The Voice from the Void: The Great Wireless Mystery
“I was taken away unconscious. If so, what could have prevented the assassin and his friends – for there must have been more than one person – removing the evidence of their crime?”
“Assassin!” gasped the old man, drawing a deep breath. Thoughts of Gordon Gray and the handsome Freda crossed his mind. But what hand could they have had in the death of an unknown girl in the woods at the rear of the Rectory?
No. He decided that Roddy, in his unbalanced state of mind, was filled with wild imaginings. The description of the red ball of fire was sufficient in itself to show how disordered was his brain. The poor boy was suffering from hallucinations, he decided, so he humoured him and listened as he repeated his incredible story.
“You would recognise the girl again, Roddy?” asked his father, puffing at his pipe.
“Recognise her! Of course I should. I’d know her anywhere!” And once again he went into a long and detailed description of her face, her eyes, her hair, and her dress.
The short December afternoon was drawing in and the light was fading.
“I think, Roddy, that if I were you I’d go and lie down,” said his father softly. “Your poor head worries you – I know, my dear boy.”
“It does. But I can think now – think quite clearly,” was the young man’s reply. “At the hospital the matron regarded me as a half-dazed idiot, I believe, and the nurse listened to me as she might listen to a baby’s babbling. But I tell you, father, I’m now perfectly in my right mind. You may believe, or you may disbelieve my story, but Roddy, your son, has told you the truth, and he repeats every word he has said.”
For a few moments the rector was silent, his pipe still in his mouth and his hands in the pockets of the easy old black jacket he wore in the house. He was not a man who made any outward show, and, like most scholars, cared little for dress now that, alas! his wife, who had looked after him so tenderly, was dead. Old Norton Homfray was of simple tastes and few wants. His whole soul was in the welfare of his parish, and in consequence the parish held him up as a real fine old fellow.
“Well, Roddy, what you’ve told me is, of course, most astounding – almost incredible. On that night you walked home with Miss Sandys – eh? She came here and told me so herself.”
“She came here! Elma here!” cried Roddy, quickly stirring himself from his chair and becoming alert. “What did she say?”
“She heard that you were missing, and she came to tell me of her walk home to the Towers with you.”
“Yes. And – and what did she say about me?” the young man asked with quick eagerness.
“Nothing. Only she seemed greatly surprised and upset,” his father replied. “But – well – ”
And he hesitated.
“Well – go on,” the young man said.
“Well, look here, Roddy, after leaving Miss Sandys, did you meet anyone else – a man in the Guildford road?”
“A man? No. Why? Haven’t I told you I walked straight home? What are you trying to make out?”
“You are quite certain that you did not stop and speak with any stranger in the Guildford road?”
“I am quite certain that I did not. I spoke to nobody till I found the girl dying in Welling Wood.”
“And – well, now let me at once be frank with you, Roddy: have you ever in your life heard the name of Gordon Gray?”
“Never. Who is he?”
“No matter. Recollect the name, and if you ever hear it, avoid him – avoid him, my boy, as you would Satan himself. And his woman friend Freda Crisp.”
“Freda Crisp? Oh! I fancy I’ve met her – been introduced to her somewhere or other about a year ago. In South America, I believe, but I really can’t remember. A fine handsome woman, who always dresses beautifully, and who is a topping dancer. Always has lots of men about her. Yes. I have a recollection of her, but I don’t just now recall where we met. In travelling I meet so many people, dad, as you know.”
“Yes, of course, my boy; but if you ever meet her again, remember my words.”
“That Miss Sandys should come and see you, dad, is peculiar. Why did she come? What interest can she possibly have in me, except – well, perhaps it is the wireless. She told me she was very interested in it, and possibly she has heard that I’m an experimenter – eh?”
“Probably so,” laughed the old clergyman. “But hearing you were coming home to-day, she sent me a message to say that she is calling here at five.”
“Jolly good of her!” replied the young man, suddenly raising his head, which seemed to be bursting, “It’s now nearly four. I think I’ll go up and have a lie down till she comes,” and so saying he ascended the stairs to his own room.
Just before five o’clock Elma Sandys, a dainty figure in furs, was ushered into the study by Mrs Bentley, and was greeted by the rector, who, shaking her hand, said:
“It’s really awfully kind of you to come and see my poor son, Miss Sandys. Frankly, I hardly know what to make of him. His mind seems entirely upset in some way. He talks wildly, and tells me of some terrible tragedy which occurred in Welling Wood on the night of his disappearance.”
“Tragedy! What?” asked the girl quickly.
“He will tell you all about it. The story is a very strange one. I would rather he told you himself.”
The girl sank into the wide wicker arm-chair which the old man pulled up to the fire, and then he left to summon his son.
