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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10082 ***
+
+THE HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY
+
+BY JOHN R. WATSON & ARTHUR J. REES
+
+1916
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TO ARTHUR BLACK IN MEMORY OF OLD TIMES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+"Hallo! Is that Hampstead Police Station?"
+
+"Yes. Who are you?"
+
+"Detective-Inspector Chippenfield of Scotland Yard. Tell Inspector Seldon
+I want him, and be quick about it."
+
+"Yes, sir. Hang on, sir. I'll put you through to him at once."
+
+Detective-Inspector Chippenfield, of Scotland Yard, waited with the
+receiver held to his ear. While he waited he scrutinised keenly a sheet
+of paper which lay on the desk in front of him. It was a flimsy,
+faintly-ruled sheet from a cheap writing-pad, blotted and soiled, and
+covered with sprawling letters which had been roughly printed at
+irregular intervals as though to hide the identity of the writer. But the
+letters formed words, and the words read:
+
+SIR HORACE FEWBANKS WAS MURDERED LAST NIGHT
+
+WHO DID IT I DONT KNOW SO IT IS NO USE TRYING TO FIND OUT WHO I AM YOU
+WILL FIND HIS DEAD BODY IN THE LIBRARY AT RIVERSBROOK
+
+HE WAS SHOT THOUGH THE HEART
+
+"Hallo!"
+
+"Is that you, Inspector Chippenfield?"
+
+"Yes. That you, Seldon? Have you heard anything of a murder out
+your way?"
+
+"Can't say that I have. Have you?"
+
+"Yes. We have information that Sir Horace Fewbanks has been
+murdered--shot."
+
+"Mr. Justice Fewbanks shot--murdered!" Inspector Seldon gave expression
+to his surprise in a long low whistle which travelled through the
+telephone. Then he added, after a moment's reflection, "There must be
+some mistake. He is away."
+
+"Away where?"
+
+"In Scotland. He went there for the Twelfth--when the shooting
+season opened."
+
+"Are you sure of that?"
+
+"Yes; he rang me up the day before he left to ask us to keep an eye on
+his house while he was away."
+
+There was a pause at the Scotland Yard end of the telephone. Inspector
+Chippenfield was evidently thinking hard.
+
+"We may have been hoaxed," he said at length. "But I have been ringing
+up his house and can get no answer. You had better send up a couple of
+men there at once--better still, go yourself. It is a matter which may
+require tactful handling. Let me know, and I'll come out immediately if
+there is anything wrong. Stay! How long will it take you to get up to
+the house?"
+
+"Not more than fifteen minutes--in a taxi."
+
+"Well, I'll ring you up at the house in half an hour. Should our
+information be correct see that everything is left exactly as you find it
+till I arrive."
+
+Inspector Seldon hung up the receiver of his telephone, bundled up the
+papers scattered on his desk, closed it, and stepped out of his office
+into the next room.
+
+"Anyone about?" he hurriedly asked the sergeant who was making entries in
+the charge-book.
+
+"Yes, sir. I saw Flack here a moment ago."
+
+"Get him at once and call a taxi. Scotland Yard's rung through to say
+they've received a report that Sir Horace Fewbanks has been murdered."
+
+"Murdered?" echoed the sergeant in a tone of keen interest. "Who told
+Scotland Yard that?"
+
+"I don't know. Who was on that beat last night?"
+
+"Flack, sir. Was Sir Horace murdered in his own house? I thought he was
+in Scotland."
+
+"So did I, but he may have returned--ah, here's the taxi."
+
+Inspector Seldon had been waiting on the steps for the appearance of a
+cab from the rank round the corner in response to the shrill blast which
+the sergeant had blown on his whistle. The sergeant went to the door of
+the station leading into the yard and sharply called:
+
+"Flack!"
+
+In response a police-constable, without helmet or tunic, came running up
+the steps from the basement, which was used as a gymnasium.
+
+"Seldon wants you. Get on your tunic as quick as you can. He is in a
+devil of a hurry."
+
+Inspector Seldon was seated in the taxi-cab when Flack appeared. He had
+been impatiently drumming his fingers on the door of the cab.
+
+"Jump in, man," he said angrily. "What has kept you all this time?"
+
+Flack breathed stertorously to show that he had been running and was out
+of breath, but he made no reply to the official rebuke. Inspector Seldon
+turned to him and remarked severely:
+
+"Why didn't you let me know that Sir Horace Fewbanks had returned from
+Scotland?"
+
+Flack looked astonished.
+
+"But he hasn't returned, sir," he said. "He's away for a month at least,"
+he ventured to add.
+
+"Who told you that?"
+
+"The housemaid at Riversbrook--before he went away."
+
+"H'm." The inspector's next question contained a moral rebuke rather than
+an official one. "You're a married man, Flack?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"So the housemaid told you he was going away for a month. Well, she ought
+to know. When did she tell you?"
+
+"A week ago yesterday, sir. She told me that all the servants except the
+butler were going down to Dellmere the next day--that is Sir Horace's
+country place--and that Sir Horace was going to Scotland for the
+shooting and would put in some weeks at Dellmere after the shooting
+season was over."
+
+"And are you sure he hasn't returned?"
+
+"Quite, sir. I saw Hill, the butler, only yesterday morning, and he
+told me that his master was sure to be in Scotland for at least a
+month longer."
+
+"It's very strange," muttered the inspector, half to himself. "It will be
+a deuced awkward situation to face if Scotland Yard has been hoaxed."
+
+"Beg your pardon, sir, but is there anything wrong about Sir Horace?"
+
+"Yes. Scotland Yard has received a report that he has been murdered."
+
+Flack's surprise was so great that it lifted the lid of official humility
+which habitually covered his natural feelings.
+
+"Murdered!" he exclaimed. "Sir Horace Fewbanks murdered? You
+don't say so!"
+
+"But I do say so. I've just said so," retorted Inspector Seldon
+irritably. He was angry at the fact that the information, whether true or
+false, had gone direct to Scotland Yard instead of reaching him first.
+
+"When was he murdered, sir?" asked Flack.
+
+"Last night--when you were on that beat."
+
+Flack paled at this remark.
+
+"Last night, sir?" he cried.
+
+"Don't repeat my words like a parrot," ejaculated the inspector
+peevishly. "Didn't you notice anything suspicious when you were
+along there?"
+
+"No, sir. Was he murdered in his own house?"
+
+"His dead body is supposed to be lying there now in the library," said
+Inspector Seldon. "How Scotland Yard got wind of it is more than I know.
+We ought to have heard of it before them. How many times did you go along
+there last night?"
+
+"Twice, sir. About eleven o'clock, and then about three."
+
+"And there was nothing suspicious--you saw no one?"
+
+"I saw Mr. Roberts and his lady coming home from the theatre. But he
+lives at the other end of Tanton Gardens. And I saw the housemaid at Mr.
+Fielding's come out to the pillar-box. That was a few minutes after
+eleven. I didn't see anybody at all the second time."
+
+"Nobody at the judge's place--no taxi, or anything like that?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+The taxi-cab turned swiftly into the shady avenue of Tanton Gardens,
+where Sir Horace Fewbanks lived, and in a few moments pulled up outside
+of Riversbrook. The house stood a long way back from the road in its own
+grounds. Inspector Seldon and Flack passed rapidly through the grounds
+and reached the front door of the mansion. There was nobody about; the
+place seemed deserted, and the blinds were down on the ground-floor
+windows. Inspector Seldon knocked loudly at the front door with the big,
+old-fashioned brass knocker, and rang the bell. He listened intently for
+a response, but no sound followed except the sharp note of the electric
+bell as Flack rang it again while Inspector Seldon bent down with his ear
+at the keyhole. Then the inspector stepped back and regarded the house
+keenly for a moment or two.
+
+"Put your finger on that bell and keep on ringing it, Flack," he said
+suddenly. "I see that some of the blinds are down, but there's one on the
+first floor which is partly up. It looks as though the house had been
+shut up and somebody had come back unexpectedly."
+
+"Perhaps it's Hill, the butler," said Flack.
+
+"If he's inside he ought to answer the bell. But keep on ringing while I
+knock again."
+
+The heavy brass knocker again reverberated on the thick oak door, and
+Inspector Seldon placed his ear against the keyhole to ascertain if any
+sound was to be heard.
+
+"Take your finger off that bell, Flack," he commanded. "I cannot hear
+whether anybody is coming or not." He remained in a listening attitude
+for half a minute and then plied the knocker again. Again he listened for
+footsteps within the house. "Ring again, Flack. Keep on ringing while I
+go round the house to see if there is any way I can get in. I may have to
+break a window. Don't move from here."
+
+Inspector Seldon went quickly round the side of the house, trying the
+windows as he went. Towards the rear of the house, on the west side, he
+came across a curious abutment of masonry jutting out squarely from the
+wall. On the other side of this abutment, which gave the house something
+of an unfinished appearance, were three French windows close together.
+The blinds of these windows were closely drawn, but the inspector's keen
+eye detected that one of the catches had been broken, and there were
+marks of some instrument on the outside woodwork.
+
+"This looks like business," he muttered.
+
+He pulled open the window, and walked into the room. The light of an
+afternoon sun showed him that the apartment was a breakfast room, well
+and solidly furnished in an old-fashioned way, with most of the furniture
+in covers, as though the occupants of the house were away. The daylight
+penetrated to the door at the far end of the room. It was wide open, and
+revealed an empty passage. Inspector Seldon walked into the passage. The
+drawn blinds made the passage seem quite dark after the bright August
+sunshine outside, but he produced an electric torch, and by its light he
+saw that the passage ran into the main hall.
+
+His footsteps echoed in the empty house. The electric bell rang
+continuously as Flack pressed it outside. Inspector Seldon walked along
+the passage to the hall, flashing his torch into each room he passed. He
+saw nothing, and went to the front door to admit Flack.
+
+"That is enough of that noise, Flack," he said. "Come inside and help me
+search the house above. It's empty on this floor so far as I've been over
+it. If you find anything call me, and mind you do not touch anything.
+Where did you say the library was?"
+
+"I don't know, sir."
+
+"Well, look about you on the ground floor while I go upstairs. Call me if
+you hear anything."
+
+Inspector Seldon mounted the stairs swiftly in order to continue
+his search.
+
+The staircase was a wide one, with broad shallow steps, thickly carpeted,
+and a handsome carved mahogany baluster. The inspector, flashing his
+torch as he ran up, saw a small electric light niche in the wall before
+he reached the first landing. The catch of the light was underneath, and
+Inspector Seldon turned it on. The light revealed that the stairs swept
+round at that point to the landing of the first floor, which was screened
+from view by heavy velvet hangings, partly caught back by the bent arm
+of a marble figure of Diana, which faced downstairs, with its other arm
+upraised and about to launch a hunting spear. By this graceful device the
+curtains were drawn back sufficiently to give access to the corridor on
+the first floor.
+
+Inspector Seldon looked closely at the figure and the hangings. Something
+strange about the former arrested his eye. It was standing awry on its
+pedestal--was, indeed, almost toppling over. He looked up and saw that
+one of the curtains supported by the arm hung loosely from one of the
+curtain rings. It was as though some violent hand had torn at the curtain
+in passing, almost dragging it from the pole and precipitating the figure
+down the stairs. Immediately beyond the landing, in the corridor, was a
+door on the right, flung wide open.
+
+The inspector entered the room with the open door. It was a large room
+forming part of the front of the house--a lofty large room, partly
+lighted by the half-drawn blind of one of the windows. One side was lined
+with bookshelves. In the corner of the room farthest from the door, was a
+roll-top desk, which was open. In the centre of the room was a table, and
+a huddled up figure was lying beside it, in a dark pool of blood which
+had oozed into the carpet.
+
+The inspector stepped quickly back to the landing.
+
+"Flack!" he called, and unconsciously his voice dropped to a sharp
+whisper in the presence of death. "Flack, come here."
+
+When Flack reached the door of the library he saw his chief kneeling
+beside the prostrate body of a dead man. The body lay clear of the table,
+near the foot of an arm-chair. Instinctively Flack walked on tiptoe to
+his chief.
+
+"Is he dead, sir?" he asked.
+
+"Cold and stiff," replied the inspector, in a hushed voice. "He's been
+dead for hours."
+
+Flack noted that the body was fully dressed, and he saw a dark stain
+above the breast where the blood had welled forth and soaked the dead
+man's clothes and formed a pool on the carpet beside him.
+
+Inspector Seldon opened the dead man's clothes. Over his heart he found
+the wound from which the blood had flowed.
+
+"There it is, Flack," he said, touching the wound lightly with his
+finger. "It doesn't take a big wound to kill a man."
+
+As he spoke the sharp ring of a telephone bell from downstairs
+reached them.
+
+"That's Inspector Chippenfield," said Inspector Seldon, rising to his
+feet. "Stay here, Flack, till I go and speak to him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+"Six-thirty edition: High Court Judge murdered!"
+
+It was not quite 5 p.m., but the enterprising section of the London
+evening newspapers had their 6.30 editions on sale in the streets. To
+such a pitch had the policy of giving the public what it wants been
+elevated that the halfpenny newspapers were able to give the people of
+London the news each afternoon a full ninety minutes before the
+edition was supposed to have left the press. The time of the edition
+was boldly printed in the top right-hand corner of each paper as a
+guarantee of enterprise if not of good faith. On practical enterprise
+of this kind does journalism forge ahead. Some people who have been
+bred up in a conservative atmosphere sneer at such journalistic
+enterprise. They affect to regard as unreliable the up-to-date news
+contained in newspapers which are unable to tell the truth about the
+hands of the clock.
+
+From the cries of the news-boys and from the announcements on the
+newspaper bills which they displayed, it was assumed by those with a
+greedy appetite for sensations that a judge of the High Court had been
+murdered on the bench. Such an appetite easily swallowed the difficulty
+created by the fact that the Law Courts had been closed for the long
+vacation. In imagination they saw a dramatic scene in court--the
+disappointed demented desperate litigant suddenly drawing a revolver and
+with unerring aim shooting the judge through the brain before the deadly
+weapon could be wrenched from his hands. But though the sensation created
+by the murder of a judge of the High Court was destined to grow and to be
+fed by unexpected developments, the changing phases of which monopolised
+public attention throughout England on successive occasions, there was
+little in the evening papers to satisfy the appetite for sensation. In
+journalistic vernacular "they were late in getting on to it," and
+therefore their reference to the crime occupied only a few lines in the
+"stop press news," beneath some late horse-racing results. The _Evening
+Courier,_ which was first in the streets with the news, made its
+announcement of the crime in the following brief paragraph:
+
+"The dead body of Sir Horace Fewbanks, the distinguished High Court
+judge, was found by the police at his home, Riversbrook in Tanton
+Gardens, Hampstead, to-day. Deceased had been shot through the heart. The
+police have no doubt that he was murdered."
+
+But the morning papers of the following day did full justice to the
+sensation. It was the month of August when Parliament is "up," the Law
+Courts closed for the long vacation, and when everybody who is anybody is
+out of London for the summer holidays. News was scarce and the papers
+vied with one another in making the utmost of the murder of a High Court
+judge. Each of the morning papers sent out a man to Hampstead soon after
+the news of the crime reached their offices in the afternoon, and some of
+the more enterprising sent two or three men. Scotland Yard and
+Riversbrook were visited by a succession of pressmen representing the
+London dailies, the provincial press, and the news agencies.
+
+The two points on which the newspaper accounts of the tragedy laid stress
+were the mysterious letter which had been sent to Scotland Yard stating
+that Sir Horace Fewbanks had been murdered, and the mystery surrounding
+the sudden return of Sir Horace from Scotland to his town house. On the
+first point there was room for much varied speculation. Why was
+information about the murder sent to Scotland Yard, and why was it sent
+in a disguised way? If the person who had sent this letter had no
+connection with the crime and was anxious to help the police, why had he
+not gone to Scotland Yard personally and told the detectives all he knew
+about the tragedy? If, on the other hand, he was implicated in the crime,
+why had he informed the police at all?
+
+It would have been to his interest as an accomplice--even if he had been
+an unwilling accomplice--to leave the crime undiscovered as long as
+possible, so that he and those with whom he had been associated might
+make their escape to another country. But he had sent his letter to
+Scotland Yard within a few hours of the perpetration of the crime, and
+had not given the actual murderer time to get out of England. Was he not
+afraid of the vengeance the actual murderer would endeavour to exact for
+this disclosure which would enable the police to take measures to prevent
+his escape?
+
+No light was thrown on the cause of the murdered man's sudden return from
+grouse-shooting in Scotland. The newspaper accounts, though they differed
+greatly in their statements, surmises, and suggestions concerning the
+tragedy, agreed on the point that Sir Horace had been a keen sportsman
+and was a very fine shot. In years past he had made a practice of
+spending the early part of the long vacation in Scotland, going there for
+the opening of the grouse season on the 12th of August. This year he had
+been one of a party of five who had rented Craigleith Hall in the Western
+Highlands, and after five days' shooting he had announced that he had to
+go to London on urgent business, but would return in the course of a week
+or less. It was suggested in some of the newspaper accounts that an
+explanation of the cause of his return might throw some light on the
+murder. Inquiries were being made at Craigleith Hall to ascertain the
+reason for his journey to London, or whether any telegram had been
+received by him previous to his departure.
+
+The fact that one of the windows on the ground floor of Riversbrook had
+been found open was regarded as evidence that the murderer had broken
+into the house. Imprints of footsteps had been found in the ground
+outside the window, and the police had taken several casts of these; but
+whether the man who had broken into the house with the intention of
+committing burglary or murder was a matter on which speculation differed.
+If the murderer was a criminal who had broken into the house with the
+intention of committing a burglary, there could be no connection between
+the return of Sir Horace Fewbanks from Scotland and his murder. The
+burglary had probably been arranged in the belief that the house was
+empty, Sir Horace having sent the servants away to his country house in
+Dellmere a week before. But if the murderer was a burglar he had stolen
+nothing and had not even collected any articles for removal. The only
+thing that was known to be missing was the dead man's pocket-book, but
+there was nothing to prove that the murderer had stolen it. It was quite
+possible that it had been lost or mislaid by Sir Horace; it was even
+possible that it had been stolen from him in the train during his journey
+from Scotland.
+
+It might be that while prowling through the rooms after breaking into the
+house, and before he had collected any goods for removal, the burglar had
+come unexpectedly on Sir Horace, and after shooting him had fled from the
+house. Only as a last resort to prevent capture did burglars commit
+murder. Had Sir Horace been shot while attempting to seize the intruder?
+The position in which the body was found did not support that theory. Two
+shots had been fired, the first of which had missed its victim, and
+entered the wall of the library. Evidently the murdered man had been hit
+by the second while attempting to leave the room. It was ingeniously
+suggested by the _Daily Record_ that the murderer was a criminal who
+knew Sir Horace, and was known to him as a man who had been before him at
+Old Bailey. This would account for Sir Horace being ruthlessly shot down
+without having made any attempt to seize the intruder. The burglar would
+have felt on seeing Sir Horace in the room that he was identified, and
+that the only way of escaping ultimate arrest by the police was to kill
+the man who could put the police on his track. Mr. Justice Fewbanks had
+had the reputation of being a somewhat severe judge, and it was possible
+that some of the criminals who had been sentenced by him at Old Bailey
+entertained a grudge against him.
+
+The question of when the murder was committed was regarded as important.
+Dr. Slingsby, of the Home Office, who had examined the body shortly after
+it was discovered by the police, was of opinion that death had taken
+place at least twelve hours before and probably longer than that. His
+opinion on this point lent support to the theory that the murder had been
+committed before midnight on Wednesday. It was the _Daily Record_ that
+seized on the mystery contained in the facts that the body when
+discovered was fully clothed and that the electric lights were not turned
+on. If the murder was committed late at night how came it that there were
+no lights in the empty house when the police discovered the body? Had the
+murderer, after shooting his victim, turned out the lights so that on the
+following day no suspicion would be created as would be the case if
+anyone saw lights burning in the house in the day-time? If he had done
+so, he was a cool hand. But if the burglar was such a cool hand as to
+stop to turn out the lights after the murder why did he not also stop to
+collect some valuables? Was he afraid that in attempting to get rid of
+them to a "fence" or "drop" he would practically reveal himself as the
+murderer and so place himself in danger in case the police offered a
+reward for the apprehension of the author of the crime?
+
+If Sir Horace had gone to bed before the murderer entered the house it
+would have been natural to expect no lights turned on. But he had
+returned unexpectedly; there were no servants in the house, and there was
+no bed ready for him. In any case, if he intended stopping in the empty
+house instead of going to a hotel he would have been wearing a sleeping
+suit when his body was discovered; or, at most, he would be only
+partially dressed if he had got up on hearing somebody moving about the
+house. But the body was fully dressed, even to collar and tie. It was
+absurd to suppose that the victim had been sitting in the darkness when
+the murderer appeared.
+
+Another difficult problem Scotland Yard had to face was the discovery of
+the person who had sent them the news of the murder. How had Scotland
+Yard's anonymous correspondent learned about the murder, and what were
+his motives in informing the police in the way he had done? Was he
+connected with the crime? Had the murderer a companion with him when he
+broke into Riversbrook for the purpose of burglary? That seemed to be the
+most probable explanation. The second man had been horrified at the
+murder, and desired to disassociate himself from it so that he might
+escape the gallows. The only alternative was to suppose that the murderer
+had confessed his crime to some one, and that his confidant had lost no
+time in informing the police of the tragedy.
+
+The newspaper accounts of the case threw some light on the private and
+domestic affairs of the victim. He was a widower with a grown-up
+daughter; his wife, a daughter of the late Sir James Goldsworthy, who
+changed his ancient family patronymic from Granville to Goldsworthy on
+inheriting the great fortune of an American kinsman, had died eight years
+before. Sir Horace's Hampstead household consisted of a housekeeper,
+butler, chauffeur, cook, housemaid, kitchenmaid and gardener. With the
+exception of the butler the servants had been sent the previous week to
+Sir Horace's country house in Dellmere, Sussex. It appeared that Miss
+Fewbanks spent most of her time at the country house and came up to
+London but rarely. She was at Dellmere when the murder was committed, and
+had been under the impression that her father was in Scotland. According
+to a report received from the police at Dellmere the first intimation
+that Miss Fewbanks had received of the tragic death of her father came
+from them. Naturally, she was prostrated with grief at the tragedy.
+
+The butler who had been left behind in charge of Riversbrook was a man
+named Hill, but he was not in the house on the night of the tragedy. He
+was a married man, and his wife and child lived in Camden Town, where
+Mrs. Hill kept a confectionery shop. Hill's master had given him
+permission to live at home for three weeks while he was in Scotland. The
+house in Tanton Gardens had been locked up and most of the valuables had
+been sent to the bank for safe-keeping, but there were enough portable
+articles of value in the house to make a good haul for any burglar. Hill
+had instructions to visit the house three times a week for the purpose of
+seeing that everything was safe and in order. He had inspected the place
+on Wednesday morning, and everything was as it had been left when his
+master went to Scotland. Sir Horace Fewbanks had returned to London on
+Wednesday evening, reaching St. Pancras by the 6.30 train. Hill was
+unaware that his master was returning, and the first he learned of the
+murder was the brief announcement in the evening papers on Thursday.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Inspector Chippenfield, who had come into prominence in the newspapers as
+the man who had caught the gang who had stolen Lady Gladville's
+jewels--which included the most costly pearl necklace in the world--was
+placed in charge of the case. It was to his success in this famous case
+that he owed his promotion to Inspector. He had the assistance of his
+subordinate, Detective Rolfe. So generous were the newspaper references
+to the acumen of these two terrors of the criminal classes that it was to
+be assumed that anything which inadvertently escaped one of them would be
+pounced upon by the other.
+
+On the morning after the discovery of the murdered man's body, the two
+officers made their way to Tanton Gardens from the Hampstead tube
+station. Inspector Chippenfield was a stout man of middle age, with a red
+face the colour of which seemed to be accentuated by the daily operation
+of removing every vestige of hair from it. He had prominent grey eyes
+with which he was accustomed to stare fiercely when he desired to impress
+a suspected person with what some of the newspapers had referred to as
+"his penetrating glance." His companion, Rolfe, was a tall well-built man
+in the early thirties. Like most men in a subordinate position, Rolfe had
+not a high opinion of the abilities of his immediate superiors. He was
+sure that he could fill the place of any one of them better than it was
+filled by its occupant. He believed that it was the policy of superiors
+to keep junior men back, to stand in their light, and to take all the
+credit for their work. He was confident that he was destined to make a
+name for himself in the detective world if only he were given the chance.
+
+When Inspector Chippenfield had visited Riversbrook the previous
+afternoon, Rolfe had not been selected as his assistant. A careful
+inspection of the house and especially of the room in which the tragedy
+had been committed had been made by the inspector. He had then turned his
+attention to the garden and the grounds surrounding the house.
+
+Whatever he had discovered and what theories he had formed were not
+disclosed to anyone, not even his assistant. He believed that the proper
+way to train a subordinate was to let him collect his own information and
+then test it for him. This method enabled him to profit by his
+subordinate's efforts and to display a superior knowledge when the other
+propounded a theory by which Inspector Chippenfield had also been misled.
+
+When they arrived at the house in which the crime had been committed,
+they found a small crowd of people ranging from feeble old women to
+babies in arms, and including a large proportion of boys and girls of
+school age, collected outside the gates, staring intently through the
+bars towards the house, which was almost hidden by trees. The morbid
+crowd made way for the two officers and speculated on their mission. The
+general impression was that they were the representatives of a
+fashionable firm of undertakers and had come to measure the victim for
+his coffin. Inside the grounds the Scotland Yard officers encountered a
+police-constable who was on guard for the purpose of preventing
+inquisitive strangers penetrating to the house.
+
+"Well, Flack," said Inspector Chippenfield in a tone in which geniality
+was slightly blended with official superiority. "How are you to-day?"
+
+"I'm very well indeed, sir," replied the police-constable. He knew
+that the state of his health was not a matter of deep concern to the
+inspector, but such is the vanity of human nature that he was
+pleased at the inquiry. The fact that there was a murdered man in
+the house gave mournful emphasis to the transience of human life,
+and made Police-Constable Flack feel a glow of satisfaction in being
+very well indeed.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield hesitated a moment as if in deep thought. The
+object of his hesitation was to give Flack an opportunity of imparting
+any information that had come to him while on guard. The inspector
+believed in encouraging people to impart information but regarded it as
+subversive of the respect due to him to appear to be in need of any. As
+Flack made no attempt to carry the conversation beyond the state of his
+health, Inspector Chippenfield came to the conclusion that he was an
+extremely dull policeman. He introduced Flack to Detective Rolfe and
+explained to the latter:
+
+"Flack was on duty on the night of the murder but heard no shots.
+Probably he was a mile or so away. But in a way he discovered the
+crime. Didn't you, Flack? When we rang up Seldon he came up here and
+brought Flack with him. He'll be only too glad to tell you anything you
+want to know."
+
+Rolfe took an official notebook from a breast pocket and proceeded to
+question the police-constable. The inspector made his way upstairs to the
+room in which the crime had been committed, for it was his system to seek
+inspiration in the scene of a crime.
+
+Tanton Gardens, a short private street terminating in a cul-de-sac, was
+in a remote part of Hampstead. The daylight appearance of the street
+betokened wealth and exclusiveness. The roadway which ran between its
+broad white-gravelled footwalks was smoothly asphalted for motor tyres;
+the avenues of great chestnut trees which flanked the footpaths served
+the dual purpose of affording shade in summer and screening the houses
+of Tanton Gardens from view. But after nightfall Tanton Gardens was a
+lonely and gloomy place, lighted only by one lamp, which stood in the
+high road more to mark the entrance to the street than as a guide to
+traffic along it, for its rays barely penetrated beyond the first pair
+of chestnut trees.
+
+The houses in Tanton Gardens were in keeping with the street: they
+indicated wealth and comfort. They were of solid exterior, of a size that
+suggested a fine roominess, and each house stood in its own grounds.
+Riversbrook was the last house at the blind end of the street, and its
+east windows looked out on a wood which sloped down to a valley, the
+street having originally been an incursion into a large private estate,
+of which the wood alone remained. On the other side a tangled nutwood
+coppice separated the judge's residence from its nearest neighbours, so
+the house was completely isolated. It stood well back in about four acres
+of ground, and only a glimpse of it could be seen from the street front
+because of a small plantation of ornamental trees, which grew in front of
+the house and hid it almost completely from view. When the carriage drive
+which wound through the plantation had been passed the house burst
+abruptly into view--a big, rambling building of uncompromising ugliness.
+Its architecture was remarkable. The impression which it conveyed was
+that the original builder had been prevented by lack of money from
+carrying out his original intention of erecting a fine symmetrical house.
+The first story was well enough--an imposing, massive, colonnaded front
+in the Greek style, with marble pillars supporting the entrance. But the
+two stories surmounting this failed lamentably to carry on the
+pretentious design. Viewed from the front, they looked as though the
+builder, after erecting the first story, had found himself in pecuniary
+straits, but, determined to finish his house somehow, had built two
+smaller stories on the solid edifice of the first. For the two second
+stories were not flush with the front of the house, but reared themselves
+from several feet behind, so that the occupants of the bedrooms on the
+first story could have used the intervening space as a balcony. Viewed
+from the rear, the architectural imperfections of the upper part of the
+house were in even stronger contrast with the ornamental first story.
+Apparently the impecunious builder, by the time he had reached the rear,
+had completely run out of funds, for on the third floor he had failed
+altogether to build in one small room, and had left the unfinished
+brickwork unplastered.
+
+The large open space between the house and the fir plantation had once
+been laid out as an Italian garden at the cost of much time and money,
+but Sir Horace Fewbanks had lacked the taste or money to keep it up, and
+had allowed it to become a luxuriant wilderness, though the sloping
+parterres and the centre flowerbeds still retained traces of their former
+beauty. The small lake in the centre, spanned by a rustic hand-bridge,
+was still inhabited by a few specimens of the carp family--sole survivors
+of the numerous gold-fish with which the original designer of the garden
+had stocked the lake.
+
+Sir Horace Fewbanks had rented Riversbrook as a town house for some years
+before his death, having acquired the lease cheaply from the previous
+possessor, a retired Indian civil servant, who had taken a dislike to the
+place because his wife had gone insane within its walls. Sir Horace had
+lived much in the house alone, though each London season his daughter
+spent a few weeks with him in order to preside over the few Society
+functions that her father felt it due to his position to give, and which
+generally took the form of solemn dinners to which he invited some of his
+brother judges, a few eminent barristers, a few political friends, and
+their wives. But rumour had whispered that the judge and his daughter had
+not got on too well together--that Miss Fewbanks was a strange girl who
+did not care for Society or the Society functions which most girls of her
+age would have delighted in, but preferred to spend her time on her
+father's country estate, taking an interest in the villagers or walking
+the country-side with half a dozen dogs at her heels.
+
+Rumour had not spared the dead judge's name. It was said of him that he
+was fond of ladies' society, and especially of ladies belonging to a type
+which he could not ask his daughter to meet; that he used to go out
+motoring, driving himself, after other people were in bed; and that
+strange scenes had taken place at Riversbrook. Flack had told his wife on
+several occasions that he had heard sounds of wild laughter and rowdy
+singing coming from Riversbrook as he passed along the street on his beat
+in the small hours of the morning. Several times in the early dawn Flack
+had seen two or three ladies in evening dress come down the carriage
+drive and enter a taxi-cab which had been summoned by telephone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+When Rolfe had finished questioning Police-Constable Flack and joined his
+chief upstairs, the latter, who had been going through the private papers
+in the murdered man's desk in the hope of alighting on a clue to the
+crime, received him genially.
+
+"Well," he said, "what do you think of Flack?"
+
+Rolfe had obtained from the police-constable a straightforward story of
+what he had seen, and in this way had picked up some useful information
+about the crime which it would have taken a long time to extract from the
+inspector, but he was a sufficiently good detective to have learned that
+by disparaging the source of your information you add to your own
+reputation for acumen in drawing conclusions in regard to it. He nodded
+his head in a deprecating way and emitted a slight cough which was meant
+to express contempt.
+
+"It looks very much like a case of burglary and murder," he said.
+
+He was anxious to know what theory his superior officer had formed.
+
+"And how do you fit in the letter advising us of the murder?" asked the
+inspector.
+
+He produced the letter from his pocket-book and looked at it earnestly.
+
+"There were two of them in it--one a savage ruffian who will stick at
+nothing, and the other a chicken-hearted specimen. They often work in
+pairs like that."
+
+"So your theory is that one of the two shot him, and the other was so
+unnerved that he sent us the letter and put us on the track to save his
+own neck?"
+
+"Something like that."
+
+"It is not impossible," was the senior officer's comment. "Mind you, I
+don't say it is my theory. In fact, I am in no hurry to form one. I
+believe in going carefully over the whole ground first, collecting all
+the clues and then selecting the right one."
+
+Rolfe admitted that his chief's way of setting to work to solve a
+mystery was an ideal one, but he made the reservation that it was a
+difficult one to put into operation. He was convinced that the only way
+of finding the right clue was to follow up every one until it was proved
+to be a wrong one.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield continued his study of the mysterious message
+which had been sent to Scotland Yard. It was written on a sheet of paper
+which had been taken from a writing pad of the kind sold for a few pence
+by all stationers. It was flimsy and blue-lined, and the message it
+contained was smudged and badly printed. But to the inspector's
+annoyance, there were no finger-prints on the paper. The finger-print
+expert at Scotland Yard had examined it under the microscope, but his
+search for finger-prints had been vain.
+
+"Depend upon it, we'll hear from this chap again," said the inspector,
+tapping the sheet of paper with a finger. "I think I may go so far as to
+say that this fellow thinks suspicion will be directed to him and he
+wants to save his neck."
+
+"It's a disguised hand," said Rolfe. "Of course he printed it in order
+not to give us a specimen of his handwriting. There are telltale things
+about a man's handwriting which give him away even when he tries to
+disguise it. But he's tried to disguise even his printing. Look how
+irregular the letters are--some slanting to the right and some to the
+left, and some are upright. Look at the two different kinds of 'U's.'"
+
+"He's used two different kinds of pens," said Inspector Chippenfield.
+"Look at the difference in the thickness of the letters."
+
+"The sooner he writes again the better," said Rolfe. "I am curious to
+know what he'll say next."
+
+"My idea is to find out who he is and make him speak," said the
+inspector, "Speaking is quicker than writing. I could frighten more
+out of him in ten minutes than he would give away voluntarily in a
+month of Sundays."
+
+Again Rolfe had to admit that his chief's plan to get at the truth was an
+ideal one.
+
+"Have you any idea who he is?" he asked.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield had brought his methods too near to perfection to
+make it possible for him to fall into an open trap.
+
+"I won't be very long putting my hand on him," he said.
+
+"But this thing has been in the papers," said Rolfe. "Don't you think the
+murderer will bolt out of the country when he knows his mate is prepared
+to turn King's evidence against him?"
+
+"Ah," said Inspector Chippenfield, "I haven't adopted your theory."
+
+"Then you think that the man who wrote this note knew of the murder but
+doesn't know who did it?"
+
+"Now you are going too far," said Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+The inspector was so wary about disclosing what was in his mind in regard
+to the letter that Rolfe, who disliked his chief very cordially, jumped
+to the conclusion that Inspector Chippenfield had no intelligible ideas
+concerning it.
+
+"If it was burglars they took nothing as far as we can ascertain up to
+the present," said Inspector Chippenfield after a pause.
+
+"They were surprised to find anyone in the house. And after the shot was
+fired they immediately bolted for fear the noise would attract
+attention."
+
+"What knocks a hole in the burglar theory is the fact that Sir Horace was
+fully dressed when he was shot," said the inspector. "Burglars don't
+break into a house when there are lights about, especially after having
+been led to believe that the house was empty."
+
+"So you think," said Rolfe, "that the window was forced after the murder
+with the object of misleading us."
+
+"I haven't said so," replied the inspector. "All I am prepared to say is
+that even that was not impossible."
+
+"It was forced from the outside," continued Rolfe. "I've seen the marks
+of a jemmy on the window-sill. If it was forced after the murder the
+murderer was a cool hand."
+
+"You can take it from me," exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield with
+unexpected candour, "that he was a cool hand. We are going to have a bit
+of trouble in getting to the bottom of this, Rolfe."
+
+"If anyone can get to the bottom of it, you can," said Rolfe, who
+believed with Voltaire that speech was given us in order to enable us to
+conceal our thoughts.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield was so astonished at this handsome compliment that
+he began to think he had underrated Rolfe's powers of discernment. His
+tone of cold official superiority immediately thawed.
+
+"There were two shots fired," he said, "but whether both were fired by
+the murderer I don't know yet. One of them may have been fired by Sir
+Horace. Just behind you in the wall is the mark of one of the bullets. I
+dug it out of the plaster yesterday and here it is." He produced from a
+waistcoat pocket a flattened bullet. "The other is inside him at
+present." He waved his hand in the direction of the room in which the
+corpse lay.
+
+"Of course you cannot say yet whether both bullets are out of the same
+revolver?" said Rolfe.
+
+"Can't tell till after the post-mortem," said the inspector. "And then
+all we can tell for certain is whether they are of the same pattern. They
+might be the same size, and yet be fired out of different revolvers of
+the same calibre."
+
+"Well, it is no use theorising about what happened in this room until
+after the post-mortem," said Rolfe.
+
+"You'd better give it some thought," suggested the inspector. "In the
+meantime I want you to interview the people in the neighbourhood and
+ascertain whether they heard any shots. They'll all say they did whether
+they heard them or not--you know how people persuade themselves into
+imagining things so as to get some sort of prominence in these crimes.
+But you can sift what they tell you and preserve the grain of truth. Try
+and get them to be accurate as to the time, as we want to fix the time of
+the crime as near as possible. Ask Flack to tell you something about the
+neighbours--he's been in this district fifteen years, and ought to know
+all about them. While you're away I'll go through these private papers. I
+want to find out why he came back from Scotland so suddenly. If we knew
+that the rest might be easy."
+
+"I haven't seen the body yet," said Rolfe. "I'd like to look at it.
+Where is it?"
+
+"I had it removed downstairs. You will find it in a big room on the left
+as you go down the hall. By the by, there is another matter, Rolfe. This
+glove was found in the room. It may be a clue, but it is more likely
+that it is one of Sir Horace's gloves and that he lost the other one on
+his way up from Scotland. It's a left-hand glove--men always lose the
+right-hand glove because they take it off so often. I've compared it
+with other gloves in Sir Horace's wardrobe, and I find it is the same
+size and much the same quality. But find out from Sir Horace's hosier if
+he sold it. Here's the address of the hosiers,--Bruden and Marshall, in
+the Strand."
+
+Rolfe went slowly downstairs into the room in which the corpse lay, and
+closed the door behind him. It was a very large room, overlooking the
+garden on the right side of the house. Somebody had lowered the Venetian
+blinds as a conventional intimation to the outside world that the house
+was one of mourning, and the room was almost dark. For nearly a minute
+Rolfe stood in silence, his hand resting on the knob of the door he had
+closed behind him. Gradually the outline of the room and the objects
+within it began to reveal themselves in shadowy shape as his eyes became
+accustomed to the dim light. He had a growing impression of a big lofty
+room, with heavy furniture, and a huddled up figure lying on a couch at
+the end furthest from the window and deepest in shadow.
+
+He stepped across to the window and gently raised one of the blinds. The
+light of an August sun penetrated through the screen of trees in front of
+the house and revealed the interior of the room more clearly. Rolfe was
+amazed at its size. From the window to the couch at the other end of the
+room, where the body lay, was nearly thirty feet. Glancing down the
+apartment, he noticed that it was really two rooms, divided in the middle
+by folding doors. These doors folded neatly into a slightly protruding
+ridge or arch almost opposite the door by which he had entered, and were
+screened from observation by heavy damask curtains, which drooped over
+the archway slightly into the room.
+
+Evidently the deceased judge had been in the habit of using the divided
+rooms as a single apartment, for the heavier furniture in both halves of
+it was of the same pattern. The chairs and tables were of heavy,
+ponderous, mid-Victorian make, and they were matched by a number of
+old-fashioned mahogany sideboards and presses, arranged methodically at
+regular intervals on both sides of the room. Rolfe, as his eye took in
+these articles, wondered why Sir Horace Fewbanks had bought so many. One
+sideboard, a vast piece of furniture fully eight feet long, had a whisky
+decanter and siphon of soda water on it, as though Sir Horace had served
+himself with refreshments on his return to the house. The tops of the
+other sideboards were bare, and the presses, use in such a room Rolfe was
+at a loss to conjecture, were locked up. The antique sombre uniformity
+of the furniture as a whole was broken at odd intervals by several
+articles of bizarre modernity, including a few daring French prints,
+which struck an odd note of incongruity in such a room.
+
+The murdered man had been laid on an old-fashioned sofa at the end of
+this double apartment which was furthest from the window. Rolfe walked
+slowly over the thick Turkey carpets and rugs with which the floor was
+covered, glanced at the sofa curiously, and then turned down the sheet
+from the dead man's face.
+
+At the time of his death Sir Horace Fewbanks was 58 years of age, but
+since death the grey bristles had grown so rapidly through his
+clean-shaven face that he looked much older. The face showed none of the
+wonted placidity of death. The mouth was twisted in an ugly fashion, as
+though the murdered man had endeavoured to cry for help and had been
+attacked and killed while doing so. One of Sir Horace's arms--the right
+one--was thrust forward diagonally across his breast as if in
+self-defence, and the hand was tightly clenched. Rolfe, who had last seen
+His Honour presiding on the Bench in the full pomp and majesty of law,
+felt a chill strike his heart at the fell power of death which did not
+even respect the person of a High Court judge, and had stripped him of
+every vestige of human dignity in the pangs of a violent end. The face he
+had last seen on the Bench full of wisdom and austerity of the law was
+now distorted into a livid mask in which it was hard to trace any
+semblance of the features of the dead judge.
+
+Rolfe's official alertness of mind in the face of a mysterious crime soon
+reasserted itself, however, and he shook off the feeling of sentiment and
+proceeded to make a closer examination of the dead body. As he turned
+down the sheet to examine the wound which had ended the judge's life, it
+slipped from his hand and fell on the floor, revealing that the judge had
+been laid on the couch just as he had been killed, fully clothed. He had
+been shot through the body near the heart, and a large patch of blood had
+welled from the wound and congealed in his shirt. One trouser leg was
+ruffled up, and had caught in the top of the boot.
+
+The corpse presented a repellent spectacle, but Rolfe, who had seen
+unpleasant sights of various kinds in his career, bent over the body
+with keen interest, noting these details, with all his professional
+instincts aroused. For though Rolfe had not yet risen very high in the
+police force, he had many of the qualities which make the good
+detective--observation, sagacity, and some imagination. The
+extraordinary crime which he had been called upon to help unravel
+presented a baffling mystery which was likely to test the value of these
+qualities to the utmost.
+
+Rolfe looked steadily at the corpse for some time, impressing a picture
+of it in every detail on his mental retina. Struck by an idea, he bent
+over and touched the patch of blood in the dead man's breast, then looked
+at his finger. There was no stain. The blood was quite congealed. Then he
+tried to unclench the judge's right hand, but it was rigid.
+
+As Rolfe stood there gazing intently at the corpse, and trying to form
+some theory of the reason for the murder, certain old stories he had
+heard of Sir Horace Fewbanks's private life and character recurred to
+him. These rumours had not been much--a jocular hint or two among his
+fellows at Scotland Yard that His Honour had a weakness for a pretty face
+and in private life led a less decorous existence than a judge ought to
+do. Rolfe wondered how much or how little truth was contained in these
+stories. He glanced around the vast room. Certainly it was not the sort
+of apartment in which a High Court judge might be expected to do his
+entertaining, but Rolfe recalled that he had heard gossip to the effect
+that Sir Horace, because of his virtual estrangement from his daughter,
+did very little entertaining beyond an occasional bridge or supper party
+to his sporting friends, and rarely went into Society.
+
+Rolfe began to scrutinise the articles of furniture in the room,
+wondering if there was anything about them which might reveal something
+of the habits of the dead man. He produced a small electric torch from
+his pocket, and with its light to guide him in the half-darkened room, he
+closely inspected each piece of furniture. Then, with the torch in his
+hand, he returned to the sofa and flashed it over the dead body. He
+started violently when the light, falling on the dead man's closed hand,
+revealed a tiny scrap of white. Eagerly he endeavoured to release the
+fragment from the tenacious clutch of the dead without tearing it, and
+eventually he managed to detach it. His heart bounded when he saw that it
+was a small torn piece of lace and muslin. He placed it in the palm of
+his left hand and examined it closely under the light of his torch. To
+him it looked to be part of a fashionable lady's dainty handkerchief. He
+was elated at his discovery and he wondered how Inspector Chippenfield
+had overlooked it. Then the explanation struck him. The small piece of
+lace and muslin had been effectually hidden in the dead man's clenched
+hand, and his efforts to open the hand had loosened it.
+
+"Well, Rolfe," said Inspector Chippenfield, when his subordinate
+reappeared, "you've been long enough to have unearthed the criminal or
+revived the corpse. Have you discovered anything fresh?"
+
+"Only this," replied Rolfe, displaying the piece of handkerchief.
+
+The find startled Inspector Chippenfield out of his air of bantering
+superiority.
+
+"Where did you get that?" he stammered, as he reached out eagerly for it.
+
+"The dead man had it clenched in his right hand. I wondered if he had
+anything hidden in his hand when I saw it so tightly clenched. I tried to
+force open the fingers and that fell out."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield was by no means pleased at his subordinate's
+discovery of what promised to be an important clue, especially after the
+clue had been missed by himself. But he congratulated Rolfe in a tone of
+fictitious heartiness.
+
+"Well done, Rolfe!" he exclaimed. "You are coming on. Anyone can see that
+you've the makings of a good detective."
+
+Rolfe could afford to ignore the sting contained in such faint praise.
+
+"What do you make of it?" he asked.
+
+"Looks as though there is a woman in it," said the inspector, who was
+still examining the scrap of lace and muslin.
+
+"There can't be much doubt about that," replied Rolfe.
+
+"We mustn't be in a hurry in jumping at conclusions," remarked the
+inspector.
+
+"No, and we mustn't ignore obvious facts," said Rolfe.
+
+"You think a woman murdered him?" asked the inspector.
+
+"I think a woman was present when he was shot: whether she fired the shot
+there is nothing to show at present. There may have been a man with her.
+But there was a struggle just before the shot was fired and as Sir Horace
+fell he grasped at the hand in which she was holding her handkerchief. Or
+perhaps her handkerchief was torn in his dying struggles when she was
+leaning over him."
+
+"You have overlooked the possibility of this having been placed in the
+dying man's hand to deceive us," said the inspector.
+
+"If the intention was to mislead us it wouldn't have been placed where it
+might have been overlooked."
+
+As the inspector had overlooked the presence of the scrap of handkerchief
+in the dead man's hand, he felt that he was not making much progress with
+the work of keeping his subordinate in his place.
+
+"Well, it is a clue of a sort," he said. "The trouble is that we have
+too many clues. I wish we knew which is the right one. Anyway, it knocks
+over your theory of a burglary," he added in a tone of satisfaction.
+
+"Yes," Rolfe admitted. "That goes by the board."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"James Hill, sir."
+
+"That is an alias. What is your real name?" Inspector Chippenfield glared
+fiercely at the butler in order to impress upon him the fact that
+subterfuge was useless.
+
+"Henry Field, sir," replied the man, after some hesitation.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield opened the capacious pocketbook which he had
+placed before him on the desk when the butler had entered in response to
+his summons, and he took from it a photograph which he handed to the man
+he was interrogating.
+
+"Is that your photograph?" he asked.
+
+Police photographs taken in gaol for purposes of future identification
+are always far from flattering, and Henry Field, after looking at the
+photograph handed to him, hesitated a little before replying:
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"So, Henry Field, in November 1909 you were sentenced to three years for
+robbing your master, Lord Melhurst."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Let me see," said the inspector, as if calling on his memory to perform
+a reluctant task. "It was a diamond scarf-pin and a gold watch. Lord
+Melhurst had come home after a good day at Epsom and a late supper in
+town. Next morning he missed his scarf-pin and his watch. He thought he
+had been robbed at Epsom or in town. He was delightfully vague about what
+had happened to him after his glorious day at Epsom, but unfortunately
+for you the taxi-cab driver who drove him remembered seeing the pin on
+him when he got out of the cab. As you had waited up for him suspicion
+fell on you, and you were arrested and confessed. I think those are the
+facts, Field?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said the distressed looking man who stood before him.
+
+"I think I had the pleasure of putting you through," added the inspector.
+
+The butler understood that in police slang "putting a man through" meant
+arresting him and putting him through the Criminal Court into gaol. He
+made the same reply:
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I'm glad to see you bear me no ill-will for it," said Inspector
+Chippenfield. "You don't, do you?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"I never forget a face," pursued the officer, glancing up at the face of
+the man before him. "When I saw you yesterday I knew you again in a
+moment, and when I went back to the Yard I looked up your record."
+
+The butler was doubtful whether any reply was called for, but after a
+pause, as an endorsement of the inspector's gift for remembering faces,
+he ventured on:
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And how did you, an ex-convict, come to get into the service of one of
+His Majesty's judges?"
+
+"He took me in," replied the butler.
+
+"You mean that you took him in," replied the inspector, with a pleasant
+laugh at his own witticism.
+
+"No, sir, I didn't take him in," declared the butler. He had not joined
+in the laugh at the inspector's joke.
+
+"Get away with you," said Inspector Chippenfield. "You don't expect me to
+believe that you told him you were an ex-convict? You must have used
+forged references."
+
+"No, sir. He knew I was a--" Hill hesitated at referring to himself as
+an ex-convict, though he had not shrunk from the description by Inspector
+Chippenfield. "He knew that I had been in trouble. In fact, sir, if you
+remember, I was tried before him."
+
+"The devil you were!" exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield, in astonishment.
+"And he took you into his service after you had served your sentence. He
+must have been mad. How did you manage it?"
+
+"After I came out I found it hard to get a place," said Hill, "and when
+Sir Horace's butler died I wrote to him and asked if he would give me a
+chance. I had a wife and child, sir, and they had a hard struggle while I
+was in prison. My wife had a shop, but she sold it to find money for my
+defence. Sir Horace told me to call on him, and after thinking it over he
+decided to engage me. He was a good master to me."
+
+"And how did you repay him," exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield sternly,
+"by murdering him?"
+
+The butler was startled by the suddenness of the accusation, as Inspector
+Chippenfield intended he should be.
+
+"Me!" he exclaimed. "As sure as there is a God in Heaven I had nothing to
+do with it."
+
+"That won't go down with me, Field," said the police officer, giving the
+wretched man another prolonged penetrating look.
+
+"It's true; it's true!" he protested wildly. "I had nothing to do with
+it. I couldn't do a thing like that, sir. I couldn't kill a man if I
+wanted to--I haven't the nerve. But I knew I would be suspected," he
+added, in a tone of self-pity.
+
+"Oh, you did?" replied Inspector Chippenfield. "And why was that?"
+
+"Because of my past."
+
+"Where were you on the date of the murder?"
+
+"In the morning I came over here to look round as usual, and I found
+everything all right."
+
+"You did that every day while Sir Horace was away?"
+
+"Not every day, sir. Three times a week: Mondays, Wednesdays, and
+Fridays."
+
+"Did you enter the house or just look round?"
+
+"I always came inside."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To make quite sure that everything was all right."
+
+"And was everything all right the morning of the 18th?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You are quite sure of that? You looked round carefully?"
+
+"Well, sir, I just gave a glance round, for of course I didn't expect
+anything would be wrong."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield fixed a steady glance on the butler to ascertain
+if he was conscious of the trap he had avoided.
+
+"Did you look in this room?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I made a point of looking in all the rooms."
+
+"You are sure that Sir Horace's dead body was not lying here?" Inspector
+Chippenfield pointed beside the desk where the body had been found.
+
+"Oh, no, sir. I'd have seen it if it had."
+
+"There was no sign anywhere of his having returned from Scotland?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"You didn't know he was returning?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"What time did you leave the house?"
+
+"It would be about a quarter past twelve, sir."
+
+"And what did you do after that?"
+
+"I went home and had my dinner. In the afternoon I took my little girl
+to the Zoo. I had promised her for a long time that I would take her
+to the Zoo."
+
+"And what did you do after visiting the Zoo?"
+
+"We went home for supper. After supper my wife took the little girl to
+the picture palace in Camden Road. It was quite a holiday, sir, for her."
+
+"And what did you do while your wife and child were at the pictures?"
+
+"I stayed at home and minded the shop. When they came home we all went
+to bed. My wife will tell you the same thing."
+
+"I've no doubt she will," said the inspector drily. "Well, if you didn't
+murder Sir Horace yourself when did you first hear that he had been
+murdered?"
+
+"I saw it in the papers yesterday evening."
+
+"And you immediately came up here to see if it was true?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And you were taken to the Hampstead Police Station to make a statement
+as to your movements on the day and night of the murder?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And the story you have just told me about the Zoo and the pictures and
+the rest is virtually the same as the statement you made at the station?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Do you know if Sir Horace kept a revolver?"
+
+"I think he did, sir."
+
+"Where did he keep it?"
+
+"In the second drawer of his desk, sir."
+
+"Well, it's gone," remarked Inspector Chippenfield without opening the
+drawer. "What sort of a revolver was it? Did you ever see it? How do you
+know he kept one?"
+
+"Once or twice I saw something that looked like a revolver in that drawer
+while Sir Horace had it open. It was a small nickel revolver."
+
+"Sir Horace always locked his desk?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"None of your keys will open it, of course?"
+
+"No, sir. That is--I don't know, sir. I've never tried."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield grunted slightly. That trap the butler had not
+seen until too late. But of course all servants went through their
+masters' private papers when they got the chance.
+
+"Do you know if Sir Horace was in the habit of carrying a
+pocket-book?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, sir; he was."
+
+"What sort of a pocket-book?"
+
+"A large Russian leather one with a gold clasp."
+
+"Did he take it away with him when he went to Scotland? Did you see it
+about the house after he left?"
+
+"No, sir. I think he took it with him. It would not be like him to forget
+it, or to leave it lying about."
+
+"And what sort of a man was Sir Horace, Field?"
+
+"A very good master, sir. He could be very stern when he was angry, but I
+got on very well with him."
+
+"Quite so. Do you know if he had a weakness for the ladies?"
+
+"Well, sir, I've heard people say he had."
+
+"I want your own opinion; I don't want what other people said. You
+were with him for three years and kept a pretty close watch on him,
+I've no doubt."
+
+"Speaking confidentially, I might say that I think he was," said Hill.
+
+He glanced apprehensively behind him as if afraid of the dead man
+appearing at the door to rebuke him for presuming to speak ill of him.
+
+"I thought as much," said the inspector. "Have you any idea why he came
+down from Scotland?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Well, that will do for the present, Field. If I want you again I'll
+send for you."
+
+"Thank you, sir. May I ask a question, sir?"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"You don't really think I had anything to do with it, sir?"
+
+"I'm not here, Field, to tell you what I think. This much I will say:
+If I find you have tried to deceive me in any way it will be a bad
+day for you."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Grave, taciturn, watchful, secret and suave, with an appearance of
+tight-lipped reticence about him which a perpetual faint questioning
+look in his eyes denied, Hill looked an ideal man servant, who knew
+his station in life, and was able to uphold it with meek dignity. From
+the top of his trimly-cut grey crown to his neatly-shod silent feet he
+exuded deference and respectability. His impassive mask of a face was
+incapable--apart from the faint query note in the eyes--of betraying
+any of the feelings or emotions which ruffle the countenances of
+common humanity.
+
+On the way downstairs, Hill saw Police-Constable Flack in conversation
+with a lady at the front door. The lady was well-known to the butler as
+Mrs. Holymead, the wife of a distinguished barrister, who had been one of
+his master's closest friends. She seemed glad to see the butler, for she
+greeted him with a remark that seemed to imply a kinship in sorrow.
+
+"Isn't this a dreadful thing, Hill?" she said.
+
+"It's terrible, madam," replied Hill respectfully.
+
+Mrs. Holymead was extremely beautiful, but it was obvious that she was
+distressed at the tragedy, for her eyes were full of tears, and her
+olive-tinted face was pale. She was about thirty years of age; tall,
+slim, and graceful. Her beauty was of the Spanish type: straight-browed,
+lustrous-eyed, and vivid; a clear olive skin, and full, petulant, crimson
+lips. She was fashionably dressed in black, with a black hat.
+
+"The policeman tells me that Miss Fewbanks has not come up from Dellmere
+yet," she continued.
+
+"No, madam. We expect her to-morrow. I believe Miss Fewbanks has been too
+prostrated to come."
+
+"Dreadful, dreadful," murmured Mrs. Holymead. "I feel I want to know all
+about it and yet I am afraid. It is all too terrible for words."
+
+"It has been a terrible shock, madam," said Hill.
+
+"Has the housekeeper come up, Hill?"
+
+"No, madam. She will be up to-morrow with Miss Fewbanks."
+
+"Well, is there nobody I can see?" asked Mrs. Holymead.
+
+Police-Constable Flack was impressed by the spectacle of a beautiful
+fashionably-dressed lady in distress.
+
+"The inspector in charge of the case is upstairs, madam," he suggested.
+"Perhaps you'd like to see him." It suddenly occurred to him that he had
+instructions not to allow any stranger into the house, and police
+instructions at such a time were of a nature which classed a friend of
+the family as a stranger. "Perhaps I'd better ask him first," he added,
+and he went upstairs with the feeling that he had laid himself open to
+severe official censure from Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+He came downstairs with a smile on his face and the message that the
+inspector would be pleased to see Mrs. Holymead. In his brief interview
+with his superior he had contrived to convey the unofficial information
+that Mrs. Holymead was a fine-looking woman, and he had no doubt that
+Inspector Chippenfield's readiness to see her was due to the impression
+this information had made on his unofficial feelings.
+
+Mrs. Holymead was conducted upstairs and announced by the butler.
+Inspector Chippenfield greeted her with a low bow of conscious
+inferiority, and anticipated Hill in placing a chair for her. His large
+red face went a deeper scarlet in colour as he looked at her.
+
+"Flack tells me that you are a friend of the family, Mrs. Holymead.
+What is it that I can do for you? I need scarcely say, Mrs. Holymead,
+that your distinguished husband is well known to us all. I have had
+the pleasure of being cross-examined by him on several occasions.
+Anything you wish to know I'll be pleased to tell you, if it lies
+within my power."
+
+"Thank you," said Mrs. Holymead.
+
+She seemed to be slightly nervous in the presence of a member of the
+Scotland Yard police, in spite of his obvious humility in the company of
+a fashionable lady who belonged to a different social world from that in
+which police inspectors moved. It took Inspector Chippenfield some
+minutes to discover that the object of Mrs. Holymead's visit was to learn
+some of the details of the tragedy. As one who had known the murdered man
+for several years, and the wife of his intimate friend, she was
+overwhelmed by the awful tragedy. She endeavoured to explain that the
+crime was like a horrible dream which she could not get rid of. But in
+spite of the repugnance with which she contemplated the fact that a
+gentleman she had known so well had been shot down in his own house she
+felt a natural curiosity to know how the dreadful crime had been
+committed.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield availed himself of the opportunity to do the
+honours of the occasion. He went over the details of the tragedy and
+pointed out where the body had been found. He showed her the bullet mark
+on the wall and the flattened bullet which had been extracted. Although
+from the mere habit of official caution he gave away no information which
+was not of a superficial and obvious kind, it was apparent he liked
+talking about the crime and his responsibilities as the officer who had
+been placed in charge of the investigations. He noted the interest with
+which Mrs. Holymead followed his words and he was satisfied that he had
+created a favourable impression on her. It was his desire to do the
+honours thoroughly which led him to remark after he had given her the
+main facts of the tragedy:
+
+"I'm sorry I cannot take you to view the body. It is downstairs, but the
+fact is the Home Office doctors are in there making the post-mortem to
+extract the bullet."
+
+Mrs. Holymead shuddered at this information. The fact that such gruesome
+work as a post-mortem examination was proceeding on the body of a man
+whom she had known so well brought on a fit of nausea. Her head fell back
+as if she was about to faint.
+
+"Can I have a glass of water?" she whispered.
+
+A fainting woman, if she is beautiful and fashionably dressed, will
+unnerve even a resourceful police official. Had she been one of the
+servants Inspector Chippenfield would have rung the bell for a glass of
+water to throw over her face, and meantime would have looked on calmly at
+such evidence of the weakness of sex. But in this case he dashed out of
+the room, ran downstairs, shouted for Hill, ordered him to find a glass,
+snatched the glass from him, filled it with water, and dashed upstairs
+again. His absence from the room totalled a little less than three
+minutes, and when he held the glass to the lady's lips he was out of
+breath with his exertions.
+
+Mrs. Holymead took a sip of water, shuddered, took another sip, then
+heaved a sigh, and opened to the full extent her large dark eyes on the
+man bending over her, who felt amply repaid by such a glance. She
+thanked him prettily for his great kindness and took her departure,
+being conducted downstairs, and to her waiting motor-car at the gate, by
+Inspector Chippenfield. That officer went back to the house with a
+pleased smile on his features. But he would not have been so pleased
+with himself if he had known that his brief absence from the room of the
+tragedy for the purpose of obtaining a glass of water had been more than
+sufficient to enable the lady to run to the open desk of the murdered
+man, touch a spring which opened a secret receptacle at the back of it,
+extract a small bundle of papers, close the spring, and return to her
+chair to await in a fainting attitude the return of the chivalrous
+police officer.
+
+Mrs. Holymead's return to her home in Princes Gate was awaited with
+feverish anxiety by one of the inmates. This was Mademoiselle Gabrielle
+Chiron, a French girl of about twenty-eight, who was a distant connection
+of Mrs. Holymead's by marriage. A cousin of Mrs. Holymead's had married
+Lucille Chiron, the younger sister of Gabrielle, two years ago. Mrs.
+Holymead on visiting the French provincial town where the marriage was
+celebrated, was attracted by Gabrielle. As the Chiron family were not
+wealthy they welcomed the friendship between Gabrielle and the beautiful
+American who had married one of the leading barristers in London, and
+finally Gabrielle went to live with Mrs. Holymead as a companion.
+
+From the window of an upstairs room which commanded a view of the street,
+Gabrielle Chiron waited impatiently for the return of the motor-car in
+which Mrs. Holymead had driven to Riversbrook. When at length it turned
+the corner and came into view, she rushed downstairs to meet Mrs.
+Holymead. She opened the street door before the lady of the house could
+ring. Her gaze was fixed on a hand-bag which Mrs. Holymead carried--a
+comparatively big hand-bag which the lady had taken the precaution to
+purchase before driving out to Riversbrook.
+
+The French girl's face lighted up with a smile as she saw by the shape of
+the bag that it was not empty.
+
+"Have you got them?" she whispered.
+
+"Yes," was the reply. "I followed out your plan--it worked without a
+hitch."
+
+"Ah, I knew you would manage it," said the girl. "I would have gone, but
+it was best that you should go. These police agents do not like
+foreigners--they would be suspicious if I had gone."
+
+"There was a big red-faced man in charge--Inspector Chippenfield, they
+called him," said Mrs. Holymead. "He was in the library as you said he
+would be--he was sitting there calmly as if he did not know what nerves
+were. He knew me as a friend of the family and was quite nice to me. I
+saw as soon as I went in that the desk was open--he had been examining
+Sir Horace's private papers. I asked him to tell me about the--about the
+tragedy. He piled horror on horror and then I pretended to faint. He ran
+down stairs for a glass of water, and that gave me time to open the
+secret drawer. They are here," she added, patting the hand-bag
+affectionately; "let us go upstairs and burn them."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+There was unpleasant news for Inspector Chippenfield when Miss Fewbanks
+arrived at Riversbrook accompanied by the housekeeper, Mrs. Hewson. In
+the first place, he learnt with considerable astonishment that it was
+Miss Fewbanks's intention to stay at the house until after the funeral,
+and for that purpose she had brought the housekeeper to keep her company
+in the lonely old place. Although they had taken up their quarters in the
+opposite wing of the rambling mansion to that in which the dead body lay,
+it seemed to Inspector Chippenfield--whose mind was very impressionable
+where the fair sex was concerned--that Miss Fewbanks must be a very
+peculiar girl to contemplate staying in the same house with the body of
+her murdered father for nearly a week. He was convinced that she must be
+a strong-minded young woman, and he did not like strong-minded young
+women. He preferred the weak and clinging type of the sex as more of a
+compliment to his own sturdy manliness.
+
+His unfavourable impression of Miss Fewbanks was deepened when he saw her
+and heard what she had to tell him. The girl had come up from the country
+filled with horror at the crime which had deprived her of a father, and
+firmly determined to leave no stone unturned to bring the murderer to
+justice. It was true that she and her father had lived on terms of
+partial estrangement for some time past because of his manner of life,
+but all the girl's feelings of resentment against him had been swept away
+by the news of his dreadful death, and all she remembered now was that he
+was her father, and had been brutally murdered.
+
+When she sent for Inspector Chippenfield she had visited the room in
+which lay the body of her father. It had been placed in a coffin which
+was resting on the undertaker's trestles in the bay embrasure of the big
+room with the folding doors. There was nothing in the appearance of the
+corpse to suggest that a crime had been committed, but it had been
+impossible for the undertaker's men to erase entirely the distortion of
+the features so that they might suggest the cold, calm dignity of a
+peaceful death. The ordeal of looking on the dead body of her father had
+nerved her to carry through resolutely the task of discovering the author
+of the crime.
+
+She awaited the coming of the inspector in a small sitting-room, and
+when he entered she pointed quickly to a chair, but remained standing
+herself. In appearance Miss Fewbanks was a charming girl of the typical
+English type. She was of medium height, slight, but well-built, with
+fair hair and dark blue eyes, an imperious short upper lip and a
+determined chin, and the clear healthy complexion of a girl who has
+lived much out of doors. The inspector noted all these details; noted,
+too, that although her breast heaved with agitation she had herself well
+under control; her pretty head was erect, and one of her small hands was
+tightly clenched by her side.
+
+"Have you found out--anything?" she asked the inspector as he entered.
+
+The girl had chosen a vague word because she felt that there were many
+things which must come to light in unravelling the crime, but, from the
+police point of view of Inspector Chippenfield, the question whether he
+had found out anything was a stinging reflection on his ability.
+
+"I consider it inadvisable to make any arrest at the present stage of my
+investigations," he said, with cold official dignity.
+
+"Do you think you know who did it?" asked the girl.
+
+"It is my business to find out," replied the inspector, in a voice that
+indicated confidence in his ability to perform the task.
+
+The girl was too unsophisticated to follow the subtle workings of
+official pride. "The papers call it a mysterious crime. Do you think it
+is mysterious?"
+
+"There are certainly some mysterious features about it," said the
+inspector. "But I do not regard them as insoluble. Nothing is insoluble,"
+he added, in a sententious tone.
+
+"If there are mysteries to be solved you ought to have help," said the
+young lady.
+
+She glanced at Mrs. Hewson significantly, and then proceeded to explain
+to Inspector Chippenfield what she meant.
+
+"I have asked Mr. Crewe, the celebrated detective, to assist you. Of
+course you know Mr. Crewe--everybody does. I know you are a very clever
+man at your profession, but in a thing of this kind two clever men are
+better than one. I hope you will not mind--there is no reflection
+whatever on your ability. In fact, I have the utmost confidence in you.
+But it is due to my father's memory to do all that is possible to get to
+the bottom of this dreadful crime. If money is needed it will be
+forthcoming. That applies to you no less than to Mr. Crewe. But I hope
+you will be able to carry out your investigations amicably together, and
+that you will be willing to assist one another. You will lose nothing by
+doing so. I trust you will place at Mr. Crewe's disposal all the
+facilities that are available to you as an officer of the police."
+
+This statement was so clear that Inspector Chippenfield had no choice but
+to face the conclusion that Miss Fewbanks had more faith in the abilities
+of a private detective to unravel the mystery than she had in the
+resources of Scotland Yard. He would have liked to have told the young
+lady what he thought of her for interfering with his work, and he
+determined to avail himself of the right opportunity to do so if it came
+along. But the statement that money was not to be spared had a soothing
+influence on his feelings. Of course, officers of Scotland Yard were not
+allowed to take gratuities however substantial they might be, but there
+were material ways of expressing gratitude which were outside the
+regulations of the department.
+
+"I shall be very pleased to give Mr. Crewe any assistance he wants," said
+Inspector Chippenfield, bowing stiffly.
+
+It was seldom that he took a subordinate fully into his confidence, but
+after he left Miss Fewbanks he flung aside his official pride in order to
+discuss with Rolfe the enlistment of the services of Crewe. Rolfe was no
+less indignant than his chief at the intrusion of an outsider into their
+sphere. Crewe was an exponent of the deductive school of crime
+investigation, and had first achieved fame over the Abbindon case some
+years ago, when he had succeeded in restoring the kidnapped heir of the
+Abbindon estates after the police had failed to trace the missing child.
+In detective stories the attitude of members of Scotland Yard to the
+deductive expert is that of admiration based on conscious inferiority,
+but in real life the experts of Scotland Yard have the utmost contempt
+for the deductive experts and their methods. The disdainful pity of the
+deductive experts for the rule-of-thumb methods of the police is not to
+be compared with the vigorous scorn of the official detective for the
+rival who has not had the benefit of police training.
+
+"Look here, Rolfe," said Inspector Chippenfield, "we mustn't let Crewe
+get ahead of us in this affair, or we'll never hear the last of it. It's
+scandalous of a man like Crewe, who has money of his own and could live
+like a gentleman, coming along and taking the bread out of our mouths by
+accepting fees and rewards for hunting after criminals. Of course I know
+they say he is lavish with his money and gives away more than he earns,
+but that's all bosh--he sticks it in his own pocket, right enough. One
+thing is certain: he gets paid whether he wins or loses; that is to say,
+he gets his fee in any case, but of course if he wins something will be
+added to his fee. In the meantime all you and I get is our salaries, and,
+as you know, the pay of an inspector isn't what it ought to be."
+
+Rolfe assured his superior of his conviction that the pay at Scotland
+Yard ought to be higher for all ranks--especially the rank and file. He
+also declared that he was ready to do his best to thwart Crewe.
+
+"That is the right spirit," commented Inspector Chippenfield approvingly.
+"Of course we'll tell him we're willing to help him all we can, and of
+course hell tell us we can depend on his help. But we know what his help
+will amount to. He'll keep back from us anything he finds out, and we'll
+do the same for him. But the point is, Rolfe, that you and I have to put
+all our brains into this and help one another. I'm not the man to despise
+help from a subordinate. If you have any ideas about this case, Rolfe, do
+not be afraid to speak out, I'll give them sympathetic consideration."
+
+"I know you will," said Rolfe, who was by no means sure of the fact. "You
+can count on me."
+
+"As you know, Rolfe, there have been cases in which men from the Yard
+haven't worked together as amicably as they ought to have done. It used
+to be said when I was one of the plain-clothes men that the man in charge
+got all the credit and the men under him did all the work. But as an
+inspector I can tell you that is very rarely the case. In my reports I
+believe in giving my junior credit for all he has done, and generally a
+bit more. It may be foolish of me, but that is my way. I never miss a
+chance of putting in a good word for the man under me."
+
+"It would be better if they were all like that," said Rolfe.
+
+"Well, it's a bargain, Rolfe," said Inspector Chippenfield. "You do your
+best on this job and you won't lose by it. I'll see to that. But in the
+meantime we don't want to put Crewe on the scent. Let us see how much
+we'll tell him and how much we won't."
+
+"He'll want to see the letter sent to the Yard about the murder," said
+Rolfe. "The _Daily Recorder_ published a facsimile of it this morning."
+
+"Yes, I knew about that. Well, he can have it. But don't say anything to
+him about that lace you found in the dead man's hand--or at any rate not
+until you find out more about it. The glove he can have since it is
+pretty obvious that it belonged to Sir Horace. We'll spin Crewe a yarn
+that we are depending on it as a clue."
+
+Crewe arrived during the afternoon to inspect the house and the room in
+which the crime had been committed. There was every appearance of
+cordiality in the way in which he greeted the police officials.
+
+"Delighted to see you, Inspector," he said. "Who is working this case
+with you? Rolfe? Don't think we have met before, Rolfe, have we?"
+
+Rolfe politely murmured something about not having had the pleasure
+of meeting Mr. Crewe, but of always having wanted to meet him,
+because of his fame.
+
+"Very good of you," replied Crewe. "This is a very sad business. I
+understand there are some attractive points of mystery in the crime. I
+hope you haven't unravelled it yet before I have got a start. You fellows
+are so quick."
+
+"Slow and sure is our motto," said Inspector Chippenfield, feeling
+certain that a sneer and not a compliment had been intended. "There is
+nothing to be gained in arresting the wrong man."
+
+"That's a sound maxim for us all," said Crewe. "However, let's get to
+business. I rang up the Yard this morning and they told me you were
+in charge of the case and that I'd probably find you here. Can you
+let me have a look at the original of that letter which was sent to
+Scotland Yard informing you of the murder? There is a facsimile of it
+in the _Daily Recorder_ this morning, and from all appearances there
+are some interesting conclusions to be drawn from it. But the
+original is the thing."
+
+"Here you are," said the inspector, producing his pocket-book, taking out
+the paper, and handing it to Crewe. "What do you make of it?"
+
+Crewe sat down, and placing the paper before him took a magnifying glass
+from his pocket. As he sat there, in his grey tweed suit, his hat pushed
+carelessly back from his forehead, he might have been mistaken for a
+young man of wealth with no serious business in life, for his clothes
+were of fashionable cut, and he wore them with an air of distinction. But
+a glance at his face would have dispelled the impression. The clear-cut,
+clean-shaven features riveted attention by reason of their strength and
+intelligence, and though the dark eyes were rather too dreamy for the
+face, the heavy lines of the lower jaw indicated the man of action and
+force of character. The thick neck and heavily-lipped firm mouth
+suggested tireless energy and abounding vitality.
+
+"At least two people have had a hand in it," he said, after studying the
+paper for a few minutes.
+
+"In the murder?" asked the inspector, who was astonished at a deduction
+which harmonised with a theory which had begun to take shape in his mind.
+
+"In writing this," said Crewe, with his attention still fixed on the
+paper. "But of course you know that yourself."
+
+"Of course," assented the inspector, who was surprised at the
+information, but was too experienced an official to show his feelings.
+"And both hands disguised."
+
+"Disguised to the extent of being printed in written characters,"
+continued Crewe. "It is so seldom that a person writes printed characters
+that any method in which they are written suggests disguise. The original
+intention of the two persona who wrote this extraordinary note was for
+each to write a single letter in turn. That system was carried as far as
+'Sir Horace' or, perhaps, up to the 'B' in 'Fewbanks.' After that they
+became weary of changing places and one of them wrote alternate letters
+to the end, leaving blanks for the other to fill in. That much is to be
+gathered from the variations in the spaces between the letters--sometimes
+there was too much room for an intermediate letter, sometimes too little,
+so the letter had to be cramped. Here and there are dots made with the
+pen as the first of the two spelled out the words so as to know what
+letters to write and what to leave blank. Look at the differences in the
+letter 'U.' One of the writers makes it a firm downward and upward
+stroke; the other makes the letter fainter and adds another downward
+stroke, the letter being more like a small 'u' written larger than a
+capital letter. The differences in the two hands are so pronounced
+throughout the note that I am inclined to think that one of the writers
+was a woman."
