The Cask/Chapter 20

{{sc|When Burnley left Lefarge on the pier at Boulogne, he felt as if he was losing a well-tried friend. Not only had the Frenchman, by his kindliness and cheerful companionship, made Burnley’s stay in the French capital a pleasant one, but his skill and judgment had been a real asset in the inquiry.

And how rapidly the inquiry had progressed! Never before could Burnley recall having obtained so much information on any case in so short a time. And though his work was by no means complete, he was yet within reasonable distance of the end.

After an uneventful crossing he reached Folkestone and immediately went to the police station. There he saw the men who had been on duty when the Pas de Calais had berthed on the Sunday in question. But his inquiries were without result. No one resembling either Felix or Mme. Boirac had been observed.

He next tried the Customs officials, the porters who had taken the luggage from the boat, and the staff at the Pier Station. No information was forthcoming.

“H’m. Means going to Glasgow, I suppose,” he thought and, turning into the telegraph office on the platform he sent a wire:—

“Henry Gordon, 327 Angus Lane, Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow. Could you see me if I called at ten to-morrow. Reply Burnley, Scotland Yard.”

Then he set off to walk to the Town Station to catch the next train for London.

At New Scotland Yard he had an interview with his Chief, to whom he recounted the results of the consultation in the Sûreté, and his movements during the past two days, explaining that he proposed to go on to Glasgow that night if Mr. Gordon could see him the next morning. Then he went home for an hour’s rest. Ten o’clock saw him back at the Yard, where a telegram from Mr. Gordon was awaiting him. “Can see you to-morrow at the hour named.”

“So far, so good,” he thought, as he called a taxi and was driven to Euston, where he caught the 11.50 express for the north. He usually slept well in trains, and on this occasion he surpassed himself, only waking when the attendant came round half an hour before they were due in Glasgow.

A bath and breakfast at the Central Hotel made him feel fresh and fit as he sallied forth to keep his appointment in Angus Lane, Sauchiehall Street. Ten o’clock was chiming from the city towers as he pushed open the office door of No. 327, which bore the legend, “Mr. Henry Gordon, Wholesale Tea Merchant.” That gentleman was expecting him, and he was ushered into his private room without delay.

“Good morning, sir,” he began, as Mr. Gordon, a tall man with small, fair side whiskers, and two very keen blue eyes, rose to meet him. “I am an Inspector from Scotland Yard, and I have taken the liberty of making this appointment to ask your help in an inquiry in which I am engaged.”

Mr. Gordon bowed.

“Well, sir, and what do you wish me to do?”

“To answer a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

“I shall be pleased if I am able.”

“Thank you. You were in Paris recently, I believe?”

“That is so.”

“And you stayed at the Hotel Continental?”

“I did.”

“Can you tell me what day you left to return to England?”

“Yes, it was Sunday, the 28th of March.”

“You drove, if I am not mistaken, from the hotel to the Gare du Nord in the hotel bus?”

“I did.”

“Now, Mr. Gordon, can you recollect what, if any, other persons travelled with you in the bus?”

The tea merchant did not immediately reply.

“I did not specially observe, Mr. Inspector. I am not sure that I can tell you.”

“My information, sir, is that three gentlemen travelled by that bus. You were one, and the man I am interested in was another. I am told that he conversed with you, or made at least one remark as you were leaving the bus at the station. Does this bring the circumstance to your mind?”

Mr. Gordon made a gesture of assent.

“You are correct. I recall the matter now, and the men too. One was small, stout, clean-shaven, and elderly, the other younger, with a black pointed beard and rather foppishly dressed. They were both French, I took it, but the black-bearded man spoke English excellently. He was talkative, but the other hadn’t much to say. Is it the bearded man you mean?”

For answer Burnley held out one of Felix’s photographs.

“Is that he?”

“Yes, that’s the man sure enough. I remember him perfectly now.”

“Did he travel with you to London?”

“He didn’t travel with me, but he got to London all right, for I saw him twice again, once on the boat and once as I was leaving the station at Charing Cross.”