When Roddy entered the room Elma, jumping up, saw instantly that he seemed still half-dazed. She took his hand and instinctively realised that his gaze was fixed and strange. His friend Denton had seen him soon after his return, and declared him to foe suffering from some potent drug which had apparently affected him mentally.
“Hulloa, Miss Sandys?” exclaimed the young man cheerily. “Well! I’m in a pretty pickle – as you see – eh? What’s happened I can’t make out. People seem to think I’m not quite in my right senses,” and then, grinning, he added: “Perhaps I’m not – and perhaps I am.”
“But, Mr Homfray, I’ve been awfully worried about you,” the girl said, facing him and gazing again into his pale drawn face. “You disappeared, and we had an awful shock, all of us. You left me at the end of the avenue and nobody saw you again!”
“Well,” said the young fellow, with a sorry attempt at laughing, “somebody must have seen me, no doubt, or I shouldn’t have been found in this precious state. What happened to me I haven’t the slightest notion. You see, I came up the village and went on through Welling Wood, and – well, as I went along I heard a strange cry, and in the darkness found a girl lying, under a tree. I went to her, and as I did so, she cried out to me to save her. The whole affair was unusual, wasn’t it? I bent and took her up, and – the poor girl sank in my arms.”
“Sank? Did she die?” asked the great financier’s daughter.
“Yes, she did.”
The rector, who stood near his writing-table, exchanged glances with their pretty visitor. They were meaning glances. Old Mr Homfray was somewhat puzzled why the daughter of Purcell Sandys should be so deeply interested in his son. Yet, of course, young people will be ever young people, and deep pockets are of no account where Love is concerned. Love and Lucre have now happily been divorced in our post-war get ahead world.
“But tell me, Mr Homfray, what was she like? Who could she be to be in Welling Wood at that hour?”
“Ah! I don’t know,” was the young fellow’s half-dazed reply. “I only know what happened to me, how I dashed away to reach home and raise the alarm, and suddenly saw what appeared to be a ball of fire before me. Then I knew no more till I found myself in hospital at Pangbourne. A man, they say, found me lying near the towing-path by the Thames. I was in the long grass – left there to die, Doctor Maynard believes.”
“But you must have been in somebody’s hands for days,” his father remarked.
“Yes,” said the young man, “I know. Though I can recollect nothing at all – distinctly. Some incidents seem to be coming back to me. I have just a faint idea of two persons – a man and a woman. They were well-dressed and lived in a big old house. And – and they made me do something. Ah! I – I can’t recall it, only – only I know that the suggestion horrified me!” And he gave vent to a strange cry and his eyes glared with terror at the recollection. “Ah! the – the brutes – they forced me to – to do something – to – ”
“To do what?” asked the girl, taking his hand softly and looking into his pale, drawn face.
“It is all a strange misty kind of recollection,” he declared, staring stonily in front of him. “I can see them – yes! I can see both of them – the woman – she – yes! – she held my hand while – she guided my hand when I did it!”
“Did what?” asked Elma in a slow, calm voice, as though trying to soothe him.
“I – I – I can’t recollect! Only – only he died!”
“Died! Who died?” gasped the old rector, who at the mention of the man and the woman at once wondered again whether Gordon Gray and Freda Crisp were in any way implicated. “You surely did not commit – murder!”
The young man seated in his chair sat for a few seconds, silent and staring.
“Murder! I – yes, I saw him! I would recognise him. Murder, perhaps – oh, perhaps I – I killed him! That woman made me do it!”
The rector and the pretty daughter of Purcell Sandys exchanged glances. Roddy was no doubt still under the influence of some terrible, baneful drug. Was his mind wandering, or was there some grain of truth in those misty, horrifying recollections?
“I’m thirsty,” he said a moment later; “very thirsty.”
His father went out at once to obtain a glass of water, whereupon Elma, advancing closely to the young man, drew from her little bag a photograph.
“Hush! Mr Homfray! Don’t say a word. But look at this! Do you recognise it?” she whispered in breathless anxiety.
He glanced at it as she held it before his bewildered eyes.
“Why – yes!” he gasped, staring at her in blank amazement. “That’s – that’s the girl I found in Welling Wood!”
Chapter Seven
The Girl Named Edna
“Hush!” cried Elma. “Say nothing at present.” And next instant the old rector re-entered with a glass of water which his son drank with avidity.
Then he sat staring straight into the fire without uttering a word.
“Is your head better?” asked the girl a moment later; and she slipped the photograph back into her bag.
“Yes, just a little better. But it still aches horribly,” Roddy replied. “I’m anxious to get to that spot in the wood.”
“To-morrow,” his father promised. “It’s already dark now. And to-morrow you will be much better.”
