The Cask

"A Cask containing money and a human hand...something has got to be done about it"

When a cask breaks open in a busy London shipping yard, the discovery of its contents gold, sawdust and a severed hand leads to a puzzling case for Inspector Burnley of Scotland Yard. As the Inspector begins to trace the mysterious movements of the cask, his investigative procedures bring him to Paris (and the genial French detective M. Lefarge) and onto the track of a carefully plotted murder, one step at a time.

The Cask was Freeman Wills Crofts first novel, and it is considered his masterpiece.