Free Elk 01 The Fellowship of the Frog by Edgar Wallace Page B

discredit. All I know I have seen. You seem to forget that Mr. Gordon is father’s guest.”
    “Everybody is fussing over me,” Ray grumbled. “Even old Johnson!” He grinned sheepishly at the bald man, but Johnson did not return the smile.
    “Somebody has got to worry about you, boy,” he said. The strained situation was only relieved when John Bennett, camera on back, came up the red path to greet his visitors.
    “Why, Mr. Johnson, I owe you many apologies for putting you off, but I’m glad to see you here at last. How is Ray doing at the office?”
    Johnson shot a helpless and pathetic glance at Dick. “Er—fine, Mr. Bennett,” he blurted.
    So John Bennett was not to be told that his son had launched forth on a new career? The fact that he was fathering this deception made Dick Gordon a little uncomfortable. Apparently it reduced Mr. Johnson to despair, for when a somewhat tense luncheon had ended and they were alone again in the garden, that worthy man unburdened himself of his trouble.
    “I feel that I’m playing it low on old Bennett,” he said. “Ray should have told him.”
    Dick could only agree. He was in no mood to discuss Ray at the moment. The boy’s annoyance and self-assurance irritated him, and it did not help matters to recognize the sudden and frank hostility which the brother of Ella Bennett was showing toward him. That was disconcerting, and emphasized his anomalous position in relation to the Bennetts. He was discovering what many young men in love have to discover: that the glamour which surrounds their dears does not extend to the relations and friends of their dears. He made yet another discovery. The plump Mr. Johnson was in love with the girl. He was nervous and incoherent in her presence; miserable when she went away. More miserable still when Dick boldly took her arm and led her into the rose-garden behind the house.
    “I don’t know why that fellow comes here,” said Ray savagely as the two disappeared. “He isn’t a man of our class, and he loathes me.”
    “I don’t know that he loathes you, Ray,” said Johnson, waking from the unhappy daydream into which he seemed to have fallen. “He’s an extremely nice man—”
    “Fiddlesticks!” said the other scornfully. “He’s a snob! Anyway, he’s a policeman, and I hate cops! If you imagine that he doesn’t look down on you and me, you’re wrong. I’m as good as he is, and I bet I’ll make more money before I’m finished!”
    “Money isn’t everything,” said Johnson tritely. “What work are you doing, Ray?”
    It required a great effort on his part to bring his mind back to his friend’s affairs.
    “I can’t tell you. It’s very confidential,” said Ray mysteriously. “I couldn’t even tell Ella, though she’s been jawing at me for hours. There are some jobs that a man can’t speak about without betraying secrets that aren’t his to tell. This is one of them.”
    Mr. Johnson said nothing. He was thinking of Ella and wondering how long it would be before her good-looking companion brought her back.
    Good-looking and young. Mr. Johnson was not good-looking, and only just on the right side of fifty. And he was bald. But, worst of all, in her presence he was tongue-tied. He was rather amazed with himself.
    In the seclusion of the rose-garden another member of the Bennett family was relating her fears to a more sympathetic audience.
    “I feel that father guesses,” she said. “He was out most of last night. I was awake when he came in, and he looked terrible. He said he had been walking about half the night, and by the mud on his boots I think he must have been.”
    Dick did not agree.
    “Knowing very little about Mr. Bennett, I should hardly think he is the kind of man to suffer in silence where your brother is concerned,” he said. “I could better imagine a most unholy row. Why has your brother become so unpleasant to me?”
    She shook her head.
    “I don’t know. Ray has changed suddenly. This