“And I’ll come with you,” Miss Sandys volunteered. “The whole affair is certainly most mysterious.”
“Yes. Neither Denton nor the doctor at Pangbourne can make out the nature of the drug that was given to me. It seems to have upset the balance of my brain altogether. But I recollect that house – the man and the woman and – and how she compelled me to do her bidding to – ”
“To what?” asked the girl.
The young mining engineer drew a long breath and shook his head despairingly.
“I hardly know. Things seem to be going round. When I try to recall it I become bewildered.”
“Then don’t try to remember,” urged his father in a sympathetic voice. “Remain quiet, my boy, and you will be better to-morrow.”
The young fellow looked straight at the sweet-faced girl standing beside his chair. He longed to ask her how she became possessed of that photograph – to ask the dead girl’s name. But she had imposed silence upon him.
“We will go together to the spot to-morrow, Miss Sandys,” he said. “People think I’m telling a fairy story about the girl. But I assure you I’m not. I held her in my arms and stroked her hair from her face. I remember every incident of that tragic discovery.”
“Very well,” said the girl. “I’ll be here at ten o’clock, and we will go together. Now remain quiet and rest,” she urged with an air of solicitude. “Don’t worry about anything – about anything whatever,” she added with emphasis. “We shall clear up this mystery and bring your enemies to book without a doubt.”
And with that Roddy Homfray had to be satisfied, for a few moments later she buttoned up her warm fur coat and left, while old Mrs Bentley went upstairs and prepared his bed.
His friend Denton called again after he had retired, and found him much better.
“You’re pulling round all right, Roddy,” he laughed. “You’ll be your old self again in a day or two. But what really happened to you seems a complete enigma. You evidently fell into very bad hands for they gave you a number of injections – as your arm shows. But what they administered I can’t make out. They evidently gave you something which acted on your brain and muddled it, while at the same time you were capable of physical action, walking, and perhaps talking quite rationally.”
Then Roddy told his chum the doctor of the weird but misty recollections which from time to time arose within him of having been compelled to act as the handsome woman had directed. Exactly what he did he could not recall – except that he felt certain that while beneath the woman’s influence he had committed some great and terrible crime.
“Bah! my dear Roddy?” laughed Denton as he sat beside the other’s bed. “Your nerves are all wrong and awry. After those mysterious doses you’ve had no wonder you’re upset, and your imagination has grown so vivid.”
“I tell you it isn’t imagination!” cried Roddy in quick protest. “I know that the whole thing sounds utterly improbable, but – well, perhaps to-morrow – perhaps to-morrow I can give you some proof.”
“Of what!”
“Of the identity of the girl I found dying in Welling Wood.”
Hubert Denton smiled incredulously, and patting his friend upon the shoulder, said:
“All right, my dear fellow. Go to sleep. A good rest will do you a lot of good. I’ll see you in the morning.”
The doctor left and Roddy Homfray, tired and exhausted after an exciting day, dropped off to sleep – a sleep full of strange, fantastic dreams in which the sweet calm face of Elma Sandys appeared ever and anon.
Next morning at about nine o’clock, when Roddy awakened to find the weather bright and crisp, he called his father, and said:
“I don’t want Inspector Freeman to know about what I’ve told you – about the girl in Welling Wood.”
“Certainly not,” replied the quiet old rector reassuringly. “That is your own affair. They found nothing when they searched the wood for you.”
“Perhaps they didn’t look in the right spot,” remarked his son. “Elma will be here at ten, and we’ll go together – alone – you don’t mind, father?”
“Not in the least, my boy,” laughed the old man. “Miss Sandys seems deeply distressed concerning you.”
“Does she?” asked Roddy, with wide-open eyes. “Do you really think she is? Or is it the mystery of the affair which appeals to her. Mystery always appeals to women in a greater sense than to men. Every mystery case in the newspapers is read by ten women to one man, they say.”
“Perhaps. But I think Miss Sandys evinces a real interest in you, Roddy, because you are ill and the victim of mysterious circumstances,” he said.
Over the old man’s mind rested the shadow of that unscrupulous pair, Gray and the woman Crisp. Had they done some of their devil’s work upon his beloved son? He had forgiven them their threats and their intentions, but he remained calm to wait, to investigate, and to point the finger of denunciation against them if their villainy were proved.
At ten o’clock Elma Sandys arrived upon her motorcycle, which she constantly used for short distances when alone. Though in the garage her father had two big cars, and she had her own smart little two-seater in which she frequently ran up to London and back, yet she enjoyed her cycle, which she used with a fearlessness begotten of her practice during the war when she had acted as a driver in the Air Force at Oxford – one of the youngest who had taken service, be it said.
