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

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СКАЧАТЬ day I received a message in English, which I can read. It ran —

      “‘All those who know N.H.C. call H. A.’

      “Although I did not know who N.H.C. was, I had the curiosity to look up H. A. on the telegraph map, and found it was the Cornish Marconi Station. Taking advantage of the absence of my officer, I sent a wireless message, ‘I desire information, L.L.’ That is not the Paris ‘indicator,’ but I knew that I should get the reply. I had hardly sent the message when another message came. It was from Monsieur Hyatt. I got the message distinctly—’Can you meet me in London on the gth, Gallini’s Restaurant?’ To this I replied, ‘No, impossible.’ After this I had a long talk with the Cornishman, and then it was that he told me that his name was Hyatt. He told me that he was able to decode the N.H.C. messages, that he had a book, and that it was possible to make huge sums of money from the information contained in them. I thought that it was very indiscreet to speak so openly, and told him so.

      “He asked me for my name, and I gave it, and thereafter I regularly received letters from him, and a correspondence began.

      “Not being au fait in matters affecting the Bourse, I did not know of what value the information we secured from N.H.C. could be, but Hyatt said he had a friend who was interested in such matters, and that if I ‘took off’ all N.H.C. messages that I got, and repeated them to him, I should share in the proceeds. I was of great value to Hyatt, because I received messages that never reached him in this way. He was able to keep in touch with all the operations on which N.H.C. were engaged.

      “By arrangement, we met in Paris — Hyatt, his friend of the London Bourse, Monsieur Moss, and myself, and Hyatt handed to me notes for 20,000 francs (£800) ; that was the first payment I received from him. He returned to England, and things continued in very much the same way as they had done, I receiving and forwarding N.H.C. messages. I never understood any of them, but Hyatt was clever, and he had discovered the code and worked it out.

      “About a fortnight ago I received from him 3,000 francs in notes, a letter that spoke of a great coup contemplated by N.H.C. ‘If this materialises,’ he wrote, ‘I hope to send you half a million francs by the end of next week.’

      “The next morning I received this message—”

      He fumbled in his pocket and produced a strip of paper, on which was hastily scrawled —

      “From N.H.C. to L.L. Meet me in London on the sixth, Charing Cross Station.”

      “It was, as you see, in French, and as it came I scribbled it down. I would have ignored it, but that night I got a message from Hyatt saying that N.H.C. had discovered we shared their secret and had offered to pay us £5,000 each to preserve silence, and that as they would probably alter the code I should be a fool not to accept. So I got leave of absence and bought a suit of clothing, left Paris, and arrived in London the following night. A dark young man met me at the station, and invited me to come home with him.

      “He had a motorcar at the entrance of the station, and after some hesitation I accepted. We drove through the streets filled with people, for the theatres were just emptying, and after an interminable ride we reached the open country. I asked him where was Hyatt, and where we were going, but he refused to speak. When I pressed him, he informed me he was taking me to a rendezvous near the sea.

      “We had been driving for close on three hours, when we reached a lonely lane. By the lights of the car I could see a steep hill before us, and I could hear the roar of the waves somewhere ahead.

      “Suddenly he threw a lever over, the car bounded forward, and he sprang to the ground.

      “Before I could realise what had happened, the machine was flying down the steep gradient, rocking from side to side.

      “I have sufficient knowledge of motorcar engineering to manipulate a car, and I at once sprang to the wheel and felt for the brake. But both foot and hand brake were useless. In some manner he had contrived to disconnect them.

      “It was pitch-dark, and all that I could hope to do was to keep the car to the centre of the road. Instinctively I knew that I was rushing to certain death, and, messieurs, I was! I was flying down a steep gradient to inevitable destruction, for at the bottom of the hill the road turned sharply, and confronting me, although I did not know this, was a stone sea wall.

      “I resolved on taking my life in my hands, and putting the car at one of the steep banks which ran on either side, I turned the steering wheel and shut my eyes. I expected instant death. Instead, the car bounded up at an angle that almost threw me from my seat. I heard the crash of wood, and flying splinters struck my neck, and the next thing I remember was a series of bumps as the car jolted over a ploughed field.

      “I had achieved the impossible. At the point I had chosen to leave the road was a gate leading to a field, and by an act of Providence I had found the only way of escape.

      “I found myself practically at the very edge of the sea, and in my first terror I would have given every sou I had to escape to France. All night long I waited by the broken car, and with the dawn some peasants came and told me I was only five miles distant from Dover. I embraced the man who told me this, and would have hired a conveyance to drive me to Dover, en route for France. I knew that N.H.C. could trace me, and then I was anxious to get in touch with Hyatt and Moss. Then it was that I saw in an English newspaper that Moss was dead.”

      He stopped and moistened his lips.

      “M’sieur!” he went on with a characteristic gesture, “I decided that I would come to London and find Hyatt. I took train, but I was watched. At a little junction called Sandgate, a man sauntered past my carriage. I did not know him, he looked like an Italian. As the train left the station something smashed the window and I heard a thud. There was no report, but I knew that I had been fired at with an air-gun, for the bullet I found embedded in the woodwork of the carriage.”

      “Did nothing further happen?” asked T.B.

      “Nothing till I reached Charing Cross, then when I stopped to ask a policeman to direct me to the Central Police Bureau I saw a man pass me in a motorcar, eyeing me closely. It was the man who had tried to kill me.”

      “And then?”

      “Then I saw my danger. I was afraid of the police. I saw a newspaper sheet. It was a great newspaper — I wrote a letter — and sought lodgings in a little hotel near the river. There was no answer to my letter. I waited in hiding for two days before I realised that I had given no address. I wrote again. All this time I have been seeking Hyatt. I have telegraphed to Cornwall, but the reply comes that he is not there. Then in the newspaper I learn of his death. M’sieur, I am afraid.”

      He wiped the drops of sweat from his forehead with a shaky hand.

      He was indeed in a pitiable condition of fright, and T.B., upon whose nerves the mysterious “bears” were already beginning to work, appreciated his fear without sharing it. There came a knock at the outer door of the office, and the editor moved to answer it. There was a whispered conversation at the door, the door closed again, and the editor returned with raised brows.

      “T.B.,” he said, “that wretched market has gone again.”

      “Gone?”

      “Gone to blazes! Spanish Fours are so low that you’d get pain in your back if you stooped to pick them up.”

      T.B. nodded.

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