“If it's ACCESS then it ought to be ACCESS TO,” Sir Clinton suggested. “And that leaves A, D, HH, O, W.”
One glance at the six letters satisfied him.
“It's panned out correctly, Inspector. There isn't a letter over. See!”
He rearranged the lettering, and the inspector read the complete message:
WHO HAD ACCESS TO HYOSCINE AT THE CROFT-THORNTON INSTITUTE. JUSTICE.
“The chances of an anagram working out so sensibly as that are pretty small,” Sir Clinton said, with satisfaction. “It's a few million to one that we've got the correct version. H'm! I don't know that Mr. Justice has really given us much help this time, for the Croft-Thornton was an obvious source of the drug. Still, he's doing his best, evidently; and he doesn't mean to let us overlook even the obvious, this time. I'm prepared to bet that we get the key to this thing by the next post. Mr. Justice wouldn't leave the matter to the mere chance of our working the thing out. Still it's some satisfaction to feel that we've done without his assistance.”
Flamborough occupied himself with copying the cypher and its solution into his notebook. When he had finished, Sir Clinton lit a cigarette and handed his case to the Inspector.
“Let's put officialism aside for a few minutes,” the Chief Constable proposed. “No notes, or anything of that sort. Now I don't mind confessing, Inspector, that we aren't getting on with this business at all well. Short of divination, there seems no way of discovering the truth, so far as present information goes. And we simply can't afford to let this affair go unsolved. Your Whalley person seems to be our best hope.”
The Inspector evidently found a fresh train of thought started in his mind by Sir Clinton's lament.
“I've been thinking over that set of alternatives you put down on paper the other day, sir,” he explained. “I think they ought to be reduced from nine to six. It's practically out of the question that young Hassendean was shot twice over by pure accident; so it seems reasonable enough to eliminate all that class from your table.”