Palmer, I am an inspector from Scotland Yard. I arrest you on a charge of stealing a cask. I warn you anything you say may be used against you. Better come quietly, you see there are three of us.’
Before the dumbfounded man could realise what was happening, a pair of handcuffs had snapped on his wrists and he was being pushed in the direction of the car.
‘All right, boss, I’ll come,’ he said as he got in, followed by Burnley and Hastings. The driver started his engine and the car slipped quietly down the road. The whole affair had not occupied twenty seconds and hardly one of the passers-by had realised what was taking place.
‘I’m afraid, Palmer, this is a serious matter,’ began Burnley. ‘Stealing the cask is one thing, but breaking into a man’s yard at night is another. That’s burglary and it will mean seven years at least.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking abaht, boss,’ answered the prisoner hoarsely, licking his dry lips, ‘I don’t know of no cask.’
‘Now, man, don’t make things worse by lying. We know the whole thing. Your only chance is to make a clean breast of it.’
Palmer’s face grew paler but he did not reply.
‘We know how you brought out the cask to Mr. Felix’s about eight o’clock last night, and how, when you had left it there, you thought you’d go back and see what chances there were of getting hold of it again. We know how you hid the dray in a field close by, and then went back down the lane and waited to see if anything would turn up. We know how you learnt the house was empty and that after Mr. Felix left you brought the dray back. We know all about your getting over the wall with the barrel loader, and forcing the coach-house door with the wheel-cap wrench. You see, we know the whole thing, so there’s not the slightest use in your pretending ignorance.’
During this recital the prisoner’s face had grown paler and paler until it was now ghastly. His jaw had dropped and great drops of sweat rolled down his forehead. Still he said nothing.
Burnley saw he had produced his impression and leant forward and tapped him on the shoulder.
‘Look here, Palmer,’ he said. ‘If you go into court nothing on earth can save you. It’ll be penal servitude for at least five, and probably seven, years. But I’m going to offer you a sporting chance if you like to take it.’ The man’s eyes fixed themselves with painful intentness on the speaker’s face. ‘The police can only act if Mr. Felix prosecutes. But what Mr. Felix wants is the cask. If you return the cask at once, unopened, Mr. Felix might—I don’t say he will—but he might be induced to let you off. What do you say?’
At last the prisoner’s self-control went. He threw up his manacled hands with a gesture of despair.
‘My Gawd!’ he cried hoarsely. ‘I can’t.’
The Inspector jumped.
‘Can’t?’ he cried sharply. ‘What’s that? Can’t? What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know where it is. I don’t, I swear. See ’ere, boss,’ the words now poured out of his mouth in a rapid stream, ‘I’ll tell you the truth, I will, swelp me Gawd. Listen to me.’
They had reached the City and were rapidly approaching Scotland Yard. The Inspector gave instructions for the car to be turned and run slowly through the quieter streets. Then he bent over to the now almost frantic man.
‘Pull yourself together and tell me your story. Let’s have the whole of it without keeping anything back, and remember the truth is your only chance.’
Palmer’s statement, divested of its cockney slang and picturesque embellishments was as follows:—
‘I suppose you know all about the way Mr. Felix hired the dray,’ began Palmer, ‘and painted it in the shed, and about my mate Jim Brown and me?’ The Inspector nodded, and he continued: ‘Then I don’t need to tell you all that part of it, only that Jim and I from the first were suspicious that there was something crooked about the whole business. Mr. Felix told us he had a bet on that he could get the cask away without being caught, but we didn’t believe that, we thought he was out to steal it. Then when he told us that stevedore fellow was to be fixed so he couldn’t follow us, we were both quite sure it was a do. Then you know how Felix and I left Jim and him in the bar and went back to the shed and repainted the dray? You know all that?’
‘I know,’ said Burnley.
‘We waited in the shed till it was getting on towards dusk, and then we got the cask out to Felix’s, and left it swinging in a set of chain blocks in an out-house. Well, sir, I asked more than twice the pay he’d promised, and when he gave it without a word I was certain he was afraid of me. I thought, “There’s some secret about that cask and he’ld be willing to pay to have it kept quiet.” And then it occurred to me that if I could get hold of it, I could charge him my own price for its return. I didn’t mean to steal it. I didn’t, sir, honest. I only meant to keep it for a day or two till he’d be willing to pay a reward.’
The man paused.
‘Well, you know, Palmer, blackmail is not much better than theft,’ said Burnley.
‘I’m only telling you the truth, sir; that’s the way it was. I thought I’d try and find out what part of the house Felix slept in and if there were others about, so as to see what chances there’d be of getting the dray up again without being heard, so I hid it in a field as you know, and went up the lane. I don’t think I would have done anything only for Felix going away and saying the house was empty. Then it came over me so strongly how easy everything would be with the coast clear and the cask swinging in the chain blocks. The temptation was too strong for me, and I went back and got in as you said. I suppose you must have been there all the time watching me?’
The Inspector did not reply, and Palmer went on:—
‘It happened that for some time I had been going to change my house. There was an empty one close by I thought would suit. I’d got the key on Saturday and looked over it on Sunday. The key was still in my pocket, for I hadn’t had time to return it.
‘I intended to drive the dray down the lane behind this house and get the cask off it, then run round and get in from the front, open the yard door, roll the cask in, lock up again and return the dray to the yard. I would make an excuse with the landlord to keep the key for a day or two till I could get the money out of Felix.
‘Well, sir, I drove down the lane to the back of the house, and then a thing happened that I’d never foreseen. I couldn’t get the cask down. It was too heavy. I put my shoulder to it, and tried my utmost to get it over on its side, but I couldn’t budge it.
‘I worked till the sweat was running down me, using anything I could find for a lever, but it was no good, it wouldn’t move. I went over all my friends in my mind to see if there was any one I could get to help, but there was no one close by that I thought would come in, and I was afraid to put myself in any one’s power that I wasn’t sure of. I believed Jim would be all right, but he lived two miles away and I did not want to go for him for I was late enough as it was.
‘In the end I could think of no other way, and I locked the house and drove the dray to Jim’s. Here I met with another disappointment. Jim had gone out about an hour before, and his wife didn’t know where he was or when he’d be in.
‘I cursed my luck. I was ten times more anxious now to get rid of the cask than
