Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 6

by R. Austin Freeman

  “I can’t tell you exactly how the actual job was done at Riga, as I was down below at the time. Bassett and Wicks did the sleight of hand on the quay, but I think it was done something like this: We had been in the habit of getting our provisions on board in a big hamper, and this used to be left about on the quay so as to get the people there used to seeing it. Now, on the day when the job was done, Bassett put into the hamper the little dummy case that he had got ready with half a hundredweight of lead in it. I don’t know how he got the particulars for making up the case, but I reckon he must have had a pal on the spot who gave him the tip. Anyway, he made up the dummy case and put it in the hamper wrapped up in a waterproof sheet. Then it was took up and dumped down on the quay close to where the cases of platinum was being dumped down by the men who brought them out of the van. Then, I understand, someone gave an alarm of fire; and, while everyone was looking at the place where the fire was supposed to be, the dummy was put out on the quay and the waterproof sheet flicked off the dummy and over one of the real cases, and the dummy was shoved nearer to the other cases. Then Bassett sat down on the case that he had covered with the sheet and lit his pipe. Then they waited until all the cases, dummy and all, had been put on board the ship. Then they lifted the case, still covered with the waterproof sheet, into the hamper and brought it on board the yacht.

  “As soon as it was on board, Park and me was told to cast off the shore ropes and get the yacht out of her berth and put out into the bay; which we did, though, as it was nearly a dead calm, she crept out mighty slowly. When we had got the sails set, I left Park at the helm and went below to lend a hand; and then it was that I found out how the swag was to be disposed of—and a mighty clever wheeze it was, and it worked out to a T.

  “You must know that our inside ballast was a lot of lead weights, all cast to the same size—about half a hundredweight each and forty of them, all told. Now, as soon as we was fairly under way, Bassett and Wicks lighted a big Primus stove and set a large melting-pot on it; and into the pot they put one of the lead weights from the hold. Then Bassett brought out of the lazarette a fireclay mould like the one that the weights had been cast in. It was an open mould what you just poured the lead in; and when it had set, you turned it over and the weight dropped out with the top surface rough as it had set.

  “While the lead was melting, me and Bassett and Wicks opened the case and took out the platinum, which was in thin sheets about a foot square. We cut the sheets up with tinman’s snips into narrow strips what would go snugly into the mould. Then Bassett put a bit of cold lead into the mould for the strips of platinum to rest on, and then we laid the strips in the mould, fitting them in carefully so as to get as many in as possible. Then, when we had got them in and the lead in the pot was melted, Bassett takes a ladle, dips it into the pot and pours it into the mould. He had made the lead a bit extra hot, so that it should not be cooled by the cold platinum. Well, when we had filled up the mould and covered up the platinum, we had to wait while it was setting; and Bassett put another ballast-weight in the pot to melt. When the lead in the mould was set, we turned it out, and there was an ordinary-looking ballast weight what you wouldn’t have known from any other ballast-weight.

  ‘We did the same with the rest of the platinum, and that just made up another weight. Then we marked the numbers on them with punches—all the ballast-weights were numbered and laid in their regular order, 1 to 40. These two weights were numbered 22 and 25; and when we had marked them, we laid them down in their proper places in the hold. Then we cleaned up. The lead what was left over we chucked overboard, and the fireclay mould went after it. The case what the platinum had come in, we broke up and shoved the pieces in the galley fire; so now there was no trace left of this little job, and we didn’t mind if the police came on board and rummaged the ship. There wasn’t nothing for them to find. So we sailed back to our berth and made fast; and there we stayed for five days to give them a chance to come on board and rummage if they wanted to. But they never came. Naturally. Because nothing had been found out. So, on the sixth day, we put to sea for the voyage home.

  “But we didn’t come straight home. We kept up the appearances of a cruising yacht. You won’t want particulars of the voyage, but there is one little incident that I must mention. It was at Rotterdam, our last port of call, on the morning when we started for home. We had got the sails loosed and was just about to cast off, when a cove appeared on the quay and hailed Bassett, who was on deck giving orders. Bassett replied as if he had expected this bloke, and reached up and took the man’s luggage—a small suit-case and a brown-paper parcel with a rug-strap fastened to it—and helped the covey down the ladder. Then we cast off and put out to sea; so we could see that this stranger had arranged with Bassett for a passage to England.

