ELK
THERE was no detective in the world who looked less like a police
officer, and a clever police officer, than Elk. He was tall and thin,
and a slight stoop accentuated his weediness. His clothes seemed
ill-fitting, and hung upon rather than fitted him. His dark, cadaverous
face was set permanently in an expression of the deepest gloom, and few
had ever seen him smile. His superiors found him generally a depressing
influence, for his outlook on life was prejudiced and apparently
embittered by his failure to secure promotion. Faulty education stood in
his way here. Ten times he had come up for examination, and ten times he
had failed, invariably in the same subject—history.
Dick, who knew him better than his immediate chiefs, guessed that these
failures did not worry Mr. Elk as much as people thought. Indeed, he
often detected a glum pride in his inability to remember historical
dates, and once, in a moment of astonishing confidence, Elk had
confessed that promotion would be an embarrassment to a man of his
limited educational attainments. For Elk’s everyday English was one of
his weaknesses.
“There’s no rest for the wicked, Mr. Gordon,” he sighed as he sat down.
“I thought I’d get a holiday after my trip to the U.S.A.”
“I want to know all about Lola Bassano—who are her friends, why she has
suddenly attached herself to Raymond Bennett, a clerk in the employ of
Maitlands Consolidated. Particularly why she picked him up at the corner
of St. James’s Square and drove him to Horsham last night. I saw them by
accident as I was coming out of my club, and followed. They sat in her
coupé for the greater part of two hours within a hundred yards of
Bennett’s house, and they were talking. I know, because I stood in the
rain behind the car, listening. If he had been making love to her I
should have understood—a little. But they were talking, and talking
money. I heard certain sums mentioned. At four o’clock he got out of the
car and went into his house, and Lola drove off.”
Elk, puffing, sadly shook his head.
“Lola wouldn’t talk about anything but money anyway,” he said. “She’s
like Queen What’s-her-name who died in 1077, or maybe it was 1573. She
married King Henry, or it may have been Charles, because she wanted a
gold snuff-box he had. I’m not sure whether it was a gold snuff-box or a
silver bed. Anyway, she got it an’ was be’eaded in . . . I don’t
remember the date.”
“Thank you for the parallel,” smiled Dick. “But Lola is not after
snuff-boxes of gold or silver. Young Bennett hasn’t twopence of his own.
There is something particularly interesting to me about this
acquaintance.”
Elk smoked thoughtfully, watching the smoke rings rise to the ceiling.
“Bennett’s got a sister,” he said, to the other’s amazement. “Pretty, as
far as looks go. Old man Bennett’s a crook of some kind. Doesn’t do any
regular work, but goes away for days at a time and comes back looking
ill.”
“You know them?”
Elk nodded.
“Old man Bennett attracted me. Somebody reported his movements as
suspicious—the local police. They’ve got nothing to do except guard
chickens, and naturally they look on anybody who doesn’t keep chickens
as bein’ a suspicious character. I kept old Bennett under observation,
but I never got to the bottom of his movements. He has run lots of queer
stunts. He wrote a play once and put it on. It went dead on the fourth
night. Then he took to playing the races on a system. That nearly broke
him. Then he started a correspondence school at Horsham—‘How to write
good English’—and he lost money. Now he’s taking pictures.”
“How long has he been trying those methods of getting a living?”
“Years. I traced a typewriting agency to him seventeen years ago. They
haven’t all been failures. He made money out of some. But I’d give my
head to know what his regular game is. Once a month regular, sometimes
twice, sometimes more often, he disappears and you can’t find him or
trail him. I’ve sounded every crook in town, but they’re as much puzzled
as I am. Lew Brady—that’s the big sporting fellow who worked with
Lola—he’s interested too. He hates Bennett. Years ago he tackled the
old man and tried to bully him into telling him what his lay was, and
Bennett handled him rough.”
“The old man?” asked Dick incredulously.
“The old man. He’s as strong as an ox. Don’t forget it. I’ll see Lola.
