Elk 01 The Fellowship of the Frog (31 page)

“I sent a man up to look at some chemical works. It’s a fake company—less than a dozen hands employed, and those only occasionally. But it has a very powerful electrical installation. It is an old poison gas factory. The present company bought it for a song, and two fellows we are holding were the nominal purchasers.”

“Where is it?” asked Dick.

“Between Newbury and Didcot. I found out a great deal about them for a curious reason. It appears there was some arrangement between the factory, when it was under Government control, that it should make an annual contribution to the Newbury Fire Brigade, and, in taking over the property, the company also took over that contract, which they’re now trying to get out of, for the charge is a stiff one. They told the Newbury Brigade, in so many words, to disconnect the factory from their alarm service, but the Newbury Brigade, being on a good thing and having lost money by the arrangement during the war, refused to cancel the contract, which has still three years to run.”

Dick was not interested in the slightest degree in the quarrel between the chemical factory and the fire brigade. Later, he had cause to be thankful that conversation had drifted into such a prosaic channel; but this he could not foresee.

“Yes, very remarkable,” he said absent-mindedly.

* * * * *

A fortnight after the disappearance from town of Ray Bennett, Elk accepted the invitation of the American to lunch. It was an invitation often given, and only accepted now because there had arisen in Elk’s mind a certain doubt about Joshua Broad—a doubt which he wished to mould into assurance.

Broad was waiting for the detective when he ‘arrived, and Elk, to whom time had no particular significance, arrived ten minutes late.

“Ten minutes after one,” said Elk. “I can’t keep on time anyhow. There’s been a lot of trouble at the office over the new safe they’ve got me. Somethin’s wrong with it, and even the lock-maker doesn’t know what it is.”

“Can’t you open it?”

“That’s just it, I can’t, and I’ve got to get some papers out to-day that are mighty important,” said Elk. “I was wondering, as I came along, whether, having such a wide experience of the criminal classes, you’ve ever heard any way by which it could be opened—it needs a proper engineer, and, if I remember rightly, you told me you were an engineer once, Mr. Broad?”

“Your memory is at fault,” said the other calmly as he unfolded his napkin and regarded the detective with a twinkle in his eye. “Safe-opening is not my profession.”

“And I never dreamt it was,” said Elk heartily. “But it has always struck me that the Americans are much more clever with their hands than the people in this country, and I thought that you might be able to give me a word of advice.”

“Maybe I’ll introduce you to my pet burglar,” said Broad gravely, and they laughed together. “What do you think of me?” asked the American unexpectedly. “I’m not expecting you to give your view of my character or personal appearance, but what do you think I am doing in London, dodging around, doing nothing but a whole lot of amateur police work?”

“I’ve never given you much thought,” said Elk untruthfully. “Being an American, I expect you to be out of the ordinary—”

“Flatterer,” murmured Mr. Broad.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to flatter you,” protested Elk. “Flattery is repugnant to me anyway.”

He unfolded an evening newspaper he had brought. “Looking for those tailless amphibians?”

“Eh?” Elk looked up puzzled.

“Frogs,” explained the other.

“No, I’m not exactly looking for Frogs, though I understand a few of ‘em are looking for me. As a matter of fact, there’s very little in the newspaper about those interesting animals, but there’s going to be!”

“When?”

The question was a challenge.

“When we get Frog Number One.”

Mr. Broad crumpled a roll in his hand, and broke it.

“Do you think you’ll get Number One before I get him?” he asked quietly, and Elk looked across the table over his spectacles.

“I’ve been wondering that for a long time,” he said, and for a second their eyes met.

“Do you think I shall get him?” asked Broad.

“If all my speculations and surmises are what they ought to be, I think you will,” said Elk, and suddenly his attention was focussed upon a paragraph. “Quick work,” he said. “We beat you Americans in that respect.”

“In what respect is that?” asked Broad. “I’m sufficient of a cosmopolitan to agree that there are many things in England which you do better than we in America.”

