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

would come in, and I was afraid to put myself in anyone’s power that I wasn’t sure of. I believed Jim would be all right, but he lived two miles away and I did not want to go for him for I was late enough as it was.

“In the end I could think of no other way, and I locked the house and drove the dray to Jim’s. Here I met with another disappointment. Jim had gone out about an hour before, and his wife didn’t know where he was or when he’d be in.

“I cursed my luck. I was ten times more anxious now to get rid of the cask than I had been before to get hold of it. And then I thought I saw a way out. I would drive back to the yard, leave the cask there on the dray all night, get hold of Jim early in the morning, and with his help take the cask back to the empty house. If any questions were asked I would say Felix had given me instructions to leave it overnight in the yard and deliver it next morning to a certain address. I should hand over ten shillings and say he had sent this for the job.

“I drove to the yard, and then everything went wrong. First, the boss was there himself, and in a vile temper. I didn’t know till afterwards, but one of our carts had been run into by a motor-lorry earlier in the evening and a lot of damage done and that had upset him.

“ ‘What’s this thing you’ve got?’ he said, when he saw the cask.

“I told him, and added that Felix had asked me to take it on in the morning, handing him the ten shillings.

“ ‘Where is it to go?’ he asked.

“Now this was a puzzler, for I hadn’t expected there’d be anyone there to ask questions and I had no answer ready. So I made up an address. I chose a big street of shops and warehouses about four miles away⁠—too far for the boss to know much about it, and I tacked on an imaginary number.

“ ’133 Little George Street,’ I answered.

“The boss took a bit of chalk and wrote the address on the blackboard we have for such notes. Then he turned back to the broken cart, and I unyoked the horse from the dray and went home.

“I was very annoyed by the turn things had taken, but I thought that after all it would not make much difference having given the address. I could go to the empty house in the morning as I had arranged.

“I was early over at Jim’s next morning and told him the story. He was real mad at first and cursed me for all kinds of a fool. I kept on explaining how safe it was, for we were both sure Felix couldn’t call in the police or make a fuss. At last he agreed to stand in with me, and it was arranged that he would go direct to the empty house, while I followed with the cask. He would explain his not turning up at the yard by saying he was ill.

“The boss was seldom in when we arrived, but he was there this morning, and his temper was no better.

“ ‘Here, you,’ he called, when he saw me, ‘I thought you were never coming. Get the big gray yoked into the box cart and get away to this address’⁠—he handed me a paper⁠—‘to shift a piano.’

“ ‘But the cask,’ I stammered.

“ ‘You mind your own business and do what you’re told. I’ve settled about that.’

“I looked round. The dray was gone, and whether he’d sent it back to Felix or to the address I’d given, I didn’t know.

“I cursed the whole affair bitterly, particularly when I thought of Jim waiting at the house. But there was nothing I could do, and I yoked the box cart and left. I went round by the house and told Jim, and I never saw a madder man in all my life. I could make nothing of him, so I left him and did the piano job. I just got back to the yard and was going for dinner when you nabbed me.”

When the prisoner had mentioned the address in Little George Street, Burnley had given a rapid order to the driver, and the statement had only just been finished when the car turned into the street.

“No. 133, you said?”

“That’s it, sir.”

No. 133 was a large hardware shop. Burnley saw the proprietor.

“Yes,” the latter said, “we have the cask, and I may say I was very annoyed with my foreman for taking it in without an advice note or something in writing. You can have it at once on your satisfying me you really are from Scotland Yard.”

His doubts were quickly set at rest, and he led the party to his yard.

“Is that it, Palmer?” asked Burnley.

“That’s it, sir, right enough.”

“Good. Hastings, you remain here with it till I send a dray. Get it loaded up and see it yourself to the Yard. You can then go off duty. You, Palmer, come with me.”

Re-entering the car, Burnley and his prisoner were driven to the same destination, where the latter was handed over to another official.

“If Mr. Felix will consent not to prosecute,” said Burnley as the man was being led off, “you’ll get out at once.”

The Inspector waited about till the dray arrived, and, when he had seen with his own eyes that the cask was really there, he walked to his accustomed restaurant and sat down to enjoy a long deferred meal.

VIII The Opening of the Cask

It was getting on towards five when Inspector Burnley, like a giant refreshed with wine, emerged once more upon the street. Calling a taxi, he gave the address of St. Malo, Great North Road.

“Now for friend Felix,” he thought, as he lit a cigar. He was tired and he lay back on the cushions, enjoying the relaxation as the car slipped