Inspector French and the Box Office Murders

by Freeman Wills Crofts

  ‘Well, it’s all very interesting at all events. What about the ring?’

  Cullimore sat back and became less enthusiastic.

  ‘The ring?’ he repeated. ‘The ring is not so easy to explain. It depends on a lot of things, such as the precise degree of hardness of the coins. Even with the careful manufacture in the Mint we do not get all coins to ring alike. All have to be tested individually, and those which do not ring correctly are rejected. I fancy our counterfeiters must have adopted the same plan.’

  When Cullimore finished speaking there was silence for some seconds. Sir Mortimer busied himself in handing round fresh cigarettes. When they were lighted, French said:

  ‘There is one point which has been bothering me since I became satisfied that these people were coining and that is, How does it pay them? Surely it must cost at least nearly half a crown to produce a half-crown?’

  ‘No,’ returned Cullimore, ‘it doesn’t. That’s just the point. It should pay them uncommonly well. You know, of course,’ he went on, addressing the company generally, ‘that during the War the price of silver went up, so that coins were worth more when melted down than as currency. This actually led to a considerable loss of coins. To meet the difficulty the percentage of silver was reduced. Formerly it was 92.5 per cent, but in 1920 it was reduced to the 50 per cent of which I spoke a moment ago. Since 1920 the price of silver has fallen again. It is now standing at about two shillings an ounce. The cost of the silver in a half-crown is therefore less than sixpence—let us assume sixpence. The alloy and manufacture, including overhead, might at the very most be another sixpence. These people could therefore produce a half-crown at a cost of about a shilling, making eighteenpence profit on each coin. As the law now stands, that’s the unhappy fact.’

  ‘By Jove!’ French turned to Sir Mortimer. ‘In that case, sir, it prompts one to ask why the staple industry of the British Isles is not counterfeiting coining?’

  ‘A pertinent question, French. I was considering it myself. Difficulty of distribution, I presume.’

  ‘That’s it, Sir Mortimer,’ Cullimore declared. ‘Any skilful man may produce sufficiently good coins to pass, but it takes a genius to get rid of enough to pay for the plant. That’s why most people with these ideas try printing notes. If you can make eight or nine shillings for every ten-shilling note you pass the game becomes worthwhile, particularly when changing notes is so easy. But you cannot change half-crowns in the same way. Some system of changing like that of Mr French’s friends becomes necessary and that’s where the trouble arises.’

  ‘That’s where it arose in this case anyway,’ said French. ‘The distribution was the weak link in the whole scheme.’

  ‘So it has proved,’ Cullimore admitted. ‘But I consider it an extremely clever scheme all the same. The more you consider the problem involved, the more you will realise, I think, its enormous difficulty. Just think, Mr French. How would you have done it?’

  ‘Oh, come now, Mr Cullimore,’ Sir Mortimer said gravely. ‘Don’t make him incriminate himself. If you ask him questions like that you will have him telling you that things of the kind are not done at the Yard.’

  French grinned.

  ‘That, sir, is the answer to the question. All the same if I had to find a scheme, I should try to avoid one which left me in the hands of four box office girls. That’s what gave the thing away. If the girls had been members of the conspiracy it might never have come out. But the fear that the girls would give the show away led to them doing so.’

  ‘I begin to appreciate the force of your remark, Sir Mortimer, about the Yard’s habit of begging the question,’ Cullimore declared dryly. ‘But I don’t quite appreciate Mr French’s point. You say, Mr French, that the girls gave the scheme away. But I understood they hadn’t?’

  ‘Not directly, sir. But the gang were afraid they might and adopted murder to safeguard themselves. The murder gave them away.’

  ‘Oh, quite. I see what you mean.’ Cullimore dismissed the point airily and turned to a new one. ‘I suppose there is no way of estimating how many of these faked half-crowns are in existence?’

  ‘You gave me some figures on that, French. Just turn them up, will you?’

