“The hard copper was all a story?”
“Looks like it, sir. As a matter of fact every single statement those men made that could be tested has been proved false. Even when there didn’t seem any great object in a yarn they pitched it. Lies seemed to come easier to them.”
“Well, I’ve known a good few cases of that, and so have you, French. It’s a habit that grows. Now, what’s your next move?”
French hesitated.
“For the moment the outlook’s not very cheery,” he said at last. “All the same I can’t believe that boat can go away out of the Scheldt and disappear. In my judgment she’s bound to be reported before long, and I’m looking forward to getting word of her within the next day or so. Then I have no doubt that the tracing is some kind of cipher, and if we could read it we should probably get light on the whole affair.”
“Why shouldn’t you read it? Try it again.”
“I intend to, sir. But I don’t hope for much result, because I don’t believe we’ve got the genuine document. I don’t believe they would have handed it, nor a copy of it either, to a man they intended to murder, lest it should be found on his body. I’d state long odds they gave him a fake.”
“I think you’re probably right,” the chief admitted. “Try at all events. You never know your luck.”
He bent over his desk, and French, realizing that the interview had come to an end, quietly left the room. Then, seeing there was nothing requiring his attention urgently, and tired after his journey, he went home.
But contrary to his expectations, the next day passed without any news of the L’Escaut, and the next, and many days after that. Nor could all his efforts with the tracing throw any light on that mysterious document. As time passed he began to grow more and more despondent, and the fear that he was going to make a mess of the case grew steadily stronger. In vain he laid his difficulties before his wife. For once that final source of inspiration failed him. Mrs. French did not take even one illuminating notion. When the third week had gone by, something akin to despair seized upon the Inspector. The only possibility of hope now seemed to lie in the return of Arnold Price, and French began counting the days until his arrival.
One night about three weeks after his return from Belgium he settled down with a cigar after dinner, his thoughts running in their familiar groove: What were these people engaged on? Was there any way in which he could find out? Had he overlooked any evidence or any inquiries? Had he neglected any possible line of research?
The more he considered the affair in all its bearings, the more conscious he became of the soundness of the advice he had given to Cheyne, and which in his turn he had received from his chief. Unquestionably in the tracing lay the solution he required, and once again he racked his brains to see if he could not by any means devise a way to read its message.
On this point he concentrated, going over and over again everything he had learned about it. For perhaps an hour he remained motionless in his chair, while the smoke from his cigar curled up and slowly dissolved into the blue haze with which the room was becoming obscured. And then suddenly he sat up and with a dawning, tremulous eagerness considered an idea which had just leaped into his mind.
He had suddenly remembered a statement made by Cheyne when he was giving his first rather incoherent account of his adventures. The young man said that it had been arranged between himself and Joan Merrill that if either were lucky enough to get the tracing into his or her possession, the first thing he or she would do would be to photograph it. Now, in juxtaposition with that statement, French recalled the facts, first, that Joan must have reached her flat on the night of her abduction at least several minutes before Blessington and Sime arrived with their car; and secondly, that during those minutes she had the tracing with her—the genuine tracing, as there was every reason to believe. Had Joan photographed it?
French was overwhelmed with amazement and chagrin at his failure to think of this point before, nor could he acquit Cheyne of a like astounding stupidity. For himself he felt there was no excuse whatever. He had even specially noticed the girl’s camera and the flashlight apparatus which she used for her architectural details when he was searching her rooms, but he had then, and since then up till this moment, entirely and completely forgotten the arrangement made between the partners.
Late as it was, French decided to go then and there to ascertain the point. The key of Joan’s flat was at the Yard, and twenty minutes later he had obtained it and was in a taxi bowling towards Horne Terrace.
He kept the vehicle while he ran up the ten flights to No. 12 and secured the camera. Then hastening down, he was driven back to the Yard.
By a piece of good luck he found a photographer who had been delayed by other important work, and him he pressed into the service forthwith. With some grumbling the man returned to his dark room. French, too eager to await his report, accompanying him.
A few moments sufficed to settle the question. The camera contained a roll of films of which the first seven had been exposed, and a short immersion in the developer showed that numbers 5, 6, and 7 bore the hoped for impress.
Gone was French’s despondency and the weariness caused by his heavy day, and instead he was once
