The Voice from the Void: The Great Wireless Mystery Part 30

"If you do, it will be the worse for you! Remember that!"

"I repeat what I told your accomplice, Freda Crisp. I will rid society of you both as social pests--vampires who prey upon the unwary and inexperienced," shouted the old clergyman in a frenzy of anger. "You have attacked me and mine, and now I will, in turn, retaliate. Get out of my house this instant!"

Gordon Gray glanced keenly at the old rector with his shrewd dark eyes and shrugged his shoulders.

"Homfray, you are a fool?" he declared. "Why can't we arrange matters?

I came here to put a little proposition to you--that I should join your son in that mining concession he is obtaining from the Moorish Government."

"Join my son!" shrieked the old man. "I would rather that Roddy grasped hands with Satan himself than with you! I--I--"

And his face became crimson as he gasped for breath, and suddenly clutched wildly at his throat.

"I--I--"

But he uttered no further intelligible word. Next second a seizure, due to the violent excitement, held him rigid, and a few seconds later he sank into the arm-chair and expired in the presence of his enemy, thus carrying with him to the grave the secret of Hugh Willard's tragic end.

Gordon Gray stood there in silence and watching with interest, amused rather than otherwise, realising that Nature herself had, by a strange freak, effected still another _coup_ in his own interests.

The one enemy he feared had been swept from his path! Of Roddy he took no heed.

The road to fortune and to Elma was now rendered clear for him.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

A MATTER OF URGENCY.

When Roddy Homfray returned from Farncombe Towers shortly before midnight he was staggered to find his father lying back in his arm-chair.

Horrified, he tried to rouse him. But at once he saw that he was dead.

He raised the alarm, and Doctor Denton was at once fetched out in his pyjamas from the other end of the village.

"As I feared," said his friend when he saw the dead rector. "He has had another heart attack which has unfortunately proved fatal."

"But he was quite all right and bright when I left him at seven," Roddy cried in despair.

"No doubt. But your father has had a weak heart for years. I've attended him for it, so there will be no need for an inquest. Indeed, only a week ago I warned him that any undue excitement might end fatally."

"But he has had no excitement!" cried the dead man's son, looking in despair around the cosy little study, where upon the writing-table "Cruden's Concordance" still lay open, as it had done when Gordon Gray had entered.

"Apparently not," Denton admitted. "But perhaps he may have been secretly worrying over something. We shall, I fear, never know. Your father was a rather secretive man, I believe, wasn't he, Roddy?"

"Yes. He was. He held some secret or other from me, the nature of which I could never make out," said his son, overcome with grief. At first he could not believe that his father, whom he idolised, was actually dead. But now he realised his loss, and tears were rolling down his cheeks.

"A secret!" exclaimed his friend the doctor. "Of what nature?"

"I have no idea. He once warned me against a certain man and a certain woman, who were apparently his enemies. But he would tell me nothing definite--nothing!"

"When you came home, was the front-door locked?" asked the doctor.

"No, my father always leaves it unlocked for me."

"He expected you to come in later, and was no doubt at work here preparing his sermon," said Denton, glancing at the open reference book lying upon the blotting-pad. Indeed, beside the copy of "Cruden" was a sheet of sermon paper with a number of headings written in the neat uniform hand of a cla.s.sical scholar, as old Mr Homfray was.

"Yes. It seems so," said his son. "Apparently he felt the seizure approaching, and, leaving the table, crossed to the chair, and sinking into it, he breathed his last. Poor dear father! Why was I not here to a.s.sist him, instead of playing bridge? I--I'll never forgive myself, Denton!"

"But you could not have foretold this. Who could?" asked his friend.

"Endocarditis, from which your father was suffering, is quite a common complaint and very often causes sudden death, especially when it is ulcerative, as in your lamented father's case. No medical aid would have saved him."

"And he knew this, and never told me!" cried Roddy.

"He was secretive, as I have already said," answered the doctor. "Your poor father's death was caused by embolism; I have suspected it for some time."

While Roddy and Denton were speaking at the dead man's side, Gordon Gray entered the tawdrily-decorated dancing-room of a certain disreputable night-club off Regent Street known as "The Gay Hundred"--a haunt of cocaine sellers and takers--and glanced eagerly around. He had driven up in his car a few doors away, and the doorkeeper had bowed to him and taken his coat and hat as he rushed in.

His quick eyes espied a table in the corner at which sat Freda Crisp, in a daring black-and-orange gown without sleeves, smoking a cigarette in an amber holder, laughing, and drinking champagne with two young men in evening clothes, while about them whirled many couples dancing, the women mostly with artificially fair hair and wearing deeply-cut gowns, while some of them smoked cigarettes as they danced to the wild strains of the blatant orchestra.

Freda's eyes met those of her friend Gray, and she read in them a message. She was a woman of quick perception and astounding intuition.

Her adventures had been many and constant, and if she could have recorded them in print the book would certainly have been amongst the "best sellers" of which the public hear so much.

The men with her were strangers to Gordon, therefore, a.s.suming an instant carelessness, he lounged over, bowed, and greeted her. He did not know on what terms she was with the pair with whom she was drinking "bubbly," whether, indeed, they were pigeons worth plucking. Therefore his att.i.tude was one of extreme caution. Gordon Gray was far too clever ever to spoil "a good thing" in the course of being engineered by any of his accomplices of either s.e.x.

"Oh! Good-evening, Mr Gray!" Freda exclaimed. "Fancy your being here to-night! I never suspected you of being a member of this place!"

"I'm not. A friend of mine has introduced me," he said, and then, when the elegantly-dressed woman in the daring black-and-orange gown had introduced her companions, Gray sat down at the table and took a cigarette.

Presently she excused herself from her two friends, saying:

"You'll forgive me if I have just this one dance with Mr Gray--won't you?"

And both joined the fox-trot which was at that moment commencing.

"Well, I see by your face, Gordon, that something has happened. What?"

she whispered as they took the floor.

"Something good. Old Homfray is dead!"

"Dead!" gasped the woman. "But you didn't do it--eh?"

"No. I might have done. You know what I intended to do if he cut up rough--but luck came to my aid. The old hypocrite died suddenly from heart disease, I think. At any rate, he got into a pa.s.sion and sank into his chair and expired. And then I quietly retired and drove back here to town. n.o.body saw me. Luck--eh?"

"By Jove! yes. That relieves us of a great deal of worry, doesn't it?"

said the woman. "It's the best bit of news I've heard for years. While the old man lived there was always a risk--always a constant danger that he might throw discretion to the winds and give us away."

"You're quite right, Freda. He was the only person in the world I feared."

"And yet you defied him!" she remarked. "That is the only way. Never let your enemy suspect that you are frightened of him," said the stout, beady-eyed man in the navy-blue suit.

"What about the young pup?" asked the woman in a low voice as they danced together over the excellent floor, while yellow-haired, under-dressed women who bore on their countenances the mark of cocaine-taking, and prosperous, vicious-looking men, both young and old, sat at the little tables, laughing, drinking and looking on.