of money, he had been misled by bad, clever rascals. Men who had been forced to take second place in his presence, now came forward, boldly, and stated that they had always suspected him to be a rogue.
One brilliant young man achieved a week-long fame by looking up his record at Scotland Yard. It appeared that the count was indeed a black-hearted villain. Five years ago he had been deported as an undesirable alien.
“But how did he escape recognition?” asked a guest.
The famous one smirked. “He parted his hair on one side, and wore a moustache!”
Ah! Into the mind of every feminine diner arose the vivid picture of the count — with mustachios! They sighed.
That the Nine Bears were dispersed was hailed as a triumph for the English police. Unfortunately, the popular view is not always the correct view, and T.B. Smith came back to London a very angry man.
It had been no fault of his that the majority of the band had escaped.
“The Civil Guard was twenty minutes late in taking up its position,” wrote T.B. in his private report.
“No blame attached to the Guard, which is one of the finest police forces in the world, but to the local police authorities, who at the eleventh hour detected some obscurity in their instructions from Madrid, and must needs telegraph for elucidation. So that the ring about the House on the Hill which I commanded was not completed until long after the whole lot had escaped. We caught François Zillier, who has been handed over to the French police, but the remainder of the gang got clean away. Apparently they have taken Count Poltavo with them; Van Ingen declares he shot him and such indications as we have point to his having been badly hurt. How the remainder managed to carry him off passes my comprehension. We have secured a few documents. There is one mysterious scrap of paper discovered in Baggin’s private room which is incoherent to a point of wildness, and apparently the rough note of some future scheme; it will bear reexamination.”
“Thanks to the industry and perseverance of the English police,” said the London Morning Journal, commenting on the affair, “the Nine Men of Cadiz are dispersed, their power destroyed, their brilliant villainies a memory. It is only a matter of time before they will fall into the hands of the police, and the full measure of Society’s punishment be awarded them. Scattered as they are—”
T.B. Smith put down his paper when he came to this part, and smiled grimly.
“Scattered, are they!” he said. “I doubt it.” For all the praise that was lavished upon him and upon his department, he was not satisfied with himself. He knew that he had failed. To break up the gang had always been possible. To arrest them and seize the huge fortune they had amassed would have been an achievement justifying the encomia that were being lavished upon him.
“The only satisfaction I have,” he said to the Chief Commissioner, “is that we are so often cursed for inefficiency when we do the right thing, that we can afford to take a little credit when we’ve made a hash of things.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” demurred the Chief.
“You did all that was humanly possible.”
T.B. sniffed.
“Eight men and Poltavo slipped through my fingers,” he answered briefly; “ — that’s a bad best.” He rose from the chair and paced the room, his head sunk on his breast.
“If Count Poltavo had delayed his entrance another ten minutes,” he said, stopping suddenly, “Baggin would have told Van Ingen all that I wanted to know. This wonderful scheme of his that was to secure them all ease and security for the rest of their lives.”
“He may have been boasting,” suggested the other, but T.B. shook his head.
“It was no boast,” he said with assurance, “and if it were he has made it good, for where are the Nine? One of them is on Devil’s Island, because he had the misfortune to fall into our hands. But where are the others? Vanished! Dissolved into the elements — and their money with them! I tell you, sir, there is not even the suspicion of a trace of these men. How did they get away from Cadiz? Not by rail, for all northward trains were stopped at Boadilla and searched. Not by sea, for the only ship that left that night was the Brazilian man-o’-war, Maria Braganza.”
“Airship,” suggested his chief flippantly, as he moved towards the door.
“It is unlikely, sir,” replied T.B. coldly. The Chief Commissioner stood with his hand on the edge of the open door.
“At any rate, they are finished,” he said, “their power for further mischief is destroyed.”
“I appreciate your optimism, sir,” said T.B. impertinently, “which I regret to say I do not share.”
“One thing is evident, and must be remembered,” T.B. went on, as his chief still lingered.
“Outside of the Nine Men there must be in Europe hundreds of agents, who, without being aware of their principals, have been acting blindly for years in their interest. What of the men who went to the length of murder at Poltavo’s orders? What of the assassins in Europe and America who ‘arranged’ the suicide of the bank president and the wreck of the Sud Express? Not one of these men have we been able to track down. I tell you, sir, that outside of the inner council of this gang, Poltavo organised as great a band of villains as the world has ever seen. They remain; this is an indisputable fact; somewhere in the world, scattered materially, but bound together by bonds of Poltavo’s weaving, are a number of men who formed the working parts of the Nine Men’s great machine. For the moment the steam is absent Yes?”
A constable was at the door.
“A message for you, sir.”
T.B. took the envelope and tore it open mechanically. It was a note from Van Ingen.
“Saw Poltavo ten minutes ago in a hansom. Positive — no disguise. C.V.I.”
Smith sat suddenly erect. “Poltavo in London!” he breathed. “It is incredible!”
He stood up, busily engaged in speculation.
*
The little telegraph instrument near the Chief Inspector’s desk began to click. In every police station throughout the metropolis it snapped forth its message. In Highgate, in Camberwell, in sleepy Greenwich, in Ladywell, as in Stoke Newington.
“Clickerty, clickerty, click,” it went, hastily, breathlessly. It ran:
TO ALL STATIONS: ARREST AND DETAIN COUNT IVAN POLTAVO. [here the description followed.] ALL RESERVES OUT IN PLAIN CLOTHES.
All reserves out!
That was a remarkable order.
London did not know of the happening; the homeward-bound suburbanite may have noticed a couple of keen-faced men standing idly near the entrance of the railway station, may have seen a loiterer on the platform — a loiterer who apparently had no train to catch. Curious men, too, came to the hotels, lounging away the whole evening in the entrance hall, mildly interested in people who came or went. Even the tram termini were not neglected, nor the theatre queues, nor the boardinghouses of Bloomsbury. Throughout London, from east to west, north to south, the work that Scotland Yard had set silent emissaries to perform was swiftly and expeditiously carried out.
T.B. sat all that evening in his office waiting. One by one little pink slips were carried in to him and laid upon the desk before him.
As the evening advanced they increased in number and length.
At eight o’clock came a wire:
NOT LEAVING BY HOOK OF HOLLAND ROUTE.
Soon after nine:
CONTINENTAL MAIL CLEAR.
Then in rapid succession the great caravanserais reported themselves. Theatres, bars, restaurants, every place in London where men and women gather