The Voice from the Void: The Great Wireless Mystery

He drew a long breath for a last frantic effort, but as he did so, Claribut, who had succeeded in drawing a lead-weighted life-preserver from his pocket, raised it and brought it down with crashing force upon the young man’s skull.

And Roddy Homfray fell like a log upon the stones.

Chapter Twenty Seven

The Death-Trap

When Roddy again became conscious of his surroundings he found himself lying in a corner of the place, so weak that he was scarcely able to move his arms. His head was throbbing, and placing his hand upon it, he found himself suffering from a long scalp wound.

He lay for quite an hour staring up at the plaster ceiling which was peeling after many years of neglect. He tried to recall what had occurred.

Mistily he remembered his desperate fight for liberty, and how old Claribut had eventually clubbed him with a short, pliable life-preserver.

It seemed to be again morning. His lips were parched, his throat contracted, and he felt feverish and ill. Water was there, and he managed to reach it.

“What can I do?” he cried faintly to himself. “I must get out of this. I must! How many days have I been here, I wonder?” and again his hand felt his chin. The growth of beard had increased, and by it he knew that already he must have been there a week – or even more.

For the hundredth time he glanced at the heavy old door, and saw how a small panel had been sawn out near the bottom to admit the introduction of the plate and jug. The mysterious hand that fed him was that of the old man whom he recollected as having been at Willowden. Outwardly the old fellow seemed feeble, but he certainly was the reverse when put to the test.

Roddy ambled across to where his raincoat lay upon the stones. In its pocket was the cigar-box, two coils of wire – aerial and “earth” – and the head-’phones. He opened the box and, as far as he could discover, it was intact. But of what use was it?

He sighed and slowly packed it back into the pocket of the coat, which afterwards he dropped back upon the spot whence he had picked it up.

Suddenly he heard a footstep outside and the panel in the door was slid back, the grey evil face of old Claribut being revealed in the aperture.

“Hulloa!” he exclaimed with a harsh laugh. “So you’ve come to your senses again – eh? I hope you liked what I gave you for attacking me, young man?”

“I only tried to escape,” was Roddy’s reply.

“Well, that you won’t do,” the other laughed. “You’ll never leave here alive. I’ll take good care of that.”

“Oh! We shall see,” replied Roddy, whose stout heart had not yet forsaken him. It was not the first time in his life that he had been in a tight corner, and after all he was ever optimistic. The only thing that troubled him was the wound in his head.

“You were useful once,” said the evil-faced old criminal. “But now you are of no further use. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, I do; and no, I don’t,” was Roddy’s defiant reply.

“Well, you’re only an encumbrance,” he said. “And you’re young to die like a rat in a hole?”

“That’s very interesting,” Roddy remarked grimly. “And who’s going to be my executioner, pray?”

“You’ll learn that in due course,” said his evil-faced janitor, who then opened the door after removing two strong bars.

Roddy instantly sprang at him, but he found himself so weak that he was as a child in Claribut’s hands.

The old man seized him, and dragging him out roughly thrust him down some spiral atone stairs and into a stone chamber below the one in which he had been confined. It was about the same size and smelt damp and mouldy. The window, strongly barred, was as high up as the one in the chamber above. When he had bundled the helpless man down the stairs, with one hand, he took the raincoat and flung it into the chamber after him.

All Roddy’s protests and struggles were useless. In his weak physical state, still more exhausted by loss of blood from his wound, he was helpless as a child, as Claribut flung him upon the damp shiny stones, saying with a laugh of triumph:

“You’ll stay there and die – now that you’re no longer wanted!”

Next second Roddy, lying where he had been flung, heard the door being bolted and barred.

He was again alone!

He raised himself slowly and painfully from the slimy stones and gazed around. The walls were green and damp and the place smelt muddy.

Suddenly his eager ears caught the faint ripple of water. There was a river flowing outside!

Again he listened. No longer could he hear Claribut’s footsteps, but only the low ripple as the water ran past beneath the window. He judged that the pavement upon which he stood was on a level with the river.

But where was he? What was the nature of the place he was in – those strong stone walls that had probably stood there for centuries. In any case the intention of his enemies was that it should be his tomb!

