Inspector French's Greatest Case

In the vast organisation of Scotland Yard the indexing of information on every available subject has been brought to something more than a fine art. If French had wished to know the number of inhabitants of Prague, the favourite recreations of the Elder Brethren of Trinity House, or the width of the Ganges at Allahabad, some notes or books of reference would immediately have been forthcoming which would have fully supplied the desired information. How much more when the question was merely one of trains and steamers. He had not long to wait for an answer to his telephone, and this revealed the fact that the Booth liner Enoch, which had left Liverpool on the previous afternoon, called at Havre, Oporto, Lisbon, Madeira, and Para, before completing her voyage to Manáos by a sail of a thousand miles up the Amazon. Moreover, she awaited at Havre the arrival of the Southhampton boat, the connection of which left Waterloo at 9: 30 on the night of the 27th.

"Tonight! " French thought as he hastily glanced at his watch. It was just 8: 42. What a stroke of luck! He would travel by it, and with any reasonable good fortune he would have these Vanes safe in his clutches before another dozen hours had passed.