PROMOTION FOR BALDER
A WEEK had passed, and the explosion at headquarters was ancient history. The injured detective was making fair progress toward recovery, and in some respects the situation was stagnant.
Elk apparently accepted failure as an inevitability, and seemed, even to his greatest admirer, to be hypnotized into a fatalistic acceptance of the situation. His attitude was a little deceptive. On the sixth day following the explosion, headquarters made a raid upon the cloak-rooms, and again, as Elk had expected, produced from every single terminus parcels office, a brand-new bag with exactly the same equipment as the others had had, except that the Paddington find differed from none of its fellows.
The bags were opened by an Inspector of Explosives, after very careful preliminary tests; but they contained nothing more deadly than the Belgian pistols and the self-same passports, this time made out in the name of “Clarence Fielding.”
“These fellows are certainly thorough,” said Elk with reluctant admiration, surveying his haul.
“Are you keeping the bags in your office?” asked Dick, but Elk shook his melancholy head.
“I think not,” said he.
He had had the bags immediately emptied, their contents sent to the Research Department; the bags themselves were now stripped of leather and steel frames, for they had been scientifically sliced, inch by inch.
“My own opinion,” said Balder oracularly, “is that there’s somebody at police headquarters who is working against us. I’ve been considering it for a long time, and after consulting my wife——”
“You haven’t consulted your children, too, have you?” asked Elk unpleasantly. “The less you talk about headquarters’ affairs in your domestic circle, the better will be your chance of promotion.”