"Then you can't tell us anything about them?" the inspector asked, with an air of chagrin.
"Nothing whatever," Freshcombe replied promptly. "As I said before, the posters came to us in the ordinary way of business. There was an air of secrecy about the whole thing."
"Which did not attract your attention? Did not appeal to your suspicions, I mean?"
"Not a bit of it. The advertiser wanted to create an air of mystery and sensation. How well that has been managed I leave you to guess. Being, moreover, exceedingly shrewd, the advertiser did not mean his name to leak out. I received a note one day asking my terms for displaying a thousand of those posters on all the hoardings in London, and my people sent in a quotation."
"That letter came from another business house, I presume, sir?" the inspector asked.
"No, it didn't. It was from a certain Mr. John Smith, and was written from the Hôtel Royale, and on the official paper of the hotel. Three days later the posters arrived per a firm of carriers, and the same afternoon a check drawn by John Smith on the City and Provincial Bank. We cashed the check and posted the bills. I may say that, in the usual course of business, I should not have known this; but I was a little struck by the posters and their mystery, so I made inquiries. I assure you that I have not time to go into these minor details as a rule."
"I am rather disappointed," the inspector said. "I hardly expected this. The mystery of the posters----"
"Was part of the cleverness of the scheme," Freshcombe interrupted. "As a rule, these things leak out and spoil the game. Why, half-a-dozen newspaper men have been asking questions in my office."
"Then you don't even know who printed the posters?" Jack asked. "Have you any more left?"
"I fancy the posters were French," Freshcombe said. "They had evidently been repacked before they came to me. No, we have none left; they were all posted last week. I haven't even one as a specimen."