looking into his face, added:
"Roddy, trust me. Don't ask me for facts which I cannot give. There
are reasons--very strong reasons--that compel me for the moment to
remain silent. So trust me?"
CHAPTER EIGHT.
FEARS AND SURPRISES.
Three nights later.
Over the steps which led from the pavement in Park Lane to the front
door of Mr Sandys' huge white mansion an awning had been erected. The
people who went by upon the motor-buses to Oxford Street or to Hyde Park
Corner noted it, and remarked that Purcell Sandys was giving one of his
usual parties--functions at which the smartest set in high Society
attended; gatherings which were always announced by the _Times_ on the
day previous and chronicled--with the dresses worn by the female
guests--on the morning following.
The huge white-painted mansion which was so well known to Londoners was
to them, after all, a house of mystery. The gossip papers had told them
how the famous financier--one of England's pillars of finance--spent
three hundred pounds weekly on the floral decorations of the place; how
the rooms, the mahogany doors of which had silver hinges, were full of
priceless curios, and how each Wednesday night the greatest musical
artistes in the world were engaged to play for the benefit of his guests
at fees varying from five hundred to a thousand guineas.
All this was the truth. The Wednesday night entertainments of Purcell
Sandys were unique. Nobody in all the world was so lavish upon music or
upon floral decorations. The grey-bearded old man, who usually wore a
rather shabby suit, and habitually smoked a pipe, gave his guests the
very best he could, for he loved flowers--as his great range of
hot-houses at Farncombe Towers and at Biarritz testified--while good
music always absorbed his senses.
Cars were constantly arriving, depositing the guests, and driving on
again, while the servants in the wide, flower-decorated hall were
passing to and fro, busy with the hats and coats of the men, and
conducting the ladies upstairs.
Through the hall came strains of dance music from the fine ballroom at
the back of the house, one of the finest in the West End of London.
At the head of the great staircase Elma, in a simple but pretty frock of
pale lemon, was doing the duty of hostess, as she always did, while her
father, a burly, grey-bearded, rather bluff man in a well-fitting but
well-worn evening suit, was grasping the hands of his friends warmly,
and welcoming them.
On the opposite side of the road, against the railings of Hyde Park, a
young man was standing, watching the procession of cars, watching with
wistful eyes as he stood with half a dozen others attracted by the
commotion, as is always the case outside the mansions of the West End
where a party is in progress.
The young man was Roddy Homfray. As a matter of fact, he had passed in
a 'bus towards Hyde Park Corner, and seeing the awning outside Mr
Sandys' house, had alighted and out of sheer curiosity made his way
back. At his side were two young girls of the true Cockney type, who
were criticising each female guest as she arrived, and declaring what a
joy it must be to be able to wear fine clothes and go to parties in a
car.
Roddy was just about to turn away and cross to Waterloo to take the last
train home, when among the cars he saw a fine grey Rolls in which a man
and a woman were seated. Next second he craned his neck, and then
crossed the road to obtain a nearer view of the pair.
"Yes," he gasped aloud to himself, "that's the woman. I'm certain! And
the man? No, I'm not quite so sure. He was older, I think."
Unseen, he narrowly watched the tallish, dark-haired, clean-shaven man
alight, and saw him help out his companion, who was about forty, and
wore a fur-trimmed evening wrap of gorgeous brocade and a beautiful
diamond ornament in her dark hair.
"No! I'm not mistaken!" the young man muttered again to himself.
"That's the woman, without a doubt. But surely she can't be a friend of
Mr Sandys!"
That she was, was instantly proved by the fact that she ascended the
red-carpeted steps followed by her companion, and they were received
within by the bowing man-servant.
He watched them disappear, and a few moments afterwards he boldly
mounted the steps to the door, where his passage was at once barred by a
flunkey.
"I don't want to come in," said Roddy, in a low, confidential tone. "Do
me a favour, will you? I'll make it right with you. I want to know the
names of that lady and gentleman who've this moment gone in."
The servant viewed him rather suspiciously, and replied:
"Well, I don't know them myself, for I haven't been here long--only a
week. But I'll try to find out if you'll come back, say, in a quarter
of an hour."
"Yes, do," urged Roddy. "It's most important to me."
And then he slipped back down the steps and strolled along Park Lane,
full of strange reflections.
