Elk 01 The Fellowship of the Frog by Edgar Wallace Read Free Book Online Page B

were of no avail, for the lock was a patent one and was recently fixed. Possibly the child was there, he thought. The second room, obviously the old woman’s, was as meanly furnished as the parlour.
    Coming back to the landing, his foot was poised to reach the first stair when he heard a faint “click.” It came from below, and was the sound of a door closing. Elk waited, listening. The sound was not repeated, and he descended softly. At first he thought that the old man had returned, and was trying his key on the bolted door, but when he crept to the door to listen, he heard no sound, and slipping back the bolt, he went to the second of the rooms on the ground floor and put his light on the door.
    Elk was a man of keen observation; very little escaped him, and he was perfectly certain that this door had been ajar when he had passed it on entering the house. It was closed now and fastened from the inside, the key being in the lock.
    Was it the child, frightened by his presence? Elk was wise enough a man not to investigate too closely. He made the best of his way back to the garden passage and into the street. Here he waited, taking up a position which enabled him to see the length of Eldor Street and the passage opening in the wall. Presently he saw Maitland returning. The old man was carrying the string bag, which now bulged. Elk saw the green of a cabbage as they passed under the light. He watched them until the darkness swallowed them up, and heard the sound of their closing door. Five minutes later, a dark figure came from the passage behind the houses. It was a man, and Elk, alert and watchful, swung off in pursuit.
    The stranger plunged into a labyrinth of little streets with the detective at his heels. He was walking quickly, but not too quickly for Elk, who was something of a pedestrian. Into the glare of the main road the stranger turned, Elk a dozen paces behind him. He could not see his face, nor did he until his quarry stopped by the side of a waiting car, opened the door and jumped in. Then it was that Elk came abreast and raised his hand in cheery salutation.
    For a second the man in the closed limousine was taken aback, and then he opened the door.
    “Come right in out of the rain, Elk,” he said, and Elk obeyed.
    “Been doing your Sunday shopping?” he asked innocently.
    The man’s hawk-like face relaxed into a smile.
    “I never eat on Sundays,” he said.
    It was Joshua Broad, that rich American who peddled key-rings in Whitehall, lived in the most expensive flats in London, and found time to be intensely interested in Ezra Maitland.
    He turned abruptly as Elk seated himself.
    “Say, Elk, did you see the child?”
    Elk shook his head.
    “No,” he said, and heard the chuckle of his companion as the car moved toward the civilized west.
    “Yes, I saw that baby,” said Mr. Broad, puffing gently at the cigar he had lit; “and, believe me, Elk, I’ve stopped loving children. Yes, sir. The education of the young means less than nothing to me for evermore.”
    “Where was she?”
    “It’s a ‘he,’” replied Broad calmly, “and I hope I’ll be excused answering your question. I had been in the house an hour when you arrived—I was in the back room, which is empty, by the way. You scared me. I heard you come in and thought it was old St. Nicholas of the Whiskers. Especially when I saw the light go on. I’d had it on when you opened the scullery door—I left that unfastened, by the way. Didn’t want to stop my bolt hole. Well, what do you think?”
    “About Maitland?”
    “Eccentric, eh? You don’t know how eccentric!”
    As the car stopped before the door of Caverley House, Elk broke a long silence.
    “What are you, Mr. Broad?”
    “I’ll give you ten guesses,” said the other cheerfully as they got out.
    “Secret Service man,” suggested Elk promptly.
    “Wrong—you mean U.S.? No, you’re wrong. I’m a private detective who makes a hobby of studying the criminal classes—will