The Loss of the Jane Vosper

by Freeman Wills Crofts

  French swore internally. If this were true, the clocks could not have been used for igniting the bombs. Had they, then, not been bought by Rice? Or, as this seemed demonstrated, had they been bought for some purpose not connected with the Jane Vosper?

  Lest there might be some misunderstanding in Attenborough’s mind as to what exactly he had meant by his question, French pledged him to secrecy, and explained the whole matter at issue. But the result was only to make the man more certain of his ground. Quite definitely the clocks could not have been kept running for several days unless they had been wound each day, though had they thus been kept running the alarm action could have been altered to operate at the end of days instead of hours.

  French then concentrated on the appearance of the purchaser. Here White had not been so observant as in the matter of the clocks themselves. He could not give a clear description of the man. All the same, such details as he did remember were certainly consistent with the view that he was Rice.

  French left the shop in a very puzzled frame of mind. Here was what looked like an entirely convincing clue, and it had, so to speak, turned to dust in his hand. He wondered if Attenborough’s view were correct, and presently he thought that another opinion was desirable. He therefore called on Mr Wilbraham of St James’ Street, an expert consulted by the Yard on clock and watch matters.

  But Wilbraham completely substantiated all that Attenborough had said. The escapement of slow-action clocks, such as those which run for a year without rewinding, was totally different to that of the alarms sold, and the latter could not be altered in any way to make them go for several days with one winding.

  It was clear, then, that whatever the clocks had been used for, it was not for bombs to sink the Jane Vosper. French saw that he might wipe out the whole affair from his mind.

  He found it less easy to do in practice. That Rice had bought the clocks, he was satisfied. What had he wanted them for?

  Then a further idea occurred to him, a simple idea which should, with any luck, give him his proof. How he had come to miss so obvious a line of research he couldn’t think. The more he considered the matter the more incomprehensible his failure seemed.

  If Rice had blown up the Jane Vosper, he would have required some explosives with which to construct his bombs. Explosives are not easy to come by, and their acquirement is, therefore, correspondingly easy to trace. Could French prove that explosives had been obtained?

  He saw now that it was an investigation which should have been put in hand days ago. What if it were connected with the loss of the ship rather than the death of Sutton? He had long since come to the conclusion that these affairs could not be separated.

  He returned to his room and set to work. Suppose Rice had required explosives, how would he have obtained them?

  There seemed to be four possible ways: either he could have bought them direct, somehow getting the necessary licence, or he could have obtained them from some recognized source by a trick of some kind, or he could have stolen them, or he could have made them in a laboratory.

  The first way French thought extremely difficult – so difficult as for practical purposes to be out of the question. A genuine certificate would not be granted by the police without such an enquiry as Rise could not have borne, and a forged one would present even greater obstacles still. To get the form alone would be next to impossible. French did not think he need waste time over this idea.

  To have obtained explosives by a trick did not seem feasible either. Of course, it depended on the trick; but French could think of none which would be likely to succeed. This heading he thought he might also dismiss, at least for the present.

  To steal the stuff seemed a more promising proposition, as, given careful preparation and ordinary luck, it should not be a difficult matter to break into some isolated magazine. French put the idea on one side till he should consider the fourth possibility – the making of the explosive in a laboratory.

  Here the difficulties were of another kind. It would be easy to make an explosive, but very hard to obtain the necessary chemicals secretly. French did not believe that Rice would have risked buying them, and he could see no other way in which they could have been obtained.

  On the whole, then, the third method, that of direct theft, seemed the most likely. It would be best, at all events, to try it first.

  French began by inserting a notice in next day’s Police Gazette. He was anxious to know of any thefts of explosives which had taken place during the critical six weeks. To sink a ship by explosions in the hold would take a considerable amount of stuff. Therefore trifling cases need not be taken into account.

  Soon the answers began to come in. Of major thefts there were three. The first was a burglary at a gunsmith’s at Leeds. A quantity of both arms and ammunition was stolen. The police, however, had a clue to the thief, and though they could not prove that their suspect was guilty, there was not very much doubt about it.

  In the second case a quantity of gelignite and detonators was stolen from a quarry near Bangor. Here there was no clue whatever.

  The third instance was that of blasting powder and fuse missing from a road contractor’s store near Penrith. Here again there was no clue.

  French considered these three cases. On the face of it the second was the most likely from his point of view, as gelignite and detonators were far more suitable for ship destruction than either gun ammunition or blasting powder. The date of No. 2 was also more promising, No. 1 being a little early and No. 3 a little late. French decided he would concentrate on the Bangor quarry.

  He began by ringing up the Bangor police to ask if they had any further information on the case. They replied that they had not, and that the matter remained a complete mystery. French then said he might possibly be interested, and a meeting at Bangor police station was arranged.

