As the two detectives regained the Great Western Road their minds were full of a happy satisfaction. M’Clung was conscious not only of a piece of work well done, a vital forward step taken in the case, but he was also pleasantly aware that the credit for this step was due to himself and his superintendent. The detective, force of Northern Ireland had abundantly vindicated itself, in fact it had shown the way to this experienced officer of the C.I.D. Altogether things were going well.
French was even more pleased. Not only was there this important success about the purchase of the typewriter, but there was the even more vital suggestion that the launch had put in to Lurigan on the night of the murder. If this latter could be proved it would be the beginning of the end.
With satisfaction he reconsidered the theory which this story of the launch had suggested to him. Sir John Magill, robbed of his plans, reaches Sandy Row in search of Coates’s friend and his linen-silk machinery.
There he is met by a confederate—possibly Malcolm or even Breene—who somehow induces him to lie low for the day on the Cave Hill and then in the evening to go to Whitehead. There possibly the same or another confederate meets him and in some other way—perhaps by promising negotiations for the return of the plans—persuades him to walk to Lurigan. At Lurigan the stage is set for the tragedy. He is captured and murdered by the gang, who bury his body on Malcolm’s ground. Supposing this were all true, would the gang, French wondered, have had time to murder him and bury the body?
It was part of the theory that the launch arrived at Lurigan at 2.30 a.m. Assuming it ran full speed to Campbeltown, at what hour must it have left Lurigan?
Maps again! The distance scaled 37 sea miles—say, a journey of 3¾ hours. To reach Campbeltown at 7.15, therefore, meant leaving Lurigan at 3.30. From 2.30 to 3.30 was an hour, surely time enough for the sinister work.
No snag here at all events. Then another point occurred to him.
He had already realised that the theft of the plans would have been valueless so long as Sir John lived; the moment ‘Sillin’ was put on the market, under whatever name, the theft would have been traced. The murder, therefore, must necessarily have been a part of the thieves’ programme. And now French saw why an interval was necessary between the theft and the murder. The gang required an opportunity to examine their booty so as to make sure it contained the genuine plans. Considering their extraordinary value it would have been a reasonable precaution for Sir John to have sent the real plans to Belfast in some other way while carrying a dummy set for the use of thieves. If the gang murdered the old man for a dummy set, goodbye to their chance of getting the genuine ones.
After dinner French settled down with M’Clung to discuss the case in the smoking room of the St Enoch Hotel. First French told of his discoveries at Kirkandrews Bay and in Cumberland. Then he turned to their more immediate achievement.
‘If we assume Victor typed that letter, as we must, can we not reach some further conclusion? The thing is bristling with clues. Is there nothing that we missed?’ M’Clung replied vaguely.
‘Let us think,’ French went on. ‘To have been delivered at the time it was, you tell me the letter must have been posted before about one-thirty on that Wednesday. If we admit your suggestion that Victor didn’t write it until after his visit to police headquarters—which I think exceedingly likely—we see that he could not have written it before one. He left the police station, if I remember rightly, about ten minutes to one. Therefore on the balance of probability it was written between one and one-thirty. Now, M’Clung, where must that have been done?’
‘An hotel, sir?’
‘That’s what I think. What was to prevent Victor calling at an hotel on his way from police headquarters, and in the secrecy of a bedroom typing the letter? It seems to me that the thing to find out now is—Did Victor go to an hotel at that hour on that day, and if so, what did he do there?’
‘That’s easy done,’ M’Clung pointed out. ‘A phone to Superintendent Rainey would get the information in an hour or two.’
‘I daresay,’ French admitted, ‘but I haven’t done yet. If we’re right so far a much more important thing follows. See what it is?’
M’Clung slowly shook his head.
‘He must have had something with him,’ French prompted.
M’Clung slapped his thigh.
‘The typewriter!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s a fact. And where did he put it?’
‘Right, M’Clung. That’s what I have been coming to. He must immediately get rid of such a dangerous piece of evidence. Where did he put it? Or in other words, can we find it?’
‘If we did, it would prove your whole theory,’ M’Clung declared with evident admiration.
‘Job for the Belfast force surely,’ French suggested blandly. ‘Do you think, M’Clung, if we wired to Superintendent Rainey asking him to find the typewriter that he would do it?’
