Inspector French's Greatest Case

by Freeman Wills Crofts

  “About that thousand pounds in notes. I suppose you haven’t got the numbers?”

  “No, unfortunately. But the bank might know them.”

  “We shall inquire. Now, Mr. Duke, about the key. That is another singular thing.”

  “It is an amazing thing. I absolutely cannot understand where it came from. As I said, this one never leaves, nor has left, my personal possession, and the other, the only other one, is equally inaccessible in my bank.”

  “You always personally opened or closed the safe?”

  “Always, or at least it was done by my instructions and in my presence.”

  “Oh, well, that is not quite the same thing, you know. Who has ever opened or closed it for you?”

  “Gething; and not once or twice, but scores, I suppose I might say hundreds of times. But always in my presence.”

  “I understand that, sir. Any one else besides Mr. Gething?”

  Mr. Duke hesitated.

  “No,” he said slowly, “no one else. He was the only one I trusted to that extent. And I had reason to trust him,” he added, with a touch of defiance.

  “Of course, sir. I recognise that,” French answered smoothly. “I am only trying to get the facts clear in my mind. I take it, then, that the deceased gentleman was the only person, other than yourself, who ever handled your key? It was not within reach of any one in your house; your servants, for example?”

  “No, I never let it lie about. Even at night I kept it attached to me.”

  The Inspector rose from his chair.

  “Well, sir,” he said politely, “I’m sorry to have kept you so long. Just let me take your finger prints to compare with those in the safe, and I have done. Shall I ring up for a taxi for you?”

  Mr. Duke looked at his watch.

  “Why, it is nearly one,” he exclaimed. “Yes, a taxi by all means, please.”

  Though Inspector French had said that everything possible had been done that night, he did not follow Mr. Duke from the building. Instead, he returned to the inner office and set himself unhurriedly to make a further and more thorough examination of its contents.

  He began with the key of the safe. Removing it by the shank with a pair of special pincers, he tested the handle for finger prints, but without success. Looking then at the other end, a slight roughness on one of the wards attracted his attention, and on scrutinising it with his lens, a series of fine parallel scratches was revealed on all the surfaces. “So that’s it, is it?” he said to himself complacently. “Manufacturers don’t leave keys of valuable safes half-finished. This one has been cut with a file, and probably”—he again scrutinised the workmanship—“by an amateur at that. And according to this man Duke, old Gething was the only one that had the handling of the key—that could have taken a wax impression. Well, well; we shall see.”

  He locked the safe, dropped the key into his pocket, and turned to the fireplace, soliloquizing the while.

  The fire had still been glowing red when the crime was discovered shortly after ten o’clock. That meant, of course, that it had been deliberately stoked up, because the fire in the outer office was cold and dead. Some one, therefore, had intended to spend a considerable time in the office. Who could it have been?

  As far as French could see, no one but Gething. But if Gething were going to commit the robbery—a matter of perhaps ten minutes at the outside—he would not have required a fire. No, this looked as if there really was some business to be done, something that would take time to carry through. But then, if so, why had Gething not consulted Mr. Duke? French noted the point, to be considered further in the light of future discoveries.

  But as to the identity of the person who had built up the fire there should be no doubt. Finger prints again! The coal shovel had a smooth, varnished wooden handle, admirably suited for records, and a short test with the white powder revealed thereon an excellent impression of a right thumb.

  The poker next received attention, and here French made his second discovery. Picking it up with the pincers in the same careful way in which he had handled the key, he noticed on the handle a dark brown stain. Beside this stain, and sticking to the metal, was a single white hair.

  That he held in his hand the instrument with which the crime was committed seemed certain, and he eagerly tested the other end for prints. But this time he was baffled. Nothing showed at the places where finger marks might have been expected. It looked as if the murderer had worn gloves or had rubbed the handle clean, and he noted that either alternative postulated a cold-blooded criminal and a calculated crime.

  He continued his laborious search of the room, but without finding anything else which interested him. Finally, while his men were photographing the prints he had discovered, he sat down in the leather-covered arm-chair and considered what he had learned.

  Certainly a good deal of the evidence pointed to Gething. Gething knew the stones were there. According to Duke, no one else could have got hold of the key to the safe to make an impression. Moreover, his body was found before the safe with the latter open. All circumstantial evidence, of course, though cumulatively strong.

  However, whether or not Gething had contemplated robbery, he had not carried it through. Some one else had the diamonds. And here the obvious possibility recurred to him which had been in his mind since he had heard the Superintendent’s first statement. Suppose Orchard was the man. Suppose Orchard, visiting the office in the evening, arrived to find the safe open and the old man stooping over it. Instantly he would be assailed by a terrible temptation. The thing would seem so easy, the way of escape so obvious, the reward so sure. French, sitting back in the arm-chair, tried to picture the scene. The old man bending over the safe, the young one entering, unheard. His halt in surprise; the sudden overwhelming impulse to possess the gems; his stealthy advance; the seizing of the poker; the blow, delivered perhaps with the intention of merely stunning his victim. But he strikes too hard, and, horrified by what he has done, yet sees that for his own safety he must go through with the whole business. He recalls the danger of finger prints, and wipes the handles of the poker and of the drawer in the safe from which he has abstracted the diamonds. With admirable foresight he waits until the body grows cold, lest an examination of it by the policeman he intends to call might disprove his story. Then he rushes out in an agitated manner and gives the alarm.

