Mr. Whitby watched the drama with the keenest interest, and when it was finished he drew a long breath.
“That’s all right so far as it goes,” he said, “but how do I know this hasn’t been play-acted in order to get this man a reprieve? And how am I to be sure that this wretched tramp is your man?”
“I can assure you of that, sir,” said Elk. “I got the photograph up from Gloucester this afternoon.”
He produced from his pocket-book two photographs, one in profile and one full-face, and put them on the table before the Minister.
“Show the picture again,” he ordered, and again they watched the presentation of the tragedy. “But how on earth did the man manage to take this picture?”
“I’ve since discovered, sir, that he was in the neighbourhood on that very day. He went out to get a photograph of a badger—I know this, sir, because Mr. Silenski has given me all the information in his power.”
Mr. Whitby looked up at Dick.
“You’re in the Public Prosecutor’s Department? I remember you very well, Captain Gordon. I must take your word. This is not a matter for respite, but for reprieve, until the whole of the circumstances are investigated.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Dick, wiping his streaming forehead.
“You’d better take me along to the Home Office,” grumbled the great man. “To-morrow I shall be cursing your name and memory, though I must confess that I’m feeling better for the drive. I want that picture.”
They had to wait until the picture was replaced in its box, and then Dick Gordon and Elk assisted the Secretary of State to the waiting ambulance.
At a quarter-past eight, a reprieve, ready for the Royal counter-signature, was in Dick’s hand, and the miracle, which Mr. Whitby had not dared expect, had happened. He was able, with the aid of a stick, to hobble to a car. Before the great Palace, streams of carriages and motorcars were passing. It was the night of the first ball of the season, and the hall of the Palace was a brilliant sight. The glitter of women’s jewels, the scarlet, blue and green of diplomatic uniforms, the flash of innumerable Orders, no less than the organization of this gorgeous gathering, interested Dick as he stood, a strangely contrasting figure, watching the pageant pass him.
The Minister had disappeared into an ante-room and presently came back and crooked his finger; Dick followed him down a red-carpeted passage past white-haired footmen in scarlet and gold, until they came to a door, before which another footman stood. A whispered word, the footman knocked, and a voice bade them enter. The servant opened the door and they went in.
The man who was sitting at the table rose. He wore the scarlet uniform of a general; across his breast was the blue ribbon of the Garter. There was in his eyes a kindliness and humanity which Dick had not imagined he would find.
“Will you be seated? Now please tell me the story as quickly as you can, because I have an appointment elsewhere, and punctuality is the politeness of princes,” he smiled.
He listened attentively, stopping Gordon now and again to ask a question. When Dick had finished, he took up a pen and wrote a word in a bold, boyish hand, blotted it punctiliously and handed it to the Secretary of State.
“There is your reprieve. I am very glad,” he said, and Dick, bowing over the extended hand, felt the music of triumph in his soul, forgot for the moment the terrible danger in which this boy had stood; and forgot, too, the most important factor of all—the Frog, still vigilant, still vengeful, still powerful!
When he got back to the Home Office and had taken farewell, with a very earnest expression of gratitude, of the irascible, but kindly Minister, Dick flew up the stairs to his own office and seized the telephone.
“Put me through to Gloucester 8585 Official,” he said, and waited for the long-distance signal.
It came after a few minutes.
“Sorry, sir, no call through to Gloucester. Line out of order. Trunk wires cut.”
Dick put down the ‘phone slowly. Then it was that he remembered that the Frog still lived.
XXXV - GETTING THROUGH
When Elk carne up to the Prosecutor’s room, Dick was sitting at the table, writing telegrams. They were each addressed to the Governor of Gloucester Prison, and contained a brief intimation that a reprieve for James Carter was on its way. Each was marked via a different route.
“What’s the idea?” said Elk.
“The ‘phone to Gloucester is out of order,” said Dick, and Elk bit his lip thoughtfully.
“Is that so?” he drawled. “Then if the ‘phone’s out of order—”
“I don’t want to think that,” said Dick.
Elk took up the instrument.
“Give me the Central Telegraph Office, miss,” he said. “I want to speak to the Chief Clerk…Yes, Inspector Elk, C.I.D.”
After a pause, he announced himself again.
“We’re putting some wires through to Gloucester. I suppose the lines are all right?”
His face did not move a muscle while he listened, then:
“I see,” he said. “Any roundabout route we can get? What’s the nearest town open?” A wait. “Is that so? Thank you.”
He put down the instrument.
“All wires to Gloucester are cut. The trunk wire has been cut in three places; the connection with Birmingham, which runs in an earthenware pipe underground, has been blown up, also in three places.” Dick’s eyes narrowed.
“Try the Radio Company,” he said. “They’ve got a station at Devizes, and another one somewhere near Cheltenham, and they could send on a message.”
Again Elk applied himself to the telephone.
“Is that the Radio Station? Inspector Elk, Headquarters Police, speaking. I want to get a message through to Gloucester, to Gloucester Prison, via—eh?…But I thought you’d overcome that difficulty. How long has it been jammed?…Thank you,” he said, and put down the telephone for the second time.
