Inspector French and the Box Office Murders

by Freeman Wills Crofts

  FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS

  Inspector French and the Box Office Murders

  Copyright

  Published by COLLINS CRIME CLUB

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by Wm Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1929

  Copyright © Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts 1929

  Cover design by Mike Topping © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780008190705

  Ebook Edition © March 2017 ISBN: 9780008190712

  Version: 2017-01-23

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1: The Purple Sickle

  Chapter 2: French Makes an Assignation

  Chapter 3: The Inquest

  Chapter 4: French Makes a Start

  Chapter 5: Lee-on-the-Solent

  Chapter 6: The Supreme Appeal Court

  Chapter 7: Fair Passengers

  Chapter 8: The Grey Car’s Round

  Chapter 9: French Makes a Second Assignation

  Chapter 10: Mr Cracksman French

  Chapter 11: The Happy Paterfamilias

  Chapter 12: The Car’s Freight

  Chapter 13: The Transport of Supplies

  Chapter 14: The Property Adjoining

  Chapter 15: Mr Cullimore Expounds

  Chapter 16: In the Net

  Chapter 17: The Shadows Loom Nearer

  Chapter 18: When Greek Meets Greek

  Chapter 19: Conclusion

  About the Author

  Also in this Series

  About the Publisher

  1

  The Purple Sickle

  Inspector Joseph French, of the Criminal Investigation Department of New Scotland Yard, sat writing in his room in the great building on Victoria Embankment. Before him on his desk lay sheet after sheet of memorandum paper covered with his small, neat writing, and his pen travelled so steadily over the paper that an observer might have imagined that he had given up the detection of crime and taken to journalism.

  He was on a commonplace job, making a précis of the life history of an extremely commonplace burglar. But though he didn’t know it, fate, weighty with the issues of life and death, was even then knocking at his door.

  Its summons was prosaic enough, a ring on the telephone. As he picked up the receiver he little thought that that simple action was to be his introduction to a drama of terrible and dastardly crime, indeed one of the most terrible and dastardly crimes with which he had ever had to do.

  ‘That Inspector French?’ he heard. ‘Arrowsmith speaking—Arrowsmith of Lincoln’s Inn.’

  A criminal lawyer with a large practice, Mr Arrowsmith was well known in the courts. He and French were on friendly terms, having had tussles over the fate of many an evil-doer.

  ‘Yes, Mr Arrowsmith. I’m French.’

  ‘I’ve a young lady here,’ Arrowsmith went on, ‘who has just pitched me a yarn which should interest you. She has got into the clutches of a scoundrel who’s clearly up to no good. I don’t know what he’s after, but it looks mighty like a scheme of systematic theft. I thought you might like to lay a trap and take him redhanded.’

  ‘Nothing would please me better,’ French returned promptly. ‘Shall I go across to your office?’

  ‘No, it’s not necessary. I’ll send the girl to the Yard. Thurza Darke is her name. She’ll be with you in half an hour.’

  ‘Splendid! I’ll see her directly she comes. And many thanks for your hint.’

  Though he spoke cordially, French was not impressed by the message. Communications purporting to disclose clues to crimes were received by the Yard every day. As a matter of principle all were investigated, but not one in a hundred led to anything. When, therefore, about half an hour later Miss Darke was announced, French greeted her courteously, but without enthusiasm.

  She was a pretty blonde of about five-and-twenty, with a good manner and something of a presence. Well but plainly dressed in some light summery material, she looked what she evidently was, an ordinary, pleasant, healthy young woman of the lower middle classes. French put her down as a typist or shopgirl or perhaps a bookkeeper in some small establishment. In one point only did she seem abnormal. She was evidently acutely nervous. There was panic in her eyes, tiny drops of perspiration stood on her face, and the hand in which she grasped her vanity bag trembled visibly.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Darke,’ said French, rising as she entered and pulling forward a chair. ‘Won’t you sit down?’ He gave her a keen glance and went on: ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me for two or three minutes I’ll be quite at your service.’

  He busied himself again with his papers. If her nervousness were due to her surroundings she must be allowed time to pull herself together.

  ‘Ready at last,’ he went on with his pleasant smile. ‘Just take your time and tell me your trouble in your own way and it’ll be a strange thing if between us all we’ll not be able to help you out.’

  The girl looked at him gratefully and with some surprise. Evidently she had expected a different kind of reception. French noted the glance with satisfaction. To gain the confidence of those with whom he had to deal was his invariable aim, not only because he valued pleasant and friendly relations for their own sake, but because he felt that in such an atmosphere he was likely to get more valuable details than if his informant was frightened or distrustful.

  ‘So you know Mr Arrowsmith?’ he prompted, as she seemed to have a difficulty in starting. ‘A good sort, isn’t he?’

  ‘He seems so indeed, Mr French,’ she answered with a suggestion of Lancashire in her accent. ‘But I really can’t say that I know him. I met him this morning for the first time.’

  ‘How was that? Did you go to consult him?’

