A CALL ON MR. MAITLAND
OUTWARDLY, John Bennett accepted his son’s new life as a very natural
development which might be expected in a young man. Inwardly he was
uneasy, fearful. Ray was his only son; the pride of his life, though
this he never showed. None knew better than John Bennett the snares that
await the feet of independent youth in a great city. Worst of all, for
his peace of mind, he knew Ray.
Ella did not discuss the matter with her father, but she guessed his
trouble and made up her mind as to what action she would take.
The Sunday before, Ray had complained bitterly about the new cut to his
salary. He had been desperate and had talked wildly of throwing up his
work and finding a new place. And that possibility filled Ella with
dismay. The Bennetts lived frugally on a very limited income. Apparently
her father had few resources, though he always gave her the impression
that from one of these he received a fairly comfortable income.
The cottage was Bennett’s own property, and the cost of living was
ridiculously cheap. A woman from the village came in every morning to do
heavy work, and once a week to assist with the wash. That was the only
luxury which her father’s meagre allowance provided for. So that she
faced the prospect of an out-of-work Ray with alarm and decided upon her
line of action.
One morning Johnson, crossing the marble floor of Maitland’s main
office, saw a delicious figure come through the swing doors, and almost
ran to meet it.
“My dear Miss Bennett, this is a wonderful surprise—Ray is out, but if
you’ll wait——”
“I’m glad he is out,” she said, relieved. “I want to see Mr. Maitland.
Is it possible?”
The cheery face of the philosopher clouded.
“I’m afraid that will be difficult,” he said. “The old man never sees
people—even the biggest men in the City. He hates women and strangers,
and although I’ve been with him all these years, I’m not so sure that he
has got used to me! What is it about?”
She hesitated.
“It’s about Ray’s salary,” and then, as he shook his head, she went on
urgently: “It is so important, Mr. Johnson. Ray has extravagant tastes,
and if they cut his salary it means—well, you know Ray so well!”
He nodded.
“I don’t know whether I can do anything,” he said dubiously. “I’ll go up
and ask Mr. Maitland, but I’m afraid that it is a million to one chance
against his seeing you.”
When he came back, the jovial face of Mr. Johnson was one broad smile.
“Come up before he changes his mind,” he said, and led her to the lift.
“You’ll have to do all the talking, Miss Bennett—he’s an eccentric old
cuss and as hard as flint.”
He showed her into a small and comfortably furnished room, and waved his
hand to a writing-table littered with papers.
“My little den,” he explained.
From the “den” a large rosewood door opened upon Mr. Maitland’s office.
Johnson knocked softly, and, with a heart that beat a little faster,
Ella was ushered into the presence of the strange old man who at that
moment was dominating the money market.
The room was large, and the luxury of the fittings took her breath away.
The walls were of rosewood inlaid with exquisite silver inlay. Light
came from concealed lamps in the cornice as well as from the long
stained-glass windows. Each article of furniture in the room was worth a
fortune, and she guessed that the carpet, into which her feet sank,
equalled in costliness the whole contents of an average house.
Behind a vast ormolu writing-table sat the great Maitland, bolt upright,
watching her from under his shaggy white brows. A few stray hairs of his
spotless beard rested on the desk, and as he raised his hand to sweep
them into place, she saw he wore fingerless woollen gloves. His head was
completely bald . . . she looked at his big ears, standing away from his
head, fascinated. Patriarchal, yet repulsive. There was something gross,
obscene, about him that hurt her. It was not the untidiness of his
dress, it was not his years. Age brings refinement, that beauty of decay
that the purists call caducity. This old man had grown old coarsely.
His scrutiny lacked the assurance she expected. It almost seemed that he
was nervous, ill at ease. His gaze shifted from the girl to his
secretary, and then to the rich colouring of the windows, and then
furtively back to Ella again.
“This is Miss Bennett, sir. You remember that Bennett is our exchange
clerk, and a very smart fellow indeed. Miss Bennett wants you to
reconsider your decision about that salary cut.”
“You see, Mr. Maitland,” Ella broke in, “we’re not particularly well
off, and the reduction makes a whole lot of difference to us.”
Mr. Maitland wagged his bald head impatiently.
“I don’t care whether you’re well off or not well off,” he said loudly.
“When I reduces salaries I reduces ’um, see?”
