William Le Queux - The Voice from the Void - The Great Wireless Mystery

“The young man is missing from a place called Little Farncombe, in Surrey,” said the sergeant. “I wonder how he came to be lying on the tow-path at the foot of Whitchurch Bridge? He must have been there all night, for one of the men working on the Thames Conservancy dredger found him when on his way to work at six o’clock on Tuesday morning.”

“All clues to his identity have been removed,” remarked the matron. “His name has been cut out of his shirt collar and underclothing, and the laundry marks removed – all deliberately done as if to efface his identity. Possibly he intended to commit suicide, and that’s why he was on the river bank.”

“But the doctor, when he saw him at the police station, gave his opinion that the man was drugged,” the police sergeant said. “I don’t think he had any intention of suicide.”

“Well, in any case, let us wait till this evening. I will telephone to you after the doctor has seen him,” the matron promised. And with that the sergeant left.

At six o’clock Doctor Maynard, a quiet elderly man who had practised in Pangbourne and district for fifteen years, called again and saw Roddy lying in the narrow little bed.

His face was pale and drawn, and his eyes sunken and weary:

“Well, doctor,” he exclaimed cheerily, “I feel a lot better than I did this morning. I’m able to think now – and to remember. But oh! – my head!”

“That’s good,” declared the white-haired medical man. “Now what is your name, and how did you come here?” he asked, the stout matron standing, watchful, beside him.

“My name is Roderick Homfray, and I’m the son of the Reverend Norton Homfray, rector of Little Farncombe, in Surrey,” the patient replied frankly. “What brought me here I don’t know. What day is it to-day?”

“The fourteenth of December.”

“The fourteenth of December! Well, the last I remember is on the night of the third – a Sunday night. And I shan’t forget it either, I assure you! I was on my way home soon after half-past nine at night, and in Welling Wood, close by the Rectory paddock, I found a girl lying on the ground. She could just speak. She appealed to me to save her. Then she died. I rose and dashed across the wood to my father’s house to raise the alarm, but I had hardly gone a hundred yards when straight in front of me something exploded. I saw what seemed to be a ball of red fire, but after that I know nothing – nothing until I came to my senses this morning and found myself here! Where I’ve been in the meantime, doctor, I have no idea.”

Doctor Maynard, still under the impression that the story of the murdered girl was a delusion, sympathised with the patient and suggested sleep.

“I’ll come to see you to-morrow,” he added. “You’re quite all right, so don’t worry. I will see that a telegram is sent to-night to your father. He’ll be here to-morrow, no doubt.”

At ten o’clock the following morning the rector stood at the bedside of his son and listened to the amazing story of the discovery in Welling Wood and the red ball of fire which Roddy subsequently saw before him.

“Perhaps I was struck by lightning!” Roddy added. “But if that were so I should surely have remained in the wood. No doubt I was struck down maliciously. But why? And why should I have been taken away unconscious and kept so for several days, and then conveyed to the river bank here at Whitchurch?”

“I don’t know, my son,” replied his father quietly, though he stood staggered at the amazing story.

Then he added:

“The police searched Welling Wood and all the neighbouring copses three days after you had disappeared, but found no trace of you.”

“But surely they found the poor girl, father?” cried Roddy, raising himself upon his arm.

“No, my boy, nobody was found,” he replied. “That’s strange!” exclaimed the young man. “Then she must have been taken away with me! But by whom? What devil’s work was there in progress that night, father?”

“Ah! my boy. That I cannot tell!”

“But I mean to ascertain!” cried the young man fiercely. “That girl appealed to me to save her, and she died in my arms. Where is she? And why should I be attacked and drugged so that I nearly became insane? Why? Perhaps it was because I had accidentally discovered the crime!”

“Hush! You infernal idiot! What did I tell you? What the deuce are you doing?” cried the man, tearing the telephone from the woman’s hand and throwing over a switch upon the roll-top desk at which she was seated.

The low hum of an electric generator ceased and the current was cut off.

“You fool!” cried the short, middle-aged, clean-shaven man in a dinner-jacket, and with a cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth.

“Will you never learn common sense, Freda, after all I’ve told you! It’s fortunate I came in at this moment! Do you want to be jugged? It seems so!”

Freda Crisp, in a gorgeous Paquin evening gown, turned deliberately in her chair and, coldly surveying the man who had just entered, said:

“Well, my dear Gordon, and what’s upset your digestion to-night? Things said over this wireless telephone – broadcasted over five hundred miles of space from your cosy rooms here – can be said without anybody being the wiser as to who uttered them. I look upon this wireless box of tricks as a priceless joke. You turn over a switch, and into thousands of ears you speak all over the kingdom, and across into Holland and France and even Scandinavia. The great Marconi is, you’ll admit, dear old thing, a wonderful nut!”

“Bah! You’re not serious, Freda! You laugh at perils. And a peril now faces us.”

“Ah! My dear Gordon, this is the first time I’ve ever heard such an admission from you – you, of all men! Peril? It’s in the dictionary, but not in your vocabulary – or mine, my dear boy. I’ve faced danger, and so have you – nasty troublous moments with detectives hanging around – but we’ve generally been able to wriggle out by the back door, or the window, or – ”

“Or else bluff it out, Freda!” interrupted Gray. “Yes, you’re right! But to deliberately ask after the health of Roderick Homfray over the wireless telephone – well, it’s simply courting trouble.”

“Why?”

“Well, don’t you know that there’s an apparatus invented by two clever Italians, Bellini and Tosi, which is called a direction-finder?” asked her rather good-looking companion, as he removed his cigar from his lips. “That apparatus is in use all over the country. That’s how they find aircraft lost in fogs – and that’s how they could find to a yard exactly the position of this secret set of ours from which you spoke those silly jeering words. Gad! you’re a fool, Freda! Shut up – and don’t meddle with this wireless transmitter in future! Remember, I’ve got no official licence. This room,” – and he swept his hand around the small apartment filled with a marvellous collection of wireless apparatus – “is our secret. If the authorities discovered it – well, it would, no doubt, be the end for both of us – the Old Bailey and – well, just jug for both of us. I know something about wireless, and as you know it bears us in good stead. We’ve profited thousands on the stunt – you and I, Freda – and – ”

“And Roderick Homfray also knows something about wireless, my dear old thing,” laughed the handsome woman, lazily taking a cigarette from her gold case, tapping it and lighting it.

“That’s just it! You’re a priceless fool to have taken such a risk as to speak broadcast as you did. What did you say?”

“I only asked how 3.X.Q. Roddy Homfray of Little Farncombe was getting on, and gave my name as Freda!”