Crime at Guildford Read online

  ‘That’s all right, sir. You may be satisfied I’ll use nothing that is not essential.’

  ‘Very well, it happened that at the party a question of the interpretation of some of the figures arose in my mind, and I thought I should like to consult Minter on the point. Minter, I knew, was going down to Norne’s in time for dinner. So I slipped away and rang him up then and there. He told me he was not feeling very well, and was not going down to Norne’s till after dinner. Well, I didn’t want to worry him with business if he wasn’t well, so it occurred to me that we might meet before he started in the evening instead. I put this up to him, telling him what I had in mind, and in the end it was decided he would call at the office about seven-fifty, on his way to the eight-fifteen train.

  ‘I should explain to you, perhaps, why that suited me? Or are you not interested in that?’

  French shrugged. ‘I can’t pretend it’s very vital, sir, but when you’re telling the story, you might as well make it complete.’

  ‘Well, we were going to the Aldwych Theatre, which, as you know, is just beside the office. Our play was at 8.30. This would give me time to meet Minter, see him off about 8.05 to catch the 8.15 at Waterloo, put my papers away, walk to the theatre and be in plenty of time to meet my wife and her friends at the theatre. Of course I’d have to leave home .before them, but as I expected the same suggestion would be made about dinner as about lunch, I’d probably have had to do this in any case. You follow?’

  ‘Yes, sir, it’s very clear.’

  ‘The party dragged out its weary length. My brother-in-law, Lyde, who, I think I told you, is an actor unhappily temporarily out of a job, did a sort of one-man variety show for the children that wasn’t so bad. But otherwise it was a ghastly business.’ Sheen smiled crookedly. ‘But the kiddies liked it. That decent fellow Sloley and his wife had come, also Mrs Minter. The rest you wouldn’t know. Well, I happened to tell Sloley what I had arranged with Minter, and he said at once that he’d come to the office with me. “Look here,” he said, “we’ll slip away and have a bit of dinner in Town and go on there. We’d only be a nuisance here anyway.” He didn’t say it, but I knew very well what he wanted—to get away from my party at the earliest possible moment, and I did what I could to make it easy for him. Besides, I was glad to have his company.

  ‘He went home and changed—we live close to one another—and then we went and had some dinner at the Holborn and then on down to the office. We got there about quarter to eight. In about five minutes Minter joined us. The three of us discussed the figures, and Minter cleared up the point that had been worrying me. Then I suggested that he should take the figures with him and show them to Norne and the others so that they could think over them before the meeting, to which he agreed.

  ‘Minter then left; I suppose that would be about two or three minutes past eight. Sloley and I followed him and walked to the Aldwych, where we met the others and where the child saw her first play.’

  ‘I understand, sir. Then after the theatre you went down to Guildford?’

  ‘Yes. Sloley had parked his car in Ronder Lane. As soon as we had seen our people into taxis we set off. I don’t know if I said that Mrs Sloley and Mrs Minter and the two Sloley children had joined us.’

  ‘I think you told me that before. You got down to Guildford without incident?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Quite,’ said French absently. This statement was certainly pretty complete. There was not much still to inquire into. He thought for a moment and asked: ‘And then on Sunday?’

  ‘On Sunday afternoon I came back to Town with Sloley, Osenden and Ricardo.’

  ‘And went home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You remained at home till Monday morning?’

  ‘I did,’ Sheen answered grimly. ‘I was glad to get the chance. I hadn’t had much of a weekend.’

  ‘There’s just one other point, Mr Sheen. You said you ’phoned Mr Minter, asking him to call at the office. What time was that?’

  ‘I told you: seven-fifty.’

  ‘Sorry, sir. I mean what time did you ’phone?’

  ‘Oh. Getting on to half-past four, I think. I’m not positive.’

  This, then, accounted for the second call Minter had received. French decided to put a man on to try to trace the first one. He got up.

  ‘Well, sir, I’m much obliged to you. That’s all I want. Some little point may arise afterwards, and if so, you won’t mind my coming back to you. Now I’ve to see Mr Sloley. Do you happen to know if he’s here today?’