She stared at him in amazement. The voice was harsh and common. The
language and tone were of the gutter. In that sentence he confirmed all
her first impressions.
“If he don’t like it he can go, and if you don’t like it”—he fixed his
dull eyes on the uncomfortable-looking Johnson—“you can go too. There’s
lots of fellers I can get—pick ’um up on the streets! Millions of ’um!
That’s all.” Johnson tiptoed from the presence and closed the door
behind her.
“He’s a horror!” she gasped. “How can you endure contact with him, Mr.
Johnson?”
The stout man smiled quietly.
“‘Millions of ’um,’” he repeated, “and he’s right. With a million and a
half unemployed on the streets, I can’t throw up a good job——”
“I’m sorry,” she said, impulsively putting her hand on his arm. “I
didn’t know he was like that,” she went on more mildly.
“He’s—terrible!”
“He’s a self-made man, and perhaps he would have been well advised to
have got an artisan to do the job,” smiled Johnson, “but he’s not really
bad. I wonder why he saw you?”
“Doesn’t he see people?”
He shook his head.
“Not unless it is absolutely necessary, and that only happens about
twice a year. I don’t think there is anybody in this building that he’s
ever spoken to—not even the managers.”
He took her down to the general office. Ray had not come back.
“The truth is,” confessed Johnson when she asked him, “that Ray hasn’t
been to the office this morning. He sent word to say that he wasn’t
feeling any too good, and I fixed it so that he has a day off.”
“He’s not ill?” she asked in alarm, but Johnson reassured her.
“No. I got on the telephone to him—he has a telephone at his new flat.”
“I thought he had an ordinary apartment!” she said, aghast, the
housewife in her perturbed. “A flat—where is it?”
“In Knightsbridge,” replied Johnson quietly. “Yes, it sounds expensive,
but I believe he has a bargain. A man who was going abroad sub-let it to
him for a song. I suppose he wrote to you from the lodgings in
Bloomsbury where he intended going. May I be candid, Miss Bennett?”
“If it is about Ray, I wish you would,” she answered quickly.
“Ray is rather worrying me,” said Johnson. “Naturally I want to do all
that I can for him, for I am fond of him. At present my job is covering
up his rather frequent absences from the office—you need not mention
this fact to him—but it is rather a strain, for the old man has an
uncanny instinct for a shirker. He is living in better style than he
ought to be able to afford, and I’ve seen him dressed to kill with some
of the swellest people in town—at least, they looked swell.”
The girl felt herself go cold, and the vague unrest in her mind became
instantly a panic.
“There isn’t . . . anything wrong at the office?” she asked anxiously.
“No. I took the liberty of going through his books. They’re square. His
cash account is right to a centimo. Crudely stated, he isn’t
stealing—at least, not from us. There’s another thing. He calls himself
Raymond Lester at Knightsbridge. I found this out by accident, and asked
him why he had taken another name. His explanation was fairly plausible.
He didn’t want Mr. Bennett to hear that he was cutting a shine. He has
some profitable outside work, but he won’t tell me what it is.”
Ella was glad to get away, glad to reach the seclusion which the wide
spaces of the park afforded. She must think and decide upon the course
she would take. Ray was not the kind of boy to accept the draconic
attitude, either in her or in John Bennett. His father must not
know—she must appeal to Ray. Perhaps it was true that he had found a
remunerative sideline. Lots of young men ran spare time work with profit
to themselves—only Ray was not a worker.
She sat down on a park chair to wrestle with the problem, and so intent
was she upon its solution that she did not realize that somebody had
stopped before her.
“This is a miracle!” said a laughing voice, and she looked up into the
blue eyes of Dick Gordon. “And now you can tell me what is the
difficulty?” he asked as he pulled another chair toward her and sat
down.
“Difficulty . . . who . . . who said I was in difficulties?” she
countered.
“Your face is the traitor,” he smiled. “Forgive this attire. I have been
to make an official call at the United States Embassy.”
She noticed for the first time that he wore the punctilious costume of
officialdom, the well-fitting tail-coat, the polished top-hat and
regulation cravat. She observed first of all that he looked very well in
them, and that he seemed even younger.
“I have an idea it is your brother,” he said. “I saw him a few minutes
ago—there he is now.”
