The Trojan Crate

Dog Downey works for the master criminal Maxy Martingale. His job is to be shut in a crate which is delivered to a house whose owners are absent but whose contents are worth burgling, and then break out of it during the night. The plan goes wrong, but Downey eventually comes out of it with a wife.

This is one of a series of comic stories about the Minerva Club, an association of fairly warm-hearted criminals. The other stories are The Ransom of Angelo, Flint's Diamonds, Three Heads are better than one, and A Stroke of Genius.

A similar plot device was used in the first episode of Canning's serial for BBC TV, This Way for Murder, 1967.