The Voice from the Void: The Great Wireless Mystery

“That Miss Sandys should come and see you, dad, is peculiar. Why did she come? What interest can she possibly have in me, except – well, perhaps it is the wireless. She told me she was very interested in it, and possibly she has heard that I’m an experimenter – eh?”

“Probably so,” laughed the old clergyman. “But hearing you were coming home to-day, she sent me a message to say that she is calling here at five.”

“Jolly good of her!” replied the young man, suddenly raising his head, which seemed to be bursting, “It’s now nearly four. I think I’ll go up and have a lie down till she comes,” and so saying he ascended the stairs to his own room.

Just before five o’clock Elma Sandys, a dainty figure in furs, was ushered into the study by Mrs Bentley, and was greeted by the rector, who, shaking her hand, said:

“It’s really awfully kind of you to come and see my poor son, Miss Sandys. Frankly, I hardly know what to make of him. His mind seems entirely upset in some way. He talks wildly, and tells me of some terrible tragedy which occurred in Welling Wood on the night of his disappearance.”

“Tragedy! What?” asked the girl quickly.

“He will tell you all about it. The story is a very strange one. I would rather he told you himself.”

The girl sank into the wide wicker arm-chair which the old man pulled up to the fire, and then he left to summon his son.

When Roddy entered the room Elma, jumping up, saw instantly that he seemed still half-dazed. She took his hand and instinctively realised that his gaze was fixed and strange. His friend Denton had seen him soon after his return, and declared him to foe suffering from some potent drug which had apparently affected him mentally.

“Hulloa, Miss Sandys?” exclaimed the young man cheerily. “Well! I’m in a pretty pickle – as you see – eh? What’s happened I can’t make out. People seem to think I’m not quite in my right senses,” and then, grinning, he added: “Perhaps I’m not – and perhaps I am.”

“But, Mr Homfray, I’ve been awfully worried about you,” the girl said, facing him and gazing again into his pale drawn face. “You disappeared, and we had an awful shock, all of us. You left me at the end of the avenue and nobody saw you again!”

“Well,” said the young fellow, with a sorry attempt at laughing, “somebody must have seen me, no doubt, or I shouldn’t have been found in this precious state. What happened to me I haven’t the slightest notion. You see, I came up the village and went on through Welling Wood, and – well, as I went along I heard a strange cry, and in the darkness found a girl lying, under a tree. I went to her, and as I did so, she cried out to me to save her. The whole affair was unusual, wasn’t it? I bent and took her up, and – the poor girl sank in my arms.”

“Sank? Did she die?” asked the great financier’s daughter.

“Yes, she did.”

The rector, who stood near his writing-table, exchanged glances with their pretty visitor. They were meaning glances. Old Mr Homfray was somewhat puzzled why the daughter of Purcell Sandys should be so deeply interested in his son. Yet, of course, young people will be ever young people, and deep pockets are of no account where Love is concerned. Love and Lucre have now happily been divorced in our post-war get ahead world.

“But tell me, Mr Homfray, what was she like? Who could she be to be in Welling Wood at that hour?”

“Ah! I don’t know,” was the young fellow’s half-dazed reply. “I only know what happened to me, how I dashed away to reach home and raise the alarm, and suddenly saw what appeared to be a ball of fire before me. Then I knew no more till I found myself in hospital at Pangbourne. A man, they say, found me lying near the towing-path by the Thames. I was in the long grass – left there to die, Doctor Maynard believes.”

“But you must have been in somebody’s hands for days,” his father remarked.

“Yes,” said the young man, “I know. Though I can recollect nothing at all – distinctly. Some incidents seem to be coming back to me. I have just a faint idea of two persons – a man and a woman. They were well-dressed and lived in a big old house. And – and they made me do something. Ah! I – I can’t recall it, only – only I know that the suggestion horrified me!” And he gave vent to a strange cry and his eyes glared with terror at the recollection. “Ah! the – the brutes – they forced me to – to do something – to – ”

“To do what?” asked the girl, taking his hand softly and looking into his pale, drawn face.

“It is all a strange misty kind of recollection,” he declared, staring stonily in front of him. “I can see them – yes! I can see both of them – the woman – she – yes! – she held my hand while – she guided my hand when I did it!”

“Did what?” asked Elma in a slow, calm voice, as though trying to soothe him.

“I – I – I can’t recollect! Only – only he died!”

“Died! Who died?” gasped the old rector, who at the mention of the man and the woman at once wondered again whether Gordon Gray and Freda Crisp were in any way implicated. “You surely did not commit – murder!”

The young man seated in his chair sat for a few seconds, silent and staring.

“Murder! I – yes, I saw him! I would recognise him. Murder, perhaps – oh, perhaps I – I killed him! That woman made me do it!”

The rector and the pretty daughter of Purcell Sandys exchanged glances. Roddy was no doubt still under the influence of some terrible, baneful drug. Was his mind wandering, or was there some grain of truth in those misty, horrifying recollections?

“I’m thirsty,” he said a moment later; “very thirsty.”

His father went out at once to obtain a glass of water, whereupon Elma, advancing closely to the young man, drew from her little bag a photograph.

“Hush! Mr Homfray! Don’t say a word. But look at this! Do you recognise it?” she whispered in breathless anxiety.

He glanced at it as she held it before his bewildered eyes.

“Why – yes!” he gasped, staring at her in blank amazement. “That’s – that’s the girl I found in Welling Wood!”

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.