The rock, I think, on which these gentry split was this: most people know, as you know, that platinum is one of the most infusible of metals. It cannot be melted in any ordinary furnace. Only a very special furnace, or the most powerful type of blowpipe will melt it. Now, to a person who knew that, and no more, it would naturally seem that platinum, put into a mould and then covered up with melted lead, would simply be imbedded in lead. And, since lead is very easily fusible—it melts at the comparatively low temperature of 325° Centigrade—it would naturally seem that, when it was required to recover the platinum, all that would be necessary would be to melt the lead weight and pick out the platinum.”
“Yes,” agreed Miller; “that seems perfectly feasible. What’s the snag?”
“The snag is,” replied Thorndyke, “that platinum has one most singular property. Everyone knows that you can melt lead in an iron ladle or pot; and it would be quite natural to infer that, since platinum is more difficult to melt than iron, it would be equally easy to melt lead in a platinum ladle or pot. But the inference would be quite wrong. If you were to try to melt lead in a platinum pot, the bottom of the pot would drop out. In spite of its enormously high melting-point, platinum dissolves freely in melted lead.”
“The deuce it does!” exclaimed Miller. “That is most extraordinary.”
“It is,” Thorndyke agreed; “and it is a property of the metal that would be totally unexpected by anyone who did not happen to know it. And now you will see how this curious fact affects our problem. Supposing the platinum to have been put into the mould as I have described, and the melted lead poured in on top of it; and supposing the thieves—or some of them—to be unacquainted with this property of the metal. They would expect, as I have said, that when they wanted to recover the platinum, all they would have to do would be to melt the lead weight and pick out the platinum with tongs.
“Now our friend Wicks, who made the exchange at the cloak room was evidently ‘in the know.’ He knew what was in the case that he stole; and he had come to get that case. The relic that he left in exchange was, I feel sure, merely a by-product. It may even have furnished the means or the suggestion for the exchange. Obviously, he had the thing on his hands, and it was the kind of thing that he would naturally wish to get rid of; and, if he was able to get a suitable case, as he evidently was, the exchange was a quite masterly tactical plan. But I think we may take it that it was the case—worth fifteen thousand pounds—that he had come for.
“We will assume that he knew the platinum to be concealed in the lead weights. It is practically certain that he did. He was one of the yacht’s crew, or gang, and the thing must have been known to all of them. Probably he had seen the job carried out; but, at any rate, he knew what had been done. Accordingly, as soon as he had got his booty into a safe place, he proceeded to melt down the lead weights to get at the platinum.
“And then it was, I suggest, that the fatal mistake occurred. As the weights melted, he looked for the platinum to appear. Apparently, he fished for it with a ladle and then transferred the molten metal by degrees to some empty pots. But when he had ladled the whole of it into the other pots, there was still no sign of the platinum. To his eye, the pots contained nothing but melted lead.
“Now, what would he be likely to think, under the circumstances? He might have thought that Bassett had made a mistake and put the wrong weights into the case; but more probably (seeing that he had tried to rob the gang and snatch the whole of the booty for himself and the confederate who had helped him to carry off the case) he would think that he had been suspected and that ‘the boss’ had deliberately laid a booby-trap for him by planting a couple of the plain lead weights in the case. At any rate, he had, apparently, got nothing but a quantity of lead. What did he do with that lead? We have no means of judging. He may have thrown it away in disgust or he may have sold it to a plumber for a few pence. But, if we accept this hypothetical construction of the course of events, we can see how these lumps of lead-platinum alloy came into being.”
“Yes,” Miller agreed, “it all fits the facts perfectly, even to the murder of Wicks. For, of course, each of these two rascals, Wicks and Bassett, thought the other had nobbled the whole of the swag. My eye! What a lark it is!” He laughed grimly and then added: “But I begin to have an inkling of the way you dropped on that dene hole so readily. You’d been keeping an account of the case all along. I wonder if you can make any suggestion as to how that stuff got into the coffin, and who put it there.”
