Chapter Eight.Fears and Surprises.Three nights later.Over the steps which led from the pavement in Park Lane to the front door of Mr Sandys’ huge white mansion an awning had been erected. The people who went by upon the motor-buses to Oxford Street or to Hyde Park Corner noted it, and remarked that Purcell Sandys was giving one of his usual parties—functions at which the smartest set in high Society attended; gatherings which were always announced by theTimeson the day previous and chronicled—with the dresses worn by the female guests—on the morning following.The huge white-painted mansion which was so well known to Londoners was to them, after all, a house of mystery. The gossip papers had told them how the famous financier—one of England’s pillars of finance—spent three hundred pounds weekly on the floral decorations of the place; how the rooms, the mahogany doors of which had silver hinges, were full of priceless curios, and how each Wednesday night the greatest musical artistes in the world were engaged to play for the benefit of his guests at fees varying from five hundred to a thousand guineas.All this was the truth. The Wednesday night entertainments of Purcell Sandys were unique. Nobody in all the world was so lavish upon music or upon floral decorations. The grey-bearded old man, who usually wore a rather shabby suit, and habitually smoked a pipe, gave his guests the very best he could, for he loved flowers—as his great range of hot-houses at Farncombe Towers and at Biarritz testified—while good music always absorbed his senses.Cars were constantly arriving, depositing the guests, and driving on again, while the servants in the wide, flower-decorated hall were passing to and fro, busy with the hats and coats of the men, and conducting the ladies upstairs.Through the hall came strains of dance music from the fine ballroom at the back of the house, one of the finest in the West End of London.At the head of the great staircase Elma, in a simple but pretty frock of pale lemon, was doing the duty of hostess, as she always did, while her father, a burly, grey-bearded, rather bluff man in a well-fitting but well-worn evening suit, was grasping the hands of his friends warmly, and welcoming them.On the opposite side of the road, against the railings of Hyde Park, a young man was standing, watching the procession of cars, watching with wistful eyes as he stood with half a dozen others attracted by the commotion, as is always the case outside the mansions of the West End where a party is in progress.The young man was Roddy Homfray. As a matter of fact, he had passed in a ’bus towards Hyde Park Corner, and seeing the awning outside Mr Sandys’ house, had alighted and out of sheer curiosity made his way back. At his side were two young girls of the true Cockney type, who were criticising each female guest as she arrived, and declaring what a joy it must be to be able to wear fine clothes and go to parties in a car.Roddy was just about to turn away and cross to Waterloo to take the last train home, when among the cars he saw a fine grey Rolls in which a man and a woman were seated. Next second he craned his neck, and then crossed the road to obtain a nearer view of the pair.“Yes,” he gasped aloud to himself, “that’s the woman. I’m certain! And the man? No, I’m not quite so sure. He was older, I think.”Unseen, he narrowly watched the tallish, dark-haired, clean-shaven man alight, and saw him help out his companion, who was about forty, and wore a fur-trimmed evening wrap of gorgeous brocade and a beautiful diamond ornament in her dark hair.“No! I’m not mistaken!” the young man muttered again to himself. “That’s the woman, without a doubt. But surely she can’t be a friend of Mr Sandys!”That she was, was instantly proved by the fact that she ascended the red-carpeted steps followed by her companion, and they were received within by the bowing man-servant.He watched them disappear, and a few moments afterwards he boldly mounted the steps to the door, where his passage was at once barred by a flunkey.“I don’t want to come in,” said Roddy, in a low, confidential tone. “Do me a favour, will you? I’ll make it right with you. I want to know the names of that lady and gentleman who’ve this moment gone in.”The servant viewed him rather suspiciously, and replied:“Well, I don’t know them myself, for I haven’t been here long—only a week. But I’ll try to find out if you’ll come back, say, in a quarter of an hour.”“Yes, do,” urged Roddy. “It’s most important to me.”And then he slipped back down the steps and strolled along Park Lane, full of strange reflections.That woman! It was the same woman of his hideous nightmare—the dark-faced woman who had held him beneath her evil influence, and forced him to commit some act against his will. But exactly what act it was he could not for the life of him recall. Sometimes he had an idea that he had been forced into the committal of a terrible crime, while at others the recollections all seemed so vague and fantastic that he dismissed them as the mere vagaries of an upset mind.But he had found the woman. She was a friend of the Sandys! And did not Elma hold the photograph of the girl Edna, whom he had discovered in Welling Wood? The circumstances were more than strange!A quarter of an hour later he returned to the house, and on slipping a ten-shilling note surreptitiously into the hand of the servant the latter said:“The gentleman’s name is Mr Bertram Harrison, and the lady—a widow—is Mrs Freda Crisp.”“Freda Crisp?” he echoed aghast.“Yes. That’s the name Mr Hughes, the butler, told me,” the flunkey declared.Roddy Homfray turned away. Freda Crisp! How amazing! That was the name of the woman against whom his father had warned him. That woman was undoubtedly his enemy. Why? Could it be possible that she was Elma’s enemy also? Was it possible that Elma, with the knowledge of the girl Edna, who had died in the wood and so mysteriously disappeared, suspected that handsome dark-haired woman of being implicated in the crime?He recollected Elma’s curious reticence concerning the girl, and her refusal to make any allegations before she had ascertained and proved certain facts.He crossed the road and, halting, gazed through the railings out across the dark London park where in the distance the lights were twinkling among the bare branches. The night was cold, for a keen east wind had sprung up. He hesitated.To remain the night in London would bring the truth no nearer, for with the gay party in progress he could not enter there in the clothes he wore. And besides, he had not yet met Elma’s father. He longed to go there and watch the movements of that dark, gorgeously-dressed woman who had exercised such a strangely evil influence over him while he was in the grip of that mysterious drug. Who was she? Why had she and her companion held him in their toils for days, and then cast him aside at that remote spot by the Thames, hoping that he would die during the night?What did it all mean?He glanced at his watch, and saw that if he took a taxi he might just catch the last train. And this he did.It was long after midnight when he entered the silent old Rectory and found his father bent beneath the green-shaded reading-lamp which stood on the study table.The rector had been busy writing for hours—ever since old Mrs Bentley had cleared away his supper and wished him good-night.Roddy, throwing off his coat, sank wearily into the wicker arm-chair before the welcome fire and took out his pipe, his father continuing writing his next Sunday’s sermon after briefly greeting him.As the young man smoked, he reflected, until at last he suddenly said:“Haven’t you finished your work, father? It’s getting very late.”“Just finished—just finished, my boy!” said the old man cheerily, screwing up his fountain-pen. “I’ve had a heavy day to-day—out visiting nearly all day. There’s a lot of sickness in the village, you know.”“Yes. And the Sandys are away in town, aren’t they?”“They went up yesterday. Mr Sandys and his daughter are always at Park Lane on Wednesdays, I understand. I saw in the paper this morning that the party to-night has a rather political flavour, for two Cabinet Ministers and their wives are to be there.”“I suppose Mr Sandys must be very rich?”“Immensely, they say. I heard the other day that he is one of the confidential advisers of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he’ll probably get a peerage before long,” said his father. “But, after all, he is not one of your modern, get-rich-quick men. He’s a real, solid, God-fearing man, who though so very wealthy does a large amount of good in a quiet, unostentatious way. Only three days ago he gave me a cheque for two hundred pounds and asked me to distribute it to the poor people at Christmas, but on no condition is his name to be mentioned to a soul. So keep the information to yourself, Roddy.”“Of course I will,” his son replied, puffing at his pipe.“Mr Sandys asked about you,” said the rector. “I am to take you to the Towers to dine one night very soon.”“I shall be delighted. Old Lord Farncombe asked me when I was last at home. Don’t you remember?”“Of course,” said his father. “But how have you been feeling to-day? All right, I hope?”“I feel quite right again now,” replied the young man. Then, after a brief pause, he removed his pipe and looked straight across at his father as in a rather changed voice, he said: “Do you recollect, dad, the other day you spoke of a certain woman, and warned me against her?”“Yes,” said the old rector very seriously. “You recollect her name, I hope—Freda Crisp. Never forget that name, Roddy,never!”“Why?”“Because she is my enemy, my boy—and yours,” replied the old man, in a hard, strained voice.“Why should she be? I don’t know the lady.”“You said that you had some recollection of her in South America,” the old clergyman remarked.“It isn’t the same woman.”“Oh! How do you know?” asked his father, glancing at him quickly.“Because I’ve seen the real Freda Crisp—the woman who you say is my enemy. I saw her to-night.”“You’ve seen her! Where?” asked Mr Homfray eagerly.“She is the woman I see in my bad dreams—those hazy recollections of the hours when I was drugged—handsome, dark-haired, middle-aged, and wears wonderful gowns.”“Exactly! The description is quite correct, Roddy. But where did you see her to-night?”“She is at Mr Sandys’.”“At Mr Sandys’?” gasped his father. “You are surely mistaken! Freda Crisp would never have theentréethere?”“But she has, father! I saw her go in—with an elderly man whose name is Bertram Harrison.”“I’ve never heard of him. But are you quite certain of this, Roddy? Are you positive that the woman is actually on friendly terms with Mr Sandys?”Then Roddy explained to his father exactly what had occurred, and how he had obtained the name of the handsome guest.“Well—what you tell me, my boy, utterly staggers me?” the old man admitted. “I never dreamed that the woman knew Purcell Sandys. I told you to beware of her, and I repeat my warning. She is a woman whose eyes are as fascinating as those of a snake, and whose hand-shake is as fatal as a poisoned dart.”“Really, dad, you don’t seem to like her, eh?”“No, my boy, I don’t. I have cause—good cause, alas! to hold her in abhorrence—as your enemy and mine!”“But why? I can’t understand you. You’ve never spoken of her till the other day.”“Because I—well, the secret is mine, Roddy.”“Yours,” said his son. “Is it one that I may not know?”