THE PHOTO-PLAY
DICK’S face went white.
“How do you know this?”
“Well, there’s a photograph coming along; it will be in London this afternoon; but I needn’t see that. This man under sentence has three vaccination marks on the right forearm.”
There was a dead silence.
“I wondered why you turned the talk to vaccination,” said Dick quietly. “I ought to have known there was something in it. What can we do?”
“I’ll tell you what you can’t do,” said Elk. “You can’t let that girl know. For good and sufficient reasons, Ray Bennett has decided not to reveal his identity, and he must pass out. You’re going to have a rotten afternoon, Captain Gordon,” said Elk gently, “and I’d rather be me than you. But you’ve got to keep up your light-hearted chatter, or that young woman is going to guess that something is wrong.”
“My God! How dreadful!” said Dick in a low voice.
“Yes, it is,” admitted Elk, “and we can do nothing. We’ve got to accept it as a fact that he’s guilty. If you thought any other way, it would drive you mad. And even if he was as innocent as you or I, what chance have we of getting an inquiry or stopping the sentence being carried into execution?”
“Poor John Bennett!” said Dick in a hushed voice.
“If you’re starting to get sentimental,” snarled Elk, blinking furiously, “I’m going into a more practical atmosphere. Good afternoon.”
“Wait. I can’t face this girl for a moment. Come back to the house with me.”
Elk hesitated, and then grudgingly agreed.
Ella could not guess, from their demeanour, the horror that was in the minds of these men. Elk fell back upon history and dates—a prolific and a favourite subject.
“Thank heaven those catalogues have arrived!” said Dick, as, with a sigh of relief, he saw the huge pile of literature on his study table.
“Why ‘thank heaven’?” she smiled.
“Because his conscience is pricking him, and he wants an excuse for working.” Elk came to the rescue.
The strain was one which even he found almost insupportable; and when, after a pleading glance at the other, Dick nodded, he got up with a sense of holiday.
“I’ll be going now, Miss Bennett,” he said. “I expect you’ll be busy all the afternoon furnishing your cottage. I must come down and see it,” he went on, wilfully dense. “Though it struck me that there wouldn’t be much room for new furniture at Maytree.”
So far he got when he heard voices in the hall—the excited voice of a woman, shrill, insistent, hysterical. Before Dick could get to the door, it was flung open, and Lola rushed in.
“Gordon! Gordon! Oh, my God!” she sobbed. “Do you know?”
“Hush!” said Dick, but the girl was beside herself.
“They’ve got Ray! They’re going to hang him! Lew’s dead.”
The mischief was done. Ella came slowly to her feet, rigid with fear.
“My brother?” she asked, and then Lola saw her for the first time and nodded.
“I found out,” she sobbed. “I had a suspicion, and I wrote . . . I’ve got a photograph of Phenan. I knew it was Lew at once, and I guessed the rest. The Frog did it! He planned it; months in advance he planned it. I’m not sorry about Lew; I swear I’m not sorry about Lew! It’s the boy. I sent him to his death, Gordon——” And then she broke into a fit of hysterical sobbing.
“Put her out,” said Gordon, and Elk lifted the helpless girl in his arms and carried her into the dining-room.
“True!” Ella whispered the word, and Dick nodded.
“I’m afraid it’s true, Ella.”
She sat down slowly.
“I wonder where I can find father,” she said, as calmly as though she were discussing some everyday event.
“You can do nothing. He knows nothing. Do you think it is kind to tell him?”
She searched his face wonderingly.
“I think you’re right. Of course you’re right, Dick. I’m sure you’re right. Father mustn’t know. Couldn’t I see him—Ray, I mean?”
Dick shook his head.
“Ella, if Ray has kept silent to save you from this, all his forbearance, all his courage will be wasted if you go to him.”
Again her lips drooped.
“Yes. It is good of you to think for me.” She put her hand on his, and he felt no tremor. “I don’t know what I can do,” she said. “It is so—stunning. What can I do?”
“You can do nothing, my dear.” His arm went round her and her tired head fell upon his shoulder.
“No, I can do nothing,” she whispered.
Elk came in.
“A telegram for Miss Bennett,” he said. “The messenger just arrived with it. Been redirected from Horsham, I expect.”
