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

breast, and T.B., who understood these things, knew that the man had been dead for many hours.

XIV. When the Market Rose

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      Consols were up.

      There was no doubt whatever about that fact, and the industrial market was a humming hive of industry.

      Breweries, bakeries, and candlestick makeries — their shares bounded joyously as though a spirit, as of early spring had entered into these inanimate and soulless things.

      The mysterious “bears” were buying, buying, buying.

      Frantically, recklessly buying,

      Whatever coup had been contemplated by the Nine Men had failed, and their agents and brokers were working at fever heat to cover their losses.

      It is significant that on the morning the boom started, there appeared in all the early editions of the evening newspapers one little paragraph. It appeared in the “late news” space and was condensed:

      “Wady Barrage was handed over to Egyptian Government early this morning in presence of Minister of Works. Overnight rnmours were prevalent that attempt made to destroy section dam by dynamite and that Italian named Soccori shot dead by sentry of West Kent Kegiment in act of placing explosives on works. No official confirmation.”

      Interesting enough, but hardly to be associated by the crowd which thronged the approaches of the House with the rising market.

      All day long the excitement in the City continued, all day long bareheaded clerks ran aimlessly — to all appearances — f rom ’Change to pavement, from pavement to ’Change, like so many agitated ants.

      Sir George Calliper, sitting alone in the magnificence of his private office, watched the “boom” thoughtfully, and wondered exactly what would have happened if “an Italian named Soccori” had succeeded in placing his explosive.

      The echoes of the boom came to T.B. Smith in his little room overlooking the Thames Embankment, but brought him little satisfaction. The Nine Men had failed this time. Would they fail on the next occasion?

      Who they were he could guess. From what centre they operated, he neither knew nor guessed. For T.B. they had taken on a new aspect. Hitherto they had been regarded merely as a band of dangerous and clever swindlers, Napoleonic in their method; now, they were murderers — dangerous, devilish men, without pity or remorse.

      The man Moss by some accident had been associated with them — a tool perhaps, but a tool who had surprised their secret. He was not the type of man who, of his own intelligence, would have made discoveries. He mentioned Hyatt and “the man on the Eiffel Tower.” That might have been the wanderings of a dying man, but Hyatt had come to light.

      Hyatt, with his curiously intellectual face; here, thought T.B., was the man, if any, who had unearthed the secret of the Nine.

      Likely enough he shared confidence with Moss; indeed, there was already evidence in T.B.’s hands that the two men had business dealings. And the third— “the man on the Eiffel Tower”? Here T.B. came against a wall of improbability. His report to the Chief Commissioner deserves quotation on the point.

      “Hyatt occupied rooms in Albany Street,” he wrote. “So far as we have been able to ascertain, he paid rare visits to London. His landlady thought he came from the South of England, but could give me no reason for this supposition. He paid £2 a week for his chambers, and although, as I say, he was seldom in London, he kept these rooms on, which leads to the assumption that he was a man of some means. The only documents we found in our search were two penny memorandum books, filled with notes regarding share transactions. Hyatt seems to have speculated very heavily and very successfully, and it is significant that he participated in all the big ‘Nine Men’ operations.

      “I found a bag with two hotel labels half obliterated. One of these is unquestionably the label of the Hotel de Calais in the Eue de Capucines, and the other is the representation of a white ensign. Comparing this with the hotel labels indexed on the Record Department at Scotland Yard, I am led to the belief that it was affixed at the Grand Hotel, Gibraltar. It is a fact, as you know, that amongst the possessions of Moss we discovered a handbag with a Paris label, but in these two bags there is a more important clue. There is affh od to both a ‘Repository’ label — that is, the label of a French cloakroom.

      “In the case of Moss the number of the ticket is ‘01795,’ on Hyatt’s bag there is still discernible ‘ — 796.’ From this we know that not only were the two men in Paris at the same time, but that they arrived by the same train, and going together to the depository, left their bags — which were numbered consecutively.

      “I am now, therefore, inclined to take a more serious view of the statement made by Moss before he died. His words were, you remember —

      “‘Get Hyatt or the man on the Eiffel Tower. His sister’s got the book — Hyatt’s sister down in Falmouth.’

      “Then he went on to say that ‘the Admiralty would fix it for you.’

      “At the time I thought the poor chap was raving; but Hyatt is a fact, and we are now searching for his sister and this ‘book’ of his. As to the reference to the Admiralty, I confess I am stumped, for nobody at Whitehall has ever heard of Hyatt.

      “There remains the man on the Eiffel Tower. Who was he, or is he? A theory advanced by Elk is that he is a man casually met; some acquaintance made in the course of a morning’s sightseeing. If this is so, the business of discovering his identity promises to be an extremely difficult one. We have communicated with Lepine in Paris, but naturally the little man wants something more tangible, more definite than the description we have been able to give him… In the meantime I have had Hyatt’s body removed, and so far nothing has got into the papers about that murder. We must issue a statement tonight, if the fact does not leak out before. By the way, Silinski, the man I referred to in my minute of the 10th, was under observation at the time of the murder, and the detective engaged in shadowing him informs me that it is impossible that he could have been implicated.”

XV. In the “Journal” Office

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      The room was a long one, full of dazzling islands of light where shaded lamps above the isolated subeditors’ desks threw their white circles. This room, too, was smirched with black shadows; there were odd corners where light never came. It never shone upon the big bookcase over the mantelpiece, or in the corner behind the man who conned the foreign exchanges, or on the nest of pigeon holes over against the chief “sub.”

      When he would refer to these he must needs emerge blinking from the blinding light in which he worked and go groping in the darkness for the needed memorandum.

      He was sitting at his desk now, intent upon his work.

      At his elbow stood a pad, on which he wrote from time to time.

      Seemingly his task was an aimless one. He wrote nothing save the neat jottings upon his pad. Bundles of manuscript came to him, blue books, cuttings from other newspapers; these he looked at rather than read, looked at them in a hard, strained fashion, put them in this basket or that, as the fancy seized him, chose another bundle, stared at it, fluttered the leaves rapidly and so continued. He had the appearance of a man solving some puzzle, piecing together intricate parts to make one comprehensive whole. When he hesitated, as he sometimes did, and seemed momentarily doubtful as to which basket a manuscript should be consigned, you felt the suggestion of mystery with which his movements were enveloped, and held your breath. When he had decided upon the basket, you hoped for the best, but wondered vaguely what would have happened if he had chosen the other.

      Once he leaned back and dived into the darkness. When he