A telephone to the Yard next morning soon obtained the information that Messrs Bumpus and the other firms concerned had sent their books to Amsterdam a month previously, and not within the last day or two. It was easy from that to see what had been done. The trio had severally ordered books, and had gone out to Amsterdam to receive them—all three under assumed names. They had carefully removed the firms’ addressed labels from the wrapping paper, and after hollowing out the leaves and packing the stones, had used them again on the new wrapping. Fortunately for them, the cancelling stamps had passed over the wrapping paper only, and so had left the labels clean. The packed books the trio had kept ready addressed, so that if a sudden flight became desirable, all they would have to do would be to post them. This unquestionably accounted for Sloley’s dive into the post office on his way to Victoria.
Taken red-handed with the loot in their possession, the men found it impossible to deny the theft, and when French described to them with minute accuracy the details of Minter’s death, mentioning the finger-print on the dead man’s collar and the helping of Minter from the office to the car after the theatre, they broke down and admitted the murder also.
The case, as French had put it together, proved to be substantially correct. Sloley and Sheen, foreseeing ruin if the firm closed down, decided to effect their own safety at the expense of the others concerned. They could, however, think of no method of getting at the stones. But, in a casual conversation Lyde happened to boast to Sheen, that given certain conditions, he could open any safe anywhere. Through ridiculing the statement, Sheen now got his brother-in-law to divulge his method. Sheen was impressed, and presently Lyde was introduced to Sloley and tentatively sounded. Lyde thereupon indicated his willingness to assist in any matters that might be going forward, for an adequate consideration. After discussion a firm partnership was entered into between the three and details were worked out. They intended photographically to copy both keys and to rob the safe at their leisure. The contents was to be divided equally between the three. All swore that at this time no thought of murder had entered their minds, and French believed them.
They obtained the camera without difficulty, Lyde making up as Minter as a safeguard in the event of suspicion being aroused. But the remainder of the photographic scheme they found much more difficult than they had anticipated. They had first intended to fix the camera in position, operating it electrically from outside the room while Norne and Minter were opening the safe. This, for several reasons, they had found impracticable, the chief being that they could find no place to put it which would be at once near enough the keyhole and out of sight—and therefore possible suspicion—of Norne and Minter. Then Sloley had tried shooting the keys by hand. He had carried the camera, hidden in various wrappings, and had attempted to direct the lens as one fires a gun from the hip. Four times he had tried this plan, and on each occasion he had missed his objective. The trio had then decided the camera must be properly focused, and this had led to the placing of the despatch case on the letter file. Four pins projecting from the bottom of the case formed a jig to enable Sloley to re-fit it to the file in exactly the right place, the pins being pushed in flush when out of use. The fixing of the camera in the case gave them more trouble than any other single detail of the plan. They dared not cut a hole in the side opposite the lens lest it should be noticed, so they had to arrange that springs would push the camera up into a frame when the lid was raised, thus bringing the lens above the level of the side. A woollen muffler carefully fixed to the camera rose with it and completely hid it, and they hoped that if the muffler were seen, its rising would be put down to the natural springiness of the wool. These fitments were made by Sheen, who was a skilful worker in metals.
When first they used this apparatus they thought that success had crowned their efforts. But a hideous disappointment awaited them. On developing their film, they found that Norne’s key had come out splendidly, but that just as Minter was putting his forward, Norne had grasped the handle to be ready to open the safe when the second key was turned. Norne’s hand had come in front of the key, completely obscuring it! And the very same thing happened during the withdrawal of the key: Norne had kept hold of the handle while Minter was locking up.
The conspirators were now in an awkward position. Either they would have to repeat their photographic effort, or they must try something else. Sloley, however declared that further photography was impossible. He had been chipped already by Norne for always turning up with a parcel or despatch case when the safe was being opened, as if he wanted to carry off the contents, and he felt that if he did this again, suspicion would inevitably be aroused when the theft was discovered. This suspicion would be increased by the fact, so far not appreciated, that on each of these occasions he, Sloley, had himself arranged for the safe to be opened.
Then Sheen came forward with an idea. Minter had the other key. If they could get Minter’s key, clear out the safe, return the key to Minter, and then have Minter commit suicide, it would be assumed that Minter had stolen the stones, passed them on to someone else, and then, repenting of what he had done, had taken his life.
This meant murder, and at first Sloley and Lyde objected. But two considerations forced them on. The first was the offer for the stock which Norne had received. They feared the other directors would close with it. If this happened before the three had carried out their plan, it would mean their ruin. The second consideration was the fact that they had already overcome the major difficulty, the getting of Norne’s key: and having done so much and seeing salvation from ruin so near them, they could not face losing their advantage.
Their new scheme was built on the visit to Guildford. Sloley had not consciously worked to get this visit arranged, being perfectly genuine in his arguments on the subject. But when it was arranged, the trio used it as the basis of their scheme.
In essentials it followed French’s reconstruction. Sloley opened the ball at three o’clock by ringing up Minter. He gave Norne’s name and mimicked Norne’s voice, and said that he, Norne, had unexpectedly to come to Town that afternoon and therefore couldn’t receive the party at Guildford; but would Minter join himself and the others at the office at 7.50, when they could dine together in Town and go down to Guildford later? Minter agreed, and ringing up his garage, altered the time of his taxi. Because of this message, also, he had not dined before starting.
