Kitabı oku: «The Voice from the Void: The Great Wireless Mystery», sayfa 8
A second later he stole noiselessly out by the way he had come, the only evidence of his presence being the fact that the window was left unfastened, a fact which his friend Lily’s successor would, he felt sure, never notice.
But as, having slowly drawn down the window, he turned to ascend the steps a very strange and disconcerting incident occurred.
Chapter Fifteen
The Master-Stroke
Mr Richard Allen found himself, ere he was aware of it, in the strong grip of a burly police constable.
“And what ’ave you been up to ’ere – eh?” demanded the officer, who had gripped him tightly by the coat collar and arm.
“Nothing,” replied Allen. “I fancy you’ve made a mistake!”
“I fancy I ’aven’t,” was the constable’s reply. “You’ll ’ave to come to the station with me.”
“Well, do as you please,” said Allen with an air of nonchalance. “I’ve done nothing.”
“I’m not so sure about it. We’ll see what you’ve done when you’re safely in the cells.”
Cells! Mr Richard Allen had already had a taste of those – on more than one occasion – both in England and abroad. It was, after all, very humiliating to one of his high caste in crookdom to be arrested like a mere area sneak.
“I don’t see why I should be put to the inconvenience of going to the station,” the cosmopolitan remarked.
“Well, I do, mister, so there’s all the difference!” replied the other grimly, his eyes and ears on the alert to hail one of his comrades, a fact which the astute Mr Allen did not fail to realise. The situation was distinctly awkward, not to say alarming, for in his pocket he had the precious map.
Suddenly they were about to turn the corner into the main road when the prisoner, who had gone along quite quietly, even inertly, quickly swung round and snatched at the policeman’s whistle, breaking it from its chain and throwing it away.
It was done in a moment, and next second with a deft movement he tripped up his captor, and both fell heavily to the pavement. He had taken the constable unawares, before he could realise that he had a slippery customer to deal with. The constable, however, would not release his hold, with the result that they rolled struggling into the gutter, the policeman shouting for assistance.
A man’s voice answered in the distance, whereupon Allen’s right hand went to his jacket pocket, and then swiftly to the face of his captor, who almost instantly relaxed his hold as he fell into unconsciousness. The prisoner had held a small capsule in his captor’s face and smashed it in his fingers, thus releasing an asphyxiating gas of sufficient potency to render the constable insensible.
Quick as lightning Allen disengaged himself, and dragging the senseless man across the pavement into the front garden of a small house exactly opposite, closed the gate, picked up his hat, and then walked quietly on as though nothing had occurred.
As he turned the corner he came face to face with another constable who was hurrying up.
“Did you hear my mate shouting a moment ago, sir?” asked the man breathlessly.
“No,” replied Allen halting. “I heard no shouting. When?”
“A few moments ago. The shouts came from this direction. He was crying for help.”
“Well, I heard nothing,” declared Allen, still standing as the constable, proceeding, passed the gate behind which his colleague lay hidden.
Then Allen laughed softly to himself and set out on the high road which led to Kingston.
“A narrow shave!” he remarked to himself aloud. “I wonder what Barclay will say when they go to Underhill Road!”
Not until eight o’clock in the morning did a milkman going his round find the constable lying as though asleep in the little front garden. He tried to rouse him, but not being able to do so, called the nearest policeman who summoned the ambulance. At first the inspector thought the man intoxicated, but the divisional surgeon pronounced that he had been gassed, and it was several hours later, when in the hospital, that he managed to give an intelligible account of what had occurred.
About noon an inspector called upon Mr Barclay at Underhill Road, but he had gone out.
“Did you find any of your basement windows open when you got up this morning?” he asked the housekeeper, who replied in the negative. Then the new parlour-maid being called declared that she had fastened all the windows securely before retiring, and that they were all shut when she came down at seven o’clock.
The inspector went away, but in the evening he called, saw Mr Barclay, and told him how a man lurking against the kitchen window had been captured, and explained that he must be a well-known and desperate thief because of the subtle means he had in his possession to overcome his captors.
