A man mysteriously murdered at night, the figures 2x4 x 1x2 scrawled on his shirt front, a broken shoe-polish label beside him. Cleek solved it. Can you?

Thomas W Hanshew (1857-1914), who also wrote as Charlotte Mary Kingsley, was an American author and actor best known for his stories of Hamilton Cleek, the man of the forty faces, who through his talents for disguise solves crime and mystery in London. He wrote some books in collaboration with his wife, Mary E Hanshew.