Dick took the wire.
“Open it, please,” said the girl. “It may be from father.”
He tore open the envelope. The telegram ran:
“Have printed your picture. Cannot understand the murder. Were you trying take photo-play? Come and see me. Silenski House, Wardour Street.”
“What does it mean?” she asked.
“It is Greek to me,” said Dick. “ ‘Cannot understand murder’—has your father been trying to take photo-plays?”
“No, dear, I’m sure he hasn’t; he would have told me.”
“What photographs did your father take?”
“It was a picture of trout,” she said, gathering her scattered thoughts; “but he took another picture—in his sleep. He was in the country waiting for a badger, and dozed. He must have pressed the starter; he thought that picture was a failure. It can’t be the trout; it doesn’t mention the trout; it must be the other.”
“We will go to Wardour Street.”
It was Elk who spoke so definitely, Elk who called a cab and hustled the two people into it. When they arrived at Wardour Street, Mr. Silenski was out at lunch, and nobody knew anything whatever about the film, or had authority to show it.
For an hour and a half they waited, fuming, in that dingy office, whilst messengers went in search of Silenski. He arrived at last, a polite and pleasant little Hebrew, who was all apologies, though no apology was called for, since he had not expected his visitors.
“Yes, it is a curious picture,” he said. “Your father, miss, is a very good amateur; in fact, he’s a professional now; and if it is true that he can get these Zoo photographs, he ought to be in the first rank of nature photographers.”
They followed him up a flight of stairs into a big room across which were row upon row of chairs. Facing them as they sat was a small white screen, and behind them an iron partition with two square holes.
“This is our theatre,” he explained. “You’ve no idea whether your father is trying to take motion pictures—I mean photo-plays? If he is, then this scene was pretty well acted, but I can’t understand why he did it. It’s labelled ‘Trout in a Pond’ or something of the sort, but there are no trout here, and there is no pond either!”
There was a click, and the room went black; and then there was shown on the screen a picture which showed in the foreground a stretch of grey, sandy soil, and the dark opening of a burrow, out of which peeped a queer-looking animal.
“That’s a badger,” explained Mr. Silenski. “It looked very promising up to there, and then I don’t know what he did. You’ll see he changed the elevation of the camera.”
As he spoke, the picture jerked round a little to the right, as though it had been pulled violently. And they were looking upon two men, obviously tramps. One was sitting with his head on his hands, the other, close by him, was pouring out whisky into a container.
“That’s Lew Brady,” whispered Elk fiercely, and at that moment the other man looked up, and Ella Bennett uttered a cry.
“It is Ray! Oh, Dick, it is Ray!”
There was no question of it. The light beard he wore melted into the shadows which the strong sunlight cast. They saw Brady offer him a drink, saw him toss it down and throw the cup back to the man; watched him as his arms stretched in a yawn; and then saw him curl up to sleep, lie back, and Lew Brady standing over him. The prostrate figure turned on to its face, and Lew, stooping, put something in his pocket. They caught the reflection of glass.
“The flask,” said Elk.
And then the figure standing in the centre of the picture spun round. There walked toward him a man. His face was invisible. Never once during that period did he turn his face to that eager audience.
They saw his arm go up quickly, saw the flash of the two shots, watched breathless, spellbound, horrified, the tragedy that followed.
The man stooped and placed the pistol by the side of the sleeping Ray, and then, as he turned, the screen went white.
“That’s the end of the picture,” said Mr. Silenski. “And what it means, heaven knows.”
“He’s innocent! Dick, he’s innocent!” the girl cried wildly. “Don’t you see, it was not he who fired?”
She was half-mad with grief and terror, and Dick caught her firmly by the shoulders, the dumbfounded Silenski gaping at the scene.
“You are going back to my house and you will read! Do you hear, Ella? You’re to do nothing until you hear from me. You are not to go out; you are to sit and read! I don’t care what you read—the Bible, the Police News, anything you like. But you must not think of this business. Elk and I will do all that is possible.”
She mastered her wild terror and tried to smile.
“I know you will,” she said between her chattering teeth. “Get me to your house, please.”