“My servants have told me about it. But as they say the windows were fastened the man could not have committed a burglary,” replied Mr Barclay. “The house was quite in order this morning.”
“But it is evident that the fellow, whoever he was, meant mischief, sir.”
“Probably. But he didn’t succeed, which is fortunate for me!” the other laughed.
“Well, sir, have you anything particularly valuable on the premises here? If so, we’ll have special watch kept,” the inspector said.
“Nothing beyond the ordinary. I’ve got a safe down below – a very good one because the man who had this house before me was a diamond dealer, with offices in the City, and he often kept some of his stock here. Come and look at it.”
Both men went below, and Mr Barclay showed the inspector the heavy steel door.
The inspector examined the keyhole, but there were no traces of the lock having been tampered with. On the contrary, all was in such complete order that Mr Barclay did not even open the safe.
“It’s rather a pity the fellow got away,” Mr Barclay remarked.
“It is, sir – a thousand pities. But according to the description given of him by Barnes – who is one of the sharpest men in our division – we believe it to be a man named Hamilton Layton, a well-known burglar who works alone, and who has been many times convicted. A constable in Sunderland was attacked by him last winter in an almost identical manner.”
The inspector made a thorough search of the basement premises, and again questioned the fair-haired parlour-maid who was Lily’s successor. She vowed that she had latched all the windows, though within herself she feared that she had overlooked the fact that one of the windows was unlatched in the morning. Yet what was the use of confessing it, she thought.
So there being no trace of any intruder, the inspector walked back to the station, while Mr Barclay smiled at the great hubbub, little dreaming that in place of that precious map there reposed in the envelope only a plain piece of paper.
That afternoon Dick Allen arrived at Willowden. Gray was away motoring in Scotland, where he had some little “business” of the usual shady character to attend to. Freda had gone to Hatfield, and it was an hour before she returned. During that hour Allen smoked and read in the pretty summerhouse at the end of the old-world garden, so full of climbing roses and gay borders.
Suddenly he heard her voice, and looking up from his paper saw her in a big hat and filmy lemon-coloured gown.
He waved to her, rose, and met her at the French window of the old-fashioned dining-room.
“Well?” she asked. “What luck, Dick? I worried a lot about you last night. I felt somehow that you’d had an accident and to-day – I don’t know how it was – I became filled with apprehension and had to go out. I’m much relieved to see you. What’s happened?”
“Nothing, my dear Freda,” laughed the good-looking scoundrel. “There was just a little contretemps– that’s all.”
“Have you got the map?”
“Sure,” he laughed.
“Ah! When you go out to get a thing you never fail to bring it home,” she said, with a smile. “You’re just like Gordon. You’ve both got the impudence of the very devil himself.”
“And so have you, Freda,” laughed her companion, as he stretched himself upon the sofa. “But the little reverse I had in the early hours of this morning was – well, I admit it – rather disturbing. The fact is that on leaving the house in Richmond a constable collared me. He became nasty, so I was nastier still, and gave him a Number Two right up his nose. And you know what that means!”
“Yes,” said the woman. “He won’t speak much for eight hours or so. I expect he saw the red light, eh?”
“No doubt. But I’ve got the little map here, and Barclay retains a sheet of blank paper.”
“Splendid!”
Then he drew it from his pocket and showed it to her.
“Oh! won’t Gordon be delighted to get this!” she cried. “It will gladden his heart. The dear boy is a bit down, and wants bucking up.”
“Where’s Jimmie?” asked Allen. “Tell him to get me a drink. I suppose he’s back by this time?”
The handsome woman in the lemon-coloured gown rose and rang the bell, and old Claribut, servile and dignified, entered.
“Hulloa! Dick!” he exclaimed. “Why, where have you sprung from? I thought you were in Nice!”
“So I was. But I’m in Welwyn now, and I want one of your very best cocktails – and one for Freda also.”
The old man retired and presently brought two drinks upon a silver salver.
“I shan’t be in to dinner to-night, Jimmie. I’m motoring Dick to London presently. I’ll be home about midnight. But I’ll take the key. Any news?”
“Nothing, madam,” replied the perfectly-mannered butler. “Only the gas-man came this morning, and the parson called and left some handbills about the Sunday school treat you are going to give next Thursday.”