M’Clung grinned, then scratched his head thoughtfully.
‘Where do you think we should look, sir?’ he asked innocently.
French took him seriously.
‘Well, where?’ he said. ‘You know the locality. Where would you have hidden it, M’Clung?’
M’Clung was of the opinion that there were plenty of places, but when pressed to name them he hesitated.
‘He could have thrown it off the Queen’s Bridge into the Lagan,’ he suggested at last. But French ridiculed the idea.
‘In broad daylight, with crowds on the bridge and boats on the river below? I don’t think, M’Clung. Try again.’
‘It could have been done at night.’
‘It could, but not by Victor. Remember he went down to Lurigan in the early afternoon.’
‘That’s a fact,’ M’Clung admitted.
Evidently it was not such an easy thing to get rid secretly of a typewriter. M’Clung put forward other suggestions, but all were ruled out after consideration. At last French made his contribution.
‘Well, I’ll tell you what I think,’ he declared. ‘Sir John had found a hiding place at Belfast already, up the Sheeps’ Path. Now that’s not a place that would occur to everyone and if Sir John chose it it might—might, I say—be because some previous happening had suggested it to him. Now is it too much to assume that this previous happening might have been known to Victor also—perhaps known to the whole family? Say some childish escapade known to them all. Of course all this is an absolute shot in the dark. But let us assume it for argument’s sake. If it’s true something may follow?’ French paused interrogatively.
‘I get you, sir.’ M’Clung now made no attempt to conceal his admiration. ‘Victor used the same place?’
‘May have used it,’ French amended.
‘It’s worth trying anyway, sir.’
Next morning French put through his call. Rainey was keenly interested and within a few minutes men had left headquarters to go the round of the hotels and to start a new search for buried treasure on the Cave Hill. French and M’Clung strolled out to get what amusement they could from the city’s somewhat drab life. But the streets were filled with a dank fog and they soon gave up their quest of entertainment and returned to the more comfortable boredom of the hotel.
Before long there was a telephone call. Victor Magill had engaged a room at the Grand Central Hotel on the day on which he had crossed from Scotland. After breakfast he had gone out, but the chambermaid remembered that he had returned about one and remained for some minutes in his room. She had heard a clicking sound that might have been a typewriter. Victor had not been seen leaving his room, but his bill showed that he had lunched. After lunch he had cancelled the room, stating that he had met a friend who had asked him to stay at his house.
This information seemed to French to prove his theory, irrespective of whether or not the typewriter were found. But he was very keen that it should be found. He therefore wired a message of congratulation to Rainey, asking him at the same time to continue his efforts on the Cave Hill.
As the evening drew in he found himself at a loss as to what he himself should do. Should he go to Belfast and discuss the affair with Rainey or go to London to report in person to Mitchell, or again should he remain where he was in the hope that news would come from Ireland?
Finally he decided to remain in Glasgow for another twenty-four hours. By that time the more promising parts of the Cave Hill would have been searched and perhaps the machine would have been found.
Next day he realised with enthusiasm that his decision had been justified. As he and M’Clung were lunching gloomily in the dining room of the St Enoch Hotel he was again called to the telephone.
It was Superintendent Rainey and he had great news. There was a ring of quiet triumph in his voice as he told that the search on the Cave Hill had been successful. Lightly buried in another part of the very same clump of bushes in which the cloak and ladder had been found, was a Corona typewriter. Moreover it was the machine, that on which the X.Y.Z. letter had been typed. The truth of French’s theory had therefore been demonstrated and Rainey returned with interest the congratulations he had received from French on the previous day.
To say that French was overjoyed would be sadly to understate the situation. Quite apart from the very material progress in the case the discovery represented, it was one of those instances of the justification of an enlightened guess, which are so soothing to the self esteem of the person responsible. French felt that a more thoroughly satisfying demonstration of his own efficiency had seldom been vouchsafed.
Victor Magill then, was the author of the X.Y.Z. letter. Victor therefore knew the true facts of Sir John’s death and burial, and Victor was out to get his share of the spoils. Victor, there could no longer be any doubt, was party to the murder.