Here was definite evidence anyway. Burnley congratulated himself and felt glad he had not delayed making this visit.

“Did he travel alone?”

“So far as I know. He certainly started alone from the hotel.”

“And he didn’t meet any one en route that you saw?”

“When I saw him on the boat he was talking to a lady, but whether they were travelling together or merely chance acquaintances I couldn’t say.”

“Was this lady with him in London?”

“Not that I saw. He was talking to a man on the platform as I drove out. A tall young fellow, dark and rather good-looking.”

“Would you know this young man again if you saw him?”

“Yes, I think so. I got a good look at his face.”

“I should be obliged if you would describe him more fully.”

“He was about five feet eleven or six feet in height, rather thin and athletic looking. He had a pale complexion, was clean-shaven except for a small black moustache, and was rather French looking. He was dressed in some dark clothes, a brown overcoat, I fancy, but of that I’m not sure. I imagined he was meeting your friend, but I had really no definite reason to think so.”

“Now, the lady, Mr. Gordon. Can you describe her?”

“No, I’m afraid I can’t. She was sitting beside him and I did not see her face.”

“Can you tell how she was dressed?”

“She wore a reddish brown fur coat, sable, I fancy, though I’m not certain.”

“And her hat? You didn’t notice anything special about that.”

“No, nothing.”

“It hadn’t, for example, a wide brim?”

“A wide brim? Not that I noticed. But it may have had.”

“Was it windy where they were sitting?”

“Every place was windy that day. It was an abominable crossing.”

“So that if it had had a wide brim, the lady would have had difficulty in keeping it on?”

“Possibly,” replied Mr. Gordon a trifle dryly, “but you probably can form an opinion on that as well as I.”

Burnley smiled.

“We Scotland Yard people like to know everything,” he said. “And now, Mr. Gordon, I have to express my thanks for your courtesy and help.”

“That’s all right. Would it be indiscreet to ask the reason of these queries?”

“Not at all, sir, but I fear I am not at liberty to give you much information. The man with the pointed beard is suspected of having decoyed a French lady over to England and murdered her. But, you will understand, it is so far only a matter of suspicion.”

“Well, I should be interested to hear how it turns out.”

“I am afraid you will hear, sir. If this man is tried, I expect your evidence will be required.”

“Then for both our sakes I hope your case will not go on. Good-day, Mr. Burnley. Glad to have met you.”

There being nothing to keep him in Glasgow, the Inspector returned to the Central and took the midday London express. As it thundered southwards across the smiling country, he thought over the interview he had just had. He could not help marvelling again at the luck that had pursued his efforts ever since the inquiry began. Nearly every one he had interviewed had known at least something, if not always exactly what he wanted. He thought how many thousands of persons crossed the Channel each week whose journey it would be absolutely impossible to trace, and here, in the one instance that mattered, he had found a man who had been able to give him the very information he needed. Had Felix not gone in the bus, had Mr. Gordon not been so observant, had the circumstances not fallen out precisely as they did, he might never have ascertained the knowledge of Felix’s movements that day. And the same applied all through. Truly, if he did not get a complete case it would be his own fault.

And yet the evidence was unsatisfactory. It was never conclusive. It had a kind of thus-far-and-no-farther quality which always pointed to a certain thing, but stopped short of certainty. Here there was a strong presumption that Mme. Boirac had crossed with Felix, but no proof. It might, however unlikely, have been some one else. Nearly all the evidence he had got was circumstantial, and he wanted certainty.

His mind switched over to the case itself. He felt the probability of Felix’s guilt had been somewhat strengthened. Mr. Gordon’s statement was entirely consistent with that hypothesis. One would naturally expect the journey to be carried out just as it had been. In Paris, the lovers would be careful not to be seen together. At a station like the Gare du Nord, where acquaintances of both might easily be present, they would doubtless ignore each other’s existence. On the boat they would probably risk a conversation, particularly as the deck was almost deserted owing to the weather, but in London, especially if Felix expected some one to meet him, they would follow their Paris plan and leave the station separately. Yes, it certainly worked in.

