The Complete Detective Sgt. Elk Series (6 Novels in One Edition). Edgar Wallace

imperturbable foreigner with interest. Of Count Poltavo’s connection with Baggin and with Grayson he knew from his men’s reports, though, as far as recollection served, he had never seen the man. But a haunting resemblance troubled him.

      He nodded briefly to Moss, and turned away, and five minutes later had dismissed the incident from his mind.

      He continued in the direction of the Mansion House. A famous banker, passing in his motor brougham, waved his hand in salute; a city policeman stolidly ignored him.

      Along Cheapside, with the deliberate air of a sightseer, the man in the grey felt hat strolled, turning over in his mind the problem of the boom.

      For it was a problem.

      If you see, on one hand, ice forming on a pool, and, on the other, a thermometer rising slowly to blood-heat, you may be satisfied in your mind that something is wrong somewhere. Nature cannot make mistakes. Thermometers are equally infallible. Look for the human agency at work on the mercury bulb for the jet of hot air directed to the instrument. In this parable is explained the market position, and T.B. Smith, who dealt with huge, vague problems like markets and wars and national prosperity, was looking for the hot-air current.

      The market rises because big people buy big quantities of shares; it falls because these same people sell, and T.B. Smith happened to know that nobody was buying. That is, nobody of account — Eckhardts, Tollingtons, or Bronte’s Bank. You can account for the rise of a particular share by some local and favourable circumstance, but when the market as a whole moves up?

      “ — We can trace no transactions,” wrote Mr. Louis Veil, of the firm of Veil, Vallings & Boys, Brokers, “carried out by or on behalf of the leading jobbers. The market improvement in Industrial Stocks is due, as far as we can gather, to Continental buying — an unusual circumstance.”

      Who was the “philanthropist” who was making a market in stagnant stocks? Whoever it was, he or they repented long before T.B. Smith had reached the Central Criminal Court, which was his objective.

      He was a witness in the Gildie Bank fraud case, and his cross-examination at the hands of one of the most relentless of counsel occupied three hours. This concluded to everybody’s satisfaction, save counsel’s, T.B. Smith, who hated the law courts, walked out into Old Bailey to find newsboys loudly proclaiming, “Slump on the Stock Exchange!”

      “Thank Heaven, that bubble’s burst!” said T.B. piously, and walked back to Scotland Yard, whistling.

      He did not doubt that the artificial rise had failed, and that the market had gone back to normal.

      At the corner of the Thames Embankment he bought a paper, and the first item of news he read was:

      “Consols have fallen to 84.”

      Now, Consols that morning had stood at 90, and T.B. Smith stopped whistling.

      10. The Anticipators

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      T.B. Smith strolled into the room of Superintendent Elk.

      Elk is a detective officer chiefly remarkable for his memory. A tall, thin, sad man, who affects a low turned-down collar and the merest wisp of a black tie. If he has any other pose than his desire to be taken for a lay preacher, it is his pose of ignorance on most subjects. Elk’s attitude to the world at large is comprehended in the phrase, “I am a child in these things,” which accounts to a very great extent for the rapidity of his promotion in the Criminal Investigation Department. T.B.’s face wore a frown, and he twirled a paperknife irritably.

      “Elk,” he said, without any preliminary, “the market has gone to the devil.”

      “Again?” said Elk politely, haying knowledge without interest.

      “Again,” said T.B. emphatically, “for the fourth time this year. I’ve just seen one of the Stock Exchange Committee, and he’s in a terrible state of mind. Stocks and shares are nothing to me,” the Commissioner went on, seeing the patient boredom on the other’s face, “and I know there is a fairly well-defined law that governs the condition of the Stock Exchange. Prices go seesawing up and down, and that is part of the day’s work, but for the fourth time, and for no apparent reason, the market is broken. Consols are down to 84.”

      “I once had some shares in an American copper mine,” reflected Elk, “and a disinterested stock-jobber advised me to hold on to them; I’m still holding, but it never occurred to me — I lost £500 — that it was a matter for police investigation.” The Commissioner stopped in his walk and looked at the detective.

      “There’s little romance in finance,” he mused, “but there is something behind all this; do you remember the break of January 4?”

      Elk nodded; he saw there was a police side to this slump, and grew alert and knowledgeable.

      “Yankees and gilt-edged American stock came tumbling down as though their financial foundations had been dug away. What was the cause?”

      Elk thought.

      “Wasn’t it the suicide of the President of the Eleventh National Bank?” he asked.

      “Happened after the crash,” said T.B. promptly. “Do you remember the extraordinary slump in Russian Fours in April — a slump which, like the drop in Yankees, affected every market? What was the cause?”

      “The attempt on the Czar.”

      “Again you’re wrong,” said the other; “the slump anticipated the attempt; it did not follow it. Then we have the business of the 9th of August.” “The Kaffir slump?”

      “Yes.”

      “But, surely, the reason for that may be traced,” said Elk; “ — it followed the decision of the Cabinet to abolish coloured labour in the mines.”

      “It anticipated it,” corrected his chief, with a twinkle in his eye, “and do you remember no other occurrence that filled the public mind about that time?”

      Elk thought with knit brows.

      “There was the airship disaster at the palace. Hike Mills was put away just about then for blackmail; there was the Vermont case — and the Sud Express wreck—”

      “That’s it,” said the Commissioner, “wrecked outside Valladolid; three killed, many injured — do you remember who was killed?ü” Yes,” said Elk slowly, “a Frenchman, whose name I’ve forgotten; Mr. Arthur Saintsbury, a King’s Messenger — by George!” The connection dawned upon him, and T.B. grinned.

      “Killed whilst carrying despatches to the King of Portugal,” he said.

      “Those despatches related to the proposed withdrawal of native labour — much of which is recruited in Portuguese West Africa.” He paused a moment, and added as an afterthought, “His despatch-box was never found.”

      There was silence.

      “You suggest?” said Elk suddenly.

      “I suggest there is an intelligent anticipator in existence who is much too intelligent to be at large.” The Commissioner walked to the door. He stood for a moment irresolutely.

      “I offer you two suggestions,” he said: “the first is that the method which our unknown operator is employing is not unlike the method of Mr. George Baggin, who departed this life some time ago. The second is that, if by any chance I am correct in my first surmise, we lay this ghost for good and all.”

11. At Bronte’s Bank

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      It was