The letter was written on a single sheet of cream laid, court-sized paper, and bore the legend ‘Euston Hotel, London, N.W.1’ in blue type on its right top corner. It was typed in black and French could see that the machine used was not new and that some of the letters were defective and out of place. It was signed ‘James S. Stephenson’ in a hand which French instinctively felt was disguised, with blue black ink apparently of the fountain pen type. It read:
‘12th August.
‘MESSRS. THE VIDA OFFICE EQUIPMENT
MANUFACTURING CO. LTD.,
ASHBURTON, SOUTH DEVON.
‘Dear Sirs,—I should be obliged if you would kindly forward to Mr James S. Stephenson, Great Western Railway Goods Station, Morriston Road, Swansea, marked “To be kept till called for,” one of your patent Vida Electric Duplicators, No. 3, to take brief size. The motor to be wound for 220 volts D.C., and to have a flexible cord to plug into the main.
‘Please have the machine delivered at Swansea not later than 19th inst., as I wish to ship it from there on the following day.
‘I enclose herewith money order value £62 10s., the price, less discount, as given in your catalogue. Please advise receipt of money and despatch of duplicator to this hotel.
‘Yours faithfully,
‘JAMES S. STEPHENSON.’
There were here, French realised, several lines of inquiry. Something might be learned at the Euston Hotel. Unfortunately the fact that the letter was written on the hotel paper and the reply was to be sent there, did not mean that ‘Stephenson’ had stayed there: French remembered his own letter from the Charing Cross hotel to Dr Philpot in the Starvel case up in Yorkshire. But inquiries could not be omitted. Then there was the money order. It would be easy to learn the office at which it had been obtained, and there was at least the possibility that the purchaser had been observed. Lastly there was the typewriter. French felt sure that it could be identified from the irregularities of the type.
‘I may have this letter, I suppose?’ he asked.
‘Of course.’
He put the paper slowly away in his pocket-book and then in his careful, competent way began to ask questions.
‘You sent the receipt and notification of the despatch of the crate to the Euston Hotel?’
‘Certainly.’
‘What is the process of despatch? When that order came in, to whom did it go?’
‘Well, I read it first and dropped it into a basket, from which it went automatically to the accounts department. Following the ordinary routine the money would be collected, and if all was O.K. an order would go to the sales department for the despatch of the goods. When the despatch had taken place a notification in duplicate would be returned to the office, and one copy, with the receipt, would be mailed to the purchaser. The whole thing is, of course, routine, and so far as I know that routine was carried out in this case. But we can see all concerned if you like.’
‘That’s just what I would like,’ French declared.
‘Come along, then.’
‘There’s another thing, Mr Fogden,’ French interposed. ‘I have told you my business because I wanted your help. But I am anxious that no one else suspects it. If I give out that the duplicator was stolen and that you have employed me to find the thief, will you back up the yarn?’
‘Certainly. I am naturally anxious to have the affair cleared up. But do you think you can keep your real business secret?’
‘I can for a time. But that may be long enough for me to get my man.’
In the sales department French was first shown a duplicator. It was an elaborate machine, with the usual large cylinder and ingenious devices for turning out copies at high speed.
‘What does it weigh?’ he asked, when he had duly admired it.
‘About two hundredweight.’
‘Do you always send them out in crates of the same kind?’
‘Always. The crate is specially made for the purpose. Unfortunately it is an odd size, and cannot be used for any of the other products.’
This was interesting. Did it, French wondered, show an internal knowledge of the firm’s methods on the part of ‘Stephenson’?
‘Now about the actual despatch. You say an order comes from the accounts department when anything is to be sent out. Could I see this particular order?’
Mr Fogden looked through a file, finally producing a tiny sheet of paper. But small as was the chit, it was comprehensive. On it were given not only all details of the duplicator and the address of the consignee, but also Mr Fogden’s O.K., the initials of the storekeeper who had given out the machine and the crate, of the packer who had packed it, of the carter who had taken it to the station, and of the railway goods clerk who had received it, with the dates when all these things had been done.
