Freeman Crofts - Inspector French and the Sea Mystery

He dropped the line he was holding and pulled in the other. Its hooks were missing.

‘See,’ he repeated. ‘What did I tell you? We shall probably lose the hooks of this one too. It’s caught fast.’

‘Steady, old man. Take the oars and let me feel it.’

Mr Morgan moved into the stern and pulled the resisting line, but without effect.

‘Rather curious, this,’ he said. ‘All this stretch is sand. I once saw it uncovered at very low springs. Keep rowing till I feel round the thing with the grappling, and see if I can find out what it is.’

Evan passed the small three-pronged anchor aft and his father let it down beside the line. Soon it touched bottom.

‘About three and a half fathoms: say twenty feet,’ Mr Morgan remarked. ‘Keep her steady while I feel about.’

He raised the grappling and, moving it a few inches to one side, lowered it again. Four times it went down to the same depth; on the fifth trial it stopped three feet short.

‘By Jove!’ he exclaimed, ‘there’s something there right enough.’ He danced the grappling up and down. ‘And it’s certainly not seaweed. Treasure trove, Evan, eh?’

‘Try round a bit and see how big it is,’ Evan suggested, now thoroughly interested.

Mr Morgan ‘tried round.’ Had he been by himself he would have dismissed the incident with a muttered imprecation at the loss of his hooks. But for the sake of the boy he wished to make it as much of an adventure as possible.

‘Curious,’ he therefore commented again. ‘I’m afraid we shall not be able to save our hooks. But let’s take bearings so that we may be able to ask about it ashore.’ He looked round. ‘See, there’s a good nor’-west bearing: that signal post on the railway is just in line with the west gable of the large white house on the hill. See it? Now for a cross bearing. Suppose we take that tall mill chimney; the tallest of that bunch. It’s just in line with the pier head beacon. What about those?’

‘Fine, I think. What can the thing be, Dad?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps something drifted in from a wreck. We’ll ask Coastguard Manners. Now I’ll pull in the grappling and then the line, and if the hooks go I can’t help it.’

The little anchor had been lying on the bottom while they talked. Mr Morgan now seized the rope and began to pull. But he had not drawn in more than two feet when it tightened and remained immovable.

‘By Jove, the grappling’s caught now,’ he exclaimed. ‘A nuisance, that. We don’t want to lose our grappling.’

‘Let’s pull up. Perhaps it will come clear.’

Evan put down the oars and joined his father in the stern. Both pulled steadily with all their strength. For a time nothing happened, then suddenly the rope began to yield. It did not come away clear, but gave slowly, as if the object to which it was attached was lifting also.

‘By Jove!’ Mr Morgan exclaimed again. ‘We shall get our hooks after all. The whole thing’s coming up.’

Slowly the rope came in foot by foot. The object, whatever it was, was heavy, and it was all they could do to raise it. Mr Morgan pulled in sudden heaves, while Evan took a turn with the line round a thwart, so as to hold the weight while his father rested.

At last the end of the rope was reached and the shank of the grappling appeared. Then dimly beneath the surface Mr Morgan was able to see the object hooked. It was a large wooden packing case or crate.

Round the sides were cross pieces, holding the sheeting boards in place. Two of the sharp flukes of the grappling had caught beneath one of these, and, of course, the greater the pull on them, the more firmly they became fixed.

To raise the crate while submerged and displacing its own volume of water had been just possible. To lift it aboard was out of the question. For a time the two considered the problem of getting it ashore, then Mr Morgan said:

‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll make the rope fast and row in with the crate hanging to our stern. Then we’ll beach it on the lifeboat slip and when the tide falls it will be left high and dry. We can examine it then and get our hooks.’

Evan approving of the plan, they proceeded to carry it out. They made the rope fast round the after thwart, then taking the oars, pulled slowly in shore. As they drew nearer the current lessened, until off Burry Port they were in almost still water. Slowly they glided past a line of sandhills which presently gave place first to houses and works and then to a great deposit of copper slag like a stream of lava which had overflowed into the sea. Finally rounding the east mole, they entered Burry Port harbour.

Having manœuvred the boat over the lifeboat slip, they cast off the rope and the crate settled down in five feet of water. Then with a bight of the rope, they made the boat fast.

‘Now for that supper,’ Mr Morgan suggested. ‘By the time we’ve had it our treasure trove will be high and dry, and we can come down and see what it is.’

An hour later father and son were retracing their steps to the harbour. Mr Morgan looked business-like with a hammer, a cold chisel, and a large electric torch. It was still a lovely evening, but in a few minutes it would be dark.

As Mr Morgan had foretold, the crate was high and dry, and they examined it with interest in the light of the torch. It was a strongly made wooden box about three feet by two by two. All round at top and bottom were strengthening cross pieces, and it was beneath the upper of these that the two flukes of the grappling had caught.

‘Well and truly hooked,’ Mr Morgan remarked. ‘We must have drifted across the thing, and when we pulled up the grappling it slid up the side till it caught the cross piece. It’s a good job for us, for now we shall get our grappling and our hooks as well.’

Evan fidgeted impatiently.

‘Don’t mind about them, Dad; we can unfasten them later. Open the box. I want to see what’s in it.’

Mr Morgan put his cold chisel to the joint of the lid and began to hammer.

‘Strictly speaking, we shouldn’t do this,’ he declared as he worked. ‘We should have handed the thing over to Manners. It’s a job for the coastguards. However, here goes!’

The crate was strongly made, and though Mr Morgan was a good amateur carpenter, it took him several minutes to open it. But at last one of the top boards was prized up. Instantly both became conscious of a heavy, nauseating smell.

‘A case of South American meat or something gone west,’ Mr Morgan commented. ‘I don’t know that I’m so keen on going on with this job. Perhaps we can see what it is without opening it up further.’

Holding his breath, he put his eye to the slit and shone in a beam from the electric torch. Then with a sharp intaking of the breath, he rose.

‘It’s a disgusting smell,’ he said in rather shaky tones. ‘Let’s go round and ask Manners to finish the job.’

‘Let me look in, Dad.’

‘Right, old man. But come round with me first to see Manners.’

With some difficulty Mr Morgan drew his son away. He was feeling sick and shaken. For beneath that well-fitting lid and sticking up out of the water which still remained in the crate, was a gruesome and terrible object—the bent head and crouching body of a man dressed in under clothes only and in an advanced state of decomposition!

It was all Mr Morgan could do to crush down the horror which possessed him and to pretend to the boy that nothing was amiss. Evan must not be allowed to see that ghastly sight! It would haunt his young mind for weeks. Mr Morgan led the way round the harbour, across the dock gates and towards the road leading to the town.

‘But aren’t we going to Manners?’ Evan queried, hanging back.

‘Not tonight, if you don’t mind, old chap. That smell has made me rather sick. We can go down in the morning. The tide should be right after breakfast.’