  For answer Sheen took up his desk telephone. ‘Oh, Norne, is Sloley about?’ There was a silence. ‘Oh, he is, is he? The chief-inspector’s here, and would like to see him.’ Another silence and Sheen put down the telephone.

  ‘He’s with Mr Norne. If you go along to Miss Barber’s room, she’ll fix you up.’

  ‘Come along, Carter,’ French said. ‘We’ve wasted too much of Mr Sheen’s time as it is,’ and with a brief word of thanks, the two police officers left the room.

  Miss Barber was in a much more agreeable mood than on the occasion of French’s previous interview. She smiled and answered pleasantly when he greeted her and seemed to have forgotten her own importance and superiority.

  ‘We were looking for Mr Sloley,’ French explained presently, ‘and were told you could produce him on demand. Would you kindly work the miracle for us?’

  ‘I can,’ she answered graciously, ‘and I will. Come this way.’

  She led them out of the office and along the passage to a small waiting room furnished with a table and three or four easy-chairs. ‘If you wait there for a couple of minutes,’ she went on, ‘I’ll send him in.’ Her air of scornful superiority was superb, but there was a smile in her eye to which French responded.

  ‘She doesn’t half own the office, does she, sir?’ Carter grinned.

  ‘Conceited young idiot,’ French agreed.

  ‘I heard her,’ went on Carter reminiscently, ‘slanging the porter the other day. He’d forgotten a letter of something and she told him off about it proper. I wondered the man took it from her.’

  ‘A girl like that has the ear of the boss,’ said French, ‘and so she doesn’t know her own size.’

  ‘They’re all the same,’ Carter said darkly. ‘My daughter thinks she’s the Lord Almighty about the house.’

  ‘And I bet she gets off with it,’ French returned.

  Carter shook his head a trifle sheepishly, but his denial was interrupted by the entrance of Sloley.

  ‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ he said breezily. ‘I hear you want to see me, chief-inspector? Well, here I am.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ French returned. ‘I’ve just been getting a statement from Mr Sheen about the events of last weekend, and I should be glad if you would kindly let me have your account of the same period.’

  ‘Of course, chief-inspector. But I think I told you that already.’

  ‘You did, sir; you gave me a short preliminary statement. Now I want the same thing, only in full detail.’

  Sloley didn’t see why his former statement wasn’t good enough: he certainly had taken trouble enough to make it complete. But eventually he supposed that French knew his own business, and agreed in a resigned way to answer questions.

  As a matter of fact, however, he had nothing new to tell. On all the essential points he confirmed what Sheen had said. It appeared that on Saturday he wasn’t in the office till the evening, as he only attended if there was a directors’ meeting. He had spent the afternoon at Sheen’s party, and had jumped at the chance of leaving it which dining with Sheen and going to the office presented. Minter certainly appeared ill when he turned up, though he, Sloley, had seen him looking worse. But he had taken the precaution to go down to the office door and see the man into his taxi. After the theatre he and Sheen had driven down to Guildford.

  Believing that he had obtained from Sloley as much as he could possibly expect, French thanked him and with Car
ter returned to the Yard. There he put a man on to try to trace the telephone call which Minter had received about 3 p.m. on the Saturday afternoon. Then he sat down to consider what he had learnt and plan his next step.

  He soon saw that he was not so much further on from Sloley’s and Sheen’s evidence as he had hoped he would be. What he had learnt did not definitely answer the question of whether or not these two men were guilty of the robbery. It was true that their story was reasonable and hung together, and if it were true, they were undoubtedly innocent. But French knew that if they were guilty their story would still be reasonable and hang together. They would see to that.

  He got up and began to pace the room. Mentally he worried the problem as a dog worries a bone. How was he to learn the truth? Was the answer buried in what they had told him, if only he could disinter it? Or must he think out further tests?