+
+"Exactly what I thought," said Inspector Chippenfield, looking hard at
+Crewe so that the latter should not question his good faith.
+
+"Then there are sometimes slight differences in the alternate letters
+written by the same hand. Look at the 'T' in 'last' and the 'T' in
+'night'--the marked variation in the length and angle of the cross
+stroke. It is evident that the writers were labouring under serious
+excitement when they wrote this."
+
+Rolfe was so interested in Crewe's revelations that he stood beside the
+deductive expert and studied the paper afresh.
+
+"And now, about finger-prints?" asked Crews.
+
+"None," was the reply of the inspector, "We had it under the microscope
+at Scotland Yard."
+
+"None?" exclaimed Crewe, in surprise. "Why adopt such precautions as
+wearing gloves to write a note giving away this startling secret?"
+
+"Easy enough," replied Inspector Chippenfield. "The people who wrote the
+note either had little or nothing to do with the murder, but were afraid
+suspicion might be directed to them, or else they are the murderers and
+want to direct suspicion from themselves."
+
+"And now for the bullets," said Crewe, "I understand two shots
+were fired."
+
+"From two revolvers," said the inspector. "Here are both bullets. This
+one I picked out of the wall over there. You can see where I've broken
+away the plaster. This one--much the bigger one of the two--was the one
+that killed Sir Horace. The doctor handed it to me after the
+post-mortem."
+
+"Did Sir Horace keep a revolver?"
+
+"The butler says yes. But if he did it's gone."
+
+Crewe stood up and examined the hole in the wall where Inspector
+Chippenfield had dug out the smaller bullet.
+
+"Sir Horace made a bid for his life but missed. Of course, he had no time
+to take aim while there was a man on the other side of the room covering
+him, but in any case those fancy firearms cannot be depended upon to
+shoot straight."
+
+"You think Sir Horace fired at his murderer--fired first?" asked Rolfe.
+
+"This small bullet suggests one of those fancy silver-mounted weapons
+that are made to sell to wealthy people. Sir Horace was a bit of a
+sportsman, and knew something about game-shooting, but, I take it, he had
+no use for a revolver. I assume he kept one of those fancy weapons on
+hand thinking he would never have to use it, but that it would do to
+frighten a burglar if the occasion did arise."
+
+"And when he was held up in this room by a man with a revolver he made a
+dash for his own revolver and got in the first shot?" suggested Rolfe,
+with the idea of outlining Crewe's theory of how the crime was committed.
+
+"It is scarcely possible to reconstruct the crime to that extent," said
+Crewe with a smile. "But undoubtedly Sir Horace got in the first shot. If
+he fired after he was hit his bullet would have gone wild--would probably
+have struck the ceiling--whereas it landed there. Let us measure the
+height from the floor." He pulled a small spool out of a waistcoat pocket
+and drew out a tape measure. "A little high for the heart of an average
+man, and probably a foot wide of the mark."
+
+"And what do you make of the disappearance of Sir Horace's revolver?"
+asked Rolfe, who seemed to his superior officer to be in danger of
+displaying some admiration for deductive methods.
+
+"I'm no good at guess-work," replied Crewe, who felt that he had given
+enough information away.
+
+"Well," said Rolfe, "here is a glove which was found in the room. The
+other one is missing. It might be a clue."
+
+Crewe took the glove and examined it carefully. It was a left-hand glove
+made of reindeer-skin, and grey in colour. It bore evidence of having
+been in use, but it was still a smart-looking glove such as a man who
+took a pride in his appearance might wear.
+
+"Burglars wear gloves nowadays," said Crewe, "but not this kind. The
+india-rubber glove with only the thumb separate is best for their work.
+They give freedom of action for the fingers and leave no finger-prints.
+Have you made inquiries whether this is one of Sir Horace's gloves?"
+
+"Well, it is the same size as he wore--seven and a half," said Inspector
+Chippenfield. "The butler is the only servant here and he can't say for
+certain that it belonged to his master. I've been through Sir Horace's
+wardrobe and through the suit-case he brought from Scotland, but I can
+find no other pair exactly similar. Rolfe took it to Sir Horace's hosier,
+and he is practically certain that the glove is one of a pair he sold to
+Sir Horace."
+
+"That should be conclusive," said Crewe thoughtfully.
+
+"So I think," replied the inspector.
+
+"Well, I'll take it with me, if you don't mind," said Crewe. "You can
+have it back whenever you want it. Let me have the address of Sir
+Horace's hosier--I'll give him a call."
+
+"Take it by all means," said the inspector cordially, referring to the
+glove. And with a wink at Rolfe he added, "And when you are ready to fit
+it on the guilty hand I hope you will let us know."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Crewe made a careful inspection of the house and the grounds. He took
+measurements of the impressions left on the sill of the window which had
+been forced and also of the foot-prints immediately beneath the window.
+He had a long conversation with Hill and questioned him regarding his
+movements on the night of the murder. He also asked about the other
+servants who were at Dellmere, and probed for information about Sir
+Horace's domestic life and his friends. As he was talking to Hill,
+Police-Constable Flack came up to them with a card in his hand. Hill
+looked at the card and exclaimed:
+
+"Mr. Holymead? What does he want?"
+
+"He asked if Miss Fewbanks was at home."
+
+Hill took the card in to Miss Fewbanks, and on coming out went to the
+front door and escorted Mr. Holymead to his young mistress. Crewe, as was
+his habit, looked closely at Holymead. The eminent K.C. was a tall man,
+nearly six feet in height, with a large, resolute, strongly-marked face
+which, when framed in a wig, was suggestive of the dignity and severity
+of the law. In years he was about fifty, and in his figure there was a
+suggestion of that rotundity which overtakes the man who has given up
+physical exercise. He was correctly, if sombrely, dressed in dark
+clothes, and he wore a black tie--probably as a symbol of mourning for
+his friend. His gloves were a delicate grey.
+
+Crewe sought out Hill again and questioned him closely about the
+relations which had existed between Sir Horace Fewbanks and Mr. Holymead,
+whose enormous practice brought him in an income three times as large as
+the dead judge's, and kept him constantly before the public. Hill was
+able to supply the detective with some interesting information regarding
+the visitor, and, in contrast to his manner when previously questioned at
+random by Crewe, concerning his young mistress's habits, seemed willing,
+if not actually anxious, to talk. He had heard from Sir Horace's
+housekeeper that his late master and Mr. Holymead had been law students
+together, and after they were called to the Bar they used to spend their
+holidays together as long as they were single.
+
+When they were married their wives became friends. Mrs. Holymead had died
+fourteen years ago, but Mrs. Fewbanks--Sir Horace had not been a baronet
+while his wife was alive--had lived some years longer. Mr. Holymead had
+married again. His second wife was a very beautiful young lady, if he
+might make so bold as to say so, who had come from America. The butler
+added deprecatingly that he had been told that both Sir Horace and Mr.
+Holymead had paid her some attention, and that she could have had either
+of them. She was different to English ladies, he added. She had more to
+say for herself, and laughed and talked with the gentlemen just as if she
+was one of themselves. Hill mentioned that she had been out to see Miss
+Fewbanks the previous day, but that Miss Fewbanks had not come up from
+Dellmere then, so she had seen Inspector Chippenfield instead.
+
+While Crewe and the butler were talking a boy of about fourteen, with the
+shrewd face of a London arab, approached them with an air of mystery. He
+came down the hall with long cautious strides, and halted at each step as
+if he were stalking a band of Indians in a forest.
+
+"Well, Joe, what is it?" asked Crewe, as he came to a halt in
+front of them.
+
+"If you don't want me for half an hour, sir, I'd like to take a run up
+the street. There is a real good picture house just been opened." The boy
+spoke eagerly, with his bright eyes fixed on Crewe.
+
+"I may want you any minute, Joe," replied Crewe. "Don't go away."
+
+The boy nodded his head, and turned away. As he went down the hall again
+to the front door he gave an imitation of a man walking with extended
+arms across a plank spanning a chasm.
+
+"Picture mad," commented Crewe, as he watched him.
+
+"I didn't quite understand you, sir," replied the butler.
+
+"Spends all his spare time in cinemas," said Crewe, "and when he is not
+there he is acting picture dramas. His ambition in life is to be a
+cinema actor."
+
+Crewe engaged Police-Constable Flack in conversation while waiting for
+Mr. Holymead to take his departure. Flack had so little professional
+pride that he was pleased at meeting a gentleman who usurped the
+functions of a detective without having had any police training, and who
+could beat the best of the Scotland Yard men like shelling peas, as he
+confided to his wife that night. He was especially flattered at the
+interest Crewe seemed to display in his long connection with the police
+force, and also in his private affairs. The constable was explaining with
+parental vanity the precocious cleverness of his youngest child, a girl
+of two, when Holymead made his appearance, and he became aware that Mr.
+Crewe's interest in children was at an end.
+
+"Look at that man," said Crewe, in a sharp imperative tone to the
+police-constable, as the K.C. was walking down the path of the Italian
+garden to the plantation. "You saw him come in?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Do you see any difference?"
+
+"No, sir; he's the same man," said Flack, with stolid certainty.
+
+"Anything about him that is different?" continued Crewe.
+
+Police-Constable Flack looked at Crewe in some bewilderment. He was not
+a deductive expert, and, as he told his wife afterwards, he did not know
+what the detective was "driving at." He took another long look at
+Holymead, who was then within a few yards of the plantation on his way
+to the gates, and remarked, in a hesitating tone, as though to justify
+his failure:
+
+"Well, you see, sir, when he was coming in it was the front view I saw,
+now I can only see his back."
+
+But before he had finished speaking Crewe had left him and was following
+the K.C. Holymead had gone into the house without a walking-stick, and
+had reappeared carrying one on his arm. Crewe admired the cool audacity
+which had prompted Holymead to go into a house where a murder had been
+committed to recover his stick under the very eyes of the police, and he
+immediately formed the conclusion that the K.C. had come to the house to
+recover the stick for some urgent reason possibly not unconnected with
+the crime. And it was apparent that Holymead was a shrewd judge of human
+nature, Crewe reflected, for he calculated that the rareness of the
+quality of observation, even in those who, like Flack, were supposed to
+keep their eyes open, would permit him to do so unnoticed.
+
+As Crewe went down the path he beckoned to the boy Joe, who at the moment
+was acting the part of a comic dentist binding a recalcitrant patient to
+a chair, using an immense old-fashioned straight-backed chair which stood
+in the hall, for his stage setting. Joe overtook his master as he entered
+the ornamental plantation in front of the house, and Crewe quickly
+whispered his instructions, as the retreating figure of the K.C. threaded
+the wood towards the gates.
+
+"When I catch up level with him, Joe, you are to run into him
+accidentally from behind, and knock his stick off his arm, so that it
+falls near me. I will pick it up and return it to him. I must handle the
+stick--you understand? Do not wait to see how he takes it when you bump
+into him--get off round the corner at once and wait for me."
+
+Crewe quickened his pace to overtake the man in front of him. He gave no
+glance backward at the boy, for he knew his instructions would be carried
+out faithfully and intelligently. He allowed Holymead to reach the big
+open gates, and turn from the gravelled carriage drive into the private
+street. Then he hurried after him and drew level with Holymead. As he did
+so there was a sound of running footsteps from behind, and then a shout.
+Joe had cleverly tripped and fallen heavily between the two men, bringing
+down Holymead in his fall. The K.C.'s stick flew off his arm and bounded
+half a dozen yards away. Crewe stepped forward quickly, secured the
+stick, glanced quickly at the monogram engraved on it, and held it out to
+Holymead, who was brushing the dust off his clothes with vexatious
+remarks about the clumsiness and impudence of street boys. For a moment
+he seemed to hesitate about taking the stick.
+
+"I believe this is yours," said Crewe politely.
+
+"Ah--yes. Thank you," said the K.C., giving him a keen suspicious glance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Crewe had well-furnished offices in Holborn but lived in a luxurious flat
+in Jermyn Street. Although he went to and fro between them daily, his
+personality was almost a dual one, though not consciously so; his passion
+for crime investigation was distinct--in outward seeming, at all
+events--from his polished West End life of wealthy ease. Grave,
+self-contained, and inscrutable, he slipped from one to the other with an
+effortless regularity, and the fashionable folk with whom he mixed in his
+leisured bachelor existence in the West End, apart from knowing him as
+the famous Crewe, had even less knowledge of the real man behind his
+suave exterior than the clients who visited his inquiry rooms in Holborn
+to confide in him their stories of suffering, shame, or crimes committed
+against them. His commissionaire and body-servant, Stork, had once, in a
+rare--almost unique--convivial moment, declared to the caretaker of the
+building that he knew no more about his master after ten years than he
+did the first day he entered his service. He was deep beyond all belief,
+was Stork's opinion, delivered with reluctant admiration.
+
+Although Crewe did not allow the externals of his two existences to
+become involved, his chief interest in life was in his work. He had
+originally taken up detective work more as a relief from the boredom of
+his lot as a wealthy young man, leading an aimless, useless life with
+others of his class, than by deliberate choice of his vocation. His
+initial successes surprised him; then the work absorbed him and became
+his life's career. He had achieved some memorable successes and he had
+made a few failures, but the failures belonged to the earlier portion of
+his career, before he had learnt to trust thoroughly in his own great
+gifts of intuition and insight, and that uncanny imagination which
+sometimes carried him successfully through when all else failed.
+
+Serious devotees of chess knew the name of Crewe in another capacity--as
+the name of a man who might have aspired to great deeds if he had but
+taken the game as his life's career. He had flashed across the chess
+horizon some years previously as a player of surpassing brilliance by
+defeating Turgieff, when the great Russian master had visited London and
+had played twelve simultaneous boards at the London Chess Club. Crewe was
+the only player of the twelve to win his game, and he did so by a
+masterly concealed ending in which he handled his pawns with consummate
+skill, proffering the sacrifice of a bishop with such art that Turgieff
+fell into the trap, and was mated in five subsequent moves. Crewe proved
+this was not merely a lucky win by defeating the young South American
+champion, Caranda, shortly afterwards, when the latter visited England
+and played a series of exhibition games in London on his way to Moscow,
+where he was engaged in the championship tourney. Once again it was
+masterly pawn play which brought Crewe a fine victory, and aged chess
+enthusiasts who followed every move of the game with trembling
+excitement, declared afterwards that Crewe's conception of this
+particular game had not been equalled since Morphy died.
+
+They predicted a dazzling chess career for Crewe, but he disappointed
+their aged hearts by retiring suddenly from match chess, and they mourned
+him as one unworthy of his great chess gifts and the high hopes they had
+placed in him. But, as a matter of fact, Crewe's intellect was too
+vigorous and active to be satisfied with the triumphs of chess, and his
+disappearance from the chess world was contemporary with his entrance
+into detective work, which appealed to his imagination and found scope
+for his restless mental activity. But if detective work so absorbed him
+that he gave up match chess entirely, he still retained an interest in
+the science of chess, reserving problem play for his spare moments, and,
+when not immersed in the solution of a problem of human mystery, he would
+turn to the chessboard and seek solace and relaxation in the mysteries of
+an intricate "four-mover."
+
+He had once said that there was a certain affinity between solving chess
+problems and the detection of crime mystery: once the key-move was found,
+the rest was comparatively easy. But he added with a sigh that a really
+perfect crime mystery was as rare as a perfect chess problem: human
+ingenuity was not sufficiently skilful, as a rule, to commit a crime or
+construct a chess problem with completely artistic concealment of the
+key-move, and for that reason most problems and crimes were far too easy
+of detection to absorb one's intellectual interests and attention.
+
+It was the morning after Crewe's visit to Riversbrook, and the detective
+sat in his private office glancing through a note-book which contained a
+summary of the Hampstead mystery. Crewe was a painstaking detective as
+well as a brilliant one, and it was his custom to prepare several
+critical summaries of any important case on which he was engaged, writing
+and rewriting the facts and his comments, until he was satisfied that he
+had a perfect outline to work upon, with the details and clues of the
+crime in consecutive order and relation to one another. Experience had
+taught him that the time and labour this task involved were well-spent.
+If an unexpected development of the case altered the facts of the
+original summary Crewe prepared another one in the same painstaking way.
+The summaries, when done with, were methodically filed and indexed and
+stored in a strong room at the office for future reference, where he also
+kept full records of all the cases upon which he had been engaged,
+together with the weapons and articles that had figured in them: huge
+volumes of newspaper reports and clippings; photographs of criminals with
+their careers appended; and a host of other odds and ends of his
+detective investigations--the whole forming an interesting museum of
+crime and mystery which would have furnished a store of rich material
+for a fresh Newgate Calendar. It was an axiom of Crewe's that a detective
+never knew when some old scrap of information or some trifling article of
+some dead and forgotten crime might not afford a valuable clue. Expert
+criminals frequently repeated themselves, like people in lesser walks of
+life, and Crewe's "library and museum," as he called it, had sometimes
+furnished him with a simple hint for the solution of a mystery which had
+defied more subtle methods of analysis.
+
+Crewe, after carefully reading his summary of the murder of Sir Horace
+Fewbanks, and making a few alterations in the text, drew from his pocket
+the glove which Inspector Chippenfield had handed him as a clue, took it
+to the window, and carefully examined it through a large magnifying
+glass. He was thus engrossed when the door was noiselessly opened, and
+Stork, the bodyguard, entered. Stork belied his name. He was short and
+fat, with a red mottled face; a model of discretion and imperturbability,
+who had served Crewe for ten years, and bade fair to serve him another
+ten, if he lived that long. In his heart of hearts he often wondered why
+a gentleman like Crewe should so far forget what was due to his birth and
+position as to have offices in Holborn--Holborn, of all parts of London!
+But the awe he felt for Crewe prevented his seeking information on the
+point from the only person who could give it to him, so he served him and
+puzzled over him in silence, his inward perturbation of spirits being
+made manifest occasionally by a puzzled glance at his master when the
+latter was not looking. It was nothing to Stork that his master was a
+famous detective; the problem to him was _why_ he was a detective when he
+had no call to be one, having more money than any man--and let alone a
+single man--could spend in a lifetime.
+
+Stork coughed slightly to attract Crewe's attention.
+
+"If you please, sir," he said, "the boy has come."
+
+While Crewe was busy with his magnifying glass Stork returned with the
+boy who had accompanied Crewe on his visit to Riversbrook on the
+previous day.
+
+The boy, a thin white-faced, sharp-eyed London street urchin, seemed
+curiously out of place in the handsomely furnished office, with his legs
+tucked up under the carved rail of a fine old oak chair, and his big
+dark eyes fixed intently on Crewe's face. The tie between him and the
+detective was an unusual one. It dated back some twelve months, when
+Crewe, in the investigation of a peculiarly baffling crime, found it
+advisable to disguise himself and live temporarily in a crowded criminal
+quarter of Islington. The rooms he took were above a secondhand clothing
+shop kept by a drunken female named Leaver; a supposed widow who lived
+at the back of the shop with her two children, Lizzie, a bold-eyed girl
+of 17, who worked at a Clerkenwell clothing factory, and Joe, a typical
+Cockney boy of fourteen, who sold papers in the streets during the day
+and was fast qualifying for a thief at night when Crewe went to the
+place to live.
+
+Crewe soon discovered, through overhearing a loud quarrel between his
+landlady and her daughter, that Mrs. Leaver's husband was alive, though
+dead to his wife for all practical purposes, inasmuch as he was serving a
+life's imprisonment for manslaughter. A fortnight after he had taken up
+his temporary quarters above the shop the woman was removed to the
+hospital suffering from the effects of a hard drinking bout, and died
+there. The girl disappeared, and the boy would have been turned out on
+the streets but for Crewe, who had taken a liking to him. Joe was
+self-reliant, alert, and precocious, like most London street boys, but in
+addition to these qualities he had a vein of imagination unusual in a lad
+of his upbringing and environment. He devoured the exciting feuilleton
+stories in the evening papers he vended, and spent his spare pennies at
+the cinema theatres in the vicinity of his poor home. His appreciation of
+the crude mysteries of the filmed detective drama amused the famous
+expert in the finer art of actual crime detection, until he discovered
+that the boy possessed natural gifts of intuition and observation,
+combined with penetration. Crewe grew interested in developing the boy's
+talent for detective work. When the lad's mother died Crewe decided to
+take him into his Holborn offices as messenger-boy. Crewe soon discovered
+that Joe had a useful gift for "shadowing" work, and his street training
+as a newspaper runner enabled him not only to follow a person through the
+thickest of London traffic, but to escape observation where a man might
+have been noticed and suspected.
+
+"Well, Joe," said Crewe, as the boy entered on the heels of Stork, "I
+have a job for you this morning. I want you to find the glove
+corresponding to this one."
+
+Crewe, having finished his examination of the glove, handed it to the
+boy, whose first act was to slip it on his left hand and move his fingers
+about to assure himself that they were in good working order in spite of
+being hidden. It was the first occasion on which Joe had worn a glove.
+
+"It was found in the room in which Sir Horace Fewbanks was murdered,"
+continued Crewe. "The other one was not there. The question I want to
+solve is, did it belong to Sir Horace, or to some one who visited him on
+the night he was murdered? The police think it belonged to Sir Horace
+because it is the same size as the gloves he wore, and because Sir
+Horace's hosier stocks the same kind--as does nearly every fashionable
+hosier in London. They think he lost the right-hand glove on his way up
+from Scotland. It will occur to you, Joe, though you don't wear gloves,
+that it is more common for men to lose the right-hand glove than the
+left-hand, because the right hand is used a great deal more than the
+left, and even men who would not be seen in the street without gloves
+find there are many things they cannot do with a gloved hand. For
+instance, to dive one's hand into one's trouser pocket where most men
+keep their loose change the glove has to be removed."
+
+"Then the gentleman would take off his right glove when he paid for his
+taxi-cab from St. Pancras," said Joe, who was familiar through the
+accounts in the newspapers with the main details of the Fewbanks mystery.
+
+"Right, Joe," said his master approvingly. "And in that case he dropped
+the glove between the taxi-cab outside his front gates and his room, and
+it would have been found. I have made inquiries and I am satisfied it was
+not found."
+
+"He might have lost it when he was getting into the train at Scotland,"
+suggested the lad. "He had to change trains at Glasgow--he might have
+lost it there."
+
+"That is a rule-of-thumb deduction," said Crewe, with a kindly smile. "It
+is good enough for the police, for they have apparently adopted it, but
+it is not good enough for me. What you don't understand, Joe, is that an
+odd glove is of no value in the eyes of a man who wears gloves. He
+doesn't take it home as a memento of his carelessness in losing the
+other. He throws it away. Therefore if this is Sir Horace's glove he took
+it home because he was unaware that he had lost the other. He would put
+on his gloves before leaving the train at St. Pancras. And he would pull
+off the right-hand one--he was not left-handed--when the taxi-cab was
+nearing his home so as to be able to pay the fare. Therefore, if it is
+Sir Horace's glove the fellow to it was dropped in the taxi-cab, or
+dropped between the taxi-cab and the house. If the glove had been lost at
+the other end of the journey in Scotland Sir Horace would have flung this
+one out of the carriage window when he became aware of the loss. As I
+have told you no glove was found between the gate at Riversbrook and the
+room in which Sir Horace was murdered. I got from the police the number
+of the taxi-cab in which Sir Horace was driven from St. Pancras, and the
+driver tells me that no glove was left in his cab. So what have we to do
+next, Joe?"
+
+"To find the missing glove? It's a tough job, ain't it, sir?"
+
+"Yes and no," replied Crewe. "It is possible to make some reasonable
+safe deductions in regard to it. These would indicate what had happened
+to it, and knowing where to look, or, rather, in what circumstances we
+might expect to find it, we might throw a little light on it. In the
+first place, it might be assumed that if the glove did not belong to Sir
+Horace it belonged to some one who visited him on the night he returned
+unexpectedly from Scotland. That indicates that his visitor knew Sir
+Horace was returning; a most important point, for if he knew Sir Horace
+was returning he knew why he was returning--which no one else knows up to
+the present as far as I have been able to gather--and in all probability
+was responsible for his return, say, sent him a letter or a telegram
+which brought him to London. So we come to the possibility of an angry
+scene in the room in which Sir Horace's dead body was subsequently found.
+We have the possibility of the visitor leaving the house in a high state
+of excitement, hastily snatching up the hat and gloves he had taken off
+when he arrived, and in his excitement dropping unnoticed the right-hand
+glove on the floor."
+
+"And leaving his gold-mounted stick behind him," said Joe, who was
+following his master's line of reasoning with keen interest.
+
+"Right, Joe," said Crewe. "That was placed in the stand in the hall, and
+when the visitor left hurriedly was entirely forgotten. But at what stage
+did the visitor become conscious of the loss of his glove? Not until his
+excitement cooled down a little. How long he took to cool down depends
+upon the cause of his excitement and his temperament, things which, at
+present, we can only guess at. He would probably walk a long distance
+before he cooled down. Then he would resume his normal habits and among
+other things would put on his gloves--if he had them. He would find that
+he had lost one and that he had left his stick behind. He would know that
+the stick had been left behind in the hall, but he would not know the
+glove had been dropped in the house. The probabilities are that he would
+think he had dropped it while walking. But if he felt that he had dropped
+it in the house, and he had the best of all reasons for not wishing
+anyone to know that he had visited Sir Horace that night, he would
+destroy the remaining glove and our chance of tracing it would be gone.
+The fact that he had left his stick behind was a minor matter that he
+could easily account for if he had been a friend of Sir Horace who had
+been in the habit of visiting Riversbrook. If anything cropped up
+subsequently about the stick he could say that he had left it there
+before Sir Horace closed up his house and went to Scotland.
+
+"But the problem of the glove is a different matter, Joe. There are three
+phases to it: first, if the visitor thought he had dropped it in the
+house and wanted to keep his visit there a profound secret from
+subsequent inquiry he would take home the remaining glove and destroy
+it--probably by burning it. Secondly, if he thought he had dropped it
+after leaving the house he would not feel that safety necessitated the
+destruction of the remaining one, but he would probably throw it away
+where it would not be likely to be found. In the third place, if he had
+no particular reason for wishing to hide the fact that he had visited
+Riversbrook he would throw it away anywhere when he became conscious that
+he had lost the other. He would throw it away merely because an odd glove
+is of no use to a man who wears gloves. The man who doesn't wear gloves
+would pick up an odd glove from the ground and think he had made a find.
+He would take it home to his wife and she would probably keep it for
+finger-stalls for the children."
+
+Crewe put down his notes and got up from his chair. "Your job is this,
+Joe. Go to Riversbrook and make a careful search on both sides of the
+road for the missing glove. I do not think he threw it away--if he did
+throw it away--until he had walked some distance, but you mustn't act on
+that assumption. Look over the fences of the houses and into the hedges.
+Walk along in the direction of Hampstead Underground. Search the gutters
+and all the trees and hedges along the road. Take one side of the street
+to the Underground station and if you do not find the glove go back to
+Riversbrook along the other side. Make a thorough job of it, as it is
+most important that the glove should be found--if it is to be found."
+
+After Joe had departed Crewe put on his hat and left his office for the
+Strand. His first call was at the shop of Bruden and Marshall, hosiers,
+in order to find out if any information was to be obtained there about
+the ownership of the glove. He was aware that the police had been there
+on the same mission, but his experience had often shown that valuable
+information was to be gathered after the police had been over the ground.
+
+On introducing himself to the manager of the shop that gentleman
+displayed as much humble civility as he would have done towards a valued
+customer. He could not say anything about the ownership of the glove
+which Crewe had brought, and he could not even say if it had come from
+their shop. It was an excellent glove, the line being known in the trade
+as "first-choice reindeer." They stocked that particular kind of article
+at 10/6 the pair. They had the pleasure of having had the late Sir Horace
+Fewbanks on their books. He was quite an old account, if he might use the
+expression. He was one of their best customers, being a gentleman who was
+particular about his appearance and who would have nothing but the best
+in any line that he fancied. On the subject of Sir Horace's taste in hose
+the manager had much to say, and, in spite of Crewe's efforts to confine
+the conversation to gloves, the manager repeatedly dragged in socks. He
+did it so frequently that he became conscious his visitor was showing
+signs of annoyance, so he apologised, adding, with an inspiration, "After
+all, hose is really gloves for the feet."
+
+Crewe ascertained that a large number of legal gentlemen were
+customers of Bruden and Marshall. He innocently suggested that the
+reason was because the shop was the nearest one of its kind to the Law
+Courts, but this explanation offended the shopman's pride. It was
+because they stocked high-class goods and gave good value in every way,
+combined with attention and civility and a desire to please, that they
+did such an excellent business with legal gentlemen. In refutation of
+the idea that proximity to the Courts was the direct reason of their
+having so many legal gentlemen among their customers the manager
+declared that they received orders from all parts of the world--India,
+Canada, Australia, and South Africa, to say nothing of American
+gentlemen who liked their hosiery to have the London hall-mark. Their
+orders from the Colonies came from gentlemen who found that these
+things in the Colonies were not what they had been used to, and so they
+sent their orders to Bruden and Marshall.
+
+Crewe's interest was in the legal customers and he asked for the names of
+some. The manager ran through a list of names of judges, barristers and
+solicitors, but the name Crewe wanted to hear was not among them. He was
+compelled to include the name among half a dozen others he mentioned to
+the manager. He ascertained that Mr. Charles Holymead was a customer of
+the firm, but it was apparent from the manager's spiritless attitude
+towards Mr. Holymead that the famous K.C. was not a man who ran up a big
+bill with his hosier, or was very particular about what he wore. The
+world regarded some of the men of this type famous or distinguished, but
+in the hosier's mind they were all classed as commonplace. But the
+manager would not go so far as to say that Mr. Holymead would not buy
+such a glove as that which Crewe had brought in. He might and he might
+not, but, as a general rule, he did not pay more than 8/6 for his gloves.
+
+Crewe took a taxi to Princes Gate in order to have a look at the house
+in which Holymead lived. It occurred to him that if Holymead was not
+particular about what he spent on his clothes he was extravagant about
+the amount he spent in house rent. Of course, a leading barrister
+earning a huge income could afford to live in a palatial residence in
+Princes Gate, but it was not the locality or residence that an
+economically-minded man would have chosen for his home. But Crewe had
+little doubt that the beautiful wife Holymead possessed was responsible
+for the choice of house and locality.
+
+After looking at the house Crewe walked back to the cab-stand at Hyde
+Park Corner. He had arrived at the conclusion that it was necessary to
+settle beyond doubt whether the K.C. had visited Riversbrook the night Sir
+Horace had returned from Scotland. If the K.C. had done so, he was
+anxious to keep the visit secret, for not only had he not informed the
+police of his visit but he had kept it from Miss Fewbanks. Crewe had
+ascertained from Miss Fewbanks that Mr. Holymead when he had called at
+Riversbrook on a visit of condolence had not mentioned to her anything
+about having left his stick in the hall stand on a previous visit. On
+leaving Miss Fewbanks Mr. Holymead had gone up to the hall stand and
+taken both his hat and stick as if he had left them both there a few
+minutes before.
+
+Crewe reasoned that if Holymead had gone out to see Sir Horace Fewbanks
+at Riversbrook and had desired to keep his visit a secret he would not
+have taken a cab at Hyde Park Corner to Hampstead, but would have
+travelled by underground railway or omnibus. In all probability the Tube
+had been used because of its speed being more in harmony with the
+feelings of a man impatient to get done with a subject so important that
+Sir Horace had been recalled from Scotland to deal with it. He would
+leave the Tube at Hampstead and take a taxi-cab. He would not be likely
+to go straight to Riversbrook in the taxi-cab, if he were anxious that
+his movements should not be traced subsequently. He would dismiss the
+taxi-cab at one of the hotels bordering on Hampstead Heath, for they
+were the resort of hundreds of visitors on summer nights, and his actions
+would thus easily escape notice. From the hotel he would walk across to
+Riversbrook. But the return journey would be made in a somewhat different
+way. If Holymead left Riversbrook in a state of excitement he would walk
+a long way without being conscious of the exertion. He would want to be
+alone with his own thoughts. Gradually he would cool down, and becoming
+conscious of his surroundings would make his way home. Again he would use
+the Tube, for it would be more difficult for his movements to be traced
+if he mixed with a crowd of travellers than if he took a cab to his home.
+It was impossible to say what station he got in at, for that would depend
+on how far he walked before he cooled down, but he would be sure to get
+out at Hyde Park Corner because that was the station nearest to his
+house. Allowing for a temperamental reaction during a train journey of
+about twenty minutes, he would feel depressed and weary and would
+probably take a taxi-cab outside Hyde Park station to his home. That was
+a thing he would often be in the habit of doing when returning late at
+night from the theatre or elsewhere, and therefore could be easily
+explained by him if the police happened to make inquiries as to his
+movements.
+
+As Crewe anticipated, he had no difficulty in finding the driver of the
+taxi-cab in which Holymead had driven home on the night of Wednesday
+last. The K.C. frequently used cabs, and he was well-known to all the
+drivers on the rank. Crewe got into the cab he had used and ordered the
+man to drive him to his office, and there invited him upstairs. He
+adopted this course because he knew that the driver, who gave his name as
+Taylor, would be more likely to talk freely in an office where he could
+not be overheard than he would do on the cab-rank with his fellow-drivers
+crowding him, or in an hotel parlour where other people were present.
+
+"Tell me exactly what happened when you drove Mr. Holymead home on
+Wednesday night," said Crewe. "Did you notice anything strange about
+him, or was his manner much the same as on other occasions that he used
+your cab?"
+
+"Well, I don't see whether I should tell you whether he was or whether he
+wasn't," replied the taxi-cab driver, who was as surly as most of his
+class. "What's it to do with you, anyway? He's a regular customer of mine
+on the rank, and he's not one of your tuppenny tipsters, either. He's a
+gentleman. And if he got to know that I had been telling tales about him
+it would not do me any good."
+
+"It would not," replied Crewe, with cordial acquiescence. "Therefore,
+Taylor, I give you my word of honour not to mention anything you tell me.
+Furthermore, I'll see that you don't lose by it now or at any other time.
+I cannot say more than that, but that's a great deal more than the police
+would say. Now, would you sooner tell me or tell the police? Here's a
+sovereign to start with, and if you have an interesting story to tell
+you'll have another one before you leave."
+
+The appeal of money and the conviction that the police would use less
+considerate methods if Crewe passed him over to them abolished Taylor's
+scruples about discussing a fare, and it was in a much less surly tone
+that he responded:
+
+"I didn't notice anything strange about him when he called me off the
+rank, but I did afterwards. First of all, I didn't drive him home. That
+is, I did drive him home, but he didn't go inside. When I drew up outside
+his house in Princes Gate, I looked around expecting to see him get out.
+As he didn't move I got down and opened the door. 'Aren't you getting out
+here, sir?' I said, in a soft voice. 'No,' he said. 'Drive on.' 'This is
+your house, sir,' I ventured to say. 'I'm not going in,' he replied,
+'drive on.' I was surprised. I thought he was the worse for drink, and
+I'd never seen him that way before. But some gentlemen are so obstinate
+in liquor that you can't get them to do anything except the opposite of
+what you ask them. I thought I'd try and coax him. 'Better go inside,
+sir,' I said. 'You'll be better off in bed.' 'Do you think I am drunk?'
+he said sharply. You could have knocked me down with a feather. He was as
+sober as a judge, all in a moment. 'No, sir, I didn't,' I said. 'I
+wouldn't take the liberty,' I said. 'Then get back on your seat and drive
+me to the Hyde Park Hotel--no, I think I'll go to Verney's. But don't go
+there direct. Drive me round the Park first. I feel I want a breath of
+cool air.'"
+
+"Go on," said Crewe, in a tone which indicated approval of Taylor's
+method of telling his story.
+
+"Well, I turned the cab round and drove through the Park. But I was
+puzzled about him and looked back at him once or twice pretending that I
+was looking to see if a cab or car was coming up behind. And as we passed
+over the Serpentine Bridge I saw him throw something out of the window."
+
+"A glove?" suggested Crewe quickly.
+
+The driver looked at him in profound admiration.
+
+"Well, if you don't beat all the detectives I've ever heard of."
+
+"He tried to throw it in the water," continued Crewe, as if explaining
+the matter to himself rather than to his visitor. "Did you get it?"
+
+"Hold on a bit," said Taylor, who had his own ideas of how to give value
+for the extra sovereign he hoped to obtain. "I couldn't see what it was
+he had thrown away, and, of course, I couldn't pull up to find out. I
+drove on, but I kept my eye on him, though I had my back to him. As we
+were driving back along the Broad Walk I had another look at him, and
+bless me if he wasn't crying--crying like a child. He had his hands up to
+his face and his head was shaking as if he was sobbing. I said to myself,
+'He's barmy--he's gone off his rocker.' I thought to myself I ought to
+drive him to the police station, but I reckoned it was none of my
+business, after all, so I'll take him to Verney's and be done with it.
+So I drove to Verney's. He got out, and paid me, but I couldn't see that
+he had been crying, and he looked much as usual, so far as I could see. I
+thought to myself that perhaps, after all, he'd only had a queer turn;
+however, I said to myself I'd drive back to the bridge and see what he'd
+thrown out of the window. It _was_ a glove, sure enough. It had fallen
+just below the railing. I looked about for the other one, but I couldn't
+find it, so I suppose it must have fallen into the water."
+
+"No, it didn't," said Crewe. "I have it here." He opened a drawer in his
+desk and produced a glove. "It was a right-hand glove you found. Just
+look at this one and see if it corresponds to the one you picked up."
+
+Taylor looked at the glove.
+
+"They're as like as two peas," he said.
+
+"What did you do with the one you found?" inquired Crewe. "I hope you
+didn't throw it away?"
+
+"I'm not a fool," retorted Taylor. "I've had odd gloves left in my cab
+before. I kept this one thinking that sooner or later somebody might
+leave another like it, and then I'd have a pair for nothing."
+
+"Well, I'll buy it from you," said Crewe. "Have you anything more
+to tell me?"
+
+"I went back to the rank and one of the chaps was curious that I'd been
+so long away, for he knew that Mr. Holymead's place isn't more than ten
+minutes' drive from the station. But he got nothing out of me. I know how
+to keep my mouth shut. You're the first man I've told what happened, and
+I hope you won't give me away."
+
+"I've already promised you that," said Crewe, flipping another sovereign
+from his sovereign case and handing it to Taylor, "and I'll give you five
+shillings for the glove."
+
+Taylor looked at him darkly.
+
+"Five shillings isn't much for a glove like that," he said insolently.
+"What about my loss of time going home for it? I suppose you'll pay the
+taxi-fare for the run down from Hyde Park?"
+
+"No, I won't," said Crewe cheerfully.
+
+"Then I don't see why I should bring it for a paltry five shillings,"
+said Taylor. "If you want the glove you'll have to pay for it."
+
+"But I don't want the glove," said Crewe, who disliked being made the
+victim of extortion. "What made you think so? I'll sell you this one for
+five shillings. We may as well do a deal of some kind; it is no use each
+of us having one glove. What do you say, Taylor? Will you buy mine for
+five shillings, or shall I buy yours?"
+
+Taylor smiled sourly.
+
+"You're a deep one," he said. "Here's the other glove." He dipped his
+hand into the deep pocket of his driving coat and produced a glove. "I
+suppose you knew I'd have it on me. Five shillings, and it's yours."
+
+"The pair are worth about five shillings to me," said Crewe as he paid
+over the money. "Do you remember what time it was when Mr. Holymead
+engaged you at Hyde Park?"
+
+"Eleven o'clock."
+
+"You are quite sure as to the time?"
+
+"I heard one of the big clocks striking as he was getting into my cab."
+
+Taylor took his departure, and Crewe, after wrapping up the left-hand
+glove which he had to return to Inspector Chippenfield, put the other one
+in his safe.
+
+"We are getting on," he said in a pleased tone. "This means a trip to
+Scotland, but I'll wait until the inquest is over."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+At the inquest on the body of Sir Horace Fewbanks, which was held at
+the Hampstead Police Court, there was an odd mixture of classes in the
+crowd that thronged that portion of the court in which the public were
+allowed to congregate. The accounts of the crime which had been
+published in the press, and the atmosphere of mystery which enshrouded
+the violent death of one of the most prominent of His Majesty's judges,
+had stirred the public curiosity, and therefore, in spite of the fact
+that every one was supposed to be out of town in August, the attendance
+at the court included a sprinkling of ladies of the fashionable world,
+and their escorts.
+
+Both branches of the legal profession were numerously represented. All of
+the victim's judicial colleagues were out of town, and though some of
+them intended as a mark of respect for the dead man to come up for the
+funeral, which was to take place two days later, they were too familiar
+with legal procedure to feel curiosity as to the working of the machinery
+at a preliminary inquiry into the crime. They were emphatic among their
+friends on the degeneracy of these days which rendered possible such an
+outrageous crime as the murder of a High Court judge. The fact that it
+was without precedent in the history of British law added to its enormity
+in the eyes of gentlemen who had been trained to worship precedent as the
+only safe guide through the shifting quicksands of life. They were
+insistent on the urgency of the murderer being arrested and handed over
+to Justice in the person of the hangman, for--as each asked
+himself--where was this sort of crime to end? In spite of the degeneracy
+of the times they were reluctant to believe in such a far-fetched
+supposition as the existence of a band of criminals who, in revenge for
+the judicial sentences imposed on members of their class, had sworn to
+exterminate the whole of His Majesty's judges; but, until the murderer
+was apprehended and the reason for the crime was discovered, it was
+impossible to say that the English judicature would not soon be called
+upon to supply other victims to criminal violence. The murder of a judge
+seemed to them a particularly atrocious crime, in the punishment of which
+the law might honourably sacrifice temporarily its well-earned reputation
+for delay.
+
+The bar was represented chiefly by junior members. The senior members
+were able to make full use of the long vacation, spending it at health
+resorts or in the country, but the incomes of the young shoots of the
+great parasitical profession did not permit them to enjoy more than a
+brief holiday out of town. Of course it would never have done for them
+to admit even to each other that they could not afford to go away for an
+extended holiday, and therefore they told one another in bored tones
+that they had not been able to make up their minds where to go. The
+junior bar included old men, who, through lack of influence, want of
+energy, want of advertisement, want of ability, or some other
+deficiency, had never earned more than a few guineas at their
+profession, though they had spent year after year in chambers. They
+lived on scanty private means. Broken in spirit they had even ceased to
+attend the courts in order to study the methods and learn the tricks of
+successful counsel. But the murder of a High Court judge was a thing
+which stirred even their sluggish blood, and in the hope of some
+sensational development they had put on faded silk hats and shabby black
+suits and gone out to Hampstead to attend the inquest.
+
+The interest of the junior bar in the crime was as personal as that of
+the members of the Judicial Bench, though it manifested itself in an
+entirely different direction. They speculated among themselves as to who
+would be appointed to the vacancy on the High Court Bench. A leading K.C.
+with a political pull would of course be selected by the
+Attorney-General, but there were several K.C.'s who possessed these
+qualifications, and therefore there was room for differences of opinion
+among the junior bar as to who would get the offer. The point on which
+they were all united was that vacancies of the High Court Bench were a
+good thing for the bar as a whole, for they removed leading K.C.'s, and
+the dispersion of their practice was like rain on parched ground.
+Metaphorically speaking, every one--including even the junior bar--had
+the chance of getting a shove up when a leading K.C. accepted a judicial
+appointment. Some of the more irreverent spirits among the junior bar, in
+drawing attention to the fact that Sir Horace Fewbanks had been one of
+the youngest members of the High Court Bench, expressed the hope that the
+shock of his death would be felt by some of the extremely aged members of
+the bench who were too infirm in health to be able to stand many shocks.
+
+The members of the junior bar chatted with the representatives of the
+lower branch of the profession who ranged from articled clerks whose
+young souls had not been entirely dried up by association with parchment,
+to hard old delvers in dusty documents who had lived so long in the legal
+atmosphere of quibbling, obstruction, and deceit, that they were as
+incapable of an honest impetuous act as of an illegal one. The gossip
+concerning the murdered judge in which the two branches of the profession
+joined had reference to his moral character in legal circles. There had
+always been gossip of the kind in his life-time. Sir Horace's judicial
+reputation was beyond reproach and he had known his law a great deal
+better than most of his judicial colleagues. Comparatively few of his
+decisions had been upset on appeal. But every one about the courts knew
+that he was susceptible to a pretty feminine face and a good figure.
+
+Many were the conflicts that arose in court between bench and bar as the
+result of Mr. Justice Fewbanks's habit of protecting pretty witnesses
+from cross-examining questions which he regarded as outside the case.
+There was no suggestion that his judicial decisions were influenced by
+the good looks of ladies who were parties to the cases heard by him, but
+there were rumours that on occasions the relations between the judge and
+a pretty witness begun in court had ripened into something at which moral
+men might well shake their heads.
+
+While the members of the legal profession struggled to obtain seats in
+the body of the court, an entirely different class of spectators
+struggled to get into the gallery. For the most part they were badly
+dressed men who needed a shave, but there were a few well-dressed men
+among them, and also a few ladies. Detective Rolfe took a professional
+interest in the occupants of the gallery. "What a collection of crooks,"
+he whispered to Inspector Chippenfield. "A regular rogues' gallery.
+Look--there is 'Nosey George'; it is time he was in again. And behind him
+is that cunning old 'drop' Ikey Samuels--I wish we could get him. Look at
+the other end of the first row. Isn't that 'Sunny Jim'? I hardly knew
+him. He's grown a beard since he's been out. We'll soon have it off again
+for him. He's got the impudence to scowl at us. He'll lay for you one of
+these nights, Inspector."
+
+The judicial duties of the murdered man had been concerned chiefly with
+civil cases at the Royal Courts of Justice, but when the criminal
+calendar had been heavy he had often presided at Number One Court at the
+Old Bailey. It was this fact which had given the criminal class a sort of
+personal interest in his murder and accounted for the presence of many
+well-known criminals who happened to be out of gaol at the time. The
+spectators in the gallery included men whom the murdered man had
+sentenced and men who had been fortunate enough to escape being sentenced
+by him owing to the vagaries of juries. There were pickpockets, sneak
+thieves, confidence men, burglars, and receivers among the occupants of
+the gallery, and many of them had brought with them the ladies who
+assisted them professionally or presided over their homes when they were
+not in gaol.
+
+"I wouldn't be surprised if the man we want is among that bunch," said
+Rolfe to Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+"You've a lot to learn about them, my boy," said his superior.
+
+"There is Crewe up among them," continued Rolfe. "I wonder what he thinks
+he's after."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield gave a glance in the direction of Crewe, but did
+not deign to give any sign of recognition. The fact that Crewe by his
+presence in the gallery seemed to entertain the idea that the murderer
+might be found among the occupants of that part of the court could not be
+as lightly dismissed as Rolfe's vague suggestion. It annoyed Inspector
+Chippenfield to think that Crewe might be nearer at the moment to the
+murderer than he himself was, even though that proximity was merely
+physical and unsupported by evidence or even by any theory. It would have
+been a great relief to him if he had known that Crewe's object in going
+to the gallery was not to mix with the criminal classes, but in order to
+keep a careful survey of what took place in the body of the court without
+making himself too prominent.
+
+Mr. Holymead, K.C., arrived, and members of the junior bar deferentially
+made room for him. He shook hands with some of these gentlemen and also
+with Inspector Chippenfield, much to the gratification of that officer.
+Miss Fewbanks arrived in a taxi-cab a few minutes before the appointed
+hour of eleven. She was accompanied by Mrs. Holymead, and they were shown
+into a private room by Police-Constable Flack, who had received
+instructions from Inspector Chippenfield to be on the lookout for the
+murdered man's daughter.
+
+Miss Fewbanks and Mrs. Holymead had been almost inseparable since the
+tragedy had been discovered. Immediately on the arrival of Miss Fewbanks
+from Dellmere, Mrs. Holymead had gone out to Riversbrook to condole with
+her, and to support her in her great sorrow. But the murdered man's
+daughter, who, on account of having lived apart from her father, had
+developed a self-reliant spirit, seemed to be less overcome by the
+horror of the tragedy than Mrs. Holymead was. It was with a feeling that
+there was something lacking in her own nature, that the girl realised
+that Mrs. Holymead's grief for the violent death of a man who had been
+her husband's dearest friend was greater than her own grief at the loss
+of a father.
+
+One of the directions in which Mrs. Holymead's grief found expression was
+in a feverish desire to know all that was being done to discover the
+murderer. She displayed continuous interest in the investigations of the
+detectives engaged on the case, and she had implored Miss Fewbanks to let
+her know when any important discovery was made. She applauded the action
+of her young friend in engaging such a famous detective as Crewe, and
+declared that if anyone could unravel the mystery, Crewe would do it. She
+had been particularly anxious to hear through Miss Fewbanks what Crewe's
+impressions were, with regard to the tragedy.
+
+The court was opened punctually, the coroner being Mr. Bodyman, a stout,
+clean-shaven, white-haired gentleman who had spent thirty years of his
+life in the stuffy atmosphere of police courts hearing police-court
+cases. Police-Inspector Seldon nodded in reply to the inquiring glance of
+the coroner, and the inquest was opened.
+
+The first witness was Miss Fewbanks. She was dressed in deep black and
+was obviously a little unnerved. In a low tone she said she had
+identified the body as that of her father. She was staying at her
+father's country house in Dellmere, Sussex, when the crime was committed.
+She had no knowledge of anyone who was evilly disposed towards her
+father. He had never spoken to her of anyone who cherished a grudge
+against him.
+
+Evidence relating to the circumstances in which the body was found
+was given by Police-Constable Flack. He described the position of the
+room in which the body was found, and the attitude in which the body
+was stretched. He was on duty in the neighbourhood of Tanton Gardens
+on the night of the murder, but saw no suspicious characters and
+heard no sounds.
+
+The evidence of Hill was chiefly a repetition of what he had told
+Inspector Chippenfield as to his movements on the day of the crime, and
+his methods of inspecting the premises three times a week in accordance
+with his master's orders. He knew nothing about Sir Horace's sudden
+return from Scotland. His first knowledge of this was the account of the
+murder, which he read in the papers.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield gave evidence for the purpose of producing the
+letter received at Scotland Yard announcing that Sir Horace Fewbanks had
+been murdered. The letter was passed up to the coroner for his
+inspection, and when he had examined it he sent it to the foreman of the
+jury. Then followed medical evidence, which showed that death was due to
+a bullet wound and could not have been self-inflicted.
+
+The coroner, in his summing-up, dwelt upon the loss sustained by the
+Judiciary by the violent death of one of its most distinguished members,
+and the jury, after a retirement of a few minutes, brought in a verdict
+of wilful murder by some person or persons unknown.
+
+As the occupants of the court filed out into the street, Crewe, who was
+watching Holymead, noticed the K.C. give a slight start when he saw Miss
+Fewbanks and his wife. Mr. Holymead went up to the ladies and shook hands
+with Miss Fewbanks, and to Crewe it seemed as if he was on the point of
+shaking hands with his wife, but he stopped himself awkwardly. He saw the
+ladies into their cab, and, raising his hat, went off. As Mr. Holymead
+had seen Miss Fewbanks in court when she gave evidence, it was obvious to
+Crewe that he could not have been surprised at meeting her outside. It
+was therefore the presence of his wife which had surprised him. That
+fact--if it were a fact--opened a limitless field of speculation to
+Crewe, but in spite of the possibility of error--a possibility which he
+frankly recognised--he was pleased with himself for having noticed the
+incident. To him it seemed to provide another link in the chain he was
+constructing. It harmonised with Taylor's story of Mr. Holymead's
+decision to stay at Verney's instead of entering his own home the night
+Taylor drove him from Hyde Park Corner.
+
+Rolfe also possessed the professional faculty of observation, but in a
+different degree. He had seen Mr. Holymead talking to his wife and Miss
+Fewbanks, but he had noticed nothing but gentlemanly ease in the
+barrister's manner. What did astonish him in connection with Mr. Holymead
+was that after he had left the ladies and was walking in the direction of
+the cab-rank he spoke to one of the former occupants of the gallery. This
+was a man known to the police and his associates as "Kincher." His name
+was Kemp, and how he had obtained his nick-name was not known. He was a
+criminal by profession and had undergone several heavy sentences for
+burglary. He was a thick-set man of medium height, about fifty years of
+age. Apart from a rather heavy lower jaw, he gave no external indication
+of his professional pursuits, but looked, with his brown and
+weather-beaten face and rough blue reefer suit, not unlike a seafaring
+man. The likeness was heightened by a tattooed device which covered the
+back of his right hand, and a slight roll in his gait when he walked. But
+appearances are deceptive, for Mr. Kemp, at liberty or in gaol, had never
+been out of London in his life. He was born and bred a London thief, and
+had served all his sentences at Wormwood Scrubbs. For over a minute he
+and Mr. Holymead remained in conversation. Rolfe would have described it
+officially as familiar conversation, but that description would have
+overlooked the deference, the sense of inferiority, in "Kincher's"
+manner. For a time Rolfe was puzzled by the incident, but he eventually
+lighted on an explanation which satisfied himself. It was that in the
+earlier days before Mr. Holymead had reached such a prominent position at
+the bar, he had been engaged in practice in the criminal courts, and
+"Kincher" had been one of his clients.
+
+With a cheerful smile Holymead brought the conversation to an end and
+went on his way. Kemp walked on hurriedly in the opposite direction. He
+had his eyes on a young man whom he had seen in the gallery, and who had
+seemed to avoid his eye. It was obvious to him that this young man, for
+whom he had been on the watch when Mr. Holymead spoke to him, had seized
+the opportunity to slip past him while he was talking to the eminent K.C.
+The young man, even from the back view, seemed to be well-dressed.
+
+"Hallo, Fred," exclaimed Mr. Kemp, as he reached within a yard or two of
+his quarry.
+
+"Hallo, Kincher," replied the young man, turning round. "I didn't notice
+you. Were you up at the court?"
+
+"Yes, I looked in," said Mr. Kemp. "There wasn't much doing, was there?"
+
+"No," said Fred.
+
+"He won't trouble us any more," pursued Mr. Kemp.
+
+"No." The young man seemed to have a dread of helping along the
+conversation, and therefore sought refuge in monosyllables.
+
+Mr. Kemp coughed before he formed his question.
+
+"Did you go up there that night?"
+
+"No." The reply came instantaneously, but the young man followed it up
+with a look of inquiry to ascertain if his denial was believed.
+
+"A good thing as it happened," said Mr. Kemp.
+
+"I had nothing to do with it," said Fred, earnestly.
+
+"I never said you had," replied Mr. Kemp.
+
+"Nothing whatever to do with it," continued the young man with emphasis.
+"That's not my sort of game."
+
+"I'm not saying anything, Fred," replied the elder man. "But whoever done
+it might have done it by accident-like."
+
+"Accident or no accident, I had nothing to do with it, thank God."
+
+"That is all right, Fred. I'm not saying you know anything about it. But
+even if you did you'd find I could be trusted. I don't go blabbing round
+to everybody."
+
+"I know you don't. But as I said before I had nothing to do with it. I
+didn't go there that night--I changed my mind."
+
+"A very lucky thing then, because if they do look you up you can prove
+an alibi."
+
+"Yes," said Fred, "I can prove an alibi easy enough. But what makes you
+talk about them looking me up? Why should they get into me--why should
+they look me up? I've told you I didn't go there."
+
+"That is all right, Fred," said the other, in a soothing tone. "If that
+pal of yours keeps his mouth shut there is nothing to put them on your
+tracks. But I don't like the looks of him. He seems to me a bit nervous,
+and if they put him through the third degree he'll squeak. That's my
+impression."
+
+"If he squeaks he'll have to settle with me," said Fred. "And he'll find
+there is something to pay. If he tries to put me away I'll--I'll--I'll
+do him in."
+
+"Kincher" instead of being horrified at this sentiment seemed to approve
+of it as the right thing to be done. "I'd let him know if I was you,
+Fred," he said. "I didn't like the look of him. The reason I came out
+here to-day was to have a look at him. And when I saw him in the box I
+said to myself, 'Well, I'm glad I've staked nothing on you, for it seems
+to me that you'll crack up if the police shake their thumb-screws in your
+face.' I felt glad I hadn't accepted your invitation to make it a
+two-handed job, Fred. It was the fact that some one else I'd never seen
+had put up the job that kept me out of it when you asked me to go with
+you. A man can't be too careful--especially after he's had a long spell
+in 'stir,' But of course you're all right if you changed your mind and
+didn't go up there. But if I was you I'd have my alibi ready. It is no
+good leaving things until the police are at the door and making one up on
+the spur of the moment."
+
+"Yes, I'll see about it," said Fred. "It's a good idea."
+
+"Come in and have a drink, Fred," said "Kincher." "It will do you good.
+It was dry work listening to them talking up there about the murder."
+
+Fred accompanied Mr. Kemp into the bar of the hotel they reached, and the
+elder man, after an inquiring glance at his companion, ordered two
+whiskies. "Kincher" added water to the contents of each glass, and,
+lifting his glass in his right hand, waited until Fred had done the same
+and then said:
+
+"Well, here's luck and long life to the man that did it--whoever he is."
+
+Fred offered no objection to this sentiment and they drained glasses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+"And so you've had no luck, Rolfe?"
+
+Inspector Chippenfield, glancing up from his official desk in Scotland
+Yard, put this question in a tone of voice which suggested that the
+speaker had expected nothing better.
+
+"I've seen the heads of at least half a dozen likely West End shops,"
+Rolfe replied, "and they tell me there is nothing to indicate where the
+handkerchief was bought. The scrap of lace merely shows that it was torn
+off a good handkerchief, but there is nothing about it to show that the
+handkerchief was different in any marked way from the average filmy scrap
+of muslin and lace which every smart woman carries as a handkerchief. I
+thought so myself, before I started to make inquiries."
+
+"Well, Rolfe, we must come at it another way," said the inspector.
+"Undoubtedly there is a woman in the case, and it ought not to be
+impossible to locate her. Your theory, Rolfe, is that the murder was
+committed by some one who broke into the place while Sir Horace was
+entertaining a lady friend or waiting for the arrival of a lady he
+expected. Either the lady had not arrived or had left the room
+temporarily when the burglar broke into the house. He had spotted the
+place some days before and ascertained that it was empty, and when he
+found that Sir Horace had returned alone he decided to break in, and,
+covering Sir Horace with a revolver, try to extort money from him. A
+riskier but more profitable game than burgling an empty house--if it came
+off. With his revolver in his hand he made his way up to the library. Sir
+Horace parleyed with him until he could reach his own revolver, and then
+got in the first shot but missed his man. The burglar shot him and then
+bolted. The lady heard the shots, and, rushing in, found Sir Horace in
+his death agony. She was stooping over him with her handkerchief in her
+hand, and in his convulsive moments he caught hold of a corner of it and
+the handkerchief was torn. The lady left the place and on arrival home
+concocted that letter which was sent here telling us that Sir Horace had
+been murdered. Is that it?"
+
+"Yes," assented Rolfe. "Of course, I don't lay it down that everything
+happened just as you've said. But that's my idea of the crime. It
+accounts for all the clues we've picked up, and that is something."
+
+"It is an ingenious theory and it does you credit," said the inspector,
+who had not forgotten that he had proposed to Rolfe that they should help
+one another to the extent of taking one another fully into each other's
+confidence, for the purpose of getting ahead of Crewe. "But you have
+overlooked the fact that it is possible to account in another way for all
+the clues we have picked up. Suppose Sir Horace's return from Scotland
+was due to a message from a lady friend; suppose the lady went to see him
+accompanied by a friend whom Sir Horace did not like--a friend of whom
+Sir Horace was jealous. Suppose they asked for money--blackmail--and
+there was a quarrel in which Sir Horace was shot. Then we have your idea
+as to how the lady's handkerchief was torn--I agree with that in the
+main. The lady and her friend fled from the place. Later in the night the
+place is burgled by some one who has had his eye on it for some time, and
+on entering the library he is astounded to find the dead body of the
+owner. Suppose he went home, and on thinking things over sent the letter
+to Scotland Yard with the idea that if the police got on to his tracks
+about the burglary the fact that he had told us about the murder would
+show he had nothing to do with killing Sir Horace."
+
+"That is a good theory, too," said Rolfe, in a meditative tone. "And the
+only person who can tell us which is the right one is Sir Horace's lady
+friend. The problem is to find her."
+
+"Right," said the inspector approvingly. "And while you have been making
+inquiries at the shops about the handkerchief I have been down to the Law
+Courts branch of the Equity Bank where Sir Horace kept his account. It
+occurred to me that a look at Sir Horace's account might help us. You
+know the sort of man he was--you know his weakness for the ladies. But he
+was careful. I looked through his private papers out at Riversbrook
+expecting to get on the track of something that would show some one had
+been trying to blackmail him over an entanglement with a woman, but I
+found nothing. I couldn't even find any feminine correspondence. If Sir
+Horace was in the habit of getting letters from ladies he was also in the
+habit of destroying them. No doubt he adopted that precaution when his
+wife was alive, and found it such a wise one that he kept it up when
+there was less need for it. But a weakness for the ladies costs money,
+Rolfe, as you know, and that is why I had a look at his banking account.
+He made some payments that it would be worth while to trace--payments to
+West End drapers and that sort of thing. Of course, Sir Horace, being a
+cautious man and occupying a public position, might not care to flaunt
+his weakness in the eyes of West End shopkeepers, and instead of paying
+the accounts of his lady friend of the moment, may have given her the
+money and trusted to her paying the bills--a thing that women of that
+kind are never in a hurry to do. In that case the payments to West End
+shopkeepers are for goods supplied to his daughter. However, I've taken a
+note of the names, dates, and amounts of a number of them, and I want you
+to see the managers of these shops."
+
+"We are getting close to it now," said Rolfe, approvingly.
+
+"I think so," was the modest reply of his superior. "There is one thing
+about Sir Horace's account which struck me as peculiar. Every four weeks
+for the past eight months Sir Horace drew a cheque for £24, and every
+cheque of the kind was made payable to Number 365. Now, unless he wished
+to hide the nature of the transaction from his bankers, why not put in
+the cheque in the name of the person who received the money? It couldn't
+have been for his personal use, for in that case he would have made the
+cheques payable to self. Besides, a man with a banking account doesn't
+draw a regular £24 every four weeks for personal expenses. He draws a
+cheque just when he wants a few pounds, instead of carrying five-pound
+notes about with him. I asked the bank manager about these cheques and he
+looked up a couple of them and found they had been cashed over the
+counter. So he called up the cashier and from him I learnt that Sir
+Horace came in and cashed them. As far as he can remember Sir Horace
+cashed all these £24 cheques. I assume he did so because he realised that
+there was less likely to be comment in the bank than if a well-dressed
+good-looking young lady arrived at the bank with them. This £24 a month
+suggests that Sir Horace had something choice and not too expensive
+stowed away in a flat. That is a matter on which Hill ought to be able to
+throw some light. If he knows anything I'll get it out of him. It struck
+me as extraordinary that Sir Horace should have taken Hill into his
+service knowing what he was. But this, apparently, is the explanation. He
+knew that Hill wouldn't gossip about him for fear of being exposed, for
+that would mean that Hill would lose his situation and would find it
+impossible to get another one without a reference from him. We'll have
+Hill brought here--"
+
+There was a knock at the door, and a boy in buttons entered and handed
+Inspector Chippenfield a card.
+
+"Seldon from Hampstead," he explained to Rolfe. "Don't go away yet. It
+may be something about this case."
+
+Police-Inspector Seldon entered the office, and held the door ajar for a
+man behind him. He shook hands with Inspector Chippenfield and Rolfe, and
+then motioned his companion to a chair.
+
+"This is Mr. Robert Evans, the landlord of the Flowerdew Hotel, Covent
+Garden," he explained. He looked at Mr. Evans with the air of a
+police-court inspector waiting for a witness to corroborate his
+statement, but as that gentleman remained silent he sharply asked,
+"Isn't that so?"
+
+"Quite right," said Mr. Evans, in a moist, husky voice.
+
+He was a short fat man, with an extremely red face and bulging eyes,
+which watered very much and apparently required to be constantly mopped
+with a handkerchief which he carried in his hand. This peculiarity gave
+Mr. Evans the appearance of a man perpetually in mourning, and this
+effect was heightened by a species of incipient palsy which had seized on
+his lower facial muscles, and caused his lips to tremble violently. He
+was bald in the front of the head but not on the top. The baldness over
+the temples had joined hands and left isolated over the centre of the
+forehead a small tuft of hair, which, with the playfulness of second
+childhood, showed a tendency to curl.
+
+"Yes, you're quite right," he repeated huskily, as though some one had
+doubted the statement. "Evans is my name and I'm not ashamed of it."
+
+"He came to me this morning and told me that Hill gave false evidence at
+the inquest yesterday," Inspector Seldon explained. "So I brought him
+along to see you."
+
+"False evidence--Hill?" exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield, with keen
+interest. "Let us hear about it."
+
+"Well, you will remember Hill said he was at home on the night of the
+murder," pursued Inspector Seldon. "I looked up his depositions before I
+came away and what he said was this: 'I took my daughter to the Zoo in
+the afternoon. We left the Zoo at half past five and went home and had
+tea. My wife then took the child to the picture-palace and I remained at
+home. I did not go out that night. They returned about half-past ten, and
+after supper we all went to bed.' But Evans tells me he saw Hill in his
+bar at three o'clock on the morning of the 19th of August. He has an
+early license for the accommodation of the Covent Garden traffic. He can
+swear to Hill. A man who goes to bed at half-past ten has no right to be
+wandering about Covent Garden at 3 a. m. And besides, Hill told us
+nothing about this. So I brought Evans along to see what you make of it."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield had taken up a pencil and was making a few notes.
+
+"Very interesting indeed," he said. Then he turned to Evans and asked,
+"Are you sure you saw Hill in your bar at three a. m.? There is no
+possibility of a mistake?"
+
+"He is the man who was knocked down outside by a porter running into
+him," said Mr. Evans, mopping his eyes. "I could bring half a dozen
+witnesses who will swear to him."
+
+"You see, it's this way," interpolated Inspector Seldon, taking up the
+landlord's narrative. His police-court training had taught him to bring
+out the salient points of a story, and he was naturally of the opinion
+that he could tell another man's story better than the man could tell it
+himself. "Hill was staring about him--it was probably the first time he
+had been to Covent Garden in the early morning--and got knocked over. He
+was stunned, and some porters took him in to the bar, sat him on a form,
+and poured some rum into him. Some of the porters were for ringing up the
+ambulance; others were for carrying Hill off to the hospital, but he soon
+recovered. However, he sat there for about twenty minutes, and after
+having several drinks at his own expense he went away. Evans served him
+with the drinks."
+
+"Good," said Inspector Chippenfield, who liked the circumstantial details
+of the story. "And you can get half a dozen porters to identify him?"
+
+"Bill Cribb, Harry Winch, Charlie Brown, a fellow they call 'Green
+Violets'--I don't know his real name--"
+
+Mr. Evans was calling on his memory for further names but was stopped by
+Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+"That will do very well. And how did you happen to be at the inquest at
+Hampstead? That is a bit out of your way."
+
+Mr. Evans mopped his eyes, and Inspector Seldon took upon himself to
+reply for him. "He has a brother-in-law in the trade at Hampstead--keeps
+the _Three Jugs_ in Coulter Street. Evans had to go out to see his
+brother-in-law on business, and his brother-in-law took him along to the
+court out of curiosity."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield nodded.
+
+"Rolfe," he said, "take down Mr. Evans's statement outside and get him to
+sign it. Don't go away when you've finished. I want you."
+
+Mr. Evans, even if he felt that full justice had been done to his story
+by Inspector Seldon, was disappointed at the police officer's failure to
+do justice to his manly scruples in coming forward to give evidence
+against a man who had never done him any harm. Addressing Inspector
+Chippenfield he said:
+
+"I don't altogether like mixing myself up in this business. That isn't my
+way. If I have a thing to say to a man I like to say it to his face. I
+don't like a man to say things behind a man's back, that is, if he calls
+himself a man. But I thought over this thing after leaving the court and
+hearing this chap Hill say he hadn't left home that night, and I talked
+it over with my wife--"
+
+"You did the right thing," said Inspector Chippenfield, with the emphasis
+of a man who had profited by the triumph of right.
+
+Mr. Evans was under the impression that the inspector's approval referred
+chiefly to the part he had played as a husband in talking over his
+perplexity with his wife, rather than the part he had played as a man in
+revealing that Hill had lied in his evidence.
+
+"I always do," he said. "My wife's one of the sensible sort, and when a
+man takes her advice he don't go far wrong. She advised me to go straight
+to the police-station and tell them all I know. 'It is a cruel murder,'
+she said, 'and who knows but it might be our turn next?'"
+
+This example of the imaginative element in feminine logic made no
+impression on the practical official who listened to the admiring
+husband.
+
+"That is all right," said Inspector Chippenfield soothingly. "I
+understand your scruples. They do you credit. But an honest man like you
+doesn't want to shield a criminal from justice--least of all a
+cold-blooded murderer."
+
+When Rolfe returned to his superior with Evans's signed statement in his
+hand, he found the inspector preparing to leave the office.
+
+"Put on your hat and come with me," said the inspector. "We will go out
+and see Mrs. Hill. I'll frighten the truth out of her and then tackle
+Hill. He is sure to be up at Riversbrook, and we can go on there from
+Camden Town."
+
+While on the way to Camden Town by Tube, Inspector Chippenfield
+arranged his plans with the object of saving time. He would interview
+Mrs. Hill and while he was doing so Rolfe could make inquiries at the
+neighbouring hotels about Hill. It was the inspector's conviction that
+a man who had anything to do with a murder would require a steady
+supply of stimulants next day.
+
+Mrs. Hill kept a small confectionery shop adjoining a cinema theatre to
+supplement her husband's wages by a little earnings of her own in order
+to support her child. Although the shop was an unpretentious one, and
+catered mainly for the ha'p'orths of the juvenile patrons of the picture
+house next door, it was called "The Camden Town Confectionery Emporium,"
+and the title was printed over the little shop in large letters.
+Inspector Chippenfield walked into the empty shop, and rapped sharply on
+the counter.
+
+A little thin woman, with prematurely grey hair, and a depressed
+expression, appeared from the back in response to the summons. She
+started nervously as her eye encountered the police uniform, but she
+waited to be spoken to.
+
+"Is your name Hill?" asked the inspector sternly. "Mrs. Emily Hill?"
+
+The woman nodded feebly, her frightened eyes fixed on the
+inspector's face.
+
+"Then I want to have a word with you," continued the inspector, walking
+through the shop into the parlour. "Come in here and answer my
+questions."
+
+Mrs. Hill followed him timidly into the room he had entered. It was a
+small, shabbily-furnished apartment, and the inspector's massive
+proportions made it look smaller still. He took up a commanding position
+on the strip of drugget which did duty as a hearth-rug, and staring
+fiercely at her, suddenly commenced:
+
+"Mrs. Hill, where was your husband on the night of the 18th of August,
+when his employer, Sir Horace Fewbanks, was murdered?"
+
+Mrs. Hill shrank before that fierce gaze, and said, in a low tone:
+
+"Please, sir, he was at home."
+
+"At home, was he? I'm not so sure of that. Tell me all about your
+husband's movements on that day and night. What time did he come home, to
+begin with?"
+
+"He came home early in the afternoon to take our little girl to the
+Zoo--which was a treat she had been looking forward to for a long while.
+I couldn't go myself, there being the shop to look after. So Mr. Hill and
+Daphne went to the Zoo, and after they came home and had tea I took her
+to the pictures while Mr. Hill minded the shop. It was not the
+picture-palace next door, but the big one in High Street, where they were
+showing 'East Lynne,' Then when we come home about ten o'clock we all
+had supper and went to bed."
+
+"And your husband didn't go out again?"
+
+"No, sir. When I got up in the morning to bring him a cup of tea he was
+still sound asleep."
+
+"But might he not have gone out in the night while you were asleep?"
+
+"No, sir. I'm a very light sleeper, and I wake at the least stir."
+
+Mrs. Hill's story seemed to ring true enough, although she kept her eyes
+fixed on her interrogator with a kind of frightened brightness. Inspector
+Chippenfield looked at her in silence for a few seconds.
+
+"So that's the whole truth, is it?" he said at length.
+
+"Yes, sir," the woman earnestly assured him. "You can ask Mr. Hill and
+he'll tell you the same thing."
+
+Something reminiscent in Inspector Chippenfield's mind responded to this
+sentence. He pondered over it for a moment, and then remembered that Hill
+had applied the same phrase to his wife. Evidently there had been
+collusion, a comparing of tales beforehand. The woman had been tutored by
+her cunning scoundrel of a husband, but undoubtedly her tale was false.
+
+"The whole truth?" said the inspector, again.
+
+"Yes, sir," answered Mrs. Hill.
+
+"Now, look here," said the police officer, in his sternest tones, as he
+shook a warning finger at the little woman, "I know you are lying. I know
+Hill didn't sleep in the house, that night. He was seen near Riversbrook
+in the early part of the night and he was seen wandering about Covent
+Garden after the murder had been committed. It is no use lying to me,
+Mrs. Hill. If you want to save your husband from being arrested for this
+murder you'll tell the truth. What time did he leave here that night?"
+
+"I've already told you the truth, sir," replied the little woman. "He
+didn't leave the place after he came back from the Zoo."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield was puzzled. It seemed to him that Mrs. Hill was
+a woman of weak character, and yet she stuck firmly to her story. Perhaps
+Evans had made a mistake in identifying Hill as the man who had been
+carried into his bar after being knocked down. Nothing was more common
+than mistakes of identification. His glance wandered round the room, as
+though in search of some inspiration for his next question. His eye took
+mechanical note of the trumpery articles of rickety furniture; wandered
+over the cheap almanac prints which adorned the walls; but became riveted
+in the cheap overmantel which surmounted the fire-place. For, in the slip
+of mirror which formed the centre of that ornament, Inspector
+Chippenfield caught sight of the features of Mrs. Hill frowning and
+shaking her head at somebody invisible. He turned his head warily, but
+she was too quick for him, and her features were impassive again when he
+looked at her. Following the direction indicated by the mirror, Inspector
+Chippenfield saw Mrs. Hill had been signalling through a window which
+looked into the back yard. He reached it in a step and threw open the
+window. A small and not over-clean little girl was just leaving the yard
+by the gate.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield called to her pleasantly, and she retraced her
+steps with a frightened face.
+
+"Come in, my dear, I want you," said the inspector, wreathing his red
+face into a smile. "I'm fond of little girls."
+
+The little girl smiled, nodded her head, and presently appeared in
+response to the inspector's invitation. He glanced at Mrs. Hill, noticed
+that her face was grey and drawn with sudden terror. She opened her mouth
+as though to speak, but no words came.
+
+The inspector lifted the child on to his knee. She nestled to him
+confidingly enough, and looked up into his face with an artless glance.
+
+"What is your name, my dear?"
+
+"Daphne, sir--Daphne Hill."
+
+"How old are you, Daphne?"
+
+"Please, sir, I'm eight next birthday."
