Читать книгу: «The Voice from the Void: The Great Wireless Mystery», страница 4

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.”

“Sufficiently long for me to know that I love you truly, and most dearly, Elma,” the young man declared with keen enthusiasm.

Then the girl sighed, withdrew her hand, and begged of him to drop the subject.

“I have told you that I care for you just a little, Roddy,” she said. “For the present let that suffice.”

She was obdurate, refusing to discuss the matter further. Instead, she began to question him closely concerning the events of that fatal night.

Again he repeated them, just as they have been recorded in the foregoing pages.

“Then it is evident that you were watched,” she remarked. “Whoever was responsible for the crime attacked you by some secret means. Then both of you were taken away.”

“By whom? To where? That’s the mystery!” Roddy echoed blankly.

“A mystery which must be fathomed. And I will help you,” she said quietly.

“You know the identity of the poor girl,” he said. “How did you come by her photograph?” he asked, a question he had been dying to put to her ever since the previous evening.

She was silent.

“You know more of the affair than you have admitted, Elma,” he suggested in a low voice, his eyes still fixed upon her pale countenance. “Is my surmise correct?”

“It is,” she replied in a strange half-whisper. “I have no actual knowledge,” she hastened to add. “But I have certain grim and terrible surmises.”

“You were anxious that my father should not see that photograph last night. Why?”

“Well – well, because I did not wish to – I didn’t wish him to think that I was unduly exciting you by showing you the portrait,” she faltered.

He looked at her, struck by her curious evasiveness.

“And was there no other reason, Elma?” asked the young man in deep earnestness.

Again she hesitated.

“Yes. There was another reason,” she replied. “One that I regret I cannot at present tell you.”

“You refuse to satisfy my curiosity – eh?”

“I am compelled to refuse,” she replied in a low voice.

“Why?”

“Because, as yet, I have only suspicions and surmises. When I have proved even one of them then I shall not hesitate to tell you the truth, Roddy – a bitter and terrible truth though it may be.”

“Really you are most mysterious!” her companion said, his face darkening.

“I know I am,” she answered with a queer hollow laugh.

“But at least you can tell me the dead girl’s name?”

“I only know her Christian name. It is Edna.”

“You knew her personally?”

“Well – yes. I have met her.”

“In what circumstances?”

“Curious ones. Very curious ones,” the girl replied. “If my surmises are correct, Roddy, we are face to face with one of the strangest problems of crime that has ever arisen in our modern world,” she added. “But until I am able to substantiate certain facts I can tell you nothing – nothing, much as I desire to in order to place you upon your guard.”

“What, am I still in peril?”

“Yes, I believe you are – in very great peril. So beware of yet another trap which may be cunningly laid for you by those who may pose as your friends.”

And the girl, taking her companion’s hand, gripped it between hers, and looking into his face, added:

“Roddy, trust me. Don’t ask me for facts which I cannot give. There are reasons – very strong reasons – that compel me for the moment to remain silent. So trust me?”

Chapter Eight
Fears and Surprises

Three nights later.

Over the steps which led from the pavement in Park Lane to the front door of Mr Sandys’ huge white mansion an awning had been erected. The people who went by upon the motor-buses to Oxford Street or to Hyde Park Corner noted it, and remarked that Purcell Sandys was giving one of his usual parties – functions at which the smartest set in high Society attended; gatherings which were always announced by the Times on the day previous and chronicled – with the dresses worn by the female guests – on the morning following.

The huge white-painted mansion which was so well known to Londoners was to them, after all, a house of mystery. The gossip papers had told them how the famous financier – one of England’s pillars of finance – spent three hundred pounds weekly on the floral decorations of the place; how the rooms, the mahogany doors of which had silver hinges, were full of priceless curios, and how each Wednesday night the greatest musical artistes in the world were engaged to play for the benefit of his guests at fees varying from five hundred to a thousand guineas.

