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 ciphers. 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 cipher-solving you have to pick the lock instead of using the normal key. And Jules Verne puts his finger on the signature of a cipher-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 YJustice.
“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 WJustice.
“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.”
“The Croft-Thornton Institute,” said the inspector, promptly.
“Bull’s eye, I believe,” the Chief Constable ejaculated. “You could hardly jam more T’s together in English than there are in these three words. Let’s sift ’em out.”
The Inspector bent eagerly forward to see if the necessary letters could be found. Sir Clinton separated the ones which he required for the three words, and the arrangement stood thus:
HYOSCINE THE CROFT-THORNTON
INSTITUTE AAA CC D E HH OO SS TT WJustice.
“I think this is getting outside the bounds of mere chance,” Sir Clinton adjudged, with more optimism in his tone. “Now we might go a step further without straining things, even if it’s only a short pace. Let’s make a guess. Suppose that it’s meant to read: ‘Hyoscine at the Croft-Thornton Institute.’ That leaves us with the jumble here:
AA CC D E HH OO SS T W
“What do you make of that, Inspector?”
“The start of it looks like accede—no, there’s only one E,” Flamborough began, only to correct himself.
“It’s not accede, obviously, Let’s try access and see if that’s any use.”
The Chief Constable shifted the letters while the Inspector, now thoroughly interested, watched for the result.
“If it’s access then it ought to be access to,” Sir Clinton suggested. “And that leaves A, D, HH, O, W.”
One glance at the six letters satisfied him.
“It’s panned out correctly, Inspector. There isn’t a letter over. See!”
He rearranged the lettering, and the inspector read the complete message:
Who had access to hyoscine at the Croft-Thornton Institute. Justice.
“The chances of an anagram working out so sensibly as that are pretty small,” Sir Clinton said, with satisfaction. “It’s a few million to one that we’ve got the correct version. H’m! I don’t know that Mr. Justice has really given us much help this time, for the Croft-Thornton was an obvious source of the drug. Still, he’s doing his best, evidently; and he doesn’t mean to let us overlook even the obvious, this time. I’m prepared to bet that we get the key to this thing by the next post. Mr. Justice
