Elk 01 The Fellowship of the Frog (20 page)

“It’s rather curious that a man of his uncouth appearance and speech should have those attainments,” said Dick.

“It’s a wonder to me,” confessed Johnson. “In fact, it has been a standing wonder to me ever since I’ve known him. You’d think he was a dustman or a tramp, to hear him talk, yet he’s a very well-read man, of extraordinary educational qualities.”

“Can he remember dates?” asked Elk.

“He can even remember dates,” replied Johnson seriously. “A queer old man, and in many ways an unpleasant old man. I’m not saying this because he’s fired me; I’ve always had the same view. He’s without a single spark of kindness; I think the only human thing about him is his love for this little boy.”

“What little boy?” asked Elk, immediately interested.

“I’ve never seen him,” said Johnson. “The child has never been brought to the office. I don’t know who he is or whose he is; I’ve an idea he’s a grandchild of Maitland’s.”

There was a pause.

“I see,” said Dick softly, and well he did see, for in that second began his understanding of the Frog and the secret of the Frog.

“Why were you fired?” he asked.

Johnson shrugged his shoulders.

“Over a stupid thing; in fact, it’s hardly worth talking about. It appears the old man saw me at Heron’s Club the other night, and ever since then he’s been going carefully into my petty cash account, probably under the impression that I was living a fast life! Beyond the usual grousing, there was nothing in his manner to suggest that he intended getting rid of me; but this morning, when I came, I found that he had already arrived, which was an unusual circumstance. He doesn’t as a rule get to the office until about an hour after we start work. ‘Johnson,’ he said, ‘I understand that you know a Miss Ella Bennett.‘I replied that I was fortunate enough to know the lady. ‘And I understand,’ he went on, ‘that you’ve been down there to lunch on one or two occasions.’ ‘That is perfectly true, Mr. Maitland,’ I replied. ‘Very well, Johnson,’ said Maitland, ‘you’re fired.’”

“And that was all?” asked Dick in amazement.

“That was all,” said Johnson in a hushed voice. “Can you understand it?”

Dick could have said yes, but he did not. Elk, more curious, and passionately anxious to extend his knowledge of the mysterious Maitland, had something to ask.

“Johnson, you’ve been right close to this man Maitland for years. Have you noticed anything about him that’s particularly suspicious?”

“Like what, Mr. Elk?”

“Has he had any visitors for whom you couldn’t account? Have you known him, for example, to do anything which would suggest to you that he had something to do with the Frogs?”

“The Frogs?” Johnson opened his eyes wide, and his voice emphasized his incredulity. “Bless you, no! I shouldn’t imagine he knows anything about these people. You mean the tramps who have committed so many crimes? No, Mr. Elk, I’ve never heard or seen or read anything which gave me that impression.”

“You’ve seen the records of most of his transactions: are there any that he has made which would lead you to believe that he had benefited, say, by the death of Mr. Maclean in Dundee, or by the attack which was made upon the woollen merchant at Derby? For example, do you know whether he has been engaged in the buying or selling of French brandies or perfumes?”

Johnson shook his head.

“No, sir, he deals only in real estate. He has properties in this country and in the South of France and in America. He has done a little business in exchanges; in fact, we did a very large exchange business until the mark broke.”

“What are you going to do now, Mr. Johnson?” asked Dick.

The other made a gesture of helplessness.

“What can I do, sir?” he asked. “I am nearly fifty; I’ve spent most of my working life in one job, and it is very unlikely that I can get another. Fortunately for me, I’ve not only saved money, but I have had one or two lucky investments, and for those I must be grateful to the old man. I don’t think he was particularly pleased when he found that I’d followed his advice, but that’s beside the question. I do owe him that. I’ve just about enough money to keep me for the rest of my life if I go quietly and do riot engage in any extraordinary speculations. Why I came to see you was to ask you, Captain Gordon, if you had any kind of opening. I should like a little spare time work, and I’d be most happy to work with you.”

