"I think this is getting outside the bounds of mere chance," Sir Clinton adjudged, with more optimism in his tone. "Now we might go a step further without straining things, even if it’s only a short pace. Let’s make a guess. Suppose that it’s meant to read: "Hyoscine at the Croft-Thornton Institute." That leaves us with the jumble here:
AA CC D E HH OO SS T W
"What do you make of that, Inspector?"
"The start of it looks like ACCEDE—no, there’s only one E," Flamborough began, only to correct himself.
"It’s not ACCEDE, obviously, Let’s try ACCESS and see if that’s any use."
The Chief Constable shifted the letters while the Inspector, now thoroughly interested, watched for the result.
"If it’s ACCESS then it ought to be ACCESS TO," Sir Clinton suggested. "And that leaves A, D, HH, O, W."
One glance at the six letters satisfied him.
"It’s panned out correctly, Inspector. There isn’t a letter over. See!"
He rearranged the lettering, and the inspector read the complete message:
WHO HAD ACCESS TO HYOSCINE AT THE CROFT-THORNTON INSTITUTE. JUSTICE.
"The chances of an anagram working out so sensibly as that are pretty small," Sir Clinton said, with satisfaction. "It’s a few million to one that we’ve got the correct version. H’m! I don’t know that Mr. Justice has really given us much help this time, for the Croft-Thornton was an obvious source of the drug. Still, he’s doing his best, evidently; and he doesn’t mean to let us overlook even the obvious, this time. I’m prepared to bet that we get the key to this thing by the next post. Mr. Justice wouldn’t leave the matter to the mere chance of our working the thing out. Still it’s some satisfaction to feel that we’ve done without his assistance.
Flamborough occupied himself with copying the cypher and its solution into his notebook. When he had finished, Sir Clinton lit a cigarette and handed his case to the Inspector.
"Let’s put officialism aside for a few minutes," the Chief Constable proposed. "No notes, or anything of that sort. Now I don’t mind confessing, Inspector, that we aren’t getting on with this business at all well. Short of divination, there seems no way of discovering the truth, so far as present information goes. And we simply can’t afford to let this affair go unsolved. Your Whalley person seems to be our best hope."
The Inspector evidently found a fresh train of thought started in his mind by Sir Clinton’s lament.
"I’ve been thinking over that set of alternatives you put down on paper the other day, sir," he explained. "I think they ought to be reduced from nine to six. It’s practically out of the question that young Hassendean was shot twice over by pure accident; so it seems reasonable enough to eliminate all that class from your table."
He put his hand in his pocket and produced a sheet of paper which had evidently been folded and unfolded fairly often since it had been first written upon.
"If you reject accident as a possibility in Hassendean’s case," he continued, "then you bring the thing within these limits here."
He put his paper down on the table and Sir Clinton read the following:
"Now I think it’s possible to eliminate even further than that, sir, for this reason. There’s a third death—the maid’s at Heatherfield—which on the face of it is connected in some way with these others. I don’t see how you can cut the Heatherfield business away from the other two."
"I’m with you there, Inspector," Sir Clinton assured him.
Flamborough, obviously relieved to find that he was not going to be attacked in the flank, pursued his exposition with more confidence.
"Who killed the maid? That’s an important point. It wasn’t young Hassendean, because the maid was seen alive by Dr. Ringwood immediately after young Hassendean had died on his hands. It certainly wasn’t Mrs. Silverdale, because everything points to her having died even before young Hassendean left the bungalow to go home and die at Ivy Lodge. Therefore, there was somebody afoot in the business that night who wouldn’t stick at murder to gain his ends, whatever they were."
"Nobody’s going to quarrel with that, Inspector."
"Very good, sir," Flamborough continued. "Now, with that factor at the back of one’s mind, one might review these six remaining cases in the light of what we do know."
"Go ahead," Sir Clinton urged him, covertly amused to find the Inspector so completely converted to the method which at first he had decried.
