The Counsellor

by J. J. Connington

  “Lock my car and leave it, and take the bus to my friend’s gate. Then later on, come back in his car with some petrol. That’s what I’d do.”

  “Quite so. And I expect that was what Miss Treverton did. The only point is that she’d take her attaché case and racquet with her. But I can imagine the bus-conductor being a bit officious and taking them from her hand while she was busy locking up her car—helpful fellow. Anyhow, they got left behind, accidental done-o’-purpose like. And so you have this bus, with her aboard, bowling up the road towards Little Salten and going, I’ve no doubt, lickety-split. Helen Treverton would have no suspicion of anything wrong unless the bus passed the Trulock’s house without stopping. If it had gone past, she might be inclined to make a fuss and no fuss was wanted, just then on the open road. So I’m inclined to think that the rest of the game was played out before the bus reached the Trulock’s place, Fairlawns, at all.”

  “Two men could easily have overpowered her; and if they stopped the bus, both the driver and the conductor could have lent a hand,” Standish admitted.

  “And any cars that came along at that moment—as they might have done—would have passed by on the other side, like the priest and the Levite? Not with any rough-and-tumble business going on, surely,” objected The Counsellor. “No, Wolf, I don’t think they even threatened her with a pistol on the public highway. If I’d been in charge of a job of that sort, I’d have aimed to take the girl by surprise. And I guess the fellow who planned this was quite clever enough to do the same. We’ll leave an open fracas as a last resort. But in the meanwhile, as the old novelists used to say, what has become of EZ 1113? I’ll tell you.”

  With an obvious pleasure in leaving his hearers in suspense, The Counsellor turned to this fresh thread.

  “As soon as the bus had teuf-teuffed off, two figures appeared from the neighbouring landscape. One was a girl dressed in grey. The other was a young fellow in grey flannels, carrying a petrol tin. They had been in retirement behind a hedge, probably, further down the road, and had watched EZ 1113 go past; but they had kept out of sight until Miss Treverton had been enticed into the bus. The young man poured his two gallons of petrol into the tank of EZ 1113. . . .”

  “But the car doors were locked,” objected Standish.

  “You make me tired, Wolf,” The Counsellor protested. “Heaps of people leave their door keys in the cubby-hole or the door-pockets of their cars. No doubt Helen Treverton did the same. And any friend of yours could go out to your car while it’s lying at his front-door during one of your visits, get your key, take a squeeze of it, and file a blank to match. Of course these people had a duplicate of her key. Give them credit for some brains, do.”

  “Oh, very well,” grunted Standish vexedly. “Go on.”

  “These two car-snatchers then got aboard EZ 1113 and drove off towards St. Neot’s,” The Counsellor continued. “But before doing so, they pitched the empty petrol tin behind the hedge, whence it was recovered yesterday by a man of infinite-resource-and-sagacity. . . .”

  “Mr. Henry Albert Bivvens, A.B., I presume,” interjected Sandra. “I had the feeling, all along, that it was a whale story.”

  “You have the name wrong,” The Counsellor corrected her with dignity. “It was Mark Brand who had the infinite-resource-and-sagacity in this particular affair. Alone he did it. But to proceed. By the time EZ 1113 reached St. Neot’s—as an examination of the map will show—its petrol tank was almost dry; so it was able to take in eight gallons of petrol there, and then start on the job of leaving a false trail up to Stranraer. There the man and the girl faded out of the picture. Most likely they returned to their normal haunts after that.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Sandra, impatiently. “But what happened to Helen Treverton? That’s the only important thing.”

