This knowledge of Brazil and America supplied the foundation of her scheme. Brazil represented an ideal country to which to retire after the crime, and their first care was to arrange a line of retreat thereto. They were well known in the neighbourhood as Mr. and Mrs. Vane and had no difficulty in getting the certificates and letters of recommendation necessary to obtain their Brazilian passports. Having received the passports, Duke forged similar certificates and letters in the names of da Silva, and having with the aid of Miss Winter’s theatrical knowledge made themselves up in character, they applied at the same office a second time, obtaining two more passports in the assumed names. Thus they had two sets of Brazilian passports in the names of Vane and da Silva respectively.
The next point was to procure some ready money immediately after the crime, to enable the fugitives to purchase the necessary tickets to Brazil, and for the host of other expenses which were certain to arise. With this object, the visit of Mrs. Vane to New York was arranged. She was to travel there by one line and immediately return by another. During the voyage home she was carefully to observe the passengers, and select the most suitable person she could find to impersonate. She was to make friends with this woman, find out all she could about her, and observe her carefully so as to obtain as much data as possible to help on the fraud. On arrival at Southampton she was to see her prototype off at the station, ascertaining her destination, then going to some hotel, she was to make the necessary changes in her appearance, proceed to London in her new character, and put up where she was unlikely to meet the other. On the next day she was to interview Williams, and if all had gone well up to this point she was to telephone to Duke from a public call office, so that he could proceed with his part of the affair. Finally she was to meet him at 9:45 on the next evening on the emergency staircase of the Holborn Tube station to obtain from him the portion of the spoils destined for Williams.
In the meantime, Duke was to pacify Gething by promising him a full explanation of the apparent discrepancies, together with a sight of the actual cash needed to put matters right, on the receipt of certain letters from America. He was also to get together as large a collection of stones as he possibly could. He was then to ask Gething to meet him at the office on the evening in question—the evening of the day of Miss Winter’s first interview with Williams—to go into the whole matter and see the proofs that all was right. Having thus got Gething into his power, he was to murder him, take out the diamonds and some money that was also in the safe, and having handed over to Miss Winter the few stones for Williams, go home as quickly as possible with the remainder.
Though this scheme seemed to them good, the conspirators were not satisfied with it, and they added on three additional features to safeguard themselves still further in the event of suspicion being aroused.
The first of these was an alibi for Mr. Duke. He arranged that he would dine and spend the evening at his club with his solicitor, leaving at a certain definite prearranged hour. By suitable remarks to the solicitor and the club porters, he would fix this hour, and by similar remarks to his servants he would establish the time at which he reached his house. The interval between would be sufficient to enable him to walk home, and he would take care to inform the police that he had so occupied it. But in reality he would taxi from near the club to near the office, commit the murder, and return to Hampstead by tube.
The second safeguard took the form of an attempt to throw suspicion on to Vanderkemp. In carrying this out, Duke himself typed the secret instructions which brought the traveller to London, and he gave Gething orders to see Vanderkemp on his arrival, send him on his wild goose chase to the Continent, and hand him some of the notes of which he had reason to believe the bank had the numbers, and which he afterwards swore were stolen from the safe.
Events after the crime moved so well from the conspirators’ point of view that they did not at first put their third safeguard into action. Indeed they began to think that even retirement to Brazil would be unnecessary, and that they could continue their life in London as formerly. But the chance remark of Inspector French to Duke that he had discovered that the elusive Mrs. X was Miss Cissie Winter showed that their house of cards was falling to the ground, and immediate flight became imperative. Duke, afraid to visit Crewe Lodge, wrote the warning in a cipher on which they had previously agreed. But by one of those strange chances which interfere to upset the lives and plans of mortals, just after he had posted it the guilty pair met in a tube train. Loitering in a passage till they were alone, Duke gave his news by word of mouth. Then Miss Winter made the slip which compassed their downfall—she forgot about the cipher letter which Duke had said he had sent, and fled, leaving the letter to fall into the hands of the police.
Duke then proceeded to carry out his third safeguard—to fake a suicide in order to account for his disappearance. This he did by means of a trick which they had carefully worked
