Elk 01 The Fellowship of the Frog (4 page)

“You’re American—what state?”

“Georgia,” was the reply, and this time the hawker made no attempt at disguise. “Came over on a cattle boat during the war.”

Elk held out his hand.

“Let me see that licence of yours, brother,” he said.

Without hesitation the man produced the written police permit to sell on the streets. It was made out in the name of “Joshua Broad,” and was in order.

“You’re not from Georgia,” said Elk, “but that doesn’t matter. You’re from Hampshire or Massachusetts.”

“Connecticut, to be exact,” said the man coolly, “but I’ve lived in Georgia. Want a key-ring?”

There was a gleam of amusement in his eyes—the merest flash.

“No. Never had a key. Never had anything worth locking up,” said Elk, fingering the articles on the tray. “Not a good pitch, this.”

“No,” said the other; “too near to Scotland Yard, Mr. Elk.”

Elk cast a swift glance at the man.

“Know me, do you?”

“Most people do, don’t they?” asked the other innocently.

Elk took the pedlar in from the soles of his stout shoes to his soddened hat, and, with a nod, went on. The hawker looked after the detective until he was out of sight, and then, fixing a cover over his tray, strapped it tight and walked in the direction Elk had taken.

Coming out of Maitlands to lunch, Ray Bennett saw a shabby and saturnine man standing on the edge of the pavement, but gave him no more than a passing glance. He, at any rate, did not know Elk and was quite unconscious of the fact that he was being followed to the little chophouse where Philo Johnson and he took their modest luncheon.

In any circumstances Ray would not have observed the shadow, but to-day, in his condition of mind, he had no thought for anybody but himself, or any offence but the bearded and ancient Maitland’s outrageous behaviour.

“The old devil!” he said as he walked by Johnson’s side. “To make a ten per cent cut in salaries and to start on me And this morning the papers say that he has given five thousand to the Northern Hospitals!”

“He’s a charitable cuss, and as to the cut, it was either that or standing you off,” said Johnson cheerfully. “What’s the use of kicking? Trade has been bad, and the stock market is as dead as Ptolemy. The old man wanted to put you off—said that you were superfluous anyway. If you’d only look on the bright side of things, Ray—”

“Bright!” snorted the young man, his face going pink with anger. “I’m getting a boy’s salary, and I want money mighty badly, Philo.”

Philo sighed, and for once his good-humoured face was clouded. Then it relaxed into a broad grin.

“If I thought the same way as you, I’d go mad or turn into a first-class crook. I only earn about fifty per cent more than you, and yet the old man allows me to handle hundreds of thousands. It’s too bad.”

Nevertheless, the “badness” of the parsimonious Maitland did not interfere with his appetite.

“The art of being happy,” he said as he pushed back his plate and lit a cigarette, “is to want nothing. Then you’re always getting more than you need. How is your sister?”

“She’s all right,” said Ray indifferently. “Ella’s the same mind as you. It’s easy to be a philosopher over other people’s worries, Who’s that disreputable bird?” he added, as a man seated himself at a table opposite to them.

Philo fixed his glasses—he was a little near-sighted.

“That’s Elk—a Scotland Yard man,” he said, and grinned at the new-corner, a recognition which, to Ray’s annoyance—and his annoyance was tinged with uneasiness—brought the seedy man to their table.

“This is my friend, Mr. Bennett—Inspector Elk, Ray.”

“Sergeant,” suggested Elk dourly. “Fate has always been against me in the matter of promotion. Can’t remember dates.”

So far from making a secret of his failure, Mr. Elk was never tired of discussing the cause.

“Though why a man is a better thief-taker for knowin’ when George Washington was born and when Napoleon Bonaparte died, is a mystery to me. Dine here every day, Mr. Bennett?”

Ray nodded.

“Know your father, I think—John Bennett of Horsham, isn’t it? Thought so.”

In desperation Ray got up with an excuse and left them alone.

“Nice boy, that,” said Elk.

