The Box Office Murders · Chapter 1 (1/2)

I

The Purple Sickle

Inspector Joseph French, of the Criminal Investigation Department of New Scotland Yard, sat writing in his room in the great building on Victoria Embankment. Before him on his desk lay sheet after sheet of memorandum paper covered with his small, neat writing, and his pen travelled so steadily over the paper that an observer might have imagined that he had given up the detection of crime and taken instead to journalism.

He was on a commonplace job, making a précis of the life history of an extremely commonplace burglar. But though he didn’t know it, Fate, weighty with the issues of life and death, was even then knocking at his door.

Its summons was prosaic enough, a ring on his telephone. As he picked up the receiver he little thought that that simple action was to be his introduction to a drama of terrible and dastardly crime, indeed one of the most terrible and dastardly crimes with which he had ever had to do.

“That Inspector French?” he heard. “Arrowsmith speaking⁠—Arrowsmith of Lincoln’s Inn.”

A criminal lawyer with a large practice, Mr. Arrowsmith was well known in the courts. He and French were on friendly terms, having had tussles over the fate of many an evildoer.

“Yes, Mr. Arrowsmith. I’m French.”

“I’ve a young lady here,” Mr. Arrowsmith went on, “who has just pitched me a yarn which should interest you. She has got into the clutches of a scoundrel who’s clearly up to no good. I don’t know what he’s after, but it looks mighty like a scheme of systematic theft. I thought you might like to lay a trap and take him redhanded.”

“Nothing would please me better,” French returned promptly. “Shall I go across to your office?”

“No, it’s not necessary. I’ll send the girl to the Yard. Thurza Darke is her name. She’ll be with you in half an hour.”

“Splendid! I’ll see her directly she comes. And many thanks for your hint.”

Though he spoke cordially, French was not impressed by the message. Communications purporting to disclose clues to crimes were received at the Yard every day. As a matter of principle all were investigated, but not one in a hundred led to anything. When therefore some half hour later Miss Darke was announced, French greeted her courteously, but without enthusiasm.

She was a pretty blonde of about five and twenty, with a good manner and something of a presence. Well but plainly dressed in some light summery material, she looked what she evidently was, an ordinary, pleasant, healthy young woman of the lower middle classes. French put her down as a typist or shopgirl or perhaps a bookkeeper in some small establishment. In one point only did she seem abnormal. She was evidently acutely nervous. There was panic in her eyes, tiny drops of perspiration stood on her face, and the hand in which she grasped her vanity bag trembled visibly.

“Good morning, Miss Darke,” said French, rising as she entered and pulling forward a chair. “Won’t you sit down?” He gave her a keen glance and went on: “Now, if you’ll excuse me for two or three minutes I’ll be quite at your service.”

He busied himself again with his papers. If her nervousness were due to her surroundings she must be allowed time to pull herself together.

“Ready at last,” he went on with his pleasant smile. “Just take your time and tell me your trouble in your own way and it’ll be a strange thing if between us all we’ll not be able to help you out.”

The girl looked at him gratefully and with some surprise. Evidently she had expected a different kind of reception. French noted the glance with satisfaction. To gain the confidence of those with whom he had to deal was his invariable aim, not only because he valued pleasant and friendly relations for their own sake, but because he felt that in such an atmosphere he was likely to get more valuable details than if his informant was frightened or distrustful.

“So you know Mr. Arrowsmith?” he prompted, as she seemed to have a difficulty in starting. “A good sort, isn’t he?”

“He seems so indeed, Mr. French,” she answered with a suggestion of Lancashire in her accent. “But I really can’t say that I know him. I met him this morning for the first time.”

“How was that? Did you go to consult him?”

“Not exactly: that is, it was through Miss Cox, Miss Jennie Cox, his typist. She is my special friend at the boarding house we live at. She told him about me without asking my leave. He said he would hear my story and then she came back to the boarding house and persuaded me to go and tell it to him.”

“She thought you were in some difficulty and wanted to do you a good turn?”

“It was more than that, Mr. French. She knew all about my difficulty, for I had told her. But she believed I was in danger and thought somebody should be told about it.”

“In danger? In danger of what?”

The girl shivered.

“Of my life, Mr. French,” she said in a low tone.

French looked at her more keenly. In spite of this surprising reply, there was nothing melodramatic in her manner. But he now saw that her emotion was more than mere nervousness. She was in point of fact in a state of acute terror. Whatever this danger might be, it was clear that she was fully convinced of its reality and imminence.

“But what are you afraid may happen to you?” he persisted.

Again she shivered. “I may be murdered,” she declared, and her voice dropped to a whisper.

“Oh, come now, my dear young lady, people are not murdered in an offhand way like that! Surely you are mistaken? Tell me all about it.” His voice was kind, though slightly testy.

She made an obvious effort for composure.

“It was Eileen Tucker. She was my best friend. They said she committed suicide. But she didn’t, Mr. French! I’m certain she never did. She was murdered. As sure as we’re here, she was murdered! And I may be too!” In spite of her evident efforts for self-control, the girl’s voice got shrill and she began jerking about in her chair.

“There now,” French said soothingly. “Pull yourself together. You’re quite safe here at all events. Now don’t be in a hurry or we’ll get mixed up. Take your own time and tell me everything from the beginning. Start with yourself. Your name is Thurza Darke. Very good now; where do you live?” He took out his notebook and prepared to write.

