Elk 01 The Fellowship of the Frog

by Edgar Wallace

  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—goodbye!”

  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, looking 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.

  Presently they began to arrive, and were worked out by a naval officer on a large scale map.

  “The broadcasting station is in London,” he said. “All the lines meet somewhere in the West End, I should imagine; possibly in the very heart of town. Did you find any difficulty in picking up the Frog call?” he asked the operator.

  “Yes, sir,” said the man. “I think they were sending from very close at hand.”

  “In what part of town would you say it would be?” asked Elk.

  The officer indicated a pencil mark that he had ruled across the page.

  “It is somewhere on this mark,” he said, and Elk, peering over, saw that the line passed through Cavendish Square and Cavendish Place and that, whilst the Portsmouth line missed Cavendish Place only by a block, the Harwich line crossed the Plymouth line a little to the south of the square.

  “Caverley House, obviously,” said Dick.

  He wanted to get out in the open, he wanted to talk, to discuss this monstrous thing with Elk. Had the detective also recognized the voice, he wondered? Any doubt he had on that point was set at rest. He had hardly reached Whitehall before Elk said:

  “Sounded very like a friend of ours, Captain Gordon?” Dick made no reply.

  “Very like,” said Elk as if he were speaking half to himself. “In fact, I’ll take any number of oaths that I know the young lady who was talking for old man Frog.

  “Why should she do it?” groaned Dick. “Why, for the love of heaven, should she do it?”

  “I remember years ago hearing her,” said Elk reminiscently.

  Dick Gordon stopped, and, turning, glared at the other.

  “You remember…what do you mean?” he demanded.

  “She was on the stage at the time—quite a kid,” continued Elk. “They called her ‘The Child Mimic.’ There’s another thing I’ve noticed, Captain: if you take a magnifying glass and look at your skin, you see its defects, don’t you? That wireless telephone acts as a sort of magnifying glass to the voice. She always had a little lisp that I jumped at straight away. You may not have noticed it, but I’ve got pretty sharp ears. She can’t pronounce her ‘S’s’ properly, there’s a sort of faint ‘th’ sound in ‘um. You heard that?”

  Dick had heard, and nodded.

  “I never knew that she was ever on the stage,” he said more calmly. “You are sure, Elk?”

  “Sure. In some things I’m…what’s the word?—infalli-able. I’m a bit shaky on dates, such as when Henry the First an’ all that bunch got born—I never was struck on birthdays anyway—but I know voices an’ noses. Never forget ‘um.”

  They were turning into the dark entrance of Scotland Yard when Dick said in a tone of despair:

  “It was her voice, of course. I had no idea she had been on the stage—is her father in this business?”

  “She hasn’t a father so far as I know,” was the staggering reply, and again Gordon halted.

  “Are you mad?” he asked. “Ella Bennett has a father—”

  “I’m not talking about Ella Bennett,” said the calm Elk. “I’m talking about Lola Bassano.”

  There was a silence.

  “Was it her voice?” asked Gordon a little breathlessly.

  “Sure it was Lola. It was a pretty good imitation of Miss Bennett, but any mimic will tell you that these soft voices are easy. It’s the pace of a voice that makes it—”

  “You villain!” said Dick Gordon, as a weight rolled from his heart. “You knew I meant Ella Bennett when I was talking, and you strung me alone!”

  “Blame me,” said Elk. “What’s the time?”

  It was half-past three. He gathered his reserves, and ten minutes later the police cars dropped a party at the closed door of Caverley House. The bell brought the night porter, who recognized Elk.

  “More gas trouble?” he asked.

  “Want to see the house plan,” said Elk, and listened as the porter detailed the names, occupations and peculiarities of the tenants.

  “Who owns this block?” asked the detective
.

  “This is one of Maitland’s properties—Maitlands Consolidated. He’s got the Prince of Caux’s house in Berkeley Square and—”

  “Don’t worry about giving me his family history. What time did Miss Bassano come in?”

  “She’s been in all the evening—since eleven.”

  “Anybody with her?”

  The man hesitated.

  “Mr. Maitland came in with her, but he went soon after.”

  “Nobody else?”

  “Nobody except Mr. Maitland.”

  “Give me your master-key.”

  The porter demurred.

  “I’ll lose my job,” he pleaded. “Can’t you knock?”

  “Knocking is my speciality—I don’t pass a day without knocking somebody,” replied Elk, “but I want that key.”

  He did not doubt that Lola would have bolted her door, and his surmise proved sound. He had both to knock and ring before the light showed behind the transom, and Lola in a kimono and boudoir cap appeared.

  “What is the meaning of this, Mr. Elk?” she demanded. She did not even attempt to appear surprised.

  “A friendly call—can I come in?”

  She opened the door wider, and Elk went in, followed by Gordon and two detectives. Dick she ignored.

  “I’m seeing the Commissioner to-morrow,” she said, “and if he doesn’t give me satisfaction I’ll get on to the newspapers. This persecution is disgraceful. To break into a single girl’s flat in the middle of the night, when she is alone and unprotected—”

  “If there is any time when a single girl should be alone and unprotected, it is in the middle of the night,” said Elk primly. “I’m just going to have a look at your little home, Lola. We’ve got information that you’ve been burgled, Lola. Perhaps at this very minute there’s a sinister man hidden under your bed. The idea of leaving you alone, so to speak, at the mercy of unlawful characters, is repugnant to our feelin’s. Try the dining-room, Williams; I’ll search the parlour—and the bedroom.”

  “You’ll keep out of my room if you’ve any sense of decency,” said the girl.

  “I haven’t,” admitted Elk, “no false sense, anyway. Besides, Lola, I’m a family man. One of ten. And when there’s anything I shouldn’t see, just say ‘Shut your eyes’ and I’ll shut ‘um.”