Elk 01 The Fellowship of the Frog (23 page)

John Bennett looked up.

“A millionaire asking for help? Ella, that sounds queer to me.”

“And it is queer,” she insisted. “He didn’t seem half so terrible as he appeared when I first saw him. There was something tragic about him, something very sad. He will come to-night, and I’ve promised to see him. May I?”

Her father considered.

“Yes, you may see him, provided you do not go outside this garden. I promise that I will not appear, but I shall he on hand. Do you think it is about Ray—that Ray has committed some act of folly that he wants to tell you about?” he asked with a note of anxiety.

“I don’t think so, daddy. Maitland was quite indifferent to Ray or what becomes of him. I’ve been wondering whether I ought to tell somebody.

“Captain Gordon or Mr. Elk,” suggested her father dryly, and the girl flushed. “You like that young man, Ella No, I’m not referring to Elk, who is anything but young; I mean Dick Gordon.

“Yes,” she said after a pause, “I like him very much.”

“I hope you aren’t going to like him too much, darling,” said John Bennett, and their eyes met.

“Why not, daddy?” It almost hurt her to ask.

“Because,”—he seemed at a loss as to how he should proceed—“because it’s not desirable. He occupies a different position from ourselves, but that isn’t the only reason. I don’t want you to have a heartache, and I say this, knowing that, if that heartache comes, I shall be the cause.”

He saw her face change, and then:

“What do you wish me to do?” she asked.

He rose slowly, and, walking to her, put his arm about her shoulder.

“Do whatever you like, Ella,” he said gently. “There is a curse upon me, and you must suffer for my sin. Perhaps he will never know—but I am tired of expecting miracles.”

“Father, what do you mean?” she asked anxiously.

“I don’t know what I mean,” he said as he patted her shoulder. “Things may work out as they do in stories. Perhaps…” He ruminated for a while. “Those pictures I took yesterday may be the making of me, Ella. But I’ve thought that of so many things. Always there seems to be a great possibility opening out, and always I have been disappointed. But I’m getting the knack of this picture taking. The apparatus is working splendidly, and the man who buys them—he has a shop in Wardour Street—told me that the quality of the films is improving with every new ‘shot.’ I took a mother duck on the nest, just as the youngsters were hatching out. I’m not quite sure how the picture will develop, because I had to be at some distance from the nest. As it was, I nearly scared the poor lady when I fixed the camera.” Very wisely she did not pursue a subject which was painful to her.

That afternoon she saw a strange man standing in the roadway opposite the gate, looking toward the house. He was a gentleman, well dressed, and he was smoking a long cigar. She thought, by his shell glasses, that he might be an American, and when he spoke to her, his New England accent left no doubt. He came toward the gate, hat in hand.

“Am I right in thinking that I’m speaking to Miss Bennett?” he asked, and when she nodded: “My name is Broad. I was just taking a look round, and I seemed to remember that you lived somewhere in the neighbourhood. In fact, I think your brother told me to-day.”

“Are you a friend of Ray?” she asked.

“Why, no,” said Broad with a smile. “I can’t say that I’m a friend of Mr. Bennett; I’m what you might call a club acquaintance.”

He made no attempt to approach her any closer, and apparently he did not expect to be invited into the house on the strength of his acquaintance with Ray Bennett. Presently, with a commonplace remark about the weather (he had caught the English habit perfectly) he moved off, and from the gate she saw him walking up towards the wood road. That long cul-de-sac was a favourite parking place of motorists who came to the neighbourhood, and she was not surprised when, a few minutes later, she saw the car conic out. Mr. Broad raised his hat as he passed, and waved a little greeting to some person who was invisible to her. Her curiosity whetted, she opened the gate and walked on to the road. A little way down, a man was sitting on a tree trunk, reading a newspaper and smoking a large-bowled pipe. An hour later, when she came out, he was still there, but this time he was standing: a tall, soldier-like-looking man, who turned his head away when she looked in his direction. A detective, she thought, in dismay.

Her instinct was not at fault: of that she was sure. For some reason or other, Maytree Cottage was under observation. At first she was frightened, then indignant. She had half a mind to go into the village and telephone to Elk, to demand an explanation. Somehow it never occurred to her to be angry with Dick, though he was solely responsible for placing the men who were guarding her day and night.

