The Cask, Freeman Wills Crofts [snow like ashes series .txt] 📗

on this matter, and am satisfied the cask is for Mr. Felix and should be delivered immediately.

“On receipt of this letter please hand it over to Mr. Felix without further delay.

“As the Company is liable for its delivery at the address it bears, please accompany it as the representative of the Company, and report to me of its safe arrival in due course.

“For the I. and C.S.N. Co., Ltd.,

“X. Avery,

“per X. X.,

“Managing Director.”

The initials shown “X” were undecipherable and were apparently written by a person in authority, though curiously the word “Avery” in the same hand was quite clear.

“It’s written on your Company’s paper anyway,” said the Inspector to Broughton. “I suppose that heading is yours and not a fake?”

“It’s ours right enough,” returned the clerk, “but I’m certain the letter’s a forgery for all that.”

“I should imagine so, but just how do you know?”

“For several reasons, sir. Firstly, we do not use that quality of paper for writing our own servants; we have a cheaper form of memorandum for that. Secondly, all our stuff is typewritten; and thirdly, that is not the signature of any of our clerks.”

“Pretty conclusive. It is evident that the forger did not know either your managing director’s or your clerks’ initials. His knowledge was confined to the name Avery, and from your statement we can conceive Felix having just that amount of information.”

“But how on earth did he get our paper?”

Burnley smiled.

“Oh, well, that’s not so difficult. Didn’t your head clerk give it to him?”

“By Jove! sir, I see it now. He got a sheet of paper and an envelope to write to Mr. Avery. He left the envelope and vanished with the sheet.”

“Of course. It occurred to me when Mr. Avery told me of the empty envelope. I guessed what he was going to do, and therefore I hurried to the docks in the hope of being before him. And now about that label on the cask. You might describe it again as fully as you can.”

“It was a card about six inches long by four high, fastened on by tacks all round the edge. Along the top was Dupierre’s name and advertisement, and in the bottom right-hand corner was a space about three inches by two for the address. There was a thick, black line round this space, and the card had been cut along this line so as to remove the enclosed portion and leave a hole three inches by two. The hole had been filled by pasting a sheet of paper or card behind the label. Felix’s address was therefore written on this paper, and not on the original card.”

“A curious arrangement. How do you explain it?”

“I thought perhaps Dupierre’s people had temporarily run out of labels and were making an old one do again.”

Burnley replied absently, as he turned the matter over in his mind. The clerk’s suggestion was of course possible, in fact, if the cask really contained a statue, it was the likely one. On the other hand, if it held a body, he imagined the reason was further to seek. In this case he thought it improbable that the cask had come from Dupierre’s at all and, if not, what had happened? A possible explanation occurred to him. Suppose some unknown person had received a statue from Dupierre’s in the cask and, before returning the latter, had committed a murder. Suppose he wanted to get rid of the body by sending it somewhere in the cask. What would he do with the label? Why, what had been done. He would wish to retain Dupierre’s printed matter in order to facilitate the passage of the cask through the Customs, but he would have to change the written address. The Inspector could think of no better way of doing this than by the alteration that had been made. He turned again to his visitors. “Well gentlemen, I’m greatly obliged to you for your prompt call and information, and if you will give me your addresses, I think that is all we can do tonight.”

Inspector Burnley again made his way home. But it was not his lucky night. About half-past nine he was again sent for from the Yard. Someone wanted to speak to him urgently on the telephone.

III The Watcher on the Wall

At the same time that Inspector Burnley was interviewing Broughton and Harkness in his office, another series of events centring round the cask was in progress in a different part of London.

Police Constable Z76, John Walker in private life, was a newly-joined member of the force. A young man of ideas and of promise, he took himself and his work seriously. He had ambitions, the chief of which was to become a detective officer, and he dreamed of the day when he would have climbed to the giddy eminence of an Inspector of the Yard. He had read Conan Doyle, Austin Freeman, and other masters of detective fiction, and their tales had stimulated his imagination. His efforts to emulate their heroes added to the interest of life and, if they did not do him very much good, at least did him no harm.

About half-past six that evening, Constable Walker, attired in plain clothes, was strolling slowly along the Holloway Road. He had come off duty shortly before, had had his tea, and was now killing time until he could go to see the second instalment of that thrilling drama, Lured by Love, at the Islington Picture House. Though on pleasure bent, as he walked he kept on practising observation and deduction. He had made a habit of noting the appearance of the people he saw and trying to deduce their histories and, if he did not succeed in this so well as Sherlock Holmes, he hoped he would some day.

He looked at the people on the pathway beside him, but none of them seemed a good subject for study. But as his gaze swept over the vehicles in