The Supreme Appeal Court
Though self-congratulation is not precisely the same as pride, common
experience teaches us that it is usually followed, if not by a fall,
at least by a disappointment. French’s satisfaction at his rapid
progress was no doubt natural, but its sequel proved an illustration
of this unhappy principle.
After his first day’s achievement there followed a period of
stagnation. It was not that he did not show energy and industry. On
the contrary no one could have done more. Rather was it as if the
Fates disapproved his frame of mind and withheld the success which his
efforts deserved.
And yet the second day began well. On reaching the Portsmouth police
station the next morning news was awaiting him, news moreover which at
first sight seemed valuable enough. Shortly before four on the morning
of the crime a motor car resembling in every respect that described in
his circular was seen passing through Titchfield in the direction of
Lee. It was driving fast, but not fast enough to provoke the
interference of the constable who observed it. There being nothing to
call the man’s special attention to it, he had unfortunately omitted
to note its number. But he had noticed on the left running board an
object some four or five feet long by six inches in diameter, tied up
in canvas and not unlike a bag of large golf clubs.
A second report had come in from Fareham. At about five or a little
later a similar car had passed through the town. It had been seen
twice, first approaching from the direction of Gosport, and a few
moments later leaving on the road towards Bishop’s Waltham. Both the
men who had seen it believed that it contained two persons besides the
driver, and both had seen the canvas package.
That this car had carried the body of the murdered girl, French had
little doubt. It was true that Dr. Lappin had not observed the
package. But French believed that this was for the excellent reason
that when the doctor passed the car it was not there. For he felt sure
that he knew what that package contained. In this carefully planned
crime the murderers knew that though they could “borrow” a boat there
would be no oars in it. French had little doubt that beneath the
canvas cover lay a pair of oars divided into two by some form of
socketed joint.
After it had left Fareham the car seemed to have vanished into thin
air. In spite of French’s most persistent inquiries no further trace
of it could be found. Nor did a single one of the vast army of men who
were on the lookout ever identify anyone as a possible actor in the
terrible drama.
The clue of the car number had also petered out, though as French had
not expected much from it he was the less disappointed. Inquiries had
shown that the car bearing the number seen by Dr. Lappin belonged to a
well-known Surrey resident of unimpeachable character. There was
moreover ample proof that the car had been in the owner’s garage
during the entire night of the crime.
As soon as he was satisfied that every agency which could be directed
towards the tracing of the car or the gang was working at highest
pressure, French went down to Arundel and made exhaustive inquiries
into the tragic death of Agatha Frinton. But though he was untiring in
his efforts, he found out nothing more than the local police had
already reported.
After a week of fruitless work he transferred his activities to
Caterham. Here almost immediately he learned an interesting fact. On
the third night before the discovery of the tragedy there had been a
dance. One of the guests’ homeward way lay past the quarry hole in
which the body of Eileen Tucker had been found. There, at about three
in the morning he had passed a car standing at the side of the road,
the driver bending over his engine. He had stopped and asked if
anything was wrong and the man had replied that it was only a dirty
plug and that he would have it changed in a few minutes. But though
the night was calm he had not heard the car start. Unfortunately he
could not describe the driver, except to say that he was tall and
spoke with a rather high-pitched voice.
These facts tended to confirm French’s theory that the crime was the
work of the same trio as were guilty in the Portsmouth case. But
beyond that they helped him not at all. No further trace of the car or
its occupant could be found.
Then ensued a period of waiting, heartbreaking to French. In spite of
his own efforts and those of his army of helpers no further facts were
discovered. No irregularities had taken place in connection with the
box office cash at any London cinema. No box office girls had left
unexpectedly. Day after day French had to report failure, and each day
Chief Inspector Mitchell shook his head and looked grave. “We must get
them,” the Chief would say. “If we don’t some other poor girl’s death
may lie on our consciences.” To which French could only reply that he
knew it, but that everything he could think of was being done.
