The Loss of the Jane Vosper

by Freeman Wills Crofts

  One point gave Cruttenden a good deal of worry: Would the Soviet people, reading in the papers of the Jane Vosper affair, not smell a rat and mention their suspicions to the Home Office?

  Eventually he decided that there was little fear of this. The fact that the vessel was blown up by explosives in the Weaver Bannister crates might never become known, or, if it did, the public would scarcely hear it before the Board of Trade enquiry. But by the time that this took place Cruttenden intended that the sets should be delivered and that ‘Rice’ and ‘Henty’ should have ceased to exist. Incidentally, this did not work out quite as he had hoped. His calculations were correct, but he had not reckoned on a test being required at Leningrad, and this had dragged out till long after the enquiry was over. The Soviet people, however, had suspected nothing, not connecting the two affairs and not having the slightest idea that the Weaver Bannister sets had not sunk with the ship.

  The scheme had worked out better than the conspirators could have hoped, but when it was nearly completed the luck changed and disaster befell them. Sutton, enquiring as to the journey of the cases, learned that a porter at the Haydon Square goods depot had seen a lorry loaded with cases entering the Rice Bros’ shed. Sutton believed that he was on to something serious and did not risk giving away his knowledge by calling immediately at the shed. Perhaps he was afraid for his life. Instead he rang up his friend in the local police force, asking if anything were known of Rice Bros. Also, and this was where he made his fatal mistake, he called on Hislop to ask him if he knew anything of Rice Bros. or of the cases being taken there.

  Hislop, suddenly alive to the danger, held Sutton in conversation while he cast about in his mind for some way of meeting the situation. Finally he rang up Cruttenden, and they arranged that Hislop should entice Sutton to the shed, when Cruttenden would slip up behind him and kill him with a blow over the head. Cruttenden would afterwards bury the body in the shed. (French shrewdly suspected that in this Henty had assisted, but Henty denied it, saying that he did not know anything about the affair till afterwards, and French could not disprove his statement.)

  This plan was carried out. Hislop returned to Sutton, whom he had left waiting in his office, and said that he considered the news serious and that he thought Sutton and he should go immediately to the shed and make enquiries. To his clerks Hislop said that he was going down to see a certain shipping manager. This, as a matter of fact, was true, as he had to pay a call on this man, though not necessarily at that time. Hislop by tricks at each end caused the times of his leaving his office, and of arriving at the shippers to be noted, so that he was able to put up a reasonable alibi, the deviation necessary to pass the shed not occupying more than three or four minutes.

  He and his victim then went to Redliff Lane and knocked on the door of the shed. Cruttenden admitted them, closed the door behind them, murdered Sutton by striking him on the head, and, while Hislop hurried off to complete his alibi, buried the body. The final proof of this part of the crime was that the fingerprints found on the heels of Sutton’s shoes proved to be Cruttenden’s.

  At the trial all four men paid heavily for their crimes. Cruttenden and Hislop were sentenced to death for the murder of Sutton, and Henty, whose complicity in this could not be proved, received fourteen years’ penal servitude. Keene, who was not considered to have been party to the more serious crime, got five years.

  A financial settlement was made by agreement between the interested parties. The Soviet Government, who had acted in good faith throughout, now behaved handsomely. On the true facts being put before them, they offered to keep the sets and to pay Weaver Bannister £55 on each – that is, the difference between the Weaver Bannister price and the amount they had paid Cruttenden. This was naturally satisfactory to Messrs Weaver Bannister, who were thus adequately paid for their work, and made no claim against the Land and Sea Insurance Company. The South American agents agreed to accept another lot of sets, as soon as these could be made.

  But loss fell on the other insurance companies, the Lloyd’s underwriters who had covered the Jane Vosper and the firms which had insured the remainder of the cargo. All these, however, paid up without demur, and the matter was considered at an end.

  French was profoundly thankful the case had reached a satisfactory termination, though he was not entirely satisfied that he had reached his conclusion as quickly as he ought to have done. However, Sir Mortimer Ellison appeared satisfied, and indeed actually went so far as to compliment French on his achievement. It was with a little glow at his heart, therefore, that he sat down once more at his desk to read up the dossier of a cat burglar who was badly wanted out Hampstead way.