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

And lastly, if all these failed, there was left advertisement. A judiciously worded notice with a reward for information of identity would almost certainly draw. Burnley felt he was well supplied with clues. Many and many a thorny problem he had solved with far less to go on.

He continued turning the matter over in his mind in his slow, painstaking way until a sudden plunge into a tunnel and a grinding of brakes warned him they were coming into Dover.

The crossing was calm and uneventful. Before they passed between the twin piers at Calais the sun had burst out, the clouds were thinning, and blue sky showing in the distance.

They made a good run to Paris, stopping only at Amiens, and at 5:45 precisely drew slowly into the vast, echoing vault of the Gare du Nord. Calling a taxi, the Inspector drove to a small private hotel he usually patronised in the rue Castiglione. Having secured his room, he re-entered the taxi and went to the Sûreté, the Scotland Yard of Paris.

He inquired for M. Chauvet, sending in his letter of introduction. The Chief was in and disengaged, and after a few minutes delay Inspector Burnley was ushered into his presence.

M. Chauvet, Chef de la Sûreté, was a small, elderly man with a dark, pointed beard, gold-rimmed glasses, and an exceedingly polite manner.

“Sit down, Mr. Burnley,” he said in excellent English, as they shook hands. “I think we have had the pleasure of cooperating with you before?”

Burnley reminded him of the Marcelle murder case.

“Ah, of course, I remember. And now you are bringing us another of the same kind. Is it not so?”

“Yes, sir, and a rather puzzling one also. But I am in hopes we have enough information to clear it up quickly.”

“Good, I hope you have. Please let me have, in a word or two, the briefest outline, then I shall ask you to go over it again in detail.”

Burnley complied, explaining in half a dozen sentences the gist of the case.

“The circumstances are certainly singular,” said the Chief. “Let me think whom I shall put in charge of it with you. Dupont is perhaps the best man, but he is engaged on that burglary at Chartres.” He looked up a card index. “Of those disengaged, the best perhaps are Cambon, Lefarge, and Bontemps. All good men.”

He stretched out his hand to the desk telephone.

“Pardon me, sir,” said Burnley. “I don’t want to make suggestions or interfere in what is not my business, but I had the pleasure of cooperating with M. Lefarge in the Marcelle case, and if it was quite the same I should very much like to work with him again.”

“But excellent, monsieur. I hear you say that with much pleasure.”

He lifted his desk telephone, pressing one of the many buttons on its stand.

“Ask M. Lefarge to come here at once.”

In a few seconds a tall, clean-shaven, rather English looking man entered.

“Ah, Lefarge,” said the Chief. “Here is a friend of yours.”

The two detectives shook hands warmly.

“He has brought us another murder mystery and very interesting it sounds. Now, Mr. Burnley, perhaps you would let us hear your story in detail.”

The Inspector nodded, and beginning at the sending of the clerk Tom Broughton to check the consignment of wine at the Rouen steamer, he related all the strange events that had taken place, the discovery of the cask, and the suspicions aroused, the forged note, the removal of the cask, the getting rid of Harkness, the tracing and second disappearance of the cask, its ultimate recovery, its sinister contents, and finally, a list of the points which might yield clues if followed up. The two men listened intently, but without interrupting. After he had finished they sat silently in thought.

“In one point I do not quite follow you, Mr. Burnley,” said the Chief at last. “You appear to assume that this murdered woman was a Parisienne. But what are your reasons for that?”

“The cask came from Paris. That is certain, as you will see from the steamship’s documents. Then the letter to Felix purports to be from a Parisian, a M. Le Gautier, and both it and the note pinned to the body were typed on French paper. Further, the label on the cask bore the name of a Paris firm.”

“It does not seem to me very conclusive. The cask admittedly came from Paris, but might not Paris have been only the last stage of a longer journey? How, for example, do we know that it was not from London, or Brussels, or Berlin, in the first instance, and rebooked at Paris with the object of laying a false scent? With regard to the letter, I understand you did not see the envelope. Therefore it does not seem to be evidence. As for the French paper, Felix had been frequently in France, and he might be responsible for that. The label, again, was a re-addressed old one. Might it not therefore have been taken off some quite different package and put on the cask?”

“I admit the evidence is far from conclusive, though it might be said in answer to your first point about the re-addressing of the cask in Paris, that such would involve a confederate here. In any case it seemed to both our Chief and myself that Paris should be our first point of inquiry.”

“But yes, monsieur, in that I entirely agree. I only wished to make the point that you have no real evidence that the solution of the problem lies here.”

“I’m afraid we have not.”

“Well, to proceed. As you have suggested, the first point is to ascertain if anyone resembling the dead woman has disappeared recently. Your doctor says that she has been dead for a week or longer, but I do not think that we can confine our inquiries to that period only. She might have been kidnapped and held a prisoner for a considerable time previous to her death. I should say that it is not likely, but it may have happened.”

He lifted his telephone, pressing