Elk 01 The Fellowship of the Frog Read Online Free Page B

Bennett hasn’t twopence of his own. There is something particularly interesting to me about this acquaintance.”
    Elk smoked thoughtfully, watching the smoke rings rise to the ceiling.
    “Bennett’s got a sister,” he said, to the other’s amazement. “Pretty, as far as looks go. Old man Bennett’s a crook of some kind. Doesn’t do any regular work, but goes away for days at a time and comes back looking ill.”
    “You know them?”
    Elk nodded.
    “Old man Bennett attracted me. Somebody reported his movements as suspicious—the local police. They’ve got nothing to do except guard chickens, and naturally they look on anybody who doesn’t keep chickens as bein’ a suspicious character. I kept old Bennett under observation, but I never got to the bottom of his movements. He has run lots of queer stunts. He wrote a play once and put it on. It went dead on the fourth night. Then he took to playing the races on a system. That nearly broke him. Then he started a correspondence school at Horsham—’ How to write good English’—and he lost money. Now he’s taking pictures.”
    “How long has he been trying those methods of getting a living?”
    “Years. I traced a typewriting agency to him seventeen years ago. They haven’t all been failures. He made money out of some. But I’d give my head to know what his regular game is. Once a month regular, sometimes twice, sometimes more often, he disappears and you can’t find him or trail him. I’ve sounded every crook in town, but they’re as much puzzled as I am. Lew Brady—that’s the big sporting fellow who worked with Lola—he’s interested too. He hates Bennett. Years ago he tackled the old man and tried to bully him into telling him what his lay was, and Bennett handled him rough.”
    “The old man?” asked Dick incredulously.
    “The old man. He’s as strong as an ox. Don’t forget it. I’ll see Lola. She’s not a bad girl—up to a point. Personally, vamps never appeal to me. Genter’s dead, they tell me? The Frog’s in that too?”
    “There’s no doubt about it,” said Dick, rising. “And here, Elk, is one of the men who killed him.”
    He walked to the window and looked out, Elk behind him. The man who had stood on the sidewalk had disappeared. “Where?” asked Elk.
    “He’s gone now!”
    At that moment the window shattered inward, and splinters of glass stung his face. Another second, and Elk was dragged violently to cover.
    “From the roof of Onslow Gardens,” said Richard Gordon calmly. “I wondered where the devils would shoot from—that’s twice they’ve tried to get me since daylight.”
    A spent cartridge on the flat roof of 94, Onslow Gardens, and the print of feet, were all the evidence that the assassin left behind. No. 94 was empty except for a caretaker, who admitted that he was in the habit of going out every morning to buy provisions for the day. Admission had been gained by the front door; there was a tradesman who saw a man let himself into the house, carrying what looked to be a fishing-rod under his arm, but which undoubtedly was a rifle in a cloth case.
    “Very simple,” said Dick; “and, of course, from the Frog’s point of view, effective. The shooter had half-a-dozen ways, of escape, including the fire-escape.”
    Elk was silent and glum. Dick Gordon as silent, but cheerful, until the two men were back in his office.
    “It was my inquiry at the garage that annoyed them,” he said, “and I’ll give them this credit, that they are rapid! I was returning to my house when the first attempt was made. The most ingenious effort to run me down with a light car—the darned thing even mounted the pavement after me.
    “Number?”
    “XL.19741,” said Dick, “but fake. There is no such number on the register. The driver was gone before I could stop him.”
    Elk scratched his chin, surveying the youthful Public Prosecutor with a dubious eye.
    “Almost sounds interesting to me,” he said. “Of course