Read Ebook: Inspector French's Greatest Case by Crofts Freeman Wills

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Ebook has 340 lines and 25456 words, and 7 pages

The girl considered this.

"It was a Thursday," she said at last. "I remember that now, because Thursday is my night out, and I remembered thinking that that week I shouldn't get it."

French was delighted with the reply. It was on a Thursday night, seven weeks earlier, that Mrs. X had driven from the Savoy to Victoria, left her boxes there, and vanished. The thing was working in.

"What time of the day did she arrive?"

"In the evening." Miss Scott answered promptly this time. "It was about half eight or a quarter to nine."

Better and better! Mrs. X left the Savoy shortly before eight, and it would take her about three-quarters of an hour to drive to Victoria, leave her trunks in the left luggage office, and get out to St. John's Wood Road.

"Now," French went on, "if you or your sister could just remember the week that happened, I should be very much obliged."

Susan Scott sat with a heavy frown on her rather pretty features. Concentrated thought was evidently an unwonted exercise. But at last her efforts bore fruit.

"I've got it now," she said with something of triumph in her tone. "It was the last week of November. I remember it because my brother-in-law got his new job in the first week of December, and that was the following Monday. I heard that much about his job that I ought to know."

"That's very good," he said approvingly. "Now will you tell me about Mr. Vane?"

The girl sniffed.

"Him?" she said scornfully. "There ain't much to tell about him. He didn't trouble us much with his company."

"How was that? Did they not get on? Remember we're speaking in confidence."

"Why, I never even saw him. He didn't turn up all the three months I was there. But I heard about him from cook. He was away all the time or next thing to it. When he did come, it was generally for two days. He would come late in the evening, so cook said, and stay for two days without ever going so much as outside the door, and then go away again in the evening."

"You mean that if he came, say, on a Monday night, he would stay until the following Wednesday night?"

"Yes; or sometimes for three days, so cook said."

"What time in the evening would he come and go?"

"About half-past ten he always came, and a little before eight he left."

"Do you mean that he arrived and left at the same time on each visit?"

"Yes, always about the same time."

"After dark?"

"No. Just at those times. It was the same summer and winter. At least, that's all what cook told me. We talked about it many a time. She thought he was balmy."

French was somewhat puzzled by this information. The whole story had what he called with a fine disregard for metaphorical purity, a "fishy ring." At first it had looked uncommonly like as if Mr. Vane were paying clandestine visits to his own house, and, if so, he might well be the man the old stage doorkeeper had spoken of, and still have another establishment elsewhere. But this last answer seemed to suggest some other explanation of Vane's mysterious movements. After a pause, French went on:

"Did it ever strike you he was trying to keep his visits secret?"

"I can't say it did," the girl answered with apparent regret. "Cook never said that. But," more hopefully, "it might have been that, mightn't it?"

"I don't know," French rejoined. "I'm asking you."

Miss Scott didn't know either, but in her opinion the Inspector's suggestion might well be the truth. French noted the matter as one for future consideration as he continued his interrogation.

"What was Mr. Vane like in appearance? Did cook ever say?"

Cook, it appeared, had supplied information on this point also. Even French, who knew the ways of servants, was amazed at the detailed thoroughness with which these two had evidently discussed their employers' affairs. Mr. Vane was tall, but stooped, with a sallow complexion, a heavy dark moustache, and glasses.

As French listened to this description an almost incredible idea flashed into his mind. He seemed to see a vision of the Duke & Peabody office in Amsterdam, and to hear again the voice of the dapper agent, Schoofs, saying: "A tall man, but stooped, with a sallow complexion, a heavy dark moustache, and glasses." Could it be? Could this mysterious Mr. Vane be none other than his old acquaintance, Vanderkemp?

For a time he sat motionless, lost in thought, as he considered the possibility. It would certainly clear up a good deal that was mysterious in the case. It would account for Vanderkemp's actions previous to the murder, as well as his bolt to Switzerland; it would supply a cause for Sylvia Duke's perturbation and for the postponement of the wedding; and it would explain how Mrs. Vane received her warning, Mr. Duke having stated he would, without delay, tell Vanderkemp of the discovery of Cissie Winter. The choice of the name Vane even tended in the same direction. There were advantages in an alias beginning with the same letter as the real name, lest an inadvertent initial on clothing or elsewhere should give the secret away. Moreover, the theory involved nothing inherently impossible. Vanderkemp was then, and had been for some time, ostensibly on an extended tour in the United States, so that, as far as he could see at present an alibi was out of the question.

At first sight it seemed to French as if he had hit on the solution of the mystery, but as he continued turning it over in his mind he became less and less certain. Several important points were not covered by the theory. First of all, it did not, in his opinion, square with Vanderkemp's personality. The Inspector had a very exalted opinion of his own powers as a reader of character--with considerable justification, it must be admitted--and the more he thought of Vanderkemp's bearing during their momentous interview at Barcelona, the more satisfied he felt of the traveller's innocence. He found it hard to believe, further, that a man who had just benefited to the extent of over ?30,000 would be able to deny himself at least a very slight betterment in his standard of living. But the real difficulty was to connect Vanderkemp with Miss Winter's escapade with the sixteen diamonds. How did she receive them? She was in the Savoy building all the time between the theft at Hatton Garden and the traveller's departure from London, and it was therefore impossible that they could have met. Nor did French think it likely that so dangerous a package would have been entrusted to other hands or to the post.

