The Burry Inlet, on the south coast of Wales, looks its best from the
sea. At least so thought Mr. Morgan as he sat in the sternsheets of
his boat, a fishing-line between his fingers, while his son, Evan,
pulled lazily over the still water.
In truth, the prospect on this pleasant autumn evening would have
pleased a man less biased by pride of fatherland than Mr. Morgan. The
Inlet at full tide forms a wide sheet of water, penetrating in an
easterly direction some ten miles into the land, with the county of
Carmarthen to the north and the Gower Peninsula to the south. The
shores are flat, but rounded hills rise inland which merge to form an
undulating horizon of high ground. Here and there along the coast are
sand-dunes, whose grays and yellows show up in contrast to the greens
of the grasslands and the woods beyond.
To the southeast, over by Salthouse Point and Penclawdd, Mr. Morgan
could see every detail of house and sand-dune, tree and meadow, lit up
with a shining radiance, but the northwest hills behind Burry Port
were black and solid against the setting sun. Immediately north lay
Llanelly, with its dingy colored buildings, its numberless chimneys,
and the masts and funnels of the steamers in its harbor.
It was a perfect evening in late September, the close of a perfect
day. Not a cloud appeared in the sky and scarcely a ripple stirred the
surface of the sea. The air was warm and balmy, and all nature seemed
drowsing in languorous content. Save for the muffled noise of the
Llanelly mills, borne over the water, and the slow, rhythmic creak of
the oars, no sound disturbed the sleepy quiet.
Mr. Morgan was a small, clean-shaven man in a worn and baggy Norfolk
suit which was the bane of Mrs. Morgan’s existence, but in which the
soul of her lord and master delighted as an emblem of freedom from the
servitude of the office. He leaned back in the sternsheets, gazing out
dreamily on the broad sweep of the Inlet and the lengthening shadows
ashore. At times his eyes and thoughts turned to his son, Evan, the
fourteen-year-old boy who was rowing. A good boy, thought Mr. Morgan,
and big for his age. Though he had been at school for nearly three
years, he was still his father’s best pal. As Mr. Morgan thought of
the relations between some of his friends and their sons, he felt a
wave of profound thankfulness sweep over him.
Presently the boy stopped rowing.
“Say, dad, we’ve not had our usual luck to-day,” he remarked, glancing
disgustedly at the two tiny mackerel which represented their
afternoon’s sport.
Mr. Morgan roused himself.
“No, old man, those aren’t much to boast about. And I’m afraid we
shall have to go in now. The tide’s beginning to run and I expect we
could both do with a bit of supper. Let’s change places and you have a
go at the lines while I pull in.”
To anyone attempting navigation in the Burry Inlet the tides are a
factor of the first importance. With a rise and fall at top springs of
something like twenty-five feet, the placid estuary of high water
becomes a little later a place of fierce currents and swirling eddies.
The Inlet is shallow also. At low tide by far the greater portion of
its area is uncovered and this, by confining the rushing waters to
narrow channels, still further increases their speed. As the tide
falls the great Llanrhidian Sands appear, stretching out northward
from the Gower Peninsula, while an estuary nearly four miles wide
contracts to a river racing between mud banks five hundred yards
apart.
Mr. Morgan took the oars, and heading the boat for the northern coast,
began to pull slowly shoreward. He was the manager of a large
tin-plate works at Burry Port and lived on the outskirts of the little
town. Usually a hard worker, he had taken advantage of a slack
afternoon to make a last fishing excursion with his son before the
latter’s return to school. The two had left Burry Port on a flowing
tide and had drifted up the inlet to above Llanelly. Now the tide was
ebbing and they were being carried swiftly down again. Mr. Morgan
reckoned that by the time they were opposite Burry Port they should be
far enough inshore to make the harbor.