The strain began to affect his nerves and it must be admitted that not
infrequently “Soapy Joe” was anything but saponaceous in manner. Mrs.
French soon noticed it and it annoyed her.
“What on earth’s bitten you, Joe?” she asked one evening when
absent-mindedness and short answers were all that she could extract by
a thrilling tale of the next door neighbour’s servant’s delinquencies.
“Nothing,” said French.
“Nothing,” she repeated scornfully. “Don’t tell me a pack of lies.
You’ve had something on your mind for the last fortnight. What’s the
matter?”
“Well,” French admitted, “I suppose it’s this confounded case. I don’t
seem to get any forrader with it. I should have had those three people
long before this and I can’t get a line on them anywhere.”
“I thought it was that. Now, I’ll tell you what you’ll do. You’ll put
the thing out of your head and take me to the Palladium. Then when we
come home I’ll make some tea and you’ll tell me the whole story.
Telling it like that will perhaps clear it up in your mind and you’ll
see how to get on.”
French did not often bring his business into his home or discuss his
cases with his wife. But on certain occasions when he had felt utterly
up against it he had put his difficulties before her in detail, and it
had not seldom happened that she had made some remark or thrown out
some suggestion which when followed up had led him to his goal. He
remembered particularly one case when she had practically told him the
solution of a problem which he himself had been utterly unable to
imagine—that worrying conundrum of the identity of the mysterious Mrs.
X in the Gething murder case of Hatton Garden. Suddenly a wave of hope
flowed over him. Perhaps in this case also she would, as he put it,
“take a notion.”
With a sudden recrudescence of his old energy he jumped to his feet,
crossed the room and implanted a whole-hearted and resounding kiss on
the good lady’s cheek.
“Bless you, Em,” he cried. “You’re not such a bad old sort. We just
will. Come along.”
They went along; he, throwing off his depression and in better heart
than he had been for many days, enjoying the programme, laughing
unaffectedly over the jokes; she, saying little and caring nothing for
the show, but full of a tender maternal feeling for this great child
in whom all her life was centred.
When they reached home she made the promised tea, but French with
amazing sleight of hand managed to transform his portion into a glass
of whisky and hot water during its passage from the kitchen. He was
not a drinker, but occasionally of an evening or if he met a friend he
would take what he called “half a peg.” This evening somehow seemed to
require some such form of celebration.
For, illogical though it might be, he had suddenly become wholly
optimistic. Far more than he realized he was building on the chance of
his wife’s “taking one of her notions.”
Presently they began to discuss the affair, she seated and bending
over a piece of sewing, he on his feet and moving restlessly about.
“I don’t see, Emily, that I can tell you very much more about it,” he
declared. “I explained it to you before. There have been no fresh
developments since then.”
“Huh,” she returned as she drew back her head and looked critically at
her work. “Then tell me again.”
Pacing slowly up and down the room, French retold the whole story: the
call from Arrowsmith, the interview with Thurza Darke, the checking up
of the girl’s story, the appointment in the National Gallery which she
failed to keep, the search for her and its tragic end at Portsmouth,
the crimes at Arundel and Caterham, and lastly the means which were
still in operation to find the criminals.
To all this she seemed to pay but scant attention, eyes and fingers
being concentrated on her work. From her manner French never could
tell whether she was really listening to him or not, though afterwards
he usually found she had grasped every detail. When he had finished he
waited eagerly for her comment. But she still remained silent, folding
and tacking the corners of her work with apparently no thought for
anything else in the world. At last however she spoke, and as her
remark took the form of a question, his hopes bounded up.
“You think those three poor girls were all murdered by the same
people?” she said slowly.
“Well, don’t you?” he answered. “All three were employed——”
“And Mr. Mitchell thinks so too?”
“Certainly he does. You see, if——”
“And both you and Mr. Mitchell think that they were murdered because
they got hold of the secret of this gang?”