‘By Jove!’ French remarked, when he had taken all this in, ‘you don’t leave much to chance in this establishment!’
‘We believe in individual responsibility,’ Mr Fogden explained. ‘If anything goes wrong we can usually plant the blame on the right shoulders.’
‘Well, it’s a help to me at all events. Can I see these men who have initialed this order?’
‘Certainly. Come down to the stores.’ Mr Fogden led the way to a large room furnished with multitudinous bins containing thousands of articles neatly stacked, and each labelled with its code number and with a card showing the stock. Owing to its opposite walls being composed almost entirely of glass there was a brilliant light everywhere. French marvelled at the cleanliness and tidiness of everything, and expressed his admiration of the way the place was kept.
‘This,’ continued Mr Fogden, whose heart was evidently reached by French’s comments, ‘is what we call the part store. Here are the parts of all our machines arranged in sets. Here, for example, are small parts. Those bins carry lock rods for card indexes, those ball bearing rollers for file cases, those rings for loose leaf books, and so on. Over there you get the wooden parts, panels for vertical file cabinets, multiple bookcases, parts of desks and chairs. We carry a definite stock of each part, and every time it drops to a definite number an order automatically goes to the works department for a new lot to be made.’
‘Good system.’
‘We have to do it or we should get wrong. I’ll show you now the erecting shop. This way.’
They passed into a large room where a score or more men were busily engaged in putting together machines of every type and kind. But they did not halt there long. After a general look round Mr Fogden led the way across the shop and through another door.
‘This,’ he said, ‘is our completed articles store. Here we keep our products ready for immediate despatch. We stock a certain number of each class, and the same arrangement holds good with regard to the parts. Directly a number falls to the minimum an order automatically goes to the assembly department to build so many new pieces. That keeps our stock right. Of course, an order for a large number of pieces has to be dealt with specially. For example, we always keep a minimum of twelve No. 1 duplicators complete and ready to go out, and that enables us to supply incidental orders without delay. But when an order for fifty comes in, as we had yesterday from the Argentine, we have to manufacture specially.’
French murmured appreciatively.
‘With regard to the No. 3. duplicators,’ went on Mr Fogden, pointing to the machines in question, ‘we always keep a minimum of three in stock. They are not in such demand as the No. 1’s. Now let me see.’ He compared the order with the bin or stock card. ‘Only two of these have gone out since the one you are interested in. I dare say the men will remember yours.’ He referred again to the order. ‘Packed by John Puddicoombe. Here, Puddicoombe. A moment.’
An elderly man approached.
‘Do you happen to remember packing a duplicator of this type on 15th of August last? It was a Monday and there’s the docket.’
The man scratched his head. ‘I don’t know as I do, sir,’ he answered slowly. ‘You see, I pack that many and they’re all the same. But I packed it all right if I signed for it.’
‘Where did you pack it?’ French asked.
‘In packing shed next door,’ the man replied, after an interrogatory glance at his chief.
‘Come in and see the place,’ Mr Fogden suggested, and they moved to a smaller room, the next in the series.
‘You packed it in here,’ French went on. ‘Now, tell me, did you close up the crate here?’
‘Yes, as soon as the duplicator was properly in I got the lid on. I always do.’
‘Got the lid on and made it fast?’
‘Yes, nailed it down.’
‘And was the crate despatched that same day?’
‘No,’ Mr Fogden intervened. ‘The dates show that it lay here that night. It was sent out the following day.’
‘Ah, that’s what I want to get at,’ said French. ‘Now, where did it lie all night?’
‘Here,’ the packer declared. ‘It was packed here and lay here until the lorry came for it the next day.’
‘But if you don’t remember this particular case?’ French persisted. ‘Don’t mind my asking. The matter is important.’
The packer regarded him with what seemed compassion, and replied with a tolerant forbearance.
