"I don’t see what you’re getting at there, sir," he said rather shamefacedly. "These things never struck me; and even now I don’t see what they’ve got to do with Mr. Justice."
If he expected to gain anything by this frank confession, he was disappointed. Sir Clinton had evidently no desire to save his subordinate the trouble of thinking, and his next remark left Flamborough even deeper in bewilderment.
"Ever read anything by Dean Swift, Inspector?"
"I read Gulliver’s Travels when I was a kid, sir," Flamborough admitted, with the air of deprecating any investigation into his literary tastes.
"You might read his Journal to Stella some time. But I guess you’d find it dull. It’s a reprint of his letters to Esther Johnson. He called her ‘Stella,’ and it’s full of queer abbreviations and phrases like ‘Night, dear MD. Love Pdfr.’ It teems with that sort of stuff. Curious to see the human side of a man like Swift, isn’t it?"
"In love with her, you mean, sir?"
"Well, it sounds like it," Sir Clinton replied cautiously. "However, we needn’t worry over Swift. Let’s see if we can’t do something with this case, for a change."
He glanced at his watch.
"Half-past five. We may be able to get hold of her."
He picked up the telephone from his desk and asked for a number while Flamborough waited with interest to hear the result.
"Is that the Croft-Thornton Institute?" Sir Clinton demanded at length. "Sir Clinton Driffield speaking. Can you ask Miss Hailsham to come to the telephone?"
There was a pause before he spoke once more.
"Miss Hailsham? I’m sorry to trouble you, but can you tell me if there’s a microphotographic camera in the Institute? I’d like to know."
Flamborough, all ears, waited for the next bit of the one-sided conversation which was reaching him.
"You have two of them? Then I suppose I might be able to get permission to use one of them, perhaps, if we need it. . . . Thanks, indeed. By the way, I suppose you’re just leaving the Institute now. . . . I thought so. Very lucky I didn’t miss you by a minute or two. I mustn’t detain you. Thanks again. Good-bye."
He put down the telephone and turned to Flamborough.
"You might ask Miss Morcott to come here, Inspector."
Flamborough, completely puzzled by this move, opened the door of the adjoining room and summoned Sir Clinton’s typist.
"I want you to telephone for me, Miss Morcott," the Chief Constable explained. "Ring up Dr. Trevor Markfield at his house. When you get through, say to his housekeeper: ‘Miss Hailsham speaking. Please tell Dr. Markfield that I wish to see him to-night and that I shall come round to his house at nine o’clock.’ Don’t say any more than that, and get disconnected before there’s any chance of explanations."
Miss Morcott carried out Sir Clinton’s orders carefully and then went back to her typing. As soon as the door closed behind her, the Inspector’s suppressed curiosity got the better of him.
"I don’t quite understand all that, sir. I suppose you asked about the photomicrographic affair just to see if these prints could have been made at the Croft-Thornton?"
"I hadn’t much doubt on that point. Photomicrographic apparatus isn’t common among amateur photographers, but it’s common enough in scientific institutes. No, I was really killing two birds with one stone: finding out about the micro-camera and making sure that Miss Hailsham was leaving the place for the night and wouldn’t have a chance to speak to Markfield before she went."
"And what about her calling on Markfield to-night, sir?"
"She’ll have to do it by proxy, I’m afraid. We’ll represent her, however inefficiently, Inspector. The point is that I wanted to be sure that Markfield would be at home when we called; and I wished to avoid making an appointment in my own name lest it should put him too much on his guard. The time’s come when we’ll have to persuade Dr. Markfield to be a bit franker than he’s been, hitherto. I think I see my way to getting out of him most of what he knows; and if I can succeed in that, then we ought to have all the evidence we need."
He paused, as though not very sure about something.
"He’s been bluffing us all along the line up to the present, Inspector. It’s a game two can play at; and you’ll be good enough to turn a deaf ear occasionally if I’m tempted out of the straight path. And whatever happens, don’t look over-surprised at anything I may say. If you can contrive to look thoroughly stupid, it won’t do any harm."
Just before entering the road in which Markfield lived, Sir Clinton drew up his car; and as he did so, a constable in plain clothes stepped forward.
"Dr. Markfield’s in his house, sir," he announced. "He came home just before dinner-time."
Sir Clinton nodded, let in his clutch, and drove round the corner to Markfield’s gate. As he stopped his engine, he glanced at the house-front.