+
+"Why, you're quite a big girl, Daphne! Do you go to school?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir. I'm in the second form."
+
+"Do you like going to school, Daphne?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I suppose you like going to the Zoo better? Did you like going with
+father the other day?"
+
+The child's eyes sparkled with retrospective pleasure.
+
+"Oh, yes," she said, delightedly. "We saw all kinds of things: lions and
+tigers, and elephants. I had a ride on a elephant"--her eyes grew big
+with the memory--"an' 'e took a bun with his long nose out of my hand."
+
+"That was splendid, Daphne! Which did you like best--the Zoo or the
+pictures?"
+
+"I liked them both," she replied.
+
+"Was Father at home when you came home from the pictures?"
+
+"No," said the little girl innocently. "He was out."
+
+Mrs. Hill, standing a little way off with fear on her face, uttered
+an inarticulate noise, and took a step towards the inspector and
+her daughter.
+
+"Better not interfere, Mrs. Hill, unless you want to make matters worse,"
+said the inspector meaningly. "Now, tell me, Daphne, dear, when did your
+father come home?"
+
+"Not till morning," replied the little girl, with a timid glance at
+her mother.
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"Because I slept in Mother's bed that night with Mother, like I always do
+when Father is away, but Father came home in the morning and lifted me
+into my own bed, because he said he wanted to go to bed."
+
+"What time was that, Daphne?"
+
+"I don't know, sir."
+
+"It was light, Daphne? You could see?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield told the child she was a good girl, and gave her
+sixpence. The little one slipped off his knee and ran across to her
+mother with delight, to show the coin; all unconscious that she had
+betrayed her father. The mother pushed the child from her with a
+heart-broken gesture.
+
+A heavy step was heard in the shop, and the inspector, looking through
+the window, saw Rolfe. He opened the door leading from the shop and
+beckoned his subordinate in.
+
+Rolfe was excited, and looked like a man burdened with weighty news. He
+whispered a word in Inspector Chippenfield's ear.
+
+"Let's go into the shop," said Inspector Chippenfield promptly. "But,
+first, I'll make things safe here." He locked the door leading to the
+kitchen, put the key into his pocket, and followed his colleague into the
+shop. "Now, Rolfe, what is it?"
+
+"I've found out that Hill put in nearly the whole day after the murder
+drinking in a wine tavern. He sat there like a man in a dream and spoke
+to nobody. The only thing he took any interest in was the evening papers.
+He bought about a dozen of them during the afternoon."
+
+"Where was this?" asked the inspector.
+
+"At a little wine tavern in High Street, where he's never been seen
+before. The man who keeps the place gave me a good description of him,
+though. Hill went there about ten o'clock in the morning, and started
+drinking port wine, and as fast as the evening papers came out he sent
+the boy out for them, glanced through them, and then crumpled them up. He
+stayed there till after five o'clock. By that time the 6.30 editions
+would reach Camden Town, and if you remember it was the six-thirty
+editions which had the first news of the murder. The tavern-keeper
+declares that Hill drank nearly two bottles of Tarragona port, in
+threepenny glasses, during the day."
+
+"I should have credited Hill with a better taste in port, with his
+opportunities as Sir Horace Fewbanks's butler," said Inspector
+Chippenfield drily. "What you have found out, Rolfe, only goes to bear
+out my own discovery that Hill is deeply implicated in this affair. I
+have found out, for my part, that Hill did not spend the night of the
+murder at home here."
+
+There was a ring of triumph in Inspector Chippenfield's voice as he
+announced this discovery, but before Rolfe could make any comment upon
+it there was a quick step behind them, and both men turned, to see Hill.
+The butler was astonished at finding the two police officers in his
+wife's shop. He hesitated, and apparently his first impulse was to turn
+into the street again; but, realising the futility of such a course, he
+came forward with an attempt to smooth his worried face into a
+conciliatory smile.
+
+"Hill!" said Inspector Chippenfield sternly. "Once and for all, will you
+own up where you were on the night of the murder?"
+
+Hill started slightly, then, with admirable self-command, he recovered
+himself and became as tight-lipped and reticent as ever.
+
+"I've already told you, sir," he replied smoothly. "I spent it in my own
+home. If you ask my wife, sir, she'll tell you I never stirred out of the
+house after I came back from taking my little girl to the Zoo."
+
+"I know she will, you scoundrel!" burst out the choleric inspector.
+"She's been well tutored by you, and she tells the tale very well. But
+it's no good, Hill. You forgot to tutor your little daughter, and she's
+innocently put you away. What's more, you were seen in London before
+daybreak the night after the murder. The game's up, my man."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield produced a pair of handcuffs as he spoke. Hill
+passed his tongue over his dry lips before he was able to speak.
+
+"Don't put them on me," he said imploringly, as Inspector Chippenfield
+advanced towards him. "I'll--I'll confess!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Inspector Chippenfield's first words were a warning.
+
+"You know what you are saying, Hill?" he asked. "You know what this
+means? Any statement you make may be used in evidence against you at
+your trial."
+
+"I'll tell you everything," faltered Hill. The impassive mask of the
+well-trained English servant had dropped from him, and he stood revealed
+as a trembling elderly man with furtive eyes, and a painfully shaken
+manner. "I'll be glad to tell you everything," he declared, laying a
+twitching hand on the inspector's coat. "I've not had a minute's peace or
+rest since--since it happened."
+
+The dry official manner in which Inspector Chippenfield produced a
+note-book was in striking contrast to the trapped man's attitude.
+
+"Go ahead," he commanded, wetting his pencil between his lips.
+
+Before Hill could respond a small boy entered the shop--a ragged,
+shock-headed dirty urchin, bareheaded and barefooted. He tapped loudly on
+the counter with a halfpenny.
+
+"What do you want, boy?" roughly asked the inspector.
+
+"A 'a'porth of blackboys," responded the child, in the confident tone of
+a regular customer.
+
+"If you'll permit me, sir, I'll serve him," said Hill and he glided
+behind the little counter, took some black sticky sweetmeats from one of
+the glass jars on the shelf and gave them to the boy, who popped one in
+his mouth and scurried off.
+
+"I think we had better go inside and hear what Hill has to say,
+Inspector, while Mrs. Hill minds the shop," said Rolfe. He had caught a
+glimpse of Mrs. Hill's white frightened face peering through the dirty
+little glass pane in the parlour door.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield approved of the idea.
+
+"We don't want to spoil your wife's business, Hill--she's likely to need
+it," he said, with cruel official banter. "Come here, Mrs. Hill," he
+said, raising his voice.
+
+The faded little woman appeared in response to the summons, bringing the
+child with her. She shot a frightened glance at her husband, which
+Inspector Chippenfield intercepted.
+
+"Never mind looking at your husband, Mrs. Hill," he said roughly.
+"You've done your best for him, and the only thing to be told now is the
+truth. Now you and your daughter can stay in the shop. We want your
+husband inside."
+
+Mrs. Hill clasped her hands quickly.
+
+"Oh, what is it, Henry?" she said. "Tell me what has happened? What have
+they found out?"
+
+"Keep your mouth shut," commanded her husband harshly. "This way, sir, if
+you please."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield and Rolfe followed him into the parlour.
+
+"Now, Hill," impatiently said Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+The butler raised his head wearily.
+
+"I suppose I may as well begin at the beginning and tell you
+everything," he said.
+
+"Yes," replied the inspector, "it's not much use keeping anything
+back now."
+
+"Oh, it's not a case of keeping anything back," replied Hill. "You're too
+clever for me, and I've made up my mind to tell you everything, but I
+thought I might be able to cut the first part short, so as to save your
+time. But so that you'll understand everything I've got to go a long way
+back--shortly after I entered Sir Horace Fewbanks's service. In fact, I
+hadn't been long with him before I began to see he was leading a strange
+life--a double life, if I may say so. A servant in a gentleman's
+house--particularly one in my position--sees a good deal he is not meant
+to see; in fact, he couldn't close his eyes to it if he wanted to, as no
+doubt you, from your experience, sir, know very well. A confidential
+servant sees and hears a lot of things, sir."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield nodded his head sharply, but he did not speak.
+
+"I think Sir Horace trusted me, too," continued Hill humbly, "more than
+he would have trusted most servants, on account of my--my past. I fancy,
+if I may say so, that he counted on my gratitude because he had given me
+a fresh start in life. And he was quite right--at first." Hill dropped
+his voice and looked down as he uttered the last two words. "I'd have
+done anything for him. But as I was saying, sir, I hadn't been long in
+his house before I found out that he had a--a weakness--" Hill timidly
+bowed his head as though apologising to the dead judge for assailing his
+character--"a weakness for--for the ladies. Sometimes Sir Horace went
+off for the week-end without saying where he was going and sometimes he
+went out late at night and didn't return till after breakfast. Then he
+had ladies visiting him at Riversbrook--not real ladies, if you
+understand, sir. Sometimes there was a small party of them, and then they
+made a noise singing music-hall songs and drinking wine, but generally
+they came alone. Towards the end there was one who came a lot oftener
+than the others. I found out afterwards that her name was Fanning--Doris
+Fanning. She was a very pretty young woman, and Sir Horace seemed very
+fond of her. I knew that because I've heard him talking to her in the
+library. Sir Horace had rather a loud voice, and I couldn't help
+overhearing him sometimes, when I took things to his rooms.
+
+"One night,--it was before Sir Horace left for Scotland--a rainy gusty
+night, this young woman came. I forgot to mention that when Sir Horace
+expected visitors he used to tell me to send the servants to bed early.
+He told me to do so this night, saying as usual, 'You understand, Hill?'
+and I replied, 'Yes, Sir Horace,' The young woman came about half-past
+ten o'clock, and I let her in the side door and showed her up to the
+library on the first floor, where he used to sit and work and read. Half
+an hour afterwards I took up some refreshments--some sandwiches and a
+small bottle of champagne for the young lady--and then went back
+downstairs till Sir Horace rang for me to let the lady out, which was
+generally about midnight. But this night, I'd hardly been downstairs more
+than a quarter of an hour, when I heard a loud crash, followed by a sort
+of scream. Before I could get out of my chair to go upstairs I heard the
+study door open, and Sir Horace called out, 'Hill, come here!'
+
+"I went upstairs as quick as I could, and the door of the study being
+wide open, I could see inside. Sir Horace and the young lady had
+evidently been having a quarrel. They were standing up facing each other,
+and the table at which they had been sitting was knocked over, and the
+refreshments I had taken up had been scattered all about. The young woman
+had been crying--I could see that at a glance--but Sir Horace looked
+dignified and the perfect gentleman--like he always was. He turned to me
+when he saw me, and said, 'Hill, kindly show this young lady out,' I
+bowed and waited for her to follow me, which she did, after giving Sir
+Horace an angry look. I let her out the same way as I let her in, and
+took her through the plantation to the front gate, which I locked after
+her. When I got inside the house again, and was beginning to bolt up
+things for the night Sir Horace called me again and I went upstairs.
+'Hill,' he said, in the same calm and collected voice, 'if that young
+lady calls again you're to deny her admittance. That is all, Hill,' And
+he turned back into his room again.
+
+"I didn't see her again until the morning after Sir Horace left for
+Scotland. I had arranged for the female servants to go to Sir Horace's
+estate in the country during his absence, as he instructed before his
+departure, and they and I were very busy on this morning getting the
+house in order to be closed up--putting covers on the furniture and
+locking up the valuables.
+
+"It was Sir Horace's custom to have this done when he was away every
+year instead of keeping the servants idling about the house on board
+wages, and the house was then left in my charge, as I told you, sir, and
+after the servants went to the country it was my custom to live at home
+till Sir Horace returned, coming over two or three times a week to look
+over the place and make sure that everything was all right. On this
+morning, sir, after superintending the servants clearing up things, I
+went outside the house to have a final look round, and to see that the
+locks of the front and back gates were in good working order. I was going
+to the back first, sir, but happening to glance about me as I walked
+round the house, I saw the young woman that Sir Horace had ordered me to
+show out of the house the night before he went to Scotland, peering out
+from behind one of the fir trees of the plantation in front of the house.
+As soon as she saw that I saw her she beckoned to me.
+
+"I would not have taken any notice of her, only I didn't want the women
+servants to see her. Sir Horace, I knew, would not have liked that. So I
+went across to her. I asked her what she wanted, and I told her it was no
+use her wanting to see Sir Horace, for he had gone to Scotland. 'I don't
+want to see him,' she said, as impudent as brass. 'It's you I want to
+see, Field or Hill or whatever you call yourself now.' It gave me quite a
+turn, I assure you, to find that this young woman knew my secret, and I
+turned round apprehensive-like, to make sure that none of the servants
+had heard her. She noticed me and she laughed. 'It's all right, Hill,'
+she said. 'I'm not going to tell on you. I've just brought you a message
+from an old friend--Fred Birchill--he wants to see you to-night at this
+address.' And with that she put a bit of paper into my hand. I was so
+upset and excited that I said I'd be there, and she went away.
+
+"This Fred Birchill was a man I'd met in prison, and he was in the cell
+next to me. How he'd got on my tracks I had no idea, but I seemed to see
+all my new life falling to pieces now he knew. I'd tried to run straight
+since I served my sentence, and I knew Sir Horace would stand to me, but
+he couldn't afford to have any scandal about it, and I knew that if there
+was any possibility of my past becoming known I should have to leave his
+employ. And then there was my poor wife and child, and this little
+business, sir. Nothing was known about my past here. So I determined to
+go and see this Birchill, sir. The address she had given me was in
+Westminster, and, as my time was practically my own when Sir Horace
+wasn't home, I went down that same evening, and when I got up the flight
+of stairs and knocked at the door it was a woman's voice that said 'Come
+in,' I thought I recognised the voice. When I opened the door, you can
+imagine my surprise when I saw the young woman to be Doris Fanning, who
+had had the quarrel with Sir Horace that night and had brought me the
+note that morning. Birchill was sitting in a corner of the room, with his
+feet on another chair, smoking a pipe. 'Come in, No. 21,' he says, with
+an unpleasant smile, 'come in and see an old friend. Put a chair for him,
+Doris, and leave the room.'
+
+"The girl did so, and as soon as the door was closed behind her Birchill
+turned round to me and burst out, 'Hill, that damned employer of yours
+has served me a nasty trick, but I'm going to get even with him, and
+you're going to help me!' I was taken back at his words, but I wanted to
+hear more before I spoke. Then he told me that the young woman I had seen
+had been brutally treated by Sir Horace. She had been living in a little
+flat in Westminster on a monthly allowance which Sir Horace made her, but
+he'd suddenly cut off her allowance and she'd have to be turned out in
+the street to starve because she couldn't pay her rent. 'A nice thing,'
+said Birchill fiercely, 'for this high-placed loose liver to carry on
+like this with a poor innocent girl whose only fault was that she loved
+him too well. If I could show him up and pull him down, I would. But I've
+done time, like you, Hill. He was the judge who sentenced me, and if I
+tried to injure him that way my word would carry no weight; but I'll put
+up a job on him that'll make him sorry the longest day he lives, and
+you'll help me. Sir Horace is in Scotland, Hill, and you're in charge of
+his place. Get rid of the servants, Hill, and we'll burgle his house. We
+can easily do it between us.'"
+
+At this stage of his narrative, Hill stopped and looked anxiously at his
+audience as though to gather some idea of their feelings before he
+proceeded further. But Inspector Chippenfield, with a fierce stare,
+merely remarked:
+
+"And you consented?"
+
+"I didn't at first," Hill retorted earnestly, "but when I refused he
+threatened me--threatened that he'd expose me and drag me and my wife and
+child down to poverty. I pleaded with him, but it was of no use, and at
+last I had to consent. I had some hope that in doing so I might find an
+opportunity to warn Sir Horace, but Birchill did not give me a chance. He
+insisted that the burglary should take place without delay. All I was to
+do was to give him a plan of the house, explain where to find the most
+valuable articles that had been left there, and wait for him at the flat
+while he committed the burglary. His idea in making me wait for him at
+the flat was to make sure that I didn't play him false--put the double on
+him, as he called it--and he told the girl not to let me out of her sight
+till he came back, if anything went wrong I should have to pay for it
+when he came back.
+
+"In accordance with Sir Horace's instructions, I sent the servants off to
+his country estate. It had been arranged that Birchill was to wait for me
+to come over to the flat on the 18th of August, the night fixed for the
+burglary. But about 7 o'clock, while I was at Riversbrook, I heard the
+noise of wheels outside, and looking out, I saw to my dismay Sir Horace
+getting out of a taxi-cab with a suit-case in his hand. My first impulse
+was to tell him everything--indeed, I think that if I had had a chance I
+would have--but he came in looking very severe, and without saying a word
+about why he had returned from Scotland, said very sharply, 'Hill, have
+the servants been sent down to the country, as I directed?' I told him
+that they had. 'Very good,' he said, 'then you go away at once, I won't
+want you any more. I want the house to myself to-night.' 'Sir Horace,' I
+began, trembling a little, but he stopped me. 'Go immediately,' he said;
+'don't stand there,' And he said it in such a tone that I was glad to go.
+There was something in his look that frightened me that night. I got
+across to Birchill's place and found him and the girl waiting for me. I
+told him what had happened, and begged him to give up the idea of the
+burglary. But he'd been drinking heavily, and was in a nasty mood. First
+he said I'd been playing him false and had warned Sir Horace, but when I
+assured him that I hadn't he insisted on going to commit the burglary
+just the same. With that he pulled out a revolver from his pocket, and
+swore with an oath that he'd put a bullet through me when he came back if
+I'd played him false and put Sir Horace on his guard, and that he'd put a
+bullet in the old scoundrel--meaning Sir Horace--if he interrupted him
+while he was robbing the house.
+
+"He sat there, cursing and drinking, till he fell asleep with his head on
+the table, snoring. I sat there not daring to breathe, hoping he'd sleep
+till morning, but Miss Fanning woke him up about nine, and he staggered
+to his feet to get out, with his revolver stuck in his coat pocket. He
+was away over three hours and the girl and I sat there without saying a
+word, just looking at each other and waiting for a clock on the
+mantelpiece to chime the quarters. It was a cuckoo clock, and it had just
+chimed twelve when we heard a quick step coming upstairs to the flat. The
+girl fixed her big dark eyes inquiringly on me, and then we heard a
+hoarse whisper through the keyhole telling us to open the door.
+
+"The girl ran to the door and let him in, but she shrieked at the sight
+of him when she saw him in the light. For he looked ghastly, and there
+was a spot of blood on his face, and his hands were smeared with it. He
+was shaking all over, and he went to the whisky bottle and drained the
+drop of spirit he'd left in it. Then he turned to us and said, 'Sir
+Horace Fewbanks is dead--murdered!' I suppose he read what he saw in our
+eyes, for he burst out angrily, 'Don't stand staring at me like a pair of
+damned fools. You don't think I did it? As God's my judge, I never did
+it. He was dead and stiff when I got there.'
+
+"Then he told us his story of what had happened. He said that when he got
+to Riversbrook there was a light in the library and he got over the fence
+and hid himself in the garden. Then he noticed that there was a light in
+the hall and that the hall door was open. He thought Sir Horace had left
+it open by mistake, and he was going to creep into the house and hide
+himself there till after Sir Horace went to bed. But suddenly the light
+in the library went out and Birchill again hid behind a tree, for he
+thought Sir Horace was retiring for the night. Then the light in the hall
+went out and immediately after Birchill heard the hall door being closed.
+Then he heard a step on the gravel path and saw a woman walking quickly
+down the path to the gate. She was a well-dressed woman, and Birchill
+naturally thought that she was one of Sir Horace's lady friends. But he
+thought it odd that Sir Horace, who was always a very polite gentleman to
+the ladies, should not have shown her off the premises. He waited in the
+garden about half an hour, and as everything in the house seemed quite
+still, he made his way to a side window and forced it open. He had an
+electric torch with him, and he used this to find his way about the
+house. First of all, he wanted to find out in which room Sir Horace was
+sleeping, and he knew from the plan he'd made me draw for him which was
+Sir Horace's bedroom, so he went there and opened the door quietly and
+listened. But he could not hear anyone breathing. Then he tried some of
+the other rooms and turned on his torch, but could see no one. He thought
+that perhaps Sir Horace had fallen asleep in a chair in the library, and
+he went there. He listened at the door but could hear no sound. Then he
+turned on his torch and by its light he saw a dreadful sight. Sir Horace
+was lying huddled up near the desk--dead--just dead, he thought, because
+there were little bubbles of blood on his lips as if they had been blown
+there when breathing his last. He didn't wait to see any more, but he
+turned and ran out of the house.
+
+"I didn't believe his story, though Miss Fanning did, but he stuck to it
+and seemed so frightened that I thought there might be something in it
+till he brought out that he'd lost his revolver somewhere. Then I
+remembered the horrid threats he'd used against Sir Horace, and I was
+convinced that he had committed the murder. But of course I dared not let
+him think I suspected him, and I pretended to console him. But the
+feeling that kept running through my head was that both of us would be
+suspected of the murder.
+
+"I told this to Birchill, and that frightened him still more. 'What are
+we to do?' he kept saying. 'We shall both be hanged.' Then, after a
+while, we recovered ourselves a bit and began to look at it from a more
+common-sense point of view. Nobody knew about Birchill's visit to the
+house except our two selves and the girl, and there was no reason why
+anybody should suspect us as long as we kept that knowledge to ourselves.
+Birchill's idea, after we'd talked this over, was that I should go
+quietly home to bed, and pay a visit to Riversbrook on Friday as usual,
+discover Sir Horace Fewbanks's body, and then tell the police. But I
+didn't like to do that for two reasons. I didn't think that my nerves
+would be in a fit state to tell the police how I found the body without
+betraying to them that I knew something about it; and I couldn't bear to
+think of Sir Horace's body lying neglected all alone in that empty house
+till the following day--though I kept that reason to myself.
+
+"It was the girl who hit on the idea of sending a letter to the police.
+She said that it would be the best thing to do, because if they were
+informed and went to the house and discovered the body it wouldn't be so
+difficult for me to face them afterwards. I agreed to that, and so did
+Birchill, who was very frightened in case I might give anything away, and
+consented on that account. The girl showed us how to write the letter,
+too--she said she'd often heard of anonymous letters being written that
+way--and she brought out three different pens and a bottle of ink and a
+writing pad. After we'd agreed what to write, she showed us how to do it,
+each one printing a letter on the paper in turn, and using a different
+pen each time."
+
+"You took care to leave no finger-prints," said Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+"We used a handkerchief to wrap our hands in," said Hill. "Birchill got
+tired of passing the paper from one to another and wrote all his letters,
+leaving spaces for the girl and me to write in ours. When the letter was
+written we wrote the address on the envelope the same way, and stamped
+it. Then I went out and posted the letter in a pillar-box."
+
+"At Covent Garden?" suggested Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+"Yes, at Covent Garden," said Hill.
+
+"When I got home my wife was awake and in a terrible fright. She wanted
+to know where I'd been, but I didn't tell her. I told her, though, that
+my very life depended on nobody knowing I'd been out of my own home that
+night, and I made her swear that no matter who questioned her she'd stick
+to the story that I'd been at home all night, and in bed. She begged me
+to tell her why, and as I knew that she'd have to be told the next day, I
+told her that Sir Horace Fewbanks had been murdered. She buried her face
+in her pillow with a moan, but when I took an oath that I had had no hand
+in it she recovered, and promised not to tell a living soul that I had
+been out of the house and I knew I could depend on her.
+
+"Next morning, as soon as I got up, I hurried off to a little wine tavern
+and asked to see the morning papers. It was a foolish thing to do,
+because I might have known that nothing could have been discovered in
+time to get into the morning papers, for I hadn't posted the letter until
+nearly four o'clock. But I was all nervous and upset, and as I couldn't
+face my wife or settle to anything until I knew the police had got the
+letter and found the body, I--though a strictly temperate man in the
+ordinary course of life, sir--sat down in one of the little compartments
+of the place and ordered a glass of wine to pass the time till the first
+editions of the evening papers came out--they are usually out here about
+noon. But there was no news in the first editions, and so I stayed there,
+drinking port wine and buying the papers as fast as they came out. But it
+was not till the 6.30 editions came out, late in the afternoon, that the
+papers had the news. I hurried home and then went up to Riversbrook and
+reported myself to you, sir."
+
+As Hill finished his story he buried his face in his hands, and bowed his
+head on the table in an attitude of utter dejection. Rolfe, looking at
+him, wondered if he were acting a part, or if he had really told the
+truth. He looked at Inspector Chippenfield to see how he regarded the
+confession, but his superior officer was busily writing in his note-book.
+In a few moments, however, he put the pocket-book down on the table and
+turned to the butler.
+
+"Sit up, man," he commanded sternly. "I want to ask you some questions."
+
+Hill raised a haggard face.
+
+"Yes, sir," he said, with what seemed to be a painful effort.
+
+"What is this girl Fanning like?"
+
+"Rather a showy piece of goods, if I may say so, sir. She has big black
+eyes, and black hair and small, regular teeth."
+
+"And Sir Horace had been keeping her?"
+
+"I think so, sir."
+
+"And a fortnight before Sir Horace left for Scotland there was a
+quarrel--Sir Horace cast her off?"
+
+"That is what it looked like to me," said the butler.
+
+"What was the cause of the quarrel?"
+
+"That I don't know, sir."
+
+"Didn't Birchill tell you?"
+
+"Well, not in so many words. But I gathered from things he dropped that
+Sir Horace had found out that he was a friend of Miss Fanning's and
+didn't like it."
+
+"Naturally," said the philosophic police official. "Is Birchill still at
+this flat and is the girl still there?"
+
+"The last I heard of them they were, sir. Of course they had been talking
+of moving after Sir Horace stopped the allowance."
+
+"Well, Hill, I'll investigate this story of yours," said the inspector,
+as he rose to his feet and placed his note-book in his pocket. "If it is
+true--if you have given us all the assistance in your power and have kept
+nothing back, I'll do my best for you. Of course you realise that you are
+in a very serious position. I don't want to arrest you unless I have to,
+but I must detain you while I investigate what you have told us. You will
+come up with us to the Camden Town Station and then your statement will
+be taken down fully. I'll give you three minutes in which to explain
+things to your wife."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+"Do you think Hill's story is true?" Rolfe asked Inspector Chippenfield,
+as they left the Camden Town Police Station and turned in the direction
+of the Tube station.
+
+"We'll soon find out," replied the inspector. "Of course, there is
+something in it, but there is no doubt Hill will not stick at a lie to
+save his own skin. But we are more likely to get at the truth by
+threatening to arrest him than by arresting him. If he were arrested he
+would probably shut up and say no more."
+
+"And are you going to arrest Birchill?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"For the murder?" asked Rolfe.
+
+"No; for burglary. It would be a mistake to charge him with murder until
+we get more evidence. The papers would jeer at us if we charged him with
+murder and then dropped the charge."'
+
+"Do you think Birchill will squeak?"
+
+"On Hill?" said the inspector. "When he knows that Hill has been trying
+to fit him for the murder he'll try and do as much for Hill. And between
+them we'll come at the truth. We are on the right track at last, my boy.
+And, thank God, we have beaten our friend Crewe."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield's satisfaction in his impending triumph over Crewe
+was increased by a chance meeting with the detective. As the two police
+officials came out of Leicester Square Station on their way to Scotland
+Yard to obtain a warrant for Birchill's arrest, they saw Crewe in a
+taxi-cab. Crewe also saw them, and telling the driver to pull up leaned
+out of the window and looked back at the two detectives. When they came
+up with the taxi-cab they saw that Crewe had on a light overcoat and
+that there was a suit-case beside the driver. Crewe was going on a
+journey of some kind.
+
+"Anything fresh about the Riversbrook case?" he asked.
+
+"No; nothing fresh," replied Inspector Chippenfield, looking Crewe
+straight in the face.
+
+"You are a long time in making an arrest," said Crewe, in a
+bantering tone.
+
+"We want to arrest the right man," was the reply. "There's nothing like
+getting the right man to start with; it saves such a lot of time and
+trouble. Where are you off to?"
+
+"I'm taking a run down to Scotland."
+
+The inspector glanced at Crewe rather enviously.
+
+"You are fortunate in being able to enjoy yourself just now," he said
+meaningly.
+
+"I won't drop work altogether," remarked Crewe. "I'll make a few
+inquiries there."
+
+"About the Riversbrook affair?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+With the murderer practically arrested, Inspector Chippenfield permitted
+himself the luxury of smiling at the way in which Crewe was following up
+a false scent.
+
+"I thought the murder was committed in London--not in Scotland," he said.
+
+"Wrong, Chippenfield," said Crewe, with a smile. "Sir Horace was murdered
+in Scotland and his body was brought up to London by train and placed in
+his own house in order to mislead the police. Good-bye."
+
+As the taxi-cab drove off, Inspector Chippenfield turned to his
+subordinate and said, "We'll rub it into him when he comes back and finds
+that we have got our man under lock and key. He's on some wild-goose
+chase. Scotland! He might as well go to Siberia while's he's about it."
+
+With a warrant in his pocket Inspector Chippenfield, accompanied by
+Rolfe, set out for Macauley Mansions, Westminster. They found the
+Mansions to be situated in a quiet and superior part of Westminster, not
+far from Victoria Station, and consisting of a large block of flats
+overlooking a square--a pocket-handkerchief patch of green which was
+supposed to serve as breathing-space for the flats which surrounded it.
+
+Macauley Mansions had no lift, and Number 43, the scene of the events of
+Hill's confession, was on the top floor. Inspector Chippenfield and Rolfe
+mounted the stairs steadily, and finally found themselves standing on a
+neat cocoanut door-mat outside the door of No. 43. The door was closed.
+
+"Well, well," said the inspector, as he paused, panting, on the door-mat
+and rang the bell. "Snug quarters these--very snug. Strange that these
+sort of women never know enough to run straight when they are well off."
+
+The door opened, and a young woman confronted them. She was hardly more
+than a girl, pretty and refined-looking, with large dark eyes, a pathetic
+drooping mouth, and a wistful expression. She wore a well-made indoor
+dress of soft satin, without ornaments, and her luxuriant dark hair was
+simply and becomingly coiled at the back of her head. She held a book in
+her left hand, with one finger between the leaves, as though the summons
+to the door had interrupted her reading, and glanced inquiringly at the
+visitors, waiting for them to intimate their business. She was so
+different from the type of girl they had expected to see that Inspector
+Chippenfield had some difficulty in announcing it.
+
+"Are you Miss Fanning?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she replied.
+
+"Then you are the young woman we wish to see, and, with your permission,
+we'll come inside," said Inspector Chippenfield, recovering from his
+first surprise and speaking briskly.
+
+They followed the girl into the hall, and into a room off the hall to
+which she led the way. A small Pomeranian dog which lay on an easy
+chair, sprang up barking shrilly at their entrance, but at the command of
+the girl it settled down on its silk cushion again. The apartment was a
+small sitting-room, daintily furnished in excellent feminine taste. Both
+police officers took in the contents of the room with the glance of
+trained observers, and both noticed that, prominent among the ornaments
+on the mantelpiece, stood a photograph of the late Sir Horace Fewbanks in
+a handsome silver frame.
+
+The photograph made it easy for Inspector Chippenfield to enter upon the
+object of the visit of himself and his subordinate to the flat.
+
+"I see you have a photograph of Sir Horace Fewbanks there," he said, in
+what he intended to be an easy conversational tone, waving his hand
+towards the mantelpiece.
+
+The wistful expression of the girl's face deepened as she followed
+his glance.
+
+"Yes," she said simply. "It is so terrible about him."
+
+"Was he a--a relative of yours?" asked the inspector.
+
+She had come to the conclusion they were police officers and that they
+were aware of the position she occupied.
+
+"He was very kind to me," she replied.
+
+"When did you see him last? How long before he--before he died?"
+
+"Are you detectives?" she asked.
+
+"From Scotland Yard," replied Inspector Chippenfield with a bow.
+
+"Why have you come here? Do you think that I--that I know anything about
+the murder?"
+
+"Not in the least." The inspector's tone was reassuring. "We merely want
+information about Sir Horace's movements prior to his departure for
+Scotland. When did you see him last?"
+
+"I don't remember," she said, after a pause.
+
+"You must try," said the inspector, in a tone which contained a
+suggestion of command.
+
+"Oh, a few days before he went away."
+
+"A few days," repeated the inspector. "And you parted on good terms?"
+
+"Yes, on very good terms." She met his glance frankly.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield was silent for a moment. Then, fixing his fiercest
+stare on the girl, he remarked abruptly:
+
+"Where's Birchill?"
+
+"Birchill?" She endeavoured to appear surprised, but her sudden
+pallor betrayed her inward anxiety at the question. "I--I don't know
+who you mean."
+
+"I mean the man you've been keeping with Sir Horace Fewbanks's money,"
+said the inspector brutally.
+
+"I've been keeping nobody with Sir Horace Fewbanks's money," protested
+the girl feebly. "It's cruel of you to insult me."
+
+"That'll about do to go on with," said Inspector Chippenfield, with a
+sudden change of tone, rising to his feet as he spoke. "Rolfe, keep an
+eye on her while I search the flat."
+
+Rolfe crossed over from where he had been sitting and stood beside the
+girl. She glanced up at him wildly, with terror dawning in the depths of
+her dark eyes.
+
+"What do you mean? How dare you?" she cried, in an effort to be
+indignant.
+
+"Now, don't try your tragedy airs on us," said the inspector. "We've no
+time for them. If you won't tell the truth you had better say nothing
+at all." He plunged his hand into a _jardinière_ and withdrew a
+briar-wood pipe. "This looks to me like Birchill's property. Keep that
+dog back, Rolfe."
+
+The little dog had sprung off his cushion and was eagerly following the
+inspector out of the room. Rolfe caught up the animal in his arms, and
+returned to where the girl was sitting. Her face was white and strained,
+and her big dark eyes followed Inspector Chippenfield, but she did not
+speak. The inspector tramped noisily into the little hall, leaving the
+door of the room wide open. Rolfe and the girl saw him fling open the
+door of another room--a bedroom--and stride into it. He came out again
+shortly, and went down the hall to the rear of the flat. A few minutes
+later he came back to the room where he had left Rolfe and the girl. His
+knees were dusty, and some feathers were adhering to his jacket, as
+though he had been plunging in odd nooks and corners, and beneath beds.
+He was hot, flurried, and out of temper.
+
+"The bird's flown!" were his first words, addressed to Rolfe. "I've
+hunted high and low, but I cannot find a sign of him. It beats me how
+he's managed it. He couldn't have gone out the front way without my
+seeing him go past the door, and the back windows are four stories high
+from the ground."
+
+"Perhaps he wasn't here when we came in," suggested Rolfe.
+
+"Oh, yes, he was. Why, he'd been smoking that pipe in this very room. She
+was clever enough to open the window to let out the tobacco smoke before
+she let us in, but she didn't hide the pipe properly, for I saw the smoke
+from it coming out of the _jardinière_, and when I put my hand on the
+bowl it was hot. Feel it now."
+
+Rolfe placed his hand on the pipe, which Inspector Chippenfield had
+deposited on the table. The bowl was still warm, indicating that the pipe
+had recently been alight.
+
+"He must have been smoking the pipe when we knocked at the door, and
+dashed away to hide before she let us in," grumbled the inspector. "But
+the question is--where can he have got to? I've hunted everywhere, and
+there's no way out except by the front door, so far as I can see. Go and
+have a look yourself, Rolfe, and see if you can find a trace of him. I'll
+watch the girl."
+
+Rolfe put down the little dog he had been holding, and went out into the
+hall. The dog accompanied him, frisking about him in friendly fashion.
+Rolfe first examined the bedroom that he had seen Inspector Chippenfield
+enter. It was a small room, containing a double bed. It was prettily
+furnished in white, with white curtains, and toilet-table articles in
+ivory to match. A glance round the room convinced Rolfe that it was
+impossible for a man to secrete himself in it. The door of the wardrobe
+had been flung open by the inspector, and the dresses and other articles
+of feminine apparel it contained flung out on the floor. There was no
+other hiding-place possible, except beneath the bed, and the ruthless
+hand of the inspector had torn off the white muslin bed hangings,
+revealing emptiness underneath. Rolfe went out into the hall again, and
+entered the room next the bedroom. This apartment was apparently used as
+a dining-room, for it contained a large table, a few chairs, a small
+sideboard, a spirit-stand, a case of books and ornaments, and two small
+oak presses. Plainly, there was no place in it where a man could hide
+himself. The next room was the bathroom, which was also empty. Opposite
+the bathroom was a small bedroom, very barely furnished, offering no
+possibility of concealment. Then the passage opened into a large roomy
+kitchen, the full width of the rooms on both sides of the hall, and the
+kitchen completed the flat.
+
+Rolfe glanced keenly around the kitchen. There were no cooking appliances
+visible, or pots or pans, but there was much lumber and odds and ends, as
+though the place were used as a store-room. Presumably Miss Fanning
+obtained her meals from the restaurant on the ground floor of the
+mansions and had no use for a kitchen. The room was dirty and dusty and
+crowded with all kinds of rubbish. But the miscellaneous rubbish stored
+in the room offered no hiding-place for a man. Rolfe nevertheless made a
+conscientious search, shifting the lumber about and ferreting into dark
+corners, without result. Finally he crossed the room to look out of the
+window, which had been left open, no doubt by Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+The mansions in which the flat was situated formed part of a large
+building, with back windows overlooking a small piece of ground. The
+flat was on the fourth story. Rolfe looked around the neighbouring roofs
+and down onto the ground fifty feet below, but could see nothing.
+
+He withdrew his head and was turning to leave the room when his attention
+was attracted by the peculiar behaviour of the dog, which had followed
+him throughout on his search. The little animal, after sniffing about the
+floor, ran to the open window and started whining and jumping up at it.
+Rolfe quickly returned to the window and looked out.
+
+"Why, of course!" he muttered. "How could I have overlooked it?
+Inspector," he called aloud, "come here!"
+
+Inspector Chippenfield appeared in the kitchen in a state of some
+excitement at the summons. He carried the key of the front room in his
+hand, having taken the precaution to lock Miss Fanning in before he
+responded to the call of his colleague.
+
+"What is it, Rolfe?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"This dog has tracked him to the window, so he's evidently escaped that
+way," explained Rolfe briefly. "He's climbed along the window-ledge."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield approached the window and looked out. A broad
+window-ledge immediately beneath the window ran the whole length of the
+building beneath the windows on the fourth floor, and, so far as could be
+seen, continued round the side of the house. It was a dizzy, but not a
+difficult feat for a man of cool head to walk along the ledge to the
+corner of the house.
+
+"I wonder where that infernal ledge goes to?" said Inspector
+Chippenfield, vainly twisting his neck and protruding his body through
+the window to a dangerous extent to see round the corner of the building.
+"I daresay it leads to the water-pipe, and the scoundrel, knowing that,
+has been able to get round, shin down, and get clear away."
+
+"I'll soon find out," said Rolfe. "I'll walk along to the corner and
+see."
+
+"Do you think you can do it, Rolfe?" asked the inspector nervously. "If
+you fell--" he glanced down to the ground far below with a shudder.
+
+"Nonsense!" laughed Rolfe. "I won't fall. Why, the ledge is a foot broad,
+and I've got a steady head. He may not have got very far, after all, and
+I may be able to see him from the corner."
+
+He got out of the window as he spoke, and started to walk carefully along
+the ledge towards the corner of the building. He reached it safely,
+peered round, screwed himself round sharply, and came back to the open
+window almost at a run.
+
+"You're right!" he gasped, as he sprang through. "I saw him. He is
+climbing down the spouting, using the chimney brickwork as a brace for
+his feet. If we get downstairs we may catch him."
+
+He was out of the kitchen in an instant, up the passage, and racing down
+three steps at a time before the inspector had recovered from his
+surprise. Then he followed as quickly as he could, but Rolfe had a long
+start of him. When Inspector Chippenfield reached the ground floor Rolfe
+was nowhere in sight. The inspector looked up and down the street,
+wondering what had become of him.
+
+At that instant a tall young man, bareheaded and coat-less, came running
+out of an alley-way, pursued by Rolfe.
+
+"Stop him!" cried Rolfe, to his superior officer.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield stepped quickly out into the street in front of
+the fugitive. The young man cannoned into the burly officer before he
+could stop himself, and the inspector clutched him fast. He attempted to
+wrench himself free, but Rolfe had rushed to his superior's assistance,
+and drew the baton with which he had provided himself when he set out
+from Scotland Yard.
+
+"You needn't bother about using that thing," said the young man
+contemptuously. "I'm not a fool; I realise you've got me."
+
+"We'll not give you another chance." Inspector Chippenfield dexterously
+snapped a pair of handcuffs on the young man's wrists.
+
+"What are these for?" said the captive, regarding them sullenly.
+
+"You'll know soon enough when we get you upstairs," replied the
+inspector. "Now then, up you go."
+
+They reascended the stairs in silence, Inspector Chippenfield and Rolfe
+walking on each side of their prisoner holding him by the arms, in case
+he tried to make another bolt. They reached the flat and found the front
+door open as they had left it. The inspector entered the hall and
+unlocked the drawing-room door.
+
+The girl was sitting on the chair where they had left her, with her head
+bowed down in an attitude of the deepest dejection. She straightened
+herself suddenly as they entered, and launched a terrified glance at the
+young man.
+
+"Oh, Fred!" she gasped.
+
+"They were too good for me, Doris," he responded, as though in reply to
+her unspoken query. "I would have got away from this chap"--he indicated
+Rolfe with a nod of his head--"but I ran into the other one."
+
+He stooped as he spoke to brush with his manacled hands some of the dirt
+from his clothes, which he had doubtless gained in his perilous climb
+down the side of the house, and then straightened himself to look
+loweringly at his captors. He was a tall, slender young fellow of about
+twenty-five or twenty-six, clean-shaven, with a fresh complexion and a
+rather effeminate air. He was well dressed in a grey lounge suit, a soft
+shirt, with a high double collar and silk necktie. He looked, as he stood
+there, more like a dandified city clerk than the desperate criminal
+suggested by Hill's confession.
+
+"Come on, what's the charge?" he demanded insolently, with a slight
+glance at his manacled hands.
+
+"Is your name Frederick Birchill?" asked Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+The young man nodded.
+
+"Then, Frederick Birchill, you're charged with burglariously entering
+the house of Sir Horace Fewbanks, at Hampstead, on the night of the 18th
+of August."
+
+"Burglary?" said Birchill "Anything else?"
+
+"That will do for the present," replied the inspector. "We may find it
+necessary to charge you with a more serious crime later."
+
+"Well, all I can say is that you've got the wrong man. But that is
+nothing new for you chaps," he added with a sneer.
+
+"Surely you are not going to charge him with the murder?" said the girl
+imploringly.
+
+The inspector's reply was merely to warn the prisoner that anything he
+said might be used in evidence against him at his trial.
+
+"He had nothing whatever to do with it--he knows nothing about it,"
+protested the girl. "If you let him go I'll tell you who murdered
+Sir Horace."
+
+"Who murdered him?" asked the inspector.
+
+"Hill," was the reply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Doris Fanning got off a Holborn tram at King's Cross, and with a hasty
+glance round her as if to make sure she was not followed, walked at a
+rapid pace across the street in the direction of Caledonian Road. She
+walked up that busy thoroughfare at the same quick gait for some minutes,
+then turned into a narrow street and, with another suspicious look around
+her, stopped at the doorway of a small shop a short distance down.
+
+The shop sold those nondescript goods which seem to afford a living to a
+not inconsiderable class of London's small shopkeepers. The windows and
+the shelves were full of dusty old books and magazines, trumpery curios
+and cheap china, second-hand furniture and a collection of miscellaneous
+odds and ends. A thick dust lay over the whole collection, and the shop
+and its contents presented a deserted and dirty appearance. Moreover, the
+door was closed as though customers were not expected. The girl tried the
+door and found it locked--a fact which seemed to indicate that customers
+were not even desired. After another hasty look up and down the street
+she tapped sharply on the door in a peculiar way.
+
+The door was opened after the lapse of a few minutes by a short thickset
+man of over fifty, whose heavy face displayed none of the suavity and
+desire to please which is part of the stock-in-trade of the small
+shopkeeper of London. A look of annoyance crossed his face at the sight
+of the girl, and his first remark to her was one which no well-regulated
+shopkeeper would have addressed to a prospective customer.
+
+"You!" he exclaimed. "What in God's name has brought you here? I told you
+on no account to come to the shop. How do you know somebody hasn't
+followed you?"
+
+"I could not help it, Kincher," the girl responded piteously. "I'm
+distracted about Fred, and I had to come over to ask your advice."
+
+"You women are all fools," the man retorted. "You might have known that
+I would read all about the case in the papers, and that I'd let you
+hear from me."
+
+"Yes, Kincher," she replied humbly, "but they let me see Fred for a
+few minutes yesterday at the police court and he told me to come over
+and see you. Oh, if you only knew what I've suffered since he was
+arrested. Yesterday he was committed for trial. I haven't closed my
+eyes for over a week."
+
+"So you attended the police-court proceedings?" said Kemp. And when the
+girl nodded her head he went on, "The more fool you. I suppose it would
+be too much to expect a woman to keep away even though she knew she could
+do no good."
+
+"I knew that, Kincher, but I simply had to go. I should have died if I
+had stayed in that dreadful flat alone. I tried to, but I couldn't. I got
+so nervous that I had to put my handkerchief into my mouth to prevent
+myself from screaming aloud."
+
+"Well, since you are here you had better come inside instead of standing
+there and giving yourself and me away to every passing policeman."
+
+He led the way inside, and the girl followed him to a dirty, cheerless
+room behind the shop which was furnished with a sofa-bedstead, a table,
+and a chair. It was evident that Kemp lived alone and attended to his own
+wants. The remains of an unappetising meal were on a corner of the table,
+and a kettle and a teapot stood by the fireplace in which a fire had
+recently been made with a few sticks for the purpose of boiling a kettle.
+Bedclothes were heaped on the sofa-bedstead in a disordered state, and in
+the midst of them nestled a large tortoise-shell cat.
+
+"Sit down," said Kemp. There was an old chair near the fireplace and he
+pushed it towards her with his foot. "What's brought you over here?"
+
+The girl sank into the chair and began to cry.
+
+"I can't help it, Kincher," she said. "I don't know what to say or do.
+Fancy Fred being charged with murder! Oh, it's too dreadful to think
+about. And yet I can think of nothing else."
+
+"Crying your eyes out won't help matters much," replied the
+unsympathetic Kemp.
+
+The girl did not reply, but rocked herself backwards and forwards on the
+chair. She sobbed so violently that she appeared to be threatened with an
+attack of hysteria. Kemp watched her silently. The cat on the
+sofa-bedstead, as if awakened by the noise, got up, yawned, looked
+inquiringly round, and then with a measured leap sprang into the girl's
+lap. She was startled by his act and then she smiled through her sobs as
+she stroked the animal's coat.
+
+"Poor old Peter!" she exclaimed. "He wants to console me! don't you,
+Peter? I say, Kincher, I wish you'd give me Peter; you don't want him.
+Oh, look at the dear!" The cat had perched himself on one of her knees
+to beg, and he sawed the air appealingly with his forepaws. "I must give
+him a tit-bit for that." She eyed the remains of the meal on the table
+disdainfully. "No, Peter, there is nothing fit for you to
+eat--positively nothing. Why, he understands me like a human being," she
+continued in amazement as the huge cat dropped on all fours and
+deliberately sprang back to the sofa-bedstead. "I say, Kincher, you
+really want a woman in this place to look after you. It's in a most
+shocking state--it's like a pigsty."
+
+Kemp made no reply but continued to watch her. Her tears had vanished and
+she sat forward with her dark eyes sparkling, one hand supporting her
+pretty face as she glanced round the room.
+
+"Have you a cigarette?" she asked suddenly.
+
+Kemp went into the shop and came back with a packet of cheap cigarettes.
+The girl pushed them away petulantly.
+
+"I don't like that brand," she said; "haven't you anything better?"
+
+The man shook his head.
+
+"No? Then here goes--I must have a smoke of some sort." She stuck one of
+the cheap cigarettes daintily into her mouth. "A match, Kincher! Why, the
+box is filthy! You must have a woman in to look after you, even if I have
+to find you one myself."
+
+"I don't want any woman in the place," retorted Kemp. "There is no peace
+for a man when a woman is about. But let us have no more of this idle
+chatter. What's brought you over here? I suppose it's about Fred."
+
+"Poor Fred!" The girl looked downcast for a moment, then she tossed her
+head, puffed out some smoke, and exclaimed energetically, "But he's not
+guilty, Kincher, and we'll get him off, won't we?"
+
+"Not merely by saying so," replied Kemp. "But you'd better tell me how it
+came about that he was arrested for the murder. The police gave away
+nothing at the police court. Bill Dobbs was down there and he told me
+they let out nothing, except that their principal witness against Fred is
+that fellow Hill. I always knew he'd squeak. I told Fred to have nothing
+to do with the job."
+
+The girl's eyes flashed viciously. She tossed the cigarette into the
+fire-place and straightened herself.
+
+"That's the low, dirty scoundrel who committed the murder," she
+exclaimed. "He ought to be in the dock--not Fred."
+
+"Was Fred up there that night?" asked Kemp.
+
+"Up where?"
+
+"At Riversbrook, or whatever they call it."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He told me he didn't go."
+
+"It's because he was up there that the police have arrested him," said
+the girl. "Hill gave him away. Oh, he's a double-dyed villain, is Hill.
+And so quiet and respectable looking with it all! He used to let me in
+when I went to Riversbrook, and let me out again, and pocket the
+half-crowns I gave him. And I like a fool never suspected him once, or
+thought that he knew anything about Fred coming to the flat. He didn't
+let it out till the night Sir Horace quarrelled with me. Sir Horace found
+out about--about Fred--and when I went up to see him as usual, he told me
+that he had finished with me and he called Hill up to show me out. 'Show
+this young lady out,' he said in that cold haughty voice of his, and the
+wily old villain Hill just bowed and held the door open. He followed me
+down stairs and let me out at the side door. There he said, 'I'll escort
+you to the front gate, if you will permit me, miss. I usually lock the
+gate about this time.' I thought nothing of this because he had come with
+me to the front gate before. He followed me down the garden path through
+the plantation till we reached the front gate. He opened the gate for me
+and I said 'Good night, Hill,' but instead of his replying 'Good night,
+Miss Fanning,' as he usually did, he hissed out like a serpent, 'You tell
+Birchill I want to see him to-morrow, and I'll come to the flat about 9
+o'clock. Tell him an old friend named Field wants to see him. Don't
+forget the name--Field!' Then he locked the gate and was gone before I
+could speak a word.
+
+"I gave Fred his message next morning--I wish to God that I hadn't," she
+continued. "I asked Fred not to keep the appointment, but he insisted on
+doing so. He said that he and Field had been good friends in the gaol,
+and that Field had told him that if he ever got on to anything he would
+let him know. He seemed quite pleased at the idea of meeting Field again.
+I told him to beware that Field wasn't laying a trap for him, but he
+wouldn't listen to me.
+
+"Sure enough, Field--or Hill as he calls himself now--did come over
+that evening and I let him in myself. I took him into the sitting-room
+where Fred was, and I sat down in a corner of the room pretending to read
+a book so that I could hear what our visitor had to say. But the cunning
+old devil whispered something to Fred, and Fred came over to me and asked
+if I'd mind leaving them alone for half an hour. I didn't mind so much
+because I knew I could get it all out of Fred after Hill had gone.
+
+"He remained shut up with Fred for nearly two hours and then I heard Fred
+letting him out of the front door. Fred came in to me, and I soon got the
+strength of it all from him. What do you think Hill had come for? To get
+Fred to burgle Sir Horace's house! And Fred had agreed to do it. I cried
+and I stormed and went into hysterics, but he wouldn't budge--you know
+how obstinate he can be when he likes. He said that Hill had told him
+there was a good haul to be picked up. Sir Horace was going to Scotland
+for the shooting, and the servants were to be sent to his country house,
+so the coast would be clear. Hill was to leave everything right at
+Riversbrook on the afternoon of the 18th of August, and he was to come
+across to the flat and let Fred know.
+
+"Hill came, as he promised, but as soon as he came in I could see that
+something had happened. The first words he said were that Sir Horace had
+returned unexpectedly from Scotland. I was glad to hear it, for I thought
+that meant that there would be no burglary. I said as much to Fred, and
+he would have agreed with me, but that devil Hill was too full of
+cunning. 'Of course, if you're frightened, we'd better call it off,' he
+said. Fred had been drinking during the day, and you know what he's like
+when he's had a little too much. 'I was never frightened of any job yet,'
+he said, 'and I'd do this job to-night if the house was full of rozzers,'
+Hill pretended that he wasn't particular whether the thing came off or
+not that night, but all the while he kept egging Fred on to do it. Oh, I
+can see now what his game was. In spite of all I could do or say, it was
+arranged that Fred should go over, and see if it was quite safe to carry
+out the job. Hill said he thought Sir Horace was going out that night,
+and wouldn't be home until the early morning. About 9 o'clock Fred went
+off, leaving Hill and me alone in the flat together. How I wish now that
+I had killed him when I had such a good chance.
+
+"We sat there scarcely speaking, and heard the clock strike the hours.
+After midnight I began to get restless, for I thought something must have
+happened to Fred. Hill said in a low voice: 'It's time Fred was back.'
+The words were scarcely out of his mouth when I heard Fred's step
+outside, and I ran to let him in. He came in as white as a sheet. 'Fred,'
+I cried as soon as I saw him, 'there's some blood on your face.'
+
+"He didn't answer a word until he had taken a big drink of whisky out of
+the decanter. Then he said in a whisper: 'Sir Horace Fewbanks has been
+murdered!' 'Murdered!' cried Hill, leaping up from his chair--he can act
+well, I can tell you--'My God, Fred, you don't mean it!' 'He's dead, I
+tell you,' replied Fred fiercely. I thought, and at the time I suppose
+Hill thought, that Fred had shot him either accidentally or in order to
+escape capture. He seemed to guess what we were thinking, for he swore
+that he had had nothing to do with it--Sir Horace was dead on the floor
+when he got there.
+
+"He told us all that had happened. When he got to Riversbrook he found
+lights burning on the ground floor. He jumped over the fence at the side
+and hid in the garden. He was there only a few minutes when he saw the
+lights go out. Then the front door was slammed and a woman walked down
+the garden path to the gate."
+
+"A woman!" exclaimed Kemp.
+
+"Yes, a woman. Why not? She had been to see Sir Horace. One of his
+Society mistresses. I'll bet it was on her account that he came back from
+Scotland."
+
+"What time was this?" he asked with interest.
+
+"About half-past ten," replied the girl.
+
+"And this woman--this lady--turned out the lights and closed the
+front door?"
+
+"So Fred says. Of course he thought Sir Horace had done it, but he found
+out later that Sir Horace was dead."
+
+"I can't understand it," said Kemp. "What was she doing there? If she
+found the man dead, why didn't she inform the police? No, wait a minute!
+She'd be afraid to do that if she was a Society woman."
+
+"It might be her who killed him," said the girl.
+
+"Does Fred think that?" asked Kemp, looking at her closely.
+
+"Fred doesn't know what to think," she replied. "But it must have been
+this woman or Hill who killed him. I feel sure myself that it was Hill."
+
+"This woman puzzles me," said Kemp thoughtfully. "She must have been a
+cool hand if she went round turning out the lights after finding his dead
+body. About half-past ten, you said?"
+
+"That is as near as Fred can make it."
+
+"Go on with your story," he said. "I'm interested in this. You were
+saying that Fred saw the lights go out, and then this woman came out of
+the house and walked away."
+
+"Well, Fred got into the house through one of the windows at the
+side--the one Hill had told him to try," continued the girl. "But first
+of all he waited about half an hour in the garden, so as to give Sir
+Horace time to go to sleep. He was able to find his way about the house
+as Hill had given him a plan. He felt his way upstairs and finding a door
+open he went into the room and flashed his electric torch. By its light
+he saw Sir Horace Fewbanks lying huddled up in a corner with a big pool
+of blood beside him on the floor. He felt him to see if he was dead. The
+body was quite warm, but it was limp. Sir Horace was dead. Fred says he
+lost his nerve and ran for it as hard as he could. He rushed down stairs
+and out of the house and got back to the flat as fast as he could.
+
+"The three of us sat there shaking with fear and wondering what to do.
+Hill was the first to recover himself. In his cunning plausible way, he
+pointed out that it was altogether unlikely that suspicion would fall on
+Fred or him. All we had to do was to keep quiet and say nothing; then
+we'd have no awkward questions put to us. It was his suggestion that we
+should send an anonymous letter to Scotland Yard telling them Sir Horace
+had been murdered. That would be much better, he said, than leaving the
+body there until he went over and found it when he had to go over to
+Riversbrook to take a look round, in accordance with the instructions
+that had been given him when Sir Horace went to Scotland. Knowing what he
+did, he was afraid that if he was allowed to discover the body and inform
+the police, he would let something slip when the police came at him with
+their hundreds of questions. We printed the letter to Scotland Yard, each
+one doing a letter at a time. Hill took it with him, saying he would post
+it on his way home.
+
+"When he left, Fred and I sat there thinking. Suddenly it came to me as
+clear as daylight that Hill had committed the murder, and had fixed up
+things so as to throw suspicion on Fred. He must have known Sir Horace
+was coming back from Scotland that night, and he had laid in wait for him
+and shot him. Then he had come over to my flat in order to persuade Fred
+to carry out the burglary, and direct suspicion to Fred for the murder,
+if the police worried him. I told Fred what I thought, but he only
+laughed at me and said I was talking nonsense. But I was right, for a
+week afterwards the police came and arrested Fred at the flat."
+
+"How did they get him?" asked Kemp.
+
+"I saw them coming along the street from the window, and I pointed them
+out to Fred. He tried to get away through the kitchen window along the
+ledge and down the spouting. He almost got away, but one of the
+detectives saw him before he reached the ground, and they dashed down
+stairs and got him in the street. Next day I saw in the papers that Hill
+had made an important statement to the police, and this had led to
+Fred's arrest. Hill is the murderer, Kincher. The cunning, wicked,
+treacherous villain told the police about Fred being up there. He wants
+to see Fred hang in order to save his own neck." The girl's voice rose
+to a shriek, and she sprang to her feet with blazing eyes. "Kincher,"
+she cried, "you've got to help me put the rope round this wretch's neck.
+Do you hear me?"
+
+Kemp's impassivity was in marked contrast to the girl's hysterical
+excitement.
+
+"What do you want me to do?" he asked.
+
+"Fred wants you to get up an alibi for him. He sent me over to ask you to
+arrange it without delay. He wants you and two or three others to swear
+that he was over here on the night of the murder. That will be sufficient
+to get him off."
+
+"Not me," said Kemp, shaking his head decidedly. "I won't do it; it's too
+risky. The police have too many things against me for my word to be any
+good as a witness. I'd only be landing myself in trouble for perjury
+instead of helping Fred out of trouble. He ought to have got an alibi
+ready before he was arrested. I told him at the inquest that he ought to
+look after it, and he swore he'd not been up there on the night of the
+murder. It is too late to do anything in the alibi line now. I don't know
+anybody I could get to come forward and swear Fred was in their company
+that night--there is a difference between fixing up a tale for the police
+before a man's arrested, and going into the witness box and committing
+perjury on oath."
+
+He spoke in such an uncompromising tone that the girl saw it was useless
+to pursue the matter further.
+
+"Suppose I went to the police and told them that Hill is the murderer?"
+she suggested.
+
+Kemp shook his head slowly.
+
+"There is only your word for it that Hill killed him," he said. "It
+doesn't look to me as if he did, when he went over to your flat and told
+Fred that Sir Horace had come back from Scotland. If he had killed him he
+would have let Fred go over without saying a word about it."
+
+"That was part of his cunning," said the girl. "If he had said nothing
+about Sir Horace's return, Fred would have suspected him when he found
+the dead body. I'm as certain that Hill committed the murder as if I had
+seen him do it with my own eyes."
+
+Kemp shrugged his shoulders as though realising the uselessness of
+attempting to combat such a feminine form of reasoning.
+
+"Didn't Fred say that the body was warm when he touched it?" he asked.
+
+She meditated a moment over this evidence of Hill's innocence.
+
+"Well, if Hill didn't kill him, the woman Fred saw leaving the house must
+have done so," she declared.
+
+"There is something in that," said Kemp. "Look here, we've got to get
+Fred a good lawyer to defend him, and we must be guided by his advice as
+to what is the best thing to do. He knows more about what will go down
+with a jury than you do."
+
+"I paid a solicitor to defend him at the police court," said the
+girl, "but the money I gave him was thrown away. He said nothing and
+did nothing."
+
+"That shows he is a man who knows his business," replied Kemp. "What's
+the good of talking to police court beaks in a case that is bound to go
+to trial? It's a waste of breath. The thing is to see that Fred is
+properly defended when the case comes on at the Old Bailey. We want
+somebody who can manage the jury. I should say Holymead is the man if you
+can get him. I don't know as he'd be likely to take up the case, for he
+don't go in much for criminal courts--and yet it seems to me that he
+might. You ought to try to get him, at least. He used to be a friend of
+your friend Sir Horace, so if he took up the case it would look as if he
+believed Fred had nothing to do with the murder. It would be bound to
+make a good impression on the jury."
+
+"Wouldn't he be very expensive?" asked the girl.
+
+"Not so expensive as getting hanged," said Kemp grimly. "You take my
+advice and have him if you can get him. Never mind what he costs, if you
+can raise the money. You've got some money saved up, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes, I've nearly £200. Sir Horace put £100 in the Savings Bank for me on
+my last birthday. And the furniture at the flat is mine. I'd sell that
+and everything I've got, for Fred's sake."
+
+"That is the way to talk," said Kemp. "You go to this solicitor you had
+at the police court, and tell him you want Holymead to defend Fred. Tell
+him he must brief Holymead--have nobody else but Holymead. Tell him that
+Holymead was a friend of Sir Horace Fewbanks's and that if he appears for
+Fred the jury will never believe that Fred had anything to do with the
+murder. And I don't think he had, though he did lie to me and swear he
+hadn't been up there that night," he added after a moment's reflection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+"There is one link in the chain missing," said Rolfe, who was discussing
+with Inspector Chippenfield, in the latter's room at Scotland Yard, the
+strength of the case against Birchill.
+
+"And what is that?" asked his superior.
+
+"The piece of woman's handkerchief that I found in the dead man's hand.
+You remember we agreed that it showed there was a woman in the case."
+
+"Well, what do you call this girl Fanning? Isn't she in the case? Surely,
+you don't want any better explanation of the murder than a quarrel
+between her and Sir Horace over this man Birchill?"
+
+"Yes, I see that plain enough," replied Rolfe. "There is ample motive for
+the crime, but how that piece of handkerchief got into the dead man's
+hand is still a mystery to me. It would be easily explained if this girl
+was present in the room or the house when the murder was committed. But
+she wasn't. Hill's story is that she was at the flat with him."
+
+"When you have had as much experience in investigating crime as I have,
+you won't worry over little points that at first don't seem to fit in
+with what we know to be facts," responded the inspector in a patronising
+tone. "I noticed from the first, Rolfe, that you were inclined to make
+too much of this handkerchief business, but I said nothing. Of course, it
+was your own discovery, and I have found during my career that young
+detectives are always inclined to make too much of their own discoveries.
+Perhaps I was myself, when I was young and inexperienced. Now, as to this
+handkerchief: what is more likely than that Birchill had it in his pocket
+when he went out to Riversbrook on that fatal night? He was living in
+the flat with this girl Fanning: what was more natural than that he
+should pick up a handkerchief off the floor that the girl had dropped and
+put it in his pocket with the intention of giving it to her when she
+returned to the room? Instead of doing so he forgot all about it. When he
+shot Sir Horace Fewbanks he put his hand into his pocket for a
+handkerchief to wipe his forehead or his hands--it was a hot night, and I
+take it that a man who has killed another doesn't feel as cool as a
+cucumber. While stooping over his victim with the handkerchief still in
+his hand, the dying man made a convulsive movement and caught hold of a
+corner of the handkerchief, which was torn off." Inspector Chippenfield
+looked across at his subordinate with a smile of triumphant superiority.
+
+"Yes," said Rolfe meditatively. "There is nothing wrong about that as far
+as I can see. But I would like to know for certain how it got there."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield was satisfied with his subordinate's testimony to
+his perspicacity.
+
+"That is all right, Rolfe," he said in a tone of kindly banter. "But
+don't make the mistake of regarding your idle curiosity as a virtue.
+After the trial, if you are still curious on the point, I have no
+doubt Birchill will tell you. He is sure to make a confession before
+he is hanged."
+
+But it was more a spirit of idle curiosity than anything else that
+brought Rolfe to Crewe's chambers in Holborn an hour later. Having
+secured the murderer, he felt curious as to what Crewe's feelings were on
+his defeat. It was the first occasion that he had been on a case which
+Crewe had been commissioned to investigate, and he was naturally pleased
+that Inspector Chippenfield and he had arrested the author of the crime
+while Crewe was all at sea. It was plain from the fact that the latter
+had thought it necessary to visit Scotland that he had got on a false
+scent. It was not Scotland, but Scotland Yard that Crewe should have
+visited, Rolfe said to himself with a smile.
+
+Crewe, in pursuance of his policy of keeping on the best of terms with
+the police, gave Rolfe a very friendly welcome. He produced from a
+cupboard two glasses, a decanter of whisky, a siphon of soda, and a box
+of cigars. Rolfe quickly discovered that the cigars were of a quality
+that seldom came his way, and he leaned back in his chair and puffed with
+steady enjoyment.
+
+"Then you are determined to hang Birchill?" said Crewe, as with a cigar
+in his fingers he faced his visitor with a smile.
+
+"We'll hang him right enough," said Rolfe. He pulled the cigar out of his
+mouth and looked at it approvingly. Though the talk was of hanging, he
+had never felt more thoroughly at peace with the world.
+
+"It will be a pity if you do," said Crewe.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because he's the wrong man."
+
+"It would take a lot to make me believe that," said Rolfe stoutly. "We've
+got a strong case against him--there is not a weak point in it. I admit
+that Hill is a tainted witness, but they'll find it pretty hard to break
+down his story. We've tested it in every way and find it stands. Then
+there are the bootmarks outside the window. Birchill's boots fit them to
+the smallest fraction of an inch. The jemmy found in the flat fits the
+mark made in the window at Riversbrook, and we've got something
+more--another witness who saw him in Tanton Gardens about the time of the
+murder. If Birchill can get his neck out of the noose, he's cleverer than
+I take him for."
+
+Crewe did not reply directly to Rolfe's summary of the case.
+
+"I see that they've briefed Holymead for the defence," he said
+after a pause.
+
+"A waste of good money," said the police officer. Something appealed to
+his sense of humour, for he broke out into a laugh.
+
+"What are you laughing at?" asked Crewe.
+
+"I was wondering how Sir Horace feels when he sees the money he gave
+this girl Fanning being used to defend his murderer."
+
+"You are a hardened scamp, Rolfe, with a very perverse sense of humour,"
+said Crewe.
+
+"It was a cunning move of them to get Holymead," said Rolfe. "They think
+it will weigh with the jury because he was such a close friend of Sir
+Horace--that he wouldn't have taken up the case unless he felt that
+Birchill was innocent. But you and I know better than that, Mr. Crewe. A
+lawyer will prove that black is white if he is paid for it. In fact, I
+understand that, according to the etiquette of the bar, they have got to
+do it. A barrister has to abide by his brief and leave his personal
+feelings out of account."
+
+"That's so. Theoretically he is an officer of the Court, and his services
+are supposed to be at the call of any man who is in want of him and can
+afford to pay for them. Of course, a leading barrister, such as Holymead,
+often declines a brief because he has so much to do, but he is not
+supposed to decline it for personal reasons."
+
+"His heart will not be in the case," said Rolfe philosophically.
+
+"On the contrary, I think it will," said Crewe. "My own opinion is that,
+if necessary, he will exert his powers to the utmost in order to get
+Birchill off, and that he will succeed."
+
+"Not he," said Rolfe confidently. "Our case is too strong."
+
+"You've got a lot of circumstantial evidence, but a clever lawyer will
+pull it to pieces. Circumstantial evidence has hung many a man, and it
+will hang many more. But a jury will hesitate to convict on
+circumstantial evidence when it can be shown that the conduct of the
+prisoner is at variance with what the conduct of a guilty man would be. I
+don't bet, but I'll wager you a box of cigars to nothing that Holymead
+gets Birchill off."
+
+"It's a one-sided wager, but I'll take the cigars because I could do
+with a box of these," said Rolfe. "You might as well give them to me now,
+Mr. Crewe."
+
+"No, no," said Crewe with a smile. "Put a couple in your pocket now,
+because you won't win the box."
+
+"Of course, I understand, Mr. Crewe, why you say Birchill is the wrong
+man. You feel a bit sore because we have beaten you. I would feel sore
+myself in your place, and I don't deny that we got information that put
+us on Birchill's track, and therefore it was easier for us to solve the
+mystery than it was for you."
+
+"I'm not a bit sore," said Crewe. "I can take a beating, especially when
+the men who beat me are good sportsmen." He bowed towards Rolfe, and
+that officer blushed as he recalled how Inspector Chippenfield and he
+had agreed to withhold information from Crewe and try to put him on a
+false scent.
+
+"I wish you'd tell me what you consider the weak points of our case
+against Birchill," asked Rolfe.
+
+"Your case is based on Hill's confession, and that to my mind is false in
+many details," said Crewe. "Take, for instance, his account of how he
+came into contact with Birchill again. This girl Fanning, after a quarrel
+with Sir Horace, came over to Riversbrook with a message for Hill which
+was virtually a threat. Now does that seem probable? The girl who had
+been in the habit of visiting Sir Horace goes over to see Hill. No woman
+in the circumstances would do anything of the sort. She had too good an
+opinion of herself to take a message to a servant at a house from which
+she had been expelled by the owner, who had been keeping her. How would
+she have felt if she had run into Sir Horace? It is true that Sir Horace
+left for Scotland the day before, but it is improbable that the girl who
+had quarrelled with Sir Horace a fortnight before knew the exact date on
+which he intended to leave. And how did Hill behave when he got the
+message? According to his story, he consented to go and see Birchill
+under threat of exposure, and he consented to become an accomplice in the
+burglary for the same reason. Sir Horace knew all about Hill's past, so
+why should he fear a threat of exposure?"
+
+"Hill explained that," interposed Rolfe. "He pointed out that, though Sir
+Horace knew his past, he couldn't afford to have any scandal about it."
+
+"Quite so. But could Birchill afford to threaten a man who was under the
+protection of Sir Horace Fewbanks? Would Birchill pit himself against Sir
+Horace? I think that Sir Horace, knowing the law pretty thoroughly, would
+soon have found a way to deal with Birchill. If Hill was threatened by
+Birchill, his first impulse, knowing what a powerful protector he had in
+Sir Horace Fewbanks, would have been to go to him and seek his protection
+against this dangerous old associate of his convict days. According to
+Hill's own story, he was something in the nature of a confidential
+servant, trusted to some extent with the secrets of Sir Horace's double
+life. What more likely than such a man, threatened as he describes,
+should turn to his master who had shielded him and trusted him?"
+
+"I confess that is a point which never struck me," said Rolfe
+thoughtfully.
+
+"Now, let us go on to the meeting between Hill and Birchill," continued
+Crewe. "This girl Fanning, discarded by Sir Horace, because he'd
+discovered she was playing him false with Birchill, is made the
+ostensible reason for Birchill's wishing to commit a burglary at
+Riversbrook, because Birchill wants, as he says, to get even with Sir
+Horace Fewbanks. Is it likely that Birchill would confide his desire for
+revenge so frankly to Sir Horace's confidential servant, the trusted
+custodian of his master's valuables, who could rely on his master's
+protection--the protection of a highly-placed man of whom Birchill stood
+admittedly in fear, and whom he knew, according to Hill's story, was
+unassailable from his slander? What had Hill to fear, from the threats of
+a man like Birchill, when he was living under Sir Horace Fewbanks's
+protection? All that Hill had to do when Birchill tried to induce him,
+by threats of exposure of his past, to help in a burglary at his master's
+house, was to threaten to tell everything to Sir Horace. Birchill told
+Hill that he was frightened of Sir Horace Fewbanks, the judge who had
+sentenced him.
+
+"Then Birchill's confidence in Hill is remarkable, any way you look at
+it. He sends for Hill, whom he had known in gaol, and whom he hadn't seen
+since, to confide in him that it is his intention to burgle his
+employer's house. He rashly assumes that Hill will do all that he wishes,
+and he proceeds to lay his cards on the table. But even supposing that
+Birchill was foolish enough to do this--to trust a chance gaol
+acquaintance so implicitly--there is a far more puzzling action on his
+part. Why did he want Hill's assistance to burgle a practically
+unprotected house? I confess I have great difficulty in understanding why
+such an accomplished flash burglar as Birchill, one of the best men at
+the game in London at the present time, should want the assistance of an
+amateur like Hill in such a simple job."
+
+Rolfe looked startled.
+
+"Hill says he wanted a plan of the house and to know what valuables it
+contained."
+
+Crewe smiled.
+
+"And has it been your experience among criminals, Rolfe, that a burglar
+must have a plan of the place he intends to burgle, and that to get this
+plan he will give himself away to any man who can supply it? A plan has
+its uses, but it is indispensable only when a very difficult job is being
+undertaken, such as breaking through a wall or a ceiling to get at a room
+which contains a safe. This job was as simple as A B C. And besides, as
+far as I can make out, Birchill knew--the girl Fanning must have
+known--that Sir Horace would be going away some time in August and that
+the house would be empty. Did he want a plan of an empty house? He would
+be free to roam all over it when he had forced a window."
+
+"He wanted to know what valuables were there," said Rolfe.
+
+"And therefore took Hill into his confidence. If Hill had told his
+master--even Birchill would realise the risk of that--there would be no
+valuables to get. Next, we come to Sir Horace Fewbanks's unexpected
+return. According to Hill's story, he made some tentative efforts to
+commence a confession as soon as he saw his employer, but Sir Horace was
+upset about something and was too impatient to listen to a word. Is such
+a story reasonable or likely? Hill says that Sir Horace had always
+treated him well; and according to his earlier statement, when he
+permitted himself to be terrorised into agreeing to this burglary, he
+told himself that chance would throw in his way some opportunity of
+informing his master. And he told you that Birchill, mistrusting his
+unwilling accomplice, hurried on the date of the burglary so as to give
+him no such opportunity. Well, chance throws in Hill's way the very
+opportunity he has been seeking, but he is too frightened to use it
+because Sir Horace happens to return in an angry or impatient mood.
+
+"Let us take Birchill's attitude when Hill tells him that Sir Horace has
+unexpectedly returned from Scotland. Birchill is suspicious that Hill
+has played him false, and naturally so, but Hill, instead of letting him
+think so, and thus preventing the burglary from taking place, does all
+he can to reassure him, while at the same time begging him to postpone
+the burglary. That was hardly the best way to go about it. Let us
+charitably assume that Hill was too frightened to let Birchill remain
+under the impression that he'd played him false, and let us look at
+Birchill's attitude. It is inconceivable that Birchill should have
+permitted himself to be reassured, when right through the negotiations
+between himself and Hill he showed the most marked distrust of the
+latter. Yet, according to Hill, he suddenly abandons this attitude for
+one of trusting credulity, meekly accepting the assurance of the man he
+distrusts that Sir Horace Fewbanks's unexpected return from Scotland on
+the very night the burglary is to be committed is not a trap to catch
+him, but a coincidence. Then, after drinking himself nearly blind, he
+sets forth with a revolver to commit a burglary on the house of the
+judge who tried him, on Hill's bare word that everything is all right.
