The Cask

by Freeman Wills Crofts

  A tall, untidy looking man, in threadbare clothes and smoking a short clay, lounged up to the car with his hands in his pockets. Burnley spoke softly without looking round:

  ‘I want to arrest him, Hastings. Point him out when you see him.’

  ‘He’ll pass this way going for his dinner in less than five minutes.’

  ‘Right.’

  The loafer moved forward and idly watched the repairs to the engine. Suddenly he stepped back.

  ‘That’s him,’ he whispered.

  Burnley looked out through the back window of the car and saw a rather short, wiry man coming down the street, dressed in blue dungarees and wearing a grey woollen muffler. As he reached the car, the Inspector stepped quickly out and touched him on the shoulder, while the loafer and the driver closed round.

  ‘Walter Palmer, I am an inspector from Scotland Yard. I arrest you on a charge of stealing a cask. I warn you anything you say may be used against you. Better come quietly, you see there are three of us.’

  Before the dumbfounded man could realise what was happening, a pair of handcuffs had snapped on his wrists and he was being pushed in the direction of the car.

  ‘All right, boss, I’ll come,’ he said as he got in, followed by Burnley and Hastings. The driver started his engine and the car slipped quietly down the road. The whole affair had not occupied twenty seconds and hardly one of the passers-by had realised what was taking place.

  ‘I’m afraid, Palmer, this is a serious matter,’ began Burnley. ‘Stealing the cask is one thing, but breaking into a man’s yard at night is another. That’s burglary and it will mean seven years at least.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking abaht, boss,’ answered the prisoner hoarsely, licking his dry lips, ‘I don’t know of no cask.’

  ‘Now, man, don’t make things worse by lying. We know the whole thing. Your only chance is to make a clean breast of it.’

  Palmer’s face grew paler but he did not reply.

  ‘We know how you brought out the cask to Mr Felix’s about eight o’clock last night, and how, when you had left it there, you thought you’d go back and see what chances there were of getting hold of it again. We know how you hid the dray in a field close by, and then went back down the lane and waited to see if anything would turn up. We know how you learnt the house was empty and that after Mr Felix left you brought the dray back. We know all about your getting over the wall with the barrel loader, and forcing the coach-house door with the wheel-cap wrench. You see, we know the whole thing, so there’s not the slightest use in your pretending ignorance.’

  During this recital the prisoner’s face had grown paler and paler until it was now ghastly. His jaw had dropped and great drops of sweat rolled down his forehead. Still he said nothing.

  Burnley saw he had produced his impression and leant forward and tapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘Look here, Palmer,’ he said. ‘If you go into court nothing on earth can save you. It’ll be penal servitude for at least five, and probably seven, years. But I’m going to offer you a sporting chance if you like to take it.’ The man’s eyes fixed themselves with painful intentness on the speaker’s face. ‘The police can only act if Mr Felix prosecutes. But what Mr Felix wants is the cask. If you return the cask at once, unopened, Mr Felix might—I don’t say he will—but he might be induced to let you off. What do you say?’

  At last the prisoner’s self-control went. He threw up his manacled hands with a gesture of despair.

  ‘My Gawd!’ he cried hoarsely. ‘I can’t.’

  The Inspector jumped.

  ‘Can’t?’ he cried sharply. ‘What’s that? Can’t? What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know where it is. I don’t, I swear. See ’ere, boss,’ the words now poured out of his mouth in a rapid stream, ‘I’ll tell you the truth, I will, swelp me Gawd. Listen to me.’

  They had reached the City and were rapidly approaching Scotland Yard. The Inspector gave instructions for the car to be turned and run slowly through the quieter streets. Then he bent over to the now almost frantic man.

  ‘Pull yourself together and tell me your story. Let’s have the whole of it without keeping anything back, and remember the truth is your only chance.’

