Chapter Nine. The Spider’s Nest

Ten days had gone by.

Gordon Gray, wearing a grey Austrian velour hat and heavy brown motor-coat, turned the car from the Great North Road into the drive which led to the front of Willowden, and alighted.

The afternoon was wet, and the drive from London had been a cold, uncomfortable one. In the hall he threw off his coat, and entering the well-furnished morning-room, rang the bell. In a few moments Claribut, respectable, white-haired and rosy-faced, entered.

“Well, Jim?” he asked. “What’s the news at Little Farncombe—eh? You’ve been there several days; what have you discovered?”

“Several things,” replied the old crook who posed as servant. “Things we didn’t expect.”

“How?” asked Gray, offering the old man a cigarette from his gold case.

“Well, I went first to Pangbourne, and then to Little Farncombe. Young Homfray was taken queer again. I stayed at the Red Lion, and managed to find out all about what was going on at the Rectory. Homfray’s old gardener is in the habit of taking his glass of beer there at night, and I, posing as a stranger, soon got him to talk. He told me that his young master was taken ill in the night. His brain had given way, and the village doctor called in a specialist from Harley Street. The latter can’t make out the symptoms.”

“Probably not!” growled Gray. “The dose cost us a lot, so it ought not to be detected by the first man consulted.”

“The specialist has, however, fixed that he’s suffering from a drug—administered with malicious intent, he puts it.”

“What’s the fool’s name?” snapped Gray.

“I don’t know. My friend, the gardener, could not ascertain.”

Gray gave vent to a short grunt of dissatisfaction.

“Well—and what then?”

“The young fellow was very ill—quite off his head for three days—and then they gave him some injections which quietened him, and now he’s a lot better. Nearer his normal self, I hear.” And he sank into a chair by the fire.

“H’m! He’ll probably have a second relapse. I wonder what they gave him? I wonder if this Harley Street chap has twigged our game, Jim?”

“Perhaps he has.”

“If so, then it’s a jolly good job for us that I kept out of the way. Young Homfray has never seen me to his knowledge, remember. He saw you several times.”

“Yes, Gordon. You took precautions—as you always do. You somehow seem to see into the future.”

“I do, my dear Jimmie. I hope this lad doesn’t recognise Freda again. He may, of course. But he doesn’t know me—which is as well.”

“He recollects finding Edna, though.”

“Ah! That’s a little awkward, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. He told the old sky-pilot all about it, but naturally they think his mind is unhinged and take the story with a grain of salt.”

“Naturally. But what else?” asked the well-dressed international crook with a business-like air.

“It seems that the young fellow is on the point of obtaining a concession from the Moorish Government to prospect for emeralds somewhere in the Atlas Mountains; I believe it is a place called the Wad Sus. Ever heard of it?”

“Yes,” replied Gray, making a mental note of the region. “I’ve heard of some ancient mines there. But how is he obtaining the concession?”

“Ah! I’ve had a lot of trouble to get that information, and it has cost me a pound or two. But I’ve got it,” laughed the old scoundrel.

“There’s a friend of his who lives at Richmond, a certain Andrew Barclay, who has spent many years in Fez. It seems that young Homfray met him in Santiago last year, and by some means was able to do him a great service. In return, this man Barclay is endeavouring to obtain the concession for prospecting from the Moorish Government.”

“H’m! The Wad Sus region—a very wild mountainous one, inhabited by a wild desert tribe called the Touaregs, men who wear black veils over their faces to protect them from the sandstorms so prevalent in the Sahara. But I’ll look it all up. Where does this man Barclay live?” asked Gray.

“In Underhill Road. Where that is I don’t know—but, of course, it is easily found.”

The master-crook drew several long whiffs at his choice Eastern cigarette.

“Then, after all, it may be to our distinct advantage that Roderick Homfray recovers, Jimmie.”

“What! Then you think that the concession for the emerald prospecting may be worth money?”