So, unquestionably, were Joss, Teer and Mallace. So possibly was Malcolm. So possibly was Breene. While the greater part of this awful tragedy was still shrouded in mystery, it was at least becoming clear that in some way the unhappy Sir John had been inveigled to Lurigan in the small hours of that fatal morning and had there been brutally done to death.
Was there no way, French asked himself, in which he could arrive at the truth? His optimism slowly evaporated as he came to grips with the many difficulties still left unsolved. Then he suddenly remembered a remark of M’Clung’s and stopped short.
‘Look here,’ he said, ‘that’s all I want. Get away and see your sister or your young lady or whoever it is that you want to see. Only call at the hotel before your train. If there’s anything I’ll leave a message.’
In a dream French settled down once again to his struggle with the problem. What was wrong with him? He had got plenty of clues and why couldn’t he use them? He must do better! His whole career was at stake. He must get somewhere with this wretched business!
Setting his teeth he determined to sit down and for the nth time think the whole thing out from the beginning. He swore great oaths that nothing would induce him to move until he had reached some conclusion.
He made his way to the smoking room, which at that hour was deserted, and sitting down in the most comfortable chair, got his pipe going satisfactorily. Then he gave himself up once again to collating and marshalling his facts.
For upwards of two hours he sat pondering over what he knew, trying to imagine what he didn’t know, seeing if he could not find the missing link, which would cause his isolated facts to drop into place, and form one connected whole.
In vain he twisted and turned, and sucked vigorously at his pipe, in vain he consumed cups of strong coffee, in vain he cursed as each avenue he tried brought him up against still another blind wall. And then—
French’s heart seemed to miss a beat and he sat for a moment breathlessly. His pipe slipped from his half-opened mouth and dropping to the floor, ejected a little heap of red-hot ash on to the carpet. But French saw neither it nor anything else. He was gripped by a sudden new idea, which like a blinding flash of lightning in the murky blackness of a hurricane, had illuminated the whole of his thoughts.
He got up, automatically picked up the pipe and tramped the red ashes into blackness, and with growing excitement began to pace the room. Yes! Tremulously he began to admit to himself that he had got it! Yes, at last it worked in! The visits of ‘Coates’ to Sir John, the plans of the linen-silk machinery, the journey to Ireland, the movements of the launch and of its four passengers, the velvet coat and its accompanying symbolic ladder. As he ran over the details in his mind he saw that at last they fitted! Now he knew why Teer had called at Tarn Bay and just what had taken place on the Cave Hill. He saw in his mind’s eye the strange happening on the road where the bloodstained hat was found, he realised the true inwardness of what Cleaner M’Atamney had seen at Larne and visualised the hideous consummation at Lurigan. At last he understood Malcolm’s part in all these manifestations. In short—oh, could it be?—at last he had solved his problem!
He moved impatiently. Drat that fellow M’Clung! Would he never come? French wanted someone to share his triumph.
But M’Clung was away visiting his friends and French had perforce to keep his transports to himself. He fell to pacing the smoking room, continuing to turn the affair over in his mind.
Yes, it was great! His solution was great and the problem that he had solved was great. Gosh, but the facts would make a stir when they became known! One of his most spectacular triumphs! Once again his thoughts turned hesitatingly to a chief inspectorship. The last time there had been a vacancy he had been passed over. Now he was older and promotion was more probable. It was true that there was no immediate vacancy, but you never knew … Old Rolleston’s heart was none too good …
‘Turned wet, sir,’ said a voice and M’Clung, bearing evidences of weather, entered the room. French glared at him.
‘M’Clung, you black-faced son of a gun,’ he roared, and then in answer to the sergeant’s look of surprise, he chuckled. ‘Ah, something’s happened since you’ve been out,’ he declared. ‘Something big! Something huge, immense, prodigious! I’ve got it!’
‘Got it?’ M’Clung repeated dully. ‘I don’t just—Got what, sir?’
‘Got It!’ French yelled. ‘It! It! It! The whole blessed thing! I’ve got the solution! Now do you understand?’
M’Clung gaped.
‘Boys o’ boys!’ he murmured weakly, then subsided into a chair and begged for details.