“Yes. I would prefer to say nothing more,” he answered briefly.“Nothing more concerning a woman who held me for days beneath her evil influence, helpless as a babe in her unscrupulous hands—a woman who compelled me to—”“To what, Roddy?” asked his father very quickly, and with difficulty controlling his own emotion.“To commit some crime, I fear. But I cannot tell—I cannot decide exactly what I did—or how I acted. All seems so vague, indistinct and mysterious! All I remember is that woman’s handsome face—that pair of dark, evil eyes!”“Yes,” remarked the old man in a deep voice. “They are evil. The man is bad enough—but the woman is even worse.”“The man Harrison?”“No. Gordon Gray. You have not met him.”“Perhaps I have. Perhaps he was the man with Mrs Crisp at the house where I was held in bondage—a big house standing in its own grounds—but where it is situated, I have no idea.”“Perhaps,” said his father reflectively. “Describe him.”Roddy Homfray strove to recall the salient points of the woman’s male companion, and as far as his recollection went he described them.“Yes,” said the rector, his grey brows knit.“It may have been Gordon Gray! But why did they make that secret attack upon you, if not in order to injure me?”“Because I discovered the girl in the wood. They evidently intended to cover all traces of the crime. But how did they come to Welling Wood at all?”His father remained silent. He had said nothing of the woman’s secret visit to him, nor of Gray’s presence in the church on that Sunday night. He kept his own counsel, yet now he fully realised the dastardly trap set for his son, and how, all unconsciously, the lad had fallen into it.Only that afternoon Doctor Denton had called, and they had taken tea together. In the course of their conversation the doctor had told him how, when in London on the previous day, he had gone to an old fellow-student who was now a great mental specialist in Harley Street, and had had a conversation with him concerning Roddy’s case.After hearing all the circumstances and a close description of the symptoms, the specialist had given it as his opinion that the ball of fire which Roddy had seen was undoubtedly the explosion of a small bomb of asphyxiating gas which had rendered him unconscious. Afterwards a certain drug recently invented by a chemist in Darmstadt had, no doubt, been injected into his arms. This drug was a most dangerous and terrible one, for while it had no influence upon a person’s actions, yet it paralysed the brain and almost inevitably caused insanity.Roddy was practically cured, but the specialist had expressed a very serious fear that ere long signs of insanity would reappear, and it would then be incurable!It was that secret but terrible knowledge of his son’s imminent peril that old Mr Homfray now held. His enemies had triumphed, after all!And this was made the more plain when three hours later he woke up to find his son in his room, chattering and behaving as no man in his senses would.The old man rose, and with clenched fists declared aloud that he would now himself fight for his son’s life and bring the guilty pair to justice.But, alas! the old rector never dreamed how difficult would be his task, nor what impregnable defences had arisen to protect and aid those who were his enemies.In addition Roddy, in his half-dazed condition, never dreamed of the perils and pitfalls which now surrounded the girl he so dearly loved.
Three nights later.
Over the steps which led from the pavement in Park Lane to the front door of Mr Sandys’ huge white mansion an awning had been erected. The people who went by upon the motor-buses to Oxford Street or to Hyde Park Corner noted it, and remarked that Purcell Sandys was giving one of his usual parties—functions at which the smartest set in high Society attended; gatherings which were always announced by theTimeson the day previous and chronicled—with the dresses worn by the female guests—on the morning following.
The huge white-painted mansion which was so well known to Londoners was to them, after all, a house of mystery. The gossip papers had told them how the famous financier—one of England’s pillars of finance—spent three hundred pounds weekly on the floral decorations of the place; how the rooms, the mahogany doors of which had silver hinges, were full of priceless curios, and how each Wednesday night the greatest musical artistes in the world were engaged to play for the benefit of his guests at fees varying from five hundred to a thousand guineas.
All this was the truth. The Wednesday night entertainments of Purcell Sandys were unique. Nobody in all the world was so lavish upon music or upon floral decorations. The grey-bearded old man, who usually wore a rather shabby suit, and habitually smoked a pipe, gave his guests the very best he could, for he loved flowers—as his great range of hot-houses at Farncombe Towers and at Biarritz testified—while good music always absorbed his senses.
Cars were constantly arriving, depositing the guests, and driving on again, while the servants in the wide, flower-decorated hall were passing to and fro, busy with the hats and coats of the men, and conducting the ladies upstairs.
Through the hall came strains of dance music from the fine ballroom at the back of the house, one of the finest in the West End of London.
At the head of the great staircase Elma, in a simple but pretty frock of pale lemon, was doing the duty of hostess, as she always did, while her father, a burly, grey-bearded, rather bluff man in a well-fitting but well-worn evening suit, was grasping the hands of his friends warmly, and welcoming them.
On the opposite side of the road, against the railings of Hyde Park, a young man was standing, watching the procession of cars, watching with wistful eyes as he stood with half a dozen others attracted by the commotion, as is always the case outside the mansions of the West End where a party is in progress.
The young man was Roddy Homfray. As a matter of fact, he had passed in a ’bus towards Hyde Park Corner, and seeing the awning outside Mr Sandys’ house, had alighted and out of sheer curiosity made his way back. At his side were two young girls of the true Cockney type, who were criticising each female guest as she arrived, and declaring what a joy it must be to be able to wear fine clothes and go to parties in a car.
Roddy was just about to turn away and cross to Waterloo to take the last train home, when among the cars he saw a fine grey Rolls in which a man and a woman were seated. Next second he craned his neck, and then crossed the road to obtain a nearer view of the pair.
“Yes,” he gasped aloud to himself, “that’s the woman. I’m certain! And the man? No, I’m not quite so sure. He was older, I think.”
Unseen, he narrowly watched the tallish, dark-haired, clean-shaven man alight, and saw him help out his companion, who was about forty, and wore a fur-trimmed evening wrap of gorgeous brocade and a beautiful diamond ornament in her dark hair.
“No! I’m not mistaken!” the young man muttered again to himself. “That’s the woman, without a doubt. But surely she can’t be a friend of Mr Sandys!”
That she was, was instantly proved by the fact that she ascended the red-carpeted steps followed by her companion, and they were received within by the bowing man-servant.
He watched them disappear, and a few moments afterwards he boldly mounted the steps to the door, where his passage was at once barred by a flunkey.
“I don’t want to come in,” said Roddy, in a low, confidential tone. “Do me a favour, will you? I’ll make it right with you. I want to know the names of that lady and gentleman who’ve this moment gone in.”
The servant viewed him rather suspiciously, and replied:
“Well, I don’t know them myself, for I haven’t been here long—only a week. But I’ll try to find out if you’ll come back, say, in a quarter of an hour.”
“Yes, do,” urged Roddy. “It’s most important to me.”
And then he slipped back down the steps and strolled along Park Lane, full of strange reflections.
That woman! It was the same woman of his hideous nightmare—the dark-faced woman who had held him beneath her evil influence, and forced him to commit some act against his will. But exactly what act it was he could not for the life of him recall. Sometimes he had an idea that he had been forced into the committal of a terrible crime, while at others the recollections all seemed so vague and fantastic that he dismissed them as the mere vagaries of an upset mind.
But he had found the woman. She was a friend of the Sandys! And did not Elma hold the photograph of the girl Edna, whom he had discovered in Welling Wood? The circumstances were more than strange!
A quarter of an hour later he returned to the house, and on slipping a ten-shilling note surreptitiously into the hand of the servant the latter said:
“The gentleman’s name is Mr Bertram Harrison, and the lady—a widow—is Mrs Freda Crisp.”
“Freda Crisp?” he echoed aghast.
“Yes. That’s the name Mr Hughes, the butler, told me,” the flunkey declared.
Roddy Homfray turned away. Freda Crisp! How amazing! That was the name of the woman against whom his father had warned him. That woman was undoubtedly his enemy. Why? Could it be possible that she was Elma’s enemy also? Was it possible that Elma, with the knowledge of the girl Edna, who had died in the wood and so mysteriously disappeared, suspected that handsome dark-haired woman of being implicated in the crime?
He recollected Elma’s curious reticence concerning the girl, and her refusal to make any allegations before she had ascertained and proved certain facts.
He crossed the road and, halting, gazed through the railings out across the dark London park where in the distance the lights were twinkling among the bare branches. The night was cold, for a keen east wind had sprung up. He hesitated.
To remain the night in London would bring the truth no nearer, for with the gay party in progress he could not enter there in the clothes he wore. And besides, he had not yet met Elma’s father. He longed to go there and watch the movements of that dark, gorgeously-dressed woman who had exercised such a strangely evil influence over him while he was in the grip of that mysterious drug. Who was she? Why had she and her companion held him in their toils for days, and then cast him aside at that remote spot by the Thames, hoping that he would die during the night?
What did it all mean?
He glanced at his watch, and saw that if he took a taxi he might just catch the last train. And this he did.
It was long after midnight when he entered the silent old Rectory and found his father bent beneath the green-shaded reading-lamp which stood on the study table.
The rector had been busy writing for hours—ever since old Mrs Bentley had cleared away his supper and wished him good-night.
Roddy, throwing off his coat, sank wearily into the wicker arm-chair before the welcome fire and took out his pipe, his father continuing writing his next Sunday’s sermon after briefly greeting him.
As the young man smoked, he reflected, until at last he suddenly said:
“Haven’t you finished your work, father? It’s getting very late.”
“Just finished—just finished, my boy!” said the old man cheerily, screwing up his fountain-pen. “I’ve had a heavy day to-day—out visiting nearly all day. There’s a lot of sickness in the village, you know.”
“Yes. And the Sandys are away in town, aren’t they?”