+Guileless, trusting, simple-minded Birchill!
+
+"Hill is left locked up in the flat with the girl; for Birchill, who has
+just trusted him implicitly in a far more important matter affecting his
+own liberty, has a belated sense of caution about trusting his unworthy
+accomplice while he is away committing the burglary. The time goes on;
+the couple in the flat hear the clock strike twelve before Birchill's
+returning footsteps are heard. He enters, and immediately announces to
+Hill and the girl, with every symptom of strongly marked terror, that
+while on his burglarious mission, he has come across the dead body of Sir
+Horace Fewbanks--murdered in his own house. Mark that! he tells them
+freely and openly--tells Hill--as soon as he gets in the flat. Allowing
+for possible defects in my previous reasoning against Hill's story,
+admitting that an adroit prosecuting counsel may be able to buttress up
+some of the weak points, allowing that you may have other circumstantial
+evidence supporting your case, that is the fatal flaw in your chain:
+because of Birchill's statement on his return to the flat no jury in the
+world ought to convict him."
+
+"I don't see why," said Rolfe.
+
+Crewe fixed his deep eyes intently on Rolfe as he replied:
+
+"Because, if Birchill had committed this murder, he would never have
+admitted immediately on his returning, least of all to Hill, anything
+about the dead body."
+
+"But he told Hill that he didn't commit the murder," protested Rolfe.
+
+"But you say that he did commit the murder," retorted the detective.
+"You cannot use that piece of evidence both ways. Your case is that this
+man Birchill, while visiting Riversbrook to commit a burglary which he
+and Hill arranged, encountered Sir Horace Fewbanks and murdered him. I
+say that his admission to Hill on his return to the flat that he had come
+across the body of Sir Horace Fewbanks, is proof that Birchill did not
+commit the murder. No murderer would make such a damning admission, least
+of all to a man he didn't trust--to a man who he believed was capable of
+entrapping him. Next you have Birchill consenting to a message being sent
+to Scotland Yard conveying the information that Sir Horace had been
+murdered. Is that the action of a guilty man? Wouldn't it have been more
+to his interest to leave the dead man's body undiscovered in the empty
+house and bolt from the country? It might have remained a week or more
+before being discovered. True, he would have had to find some way of
+silencing Hill while he got away from the country. He might have had to
+resort to the crude method of tying Hill up, gagging him, and leaving him
+in the flat. But even that would have been better than to inform the
+police immediately of the murder and place his life at the mercy of Hill,
+whom he distrusted."
+
+"Looked at your way, I admit that there are some weak points in our
+case," said Rolfe. "But you'll find that our Counsel will be able to
+answer most of them in his address to the jury. If Birchill didn't
+commit the murder, who did? Do you deny that he went up to Riversbrook
+that night?"
+
+"The letter sent to Scotland Yard shows that some one was there besides
+the murderer. If Birchill was there and helped to write the letter--and
+so much is part of your case--he wasn't the murderer. In short, I believe
+Birchill went up there to commit a burglary and found the murdered body
+of Sir Horace."
+
+"Do you think that Hill did it?" asked Rolfe.
+
+"That is more than I'd like to say. As a matter of fact I have been so
+obtuse as to neglect Hill somewhat in my investigations. In fact, I
+didn't know until I got hold of a copy of his statement to the police
+that he was an ex-convict. Inspector Chippenfield omitted to inform me of
+the fact."
+
+"I didn't know that," said Rolfe, without a blush, as he rose to go. "He
+ought to have told you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+When Rolfe left Crewe's office he went back to Scotland Yard. He found
+Inspector Chippenfield still in his office, and related to him the
+substance of his interview with Crewe. The inspector listened to the
+recital in growing anger.
+
+"Birchill not the right man?" he spluttered. "Why, of course he is. The
+case against him is purely circumstantial, but it's as clear as
+daylight."
+
+"Then you don't think there's anything in Crewe's points?" asked Rolfe.
+
+"I think so little of them that I look upon Birchill as good as hanged!
+That for Crewe's points!" Inspector Chippenfield snapped his fingers
+contemptuously. "And I'm surprised to think that you, Rolfe, whose
+loyalty to your superior officer is a thing I would have staked my life
+on, should have sat there and listened to such rubbish. I wouldn't have
+listened to him for two minutes--no, not for half a minute. He was trying
+to pick our case to pieces out of blind spite and jealousy, because we've
+got ahead of him in the biggest murder case London's had for many a long
+day. A man who jaunts off to Scotland looking for clues to a murder
+committed in London is a fool, Rolfe--that's what I call him. We have
+beaten him--beaten him badly, and he doesn't like it. But it is not the
+first time Scotland Yard has beaten him, and it won't be the last."
+
+"I suppose you're right," said Rolfe. "But there's one point he made
+which rather struck me, I must say--that about Birchill telling Hill he'd
+found the dead body. Would Birchill have told Hill that, if he'd
+committed the murder?"
+
+"Nothing more likely," exclaimed the inspector. "My theory is that
+Birchill, while committing the burglary at Riversbrook, was surprised by
+Sir Horace Fewbanks. It is possible that the judge tried to capture
+Birchill to hand him over to the police, and Birchill shot him. I believe
+that Birchill fired both shots--that he had two revolvers. But whatever
+took place, a dangerous criminal like Birchill would not require much
+provocation to silence a man who interrupted him while he was on business
+bent, and a man, moreover, against whom he nursed a bitter grudge. In
+this case it is possible there was no provocation at all. Sir Horace
+Fewbanks may have simply heard a noise, entered the room where Birchill
+was, and been shot down without mercy. Birchill heard him coming and was
+ready for him with a revolver in each hand. You've got to bear in mind
+that Birchill went to the house in a dangerous mood, half mad with drink,
+and furious with anger against Sir Horace Fewbanks for cutting off the
+allowance of the girl he was living with. He threatened before he left
+the flat to commit the burglary that he'd do for the judge if he
+interfered with him."
+
+"That's according to Hill's statement," said Rolfe.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield glanced at his subordinate in some surprise.
+
+"Of course it's Hill's statement," he said. "Isn't he our principal
+witness, and doesn't his statement fit in with all the facts we have been
+able to gather? Well, the murder of Sir Horace, no matter how it was
+committed, was committed in cold blood. But immediately Birchill had done
+it the fact that he had committed a murder would have a sobering effect
+on him. Although he bragged before he left the flat for Riversbrook
+about killing the judge if he came across him, he had no intention of
+jeopardising his neck unnecessarily, and after he had shot down the judge
+in a moment of drunken passion he would be anxious to keep Hill--whom he
+mistrusted--from knowing that he had committed the murder. But he was
+fully aware that Hill would be the person who'd discover the body next
+day, and that if he wasn't put on his guard he would bring in the police
+and probably give away everything that Birchill had said and done. So, to
+obviate this risk and prepare Hill, Birchill hit on the plan of telling
+him that he'd found the judge's dead body while burgling the place. It
+was a bold idea, and not without its advantages when you consider what an
+awkward fix Birchill was in. Not only did it keep Hill quiet, but it
+forced him into the position of becoming a kind of silent accomplice in
+the crime. You remember Hill did not give the show away until he was
+trapped, and then he only confessed to save his own skin. He's a
+dangerous and deep scoundrel, this Birchill, but he'll swing this time,
+and you'll find that his confession of finding the body will do more than
+anything else to hang him--properly put to the jury, and I'll see that it
+is properly put."
+
+Rolfe pondered much over these two conflicting points of view--Crewe's
+and Inspector Chippenfield's--for the rest of the day. He inclined to
+Inspector Chippenfield's conclusions regarding Birchill's admission about
+the body. The idea that he had assisted in arresting the wrong man and
+had helped to build up a case against him was too unpalatable for him to
+accept it. But he was forced to admit that Crewe's theory was distinctly
+a plausible one. Though it was impossible for him to give up the
+conviction that Birchill was the murderer, he felt that Crewe's analysis
+of the case for the prosecution contained several telling points which
+might be used with some effect on a jury in the hands of an experienced
+counsel. Rolfe had no doubt that Holymead would make the most of those
+points, and he also knew that the famous barrister was at his best in
+attacking circumstantial evidence.
+
+That night, while walking home, the idea occurred to Rolfe of going over
+to Camden Town after supper to see if by questioning Hill again he could
+throw a little more light on what had taken place at Doris Tanning's
+flat the night Sir Horace Fewbanks was murdered. Hill had been
+questioned and cross-questioned at Scotland Yard by Inspector
+Chippenfield concerning the events of that night, and professed to have
+confessed to everything that had happened, but Rolfe thought it possible
+he might be able to extract something more which might assist in
+strengthening what Crewe regarded as the weak points in the police case
+against Birchill. Rolfe had every justification for such a visit, for,
+though Hill had not been arrested, he had been ordered by Inspector
+Chippenfield to report himself daily to the Camden Town Police Station,
+and the police of that district had been instructed to keep a strict eye
+on his movements. Inspector Chippenfield did not regard his principal
+witness in the forthcoming murder trial as the sort of man likely to
+bolt, but if he permitted him for politic reasons to retain his liberty,
+he took every precaution to ensure that Hill should not abuse his
+privilege.
+
+Rolfe lived in lodgings at King's Cross, and, as the evening was fine and
+he was fond of exercise, he decided to walk across to Hill's place.
+
+As he walked along his thoughts revolved round the murder of Sir Horace
+Fewbanks, and the baffling perplexities which had surrounded its
+elucidation. Had they got hold of the right man--the real murderer--in
+Fred Birchill? Rolfe kept asking himself that question again and again. A
+few hours ago he had not the slightest doubt on the point; he had looked
+upon the great murder case as satisfactorily solved, and he had thought
+with increasing satisfaction of his own share in bringing the murderer to
+justice. He had anticipated newspaper praise on his sharpness: judicial
+commendation, a favourable official entry in the departmental records of
+Scotland Yard, with perhaps promotion for the good work he had
+accomplished in this celebrated case. These rosy visions had been
+temporarily dissipated by the conversation he had had with Crewe that
+morning. If Crewe had not succeeded in destroying Rolfe's conviction that
+the murderer of Sir Horace Fewbanks had been caught, he had pointed out
+sufficient flaws in the police case to shake Rolfe's previous assurance
+of the legal conviction of Birchill for the crime. The way in which Crewe
+had pulled the police case to pieces had shown Rolfe that the conviction
+of Birchill was by no means a foregone conclusion, and had left him a
+prey to doubts and anxiety which Inspector Chippenfield's subsequent
+depreciation of the detective's views had not altogether removed.
+
+The little shop kept by the Hills was empty when Rolfe entered it, but
+Mrs. Hill appeared from the inner room in answer to his knock. The
+faded little woman did not recognise the police officer at first, but
+when he spoke she looked into his face with a start. She timidly said,
+in reply to his inquiry for her husband, that he had just "stepped out"
+down the street.
+
+"Then you had better send your little girl after him," said Rolfe,
+seating himself on the one rickety chair on the outside of the counter.
+"I want to see him."
+
+Mrs. Hill seemed at a loss to reply for a moment. Then she answered,
+nervously plucking at her apron the while: "I don't think it'd be much
+use doing that, sir. You see, Mr. Hill doesn't always tell me where he's
+going and I don't really know where he is."
+
+"Then why did you tell me that he had just stepped out down the street?"
+asked Rolfe sharply.
+
+"Because I thought he mightn't be far away."
+
+"Then, as a matter of fact, you don't know where he is or when
+he'll be back?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+Her prompt and uncompromising reply indicated that she did not want him
+to wait for her husband.
+
+"I think I'll wait," said Rolfe, looking at her steadily.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Daphne appeared at the door of the parlour which led into the shop and
+her mother waved her back angrily.
+
+"Go to bed this instant, miss; it's long past your bedtime," she said.
+
+It was obvious that Mrs. Hill retained a vivid recollection of how
+disastrous had been Daphne's appearance during Inspector Chippenfield's
+first visit to the shop.
+
+"Perhaps your little girl knows where her father is," said Rolfe
+maliciously.
+
+"No, she doesn't," replied Mrs. Hill with some spirit. "You can ask her
+if you like."
+
+Rolfe was suddenly struck with an idea and he decided to test it.
+
+"I won't wait--I've changed my mind. But if your husband comes in tell
+him not to go to bed until I've seen him. I'll be back."
+
+"Yes, sir," she replied.
+
+"Do you think he was going to Riversbrook?" he asked.
+
+The woman flushed suddenly and then went pale. She knew as well as Rolfe
+that her husband was strictly forbidden, pending the trial, to go near
+the place of his former employment, and that the police had relieved him
+of his keys and taken possession of the silent house and locked
+everything up.
+
+"No, sir," she replied, with trembling lips, "Mr. Hill hasn't gone
+over there."
+
+"How can you be certain, if he didn't tell you where he was going?"
+asked Rolfe.
+
+"Because it's the last place in the world he'd think of going to," gasped
+Mrs. Hill. "Such a thought would never enter his head. I do assure you,
+sir, Mr. Hill would never dream of going over there, sir, you can take my
+word for it."
+
+Rolfe walked thoughtfully up High Street. Was it possible that Hill had
+gone to his late master's residence in defiance of the orders of the
+police? If so, only some very powerful motive, and probably one which
+affected the crime, could have induced him to risk his liberty by making
+such a visit after he had been commanded to keep away from the place.
+And how would he get into the house? Rolfe had himself locked up the
+house and had locked the gates, and the bunch of keys was at that moment
+hanging up in Inspector Chippenfield's room in Scotland Yard. But even as
+he asked that question, Rolfe found himself smiling at himself for his
+simplicity. Nothing could be easier for a man like Hill--an
+ex-criminal--to have obtained a duplicate key, before handing over
+possession of the keys. Rolfe had noticed with surprise when he was
+locking up the house that the French windows of the morning room were
+locked from the outside by a small key as well as being bolted from the
+inside. Hill had explained that the late Sir Horace Fewbanks had
+generally used this French window for gaining access to his room after a
+nocturnal excursion.
+
+Rolfe looked at his watch. It was nine o'clock. He decided to go to
+Hampstead and put his suspicions to the test. It was quite possible he
+was mistaken, but if, on the other hand, Hill was paying a nocturnal
+visit to Riversbrook and he had the luck to capture him, he might extract
+from him some valuable evidence for the forthcoming trial that Hill had
+kept back. And Rolfe was above all things interested at that moment in
+making the case for the prosecution as strong as possible.
+
+Rolfe walked to the Camden Town Underground station, bought a ticket for
+Hampstead, and took his seat in the tube in that state of exhilarated
+excitement which comes to the detective when he feels that he is on the
+road to a disclosure. The speed of the train seemed all too slow for the
+police officer, and he looked at his watch at least a dozen times during
+the short journey from Camden Town to Hampstead.
+
+When Rolfe arrived at Hampstead he set out at a rapid walk for
+Riversbrook. It was quite dark when he reached Tanton Gardens. He turned
+into the rustling avenue of chestnut trees, and strode swiftly down till
+he reached the deserted house of the murdered man.
+
+The gate was locked as he had left it, but Rolfe climbed over it. A late
+moon was already throwing a refulgent light through the evening mists,
+silvering the tops of the fir trees in front of the house. Rolfe walked
+through the plantation, his footsteps falling noiselessly on the pine
+needles which strewed the path. He quickly reached the other side of the
+little wood, and the Italian garden lay before him, stretching in silver
+glory to the dark old house beyond.
+
+Rolfe stood still at the edge of the wood, and glanced across the moonlit
+garden to the house. It seemed dark, deserted and desolate. There was no
+sign of a light in any of the windows facing the plantation.
+
+The moon, rising above the fringe of trees in the woodland which skirted
+the meadows of the east side of the house, cast a sudden ray athwart the
+upper portion of the house. But the windows of the retreating first story
+still remained in shadow. Rolfe scrutinised these windows closely. There
+were three of them--he knew that two of them opened out from the bedroom
+the dead man used to occupy, and the third one belonged to the library
+adjoining--the room where the murder had been committed. The moonlight,
+gradually stealing over the house, revealed the windows of the bedroom
+closed and the blinds down, but the library was still in shadow, for a
+large chestnut-tree which grew in front of the house was directly in the
+line of Rolfe's vision.
+
+Rolfe remained watching the house for some time, but no sign or sound of
+life could he detect in its silent desolation. "I must have been
+mistaken," he muttered, with a final glance at the windows of the first
+story. "There's nobody in the house."
+
+He turned to go, and had taken a few steps through the pinewood when
+suddenly he started and stood still. His quick ear had caught a faint
+sound--a kind of rattle--coming from the direction of the house. What was
+that noise which sounded so strangely familiar to his ears? He had it! It
+was the fall of a Venetian blind. Instantaneously there came to Rolfe
+the remembrance that Inspector Chippenfield had ordered the library blind
+to be left up, so that when the sun was high in the heavens its rays,
+striking in through the window over the top of the chestnut-tree, might
+dry up the stain of blood on the floor, which washing had failed to
+efface. Somebody was in the library and had dropped the blind.
+
+Rolfe hurriedly retraced his steps to the edge of the plantation, and
+raced across the Italian garden, feeling for his revolver as he ran. Some
+instinct told him that he would find entrance through the French windows
+on the west side of the morning room, and thither he directed his steps.
+He pulled out his electric torch and tried the windows. They were shut,
+and the first one was locked. The second one yielded to his hand. He
+pulled it open, and stepped into the room. Making his way by the light of
+his torch to the stairs, he swiftly but silently crept up them and turned
+to the library on the left of the first landing. The door was closed but
+not locked, and a faint light came through the keyhole. Rolfe pushed the
+door open, and looked into the room. A man was leaning over the dead
+judge's writing-desk, examining its contents by the light of a candle
+which he had set down on the desk. He was so engrossed in his occupation
+that he did not hear the door open.
+
+"What are you doing there?" demanded Rolfe sternly. His voice sounded
+hollow and menacing as it reverberated through the room.
+
+The man at the desk started up, and turned round. It was Hill. When
+he saw Rolfe he looked as though he would fall. He made as if to
+step forward. Then he stood quite still, looking at the officer with
+ashen face.
+
+"Hill," said Rolfe quietly, "what does this mean?"
+
+The butler had regained his self-composure with wonderful quickness. The
+mask of reticence dropped over his face again, and it was in the smooth
+deferential tones of a well-trained servant that he replied:
+
+"Nothing, sir, I just slipped over from the shop to see if everything
+was all right."
+
+"How did you get into the house?"
+
+"By the French window, sir. I had a duplicate key which Sir Horace
+had made."
+
+"And I see you also have a duplicate key of the desk. Why didn't you give
+these keys up with the others to Inspector Chippenfield?"
+
+"I forgot about them at the time, sir. I found them in an old pocket this
+evening, and I was so uneasy about the house shut up with a lot of
+valuable things in it and nobody to give an eye to them that I just
+slipped across to see everything was all right."
+
+"You came here after dark, and let yourself in with a private key after
+you had been strictly ordered not to come near the place? You have the
+audacity to admit you have done this?"
+
+"Well, it's this way, sir. I was a trusted servant of Sir Horace's. I
+knew a great deal about his private life, if I may say so. I know he
+kept a lot of private papers in this room, and I wanted to make sure
+they were safe--I didn't like them being in this empty house, sir. I
+couldn't sleep in my bed of nights for thinking of them, sir. I felt
+last night as if my poor dead master was standing at my bedside, urging
+me to go over. I am very sorry I disobeyed the police orders, Mr. Rolfe,
+but I acted for the best."
+
+"Hill, you are lying, you are keeping something back. Unless you
+immediately tell me the real reason of your visit to this house tonight I
+will take you down to the Hampstead Police Station and have you locked
+up. This visit of yours will take a lot of explaining away after your
+previous confession, Hill. It's enough to put you in the dock with
+Birchill."
+
+Hill's eyes, which had been fixed on Rolfe's face, wavered towards the
+doorway, as though he were meditating a rush for freedom. But he
+merely remarked:
+
+"I've told you the truth, sir, though perhaps not all of it. I came
+across to see if I could find some of Sir Horace's private papers which
+are missing."
+
+"How do you know there are any papers missing?"
+
+"As I said before, Mr. Rolfe, Sir Horace trusted me and he didn't take
+the trouble to hide things from me."
+
+"You mean that he often left his desk open with important papers
+scattered about it?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And you made a practice of going through them?"
+
+"I didn't make a practice of it," protested Hill. "But sometimes I
+glanced at one or two of them. I thought there was no harm in it, knowing
+that Sir Horace trusted me."
+
+"And some papers that you knew were there are now missing. Do you
+mean stolen?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"When did you see them last?"
+
+"Just before Inspector Chippenfield came--the morning after the body was
+discovered. You remember, sir, that he came straight up here while you
+stayed downstairs talking to Constable Flack."
+
+"Do you mean to suggest that Inspector Chippenfield stole them?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir, I don't think he saw them. Sir Horace kept them in this
+little place at the back of the desk. Look at it, sir. It's a sort of
+secret drawer."
+
+Rolfe went over to the desk, and Hill explained to him how the hiding
+place could be closed and opened. It was at the back of the desk under
+the pigeonholes, and the fact that the pigeonholes came close down to the
+desk hid the secret drawer and the spring which controlled it.
+
+"What was the nature of these papers?" asked Rolfe.
+
+"Well, sir, I never read them. Sir Horace set such store by them that I
+never dared to open them for fear he would find out. They were mostly
+letters and they were tied up with a piece of silk ribbon."
+
+"A lady's letters, of course," said Rolfe.
+
+"Judging from the writing on the envelopes they were sent by a lady,"
+said Hill.
+
+Rolfe breathed quickly, for he felt that he was on the verge of a
+discovery. Here was evidence of a lady in the case, which might lead to a
+startling development. Perhaps Crewe was right in declaring that Birchill
+was the wrong man, he said to himself. Perhaps the murderer was not a
+man, but a woman.
+
+"And who do you think stole them?" he asked Hill.
+
+"That is more than I would like to say," replied the butler.
+
+"Are you sure they were in this hiding place when Inspector Chippenfield
+took charge of everything?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I dusted out the room the morning you and he came to
+Riversbrook together, and the papers were there then, because I happened
+to touch the spring as I was dusting the desk, and it flew open and I saw
+the bundle there."
+
+"Why didn't you tell Inspector Chippenfield about the papers and the
+secret drawer?"
+
+"That is what I intended to do, sir, if he didn't find them himself. But
+when I had found they had gone I didn't like to say anything to him,
+because, as you may say, I had no right to know anything about them."
+
+"When did they go: when did you find they were missing?"
+
+"When Inspector Chippenfield went out for his lunch. I looked in the desk
+and found they had gone."
+
+"Who could have taken them? Who had access to the room?"
+
+"Well, sir, Mr. Chippenfield had some visitors that morning."
+
+"Yes. There were about a dozen newspaper reporters during the day at
+various times. There were Dr. Slingsby and his assistant, who came out to
+make the post-mortem: Inspector Seldon, who came to arrange about the
+inquest, and there was that man from the undertakers who came to inquire
+about the funeral arrangements. But none of these men were likely to
+take the papers, and still less to know where they were hidden. In any
+case, no visitor could get at the desk while Mr. Chippenfield was in the
+room. And he is too careful to have left any visitor alone in this
+room--it was here that the murder was committed."
+
+"He left one of his visitors alone here for a few minutes," said Hill in
+a voice which was little more than a whisper.
+
+"Which one?" asked Rolfe eagerly.
+
+"A lady."
+
+"Who was she?"
+
+"Mrs. Holymead."
+
+"Oh!" Rolfe's exclamation was one of disappointment. "She is a friend of
+the family. She came out to see Miss Fewbanks--it was a visit of
+condolence."
+
+"Yes, sir," said the obsequious butler. "She was a friend of the family,
+as you say. She was a friend of Sir Horace's. I have heard that Sir
+Horace paid her considerable attention before she married Mr.
+Holymead--it was a toss up which of them she married, so I've been told."
+
+Rolfe saw that he had made a mistake in dismissing the idea of Mrs.
+Holymead having anything to do with the missing papers. "Do you think
+that she stole these letters--these papers?" he asked. "Do you think she
+knew where they were?"
+
+"While she was in the room, Inspector Chippenfield came rushing
+downstairs for a glass of water. He said she had fainted."
+
+"Whew!" Rolfe gave a low prolonged whistle. "And after she left you took
+the first opportunity of looking to see if the papers were still there,
+and you found they were gone?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What made you suspect Mrs. Holymead would take them?"
+
+"Well, sir, I didn't suspect her at the time. I just looked to see if
+Inspector Chippenfield had found them. I saw they had gone, and as I
+couldn't see any sign of them about anywhere else I concluded they must
+have been taken without Inspector Chippenfield knowing anything about it.
+The reason I came over here to-night was to have another careful look
+round for them."
+
+Rolfe was silent for a moment.
+
+"What would you have done with the papers if you had found them?" he
+asked suddenly.
+
+"I would have handed them over to the police, sir," said the butler, who
+obviously had been prepared for a question of the kind.
+
+"And what explanation would you have given for having found them--for
+having come over here in defiance of your orders from Inspector
+Chippenfield?"
+
+"The true explanation, sir," said the butler, with a mild note of protest
+in his voice. "I would have told Inspector Chippenfield what I have
+already told you. And it is the simple truth."
+
+Rolfe was plainly taken back at this rebuke, but he did not reply to it.
+
+"In your statement of what took place when Birchill returned to the flat
+after committing the murder, he said something about having seen a woman
+leave the house by the front door as he was hiding in the garden--a
+fashionably dressed woman I think he said."
+
+"Yes, sir, that was it."
+
+"Do you believe that part of his story was true?"
+
+"Well, sir, with a man like Birchill it is impossible to say when he is
+telling the truth, and when he isn't."
+
+"There was no lady with Sir Horace when you left him that night when he
+returned from Scotland?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"I think you said he was in a hurry to get you out of the house, and told
+you not to come back?"
+
+"That is what I thought at the time, sir."
+
+"Well, Hill," said Rolfe, resuming his severe official tone; "all this
+does not excuse in any way your conduct in coming over here and
+forcing your way into the house in defiance of the police; opening this
+desk, and prying about for private papers that don't concern you. The
+proper course for you to adopt was to come to Scotland Yard and tell
+your story about these missing papers to Inspector Chippenfield or
+myself. However, I don't propose to take any action against you at
+present. Only there is to be no more of it. If you come hanging about
+here again on your own account, you'll find yourself in the dock beside
+Birchill. Hand me over the duplicate key of the door by which you came
+in, and also the key of the desk which you had still less right to have
+in your possession. Say nothing to anyone about those papers until I
+give you permission to do so."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+The day fixed for the trial of Frederick Birchill was wet, dismal, and
+dreary. The rain pelted intermittently through a hazy, chilly atmosphere,
+filling the gutters and splashing heavily on the slippery pavements. But
+in spite of the rain a long queue, principally of women, assembled
+outside the portals of the Old Bailey long before the time fixed for the
+opening of the court. At the private entrance to the courthouse arrived
+fashionably-dressed ladies accompanied by well-groomed men. They had
+received cards of admission and had seats reserved for them in the body
+of the court. Many of them had personally known the late Sir Horace
+Fewbanks, and their interest in the trial of the man accused of his
+murder was intensified by the rumours afloat that there were to be some
+spicy revelations concerning the dead judge's private life.
+
+The arrival of Mr. Justice Hodson, who was to preside at the trial,
+caused a stir among some of the spectators, many of whom belonged to the
+criminal class. Sir Henry Hodson had presided at so many murder trials
+that he was known among them as "the Hanging Judge." Among the spectators
+were some whom Sir Henry had put into mourning at one time or another;
+there were others whom he had deprived of their bread-winners for
+specified periods. These spectators looked at him with curiosity, fear,
+and hatred. Mr. Holymead, K.C., drove up in a taxi-cab a few minutes
+later, and his arrival created an impression akin to admiration. In the
+eyes of the criminal class he was an heroic figure who had assumed the
+responsibility of saving the life of one of their fraternity. The eminent
+counsel's success in the few criminal cases in which he had consented to
+appear had gained him the respectful esteem of those who considered
+themselves oppressed by the law, and the spectators on the pavement might
+have raised a cheer for him if their exuberance had not been restrained
+by the proximity of the policeman guarding the entrance.
+
+When the court was opened Inspector Chippenfield took a seat in the body
+of the court behind the barrister's bench. He ranged his eye over the
+closely-packed spectators in the gallery, and shook his head with
+manifest disapproval. It seemed to him that the worst criminals in London
+had managed to elude the vigilance of the sergeant outside in order to
+see the trial of their notorious colleague, Fred Birchill. He pointed out
+their presence to Rolfe, who was seated alongside him.
+
+"There's that scoundrel Bob Rogers, who slipped through our hands over
+the Ealing case, and his pal, Breaker Jim, who's just done seven years,
+looking down and grinning at us," he angrily whispered. "I'll give them
+something to grin about before they're much older. You'd think Breaker
+would have had enough of the Old Bailey to last him a lifetime. And look
+at that row alongside of them--there's Morris, Hart, Harry the Hooker,
+and that chap Willis who murdered the pawnbroker in Commercial Road last
+year, only we could never sheet it home to him. And two rows behind them
+is old Charlie, the Covent Garden 'drop,' with Holder Jack and Kemp,
+Birchill's mate. Why, they're everywhere. The inquest was nothing to
+this, Rolfe."
+
+"Kemp must be thanking his lucky stars he wasn't in that Riversbrook job
+with Fred Birchill," said Rolfe, "for they usually work together. And
+there's Crewe, up in the gallery."
+
+"Where?" exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield, with an indignant start.
+
+"Up there behind that pillar there--no, the next one. See, he's looking
+down at you."
+
+Crewe caught the inspector's eye, and nodded and smiled in a friendly
+fashion, but Inspector Chippenfield returned the salutation with a
+haughty glare.
+
+"The impudence of that chap is beyond belief," he said to his
+subordinate. "One would have thought he'd have kept away from court after
+his wild-goose chase to Scotland and piling up expenses, but not him!
+Brazen impudence is the stock-in-trade of the private detective. If
+Scotland Yard had a little more of the impudence of the private
+detective, Rolfe, we should be better appreciated."
+
+"I suppose he's come in the hopes of seeing the jury acquit Birchill,"
+said Rolfe.
+
+"No doubt," replied Inspector Chippenfield. "But he's come to the wrong
+shop. A good jury should convict without leaving the box if the case is
+properly put before them by the prosecution. Crewe would like to triumph
+over us, but it is our turn to win."
+
+But Inspector Chippenfield was wrong in thinking that Crewe's presence
+in court was due to a desire for the humiliation of his rivals. Crewe
+had spent most of the previous night reading and revising his summaries
+and notes of the Riversbrook case, and in minutely reviewing his
+investigations of it. Over several pipes in the early morning hours he
+pondered long and deeply on the secret of Sir Horace Fewbanks's murder,
+without finding a solution which satisfactorily accounted for all the
+strange features of the case. But one thing he felt sure of was that
+Birchill had not committed the murder. He based that belief partly on
+the butler's confession, and partly on his own discoveries. He believed
+Hill to be a cunning scoundrel who had overreached the police for some
+purpose of his own by accusing Birchill, and who, to make his story more
+probable, had even implicated himself in the supposed burglary as a
+terrorised accomplice. And Crewe had been unable to test the butler's
+story, or find out what game he was playing, because of the assiduity
+with which the principal witness for the prosecution had been "nursed"
+by the police from the moment he made his confession. Crewe bit hard
+into his amber mouthpiece in vexation as he recalled the ostrich-like
+tactics of Inspector Chippenfield, who, having accepted Hill's story as
+genuine, had officially baulked all his efforts to see the man and
+question him about it.
+
+He had come to court with the object of witnessing Birchill's behaviour
+in the dock and the efforts of any of his criminal friends to communicate
+with him. As a man who had had considerable experience in criminal trials
+he knew the irresistible desire of the criminal in the gallery of the
+court to encourage the man in the dock to keep up his courage.
+Communications of the kind had to be made by signs. It was Crewe's
+impression that by watching Birchill in the dock and Birchill's friends
+in the gallery he might pick up a valuable hint or two. It was also his
+intention to study closely the defence which Counsel for the prisoner
+intended to put forward.
+
+It was therefore with a feeling of mingled annoyance and surprise that
+Crewe, looking down from his point of vantage at the bevy of
+fashionably-dressed ladies in the body of the court, recognised Mrs.
+Holymead, Mademoiselle Chiron and Miss Fewbanks seated side by side,
+engaged in earnest conversation. Before he could withdraw from their view
+behind the pillar in front of him, Miss Fewbanks looked up and saw him.
+She bowed to him in friendly recognition, and Crewe saw her whisper to
+Mrs. Holymead, who glanced quickly in his direction and then as quickly
+averted her gaze. But in that fleeting glance of her beautiful dark eyes
+Crewe detected an expression of fear, as though she dreaded his presence,
+and he noticed that she shivered slightly as she turned to resume her
+conversation with Miss Fewbanks.
+
+His Honour Mr. Justice Hodson entered, and the persons in the court
+scrambled hurriedly to their feet to pay their tribute of respect to
+British law, as exemplified in the person of a stout red-faced old
+gentleman wearing a scarlet gown and black sash, and attended by four of
+the Sheriffs of London in their fur-trimmed robes. The judge bowed in
+response and took his seat. The spectators resumed theirs, craning their
+necks eagerly to look at the accused man, Birchill, who was brought into
+the dock by two warders. The work of empanelling a jury commenced, and
+when it was completed Mr. Walters, K.C., opened the case for the
+prosecution.
+
+Mr. Walters was a long-winded Counsel who had detested the late Mr.
+Justice Fewbanks because of the latter's habit of interrupting the
+addresses of Counsel with the object of inducing them to curtail their
+remarks. This practice was not only annoying to Counsel, who necessarily
+knew better than the judge what the jury ought to be told, but it also
+tended to hold Counsel up to ridicule in the eyes of ignorant jurymen as
+a man who could not do his work properly without the watchful correction
+of the judge. But Mr. Walters, whose legal training had imbued in him a
+respect for Latin tags, subscribed to the adage, _de mortuis nil nisi
+bonum_. Therefore he began his address to the jury with a glowing
+reference to the loss, he might almost say the irreparable loss, which
+the judiciary had sustained, he would go so far as to say the loss which
+the nation had sustained by the death, the violent death, in short, the
+murder, of an eminent judge of the High Court Bench, whose clear and
+vigorous intellect, whose marvellous mastery of the legal principles laid
+down by the judicial giants of the past, whose inexhaustible knowledge
+drawn from the storehouses of British law, whose virile interpretations
+of the principles of British justice, whose unfailing courtesy and
+consideration to Counsel, the memory of which would long be cherished by
+those who had had the privilege of pleading before him, had made him an
+acquisition and an ornament to a Bench which in the eyes of the nation
+had always represented, and at no time more than the present--at this
+point Mr. Walters bowed to the presiding judge--the embodiment of legal
+knowledge, legal experience, and legal wisdom.
+
+After this tribute to the murdered man and the presiding judge, Mr.
+Walters proceeded to lay the facts of the crime before the jury, who had
+read all about them in the newspapers.
+
+With methodical care he built up the case against the accused man,
+classifying the points of evidence against him in categorical order for
+the benefit of the jury. The most important witness for the prosecution
+was a man known as James Hill, who had been in Sir Horace Fewbanks's
+employ as a butler. Hill's connection with the prisoner was in some
+aspects unfortunate, for himself, and no doubt counsel for the defense
+would endeavour to discredit his evidence on that account, but the jury,
+when they heard the butler tell his story in the witness box, would have
+little difficulty in coming to the conclusion that the man Hill was the
+victim of circumstances and his own weakness of temperament. However much
+they might be disposed to blame him for the course he had pursued, he was
+innocent of all complicity in his master's death, and had done his best
+to help the ends of justice by coming forward with a voluntary confession
+to the police.
+
+Mr. Walters made no attempt to conceal or extenuate the black page in
+Hill's past, but he asked the jury to believe that Hill had bitterly
+repented of his former crime, and would have continued to lead an honest
+life as Sir Horace Fewbanks's butler, if ill fate had not forged a cruel
+chain of circumstances to link him to his past life and drag him down by
+bringing him in contact with the accused man Birchill, whom he had met in
+prison. Sir Horace Fewbanks was the self-appointed guardian of a young
+woman named Doris Fanning, the daughter of a former employee on his
+country estate, who had died leaving her penniless. Sir Horace had deemed
+it his duty to bring up the girl and give her a start in life. After
+educating her in a style suitable to her station, he sent her to London
+and paid for music lessons for her in order to fit her for a musical
+career, for which she showed some aptitude. Unfortunately the young woman
+had a self-willed and unbalanced temperament, and she gave her benefactor
+much trouble. Sir Horace bore patiently with her until she made the
+chance acquaintance of Birchill, and became instantly fascinated by him.
+The acquaintance speedily drifted into intimacy, and the girl became the
+pliant tool of Birchill, who acquired an almost magnetic influence over
+her. As the intimacy progressed she seemed to have become a willing
+partner in his criminal schemes.
+
+When Sir Horace Fewbanks heard that the girl had drifted into an
+association with a criminal like Birchill he endeavoured to save her from
+her folly by remonstrating with her, and the girl promised to give up
+Birchill, but did not do so. When Sir Horace found out that he was being
+deceived he was compelled to renounce her. Birchill, who had been living
+on the girl, was furious with anger when he learnt that Sir Horace had
+cut off the monetary allowance he had been making her, and, on
+discovering by some means that his former prison associate Hill was now
+the butler at Sir Horace Fewbanks's house, he planned his revenge. He
+sent the girl Fanning to Riversbrook with a message to Hill, directing
+him, under threat of exposure, to see him at the Westminster flat.
+
+Hill, who dreaded nothing so much as an exposure of that past life of his
+which he hoped was a secret between his master and himself, kept the
+appointment. Birchill told him he intended to rob the judge's house in
+order to revenge himself on Sir Horace for cutting off the girl's
+allowance, and he asked Hill to assist him in carrying out the burglary.
+Hill strenuously demurred at first, but weakly allowed himself to be
+terrorised into compliance under Birchill's threats of exposure. Hill's
+participation in the crime was to be confined to preparing a plan of
+Riversbrook as a guide for Birchill. Birchill said nothing about murder
+at this time, but there is no doubt he contemplated violence when he
+first spoke to Hill. When Hill, alarmed by his master's return on the
+actual night for which the burglary had been arranged, hurried across to
+the flat to urge Birchill to abandon the contemplated burglary, Birchill
+obstinately decided to carry out the crime, and left the flat with a
+revolver in his hand, threatening to murder Sir Horace if he found him,
+because of his harsh treatment--as he termed it--of the girl Fanning.
+
+"Birchill left the flat at nine o'clock," continued Mr. Walters, who had
+now reached the vital facts of the night of the murder. "I ask the jury
+to take careful note of the time and the subsequent times mentioned, for
+they have an important bearing on the circumstantial evidence against the
+accused man. He returned, according to Hill's evidence, shortly after
+midnight. Evidence will be called to show that Birchill, or a man
+answering his description, boarded a tramcar at Euston Road at 9.30 p.m.,
+and journeyed in it to Hampstead. He was observed both at Euston Road and
+the Hampstead terminus by the conductor, because of his obvious desire to
+avoid attention. There were only two other passengers on the top of the
+car when it left Euston Road. The conductor directed the attention of the
+driver to his movements, and they both watched him till he disappeared in
+the direction of the Heath. In fairness to the prisoner, it was necessary
+to point out, however, that neither the conductor nor the driver can
+identify him positively as the man they had seen on their car that night,
+but both will swear that to the best of their belief Birchill is the man.
+Assuming that it was the prisoner who travelled to Hampstead by the
+Euston Road tram--a route he would probably prefer because it took him to
+Hampstead by the most unfrequented way--he would have a distance of
+nearly a mile to walk across Hampstead Heath to Tanton Gardens, where
+Sir Horace Fewbanks's house was situated. The evidence of the tram-men is
+that he set off across the Heath at a very rapid rate. The tram reached
+Hampstead at four minutes past ten, so that, by walking fast, it would be
+possible for a young energetic man to reach Riversbrook before a quarter
+to eleven. Another five minutes would see an experienced housebreaker
+like Birchill inside the house. At twenty minutes past eleven a young man
+named Ryder, who had wandered into Tanton Gardens while endeavouring to
+take a short cut home, heard the sound of a report, which at the time he
+took to be the noise of a door violently slammed, coming from the
+direction of Riversbrook. A few moments afterwards he saw a man climb
+over the front fence of Riversbrook to the street. He drew back
+cautiously into the shade of one of the chestnut trees of the street
+avenue, and saw the man plainly as he ran past him. Ryder will swear that
+the man he saw was Birchill."
+
+"It's a lie! It's a lie! You're trying to hang him, you wicked man. Oh,
+Fred, Fred!"
+
+The cry proceeded from the girl Doris Fanning. Her unbalanced temperament
+had been unable to bear the strain of sitting there and listening to Mr.
+Walters' cold inexorable construction of a legal chain of evidence
+against her lover. She rose to her feet, shrieking wildly, and
+gesticulating menacingly at Mr. Walters. The Society ladies turned
+eagerly in their seats to take in through their _lorgnons_ every detail
+of the interruption.
+
+"Remove that woman," the judge sternly commanded.
+
+Several policemen hastened to her, and the girl was partly hustled and
+partly carried out of court, shrieking as she went. When the commotion
+caused by the scene subsided, the judge irritably requested to be
+informed who the woman was.
+
+"I don't know, my lord," replied Mr. Walters. "Perhaps--" He stopped and
+bent over to Detective Rolfe, who was pulling at his gown. "Er--yes, I'm
+informed by Detective Rolfe of Scotland Yard, my lord, that the young
+woman is a witness in the case."
+
+"Then why was she permitted to remain in court?" asked Sir Henry Hodson
+angrily. "It is a piece of gross carelessness."
+
+"I do not know, my lord. I was unaware she was a witness until this
+moment," returned Mr. Walters, with a discreet glance in the direction of
+Detective Rolfe, as an indication to His Honour that the judicial storm
+might safely veer in that direction. Sir Henry took the hint and
+administered such a stinging rebuke to Detective Rolfe that that
+officer's face took on a much redder tint before it was concluded. Then
+the judge motioned to Mr. Walters to resume the case.
+
+Counsel, with his index finger still in the place in his brief where he
+had been interrupted, rose to his feet again and turned to the jury.
+
+"Birchill returned to the flat at Westminster shortly after midnight," he
+continued. "Hill had been compelled by Birchill's threats to remain at the
+flat with the girl while Birchill visited Riversbrook, and the first
+thing Birchill told him on his return was that he had found Sir Horace
+Fewbanks dead in his house when he entered it. On his way back from
+committing the crime belated caution had probably dictated to Birchill
+the wisdom of endeavouring to counteract his previous threat to murder
+Sir Horace Fewbanks. He probably remembered that Hill, who had heard the
+threat, was an unwilling participator in the plan for the burglary, and
+might therefore denounce him to the police for the greater crime if he
+(Birchill) admitted that he had committed it. In order to guard against
+this contingency still further Birchill forced Hill to join in writing a
+letter to Scotland Yard, acquainting them with the murder, and the fact
+that the body was lying in the empty house. Birchill's object in acting
+thus was a twofold one. He dared not trust Hill to pretend to discover
+the body the next day and give information to the police, for fear he
+should not be able to retain sufficient control of himself to convince
+the detectives that he was wholly ignorant of the crime, and he also
+thought that if Hill had a share in writing the letter he would feel an
+additional complicity in the crime, and keep silence for his own sake.
+Birchill was right in his calculations--up to a point. Hill was at first
+too frightened to disclose what he knew, but as time went on his
+affection for his murdered master, and his desire to bring the murderer
+to justice, overcame his feelings of fear for his own share in bringing
+about the crime, and he went and confessed everything to the police,
+regardless of the consequences that might recoil upon his own head. The
+case against Birchill depends largely on Hill's evidence, and the jury,
+when they have heard his story in the witness-box, and bearing in mind
+the extenuating circumstances of his connection with the crime, will have
+little hesitation in coming to the conclusion that the prisoner in the
+dock murdered Sir Horace Fewbanks."
+
+The first witness called was Inspector Seldon, who gave evidence as to
+his visit to Riversbrook shortly before 1 p. m. on the 19th of August as
+the result of information received, and his discovery of the dead body of
+Sir Horace Fewbanks. He described the room in which the body was found;
+the position of the body; and he identified the blood-stained clothes
+produced by the prosecution as being those in which the dead man was
+dressed when the body was discovered. In cross-examination by Holymead he
+stated that Sir Horace Fewbanks was fully dressed when the body was
+found. The witness also stated in cross-examination that none of the
+electric lights in the house were burning when the body was discovered.
+
+The next witness was Dr. Slingsby, the pathological expert from the Home
+Office who had made the post mortem examination, and who was much too
+great a man to be kept waiting while other witnesses of more importance
+to the case but of less personal consequence went into the box. Dr.
+Slingsby stated that his examinations had revealed that death had been
+caused by a bullet wound which had penetrated the left lung, causing
+internal hemorrhage.
+
+Mr. Finnis, the junior counsel for the defence, suggested to the witness
+that the wound might have been self-inflicted, but Dr. Slingsby permitted
+himself to be positive that such was not the case. With professional
+caution he assured Mr. Finnis, who briefly cross-examined him, that it
+was impossible for him to state how long Sir Horace Fewbanks had been
+dead. _Rigor mortis_, in the case of the human body, set in from eight to
+ten hours after death, and it was between three and four o'clock in the
+afternoon of the day the crime was discovered that he first saw the
+corpse. The body was quite stiff and cold then.
+
+"Is it not possible for death to have taken place nineteen or twenty
+hours before you saw the body?" asked Mr. Finnis, eagerly.
+
+"Quite possible," replied Dr. Slingsby.
+
+"Is it not also possible, from the state of the body when you examined
+it, that death took place within sixteen hours of your examination of the
+body?" asked Mr. Walters, as Mr. Finnis sat down with the air of a man
+who had elicited an important point.
+
+"Quite possible," replied Dr. Slingsby, with the prim air of a
+professional man who valued his reputation too highly to risk it by
+committing himself to anything definite.
+
+Dr. Slingsby was allowed to leave the box, and Inspector Chippenfield
+took his place. Inspector Chippenfield did not display any professional
+reticence about giving his evidence--at least, not on the surface, though
+he by no means took the court completely into his confidence as to all
+that had passed between him and Hill. On the other hand he told the judge
+and jury everything that his professional experience prompted him as
+necessary and proper for them to know in order to bring about a
+conviction. In the course of his evidence he made several attempts to
+introduce damaging facts as to Birchill's past, but Mr. Holymead
+protested to the judge. Counsel for the defence protested that he had
+allowed his learned friend in opening the case a great deal of latitude
+as to the relations which had previously existed between the witness Hill
+and the prisoner, because the defence did not intend to attempt to hide
+the fact that the prisoner had a criminal record, but he had no intention
+of allowing a police witness to introduce irrelevant matter in order to
+prejudice the jury against the prisoner. His Honour told the witness to
+confine himself to answering the questions put to him, and not to
+volunteer information.
+
+After this rebuke Inspector Chippenfield resumed giving evidence. He
+related what Birchill had said when arrested, and declared that he was
+positive that the footprints found outside the kitchen window were made
+by the boots produced in court which Birchill had been wearing at the
+time he was arrested. He produced a jemmy which he had found at Fanning's
+flat, and said that it fitted the marks on the window at Riversbrook
+which had been forced on the night of the 18th of August.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield's evidence was followed by that of the two tramway
+employees, who declared that to the best of their belief Birchill was the
+man who boarded their tram at half-past nine on the night of the 18th of
+August, and rode to the terminus at Hampstead, which they reached at 10.4
+p. m. Both the witnesses showed a very proper respect for the law, and
+were obviously relieved when the brief cross-examination was over and
+they were free to go back to their tram-car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+"James Hill!" called the court crier.
+
+The butler stepped forward, mounted the witness-stand, and bowed his head
+deferentially towards the judge. He was neatly dressed in black, and his
+sandy-grey hair was carefully brushed. His face was as expressionless as
+ever, but a slight oscillation of the Court Bible in his right hand as he
+was sworn indicated that his nerves were not so calm as he strove to
+appear. He looked neither to the right nor left, but kept his glance
+downcast. Only once, as he stood there waiting to be questioned, did he
+cast a furtive look towards the man whose life hung on his evidence, but
+the malevolent vindictive gaze Birchill shot back at him caused him to
+lower his eyelids instantly.
+
+Hill commenced his evidence in a voice so low that Mr. Walters stopped
+him at the outset and asked him to speak in a louder tone. It soon became
+apparent that his evidence was making a deep impression on the court. Sir
+Henry Hodson listened to him intently, and watched him keenly, as Hill,
+with impassive countenance and smooth even tones, told his strange story
+of the night of the murder. When he had drawn to a conclusion he gave
+another furtive glance at the dock, but Birchill was seated with his head
+bowed down, as though tired, and with one hand supporting his face.
+
+Mr. Walters methodically folded up his brief and sat down, with a
+sidelong glance in the direction of Mr. Holymead as he did so. Every eye
+in court was turned on Holymead as the great K.C. settled his gown on his
+shoulders and got up to cross-examine the principal Crown witness.
+
+His cross-examination was the admiration of those spectators whose
+sympathies were on the side of the man in the dock as one of themselves.
+Hill was cross-examined as to the lapse from honesty which had sent him
+to gaol, and he was reluctantly forced to admit, that so far from the
+theft being the result of an impulse to save his wife and child from
+starvation, as the Counsel for the prosecution had indicated, it was the
+result of the impulse of cupidity. He had robbed a master who had trusted
+him and had treated him with kindness. Having extracted this fact, in
+spite of Hill's evasions and twistings, Holymead straightened himself to
+his full height, and, shaking a warning finger at the witness, said:
+
+"I put it to you, witness, that the reason Sir Horace Fewbanks engaged
+you as butler in his household at Riversbrook was because he knew you to
+be a man of few scruples, who would be willing to do things that a more
+upright honest man would have objected to?"
+
+"That is not true," replied Hill.
+
+"Is it not true that your late master frequently entertained women of
+doubtful character at Riversbrook?" thundered the K.C.
+
+Hill gasped at the question. When he had first heard that his late
+master's old friend, Mr. Holymead, was to appear for Birchill, he had
+immediately come to the conclusion that Mr. Holymead was taking up the
+case in order to save Sir Horace's name from exposure by dealing
+carefully with his private life at Riversbrook. But here he was
+ruthlessly tearing aside the veil of secrecy. Hill hesitated. He glanced
+round the curious crowded court and saw the eager glances of the women as
+they impatiently awaited his reply. He hesitated so long that Holymead
+repeated the question.
+
+"Women of doubtful character?" faltered the witness. "I do not
+understand you."
+
+"You understand me perfectly well, Hill. I do not mean women off the
+streets, but women who have no moral reputation to maintain--women who do
+not mind letting confidential servants see that they have no regard for
+the conventional standards of life. I mean, witness, that your late
+master frequently entertained at Riversbrook, women--I will not call them
+ladies--who were not particular at what hour they went home. Sometimes
+one or more of them stayed all night, and you were entrusted with the
+confidential task of smuggling them out of the house without other
+servants knowing of their presence. Is not that so?"
+
+"I--I--"
+
+"Answer the question without equivocation, witness."
+
+"Y-es, sir."
+
+There was a slight stir in the body of the court due to the fact that
+Miss Fewbanks and Mrs. Holymead had risen and were making their way to
+the door. The fashionably-dressed women in the court stared with much
+interest at the daughter of the murdered man, whom most of them knew, in
+order to see how she was taking the disclosures about her dead father's
+private life.
+
+"And sometimes there were quarrels between your late master and these
+visitors, were there not?" continued Holymead.
+
+"Quarrels, sir?"
+
+"Surely you know that under the influence of wine some people become
+quarrelsome?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, did your late master's nocturnal visitors ever become
+quarrelsome?"
+
+"Sometimes, sir."
+
+"In the exercise of your confidential duties did you sometimes see
+quarrelsome ladies off the premises?"
+
+"Sometimes, sir."
+
+"And it was no uncommon thing for them to say things to you about your
+master, eh?"
+
+"Sometimes they didn't care what they said."
+
+"Quite so," commented Counsel drily. "They indulged in threats?"
+
+"Not all of them," replied Hill, who at length saw where the
+cross-examination was tending.
+
+"I do not suggest that all of them did--only that the more violent of
+them did so."
+
+"Quite so, sir."
+
+"So we may take it that the quarrel between your late master and
+Miss Fanning was not the only quarrel of the kind which came under
+your notice?"
+
+"There were not many others," said Hill.
+
+"It was not the only one?" persisted Counsel.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"In your evidence-in-chief you said nothing about Miss Fanning using
+threats against your master when you were showing her out?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"She did not use any?"
+
+"Not in my hearing, sir."
+
+There was a pause at this stage while Mr. Holymead consulted the notes he
+had made of Mr. Walters's cross-examination of the witness.
+
+"What o'clock was it when you left Riversbrook on the 18th of August
+after your master's return from Scotland?"
+
+"About half-past seven, sir."
+
+"And what time did Sir Horace arrive home?"
+
+"About seven o'clock, sir."
+
+"What were you doing between seven and seven-thirty?"
+
+"I unpacked his bags and got his bedroom ready. I took him some
+refreshment up to the library."
+
+"And he told you he wouldn't want you again until the following night
+about eight o'clock?"
+
+"Yes, sir. He said he thought he would be going back to Scotland by the
+night express, and I was to get his bag packed and lock up the house."
+
+"You told Counsel for the prosecution in the course of your evidence
+that you were afraid of Birchill," continued Holymead.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Were you afraid of physical violence from him, or only that he would
+expose your past to the other servants?"
+
+"I was afraid of him both ways," said Hill.
+
+"Was it because of this fear that you made out for him a plan of
+Riversbrook to assist him in the burglary?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"When did you make out this plan?"
+
+"The day after Sir Horace left for Scotland."
+
+"Was that on your first visit to Miss Fanning's flat in Westminster
+after the prisoner had sent her to Riversbrook to tell you he wanted
+to see you?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Did Birchill stand over you while you made out this plan?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Would you know the plan again if you saw it?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Mr. Finnis, who had been hiding the plan under the papers before him,
+handed a document up to his chief.
+
+Mr. Holymead unfolded it, and with a brief glance at it handed it up to
+the witness.
+
+"Is that the plan?" he asked.
+
+Hill was somewhat taken aback at the production of the plan. It was drawn
+in ink on a white sheet of paper of foolscap size, with a slightly bluish
+tint. The paper was by no means clean, for Birchill had carried it about
+in his pocket. The witness reluctantly admitted that the plan was the one
+he had given to Birchill. To his manifest relief Counsel asked no further
+questions about it. In a low tone Mr. Holymead formally expressed his
+intention to put the plan in as evidence. He handed it to Mr. Walters,
+who, after a close inspection of it, passed it along to the judge's
+Associate for His Honour's inspection.
+
+The rest of Hill's cross-examination concerned what happened at the flat
+on the night of the burglary. He adhered to the story he had told, and
+could not be shaken in the main points of it. But Mr. Holymead made some
+effective use of the discrepancy between the witness's evidence at the
+inquest as to his movements on the night of the murder and his evidence
+in court. He elicited the fact that the police had discovered his
+evidence at the inquest was false and had forced him to make a confession
+by threatening to arrest him for the murder.
+
+Mr. Holymead signified that he had nothing further to ask the witness,
+and Mr. Walters called his last witness, a young man named Charles Ryder,
+a resident of Liverpool, who had spent a week's holiday in London from
+the 14th to the 21st of August. Ryder had stayed with some friends at
+Hampstead, and when making his way home on the night of the 18th of
+August had walked down Tanton Gardens in the belief that he was taking a
+short cut. The time was about 11.20. He saw a man running towards him
+along the footpath from the direction of Riversbrook. He caught a good
+glimpse of the man, who seemed to be very excited. He was sure the
+prisoner was the man he had seen. In cross-examination by Mr. Holymead he
+was far less positive in his identification of the prisoner, and finally
+admitted that the man he saw that night might be somebody else who
+resembled the prisoner in build.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+The second day of the trial began promptly when Mr. Justice Hodson took
+his seat. Mr. Holymead's opening statement to the jury was brief. He
+reminded them that the life of a fellow creature rested on their verdict.
+If there was any doubt in their minds whether the prisoner had fired the
+shot which killed Sir Horace Fewbanks the prisoner was entitled to a
+verdict of "not guilty." It was obligatory on the prosecution to prove
+guilt beyond all reasonable doubt.
+
+He submitted that the prosecution had not established their case. After
+hearing the case for the prosecution the jury must have grave doubts as
+to the guilt of the prisoner, and it was his duty as Counsel for the
+prisoner to put before the jury facts which would not only increase their
+doubts but bring them to the positive conclusion that the prisoner was
+not guilty. He was not going to attempt to deny that the prisoner went to
+Riversbrook on the night of the murder. He went there to commit a
+burglary. But so far from Hill being terrorised into complicity in that
+crime it was he who had first suggested it to Birchill and had arranged
+it. Material evidence on that point would be submitted to the jury.
+
+Hill was a man who was incapable of gratitude. His disposition was to
+bite the hand that fed him. After being well treated by Sir Horace
+Fewbanks he had made up his mind to rob him as he had robbed his former
+master Lord Melhurst. He knew that Sir Horace had quarrelled with this
+girl Fanning because of her association with Birchill, and he went to
+Birchill and put before him a proposal to rob Riversbrook. Birchill
+consented to the plan, and when on the night of the 18th August he
+broke into the house he found the murdered body of Sir Horace in the
+library. That was the full extent of the prisoner's connection with
+the crime. To the superficial and suspicious mind it might seem an
+improbable story, but to an earnest mind it was a story that carried
+conviction because of its simple straightforwardness--its crudity, if
+the jury liked to call it that. It lacked the subtlety and the finish
+of a concocted story. The murder took place before Birchill reached
+Riversbrook on his burglarious errand.
+
+"It is my place," added Mr. Holymead, in concluding his address, "to
+convince you that my client is not guilty, or, in other words, to
+convince you that the murder was committed before he reached the house.
+It is only with the greatest reluctance that I take upon myself the
+responsibility of pointing an accusing finger at another man. In crimes
+of this kind you cannot expect to get anything but circumstantial
+evidence. But there are degrees of circumstantial evidence, and my duty
+to my client lays upon me the obligation of pointing out to you that
+there is one person against whom the existing circumstantial evidence is
+stronger than it is against my client."
+
+Crewe, who had secured his former place in the gallery of the court,
+looked down on the speaker. He had carefully followed every word of
+Holymead's address, but the concluding portion almost electrified him. He
+flattered himself that he was the only person in court who understood the
+full significance of the sonorous sentences with which the famous K.C.
+concluded his address to the jury.
+
+As his eyes wandered over the body of the court below, Crewe saw that
+Mrs. Holymead and Mademoiselle Chiron were sitting in one of the back
+seats, but that they were not accompanied by Miss Fewbanks. It was
+evident to him by the way in which Mrs. Holymead followed the proceedings
+that her interest in the case was something far deeper than wifely
+interest in her husband's connection with it as counsel for the defence.
+Leaning forward in her seat, with her hands clasped in her lap, she
+listened eagerly to every word. During the day his gaze went back to her
+at intervals, and on several occasions he became aware that she had been
+watching him while he watched her husband.
+
+The first witness for the defence was Doris Fanning. The drift of her
+evidence was to exonerate the prisoner at the expense of Hill. She
+declared that she had not gone to Riversbrook to see Hill after the final
+quarrel with Sir Horace. Hill had come to her flat in Westminster of his
+own accord and had asked for Birchill. She went out of the room while
+they discussed their business, but after Hill had gone Birchill told her
+that Hill had put up a job for him at Riversbrook. Birchill showed her
+the plan of Riversbrook that Hill had made, and asked her if it was
+correct as far as she knew. Yes, she was sure she would know the plan
+again if she saw it.
+
+The judge's Associate handed it to Mr. Holymead, who passed it to
+the witness.
+
+"Is this it?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she replied emphatically, almost without inspecting it.
+
+"I want you to look at it closely," said Counsel. "When Birchill showed
+you the plan immediately after Hill's departure, what impression did you
+get regarding it?"
+
+She looked at him blankly.
+
+"I don't understand you," she said.
+
+"You can tell the difference between ink that has been newly used and ink
+that has been on the paper some days. Was the ink fresh?"
+
+"No, it was old ink," she said.
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"Because ink doesn't go black till a long while after it is written. At
+least, the letters _I_ write don't." She shot a veiled coquettish glance
+at the big K.C. from under her long eyelashes.
+
+The K.C. returned the glance with a genial smile.
+
+"What do you write your letters on, Miss Fanning?"
+
+She almost giggled at the question.
+
+"I use a writing tablet," she replied.
+
+"Ruled or unruled?"
+
+"Ruled. I couldn't write straight if there weren't lines." She
+smiled again.
+
+"And what colour do you affect--grey, rose-pink or white paper?"
+
+"Always white."
+
+"Is that all the paper you have at your flat for writing purposes?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then what did Birchill write on when he wanted to write a letter?"
+
+"He used mine."
+
+"Are you sure of that?"
+
+"Yes. When he wanted to write a letter he used to ask me for my tablet
+and an envelope. And generally he used to borrow a stamp as well." She
+pouted slightly, with another coquettish glance.
+
+"Look at that plan again," said the K.C. "Have you ever had paper like it
+at your flat?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Never."
+
+"Have you ever seen paper of that kind in Birchill's possession before he
+showed you the plan?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"When he showed you the plan had the paper been folded?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The K.C. took the witness, now very much at her ease, to the night of the
+murder. She denied strenuously that Hill tried to dissuade Birchill from
+carrying out the burglary because Sir Horace Fewbanks had returned
+unexpectedly from Scotland. It was Birchill who suggested postponing the
+burglary until Sir Horace left, but Hill urged that the original plan
+should be adhered to. He declared that Sir Horace would remain at home at
+least a fortnight, and perhaps longer. His master was a sound sleeper, he
+said, and if Birchill waited until he went to bed there would be no
+danger of awakening him. She contradicted many details of Hill's evidence
+as to what took place when the prisoner returned from breaking into
+Riversbrook. It was untrue, she said, that there was a spot of blood on
+Birchill's face or that his hands were smeared with blood. He was a
+little bit excited when he returned, but after one glass of whisky he
+spoke quite calmly of what had happened.
+
+The next witness was a representative of the firm of Holmes and Jackson,
+papermakers, who was handed the plan of Riversbrook which Hill had drawn.
+He stated that the paper on which the plan was drawn was manufactured by
+his firm, and supplied to His Majesty's Stationery Office. He identified
+it by the quality of the paper and the watermark. In reply to Mr. Walters
+the witness was sure that the paper he held in his hand had been
+manufactured by his firm for the Government. It was impossible for him to
+be mistaken. Other firms might manufacture paper of a somewhat similar
+quality and tint, but it would not be exactly similar. Besides, he
+identified it by his firm's watermark, and he held the plan up to the
+light and pointed it out to the court.
+
+Counsel for the defence called two more witnesses on this point--one to
+prove that supplies of the paper on which the plan was drawn were issued
+to legal departments of the Government, and an elderly man named Cobb,
+Sir Horace Fewbanks's former tipstaff, who stated that he took some of
+the paper in question to Riversbrook on Sir Horace's instructions. And
+then, to the astonishment of junior members of the bar who were in court
+watching his conduct of the case in order to see if they could pick up a
+few hints, he intimated that his case was closed. It seemed to them that
+the great K.C. had put up a very flimsy case for the defence, and that in
+spite of the fact that the prosecutor's case rested mainly on the
+evidence of a tainted witness Holymead would be very hard put to it to
+get his man off.
+
+"Isn't my learned friend going to call the prisoner?" suggested Mr.
+Walters, with the cunning design of giving the jury something to think of
+when they were listening to his learned friend's address.
+
+"It's scarcely necessary," said Mr. Holymead, who saw the trap, and
+replied in a tone which indicated that the matter was not worth a
+moment's consideration.
+
+He began his address to the jury by emphasising the fact that a fellow
+creature's life depended on the result of their deliberations. The duty
+that rested upon them of saying whether the prosecution had established
+beyond all reasonable doubt that the prisoner shot Sir Horace Fewbanks
+was a solemn and impressive one. He asked them to consider the case
+carefully in all its bearings. He could not claim for his client that
+he was a man of spotless reputation. The prisoner belonged to a class
+who earned their living by warring against society. But that fact did
+not make him a murderer. On what did the case for the prosecution rest?
+On the evidence of Hill and three other witnesses who, on the night of
+the murder, had seen a man somewhat resembling the prisoner in the
+vicinity of Riversbrook, or making towards the vicinity of that house.
+But so far from wishing to emphasise the weakness of identification he
+admitted that the prisoner went to Riversbrook with the intention of
+committing a burglary.
+
+"We admit that he went there the night Sir Horace Fewbanks returned from
+Scotland," he continued. "Counsel for the prosecution will make the most
+of those admissions in the course of his address to you, but the point to
+which I wish to direct your attention is that we make this damaging
+admission so that you may decide between the prisoner and the man who
+led him into a trap by instigating the burglary. Now we come to the
+evidence of Hill. I know you will not convict a man of murder on the
+unsupported evidence of a fellow criminal. But I want to point out to you
+that even if Hill's evidence were true in every detail, even if Hill had
+not swerved one iota from the truth, there is nothing in his evidence to
+lead to the positive conclusion that the prisoner murdered Hill's master,
+Sir Horace Fewbanks. What does Hill's evidence against the prisoner
+amount to? Let us accept it for the moment as absolutely true. Later on I
+will show you plainly that the man is a liar, that he is a cunning
+scoundrel, and that his evidence is utterly unreliable. But accepting for
+the moment his evidence as true the case against the prisoner amounts to
+this: by threats of exposure Birchill compelled Hill to consent to
+Riversbrook being robbed while the owner was in Scotland.
+
+"Hill's complicity, according to his own story, extended only to
+supplying a plan of the house and giving Birchill some information as to
+where various articles of value would be found. On the 18th of August
+Hill went to Riversbrook to see that everything was in order for the
+burglary that night. While he was there his master returned unexpectedly.
+Hill then went to the flat in Westminster and told Birchill that Sir
+Horace had returned. His own story is that he tried to get Birchill to
+abandon the idea of the burglary, but that Birchill, who had been
+drinking, swore that he would carry out the plan, and that if he came
+across Sir Horace he would shoot him. What grudge had Birchill against
+Sir Horace Fewbanks? The fact that Sir Horace had discarded the woman
+Fanning because of her association with Birchill. Gentlemen, does a man
+commit a murder for a thing of that kind?
+
+"Let us test the credibility of the man who has tried to swear away the
+life of the prisoner. You saw him in the witness-box, and I have no doubt
+formed your own conclusions as to the type of man he is. Did he strike
+you as a man who would stand by the truth above all things, or a man who
+would lie persistently in order to save his own skin? That the man cannot
+be believed even when on his oath has been publicly demonstrated in the
+courts of the land. The story he told the court yesterday in the
+witness-box of his movements on the day of the murder is quite different
+to the story he told on his oath at the inquest on the body of Sir Horace
+Fewbanks. Let me read to you the evidence he gave at the inquest."
+
+Mr. Finnis handed to his leader a copy of Hill's evidence at the inquest,
+and Mr. Holymead read it out to the jury. He then read out a shorthand
+writer's account of Hill's evidence on the previous day.
+
+"Which of these accounts are we to believe?" he said, turning to the
+jury. "The latter one, the prosecution says. But why, I ask? Because it
+tallies with the statement extorted from Hill by the police under the
+threat of charging him with the murder. Does that make it more credible?
+Is a man like Hill, who is placed in that position, likely to tell the
+truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? It is an insult to the
+jury as men of intelligence to ask you to believe Hill's evidence. I do
+not ask you to believe the story he told at the inquest in preference to
+the story he told here in the witness-box yesterday. I ask you to regard
+both stories as the evidence of a man who is too deeply implicated in
+this crime to be able to speak the truth.
+
+"I will prove to you, gentlemen of the jury, that the man is a criminal
+by instinct and a liar by necessity--the necessity of saving his own
+skin. He robbed his former master, Lord Melhurst, and he planned to rob
+his late master, Sir Horace Fewbanks. But knowing that his former crime
+would be brought against him when the police came to investigate a
+robbery at Riversbrook he was too cunning to rob Riversbrook himself. He
+looked about him for an accomplice and he selected Birchill. You heard
+him say in the witness-box that he drew Birchill a plan of
+Riversbrook--the plan I now hold in my hand. I will ask you to inspect
+the plan closely. Hill told us that Birchill terrorised him into drawing
+this plan by threats of exposure. Exposure of what? His master, Sir
+Horace Fewbanks, knew he had been in gaol, so what had he to fear from
+exposure? His proper course, if he were an honest man, would have been to
+tell his master that Birchill was planning to rob the house and had
+endeavoured to draw him into the crime. But he did nothing of the kind,
+for the simple reason that the plan to rob Riversbrook was his own, and
+not Birchill's.
+
+"Now, gentlemen, you have all seen the plan which this tainted witness
+declares was drawn by him because Birchill terrorised him and stood over
+him while he drew it. Is there anything in that plan to suggest that it
+was drawn by a man in a state of nervous terror? Why, the lines are as
+firmly drawn as if they had been made by an architect working at his
+leisure in his office. Was this plan drawn by a man in a state of nervous
+terror with his tormentor standing threateningly over him, or was it
+drawn up by a man working at leisure, free not only from terror but from
+interruption? The answer to that question is supplied in the evidence
+given by three witnesses as to the paper used. Hill says the plan was
+drawn at the flat. Two other witnesses swore that it was paper supplied
+exclusively for Government Departments, and another witness swore that he
+had taken such paper to Riversbrook for the use of Sir Horace Fewbanks,
+who, like every one of His Majesty's judges, found it necessary to do
+some of his judicial work at home. What is the inevitable inference? I
+ask you if you can have any doubt, after looking at that plan and after
+hearing the evidence given to-day about the paper, that the proposal to
+rob Riversbrook was Hill's own proposal, that Hill drew a plan of the
+house on paper he abstracted from his master's desk--paper which this
+confidential servant was apparently in the habit of using for private
+purposes--and that he gave it to Birchill when he asked Birchill to join
+him in the crime?
+
+"When one of the main features of Hill's story is proved to be false, how
+can you believe any of the rest? In the light in which we now see him,
+with his cunning exposed, what significance is to be attached to his
+statement that Birchill in his presence threatened to shoot Sir Horace
+Fewbanks if the master of Riversbrook interfered with him? Such a threat
+was not made, but why should Hill say it was made? For the same reason
+that he lied about the plan--to save his own skin. I submit to you,
+gentlemen, that when Hill went to see Birchill at the Westminster flat on
+the night arranged for the burglary Sir Horace Fewbanks was
+dead--murdered--and that Hill knew he was murdered. His own story is that
+he tried to persuade Birchill to abandon the proposed burglary, but,
+according to the witness Fanning, he did all in his power to induce
+Birchill to carry out the original plan when he saw that Birchill was
+disposed to postpone the burglary in view of the return of the master of
+Riversbrook. Why did he want Birchill to carry out the burglary? Because
+he knew that his master's murdered body was lying in the house, and he
+wanted to be in the position to produce evidence against Birchill as the
+murderer if he found himself in a tight corner as the result of the
+subsequent investigations of the police. Remember that the body of the
+victim was fully dressed when it was discovered by the police, and that
+none of the electric lights were burning. Does not that prove
+conclusively that the murder was not committed by Birchill, that Sir
+Horace Fewbanks was dead when Birchill broke into the house?
+
+"Birchill, an experienced criminal, would not break into the house while
+there was anybody moving about. He would wait until the house was in
+darkness and the inmates asleep. To do otherwise would increase
+enormously the risks of capture. But the fact that the police found the
+body of the murdered man fully dressed shows that Sir Horace was murdered
+before he went to bed--before Birchill broke into the house. It shows
+conclusively that the murder was committed before dusk. Your only
+alternatives to that conclusion are that the murdered man went to bed
+with his clothes on, or that the murderer broke into the house before Sir
+Horace had gone to bed and after killing Sir Horace went coolly round the
+house turning out the lights instead of fleeing in terror at his deed
+without even waiting to collect any booty. I am sure that as reasonable
+men you will reject both these alternatives as absurd. No evidence has
+been produced to show that anything has been stolen from the place. It
+was evidently the theory of the prosecution that the prisoner, after
+shooting Sir Horace, had fled. The evidence of Hill was that he arrived
+at Fanning's flat in a state of great excitement. His excitement would be
+consistent with his story of having discovered the body of a murdered
+man, but not consistent with the conduct of a cold-blooded calculating
+murderer who had broken into the house before Sir Horace had undressed
+for bed, had shot him, and had then gone round the house turning out the
+lights without having any apparent object in doing so.
+
+"Gentlemen, I think you will admit that the crime must have been
+committed before dusk; before any lights were turned on. I do not ask you
+to say that Hill is guilty. The responsibility of saying what man other
+than the prisoner shot Sir Horace Fewbanks does not rest with you. But I
+do urge you to ask yourselves whether, as between Hill and the prisoner,
+the probability of guilt is not on the side of this witness who lied to
+the coroner's court about his movements on the night of the murder, and
+who lied to this court about the plan for the robbery of Riversbrook. I
+have shown you that Hill was the master mind in planning the burglary,
+and, that being so, would not Birchill have consented to the postponement
+of the burglary if Hill had urged him to do so when he visited the flat
+after the unexpected return of the master of Riversbrook? Is not the
+evidence of the witness Fanning, that Hill urged Birchill to carry out
+the burglary after Sir Horace had gone to sleep, more credible than
+Hill's statement that he endeavoured to induce Birchill to abandon the
+proposed crime? Knowing what you know of Hill's past as a man who will
+rob his master, knowing that he attempted to deceive you with regard to
+this plan of Riversbrook in order that you might play your part in his
+cunning scheme, I urge you to ask yourselves whether it is not more
+probable that Hill fired the shot which killed Sir Horace Fewbanks than
+that the prisoner did so. Is it not extremely probable that the
+unexpected return of Sir Horace upset Hill, who was giving a final look
+round the house before the burglary took place? That, instead of
+answering his master with the suave obsequious humility of the
+well-trained servant, he revealed the baffled ferocity of a criminal
+whose carefully arranged plan seemed to have miscarried; that his master
+angrily rebuked him, and Hill, losing control of himself, sprang at Sir
+Horace, and the struggle ended with Hill drawing a revolver and shooting
+his master?
+
+"The rest of the story from that point can be constructed without
+difficulty. The murderer's first thought was to divert suspicion from
+himself, and the best way to do that was to divert suspicion elsewhere.
+He locked up the house and went to see Birchill. He urged Birchill to
+break into Riversbrook, in which the dead body of the murdered man lay.