“It may be worth quite a lot in the City. A rather attractive proposition—emeralds in the Sahara. I know two or three men who would take it up—providing I could bring them a properly signed and sealed concession. Emeralds are increasing in value nowadays, you know—and an emerald concession is a sound proposition. After all, the lad may yet be of considerable use to us, Jimmie.”

“Pity he saw Freda!” remarked the wily old fellow. “Jimmie, the butler” was well known in Sing-Sing Prison as one of the shrewdest and cleverest of crooks and card-sharpers who had ever “worked” the transatlantic liners.

In the underworld of New York, Paris and London marvellous stories had been and were still told of his alertness, of the several bold coups he had made, and the great sums he had filched from the pockets of the unwary in conjunction, be it said, with Gordon Gray, alias Commander George Tothill, late of the British Navy, who was also known to certain of his pals as “Toby” Jackson. At Parkhurst Prison “Joyous Jimmie” was also well known, for he had enjoyed the English air for seven years less certain good conduct remission. But both master and man were crooks, clever cultured men who could delude anybody, who could adapt themselves to any surroundings, who knew life in all its phases, and could, with equanimity, eat a portion of oily fried fish-and-chips for their dinner or enjoy a Sole Colbert washed down with a glass of Imperial Tokay.

The pair, with a man named Arthur Porter, known to his criminal friends as “Guinness”—whom, by the way, Roddy had seen entering Mr Sandys’ house in Park Lane—and the handsome woman Freda Crisp were indeed parasites upon London society.

Their daring was colossal, their ingenuity astounding, and the ramifications of their friends bewildering.

“Get me a drink, Jimmie,” said the man who posed as his master. “I’m cold. Why the devil don’t you keep a better fire than this?”

“The missus is out. Went to the parson’s wife’s tea-party half an hour ago. Mary goes to church here. It’s better.”

“Of course it is—gives us a hall-mark of respectability,” laughed Gray. “Freda goes now and then. But she gives money to the old parson and excuses herself for non-attendance on Sunday mornings. Oh! my dear Jimmie!” he laughed. “These people want a lot of moss scraping off them, don’t they—eh?”

“Moss! Why, it’s that hard, grey lichen with hairy flowers that grows on trees! They want it all scraped off, then rubbed with sandpaper and a rag and acid applied to put a bit of vim in them. It’s the same over all this faded old country—that’s my belief.”

“And yet some of them are infernally cute. That old man Homfray, for instance, he’s got his eyes skinned. He doesn’t forget that silly young ass Hugh Willard, you know!”

“No, Gordon! Don’t mention him. That’s one of our failures—one of our false steps,” declared Jimmie. “I don’t like to hear any mention of his name—nor of Hyde Park Square either.”

“Rot! my dear fellow! What can the old clergyman know? Nothing. It’s all surmise—and what does that matter? There’s no trace, and—”

“And we made a profit—and a fine lot of good it did us.”

“It was Freda’s doing. She worked it out.”

“I know. And, thanks to her, we are in the infernal peril we are to-day, my dear Gordon.”

“Peril? Bosh! What are you thinking of, Jimmie?” laughed Gray. “There’s not a written word.”

“But you know what old Homfray said to Freda—what he threatened—a witness!”

“Witness!” laughed the good-looking man, tossing his cigarette end viciously into the fire. “Don’t believe it, my dear old chap. He was only trying to bluff her—and Freda knows a game worth two of that—the game we are playing with the old fool’s son.”

“A highly dangerous game—I call it!” was the butler’s dubious reply.

“Leave that to me.”

“But he might recognise me, Gordon!”

“Rot! You won’t meet him.”

“What about Freda?”

“Don’t worry. The boy was so dazed by the drug that he’ll never recognise her again. She tried to make him believe that he himself had committed a crime. And she succeeded.”

“Old Homfray may have told him about us and about the Willard affair. What then?”

“No fear of that. Old Homfray will say nothing to his son. He wouldn’t expose himself.”

But Claribut shook his head in doubt.

“My opinion is that we’re treading on very thin ice. I don’t like this house—and I don’t like the look of things at all.”

“The house is all right. Young Homfray can recollect nothing clearly after he found the girl.”

