cool, matter-of-fact demand almost took T.B.’s breath away.
“It is at present at Scotland Yard,” he said “With my — er — dossier?” asked the voice, and a little laugh followed.
“Rather with the dossier of your friend Baggin,” said T.B.
“In case I should ever want to — how do you say — burgle Scotland Yard,” said the drawling voice again, “could you give me explicit instructions where to find it?”
T.B.’s anxiety was to keep Poltavo engaged in conversation until the officer he had despatched to the telephone returned.
“Yes,” he said, “at present it is in the cabinet marked ‘ Unclassified Data,’ but I cannot promise you that it will remain there. You see, count, I have too high an opinion of your enterprise and daring.”
He waited for a reply, but no reply came, and at that moment the door opened and the constable he had sent on the errand appeared.
T.B. covered the transmitter again.
“The Treasury say that you are not connected with anybody, sir,” he said.
“What?”
T.B. stared at him.
He moved his hand from the transmitter and called softly, “Poltavo!”
There was no reply, and he called again.
He looked up with the receiver still at his ear.
“He’s rung off.”
Then a new voice spoke.
“Finished, sir?”
“No — who are you?” demanded T.B. quickly.
“Exchange, sir — Private Exchange, Scotland Yard.”
“Who was talking to me then? Where was he talking from?”
“Why, from the Record Office.”
T.B., his face white, leapt to his feet.
“Follow me,” he said, and went racing down the long corridor. He went down the broad stairs three at a time.
A constable on duty in the hall turned in astonishment.
“Has anybody left here recently?” asked T.B. breathlessly.
“A gentleman just gone out, sir,” said the man; “went away in a motorcar.”
“Is Mr. Elk in the building?”
“In the Record Office, sir,” said the man. 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 life-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.
27. 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 nontechnical [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!)
“So far have only explained to Zillier.”
That was all, and T.B. read and reread the memorandum. Zillier was the only man who knew. By the oddest of chances, Baggin had confided his plans to the one man who might have found them useful if Providence had given him one chance of escape. But the French Government had him safe enough on Devil’s Island.
For the rest, the “note” needed much more explanation than he could give it.
He took a pen and began to group the sentences he could not understand.
“Must be some spot; yet that would be dangerous; otherwise, must be figures easily remembered.”
A spot would be dangerous? He was perplexed and showed it. What was meant by “spot”?
“On the 1st of Ju we rendezvous at Lolo — nowhere!”
“This is absolute nonsense!” The detective threw down his pen and jumped up. He called in the Chief Commissioner’s office and was received cordially.
“Any news, T.B.; what do you make of your puzzle?”
T.B. made a little grimace.
“Nothing,” he said, “and if the original had not been stolen I should not have troubled to study it.”
He gained the Strand by a short cut.
A contents bill attracted his attention, and he stopped to buy an evening newspaper.
LOSS OF A WARSHIP
He turned the paper before he discovered the small paragraph that justified so large a bill.
“The Brazilian Government has sent another cruiser to search for the Brazilian man-of-war, Maria Braganza, which is a month overdue. It is feared that the warship foundered in the recent cyclone in the South Atlantic.”
“Maria Braganza?” thought T.B., and remembered where he had seen the vessel.
The ship and her fate passed out of his mind soon afterward, for he had a great deal of routine work requiring his
