you, in the darkness I found a girl just off the path in Welling Wood.
She appealed to me to save her, and a few moments later she died in my
arms. Then I rushed across here to raise the alarm, when, all of a
sudden, I saw a bright red flash, and I knew no more till I awoke in the
little hospital at Pangbourne."
"But, my dear Roddy, the police searched the wood to find you--searched
every inch of it--but there was no girl there. If she were dead she
would surely have been found."
"I was taken away unconscious. If so, what could have prevented the
assassin and his friends--for there must have been more than one
person--removing the evidence of their crime?"
"Assassin!" gasped the old man, drawing a deep breath. Thoughts of
Gordon Gray and the handsome Freda crossed his mind. But what hand
could they have had in the death of an unknown girl in the woods at the
rear of the Rectory?
No. He decided that Roddy, in his unbalanced state of mind, was filled
with wild imaginings. The description of the red ball of fire was
sufficient in itself to show how disordered was his brain. The poor boy
was suffering from hallucinations, he decided, so he humoured him and
listened as he repeated his incredible story.
"You would recognise the girl again, Roddy?" asked his father, puffing
at his pipe.
"Recognise her! Of course I should. I'd know her anywhere!" And once
again he went into a long and detailed description of her face, her
eyes, her hair, and her dress.
The short December afternoon was drawing in and the light was fading.
"I think, Roddy, that if I were you I'd go and lie down," said his
father softly. "Your poor head worries you--I know, my dear boy."
"It does. But I can think now--think quite clearly," was the young
man's reply. "At the hospital the matron regarded me as a half-dazed
idiot, I believe, and the nurse listened to me as she might listen to a
baby's babbling. But I tell you, father, I'm now perfectly in my right
mind. You may believe, or you may disbelieve my story, but Roddy, your
son, has told you the truth, and he repeats every word he has said."
For a few moments the rector was silent, his pipe still in his mouth and
his hands in the pockets of the easy old black jacket he wore in the
house. He was not a man who made any outward show, and, like most
scholars, cared little for dress now that, alas! his wife, who had
looked after him so tenderly, was dead. Old Norton Homfray was of
simple tastes and few wants. His whole soul was in the welfare of his
parish, and in consequence the parish held him up as a real fine old
fellow.
"Well, Roddy, what you've told me is, of course, most astounding--almost
incredible. On that night you walked home with Miss Sandys--eh? She
came here and told me so herself."
"She came here! Elma here!" cried Roddy, quickly stirring himself from
his chair and becoming alert. "What did she say?"
"She heard that you were missing, and she came to tell me of her walk
home to the Towers with you."
"Yes. And--and what did she say about me?" the young man asked with
quick eagerness.
"Nothing. Only she seemed greatly surprised and upset," his father
replied. "But--well--"
And he hesitated.
"Well--go on," the young man said.
"Well, look here, Roddy, after leaving Miss Sandys, did you meet anyone
else--a man in the Guildford road?"
"A man? No. Why? Haven't I told you I walked straight home? What are
you trying to make out?"
"You are quite certain that you did not stop and speak with any stranger
in the Guildford road?"
"I am quite certain that I did not. I spoke to nobody till I found the
girl dying in Welling Wood."
"And--well, now let me at once be frank with you, Roddy: have you ever
in your life heard the name of Gordon Gray?"
"Never. Who is he?"
"No matter. Recollect the name, and if you ever hear it, avoid him--
avoid him, my boy, as you would Satan himself. And his woman friend
Freda Crisp."
"Freda Crisp? Oh! I fancy I've met her--been introduced to her
somewhere or other about a year ago. In South America, I believe, but I
really can't remember. A fine handsome woman, who always dresses
beautifully, and who is a topping dancer. Always has lots of men about
her. Yes. I have a recollection of her, but I don't just now recall
where we met. In travelling I meet so many people, dad, as you know."
"Yes, of course, my boy; but if you ever meet her again, remember my
words."
"That Miss Sandys should come and see you, dad, is peculiar. Why did
she come? What interest can she possibly have in me, except--well,
perhaps it is the wireless. She told me she was very interested in it,
and possibly she has heard that I'm an experimenter--eh?"
"Probably so," laughed the old clergyman. "But hearing you were coming
home to-day, she sent me a message to say that she is calling here at
five."
"Jolly good of her!" replied the young man, suddenly raising his head,
which seemed to be bursting, "It's now nearly four. I think I'll go up
and have a lie down till she comes," and so saying he ascended the
stairs to his own room.
