Elk drew a long breath.
“I think you’re nearly the finest woman I’ve ever met,” he said. “Are you going out now?”
She nodded.
“I’ve an all night case, and I shan’t be back till eleven to-morrow. You were very fortunate in finding anybody at home.”
“I think you said ‘his car’; what sort of a car is it?” asked Elk.
“It’s a black machine—I don’t know the make; I think it is an American make. And he must have something to do with the ownership because once I found a lot of tyre catalogues in his bedroom, and some of the tyres he had marked with a pencil, so I suppose he’s responsible to an extent.”
One last question Elk asked.
“Does he come back here at night after you’ve gone?”
“Very rarely, I imagine,” replied the woman. “He has his own key, and as I’m very often out at night I’m not sure whether he returns or not.”
Elk stood with one foot on the running-board of his car.
“Perhaps I can drop you somewhere, madam?” he said, and the elderly woman gratefully accepted.
Elk went back to headquarters, opened a drawer of his desk and took out a few implements of his profession, and, after filing a number of urgent instructions, returned to the waiting car, driving to Harley Terrace. Dick Gordon had an engagement that night to join a theatre party with the members of the American Embassy, and he was in one of the boxes at the Hilarity Theatre when Elk opened the door quietly, tapped him on the shoulder, and brought him out into the corridor, without the remainder of the party being aware that their guest had retired.
“Anything wrong, Elk?” asked Gordon.
“Balder’s got his promotion,” said Elk solemnly, and Dick stared at him. “He’s an Acting-Sergeant,” Elk went on, “and I don’t know a better rank for Balder. When this news comes to him and his wife and children, there’ll be some happy hearts, believe me.”
Elk never drank: this was the first thought that came to Dick Gordon’s mind; but there was a possibility that the anxieties and worries of the past few weeks might have got on top of him.
“I’m very glad for Balder,” he said gently, “and I’m glad for you too, Elk, because I know you tried hard to get this miserable devil a step in the right direction.”
“Go on with what you were thinking,” said Elk.
“I don’t know that I was thinking anything,” laughed Dick.
“You were thinking that I must be suffering from sunstroke, or I shouldn’t take you out of your comfortable theatre to announce Balder’s promotion. Now will you get your coat, Captain Gordon, and come along with me? I want to break the news to Balder.”
Mystified, but asking no further questions, Gordon went to the cloakroom, got his coat, and joined the detective in the vestibule.
“We’re going to Slough—to the Seven Gables,” he added. “It’s a fine house. I haven’t seen it, but I know it’s a fine house, with a carriage drive and grand furniture, electric light, telephone and a modern bathroom. That’s deduction. I’ll tell you something else—also deduction. There are trip wires on the lawn, burglar alarms in the windows, about a hundred servants—”
“What the devil are you talking about?” asked Dick, and Elk chuckled hysterically.
They were running through Uxbridge when a long-bodied motorcar whizzed past them at full speed. It was crowded with men who were jammed into the seats or sat upon one another’s knees.
“That’s a merry little party,” said Dick.
“Very,” replied Elk laconically.
A few seconds later, a second car flashed past, going much faster than they.
“That looks to me like one of your police cars,” said Dick. This, too, was crowded.
“It certainly looks like one of my police cars,” agreed Elk. “In America they’ve got a better stunt. As you probably know, they’ve a fine patrol wagon system. I’d like to introduce it into this country; it’s very handy.”
As the car slowed to pass through the narrow, crooked street of Colnebrook, a third of the big machines squeezed past, and this time there was no mistaking its character. The man who sat with the driver, Dick knew as a detective inspector. He winked at Elk as he passed, and Elk winked back with great solemnity.
“What is the idea?” asked Dick, his curiosity now thoroughly piqued.
“We’re having a smoking concert,” said Elk, “to celebrate Balder’s promotion. And it will be one of the greatest successes that we’ve had in the history of the Force. There will be the brothers Mick and Mac, the trick cyclists, in their unrivalled act…” He babbled on foolishly.