It was still morning – early morning he judged it to be. But suddenly as he stood there he saw that the clouds had darkened, and he heard the rain falling slowly upon the surface of the river outside.

Gradually the stones upon which he stood became wetter. Water was oozing up from between the crevices everywhere.

The river was rising. The ghastly truth all at once fell upon him, benumbing his senses. If the rain continued to fall then the river would rise, and he would be drowned, as Claribut had prophesied – drowned like a rat in a hole!

Realisation of the situation held him rigid as a statue.

For a few moments he was plunged into despair.

Then suddenly a thought came to him. There was still a hundredth chance left.

So taking out his pocket-book he scribbled an urgent message to Elma, stating that he was confined in some house beside the river, that the flood was rising, and telling her that he had with him his new wireless receiver, asked her to speak to him, if she chanced to be at Farncombe. He urged her to hasten to his side.

His handwriting was irregular, for his hand trembled as he wrote. But having finished it he took out a frayed but plain envelope, and addressed it: “Urgent: Miss Elma Sandys, Farncombe Towers, near Haslemere.”

Having placed the message inside, he sealed it, and managed, after many futile attempts, to toss it through the barred window.

If it fell upon the face of the waters it might be picked up by some inquisitive person out boating or fishing. Yet he knew not what river was flowing by. He had an idea that it was the Thames, because on the previous day he had seen the brilliant flash of light blue as a kingfisher had sped past the window.

The envelope fluttered from the window – a forlorn hope.

From the crevices in the paving the water was still rising, even though the heavy shower had passed, and the sun was again shining.

Feeling a trifle better and more hopeful, he again took out his wireless receiving-set from the pocket of his discarded raincoat. Old Claribut evidently intended that when the river overwhelmed him, and later he might be found dead, his coat should be with him. Had it been left above there might have been more serious suspicions of foul play.

Claribut, as an old criminal, left nothing to chance. When Roddy Homfray died there should also be found his belongings. That was what he intended.

The first fear which entered Roddy’s mind was that the dampness of the stones might have affected the sensitiveness of the set. Eagerly he commenced to string up his aerial to several old nails which he found in the wall above the height of his head. Then he put down an “earth” wire under one of the small stones in the wet floor, which he lifted for that purpose.

After preparations which lasted ten minutes or so he held the cigar-box in his hand, and putting on the head-’phones listened and turned the condenser to receive waves of nine hundred metres.

In a few moments his heart gave a bound. His set worked and the water had not injured it, for he heard the operator at the London aerodrome telephoning to an aeroplane in flight towards Paris.

Those words through the ether gave him renewed courage. His set was working!

Would that he could hear Elma’s answering voice.

The envelope had fluttered from the window, yet the only sound that reached him was the low lapping of the water and the songs of the birds.

He listened to the daily traffic in the air, the Morse and telephony, all of which he knew so well. Yet he was unable to call for help. He could only listen – listen for Elma’s words of encouragement.

But would she ever receive that message tossed at haphazard from that barred high-up window – tossed into the air or upon the water? Which he knew not.

An hour later another sharp shower fell, and as it did so the water percolated through the floor until it was quite two inches deep. It was an ugly sign.

Would Elma receive his message and come to his rescue?

At some moments he gave up the situation as hopeless. His father’s reluctance to tell him the truth concerning Gray and his accomplice, the woman Crisp who was actually on visiting terms with Mr Sandys and his daughter, utterly puzzled him. He had trusted his father before all men, yet the poor old rector had died with his secret locked in his heart.

A thousand conflicting thoughts arose within him, all weird, mysterious, inscrutable. Why should his own father have held back from him the truth? Why should Mr Sandys demand from him the secret of his discovery of the girl in Welling Wood?

What connexion could there be with the City magnate and the girl whom he had believed was dead, but who was certainly still alive?

As the day faded the rain, which had ceased for an hour, again fell heavily, and in the dim grey light he could see the water rising almost imperceptibly, until it had already reached his knees.

He still listened intently, but though he heard a concert sent out from Marconi House, on four hundred metres, gay music which jarred upon the nerves of a doomed man, and also the voices of amateurs in the vicinity, yet no sound was there of Elma.

