Up the stairs again flew the detective. The Record Office was at the far end of the building.
The door was ajar and the room in darkness, but T. B. was in the room and had switched on the light.
In the centre of the room was stretched the unfortunate Elk in a pool of blood. A preserver lay near him. T. B. leant over him; he was alive, but terribly injured; then he shot a swift glance round the room. He saw the telephone with the receiver off; he saw an open cabinet marked "Unclassified Data," and it was empty.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE LOST WARSHIP
Poltavo had escaped. There was pother enough—eight of the Nine Bears had melted into nothingness. No official feather came to T. B.'s cap for that, whatever praise the mistaken public might award. Worst of all, and most shocking outrage of all, the Record Office at Scotland Yard had been burgled and important documents had been stolen. But Elk had not been killed, so the incident did not come before the public.
The contents of the documents were not lost to the police, for Scotland Yard does not put all its eggs into one basket, even when the basket is as secure a one as the Record Office. There were photographs innumerable of the scrap of paper, and one of these was on T. B. Smith's desk the morning after the robbery.
The memorandum, for such it was, was contained in less than a hundred words. Literally, and with all its erasures written out, it ran:
"Idea [crossed out]. Ideas [written again]. Suppose we separated; where to meet; allowing for accidental partings; must be some spot; yet that would be dangerous; otherwise, must be figures easily remembered; especially as none of these people have knowledge [crossed out and rewritten]; especially as difficult for non-technical [word undecipherable] to fix in mind, and one cipher makes all difference. LOLO be good, accessible, unfrequented. Suggest on first Ju every year we rendezvous at Lolo.
"(Mem.—Lolo would indeed be nowhere!)