CHAPTER XI
MR. BROAD EXPLAINS
DETAINED under police supervision, Mr. Broad did not seem in any way surprised or disconcerted. Dick Gordon and his assistant reached Wandsworth Common ten minutes after the news came through, and found the wreckage of the police car surrounded by a large crowd, kept at a distance by police.
The dead prisoner had been taken into the prison, together with one of the attackers, who had been captured by a party of warders, returning to the gaol after their luncheon hour.
A brief examination of Litnov told them no more than they knew. He had been shot through the heart, and death, must have been instantaneous.
The prisoner, brought from a cell, was a man of thirty and better educated than the average run of Frogs. No weapon had been found upon him and he protested his innocence of any complicity in the plot. According to his story, he was an out-of-work clerk who had been strolling across the Common when the ambush occurred. He had seen the fight, seen the second motor-car which carried the attackers away, and had been arrested whilst running in pursuit of the murderers.
His captors told a different story. The warder responsible for his arrest said that the man was on the point of boarding the car when the officer had thrown his truncheon at him and brought him down. The car was moving at the time, and the remainder of the party had not dared to stop and pick up their comrade. Most damning evidence of all was the tattoo mark on his wrist.
“Frog, you’re a dead man,” said Elk in his most sepulchral voice. “Where did you live when you were alive?”
The captive confessed that his home was in North London.
“North Londoners don’t come to Wandsworth to walk on the Common,” said Elk.