He had the general’s gift of foretelling his enemy’s movements. Jim called the next morning at the lawyer’s office in Theobald’s Road; and when the dour clerk denied him an interview, he produced his card. ‘Take that to Mr Ellenbury. I think he will see me,’ he said. The clerk returned in a few seconds and ushered him into a cupboard of a place which could not have been more than seven feet square. Mr Ellenbury rose nervously from behind his microscopic desk and offered a limp, damp hand. ‘Good morning, Inspector,’ he said. ‘We do not get many visitors from Scotland Yard. May I inquire your business?’ ‘I am making inquiries regarding the death of a woman named Gibbins,’ said the visitor. Mr Ellenbury was not startled. He bowed his head slowly. ‘She was the woman taken out of the Regent’s Canal some weeks ago; I remember the inquest,’ he said.