At Langley the fourth and fifth police cars came past. Dick had long since realized that the slow pace at which his own car was moving was designed to allow these laden machines to overtake them. Beyond Langley, the Windsor road turned abruptly to the left, and, leaning over the driver, Elk gave new instructions. There was no sign of the police cars: they had apparently gone on to Slough. A solitary country policeman stood at the cross-roads and watched them as they disappeared in the dusk with a certain languid interest.
“We’ll stop here,” said Elk, and the car was pulled from the road on to the green sidewalk.
Elk got down.
“Walk a little up the road while I talk to Captain Gordon, he said to the chauffeur, and then he talked, and Dick listened in amazement and unbelief.
“Now,” said Elk, “we’ve got about five minutes’ walk, as far as I can remember. I haven’t been to Windsor races for so long that I’ve almost forgotten where the houses are.”
They found the entrance to the Seven Gables between two stiff yew hedges. There was no gateway; a broad, gravelled path ran between a thick belt of pine trees, behind which the house was hidden. Elk went a little ahead. Presently be stopped and raised his hand warningly. Dick came a little nearer, and, looking over the shoulder of the detective, had his first view of Seven Gables.
It was a large house, with timbered walls and high, twisted chimney-stacks.
“Pseudo-Elizabethan,” said Dick admiringly.
“1066,” murmured Elk, “or was it 1599? That’s some house!”
It was growing dusk, and lights were showing from a broad window at the farther end of the building. The arched doorway was facing them.
“Let us go back,” whispered Elk, and they retraced their steps.
It was not until darkness had fallen that he led the way up the carriage drive to the point they had reached on their earlier excursion. The light still showed in the window, but the cream-coloured blinds were drawn down.
“It is safe up as far as the door,” whispered Elk; “but right and left of that, watch out!”
He had pulled a pair of thick stockings over his shoes, and handed another pair to Dick; and then, with an electric torch in his hand, he began to move along the path which ran parallel with the building. Presently he stopped.
“Step over,” he whispered.
Dick, looking down, saw the black thread traversing the path, and very cautiously avoided the obstacle.
A few more paces, and again Elk stopped and warned Dick to step high, turning to show his light upon the second of the threads, almost invisible even in the powerful glare of the electric lamp. He did not move from where he stood until he had made a careful examination of the path ahead; and it was well that he did so, for the third trip wire was less than two feet from the second.
They were half-an-hour covering the twenty yards which separated them from the window. The night was warm, and one of the casements was open. Elk crept close under the window-sill, his sensitive fingers feeling for the alarm which he expected to find protecting the broad sill. This he discovered and avoided, and, raising his hand, he gently drew aside the window blind.
He saw a large, oaken-panelled room, luxuriously furnished. The wide, open stone fireplace was banked with flowers, and before it, at a small table, sat two men. The first was Balder—unmistakably Balder, and strangel
y good-looking. Balder’s red nose was no longer red. He was in evening dress and between his teeth was a long amber cigarette-holder.
Dick saw it all, his cheek against Elk’s head, heard the quick intake of the detective’s breath, and then noticed the second man. It was Mr. Maitland.
Mr. Maitland sat, his face in his hands, and Balder was locking at him with a cynical smile.
They were too far away to hear what the men were saving, but apparently Maitland was being made the object of reproof. He looked up after a while, and got on to his feet and began talking. They heard the rumble of his excited voice, but again no word was intelligible. Then they saw him raise his fist and shake it at the smiling man, who watched him with a calm, detached interest, as though he were some strange insect which had come into his ken. With this parting gesture of defiance, old Maitland shuffled from the room and the door closed behind him. In a few minutes he came out of the house, not through the doorway, as they expected, but apparently through a gateway on the other side of the hedge, for they saw the gleam of the headlights of his car as it passed.
