Part 34 (1/2)

The cellar being empty save for the tun, the pump, and the small tramway and trucks, he turned, and flas.h.i.+ng his light before him, walked slowly along the pa.s.sage down which ran the pipe. He was, he felt sure, pa.s.sing under the wharf and heading towards the river.

Some sixty feet past the pump the floor of the pa.s.sage came to an abrupt end, falling vertically as by an enormous step to churning waters of the river some six feet below. At first in the semi-darkness Willis thought he had reached the front of the wharf, but he soon saw he was still in the cellar. The roof ran on at the same level for some twenty feet farther, and the side walls, here about five feet apart, went straight down from it into the water. Across the end was a wall, sloping outwards at the bottom and made of horizontal pit-props separated by s.p.a.ces of two or three inches. Willis immediately realized that these props must be those placed behind the inner or raking row of piles which supported the front of the wharf.

Along one side wall for its whole length was nailed a series of horizontal laths twelve inches apart. What their purpose was he did not know, but he saw that they made a ladder twenty feet wide, by which a man could work his way from the pa.s.sage to the end wall and reach the water at any height of the tide.

Above this ladder was an object which at first puzzled the inspector, then as he realized its object, it became highly illuminating. On a couple of brackets secured to the wall lay a pipe of thin steel covered with thick black baize, and some sixteen feet long by an inch in diameter. Through it ran the light copper pipe which was connected at its other end to the pump. At the end of the pa.s.sage this pipe had several joints like those of a gas bracket, and was folded on itself concertina-wise.

The inspector stepped on to the ladder and worked his way across it to the other end of the steel pipe, close by the end wall. The copper pipe protruded and ended in a filling like the half of a union. As Willis gazed he suddenly grasped its significance.

The side of the Girondin, he thought, would lie not more than ten feet from where he was standing. If at night someone from within the cellar were to push the end of the steel tube out through one of the s.p.a.ces between the horizontal timbers of the end wall, it could be inserted into a porthole, supposing one were just opposite. The concertina joints would make it flexible and allow it to extend, and the baize covering would prevent its being heard should it inadvertently strike the side of the s.h.i.+p. The union on the copper tube could then be fixed to some receptacle on board, the brandy being pumped from the s.h.i.+p to the tun.

And no outsider could possibly be any the wiser! Given a dark night and careful operators, the whole thing would be carried out invisibly and in absolute silence.

Now Willis saw the object of the peculiar construction of the front of the wharf. It was necessary to have two lines of piles, so that the deck between might overshadow and screen from view the openings between the horizontal beams at the front of the cellar. He stood marvelling at the ingenuity of the plan. No wonder Hilliard and Merriman had been baffled.

But if he were to finish his investigations, he must no longer delay.

He worked back across the side of the cellar, regained the pa.s.sage, and returned to the pump-room. Then turning into the other pa.s.sage, he began to walk as quickly as possible along it.

The tunnel was barely four feet high by three wide, and he found progress very tiring. After a slight curve at the mouth it ran straight and almost dead level. Its construction was the same as that of the cellar, longitudinal timber lining supported behind verticals and lintels s.p.a.ced about six feet apart. When he had gone about two hundred yards it curved sharply to the left, ran heavily timbered for some thirty yards in the new direction, and then swung round to the right again.

”I suppose the railway crosses here,” Willis thought, as he pa.s.sed painfully round the bends.

The sweat stood in drops on his forehead when he reached the end, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he realized he could once more stand upright and stretch his cramped back. He found himself in another cellar, this time about six feet by twelve. The tramway ran along it, stopping at the end wall. The place was otherwise empty, save for a wooden grating or tun-dish with a hinged lid which was fixed between the rails near the entrance. The telephone wires, which had followed the tunnel all the way, here vanished into the roof.

