his unscrupulous circle of friends!" cried the girl, who, turning to the
stout Frenchwoman, went on in French: "This man is an impostor! He
calls himself a doctor, yet I recognise him as a man named Porter, the
friend of the woman who victimised the man I loved! Do not believe
him?"
"Madame!" exclaimed the visitor with a benign smile, as he bowed
slightly. "I think we can dismiss all these dramatic allegations made
by poor mademoiselle--can we not? Your own observations have," he said,
speaking in French, "shown you the abnormal state of the young lady's
mind. She is, I understand, prone to imagining tragic events, and
making statements that are quite unfounded. For that reason Mr Ford
asked me to call and see her, because--to be frank--I am a specialist on
mental diseases."
"Ah! Doctor! I fear that mademoiselle's mind is much unbalanced by her
poor father's death," said the woman. "Monsieur Ford explained it all
to me, and urged me to take no notice of her wild statements. When is
Mr Ford returning to France?"
"In about three months, I believe. Then he will no doubt relieve you of
your charge--which, I fear, must be a heavy one."
"Sometimes, yes. But mademoiselle has never been so talkative and
vehement as she is to-day."
"Because I, perhaps, bear some slight resemblance to some man she once
knew--the man named Porter, I suppose."
"You are Arthur Porter!" declared the girl in French. "When I first saw
you hazily last night I thought that you resembled him, but now I see
you closer and plainly I _know_ that you are! I would recognise you by
your eyes among a thousand men!"
But the visitor only shrugged his shoulders again and declared to madame
that mademoiselle's hallucinations were, alas! pitiable.
Then he questioned the woman about her charge, and when he left he
handed her a five-hundred-franc note which he said Mr Ford had sent to
her.
But a few moments later when on his way down the narrow, old-world
street with its overhanging houses, he muttered ominously to himself in
English:
"I must get back to Gordon as soon as possible. That girl is more
dangerous than we ever contemplated. As we believed, she knows too
much--far too much! And if Sandys finds her then all will be lost. It
was a false step of Gordon's to leave her over here. She is recovering.
The situation is distinctly dangerous. Therefore we must act--without
delay!"
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
WILES OF THE WICKED.
On the day that Arthur Porter, under the guise of a doctor from
Philadelphia, had visited Edna Manners at quaint old Bayeux, Roddy
Homfray had, since early morning, been in his wireless-room at Little
Farncombe Rectory, making some experiments with the new receiving-set
which he had constructed in a cigar-box.
The results had been highly satisfactory and very gratifying. He had
been experimenting with a new organic and easily manufactured
super-sensitive crystal which he had discovered to be a very delicate
detector of wireless waves when an electrical circuit was passed through
it, and by dint of long and patient tests of pressure electricity, had
come to the conclusion that it was quite as effective as the usual three
valves. This meant a very great improvement in the reception of
wireless telephony.
As that afternoon he sat at tea with his father he explained the trend
of his piezo-electric experiments. The discovery was entirely his own,
for though others had experimented with inorganic crystals, quartz and
gems, trying to solve the riddle why sugar and certain salts should cool
from liquid into different patterns of crystals, nobody had ever dreamed
of constructing such a detector or of using such a manufactured
"crystal."
The secret of the new crystals was his own, and, judging from the
efficiency of the new portable receiving-set, would be of very
considerable value. When, later on, deaf old Mrs Bentley had cleared
the table, father and son sat smoking, and Roddy said:
"I'm going along to the Towers to dinner. Mr Sandys has asked me to
have a hand at bridge afterwards."
"Elma is away, isn't she?"
"Yes. At Harrogate with her aunt. She returns on Tuesday," the young
man replied. "And to-morrow Barclay meets the Kaid Ahmed-el-Hafid at
the Ritz to receive the concession. He had a telegram from the Kaid
last Friday to say that the concession had been granted in my name, and
that he was leaving Tangiers with it on the following day."
"Well, my boy, it really looks as though Fortune is about to smile on
you at last! But we must always remember that she is but a fickle jade
at best."
"Yes, father. I shall not feel safe until the concession is actually in
my hands. Barclay has promised to introduce me to the Kaid, who will
give me every assistance in my prospecting expedition. It is fortunate
that we already hold the secret of the exact position of the ancient
workings."
"It is, my boy," remarked the old rector thoughtfully. "Possibly you
can induce Mr Sandys to finance the undertaking and float a company--
eh?"
