The Pit-Prop Syndicate - Freeman Wills Crofts (red queen ebook .TXT) 📗

but it would be goodbye to any chance of getting his confederates.

After anxious thought he decided to take the lesser risk. He would not bring assistants into the matter, but would trust to his own skill to carry on the investigation unnoticed by the distiller.

Though the discovery of Archer’s identity seemed greatly to strengthen the probability that the secret telephone led to him, Willis could not state this positively, and he felt it was the next point to be ascertained. The same argument that he had used before seemed to apply⁠—that owing to the difficulty of wiring, the point of connection must be close to the depot. Archer’s office was not more than three hundred yards away, while his house, The Elms, was over a mile. The chances were therefore in favour of the former.

It followed that he must begin by searching Archer’s office for the other receiver, and he turned his attention to the problem of how this could best be done.

And first, as to the lie of the offices. He called at the Electric Generating Station, and having introduced himself confidentially to the manager in his official capacity, asked to see the man whose business it was to inspect the lights of the distillery. From him he had no difficulty in obtaining a rough plan of the place.

It appeared that the offices were on the first floor, fronting along the line, Archer’s private office occupying the end of the suite and the corner of the building nearest to the syndicate’s wharf, and therefore to Ferriby. The supervisor believed that it had two windows looking to the front and side respectively, but was not sure.

That afternoon Inspector Willis returned to the distillery, and secreting himself in the same hiding place as before, watched until the staff had left the building. Then strolling casually along the lane, he observed that the two telephone wires which approached across the fields led to the third window from the Ferriby end of the first floor row.

“That’ll be the main office,” he said to himself, “but there will probably be an extension to Archer’s own room. Now I wonder⁠—”

He looked about him. The hedge bounding the river side of the lane ran up to the corner of the building. After another hasty glance round Willis squeezed through and from immediately below scrutinised the side window of the managing director’s room. And then he saw something which made him chuckle with pleasure.

Within a few inches of the architrave of the window there was a down-spout, and from the top of the window to the spout he saw stretching what looked like a double cord. It was painted the same colour as the walls, and had he not been looking out specially he would not have seen it. A moment’s glance at the foot of the spout showed him his surmise was correct. Pushed in behind it and normally concealed by it were two insulated wires, which ran down the wall from the window and disappeared into the ground with the spout.

“Got it first shot,” thought the inspector delightedly, as he moved away so as not to attract the attention of any chance onlooker.

Another idea suddenly occurred to him and, after estimating the height and position of the window, he turned and ran his eye once more over his surroundings. About fifty yards from the distillery, and behind the hedge fronting the lane, stood the cottage which Hilliard and Merriman had noticed. It was in a bad state of repair, having evidently been unoccupied for a long time. In the gable directly opposite the managing director’s office was a broken window. Willis moved round behind the house, and once again producing his bent wire, in a few moments had the back door open. Slipping inside, he passed through the damp-smelling rooms and up the decaying staircase until he reached the broken window. From it, as he had hoped, he found he had a good view into the office.

He glanced at his watch. It was ten minutes past seven.

“I’ll do it tonight,” he murmured, and quietly leaving the house, he hurried to Ferriby Station and so to Hull.

Some five hours later he left the city again, this time by motor. He stopped at the end of the lane which ran past the distillery, dismissed the vehicle, and passed down the lane. He was carrying a light, folding ladder, a spade, a field telephone, a coil of insulated wire, and some small tools.

The night was very dark. The crescent moon would not rise for another couple of hours, and a thick pall of cloud cut off all light from the stars. A faint wind stirred the branches of the few trees in the neighbourhood and sighed across the wide spaces of open country. The inspector walked slowly, being barely able to see against the sky the tops of the hedges which bounded the lane. Except for himself no living creature seemed to be abroad.

Arrived at his destination, Willis felt his way to the gap in the hedge which he had used before, passed through, and with infinite care raised his ladder to the window of Archer’s office. He could not see the window, but he checked the position of the ladder by the measurements from the hedge. Then he slowly ascended.

He found he had gauged his situation correctly, and he was soon on the sill of the window, trying with his knife to push back the hasp. This he presently accomplished, and then, after an effort so great that he thought he would be beaten, he succeeded in raising the sash. A minute later he was in the room.

His first care was to pull down the thick blinds of blue holland with which the windows were fitted. Then tiptoeing to the door, he noiselessly shot the bolt in the lock.

Having thus provided against surprise, he began his investigation. There in the top corner of the side window were the wires. They followed the miter of the window architrave⁠—white-enameled