"Scattered, are they!" he said. "I doubt it."
For all the praise that was lavished upon him and upon his department, he was not satisfied with himself. He knew that he had failed. To break up the gang had always been possible. To arrest them and seize the huge fortune they had amassed would have been an achievement justifying the encomia that were being lavished upon him.
"The only satisfaction I have," he said to the Chief Commissioner, "is that we are so often cursed for inefficiency when we do the right thing, that we can afford to take a little credit when we've made a hash of things."
"I wouldn't say that," demurred the Chief. "You did all that was humanly possible."
T. B. sniffed.
"Eight men and Poltavo slipped through my fingers," he answered briefly; "that's a bad best."
He rose from the chair and paced the room, his head sunk on his breast.
"If Count Poltavo had delayed his entrance another ten minutes," he said, stopping suddenly, "Baggin would have told Van Ingen all that I wanted to know. This wonderful scheme of his that was to secure them all ease and security for the rest of their lives."
"He may have been boasting," suggested the other, but T. B. shook his head.
"It was no boast," he said with assurance, "and if it were he has made it good, for where are the Nine? One of them is on Devil's Island, because he had the misfortune to fall into our hands. But where are the others? Vanished! Dissolved into the elements—and their money with them! I tell you, sir, there is not even the suspicion of a trace of these men. How did they get away from Cadiz? Not by rail, for all northward trains were stopped at Boadilla and searched. Not by sea, for the only ship that left that night was the Brazilian man-o'-war, Maria Braganza."