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

how they've been associated with each other before. There's one thing, sir. I've managed to get the inquest adjourned for a month, so we shan't have to make any premature disclosures in evidence. The newspapers are still hanging about. They got wind that something was happening at Malchester Row, and there were a dozen or more men waiting for me when I came out, I told 'em that we'd been trying to identify a woman and had failed. They'd have known that anyway. They promised to be discreet. They're good chaps. It isn't like the old days. There was one man—Winters his name was—who came up to the Yard to see me once. He was told I was at Vine Street. He went down there and was told I hadn't been there.

      "'Here's a piece of luck,' he says to himself, and went back to his office. There he wrote up a couple of columns telling how the whole of the C.I.D. had lost trace of me. I came out of Bow Street, where I'd been giving evidence in a case, to see a big contents-bill staring me in the face—

      FAMOUS

       DETECTIVE

       VANISHES

      "Before I could buy a paper, another newspaper chap comes along. He stared at me as if I was a ghost.

      "'Hello!' he says. 'Don't you know you're lost? Every pressman in London is looking for you.'

      "'Am I?' says I. 'How?'

      "Then it all came out. Since then I have been very careful in dealing with newspaper men."

      Sir Hilary laughed and nodded. "Is there anything more?" he asked.

      "Yes." Foyle had grown grave once more. "I handed over the cipher that we found at Grave Street to Jones, to see if he could make anything out of it. He's an expert at these kind of puzzles. Well, he's just reported that the thing is simple as it stands though in other circumstances it might be difficult. The translation runs—

      "This will be the best method of communicating with E. M. if L. supplies her with key. Her 'phone number 12845 Gerrard."

Chapter XXIII

       Table of Contents

      Unless a case is elucidated within a day or two of the commission of an offence the first hot pursuit resolves itself into a dogged, wearisome but untiring watchfulness on the part of the C.I.D. A case is never abandoned while there remains a chance, however slight, of running a criminal to earth. And even when the detectives, like hounds baffled at a scent, are called off, there remains the gambler's element of luck. Even if the man who had original charge of the case should be dead when some new element re-opens an inquiry, the result of his work is always available, stored away in the Registry at Scotland Yard. There are statements, reports, conclusions—the case complete up to the moment he left it. The precaution is a useful one. A death-bed confession may implicate confederates, accomplices may quarrel, a jealous woman may give information. There have been unsolved mysteries, but no man may say when a crime is unsolvable.

      Heldon Foyle had many avenues of information when it was a matter of ordinary professional crime. The old catchword, "Honour among thieves," was one he had little reason to believe in. There was always a trickle of information into headquarters by subterranean ways. The commonplaces of crime were effectively looked after. Murders are the exception in criminal investigation work, and while other crimes may be dealt with by certain predetermined if elastic rules, homicide had to be considered differently. Yet Foyle had cause to think that there might be little harm in setting to work the underground agencies which at first sight seemed to have little enough in common with the mystery of the rich Robert Grell. These spies and informers would try to cheat and trick him. Some of them might succeed. It would cost money, but money that might not be wasted.

      Four of the five chief detective-inspectors who form the general staff of the C.I.D. were in the room, among them Wagnell, who had passed a quarter of a century in the East End and knew the lower grades of "crooks" thoroughly, collectively, and individually.

      Foyle shut the door.

      "I wish some of you would pass the word among our people that we will pay pretty handsomely for any one who puts us on to the gang mixed up in this Grell business. Word it differently to that. You'll know how to put it. You might get hold of Sheeny Foster, Wagnell, or Poodle Murphy, or Buck Taylor. They may be able to nose out something."

      "Buck was sent up for six months for jumping on his wife," said Wagnell. "I haven't seen Sheeny lately, but I'll try to get hold of him, and I'll have the word passed along."

      So, having made the first step in enlisting a new and formidable force of guerillas on the side of the law, Foyle went back to his office to revolve the problem in his brain once more.

      His thoughts wandered to Sir Ralph Fairfield. Here was a man whose services would be invaluable if he could be persuaded to help. Grell knew him; trusted him. Foyle was a man who never neglected the remotest chances. He deemed it worth trying. True, so far as their encounters were concerned, Fairfield had not been encouraging. He would probably need delicate handling. Foyle wrote a note, scrutinised it rapidly, and, going out, gave it to a clerk to be sent at once by special messenger.

      "Mr. Heldon Foyle presents his compliments to Sir Ralph Fairfield and would be obliged if he could see him at his office at six o'clock this evening, or failing that, by an early appointment, on a matter of urgent importance."

      That was all it said: Foyle never wasted a word.

      At five minutes past six that evening, Sir Ralph Fairfield was announced. He ignored the offer of a chair which was made by the superintendent, and stood with stony face a few paces from the door. Foyle was too wise to offer his hand. He knew it would not be accepted. He nodded affably.

      "Good evening, Sir Ralph. I was hoping you would come. I would not have troubled you but that I felt you would like to know how we are getting on. You were a friend of Mr. Grell's."

      "Well?" said Sir Ralph frigidly. "I am here, Mr. Foyle. Will you let me know what you want to say and have done with it?"

      His manner was entirely antagonistic. There was still a lingering fear of arrest in his mind, but his attitude was in the main caused by the fact that he believed he had been suspected by the other. The superintendent partly guessed what was passing in his mind.

      "I want your word first, Sir Ralph, that what I tell you shall not be spoken of by you to any living soul," he said. "Then I will tell you frankly and openly the whole history of our investigation, and you can decide whether you will help us or not. No—wait a moment. I know how loyal a friend you were of Robert Grell's, and it's in the light of that, that I am going to trust you. He is not dead. He is in hiding. It is for you to say whether you will help us to find him. If he is innocent he has nothing to fear."

      He was watching the other closely while he sprung the fact that Grell was alive upon him. He wanted to know whether it was really a surprise, whether in spite of the vigilance of the C.I.D. men Grell or his companions had managed to communicate with Fairfield. The baronet had opened his mouth to speak. A flicker of colour came and went in his pale cheeks, and he fingered his stick nervously. Then his jaw set, and he strode to where the superintendent was sitting and clutched him tightly by the arm.

      "What's all this?" he demanded hoarsely. "Do you mean to say Grell is not dead?"

      "As far as I know he is as alive as you or I at this present minute," said Foyle. "If you want to hear about it all, give me your word and sit down. You're hurting my arm."

      "I beg your pardon," said the baronet mechanically, and, stepping back, seated himself in a big arm-chair that flanked the desk. He passed his hand in a dazed fashion across his forehead and his composure came back to him. Staggering, incredible as the statement seemed, there was that in Foyle's quiet tones that gave it the stamp of truth.

      "Of course, I'll give you my word," he said.

      Foyle was satisfied that the baronet knew nothing. There was a deeper policy behind the pledge he had exacted than that of preventing a leakage of confidence. Fairfield would not go behind his word. In