  “Shortly after we had started, Bassett sends me to the fore peak for one of the empty cases what our provisions had been stowed it. I took it to the cabin, but I didn’t know what it was wanted for until I saw the passenger stowing it in the locker what belonged to his berth. Later, I found the brown paper from the parcel and a big bit of oiled silk which seemed a bit damp and had a nasty smell; so I chucked it overboard. I don’t know whether Bassett knew what was in that parcel, but none of us ever guessed.

  “Now, when we was about abreast of the Swin Middle light-ship, we met a stumpy barge what was bound, as it turned out, from London to Colchester. Bassett hailed her, and, when we was near enough, he asked the skipper if he would take a passenger. The skipper wanted further particulars, so Wicks and Park went off to the barge in the boat, taking the passenger’s case with them. Apparently it was all right, for Wicks waved his hand and Park started to row back to the yacht.”

  “Had Wicks or Bassett told you anything about this business?” the Superintendent asked.

  “No. Not a word was said at the time; but Wicks told me all about it afterwards, and I may as well tell you now. It seems that the passenger—his name was Sanders—had got Bassett’s permission to make an arrangement with Wicks to smuggle the case ashore and take it to Fenchurch Street Station and leave it in the cloak room. He gave Wicks ten pounds for the job and a pound for the barge skipper; and a rare mug he must have been to pay Wicks in advance. Well, the skipper took Wicks with him up the Colne and put him ashore, after dark, somewhere between Rowhedge and Colchester; and Wicks took a walk inland with his case and picked up a motor bus that took him into Colchester. He stayed there a day or two, having a bit of a beano, because he wasn’t due to dump the case in the cloak room until the following Monday, so that it shouldn’t be waiting there too long. But on Saturday evening he took the train to London and went straight to the house of my brother-in-law, Bert Wallis, where I was in the habit of living.”

  “Why did he go there?” asked Miller.

  “Ah!” said Bunter, “that’s another story, and I may as well tell you that now. You must know that, after Wicks found out about the platinum, he got very discontented. He reckoned that the swag might be worth anything from ten to twenty thousand pounds; and he said we’d been done in the eye. Two hundred pounds apiece, he said, wasn’t anything like a fair share, seeing that we’d taken a equal share of the risk. And he was very suspicious of Bassett. He doubted whether he was a perfectly honest man.”

  “What a horrible suspicion!” Miller exclaimed with a grin.

  “Yes,” agreed Bunter. “But I believe he was right. He suspected that Bassett meant to clear off with the whole of the swag and not pay us anything. And so did I; so we arranged that I should keep an eye on Bassett and see that he didn’t get away with it.

  “Now, when we had done with the Customs at Southend—of course they didn’t twig nothing—we ran up into Benfleet Creek and took up moorings. Then, on Saturday, Bassett said he was going to take the stuff up to a dealer what he knew of and wouldn’t be back for a day or two. So, in the evening, I helped him to carry the case, with the two doctored weights in it, up to the station and saw him into a first-class carr
iage and shut him in. But I didn’t go back to the yacht. I’d taken the precaution to get a ticket in advance, and given Park the tip that I mightn’t be back that night; so, when I left Bassett, I went to the rear of the train and got in. I travelled up to town in that train, and I followed Bassett and saw him stow the case in the cloak room. Then, when I had seen him out of the station, I nipped straight off home to Bert Wallis’s place at Walworth.

  “It happened that I got there only a few minutes after Wicks had turned up. I told him what had happened, and we talked over what we should do to keep our eyes on the case of platinum. But, at the moment, Wicks was all agog to know what was in Mr. Sanders’s case. I pointed out to him that it was no business of his, but he said if it was worth all the money and trouble that had been spent on it, there must be something of value inside, and he was going to see what that something was, and whether it was worthwhile to take it to the cloak room at all.

