“Yes, sir.”
French turned to a thick set man in the uniform of a goods porter, who was standing expectantly by.
“Good day,” he said, pleasantly. “I want to know what you can tell me about that crate that was loaded upon a crane lorry about six weeks ago.”
“I can’t tell you nothing about it except that I helped for to get it loaded up,” the porter answered. “I was trucking here when Mr. Evans came up; he’s one o’ the clerks, you understand. Well, he came up and handed me a waybill and sez: ‘Get out that crate,’ he sez, ‘an’ get it loaded up on this lorry,’ he sez. So I calls two or three o’ the boys to give me a hand and we gets it loaded up. An’ that’s all I knows about it.”
“That’s all right. Now just take me along to Mr. Evans, will you?”
The man led the way across the yard to the office. Mr. Evans was only a junior, but this fact did not prevent French from treating him with his usual courtesy. He explained that the youth had it in his power to give him valuable help for which he would be very grateful. The result was that Evans instantly became his eager ally, willing to take any trouble to find out what was required.
The youth remembered the details of the case. It appeared that shortly after four o’clock one afternoon some five or six weeks previously a man called for a crate. He was of rather above medium height and build, with reddish hair and a high colour and wore glasses. He sounded to Evans like a Londoner. At all events, he was not a native. Evans had looked up the waybills and had found that a package had been invoiced to some one of the name given. The crate answered the man’s description, and was carriage paid and addressed, “To be called for.” Evans had, therefore, no hesitation in letting him have it. Unfortunately, he could not remember the stranger’s name, but he would search for it through the old waybills.
He vanished for a few minutes, then returned with a bulky volume which he set down triumphantly before French.
“There you are,” he exclaimed, pointing to an item. “ ‘Mr. James S. Stephenson, Great Western Railway Goods Station, Morriston Road, Swansea. To be called for.’ ‘Stephenson’ was the name. I remember it now.”
This was good enough as far as it went, but Evans’s next answer was the one that really mattered.