All this was the truth. The Wednesday night entertainments of Purcell Sandys were unique. Nobody in all the world was so lavish upon music or upon floral decorations. The grey-bearded old man, who usually wore a rather shabby suit, and habitually smoked a pipe, gave his guests the very best he could, for he loved flowers – as his great range of hot-houses at Farncombe Towers and at Biarritz testified – while good music always absorbed his senses.

Cars were constantly arriving, depositing the guests, and driving on again, while the servants in the wide, flower-decorated hall were passing to and fro, busy with the hats and coats of the men, and conducting the ladies upstairs.

Through the hall came strains of dance music from the fine ballroom at the back of the house, one of the finest in the West End of London.

At the head of the great staircase Elma, in a simple but pretty frock of pale lemon, was doing the duty of hostess, as she always did, while her father, a burly, grey-bearded, rather bluff man in a well-fitting but well-worn evening suit, was grasping the hands of his friends warmly, and welcoming them.

On the opposite side of the road, against the railings of Hyde Park, a young man was standing, watching the procession of cars, watching with wistful eyes as he stood with half a dozen others attracted by the commotion, as is always the case outside the mansions of the West End where a party is in progress.

The young man was Roddy Homfray. As a matter of fact, he had passed in a ’bus towards Hyde Park Corner, and seeing the awning outside Mr Sandys’ house, had alighted and out of sheer curiosity made his way back. At his side were two young girls of the true Cockney type, who were criticising each female guest as she arrived, and declaring what a joy it must be to be able to wear fine clothes and go to parties in a car.

Roddy was just about to turn away and cross to Waterloo to take the last train home, when among the cars he saw a fine grey Rolls in which a man and a woman were seated. Next second he craned his neck, and then crossed the road to obtain a nearer view of the pair.

“Yes,” he gasped aloud to himself, “that’s the woman. I’m certain! And the man? No, I’m not quite so sure. He was older, I think.”

Unseen, he narrowly watched the tallish, dark-haired, clean-shaven man alight, and saw him help out his companion, who was about forty, and wore a fur-trimmed evening wrap of gorgeous brocade and a beautiful diamond ornament in her dark hair.

“No! I’m not mistaken!” the young man muttered again to himself. “That’s the woman, without a doubt. But surely she can’t be a friend of Mr Sandys!”

That she was, was instantly proved by the fact that she ascended the red-carpeted steps followed by her companion, and they were received within by the bowing man-servant.

He watched them disappear, and a few moments afterwards he boldly mounted the steps to the door, where his passage was at once barred by a flunkey.

“I don’t want to come in,” said Roddy, in a low, confidential tone. “Do me a favour, will you? I’ll make it right with you. I want to know the names of that lady and gentleman who’ve this moment gone in.”

The servant viewed him rather suspiciously, and replied:

“Well, I don’t know them myself, for I haven’t been here long – only a week. But I’ll try to find out if you’ll come back, say, in a quarter of an hour.”

“Yes, do,” urged Roddy. “It’s most important to me.”

And then he slipped back down the steps and strolled along Park Lane, full of strange reflections.

That woman! It was the same woman of his hideous nightmare – the dark-faced woman who had held him beneath her evil influence, and forced him to commit some act against his will. But exactly what act it was he could not for the life of him recall. Sometimes he had an idea that he had been forced into the committal of a terrible crime, while at others the recollections all seemed so vague and fantastic that he dismissed them as the mere vagaries of an upset mind.

But he had found the woman. She was a friend of the Sandys! And did not Elma hold the photograph of the girl Edna, whom he had discovered in Welling Wood? The circumstances were more than strange!

A quarter of an hour later he returned to the house, and on slipping a ten-shilling note surreptitiously into the hand of the servant the latter said:

“The gentleman’s name is Mr Bertram Harrison, and the lady – a widow – is Mrs Freda Crisp.”

“Freda Crisp?” he echoed aghast.

“Yes. That’s the name Mr Hughes, the butler, told me,” the flunkey declared.

Roddy Homfray turned away. Freda Crisp! How amazing! That was the name of the woman against whom his father had warned him. That woman was undoubtedly his enemy. Why? Could it be possible that she was Elma’s enemy also? Was it possible that Elma, with the knowledge of the girl Edna, who had died in the wood and so mysteriously disappeared, suspected that handsome dark-haired woman of being implicated in the crime?