“They went up yesterday. Mr Sandys and his daughter are always at Park Lane on Wednesdays, I understand. I saw in the paper this morning that the party to-night has a rather political flavour, for two Cabinet Ministers and their wives are to be there.”
“I suppose Mr Sandys must be very rich?”
“Immensely, they say. I heard the other day that he is one of the confidential advisers of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he’ll probably get a peerage before long,” said his father. “But, after all, he is not one of your modern, get-rich-quick men. He’s a real, solid, God-fearing man, who though so very wealthy does a large amount of good in a quiet, unostentatious way. Only three days ago he gave me a cheque for two hundred pounds and asked me to distribute it to the poor people at Christmas, but on no condition is his name to be mentioned to a soul. So keep the information to yourself, Roddy.”
“Of course I will,” his son replied, puffing at his pipe.
“Mr Sandys asked about you,” said the rector. “I am to take you to the Towers to dine one night very soon.”
“I shall be delighted. Old Lord Farncombe asked me when I was last at home. Don’t you remember?”
“Of course,” said his father. “But how have you been feeling to-day? All right, I hope?”
“I feel quite right again now,” replied the young man. Then, after a brief pause, he removed his pipe and looked straight across at his father as in a rather changed voice, he said: “Do you recollect, dad, the other day you spoke of a certain woman, and warned me against her?”
“Yes,” said the old rector very seriously. “You recollect her name, I hope—Freda Crisp. Never forget that name, Roddy,never!”
“Why?”
“Because she is my enemy, my boy—and yours,” replied the old man, in a hard, strained voice.
“Why should she be? I don’t know the lady.”
“You said that you had some recollection of her in South America,” the old clergyman remarked.
“It isn’t the same woman.”
“Oh! How do you know?” asked his father, glancing at him quickly.
“Because I’ve seen the real Freda Crisp—the woman who you say is my enemy. I saw her to-night.”
“You’ve seen her! Where?” asked Mr Homfray eagerly.
“She is the woman I see in my bad dreams—those hazy recollections of the hours when I was drugged—handsome, dark-haired, middle-aged, and wears wonderful gowns.”
“Exactly! The description is quite correct, Roddy. But where did you see her to-night?”
“She is at Mr Sandys’.”
“At Mr Sandys’?” gasped his father. “You are surely mistaken! Freda Crisp would never have theentréethere?”
“But she has, father! I saw her go in—with an elderly man whose name is Bertram Harrison.”
“I’ve never heard of him. But are you quite certain of this, Roddy? Are you positive that the woman is actually on friendly terms with Mr Sandys?”
Then Roddy explained to his father exactly what had occurred, and how he had obtained the name of the handsome guest.
“Well—what you tell me, my boy, utterly staggers me?” the old man admitted. “I never dreamed that the woman knew Purcell Sandys. I told you to beware of her, and I repeat my warning. She is a woman whose eyes are as fascinating as those of a snake, and whose hand-shake is as fatal as a poisoned dart.”
“Really, dad, you don’t seem to like her, eh?”
“No, my boy, I don’t. I have cause—good cause, alas! to hold her in abhorrence—as your enemy and mine!”
“But why? I can’t understand you. You’ve never spoken of her till the other day.”
“Because I—well, the secret is mine, Roddy.”
“Yours,” said his son. “Is it one that I may not know?”
“Yes. I would prefer to say nothing more,” he answered briefly.
“Nothing more concerning a woman who held me for days beneath her evil influence, helpless as a babe in her unscrupulous hands—a woman who compelled me to—”
“To what, Roddy?” asked his father very quickly, and with difficulty controlling his own emotion.
“To commit some crime, I fear. But I cannot tell—I cannot decide exactly what I did—or how I acted. All seems so vague, indistinct and mysterious! All I remember is that woman’s handsome face—that pair of dark, evil eyes!”
“Yes,” remarked the old man in a deep voice. “They are evil. The man is bad enough—but the woman is even worse.”
“The man Harrison?”
“No. Gordon Gray. You have not met him.”
“Perhaps I have. Perhaps he was the man with Mrs Crisp at the house where I was held in bondage—a big house standing in its own grounds—but where it is situated, I have no idea.”
“Perhaps,” said his father reflectively. “Describe him.”
Roddy Homfray strove to recall the salient points of the woman’s male companion, and as far as his recollection went he described them.
“Yes,” said the rector, his grey brows knit.
“It may have been Gordon Gray! But why did they make that secret attack upon you, if not in order to injure me?”
“Because I discovered the girl in the wood. They evidently intended to cover all traces of the crime. But how did they come to Welling Wood at all?”
His father remained silent. He had said nothing of the woman’s secret visit to him, nor of Gray’s presence in the church on that Sunday night. He kept his own counsel, yet now he fully realised the dastardly trap set for his son, and how, all unconsciously, the lad had fallen into it.
Only that afternoon Doctor Denton had called, and they had taken tea together. In the course of their conversation the doctor had told him how, when in London on the previous day, he had gone to an old fellow-student who was now a great mental specialist in Harley Street, and had had a conversation with him concerning Roddy’s case.
After hearing all the circumstances and a close description of the symptoms, the specialist had given it as his opinion that the ball of fire which Roddy had seen was undoubtedly the explosion of a small bomb of asphyxiating gas which had rendered him unconscious. Afterwards a certain drug recently invented by a chemist in Darmstadt had, no doubt, been injected into his arms. This drug was a most dangerous and terrible one, for while it had no influence upon a person’s actions, yet it paralysed the brain and almost inevitably caused insanity.
Roddy was practically cured, but the specialist had expressed a very serious fear that ere long signs of insanity would reappear, and it would then be incurable!
It was that secret but terrible knowledge of his son’s imminent peril that old Mr Homfray now held. His enemies had triumphed, after all!
And this was made the more plain when three hours later he woke up to find his son in his room, chattering and behaving as no man in his senses would.
The old man rose, and with clenched fists declared aloud that he would now himself fight for his son’s life and bring the guilty pair to justice.
But, alas! the old rector never dreamed how difficult would be his task, nor what impregnable defences had arisen to protect and aid those who were his enemies.
In addition Roddy, in his half-dazed condition, never dreamed of the perils and pitfalls which now surrounded the girl he so dearly loved.
Chapter Nine.The Spider’s Nest.Ten days had gone by.Gordon Gray, wearing a grey Austrian velour hat and heavy brown motor-coat, turned the car from the Great North Road into the drive which led to the front of Willowden, and alighted.The afternoon was wet, and the drive from London had been a cold, uncomfortable one. In the hall he threw off his coat, and entering the well-furnished morning-room, rang the bell. In a few moments Claribut, respectable, white-haired and rosy-faced, entered.“Well, Jim?” he asked. “What’s the news at Little Farncombe—eh? You’ve been there several days; what have you discovered?”“Several things,” replied the old crook who posed as servant. “Things we didn’t expect.”“How?” asked Gray, offering the old man a cigarette from his gold case.“Well, I went first to Pangbourne, and then to Little Farncombe. Young Homfray was taken queer again. I stayed at the Red Lion, and managed to find out all about what was going on at the Rectory. Homfray’s old gardener is in the habit of taking his glass of beer there at night, and I, posing as a stranger, soon got him to talk. He told me that his young master was taken ill in the night. His brain had given way, and the village doctor called in a specialist from Harley Street. The latter can’t make out the symptoms.”“Probably not!” growled Gray. “The dose cost us a lot, so it ought not to be detected by the first man consulted.”“The specialist has, however, fixed that he’s suffering from a drug—administered with malicious intent, he puts it.”“What’s the fool’s name?” snapped Gray.“I don’t know. My friend, the gardener, could not ascertain.”Gray gave vent to a short grunt of dissatisfaction.“Well—and what then?”“The young fellow was very ill—quite off his head for three days—and then they gave him some injections which quietened him, and now he’s a lot better. Nearer his normal self, I hear.” And he sank into a chair by the fire.“H’m! He’ll probably have a second relapse. I wonder what they gave him? I wonder if this Harley Street chap has twigged our game, Jim?”“Perhaps he has.”“If so, then it’s a jolly good job for us that I kept out of the way. Young Homfray has never seen me to his knowledge, remember. He saw you several times.”“Yes, Gordon. You took precautions—as you always do. You somehow seem to see into the future.”“I do, my dear Jimmie. I hope this lad doesn’t recognise Freda again. He may, of course. But he doesn’t know me—which is as well.”“He recollects finding Edna, though.”“Ah! That’s a little awkward, isn’t it?”“Yes, it is. He told the old sky-pilot all about it, but naturally they think his mind is unhinged and take the story with a grain of salt.”“Naturally. But what else?” asked the well-dressed international crook with a business-like air.“It seems that the young fellow is on the point of obtaining a concession from the Moorish Government to prospect for emeralds somewhere in the Atlas Mountains; I believe it is a place called the Wad Sus. Ever heard of it?”“Yes,” replied Gray, making a mental note of the region. “I’ve heard of some ancient mines there. But how is he obtaining the concession?”“Ah! I’ve had a lot of trouble to get that information, and it has cost me a pound or two. But I’ve got it,” laughed the old scoundrel.“There’s a friend of his who lives at Richmond, a certain Andrew Barclay, who has spent many years in Fez. It seems that young Homfray met him in Santiago last year, and by some means was able to do him a great service. In return, this man Barclay is endeavouring to obtain the concession for prospecting from the Moorish Government.”“H’m! The Wad Sus region—a very wild mountainous one, inhabited by a wild desert tribe called the Touaregs, men who wear black veils over their faces to protect them from the sandstorms so prevalent in the Sahara. But I’ll look it all up. Where does this man Barclay live?” asked Gray.