"That is my idea," his son replied. "But I shall not approach him until
I have been out to the Wad Sus and seen for myself. Then I can speak
with authority, and conduct to the spot any expert engineer he may like
to send out there."
Afterwards Roddy glanced at the old grandfather clock with its brass
face which stood in the corner, rose, and after dressing, shouted a
merry "good-bye" to the rector, and left the house to dine with the
great financier, with whose daughter he was so deeply in love.
Their secret they withheld from Mr Sandys. Theirs was a fierce,
all-absorbing passion, a mutual affection that was intense. They loved
each other fondly and, Mr Sandys being so often in London, they saw
each other nearly every day. Indeed, for hours on end Elma would sit in
the wireless-room and assist her lover in those delicate and patient
experiments which he had been daily making. Roddy, in the weeks that
had passed, had regained his normal condition, though sometimes, at odd
moments, he still experienced curious lapses of memory.
Old Mr Homfray had not been very well of late. His heart was naturally
weak, and the doctor had for several years warned him against any undue
excitement or hurrying when walking uphill. Once while conducting
morning service, he was seized by faintness and was prevented from
preaching his sermon. The narrow, gossiping world of Little Farncombe
declared that their rector needed a change, and Mr Homfray had promised
his churchwardens that he would take one as soon as he could get someone
to lock after the parish in his absence.
On the previous day he had received a letter from Gray's solicitors
informing him that the mortgaged property at Totnes had been sold, and
enclosing the paltry sum of fourteen pounds twelve shillings as the
balance due to him. This fad had irritated him and caused him the
greatest indignation. Gordon Gray had defied him and had foreclosed the
mortgage after all! He had, however, made no mention of it to Roddy.
The matter was his secret--and his alone, for it so closely concerned
that closed chapter of his earlier days.
To Roddy his own strange experience following the tragic discovery in
Welling Wood was still a mystery. Only a few days before he had, out of
sheer curiosity, taken train to Welwyn and walked out to Willowden. But
the house was closed and the garden neglected, and on inquiry in the
neighbourhood he had learnt that the people from London had taken the
place furnished, and that their lease being up they had left. Where
they had gone nobody knew.
To Park Lane Mr Rex Rutherford--as Gordon Gray called himself--had
accompanied his friend Porter, alias Harrison, on two occasions, and had
endeavoured to make himself extremely affable to Elma, by whose
extraordinary beauty he had become greatly attracted. The girl,
however, instinctively disliked him. Why, she could not herself tell.
He was elegantly-dressed, and his manners were those of a gentleman, yet
he had an oleaginous air about him which annoyed her on both occasions.
Once she had been compelled to dance with him, and he had been full of
empty compliments. But on subsequent occasions when he requested "the
pleasure" she managed to excuse herself.
Indeed, she went so far as to suggest to her father that he should not
invite Mr Rutherford again. Mr Sandys was rather surprised, but said
nothing, and obeyed his daughter's wish.
Roddy had left the Rectory about an hour and the dusk was gathering into
night, when a closed car with strong headlights, coming from the
direction of London and driven by a middle-aged man, drew up outside the
village, and from it there alighted a short, stout man wearing a green
velour Homburg hat.
"I won't be long," he remarked to the driver, and at once set out on
foot in the direction of the Rectory.
Old Norton Homfray was in his study looking up a text in his big
well-worn "Cruden," when he heard a ring, and knowing Mrs Bentley to be
upstairs--and that if downstairs she would never hear it--he went to the
door and threw it open, expecting his visitor to be one of his
parishioners.
Instead, he came face to face with his enemy, Gordon Gray.
For a second he was too surprised for words.
"Well," he asked with dignity, "why are you here?"
"Oh!--well, I happened to be near here, and I thought I'd just pay you a
call. I want to see you. May I come in?"
"If you wish," growled the old clergyman, admitting him and conducting
him to the study where the lamp was lit.
Then when his visitor was in the room, he turned to him and said:
"So you have carried out your threat, Gray, and sold my houses in
Totnes--eh? You've taken my little income from me, as that woman told
me you intended."
"I had to; I'm so hard-up. Since the war I've been very hard hit,"
replied the man. "I'm sorry, of course."
"Yes. I suppose you are very sorry!" sarcastically remarked the old
man, pale with anger. "Once, Gray, I trusted you, and--"
"And I befriended you in consequence," interrupted the other. "I lent
you money."