She followed the direction of his eyes, and half rose from her chair in
her astonishment. Riding on the tan track which ran parallel to the park
road, were a man and a girl. The man was Ray. He was smartly dressed,
and from the toes of his polished riding-boots to the crown of his grey
hat, was all that was creditable to expensive tailoring. The girl at his
side was young, pretty, petite.
The riders passed without Ray noticing the interested spectators. He was
in his gayest mood, and the sound of his laughter came back to the
dumbfounded girl.
“But . . . I don’t understand—do you know the lady, Mr. Gordon?”
“Very well by repute,” said Dick drily. “Her name is Lola Bassano.”
“Is she—a lady?”
Dick’s eyes twinkled.
“Elk says she’s not, but Elk is prejudiced. She has money and education
and breed. Whether or not these three assets are sufficient to
constitute a lady, I don’t know. Elk says not, but, as I say, Elk is
considerably prejudiced.”
She sat silent, her mind in a whirl.
“I have an idea that you want help . . . about your brother,” said Dick
quietly. “He is frightening you, isn’t he?”
She nodded.
“I thought so. He is puzzling _me_. I know all about him, his salary and
prospects and his queer masquerade under an _alias_. I’m not troubling
about that, because boys love those kinds of mysteries. Unfortunately,
they are expensive mysteries, and I want to know how he can afford to
keep up this suddenly acquired position.”
He mentioned a sum and she gasped.
“It costs all that,” said Dick. “Elk, who has a passion for exact
detail, and who knows to a penny what the riding suit costs, supplied me
with particulars.”
She interrupted him with such a gesture of despair that he felt a brute.
“What can I do . . . what can I do?” she asked. “Everybody wants to
help—you, Mr. Johnson, and, I’m sure, Mr. Elk. But he is
impossible—Ray, I mean. It will be fighting a feather bed. It may seem
absurd to you, so much fuss over Ray’s foolish escapade, but it means,
oh, so much to us, father and me!”
Dick said nothing. It was too delicate a matter for an outsider to
intrude upon. But the real delicacy of the situation was comprised in
the boy’s riding companion. As though guessing his thoughts, she asked
suddenly:
“Is she a nice girl—Miss Bassano? I mean, is she one whom Ray should
know?”
“She is very charming,” he answered after a pause, and she noted the
evasion and carried the subject no farther. Presently she turned the
talk to her call on Ezra Maitland, and he heard her description without
expressing surprise.
“He’s a rough diamond,” he said. “Elk knows something about him which he
refuses to tell. Elk enjoys mystifying his chiefs even more than
detecting criminals. But I’ve heard about Maitland from other sources.”
“Why does he wear gloves in the office?” she asked unexpectedly.
“Gloves—I didn’t know that,” he said, surprised. “Why shouldn’t he?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know . . . it was a silly idea, but I thought—it has only
occurred to me since . . .”
He waited.
“When he put up his hand to smooth his beard, I’m almost sure I saw a
tattoo mark on his left wrist—just the edge of it showing above the end
of the glove—the head and eyes of a frog.”
Dick Gordon listened, thunderstruck.
“Are you sure it wasn’t your imagination, Miss Bennett?” he asked. “I am
afraid the Frog is getting on all our nerves.”
“It may have been,” she nodded; “but I was within a few feet of him, and
a patch of light, reflected from his blotter, caught the wrist for a
second.”
“Did you speak to Johnson about it?”
She shook her head.
“I thought afterwards that even he, with all his long years of service,
might not have observed the tattoo mark. I remember now that Ray told me
Mr. Maitland always wore gloves, summer or winter.”
Dick was puzzled. It was unlikely that this man, the head of a great
financial corporation, should be associated with a gang of tramps. And
yet——
“When is your brother going to Horsham?” he asked.
“On Sunday,” said the girl. “He has promised father to come to lunch.”
“I suppose,” said the cunning young man, “that it isn’t possible to ask
me to be a fourth?”
“You will be a fifth,” she smiled. “Mr. Johnson is coming down too. Poor
Mr. Johnson is scared of father, and I think the fear is mutual. Father
resembles Maitland in that respect, that he does not like strangers.
I’ll invite you anyway,” she said, and the prospect of the Sunday
meeting cheered her.
Elk came to see him that night, just as he was going out to a theatre,
and Dick related the girl’s suspicion. To his surprise, Elk took the
startling theory very coolly.
