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

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       “Suggest we rendezvous at Lolo.”

      This last was the only part of the little clue that offered any difficulty to T.B. The Gazetteer supplied no explanation,

      Nor could the Admiralty help. The naval authorities did their best to unravel the mystery of “Lolo.”

      A conference of the Ambassadors met in London, and it was jointly agreed that the nations should act in concert to bring the Maria Braganza and her crew to justice as speedily as possible. The Brazilian Government agreed to indemnify the Powers in their action, and, in the event of the destruction of the ship being necessitated by resistance on the part of its rebel captain, to accept an agreed sum as compensation.

      There are surprising periods of inaction in the record of all great accomplishments, which those who live, rather than those who read the stories of achievements, realise.

      There were weeks of fretting and days of blank despair in one room at Scotland Yard. For the examination of all clues led to the one end. Somewhere in the world were the Nine Men of Cadiz — but where, none could say. Every port in every civilised land was alert. Captains of mail steamers, of grimy little tramps, of war vessels of every nation, watched for the battleship. Three British cruisers, detached unostentatiously from the Home Fleet, cruised unlikely seas, but with no good result.

      Then began the new terror.

      T.B. had always had one uncomfortable feeling, a feeling that the dissipation of the Nine had not dispelled, and that was the knowledge that somewhere in Europe the machinery set up with devilish ingenuity by Poltavo still existed. Who were the desperate and broken men who acted as agents to the Nine? Whoever they were, they had been well chosen.

      The weeks passed without further news of the ship, and T.B. was beginning to worry, for good reasons. He had an elaborate chart supplied to him by the Admiralty, which showed him, from day to day, the amount of provisions and coal such a ship as the Maria Braganza would require, and he knew that she must be running short. Then, one morning, he received a clue.

      A telegram came to Scotland Yard, which began:

      “OFFICER COMMANDING GIBRALTAR REPORTS THAT HIS WIRELESS STATION HAD BEEN INTERCEPTING MESSAGES IN CODE WHICH BEAR SOME RESEMBLANCE TO THOSE OF N.H.C. FULL MESSAGES HAVE BEEN FORWARDED HERE FOR DECODING. SOME OF THEM ARE UNINTELLIGIBLE, BUT ONE PORTION OF A MESSAGE WE HAVE BEEN ABLE TO MAKE READ: ‘…ACCEPT YOUR ASSURANCE AND EXPLANATION; WE HAVE STILL SPLENDID FIELD FOR ENTERPRISE; I WILL JOIN YOU AT LOLO WITH SHIPLOAD OF PROVISIONS AND COLLIER ON JUNE 1ST. IN MEANTIME, IF YOU DO AS I SUGGEST, WE CAN MAKE TERMS WITH GOVERNMENTS AND, MOREOVER, FIND EMPLOYMENT FOR AGENTS WHO ARE AT PRESENT DISCONTENTED…’ MESSAGE BEYOND THIS UNDECIPHERABLE WITH EXCEPTION OF WORDS ‘DESTRUCTION,’ ‘EASILY OBTAINABLE,’ AND ‘INSURE.’ THIS MESSAGE OBVIOUSLY BETWEEN POLTAVO AND MARIA BRAGANZA—’ COMMANDER FLEET, GIBRALTAR, HAS SENT H.M.S. DUNCAN, ESSEX, KENT, WITH SIX DESTROYERS, INTO ATLANTIC PICK UP MARIA BRAGANZA.’”

      T.B. read the message again, folded it carefully, and placed it in his breast pocket. There was one word in Poltavo’s message that revealed, in a flash, the nature of the new terror with which the Nine Men of Cadiz threatened the world.

29. A Matter of Insurance

       Table of Contents

      You pass up a broad stone staircase at one end of the Royal Exchange, and come to a landing where, confronting you, are two big swing-doors that are constantly opening and closing as bareheaded clerks and top-hatted brokers go swiftly in and out.

      On the other side of the doors is a small counter where a man in uniform checks, with keen glance, each passerby. Beyond the counter are two rooms, one leading to the other, shaped like the letter “L,” and in the longer of the two sit, in innumerable pews, quiet men with fat notebooks. From desk to desk flutter the brokers bargaining their risks, and there is a quiet but eager buzz of voices through which, at intervals, boom the stentorian tones of the porter calling by name the members whose presence is required outside.

      A stout man made a slow progress down one of the aisles, calling at the little pews en route, making notes in a silver-mounted book he held in his hand.

      He stopped before the pew of one of the biggest underwriters. “Raglan Castle?” he said laconically, and the underwriter looked up over his spectacles, then down at the slip of paper the man put before him.

      “One per cent?” he asked, in some surprise, and the other nodded.

      “How much?” he asked.

      The underwriter tapped the slip of paper before him.

      “Ten thousand pounds at 5s. per centum,” he said. “I can do that.” He initialled the slip, and the man passed on.

      He went the round of the room, stopped to exchange a joke with an acquaintance, then descended СКАЧАТЬ