The hands of the large clock at the Gare du Nord were pointing to three minutes before eight next morning as Inspector Burnley walked up the steps of the entrance. Lefarge was there before him and the two men greeted each other warmly.

‘I have a police box cart here,’ said Lefarge. ‘Give me your papers and we’ll have the cask out in a brace of shakes.’

Burnley handed them over and they went to the luggage bureau. Lefarge’s card had a magical effect, and in a very few minutes the sacking-covered barrel had been found and loaded on to the cart. Lefarge instructed the driver.

‘I want that taken to a street off the rue de la Convention at Grenelle. You might start now and stop at the Grenelle end of the Pont Mirabeau. Wait there until I come for you. I suppose it will take you an hour or more?’

‘It’ll take more than an hour and a half, monsieur,’ replied the man. ‘It is a long way and this cart is very heavy.’

‘Very well, just do the best you can.’

The man touched his cap and moved off with his load.

‘Are we in any hurry?’ asked Burnley.

‘No, we have to kill time until he gets there. Why do you ask?’

‘Nothing, except that if we have time enough, let’s go down directly to the river and take a boat. I always enjoy the Seine boats.’

‘As a matter of fact so do I,’ replied Lefarge. ‘You get the air and the motion is pleasanter and more silent than a bus. They are not so slow either when you consider the stops.’

They took a bus which brought them southwards through the Louvre, and, alighting at the Pont des Arts, caught a steamer going to Suresnes. The morning was fresh and exquisitely clear. The sun, immediately behind them at first, crept slowly round to the left as they followed the curve of the river. Burnley sat admiring perhaps for the fiftieth time the graceful architecture of the bridges, justly celebrated as the finest of any city in the world. He gazed with fresh interest and pleasure also on the buildings they were carried past, from the huge pile of the Louvre on the right bank to the great terrace of the Quai d’Orsay on the left, and from the Trocadero and the palaces of the Champs ÉlysÉes back to the thin tapering shaft of the Eiffel Tower. How well he remembered a visit that he and Lefarge had paid to the restaurant on the lower stage of this latter when they lunched at the next table to Madame Marcelle, the young and attractive looking woman who had murdered her English husband by repeated doses of a slow and irritant poison. He had just turned to remind his companion of the circumstance when the latter’s voice broke in on his thoughts.

‘I went back to the SÛretÉ after we parted last night. I thought it better to make sure of the cart this morning, and I also looked up our records about this firm of monumental sculptors. It seems that it is not a very large concern, and all the power is vested in the hands of M. Paul ThÉvenet, the managing director. It is an old establishment and apparently eminently respectable, and has a perfectly clean record so far as we are concerned.’

‘Well, that’s so much to the good.’

They disembarked at the Pont Mirabeau and, crossing to the south side and finding a tolerably decent looking cafÉ, sat down at one of the little tables on the pavement behind a screen of shrubs in pots.

‘We can see the end of the bridge from here, so we may wait comfortably until the cart appears,’ said Lefarge, when he had ordered a couple of bocks.

They sat on in the pleasant sun, smoking and reading the morning papers. Nearly an hour passed before the cart came into view slowly crossing the bridge. Then they left their places at the cafÉ and, signing to the driver to follow, walked down the rue de la Convention, and turned into the rue Provence. Nearly opposite, a little way down the street, was the place of which they were in search.

Its frontage ran the whole length of the second block, and consisted partly of a rather ancient looking four-story factory or warehouse and partly of a high wall, evidently surrounding a yard. At the end of the building this wall was pierced by a gateway leading into the yard, and just inside was a door in the end wall of the building, labelled ‘Bureau.’

Having instructed the driver to wait outside the gate, they pushed open the small door and asked to see M. ThÉvenet on private business. After a delay of a few minutes a clerk ushered them into his room.

The managing director was an elderly man, small and rather wizened, with a white moustache, and a dry but courteous manner. He rose as the detectives entered, wished them good-morning, and asked what he could do for them.

‘I must apologise for not sending in my card, M. ThÉvenet,’ began Lefarge, presenting it, ‘but, as the matter in question is somewhat delicate, I preferred that your staff should not know my profession.’

M. ThÉvenet bowed.

‘This, sir,’ went on Lefarge, ‘is my colleague, Mr. Burnley of the London police, and he is anxious for some information, if you would be so kind as to let him have it.’

‘I will be pleased to answer any questions I can. I speak English if Mr. Burnley would prefer it.’

‘I thank you,’ said Burnley. ‘The matter is rather a serious one. It is briefly this. On Monday last—four days ago—a cask arrived in London from Paris. Some circumstances with which I need not trouble you aroused the suspicions of the police, with the result that the cask was seized and opened. In it were found, packed in sawdust, two things, firstly, £52 10s. in English gold, and secondly the body of a youngish woman, evidently of good position, and evidently murdered by being throttled by a pair of human hands.’

‘Horrible!’ ejaculated the little man.

‘The cask was of very peculiar construction, the woodwork being at least twice as heavy as that of an ordinary wine cask and secured by strong iron bands. And, sir, the point that has brought us to you is that your firm’s name was stencilled on it after the words “Return to,” and it was addressed on one of your firm’s labels.’

The little man sprang to his feet.

‘Our cask? Our label?’ he cried, in evident astonishment. ‘Do I understand you to say, sir, that the cask containing this body was sent out by us?’

‘No, sir,’ returned Burnley, ‘I did not say that. I simply say that it arrived bearing your name and label. I am in total ignorance of how or when the body was put in. That is what I am over from London to investigate.’