The Inspector lit one of his strong cigars and gazed with unseeing eyes at the flying landscape as he continued his ruminations. On arrival in London what would be their next step? Felix, he expected, would shake off his friend, meet Madame at some prearranged spot, and in all probability take her to St. Malo. Then he recalled that the housekeeper had been granted a holiday, and they would doubtless arrive to find a house without food or fire, empty and cheerless. Therefore would they not go to an hotel? He thought it likely, and he began to plan a possible future step, a visit to all the probable hotels. But while speculating on the best to begin with, it occurred to him that if Felix had really committed the murder, it must, almost certainly, have been done at St. Malo. He could not conceive it possible at a hotel. Therefore probably they did go to the villa after all.

He went a step further. If the murder had taken place at St. Malo, the cask must have been packed there. He recalled the traces this operation had left in Boirac’s study. Surely some similar indications must have been left at the villa? If the cask had stood on a carpet or even possibly a linoleum, he might expect marks of the ring. And if not, there was the sawdust. He did not believe every trace of sawdust could have been removed.

It had been his intention in any case to search the house, and he took a mental note when doing so to look with special care for any such traces. This search, he decided, should be his next business.

On the following morning, therefore, he set out for St. Malo with his assistant, Sergeant Kelvin. As they drove, he explained the theory about the unpacking of the cask, and pointed out what, if this had been done, they might expect to find.

The house was empty as, owing to Felix still being in the hospital, the housekeeper’s leave had been extended. Burnley opened the door with a key from Felix’s bunch and the two men entered.

Then took place a search of the most meticulous thoroughness. Burnley began in the yard and examined each of the out-houses in turn. These had concrete floors and marks of the cask itself were not to be expected, but they were carefully brushed and the sweepings examined with a powerful lens for traces of sawdust. All their contents were also inspected, Felix’s two-seater, which was standing in the coach-house, receiving its full share of attention. Then the searchers moved to the house, one room after another being gone over in the same painstaking way, but it was not till they were doing Felix’s dressing-room, that Burnley made his first discovery.

Several of Felix’s suits were hanging in a press, and in the right-hand side pocket of one of the coats—that of a blue lounge suit—there was a letter. It was crumpled and twisted, as if thrust carelessly into the pocket. Burnley did not at first notice anything interesting or important about it, till, reading it for the second time, it flashed across his mind that here, perhaps, was the very thing for which they had been searching—the link in that chain of evidence against Felix which up to then had been missing.

The letter was written on a sheet of rather poor quality notepaper in a woman’s hand, rather uneducated both as to caligraphy and diction—such a letter, thought Burnley, as might be written by a barmaid or waitress or shopgirl. There was no water or other distinctive mark on it. It bore no address, and ran as follows:—

{{right|“Monday.|2em}}

“{{sc|My Dearest Léon}}.—It is with a heavy heart I take up my pen to write these few lines. What has happened to you, dearest? Are you ill? If you are, I will come out to you, no matter what happens. I can’t go on without you. I waited in all yesterday hoping you would come, same as I waited in all the Sunday before, and every night of the week, but you didn’t come. And the money is nearly done, and Mrs. Hopkins says if I can’t pay next week I’ll have to go. I’ve sometimes thought you were tired of me and weren’t going to come back at all, and then I thought you weren’t that sort, and that you were maybe ill or away. But do write or come, for I can’t go on any longer without you. {{right|“Your heartbroken{{em|2}} “{{sc|Emmie}}.”|2em}}

When Burnley glanced over this melancholy epistle it seemed at first merely to indicate that Felix was no better than he might be, and it was not till he had read it again that its immense significance struck him. What if this paper supplied the motive of the murder? What if it had opened to Mme. Boirac a chapter in Felix’s life which otherwise would have remained closed, and which he intended should remain closed? As Burnley thought over it he believed he could at least dimly reconstruct the scene. Felix and Madame had arrived at St. Malo, and then in some way, by some act of extraordinary carelessness on Felix’s part, she got hold of the letter. A quarrel would be inevitable. What would Felix do? Probably first snatch the letter from her and thrust it into his pocket out of sight. Then, perhaps, try to pacify the angry lady, and, finding this impossible, the quarrel would get worse and worse till finally in a paroxysm of passion he would seize her throat and choke out her life. The murder committed, he would be so upset that he would quite probably forget all about the letter. The oversights of criminals were notorious.

