Elk 01 The Fellowship of the Frog (38 page)

“Pull up your chair, boy,” said John Bennett as Ella carried in a steaming teapot and put it on the table.

Ray rose obediently and placed the big chair where it had always been when he lived at home, on his father’s right hand.

John Bennett sat at the table, his head bent forward. It was the old grace that his father had said for years and years, and which secretly amused him in other days, but which now was invested with a beautiful significance that made him choke.

It was a wonderful meal, more wonderful than any he had eaten at Heron’s or at those expensive restaurants which he had favoured. Home-cured tongue, home-made bread, and a great jar of home-made preserves, tea that was fragrant with the bouquet of the East. He laid down his knife and fork and leant back with a happy smile.

“Home,” he said simply, and his father gripped his hand under cover of the table-cloth, gripped and held it so tightly that the boy winced.

“Ray, they want you to take over the management of Maitlands—Johnson does. What do you think of that, son?”

Ray shook his head.

“I’m no more fit to manage Maitlands than I am to be President of the Bank of England,” he said with a little laugh. “No, dad, my views are less exalted than they were. I think I might earn a respectable living hoeing potatoes—and I should be happy to do so!”

The older man was looking thoughtfully at the table.

“I—I shall want an assistant if these pictures of mine are the success that Silenski says they will be. Perhaps you can hoe potatoes between whiles—when Ella is married.”

The girl went red.

“Is Ella going to be married? Are you Ella?” Ray jumped up and, going to the girl, kissed her. “Ella, it won’t make a difference, will it—about me, I mean?”

“I don’t think so, dear. I’ve promised.”

“What is the matter?” asked John Bennett, as he saw the cloud that came to the girl’s face.

“I was thinking of something unpleasant, daddy,” she said, and for the first time told of the hideous visitation.

“The Frog wanted to marry you?” said Ray with a frown. “It is incredible! Did you see his face?”

She shook her head.

“He was masked,” she said. “Don’t let us talk about it.”

She got up quickly and began to clear away the meal, and, for the first time for many years, Ray helped her.

“A terrible night,” she said, coming back from the kitchen. “The wind burst open the window and blew out the lamp, and the rain is corning down in torrents!”

“All nights are good nights to me,” said Ray, and in his chuckle she detected a little sob.

No word had been spoken since they met of his terrible ordeal; it was tacitly agreed that that nightmare should remain in the region of bad dreams, and only now and again did he betray the horror of those three weeks of waiting.

“Bolt the back door, darling,” said John Bennett, looking up as she went out.

The two men sat smoking, each busy with his own thoughts. Then Ray spoke of Lola.

“I do not think she was bad, father,” he said. “She could not have known what was going to happen. The thing was so diabolically planned that even to the very last, until I learnt from Gordon the true story, I was under the impression that I had killed Brady. This man must have the brain of a general.”

Bennett nodded.

“I always used to think,” Ray went on, “that Maitland had something to do with the Frogs. I suppose he had, really. I first guessed that much after he turned up at Heron’s Club—what is the matter?”

“Ella!” called the old man.

There was no answer from the kitchen.

“I don’t want her to stay out there, washing up. Ray, boy, call her in.”

Ray got up and opened the door of the kitchen. It was in darkness.

“Bring the lamp, father,” he called, and John Bennett came hurrying after him.

The door of the kitchen was closed but not bolted. Something white lay on the floor, and Ray stooped to pick it up. It was a torn portion of the apron which Ella had been wearing.

The two men looked at one another, and Ray, running up to his room, came down with a storm lanterns which he lit.

“She may be in the garden,” he said in a strained voice, and, throwing open the door, went out into the storm.

The rain beat down unmercifully; tire men were wet through before they had gone a dozen yards. Ray held the light down to the ground. There were tracks of many feet in the soft mud, and presently he found one of Ella’s. The tracks disappeared on to the edge of the lawn, but they were making straight for the side gate which opened into a narrow lane. This passage-way connected the road with a meadow behind Maytree Cottage, and the roadway gate was usually kept chained and padlocked. Ray was the first to see the car tracks, and then he found that the gate was open and the broken chain lay in the muddy roadway. Running out into the road, he saw that the tracks turned to the right.

“We had better search the garden first to make absolutely sure, father,” he said. “I will arouse some of the cottagers and get them to help.”

By the time he came back to the house, John Bennett had made a thorough search of the garden and the house, but the girl had disappeared.

“Go down to the town and telephone to Gordon,” he said, and his voice was strangely calm.

In a quarter of an hour Ray Bennett jumped off his old bicycle at the door of Maytree Cottage, to tell his grave news.

“The ‘phone line has been cut,” he said tersely. “I’ve ordered a car to be sent up from the garage. We will try to follow the tracks.”

The machine had arrived when the blazing head-lamps of Dick’s car carne into view. Gordon knew the worst before he had sprung to the ground. There was a brief, unemotional consultation. Dick went rapidly through the kitchen and followed the tracks until they came back to the road, to find Elk going slowly along the opposite side, examining the ground with an electric lamp.

“There’s a small wheel track over here,” he said. “Too heavy for a bicycle, too light for a car; looks to me like a motor-cycle.”

“It was a car,” said Dick briefly, “and a very big one.”

He sent Ray and his father to the house to change; insisted on this being done before they moved a step. They came out, wrapped in mackintoshes, and leapt into the car as it was moving.

For five miles the tracks were visible, and then they came to a village. A policeman had seen a car come through “a little time ago”—and a motorcyclist.

“Where was the cyclist?” asked Elk.

“He was behind, about a hundred yards,” said the policeman. “I tried to pull him up because his lamp was out, but he took no notice.”