Gradually the long line of the Llanelly houses and chimneys slipped
by. Evan had clambered aft and at intervals he felt with the hand of
an expert the weighted lines which were trailing astern. He frowned as
he glanced again at the two mackerel. He had had a good many fishing
trips with his father during the holidays, and never before had they
had such a miserable catch. How he wished he could have a couple of
good bites before they had to give up!
The thought had scarcely passed through his mind when the line he was
holding tightened suddenly and began to run out through his fingers.
At the same moment the next line, which was made fast round the after
thwart, also grew taut, strained for a second, then with a jerk
slackened and lay dead. Evan leaped to his feet and screamed out in
excitement:
“Hold, daddy, hold! Back water quick! I’ve got something big!”
The line continued to run out until Mr. Morgan, by rowing against the
tide, brought the boat relatively to a standstill. Then the line
stopped as if anchored to something below, twitching indeed from the
current, but not giving the thrilling chucks and snatches for which
the boy was hoping.
“Oh, blow!” he cried, disgustedly. “It’s not a fish. We’ve got a stone
or some seaweed. See, this one caught it, too.”
He dropped the line he was holding and pulled in the other. Its hooks
were missing.
“See,” he repeated. “What did I tell you? We shall probably lose the
hooks of this one, too. It’s caught fast.”
“Steady, old man. Take the oars and let me feel it.”
Mr. Morgan moved into the stern and pulled the resisting line, but
without effect.
“Rather curious this,” he said. “All this stretch is sand. I once saw
it uncovered at very low springs. Keep rowing till I feel round the
thing with the grappling and see if I can find out what it is.”
Evan passed the small three-pronged anchor aft and his father let it
down beside the line. Soon it touched bottom.
“About three and a half fathoms—say twenty feet,” Mr. Morgan remarked.
“Keep her steady while I feel about.”
He raised the grappling and, moving it a few inches to one side,
lowered it again. Four times it went down to the same depth; on the
fifth trial it stopped three feet short.
“By Jove!” he exclaimed, “there’s something there right enough.” He
danced the grappling up and down. “And it’s certainly not seaweed.
Treasure trove, Evan, eh?”
“Try round a bit and see how big it is,” Evan suggested, now
thoroughly interested.
Mr. Morgan “tried round.” Had he been by himself he would have
dismissed the incident with a muttered imprecation at the loss of his
hooks. But for the sake of the boy he wished to make it as much of an
adventure as possible.
“Curious,” he therefore commented again. “I’m afraid we shall not be
able to save our hooks. But let’s take bearings so that we may be able
to ask about it ashore.” He looked round. “See, there’s a good
nor’west bearing. That signal post on the railway is just in line with
the west gable of the large white house on the hill. See it? Now for a
cross bearing. Suppose we take that tall mill chimney, the tallest of
that bunch. It’s just in line with the pier-head beacon. What about
those?”
“Fine, I think. What can the thing be, dad?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps something drifted in from a wreck. We’ll ask
Coastguard Manners. Now I’ll pull in the grappling, and then the line,
and if the hooks go I can’t help it.”
The little anchor had been lying on the bottom while they talked. Mr.
Morgan now seized the rope and began to pull. But he had not drawn in
more than two feet when it tightened and remained immovable.
“By Jove! The grappling’s caught now!” he exclaimed. “A nuisance,
that. We don’t want to lose our grappling.”
“Let’s pull up. Perhaps it will come clear.”
Evan put down the oars and joined his father in the stern. Both pulled
steadily with all their strength. For a time nothing happened, then
suddenly the rope began to yield. It did not come away clear, but gave
slowly as if the object to which it was attached was lifting also.
“By Jove!” Mr. Morgan exclaimed again. “We shall get our hooks, after
all! The whole thing’s coming up.”
Slowly the rope came in foot after foot. The object, whatever it was,
was heavy, and it was all they could do to raise it. Mr. Morgan pulled
in sudden heaves, while Evan took a turn with the line round a thwart,
so as to hold the weight while his father rested.