‘I know because that’s what’s always done, and there weren’t no exception in the case of any machine,’ he replied conclusively.
This seemed to end the matter as far as Puddicoombe was concerned, and French next asked to see the carter who had taken it to the station.
The man fortunately was available, and French questioned him minutely. He stated he remembered the occasion in question. On the Tuesday morning he had loaded up the crate, Puddicoombe assisting. It was lifted by a set of differential pulley blocks which, travelling on an overhead rail, carried it to the lorry. He had driven it to the station, unloading it in the goods shed, and had obtained the usual signature. He had not allowed it out of his sight all the time it was in his charge, and it was quite impossible that its contents could have been tampered with.
‘I shall see the station people, of course,’ French declared to Mr Fogden when they returned to the latter’s office, ‘though I don’t suppose the crate could have been tampered with during the journey. What you have told me has satisfied me as to its stay here, except on one point. Could the duplicator have been taken out during the night?’
Mr Fogden believed it impossible.
‘We have a night watchman,’ he explained; ‘quite a reliable old fellow too. Nothing could have been done without his knowledge.’
‘Could I see him?’
‘Of course. But you’ll have to wait while I send for him.’
After some time an office boy ushered in a wizened old man with a goatee beard who answered to the name of Gurney. He blinked at French out of a pair of bright little eyes like some wise old bird, and spoke with a pleasing economy of words.
He came on duty, he said, each evening at seven o’clock, relieving one of the late stokers, who kept an eye on things between the closing of the works at 5.15 p.m. and that hour. His first care was to examine the boilers of the electric power plant, of which he had charge during the night; then he invariably made an inspection of the whole premises. For part of the time he sat in the boiler house, but on at least three other occasions he walked round and made sure everything was in order. The boiler fires were banked and did not give much trouble, but he had to watch the pressure gauges and occasionally to adjust the dampers. At six in the morning he was relieved by the early stokers, and he then went home.
He declared that it would be impossible for anyone to tamper with the goods in the packing shed unknown to him. The packing shed and the boiler house were at opposite sides of a narrow yard, and should the light be turned on in the former no one in the latter could fail to see it.
He remembered the Monday night in question, because it was that on which Mr Berlyn and Mr Pyke had lost their lives. On that night he had come on duty as usual and had gone his customary rounds. He was very emphatic that no one had entered the works during his period of duty.
Though the man’s character was vouched for by Mr Fogden, and though he made his statement without hesitation, French was conscious of a slight dissatisfaction. His perception of the reliability of witnesses had become so acute from long experience as to be practically intuitive. He did not think that Gurney was lying, but he felt that he was protesting more strongly than the occasion warranted. He therefore took him aside and questioned him severely in the hope of inducing some give-away emotion. But in this he failed. The watchman answered without embarrassment, and French was forced to the conclusion that his suspicions were unfounded. From the boiler house he saw for himself the effect of turning up the light in the packing shed, with the result that Gurney’s statement on this point was confirmed. Then he examined the stokers who had been in charge before and after Gurney, but their statements as to visitors were the same as the watchman’s. As far as oral testimony went, therefore, it was impossible that the crate could have been interfered with while it lay at the works.
French next betook himself to the station. But there he learned only what he expected. While no one actually remembered the transaction, its complete records were available. The crate had been received on Tuesday morning, the 16th of August, and had been unloaded in the goods shed and put immediately into a wagon for Plymouth. From the time it arrived until it left by the 11.35 a.m. goods train no one could have tampered with it, two porters being continuously about.
As after dinner that night French wrote up his report, he was conscious of a good deal of disappointment. The attractive theory that the remains were those of Pyke was not obtaining support. He had now gone into two of the four test-points he had considered, and the evidence on each of them was against it. Unless he could find some way round these difficulties, it followed that the body must have been put in after the crate had reached Swansea.
The other two test-points, however, remained to be investigated—the cause of the breakdown and the possible running time-tables of the car.
French decided therefore that unless there was news from Howells in the morning he would carry on with these.