The Cask. Freeman Wills Crofts
slung up through the hatches, the nervousness caused by the slip not having yet subsided. None of them therefore saw what had taken place, and Broughton and Harkness had picked up the coins before any of them turned round. Six sovereigns had come out, and the clerk added them to the five he already had, while he and his companion unostentatiously searched for others. Not finding any, they turned back to the cask deeply mystified.
‘Open that crack a bit more,’ said Broughton. ‘What do you think about it?’
‘Blest if I know what to think,’ replied the foreman. ‘We’re on to something mighty queer anyway. ’Old my cap under the crack till I prize out that there bit of wood altogether.’
With some difficulty the loose piece of the stave was hammered up, leaving a hole in the side of the barrel some six inches deep by nearly four wide. Half a capful of sawdust fell out, and the clerk added to it by clearing the broken edge of the wood. Then he placed the cap on the top of the cask and they eagerly felt through the sawdust.
‘By Jehoshaphat!’ whispered Harkness excitedly, ‘it’s just full of gold!’
It seemed to be so, indeed, for in it were no fewer than seven sovereigns.
‘That’s eighteen in all,’ said Broughton, in an awed tone, as he slipped them into his pocket. ‘If the whole cask’s full of them it must be worth thousands and thousands of pounds.’
They stood gazing at the prosaic looking barrel, outwardly remarkable only in its strong design and good finish, marvelling if beneath that commonplace exterior there was indeed hidden what to them seemed a fortune. Then Harkness crouched down and looked into the cask through the hole he had made. Hardly had he done so when he sprang back with a sudden oath.
‘Look in there, Mr. Broughton!’ he cried in a suppressed tone. ‘Look in there!’
Broughton stooped in turn and peered in. Then he also recoiled, for there, sticking up out of the sawdust, were the fingers of a hand.
‘This is terrible,’ he whispered, convinced at last they were in the presence of tragedy, and then he could have kicked himself for being such a fool.
‘Why, it’s only a statue,’ he cried.
‘Statue?’ replied Harkness sharply. ‘Statue? That ain’t no statue. That’s part of a dead body, that is. And don’t you make no mistake.’
‘It’s too dark to see properly. Get a light, will you, till we make sure.’
When the foreman had procured a hand-lamp Broughton looked in again and speedily saw that his first impression was correct. The fingers were undoubtedly those of a woman’s hand, small, pointed, delicate, and bearing rings which glinted in the light.
‘Clear away some more of the sawdust, Harkness,’ said the young man as he stood up again. ‘We must find out all we can now.’
He held the cap as before, and the foreman carefully picked out with the cold chisel the sawdust surrounding the fingers. As its level lowered, the remainder of the hand and the wrist gradually became revealed. The sight of the whole only accentuated the first impression of dainty beauty and elegance.
Broughton emptied the cap on to the top of the cask. Three more sovereigns were found hidden in it, and these he pocketed with the others. Then he turned to re-examine the cask.
It was rather larger than the wine-barrels, being some three feet six high by nearly two feet six in diameter. As already mentioned, it was of unusually strong construction, the sides, as shown by the broken stave, being quite two inches thick. Owing possibly to the difficulty of bending such heavy stuff, it was more cylindrical than barrel shaped, the result being that the ends were unusually large, and this no doubt partly accounted for Harkness’s difficulty in upending it. In place of the usual thin metal bands, heavy iron rings clamped it together.
On one side was a card label, tacked round the edges and addressed in a foreign handwriting: ‘M. Léon Felix, 141 West Jubb Street, Tottenham Court Road, London, W., via Rouen and long sea,’ with the words ‘Statuary only’ printed with a rubber stamp. The label bore also the sender’s name: ‘Dupierre et Cie., Fabricants de la Sculpture Monumentale, Rue Provence, Rue de la Convention, Grenelle, Paris.’ Stencilled in black letters on the woodwork was ‘Return to’ in French, English, and German, and the name of the same firm. Broughton examined the label with care, in the half-unconscious hope of discovering something from the handwriting. In this he was disappointed, but, as he held the hand-lamp close, he saw something else which interested him.
The label was divided into two parts, an ornamental border containing the sender’s advertisement and a central portion for the address. These two were separated by a thick black line. What had caught Broughton’s eye was an unevenness along this line, and closer examination showed that the central portion had been cut out, and a piece of paper pasted on the back of the card to cover the hole. Felix’s address was therefore written on this paper, and not on the original label. The alteration had been neatly done, and was almost unnoticeable. Broughton was puzzled at first, then it occurred to him that the firm must have run out of labels and made an old one do duty a second time.
‘A cask containing money and a human hand—probably a body,’ he mused. ‘It’s a queer business and something has got to be done about it.’ He stood looking at the cask while he thought out his course of action.
That a serious crime had been committed he felt sure, and that it was his duty to report his discovery immediately he was no less certain. But there was the question of the consignment of wines. He had been sent specially to the docks to check it, and he wondered if he would be right to leave the work undone. He thought so. The matter was serious enough to justify him. And it was not as if the wine would not be checked. The ordinary tallyman was there, and Broughton knew him to be careful and accurate. Besides, he could probably get a clerk from the dock office to help. His mind was made up. He would go straight to Fenchurch Street and report to Mr. Avery, the managing director.
‘Harkness,’ he said, ‘I’m going up to the head office to report this. You’d better close up that hole as best you can and then stay here and watch the cask. Don’t let it out of your sight on any pretext until you get instructions from Mr. Avery.’
‘Right, Mr. Broughton,’ replied the foreman, ‘I think you’re doing the proper thing.’
They replaced as much of the sawdust as they could, and Harkness fitted the broken piece of stave into the space and drove it home, nailing it fast.
‘Well, I’m off,’ said Broughton, but as he turned to go a gentleman stepped down into the hold and spoke to him. He was a man of medium height, foreign-looking, with a dark complexion and a black pointed beard, and dressed in a well-cut suit of blue clothes, with white spats and a Homburg hat. He bowed and smiled.
‘Pardon me, but you are, I presume, an I. and C. official?’ he asked, speaking perfect English, but with a foreign accent.
‘I am a clerk in the head office, sir,’ replied Broughton.
‘Ah, quite so. Perhaps then you can oblige me with some information? I am expecting from Paris by this boat a cask containing a group of statuary from Messrs. Dupierre of that city. Can you tell me if it has arrived? This is my name.’ He handed Broughton a card on which was printed: ‘M. Léon Felix, 141 West Jubb Street, Tottenham Court Road, W.’
Though the clerk saw at a glance the name was the same as that on the label on the cask, he pretended to read it with care while considering his reply. This man clearly was the consignee, and if he were told the cask was there he would doubtless claim immediate possession. Broughton could think of no excuse for refusing him, but he was determined all the same not to let it go. He had just decided to reply that it had not yet come to light, but that they would keep a look-out for it, when another point struck him.
The damaged cask had been moved to the side of the hold next the dock, and it occurred to the clerk that any one standing on the wharf beside the hatch could see it. For all he knew to the contrary, this man Felix might have watched their whole proceedings,