The Loss of the Jane Vosper (27 page)

Next morning he and Carter left Euston by the Irish Mail and shortly after two o’clock reached Bangor. It was many years since French had been along that strip of Welsh coast, and he enjoyed every foot of the way. He had forgotten how fine the scenery was, and, as was usual when he travelled anywhere he admired, he decided he would spend his next holiday in the district.

At the police station Superintendent Evans greeted him with cordiality. He hoped, he said, that French was going to help them to clear up what had been a puzzling case. He needn’t say that all their information and resources were at his, French’s, disposal.

French explained enough about the
Jane
Vosper
to enable Evans to appreciate the object of his enquiries. The super was extremely interested and said that such a possibility had not occurred to him. The most he had visualized was an attempt to do some legitimate blasting without the formality of a licence.

‘I suggest you come out and see the place,’ went on Evans. ‘I’ll go with you if you like, and we’ll take Inspector Griffiths, who was in charge of the case.’

Nothing could have pleased French more. In five minutes they were in the super’s car, bowling along the Carnarvon road. A mile or so outside the town they turned left up towards the higher ground, and soon came to Llandelly, the townland containing the quarry.

The next half-hour reminded French vividly of the Joymount-Chayle case he had had a year or two earlier down on Southampton Water. There the question of a theft of explosives had arisen, and there he had also visited a quarry, very similar to this one, and for a very similar purpose. There it was to see whether explosives could have been stolen, not to clear up an actual case of theft. But, apart from this, the two visits were practically identical.

Here, as at Joymount, was the great face from which the stone was taken, with its benches and precipices and faults, the noisy chuffing drills, the heaps of fallen stone, the Decauville tramways, and the men posted like flies here and there on the rock. There was the pit containing the crushers at the base of the towering stone bins, the elevators carrying up the crushed material, and the usual office and power sheds. And, what interested French even more, there was, quarter of a mile away, the small stone-built explosives store.

Superintendent Evans saw the foreman, and, through him, the charge hand whose business it was to attend to the explosives. As at Joymount, this proved to be a workman of a superior type. He was responsible for the working of the store. He held the only key kept at the quarry, and no one else was allowed into the store. He gave out all the explosives and was responsible for keeping a tally of what was in stock.

He had not, however, a great deal to tell about the theft. On Monday morning, 2nd September, he had gone as usual to the store to count out the explosive required for the dinner-hour blasts. He had found the door closed, but unfastened. It had been forced with something like a small bar or jemmy. Inside there was no sign of anything having been interfered with, but he had immediately counted his stores and found that both gelignite and detonators had disappeared. Some 40 sticks of gelignite were gone, and he thought about a dozen detonators, though as the latter were so small, he could not be sure of the exact number. He had at once reported the matter to his foreman, who had sent for the police.

Inspector Griffiths then took up the tale. He had made an examination of the site. He had searched most carefully for footprints and fingerprints, but without finding either. Nor had he been able to find any small article which the thief might have dropped. He had, however, found one object which he had hoped might prove a clue, though unhappily it had not done so. This was a tiny fragment of wool or frieze or serge, which had caught in a splinter of one of the shelves. It was at the police station, and he would hand it over to French. The super had had it examined by an expert, who said it was tweed of a certain type. He, the sergeant, had then made the obvious enquiries, but had not been able to find anyone who wore this sort of tweed. The suggestion, therefore, was that it was the thief’s, and that he was a stranger in the district. He should perhaps have mentioned that during the search for fingerprints he had found clear traces of gloves. Enquiries as to anyone having been seen about the quarry had yielded nothing.

Superintendent Evans then described how he had had general enquiries made in the neighbourhood with the same object. No stranger had been observed anywhere in the district during the whole of that weekend. On Saturday night, however, a Ford van had been seen parked in a deserted lane some half-mile from the quarry. The farm-hand who had observed it lived close by, and if French would care to see him he had only to say the word.

French thought that, when he had come so far, he might as well see all that was to be seen. The superintendent accordingly led the way back to his car.

‘Here,’ he said, after a couple of minutes’ drive, ‘is where the car was seen. You will notice that it’s a very secluded place, hidden from casual observation by those trees, and a vehicle might well stand here for hours without being seen.’

‘I can understand that,’ French answered, looking about him. ‘Why should a vehicle be hidden here if not in connection with the theft?’

‘Quite; we appreciated the point. The sergeant went into it and could find no reason whatever. Nor could he find anyone who could explain it. No one had been called on, or anything of that sort.

‘The man who saw it lives up this lane,’ the super went on. ‘We might walk up.’

As they walked French could not keep out of his mind the point that the van was a Ford. Was it the van which had carried the timber and other materials to the Redliff Lane shed? The affair was certainly promising.

The farm-hand, when eventually they ran him to earth, had not a great deal to tell. On the Saturday night in question he had been at a dance at a neighbouring farmhouse. He had gone about eight, and it was while on his way that he had seen the van. The night was dark, but he had passed close beside it. It was an ordinary 30-cwt Ford covered van, but he had not observed the number. No, there was nothing remarkable about it whatever. He had returned home about two in the morning, and the van was then gone.

At the police station, on their return to Bangor, French was handed a tiny splinter of wood, cut from the explosive store shelf, and containing in a crack the little bit of tweed. It was so small – a few woolly hairs – as to be barely visible, and French’s congratulations of the sergeant’s observation was no mere formal politeness.

French was considerably interested to notice that the tweed was grey in colour. On the few occasions when Rice had been seen in cold weather, he had been wearing a grey overcoat. French grew more and more eager as he thought that here was cumulative evidence. That a Ford van should enter into both enquiries meant little. That the same should be true of a grey overcoat was of slight importance. But that both a Ford van and a grey overcoat should be common to each was a quite different proposition. It made distinctly probable the idea that there really was a connection.

