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

with a man that was evidently the manager, and I knew at once that something was wrong. This opinion was confirmed when the manager began raising objection after objection to letting the cask go.

“Some judicious questions elicited the fact that ‘Mr. Avery’ was the managing director in the head office in Fenchurch Street. I left the wharf office, sat down on some boxes, and thought out the situation.

“It was clear that something had aroused the suspicions of the clerk and the docker, Harkness, and the former’s remark to the latter to do nothing without instructions from Mr. Avery seemed to mean that the matter was to be laid before that gentleman. To ‘do nothing’ evidently meant to hold on to the cask. If I were to get my property it was clear I must see to the supplying of those instructions myself.

“I went to Fenchurch Street and asked for Mr. Avery. Fortunately for me he was engaged. I said I could not wait, and asked for a sheet of paper and envelope on which to write him a note. By the simple expedient of sealing and addressing the empty envelope, I thus provided myself with a sheet of paper bearing the firm’s heading.

“I dropped into a bar and, ordering some ale, borrowed a pen and ink. Then I composed a letter from Mr. Avery to Harkness, instructing him to hand over the cask at once to me.

“While I was writing this it occurred to me that if this man’s suspicions were really seriously aroused, he would probably follow the cask and thus trace me to my house. I lost another quarter of an hour pondering this problem. Then an idea occurred to me, and I added a paragraph saying that as the Navigation Company had contracted to deliver the cask at an address in the city, he, Harkness, was to accompany it and see that it reached its destination safely.

“I wrote the letter in the round hand of a junior clerk, signing it ‘The I. and C. S. N. Co., Ltd., per’ in the same hand, and ‘Avery’ with an undecipherable initial in another kind of writing, and another ‘per,’ and then two not very clear initials. I hoped in this way to mislead Harkness, if he happened to know the genuine signature.

“It was my design to get Harkness away from the ship with the cask and my own men, when I hoped to find some way of giving him the slip. This I eventually did by instructing one of the men to clamour for a drink, and the other, a man named Watty, to refuse to leave the horse when I invited the party to a bar for some beer. On the plea of relieving Watty, I left Harkness and the other man drinking in the bar, and slipped away with Watty and the dray. Then he and I went back to the shed and I ran a coat of paint over the dray, restoring it to its original brown and painting out the fictitious name. In the evening we brought the dray home, timing ourselves to arrive here after dark, and unloaded the cask in one of the outhouses, where it now is.”

When Felix ceased speaking, the two men sat in silence for several minutes while Burnley turned the statement over in his mind. The sequence of events was unusual, but the story hung together, and, as he went over it in detail, he could see no reason why it should not, from Felix’s point of view, be true. If Felix believed his friend’s letter, as he appeared to, his actions were accounted for, and if the cask really contained a statue, the letter might explain the whole thing. On the other hand, if it held a corpse, the letter was a fraud, to which Felix might or might not be party.

Gradually, as he pondered, the matter shaped itself into three main considerations.

First, there was Felix’s general bearing and manner. The Inspector had a long and varied experience of men who told the truth and of men who lied, and all his instincts led him to believe this man. He was aware that such instincts are liable to error⁠—he had himself erred on more than one occasion in the past⁠—yet he could not overlook the fact that Felix’s bearing, as far as his impression went, was that of a sincere and honest man. Such a consideration would not be a decisive factor in his conclusion, but it would undoubtedly weigh.

Secondly, there was Felix’s account of his actions in London. Of the truth of this the Inspector had already received considerable independent testimony. He reviewed the chain of events and was surprised to find how few statements of Felix were unsupported. His first visit to the Bullfinch had been described in almost similar terms by Broughton and by Huston in the wharf office. His call at the Fenchurch Street office and the ruse by which he obtained the shipping company’s headed notepaper had been testified to by Mr. Avery and his chief clerk, Wilcox. His description of the letter he had written to Harkness was certainly accurate from the Inspector’s own knowledge. His account of the removal of the cask and the shaking off of Harkness was in agreement with the statement of the latter and finally, Felix’s description of the removal of the cask to its present resting place was fully corroborated by Constable Walker.

There was practically no part of the statement unsupported by outside evidence. In fact, Inspector Burnley could not recall any case where so much confirmation of a suspect’s story was forthcoming. Weighing the matter point by point, he came to the deliberate conclusion that he must unreservedly believe it.

So much for Felix’s actions in London. But there was a third point⁠—his actions in Paris, culminating in the letter of his friend. The letter. That was the kernel of the nut. Was it really written under the circumstances described? Had Le Gautier written it? Was there even