“In Underhill Road. Where that is I don’t know—but, of course, it is easily found.”The master-crook drew several long whiffs at his choice Eastern cigarette.“Then, after all, it may be to our distinct advantage that Roderick Homfray recovers, Jimmie.”“What! Then you think that the concession for the emerald prospecting may be worth money?”“It may be worth quite a lot in the City. A rather attractive proposition—emeralds in the Sahara. I know two or three men who would take it up—providing I could bring them a properly signed and sealed concession. Emeralds are increasing in value nowadays, you know—and an emerald concession is a sound proposition. After all, the lad may yet be of considerable use to us, Jimmie.”“Pity he saw Freda!” remarked the wily old fellow. “Jimmie, the butler” was well known in Sing-Sing Prison as one of the shrewdest and cleverest of crooks and card-sharpers who had ever “worked” the transatlantic liners.In the underworld of New York, Paris and London marvellous stories had been and were still told of his alertness, of the several boldcoupshe had made, and the great sums he had filched from the pockets of the unwary in conjunction, be it said, with Gordon Gray, alias Commander George Tothill, late of the British Navy, who was also known to certain of his pals as “Toby” Jackson. At Parkhurst Prison “Joyous Jimmie” was also well known, for he had enjoyed the English air for seven years less certain good conduct remission. But both master and man were crooks, clever cultured men who could delude anybody, who could adapt themselves to any surroundings, who knew life in all its phases, and could, with equanimity, eat a portion of oily fried fish-and-chips for their dinner or enjoy a Sole Colbert washed down with a glass of Imperial Tokay.The pair, with a man named Arthur Porter, known to his criminal friends as “Guinness”—whom, by the way, Roddy had seen entering Mr Sandys’ house in Park Lane—and the handsome woman Freda Crisp were indeed parasites upon London society.Their daring was colossal, their ingenuity astounding, and the ramifications of their friends bewildering.“Get me a drink, Jimmie,” said the man who posed as his master. “I’m cold. Why the devil don’t you keep a better fire than this?”“The missus is out. Went to the parson’s wife’s tea-party half an hour ago. Mary goes to church here. It’s better.”“Of course it is—gives us a hall-mark of respectability,” laughed Gray. “Freda goes now and then. But she gives money to the old parson and excuses herself for non-attendance on Sunday mornings. Oh! my dear Jimmie!” he laughed. “These people want a lot of moss scraping off them, don’t they—eh?”“Moss! Why, it’s that hard, grey lichen with hairy flowers that grows on trees! They want it all scraped off, then rubbed with sandpaper and a rag and acid applied to put a bit of vim in them. It’s the same over all this faded old country—that’s my belief.”“And yet some of them are infernally cute. That old man Homfray, for instance, he’s got his eyes skinned. He doesn’t forget that silly young ass Hugh Willard, you know!”“No, Gordon! Don’t mention him. That’s one of our failures—one of our false steps,” declared Jimmie. “I don’t like to hear any mention of his name—nor of Hyde Park Square either.”“Rot! my dear fellow! What can the old clergyman know? Nothing. It’s all surmise—and what does that matter? There’s no trace, and—”“And we made a profit—and a fine lot of good it did us.”“It was Freda’s doing. She worked it out.”“I know. And, thanks to her, we are in the infernal peril we are to-day, my dear Gordon.”“Peril? Bosh! What are you thinking of, Jimmie?” laughed Gray. “There’s not a written word.”“But you know what old Homfray said to Freda—what he threatened—a witness!”“Witness!” laughed the good-looking man, tossing his cigarette end viciously into the fire. “Don’t believe it, my dear old chap. He was only trying to bluff her—and Freda knows a game worth two of that—the game we are playing with the old fool’s son.”“A highly dangerous game—I call it!” was the butler’s dubious reply.“Leave that to me.”“But he might recognise me, Gordon!”“Rot! You won’t meet him.”“What about Freda?”“Don’t worry. The boy was so dazed by the drug that he’ll never recognise her again. She tried to make him believe that he himself had committed a crime. And she succeeded.”“Old Homfray may have told him about us and about the Willard affair. What then?”“No fear of that. Old Homfray will say nothing to his son. He wouldn’t expose himself.”But Claribut shook his head in doubt.“My opinion is that we’re treading on very thin ice. I don’t like this house—and I don’t like the look of things at all.”“The house is all right. Young Homfray can recollect nothing clearly after he found the girl.”“Of course, his friends are laughing at this weird story of how he discovered her,” said Claribut. “But we don’t know whether, in some way or other, his story may be corroborated. And then—”“Well, even then there’s no evidence to connect us with the affair. None whatever. We got them both clear away in the car, thanks to your marvellous ingenuity, Jimmie. And naturally he wonders where Edna is.”“And so do two or three other people,” Claribut remarked. “Recollect there are some unwelcome inquiries on foot in another quarter.”“I don’t fear them in the least. All we have to do now is to sit tight and watch the young fellow’s movements. We want to ascertain what he is doing concerning that concession. We must discover that man Barclay at Richmond and find out what sort of fellow he is. I may have to approach him. We both of us know Morocco—eh, Jimmie? That little bit of gun-running helping the Moors against the Spanish was exciting enough—wasn’t it?”“Yes. And it brought us in big profits, too. I wish we had another slice of luck like it,” Claribut agreed.“Well, we may. Who knows? I’ll see what I can find out about emeralds in Morocco.”At that moment the woman Crisp came in. She was wearing a long mink coat, with a splendid blue fox around her neck and a small grey velour hat which suited her to perfection.“Hallo, Gordon! Back again. How’s Paris looking?”“Looking? I was only there nine hours, just to see Françillon. Good job I went. He didn’t see the risk. He’s slipped off to Switzerland. He left the Gare de Lyon at eleven this morning, and the Sûreté are now looking, for him. He got off just in the nick of time.”“You came over by air, I suppose?”“Yes, left Le Bourget at ten and was at Croydon just after twelve. I left the car at Croydon yesterday afternoon when I went over. Rather a bad fog over the Channel and it took us over three hours.”“Did you see Milly?”“Yes, called at the Continental last night and had half an hour’s chat with her. She seems well enough, and had booked her passage to New York from Cherbourg on the eighteenth.”“And what’s the latest about young Homfray?” asked the handsome woman, divesting herself of her furs.“I was just discussing him with Jimmie. He seems to have unearthed one or two things while poking about at Little Farncombe.”“Yes. But there’s one fact that I’ve discovered to-day—a very important fact,” she said.“Well, what’s the trouble now?” asked Gray. “Young Homfray is watching us!”“Watching us? What do you mean?” asked the man, turning pale. “Has the old man told him about us?”“He may have done. That we can’t tell. Only I found out that the other night Homfray was watching outside Purcell Sandys’ house in Park Lane, and saw me go in with Arthur. He inquired our names of one of the servants.”“Gad! Then he’s already recognised you—eh?” cried Gray. “That’s horribly awkward.”“It is—in many ways! We must devise some plan to close the young man’s mouth.”“But how, Freda?”“The drug will work again in a day or two. When it does he’ll be a hopeless idiot and nobody will credit a word he’s said.”“It may work—and it may not. Jimmie says that some Harley Street fellow has been giving him injections. That looks as though the drug has been spotted—eh?”“Yes, it does. But old Grunberg assured me that a reaction must set in and hopeless idiocy will be the result. At least, let’s hope so.”“I’m not so hopeful. The lad may yet be of some use to us. It’s fortunate that he’s never seen me.”“It is. And you’d better keep away from me in London, for it’s evident that he is pretty shrewd, and is now constantly watchful.”“I agree,” growled Claribut. “And he must not see me either.”“No. He certainly must not,” said Freda Crisp. “Of course, the mystery of Edna has aroused his curiosity—which is a pity. Our only hope is that the drug will act as old Grunberg guaranteed it would. By Jove! those German chemists are devilish clever—aren’t they? Old Homfray has defied us, and he will very soon have cause to regret his words, as I told him he would. Yet he may, of course, risk everything and tell the police about Hugh Willard!”“Oh! Don’t worry at all about that, you fool!” urged Gray. “As long as his son lives, whether idiot or not, he’ll keep his mouth closed for his own sake, depend upon it?”
Ten days had gone by.
Gordon Gray, wearing a grey Austrian velour hat and heavy brown motor-coat, turned the car from the Great North Road into the drive which led to the front of Willowden, and alighted.
The afternoon was wet, and the drive from London had been a cold, uncomfortable one. In the hall he threw off his coat, and entering the well-furnished morning-room, rang the bell. In a few moments Claribut, respectable, white-haired and rosy-faced, entered.
“Well, Jim?” he asked. “What’s the news at Little Farncombe—eh? You’ve been there several days; what have you discovered?”
“Several things,” replied the old crook who posed as servant. “Things we didn’t expect.”
“How?” asked Gray, offering the old man a cigarette from his gold case.
“Well, I went first to Pangbourne, and then to Little Farncombe. Young Homfray was taken queer again. I stayed at the Red Lion, and managed to find out all about what was going on at the Rectory. Homfray’s old gardener is in the habit of taking his glass of beer there at night, and I, posing as a stranger, soon got him to talk. He told me that his young master was taken ill in the night. His brain had given way, and the village doctor called in a specialist from Harley Street. The latter can’t make out the symptoms.”
“Probably not!” growled Gray. “The dose cost us a lot, so it ought not to be detected by the first man consulted.”
“The specialist has, however, fixed that he’s suffering from a drug—administered with malicious intent, he puts it.”
“What’s the fool’s name?” snapped Gray.
“I don’t know. My friend, the gardener, could not ascertain.”
Gray gave vent to a short grunt of dissatisfaction.
“Well—and what then?”
“The young fellow was very ill—quite off his head for three days—and then they gave him some injections which quietened him, and now he’s a lot better. Nearer his normal self, I hear.” And he sank into a chair by the fire.
