Elk 01 The Fellowship of the Frog (15 page)

“Of course he’ll see me,” said a voice outside. “Why all this formality—oh, I see.”

Lola Bassano’s eyes fell upon the girl seated by the window.

“This is my sister—Ella, this is Miss Bassano and Mr. Brady.”

Ella looked at the petite figure in the doorway, and, looking, could only admire. It was the first time they had met face to face, and she thought Lola was lovely.

“Glad to meet you, Miss Bennett. I suppose you’ve come up to roast this brother of yours for his disgraceful conduct last night. Boy, you were certainly mad! It
was
your father, Miss Bennett?”

Ella nodded and heard with gratitude the sympathetic click of Lew Brady’s lips.

“If I’d been near you, Ray, I’d have beaten you. Too bad, Miss Bennett.”

A strange coldness came suddenly to the girl—and a second before she had glowed to their sympathy. It was the suspicion of their insincerity that chilled her. Their kindness was just a little too glib and too ready. Brady’s just a little too overpowering.

“Do you like your brother’s flat?” asked Lola, sitting down and stretching her silk-covered legs to a patch of sunlight.

“It is very—handsome,” said Ella. “He will find Horsham rather dull when he comes back.”

“Will he go back?” Lola flashed a smile at the youth as she asked the question.

“Not much I won’t,” said Ray energetically. “I’ve been trying to make Ella understand that my business is too important to leave.”

Lola nodded, and now the antagonism which Ella in her charity was holding back came with a rush.

“What is the business?” she asked.

He went on to give her a vague and cautious exposition of his work, and she listened without comment.

“So if you think that I’m doing anything crooked, or have friends that aren’t as straight as you and father are, get the idea out of your head. I’m not afraid of Gordon or Elk or any of that lot. Don’t think I am. Nor is Brady, nor Miss Bassano. Gordon is one of those cheap detectives who has got his ideas out of books.”

“That’s perfectly true, Miss Bennett,” said Lew virtuously. “Gordon is just a bit too clever. He’s got the idea that everybody but himself is crook. Why, he sent Elk down to cross-examine your own father! Believe me, I’m not scared of Gordon, or any—”

Tap…tap…tappity…tap.

The taps were on the door, slow, deliberate, unmistakable. The effect on Lew Brady was remarkable. His big body seemed to shrink, his puffed face grew suddenly hollow.

Tap…tap…tappity…tap.

The hand that went up to Brady’s mouth was trembling. Ella looked from the man to Lola, and she saw, to her amazement, that Lola had grown pale under her rouge. Brady stumbled to the door, and the sound of his heavy breathing sounded loud in the silence.

“Come in,” he muttered, and flung the door wide open. It was Dick Gordon who entered.

He looked from one to the other, laughter in his eyes.

“The old Frog tap seems to frighten some of you,” he said pleasantly.

Lola was the quickest to recover.

“What do you mean…Frog tap? Got that Frog stuff roaming loose in your head, haven’t you?”

“It is a new accomplishment,” said Dick with mock gravity. “A thirty-third degree Frog taught me. It’s the signal the old Grand Master Frog gives when he enters the presence of his inferiors.”

“Your thirty-third degree Frog is probably lying,” said Lola, her colour returning. “Anyway, Mills—”

“I never mentioned Mills,” said Dick.

“I know it was he. His arrest was in the newspapers.”

“It hasn’t even appeared in the newspapers,” said Dick, “unless it was splashed in
The Frog Gazette
—probably on the personality page.”

He inclined his head toward the girl. Ray, for the moment, he would have ignored if the young man had not taken a step towards him.

“Do you want anything, Gordon?” he asked.

“I want a private talk with you, Bennett,” said Dick.

“There’s nothing you can’t say before my friends,” said Ray, his ready temper rising.

“The only person I recognize by that title is your sister,” replied Gordon.

“Let’s go, Lew,” said Lola with a shrug, but Ray Bennett stopped them.

“Wait a minute! Is this my house, or isn’t it?” he demanded furiously. “You can clear out, Gordon! I’ve had just about as much of your interference as I want. You push your way in here, you’re offensive to my friends—you practically tell them to get out—I like your nerve There’s the door—you can go.”

