Freeman Wills Crofts

“ But I was wrong, for when M. Boirac began to speak I asked him the direct question. ‘You are speaking from Calais?’ I said. ‘No,’ he answered, ‘from Charenton.’ I am sure now it was my mistake and that what I thought was Calais was really Charenton. I am not very quick and on the telephone these names sound very much alike. Strange your making the same mistake.”
“It is curious,” admitted La Touche, “almost like one of those extraordinary cases of thought transference you read of. ”

“ Nor would the carter if the other paid him well or had some hold over him. This, thought La Touche, may be why these advertisements have all failed.
So far he had got when his illuminating idea struck him. The fault of these advertisements was that they had appealed to the wrong people. Instead of appealing to the carter, could his associates not be approached? Or rather his employer, for it was obvious that neither Boirac nor Felix could be his employer, except in the case of this one job. He jumped out of bed, turned on the light, and began to draft a circular letter. ”

“ An innocent man is in danger of conviction on a murder charge for want of certain evidence. This could be supplied by a carter—a clean-shaven, sharp-featured man with white hair. If you have (or had last March) such a man in your employment, or know of such, I most earnestly beg you to advise me. I am a private detective, working on behalf of the accused man. I guarantee no harm to the carter. ”

“ Though La Touche had now no doubt Boirac was the man the carter saw, he felt it would be more satisfactory if the two could be brought together in the hope of getting direct evidence of identity. As time was of value he called up Clifford and rapidly discussed the point. It was agreed that, if possible, Hill should be sent to Paris by that evening’s train. A couple of hours later there was a telegram from the solicitor that this had been arranged.
Accordingly, next morning La Touche met the English boat train at the Gare du Nord and welcomed a tall, dark man with a small, close-cut moustache. ”

“ What about the café at Charenton?
And then La Touche got another of his inspirations. He had solved the Wednesday telephone trick. Could that on Tuesday be explained in the same way?
He had already noted that a traveller by the train leaving Paris at 12.00 noon and arriving at Victoria at 7.10 could just reach Waterloo Road by 7.30. Thinking again over the point, he suddenly saw the significance of the hour of the call at the carting establishment. It was late. A man wishing to do business there would have gone earlier, had he been able. But this man was not able. ”

“ On Tuesday, frankly, they did not. What about Wednesday? Could a man who was in London at 11.00 in the morning be in Brussels at 11.00 the same evening? La Touche got his Continental Bradshaw. Here it was. London depart 2.20 p.m.; Brussels arrive 10.25 p.m. That seemed all right. A traveller arriving by that train would reach the Hôtel Maximilian “about 11.00.” Then La Touche remembered that Boirac’s account of how he spent this day had not been substantiated. ”

“ Asked if he could identify the black-bearded man, the carter said he believed he could. But he failed to do so. On being taken to see Felix, he stated the artist was like the dark foreigner, but he would not swear he was the same man.
This news interested La Touche greatly, and he sat smoking into the small hours seeing how far he could work these new facts into the theories of the crime which he and Clifford had discussed. If the prosecution were correct, Felix must have been the man who called at the cartage establishment at 7.30 on Tuesday evening. ”

“ There, after a considerable delay, he found his two friends, the porters who had unloaded the cask on that Thursday nearly two months before. Explaining that he expected the carter he was in search of to call at his hotel on some evening in the early future, he offered them five francs a day to sit in his room between 8.00 and 10.00 p.m. to identify the man, should he arrive. ”

“ Some were merely negative, the recipients having written to say that no carter answering to the description was known to them. Others stated they knew men of the type required, mentioning names and addresses. La Touche made lists of these, determining to call on any who did not come to see him at the hotel. ”

“ What you have just asked me brings it to my mind. M. Pascot lunched also when the gentleman was here, and he noticed him and asked me if I knew who he was. M. Pascot may be able to tell us.”
“Who is M. Pascot?” ”