The Cask. Freeman Wills Crofts

man had a black beard.

      Constable Walker’s heart beat fast. He had always made it a point to memorise thoroughly the descriptions of wanted men, and only that afternoon he had seen a wire from Headquarters containing the description of just such an equipage. It was wanted, and wanted badly. Had he found it? Constable Walker’s excitement grew as he wondered.

      Unostentatiously he turned and strolled in the direction in which the dray was going, while he laboured to recall in its every detail the description he had read. A four-wheeled dray—that was right; a single horse—right also. A heavily made, iron-clamped cask with one stave broken at the end and roughly repaired by nailing. He glanced at the vehicle which had now drawn level with him. Yes, the cask was well and heavily made and iron clamped, but whether it had a broken stave he could not tell. The dray was painted a brilliant blue and had a Tottenham Court Road address. Here Constable Walker had a blow. This dray was a muddy brown colour and bore the name, John Lyons and Son, 127 Maddox Street, Lower Beechwood Road. He suffered a keen disappointment. He had been getting so sure, and yet— It certainly looked very like what was wanted except for the colour.

      Constable Walker took another look at the reddish brown paint. Curiously patchy it looked. Some parts were fresh and more or less glossy, others dull and drab. And then his excitement rose again to fever heat. He knew what that meant.

      As a boy he had had the run of the small painting establishment in the village in which he had been brought up, and he had learnt a thing or two about paint. He knew that if you want paint to dry very quickly you flat it—you use turpentine or some other flatting instead of oil. Paint so made will dry in an hour, but it will have a dull, flat surface instead of a glossy one. But if you paint over with flat colour a surface recently painted in oil it will not dry so quickly, and when it does it dries in patches, the dry parts being dull, the wetter ones glossy. It was clear to Constable Walker that the dray had been recently painted with flat brown, and that it was only partly dry.

      A thought struck him and he looked keenly at the mottled side. Yes, he was not mistaken. He could see dimly under the flat coat, faint traces of white lettering showing out lighter than the old blue ground. And then his heart leaped for he was sure! There was no possible chance of error!

      He let the vehicle draw ahead, keeping his eye carefully on it while he thought of his great luck. And then he recollected that there should have been four men with it. There was a tall man with a sandy moustache, prominent cheekbones, and a strong chin; a small, lightly made, foreign looking man with a black beard and two others whose descriptions had not been given. The man with the beard was on the dray, but the tall, red-haired man was not to be seen. Presumably the driver was one of the undescribed men.

      It occurred to Constable Walker that perhaps the other two were walking. He therefore let the vehicle draw still farther ahead, and devoted himself to a careful examination of all the male foot-passengers going in the same direction. He crossed and recrossed the road, but nowhere could he see any one answering to the red-haired man’s description.

      The quarry led steadily on in a north-westerly direction, Constable Walker following at a considerable distance behind. At the end of the Holloway Road it passed through Highgate, and continued out along the Great North Road. By this time it was growing dusk, and the constable drew slightly closer so as not to miss it if it made a sudden turn.

      For nearly four miles the chase continued. It was now nearly eight, and Constable Walker reflected with a transient feeling of regret that ‘Lured by Love’ would then be in full swing. All immediate indications of the city had been left behind. The country was now suburban, the road being lined by detached and semi-detached villas, with an occasional field bearing a ‘Building Ground to Let’ notice. The night was warm and very quiet. There was still light in the west, but an occasional star was appearing eastwards. Soon it would be quite dark.

      Suddenly the dray stopped and a man got down and opened the gate of a drive on the right-hand side of the road. The constable melted into the hedge some fifty yards behind and remained motionless. Soon he heard the dray move off again and the hard, rattling noise of the road gave place to the softer, slightly grating sound of gravel. As the constable crept up along the hedge he could see the light of the dray moving towards the right.

      A narrow lane branched off in the same direction immediately before reaching the property into which the dray had gone. The drive, in fact, was only some thirty feet beyond the lane and, so far as the constable could see, both lane and drive turned at right angles to the road and ran parallel, one outside and the other inside the property. The constable slipped down the lane, thus leaving the thick boundary hedge between himself and the others.

      It was nearly though not quite dark, and the constable could make out the rather low outline of the house, showing black against the sky. The door was in the end gable facing the lane and was open, though the house was entirely in darkness. Behind the house, from the end of the gable and parallel to the lane, ran a wall about eight feet high, evidently the yard wall, in which was a gate. The drive passed the hall door and gable and led up to this gate. The buildings were close to the lane, not more than forty feet from where the constable crouched. Immediately inside the hedge was a row of small trees.

      Standing in front of the yard gate was the dray, with one man at the horse’s head. As the constable crept closer he heard sounds of unbarring, and the gate swung open. In silence the man outside led the dray within and the gate swung to.

      The spirit of adventure had risen high in Constable Walker, and he felt impelled to get still closer to see what was going on. Opposite the hall door he had noticed a little gate in the hedge, and he retraced his steps to this and with infinite care opened it and passed silently through. Keeping well in the shadow of the hedge and under the trees, he crept down again opposite the yard door and reconnoitred.

      Beyond the gate, that is on the side away from the house, the yard wall ran on for some fifty feet, at the end of which a cross hedge ran between it and the one under which he was standing. The constable moved warily along to this cross hedge, which he followed until he stood beside the wall.

      In the corner between the hedge and the wall, unobserved till he reached it in the growing darkness, stood a small, openwork, rustic summer-house. As the constable looked at it an idea occurred to him.

      With the utmost care he began to climb the side of the summer-house, testing every foothold before trusting his weight on it. Slowly he worked his way up until, cautiously raising his head, he was able to peep over the wall.

      The yard was of fair length, stretching from where he crouched to the house, a distance of seventy or eighty feet, but was not more than about thirty feet wide. Along the opposite side it was bounded by a row of out-offices. The large double doors of one of these, apparently a coach-house, were open, and a light shone out from the interior. In front of the doorway and with its back to it stood the dray.

      The coach-house being near the far end of the yard, Constable Walker was unable to see what was taking place within. He therefore raised himself upon the wall and slowly and silently crawled along the coping in the direction of the house. He was aware his strategic position was bad, but he reflected that, being on the south-east side of the yard, he had dark sky behind him, while the row of trees would still further blacken his background. He felt safe from observation, and continued till he was nearly opposite the coach-house. Then he stretched himself flat on the coping, hid his face, which he feared might show white if the lantern shone on it, behind the dark sleeve of his reddish brown coat, and waited.

      He could now see into the coach-house. It was an empty room of fair size with whitewashed walls and a cement floor. On a peg in the wall hung a hurricane lamp, and by its light he saw the bearded man descending a pair of steps which was placed in the centre of the floor. The wiry man stood close by.

      ‘That hook’s all right,’ said the bearded man, ‘I have it over the tie beam. Now for the differential.’

      He disappeared into an adjoining room, returning in a moment with a small set of chain blocks. Taking the end of this up the steps, he made it fast to something above. The steps were then removed, and Constable Walker could just see below the lintel of the door, the hook of the block with a thin