At last the end of the rope was reached and the shank of the grappling
appeared. Then dimly beneath the surface Mr. Morgan was able to see
the object hooked. It was a large wooden packing case or crate.
Round the sides were cross-pieces, holding the sheeting boards in
place. Two of the sharp flukes of the grappling had caught beneath one
of these, and of course, the greater the pull on them, the more firmly
they became fixed.
To raise the crate while submerged and displacing its own volume of
water had been just possible. To lift it aboard was out of the
question. For a time the two considered the problem of getting it
ashore, then Mr. Morgan said:
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll make the rope fast and row in with
the crate hanging to our stern. Then we’ll beach it on the lifeboat
slip, and when the tide falls it will be left high and dry. We can
examine it then and get our hooks.”
Evan approving of the plan, they proceeded to carry it out. They made
the rope fast round the after thwart, then taking the oars, pulled
slowly inshore. As they drew nearer, the current lessened, until off
Burry Port they were almost in still water. Slowly they glided past a
line of sandhills which presently gave place first to houses and works
and then to a great deposit of copper slag like a stream of lava which
had overflowed into the sea. Finally rounding the east mole, they
entered Burry Port harbour.
Having manœuvred the boat over the lifeboat slip, they cast off the
rope, and the crate settled down in five feet of water. Then with a
bight of the rope they made the boat fast.
“Now for that supper,” Mr. Morgan suggested. “By the time we’ve had it
our treasure trove will be high and dry and we can come down and see
what it is.”
An hour later father and son were retracing their steps to the
harbour. Mr. Morgan looked businesslike with a hammer, a cold chisel,
and a large electric torch. It was still a lovely evening, but in a
few minutes it would be dark.
As Mr. Morgan had foretold, the crate was high and dry, and they
examined it with interest in the light of the torch. It was a strongly
made wooden box about three feet by two by two. All round at top and
bottom were strengthening cross-pieces, and it was beneath the upper
of these that the two flukes of the grappling had caught.
“Well and truly hooked,” Mr. Morgan remarked. “We must have drifted
across the thing, and when we pulled up the grappling it slid up the
side till it caught the cross-piece. It’s a good job for us, for now
we shall get our grappling and our hooks as well.”
Evan fidgetted impatiently.
“Don’t mind about them, dad; we can unfasten them later. Open the box.
I want to see what’s in it.”
Mr. Morgan put his cold chisel to the joint of the lid and began to
hammer.
“Strictly speaking, we shouldn’t do this,” he declared as he worked.
“We should have handed the thing over to Manners. It’s a job for the
coast-guards. However, here goes!”
The crate was strongly made, and though Mr. Morgan was a good amateur
carpenter, it took him several minutes to open it. But at last one of
the top boards was prized up. Instantly both became conscious of a
heavy, nauseating smell.
“A case of South American meat or something gone west,” Mr. Morgan
commented. “I don’t know that I’m so keen on going on with this job.
Perhaps we can see what it is without opening it up further.”
Holding his breath, he put his eye to the slit and shone in a beam
from the electric torch. Then with a sharp intaking of the breath he
rose.
“It’s a disgusting smell,” he said in rather shaky tones. “Let’s go
round and ask Manners to finish the job.”
“Let me look in, dad.”
“Right, old man. But come round with me first to see Manners.”
With some difficulty Mr. Morgan drew his son away. He was feeling sick
and shaken. For beneath that well-fitting lid and sticking up out of
the water which still remained in the crate was a gruesome and
terrible object—the bent head and crouching body of a man dressed in
underclothes only and in an advanced state of decomposition!
It was all Mr. Morgan could do to crush down the horror which
possessed him and to pretend to the boy that nothing was amiss. Evan
must not be allowed to see that ghastly sight! It would haunt his
young mind for weeks. Mr. Morgan led the way round the harbour, across
the dock gates and towards the road leading to the town.
“But aren’t we going to Manners?” Evan queried, hanging back.
“Not to-night, if you don’t mind, old chap. That smell has made me
rather sick. We can go down in the morning. The tide should be right
after breakfast.”
