The Cask by Freeman Wills Crofts — Read

At nine o'clock that evening the usual meeting was held in the Chief's room at the Sûreté.

"I also have had some news," said M. Chauvet, when he had heard Burnley's and Lefarge's reports. "I sent a man up to that pump manufactory and he found out enough to substantiate entirely Boirac's statement of the hours at which he arrived there and left on the night of the accident. There is also a despatch from Scotland Yard. On receipt of Mr. Burnley's wire immediate inquiries were made about the cask sent by Havre and Southampton. It appears it arrived all right at Waterloo on the morning after it was despatched from here. It was booked through, as you know, to an address near Tottenham Court Road, and the railway people would in the ordinary course have delivered it by one of their lorries. But just as it was being removed from the van of the train, a man stepped forward and claimed it, saying he was the consignee, that he wished to take it to another address, and that he had a cart and man there for the purpose. He was a man of about medium height, with dark hair and beard, and the clerk thought he was a foreigner, probably French. He gave his name as Léon Felix and produced several envelopes addressed to himself at the Tottenham Court Road address as identification. He signed for, and was handed over the cask, and took it away. His movements after that were completely lost sight of, and no further traces of him have been discovered. A photo of Felix was shown to the Waterloo people, but while the clerk said it was like the man, neither he nor any of the others would swear to it.