"The Cask"

The cask, which had been shipped from the French city of Rouen to London, was not part of the shipment of wines which the young man from the shipping line had come to inspect. It wasn't immediately clear what the cargo was supposed to be - certainly not the wine that was expected at the port that morning. But when the cask was damaged in a slight accident, it turned out to be carrying something quite different: the body of a murdered woman - packed along with a number of gold coins. It would be up to Inspector Burnley of Scotland Yard, with the assistance of Monsieur Lefarge of the Sûreté to investigate the murder and, with the help of a talented private investigator, to solve the mystery of The Cask, the first mystery written by Freeman Wills Crofts and often regarded as one of the pillars of Golden Age detective fiction. The Cask, first published in 1920, is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

During the 1920s and beyond, Freeman Wills Crofts was recognized as the master of the timetable mystery. This early form of the police procedural usually relies on a clever detective studying the alibis of the principal suspects in a given case and breaking down one or more of those alibis. This often is the result of studying, for example, a railroad timetable to discover that on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the 12:10 train from Waterloo made a separate stop where the culprit was able to connect to another fast train across the country to commit a crime that would have been impossible on another weekday without that connection – you get the idea. Crofts turned this kind of plot device into an art form.

In The Cask, the investigation of the murder is in the hands of Inspector Burnley. He travels immediately to Paris to enlist the help of Monsieur Lefarge from the Surêté. Between them they attempt to run down the movement of that cask between Paris and London, seeking to determine when and where the victim was murdered, and by whom, and how the body got into the cask.

About halfway through the book, it begins to become evident which of the suspects might have had both the motive and the opportunity to commit the murder, but it will take independent investigation by a private investigator (working on behalf of the defense attorneys for an accused suspect) to determine how a diabolically clever alibi could be broken. There is a chilling climax to the action of the novel as well.

There are times when all the fussing over train and shipping schedules (and understanding a timetable of the movements of the cask itself plays a key role in the solution) may become a bit tiresome to the modern reader looking for more action. On the other hand, I think The Cask was one of Freeman Wills Crofts’s best books. Crofts’s regular series detective, Inspector French of Scotland Yard, didn’t appear in the author’s books until several years after the publication of The Cask, but readers who enjoy those later novels about French will see clear similarities between French and Inspector Burnley. The Cask is available now in e-book formats - paper editions may be harder to find - and it remains an entertaining read.

Comments

[Bev Hankins]

I really enjoyed this when I read it back in the mists of time (like 30 years ago--at least). I've got a few more Crofts on my TBR pile...but I haven't gotten to to them since I started blogging.

Thanks for reminding me of this one, Les.

By the way...are you going to join me for some Vintage Scavenger Hunting this year?

[Les Blatt]

I've reviewed a few Crofts mysteries over the past few years, Bev. I enjoy his puzzles. And I too have more on the TBR mountain...

As for the scavenger hunt this year...I'm not positive. While Amazon does have a lot of the cover images, some of the books on my list (and/or my Kindle) have images that don't match. Examples - well, The Cask. There are a couple of images on line, including the one with this posting. But they're ALL of a cask. The one on this Amazon page at least shows a hand coming out of a crack in the cask - but there's nothing to match that on the scoresheet. There's only a single picture online for last week's book, Jerrold's "Let Him Lie" - and there are a couple of people on the cover plus a dead body, none of which (I think) really match up. So I'm waiting a bit until I get some more reading done and see what kind of images I can find that will work! If I start to get some lined up, I'll do the entry post and catch up.

[Bev Hankins]

Les, I found this one for The Cask: http://salmongutter.blogspot.com/2010/09/paperback-356-cask-freeman-willis.html

If you read it in e-book form without a cover, you could absolutely use it (carriage/wagon). :-)