The answer was so quick, so naturally given, that
any suspicion that remained in Fairfield's mind was lulled. He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, for what it is worth, I don't mind admitting that Grell did come to see me. All he wanted was money. He is frightfully hard up, and apparently the operations of your people have harassed him dreadfully."
"Did you let him have any money?"
Fairfield shook his head. "No; I absolutely refused unless he would come out of concealment and try to justify himself. With that he went. He was here less than twenty minutes or half an hour."
The detective played with his watch-chain. "Yes, yes. I don't see that you could have done anything else. I suppose you made no suggestion to him?"
"In what way?"
Gently stroking his chin, Foyle answered in a soft voice, "The other day a man came to see me. He was a man of high social standing and had fallen into the clutches of a gang of blackmailers. He wanted us to take action, but he absolutely refused to go into the witness-box to give evidence. I pressed him, pointing out that that was the only way in which we could bring home anything against them. 'It will ruin me,' he declared. 'Is there no other way it can be put a stop to?' I replied that we were helpless. 'What can I do?' he cried. 'Is the thing they accuse you of true?' I asked. He flushed and admitted that it was. 'Well,' I said, 'if you ask my advice as a man and not as an official, I should meet with an accident.' But he would not take my advice," he concluded, with a keen glance at the baronet, on whom the parable was not lost.
"I did suggest that way out," admitted the baronet reluctantly. "He wouldn't hear of it. And Grell is not a coward."
"He gave no hint of where he was going when he left you?"