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 cortège 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.”