Just before five o'clock Elma Sandys, a dainty figure in furs, was
ushered into the study by Mrs Bentley, and was greeted by the rector,
who, shaking her hand, said:
"It's really awfully kind of you to come and see my poor son, Miss
Sandys. Frankly, I hardly know what to make of him. His mind seems
entirely upset in some way. He talks wildly, and tells me of some
terrible tragedy which occurred in Welling Wood on the night of his
disappearance."
"Tragedy! What?" asked the girl quickly.
"He will tell you all about it. The story is a very strange one. I
would rather he told you himself."
The girl sank into the wide wicker arm-chair which the old man pulled up
to the fire, and then he left to summon his son.
When Roddy entered the room Elma, jumping up, saw instantly that he
seemed still half-dazed. She took his hand and instinctively realised
that his gaze was fixed and strange. His friend Denton had seen him
soon after his return, and declared him to foe suffering from some
potent drug which had apparently affected him mentally.
"Hulloa, Miss Sandys?" exclaimed the young man cheerily. "Well! I'm in
a pretty pickle--as you see--eh? What's happened I can't make out.
People seem to think I'm not quite in my right senses," and then,
grinning, he added: "Perhaps I'm not--and perhaps I am."
"But, Mr Homfray, I've been awfully worried about you," the girl said,
facing him and gazing again into his pale drawn face. "You disappeared,
and we had an awful shock, all of us. You left me at the end of the
avenue and nobody saw you again!"
"Well," said the young fellow, with a sorry attempt at laughing,
"somebody must have seen me, no doubt, or I shouldn't have been found in
this precious state. What happened to me I haven't the slightest
notion. You see, I came up the village and went on through Welling
Wood, and--well, as I went along I heard a strange cry, and in the
darkness found a girl lying, under a tree. I went to her, and as I did
so, she cried out to me to save her. The whole affair was unusual,
wasn't it? I bent and took her up, and--the poor girl sank in my arms."
"Sank? Did she die?" asked the great financier's daughter.
"Yes, she did."
The rector, who stood near his writing-table, exchanged glances with
their pretty visitor. They were meaning glances. Old Mr Homfray was
somewhat puzzled why the daughter of Purcell Sandys should be so deeply
interested in his son. Yet, of course, young people will be ever young
people, and deep pockets are of no account where Love is concerned.
Love and Lucre have now happily been divorced in our post-war get ahead
world.
"But tell me, Mr Homfray, what was she like? Who could she be to be in
Welling Wood at that hour?"
"Ah! I don't know," was the young fellow's half-dazed reply. "I only
know what happened to me, how I dashed away to reach home and raise the
alarm, and suddenly saw what appeared to be a ball of fire before me.
Then I knew no more till I found myself in hospital at Pangbourne. A
man, they say, found me lying near the towing-path by the Thames. I was
in the long grass--left there to die, Doctor Maynard believes."
"But you must have been in somebody's hands for days," his father
remarked.
"Yes," said the young man, "I know. Though I can recollect nothing at
all--distinctly. Some incidents seem to be coming back to me. I have
just a faint idea of two persons--a man and a woman. They were
well-dressed and lived in a big old house. And--and they made me do
something. Ah! I--I can't recall it, only--only I know that the
suggestion horrified me!" And he gave vent to a strange cry and his
eyes glared with terror at the recollection. "Ah! the--the brutes--they
forced me to--to do something--to--"
"To do what?" asked the girl, taking his hand softly and looking into
his pale, drawn face.
"It is all a strange misty kind of recollection," he declared, staring
stonily in front of him. "I can see them--yes! I can see both of
them--the woman--she--yes!--she held my hand while--she guided my hand
when I did it!"
"Did what?" asked Elma in a slow, calm voice, as though trying to soothe
him.
"I--I--I can't recollect! Only--only he died!"
"Died! Who died?" gasped the old rector, who at the mention of the man
and the woman at once wondered again whether Gordon Gray and Freda Crisp
were in any way implicated. "You surely did not commit--murder!"
The young man seated in his chair sat for a few seconds, silent and
staring.
"Murder! I--yes, I saw him! I would recognise him. Murder, perhaps--
oh, perhaps I--I killed him! That woman made me do it!"
The rector and the pretty daughter of Purcell Sandys exchanged glances.