‘Details?’ French shouted, striding vigorously up and down. ‘I’ll not tell you a blessed thing! Just think for yourself! You know the whole confounded business. You know as much as I do and you’ve everything you want to give you the answer.’ He halted and spoke with immense impressiveness. ‘You’ve—got—every—darned—fact—you need—to give you—the solution! Sit down and for once in a way use that fat head of yours and you’ll get it. Meantime go to the telephone and reserve a couple of berths in tonight’s London train. I’ll want you up with me to see the end.’
Great business! The end of the case, and the end brought about by him, Joseph French, and not by these darned Irish! Well, it was just another triumph to add to the long list that had gone before.
And then suddenly French stopped as if he had been shot, while an expression of blank dismay formed on his usually not too expressive features. For a few seconds he remained motionless, and then in low tones of extreme and contentrated bitterness a stream of oaths began to pour from his lips.
It was not often that French’s self-control gave way, but the truth was that he had just seen a snag of such devastating proportions that it completely swept away the whole of the magnificent theory of which he had been so proud. The reaction from triumph to despair was too acute.
‘Beg pardon, sir?’ M’Clung’s voice broke in on the blasphemous monologue.
‘Here,’ said French gruffly, ‘did you get those blasted reservations? Well, you can cancel them again. We’re not going to town tonight.’
M’Clung opened his mouth to reply, then catching sight of French’s expression, he closed it quickly and vanished.
‘Reservations cancelled, sir,’ he reported a few minutes later. He sat down without further remark, and taking out his notebook, busied himself with its contents. French glared at him. Then he spoke.
‘A snag, M’Clung; my fault, not yours. I overlooked it and it’s upset my theory. But it’ll come right. It must.’ He paused as the other nodded thoughtfully, then beginning once more to pace the room, he went on:
‘An object lesson, M’Clung. Don’t count your chickens! Nothing’s certain till you’ve got it in your hand, and not always then. I have a gorgeous theory: it explains everything, clears up all our puzzles and leaves the whole affair complete. It’s so good that I can’t doubt its absolute truth. But here’s the snag. It requires all four men to take an active part in it, Mallace, Joss, Teer and Victor. And there’s Victor’s bad leg! I was so pleased I got temporary swelled head and overlooked Victor’s bad leg.’
M’Clung twisted his head and half-closed his eyes and looked sly.
‘If that’s all it is, Mr French, you know very well that bad legs can be faked. Sure we were doubting that bad leg anyway.’
‘Not since we got the doctor’s report, I wasn’t. Let’s turn the blessed thing up.’ He rummaged in his bag. ‘Here’s what the sergeant says: “I then called on Dr MacGregor and questioned him. He stated as follows: ‘About nine o’clock on the morning of Friday, 4th October, a man called at my surgery. He gave the name of Teer and stated that he was one of a party of four who were on a motor launch tour. He stated that one of his companions, a Mr Magill, had had a fall and hurt his knee. He asked me to go aboard the launch and have a look at it. As soon as I had finished my breakfast I went down to the harbour. The launch Sea Hawk was moored alongside the wharf and I went on board. Magill was in his bunk. I examined him and found a contusion on the inside of the left knee at the head of the tibia. The joint was swollen and inflamed and must have been painful. In my opinion Magill could not have walked, or at best could only have hobbled with the aid of a stick, but I believed that in three or four days he should be able to do so. The injury was absolutely genuine and could not by any possibility have been faked. I asked Magill how it had occurred, and he replied that owing to the launch giving a sudden lurch he had fallen while carrying some cocoa up the companion steps, striking his knee on the sharp edge of a step. That was early on the morning of the previous day. In my opinion the injury might have been incurred at the time and in the manner stated. I attended to the knee and then left.’ The sergeant goes on: “Dr MacGregor is reputed to be a very skilful and reliable doctor and bears a high character in Campbeltown.” ‘There you are, M’Clung. Unless this doctor is a much bigger fool than the sergeant believes, there’s our snag.’
‘Dr MacGregor wasn’t looking out for any fake and so he didn’t find one, and now he’s not going to admit he made a mistake,’ M’Clung declared stoutly.
French shrugged.
‘I hope you’re right.’ He paused, then added: ‘You must be right. At all events we’ll have to make sure. There’s nothing for it but a trip to Campbeltown. You might go and find out how you get there.’