Evan demurred, suggesting that he alone should interview the
coastguard. But he was what Mr. Morgan called “biddable,” and when his
father showed that he was in earnest he allowed the subject to drop.
In due course they reached home. Discreet suggestion having resulted
in Evan’s settling down with his meccano, Mr. Morgan felt himself at
liberty. He explained casually that he wanted to drop into the club
for an hour and left the house. In ten minutes he was at the police
station.
“I’ve made a discovery this evening, Sergeant, which I’m afraid points
to something pretty seriously wrong,” he explained, and he told the
officer in charge about the hooking of the crate. “I didn’t want my
son to see the body—he’s rather young for that sort of thing—so we
went home without my saying anything about it. But I’ve come back now
to report to you. I suppose you, and not Manners, will deal with it?”
Sergeant Nield bore a good reputation in Burry Port as an efficient
and obliging officer, as well as a man of some reading and culture. He
listened to Mr. Morgan’s recital with close attention and quietly took
charge.
“Manners would deal with it at first, Mr. Morgan,” he answered, “but
he would hand it over to us when he saw what the object was. I think
we’ll call for him on the way down, and that will put the thing in
order. Can you come down now, sir?”
“Certainly. That’s what I intended.”
“Then we’ll get away at once. Just let me get my bicycle lamp.” He
turned to a constable. “Williames, you and Smith get another light and
take the handcart down to the lifeboat slip. Watson, take charge in my
absence. Now, Mr. Morgan, if you are ready.”
It was quite dark as the two men turned towards the harbour. Later
there would be a quarter-moon, but it had not yet risen. The night was
calm and fine, but a little sharpness was creeping into the air.
Except for the occasional rush of a motor passing on the road and
sounds of shunting from the docks, everything was very still.
“Just where did you say you found the crate, Mr. Morgan?” the sergeant
asked.
“Off Llanelly; off the sea end of the breakwater and on the far side
of the channel.”
“The Gower side? Far from the channel?”
“The Gower side, yes. But not far from the channel. I should say just
on the very edge.”
“You didn’t mark the place?”
“Not with a buoy. I hadn’t one, and if I had I should not have thought
it worth while. But I took bearings. I could find the place within a
few feet.”
“I suppose you’ve no idea as to how the crate might have got there?”
“Not the slightest. I have been wondering that ever since I learned
what was in it. What do you think?”
“I don’t know, sir, unless it has been dropped off a steamer or been
washed into the Inlet from some wreck. We’ll get it to the station and
examine it, and maybe we shall find where it came from. If you wait
here a second I’ll get hold of Manners.”
They had reached the coastguard’s house and the sergeant ran up to the
door. In a few seconds he returned with a stout, elderly man who gave
Mr. Morgan a civil good evening.
“It’s your job, of course, Tom,” the sergeant was saying, “but it’ll
be ours so soon that we may as well go down together. Perhaps, sir,
you’ll tell Manners about how you found the crate and brought it in?”
By the time Mr. Morgan had finished his story for the second time they
had reached the boat slip. The sergeant and Manners peeped into the
crate in turn.
“Yes, sir, it’s just what you said,” the former remarked. “It’s a man,
by the look of him, and he’s been dead some time. I think we’ll have
the whole affair up to the station before we open any more of it. What
do you say, Tom?”
“Right you are, Sergeant, I’ll go with you. I shall ’ave to put in a
report about the thing, but I can get my information at the station as
well as ’ere. You’ll be coming along, Mr. Morgan?”
“If you please, sir,” the sergeant interjected. “I have to get a
statement from you, too.”
“Of course I’ll go,” Mr. Morgan assured them. “I’ll see the thing
through now.”
The constables having arrived with the handcart, it was wheeled down
the slip and all five men got round the crate and with some difficulty
lifted it on.
“By Jove!” Mr. Morgan exclaimed. “That’s some weight. Surely there
must be something more than a body in it?”
