The Cask - Freeman Wills Crofts (universal ebook reader .TXT) 📗

I tell you I am playing a little trick on you. I apologise.

“You remember Dumarchez? Well, he and I had an argument about you last week. We were discussing the ingenuity and resource of criminals in evading the police. Your name happened to be mentioned, and I remarked what a splendid criminal a man of your inventive talents would make. He said ‘No,’ that you were too transparently honest to deceive the police. We got hot about it and finally arranged a little test. I have packed your money in a cask, in English sovereigns⁠—there are 988 of them⁠—and am booking it to you, carriage paid, by the Insular and Continental Steam Navigation Company’s boat from Rouen, due in London about Monday, 5th April. But I am addressing it to ‘M. Léon Felix, 141 West Jubb Street, Tottenham Court Road, London, W,’ and labelling it ‘Statuary only,’ from Dupierre et Cie., the monumental sculptors of Grenelle. It will take some ingenuity to get a falsely addressed and falsely described cask away from the steamer officials without being suspected of theft. That is the test. I have bet Dumarchez an even 5,000 francs that you will do it. He says you will certainly be caught.

“I send you my best congratulations on the greatness of your coup, of which the visible evidence goes to you in the cask, and my only regret is that I shall be unable to be present to see you open it.

“With profound apologies,

“Yours very truly,

“Alphonse Le Gautier.”

“P.S.⁠—Please excuse the typewriter, but I have hurt my hand.”

“I don’t know whether pleasure at the unexpected windfall of nearly £1,000, or annoyance at Le Gautier’s test with the cask was my strongest emotion. The more I thought of this part of it, the more angry I became. It was one thing that my friends should amuse themselves by backing their silly theories it was quite another that I should be the victim and scapegoat of their nonsense. Two things obviously might lead to complications. If it came out that a cask labelled ‘Statuary’ contained gold, suspicion would be aroused, and the same thing would happen if anyone discovered the address to be false. The contents of the cask might be questioned owing to the weight⁠—that I did not know; the false address might come to light if an advice note of the cask’s arrival was sent out, while there was always the fear of unforeseen accidents. I was highly incensed, and I determined to wire early next morning to Le Gautier asking him not to send the cask, and saying I would go over and get the money. But to my further annoyance I had a card by the first post which said that the cask had already been despatched.

“It was clear to me then that I must make arrangements to get it away as soon as possible after the boat came in, and before inquiries began to be made. I accordingly made my plans and, as I did so, my annoyance passed away and I got interested in the sporting side of the affair. First, I had a few cards of the false address printed. Then I found an obscure carting contractor, from whom I hired a four-wheeled dray and two men, together with the use of an empty shed for three days.

“I had found out that the Steam Navigation boat would be due on the following Monday, and on the preceding Saturday I brought the men and the dray to the shed and prepared them for what I wanted done. To enlist their help and prevent them becoming suspicious, I gave the former a qualified version of Le Gautier’s story. I told them I had made a bet and said I wanted their help to pull it off. A certain cask was coming in by the Rouen boat, addressed to a friend of mine, and he had bet me a large sum that I could not get this cask from the steamer people and take it to my house, while I held that I could. The point was to test the effectiveness of the ordinary business precautions. In order, I told the men, that no real trouble should arise and that I should not, in the event of failure, be charged with theft, my friend had given me a written authorisation to take the cask. This I had written out previously and I showed it to them. Finally, I promised them two pounds each if we succeeded.

“I had got a couple of pots of quick-drying blue and white paint, and I altered the lettering on the dray to that of the address my Paris friend had put on the cask. I am skilful at this kind of work and I did it myself.

“On Monday morning we drove to the docks, and I found the Bullfinch had just come in with the Paris goods aboard. She was discharging casks from the forehold, and I strolled along the wharf and had a look at the work. The casks coming ashore were wine-casks, but I noticed one at the side of the hold, over which one of the dockers and a young man who looked like a clerk were bending. They seemed very engrossed, and of course I wondered, ‘Is this my cask, and have they discovered the gold?’ I spoke to the young man, found that the cask was mine, and asked him if I could get it away at once.

“He was quite polite, but would not help me, referring me to the quay office and offering to take me there and find a clerk to attend to me. As we were leaving he called out to the man at the cask, ‘You understand, Harkness, to do nothing till you hear from Mr. Avery.’ ”

At the wharf office the young man left me in the outer office while he went, as he said, to get the proper clerk for my work. But he returned