‘You go by steamer from Greenock,’ M’Clung explained after another brief disappearance, ‘but you can’t go and come on the same day. You leave the Central at 8.35, change to the boat at Greenock, and get to Campbeltown at 1.30. Then you’re stuck there for the rest of the day. Coming back you leave at 7.45 in the morning and you’re in Glasgow at 1.15.’
‘Good Lord! What’ll we do there for a whole afternoon? And we can’t go tomorrow for it’s Sunday. Well, we needn’t worry; we can’t help it. Ring up your superintendent, will you, and ask him if you can remain with me for a day or two. Then you can go and see your young woman again, or anyone else you want to. But be at the train on Monday morning.
It was an immense though minor disappointment to French that on Monday the bad weather should hold. Enveloped in waterproofs, he and M’Clung sheltered precariously behind deck houses on the Clyde steamer, trying to appreciate through driving mist and rain the beauty spots of one of the finest coastal trips in Europe. But all they could see were dripping and windswept piers, with occasional cheerless-looking houses in the background, and bleak shores rising grey and smudgy to the dim outlines of mountains above.
They were fortunate in catching Dr MacGregor before he went out on his afternoon’s rounds. He was big and shrewd-looking with a breezy manner, and French felt instinctively, a man to be trusted. After a few words of introduction French saw the line he should take.
‘You mustn’t misunderstand the object of our call, Dr MacGregor,’ he declared with a smile. ‘At first sight it looks like an inept kind of joke, but I need scarcely say that that is not the fact. You remember the sergeant calling on you relative to a visit you paid to a man named Victor Magill, who had hurt his knee while on a launch cruise?’
The doctor nodded decisively.
‘Now this is very strictly between ourselves,’ went on French. Again the doctor nodded and French continued impressively:
‘From certain facts which have come into our possession we have reason to believe that this launch trip was undertaken to cover up a serious crime. Indeed I needn’t make any mystery about it, we believe the members, all four, guilty of the murder of Sir John Magill near Larne. You may remember seeing the case in the papers?’
‘Aye, I think I saw it,’ Dr MacGregor answered, with more than a suspicion of the Doric. ‘And was that what the sergeant was after? He wasna over ready with his explanations.’
‘A good man, the sergeant,’ said French. ‘Well, from information received we believe these four ruffians went ashore near Larne between half past two and half past three o’clock on that same morning, all four of them, you understand. That of course raises the question of Magill’s knee.’
‘I see it does,’ the doctor returned dryly.
‘So then,’ went on French, ‘it follows that either they didn’t all four go ashore as we suppose, or else that the injury was faked. And the last is what I firmly believe was done. I’ve come to you, doctor, to ask your help in finding out how.’
French spoke earnestly and MacGregor, who seemed at first inclined to get on his high horse, remained silent.
‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘you may suggest that the injury was faked if you like, but if you do you’ll be wrong. There was the swelling and the heat and the colour. You might heat up the knee with mustard and paint on the discoloration and pretend it was painful, but you couldn’t fake all the symptoms together, at least not well enough to deceive a qualified doctor. No, Inspector, you may take it from me there was no fake about it. I’ll swear that in any court of law.’
French felt, and looked, terribly disappointed.
‘That’s a pretty heavy blow, doctor, and no mistake. It about leaves me in Queer Street so far as my case is concerned. I could have sworn you’d be able to help me.’
Dr MacGregor intimated that he was sorry, but that he couldn’t alter facts to suit the inspector’s cases. French tried again.
‘The man would be lame, I suppose?’
‘Lame? Aye, he’d be lame. I doubt for the first day or two he wouldna do any walking at all.’
‘He told you how the injury was supposed to have occurred?’
‘He did.’
‘And the appearance of the bruise agreed with that?’
‘Absolutely.’
French made a gesture of despair.
‘Then you can’t help me at all, Doctor?’ he almost implored. ‘If I were to take up enough of your time to tell you the whole facts you’d see how extraordinarily strong is the suggestion of a fake. You can’t tell me anything more?’
For the first time the doctor began to show impatience.
‘I can tell you again what I’ve told you before and what I’m not bound to tell you at all,’ he said, ‘and that is that there was no fake about it. If you don’t like to take my word for it you needn’t. I’m afraid I must wish you good day. I’m behind already with my calls.’