+It is true that he need not have told Birchill that Sir Horace had
+returned unexpectedly; but his object in doing so was to make Birchill
+search about the house until he inadvertently stumbled across the dead
+body. Had Birchill been under the impression that he had broken into an
+entirely empty house he would have collected the valuables and might not
+have entered the library in which the dead body lay. It was necessary
+for Hill's purpose that Birchill should come across the corpse; then he
+would be vitally interested in diverting suspicion from himself
+(Birchill) and that is why he cunningly revealed to Birchill that Sir
+Horace had returned. I put it to the jury that such is a more probable
+explanation of how Sir Horace met his death than that he was shot down
+by Birchill. I ask you again to remember that the body was fully dressed
+when it was found by the police. I put it to you that in this matter the
+prisoner walked into a trap prepared by his more cunning fellow
+criminal. And I urge you, with all the earnestness it is possible for a
+man to use when the life of a fellow creature is at stake, not to be led
+into a trap--not to play the part this cunning criminal Hill has
+designed for you--in the sacrifice of the life of an innocent man for
+the purpose of saving himself from his just deserts. Looking at the
+whole case--as you will not fail to do--with the breadth of view of
+experienced men of the world, with some knowledge of the workings of
+human nature, with a natural horror of the depths of cunning of which
+some natures are capable, with a deep sense of the solemn responsibility
+for a human life upon you, I confidently appeal to you to say that the
+prisoner was not the man who shot Sir Horace Fewbanks, and to bring in a
+verdict of 'not guilty.'"
+
+A short discussion arose between the bench and bar on the question of
+adjourning the court or continuing the case in the hope of finishing it
+in a few hours. Sir Henry Hodson wanted to finish the case that night,
+but Counsel for the prosecution intimated that his address to the jury
+would take nearly two hours. As it was then nearly five o'clock, and His
+Honour had to sum up before the jury could retire, it was hardly to be
+hoped that the case could be finished that night, as the jury might be
+some time in arriving at a verdict. His Honour decided to adjourn the
+court and finish the case next day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+Mr. Walters began his address to the jury on orthodox lines. He referred
+to the fact that his learned friend had warned them that the life of a
+fellow creature rested on their verdict. It was right that they should
+keep that in mind; it was right that they should fully realise the
+responsible nature of the duty they were called upon to perform, but it
+would be wrong for them to over-estimate their responsibility, or to feel
+weighed down by it. It would be wrong for them to be influenced by
+sentimental considerations of the fact that a fellow creature's life was
+at stake. Strictly speaking, that had nothing whatever to do with them.
+Their responsibility ended with their verdict. If their verdict was
+"guilty" the responsibility of taking the prisoner's life would rest upon
+the law--not on the jury, not on His Honour who passed the sentence of
+death, not on the prison officials who carried out the execution. The
+jury would do well to keep in mind the fact that their responsibility in
+this trial, impressive and important as every one must acknowledge it to
+be, was nevertheless strictly limited as far as the taking of the life of
+the prisoner was concerned.
+
+He then went over the evidence in detail, building up again the case for
+the prosecution where Mr. Holymead had made breaches in it, and
+attempting to demolish the case for the defence. Hill, he declared, was
+an honest witness. The man had made one false step but he had done his
+best to retrieve it, and with the help he had received from his late
+master, Sir Horace Fewbanks, he would have buried the past effectively if
+it had not been for the fact that the prisoner, who was a confirmed
+criminal, had determined to drag him down. There was no doubt that
+Hill's association with Birchill had been unfortunate for him. It had
+dragged his past into the light of day, and he stood before them a ruined
+man. He had tried to live down the past, and but for Birchill he would
+have succeeded in doing so. But now no one would employ him as a house
+servant after the revelations that had been made in this court. They had
+seen Hill in the witness-box, and he would ask the jury whether he looked
+like the masterful cunning scoundrel which the defence had described, or
+a weak creature who would be easily led by a man of strong will, such as
+the prisoner was.
+
+As to what took place at the flat, they had a choice between the
+evidence of Hill and the evidence of the girl Fanning. Hill had told
+them that he had tried to dissuade the prisoner from going to
+Riversbrook to burgle the premises, because his master had returned
+unexpectedly; Fanning had told them that the prisoner was in favour of
+postponing the crime, but that Hill had urged him to carry it out. Which
+story was the more probable? What reliance could they place on the
+evidence of Fanning? He did not wish to say that the witness was utterly
+vicious and incapable of telling the truth--a description that the
+defence had applied to Hill--but they must take into consideration the
+fact that Fanning was the prisoner's mistress. Was it likely that a
+woman, knowing her lover's life was at stake, would come here and speak
+the truth, if she knew the truth would hang him? He was sure that the
+jury, as men who knew the world thoroughly, would not hesitate between
+the evidence of Hill and that of Fanning.
+
+The case for the defence depended to a great extent on the plan of
+Riversbrook which Hill candidly admitted he had drawn. His learned
+friend had called evidence to show that the paper on which the plan was
+drawn was of a quality which was not procurable by the general public.
+That might be so, but what his learned friend had not succeeded in
+doing, and could not possibly have hoped to succeed in doing, was to
+show that Birchill could not have obtained possession in any other way
+of paper of that kind. Yet it was necessary for the defence to prove
+that, in order to prove that the plan was not drawn at Fanning's flat by
+Hill under threats from Birchill, but that Hill had drawn it at
+Riversbrook, and that he gave it to Birchill in order to induce him to
+consent to the proposal to break into the house. There were dozens of
+ways in which paper of this particular quality might have got to the
+flat. Might not Birchill have a friend in His Majesty's Stationery
+Office? Was it impossible that the witness Fanning had a friend in that
+Office, or in one of the Government Departments to which the paper was
+supplied? Was it impossible in view of her relations with the victim of
+this crime for Fanning to have obtained some of the paper at Riversbrook
+and to have taken it home to her flat? She had sworn in the witness-box
+that she had not had paper of that kind in her possession, but with her
+lover's life at stake was she likely to stick at a lie if it would help
+to get him off?
+
+Counsel for the defence had endeavoured to make much of the fact that the
+dead body of Sir Horace Fewbanks was fully dressed when the police
+discovered it. He endeavoured to persuade them that such a fact
+established the complete innocence of the prisoner and that because of it
+they must bring in a verdict of "not guilty." He asked them to accept it
+as evidence not only that Sir Horace Fewbanks was dead when the prisoner
+broke into the house, but that he was dead when Hill left Riversbrook at
+7.30 p. m. to meet Birchill at Fanning's flat. With an ingenuity which
+did credit to his imagination, he put before them as his theory of the
+crime that a quarrel took place between Sir Horace Fewbanks and Hill at
+Riversbrook, that Hill shot his master and then went to Fanning's flat so
+as to see that Birchill carried out the burglary as arranged, and at the
+same time found Sir Horace's dead body, and thus directed suspicion to
+himself. The only support for this, far-fetched theory was that the body
+when discovered by the police was fully dressed, and that none of the
+electric lights were burning. Counsel for the defence contended that
+these two facts established his theory that the murder was committed
+before dusk. They established nothing of the kind. There were half a
+dozen more credible explanations of these things than the one he asked
+the jury to accept. What mystery was there in a man being fully dressed
+in his own house at midnight? The defence had been at great pains to show
+that Sir Horace Fewbanks was a man of somewhat irregular habits in his
+private life. Did not that suggest that he might have turned off the
+lights and gone to sleep in an arm-chair in the library with the
+intention of going out in an hour or two to keep an appointment? If he
+had an appointment--and his sudden and unexpected return from Scotland
+would suggest that he had a secret and important appointment--he would be
+more likely to take a short nap in his chair than to undress and go to
+bed. Might not the prisoner, who was a bold and reckless man, have broken
+into the house when the lights were burning and his victim was awake and
+fully dressed? In that case what was to prevent his turning off the
+lights before leaving the house instead of leaving them burning to
+attract attention? What was to prevent the prisoner turning off the
+lights in order to convey the impression that the crime had been
+committed in daylight?
+
+"I want you to keep in mind, when arriving at your verdict, that there
+are certain material facts which have been admitted by the defence," said
+Mr. Walters in concluding his address to the jury. "It has been admitted
+that the prisoner was a party to a proposal to break into Riversbrook. As
+far as that goes, there is no suggestion that he walked into a trap.
+Whether he arranged the burglary and compelled Hill to help him, or
+whether Hill arranged it and sought out the prisoner's assistance is,
+after all, not very material. What is admitted is that the prisoner went
+to Riversbrook with the intention of committing a crime. It is admitted
+that he knew Sir Horace Fewbanks had returned home. In that case is it
+not reasonable to suppose that the prisoner would arm himself, I do not
+say with the definite intention of committing murder, but for the purpose
+of threatening Sir Horace if necessary in order to make good his escape?
+What is more likely than that Sir Horace heard the burglar in the house,
+crept upon him, and then tried to capture him? There was a struggle, and
+the prisoner, determined to free himself, drew his revolver and shot Sir
+Horace. Is not such a theory of the crime--that Sir Horace was shot while
+trying to capture the prisoner--more probable than the theory of the
+defence that Hill, the weak-willed, frightened-looking man you saw in the
+witness-box, was a masterful, cunning criminal who for some inexplicable
+reason had turned ferociously on the master who had befriended him and
+given him a fresh start in life, had killed him and left the body in the
+house, and had then managed to direct suspicion to the prisoner? The
+theory of the defence does great credit to my learned friend's
+imagination, but it is one which I am sure the jury will reject as too
+highly coloured. Looking at the plain facts of the case and dismissing
+from your minds the attempt to make them fit into a purely imaginative
+theory, I am sure that you will come to the conclusion that Sir Horace
+Fewbanks met his death at the hands of the prisoner."
+
+The junior bar agreed that the case was one which might go either way. If
+they had possessed any money the betting market would have shown scarcely
+a shade of odds. Everything depended on the way the jury looked at the
+case, on the particular bits of evidence to which they attached most
+weight, on the view the most argumentative positive-minded members of the
+jury adopted, for they would be able to carry the others with them. In
+the opinion of the junior bar the summing up of Mr. Justice Hodson would
+not help the jury very much in arriving at a verdict. There were some
+judges who summed up for or against a prisoner according to the view they
+had formed as to the prisoner's guilt or innocence. There were other
+judges who summed up so impartially and gave such even-balanced weight to
+the points against the prisoner and to the points in his favour, as to
+make on the minds of the jurymen the impression that the only way to
+arrive at a well-considered verdict was to toss a coin. Another type of
+judge conveyed to the jury that the prosecution had established an
+unanswerable case, but the defence had shown equal skill in shattering
+it, and therefore he did not know on which side to make up his mind, and
+fortunately English legal procedure did not render it necessary for him
+to do so. The prisoner might be guilty and he might be innocent. Some of
+the jury might think one thing and the rest of the jury might think
+another. But it was the duty of the jury to come to an unanimous verdict.
+It did not matter if they looked at some things in different ways, but
+their final decision must be the same.
+
+Mr. Justice Hodson belonged to the impartial, impersonal type of judge.
+He had no personal feelings or conviction as to the guilt or innocence of
+the prisoner. It was for the jury to settle that point and it was his
+duty to assist them to the best of his ability. He went over his notes
+carefully and dealt with the evidence of each of the witnesses. It was
+for the jury to say what evidence they believed and what they
+disbelieved. There was a pronounced conflict of evidence between Hill and
+Fanning. They were the chief witnesses in the case, but the guilt or
+innocence of the prisoner did not rest entirely upon the evidence of
+either of these witnesses. Hill might be speaking the truth and the
+prisoner might be innocent though the presumption would be, if Hill's
+evidence were truthful in every detail, that the prisoner was guilty.
+Fanning's evidence might be true as far as it went, but it would not in
+itself prove that the prisoner was innocent. Hill had admitted that he
+had drawn the plan of Riversbrook to assist Birchill to commit burglary.
+It was for the jury to determine for themselves whether he had been
+terrorised into drawing the plan for Birchill or whether he was the
+instigator of the burglary.
+
+The defence had contended that Hill had drawn the plan at his leisure
+at a time when he had access to a special quality of paper supplied to
+his master. If that were so, Hill's version of how he came to draw the
+plan was deliberately false and had been concocted for the purpose of
+exculpating himself. But they would not be justified in dismissing
+Hill's evidence entirely from their minds because they were satisfied
+he had perjured himself with regard to the plan. They would be
+justified, however, in viewing the rest of his evidence with some
+degree of distrust. Counsel for the defence had made an ingenious use
+of the facts that the body of the victim was fully dressed when
+discovered and that none of the electric lights in the house were
+burning. These facts lent support to the idea that the murder was
+committed in daylight, but they by no means established the theory as
+unassailable. They did not establish the innocence of the prisoner,
+although to some extent they told in his favour. Counsel for the
+prosecution had put before them several theories to account for these
+two facts consistent with his contention that the murder had been
+committed by the prisoner. The jury must give full consideration to
+these theories as well as to the theory of the defence. They were not
+called upon to say which theory was true except in so far as their
+opinions might be implied in the verdict they gave.
+
+The defence, continued His Honour, was that Hill had committed the murder
+and had then decided to direct suspicion to the prisoner. If the jury
+acquitted the prisoner, their verdict would not necessarily mean that
+they endorsed the theory of the defence. It might mean that, but it might
+mean only that they were not satisfied that the prisoner had committed
+the murder. If the jury were convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that
+the prisoner had committed the murder, they must bring in a verdict of
+"guilty," and if they were not satisfied they must bring in a verdict of
+acquittal.
+
+The jury filed out of their apartment, and as they retired to consider
+their verdict the judge retired to his own room. The prisoner was removed
+from the dock and taken down the stairs out of sight. There was an
+immediate hum of voices in the court. Inspector Chippenfield approached
+the table and whispered to Mr. Walters. The latter nodded affirmatively
+and left the court room in company with Mr. Holymead. The sibilant sound
+of whispering voices died down after a few minutes and then began the
+long tedious wait for the return of the jury.
+
+The occupants of the gallery, who had no difficulty in coming to an
+immediate decision on the guilt or innocence of the prisoner, could not
+understand what was keeping the jury away so long. They failed to
+understand the jury's point of view. These gentlemen had sat in court for
+three days listening intently to proceedings concerning a matter in which
+their degree of personal interest was only a form of curiosity. And now
+the end of the case had been reached, except for the climax, which was in
+their control. To arrive at an immediate decision in a case that had
+occupied the court for three days would indicate they had no proper
+realisation of the responsibilities of their position. A verdict was a
+thing that had to be nicely balanced in relation to the evidence. Where
+the case against the prisoner was weak or overwhelmingly strong, the jury
+might arrive at a verdict with great speed as an indication that too much
+of their valuable time had already been wasted on the case. But where the
+evidence for and against the prisoner was fairly equal it behoved the
+jury to indicate by the time they took in arriving at their verdict that
+they had given the case the most careful consideration.
+
+Two hours and twenty minutes after the jury had retired, the prisoner was
+brought back into the dock. This was an indication that the jury had
+arrived at their verdict and were ready to deliver it. The prisoner
+looked worn and anxious, but he received encouraging smiles from his
+friends in the gallery. A minute later the judge entered the court and
+resumed his seat. The jury filed into court and entered the jury-box.
+Amid the noise of barristers resuming their seats and court officials
+gliding about, the judge's Associate called over the names of the
+jurymen. The suspense reached its climax as the Associate put the formal
+questions to the foreman whether the jury had agreed on their verdict.
+
+"What say you: guilty or not guilty?" asked the Associate in a hard
+metallic voice in which there was no trace of interest in the answer.
+
+"Not guilty," replied the foreman.
+
+There was a muffled cheer from the gallery, which was suppressed by the
+stentorian cry of the ushers, "Silence in the court!"
+
+"A pack of damned fools," said the exasperated Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+Rolfe understood that his chief referred to the jury, and he nodded the
+assent of a subordinate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+"Hill has bolted!"
+
+Rolfe flung the words at Inspector Chippenfield in a tone which he was
+unable to divest entirely of satisfaction. "Fancy his being the guilty
+party after all," he added, with the tone of satisfaction still more
+evident in his voice. "I often thought that he was our man, and that he
+was playing with you--I mean with us."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield had betrayed surprise at the news by dropping his
+pen on the official report he was preparing. But it was in his usual tone
+of cold official superiority that he replied:
+
+"Do you mean that Hill, the principal witness in the Riversbrook murder
+trial, has disappeared from London?"
+
+"Disappeared from London? He's bolted clean out of the country by this
+time, I tell you! Cleared out for good and left his unfortunate wife and
+child to starve."
+
+"How have you learnt this, Rolfe?"
+
+"His wife told me herself. I went to the shop this afternoon to have a
+few words with Hill and see how he felt after the way Holymead had gone
+for him at the trial. His wife burst out crying when she saw me, and she
+told me that her husband had cleared out last night after he came home
+from court. The hardened scoundrel took with him the few pounds of her
+savings which she kept in her bedroom, and had even emptied the contents
+of the till of the few shillings and coppers it contained. All he left
+were the half-pennies in the child's money-box. He cleared out in the
+middle of the night after his wife had gone to bed. He left her a note
+telling her she must get along without him. I have the note here--his
+wife gave it to me."
+
+Rolfe took a dirty scrap of paper out of his pocket-book and laid it
+before Inspector Chippenfield. The paper was a half sheet torn from an
+exercise-book, and its contents were written in faint lead pencil.
+They read:
+
+"Dear Mary:
+
+"I have got to leave you. I have thought it out and this is the only
+thing to do. I am too frightened to stay after what took place in the
+court to-day. I'll make a fresh start in some place where I am not known,
+and as soon as I can send a little money I will send for you and Daphne.
+Keep your heart up and it will be all right.
+
+"Keep on the shop.
+
+"YOUR LOVING HUSBAND."
+
+"The poor little woman is heartbroken," continued Rolfe, when his
+superior officer had finished reading the note. "She wants to know if we
+cannot get her husband back for her. She says the shop won't keep her and
+the child. Unless she can find her husband she'll be turned into the
+streets, because she's behind with the rent, and Hill's taken every penny
+she'd put by."
+
+"Then she'd better go to the workhouse," retorted Inspector Chippenfield
+brutally. "We'd have something to do if Scotland Yard undertook to trace
+all the absconding husbands in London. We can do nothing in the matter,
+and you'd better tell her so."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield handed back Hill's note as he spoke. Rolfe eyed
+him in some surprise.
+
+"But surely you're going to take out a warrant for Hill's arrest?" he
+said.
+
+"Certainly not," responded Inspector Chippenfield impatiently. "I've
+already said that Scotland Yard has something more to do than trace
+absconding husbands. There's nothing to prevent your giving a little of
+your private time to looking for him, Rolfe, if you feel so
+tender-hearted about the matter. But officially--no. I'm astonished at
+your suggesting such a thing."
+
+"It isn't that," replied Rolfe, flushing a little, and speaking with
+slight embarrassment. "But surely after Hill's flight you'll apply for a
+warrant for his arrest on--the other ground."
+
+"On what other ground?" asked his chief coldly.
+
+"Why, on a charge of murdering Sir Horace Fewbanks," Rolfe burst out
+indignantly. "Doesn't this flight point to his guilt?"
+
+"Not in my opinion." Inspector Chippenfield's voice was purely official.
+
+"Why, surely it does!" Rolfe's glance at his chief indicated that there
+was such a thing as carrying official obstinacy too far. "This letter he
+left behind suggests his guilt, clearly enough."
+
+"I didn't notice that," replied Inspector Chippenfield impassively.
+"Perhaps you'll point out the passage to me, Rolfe."
+
+Rolfe hastily produced the note again.
+
+"Look here!"--his finger indicated the place--"'I'm frightened to stay
+after what took place in the court to-day,' Doesn't that mean, clearly
+enough, that Hill realised the acquittal pointed to him as the murderer,
+and he determined to abscond before he could be arrested?"
+
+"So that's your way of looking at it, eh, Rolfe?" said Inspector
+Chippenfield quizzically.
+
+"Certainly it is," responded Rolfe, not a little nettled by his chief's
+contemptuous tone. "It's as plain as a pikestaff that the jury acquitted
+Birchill because they believed Hill was guilty. Holymead made out too
+strong a case for them to get away from--Hill's lies about the plan and
+the fact that the body was fully dressed when discovered."
+
+"You're a young man, Rolfe," responded Inspector Chippenfield in a
+tolerant tone, "but you'll have to shed this habit of jumping impulsively
+to conclusions--and generally wrong conclusions--if you want to succeed
+in Scotland Yard. This letter of Hill's only strengthens my previous
+opinion that a damned muddle-headed jury let a cold-blooded murderer
+loose on the world when they acquitted Fred Birchill of the charge of
+shooting Sir Horace Fewbanks. Why, man alive, Holymead no more believes
+Hill is guilty than I do. He set himself to bamboozle the jury and he
+succeeded. If he had to defend Hill to-morrow he would show the jury that
+Hill couldn't have committed the murder and that it must have been
+committed by Birchill and no one else. He's a clever man, far cleverer
+than Walters, and that is why I lost the case."
+
+"He led Hill into a trap about the plan of Riversbrook," said Rolfe.
+"When I saw that Hill had been trapped on that point I felt we had lost
+the jury."
+
+"Only because the jury were a pack of fools who knew nothing about
+evidence. Granted that Hill lied about the plan--that he drew it up
+voluntarily in his spare time to assist Birchill--it proves nothing. It
+doesn't prove that Hill committed the murder. It only proves that Hill
+was going to share in the proceeds of the burglary; that he was a willing
+party to it. The one big outstanding fact in all the evidence, the fact
+that towered over all the others, is that Birchill broke into the house
+on the night Sir Horace Fewbanks was murdered. The defence made no
+attempt to get away from that fact because they could not do so. But
+Holymead vamped up all sorts of surmises and suppositions for the purpose
+of befogging the jury and getting their minds away from the outstanding
+feature of the case for the prosecution. We proved that Birchill was in
+the house on a criminal errand. What more could they expect us to prove?
+They couldn't expect us to have a man looking through the window or
+hiding behind the door when the murder was committed. If we could get
+evidence of that kind we could do without juries. We could hang our man
+first and try him afterwards. I don't think a verdict of acquittal from a
+befogged jury would do so much harm in such a case."
+
+"You are still convinced that Birchill did it?" said Rolfe
+questioningly.
+
+"I have never wavered from that opinion," said his superior. "If I had,
+this note of Hill's would restore my conviction in Birchill's guilt."
+
+"Why, how do you make out that?" replied Rolfe blankly.
+
+"Hill says he's clearing out of the country because he's frightened.
+What's he frightened of? His own guilty conscience and the long arm of
+the law? Not a bit of it! Hill's an innocent man. If he had been guilty
+he'd never have stood the ordeal of the witness-box and the
+cross-examination. Hill's cleared out because he was frightened of
+Birchill."
+
+"Of Birchill?"
+
+"Yes. Didn't Birchill tell Hill, just before he set out for Riversbrook
+on the night of the murder, that if Hill played him false he'd murder
+him? Hill _did_ play him false, not then, but afterwards, when he made
+his confession and Birchill was arrested for the murder in consequence.
+When Birchill was acquitted at the trial his first thought would be to
+wreak vengeance on Hill. A man with one murder on his soul would not be
+likely to hesitate about committing another. Hill knew this, and fled to
+save his life when Birchill was acquitted. That's the explanation of his
+letter, Rolfe."
+
+"So that's the way you look at it?" said Rolfe.
+
+"Of course I do! It's the only way Hill's flight can be looked at in the
+light of all that's happened. The theory dovetails in every part. I'm
+more used than you to putting these things together, Rolfe. Hill's as
+innocent of the murder as you are."
+
+"And where do you think Hill's gone to?"
+
+"Certainly not out of London. He's too much of a Cockney for that.
+Besides, he's a man who is fond of his wife and child. He's hiding
+somewhere close at hand, and I shouldn't wonder if the whole thing's a
+plant between him and his wife. Have you forgotten how she tried to
+hoodwink us before? I'll go to the shop to-morrow and see if I can't
+frighten the truth out of her. Meanwhile, you'd better put the Camden
+Town police on to watching the shop. If he's hiding in London he's bound
+to visit his wife sooner or later, or she'll visit him, so we ought not
+to have much difficulty in getting on to his tracks again."
+
+Rolfe departed, to do his chief's bidding, a little crestfallen. He was
+at first inclined to think that he had made a bit of a fool of himself in
+his desire to prove to Inspector Chippenfield that he had been hoodwinked
+by Hill into arresting Birchill. But that night, as he sat in his bedroom
+smoking a quiet pipe, and reviewing this latest phase of the puzzling
+case, the earlier doubts which had assailed him on first learning of
+Hill's flight recurred to him with increasing force. If Hill were
+innocent he would have been more likely to seek police protection before
+flight. Hill's flight was hardly the action of an innocent man. It
+pointed more to a guilty fear of his own skin, now that the man he had
+accused of the murder was free to seek vengeance. Chippenfield's theory
+seemed plausible enough at first sight, but Rolfe now recalled that he
+knew nothing of the missing letters and Hill's midnight visit to
+Riversbrook to recover them. Rolfe had concealed that episode from his
+superior officer because he lacked the courage to reveal to him how he
+had been hoodwinked by Mrs. Holymead's fainting fit the morning he was
+conducting his official inquiry at Riversbrook into the murder.
+
+"It's an infernally baffling case," muttered Rolfe, refilling his pipe
+from a tin of tobacco on the mantelpiece, and walking up and down the
+cheap lodging-house drugget with rapid strides. "If Birchill is not the
+murderer who is? Is it Hill?"
+
+He lit his pipe, closed the window, opened his pocket-book and sat down
+to peruse the notes he had taken during his investigation of Sir Horace
+Fewbanks's murder. He read and re-read them, earnestly searching for a
+fresh clue in the pencilled pages. After spending some time in this
+occupation he took a clean sheet of paper and a pencil, and copied afresh
+the following entries from his notebook:
+
+August 19. Went Riversbrook. Saw Sir H.F.'s body. Discovered fragment of
+lady's handkerchief clenched in right hand.
+
+August 22. Made inquiries handkerchief. Unable find where purchased.
+
+September 8. Found Hill at Riversbrook searching Sir H.F.'s papers. Told
+me about bundle of lady's letters tied up with pink ribbon which had been
+taken from secret drawer. Says they disappeared morning after murder when
+investigation was taking place. C.'s visitors that day: Dr. Slingsby /
+Seldon to arrange inquest / newspaper men / undertaker's representatives
+/ Crewe. C. saw one visitor alone, Hill says. Mrs. H----, who fainted. C.
+fetched glass of water, leaving her alone in room. Hill suggests her
+letters indicate friendly relations between her and Sir H.F. Sir H.F.
+expected visit, probably from lady, night of murder. Hurried Hill off
+when he returned from Scotland. Mem: Inadvisable disclose this to C.
+
+Underneath his entries of the case Rolfe had written finally:
+
+Points to be remembered:
+
+(1) Crewe said before the trial that Birchill was not the murderer and
+    would be acquitted. Birchill was acquitted.
+
+(2) Crewe suggested we had not got the whole truth out of Hill. Hill
+    disappears the night after the trial. Is Hill the murderer?
+
+(3) The handkerchief and the letters point to a woman in the case,
+    although this was not brought out at the trial. Is it possible that
+    woman is Mrs. H.?
+
+Rolfe realised that the chief pieces of the puzzle were before him, but
+the difficulty was to put them together. He felt sure there was a
+connection between these facts, which, if brought to light, would solve
+the Riversbrook mystery. Without knowing it, he had been so influenced by
+Crewe's analysis of the case that he had practically given up the idea
+that Birchill had anything to do with the murder. His real reason for
+going to Hill's shop that morning was to try and extract something from
+Hill which might put him on the track of the actual murderer. He believed
+Hill knew more than he had divulged. Hill, before his disappearance, had
+placed in his hands an important clue, if he only knew how to follow it
+up. That incident of the missing letters must have some bearing on the
+case, if he could only elucidate it.
+
+Should he disclose to Chippenfield Hill's story of the missing letters?
+Rolfe dismissed the idea as soon as it crossed his mind. He knew his
+superior officer sufficiently well to understand that he would be very
+angry to learn that he had been deceived by Mrs. Holymead, and, as she
+was outside the range of his anger, he would bear a grudge against his
+junior officer for discovering the deception which had been practised on
+him, and do all he could to block his promotion in Scotland Yard in
+consequence. Apart from that, he could offer Chippenfield no excuse for
+not having told him before.
+
+Should he consult Crewe?
+
+Rolfe dismissed that thought also, but more reluctantly. Hang it all, it
+was too humiliating for an accredited officer of Scotland Yard to consult
+a private detective! Rolfe had acquired an unwilling respect for Crewe's
+abilities during the course of the investigations into the Riversbrook
+case, but he retained all the intolerance which regular members of the
+detective force feel for the private detectives who poach on their
+preserves. Rolfe's professional jealousy was intensified in Crewe's case
+because of the brilliant successes Crewe had achieved during his career
+at the expense of the reputation of Scotland Yard. Rolfe had an
+instinctive feeling that Crewe's mind was of finer quality than his own,
+and would see light where he only groped in darkness. If Crewe had been
+his superior officer in Scotland Yard, Rolfe would have gone to him
+unhesitatingly and profited by his keener vision, but he could not do so
+in their existing relative positions. He ransacked his brain for some
+other course.
+
+After long consideration, Rolfe decided to go and see Mrs. Holymead and
+question her about the packet of letters which Hill declared she had
+removed from Riversbrook after the murder. He realised that this was
+rather a risky course to pursue, for Mrs. Holymead was highly placed and
+could do him much harm if she got her husband to use his influence at the
+Home Office, for then he would have to admit that he had gone to her
+without the knowledge of his superior officer, on the statement of a
+discredited servant who had arranged a burglary in his master's house the
+night he was murdered. Nevertheless, Rolfe decided to take the risk. The
+chance of getting somewhere nearer the solution of the Riversbrook
+mystery was worth it, and what a feather in his cap it would be if he
+solved the mystery! He was convinced that Chippenfield had shut out
+important light on the mystery by doggedly insisting, in order to
+buttress up his case against Birchill, that the piece of handkerchief
+which had been found in the dead man's hand was a portion of a
+handkerchief which had belonged to the girl Fanning, and had been brought
+by Birchill from the Westminster flat on the night of the murder. It was
+more likely, in view of Hill's story of the letters, that the
+handkerchief belonged to Mrs. Holymead. Rolfe had not made up his mind
+that Mrs. Holymead had committed the murder, but he was convinced that
+she and her letters had some connection with the baffling crime, and he
+determined to try and pierce the mystery by questioning her. Having
+arrived at this decision, he replaced his notebook in his coat pocket,
+knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and went to bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Rolfe went to Hyde Park next day and walked from the Tube station
+to Holymead's house at Princes Gate. The servant who answered his
+ring informed him, in reply to his question, that Mrs. Holymead was
+"Not at home."
+
+"Do you know when she will be home?" persisted Rolfe, forestalling an
+evident desire on the servant's part to shut the door in his face.
+
+The man looked at Rolfe doubtfully. Well-trained English servant though
+he was, and used to summing up strangers at a glance, he could not quite
+make out who Rolfe might be. But before he could come to a decision on
+the point a feminine voice behind him said:
+
+"What is it, Trappon?"
+
+The servant turned quickly in the direction of the voice. "It's a
+er--er--party who wants to see Madam, mademoiselle," he replied.
+
+"_Parti?_ What mean you by _parti_? Explain yourself, Trappon."
+
+"A person--a gentleman, mademoiselle," replied Trappon, determined to be
+on the safe side.
+
+"Open the door, Trappon, that I may see this gentleman."
+
+Trappon somewhat reluctantly complied, and a young lady stepped forward.
+She was tall and dark, with charming eyes which were also shrewd; she had
+a fine figure which a tight-fitting dress displayed rather too boldly for
+good taste, and she was sufficiently young to be able to appear quite
+girlish in the half light.
+
+"You wish to see Madame Holymead?" she said to Rolfe. Her manner was
+engagingly pleasant and French.
+
+Rolfe felt it incumbent upon him to be gallant in the presence of the
+fair representative of a nation whom he vaguely understood placed
+gallantry in the forefront of the virtues. He took off his hat with a
+courtly bow.
+
+"I do, mademoiselle," he replied, "and my business is important."
+
+"Then, monsieur, step inside if you will be so good, and I will see you."
+
+She led Rolfe to a small, prettily-furnished room at the end of the hall,
+and carefully shut the door. Then she invited Rolfe to be seated, and
+asked him to state his business.
+
+But this was precisely what Rolfe was not anxious to do except to Mrs.
+Holymead herself.
+
+"My business is private, and must be placed before Mrs. Holymead," he
+said firmly. "I wish to see her."
+
+"I regret, monsieur, but Madame Holymead is out of town. She went last
+week. If you had only come before she went"--Mademoiselle Chiron looked
+genuinely sorry.
+
+Rolfe was a little taken aback at this intelligence, and showed it.
+
+"Out of town!" he repeated. "Where has she gone to?"
+
+She looked at him almost timidly.
+
+"But, monsieur, I do not know if I ought to tell you without knowing who
+you are. Are you a friend of Madame's?"
+
+"My name is Detective Rolfe--I come from Scotland Yard," replied Rolfe,
+in the authoritative tone of a man who knew that the disclosure was sure
+to command respect, if not a welcome.
+
+"Scotland? You come from Scotland? Madame will regret much that she has
+missed you."
+
+"Scotland Yard, I said," corrected Rolfe, "not Scotland."
+
+"Is it not the same?" Mademoiselle Chiron looked at him helplessly.
+"Scotland Yard--is it not in Scotland? What is the difference?"
+
+Rolfe, with a Londoner's tolerance for foreign ignorance, painstakingly
+explained the difference. She looked so puzzled that he felt sure she did
+not understand him. But that, he reflected, was not his fault.
+
+"So you see, mademoiselle, my business with Mrs. Holymead is important,
+therefore I'll be obliged if you will tell me where I can find her," he
+said. "In what part of the country is she?"
+
+Mademoiselle Chiron looked distressed. "Really, monsieur, I cannot tell
+you. She is motoring, and I should have been with her but that I have _un
+gros rhume"_--she produced a tiny scrap of lace handkerchief and held it
+to her nose as though in support of her statement--"and she rings me on
+the telephone from different places and tells me the things she does
+need, and I do send them on to her."
+
+"Where does she ring you up from?" asked Rolfe, eyeing Mademoiselle
+Chiron's handkerchief intently.
+
+"From Brighton--from Eastbourne--wherever she stops."
+
+"What place was she stopping at when you heard from her last?"
+
+"Eastbourne, monsieur."
+
+"And when will she return here?"
+
+"That, monsieur, I do not know. To-night--to-morrow--next week--she does
+not tell me. If Monsieur will leave me a message I will see that she gets
+it, for it is always me she wants, and it is always me that talks to her.
+What shall I tell her when next she rings the telephone? If Monsieur will
+state his business I will tell Madame what he tells me. I am Madame's
+cousin by marriage--in me she has confidence."
+
+She spoke in a tone which invited confidence, but Rolfe was not prepared
+to go to the length of trusting the young woman he saw before him,
+despite her assurance that she was in the confidence of Mrs. Holymead. He
+rose to his feet with a keen glance at Mademoiselle Chiron's
+handkerchief, which she had rolled into a little ball in her hand.
+
+"I cannot disclose my business to you, mademoiselle," he said
+courteously. "I must see Mrs. Holymead personally, so I shall call again
+when she has returned."
+
+"But, monsieur, why will you not tell me?" she asked coaxingly. "You are
+a police agent? Have you therefore come to see Madame about the case?"
+
+Rolfe showed that he was taken aback by the direct question.
+
+"The case!" he stammered. "What case?"
+
+"Why, monsieur, what case should it be but that of which I have so often
+heard Madame speak? Le judge--the good friend of Monsieur and Madame
+Holymead, who was killed by the base assassin! Madame is disconsolate
+about his terrible end!" Mademoiselle Chiron here applied the
+handkerchief to her eyes on her own account. "Have you come to tell her
+that you have caught the wicked man who did assassinate him? Madame will
+be overjoyed!"
+
+"Why, hardly that," replied Rolfe, completely off his guard. "But we're
+on the track, mademoiselle--we're on the track."
+
+"And is it that you wanted me to tell Madame?" persisted
+Mademoiselle Chiron.
+
+"I wanted to ask her a question or two about several things," said Rolfe,
+who had determined to disclose his hand sufficiently to bring Mrs.
+Holymead back to London if she had anything to do with the crime. "I want
+to ask her about some letters that were stolen--no, I won't say
+stolen--letters that were removed from Riversbrook. I have been informed
+that even if these letters are no longer in existence she can give the
+police a good idea of what was in them."
+
+The telephone bell in the corner of the room rang suddenly. Mademoiselle
+Chiron ran to answer it, and accidentally dropped her handkerchief on the
+floor in picking up the receiver.
+
+Mademoiselle Chiron began speaking on the telephone, but she stopped
+suddenly, staring with frightened eyes into the mirror at the other side
+of the room. The glass reflected the actions of Rolfe at the table.
+Seated with his back towards her, he had taken advantage of her being
+called to the telephone to examine her handkerchief, which he had picked
+up from the floor. He had produced from his pocketbook the scrap of lace
+and muslin which he had found in the murdered man's hand. He had the two
+on the table side by side comparing them, and Mademoiselle Chiron noticed
+a smile of satisfaction flit across his face as he did so. While she
+looked he restored the scrap to his pocket-book, and the pocket-book to
+his pocket. Hastily she turned to the telephone again and continued, in a
+voice which a quick ear would have detected was slightly hysterical.
+
+Then she hung up the receiver and turned to Rolfe.
+
+"But, monsieur, you were saying--"
+
+Rolfe handed the handkerchief to its owner with a courtly bow which he
+flattered himself was equal to the best French school.
+
+"I picked this up off the floor, mademoiselle. It is yours, I think?"
+
+"This?" Mademoiselle Chiron touched the handkerchief with a dainty
+forefinger. "It is my handkerchief. I dropped it."
+
+"It is very pretty," said Rolfe, with simulated indifference. "I suppose
+you bought that in Paris. It does not look English,''
+
+"But no, monsieur, it is quite Engleesh. I bought it in the shop."
+
+"Indeed! A London shop?" inquired Rolfe, with equal indifference.
+
+"The _lingerie_ shop in Oxford Street--what do you call it--Hobson's?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know--these ladies' things are a bit out of my line,"
+said Rolfe, rising as he spoke with a smile, in which there was more
+than a trace of self-satisfaction.
+
+He felt that he had acquitted himself with an adroitness which Crewe
+himself might have envied. He had made an important discovery and
+extracted the name of the shop where the handkerchief had been bought
+without--so he flattered himself--arousing any suspicions on the part of
+the lady. Rolfe knew from his inquiries in West End shops that
+handkerchiefs of that pattern and quality were stocked by many of the
+good shops, but the fact that he had found a handkerchief of this kind in
+the house of a lady who had abstracted secret letters from the murdered
+man's desk, and had, moreover, discovered the name of the shop where she
+bought her handkerchiefs, convinced him that he had struck a path which
+must lead to an important discovery.
+
+Mademoiselle Chiron followed Rolfe into the hall and watched his
+departure from a front window. When she saw his retreating figure turn
+the corner of the street she left the window, ran upstairs quickly, and
+knocked lightly at the closed door.
+
+The door was opened by Mrs. Holymead, who appeared to be in a state of
+nervous agitation. Her large brown eyes were swollen and dim with
+weeping, her hair had become partly unloosened, her face was white and
+her dress disordered. She caught the Frenchwoman by the wrist and drew
+her into the bedroom, closing the door after her.
+
+"What did he want, Gabrielle?" she gasped. "What did he say? Has he come
+about--_that_?"
+
+Gabrielle nodded her head.
+
+"Gabrielle!" Mrs. Holymead's voice rose almost to a cry. "Oh, what are we
+to do? Did he come to arrest--"
+
+"No, no! He was not so bad. He did not come to do dreadful things, but
+just to have a little talk.''
+
+"A little talk? What about?"
+
+"He wanted to see you, and ask you one or two little questions. I put
+him off. He was like wax in my hands. Pouf! He has gone, so why trouble?"
+
+"But he will come again! He is sure to come again!"
+
+"No doubt. He says he will come again--in a week--when you return."
+
+Mrs. Holymead wrung her hands helplessly.
+
+"What are we to do then?" she wailed.
+
+"We will look the tragedy in the face when it comes. _Ma foi!_ What have
+you been doing to yourself? For nothing is it worth to look like _that_."
+With deft and loving fingers Gabrielle began to arrange Mrs. Holymead's
+hair. "We will have everything right before this little police agent
+returns. We will show him he is the complete fool for suspecting you know
+about the murder."
+
+"But what can you do, Gabrielle?" asked Mrs. Holymead.
+
+She looked at Gabrielle with her large brown eyes, as though she were
+utterly dependent on the other's stronger will for support and
+assistance. Mademoiselle Chiron stopped in her arrangement of Mrs.
+Holymead's hair and, bending over, kissed her affectionately.
+
+"_Ma petite_," she said, "do not worry. I have thought of a plan--oh, a
+most excellent plan--which I will myself execute to-morrow, and then
+shall all your troubles be finished, and you will be happy again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+"A lady to see you, sir."
+
+"What sort of a lady, Joe?"
+
+"Furren, I should say, sir, by the way she speaks. I arskt her if she had
+an appointment, and she said no, but she said she wanted to see you on
+very urgent and particular business. I told her most people says that wot
+comes to see you, but she says hers was _reely_ important. Arskt me to
+tell you, sir, that it was about the Riversbrook case."
+
+"The Riversbrook case? I'll see her, Joe. Has not Stork returned yet?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Tell him to go to his dinner when he comes back. Show the lady in, Joe."
+
+Crewe regarded his caller keenly as Joe ushered her in, placed a chair
+for her, and went out, closing the door noiselessly behind him. She was a
+tall, well-dressed, graceful woman, fairly young, with dark hair and
+eyes. She looked quickly at the detective as she entered, and Crewe was
+struck by the shrewd penetration of her glance.
+
+"You are Monsieur Crewe, the great detective--is it not so?" she asked,
+as she sat down. The glance she now gave the detective at closer range
+from her large dark eyes was innocent and ingenuous, with a touch of
+admiration. The contrast between it and her former look was not lost on
+Crewe, and he realised that his visitor was no ordinary woman.
+
+"My name is Crewe," he said, ignoring the compliment. "What do you wish
+to see me for?"
+
+The visitor did not immediately reply. She nervously unfastened a bag she
+carried, and taking out a singularly unfeminine-looking handkerchief--a
+large cambric square almost masculine in its proportions, and guiltless
+of lace or perfume--held it to her face for a moment. But Crewe noticed
+that her eyes were dry when she removed it to remark:
+
+"What I say to you, monsieur, is in strictest confidence--as sacred as
+the confession."
+
+"Anything you say to me will be in strict confidence," said Crewe a
+little grimly.
+
+"And the boy? Can he not hear through the keyhole?" Crewe's visitor
+glanced expressively at the door by which she had entered.
+
+"You are quite safe here, madame--mademoiselle, I should say," he added,
+with a quick glance at her left hand, from which she slowly removed the
+glove as she spoke.
+
+"Mademoiselle Chiron, monsieur," said Gabrielle, flashing another smile
+at him. "I am Madame Holymead's relative--her cousin. I come to see you
+about the dreadful murder of the judge, Madame's friend."
+
+"You come from Mrs. Holymead?" said Crewe quickly. "Then, Mademoiselle
+Chiron, before--"
+
+"No, no, monsieur, no!" Her agitation was unmistakably genuine. "I do not
+come _from_ Madame Holymead. I am her relative, it is true, but I
+come--how shall I say it?--from myself. I mean she does not know of my
+visit to you, monsieur."
+
+"I quite understand," replied Crewe.
+
+"Monsieur Crewe," said Gabrielle hurriedly, "although I have not come
+from Madame Holymead, it is for her sake that I come to see you--to save
+her from the persecution of one of your police agents who wants to ask
+her questions about this so sordid--so terrible a crime! He has come
+once, this agent--last night he came--and he told me he wanted to
+question Madame Holymead about the murder of her dear friend the judge. I
+do not want Madame worried with these questions, so I told him Madame was
+away in the motor in the country; but he says he will come again and
+again till he sees her. Madame is distracted when she learns of his
+visit; it opens up her bleeding heart afresh, for she and her husband
+were _intime_ with the dead judge, and deeply, terribly, they deplore his
+so dreadful end. I see Madame cry, and I say to myself I will not let
+this little police agent spoil her beauty and give her the migraine: his
+visits must be, shall be, prevented. I have heard of the so great and
+good Monsieur Crewe, and I will go and see him. We will--as you say in
+your English way--put our heads together, this famous detective and I,
+and we will find some way of--how do you call it?--circumventing this
+police agent so that my dear Madame shall cry no more. Monsieur Crewe, I
+am here, and I beg of you to help me."
+
+Crewe listened to this outburst with inward surprise but impassive
+features. Apparently the police had come to the conclusion that they had
+blundered in arresting Birchill for the murder of Sir Horace Fewbanks,
+and had recommenced inquiries with a view to bringing the crime home to
+somebody else. He did not know whether their suspicions were now directed
+against Mrs. Holymead, but they had conducted their preliminary inquiries
+so clumsily as to arouse her fears that they did. So much was apparent
+from Mademoiselle Chiron's remarks, despite the interpretation she sought
+to place on Mrs. Holymead's fears. He wondered if the "police agent" was
+Rolfe or Chippenfield. It was obvious that the cool proposal that he
+should help to shield Mrs. Holymead against unwelcome police attentions
+covered some deeper move, and he shaped his conversation in the endeavour
+to extract more from the Frenchwoman.
+
+"I am very sorry to hear that Mrs. Holymead has been subjected to this
+annoyance," he said warily. "This police agent, did he come by himself?"
+
+"But yes, monsieur, I have already said it."
+
+"I know, but I thought he might have had a companion waiting for him in
+a taxi-cab outside. Scotland Yard men frequently travel in pairs."
+
+"He had no taxi-cab," declared Mademoiselle Chiron, positively. "He
+walked away on foot by himself. I watched him from the window."
+
+Crewe registered a mental note of this admission. If she had watched the
+detective's departure from the window she evidently had some reason for
+wanting to see the last of him. Aloud he said:
+
+"I expect I know him. What was he like?"
+
+"Tall, as tall as you, only bigger--much bigger. And he had the great
+moustache which he caressed again and again with his fingers." Gabrielle
+daintily imitated the action on her own short upper lip.
+
+"I know him," declared Crewe with a smile. "His name is Rolfe. There
+should be nothing about him to alarm you, mademoiselle. Why, he is quite
+a ladies' man."
+
+Gabrielle shrugged her shoulders disdainfully.
+
+"That may be," she replied; "but I like him not, and I do not wish him to
+worry Madame Holymead."
+
+"But why not let him see Mrs. Holymead?" suggested Crewe, after a short
+pause. "As he only wants to ask her a few short questions, it seems to me
+that would be the quickest way out of the difficulty, and would save you
+all the trouble and worry you speak of."
+
+"I tell you I will not," declared Gabrielle vehemently. "I will not have
+Madame Holymead worried and made ill with the terrible ordeal. Bah! What
+do you men--so clumsy--know of the delicate feelings of a lady like
+Madame Holymead? The least soupçon of excitement and she is disturbed,
+distraite, for days. After last night--after the visit of the police
+agent--she was quite hysterical."
+
+"Why should she be when she had nothing to be afraid of?" rejoined Crewe.
+
+He spoke in a tone of simple wonder, but Gabrielle shot a quick glance
+at him from under her veiled lashes as she replied:
+
+"Bah! What has that to do with it? I repeat: Monsieur Crewe, you men
+cannot understand the feelings of a lady like Madame Holymead in a matter
+like this. She and her husband were, as I have said before, _intime_ with
+the great judge. They visited his house, they dined with him, they met
+him in Society. Behold, he is brutally, horribly killed. Madame, when she
+hears the terrible news, is ill for days; she cannot eat, she cannot
+sleep; she can interest herself in nothing. She is forgetting a little
+when the police agents they catch a man and say he is the murderer. Then
+comes the trial of this man at the court with so queer a name--Old
+Bailee. The papers are full of the terrible story again; of the dead man;
+how he looked killed; how he lay in a pool of blood; how they cut him
+open! Madame Holymead cannot pick up a paper without seeing these things,
+and she falls ill again. Then the jury say the man the police agents
+caught is not the murderer. He goes free, and once more the talk dies
+away. Madame Holymead once more begins to forget, when this police agent
+comes to her house to remind her once more all about it. It is too cruel,
+monsieur, it is too cruel!"
+
+Gabrielle's voice vibrated with indignation as she concluded, and Crewe
+regarded her closely. He decided that her affection for Mrs. Holymead
+was not simulated, and that it would be best to handle her from that
+point of view.
+
+"I am sorry," he said coldly, "but I do not see how I can help you."
+
+"Monsieur," said the Frenchwoman, clasping her hands, "I entreat you not
+to say so. It would be so easy for you to help--not me, but Madame."
+
+"How?"
+
+"You know this police agent. You also are a police agent, though so much
+greater. Therefore you whisper just one little word in the ear of your
+friend the police agent, and he will not bother Madame Holymead again. I
+think you could do this. And if you need money to give to the police
+agent, why, I have brought some." She fumbled nervously at her hand-bag.
+
+"Stay," said Crewe. "What you ask is impossible. I have nothing whatever
+to do with Scotland Yard. I could not interfere in their inquiries, even
+if I wished to. They would only laugh at me."
+
+Gabrielle's dark eyes showed her disappointment, but she made one more
+effort to gain her end. She leant nearer to Crewe, and laid a persuasive
+hand on his arm.
+
+"If you would only make the effort," she said coaxingly, "my beautiful
+Madame Holymead would be for ever grateful."
+
+"Mademoiselle, once more I repeat that what you ask is impossible,"
+returned Crewe decisively. "I repeat, I cannot see why Mrs. Holymead
+should object to answering a few questions the police wish to ask her.
+She is too sensitive about such a trifle."
+
+Gabrielle shrugged her shoulders slightly in tacit recognition of the
+fact that the man in front of her was too shrewd to be deceived by
+subterfuge.
+
+"There is another reason, monsieur," she whispered.
+
+"You had better tell it to me."
+
+"If you had been a woman you would have guessed. The great judge who was
+killed was in his spare moments what you call a gallant--he did love my
+sex. In France this would not matter, but in England they think much of
+it--so very much. Madame Holymead is frightened for fear the least breath
+of scandal should attach to her name, if the world knew that the police
+agent had visited her house on such an errand. Madame is innocent--it is
+not necessary to assure you of that; but the prudish dames of England are
+censorious."
+
+"The Scotland Yard people are not likely to disclose anything about it,"
+said Crewe.
+
+"That may be so, but these things come out," retorted Gabrielle.
+
+"Monsieur," she added, after a pause, and speaking in a low tone, "I
+know that you can do much--very much--if you will, and can stop Madame
+Holymead from being worried. Would you do so if you were told who the
+murderer was--I mean he who did really kill the great judge?" Crewe was
+genuinely surprised, but his control over his features was so complete
+that he did not betray it. "Do you know who Sir Horace Fewbanks's
+murderer is?" he asked, in quiet even tones. "Monsieur, I do. I will tell
+you the whole story in secret--how do you say?--in confidence, if you
+promise me you will help Madame Holymead as I have asked you." "I cannot
+enter into a bargain like that," rejoined Crewe. "I do not know whether
+Mrs. Holymead may not be implicated--concerned--in what you say."
+
+"Monsieur, she is not!" flashed Gabrielle indignantly. "She knows nothing
+about it. What I have to tell you concerns myself alone."
+
+"In that case," rejoined Crewe, "I think you had better speak to me
+frankly and freely, and if I can I will help you."
+
+"You are perhaps right," she replied. "I will tell you everything,
+provided you give me your word of honour that you will not inform the
+police of what I will tell you."
+
+"If you bind me to that promise I do not see how I can help you in the
+direction you indicate," said Crewe, after a moment's thought. "If the
+police are asked to abandon their inquiries about Mrs. Holymead, they
+will naturally wish to know the reason."
+
+"You are quite right," said Gabrielle. "I did not think of that. But if
+I tell you everything, and you have to tell the police agents so as to
+help Madame, will you promise that the police agents do not come and
+arrest _me_?"
+
+"Provided you have not committed murder or been in any way accessory to
+it, I think I can promise you that," rejoined Crewe.
+
+"Monsieur, I do not understand you, but I can almost divine your meaning.
+Your promise is what you call a guarded one. Nevertheless, I like your
+face, and I will trust you."
+
+Gabrielle relapsed into silence for some moments, looking at Crewe
+earnestly.
+
+"Monsieur," she said at length, "it is a terrible story I have to relate,
+and it is difficult for me to tell a stranger what I know. Nevertheless,
+I will begin. I knew the great judge well."
+
+"You knew Sir Horace Fewbanks?" exclaimed Crewe.
+
+"He was--my lover, monsieur."
+
+She brought the last two words out defiantly, with a quick glance
+at Crewe to see how he took the avowal. She seemed to find
+something reassuring in his answering glance, and she continued, in
+more even tones:
+
+"I had often seen him at the house of Madame Holymead when I came to
+London to visit her. I admired Sir Horace when I saw him--often he used
+to call and dine, for he was the friend of Monsieur Holymead. But Madame
+told me that the great judge was what in England you call a lover of the
+ladies--that he was dangerous--so I must be careful of him. I used to
+look at him when he called, and thought he was handsome in the English
+way, and sometimes he looked at me when he was unobserved, and smiled at
+me. But Madame did not like me looking at him; she said I was foolish;
+she warned me to be careful."
+
+Gabrielle shrugged her shoulders expressively.
+
+"Of what use was Madame's warning? It did but make me wish to know more
+of this great lover of my sex. He saw that, and made the opportunity, and
+made love to me. He was so ardent, so fervid a lover that I was
+conquered.
+
+"After we had been lovers I told him my secret--that I was married.
+Pierre Simon, my husband, was a bad man, and so I left him. But Madame
+must not know that I was married, for that is my secret. It does not do
+to tell everything--besides, it would have distressed her.
+
+"Monsieur, I was happy with my lover, the great judge. He was charming.
+He had that charm of manner which you English lack. Faithful? I do not
+know. Often we were together, and often we wrote letters when to meet was
+impossible. He kept my letters--they amused him so, he said--they were so
+French, so piquant, so different to English ladies' letters. Alas,
+monsieur, there had been others--many others there must have been, for he
+understood my sex so well.
+
+"One afternoon I was out for a walk looking in the great shops in Regent
+Street, when I felt a hand placed on my shoulder, and looking round I saw
+Pierre, my husband. He was pleased at the meeting, but I was not pleased.
+He took me to a café where we could talk. It was what he always did talk
+about--money, money, money. He always wanted money. He said I must find
+him some, and when I told him I had none he said I must find some way of
+getting it, or he would come to the house and expose my secret. I walked
+away out of the café and left him there. But I soon saw him again, and
+again. He followed me and talked to me against my will.
+
+"Monsieur, I was very much distressed, and for a long time I tried to
+think of a way to get rid of Pierre, for I was afraid that he would come
+to the house and tell Madame Holymead I was married. Then I thought of
+the great judge, my lover. He would know how to send Pierre away, for
+Pierre would be frightened of him. But Sir Horace was in Scotland,
+shooting the poor birds. But I wrote to him and asked him for my sake to
+come at once, because I was in distress and needed help. Monsieur, he
+came--but he came to his death. He sent me a letter to meet him at
+Riversbrook at half-past ten o'clock. He was sorry it was so late, but
+he thought it would be safer not to come to the house till after dark in
+the long summer evening, for people were so censorious. I was to tell
+Madame Holymead that I was going to the theatre with a friend.
+
+"I was so pleased to think that I would get rid of Pierre, that on the
+morning, when he stopped me to ask me again about the money, I showed him
+the letter of the great judge, and told him I would make the judge put
+him in prison if he did not go away and leave me alone. 'He is your
+lover,' said Pierre. 'I will kill him.' But I laughed, for I knew Pierre
+did not care if I had many lovers. I said to him, 'Pierre, you would
+extort the money'--blackmail, the English call it, do they not, Monsieur
+Crewe?--'but you would not kill. Sir Horace is not afraid of you. If you
+go near him he would have you taken off to gaol,' But Pierre he was deep
+in thought. Several times he said, 'I want money,' Each time I said to
+him, 'Then you must work for it,' 'That is no way to get money,' he
+answered. 'This great judge, he has much money, is it not so?'
+
+"I left him, monsieur, thinking of money. But I did not know how bad his
+thoughts were. I returned home, and I told Madame Holymead I would go to
+the theatre that night. I left the house at eight o'clock, and after
+walking along Piccadilly and Regent Street took the train to Hampstead.
+Then I walked up to the house of Sir Horace so as not to be too early.
+The gate was open and I thought that strange, but I had no thought of
+murder. As I walked up the garden I heard a shot--two shots--and then a
+cry, and the sound of something falling on the floor. The door of the
+house was open, and the light was burning in the hall. Upstairs I heard
+the noise of footsteps--quick footsteps--and then I heard them coming
+down the staircase. I was afraid, and I hid myself behind the curtains in
+the hall. The footsteps came down, and nearer and nearer, and when they
+passed me I looked out to see. Monsieur, it was Pierre. I called to him
+softly, 'Pierre, Pierre!' He looked round, and his face, it was so
+different--so dreadful. He did not know my voice, and he ran away from me
+with a cry.
+
+"Monsieur, my heart is a brave one. I have not what you call nerves, but
+when I knew I was alone in the great house with I knew not what, a great
+fear clutched me. I stood still in the hall with my eyes fixed on the
+stairs above. At first all was silent, then I heard a dreadful sound--a
+groan. I wanted to run away then, monsieur, but the good God commanded me
+to go up and into the room, where a fellow creature needed me. I went
+upstairs, and along to the door of a room which was half open. I pushed
+it wide open and went in.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_ the judge was alone there, dying. Pierre had shot him. He
+lay along the floor, gasping, groaning, and the blood dripping from his
+breast. When I saw this I ran forward and took his poor head on my knee,
+and tried to stop the blood with my handkerchief. But as I did this the
+judge groaned once more. He knew me not, though I called him by name. In
+terrible agony he writhed his head off my breast. His hand clutched at
+the hole in his breast, closing on my handkerchief. And so he died.
+
+"Monsieur, strange it may seem, but I do assure you that I became calm
+again when he was dead. I rose to my feet and looked round me in the
+room. On the floor near him I saw a revolver. I picked it up and hid it
+in my bag. The tube of it was warm. Then I sat down in a chair and
+thought what I must do. The police must not know I was there. They must
+not know he was my lover. I thought of my letters that I wrote to him. He
+had them hidden in a little drawer at the back of his desk--a secret
+drawer. Often had he showed me my letters there, and once he had showed
+me where to find the spring that opened the drawer. So I searched for the
+spring and I found it. The drawer opened and there were my letters tied
+together. I took them all and hid them in my bag, and then I closed the
+hiding place. There remained but the handkerchief which my lover held in
+his hand. I tried to get it out, but I could not. In my hurry I dragged
+it out--it came away then, but left a little bit in his hand. It did not
+show. I dared not wait longer. I turned out the light, and hurried out of
+the room and downstairs. Again I turned out the light, and closed the
+door, and hurried away.
+
+"That, monsieur, is my story."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+As Gabrielle finished her story, she cast a quick glance at Crewe's face
+as though seeking to divine his decision. But apparently she could read
+nothing there, and with an imperious gesture she exclaimed:
+
+"You will do what I ask now that I have exposed my secret--my shame to
+you--and told everything? You will save Madame Holymead from being
+persecuted by these police agents?"
+
+"I must ask you a few questions first."
+
+The contrast between the detective's quiet English tones and the
+Frenchwoman's impetuous appeal was accentuated by the methodical way in
+which Crewe slowly jotted down an entry in his open notebook. Her dark
+eyes sparkled in an agony of impatience as she watched him.
+
+"Ask them quick, monsieur, for I burn in the suspense."
+
+"In the first place, then, have you any--"
+
+"Hold, monsieur! I know what you would ask! You would say if I have any
+proofs? Stupid that I am to forget things so important. I have brought
+you the proofs."
+
+She fumbled at the clasp of her hand-bag, as she spoke, and before she
+had finished speaking she had torn it open and emptied its contents on
+the table in front of Crewe--a dainty handkerchief and a revolver.
+
+"See, monsieur!" she cried; "here is the handkerchief of which I told
+you. It is that which the judge seized when I tried to stop the blood
+flowing in his breast--look at the corner and you will see that a little
+bit has been torn off by his almost dead hand. And the revolver--it is
+that which I picked up on the floor near him. I have had it locked up
+ever since."
+
+Crewe examined both articles closely. The revolver was a small,
+nickel-plated weapon with silver chasing, with the murdered man's
+initials engraved in the handle. It had five chambers, and one of the
+cartridges had been discharged. The other four chambers were still
+loaded. Crewe carefully extracted the cartridges, and examined them
+closely. One of them he held up to the light in order to inspect it
+more minutely.
+
+"Did you do this?" he asked: "Have you been trying to fire off the
+revolver?"
+
+"No, no, monsieur," she exclaimed quickly. "I would not fire it, I do not
+understand it. I have been careful not to touch the little thing that
+sets it going."
+
+"The trigger," said Crewe. He again studied the cartridge that had
+attracted his attention. It had missed fire, for on the cap was a dint
+where the hammer had struck it. He placed the four cartridges on the
+table and turning his attention to the handkerchief examined it minutely.
+It was one of those filmy scraps of muslin and lace which ladies call a
+handkerchief--an article whose cost is out of all proportion to its
+usefulness. Gabrielle, who was watching him keenly as he examined it,
+exclaimed:
+
+"The handkerchief--a box of them--were given me by Sir Horace because he
+knew I love pretty things."
+
+She laid a finger on the missing corner, which might indeed have been
+torn off in the manner described. A scrap of the lace was missing, and it
+was evident that it had been removed with violence, for the lace around
+the gap was loosened, and the muslin slightly frayed.
+
+"You say that the corner was torn off when you wrenched the handkerchief
+from the dead man's hold?" said Crewe. "But it was not found in his hand
+by the police or anyone else. And he was not buried with it, for I
+examined the body carefully. What became of it?"
+
+Gabrielle looked at him quickly as though she suspected some trap.
+
+"You would play with me," she said at length. "What became of it? Why,
+you must surely know that the police of Scot--Scotland Yard have it. The
+police agent who called on Madame had it. What is his name--Rudolf?"
+
+"Rolfe?" exclaimed Crewe. "Has he got it?"
+
+"Yes," she replied. "He did not show it to me, but I saw it nevertheless.
+I dropped my handkerchief when I spoke at the telephone and Monsieur
+Rolfe picked it up. Quickly he studied my handkerchief--not this one,
+monsieur, but one of the same kind--and from his pocket-book he took out
+the missing piece that was in the dead man's hand and he studied them
+side by side. He thought I did not see--that my back was turned--but I
+saw in the mirror which hung on the wall. Then, when I finished my
+telephone, he bowed and said, 'Your handkerchief, mademoiselle.' It was
+not so badly done--for a clumsy police agent."
+
+She was not able to recognise how keen was Crewe's interest in her
+statement, but she saw that she had pleased him.
+
+"It is because of this that he will come again," she continued. "It is
+because of this that he would question Madame Holymead. And then what
+will happen? I do not know. The police make so many mistakes--blunders
+you English call them. Would they arrest her with their blunders? That is
+why I come to you to ask you to save her."
+
+"May I have the revolver and the handkerchief?" asked Crewe. "I will take
+great care of them."
+
+"They are at your disposal, for you will use them to confront the
+police agent."
+
+Crewe again examined the articles in silence before taking them to his
+secrétaire and locking them up in one of the pigeon-holes. Then he turned
+to Gabrielle, whose large luminous eyes met his unhesitatingly. She even
+smiled slightly--a frank engaging smile, as she remarked:
+
+"And now, monsieur, any more questions?"
+
+Crewe smiled back at her.
+
+"You have told a remarkable story, mademoiselle, and corroborated it with
+two important pieces of evidence, which are in themselves almost
+sufficient to carry conviction," he said. "But the Scotland Yard police
+are a suspicious lot, and it is necessary for me to have further
+information in order to convince them--if I am to help you as you wish."
+
+Gabrielle flashed a look of gratitude at Crewe. She understood from his
+words that he believed her story and was disposed to help her, although
+the police of Scotland Yard might prove harder to convince than him.
+
+"Bah! those police agents--they are the same everywhere," she exclaimed.
+"They deal so much with crime that their minds get the taint, and between
+the false and true they cannot tell the difference. _Que voulez-vous?_
+They are but small in brains. With you, the case is different. You have
+it here--and there." She touched her temples lightly with a finger of
+each hand. "Proceed, monsieur: ask me what questions you will. I shall
+endeavour to answer them."
+
+"You said that as you were hiding behind the curtains on the stairway
+landing, Pierre, your husband, rushed down past you. You are quite sure
+it was he?"
+
+"Of that, monsieur, unfortunately there is no doubt. I saw his face quite
+distinctly when he passed me, and when he turned round."
+
+"The light would be shining from behind, and would not reveal his face
+very closely," suggested Crewe.
+
+"Nevertheless, monsieur, it was quite sufficient for me to see Pierre
+clearly. His head was half-turned as he ran, as though he was looking
+back expecting to see the judge rise up and punish him for his dreadful
+deed, and I saw him _en silhouette_, oh, most distinctly--impossible him
+to mistake. I called softly--'Pierre!' just like that, and he turned his
+face right round, and then with a cry he disappeared along the path."
+
+"About what time was this?"
+
+"The time--it was half-past ten, for that was the time I was to be there
+according to the letter the judge sent me."
+
+"But are you sure it was half-past ten? Weren't you early? Wasn't it just
+about ten o'clock?"
+
+"No, monsieur," she replied sadly. "If it had been ten o'clock I would
+have been in time to save the life of my lover--to prevent this great
+tragedy which brings grief to so many."
+
+Crewe looked at her sharply, and then nodded his head in acquiescence of
+the fact that much misery would have been averted if she had been in time
+to save the life of Sir Horace Fewbanks.
+
+"When you went into the room, Sir Horace Fewbanks, you say, was lying on
+the floor, dying. Whereabouts in the room was he?"
+
+"If he had been in this room he would have been lying just behind you,
+with his head to the wall and his feet pointing towards that window. He
+struggled and groaned after I went in, and altered his position a little,
+but not much. He died so."
+
+Crewe rapidly reviewed his recollection of the room in which the judge
+had been killed. Once again Gabrielle's statement tallied with his own
+reconstruction of the crime and the manner of its perpetration. If the
+murder had been committed in his office the second bullet would have gone
+through the window instead of imbedding itself in the wall, and the judge
+would have fallen in the spot where she indicated.
+
+"And where was the writing-desk from where you got your letters?" was
+Crewe's next question.
+
+"It was over there--almost by that--your little bookcase there."
+
+She pointed to a small oaken bookstand which stood slightly in advance
+of the more imposing shelves in which reposed the portentous volumes
+of newspaper clippings and photographs which constituted Crewe's
+"Rogues' Library."
+
+"Now we come to the letters. You took them from the secret drawer in the
+desk. Why did you remove them?"
+
+"Because I would not have the police agents find them, for then they
+would want to know so much."
+
+"And what did you do with them?"
+
+"Monsieur Crewe, I destroyed them. When I got home I burnt them all--I
+was so frightened."
+
+"You mean you were frightened to keep them in your possession after the
+judge was killed?"
+
+"Yes. What place had I to keep them safe from prying eyes? So, monsieur,
+I burnt them all--one by one--and the charred fragments I kept and took
+into the Park next day, where I scattered them unobserved."
+
+"And what became of the letter you wrote to Sir Horace Fewbanks at
+Craigleith Hall, asking him to come to London and save you from your
+husband's persecutions?"
+
+She looked at him earnestly in the endeavour to ascertain if he had laid
+a trap for her.
+
+"Sir Horace destroyed it in Scotland, I suppose, if the police did
+not find it."
+
+"Strange that he should have kept all your other letters so carefully and
+destroyed that one. Perhaps it was in his pocket-book that was stolen."
+
+"I do not know. What does it matter? It has gone." She shrugged her
+shoulders lightly and indifferently.
+
+"Do you know who stole the pocket-book?"
+
+"No, monsieur. I thought it was stolen in the train."
+
+"That is the police theory," replied Crewe. "But let that go. Have you,
+since the night of the murder, seen anything of Pierre?"
+
+"Monsieur, I have not. It is as though the earth has him swallowed. He
+keeps silent with the silence of the grave."
+
+"He is wise to do so," responded Crewe. "Now, mademoiselle, I have no
+more questions to ask you. Your confidence is safe; you need be under no
+apprehensions on that score."
+
+"I care not for myself, Monsieur Crewe, so long as Madame Holymead is
+freed from the persecutions of the police agents," replied Gabrielle,
+rising from her seat as she spoke. "If, after hearing my story, you could
+but give me the assurance--"
+
+"I think I can safely promise you that Mrs. Holymead will not be troubled
+with any further police attentions," said Crewe, after a moment's pause.
+
+Gabrielle broke into profuse expressions of gratitude as she
+turned to go.
+
+"For the rest then, I care not what happens. I am--how do you say it--I
+am overjoyed. _Je vous remercie_, monsieur, I beg you not, I can find my
+way out unattended."
+
+But Crewe showed her to the stairs, where again he had to listen to her
+profuse thanks before she finally departed. He watched her graceful
+figure till it was lost to sight in the winding staircase, and then he
+turned back to his office. In the outer office he stopped to speak to
+Joe, who, perched on an office-footstool, was tapping quickly on the
+office-table with his pen-knife, swaying backwards and forwards
+dangerously on his perch in the intensity of his emotions as he played
+the hero's part in the drama of saving the runaway engine from dashing
+into the 4.40 express by calling up the Red Gulch station on the wire.
+
+"Joe," said Crewe, "I'll see nobody for an hour at least--nobody. You
+understand?"
+
+Joe came out of the cinema world long enough to nod his head in emphatic
+understanding of the instructions. In his own room Crewe pulled out his
+notebook and once more gave himself up to the study of the baffling
+Riversbrook mystery, in the new light of Gabrielle's confession.
+
+Part of her story, he reflected, must be true. She had produced Sir
+Horace's revolver, and, still more important, a handkerchief which he had
+clutched in his dying struggles. It was obvious that she or some other
+woman had been at Riversbrook the night of the murder, and in the room
+with the murdered man before he died. That tallied with Birchill's
+statement to Hill that he had seen a woman close the front door and walk
+along the garden path while he was hiding in the garden. Crewe, recalling
+Gabrielle's description of the room, came to the conclusion that it was
+probably she who had been with the judge in his dying moments. No one but
+a person who had actually seen it could have described the room with such
+minuteness.
+
+She had been in the room, then. For what object? For the reasons stated
+in her confession? Crewe shook his head doubtfully.
+
+"She evaded the trap about the pocket-book, but she made one bad
+mistake," he mused. "The letters in the secret drawer were taken away,
+and I have no doubt were burnt as she says. But were they her letters?
+Was Sir Horace her lover? At any rate, she did not get hold of them in
+the way she said. They were not taken away on the night Sir Horace was
+murdered, for the simple reason that they were not in the secret drawer
+at the time."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+Rolfe was spending a quiet evening in his room after a trying day's
+inquiries into a confidence trick case; inquiries so fruitless that they
+had brought down on his head an official reproof from Inspector
+Chippenfield.
+
+Rolfe had left Scotland Yard that evening in a somewhat despondent frame
+of mind in consequence, but a brisk walk home and a good supper had done
+him so much good, that with a tranquil mind and his pipe in his mouth, he
+was able to devote himself to the hobby of his leisure hours with keen
+enjoyment.
+
+This hobby would have excited the wondering contempt of Joe Leaver, whose
+frequent attendance at cinema theatres had led him to the conclusion that
+police detectives--who, unlike his master, had to take the rough with the
+smooth--spent their spare time practising revolver shooting, and throwing
+daggers at an ace of hearts on the wall. Rolfe's hobby was nothing more
+exciting than stamp collecting. He was deeply versed in the lore of
+stamps, and his private ambition was to become the possessor of a "blue
+Mauritius." His collection, though extensive, was by no means of fabulous
+value, being made up chiefly of modest purchases from the stamp
+collecting shops, and finds in the waste-paper-baskets at Scotland Yard
+after the arrival of the foreign mails.
+
+That day he had made a particularly good haul from the
+waste-paper-baskets, for his "catch" included several comparatively good
+specimens from Japan and Fiji. He sat gloating over these treasures,
+examining them carefully and holding each one up to the light as he
+separated it from the piece of paper to which it had been affixed. He
+pasted them one by one in his stamp album with loving, lingering fingers,
+adjusting each stamp in its little square in the book with meticulous
+care. He was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not hear the
+ascending footsteps drawing nearer to his door, and did not see a visitor
+at the door when the footsteps ceased. It was Crewe's voice that recalled
+him back from the stamp collector's imaginary world.
+
+"Why, Mr. Crewe," said Rolfe, with evident pleasure, "who'd have thought
+of seeing you?"
+
+"Your landlady asked me if I'd come up myself," said Crewe, in explaining
+his intrusion. "She's 'too much worried and put about, to say nothing of
+having a bad back,' to show me upstairs."
+
+"I've never known her to be well," said Rolfe, with a laugh. "Every
+morning when she brings up my breakfast I've got to hear details of her
+bad back which should be kept for the confidential ear of the doctor. But
+she regards me as a son, I think--I've been here so long. But now you are
+here, Mr. Crewe--" Rolfe waited in polite expectation that his visitor
+would disclose the object of his visit.
+
+But Crewe seemed in no hurry to do so. He produced his cigar case and
+offered Rolfe a cigar, which the latter accepted with a pleasant
+recollection of the excellent flavour of the cigars the private detective
+kept. When each of them had his cigar well alight, Crewe glanced at the
+open stamp album and commenced talking about stamps. It was a subject
+which Rolfe was always willing to discuss. Crewe declared that he was an
+ignorant outsider as far as stamps were concerned, but he professed to
+have a respectful admiration for those who immersed themselves in such a
+fascinating subject. Rolfe, with the fervid egoism of the collector,
+talked about stamps for half an hour without recalling that his visitor
+must have come to talk about something else.
+
+"I've got a small stamp collection in my office," said Crewe, when Rolfe
+paused for a moment. "It belonged to that Jewish diamond merchant who was
+shot in Hatton Gardens two years ago. You remember his case?"
+
+"Rather! That was a smart bit of work of yours, Mr. Crewe, in laying
+your hands on the woman who did it and getting back the diamond."
+
+Crewe smiled in response.
+
+"The Jew was very grateful, poor fellow. He died in the hospital after
+the trial, so she was lucky to escape with twelve years. He left me a
+diamond ring and a stamp album that had come into his possession."
+
+"I should like to see it," said Rolfe eagerly. "It is more than likely
+that there are some good specimens in it. The Jews are keen
+collectors. If you let me have a look at it, I'll tell you what the
+collection is worth."