He recollected Elma’s curious reticence concerning the girl, and her refusal to make any allegations before she had ascertained and proved certain facts.

He crossed the road and, halting, gazed through the railings out across the dark London park where in the distance the lights were twinkling among the bare branches. The night was cold, for a keen east wind had sprung up. He hesitated.

To remain the night in London would bring the truth no nearer, for with the gay party in progress he could not enter there in the clothes he wore. And besides, he had not yet met Elma’s father. He longed to go there and watch the movements of that dark, gorgeously-dressed woman who had exercised such a strangely evil influence over him while he was in the grip of that mysterious drug. Who was she? Why had she and her companion held him in their toils for days, and then cast him aside at that remote spot by the Thames, hoping that he would die during the night?

What did it all mean?

He glanced at his watch, and saw that if he took a taxi he might just catch the last train. And this he did.

It was long after midnight when he entered the silent old Rectory and found his father bent beneath the green-shaded reading-lamp which stood on the study table.

The rector had been busy writing for hours – ever since old Mrs Bentley had cleared away his supper and wished him good-night.

Roddy, throwing off his coat, sank wearily into the wicker arm-chair before the welcome fire and took out his pipe, his father continuing writing his next Sunday’s sermon after briefly greeting him.

As the young man smoked, he reflected, until at last he suddenly said:

“Haven’t you finished your work, father? It’s getting very late.”

“Just finished – just finished, my boy!” said the old man cheerily, screwing up his fountain-pen. “I’ve had a heavy day to-day – out visiting nearly all day. There’s a lot of sickness in the village, you know.”

“Yes. And the Sandys are away in town, aren’t they?”

“They went up yesterday. Mr Sandys and his daughter are always at Park Lane on Wednesdays, I understand. I saw in the paper this morning that the party to-night has a rather political flavour, for two Cabinet Ministers and their wives are to be there.”

“I suppose Mr Sandys must be very rich?”

“Immensely, they say. I heard the other day that he is one of the confidential advisers of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he’ll probably get a peerage before long,” said his father. “But, after all, he is not one of your modern, get-rich-quick men. He’s a real, solid, God-fearing man, who though so very wealthy does a large amount of good in a quiet, unostentatious way. Only three days ago he gave me a cheque for two hundred pounds and asked me to distribute it to the poor people at Christmas, but on no condition is his name to be mentioned to a soul. So keep the information to yourself, Roddy.”

“Of course I will,” his son replied, puffing at his pipe.

“Mr Sandys asked about you,” said the rector. “I am to take you to the Towers to dine one night very soon.”

“I shall be delighted. Old Lord Farncombe asked me when I was last at home. Don’t you remember?”

“Of course,” said his father. “But how have you been feeling to-day? All right, I hope?”

“I feel quite right again now,” replied the young man. Then, after a brief pause, he removed his pipe and looked straight across at his father as in a rather changed voice, he said: “Do you recollect, dad, the other day you spoke of a certain woman, and warned me against her?”

“Yes,” said the old rector very seriously. “You recollect her name, I hope – Freda Crisp. Never forget that name, Roddy, never!”

“Why?”

“Because she is my enemy, my boy – and yours,” replied the old man, in a hard, strained voice.

“Why should she be? I don’t know the lady.”

“You said that you had some recollection of her in South America,” the old clergyman remarked.

“It isn’t the same woman.”

“Oh! How do you know?” asked his father, glancing at him quickly.

“Because I’ve seen the real Freda Crisp – the woman who you say is my enemy. I saw her to-night.”

“You’ve seen her! Where?” asked Mr Homfray eagerly.

“She is the woman I see in my bad dreams – those hazy recollections of the hours when I was drugged – handsome, dark-haired, middle-aged, and wears wonderful gowns.”

“Exactly! The description is quite correct, Roddy. But where did you see her to-night?”

“She is at Mr Sandys’.”

