The Third R. Austin Freeman Megapack

by R. Austin Freeman

  “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. “Tippet 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.

  CHAPTER XVI

  The Statement of Frederick Bunter

  “Well, Bunter,” the Superintendent remarked, cheerfully, 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 marlin-spike 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 matchbox 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 enjoymen
t 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.

  “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 t
he 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.