Dick was rather embarrassed, because the opportunities for employing Mr. Johnson were few and far between. Nevertheless, he was anxious to help the man.

“Let me give the matter a day or two’s thought,” he said. “What is Maitland doing for a secretary?”

“I don’t know. That is my chief worry. I saw a letter lying on his desk, addressed to Miss Ella Bennett, and I have got an idea that he intends offering her the job.”

Dick could hardly believe his ears.

“What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know, sir, only once or twice the old man has inquired whether Ray has a sister. He took quite an interest in her for two or three days. and then let the matter drop. It is as astonishing as anything he has ever done.”

Elk for some reason felt immensely sorry for the man. He as so obviously and patently unfitted for the rough and humble of competition. And the opportunities which awaited a man of fifty worn to one groove were practically non-existent.

“I don’t know that! can help you either, Mr. Johnson,” he said. “As far as Miss Bennett is concerned, I imagine that there is no possibility of her accepting any such offer, supposing Maitland made it. I’ll have your address in case I want to communicate with you.”

“431, Fitzroy Square,” replied Johnson, and produced a somewhat soiled card with an apology. “I haven’t much use for cards,” he said.

He walked to the door and hesitated with his hand on its edge.

“I’m—I’m very fond of Miss Bennett,” he said, “and I’d like her to know that Maitland isn’t as bad as he looks. I’ve got to be fair to him!”

“Poor devil!” said Elk, watching the man through the window as he walked dejectedly along Harley Terrace. “It’s tough on him. You nearly told him about seeing Maitland this morning! I saw that, and was ready to jump in. It’s the young lady’s secret.”

“I wish to heaven it wasn’t,” said Dick sincerely, and remembered that he had asked Johnson to stay to breakfast.

There is a certain murky likeness between the houses in Fitzroy Square, London, and Gramercy Park, New York. Fitzroy Square belongs to the Georgian days, when Soho was a fashionable suburb, and St. Martins-in-the-Fields was really in the fields, and was not tucked away between a Vaudeville house and a picture gallery.

No. 431 had been subdivided by its owner into three self-contained flats, Johnson’s being situated on the ground floor. There was a fourth basement flat, which was occupied by a man and his wife who acted for the owners, and, incidentally, were responsible, in the case of Johnson, for keeping his apartments clean and supplying him with the very few meals that he had on the premises.

It was nearly ten o’clock when philosopher Johnson arrived home that evening, and he was a very tired man. He had spent the greater part of the day in making a series of calls upon financial and real estate houses. To his inevitable inquiries he received an inevitable answer. There were no vacancies, and certainly no openings for a stoutish man of fifty, who looked, to the discerning eyes of the merchants concerned or their managing clerks, past his best years of work. Patient Mr. Johnson accepted each rebuff and moved on to another field, only to find his experience repeated.

He let himself in with a latchkey, walked wearily into a little sitting-room, and dropped with a sigh to the Chesterfield, for he was not given to violent exercise.

The room in which he sat was prettily, but not expensively furnished. A large green carpet covered the floor; the walls were hidden by book-shelves; and there was about the place a certain cosiness which money cannot buy. Rising after some little time, he walked to his book-shelf, took down a volume and spent the next two hours in reading. It was nearly midnight when he turned out the light and went to bed.

His bedroom was at the farther end of the short corridor, and in five minutes he was undressed and asleep.

Mr. Johnson was usually a light but consistent sleeper, but to-night he had not been asleep an hour before he was awake again. And wider awake than he had been at any portion of the day. Softly he got out of bed, put on his slippers and pulled a dressing-gown round him; then, taking something from a drawer in his bureau, he opened the door and crept softly along the carpeted passage toward his sitting-room.

He had heard no sound; it was sheer premonition of a pressing danger which had wakened him. His hand was on the door-knob, and he had turned it, when he heard a faint click. It was the sound of a light being turned off, and the sound came from the sitting-room.

With a quick jerk he threw open the door and reached out his hand for the switch; and then, from the blackness of the room, came a warning voice.

“Touch that light and you die! I’ve got you covered. Put your gun on the floor at your feet—quick!”

