Inspector French's greatest case

by Freeman Wills Crofts

In the letter box at the back of the hall door he had found a letter addressed “Mrs. Vane, Crewe Lodge, St. John’s Wood Road.” The postmark showed that it had been posted in London on the 3rd. It had, therefore, been delivered on the evening of the 3rd or morning of the 4th. But this was the 8th. Therefore the lady had gone at least four days earlier.

The letter itself had considerably intrigued him. It was simply a list of certain sales and purchases of stock, covering a large number of transactions, and running into some thousands of pounds in value. The items were not dated, and there was no accompanying letter nor any intimation of the sender. It was clear that some one was engaged in complicated financial operations, but there was nothing to indicate his or her identity.

That the Vanes were at least comfortably off seemed certain from the general appointments of the house. The furniture and fittings were heavy and expensive. The sitting-room was small, as has been stated, but French reckoned that the carpet would not have been bought for less than £120. Madame’s dresses were of rich silks, and while no actual jewellery had been left behind, there were costly ornaments and personal knick-knacks. Moreover, the half-empty box of cigars in the smoking-room contained Corona Coronas. There was, however, no garage and no car, but it was obvious that a car might have been kept at some neighbouring establishment. Altogether it looked as if the couple had been living at the rate of two or three thousand a year. But this was a matter that could easily be tested, as the name of Mrs. Vane’s bank was among her papers.

One other point struck the Inspector as curious. Neither the master nor the mistress of the house seemed to have literary tastes. There was a number of well-bound “standard works” in a bookcase in the smoking-room, but it was evident from their condition that they were there purely as part of the decorative scheme. Of actually read books in the smoking-room there were none. In the sitting-room were a number of the lighter type of novels, together with a number in French and Spanish with extremely lurid and compromising jackets. But among these, as out of place as an Elijah at a feast of Baal, lay a new copy of The Concise Oxford Dictionary.

There were several old bills in Madame’s inlaid davenport, but save for the names of firms with whom the lady had recently been dealing, French had learned nothing from them. In the sitting-room also was an excellent cabinet photograph of a lady who seemed to him the original of Mrs. Root’s steamer snapshot, and this he had slipped into his jacket pocket.

Having completed his notes, he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and set out upon the business of the day. Returning to St. John’s Wood Road, he interviewed Esler, the constable who had been sent to relieve Caldwell, and learned that no one had as yet approached the house. Then he began to call at the adjoining houses and nearer shops. At each he stated that he was looking for Mrs. Vane, but that her house was shut up, and asked if any one could tell him how he might find her.

Aware that in a great city neighbours might live beside each other for years without ever meeting, he did not hope for much result, and at the first two houses at which he called he did not get any. But at the third he had an unexpected stroke of luck. The maid who opened the door seemed to know something about the Vane household. But she was suspicious, and on French’s putting his usual questions, showed evident unwillingness to give away information. Keeping any suggestion of eagerness out of his manner, French went on conversationally:

“I wanted to see Mrs. Vane about a question of the ownership of a field in the country near Canterbury, where she used to live. I represent Messrs. Hill & Lewesham, the solicitors of Lincoln’s Inn, and we want some information about the boundaries of her father’s place. It’s not exactly important, but it would be worth five shillings to me to get in touch with her, and if you could see your way to help me, you’d have very fairly earned it.”

The girl seemed impressed. She glanced back into the hall, came out into the porch, and drawing the door to after her, spoke rather hurriedly.

“I don’t know much about it,” she explained, “but I’ll tell you what I can,” and she went on to say that on the previous Friday, that was five days earlier, Mrs. Vane had got a cable that her husband in New York had met with a serious accident and was dying, and for her to go at once. She had packed hurriedly and driven off to catch the boat train for Liverpool, closing the house. As to Mr. Vane himself, the girl knew nothing. She seemed to consider him a negligible part of the establishment. He was but seldom at home, and even then was rarely to be seen.