At 4.30 Sheen took the next step. He had already got out his list of shareholders—purely in the interests of the robbery—and he now rang up Minter, told him of the list, and asked him if he would discuss it when they met in the evening. This was partly to make certain that there should be no hitch about Minter’s turning up at the office, but it was principally to get him to the telephone at 4.30. For at that hour Lyde, mimicking Minter’s voice, rang up Norne’s house to say that he, Minter, was ill and couldn’t go down till the 8.15 train. Inquiries, if such were made, would therefore show that Minter had been telephoning at the time his presumed message had reached Norne’s. No doubt the criminals believed that the apparent checking of this message at each end would prevent inquiries at the telephone exchange, which might have shown that this call was received, not sent, by Minter—in which they were partly justified.
The meeting at the office took place as French had imagined. While Sloley and Sheen were robbing the safe, Lyde—already made up to resemble Minter—was dressing in the accountant’s clothes. Minter was dressed in Lyde’s clothes and given the dope with the assurance that this was just to enable an escape to be made, and that no further harm was intended him. Lyde then went off to Guildford. After the theatre Minter was asleep, but he was aroused sufficiently for him to walk with assistance and in a state of semi-coma to the car. There while Sloley drove, Sheen gagged him, then tied him up, and finally suffocated him. Lyde had arranged the light in his window at Norne’s and lowered his rope, and the body was arranged in bed, all as French had supposed.
One precaution Lyde suggested,
on which the other two were not very keen. Lyde, however, had insisted on it. That was the matter of the glass. He had cleaned the glass and then got Norne to carry it to his bed. Breathing on it had brought up Norne’s resulting prints, and he had skilfully wiped the glass so as to leave untouched an essential portion of one of these. His last act before leaving the room was to get Minter’s prints on to it also, but he deliberately twisted the glass so that the thumb-print would not register with the others. He then left Norne’s, walked to Woking, and caught an early train to Town, going on later to Paris.
An investigation by the Amsterdam police on another matter incidentally revealed the fact that the trio had arranged a sale of their gems to a firm of bad reputation in the city. The money was to have been paid the next day, and tickets and forged passports to South America were to have been part of the price.
After a three-day trial Sloley and Sheen were sentenced to death and Lyde to fifteen years penal servitude. Lyde’s counsel ingeniously argued—and Lyde swore—that his client had not intended murder: that he had taken Minter’s place on the understanding that Minter was only to be dosed with a drug which would destroy his memory of the period, and that he was to be taken down alive to Guildford and left in the room at Norne’s to recover. This introduced a sufficient element of doubt to evade the death sentence, though few really believed it.
For French there remained a certain amount of kudos—not referred to by anyone at the Yard—and a strong determination that his next holidays should be spent in Holland, with Amsterdam as a centre for his excursions. And till that happy time should arrive, he settled down with a half-sigh to carry out Sir Mortimer Ellison’s desire that he should ‘look into that poisoning affair down at Chelmsford.’ At all events, if it didn’t get him to Holland, it would get him into the country. Half a loaf, he thought, was better than no bread.
Footnotes
* * *
6. Enter the Borough Force
fn1. There is no Superintendent in the Guildford Borough Police. The rank is used to avoid referring to an existing officer.—F.W.C.
Back to text
* * *
* * *
14. Enter a Yellow Box
fn1. This is the idea referred to in the dedication.
Back to text
* * *
By the same author
Inspector French and the Starvel Hollow Tragedy
A chance invitation from friends saves Ruth Averill’s life on the night her uncle’s old house in Starvel Hollow is consumed by fire, killing him and incinerating the fortune he kept in cash. Dismissed at the inquest as a tragic accident, the case is closed—until Scotland Yard is alerted to the circulation of bank-notes supposedly destroyed in the inferno. Inspector Joseph French suspects that dark deeds were done in the Hollow that night and begins to uncover a brutal crime involving arson, murder and body snatching …
‘Freeman Wills Crofts is the only author who gives us intri-cate crime in fiction as it might really be, and not as the irreflective would like it to be.’
OBSERVER
By the same author
Inspector French and the Sea Mystery
Off the coast of Burry Port in south Wales, two fishermen discover a shipping crate and manage to haul it ashore. Inside is the decomposing body of a brutally murdered man. With nothing to indicate who he is or where it came from, the local police decide to call in Scotland Yard. Fortunately Inspector Joseph French does not believe in insoluble cases—there are always clues to be found if you know what to look for. Testing his theories with his accustomed thoroughness, French’s ingenuity sets him off on another investigation …
‘Inspector French is as near the real thing as any sleuth in fiction.’
SUNDAY TIMES
About the Author
Freeman Wills Crofts (1879–1957), the son of an army doctor who died before he was born, was raised in Northern Ireland and became a civil engineer on the railways. His first book, The Cask, written in 1919 during a long illness, was published in the summer of 1920, immediately establishing him as a new master of detective fiction. Regularly outselling Agatha Christie, it was with his fifth book that Crofts introduced his iconic Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Joseph French, who would feature in no less than thirty books over the next three decades. He was a founder member of the Detection Club and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1939. Continually praised for his ingenious plotting and meticulous attention to detail—including the intricacies of railway timetables—Crofts was once dubbed ‘The King of Detective Story Writers’ and described by Raymond Chandler as ‘the soundest builder of them all’.
Also in this series
Inspector French’s Greatest Case
Inspector French and the Cheyne Mystery
Inspector French and the Starvel Hollow Tragedy
Inspector French and the Sea Mystery
Inspector French and the Box Office Murders
Inspector French and Sir John Magill’s Last Journey
Inspector French: Sudden Death
Inspector French: Death on the Way
Inspector French and the Mystery on Southampton Water
Inspector French and the Crime at Guildford
Inspector French and the Loss of the ‘Jane Vosper’
Inspector French: Man Overboard!
By the same author
The Cask
The Ponson Case
The Pit-Prop Syndicate
The Groote Park Murder
Six Against the Yard*
The Anatomy of Murder*
*with other Detection Club authors
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Crime at Guildford Page 28
