Elk 01 The Fellowship of the Frog by Edgar Wallace Page A

consequence to himself. He came slowly back to the table.
    “I am afraid I must go,” he said. “Elk’s trouble is sufficiently important to take me back to town.”
    He saw the regret in Ella’s eyes and was satisfied. The leave-taking was short, for it was very necessary that he should get back to town as quickly as his car could carry him.
    On the journey Elk told all that he knew. Lord Farmley had spent the week-end in his town house. He was working on two new clauses which had been inserted on the private representation of the American ambassador, who, as usual, held a watching brief in the matter, but managed (also as usual) to secure the amendment of a clause dealing with transhipments that, had it remained unamended, would have proved detrimental to his country. All this Dick learnt later. He was unaware at the time that the embassy knew of the treaty’s existence.
    Lord Farmley had replaced the document in the safe, which was a “Cham” of the latest make, and built into the wall of his study, locked and double-locked the steel doors, switched on the burglar alarm, and went to bed.
    He had no occasion to go to the safe until after lunch. To all appearances, the safe-doors had not been touched. After lunch, intending to work again on the treaty, he put his key in the lock, to discover that, when it turned, the wards met no resistance. He pulled at the handle. It came away in his hand. The safe was open in the sense that it was not locked, and the treaty, together with his notes and amendments, had gone.
    “How did they get in?” asked Dick as the car whizzed furiously along the country road.
    “Pantry window—butlers’ pantries were invented by a burglar-architect,” said Elk. “It’s a real job—the finest bit of work I’ve seen in twenty years, and there are only two men in the world who could have done it. No fingerprints, no ugly holes blown into the safe, everything neat and beautifully done. It’s a pleasure to see.”
    “I hope Lord Farmley has got as much satisfaction out of the workmanship as you have,” said Dick grimly, and Elk sniffed.
    “He wasn’t laughing,” he said, “at least, not when I came away.”
    His lordship was not laughing when Elk returned.
    “This is terrible, Gordon—terrible! We’re holding a Cabinet on the matter this evening; the Prime Minister has returned to town. This means political ruin for me.”
    “You think the Frogs are responsible?”
    Lord Farmley’s answer was to pull open the door of the safe. On the inside panel was a white imprint, an exact replica of that which Elk had seen on the door of Mr. Broad’s flat. It was almost impossible for the non-expert to discover how the safe had been opened. It was Elk who showed the fine work that had extracted the handle and had enabled the thieves to shatter the lock by some powerful explosive which nobody in the house had heard.
    “They used a silencer,” said Elk. “It’s just as easy to prevent gases escaping too quickly from a lock as it is from a gun barrel. I tell you, there are only two men who could have done this.”
    “Who are they?”
    “Young Harry Lyme is one—he’s been dead for years. And Saul Morris is the other—and Saul’s dead too.”
    “As the work is obviously not that of two dead men, you would be well advised to think of a third,” said his lordship, pardonably annoyed.
    Elk shook his head slowly.
    “There must be a third, and he’s the cleverest of the lot,” he said, speaking his thoughts aloud. “I know the lot—Wal Cormon, George the Rat, Billy Harp, Ike Velleco, Pheeny Moore—and I’ll take an oath that it wasn’t any of them. This is master work, my lord. It’s the work of a great artist such as we seldom meet nowadays. And I fancy I know who he is.”
    Lord Farmley, who had listened as patiently as he could to this rhapsody, stalked from the library soon after, leaving the men alone.
    “Captain,” said Elk, walking after the peer and closing the door,