Willis concluded he must be standing beneath some part of the distillery, and a very little thought was required to make clear to him the raison d'etre of what he saw. He pictured the kegs being pushed under the tap of the large tun in the pump-room and filled with brandy pumped in from the Girondin. In imagination he saw Benson pus.h.i.+ng his loaded trucks through the tunnel--a much easier thing to do than to walk without something to step over--stopping them one by one over the grating and emptying the contents therein. No doubt that grating was connected to some vat or tun buried still deeper beneath the distillery, in which the brandy mingled with the other brandy brought there by more legitimate means, and which was sold without doc.u.mentary evidence of its surprising increase in bulk.

It was probable, thought Willis, that some secret door must connect the chamber in which he stood with the distillery, but a careful search revealed no trace of any opening, and he was forced to the conclusion that none existed. Accordingly, he turned and began to retrace his steps through the tunnel.

The walk back seemed even longer and more irksome than his first transit, and he stopped here and there and knelt down in order to straighten his aching back. As he advanced, the booming sound of the waves, which had died down to a faint murmur at the distillery, grew louder and louder. At last he reached the pump-cellar, and was just about to step out of the tunnel when his eye caught the flicker of a light at the top of the step-ladder. Someone was coming down!

Willis instantly snapped off his own light, and for the fraction of a second he stood transfixed, while his heart thumped and his hand slid round to his revolver pocket. Breathlessly he watched a pair of legs step on to the ladder and begin to descend the steps.

Like a flash he realized what he must do. If this was Benson coming to ”take up stuff,” to remain in the tunnel meant certain discovery. But if only he could reach the pa.s.sage under the wharf he might be safe. There was nothing to bring Benson into it.

But to cross the cellar he must pa.s.s within two feet of the ladder, and the man was half-way down. For a moment it looked quite hopeless, then unexpectedly he got his chance. The man stopped to lock the wardrobe door. When he had finished, Willis was already across the cellar and hurrying down the other pa.s.sage. Fortunately the noise of the waves drowned all other sounds.

By the time the unknown had reached the bottom of the ladder, Willis had stepped on to the cross laths and was descending by them. In a moment he was below the pa.s.sage level. He intended, should the other approach, to hide beneath the water in the hope that in the darkness his head would not be seen.

But the light remained in the cellar, and Willis raised himself and cautiously peeped down the pa.s.sage. Then he began to congratulate himself on what he had just been considering his misfortune. For, watching there in the darkness, he saw Benson carry out the very operations he had imagined were performed. The manager wheeled the kegs one by one beneath the great barrel, filled them from the tap, and then, setting his lamp on the last of the three, pushed them before him down the tunnel towards the distillery.

Inspector Willis waited until he judged the other would be out of sight, then left his hiding-place and cautiously returned to the pump-room. The gauge now showed 1,125 gallons, and he noted that 125 gallons was put up per trip. He rapidly ascended the steps, pa.s.sed out through the wardrobe, and regained the bedroom. A few minutes later he was once more out on the railway.

He had glanced at his watch in the building and found that it was but little after ten. Benson must therefore have returned by an earlier train than usual. Again the inspector congratulated himself that events had turned out as they had, for though he would have had no fear of his personal safety had he been seen, premature discovery might have allowed the other members of the gang to escape.

The last train for Hull having left, he started to walk the six miles to the city. The weather had still further changed for the worse, and now half a gale of wind whirled round him in a pandemonium of sound and blew blinding squalls of rain into his eyes. In a few moments he was soaked to the skin, and the buffeting of the wind made his progress slow. But he struggled on, too well pleased by the success of his evening's work to mind the discomfort.

And as he considered the affair on the following morning he felt even more satisfied. He had indeed done well! Not only had he completed what he set out to do--to discover the murderer of Coburn--but he had accomplished vastly more. He had brought to light one of the greatest smuggling conspiracies of modern times. It was true he had not followed up and completed the case against the syndicate, but this was not his business. Smuggling was not dealt with by Scotland Yard. It was a matter for the Customs Department. But if only it had been forged notes! He heaved a sigh as he thought of the kudos which might have been his.

But when he had gone so far, he thought he might as well make certain that the brandy was discharged as he imagined. He calculated that the Girondin would reach Ferriby on the following day, and he determined to see the operation carried out.