The Pit-Prop Syndicate by Freeman Wills Crofts (readict books TXT) 📕

Metropolis and keep him there. By tomorrow the gang, convinced that discovery was imminent, would be aboard the Girondin and on the high seas. They were, as he expressed it to himself, “doing a bunk.”

Therefore of necessity the Girondin would load barrelled oil to drive her to some country where Scotland Yard detectives did not flourish, and where extradition laws were of no account. Therefore she must return light, or, he suspected, empty, as there would be no time to unload. Moreover, a reason for this “lightness” must be given him, lest he should notice the ship sitting high out of the water, and suspect. And he now knew that it was really Benson that he had seen returning to Ferriby via Goole, and that Archer was doing the same via Selby.

He looked up the trains from Selby to Ferriby. There was only one. It left Selby at 9:19, fifty-eight minutes after the Doncaster train arrived there, and reached Ferriby at 10:07. It was now getting on towards eight. He had nearly two and a half hours to make his plans.

Though Willis was a little slow in thought he was prompt in action. Feeling sure that Archer would indeed travel by the 7:56 to Selby, he relaxed his watch and went to the telephone call office. There he rang up the police station at Selby, asking for a plain-clothes man and two constables to meet him at the train to make an arrest. Also he asked for a fast car to be engaged to take him immediately to Ferriby. He then called up the police in Hull, and had a long talk with the superintendent. Finally it was arranged that a sergeant and twelve men were to meet him on the shore at the back of the signal cabin near the Ferriby depot, with a boat and a grappling ladder for getting aboard the Girondin. This done, Willis hurried back to the platform, reaching it just as the 7:56 came in. He watched Archer get on board, and then himself entered another compartment.

At Selby the quarry alighted, and passed along the platform towards the booking-office. Willis’s police training instantly revealed to him the plain-clothes man, and him he instructed to follow Archer and learn to what station he booked. In a few moments the man returned to say it was Ferriby. Then calling up the two constables, the four officers followed the distiller into the first-class waiting room, where he had taken cover. Willis walked up to him.

“Archibald Charles Archer,” he said impressively, “I am Inspector Willis of Scotland Yard. I have a warrant for your arrest on a charge of murdering Francis Coburn in a cab in London on 12th September last. I have to warn you that anything you say may be used in evidence.”

For a moment the distiller seemed so overwhelmed with surprise as to be incapable of movement, and before he could pull himself together there was a click, and handcuffs gleamed on his wrists. Then his eyes blazed, and with the inarticulate roar of a wild beast he flung himself wildly on Willis, and, manacled as he was, attempted to seize his throat. But the struggle was brief. In a moment the three other men had torn him off, and he stood glaring at his adversary, and uttering savage curses.

“You look after him, sergeant,” Willis directed a little breathlessly, as he tried to straighten the remnants of his tie. “I must go on to Ferriby.”

A powerful car was waiting outside the station, and Willis, jumping in, offered the driver an extra pound if he was at Ferriby within fifty minutes. He reckoned the distance was about twenty-five miles, and he thought he should maintain at average of thirty miles an hour.

The night was intensely dark as the big vehicle swung out of Selby, eastward bound. A slight wind blew in from the east, bearing a damp, searching cold, more trying than frost. Willis, who had left his coat in the London train, shivered as he drew the one rug the vehicle contained up round his shoulders.

The road to Howden was broad and smooth, and the car made fine going. But at Howden the main road turned north, and speed on the comparatively inferior cross roads to Ferriby had to be reduced. But Willis was not dissatisfied with their progress when at 9:38, fifty-four minutes after leaving Selby, they pulled up in the Ferriby lane, not far from the distillery and opposite the railway signal cabin.

Having arranged with the driver to run up to the main road, wait there until he heard four blasts on the Girondin’s horn, and then make for the syndicate’s depot, the inspector dismounted, and forcing his way through the railway fence, crossed the rails and descended the low embankment on the river side. A moment later, just as he reached the shore, the form of a man loomed up dimly through the darkness.

“Who is there?” asked Willis softly.

“Constable Jones, sir,” the figure answered. “Is that Inspector Willis? Sergeant Hobbs is here with the boats.”

Willis followed the other for fifty yards along the beach, until they came on two boats, each containing half a dozen policemen. It was still very dark; and the wind blew cold and raw. The silence was broken only by the lapping of the waves on the shingle. Willis felt that the night was ideal for his purpose. There was enough noise from wind and water to muffle any sounds that the men might make in getting aboard the Girondin, but not enough to prevent him overhearing any conversation which might be in progress.

“We have just got here this minute, sir,” the sergeant said. “I hope we haven’t kept you waiting.”

“Just arrived myself,” Willis returned. “You have twelve picked men?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Armed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. I need not remind you all not to fire except as a last resort. What arrangements have you made for boarding?”

“We have a ladder with hooks at the top for catching