Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 6

by R. Austin Freeman

  "Our information is that, about the end of last June, a quantity of platinum was shipped by a Latvian firm at Riga. It was packed in small wooden cases, each containing twenty-five kilos, and consigned to various dealers in Germany, France and Italy. Well, the cases were all duly delivered at their respective destinations, and everything seemed to be in order excepting the contents of one of the Italian cases. That happened to be the last one that was delivered, and, as the ship had made a good many calls on her voyage, it wasn't delivered until the beginning of August. When it was opened, it was found to contain, instead of the platinum, an equal weight of lead.

  "Obviously, there had been a robbery somewhere, but, owing to the time which had elapsed, it was difficult to trace. One thing, however, was clear; the job had been done by somebody who was in the know. That was evident from the fact that the case was in all respects exactly like the original case and all the other cases."

  "Why shouldn't it have been the original case with the contents changed?" I asked.

  "That hardly seems possible. It would have been difficult enough to steal the case; but to steal it, empty it, refill it and put it back, looks like an impossibility. No, we can be pretty certain that the thieves had the dummy case ready and just made a quick exchange. That must have been the method, whoever did the job; but the puzzle was to discover the time and place of the robbery. The stuff had made a long journey to the port of delivery and the robbery might have taken place anywhere along the route.

  "Eventually, suspicion arose with regard to an English yacht, the Cormorant, which had berthed close to the Kronstadt—that was the name of the ship which carried the stuff—while she was taking in her cargo at Riga. It was recalled that she had occupied the next berth to the Kronstadt at the time when the platinum was being shipped, and someone remembered that, at that very time, the Cormorant was taking stores on board, including one or two big hampers. Accordingly, the Latvian police made some inquiries on the spot, and, though they didn't discover anything very sensational, the little that they did learn seemed to favour the idea that the platinum might have been taken away on the yacht. This is what it amounted to, together with what we have picked up since.

  "The Cormorant is a sturdy little yawl-rigged vessel—she appears to be a converted fishing lugger from Shoreham—of about thirty tons. She turned up at Riga on the 21st. of June and took up her berth alongside the quay where the Kronstadt had just berthed. She went out from time to time for a sail in the Gulf but always came back to the same berth. Her crew consisted of four men, of whom three seemed to be regular seamen of the fisherman type, while the fourth, the skipper, whose name was Bassett, was a man of a superior class. The description of Bassett agrees completely with that of the man whom we have called Dobson—the man who deposited the case that was stolen from the cloak room; and the description of one of the crew seems to tally with that of the man who stole the case—the man whom we have called 'the head man.' Perhaps we had better call him Mr. 'X' for convenience.

  "Well, as I have said, at the time the platinum was shipped, the Cormorant was taking in stores; and her hampers and cases were on the quay at the same time as the cases of platinum and quite close to them. The platinum was unloaded from a closed van and dumped on the quay, and the Cormorant's stores were unloaded from a wagon and also dumped on the quay. Then, as soon at the Cormorant had got her stores on board, she put out for a sail in the bay. But she was back in her berth again in about a couple of hours; and there she remained, on and off, for the next five days. It was not until the 26th. of June that she left Riga for good."

  "Doesn't the fact that she stayed there so long rather conflict with the idea that she had the stolen platinum on board?" I suggested .

  "Well," Miller replied, "on the face of it, it does seem to. But if you bear all the circumstances in mind, I don't think it does. As soon as all the platinum was on board the Kronstadt, the danger of discovery was over. Remember, there was the right number of cases. There was nothing missing. It was practically certain that the robbery would not be discovered until the dummy case was opened by the consignees. Bearing that in mind, you see that it would be an excellent tactical plan to stay on at Riga as if nothing had happened; whereas it might have looked suspicious if the yacht had put to sea immediately after the shipment of the platinum.

  "The next thing we hear of the yacht is that she arrived at Southend on the 17th. of August."

  "Have you ascertained where she had been in the interval?" I asked.

