Flamborough assented to this. Putting his hand into his breast pocket he produced a paper.
“Then I've got a report from Detective-Sergeant Yarrow. I sent him down to the G.P.O. to find out about Mr. Justice's telegram. It's impossible to get a description of the sender, sir. The telegram wasn't handed in over the counter: it was dropped into a pillar box in the suburbs in a plain envelope, along with the telegraph fee; and when it was taken to the G.P.O. they simply telegraphed it to our local office round the corner.”
“H'm!” said Sir Clinton. “There doesn't seem much likelihood of your advertisement catching much, then. Mr. Justice is obviously a shy bird.”
“He is indeed, sir, as you'll see in a moment. But I'll finish Yarrow's report first, if you don't mind. When he heard this story at the G.P.O., he asked for the postman who had brought in the envelope and questioned him. It appears the thing was dropped into the pillar-box at the corner of Hill Street and Prince's Street. That's nowhere near the Lizardbridge Road, you remember—quite on the other side of the town.”
“Five miles at least from the bungalow,” Sir Clinton confirmed. “Yes, go on, Inspector.”
“The postman made his collection, which included this envelope, at 7 a.m. this morning. The previous collection from the same box was made at 8 p.m. last night, Yarrow elicited.”
“Then all we really know is that the thing was dropped into the box between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m.”
“Yes, sir. Yarrow secured the original telegram form,” Flamborough continued with a glance at the paper in his hand. “The envelope had been torn open carelessly and dropped into a waste-basket; but Yarrow succeeded in getting hold of it also. There's no doubt about its identity, sir. Yarrow ascertained through whose hands the envelope and the enclosure had passed while they were in charge of the Post Office; and he persuaded all these people to let him have their finger-prints, which he took himself on the spot. He then brought all his material back here and had the envelope and its enclosure examined for finger-prints; and the two documents were photographed after the prints had been brought up on them with a powder.”
“And they found nothing helpful, I suppose?”
“Nothing, so far, sir. Every print that came out belonged to the postman or the sorter, or the telegraphist. There wasn't one of them that could belong to Mr. Justice.”