It was by no means the first of such recalls that French had received, though it was not usual to interrupt an officer who was actually engaged in investigating a case. The incident always bred a slight uneasiness. The possibility of having made some serious blunder was ever present. And French was aware that his most unhappy experiences had almost invariably followed periods of exaltation and self-satisfaction. Chief Inspector Mitchell was an exceedingly shrewd man and he had a perfectly uncanny way of delving to the bottom of problems and of seeing clues that other people missed. French earnestly hoped that it was not so in the present instance.
He travelled up by the night train and early next morning reported at the Yard. There he found his fears were groundless. The Chief Inspector, so far from grumbling, was in a very good mood and almost complimented him on what he had done.
“Well, French, you’re up against it again, are you? What were you busy at when you got my wire?”
French explained.
“You can do something better. Read that.”
It was the typewritten note of a telephone conversation. It appeared that at four o’clock on the previous evening the manager of the Northern Shires Bank in Throgmorton Avenue had rung up to say that two twenty-pound notes bearing numbers on the list supplied in connection with the Starvel Hollow crime had been passed into the bank that afternoon. The cashier had just at that moment made the discovery, but unfortunately he was unable to remember from whom he had received them.
“By Jove, sir!” French exclaimed. “Then Roper is in town!”
“It looks like it if your theory is right,” the Chief Inspector admitted. “I sent Willis across at once and he saw the cashier. But the man couldn’t say where the notes had come from. Willis got him to prepare a list of all the lodgments he had received that day, intending, if you didn’t turn up, to go round the people to-day with Roper’s description. You had better see him and find out what he has done. I want you to take over from him at once as he is really on that Colchester burglary.”
“Very good, sir. Do you know if the notes were together: if they seemed to have come in from the same party?”
“Willis asked that. They were not near each other in the pile. Of course, the argument is not conclusive, but the suggestion is that they came in separately.”