The Scene of the Crime

by John Creasey

  Copyright & Information

  The Scene Of The Crime

  First published in 1961

  © John Creasey Literary Management Ltd.; House of Stratus 1961-2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The right of John Creasey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  This edition published in 2013 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

  Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

  Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

  Typeset by House of Stratus.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

  ISBN EAN Edition

  0755123417 9780755123414 Print

  0755134001 9780755134007 Kindle

  0755134400 9780755134403 Epub

  This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author's imagination.

  Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  www.houseofstratus.com

  About the Author

  John Creasey – Master Storyteller - was born in Surrey, England in 1908 into a poor family in which there were nine children, John Creasey grew up to be a true master story teller and international sensation. His more than 600 crime, mystery and thriller titles have now sold 80 million copies in 25 languages. These include many popular series such as Gideon of Scotland Yard, The Toff, Dr Palfrey and The Baron.

  Creasey wrote under many pseudonyms, explaining that booksellers had complained he totally dominated the 'C' section in stores. They included:

  Gordon Ashe, M E Cooke, Norman Deane, Robert Caine Frazer, Patrick Gill, Michael Halliday, Charles Hogarth, Brian Hope, Colin Hughes, Kyle Hunt, Abel Mann, Peter Manton, J J Marric, Richard Martin, Rodney Mattheson, Anthony Morton and Jeremy York.

  Never one to sit still, Creasey had a strong social conscience, and stood for Parliament several times, along with founding the One Party Alliance which promoted the idea of government by a coalition of the best minds from across the political spectrum.

  He also founded the British Crime Writers' Association, which to this day celebrates outstanding crime writing. The Mystery Writers of America bestowed upon him the Edgar Award for best novel and then in 1969 the ultimate Grand Master Award. John Creasey's stories are as compelling today as ever.

  Chapter One

  The First Crime

  When Alice came towards him, eyes glowing, great eagerness and love in her, John Payne felt the first twinge of conscience, the first hint of shame. He crushed them. She had thrown herself at his head from the beginning, and but for her the crime would never have been planned. Curiously, for the first time he saw how attractive she was in her demure way; perhaps that was because she was touched with radiance and excitement. She was twenty-three, and looked younger. She had quite nice legs and arms, but hardly any figure; with her hair cut short, as she liked to wear it, and in trousers, she was more like a youth than a young woman. She walked well, and clutched her handbag tightly.

  It was ludicrous for her to think that she might ever lure him away from Gwen. She knew Gwen slightly; and anyone who met his wife must be aware of her surging vitality, must surely know that there was hardly a woman who could hold a man against her. Yet he was sure that Alice had fooled herself. An occasional meal, a drink together, a few evenings in the back row of a suburban cinema, two evenings at her flatlet and – promises. She had needed nothing else to convince herself that he was in love with her.

  Poor, simple Alice.

  It was a clear winter evening, with the stars out, and the street lamplight shone to give her an added sparkle. Payne was standing in the doorway of a shop near the cinema, and she was looking out for him, but had not yet seen him. When he stepped forward, her eyes lit up.

  She looked quite beautiful.

  “Darling!” she breathed, in that whispering way she had acquired because of the furtiveness of their meetings. “I’ve got it!”

  “Wonderful,” Payne breathed. “Wonderful!” He drew her into the shop doorway, and she came in eagerly. He slid his right arm round her and pressed her close to him, then sought her lips, and kissed her with a simulation of passion which had always deceived her. When he drew back, she was gasping a little and the light sparkled star-like in her eyes. “Alice,” Payne whispered, “you’re beautiful—even more beautiful tonight.”

  “You’re the most handsome man in the world,” she whispered back.

  She meant it – as years ago, Gwen had meant it. Now his hair was greying a little, but he still dressed well; at forty-seven he had no stomach to speak of, could still play squash, racquets or tennis vigorously, and had the hard, chiselled look of the outdoor man.

  “Did you have any trouble?” Payne asked.

  “Not really.” She was beginning to open her handbag already. She was never too demanding, was satisfied with surprisingly little. She took out a small, sealed package, about the size of a packet of twenty cigarettes, and handed it to him. “There it is.”

  She put it into his hand.

  He took it, and held it very tightly, then took her hands with his free one, and squeezed, drawing her to him again. He could feel the feathery softness of her breath upon his cheeks, and the beating of her heart betraying the tumult within her.

  “Wonderful,” he said again, and slid the package into his pocket.

  It was the key to Anderson’s strongroom.

  She believed that it was the key to their future, that with it he would steal enough money and jewels to take them out of England. She really believed that he would settle somewhere in Europe with her, perhaps even farther afield. Winning her round to face the actual theft had been the difficult, delicate task; it had taken many months, of hints, suggestions, words of love and longing.

