"Now that you’ve got that length, it would be a pity to spoil your pleasure in the rest of the inference. Just think it out and tell me the result, to see if we both reach the same conclusion independently. You’ll find a weights-and-measures conversion table useful."
"Conversion table, sir?" asked the Inspector, evidently quite at sea.
"Yes. ‘One metre equals 39·37 inches,’ and all that sort of thing. The sort of stuff one used at school, you know."
"Too deep for me, sir," the Inspector acknowledged ruefully. "You’ll need to tell me the answer. And that reminds me, what made you ask whether the dose could have been fifteen times the maximum?"
The Chief Constable was just about to take pity on his subordinate when the desk-telephone rang sharply. Sir Clinton picked up the receiver.
". . . Yes. Inspector Flamborough is here."
He handed the receiver across to the Inspector, who conducted a disjointed conversation with the person at the other end of the wire. At length Flamborough put down the instrument and turned to Sir Clinton with an expression of satisfaction on his face.
"We’re on to something, sir. That was Fossaway ringing up from Fountain Street. It seems a man called there a few minutes ago and began fishing round to know if there was any likelihood of a reward being offered in connection with the bungalow case. He seemed as if he might know something, and they handed him over to Detective-Sergeant Fossaway to see what he could make of him. Fossaway’s fairly satisfied that there’s something behind it, though he could extract nothing whatever from the fellow in the way of definite statements."
"Has Fossaway got him there still?"
"No, sir. He’d no power to detain him, of course; and the fellow turned stubborn in the end and went off without saying anything definite."
"I hope they haven’t lost him."
"Oh, no, sir. They know him quite well."
"What sort of person is he, then?"
"A nasty type, sir. He keeps one of these little low-down shops where you can buy a lot of queer things. Once we nearly had him over the sale of some postcards, but he was too clever for us at the last moment. Then he was up in an assault case: he’d been wandering round the Park after dark, disturbing couples with a flash-lamp. A thoroughly low-down little creature. His name’s Whalley."
Sir Clinton’s face showed very plainly his view of the activities of Mr. Whalley.
"Well, so long as they can lay their hands on him any time we need him, it’s all right. I think we’ll persuade him to talk. By the way, was this lamp-flashing stunt of his done for aesthetic enjoyment, or was he doing a bit of blackmailing on the quiet?"
"Well, nobody actually lodged a complaint against him; but there’s no saying whether people paid him or not. His record doesn’t make it improbable that he might do something in that line, if he could manage to pull it off."
"Then I’ll leave Mr. Whalley to your care, Inspector. He sounds interesting, if you can induce him to squeak."
On the following morning, Inspector Flamborough was summoned to the Chief Constable’s room and, on his arrival, was somewhat surprised to find his superior poring over a copy of the Westerhaven Courier. It was not Sir Clinton’s habit to read newspapers during office hours; and the Inspector’s eyebrows lifted slightly at the unwonted spectacle.
"Here’s a little puzzle for you, Inspector," Sir Clinton greeted him as he came in. "Just have a look at it."
He folded the newspaper to a convenient size and handed it over, pointing as he did so to an advertisement to which attention had been drawn by a couple of crosses in pen and ink. Flamborough took the paper and scanned the advertisement:
DRIFFIELD. AAACC. CCCDE. EEEEF.
HHHHH. IIIIJ. NNNNO. OOOOO.
RRSSS. SSTTT. TTTTT. TTUUW. Y.
"It doesn’t seem exactly lucid, sir," he confessed, as he read it a second time. "A lot of letters in alphabetical order and divided into groups of five—bar the single letter at the end. I suppose it was your name at the front that attracted your eye?"
"No," Sir Clinton answered. "This copy of the paper came to me through the post, marked as you see it. It came in by the second delivery. Here’s the wrapper. It’ll probably suggest something to you."
Flamborough looked at it carefully.
"Ordinary official stamped wrapper. There’s no clue there, since you can buy ’em by the hundred anywhere."
Then a glance at the address enlightened him.
"Same old game, sir? Letters clipped from telegraph forms and gummed on to the wrapper. It looks like Mr. Justice again."
"The chances are in favour of it," Sir Clinton agreed, with a faint tinge of mockery in his voice at the Inspector’s eager recognition of the obvious. "Well, what about it?"
Flamborough scanned the advertisement once more, but no sign of comprehension lightened his face.
