"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."
Chapter Eleven. THE CODE ADVERTISEMENT
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.
"Let’s clear up one point before we tackle the lettering," Sir Clinton suggested. "That’s to-day’s issue of the Courier; so this advertisement was received at the newspaper office yesterday. Since the thing reached me by the second post, this copy of the paper may have been bought in the normal way—first thing in the morning—and posted at once."
"That’s sound, sir. It’s among the ordinary advertisements—not in the ‘Too Late For Classification’ section."
"It may be a hoax, of course," Sir Clinton mused, "but the telegram-form business would hardly occur to a practical joker. I think one can take it as a genuine contribution until it’s proved to be a fake. Now what do you make of it?"
The Inspector shook his head.
"Cyphers are not my long suit, sir. Frankly, it seems to me just a jumble, and I don’t think I’d make it anything else if I tried."
Sir Clinton reflected for a minute or two in silence, his eyes fixed on the advertisement.
"I’ve a notion that this is only Chapter I, Inspector. There’s more to come, in all probability. If it’s Mr. Justice, he’s not the man to waste time. By the way, did you give the reporters the information you were talking about yesterday?"
"Yes, sir. It was printed in last night’s Evening Herald, and I think both the Courier and the Gazette have got it this morning."
Sir Clinton was still scrutinising the advertisement.
"I’m like you, Inspector—no great shakes on cyphers. But this affair looks to me more like the letters of a plain message arranged in ordinary alphabetical order. I think that most likely we shall get the key from the writer in some form or other before long. In the meantime, though, we might have a dash at interpreting the affair, if we can."
Flamborough’s face showed that he thought very poorly of the chances of success.
"Ever read Jules Verne or Poe?" Sir Clinton demanded. "No? Well, Poe has an essay on cryptography in its earlier stages—nothing like the stuff you’ll find in Gross or Reiss, of course, and mere child’s play compared with the special manuals on the subject. But he pointed out that in cypher-solving you have to pick the lock instead of using the normal key. And Jules Verne puts his finger on the signature of a cypher-communication as a weak point, if you’ve any idea who the sender is. That’s assuming, of course, that there is a signature at all to the thing."
The Inspector nodded his comprehension of this.
"You mean, sir, that ‘Justice’ would be the signature here, like in the wire we got?"
"We can but try," Sir Clinton suggested. "Not that I’m over-hopeful. Still, it’s worth a shot. Suppose we hook out the letters of ‘Justice’ and see what that leaves us. And we may as well disregard the groups of five for the moment and simply collect the remaining letters under A, B, C, etc."
He tore a sheet of paper into small squares and inscribed one letter of the message on each square.
"Now we take out ‘Justice,’" he said, suiting the action to the word, "and simply leave the rest in alphabetical groups."
The Inspector, following the operation, found himself faced with the arrangement:
AAA CCCC D EEEE F HHHHH III NNNN
OOOOOO RR SSSS TTTTTTTTT U W Y
JUSTICE.
"It doesn’t seem much clearer, sir," Flamborough pointed out with a certain tinge of enjoyment in his tone. It was not often that he had a chance of crowing over his superior.
"Wait a moment, Inspector. Just let’s reflect for a bit. At any rate, the letters of ‘Justice’ are there; and that’s always better than a complete blank end. Now consider what Mr. Justice might be burning to tell us about in his unobtrusive way. He had time to see the news printed in last night’s Herald before he composed this little affair. Let’s suppose that he got some fresh ideas from that—since this communication falls pat after the publication and he hasn’t bothered us for days before that. The crucial thing was the identification of the hyoscine. We’ll see if we can get the word out here."
He sifted out the letters rapidly; and the jumble then took the form:
HYOSCINE AAA CCC D EEE F HHHH II
NNN OOOOO RR SSS TTTTTTTTT U W
JUSTICE.
"It fits, so far," Sir Clinton said, surveying his handiwork doubtfully, "but we might have got a couple of words like that out of a random jumble of fifty-six letters. It’s encouraging, but far from convincing, I admit."
He glanced over the arrangement with knitted brows.
"There seem to be a devil of a lot of T’s in the thing, if we’re on the right track. Now what do you associate with hyoscine in your mind, Inspector? Quick, now! Don’t stop to think."