+
+"You can have it altogether," said Crewe. "I'll send my boy Joe round
+with it in the morning."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Crewe, it's very good of you," said Rolfe, with the covetousness
+of the collector shining in his eyes.
+
+"Nonsense! Why shouldn't you have it? But I didn't come round here solely
+to talk about stamps, Rolfe. I came to have a little chat about the
+Riversbrook case. How are you getting on with it?"
+
+"Why, really," said Rolfe, "I've not done much with it since, since--"
+
+"Since Birchill was acquitted, eh! But you are not letting it drop
+altogether, are you? That would be a pity--such an interesting case.
+Whom have you your eye on now as the right man?"
+
+Rolfe, who thought he detected a suspicion of banter in Crewe's
+remarks, evaded the latter question by answering the first part of
+Crewe's inquiry.
+
+"Why hardly that, Mr. Crewe. But the chief is not very keen on the case.
+Birchill's acquittal was too much of a blow to him. He reckons that
+nowadays juries are too soft-hearted to convict on a capital charge."
+
+"It's just as well that they are too soft-hearted to convict the wrong
+man," said Crewe.
+
+"Yes; you told me from the first that we were on the wrong track," was
+the reply. "I haven't forgotten that and the chief is not allowed to
+forget it, either. All the men at the Yard know that you held the
+opinion that we had got hold of the wrong man when we arrested Birchill,
+and he has had to stand so much chaff in the office, that he's pretty raw
+about it." Rolfe spoke in the detached tone of a junior who had no share
+in his chief's mistakes or their attendant humiliation, and he added,
+"That's once more that you've scored over Scotland Yard, Mr. Crewe, and
+you ought to be proud of it." He glanced covertly at Crewe to see how he
+took the flattery.
+
+"So you've done very little about the case since Birchill was acquitted?"
+was his only remark.
+
+"I've been so busy," replied Rolfe, again evading the question, and
+avoiding meeting Crewe's glance by turning over the leaves of his stamp
+album. "You see, there has been a rush of work at Scotland Yard lately.
+There is that big burglary at Lord Emden's, and the case of the woman
+whose body was found in the river lock at Peyton, and half a dozen other
+cases, all important in their way. There has been quite an epidemic of
+crime lately, as you know, Mr. Crewe. I don't seem to get a minute to
+myself these times."
+
+"Rolfe," said Crewe drily, "you protest too much. You don't suppose that
+after coming over here to see you that I can be deceived by such talk?"
+
+Rolfe flushed at these uncompromising words, but before he could speak
+Crewe proceeded in a milder tone.
+
+"I don't blame you a bit for trying to put me off. It's all part of the
+game. We're rivals, in a sense, and you are quite right not to lose sight
+of that fact. But as a detective, Rolfe, your methods lack polish.
+Really, I blush for them. You might have known that I came over here to
+see you to-night because I had an important object in view, and you
+should have tried to find out what it was before playing your own
+cards,--and such cards, too! You're sadly lacking in finesse, Rolfe.
+You'd never make a chess player; your concealed intentions are too
+easily discovered. You must try not to be so transparent if you want to
+succeed in your profession."
+
+Crewe delivered his reproof with such good humour that Rolfe stared at
+him, as if unable to make out what his visitor was driving at.
+
+"I don't know what you are talking about, Mr. Crewe," he said at length.
+
+"Oh, yes, you do. You know I'm speaking about your latest move in the
+Riversbrook case, which you've been so busy with of late. And I've come
+to tell you in a friendly way that once more you're on the wrong track."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Rolfe quickly.
+
+"Why, Princes Gate, of course," replied Crewe cheerily. "You don't
+suppose that a fine-looking young man like yourself could be seen in the
+neighbourhood of Princes Gate without causing a flutter among feminine
+hearts there, do you?"
+
+"So the servants have been talking, have they?" muttered Rolfe.
+
+"They have and they haven't. But that's beside the point. What I want to
+say is that you're on the wrong track in suspecting Mrs. Holymead, and I
+strongly advise you to drop your inquiries if you don't want to get
+yourself into hot water. She's as innocent of the murder of Sir Horace
+Fewbanks as Birchill is, but you cannot afford to make a false shot in
+the case of a lady of her social standing, as you did with a criminal
+like Birchill."
+
+At this rebuke Rolfe gave way to irritation.
+
+"Look here, Mr. Crewe, I'll thank you to mind your own business," he
+said. "It's got nothing to do with you where I make inquiries. I'll have
+you remember that! I don't interfere with you, and I won't have you
+interfering with me."
+
+"But I'm interfering only for your own good, man! What do you suppose I'm
+doing it for? I tell you you're riding for a very bad fall in suspecting
+Mrs. Holymead and shadowing her."
+
+Crewe's plain words were an echo of a secret fear which Rolfe had
+entertained from the time his suspicions were directed towards Mrs.
+Holymead. But he was not going to allow Crewe to think he was alarmed.
+
+"If I'm making inquiries about Mrs. Holymead, it's because I have ample
+justification for doing so," he said stiffly.
+
+"And I tell you that you have not."
+
+"Prove it!" exclaimed Rolfe defiantly.
+
+Crewe produced from his pocket a revolver and a lady's handkerchief, and
+handed them to Rolfe without speaking.
+
+Rolfe's embarrassment was almost equal to his astonishment as he examined
+the articles. In the handkerchief with its missing corner, he speedily
+recognised something for which he had searched in vain. He had never
+confided to Crewe the discovery of the missing corner in the dead man's
+hand, and therefore the production of the handkerchief by Crewe
+considerably embarrassed him. He longed to ask Crewe how he had obtained
+possession of the handkerchief, but he could not trust his voice to frame
+the question without betraying his feelings, so he picked up the revolver
+and examined it closely. Then he put it down and again gave his attention
+to the handkerchief, bending his head over it so that Crewe should not
+see his face.
+
+"You do not seem very astonished at my finds, Rolfe," said Crewe
+quizzically. "Perhaps you've seen these articles before?"
+
+"No, I haven't," said Rolfe, still avoiding his visitor's eye.
+
+"Well, the torn handkerchief is not exactly new to you," said Crewe.
+"You've got the missing part; you found it in Sir Horace's hand after he
+was murdered."
+
+"You're too clever for me, and that's the simple truth, Mr. Crewe,"
+said Rolfe, in a mortified tone. "I did find a small piece of a
+lady's handkerchief in his hand, and here it is." He produced his
+pocket-book and took out the piece. "How you found out I had it, is
+more than I know."
+
+"Mere guess-work," said Crewe.
+
+Rolfe shook his head slowly.
+
+"I know better than that," he said. "You're deep. You don't miss much. I
+wish now that I had told you about that bit of handkerchief at the first.
+But Chippenfield and I wanted to have all the credit of elucidating the
+Riversbrook mystery. I hunted high and low to get trace of this
+handkerchief, but I couldn't. And now you've beaten me, although you
+couldn't have known at first that there was such a thing as a missing
+handkerchief in the case. I hope you bear me no malice, Mr. Crewe."
+
+"What for, Rolfe?"
+
+"For not telling you about the handkerchief, after I found this piece in
+Sir Horace's hand."
+
+"Not in the least," said Crewe. "Why should you have told me? I don't
+tell you everything that I find out. It's all part of the game. That
+piece of the handkerchief was a good find, Rolfe, and I congratulate you
+on getting it. How did you come to discover it?"
+
+"I was trying to force open the murdered man's hand, and I found it
+clenched between the little finger and the next. Of course it was not
+visible with his hand closed. Chippenfield, who missed it, didn't
+half like my discovery, and all along he underestimated the value of
+it as a clue."
+
+"Well, he has had to pay for his folly."
+
+"He has, and serves him right," replied Rolfe viciously. "He's the most
+pig-headed, obstinate, vain, narrow-minded man you could come across." It
+occurred to Rolfe that it was not exactly good form on his part to
+condemn his superior officer so vigorously in the presence of a rival, so
+he broke off abruptly and asked Crewe how he came into possession of the
+revolver and handkerchief.
+
+Crewe's reply was that he had obtained these articles under a promise of
+secrecy from some one who had assured him that Mrs. Holymead had no
+connection with the crime. When he was at liberty to tell the story as it
+had been told to him, Rolfe would be the first to hear it.
+
+"Mrs. Holymead had no connection with the crime?" exclaimed Rolfe
+impatiently. "Perhaps you don't know that the morning after the murder
+was discovered she went out to Riversbrook and removed some secret papers
+from the murdered man's desk--papers that he had been in the habit of
+hiding in a secret drawer?"
+
+"Yes, I know that," said Crewe.
+
+"Well, doesn't that look as if she knew something about the crime?"
+
+"Not necessarily."
+
+"Well, to me it does. What were these secret papers? They were letters,
+I am told."
+
+"I believe so. And you, Rolfe, as a man of the world, know that a married
+woman would not like the police to get possession of letters she had
+written to a man of the reputation of Sir Horace Fewbanks."
+
+"I admit that her action is capable of a comparatively innocent
+interpretation, but taken in conjunction with other things it looks to me
+mighty suspicious. In Hill's statement to us he told us that on the night
+of the murder, Birchill when hiding in the garden waiting for the lights
+to go out before breaking into the house, heard the front door slam and
+saw a stylish sort of woman walk down the path to the gate."
+
+"That was not Mrs. Holymead," said Crewe.
+
+"How do you know? If it was not her, who was it? Do you know?"
+
+"I think I know, and when I am at liberty to speak I will tell you."
+
+"Then there is a third point," continued Rolfe. "Look at this
+handkerchief you brought. I saw a handkerchief of exactly similar pattern
+at Mrs. Holymead's house when I called there."
+
+"Wasn't that the property of her French cousin, Mademoiselle Chiron?"
+
+"Yes, she dropped it on the floor while I was there. But it is probable
+the handkerchief was one of a set given her by Mrs. Holymead."
+
+"Quite probably, Rolfe. But scores of ladies who are fond of expensive
+things have handkerchiefs of a similar pattern. You will find if you
+inquire among the West End shops, that although it is a dainty, expensive
+article from the man's point of view, there is nothing singular about the
+quality or the pattern."
+
+"Perhaps so," said Rolfe, "but the possession of handkerchiefs of this
+kind is surely suspicious when taken in conjunction with her removal of
+the letters. I wish I could get hold of that infernal scoundrel Hill
+again. I am convinced that he knows a great deal more about this murder
+than he has yet told us, and a great deal more about Mrs. Holymead and
+her letters. I've had his shop watched day and night since he
+disappeared, but he keeps close to his burrow, and I've not been able to
+get on his track."
+
+"I'd give up watching for him if I were you," said Crewe, as he flicked
+the ash of his cigar into the fireplace. "You're not likely to find him
+now. As a matter of fact, he has left the country."
+
+"Hill left the country?" echoed Rolfe. "I think you are mistaken there,
+Mr. Crewe. He had no money; how could he get away?"
+
+Crewe selected another cigar from his case and lighted it before
+answering.
+
+"The fact is, I advanced him the money," he said. "Technically it's a
+loan, but I do not think any of it will be paid back."
+
+Rolfe stared hard at Crewe to see if he was joking.
+
+"What on earth made you do that?" he demanded at length. "Hill may be the
+actual murderer for all we know."
+
+"Not at all," was the reply. "Before I helped him to leave England I
+satisfied myself that he had absolutely nothing to do with the murder. He
+does not know who shot Sir Horace Fewbanks, though, of course, he still
+half believes that it was Birchill. When I got in touch with him after
+his disappearance he was in a pitiable state of fright--waking or
+sleeping, he couldn't get his mind off the gallows. There were two or
+three points on which I wanted his assistance in clearing up the
+Riversbrook case, and I promised to get him out of the country if he
+would make a clean breast of things and tell me the truth as far as he
+knew it. He made a confession--a true one this time. I took it down and
+I'll let you have a copy. There are a few interesting points on which it
+differs materially from the statement he made to the police when you and
+Chippenfield cornered him."
+
+"What are they?" asked Rolfe.
+
+"In the first place the burglary was his idea, and not Birchill's,"
+replied Crewe. "After the quarrel between Sir Horace and the girl
+Fanning, he went out to her flat and suggested to Birchill that he should
+rob Riversbrook. Hill's real object in arranging this burglary was to get
+possession of the letters which Mrs. Holymead subsequently removed, but
+he did not tell Birchill this. His plan was to go to Riversbrook the
+morning after the burglary and then break open Sir Horace's desk and open
+the secret drawer before informing the police of the burglary. To the
+police and Sir Horace it would look as though the burglar had
+accidentally found the spring of the secret drawer. With these letters in
+his possession Hill intended to blackmail Sir Horace, or Mrs. Holymead,
+without disclosing himself in the transaction.
+
+"When Sir Horace returned unexpectedly from Scotland on the 18th of
+August, Hill had just removed the letters from the desk, being afraid
+that when Birchill broke into the house he might find them accidentally.
+He was naturally in a state of alarm at Sir Horace's return. He tried to
+get an opportunity to put the letters back as Sir Horace might discover
+they had been removed, but Sir Horace dismissed him for the night before
+he could get such an opportunity. Then he went to Fanning's flat and
+told Birchill that Sir Horace had returned. Birchill was in favour of
+postponing the burglary, but Hill, who had possession of the letters,
+and did not know when he would get an opportunity to put them back,
+urged Birchill to carry out the burglary. He assured Birchill that Sir
+Horace was a very sound sleeper and that there would be no risk. In
+order to arouse Birchill's cupidity and to protect himself from the
+suspicions of Sir Horace regarding the letters, he told Birchill that he
+had seen a large sum of money in his possession when he returned, and
+that this money would probably be hidden in the secret drawer of the
+desk, until Sir Horace had an opportunity of banking it. He told
+Birchill to break open the desk, and explained to him how to find the
+spring of the secret drawer."
+
+"What a damned cunning scoundrel he is," exclaimed Rolfe, in unwilling
+admiration of the completeness of Hill's scheme. "Don't you think, Mr.
+Crewe, that, after all, he may be the actual murderer--that he told you a
+lot of lies just as he did to us? Holymead in his address to the jury
+made out a pretty strong case against him."
+
+"No one knows better than Holymead that Hill did not commit the
+murder," said Crewe. "Hill is an incorrigible liar, but he has no nerve
+for murder."
+
+"Did he put the letters back?" asked Rolfe. "He told me that Mrs.
+Holymead stole them the day after the murder was discovered. But he is
+such a liar--"
+
+"I believe he spoke the truth in that case," said Crewe. "He told me he
+put the letters back in the secret drawer the night after the murder,
+when he went to Riversbrook to report himself to Chippenfield. He put
+them back because he was afraid that if the police found them in his
+possession, they would think he had a hand in the murder. His idea was to
+remove them from the secret drawer after the excitement about the murder
+died down, and then blackmail Mrs. Holymead, but she acted with a skill
+and decision that robbed him of his chance to blackmail her."
+
+"How did you get hold of the cunning scoundrel?" asked Rolfe. "I've had
+his wife's shop watched day and night, as I've said. I made sure he would
+try to communicate with her sooner or later, but he didn't."
+
+"It was Joe who found him," said Crewe. "I knew you were watching Mrs.
+Hill's shop, so it was superfluous for me to set anybody to watch it.
+Besides, I didn't think Hill would visit his wife or attempt to
+communicate with her, for he would think that the police, if they wanted
+him, would be sure to watch the shop. I tried to consider what a man like
+Hill would do in the circumstances. He had no money--I knew that--and, so
+far as I was able to ascertain, he had no friends who were likely to hide
+him. Without friends or money he could not go very far. Finally it
+occurred to me that he might be hiding somewhere in Riversbrook--either
+in that unfinished portion of the third floor, or in one of the
+outbuildings. He knew the run of the rambling old place so well. Have you
+ever been over it carefully? No. Well, there are several good places in
+the upper stories where a man might conceal himself. I put Joe on the
+job, and after watching for several nights Joe got him. Hill had made a
+hiding place in the loft above the garage. It appears that he subsisted
+on the stores that had been left in the house; he was able to make his
+way into the main building through one of the kitchen windows. He was on
+one of these foraging expeditions when Joe discovered him--emaciated,
+dirty, and half demented through terror of the gallows."
+
+"So that is how you got him!" said Rolfe. "I never thought of looking for
+him at Riversbrook. Sometimes I am inclined to agree with you that he had
+no nerve for murder. But an unpremeditated murder doesn't want much
+nerve. He might have done it in a moment of passion." Rolfe was
+endeavouring to take advantage of Crewe's communicative mood and to
+arrive by a process of elimination at the person against whom Crewe had
+accumulated his evidence.
+
+"It was not Hill," said Crewe. "The murder was committed in a moment of
+passion, and yet it was far from being unpremeditated."
+
+"You are trying to mystify me," said Rolfe despairingly.
+
+"No; it is the case itself which has mystified you," replied Crewe.
+
+"It has," was Rolfe's candid confession. "The more thought I give it, the
+more impossible it seems to see through it. Was Sir Horace killed before
+dusk--before the lights were turned on? If he was killed after dark, who
+turned out the lights?"
+
+"He was killed between 10 and 10.30 at night," said Crewe. "The lights
+were turned out by the woman Birchill saw leaving the house about 10.30.
+But she was not the murderer, and she was not present in the room, or
+even in the house, when Sir Horace was shot. She arrived a few minutes
+too late to prevent the tragedy. Turning out the lights was an
+instinctive act due to her desire to hide the crime, or rather to hide
+the murderer."
+
+"How do you know all this?" asked Rolfe, who had been staring at Crewe
+with open-mouthed astonishment.
+
+"That woman was not Mrs. Holymead," continued Crewe. "I had a visit
+to-day from the woman who did these things, and as evidence of the truth
+of her story she brought me the revolver and the handkerchief."
+
+"What did she come to you for?" asked Rolfe, with breathless interest.
+"What did she want?"
+
+"She came to me to make a full confession," said Crewe, in even tones.
+
+"A confession!" exclaimed Rolfe. "She ought to have come to the police.
+Why didn't she come to us?"
+
+Crewe smiled at the puzzled, indignant detective.
+
+"I think she came to me because she wanted to mislead me," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+Joe Leaver, worn out after nearly a week's work of watching the movements
+of Mr. Holymead, had fallen asleep in an empty loft above a garage which
+overlooked Verney's Hotel in Mayfair. He had seen Mr. Holymead disappear
+into the hotel, and he knew from the experience gained in his watch that
+the K.C. would spend the next couple of hours in dressing for dinner,
+sitting down to that meal, and smoking a cigar in the lounge. So Joe had
+relaxed, for the time being, the new task which his master had set him,
+and had flung himself on some straw in the loft to rest. He did not
+intend to go to sleep, but he was very tired, and in a few minutes he was
+in a profound slumber.
+
+In his sleep Joe dreamed that he had attained the summit of his ambition,
+and was being paid a huge salary by an American film company to display
+himself in emotional dramas for the educational improvement of the
+British working classes. In his dream he had to rescue the heroine from
+the clutches of the villains who had carried her off. They had imprisoned
+her at the top of a "skyscraper" building and locked the lift, but Joe
+climbed the fire escape and caught the beautiful girl in his arms. The
+villains, who were on the watch, set fire to the building, and when Joe
+attempted to climb out of the window with the heroine clinging round his
+neck, the flames drove him back. As he stood there the wind swept a sheet
+of flame towards Joe until it scorched his face. The pain was so real
+that Joe opened his eyes and sprang up with a cry.
+
+A man was standing over him, a man past middle age, short and broad in
+figure, whose clean-shaven face directed attention to his protruding
+jaw. He was wearing a blue serge suit which had seen much use.
+
+"You are a sound sleeper, sonny," said the man, grinning at Joe's alarm.
+"But when you wake--why you wake up properly; I'll say that for you. You
+nearly broke my pipe, you woke up that sudden."
+
+He made this remark with such a malicious grin that Joe, whose face was
+still smarting, had no hesitation in connecting his sudden awakening with
+the hot bowl of the man's pipe. It was a joke Joe had often seen played
+on drunken men in Islington public-houses in his young days.
+
+"You just leave me alone, will you?" he said, rubbing his cheek ruefully.
+"It's nothing to do with you whether I'm a sound sleeper or not."
+
+"That's just where you're wrong, young fellow," was the reply. "It's a
+lot to do with me. Ain't your name Joe Leaver?"
+
+Joe nodded his head.
+
+"How did you find out?" he asked.
+
+"Perhaps a friend of mine pointed you out to me."
+
+"Perhaps he did, and perhaps he didn't," said Joe. "Anyway, what is
+your name?"
+
+"Mr. Kemp is my name, my boy. And unless you're pretty civil I'll give
+you cause to remember it."
+
+"What have you got to do with me?" asked the boy in an injured tone.
+"I've never done nothing to you."
+
+"You mind your P's and Q's and me and you'll get along all right," said
+Mr. Kemp, in a somewhat softer tone. "When you ask me what I've got to do
+with you, my answer is I've got a lot to do with you, for I'm your
+guardian, so to speak."
+
+Joe looked at Mr. Kemp with a gleam of comprehension in his amazement. He
+had had some experience in his Islington days of the strange phenomena
+produced by drink.
+
+"Rats!" he retorted rudely. "I've never had a guardian and I don't want
+none. What made you a guardian, I'd like to know?"
+
+"Your father did," was the reply.
+
+"Oh, him!" said Joe, in a tone which indicated pronounced antipathy to
+his parent. "Do you know him? Are you one of his sort?"
+
+"Now don't try to be insulting, my boy, or I'll take you across my knee.
+We won't say nothing about where your father is, because in high society
+Wormwood Scrubbs isn't mentioned. All we'll say is that he has been
+unfortunate like many another man before him, and that for the present he
+can't come and go as he likes. But he has still got a father's heart,
+Joe, and there are times when he worries about his family and about there
+being no one with them to keep an eye on them and see they grow up a
+credit to him. He has been particularly worried about you, Joe. So when I
+was coming away he asked me to look you up if I had time, and let him
+know how you was getting on, seeing that none of his family has gone near
+him for a matter of three years or so, though there is one regular
+visiting day each week."
+
+"I don't want to see him no more," said Joe. "He's no good."
+
+"That's a nice way for a boy to talk about his own father," said Mr.
+Kemp, in a reproving tone. "I don't know what the young generation is
+coming to."
+
+"If you want to send him word about me, you can tell him that I'm not
+going to be a thief," said Joe defiantly.
+
+"No," said Mr. Kemp tauntingly, "you'd sooner be a nark."
+
+"Yes, I would," said the boy.
+
+"And that's what you are now," declared the man wrathfully. "You're a
+nark for that fellow Crewe. I know all about you."
+
+"I'm earning an honest living," said Joe.
+
+"As a nark," said Mr. Kemp, with a sneer.
+
+"I'm earning an honest living," said the boy doggedly. So much of his
+youth had been spent among the criminal classes that he still retained
+the feeling that there was an indelible stigma attached to those
+individuals described as narks.
+
+"How can any one earn a respectable honest living by being a nark?" asked
+Mr. Kemp contemptuously. "And more than that, it's one of the best men
+that ever breathed that you are a-spying on. I'll have you know that he's
+a friend of mine. That is to say he's done things for me that I ain't
+likely to forget. There's nothing I won't do for him, if the chance comes
+my way. I'll see that no harm happens to him through you and your Mr.
+Crewe. You've got to stop this here spying. Stop it at once, do you
+understand? For if you don't, by God, I'll deal with you so that you'll
+do no more spying in this world! And I'd have you and your master know
+that I'm a man what means what he says." Mr. Kemp shook his fist angrily
+at Joe as he moved away to the door of the loft after having delivered
+his menacing warning. "My last words to you is, Stop it!" he said, as he
+turned to go down the stairs.
+
+Half an hour later Mr. Kemp entered the lounge of Verney's Hotel as
+though in quest of some one. Most of the hotel guests had finished their
+after-dinner coffee and liqueurs, and the hall was comparatively empty,
+but a few who remained raised their eyes in well-bred protest at the
+intrusion of a member of the lower orders into the corridor of an
+exclusive hotel. Mr. Kemp felt somewhat out of place, and he stared about
+the luxuriously furnished lounge with a look in which awe mingled with
+admiration. Before he could advance further, a liveried porter of massive
+proportions came up to him and barred the way.
+
+"Now, now, my man," said the porter haughtily, "what do you think you
+are doing here? This ain't your place, you know. You've made a mistake.
+Out you go."
+
+"I want to see Mr. Holymead," said Mr. Kemp in a gruff voice.
+
+Verney's was such a high-class hotel that seedy-looking persons seldom
+dared to put a foot within the palatial entrance. The porter, unused to
+dealing with the obtrusive impecunious type to which he believed Mr. Kemp
+to belong, made the mistake of trying to argue with him.
+
+"Want to see Mr. Holymead?" he repeated. "How do you know he's here? Who
+told you? What do you want to see him for?"
+
+"What's that got to do with you?" retorted Mr. Kemp. "You don't think Mr.
+Holymead would like me to discuss his business with the likes of you?
+That ain't what you're here for. You go and tell Mr. Holymead that some
+one wants to see him. Tell him Mr. Kemp wants to see him." Mr. Kemp drew
+himself up and buttoned the coat of his faded serge suit.
+
+The porter, uncertain how to deal with the situation, looked around for
+help. The manager of the hotel emerged from the booking office at that
+moment, and the porter's appealing look was seen by him. The manager
+approached. He was faultlessly attired, suave in demeanour, and walked
+with a noiseless step, despite his tendency to corpulence. It was his
+daily task to wrestle with some of the manifold difficulties arising out
+of the eccentricities of human nature as exhibited by a constant stream
+of arriving and departing guests. But though he approached the distressed
+porter with full confidence in his ability to deal with any situation,
+his eyebrows arched in astonishment as he took in the full details of the
+intruder's attire.
+
+"What does this mean, Hawkins?" he exclaimed, in a tone of disapproval.
+
+The porter trembled at the implication that he had grievously failed in
+his duty by allowing such an individual as Mr. Kemp to get so far within
+the exclusive portals of Verney's, and in his nervousness he relaxed from
+the polish of the hotel porter to his native cockney.
+
+"This 'ere party says 'e wants to see Mr. Holymead, Sir."
+
+The manager went through the motion of washing a spotlessly clean pair of
+hands, and then brought the palms together in a gentle clap. He smiled
+pityingly at Hawkins and then looked condescendingly at Mr. Kemp.
+
+"Wants to see Mr. Holymead, does he?" he said, transferring his glance to
+the worried porter. "And didn't you tell him that Mr. Holymead has gone
+to the theatre and won't be back for some considerable time?"
+
+"That's a lie!" said Mr. Kemp, who had acquired none of the art of
+dealing with his fellow men, and was too uneducated to appreciate art in
+any form. "I've been watching over the other side of the street, and I
+saw him passing a window not ten minutes ago. I'm going to see him if I
+wait here all night. I'll soon make meself comfortable on one of them big
+chairs." He pointed to an empty chair beside a man in evening dress, who
+was holding a conversation with a haughty looking matron. "You tell Mr.
+Holymead Mr. Kemp wants to see him," he said to the manager.
+
+"What name did you say?" asked the manager in a tone which seemed to
+express astonishment that the lower orders had names.
+
+"Mr. Kemp. You tell him Mr. Kemp wants to see him on important business."
+He walked towards the vacant chair and seated himself on it. He dug his
+toes into the velvet pile carpet with the air of a man who was trying to
+take anchor. Fortunately the man on the adjoining chair, and the haughty
+matron, were so engrossed in their conversation that they did not notice
+that the air in their immediate vicinity was being polluted by the
+presence of a man in shabby clothes and heavy boots.
+
+The manager despatched the porter in search of Mr. Holymead and then went
+in pursuit of Mr. Kemp.
+
+"Will you come this way, if you please, Mr. Kemp?" he said, with a low
+bow.
+
+He saw that Mr. Kemp was following him and led the way into an
+unfrequented corner of the smoking room, where, with the information
+that Mr. Holymead would come to him in a few moments, he asked Mr. Kemp
+to be seated.
+
+The manager withdrew a few yards, and then took up a position which
+enabled him to guard the hotel guests from having their digestions
+interfered with by the contaminating spectacle of a seedy man. To the
+manager's great relief, Mr. Holymead appeared, having been informed by
+the hall porter that a party who said his name was Kemp had asked to see
+him. The manager hurried towards Mr. Holymead and endeavoured to explain
+and apologise, but the K.C. assured him that there was nothing to
+apologise for. He went over to the corner of the smoking room, where the
+visitor who had caused so much perturbation was waiting for him.
+
+"Well, Kemp, what do you want?" There was nothing in his manner to
+indicate that he was put out by Mr. Kemp's appearance. He spoke in quiet
+even tones such as would seem to suggest that he was well acquainted with
+his visitor.
+
+"Can I speak to you on the quiet for a moment, sir?" whispered
+Kemp hoarsely.
+
+Holymead looked round the room. The manager had gone back to the booking
+office and Hawkins had vanished. The few people who were in the room
+seemed occupied with their own affairs.
+
+"No one will overhear us if we speak quietly," he said as he took a seat
+close to Kemp. "What is it?"
+
+"You're watched and followed, sir," said Kemp in a whisper. "Somebody has
+been watching this place for days past and whenever you go out you're
+followed."
+
+"By whom?" asked Holymead.
+
+"By a varmint of a boy--a slippery young imp whose father's in gaol for
+a long stretch. I got hold of him this afternoon and told him what I'd
+do to him if he kept on with his game. He's living in an old loft at
+the back of the hotel garage, and he keeps a watch on you day and
+night. I thought I'd better come here and tell you, as you mightn't
+know about him."
+
+"You did quite right, Kemp. What's this boy like?"
+
+"An undersized putty-faced brat with a big head. He's about fourteen or
+fifteen, I should say."
+
+"Who is he? Do you know him?"
+
+"Leaver is the name, sir. To tell you the truth, I don't know him as well
+as I know his father. His father is a 'lifer' for manslaughter. I've
+known him both in and out of gaol. And when I was coming out four months
+ago Bob Leaver, this here boy's father, asked me to look up his family
+and send him word about them. I went to the address Bob told me, in
+Islington, but I found they had all gone. The mother was dead and the
+kids--a girl and this here boy--had cleared out. The old Jew who had the
+second-hand clothes shop Mrs. Leaver used to keep told me that the boy
+had gone off with that private detective, Crewe, more than two years ago.
+So it looks to me as if he has turned nark and Crewe has put him on to
+watch you."
+
+"Can you describe this boy more closely?"
+
+"Well, sir, I don't know if I can say anything more about him except that
+he has red hair and big bright eyes that are too large for his face."
+
+"I thought so," said Holymead as if speaking to himself. "It's the
+same boy."
+
+"What did you say, sir?" asked Kemp.
+
+"Nothing, Kemp, except that I think I've seen a boy of this description
+hanging about the street near the hotel."
+
+Holymead rose to his feet as he spoke, as an indication that the
+interview was at an end. Kemp got up and looked at him anxiously.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir, for coming here," he said, fumbling with the rim
+of his hat as he spoke. "I didn't know how you'd take it, but I hope I've
+done right. They didn't want to let me see you."
+
+"You did quite right, Kemp. I am very much obliged to you." He was
+feeling in his pocket for silver, but Kemp stopped him.
+
+"No, no, sir. I don't want to be paid anything. I wanted to oblige you
+like; I wanted to do you a good turn. I'd do anything for you, sir--you
+know I would."
+
+"I believe you would, Kemp. Good night."
+
+"Good night, sir."
+
+As Kemp passed down the hall he met the manager, who was obviously
+pleased to see such an unwelcome visitor making his departure. Kemp
+scowled at the manager as if he were a valued patron of the hotel and
+said, "It seems to me that you don't know how to treat people properly
+when they come here."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+It was the first occasion on which Mrs. Holymead had visited her
+husband's chambers in the Middle Temple. Mr. Mattingford, who had been
+Mr. Holymead's clerk for nearly twenty years, seemed to realise that the
+visit was important, though as a married man he knew that a meeting
+between husband and wife in town was usually so commonplace as to verge
+on boredom for the husband. There were occasions when he had to meet Mrs.
+Mattingford, but these meetings were generally for the purpose of handing
+over to the lady her weekly dress allowance of ten shillings out of his
+salary, so that she might attend the sales at the big drapery shops in
+the West End and inspect the windows containing expensive articles that
+she could not hope to buy. Mr. Mattingford was an exceedingly thrifty
+man, and his wife possessed some of the qualities of a spendthrift. Thus
+it came about that Mr. Mattingford kept up the fiction that he had no
+savings and that each week's salary must see him through till the next
+week. Mrs. Mattingford knew that her husband had saved money, and
+theoretically she would have given a great deal to know how much. She
+repeatedly accused him of being a miser, but this is a wifely
+denunciation which in all classes of life is lightly made when the
+purchase of feminine finery is under discussion. There are some men who
+resent it, but Mr. Mattingford was not one of these. Protests and
+prayers, abuse and cajolery, were alike powerless to win his consent to
+his wife's perpetual proposal that she should be allowed to draw her
+dress allowance for some months, or even some weeks ahead. Mr.
+Mattingford had a horror of bad debts. He endeavoured to show his wife
+that the transaction she proposed was unsound from a business point of
+view and reckless from a legal point of view. She had no security to
+offer for the repayment of the advance--even if he were in a financial
+position to make the advance--and he stoutly declared that he was not.
+She might die at any moment, and then he would be left with no means of
+redress against her estate because she had no estate. Of course, if she
+first insured her life out of her dress allowance and handed the policy
+to him it would constitute protection for the repayment of the advance,
+in the event of her death, but it was not any real protection in the
+event of her continuing to live, for a newly-executed policy had no
+surrender value. As his own legal adviser, Mr. Mattingford strongly urged
+himself not to consider his wife's proposal, and such was his respect for
+the law and for those who had been brought up in a legal atmosphere that
+he had no hesitation in accepting the advice.
+
+He was a little man of nearly fifty years, with a very bald head and an
+extremely long moustache, which when waxed at the ends made him look as
+fierce as a clipped poodle. He knew Mrs. Holymead from his having called
+frequently at his chief's house in Princes Gate on business matters, and
+he admired her for her good looks, but still more for her good taste in
+staying away from her husband's chambers. There were some ladies, the
+wives of barristers, who almost haunted their husbands' chambers--a
+practice of which Mr. Mattingford strongly disapproved. It seemed to him
+an insidious attempt on the part of an insidious sex to force the legal
+profession to throw open its doors to women. As a man who lived in the
+mouldy atmosphere of precedent, Mr. Mattingford hated the idea of change,
+and to him the thought of a lady in wig and gown pleading in the law
+courts indicated not merely change but a revolution which might well
+usher in the end of the world. So strict was he in keeping the precincts
+of the law sacred from the violating tread of women that he never
+allowed his wife to set foot in the Middle Temple. Their meetings on
+those urgent occasions when Mrs. Mattingford came to town for her dress
+allowance in order to go bargain-hunting took place at one of the cheap
+tearooms in Fleet Street.
+
+Although Mr. Mattingford was somewhat flustered by the unexpected
+appearance of Mrs. Holymead, he did not depart from precedent to the
+extent of regarding her as entitled to any other treatment than that
+accorded to clients who called on business. He asked her if she wanted to
+see Mr. Holymead, placed a chair for her, then knocked deferentially at
+his chief's door, went inside to announce Mrs. Holymead to her husband,
+and came out with the information that Mr. Holymead would see her. He
+held open the door leading into his chief's private room, and after Mrs.
+Holymead had entered closed it softly and firmly.
+
+But the formal business manner of Mr. Mattingford to his chief's wife
+seemed to her friendly and cordial compared with the strained greetings
+she received from her husband. He motioned her to a chair and then got up
+from his own.
+
+"I wrote to you to come and see me here instead of going to the house
+to see you," he said, "because I thought it would be better for both.
+It would have given the servants something to talk about. I hope you
+don't mind?"
+
+She looked at him with her large dark eyes in which there was more than a
+suggestion of tears. What she had read into his note, when she received
+it, was his determination not to go to his home to see her for fear she
+would interpret that as a first step towards reconciliation.
+
+"What I wanted to speak to you about is this detective Crewe whom Miss
+Fewbanks has employed in connection with her father's death," he
+continued.
+
+Her breath came quickly at this unwelcome information. She noted that he
+had spoken of Sir Horace's death and not his murder.
+
+He began pacing backwards and forwards across the room as if with the
+purpose of avoiding looking at her.
+
+"This man Crewe is a nuisance--I might even say a danger. I don't know
+what he has found out, but I object to his ferreting into my affairs. He
+must be stopped."
+
+She nodded her assent, for she could not trust herself to speak. Each
+time he turned his back on her as he crossed the room her eyes followed
+him, but as he faced her she turned her gaze on the floor.
+
+"There is no legal redress--no legal means of dealing with his
+impertinent curiosity," he went on. "He is within his rights in trying to
+find out all he can. But if he is allowed to go on unchecked the thing
+may reach a disastrous stage. I have no doubt that he knows that I was at
+Riversbrook the night that man was killed. He was not long in getting on
+the track of that. And the more mysterious my visit seems to him--and the
+fact that I have not disclosed to the police that I went up to
+Riversbrook and saw Sir Horace on the night of the tragedy is to his way
+of thinking very significant--the more reason is there for suspecting me
+of complicity in the crime."
+
+When he turned to cross the room her eyes lingered on him and she glanced
+quickly at his face.
+
+"I don't want to dwell on matters that must pain you--that must pain us
+both," he said slowly, "but it is necessary that you should be made
+acquainted with the danger that threatens me from this man. I am anxious
+to avoid anything in the nature of a public scandal--I am anxious quite
+as much if not more on your account than my own. But if this wretched man
+is allowed to go on trying to build up a case against me--and I must
+admit that he would probably obtain circumstantial evidence of a kind
+which would make some sort of a case for the prosecution--there is grave
+danger of everything coming out. If he went to the length of having me
+arrested and charged with the crime, there are bound to be some
+disclosures and the newspapers would make the most of them. It is
+impossible to foresee the exact nature of them, but I do not see how I
+could adopt any line of defence which would not hint at things that are
+best unrevealed. You yourself might be so ill-advised as to tell the
+whole story in the end. Of course, I would try to prevent you, and as far
+as the trial is concerned, I think I could use means to prevent you. But
+if the result was unfavourable--and knowing what eccentric things juries
+do, we must recognise the possibility of an unfavourable verdict--you
+might consider it advisable to disclose everything in the hope of having
+the conviction quashed by an appeal."
+
+For the first time since she had sat down he looked at her, and as he
+caught her upward gaze he flushed.
+
+"I would tell everything if you were arrested," she said, in a low voice.
+
+"Ah, so I thought," he said, in a tone of disapproval. "The question now
+is what means can be adopted to prevent a catastrophe. I have thought
+earnestly about it, and as you are almost as much concerned in preventing
+public disclosures as I am, I desired to consult you before taking any
+definite course. It is this man Crewe who is the danger, and the question
+is how are we to stop him proceeding to extremes. One way is for me to
+see him and take him into my confidence--to explain fully to him what
+happened. He would not be satisfied with less than the full story. If I
+kept anything back his suspicions would remain; in fact, they would be
+strengthened. I would have to explain to him why and how I induced Sir
+Horace to return unexpectedly from Scotland on that fatal night, and what
+took place at Riversbrook. You will understand why I have hesitated to
+adopt that course. I would not suggest it to you now except that I see it
+would save you from the danger of something a great deal worse. Of
+course it would save me from the annoyance of being suspected of knowing
+something about the actual murder, but it is your interests that come
+first in the matter. It would be effective in putting an end to all our
+fears--all my fears. I would bind him to secrecy, of course. I do not ask
+you to come to a decision immediately, but I do ask you to think it over
+and let me know. I have been extremely reluctant to put this proposal
+before you, because I should hate carrying it out, because I should hate
+telling this man of things which are really no concern of anyone but
+ourselves. But I cannot disguise from myself that it would remove a
+greater danger. I believe the secret would be safe with him. I understand
+that in private life he is a gentleman, and that I would be safe in
+taking his word of honour. It would not be necessary for him to tell the
+police--still less to tell Miss Fewbanks."
+
+"Is there no other way?" she asked. "Have you thought of any other way?"
+
+"Yes. The only other way out that I have been able to find is for me to
+see Miss Fewbanks and ask her to withdraw the case from Crewe. I would
+not tell her everything--I would not bring you into it at all. But I
+could tell her that I had had an urgent matter to discuss with her
+father; that he came from Scotland to discuss it with me, and that after
+I left him he was murdered. I would tell her that it was quite impossible
+for me to disclose what the business was about, but that Crewe, having
+learnt that I had seen her father that night, was extremely suspicious. I
+would ask her to accept my word of honour that I had no knowledge of who
+killed her father, and to relieve me of the annoyance of the attentions
+of this man Crewe. I think she would agree to that proposal. That is the
+other way out, and from something which has happened this morning I am
+inclined to think that it is the better and quicker course to pursue."
+
+She was thinking so deeply that she did not reply. At length she became
+conscious of a long silence.
+
+"It is very good of you to ask my opinion--to consult with me at all. It
+is you that have everything at stake. I would like to do my best, but I
+think if you gave me time--Is there any great urgency? Two days at most
+is all I want."
+
+"I cannot give you two days," he replied, with a sombre smile. "You must
+decide to-day--at once--otherwise it will be too late."
+
+She looked at him with parted lips and alarm in her eyes.
+
+"What do you mean?" she breathed. "What have you hidden? Is the danger
+immediate?"
+
+"I think so. For some days past my movements have been dogged by a boy in
+Crewe's employ. Nearly a week ago I decided, after the worry and anxiety
+of this--this unhappy affair, to go away for a short trip. I thought a
+sea-voyage to America and back might do me good and fit me for my work
+again." He sighed unconsciously, and went on: "Crewe has become
+acquainted with my intended departure and has placed his own
+interpretation on it. He assumes that I am seeking safety in flight--that
+I have no intention of coming back to England. The result has been that
+the boy Crewe had set to watch my movements has been replaced by two men
+from Scotland Yard--one watching these chambers from the front, and the
+other from the rear." He walked across to the window and glanced quickly
+through the curtain. "Yes, they are still here."
+
+She sprang from her seat and followed him to the window.
+
+"Where are they?" she gasped. "Show them to me."
+
+"There. Do not move the curtain or they will suspect we are watching
+them. Look a little to the left, by the lamp-post. The other you can
+catch a glimpse of if you look between those two trees."
+
+"What does it mean? Why are they waiting?" she burst out. Her face had
+gone very pale, and her big dark eyes glared affrightedly from the window
+to her husband.
+
+"Hush! I beg you not to lose your self-control; it is essential neither
+of us should lose our heads," he said, warningly.
+
+She regained command of herself with an effort, and whispered, rather
+than spoke, with twitching lips;
+
+"What does the presence of these men mean?"
+
+"It means that Crewe has already communicated with Scotland Yard."
+
+"And that you will be arrested for _his_ murder?" Her trembling lips
+could hardly frame the words.
+
+"I think so--it's almost certain. But apparently the warrant is not yet
+issued, or those men would come here and arrest me. But they are watching
+to prevent my escape--if I thought of escaping. We may yet have a few
+hours to arrange something, but you must come to a prompt decision."
+
+"Tell me what to do, and I will do it. Oh, let me help you if I can. What
+is the best thing to do? To see Crewe?"
+
+"No. I forbid you to see Crewe," he said harshly. "If we decide on that
+course I will see him myself."
+
+"And you may be arrested the moment you go out of these chambers," she
+returned. "Oh, no, no; that is not a good plan--we have not the time. I
+will go to Mabel Fewbanks at once, and beg her, for all our sakes, not to
+allow this to go any further."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"You must not sacrifice yourself," he said. "That would be foolish."
+
+"I will not sacrifice myself. I would tell her just what you have told
+me--that her father came from Scotland to discuss an urgent matter with
+you, and that he was murdered after you left. I feel certain this man
+Crewe is going to extremes without her knowledge or consent, and that she
+will be the first to bury this awful thing when she learns that you have
+been implicated. Is not this the best thing to do?"
+
+"It is," he reluctantly admitted. "But I do not wish you to be mixed up
+in it at all."
+
+"I am not mixing myself up in it--I am too selfish for that. But I swear
+to you if you do not let me do this I will confess everything. I know
+Mabel Fewbanks, and I repeat, she is not aware of what this man Crewe has
+done. She would not--will not, permit it. I shall go down to Dellmere at
+once." Her face was pale, and her eyes glittered as she looked at her
+husband, but she spoke with unnatural self-possession. With feverish
+energy she pulled on a glove she had taken off when she entered, and
+buttoned it. "I will--I shall--arrive in time. In two hours--in three at
+most--you will hear from me."
+
+She passed out into the outer office before her husband could reply, and
+closed the door behind her. Mr. Mattingford dashed to open the outer door
+of his room leading into the main staircase. He thought Mrs. Holymead
+looked strange as she passed him and descended the stairs, and he rubbed
+his hands gleefully. He came to the conclusion that she had come in for a
+cheque for £50 as an advance of her dress allowance, and that her request
+had been refused.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+She left her husband's chambers with her brain in a whirl, hardly knowing
+where she was going until she found herself held up with a stream of
+pedestrians at the island intersection of Waterloo Bridge and the Strand.
+She thought the policeman who was regulating the traffic eyed her
+curiously, and, more with the object of evading his eye than with any set
+plan in her mind, she stepped into an empty taxi-cab which was waiting to
+cross the street.
+
+"Where to, ma'am?" asked the driver.
+
+"Where to?" she repeated vacantly. With an effort of will she
+concentrated her thoughts on the task in front of her, and hastily added,
+"To Victoria, as quick as you can. No--wait--driver, first take me to the
+nearest bookstall."
+
+The taxi-cab took her to a bookstall in the Strand, where she got out and
+purchased a railway guide. As the taxi-cab proceeded towards Victoria she
+hastily turned the pages to the trains for Dellmere. She had never been
+to Dellmere, but she had heard from Miss Fewbanks that her father's place
+was reached from a station called Horleydene, on the main line to
+Wennesden, and that though there were many through trains, comparatively
+few stopped at Horleydene. But she was unused to time-tables, and found
+it difficult to grasp the information she required. There was such a
+bewildering diversity of letters at the head of the lists of trains for
+that line, and so many reference notes on different pages to be looked up
+before it was possible to ascertain with any degree of certainty what
+trains stopped at Horleydene on week-days, that, in her shaken frame of
+mind, with the necessity for hurry haunting her, she became confused,
+and failed to comprehend the perplexing figures. She signalled to the
+driver to stop, and handed him the book.
+
+"I cannot understand this time-table," she said, in an agitated way.
+"Would you find out for me, please, when the next train leaves Victoria
+for Horleydene?"
+
+The driver consulted the time-table with a businesslike air.
+
+"The next train leaves at 12.40," he informed her. "After that there
+isn't another one stopping there till 4.5."
+
+Mrs. Holymead consulted her watch anxiously.
+
+"It's almost half-past twelve now. Can you catch the 12.40?" she asked.
+
+The driver looked dubious.
+
+"I'll try, ma'am, but it'll take some doing. It depends whether I get a
+clear run at Trafalgar Square."
+
+"Try, try!" she cried. "Catch it, and I will double your fare."
+
+She caught the train with a few seconds to spare. She had a first-class
+compartment to herself, and as the train rushed out of London, and the
+grimy environs of the metropolis gradually gave place to green fields,
+she endeavoured to compose her mind and collect her thoughts for her
+coming interview with the daughter of the murdered man. But her mind was
+in such a distraught condition that she could think of no plan but to
+sacrifice herself in order to save her husband. With cold hands pressed
+against her hot forehead, she muttered again and again, as if offering up
+an invocation that gained force by repetition:
+
+"I must save him. I will tell her everything."
+
+The train ran into Horleydene shortly after two, and Mrs. Holymead was
+the only passenger who alighted at the lonely little wayside station
+which stood in a small wood in a solitude as profound as though it had
+been in the American prairie, instead of the heart of an English
+county. The only sign of life was a dilapidated vehicle with an
+elderly man in charge, which stood outside the station yard all day
+waiting for chance visitors.
+
+"Cab, ma'am?" exclaimed the driver of this vehicle in an ingratiating
+voice, touching his hat.
+
+"No, thank you," replied Mrs. Holymead. "I'll walk."
+
+Miss Fewbanks was astonished when the parlourmaid announced the arrival
+of Mrs. Holymead. She hurried to the drawing-room to meet her visitor,
+but the warm greeting she offered her was checked by her astonishment at
+the ill and worn appearance of her beautiful friend.
+
+"Please, don't," said the visitor, as she held up a warning hand to keep
+away a sisterly kiss. She looked at Miss Fewbanks with the air of a woman
+nerving herself for a desperate task, and said quickly: "I have dreadful
+things to tell you. You can never think of me again except with
+loathing--with horror."
+
+The impression Miss Fewbanks received was that her visitor had taken
+leave of her senses. This impression was deepened by Mrs. Holymead's
+next remark.
+
+"I want you to save my husband."
+
+There was an awkward pause while Mrs. Holymead waited for a reply and
+Miss Fewbanks wondered what was the best thing to do.
+
+"Say you will save him!" exclaimed Mrs. Holymead. "Do what you like with
+me, but save him."
+
+"Don't you think, dear, you would be better if you had a rest and a
+little sleep?" said Miss Fewbanks. "I am sure you could sleep if you
+tried. Come upstairs and I'll make you so comfortable."
+
+"You think I am mad," said the elder woman. "Would to God that I was."
+
+"Come, dear," said Miss Fewbanks coaxingly. She turned to the door and
+prepared to lead the way upstairs.
+
+"Sleep!" exclaimed Mrs. Holymead bitterly. "I have not had a peaceful
+sleep since your father was killed. I have been haunted day and night. I
+cannot sleep."
+
+"I know it was a dreadful shock to you, but you must not take it so much
+to heart. You must see your doctor and do what he tells you. Mr. Holymead
+should send you away."
+
+At the mention of her husband's name Mrs. Holymead came back to the
+thought that had been foremost in her mind.
+
+"Will you save him?" she exclaimed.
+
+"You know I will do anything I can for him," answered the girl gently.
+Her intention was to humour her visitor, for she was quite sure that Mr.
+Holymead was in no danger.
+
+"Will you stop Mr. Crewe?"
+
+"Stop Mr. Crewe?" Miss Fewbanks repeated the words in a tone that showed
+her interest had been awakened. "Stop him from what?"
+
+"Stop him from arresting my husband."
+
+"Do you mean to say that Mr. Crewe thinks Mr. Holymead had anything to do
+with the murder of my father?"
+
+"If I tell you everything will you stop him? Oh, Mabel, darling, for the
+sake of the past--before I came on the scene to mar the lives of both of
+them--will you save him? It is I--not he--who should pay the penalty of
+this awful tragedy. Will you save him?"
+
+"Tell me everything," said the girl firmly.
+
+To the stricken wife there was a promise in the demand for light, and in
+broken phrases she poured out her story of shame and sorrow. With a
+feeling that everything was falling away from her the girl learnt from
+her visitor's disconnected story that there had been a liaison between
+her murdered father and her friend. Mr. Holymead had discovered it after
+Sir Horace had gone to Scotland and husband and wife were away in the
+country. He was at first distracted at finding that his lifelong friend
+had seduced his wife, then he made her promise not to see or communicate
+with Sir Horace until he made up his mind what course of action to take.
+Three days later he caught an evening train to London and told her he
+was not returning, but would write to her.
+
+It crossed her mind that he had gone up to London to meet Sir Horace, and
+in her distress at the thought of what might happen when they met she
+consulted her cousin Gabrielle, who had always been in her confidence.
+Gabrielle had offered to go to Riversbrook to see if Sir Horace had
+returned from Scotland, or was expected back. Her train was delayed by an
+accident, and when she arrived at Riversbrook it was after half-past ten.
+She arrived a few minutes too late to prevent the tragedy. She found the
+front door open and the electric light burning in the hall. She went up
+the staircase and in the library she found Sir Horace, who was lying on
+the floor at the point of death. She tried to lift him to a sitting
+position, but with a convulsive gasp he died in her arms.
+
+She laid him down and then looked hurriedly around the room with the
+object of removing any evidence of how or why the crime had been
+committed, her main thought being to save her friend from the shame of a
+public scandal. She picked up a revolver which was lying on the floor
+near Sir Horace, turned out the lights in the library and in the hall so
+that the house was in darkness, and then closed the hall door after her
+as she went out. But Mr. Crewe had discovered in some way that Mr.
+Holymead had visited Sir Horace that night. Only a week ago Gabrielle had
+gone to him and tried to put him off the track, but it was no use.
+
+The wretched woman made a pathetic appeal for her husband's life. She
+deplored the sinfulness which had resulted in the tragedy. She took on
+herself the blame for it all. She had sent one man to his death, and her
+husband stood in peril of a shameful death on the gallows. But it was in
+the power of Mabel to save him. On her knees she pleaded for his life;
+she pleaded to be saved from the horror of sending her husband to the
+gallows. If Mabel's father could make his wishes known he too would
+plead for the life of the friend he had betrayed.
+
+The door opened and the parlourmaid entered. Miss Fewbanks stepped
+quickly across the room so that she should not witness the distress of
+Mrs. Holymead. The servant handed her a card and waited for instructions.
+Miss Fewbanks looked at the card in an agony of indecision. Then she made
+up her mind firmly.
+
+"Show him into my study," she whispered to the girl.
+
+She returned to her visitor, who was sitting with her face buried in
+her hands.
+
+"Mr. Crewe has just motored down," she said. "I will save your husband
+if I can."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+She was conscious that the revelation that her father had been killed
+by Mr. Holymead was a less shock than the revelation that her father
+had dishonoured the great friendship of his life by seducing his
+friend's wife. Her father had been dead three months, and her grief had
+run its course. The shock caused by the discovery that he had been
+murdered had passed away, and she had begun to accept his violent death
+as part of her own experience of life. But the discovery that he had
+betrayed his best friend, in a way that a pure-minded woman regards as
+the most dishonourable way possible, was a fresh revelation to her of
+human infamy.
+
+The knowledge that her father had been a man of immoral habits was not
+new to her. His predilection for fast women had long ago made it
+impossible for her to live in the same house with him for more than a
+week at a time. But that he had trampled in the mire the lifelong
+friendship of an honourable man for the sake of an ignoble passion
+revealed an unexpected depth of shame. That Mr. Holymead had killed him
+seemed almost a natural result of the situation. It was not that she felt
+that a just retribution had overtaken her father, but rather that she was
+glad his shameful conduct had come to an end. As she thought of her dead
+father--dead these three months--she gave a sigh of relief. The wretched
+guilty woman, who had shared with him the shame of his ignoble intrigue,
+had said that if her father could make his wishes known he would plead
+for the life of the friend he had dishonoured. But it was not her
+father's plea for the life of his friend that would have impressed her so
+much as a plea to bury the whole unsavoury scandal from the light. She
+had promised to save Mr. Holymead if she could, but that promise had
+sprung less from the spirit of mercy than from the desire to save her
+father's name from a scandal, which would hold him up to public obloquy.
+
+She greeted Crewe with friendly warmth in spite of the feeling of
+oppression caused by the consciousness of the situation in front of her.
+He did not sit down again after greeting her, but stood with one hand
+resting on an inlaid chess table, with wonderful carved red and white
+Japanese chessmen ranged on each side, which he had been examining when
+she entered the room.
+
+"I came down to make my report to you because I think my work is
+finished," he said.
+
+"You have found out who killed my father?" she asked quietly.
+
+Crewe had sufficient personal pride to feel a little hurt when he saw the
+calm way in which she accepted the result of his investigations, instead
+of congratulating him on his success in a difficult task.
+
+"I think so," he said. "Before I tell you who it is you must prepare
+yourself for a great shock."
+
+"I know who it is" she said--"Mr. Holymead."
+
+There was no pretence about his astonishment.
+
+"How on earth did you find out?"
+
+She smiled a little at such a revelation of his appreciation of his own
+cleverness in having probed the mystery.
+
+"I did not find it out," she said. "I had to be told."
+
+"And who told you, Miss Fewbanks?" he asked. "Has he confessed to you?
+How long have you known it?"
+
+"I have known it only a few minutes," she said. "Will you tell me how you
+got on the track and all you have done? I am greatly interested. You have
+been wonderfully clever to find out. I should never have guessed Mr.
+Holymead had anything to do with it--I should never have thought it
+possible. When you have finished I will tell you how I came to know. The
+story is extremely simple--and sordid."
+
+The fact that the key of the mystery had been in her hands only a few
+minutes was a solace to Crewe, as it detracted but little from the story
+he had to tell of patient investigations extending over weeks.
+
+He pieced together the story of the tragedy as he had unravelled it.
+Hill, he said, had conceived the idea of blackmailing her father after he
+had discovered the existence of some letters in a secret drawer of Sir
+Horace's desk. The fact that Sir Horace had kept these letters instead of
+destroying them as he had destroyed other letters of a somewhat similar
+kind showed that he was very much infatuated with the lady who wrote
+them. That lady, as doubtless Miss Fewbanks had guessed, was Mrs.
+Holymead--a lady with whom Sir Horace had been on very friendly terms
+before she married Mr. Holymead.
+
+"What became of the letters?" asked Miss Fewbanks. "Have you got them?"
+
+"I think they are destroyed," he said. "Mrs. Holymead removed them from
+the secret drawer the day after the discovery of the murder. She
+removed them when the police had charge of the house, and almost from
+under the eyes of Inspector Chippenfield. It was a daring plan and well
+carried out."
+
+Miss Fewbanks heaved a sigh of relief on learning the fate of the
+letters. It had been her intention to endeavour to obtain them if they
+were in Crewe's possession, and destroy them.
+
+Crewe explained that Hill was afraid to take the letters and then boldly
+blackmail Sir Horace. The butler conceived the plan of getting Birchill
+to break into the house. He did not take Birchill into his confidence
+with regard to the blackmailing scheme, but in order to induce Sir Horace
+to believe the burglar had stolen the letters he told Birchill to force
+open the desk, as he would probably find money or papers of value there.
+But in order to prevent Birchill getting the letters if he should happen
+to stumble across the secret drawer, Hill removed them the day before.
+His plan was to go to Riversbrook in the morning after the burglary, and
+after leaving open the secret drawer which had contained the letters, to
+report the burglary to the police. When Sir Horace came home unexpectedly
+Hill had just removed the letters and had them in his possession. Hill
+was greatly perturbed at his master's unexpected return, and had to get
+an opportunity to replace the letters in the secret drawer, but Sir
+Horace told him to go home, as he was not wanted till the morning. Hill
+went to that girl's flat in Westminster, and there saw Birchill. He told
+Birchill that Sir Horace had returned unexpectedly, but he urged Birchill
+to carry out the burglary as arranged, and assured him that as Sir Horace
+was a heavy sleeper there would be no risk if he waited until Sir Horace
+went to bed. Hill's position was that if the burglary was postponed Sir
+Horace might make the discovery that the letters had been stolen from the
+secret drawer. In that case Sir Horace would immediately suspect Hill,
+who, he knew, was an ex-convict. It was just possible that Sir Horace,
+before going to bed, would discover that the letters had been
+stolen--that is, if he went to bed before Birchill got into the
+place--but Hill had to take that risk.
+
+It was the fact that the burglary Hill had arranged with Birchill took
+place on the night Sir Horace was killed that had given rise to the false
+clues which had misled the police. Crewe, as he himself modestly put it,
+was so fortunate as to get on the right track from the start. His
+suspicions were directed to Holymead when he saw the latter carrying away
+a walking-stick from Riversbrook after his visit of condolence to Miss
+Fewbanks. Crewe explained what tactics he had adopted to obtain a brief
+inspection of the stick in order to ascertain for his own satisfaction if
+it had belonged to Holymead. His suspicions against Holymead were
+strengthened when he discovered that the latter, when driving to his
+hotel on the night of the tragedy, had thrown away a glove which was the
+fellow of the one found by the police in Sir Horace's library.
+
+"The next point to settle was whether Holymead had had anything to do
+with your father's sudden return from Scotland," said Crewe, continuing
+his story. "If that proved to be the case, and if evidence could be
+obtained on which to justify the conclusion that these two old friends
+had had a deadly quarrel, the circumstantial evidence against Holymead as
+the man who killed your father was very strong. I may say that before I
+went to Scotland I came across evidence of the estrangement of Holymead
+and his wife. Do you remember when you and Mrs. Holymead were leaving the
+court after the inquest that Mr. Holymead came up and spoke to you? He
+shook hands with you and was on the point of shaking hands with his wife
+as if she were a lady he had met casually. Then, on the night of the
+murder, the taxi-cab driver at Hyde Park Corner drove him to his house at
+Princes Gate, but was ordered to drive back and take him to Verney's
+Hotel. All this was interesting to me--doubly interesting in the light of
+the fact that Sir Horace had known Mrs. Holymead before her second
+marriage, and had paid her every attention.
+
+"I went to Scotland and made inquiries at Craigleith Hall, where Sir
+Horace had been shooting. My object was to endeavour to obtain a clue to
+the reason for his sudden journey to London. The local police had made
+inquiries on this point on behalf of Scotland Yard, and had been unable
+to obtain any clue. No telegram had been received by Sir Horace, and he
+had sent none. Of course he had received some letters. He had told none
+of the other members of the shooting party the object of his departure
+for London, but he had declared his intention of being back with them in
+less than a week. It had occurred to me when the crime was discovered
+that his missing pocket-book might not have been stolen by his murderer,
+but might have been lost in Scotland. I made inquiries in that direction
+and eventually found that the man who had attended to Sir Horace on the
+moors had the pocket-book. His story was that Sir Horace had lost it the
+day before his departure for London. He had taken off his coat owing to
+the heat on the moor, and the pocket-book had dropped out. He
+ascertained his loss before he left for London, and told this man
+Sanders where he thought the pocket-book had dropped out. Sanders was to
+look for it, and if he found it was to keep it until Sir Horace came
+back. He did find it, and after learning of your father's death was
+tempted to keep it, as it contained four five-pound notes. Sanders is an
+ignorant man, and can scarcely read. He professed to know nothing of the
+pocket-book when I questioned him, but I became suspicious of him, and
+laid a trap which he fell into. Then he handed me the pocket-book, which
+he had hidden on the moor, under a stone. In the pocket-book I found a
+letter from Holymead asking your father to come to London at once as
+there were to be two new appointments to the Court of Appeal, and that
+Sir Horace had an excellent chance of obtaining one if he came to London
+and used his influence with the Chancellor and the Chief Justice, who
+were still in town. The writer indicated that he was doing all that was
+possible in Sir Horace's interests, and that he would meet Sir Horace at
+Riversbrook at 9.30 on Wednesday night and let him know the exact
+position. There is nothing suspicious in such a letter, but my inquiries
+concerning new appointments to the Court of Appeal suggest that the
+statements in the letter are false.
+
+"Now let us consider the conduct of Holymead and his wife since the night
+of the murder. His course of action has not been that of a man anxious to
+assist the police in the discovery of the murderer of his old friend. We
+have first of all his secrecy regarding his visit to Riversbrook that
+night; the fact of the visit being established by the stick, and the
+glove he left behind. We have the estrangement of husband and wife. We
+have Mrs. Holymead's visit to Riversbrook on the morning that the first
+details of the crime appeared in the newspapers. Ostensibly she came to
+see you and pay her condolences, but as she knew that you had been away
+in the country she ought to have telephoned to learn if you had come up
+to London. Instead of telephoning, she went to Riversbrook direct, and
+when she found you were not there she was admitted to the presence of my
+old friend, Inspector Chippenfield. He is an excellent police officer,
+but I do not think he is a match for a clever woman. And Mrs. Holymead is
+such a fine-looking woman that I feel sure Chippenfield was so impressed
+by her appearance that he forgot he was a police officer and remembered
+only that he was a man. She managed to get him out of the room long
+enough to enable her to open the secret drawer in Sir Horace's desk and
+remove the letters. No doubt Sir Horace had shown her where he kept them,
+as their neat little hiding place was an indication of the value he
+placed upon them. She was under the impression that no one knew about the
+letters, and her object in removing them was to prevent the police
+stumbling across them and so getting on the track of her husband. But as
+I have already told you, Hill knew about the letters, and on the night of
+the murder had them in his possession. On the night after the murder,
+while Inspector Chippenfield was making investigations at Riversbrook,
+Hill had managed to obtain the opportunity to put the letters back. He
+naturally thought that if the police discovered some of Sir Horace's
+private papers in his possession they would conclude that he had had
+something to do with the murder.
+
+"The next point of any consequence is Holymead's defence of Birchill
+and the deliberate way in which he blackened your father's name while
+cross-examining Hill. If we regard Holymead's conduct solely from the
+standpoint of a barrister doing his best for his client his defence of
+Birchill is not so remarkable. But we have to remember that your
+father and Holymead had been life-long friends. His acceptance of the
+brief for the defence was in itself remarkable. The fee, as I took the
+trouble to find out, was not large; indeed, for a man of Holymead's
+commanding eminence at the bar it might be called a small one, and he
+should have returned the brief because the fee was inadequate. We have,
+therefore, two things to consider--his defence of the man charged with
+the murder of your father, and his readiness to do the work without
+regard to the monetary side of it. Much was said at the time in some of
+the papers about a barrister being a servant of the court and compelled
+by the etiquette of the bar to place his services at the disposal of
+anyone who needs them and is prepared to pay for them. A great deal of
+nonsense has been said and written on that subject. A barrister can
+return a brief because for private reasons he does not wish to have
+anything to do with the case. It was Holymead's duty to do his best to
+get Birchill off whether he believed his client was guilty or innocent.
+Could Holymead have done his best for Birchill if he had believed that
+Birchill was the murderer of his lifelong friend? Would he have trusted
+himself to do his best? No, Holymead knew that Birchill was innocent;
+he knew who the guilty man was, and, knowing that, knowing that his
+action in defending the man charged with the murder of an old friend
+would weigh with the jury, he took up the case because he felt there
+was a moral obligation on him to get Birchill off. His conduct of the
+defence, during which he attacked the moral character of your father,
+was remarkable, coming from him--the friend of the dead man. As the
+action of defending counsel it was perfectly legitimate. It gave rise
+to some discussion in purely legal circles--whether Holymead did right
+or wrong in violating a long friendship in order to get his man off.
+The academic point is whether he ought to have violated his personal
+feelings for an old friend, or violated his duty to his client by
+doing something less than his best for him.
+
+"Apart from the circumstantial and inferential evidence against Holymead,
+there is the fact that his wife knows that he committed the crime. Her
+acts point to that; her conduct throughout springs from the desire to
+shield him. Even the removal of the letters from the secret drawer was
+prompted more by the desire to save him than to save herself. Their
+discovery would not have been very serious for her, but it would have put
+the police on her husband's track. If I remember rightly, she asked you
+to keep her in touch with all the developments of the investigations of
+the police and myself. You told me that she was greatly interested in the
+fact that I did not believe Birchill was guilty, and particularly anxious
+to know if I suspected anyone. At Birchill's trial she did me the honour
+of watching me very closely. I was watching both her and her husband.
+When she discovered through her womanly intuition that I suspected her
+husband; that I was accumulating evidence against him; she sent round her
+friend, Mademoiselle Chiron, with some interesting information for me. An
+extremely clever young woman that--like all her countrywomen she is
+wonderfully sharp and quick, with a natural aptitude for intrigue. Of
+course, the information she gave me was intended to mislead me--intended
+to show me that Mr. Holymead had nothing to do with the crime. But some
+of it was extremely interesting when it dealt with actual facts, and some
+of the facts were quite new to me. For instance, I had not previously
+known that a piece of a lady's handkerchief was found clenched in your
+father's right hand after he was dead. The police very kindly kept that
+information from me. Had they told me about it I might have been inclined
+to suspect Mrs. Holymead and to believe that her husband was trying to
+shield her. His conduct would bear that interpretation if she had
+happened to be guilty. The police unconsciously saved me from taking up
+that false scent.
+
+"I have detained you a long time in dealing with these points, Miss
+Fewbanks, but I wanted to make everything clear. I have all but reached
+the end. Let us take in chronological order what happened on the night of
+the tragedy. We have your father's sudden return from Scotland. Hill was
+at Riversbrook when he arrived, and having the secret letters in his
+possession, was greatly perturbed by the unexpected return of Sir Horace.
+He went to Doris Fanning's flat in Westminster to see Birchill. In his
+absence Holymead arrived. It is probable that he took the Tube from Hyde
+Park Corner to Hampstead and walked to Riversbrook. He rang the bell; was
+admitted by your father, and, leaving his hat and stick in the hall-stand
+as he had often done before, the two went upstairs to the library. There
+was an angry interview, Holymead accusing your father of having wronged
+him and demanding satisfaction. My own opinion is that there was an
+irregular sort of duel. Each of them fired one shot. It is quite
+conceivable that Holymead, in spite of his mission, being that of
+revenge, gave your father a fair chance for his life. A man in Holymead's
+position would probably feel indifferent whether he killed the man who
+had ruined his home or was killed by him. But whereas your father's shot
+missed by a few inches, Holymead's inflicted a fatal wound. When he saw
+your father fall and realised what he had done, the instinct of
+self-preservation asserted itself. He grabbed at the gloves he had taken
+off, but in his hurry dropped one on the floor. He ran downstairs, took
+his hat from the hall-stand, but left his stick. Then he rushed out of
+the house, leaving the front door open. He made his way back to Hampstead
+Tube station, got out at Hyde Park and took a cab to his hotel.
+
+"Within a few minutes of Holymead's departure from Riversbrook the
+Frenchwoman arrived. She may have passed Holymead in Tanton Gardens, or
+Holymead, when he saw her approaching, may have hidden inside the
+gateway of a neighbouring house. She had come up from the country on
+learning that Holymead had come to London. She caught the next train, but
+unfortunately it was late on arriving at Victoria owing to a slight
+accident to the engine. I take it that she was sent by Mrs. Holymead to
+follow her husband if possible and see if he had any designs on Sir
+Horace. She took a cab as far as the Spaniards Inn and then got out, and
+walked to Riversbrook. When she arrived at the house she found the front
+door open and the lights burning. There was no answer to her ring and she
+entered the house and crept upstairs. Opening the library door, she saw
+your father lying on the floor. She endeavoured to raise him to a sitting
+posture, but it was too late to do anything for him. With a convulsive
+movement he grasped at the handkerchief she was holding in one hand, and
+a corner of it was torn off and remained in his hand. When she saw he had
+breathed his last she laid him down on the floor. Since she had been too
+late to prevent the crime, the next best thing in the interests of Mrs.
+Holymead was to remove traces of Holymead's guilt. She picked up the
+revolver, which she thought belonged to Holymead, turned off the light in
+the room, went downstairs, turned off the light in the hall, and closed
+the hall door as she went out.
+
+"She behaved with remarkable courage and coolness, but she overlooked the
+glove in the room of the tragedy, and Holymead's stick in the hall-stand.
+Later in the night we have Birchill's entry into the house, his alarm at
+finding your father had been killed, and his return to the flat where
+Hill was waiting for him."
+
+When Crewe had finished he looked at the girl. She had followed his
+statement with breathless interest.
+
+"You have been wonderfully clever," she said. "It is perfectly
+marvellous."
+
+Crewe's eyes had wandered to the inlaid chess-table and the Japanese
+chessmen set in prim rows on either side. Mechanically he began to
+arrange a problem on the board. His interest in the famous murder mystery
+seemed to have evaporated.
+
+"I was very fortunate," he said absently, in reply to Miss Fewbanks.
+"Everything seemed to come right for me."
+
+"You made everything come right," she replied. "I do not know how to
+thank you for giving so much of your time to unravelling the mystery."
+
+"It was fascinating while it lasted," he replied, his fingers still busy
+with the chessmen. "Of course, I am pleased with my success, but in a way
+I am sorry the work has come to an end. I thought that the knowledge that
+Holymead was the guilty man would come as a great shock to you. But I am
+glad you are able to take it so well."
+
+"A few minutes before you arrived I learned that it was Mr. Holymead. But
+what has been more of a shock to me, Mr. Crewe, is the discovery that my
+father had ruined his home. Oh, Mr. Crewe, it is terrible for me to have
+to hold my dead father up to judgment, but it is more terrible still to
+know that he was not faithful even to his lifelong friendship with Mr.
+Holymead."
+
+"Your nerves are unstrung," he said. "You want rest and quiet--you want a
+long sea voyage."
+
+"Yes, I want to forget," she said. "But there are others who want to
+forget, too. Cannot we bury the whole thing in forgetfulness?"
+
+Crewe's growing interest in the chessboard and his problem suddenly
+vanished. His eyes became instantly riveted on her face in a keen,
+questioning look.
+
+"What is it to me or you that Mr. Holymead should be publicly proved
+guilty of this terrible thing?" she went on, passionately. "Why drag into
+the light my father's conduct in order to make a day's sensation for the
+newspapers? For his sake, what better thing could I do than let his
+memory rest?"
+
+"Do you mean that Holymead should be allowed to go free?" he asked, in
+astonishment.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'm extremely sorry," he said slowly.
+
+"Won't you let it all drop?" she pleaded.
+
+"I could not take upon myself the responsibility of condoning such a
+crime--the responsibility of judging between your father and his
+murderer," he said solemnly. "But even if I could it is too late to think
+of doing so. There is already a warrant out for Holymead's arrest"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+The newspapers made a sensation out of the announcement of Holymead's
+arrest on a charge of having murdered Sir Horace Fewbanks. They declared
+that the arrest of the eminent K.C. on a capital charge would come as a
+surprising development of the Riversbrook case. It would cause a shock to
+his many friends, and especially to those who knew what a close
+friendship had existed between the arrested man and the dead judge. The
+papers expatiated on the fact that Holymead had appeared for the defence
+when Frederick Birchill had been tried for the murder. As the public
+would remember, Birchill had been acquitted owing to the great ability
+with which his defence was conducted.
+
+It was somewhat remarkable, said the _Daily Record_, that in his speech
+for the defence Holymead had attempted to throw suspicion on one of the
+witnesses for the prosecution. The journal hinted that it was the result
+of something which Counsel for the defence had let drop at this trial
+that Inspector Chippenfield had picked up the clue which had led to
+Holymead's arrest. The papers had very little information to give the
+public about this new development of the Fewbanks mystery, but they
+boldly declared that some startling revelations were expected when the
+case came before the court.
+
+In the absence of interesting facts apropos of the arrest of the
+distinguished K.C., some of the papers published summaries of his legal
+career, and the more famous cases with which he had been connected. These
+summaries would have been equally suitable to an announcement that Mr.
+Holymead had been promoted to the peerage or that he had been run over by
+a London bus.
+
+There were people who declared without knowing anything about the
+evidence the police had in their possession that in arresting the famous
+barrister the police had made a far worse blunder than in arresting
+Birchill. It was even hinted that the arrest of the man who had got
+Birchill off was an expression of the police desire for revenge. To these
+people the acquittal of Holymead was a foregone conclusion. The man who
+had saved Birchill's life by his brilliant forensic abilities was not
+likely to fail when his own life was at stake.
+
+But when the case came before the police court and the police produced
+their evidence, it was seen that there was a strong case against the
+prisoner. The whispers as to the circumstances under which the prisoner
+had taken the life of a friend of many years appealed to a sentimental
+public. These whispers concerned the discovery by the prisoner that his
+friend had seduced his beautiful wife. In the police court proceedings
+there were no disclosures under this head, but the thing was hinted at.
