IN ELSHAM WOOD
DICK GORDON, in the sudden lightening of his heart which had come to him
when he realized that his horrible fears were without foundation, was
inclined to regard the night as having been well spent. This was not
Elk’s view. He was genuinely grave as they drove back to headquarters.
“I’m frightened of these Frogs, and I admit it,” he confessed. “There’s
a bad leakage somewhere—how should she know that I put Balder in with
Hagn? That has staggered me. Nobody but two men, in addition to
ourselves, is in the secret; and if the Frogs are capable of getting
that kind of news, it is any odds on Hagn knowing that he is being
drawn. They frighten me, I tell you, Captain Gordon. If they only knew a
little, and hadn’t got that quite right, I should be worried. But they
know everything!”
Dick nodded.
“The whole trouble, Elk, is that the Frogs are not an illegal
association. It may be necessary to ask the Prime Minister to proclaim
the society.”
“Perhaps he’s a Frog too,” said Elk gloomily. “Don’t laugh, Captain
Gordon! There are big people behind these Frogs. I’m beginning to
suspect everybody.”
“Start by suspecting me,” said Gordon good-humouredly.
“I have,” was the frank reply. “Then it occurred to me that possibly I
walk in my sleep—I used to as a boy. Likely I lead a double life, and I
am a detective by day and a Frog by night—you never know. It is clear
that there is a genius at the back of the Frogs,” he went on, with
unconscious immodesty.
“Lola Bassano?” suggested Dick.
“I’ve thought of her, but she’s no organizer. She had a company on the
road when she was nineteen, and it died the death from bad organization.
I suppose you think that that doesn’t mean she couldn’t run the
Frogs—but it does. You want exactly the same type of intelligence to
control the Frogs as you want to control a bank. Maitland is the man. I
narrowed the circle down to him after I had a talk with Johnson. Johnson
says he’s never seen the old man’s pass-book, and although he is his
private secretary, knows nothing whatever of his business transactions
except that he buys property and sells it. The money old Maitland makes
on the side never appears in the books, and Johnson was a very surprised
man when I suggested that Maitland transacted any business at all
outside the general routine of the company. And it’s not a company at
all—not an incorporated company. It’s a one man show. Would you like to
make sure, Captain Gordon?”
“Sure of what?” asked Dick, startled.
“That Miss Bennett isn’t in this at all.”
“You don’t think for one moment she is?” asked Dick, aghast at the
thought.
“I’m prepared to believe anything,” said Elk. “We’ve got a clear road;
we could be at Horsham in an hour, and it is our business to make sure.
In my mind I’m perfectly satisfied that it was not Miss Bennett’s voice.
But when we come down to writing out reports for the people upstairs to
read” (‘the people upstairs’ was Elk’s invariable symbol for his
superiors) “we are going to look silly if we say that we heard Miss
Bennett’s voice and didn’t trouble to find out where Miss Bennett was.”
“That is true,” said Dick thoughtfully, and, leaning out to the driver,
Elk gave new directions.
The grey of dawn was in the sky as the car ran through the deserted
streets of Horsham and began the steady climb toward Maytree Cottage,
which lay on the slope of the Shoreham Road.
The cottage showed no signs of life. The blinds were drawn; there was no
light of any kind. Dick hesitated, with his hand on the gate.
“I don’t like waking these people,” he confessed. “Old Bennett will
probably think that I’ve brought some bad news about his son.”
“I have no conscience,” said Elk, and walked up the brick path.
But John Bennett required no waking. Elk was hailed from one of the
windows above, and, looking up, saw the mystery man leaning with his
elbows on the window-sill.
“What’s the trouble, Elk?” he asked in a low voice, as though he did not
wish to awaken his daughter.
“No trouble at all,” said Elk cheerfully. “We picked up a wireless
telephone message in the night, and I’m under the impression that it was
your daughter’s voice I heard.”
John Bennett frowned, and Dick saw that he doubted the truth of this
explanation.
“It is perfectly true, Mr. Bennett,” he said. “I heard the voice too. We
were listening in for a rather important message, and we heard Miss
Bennett in circumstances which make it necessary for us to assure
ourselves that it was not she who was speaking.”
The cloud passed from John Bennett’s face.
“That’s a queer sort of story, Captain Gordon, but I believe you. I’ll
come down and let you in.”
Wearing an old dressing-gown, he opened the door and ushered them into
the darkened sitting-room.
“I’ll call Ella, and perhaps she’ll be able to satisfy you that she was
in bed at ten o’clock last night.”
He went out of the room, after drawing the curtains to let in the light,
and Dick waited with a certain amount of pleasurable anticipation. He
had been only too glad of the excuse to come to Horsham, if the truth be
told. This girl had so gripped his heart that the days between their
meetings seemed like eternity. They heard the feet of Bennett on the
stairs, and presently the old man came in, and distress was written
largely on his face.
“I can’t understand it,” he said. “Ella is not in her room! The bed has
been slept in, but she has evidently dressed and gone out.”
Elk scratched his chin, avoiding Dick’s eyes.
“A lot of young people like getting up early,” he said. “When I was a
young man, nothing gave me greater pleasure than to see the sun
rise—before I went to bed. Is she in the habit of taking a morning
stroll?”
John Bennett shook his head.
“I’ve never known her to do that before. It’s curious I did not hear
her, because I slept very badly last night. Will you excuse me,
gentlemen?”
He went upstairs and came down in a few minutes, dressed. Together they
passed out into the garden. It was now quite light, though the sun had
not yet tipped the horizon. John Bennett made a brief but fruitless
search of the ground behind the cottage, and came back to them with a
confession of failure. He was no more troubled than Dick Gordon. It was
impossible that it could have been she, that Elk was mistaken. Yet Lola
had been emphatic. Against that, the hall-porter at Caverley House had
been equally certain that the only visitor to Lola’s flat that night was
the aged Mr. Maitland; and so far as he knew, or Elk had been able to
discover, there was no other entrance into the building.
