It was with an eagerness sternly suppressed that Heldon Foyle took from
a messenger the note which he knew contained Grell's advertisement.
Although outwardly he was the least emotional of men, he always worked
at high tension in the investigation of a case. No astronomer could
discover a new comet, no scientist a new element with greater delight
than that which animated the square-faced detective while he was working
on a case.
He drew out the sheet of paper gingerly between his finger-nails, and
tested it with graphite. Eight or nine finger-prints, some blurred, some
plain, appeared black against the white surface, and he gave an
ejaculation of annoyance.
"The fools! I warned them to handle it carefully. Now they've been and
mixed the whole lot up."
He blew down one of the half-dozen speaking tubes hanging at the side of
his desk, and gave a curt order. When Green appeared he was engrossed in
copying the advertisement on to a writing-pad. He laid down his pen
after a while.
"That you, Green? Send this up to Grant, and ask him to have it
photographed. See if he can pick out any of the prints as being in the
records or bearing on the case. Somebody's been pawing this all over,
and the prints are probably spoilt. It's been printed out, too, so there
isn't much chance of identifying the writing. Anyhow, we'll have a look
more closely at it when the finger-print people have done."
He bent once more to his desk with the copy of the cipher. He knew the
key, and it was not necessary to resort to an expert. By the time the
chief inspector came back he had a neatly copied translation on his pad.
"Listen to this, Green," he said.
"'E. M. Am now safe on board a barge moored below Tower Bridge, where no
one will think of looking for me. Have good friends but little money,
owing to action of police. Trust, little girl, you still believe in my
innocence, although things seem against me. There are reasons why I
should not be questioned. Shall try to embark before the mast in some
outward bound vessel. Crews will not be scrutinised so sharply as
passengers. There are those who will let you know my movements. Fear the
police may tamper with your correspondence, but later on when hue and
cry has died down will let you know all.'"
The two detectives looked at each other.
"A barge below Tower Bridge," repeated Green, with something like
admiration. "That was a good shot. He might have stayed there till
doomsday without our hitting on him, or any one taking any notice of
him."
"I don't know," said Foyle. "A newcomer on the river would attract
attention. These water-men know each other. There's only one way that I
can see in which he would avoid being talked about. He is a watchman."
"You're right, sir," agreed the other emphatically. "This is a matter
where Wrington of the Thames Division will be able to help us. Hope we
can find him at Wapping. Shall I ring through?"
"There's no hurry for a minute or two," said Foyle. "Let's get the hang
of the thing right. There's probably some hundreds of barges below Tower
Bridge. It will be as well to keep a close eye on the docks and shipping
offices. You see, he asserts his innocence."
"H'm," commented Green, with an intonation that meant much. "He says,
too, that there are reasons why he shouldn't be questioned."
"Well, we shall see. There had better be an all-station message about
the docks. Send two or three men down to Tilbury to watch outgoing boats
there. We shan't need any other men from here. Wrington's staff know the
river, and will get on best with them. I don't want to leave here until
Blake lets us know more about the woman who left the advertisement. That
gives us another possible clue."
It was some time before Wrington, the divisional detective-inspector at
the head of the detective staff of the Thames Division, could be found,
for like other branches of the C.I.D. he and his men did their work
systematically, and usually left their office at nine o'clock only to
return at six. At length, however, he was found at a wharfinger's
office, where there had arisen some question of a missing case of
condensed milk. Within half an hour he was at Scotland Yard.
A tall man with tired grey eyes, about the corners of which were tiny
wrinkles, with a weather-beaten face and grey moustache, he aimed to
look something like a riverside tradesman. There was a meekness in his
manner and speech that deceived people who did not know his reputation.
He spoke five languages fluently, and two more indifferently. Along the
banks of the thirty-five-mile stretch of river for which he was
responsible he had waged incessant warfare on thieves and receivers for
thirty years, till now practically all serious crime had disappeared.
He it was who, a dozen years before, had fought hand to hand with a
naked and greased river thief armed with a knife, in a swaying boat
under Blackfriars Bridge; he, too, solved the mystery of a man found
dead in the Thames who had been identified by a woman as her husband--a
dare-devil adventurer and unscrupulous blackmailer, who was declared by
a doctor and a coroner's jury to have been murdered. Step by step he had
traced it all out, from the moment when a seaman on a vessel moored at
one of the wharves had taken a fancy to bathe, and being unable to swim
had fastened a line round his waist and jumped overboard. He had
neglected to make the end on board properly fast and was swept away by
the current. The rope had twirled round him, and as the body swelled
became fixed. A blow on the head from the propeller of a tug completed a
maze of circumstantial evidence which might have served as an excuse to
most men for giving up the problem. Yet Wrington had solved it, and the
record, which had never seen the light of publicity, was hidden in the
archives of the service.
This was the man Foyle had now called in. He stood, with stooping
shoulders, nervously twisting his shabby hat, apparently ill at ease.
His nervousness dropped from him like a garment, however, when he
spoke. Foyle made clear to him the purport of the excursion they were to
embark on.
"Very good, sir," he said. "If you think the man you want is on the
river, we will find him. I guess, as you say, he's got a job as a
watchman. He's probably had to get somebody to buy a barge, for they
don't give these jobs without some kind of reference."
"A reference could easily have been forged. But that doesn't matter. How
soon can you get your men together?"
"An hour,--perhaps two. They're scattered all over the place. I sent out
to fetch 'em before I left Wapping."
"Three or four will be enough. With Green and yourself and myself we
should be able to tackle anything. Have a launch and a motor-boat at
Westminster Bridge Pier in a couple of hours' time. If you can borrow
them off some one, so that they don't look like police craft, so much
the better."
"I can do it, sir."
"Good. In two hours' time, then."
And Heldon Foyle turned away, dismissing the subject from his mind.
Green had gone upstairs to find how Grant of the Finger-print Department
had progressed in his scrutiny of the finger-prints on the
advertisement. He found his specialist colleague with a big enlargement
of the paper on which the advertisement had been written mounted on
paste-board, and propped up in front of him, side by side with an
enlargement of the prints found on the dagger.
"Any luck?" asked Green.
Grant shifted his magnifying glass to another angle and grunted.
"Can't tell yet," he said irritably. "I've only just started. Go away."
"Sorry I spoke, old chap," said the other. "Don't shoot; I'm going."
Grant rested his chin on one elbow and stared sourly at the intruder.
"Great heavens!" he said. "Isn't it enough to have two of my men ill
when there are four hundred prints to classify, to have three newspaper
reporters and a party of American sociological researchers down on me in
one day, without----"
But Green had fled to the more tranquil quarters on the first floor.
"Mr. Foyle asking for you, sir," said the clerk.
He pulled open the door of the superintendent's room. Foyle had got his
hat and coat on.
"Blake's wired that the woman has taken a ticket for Liverpool," he
said. "He's gone on the same train. Now that's settled, let's see if we
can't hurry Wrington up."