“I get you. Right. I’ll arrange it. Now first as to the letter.”
He touched the bell and ordered a certain file to be brought him. From this he took out a letter and passed it to French.
Chapter Six: The Despatch of the Crate
The letter was written on a single sheet of cream-laid, court-sized paper and bore the legend “Euston Hotel, London. N. W. 1.” in blue type on its right corner. It was typed in black, and French could see that the machine used was not new and that some of the letters were defective and out of place. It was signed “James S. Stephenson” in a hand which French instinctively felt was disguised, with blue-black ink apparently of the fountain-pen type. It read:
12 August.
Messrs. The Veda Office Equipment Manufacturing Co. Ltd.,
Ashburton,
South Devon.
Dear Sirs,I should be obliged if you would kindly forward to Mr. James S. Stephenson, Great Western Railway Goods Station, Morriston Road, Swansea, marked “To be kept till called for,” one of your patent Veda electric duplicators, No. 3, to take brief size. The motor to be wound for 220 volts D.C. and to have a flexible cord to plug into the main.
Please have the machine delivered at Swansea not later than 19th inst., as I wish to ship it from there on the following day.
I enclose herewith money order value £62.10.0, the price, less discount, as given in your catalogue. Please advise receipt of money and despatch of duplicator to this hotel.
Yours faithfully,
James S. Stephenson.
There were here, French realised, several lines of enquiry. Something might be learned at the Euston Hotel. Unfortunately, the fact that the letter was written on the hotel paper and the reply was to be sent there did not mean that “Stephenson” had stayed there. French remembered his own letter from the Charing Cross Hotel to Dr. Philpot in the Starvel case up in Yorkshire. But enquiries could not be omitted. Then there was the money order. It would be easy to learn the office at which it had been obtained, and there was at least the possibility that the purchaser had been observed. Lastly there was the typewriter. French felt sure that it could be identified from the irregularities of the type.
“I may have this letter, I suppose?” he asked.
“Of course.”
He put the paper slowly away in his pocketbook and then in his careful, competent way began to ask questions.
“You sent the receipt and notification of the despatch of the crate to the Euston Hotel?”