The Cask quotes

Nothing loath to exchange the monotony of the office for the life and bustle of the quays, he put away his books, stowed the invoices carefully in his pocket, took his hat and went quickly down the stairs and out into Fenchurch Street.

It was a brilliant morning in early April.

After a spell of cold, showery weather, there was at last a foretaste of summer in the air, and the contrast made it seem good to be alive. The sun shone with that clear freshness seen only after rain.

“Another, by gum!” cried the foreman in low tones, “and another!” He bent down again and lifted a second object from behind where the cask was standing.

“Blest if it ain’t a blooming gold mine we’ve struck.”

Broughton put the five sovereigns in his pocket, as he and Harkness unostentatiously scrutinised the deck. They searched carefully, but found no other coins.

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.

The others stepped forward and looked down.

The hold was empty. Harkness and the cask were gone!

“Yes, swinging there from the ceiling,” answered Felix, as he came over from fastening back the door. Then his jaw dropped and he stared fixedly.

“My heavens!” he gasped, in a strangled tone, “it’s gone! The cask’s gone!”

But it was on the face and neck the gaze of the men was riveted.

Once she had clearly been beautiful, but now the face was terribly black and swollen.

The dark eyes were open and protruding, and held an expression of deadly horror and fear. The lips were drawn back showing the white, even teeth.

A woman disappears and her body is found packed in sawdust in a cask, and here, in the very house where she vanishes, is the mark of the same cask—a very unusual size, mind you—as well as traces of the sawdust.”

“Ay, it’s likely enough. But I don’t see the way of it for all that. If Felix did it, how could he have got the cask here and away again?”

“But the alibi? Boirac’s alibi is complete.”

“Well, I can’t understand it at all. But I mustn’t be wasting your time. I’ll write a note and, if he should turn up again, perhaps you would be kind enough to give it to him? I’m much obliged to you, I’m sure.”

Lefarge was an artist in his profession.

He never made an impersonation without carrying through the details in the most thorough manner possible. He therefore wrote a note to M. Boirac in an assumed hand, regretting having missed him and carefully explaining some quite imaginary business.

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

“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.”

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 someone else. Nearly all the evidence he had got was circumstantial, and he wanted certainty.

“I can believe it,” muttered the doctor. “You lawyers take the devil of a time over everything.”

“We can’t cover our mistakes like you, so we have to be careful,” retorted the lawyer with his dry, wintry smile.

“Ha! ha!” he laughed. “That’s good. You had me there. But I musn’t be wasting your time. There were some things you wanted to speak to me about?”

“It is too much, monsieur. I am glad to oblige you without payment.”

“A bargain is a bargain,” insisted the detective

, and, followed by the profuse thanks of the young clerk, he left the office.

And then the annoying afterthought arose. Was his work done? Was the proof he had got of Boirac’s guilt sufficient? There was still the alibi.

Always that alibi loomed in the background, menacing his success.

Though La Touche had now no doubt Boirac was the man the carter saw, he felt it would be more satisfactory if the two could be brought together in the hope of getting direct evidence of identity.

A pair of clear glass pince-nez completed the purchases. When, an hour later, Hill stood in La Touche’s room dressed up in his new disguise, no one who had known him before would have recognised the ex-policeman, still less the London carter.

“Capital, Hill,” said La Touche. “Your own mother wouldn’t know you.”

The detective had sent a wire for his assistant, and Mallet was waiting for them. La Touche introduced the two men and explained his plans.

“Chut, man! You needn’t keep it up. Your part in the thing is known, and if it wasn’t you would soon give it away.

Dubois, you haven’t red enough blood for this kind of thing!

Be guided by me. Make a clean breast of it, and I’ll give you the hundred francs, and, what’s more, I’ll do my best to help you out of your trouble with your employers.