but I can’t imagine Ella being taken there.”
“What are Morby Fields?” asked Dick, as the car went slowly back the way it had come.
“Morby Fields is a disused quarry. The company went into liquidation some years ago,” replied Bennett.
They passed through Morby at snail pace, stopping at the local policeman’s house for any further news which might have been gleaned in their absence. There was, however, nothing fresh.
“You are perfectly certain that you did not see the motor-cyclist?”
“I am quite certain, sir,” said the man. “The car was as close to me as I am to you. In fact, I had to step to the pavement to prevent myself being splashed with mud; and there was no motor-cyclist. In fact, the impression I had was that the car was empty.”
“Why did you think that?” asked Elk quickly.
“It was riding light, for one thing, and the chauffeur was smoking for another. I always associate a smoking chauffeur with an empty car.”
“Son,” said the admiring Elk, “there are possibilities about you,” and a recruit to Headquarters was noted.
“I’m inclined to agree with that village policeman,” said Dick when they walked back to their machine. “The car was empty when it came through here, and that accounts for the absence of the motor-cyclist. It is between Morby and Wellan that we’ve got to look.”
And now they moved at a walking pace. The brackets that held the head-lamps were wrenched round to throw a light upon the ditch and hedge on either side of the road. They had not gone five hundred yards when Elk roared:
“Stop!” and jumped into the roadway.
He was gone a few minutes, and then he called Dick, and the three men went back to where the detective was standing, looking at a big red motor-cycle that stood under the shelter of a crumbling stone wall. They had passed it without observation, for its owner had chosen the other side of the wall, and it was only the gleam of the light on a handlebar which showed just above its screen, that had led to its detection.
Dick ran to the car and backed it so that the wall and machine were visible. The cycle was almost new; it was splattered with mud, and its acetylene head-lamps were cold to the touch. Elk had an inspiration. At the back of the seat was a heavy tool-wallet, attached by a firm strap, and this he began to unfasten.
“If this is a new machine, the maker will have put the name and address of the owner in his wallet,” he said.
Presently the tool-bag was detached, and Elk unstrapped the last fastening and turned back the flap.
“Great Moses!” said Elk.
Neatly painted on the undressed leather was:
“Joshua Broad, 6, Caverley House, Cavendish Square!”