  If only they had sufficient money, nothing else would stop them. If only, if only, if only …

  That hardly mattered now. She had been won round, after the first sharp reaction against it, and one by one she had brought him keys of the safes, taking them back after he had made replicas. She had never doubted that she would be able to get hold of the complicated strongroom key long enough for him to make a replica; or that she could get it back to Anderson’s flat without the old man knowing that it had ever been missing. She had tried to take an impression of the key on soap and plasticine, but the rounded barrel and the intricate cutting had made it essential to work from the key itself.

  She did not know that it was virtually a key to her coffin.

  That was an ugly thought; Payne did not like it, and told himself that now the time was getting nearer he must not become softhearted. With her alive, the whole scheme would fall down, for he would be far too vulnerable. He must not even think of the possibility of leaving her alive.

  “What do you mean—you didn’t really have any trouble?” Payne made himself ask.

  “Just as I was leaving his bedroom, his son came in,” Alice answered. “I had to stay and be nice to him for nearly half an hour! The key was burning a hole in my—” She broke off, gave a little laugh which he knew indicated the tension she felt, and went on – “I’d dropped the key down the front of my dress, to make sure Julian—”

  “I’d like
to break his neck!” Payne exclaimed, and there was a harsh note of ferocity in his manner; that would please her. One thing she disliked more than any other was having to endure some of the little attentions of Julian Anderson.

  Alice said: “Oh, I can handle Julian all right now!” She was looking up into Payne’s face, and there was only one word for her expression: adoring. “I had to stay until he was ready to go, he was the only one who might possibly have noticed that the key was missing.”

  “Alice,” said Payne, huskily, “you’re absolutely superb. You’ve got nerves of steel.”

  “A year ago I would have been so scared I would have dropped the key in front of his eyes,” Alice said. “Darling, I wonder if you know how good you’ve been for me! Until I knew you, I wasn’t much more than a schoolgirl. Now—” She broke off, and laughed again. “When—when do you think you can do it, John?”

  “I think about this time next month,” he said. “The middle of February.”

  “I can hardly wait!”

  “How do you think I feel?” Payne demanded. “I won’t delay a minute longer than necessary. When it’s over, we’ll wait for a week or two, then go across to the Continent separately.” He caught his breath. “You can hardly wait,” he echoed roughly. “I wish to God we could spend the evening together, but I must get this duplicate made tonight. It would be tempting fate to keep the key any longer. What will you do while you’re waiting?”

  “I might as well go to the pictures,” Alice said, philosophically. “There’s quite a good main feature on.” She gave that little, nervous laugh again. “A crime story!”

  “Just right for the night,” agreed Payne. “I’ll be finished by eleven o’clock, so if you’ll catch a Number 22 bus and get off at the usual place, we can snatch half an hour together.”

  “Wonderful,” Alice said; and she meant it.

  Payne took a slim box of chocolates from his topcoat pocket and gave it to her; she was as pleased as if it were a sumptuous box. He kissed her fiercely again, then let her go. Immediately, she turned her back on him and walked briskly towards the entrance to the cinema. A middle-aged man, passing, glanced at him; a policeman was coming along on the other side of the road. Payne stepped out of the shop doorway, took out cigarettes, lit one, and looked towards Alice. She was disappearing, and did not look round. She had learned all the tricks of deception, of making sure that they were not seen together too often, and that they did nothing to attract attention. He had used Gwen as a bogey, and often wondered how he would explain Alice away to Gwen, if it should ever become necessary.

  He did not think it would.

  He went a hundred yards along Fulham Road, where his small car was parked, a ten-year-old Austin. He got in, but did not start the engine immediately; he needed a respite. He slid his hand into his pocket and touched the key, then suddenly laughed to himself. The laughter became almost uncontrollable; he had to stifle it, to make sure that he did not startle passersby. Reaction, of course. He had the key, he already had the dummy ready, one of the right type and size which it would be easy to cut. Even if he didn’t finish tonight, he could make an impression of this one, and finish the job tomorrow.

  The timing was perfect.

  They had waited months for the opportunity, knowing that it was bound to come, for every winter old Anderson went down with his bronchitis, and was so afraid of complications that he stayed indoors, mostly in his room, doing only essential work. Alice was his secretary, and she went to his room every morning and afternoon, to take down letters and to take them back for signing. Payne wondered how she had managed to get the key off the ring, but she had often told him that the keys themselves were in a drawer of the dressing table in the room. He, Payne, had never been inside that room, but she had described it so well that he almost believed he knew it, with the red, mahogany furniture, the big mirrors, the huge dressing table, the high bed, the easy chair close to it, the small desk where Alice worked.

  How she had contrived it didn’t matter; the important thing was that Anderson should never know that the key had been out of his possession.