That woman! It was the same woman of his hideous nightmare--the
dark-faced woman who had held him beneath her evil influence, and forced
him to commit some act against his will. But exactly what act it was he
could not for the life of him recall. Sometimes he had an idea that he
had been forced into the committal of a terrible crime, while at others
the recollections all seemed so vague and fantastic that he dismissed
them as the mere vagaries of an upset mind.
But he had found the woman. She was a friend of the Sandys! And did
not Elma hold the photograph of the girl Edna, whom he had discovered in
Welling Wood? The circumstances were more than strange!
A quarter of an hour later he returned to the house, and on slipping a
ten-shilling note surreptitiously into the hand of the servant the
latter said:
"The gentleman's name is Mr Bertram Harrison, and the lady--a widow--is
Mrs Freda Crisp."
"Freda Crisp?" he echoed aghast.
"Yes. That's the name Mr Hughes, the butler, told me," the flunkey
declared.
Roddy Homfray turned away. Freda Crisp! How amazing! That was the
name of the woman against whom his father had warned him. That woman
was undoubtedly his enemy. Why? Could it be possible that she was
Elma's enemy also? Was it possible that Elma, with the knowledge of the
girl Edna, who had died in the wood and so mysteriously disappeared,
suspected that handsome dark-haired woman of being implicated in the
crime?
He recollected Elma's curious reticence concerning the girl, and her
refusal to make any allegations before she had ascertained and proved
certain facts.
He crossed the road and, halting, gazed through the railings out across
the dark London park where in the distance the lights were twinkling
among the bare branches. The night was cold, for a keen east wind had
sprung up. He hesitated.
To remain the night in London would bring the truth no nearer, for with
the gay party in progress he could not enter there in the clothes he
wore. And besides, he had not yet met Elma's father. He longed to go
there and watch the movements of that dark, gorgeously-dressed woman who
had exercised such a strangely evil influence over him while he was in
the grip of that mysterious drug. Who was she? Why had she and her
companion held him in their toils for days, and then cast him aside at
that remote spot by the Thames, hoping that he would die during the
night?
What did it all mean?
He glanced at his watch, and saw that if he took a taxi he might just
catch the last train. And this he did.
It was long after midnight when he entered the silent old Rectory and
found his father bent beneath the green-shaded reading-lamp which stood
on the study table.
The rector had been busy writing for hours--ever since old Mrs Bentley
had cleared away his supper and wished him good-night.
Roddy, throwing off his coat, sank wearily into the wicker arm-chair
before the welcome fire and took out his pipe, his father continuing
writing his next Sunday's sermon after briefly greeting him.
As the young man smoked, he reflected, until at last he suddenly said:
"Haven't you finished your work, father? It's getting very late."
"Just finished--just finished, my boy!" said the old man cheerily,
screwing up his fountain-pen. "I've had a heavy day to-day--out
visiting nearly all day. There's a lot of sickness in the village, you
know."
"Yes. And the Sandys are away in town, aren't they?"
"They went up yesterday. Mr Sandys and his daughter are always at Park
Lane on Wednesdays, I understand. I saw in the paper this morning that
the party to-night has a rather political flavour, for two Cabinet
Ministers and their wives are to be there."
"I suppose Mr Sandys must be very rich?"
"Immensely, they say. I heard the other day that he is one of the
confidential advisers of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he'll
probably get a peerage before long," said his father. "But, after all,
he is not one of your modern, get-rich-quick men. He's a real, solid,
God-fearing man, who though so very wealthy does a large amount of good
in a quiet, unostentatious way. Only three days ago he gave me a cheque
for two hundred pounds and asked me to distribute it to the poor people
at Christmas, but on no condition is his name to be mentioned to a soul.
So keep the information to yourself, Roddy."
"Of course I will," his son replied, puffing at his pipe.
"Mr Sandys asked about you," said the rector. "I am to take you to the
Towers to dine one night very soon."
"I shall be delighted. Old Lord Farncombe asked me when I was last at
home. Don't you remember?"
"Of course," said his father. "But how have you been feeling to-day?
All right, I hope?"
"I feel quite right again now," replied the young man. Then, after a
brief pause, he removed his pipe and looked straight across at his
father as in a rather changed voice, he said: "Do you recollect, dad,
the other day you spoke of a certain woman, and warned me against her?"
"Yes," said the old rector very seriously. "You recollect her name, I
hope--Freda Crisp. Never forget that name, Roddy, _never_!"
"Why?"
