The Guildford Crime

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The Crime of Guildford is a 1935 crime novel by Freeman Wills Crofts. The novel was originally published in the United States under the title Crime at Nornes , and later it was titled Crime at Guildford . The German translation was first published in 1977 by Heyne Verlag .

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Despite the slow recovery after the Great Depression, the Nornes Ltd. jewelery company is looking bad. Directors and officers meet over the weekend at the general manager's estate in Guildford to discuss liquidation or capital raising. In addition to Nornes, the directors Ricardo and Osenden are also present. The seriously ill chief accountant Dinter arrives later and goes straight to his room. Another director, Sloley, and Sheens the accountant, who was supposed to produce an important financial statement for the meeting, first attend a Sheen's family celebration in London and do not reach the country estate until late in the evening.

The next morning, the chief accountant is found dead in bed and the doctor suspects an unnatural cause of death. On the following Monday it turns out that the company vault of Nornes Ltd. in London has been stripped of its contents, jewels worth over half a million pounds. Two keys are needed to open it, that of the general manager Nornes and that of the murdered chief accountant Dinter. Scotland Yard's Chief Inspector French suspects a link between the two acts of violence.

French initially suspects Ricardo, who is facing financial ruin and has a love affair with Dinter's wife. Then Sloley and Sheen come into focus, who had left the party at short notice in the early evening to meet with Dinter about the financial statement at the company headquarters. So you had the opportunity to carry out the robbery. But her alibi for the time of Dinter's murder cannot be shaken.

The investigation reaches a dead end, from which only the observations of a telegraph worker lead. One Sunday he had seen suspicious movements by two men in the office of Nornes Ltd. from a telegraph pole. seen where a suspicious box was repeatedly aimed at sham attempts to open the safe. Inspector French hypothesizes that this box was hiding a film camera that was supposed to film the locks. The film recordings should then be used to cut duplicate keys. Technicians confirm to French the feasibility of this method, and research at Nornes shows that there were opportunities for the camera to be used.

The suspicion is now focused on Sloley and Sheen again. He is hardened when a high-quality film camera is pledged from Lyde, Sheen's brother-in-law, an unemployed actor. When a piece of film is found in Sheen's workshop, suspicion becomes a certainty. Lyde's alibi for the time of the crime can be shaken by French. But the fact that Slyley and Sheen were not in Guildford at the time of Dinter's death cannot be shaken. Intensive investigations in and around the company headquarters on the evening in question finally give French an inkling of what happened.

Sloley and Sheen ordered Dinter into the company because they had problems with the second duplicate key. Using his key, they stole the contents of the vault, led the drugged Dinter out of the building into their car, killed him, and took the body to Guildford. In the meantime her accomplice, the actor Lyde, who was of Dinter's stature, had gone to Guildford and there pretended to be Dinter in front of the servant and immediately retired to his room because of his illness. Dinter's body was later brought into the room through the window, and this is how Lyde left the room. A fingerprint of Lydes on the stiff collar of the murdered Dinter confirms the hypothesis.

But Inspector French considers it questionable to be able to convince a jury. Only the whereabouts of the prey can fully convict the perpetrators. That is why it is suggested to them that they are on their trail in order to persuade them to flee. In fact, Lyde, Sholey and Sheens left London on separate routes and headed for the continent. Sloley can be arrested in Dover and Sheen and Lyde in Amsterdam, where the whereabouts of the prey are also cleared up. The perpetrators had hidden the jewels in a book and sent them to an address in Amsterdam.

Conclusion

The Guildford Crime is a typical Freeman Wills Croft detective novel. An extremely precisely planned crime is gradually cleared up by the criminalist through just as precise investigations, with the meticulous examination of the alibis playing a particularly important role. One can say in a somewhat simplistic way: At Crofts, the perpetrator is always the one who has the best alibi. The central role of the police investigator should not, however, lead one to see Crofts as a forerunner of the police novel (Police procedural). In addition, he lacks interest in actual police work.

The plain but precise language of Croft corresponds to the approach of his inspector.