  "No" he replied, "because, you see, it doesn't particularly concern us, as our theory is that she still had the platinum on board. But I must admit that, apart from the cloak room incident, we can't get any evidence that she had. At Southend she was boarded by the Customs Officer, and, as she had just come from Rotterdam and had been cruising up the Baltic and along the German and Dutch coasts, he made a pretty rigorous search, especially for tobacco. He turned out every possible place in which a few cigars or cakes of 'hard' could have been stowed, and he even took up the trap in the cabin floor and squeezed down into the little hold. But he didn't find anything beyond the few trifles that had been declared. So his evidence is negative."

  "It is rather more than negative," said I. "It amounts to positive evidence that the platinum wasn't there."

  "Well, in a way, it does," Miller admitted. "It certainly doesn't help us. But there was one curious fact that we got from him. It seems that there were still four men on board the yacht; but they were not the same four men. One of them, at least, was different. The Customs man didn't see anybody corresponding to the description of Mr. 'X.' On the other hand, there was a tall, clean shaved, elderly man who didn't look like a seaman—looked more like a lawyer or a doctor and spoke like a gentleman, or, at least, an educated man, though with a slight foreign accent, and didn't seem very anxious to speak at all; seemed more disposed to keep himself to himself. But the interesting point to us is the disappearance of Mr. 'X.' That seems to give us something like a complete scheme of the whole affair, including the transaction at the cloak room."

  "Were you proposing to let us hear your scheme of the robbery?" I asked.

  "Well," said Miller, "I don't see why not, as I have told you so much. Of course, you will understand that it is very largely guess-work, but still, it comes together into a consistent whole. I will just give you an outline of what we believe to have been the course of events.

  "We take it that this was a very carefully planned robbery, carried out by a party of experienced criminals who must all have had a fair knowledge of sea-faring. One of them, at least—probably the skipper, Bassett—must have had some pretty exact information as to the time and place at which the platinum was shipped and the size and character of the cases that it was stowed in. They must have arrived at the selected berth with a carefully prepared dummy case ready for use at the psychological moment. Then, when the cases of platinum arrived—and they must have known when to expect them—the dummy was smuggled up to the quay, covered up in some way, and slipped in amongst the genuine cases. Then they must have managed to cover up one of these, and they probably waited until the whole consignment, including the dummy, had been put on board and checked. There would have been the right number, you must remember.

  "Well, when all the platinum appeared to have been put on board, there would have been no difficulty in taking the one that they had pinched—still covered up—on to the yacht along with their own stores. As soon as they had got it on board, they cast off and went for a sail in the bay; and during that little trip, they would be able safely to unload the case, break it up and burn it and stow the platinum in the hiding-place that they had got prepared in advance. When they came back to their berth, they had got the loot safely hidden and were ready to submit to a search, if need be. And it must have been an uncommonly cleverly devised hiding-place, for they made no difficulty about letting the Customs officer at Southend rummage the vessel to his heart's content."

  "It must, as you
say, have been a mighty perfect hiding-place," I remarked, "to have eluded the Customs man. When one of those gentry becomes really inquisitive, there isn't much that escapes him. He knows all the ropes and is up to all the smugglers' dodges."

  "You must bear in mind, Jervis," Thorndyke reminded me, "that he was not looking for platinum. He was looking for tobacco. Do you know, Miller, in what form the metal was shipped? Was it in ingots or bars or plates?"

  "It was in plates; thin sheets, in fact, about a millimetre in thickness and thirty centimetres—roughly twelve inches—square; a most convenient form for stowing in a hiding-place, for you could roll up the plates or cut them up with shears into little pieces."

  "Yes," said Thorndyke, "and the plates themselves would take up very little room. You say the Customs man squeezed down into the hold. Do you know what the ballast was like? In a fishing vessel, it usually consists of rough pigs of iron and square ends of old chain and miscellaneous scrap, in which a few rolled-up plates of metal would not be noticed."

