author - "Freeman Wills Crofts"
ice was sharpened as from anxiety. "Won't you come and see him about the petrol?"
He looked at her curiously. The smile had gone from her lips, and her face was pale. She was frowning, and in her eyes there showed unmistakable fear. She was not looking at him, and his gaze followed the direction of hers.
The driver had come out of the shed, the same dark, aquiline-featured man as had passed him on the bridge. He had stopped and was staring at Merriman with an intense regard in which doubt and suspicion rapidly changed to hostility. For a moment neither man moved, and then once again the girl's voice broke in.
"Oh, there is father," she cried, with barely disguised relief in her tones. "Come, won't you, and speak to him."
The interruption broke the spell. The driver averted his eyes and stooped over his engine; Merriman turned towards the girl, and the little incident was over.
It was evident to Merriman that he had in some way put his foot in it, how he could not imagine, un
Description
During the unloading of an Insular and Continental Steam Navigation Company ship arrived from Rouen, the Bullfinch, a cask falls, splits, and reveals its unexpected contents. As the dockworkers try to work out what to do, Mr. Léon Felix arrives and claims the cask as his own. His actions set into motion a complicated trail for the detectives of London’s Scotland Yard and Paris’s Sûreté to follow to the end.
Freeman Wills Crofts was one of many authors writing crime fiction in Britain in the 1920s and 30s, and was a contemporary and acquaintance of both Agatha Christie and Raymond Chandler. The Cask, his first novel, was written during leave from his job as a railway engineer, but its reception was good enough to set Crofts on the course of a further thirty crime novels over his career as an author.
ice was sharpened as from anxiety. "Won't you come and see him about the petrol?"
He looked at her curiously. The smile had gone from her lips, and her face was pale. She was frowning, and in her eyes there showed unmistakable fear. She was not looking at him, and his gaze followed the direction of hers.
The driver had come out of the shed, the same dark, aquiline-featured man as had passed him on the bridge. He had stopped and was staring at Merriman with an intense regard in which doubt and suspicion rapidly changed to hostility. For a moment neither man moved, and then once again the girl's voice broke in.
"Oh, there is father," she cried, with barely disguised relief in her tones. "Come, won't you, and speak to him."
The interruption broke the spell. The driver averted his eyes and stooped over his engine; Merriman turned towards the girl, and the little incident was over.
It was evident to Merriman that he had in some way put his foot in it, how he could not imagine, un
Description
During the unloading of an Insular and Continental Steam Navigation Company ship arrived from Rouen, the Bullfinch, a cask falls, splits, and reveals its unexpected contents. As the dockworkers try to work out what to do, Mr. Léon Felix arrives and claims the cask as his own. His actions set into motion a complicated trail for the detectives of London’s Scotland Yard and Paris’s Sûreté to follow to the end.
Freeman Wills Crofts was one of many authors writing crime fiction in Britain in the 1920s and 30s, and was a contemporary and acquaintance of both Agatha Christie and Raymond Chandler. The Cask, his first novel, was written during leave from his job as a railway engineer, but its reception was good enough to set Crofts on the course of a further thirty crime novels over his career as an author.