“Oh! yes, I forgot about that infernal treat! See about it, Jimmie, and order the stuff and the marquee to be put up out in the field. See Jackson, the schoolmaster; he’ll help you. Say I’m busy.”
“Very well, madam.”
“Well!” laughed Allen, “so you are acting the great lady of the village now, Freda!”
“Of course. It impresses these people, and it only costs a few cups of tea and a few subscriptions. Gordon thinks it policy, but, by Jove! how I hate it all. Oh! you should see Gordon on a Sunday morning in his new hat and gloves. He’s really a spectacle!”
“Ah! I suppose a reputation is judicious out here,” her companion laughed.
“Yes. But I’ll drive you back to town,” she said. “We’ll dine at the Ritz. I want to meet a woman there. Wait a minute or two while I change my frock. I think you’ve done wonders to get hold of that map. Gordon will be most excited. He’ll be in Inverness to-morrow, and I’ll wire to him.”
“Guardedly,” he urged.
“Why, of course,” she laughed. “But that poor old bobby with a dose of Number Two! I bet he’s feeling pretty rotten!”
“It was the only way,” declared the cosmopolitan adventurer. “I wasn’t going to be hauled to the station and lose the map.”
“Of course not. Well, have another drink and wait a few minutes,” the woman said, whereupon he began to chat with old Claribut.
“I suppose the Riviera looks a bit hot and dusty just now,” remarked Jimmie, the butler.
“Yes. But Freda’s a wonder, isn’t she?” remarked Allen. “I’ve been asking her about that girl Edna. What has become of her?”
“I don’t know, Dick. So don’t ask me,” Claribut answered, as he smoked one of Gordon’s cigars. Truly that was a strange menage.
“But surely you know something,” Allen said. “No, I don’t,” snapped old Jimmie.
“Ah! you know something – something very private, eh?” remarked the wily Dick. “I suppose you are aware that old Sandys has a firm of inquiry agents out looking for her?”
“Has he really?” laughed Claribut. “Well, then let them find her. Who has he called in?”
“Fuller – who used to be at the Yard. You recollect him. He had you once, so you’d better be careful.”
“Yes, he had me for passing bad notes in Brussels,” remarked the old man grimly. “So old Sandys is employing him?”
“Yes, and the old man is determined to know the whereabouts of Edna Manners.”
“I don’t think he’ll ever know. But how came you to know about it?”
“I have a pal who is a friend of Fuller’s – Jack Shawford. He told me. Sandys suspects that something serious has happened to the girl.”
At this Claribut became very grave.
“What makes him suspect it? He surely doesn’t know that the girl was acquainted with that old parson Homfray!”
“No. I don’t think so,” was the reply.
“Ah! That’s good. If he had any suspicion of that, then Fuller might get on the right track, you know, because of this mining concession in Morocco.”
“What connexion has that with the disappearance of the pretty Edna?” asked his fellow crook, in ignorance.
“Oh! it’s a complicated affair, and it would take a long time to explain – but it has!”
“Then you know all about Edna and what has happened! I see it in your face, Jimmie! Just tell me in confidence.”
But the wary old man who had spent many years in prison cells only smiled and shook his head.
“I don’t interfere with other people’s affairs, Dick. You know that. I’ve enough to do to look after my own.”
“But where is Edna? Is she – dead?”
The old man merely shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of uncertainty and ignorance.
Chapter Sixteen
The Light of Love
It had been all summer – endless, cloudless summer in England, from the time of the violets to the now ripening corn. And there was no foreboding of storm or winter in the air that glorious day.
It was yet quite early in the morning, and high on the Hog’s Back, that ridge of the Surrey Hills that runs from Farnham towards Guildford, the gentle coolness of daybreak had not left the air.
Roddy and Elma had met for an early morning walk, she being again alone at the Towers. They had been walking across the fields and woods for an hour, and were now high up upon the hill which on one side gave views far away to the misty valley of the Thames, and on the other to Hindhead and the South Downs. The hill rose steep and sombre, its sides dark with chestnut woods, and all about them the fields were golden with the harvest.