“H’m! He’ll probably have a second relapse. I wonder what they gave him? I wonder if this Harley Street chap has twigged our game, Jim?”
“Perhaps he has.”
“If so, then it’s a jolly good job for us that I kept out of the way. Young Homfray has never seen me to his knowledge, remember. He saw you several times.”
“Yes, Gordon. You took precautions—as you always do. You somehow seem to see into the future.”
“I do, my dear Jimmie. I hope this lad doesn’t recognise Freda again. He may, of course. But he doesn’t know me—which is as well.”
“He recollects finding Edna, though.”
“Ah! That’s a little awkward, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. He told the old sky-pilot all about it, but naturally they think his mind is unhinged and take the story with a grain of salt.”
“Naturally. But what else?” asked the well-dressed international crook with a business-like air.
“It seems that the young fellow is on the point of obtaining a concession from the Moorish Government to prospect for emeralds somewhere in the Atlas Mountains; I believe it is a place called the Wad Sus. Ever heard of it?”
“Yes,” replied Gray, making a mental note of the region. “I’ve heard of some ancient mines there. But how is he obtaining the concession?”
“Ah! I’ve had a lot of trouble to get that information, and it has cost me a pound or two. But I’ve got it,” laughed the old scoundrel.
“There’s a friend of his who lives at Richmond, a certain Andrew Barclay, who has spent many years in Fez. It seems that young Homfray met him in Santiago last year, and by some means was able to do him a great service. In return, this man Barclay is endeavouring to obtain the concession for prospecting from the Moorish Government.”
“H’m! The Wad Sus region—a very wild mountainous one, inhabited by a wild desert tribe called the Touaregs, men who wear black veils over their faces to protect them from the sandstorms so prevalent in the Sahara. But I’ll look it all up. Where does this man Barclay live?” asked Gray.
“In Underhill Road. Where that is I don’t know—but, of course, it is easily found.”
The master-crook drew several long whiffs at his choice Eastern cigarette.
“Then, after all, it may be to our distinct advantage that Roderick Homfray recovers, Jimmie.”
“What! Then you think that the concession for the emerald prospecting may be worth money?”
“It may be worth quite a lot in the City. A rather attractive proposition—emeralds in the Sahara. I know two or three men who would take it up—providing I could bring them a properly signed and sealed concession. Emeralds are increasing in value nowadays, you know—and an emerald concession is a sound proposition. After all, the lad may yet be of considerable use to us, Jimmie.”
“Pity he saw Freda!” remarked the wily old fellow. “Jimmie, the butler” was well known in Sing-Sing Prison as one of the shrewdest and cleverest of crooks and card-sharpers who had ever “worked” the transatlantic liners.
In the underworld of New York, Paris and London marvellous stories had been and were still told of his alertness, of the several boldcoupshe had made, and the great sums he had filched from the pockets of the unwary in conjunction, be it said, with Gordon Gray, alias Commander George Tothill, late of the British Navy, who was also known to certain of his pals as “Toby” Jackson. At Parkhurst Prison “Joyous Jimmie” was also well known, for he had enjoyed the English air for seven years less certain good conduct remission. But both master and man were crooks, clever cultured men who could delude anybody, who could adapt themselves to any surroundings, who knew life in all its phases, and could, with equanimity, eat a portion of oily fried fish-and-chips for their dinner or enjoy a Sole Colbert washed down with a glass of Imperial Tokay.
The pair, with a man named Arthur Porter, known to his criminal friends as “Guinness”—whom, by the way, Roddy had seen entering Mr Sandys’ house in Park Lane—and the handsome woman Freda Crisp were indeed parasites upon London society.
Their daring was colossal, their ingenuity astounding, and the ramifications of their friends bewildering.
“Get me a drink, Jimmie,” said the man who posed as his master. “I’m cold. Why the devil don’t you keep a better fire than this?”
“The missus is out. Went to the parson’s wife’s tea-party half an hour ago. Mary goes to church here. It’s better.”
“Of course it is—gives us a hall-mark of respectability,” laughed Gray. “Freda goes now and then. But she gives money to the old parson and excuses herself for non-attendance on Sunday mornings. Oh! my dear Jimmie!” he laughed. “These people want a lot of moss scraping off them, don’t they—eh?”
“Moss! Why, it’s that hard, grey lichen with hairy flowers that grows on trees! They want it all scraped off, then rubbed with sandpaper and a rag and acid applied to put a bit of vim in them. It’s the same over all this faded old country—that’s my belief.”
“And yet some of them are infernally cute. That old man Homfray, for instance, he’s got his eyes skinned. He doesn’t forget that silly young ass Hugh Willard, you know!”
“No, Gordon! Don’t mention him. That’s one of our failures—one of our false steps,” declared Jimmie. “I don’t like to hear any mention of his name—nor of Hyde Park Square either.”
“Rot! my dear fellow! What can the old clergyman know? Nothing. It’s all surmise—and what does that matter? There’s no trace, and—”
“And we made a profit—and a fine lot of good it did us.”
“It was Freda’s doing. She worked it out.”
“I know. And, thanks to her, we are in the infernal peril we are to-day, my dear Gordon.”
“Peril? Bosh! What are you thinking of, Jimmie?” laughed Gray. “There’s not a written word.”
“But you know what old Homfray said to Freda—what he threatened—a witness!”
“Witness!” laughed the good-looking man, tossing his cigarette end viciously into the fire. “Don’t believe it, my dear old chap. He was only trying to bluff her—and Freda knows a game worth two of that—the game we are playing with the old fool’s son.”
“A highly dangerous game—I call it!” was the butler’s dubious reply.
“Leave that to me.”
“But he might recognise me, Gordon!”
“Rot! You won’t meet him.”
“What about Freda?”
“Don’t worry. The boy was so dazed by the drug that he’ll never recognise her again. She tried to make him believe that he himself had committed a crime. And she succeeded.”
“Old Homfray may have told him about us and about the Willard affair. What then?”
“No fear of that. Old Homfray will say nothing to his son. He wouldn’t expose himself.”
But Claribut shook his head in doubt.
“My opinion is that we’re treading on very thin ice. I don’t like this house—and I don’t like the look of things at all.”
“The house is all right. Young Homfray can recollect nothing clearly after he found the girl.”
“Of course, his friends are laughing at this weird story of how he discovered her,” said Claribut. “But we don’t know whether, in some way or other, his story may be corroborated. And then—”
“Well, even then there’s no evidence to connect us with the affair. None whatever. We got them both clear away in the car, thanks to your marvellous ingenuity, Jimmie. And naturally he wonders where Edna is.”
“And so do two or three other people,” Claribut remarked. “Recollect there are some unwelcome inquiries on foot in another quarter.”
“I don’t fear them in the least. All we have to do now is to sit tight and watch the young fellow’s movements. We want to ascertain what he is doing concerning that concession. We must discover that man Barclay at Richmond and find out what sort of fellow he is. I may have to approach him. We both of us know Morocco—eh, Jimmie? That little bit of gun-running helping the Moors against the Spanish was exciting enough—wasn’t it?”
“Yes. And it brought us in big profits, too. I wish we had another slice of luck like it,” Claribut agreed.
“Well, we may. Who knows? I’ll see what I can find out about emeralds in Morocco.”
At that moment the woman Crisp came in. She was wearing a long mink coat, with a splendid blue fox around her neck and a small grey velour hat which suited her to perfection.
“Hallo, Gordon! Back again. How’s Paris looking?”
“Looking? I was only there nine hours, just to see Françillon. Good job I went. He didn’t see the risk. He’s slipped off to Switzerland. He left the Gare de Lyon at eleven this morning, and the Sûreté are now looking, for him. He got off just in the nick of time.”
“You came over by air, I suppose?”
“Yes, left Le Bourget at ten and was at Croydon just after twelve. I left the car at Croydon yesterday afternoon when I went over. Rather a bad fog over the Channel and it took us over three hours.”
“Did you see Milly?”
“Yes, called at the Continental last night and had half an hour’s chat with her. She seems well enough, and had booked her passage to New York from Cherbourg on the eighteenth.”
“And what’s the latest about young Homfray?” asked the handsome woman, divesting herself of her furs.
“I was just discussing him with Jimmie. He seems to have unearthed one or two things while poking about at Little Farncombe.”
“Yes. But there’s one fact that I’ve discovered to-day—a very important fact,” she said.
“Well, what’s the trouble now?” asked Gray. “Young Homfray is watching us!”
“Watching us? What do you mean?” asked the man, turning pale. “Has the old man told him about us?”
“He may have done. That we can’t tell. Only I found out that the other night Homfray was watching outside Purcell Sandys’ house in Park Lane, and saw me go in with Arthur. He inquired our names of one of the servants.”
“Gad! Then he’s already recognised you—eh?” cried Gray. “That’s horribly awkward.”
“It is—in many ways! We must devise some plan to close the young man’s mouth.”
“But how, Freda?”
“The drug will work again in a day or two. When it does he’ll be a hopeless idiot and nobody will credit a word he’s said.”
“It may work—and it may not. Jimmie says that some Harley Street fellow has been giving him injections. That looks as though the drug has been spotted—eh?”
“Yes, it does. But old Grunberg assured me that a reaction must set in and hopeless idiocy will be the result. At least, let’s hope so.”
“I’m not so hopeful. The lad may yet be of some use to us. It’s fortunate that he’s never seen me.”
“It is. And you’d better keep away from me in London, for it’s evident that he is pretty shrewd, and is now constantly watchful.”
“I agree,” growled Claribut. “And he must not see me either.”
“No. He certainly must not,” said Freda Crisp. “Of course, the mystery of Edna has aroused his curiosity—which is a pity. Our only hope is that the drug will act as old Grunberg guaranteed it would. By Jove! those German chemists are devilish clever—aren’t they? Old Homfray has defied us, and he will very soon have cause to regret his words, as I told him he would. Yet he may, of course, risk everything and tell the police about Hugh Willard!”