Elk looked up at the ceiling.

“Fifteen days?” he said. “Of course, he just managed to catch the Assizes.”

“Who’s that?”

“That man Carter, who shot a tramp near Gloucester,” said Elk.

“What has happened to him?” asked the other.

“He was sentenced to death this morning,” said the detective.

Joshua Broad frowned.

“Sentenced to death this morning? Carter, you say? I didn’t read the story of the murder.”

“There was nothing complicated about it,” said Elk. “Two tramps had a quarrel—I think they got drinking—and one shot the other and was found lying in a drunken sleep by the dead man’s side. There’s practically no evidence; the prisoner refused to make any statement, or to instruct a lawyer—it must have been one of the shortest murder trials on record.”

“Where did this happen?” asked Broad, arousing himself from the reverie into which he had fallen.

“Near Gloucester. There was little in the paper; it wasn’t a really interesting murder. There was no woman in it, so far as the evidence went, and who cared a cent about two tramps?”

He folded the paper and put it down, and for the rest of the meal was engaged in a much more fascinating discussion, the police methods of the United States, on which matter Mr. Broad was, apparently, something of an authority.

The object of the American’s invitation was very apparent. Again and again he attempted to turn the conversation to the man under arrest; and as skilfully as he introduced the subject of Balder, did Elk turn the discussion back to the merits of the third degree as a method of crime detection.

“Elk, you’re as close as an oyster,” said Broad, beckoning a waiter to bring his bill. “And yet I could tell you almost as much about this man Balder as you know.”

“Tell me the prison he’s in?” demanded Elk.

“He’s in Pentonville, Ward Seven, Cell Eighty-four,” said the other immediately, and Elk sat bolt upright. “And you needn’t trouble to shift him to somewhere else, just because I happen to know his exact location; I should be just as well informed if he was at Brixton, Wandsworth, Holloway, Wormwood Scrubbs, Maidstone, or Chelmsford.”

There is a cell in Gloucester Prison; the end cell in a long corridor of the old building. Next door is another cell, which is never occupied, for an excellent reason. That in which Ray Bennett sat was furnished more expensively than any other in the prison. There was an iron bedstead, a plain deal table, a comfortable Windsor chair and two other chairs, on one of which, night and day, sat a warder.

The walls were distempered pink. One big window, near the ceiling, heavily barred, covered with toughened opaque glass, admitted light, which was augmented all the time by an electric globe in the arched ceiling.

Three doors led from the cell: one into the corridor, the other into a little annexe fitted with a washing-bowl and a bath; the third into the unoccupied cell, which had a wooden floor, and in the centre of the floor a square trap. Ray Bennett did not know then how close he was to the death house, and if he had known he would not have cared. For death was the least of the terrors which oppressed him.

He had awakened from his drugged sleep, to find himself in the cell of a country lock-up, and had heard, bemused, the charge of murder that had been made against him. He had no clear recollection of what had happened. All that he knew was that he had hated Lew Brady and that he had wanted to kill him. After that, he had a recollection of walking with him and of sitting down somewhere.

They told him that Brady was dead, and that the weapon with which the murder was committed had been found in his hand. Ray had racked his brains in an effort to remember whether he had a revolver or not. He must have had. And of course he had been drugged. They had had whisky at the Red Lion, and Lew must have said something about Lola and he had shot him. It was strange that he did not think longingly of Lola. His love for her had gone. He thought of her as he thought of Lew Brady, as something unimportant that belonged to the past. All that mattered now was that his father and Ella should not know. At all costs the disgrace must be kept from them. He had waited in a fever of impatience for the trial to end, so that he might get away from the public gaze. Fortunately, the murder was not of sufficient interest even for the ubiquitous press photographers. He wanted to be done with it all, to go out of life unknown. The greatest tragedy that could occur to him was that he should be identified.

