Crime at Guildford

by Freeman Wills Crofts

  ‘That seems to cover the obvious inquiries in the house,’ Fenning said when she had gone. ‘Anything else you’d like to do before we go?’

  ‘I’d like a word with the chauffeur,’ French returned. ‘If I’m to follow up Minter’s day, as I probably shall have to, I might as well get the journey checked over at first hand.’

  ‘I hadn’t forgotten Whatman. We’ll see him on the way out. Then that’s all here.’

  They went downstairs and round to the garage. Whatman was shining up the bright parts of Norne’s big car. He was an elderly man of superior type and French felt at once that his evidence would be reliable.

  He had, however, little to say that was new. As instructed, he met Mr Minter off the 9.08 train. He knew Mr Minter slightly, having driven him to and from the station on one or two previous occasions.

  When he saw him he thought he looked ill. He was bent forward and his collar was turned up high round his neck as if he were cold. He seemed feeble, and he, Whatman, had helped him into the car at the station and out again at the house. Jeffries had taken his suitcase in and he had put away the car, and that was all he could tell them.

  It seemed to French all they could expect to hear. After a question or two, Whatman was dismissed.

  ‘Well, super,’ said French as they returned to the police station, ‘I’m glad I came down and I’m obliged for all you’ve done for me. The idea is then that we work on quietly for the present, and don’t say what we’ve discovered to anyone. Norne in particular is not to be put on his guard. We’ll not ask him for an explanation till we know better where we are. Is that right?’

  ‘I agree. But don’t you think he should be kept under supervision?’

  French thought that constant supervision was unnecessary, on the grounds that so striking looking a man would be immediately taken if he did make a break. But he agreed that he should be watched going home and to the station each night and morning, so that any attempt at a getaway should be known at once. For the same reason French undertook to see that his arrival at his office in the morning and after lunch was duly reported.

  On his way back to Town, French experienced some qualms as to whether his advice about the arrest of Norne was sound. But as he again considered the circumstances, he saw that to make an arrest without any idea of the suspect’s motive would only be asking for trouble. No, he had been correct. A stronger case was necessary before any such drastic step was taken.

  And it was probably up to him to make the necessary advance. The motive—if Norne were guilty—lay for certain in Town, possibly even in the theft. If so, Fenning could scarcely get on to it.

  French determined that if the case depended on himself, he would not be found wanting.

  8

  Enter Theory

  That night as he sat smoking before going to bed, French continued wrestling with his problem. He had evolved a fairly satisfactory theory of the murder of Minter, but so far he had been unable to find the motive. Was there really nothing to indicate it?

  Very little thought, however, showed him that there might well be a motive. Suppose there were a connection between the murder and the theft and that these two, Norne and Minter, were the thieves? Suppose that, seeing their livelihood threatened, they had decided on desperate measures to retrieve their fortunes? Suppose that Norne had lent Minter his key, that Minter had burgled the safe, divided the spoils, and brought Norne down his share? Suppose that either they had quarrelled about the division, or that Norne had decided that a shared secret was too dangerous for his peace of mind, and had silenced Minter’s tongue? Or suppose that Norne had wanted the whole of the swag?

  Here was all the motive any investigating officer could want. But was it the truth?

  If it were, French ought not only to be able to get his man, but to recover the booty as well. Neither Norne nor Minter, if they were guilty, could have in so short a time got rid of so great a haul. French rather timorously congratulated himself. All the same he had misgivings. To have reached a solution so soon seemed just a bit too good to be true.

  There were, moreover, some difficulties in the theory. When, for example, could Minter have rifled the safe? If it were full on Saturday morning, it could only have been done on that afternoon. Here, then, was an obvious line of research. Could the whole of the man’s time be accounted for?

  Again, if Minter had rifled the safe, where was the booty? It was surely unlikely that he had brought it down in his suitcase. If not, where was it? Another matter to be looked into.

  When he reached the Yard next morning French found a note from Sir Mortimer Ellison saying he would be glad to have his personal report on the case. After hurriedly looking through a disappointing collection of reports, he went into the presence.

  ‘I think you did the right thing in going to Guildford,’ Sir Mortimer approved when French had made his statement. ‘Have you any theory?’

  ‘Only in a tentative way, sir,’ French answered. ‘I thought that possibly—’ and he indicated the lines on which his mind had been travelling.

  ‘There’s motive there, certainly,’ Sir Mortimer agreed. ‘Those fellows must have felt pretty sick about their business. What would you or I feel like, French, if we knew the Yard was going to be discontinued, and that not only would our salaries go, but that our other possessions would be taken to pay arrears of rent. And the more comfortable we were here, the worse we’d feel. That’s the position of those fellows. They had practically everything to lose if their firm went under, and they might very well have agreed that whoever else went down, they weren’t going to.’

  ‘That’s what I thought, sir.’

  ‘And, of course, there was ample opportunity also,’ Sir Mortimer went on as if he had not heard. ‘Then, as you suggest, Minter was got out of the way so that Norne might feel safe, or that he might get more of the swag. Yes, I think that’s reasonable enough. Any alternatives?’