Would she be able to get the transmission set to work? The thought caused him to hold his breath. Even if she received his message it might be too late if the rain continued and the river rose further!

He recollected how, when at Mr Sandys’ request he obtained official permission and had erected the telephone transmission set, he had given Elma several lessons in its working until once or twice she had spoken to him at the Rectory from the Towers and had once given him a gramophone selection. He knew that the exact filament current on the valves was necessary for clear speech. Would she remember the exact instructions he had given her?

But after all he had merely cast his urgent appeal to the wind. He did not even know whether it had floated upon the water. Perhaps it might have been caught in a tree and would remain unseen until the paper rotted and dropped!

Darkness fell, and the only sound that reached his living tomb was the low lapping of the waters, as slowly but surely they rose.

There was no acknowledgment of his message. He held the receiver above the level of the waters in breathless expectancy, knowing that if water entered the box its sensibility would at once be destroyed.

A weather forecast was given out from the Air Ministry, followed by an amateur in London with bad modulation trying to call a fellow amateur in Liverpool, but no acknowledgment from the girl he loved and from whom he had been so rudely parted.

Would she ever get his message of distress? His heart sank when he knew that the chance was so small.

Truly his enemies held him powerless, and their intention was that he should either starve or drown!

He had hoped against hope, until he, alas! gave up.

The river was still rising and very soon the flood must engulf him!

Chapter Twenty Eight

A Race for Life

The day was a Saturday, and Elma’s wedding to Mr Rex Rutherford was fixed for the following Friday. It was to take place at Little Farncombe Church. Rutherford had insisted upon it.

Mr Sandys was unaware that he was triumphant over poor old Homfray and his son, and it pleased him to think that they should be married in the village church where old Mr Homfray had been rector.

Elma and her father were at the Towers, and Rutherford had motored down to spend the day. He posed as the devoted lover, and really played the part quite well now that he and Freda understood each other. The woman was no longer jealous. He had given her an assurance to return to her.

The pair, by Gray’s marriage to Elma, would reap a rich harvest at the expense of the poor girl’s happiness and future. With Roddy safely out of the way the road was laid open for complete conquest. The coup would be complete.

The cold, cheerless day had been very showery, but Rutherford and Mr Sandys had been out all the afternoon with their guns over some rough shooting towards Hindhead.

At about five o’clock the neat maid Evans ascended to Elma’s room, saying:

“James says, miss, that there is a man in the kitchen who wants to see you personally.”

“What kind of man?” asked the girl, surprised, she being at the moment before the mirror in the feminine act of powdering her face.

“James says he’s a respectable-looking working man, miss. He won’t see anybody but you.”

“Then I suppose I must see him. Tell James to send him round to the hall. I wonder who he can be? Begging – a starving wife and family, I expect. Ah! our poor ex-service men,” she added with a sigh, “they gallantly won the war for us, and now nobody wants them – alas! How very cruel the world is!”

A few minutes later she descended the wide oaken staircase and passing into the big, long-panelled hall, with its stained glass windows and its rows of old portraits, where a great wood fire burned, throwing out a sweet fragrance, she met a brown-bearded, burly-looking man in a faded blue suit, standing with his cap in his hand.

“I’m sorry, miss, to worry you,” he said. “I hope you’ll forgive me. Are you Miss Elma Sandys?”

“I am.”

“Well, miss,” said the rough fellow, “I’ve found this ’ere in the water. I work on a timber barge on the Thames and up the Wey. To-day I saw it a-floatin’ on the water not far from the old ruined mill near Old Woking, so I picks it up out o’ curiosity. It was unstuck, so I read the contents, and I come over ’ere by train as soon as I could.”

And he handed her a damp letter written in pencil and sadly blurred by the water.

Elma held her breath as she recognised the handwriting, much of which was obliterated.

She eagerly scanned the lines of writing, and her face went pale as death.

