Innumerable detective stories are written and many are published, yet a really good one, ingeniously contrived, plausibly worked out, and so constructed as to be without quite evident flaws, is almost as rare as the proverbial black swan. There are a few, a very few, authors from whom we may confidently expect tales of this type, and to the list must now be added the name of Freeman Wills Crofts. This story [The Cask] with which he makes his bow to American readers is clever, interesting and well constructed.

Though much longer than the average tale of its kind, the narrative never drags for a moment; moreover, the manner in which the truth is finally discovered is entirely convincing, depending neither on mechanical devices, superhuman perspicacity, far-fetched coincidence nor extraordinary good luck. And from first to last Mr. Crofts plays fair with the reader. All that his detectives—and there are no less than three of them—know is imparted at once to the reader, who follows them step by step, from complete perplexity to knowledge of the truth. It is a knowledge won by hard work, the careful investigating of every clue, the careful checking up of every statement. There are plenty of clues and plenty of statements, but at first no one of them seems to throw any real light on the problem.

The tale opens in London; the freight steamer Bullfinch had just arrived at St. Katharine's Docks, bringing among other things a large consignment of casks of wine. When these were removed from the hold, another cask was brought out with them, one larger and considerably heavier. By accident, it fell from the sling to the dock, and was cracked. Through the crack a tiny stream of sawdust began to trickle. There was nothing peculiar or alarming about sawdust, especially when it came from a cask which was stenciled "Statuary only," and bore the label of a Paris firm. But when gold pieces were discovered in the sawdust, the curiosity of the clerk and of the foreman was naturally aroused. They widened the crack, peered into the cask, and caught sight of a human hand; it was a woman's hand, slight and delicate, with rings on the fingers.

It would be unfair to the reader to give more than this hint of the mystery surrounding the cask. Inspector Bumley of Scotland Yard was the first detective to take up the case. When the investigation shifted from London to Paris, M. Lefarge of the Sfirete joined Burnley, and they worked together. Then, at the last, Georges La Touche, a private detective, the son of a French father and an English mother, entered the case and found the weak spot in the criminal's dexterous arrangements, the thing Burnley and Lefarge had missed, clever and painstaking though they were. The Cask is a story no one should begin with the idea of putting it aside in a little while, for that reader will be strong-minded, indeed, who can lay the book down until the very last page is reached.

"Sawdust and Gold," in The New York Times Book Review, December 21, 1924, p. 17.