He dared not think of Ella or of his father. He was Jim Carter, without parents or friends; and if he died as Jim Carter, he must spend his last days of life as Jim Carter. He was not frightened; he had no fear, his only nightmare was that he should be recognized.

The warder who was with him, and who was not supposed to speak to him, had told him that, by the law, three clear Sundays must elapse between his sentence and execution. The chaplain visited him every day, and the Governor. A tap at the cell door told him it was the Governor’s hour, and he rose as the grey-haired official carne in.

“Any complaints, Carter?”

“None, sir.”

“Is there anything you want?”

“No, sir.”

The Governor looked at the table. The writing-pad, which had been placed for the condemned prisoner’s use, had not been touched.

“You have no letters to write? I suppose you can write?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve no letters to write.”

“What are you, Carter? You’re not an ordinary tramp. You’re better educated than that class.”

“I’m an ordinary tramp, sir,” said Ray quietly.

“Have you all the books you need?”

Ray nodded, and the Governor went out. Every day came these inevitable inquiries. Sometimes the Governor made reference to his friends, but he grew tired of asking questions about the unused blotting-pad.

Ray Bennett had reached the stage of sane understanding where he did not even regret. It was inevitable. He had been caught up in the machinery of circumstance, and must go slowly round to the crashing-place. Every morning and afternoon he paced the square exercise yard, watched by three men in uniform, and jealously screened from the observation of other prisoners; and his serenity amazed all who saw him. He was caught up in the wheel and must go the full round. He could even smile at himself, observe his own vanity with the eye of an outsider. And he could not weep, because there was nothing left to weep about. He was already a dead man. Nobody troubled to organize a reprieve for him; he was too uninteresting a murderer. The newspapers did not flame into headlines, demanding a new trial. Fashionable lawyers would not foregather to discuss an appeal. He had murdered; he must die.

Once, when he was washing, and was about to put his hand in the water, he saw the reflection of his face staring back at him, and he did not recognize himself, for his beard had grown weedily. He laughed, and when the wondering warders looked at him, he said:

“I’m only now beginning to cultivate a sense of humour–I’ve left it rather late, haven’t I?”

He could have had visitors, could have seen anybody he wished, but derived a strange satisfaction from his isolation. He had done with all that was artificial and emotional in life. Lola? He thought of her again and shook his head. She was very pretty. He wondered what she would do now that Lew was dead; what she was doing at that moment. He thought, too, of Dick Gordon, remembered that he liked him that day when Dick had given him a ride in his big Rolls. How queerly far off that seemed! And yet it could have only been a few months ago.

One day the Governor came in a more ceremonial style, and with him was a gentleman whom Ray remembered having seen in the court-house on the day of the trial. It was the Under Sheriff, and there was an important communication to be made. The Governor had to clear his throat twice.

“Carter,” he said a little unsteadily, “the Secretary of State has informed me that he sees no reason for interfering with the course of the law. The High Sheriff has fixed next Wednesday morning at eight o’clock as the date and hour of your execution.”

Ray inclined his head.

“Thank you, sir,” he said.

John Bennett emerged from the wood-shed, which he had converted into a dark room, bearing a flat square box in either hand.

“Don’t talk to me for a minute, Ella,” he said as she rose from her knees—she was weeding her own pet garden—“or I shall get these blamed things mixed. This one”—he shook his right hand—“is a picture of trout, and it is a great picture,” he said enthusiastically. “The man who runs the trout farm, let me take it through the glass side of the trench, and it was a beautifully sunny day.”

“What is the other one, daddy?” she asked, and John Bennett pulled a face.

“That is the dud,” he said regretfully. “Five hundred feet of good film gone west! I may have got a picture by accident, but I can’t afford to have it developed on the off-chance. I’ll keep it by, and one day, when I’m rolling in money, I’ll go to the expense of satisfying my curiosity.”

He took the boxes into the house, and turned round to his stationery rack to find two adhesive labels, and had finished writing them, when Dick Gordon’s cheery voice came through the open window. He rose eagerly and went out to him.