  Though this theory met a number of facts, French was not over pleased with it. It did not explain what Gething was doing at the safe, nor did it seem to fit in with the personality of Orchard. All the same, though his instruction to his man to shadow Orchard had been given as an obvious precaution inevitable in the circumstances, he was glad that he had not overlooked it.

  Another point occurred to him as he sat thinking over the affair in the leather-lined chair. If Orchard had stolen the stones, he would never have risked having them on his person when he gave the alarm. He would certainly have hidden them, and French could not see how he could have taken them out of the building to do so. A thorough search of the offices seemed therefore called for.

  The Inspector was tired, but, late as it was, he spent three solid hours conducting a meticulous examination of the whole premises, only ceasing when he had satisfied himself beyond possibility of doubt that no diamonds were concealed thereon. Then, believing that he had exhausted the possibilities of the scene of the crime, he felt himself free to withdraw. Dawn was appearing in the eastern sky as he drew the door after him and set off in the direction of his home.

  CHAPTER III

  GATHERING THE THREADS

  The fact that he had been out all the previous night was not, in Inspector French’s eyes, any reason why he should be late at his work next day. At his usual time, therefore, he reached New Scotland Yard, and promptly engaged himself in the compilation of a preliminary report on the Hatton Garden crime. This completed, he resumed direct work on the case.

  There were still several obvious inquiries to be made, inquiries which might almo
st be called routine, in that they followed necessarily from the nature of the crime. The first of these was an interview with the other members of the Duke & Peabody staff.

  An Oxford Street bus brought him to the end of Hatton Garden, and soon he was once more mounting the staircase to the scene of his last night’s investigation. He found Mr. Duke standing in the outer office with Orchard and the typist and office boy.

  “I was just telling these young people they might go home,” the principal explained. “I am closing the office until after the funeral.”

  “That will be appreciated by poor Mr. Gething’s family, sir. I think it is very kind of you and very proper too. But before this young lady and gentleman go I should like to ask them a question or two.”

  “Of course. Will you take them into my office? Go in, Miss Prescott, and tell Inspector French anything he wants to know.”

  “I’m afraid you won’t be able to do quite so much as that, Miss Prescott,” French smiled, continuing to chat pleasantly in the hope of allaying the nervousness the girl evidently felt.

  But he learned nothing from her except that Mr. Duke was a very nice gentleman of whom she was somewhat in awe, and that Mr. Gething had always been very kind to her and could be depended on to let her do whatever she wanted. Neither about the clerk, Orchard, nor the pupil, Harrington, was she communicative, and the office boy, Billy Newton, she dismissed as one might a noxious insect, a negligible, if necessary evil. Mr. Gething had been, as far as she could form a conclusion, in his usual health and spirits on the previous day, but she thought he had seemed worried and anxious for the past two or three weeks. As to herself, she liked the office, and got on well with her work, and was very sorry about poor Mr. Gething. On the previous day she had gone straight from the office, and had remained at home with her mother during the entire evening. French, satisfied she had told him all that she knew, took her finger prints and let her go.

  From Billy Newton, the precocious office boy, he learned but one new fact. Newton, it seemed, had been the last to leave the office on the previous evening, and before Mr. Gething had gone he had instructed him to make up the fire in the chief’s office, as he, Gething, was coming back later to do some special work. The boy had built up a good fire and had then left.

  When French returned to the outer office, he found a new arrival. A tall, good-looking young man was talking to Mr. Duke, and the latter introduced him as Mr. Stanley Harrington, the clerk-pupil who was qualifying for a partnership. Harrington was apologising for being late, saying that on his way to the office he had met an old schoolfellow of whom he had completely lost sight, and who had asked him to accompany him to King’s Cross, whence he was taking the 9.50 a.m. train for the north. The young man seemed somewhat ill at ease, and as French brought him into the inner office and began to talk to him, his nervousness became unmistakable. French was intrigued by it. From his appearance, he imagined the man would have, under ordinary circumstances, a frank, open face and a pleasant, outspoken manner. But now his look was strained, and his bearing furtive. French, with his vast experience of statement makers, could not but suspect something more than the perturbation natural under the circumstances, and as his examination progressed he began to believe he was dealing with a normally straightforward man who was now attempting to evade the truth. But none of his suspicions showed in his manner, and he was courtesy itself as he asked his questions.

  It seemed that Harrington was the nephew of that Mr. Vanderkemp who acted as traveller for the firm. Miss Vanderkemp, the Dutchman’s sister, had married Stewart Harrington, a prosperous Yorkshire stockbroker. Stanley had been well educated, and had been a year at college when a terrible blow fell on him. His father and mother, travelling on the Continent, had both been killed in a railway accident near Milan. It was then found that his father, though making plenty of money, had been living up to his income, and had made no provision for those who were to come after him. Debts absorbed nearly all the available money, and Stanley was left practically penniless. It was then that his uncle, Jan Vanderkemp, proved his affection. Out of his none too large means he paid for the boy’s remaining years at Cambridge, then using his influence with Mr. Duke to give him a start in the office.

