At 9.00 a.m. next morning the Continental express moved slowly out of Charing Cross station, bearing in the corner of a first-class smoking compartment, Inspector Burnley. The glorious weather of the past few days had not held, and the sky was clouded over, giving a promise of rain. The river showed dark and gloomy as they drew over it, and the houses on the south side had resumed their normal dull and grimy appearance. A gentle breeze blew from the south-west, and Burnley, who was a bad sailor, hoped it would not be very much worse at Dover. He lit one of his strong-smelling cigars and puffed at it thoughtfully as the train ran with ever-increasing speed through the extraordinary tangle of lines south of London Bridge. He was glad to be taking this journey. He liked Paris and he had not been there for four years, not indeed since the great Marcelle murder case, which attracted so much attention in both countries. M. Lefarge, the genial French detective with whom he had then collaborated, had become a real friend and he hoped to run across him again.
They had reached the outer suburbs and occasional fields began to replace the lines of little villas which lie closer to the city. He watched the flying objects idly for a few minutes, and then with a little sigh turned his attention to his case, as a barrister makes up his brief before going into court.
He considered first his object in making the journey. He had to find out who the murdered woman was, if she was murdered, though there appeared little doubt about that. He had to discover and get convicting evidence against the murderer, and lastly, he had to learn the explanation of the extraordinary business of the cask.
He then reviewed the data he already had, turning first to the medical report which up till then he had not had an opportunity of reading. There was first a note about Felix. That unhappy man was entirely prostrated from the shock and his life was in serious danger.
The Inspector had already known this, for he had gone to the ward before seven that morning in the hope of getting a statement from the sick man, only to find him semi-conscious and delirious. The identity of the dead woman could not, therefore, be ascertained from him. He, Burnley, must rely on his own efforts.
The report then dealt with the woman. She was aged about five-and-twenty, five feet seven in height and apparently gracefully built, and weighing a little over eight stone. She had dark hair of great length and luxuriance, and eyes with long lashes and delicately pencilled brows. Her mouth was small and regular, her nose slightly retroussé and her face a true oval. She had a broad, low forehead, and her complexion appeared to have been very clear, though dark. There was no distinguishing mark on the body.
‘Surely,’ thought Burnley, ‘with such a description it should be easy to identify her.’
The report continued:—
‘There are ten marks about her neck, apparently finger marks. Of these eight are together at the back of the neck and not strongly marked. The remaining two are situated in front of the throat, close together and one on each side of the windpipe. The skin at these points is much bruised and blackened, and the pressure must therefore have been very great.
‘It seemed clear the marks were caused by some individual standing in front of her and squeezing her throat with both hands, the thumbs on the windpipe and the fingers round the neck. From the strength necessary to produce such bruises, it looks as if this individual were a man.
‘An autopsy revealed the fact that all the organs were sound, and there was no trace of poison or other cause of death. The conclusion is therefore unavoidable that the woman was murdered by strangulation. She appears to have been dead about a week or slightly longer.’
 
‘That’s definite, anyway,’ mused Burnley. ‘Let’s see what else we have.’
There was the woman’s rank in life. She was clearly well off if not rich, and probably well born. Her fingers suggested culture; they were those of the artist or musician. The wedding ring on her right hand showed that she was married and living in France. ‘Surely,’ thought the Inspector again, ‘the Chief is right. It would be impossible for a woman of this kind to disappear without the knowledge of the French police. My job will be done when I have seen them.’
But supposing they did not know. What then?
There was first of all the letter to Felix. The signatory, M. Le Gautier, assuming such a man existed, should be able to give a clue. The waiters in the Toisson d’Or Café might know something. The typewriter with the defective letters was surely traceable.
The clothes in which the corpse was dressed suggested another line of attack. Inquiry at the leading Paris shops could hardly fail to produce information. And if not there were the rings and the diamond comb. These would surely lead to something.
Then there was the cask. It was a specially made one, and must surely have been used for a very special purpose. Inquiry from the firm whose label it had borne could hardly be fruitless.
And lastly, if all these failed, there was left advertisement. A judiciously worded notice with a reward for information of identity would almost certainly draw. Burnley felt he was well supplied with clues. Many and many a thorny problem he had solved with far less to go on.
He continued turning the matter over in his mind in his slow, painstaking way until a sudden plunge into a tunnel and a grinding of brakes warned him they were coming into Dover.
The crossing was calm and uneventful. Before they passed between the twin piers at Calais the sun had burst out, the clouds were thinning, and blue sky showing in the distance.
They made a good run to Paris, stopping only at Amiens, and at 5.45 precisely drew slowly into the vast, echoing vault of the Gare du Nord. Calling a taxi, the Inspector drove to a small private hotel he usually patronised in the rue Castiglione. Having secured his room, he re-entered the taxi and went to the S?reté, the Scotland Yard of Paris.
He inquired for M. Chauvet, sending in his letter of introduction. The Chief was in and disengaged, and after a few minutes delay Inspector Burnley was ushered into his presence.
M. Chauvet, Chef de la S?reté, was a small, elderly man with a dark, pointed beard, gold-rimmed glasses, and an exceedingly polite manner.
‘Sit down, Mr. Burnley,’ he said in excellent English, as they shook hands. ‘I think we have had the pleasure of co-operating with you before?’
Burnley reminded him of the Marcelle murder case.
‘Ah, of course, I remember. And now you are bringing us another of the same kind. Is it not so?’
‘Yes, sir, and a rather puzzling one also. But I am in hopes we have enough information to clear it up quickly.’
‘Good, I hope you have. Please let me have, in a word or two, the briefest outline, then I shall ask you to go over it again in detail.’
Burnley complied, explaining in half a dozen sentences the gist of the case.
‘The circumstances are certainly singular,’ said the Chief. ‘Let me think whom I shall put in charge of it with you. Dupont is perhaps the best man, but he is engaged on that burglary at Chartres.’ He looked up a card index. ‘Of those disengaged, the best perhaps are Cambon, Lefarge, and Bontemps. All good men.’
He stretched out his hand to the desk telephone.
‘Pardon me, sir,’ said Burnley. ‘I don’t want to make suggestions or interfere in what is not my business, but I had the pleasure of co-operating with M. Lefarge in the Marcelle case, and if it was quite the same I should very much like to work with him again.’
‘But excellent, monsieur. I hear you say that with much pleasure.’
He lifted his desk telephone, pressing one of the many buttons on its stand.
‘Ask M. Lefarge to come here at once.’
In a few seconds a tall, clean-shaven, rather English looking man entered.
‘Ah, Lefarge,’ said the Chief. ‘Here is a friend of yours.’
The two detectives shook hands warmly.
‘He has brought us another murder mystery and very interesting it sounds. Now, Mr. Burnley, perhaps you would let us hear your story in detail.’
The Inspector nodded, and beginning at the sending of the clerk Tom Broughton to check the consignment of wine at the Rouen steamer, he related all the strange events that had taken place, the discovery of the cask, and the suspicions aroused, the forged note, the removal of the cask, the getting rid of Harkness, the tracing and second disappearance of the cask, its ultimate recovery, its sinister contents, and finally, a list of the points which might yield clues if followed up. The two men listened intently, but without interrupting. After he had finished they sat silently in thought.
‘In one point I do not quite follow you, Mr. Burnley,’ said the Chief at last. ‘You appear to assume that this murdered woman was a Parisienne. But what are your reasons for that?’
‘The cask came from Paris. That is certain, as you will see from the steamship’s documents. Then the letter to Felix purports to be from a Parisian, a M. Le Gautier, and both it and the note pinned t............