“I am afraid not, Miller,” Thorndyke replied. “You see that the hypothetical sketch that I have given you is based on known facts and fair probabilities. But the facts that we have do not carry us much farther. Still, there is one fact that we must not overlook.”
“What is that?” Miller demanded, eagerly.
“You will admit, I think,” said Thorndyke, “that the faking of that coffin must have been carried out on the initiative and under the direction of Gimbler. There is really no reasonable alternative.”
“Unless Mr. Pippet did the job himself; which doesn’t seem at all likely, though he may have been a party to it. But I agree with you. Gimbler must have been the moving spirit, and probably Pippet knows nothing about it.”
“That is my own view,” said Thorndyke. “Pippet impresses me as a perfectly honest man, and I have no doubt that the planting of the coffin was exclusively Gimbler’s scheme, carried out by certain agents. But one of these agents must have had these lumps of alloy in his possession—unconscious, of course, of their nature. But that agent must have been in touch, directly or indirectly, with Wicks. Now, it ought not to be impossible to discover who that agent was. There are several ways of approach to the problem. One of them, perhaps, is Mr. Bunter. Since Wicks was not on board the yacht when Bassett took away the case of platinum, he must have had a confederate who was. Now, there were only two men left when Bassett had gone—not counting the man whom the Customs officer saw, who seems to have been a stranger who had probably taken a passage on the yacht and is not really in the picture at all. As Bunter was one of those two, there is, at least, an even chance that he was Wicks’s confederate; and, when you come to have a talk with him, you must bear in mind that he, also, may be assumed to be unaware of the change that the platinum would undergo when the melted lead was poured on to it.”
“Yes, by Jove!” Miller agreed. “I begin to hope that we may get something really useful out of Mr. Bunter, if we deal with him tactfully. But Lord! What a stroke of luck it was for me that you were able to come with me on this jaunt. If it hadn’t been for what you have just told us, I might have missed the whole point of his story, even if he was prepared to tell one. I shouldn’t have known any more about it than he did.”
As Miller concluded this frank and generous acknowledgment, the train began to slow down and presently drew up at Benfleet Station. A sergeant of the local police was waiting on the platform; and, when we had introduced ourselves, he took us in charge and conducted us out of the station. A few steps took us to the waterside, where we halted to survey the interminable levels of Canvey Island and the winding creek, now full of water, with its amazing assemblage of house boats and floating shacks of all kinds.
“That’s the Cormorant,” said the sergeant, pointing to a sturdy-looking, yawl-rigged yacht that was moored some distance down the creek. “I suppose you will not be wanting to go on board her?”
“Not at present,” replied Miller, “and probably not at all. But we will hear what Bunter has to say.”
“I’m afraid, sir,” said the sergeant, “you’ll find that he hasn’t very much to say. We haven’t found him particularly ready to talk. But perhaps he’ll let himself go a bit more with you.”
We turned away from the water, and, under the sergeant’s guidance, entered the little town, or village, and headed towards the police station.
XVI. THE STATEMENT OF FREDERICK BUNTER
“Well, Bunter,” the Superintendent remarked, cheerful
ly, as the prisoner was brought into the little office and given a seat at the table, “here you are.”
“Yes,” Bunter agreed, gloomily, “here I am. But I don’t see why they wanted to run me in. I wasn’t doing no harm.”
“You were trying to break into a yacht,” Miller ventured to remind him. “That isn’t quite according to Cocker, you know.”
“I was trying to get on board,” said Bunter, “and I’m not denying it. But you seem to be forgetting that I was a member of the crew of that yacht. All I wanted was to get some of my kit what I had left behind. I’ve told the sergeant so.”
“That’s right, sir,” the sergeant confirmed. “He said he had left his pocket-knife behind; and we did find a pocket-knife on board—a big knife with a cork-screw and a marlinspike in it, such as he had described. But he could have got it from us without breaking into the vessel.”
“Yes,” said Miller, “that’s so. Still, it’s a point in his favour. However, it isn’t the burglary that we are interested in. If everything else was satisfactory we might let that pass, as he didn’t actually break in and he has some sort of explanation. But you know, Bunter, what the real business is, and what we want to ask you about. It’s that platinum job.”