  Palmer’s statement, divested of its cockney slang and picturesque embellishments was as follows:

  ‘I suppose you know all about the way Mr Felix hired the dray,’ began Palmer, ‘and painted it in the shed, and about my mate Jim Brown and me?’ The Inspector nodded, and he continued: ‘Then I don’t need to tell you all that part of it, only that Jim and I from the first were suspicious that there was something crooked about the whole business. Mr Felix told us he had a bet on that he could get the cask away without being caught, but we didn’t believe that, we thought he was out to steal it. Then when he told us that stevedore fellow was to be fixed so he couldn’t follow us, we were both quite sure it was a do. Then you know how Felix and I left Jim and him in the bar and went back to the shed and repainted the dray? You know all that?’

  ‘I know,’ said Burnley.

  ‘We waited in the shed till it was getting on towards dusk, and then we got the cask out to Felix’s, and left it swinging in a set of chain blocks in an outhouse. Well, sir, I asked more than twice the pay he’d promised, and when he gave it without a word I was certain he was afraid of me. I thought, “There’s some secret about that cask and he’d be willing to pay to have it kept quiet.” And then it occurred to me that if I could get hold of it, I could charge him my own price for its return. I didn’t mean to steal it. I didn’t, sir, honest. I only meant to keep it for a day or two till he’d be willing to pay a reward.’

  The man paused.

  ‘Well, you know, Palmer, blackmail is not much better than theft,’ said Burnley.

  ‘I’m only telling you the truth, sir; that’s the way it was. I thought I’d try and find out what part of the house Felix slept in and if there were others about, so as to see what chances there’d be of getting the dray up again without being heard, so I hid it in a field as you know, and went up the lane. I don’t think I would have done anything only for Felix going away and saying the house was empty. Then it came over me so strongly how easy everything would be with the coast clear and the cask swinging in the chain blocks. The temptation was too strong for me, and I went back and got in as you said. I suppose you must have been there all the time watching me?’

  The Inspector did not reply, and Palmer went on:

  ‘It happened that for some time I had been going to change my house. There was an empty one close by I thought would suit. I’d got the key on Saturday and looked over it on Sunday. The key was still in my pocket, for I hadn’t had time to return it.

  ‘I intended to drive the dray down the lane behind this house and get the cask off it, then run round and get in from the front, open the yard door, roll the cask in, lock up again and return the dray to the yard. I would make an excuse with the landlord to keep the key for a day or two till I could get the money out of Felix.

  ‘Well, sir, I drove down the lane to the back of the house, and then a thing happened that I’d never foreseen. I couldn’t get the cask down. It was too heavy. I put my shoulder to it, and tried my utmost to get it over on its side, but I couldn’t budge it.

  ‘I worked till the sweat was running down me, using anything I could find for a lever, but it was no good, it wouldn’t move. I went over all my friends in my mind to see if there was any one I could get to help, but there was no one close by that I thought would come in, and I was afraid to put myself in any one’s power that I wasn’t sure of. I believed Jim would be all right, but he lived two miles away and I did not want to go for him for I was late enough as it was.

  ‘In the end I could think of no other way, and I locked the house and drove the dray to Jim’s. Here I met with another disappointment. Jim had gone out about an hour before, and his wife didn’t know where he was or when he’d be in.

  ‘I cursed m
y luck. I was ten times more anxious now to get rid of the cask than I had been before to get hold of it. And then I thought I saw a way out. I would drive back to the yard, leave the cask there on the dray all night, get hold of Jim early in the morning, and with his help take the cask back to the empty house. If any questions were asked I would say Felix had given me instructions to leave it overnight in the yard and deliver it next morning to a certain address. I should hand over ten shillings and say he had sent this for the job.

  ‘I drove to the yard, and then everything went wrong. First, the boss was there himself, and in a vile temper. I didn’t know till afterwards, but one of our carts had been run into by a motor lorry earlier in the evening and a lot of damage done and that had upset him.

  ‘“What’s this thing you’ve got?” he said, when he saw the cask.

  ‘I told him, and added that Felix had asked me to take it on in the morning, handing him the ten shillings.

  ‘“Where is it to go?” he asked.