Left alone, Balder poured himself a drink and apparently rang for one of the servants. The man who came in arrested Dick’s attention instantly. He wore the conventional uniform of a footman, the dark trousers and the striped waistcoat, but it was easy to see, from the way he moved, that he was not an ordinary type of servant. A big man, powerfully built, his every action was slow and curiously deliberate. Balder said something to him, and the footman nodded, and, taking up the tray, went out with the same leisurely, almost pompous, step that had distinguished his entry.
And then it flashed upon Dick, and he whispered into the detective’s ear one word.
“Blind!”
Elk nodded. Again the door opened, and this time three footmen came in, carrying a heavy-looking table with a canvas cover. At first Gordon thought that it was Balder’s meal that was being brought, but he was soon to discover the truth. Above the fireplace, hanging on a single wire, was a large electric lamp, which was not alight. Standing on a chair, one of the footmen took out the lamp and inserted a plug from the end of which ran a wire connecting with the table.
“They’re all blind,” said Elk in a whisper. “And that is Balder’s own broadcasting apparatus, and the aerial is attached to the lamp.”
The three servants went out, and, rising, Balder walked to the door and locked it.
There were another set of windows in the room, looking out upon the side of the house, and one by one Balder closed and shuttered them. He was busy with the second of the three, when Elk put his foot upon a ledge of brick, and, tearing aside the curtain, leapt into the room.
At the sound, Balder spun round.
“Evening, Balder,” said Elk.
The man made no reply. He stood, watching his sometime chief, with eyes that did not waver.
“Thought I’d come along and tell you that you’ve got your promotion,” said Elk, “as Acting-Sergeant from the 1st of May, in recognition of the services you’ve rendered to the State by poisoning Frog Mills, loosing Frog Hagn, and blowing up my office with a bomb that you planted overnight.”
Still the man did not speak, nor did he move; and here he was discreet, for the long-barrelled Browning in Elk’s hand covered the lower button of his white pique waistcoat.
“And now,” said Elk—there was a ring of triumph in his voice—“you’ll take a little walk with me—I want you, Number Seven!”
“Haven’t you made a mistake?” drawled Balder, so unlike his usual voice that Elk was for a moment taken aback.
“I never have made a mistake except about the date when Henry the Eighth married,” said Elk.
“Who do you imagine I am?” asked this debonair man of the world.
“I’ve ceased imagining anything about you, Balder—I know!”
Elk walked with a quick movement toward him and thrust the muzzle of the pistol in his prisoner’s diaphragm.
“Put up your hands and turn round,” he said.
Balder obeyed. Slipping a pair of handcuffs from his pocket, Elk snapped them on to the wrists. Deftly the detective strapped the arms from behind, drawing them tight, so that the manacled hands had no play.
“This is very uncomfortable,” said Balder. “Is it usual for you to make mistakes of this character, Mr. Elk? My name is Collett-Banson.”
“Your name is Mud,” said Elk, “but I’m willing to listen to anything you like to say. I’d rather have your views on cyanide of potassium than anything. You can sit down.”
Dick saw a gleam come to the man’s eye; it flashed for a second and was gone. Evidently Elk saw it too.
“Don’t let your hopes rest upon any monkey tricks that might be played by your attendants,” he said, “because fifty C.I.D. men, most of whom are known personally to you, are disposed round this house.”
Balder laughed.
“If they were round the house and on top of the house, they wouldn’t worry me,” he said. “I tell you, inspector, you’ve made a very grave error, and one which will cost you dear. If a gentleman cannot sit in his own drawing-room,”—he glanced at the table—“listening to a wireless concert at The Hague without interfering policemen—then it is about time the police force was disbanded.”
He walked across to the fireplace carelessly and stood with his back to it; then, lifting his foot, he kicked back one of the steel fire-dogs which stood on either side of the wide hearth, and the “dog” fell over on its side. It was a nervous act of a man who was greatly worried and was not quite conscious of what be was doing. Even Elk, who was all suspicion, saw nothing to excite his apprehension.