They were tired with their walk, so they threw themselves down upon the grassy hillside and gazed away across the wide vista of hills and woodlands.
“How glorious it is!” declared the girl, looking fresh and sweet in a white frock and wide-brimmed summer hat trimmed with a saxe-blue scarf.
“Delightful! This walk is worth getting up early to take!” he remarked with soft love laughter, looking into her wonderful eyes that at the moment were fixed in fascination upon the scene.
Since that day months ago when he had declared his affection, he had never spoken directly of love, but only uttered it in those divers ways and words, those charms of touch and elegance of grace which are love’s subtlest, truest, and most perilous language.
Slowly, as she turned her beautiful eyes to his, he took her soft little hand, raising it gallantly to his lips.
“Elma,” he said after a long silence, “I have brought you here to tell you something – something that perhaps I ought to leave unsaid.”
“What?” she asked with sudden interest, her eyes opening widely.
“I want to say that I dislike your friend Mr Rutherford,” he blurted forth.
“Mr Rutherford!” she echoed. “He is father’s friend – not mine!”
“When I was at Park Lane the other night I noticed the marked attention he paid you – how he – ”
“Oh! you are awfully foolish, Mr Homfray – Roddy! He surely pays me no attention.”
“You did not notice it, but I did!” cried the young man, whose heart was torn by fierce jealousy.
“Well, if he did, then I am certainly quite unaware of it.”
His hand closed fast and warm upon hers. “Ah!” he cried, his eyes seeking hers with eager wistfulness, “I do not wonder. Once I should have wondered, but now – I understand. He is rich,” he said softly and very sadly. “And, after all, I am only an adventurer.”
“What are you saying?” cried the girl.
“I know the truth,” he replied bitterly. “If you ever loved me you would one day repent, for I have nothing to offer you, Elma. I ought to be content with my life – it is good enough in its way, though nameless and fruitless also, perhaps. Yes, it is foolish of me to object to the attentions which Mr Rutherford pays you. He returned from Paris specially last Wednesday to be at your party.”
“I cannot understand!” she declared. “I do not want to understand! You are foolish, Roddy. I have no liking for Mr Rutherford. None whatever!”
“Are you quite certain of that?” he cried, again looking eagerly into her face with a fierce expression such as she had never seen before upon his handsome countenance.
“I am, Roddy,” she whispered.
“And you really love me?”
“I do,” she whispered again. “I shall be content anyhow, anywhere, any time —always– with you!”
He let go her hands – for him, almost roughly – and rose quickly to his feet, and silently paced to and fro under the high hedgerow. His straw hat was down over his eyes. He brushed and trampled the wild flowers ruthlessly as he went. She could not tell what moved him – anger or pain.
She loved him well – loved him with all the simple ardour and fierce affection of one of her young years. After all, she was not much more than a child, and had never before conceived a real affection for any living thing. She had not yet experienced that affinity which comes of maturer years, that subtle sympathy, that perfect passion and patience which alone enable one heart to feel each pang or each joy that makes another beat.
Roddy’s moods were often as changeful as the wind, while at times he was restless, impatient and depressed – perhaps when his wireless experiments gave no result. But it was often beyond her understanding.
Seeing him so perturbed, Elma wondered whether, in her confession of affection, she had said anything wrong. Was he, after all, growing tired of her? Had that sudden fit of jealousy been assumed on purpose to effect a breach?
She did not go to him. She still sat idly among the grasses.
A military aeroplane from Farnborough was circling overhead, and she watched it blankly.
After a little while her lover mastered whatever emotion had been aroused within him, and came back to her.
He spoke in his old caressing manner, even if a little colder than before.
“Forgive me, dearest,” he said softly. “I – I was jealous of that man Rutherford. That you really love me has brought to me a great and unbounded joy. No shadow has power to rest upon me to-day. But I – I somehow fear the future – I fear that yours would be but a sorry mode of existence with me. As I have said, my profession is merely that of a traveller and adventurer. Fortune may come in my way – but probably not. We cannot all be like the Italian beggar who bought the great Zuroff diamond – one of the finest stones in existence – for two soldi from a rag-dealer in the Mercato Vecchio in Ravenna.”
