Inspector French and the Sea Mystery. Freeman Crofts Wills
to our stern. Then we’ll beach it on the lifeboat slip and when the tide falls it will be left high and dry. We can examine it then and get our hooks.’
Evan approving of the plan, they proceeded to carry it out. They made the rope fast round the after thwart, then taking the oars, pulled slowly in shore. As they drew nearer the current lessened, until off Burry Port they were in almost still water. Slowly they glided past a line of sandhills which presently gave place first to houses and works and then to a great deposit of copper slag like a stream of lava which had overflowed into the sea. Finally rounding the east mole, they entered Burry Port harbour.
Having manœuvred the boat over the lifeboat slip, they cast off the rope and the crate settled down in five feet of water. Then with a bight of the rope, they made the boat fast.
‘Now for that supper,’ Mr Morgan suggested. ‘By the time we’ve had it our treasure trove will be high and dry, and we can come down and see what it is.’
An hour later father and son were retracing their steps to the harbour. Mr Morgan looked business-like with a hammer, a cold chisel, and a large electric torch. It was still a lovely evening, but in a few minutes it would be dark.
As Mr Morgan had foretold, the crate was high and dry, and they examined it with interest in the light of the torch. It was a strongly made wooden box about three feet by two by two. All round at top and bottom were strengthening cross pieces, and it was beneath the upper of these that the two flukes of the grappling had caught.
‘Well and truly hooked,’ Mr Morgan remarked. ‘We must have drifted across the thing, and when we pulled up the grappling it slid up the side till it caught the cross piece. It’s a good job for us, for now we shall get our grappling and our hooks as well.’
Evan fidgeted impatiently.
‘Don’t mind about them, Dad; we can unfasten them later. Open the box. I want to see what’s in it.’
Mr Morgan put his cold chisel to the joint of the lid and began to hammer.
‘Strictly speaking, we shouldn’t do this,’ he declared as he worked. ‘We should have handed the thing over to Manners. It’s a job for the coastguards. However, here goes!’
The crate was strongly made, and though Mr Morgan was a good amateur carpenter, it took him several minutes to open it. But at last one of the top boards was prized up. Instantly both became conscious of a heavy, nauseating smell.
‘A case of South American meat or something gone west,’ Mr Morgan commented. ‘I don’t know that I’m so keen on going on with this job. Perhaps we can see what it is without opening it up further.’
Holding his breath, he put his eye to the slit and shone in a beam from the electric torch. Then with a sharp intaking of the breath, he rose.
‘It’s a disgusting smell,’ he said in rather shaky tones. ‘Let’s go round and ask Manners to finish the job.’
‘Let me look in, Dad.’
‘Right, old man. But come round with me first to see Manners.’
With some difficulty Mr Morgan drew his son away. He was feeling sick and shaken. For beneath that well-fitting lid and sticking up out of the water which still remained in the crate, was a gruesome and terrible object—the bent head and crouching body of a man dressed in under clothes only and in an advanced state of decomposition!
It was all Mr Morgan could do to crush down the horror which possessed him and to pretend to the boy that nothing was amiss. Evan must not be allowed to see that ghastly sight! It would haunt his young mind for weeks. Mr Morgan led the way round the harbour, across the dock gates and towards the road leading to the town.
‘But aren’t we going to Manners?’ Evan queried, hanging back.
‘Not tonight, if you don’t mind, old chap. That smell has made me rather sick. We can go down in the morning. The tide should be right after breakfast.’
Evan demurred, suggesting that he alone should interview the coastguard. But he was what Mr Morgan called ‘biddable,’ and when his father showed that he was in earnest he allowed the subject to drop.
In due course they reached home. Discreet suggestion having resulted in Evan’s settling down with his meccano, Mr Morgan felt himself at liberty. He explained casually that he wanted to drop into the club for an hour, and left the house. In ten minutes he was at the police station.
‘I’ve made a discovery this evening, sergeant, which, I’m afraid, points to something pretty seriously wrong,’ he explained, and he told the officer in charge about the hooking of the crate. ‘I didn’t want my son to see the body—he’s rather young for that sort of thing—so we went home without my saying anything about it. But I’ve come back now to report to you. I suppose you, and not Manners, will deal with it?’
Sergeant Nield bore a good reputation in Burry Port as an efficient and obliging officer, as well as a man of some reading and culture. He listened to Mr Morgan’s recital with close attention and quietly took charge.
‘Manners would deal with it at first, Mr Morgan,’ he answered, ‘but he would hand over to us when he saw what the object was. I think we’ll call for him on the way down, and that will put the thing in order. Can you come down now, sir?’
‘Certainly, that’s what I intended.’
‘Then we’ll get away at once. Just let me get my bicycle lamp.’ He turned to a constable. ‘Williams, you and Smith get another light and take the handcart down to the lifeboat slip. Watson, take charge in my absence. Now, Mr Morgan, if you are ready.’
It was quite dark as the two men turned towards the harbour. Later there would be a quarter moon, but it had not yet risen. The night was calm and fine, but a little sharpness was creeping into the air. Except for the occasional rush of a motor passing on the road and sounds of shunting from the docks, everything was very still.
‘Just where did you say you found the crate, Mr Morgan?’ the sergeant asked.
‘Off Llanelly; off the sea end of the breakwater and on the far side of the channel.’
‘The Gower side? Far from the channel?’
‘The Gower side, yes. But not far from the channel; I should say just on the very edge.’
‘You didn’t mark the place?’
‘Not with a buoy. I hadn’t one, and if I had I should not have thought it worthwhile. But I took bearings. I could find the place within a few feet.’
‘I suppose you’ve no idea as to how the crate might have got there?’
‘Not the slightest. I have been wondering that ever since I learned what was in it. What do you think?’
‘I don’t know, sir, unless it has been dropped off a steamer or been washed into the Inlet from some wreck. We’ll get it to the station and examine it, and maybe we shall find where it came from. If you wait here a second I’ll get hold of Manners.’
They had reached the coastguard’s house, and the sergeant ran up to the door. In a few seconds he returned with a stout, elderly man who gave Mr Morgan a civil good evening.
‘It’s your job, of course, Tom,’ the sergeant was saying, ‘but it’ll be ours so soon that we may as well go down together. Perhaps, sir, you’ll tell Manners about how you found the crate and brought it in?’
By the time Mr Morgan had finished his story for the second time they had reached the boatslip. The sergeant and Manners peeped into the crate in turn.
‘Yes, sir, it’s just what you said,’ the former remarked. ‘It’s a man by the look of him and he’s been dead some time. I think we’ll have the whole affair up to the station before we open any more at it. What do you say, Tom?’
‘Right you are, sergeant, I’ll go with you. I shall ’ave to put in a report about the thing, but