Freeman Wills Crofts

“ Smoke must be percolating into the room.
“The torch here,” cried La Touche suddenly.
Taking his pistol, he fired a number of shots on the bolt of the lock.
“Don’t use them all. How many have you?”
“Two more.”
“Keep them.”
The lock seemed shattered, but still the door held. The men’s efforts were becoming frenzied when Mallet had an idea. Along the farther wall of the room stood a heavy, old-fashioned sofa.
“Let’s use the couch as a battering-ram.”
The room was now thick with smoke, biting and gripping the men’s throats. Hampered by coughing and bad light, they could not work fast. ”

“ I feared if I wrote in my own name you would suspect some trick on my part and refuse to come.”
“Not unnaturally a suspicion of the kind did enter our minds,” answered La Touche. “It is but fair to tell you, M. Boirac, that we are armed”—La Touche withdrew his automatic pistol from his pocket and laid it on a table at his hand—“and if you give either of us the slightest cause for anxiety, we shall fire without waiting to make inquiries.” ”

“ We drifted farther and farther apart, till life together became insupportable. And then I met Felix and asked him to the house, not knowing till weeks later that he was the man who had been in love with my wife at the art school. But you must not think I have anything to say against the honour of either of them. My wife spoiled my life it is true, but she did not elope with Felix, nor did he, so far as I know, ask her to. ”

“ There by the light of an electric torch I carefully inked over the tracing I had made of the forged letter ordering the cask, and blotted it on Felix’s pad. This, I felt sure, would be found, and would seem to prove that he had written the order.
“I had foreseen that it would be argued that Felix must be innocent because not only would he have no motive to murder my wife, but also he would naturally be the last man in the world to do such a thing. It was necessary for me, therefore, to provide a motive. ”

“ When Mallet arrived, La Touche showed him the letter. The subordinate took precisely the same view as his chief.
“I don’t think it’s a plant,” he said, “but with Boirac you can’t be too careful. I should bring your John Cockerill, or whatever you use, if I were you.”
“I’ll do so,” said the other, slipping an automatic pistol into his pocket.
They reached the house in the Avenue de l’Alma about 8.15, and La Touche rang. To their surprise and disappointment the door was opened by no less a person than Boirac himself. ”

“ In spite of their loathing for this callous and cynical criminal, La Touche and Mallet could not but be impressed by the cleverness of the trick. All the detectives concerned had argued that as the order for the statue had been received apparently from London on Tuesday, it must have been posted there on Monday, and that as Felix was there and Boirac in Paris, the former must have posted it. But how simply they had been duped! Truly, thought the detectives with unwilling admiration, Boirac had deserved to succeed.
“But the tracing?” persisted La Touche. ”

“ I determined to send the body to Felix, not only to satisfy my hate, but in the hope that his efforts to get rid of it would bring suspicion of the murder on him. Where, I wondered, could I get a receptacle in which to send it? And then it occurred to me that in the study adjoining was the cask that had just arrived with my statue. It was large, strongly made and bound with iron. It would suit my purpose admirably.
“I crossed to the study and unpacked the group. Then quite coolly I carried the body in and placed it in the cask. ”

“ What I have to say is not easy, but, alas, I deserve that. I may tell you at once without any beating about the bush—I brought you here to-night to make my confession. Yes, gentlemen, you see before you the miserable, guilty man. ”

“ M. Boirac is dining out to-night and most of the servants are attending the marriage festivities of one of the housemaids; the house is therefore unprotected, and I cannot leave it to call on you, but if you could see your way to call here any time during the evening, I shall tell you what I have learnt.
“Yours respectfully,⁠
“Henri François.”
“Extraordinary,” thought La Touche, “how, when you get some information about a case, more nearly always comes in. Here I worked for ages on this case without getting any forrader, and François made no discoveries to encourage me. ”

“ Any attempt on his life or liberty would be exceedingly risky for Boirac. If he really knew what had come out, his game would surely be to collect what money he could and disappear while there was yet time. All the same La Touche felt he should neglect no precaution for his own safety. ”

“ He pointed to the chair Boirac had occupied and which now lay on its side on the floor. Fastened to the left arm was another end of gut which also entered a hole in the floor.
“I bet those are connected!”
Their curiosity temporarily overcame their fears. La Touche turned on the switch and Mallet, pulling the gut at the arm of the chair, heard it click off again.
“Ingenious devil,” he muttered. “It must go round pulleys under the floor. And now he has cut off the current at the meter.”
“Come on, Mallet,” La Touche called. “Don’t waste time. We must get out of this.” ”

“ I forged an order in Felix’s hand for the companion group to my own to be sent to Felix at an imaginary address, made a tracing of it, left the letter in Dupierre’s letter-box on Monday night, telephoned them on Tuesday morning ascertaining by what route and train they were sending the group, went to London, met it and had it left in a shed there, all as you must have learnt.”
“A moment, please,” interrupted La Touche. “You are going a little too quickly for me. You say you made a tracing of your forged order for the companion group and left the letter in Dupierre’s letter-box. ”

“ I filled up the cask with sawdust, ramming it tight. The body being so much larger than the group, there was a lot of sawdust over. This I swept up with the clothes brush from the hall and put in a handbag, which I locked. Finally I replaced the wooden top of the cask loosely as before, though still strongly enough not to come out if the cask was moved. When I had finished no one would have suspected that anything had been tampered with.
“It was my intention to create the impression that my wife had gone away with Felix. To this end two things appeared immediately necessary. ”

“ Only Madame entertaining her lover after her husband has come home.’
“She staggered back as if from a blow and collapsed into her chair, and turned her now pallid face to me.
“ ‘Oh!’ she cried in a trembling, choking voice. ‘Raoul, it’s not true! It’s not true, Raoul, I swear it! Don’t you believe me, Raoul?’
“I stepped close to her. My hate swelled up in a blinding, numbing, overwhelming passion. It must have shown in my eyes, for a sudden fear leapt into hers. ”

“ They were armed and on their guard. As he entered the hall his left hand in his overcoat pocket crept to the handle of his magazine pistol, and he quietly covered the manufacturer.
The latter closed the front door behind them and led the way to François’s room. It was in darkness, but Boirac, entering before the others, turned on the light.
“Come in and be seated, gentlemen, if you please,” he said. “I should like a word with you before François returns.”
La Touche did not at all like the turn affairs were taking. Boirac’s conduct seemed to him to grow more and more suspicious. ”

“ The next evening, Monday, I pretended to unpack the cask. I brought the group I had taken out of it on the previous Saturday from the portmanteau in which I had hidden it, and placed it on the table in my study. On the floor, about the cask, I sprinkled some of the sawdust from the handbag. ”

“ But that is for me alone. Her name, at any rate, is safe. You will never find it out.”
Boirac’s voice had fallen still lower. He spoke in a sort of toneless, numb way, as if mechanically, and yet his hearers could see that only his iron control prevented a breakdown.
“On that night of the dinner party,” he resumed, “I met Felix accidentally in the hall on his arrival, and brought him into my study to see an etching. It is true we there spoke of the cask which had just arrived with my group, but I gave him no information such as would have enabled him to obtain a similar one. ”

“ By this manœuvre I hoped if suspicion arose it would be argued that as the cask was not unpacked till Monday night, the body could not have been put into it on the night of the dinner. As you know, this ruse also succeeded. I also took the label off the cask and put it in my pocket.
“Opening the cask again, I put in £52 10s. in English gold, to correspond with my slip. I hoped that, if the police got hold of the cask, they would assume that Felix had put in this money in order to strengthen his story that the cask had been sent to him. ”