Elk 01 The Fellowship of the Frog (40 page)

“We made Portsmouth after a great deal of difficulty late in the evening. There was no Customs inspection and we got our bags safely on land. I intended staying the night at Portsmouth, but after we had taken our lodgings, my friend and I went round to a little bar to get a drink, and there we heard something which sent us back to our rooms at full pelt. What we heard was that the robbery had been discovered, and that the police were looking for two men who had made their escape on the dredger. As it was the dredger’s captain who had recommended our lodgings, I had little expectation of getting into the room and out again without capture.

“However, we did, and as we passed out of the street at one end, the police came in at the other. I carried one bag, my friend the lighter, and we started on foot across country, and before the morning we had reached a place called Eastleigh. It was to Eastleigh, you will remember, Mr. Elk, that I came when I left the cattle-boat during the war and suddenly changed my character from a hard-up cattle-puncher to a wealthy gambler at Monte Carlo.

“That matter I will explain later. When we reached Eastleigh, I had a talk with my companion, and it was a pretty straight talk, because he’d got a load of liquor on board and was becoming more and more unreliable. It ended by his going into the town to buy some food and not returning. When I went in search of him, I found him lying in the street, incapably drunk. There was nothing to do but to leave him; and getting a little food, I took the two bags and struck the road. The bags, however, were much too heavy for, me, and I had to consider my position.

“Standing by the road was an old cottage, and on a board was an announcement that it was to be sold. I took the address; it was the name of a Winchester lawyer; and then I got over the fence and made an inspection of the ground, to find that, at the lower end of the rank garden, was an old, disused well, boarded over by rotten planks. I could in safety drop the lighter of my burdens down the well and cover it up with the rubble, of which there was plenty around. I might have buried both; in many ways a lot of trouble would have been saved if I had. But I was loth to leave all that I had striven for with such care and pains, and I took the second box on with me, reached Winchester, bought a change of clothing, and spent a comfortable day there, interviewing the lawyer, who owned the cottage.

“I had some English money with me, and the purchase was effected. I gave strict instructions that the place was not to be let in any circumstances, and that it was to remain as it was until I came back from Australia—I posed as a wealthy Australian who was repurchasing the house in which he was born.

“From Winchester I reached London, never dreaming that I was in any danger. My companion had given me the name of an English crook, an acquaintance of his, who, he said, was the finest safe-man in Europe—a man who was called ‘Lyme’ and who, I discovered many years after, was the same Harry Lyme. He told me Lyme would help me in any emergency.

“And that emergency soon arose. The first man I saw when I put my foot on the platform at Waterloo was the purser of the
Mantania
, and with him was the ship’s detective. I dodged back, and, fortunately for me, there was a suburban train leaving from the opposite platform, and I went on to Surbiton, reaching London by another route. Afterwards, I learnt that my companion had been arrested, and in his half-drunken state had told all he knew. The thing to do now was to cache the remainder of the money—thirty-five million francs. I immediately thought of Harry Lyme. I have never suffered from the illusion that there is honour amongst thieves. My own experience is that that is one of the most stupid of proverbs. But I thought that at least I might make it worth Lyme’s while to help me out of a mess.

“I learnt from the newspapers that there was a special force of police looking for me, and that they were watching the houses of well-known criminals, to whom, they thought, I might gravitate. At first I thought this was a bluff, but I was to discover that this was not the case. I reached Lyme’s house, in a disreputable thoroughfare in Camden Town. The fog was thick and yellow, and I had some difficulty in finding my way. It was a small house in a mean, squalid street, and at first I could get no reply to my knocking. Then the door was opened cautiously.

“‘Is that Lyme?’ I asked. ‘He’s not at home,’ said a man, and he would have shut the door, but my instinct told me this was the fellow I was seeking, and I put my foot in the way of the closing door. ‘Come in,’ he said at last, and led the way into a small room, the only light of which was a lantern which stood on the table. The room was thick with fog, for the window was open, as I learnt afterwards, to allow Lyme to make his escape.