“To all intents and purposes, yes. We can’t tell whether the girls
actually knew the secret, but they knew enough to be dangerous. We
think Thurza Darke may have been followed to the Yard.”
Mrs. French slowly threaded her needle, giving to the operation
immense thought and care. Then as if once again able to attend to
trifles, she went on:
“If you’re right in that, it follows that these three are up to some
pretty serious business. If they would sacrifice three lives to
preserve their secret it must be a pretty dangerous or a pretty
valuable one?”
“Well, of course, Emily. There can’t surely be any doubt of that?”
French was feeling slightly disappointed and a trifle irritated. This
was not like his wife. He had hoped for something more illuminating.
But he was not prepared for her next question.
“Have they stopped it?” she asked abruptly.
“Eh?” he returned. “Stopped it? Why, that’s just it. We have no reason
to think so. And that’s what’s bothering us most of all. If some other
poor girl——”
“Because if they haven’t stopped it it must still be going on.”
“Of course it’s going on, or at least we think so,” he said
impatiently. What did she mean by harping on with these obvious facts?
“What’s in your mind, Emily? I don’t see what you’re after.”
“Well, if it’s going on now, that should surely give you all you
want.”
“All I want?” He stared at her with a sudden thrill. Something was
going to come out of this after all! “For heaven’s sake, Emily, what
do you mean?”
But Mrs. French was not to be hurried. Deliberately she rearranged her
work and started on a new corner.
“Wasn’t that Darke girl upset when you saw her?” she went on slowly.
“Very much so. She thought she——”
“And she had been upset for some time before you saw her?”
“Yes. She thought those ruffians Westinghouse and Style were——”
“And those other two girls? They were upset too before they
disappeared?”
“Yes, I found that both had evidently had something on their minds for
a considerable time. The people at their boarding houses and at the
cinemas had noticed it. But how does that help? It only means that all
three knew they were in a tight place.”
“It means far more than that. It gives you all you want so far as I
see.”
French swung round in his walk with a gesture of impatience.
“For the love of heaven, Emily, can’t you say what’s in your mind? How
does it give me anything?”
“I’ve a good mind to let you think for yourself. You’re not shining
just at present, Joseph French.”
He recognized “her way.” Exasperated by it, but thrilled by the
possibility of some light really coming, he answered eagerly: “Don’t
worry about me, old lady. Get on and let’s have the big idea.”
“Surely it’s simple enough. Cinema box office girls are necessary to
this thing, whatever it is. All the girls whom you found mixed up in
it showed unmistakable signs of being upset. The thing is still going
on. Other girls will therefore be mixed up in it. These girls will
therefore be upset. Well, find them.”
For the second time that evening French strode over to his wife and
implanted a hearty kiss on her cheek.
“By Jove, old girl, but you lick creation! It’s an idea, that is.
Quite an idea.” He swung up and down the room, enthusiastic, then
hesitated as a wave of misgiving swept over him.
“Well, what is it?”
The phrase about marriage being the domestication of the Recording
Angel passed inconsequently through his mind. He hoped his Emily
didn’t _always_ read his thoughts as he answered:
“When those first two girls were put away some crisis in the gang’s
affairs must surely have arisen. When the business is running normally
they may not be upset at all. It may be running normally now.”
“Well, if it’s running normally there won’t be any more murders, which
is what you say you want to guard against,” she answered drily. “If
murder is threatened the girls will be upset and that’ll give you
warning. Don’t go out of your way to _make_ difficulties.”
It was his only chance. As he lay awake that night thinking over the
conversation and viewing his wife’s suggestion more soberly than in
his first flush of delight, he felt that, while unpromising, it
offered at least a possibility of progress. At all events he decided
that next morning he would begin to work on the idea.
He found his new quest a more difficult job than he had anticipated.