  ‘All I can suggest is this, sir. Miss Moran told me that she passed out from one hunderd to one hundred and fifty a day. I took a minimum of between seven and eight hundred a week. If all four girls were doing the same that would be, say, three thousand a week or in round numbers 150,000 a year. We understand that the conspiracy has been running about that time.’

  ‘Nearly nineteen thousand pounds worth of spurious money in circulation!’ Cullimore shook his head. ‘It’s bad, but it might be worse.’

  ‘And nearly twelve thousand pounds a year netted,’ Sir Mortimer added. ‘Quite a profitable little enterprise, particularly if the profits had only to be divided among three. What will your department do about it, Mr Cullimore?’

  Cullimore glanced at him keenly.

  ‘That really is rather a problem, Sir Mortimer,’ he admitted. ‘To all intents and purposes the money is good. Moreover, to recall it would be a virtual impossibility. At present I may as well admit that I do not see that we can do anything but accept it as genuine and let it continue to circulate. Of course, I am speaking off-hand and without proper consideration. But that is my present view.’

  For some time they continued discussing the matter and then Cullimore remarked: ‘The thing I cannot get over is the extraordinary skill with which the coins were turned out. This gang must surely have some technical training and it’s not a trade that many men follow. You know nothing, of course, as to their identity?’

  Sir Mortimer shook his head.

  ‘We have their descriptions, though up to the present it hasn’t helped us much. But I appreciate your point about technical training and we shall certainly make inquiries on these lines.’

  ‘Just the sort of thing one would expect from Jim Sibley. What do you say, Mr Cullimore?’ said a new voice, and French looked with a sort of surprised interest at Dove, who had not yet spoken.

  ‘’Pon my soul, I shouldn’t be at all surprised to hear he had something to do with it,’ Cullimore returned. ‘He’s the only man I know who could do such work. You haven’t come across a stout, red-haired man in your inquiries, I suppose, Sir Mortimer?’

  ‘Not so far. Who might Jim Sibley be, if it is not indiscreet to ask?’

  ‘Up till three years ago he was an engineer employed at the Mint. He was with us for about seven years and I don’t mind saying that, present company excepted, he was the most brilliantly clever man it has ever been my good fortune to meet. There was nothing about coining he didn’t know and nothing he couldn’t do with his hands. Extraordinarily resourceful too. It was a pleasure to see him tackle a difficulty, especially one which required some ingenious adaption of some tool or machine for its solution. As Mr Dove says, this coining business certainly suggests his hand.’

  ‘Why did he leave you, Mr Cullimore?’

  The little man shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Rejected coins were disappearing. We were satisfied that he was stealing them, but we couldn’t prove it. We asked him to leave.’

  ‘And did the thefts go on?’

  ‘No, when he left there was no further trouble. There was not the slightest doubt of his guilt, but he was clever enough to prevent us getting proof.’

  Sir Mortimer not commenting, French asked if Mr Cullimore would kindly explain what rejected coins were and what was the object of stealing them.

  ‘By rejected coins I mean those which are complete, but which fail to pass some of the tests imposed. For instance, a half-crown, otherwise perfect, might not ring quite true. It would therefore be rejected and would go back to the furnace to be remelted. Its value to the thief, who would presumably put it into circulation, would be just two and sixpence.’

  ‘That seems a useful hint about this Sibley, sir,’ French said to the assistant commissioner. �
��With your permission I should like to ask these gentlemen for further particulars about him.’

  ‘By all means, French. Get what you can out of them while you have the chance.’

  But neither of the visitors could give information which seemed likely to lead to Sibley’s apprehension. It was arranged, therefore, that French should send a man to the Mint to look up records and learn what he could from other members of the staff.

  ‘I would go myself, sir,’ French went on, ‘but I don’t want to leave the Yard for the present. I want to be here if any news of that girl should come in.’