After some words with the man, and he had given her certain directions, she managed to thank him, and gave him a pound note, for which he was very grateful. Then she rushed away to the room wherein was the wireless telephone-transmitter installed by Roddy. She turned the key in the door to be private, and at once sat down to the complicated-looking instruments into the intricacies of which her lover had already initiated her. She pulled over the switches so that the generator began to hum, and lit up the filaments of the two big electric globes. These she carefully adjusted till she had the exact current, and taking up the transmitting instrument she was about to speak.

The handle of the door turned, and she heard Rutherford’s voice calling her. He had come in unexpectedly from shooting, and was motoring back to town before dinner. Forced to switch off the current, she sprang up and opened the door.

“Hallo, Rex! I was just about to amuse myself with the wireless!” she said in an affected tone of unconcern, as she joined him in the corridor and they walked together to the hall, where Hughes was ready to serve them in stately manner with tea.

Her agony of mind may easily be imagined as she sat there in a low chair beside the log fire, and in pretence of being calm gave her father and her hated lover their tea-cups, while Rutherford was full of praise as to the amount of game that remained upon the pretty old-world English estate so near London.

Elma was longing for the fellow to go. She was eager to dash back to the wireless-room and thence speak to her imprisoned lover. The whole situation held her breathless. Roddy was in deadly peril, and she alone could encourage and save him.

Those moments were, to her, like hours. She thought to excuse herself and leave the two men together, but she feared lest Rutherford might follow her and overhear her voice on the radio-telephone.

So she waited patiently till at last the man rose, and, placing one of his hot, hateful kisses upon her lips, strode out, promising to come down again on the following day if his urgent business concerning the concession would allow.

The instant he had stepped into his car, Elma, in a few hurried words, told her father of the strange message from Roddy, and showed to him the half obliterated scribble.

“Speak to him at once, dear?” cried Mr Sandys excitedly. “What can it all mean?”

Together they hastened to the wireless-room, and very soon Elma had the set going, the generator softly purring, and the valves lighted to their exact brilliancy for clear modulation of the human voice.

“Hulloa! Hulloa! Hulloa?” she cried, repeating her call six times. “Hulloa! 3.X.Q.! Hulloa, 3.X.Q.! Can you hear me, 3.X.Q.? This is Elma speaking – Elma speaking to 3.X.Q. All right. I-have-had-your-message-and-I-think-I-know-where-you-are! Hulloa, 3.X.Q. I will investigate at once! Hold on. Elma speaking. I will be with you very soon. 3.X.Q. 3.X.Q.! Elma-has-had-your-message. Listen! I will repeat.”

And in a clear voice she repeated what she had already said.

Afterwards, knowing that her lover could not reply, she went out to meet her father who had already telephoned across to the chauffeur to get the car ready. Both father and daughter put on their hats and mackintoshes and hurried across the back premises to the big well-lit garage. On their way they met Telford, the second gardener. His master told him to get a couple of crowbars and axes and to come along.

“I want that axe you use for felling big trees,” he added.

The man went to the tool-shed in wonder, and placed them in the car.

Then all four set out in the rain upon a strange and exciting expedition.

The note had been picked up not far from the ruined mill on the bank of the river Wey. From Roddy’s message it seemed to the girl that he must certainly be held prisoner within that old mill, so they drove away along the London road through Godalming and Guildford until they found themselves at Woking Station. Then on inquiry, and after losing themselves three times on narrow, intricate roads, they at last came to the bank of the river, a tributary of the Thames, and presently found the dark walls of the half-ruined mill.

On pulling up Elma shouted with all her might.

“Roddy! Roddy!”

There was no response. They saw in the darkness that the river was swollen and was running swiftly towards the Thames.

“Roddy! Roddy!” the girl shouted again, whereupon at last there was a very faint response, deep down somewhere. All were silent for a few seconds.

“By Gad!” cried Mr Sandys, “he’s here! Yes. He’s here!”

The two servants got out the axes and crowbars and, aided by their master, attacked the heavy iron-bound door of the disused water-mill. At first it resisted them. It was of oak and centuries old, as was the stone structure itself.

At last it yielded to the combined efforts of all four.

Inside they found a big, bare room of stone, where in the old days the sacks of corn were stored. Soon, having explored the place by the aid of two flash-lamps, and Elma calling constantly, Roddy’s voice directed them to the chamber below in which his captors had placed him with such evil intent.