"Because she is my enemy, my boy--and yours," replied the old man, in a
hard, strained voice.
"Why should she be? I don't know the lady."
"You said that you had some recollection of her in South America," the
old clergyman remarked.
"It isn't the same woman."
"Oh! How do you know?" asked his father, glancing at him quickly.
"Because I've seen the real Freda Crisp--the woman who you say is my
enemy. I saw her to-night."
"You've seen her! Where?" asked Mr Homfray eagerly.
"She is the woman I see in my bad dreams--those hazy recollections of
the hours when I was drugged--handsome, dark-haired, middle-aged, and
wears wonderful gowns."
"Exactly! The description is quite correct, Roddy. But where did you
see her to-night?"
"She is at Mr Sandys'."
"At Mr Sandys'?" gasped his father. "You are surely mistaken! Freda
Crisp would never have the _entree_ there?"
"But she has, father! I saw her go in--with an elderly man whose name
is Bertram Harrison."
"I've never heard of him. But are you quite certain of this, Roddy?
Are you positive that the woman is actually on friendly terms with Mr
Sandys?"
Then Roddy explained to his father exactly what had occurred, and how he
had obtained the name of the handsome guest.
"Well--what you tell me, my boy, utterly staggers me?" the old man
admitted. "I never dreamed that the woman knew Purcell Sandys. I told
you to beware of her, and I repeat my warning. She is a woman whose
eyes are as fascinating as those of a snake, and whose hand-shake is as
fatal as a poisoned dart."
"Really, dad, you don't seem to like her, eh?"
"No, my boy, I don't. I have cause--good cause, alas! to hold her in
abhorrence--as your enemy and mine!"
"But why? I can't understand you. You've never spoken of her till the
other day."
"Because I--well, the secret is mine, Roddy."
"Yours," said his son. "Is it one that I may not know?"
"Yes. I would prefer to say nothing more," he answered briefly.
"Nothing more concerning a woman who held me for days beneath her evil
influence, helpless as a babe in her unscrupulous hands--a woman who
compelled me to--"
"To what, Roddy?" asked his father very quickly, and with difficulty
controlling his own emotion.
"To commit some crime, I fear. But I cannot tell--I cannot decide
exactly what I did--or how I acted. All seems so vague, indistinct and
mysterious! All I remember is that woman's handsome face--that pair of
dark, evil eyes!"
"Yes," remarked the old man in a deep voice. "They are evil. The man
is bad enough--but the woman is even worse."
"The man Harrison?"
"No. Gordon Gray. You have not met him."
"Perhaps I have. Perhaps he was the man with Mrs Crisp at the house
where I was held in bondage--a big house standing in its own grounds--
but where it is situated, I have no idea."
"Perhaps," said his father reflectively. "Describe him."
Roddy Homfray strove to recall the salient points of the woman's male
companion, and as far as his recollection went he described them.
"Yes," said the rector, his grey brows knit.
"It may have been Gordon Gray! But why did they make that secret attack
upon you, if not in order to injure me?"
"Because I discovered the girl in the wood. They evidently intended to
cover all traces of the crime. But how did they come to Welling Wood at
all?"
His father remained silent. He had said nothing of the woman's secret
visit to him, nor of Gray's presence in the church on that Sunday night.
He kept his own counsel, yet now he fully realised the dastardly trap
set for his son, and how, all unconsciously, the lad had fallen into it.
Only that afternoon Doctor Denton had called, and they had taken tea
together. In the course of their conversation the doctor had told him
how, when in London on the previous day, he had gone to an old
fellow-student who was now a great mental specialist in Harley Street,
and had had a conversation with him concerning Roddy's case.
After hearing all the circumstances and a close description of the
symptoms, the specialist had given it as his opinion that the ball of
fire which Roddy had seen was undoubtedly the explosion of a small bomb
of asphyxiating gas which had rendered him unconscious. Afterwards a
certain drug recently invented by a chemist in Darmstadt had, no doubt,
been injected into his arms. This drug was a most dangerous and
terrible one, for while it had no influence upon a person's actions, yet
it paralysed the brain and almost inevitably caused insanity.
Roddy was practically cured, but the specialist had expressed a very
serious fear that ere long signs of insanity would reappear, and it
would then be incurable!
It was that secret but terrible knowledge of his son's imminent peril
that old Mr Homfray now held. His enemies had triumphed, after all!