His quiet, methodical manner steadied the girl and she answered more calmly.

“At 17 Orlando Street, Clapham. It’s a boarding house kept by a Mrs. Peters.”

“You’re not a Londoner?”

“No. I come from Birkenhead. But my parents are dead and I have been on my own for years.”

“Quite. You are in some job?”

“I’m in charge of one of the box offices at the Milan Cinema in Oxford Street.”

“I see. And your friend, Miss Jennie Cox, who also lives at Mrs. Peters’ boarding house, is typist to Mr. Arrowsmith. I think I’ve got that straight. Now you mentioned another young lady⁠—at least I presume she was a young lady⁠—a Miss Eileen Tucker. Who was she?”

“She was in one of the box offices at the Hammersmith Cinema.”

“Same kind of job as your own?”

“Yes. I met her at an evening class in arithmetic that we were both attending and we made friends. We were both bad at figures and we found it came against us at our work.”

French nodded. The name, Eileen Tucker, touched a chord of memory, though he could not remember where he had heard it. He picked up his desk telephone.

“Bring me any papers we have relative to the suicide of a girl called Eileen Tucker.”

In a few moments a file was put before him. A glance through it brought the case back to him. It was summarized in a cutting from the Mid-Country Gazette of 10th January of that year. It read:

“Dr. J. S. Jordan, deputy coroner for South Eastern Surrey, held an inquest at the Crown Inn, Caterham, yesterday morning on the body of a young girl which was found in a quarry hole about a mile from the town and not far from the road to Redhill. The discovery was made by a labourer named Thomas Binks, who was taking a shortcut across the country to his work. Binks reported the affair to the police and Sergeant Knowles immediately visited the scene and had the body conveyed to the town. The remains were those of a girl of about twenty-five, and were clothed in a brown cloth coat with fur at the collar and cuffs, a brown skirt and jumper and beige shoes and stockings. A brown felt hat lay in the water a few feet away and in the right hand was clasped a vanity bag, containing a cigarette case and holder, some loose coins and a letter. This last was practically illegible from the water, but enough could be made out to show that it was from a man of undecipherable name, breaking off an illicit relation as he was going to be married. Dr. Adam Moody, Caterham, in giving evidence stated that death had occurred from drowning, that there were no marks of violence, and that the body had probably been in the water for two or three days. At first the identity of the deceased was a mystery, but Sergeant Knowles handled the affair with his usual skill and eventually discovered that she was a Miss Eileen Tucker, an employee in the box office of the Hammersmith Cinema in London. She seemed to have been alone in the world, having lived in a boarding house and no relatives being discoverable. After considering the evidence, the jury, with Mr. John Wells acting as foreman, brought in a verdict of suicide while of unsound mind.”

“A sad case,” said French sympathetically, when he had finished the paragraph. “I see that the jury brought in a verdict of suicide, but you think the poor young lady was murdered? Now just tell me why you think so.”

“I know it! I’m sure of it! She wasn’t the kind of girl to commit suicide.”

“That may be, but you’ve surely something more definite to go on than that?”

“No proof, but I’m as certain of it as if I had been there. But what she told me about the man shows it wasn’t what they said.”

“I don’t quite follow you. What did she tell you?”

“She was in trouble through some man, but not the kind of trouble the letter said. There was no love affair or anything of that kind. It was money.”

“Money?”

“Yes. I thought at first she had got into debt to this man and couldn’t pay and I offered to lend her what I could; it wasn’t very much. But she said it wouldn’t help her; that the man had her in his power and that she was frightened. I begged her to tell me particulars, but she wouldn’t. But she was frightened all right.”

“I don’t want to suggest anything bad about the poor young lady, but doesn’t it look as if he had found her out in something that she shouldn’t have done? Tampering with the cinema cash, for example?”

Miss Darke looked distressed.

“That was what I feared,” she admitted, “but of course I didn’t let her know I suspected it. And of course I don’t know that it was that.”

French was frankly puzzled.

“Well, but if all that’s true, it surely supplies a motive for suicide?”

“It might have with another girl, but not with her. Besides, there was the letter.”

“Yes, you mentioned the letter before. Now how does the letter prove that it wasn’t suicide?”

Miss Darke paused before replying and when at last she spoke it was with less conviction.

“I looked at it like this,” she said. “From the letter it would be understood that some man had got her into trouble and then deserted her. From what she told me that wasn’t so and from what I know of her it wasn’t so. But if that’s right there couldn’t have been any letter⁠—not any real letter, I mean. I took it the letter had been written by the murderer and left in her bag to make it look like suicide.”

In spite of himself French was interested. This was a subtle point for a girl of the apparent mentality of this Miss Darke to evolve from her own unaided consciousness. Not, he felt, that there was anything in it. The probabilities were that the unfortunate Eileen Tucker had been deceived and deserted by the usual callous ruffian. Naturally she would not tell her friend. On the other hand, he considered that Miss Darke was surprisingly correct in her appreciation of the psychological side of the affair. The older French grew the more weight he gave to the argument that X hadn’t performed a certain action because he “wasn’t the sort of person to do it”: with due reservation, of course, and granted an adequate knowledge of X’s character.

“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 am afraid 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 anyway.”

“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 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 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.