  But shortly after he had entered on his new duties an unexpected complication, at least for Mr. Duke, had arisen. The principal’s daughter, Sylvia, visiting her father in the office, had made the acquaintance of the well-mannered youth, and before Mr. Duke realised what was happening, the two young people had fallen violently in love, with the result that Miss Duke presently announced to her horrified father that they were engaged. In vain the poor man protested. Miss Duke was a young lady who usually had her own way, and at last her father was compelled to make a virtue of necessity. He met the situation by giving the affair his blessing, and promising to take Harrington into partnership if and when he proved himself competent. In this Harrington had succeeded, and the wedding was fixed for the following month, the partnership commencing on the same date.

  French questioned the young fellow as to his movements on the previous evening. It appeared that shortly after reaching his rooms on the conclusion of his day’s work in the office, he had received a telephone message from Miss Duke saying that her father had just called up to say he was detained in town for dinner, and, being alone, she wished he would go out to Hampstead and dine with her. Such an invitation from such a source was in the nature of a command to be ecstatically obeyed, and he had reached the Dukes’ house before seven o’clock. But he had been somewhat disappointed as to his evening. Miss Duke was going out after dinner; she intended visiting a girls’ club in Whitechapel, run by a friend of hers, a Miss Amy Lestrange. Harrington had accompanied her to the East End, but she would not allow him to go in with her to the club. He had, however, returned later and taken her home, after which he had gone straight to his rooms.

  Skilful interrogation by French had obtained the above information, and now he sat turning it over in his mind. The story hung together, and if true, there could be no doubt of Harrington’s innocence. But French was puzzled by the young man’s manner. He could have sworn that there was something. Either the tale was not true, or it was not all true, or there was more which had not been told. He determined that unless he got a strong lead elsewhere, Mr. Harrington’s movements on the previous night must be looked into and his statements put to the test.

  But there was no need to let the man know he was suspected, and dismissing him with a few pleasant words, French joined Mr. Duke in the outer office.

  “Now, sir, if you are ready, we shall go round to your bank about the key.”

  They soon obtained the required information. The manager, who had read of the robbery in his morning paper, was interested in the matter, and went into it personally. Not only was the key there in its accustomed place, but it had never been touched since Mr. Duke left it in.

  “A thousand pounds in notes was also stolen,” French went on. “Is there any chance that you have the numbers?”

  “Your teller might remember the transaction,” Mr. Duke broke in eagerly. “I personally cashed a cheque for £1000 on the Tuesday, the day before the murder. I got sixteen fifties and the balance in tens. I was hoping to carry off a little deal in diamonds with a Portuguese merchant whom I expected to call on me. I put the money in my safe as I received it from you, and the merchant not turning up, I did not look at it again.”

  “We can but inquire,” the manager said doubtfully. “It is probable we have a note of the fifties, but unlikely in the case of the tens.”

  But it chanced that the teller had taken the precaution to record the numbers of all the notes. These were given to French, who asked the manager to advise the Yard if any were discovered.

  “That’s satisfactory about the notes,” French commented when Mr. Duke and he had reached the street. “But you see what the key being there means? It means that the copy was made from the key which you carry. Some one must therefore have had i
t in his possession long enough to take a mould of it in wax. This, of course, is a very rapid operation, a couple of seconds would do the whole thing. A skilful man would hold the wax in the palm of his hand, ‘palmed’ as the conjurers call it, and the key could be pressed into it in so natural a way that no unsuspecting person would be any the wiser. Now, I want you to think again very carefully. If no one but Mr. Gething handled the key, he must have taken the impression. There is no other way out. I would like you, then, to be sure that no one else ever did get his hands upon it, even for a moment. You see my point?”

  “Of course I see it,” Mr. Duke returned a trifle testily, “but, unanswerable as it seems, I don’t believe Gething ever did anything of the kind. It would seem the likely thing to you, Inspector, because you didn’t know the man. But I’ve known him too long to doubt him. Some one else must have got hold of the key, but I confess I can’t imagine who.”

  “Some one at night, while you were asleep?”

  Mr. Duke shrugged his shoulders.

  “I can only say, it is unlikely.”

  “Well, consider the possibilities at all events. I must go back to headquarters.”

  “And I to the Gethings,” Mr. Duke returned. “I hear the wife is very ill. The shock has completely broken her down. You’ll let me know how things go on?”

  “Certainly, sir. Immediately I have anything to report, you shall hear it.”

  The police station was not far away, and soon French was bending over all that was mortal of Charles Gething. He was not concerned with the actual remains, except to take prints from the dead fingers, to compare with those found in the office. But he went through the contents of the pockets, among which he had hoped to gain some clue as to the nature of the business which had brought the dead man to the office. Unfortunately, there was nothing to give the slightest indication.