Though self-congratulation is not precisely the same as pride, common experience teaches us that it is usually followed, if not by a fall, at least by a disappointment. French’s satisfaction at his rapid progress was no doubt natural, but its sequel proved an illustration of this unhappy principle.

After his first day’s achievement there followed a period of stagnation. It was not that he did not show energy and industry. On the contrary no one could have done more. Rather was it as if the Fates disapproved his frame of mind and withheld the success which his efforts deserved.

And yet the second day began well. On reaching the Portsmouth police station the next morning news was awaiting him, news moreover which at first sight seemed valuable enough. Shortly before four on the morning of the crime a motor car resembling in every respect that described in his circular was seen passing through Titchfield in the direction of Lee. It was driving fast, but not fast enough to provoke the interference of the constable who observed it. There being nothing to call the man’s special attention to it, he had unfortunately omitted to note its number. But he had noticed on the left running board an object some four or five feet long by six inches in diameter, tied up in canvas and not unlike a bag of large golf clubs.

A second report had come in from Fareham. At about five or a little later a similar car had passed through the town. It had been seen twice, first approaching from the direction of Gosport, and a few moments later leaving on the road towards Bishop’s Waltham. Both the men who had seen it believed that it contained two persons besides the driver, and both had seen the canvas package.

That this car had carried the body of the murdered girl, French had little doubt. It was true that Dr. Lappin had not observed the package. But French believed that this was for the excellent reason that when the doctor passed the car it was not there. For he felt sure that he knew what that package contained. In this carefully planned crime the murderers knew that though they could “borrow” a boat there would be no oars in it. French had little doubt that beneath the canvas cover lay a pair of oars divided into two by some form of socketed joint.

After it had left Fareham the car seemed to have vanished into thin air. In spite of French’s most persistent inquiries no further trace of it could be found. Nor did a single one of the vast army of men who were on the lookout ever identify anyone as a possible actor in the terrible drama.

The clue of the car number had also petered out, though as French had not expected much from it he was the less disappointed. Inquiries had shown that the car bearing the number seen by Dr. Lappin belonged to a well-known Surrey resident of unimpeachable character. There was moreover ample proof that the car had been in the owner’s garage during the entire night of the crime.

As soon as he was satisfied that every agency which could be directed towards the tracing of the car or the gang was working at highest pressure, French went down to Arundel and made exhaustive inquiries into the tragic death of Agatha Frinton. But though he was untiring in his efforts, he found out nothing more than the local police had already reported.

After a week of fruitless work he transferred his activities to Caterham. Here almost immediately he learned an interesting fact. On the third night before the discovery of the tragedy there had been a dance. One of the guests’ homeward way lay past the quarry hole in which the body of Eileen Tucker had been found. There, at about three in the morning he had passed a car standing at the side of the road, the driver bending over his engine. He had stopped and asked if anything was wrong and the man had replied that it was only a dirty plug and that he would have it changed in a few minutes. But though the night was calm he had not heard the car start. Unfortunately he could not describe the driver, except to say that he was tall and spoke with a rather high-pitched voice.

These facts tended to confirm French’s theory that the crime was the work of the same trio as were guilty in the Portsmouth case. But beyond that they helped him not at all. No further trace of the car or its occupant could be found.

Then ensued a period of waiting, heartbreaking to French. In spite of his own efforts and those of his army of helpers no further facts were discovered. No irregularities had taken place in connection with the box office cash at any London cinema. No box office girls had left unexpectedly. Day after day French had to report failure, and each day Chief Inspector Mitchell shook his head and looked grave. “We must get them,” the Chief would say. “If we don’t some other poor girl’s death may lie on our consciences.” To which French could only reply that he knew it, but that everything he could think of was being done.

The strain began to affect his nerves and it must be admitted that not infrequently “Soapy Joe” was anything but saponaceous in manner. Mrs. French soon noticed it and it annoyed her.

“What on earth’s bitten you, Joe?” she asked one evening when absentmindedness and short answers were all that she could extract by a thrilling tale of the next door neighbour’s servant’s delinquencies.

“Nothing,” said French.

“Nothing,” she repeated scornfully. “Don’t tell me a pack of lies. You’ve had something on your mind for the last fortnight. What’s the matter?”

“Well,” French admitted, “I suppose it’s this confounded case. I don’t seem to get any forrader with it. I should have had those three people long before this and I can’t get a line on them anywhere.”

“I thought it was that. Now, I’ll tell you what you’ll do. You’ll put the thing out of your head and take me to the Palladium. Then when we come home I’ll make some tea and you’ll tell me the whole story. Telling it like that will perhaps clear it up in your mind and you’ll see how to get on.”

French did not often bring his business into his home or discuss his cases with his wife. But on certain occasions when he had felt utterly up against it he had put his difficulties before her in detail, and it had not seldom happened that she had made some remark or thrown out some suggestion which when followed up had led him to his goal. He remembered particularly one case when she had practically told him the solution of a problem which he himself had been utterly unable to imagine⁠—that worrying conundrum of the identity of the mysterious Mrs. X in the Gething murder case of Hatton Garden. Suddenly a wave of hope flowed over him. Perhaps in this case also she would, as he put it, “take a notion.”