Roddy was no doubt still under the influence of some terrible, baneful
drug. Was his mind wandering, or was there some grain of truth in those
misty, horrifying recollections?
"I'm thirsty," he said a moment later; "very thirsty."
His father went out at once to obtain a glass of water, whereupon Elma,
advancing closely to the young man, drew from her little bag a
photograph.
"Hush! Mr Homfray! Don't say a word. But look at this! Do you
recognise it?" she whispered in breathless anxiety.
He glanced at it as she held it before his bewildered eyes.
"Why--yes!" he gasped, staring at her in blank amazement. "That's--
that's the girl I found in Welling Wood!"
CHAPTER SEVEN.
THE GIRL NAMED EDNA.
"Hush!" cried Elma. "Say nothing at present." And next instant the old
rector re-entered with a glass of water which his son drank with
avidity.
Then he sat staring straight into the fire without uttering a word.
"Is your head better?" asked the girl a moment later; and she slipped
the photograph back into her bag.
"Yes, just a little better. But it still aches horribly," Roddy
replied. "I'm anxious to get to that spot in the wood."
"To-morrow," his father promised. "It's already dark now. And
to-morrow you will be much better."
"And I'll come with you," Miss Sandys volunteered. "The whole affair is
certainly most mysterious."
"Yes. Neither Denton nor the doctor at Pangbourne can make out the
nature of the drug that was given to me. It seems to have upset the
balance of my brain altogether. But I recollect that house--the man and
the woman and--and how she compelled me to do her bidding to--"
"To what?" asked the girl.
The young mining engineer drew a long breath and shook his head
despairingly.
"I hardly know. Things seem to be going round. When I try to recall it
I become bewildered."
"Then don't try to remember," urged his father in a sympathetic voice.
"Remain quiet, my boy, and you will be better to-morrow."
The young fellow looked straight at the sweet-faced girl standing beside
his chair. He longed to ask her how she became possessed of that
photograph--to ask the dead girl's name. But she had imposed silence
upon him.
"We will go together to the spot to-morrow, Miss Sandys," he said.
"People think I'm telling a fairy story about the girl. But I assure
you I'm not. I held her in my arms and stroked her hair from her face.
I remember every incident of that tragic discovery."
"Very well," said the girl. "I'll be here at ten o'clock, and we will
go together. Now remain quiet and rest," she urged with an air of
solicitude. "Don't worry about anything--about anything whatever," she
added with emphasis. "We shall clear up this mystery and bring your
enemies to book without a doubt."
And with that Roddy Homfray had to be satisfied, for a few moments later
she buttoned up her warm fur coat and left, while old Mrs Bentley went
upstairs and prepared his bed.
His friend Denton called again after he had retired, and found him much
better.
"You're pulling round all right, Roddy," he laughed. "You'll be your
old self again in a day or two. But what really happened to you seems a
complete enigma. You evidently fell into very bad hands for they gave
you a number of injections--as your arm shows. But what they
administered I can't make out. They evidently gave you something which
acted on your brain and muddled it, while at the same time you were
capable of physical action, walking, and perhaps talking quite
rationally."
Then Roddy told his chum the doctor of the weird but misty recollections
which from time to time arose within him of having been compelled to act
as the handsome woman had directed. Exactly what he did he could not
recall--except that he felt certain that while beneath the woman's
influence he had committed some great and terrible crime.
"Bah! my dear Roddy?" laughed Denton as he sat beside the other's bed.
"Your nerves are all wrong and awry. After those mysterious doses
you've had no wonder you're upset, and your imagination has grown so
vivid."
"I tell you it isn't imagination!" cried Roddy in quick protest. "I
know that the whole thing sounds utterly improbable, but--well, perhaps
to-morrow--perhaps to-morrow I can give you some proof."
"Of what!"
"Of the identity of the girl I found dying in Welling Wood."
Hubert Denton smiled incredulously, and patting his friend upon the
shoulder, said:
"All right, my dear fellow. Go to sleep. A good rest will do you a lot
of good. I'll see you in the morning."
The doctor left and Roddy Homfray, tired and exhausted after an exciting
day, dropped off to sleep--a sleep full of strange, fantastic dreams in
which the sweet calm face of Elma Sandys appeared ever and anon.
Next morning at about nine o'clock, when Roddy awakened to find the
weather bright and crisp, he called his father, and said:
"I don't want Inspector Freeman to know about what I've told you--about
the girl in Welling Wood."