They were nearing the imposing home of Maitlands Consolidated, when Mr. Johnson suddenly broke off in the middle of an interesting exposition of his philosophy and quickened his pace. On the pavement ahead of them he saw Ray Bennett, and by his side the slim figure of a girl. Their backs were toward the two men, but Elk guessed rightly when he decided that the girl was Ella Bennett. He had seen her twice before, and he had a wonderful memory for backs. Turning as the stout man came up to her, hat in hand, she greeted him with a quick and friendly smile.

“This is an unexpected pleasure, Miss Bennett.”

There was a pink tinge to Johnson’s homely face (“Sweet on her,” thought Elk, interested), and his handshake was warm and something more than cordial.

“I didn’t intend coming to town, but father has gone off on one of his mysterious excursions,” she said with a little laugh, “this time to the West. And, curiously enough, am absolutely sure I saw him on a ‘bus just now, though his train left two hours ago.”

She glanced at Elk hovering in the background, and the sight of his glum countenance seemed to arouse some unpleasant memory, for the brightness went out of her face.

“My friend, Mr. Elk,” said Johnson a little awkwardly, and Elk nodded.

“Glad to meet you, Miss Bennett,” he said, and noted Ray’s annoyance with inward satisfaction which, in a more cheerful man, would have been mirth.

She bowed slightly and then said something in a low tone to her brother. Elk saw the boy frown.

“I shan’t be very late,” he said, loudly enough for the detective to hear.

She put out her hand to Johnson, Elk she favoured with a distant inclination of her head, and was gone, leaving the three men looking after her. Two, for when Mr. Elk looked around, the boy had disappeared into the building.

“You know Miss Bennett?”

“Slightly,” said Elk grudgingly. “I know almost everybody slightly. Good people and bad people. The gooder they are, the slighter I know ‘em. Queer devil.”

“Who?” asked the startled Johnson. “You mean her father? I wish he wasn’t so chilly with me.”

Elk’s lips twitched.

“I guess you do,” he said drily. “So long.”

He strolled aimlessly away as Johnson walked up the steps into Maitlands, but he did not go far. Crossing the road, he retraced his steps and took up his station in the doorway.

At four o’clock a taxicab drew up before the imposing door of Maitlands Consolidated, and a few minutes later the old man shuffled out, looking neither to the right nor to the left. Elk regarded him with more than ordinary interest. He knew the financier by sight, and had paid two or three visits to the office in connection with certain petty thefts committed by cleaners. In this way he had become acquainted with Philo Johnson, for old Maitland had delegated the interview to his subordinate.

Elk judged the old man to be in the region of seventy, and wondered for the first time where he lived, and in what state. Had he relations? It was a curious fact that he knew nothing whatever about the financier, the least paragraphed of any of the big City forces.

The detective had no business with the head of this flourishing firm. His task was to discover the association between Lola Bassano and this impecunious clerk. He knew inside him that Dick Gordon’s interest in the young man was not altogether disinterested, and suspected rightly that the pretty sister of Ray Bennett lay behind it.

But the itch for knowledge about Maitland, suddenly aroused by the realization that the old man’s home life was an unknown quantity, was too strong to be resisted. As the taxicab moved off, Elk beckoned another.

“Follow that cab,” he said, and the driver nodded his agreement without question, for there was no taximan on the streets who did not know this melancholy policeman.

The first of the cabs drove rapidly in the direction of North London, and halted at a busy junction of streets in Finsbury Park. This is a part of the town which great financiers do riot as a rule choose for their habitations. It is a working-class district, full of small houses, usually occupied by two or more families; and when the cab stopped and the old man nimbly descended, Elk’s mouth opened in an ‘0’ of surprise.

Maitland did not pay the cabman, but hurried round the corner into the busy thoroughfare, with Elk at his heels. He walked a hundred yards, and then boarded a street car. Elk sprinted, and swung himself on board as the car was moving. The old man found a seat, took a battered newspaper from his pocket, and began reading.

The car ran down Seven Sisters Road into Tottenham, and here Mr. Maitland descended. He turned into a side street of apparently interminable length, crossed the road, and came into a narrow and even meaner street than that which he had traversed; and then, to Elk’s amazement, pushed open the iron gate of a dark and dirty little house, opened the door and went in, closing it behind him.