“I’ll go if you feel that way,” said Dick, “but I want to warn you—”

“Pshaw I’m sick of your warnings.”

“I want to warn you that the Frog has decided that you’ve got to earn your money! That is all.”

There was a dead silence, which Ella broke.

“The Frog?” she repeated, open-eyed. “But…but, Mr. Gordon, Ray isn’t…with the Frogs?”

“Perhaps it will be news to him—but he is,” said Dick. “These two people are faithful servants of the reptile,” he pointed. “Lola is financed by him—her husband is financed by him—”

“You’re a liar!” screamed Ray. “Lola isn’t married! You’re a sneaking liar—get out before I throw you out! You poor Frog-chaser—you think everything that’s green lives in a pond! Get out and stay out!”

It was Ella’s appealing glance that made Dick Gordon walk to the door. Turning, his cold gaze rested on Lew Brady.

“There is a big question-mark against your name in the Frog-book, Brady. You watch out!”

Lew shrank under the blow, for blow it was, Had he dared, he would have followed Gordon into the corridor and sought further information. But here his moral courage failed him, and he stood, a pathetic figure, looking wistfully at the door that the visitor had closed behind him.

“For God’s sake let us get some air in the room!” snarled Ray, thrusting open the windows. “That fellow is a pestilence Married Trying to get me to believe that!”

Ella had taken up her handbag from the sideboard where she had placed it.

“Going, Ella?”

She nodded.

“Tell father…I’ll write anyway. Talk to him, Ella, and show him where he was wrong.”

She held out her hand.

“Goodbye, Ray,” she said. “Perhaps one day you will come back to us. Please God this madness will end soon. Oh, Ray, it isn’t true about the Frogs, is it? You aren’t with those people?”

His laugh reassured her for the moment.

“Of course I’m not—it’s about as true as the yarn that Lola is married! Gordon was trying to make a sensation; that’s the worst of these third-rate detectives, they live on sensation.”

She nodded to Lola as he escorted her to the lift. Lew Brady watched her with hungry eyes.

“What did he mean, Lola?” asked Brady as the door closed behind the two. “That fellow knows something! There’s a mark against my name in the Frog book! That sounds bad to me. Lola, I’m finished with these Frogs! They’re getting on my nerves.”

“You’re a fool,” she said calmly. “Gordon has got just the effect he wanted—he has scared you!”

“Scared?” he answered savagely. “Nothing scares me. You’re not scared because you’ve no imagination. I’m…not scared, but worried, because I’m beginning to see that the Frogs are bigger than I dreamt. They killed that Scotsman Maclean the other day, and they’re not going to think twice about settling with me. I’ve talked to these Frogs, Lola—they’d do anything from murder upwards. They look on the Frog as a god—he’s a religion with them! A question mark against my name! I believe it too—I’ve talked flip about ‘em, and they won’t forgive that.”

“Hush!” she warned him in a low voice as the door handle turned and Ray came back.

“Phew!” he said. “Thank God she’s gone What a morning! Frogs—Frogs—Frogs! The poor fool!”

Lola opened a small jewelled case and took out a cigarette and lit it, extinguishing the match with a snick of her fingers. Then she turned her beautiful eyes upon Ray.

“What is the matter with the Frogs anyway?” she asked coolly. “They pay well and they ask for little.”

Ray gaped at her.

“You’re not working for them, are you?” he asked astonished. “Why, they’re just low tramps who murder people!”

She shook her head.

“Not all of them,” she corrected. “They are only the body—the big Frogs are different. I am one and Lew is one.”

“What the devil are you talking about?” demanded Lew, half in fear, half in wrath.

“He ought to know—and he has got to know sooner or later,” said Lola, unperturbed. “He’s too sensible a boy to imagine that the Japanese or any other embassy is paying his overhead charges. He’s a Frog.”

Ray collapsed into a chair, incapable of speech.

“A Frog?” he repeated mechanically. “What…what do you mean?”

Lola laughed.

“I don’t see that it is any worse being a Frog than an agent of another country, selling your own country’s secrets,” she said. “Don’t be silly, Ray! You ought to be pleased and honoured. They chose you from thousands because they wanted the right kind of intelligence…”

And so she flattered and soothed him, until his plastic mind, wax in her hands, took another shape.

