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.”