The detective looked up and down the street. It was crowded with poor children. Elk looked at the house again, scarcely believing his eyes. The windows were unclean, the soiled curtains visible were ragged, and the tiny forecourt bore an appearance of neglect. And this was the home of Ezra Maitland, a master of millions, the man who gave PS5,000 to the London hospitals! It was incredible.

He made up his mind, and, walking to the door, knocked. For some time there was no reply, and then he heard the shuffle of slippered feet in the passage, and an old woman with a yellow face opened the door.

“Excuse me,” said Elk “I think the gentleman who just came in dropped this.” He produced a handkerchief from his pocket, and she glared at it for a moment, and then, reaching out her hand, took it from him and slammed the door in his face.

“And that’s the last of my good handkerchief,” thought Elk bitterly.

He had caught one glimpse of the interior. A grimy-looking passage with a strip of faded carpet, and a flight of uncovered stairs. He proceeded to make a few local inquiries. “Maitland or Mainland, I don’t know which,” said a tradesman who kept a general store at the corner. “The old gentleman goes out every morning at nine, and comes home just about this hour. I don’t know who or what he is. I can tell you this, though: he doesn’t eat much! He buys all his goods here. What those two people live on, an ordinary healthy child would eat at one meal!”

Elk went back to the west, a little mystified. The miser was a common figure of fiction, and not uncommonly met with in real life. But old Maitland must be a super-miser, he thought, and decided to give the matter a little further attention. For the moment, he was concentrating his efforts upon Miss Lola Bassano, that interesting lady.

In one of the fashionable thoroughfares leading from Cavendish Square is a block of flats, occupied by wealthy tenants. Its rents are remarkably high, even for that exclusive quarter, and even Elk, who was not easily surprised, was a little staggered when he learnt that Lola Bassano occupied a suite in this expensive building.

It was to Caverley House that he made his way after returning to Maitland’s office, to find the premises closed. There was no indicator on the wall, but the lift-man, who regarded Elk with some suspicion, as he was entitled to do, announced that Miss Bassano lived on the third floor. “How long has she been here?” asked Elk.

“That’s no business of yours,” said the lift-man; “and I think what you want, my friend, is the tradesmen’s entrance.”

“I’ve often wondered,” ruminated Elk, “what people like you do their thinking with.”

“Now look here—!” began the lift-man indignantly. “Look here,” retorted Elk, and at the sight of his badge the man grew more polite and more informative.

“She’s been here two months,” he said. “And, to tell you the truth, Mr. Elk, I’ve often wondered how she got a suite in Caverley House. They tell me she used to run a gambling joint on Jermyn Street. You haven’t come to raid her, have you?” he asked anxiously. “That’d get Caverley House a pretty bad name.”

“I’ve come to make a friendly call,” said Elk carefully. “That’s the door.” The man stepped out of the lift and pointed to one of the two sober mahogany doors on the landing. “This other flat belongs to an American millionaire.”

“Is there such a thing?” asked Elk. He was about to say something more when the lift-man walked to the door and peered at one of its polished panels. “That’s queer,” he said. “What do you make of this?” Elk joined him, and at a glance saw and understood. On the panel had been stamped a small white frog—an exact replica of those he had seen that morning on the photographs that Dick Gordon had shown him. A squatting frog, slightly askew.

He touched it. The ink was still wet and showed on his finger. And then the strangest thing of all happened. The door opened suddenly, and a man of middle age appeared in the doorway. In his hand was a long-barrelled Browning, and it covered the detective’s heart.

“Put up your hands,” he said sharply. Then he stopped and stared at the detective.

Elk returned the gaze, speechless; for the elegantly dressed man who stood there was the hawk-faced pedlar he had seen in Whitehall!

The American was the first to recover. Not a muscle of his face moved, but Elk saw again that light of amusement in his eyes as he stepped back and opened the door still wider. “Come right in, Mr. Elk,” he said, and, to the amazed lift-man: “It’s all right, Worth. I was practising a little joke on Mr. Elk.”

He closed the door behind him, and with a gesture beckoned the detective into a prettily furnished drawing-room. Elk went in, leaving the matter of the frog on the door for discussion later.