“What platinum job?” demanded Bunter. “I don’t know nothing about any platinum.”
“Now, Bunter,” the Superintendent remonstrated, “don’t be silly. We know all about that job, and we know that you were in it with Bassett and Wicks and the other man.”
As he spoke, he drew a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, and, taking one out, pushed it across the table with a box of matches. Bunter accepted the gift with a grunt of acknowledgment but maintained his unaccommodating attitude.
“If you know all about it,” said he, “there ain’t no need for you to ask me no questions.”
“Oh, yes, there is,” said Miller. “We know enough for the purpose of the prosecution. But there are certain matters that we should like to clear up for other reasons. Still, you are not obliged to say anything if you don’t want to. I suppose you have been cautioned. If you haven’t, I caution you now that anything you say will be taken down in writing and may be used in evidence at the trial. But I don’t want you to say anything that might make the case any worse against you. I want some particulars, as I told you, for other reasons. What you may tell us won’t do your two pals any harm, as they are both dead. And I think I may say that we are not inclined to be vindictive to you as no very great harm has been done to anybody, seeing that we have recovered the swag.”
At the moment when Miller made this last statement, the prisoner was in the act of striking a match to light his cigarette. But, as the words were spoken, the action became arrested and he sat with his mouth open and the unheeded match burning—until the flame reached his finger, when he dropped it with an appropriate observation. “Did you say,” he demanded, speaking slowly and in a tone of the utmost amazement, “that you had recovered the swag?”
“I did,” Miller replied, calmly, proceeding to fill his pipe.
“Do you mean the platinum?” Bunter persisted, gazing at the Superintendent with the same expression of amazed incredulity.
“I do,” replied Miller. “Pass the matches when you have lit up.”
Bunter lit his cigarette perfunctorily and pushed the match-box across the table.
“How did you get hold of it?” he asked.
“We got it,” Miller replied, with a twinkle of enjoyment, “from someone who had it from Wicks.”
“Get out!” exclaimed Bunter. “You couldn’t. Wicks never had it. You are fooling me. I don’t believe you’ve got it at all.”
“Look here, Bunter,” the Superintendent said, stiffly, “I am not bound to tell you anything. But, if I do tell you anything, you can take it that it’s the truth. I’m not in the habit of making false statements to prisoners, nor is any other police officer. I tell you that we have got all that platinum back, so you can take that as a fact and steer your course accordingly.”
“But,” persisted Bunter, “you couldn’t have got it from Wicks. I tell you he never had it.”
“Nonsense, Bunter,” said Miller. “Didn’t he pinch that case from the cloak room at Fenchurch Street? You know he did.”
“Yes, I know all about that,” rejoined Bunter, “and I know that he thought the stuff was in that case. But it wasn’t.”
“That’s what he told you,” said Miller, hardly able to conceal his enjoyment of this contest of wits, and the consciousness that he had the trumps securely up his sleeve. “But it was he that was doing the fooling. He meant to keep the whole of the swag for himself.”
“Now that’s where you’re mistaken,” said Bunter. “You think I am going on what he told me. But I ain’t. I know the stuff wasn’t in that case.”
“How do you know?” demanded Miller.
“That’s my business, that is,” was the reply.
“Well,” said Miller, “I don’t know that it matters so very much. We have got the stuff back, which is the important thing. But, of course, we like to fill in the details if we can.”
Bunter re-lit his cigarette and reflected. No one likes a misunderstanding or cross-purposes, and Bunter evidently felt that he was being misunderstood. Furthermore, he was intensely curious as to how the platinum could possibly have been recovered. At length, he said.
“Supposing I was to tell you the whole story, would you let the prosecution drop?”
The Superintendent shook his head, “No, Bunter,” he replied promptly. “I can’t make any promises. The man who makes a promise which he doesn’t mean to keep is a liar, which is what no police officer ought to be; and the man who keeps a promise that he oughtn’t to have made, in a case like this, is guilty of bribery. The English law is dead against compounding felonies or any other crimes. But you know quite well that, if you choose to help us, you won’t do yourself any harm.”