It was dark when they returned to the police station, which greatly disappointed French, as he had hoped to have had time to go down to the Strait to see the bridges. However, he had to be content with inviting Evans to dinner, before catching a train for Town.

On reaching the Yard, he sent the bit of tweed over to their technical adviser for further examination. Then, with Carter, he set off once again to the Redliff Lane shed.

‘We
might
somewhere have missed a bit of this stuff,’ he urged, though he did not think it very likely. ‘We’ll go over every scrap of wood that Rice might have come up against when wearing his overcoat. If we could get a bit of the same stuff in the shed it would give us a big lift forward.’

They searched all the morning with meticulous care, but without success. French was disappointed in spite of his previous pessimism.

‘Come along to that hotel,’ he went on doggedly. ‘The coat might have been hung up somewhere in that bedroom, and, if so, we might get a few hairs there.’

If perseverance and thoroughness could have achieved success, French would have succeeded. But neither of these qualities, admirable though they were, could find non-existent objects. There was no wool in the bedroom either, and at last the two men returned to the Yard.

There he found that a complete specification of the cloth from which the wool had been torn had been received from the expert. He reported that, should the tweed be found, it should be easy to identify.

But could the tweed be found? For some time French sat thinking at his desk, then he drafted a paragraph for insertion into all journals likely to be read by the cloth manufacturers of the Midlands and elsewhere. He said that Yard officers had found a scrap of the tweed on the site of a serious crime, and that they were anxious to trace its manufacture in the hope of finding the coat from which the scrap had been torn. Would any manufacturer who had made such a material kindly advise the Yard in confidence? Then followed the technical specification.

French realized the extremely tenuous nature of the clue. Conceivably the manufacturer might be found, though this, of course, was very far, indeed, from being certain. But if he were found, the real difficulty would only begin. The tweed might have been sent to scores of tailors, and each of those tailors might have made scores of coats from it. Unless Rice had bought the coat in his own name, it would probably be impossible to trace it to him. Of course, in such investigations there was always the chance of some supplementary evidence coming out which would give the necessary lead. It would not do to neglect the possibility, at all events. French felt that he must do all that he could, and then hope for the best.

Having sent out his paragraph, he went wearily home.

The next three days proved to be the most disappointing and unproductive that French had experienced since the case began. He worked as hard as ever, but he accomplished nothing. None of his enquiries led to a result. Every line he tried petered out or reached a point from which he was unable to carry it further.

He grew steadily more and more discouraged. It wasn’t that he was short of facts. There were plenty of facts, but he couldn’t connect them up. He was at a complete standstill, not only as to the death of Sutton, but equally as to the blowing up of the
Jane
Vosper
.
And nowhere could he see a line of research which he had overlooked, or which promised to give him what he wanted.

And it was small comfort to think, as he sometimes did, that he had been up against things to an equal extent many times in the past. Again and again in his cases he had reached a dreadful and exasperating position from which he could visualize no further progress. Again and again failure had stared him in the face. And in many of these self-same cases he had ultimately succeeded. Many an investigation which had ended triumphantly for him had looked as badly as this one during at least some part of its progress. But he hadn’t always pulled off his cases. These deadlocks hadn’t invariably freed themselves. Until he got a fresh start, he knew that the fear of failure would grow more and more insistent.

It was, therefore, enormously to his relief that on the fourth morning he found on arrival at the Yard that news had come in. It was not the news he wanted, but it was news, and better than nothing. The manufacturer of the tweed had been found.

At least if that was not quite proven, it was probable. Mr Blott, the managing director of the Huxtable Wheatley Weaving Company of Bradford, wrote to say that during the last six years his company had made a tweed which seemed to conform in all respects with that specified. He enclosed a sample which would enable the Yard experts to say whether or not it was what they sought.

For several hours French remained on tenterhooks while the experts made tests and looked through microscopes. Then in the afternoon came the reply he had expected. The sample was in every respect like that found at Llandelly, but there was not a sufficient quantity of the latter to set the matter beyond doubt. Though probable, it was therefore not certain that Mr Blott’s firm was that required.

French swore disgustedly. More possibilities! Could he nowhere in this darned case find anything that was definite?

There was, however, only one thing to be done. He must assume the samples were the same and see if it led anywhere. Perhaps similar notices from other manufacturers might come in later, and, between them all, he might get what he wanted.

He rang up Mr Blott and asked him to let him have a note of all the firms to whom he had sold his tweed. Blott
replied that he would post the information on that night.

In due course the letter arrived. At first glance French’s heart fell as he saw that list contained some sixty-five names. Could they ever go over sixty-five firms and in each find all those men for whom overcoats had been made? It seemed an almost hopeless job.

But when French began to read down the list his mood quickly changed. At the sight of one of the names his exasperation and disappointment passed as if they had never been and in the twinkling of an eye he was once more eager and optimistic. Blake & Newington! Something familiar about that! Blake & Newington was one of the five names he had deduced from the ‘KE & NEW’ scrap of burnt paper he had rescued from the fireplace in Rice’s shed. Was there here the connection he had so long sought?

Full of energy and in the highest spirits, he called Carter, and together they set off for Blake & Newington’s establishment in Oxford Street. It was a good-sized concern, which, if French had been in a normal condition of mind, would have considerably dashed his enthusiasm, representing, as it did, so much the larger a clientele to be interrogated. However, the reaction from despondency was upon him, and he enquired for the manager with a feeling that he was approaching the end of his troubles.

Mr Domlio was a dry-mannered man with a careworn expression. He heard what French had to say, then shook his head.