The more the Inspector considered the matter, the more likely his theory seemed. But here again he had to recognise it was entirely surmise. No proof that this had taken place was forthcoming. It was another case of the thus-far-and-no-farther evidence he had been deploring in the train. At all events it suggested another line of inquiry. This girl must be found and the relations between her and Felix gone into. Burnley foresaw much arduous work in front of him.

At length he put the letter away in his notebook, and the search continued. Finally, as it was beginning to get dusk, every room had been done except the study where Felix and the Inspector had had their midnight discussion.

“I think we had better come back to-morrow,” said Burnley. “There’s no use in searching by lamplight.”

Accordingly, the next morning saw them again at work. They crawled over the floor so as to get every part of the carpet between themselves and the light, but could find no impressions. They peered with their lenses in the pile of the carpet, they felt between the arms and seats of the padded leathern chairs, all to no purpose. And then Burnley made his second discovery.

Between the study and the dining-room adjoining there was a door, evidently unused, as it was locked and the key was gone. On the study side this door was covered by a heavy curtain of dark-green plush. In front of the curtain, and standing with its back to it, was a small chair whose low, leather-padded back formed a half-circle with the arms. In his anxiety to leave no part of the carpet unexamined, Burnley had moved this chair aside.

As he stooped at the place where the chair had been, a bright object sticking to the curtain caught his eye. He looked more closely. A small, slightly bent, gold safety-pin, bearing a tiny row of diamonds, was caught in the braid at the top of the hem. The point had not penetrated, and the pin fell to the floor when Burnley touched the plush.

He picked it up.

“That’s rather a fine thing even for a natty boy like Felix,” he said as he showed it to Kelvin. And then he stood quite still as it flashed across his mind that here, perhaps, was another link in the chain that was being forged about Felix—a link possibly even more important than any of the foregoing. What if it did not belong to Felix at all? It looked too dainty and delicate for a man’s use. What if it was a lady’s? And, most important question of all, what if that lady was Mme. Boirac? If this proved true, his case was complete.

Dropping into the arm-chair he had occupied on the occasion of his midnight interview with Felix, he considered the possibilities opened up by his new discovery, endeavouring to evolve some theory of how a pin or brooch belonging to the deceased lady could have been dropped where he found this one. As he did so, a picture of what might have happened gradually grew in his mind. First, he thought it likely that a lady in evening dress would wear such a pin, and it might easily be at her neck or shoulder. And if she had sat in that chair with her back to the curtain, and any one had caught her by the throat and forced her head backwards, what could be more likely than that the pin should be pulled out in the struggle? And if it were pulled out it almost certainly would drop where or whereabouts he found it.

The Inspector recognised again that this was all surmise, but it was strengthened by the fact that the pin was undoubtedly bent as if it had been pulled out of something without being unhooked. The more he thought over it the more likely his idea seemed. At all events it would be easy to test it. Two points suggested themselves to his mind which would settle it conclusively. First, if the pin were Madame’s, the maid Suzanne would recognise it. The arrangement of the diamonds made it quite distinctive. The girl would also know if Madame wore it on the night of the dinner-party. Secondly, if it were pulled out of Madame’s dress, the latter would probably be torn or at least marked. Both these points could easily be ascertained, and he decided he would write to Paris about them that night.

