FROG
THERE is a happiness which has no parallel in life—the happiness which
comes when a dear one is restored. Ray Bennett sat by his father’s
chair, and was content to absorb the love and tenderness which made the
room radiant. It seemed like a dream to be back in this cosy
sitting-room with its cretonnes, its faint odour of lavender, the wide
chimney-place, the leaded windows, and Ella, most glorious vision of
all. The rainstorm that lashed the window-panes gave the comfort and
peace of his home a new and a more beautiful value. From time to time he
fingered his shaven face absently. It was the only sure evidence to him
that he was awake and that this experience belonged to the world of
reality.
“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 Windsor 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.
“_For all the blessings we have received this day, may the Lord make us
truly thankful!_”
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 coming 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 lantern, 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; the 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 came
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
motor-cyclist.
“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 motor-cyclist had not been seen, nor at subsequent places
where the machine had been identified, was there any reference to a
motor-cyclist.
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 motor-cyclist. 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 motor-cyclist 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 motor-cyclist?”
“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 motor-cyclist. 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 motor-cyclist. 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!”