A small Ford van, painted with the name of a laundry, which had been crawling along behind them, suddenly spurted and went ahead at top speed. Elk followed the car with his eyes until it reached the Trafalgar Square end of Whitehall. Instead of branching left toward Pall Mall or right to the Strand, the van swung round in a half-circle and came back to meet them. Elk half turned and made a signal.
“This is where we follow the example of the chicken,” said Elk, and made another hurried crossing.
When they reached the pavement he looked round. The detectives who were following him had understood his signal, and one had leaped on the running-board of the van, which was pulled up to the pavement. There was a few minutes’ talk between the driver and the officer, and then they all drove off together.
“Pinched,” said Elk laconically. “He’ll take him to the station on some charge or other and hold him. I guessed he’d see what I was after—my man, I mean. The easiest way to shadow is to shadow in a trade truck,” said Elk. “A trade van can do anything it likes; it can loiter by the pavement, it can turn round and go back, it can go fast or slow, and nobody takes the slightest notice. If that had been a limousine, it would have attracted the attention of every policeman by drawling along by the pavement, so as to overtake us just at the right minute. Probably it wasn’t any more than a shadow, but to me,” he said with a quiver of his shoulder, “it felt rather like sudden death!”
Whether Elk’s cheerfulness was assumed or natural, he succeeded in impressing his companion.
“Let’s take a cab,” said Dick, and such was his doubt that he waited for three empty taxis to pass before he hailed the fourth. “Come in,” said Dick when the cab dropped them at Harley Terrace. “I’ve got a spare room if you want to sleep.”
Elk shook his head to the latter suggestion, but accompanied Gordon into the house. The man who opened the door had evidently something to say.
“There’s a gentleman waiting to see you, sir. He’s been here for half an hour.”
“What is his name?”
“Mr. Johnson, sir.”