With a sudden recrudescence of his old energy he jumped to his feet, crossed the room and implanted a wholehearted and resounding kiss on the good lady’s cheek.

“Bless you, Em,” he cried. “You’re not such a bad old sort. We just will. Come along.”

They went along; he, throwing off his depression and in better heart than he had been for many days, enjoying the programme, laughing unaffectedly over the jokes; she, saying little and caring nothing for the show, but full of a tender maternal feeling for this great child in whom all her life was centred.

When they reached home she made the promised tea, but French with amazing sleight of hand managed to transform his portion into a glass of whisky and hot water during its passage from the kitchen. He was not a drinker, but occasionally of an evening or if he met a friend he would take what he called “half a peg.” This evening somehow seemed to require some such form of celebration.

For, illogical though it might be, he had suddenly become wholly optimistic. Far more than he realized he was building on the chance of his wife’s “taking one of her notions.”

Presently they began to discuss the affair, she seated and bending over a piece of sewing, he on his feet and moving restlessly about.

“I don’t see, Emily, that I can tell you very much more about it,” he declared. “I explained it to you before. There have been no fresh developments since then.”

“Huh,” she returned as she drew back her head and looked critically at her work. “Then tell me again.”

Pacing slowly up and down the room, French retold the whole story: the call from Arrowsmith, the interview with Thurza Darke, the checking up of the girl’s story, the appointment in the National Gallery which she failed to keep, the search for her and its tragic end at Portsmouth, the crimes at Arundel and Caterham, and lastly the means which were still in operation to find the criminals.

To all this she seemed to pay but scant attention, eyes and fingers being concentrated on her work. From her manner French never could tell whether she was really listening to him or not, though afterwards he usually found she had grasped every detail. When he had finished he waited eagerly for her comment. But she still remained silent, folding and tacking the corners of her work with apparently no thought for anything else in the world. At last however she spoke, and as her remark took the form of a question, his hopes bounded up.

“You think those three poor girls were all murdered by the same people?” she said slowly.

“Well, don’t you?” he answered. “All three were employed⁠—”

“And Mr. Mitchell thinks so too?”

“Certainly he does. You see, if⁠—”

“And both you and Mr. Mitchell think that they were murdered because they got hold of the secret of this gang?”

“To all intents and purposes, yes. We can’t tell whether the girls actually knew the secret, but they knew enough to be dangerous. We think Thurza Darke may have been followed to the Yard.”

Mrs. French slowly threaded her needle, giving to the operation immense thought and care. Then as if once again able to attend to trifles, she went on:

“If you’re right in that, it follows that these three are up to some pretty serious business. If they would sacrifice three lives to preserve their secret it must be a pretty dangerous or a pretty valuable one?”

“Well, of course, Emily. There can’t surely be any doubt of that?”

French was feeling slightly disappointed and a trifle irritated. This was not like his wife. He had hoped for something more illuminating. But he was not prepared for her next question.

“Have they stopped it?” she asked abruptly.

“Eh?” he returned. “Stopped it? Why, that’s just it. We have no reason to think so. And that’s what’s bothering us most of all. If some other poor girl⁠—”

“Because if they haven’t stopped it it must still be going on.”

“Of course it’s going on, or at least we think so,” he said impatiently. What did she mean by harping on with these obvious facts? “What’s in your mind, Emily? I don’t see what you’re after.”

“Well, if it’s going on now, that should surely give you all you want.”

“All I want?” He stared at her with a sudden thrill. Something was going to come out of this after all! “For heaven’s sake, Emily, what do you mean?”

But Mrs. French was not to be hurried. Deliberately she rearranged her work and started on a new corner.

“Wasn’t that Darke girl upset when you saw her?” she went on slowly.

“Very much so. She thought she⁠—”

“And she had been upset for some time before you saw her?”

“Yes. She thought those ruffians Westinghouse and Style were⁠—”

“And those other two girls? They were upset too before they disappeared?”

“Yes, I found that both had evidently had something on their minds for a considerable time. The people at their boarding houses and at the cinemas had noticed it. But how does that help? It only means that all three knew they were in a tight place.”

“It means far more than that. It gives you all you want so far as I see.”

French swung round in his walk with a gesture of impatience.

“For the love of heaven, Emily, can’t you say what’s in your mind? How does it give me anything?”

“I’ve a good mind to let you think for yourself. You’re not shining just at present, Joseph French.”

He recognized “her way.” Exasperated by it, but thrilled by the possibility of some light really coming, he answered eagerly: “Don’t worry about me, old lady. Get on and let’s have the big idea.”

“Surely it’s simple enough. Cinema box office girls are necessary to this thing, whatever it is. All the girls whom you found mixed up in it showed unmistakable signs of being upset. The thing is still going on. Other girls will therefore be mixed up in it. These girls will therefore be upset. Well, find them.”