“At Mr Sandys’?” gasped his father. “You are surely mistaken! Freda Crisp would never have the entrée there?”

“But she has, father! I saw her go in – with an elderly man whose name is Bertram Harrison.”

“I’ve never heard of him. But are you quite certain of this, Roddy? Are you positive that the woman is actually on friendly terms with Mr Sandys?”

Then Roddy explained to his father exactly what had occurred, and how he had obtained the name of the handsome guest.

“Well – what you tell me, my boy, utterly staggers me?” the old man admitted. “I never dreamed that the woman knew Purcell Sandys. I told you to beware of her, and I repeat my warning. She is a woman whose eyes are as fascinating as those of a snake, and whose hand-shake is as fatal as a poisoned dart.”

“Really, dad, you don’t seem to like her, eh?”

“No, my boy, I don’t. I have cause – good cause, alas! to hold her in abhorrence – as your enemy and mine!”

“But why? I can’t understand you. You’ve never spoken of her till the other day.”

“Because I – well, the secret is mine, Roddy.”

“Yours,” said his son. “Is it one that I may not know?”

“Yes. I would prefer to say nothing more,” he answered briefly.

“Nothing more concerning a woman who held me for days beneath her evil influence, helpless as a babe in her unscrupulous hands – a woman who compelled me to – ”

“To what, Roddy?” asked his father very quickly, and with difficulty controlling his own emotion.

“To commit some crime, I fear. But I cannot tell – I cannot decide exactly what I did – or how I acted. All seems so vague, indistinct and mysterious! All I remember is that woman’s handsome face – that pair of dark, evil eyes!”

“Yes,” remarked the old man in a deep voice. “They are evil. The man is bad enough – but the woman is even worse.”

“The man Harrison?”

“No. Gordon Gray. You have not met him.”

“Perhaps I have. Perhaps he was the man with Mrs Crisp at the house where I was held in bondage – a big house standing in its own grounds – but where it is situated, I have no idea.”

“Perhaps,” said his father reflectively. “Describe him.”

Roddy Homfray strove to recall the salient points of the woman’s male companion, and as far as his recollection went he described them.

“Yes,” said the rector, his grey brows knit.

“It may have been Gordon Gray! But why did they make that secret attack upon you, if not in order to injure me?”

“Because I discovered the girl in the wood. They evidently intended to cover all traces of the crime. But how did they come to Welling Wood at all?”

His father remained silent. He had said nothing of the woman’s secret visit to him, nor of Gray’s presence in the church on that Sunday night. He kept his own counsel, yet now he fully realised the dastardly trap set for his son, and how, all unconsciously, the lad had fallen into it.

Only that afternoon Doctor Denton had called, and they had taken tea together. In the course of their conversation the doctor had told him how, when in London on the previous day, he had gone to an old fellow-student who was now a great mental specialist in Harley Street, and had had a conversation with him concerning Roddy’s case.

After hearing all the circumstances and a close description of the symptoms, the specialist had given it as his opinion that the ball of fire which Roddy had seen was undoubtedly the explosion of a small bomb of asphyxiating gas which had rendered him unconscious. Afterwards a certain drug recently invented by a chemist in Darmstadt had, no doubt, been injected into his arms. This drug was a most dangerous and terrible one, for while it had no influence upon a person’s actions, yet it paralysed the brain and almost inevitably caused insanity.

Roddy was practically cured, but the specialist had expressed a very serious fear that ere long signs of insanity would reappear, and it would then be incurable!

It was that secret but terrible knowledge of his son’s imminent peril that old Mr Homfray now held. His enemies had triumphed, after all!

And this was made the more plain when three hours later he woke up to find his son in his room, chattering and behaving as no man in his senses would.

The old man rose, and with clenched fists declared aloud that he would now himself fight for his son’s life and bring the guilty pair to justice.

But, alas! the old rector never dreamed how difficult would be his task, nor what impregnable defences had arisen to protect and aid those who were his enemies.

In addition Roddy, in his half-dazed condition, never dreamed of the perils and pitfalls which now surrounded the girl he so dearly loved.