"You did--to your own advantage," said the old rector bitterly. "But
let all that pass. I want you to tell me--nay, I demand to know!--what
occurred in the wood outside this house on the night when Freda came
here in secret."
"How do I know? I was not here."
"You were here. I saw you in church."
"I came to listen to the excellent maxims you put before these yokels--
you, who have been in a criminal dock. A fine moral leader you are,
Norton?" he laughed scornfully. "You ought to be hounded out of the
parish as a hypocrite and a black-coated humbug. And if you don't take
care you will be!"
"And you! I--"
"Take care. I know too much for you, remember," said Gray seriously.
"You ruin me, and now you would blackmail me--as you and that woman
Crisp have blackmailed others. I know your game. It has been played
too long."
"You are making allegations that may prove as dangerous to yourself as
to me, Homfray," said the adventurer coldly, gazing straight into the
other's eyes.
"What do you mean?" cried the rector fiercely. "I know something--and I
suspect a good deal more. Edna Manners died in Welling Wood on that
fatal night, and my boy Roddy, because he discovered her, fell into your
unscrupulous hands. Now, confess it--or, by Heaven! I'll tell the
truth concerning young Willard!"
"Really, Homfray," the visitor remarked, quite unperturbed. "You're a
very nice, delightful parson--eh? Fancy you preaching in that pulpit,
as I sat and listened to you on that Sunday night! You--of all men!"
"I demand to know the truth. Poor Edna was engaged to marry that boy
whom you, with that accursed woman, fleeced with such audacity. And you
had the further audacity to ask me to assist you in your vile plans."
"Why not? You live askew, just as we do--only you are slick enough to
put on a clerical collar, as to six-tenths of the world the `cloth' can
do no evil," he laughed.
"Edna Manners knew too much for you. I recognised her from Roddy's
description. And then Roddy himself was drugged--or something."
"It is a matter which neither of us need discuss, Homfray," said the
other. "There is six of me and half a dozen of you. Your son is all
right again, deep in his wireless experiments and, I hear, in love with
a very charming girl. What more do you want?"
"I want justice and fair play!" said the old rector in desperation.
"You, whom I believed to be my real friend, have played a deep and
crooked game. Place your cards on the table for once, Gray, and tell me
why. I have never been your enemy--only your friend!"
The stocky, beady-eyed adventurer paused for a few seconds. The
question nonplussed him. Suddenly he blurted forth:
"You didn't play a straight game over young Willard. We might have
shared equally thirty thousand pounds, but you wouldn't. I confess,
Homfray, your refusal annoyed me."
"Oh! Then _that_ is the secret!" he said. "I recollect it all. I told
you that if you attempted to make that _coup_ and divest the poor boy of
everything so that he could not marry Edna, I would go to the police.
You pretended to withhold your hand in fear of my threat. But Freda and
your unscrupulous friend `Guinness' managed to get the money from him
and afterwards close his mouth so that the poor lad could tell no
tales."
"It's a lie! A damnable lie!" cried Gray, fiercely indignant.
"I have only spoken the truth, and you know it," declared the old rector
calmly. "As a minister of the Gospel, I am not in the habit of lying or
being, uncharitable towards my fellow-men."
"Oh! stop that silly rot! You are on a par with us. Don't pose as a
saint?"
"I am not a saint by any means, Gray. But I try to live honestly and in
the fear of God."
"And the fear of man also, I hope!" the other laughed. "Look here, is
it to be war to the end between us? Or will you consider a little
proposition I have in mind? Remember that I can very easily go to your
bishop and have you kicked out of this little snuggery of yours. And
what would your dear son think of all your past adventures--eh?"
"Do it. Go to the bishop!" cried the poor old rector in desperation.
"I tell you that I will never lift a finger to aid an assassin."
"Whom do you call an assassin?" asked Gray, putting forward his dark
face threateningly to the rector.
"You--Gordon Gray!" replied the elder man fearlessly. "I know the truth
concerning that poor boy Willard's death, and now that you have ruined
me I have determined to risk my position here and reveal the truth!"
Gray, never at a loss for words, stood silent. Homfray's pale
determined countenance told him that he meant what he had said. He
realised, for the first time, that in attacking Roddy he had taken a
false step. The boy's father suspected the truth. Nay, he knew it.
