“What’s what?”
“The Telephone Directory, of course. The man who brought the new volumes and took the old away. Since when has the Post Office taken to getting both new volumes out at once?”
“By Jove!” exclaimed Parker.
“I should think it was, by Jove. Ring up now and find out whether two new volumes were sent round to Mountjoy’s address today.”
“It’ll be a job to get hold of O.C. Directories at this time of night.”
“So it will. Wait a moment. Ring up the flats and ask if anybody else received any Directories this morning. My experience is that even Government departments do these things in batches, and don’t make a special journey to every subscriber.”
Parker acted on this suggestion. After a little trouble, he succeeded in getting into touch with three other occupants in the same block as Mountjoy’s flat. All three gave the same answer. They had received a new L-Z volume about a fortnight previously. The new A-K volume was not yet due to be issued. One man went further. His name was Barrington, and he had only recently moved in. He had inquired when the new A-K volume would be out with his new ’phone number, and had been told that it would probably be issued in October.
‘That settles it,” said Wimsey. “Our friend Mountjoy kept his secrets in the telephone directory. That great work contains advertisements, post-office regulations and names and addresses, but particularly names and addresses. May we conclude that the secret nestled among the names and addresses? I think we may.”
“It seems reasonable.”
“Very reasonable. Now, how do we set about discovering those names and addresses?”
“Bit of a job. We can probably get a description of the man who called for the books this morning-”
“And comb London’s teeming millions for him? Had we but world enough and time. Where do good telephone directories go when they die?”
“The pulping-mills, probably.”
“And the last exchange of the L-Z volume was made a fortnight ago. There’s a chance that it hasn’t been pulped yet. Get on to it, Charles. There’s more than a chance that it, too, was marked, and that the markings were transferred at each exchange from the old book to the new one.”
“Why? Mountjoy might easily have kept the old marked set by him.”
“I fancy not, or we should have either found it or heard about it from the manservant. The stranger came; the two current volumes were handed to him and he went away satisfied. As I see the plan, the whole idea would be to use the current volume, so as to rouse no suspicion, have nothing to conceal and provide a convenient mechanism for getting rid of the evidence at short notice.”
“You may be right. It’s a chance, as you say. I’ll get on to the telephone people first thing in the morning.”
The tide of luck seemed to have turned. A morning’s strenuous work revealed that the old directories had already been dispatched by the sackful to the pulping-mills, but had not, so far, been pulped. Six workers, toiling over the weekend among L-Z volumes collected from the Kensington District, brought to light the pleasing fact that nine people out of ten marked their directories in some way or another. Reports came pouring in. Wimsey sat with Parker in the latter’s office at Scotland Yard and considered the reports.
Late on Sunday night, Wimsey raised his head from a sheaf of papers.
“I think this is it, Charles.”
“What is it?” Parker was weary and his eyes blood-shot with strain, but a note of hope was in his voice.
“This one. A whole list of public-houses in Central London have been ticked off-three in the middle of the L’s, two near the end of the M’s, one in the N’s, one in the O’s, and so forth and so on, including two in the middle of the W’s. The two in the W’s are the White Stag in Wapping and the White Stoat off Oxford Street. The next W after that is the White Swan in Covent Garden. I would bet any money that in the new volume that was carried away, the White Swan was duly ticked off in its turn.”
“I’m not quite sure what you’re driving at.”
“I’m making rather a long cast, but I suggest this. When the stuff comes up to London of a Thursday, I think it is taken to which ever pub. stands next on the list in the directory. One week it will be a pub. with a name in A-say the Anchor. Next week it will be a B-the Bull & Dog, or the Brickmaker’s Arms. The week after that, it will be a C, and so on to W,X,Y,Z-if there are any. The people who have to call for their dope wander into the pub. indicated, where it is slipped to them by the head distributor and his agents, probably quite without the knowledge of the proprietor. And since it never comes twice to the same place, your pretty policemen can go and talk parrots and goats in the White Swan till they are blue in the face. They ought to have been at the Yellow Peril or the York & Lancaster.”
“That’s an idea, Peter. Let’s look at that list again.”
Wimsey handed it over.
“If you’re right, then this week was W week, and next week will be X week. That’s unlikely. Say Y week. The next Y after the last one ticked is the Yelverton Arms in Soho. Wait a minute, though. If they have been taking them in alphabetical order, why have they got right down to the end of the M’s in one case and only to WH in the other?”
“They must have been through the W’s once, and be starting again.”
“Yes-I suppose there are quite a lot of M’s. But then there are hundreds of W’s. Still, we’ll try it, Peter, any way. What is it, Lumley?”
“Report from the hospital, sir. Puncheon has come round.”
Parker glanced through the report.
“Much what we expected,” he said, handing the paper to Wimsey. “Mountjoy evidently knew he was being followed. He put through a telephone call at Piccadilly Tube Station, and started off on a wild scamper across London.”
“That was how the gang came to be ready for him.”
“Yes. Finding he couldn’t shake Puncheon off, he lured him into the Museum, got him into a quiet corner and laid him out. Puncheon thinks he was slugged with a weapon of some kind. So he was. He did not speak to Mountjoy. In fact, this report tells us nothing we didn’t know, except that, when Puncheon first saw him, Mountjoy was buying an early copy of the Morning Star from a man outside the office.”
“Was he? That’s interesting. Well, keep your eye on the Yelverton Arms.”
“And you keep your eye on Pym’s. Do remember that what we want is the man at the top.”
“So does Major Milligan. The man at the top is very much sought after. Well, cheerio! If I can’t do anything more for you, I think I’ll tootle off to bed. I’ve got my Whifflets scheme to get out tomorrow.”
“I like this scheme, Mr. Bredon,” said Mr. Pym, tapping his finger on the drafts submitted to him. “It has Breadth. It has Vision. More than anything else, Advertising needs Vision and Breadth. That is what determines Appeal. In my opinion, this scheme of yours has Appeal. It is going to be expensive, of course, and needs some working out. For instance, if all these vouchers were cashed in at once, it would send up the cost per packet issued to a figure that the profits could not possibly cover. But I think that can be got over.”
“They won’t all be cashed in at once,” said Mr. Armstrong. “Not if we mix them up sufficiently. People will want time to collect and exchange. That will give us a start. They’ve got to look on the cost of the thing as so much advertising expenditure. We shall want a big press splash to start it, and after that, it will run itself quite happily in small spaces.”
“That’s all very well, Armstrong, but we’ve got to think of ourselves.”
“That’s all right. We make all the arrangements with the hotels and railways and so forth and charge our fee or commission on the work. All we’ve got to do is to average the thing out so that the claims won’t amount to more than their estimated appropriation, for the month. If the thing goes big they’ll be willing enough to increase the appropriation. The other thing we’ve got to do is to see that each coupon bears more or less the same actual cash value, so as not to get into trouble with the Lottery Act. The whole thing comes down to this. How much of the profit on each shilling packet are they prepared to spend in advertising? Remembering that this scheme, if properly put through, is going to sweep every other fag off the market for the time being. Then we make our coupons up to that value minus an appropriation for the opening press campaign. At present their appropriation is sixty thousand and their sales… have we got that report on sales?”