“It’s possible,” he said, “but it’s more likely that the tattoo mark
isn’t a frog at all. Old Maitland was a seaman as a boy—at least, that
is what the only biography of him in existence says. It’s a half-column
that appeared in a London newspaper about twelve years ago, when he
bought up Lord Meister’s place on the Embankment and began to enlarge
his offices. I’ll tell you this, Mr. Gordon, that I’m quite prepared to
believe anything of old Maitland.”
“Why?” asked Dick in astonishment. He knew nothing of the discoveries
which the detective had made.
“Because I just should,” said Elk. “Men who make millions are not
ordinary. If they were ordinary they wouldn’t be millionaires. I’ll
inquire about that tattoo mark.”
Dick’s attention was diverted from the Frogs that week by an unusual
circumstance. On the Tuesday he was sent for by the Foreign Minister’s
secretary, and, to his surprise, he was received personally by the
august head of that department. The reason for this signal honour was
disclosed.
“Captain Gordon,” said the Minister, “I am expecting from France the
draft commercial treaty that is to be signed as between ourselves and
the French and Italian Governments. It is very important that this
document should be well guarded because—and I tell you this in
confidence—it deals with a revision of tariff rates. I won’t compromise
you by telling you in what manner the revisions are applied, but it is
essential that the King’s Messenger who is bringing the treaty should be
well guarded, and I wish to supplement the ordinary police protection by
sending you to Dover to meet him. It is a little outside your duties,
but your Intelligence work during the war must be my excuse for saddling
you with this responsibility. Three members of the French and Italian
secret police will accompany him to Dover, when you and your men will
take on the guard duty, and remain until you personally see the document
deposited in my own safe.”
Like many other important duties, this proved to be wholly unexciting.
The Messenger was picked up on the quay at Dover, shepherded into a
Pullman coupé which had been reserved for him, and the passage-way
outside the coupé was patrolled by two men from Scotland Yard. At
Victoria a car, driven by a chauffeur-policeman and guarded by armed
men, picked up the Messenger and Dick, and drove them to Calden Gardens.
In his library the Foreign Secretary examined the seals carefully, and
then, in the presence of Dick and the Detective-Inspector who had
commanded the escort, placed the envelope in the safe.
“I don’t suppose for one moment,” said the Foreign Minister with a
smile, after all the visitors but Dick had departed, “that our friends
the Frogs are greatly interested. Yet, curiously enough, I had them in
my mind, and this was responsible for the extraordinary precautions we
have taken. There is, I suppose, no further clue in the Genter murder?”
“None, sir—so far as I know. Domestic crime isn’t really in my
department. And any kind of crime does not come to the Public Prosecutor
until the case against an accused person is ready to be presented.”
“It is a pity,” said Lord Farmley. “I could wish that the matter of the
Frogs was not entirely in the hands of Scotland Yard. It is so out of
the ordinary, and such a menace to society, that I should feel more
happy if some extra department were controlling the investigations.”
Dick Gordon might have said that he was itching to assume that control,
but he refrained. His lordship fingered his shaven chin thoughtfully. He
was an austere man of sixty, delicately featured, as delicately
wrinkled, the product of that subtle school of diplomacy which is at
once urbane and ruthless, which slays with a bow, and is never quite so
dangerous as when it is most polite.
“I will speak to the Prime Minister,” he said. “Will you dine with me,
Captain Gordon?”
Early in the next afternoon, Dick Gordon was summoned to Downing Street,
and was informed that a special department had been created to deal
exclusively with this social menace.
“You have _carte blanche_, Captain Gordon. I may be criticized for
giving you this appointment, but I am perfectly satisfied that I have
the right man,” said the Prime Minister; “and you may employ any officer
from Scotland Yard you wish.”
“I’ll take Sergeant Elk,” said Dick promptly, and the Prime Minister
looked dubious.
“That is not a very high rank,” he demurred.
“He is a man with thirty years’ service,” said Dick; “and I believe that
only his failure in the educational test has stopped his further
promotion. Let me have him, sir, and give him the temporary rank of
Inspector.”
The older man laughed.
“Have it your own way,” he said.
Sergeant Elk, lounging in to report progress that afternoon, was greeted
by a new title. For a while he was dazed, and then a slow smile dawned
on his homely face.
“I’ll bet I’m the only inspector in England who doesn’t know where Queen
Elizabeth is buried!” he said, not without pride.