The Cask. Freeman Wills Crofts

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       CHAPTER II

       INSPECTOR BURNLEY ON THE TRACK

      THE immediate suggestion was, of course, that Harkness had had the cask moved to some other place for safety, and this they set themselves to find out.

      ‘Get hold of the gang that were unloading this hold,’ said the Inspector.

      Broughton darted off and brought up a stevedore’s foreman, from whom they learned that the forehold had been emptied some ten minutes earlier, the men having waited to complete it and then gone for dinner.

      ‘Where do they get their dinner? Can we get hold of them now?’ asked Mr Avery.

      ‘Some of them, sir, I think. Most of them go out into the city, but some use the night watchman’s room where there is a fire.’

      ‘Let’s go and see,’ said the Inspector, and headed by the foreman they walked some hundred yards along the quay to a small brick building set apart from the warehouses, inside and in front of which sat a number of men, some eating from steaming cans, others smoking short pipes.

      ‘Any o’ you boys on the Bullfinch’s lower forehold?’ asked the foreman, ‘if so, boss wants you ’alf a sec.’

      Three of the men got up slowly and came forward.

      ‘We want to know, men,’ said the managing director, ‘if you can tell us anything about Harkness and a damaged cask. He was to wait with it till we got down.’

      ‘Well, he’s gone with it,’ said one of the men, ‘less’n ’alf an hour ago.’

      ‘Gone with it?’

      ‘Yes. Some toff in blue clothes an’ a black beard came up an’ give ’im a paper, an’ when ’e’d read it ’e calls out an’ sez, sez ’e, “’Elp me swing out this ’ere cask,” ’e says. We ’elps ’im, an’ ’e puts it on a ’orse dray—a four-wheeler. An’ then they all goes off, ’im an’ the cove in the blue togs walkin’ together after the dray.’

      ‘Any name on the dray?’ asked Mr Avery.

      ‘There was,’ replied the spokesman, ‘but I’m blessed if I knows what it was. ’Ere Bill, you was talking about that there name. Where was it?’

      Another man spoke.

      ‘It was Tottenham Court Road, it was. But I didn’t know the street, and I thought that a strange thing, for I’ve lived off the Tottenham Court Road all my life.’

      ‘Was it East John Street?’ asked Inspector Burnley.

      ‘Ay, it was something like that. East or West. West, I think. An’ it was something like John. Not John, but something like it.’

      ‘What colour was the dray?’

      ‘Blue, very fresh and clean.’

      ‘Any one notice the colour of the horse?’

      But this was beyond them. The horse was out of their line. Its colour had not been observed.

      ‘Well,’ said Mr Avery, as the Inspector signed that was all he wanted, ‘we are much obliged to you. Here’s something for you.’

      Inspector Burnley beckoned to Broughton.

      ‘You might describe this man Harkness.’

      ‘He was a tall chap with a sandy moustache, very high cheekbones, and a big jaw. He was dressed in brown dungarees and a cloth cap.’

      ‘You hear that,’ said the Inspector, turning to the plain-clothes men. ‘They have half an hour’s start. Try to get on their track. Try north and east first, as it is unlikely they’d go west for fear of meeting us. Report to headquarters.’

      The men hurried away.

      ‘Now, a telephone,’ continued the Inspector. ‘Perhaps you’d let me use your quay office one.’

      They walked to the office, and Mr Avery arranged for him to get the private instrument in the manager’s room. He rejoined the others in a few minutes.

      ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s all we can do in the meantime. A description of the men and cart will be wired round to all the stations immediately, and every constable in London will be on the look-out for them before very much longer.’

      ‘Very good that,’ said the managing director.