‘It’s not your word I doubt, Doctor,’ French returned, rising. ‘There’s my address. If in thinking over the thing you see a way out I’d be obliged if you’d let me know.’
Dr Macgregor took the card with evident rising anger.
‘I’ll tell you what I’ll let you know,’ he said harshly. ‘If you bring a case against the man on the lines you’ve mentioned, I’ll go into the box and swear that your case is false. Goodbye.’
‘Pity people are so beastly touchy,’ French grumbled as he and M’Clung turned away from the doctor’s gate.
‘It’s what I said, Mr French. He’s not sure about the thing, but he’s not going to admit any mistake.’
‘You think so? Now I don’t agree with you, M’Clung. I believe he’s sure enough. And he looks competent. I can’t picture him making a mistake of that kind. It’s an abominable puzzle and I don’t see the way out. And yet I believe there must be a way. Here, let’s go for a walk somewhere.’
At another time and under other circumstances French would have been delighted at the prospect of a ramble along a new and fine stretch of coast, but for the moment he was past scenery. His case and his case alone occupied his mind. For the next couple of hours as they trudged along through what had become merely a damp mist, he proved a poor companion. Then he suddenly stopped and faced M’Clung.
‘I believe I’ve got this too!’ he declared, with a kind of cold excitement. ‘Look here, that doctor gave the thing away himself. Don’t you see? Come back and let’s see him again.’
He hurried M’Clung along till once more they were in Dr MacGregor’s consulting room.
‘Sorry to trouble you again and all that, doctor,’ French said with eagerness, ‘but I believe I’ve got it!’
MacGregor looked at him with cold eyes.
‘Got it? Got what?’ he asked none too graciously.
‘How that knee evidence was faked. As a matter of fact you told me yourself, though neither you nor I recognised it at the time.’
The doctor looked as if his temper might get the better of him at any moment, but he was evidently interested.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘You said that in your opinion the injury took place at the time and in the manner stated?’
‘Might have taken place,’ MacGregor corrected.
‘You’re absolutely sure of the time?’
MacGregor rapped out an oath.
‘I’m not absolutely sure of the time,’ he declared angrily, ‘nor no man living could be sure of the time. What I’m sure of is what I said: that it might have taken place when stated.’
French had the self-satisfied air of a conjurer who has just successfully produced a lady’s vanity bag from a consequential old gentleman’s coat pocket.
‘You think,’ he suggested innocently, ‘it couldn’t have taken place that same morning?’
M’Clung started and French thought he heard a smothered ‘Boys o’ boys!’ But MacGregor dashed his hopes.
‘I don’t believe it,’ he answered sharply. ‘Admittedly it’s a point you can’t be so sure of. You go by the discoloration and one person discolours more quickly than another. But in this case discoloration was well marked. It could scarcely have taken less than thirty hours to develop, though it might easily have take a lot longer, several days in fact.’
‘Now, Doctor,’ said French in evident excitement, ‘here’s my last question. Excluding discoloration, could the injury in your opinion have occurred that same morning, say six hours before you saw it?’
Both he and M’Clung waited almost breathlessly for the reply. This time it was satisfactory. MacGregor admitted that in this case it might.
‘Then,’ French cried triumphantly, ‘there we have it! Suppose, Doctor, the injury was done six hours before you saw it and the discoloration was painted on! What about that?’
French sat back and beamed at the other. MacGregor returned his gaze earnestly. Then his manner changed.
‘Sorry, Inspector. I see what you are driving at, and you may be right. You mean that, while there was no fake of the injury, as I said, there may have been a fake as to the time it occurred?’
‘That’s it, Doctor. I suggest that the injury was deliberately produced after the launch left Ireland, say about three-thirty in the morning. You saw it about nine-thirty, say six hours later. By that time the swelling would be there all right, but not the proper discoloration, not the discoloration, that is to say, which might be present if the injury had taken place thirty hours earlier, as Magill stated.’
MacGregor, now quite thawed, admitted the possibility. All the same it was only a guess on the inspector’s part and there wasn’t any proof of its truth.
French agreed, but pointed out that if his case stood as a whole it would automatically provide sufficient proof. The doctor saw this for himself. He even obscurely hinted that it was ‘smarrrt’ of French to have thought of it and they parted friends.