  ‘Quite.’ Sir Mortimer turned to the others. ‘Inspector French is much upset as to the possible fate of one of the four girls who were changing coins for these ruffians. After worm—shall I say “obtaining her confidence,” French?—she has disappeared and there is evidence that she has been kidnapped. Three of her predecessors were kidnapped and, I regret to say, murdered, almost certainly under similar circumstances.’

  ‘When I asked her for her confidence I promised her protection,’ French explained in a low tone.

  ‘You mustn’t blame yourself,’ Sir Mortimer declared. ‘I appreciate your feelings, but you mustn’t let sentiment run away with you. You acted for the best and no one is omniscient.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. But you see why I want to stay at the Yard?’

  ‘Yes, I approve of that. Well, gentlemen,’ he went on to the others, who had risen, ‘we are much obliged for your call and information. You may rest assured that we shall keep you posted in the developments of the case, and I trust you will advise us if further information comes to your knowledge.’

  ‘You may depend on us.’

  ‘Our friends are annoyed that we should have found out about this fraud before they did,’ Sir Mortimer remarked when the visitors had gone. ‘It evidently hurts their pride. Now, French, tell me exactly what you’re doing. You can have all the resources you want. I quite agree that you must save that girl’s life if it is humanly possible.’

  French detailed his plans.

  ‘Is there anything else, sir, that you think I should do?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I think you have pretty well covered the ground. Carry on as you’re doing and let me know directly anything comes in.’

  But nothing did come in. Every hour that passed made the affair seem more and more hopeless, while French grew more and more worried and despondent. That night he scarcely closed an eye, lying with the telephone beside him and hoping against hope to hear its bell summoning him to the Yard to follow up some clue which had just been reported. But though he had been disturbed on many a night when he was tired and would have given a good deal to remain in bed, on this occasion there was no call.

  Next day at the Yard there was the same blank silence. He fretted and fumed through its insufferable hours until at last he told himself that he must give up hope, and began to fear that the only news he could expect would be that of the finding of the unhappy girl’s body. And then late in the evening his weariness and lassitude changed to fierce energy and excitement. News had come in!

  16

  In the Net

  French’s conversation with Molly Moran had given that young lady very seriously to think. From the beginning she had realised that the undertaking in which she was assisting was unlawful, if not actually criminal. She was not making a bid for French’s sympathy when she told him that, since she had become involved, she had been miserable and in terror. This was the literal truth. Continually she had felt as if she were living on the edge of a volcano which might break out and overwhelm her at any moment. Visions of dismissal, of imprisonment, of ruin were constantly before her, and in spite of the money she was earning, she would have been thankful if she could have given up the whole thing and removed its evil shadow from her life.

  But never in her wildest imaginings had she conceived that the affair could be weighted with murder or she herself in actual physical danger. The story of Thurza Darke and her two predecessors had therefore come to her as an appalling shock. Indeed, she realised that had it come alone she might easily have been driven by panic to take some step which might have precipitated the very crisis she feared.

  Fortunately it had not come alone. The same conversation had brought her a feeling of overwhelming relief. She had confided her position to Scotland Yard. She had made a clean breast of everything. And she had not been arrested nor made to suffer any unpleasantness whatever. On the contrary she had been met with a sympathetic understanding such as she could not have expected from a police officer. She had been promised escape from the toils in which she had been caught as well as protection against her captors. In spite of the dark suggestion of murder, as she returned from the manager’s room to her box office she felt happier than she had done for months.

  During the remainder of that day it must be confessed that her thoughts were far from her job. Mechanically she counted change and shot out disc tickets while she speculated as to the developments which would take place as a result of her statement to French. Would Westinghouse, Style and Gwen Lestrange be arrested? If so, would she be a witness at their trial? She had always heard that giving evidence was a distressing ordeal, especially if one were cross-examined, as she would be by the lawyers for the defence. However, she was sure that French would see her through.

  Excitement kept her awake for a good part of that night and next morning she came down with her mind keyed up to a high pitch of expectancy. What would the day bring forth? Surely with the knowledge the police now had some decisive step would be taken before night.

