The Loss of the 'Jane Vosper' by Freeman Wills Crofts

Author:Freeman Wills Crofts [Crofts, Freeman Wills]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2020-05-15T17:00:00+00:00

9

The Shed in Redliff Lane

Scientists and philosophers alike tell us that the darkest hour is that preceding the dawn, and in a metaphorical sense French was to experience the truth of the adage on his arrival at the Yard. Again and again he had noticed that confidence and self-satisfaction were more often than not the prelude to disaster. The converse did not in his experience obtain so frequently, but occasionally a period of depression and a sense of failure did seem to end in a real step forward.

It was so on this occasion. Returning to the Yard discouraged and bankrupt of ideas, he found that the first reply to his questionnaire had come in. The officer in charge of the Leman Street Police Station had something to tell him about Sutton, and had sent a message asking him to ring up as soon as convenient.

French did not delay many seconds in doing so. His mood had suddenly changed. Instead of the hopeless baffled feeling he had been experiencing, he was now filled with optimism. Subconsciously he knew he was in for a stroke of luck. Or not luck—his reason countered—rather cause and effect. He had circulated an exhaustive questionnaire, and it would be a strange thing if his efforts did not meet with some success. What he was going to hear was simply the answer to some of the questions he himself had asked. There was no luck about it: only the result of his own thought and trouble.

But when he heard the superintendent’s message his bubble of self-satisfaction was suddenly deflated. Not only was the so-called information not an answer to any of his questions, but it was, so far as he could see, entirely useless and extraneous. It was simply that on the Tuesday evening, the evening before his disappearance, Sutton had rung up one of the men in the station, a constable named Osborne, to ask if he knew anything about a firm of builders in his area. The name was Rice Brothers. Osborne had known the firm only by name, and had so replied. It had happened that the next morning Osborne had gone on sick leave, and he had only just returned. As soon as he had read of Sutton’s disappearance and the questionnaire sent out by the Yard, he had reported the incident to his superintendent. The superintendent passed on the report for what it was worth.

‘Not very much,’ French thought at first, but as he reconsidered the matter and recalled his complete bankruptcy of ideas in the case, he began to feel that even so unlikely a clue must not be neglected. ‘I’ll go down and see Osborne,’ he therefore replied. ‘Will you kindly keep him at the station till I arrive?’

‘Come along, Carter,’ he called. ‘The Leman Street station.’

‘What’s it now, sir?’ Carter asked as they set off.

‘Wild-goose chase,’ French returned bitterly. ‘We have so few that I thought we’d both like one for a change.’

For the third time that day they

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