  The next twenty four hours would be the tricky ones. Twenty four hours, at the end of those long months of thinking, dreaming, planning. It was over a year since he had first thought about robbing Anderson’s, where he had worked five years ago, but had left, so as to start his own business. He had been so full of confidence at the time, so sure of success, but he hadn’t made a go of it.

  The worst thing about that had been letting Gwen down.

  The thought of robbing Anderson’s had come when he had gone to try to sell the old man some French jewellery, and Anderson had taken him downstairs and shown him that the place was still in a hopeless confusion. That was the day he had first met Alice, too, and he had sensed how he impressed her. After that, it had been easy to meet her ‘by chance’, easy to cultivate her, although more difficult to win her round to what he wanted to do.

  He was in a perfect position to dispose of the stolen goods, too, for his own business was that of buying up secondhand and antique jewellery, polishing it, sometimes resetting, and always reselling it. With a few thousand pounds in capital he could have made a fortune; and he had always promised Gwen a fortune. Now it was all over bar the shouting.

  Payne started the engine and drove off; in twenty minutes he was in the garage of his Richmond home. Gwen and the youngsters were out, it was as if everything was conspiring to give him exactly the opportunity he wanted. He did not go into the house, but went straight to the workshop at the back of the garage, where he did his polishing and resetting. He had a few tools, a small lathe, a little stock of old gold and silver settings, everything he needed.

  Except plenty of stock.

  Once he got all he wanted from Anderson he would release the stock cautiously, over a period of years. It would be worth that fortune all right, and would get him and Gwen out of this rabbit hutch into a decent house. He would show Gwen that he wasn’t a bigmouthed braggart, too.

  He kept the shutters up at the workshop, working in artificial light, so that neighbours shouldn’t know that he was there. Then he put on his raincoat, to keep his suit clean, and set to work.

  It should take an hour to make the key …

  It took him exactly fifty five minutes.

  He had two keys then, absolutely identical, as well as the master keys to the safes in the strongroom beneath the shop. What an old fool Anderson was! He should have built in new safes years ago – he, John Payne, had recommended that he should when he had worked for the old miser, and Anderson had always said: “Yes, I must, I will. I’ll get round to it, one day.”

  The mean old so-and-so.

  Payne held the new key up to the light, turned it round and round in his fingers, gloatingly, then put it in the false bottom of his toolbox, with the others; keys to a fortune – and keys to Alice’s coffin. That ugly thought came again, giving Payne a ghoulish feeling.

  It passed.

  He wiped his fingerprints off the original key, and wrapped it up again. Then he went outside, switching off the light of the garage. For the second time that night he noticed a policeman, this time one near the front gate of the small semi-detached house not far from the Upper Richmond Road.

  The policeman said: “Good evening, sir.”

  “Evening,” Payne returned, heartily. “Just going out,” he added unnecessarily, and stepped to his car. “Nice night.”

  “Very cold though,” the policeman said.

  Cold, thought Payne, and felt one of those paroxysms of laughter coming on; he had to fight to control it. When it had passed, he drove off. It was too early for Alice, but he had to be away before Gwen arrived. Gwen believed that he was at the Sports Club playing billiards; there was always a chance that one of the other members would ask her why he hadn’t shown up, but that was another ris
k he had to take. He had always been able to concentrate on the immediate task, without worrying about what would come next.

  Tonight he had the key.

  Tomorrow he had to make sure that Alice could never tell anyone about that.

  Tomorrow, or the next day –

  “No,” he said angrily. “Tomorrow.”

  As he drove slowly towards Putney, he kept seeing a picture of Alice in his mind’s eye. Why had she seemed so attractive tonight? Why did she remind him so vividly of his own daughter? They weren’t even remotely alike, for Hilda took after Gwen in every way. When his son Maurice felt in a teasing mood, he could make Hilda angry to a point of tears by making bland references to Sabrina or Jayne.

  “My God!” Payne exclaimed. “Do I need a drink!”

  He wasn’t quite himself. Something was working inside him so that he was not as cold and calculating as he wanted to be. Ahead, the lights of a pub showed yellow, and brighter light streamed out as two men came from it. Payne slowed down. A double whisky was exactly what he needed to put him right. He pulled up opposite the pub, switched off the engine, sat still for a moment, and then said in the same rough angry voice: “Don’t be a bloody fool. I can have a drink when it’s all over, if I start knocking whisky back now I’ll have had it.” He started the engine again, and drove off much faster than he intended. He would have to wait nearly an hour to see Alice again. It was almost a pity that he had to, tonight, but until the key was safely back with Anderson, this first part of the job wouldn’t be finished.

  He saw Alice step lightly off a bus, and stand for a moment looking up and down. His car was parked near the tow path, where there was little light. She came hurrying towards it.

  At least she would die happy.