‘But the thing is utterly incredible,’ said M. ThÉvenet, pacing up and down the room. ‘No, no,’ he added, with a wave of his hand as Burnley would have spoken, ‘I don’t mean that I doubt your word. But I cannot but feel that there must be a terrible mistake.’

‘It is only right to add, sir,’ continued Burnley, ‘that I did not myself see the label. But it was seen by the men of the carrying company, and especially by one of their clerks who examined it carefully after suspicion had been aroused. The label was afterwards destroyed by Felix, to whom the cask was addressed.’

‘Felix, Felix, the name seems familiar. What was the full name and address?’

‘M. LÉon Felix, 141 West Judd Street, Tottenham Court Road, London, W.C.’

‘Ah, of course,’ rejoined M. ThÉvenet. ‘There is, then, really such a man? I rather doubted it at the time, you know, for our advice card of the despatch of the cask was returned marked, “Not known,” and I then looked him up in the London directory and could not find him. Of course, as far as we were concerned, we had the money and it did not matter to us.’

Burnley and his colleague sat up sharply.

‘I beg your pardon, M. ThÉvenet,’ said Burnley. ‘What’s that you say? At the time? At what time, if you please?’

‘Why, when we sent out the cask. When else?’ returned the director, looking keenly at his questioner.

‘But, I don’t understand. You did send out a cask then, addressed to Felix at Tottenham Court Road?’

‘Of course we did. We had the money, and why should we not do so?’

‘Look here, M. ThÉvenet,’ continued Burnley, ‘we are evidently talking at cross purposes. Let me first explain more fully about the label. According to our information, which we have no reason to doubt, the address space had been neatly cut out and another piece of paper pasted behind, bearing the address in question. It seemed to us therefore, that some person had received the cask from you and, having altered the label, packed the body in it and sent it on. Now we are to understand that the cask was sent out by you. Why then should the label have been altered?’

‘I’m sure I cannot tell.’

‘May I ask what was in the cask when it left here?’

‘Certainly. It was a small group of statuary by a good man and rather valuable.’

‘I’m afraid, M. ThÉvenet, I haven’t got the matter clear yet. It would oblige us both very much if you would be kind enough to tell us all you know about the sending out of that cask.’

‘With pleasure.’ He touched a bell and a clerk entered.

‘Bring me,’ he said, ‘all the papers about the sale of that group of Le Mareschal’s to M. Felix of London.’ He turned again to his visitors.

‘Perhaps I had better begin by explaining our business to you. It is in reality three businesses carried on simultaneously by one firm. First, we make plaster casts of well-known pieces. They are not valuable and sell for very little. Secondly, we make monuments, tombstones, decorative stone panels and the like for buildings, rough work, but fairly good. Lastly we trade in really fine sculpture, acting as agents between the artists and the public. We have usually a considerable number of such good pieces in our showroom. It was one of these latter, a 1400 franc group, that was ordered by M. Felix.’

‘Felix ordered it?’ burst in Burnley, ‘but there, pardon me. I must not interrupt.’

The clerk returned at this moment and laid some papers on his principal’s desk. The latter turned them over, selected one, and handed it to Burnley.

‘Here is his letter, you see, received by us on the morning of the 30th of March, and enclosing notes for 1500 francs. The envelope bore the London postmark.’

The letter was written by hand on one side of a single sheet of paper and was as follows:—

‘141 West Jubb Street,

‘Tottenham Court Road,

‘London, W.C.,

29th March, 1912.

‘Messrs Dupierre et Cie.,

‘Rue Provence,

‘Rue de la Convention,

‘Grenelle, Paris.

‘Gentlemen.—I am anxious to purchase the group of statuary in the left-hand corner back of your Boulevard des Capucines showroom, looking from the street. The group is of three female figures, two seated and one standing. There can be no doubt about the one I mean, as it is the only such in the left of the window.

‘Please forward immediately to the above address.

‘I do not know the exact price, but understand it is about 1500 francs. I therefore enclose notes for that sum, and if a balance remains on either side it can be adjusted by letter.

‘I may say that an unexpected call to England prevented me ordering this in person.

‘Yours, etc.

‘LÉon Felix.’

Inspector Burnley examined the letter.

‘You will allow us to keep this in the meantime, I presume?’ he asked.

‘Certainly.’

‘You said the money was in notes. You mean, I take it, ordinary State paper money whose source could not be traced; not any kind of cheque or draft payable through a bank?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Well, sir, pardon my interruption.’

‘There is little more to add. The group was packed and despatched on the day we received the letter. Its price was, as a matter of fact, only 1400 francs, and the balance of 100 francs was therefore enclosed with it. This was considered as safe as any other way of sending it, as the cask was insured for its full value.’

‘The cask? You packed it then in a cask?’

‘Yes. We make a special kind of cask in two sizes, very heavy and strong, for sending out such pieces. It is our own idea, and we are rather proud of it. We find it simpler and safer than a crate.’

‘We have the cask in a cart outside. Perhaps, if we brought it in, you would be good enough to see if it could be identified, firstly if it is yours, and secondly, if so, if it is the particular one you sent to Felix.’

‘Well, you see, unfortunately it was sent from our showrooms in the Boulevard des Capucines. If you have time to take it there I will instruct the manager to assist you in every way in his power. Indeed, I will go with you myself. I shall not be able to rest until the matter is cleared up.’

The detectives thanked him and, while Lefarge was instructing the carter, M. ThÉvenet procured a taxi and they drove to the Boulevard des Capucines.

CHAPTER XII