Bunter took a little more time for reflection, and eventually reached a conclusion.
“Very well,” he said, “I will tell you the whole blooming story, so far as it is known to me; and I look to you not to take advantage of me from what I have told you.”
“I think you are wise, Bunter,” said the Superintendent, obviously much relieved at the prisoner’s decision. “By the way, Sergeant, what time did Bunter have his breakfast?”
“About seven o’clock, sir,” was the reply.
“Then,” said Miller, “if he is going to make a longish statement, he won’t be the worse for a little refreshment. What do you say, Bunter?”
Mr. Bunter grinned and admitted that “he could do with a beaver.”
“Very well,” said Miller, “perhaps we could all do with a beaver—say, a snack of bread and cheese and a glass of beer. Can you manage that, Sergeant?”
The sergeant could, and, being provided with the wherewith in the form of a ten-shilling note, went forth to dispatch an underling in search of the materials for the said “beaver.” Meanwhile, Bunter, having been furnished with a fresh cigarette, lighted it and began his narrative.
“You must understand,” said he, “that this job was run by Bassett. The rest of us carried out orders, and we didn’t know much more about the job than what he told us; and he didn’t tell us any more than we was bound to find out for ourselves. We didn’t even know that the stuff was platinum until Wicks spotted it by its weight. All that we knew was that we were going to lift some stuff that was pretty valuable; and I doubt if the fourth man, Park, knew even that.”
“How did you come to know Bassett?” the Superintendent asked.
“He came to my house—leastways my brother-in-law’s house at Walworth—and said he had been recommended to me by a gentleman; but he wouldn’t say who the gentleman was. Whoever he was, he must have known something about me, because he knew that I had been to sea on a sailing barge, and he knew about a little trouble that I had got into over some snide money that some fool gave me for a joke.”
> “Ah!” said Miller, “and how did that trouble end?”
“Charge dismissed,” Bunter replied, triumphantly. “No evidence of any dishonest intent. Of course there wasn’t.”
“Certainly not,” Miller agreed. “Of course you explained about the practical joke?”
“Rather—at least my lawyer did. He talked to the beak like a father, I can tell you.”
“Yes,” said Miller, “I can imagine it. These Jew advocates are uncommonly persuasive.”
“He wasn’t a Jew,” Bunter exclaimed, indignantly. “No blooming sheenies for me. He was an English gentleman.”
“Oh!” said Miller. “I thought all the police court solicitors were Jews. What was this gentleman’s name?”
“His name,” Bunter replied, haughtily, “was Gimbler; and a first-class man at his business he was. Knew all the ropes like an A.B.”
“Yes,” said Miller. “But to return to Bassett; had Wicks known him previously?”
“No. Bassett called on him, too. Got his address from a gentleman who knew him. Same gentleman, I expect, as Bassett wouldn’t say who he was. But he knew that Wicks had been brought up as a waterman, and I think he knew a bit more about him—more than I did, for Wicks was a stranger to me, and he didn’t let on much as to what he did for a living. So there was four of us on the yacht; Bassett, Wicks, me and a bloke named Park, but he wasn’t really in the swim. He was a bawleyman out of Leigh; a simple sort of cove, but a rare good seaman. He wasn’t told nothing about the job, and I fancy he thought it was some sort of smuggling racket—nothing for a honest man to mind.”
“And what was the arrangement as to pay, or shares?”
“We all got monthly pay at the ordinary yachtman’s rate, and there was to be a bonus at the end of the voyage. Park was to have fifty pounds, and me and Wicks was to have two hundred each if we brought the job off and landed the swag.”
Here the “beaver” arrived, and Bunter was allowed to refresh himself with a glass of beer; which he did with uncommon gusto. But the narrative proceeded without interruption, excepting such as was due to slight impairment of articulation when the narrator took an extra liberal mouthful; which we shall venture to ignore.
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