  “I don’t know; but I can find out,” declared The Counsellor. “And in the meantime I can make a guess at it. This is the guess. So long as the bus was on the high road, Miss Treverton would have no suspicion. Why should she? She’s in a bus belonging to a well-known local service. But suppose the bus swings abruptly off the main road. She’ll want to know why, and there may be a rumpus. Now if that bus simply swung down a side-road, her kidnappers aren’t any better off in the way of privacy. A car may come along a side-road at any moment and interrupt their little game. So, on the face of it, side-roads would be no use to them. They must have turned off along the road to some house or other, where they could get her under cover. But in his search for the pseudo-Querrin man, Pagnell made inquiries about most places in the neighbourhood and found nothing suspicious, and she certainly never got to Trulock’s. So that leaves us with the possibility that Grendon Manor, a quarter of a mile from Fairlawns, might have been used. It’s got a nice big avenue into which a bus could swing off the road. And, from all we’ve heard, it’s got a rummyish kind of reputation. So I plump for Grendon Manor as being the likeliest place for the finish of that part of the game. As I said, that’s only a guess.”

  “There might be something in it,” Standish conceded grudgingly. “After all, the further they ran that recognisable bus, the more trail they were leaving for anyone to follow up. And they had to get the bus back to the Fair ground before the real driver came out of the circus performance, or the fat would be in the fire. That limited their available time, obviously. I’ll admit that your guess does fit the case, Mark, though it’s far from proved.”

  “And, suppose all that stuff were true,” Sandra objected. “How could they prevent the girl making some sort of attempt to get away? Or raising a row of some sort?”

  The Counsellor shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

  “Suppose you were the girl. Suppose you were stripped to the skin and put into a room with no furniture bar a plank bed. Suppose you were efficiently gagged and your hands tied behind your back. How would you propose to get away or raise a racket? Especially if you were told that you’d be lammed with a rubber truncheon if you showed any enterprise. It’s easy enough to fix that side of it.”

  He rubbed his chin hard with thumb and forefinger, a sure symptom that he was perturbed.

  “It’s not that that bothers me,” he went on. “This is it. Either that girl’s dead already, or else they mean to let her loose again eventually. There’s no third course. And how they propose to let her loose after this, I simply can’t see. They couldn’t expect her to keep quiet, once she was out of their grip. That’s what’s worrying me, Sandra. Remember what happened to Treverton.”

  “What beats me is the motive behind all this,” Standish confessed. “There must be a gold-mine somewhere. What about that notion of yours, Mark, about a substitution of pictures?”

  “I’ve communicated with some of the private galleries,” The Counsellor explained. “The ones which seem likeliest for a game of that sort to come off successfully. We ought to hear shortly if any hanky-panky of that kind’s been tried.”

  He looked at his watch and seemed to shake off his depression.

  “I’ve fixed an appointment with Querrin,” he explained. “You two had better clear out. I must see him alone.”

  Sandra gave The Counsellor a sharp glance.

  “You’re not going to run any more risks, are you, Mark?” she demanded with an anxious note in her voice. “You’ve done more than enough in that line already. Wolf and I agree there. Don’t do it. Please, don’t. It’s an affair for the police, not for you, now.”

  “The police can’t do everything. But make your mind easy, Sandra. I’ve asked Querrin to call be cause he’s been collecting some information for me,” said The Counsellor, telling only half the truth. “Also, it’s only fair to give him the latest tips in the business. After all, it’s his girl. . . .”

  The desk-telephone rang and The Counsellor picked up the receiver.

  “This is Whitgift,” he explained to Sandra. Then to the girl at the office switchboard he ordered, “Put him through.”

  For some minutes The Counsellor spoke o
ver the wire to Grendon St. Giles, but Sandra and Standish paid little attention to what they heard, knowing that he would explain afterwards. At last he hung up his receiver.

  “That was Whitgift. Poor devil, he seems in a bad way over that girl’s disappearance.”

  “I suppose he’s very fond of her in spite of having no chance,” said Sandra sympathetically.

  “He’s damnably anxious, and that’s a fact,” The Counsellor admitted. “Wants to know if we’ve picked up anything that gives a gleam of hope.”

  “Did you tell him—about the kidnapping, I mean?” asked Sandra.

  The Counsellor gave her an impish glance.

  “Oh, dear no! As you reminded me just now, most opportunely, it’s a police affair. We mustn’t interfere. By no means. So I referred him to my good friend Pagnell for further news.”

  “I think you’re a perfect beast, Mark! Why couldn’t you tell him what you’ve found out? The police didn’t find it, so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t tell him.”

