“The police say that the effects were sent to your depository,” he remarked, dissatisfied with the manager’s assurance.
“In that case inquiry is very easy,” he said, and walking to the telephone he rang up the depository at Chiswick.
“Is that you, Merrick?” he asked over the ’phone. “I say! Have you been warehousing any goods either yesterday or to-day, or do you know of a job in Cromwell Road, at the house of a Doctor Petrovitch?”
For a full minute he waited the reply. At last it came, and he heard it to the end.
“No,” he said, putting down the receiver and turning to Barclay. “As I expected. They know nothing of the matter at the depository.”
“But how do you account for your vans—two pantechnicons and a covered van—being there?” he asked.
The manager shook his head.
“We have here the times when each job in London was finished, and when the vans returned to the yard. They were all in by 7:30. Therefore, they could not have been ours.”
“Well, that’s most extraordinary.”
“Is it somebody who has disappeared?”