Inspector French and the Box Office Murders. Freeman Crofts Wills
attendant whom he had not seen on his previous visit had been on duty in the entrance hall on the night on which Miss Darke had disappeared. About quarter before eleven a young lady had come in. As the show was nearly over he had wondered what she had wanted and he had watched her particularly. She had gone to Miss Darke’s box and a short but animated conversation had taken place between the two ladies. He had overheard the stranger say as she was leaving: ‘Cheerio, then. I’ll wait for you at the corner.’ She was a tall, good-looking girl, stylishly dressed, with a fur coat, and she seemed eager and excited and as if pleased about something. The attendant had noticed also that Miss Darke had hurried away as soon as she could.
In spite of the man’s somewhat meagre description, French had little doubt of her visitor’s identity. That she was Gwen Lestrange he would have bet long odds. He immediately set to work on the clue. After examining the remainder of the cinema staff, he arranged for the interrogation of the police who had been on duty in the immediate neighbourhood on the night in question, and circulated an inquiry among the taximen of the district in the hope that the girls might have engaged a vehicle.
The great machine of the C.I.D. having thus been set in motion in London, he returned at eight o’clock to Portsmouth. Smoking a meditative after-dinner pipe in the train, he set himself to take stock of the facts which he had already learnt, and to see if they would yield any deductions which might indicate the way in which he should go.
He saw at once that the inquiry resolved itself into two separate and distinct problems. There was the immediate question of the identity of the trio who had murdered these poor girls. For French believed with his chief that all three crimes were the work of the same parties. But behind that there was the further problem of motive. What were these three people doing that should lead them to so terrible an expedient?
It did not require much thought to show French that he must concentrate on the first of these questions. Until the criminals were discovered, the second question could scarcely be approached. Indeed, the establishment of their identity might lead directly to the discovery of their motive.
Of the murder of Thurza Darke, therefore, just what did he know?
She had left the Milan at 11.15p.m. in her usual health and spirits, and her dead body was found in the Solent at about 7.00 the next morning. The evidence of her watch tended to the belief that she was murdered at 1.07 and this was supported by the doctor’s statement.
French wondered if he could make a provisional timetable of the happenings on that tragic night. Again and again he had found that nothing had so cleared up his views on a case as the fixing of a duration to each incident. Perhaps in this case also it would bring light.
In the first place he considered the time which he should allow for the actual murder. Even with his case-hardened mind he did not care to dwell on the ghastly details. But he felt sure that it could not have been completed in less than half an hour. When he added the time necessary for the kidnapping, he felt sure a good deal longer would have been required. Assume, however, half an hour. 11.15 to 1.07, less half an hour, was about 80 minutes.
It was evident in the next place that the journey from London must have been made by car. There was no train and the difficulties of using an aeroplane would have been overwhelming. Moreover, the fastest motor launch would have taken too long for a sea passage to have been taken.
He had brought a map and guide book of the district and these gave the distance from London to Lee as something like 78 miles. From the above facts, it followed that the crime could not have been committed at Lee. It must have been done within an 80-minute journey from London.
In 80 minutes French thought it unlikely that more than thirty miles could have been done. With such a freight no driver would have run the risk of being held up by the police for speeding. Thirty miles from London in the general direction of Portsmouth brought him to the district containing Wokingham, Aldershot, Godalming, Horsham, and Ashdown Forest. He thought that a provisional assumption was justified that the murder had been committed either in London or somewhere on the London side of this circle.
Some fifty miles had then to be covered. On these country roads a higher speed might be admitted. Still French did not believe Lee could have been reached before about half past three in the morning.
The remains would then have to be put into the sea, an operation which would also have taken time. Suppose it took half an hour. This would have brought the time to four o’clock. About four it would be beginning to get light, and French was sure the criminals would do their utmost to get away as soon as possible from a place with such dangerous associations.
When the train ran into Portsmouth station, French was smiling contentedly. He was pleased with his progress. From nothing whatever he had evolved the definite conception of a car arriving at a point near Lee at some time between, say, 3.00 a.m. and 5.00 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday, the 19th of June, and of the carrying of the body from this point to the sea. Possibly a study of the shore and currents might enable him to fix that point within short limits. If so, it would be strange indeed if he did not find some further clues. In a hopeful frame of mind he put up at the Splendid at Southsea, his plans for the next day settled.
When French woke next morning he found a brilliant sun pouring in through his window. A good omen, he thought, as he gazed out on a sea just as blue and sparkling as the Mediterranean had looked from the Hotel in Nice at which he had stayed when investigating the wanderings of the Pyke cousins. With luck he would make progress today.
A short journey through Portsmouth and Gosport brought him to Lee-on-the-Solent, a pleasantly situated little town of new houses, stretched out along the shore. Five minutes later he was turning in at the gate of Austin Munn’s neat villa.
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