Elk 01 The Fellowship of the Frog

by Edgar Wallace

  “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 lanterns 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; tire 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 carne 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 motorcyclist.

  “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 motorcyclist had not been seen, nor at subsequent places where the machine had been identified, was there any reference to a motorcyclist.

  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 comer.

  “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.”

  With the aid of a powerful electric lamp they made an examination of the car’s interior. There was no doubt whatever that Ella had been an inmate. A little ivory pin which John Bennett had given her on her birthday, was found, broken, in a corner of the floor.

  “It is not worth while looking for the chauffeur,” said Elk. “Our only chance is that he’ll come back to the garage.”

  The local police were called into consultation.

  “Shoreham is a very big place,” said the police chief. “If you had luck, you might find your man immediately. If he’s with a gang of crooks, it is more likely that you’ll not find him at all, or that he’ll never come back for the machine.”

  One matter puzzled Elk more than any other. It was the disappearance of the motorcyclist. If the story was true, that he had been riding a hundred yards behind and that he had fallen out between two villages, they must have passed him. There were a few cottages on the road, into which he might have turned, but Elk dismissed this possibility.

&nb
sp; “We had better go back,” he said. “It is fairly certain that Miss Bennett has been taken out somewhere on the road. The motorcyclist is now the best clue, because she evidently went with him. This cyclist was either the Frog, or one of his men.”

  “They disappeared somewhere between Shoreham and Morby,” said Dick. “You know the country about here, Mr. Bennett. Is there any place where they’d be likely to go near Morby?”

  “I know the country,” agreed Bennett, “and I’ve been trying to think. There is nothing but a very few houses outside of Morby. Of course, there is Morby Fields, but I can’t imagine Ella being taken there.”

  “What are Morby Fields?” asked Dick, as the car went slowly back the way it had come.

  “Morby Fields is a disused quarry. The company went into liquidation some years ago,” replied Bennett.

  They passed through Morby at snail pace, stopping at the local policeman’s house for any further news which might have been gleaned in their absence. There was, however, nothing fresh.

  “You are perfectly certain that you did not see the motorcyclist?”

  “I am quite certain, sir,” said the man. “The car was as close to me as I am to you. In fact, I had to step to the pavement to prevent myself being splashed with mud; and there was no motorcyclist. In fact, the impression I had was that the car was empty.”

  “Why did you think that?” asked Elk quickly.

  “It was riding light, for one thing, and the chauffeur was smoking for another. I always associate a smoking chauffeur with an empty car.”

  “Son,” said the admiring Elk, “there are possibilities about you,” and a recruit to Headquarters was noted.

  “I’m inclined to agree with that village policeman,” said Dick when they walked back to their machine. “The car was empty when it came through here, and that accounts for the absence of the motorcyclist. It is between Morby and Wellan that we’ve got to look.”

  And now they moved at a walking pace. The brackets that held the head-lamps were wrenched round to throw a light upon the ditch and hedge on either side of the road. They had not gone five hundred yards when Elk roared:

  “Stop!” and jumped into the roadway.

  He was gone a few minutes, and then he called Dick, and the three men went back to where the detective was standing, looking at a big red motor-cycle that stood under the shelter of a crumbling stone wall. They had passed it without observation, for its owner had chosen the other side of the wall, and it was only the gleam of the light on a handlebar which showed just above its screen, that had led to its detection.

  Dick ran to the car and backed it so that the wall and machine were visible. The cycle was almost new; it was splattered with mud, and its acetylene head-lamps were cold to the touch. Elk had an inspiration. At the back of the seat was a heavy tool-wallet, attached by a firm strap, and this he began to unfasten.

  “If this is a new machine, the maker will have put the name and address of the owner in his wallet,” he said.

  Presently the tool-bag was detached, and Elk unstrapped the last fastening and turned back the flap.

  “Great Moses!” said Elk.

  Neatly painted on the undressed leather was:

  “Joshua Broad, 6, Caverley House, Cavendish Square!”

  XLI - IN QUARRY HOUSE

  “Walk,” hissed a voice, and she discovered her feet were loosened.

  She could see nothing, only she could feel the rain beating down upon the cloth that covered her head, and the strength of the wind against her face. It blew the cloth so tightly over her mouth and nose that she could hardly breathe. Where they were taking her she could only guess. It was not until she felt her feet squelch in liquid mud that she knew she was in the lane by the side of the house. She had hardly identified the place before she was lifted bodily into the waiting car; she heard somebody scrambling in by her side, and the car jerked forward. Then with dexterous hand, one of the men sitting at her side whisked the cloth from her head. Ahead, in one of the two bucket seats, the only one occupied, was a dark figure, the face of which she could not see.

  “What are you doing? Who are you?” she asked, and no sooner did the voice of the man before her come to her ears than she knew she was in the power of the Frog.

