“That’s where it arose in this case anyway,” said French. “The distribution was the weak link of the whole scheme.”
“So it has proved,” Mr. Cullimore admitted. “But I consider it an extremely clever scheme all the same. The more you consider the problem involved, the more you will realize, I think, its enormous difficulty. Just think, Mr. French. How would you have done it?”
“Oh, come now, Mr. Cullimore,” Sir Mortimer said gravely. “Don’t make him incriminate himself. If you ask him questions like that you will have him telling you that things of the kind are not done at the Yard.”
French grinned.
“That, sir, is the answer to the question. All the same if I had to find a scheme I should try to avoid one which left me in the hands of four box office girls. That’s what gave the thing away. If the girls had been members of the conspiracy it might never have come out. But the fear that the girls would give the show away led to their doing so.”
“I begin to appreciate the force of your remark, Sir Mortimer, about the Yard’s habit of begging the question,” Mr. Cullimore declared drily. “But I don’t quite appreciate Mr. French’s point. You say, Mr. French, that the girls gave the scheme away. But I understood they hadn’t?”
“Not directly, sir. But the gang were afraid they might and adopted murder to safeguard themselves. The murder gave them away.”
“Oh, quite. I see what you mean.” Mr. Cullimore dismissed the point airily and turned to a new one. “I suppose there is no way of estimating how many of these faked half crowns are in existence?”
“You gave me some figures on that, French. Just turn them up, will you?”
“All I can suggest is this, sir. Miss Moran told me that she passed out from one hundred to one hundred and fifty a day. I took a minimum of between seven and eight hundred a week. If all four girls were doing the same that would be, say, three thousand a week or in round numbers a hundred and fifty thousand a year. We understand that the conspiracy has been running for about that time.”
“Nearly nineteen thousand pounds’ worth of spurious money in circulation!” Mr. Cullimore shook his head. “It’s bad, but it might be worse.”
“And nearly twelve thousand pounds a year netted,” Sir Mortimer added. “Quite a profitable little enterprise, particularly if the profits had only to be divided among three. What will your department do about it, Mr. Cullimore?”
Mr. Cullimore glanced at him keenly.
“That really is rather a problem, Sir Mortimer,” he admitted. “To all intents and purposes the money is good. Moreover, to recall it would be a virtual impossibility. At present I may as well admit that I do not see that we can do anything but accept it as genuine and let it continue to circulate. Of course I am speaking offhand and without proper consideration. But that is my present view.”
For some time they continued discussing the matter and then Mr. Cullimore remarked: “The thing I cannot get over is the extraordinary skill with which the coins were turned out. This gang must surely have some technical training and it’s not a trade that many men follow. You know nothing, of course, as to their identity?”
Sir Mortimer shook his head.
“We have their descriptions, though up to the present it hasn’t helped us much. But I appreciate your point about technical training, and we shall certainly make inquiries on these lines.”
“Just the sort of thing that one would expect from Jim Sibley. What do you say, Mr. Cullimore?” said a new voice, and French looked with a sort of surprised interest at Dove, who had not yet spoken.
“ ’Pon my soul, I shouldn’t be at all surprised to hear he had something to do with it,” Mr. Cullimore returned. “He’s the only man I know who could do such work. You haven’t come across a stout, red-haired man in your inquiries, I suppose, Sir Mortimer?”
“Not so far. Who might Jim Sibley be, if it is not indiscreet to ask?”
“Up till three years ago he was an engineer employed at the Mint. He was with us for about seven years and I don’t mind saying that, present company excepted, he was the most brilliantly clever man it has ever been my good fortune to meet. There was nothing about coining he didn’t know and nothing he couldn’t do with his hands. Extraordinarily resourceful too. It was a pleasure to see him tackle a difficulty, especially one which required some ingenious adaptation of some tool or machine for its solution. As Mr. Dove says, this coining business certainly suggests his hand.”
“Why did he leave you, Mr. Cullimore?”
The little man shrugged his shoulders.
“Rejected coins were disappearing. We were satisfied that he was stealing them, but we couldn’t prove it. We asked him to leave.”
“And did the thefts go on?”
“No, when he left there was no further trouble. There was not the slightest doubt of his guilt, but he was clever enough to prevent us getting proof.”
Sir Mortimer not commenting, French asked if Mr. Cullimore would kindly explain what rejected coins were and what was the object of stealing them.
“By rejected coins I mean those which are complete, but which fail to pass some of the tests imposed. For instance, a half crown, otherwise perfect, might not ring quite true. It would therefore be rejected and would go back to the furnace to be remelted. Its value to the thief, who would presumably put it into circulation, would be just two and sixpence.”
“That seems a useful hint about this Sibley, sir,” French said to the Assistant Commissioner. “With your permission I should like to ask these gentlemen for further particulars about him.”
“By all means, French. Get what you can out of them while you have the chance.”
But neither of the visitors could give
