“Good system.”
“We have to do it or we should get wrong. I’ll show you now the erecting shop. This way.”
They passed into a large room where a score or more men were busily engaged in putting together machines of every type and kind. But they did not halt there long. After a general look round Mr. Fogden led the way across the shop and through another door.
“This,” he said, “is our completed-articles store. Here we keep our products ready for immediate despatch. We stock a certain number of each class, and the same arrangement holds good with regard to the parts. Directly a number falls to the minimum, an order automatically goes to the assembly department to build so many new pieces. That keeps our stock right. Of course, an order for a large number of pieces has to be dealt with specially. For example, we always keep a minimum of twelve Number One duplicators complete and ready to go out, and that enables us to supply incidental orders without delay. But when an order for fifty comes in, as we had yesterday from the Argentine, we have to manufacture specially.”
French murmured appreciatively.
“With regard to the Number Three duplicators,” went on Mr. Fogden, pointing to the machines in question, “we always keep a minimum of three in stock. They are not in such demand as the Number Ones. Now let me see.” He compared the order with the bin or stock card. “Only two of these have gone out since the one you are interested in. I dare say the men will remember yours.” He referred again to the order. “Packed by John Puddicoombe. … Here, Puddicoombe. A moment.”
An elderly man approached.
“Do you happen to remember packing a duplicator of this type on last? It was a Monday and there’s the docket.”
The man scratched his head. “I don’t know as I do, sir,” he answered, slowly. “You see, I pack that many and they’re all the same. But I packed it, all right, if I signed for it.”
“Where did you pack it?” French asked.
“In packing-shed next door,” the man replied, after an interrogatory glance at his chief.
“Come in and see the place,” Mr. Fogden suggested, and they moved to a smaller room, the next in the series.
“You packed it in here,” French went on. “Now tell me, did you close up the crate here?”
“Yes, as soon as the duplicator was properly in I got the lid on. I always do.”
“Got the lid on and made it fast?”
“Yes, nailed it down.”
“And was the crate despatched that ?”
“No,” Mr. Fogden intervened. “The dates show that it lay here that night. It was sent out the .”
“Ah, that’s what I want to get at,” said French. “Now where did it lie all night?”
“Here,” the packer declared. “It was packed here and lay here until the lorry came for it the next day.”
“But if you don’t remember this particular case?” French persisted. “Don’t mind my asking. The matter is important.”
The packer regarded him with what seemed compassion and replied with a tolerant forbearance.
“I know because that’s what’s always done and there weren’t no exception in the case of any machine,” he replied, conclusively.
This seemed to end the matter as far as Puddicoombe was concerned, and French next asked to see the carter who had taken it to the station.
The man, fortunately, was available, and French questioned him minutely. He stated he remembered the occasion in question. On the morning he had loaded up the crate, Puddicoombe assisting. It was lifted by a differential and pushed out of the packing-shed on a small overhead runway and lowered on to the lorry. He had driven it to the station, unloading it in the goods-shed, and had obtained the usual signature. He had not allowed it out of his sight all the time it was in his charge and it was quite impossible that its contents could have been tampered with.
“I shall see the station people, of course,” French declared to Mr. Fogden when they returned to the latter’s office, “though I don’t suppose the crate could have been tampered with during the journey. What you have told me has satisfied me as to its stay here except on one point. Could the duplicator have been taken out during the night?”
Mr. Fogden believed it impossible.
“We have a night watchman,” he explained; “quite a reliable old fellow, too. Nothing could have been done without his knowledge.”
“Could I see him?”
“Of course. But you’ll have to wait while I send for him.”
After some time an office boy ushered in a wizened old man with a goatee beard who answered to the name of Gurney. He blinked at French out of a pair of bright little eyes like some wise old bird, and spoke with a pleasing economy of words.
He came on duty, he said, each evening at , relieving one of the late stokers, who kept an eye on things between the closing of the works at and . His first care was to examine the boilers of the electric power plant, of which he had charge during the night, then he invariably made an inspection of the whole premises. For part of the time he sat in the boiler-house, but on at least three other occasions he walked round and made sure everything was in order. The boiler fires were banked and did not give much trouble, but he had to watch the pressure gauges and occasionally to adjust the dampers. At he was relieved by the early stokers and he then went home.
He declared that it would be impossible for anyone to tamper with the goods in the packing-shed unknown to him. The packing-shed and the boiler-house were at opposite sides of a narrow yard, and should the light be turned on in the former
