by John Creasey
Richmond said: “Certainly, your Honour.” He stared at Lee again, and Gideon saw that Lee’s hands were clenched tightly by his side. “Superintendent, did you visit the general offices of Borgman Enterprises Limited on the morning before you made this—ah—charge?”
“Yes.”
“On what business?”
“I was investigating a complaint made by the accused about shortages in certain accounts.”
“Did you find those shortages?”
“Yes.”
“Did you report to Mr Borgman?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He wasn’t there,” Lee said.
“You mean, he was not in the general office?”
“As far as I knew, he was not on the premises.”
“Do you know where he was?”
“I understand that he was in Paris.”
“Did you go into his private office?”
Lee hesitated, and before he could answer, Richmond thundered:
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Knowing that he was not there?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you go?”
Lee said: “I put my report on his desk.”
“Is that all?”
Lee paused again, and Richmond thundered: “Is that all, Superintendent?”
Lee said thinly: “No.”
“What else did you do?”
“I examined his desk.”
“For what purpose?”
“To find out what was in it.”
“I see,” said Richmond, and his voice was pitched high with scorn. He turned to the magistrate as he might to a jury, and said: “We have come to a pretty pass when an officer of the law, a man whose duty and obligation it is to carry out the law in all its aspects, admits in open court that without a search warrant, without permission, without excuse, he entered the private office of a citizen who has his full legal rights, to pry—that is the only word—to pry into his personal belongings. Did you have a search warrant, Superintendent?”
Appleby whispered: “It’s going to be a bloody massacre.”
“No,” answered Lee.
“Did your superiors know that—”
Gideon stood up, the floorboards creaking as he did so and making everyone look round at him.
“The search was made on my orders. Mr Lee had no choice but to obey,” he rumbled.
Richmond snapped: “When you are called to the box it is time for you to admit your own improper instructions to a subordinate. Not until then.”
Calahan said, rather stiffly: “I think I can keep order in my own court, Mr Richmond, thank you. Do I understand that you wish to be called to testify, Commander Gideon?”
“If you think it necessary, sir.”
“I see. Very well. Please do not interrupt the proceedings again. Now—you may proceed, Mr Richmond.”
Richmond said: “Thank you, Your Worship.” He paused and raised a hand, pointing at Lee, and said in a voice pitched on a much lower key: “Is it true that you carried out this search, this so-called repugnant duty, at the behest of your superior officer?”
“The bloody fool won’t deny it, will he?” Appleby whispered.
“Yes,” Lee said.
“Very well. What did you find in this desk?”
Lee hesitated again, and rubbed his chin. Richmond did not hector him this time, just waited; but he struck a posture which created an air of ridicule that might be even more damaging than a swift repeat of the question. For the first time since the hearing had begun, there was a hush in the court, and even Calahan was staring expectantly at Lee, with what might have been a hint of sympathy in his expression.
“Could it be that you have forgotten what you found?” asked Richmond softly.
A woman tittered.
Lee said: “No.”
“No what?”
“No, I haven’t forgotten what I found,” Lee said.
“What’s the matter with him?” whispered Appleby, and the clerk to the court glanced up irritably, but it would take much more than that to intimidate Appleby, who went on: “He’s looking a bit queer to me, George. Not going to collapse, is he?”
“Shut up.”
“Then perhaps you will be good enough to inform the court what you found,” Richmond jeered.
“Yes,” answered Lee. His shoulders seemed less rounded and he was standing more upright. “I found four secret compartments.”
“Indeed. Had you been forewarned that there were secret compartments?”
“No.”
“Indeed? Yet you found them—-just like that?”
“They were quite difficult to find.”
“So you made a very thorough job of this illicit search,” Richmond sneered. “No doubt you believe that the end justifies the means. What did you find in these compartments?”
“Three were empty.”
“And what was in the fourth?” Richmond raised his voice and then, as Lee appeared to gather himself to answer, he said: “Were you alone during this search?”
“No. I had a detective sergeant with me.”
“Was there a third party present?”
“No,” Lee said, and smiled. “Two was plenty.” His manner had changed so markedly that even Richmond looked nonplussed, and Appleby was rubbing his fingers together agitatedly, while there was tension among the Fleet Street men, and a tension in Cuthbertson as well as among Borgman’s friends. Until that moment Borgman had been almost forgotten, but Lee glanced at him as he smiled, and suddenly Borgman was right in the middle of the picture. His wife looked as if she would faint; his mistress was biting her lips.
“Will you tell the court what you found, without further delay, please.”
“Yes,” said Lee. “I found two hypodermic needles, one phial of morphine preparation for injection, sufficient to kill—”
“Are you a qualified medical practitioner?”
“No.”
“Your Worship, may I ask that the witness does not attempt to give evidence which would be more reliably given by a medical witness?”
