then offering him a chair.
'I see you are reading the latest news,' he said, indicating my newspaper, 'I am very glad that man Bryan is defeated. Now we shall have better times.'
I waved my hand as I took my chair again. I will discuss many things with Spenser Hale, but not American politics; he does not understand them. It is a common defect of the English to suffer complete ignorance regarding the internal affairs of other countries.
'It is surely an important thing that brought you out on such a night as this. The fog must be very thick in Scotland Yard.'
This delicate shaft of fancy completely missed him, and he answered stolidly,—
'It's thick all over London, and, indeed, throughout most of England.'
'Yes, it is,' I agreed, but he did not see that either.
Still a moment later he made a remark which, if it had come from some people I know, might have indicated a glimmer of comprehension.
'You are a very, very clever man, Monsieur Valmont, so all I need say is that the question which brought me here is the same as that on which the American election was fought. Now, to a countryman, I should be compelled to give further explanation, but to you, monsieur, that will not be necessary.'
There are times when I dislike the crafty smile and partial closing of the eyes which always distinguishes Spenser Hale when he places on the table a problem which he expects will baffle me. If I said he never did baffle me, I would be wrong, of course, for sometimes the utter simplicity of the puzzles which trouble him leads me into an intricate involution entirely unnecessary in the circumstances.
I pressed my fingertips together, and gazed for a few moments at the ceiling. Hale had lit his black pipe, and my silent servant placed at his elbow the whisky and soda, then tiptoed out of the room. As the door closed my eyes came from the ceiling to the level of Hale's expansive countenance.
'Have they eluded you?' I asked quietly.
'Who?'
'The coiners.'
Hale's pipe dropped from his jaw, but he managed to catch it before it reached the floor. Then he took a gulp from the tumbler.
'That was just a lucky shot,' he said.
'Parfaitement,' I replied carelessly.
'Now, own up, Valmont, wasn't it?'
I shrugged my shoulders. A man cannot contradict a guest in his own house.
'Oh, stow that!' cried Hale impolitely. He is a trifle prone to strong and even slangy expressions when puzzled. 'Tell me how you guessed it.'
'It is very simple, mon ami. The question on which the American election was fought is the price of silver, which is so low that it has ruined Mr. Bryan, and threatens to ruin all the farmers of the west who possess silver mines on their farms. Silver troubled America, ergo silver troubles Scotland Yard.
'Very well, the natural inference is that someone has stolen bars of silver. But such a theft happened three months ago, when the metal was being unloaded from a German steamer at Southampton, and my dear friend Spenser Hale ran down the thieves very cleverly as they were trying to dissolve the marks off the bars with acid. Now crimes do not run in series, like the numbers in roulette at Monte Carlo. The thieves are men of brains. They say to themselves, "What chance is there successfully to steal bars of silver while Mr. Hale is at Scotland Yard?" Eh, my good friend?'
'Really, Valmont,' said Hale, taking another sip, 'sometimes you almost persuade me that you have reasoning powers.'
'Thanks, comrade. Then it is not a theft of silver we have now to deal with. But the American election was fought on the price of silver. If silver had been high in cost, there would have been no silver question. So the crime that is bothering you arises through the low price of silver, and this suggests that it must be a case of illicit coinage, for there the low price of the metal comes in. You have, perhaps, found a more subtle illegitimate act going forward than heretofore. Someone is making your shillings and your half-crowns from real silver, instead of from baser metal, and yet there is a large profit which has not hitherto been possible through the high price of silver. With the old conditions you were familiar, but this new element sets at nought all your previous formulae. That is how I reasoned the matter out.'
'Well, Valmont, you have hit it. I'll say that for you; you have hit it. There is a gang of expert coiners who are putting out real silver money, and making a clear shilling on the half-crown. We can find no trace of the coiners, but we know the man who is shoving the stuff.'
'That ought to be sufficient,' I suggested.
'Yes, it should, but it hasn't proved so up to date. Now I came tonight to see if you would do one of your French tricks for us, right on the quiet.'
'What French trick, Monsieur Spenser Hale?' I inquired with some asperity, forgetting for the moment that the man invariably became impolite when he grew excited.
'No offence intended,' said this blundering officer, who really is a good-natured fellow, but always puts his foot in it, and then apologises. 'I want someone to go through a man's house without a search warrant, spot the evidence, let me know, and then we'll rush the place before he has time to hide his tracks.'
'Who is this man, and where does he live?'
'His name is Ralph Summertrees, and he lives in a very natty little bijou residence, as the advertisements call it, situated in no less a fashionable street than Park Lane.'
'I see. What has aroused your suspicions against him?'
'Well, you know, that's an expensive district to live in; it takes a bit of money to do the trick. This Summertrees has no ostensible business, yet every Friday he goes to the United Capital Bank in Piccadilly, and deposits a bag of swag, usually all silver coin.'
'Yes, and this money?'
'This money, so far as we can learn, contains a good many of these new pieces which never saw the British Mint.'
'It's not all the new coinage, then?'
'Oh, no, he's a bit too artful for that. You see, a man can go round London, his pockets filled with new coinage five-shilling pieces, buy this, that, and the other, and come home with his change in legitimate coins of the realm—half-crowns, florins, shillings, sixpences, and all that.'
'I see. Then why don't you nab him one day when his pockets are stuffed with illegitimate five-shilling pieces?'
'That could be done, of course, and I've thought of it, but you see, we want to land the whole gang. Once we arrested him, without knowing where the money came from, the real coiners would take flight.'
'How do you know he is not the real coiner himself?'
Now poor Hale is as easy to read as a book. He hesitated before answering this question, and looked confused as a culprit caught in some dishonest act.
'You need not be afraid to tell me,' I said soothingly after a pause. 'You have had one of your men in Mr. Summertrees' house, and so learned that he is not the coiner. But your man has not succeeded in getting you evidence to incriminate other people.'
'You've about hit it again, Monsieur Valmont. One of my men has been Summertrees' butler for two weeks, but, as you say, he has found no evidence.'
'Is he still butler?'
'Yes.'
'Now tell me how far you have got. You know that Summertrees deposits a bag of coin every Friday in the Piccadilly bank, and I suppose the bank has allowed you to examine one or two of the bags.'
'Yes, sir, they have, but, you see, banks are very difficult to treat with. They don't like detectives bothering round, and whilst they do not stand out against the law, still they never answer any more questions than they're asked, and Mr. Summertrees has been a good customer at the United Capital for many years.'
'Haven't you found out where the money comes from?'
'Yes,