“Sherlock—and he didn’t write them,” murmured Dick.
Again Elk fingered his cheek.
“I don’t believe in it, anyway,” he said after thought. “It’s not natural that tramps should do anything systematic. It’s too much like work. I’ll bet there’s nothing in it, only a lot of wild coincidences stickin’ together. I’ll bet that the Frogs are just a silly society without any plan or reason. And I’ll bet that Lola knows all about ’em,” he added inconsistently.
Elk walked back to “The Yard” by the most circuitous route. With his furled and ancient umbrella hanging on his arm, he had the appearance of an out-of-work clerk. His steel-rimmed spectacles, clipped at a groggy angle, assisted the illusion. Winter and summer he wore a soiled fawn top-coat, which was invariably unbuttoned, and he had worn the same yellowish-brown suit for as long as anybody could remember. The rain came down, not in any great quantities, but incessantly. His hard derby hat glistened with moisture, but he did not put up his umbrella. Nobody had ever seen that article opened.
He walked to Trafalgar Square and then stopped, stood in thought for some time, and retraced his steps. Opposite the Public Prosecutor’s office stood a tall street-seller with a little tray of matches, key-rings, pencils and the odds and ends that such men sell. His wares, for the moment, were covered by a shining oil-cloth. Elk had not noticed him before, and wondered why the man had taken up so unfavourable a stand, for the end of Onslow Gardens, the windiest and least comfortable position in Whitehall, is not a place where the hurrying pedestrian would stop to buy, even on a fine day. The hawker was dressed in a shabby raincoat that reached to his heels; a soft felt hat was pulled down over his eyes, but Elk saw the hawk-like face and stopped.
“Busy?”
“Naw.”
Elk was immediately interested. This man was American, and was trying to disguise his voice so that it appeared Cockney—the most impossible task that any American had ever undertaken, for the whine and intonation of the Cockney are inimitable.
“You’re American—what state?”
“Georgia,” was the reply, and this time the hawker made no attempt at disguise. “Came over on a cattle-boat during the war.”