Explore "A Front of Brass" by Fred M. White on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was strange that the disappearance of Paul Spencer did not create the sensation that it might have done. There were all the elements of a 'popular' mystery, but as a matter of fact outside business circles there was very little comment. Only the lynx eye of Scotland Yard was turned steadily that way. The officials there had their own theory, of course, but as yet they had made little progress.
They did not even know as much as Inspector Manley from Fairford, and his discovery he had kept to himself up to a certain point. If he had any luck here it might mean some big promotion. If he could only work it out, he had the clue of the mystery. He was certain that the solution lay in that forged telegram. But he could not say why any criminal should forge a telegram when it was so easy to get a false message in an assumed name through the Post Office. Why had the miscreant gone to all this apparently unnecessary trouble?