The Fellowship of the Frog Read online

  “Dear me!” said Elk, as he hung up the coat again. At the touch of his bell Balder came.

  “Balder, do you remember seeing me pass your room?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I had my coat on my arm, didn’t I?”

  “I never looked,” said Balder with satisfaction.

  He invariably gave Elk the impression that he derived a great deal of satisfaction out of not being able to help.

  “It’s queer,” said Elk.

  “Anything wrong, sir?”

  “No, not exactly. You understand what has to be done with Mills? He is to see nobody. Immediately he arrives he is to be put into the waiting-room—alone. There is to be no conversation of any kind, and, if he speaks, he is not to be answered.”

  In the privacy of his office he inspected his find again.

  Everything was there—the treaty and Lord Farmley’s notes. Elk called up his lordship and told the good news. Later came a small deputation from the Foreign Office to collect the precious document, and to offer, in the name of the Ministry, their thanks for his services in recovering the lost papers. All of which Elk accepted graciously. He would have been cursed with as great heartiness if he had failed, and would have been equally innocent of responsibility.

  He had arranged for Mills to be brought to Headquarters at noon. There remained an hour to be filled, and he spent that hour unprofitably in a rough interrogation of Hagn, who, stripped of his beard, occupied a special cell segregated from the ordinary places of confinement in Cannon Row Station—which is virtually Scotland Yard itself.

  Hagn refused to make any statement—even when formally charged with the murder of Inspector Genter. He did, however, make a comment on the charge when Elk saw him this morning.

  “You have no proof, Elk,” he said, “and you know that I am innocent.”

  “You were the last man seen in Genter’s company,” said Elk sternly. “It is established that you brought his body back to town. In addition to which, Mills has spilt everything.”

  “I’m aware what Mills has said,” remarked the other.

  “You’re not so aware either,” suggested Elk. “And now I’ll tell you something: we’ve had Number Seven under lock and key since morning—now laugh—”

  To his amazement the man’s face relaxed in a broad grin.

  “Bluff!” he said. “And cheap bluff. It might deceive a poor little thief, but it doesn’t get past with me. If you’d caught ‘Seven,’ you wouldn’t be talking fresh to me. Go and find him, Elk” he mocked, “and when you ye got him, hold him tight. Don’t let him get away—as Mills will.”

  Elk returned from the interview feeling that it had not gone as well as it might—but as he was leaving the station he beckoned the chief inspector.

  “I’m planting a pigeon on Hagn this afternoon. Put ‘um together and leave ‘um alone,” he said.

  The inspector nodded understandingly.

  XVII.

  THE COMING OF MILLS

  On the morning that Elk waited for the arrival of the informer, elaborate precautions were being made to transfer the man to headquarters. All night the prison had been surrounded by a cordon of armed guards, whilst patrols had remained on duty in the yard where he was confined.

  The captured Frog was a well-educated man who had fallen on evil times and had been recruited when “on the road” through the agency of two tramping members of the fraternity. From the first statement he made, it appeared that he had acted as section leader, his duty being to pass on instructions and “calls” to the rank and file, to report casualties and to assist in the attacks which were made from time to time upon those people who had earned the Frog’s enmity. Apparently only section leaders and trustees were given this type of work.

  They brought him from his cell at eleven o’clock, and the man, despite his assurance, was nervous and apprehensive. Moreover, he had a cold and was coughing. This may have been a symptom of nerves also.

  At eleven-fifteen the gates of the prison were opened, and three motor-cyclists came out abreast. A closed car followed, the curtains drawn. On either side of the car rode other armed men on motor-cycles, and a second car, containing Central Office men, followed.

  The cortege reached Scotland Yard without mishap; the gates at both ends were closed, and the prisoner was rushed into the building.