+In view of the legal eminence of the prisoner and the fear of the police
+that he would prove too much for any police officer who might take charge
+of the prosecution, the Direction of Public Prosecutions sent Mr.
+Walters, K.C., to appear at the police court. The prisoner was
+represented by Mr. Lethbridge, K.C., an eminent barrister to whom the
+prisoner had been opposed in many civil cases.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield, who realised that the important position the
+prisoner occupied at the bar added to the importance of the officer who
+had arrested him, gave evidence as to the arrest of the prisoner at his
+chambers in the Middle Temple. With a generous feeling, which was
+possibly due to the fact that he was entitled to none of the credit of
+collecting the evidence against the prisoner, Inspector Chippenfield
+allowed Detective Rolfe a subordinate share in the glory that hung round
+the arrest by volunteering the information in the witness-box that when
+making the arrest he was accompanied by that officer. He declared that
+the prisoner made no remark when arrested and did not seem surprised. Mr.
+Walters produced a left-hand glove and witness duly identified it as the
+glove which he found in the room in which the murder took place.
+
+Inspector Seldon gave formal evidence of the discovery of the body of Sir
+Horace Fewbanks on the 19th of August. Dr. Slingsby repeated the evidence
+that he had given at the trial of Birchill as to the cause of death, and
+was again professionally indefinite as to the length of time the victim
+had been dead when he saw the body. Thomas Taylor, taxi-cab driver, gave
+evidence as to driving the prisoner from Hyde Park Corner on the night of
+the 18th of August and the finding of the glove.
+
+Crewe went into the witness-box and swore that on the second day after
+the discovery of the murder he was present at Riversbrook when the
+prisoner visited the house and saw Miss Fewbanks. When the prisoner
+arrived he was not carrying a walking-stick, but he had one in his hand
+when he took his departure from the house. Witness followed the prisoner,
+and a boy who collided with the prisoner knocked the stick out of his
+hands. Witness picked up the stick and inspected it. He identified the
+stick produced in court as the one which the prisoner had been carrying
+on that day.
+
+The most difficult, and most important witness, as far as new evidence
+was concerned was Alexander Saunders, a big, broad red-faced Scotchman,
+whose firm grasp on the tam-o'-shanter he held in his hand seemed to
+indicate a fear that all the pickpockets in London had designs on it.
+With great difficulty he was made to understand his part in the
+witness-box, and some of the questions had to be repeated several times
+before he could grasp their meaning. Mr. Lethbridge humorously suggested
+that his learned friend should have provided an interpreter so that his
+pure English might be translated into Lowland Scotch.
+
+By slow degrees Saunders was able to explain how he had found the
+pocket-book which Sir Horace Fewbanks had lost while shooting at
+Craigleith Hall. Witness identified a letter produced as having been in
+the pocket-book when he found it. The letter, which had been written by
+the prisoner to Sir Horace Fewbanks, urged Sir Horace to return to London
+at once, as if he did so there was a good possibility of his obtaining
+promotion to the Court of Appeal. The writer promised to do all he could
+in the matter, and to call on Sir Horace at Riversbrook as soon as he
+returned from Scotland.
+
+Percival Chambers, an elderly well-dressed man with a grey beard, and
+wearing glasses, who was secretary of the Master of Rolls, swore that he
+knew of no prospective vacancies on the Court of Appeal Bench. Were any
+vacancies of the kind in view he believed he would be aware of them.
+
+This closed the case for the police, and Mr. Lethbridge immediately asked
+for the discharge of the prisoner on the ground that there was no case to
+go before a jury. The magistrate shook his head, and merely asked Mr.
+Lethbridge if he intended to reserve his defence. Mr. Lethbridge replied
+with a nod, and the accused was formally committed for trial at the next
+sittings at the Old Bailey.
+
+The newspapers reported at great length the evidence given in the police
+court, and their reports were eagerly read by a sensation-loving public.
+Even those people who, when Holymead's arrest was announced, had
+ridiculed the idea of a man like Holymead murdering a lifelong friend,
+had to admit that the police had collected some damaging evidence. Those
+people who at the time of the arrest had prided themselves on possessing
+an open mind as to the guilt of the famous barrister, confessed after
+reading the police court evidence that there could be little doubt of his
+guilt. The only thing that was missing from the police court proceedings
+was the production of a motive for the crime, but it was whispered that
+there would be some interesting revelations on this point when the
+prisoner was tried at the Old Bailey.
+
+Fortunately he had not long to wait for his trial, as the next sittings
+of the Central Criminal Court had previously been fixed a week ahead of
+the date of his commitment. That week was full of anxiety for Mr.
+Lethbridge, for he realised that he had a poor case. What increased his
+anxiety was the fact that Holymead insisted on the defence being
+conducted on the lines he laid down. It was a new thing in Lethbridge's
+experience to accept such instructions from a prisoner, but Holymead had
+threatened to dispense with all assistance unless his instructions were
+carried out. He was particularly anxious that his wife's name should be
+kept out of court as much as possible. Lethbridge had pointed out to him
+that the prosecution would be sure to drag it in at the trial in
+suggesting a motive for the murder, and that for the purposes of the
+defence it was best to have a full and frank disclosure of everything so
+that an appeal could be made to the jury's feelings. Holymead's beautiful
+wife, who was almost distracted by her husband's position, implored his
+Counsel to allow her to go into the box and make a confession. But that
+course did not commend itself to Lethbridge, who realised that she would
+make an extremely bad witness and would but help to put the rope round
+her husband's neck. He put her off by declaring that there was a good
+prospect of her husband being acquitted, but that if the verdict
+unfortunately went against him her confession would have more weight in
+saving him, when the appeal against the verdict was heard.
+
+It amazed Lethbridge to find that the prisoner expressed the view that
+Birchill had committed the murder. This view was based on his contention
+that Sir Horace Fewbanks was alive when he (Holymead) left him about ten
+o'clock. The interview between them had been an angry one, but Holymead
+persisted in asserting that he had not shot his former friend. He
+declared that he had not taken a revolver with him when he went to
+Riversbrook.
+
+Lethbridge was one of those barristers who believe that a knowledge of
+the guilt of a client handicapped Counsel in defending him. He had his
+private opinion as to the result of the angry interview between Holymead
+and Sir Horace Fewbanks, but he preferred that Holymead should protest
+his innocence even to him. That made it easier for him to make a stirring
+appeal to the jury than it would have been if his client had fully
+confessed to him. His private opinion as to the author of the crime was
+strengthened by Holymead's admission that Birchill had not confessed to
+him or to his solicitor at the time of his trial that he had shot Sir
+Horace Fewbanks. He was astonished that Holymead had taken up Birchill's
+defence, but Holymead's explanation was the somewhat extraordinary one
+that the man who had killed the seducer of his wife had done him a
+service by solving a problem that had seemed insoluble without a public
+scandal. There was no doubt that although Sir Horace Fewbanks was in his
+grave, Holymead's hatred of him for his betrayal of his wife burned as
+strongly as when he had made the discovery that wrecked his home life.
+Neither death nor time could dim the impression, nor lessen his hatred
+for the dead man who had once been his closest friend.
+
+Lethbridge, feeling that it was his duty as Counsel for the prisoner to
+try every avenue which might help to an acquittal, asked Mr. Tomlinson,
+the solicitor who was instructing him in the case, to find Birchill and
+bring him to his chambers. Birchill was found and kept an appointment.
+Lethbridge explained to him that he had nothing further to fear from the
+police with regard to the murder of Sir Horace Fewbanks. Having been
+acquitted on this charge he could not be tried on it again, no matter
+what discoveries were made. He could not even be tried for perjury, as he
+had not gone into the witness-box. Having allowed these facts to sink
+home, he delicately suggested to Birchill that he ought to come forward
+as a witness for the defence of Holymead--he ought to do his best to try
+and save the life of the man who had saved his life.
+
+"What do you want me to swear?" asked Birchill, in a tone which indicated
+that although he did not object to committing perjury, he wanted to know
+how far he was to go.
+
+"Well, that Sir Horace Fewbanks was alive when you went to Riversbrook,"
+suggested Lethbridge.
+
+"But I tell you he was dead," protested Birchill. He seemed to think that
+reviving a dead man was beyond even the power of perjury.
+
+"That was your original story, I know," agreed Lethbridge suavely. "But
+as you were not put into the witness-box to swear it you can alter it
+without fear of any consequences."
+
+"You want me to swear that he was alive?" said Birchill, meditatively.
+
+"If you can conscientiously do so," replied Lethbridge.
+
+"That he was alive when I left Riversbrook?" asked Birchill.
+
+"Well, not necessarily that," said Lethbridge.
+
+Birchill sprang up in alarm.
+
+"Good God, do you want me to swear that I killed him?" he demanded.
+
+Lethbridge endeavoured to explain that he would have nothing to fear from
+such a confession in the witness-box, but Birchill would listen to no
+further explanations. He felt that he was in dangerous company, and that
+his safety depended on getting out of the room.
+
+"You've made a mistake," he said, as he reached the door. "If you want a
+witness of that kind you ought to look for him in Colney Hatch."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+The impending trial of Holymead produced almost as much excitement in
+staid legal circles as it did among the general public. It was rumoured
+that there was a difficulty in obtaining a judge to preside at the trial,
+as they all objected to being placed in the position of trying a man who
+was well-known to them and with whom most of them had been on friendly
+terms. There was a great deal of sympathy for the prisoner among the
+judges. Of course, they could not admit that any man had the right to
+take the law into his own hands, but they realised that if any wrong done
+to an individual could justify this course it was the wrong Sir Horace
+Fewbanks had done to an old friend.
+
+When it became known that Mr. Justice Hodson was to preside at the Old
+Bailey during the trial of Holymead, legal rumour concerned itself with
+statements to the effect that there was now a difficulty in obtaining a
+K.C. to undertake the prosecution. When it was discovered that Mr.
+Walters, K.C., was to conduct the prosecution, it was whispered that he
+had asked to be relieved of the work and had even waited on the
+Attorney-General in the matter, but that the latter had told him that he
+must put his personal feelings aside and act in accordance with that high
+sense of duty he had always shown in his professional career.
+
+In Newgate Street a long queue of people waited for admission to Old
+Bailey on the day the trial was to begin. They were inspected by two fat
+policemen to decide whether they appeared respectable enough to be
+entitled to a free seat at the entertainment in Number One Court. When
+the doors opened at 10.15 a.m. the first batch of them were admitted, but
+on reaching the top of the stairs, where they were inspected by a
+sergeant, they were informed that all the seats in the gallery of Number
+One Court had been filled, but that he would graciously permit them to go
+to Numbers Two, Three, Four, or Five Courts. Those who were not satisfied
+with this generosity could get out the way they had come in and be quick
+about it. What the sergeant did not explain was that so many people with
+social influence had applied to the presiding judge for permission to be
+present at the trial that it had been found necessary to reserve the
+gallery for them as well as most of the seats in the body of the court.
+Fashionably-dressed ladies and well-groomed men drove up to the main
+entrance of the Old Bailey in motors and taxi-cabs. The scene was as busy
+as the scene outside a West End theatre on a first night. The services of
+several policemen were necessary to regulate the arrival and departure of
+taxi-cabs and motor-cars and to keep back the staring mob of disappointed
+people who had been refused admission to the court by the fat sergeant,
+but were determined to see as much as they could before they went away.
+Elderly ladies and young ladies were assisted from smart motor-cars by
+their escorts, and greeted their friends with feminine fervour. Some of
+the younger ones exchanged whispered regrets, as they swept into the
+court, that such a fine-looking man as Holymead should have got himself
+into such a terrible predicament.
+
+The legal profession was numerously represented among the spectators in
+the body of the court. So many distinguished members of the profession
+had applied for tickets of admission that there was little room for
+members of the junior bar. It was many years since a trial had created
+so much interest in legal circles. When Mr. Justice Hodson entered the
+court, followed by no fewer than eight of the Sheriffs of London, those
+present in the court rose. The members of the profession bowed slowly in
+the direction of His Honour. The prisoner was brought into the dock from
+below, and took the seat that was given to him beside one of the two
+warders who remained in the dock with him. He looked a little careworn,
+as though with sleepless nights, but his strong, clean-shaven face was
+as resolute as ever, and betrayed nothing of the mental agony which he
+endured. His keen dark eyes glanced quietly through the court, and
+though many members of the bar smiled at him when they thought they had
+caught his eye, he gave no smile in return. As he looked at Mr. Justice
+Hodson, the distinguished judge inclined his head to what was almost a
+nod of recognition, but the prisoner looked calmly at the judge as
+though he had never seen him before and had never been inside a court in
+his life till then.
+
+Among those persons standing in the body of the court were Crewe and
+Inspector Chippenfield and Detective Rolfe. Inspector Chippenfield
+displayed so much friendliness to Crewe as he drew his attention to the
+number of celebrities in court that it was evident he had buried for the
+time being his professional enmity. This was because Crewe had allowed
+him to appropriate some of the credit of unravelling Holymead's
+connection with the crime. As the jury were being sworn in Crewe and
+Chippenfield made their way out of court into the corridor. As they were
+to be called as witnesses they would not be allowed in court until after
+they had given their evidence.
+
+Mr. Walters in his opening address paid tribute to the exceptional
+circumstances of the case by some slight show of nervousness. Several
+times he insisted that the case was what he termed unique. The prisoner
+in the dock was a man who by his distinguished abilities had won for
+himself a leading position at the bar, and had been honoured and
+respected by all who knew him. It was not the first occasion that a
+member of the legal profession had been placed on trial on a capital
+charge, though he was glad to say, for the honour of the profession, that
+cases of the kind were extremely rare. But what made the case unique was
+that it was not the first trial in connection with the murder of Sir
+Horace Fewbanks, and that at the first trial when a man named Frederick
+Birchill had been placed in the dock, the prisoner now before the court
+had appeared as defending Counsel, and by his brilliant conduct of the
+defence had materially contributed to the verdict of acquittal which had
+been brought in by the jury. Some evidence would be placed before the
+jury about the first trial and the conduct of the defence. He ventured to
+assert that the jury would find in this evidence some damaging facts
+against the prisoner--that they would find a clear indication that the
+prisoner had defended Birchill because he knew himself to be guilty of
+this murder, and felt an obligation on him to place his legal knowledge
+and forensic powers at the disposal of a man whom he knew to be innocent.
+At the former trial the prisoner, as Counsel for the defence, had
+attempted to throw suspicion on a man named Hill, who had been butler to
+the late Sir Horace Fewbanks, but evidence would be placed before the
+jury to show that in doing so the prisoner had been smitten by some pangs
+of conscience at casting suspicion on a man who he knew was not guilty.
+
+It was not incumbent on the prosecution to prove a motive for the murder,
+continued Mr. Walters, though where the motive was plainly proved the
+case against the prisoner was naturally strengthened. In this case there
+was no doubt about the motive, but the extent of the evidence to be
+placed before the jury under that head would depend upon the defence. The
+prosecution would submit some evidence on the point, but the full story
+could only be told if the defence placed the wife of the prisoner in the
+witness-box. It was impossible for the prosecution to call her as a
+witness, as English law prevented a wife giving evidence against her
+husband. She could, however, give evidence in favour of her husband, and
+doubtless the defence would take full advantage of the privilege of
+calling her.
+
+The evidence which he intended to call would show that for years past
+very friendly relations had existed between the prisoner and the murdered
+man. They had been at Cambridge together and had studied law together in
+chambers. Their friendship continued after their marriages. The prisoner
+had married a second time, and at that time Sir Horace Fewbanks was a
+widower. Sir Horace Fewbanks was what was known as a ladies' man, and at
+the previous trial prisoner, as defending Counsel, had tried to bring out
+that Sir Horace was a man of immoral reputation among women. There was no
+doubt that the prisoner, during Sir Horace's absence in Scotland, became
+convinced that Sir Horace had been paying attention to his wife. There
+was no doubt that, being a man of a jealous disposition, his suspicions
+went beyond that. At any rate he wrote a letter to Sir Horace at
+Craigleith Hall, where the latter was shooting, asking him to come to
+London at once. In order to induce Sir Horace to return, and in order not
+to arouse suspicion as to his real object, he concocted a story about a
+vacancy in the Court of Appeal Bench to which, it appeared, Sir Horace
+Fewbanks desired to be appointed. In this letter, which would be produced
+in evidence, the prisoner pretended to be working in Sir Horace's
+interests, and offered to meet him on the night of his return at
+Riversbrook and let him know fully how matters stood. Sir Horace
+apparently wrote to the prisoner making an appointment with him for the
+night of the 18th of August. The prisoner kept that appointment, charged
+Sir Horace with carrying on an intrigue with his wife, and then shot him.
+
+"That is the case for the prosecution which I will endeavour to establish
+to the satisfaction of the jury," said Mr. Walters, in concluding his
+speech, "Of course it is impossible to produce direct evidence of the
+actual shooting. But I will produce a silent but indisputable witness in
+the form of a glove which belonged to the prisoner, that he was present
+in the room in which the murder took place. I will produce evidence to
+show that the prisoner left his stick behind in the hat-stand in the
+hall on the night of the murder. These things prove conclusively that he
+left Riversbrook in a state of considerable excitement. The fact that
+after the murder was discovered he kept hidden in his own breast the
+knowledge that he had been there on that night, instead of going to the
+police and, in the endeavour to assist them to detect the murderer of his
+lifelong friend, informing them that he had called on Sir Horace, shows
+conclusively that he went there on a mission on which he dared not throw
+the light of day."
+
+Those witnesses who had given evidence at the police court were called
+and repeated their statements. Inspector Seldon was closely
+cross-examined by Mr. Lethbridge as to the way in which the dead body was
+dressed when he discovered it. He declared that Sir Horace had been
+wearing a light lounge suit of grey colour, a silk shirt, wing collar and
+black bow tie. Dr. Slingsby's cross-examination was directed to
+ascertaining as near as possible the time when the murder was committed,
+but this was a point on which the witness allowed himself to be
+irritatingly indefinite. The murder might have taken place three or four
+hours before midnight on the 18th of August, and on the other hand it
+might have taken place any time up to three or four hours after midnight.
+
+Hill, who had not been available as a witness at the police
+court--being then on the way back from America in response to a
+cablegram from Crewe--reappeared as a witness. He looked much more at
+ease in the witness-box than on the occasion when he gave evidence
+against Birchill. He had fully recovered from his terror of being
+arrested for the murder, and obviously had much satisfaction in giving
+evidence against the man who, according to his impression, had tried to
+bring the crime home to him.
+
+He gave evidence as to the unexpected return of his master from Scotland
+on the 18th of August, and also in regard to the relations between his
+master and Mrs. Holymead. On several occasions he had seen his master
+kiss Mrs. Holymead, and once he had heard the door of the room in which
+they were together being locked.
+
+Two new witnesses were called to testify to the suggestion of the
+prosecution that illicit relations had existed between Sir Horace
+Fewbanks and Mrs. Holymead. These were Philip Williams, who had been the
+dead man's chauffeur, and Dorothy Mason, who had been housemaid at
+Riversbrook. The chauffeur gave evidence as to meeting Mrs. Holymead's
+car at various places in the country. He formed the opinion from the
+first that these meetings between Sir Horace and the lady were not
+accidental.
+
+The last of the prosecution's witnesses was the legal shorthand writer
+who had taken the official report of the trial of Birchill. In response
+to the request of Mr. Walters, he read from his notebook the final
+passage in the opening address delivered by the prisoner at that trial as
+defending Counsel: "'It is my duty to convince you that my client is not
+guilty, or, in other words, to convince you that the murder was committed
+before he reached the house. It is only with the greatest reluctance that
+I take upon myself the responsibility of pointing an accusing finger at
+another man. In crimes of this kind you cannot expect to get anything but
+circumstantial evidence. But there are degrees of circumstantial
+evidence, and my duty to my client lays upon me the obligation of
+pointing out to you that there is one person against whom the existing
+circumstantial evidence is stronger than it is against my client.'"
+
+Mr. Lethbridge was unexpectedly brief in his opening address. He
+ridiculed the idea that a man like the prisoner, trained in the
+atmosphere of the law, would take the law into his own hands in seeking
+revenge for a wrong that had been done to him. According to the
+prosecution the prisoner had calmly and deliberately carried out this
+murder. He had sent a letter to Sir Horace Fewbanks with the object of
+inducing him to return to London, and had subsequently gone to
+Riversbrook and shot the man who had been his lifelong friend. Could
+anything be more improbable than to suppose that a man of the accused's
+training, intellect, and force of character, would be swayed by a gust of
+passion into committing such a dreadful crime like an immature ignorant
+youth of unbalanced temperament? The discovery that his wife and his
+friend were carrying on an intrigue would be more likely to fill him with
+disgust than inspire him with murderous rage. He would not deny that
+accused had gone up to Riversbrook a few hours after Sir Horace Fewbanks
+returned from Scotland; he would admit that when the accused sought this
+interview he knew that his quondam friend had done him the greatest wrong
+one man could do another; but he emphatically denied that the prisoner
+killed Sir Horace Fewbanks or threatened to take his life.
+
+His learned friend had asked why had not the prisoner gone to the police
+after the murder was discovered and told them that he had seen Sir Horace
+at Riversbrook that night. The answer to that was clear and emphatic. He
+did not want to take the police into his confidence with regard to the
+relations that had existed between his wife and the dead man. He wanted
+to save his wife's name from scandal. Was not that a natural impulse for
+a high-minded man? The prisoner had believed that in due course the
+police would discover the actual murderer, and that in the meantime the
+scandal which threatened his wife's name would be buried with the man who
+had wronged her. If the prisoner could have prevented it his wife's name
+would not have been dragged into this case even for the purpose of saving
+himself from injustice. But the prosecution, in order to establish a
+motive for the crime, had dragged this scandal into light. He did not
+blame the prosecution in the least for that. In fact he was grateful to
+his learned friend for doing so, for it had released him from a promise
+extracted from him by the prisoner not to make any use of the matter in
+his conduct of the case. The defence was that, although the accused man
+had gone to Riversbrook on the night of the 18th of August to accuse Sir
+Horace Fewbanks of base treachery, he went there unarmed, and with no
+intention of committing violence. No threats were used and no shot was
+fired during the interview. And in proof of the latter contention he
+intended to call witnesses to prove that Sir Horace Fewbanks was alive
+after the prisoner had left the house.
+
+The name of Daniel Kemp was loudly called by the ushers, and when Kemp
+crossed the court on the way to the witness-box, Chippenfield and
+Crewe, who had returned to the court after giving their evidence,
+looked at one another.
+
+"He's a dead man," whispered Chippenfield, nodding his head towards the
+prisoner, "if this is a sample of their witnesses."
+
+Kemp had brushed himself up for his appearance in the witness-box. He
+wore a new ready-made tweed suit; his thick neck was encased in a white
+linen collar which he kept fingering with one hand as though trying to
+loosen it for his greater comfort; and his hair had been plastered flat
+on his head with plenty of cold water. His red and scratched chin further
+indicated that he had taken considerable pains with a razor to improve
+his personal appearance in keeping with his unwonted part of a
+respectable witness in a place which knew a more sinister side of him. As
+he stood in the witness-box, awkwardly avoiding the significant glances
+that the Scotland Yard men and the police cast at him, he appeared to be
+more nervous and anxious than he usually was when in the dock. But Crewe,
+who was watching him closely, was struck by the look of dog-like devotion
+he hurriedly cast at the weary face of the man in the dock before he
+commenced to give his evidence.
+
+He told the court a remarkable story. He declared that Birchill had told
+him on the 16th of August that he had a job on at Riversbrook, and had
+asked him to join him in it. When Birchill explained the details witness
+declined to have a hand in it. He did not like these put-up jobs.
+
+Mr. Lethbridge interposed to explain to any particularly unsophisticated
+jurymen that "a put-up job" meant a burglary that had been arranged with
+the connivance of a servant in the house to be broken into.
+
+Kemp declared that the reason he had declined to have anything to do with
+the project to burgle Riversbrook was that he felt sure Hill would squeak
+if the police threatened him when they came to investigate the burglary.
+He happened to be at Hampstead on the evening of the 18th of August and
+he took a walk along Tanton Gardens to have another look at the place
+which Birchill was to break into. It had occurred to him that things
+might not be square, and that Hill might have laid a trap for Birchill.
+That was about 9.30 p.m. He was just able to catch a glimpse of the house
+through the plantation in front of it. The mansion appeared all in
+darkness, but while he looked he was surprised to see a light appear in
+the upper portion of the house which was visible from the road. He went
+through the carriage gates with the intention of getting a closer view of
+the house. As he walked along he heard a quick footstep on the gravel
+walk behind him, and he slipped into the plantation. Looking out from
+behind a tree he could discern the figure of a man walking quickly
+towards the house. As he drew near him the man paused, struck a match and
+looked at his watch, and he saw that it was Mr. Holymead. Witness's
+suspicions in regard to a trap having been laid for Birchill were
+strengthened, and he decided to ascertain what was in the wind. He crept
+through the plantation to the edge of the garden in front of the house.
+From there he could hear voices in a room upstairs. He tried to make out
+what was being said, but he was too far away for that. In about half an
+hour the voices stopped, and a minute later a man came out of the house
+and walked down the path through the garden, and entered the carriage
+drive close to where witness was concealed in the plantation. As he
+passed him witness saw that it was Mr. Holymead.
+
+About five minutes afterwards the window upstairs in the room where the
+voices had come from was opened, and Sir Horace Fewbanks leaned out and
+looked at the sky as if to ascertain what sort of a night it was. He was
+quite certain that it was Sir Horace Fewbanks. He was well acquainted
+with that gentleman's features, having been sentenced by him three years
+ago. Sir Horace seemed quite calm and collected. Witness was so surprised
+to see him, after having been told by Birchill that he was in Scotland,
+that he did not take his eyes off him during the two or three minutes
+that he remained at the window, breathing the night air. Sir Horace was
+fully dressed. He had on a light tweed suit, and he was wearing a soft
+shirt of a light colour, with a stiff collar, and a small black bow tie.
+When Sir Horace closed the window witness jumped over the fence back into
+the wood and made his way to the Hampstead Tube station with the
+intention of warning Birchill that Sir Horace Fewbanks was at home. He
+waited at the station over an hour, and as he did not see Birchill he
+then made his way home. During the time he was in the garden at
+Riversbrook listening to the voices, he heard no sound of a shot. He was
+certain that no shot had been fired inside the house from the time the
+prisoner entered the house until he left. Had a shot been fired witness
+could not have failed to hear it.
+
+There could be no doubt that the effect produced in court by the evidence
+of the witness was extremely favourable to the prisoner. Kemp had told a
+plain, straightforward story. The fact that he had shown no reluctance in
+disclosing in his evidence that he was a criminal and the associate of
+criminals seemed to add to the credibility of his evidence. It was felt
+that he would not have come to court to swear falsely on behalf of a man
+who was so far removed from the class to which he belonged.
+
+While Kemp was giving his evidence, Crewe had despatched a messenger to
+his chambers in Holborn for Joe. When the boy returned with the messenger
+Kemp was still in the witness-box, undergoing an examination at the hands
+of the judge. Sir Henry Hodson seemed to have been impressed by the
+witness's story, for he asked Kemp a number of questions, and entered his
+answers in his notebook.
+
+"Joe," whispered Crewe, as the boy stole noiselessly behind him, "look at
+that man in the witness-box. Have you ever seen him before?"
+
+"Rayther, guv'nor!" whispered the boy in reply. "Why, it's 'im who tried
+to frighten me in the loft if I didn't promise to give up watching Mr.
+Holymead."
+
+"You are quite certain, Joe?"
+
+"Certain sure, guv'nor. There ain't no charnst of me mistaking a man
+like that."
+
+Crewe listened intently to Kemp's evidence, and he watched the man's face
+as he swore that he had seen Sir Horace Fewbanks leaning out of the
+window after Holymead had left the house. He hastily took out a notebook,
+scribbled a few lines on one of the leaves, tore it out, and beckoned to
+a court usher.
+
+"Take that to Mr. Walters," he whispered.
+
+The man did so. Mr. Walters opened the note, adjusted his glasses and
+read it. He started with surprise, read the note through again, then
+turned round as though in search of the writer. When he saw Crewe he
+raised his eyebrows interrogatively, and the detective nodded
+emphatically.
+
+Mr. Lethbridge sat down, having finished his examination of Kemp. Mr.
+Walters, with another glance at Crewe's note, rose slowly in his place.
+
+"I ask Your Honour that I may be allowed to defer until the morning my
+cross-examination of this witness," he said. "I am, of course, in Your
+Honour's hands in this matter, but I can assure Your Honour that it is
+desirable--highly desirable--in the interests of justice that the
+cross-examination of the witness should be postponed."
+
+"I protest, Your Honour, against the cross-examination of the witness
+being deferred," said Mr. Lethbridge. "There is no justification of it."
+
+"I would urge Your Honour to accede to my request," said Mr. Walters. "It
+is a matter of the utmost importance."
+
+"Is your next witness available, Mr. Lethbridge?" asked the judge.
+
+"Surely, Your Honour, you're not going to allow the cross-examination of
+this witness to be postponed?" protested Mr. Lethbridge. "My learned
+friend has given no reason for such a course."
+
+Sir Henry Hodson looked at the court clock.
+
+"It is now within a quarter of an hour of the ordinary time for
+adjournment," he began. "I think the fairest way out of the difficulty
+will be to adjourn the court now until to-morrow morning."
+
+There was a loud buzz of conversation when the court adjourned. After
+asking Chippenfield and Rolfe to wait for him, Crewe made his way to Mr.
+Walters, and, after a few whispered words with that gentleman, Mr.
+Mathers, his junior, and Mr. Salter, the instructing solicitor, he
+returned to Chippenfield and Rolfe and asked them to accompany him in a
+taxi-cab to Riversbrook.
+
+"What do you want to go out there for?" asked Inspector
+Chippenfield. "You don't expect to discover anything there this late
+in the day, do you?"
+
+"I want to find out whether this man Kemp is lying or telling the truth."
+
+"Of course he is lying," replied the positive police official. "When
+you've had as much experience with criminals as I have had, Mr. Crewe,
+you won't expect a word of truth from any of them."
+
+"Well, let us go to Riversbrook and prove that he is lying," said Crewe.
+
+"We'll go with you," said Inspector Chippenfield, speaking for Rolfe and
+himself. He did not understand how Crewe expected to obtain any evidence
+at Riversbrook about the truth or falsity of Kemp's story, but he did not
+intend to admit that. "But you can set your mind at rest. No jury will
+believe Kemp after we've given them his record in cross-examination."
+
+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."
+
+"Why, that explains it!" exclaims Crewe, in the voice of a man who had
+solved a difficulty.
+
+"Explains what?" asked Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+"Explains why her father has taken the risk of coming forward in this
+case to give evidence for Holymead. Gratitude for what Holymead had done
+for his girl while he was in prison. My experience of criminals is that
+they frequently show more real gratitude to those who do them a good turn
+than people in a respectable walk of life. Besides, you know what a
+sentimental value people of his class attach to seeing their kin buried
+decently. If Holymead hadn't come forward the girl would have been buried
+as a pauper, in all probability."
+
+"But I don't see that old Kemp is taking much risk," said Inspector
+Chippenfield. "He is only perjuring himself, and he is too used to that
+to regard it as a risk."
+
+"Don't you think he will be in an awkward position if the jury were to
+acquit Holymead?" asked Crewe. "One jury has already said that Sir Horace
+Fewbanks was dead when Birchill broke into the house, and if this jury
+believes Kemp's story and says Sir Horace was alive when Holymead left
+it, don't you think Kemp will conclude that it will be best for him to
+disappear? Some one must have killed Sir Horace after Holymead left, and
+before Birchill arrived."
+
+"Whew! I never thought of that," said Rolfe candidly.
+
+"Kemp is a liar from first to last," said Inspector Chippenfield
+decisively.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+When they reached Riversbrook they entered the carriage drive and
+traversed the plantation until they stood on the edge of the Italian
+garden facing the house. The gaunt, irregular mansion stood empty and
+deserted, for Miss Fewbanks had left the place after her father's
+funeral, with the determination not to return to it. The wind whistled
+drearily through the nooks and crannies of the unfinished brickwork of
+the upper story, and a faint evening mist rose from the soddened garden
+and floated in a thin cloud past the library window, as though the ghost
+of the dead judge were revisiting the house in search of his murderer.
+The garden had lost its summer beauty and was littered with dead leaves
+from the trees. The gathering greyness of an autumn twilight added to the
+dreariness of the scene.
+
+"Kemp didn't say how far he stood from the house," said Crewe, "but we'll
+assume he stood at the edge of the plantation--about where we are
+standing now--to begin with. How far are we from that library window,
+Chippenfield?"
+
+"About fifty yards, I should say," said the inspector, measuring it
+with his eye.
+
+"I should say seventy," said Rolfe.
+
+"And I say somewhere midway between the two," said Crewe, with a smile.
+"But we will soon see. Just hold down the end of this measuring tape, one
+of you." He produced a measuring tape as he spoke, and started to unwind
+it, walking rapidly towards the house as he did so. "Sixty-two yards!" he
+said, as he returned. He made a note of the distance in his pocket-book.
+"So much for that," he said, "but that's not enough. I want you to stand
+under the library window, Rolfe, by that chestnut-tree in front of it,
+and act as pivot for the measuring tape while I look at that window from
+various angles. My idea is to go in a semicircle right round the garden,
+starting at the garage by the edge of the wood, so as to see the library
+window and measure the distance at every possible point at which Kemp
+could have stood."
+
+"You're going to a lot of trouble for nothing, if your object is to try
+and prove that he couldn't have seen into the window," grunted Inspector
+Chippenfield, in a mystified voice. "Why, I can see plainly into the
+window from here."
+
+Crewe smiled, but did not reply. Followed by Rolfe, he went back to the
+tree by the library window, where he posted Rolfe with the end of the
+tape in his hand. Then he walked slowly back across the garden in the
+direction of the garage, keeping his eye on the library window on the
+first floor from which Kemp, according to his evidence, had seen Sir
+Horace leaning out after Holymead had left the house. He returned to the
+tree, noting the measurement in his book as he did so, and then repeated
+the process, walking backwards with his eye fixed on the window, but this
+time taking a line more to the left. Again and again he repeated the
+process, until finally he had walked backwards from the tree in narrow
+segments of a big semicircle, finishing up on the boundary of the Italian
+garden on the other side of the grounds, and almost directly opposite to
+the garage from which he had started.
+
+"There's no use going further back than that," he said, turning to
+Inspector Chippenfield, who had followed him round, smoking one of
+Crewe's cigars, and very much mystified by the whole proceedings, though
+he would not have admitted it on any account. "At this point we
+practically lose sight of the window altogether, except for an oblique
+glimpse. Certainly Kemp would not come as far back as this--he would have
+no object in doing so."
+
+"I quite agree with you," said Inspector Chippenfield. "He would stand
+more in the front of the house. The tree in front of the house doesn't
+obstruct the view of the window to any extent."
+
+The tree to which Inspector Chippenfield referred was a solitary
+chestnut-tree, which grew close to the house a little distance from the
+main entrance, and reached to a height of about forty feet. Its branches
+were entirely bare of leaves, for the autumn frosts and winds had swept
+the foliage away.
+
+Rolfe, who had been watching Crewe's manoeuvres curiously, walked up to
+them with the tape in his hand. He glanced at the library window on the
+first floor as he reached them.
+
+"Kemp could have seen the library window if he had stood here," he said.
+"I should say that if the blind were up it would be possible to see right
+into the room."
+
+"What do you say, Chippenfield?" asked Crewe, turning to that officer.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield had taken his stand stolidly on the centre path of
+the Italian garden, directly in front of the window of the library.
+
+"I say Kemp is a liar," he replied, knocking the ash off his cigar. "A
+d----d liar," he added emphatically. "I don't believe he was here at all
+that night."
+
+"But if he was here, do you think he saw Sir Horace leaning out of
+the window?"
+
+"I don't see what was to prevent him," was the reply. "But my point is
+that he was a liar and that he wasn't here at all."
+
+"And you, Rolfe--do you think Kemp could have seen Sir Horace leaning out
+of the window if he had been here?"
+
+"I should say so," remarked Rolfe, in a somewhat puzzled tone.
+
+"I am sorry I cannot agree with either of you," said Crewe. "I think Kemp
+was here, but I am sure he couldn't have seen Sir Horace from the window.
+Kemp has been up here during the past few days in order to prepare his
+evidence, and he's been led astray by a very simple mistake. If a man
+were to lean outside the library window now there would not be much
+difficulty in identifying him, but when the murder took place it would
+have been impossible to see him from any part of the garden or grounds."
+
+"Why?" demanded Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+"Because it was the middle of summer when Sir Horace Fewbanks was
+murdered. At that time that chestnut-tree would be in full leaf, and the
+foliage would hide the window completely. Look at the number of branches
+the tree has! They stretch all over the window and even round the corners
+of that unfinished brickwork on the first floor by the side of the
+library window. A man could no more see through that tree in summer time
+than he could see through a stone wall."
+
+"What did I tell you?" exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield in the voice of a
+man whose case had been fully proved. "Didn't I say Kemp was a liar?
+We'll call evidence in rebuttal to prove that he is a liar--that he
+couldn't have seen the window. And after Holymead is convicted I'll see
+if I cannot get a warrant out for Kemp for perjury."
+
+"And yet Kemp did see Sir Horace that night," said Crewe quietly.
+
+"How do you know? What makes you say that?" The inspector was
+unpleasantly startled by Crewe's contention.
+
+"He was able to describe accurately how Sir Horace was dressed--for one
+thing," responded Crewe.
+
+"He might have got that from Seldon's evidence," said Inspector
+Chippenfield thoughtfully. "He may have had some one in court to tell him
+what Seldon said."
+
+"You do not think Lethbridge would be a party to such tactics?" said
+Crewe. "No, no. One could tell from the way he examined Seldon and Kemp
+on the point that it was in his brief."
+
+"But the fact that Kemp knew how Sir Horace was dressed doesn't prove
+that he saw Sir Horace after Holymead left the house," said Rolfe. "Kemp
+may have seen Sir Horace before Holymead arrived."
+
+"Quite true, Rolfe," said Crewe. "I haven't lost sight of that point. I
+think you will agree with me that there is a bit of a mystery here which
+wants clearing up."
+
+They drove back to town, and, in accordance with the arrangement Crewe
+had made with Mr. Walters before leaving the court, they waited on that
+gentleman at his chambers in Lincoln's Inn. There Crewe told him of the
+result of their investigations at Riversbrook. Mr. Walters was
+professionally pleased at the prospect of destroying the evidence of
+Kemp. He was not a hard-hearted man, and personally he would have
+preferred to see Holymead acquitted, if that were possible, but as the
+prosecuting Counsel he felt a professional satisfaction in being placed
+in the position to expose perjured evidence.
+
+"Excellent! excellent!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands with
+gratification as he spoke. "Knowing what we know now, it will be a
+comparatively easy task to expose the witness Kemp under
+cross-examination, and show his evidence to be false." Mr. Walters looked
+as though he relished the prospect.
+
+It was arranged that Inspector Chippenfield should be called to give
+evidence in rebuttal as to the impossibility of seeing the library
+window through the tree, and that an arboriculturist should also be
+called. Mr. Walters agreed to have the expert in attendance at the court
+in the morning.
+
+But Crewe had something more on his mind, and he waited until
+Chippenfield and Rolfe had taken their departure in order to put his
+views before the prosecuting counsel. Then he pointed out to him that to
+prove that Kemp's evidence was false was merely to obtain a negative
+result. What he wanted was a positive result. In other words, he wanted
+Kemp's true story.
+
+"You do not think, then, that Kemp is merely committing perjury in order
+to get Holymead off?" asked Walters meditatively. "You think he is hiding
+something?"
+
+Crewe replied, with his faint, inscrutable smile, that he had no doubt
+whatever that such was the case. He thought Kemp's true story might be
+obtained if Walters directed his cross-examination to obtaining the truth
+instead of merely to exposing falsehood. It was evident to him that Kemp
+had come forward in order to save the prisoner. How far was he prepared
+to go in carrying out that object? When he was made to realise that his
+perjury, instead of helping Holymead, had helped to convince the jury of
+the prisoner's guilt, would he tell the true story of how much he knew?
+
+"My own opinion is that he will," continued Crewe. "I studied his face
+very closely while he was in the box to-day, and I am convinced he would
+go far--even to telling the truth--in order to save the only man who was
+ever kind to him."
+
+Walters was slow in coming round to Crewe's point of view. He had a high
+opinion of Crewe, for in his association with the case he had realised
+how skilfully Crewe had worked out the solution of the Riversbrook
+mystery. But he took the view that now the case was before the court it
+was entirely a matter for the legal profession to deal with. He pointed
+out to Crewe the professional view that his own duty did not extend
+beyond the exposure of Kemp's perjury. It was not his duty to give Kemp a
+second chance--an opportunity to qualify his evidence. He believed the
+defence had called Kemp in the belief that his evidence was true, but the
+defence must take the consequences if they built up their case on
+perjured evidence which they had not taken the trouble to sift.
+
+Crewe entered into the professional view sympathetically, but he was not
+to be turned from his purpose. He felt that too much was at stake, and he
+lifted the discussion out of the atmosphere of professional procedure
+into that of their common manhood.
+
+"Walters, I know you are not a vain man," he said, earnestly. "A personal
+triumph in this case means even less to you than it does to me. I have
+built up what I regard as an overwhelming case against Holymead. But it
+is based on circumstantial evidence, and I would willingly see the whole
+thing toppled over if by that means we could get the final truth. This
+man Kemp knows the truth, and you are in a position in which you can get
+the truth from him. It may be the last chance anyone will have of getting
+it. Apart from all questions of professional procedure, isn't there an
+obligation upon you to get at the truth?"
+
+"If you put it that way, I believe there is," replied Walters slowly and
+meditatively. There was a pause, and then he spoke with a sudden impulse.
+"Yes, Crewe; you can depend on me. I'll do my best."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+The public interest in the Holymead trial on the second day was even
+greater than on the first. It was realised that Kemp's evidence had
+given an unexpected turn to the proceedings, and that if it could be
+substantiated the jury's verdict would be "not guilty." There were
+confident persons who insisted that Kemp's evidence was sufficient to
+acquit the prisoner. But every one grasped the fact that the Counsel
+for the prosecution, by his action in applying for an adjournment of
+the cross-examination of Kemp, clearly realised that his case was in
+danger if the evidence of the first witness for the defence could not
+be broken down.
+
+The public appetite for sensation having been whetted by sensational
+newspaper reports of the latest phase of the Riversbrook mystery, there
+was a great rush of people to the Old Bailey early on the morning of the
+second day to witness the final stages of the trial. The queue in Newgate
+Street commenced to assemble at daybreak, and grew longer and longer as
+the day wore on, but it was composed of persons who did not know that
+there was not the slightest possibility of their gaining admittance to
+Number One Court. The policeman who was invested with the duty of keeping
+the queue close to the wall of the building forbore to break this sad
+news to them. Being faithful to the limitations of the official mind, he
+believed that the right thing to do was to let the people in the queue
+receive this important information from the sergeant inside. How was he
+to know without authority from his superior officer that any of these
+people wanted to be admitted to Number One Court? So the policeman pared
+his nails, gallantly "minding" the places of pretty girls in the queue
+who, worn out by hours of waiting in the cold, desired to slip away to a
+neighbouring tea-shop to get a cup of tea before the court opened, and
+sternly rebuking enterprising youths who endeavoured to wedge themselves
+in ahead of their proper place.
+
+The body of the court was packed before the proceedings commenced. The
+number of ladies present was even greater than on the first day, and the
+resources of the ushers were severely taxed to find accommodation for
+them all. In the back row Crewe noticed Mrs. Holymead, accompanied by
+Mademoiselle Chiron. They had not been in court on the previous day. Mrs.
+Holymead seemed anxious to escape notice, but Crewe could see that
+although she looked anxious and distressed, she was buoyed up by a new
+hope, which doubtless had come to her since Kemp had given his evidence.
+
+There was an expectant silence in the court when Mr. Justice Hodson took
+his seat and the names of the jurymen were called over. Kemp entered the
+witness-box with a more confident air than he had worn the previous day.
+Mr. Walters rose to begin his cross-examination, and the witness faced
+the barrister with the air of an old hand who knew the game, and was not
+to be caught by any legal tricks or traps.
+
+"You said yesterday, witness," commenced Mr. Walters, adjusting his
+glasses and glancing from his brief to the witness and from the witness
+back to the brief again, "that you saw the prisoner enter the gate at
+Riversbrook about 9.30 on the night of the 18th of August?"
+
+"Yes." The monosyllable was flung out as insolently as possible. The
+speaker watched his interrogator with the lowering eyes of a man at
+war with society, and who realised that he was facing one of his
+natural enemies.
+
+"Did he see you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You are quite sure of that?"
+
+"Haven't I just said so?"
+
+"Do not be insolent, witness"--it was the judge's warning voice that
+broke into the cross-examination--"answer the questions."
+
+"How long was it after the prisoner entered the carriage drive that you
+went to the edge of the plantation and heard voices upstairs?" continued
+Mr. Walters.
+
+"I went as soon as Mr. Holymead passed me."
+
+"How far were you from the house?"
+
+"About sixty yards."
+
+"And from that distance you could hear the voices?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Plainly?"
+
+"Not very. I could hear the voices, but I couldn't hear what they
+were saying."
+
+"Were they angry voices?"
+
+"They seemed to me to be talking loudly."
+
+"Yet you couldn't hear what they were saying?"
+
+"No; I was sixty yards away."
+
+"You said in your evidence in chief that the talking continued half an
+hour. Did you time it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then what made you swear that?"
+
+"I said about half an hour. I smoked out a pipeful of tobacco while I was
+standing there, and that would be about half an hour." Kemp disclosed his
+broken teeth in a faint grin.
+
+"What happened next?"
+
+"I heard the front door slam, and I saw somebody walking across the
+garden, and go into the carriage drive towards the gate."
+
+"Did you recognise who it was?"
+
+"Yes; Mr. Holymead." Kemp looked at the prisoner as he gave the answer.
+
+"You swear it was the prisoner?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Let me recall your evidence in chief, witness. You swore that you
+identified Mr. Holymead as he went in because he struck a match to look
+at the time as he passed you, and you saw his face. Did he strike
+matches as he went out?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then how are you able to swear so positively as to his identity in
+the dark?"
+
+Kemp considered a moment before replying.
+
+"Because I know him well and I was close to him," he said at length. "I
+was close enough to him almost to touch him. I knew him by his walk, and
+by the look of him. It was him right enough, I'll swear to that."
+
+"I put it to you, witness," persisted Counsel, "that you could not
+positively identify a man in a plantation at that time of night. Do you
+still swear it was Mr. Holymead?"
+
+"I do," replied Kemp doggedly.
+
+"What did you do then?"
+
+"I stayed where I was."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I don't know. I didn't have any particular reason. I just stayed there
+watching."
+
+"Did you think the prisoner might return?"
+
+"No," replied the witness quickly. "Why should I think that?"
+
+"How long did you stay watching the house?"
+
+"It might be a matter of ten minutes more."
+
+"And the prisoner didn't return during that time?"
+
+"No," replied the witness emphatically.
+
+"What did you do after that?"
+
+"I went to the Tube station."
+
+"Prisoner might have returned after you left?"
+
+"I suppose he might," replied the witness reluctantly.
+
+"Well, now, witness, you say you stayed ten minutes after Holymead left,
+and during that time Sir Horace opened the window and leaned out of it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You saw him distinctly?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are sure it was Sir Horace Fewbanks?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Now, witness," said Mr. Walters, suddenly changing his tone to one of
+more severity than he had previously used, "you have told us that you
+heard Sir Horace Fewbanks and the prisoner in the library while you stood
+in the wood by the garage, and that subsequently you saw Sir Horace
+leaning out of the window after the prisoner had gone. You are quite sure
+you were able to see and hear all this from where you stood?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Are you aware, witness, that there is a large chestnut-tree at the side
+of the library, in front of the window?"
+
+Kemp considered for a moment.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"And did not that tree obstruct your view of the library window?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Witness," said Mr. Walters solemnly, "listen to me. This tree did not
+obstruct your view when you went to Riversbrook a week or so ago to
+decide on the nature of the evidence you would give in this court. It is
+bare of leaves now, and you could see the library window and even see
+into the library from where you stood. But I put it to you that on the
+18th of August, when this tree was covered with its summer foliage, you
+could no more have seen the library window behind its branches than you
+could have seen the inhabitants of Mars. What answer have you got to
+that, witness?"
+
+There was a slight stir in court--an expression of the feeling of tension
+among the spectators. Kemp drew the back of his hand across his lips,
+then moistened his lips with his tongue.
+
+"Come, witness, give me an answer," thundered prosecuting Counsel.
+
+"I tell you I saw him after Mr. Holymead had left," declared Kemp
+defiantly. His voice had suddenly become hoarse.
+
+To the surprise of the members of the legal profession who were in
+court, Mr. Walters, instead of pressing home his advantage, switched off
+to something else.
+
+"I believe you have a feeling of gratitude towards the prisoner?" he
+asked, in a milder tone.
+
+"I have," said Kemp. His defiant, insolent attitude had suddenly
+vanished, and he gave the impression of a man who feared that every
+question contained a trap.
+
+"He did something for a relative of yours which at that time greatly
+relieved your mind?"
+
+"He did, and I'll never forget it."
+
+"Well, we won't go further into that at present. But it is a fact that
+you would like to do him a good turn?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You came here with the intention of doing him a good turn?"
+
+Kemp considered for a moment before answering:
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You came here with the intention of giving evidence that would
+get him off?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You came here with the intention of committing perjury in order to get
+him off?" Mr. Walters waited, but there was no reply to the question, and
+he added, "You see what your perjured evidence has done for him?"
+
+"What has it done?" asked Kemp sullenly.
+
+"It has established the prisoner's guilt beyond all reasonable doubt in
+the minds of men of common sense. You did not see Sir Horace Fewbanks
+that night after the prisoner left him. You could not have seen him even
+if he had leaned out of the window. But your whole story is a lie,
+because Sir Horace was dead when the prisoner left him."
+
+"He was not," shouted Kemp. "I saw him alive. I saw him as plain as I
+see you now."
+
+The man in court who was most fascinated by the witness was Crewe. He
+had watched every movement of Kemp's face, every change in the tone of
+his voice.
+
+"I wonder what the fool will say next," whispered Inspector
+Chippenfield to Crewe.
+
+"He will tell us how Sir Horace Fewbanks was shot," was Crewe's reply.
+
+Mr. Walters approached a step nearer to the witness-box. "You saw him as
+plainly as you see me now?" he repeated.
+
+"Yes," declared Kemp, who, it was evident, was labouring under great
+excitement. "You say I came here to commit perjury if it would get him
+off." He pointed with a dramatic finger to the man in the dock. "I did.
+And I came here to get him off by telling the truth if perjury didn't do
+it. You say I've helped to put the rope round his neck. But I'm man
+enough to tell the truth. I'll get him off even if I have to swing for
+it myself."
+
+This outburst from the witness-box created a sensation in court. Many of
+the spectators stood up in order to get a better view of the witness, and
+some of the ladies even jumped on their seats. Mr. Justice Hodson was
+momentarily taken aback. His first instinct was to check the witness and
+to ask him to be calm, but the witness took no notice of him. He
+displayed his judicial authority by an impressive descent of an uplifted
+hand which compelled the unruly spectators to resume their seats.
+
+It was on Mr. Walters that Kemp concentrated his attention. It was Mr.
+Walters whom he set himself to convince as if he were the man who could
+set the prisoner free. Of the rest of the people in court Kemp in his
+excitement had become oblivious.
+
+"Listen to me," said Kemp, "and I'll tell you who shot this scoundrel. He
+was a scoundrel, I say, and he ought to have been in gaol himself instead
+of sending other people there. I went up to the house that night to see
+if everything was clear, or whether that cur Hill had laid a trap--that
+part of my evidence is true. And from behind a tree in the plantation I
+saw Mr. Holymead pass me--he struck a match to look at the time, and I
+saw his face distinctly. A few minutes afterwards I heard loud, angry
+voices coming from somewhere upstairs in the house. I thought the best
+thing I could do was to find out what it was about. I said to myself that
+Mr. Holymead might want help. I walked across the garden and found that
+the hall door was wide open. I went inside and crept upstairs to the
+library. The light in the hall was turned on, as well as a little lamp on
+the turn of the staircase behind a marble figure holding some curtains,
+which led the way to the library. The library door was open an inch or
+two, and I listened.
+
+"I could hear them quite plainly. Mr. Holymead was telling him what he
+thought of him. And no wonder. It made my blood boil to think of such a
+scoundrel sitting on the bench and sentencing better men than himself. I
+thought of the way in which he had killed my girl by giving her five
+years. It was the shock that killed her. Five years for stealing
+nothing, for she didn't handle the jewels. And here he had been stealing
+a man's wife and nothing said except what Mr. Holymead called him. I
+stood there listening in case they started to fight, and I might be
+wanted. But they didn't.
+
+"I heard Mr. Holymead step towards the door, and I slipped away from
+where I had been standing. I saw the door of another room near me, and I
+opened it and went in quickly. I closed the door behind me, but I did not
+shut it. I looked through the crack and saw Mr. Holymead making his way
+downstairs. He walked as if he didn't see anything, and I watched him
+till he went through the curtains on the stairs at the bend of the
+staircase and I could see him no more.
+
+"Then I heard a step, and looking through the crack I saw the judge
+coming out of the library. He walked to the head of the stairs and began
+to walk slowly down them. But when he reached the bend where the curtains
+and the marble figure were, he turned round and walked up the stairs
+again. He walked along as though he was thinking, with his hands behind
+his back, and nodding his head a little, and a little cruel, crafty smile
+on his face. He passed so close to me that I could have touched him by
+putting out my hand, and he went into the library again, leaving the door
+open behind him.
+
+"Then suddenly, as I stood there, the thought came over me to go in to
+him and tell him what I thought about him. I opened the door softly so as
+not to frighten him, and walked out into the passage and into the
+library, and as I did so I took my revolver out of my pocket and carried
+it in my hand. I wasn't going to shoot him, but I meant to hold him up
+while I told him the truth.
+
+"He was standing at the opposite side of the room with his back towards
+me and a book in his hand, but a board creaked as I stepped on it, and he
+swung round quickly. He was surprised to see me, and no mistake. 'What do
+you want here?' he said, in a sharp voice, and I could see by the way he
+eyed the revolver that he was frightened. Then I opened out on him and
+told him off for the damned scoundrel he was. And he didn't like that
+either. He edged away to a corner, but I kept following him round the
+room telling him what I thought of him. And seeing him so frightened, I
+put the revolver back in my pocket and walked close to him while I told
+him all the things I could think of.
+
+"As I thought of my poor girl that he'd killed I grew savage, and I told
+him that I had a good mind to break every bone in his body. He threatened
+to have me arrested for breaking into the place, but I only laughed and
+hit him across the face. He backed away from me with a wicked look in his
+eyes, and I followed him. He backed quickly towards the door, and before
+I knew what game he was up to he made a dart out of the room. But I was
+too quick for him. I got him at the head of the stairs and dragged him
+back into the room and shut the door and stood with my back against it.
+I told him I hadn't finished with him. I had mastered him so quickly, and
+was able to handle him so easily, that I didn't watch him as closely as I
+ought to have done. He had backed away to his desk with his hand behind
+him, and suddenly he brought it up with a revolver in his hand.
+
+"'Now it's my turn,' he said to me with his cunning smile. Throw up
+your hands.'
+
+"I saw then it was man for man. If I let him take me I was in for a
+good seven years. I'd sooner be dead than do seven years for him.
+'Shoot and be damned,' I said. I ducked as I spoke, and as I ducked I
+made a dive with my hand for my hip pocket where I had put my revolver.
+He fired and missed. He fired again, but his toy revolver missed fire,
+for I heard the hammer click. But that was his last chance. I fired at
+his heart and he dropped beside the desk, I didn't wait for anything
+more--I bolted. I got tangled in the staircase curtains and fell down
+the stairs. As I was falling I thought what a nice trap I would be in
+if I broke my leg and had to lie there until the police came. But I
+wasn't much hurt and I got up and dashed out of the house and over the
+fence into the wood, the way I came."
+
+He stopped, and his gaze wandered round the hushed court till it rested
+on the prisoner, who with his hands grasping the rail of the dock had
+leaned forward in order to catch every word. Kemp turned his gaze from
+the man in the dock to the man in the scarlet robe on the bench, and it
+was to the judge that he addressed his concluding words.
+
+"You can call it murder, you can call it manslaughter, you can call it
+justifiable homicide, you can call it what you like, but what I say is
+that the man you have in the dock had nothing to do with it. It was me
+that killed him. Let him go, and put me in his place."
+
+He held his hands outstretched with the wrists together as though waiting
+for the handcuffs to be placed on them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+An hour after the trial Crewe entered the chambers of Mr. Walters, K.C.
+
+"I congratulate you on the way you handled him in the witness-box," said
+Crewe, who was warmly welcomed by the barrister. "You did splendidly to
+get it all out of him--and so dramatically too."
+
+"I think it is you who deserves all the congratulations," replied
+Walters. "If it had not been for you there would not have been such a
+sensational development at the trial and in all probability Kemp's
+evidence would have got Holymead off."
+
+"Yes, I'm glad to think that Holymead would have got off even if I hadn't
+seen through Kemp," replied Crewe thoughtfully. "I made a bad mistake in
+being so confident that he was the guilty man."
+
+"The completeness of the circumstantial evidence against him was
+extraordinary," said Walters, to whom the legal aspects of the case
+appealed. "Personally I am inclined to blame Holymead himself for the
+predicament in which he was placed. If he had gone to the police after
+the murder was discovered, told them the story of his visit to Sir Horace
+that night, and invited investigation into the truth of it, all would
+have been well."
+
+"No," said Crewe in a voice which indicated a determination not to have
+himself absolved at the expense of another. "The fact that he did not do
+what he ought to have done does not mitigate my sin of having had the
+wrong man arrested. The mistake I made was in not going to see him before
+the warrant was taken out. If I had had a quiet talk with him I think I
+would have been able to discover a flaw in my case against him. What
+made me confident it was flawless was the fact that both his wife and her
+French cousin believed him to be guilty. Mademoiselle Chiron followed
+Holymead from the country on the 18th of August with the intention of
+averting a tragedy. She arrived at Riversbrook too late for that, but in
+time to see Sir Horace expire, and naturally she thought that Holymead
+had shot him. When Mrs. Holymead realised that I also suspected her
+husband and had accumulated some evidence against him, she sent
+Mademoiselle Chiron to me with a concocted story of how the murder had
+been committed by a more or less mythical husband belonging to
+Mademoiselle's past. Ostensibly the reason for the visit of this
+extremely clever French girl was to induce me to deal with Rolfe, who had
+begun to suspect Mrs. Holymead of some complicity in the crime; but the
+real reason was to convince me that I was on the wrong track in
+suspecting Holymead. Of course she said nothing to me on that point. She
+produced evidence which convinced me that she was in the room when Sir
+Horace died, and, as I was quite sure that she believed Holymead to be
+guilty, I felt that there could be no doubt whatever of his guilt."
+
+"It is one of the most extraordinary cases on record--one of the most
+extraordinary trials," said Walters. "You blame yourself for having had
+Holymead arrested but you have more than redeemed yourself by the final
+discovery when Kemp was in the witness-box that he was the guilty man.
+That was an inspiration."
+
+"Hardly that," said Crewe with a smile. "I knew when he swore that he had
+seen Sir Horace leaning out of the library window that he was lying.
+After the murder was discovered I inspected the house and grounds
+carefully, and one of the first things of which I took a mental note was
+the fact that the foliage of the chestnut-tree completely hid the only
+window of the library."
+
+"Ah, but there is a difference between knowing Kemp was committing
+perjury and knowing that he was the guilty man."
+
+"There is at least a distinct connection between the two facts," said
+Crewe, who after his mistake in regard to Holymead was reluctant to
+accept any praise. "Kemp's description of the way in which Sir Horace was
+dressed showed that he had seen him. The inference that Kemp had been
+inside the house was irresistible. Sir Horace had arrived home at 7
+o'clock and it was not likely that Kemp would hang about Riversbrook--the
+scene of a prospective burglary--until after dark, which at that time of
+the year would be about 8.30. He must have seen Sir Horace after dark,
+and in order to be able to say how the judge was dressed he must have
+seen him at close quarters. The rest was a matter of simple deduction.
+Kemp inside the house listening to the angry interview between Holymead
+and Fewbanks--Kemp with his hatred of the judge who had killed his
+daughter in the dock and with his desire to do Holymead a good turn--I
+had previously had proof of that from my boy Joe, whom you have seen.
+Besides Kemp fitted into my reconstruction of the tragedy on the vital
+question of time. How long did Sir Horace live after being shot? The
+medical opinions I was able to obtain on the point varied, but after
+sifting them I came to the conclusion that though he might have lived for
+half an hour, it was more probable that he had died within ten minutes of
+being hit."
+
+"How is that vital?" asked Walters, who was keenly interested in
+understanding how Crewe had arrived at his conviction of Kemp's guilt.
+
+"Holymead's appointment with Sir Horace at Riversbrook was for 9.30 p.m.
+The letter found in Sir Horace's pocket-book fixed that time. It was
+exactly 11 p.m. when he got into a taxi at Hyde Park Corner after his
+visit to Riversbrook. On that point the driver of the taxi was absolutely
+certain. I was so anxious for him to make it 11.30 that I went to see him
+twice about it. Assuming that Holymead arrived at Riversbrook at 9.30, I
+allowed half an hour for his angry interview with Sir Horace, half an
+hour for the walk from Riversbrook to Hampstead Tube station, and half an
+hour for the journey from Hampstead to Hyde Park Corner, which would have
+involved a change at Leicester Square. As I could not induce the driver
+of the taxi to make Holymead's appearance at Hyde Park Corner 11.30
+instead of 11, I had to admit that Holymead must have left Riversbrook at
+10. But it was 10.30 according to Mademoiselle Chiron when she found Sir
+Horace dying on the floor of the library. Therefore if Holymead did the
+shooting, the victim's death agonies must have lasted half an hour or
+more. Medically that was not impossible, but somewhat improbable. But a
+meeting between Kemp and Sir Horace after Holymead had gone filled in the
+blank in time. That came home to me yesterday when Kemp was in the
+witness-box committing perjury in his determination to get Holymead off.
+I take it that the interview between Kemp and his victim lasted about 20
+minutes. Therefore Sir Horace was shot about 10.20; certainly before
+10.30, for Mademoiselle heard no shots while nearing the house."
+
+"You have worked it out very ingeniously," said Walters. "You must find
+the work of crime detection very fascinating. I am afraid that if I had
+been in your place--that is if I had known as much about the tragedy as
+you do--when Kemp was in the witness-box yesterday, I would not have seen
+anything more in his evidence than the fact that he was committing
+perjury in order to help Holymead."
+
+"I think you would," said Crewe. "These discoveries come to one naturally
+as the result of training one's mind in a particular direction."
+
+"They come to you, but they wouldn't come to me," said Walters with a
+smile. "But do you think Kemp's story of how Sir Horace was shot is
+literally true? Do you think Sir Horace got in the first shot and then
+tried to fire again? If that is so, I don't see how they can hope to
+convict Kemp of murder--a jury would not go beyond a verdict of
+manslaughter in such a case."
+
+"You handled Kemp so well that he was too excited to tell anything but
+the truth," said Crewe. "Sir Horace fired first and missed--the bullet
+which Chippenfield removed from the wall of the library shows that--and
+he pulled the trigger again but the cartridge which had been in the
+revolver for a considerable time, probably for years, missed fire. Here
+is a silent witness to the truth of that part of Kemp's story."
+
+Crewe produced from a waistcoat pocket one of the four cartridges he had
+removed from the revolver Mademoiselle Chiron had handed to him and he
+placed it on the table. On the cap of the cartridge was a mark where the
+hammer had struck without exploding the powder.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10082 ***
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #10082 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10082)
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Hampstead Mystery , by John R. Watson, et
+al
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Hampstead Mystery
+
+Author: John R. Watson
+
+Release Date: November 14, 2003  [eBook #10082]
+[Date last updated: December 22, 2004]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY ***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+THE HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY
+
+BY JOHN R. WATSON & ARTHUR J. REES
+
+1916
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TO ARTHUR BLACK IN MEMORY OF OLD TIMES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+"Hallo! Is that Hampstead Police Station?"
+
+"Yes. Who are you?"
+
+"Detective-Inspector Chippenfield of Scotland Yard. Tell Inspector Seldon
+I want him, and be quick about it."
+
+"Yes, sir. Hang on, sir. I'll put you through to him at once."
+
+Detective-Inspector Chippenfield, of Scotland Yard, waited with the
+receiver held to his ear. While he waited he scrutinised keenly a sheet
+of paper which lay on the desk in front of him. It was a flimsy,
+faintly-ruled sheet from a cheap writing-pad, blotted and soiled, and
+covered with sprawling letters which had been roughly printed at
+irregular intervals as though to hide the identity of the writer. But the
+letters formed words, and the words read:
+
+SIR HORACE FEWBANKS WAS MURDERED LAST NIGHT
+
+WHO DID IT I DONT KNOW SO IT IS NO USE TRYING TO FIND OUT WHO I AM YOU
+WILL FIND HIS DEAD BODY IN THE LIBRARY AT RIVERSBROOK
+
+HE WAS SHOT THOUGH THE HEART
+
+"Hallo!"
+
+"Is that you, Inspector Chippenfield?"
+
+"Yes. That you, Seldon? Have you heard anything of a murder out
+your way?"
+
+"Can't say that I have. Have you?"
+
+"Yes. We have information that Sir Horace Fewbanks has been
+murdered--shot."
+
+"Mr. Justice Fewbanks shot--murdered!" Inspector Seldon gave expression
+to his surprise in a long low whistle which travelled through the
+telephone. Then he added, after a moment's reflection, "There must be
+some mistake. He is away."
+
+"Away where?"
+
+"In Scotland. He went there for the Twelfth--when the shooting
+season opened."
+
+"Are you sure of that?"
+
+"Yes; he rang me up the day before he left to ask us to keep an eye on
+his house while he was away."
+
+There was a pause at the Scotland Yard end of the telephone. Inspector
+Chippenfield was evidently thinking hard.
+
+"We may have been hoaxed," he said at length. "But I have been ringing
+up his house and can get no answer. You had better send up a couple of
+men there at once--better still, go yourself. It is a matter which may
+require tactful handling. Let me know, and I'll come out immediately if
+there is anything wrong. Stay! How long will it take you to get up to
+the house?"
+
+"Not more than fifteen minutes--in a taxi."
+
+"Well, I'll ring you up at the house in half an hour. Should our
+information be correct see that everything is left exactly as you find it
+till I arrive."
+
+Inspector Seldon hung up the receiver of his telephone, bundled up the
+papers scattered on his desk, closed it, and stepped out of his office
+into the next room.
+
+"Anyone about?" he hurriedly asked the sergeant who was making entries in
+the charge-book.
+
+"Yes, sir. I saw Flack here a moment ago."
+
+"Get him at once and call a taxi. Scotland Yard's rung through to say
+they've received a report that Sir Horace Fewbanks has been murdered."
+
+"Murdered?" echoed the sergeant in a tone of keen interest. "Who told
+Scotland Yard that?"
+
+"I don't know. Who was on that beat last night?"
+
+"Flack, sir. Was Sir Horace murdered in his own house? I thought he was
+in Scotland."
+
+"So did I, but he may have returned--ah, here's the taxi."
+
+Inspector Seldon had been waiting on the steps for the appearance of a
+cab from the rank round the corner in response to the shrill blast which
+the sergeant had blown on his whistle. The sergeant went to the door of
+the station leading into the yard and sharply called:
+
+"Flack!"
+
+In response a police-constable, without helmet or tunic, came running up
+the steps from the basement, which was used as a gymnasium.
+
+"Seldon wants you. Get on your tunic as quick as you can. He is in a
+devil of a hurry."
+
+Inspector Seldon was seated in the taxi-cab when Flack appeared. He had
+been impatiently drumming his fingers on the door of the cab.
+
+"Jump in, man," he said angrily. "What has kept you all this time?"
+
+Flack breathed stertorously to show that he had been running and was out
+of breath, but he made no reply to the official rebuke. Inspector Seldon
+turned to him and remarked severely:
+
+"Why didn't you let me know that Sir Horace Fewbanks had returned from
+Scotland?"
+
+Flack looked astonished.
+
+"But he hasn't returned, sir," he said. "He's away for a month at least,"
+he ventured to add.
+
+"Who told you that?"
+
+"The housemaid at Riversbrook--before he went away."
+
+"H'm." The inspector's next question contained a moral rebuke rather than
+an official one. "You're a married man, Flack?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"So the housemaid told you he was going away for a month. Well, she ought
+to know. When did she tell you?"
+
+"A week ago yesterday, sir. She told me that all the servants except the
+butler were going down to Dellmere the next day--that is Sir Horace's
+country place--and that Sir Horace was going to Scotland for the
+shooting and would put in some weeks at Dellmere after the shooting
+season was over."
+
+"And are you sure he hasn't returned?"
+
+"Quite, sir. I saw Hill, the butler, only yesterday morning, and he
+told me that his master was sure to be in Scotland for at least a
+month longer."
+
+"It's very strange," muttered the inspector, half to himself. "It will be
+a deuced awkward situation to face if Scotland Yard has been hoaxed."
+
+"Beg your pardon, sir, but is there anything wrong about Sir Horace?"
+
+"Yes. Scotland Yard has received a report that he has been murdered."
+
+Flack's surprise was so great that it lifted the lid of official humility
+which habitually covered his natural feelings.
+
+"Murdered!" he exclaimed. "Sir Horace Fewbanks murdered? You
+don't say so!"
+
+"But I do say so. I've just said so," retorted Inspector Seldon
+irritably. He was angry at the fact that the information, whether true or
+false, had gone direct to Scotland Yard instead of reaching him first.
+
+"When was he murdered, sir?" asked Flack.
+
+"Last night--when you were on that beat."
+
+Flack paled at this remark.
+
+"Last night, sir?" he cried.
+
+"Don't repeat my words like a parrot," ejaculated the inspector
+peevishly. "Didn't you notice anything suspicious when you were
+along there?"
+
+"No, sir. Was he murdered in his own house?"
+
+"His dead body is supposed to be lying there now in the library," said
+Inspector Seldon. "How Scotland Yard got wind of it is more than I know.
+We ought to have heard of it before them. How many times did you go along
+there last night?"
+
+"Twice, sir. About eleven o'clock, and then about three."
+
+"And there was nothing suspicious--you saw no one?"
+
+"I saw Mr. Roberts and his lady coming home from the theatre. But he
+lives at the other end of Tanton Gardens. And I saw the housemaid at Mr.
+Fielding's come out to the pillar-box. That was a few minutes after
+eleven. I didn't see anybody at all the second time."
+
+"Nobody at the judge's place--no taxi, or anything like that?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+The taxi-cab turned swiftly into the shady avenue of Tanton Gardens,
+where Sir Horace Fewbanks lived, and in a few moments pulled up outside
+of Riversbrook. The house stood a long way back from the road in its own
+grounds. Inspector Seldon and Flack passed rapidly through the grounds
+and reached the front door of the mansion. There was nobody about; the
+place seemed deserted, and the blinds were down on the ground-floor
+windows. Inspector Seldon knocked loudly at the front door with the big,
+old-fashioned brass knocker, and rang the bell. He listened intently for
+a response, but no sound followed except the sharp note of the electric
+bell as Flack rang it again while Inspector Seldon bent down with his ear
+at the keyhole. Then the inspector stepped back and regarded the house
+keenly for a moment or two.
+
+"Put your finger on that bell and keep on ringing it, Flack," he said
+suddenly. "I see that some of the blinds are down, but there's one on the
+first floor which is partly up. It looks as though the house had been
+shut up and somebody had come back unexpectedly."
+
+"Perhaps it's Hill, the butler," said Flack.
+
+"If he's inside he ought to answer the bell. But keep on ringing while I
+knock again."
+
+The heavy brass knocker again reverberated on the thick oak door, and
+Inspector Seldon placed his ear against the keyhole to ascertain if any
+sound was to be heard.
+
+"Take your finger off that bell, Flack," he commanded. "I cannot hear
+whether anybody is coming or not." He remained in a listening attitude
+for half a minute and then plied the knocker again. Again he listened for
+footsteps within the house. "Ring again, Flack. Keep on ringing while I
+go round the house to see if there is any way I can get in. I may have to
+break a window. Don't move from here."
+
+Inspector Seldon went quickly round the side of the house, trying the
+windows as he went. Towards the rear of the house, on the west side, he
+came across a curious abutment of masonry jutting out squarely from the
+wall. On the other side of this abutment, which gave the house something
+of an unfinished appearance, were three French windows close together.
+The blinds of these windows were closely drawn, but the inspector's keen
+eye detected that one of the catches had been broken, and there were
+marks of some instrument on the outside woodwork.
+
+"This looks like business," he muttered.
+
+He pulled open the window, and walked into the room. The light of an
+afternoon sun showed him that the apartment was a breakfast room, well
+and solidly furnished in an old-fashioned way, with most of the furniture
+in covers, as though the occupants of the house were away. The daylight
+penetrated to the door at the far end of the room. It was wide open, and
+revealed an empty passage. Inspector Seldon walked into the passage. The
+drawn blinds made the passage seem quite dark after the bright August
+sunshine outside, but he produced an electric torch, and by its light he
+saw that the passage ran into the main hall.
+
+His footsteps echoed in the empty house. The electric bell rang
+continuously as Flack pressed it outside. Inspector Seldon walked along
+the passage to the hall, flashing his torch into each room he passed. He
+saw nothing, and went to the front door to admit Flack.
+
+"That is enough of that noise, Flack," he said. "Come inside and help me
+search the house above. It's empty on this floor so far as I've been over
+it. If you find anything call me, and mind you do not touch anything.
+Where did you say the library was?"
+
+"I don't know, sir."
+
+"Well, look about you on the ground floor while I go upstairs. Call me if
+you hear anything."
+
+Inspector Seldon mounted the stairs swiftly in order to continue
+his search.
+
+The staircase was a wide one, with broad shallow steps, thickly carpeted,
+and a handsome carved mahogany baluster. The inspector, flashing his
+torch as he ran up, saw a small electric light niche in the wall before
+he reached the first landing. The catch of the light was underneath, and
+Inspector Seldon turned it on. The light revealed that the stairs swept
+round at that point to the landing of the first floor, which was screened
+from view by heavy velvet hangings, partly caught back by the bent arm
+of a marble figure of Diana, which faced downstairs, with its other arm
+upraised and about to launch a hunting spear. By this graceful device the
+curtains were drawn back sufficiently to give access to the corridor on
+the first floor.
+
+Inspector Seldon looked closely at the figure and the hangings. Something
+strange about the former arrested his eye. It was standing awry on its
+pedestal--was, indeed, almost toppling over. He looked up and saw that
+one of the curtains supported by the arm hung loosely from one of the
+curtain rings. It was as though some violent hand had torn at the curtain
+in passing, almost dragging it from the pole and precipitating the figure
+down the stairs. Immediately beyond the landing, in the corridor, was a
+door on the right, flung wide open.