  “Well, I got him a screwdriver and he had the screws out in a twinkling and pulled up the lid. And then he fairly hollered with surprise and I was a bit took aback, myself. You know what was inside—a man’s head, packed in some of our old duds. I tell you, Wicks slammed the lid down and ran the screws in faster than he took them out. Then I asks him what he was going to do about it. ‘Do!’ says he. ‘I’m going to plant the damn thing in the cloak room tomorrow morning and get clear of it; and I’ll send the ticket on to Sanders at Benfleet Post Office as I promised. I’ve been paid, and I’m going to carry out my contract like a honest man.’

  “But the sight of that man’s head seemed to have given him something to think about, for he was mighty thoughtful for a while. Then, all of a sudden, something seemed to strike him, for he turns to me and asks: What sort of case did Bassett pack them two weights in?’ ‘Why,’ I says, ‘one of the provision cases; same sort as that head is packed in.’ ‘Then, by gum,’ says he, ‘we are going to steal a march on that dishonest blighter, Bassett, if we can manage it. Do you know what marks there were on that case?’ Now, it happened that I did; for I had taken the precaution to make a copy of the label. I showed it to Wicks and he got a card like the one I had seen on Bassett’s case and wrote the name and address on it from my copy and tacked it on to Sanders’s case.

  “‘And now,’ says he, ‘the question is how we are going to get that case here from the station. We might take a taxi, but that wouldn’t be very safe. We don’t want to leave no tracks.’ Then I thought of Joe Wallis, Bert Wallis’s brother, what had a shop a couple of doors off and kept a motor van for carting timber about.”

  “What is his trade?” Miller asked.

  “He is a carpenter what does work for some small builders. He served his time as a undertaker, but he give that up. Said it wasn’t cheerful enough. He didn’t mind the coffins, but he couldn’t stick the corpses. Well, the end of it was that Wicks persuaded Joe to take on the job. I don’t know what story he told him, Of course, Joe didn’t know what was in either of the cases, but he is a big, strong chap and Wicks made it worth his while. Being Sunday, he put on a leather coat and a cap like a taxi-driver, for the sake of appearances.

  “Well, Wicks got rid of Sanders’s case all right and posted the ticket off to Benfleet; and then, in the afternoon, he set off to do the more ticklish job of swapping Sanders’s case for Bassett’s. But he brought it off all right and got the right case safely to Bert’s crib. Being Sunday, Bert wasn’t doing nothing, so we had the run of his workshop to do our little job in.”

  “What is Bert’s trade?” the Superintendent asked.

  “He is a plumber,” replied Bunter. “That’s what he is.”

  “Oh!” said Miller, with a sly look. “Doesn’t do anything in the pewter and plaster mould line, I suppose?”

  “I said he was a plumber,” Bunter replied, haughtily; “and, consequentially, he’d got a workshop with a big gas ring and some melting-pots; which was just what we wanted.

  “Well, we opened Bassett’s case and there, sure enough, was the two lead weights. And they seemed to be the right ones, by the punch marks on them—22 and 25. So we took the biggest melting-pot, which was half full of lead, and, when we had tipped the lump of lead out on the floor, we put the pot on the ring and lighted up; and then we shoved one of the lead weights in it.

  “‘Now,’ says Wicks, ‘we are going to make our fortunes. But we shall have some difficulty in getting rid of this stuff. We shall have to go slow.’ So he sat on a chair by the gas ring and watched the weight and made all sorts of plans for getting rid of the platinum. The weight was a long time before it showed any signs of melting; but, at last it began to slip down the pot, and me and Wicks leaned over the pot and watched for the bits of platinum to stick out. But we couldn’t see no sign of them. We watched the weight as it slipped down further and further until it had crumpled up and was all melted. But still we couldn’t see nothing of the platinum. Then Wicks got a iron rod and raked about in the melted lead to see if he could feel the bits of platinum. But he couldn’t. Then he got a ladle and tried to fish out the bits that he couldn’t see; and, I tell you, he was fair sweating with anxiety, and so was I for that matter. For nothing came up in the ladle but melted lead.