Here were undoubted objections to the theory, nevertheless French felt a pleasurable glow of excitement as he wondered if they could not be met and if he really had not reached the last lap of his long investigation. He determined that his first action on reaching the Yard would be to put the matter to the test.

Having arrived at this decision, he turned again to Miss Scott.

"I should like cook's address, please."

Miss Scott did not know cook's address. She believed the woman lived somewhere down near Reading, but more than that she could not say, except that her name was Jane Hudson, and that she was small and stout and lively.

French felt that if he wanted the woman he could find her from this information. He scarcely hoped that she would be able to tell him more than the parlourmaid, but thought that it might be worth while to have her looked up on chance, and he decided to give the necessary instructions, to one of his men on his return to the Yard.

Returning to the Yard he rang up the Hatton Garden office, and having obtained Vanderkemp's last known address, sent a cable to the United States police, asking that inquiries should be made as to the man's whereabouts.

One of the drivers said that he and the man next on the rank were called to Crewe Lodge by a rather pretty girl about 4.30 on the afternoon in question. It looked as if the house was being closed. A lady, apparently the mistress, got into his friend's taxi and was driven off, then the girl who had called him and a friend--he took them to be servants--entered his car and followed. He set the girl down at some street off Maida Vale--Thistle Road or Mistletoe Road--he wasn't just sure, and took the other woman on to Paddington. The colleague who had driven the lady was not then on the stand, but he had been gone a considerable time and might turn up any moment. Would the Inspector wait, or should the man be sent on to the Yard on his return?

"Had she any luggage?" French asked.

Yes, she had two or three--the man could not be quite sure--but either two or three suitcases. No, there wouldn't be any note of them on his daily return as they were carried inside the vehicle. The lady got a porter at St. Pancras, he believed, but he could not identify the man now. No, she had spoken to no one during the journey, and he could not suggest any reason why she should have changed her mind.

Inquiries at St. Pancras seemed to French to be the next item on his programme, and entering Tucker's vehicle, he was driven to the old Midland terminus. Where, French wondered, had his quarry been going? With Tucker's help he fixed a few minutes before 5.00 as the hour of the lady's arrival, and then, after paying the man off, he went to the time-tables to find out what trains left about that hour.

In the nature of the case--a woman making a hurried flight from the attentions of the police--he thought it more than likely that the journey would have been to some distant place. While a very clever fugitive might recognise that a change to another part of London was perhaps his safest policy, the mentality of the average criminal leaned towards putting as many miles as possible between himself and the scene of his crime. It was by no means a sound deduction, but in the absence of anything better, he thought the main line trains should be first considered.

He looked up the tables and was struck at once by the fact that an important express left at 5.00 p.m. It called at Nottingham, Chesterfield, Sheffield, and Leeds, and there were connections to Harrogate, Bradford, Morecambe, and Heysham for the Belfast boat. But any one of these places might be the starting-point of some further journey, and unless he got a lead of some kind it was quite hopeless to try to follow the traveller. Besides, she might not have gone by this train. There was a 5.5 stopping train to Northampton, a 5.35 to Nottingham, stopping at a number of intermediate places, and a 6.15 express to the north, not to mention local trains. No, he did not see that much was to be gained from the time-tables.

He made what inquiries he could at the station, exhibiting the lady's photograph to officials who were on duty when the trains in question were starting. It was, of course, a forlorn hope, and he was not greatly disappointed when it led to nothing.

French once more felt baffled. Again in this exasperating case he was left at a loose end. The information he gained always seemed to fail him at the critical moment. In something very like desperation he sat down that evening at his desk and spent a couple of hours going through his notes of the case, wondering if by any chance he could find some further clue which he had hitherto overlooked. After careful thought, he decided that there was still one line of research unexplored--an unpromising line, doubtless, but still a line. That list of dealings on the Stock Exchange: could anything be made of that? Would, for example, the secretaries of the various firms be able to tell him who had carried out the transactions in question? If so, it should lead to Mrs. Vane or to some one who knew her intimately. He was not hopeful of the result, but he decided that if next day he had no other news he would look into it.

FULL of his new idea, French on arrival at his office on the following morning took from his archives the letter addressed to Mrs. Vane which he had found in the box on that lady's hall door and spread it out before him on his desk.

As he looked down the list of sales and purchases of stock, he was struck once again not only by the surprising number of the transactions, but also of the diversity of the stocks dealt in. There were British War Loan, Colonial Government and foreign railway stocks, as well as those of banks, insurance companies, stores, and various industrial concerns--some five-and-twenty altogether. He wondered from which of them he would be most likely to obtain the desired information.

The secretary was dubious. He asked French the date of the sale, and when the latter replied that he did not know, dilated on the complexity of the search. This ignorance as to time, together with the constantly varying value of the stock, made the sale very difficult to trace; in fact he was not sure that the information could be obtained. French in his turn dilated on the urgency and importance of the matter, with the result that two clerks were set to work and a report promised for the earliest possible moment.

So far so good, but this was not enough. French went on to James Barker's, where he set similar inquiries on foot. Then, anxious to leave no stone unturned, he asked the same questions at the registered office of the Picardie Hotel.

The latter was the first to reply. The secretary telephoned to say that he had had a careful search made, and that no transaction covering the exact amount in question had taken place. Nothing within eight pounds of the figure given by Inspector French had been dealt with.

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