Johnson stooped and laid down the revolver he had taken from his bureau.

“Now step inside, and step lively,” said the voice.

“Who are you?” asked Johnson steadily.

He strained his eyes to pierce the darkness, and saw the figure now. It was standing by his desk, and the shine of something in its hand warned him that the threat was no idle one.

“Never met me?” There was a chuckle of laughter in the voice of the Unknown. “I’ll bet you haven’t! Friend—meet the Frog!”

“The Frog?” Johnson repeated the words mechanically. “One name’s as good as another. That will do for mine,” said the stranger. “Throw over the key of your desk.”

There was a silence.

“I haven’t my key here,” said Johnson. “It is in the bedroom.”

“Stay where you are,” warned the voice.

Johnson had kicked off his slippers softly, and was feeling with his feet for the pistol he had laid so obediently on the floor in the first shock of surprise. Presently he found it and drew it toward him with his bare toes.

“What do you want?” he asked, temporizing.

“I want to see your office papers—all the papers you’ve brought from Maitlands.”

“There is nothing here of any value,” said Johnson.

The revolver was now at his feet and a little ahead of him. He kept his toes upon the butt, ready to drop just as soon as he could locate with any certainty the position of the burglar. But now, though his eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness, he could no longer see the owner of the voice.

“Come nearer,” said the stranger, “and hold out your hands.”

Johnson made as though to obey, but dropped suddenly to his knees. The explosion deafened him. He heard a cry, saw, in the flash of his pistol, a dark figure, and then something struck him.

He came to consciousness ten minutes later, to find the room empty. Staggering to his feet, he put on the light and walked unsteadily back to his bedroom, to examine the extent of his injuries. He felt the bump on his head gingerly, and grinned. Somebody was knocking at the outer door, a peremptory, authoritative knocking. With a wet towel to his injured head he went out into the passage and opened the front door. He found two policemen at the step and a small crowd gathered on the pavement.

“Has there been shooting here?”

“Yes, constable,” said Johnson, “I did a little shooting, but I don’t think I hit anything.”

“Have you been hurt, sir? Was it burglars?”

“I can’t tell you. Come in,” said Johnson, and led the way back to the disordered library.

The blind was flapping in the draught, for the window, which looked out upon a side street, was open.

“Have you missed anything?”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Johnson. “I think it was rather more important than an ordinary burglary. I am going to call Inspector Elk of Scotland Yard, and I think you had better leave the room as it is until he arrives.”

Elk was in his office, laboriously preparing a report on the escape of Hagn, when the call came through. He listened attentively, and then:

“I’ll come down, Johnson. Tell the constable to leave things—ask him to speak to me.”

By the time Elk had arrived, the philosopher was dressed. “He gave you a pretty hefty one,” said Elk, examining the contusion with a professional eye.

“I wasn’t prepared for it. I expected him to shoot, and he must have struck at me as I fired.”

“You say it was the Frog himself?” said the sceptical Elk. “I doubt it. The Frog has never undertaken a job on his own, so far as I can remember.”

“It was either the Frog or one of his trusted emissaries,” said Johnson with a good-humoured smile. “Look at this.”

On the centre of his pink blotting-pad was stamped the inevitable Frog. It appeared also on the panel of the door.

“That is supposed to be a warning, isn’t it?” said Johnson. “Well, I hadn’t time to get acquainted with the warning before I got mine!”

“There are worse things than a clubbing,” said Elk cheerfully. “You’ve missed nothing?”

Johnson shook his head.

“No, nothing.”

Elk’s inspection of the room was short but thorough. It was near the open window, blown by the breeze into the folds of the curtain, that he found the parcel-room ticket. It was a green slip acknowledging the reception of a handbag, and it was issued at the terminus of the Great Northern Railway.

“Is this yours?” he asked.

Johnson took the slip from him, examined it and shook his head.

“No,” he said, “I’ve never seen it before.”

“Anybody else in your flat likely to have left a bag at King’s Cross station?”