There was no use in asking the managers of the various London cinemas
whether any of the girls under their charge had lately displayed signs
of hidden anxiety. So long as the work was done, the managers would
neither know nor care. He must in some way observe the girls
themselves.
But this was no more easy. It was out of the question for him to
scrape acquaintance with all the cinema box office girls in London. It
would take him a year. There must be some quicker way.
At last he decided that inquiries from the door porters was his most
promising plan. Accordingly he spent some days going round the
cinemas. At each he drew the most likely looking man aside and pledged
him to secrecy.
“I may tell you,” he began confidentially in each case, “that I am a
detective from Scotland Yard and that I am looking for a certain girl
who has got into the hands of a gang of crooks. You will understand
that it is not the girl personally that we’re after, but the crooks.
Got that?”
The men got it without difficulty.
“We don’t know who the girl is, but we know two things about her.
First, she is employed in the box office of a London cinema, and
second, because of her association with the crooks she will be
considerably worried and troubled.
“Now I can’t go round all the box office girls in London to see if
they are showing signs of mental trouble. And that is where you come
in. You know the girls in your box office. I want you to tell me
whether any of them have become worried looking lately as if they were
in some trouble. That’s all.”
Upon this the idiosyncrasies of the various men came out. Some were
satisfied with the story and immediately gave an intelligent answer.
Others required further explanation and much questioning and
suggestion before risking an opinion. Still others were suspicious and
gave French a lot of trouble before he managed to get their views.
Lastly, some were simply stupid. Of these he could make little.
At last after immense labour he obtained the names and addresses of
eleven girls, all of whom, according to the porters, seemed to be in
trouble of some kind.
His next business was to find out the cause in each case. Here again
the problem was horribly difficult. No doubt it could be done by
scraping acquaintance with each and in time forcing a confidence. But
French had not time for such methods. He had spent long enough on the
case as it was, and Mitchell was beginning to hint that he would not
stand for his remaining on it much longer.
He began by sending a man round the addresses. Five of them were
boarding houses. Other things being equal, he believed the gang would
select girls from boarding houses. They had done so before and the
reason was not far to seek. Girls who were alone in the world were
more defenceless and easier prey than those who had a family behind
them. Therefore it would be wise to start with these five girls.
Calling at the boarding houses in turn when the girls would be on
duty, he asked to see the landladies.
“I’m sorry to trouble you,” he began in each case, “but I am making
some inquiries about Miss Dash, who, I understand, lives here and is
employed in the Asterisk Cinema. I advertised recently for a cashier
for my business and she has applied. She seems suitable except for one
thing. She gives me the impression of being very depressed and
melancholy, as if something were preying on her mind. Now I would not
care for a girl of that kind. I called therefore to ask whether you
could tell me if her depression is temperamental or whether it is
caused by some passing trouble from which she is likely to recover.”
Like the porters, the landladies reacted differently to this stimulus.
One accepted French’s statement without hesitation and replied volubly
that Miss Dash was the best and brightest of girls, but that owing to
the recent death of her young man she was temporarily below her usual
form. Another was circumspect, but allowed French to understand that
it was believed that the course of true love was not running as
smoothly as it might be desirable. A third was even more discreet,
regretting that she was not in the confidence of her young ladies,
while the remaining two evidently assumed sinister designs on French’s
part, and would give nothing away.
He realized that he had not gained much from his visits. Even the
first two girls were not out of the running, as were they in the
clutches of the gang, they might easily have invented the stories told
by their landladies in order to prevent suspicion attaching to their
manner. But this was not likely and French decided that he would first
investigate the lives of the other three, those about whose depression
their respective landladies would not talk. These were Miss Lillian
Burgess of the Cosmopolitan Cinema in the Haymarket, Miss Molly Moran
of the Panopticon in Leicester Square, and Miss Esther Isaacs of the
Venetian in the Strand. It wasn’t perhaps very likely, but from one of
these he _might_ learn something.