the last moment the bank authorities had changed their minds, and overnight had sent £53,000 worth of gold for conveyance to the ship. They had borrowed for the purpose an army lorry from Woolwich, a service which is sometimes claimed by the national banking institution.
The lorry had been accompanied by eight detectives, the military driver also being armed. Tilbury was reached at half-past eleven o'clock at night, and the lorry, a high-powered Lassavar, had returned to London at two o'clock in the morning. It had been again loaded in the bank courtyard under the eyes of the officer, sergeant, and two men of the guard that is on duty on the bank premises from sunset to sunrise. A new detachment of picked men from Scotland Yard, each carrying an automatic pistol, loaded the lorry for its second journey, the amount of gold this time being £73,000 worth. After the boxes had been put into the van, they had climbed up, and the lorry had driven away from the bank. Each of the eight men guarding this treasure was passed under review by a high officer of Scotland Yard who knew every one personally. The lorry was seen in Commercial Road by a detective-inspector of the division, and its progress was noted also by a police-cyclist patrol who was on duty at the junction of Ripple and Barking roads.
The main Tilbury road runs within a few hundred yards of the village of Rainham, and it was at this point, only a few miles distant from Tilbury, that the lorry disappeared. Two motor-cyclist policemen, who had gone out to meet the gold-convoy and who had received a telephone message from the Ripple road to say that it had passed, grew uneasy and telephoned to Tilbury.
It was an airless morning, with occasional banks of mist lying in the hollows, and part of the road, especially near the river, was covered with patches of white fog, which dispersed about eight o'clock in the morning under a southeasterly wind. The mist had almost disappeared when the search party from Tilbury pursued their investigations and came upon evidence of the tragedy which the morning was to reveal. This was an old Ford motor car that had evidently run from the road, miraculously missed a telegraph pole, and ditched itself. The machine had not overturned; there were no visible marks of injury; yet the man who sat at the wheel was stone dead when he was found. An immediate medical examination failed to discover an injury of any kind to the man, who was a small farmer of Rainham, and on the face of it it looked as though he had died of a heart attack whilst on his way to town.
Just beyond the place where he was found, the road dips steeply between high banks. It is known as Coles Hollow, and at its deepest part the cutting is crossed by a single-track bridge, which connects two portions of the farm through which the road runs. The dead farmer and his car had been removed when Reeder and Inspector Simpson of Scotland Yard, who had been put in charge of the case, arrived on the spot. No news of any kind had been received of the lorry; but the local police, who had been following its tracks, had made two discoveries. Apparently, going through the cutting, the front wheels of the trolley had collided with the side, for there was a deep scoop in the clayey soil which the impact had hollowed out.
"It almost appears," said Simpson, who had been put in charge of the case, "that the lorry swerved here to avoid the farmer's car. There are his wheel tracks, and you notice they were wobbling from side to side. Probably the man was already dying."
"Have you traced the trolley tracks from here?" asked Reeder.
Simpson nodded and called a sergeant of the Essex Constabulary, who had charted the tracks.
"They seem to have turned up north toward Becontree," he said. "As a matter of fact, a policeman at Becontree said he saw a large trolley come out of the mist and pass him, but that had a tilt on it and was going toward London. It was an army lorry, too, and was driven by a soldier."
Mr. Reeder had lit a cigarette and was holding the flaming match in his hand, staring at it solemnly.
"Dear me!" he said, and dropped the match and watched it extinguish.
And then he began what seemed to be a foolish search of the ground, striking match after match.
"Isn't there light enough for you, Mr. Reeder?" asked Simpson irritably.
The detective straightened his back and smiled. Only for a second was he amused, and then his long face went longer than ever.
"Poor fellow!" he said softly. "Poor fellow!"