At last they descended a flight of winding stone steps, slippery with slime, but on reaching the last step they found the water to be high above their waists.

“Roddy!” cried Elma breathlessly, “are you there?”

“Yes, dear. I’m here! Try and open the door. But do be careful. The water is rising. It’s very deep now!” was the faint reply.

They could not see the fastenings of the door on account of the black flood, but after great difficulty, all four succeeded in forcing it open, whereupon Roddy, entirely exhausted in body and in mind and at the limit of his endurance, fell back into the girl’s ready arms.

Elma’s voice from the void had given him courage, and his life had, after all, been saved by wireless!

There is an old Spanish proverb which says, “From poverty to wealth is the breadth of two hands: from wealth to poverty, the breadth of two fingers.”

De pobre à rico, dos palmos!De rico à pobre, dos dedos.

Chapter Twenty Nine

The Coup

The world of Little Farncombe was agog, for though great secrecy had been preserved it became rumoured that Miss Elma Sandys was to be married to a rich American financier, Mr Rex Rutherford.

At the hour appointed for the ceremony the bridegroom, accompanied by his friend, Mr Bertram Harrison – or Arthur Porter, to be exact – arrived at the crowded little church, but as the time went on and the bride did not arrive everyone began to whisper.

What hitch could have occurred?

Nearly an hour went by when Rutherford went out and telephoned to the Towers, only to receive an astounding reply from Purcell Sandys himself, who said:

“My daughter Elma was married to Roderick Homfray by special licence in London this morning, and they are already on their way to the Continent on their honeymoon.”

The crook stood dumbfounded for a second. Then, uttering a shriek of rage, he banged down the receiver, called Harrison, and they both drove rapidly away in the car together.

A trap for them had already been set, for as the car entered Haslemere four constables attempted to hold it up. Gray, seeing this, drew a revolver, fired three shots indiscriminately and dashed past.

Meanwhile Edna Manners was sitting with Mr Sandys, whose ward she was, relating to him a very remarkable story.

It concerned the death of her fiancé, Hugh Willard.

“But,” she said, “old Mr Homfray was, as you know, a friend of poor Hugh, and he was the only man who knew that Gordon Gray – the scoundrel whom you knew as Rutherford – and his accomplice, the woman Crisp, were the actual assassins. Mr Homfray had called upon him in Hyde Park Square on the night of the crime, and was actually in the house and saw the deed committed! The woman held poor Hugh down while the man injected something into his scalp by means of a hypodermic syringe. But Mr Homfray was too late to save him. I suspected that he was cognisant of these facts, but not until I had watched Freda Crisp enter the Rectory by stealth and listened in secret at the window and heard him threaten the woman with exposure did I know that he could clear up the mystery when he wished. But Gray held a secret of Mr Homfray’s past. When I had learnt the truth I slipped away in the wood, but was overtaken by Gray himself, and the next I saw was a bright red flash and then I lapsed into semi-consciousness. I shouted to somebody to save me. I have just a faint recollection of some man bending over me, and then I knew no more until my reason returned to me and I found myself living with the shoe-repairer and his wife in Bayeux.”

“Then it is quite clear that Mr Homfray’s son discovered you, but Gray, believing that he had seen you attacked, also attacked him.”

“Yes,” said the girl. “But there was evidently a yet deeper motive. Gray knew that the rector held the secret of poor Mr Willard’s death and, I think, feared lest he had disclosed it to his son. Poor Mr Homfray died mysteriously. Perhaps they actually killed him.”

“To me it seems clear that the reason why young Homfray was not killed outright was because, knowing of the impending concession, they watched their opportunity to obtain it,” said Mr Sandys. “Barclay received the very valuable plan of the mine, but it somehow fell into their hands, – a fact which was not discovered till a few days ago – and now I happily have it together with both concessions. At the hour of their triumph they confined Roddy in a place where they knew that a terrible death must sooner or later await him. Having swindled him out of his concession Gray hoped to marry Elma, first having cleverly entrapped Roddy and determined that the rising river should cause his death.”