“‘Are you the American?’ he asked. ‘You’re mad to come here. The police have been watching this place ever since this afternoon.’ I told him briefly what my difficulty was. ‘I have here thirty-five million francs—that’s a million, three hundred thousand pounds,’ said I, ‘and there’s enough for both of us. Can you plant this whilst I make a getaway?’ ‘Yes, I will,’ he said. ‘What do I get out of it?’ ‘I’ll give you half,’ I promised, and he seemed to be satisfied with that.

“I was surprised that he spoke in the voice and tone of an educated man, and I learnt afterwards that he also had been intended for some profession, and, like myself, had chosen the easier way. Now, you’ll not believe me when I tell you that I did not see his face, and that I carried no very vivid impression away with me. This is due to the fact that I concentrated my attention upon the frog which was tattooed on his wrist, and which afterwards, at great expense, he succeeded in having removed by a Spanish doctor it Valladolid, who specialized in that kind of work. That frog was tattooed a little askew, and I knew, and he knew too, that, whether I remembered his face or not, he had a mark which was certain to guide me back to him.

“The arrangement I made was that, when I got back to America, I should send a cable to him, at an address we agreed upon, and that he was then to send me, by registered post to the Grand Hotel, Montreal, a half of the money he had in the box. To cut a long story short, I made my escape, and eventually reached the Continent by way of Hook of Holland. Encumbered with any baggage, that would have been impossible. In due course I left for the United States from Bremen, Germany, and immediately on my arrival sent the cable to Lyme, and went up to Montreal to await the arrival of the money. It did not come. I cabled again; still it did not come.

“It was months after that I learnt what had happened. It came from a cutting of a newspaper, saying that Lyme had been drowned on his way to Guernsey. How he sent that, I don’t know and never have inquired. Lyme was, in fact, very much alive. He had some six million dollars’ worth of French notes, and his job was to negotiate them. His first step was to move to a Midland town, where for six months he posed as a man of business, in the meantime changing his whole appearance, shaving off his moustache and producing an artificial baldness by the application of some chemical.

“Whilst he was doing this, and determined that every penny he had taken from me he would hold, he decided to make assurance doubly sure, and started in a small way the Fellowship of the Frog. The object of this was to spread the mark of identification by which I should know him, as far and wide as possible. He may have had no other idea in his mind, and probably had not, but to broadcast this mark of the frog, a little askew, the exact replica of his. Obviously no class would be willing to suffer the tortures of tattooing for nothing. So began this curious Benefit Fund of his. From this little beginning grew the great Frog organization. Almost one of the first men he came into contact with was an old criminal named Maitland, a man who could neither read nor write.”

There was a gasp.

“Why, of course!” said Elk, and smacked his knee impatiently. “That is the explanation of the baby!”

“There never was a baby,” smiled ‘Broad.’ “The baby was Maitland himself, learning to write. The clothes of the baby, which were planted for your special benefit in the Eldor Street house, were put there by Johnson. The toys for the baby were inventions to keep you guessing. There never was a baby. Once he had Maitland properly coached, he came to London, and Maitiands Consolidated was formed. Maitland had nothing to do except to sit around and look picturesque. His alleged clerk, one of the cleverest actors I have ever met, was the real head of the business, and remained Maitland’s clerk just as long as it suited him. When he thought suspicion was veering toward him, he had himself dismissed; just as, when he thought you had identified him with the Frog, he made one of his men shoot at him with a blank cartridge in Harley Terrace. He was the real Maitland.

“In the meantime the Frog organization was growing, and he sat down to consider how best he could use the society for his advantage. Money was going out, and he naturally hated to see it go. New recruits were appearing every day, and they all cost money. But what he did get from this rabble were one or two brilliant minds. Balder was one, Hagn was one, and there were others, who perhaps will now never be known.