“You have your fortune to make, Roddy,” she said trustfully, taking his hand. “And you will make it. Keep a stout heart, and act with that great courage which you always possess.”
“I am disheartened,” he said.
“Disheartened! Why?”
“Because of the mystery – because of these strange mental attacks, this loss of memory to which I am so often subject. I feel that before I can go farther I must clear up the mystery of those lost days – clear myself.”
“Of what?” she asked, his hand still in hers.
“Of what that woman made me – compelled me to do,” he said in a harsh, broken voice. He had not told her he had discovered where he had been taken. He felt that he was always disbelieved.
“Now, Roddy, listen!” she cried, jumping up. “I believe that it is all hallucination on your part. You were kept prisoner at that house – as you have explained – but beyond that I believe that, your brain being affected by the injection the devils gave to you, you have imagined certain things.”
“But I did not imagine the finding of Edna Manners!” he cried. “Surely you believe me!”
“Of course I do, dear,” she said softly.
“Then why do you not tell who she was? At least let me clear up one point of the mystery.”
“Unfortunately I am not allowed to say anything. My father has forbidden it.”
“But what has your father to do with it? I know he has put the matter into the hands of ex-inspector Fuller. But why?”
“Father knows. I do not.”
“But he told me that much depended upon discovering her,” said her lover. “Why does he search when I know that she died in my arms?”
“You have never told him so. He wishes to obtain proof of whether she is dead, I think,” said the girl.
“Why?”
“That I cannot tell. He has his own motives, I suppose. I never dare ask him. It is a subject I cannot mention.”
“Why?”
“He forbade me ever to utter Edna’s name,” she replied slowly.
“That is very curious, when he told me that he must find her. And he employed the famous Fuller to search for trace of her. But,” he added, “trace they will never find, for she is dead. If I told him so he would certainly not believe me. They all think that I am half demented, and imagine weird things!” And he drew a long breath full of bitterness.
“Never mind,” she said. “It would be infamous to be melancholy, or athirst for great diamonds on such a glorious day.”
“True, my darling, true!” he said. “Let us sit down again. There! Lean back so as to be in the shade, and give me your hand. Now I want to kiss you.”
And taking her in his warm embrace, he rained kisses upon her full red lips in wild ecstasy, with low murmurs of love that were sweet in the young girl’s ears, while she, on her part, reclined in his arms without raising protest or trying to disengage herself from his strong clasp.
“I love you, Elma!” he cried. “That you have no thought for that man Rutherford who danced with you so many times on Wednesday night, who took you into supper and laughed so gaily with you, has greatly relieved me. I know I am poor, but I will do my very utmost to make good and to be worthy of your love.”
Again his lips met hers in a long, passionate caress. For both of them the world was nonexistent at that moment, and then, for the first time, her pretty lips pressed hard against his and he felt one long, fierce and affectionate kiss.
He knew that she was his at last!
Half an hour later, as they went down the steep hill and across the beautiful wooded country towards Haslemere, Roddy Homfray trod on air. For him the face of the world had suddenly changed. Theirs was a perfect peace and gladness in that morning of late summer. Elma, on her part, needed nothing more than the joy of the moment, and whatever darkness her lover may have seen in the future was all sunlight to her. Roddy’s glad smile was for her all-sufficient.
That day surely no shadow could fall between them and the sun!
As they walked along, Roddy suddenly exclaimed:
“What fools are clever folk!”
Surely his hours of melancholy had not returned, she thought.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because my enemies – my unknown mysterious enemies – your enemies – are fools, Elma, my darling.” And then perhaps for a moment they caught sight of each other’s souls.
“Perhaps they are. But we must both be guarded against them,” the girl said as he walked beside her.
“Guarded! Yes, Poor Edna has fallen their victim. Next, my darling, it might be you yourself! But of the motive I can discern nothing.”
“I! What have I done?” cried the girl, looking straight at him. “No, surely I can have no enemies.”