  “I suppose not,” admitted The Counsellor. “Still, it’s much better to have one person giving out information instead of a whole gang babbling about different details. And Inspector Pagnell’s the man to say what can or cannot be made public without hampering his future work. I like Pagnell. Decent chap. He’ll tell Whitgift all that’s necessary.”

  A typist brought in a card at this moment.

  “Send him in, please,” said The Counsellor, after glancing at it. “And now, clear out, you people. Oh, Wolf, you might ring up Pagnell and warn him that Whitgift will be applying to him. No use letting him be taken unawares on the spur of the moment. Say I leave it all to him.”

  When Querrin entered the room, The Counsellor wasted no time in formal greetings.

  “Got it?” he asked, abruptly.

  Querrin nodded.

  “Yes, this Hell-Fire Club, as you call it, meets on Wednesdays, generally. Spend the night at the Manor. That’s picked up from three different sources. It seems sound enough.”

  “Wednesday, that’s to-night,” mused The Counsellor. “H’m! Sure you didn’t rouse any suspicion by your inquiries?”

  “Absolutely none. I took mighty good care of that.”

  “The inspector’s tip agrees with yours,” The Counsellor admitted. “That’s enough to go on. I asked him to find out on his side, just to get an extra line on it. Now, Querrin, this is serious. Are you fit for a bit of law-breaking? I hope to put it through quietly. But there’s always a risk. And if we get caught out, the police will have to act against us, whether they like it or not. What about it?”

  “Anything you like, short of murder,” said Querrin, shutting his teeth.

  “Right! Then this is it. . . .”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Children of Light

  IT was not until well after luncheon time that The Counsellor put in an appearance at his office on the following day.

  “You look as if you’d been up all night, Mark,” Sandra commented when she saw him. “What have you been doing with yourself?”

  “Joining the Children of Light in one of their sprees,” growled The Counsellor, who looked headachy. “We’ve all been hearing the chimes at midnight: Wolf, Querrin, and myself. Wolf had the easiest part of it.”

  “He doesn’t look as bad as you do, certainly,” Sandra admitted, glancing at Standish as he came into the room. “But do you mean you went down there without saying a word to me about it? That’s not playing fair, Mark. Suppose you hadn’t turned up to-day, I’d have been sure something had gone far wrong. And you’ve no right to take risks of that sort. Remember what happened to you at Longstoke House. You ought to leave it to the police, you and Wolf.”

  “The police can’t do everything,” said The Counsellor crossly. “They did all that was required in this affair. That is, turned a blind eye on our proceedings. Feeling brisk, Wolf?”

  “Bit sleepy, that’s all.”

  “Oh, get on with your story,” interrupted Sandra. “Have you found that girl?”

  “No, we haven’t,” admitted The Counsellor, rubbing his brow with his hand as if trying to dispel his headache. “I’ll tell you about it, but don’t try to be funny. My head’s too sore. What Querrin feels like, I can’t say. He got different treatment, and I haven’t had time to ring him up this morning.”

  “Go on,” said Standish. “Querrin’s troubles are his own affair. Let’s hear what happened.”

  The Counsellor turned to Sandra.

  “Last night, the three of us, Querrin in my car and Wolf in his own, went down to Grendon St. Giles. I’d seen to it that the police would not be a nuisance to us. We left the cars on the road near the Manor gate. We also left Wolf there. His job was to flicker a flashlight when a car arrived at the gate and there was no other car in sight. Querrin and I didn’t go near the gate, but got into the grounds over a wall and planted ourselves amongst the trees of the avenue up to the Manor, at a point out of sight of both the lodge and the house. We were both in evening dress and masked up to the eyes. That’s the uniform of the Children of Light on business, as you’ll recall.”

  “Querrin looked the bigger villain of the two,” Standish explained to Sandra. “He’s three inches taller. Otherwise, they were much of a muchness.”