She went to bed early, setting her alarm for three o’clock. She woke before the bell roused her, and, dressing quickly, went down to make some coffee. As she passed her father’s door, he called her.

“I’m up, if you want me, Ella.”

“Thank you, daddy,” she said gratefully. She was glad to know that he was around. It gave her a feeling of confidence which she had never before possessed in the presence of this old man.

The first light was showing in the sky when she saw the silhouette of Mr. Maitland against the dawn, and heard the soft click of the latch as he opened the garden gate. She had not heard the car nor seen it. This time Maitland had alighted some distance short of the house.

He was, as usual, nervous, and for the time being speechless. A heavy overcoat, which had seen its best days, was buttoned up to his neck, and a big cap covered his hairless head.

“That you, miss?” he asked in a husky whisper.

“Yes, Mr. Maitland.”

“You coming along for a little walk?…Got something to tell you…Very important, miss.”

“We will walk in the garden,” she said, lowering her voice.

He demurred.

“Suppose anybody sees us, eh? That’d be a fine lookout for me! Just a little way up the road, miss,” he pleaded. “Nobody will hear us.”

“We can go on to the lawn. There are some chairs there.”

“Is everybody asleep? All your servant gels?”

“We have no servant girls,” she smiled.

He shook his head.

“I don’t blame you. I hate ‘um. Got six fellows in uniform at my house. They frighten me stiff!”

She led him across the lawn, carrying a cushion, and, settling him in a chair, waited. The beginnings of these interviews had always seemed as promising, but after a while Mr. Maitland had a trick of rambling off at a tangent into depths which she could not plumb.

“You’re a nice gel,” said Maitland huskily. “I thought so the first time I saw you…you wouldn’t do a poor old man any ‘arm, would you, miss?”

“Why, of course not, Mr. Maitland.”

“I know you wouldn’t. I told Matilda you wouldn’t. She says you’re all right…Ever been in the workhouse, miss?

“In the poorhouse?” she said, smiling in spite of herself. “Why, no, I’ve never been in a poorhouse.”

He looked round fearfully from side to side, peering under his white eyebrows at a clump of bushes which might conceal an eavesdropper.

“Ever been in quod?”

She did not recognize the word.

“I have,” he went on. “Quod’s prison, miss. Naturally you wouldn’t understand them words.”

Again he looked round.

“Suppose you was me…It all comes to that question—suppose you was me!”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Mr. Maitland.”

She watched his frightened scrutiny of the grounds, and then he bent over toward her.

“Them fellows will get me,” he said slowly and impressively. “They’ll get me, and Matilda. And I’ve left all my money to a certain person. That’s the joke. That’s the whole joke of it, miss.” He chuckled wheezily. “And then they’ll get him.”

He slapped his knee, convulsed with silent laughter, and the girl honestly thought he was mad and edged away from him. “But I’ve got a great idea—got it when I saw you. It’s one of the greatest ideas I’ve ever had, miss. Are you a typewriter?”

“A typist?” she smiled. “No, I can type, but I’m not a very good typist.”

His voice sank until it was almost unintelligible.

“You come up to my office one day, and we’ll have a great joke. Wouldn’t think I was a joker, would yon? Eighty-seven I am, miss. You come up to my office and I’ll make you laugh!”

Suddenly he became more serious.

“They’ll get me—I know it. I haven’t told Matilda, because she’d start screaming. But I know.
And
the baby!”

This seemed to afford the saturnine old man the greatest Possible enjoyment. He rocked from side to side with mirth, until a fit of coughing attacked him.

“That’s all, miss. You come up to my office. Old Johnson isn’t there. You come up and see me. Never had a letter from me, have you?” he suddenly asked, as he rose.

“No, Mr. Maitland,” she said in surprise.

“There was one wrote,” said he. “Maybe I didn’t post it Maybe I thought better. I dunno.”

He started and drew back as a figure appeared before the house.

“Who’s that?” he asked, and she felt a hand on her arm that trembled.