"Certainly not," replied the quiet old rector reassuringly. "That is
your own affair. They found nothing when they searched the wood for
you."
"Perhaps they didn't look in the right spot," remarked his son. "Elma
will be here at ten, and we'll go together--alone--you don't mind,
father?"
"Not in the least, my boy," laughed the old man. "Miss Sandys seems
deeply distressed concerning you."
"Does she?" asked Roddy, with wide-open eyes. "Do you really think she
is? Or is it the mystery of the affair which appeals to her. Mystery
always appeals to women in a greater sense than to men. Every mystery
case in the newspapers is read by ten women to one man, they say."
"Perhaps. But I think Miss Sandys evinces a real interest in you,
Roddy, because you are ill and the victim of mysterious circumstances,"
he said.
Over the old man's mind rested the shadow of that unscrupulous pair,
Gray and the woman Crisp. Had they done some of their devil's work upon
his beloved son? He had forgiven them their threats and their
intentions, but he remained calm to wait, to investigate, and to point
the finger of denunciation against them if their villainy were proved.
At ten o'clock Elma Sandys arrived upon her motorcycle, which she
constantly used for short distances when alone. Though in the garage
her father had two big cars, and she had her own smart little two-seater
in which she frequently ran up to London and back, yet she enjoyed her
cycle, which she used with a fearlessness begotten of her practice
during the war when she had acted as a driver in the Air Force at
Oxford--one of the youngest who had taken service, be it said.
As soon as she arrived she helped Roddy into his coat, and both went
down the Rectory garden, climbed the fence, walked across the paddock,
and at last entered the wood with its brown frosted bracken and thick
evergreen undergrowth. Through the half-bare branches, for the weather
had been mild, the blue sky shone, though the wintry sun was not yet up,
and as Roddy led the way carefully towards the footpath, he warned his
pretty companion to have a care as there were a number of highly
dangerous but concealed holes from which gravel had been dug fifty years
or so ago, the gulfs being now covered with the undergrowth.
Scarcely had he spoken ere she stumbled and narrowly escaped being
precipitated into a hole in which water showed deep below through the
tangled briars.
Soon they reached the footpath along which he had gone in the darkness
on that fatal Sunday night. He paused to take his bearings. He
recognised the thick, stout trunk of a high Scotch fir, the only one in
the wood. His flash-lamp had shone upon it, he remembered, just at the
moment when he had heard the woman's cries.
He halted, reflected for a few moments, and then struck out into the
undergrowth, confident that he was upon the spot where the unknown girl
had sunk dying into his arms. Elma, who watched, followed him. He
scarcely spoke, so fully absorbed was he in his quest.
At last he crossed some dead and broken bracken, and said:
"Here! This is where I found her!"
His pretty companion halted at his side and gazed about her. There was
nothing save a tangle of undergrowth and dead ferns. Above were high
bare oaks swaying slowly in the wintry wind.
"Well," said Elma at last. "There's nothing here, is there?"
He turned and looked her straight in the face, his expression very
serious.
"No. There is nothing, I admit. Nothing! And yet a great secret lies
here. Here, this spot, remote from anywhere, was the scene of a
mysterious tragedy. You hold one clue, Elma--and I the other." And
again he looked straight into her eyes, while standing on that very spot
where the fair-haired girl had breathed her last in his arms, and then,
after a few seconds' silence, he went on: "Elma! I--I call you by your
Christian name because I feel that you have my future at heart, and--and
I, on my part--I love you! May I call you by your Christian name?"
She returned his look very gravely. Her fine eyes met his, but he never
wavered. Since that first day when Tweedles, her little black
Pomeranian, had snapped at him she had been ever in his thoughts. He
could not disguise the fact. Yet, after all, it was a very foolish
dream, he had told himself dozens of times. He was poor--very poor--a
mere adventurer on life's troublous waters--while she was the daughter
of a millionaire with, perhaps, a peeress' career before her.
"Roddy," at last she spoke, "I call you that! I think of you as Roddy,"
she said slowly, looking straight into his eyes. "But in this matter we
are very serious--both of us--eh?"
"Certainly we are, Elma," he replied, taking her hand passionately.
She withdrew it at once, saying:
"You have brought me here for a purpose--to find traces of--of the girl
who died at this spot. Where are the traces?"
"Well, the bracken is trodden down, as you see," he replied.
"But surely that is no evidence of what you allege?"