And this was made the more plain when three hours later he woke up to
find his son in his room, chattering and behaving as no man in his
senses would.
The old man rose, and with clenched fists declared aloud that he would
now himself fight for his son's life and bring the guilty pair to
justice.
But, alas! the old rector never dreamed how difficult would be his task,
nor what impregnable defences had arisen to protect and aid those who
were his enemies.
In addition Roddy, in his half-dazed condition, never dreamed of the
perils and pitfalls which now surrounded the girl he so dearly loved.
CHAPTER NINE.
THE SPIDER'S NEST.
Ten days had gone by.
Gordon Gray, wearing a grey Austrian velour hat and heavy brown
motor-coat, turned the car from the Great North Road into the drive
which led to the front of Willowden, and alighted.
The afternoon was wet, and the drive from London had been a cold,
uncomfortable one. In the hall he threw off his coat, and entering the
well-furnished morning-room, rang the bell. In a few moments Claribut,
respectable, white-haired and rosy-faced, entered.
"Well, Jim?" he asked. "What's the news at Little Farncombe--eh?
You've been there several days; what have you discovered?"
"Several things," replied the old crook who posed as servant. "Things
we didn't expect."
"How?" asked Gray, offering the old man a cigarette from his gold case.
"Well, I went first to Pangbourne, and then to Little Farncombe. Young
Homfray was taken queer again. I stayed at the Red Lion, and managed to
find out all about what was going on at the Rectory. Homfray's old
gardener is in the habit of taking his glass of beer there at night, and
I, posing as a stranger, soon got him to talk. He told me that his
young master was taken ill in the night. His brain had given way, and
the village doctor called in a specialist from Harley Street. The
latter can't make out the symptoms."
"Probably not!" growled Gray. "The dose cost us a lot, so it ought not
to be detected by the first man consulted."
"The specialist has, however, fixed that he's suffering from a drug--
administered with malicious intent, he puts it."
"What's the fool's name?" snapped Gray.
"I don't know. My friend, the gardener, could not ascertain."
Gray gave vent to a short grunt of dissatisfaction.
"Well--and what then?"
"The young fellow was very ill--quite off his head for three days--and
then they gave him some injections which quietened him, and now he's a
lot better. Nearer his normal self, I hear." And he sank into a chair
by the fire.
"H'm! He'll probably have a second relapse. I wonder what they gave
him? I wonder if this Harley Street chap has twigged our game, Jim?"
"Perhaps he has."
"If so, then it's a jolly good job for us that I kept out of the way.
Young Homfray has never seen me to his knowledge, remember. He saw you
several times."
"Yes, Gordon. You took precautions--as you always do. You somehow seem
to see into the future."
"I do, my dear Jimmie. I hope this lad doesn't recognise Freda again.
He may, of course. But he doesn't know me--which is as well."
"He recollects finding Edna, though."
"Ah! That's a little awkward, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is. He told the old sky-pilot all about it, but naturally they
think his mind is unhinged and take the story with a grain of salt."
"Naturally. But what else?" asked the well-dressed international crook
with a business-like air.
"It seems that the young fellow is on the point of obtaining a
concession from the Moorish Government to prospect for emeralds
somewhere in the Atlas Mountains; I believe it is a place called the Wad
Sus. Ever heard of it?"
"Yes," replied Gray, making a mental note of the region. "I've heard of
some ancient mines there. But how is he obtaining the concession?"
"Ah! I've had a lot of trouble to get that information, and it has cost
me a pound or two. But I've got it," laughed the old scoundrel.
"There's a friend of his who lives at Richmond, a certain Andrew
Barclay, who has spent many years in Fez. It seems that young Homfray
met him in Santiago last year, and by some means was able to do him a
great service. In return, this man Barclay is endeavouring to obtain
the concession for prospecting from the Moorish Government."
"H'm! The Wad Sus region--a very wild mountainous one, inhabited by a
wild desert tribe called the Touaregs, men who wear black veils over
their faces to protect them from the sandstorms so prevalent in the
Sahara. But I'll look it all up. Where does this man Barclay live?"
asked Gray.
"In Underhill Road. Where that is I don't know--but, of course, it is
easily found."
The master-crook drew several long whiffs at his choice Eastern
cigarette.
"Then, after all, it may be to our distinct advantage that Roderick
Homfray recovers, Jimmie."
"What! Then you think that the concession for the emerald prospecting
may be worth money?"
