"That sounds just as plausible as you like, sir. But you’ve got the knack of making things sound plausible. You’re not pulling my leg, are you?" the Inspector demanded suspiciously. "Besides, what about there being no sign of the paper having been tampered with?"
"Look at what he’s given us," Sir Clinton suggested. "The only case where he’s given a large-scale reproduction of a whole phrase is at the top of the letter: ‘Things cannot go on any longer in this way.’ That’s been complete in the original, and he gives you a large-scale copy of it showing that the texture of the paper is intact. Of course it is, since he cut the whole bit out of the letter en bloc. When it comes to the microphotographs, of course he only shows you small bits of the words and so there’s no sign of the cutting that was needed at the end of each fragment. And in the photograph of the full text, there’s no attempt to show you fine details. He simply pasted the fragments in their proper order on to a real sheet of note-paper, filled up the joins with Chinese White to hide the solutions of continuity, and used a process plate which wouldn’t show the slight differences in the shades of the whites where the Chinese White overlay the white of the notepaper. If you have a drawing to make for black-and-white reproduction in a book, you can mess about with Chinese White as much as you like, and it won’t show up in the final result at all."
Flamborough, with a gesture, admitted the plausibility of Sir Clinton’s hypothesis.
"And you think that explains why he didn’t send us the original document, sir?"
"Since I’m sure he hadn’t an original to send, it’s hard to see how he could have sent it, Inspector."
Flamborough did not contest this reading of the case. Instead, he passed to a fresh aspect of the subject.
"Mr. Justice is evidently ready to go any length to avenge somebody—and that somebody can hardly have been young Hassendean, judging from what we’ve heard about his character."
Sir Clinton refused the gambit offered by the Inspector.
"Mr. Justice is a very able person," he observed, "even though he does make a mistake now and again, as in this last move."
"You said you’d some idea who he was, sir?" Flamborough said with an interrogative note in his voice.
The Chief Constable showed no desire to be drawn. He glanced rather quizzically at his subordinate for a moment before speaking.
"I’ll give you the points which strike me in that connection, Inspector; and then you’ll be just as well placed as I am myself in the matter of Mr. Justice. First of all, if you compare the time of publication of the morning newspapers with the time, at which Mr. Justice’s telegram was collected from the pillar-box, I think it’s fairly evident that he didn’t depend on the journalists for his first information about the affair. Even the Ivy Lodge news wasn’t printed until after he had despatched his message."
"That’s true, sir," Flamborough admitted.
His manner showed that he expected a good deal more than this tittle of information.
"Therefore he must have had some direct information about the bungalow business. Either he was on the spot when the affair occurred, or else he was told about it almost immediately by someone who was on the spot."
"Admitted," the inspector confirmed.
"Then he obviously—or is it ‘she obviously,’ Inspector?—saw the importance of hyoscine as a clue as soon as any word about it got into the newspapers. Immediately, in comes the code advertisement, giving us—rather unnecessarily I think—the tip to inquire at the Croft-Thornton Institute."
Flamborough’s face showed that he felt Sir Clinton was merely recapitulating very obvious pieces of evidence.
"Then there was the writing on the advertisements which he sent to the papers—Mrs. Silverdale’s writing rather neatly forged, if you remember."
"Yes," said the Inspector, showing by his tone that at this point he was rather at sea.
"Then there was the fact that he managed to choose his time most conveniently for his raid on Miss Deepcar’s house."
"You mean he made his visit when only the maid was at home, sir?"
"Precisely. I rather admire his forethought all through the business. But there’s more in it than that, if you think it over, Inspector?"
"Well, sir, if your reading’s correct, he wanted some of Silverdale’s letters to serve as a basis for these photographs."
"Something even more obvious than that, Inspector. Now, with all that evidence in front of you, can’t you build up some sort of picture of Mr. Justice? You ought to be able to come fairly near it, I think."
"Somebody fairly in the swim with the Silverdale crowd, at any rate. I can see that. And someone who knew the Croft-Thornton by hearsay, at any rate. Is that what you mean, sir?"
Sir Clinton betrayed nothing in his expression, though the Inspector scrutinised his face carefully; but he added something which Flamborough had not expected.
"Final points. The date on the fragment of an envelope that I found in the drawer in Mrs. Silverdale’s room was 1925. The date inside that signet-ring on her finger was 5–11–25. And there was the initial ‘B’ engraved alongside the date."
Inspector Flamborough quite obviously failed to see the relevancy of these details. His face showed it in the most apparent way.
"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."