“Oh! Don’t worry at all about that, you fool!” urged Gray. “As long as his son lives, whether idiot or not, he’ll keep his mouth closed for his own sake, depend upon it?”
Chapter Ten.What Mr Sandys Knew.“I am very pleased indeed to meet your son, Mr Homfray,” said the grey-bearded man in his well-worn dinner-jacket as he grasped Roddy’s hand in the handsome hall of Farncombe Towers.“It’s awfully kind of you to say that, Mr Sandys,” replied the young man, as they crossed to the great open fireplace with the blazing logs, a fireplace with carved stone over which was the time-worn escutcheon with the sea-horse rampant of the ancient Farncombe family. “It’s so very kind of you to invite me,” the young man went on. “Lord Farncombe asked me here the last time I was back in England.”“You are a great traveller, I believe—are you not? Your father told me the other day about your adventures on the Amazon.”“Well,” laughed the young man, easy in his well-cut dinner-jacket. “I’m a mining engineer, you know, and we have to rough it very often.”“No doubt. Some of you are the pioneers of Great Britain. Once, years ago, I accompanied an expedition up the Yukon River, and I had a very rough time of it, but it was intensely interesting.”“Just now my son is interested in a concession for emerald prospecting in the Atlas Mountains,” the old rector remarked. “I have been going into the matter. There are some ancient workings somewhere in the Wad Sus district, from which it is said that the Pharaoh Rameses V of the Twenty-First Dynasty, and who was called Amennesu-F, obtained the magnificent gems which were among the greatest treasures of his huge palace in ancient Thebes. They were the gems which five hundred years later Ptolemy IV gave to Arsinde, the wife of Philopator—a fact which is recorded in a papyrus in the British Museum. And that was about eleven hundred years before the Christian era. The exact locality has been lost, but my son believes that from the mention of two ancient documents—one of which is in the Egyptian department at the British Museum and the other in the National Library in Paris—it can be located.”“Most interesting, intensely interesting,” exclaimed the honest-faced old gentleman whose name in connexion with his partner, Sir Charles Hornton, the international banker, who lived mostly in Paris, was one to conjure with in high finance. All over Europe the banking house of Sandys and Hornton was known. Next to that of the Rothschilds it was the most world famous. Old Purcell’s partner lived in the Avenue des Champs Elysées and had the ancient château of Livarot on the Loire, a beautiful winter villa at Cap Martin, and a house in Suffolk. Sir Charles seldom, if ever, came to London. Lady Hornton, however, frequently came, and spent a few weeks each season at Claridge’s or at Fawndene Court.“I hope you will be successful, not only in obtaining the concession from the Moors, Homfray, but also in locating the exact position of the ancient workings,” Sandys said, turning to the young man. “It should bring you a fortune, for such a business proposition is worth money even to-day when there is a slump in precious gems.”“I hope to be successful,” Roddy replied, when at the same moment Elma, in a pretty gown of soft pink crêpe marocain, entered the room.Unaware of their previous friendship, Mr Sandys introduced his daughter. Roddy instantly realised the fact that her father was in ignorance of their acquaintance, therefore he greeted her with formality, a fact which secretly amused the old rector.At dinner Roddy found himself seated on Elma’s left in the fine old seventeenth-century room, with its old panelling and its four oval portraits by Lely, pictures of the dead-and-gone Farncombe beauties in wigs and patches.Roddy and his father were the only guests, and Elma, smiling and happy, acted as hostess.The grey-bearded old financier evinced a great interest in the rector’s son, and listened to his descriptions of his wanderings up the mighty Amazon.Presently Mr Sandys remarked:“I hear you are interested in wireless. It must be a most fascinating science. Of course, I have seen the installations on board ship, but the modern wireless telephony seems to me little short of marvellous.”“Yes, to the uninitiated,” remarked the young fellow with a smile. “I’ve been experimenting for some years, and the set I have at the Rectory is quite efficient. From it I can speak over five to six hundred miles of space.”“Really?” exclaimed the old gentleman, greatly interested. “How very wonderful. I should like to see it.”“So should I, dad,” said Elma, not allowing her father to know that she was already very well acquainted with the set, for Roddy had shown her how it worked, and had given her some slight instruction in its various complications. “We ought to have a set fixed here. Then we could listen to the wireless concerts, the broadcasting of news, and all that goes on in the ether—eh?”“Would it be a very difficult affair to fit up a set here?” inquired her father of the young man.“Not at all. You could easily stretch an aerial from a mast on one of the towers across to one of the big trees in the park, and so have a magnificent aerial. As regards cost, it all depends upon what you desire to receive. There are small sets for about five pounds, while on the large sets, which would receive everything up to nine thousand miles distant, one can spend a hundred pounds or more. Of course, you would not want to transmit—for transmission permits are only granted to those engaged in genuine research work.”“No. I should only want to listen. Could you manage to instal one for me, do you think?”“With the greatest of pleasure,” said Roddy, delighted, while in secret Elma was equally enthusiastic. She well knew how absorbed he was in his experiments, and what pleasure he would derive from fitting up the new station.So it was decided that Roddy should purchase a really fine seven-valve receiving-set and fix it up as soon as possible.“You are not going away just yet, I hope,” said the financier laughing, “at least, not until you’ve fixed up our wireless.”“I don’t expect so,” was the young man’s reply. “As soon as my friend gets the concession through at Fez I shall go to Morocco and start to work. I’ve been reading up the Wad Sus region, and it seems that the only way to reach it in safety is to join one of the camel caravans which go regularly to and fro from Mogador across the Sahara.”“How interesting!” declared Elma, looking very sweet and dainty. “What an adventure to travel with the Arabs! I’d love it. We were in Algiers for a few weeks the winter before last, and I longed to make an excursion into the desert, but father objected!”“Ah! The Sahara is no place for a woman, Elma,” replied the old man. “And especially that district south of the Atlas where Mr Homfray is going. By the way,” added Mr Sandys, turning to the young man, “I hear that you haven’t been very well lately. Somebody said you were missing for several days. Is that so?”A slight colour rose to the young man’s face, for he was at a loss for an evasive explanation.“Oh! I went away—up to London—and father grew alarmed because I hadn’t told him where I’d gone—that’s all!” he laughed, and his eyes met Elma’s with a meaning look.There the matter dropped, and all four leaving the table passed into the big drawing-room, warmed by huge wood fires blazing at each end, where coffee was served by Hughes, the stately old butler who had been in Lord Farncombe’s service. Indeed, when Mr Sandys purchased the Towers he took over nearly the entire staff, by which he had greatly ingratiated himself with the whole countryside.It was a magnificent old room, oblong, with four long windows which in daytime gave beautiful vistas over the lake, the park, and dark woods beyond—a room which contained a number of valuable pieces of antique furniture, some genuine Elizabethan chairs and a Carolean day-bed, while on the walls were three pieces of almost priceless tapestry which had originally been in the historic Château of Amboise. Across the long windows heavy plush curtains were now drawn, and instead of a hundred candles in the great crystal candelabra, the beautiful old apartment with its sweet odour of pot pourri was filled with the soft glow of electricity, the lamps being hidden behind the high-up cornice.After coffee, Elma, at her father’s request, went to the piano and King delightfully some charming French chansonettes. She had received part of her education at Versailles and spoke French fluently.“When shall you start putting up the wireless, Mr Homfray?” she asked presently, turning to Roddy, while her father and the rector were discussing something concerning the parish.“As soon as I can get the apparatus,” was his reply. “You will, I hope, help me—eh?”And he looked straight into her fine eyes.“If you wish,” she replied. “But—but,” she added in a low voice, “you are going away to Morocco?” and her lips pouted prettily.“Not yet,” he assured her beneath his breath. “I have no wish to go while you are here, Elma.” They had contrived to be at the other end of the big room, so that they could not be overheard. But next second he spoke aloud, suggesting that she should sing another song.“No, Mr Homfray. Come, let us sit by the fire,” she urged. “Tell me more about your adventures in South America. It’s so exciting.” And they seated themselves at the further end of the room.Elma was nothing else than a modern girl—a “latchkey girl,” if one liked to apply to her such an epithet. The removal of the conventions which tradition had built up around women—removed by the ardours and endurances of the war—has reorganised society. The correct behaviour of the days of Elma’s mother had vanished, and instead of the chaperon—to-day as extinct as the dodo—Elma frequently took around with her her dancing partner, a good-looking young barrister named Mostyn Wynn, with whom she often danced the entire evening, he taking her home to Park Lane in the small hours of the morning. Mostyn was only a “pal.” He was a divine dancer, but she regarded him in much the same light as she regarded her little sharp-nosed, alert Pomeranian, Tweedles, the fiery yapper who had been the means of introducing her to Roddy Homfray.There are a good many pessimists to-day, both men and women, in London Society who declare that its “decline and fall” has come because a girl has a latchkey, because she sometimes pays for a man’s dinner at a restaurant, and because she takes her dancing partner about with her like a dog. They say that the delicate lights and shades of the romance of Society of the Edwardian days are no longer to be found in Mayfair or Belgravia, but those who see through modern spectacles know that the removal of those tiresome and outworn conventions was inevitable, and that dancing partners and latchkeys for women mark the renaissance of London life, rather than the decline which our pessimists who have lived in the last generation declare it to be.“Last Wednesday you were not in London, were you?” remarked Roddy, as he smoked the cigarette which Elma had offered him.“No,” she replied. “I motored father up to Liverpool. He had some business friends coming from New York, so we didn’t give our usual party.”“But on the previous Wednesday you did, and you had among your guests a Mrs Crisp.”