e the laundry inquiry
first thing in the morning. Now let me alone. I want to think."

CHAPTER XXXV

Sir Hilary Thornton had come to Heldon Foyle's stocktaking. The
superintendent, with a mass of papers on the desk in front of him,
talked swiftly, now and again referring to the typewritten index of
reports and statements in order to verify some point. The Assistant
Commissioner occasionally interpolated some question, but for the most
part he remained gravely silent. Foyle recapitulated the events of the
preceding day.

"It was sheer foolishness, Sir Hilary," he admitted bitterly. "If we
hadn't blundered Grell would have been in our hands now. As it is, we
have to begin the search for him all over again."

Through the open window came the rumble of a motor-omnibus used by the
police to test applicants for licenses. Thornton swung the window close.

"You still think that Grell had a hand in it?"

"I'm never positive, Sir Hilary, when it is a question of circumstantial
evidence. But there can be no question that if he is not guilty himself
he knows who is. I am so certain that I had a schedule of witnesses made
out for the Treasury. Here they are."

He selected a sheet of paper and passed it to the other. Thornton read
it and handed it back without comment.

"There are gaps in it, of course," went on Foyle. "As a matter of
evidence, though, practically all we want is to identify the
finger-prints. They of themselves would determine the investigation.
But we can't tell whether they are Grell's or not until we get hold of
him. We've identified the linen found in the bag on the barge as having
been bought for Grell, but there is no name or initials on the bag
itself. I have not yet heard from Wrington. He may have something
further to report. About Goldenburg. I got Pinkerton's to look into his
career in America. They have discovered that five years ago he was in
San Francisco for three months, and at that time he was apparently well
supplied with money. Grell arrived there a month before he left, and
they left the city within a day of each other."

"A coincidence."

"It may be or may not. Grell's movements were pretty well chronicled in
the American Press at that time, and it is at any rate conceivable that
Goldenburg went there with the express intention of meeting him. More
than that, Grell was staying at the Waldorf Astoria in New York two
years ago. Goldenburg went straight there from India--which he