  ‘Not exactly: that is, it was through Miss Cox, Miss Jennie Cox, his typist. She is my special friend at the boarding house we live at. She told him about me without asking my leave. He said he would hear my story and then she came back to the boarding house and persuaded me to go and tell it to him.’

  ‘She thought you were in some difficulty and wanted to do you a good turn?’

  ‘It was more than that, Mr French. She knew all about my difficulty, for I had told her. But she believed I was in danger and thought somebody should be told about it.’

  ‘In danger? In danger of what?’

  The girl shivered.

  ‘Of my life, Mr French,’ she said in a low tone.

  French looked at her more keenly. In spite of this surprising reply there was nothing melodramatic in her manner. But he now saw that her emotion was more than mere nervousness. She was in point of fact in a state of acute terror. Wh
atever this danger might be, it was clear that she was fully convinced of its reality and imminence.

  ‘But what are you afraid may happen to you?’ he persisted.

  Again she shivered. ‘I may be murdered,’ she declared and her voice dropped to a whisper.

  ‘Oh, come now, my dear young lady, people are not murdered in an offhand way like that! Surely you are mistaken? Tell me all about it.’ His voice was kind, though slightly testy.

  She made an obvious effort for composure.

  ‘It was Eileen Tucker. She was my best friend. They said she committed suicide. But she didn’t, Mr French! I’m certain she never did. She was murdered! As sure as we’re here, she was murdered! And I may be too!’ In spite of her evident efforts for self-control, the girl’s voice got shrill and she began jerking about in her chair.

  ‘There now,’ French said soothingly. ‘Pull yourself together. You’re quite safe here at all events. Now don’t be in a hurry or we’ll get mixed up. Take your own time and tell me everything from the beginning. Start with yourself. Your name is Thurza Darke. Very good now; where do you live?’ He took out his notebook and prepared to write.

  His quiet, methodical manner steadied the girl and she answered more calmly.

  ‘At 17 Orlando Street, Clapham. It’s a boarding house kept by a Mrs Peters.’

  ‘You’re not a Londoner?’

  ‘No; I come from Birkenhead. But my parents are dead and I have been on my own for years.’

  ‘Quite. You are in some job?’

  ‘I’m in charge of one of the box offices at the Milan Cinema in Oxford Street.’

  ‘I see. And your friend, Miss Jennie Cox, who also lives at Mrs Peter’s boarding house, is typist to Mr Arrowsmith. I think I’ve got that straight. Now you mentioned another young lady—at least I presume she was a young lady—a Miss Eileen Tucker. Who was she?’

  ‘She was in one of the box offices at the Hammersmith Cinema.’

  ‘Same kind of job as your own?’

  ‘Yes. I met her at an evening class in arithmetic that we were both attending and we made friends. We were both bad at figures and we found it came against us at our work.’

  French nodded. The name, Eileen Tucker, touched a chord of memory, though he could not remember where he had heard it. He picked up his desk telephone.

  ‘Bring me any papers we have relative to the suicide of a girl called Eileen Tucker.’

  In a few moments a file was before him. A glance through it brought the case back to him. It was summarised in a cutting from the Mid-Country Gazette of the 10th January of that year. It read:

  ‘TRAGIC DEATH OF A YOUNG GIRL.

  ‘Dr J. S. Jordan, deputy coroner for South Eastern Surrey, held an inquest at the Crown Inn, Caterham, yesterday morning, on the body of a young girl which was found in a quarry hole about a mile from the town and not far from the road to Redhill. The discovery was made by a labourer named Thomas Binks, who was taking a short cut across the country to his work. Binks reported the affair to the police and Sergeant Knowles immediately visited the scene and had the body conveyed to the town. The remains were those of a girl of about twenty-five, and were clothed in a brown cloth coat with fur at the collar and cuffs, a brown skirt and jumper and beige shoes and stockings. A brown felt hat lay in the water a few feet away and in the right hand was clasped a vanity bag, containing a cigarette case and holder, some loose coins and a letter. This last was practically illegible from the water, but enough could be made out to show that it was from a man of undecipherable name, breaking off an illicit relation as he was going to be married. Dr Adam Moody, Caterham, in giving evidence stated that death had occurred from drowning, that there were no marks of violence, and that the body had probably been in the water for two or three days. At first the identity of the deceased was a mystery, but Sergeant Knowles handled the affair with his usual skill and eventually discovered that she was a Miss Eileen Tucker, an employee in the box office of the Hammersmith Cinema in London. She seemed to have been alone in the world, having lived in a boarding house and no relatives being discoverable. After considering the evidence, the jury, with Mr John Wells as foreman, brought in a verdict of suicide while of unsound mind.’

  ‘A sad case,’ said French sympathetically when he had finished the paragraph. ‘I see that the jury brought in a verdict of suicide, but you think the poor young lady was murdered? Now, just tell me why you think so.’

  ‘I know it! I’m sure of it! She wasn’t the kind of girl to commit suicide.’