  French hesitated. ‘I’m afraid not so far, sir. I’ve not done as much thinking about the thing as I hope to.’

  Sir Mortimer gazed unseeingly before him from beneath his heavy eyelids. Absently his fingers crept to a box, opened it, and drew out a cigarette. He lighted it as if in a dream, and began slowly smoking.

  ‘I suppose,’ he said presently, ‘that Norne couldn’t have done it to get Minter’s key? I mean, that Minter himself was innocent? Let’s see how that would work out. Norne wants the stuff, but he can’t get Minter’s key. He could borrow it, of course, but Minter’s a sharp chap, and when the burglary came off, he would tumble to what had happened. How would that do—that Norne did the killing to get Minter’s key and silence Minter?’

  French hesitated. ‘Could he have got it, sir? The key was presumably with Minter as long as he was conscious. Otherwise he’d have made a fuss about it. Then it was taken charge of by the Guildford sergeant early in the morning. Norne couldn’t have taken it to Town.’

  ‘Obviously. But he could have taken a pressing of it and an accomplice could have made it during Sunday, and that night either Norne or the accomplice or both of them could have gone to London and done the job. I don’t put this forward as inspired. But think it over also.’

  French said he would certainly do so, and that he was grateful for the hint. He was not, however, impressed. If Norne were capable of working out the scheme that he apparently had, he was surely capable of obtaining an impression of Minter’s key without having to murder him for it. However, that was what he, French, had to think over.

  ‘I agree with you,’ Sir Mortimer went on, ‘that you will have to go into Minter’s movements on the Saturday. Though whether you will be solving the Guildford superintendent’s case or your own, I don’t know. How about the other inquiries?’

  ‘Nothing valuable has come in, sir. None of the stolen stuff has been put on the market, and we’ve got nothing helpful from the Norne staff.’

  Sir Mortimer made a languid gesture of dismissal. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we must jus
t stick to it. That’s life, French! Just sticking to it, eh?’

  ‘It’s about the size of it, sir,’ French returned rather grimly. It was about the size of it! The phrase described just about ninety-nine per cent of French’s waking life. For the other one per cent there might be luck or inspiration, success or failure, triumph or tears. But ‘just sticking to it’ covered practically all his normal existence.

  As he returned to his room he saw that for the next day at least his programme was settled. If Minter were a confederate of Norne’s he must have stolen the stuff between the closing of the office on Saturday and eight o’clock that night. That Saturday afternoon of Minter’s must be checked up before an advance could be hoped for.

  Then suddenly French wondered if he hadn’t made a mistake. Was there any evidence that the jewels were in the safe on Saturday morning?

  He remembered another jewel robbery in which it was found the thief had actually disposed of his haul before the discovery of the theft. Could that have been done in this case? Could Minter and Norne have been selling stones for some time, gradually clearing out the safe, perhaps replacing those which would be seen by other members of the staff by paste copies? If anything of this kind had been done, the most promising clue, the coming of the stones on to the market, had probably gone west.

  It was therefore not to Minter’s house that French presently headed, but back to the Norne Company’s offices. If evidence existed as to the contents of the safe on Saturday morning, he must get hold of it.

  With Sergeant Carter in attendance he asked to see Miles, the foreman of the Works Department. Miles was the man who had the duplicate card index, so that he might know just what stones were available for making up his sets. Next to Norne and Minter, Miles used the safe most.

  French found it a little difficult to frame his question without giving away his suspicion of Norne. Norne had said the stuff was there on Saturday morning. Therefore, theoretically there could be no doubt of this. After some thought, however, French devised a plan. He consulted his list of the stolen property and fixed on a group of four large diamonds of outstanding beauty and value.

  ‘I want your help on a small point, Mr Miles,’ he began. ‘It’s about those four large stones you called the “Raggamond Four.” Those.’ His finger slid down the list.

  ‘I know them well,’ Miles returned. ‘They were to be used in a pendant we were making for the Duchess of Skye. Worth a fortune, those four alone.’

  ‘So I understand. Now, Mr Miles, I’m interested in those four stones. I don’t say we’re on the track of them, but I’d like to be quite sure when they were in the safe. We know from Mr Norne that the contents appeared to be intact on Saturday morning, but it has occurred to me that perhaps these four stones might have been abstracted before that time. Can you settle the point for me?’

  Miles looked a little puzzled. ‘Have you asked Mr Norne?’ he said doubtfully.

  ‘No,’ said French, ‘I didn’t want to disturb him till he’d finished his correspondence. I shall ask him though, if you can’t tell me.’

  Miles made a slightly deprecating gesture. ‘I can’t and that’s a fact,’ he answered. ‘Those four stones were in one of the drawers, but I hadn’t that drawer open on Saturday, nor indeed for several days before that.’

  ‘You had the safe open on Saturday then?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I had the safe open. I wanted stones for different jobs we were working on.’

  ‘Quite. Well, so far as you could see, was everything there?’

  ‘Certainly it was. If I had missed anything, do you think I wouldn’t have mentioned it?’

  ‘I didn’t mean that, Mr Miles. What I wanted to get at was how much of the contents you saw? How many drawers you opened, for instance?’