She’s not a bad girl—up to a point. Personally, vamps never appeal to
me. Genter’s dead, they tell me? The Frog’s in that too?”
“There’s no doubt about it,” said Dick, rising. “And here, Elk, is one
of the men who killed him.”
He walked to the window and looked out, Elk behind him. The man who had
stood on the sidewalk had disappeared.
“Where?” asked Elk.
“He’s gone now. I——”
At that moment the window shattered inward, and splinters of glass stung
his face. Another second, and Elk was dragged violently to cover.
“From the roof of Onslow Gardens,” said Richard Gordon calmly. “I
wondered where the devils would shoot from—that’s twice they’ve tried
to get me since daylight.”
A spent cartridge on the flat roof of 94, Onslow Gardens, and the print
of feet, were all the evidence that the assassin left behind. No. 94 was
empty except for a caretaker, who admitted that he was in the habit of
going out every morning to buy provisions for the day. Admission had
been gained by the front door; there was a tradesman who saw a man let
himself into the house, carrying what looked to be a fishing-rod under
his arm, but which undoubtedly was a rifle in a cloth case.
“Very simple,” said Dick; “and, of course, from the Frog’s point of
view, effective. The shooter had half-a-dozen ways of escape, including
the fire-escape.”
Elk was silent and glum. Dick Gordon as silent, but cheerful, until the
two men were back in his office.
“It was my inquiry at the garage that annoyed them,” he said, “and I’ll
give them this credit, that they are rapid! I was returning to my house
when the first attempt was made. The most ingenious effort to run me
down with a light car—the darned thing even mounted the pavement after
me.”
“Number?”
“XL.19741,” said Dick, “but fake. There is no such number on the
register. The driver was gone before I could stop him.”
Elk scratched his chin, surveying the youthful Public Prosecutor with a
dubious eye.
“Almost sounds interesting to me,” he said. “Of course I’ve heard of the
Frogs, but I didn’t give much attention. Nowadays secret societies are
so common that every time a man shakes hands with me, he looks sort of
disappointed if I don’t pull my ear or flap my feet. And gang work on a
large scale I’ve always looked upon as something you only hear about in
exciting novels by my old friend Shylock——”
“Sherlock—and he didn’t write them,” murmured Dick.
Again Elk fingered his cheek.
“I don’t believe in it, anyway,” he said after thought. “It’s not
natural that tramps should do anything systematic. It’s too much like
work. I’ll bet there’s nothing in it, only a lot of wild coincidences
stickin’ together. I’ll bet that the Frogs are just a silly society
without any plan or reason. And I’ll bet that Lola knows all about ’em,”
he added inconsistently.
Elk walked back to “The Yard” by the most circuitous route. With his
furled and ancient umbrella hanging on his arm, he had the appearance of
an out-of-work clerk. His steel-rimmed spectacles, clipped at a groggy
angle, assisted the illusion. Winter and summer he wore a soiled fawn
top-coat, which was invariably unbuttoned, and he had worn the same
yellowish-brown suit for as long as anybody could remember. The rain
came down, not in any great quantities, but incessantly. His hard derby
hat glistened with moisture, but he did not put up his umbrella. Nobody
had ever seen that article opened.
He walked to Trafalgar Square and then stopped, stood in thought for
some time, and retraced his steps. Opposite the Public Prosecutor’s
office stood a tall street-seller with a little tray of matches,
key-rings, pencils and the odds and ends that such men sell. His wares,
for the moment, were covered by a shining oil-cloth. Elk had not noticed
him before, and wondered why the man had taken up so unfavourable a
stand, for the end of Onslow Gardens, the windiest and least comfortable
position in Whitehall, is not a place where the hurrying pedestrian
would stop to buy, even on a fine day. The hawker was dressed in a
shabby raincoat that reached to his heels; a soft felt hat was pulled
down over his eyes, but Elk saw the hawk-like face and stopped.
“Busy?”
“Naw.”
Elk was immediately interested. This man was American, and was trying to
disguise his voice so that it appeared Cockney—the most impossible task
that any American had ever undertaken, for the whine and intonation of
the Cockney are inimitable.