  After breakfast she found herself with three hours on her hands before she must present herself at the cinema. Too restless to settle down at her boarding house, she determined to go for a walk in the parks, in the hope that the exercise might calm her mind. She was bursting to confide her story to all and sundry, but French’s warning, as well as her own fears, deprived her of this relief.

  As she walked, that other warning which French had given her seemed to stand out in her mind with an ever-growing insistence. Those addresses, the two places to which she must not go! The farther she walked, the more powerfully they drew her thoughts. That at Harrow did not so greatly interest her; it was far away. But Waterloo was near. She had been there scores of times. Not indeed in York Road, but close by. She would have liked … But of course she couldn’t dream of going there after what Mr French had said.

  She turned resolutely into the Green Park, but ever her thoughts reverted to the coach builder’s yard. Presently without conscious volition on her part she found herself leaving the Park and walking in the direction of the river. ‘This will never do,’ she thought; then she saw that it could not possibly be any harm for her just to walk past the end of the street and look down. She had an uneasy twinge of conscience as she crossed Westminster Bridge, but the place drew her with extraordinary insistence.

  Ten minutes later she found herself actually turning into Tate’s Lane. But here she drew the line. French had said she was not to go and she would not. Therefore contenting herself with a long, eager look down the unattractive thoroughfare, she put temptation behind her and passed on.

  But still the place drew her. Aimlessly strolling on with time to kill, she thought she would go down the next parallel street and have a look at Tate’s Lane from the other end. Perhaps from there she would see the builder’s yard.

  Thus it came to pass that at just five-and-twenty minutes past ten she was slowly sauntering along Killowen Street.

  She had walked a hundred yards or more when she saw coming towards her a green saloon car with a figure which looked familiar at the wheel. No, she was not mistaken; it was indeed Mr Style! He was alone, and though he evidently did not see her, he was stopping, for he was slowing down and signalling to following drivers. As she stared at him, he turned the car into an entry almost beside where she was standing.

  Her heart beat fast. Here was news for Mr French! Was it possible that
where the tremendous organisation of Scotland Yard had failed, she was going to succeed? Mr French would revise his estimate of her. She would prove herself less of a fool than he had supposed.

  At this moment, as he was crossing the footpath, Style saw her. For the fraction of a second an ugly gleam shone in his eyes, then he smiled pleasantly.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Moran,’ he called. ‘This is an unexpected pleasure. What are you doing in this part of the world?’ His tone was genial and he looked as if delighted by the meeting.

  Molly felt a sudden urge to take to her heels. Then she saw that she could not do so. Style must not be allowed to think that she suspected him. She must satisfy him that the meeting was accidental and that she did not connect him with the half-crown affair, then pass on and ring up French from the first shop she came to. If she played her part well Style would suspect nothing and might stay where he was until French arrived. She therefore smiled back at him and walked up to the car.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Style. I didn’t expect to see you either, though I have often wanted to do so since our last meeting.’

  This piece of mendacity was due to a sudden idea. If she could engage Style in conversation she would probably be able to dispel any suspicion he might have formed. She would tell him that, having come into some money, she wished to resume betting on the Monte Carlo tables.

  ‘In that case, I’m very pleased that you have found me. Will you excuse me for one second till I get the car out of the way of the traffic and then I shall be at your service.’

  He drove the car through the entry, turned it in the yard, and driving back, stopped inside the entry. Then he came out to Molly.

  ‘Will you come into the office?’ he invited. ‘Though I carry on bookmaking as a spare-time job, I do my real work in this shop. I think only one clerk is in at the moment, so that we can talk without being disturbed.’

  In spite of herself, Molly hesitated. French’s warning recurred to her with increasing urgency. Was not this the very thing he had cautioned her against? Then she told herself she must not be a coward. She could see through the glass door into the office. There was nothing terrifying about its appearance. She could also see the clerk. With him there and in broad daylight and practically in a crowded street nothing could possibly happen to her. Nevertheless it was with some trepidation that she followed Style in.