“Superintendent, we would prefer not to have your opinion about how many persons might or might not be killed by this preparation which you found.” Calahan glanced round at a court which seemed stunned by the announcement; the only sound came from two reporters who were squeezing their way out of the court, obviously to get to a telephone.
“Thank you,” Richmond said. “Superintendent, have you completed the statement of your discovery?”
“There was a supply of a chemical I believed to be morphine in liquid and in powder form.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“Did you carefully examine all the articles?”
“Yes.”
“Did you find any of Mr Borgman’s fingerprints on any of them?”
Lee glanced at Borgman again, and Borgman was more tense than he had been, giving the impression that he was worried; and that Lee worried him. Richmond had lost the edge of his attack, too, and that could only be because of the change in Lee’s manner.
“I’m not an expert witness,” Lee said, and there was a guffaw of laughter from someone in the crowd, a giggle from another part of the court. Calahan did not even look up reprovingly.
“You are a police officer of long standing, a senior official of the Criminal Investigation Department. Presumably you know a little about your job?”
“Didn’t think you wanted me to pose as an expert,” Lee retorted.
Appleby’s grin was taut, and his hands were clenched together on his knees.
“What’s happened to him, George?”
; Gideon said: “We’ll see.”
“As a police officer of some experience, did you examine the articles found, and did you find any of Mr Borgman’s fingerprints on them?”
“No.”
“Were there any prints?”
“One or two unidentifiable smudges, that’s all.”
“Does that not imply that the articles had not been wiped clean of prints, and, further, that they might have been in that compartment for a long time?”
“Didn’t know you were an expert,” Lee said perkily.
“Is it within your range of knowledge that fingerprints last for an indefinite period when in an enclosed space?” Richmond demanded. “And” – he pointed a finger and raised his voice – “are you aware that the previous owner of this desk suffered acutely from a most painful condition, and frequently injected morphine into himself so as to ease the pain?”
“God!” gasped Appleby.
“Oldest known one was found in the tomb of a Pharaoh,” said Lee, “and, according to my colleagues at the Yard, in certain circumstances they might be preserved a lot longer than that.” Lee was positively coasting along, and it seemed unbelievable, for Richmond would certainly produce a witness that the late Lord Alston had made a practice of injecting morphine into himself.
“So what you found in that secret compartment could have been there for many years during Lord Alston’s ownership,” Richmond said. “One can presume—”
“Can’t presume anything in my job,” interrupted Lee. “You have to deal in facts.”
“Precisely. And I am going to demonstrate the fact that my client, the accused, could not have known of the existence of those objects, because they were there before he acquired the desk, and because—”
“Couldn’t have been,” Lee interrupted.
Appleby said: “He’s gone mad.”
“If he has, let’s all go mad,” Gideon whispered.
“What did you say?” demanded Richmond, almost shrill.
“The accused bought the desk seven years ago. I’ve seen the invoice and the ledger entry of the purchase,” Lee declared. “The morphine solution was prepared and packed just under five years ago. It was prepared by Zentens. They use phials of a different shape and size every so often,” Lee went on. “I know, because I was handling a morphine poisoning job about the time that the first Mrs Borgman died. In that case there were two phials, and I went to Zentens’ and found out the difference between them. The kind found in that secret compartment was not manufactured until 1955. So this must have been put in after Mr Borgman bought the desk.”
“George” breathed Appleby, “we’ve got him.”
“They’ll fight for it,” Gideon said, later that afternoon, after the hearing had been adjourned. “Might go on for a week now, but we’ll get him. When we come out with the result of the exhumation—”
“It’ll floor ’em,” Appleby exulted.
“On top of this, yes,” said Gideon. “Well, Fred, how does it feel to have turned the tables on Percy?”
“It was the great moment of my life,” Lee said, “and I don’t mind admitting I had a job to stop myself from grinning like a Cheshire cat. Funny thing, I puzzled about that bottle for days—felt sure there was something I knew about it. And it came to me when Percy was tearing me to strips. As a matter of fact I was thinking I would give my pension to be able to wipe the smirk off his face, and—well, no point in talking any more about it. George, if it hadn’t been for you—”
“Forget it,” Gideon said.
He was quite sure that Borgman would be committed for trial, as sure as he could be of the result of the trial itself. Plumley said as much after the adjournment. But he was puzzled. In the excitement, logic had been overlooked, but would a man of Borgman’s intelligence leave incriminating evidence in his desk? It didn’t make sense. He could have got rid of it any time –
“If he’d known it was there,” Gideon said, and then his voice rose. “My God, if he knew. If he didn’t, then who put it there?”
“The only person who could have put the morphine and the syringe in the desk was Nurse Kennett,” Borgman said. “If you could find her …”
“Mr. Borgman,” Cuthbertson interrupted, “I don’t think we should try to bring her into the case as a witness. Remember, she would be closely cross-examined. To help you, it would have to be implied that she was a guilty party. Under such pressure, do you think her testimony would help you?”