  ‘That may be, but you’ve surely something more definite to go on than that?’

  ‘No proof, but I’m as certain of it as if I had been there. But what she told me about the man shows it wasn’t what they said.’

  ‘I don’t quite follow you. What did she tell you?’

  ‘She was in trouble through some man, but not the kind of trouble the letter said. There was no love affair or anything of that kind. It was money.’

  ‘Money?’

  ‘Yes. I thought at first she had got into debt to this man and couldn’t pay and I offered to lend her what I could; it wasn’t very much. But she said it wouldn’t help her; that the man had her in his power and that she was frightened. I begged her to tell me particulars, but she wouldn’t. But she was frightened all right.’

  ‘I don’t want to suggest anything bad about the poor young lady, but doesn’t it look as if he had found her out in something that she shouldn’t have done? Tampering with the cinema cash, for example?’

  Miss Darke looked distressed.

  ‘That was what I feared,’ she admitted, ‘but of course I didn’t let her know I suspected it. And of course I don’t know that it was that.’

  French was frankly puzzled.

  ‘Well, but if all that’s true, it surely supplies a motive for suicide?’

  ‘It might have with another girl, but not with her. Besides there was the letter.’

  ‘Yes, you mentioned the letter before. Now how does the letter prove that it wasn’t suicide?’

  Miss Darke paused before replying and when at last she spoke it was with less conviction.

  ‘I looked at it like this,’ she said. ‘From the letter it would be understood that some man had got her into trouble and then deserted her. From what she told me that wasn’t so, and from what I know of her it wasn’t so. But if that’s right there couldn’t have been any letter—not any real letter, I mean. I took it the letter had been written by the murderer and left in her bag to make it look like suicide.’

  In spite of himself French was interested. This was a subtle point for a girl of the apparent mentality of this Miss Darke to evolve from her own unaided consciousness. Not, he felt, that there was anything in it. The probabilities were that the unfortunate Eileen Tucker had been deceived and deserted by the usual callous ruffian. Naturally she would not tell her friend. On the other hand he considered that Miss Darke was surprisingly correct in her appreciation of the psychological side of the affair. The older French grew, the more weight he gave to the argument that X hadn’t performed a certain action because he ‘wasn’t the sort of person to do it’; with due reservation of course and granted an adequate knowledge of X’s character.

  ‘That’s a very ingenious idea, Miss Darke,’ he said. ‘But it’s only speculation. You don’t really know that it is true.’

  ‘Only from what she said,’ returned the girl. ‘But I believed her.’

  ‘Now, Miss Darke,’ French said gravely, ‘I have a serious question to ask you. If you knew all these material facts, why did you not come forward and give evidence at the inquest?’

  The girl hung her head.

  ‘I know I should have,’ she admitted sadly, ‘but I just didn’t. I did not hear of Eileen’s death till I saw it in the paper the day after and it didn’t say where the inquest would be. I ought to have gone to Caterham and asked but I just didn’t. No one asked me any questions and—well, it seemed easier just to say nothing. It couldn�
��t have helped Eileen any.’

  ‘It might have helped the police to capture her murderer, if she was murdered,’ French returned. ‘And it might have saved you from your present difficulties. You were very wrong there, Miss Darke; very wrong indeed.’

  ‘I see that now, Mr French,’ she repeated.

  ‘Well,’ said French, ‘that’s not what you called to talk about. Go on with your story. What can you tell me about the man? Did Miss Tucker mention his name or describe him?’

  Miss Darke looked up eagerly, while the expression of fear on her features became more pronounced.

  ‘No, but she said there was something horrible about him that just terrified her. She hated the sight of him.’

  ‘But she didn’t describe him?’

  ‘No, except that he had a scar on his wrist like a purple sickle. “A purple sickle” were her exact words.’

  ‘H’m. That’s not much to go on. But never mind. Tell me now your own story. Try to put the events in the order in which they happened. And don’t be in a hurry. We’ve all the day before us.’

  Thurza Darke paused, presumably to collect her thoughts, then went on:

  ‘The first thing, I think, was my meeting Gwen Lestrange in the train.’

  ‘What? Still another girl? I shall be getting mixed among so many. First there is yourself, then Miss Jennie Cox, Mr Arrowsmith’s typist, then poor Miss Eileen Tucker, who died so sadly at Caterham. And now here’s another. Who is Gwen Lestrange?’

  ‘I met her first in the train,’ Miss Darke repeated. ‘I go to my work most days by the Bakerloo tube from the Elephant to Oxford Circus. One day a strange girl sitting beside me dropped a book on to my knee and we began to talk. She said that she came by that train every day. A couple of days later I met her again and we had another talk. This happened two or three times and then we began to look out for each other and got rather friends. She was a very pleasant girl; always smiling.’

  ‘Did you find out her job?’

  ‘Yes, she said she was a barmaid in the Bijou Theatre in Coventry Street.’

  ‘Describe her as well as you can.’