  “When you’re quite finished . . .” said The Counsellor. “Well, this was it, as I saw the business. If you remember, the dear Children are stopped at the gate by the lodge-keeper, and they don’t put on their masks until he’s given them the once-over and passed them as sound. There may be some password, for all I know. I wasn’t going to take the risk of that. So Querrin and I got in quietly behind that bar. We waited while two or three cars went up the avenue. Then Wolf gave us a flicker, and we knew that the next car hadn’t anything following immediately behind it to interrupt our proceedings. When it came along, Querrin stepped out into the avenue and did the windmill act to induce it to stop. As it did so, I stepped smartly alongside and shoved an equaliser through the window—I’d counted on the window being open, the the lodge-keeper had to have it open to talk to the driver. As it happened, there were two fellows in the car, which saved us stopping a second one.

  “Well, they showed no fight. If they had, they’d have got an ammonia douche which would have kept ’em quiet. Querrin came up with a second pistol—ammonia, really, though it looked like an automatic—and before you could say Raminogrobis, we had them out of the car and neatly tied up among the trees. Also gagged. In fact, off the board. Querrin’s a useful fellow with his wits about him.”

  “Suppose it had been a girl in the car?” interrupted Sandra.

  “Then we’d have warned her politely about some bits of broken glass further up the avenue and waited for a likelier victim. No rough stuff with girls. We’d arranged that. Quite the little gentlemen. We nipped into the car, drove up to the front door, parked in a handy spot, and so gave the complete illusion of two Children of Light arriving quite normally.

  “Well, it seems that all the check-up is done at the gate, as I’d hoped. The front door was opened by a man-servant. He asked no questions, never blenched at the masks, and showed us into a big room on the ground floor. There was a fair blaze of light in it, about half the number of lamps would have been enough. But what hit my eye at once was the painting of the walls. ’Member the way they used to fix up ships in the war—dazzle-painting, they called it? This was just like that. Great random streaks of vivid colours spread from floor to ceiling, breaking off and interlacing in the wildest way. I thought some paulo-post-futurist had got on the loose. And the ceiling was just the same, a weird entanglement of bands and arabesques. Striking’s not the word for it, especially in that blaze of illumination. And tubs of hot-house flowers had been brought in and scattered around the walls, just to mix up the tints a bit more. Even the wineglasses stacked on trays on a table at one end of the room were coloured red and green. Very strong on colours, these folk. You’ll see why, by-and-by.

&nb
sp; “Well, it was a rum den, and not a bit what I’d expected. Nor were the company, either. As a meeting of a Hell-fire Club, it was disappointing at the first glance. Some thirty or forty people, all masked. Half a dozen couples dancing to the air from a softly-played wireless. The rest of the crew sitting about on divans, arm-chairs, or cushions, or standing around on the floor. Most of ’em seemed self-isolated. No truck with their neighbours.

  “No one seemed to bother about us. If there was an M.C., he didn’t exert himself. Querrin and I drifted over to a couple of arm-chairs and sat down. When we’d done so, I began to wish we’d chosen better, for there was a tub of tropical plants on each side of us and the fragrance palled considerably, before long. Too late to think of changing, then; and it came in handy eventually.

  “One or two late-comers arrived. It all seemed damned dull, and I began to wonder when Hell was going to break loose. Nothing to do but stare at the company. Mighty little to be made out of the men; short coats and black ties don’t give you much to take hold on. The women—about fifty per cent, of the gathering—offered more to the eye, in spite of the masks. Some of them were just girls; others were past their first youth; and there was one withered old beldame leaning on a stick. The couples dancing seemed to know each other, but on the whole the gang didn’t seem eager to extend their circle of acquaintance. Not much doing in the camaraderie line.

  “I was getting bored, so I looked about to see if one could smoke. And then I got one identification. When I called on Trulock, I noticed he used an extra long cigarette-holder, about six inches long with one gold and one silver band round it. And a grey-haired chap in a mask had one exactly the same. I kept my eye on him without seeming to do so, and I noticed he had Trulock’s trick of putting both thumbs and forefingers into his waistcoat pockets, as if he were hunting for a key or something. So that was that! Then I had a further look round, and I noticed a big clumsy fellow crossing the floor, walking a bit hen-toed with his right foot, if you see what I mean. . . .”