The Fellowship of the Frog Page 31

  “Your father is downstairs, miss,” said the nurse. “I’ll call him.”

  “Father—here?” She frowned. “Is there any other news?”

  “Mr. Gordon is downstairs too, miss, and Mr. Johnson.” The woman was faithfully carrying out the instructions which had been given to her.

  “Nobody—else?” asked Ella in a whisper.

  “No, miss, the other gentleman is coming to-morrow or the next day— your brother, I mean.”

  With a sob the girl buried her face in the pillow. “You are not telling the truth!”

  “Oh yes, I am,” said the woman, and there was something in her laugh which made Ella look up.

  The nurse went out of the room and was gone a little while. Presently the door opened, and John Bennett came in. Instantly she was in his arms, sobbing her joy.

  “It is true, it is true, daddy!”

  “Yes, my love, it is true,” said Bennett. “Ray will be here to-morrow. There are some formalities to be gone through; they can’t secure a release immediately, as they do in story-books. We are discussing his future. Oh, my girl, my poor girl!”

  “When did you know, daddy?”

  “I knew this morning,” said her father quietly.

  “Were you—were you dreadfully hurt?” she asked. He nodded.

  “Johnson wants to give Ray the management of Maitlands Consolidated,” he said. “It would be a splendid thing for Ray. Ella, our boy has changed.”

  “Have you seen him?” she asked in surprise.

  “Yes, I saw him this morning.”

  She thought it was natural that her father should have seen him, and did not question him as to how he managed to get behind the jealously guarded doors of the prison.

  “I don’t think Ray will accept Johnson’s offer,” he said. “If I know him as he is now, I am sure he will not accept. He will not take any ready-made position; he wants to work for himself. He is coming back to us, Ella.”

  She wanted to ask him something, but feared to hurt him.

  “Daddy, when Ray comes back,” she said after a long silence, “will it be possible for you to leave this—this work you hate so much?”

  “I have left it, dear,” he replied quietly. “Never again—never again—never again, thank God!”

  She did not see his face, but she felt the tremor that passed through the frame of the man who held her.

  Downstairs, the study was blue with smoke. Dick Gordon, conspicuously bandaged about the head, something of his good looks spoiled by three latitudinal scratches which ran down his face, sat in his dressing-gown and slippers, a big pipe clenched between his teeth, the picture of battered contentment.

  “Very good of you, Johnson,” he said. “I wonder whether Bennett will take your offer. Honestly, do you think he’s competent to act as the manager of this enormous business?”

  Johnson looked dubious.

  “He was a clerk at Maitlands. You can have no knowledge of his administrative qualities. Aren’t you being just a little too generous?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps I am,” said Johnson quietly. “I naturally want to help. There may be other positions less important, and perhaps, as you say, Ray might not care to take any quite as responsible.”

  “I’m sure he won’t,” said Dick decidedly.

  “It seems to me,” said Elk, “that the biggest job of all is to get young Bennett out of the clutches of the Frogs. Once a Frog, always a Frog, and this old man is not going to sit down and take his beating like a little gentleman. We had a proof of that yesterday morning. They shot at Johnson in this very street.”

  Dick took out his pipe, sent a cloud of blue smoke toward the haze that lay on the room.

  “The Frog is finished,” he said. “The only question now is, what is the best and most effective way to make an end? Balder is caught; Hagn is in gaol; Lew Brady, who was one of their most helpful agents, though he did not hold any executive position—Lew is dead; Lola—”

  “Lola is through.” It was the American who spoke. “She left this morning for the United States, and I took the liberty of facilitating her passage—there remains Frog himself, and the organization which Frog controls. Catch him, and you’ve finished with the gang.”

  John Bennett came back at that moment, and the conversation took another turn; soon after, Joshua Broad and Johnson went away together.

  “You have not told Ella anything, Mr. Bennett?”

  “About myself?—no. Is it necessary?”

  “I hope you will not think so,” said Dick quietly. “Let that remain your own secret, and Ray’s secret. It has been known to me for a very long time. The day Elk told me he had seen you coming from King’s Cross station, and that a burglary had been committed, I saw in the newspapers that a man had been executed in York Prison. And then I took the trouble to look up the files of the newspapers, and I found that your absences had certainly coincided with burglaries—and there are so many burglaries in England in the course of a year that it would have been remarkable if they had not coincided—there were also other coincidences. On the day the murder was committed at Ibbley Copse, you were in Gloucester, and on that day Waldsen, the Hereford murderer, was executed.”

  John Bennett hung his head.

  “You knew, and yet …” he hesitated.

  Dick nodded.

  “I knew none of the circumstances which drove you to this dreadful business, Mr. Bennett,” he said gently. “To me you are an officer of the law—no more and no less terrible than I, who have helped send many men to the scaffold. No more unclean than the judge who sentences them and signs the warrant for their death. We are instruments of Order.”

  Ella and her father stayed that night at Harley Terrace, and in the morning drove down to Paddington Station to meet the boy. Neither Dick nor Elk accompanied them.

  “There are two things which strike me as remarkable,” said Elk. “One is, that neither you nor I recognized Bennett.”

  “Why should we?” asked Dick. “Neither you nor I attend executions, and the identity of the hangman has always been more or less unknown except to a very few people. If he cares to advertise himself, he is known. Bennett shrank from publicity, avoided even the stations of the towns where the executions took place, and usually alighted at some wayside village and tramped into the town on foot. The chief warder at Gloucester told me that he never arrived at the gaol until midnight before an execution. Nobody saw him come or go.”

  “Old man Maitland must have recognized him.”

  “He did,” nodded Dick. “At some period Maitland was in gaol, and it is possible for prisoners, especially privileged prisoners, to catch a glimpse of the hangman. By ‘privileged prisoners’ I mean men who, by reason of their good conduct, were allowed to move about the gaol freely. Maitland told Miss Bennett that he had been in ‘quod,’ and I am certain that that is the true explanation. All Bennett’s official letters came to him at Dorking, where he rented a room for years. His mysterious journeys to town were not mysterious to the people of Dorking, who did not know him by sight or name.”

  To Elk’s surprise, when he came back to Harley Terrace, Dick was not there. His servant said that his master had had a short sleep, had dressed and gone out, and had left no message as to where he was going. Dick did not, as a rule, go out on these solitary expeditions, and Elk’s first thought was that he had gone to Horsham. He ate his dinner, and thought longingly of his comfortable bed. He did not wish to retire for the night until he had seen his chief.

  He made himself comfortable in the study, and was fast asleep, when somebody shook him gently by the shoulder. He looked up and saw Dick.

  “Hullo!” he said sleepily. “Are you staying up all night?”

  “I’ve got the car at the door,” said Dick. “Get your top-coat. We’re going to Horsham.”

  Elk yawned at the clock.r />
  “She’ll be thinking of bed,” he protested.

  “I hope so,” said Dick, “but I have my fears. Frog was seen on the Horsham Road at nine o’clock to-night.”

  “How do you know?” asked Elk, now wide awake.

  “I’ve been shadowing him all the evening,” said Dick, “but he slipped me.”

  “You’ve been watching Frog?” repeated Elk slowly. “Do you know him?”

  “I’ve known him for the greater part of a month,” said Dick Gordon. “Get your gun!”

  XL.

  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 word 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 EIla?” 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 corning 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 corner.

  “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.”