“It’s certainly heavy, but it’s a very solid crate. We shall see when
we get it to the station.”
With a good deal of pushing and shoving the handcart was got up the
slip, and the little party moved off along the mole and across the
sidings to the town. On reaching the police station the crate was
wheeled into a small courtyard in the rear, and Nield invited the
others into his office.
“On second thoughts, Mr. Morgan,” he explained, “I’ll not unpack the
crate until I have reported to the superintendent and got hold of a
doctor. Meantime, sir, I’d be glad to get your statement in writing.”
For the third time Mr. Morgan told his story. The sergeant took it
down, read over what he had written, and got the other to sign it.
“That will do, sir, for to-night. You will, of course, be required at
the inquest to-morrow or next day.”
“I’ll be there, all right.”
“Then about your son, sir? Has he anything to say that might be of
use?”
Mr. Morgan looked distressed.
“Nothing, Sergeant, more than I can tell you myself. I hope you won’t
have to call the boy. He’s going back to school to-morrow.”
“That’s all right; he’ll not be wanted. And now, sir, I shouldn’t say
more about the affair than you can help. Just keep the discovery of
the body quiet and content yourself with the story of finding the
crate.”
Mr. Morgan promised and the sergeant wished him good night.
His visitor gone, Sergeant Nield handed a carbon of the statement to
Manners, promising to let him know how the affair progressed. The
coastguard being got rid of in his turn, Nield telephoned the news to
Superintendent Griffiths at Llanelly. The superintendent was suitably
impressed and in his turn rang up Major Lloyd, the chief constable at
Llandilo. Finally the latter gave instructions for Nield to arrange a
meeting at the police station for nine o’clock on the following
morning. Both the superintendent and the chief constable would motor
over, and the local police doctor was to be in attendance. The body
would then be removed from the crate and the necessary examination
made. Meanwhile nothing was to be touched.
Glad to be relieved from the sole responsibility, the sergeant made
his arrangements and at the hour named a little group entered the
courtyard of the police station. In addition to the chief constable
and superintendent, the sergeant and two of the latter’s men, there
were present two doctors—Dr. Crowth, the local police surgeon, and Dr.
Wilbraham, a friend of Major Lloyd’s, whom the latter had brought with
him.
After some preliminary remarks the terrible business of getting the
remains from the crate was undertaken. Such work would have been
distressing at all times, but in the present case two facts made it
almost unbearable. In the first place, the man had been dead for a
considerable time, estimated by the doctors as from five to six weeks,
and in the second his face had been appallingly maltreated. Indeed, it
might be said to be nonexistent, so brutally had it been battered in.
All the features were destroyed and only an awful pulp remained.
However, the work had to be done, and presently the body was lying on
a table which had been placed for the purpose in an outhouse. It was
dressed in underclothes only—shirt, vest, drawers and socks. The suit,
collar, tie, and shoes had been removed. An examination showed that
none of the garments bore initials.
Nor were there any helpful marks on the crate. There were tacks where
a label had been attached, but the label had been torn off. A round
steel bar of three or four stone weight had also been put in,
evidently to ensure the crate sinking.
The most careful examination revealed no clue to the man’s identity.
Who he was and why he had been murdered were as insoluble problems as
how the crate came to be where it was found.
For over an hour the little party discussed the matter, and then the
chief constable came to a decision.
“I don’t believe it’s a local case,” he announced. “That crate must in
some way have come from a ship. I don’t see how it could have been got
there from the shore. And if it’s not a local case, I think we’ll
consider it not our business. We’ll call in Scotland Yard. Let them
have the trouble of it. I’ll ring up the Home Office now and we’ll
have a man here this evening. To-morrow will be time enough for the
inquest, and the C. I. D. man will be here and can ask what questions
he likes.”
Thus it came to pass that Inspector Joseph French on that same
afternoon travelled westwards by the 1.55 P.M. luncheon car express
from Paddington.