  Balder, Elk’s clerk, and a detective sergeant, took charge of the man, who was now white and shaking, and he was put into a small room adjoining Elk’s office, a room the windows of which were heavily barred (it had been used for the safe holding of spies during the war). Two men were put on duty outside the door, and the discontented Balder reported.

  “We’ve put that fellow in the waiting-room, Mr. Elk.”

  “Did he say anything?” asked Dick, who had arrived for the interrogation.

  “No, sir—except to ask if the window could be shut. I shut it.”

  “Bring the prisoner,” said Elk.

  They waited a while, heard the clash of keys, and then an excited buzz of talk. Then Balder rushed in.

  “He’s ill … fainted or something,” he gasped, and Elk sprang past him, along the corridor into the guard-room.

  Mills half sat, half lay, against the wall. His eyes were closed, his face was ashen.

  Dick bent over the prisoner and laid him flat on the ground. Then he stooped and smelt.

  “Cyanide of potassium,” he said. “The man is dead.”

  That morning Mills had been stripped to the skin and every article of clothing searched thoroughly and well. As an additional precaution his pockets had been sewn up. To the two detectives who accompanied him in the car he had spoken hopefully of his forthcoming departure to Canada. None but police officers had touched him, and he had had no communication with any outsider.

  The first thing that Dick Gordon noticed was the window, which Balder said he had shut. It was open some six inches at the bottom.

  “Yes, sir, I’m sure I shut it,” said the clerk emphatically. “Sergeant Jeller saw me.”

  The sergeant was also under that impression. Dick lifted the window higher and looked out. Four horizontal bars traversed the brickwork, but, by craning his head, he saw that, a foot away from the window and attached to the wall was a long steel ladder running from the roof (as he guessed) to the ground. The room was on the third floor, and beneath was a patch of shrub-filled gardens. Beyond that, high railings.

  “What are those gardens?” he asked, pointing to the space on the other side of the railings.

  “They belong to Onslow Gardens,” said Elk.

  “Onslow Gardens?” said Dick thoughtfully. “Wasn’t it from Onslow Gardens that the Frogs tried to shoot me?”

  Elk shook his head helplessly.

  “What do you suggest, Captain Gordon?”

  “I don’t know what to suggest,” admitted Dick. “It doesn’t seem an intelligent theory that somebody climbed the ladder and handed poison to Mills—less acceptable, that he would be willing to take the dose. There is the fact. Balder swears that the window was shut, and now the window is open. You can trust Balder?”

  Elk nodded.

  The divisional surgeon came soon after, and, as Dick had expected, pronounced life extinct, and supported the view that cyanide was the cause.

  “Cyanide has a peculiar odour,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt at all that the man was killed, either by poison administered from outside, or by poison taken voluntarily by himself.”

  After the body had been removed, Elk accompanied Dick Gordon to his Whitehall office.

  “I have never been frightened in my life,” said Elk, “but these Frogs are now on top of me! Here is a man killed practically under our eyes! He was guarded, he was never let out of our sight, except for the few minutes he was in that room, and yet the Frog can reach him—it’s
frightening, Captain Gordon.”

  Dick unlocked the door of his office and ushered Elk into the cosy interior.

  “I know of no better cure for shaken nerves than a Cabana Cesare,” he said cheerfully. “And without desiring to indulge in a boastful gesture, I can only tell you, Elk, that they don’t frighten me, any more than they frighten you. Frog is human, and has very human fears. Where is friend Broad?”

  “The American?”

  Dick nodded, and Elk, without a second’s hesitation, pulled the telephone toward him and gave a number.

  After a little delay, Broad’s voice answered him.

  “That you, Mr. Broad? What are you doing now?” asked Elk, in that caressing tone he adopted for telephone conversation.

  “Is that Elk? I’m just going out.”

  “Thought I saw you in Whitehall about five minutes ago,” said Elk.

  “Then you must have seen my double,” replied the other, “for I haven’t been out of my bath ten minutes. Do you want me?”

  “No, no,” cooed Elk. “Just wanted to know you were all right.”