“Yes, Freda Crisp. Do you know her? Isn’t she awfully jolly?”“I only know her by sight, Elma. What do you know of her? Tell me,” he asked, lowering his voice again.“Oh! not really very much. Her friend, Mr Bertram Harrison, is a business friend of father’s. They are, I believe, carrying on some negotiations concerning a company in Marseilles.”“But Mrs Crisp. How did you come to know her?”“Why?”“Because I am very interested,” Roddy said, deeply in earnest.“Lady Hornton, the wife of father’s partner, introduced us when I was staying at Fawndene Court, their place in Suffolk, about six months ago. Mr Harrison came there to dine and sleep. But Freda never fails nowadays to come to our party, and she has hosts of friends in town.”“Where does she live?” he asked eagerly.“At a big old house called Willowden, beyond Welwyn, on the Great North Road.”The young man made a mental note of the address. Could it have been to that house he had been taken? If he saw it again possibly he would remember it.“Why are you so inquisitive about her?” asked the girl.“For several reasons,” he replied. “I was once warned against her, Elma. And I would repeat the warning to you,” he said, looking straight into the beautiful eyes of the girl he loved so deeply.“But why?” she asked, staring at him. “Freda is an awfully good friend of mine?”“Has she ever been down here?”“No. We’ve always met in town.”“Has she ever asked about this place—about Little Farncombe—or about myself?”“No, never. Why?”Roddy hesitated. Then he answered:“Oh! well, I thought she might be a little inquisitive—that’s all?” He did not tell her that it was his father, the rector, who had declared her to be a woman of a very undesirable type. It was that woman’s handsome, evil face that ever and anon arose in his dreams. She was the woman under whose influence he had acted against his will, utterly helpless while beneath her dominating influence and only half-conscious in his drugged state.And such a woman was Elma’s friend!“Do you know anything of Mr Harrison?” Roddy asked, whereupon she replied that she did not know much about him, but that her father would know. Then she called across to him:“I say, dad, what do you know about Bertram Harrison—Freda Crisp’s friend?”At mention of the latter name the rector’s face changed.“Bertram Harrison?” echoed the great financier. “Oh! He is partner in a French financial house. Hornton is having some business with him. Mrs Crisp is a relative of his—his sister, I believe. Why do you ask?”The rector sat silent and wondering.“Mr Homfray knows Mrs Crisp, and has just asked me about Mr Harrison.”“Oh! you know Freda, do you?” exclaimed Mr Sandys, addressing the young man. “A very intelligent and delightful woman, isn’t she? She has been a wonderful traveller.”“Yes,” replied Roddy faintly. “I—well, I was surprised when I knew that she was a frequent visitor at Park Lane.”“Why?”“For certain reasons, Mr Sandys,” was the young man’s hard reply, “certain private reasons.”“You don’t like her, that’s evident,” laughed the grey-bearded man.“No, I don’t,” was Roddy’s blunt answer, as his eyes met those of his father.“Well, she’s always most charming to me?” declared Elma.“And she has never mentioned me?” he asked. “Are you quite sure?”“Never?”“Of course, I only know her through Harrison,” Mr Sandys said. “He introduced her to my partner, Sir Charles Hornton, whose wife, in turn, introduced her to Elma. She comes to our parties and seems to be very well known, for I’ve seen her in the Park once or twice with people who move in the best circles.”“I know you’ll pardon me, Mr Sandys,” Roddy said, “but I merely asked your daughter what she knew of her. Please do not think that I wish to criticise your friends.”“Of course not,” laughed the financier. “All of us at times make social mistakes, especially men in my own walk of life. I am frequently compelled to entertain people whose friendship I do not desire, but whom I have to tolerate for purely business purposes. But, by the way,” he added, “I should much like to hear more concerning this concession in Morocco in which you are interested. Shall you be in London to-morrow? If so, will you look in and see me about noon in Lombard Street?”“Certainly,” replied Roddy with delight, and half an hour later father and son walked back through the frosty night to the Rectory.On the way Roddy referred to the conversation concerning the woman Crisp, but his father remained pensive and silent.He merely remarked:“I had no idea that that woman was friendly with Miss Sandys.”Next day at the hour appointed Roddy passed through the huge swing doors in Lombard Street which bore a great brass plate with the inscription: “Sandys and Hornton,” and a commissionaire at once conducted him up in the lift to Mr Purcell Sandys’ private room.The elderly man was seated smoking a cigar by the fire of the big apartment which, with its red Turkey carpet and large mahogany table, was more like a comfortable dining-room than a business office. He welcomed his visitor to an arm-chair and at once pushed over a box of cigars.Then, when Roddy had lit one, he rose, and standing astride upon the hearthrug, he looked at him very seriously and said:“I really asked you here, Homfray, to put a question to you—one which I trust you will answer with truth.”“Certainly I will,” the young man replied frankly.The old man fixed him with his deep-set eyes, and in a strange voice put to him a question which caused him to gasp.“A young girl named Edna Manners has mysteriously disappeared. You know something concerning the affair! Tell me, what do you know?”
“I am very pleased indeed to meet your son, Mr Homfray,” said the grey-bearded man in his well-worn dinner-jacket as he grasped Roddy’s hand in the handsome hall of Farncombe Towers.
“It’s awfully kind of you to say that, Mr Sandys,” replied the young man, as they crossed to the great open fireplace with the blazing logs, a fireplace with carved stone over which was the time-worn escutcheon with the sea-horse rampant of the ancient Farncombe family. “It’s so very kind of you to invite me,” the young man went on. “Lord Farncombe asked me here the last time I was back in England.”
“You are a great traveller, I believe—are you not? Your father told me the other day about your adventures on the Amazon.”
“Well,” laughed the young man, easy in his well-cut dinner-jacket. “I’m a mining engineer, you know, and we have to rough it very often.”
“No doubt. Some of you are the pioneers of Great Britain. Once, years ago, I accompanied an expedition up the Yukon River, and I had a very rough time of it, but it was intensely interesting.”
“Just now my son is interested in a concession for emerald prospecting in the Atlas Mountains,” the old rector remarked. “I have been going into the matter. There are some ancient workings somewhere in the Wad Sus district, from which it is said that the Pharaoh Rameses V of the Twenty-First Dynasty, and who was called Amennesu-F, obtained the magnificent gems which were among the greatest treasures of his huge palace in ancient Thebes. They were the gems which five hundred years later Ptolemy IV gave to Arsinde, the wife of Philopator—a fact which is recorded in a papyrus in the British Museum. And that was about eleven hundred years before the Christian era. The exact locality has been lost, but my son believes that from the mention of two ancient documents—one of which is in the Egyptian department at the British Museum and the other in the National Library in Paris—it can be located.”
“Most interesting, intensely interesting,” exclaimed the honest-faced old gentleman whose name in connexion with his partner, Sir Charles Hornton, the international banker, who lived mostly in Paris, was one to conjure with in high finance. All over Europe the banking house of Sandys and Hornton was known. Next to that of the Rothschilds it was the most world famous. Old Purcell’s partner lived in the Avenue des Champs Elysées and had the ancient château of Livarot on the Loire, a beautiful winter villa at Cap Martin, and a house in Suffolk. Sir Charles seldom, if ever, came to London. Lady Hornton, however, frequently came, and spent a few weeks each season at Claridge’s or at Fawndene Court.
“I hope you will be successful, not only in obtaining the concession from the Moors, Homfray, but also in locating the exact position of the ancient workings,” Sandys said, turning to the young man. “It should bring you a fortune, for such a business proposition is worth money even to-day when there is a slump in precious gems.”
“I hope to be successful,” Roddy replied, when at the same moment Elma, in a pretty gown of soft pink crêpe marocain, entered the room.
Unaware of their previous friendship, Mr Sandys introduced his daughter. Roddy instantly realised the fact that her father was in ignorance of their acquaintance, therefore he greeted her with formality, a fact which secretly amused the old rector.
At dinner Roddy found himself seated on Elma’s left in the fine old seventeenth-century room, with its old panelling and its four oval portraits by Lely, pictures of the dead-and-gone Farncombe beauties in wigs and patches.
Roddy and his father were the only guests, and Elma, smiling and happy, acted as hostess.
The grey-bearded old financier evinced a great interest in the rector’s son, and listened to his descriptions of his wanderings up the mighty Amazon.
Presently Mr Sandys remarked:
“I hear you are interested in wireless. It must be a most fascinating science. Of course, I have seen the installations on board ship, but the modern wireless telephony seems to me little short of marvellous.”
“Yes, to the uninitiated,” remarked the young fellow with a smile. “I’ve been experimenting for some years, and the set I have at the Rectory is quite efficient. From it I can speak over five to six hundred miles of space.”
“Really?” exclaimed the old gentleman, greatly interested. “How very wonderful. I should like to see it.”
“So should I, dad,” said Elma, not allowing her father to know that she was already very well acquainted with the set, for Roddy had shown her how it worked, and had given her some slight instruction in its various complications. “We ought to have a set fixed here. Then we could listen to the wireless concerts, the broadcasting of news, and all that goes on in the ether—eh?”
“Would it be a very difficult affair to fit up a set here?” inquired her father of the young man.
“Not at all. You could easily stretch an aerial from a mast on one of the towers across to one of the big trees in the park, and so have a magnificent aerial. As regards cost, it all depends upon what you desire to receive. There are small sets for about five pounds, while on the large sets, which would receive everything up to nine thousand miles distant, one can spend a hundred pounds or more. Of course, you would not want to transmit—for transmission permits are only granted to those engaged in genuine research work.”
“No. I should only want to listen. Could you manage to instal one for me, do you think?”
“With the greatest of pleasure,” said Roddy, delighted, while in secret Elma was equally enthusiastic. She well knew how absorbed he was in his experiments, and what pleasure he would derive from fitting up the new station.