As soon as she arrived she helped Roddy into his coat, and both went down the Rectory garden, climbed the fence, walked across the paddock, and at last entered the wood with its brown frosted bracken and thick evergreen undergrowth. Through the half-bare branches, for the weather had been mild, the blue sky shone, though the wintry sun was not yet up, and as Roddy led the way carefully towards the footpath, he warned his pretty companion to have a care as there were a number of highly dangerous but concealed holes from which gravel had been dug fifty years or so ago, the gulfs being now covered with the undergrowth.
Scarcely had he spoken ere she stumbled and narrowly escaped being precipitated into a hole in which water showed deep below through the tangled briars.
Soon they reached the footpath along which he had gone in the darkness on that fatal Sunday night. He paused to take his bearings. He recognised the thick, stout trunk of a high Scotch fir, the only one in the wood. His flash-lamp had shone upon it, he remembered, just at the moment when he had heard the woman’s cries.
He halted, reflected for a few moments, and then struck out into the undergrowth, confident that he was upon the spot where the unknown girl had sunk dying into his arms. Elma, who watched, followed him. He scarcely spoke, so fully absorbed was he in his quest.
At last he crossed some dead and broken bracken, and said:
“Here! This is where I found her!”
His pretty companion halted at his side and gazed about her. There was nothing save a tangle of undergrowth and dead ferns. Above were high bare oaks swaying slowly in the wintry wind.
“Well,” said Elma at last. “There’s nothing here, is there?”
He turned and looked her straight in the face, his expression very serious.
“No. There is nothing, I admit. Nothing! And yet a great secret lies here. Here, this spot, remote from anywhere, was the scene of a mysterious tragedy. You hold one clue, Elma – and I the other.” And again he looked straight into her eyes, while standing on that very spot where the fair-haired girl had breathed her last in his arms, and then, after a few seconds’ silence, he went on: “Elma! I – I call you by your Christian name because I feel that you have my future at heart, and – and I, on my part – I love you! May I call you by your Christian name?”
She returned his look very gravely. Her fine eyes met his, but he never wavered. Since that first day when Tweedles, her little black Pomeranian, had snapped at him she had been ever in his thoughts. He could not disguise the fact. Yet, after all, it was a very foolish dream, he had told himself dozens of times. He was poor – very poor – a mere adventurer on life’s troublous waters – while she was the daughter of a millionaire with, perhaps, a peeress’ career before her.
“Roddy,” at last she spoke, “I call you that! I think of you as Roddy,” she said slowly, looking straight into his eyes. “But in this matter we are very serious – both of us – eh?”
“Certainly we are, Elma,” he replied, taking her hand passionately.
She withdrew it at once, saying:
“You have brought me here for a purpose – to find traces of – of the girl who died at this spot. Where are the traces?”
“Well, the bracken is trodden down, as you see,” he replied.
“But surely that is no evidence of what you allege?”
“No, Elma. But that photograph which you showed me last night is a picture of her.”
The girl smiled mysteriously.
“You say so. How am I to know? They say that you are unfortunately suffering from delusions. In that case sight of any photograph would possibly strike a false chord in your memory.”
“False chord!” he cried. “Do you doubt this morning that I am in my sane senses? Do you doubt that which I have just said, Elma – do you doubt that I love you?”
The girl’s cheeks flushed instantly at his words. Next second they were pale again.
“No,” she said. “Please don’t let us talk of love, Mr Homfray.”
“Roddy – call me that.”
“Well – yes, Roddy, if you like.”
“I do like. You told me that you thought of me as Roddy. Can you never love me?” he implored.
The girl held her breath. Her heart was beating quickly and her eyes were turned away. She let him take her gloved hand and raise it fervently to his lips. Then, without answering his question, she turned her splendid eyes to his and he saw in them a strange, mysterious expression such as he had never noticed in the eyes of any woman before.
He thought it was a look of sympathy and trust, but a moment later it seemed as though she doubted him – she was half afraid of him.
“Elma!” he cried, still holding her hand. “Tell me – tell me that you care for me a little – just a little!” And he gazed imploringly into her pale face.
“A little!” she echoed softly. “Perhaps – well, perhaps I do, Roddy. But – but do not let us speak of it now – not until you are better.”
“Ah! You do love me a little,” he cried with delight, again raising her hand to his lips. “Perhaps you think I’ve not recovered from that infernal drug which my unknown enemies gave me. But I declare that to-day I am in my full senses – all except my memory – which is still curiously at fault.”
“Let us agree to be very good friends, Roddy,” the girl said, pressing his hand. “I confess that I like you very much,” she admitted, “but love is quite another matter. We have not known each other very long, remember.”
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Вы ознакомились с фрагментом книги.
Для бесплатного чтения открыта только часть текста.
Приобретайте полный текст книги у нашего партнера:
Полная версия книги