Messrs. The Veda 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
Veda 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 £62.10.0, 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 enquiry. 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 enquiries 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 pocketbook 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
initialled 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 Number One 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 Number Three 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 Number Ones. 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
fifteenth 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 differential and pushed out of the packing-shed on a
small overhead runway and lowered on 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 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.