“We all have enemies, darling. Ah! you do not yet realise that in our life to-day falsehoods are daily food and that a lie is small coinage in which the interchange of the world, francs, marks, dollars, or diplomacy, is carried on to the equal convenience of us all. Lying lips are no longer an abomination. They are part of our daily existence.”
“You are horribly philosophic, Roddy!” she said with a laugh. “But I quite understand that it is so. The scandals in politics and in society prove it every day.”
“Yes. And let us – both of us – now that we love each other, be forewarned of the mysterious evil that threatens.”
“How?”
“I can’t tell. Yet I have a vague premonition that though the sun shines to-day, that all is bright and glorious, and that the clear horizon of our lives is speckless, yet very soon a darkness will arise to obscure further the mystery of that night in Welling Wood.”
“I sincerely hope not. Let us leave the affair to Inspector Fuller,” said Elma. “He was down to see my father the night before last. I do not know what was said. I left them together in the library when I went to bed.”
“You heard nothing?”
“Only as I came in I heard Fuller mention the name of your friend Andrew Barclay, who has gone to Marseilles to see the Moorish Minister.”
“Yes, Barclay is certainly my friend. But how could the detective have possibly known that?”
“Detectives are strangely inquisitive people,” remarked the girl, as hand in hand they went down the hill.
“That is so. And I only hope Mr Fuller will discover the truth concerning poor Edna Manners. Ah! I recollect it all so well. And yet the recollection goes giddily round and round and round in a sickening whirl of colour before my blinded eyes. It is all horrible! And it is all hideous and incredible. She died! I dashed to raise the alarm – and then I know no more! All I recollect is that I grovelled, frightened, sobbing! I saw the shimmering of sun-rays through the darkness of leaves. I was in a strange garden and it was day! And always since, whenever I have closed my eyes, I can see it still!”
“No, Roddy,” she urged. “Try to put it all aside. Try not to think of it!”
“But I can’t forget it!” he cried, covering his face with his hands. “I can’t – I can’t – it is all so terrible – horrible.”
In sympathy the girl took his arm. Her touch aroused him. Of a sudden all the strength of his being came to his aid.
“Forgive me, darling! Forgive me!” he craved.
And together they crossed the low old stile into the road which led down through a quaint little village, and out on the way to Haslemere.
On that same morning at noon Richard Allen again stood in the dining-room at Willowden, when Gordon Gray, alias Rex Rutherford, entered. He was in a light motor-coat, having just returned from his tour to Scotland.
“Well, Dick!” he cried cheerily in that easy, good-humoured way of his, that cheerful mannerism by which he made so many friends. “So you’ve had luck – eh?”
“Yes, after a narrow escape. Got caught, and had to fight a way out,” laughed the other.
“Not the first time. Do you recollect that night in Cannes two years ago? By Jove! I thought we were done.”
“Don’t let’s talk of nasty things,” his friend said. “Here’s the precious little map – the secret of the Wad Sus mines.”
“Splendid!” cried Gray, taking the small piece of folded paper to the window. “By Jove! it gives exact measurements in metres, and minute directions.”
“Yes. And the old Minister has in his possession a great emerald taken from the ancient workings.”
“We ought to get that. It will show bona fides when we deal with the concession. It would be better to buy it than to get it by other means. If it were stolen there would be a hue-and-cry raised. But if we could get it honestly – honestly, mark you, Dick! – we could get the official certificate saying where and when it was found.”
“True!” remarked Allen, who chanced to be standing near the window and whose attention had suddenly been attracted by a movement in the bushes on the opposite side of the lawn. “But don’t move, Gordon!” he cried quickly. “Keep quiet! Don’t show yourself! Get back behind the curtains. There’s somebody over in the bushes yonder, watching the window! Just by the yew-tree there. Watch!”
In an instant Gordon Gray was on the alert. For some moments both men stood with bated breath, watching eagerly.
Suddenly the figure moved and a ray of sunlight revealed a woman’s face.
“By Gad! Dick! Yes, I’ve seen that woman somewhere before! What can be her game? She’s evidently taking observations! Call Freda and Jimmie, quick! We must all get out of this at once! There’s not a second to lose! Quick!”