He left Elk to go to Fleet Street to collect every scrap of information about the murder he could from the newspaper offices, and brought the girl back to Harley Terrace. As he got out of the cab, he saw a man waiting on the steps. It was Joshua Broad. One glance at his face told Dick that he knew of the murder, and he guessed the source.
He waited in the hall until Dick had put the girl in the study, and had collected every illustrated newspaper, every book he could find.
“Lola told me of this business.”
“I guessed so,” said Dick. “Do you know anything about it?”
“I knew these two men started out in the disguise of tramps,” said Broad, “but I understood they were going north. This is Frog work—why?”
“I don’t know. Yes, I do,” Dick said suddenly. “The Frog came to Miss Bennett last night and asked her to marry him, promising that he would save her brother if she agreed. But it can hardly be that he planned this diabolical trick to that end.”
“To no other end,” said Broad coolly. “You don’t know Frog, Gordon! The man is a strategist—probably the greatest strategist in the world. Can I do anything?”
“I would ask you to stay and keep Miss Bennett amused——” Dick began.
“I think you might do worse,” said the American quietly.
Ella looked up with a look of pain as the visitor entered the room. She felt that she could not endure the presence of a stranger at this moment, that she would break under any new strain, and she glanced at Dick imploringly.
“If you don’t want me to stay, Miss Bennett,” smiled Broad, “well, I’ll go just as soon as you tell me. But I’ve one piece of information to pass to you, and it is this: that your brother will not die.”
His eyes met Dick Gordon’s, and the Prosecutor bit his lip to restrain the cry that came involuntarily.
“Why?” she asked eagerly, but neither of the men could tell her.
Dick telephoned to the garage for his car, the very machine that Ray Bennett had driven the first day they had met. His first call was at the office of the Public Prosecutor, and to him he stated the facts.
“It is a most remarkable story, and I can do nothing, of course. You’d better see the Secretary of State at once, Gordon.”
“Is the House of Commons sitting, sir?”
“No—I’ve an idea that the Secretary, who is the only man that can do anything for you—is out of town. He may be on the Continent. I’m not sure. There was a conference at San Remo last week, and I’ve a dim notion that he went there.”
Dick’s heart almost stood still.
“Is there nobody else at the Home Office who could help?”
“There is the Under Secretary: you’d better see him.”
The Public Prosecutor’s Department was housed in the Home Office building, and Dick went straight away in search of the responsible official. The permanent secretary, to whom he explained the circumstances, shook his head.
“I’m afraid we can do nothing now, Gordon,” he said, “and the Secretary of State is in the country and very ill.”
“Where is the Under Secretary?” asked Dick desperately.
“He’s at San Remo.”
“How far out of town is Mr. Whitby’s house?”
The official considered.
“About thirty miles—this side of Tunbridge Wells,” and Dick wrote the address on a slip of paper.
Half an hour later, a long yellow Rolls was flying across Westminster Bridge, threading the traffic with a recklessness which brought the hearts of hardened chauffeurs to their mouths; and forty minutes after he had left Whitehall, Dick was speeding up an elm-bordered avenue to the home of the Secretary of State.
The butler who met him could give him no encouragement.
“I’m afraid Mr. Whitby cannot see you, sir. He has a very bad attack of gout, and the doctors have told him that he mustn’t touch any kind of business whatever.”
“This is a matter of life and death,” said Dick, “and I must see him. Or, failing him, I must see the King.”
This message, conveyed to the invalid, produced an invitation to walk upstairs.
“What is it, sir?” asked the Minister sharply as Dick came in. “I cannot possibly attend to any business whatever. I’m suffering the tortures of the damned with this infernal foot of mine. Now tell me, what is it?”
Quickly Gordon related his discovery.
“An astounding story,” said the Minister, and winced. “Where is the picture?”
“In London, sir.”
“I can’t come to London: it is humanly impossible. Can’t you get somebody at the Home Office to certify this? When is this man to be hanged?”
“To-morrow morning, sir, at eight o’clock.”
The Secretary of State considered, rubbing his chin irritably.
“I should be no man if I refused to see this damned picture,” he said, and Dick made allowance for his language as he rubbed his suffering limb. “But I can’t go to town unless you get me an ambulance. You had better ’phone a garage in London to send a car down, or, better still, get one from the local hospital.”