He put the brooch into a pocket case, and, getting up, resumed his search of the study. For a time he pursued his labours without result, and then he made another discovery which struck him as being of even greater importance than that of the pin. He had completed his examination of the furniture, and now, for over an hour, had been seated at Felix’s desk going through drawer after drawer, reading old letters and examining the watermarks of papers and the alignment of typewritten documents. Felix evidently had some of the defects of the artistic temperament, for his papers were jumbled together without any attempt at filing or classification—accounts, receipts, invitations, engagements, business letters—all were thrust higgledy-piggledy into the first drawer that came handy. But Burnley had methodically gone through every one without finding anything of interest. None of the papers had the watermark of that ordering the statue from Dupierre, none of the typewriting had the defective letters of that ostensibly from Le Gautier to Felix. The Inspector had just reflected that he had only to go through the half-dozen shelves of books and his work would be done, when he made his third find.

On the desk lay a number of sheets of blotting paper folded pamphlet-wise, it being evidently Felix’s custom to blot his wet papers between two of the leaves. Following his usual routine, the Inspector fetched a mirror from the bathroom, and with its aid examined the sheets from each edge in turn. At the fourth of these sheets he stopped suddenly with a little gesture of triumph, for there, clearly revealed in the mirror, were some words he had seen before:—

.s ....s th. .... s.c. .. ... l... .. t.. ......

.le... fo.wa.. ..med....ly to ..e ..ove .dd.ess.

I do ..t kn.w th. e.a.t pric., but ..der.t..d.t is about 1500 francs. I therefore enclose notes for that

It was the bottom of the first page of the letter ordering the statue from Dupierre! Here was certainty: here, at last, proofs of the most complete kind! Felix had ordered the statue and like a fool had blotted his letter and omitted to destroy the blotsheet!

The Inspector chuckled with content at his find. Felix had ordered the statue. That was now certain. And if he had done so he was responsible for its first journey, and therefore undoubtedly for its second and third. In fact, it was now evident he had arranged all the movements of the cask, and, if so, he must unquestionably have put in the body, and if he put in the body he must be the murderer.

Then there was the further point about the paper. The paper on which this letter had been written was the same as that on which the letter about the lottery and the bet was typed. Felix had stated he had received this letter by post, but at the discussion in M. Chauvet’s office the probability that he himself was the author had been recognised. This probability was now strengthened by finding he had had in his possession the peculiar French paper which had been used.

Truly these three discoveries, the letter signed “Your heartbroken Emmie,” the bent brooch on the curtain, and the tell-tale impression on the blotting paper seemed to the Inspector entirely to settle the question of Felix’s guilt.

On the other hand he had failed to find any trace of the unpacking of the cask, and his search had been so thorough that he almost felt impelled to the conclusion that it had not been there at all. And then a possible explanation struck him. Suppose Felix had got a cart and brought the cask to St. Malo, intending to remove it again the following morning. Where would he put it for the night? It was too heavy to move by himself, and he would want to have a helper. What then would he do? Why, leave it on the cart, of course! His obvious plan would be to stable the horse and open the cask where it stood—on the cart. And if he dropped some sawdust in the process, the wind would see to that. There would be none left now.

He felt sure he was on the right track, and then he had a further idea. If a horse were stabled at the villa all night, some traces should surely be visible. He went to the yard again and began a new quest. But this time he had no luck. He was forced to conclude no horse had been kept.

The possibility that the carter might have left his vehicle and taken the horse away with him for the night next occurred to him, but he thought that unlikely, and left the question undecided in the meantime.

On his return to Scotland Yard, the Chief heard his story with close attention, and was much impressed by his discoveries. He gave his views at some length, ending up:—

“We shall send the pin over to Paris and see if that girl identifies it. Indeed, whether or not, I think we have a sufficient case against Felix to go into court. By the way, I don’t think I told you I sent a man to his firm, the poster people, and found that he was absent on holidays during the week the cask was travelling backwards and forwards to Paris. This, of course, is not evidence against him, but it works in with our theory.”

Two days later a wire came from M. Chauvet:—

“Suzanne Daudet identifies pin as Madame’s property.”

“That settles it,” said the Chief, and a warrant was made out for Felix’s arrest, so soon as he should be well enough to leave the hospital.