“I had a lucky deal after our conversation yesterday, got seven hundred unexpectedly planted. You may send up a couple of hundred extra tonight if you like.”
“Right. I shall,” Benson answered, and the conversation ceased.
Inspector Willis swore bitterly as he lay back on the dusty floor and pillowed his head on his hands. And then while he still fumed and fretted, outraged nature asserted herself and he fell asleep.
He woke, ravenously hungry, as it was getting dusk, and he did not delay long in letting himself out of the house, regaining the lane, and walking to Ferriby Station. An hour later he was dining at his hotel in Hull.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE SECRET OF THE SYNDICATE
A night’s rest made Willis once more his own man, and next morning he found that his choking rage had evaporated, and that he was able to think calmly and collectedly over the failure of his plans.
As he reconsidered in detail the nature of the watch he had kept, he felt more than ever certain that his cordons had not been broken through. No one, he felt satisfied, could have passed unobserved between the depot and the distillery.
And in spite of this the stuff had been delivered. Archer and Benson were not bluffing to put him off the scent. They had no idea they were overheard, and therefore had no reason to say anything except the truth.
How then was the communication being made? Surely, he thought, if these people could devise a scheme, he should be able to guess it. He was not willing to admit his brain inferior to any man’s.
He lit his pipe and drew at it slowly as he turned the question over in his mind. And then a possible solution occurred to him. What about a subterranean connection? Had these men driven a tunnel?