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
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.