  Miles nodded. ‘I could hardly say. A dozen at least; probably more. But besides that a lot of the stuff was in trays that I could see. I don’t mean that I examined it over tray by tray, but I had a look round and if any quantity was missing I should have noticed it.’

  French thought he might accept this evidence. If so, his first point was settled. The theft had not taken place before Saturday afternoon.

  ‘By the way,’ he said as he rose to his feet, ‘could you tell me what time you saw the safe open?’

  ‘About eleven.’

  ‘The work in hand was not put away in the safe when the shop closed?’

  ‘Not in that safe. We have a smaller one here for that.’

  The next man to be interviewed was obviously Pendlebury, Minter’s chief clerk, and French found him in his late chief’s room. Pendlebury looked a man of the highest type, and the more French talked to him, the more convinced of this he became. Pendlebury had already been interrogated, but he made no difficulty about answering further questions.

  When testing theories French usually inquired about irrelevant matters as well as the vital one, in order to keep his objective secret. He did so in this instance, but the only points which really interested him were the hours at which Minter had reached and left the office on the fateful day.

  Of both these times Pendlebury was able to speak with decision. Minter had arrived on the stroke of half-past nine. He was a man of very regular habits, and was seldom more than a minute or two before or after his time. He had been in his office during the whole morning, except for about ten minutes during which he went to see Norne. That was about eleven. He had left as usual at twelve forty-five.

  ‘What sort of humour was Mr Minter in that day?’ French went on.

  ‘Much as usual,’ Pendlebury returned; ‘I didn’t notice anything one way or another.’

  ‘He was a man of—eh—even temper?’

  ‘He was a man of good temper. Only when he was ill he was a bit irritable, and there was some excuse for that.’

  ‘I agree. He didn’t complain of his health on Saturday?’

  ‘No. Of course, you couldn’t count that as anything. He never did complain unless he was really bad.’

  ‘Bilious, wasn’t he?’

  Pendlebury became more confidential. ‘I don’t know,’ he said in a lower tone. ‘He called it biliousness, but I always suspected something more serious. Ulcer or something of that sort, I imagined. But, of course, I don’t know any more than you do.’

  ‘Did it come on suddenly?’

  ‘It did. Often he would seem well enough in the morning and in the afternoon he would have to go home. And it cleared up in the same way. Often he would come in looking like a rag and able to do very little, and by lunch time he was all right.’

  ‘So the fact that he seemed well enough on Saturday morning wouldn’t conflict with the statement that he was ill in the evening?’

  ‘Not in any way at all.’

  From 11 a.m., then, when the contents of the safe were still intact, till 12.45, when Minter left the building, the man had been in his office, under the observation of Pendlebury. French had already taken preliminary statements from Sheen and Sloley, in which both men had declared that Minter had met them in the office shortly before eight o’clock on the Saturday evening. This had been confirmed by Mrs Turbot, the charwoman, who had seen the three men arrive.

  Unless Sloley and Sheen were also in the affair—and a conspiracy of four seemed unthinkable—Minter could not have cleared out the safe during that late visit. From that visit until his death every moment of his time was accounted for. Therefore, the only period still remaining doubtful was that from 12.45 to 8 p.m.

  After lunch French set off with Carter for Rapallo, as Minter had named his house in Peacehaven Avenue, St John’s Wood. The house was small and unpretentious, standing in what might by courtesy be called its own grounds; thirty feet in front and forty behind, with about five at each side. But such ground as there was had been made the most of. The windows were screened from the road by evergreens, kept low to prevent interference with the light. The entrance path, edged with flower-beds, was at one side of the tiny property, while at the other was a
miniature but beautifully arranged rock garden. At the back French glimpsed grass edged with shrubs. The Minters had evidently not kept a car, or at least, there was no garage on the premises.

  The door was opened by an elderly and very respectable looking maid, a type which was formerly common enough, but which for many years has seemed extinct. She looked at the visitors questioningly. French explained himself and asked for Mrs Minter.

  ‘Come in, gentlemen,’ the woman replied, opening the door. ‘I’ll see if Mrs Minter can receive you. You understand that she has not been well.’

  ‘Tell her,’ said French, ‘that only urgent business forces me to intrude on her at such a time. I can understand how she must be feeling.’

  The maid vanished, reappeared, and invited them to enter.

  Mrs Minter was a surprise to French. Comparatively young, she was tall, stately, and extremely good-looking, though with a rather hard face. Handsome rather than pretty, he thought. Though dressed simply in some dark material, he would have bet long odds that her clothes had cost a lot of money. She did not speak, but looked from French’s card to himself with an air of slightly insolent inquiry.

  He began by apologising for his visit and stating the regret he felt in asking her to discuss her husband’s death. She answered coldly that she understood that this was unavoidable, and that she would answer any reasonable questions. French thanked her briefly and began.

  First he asked her about her husband’s health. She confirmed what Pendlebury had told him, saying that Dr Fotherby-Wentworth, who had attended him, had called his attacks indigestion, and adding that if the chief-inspector were interested, she would suggest his calling on the doctor.