‘Now we for London as soon as we can get there,’ French exclaimed as they turned towards their hotel. ‘What time does that blessed boat get to Glasgow tomorrow?’
‘It goes to Greenock. The train gets to the Central at 1.15.’
‘Well, we should get up to town that night. We’ll have a shot at it any way and then the great experiment will begin.’
‘We can get the Midday Scot at 1.30, into Euston at 9.50,’ returned the travel expert.
French looked at him.
‘’Pon my soul, M’Clung, you’re not doing so badly. How do you know that?’
M’Clung sniggered.
‘Thought we might need it, sir, and looked it up before we came away.’
‘Huh,’ said French. ‘If we don’t pull this case off after the amount of brains that have gone into it it’ll be queer an’ strange, so it will. That right?’
Something almost approaching a wink hovered for a moment near M’Clung’s left eye.
‘Ain’t ’arf a bad shot, sir,’ he responded encouragingly.
That night they travelled to town and next morning French had a long interview with Mitchell. The chief-inspector was profoundly impressed with French’s theory and congratulated him warmly.
‘I believe it’s the truth,’ French admitted modestly, ‘but I’m not sure that it’s good enough as it stands. I think, sir, with your permission we should have a reconstruction.’
Mitchell thought over this.
‘I agree,’ he said at last. ‘It’s a thing I’m not usually keen on, but this certainly seems a case for it. Very good, French, go ahead. You can have what you want.’
‘Any chance of your coming along, sir?’
‘I’d like to, but I can’t get away: that Brighton burglary.’
‘Sorry, sir. Well, I’ll carry on and fix up my arrangements.’
‘Good. Who would you like?’
French hesitated.
‘I want a small man,’ he said, ‘for Sir John’s part. We’ve no one small enough really, but I think Ormsby would do. He’s middling small and very handy. Carter and Harvey will do for Victor and Teer, for Harvey’s a good man with a car. I shall want a witness also, I think. M’Clung would do for that.’
‘Right, French. Good luck to you.’
When French left the chief-inspector’s room his movements became mysterious. Calling Ormsby, Carter and Harvey, he gave them certain instructions. Then with M’Clung in tow he left the Yard and called at a large clothing establishment on the South Side. There he gave orders for three cowled cloaks of very dark brown cloth of the cheapest quality, two to fit large men, the other slightly smaller. Then at a ship chandler’s he described the rope ladder found on the Cave Hill, and ordered a similar one to be sent to the Yard. By dint of a good deal of persuasion the shop people agreed to have all four articles completed and delivered by the following afternoon.
‘Now to Euston,’ he said, leading the way to the nearest tube station.
Half an hour later they walked for the second time in the inquiry into the reservation office on No. 6 platform. The clerk greeted them as old friends.
‘Well, gentlemen,’ he began, as if prepared for a long conversation. ‘I suppose you’re not looking for sleeping car attendants this time?’
French regretted it was nothing so dramatic. On this occasion, he and his companion were mere humble members of the travelling public. In fact, they only wanted a reservation. Could the clerk fix them up with two communicating berths to Stranraer for the following night?
The clerk’s comment took the form of a low whistle. But he was able to reserve the berths.
‘Now I want something else,’ French added. ‘I want the corridor on the left side of the carriage.’
Again the clerk whistled as he shook his head.
‘So that you can wave to little Albert?’ he said with a grin. ‘You’re not trying to make me an accessory before the fact, I suppose? Neither of you gentlemen going over to Ireland to be murdered, are you?’ Then seeing that French was not overwhelmed with the humour of his remarks, he returned to business.
He could not tell on which side the corridor was, but he could ask the stationmaster’s people to ring up and find out. Some time was spent in telephoning and then French learned that once again his luck was in. The berths were on the right side of the train. He therefore took the necessary tickets and half an hour later he and M’Clung were back at the Yard.
‘Good enough for today,’ French declared. ‘We’ll knock off now. You can amuse yourself as you like tomorrow, but meet Ormsby and me at Euston in time for the Stranraer train. Tomorrow night’ll settle our hash.’
M’Clung duly vanished. But French did not go off duty. Instead, he called his three men together and spent a solid hour posting them in their duties for the following night.