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In red, blue, and green; in type varying in size according to the temperament of the newspaper; in words wild or sedate, as the character of the journal demanded, the newspaper contents bills gave London its first intimation of the breaking up of the Nine Bears.

As a sensation scarcely less vivid came the astounding exposé of Count Ivan Poltavo. Society rocked to its foundations by this news of its favourite. From every dinner-table in London arose the excited clamour of discussion. Lady Angela defended him stoutly, declaring that as an artist, and ignorant 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 together, sent, through the plainclothes watchers, their messages.

At eleven o’clock T.B. was reading a telegram from Harwich when the telephone at his elbow buzzed.

He took up the receiver.

“Hullo,” he said curtly.

For a second there was no reply, and then, very clear and distinct, came a voice.

“T.B. Smith, I presume.”

It was the voice of Count Poltavo.

If there had been anybody in the room but T.B., he might have imagined it was a very ordinary call the detective was receiving. Save for the fact that his face twitched, as was a characteristic of his when labouring under any great excitement, he gave no sign of the varied emotions Poltavo’s voice had aroused.

“Yes, I am T.B. Smith; you are, of course, Count Poltavo?”

“I am, of course, Count Poltavo,” said the voice suavely, “and it is on the tip of your tongue to ask me where I am.”

“I am hardly as foolish as that,” said T.B. drily, “but wherever you are — and I gather from the clearness of your voice that you are in London — I shall have you.”

There was a little laugh at the other end of the wire.

T.B.’s hand stole out and pressed a little bellpush that rested on the table.

“Yes,” said Poltavo’s voice mockingly, “I am in London. I am desirous of knowing where my friends have hidden.”

“Your friends?” T.B. was genuinely astonished.

“My friends,” said the voice gravely, “who so ungenerously left me to die on the salt plains near Jerez whilst they were making their escape.”

A constable entered the room whilst Poltavo was talking, and T.B. raised his hand warningly.

“Tell me,” he said carelessly, “why you have not joined them.”

Then, like a flash, he brought his hand down over the transmitter and turned to the waiting constable.

“Run across to Mr. Elk’s room,” he said rapidly; “call the Treasury Exchange and ask what part of London — what office — this man is speaking to me from.”

Poltavo was talking before T.B. had finished giving his instructions.

“Why have I not joined them?” he said, and there was a little bitterness in his voice,—” because they do not wish to have me. Poltavo has served his purpose! Where are they now? — that is what I wish to know. More important still, I greatly desire a piece of information which you alone, monsieur, can afford me.”

The sublime audacity of the man brought a grin to T.B.’s face.

“And that is?” he asked.

“There was,” said Poltavo, “amongst the documents you found at our headquarters in Jerez a scrap of paper written somewhat unintelligibly, and apparently — I should imagine, for I have not seen it — without much meaning.”

“There was,” said T.B. cheerfully.

“So much I gathered from Baggin’s agitation on our retreat,” said Poltavo. “Where, may I ask, is this interesting piece of literature deposited?”

The cool, matter-of-fact demand almost took T.B.’s breath away.

“It is at present at Scotland Yard,” he said “With my — er — dossier?” asked the voice, and a little laugh followed.

“Rather with the dossier of your friend Baggin,” said T.B.

“In case I should ever want to — how do you say — burgle Scotland Yard,” said the drawling voice again, “could you give me explicit instructions where to find it?”

T.B.’s anxiety was to keep Poltavo engaged in conversation until the officer he had despatched to the telephone returned.

“Yes,” he said, “at present it is in the cabinet marked ‘ Unclassified Data,’ but I cannot promise you that it will remain there. You see, count, I have too high an opinion of your enterprise and daring.”

He waited for a reply, but no reply came, and at that moment the door opened and the constable he had sent on the errand appeared.

T.B. covered the transmitter again.

“The Treasury say that you are not connected with anybody, sir,” he said.

“What?”

T.B. stared at him.

He moved his hand from the transmitter and called softly, “Poltavo!”

There was no reply, and he called again.

He looked up with the receiver still at his ear.

“He’s rung off.”

Then a new voice spoke.

“Finished, sir?”

“No — who are you?” demanded T.B. quickly.

“Exchange, sir — Private Exchange, Scotland Yard.”

“Who was talking to me then? Where was he talking from?”

“Why, from the Record Office.”

T.B., his face white, leapt to his feet.

“Follow me,” he said, and went racing down the long corridor. He went down the broad stairs three at a time.

A constable on duty in the hall turned in astonishment.

“Has anybody left here recently?” asked T.B. breathlessly.

“A gentleman just gone out, sir,” said the man; “went away in a motorcar.”

“Is Mr. Elk in the building?”

“In the Record Office, sir,” said the man. Up the stairs again flew the detective.

The Record Office was at the far end of the building.

The door was ajar and the room in darkness, but T.B. was in the room and had switched on the light.

In the centre of the room was stretched the unfortunate Elk in a pool of blood. A life-preserver lay near him. T.B. leant over him; he was alive, but terribly injured; then he shot a swift glance round the room. He saw the telephone with the receiver off; he saw an open cabinet marked “Unclassified Data,” and it was empty.