  "Ah!" Miller replied, "the Cormorant's ballast wasn't like that. It was proper yacht's ballast; lead weights, properly cast to fit the timbers and set in a neat row on each side of the kelson. So the hold was perfectly clear and the Customs man was able to see all over it from end to end.

  "But to return to our scheme. When they had got the platinum safely hidden, our friends decided to stay on in their berth for a few days for the sake of appearances. Then they put to sea and proceeded in a leisurely, yacht-like fashion to make their way home. But during the voyage something seems to have happened. It looks rather as if the rogues had fallen out. At any rate, Mr. 'X' seems to have left the ship, and this stranger to have come on board in his place. I don't understand the stranger at all. I can't fit him into the picture. But Mr. 'X' apparently had a plan for grabbing the loot for himself, and, when he went ashore, he must have left a confederate on board to keep him informed as to when the cargo was going to be landed.

  "As to the landing, there wouldn't have been any difficulty about that. When the Customs man had made his search and found everything in order, the papers would be made out and the ship would be passed as 'cleared.' After that, the crew would be at liberty to take any of their goods ashore unchallenged. And the arrangements for getting the platinum landed were excellent. The yacht was brought up in Benfleet Creek, quite close to the railway. Evidently, the case was carried up to the station, and Bassett must have taken it into the carriage with him to avoid having a label stuck on it and giving a clue to the cloak room attendant.

  "Why Bassett decided to plant it in the cloak room is not very clear. We can only suppose that he hadn't any other place to put it at the moment, and that he left it there while he was making arrangements for its disposal. But it gave Mr. 'X' his chance. No doubt his pal on board made it his business to find out what became of the case, and gave Mr. 'X' the tip; which Mr. 'X' acted on very promptly and efficiently. And he and his pal are at this moment some seventeen thousand pounds to the good.

  "That is the scheme of the affair that we suggest. Of course, it is only a rough sketch, and you will say that it is all hypothesis from beginning to end, and so it is. But it hangs together."

  "Yes," I agreed, "it is a consistent story, but it is all absolutely in the air. It is just a string of assumptions without a particle of evidence at any point. You begin by assuming that the case which was stolen from the cloak room contained the missing platinum. Then, from that, you deduce that the case came from the yacht, and therefore the man who deposited it must be Bassett, and the other man must be a member of the crew. And you don't even refer to the trivial circumstance that a box containing a man's head was left in exchange."

  "I have already said," Miller rejoined a little impatiently, "that we are letting the problem of the head rest for the moment, as we have nothing to go on. But it is evidently connected in some way with the stolen case, so we are following that up. If we can connect that with the platinum robbery and lay our hands on Bassett and Mr. 'X,' we shall soon know something more about that head. I don't think your criticism is quite fair, Dr. Jervis. What do you say, Doctor?"

  "I agree with you," said Thorndyke, "that Jervis's criticism overstates the case. Your scheme is admittedly hypothetical, and there is no direct evidence. So it may or may not be a true account of what happened. But I think the balance of probabilities is in favour of its being substantially true. You don't know anything about any of these men?"

  "No; you see they are only names, and probably wrong names."

  "You found no finger-prints on the address label of the 'head case'?"

  "None that we could identify. Probably only those of chance strangers."

  "And what has become of the yacht and the crew?"

  "The yacht is still lying in Benfleet Creek. Bassett left her in charge of a local boat builder as there is no one on board and the crew have gone away. We got a search warrant and rummaged her thoroughly, but we didn't find anything. So we sealed up the hatches and put on special padlocks and left the keys with the local police."

  "Do you know whom she belongs to?"

  "She belongs to Bassett. He bought her from a man at Shoreham. And she is now supposed to be for sale; but, as the owner's whereabouts are not known, of course, she can't be sold. For practical purposes she is abandoned, but we are paying the boat builder for keeping an eye on her, pending the re-appearance of Mr. Bassett. Meanwhile we are keeping a look-out for that gentleman and Mr. 'X,' and for the appearance on the market of any platinum of uncertain origin. And that is about all that we can do until we get some fresh information."