For the second time that evening French strode over to his wife and implanted a hearty kiss on her cheek.

“By Jove, old girl, but you lick creation! It’s an idea, that is. Quite an idea.” He swung up and down the room, enthusiastic, then hesitated as a wave of misgiving swept over him.

“Well, what is it?”

The phrase about marriage being the domestication of the Recording Angel passed inconsequently through his mind. He hoped his Emily didn’t always read his thoughts as he answered:

“When those first two girls were put away some crisis in the gang’s affairs must surely have arisen. When the business is running normally they may not be upset at all. It may be running normally now.”

“Well, if it’s running normally there won’t be any more murders, which is what you say you want to guard against,” she answered drily. “If murder is threatened the girls will be upset and that’ll give you warning. Don’t go out of your way to make difficulties.”

It was his only chance. As he lay awake that night thinking over the conversation and viewing his wife’s suggestion more soberly than in his first flush of delight, he felt that, while unpromising, it offered at least a possibility of progress. At all events he decided that next morning he would begin to work on the idea.

He found his new quest a more difficult job than he had anticipated. There was no use in asking the managers of the various London cinemas whether any of the girls under their charge had lately displayed signs of hidden anxiety. So long as the work was done, the managers would neither know nor care. He must in some way observe the girls themselves.

But this was no more easy. It was out of the question for him to scrape acquaintance with all the cinema box office girls in London. It would take him a year. There must be some quicker way.

At last he decided that inquiries from the door porters was his most promising plan. Accordingly he spent some days going round the cinemas. At each he drew the most likely looking man aside and pledged him to secrecy.

“I may tell you,” he began confidentially in each case, “that I am a detective from Scotland Yard and that I am looking for a certain girl who has got into the hands of a gang of crooks. You will understand that it is not the girl personally that we’re after, but the crooks. Got that?”

The men got it without difficulty.

“We don’t know who the girl is, but we know two things about her. First, she is employed in the box office of a London cinema, and second, because of her association with the crooks she will be considerably worried and troubled.

“Now I can’t go round all the box office girls in London to see if they are showing signs of mental trouble. And that is where you come in. You know the girls in your box office. I want you to tell me whether any of them have become worried looking lately as if they were in some trouble. That’s all.”

Upon this the idiosyncrasies of the various men came out. Some were satisfied with the story and immediately gave an intelligent answer. Others required further explanation and much questioning and suggestion before risking an opinion. Still others were suspicious and gave French a lot of trouble before he managed to get their views. Lastly, some were simply stupid. Of these he could make little.

At last after immense labour he obtained the names and addresses of eleven girls, all of whom, according to the porters, seemed to be in trouble of some kind.

His next business was to find out the cause in each case. Here again the problem was horribly difficult. No doubt it could be done by scraping acquaintance with each and in time forcing a confidence. But French had not time for such methods. He had spent long enough on the case as it was, and Mitchell was beginning to hint that he would not stand for his remaining on it much longer.

He began by sending a man round the addresses. Five of them were boarding houses. Other things being equal, he believed the gang would select girls from boarding houses. They had done so before and the reason was not far to seek. Girls who were alone in the world were more defenceless and easier prey than those who had a family behind them. Therefore it would be wise to start with these five girls.

Calling at the boarding houses in turn when the girls would be on duty, he asked to see the landladies.

“I’m sorry to trouble you,” he began in each case, “but I am making some inquiries about Miss Dash, who, I understand, lives here and is employed in the Asterisk Cinema. I advertised recently for a cashier for my business and she has applied. She seems suitable except for one thing. She gives me the impression of being very depressed and melancholy, as if something were preying on her mind. Now I would not care for a girl of that kind. I called therefore to ask whether you could tell me if her depression is temperamental or whether it is caused by some passing trouble from which she is likely to recover.”

Like the porters, the landladies reacted differently to this stimulus. One accepted French’s statement without hesitation and replied volubly that Miss Dash was the best and brightest of girls, but that owing to the recent death of her young man she was temporarily below her usual form. Another was circumspect, but allowed French to understand that it was believed that the course of true love was not running as smoothly as it might be desirable. A third was even more discreet, regretting that she was not in the confidence of her young ladies, while the remaining two evidently assumed sinister designs on French’s part, and would give nothing away.

He realized that he had not gained much from his visits. Even the first two girls were not out of the running, as were they in the clutches of the gang, they might easily have invented the stories told by their landladies in order to prevent suspicion attaching to their manner. But this was not likely and French decided that he would first investigate the lives of the other three, those about whose depression their respective landladies would not talk. These were Miss Lillian Burgess of the Cosmopolitan Cinema in the Haymarket, Miss Molly Moran of the Panopticon in Leicester Square, and Miss Esther Isaacs of the Venetian in the Strand. It wasn’t perhaps very likely, but from one of these he might learn something.