Everything seemed to be conspiring against him, for the local hospital’s ambulance was under repair, but at last Dick put through a message to town, with the promise that an ambulance would be on its way in ten minutes.
“An extraordinary story, a perfectly amazing story! And of course, I can grant you a respite. Or, if I’m convinced of the truth of this astounding romance, we could get the King to-night; I could even promise you a reprieve. But my death will lie at your door if I catch cold.”
Two hours passed before the ambulance came. The chauffeur had had to change his tyres twice on the journey. Very gingerly, accompanied by furious imprecations from the Cabinet Minister, his stretcher was lifted into the ambulance.
To Dick the journey seemed interminable. He had telephoned through to Silenski, asking him to keep his office open until his arrival. It was eight o’clock by the time the Minister was assisted up to the theatre, and the picture was thrown upon the screen.
Mr. Whitby watched the drama with the keenest interest, and when it was finished he drew a long breath.
“That’s all right so far as it goes,” he said, “but how do I know this hasn’t been play-acted in order to get this man a reprieve? And how am I to be sure that this wretched tramp is your man?”
“I can assure you of that, sir,” said Elk. “I got the photograph up from Gloucester this afternoon.”
He produced from his pocket-book two photographs, one in profile and one full-face, and put them on the table before the Minister.
“Show the picture again,” he ordered, and again they watched the presentation of the tragedy. “But how on earth did the man manage to take this picture?”
“I’ve since discovered, sir, that he was in the neighbourhood on that very day. He went out to get a photograph of a badger—I know this, sir, because Mr. Silenski has given me all the information in his power.”
Mr. Whitby looked up at Dick.
“You’re in the Public Prosecutor’s Department? I remember you very well, Captain Gordon. I must take your word. This is not a matter for respite, but for reprieve, until the whole of the circumstances are investigated.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Dick, wiping his streaming forehead.
“You’d better take me along to the Home Office,” grumbled the great man. “To-morrow I shall be cursing your name and memory, though I must confess that I’m feeling better for the drive. I want that picture.”
They had to wait until the picture was replaced in its box, and then Dick Gordon and Elk assisted the Secretary of State to the waiting ambulance.
At a quarter-past eight, a reprieve, ready for the Royal counter-signature, was in Dick’s hand, and the miracle, which Mr. Whitby had not dared expect, had happened. He was able, with the aid of a stick, to hobble to a car. Before the great Palace, streams of carriages and motor-cars were passing. It was the night of the first ball of the season, and the hall of the Palace was a brilliant sight. The glitter of women’s jewels, the scarlet, blue and green of diplomatic uniforms, the flash of innumerable Orders, no less than the organization of this gorgeous gathering, interested Dick as he stood, a strangely contrasting figure, watching the pageant pass him.
The Minister had disappeared into an ante-room and presently came back and crooked his finger; Dick followed him down a red-carpeted passage past white-haired footmen in scarlet and gold, until they came to a door, before which another footman stood. A whispered word, the footman knocked, and a voice bade them enter. The servant opened the door and they went in.
The man who was sitting at the table rose. He wore the scarlet uniform of a general; across his breast was the blue ribbon of the Garter. There was in his eyes a kindliness and humanity which Dick had not imagined he would find.
“Will you be seated? Now please tell me the story as quickly as you can, because I have an appointment elsewhere, and punctuality is the politeness of princes,” he smiled.
He listened attentively, stopping Gordon now and again to ask a question. When Dick had finished, he took up a pen and wrote a word in a bold, boyish hand, blotted it punctiliously and handed it to the Secretary of State.
“There is your reprieve. I am very glad,” he said, and Dick, bowing over the extended hand, felt the music of triumph in his soul, forgot for the moment the terrible danger in which this boy had stood; and forgot, too, the most important factor of all—the Frog, still vigilant, still vengeful, still powerful!
When he got back to the Home Office and had taken farewell, with a very earnest expression of gratitude, of the irascible, but kindly Minister, Dick flew up the stairs to his own office and seized the telephone.
“Put me through to Gloucester 8585 Official,” he said, and waited for the long-distance signal.
It came after a few minutes.
“Sorry, sir, no call through to Gloucester. Line out of order. Trunk wires cut.”
Dick put down the ’phone slowly. Then it was that he remembered that the Frog still lived.