Freeman Crofts - Inspector French and the Box Office Murders

‘That’s a very ingenious idea, Miss Darke,’ he said. ‘But it’s only speculation. You don’t really know that it is true.’

‘Only from what she said,’ returned the girl. ‘But I believed her.’

‘Now, Miss Darke,’ French said gravely, ‘I have a serious question to ask you. If you knew all these material facts, why did you not come forward and give evidence at the inquest?’

The girl hung her head.

‘I know I should have,’ she admitted sadly, ‘but I just didn’t. I did not hear of Eileen’s death till I saw it in the paper the day after and it didn’t say where the inquest would be. I ought to have gone to Caterham and asked but I just didn’t. No one asked me any questions and—well, it seemed easier just to say nothing. It couldn’t have helped Eileen any.’

‘It might have helped the police to capture her murderer, if she was murdered,’ French returned. ‘And it might have saved you from your present difficulties. You were very wrong there, Miss Darke; very wrong indeed.’

‘I see that now, Mr French,’ she repeated.

‘Well,’ said French, ‘that’s not what you called to talk about. Go on with your story. What can you tell me about the man? Did Miss Tucker mention his name or describe him?’

Miss Darke looked up eagerly, while the expression of fear on her features became more pronounced.

‘No, but she said there was something horrible about him that just terrified her. She hated the sight of him.’

‘But she didn’t describe him?’

‘No, except that he had a scar on his wrist like a purple sickle. “A purple sickle” were her exact words.’

‘H’m. That’s not much to go on. But never mind. Tell me now your own story. Try to put the events in the order in which they happened. And don’t be in a hurry. We’ve all the day before us.’

Thurza Darke paused, presumably to collect her thoughts, then went on:

‘The first thing, I think, was my meeting Gwen Lestrange in the train.’

‘What? Still another girl? I shall be getting mixed among so many. First there is yourself, then Miss Jennie Cox, Mr Arrowsmith’s typist, then poor Miss Eileen Tucker, who died so sadly at Caterham. And now here’s another. Who is Gwen Lestrange?’

‘I met her first in the train,’ Miss Darke repeated. ‘I go to my work most days by the Bakerloo tube from the Elephant to Oxford Circus. One day a strange girl sitting beside me dropped a book on to my knee and we began to talk. She said that she came by that train every day. A couple of days later I met her again and we had another talk. This happened two or three times and then we began to look out for each other and got rather friends. She was a very pleasant girl; always smiling.’

‘Did you find out her job?’

‘Yes, she said she was a barmaid in the Bijou Theatre in Coventry Street.’

‘Describe her as well as you can.’

‘She was a big girl, tall and broad and strong looking. Sort of athletic in her movements. She had a square face, if you know what I mean; a big jaw, determined looking.’

‘What about her colouring?’

‘She was like myself, fair with blue eyes and a fair complexion.’

‘Her age?’

‘About thirty, I should think.’

French noted the particulars.

‘Well, you made friends with this Miss Lestrange. Yes?’

‘The thing that struck me most about her was that she seemed so well off. She was always well dressed, had a big fur coat and expensive gloves and shoes. And once when I lunched with her we went to Fuller’s and had a real slap-up lunch that must have cost her as much as I could spend in lunches in a week. And she didn’t seem the type that would be getting it from men.

‘I said that I couldn’t return such hospitality as that and she laughed and asked me what I was getting at the Milan. Then she said it was more than she got, but that there were ways of adding to one’s salary. When I asked her how, she smiled at first, but afterwards she told me.’

French’s quiet, sympathetic manner had evidently had it’s effect. Miss Darke had lost a good deal of her terror and her story was coming much more spontaneously. French encouraged her with the obvious question.

‘She said she had got let in on a good thing through a friend. It was a scheme for gambling on the tables at Monte Carlo.’

‘At Monte Carlo?’

‘Yes. It was run by a syndicate. They had a man there who did the actual play. They sent him out the money and he sent back the winnings. You could either choose your number or colour or you could leave it to him to do the best he could for you. If you won you got your winnings less five per cent for expenses; if you lost of course you lost everything. But the man did very well as a rule. He worked on a system and in the long run you made money.’

In spite of himself French became more interested. The story, he felt, was old—as old as humanity. But the setting was new. This Monte Carlo idea was ingenious, though it could only take in the ignorant. Evidently it was for this class that the syndicate catered.

‘And that was how Miss Lestrange had made her money?’

‘Yes.’ Apparently Miss Darke had not questioned the fact. ‘She said that as a rule she made a couple of pounds a week out of it. I said she was lucky and that I wished that I had an obliging friend who would let me into something of the kind. She didn’t answer for a while and then she said that she didn’t see why I shouldn’t get in if I wanted to. If I liked she would speak to her friend about it.

‘I wasn’t very keen at first, for at one time or another I had seen a deal of trouble coming through gambling. But I thought a little fling wouldn’t do me any harm, so I thanked her and asked her to go ahead. If she won, why shouldn’t I?’

‘Why indeed? And she did arrange it?’

‘Yes. I didn’t see her for three or four days, then I met her in the train. She said she had fixed up the thing for me and if I would come in early next morning she would introduce me to the man who took the stakes. Our jobs started about one o’clock, you will understand, Mr French, so we had plenty of time earlier.’

‘Of course. I suppose you both worked on till the places closed in the evening.’

‘That’s right. We were done about eleven or a little later. Well, next morning I met her at eleven and we saw the bookmaker, Mr Westinghouse. Gwen had told me that his office was rather far away and that he would meet us in the Embankment Gardens at Charing Cross. And so he did.’

‘Now before you go on you might describe Mr Westinghouse.’

‘I can tell you just what he was like,’ the girl returned. ‘You know those big American businessmen that you see on the films? Clean shaven and square chins and very determined and all that? Well, he was like that.’

‘I know exactly. Right, Miss Darke. You met Mr Westinghouse?’

‘Yes. Gwen introduced me and he asked me my name and a lot of questions about myself and he wrote down the answers in a notebook. Then he said he would agree to act for me, but that I was to promise not to mention the affair, as they wanted to keep it in the hands of a few. I promised and he took my stake. It was only five shillings, but he took as much trouble over it as if it had been pounds. He wanted to know if I would like to choose my number, but I said I would leave it to the man on the ground.’

‘And what was the result?’

‘Mr Westinghouse said that he couldn’t undertake to let me know before the end of a week, on account of the time it took to write out and back again, and also because the man did not always play, but only when he felt he was going to win. He had a sort of sense for it, Mr Westinghouse said. So I met him a week later. He said I had done well enough for a start. I had won three times my stake. He gave me nineteen shillings, the fifteen shillings win and my five shillings back, less five per cent. I was delighted and I put ten shillings on and kept the nine. That time I doubled my ten and got another nineteen shillings. The next time I lost, but the next I had a real bit of luck.’