  Then his thoughts reverted to what he had already seen was the fundamental issue in the affair. Everything hinged on the question of whether Sloley and Sheen had or had not murdered Minter. If they had somehow obtained his key, and feared that when he learned of the robbery he would suspect this and give them away, their only safeguard would have been murder. Conversely, if they had not murdered him, would it not show they had nothing to fear from him?

  French then went to the vital point. If they had nothing to fear from him, did it mean that they had not robbed the safe?

  The answer to this was not so obvious, and yet as he thought over it, French became increasingly convinced that it did mean this. They couldn’t, he felt sure, have played any trick with the key, which Minter would not have suspected as soon as he heard of the robbery. And they couldn’t have risked his suspicion.

  The more French thought over it, the more convinced he became that his conclusion was correct: the guilt or innocence of these men of the murder was the essential point. They were guilty of both crimes or of neither.

  If he were right, and he was sure that he was, his next investigation resolved itself into one simple inquiry. Were Sloley and Sheen really in Town at eleven o’clock on that Saturday night, as they said? If they were, it was utterly impossible that they could have committed the murder.

  Glad to be up against a definite issue, French decided to put the matter to the test forthwith. With Carter he set off, therefore, for Sheen’s house in Hampstead. He chose Sheen’s rather than Sloley’s because he knew that Sheen would be at the office, whereas Sloley might be at home, and he wanted independent evidence.

  The house turned out to be a small one in a rather poor street, and it looked shabby and uncared for. The door was opened by Mrs Sheen herself, and from her appearance French saw that she was engaged in housework. She was a small washed-out woman who had once probably been pretty, but who had now very definitely lost her good looks. She looked doubtfully from French to Carter. French raised his hat.

  ‘Good afternoon, madam. You are Mrs Sheen, aren’t you?’

  She nodded, waiting with her hand on the door.

  French introduced himself, and she moved back, making way for the two men to enter the narrow, poorly furnished hall. ‘Come in,’ she invited, though obviously unwillingly. ‘My brother’s here, but you won’t mind.’

  She threw open a door and French and Carter passed into a small dining room, giving on to the garden in the back. French caught a glimpse of a grass plot with shrubs stretching back to a brick wall of the richest and most mellow shade, of a small shed through the open door of which appeared a bench and rack of tools, and of a wooden bird table on which was stretched in an attitude of replete satisfaction a huge black cat.

  In the room the furniture was like that in the hall, of poor quality and shabby, and not a great deal of it at that. There was, however, a cheerful fire in the grate, and the two armchairs, though their leatherette coverings were worn into holes, were deep and comfortable looking. In one of them a man was lounging. He was small and slight like his sister, with a thin clean-shaven intelligent face. He got up as the others entered.

  ‘This is Chief-Inspector French, Lambert,’ said Mrs Sheen. ‘My brother, Mr Lyde.’ She paused for a moment while the men nodded to each other, then went on. ‘Perhaps my brother could answer some of your questions, chief-inspector. I’m engaged for a few minutes. Tell the chief-inspector what you can, Lambert, and I’ll be back presently.’

  She disappeared and Lyde pointed to the second armchair, pulling out one of the smaller chairs for Carter.

  ‘Won’t you sit down, gentlemen. I’ve heard about you from the brother-in-law, chief-inspector.’

  ‘I suppose so, Mr Lyde.’ French had forgotten the existence of this individual, but he now remembered that both Sloley and Sheen had spoken of him. This was the actor, temporarily out of a job, who had given a turn at the children’s party.

  ‘I rather doubt that you can give me the information I require,’ French went on. ‘It’s about the Saturday of the robbery. I’m trying to make a sort of timetable of what everyone did during that weekend; a matter of routine which we always have to do. It concerns the late Mr Minter, but we have to check his movements up by everyone else’s. Now, Mr Sheen has told me a great deal, but he wasn’t sure of some of the times and I’d like to get them checked.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you then. I didn’t come across Mr Minter at all. In fact, I scarcely knew him.’

  ‘Quite so, but perhaps about Saturday afternoon you could tell me something? You were here that afternoon?’

