The Complete Detective Sgt. Elk Series (6 Novels in One Edition). Edgar Wallace
Elling was there: George Elling, who sold the Journal a story about a suicide that had never happened. He had derived a fairly comfortable and regular income from reporting mythical happenings till the Journal sent a special man to investigate. Then the fraud was detected and “our own correspondent” at Gravesport was “fired,” and his name and the record of his infamy entered in the little book with the green covers. Edwards was there too. Edwards had written a little pamphlet attacking “The Office” — a vulgarly abusive, hysterical, foolish, and illogical little pamphlet, in which personal grievances and incoherent appeals to the sanity of the country were hopelessly interwoven. Essard was there, on the second page of the “E’s.” No crime stood against his name, but the chief sub. smiled faintly as he passed the name, for Essard had once dared to contribute a paragraph with a “business end.” In other words, the wretched Essard had had the temerity to write under the guise of a news-story, the most barefaced advertisement of a firm of engineers, thereby wickedly, maliciously, and feloniously attempting to deprive the directors and shareholders of the Amalgamated Newspapers, Limited, of their just and proper revenue.
But the subeditor sought in vain for the name of the man under review. He closed the book and looked across the table to his assistant.
“Who is Escoltier?” he asked.
The assistant looked up.
“Escoltier? Never heard of the gentleman. What has he done?”
“Is he barred?”
“Barred — Escoltier?” This was a serious question and not to be treated with flippancy. “No, I can’t remember Escoltier — rum name — being barred; in fact, I can’t remember Escoltier.”
The chief sub. stared at the manuscript on the desk before him.
He shook his head; hesitated, then dropped it into basket three.
The door that opened into the tape-room was swinging constantly now, for it wanted twenty minutes to eleven. Five tickers chattered incessantly, and there was a constant procession of agency boys and telegraph messengers passing in and out the vestibule of the silent building. And the pneumatic tubes that ran from the front hall to the subs’, room hissed and exploded periodically, and little leathern carriers rattled into the wire basket at the chief sub’s elbow.
News! news! news!
A timber fire at Rotherhithe; the sudden rise in Consols; the Sultan of Turkey grants an amnesty to political offenders; a man kills his wife at Wolverhampton; a woman cyclist run down by a motorcar; the Bishop of Elford denounces Nonconformists…
News for tomorrow’s breakfast table; intellectual stimulant for the weary people who are even now kicking off their shoes with a sleepy yawn and wondering whether there will be anything in the paper tomorrow.
News to be carried by fast expresses north, east, south, and west. The history of the world for one day, told by eyewitnesses, recorded by expert reporters, telegraphed, telephoned, mailed, and written in the office at first hand.
A boy came flying through the swing door of the tape-room, carrying in his hand a slip of paper.
He laid it before the chief sub.
That restless man looked at it, then looked at the clock.
“Take it to Mr. Greene,’ 9 he said shortly, and reached for the speaking-tube that connected him with the printer.
“There will be a three-column splash on page five,” he said, in a matter-of-fact voice.
“What’s up!” His startled assistant was on his feet.
“A man found murdered in T.B. Smith’s chambers,” he said.
The inquest was over, the stuffy little court discharged its morbid public, jurymen gathered in little knots on the pavement permitted themselves to theorize, feeling, perhaps, that the official verdict of “murder against some person or persons unknown,” needed amplification.
“My own opinion is,” said the stout foreman, “that nobody could have done it, except somebody who could have got into his chambers unknown.”
“That’s my opinion, too,” said another juryman.
“I should have liked to add a rider,” the foreman went on, “something like this: ‘We call the coroner’s attention to the number of undiscovered murders nowadays, and severly censure the police,’ but he wouldn’t have it.”
“They ‘ang together,” said a gloomy little man; “p’lice and coroners and doctors, they ‘ang together, there’s corruption somewhere. I’ve always said it.”
“Here’s a feller murdered,” the foreman went on, “in a detective’s room, the same detective that’s in charge of the Moss murder. We’re told his name’s Hyatt, we’re told he was sent to that room by the detective whilst he’s engaged in some fanciful business in the north — is that sense?”
“Then there’s the Journal” interrupted the man of gloom, “it comes out this mornin’ with a cock an’ bull story about these two murders being connected with the slump — why, there ain’t any slump! The market went up the very day this chap Hyatt was discovered.”
“Sensation,” said the foreman, waving deprecating hands, “newspaper sensation. Any lie to sell the newspapers, that’s their motto.”
The conversation ended abruptly, as T.B. Smith appeared at the entrance to the court. His face was impassive, his attire, as usual, immaculate, but those who knew him best detected signs of worry.
“For heaven’s sake,” he said to a young man who approached him, “don’t talk to me now — you beggar, your wretched rag has upset all my plans.”
“But, Mr. Smith,” pleaded the reporter, “what we said was true, wasn’t it?”
“A lie that is half the truth,” quoted T.B. solemnly.
“But it is true — there is some connection between the murders and the slump, and, I say, do your people know anything about the dancing girl from the Philharmonic?”
“Oh, child of sin!” T.B. shook his head reprovingly. “Oh, collector of romance!”
“One last question,” said the reporter. “Do you know a man named Escoltier?”
“Not,” said T.B. flippantly, “from a crow — why? Is he suspected of abducting your dancing lady!”
“No,” said the reporter, “he’s suspected of pulling our editor’s leg.”
T.B. was all this time walking away from the Court, and the reporter kept step with him.
“And what is the nature of his hoax?” demanded T.B.
He was not anxious for information, but be was very desirous of talking about nothing — it had been a trying day for him.
“Oh, the usual thing; wants to tell us the greatest crime that ever happened — a great London crime that the police have not discovered.”
“Dear me!” said T.B. politely, “wants payment in advance?”
“No, that’s the curious thing about it,” said the reporter. “All he wants is protection.”
T.B. stopped dead and faced the young man. He dropped the air of boredom right away.
“Protection?” he said quickly, “from whom?”
“That is just what he doesn’t say — in fact, he’s rather vague on that point — why don’t you go up and see Delawn, the editor!”
T.B. thought a moment.
“Yes,” he nodded. “That is an idea. For the moment, however, I have engaged myself to meet another gentleman who may throw a light upon many matters which are at present