After a long pause, Borgman muttered: “No.”
“Didn’t she once threaten blackmail?”
“Yes,” Borgman admitted, “but soon afterwards she got married, and—” He broke off.
“She had left behind her the tools of blackmail—that much is evident,” Cuthbertson said. “I will do everything, everything I can, and so will Mr Richmond. If we can only put reasonable doubt into the minds of the jury, we will win the case. Be sure of that.”
Gideon felt quite sure that the Grown would win.
The Carter case was an even greater certainty.
The young van driver who had taken such risks with the Carters had made a statement, and would not be charged, but there were dozens of charges pending, and the finishing touches to be given to the whole case. There was the race doping to follow up. There was the matricide and patricide case – one of the ugliest there could be. There was the Robson case to see through: Hoppy wanted watching on that. There was Moss to talk to – and Christy, too. Christy ought to recommend promotion for Moss pretty soon. There was the whole of London’s crime still on the doorstep; the hangover of the old and the appetisers for the new. But the risk had been taken and the future assured. Tonight he could go home early, to Kate.
Series Information
Published or to be published by
House of Stratus
Dates given are those of first publication
Alternative titles in brackets
'The Baron' (47 titles) (writing as Anthony Morton)
'Department 'Z'' (28 titles)
'Dr. Palfrey Novels' (34 titles)
'Gideon of Scotland Yard' (22 titles)
'Inspector West' (43 titles)
'Sexton Blake' (5 titles)
'The Toff' (59 titles)
along with:
The Masters of Bow Street
This epic novel embraces the story of the Bow Street Runners and the Marine Police, forerunners of the modern police force, who were founded by novelist Henry Fielding in 1748. They were the earliest detective force operating from the courts to enforce the decisions of magistrates. John Creasey's account also gives a fascinating insight into family life of the time and the struggle between crime and justice, and ends with the establishment of the Metropolitan Police after the passing of Peel's Act in 1829.
'The Baron' Series
These Titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels
Meet the Baron (The Man in the Blue Mask) (1937)
The Baron Returns (The Return of the Blue Mask) (1937)
The Baron Again (Salute Blue Mask) (1938)
The Baron at Bay (Blue Mask at Bay) (1938)
Alias the Baron (Alias Blue Mask) (1939)
The Baron at Large (Challenge Blue Mask!) (1939)
Versus the Baron (Blue Mask Strikes Again) (1940)
Call for the Baron (Blue Mask Victorious) (1940)
The Baron Comes Back (1943)
A Case for the Baron (1945)
Reward for the Baron (1945)
Career for the Baron (1946)
Blood Diamond (The Baron and the Beggar) (1947)
Blame the Baron (1948)
A Rope for the Baron (1948)
Books for the Baron (1949)
Cry for the Baron (1950)
Trap the Baron (1950)
Attack the Baron (1951)
Shadow the Baron (1951)
Warn the Baron (1952)
The Baron Goes East (1953)
The Baron in France (1953)
Danger for the Baron (1953)
The Baron Goes Fast (1954)
Nest-Egg for the Baron (Deaf, Dumb and Blonde) (1954)
Help from the Baron (1955)
Hide the Baron (1956)
The Double Frame (Frame the Baron) (1957)
Blood Red (Red Eye for the Baron) (1958)
If Anything Happens to Hester (Black for the Baron) (1959)
Salute for the Baron (1960)
The Baron Branches Out (A Branch for the Baron) (1961)
The Baron and the Stolen Legacy (Bad for the Baron) (1962)
A Sword for the Baron (The Baron and the Mogul Swords) (1963)
The Baron on Board (The Mask of Sumi) (1964)
The Baron and the Chinese Puzzle (1964)
Sport for the Baron (1966)
Affair for the Baron (1967)
The Baron and the Missing Old Masters (1968)
The Baron and the Unfinished Portrait (1969)
Last Laugh for the Baron (1970)
The Baron Goes A-Buying (1971)
The Baron and the Arrogant Artist (1972)
Burgle the Baron (1973)
The Baron - King Maker (1975)
Love for the Baron (1979)
'Department Z' Novels
These Titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels
The Death Miser (1932)
Redhead (1934)
First Came a Murder (1934)
Death Round the Corner (1935)
The Mark of the Crescent (1935)
Thunder in Europe (1936)
The Terror Trap (1936)
Carriers of Death (1937)
Days of Danger (1937)
Death Stands By (1938)
Menace! (1938)
Murder Must Wait (1939)
Panic! (1939)
Death by Night (1940)
The Island of Peril (1940)
Sabotage (1941)
Go Away Death (1941)
The Day of Disaster (1942)
Prepare for Action (1942)
No Darker Crime (1943)
Dark Peril (1944)