  “Then I suggested that we should ladle out the whole of the lead, a little at a time, into another pot, and I got three small empty pots and set them alongside the big one; and Wicks ladled out the lead from the big one into the little ones. But still we didn’t come to the platinum. And at last we come to the bottom of the pot; and then we could see that there wasn’t no platinum there.

  “By this time Wicks was nearly blue with rage and disappointment, and I was pretty sick, myself. However, we emptied the last drop of lead out of the big pot and started to melt the other weight. But it was the same story with that one. We ladled the lead out into the small pots, and, by way of doing the thing thoroughly, took the big pot up by its handle and drained the very last drop of lead out of it into the small pots. And there wasn’t a grain of platinum to be seen anywhere.

  “My eye! You ought to have seen Wicks’s face when he had done with the second weight and tried it right out. His language was something awful, And no wonder. For you see it wasn’t no mistake. The numbers on the weights was all right. It was a fair do. Bassett had deliberately sold us a pup. He’d got a pair of the plain lead weights, hammered the numbers out, and punched fresh numbers on them. It was a dirty trick, but I suppose he must have suspected Wicks and got this plant ready for him. At any rate, Wicks saw red, and he swore he would do Bassett in. We’d got Bassett’s address at Swanscombe, because we had got to go there for the money that was owing to us when the swag should have been disposed of; and, on the Tuesday, Wicks went off to see if Bassett was at home, and, if he was, to have a few words with him. And that was the last I ever saw of Wicks. When he didn’t come home, I supposed he had made himself scarce on account of the hue and cry about the head in the case. Now I know that he must have tried to do Bassett in, and Bassett must have got his whack in first. And that’s all I know about the business.”

  “Good,” said Miller. “You’ve made a very straightforward statement, and I can tell you that you have not done yourself any harm and what you have told us will probably be quite helpful to us. I’ll write it out presently from my notes and you can read it, and, if you are satisfied with it, I’ll get you to sign it. In the meantime, I want to ask you one or two questions. First of all, about this man Sanders; can you give us any description of him?”

  “He was a tall man,” replied Bunter; “a good six foot if he had stood up straight—which he didn’t, having a stoop at the shoulders. I should put his age at about fifty. He had dark hair and beard and he wore spectacles.”

  “What kind of spectacles?” Thorndyke asked.

  “I dunno,” replied Bunter. “Spectacles is spectacles. I ain’t a optician.”

  “Some spectacles are large,” said Thorndyke, “and some are small. Some are round and some are oval, and some have a line
across as if they had been cracked. Would his fit any of those descriptions?”

  “Why, yes, now you come to mention it. They was big, round spectacles with a sort of crack across them. But it couldn’t have been a crack because it was the same in both eyes. I’d forgotten them until you spoke.”

  I noticed that Miller had cast a quick look at Thorndyke and was now eagerly writing down the description. Evidently, he “smelt a fox,” and so did I. For, though Thorndyke had not really put a “leading question,” he had mentioned a very uncommon kind of spectacles—the old-fashioned type of bi-focal, which is hardly ever made now, having been superseded by the cemented or ground lunette. I had no doubt, nor, I think, had Miller, that he was describing a particular pair of spectacles; and this suspicion was strengthened by his next questions.

  “Did you notice anything peculiar in his voice or manner of speaking?“

  “Nothing extraordinary,” replied Bunter. “He’d got a squeaky voice, and there’s no denying it. And he didn’t speak quite proper English, like you and me. Seemed to speak a bit like a Dutchman.”

  I surmised that Mr. Bunter used the word “Dutchman” in a nautical sense, meaning any sort of foreigner who was not a “Dago”; and so, apparently, Thorndyke interpreted it, for he said:

  “He spoke with a foreign accent? Was it a strong accent, or only slight?”

  “Oh, it was nothing to notice. You’d hardly have taken him for a foreigner.”

  “Did you notice his nose?”

  “You couldn’t help noticing it. Lord! It was some boko. Reminded me of a parrot. And it had got a pretty strong list to starboard.”

  “You would say that he had a large, curved, or hook nose, which was bent towards the right. Is that so?”