  ‘Now this was a puzzler, for I hadn’t expected there’d be any one there to ask questions and I had no answer ready. So I made up an address. I chose a big street of shops and warehouses about four miles away—too far for the boss to know much about it, and I tacked on an imaginary number.

  ‘“133 Little George Street,” I answered.

  ‘The boss took a bit of chalk and wrote the address on the blackboard we have for such notes. Then he turned back to the broken cart, and I unyoked the horse from the dray and went home.

  ‘I was very annoyed by the turn things had taken, but I thought that after all it would not make much difference having given the address. I could go to the empty house in the morning as I had arranged.

  ‘I was early over at Jim’s next morning and told him the story. He was real mad at first and cursed me for all kinds of a fool. I kept on explaining how safe it was, for we were both sure Felix couldn’t call in the police or make a fuss. At last he agreed to stand in with me, and it was arranged that he would go direct to the empty house, while I followed with the cask. He would explain his not turning up at the yard by saying he was ill.

  ‘The boss was seldom in when we arrived, but he was there this morning, and his temper was no better.

  ‘“Here, you,” he called, when he saw me, “I thought you were never coming. Get the big gray yoked into the box cart and get away to this address”—he handed me a paper—“to shift a piano.”

  ‘“But the cask,” I stammered.

  ‘“You mind your own business and do what you’re told. I’ve settled about that.”

  ‘I looked round. The dray was gone, and whether he’d sent it back to Felix or to the address I’d given, I didn’t know.

  ‘I cursed the whole affair bitterly, particularly when I thought of Jim waiting at the house. But there was nothing I could do, and I yoked the box cart and left. I went round by the house and told Jim, and I never saw a madder man in all my life. I could make nothing of him, so I left him and did the piano job. I just got back to the yard and was going for dinner when you nabbed me.’

  When the prisoner had mentioned the address in Little George Street, Burnley had given a rapid order to the driver, and the statement had only just been finished when the car turned into the street.

  ‘No. 133, you said?’

  ‘That’s it, sir.’

  No. 133 was a large hardware shop. Burnley saw the proprietor.

  ‘Yes,’ the latter said, ‘we have the cask, and I may say I was very annoyed with my foreman for taking it in without an advice note or something in writing. You can have it at once on your satisfying me you really are from Scotland Yard.’

  His doubts were quickly set at rest, and he led the party to his yard.

  ‘Is that it, Palmer?’ asked Burnley.

  ‘That’s it, sir, right enough.’

  ‘Good. Hastings, you remain here with it till I send a dray. Get it loaded up and see it yourself to the Yard. You can then go off duty. You, Palmer, come with me.’

  Re-entering the car, Burnley and his prisoner were driven to the same destination, where the latter was handed over to another official.

  ‘If Mr Felix will consent not to prosecute,’ said Burnley as the man was being led off, ‘you’ll get out at once.’

  The Inspector waited about till the dray arrived, and, when he had seen with his own eyes that the cask was really there, he walked to his accustomed restaurant and sat down to enjoy a long deferred meal.

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE OPENING OF THE CASK

  IT was getting on towards five when Inspector Burnley, like a giant refreshed with wine, emerged once more upon the street. Calling a taxi, he gave the address of St Malo, Great North Road.

  ‘Now for friend Felix,’ he thought, as he lit a cigar. He was tired and he lay back on the cushions, enjoying the relaxation as the car slipped dexterously through the traffic. Familiar as he was with every phase of London life, he never wearied of the panorama of the streets, the ceaseless movement, the kaleidoscopic colours. The sights of the pavement, the sound of pneus upon asphalt, the very smell of burnt petrol—each appealed to him as part of the alluring whole he loved.

  They passed through the Haymarket and along Shaftesbury Avenue, turned up Tottenham Court Road, and through Kentish Town out on the Great North Road. Here the traffic was less dense and they made better speed. Burnley removed his hat and allowed the cool air to blow on his head. His case was going well. He was content.

  Nearly an hour had passed before he rang the bell at St Malo. Felix opened the door, the visage of Sergeant Kelvin, his watchdog, appearing in the gloom at the back of the hall.

