“Me? No, Mr. French. What do you mean?”
“I mean I should imagine that a young lady in your position with a free forenoon should take some exercise in the form of walks. Do you not explore the streets?”
“Oh, I see. Well, yes, I do a little, but I’m not a great walker.”
“Very well. Avoid the neighbourhood of Waterloo Station and also Harrow.”
She looked interested.
“I’ll explain,” went on French. “Mr. Welland lives at Harrow and he garages his car in Tate’s Lane off York Road. York Road is close to Waterloo. Now it might be disastrous if he saw you near either place, as he might imagine you were spying on him. So keep away from both districts.”
French was in a thoughtful mood as he returned to the Yard. Seldom had he been up against so clear-cut a problem. Welland was getting hundreds of half crowns each day; he must be getting rid of them somehow or he must be storing them somewhere; how, or where? It seemed impossible that there could be a difficulty in finding the solution. French was therefore the more exasperated by his failure to do so.
In a kind of dream he took the eighty half crowns to the Mint. To a high official he told his story, with the result that immediate investigations and tests were put in hand. He had a long wait, but before he left he got his information. All the half crowns were genuine; no such coins had been recalled to the Mint; no disused cellar existed in which such coins might have been kept; no half crowns had been stolen.
This of course was final proof of the falsity of the tale Welland had told Molly, which so far as it went was to the good. But it made the entire operations of the gang even more inexplicable. If they were not getting rid of counterfeit coins, what under heaven were they doing? French’s brain reeled as he faced the problem.
He walked slowly back to the Yard, full of bewilderment and baffled rage. These people were changing one lot of perfectly good half crowns for another. In spite of the magnitude of the numbers dealt with, they were getting in no half crowns from outside nor were they disposing of any. At least, they certainly were not obtaining nor distributing anything like the number passed by the girls. What was it all for?
A sudden wild hooting of a motor horn and frenzied cries from passersby recalled French to his surroundings. He sprang practically from beneath the bonnet of a heavily laden bus—only just in time. For quite a hundred yards he forgot about Welland and his half crowns as he meditated upon the undesirability of dreaming in the London streets. Then his thoughts swung back again to his problem.
Whether it was due to the start he had received or whether it arose in the normal processes of thought, he immediately found himself considering a new idea. Suppose all these apparently contradictory premises were true? Suppose Welland was neither obtaining half crowns nor disposing of them? Suppose he was changing one perfectly good lot of them for another? What if the half crowns he obtained from the girls on one day were handed back to them on the next? What if this elaborate machinery was simply a blind to cover some more sinister proceedings? Had Molly Moran lied and were the gang selling drugs after all?
Admittedly French did not see how such a scheme would facilitate the distribution of cocaine or heroin, but this problem seemed to him the lesser of the two. At all events there must be more in it than half crowns.
But lengthy pondering over it produced no light. Every solution that occurred to him seemed more improbable than the last.
In despair he returned to the idea that the disposal of the half crowns was the essential. Suppose a hoard of half crowns had been stolen, some of which were known to be marked? Most unlikely admittedly, but at least this theory covered the facts.
In his efforts to carry the thing a step further he tried a trick which had frequently helped him out of a similar tight place. If when following a trail of footsteps he came to hard ground on which they were not visible, he made a cast and went on to the next soft area in the hope of picking them up again. Now he made a mental cast. Assuming Welland were getting rid of these coins changed by the girls, and leaving out the means by which it was being done, what must be their eventual destination?
Long cogitation told him that the man’s only plan must be to pay them in to a bank. In no other way that French could see could he realize their value.
This at least opened out an obvious line of research. With a sense of relief at renewed action he drafted a circular to the managers of the various banks in London. He was anxious to trace a man who, he believed, was paying in large numbers of half crowns to banks. He would be grateful to the manager if he would make inquiries as to whether such payments were being made at his bank, and if so, let him have some particulars on the matter.
For the remainder of that day the inquiry hung fire, but next morning French was called to the telephone. The manager of the Knightsbridge Branch of the London and County Bank believed that he had some information which might be useful to the inspector and would be glad if he would call round.
Half-an-hour later French was seated in the manager’s private room.
“I do not know,” said Mr. Elwood, “whether I have brought you on a wild goose chase, but for nearly a year a man has been paying