“Of course, his friends are laughing at this weird story of how he discovered her,” said Claribut. “But we don’t know whether, in some way or other, his story may be corroborated. And then—”

“Well, even then there’s no evidence to connect us with the affair. None whatever. We got them both clear away in the car, thanks to your marvellous ingenuity, Jimmie. And naturally he wonders where Edna is.”

“And so do two or three other people,” Claribut remarked. “Recollect there are some unwelcome inquiries on foot in another quarter.”

“I don’t fear them in the least. All we have to do now is to sit tight and watch the young fellow’s movements. We want to ascertain what he is doing concerning that concession. We must discover that man Barclay at Richmond and find out what sort of fellow he is. I may have to approach him. We both of us know Morocco—eh, Jimmie? That little bit of gun-running helping the Moors against the Spanish was exciting enough—wasn’t it?”

“Yes. And it brought us in big profits, too. I wish we had another slice of luck like it,” Claribut agreed.

“Well, we may. Who knows? I’ll see what I can find out about emeralds in Morocco.”

At that moment the woman Crisp came in. She was wearing a long mink coat, with a splendid blue fox around her neck and a small grey velour hat which suited her to perfection.

“Hallo, Gordon! Back again. How’s Paris looking?”

“Looking? I was only there nine hours, just to see Françillon. Good job I went. He didn’t see the risk. He’s slipped off to Switzerland. He left the Gare de Lyon at eleven this morning, and the Sûreté are now looking, for him. He got off just in the nick of time.”

“You came over by air, I suppose?”

“Yes, left Le Bourget at ten and was at Croydon just after twelve. I left the car at Croydon yesterday afternoon when I went over. Rather a bad fog over the Channel and it took us over three hours.”

“Did you see Milly?”

“Yes, called at the Continental last night and had half an hour’s chat with her. She seems well enough, and had booked her passage to New York from Cherbourg on the eighteenth.”

“And what’s the latest about young Homfray?” asked the handsome woman, divesting herself of her furs.

“I was just discussing him with Jimmie. He seems to have unearthed one or two things while poking about at Little Farncombe.”

“Yes. But there’s one fact that I’ve discovered to-day—a very important fact,” she said.

“Well, what’s the trouble now?” asked Gray. “Young Homfray is watching us!”

“Watching us? What do you mean?” asked the man, turning pale. “Has the old man told him about us?”

“He may have done. That we can’t tell. Only I found out that the other night Homfray was watching outside Purcell Sandys’ house in Park Lane, and saw me go in with Arthur. He inquired our names of one of the servants.”

“Gad! Then he’s already recognised you—eh?” cried Gray. “That’s horribly awkward.”

“It is—in many ways! We must devise some plan to close the young man’s mouth.”

“But how, Freda?”

“The drug will work again in a day or two. When it does he’ll be a hopeless idiot and nobody will credit a word he’s said.”

“It may work—and it may not. Jimmie says that some Harley Street fellow has been giving him injections. That looks as though the drug has been spotted—eh?”

“Yes, it does. But old Grunberg assured me that a reaction must set in and hopeless idiocy will be the result. At least, let’s hope so.”

“I’m not so hopeful. The lad may yet be of some use to us. It’s fortunate that he’s never seen me.”

“It is. And you’d better keep away from me in London, for it’s evident that he is pretty shrewd, and is now constantly watchful.”

“I agree,” growled Claribut. “And he must not see me either.”

“No. He certainly must not,” said Freda Crisp. “Of course, the mystery of Edna has aroused his curiosity—which is a pity. Our only hope is that the drug will act as old Grunberg guaranteed it would. By Jove! those German chemists are devilish clever—aren’t they? Old Homfray has defied us, and he will very soon have cause to regret his words, as I told him he would. Yet he may, of course, risk everything and tell the police about Hugh Willard!”

“Oh! Don’t worry at all about that, you fool!” urged Gray. “As long as his son lives, whether idiot or not, he’ll keep his mouth closed for his own sake, depend upon it?”