  Next morning he and Carter left Euston by the Irish Mail and shortly after two o’clock reached Bangor. It was many years since French had been along that strip of Welsh coast, and he enjoyed every foot of the way. He had forgotten how fine the scenery was, and, as was usual when he travelled anywhere he admired, he decided he would spend his next holiday in the district.

  At the police station Superintendent Evans greeted him with cordiality. He hoped, he said, that French was going to help them to clear up what had been a puzzling case. He needn’t say that all their information and resources were at his, French’s, disposal.

  French explained enough about the Jane Vosper to enable Evans to appreciate the object of his enquiries. The super was extremely interested and said that such a possibility had not occurred to him. The most he had visualized was an attempt to do some legitimate blasting without the formality of a licence.

  ‘I suggest you come out and see the place,’ went on Evans. ‘I’ll go with you if you like, and we’ll take Inspector Griffiths, who was in charge of the case.’

  Nothing could have pleased French more. In five minutes they were in the super’s car, bowling along the Carnarvon road. A mile or so outside the town they turned left up towards the higher ground, and soon came to Llandelly, the townland containing the quarry.

  The next half-hour reminded French vividly of the Joymount-Chayle case he had had a year or two earlier down on Southampton Water. There the question of a theft of explosives had arisen, and there he had also visited a quarry, very similar to this one, and for a very similar purpose. There it was to see whether explosives could have been stolen, not to clear up an actual case of theft. But, apart from this, the two visits were practically identical.

  Here, as at Joymount, was the great face from which the stone was taken, with its benches and precipices and faults, the noisy chuffing drills, the heaps of fallen stone, the Decauville tramways, and the men posted like flies here and there on the rock. There was the pit containing the crushers at the base of the towering stone bins, the elevators carrying up the crushed material, and the usual office and power sheds. And, what interested French even mo
re, there was, quarter of a mile away, the small stone-built explosives store.

  Superintendent Evans saw the foreman, and, through him, the charge hand whose business it was to attend to the explosives. As at Joymount, this proved to be a workman of a superior type. He was responsible for the working of the store. He held the only key kept at the quarry, and no one else was allowed into the store. He gave out all the explosives and was responsible for keeping a tally of what was in stock.

  He had not, however, a great deal to tell about the theft. On Monday morning, 2nd September, he had gone as usual to the store to count out the explosive required for the dinner-hour blasts. He had found the door closed, but unfastened. It had been forced with something like a small bar or jemmy. Inside there was no sign of anything having been interfered with, but he had immediately counted his stores and found that both gelignite and detonators had disappeared. Some 40 sticks of gelignite were gone, and he thought about a dozen detonators, though as the latter were so small, he could not be sure of the exact number. He had at once reported the matter to his foreman, who had sent for the police.

  Inspector Griffiths then took up the tale. He had made an examination of the site. He had searched most carefully for footprints and fingerprints, but without finding either. Nor had he been able to find any small article which the thief might have dropped. He had, however, found one object which he had hoped might prove a clue, though unhappily it had not done so. This was a tiny fragment of wool or frieze or serge, which had caught in a splinter of one of the shelves. It was at the police station, and he would hand it over to French. The super had had it examined by an expert, who said it was tweed of a certain type. He, the sergeant, had then made the obvious enquiries, but had not been able to find anyone who wore this sort of tweed. The suggestion, therefore, was that it was the thief’s, and that he was a stranger in the district. He should perhaps have mentioned that during the search for fingerprints he had found clear traces of gloves. Enquiries as to anyone having been seen about the quarry had yielded nothing.

  Superintendent Evans then described how he had had general enquiries made in the neighbourhood with the same object. No stranger had been observed anywhere in the district during the whole of that weekend. On Saturday night, however, a Ford van had been seen parked in a deserted lane some half-mile from the quarry. The farm-hand who had observed it lived close by, and if French would care to see him he had only to say the word.

  French thought that, when he had come so far, he might as well see all that was to be seen. The superintendent accordingly led the way back to his car.

  ‘Here,’ he said, after a couple of minutes’ drive, ‘is where the car was seen. You will notice that it’s a very secluded place, hidden from casual observation by those trees, and a vehicle might well stand here for hours without being seen.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ French answered, looking about him. ‘Why should a vehicle be hidden here if not in connection with the theft?’

  ‘Quite; we appreciated the point. The sergeant went into it and could find no reason whatever. Nor could he find anyone who could explain it. No one had been called on, or anything of that sort.

  ‘The man who saw it lives up this lane,’ the super went on. ‘We might walk up.’

  As they walked French could not keep out of his mind the point that the van was a Ford. Was it the van which had carried the timber and other materials to the Redliff Lane shed? The affair was certainly promising.

  The farm-hand, when eventually they ran him to earth, had not a great deal to tell. On the Saturday night in question he had been at a dance at a neighbouring farmhouse. He had gone about eight, and it was while on his way that he had seen the van. The night was dark, but he had passed close beside it. It was an ordinary 30-cwt Ford covered van, but he had not observed the number. No, there was nothing remarkable about it whatever. He had returned home about two in the morning, and the van was then gone.