“That is my father, Mr. Maitland,” she said. “I expect he got a little nervous about my being out.”

“Your father, eh?” He was more relieved than resentful. “Mr. John Bennett, his name is, by all accounts. Don’t tell him I’ve been in the workhouse,” he urged, “or in quod. And I have been in quod, miss. Met all the big men, every one of ‘um. And met a few of ‘um out, too. I bet I’m the only man in this country that’s ever seen Saul Morris, the grandest feller in the business. Only met him once, but I shall never forget him.”

John Bennett saw them pacing toward him, and stood undecided as to whether he should join them or whether Ella would be embarrassed by such a move. Maitland decided the matter by hobbling over to him.

“Morning, mister,” he said. “Just having a talk to your gel. Rather early in the morning, eh? Hope you don’t mind, Mr. Bennett.”

“I don’t mind,” said John Bennett. “Won’t you come inside, Mr. Maitland?”

“No, no, no,” said the other fearfully. “I’ve got to get on. Matilda will be waiting for me. Don’t forget, miss: come up to my office and have that joke!”

He did not offer to shake hands, nor did he take off his hat. In fact, his manners were deplorable. A curt nod to the girl, and then:

“Well, so long, mister–” he began, and at that moment John Bennett moved out from the shadow of the house.

“Goodbye, Mr. Maitland,” he said.

Maitland did not speak. His eyes were open wide with terror, his face blanched to the colour of death.

“You…you!” he croaked. “Oh, my God!”

He seemed to totter, and the girl sprang to catch him, but he recovered himself, and, turning, ran down the path with an agility which was surprising in one of his age, tore open the gate and flew along the road. They heard his dry sobs coming back to them.

“Father,” whispered the girl in fear, “did he know you? Did he recognize you?”

“I wonder,” said John Bennett of Horsham.

Dick Gordon ‘phoned across to headquarters, and Elk reported immediately.

“I’ve discovered six good getaway bags, and each one is equipped as completely and exactly as the one we found at King’s Cross.”

“No clue as to the gentleman who deposited them?

“No, sir, not so much as a clue. We’ve tested them all for fingerprints, and we’ve got a few results; but as they have been handled by half a dozen attendants, I don’t think we shall get much out of it. Still, we can but try.”

“Elk, I would give a few years of my life to get to the inside of this Frog mystery. I’m having Lola shadowed, though I shouldn’t think she’d be in that lot. I know of nobody who looks less like a tramp than Lola Bassano! Lew has disappeared, and when I sent a man round this morning to discover what had happened to that young man about town, Mr. Raymond Bennett, he was not visible. He refused to see the caller on the plea that he was ill, and is staying in his room all day. Elk, who’s the Frog?”

Elk paced up and down the apartment, his hands in his pockets, his steel-rimmed spectacles sliding lower and lower down his long nose.

“There are only two possibilities,” he said. “One is Harry Lyme—an ex-convict who was supposed to have been drowned in the
Channel Queen
some years ago. I put him amongst them, because all the records we have of him show that he was a brilliant organizer, a super-crook, and one of the two men capable of opening Lord Farmley’s safe and slipping that patent catch on Johnson’s window. And believe me, Captain Gordon, it was an artist who burgled Johnson!”

“The other man?” said Dick.

“He’s also comfortably dead,” said Elk grimly. “Saul Morris, the cleverest of all. He’s got Lyme skinned to death—an expression I picked up in my recent travels, Captain. And Morris is American; and although I’m as patriotic as any man in this country, I hand it to the Americans when it comes to smashing safes. I’ve examined two thousand records of known criminals, and I’ve fined it down to these two fellows—and they’re both dead! They say that dead men leave no trails, and if Frog is Morris or Lyme, they’re about right. Lyme’s dead—drowned. Morris was killed in a railway accident in the United States. The question is, which of the ghosts we can charge.”

Dick Gordon pulled open the drawer of his desk and took out an envelope that bore the inscription of the Western Union. He threw it across the table.

“What’s this, Captain Gordon?”

“It’s an answer to a question. You mentioned Saul Morris before, and I have been making inquiries in New York. Here’s the reply.”

The cablegram was from the Chief of Police, New York City.