Inspector French and the Box Office Murders

Inspector French and the Box Office Murders
Freeman Wills Crofts

From the Collins Crime Club archive, the fifth Inspector French novel by Freeman Wills Crofts, once dubbed ‘The King of Detective Story Writers’.THE PUZZLE OF THE PURPLE SICKLEThe suicide of a sales clerk at the box office of a London cinema leaves another girl in fear for her life. Persuaded to seek help from Scotland Yard, Miss Darke confides in Inspector Joseph French about a gambling scam by a mysterious trio of crooks and that she believes her friend was murdered. When the girl fails to turn up the next day, and the police later find her body, French’s inquiries reveal that similar girls have also been murdered, all linked by their jobs and by a sinister stranger with a purple scar . . .

FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS

Inspector French and the Box Office Murders

Copyright (#ulink_be77b567-9ad1-53cd-a0ea-1d80a89d4763)

Published by COLLINS CRIME CLUB

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by Wm Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1929

Copyright © Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts 1929

Cover design by Mike Topping © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008190705

Ebook Edition © March 2017 ISBN: 9780008190712

Version: 2017-01-23

Contents

Cover (#u59964ca8-d60f-55a8-8df0-41f4b50f437d)

Title Page (#u185404a7-b003-589e-a1e7-353a82e9e636)

Copyright (#u38a4fcba-0b38-50c0-a8e4-854c8a2f8d34)

Chapter 1: The Purple Sickle (#ueccc6ae8-cbe9-51b4-9f78-fde67138088b)

Chapter 2: French Makes an Assignation (#u6d796df9-1f65-574b-a34a-7414e1bbc50f)

Chapter 3: The Inquest (#ubbcf6bb8-a638-54eb-a71d-a5f59bfda190)

Chapter 4: French Makes a Start (#u316c4d0e-e54f-55e8-b627-7a57430b2a35)

Chapter 5: Lee-on-the-Solent (#ua8979641-32ce-59ae-a762-bc512bd15895)

Chapter 6: The Supreme Appeal Court (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7: Fair Passengers (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8: The Grey Car’s Round (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9: French Makes a Second Assignation (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10: Mr Cracksman French (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11: The Happy Paterfamilias (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12: The Car’s Freight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13: The Transport of Supplies (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14: The Property Adjoining (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15: Mr Cullimore Expounds (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16: In the Net (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17: The Shadows Loom Nearer (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 18: When Greek Meets Greek (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 19: Conclusion (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Also in this Series (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

1 (#ulink_14bf3937-89fc-5121-9393-d8520d471223)

The Purple Sickle (#ulink_14bf3937-89fc-5121-9393-d8520d471223)

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 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 the 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.