But there was the concession--and Elma! He was determined, at all
hazards, to possess himself of both as the crowning point of his
marvellously adventurous career.
"I defy you to utter a single word!" cried Gray, with clenched fists.
"If you do, it will be the worse for you! Remember that!"
"I repeat what I told your accomplice, Freda Crisp. I will rid society
of you both as social pests--vampires who prey upon the unwary and
inexperienced," shouted the old clergyman in a frenzy of anger. "You
have attacked me and mine, and now I will, in turn, retaliate. Get out
of my house this instant!"
Gordon Gray glanced keenly at the old rector with his shrewd dark eyes
and shrugged his shoulders.
"Homfray, you are a fool?" he declared. "Why can't we arrange matters?
I came here to put a little proposition to you--that I should join your
son in that mining concession he is obtaining from the Moorish
Government."
"Join my son!" shrieked the old man. "I would rather that Roddy grasped
hands with Satan himself than with you! I--I--"
And his face became crimson as he gasped for breath, and suddenly
clutched wildly at his throat.
"I--I--"
But he uttered no further intelligible word. Next second a seizure, due
to the violent excitement, held him rigid, and a few seconds later he
sank into the arm-chair and expired in the presence of his enemy, thus
carrying with him to the grave the secret of Hugh Willard's tragic end.
Gordon Gray stood there in silence and watching with interest, amused
rather than otherwise, realising that Nature herself had, by a strange
freak, effected still another _coup_ in his own interests.
The one enemy he feared had been swept from his path! Of Roddy he took
no heed.
The road to fortune and to Elma was now rendered clear for him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
A MATTER OF URGENCY.
When Roddy Homfray returned from Farncombe Towers shortly before
midnight he was staggered to find his father lying back in his
arm-chair.
Horrified, he tried to rouse him. But at once he saw that he was dead.
He raised the alarm, and Doctor Denton was at once fetched out in his
pyjamas from the other end of the village.
"As I feared," said his friend when he saw the dead rector. "He has had
another heart attack which has unfortunately proved fatal."
"But he was quite all right and bright when I left him at seven," Roddy
cried in despair.
"No doubt. But your father has had a weak heart for years. I've
attended him for it, so there will be no need for an inquest. Indeed,
only a week ago I warned him that any undue excitement might end
fatally."
"But he has had no excitement!" cried the dead man's son, looking in
despair around the cosy little study, where upon the writing-table
"Cruden's Concordance" still lay open, as it had done when Gordon Gray
had entered.
"Apparently not," Denton admitted. "But perhaps he may have been
secretly worrying over something. We shall, I fear, never know. Your
father was a rather secretive man, I believe, wasn't he, Roddy?"
"Yes. He was. He held some secret or other from me, the nature of
which I could never make out," said his son, overcome with grief. At
first he could not believe that his father, whom he idolised, was
actually dead. But now he realised his loss, and tears were rolling
down his cheeks.
"A secret!" exclaimed his friend the doctor. "Of what nature?"
"I have no idea. He once warned me against a certain man and a certain
woman, who were apparently his enemies. But he would tell me nothing
definite--nothing!"
"When you came home, was the front-door locked?" asked the doctor.
"No, my father always leaves it unlocked for me."
"He expected you to come in later, and was no doubt at work here
preparing his sermon," said Denton, glancing at the open reference book
lying upon the blotting-pad. Indeed, beside the copy of "Cruden" was a
sheet of sermon paper with a number of headings written in the neat
uniform hand of a classical scholar, as old Mr Homfray was.
"Yes. It seems so," said his son. "Apparently he felt the seizure
approaching, and, leaving the table, crossed to the chair, and sinking
into it, he breathed his last. Poor dear father! Why was I not here to
assist him, instead of playing bridge? I--I'll never forgive myself,
Denton!"
"But you could not have foretold this. Who could?" asked his friend.
"Endocarditis, from which your father was suffering, is quite a common
complaint and very often causes sudden death, especially when it is
ulcerative, as in your lamented father's case. No medical aid would
have saved him."
"And he knew this, and never told me!" cried Roddy.
"He was secretive, as I have already said," answered the doctor. "Your
poor father's death was caused by embolism; I have suspected it for some
time."
