“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.