“I suppose it is all right,” he said at last. “Of course, I wouldn’t do anything really bad, and I don’t approve of all this clubbing, but, as you say, the Frog can’t be responsible for all that his people do. But on one thing I’m firm, Lola! I’ll have no tattooing!”

She laughed and extended her white arm.

“Am I marked?” she asked. “Is Lew marked? No; the big people aren’t marked at all. Boy, you’ve a great future.”

Ray took her hand and fondled it.

“Lola…about that story that Gordon told…your being married: it isn’t true?”

She laughed again and patted the hand on hers.

“Gordon is jealous,” she said. “I can’t tell you why—now. But he has good reasons.” Suddenly her mood grew gay, and she slipped away. “Listen, I’m going to ‘phone for a table for lunch, and you will join us, and we’ll drink to the great little Frog who feeds us!”

“The telephone was on the sideboard, and as she lifted the receiver she saw the square black metal box clamped to its base.

“Something new in ‘phones, Ray?” she asked.

“They fixed it yesterday. It’s a resistance. The man told me that somebody who was talking into a ‘phone during a thunderstorm had a bad shock, so they’re fitting these things as an experiment. It makes the instrument heavier, and it’s ugly, but—”

Slowly she put the receiver down and stooped to look at the attachment.

“It’s a dictaphone,” she said quietly. “And all the time we’ve been talking somebody has been making a note of our conversation.”

She walked to the fireplace, took up a poker and brought it down with a crash on the little box…

Inspector Elk, with a pair of receivers clamped to his head, sat in a tiny office on the Thames Embankment, and put down his pencil with a sigh. Then he took up his telephone and called Headquarters Exchange.

“You can switch off that detectaphone to Knightsbridge 93718,” he said. “I don’t think we shall want it any more.

“Did I put you through in time, sir?” asked the operator’s voice. “They had only just started talking when I called you.”

“Plenty of time, Angus,” said Elk, “plenty of time.” He gathered up his notes and went to his desk and placed them tidily by the side of his blotting-pad.

Strolling to the window, he looked out upon the sunlit Aver, and there was peace and comfort in his heart, for overnight the prisoner Mills had decided to tell all he knew about the Frogs on the promise of a free pardon and a passage to Canada. And Mills knew more than he had, as yet, told.

“I can give you a line to Number 7 that will put him into your hands,” his note had run.

Number Seven! Elk caught a long breath. No. 7 was the hub on which the wheel turned.

He rubbed his hands cheerfully, for it seemed that the mystery of the Frog was at last to be solved. Perhaps “the line” would lead to the missing treaty—and at the thought of the lost document Elk’s face clouded. Two ministers, a great state department and innumerable under-secretaries spent their time in writing frantic notes of inquiry to headquarters concerning Lord Farmley’s loss.

“They want miracles,” said Elk, and wondered if the day would produce one.

He went to his overcoat pocket to find a cigar, aria his hand touched a thick roll of papers. He pulled them out and threw them upon the desk, and as he did so the first words on the first sheet caught his eye.

“
By the King’s Most Excellent Majesty in Council—
”

Elk tried to yell, but his voice failed him, and then he snatched up the paper from the desk and turned the leaves with trembling hands.

It was the lost treaty!

Elk held the precious document in his hand, and his mind went back quickly over the night’s adventures. When had he taken off his topcoat? When had he last put his hand in his pocket? He had taken off the coat at Heron’s Club, and he could not remember having used the pockets since. It was a light coat that he either carried or wore, summer or winter. He had brought it to the office that morning on his arm.

At the club! Probably when he had parted with the garment to the cloakroom attendant. Then the Frog must have been there. One of the waiters probably—an admirable disguise for the chief of the gang. Elk sat down to think.

To question anybody in the building would be futile. Nobody had touched the coat but himself.

“Dear me!” said Elk, as he hung up the coat again. At the touch of his Bell Balder came.

“Balder, do you remember seeing me pass your room?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I had my coat on my arm, didn’t I?”

“I never looked,” said Balder with satisfaction.