“As the controlling force of Maitlands Consolidated, he had not the slightest difficulty in disposing of his francs. And then he set Maitlands speculating in other directions, and when his speculations were failing, he found ways of cutting his loss. He was once caught short in a wool transaction—the Frog maimed the only man who could have ruined him. Whenever he found it expedient for the benefit of himself to club a man, whether he was a military attache or a very plain City merchant speculating in his own stocks, Johnson never hesitated. People who were bothering him were put beyond the opportunities of mischief. He made one great mistake. He allowed Maitland to live like a hog in a house he had bought. That was folly. When he found that the old man had been trailed, he shifted him to Berkeley Square, got him tailored, and eventually murdered him for daring to go to Horsham. I saw the murderer escape, for I was on the roof when the shots were fired. Incidentally, I had a narrow escape myself.

“But to return to my own narrative. Five years ago I was broke, and I decided to have another attempt to get my money; and there was also the fact that a very large sum of money waited reclaiming at Eastleigh, always providing that I had not been identified as the man who bought the house. It took me a long time before I made absolutely certain that I was unknown, and then, with the title deeds in my pocket, I sailed on a cattle-boat and landed, as you have said, Mr. Elk, with a few dollars in my pocket, at Southampton. I went straight to the house, which was now in a shocking state of repair, and there I made myself as comfortable as I possibly could whilst, night after night, I toiled in the well to recover the small box of money, amounting to a very considerable sum. When this was recovered, I left for Paris, and the rest, so far as my public history is concerned, you know.

“I then began my search for. Frog, and I very soon saw that, if I depended upon the identification of the tattoo marks, my search was hopeless. Naturally, when I discovered, as I soon did, that Maitland was a Frog, I narrowed my search to that office. I discovered that Maitland was an illiterate by the simple expedient of stopping him in the street one day near his house, and showing him an envelope on which I had written ‘You are a fake,’ and asking him if he knew the address. He pointed to a house farther along the street, and hurried in.”

“I knew that Maitland could neither read nor write when I learnt that the children’s clothes had been left at Eclat Street,” said Dick, “and from that moment I knew that Johnson was the Frog.

“Joshua Broad” nodded.

“That, I think, is about all I have to say. Johnson was a genius. The way he handled that huge organization, which he ran practically in his spare time when he was away from the office, was a revelation. He drew everybody into his net, and yet nobody knew him. Balder was a godsend; he was perhaps the highest paid agent of the lot. You will find that his income ran into six figures!”

* * * * *

When “Joshua Broad” had gone back to London, Dick walked with Elk to the garden gate.

“I shan’t be coming up for a little while,” he said.

“I never expected you would,” said Elk. “Say, Captain Gordon, what happened to those two wooden boxes that were in the quarry hut last night?”

“I didn’t see the boxes.”

“I saw them,” said Elk, nodding. “They were there when we took Miss Bennett away, and when I came back with the police they were gone, and ‘Joshua Broad’ was there all the time,” he added.

They looked at one another.

“I don’t think I should inquire too closely into that matter,” said Dick. “I owe ‘Broad’ something.”

“I owe him a bit too,” said Elk with a hint of enthusiasm. “Do you know, he taught me a rhyme last night? There are about a hundred and fifty verses, but I only know four. It starts:

“William the Conqueror started his tricks, Battle of Hastings, ten sixty-six.

“That’s a grand rhyme, Captain Gordon. If I’d only known that ten years ago I might have been a Chief Commissioner by now!”

He walked down the road towards the station, for be was returning by train. The sun glittered upon the rain-fringed banners of the hollyhocks that filled the cottagers’ gardens. Then from the hedge a tiny green figure hopped, and Elk stood still and watched it. The little reptile looked round and eyed the detective with black, staring eyes.

“Frog,” Elk raised a reproachful finger, “have a heart and go home—this is not your Day!”

And, as if he understood what the man had said, the frog leaped back to the shelter of the long grass.