Smith sat suddenly erect. "Poltavo in London!" he breathed. "It is incredible!"
He stood up, busily engaged in speculation.
* * * * * * *
The little telegraph instrument near the Chief Inspector's desk began to click. In every police station throughout the metropolis it snapped forth its message. In Highgate, in Camberwell, in sleepy Greenwich, in Ladywell, as in Stoke Newington. "Clickerty, clickerty, click," it went, hastily, breathlessly. It ran:
"To ALL STATIONS: Arrest and detain Count Ivan Poltavo. [Here the description followed.] All reserves out in plain clothes."
All reserves out!
That was a remarkable order.
London did not know of the happening; the homeward-bound suburbanite may have noticed a couple of keen-faced men standing idly near the entrance of the railway station, may have seen a loiterer on the platform—a loiterer who apparently had no train to catch. Curious men, too, came to the hotels, lounging away the whole evening in the entrance hall, mildly interested in people who came or went. Even the tram termini were not neglected, nor the theatre queues, nor the boarding-houses of Bloomsbury. Throughout London, from east to west, north to south, the work that Scotland Yard had set silent emissaries to perform was swiftly and expeditiously carried out.
T. B. sat all that evening in his office waiting. One by one little pink slips were carried in to him and laid upon the desk before him.
As the evening advanced they increased in number and length.