"You see, sir," he explained to the Assistant Commissioner later, "no one who knew Grell had seen the body closely. The butler had taken it for granted that it was his master. It was pure luck with me. In looking through the records in search of this woman Petrovska, I hit against the picture of Goldenburg. It was so like Grell that I went off at once to compare finger-prints. They tallied; and then young Lomont spoke of the scar. Though what Harry Goldenburg should be doing in Grell's house, with Grell's clothes, and with Grell's property in the pockets, is more than I can fathom."
Sir Hilary Thornton drummed on his desk with his right hand.
"Isn't this the Goldenburg who engineered the South American gold mine swindle?" he asked.
"That's the man," agreed Foyle, not without a note of rueful admiration. "He'd got half-a-dozen of the best-known and richest peers in England to promise support, when we spoilt his game. No one would prosecute. He always had luck, had Goldenburg. He's been at the back of a score of big things, but we could never get legal proof against him. He was a cunning rascal—educated, plausible, reckless. Well, he's gone now, and he's given us as tough a nut to crack as ever he did while he was alive."
"How did you get his finger-prints if he was never convicted?" asked Sir Hilary with interest.
Foyle looked his superior full in the face and smiled.
"I arrested him myself, on a charge of pocket-picking in Piccadilly," he said. "Of course, he never picked a pocket in his life—he was too big a crook for that. But we got a remand, and that gave us a chance to get his photograph and prints for the records. We offered no evidence on the second hearing. It was perhaps not strictly legal, but——" The superintendent's features relaxed into a smile. "He never brought an action for malicious prosecution."
"And about Grell? How do you propose to find him?"
Foyle drew his chair up to the table and scribbled busily for a few minutes on a sheet of paper. He carefully blotted it, and handed the result of his labours to Sir Hilary, who nodded approval as he read it.