  “I’m going to give you your last chance,” he said. “After to-night that chance is gone.”

  She composed the tremor in her voice with an effort, and then:

  “What do you mean by my last chance?” she asked.

  “You will undertake to marry me, and to leave the country with me in the morning. I’ve such faith in you that I will take your word,” he said.

  She shook her head, until she realized that, in the darkness, he could not see her.

  “I will never do that,” she answered quietly, and no other word was spoken through the journey. Once, at a whispered word from the man in the mask—she saw the reflection of his mica eye-pieces even though the blinds were drawn, as the car went through some village street—one of the men looked back through the glass in the hood.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  No violence was offered to her; she was not bound, or restricted in any way, though she knew it was perfectly hopeless for her to dream of escape.

  They were running along a dark country road when the car slowed and stopped. The passengers turned out quickly, she was the last. A man caught her arm as she descended and led her, through an opening of the hedge, into what seemed to her to be a ploughed field.

  The other came after her, bringing her an oilskin coat and helping her into it.

  The rain flogged across the waste, rattling against the oil-coat; she heard the man holding her arm mutter something under his breath. The Frog walked ahead, only looking back once. She slipped and stumbled, and would have often fallen but for the hand which held her up.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked at last.

  There was no reply. She wondered if she could wrench herself free, and trust to the cover of darkness to hide her, but even as the thought occurred, she saw a gleam of water to the right—a round, ghostly patch.

  “These are Morby Fields,” she said suddenly, recognizing the place. “You’re taking me to the quarry.”

  Again no answer. They tramped on doggedly, until she knew they were within measurable distance of the quarry itself. She wondered what would be her fate when she finally refused, as she would refuse. Did this terrible man intend to kill her?

  “Wait,” said the Frog suddenly, and disappeared into the gloom.

  Then she saw a light, which came from a small wooden house; two patches of light, one long, one square—a window and a door. The window disappeared as he closed the shutter. Then his figure stood silhouetted in the doorway.

  “Come,” he said, and she went forward.

  At the door of the hut she drew back, but the hand on her arm tightened. She was pushed into the interior, and the door was slammed and bolted.

  She was alone with Frog. Curiosity overcame her fear. She looked round the little room. It was about ten feet long by six feet broad. The furnishings were simple: a bed, a table, two chairs and a fireplace. The wooden floor was covered by an old and grimy rug. Against one of the walls were piled two shallow wooden boxes, and the wood was new. The mask followed the direction of her eyes and she heard his slow chuckle.

  “Money,” he said tersely, “your money and my money, there is a million there.”

  She looked, fascinated. Near the boxes were four long glass cylinders, containing an opaque substance or liquid—she could not tell from where she stood. The nature of this the Frog did not then trouble to explain.

  “Sit down,” he said.

  His manner was brisk and businesslike. She expected him to take off his mask as he seated himself opposite her, but in this she was disappointed. He sat, and through the mica pieces she saw his hard eyes watching her.

  “Well, Ella Bennett, what do you say? Will you marry me, or will you go into a welcome oblivion? Y
ou leave this hut either as my wife, or we leave together—dead.”

  He got up and went to where the glass cylinders lay and touched one.

  “I will smash one of these with my foot and take off my mask, and you shall have at least the satisfaction that you know who I am before you die—but only just before you die!”

  She looked at him steadily.

  “I will never marry you,” she said, “never! If for no other reason, for your villainous plot against my brother.”

  “Your brother is a fool,” said the hollow voice. “He need never have gone through that agony, if you had only promised to marry me. I had a man ready to confess, I myself would have taken the risk of supporting his confession.”

  “Why do you want to marry me?” she asked.

  It sounded banal, stupid. Yet so grotesque was the suggestion, that she could talk of the matter in cold blood and almost without emotion.

  “Because I love you,” was the reply. “Whether I love you as Dick Gordon loves you, I do not know. It may well be that you are something which I cannot possess, and therefore are all the more precious to me—I have never been thwarted in any desire.”

  “I would welcome death,” she said quickly, and she heard the muffled chuckle.

  “There are worse things than death to a sensitive woman,” he said significantly, “and you shall not die until the end.”

  He did not attempt to speak again, but, pulling a pack of cards from his pocket, played solitaire. After an hour’s play, he swept the cards into the fireplace and rose.

  He looked at her and there was something in his eyes that froze her blood.

  “Perhaps you will never see my face,” he said, and reached out his hand to the oil lamp which stood on the table.

  Lower and lower sank the flame, and then came a gentle tap at the door.

  Tap…tap…tappity…tap!

  The Frog stood still, his hand upon the lamp.

  Tap…tap…tappity…tap!

  It came again. He turned up the light a little and went to the door.

  “Who’s that?” he asked.