  At the police station, on their return to Bangor, French was handed a tiny splinter of wood, cut from the explosive store shelf, and containing in a crack the little bit of tweed. It was so small – a few woolly hairs – as to be barely visible, and French’s congratulations of the sergeant’s observation was no mere formal politeness.

  French was considerably interested to notice that the tweed was grey in colour. On the few occasions when Rice had been seen in cold weather, he had been wearing a grey overcoat. French grew more and more eager as he thought that here was cumulative evidence. That a Ford van should enter into both enquiries meant little. That the same should be true of a grey overcoat was of slight importance. But that both a Ford van and a grey overcoat should be common to each was a quite different proposition. It made distinctly probable the idea that there really was a connection.

  It was dark when they returned to the police station, which greatly disappointed French, as he had hoped to have had time to go down to the Strait to see the bridges. However, he had to be content with inviting Evans to dinner, before catching a train for Town.

  On reaching the Yard, he sent the bit of tweed over to their technical adviser for further examination. Then, with Carter, he set off once again to the Redliff Lane shed.

  ‘We might somewhere have missed a bit of this stuff,’ he urged, though he did not think it very likely. ‘We’ll go over every scrap of wood that Rice might have come up against when wearing his overcoat. If we could get a bit of the same stuff in the shed it would give us a big lift forward.’

  They searched all the morning with meticulous care, but without success. French was disappointed in spite of his previous pessimism.

  ‘Come along to that hotel,’ he went on doggedly. ‘The coat might have been hung up somewhere in that bedroom, and, if so, we might get a few hairs there.’

  If perseverance and thoroughness could have achieved success, French would have succeeded. But neither of these qualities, admirable though they were, could find non-existent objects. There was no wool in the bedroom either, and at last the two men returned to the Yard.

  There he found that a complete specification of the cloth from which the wool had been torn had been received from the expert. He reported that, should the tweed be found, it should be easy to identify.

  But could the tweed be found? For some time French sat thinking at his desk, then he drafted a paragraph for insertion into all journals likely to be read by the cloth manufacturers of the Midlands and elsewhere. He said that Yard officers had found a scrap of the tweed on the site of a serious crime, and that they were anxious to trace its manufacture in the hope of finding the coat from which the scrap had been torn. Would any manufacturer who had made such a material kindly advise the Yard in confidence? Then followed the technical specification.

  French realized the extremely tenuous nature of the clue. Conceivably the manufacturer might be found, though this, of course, was very far, indeed, from being certain. But if he were found, the real difficulty would only begin. The tweed might have been sent to scores of tailors, and each of those tailors might have made scores of coats from it. Unless Rice had bought the coat in his own name, it would probably be impossible to trace it to him. Of course, in such investigations there was always the chance of some supplementary evidence coming out which would give the necessary lead. It would not do to neglect the possibility, at all events. French felt that he must do all that he could, and then hope for the best.

  Having sent out his paragraph, he went wearily home.

  -14-

  MUTE WITNESS

  The next three days proved to be the most disappointing and unproductive that French had experienced since the case began. He worked as hard as ever, but he accomplished nothing. None of his enquiries led to a result. Every line he tried petered out or reached a point from which he was unable to carry it further.

  He grew steadily more and more discouraged. It wasn’t that he was short of facts. There were plenty of facts, but he couldn’t connect them up. He was at a complete s
tandstill, not only as to the death of Sutton, but equally as to the blowing up of the Jane Vosper. And nowhere could he see a line of research which he had overlooked, or which promised to give him what he wanted.

  And it was small comfort to think, as he sometimes did, that he had been up against things to an equal extent many times in the past. Again and again in his cases he had reached a dreadful and exasperating position from which he could visualize no further progress. Again and again failure had stared him in the face. And in many of these self-same cases he had ultimately succeeded. Many an investigation which had ended triumphantly for him had looked as badly as this one during at least some part of its progress. But he hadn’t always pulled off his cases. These deadlocks hadn’t invariably freed themselves. Until he got a fresh start, he knew that the fear of failure would grow more and more insistent.

  It was, therefore, enormously to his relief that on the fourth morning he found on arrival at the Yard that news had come in. It was not the news he wanted, but it was news, and better than nothing. The manufacturer of the tweed had been found.

  At least if that was not quite proven, it was probable. Mr Blott, the managing director of the Huxtable Wheatley Weaving Company of Bradford, wrote to say that during the last six years his company had made a tweed which seemed to conform in all respects with that specified. He enclosed a sample which would enable the Yard experts to say whether or not it was what they sought.

  For several hours French remained on tenterhooks while the experts made tests and looked through microscopes. Then in the afternoon came the reply he had expected. The sample was in every respect like that found at Llandelly, but there was not a sufficient quantity of the latter to set the matter beyond doubt. Though probable, it was therefore not certain that Mr Blott’s firm was that required.