  ‘As a matter of fact I wasn’t, except for a few minutes. The Sheens were giving a children’s party, and as this house was too small, they had it in the Blue Tiger in the next street. I was there.’ He smiled sardonically. ‘Couldn’t get out of it, you know.’

  ‘I heard about that, sir. You were good enough to give some kind of entertainment?’

  ‘Yes; couldn’t get out of that either. I’m on the stage, you know; or rather off it at present. It’s been the devil of a time for our profession.’

  ‘I’ve heard so, sir.’ French was sympathetic. ‘Mr Sheen and Mr Sloley were at the party, I understand?’

  ‘Yes; they couldn’t get out of it either.’

  ‘My first question then is, can you tell me what time they left?’

  ‘About six, I think, but I really am not certain. I left about half-past six—I was crossing by the 8.20 to Paris—and they had gone some little time before that.’

  ‘Then you didn’t see Mr Sheen again that night?’

  ‘No, I dined alone on my way to Victoria.’

  This being all the information French could hope for from Lyde, the two men drifted into conversation about France and Channel crossings and flights. Lyde had, it appeared, gone to Fontainebleau for the Sunday. He had old associations with the place, and in spite of, or perhaps because of, the fact that it was rather cold, he had enjoyed a long tramp through the forest. His business engagement didn’t take place till that evening.

  In the middle of reminiscences of Continental travel, Mrs Sheen came in. Lyde thereupon made his excuses and vanished.

  French went through his usual preamble as to the need for checking certain times of which Mr Sheen was not quite sure. Then he asked about the time of everything from the afternoon on, as he had begun to do in the case of Lyde. He only, of course, wanted the one figure, but he didn’t wish that attention should be called to that.

  In the end he obtained a quite definite answer to his question. The show had been over at five minutes before eleven; Mrs Sheen had looked at her watch and was quite sure. They had gone out at once and after a little delay Sheen had got taxis. She and Mrs Sloley and the children had taken one, and Mrs Minter, who lived in a different direction, the other. They had left the theatre at three or four minutes past eleven, arriving home at twenty-five minutes past. She was sure of this because she had again looked at her watch, being concerned about the children being kept up so late. Sheen and Sloley had remained behind at the theatre, as they were driving down to Guil
dford.

  This in itself seemed conclusive proof of the innocence of the two men. Minter must have been dead before the party left the theatre, or if not, long before Sloley and Sheen could have reached Guildford. French was tempted to leave it at that, but after all Mrs Sheen was Sheen’s wife, and would therefore be biased in her evidence. Rather grudgingly French continued to get all the available confirmation.

  First he saw Mrs Sloley and Mrs Minter, and learned that their testimony agreed with Mrs Sheen’s. He went to the Aldwych Theatre, and ascertained that the show in question always ended about or before eleven. Lastly, he found the taxi which had conveyed the Sheen party home, and was assured by the driver that he had not started till the show was over.

  Sloley and Sheen were therefore definitely innocent of the murder. And unless French’s ideas were wrong from beginning to end, if they were innocent of the murder, they were innocent of the theft.

  It was in a depressed state of mind that French rang up Superintendent Fenning and told him the result of his inquiries. The four most likely suspects were now out of it, and infinitely worse than that, French could not visualise any other promising line of research. Fenning was equally despondent. He had learnt nothing fresh about the murder, and didn’t see how he was going to. Fortunately for both of them, the next day was Sunday, and both decided they would take a complete holiday, so as to attack their respective problems with a fresh mind on Monday morning.

  12

  Enter Intrigue

  French spent a rather unhappy Monday in going through his notes and trying for the hundredth time to find some indication, if not of the truth, at least of a fresh line of inquiry. But he seemed to have covered all the possibilities. Nowhere could he see a glimmering of light.

  On Tuesday he had to attend court in connection with another case, but on Wednesday morning he went down to the Norne offices with the intention of having another chat with Miss Barber. He wished to get from her a note of any unusual visitors to Norne, or of anyone who had waited alone in Norne’s room, or who had seen Norne there after ordinary office hours. He was not hopeful of the result, but for the moment he could think of nothing more promising.