“Yon think my name is Balder, do you?” the man went on. “Well, all I can say is—”
Suddenly he flung himself sideways on to the hearthrug, but Elk was quicker. As an oblong slip of the floor gave way beneath the man’s weight, Elk gripped him by the collar and together they dragged him back to the room.
In a second the three were struggling on the floor together, and in his desperation Balder’s strength was unbelievable. His roaring cry for help was heard. There came a heavy blow on the door, the babble of angry voices without, and then, from the ground outside, a series of sharp explosions, as the army of detectives raced across the lawn, oblivious to the presence of the alarm-guns.
The fight was short and sharp. The six blind men who comprised the household of No. 7 were hustled away, and in the last car travelled Acting-Sergeant Balder, that redoubtable No. 7, who was the right hand and the left hand of the terrible Frog.
XXVII - MR. BROAD IS INTERESTING
Dick Gordon ended his interview with Mr. Ezra Maitland at three o’clock in the morning, and went to Headquarters, to find the charge-room at Cannon Row singularly empty. When he had left, it was impossible to get in or out for the crowd of detectives which filled or surrounded the place.
“On the whole, Pentonville is safest, and I’ve got him there. I asked the Governor to put him in the condemned cell, but it is not etiquette. Anyway, Pentonville is the safest spot I know, and I think that, unless Frogs eat stones, he’ll stay. What has Maitland got to say, Captain?”
“Maitland’s story, so far as one can get a story from him, is that he went to see Balder by invitation. ‘When you’re sent for by the police, what can you do?’ he asked, and the question is unanswerable.”
“There is no doubt at all,” said Elk, “that Maitland knew Balder’s character, and it was not in his capacity as policeman that the old man visited him. There is less doubt that this man is hand in glove with the Frog, but it is going to be very difficult to prove.”
“Maitland puzzles me,” said Dick. “He’s such a bully, and yet such a frightened old man. I thought he was going to drop through the floor when I told him who I was, and why I had come. And when I mentioned the fact that Balder had been arrested, he almost collapsed.”
“That line has to be followed,” said Elk thoughtfully. “I have sent for Johnson. He ought to
be here by now. Johnson must know something about the old man’s business, and he will be a very valuable witness if we can connect the two.”
The philosopher arrived half-an-hour later, having been aroused from his sleep to learn that his presence was required at Headquarters.
“Mr. Elk will tell you something which will be public property in a day or two,” said Gordon. “Balder has been arrested in connection with the explosion which occurred in Mr. Elk’s office.”
It was necessary to explain to Johnson exactly who Balder was, and Dick went on to tell him of the old man’s visit to Slough. Johnson shook his head.
“I didn’t know that Maitland had a friend of that name,” he said. “Balder? What other name had he?”
“He called himself Collet-Banson,” said Dick, and a look of understanding came to the face of Johnson.
“I know that name very well. Mr. Banson used frequently to call at the office, generally late in the evenings—Maitland spends three nights a week working after the clerks have gone, as I know to my cost,” he said. “A rather tall, good looking fellow of about forty?”
“Yes, that is the man.”
“He has a house near Windsor. I have never been there, but I know because I have posted letters to him.”
“What sort of business did Collett-Banson have with Maitland?”
“I’ve never been able to discover. I always thought of him as a man who had property to sell, for that was the only type of outsider who was ever admitted to Maitland’s presence. I remember that he had the child staying with him for about a week—”
“That is, the child in Maitland’s house?”
Johnson nodded.
“You don’t know what association there is between the child and these two men?”
“No, sir, except that I am certain that Mr. Collett-Banson had the little boy with him, because I sent toys—mechanical engines or something of the sort—by Mr. Maitland’s directions. It was the day that Mr. Maitland made his will, about eighteen months ago. I remember the day particularly for a peculiar reason. I had expected Mr. Maitland to ask me to witness the will and was piqued, for no cause, because he brought two clerks up from the office to sign. These little things impress themselves upon one,” he added.
Elk 01 The Fellowship of the Frog Page 20