Chapter 2

A TALK ABOUT FROGS

MAITLANDS Consolidated had grown from one small office to its present
palatial proportions in a comparatively short space of time. Maitland
was a man advanced in years, patriarchal in appearance, sparing of
speech. He had arrived in London unheralded, and had arrived, in the
less accurate sense of the word, before London was aware of his
existence.

Dick Gordon saw the speculator for the first time as he was waiting in
the marble-walled vestibule. A man of middle height, bearded to his
waist; his eyes almost hidden under heavy white brows; stout and
laborious of gait, he came slowly through the outer office, where a
score of clerks sat working under their green-shaded lamps, and, looking
neither to the right nor left, walked into the elevator and was lost to
view.

“That is the old man: have you seen him before?” asked Ray Bennett, who
had come out to meet the caller a second before. “He’s a venerable old
cuss, but as tight as a soundproof door. You couldn’t pry money from
him, not if you used dynamite! He pays Philo a salary that the average
secretary wouldn’t look at, and if Philo wasn’t such an easygoing devil,
he’d have left years ago.”

Dick Gordon was feeling a little uncomfortable. His presence at
Maitlands was freakish, his excuse for calling as feeble as any weak
brain could conceive. If he had spoken the truth to the flattered young
man on whom he called in business hours, he would have said: “I have
idiotically fallen in love with your sister. I am not especially
interested in you, but I regard you as a line that will lead me to
another meeting, therefore I have made my being in the neighbourhood an
excuse for calling. And because of this insane love I have for your
sister, I am willing to meet even Philo, who will surely bore me.”
Instead he said:

“You are a friend of Philo—why do you call him that?”

“Because he’s a philosophical old horse—his other name is Philip,” said
the other with a twinkle in his eye. “Everybody is a friend of
Philo’s—he’s the kind of man that makes friendship easy.”

The elevator door opened at that moment and a man came out.
Instinctively Dick Gordon knew that this bald and middle-aged man with
the good-humoured face was the subject of their discussion. His round,
fat face creased in a smile as he recognized Ray, and after he had
handed a bundle of documents to one of the clerks, he came over to where
they were standing.

“Meet Mr. Gordon,” said Ray. “This is my friend Johnson.”

Philo grasped the extended hand warmly.

“Warm” was a word which had a special significance in relation to Mr.
Johnson. He seemed to radiate a warming and quickening influence. Even
Dick Gordon, who was not too ready to respond, came under the immediate
influence of his geniality.

“You’re Mr. Gordon of the Public Prosecution Department—Ray was telling
me,” he said. “I should like you to come one day and prosecute old man
Maitland! He is certainly the most prosecutable gentleman I’ve met for
years!”

The jest tickled Mr. Johnson. He was, thought Dick, inclined to laugh at
himself.

“I’ve got to get back: he’s in a tantrum this morning. Anyone would
think the Frogs were after him.”

Philo Johnson, with a cheery nod, hurried back to the lift. Was it
imagination on Dick’s part? He could have sworn the face of Ray Bennett
was a deeper shade of red, and that there was a look of anxiety in his
eyes.

“It’s very good of you to keep your promise and call . . . yes, I’ll be
glad to lunch with you, Gordon. And my sister will also, I’m sure. She
is often in town.”

His adieux were hurried and somewhat confused. Dick Gordon went out into
the street puzzled. Of one thing he was certain: that behind the young
man’s distress lay that joking reference to the Frogs.

When he returned to his office, still sore with himself that he had
acted rather like a moon-calf or a farm hand making his awkward advances
to the village belle, he found a troubled-looking chief of police
waiting for him, and at the sight of him Dick’s eyes narrowed.

“Well?” he asked. “What of Genter?”

The police chief made a grimace like one who was swallowing an
unpleasant potion.

“They slipped me,” he said. “The Frog arrived in a car—I wasn’t
prepared for that. Genter got in, and they were gone before I realized
what had happened. Not that I’m worried. Genter has a gun, and he’s a
pretty tough fellow in a rough house.”

Dick Gordon stared at and through the man, and then:

“I think you should have been prepared for the car,” he said. “If
Genter’s message was well founded, and he is on the track of the Frog,
you should have expected a car. Sit down, Wellingdale.”

The grey-haired man obeyed.

“I’m not excusing myself,” he growled. “The Frogs have got me rattled. I
treated them as a joke once.”

“Maybe we’d be wiser if we treated them as a joke now,” suggested Dick,
biting off the end of a cigar. “They may be nothing but a foolish secret
society. Even tramps are entitled to their lodges and pass-words, grips
and signs.”

Wellingdale shook his head.

“You can’t get away from the record of the past seven years,” he said.
“It isn’t the fact that every other bad road-criminal we pull in has the
frog tattooed on his wrist. That might be sheer imitation—and, in any
case, all crooks of low mentality have tattoo marks. But in that seven
years we’ve had a series of very unpleasant crimes. First there was the
attack upon the _chargé d’affaires_ of the United States
Embassy—bludgeoned to sleep in Hyde Park. Then there was the case of
the President of the Northern Trading Company—clubbed as he was
stepping out of his car in Park Lane. Then the big fire which destroyed
the Mersey Rubber Stores, where four million pounds’ worth of raw rubber
went up in smoke. Obviously the work of a dozen fire bugs, for the
stores consist of six big warehouses and each was fired simultaneously
and in two places. And the Frogs were in it. We caught two of the men
for the Rubber job; they were both ‘Frogs’ and bore the totem of the
tribe—they were both ex-convicts, and one of them admitted that he had
had instructions to carry out the job, but took back his words next day.
I never saw a man more scared than he was. And I can’t blame him. If
half that is said about the Frog is true, his admission cost him
something. There it is, Mr. Gordon. I can give you a dozen cases. Genter
has been two years on their track. He has been tramping the country,
sleeping under hedges, hogging in with all sorts of tramps, stealing
rides with them and thieving with them; and when he wrote me and said he
had got into touch with the organization and expected to be initiated, I
thought we were near to getting them. I’ve had Genter shadowed since he
struck town. I’m sick about this morning.”

Dick Gordon opened a drawer of his desk, took out a leather folder and
turned the leaves of its contents. They consisted of pages of
photographs of men’s wrists. He studied them carefully, as though he
were looking at them for the first time, though, in truth, he had
examined these records of captured men almost every day for years. Then
he closed the portfolio thoughtfully and put it away in the drawer. For
a few minutes he sat, drumming his fingers on the edge of the
writing-table, a frown on his youthful face.

“The frog is always on the left wrist, always a little lob-sided, and
there is always one small blob tattooed underneath,” he said. “Does that
strike you as being remarkable?”

The Superintendent, who was not a brilliant man, saw nothing remarkable
in the fact.