  “Why, is anything wrong?” came the sharp question.

  “Everything’s fine,” said Elk untruthfully. “Perhaps you’ll call round and see me at my office one of these days—good-bye!”

  He pushed the telephone back, and raising his eyes to the ceiling, made a quick calculation.

  “From Whitehall to Cavendish Square takes four minutes in a good car,” he said. “So his being in the flat means nothing.”

  He pulled the telephone toward him again, and this time called Headquarters.

  “I want a man to shadow Mr. Joshua Broad, of Caverley House; not to leave him until eight o’clock to-night; to report to me.”

  When he had finished, he sat back in his chair and lit the long cigar that Dick had pressed upon him.

  “To-day is Tuesday,” he ruminated, “to-morrow’s Wednesday. Where do you propose to listen in, Captain Gordon?”

  “At the Admiralty,” said Dick. “I have arranged with the First Lord to be in the instrument room at a quarter to three.”

  He bought the early editions of the evening newspapers, and was relieved to find that no reference had been made to the murder—as murder he believed it to be. Once, in the course of the day, looking out from his window on to Whitehall, he saw Elk walking along on the other side of the road” his umbrella hanging on his arm, his ancient derby hat at the back of his head, an untidy and unimposing figure. Then, an hour later, he saw him again, coming from the opposite direction. He wondered what particular business the detective was engaged in. He learnt, quite by accident, that Elk had made two visits to the Admiralty that day, but he did not discover the reason until they met later in the evening.

  “Don’t know much about wireless,” said Elk, “though I’m not one of those people who believe that, if God had intended us to use wireless, telegraph poles would have been born without wires. But it seems to me that I remember reading something about ‘directional.’ If you want to know where a wireless message is coming from, you listen in at two or three different points—”

  “Of course! What a fool I am!” said Dick, annoyed with himself. “It never occurred to me that we might pick up the broadcasting station.”

  “I get these ideas,” explained Elk modestly. “The Admiralty have sent messages to Milford Haven, Harwich, Portsmouth and Plymouth, telling ships to listen in and give us the direction. The evening papers haven’t got that story.”

  “You mean about Mills? No, thank heaven! It is certain to come out at the inquest, but I’ve arranged for that to be postponed for a week or two; and somehow I feel that within the next few weeks things will happen.”

  “To us,” said Elk ominously. “I dare not eat a grilled sausage since that fellow was killed! And I’m partial to sausages.”

  XVIII.

  THE BROADCAST

  His jaundiced clerk was, as usual, in a complaining mood. “Records have been making a fuss and have been blaming me,” he said bitterly. “Records give themselves more airs than the whole darned office.”

  The war between Balder and “Records”—which was a short title for that section of Headquarters which kept exact data of criminals’ pasts,—was of long standing. “Records” was aloof, detached, sublimely superior to everything except tabulated facts. It was no respecter of persons; would as soon snap at a Chief Commissioner who broke its inflexible rules, as it would at the latest joined constable.

  “What’s the trouble?” asked Elk.

  “You remember you had a lot of stuff out the other day about a man called—I can’t remember his name now.”

  “Lyme?” suggested Elk.

  “That’s the fellow. Well, it appears that one of the portraits is missing. The morning after you were looking at them, I went to Records and got the documents again for you, thinking you wanted to see them in the morning. When you didn’t turn up, I returned them, and now they say the portrait and measurements are short.”

  “Do you mean to say they’re lost?”

  “If they’re lost,” said the morose Balder, “then Records have lost ‘em! I suppose they think I’m a Frog or somethin’. They’re always accusing me of mislaying their fingerprint cards.”

  “I’ve promised you a chance to make a big noise, Balder, and now I’m going to give it to you. You’ve been passed over for promotion, son, because the men upstairs think you were one of the leaders of the last strike. I know that ‘passed over’ feeling—it turns you sour. Will you take a big chance?”