They went on for another mile, and then struck the hard surface of a newly tarred road, and here all trace of the tracks was lost. Going on for a mile farther, they reached a point where the road broke into three. Two of these were macadamized and showed no wheel tracks; nor did the third, although it had a soft surface, offer any encouragement to follow.

“It is one of these two,” said Dick. “We had better try the right-hand road first.”

The macadam lasted until they reached another village. The road was undergoing repair in the village itself, but the night watchman shook his head when Dick asked him.

“No, sir, no car has passed here for two hours.”

“We must drive back,” said Dick, despair in his heart, and the car spun round and flew at top speed to the juncture of the roads.

Down this they went, and they had not gone far before Dick half leapt at the sight of the red tail-lamp of the machine ahead. His hopes, however, were fated to be dashed. A car had broken down on the side of the road, but the disgruntled driver was able to give them valuable information. A car had passed him three-quarters of an hour before; he described it minutely, had even been able to distinguish its make. The cyclist was driving a Red Indian.

Again the cyclist!

“How far was he behind the car?”

“A good hundred yards I should say,” was the reply.

From now on they received frequent news of the car, but at the second village, the motorcyclist had not been seen, nor at subsequent places where the machine had been identified, was there any reference to a motorcyclist.

It was past midnight when they came up with the machine they were chasing. It stood outside a garage on the Shoreham Road, and Elk was the first to reach it. It was empty and unattended. Inside the garage, the owner of that establishment was busy making room for the last comer.

“Yes, sir, a quarter of an hour ago,” he said, when Elk had produced his authority. “The chauffeur said he was going to find lodgings in the town.”

With the aid of a powerful electric lamp they made an examination of the car’s interior. There was no doubt whatever that Ella had been an inmate. A little ivory pin which John Bennett had given her on her birthday, was found, broken, in a corner of the floor.

“It is not worth while looking for the chauffeur,” said Elk. “Our only chance is that he’ll come back to the garage.”

The local police were called into consultation.

“Shoreham is a very big place,” said the police chief. “If you had luck, you might find your man immediately. If he’s with a gang of crooks, it is more likely that you’ll not find him at all, or that he’ll never come back for the machine.”

One matter puzzled Elk more than any other. It was the disappearance of the motorcyclist. If the story was true, that he had been riding a hundred yards behind and that he had fallen out between two villages, they must have passed him. There were a few cottages on the road, into which he might have turned, but Elk dismissed this possibility.

“We had better go back,” he said. “It is fairly certain that Miss Bennett has been taken out somewhere on the road. The motorcyclist is now the best clue, because she evidently went with him. This cyclist was either the Frog, or one of his men.”

“They disappeared somewhere between Shoreham and Morby,” said Dick. “You know the country about here, Mr. Bennett. Is there any place where they’d be likely to go near Morby?”

“I know the country,” agreed Bennett, “and I’ve been trying to think. There is nothing but a very few houses outside of Morby. Of course, there is Morby Fields, but I can’t imagine Ella being taken there.”

“What are Morby Fields?” asked Dick, as the car went slowly back the way it had come.

“Morby Fields is a disused quarry. The company went into liquidation some years ago,” replied Bennett.

They passed through Morby at snail pace, stopping at the local policeman’s house for any further news which might have been gleaned in their absence. There was, however, nothing fresh.

“You are perfectly certain that you did not see the motorcyclist?”

“I am quite certain, sir,” said the man. “The car was as close to me as I am to you. In fact, I had to step to the pavement to prevent myself being splashed with mud; and there was no motorcyclist. In fact, the impression I had was that the car was empty.”

“Why did you think that?” asked Elk quickly.

“It was riding light, for one thing, and the chauffeur was smoking for another. I always associate a smoking chauffeur with an empty car.”

“Son,” said the admiring Elk, “there are possibilities about you,” and a recruit to Headquarters was noted.

“I’m inclined to agree with that village policeman,” said Dick when they walked back to their machine. “The car was empty when it came through here, and that accounts for the absence of the motorcyclist. It is between Morby and Wellan that we’ve got to look.”

And now they moved at a walking pace. The brackets that held the head-lamps were wrenched round to throw a light upon the ditch and hedge on either side of the road. They had not gone five hundred yards when Elk roared:

“Stop!” and jumped into the roadway.

He was gone a few minutes, and then he called Dick, and the three men went back to where the detective was standing, looking at a big red motor-cycle that stood under the shelter of a crumbling stone wall. They had passed it without observation, for its owner had chosen the other side of the wall, and it was only the gleam of the light on a handlebar which showed just above its screen, that had led to its detection.

Dick ran to the car and backed it so that the wall and machine were visible. The cycle was almost new; it was splattered with mud, and its acetylene head-lamps were cold to the touch. Elk had an inspiration. At the back of the seat was a heavy tool-wallet, attached by a firm strap, and this he began to unfasten.

“If this is a new machine, the maker will have put the name and address of the owner in his wallet,” he said.

Presently the tool-bag was detached, and Elk unstrapped the last fastening and turned back the flap.

“Great Moses!” said Elk.

Neatly painted on the undressed leather was:

“Joshua Broad, 6, Caverley House, Cavendish Square!”

“Walk,” hissed a voice, and she discovered her feet were loosened.

She could see nothing, only she could feel the rain beating down upon the cloth that covered her head, and the strength of the wind against her face. It blew the cloth so tightly over her mouth and nose that she could hardly breathe. Where they were taking her she could only guess. It was not until she felt her feet squelch in liquid mud that she knew she was in the lane by the side of the house. She had hardly identified the place before she was lifted bodily into the waiting car; she heard somebody scrambling in by her side, and the car jerked forward. Then with dexterous hand, one of the men sitting at her side whisked the cloth from her head. Ahead, in one of the two bucket seats, the only one occupied, was a dark figure, the face of which she could not see.