  "I suppose it is," said Thorndyke; "and, by the way, to return to the mysterious head; what has been done with it?"

  "It has been buried in an air-tight case in Tower Hamlets Cemetery, with a stone to mark the spot in case it should be wanted. But we've got a stock of photographs of it which we have been circulating in the provinces to the various police stations. Perhaps you would like me to send you a set."

  "Thank you, Miller," Thorndyke replied. "I should like a set to attach to the report of the inquest, which I have filed for reference."

  "On the chance that, sooner or later, the inquiry may come into your hands?"

  "Yes. There is always that possibility," Thorndyke replied. And this brought the discussion to an end, at least so far as Miller was concerned.

  VI. MR. BRODRIBB'S DILEMMA

  The silence which fell after Thorndyke's last rejoinder lasted for more than a minute. At length it was broken by Brodribb who, after profound meditation, launched a sort of broadcast question, addressed to no one in particular.

  "Does anyone know anything about a certain Mr. Horatio Gimbler?"

  "Police court solicitor?" inquired Miller.

  "That is what I assumed," replied Brodribb, "from his address, which seemed to be an unlikely one for a solicitor in general practice. Then you do, apparently, know him, at least by name."

  "Yes," Miller admitted, "I have known him, more or less, for a good many years."

  "Then," said Brodribb, "you can probably tell me whether you would consider him a particularly likely practitioner to have the conduct of a claim to a peerage."

  "A peerage!" gasped Miller, gazing at Brodribb in astonishment. "Holy smoke! No. I—certainly—should—NOT!" He paused for a few moments to recover from his amazement and then asked: "What sort of a claim is it, and who is the claimant?"

  "The claimant is an American and, at present, I don't know much about him. I'll give you some of the particulars presently, but, first, I should like to hear what you know about Mr. Gimbler."

  Miller appeared to reflect rapidly, accompanying the process by the emission of voluminous clouds of smoke. At length he replied, cautiously:

  "It is understood that what is said here is spoken in strict confidence."

  To this reasonable stipulation we all assented with one accord and Miller continued: "This fellow, Gimbler, is a rather remarkable person. He is a
good lawyer, in a sense; at any rate, he has criminal law and procedure at his finger ends. He knows all the ropes—some that he oughtn't to know quite so well. He is up to all the tricks and dodges of the professional crooks, and I should think that his acquaintance includes practically all the crooks that are on the lay. If we could only pump him, he would be a perfect mine of information. But we can't. He's as secret as the grave. The criminal class provide his living, and he makes it his business to study their interests."

  "I don't see that you can complain of that," said Brodribb. "It is a lawyer's duty to consider the interests of his clients, no matter who they may be."

  "That's perfectly true," replied Miller, "in respect of the individual client; but it is not the duty even of a criminal lawyer to grease the wheels of crime, so to speak. However, we are speaking of the man. Well, I have told you what we know of him, and I may add that he is about the downiest bird that I am acquainted with and as slippery as an eel. That is what we know."

  Here Miller paused significantly with the air of a man who expects to be asked a question. Accordingly, Brodribb ventured to offer a suggestion.

  "That is what you know. But I take it that you have certain opinions in addition to your actual knowledge?"

  Miller nodded. "Yes," said he. "We are very much interested in Mr. Gimbler. Some of us have a feeling that there may possibly be something behind his legal practice. You know, in the practice of crime there is a fine opening for a clever and crooked brain. The professional crook, himself, is usually an unmitigated donkey, who makes all sorts of blunders in planning his jobs and carrying them out; and when you find the perfect ass doing a job that seems right outside his ordinary capabilities, you can't help wondering whether there may not be someone of a different calibre behind the scenes, pulling the strings."

  "Ah!" said Brodribb. "Do I understand that you suspect this legal luminary of being the invisible operator of a sort of unlawful puppet show?"