Inspector French's Greatest Case
Page 25
In the meantime, Duke was to pacify Gething by promising him a full explanation of the apparent discrepancies, together with a sight of the actual cash needed to put matters right, on the receipt of certain letters from America. He was also to get together as large a collection of stones as he possibly could. He was then to ask Gething to meet him at the office on the evening in question—the evening of the day of Miss Winter’s first interview with Williams—to go into the whole matter and see the proofs that all was right. Having thus got Gething into his power, he was to murder him, take out the diamonds and some money that was also in the safe, and having handed over to Miss Winter the few stones for Williams, go home as quickly as possible with the remainder.
Though this scheme seemed to them good, the conspirators were not satisfied with it, and they added on three additional features to safeguard themselves still further in the event of suspicion being aroused.
The first of these was an alibi for Mr. Duke. He arranged that he would dine and spend the evening at his club with his solicitor, leaving at a certain definite prearranged hour. By suitable remarks to the solicitor and the club porters, he would fix this hour, and by similar remarks to his servants he would establish the time at which he reached his house. The interval between would be sufficient to enable him to walk home, and he would take care to inform the police that he had so occupied it. But in reality he would taxi from near the club to near the office, commit the murder, and return to Hampstead by tube.
The second safeguard took the form of an attempt to throw suspicion on to Vanderkemp. In carrying this out, Duke himself typed the secret instructions which brought the traveller to London, and he gave Gething orders to see Vanderkemp on his arrival, send him on his wild-goose chase to the Continent, and hand him some of the notes of which he had reason to believe the bank had the numbers, and which he afterwards swore were stolen from the safe.
Events after the crime moved so well from the conspirators’ point of view that they did not at first put their third safeguard into action. Indeed they began to think that even retirement to Brazil would be unnecessary, and that they could continue their life in London as formerly. But the chance remark of Inspector French to Duke that he had discovered that the elusive Mrs. X was Miss Cissie Winter showed that their house of cards was falling to the ground, and immediate flight became imperative. Duke, afraid to visit Crewe Lodge, wrote the warning in a cipher on which they had previously agreed. But by one of those strange chances which interfere to upset the lives and plans of mortals, just after he had posted it the guilty pair met in a tube train. Loitering in a passage till they were alone, Duke gave his news by word of mouth. Then Miss Winter made the slip which compassed their downfall—she forgot about the cipher letter which Duke had said he had sent, and fled, leaving the letter to fall into the hands of the police.
Duke then proceeded to carry out his third safeguard—to fake a suicide in order to account for his disappearance. This he did by means of a trick which they had carefully worked out beforehand, and which they also intended to employ on the Booth liner to put the detectives off in case suspicion should be aroused. In his personality of Duke, he bought at Cook’s office a return ticket from London to Amsterdam via Harwich, engaging his berth for that night and impressing his identity on the clerk. He then went on to Liverpool Street and in his personality of Vane he took a return ticket from London to Brussels by the same route. As Duke he had the passport he used on his occasional visits to Amsterdam. As Vane he had obtained a passport for Holland and Belgium some eighteen months earlier, when he and Miss Winter had gone there for a short holiday.
As Duke he travelled down on the boat train to Harwich, choosing his carriage so that he would be among the first on board. He gave up his ticket at the office, received his landing ticket, and was shown to his cabin. There he arranged his things and left the note for his daughter. Then he put on his Vane make-up, slipped out of the cabin unobserved, and joining the last stragglers from the train, presented his second ticket and was shown to the cabin he had reserved as Vane. As Vane next day he went ashore, leaving behind him incontrovertible evidence of the death of Duke.
At Rotterdam he took tickets for return via Hull, and travelling to Leeds, put up at the Victory Hotel until the date of the sailing of the Enoch. He and Miss Winter joined forces in the train between Leeds and Liverpool, and on going on board the liner they attempted to throw any pursuing detective off the scent by carrying out the same ruse by which Duke had faked his suicide. They had taken two sets of tickets—one set at Cook’s to Manáos in the name of Vane, and the other at the Booth Line offices to Para in the name of da Silva, and had engaged staterooms and tried to impress their personalities on the clerks on each occasion. They had further provided themselves with sets of large and small suit-cases. The small ones, in which they packed their clothes and the diamonds, they labelled “da Silva,” the large ones they labelled “Vane.” They then put the “da Silva” suitcases inside the “Vane,” went on board as Vane, and were shown to their cabin. As Vane, they went back to the purser and said they were going ashore. They went out on deck in the direction of the gangway, but instead of crossing it they regained their cabin, made up as the da Silvas, took out their small da Silva suitcases, and slipping unseen from the cabin, returned to the purser as having just come on board.
The scheme as a whole worked out according to plan—save for Miss Winter’s lapse in omitting to wait for and destroy the cipher letter—but though the principals did not know it, a coincidence took place which came within an ace of wrecking it. When Sylvia and Harrington were driving home from the East End on the night of the crime they saw Mr. Duke turn out of Hatton Garden into Holborn. He was hurrying anxiously along the pavement with very different mien to his usual upright, leisurely bearing. There was something furtive about his appearance, and his face, revealed by a bright shaft of light streaming from a confectioner’s shop, was drawn and haggard. Fearing some ill news, Sylvia had stopped the taxi and hurried after him, but before she had reached the pavement he had disappeared. She did not, however, take the matter seriously until at breakfast the next morning he told her of the crime. Even then it never occurred to her to suspect him; in fact, she had forgotten the incident, but when he went on to state, as it were casually, that he had been at his club all evening and had walked directly home from there, she remembered. She realised that he was lying, and suspicion was inevitable. In desperation lest Harrington should unwittingly give away information which might put the police on her father’s track, she rang him up and arranged an immediate meeting at which she warned him of the possibilities. That afternoon Harrington called to tell her how things had gone at the office, and then she had overwhelmed him by insisting on the postponement of the wedding until the affair should be cleared up. When, however, she learned that French suspected Harrington and herself of knowing the criminal, she thought the postponed marriage might give direction to his investigations, and to avoid this she gave out that the ceremony had once again been arranged. The poor girl’s mind was nearly unhinged thinking of what she should do in the event of the police making an arrest, but fortunately for her she was not called upon to make the decision.
It remains merely to say that some weeks later Reginald Ainsley Duke paid the supreme penalty for his crimes, and his daughter, hating London and England for the terrible memories they held, allowed herself to be persuaded for the third time to fix the date of the wedding with Charles Harrington, and to seek happiness with him on his brother’s ranch in Southern California. The firm of Duke & Peabody weathered the storm, and the surviving partners did not forget the Gething sisters when balancing their accounts.
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