  Balder nodded, holding his breath.

  “Hagn’s in the special cell,” said Elk. “Change into your civilian kit, roughen yourself up a bit, and I’ll put you in with him. If you’re scared I’ll let you carry a gun and fix it so that you won’t be searched. Get Hagn to talk. Tell him that you were pulled in over the Dundee murder, He won’t know you. Get that story, Balder, and I’ll have the stripes on your arm in a week.”

  Balder nodded. The querulous character of his voice had changed when he spoke again.

  “It’s a chance,” he said; “and thank you, Mr. Elk, for giving it to me.”

  An hour later, a detective brought a grimy looking prisoner into Cannon Row and pushed him into the steel pen, and the only man who recognized the prisoner was the chief inspector who had waited for the arrival of the pigeon.

  It was that high official himself who conducted Balder to the separate cell and pushed him in.

  “Good night, Frog!” he said.

  Balder’s reply was unprintable.

  After seeing his subordinate safely caged, Elk went back to his room, locked the door, cut off his telephone and lay down to snatch a few hours’ sleep. It was a practice of his, when he was engaged in any work which kept him up at night, to take these intermediate siestas, and he had trained himself to sleep as and when the opportunity presented itself. It was unusual in him, however, to avail himself of the office sofa, a piece of furniture to which he was not entitled, and which, as his superiors had often pointed out, occupied space which might better be employed.

  For once, however, he could not sleep. His mind ranged from Balder to Dick Gordon, from Lola Bassano to the dead man Mills. His own position had been seriously jeopardized, but that worried him not at all. He was a bachelor, had a snug sum invested. His mind went to the puzzling Maitland. His association with the Frogs had been proved almost up to the hilt. And Maitland was in a position to benefit by these many inexplicable attacks which had been made upon seemingly inoffensive people.

  The old man lived a double life. By day the business martinet, before whom his staff trembled, the cutter of salaries, the shrewd manipulator of properties; by night the associate of thieves and worse than thieves. Who was the child? That was another snag.

  “Nothing but snags!” growled Elk, his hands under his head, loo
king resentfully at the ceiling. “Nothing but snags.”

  Finding he could not sleep, he got up and went across to Cannon Row. The gaoler told him that the new prisoner had been talking a lot to Hagn, and Elk grinned. He only hoped that the “new prisoner” would not be tempted to discuss his grievances against the police administration.

  At a quarter to three he joined Dick Gordon in the instrument room at the Admiralty. An operator had been placed at their disposal; and after the preliminary instructions they took their place at the table where he manipulated his keys. Dick listened, fascinated, hearing the calls of far- off ships and the chatter of transmitting stations. Once he heard a faint squeak of sound, so faint that he wasn’t sure that he had not been mistaken.

  “Cape Race,” said the operator. “You’ll hear Chicago in a minute. He usually gets talkative round about now.”

  As the hands of the clock approached three, the operator began varying his wave lengths, reaching out into the ether for the message which was coming. Exactly at one minute after three he said suddenly:

  “There is your L.V.M.B.”

  Dick listened to the staccato sounds, and then:

  “All Frogs listen. Mills is dead. Number Seven finished him this morning. Number Seven receives a bonus of a hundred pounds.”

  The voice was clear and singularly sweet. It was a woman’s.

  “Twenty-third district will arrange to receive Number Seven’s instructions at the usual place.”

  Dick’s heart was beating thunderously. He recognized the speaker, knew the soft cadences, the gentle intonations.

  There could he no doubt at all: it was Ella Bennett’s voice! Dick felt a sudden sensation of sickness, but, looking across the table and seeing Elk’s eyes fixed upon him, he made an effort to control his emotions.

  “There doesn’t seem to be any more coming through,” said the operator after a few minutes’ wait.

  Dick took off the headpiece and rose.

  “We must wait for the direction signals to come through,” he said as steadily as he could.