"It may be worth quite a lot in the City. A rather attractive
proposition--emeralds in the Sahara. I know two or three men who would
take it up--providing I could bring them a properly signed and sealed
concession. Emeralds are increasing in value nowadays, you know--and an
emerald concession is a sound proposition. After all, the lad may yet
be of considerable use to us, Jimmie."
"Pity he saw Freda!" remarked the wily old fellow. "Jimmie, the butler"
was well known in Sing-Sing Prison as one of the shrewdest and cleverest
of crooks and card-sharpers who had ever "worked" the transatlantic
liners.
In the underworld of New York, Paris and London marvellous stories had
been and were still told of his alertness, of the several bold _coups_
he had made, and the great sums he had filched from the pockets of the
unwary in conjunction, be it said, with Gordon Gray, alias Commander
George Tothill, late of the British Navy, who was also known to certain
of his pals as "Toby" Jackson. At Parkhurst Prison "Joyous Jimmie" was
also well known, for he had enjoyed the English air for seven years less
certain good conduct remission. But both master and man were crooks,
clever cultured men who could delude anybody, who could adapt themselves
to any surroundings, who knew life in all its phases, and could, with
equanimity, eat a portion of oily fried fish-and-chips for their dinner
or enjoy a Sole Colbert washed down with a glass of Imperial Tokay.
The pair, with a man named Arthur Porter, known to his criminal friends
as "Guinness"--whom, by the way, Roddy had seen entering Mr Sandys'
house in Park Lane--and the handsome woman Freda Crisp were indeed
parasites upon London society.
Their daring was colossal, their ingenuity astounding, and the
ramifications of their friends bewildering.
"Get me a drink, Jimmie," said the man who posed as his master. "I'm
cold. Why the devil don't you keep a better fire than this?"
"The missus is out. Went to the parson's wife's tea-party half an hour
ago. Mary goes to church here. It's better."
"Of course it is--gives us a hall-mark of respectability," laughed Gray.
"Freda goes now and then. But she gives money to the old parson and
excuses herself for non-attendance on Sunday mornings. Oh! my dear
Jimmie!" he laughed. "These people want a lot of moss scraping off
them, don't they--eh?"
"Moss! Why, it's that hard, grey lichen with hairy flowers that grows
on trees! They want it all scraped off, then rubbed with sandpaper and
a rag and acid applied to put a bit of vim in them. It's the same over
all this faded old country--that's my belief."
"And yet some of them are infernally cute. That old man Homfray, for
instance, he's got his eyes skinned. He doesn't forget that silly young
ass Hugh Willard, you know!"
"No, Gordon! Don't mention him. That's one of our failures--one of our
false steps," declared Jimmie. "I don't like to hear any mention of his
name--nor of Hyde Park Square either."
"Rot! my dear fellow! What can the old clergyman know? Nothing. It's
all surmise--and what does that matter? There's no trace, and--"
"And we made a profit--and a fine lot of good it did us."
"It was Freda's doing. She worked it out."
"I know. And, thanks to her, we are in the infernal peril we are
to-day, my dear Gordon."
"Peril? Bosh! What are you thinking of, Jimmie?" laughed Gray.
"There's not a written word."
"But you know what old Homfray said to Freda--what he threatened--a
witness!"
"Witness!" laughed the good-looking man, tossing his cigarette end
viciously into the fire. "Don't believe it, my dear old chap. He was
only trying to bluff her--and Freda knows a game worth two of that--the
game we are playing with the old fool's son."
"A highly dangerous game--I call it!" was the butler's dubious reply.
"Leave that to me."
"But he might recognise me, Gordon!"
"Rot! You won't meet him."
"What about Freda?"
"Don't worry. The boy was so dazed by the drug that he'll never
recognise her again. She tried to make him believe that he himself had
committed a crime. And she succeeded."
"Old Homfray may have told him about us and about the Willard affair.
What then?"
"No fear of that. Old Homfray will say nothing to his son. He wouldn't
expose himself."
But Claribut shook his head in doubt.
"My opinion is that we're treading on very thin ice. I don't like this
house--and I don't like the look of things at all."
"The house is all right. Young Homfray can recollect nothing clearly
after he found the girl."
"Of course, his friends are laughing at this weird story of how he
discovered her," said Claribut. "But we don't know whether, in some way
or other, his story may be corroborated. And then--"