  ‘What luck, Inspector?’ he cried, when he recognised his visitor.

  ‘We’ve got it, Mr Felix. Found it a couple of hours ago. I’ve got a taxi here, and, if convenient for you, we’ll go right in and open the thing at once.’

  ‘Right. I’m sure I am ready.’

  ‘You come along too, Kelvin,’ said the Inspector to his subordinate, and when Felix had got his hat and coat the three men walked up to the taxi.

  ‘Scotland Yard,’ called Burnley, and the car swung round and started citywards.

  As they sped swiftly along, the Inspector gave an account of his day to his companion. The latter was restless and excited, and admitted he would be glad to get the business over. He was anxious about the money, as it happened that a sum of £1000 would just enable him to meet a mortgage, which otherwise would press rather heavily upon him. Burnley looked up sharply when he heard this.

  ‘Did your French friend know that?’ he asked.

  ‘Le Gautier? No, I’m sure he did not.’

  ‘If you take my advice, Mr Felix, you won’t count too much on the cask. Indeed, you should prepare yourself for something unpleasant.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ exclaimed Felix. ‘You hinted that you thought the cask contained something besides the money. What was it?’

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t answer you. The thing was only a suspicion, and we shall learn the truth in so short a time it’s not worth discussion.’

  Burnley having to make a call on some other business, they returned by a different route, coming down to the river near London Bridge. Already the day was drawing in, and yellow spots of light began to gleam in the windows of the palace hotels, and from the murky buildings on the south side. On the comparatively deserted Embankment they made good speed, and Big Ben was chiming the quarter after seven as they swung into the Yard.

  ‘I’ll see if the Chief’s in,’ said Burnley, as they reached his office. ‘He wanted to see the cask opened.’

  The great man was just getting ready to go home, but decided to wait on seeing the Inspector. He greeted Felix politely.

  ‘Singular set of circumstances, Mr Felix,’ he said, as they shook hands. ‘I trust they will remain only that.’

  ‘You’re all very mysterious about it,’ returned Felix. ‘I have been trying to get a hint of the Inspector’s suspicions
but he won’t commit himself.’

  ‘We shall see now in a moment.’

  Headed by Burnley, they passed along a corridor, down some steps and through other passages, until they emerged in a small open yard entirely surrounded by a high, window-pierced building. Apparently in the day-time it acted as a light well, but now in the growing dusk it was itself illuminated by a powerful arc lamp which threw an intense beam over every part of the granolithic floor. In the centre stood the cask, on end, with the damaged stave up.

  The little group numbered five. There were the Chief, Felix, Burnley, Sergeant Kelvin, and another nondescript looking man. Burnley stepped forward.

  ‘This cask is so exceedingly strongly made,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a carpenter to open it. I suppose he may begin?’

  The Chief nodded, and the nondescript man advancing set to work and soon lifted out the pieces of wood from the top. He held one up.

  ‘You see, gentlemen, it’s nearly two inches thick, more than twice as heavy as an ordinary wine cask.’

  ‘That’ll do, carpenter. I’ll call you if I want you again,’ said Burnley, and the man, touching his cap, promptly disappeared.

  The four men drew closer. The cask was filled up to the top with sawdust. Burnley began removing it, sifting it carefully through his fingers.

  ‘Here’s the first,’ he said, as he laid a sovereign on the floor to one side. ‘And another! And another!’

  The sovereigns began to grow into a tiny pile.

  ‘There’s some very uneven-shaped thing here,’ he said again. ‘About the centre the sawdust is not half an inch thick, but it goes down deep round the sides. Lend a hand, Kelvin, but be careful and don’t use force.’

  The unpacking continued. Handful after handful of dust was taken out and, after being sifted, was placed in a heap beside the sovereigns. As they got deeper the operation became slower, the spaces from which the tightly packed dust was removed growing narrower and harder to get at. Fewer sovereigns were found, suggesting that these had been placed at the top of the cask after the remainder of the contents had been packed.