“I see you have a car here. You came down by road. Did you pass
anybody?”
Dick shook his head.
“Do you mind if we take the car in the opposite direction toward
Shoreham?”
“I was going to suggest that,” said Gordon. “Isn’t it rather dangerous
for her, walking at this hour? The roads are thronged with tramps.”
The older man made no reply. He sat with the driver, his eyes fixed
anxiously upon the road ahead. The car went ten miles at express speed,
then turned, and began a search of the side roads. Nearing the cottage
again, Dick pointed.
“What is that wood?” he asked pointing to a dense wood to which a narrow
road led.
“That is Elsham Wood; she wouldn’t go there,” he hesitated.
“Let us try it,” said Dick, and the bonnet of the car was turned on to a
narrow road. In a few minutes they were running through a glade of high
trees, the entwining tops of which made the road a place of gloom.
“There are car tracks here,” said Dick suddenly, but John Bennett shook
his head.
“People come here for picnics,” he said, but Dick was not satisfied.
These marks were new, and presently he saw them turn off the road to a
‘ride’ between the trees. He caught no glimpse of a car, however. The
direction of the tracks supported the old man’s theory. The road ended a
mile farther along, and beyond that was a waste of bracken and tree
stumps, for the wood had been extensively thinned during the war.
With some difficulty the car was turned and headed back again. They came
through the glade into the open, and then Dick uttered a cry.
John Bennett had already seen the girl. She was walking quickly in the
centre of the road, and stepped on to the grassy border without looking
round as the car came abreast of her. Then, looking up, she saw her
father, and went pale.
He was in the road in a moment.
“My dear,” he said reproachfully, “where have you been at this hour?”
She looked frightened, Dick thought. The eyes of Elk narrowed as he
surveyed her.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I dressed and went out, father,” she said, and
nodded to Dick. “You’re a surprising person, Captain Gordon. Why are you
here at this hour?”
“I came to interview you,” said Dick, forcing a smile.
“Me!” She was genuinely astonished. “Why me?”
“Captain Gordon heard your voice on a wireless telephone in the middle
of the night, and wanted to know all about it,” said her father.
If he was relieved, he was also troubled. Looking at him, Elk suddenly
saw the relief intensified, and with his quick intuition guessed the
cause before John Bennett put the question.
“Was it Ray?” he asked eagerly. “Did he come down?”
She shook her head.
“No, father,” she said quietly. “And as to the wireless telephone, I
have never spoken into a wireless telephone, and I don’t think I’ve ever
seen one,” she said.
“Of course you haven’t,” said Dick. “Only we were rather worried when we
heard your voice, but Mr. Elk’s explanation, that it was somebody
speaking whose voice was very much like yours, is obviously correct.”
“Tell me this, Miss Bennett,” said Elk quietly. “Were you in town last
night?”
She did not reply.
“My daughter went to bed at ten,” said John Bennett roughly. “What is
the sense of asking her whether she was in London last night?”
“Were you in town in the early hours of this morning, Miss Bennett?”
persisted Elk, and to Dick’s amazement she nodded.
“Were you at Caverley House?”
“No,” she answered instantly.
“But, Ella, what were you doing in town?” asked John Bennett. “Did you
go to see that wretched brother of yours?”
Again the hesitation, and then:
“No.”
“Did you go by yourself?”
“No,” said Ella, and her lip trembled. “I wish you wouldn’t ask me any
further questions. I’m not a free agent in the matter. Daddy, you’ve
always trusted me: you’ll trust me now, won’t you?”
He took her hand and held it in both of his.
“I’ll trust you always, girlie,” he said; “and these gentlemen must do
the same.”
Her challenging eyes met Dick’s, and he nodded.
“I am one who will share that trust,” he said, and something in her look
rewarded him.
Elk rubbed his chin fiercely.
“Being naturally of a trusting nature, I should no more think of
doubting your word, Miss Bennett, than I should of believing myself.” He
looked at his watch. “I think we’ll go along and fetch poor old Balder
from the house of sin,” he said.
“You’ll stop and have some breakfast?”
Dick looked pleadingly at Elk, and the detective, with an air of
resignation, agreed.
“Anyway, Balder won’t mind an hour more or less,” he said.
Whilst Ella was preparing the breakfast, Dick and Elk paced the road
outside.
“Well, what do you think of it, Captain?”
“I don’t understand, but I have every confidence that Miss Bennett has
not lied,” said Dick.
“Faith is a wonderful thing,” murmured Elk, and Dick turned on him
sharply.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what I say. I have got faith in Miss Bennett,” he said
soothingly; “and, after all, she’s only another little bit of the jigsaw
puzzle that will fall into place when we fix the piece that’s shaped
like a Frog. And John Bennett’s another,” he said after a moment’s
thought.
From where they stood they could see, looking toward Shoreham, the
opening of the narrow Elsham Wood road.
“The thing that puzzles me,” Elk was saying, “is why she should go into
that wood in the middle of the night——” He stopped, lowering his head.
There came to them the soft purr of a motor-car. “Where is that?” he
asked.
The question was answered instantly. Slowly there came into view from
the wood road the bonnet of a car, followed immediately by the remainder
of a large limousine, which turned toward them, gathering speed as it
came. A moment later it flashed past them, and they saw the solitary
occupant.
“Well, I’m damned!” said Elk, who very infrequently indulged in
profanity, but Dick felt that on this occasion at least he was
justified. For the man in the limousine was the bearded Ezra Maitland;
and he knew that it was to see Maitland that the girl had gone to Elsham
Wood.