THE WHODUNIT COLLECTION: British Murder Mysteries (15 Novels in One Volume). Charles Norris Williamson

that would satisfy a jury that we were right. But we worked, first of all, from such main facts as we had. You were missing. Ivan was missing. A mysterious veiled woman was missing. There was the pearl necklace that you had bought as a wedding present for Lady Eileen. There was the strange dagger used in the murder. There was the miniature of Lola on the dead man. These were the chief heads. There were scores of minor things to be dealt with.

      "The matter was complicated, too, by the dead man's clothes. In the pockets, there were your personal belongings. A natural, but erroneous assumption was that they were your clothes. There is not much scope for individuality in evening dress. I confess I was misled and puzzled at first, but a little thought afforded the explanation, and, in fact, it would have been cleared up automatically in any event by the examination of the garments.

      "Now, subtlety may be an admirable thing, but it can be overdone. I have never believed that, because a certain thing seems obvious, it is necessarily wrong. It was reasonably certain that one, or all of the missing persons, had knowledge of what had happened. It was extremely probable that one of them was guilty. Our starting-point was to find them. That was where organisation came in. The miniature helped me to bluff Sir Ralph Fairfield into an admission that it was the portrait of Lola of Vienna, and I purposely showed it to some newspaper men on a pretext. One of them commented on the likeness to the Princess Petrovska, who was staying at the Hotel Palatial, and I at once telephoned to the hotel, and discovered that she was supposed to have left at ten on the evening of the murder. A reference to the St. Petersburg police gave us a few more facts about her. She became a possibility as the veiled visitor.

      "The finger-prints on the dagger, although we should have adopted a different method had we known what we know now, helped us to narrow the investigation, for they apparently—and actually by luck—settled the innocence of several people who might have been suspected.

      "Lady Eileen Meredith came to me with a story that seemed to implicate Sir Ralph Fairfield. There seemed just a possibility that she was right, for I could conceive jealousy might be a motive—though, of course, there was so far nothing to explain why the master of the house and his valet should take to flight. I took Sir Ralph's finger-prints by a ruse, and to me that seemed fairly satisfactory proof that he was not the man. Of course, I was then presuming that the finger-prints were those of the murderer.

      "Then I received information that Ivan and a man my informant took for Goldenburg had been seen at Victoria Station on the night of the murder. I managed to find Ivan and, by a threat, got a partly formed opinion confirmed. He knew that the murdered man was not Mr. Grell. I took from him the pearls that were to have formed a wedding present, and let him go after taking his finger-prints. My idea was to have him watched, for I felt confident that he was in touch with his master—whom I believed to be the murderer.

      "But it was not enough to follow one line. We used the fact of the striking similarity of Grell and Goldenburg to advertise for the former under the name of the latter. The mere fact of throwing the description broadcast, was calculated to make any attempt to escape more difficult. Meanwhile, we were making inquiries about every one concerned in the case by co-operation of foreign police-forces, and particularly with the help of Pinkerton's agency in the United States. It was all organisation, you see—the individual counted for little.

      "The first attempt to communicate with Fairfield failed, not through the working of any miracle on our part, but by patient watching. I stole a note from Fairfield, which gave us something to act upon, in the East End. Remember, the immediate object of our search was Robert Grell—not necessarily for the murderer. Do you follow?"

      "I think I do," answered Grell. "You wanted, at least, an explanation from me."

      "Precisely. Well, on top of that, we got a typewritten letter, informing us of the kidnapping of Waverley. That letter was important, for its contents showed that we were up against people who were absolutely reckless. We were able to trace, too, a typewriting machine as having been sold recently to a man named Israel, in Grave Street, There were finger-prints on the letter, and they corresponded to those on the dagger. As a matter of fact, I recently found out that the letter had been written on paper given by you. You had torn a half-sheet from an old letter, and I can only presume it was one that had been written to you by Lady Eileen Meredith. For they were her finger-prints.

      "We paid a surprise visit to Grave Street, and, although we were unable to lay our hands on any one of much importance to the investigation, we hit on the cipher with which it was intended to communicate with your friends. Now, we had already, as you know, taken every precaution to stop supplies. It was obvious that, sooner or later, money would be wanted, and we rigorously watched the persons who were likely to be applied to. Up to this point, circumstantial evidence pointed clearly to you"—he nodded towards Grell—"as the murderer.

      "Something of the sort happened, for Lola went to Lady Eileen, and we were able to lay hands on her. But we failed to get her identified as the veiled woman who had visited the house in Grosvenor Gardens. I will confess that, at that time, I never had any suspicion that she was the actual murderess. We had no adequate excuse for detaining her after she handed the jewels over, with an explanation endorsed by Lady Eileen Meredith. I had taken her finger-prints, and they did not agree.

      "It was palpable that the attempt to baffle us was being shrewdly organised. I tried a different way of getting information—an attack, so to speak, by the back door. I enlisted the help of a criminal. He was acting more or less blindly, but by his help we stopped the burglary affair that was planned. In the pocket of one of the men we arrested, we discovered two advertisements, worded so as to convey a cipher key without exciting suspicion. We had them inserted, and naturally arranged to keep an eye on the office—for the word to-morrow suggested one to be inserted the following day.

      "There is always wisdom in gaining the confidence of those concerned in a case if you can. I was trying hard to establish friendly relations with Lady Eileen and Sir Ralph Fairfield. Each was difficult to handle, but with Sir Ralph I succeeded to some extent. I used him to try and learn something from her. She realised that the cipher was known, and went to the newspaper office to try and stop the insertion of the advertisement that might enable us to find Grell. Of course she failed, and we got a message which had been handed in by Petrovska. One of our men followed her.

      "We deciphered the message, and it enabled us to discover your hiding-place on the river. But the business was muddled, and you got away. We found the sheath of the knife used in the murder among other belongings you left behind. By the way, we understand that that dagger had belonged to Harry Goldenburg—how came it to be lying about your room?"

      Grell shook his head. "That is a mistake. The dagger was mine. It is possible that he had a similar one."

      "Yes, that is possible. But in the event, the point does not matter much. What was more important was, that we had driven you out of a secure hiding-place.

      "Meanwhile, Pinkerton's had been hard at work on the other side of the Atlantic, and many episodes of your private life were minutely examined. Their detectives it was, too, who had discovered that Goldenburg and Petrovska had in some way been associated with you. What they found out pointed to blackmail. Here appeared an adequate motive for you to murder Goldenburg."

      Grell tapped impatiently on the table, but did not interrupt. Heldon Foyle went on.

      "We could not blind ourselves to the fact that you were not the type of man who would commit an ordinary crime under stress of temptation. But homicide is in a class by itself. You might have committed murder. Indeed, there was the strongest possible assumption that you had done so.

      "You will observe that there was nothing miraculous in what we did. One step led to another in natural sequence. On the barge, we got the letter that led to the tracing of Ivan at the gambling-house in Smike Street. We knew your finances were cramped. We were, as opportunity offered, limiting your helpers, so that we might force you to show yourself.

      "That is what happened. You went to Sir Ralph Fairfield, and succeeded in dodging our men—so far. It was Fairfield's servant who gave you away. He came to Scotland Yard and, in my absence, was taken away by Sir Ralph. When I returned, I arranged to get Sir Ralph out