Rolfe, whose association with Crewe in the case had awakened in him a
keen admiration for the private detective's methods and abilities,
permitted himself to defy his superior officer to the extent of
saying that "the best way to prove Kemp a liar is to prove that his
story is false."
During the drive to Hampstead from the Old Bailey the three men discussed
Kemp and his past record. It was recalled that less than twelve months
ago, while he was serving three years for burglary, his daughter had
provided the newspapers with a sensation by dying in the dock while
sentence was being passed on her. According to Inspector Chippenfield,
who had been in charge of the case against her, she was a stylish,
good-looking girl, and when dressed up might easily have been mistaken
for a lady.
"She got in touch with a flash gang of railway thieves from America,"
said Inspector Chippenfield, helping himself to a cigar from Crewe's
proffered case. "They used to work the express trains, robbing the
passengers in the sleeping berths. She was neatly caught at Victoria
Station in calling for a dressing-case that had been left at the cloak
room by one of the gang. Inside the dressing-case was Lady Sinclair's
jewel case, which had been stolen on the journey up from Brighton. The
thief, being afraid that he might be stopped at Victoria Station when the
loss of the jewel case was discovered, had placed it inside his
dressing-case, and had left the dressing-case at the cloak room. He sent
Dora Kemp for it a few days later, as he believed he had outwitted the
police. But I'd got on to the track of the jewels, and after removing
them from the dressing-case in the cloak room I had the cloak room
watched. When Dora Kemp called for the dressing-case and handed in the
cloakroom ticket, the attendant gave my men the signal and she was
arrested."
"She died of heart disease while on trial, didn't she?" asked Crewe.
"Yes," replied Inspector Chippenfield. "Sir Horace Fewbanks was the
judge. He gave her five years. And no sooner were the words out of his
mouth than she threw up her hands and fell forward in the dock. She was
dead when they picked her up."
"She was as game as they make them," put in Rolfe. "We tried to get her
to give the others away, but she wouldn't, though she would have got off
with a few months if she had. The gang got frightened and cleared out.
They left her in the lurch, but she wouldn't give one of them away."
"It was Holymead who defended her," said Chippenfield. "It was a strange
thing for him to do--leading barristers don't like touching criminal
cases, because, as a rule, there is little money and less credit to be
got out of them. But Holymead did some queer things at times, as you
know. He must have taken up the case out of interest in the girl herself,
for I'm certain she hadn't the money to brief him. And I did hear
afterwards that Holymead undertook to see that she was decently buried."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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