‘Well, I should have said, perhaps, between here and the time of loading on to the steamer at Rouen wharf.’
‘But I am afraid you are making a mistake there,’ said M. Thomas; ‘the cask went by Havre. All our stuff does.’
‘Pardon me, M. Thomas, for seeming to contradict you,’ said Burnley, in his somewhat halting French, ‘but I am as certain of it as of my presence here now, however the cask may have been sent, it certainly arrived in the London Docks by the Insular and Continental Steam Navigation Company’s boat from Rouen.’
‘But that is most mysterious,’ rejoined M. Thomas. He struck a bell and a clerk appeared.
‘Bring me the railway papers about the sending of that cask to Felix, London, on the thirtieth ultimo.’
‘Here you are,’ he said to Burnley, when the clerk returned. ‘Look at that. That is the receipt from the St. Lazare people for the freight on the cask between this and the address in London, per passenger train via Havre and Southampton.’
‘Well,’ said Burnley, ‘this gets me altogether. Tell me,’ he added after a pause, ‘when Felix telephoned you from London asking when and by what route you were sending the cask, what did you reply?’
‘I told him it was crossing on Tuesday night, the 30th of March, by Havre and Southampton.’
‘We’d better go to St. Lazare,’ said Lefarge. ‘Perhaps M. Thomas will kindly lend us that receipt?’
‘Certainly, but you must please sign for it, as I shall want it for my audit.’