“There’s a jam,” he said. “No messages are getting through. The radio people say that somebody in this country has got a secret apparatus which was used by the Germans during the war, and that when the jam is on, it is impossible to get anything through.”
Dick looked at his watch. It was now half-past nine.
“You can catch the ten-five for Gloucester, Elk, but somehow I don’t think it will get through.”
“As a telephone expert,” said Elk, as he patiently applied himself to the instrument, “I have many of the qualities that make, so to speak, for greatness. Hullo! Get me Great Western, please. Great Western Stationmaster…I have a perfect voice, a tremendous amount of patience, and a faith in my fellow-man, and—Hullo! Is that you, Stationmaster?…Inspector Elk. I told you that before—no, it was somebody else. Inspector Elk, C.I.D. Is there any trouble on your road to-night?”…A longer pause this time. “Glory be!” said Elk unemotionally. “Any chance of getting through?…None whatever? What time will you have trains running?…Thank you.”
He turned to Dick.
“Three culverts and a bridge down at Swindon, blown at seven o’clock; two men in custody; one man dead, shot by rail guard. Two culverts down at Reading; the metals blown up at Slough. I won’t trouble to call up the other roads, because—well, the Frog’s thorough.”
Dick Gordon opened a cupboard and took out a leather coat and a soft leather helmet. In his drawer he found two ugly-looking Browning pistols and examined their magazines before he slipped them into his pocket. Then he selected half-a-dozen cigars, and packed them carefully in the breast pocket of the coat.
“You’re not going alone, Gordon?” asked Elk sternly. Dick nodded.
“I’m going alone,” he said. “If I don’t get through, you follow. Send a police car after me and tell them to drive carefully. I don’t think they’ll stop me this side of Newbury,” he said. “I can make that before the light goes. Tell Miss Bennett that the reprieve is signed, and that I am on my way.”
Elk said nothing, but followed his chief into the street, and stood
by him with the policeman who had been left in charge of the car, while Dick made a careful scrutiny of the tyres and petrol tank.
So Dick Gordon took the Bath road; and the party of gunmen that waited at the two aerodromes of London to shoot him down if he attempted to leave by the aerial route, waited in vain. He avoided the direct road to Reading, and was taking the longer way round. He came into Newbury at eleven o’clock, and learnt of more dynamited culverts. The town was full of it. Two laden trains were held up on the down line, and their passengers thronged the old-fashioned streets of the town. Outside The Chequers he spoke to the local inspector of police. Beyond the outrages they hail heard nothing, and apparently the road was in good order, for a car had come through from Swindon only ten minutes before Dick arrived.
“You’re safe as far as Swindon, anyway,” said the inspector. “The countryside has been swarming with tramps lately, but my mounted patrols, that have just come in, have seen none on the roads.”
A thought struck Dick, and he drove the inspector round to the police-station and went inside with him.
“I want an envelope and some official paper,” he said, and, sitting down at the desk, he made a rough copy of the reprieve with its quaint terminology, sealed the envelope with wax and put it into his pocket. Then he took the real reprieve, and, taking off his shoe and sock, put it between his bare foot and his sock. Replacing his shoe, he jumped on to the car and started his cautious way toward Didcot. Both his glare lamps were on, and the road before him was as light as day. Nevertheless, he went at half speed, one of his Brownings on the cushion beside him.
Against the afterglow of the sunset, a faint, pale light which is the glory of late summer, he saw three inverted V’s and knew they were the ends of a building, possibly an aerodrome. And then he remembered that Elk had told him of the chemical factory. Probably this was the place, and he drove with greater caution. He had turned the bend, when, ahead of him, he saw three red lights stretched across the road, and in the light of the head-lamps stood a policeman. He slowed the machine and stopped within a few yards of the officer.
“You can’t go this way, sir. The road’s up.”
“How long has it been up?” asked Dick.
“It’s been blown up, sir, about twenty minutes ago,” was the reply. “There’s a side road a mile back, which will bring you to the other side of the railway lines. You can back in here.”
He indicated a gateway evidently leading to the factory. Dick pulled back his lever to the reverse, and sent the Rolls spinning backward into the opening.
His hand was reaching to change the direction, when the policeman, who had walked to the side of the car, struck at him.
Gordon’s head was bent. He was incapable of resistance. Only the helmet he wore saved him from death. He saw nothing, only suddenly the world went black. Scarcely had the blow been struck when half-a-dozen men came from the shadows. Somebody jumped into the driver’s seat, and, flinging out the limp figure of its owner, brought the car still further backward, and switched off the lights. Another of the partly removed the red lamps. The policeman bent over the prostrate figure of Dick Gordon.
“I thought I’d settled him,” he said, disappointed.
“Well, settle him now,” said somebody in the darkness, but evidently the assailant changed his mind.
“Hagn will want him,” he said. “Lift him up.”
They carried the inanimate figure over the rough ground, through a sliding door, into a big, ill-lit factory hall, bare of machinery. At the far end was a brick partition forming an office, and into this he was carried and flung on the floor.
“Here’s your man, Hagn,” growled the policeman. “I think he’s through.”
Hagn got up from his table and walked across to where Dick Gordon lay.