While Roddy and Denton were speaking at the dead man's side, Gordon Gray
entered the tawdrily-decorated dancing-room of a certain disreputable
night-club off Regent Street known as "The Gay Hundred"--a haunt of
cocaine sellers and takers--and glanced eagerly around. He had driven
up in his car a few doors away, and the doorkeeper had bowed to him and
taken his coat and hat as he rushed in.
His quick eyes espied a table in the corner at which sat Freda Crisp, in
a daring black-and-orange gown without sleeves, smoking a cigarette in
an amber holder, laughing, and drinking champagne with two young men in
evening clothes, while about them whirled many couples dancing, the
women mostly with artificially fair hair and wearing deeply-cut gowns,
while some of them smoked cigarettes as they danced to the wild strains
of the blatant orchestra.
Freda's eyes met those of her friend Gray, and she read in them a
message. She was a woman of quick perception and astounding intuition.
Her adventures had been many and constant, and if she could have
recorded them in print the book would certainly have been amongst the
"best sellers" of which the public hear so much.
The men with her were strangers to Gordon, therefore, assuming an
instant carelessness, he lounged over, bowed, and greeted her. He did
not know on what terms she was with the pair with whom she was drinking
"bubbly," whether, indeed, they were pigeons worth plucking. Therefore
his attitude was one of extreme caution. Gordon Gray was far too clever
ever to spoil "a good thing" in the course of being engineered by any of
his accomplices of either sex.
"Oh! Good-evening, Mr Gray!" Freda exclaimed. "Fancy your being here
to-night! I never suspected you of being a member of this place!"
"I'm not. A friend of mine has introduced me," he said, and then, when
the elegantly-dressed woman in the daring black-and-orange gown had
introduced her companions, Gray sat down at the table and took a
cigarette.
Presently she excused herself from her two friends, saying:
"You'll forgive me if I have just this one dance with Mr Gray--won't
you?"
And both joined the fox-trot which was at that moment commencing.
"Well, I see by your face, Gordon, that something has happened. What?"
she whispered as they took the floor.
"Something good. Old Homfray is dead!"
"Dead!" gasped the woman. "But you didn't do it--eh?"
"No. I might have done. You know what I intended to do if he cut up
rough--but luck came to my aid. The old hypocrite died suddenly from
heart disease, I think. At any rate, he got into a passion and sank
into his chair and expired. And then I quietly retired and drove back
here to town. Nobody saw me. Luck--eh?"
"By Jove! yes. That relieves us of a great deal of worry, doesn't it?"
said the woman. "It's the best bit of news I've heard for years. While
the old man lived there was always a risk--always a constant danger that
he might throw discretion to the winds and give us away."
"You're quite right, Freda. He was the only person in the world I
feared."
"And yet you defied him!" she remarked. "That is the only way. Never
let your enemy suspect that you are frightened of him," said the stout,
beady-eyed man in the navy-blue suit.
"What about the young pup?" asked the woman in a low voice as they
danced together over the excellent floor, while yellow-haired,
under-dressed women who bore on their countenances the mark of
cocaine-taking, and prosperous, vicious-looking men, both young and old,
sat at the little tables, laughing, drinking and looking on.
"He knows nothing, and he's going to be useful to us."
"But he's very deeply in love with Elma."
"Of course. But to part them will be quite easy. Leave all that to
me."
There was a pause.
"And you will desert me for that slip of a girl--eh, Gordon?" asked the
handsome woman suddenly in a strange, unusual voice.
He started. He had never realised that the woman's jealousy had been
aroused, but, nevertheless, he knew that a jealous woman always
constitutes a danger when one sails near the wind.
"Oh! my dear Freda, please don't talk like that," he laughed. "Surely
ours is a business connexion. Your interests are mine, and _vice
versa_. Have they not been so for five years? You have kept your eyes
open for the pigeons, while I have plucked them for you and given you
half share of the spoil."
"And now you contemplate deserting me--and perhaps marrying the daughter
of a wealthy man. Where do I come in?"
"As you always have done, my dear Freda. Both of us are out for money--
and big money we must get from somewhere. That concession in Morocco is
my main object at the present moment. We already have the plan, and
Barclay has not yet discovered his loss."
"He may do so at any moment. What then?"
"Why, nothing. He will have no suspicion as to who has secured it or
how it was taken from his safe. Besides, the old Moor is arriving at
the Ritz and is bringing the actual signed concession over from Fez.
And now that the parson is dead all will be plain sailing. Have you
heard from Arthur to-day?"