So it was decided that Roddy should purchase a really fine seven-valve receiving-set and fix it up as soon as possible.
“You are not going away just yet, I hope,” said the financier laughing, “at least, not until you’ve fixed up our wireless.”
“I don’t expect so,” was the young man’s reply. “As soon as my friend gets the concession through at Fez I shall go to Morocco and start to work. I’ve been reading up the Wad Sus region, and it seems that the only way to reach it in safety is to join one of the camel caravans which go regularly to and fro from Mogador across the Sahara.”
“How interesting!” declared Elma, looking very sweet and dainty. “What an adventure to travel with the Arabs! I’d love it. We were in Algiers for a few weeks the winter before last, and I longed to make an excursion into the desert, but father objected!”
“Ah! The Sahara is no place for a woman, Elma,” replied the old man. “And especially that district south of the Atlas where Mr Homfray is going. By the way,” added Mr Sandys, turning to the young man, “I hear that you haven’t been very well lately. Somebody said you were missing for several days. Is that so?”
A slight colour rose to the young man’s face, for he was at a loss for an evasive explanation.
“Oh! I went away—up to London—and father grew alarmed because I hadn’t told him where I’d gone—that’s all!” he laughed, and his eyes met Elma’s with a meaning look.
There the matter dropped, and all four leaving the table passed into the big drawing-room, warmed by huge wood fires blazing at each end, where coffee was served by Hughes, the stately old butler who had been in Lord Farncombe’s service. Indeed, when Mr Sandys purchased the Towers he took over nearly the entire staff, by which he had greatly ingratiated himself with the whole countryside.
It was a magnificent old room, oblong, with four long windows which in daytime gave beautiful vistas over the lake, the park, and dark woods beyond—a room which contained a number of valuable pieces of antique furniture, some genuine Elizabethan chairs and a Carolean day-bed, while on the walls were three pieces of almost priceless tapestry which had originally been in the historic Château of Amboise. Across the long windows heavy plush curtains were now drawn, and instead of a hundred candles in the great crystal candelabra, the beautiful old apartment with its sweet odour of pot pourri was filled with the soft glow of electricity, the lamps being hidden behind the high-up cornice.
After coffee, Elma, at her father’s request, went to the piano and King delightfully some charming French chansonettes. She had received part of her education at Versailles and spoke French fluently.
“When shall you start putting up the wireless, Mr Homfray?” she asked presently, turning to Roddy, while her father and the rector were discussing something concerning the parish.
“As soon as I can get the apparatus,” was his reply. “You will, I hope, help me—eh?”
And he looked straight into her fine eyes.
“If you wish,” she replied. “But—but,” she added in a low voice, “you are going away to Morocco?” and her lips pouted prettily.
“Not yet,” he assured her beneath his breath. “I have no wish to go while you are here, Elma.” They had contrived to be at the other end of the big room, so that they could not be overheard. But next second he spoke aloud, suggesting that she should sing another song.
“No, Mr Homfray. Come, let us sit by the fire,” she urged. “Tell me more about your adventures in South America. It’s so exciting.” And they seated themselves at the further end of the room.
Elma was nothing else than a modern girl—a “latchkey girl,” if one liked to apply to her such an epithet. The removal of the conventions which tradition had built up around women—removed by the ardours and endurances of the war—has reorganised society. The correct behaviour of the days of Elma’s mother had vanished, and instead of the chaperon—to-day as extinct as the dodo—Elma frequently took around with her her dancing partner, a good-looking young barrister named Mostyn Wynn, with whom she often danced the entire evening, he taking her home to Park Lane in the small hours of the morning. Mostyn was only a “pal.” He was a divine dancer, but she regarded him in much the same light as she regarded her little sharp-nosed, alert Pomeranian, Tweedles, the fiery yapper who had been the means of introducing her to Roddy Homfray.
There are a good many pessimists to-day, both men and women, in London Society who declare that its “decline and fall” has come because a girl has a latchkey, because she sometimes pays for a man’s dinner at a restaurant, and because she takes her dancing partner about with her like a dog. They say that the delicate lights and shades of the romance of Society of the Edwardian days are no longer to be found in Mayfair or Belgravia, but those who see through modern spectacles know that the removal of those tiresome and outworn conventions was inevitable, and that dancing partners and latchkeys for women mark the renaissance of London life, rather than the decline which our pessimists who have lived in the last generation declare it to be.
“Last Wednesday you were not in London, were you?” remarked Roddy, as he smoked the cigarette which Elma had offered him.
“No,” she replied. “I motored father up to Liverpool. He had some business friends coming from New York, so we didn’t give our usual party.”
“But on the previous Wednesday you did, and you had among your guests a Mrs Crisp.”
“Yes, Freda Crisp. Do you know her? Isn’t she awfully jolly?”
“I only know her by sight, Elma. What do you know of her? Tell me,” he asked, lowering his voice again.
“Oh! not really very much. Her friend, Mr Bertram Harrison, is a business friend of father’s. They are, I believe, carrying on some negotiations concerning a company in Marseilles.”
“But Mrs Crisp. How did you come to know her?”
“Why?”
“Because I am very interested,” Roddy said, deeply in earnest.
“Lady Hornton, the wife of father’s partner, introduced us when I was staying at Fawndene Court, their place in Suffolk, about six months ago. Mr Harrison came there to dine and sleep. But Freda never fails nowadays to come to our party, and she has hosts of friends in town.”
“Where does she live?” he asked eagerly.
“At a big old house called Willowden, beyond Welwyn, on the Great North Road.”
The young man made a mental note of the address. Could it have been to that house he had been taken? If he saw it again possibly he would remember it.
“Why are you so inquisitive about her?” asked the girl.
“For several reasons,” he replied. “I was once warned against her, Elma. And I would repeat the warning to you,” he said, looking straight into the beautiful eyes of the girl he loved so deeply.
“But why?” she asked, staring at him. “Freda is an awfully good friend of mine?”
“Has she ever been down here?”
“No. We’ve always met in town.”
“Has she ever asked about this place—about Little Farncombe—or about myself?”
“No, never. Why?”
Roddy hesitated. Then he answered:
“Oh! well, I thought she might be a little inquisitive—that’s all?” He did not tell her that it was his father, the rector, who had declared her to be a woman of a very undesirable type. It was that woman’s handsome, evil face that ever and anon arose in his dreams. She was the woman under whose influence he had acted against his will, utterly helpless while beneath her dominating influence and only half-conscious in his drugged state.
And such a woman was Elma’s friend!
“Do you know anything of Mr Harrison?” Roddy asked, whereupon she replied that she did not know much about him, but that her father would know. Then she called across to him:
“I say, dad, what do you know about Bertram Harrison—Freda Crisp’s friend?”
At mention of the latter name the rector’s face changed.
“Bertram Harrison?” echoed the great financier. “Oh! He is partner in a French financial house. Hornton is having some business with him. Mrs Crisp is a relative of his—his sister, I believe. Why do you ask?”
The rector sat silent and wondering.
“Mr Homfray knows Mrs Crisp, and has just asked me about Mr Harrison.”
“Oh! you know Freda, do you?” exclaimed Mr Sandys, addressing the young man. “A very intelligent and delightful woman, isn’t she? She has been a wonderful traveller.”
“Yes,” replied Roddy faintly. “I—well, I was surprised when I knew that she was a frequent visitor at Park Lane.”
“Why?”
“For certain reasons, Mr Sandys,” was the young man’s hard reply, “certain private reasons.”
“You don’t like her, that’s evident,” laughed the grey-bearded man.
“No, I don’t,” was Roddy’s blunt answer, as his eyes met those of his father.
“Well, she’s always most charming to me?” declared Elma.
“And she has never mentioned me?” he asked. “Are you quite sure?”
“Never?”
“Of course, I only know her through Harrison,” Mr Sandys said. “He introduced her to my partner, Sir Charles Hornton, whose wife, in turn, introduced her to Elma. She comes to our parties and seems to be very well known, for I’ve seen her in the Park once or twice with people who move in the best circles.”
“I know you’ll pardon me, Mr Sandys,” Roddy said, “but I merely asked your daughter what she knew of her. Please do not think that I wish to criticise your friends.”
“Of course not,” laughed the financier. “All of us at times make social mistakes, especially men in my own walk of life. I am frequently compelled to entertain people whose friendship I do not desire, but whom I have to tolerate for purely business purposes. But, by the way,” he added, “I should much like to hear more concerning this concession in Morocco in which you are interested. Shall you be in London to-morrow? If so, will you look in and see me about noon in Lombard Street?”
“Certainly,” replied Roddy with delight, and half an hour later father and son walked back through the frosty night to the Rectory.
On the way Roddy referred to the conversation concerning the woman Crisp, but his father remained pensive and silent.
He merely remarked:
“I had no idea that that woman was friendly with Miss Sandys.”
Next day at the hour appointed Roddy passed through the huge swing doors in Lombard Street which bore a great brass plate with the inscription: “Sandys and Hornton,” and a commissionaire at once conducted him up in the lift to Mr Purcell Sandys’ private room.
The elderly man was seated smoking a cigar by the fire of the big apartment which, with its red Turkey carpet and large mahogany table, was more like a comfortable dining-room than a business office. He welcomed his visitor to an arm-chair and at once pushed over a box of cigars.
Then, when Roddy had lit one, he rose, and standing astride upon the hearthrug, he looked at him very seriously and said:
“I really asked you here, Homfray, to put a question to you—one which I trust you will answer with truth.”
“Certainly I will,” the young man replied frankly.
The old man fixed him with his deep-set eyes, and in a strange voice put to him a question which caused him to gasp.
“A young girl named Edna Manners has mysteriously disappeared. You know something concerning the affair! Tell me, what do you know?”