“I don’t think there’s much wrong with him,” he said. “You couldn’t kill a man through that helmet, anyway. Take it off.”
They took the leather helmet from the head of the unconscious man, and Hagn made a brief inspection.
“No, he’s all right,” he said. “Throw some water over him. Wait; you’d better search him first. Those cigars,” he said, pointing to the brown cylinders that protruded from his breast pocket, “I want.”
The first thing found was the blue envelope, and this Hagn tore open and read.
“It seems all right,” he said, and locked it away in the roll-top desk at which he was sitting when Dick had been brought in. “Now give him the water!”
Dick came to his senses with a throbbing head and a feeling of resentment against the consciousness which was being forced upon him. He sat up, rubbing his face like a man roused from a heavy sleep, screwed up his eyes in the face of the bright light, and unsteadily stumbled to his feet, looking around from one to the other of the grinning faces.
“Oh!” he said at last. “I seem to have struck it. Who hit me?”
“We’ll give you his card presently,” sneered Hagn. “Where are you off to at this time of night?”
“I’m going to Gloucester,” said Dick.
“Like hell you are!” scoffed Hagn. “Put him upstairs, boys.”
Leading up from the office was a flight of unpainted pine stairs, and up this he was partly pushed and partly dragged. The room above had been used in war time as an additional supervisor’s office. It had a large window, commanding a view of the whole of the floor space. The window was now thick with grime, and the floor littered with rubbish which the present occupants had not thought it worth while to move.
“Search him again, and make sure he hasn’t any gun on him. And take away his boots,” said Hagn.
A small carbon filament lamp cast a sickly yellow light upon the sinister group that surrounded Dick Gordon. He had time to take his bearings. The window he had seen, and escape that way was impossible; the ceiling was covered with matchboards that had once been varnished. There was no other way out, save down the steps.
“You’ve got to stay here for a day or two, Gordon, but perhaps, if the Government will give us Balder, you’ll get away with your life. If they don’t, then it’ll be a case of ‘good-night, nurse!’”
XXXVI - THE POWER CABLE
Dick Gordon knew that any discussion with his captors was a waste of breath, and that repartee was profitless. His head was aching, but no sooner was he left alone than he gave himself a treatment which an osteopath had taught him. He put his chin on his breast, and his two open hands behind his neck, the finger-tips pressing hard, then he slowly raised his head (it was an agony to do so), bringing his fingers down over the jugular. Three times repeated, his head was comparatively clear.
The door was of thin wood and could easily be forced, but the room below was filled with men. Presently the light below went out, and the place was in darkness. He guessed that it was because Hagn did not wish the light to be seen from the road; though it was unlikely that there would come any inquiries, he had taken effective steps to deal with the police car which he knew would follow.
They had not taken his matches away, and Dick struck one and looked round. Standing before a fireplace filled with an indescribable litter of half-burnt papers and dust, was a steel plate, with holes for rivets, evidently part of a tank which had not been assembled. There was a heavy switch on the wall, and Dick turned it, hoping that it controlled the light; but apparently that was on the same circuit as the light below. He struck another match and followed the casing of the switch. By and by he saw a thick black cable running in the angle of the wall and the ceiling. It terminated abruptly on the right of the fireplace; and from the marks on the floor, Dick guessed that at some time or other there had been an experimental welding plant housed there. He turned the switch again and sat down to consider what would be the best thing to do. He could hear the murmur of voices below, and, lying on the floor, put his ear to the trap, which he cleared with a piece of wire he found in the fireplace. Hagn seemed to do most of the talking.
“If we blow up the road betwe
en here and Newbury, they’ll smell a rat,” he said.
“It’s a stupid idea you put forward, Hagn. What are you going to do with the chap upstairs?”
“I don’t know. I’m waiting to hear from Frog. Perhaps the Frog will want him killed.”
“He’d be a good man to hold for Balder, though, if Frog thought it was worth while.”
Towards five o’clock, Hagn, who had been out of the office, came back.
“Frog says he’s got to die,” he said in a low voice.
* * * * *
Two people sat in Dick Gordon’s study. The hour was four o’clock in the morning. Elk had gone, for the twentieth time to Headquarters, and for the twentieth time was on his way back. Ella Bennett had tried desperately hard to carry out Dick’s instructions, and turned page after page determinedly, but had read and yet had seen nothing. With a deep sigh she put down the book and clasped her hands, her eyes fixed upon the clock.
“Do you think he will get to Gloucester?” she asked.
“I certainly do,” said Broad confidently. “That young man will get anywhere. He is the right kind and the right type, and nothing is going to hold him.”
She picked up the book but did not look at its printed page.
“What happened to the police cars? Mr. Elk was telling me a lot about them last night,” she said. “I haven’t heard since.”
Joshua Broad licked his dry lips.
“Oh, they got through all right,” he said vaguely.
He did not tell her that two police cars had been ditched between Newbury and Reading, the cars smashed and three men injured by a mine which had been sprung under them. Nor did he give her the news, that had arrived by motorcyclist from Swindon, that Dick’s car had not been seen.
“They are dreadful people, dreadful!” She shivered. “How did they come into existence, Mr. Broad?”
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