“The whole trouble, Elk, is that the Frogs are not an illegal association. It may be necessary to ask the Prime Minister to proclaim the society.”
“Perhaps he’s a Frog too,” said Elk gloomily. “Don’t laugh, Captain Gordon! There are big people behind these Frogs. I’m beginning to suspect everybody.”
“Start by suspecting me,” said Gordon good-humouredly.
“I have,” was the frank reply. “Then it occurred to me that possibly I walk in my sleep—I used to as a boy. Likely I lead a double life, and I am a detective by day and a Frog by night—you never know. It is clear that there is a genius at the back of the Frogs,” he went on, with unconscious immodesty.
“Lola Bassano?” suggested Dick.
“I’ve thought of her, but she’s no organizer. She had a company on the road when she was nineteen, and it died the death from bad organization. I suppose you think that that doesn’t mean she couldn’t run the Frogs—but it does. You want exactly the same type of intelligence to control the Frogs as you want to control a bank. Maitland is the man. I narrowed the circle down to him after I had a talk with Johnson. Johnson says he’s never seen the old man’s pass-book, and although he is his private secretary, knows nothing whatever of his business transactions except that he buys property and sells it. The money old Maitland makes on the side never appears in the books, and Johnson was a very surprised man when I suggested that Maitland transacted any business at all outside the general routine of the company. And it’s not a company at all—not an incorporated company. It’s a one man show. Would you like to make sure, Captain Gordon?”
“Sure of what?” asked Dick, startled.
“That Miss Bennett isn’t in this at all.”
“You don’t think for one moment she is?” asked Dick, aghast at the thought.
“I’m prepared to believe anything,” said Elk. “We’ve got a clear road; we could be at Horsham in an hour, and it is our business to make sure. In my mind I’m perfectly satisfied that it was not Miss Bennett’s voice. But when we come down to writing out reports for the people upstairs to read” (‘the people upstairs’ was Elk’s invariable symbol for his superiors) “we are going to look silly if we say that we heard Miss Bennett’s voice and didn’t trouble to find out where Miss Bennett was.”