“You’re American—what state?”
“Georgia,” was the reply, and this time the hawker made no attempt at
disguise. “Came over on a cattle-boat during the war.”
Elk held out his hand.
“Let me see that licence of yours, brother,” he said.
Without hesitation the man produced the written police permit to sell on
the streets. It was made out in the name of “Joshua Broad,” and was in
order.
“You’re not from Georgia,” said Elk, “but that doesn’t matter. You’re
from Hampshire or Massachusetts.”
“Connecticut, to be exact,” said the man coolly, “but I’ve lived in
Georgia. Want a key-ring?”
There was a gleam of amusement in his eyes—the merest flash.
“No. Never had a key. Never had anything worth locking up,” said Elk,
fingering the articles on the tray. “Not a good pitch, this.”
“No,” said the other; “too near to Scotland Yard, Mr. Elk.”
Elk cast a swift glance at the man.
“Know me, do you?”
“Most people do, don’t they?” asked the other innocently.
Elk took the pedlar in from the soles of his stout shoes to his soddened
hat, and, with a nod, went on. The hawker looked after the detective
until he was out of sight, and then, fixing a cover over his tray,
strapped it tight and walked in the direction Elk had taken.
Coming out of Maitlands to lunch, Ray Bennett saw a shabby and saturnine
man standing on the edge of the pavement, but gave him no more than a
passing glance. He, at any rate, did not know Elk and was quite
unconscious of the fact that he was being followed to the little
chop-house where Philo Johnson and he took their modest luncheon.
In any circumstances Ray would not have observed the shadow, but to-day,
in his condition of mind, he had no thought for anybody but himself, or
any offence but the bearded and ancient Maitland’s outrageous behaviour.
“The old devil!” he said as he walked by Johnson’s side. “To make a ten
per cent cut in salaries and to start on me! And this morning the papers
say that he has given five thousand to the Northern Hospitals!”
“He’s a charitable cuss, and as to the cut, it was either that or
standing you off,” said Johnson cheerfully. “What’s the use of kicking?
Trade has been bad, and the stock market is as dead as Ptolemy. The old
man wanted to put you off—said that you were superfluous anyway. If
you’d only look on the bright side of things, Ray——”
“Bright!” snorted the young man, his face going pink with anger. “I’m
getting a boy’s salary, and I want money mighty badly, Philo.”
Philo sighed, and for once his good-humoured face was clouded. Then it
relaxed into a broad grin.
“If I thought the same way as you, I’d go mad or turn into a first-class
crook. I only earn about fifty per cent more than you, and yet the old
man allows me to handle hundreds of thousands. It’s too bad.”
Nevertheless, the “badness” of the parsimonious Maitland did not
interfere with his appetite.
“The art of being happy,” he said as he pushed back his plate and lit a
cigarette, “is to want nothing. Then you’re always getting more than you
need. How is your sister?”
“She’s all right,” said Ray indifferently. “Ella’s the same mind as you.
It’s easy to be a philosopher over other people’s worries. Who’s that
disreputable bird?” he added, as a man seated himself at a table
opposite to them.
Philo fixed his glasses—he was a little near-sighted.
“That’s Elk—a Scotland Yard man,” he said, and grinned at the
new-comer, a recognition which, to Ray’s annoyance—and his annoyance
was tinged with uneasiness—brought the seedy man to their table.
“This is my friend, Mr. Bennett—Inspector Elk, Ray.”
“Sergeant,” suggested Elk dourly. “Fate has always been against me in
the matter of promotion. Can’t remember dates.”
So far from making a secret of his failure, Mr. Elk was never tired of
discussing the cause.
“Though why a man is a better thief-taker for knowin’ when George
Washington was born and when Napoleon Bonaparte died, is a mystery to
me. Dine here every day, Mr. Bennett?”
Ray nodded.
“Know your father, I think—John Bennett of Horsham, isn’t it? Thought
so.”
In desperation Ray got up with an excuse and left them alone.
“Nice boy, that,” said Elk.