"No, Elma. But that photograph which you showed me last night is a
picture of her."
The girl smiled mysteriously.
"You say so. How am I to know? They say that you are unfortunately
suffering from delusions. In that case sight of any photograph would
possibly strike a false chord in your memory."
"False chord!" he cried. "Do you doubt this morning that I am in my
sane senses? Do you doubt that which I have just said, Elma--do you
doubt that I love you?"
The girl's cheeks flushed instantly at his words. Next second they were
pale again.
"No," she said. "Please don't let us talk of love, Mr Homfray."
"Roddy--call me that."
"Well--yes, Roddy, if you like."
"I do like. You told me that you thought of me as Roddy. Can you never
love me?" he implored.
The girl held her breath. Her heart was beating quickly and her eyes
were turned away. She let him take her gloved hand and raise it
fervently to his lips. Then, without answering his question, she turned
her splendid eyes to his and he saw in them a strange, mysterious
expression such as he had never noticed in the eyes of any woman before.
He thought it was a look of sympathy and trust, but a moment later it
seemed as though she doubted him--she was half afraid of him.
"Elma!" he cried, still holding her hand. "Tell me--tell me that you
care for me a little--just a little!" And he gazed imploringly into her
pale face.
"A little!" she echoed softly. "Perhaps--well, perhaps I do, Roddy.
But--but do not let us speak of it now--not until you are better."
"Ah! You do love me a little," he cried with delight, again raising her
hand to his lips. "Perhaps you think I've not recovered from that
infernal drug which my unknown enemies gave me. But I declare that
to-day I am in my full senses--all except my memory--which is still
curiously at fault."
"Let us agree to be very good friends, Roddy," the girl said, pressing
his hand. "I confess that I like you very much," she admitted, "but
love is quite another matter. We have not known each other very long,
remember."
"Sufficiently long for me to know that I love you truly, and most
dearly, Elma," the young man declared with keen enthusiasm.
Then the girl sighed, withdrew her hand, and begged of him to drop the
subject.
"I have told you that I care for you just a little, Roddy," she said.
"For the present let that suffice."
She was obdurate, refusing to discuss the matter further. Instead, she
began to question him closely concerning the events of that fatal night.
Again he repeated them, just as they have been recorded in the foregoing
pages.
"Then it is evident that you were watched," she remarked. "Whoever was
responsible for the crime attacked you by some secret means. Then both
of you were taken away."
"By whom? To where? That's the mystery!" Roddy echoed blankly.
"A mystery which must be fathomed. And I will help you," she said
quietly.
"You know the identity of the poor girl," he said. "How did you come by
her photograph?" he asked, a question he had been dying to put to her
ever since the previous evening.
She was silent.
"You know more of the affair than you have admitted, Elma," he suggested
in a low voice, his eyes still fixed upon her pale countenance. "Is my
surmise correct?"
"It is," she replied in a strange half-whisper. "I have no actual
knowledge," she hastened to add. "But I have certain grim and terrible
surmises."
"You were anxious that my father should not see that photograph last
night. Why?"
"Well--well, because I did not wish to--I didn't wish him to think that
I was unduly exciting you by showing you the portrait," she faltered.
He looked at her, struck by her curious evasiveness.
"And was there no other reason, Elma?" asked the young man in deep
earnestness.
Again she hesitated.
"Yes. There was another reason," she replied. "One that I regret I
cannot at present tell you."
"You refuse to satisfy my curiosity--eh?"
"I am compelled to refuse," she replied in a low voice.
"Why?"
"Because, as yet, I have only suspicions and surmises. When I have
proved even one of them then I shall not hesitate to tell you the truth,
Roddy--a bitter and terrible truth though it may be."
"Really you are most mysterious!" her companion said, his face
darkening.
"I know I am," she answered with a queer hollow laugh.
"But at least you can tell me the dead girl's name?"
"I only know her Christian name. It is Edna."
"You knew her personally?"
"Well--yes. I have met her."
"In what circumstances?"
"Curious ones. Very curious ones," the girl replied. "If my surmises
are correct, Roddy, we are face to face with one of the strangest
problems of crime that has ever arisen in our modern world," she added.
"But until I am able to substantiate certain facts I can tell you
nothing--nothing, much as I desire to in order to place you upon your
guard."
"What, am I still in peril?"
"Yes, I believe you are--in very great peril. So beware of yet another
trap which may be cunningly laid for you by those who may pose as your
friends."