+
+The inspector entered the room with the open door. It was a large room
+forming part of the front of the house--a lofty large room, partly
+lighted by the half-drawn blind of one of the windows. One side was lined
+with bookshelves. In the corner of the room farthest from the door, was a
+roll-top desk, which was open. In the centre of the room was a table, and
+a huddled up figure was lying beside it, in a dark pool of blood which
+had oozed into the carpet.
+
+The inspector stepped quickly back to the landing.
+
+"Flack!" he called, and unconsciously his voice dropped to a sharp
+whisper in the presence of death. "Flack, come here."
+
+When Flack reached the door of the library he saw his chief kneeling
+beside the prostrate body of a dead man. The body lay clear of the table,
+near the foot of an arm-chair. Instinctively Flack walked on tiptoe to
+his chief.
+
+"Is he dead, sir?" he asked.
+
+"Cold and stiff," replied the inspector, in a hushed voice. "He's been
+dead for hours."
+
+Flack noted that the body was fully dressed, and he saw a dark stain
+above the breast where the blood had welled forth and soaked the dead
+man's clothes and formed a pool on the carpet beside him.
+
+Inspector Seldon opened the dead man's clothes. Over his heart he found
+the wound from which the blood had flowed.
+
+"There it is, Flack," he said, touching the wound lightly with his
+finger. "It doesn't take a big wound to kill a man."
+
+As he spoke the sharp ring of a telephone bell from downstairs
+reached them.
+
+"That's Inspector Chippenfield," said Inspector Seldon, rising to his
+feet. "Stay here, Flack, till I go and speak to him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+"Six-thirty edition: High Court Judge murdered!"
+
+It was not quite 5 p.m., but the enterprising section of the London
+evening newspapers had their 6.30 editions on sale in the streets. To
+such a pitch had the policy of giving the public what it wants been
+elevated that the halfpenny newspapers were able to give the people of
+London the news each afternoon a full ninety minutes before the
+edition was supposed to have left the press. The time of the edition
+was boldly printed in the top right-hand corner of each paper as a
+guarantee of enterprise if not of good faith. On practical enterprise
+of this kind does journalism forge ahead. Some people who have been
+bred up in a conservative atmosphere sneer at such journalistic
+enterprise. They affect to regard as unreliable the up-to-date news
+contained in newspapers which are unable to tell the truth about the
+hands of the clock.
+
+From the cries of the news-boys and from the announcements on the
+newspaper bills which they displayed, it was assumed by those with a
+greedy appetite for sensations that a judge of the High Court had been
+murdered on the bench. Such an appetite easily swallowed the difficulty
+created by the fact that the Law Courts had been closed for the long
+vacation. In imagination they saw a dramatic scene in court--the
+disappointed demented desperate litigant suddenly drawing a revolver and
+with unerring aim shooting the judge through the brain before the deadly
+weapon could be wrenched from his hands. But though the sensation created
+by the murder of a judge of the High Court was destined to grow and to be
+fed by unexpected developments, the changing phases of which monopolised
+public attention throughout England on successive occasions, there was
+little in the evening papers to satisfy the appetite for sensation. In
+journalistic vernacular "they were late in getting on to it," and
+therefore their reference to the crime occupied only a few lines in the
+"stop press news," beneath some late horse-racing results. The _Evening
+Courier,_ which was first in the streets with the news, made its
+announcement of the crime in the following brief paragraph:
+
+"The dead body of Sir Horace Fewbanks, the distinguished High Court
+judge, was found by the police at his home, Riversbrook in Tanton
+Gardens, Hampstead, to-day. Deceased had been shot through the heart. The
+police have no doubt that he was murdered."
+
+But the morning papers of the following day did full justice to the
+sensation. It was the month of August when Parliament is "up," the Law
+Courts closed for the long vacation, and when everybody who is anybody is
+out of London for the summer holidays. News was scarce and the papers
+vied with one another in making the utmost of the murder of a High Court
+judge. Each of the morning papers sent out a man to Hampstead soon after
+the news of the crime reached their offices in the afternoon, and some of
+the more enterprising sent two or three men. Scotland Yard and
+Riversbrook were visited by a succession of pressmen representing the
+London dailies, the provincial press, and the news agencies.
+
+The two points on which the newspaper accounts of the tragedy laid stress
+were the mysterious letter which had been sent to Scotland Yard stating
+that Sir Horace Fewbanks had been murdered, and the mystery surrounding
+the sudden return of Sir Horace from Scotland to his town house. On the
+first point there was room for much varied speculation. Why was
+information about the murder sent to Scotland Yard, and why was it sent
+in a disguised way? If the person who had sent this letter had no
+connection with the crime and was anxious to help the police, why had he
+not gone to Scotland Yard personally and told the detectives all he knew
+about the tragedy? If, on the other hand, he was implicated in the crime,
+why had he informed the police at all?
+
+It would have been to his interest as an accomplice--even if he had been
+an unwilling accomplice--to leave the crime undiscovered as long as
+possible, so that he and those with whom he had been associated might
+make their escape to another country. But he had sent his letter to
+Scotland Yard within a few hours of the perpetration of the crime, and
+had not given the actual murderer time to get out of England. Was he not
+afraid of the vengeance the actual murderer would endeavour to exact for
+this disclosure which would enable the police to take measures to prevent
+his escape?
+
+No light was thrown on the cause of the murdered man's sudden return from
+grouse-shooting in Scotland. The newspaper accounts, though they differed
+greatly in their statements, surmises, and suggestions concerning the
+tragedy, agreed on the point that Sir Horace had been a keen sportsman
+and was a very fine shot. In years past he had made a practice of
+spending the early part of the long vacation in Scotland, going there for
+the opening of the grouse season on the 12th of August. This year he had
+been one of a party of five who had rented Craigleith Hall in the Western
+Highlands, and after five days' shooting he had announced that he had to
+go to London on urgent business, but would return in the course of a week
+or less. It was suggested in some of the newspaper accounts that an
+explanation of the cause of his return might throw some light on the
+murder. Inquiries were being made at Craigleith Hall to ascertain the
+reason for his journey to London, or whether any telegram had been
+received by him previous to his departure.
+
+The fact that one of the windows on the ground floor of Riversbrook had
+been found open was regarded as evidence that the murderer had broken
+into the house. Imprints of footsteps had been found in the ground
+outside the window, and the police had taken several casts of these; but
+whether the man who had broken into the house with the intention of
+committing burglary or murder was a matter on which speculation differed.
+If the murderer was a criminal who had broken into the house with the
+intention of committing a burglary, there could be no connection between
+the return of Sir Horace Fewbanks from Scotland and his murder. The
+burglary had probably been arranged in the belief that the house was
+empty, Sir Horace having sent the servants away to his country house in
+Dellmere a week before. But if the murderer was a burglar he had stolen
+nothing and had not even collected any articles for removal. The only
+thing that was known to be missing was the dead man's pocket-book, but
+there was nothing to prove that the murderer had stolen it. It was quite
+possible that it had been lost or mislaid by Sir Horace; it was even
+possible that it had been stolen from him in the train during his journey
+from Scotland.
+
+It might be that while prowling through the rooms after breaking into the
+house, and before he had collected any goods for removal, the burglar had
+come unexpectedly on Sir Horace, and after shooting him had fled from the
+house. Only as a last resort to prevent capture did burglars commit
+murder. Had Sir Horace been shot while attempting to seize the intruder?
+The position in which the body was found did not support that theory. Two
+shots had been fired, the first of which had missed its victim, and
+entered the wall of the library. Evidently the murdered man had been hit
+by the second while attempting to leave the room. It was ingeniously
+suggested by the _Daily Record_ that the murderer was a criminal who
+knew Sir Horace, and was known to him as a man who had been before him at
+Old Bailey. This would account for Sir Horace being ruthlessly shot down
+without having made any attempt to seize the intruder. The burglar would
+have felt on seeing Sir Horace in the room that he was identified, and
+that the only way of escaping ultimate arrest by the police was to kill
+the man who could put the police on his track. Mr. Justice Fewbanks had
+had the reputation of being a somewhat severe judge, and it was possible
+that some of the criminals who had been sentenced by him at Old Bailey
+entertained a grudge against him.
+
+The question of when the murder was committed was regarded as important.
+Dr. Slingsby, of the Home Office, who had examined the body shortly after
+it was discovered by the police, was of opinion that death had taken
+place at least twelve hours before and probably longer than that. His
+opinion on this point lent support to the theory that the murder had been
+committed before midnight on Wednesday. It was the _Daily Record_ that
+seized on the mystery contained in the facts that the body when
+discovered was fully clothed and that the electric lights were not turned
+on. If the murder was committed late at night how came it that there were
+no lights in the empty house when the police discovered the body? Had the
+murderer, after shooting his victim, turned out the lights so that on the
+following day no suspicion would be created as would be the case if
+anyone saw lights burning in the house in the day-time? If he had done
+so, he was a cool hand. But if the burglar was such a cool hand as to
+stop to turn out the lights after the murder why did he not also stop to
+collect some valuables? Was he afraid that in attempting to get rid of
+them to a "fence" or "drop" he would practically reveal himself as the
+murderer and so place himself in danger in case the police offered a
+reward for the apprehension of the author of the crime?
+
+If Sir Horace had gone to bed before the murderer entered the house it
+would have been natural to expect no lights turned on. But he had
+returned unexpectedly; there were no servants in the house, and there was
+no bed ready for him. In any case, if he intended stopping in the empty
+house instead of going to a hotel he would have been wearing a sleeping
+suit when his body was discovered; or, at most, he would be only
+partially dressed if he had got up on hearing somebody moving about the
+house. But the body was fully dressed, even to collar and tie. It was
+absurd to suppose that the victim had been sitting in the darkness when
+the murderer appeared.
+
+Another difficult problem Scotland Yard had to face was the discovery of
+the person who had sent them the news of the murder. How had Scotland
+Yard's anonymous correspondent learned about the murder, and what were
+his motives in informing the police in the way he had done? Was he
+connected with the crime? Had the murderer a companion with him when he
+broke into Riversbrook for the purpose of burglary? That seemed to be the
+most probable explanation. The second man had been horrified at the
+murder, and desired to disassociate himself from it so that he might
+escape the gallows. The only alternative was to suppose that the murderer
+had confessed his crime to some one, and that his confidant had lost no
+time in informing the police of the tragedy.
+
+The newspaper accounts of the case threw some light on the private and
+domestic affairs of the victim. He was a widower with a grown-up
+daughter; his wife, a daughter of the late Sir James Goldsworthy, who
+changed his ancient family patronymic from Granville to Goldsworthy on
+inheriting the great fortune of an American kinsman, had died eight years
+before. Sir Horace's Hampstead household consisted of a housekeeper,
+butler, chauffeur, cook, housemaid, kitchenmaid and gardener. With the
+exception of the butler the servants had been sent the previous week to
+Sir Horace's country house in Dellmere, Sussex. It appeared that Miss
+Fewbanks spent most of her time at the country house and came up to
+London but rarely. She was at Dellmere when the murder was committed, and
+had been under the impression that her father was in Scotland. According
+to a report received from the police at Dellmere the first intimation
+that Miss Fewbanks had received of the tragic death of her father came
+from them. Naturally, she was prostrated with grief at the tragedy.
+
+The butler who had been left behind in charge of Riversbrook was a man
+named Hill, but he was not in the house on the night of the tragedy. He
+was a married man, and his wife and child lived in Camden Town, where
+Mrs. Hill kept a confectionery shop. Hill's master had given him
+permission to live at home for three weeks while he was in Scotland. The
+house in Tanton Gardens had been locked up and most of the valuables had
+been sent to the bank for safe-keeping, but there were enough portable
+articles of value in the house to make a good haul for any burglar. Hill
+had instructions to visit the house three times a week for the purpose of
+seeing that everything was safe and in order. He had inspected the place
+on Wednesday morning, and everything was as it had been left when his
+master went to Scotland. Sir Horace Fewbanks had returned to London on
+Wednesday evening, reaching St. Pancras by the 6.30 train. Hill was
+unaware that his master was returning, and the first he learned of the
+murder was the brief announcement in the evening papers on Thursday.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Inspector Chippenfield, who had come into prominence in the newspapers as
+the man who had caught the gang who had stolen Lady Gladville's
+jewels--which included the most costly pearl necklace in the world--was
+placed in charge of the case. It was to his success in this famous case
+that he owed his promotion to Inspector. He had the assistance of his
+subordinate, Detective Rolfe. So generous were the newspaper references
+to the acumen of these two terrors of the criminal classes that it was to
+be assumed that anything which inadvertently escaped one of them would be
+pounced upon by the other.
+
+On the morning after the discovery of the murdered man's body, the two
+officers made their way to Tanton Gardens from the Hampstead tube
+station. Inspector Chippenfield was a stout man of middle age, with a red
+face the colour of which seemed to be accentuated by the daily operation
+of removing every vestige of hair from it. He had prominent grey eyes
+with which he was accustomed to stare fiercely when he desired to impress
+a suspected person with what some of the newspapers had referred to as
+"his penetrating glance." His companion, Rolfe, was a tall well-built man
+in the early thirties. Like most men in a subordinate position, Rolfe had
+not a high opinion of the abilities of his immediate superiors. He was
+sure that he could fill the place of any one of them better than it was
+filled by its occupant. He believed that it was the policy of superiors
+to keep junior men back, to stand in their light, and to take all the
+credit for their work. He was confident that he was destined to make a
+name for himself in the detective world if only he were given the chance.
+
+When Inspector Chippenfield had visited Riversbrook the previous
+afternoon, Rolfe had not been selected as his assistant. A careful
+inspection of the house and especially of the room in which the tragedy
+had been committed had been made by the inspector. He had then turned his
+attention to the garden and the grounds surrounding the house.
+
+Whatever he had discovered and what theories he had formed were not
+disclosed to anyone, not even his assistant. He believed that the proper
+way to train a subordinate was to let him collect his own information and
+then test it for him. This method enabled him to profit by his
+subordinate's efforts and to display a superior knowledge when the other
+propounded a theory by which Inspector Chippenfield had also been misled.
+
+When they arrived at the house in which the crime had been committed,
+they found a small crowd of people ranging from feeble old women to
+babies in arms, and including a large proportion of boys and girls of
+school age, collected outside the gates, staring intently through the
+bars towards the house, which was almost hidden by trees. The morbid
+crowd made way for the two officers and speculated on their mission. The
+general impression was that they were the representatives of a
+fashionable firm of undertakers and had come to measure the victim for
+his coffin. Inside the grounds the Scotland Yard officers encountered a
+police-constable who was on guard for the purpose of preventing
+inquisitive strangers penetrating to the house.
+
+"Well, Flack," said Inspector Chippenfield in a tone in which geniality
+was slightly blended with official superiority. "How are you to-day?"
+
+"I'm very well indeed, sir," replied the police-constable. He knew
+that the state of his health was not a matter of deep concern to the
+inspector, but such is the vanity of human nature that he was
+pleased at the inquiry. The fact that there was a murdered man in
+the house gave mournful emphasis to the transience of human life,
+and made Police-Constable Flack feel a glow of satisfaction in being
+very well indeed.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield hesitated a moment as if in deep thought. The
+object of his hesitation was to give Flack an opportunity of imparting
+any information that had come to him while on guard. The inspector
+believed in encouraging people to impart information but regarded it as
+subversive of the respect due to him to appear to be in need of any. As
+Flack made no attempt to carry the conversation beyond the state of his
+health, Inspector Chippenfield came to the conclusion that he was an
+extremely dull policeman. He introduced Flack to Detective Rolfe and
+explained to the latter:
+
+"Flack was on duty on the night of the murder but heard no shots.
+Probably he was a mile or so away. But in a way he discovered the
+crime. Didn't you, Flack? When we rang up Seldon he came up here and
+brought Flack with him. He'll be only too glad to tell you anything you
+want to know."
+
+Rolfe took an official notebook from a breast pocket and proceeded to
+question the police-constable. The inspector made his way upstairs to the
+room in which the crime had been committed, for it was his system to seek
+inspiration in the scene of a crime.
+
+Tanton Gardens, a short private street terminating in a cul-de-sac, was
+in a remote part of Hampstead. The daylight appearance of the street
+betokened wealth and exclusiveness. The roadway which ran between its
+broad white-gravelled footwalks was smoothly asphalted for motor tyres;
+the avenues of great chestnut trees which flanked the footpaths served
+the dual purpose of affording shade in summer and screening the houses
+of Tanton Gardens from view. But after nightfall Tanton Gardens was a
+lonely and gloomy place, lighted only by one lamp, which stood in the
+high road more to mark the entrance to the street than as a guide to
+traffic along it, for its rays barely penetrated beyond the first pair
+of chestnut trees.
+
+The houses in Tanton Gardens were in keeping with the street: they
+indicated wealth and comfort. They were of solid exterior, of a size that
+suggested a fine roominess, and each house stood in its own grounds.
+Riversbrook was the last house at the blind end of the street, and its
+east windows looked out on a wood which sloped down to a valley, the
+street having originally been an incursion into a large private estate,
+of which the wood alone remained. On the other side a tangled nutwood
+coppice separated the judge's residence from its nearest neighbours, so
+the house was completely isolated. It stood well back in about four acres
+of ground, and only a glimpse of it could be seen from the street front
+because of a small plantation of ornamental trees, which grew in front of
+the house and hid it almost completely from view. When the carriage drive
+which wound through the plantation had been passed the house burst
+abruptly into view--a big, rambling building of uncompromising ugliness.
+Its architecture was remarkable. The impression which it conveyed was
+that the original builder had been prevented by lack of money from
+carrying out his original intention of erecting a fine symmetrical house.
+The first story was well enough--an imposing, massive, colonnaded front
+in the Greek style, with marble pillars supporting the entrance. But the
+two stories surmounting this failed lamentably to carry on the
+pretentious design. Viewed from the front, they looked as though the
+builder, after erecting the first story, had found himself in pecuniary
+straits, but, determined to finish his house somehow, had built two
+smaller stories on the solid edifice of the first. For the two second
+stories were not flush with the front of the house, but reared themselves
+from several feet behind, so that the occupants of the bedrooms on the
+first story could have used the intervening space as a balcony. Viewed
+from the rear, the architectural imperfections of the upper part of the
+house were in even stronger contrast with the ornamental first story.
+Apparently the impecunious builder, by the time he had reached the rear,
+had completely run out of funds, for on the third floor he had failed
+altogether to build in one small room, and had left the unfinished
+brickwork unplastered.
+
+The large open space between the house and the fir plantation had once
+been laid out as an Italian garden at the cost of much time and money,
+but Sir Horace Fewbanks had lacked the taste or money to keep it up, and
+had allowed it to become a luxuriant wilderness, though the sloping
+parterres and the centre flowerbeds still retained traces of their former
+beauty. The small lake in the centre, spanned by a rustic hand-bridge,
+was still inhabited by a few specimens of the carp family--sole survivors
+of the numerous gold-fish with which the original designer of the garden
+had stocked the lake.
+
+Sir Horace Fewbanks had rented Riversbrook as a town house for some years
+before his death, having acquired the lease cheaply from the previous
+possessor, a retired Indian civil servant, who had taken a dislike to the
+place because his wife had gone insane within its walls. Sir Horace had
+lived much in the house alone, though each London season his daughter
+spent a few weeks with him in order to preside over the few Society
+functions that her father felt it due to his position to give, and which
+generally took the form of solemn dinners to which he invited some of his
+brother judges, a few eminent barristers, a few political friends, and
+their wives. But rumour had whispered that the judge and his daughter had
+not got on too well together--that Miss Fewbanks was a strange girl who
+did not care for Society or the Society functions which most girls of her
+age would have delighted in, but preferred to spend her time on her
+father's country estate, taking an interest in the villagers or walking
+the country-side with half a dozen dogs at her heels.
+
+Rumour had not spared the dead judge's name. It was said of him that he
+was fond of ladies' society, and especially of ladies belonging to a type
+which he could not ask his daughter to meet; that he used to go out
+motoring, driving himself, after other people were in bed; and that
+strange scenes had taken place at Riversbrook. Flack had told his wife on
+several occasions that he had heard sounds of wild laughter and rowdy
+singing coming from Riversbrook as he passed along the street on his beat
+in the small hours of the morning. Several times in the early dawn Flack
+had seen two or three ladies in evening dress come down the carriage
+drive and enter a taxi-cab which had been summoned by telephone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+When Rolfe had finished questioning Police-Constable Flack and joined his
+chief upstairs, the latter, who had been going through the private papers
+in the murdered man's desk in the hope of alighting on a clue to the
+crime, received him genially.
+
+"Well," he said, "what do you think of Flack?"
+
+Rolfe had obtained from the police-constable a straightforward story of
+what he had seen, and in this way had picked up some useful information
+about the crime which it would have taken a long time to extract from the
+inspector, but he was a sufficiently good detective to have learned that
+by disparaging the source of your information you add to your own
+reputation for acumen in drawing conclusions in regard to it. He nodded
+his head in a deprecating way and emitted a slight cough which was meant
+to express contempt.
+
+"It looks very much like a case of burglary and murder," he said.
+
+He was anxious to know what theory his superior officer had formed.
+
+"And how do you fit in the letter advising us of the murder?" asked the
+inspector.
+
+He produced the letter from his pocket-book and looked at it earnestly.
+
+"There were two of them in it--one a savage ruffian who will stick at
+nothing, and the other a chicken-hearted specimen. They often work in
+pairs like that."
+
+"So your theory is that one of the two shot him, and the other was so
+unnerved that he sent us the letter and put us on the track to save his
+own neck?"
+
+"Something like that."
+
+"It is not impossible," was the senior officer's comment. "Mind you, I
+don't say it is my theory. In fact, I am in no hurry to form one. I
+believe in going carefully over the whole ground first, collecting all
+the clues and then selecting the right one."
+
+Rolfe admitted that his chief's way of setting to work to solve a
+mystery was an ideal one, but he made the reservation that it was a
+difficult one to put into operation. He was convinced that the only way
+of finding the right clue was to follow up every one until it was proved
+to be a wrong one.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield continued his study of the mysterious message
+which had been sent to Scotland Yard. It was written on a sheet of paper
+which had been taken from a writing pad of the kind sold for a few pence
+by all stationers. It was flimsy and blue-lined, and the message it
+contained was smudged and badly printed. But to the inspector's
+annoyance, there were no finger-prints on the paper. The finger-print
+expert at Scotland Yard had examined it under the microscope, but his
+search for finger-prints had been vain.
+
+"Depend upon it, we'll hear from this chap again," said the inspector,
+tapping the sheet of paper with a finger. "I think I may go so far as to
+say that this fellow thinks suspicion will be directed to him and he
+wants to save his neck."
+
+"It's a disguised hand," said Rolfe. "Of course he printed it in order
+not to give us a specimen of his handwriting. There are telltale things
+about a man's handwriting which give him away even when he tries to
+disguise it. But he's tried to disguise even his printing. Look how
+irregular the letters are--some slanting to the right and some to the
+left, and some are upright. Look at the two different kinds of 'U's.'"
+
+"He's used two different kinds of pens," said Inspector Chippenfield.
+"Look at the difference in the thickness of the letters."
+
+"The sooner he writes again the better," said Rolfe. "I am curious to
+know what he'll say next."
+
+"My idea is to find out who he is and make him speak," said the
+inspector, "Speaking is quicker than writing. I could frighten more
+out of him in ten minutes than he would give away voluntarily in a
+month of Sundays."
+
+Again Rolfe had to admit that his chief's plan to get at the truth was an
+ideal one.
+
+"Have you any idea who he is?" he asked.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield had brought his methods too near to perfection to
+make it possible for him to fall into an open trap.
+
+"I won't be very long putting my hand on him," he said.
+
+"But this thing has been in the papers," said Rolfe. "Don't you think the
+murderer will bolt out of the country when he knows his mate is prepared
+to turn King's evidence against him?"
+
+"Ah," said Inspector Chippenfield, "I haven't adopted your theory."
+
+"Then you think that the man who wrote this note knew of the murder but
+doesn't know who did it?"
+
+"Now you are going too far," said Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+The inspector was so wary about disclosing what was in his mind in regard
+to the letter that Rolfe, who disliked his chief very cordially, jumped
+to the conclusion that Inspector Chippenfield had no intelligible ideas
+concerning it.
+
+"If it was burglars they took nothing as far as we can ascertain up to
+the present," said Inspector Chippenfield after a pause.
+
+"They were surprised to find anyone in the house. And after the shot was
+fired they immediately bolted for fear the noise would attract
+attention."
+
+"What knocks a hole in the burglar theory is the fact that Sir Horace was
+fully dressed when he was shot," said the inspector. "Burglars don't
+break into a house when there are lights about, especially after having
+been led to believe that the house was empty."
+
+"So you think," said Rolfe, "that the window was forced after the murder
+with the object of misleading us."
+
+"I haven't said so," replied the inspector. "All I am prepared to say is
+that even that was not impossible."
+
+"It was forced from the outside," continued Rolfe. "I've seen the marks
+of a jemmy on the window-sill. If it was forced after the murder the
+murderer was a cool hand."
+
+"You can take it from me," exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield with
+unexpected candour, "that he was a cool hand. We are going to have a bit
+of trouble in getting to the bottom of this, Rolfe."
+
+"If anyone can get to the bottom of it, you can," said Rolfe, who
+believed with Voltaire that speech was given us in order to enable us to
+conceal our thoughts.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield was so astonished at this handsome compliment that
+he began to think he had underrated Rolfe's powers of discernment. His
+tone of cold official superiority immediately thawed.
+
+"There were two shots fired," he said, "but whether both were fired by
+the murderer I don't know yet. One of them may have been fired by Sir
+Horace. Just behind you in the wall is the mark of one of the bullets. I
+dug it out of the plaster yesterday and here it is." He produced from a
+waistcoat pocket a flattened bullet. "The other is inside him at
+present." He waved his hand in the direction of the room in which the
+corpse lay.
+
+"Of course you cannot say yet whether both bullets are out of the same
+revolver?" said Rolfe.
+
+"Can't tell till after the post-mortem," said the inspector. "And then
+all we can tell for certain is whether they are of the same pattern. They
+might be the same size, and yet be fired out of different revolvers of
+the same calibre."
+
+"Well, it is no use theorising about what happened in this room until
+after the post-mortem," said Rolfe.
+
+"You'd better give it some thought," suggested the inspector. "In the
+meantime I want you to interview the people in the neighbourhood and
+ascertain whether they heard any shots. They'll all say they did whether
+they heard them or not--you know how people persuade themselves into
+imagining things so as to get some sort of prominence in these crimes.
+But you can sift what they tell you and preserve the grain of truth. Try
+and get them to be accurate as to the time, as we want to fix the time of
+the crime as near as possible. Ask Flack to tell you something about the
+neighbours--he's been in this district fifteen years, and ought to know
+all about them. While you're away I'll go through these private papers. I
+want to find out why he came back from Scotland so suddenly. If we knew
+that the rest might be easy."
+
+"I haven't seen the body yet," said Rolfe. "I'd like to look at it.
+Where is it?"
+
+"I had it removed downstairs. You will find it in a big room on the left
+as you go down the hall. By the by, there is another matter, Rolfe. This
+glove was found in the room. It may be a clue, but it is more likely
+that it is one of Sir Horace's gloves and that he lost the other one on
+his way up from Scotland. It's a left-hand glove--men always lose the
+right-hand glove because they take it off so often. I've compared it
+with other gloves in Sir Horace's wardrobe, and I find it is the same
+size and much the same quality. But find out from Sir Horace's hosier if
+he sold it. Here's the address of the hosiers,--Bruden and Marshall, in
+the Strand."
+
+Rolfe went slowly downstairs into the room in which the corpse lay, and
+closed the door behind him. It was a very large room, overlooking the
+garden on the right side of the house. Somebody had lowered the Venetian
+blinds as a conventional intimation to the outside world that the house
+was one of mourning, and the room was almost dark. For nearly a minute
+Rolfe stood in silence, his hand resting on the knob of the door he had
+closed behind him. Gradually the outline of the room and the objects
+within it began to reveal themselves in shadowy shape as his eyes became
+accustomed to the dim light. He had a growing impression of a big lofty
+room, with heavy furniture, and a huddled up figure lying on a couch at
+the end furthest from the window and deepest in shadow.
+
+He stepped across to the window and gently raised one of the blinds. The
+light of an August sun penetrated through the screen of trees in front of
+the house and revealed the interior of the room more clearly. Rolfe was
+amazed at its size. From the window to the couch at the other end of the
+room, where the body lay, was nearly thirty feet. Glancing down the
+apartment, he noticed that it was really two rooms, divided in the middle
+by folding doors. These doors folded neatly into a slightly protruding
+ridge or arch almost opposite the door by which he had entered, and were
+screened from observation by heavy damask curtains, which drooped over
+the archway slightly into the room.
+
+Evidently the deceased judge had been in the habit of using the divided
+rooms as a single apartment, for the heavier furniture in both halves of
+it was of the same pattern. The chairs and tables were of heavy,
+ponderous, mid-Victorian make, and they were matched by a number of
+old-fashioned mahogany sideboards and presses, arranged methodically at
+regular intervals on both sides of the room. Rolfe, as his eye took in
+these articles, wondered why Sir Horace Fewbanks had bought so many. One
+sideboard, a vast piece of furniture fully eight feet long, had a whisky
+decanter and siphon of soda water on it, as though Sir Horace had served
+himself with refreshments on his return to the house. The tops of the
+other sideboards were bare, and the presses, use in such a room Rolfe was
+at a loss to conjecture, were locked up. The antique sombre uniformity
+of the furniture as a whole was broken at odd intervals by several
+articles of bizarre modernity, including a few daring French prints,
+which struck an odd note of incongruity in such a room.
+
+The murdered man had been laid on an old-fashioned sofa at the end of
+this double apartment which was furthest from the window. Rolfe walked
+slowly over the thick Turkey carpets and rugs with which the floor was
+covered, glanced at the sofa curiously, and then turned down the sheet
+from the dead man's face.
+
+At the time of his death Sir Horace Fewbanks was 58 years of age, but
+since death the grey bristles had grown so rapidly through his
+clean-shaven face that he looked much older. The face showed none of the
+wonted placidity of death. The mouth was twisted in an ugly fashion, as
+though the murdered man had endeavoured to cry for help and had been
+attacked and killed while doing so. One of Sir Horace's arms--the right
+one--was thrust forward diagonally across his breast as if in
+self-defence, and the hand was tightly clenched. Rolfe, who had last seen
+His Honour presiding on the Bench in the full pomp and majesty of law,
+felt a chill strike his heart at the fell power of death which did not
+even respect the person of a High Court judge, and had stripped him of
+every vestige of human dignity in the pangs of a violent end. The face he
+had last seen on the Bench full of wisdom and austerity of the law was
+now distorted into a livid mask in which it was hard to trace any
+semblance of the features of the dead judge.
+
+Rolfe's official alertness of mind in the face of a mysterious crime soon
+reasserted itself, however, and he shook off the feeling of sentiment and
+proceeded to make a closer examination of the dead body. As he turned
+down the sheet to examine the wound which had ended the judge's life, it
+slipped from his hand and fell on the floor, revealing that the judge had
+been laid on the couch just as he had been killed, fully clothed. He had
+been shot through the body near the heart, and a large patch of blood had
+welled from the wound and congealed in his shirt. One trouser leg was
+ruffled up, and had caught in the top of the boot.
+
+The corpse presented a repellent spectacle, but Rolfe, who had seen
+unpleasant sights of various kinds in his career, bent over the body
+with keen interest, noting these details, with all his professional
+instincts aroused. For though Rolfe had not yet risen very high in the
+police force, he had many of the qualities which make the good
+detective--observation, sagacity, and some imagination. The
+extraordinary crime which he had been called upon to help unravel
+presented a baffling mystery which was likely to test the value of these
+qualities to the utmost.
+
+Rolfe looked steadily at the corpse for some time, impressing a picture
+of it in every detail on his mental retina. Struck by an idea, he bent
+over and touched the patch of blood in the dead man's breast, then looked
+at his finger. There was no stain. The blood was quite congealed. Then he
+tried to unclench the judge's right hand, but it was rigid.
+
+As Rolfe stood there gazing intently at the corpse, and trying to form
+some theory of the reason for the murder, certain old stories he had
+heard of Sir Horace Fewbanks's private life and character recurred to
+him. These rumours had not been much--a jocular hint or two among his
+fellows at Scotland Yard that His Honour had a weakness for a pretty face
+and in private life led a less decorous existence than a judge ought to
+do. Rolfe wondered how much or how little truth was contained in these
+stories. He glanced around the vast room. Certainly it was not the sort
+of apartment in which a High Court judge might be expected to do his
+entertaining, but Rolfe recalled that he had heard gossip to the effect
+that Sir Horace, because of his virtual estrangement from his daughter,
+did very little entertaining beyond an occasional bridge or supper party
+to his sporting friends, and rarely went into Society.
+
+Rolfe began to scrutinise the articles of furniture in the room,
+wondering if there was anything about them which might reveal something
+of the habits of the dead man. He produced a small electric torch from
+his pocket, and with its light to guide him in the half-darkened room, he
+closely inspected each piece of furniture. Then, with the torch in his
+hand, he returned to the sofa and flashed it over the dead body. He
+started violently when the light, falling on the dead man's closed hand,
+revealed a tiny scrap of white. Eagerly he endeavoured to release the
+fragment from the tenacious clutch of the dead without tearing it, and
+eventually he managed to detach it. His heart bounded when he saw that it
+was a small torn piece of lace and muslin. He placed it in the palm of
+his left hand and examined it closely under the light of his torch. To
+him it looked to be part of a fashionable lady's dainty handkerchief. He
+was elated at his discovery and he wondered how Inspector Chippenfield
+had overlooked it. Then the explanation struck him. The small piece of
+lace and muslin had been effectually hidden in the dead man's clenched
+hand, and his efforts to open the hand had loosened it.
+
+"Well, Rolfe," said Inspector Chippenfield, when his subordinate
+reappeared, "you've been long enough to have unearthed the criminal or
+revived the corpse. Have you discovered anything fresh?"
+
+"Only this," replied Rolfe, displaying the piece of handkerchief.
+
+The find startled Inspector Chippenfield out of his air of bantering
+superiority.
+
+"Where did you get that?" he stammered, as he reached out eagerly for it.
+
+"The dead man had it clenched in his right hand. I wondered if he had
+anything hidden in his hand when I saw it so tightly clenched. I tried to
+force open the fingers and that fell out."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield was by no means pleased at his subordinate's
+discovery of what promised to be an important clue, especially after the
+clue had been missed by himself. But he congratulated Rolfe in a tone of
+fictitious heartiness.
+
+"Well done, Rolfe!" he exclaimed. "You are coming on. Anyone can see that
+you've the makings of a good detective."
+
+Rolfe could afford to ignore the sting contained in such faint praise.
+
+"What do you make of it?" he asked.
+
+"Looks as though there is a woman in it," said the inspector, who was
+still examining the scrap of lace and muslin.
+
+"There can't be much doubt about that," replied Rolfe.
+
+"We mustn't be in a hurry in jumping at conclusions," remarked the
+inspector.
+
+"No, and we mustn't ignore obvious facts," said Rolfe.
+
+"You think a woman murdered him?" asked the inspector.
+
+"I think a woman was present when he was shot: whether she fired the shot
+there is nothing to show at present. There may have been a man with her.
+But there was a struggle just before the shot was fired and as Sir Horace
+fell he grasped at the hand in which she was holding her handkerchief. Or
+perhaps her handkerchief was torn in his dying struggles when she was
+leaning over him."
+
+"You have overlooked the possibility of this having been placed in the
+dying man's hand to deceive us," said the inspector.
+
+"If the intention was to mislead us it wouldn't have been placed where it
+might have been overlooked."
+
+As the inspector had overlooked the presence of the scrap of handkerchief
+in the dead man's hand, he felt that he was not making much progress with
+the work of keeping his subordinate in his place.
+
+"Well, it is a clue of a sort," he said. "The trouble is that we have
+too many clues. I wish we knew which is the right one. Anyway, it knocks
+over your theory of a burglary," he added in a tone of satisfaction.
+
+"Yes," Rolfe admitted. "That goes by the board."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"James Hill, sir."
+
+"That is an alias. What is your real name?" Inspector Chippenfield glared
+fiercely at the butler in order to impress upon him the fact that
+subterfuge was useless.
+
+"Henry Field, sir," replied the man, after some hesitation.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield opened the capacious pocketbook which he had
+placed before him on the desk when the butler had entered in response to
+his summons, and he took from it a photograph which he handed to the man
+he was interrogating.
+
+"Is that your photograph?" he asked.
+
+Police photographs taken in gaol for purposes of future identification
+are always far from flattering, and Henry Field, after looking at the
+photograph handed to him, hesitated a little before replying:
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"So, Henry Field, in November 1909 you were sentenced to three years for
+robbing your master, Lord Melhurst."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Let me see," said the inspector, as if calling on his memory to perform
+a reluctant task. "It was a diamond scarf-pin and a gold watch. Lord
+Melhurst had come home after a good day at Epsom and a late supper in
+town. Next morning he missed his scarf-pin and his watch. He thought he
+had been robbed at Epsom or in town. He was delightfully vague about what
+had happened to him after his glorious day at Epsom, but unfortunately
+for you the taxi-cab driver who drove him remembered seeing the pin on
+him when he got out of the cab. As you had waited up for him suspicion
+fell on you, and you were arrested and confessed. I think those are the
+facts, Field?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said the distressed looking man who stood before him.
+
+"I think I had the pleasure of putting you through," added the inspector.
+
+The butler understood that in police slang "putting a man through" meant
+arresting him and putting him through the Criminal Court into gaol. He
+made the same reply:
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I'm glad to see you bear me no ill-will for it," said Inspector
+Chippenfield. "You don't, do you?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"I never forget a face," pursued the officer, glancing up at the face of
+the man before him. "When I saw you yesterday I knew you again in a
+moment, and when I went back to the Yard I looked up your record."
+
+The butler was doubtful whether any reply was called for, but after a
+pause, as an endorsement of the inspector's gift for remembering faces,
+he ventured on:
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And how did you, an ex-convict, come to get into the service of one of
+His Majesty's judges?"
+
+"He took me in," replied the butler.
+
+"You mean that you took him in," replied the inspector, with a pleasant
+laugh at his own witticism.
+
+"No, sir, I didn't take him in," declared the butler. He had not joined
+in the laugh at the inspector's joke.
+
+"Get away with you," said Inspector Chippenfield. "You don't expect me to
+believe that you told him you were an ex-convict? You must have used
+forged references."
+
+"No, sir. He knew I was a--" Hill hesitated at referring to himself as
+an ex-convict, though he had not shrunk from the description by Inspector
+Chippenfield. "He knew that I had been in trouble. In fact, sir, if you
+remember, I was tried before him."
+
+"The devil you were!" exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield, in astonishment.
+"And he took you into his service after you had served your sentence. He
+must have been mad. How did you manage it?"
+
+"After I came out I found it hard to get a place," said Hill, "and when
+Sir Horace's butler died I wrote to him and asked if he would give me a
+chance. I had a wife and child, sir, and they had a hard struggle while I
+was in prison. My wife had a shop, but she sold it to find money for my
+defence. Sir Horace told me to call on him, and after thinking it over he
+decided to engage me. He was a good master to me."
+
+"And how did you repay him," exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield sternly,
+"by murdering him?"
+
+The butler was startled by the suddenness of the accusation, as Inspector
+Chippenfield intended he should be.
+
+"Me!" he exclaimed. "As sure as there is a God in Heaven I had nothing to
+do with it."
+
+"That won't go down with me, Field," said the police officer, giving the
+wretched man another prolonged penetrating look.
+
+"It's true; it's true!" he protested wildly. "I had nothing to do with
+it. I couldn't do a thing like that, sir. I couldn't kill a man if I
+wanted to--I haven't the nerve. But I knew I would be suspected," he
+added, in a tone of self-pity.
+
+"Oh, you did?" replied Inspector Chippenfield. "And why was that?"
+
+"Because of my past."
+
+"Where were you on the date of the murder?"
+
+"In the morning I came over here to look round as usual, and I found
+everything all right."
+
+"You did that every day while Sir Horace was away?"
+
+"Not every day, sir. Three times a week: Mondays, Wednesdays, and
+Fridays."
+
+"Did you enter the house or just look round?"
+
+"I always came inside."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To make quite sure that everything was all right."
+
+"And was everything all right the morning of the 18th?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You are quite sure of that? You looked round carefully?"
+
+"Well, sir, I just gave a glance round, for of course I didn't expect
+anything would be wrong."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield fixed a steady glance on the butler to ascertain
+if he was conscious of the trap he had avoided.
+
+"Did you look in this room?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I made a point of looking in all the rooms."
+
+"You are sure that Sir Horace's dead body was not lying here?" Inspector
+Chippenfield pointed beside the desk where the body had been found.
+
+"Oh, no, sir. I'd have seen it if it had."
+
+"There was no sign anywhere of his having returned from Scotland?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"You didn't know he was returning?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"What time did you leave the house?"
+
+"It would be about a quarter past twelve, sir."
+
+"And what did you do after that?"
+
+"I went home and had my dinner. In the afternoon I took my little girl
+to the Zoo. I had promised her for a long time that I would take her
+to the Zoo."
+
+"And what did you do after visiting the Zoo?"
+
+"We went home for supper. After supper my wife took the little girl to
+the picture palace in Camden Road. It was quite a holiday, sir, for her."
+
+"And what did you do while your wife and child were at the pictures?"
+
+"I stayed at home and minded the shop. When they came home we all went
+to bed. My wife will tell you the same thing."
+
+"I've no doubt she will," said the inspector drily. "Well, if you didn't
+murder Sir Horace yourself when did you first hear that he had been
+murdered?"
+
+"I saw it in the papers yesterday evening."
+
+"And you immediately came up here to see if it was true?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And you were taken to the Hampstead Police Station to make a statement
+as to your movements on the day and night of the murder?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And the story you have just told me about the Zoo and the pictures and
+the rest is virtually the same as the statement you made at the station?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Do you know if Sir Horace kept a revolver?"
+
+"I think he did, sir."
+
+"Where did he keep it?"
+
+"In the second drawer of his desk, sir."
+
+"Well, it's gone," remarked Inspector Chippenfield without opening the
+drawer. "What sort of a revolver was it? Did you ever see it? How do you
+know he kept one?"
+
+"Once or twice I saw something that looked like a revolver in that drawer
+while Sir Horace had it open. It was a small nickel revolver."
+
+"Sir Horace always locked his desk?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"None of your keys will open it, of course?"
+
+"No, sir. That is--I don't know, sir. I've never tried."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield grunted slightly. That trap the butler had not
+seen until too late. But of course all servants went through their
+masters' private papers when they got the chance.
+
+"Do you know if Sir Horace was in the habit of carrying a
+pocket-book?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, sir; he was."
+
+"What sort of a pocket-book?"
+
+"A large Russian leather one with a gold clasp."
+
+"Did he take it away with him when he went to Scotland? Did you see it
+about the house after he left?"
+
+"No, sir. I think he took it with him. It would not be like him to forget
+it, or to leave it lying about."
+
+"And what sort of a man was Sir Horace, Field?"
+
+"A very good master, sir. He could be very stern when he was angry, but I
+got on very well with him."
+
+"Quite so. Do you know if he had a weakness for the ladies?"
+
+"Well, sir, I've heard people say he had."
+
+"I want your own opinion; I don't want what other people said. You
+were with him for three years and kept a pretty close watch on him,
+I've no doubt."
+
+"Speaking confidentially, I might say that I think he was," said Hill.
+
+He glanced apprehensively behind him as if afraid of the dead man
+appearing at the door to rebuke him for presuming to speak ill of him.
+
+"I thought as much," said the inspector. "Have you any idea why he came
+down from Scotland?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Well, that will do for the present, Field. If I want you again I'll
+send for you."
+
+"Thank you, sir. May I ask a question, sir?"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"You don't really think I had anything to do with it, sir?"
+
+"I'm not here, Field, to tell you what I think. This much I will say:
+If I find you have tried to deceive me in any way it will be a bad
+day for you."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Grave, taciturn, watchful, secret and suave, with an appearance of
+tight-lipped reticence about him which a perpetual faint questioning
+look in his eyes denied, Hill looked an ideal man servant, who knew
+his station in life, and was able to uphold it with meek dignity. From
+the top of his trimly-cut grey crown to his neatly-shod silent feet he
+exuded deference and respectability. His impassive mask of a face was
+incapable--apart from the faint query note in the eyes--of betraying
+any of the feelings or emotions which ruffle the countenances of
+common humanity.
+
+On the way downstairs, Hill saw Police-Constable Flack in conversation
+with a lady at the front door. The lady was well-known to the butler as
+Mrs. Holymead, the wife of a distinguished barrister, who had been one of
+his master's closest friends. She seemed glad to see the butler, for she
+greeted him with a remark that seemed to imply a kinship in sorrow.
+
+"Isn't this a dreadful thing, Hill?" she said.
+
+"It's terrible, madam," replied Hill respectfully.
+
+Mrs. Holymead was extremely beautiful, but it was obvious that she was
+distressed at the tragedy, for her eyes were full of tears, and her
+olive-tinted face was pale. She was about thirty years of age; tall,
+slim, and graceful. Her beauty was of the Spanish type: straight-browed,
+lustrous-eyed, and vivid; a clear olive skin, and full, petulant, crimson
+lips. She was fashionably dressed in black, with a black hat.
+
+"The policeman tells me that Miss Fewbanks has not come up from Dellmere
+yet," she continued.
+
+"No, madam. We expect her to-morrow. I believe Miss Fewbanks has been too
+prostrated to come."
+
+"Dreadful, dreadful," murmured Mrs. Holymead. "I feel I want to know all
+about it and yet I am afraid. It is all too terrible for words."
+
+"It has been a terrible shock, madam," said Hill.
+
+"Has the housekeeper come up, Hill?"
+
+"No, madam. She will be up to-morrow with Miss Fewbanks."
+
+"Well, is there nobody I can see?" asked Mrs. Holymead.
+
+Police-Constable Flack was impressed by the spectacle of a beautiful
+fashionably-dressed lady in distress.
+
+"The inspector in charge of the case is upstairs, madam," he suggested.
+"Perhaps you'd like to see him." It suddenly occurred to him that he had
+instructions not to allow any stranger into the house, and police
+instructions at such a time were of a nature which classed a friend of
+the family as a stranger. "Perhaps I'd better ask him first," he added,
+and he went upstairs with the feeling that he had laid himself open to
+severe official censure from Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+He came downstairs with a smile on his face and the message that the
+inspector would be pleased to see Mrs. Holymead. In his brief interview
+with his superior he had contrived to convey the unofficial information
+that Mrs. Holymead was a fine-looking woman, and he had no doubt that
+Inspector Chippenfield's readiness to see her was due to the impression
+this information had made on his unofficial feelings.
+
+Mrs. Holymead was conducted upstairs and announced by the butler.
+Inspector Chippenfield greeted her with a low bow of conscious
+inferiority, and anticipated Hill in placing a chair for her. His large
+red face went a deeper scarlet in colour as he looked at her.
+
+"Flack tells me that you are a friend of the family, Mrs. Holymead.
+What is it that I can do for you? I need scarcely say, Mrs. Holymead,
+that your distinguished husband is well known to us all. I have had
+the pleasure of being cross-examined by him on several occasions.
+Anything you wish to know I'll be pleased to tell you, if it lies
+within my power."
+
+"Thank you," said Mrs. Holymead.
+
+She seemed to be slightly nervous in the presence of a member of the
+Scotland Yard police, in spite of his obvious humility in the company of
+a fashionable lady who belonged to a different social world from that in
+which police inspectors moved. It took Inspector Chippenfield some
+minutes to discover that the object of Mrs. Holymead's visit was to learn
+some of the details of the tragedy. As one who had known the murdered man
+for several years, and the wife of his intimate friend, she was
+overwhelmed by the awful tragedy. She endeavoured to explain that the
+crime was like a horrible dream which she could not get rid of. But in
+spite of the repugnance with which she contemplated the fact that a
+gentleman she had known so well had been shot down in his own house she
+felt a natural curiosity to know how the dreadful crime had been
+committed.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield availed himself of the opportunity to do the
+honours of the occasion. He went over the details of the tragedy and
+pointed out where the body had been found. He showed her the bullet mark
+on the wall and the flattened bullet which had been extracted. Although
+from the mere habit of official caution he gave away no information which
+was not of a superficial and obvious kind, it was apparent he liked
+talking about the crime and his responsibilities as the officer who had
+been placed in charge of the investigations. He noted the interest with
+which Mrs. Holymead followed his words and he was satisfied that he had
+created a favourable impression on her. It was his desire to do the
+honours thoroughly which led him to remark after he had given her the
+main facts of the tragedy:
+
+"I'm sorry I cannot take you to view the body. It is downstairs, but the
+fact is the Home Office doctors are in there making the post-mortem to
+extract the bullet."
+
+Mrs. Holymead shuddered at this information. The fact that such gruesome
+work as a post-mortem examination was proceeding on the body of a man
+whom she had known so well brought on a fit of nausea. Her head fell back
+as if she was about to faint.
+
+"Can I have a glass of water?" she whispered.
+
+A fainting woman, if she is beautiful and fashionably dressed, will
+unnerve even a resourceful police official. Had she been one of the
+servants Inspector Chippenfield would have rung the bell for a glass of
+water to throw over her face, and meantime would have looked on calmly at
+such evidence of the weakness of sex. But in this case he dashed out of
+the room, ran downstairs, shouted for Hill, ordered him to find a glass,
+snatched the glass from him, filled it with water, and dashed upstairs
+again. His absence from the room totalled a little less than three
+minutes, and when he held the glass to the lady's lips he was out of
+breath with his exertions.
+
+Mrs. Holymead took a sip of water, shuddered, took another sip, then
+heaved a sigh, and opened to the full extent her large dark eyes on the
+man bending over her, who felt amply repaid by such a glance. She
+thanked him prettily for his great kindness and took her departure,
+being conducted downstairs, and to her waiting motor-car at the gate, by
+Inspector Chippenfield. That officer went back to the house with a
+pleased smile on his features. But he would not have been so pleased
+with himself if he had known that his brief absence from the room of the
+tragedy for the purpose of obtaining a glass of water had been more than
+sufficient to enable the lady to run to the open desk of the murdered
+man, touch a spring which opened a secret receptacle at the back of it,
+extract a small bundle of papers, close the spring, and return to her
+chair to await in a fainting attitude the return of the chivalrous
+police officer.
+
+Mrs. Holymead's return to her home in Princes Gate was awaited with
+feverish anxiety by one of the inmates. This was Mademoiselle Gabrielle
+Chiron, a French girl of about twenty-eight, who was a distant connection
+of Mrs. Holymead's by marriage. A cousin of Mrs. Holymead's had married
+Lucille Chiron, the younger sister of Gabrielle, two years ago. Mrs.
+Holymead on visiting the French provincial town where the marriage was
+celebrated, was attracted by Gabrielle. As the Chiron family were not
+wealthy they welcomed the friendship between Gabrielle and the beautiful
+American who had married one of the leading barristers in London, and
+finally Gabrielle went to live with Mrs. Holymead as a companion.
+
+From the window of an upstairs room which commanded a view of the street,
+Gabrielle Chiron waited impatiently for the return of the motor-car in
+which Mrs. Holymead had driven to Riversbrook. When at length it turned
+the corner and came into view, she rushed downstairs to meet Mrs.
+Holymead. She opened the street door before the lady of the house could
+ring. Her gaze was fixed on a hand-bag which Mrs. Holymead carried--a
+comparatively big hand-bag which the lady had taken the precaution to
+purchase before driving out to Riversbrook.
+
+The French girl's face lighted up with a smile as she saw by the shape of
+the bag that it was not empty.
+
+"Have you got them?" she whispered.
+
+"Yes," was the reply. "I followed out your plan--it worked without a
+hitch."
+
+"Ah, I knew you would manage it," said the girl. "I would have gone, but
+it was best that you should go. These police agents do not like
+foreigners--they would be suspicious if I had gone."
+
+"There was a big red-faced man in charge--Inspector Chippenfield, they
+called him," said Mrs. Holymead. "He was in the library as you said he
+would be--he was sitting there calmly as if he did not know what nerves
+were. He knew me as a friend of the family and was quite nice to me. I
+saw as soon as I went in that the desk was open--he had been examining
+Sir Horace's private papers. I asked him to tell me about the--about the
+tragedy. He piled horror on horror and then I pretended to faint. He ran
+down stairs for a glass of water, and that gave me time to open the
+secret drawer. They are here," she added, patting the hand-bag
+affectionately; "let us go upstairs and burn them."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+There was unpleasant news for Inspector Chippenfield when Miss Fewbanks
+arrived at Riversbrook accompanied by the housekeeper, Mrs. Hewson. In
+the first place, he learnt with considerable astonishment that it was
+Miss Fewbanks's intention to stay at the house until after the funeral,
+and for that purpose she had brought the housekeeper to keep her company
+in the lonely old place. Although they had taken up their quarters in the
+opposite wing of the rambling mansion to that in which the dead body lay,
+it seemed to Inspector Chippenfield--whose mind was very impressionable
+where the fair sex was concerned--that Miss Fewbanks must be a very
+peculiar girl to contemplate staying in the same house with the body of
+her murdered father for nearly a week. He was convinced that she must be
+a strong-minded young woman, and he did not like strong-minded young
+women. He preferred the weak and clinging type of the sex as more of a
+compliment to his own sturdy manliness.
+
+His unfavourable impression of Miss Fewbanks was deepened when he saw her
+and heard what she had to tell him. The girl had come up from the country
+filled with horror at the crime which had deprived her of a father, and
+firmly determined to leave no stone unturned to bring the murderer to
+justice. It was true that she and her father had lived on terms of
+partial estrangement for some time past because of his manner of life,
+but all the girl's feelings of resentment against him had been swept away
+by the news of his dreadful death, and all she remembered now was that he
+was her father, and had been brutally murdered.
+
+When she sent for Inspector Chippenfield she had visited the room in
+which lay the body of her father. It had been placed in a coffin which
+was resting on the undertaker's trestles in the bay embrasure of the big
+room with the folding doors. There was nothing in the appearance of the
+corpse to suggest that a crime had been committed, but it had been
+impossible for the undertaker's men to erase entirely the distortion of
+the features so that they might suggest the cold, calm dignity of a
+peaceful death. The ordeal of looking on the dead body of her father had
+nerved her to carry through resolutely the task of discovering the author
+of the crime.
+
+She awaited the coming of the inspector in a small sitting-room, and
+when he entered she pointed quickly to a chair, but remained standing
+herself. In appearance Miss Fewbanks was a charming girl of the typical
+English type. She was of medium height, slight, but well-built, with
+fair hair and dark blue eyes, an imperious short upper lip and a
+determined chin, and the clear healthy complexion of a girl who has
+lived much out of doors. The inspector noted all these details; noted,
+too, that although her breast heaved with agitation she had herself well
+under control; her pretty head was erect, and one of her small hands was
+tightly clenched by her side.
+
+"Have you found out--anything?" she asked the inspector as he entered.
+
+The girl had chosen a vague word because she felt that there were many
+things which must come to light in unravelling the crime, but, from the
+police point of view of Inspector Chippenfield, the question whether he
+had found out anything was a stinging reflection on his ability.
+
+"I consider it inadvisable to make any arrest at the present stage of my
+investigations," he said, with cold official dignity.
+
+"Do you think you know who did it?" asked the girl.
+
+"It is my business to find out," replied the inspector, in a voice that
+indicated confidence in his ability to perform the task.
+
+The girl was too unsophisticated to follow the subtle workings of
+official pride. "The papers call it a mysterious crime. Do you think it
+is mysterious?"
+
+"There are certainly some mysterious features about it," said the
+inspector. "But I do not regard them as insoluble. Nothing is insoluble,"
+he added, in a sententious tone.
+
+"If there are mysteries to be solved you ought to have help," said the
+young lady.
+
+She glanced at Mrs. Hewson significantly, and then proceeded to explain
+to Inspector Chippenfield what she meant.
+
+"I have asked Mr. Crewe, the celebrated detective, to assist you. Of
+course you know Mr. Crewe--everybody does. I know you are a very clever
+man at your profession, but in a thing of this kind two clever men are
+better than one. I hope you will not mind--there is no reflection
+whatever on your ability. In fact, I have the utmost confidence in you.
+But it is due to my father's memory to do all that is possible to get to
+the bottom of this dreadful crime. If money is needed it will be
+forthcoming. That applies to you no less than to Mr. Crewe. But I hope
+you will be able to carry out your investigations amicably together, and
+that you will be willing to assist one another. You will lose nothing by
+doing so. I trust you will place at Mr. Crewe's disposal all the
+facilities that are available to you as an officer of the police."
+
+This statement was so clear that Inspector Chippenfield had no choice but
+to face the conclusion that Miss Fewbanks had more faith in the abilities
+of a private detective to unravel the mystery than she had in the
+resources of Scotland Yard. He would have liked to have told the young
+lady what he thought of her for interfering with his work, and he
+determined to avail himself of the right opportunity to do so if it came
+along. But the statement that money was not to be spared had a soothing
+influence on his feelings. Of course, officers of Scotland Yard were not
+allowed to take gratuities however substantial they might be, but there
+were material ways of expressing gratitude which were outside the
+regulations of the department.
+
+"I shall be very pleased to give Mr. Crewe any assistance he wants," said
+Inspector Chippenfield, bowing stiffly.
+
+It was seldom that he took a subordinate fully into his confidence, but
+after he left Miss Fewbanks he flung aside his official pride in order to
+discuss with Rolfe the enlistment of the services of Crewe. Rolfe was no
+less indignant than his chief at the intrusion of an outsider into their
+sphere. Crewe was an exponent of the deductive school of crime
+investigation, and had first achieved fame over the Abbindon case some
+years ago, when he had succeeded in restoring the kidnapped heir of the
+Abbindon estates after the police had failed to trace the missing child.
+In detective stories the attitude of members of Scotland Yard to the
+deductive expert is that of admiration based on conscious inferiority,
+but in real life the experts of Scotland Yard have the utmost contempt
+for the deductive experts and their methods. The disdainful pity of the
+deductive experts for the rule-of-thumb methods of the police is not to
+be compared with the vigorous scorn of the official detective for the
+rival who has not had the benefit of police training.
+
+"Look here, Rolfe," said Inspector Chippenfield, "we mustn't let Crewe
+get ahead of us in this affair, or we'll never hear the last of it. It's
+scandalous of a man like Crewe, who has money of his own and could live
+like a gentleman, coming along and taking the bread out of our mouths by
+accepting fees and rewards for hunting after criminals. Of course I know
+they say he is lavish with his money and gives away more than he earns,
+but that's all bosh--he sticks it in his own pocket, right enough. One
+thing is certain: he gets paid whether he wins or loses; that is to say,
+he gets his fee in any case, but of course if he wins something will be
+added to his fee. In the meantime all you and I get is our salaries, and,
+as you know, the pay of an inspector isn't what it ought to be."
+
+Rolfe assured his superior of his conviction that the pay at Scotland
+Yard ought to be higher for all ranks--especially the rank and file. He
+also declared that he was ready to do his best to thwart Crewe.
+
+"That is the right spirit," commented Inspector Chippenfield approvingly.
+"Of course we'll tell him we're willing to help him all we can, and of
+course hell tell us we can depend on his help. But we know what his help
+will amount to. He'll keep back from us anything he finds out, and we'll
+do the same for him. But the point is, Rolfe, that you and I have to put
+all our brains into this and help one another. I'm not the man to despise
+help from a subordinate. If you have any ideas about this case, Rolfe, do
+not be afraid to speak out, I'll give them sympathetic consideration."
+
+"I know you will," said Rolfe, who was by no means sure of the fact. "You
+can count on me."
+
+"As you know, Rolfe, there have been cases in which men from the Yard
+haven't worked together as amicably as they ought to have done. It used
+to be said when I was one of the plain-clothes men that the man in charge
+got all the credit and the men under him did all the work. But as an
+inspector I can tell you that is very rarely the case. In my reports I
+believe in giving my junior credit for all he has done, and generally a
+bit more. It may be foolish of me, but that is my way. I never miss a
+chance of putting in a good word for the man under me."
+
+"It would be better if they were all like that," said Rolfe.
+
+"Well, it's a bargain, Rolfe," said Inspector Chippenfield. "You do your
+best on this job and you won't lose by it. I'll see to that. But in the
+meantime we don't want to put Crewe on the scent. Let us see how much
+we'll tell him and how much we won't."
+
+"He'll want to see the letter sent to the Yard about the murder," said
+Rolfe. "The _Daily Recorder_ published a facsimile of it this morning."
+
+"Yes, I knew about that. Well, he can have it. But don't say anything to
+him about that lace you found in the dead man's hand--or at any rate not
+until you find out more about it. The glove he can have since it is
+pretty obvious that it belonged to Sir Horace. We'll spin Crewe a yarn
+that we are depending on it as a clue."
+
+Crewe arrived during the afternoon to inspect the house and the room in
+which the crime had been committed. There was every appearance of
+cordiality in the way in which he greeted the police officials.
+
+"Delighted to see you, Inspector," he said. "Who is working this case
+with you? Rolfe? Don't think we have met before, Rolfe, have we?"
+
+Rolfe politely murmured something about not having had the pleasure
+of meeting Mr. Crewe, but of always having wanted to meet him,
+because of his fame.
+
+"Very good of you," replied Crewe. "This is a very sad business. I
+understand there are some attractive points of mystery in the crime. I
+hope you haven't unravelled it yet before I have got a start. You fellows
+are so quick."
+
+"Slow and sure is our motto," said Inspector Chippenfield, feeling
+certain that a sneer and not a compliment had been intended. "There is
+nothing to be gained in arresting the wrong man."
+
+"That's a sound maxim for us all," said Crewe. "However, let's get to
+business. I rang up the Yard this morning and they told me you were
+in charge of the case and that I'd probably find you here. Can you
+let me have a look at the original of that letter which was sent to
+Scotland Yard informing you of the murder? There is a facsimile of it
+in the _Daily Recorder_ this morning, and from all appearances there
+are some interesting conclusions to be drawn from it. But the
+original is the thing."
+
+"Here you are," said the inspector, producing his pocket-book, taking out
+the paper, and handing it to Crewe. "What do you make of it?"
+
+Crewe sat down, and placing the paper before him took a magnifying glass
+from his pocket. As he sat there, in his grey tweed suit, his hat pushed
+carelessly back from his forehead, he might have been mistaken for a
+young man of wealth with no serious business in life, for his clothes
+were of fashionable cut, and he wore them with an air of distinction. But
+a glance at his face would have dispelled the impression. The clear-cut,
+clean-shaven features riveted attention by reason of their strength and
+intelligence, and though the dark eyes were rather too dreamy for the
+face, the heavy lines of the lower jaw indicated the man of action and
+force of character. The thick neck and heavily-lipped firm mouth
+suggested tireless energy and abounding vitality.
+
+"At least two people have had a hand in it," he said, after studying the
+paper for a few minutes.
+
+"In the murder?" asked the inspector, who was astonished at a deduction
+which harmonised with a theory which had begun to take shape in his mind.
+
+"In writing this," said Crewe, with his attention still fixed on the
+paper. "But of course you know that yourself."
+
+"Of course," assented the inspector, who was surprised at the
+information, but was too experienced an official to show his feelings.
+"And both hands disguised."
+
+"Disguised to the extent of being printed in written characters,"
+continued Crewe. "It is so seldom that a person writes printed characters
+that any method in which they are written suggests disguise. The original
+intention of the two persona who wrote this extraordinary note was for
+each to write a single letter in turn. That system was carried as far as
+'Sir Horace' or, perhaps, up to the 'B' in 'Fewbanks.' After that they
+became weary of changing places and one of them wrote alternate letters
+to the end, leaving blanks for the other to fill in. That much is to be
+gathered from the variations in the spaces between the letters--sometimes
+there was too much room for an intermediate letter, sometimes too little,
+so the letter had to be cramped. Here and there are dots made with the
+pen as the first of the two spelled out the words so as to know what
+letters to write and what to leave blank. Look at the differences in the
+letter 'U.' One of the writers makes it a firm downward and upward
+stroke; the other makes the letter fainter and adds another downward
+stroke, the letter being more like a small 'u' written larger than a
+capital letter. The differences in the two hands are so pronounced
+throughout the note that I am inclined to think that one of the writers
+was a woman."
+
+"Exactly what I thought," said Inspector Chippenfield, looking hard at
+Crewe so that the latter should not question his good faith.
+
+"Then there are sometimes slight differences in the alternate letters
+written by the same hand. Look at the 'T' in 'last' and the 'T' in
+'night'--the marked variation in the length and angle of the cross
+stroke. It is evident that the writers were labouring under serious
+excitement when they wrote this."
+
+Rolfe was so interested in Crewe's revelations that he stood beside the
+deductive expert and studied the paper afresh.
+
+"And now, about finger-prints?" asked Crews.
+
+"None," was the reply of the inspector, "We had it under the microscope
+at Scotland Yard."
+
+"None?" exclaimed Crewe, in surprise. "Why adopt such precautions as
+wearing gloves to write a note giving away this startling secret?"
+
+"Easy enough," replied Inspector Chippenfield. "The people who wrote the
+note either had little or nothing to do with the murder, but were afraid
+suspicion might be directed to them, or else they are the murderers and
+want to direct suspicion from themselves."
+
+"And now for the bullets," said Crewe, "I understand two shots
+were fired."
+
+"From two revolvers," said the inspector. "Here are both bullets. This
+one I picked out of the wall over there. You can see where I've broken
+away the plaster. This one--much the bigger one of the two--was the one
+that killed Sir Horace. The doctor handed it to me after the
+post-mortem."
+
+"Did Sir Horace keep a revolver?"
+
+"The butler says yes. But if he did it's gone."
+
+Crewe stood up and examined the hole in the wall where Inspector
+Chippenfield had dug out the smaller bullet.
+
+"Sir Horace made a bid for his life but missed. Of course, he had no time
+to take aim while there was a man on the other side of the room covering
+him, but in any case those fancy firearms cannot be depended upon to
+shoot straight."
+
+"You think Sir Horace fired at his murderer--fired first?" asked Rolfe.
+
+"This small bullet suggests one of those fancy silver-mounted weapons
+that are made to sell to wealthy people. Sir Horace was a bit of a
+sportsman, and knew something about game-shooting, but, I take it, he had
+no use for a revolver. I assume he kept one of those fancy weapons on
+hand thinking he would never have to use it, but that it would do to
+frighten a burglar if the occasion did arise."
+
+"And when he was held up in this room by a man with a revolver he made a
+dash for his own revolver and got in the first shot?" suggested Rolfe,
+with the idea of outlining Crewe's theory of how the crime was committed.
+
+"It is scarcely possible to reconstruct the crime to that extent," said
+Crewe with a smile. "But undoubtedly Sir Horace got in the first shot. If
+he fired after he was hit his bullet would have gone wild--would probably
+have struck the ceiling--whereas it landed there. Let us measure the
+height from the floor." He pulled a small spool out of a waistcoat pocket
+and drew out a tape measure. "A little high for the heart of an average
+man, and probably a foot wide of the mark."
+
+"And what do you make of the disappearance of Sir Horace's revolver?"
+asked Rolfe, who seemed to his superior officer to be in danger of
+displaying some admiration for deductive methods.
+
+"I'm no good at guess-work," replied Crewe, who felt that he had given
+enough information away.
+
+"Well," said Rolfe, "here is a glove which was found in the room. The
+other one is missing. It might be a clue."
+
+Crewe took the glove and examined it carefully. It was a left-hand glove
+made of reindeer-skin, and grey in colour. It bore evidence of having
+been in use, but it was still a smart-looking glove such as a man who
+took a pride in his appearance might wear.
+
+"Burglars wear gloves nowadays," said Crewe, "but not this kind. The
+india-rubber glove with only the thumb separate is best for their work.
+They give freedom of action for the fingers and leave no finger-prints.
+Have you made inquiries whether this is one of Sir Horace's gloves?"
+
+"Well, it is the same size as he wore--seven and a half," said Inspector
+Chippenfield. "The butler is the only servant here and he can't say for
+certain that it belonged to his master. I've been through Sir Horace's
+wardrobe and through the suit-case he brought from Scotland, but I can
+find no other pair exactly similar. Rolfe took it to Sir Horace's hosier,
+and he is practically certain that the glove is one of a pair he sold to
+Sir Horace."
+
+"That should be conclusive," said Crewe thoughtfully.
+
+"So I think," replied the inspector.
+
+"Well, I'll take it with me, if you don't mind," said Crewe. "You can
+have it back whenever you want it. Let me have the address of Sir
+Horace's hosier--I'll give him a call."
+
+"Take it by all means," said the inspector cordially, referring to the
+glove. And with a wink at Rolfe he added, "And when you are ready to fit
+it on the guilty hand I hope you will let us know."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Crewe made a careful inspection of the house and the grounds. He took
+measurements of the impressions left on the sill of the window which had
+been forced and also of the foot-prints immediately beneath the window.
+He had a long conversation with Hill and questioned him regarding his
+movements on the night of the murder. He also asked about the other
+servants who were at Dellmere, and probed for information about Sir
+Horace's domestic life and his friends. As he was talking to Hill,
+Police-Constable Flack came up to them with a card in his hand. Hill
+looked at the card and exclaimed:
+
+"Mr. Holymead? What does he want?"
+
+"He asked if Miss Fewbanks was at home."
+
+Hill took the card in to Miss Fewbanks, and on coming out went to the
+front door and escorted Mr. Holymead to his young mistress. Crewe, as was
+his habit, looked closely at Holymead. The eminent K.C. was a tall man,
+nearly six feet in height, with a large, resolute, strongly-marked face
+which, when framed in a wig, was suggestive of the dignity and severity
+of the law. In years he was about fifty, and in his figure there was a
+suggestion of that rotundity which overtakes the man who has given up
+physical exercise. He was correctly, if sombrely, dressed in dark
+clothes, and he wore a black tie--probably as a symbol of mourning for
+his friend. His gloves were a delicate grey.
+
+Crewe sought out Hill again and questioned him closely about the
+relations which had existed between Sir Horace Fewbanks and Mr. Holymead,
+whose enormous practice brought him in an income three times as large as
+the dead judge's, and kept him constantly before the public. Hill was
+able to supply the detective with some interesting information regarding
+the visitor, and, in contrast to his manner when previously questioned at
+random by Crewe, concerning his young mistress's habits, seemed willing,
+if not actually anxious, to talk. He had heard from Sir Horace's
+housekeeper that his late master and Mr. Holymead had been law students
+together, and after they were called to the Bar they used to spend their
+holidays together as long as they were single.
+
+When they were married their wives became friends. Mrs. Holymead had died
+fourteen years ago, but Mrs. Fewbanks--Sir Horace had not been a baronet
+while his wife was alive--had lived some years longer. Mr. Holymead had
+married again. His second wife was a very beautiful young lady, if he
+might make so bold as to say so, who had come from America. The butler
+added deprecatingly that he had been told that both Sir Horace and Mr.
+Holymead had paid her some attention, and that she could have had either
+of them. She was different to English ladies, he added. She had more to
+say for herself, and laughed and talked with the gentlemen just as if she
+was one of themselves. Hill mentioned that she had been out to see Miss
+Fewbanks the previous day, but that Miss Fewbanks had not come up from
+Dellmere then, so she had seen Inspector Chippenfield instead.
+
+While Crewe and the butler were talking a boy of about fourteen, with the
+shrewd face of a London arab, approached them with an air of mystery. He
+came down the hall with long cautious strides, and halted at each step as
+if he were stalking a band of Indians in a forest.
+
+"Well, Joe, what is it?" asked Crewe, as he came to a halt in
+front of them.
+
+"If you don't want me for half an hour, sir, I'd like to take a run up
+the street. There is a real good picture house just been opened." The boy
+spoke eagerly, with his bright eyes fixed on Crewe.
+
+"I may want you any minute, Joe," replied Crewe. "Don't go away."
+
+The boy nodded his head, and turned away. As he went down the hall again
+to the front door he gave an imitation of a man walking with extended
+arms across a plank spanning a chasm.
+
+"Picture mad," commented Crewe, as he watched him.
+
+"I didn't quite understand you, sir," replied the butler.
+
+"Spends all his spare time in cinemas," said Crewe, "and when he is not
+there he is acting picture dramas. His ambition in life is to be a
+cinema actor."
+
+Crewe engaged Police-Constable Flack in conversation while waiting for
+Mr. Holymead to take his departure. Flack had so little professional
+pride that he was pleased at meeting a gentleman who usurped the
+functions of a detective without having had any police training, and who
+could beat the best of the Scotland Yard men like shelling peas, as he
+confided to his wife that night. He was especially flattered at the
+interest Crewe seemed to display in his long connection with the police
+force, and also in his private affairs. The constable was explaining with
+parental vanity the precocious cleverness of his youngest child, a girl
+of two, when Holymead made his appearance, and he became aware that Mr.
+Crewe's interest in children was at an end.
+
+"Look at that man," said Crewe, in a sharp imperative tone to the
+police-constable, as the K.C. was walking down the path of the Italian
+garden to the plantation. "You saw him come in?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Do you see any difference?"
+
+"No, sir; he's the same man," said Flack, with stolid certainty.
+
+"Anything about him that is different?" continued Crewe.
+
+Police-Constable Flack looked at Crewe in some bewilderment. He was not
+a deductive expert, and, as he told his wife afterwards, he did not know
+what the detective was "driving at." He took another long look at
+Holymead, who was then within a few yards of the plantation on his way
+to the gates, and remarked, in a hesitating tone, as though to justify
+his failure:
+
+"Well, you see, sir, when he was coming in it was the front view I saw,
+now I can only see his back."
+
+But before he had finished speaking Crewe had left him and was following
+the K.C. Holymead had gone into the house without a walking-stick, and
+had reappeared carrying one on his arm. Crewe admired the cool audacity
+which had prompted Holymead to go into a house where a murder had been
+committed to recover his stick under the very eyes of the police, and he
+immediately formed the conclusion that the K.C. had come to the house to
+recover the stick for some urgent reason possibly not unconnected with
+the crime. And it was apparent that Holymead was a shrewd judge of human
+nature, Crewe reflected, for he calculated that the rareness of the
+quality of observation, even in those who, like Flack, were supposed to
+keep their eyes open, would permit him to do so unnoticed.
+
+As Crewe went down the path he beckoned to the boy Joe, who at the moment
+was acting the part of a comic dentist binding a recalcitrant patient to
+a chair, using an immense old-fashioned straight-backed chair which stood
+in the hall, for his stage setting. Joe overtook his master as he entered
+the ornamental plantation in front of the house, and Crewe quickly
+whispered his instructions, as the retreating figure of the K.C. threaded
+the wood towards the gates.
+
+"When I catch up level with him, Joe, you are to run into him
+accidentally from behind, and knock his stick off his arm, so that it
+falls near me. I will pick it up and return it to him. I must handle the
+stick--you understand? Do not wait to see how he takes it when you bump
+into him--get off round the corner at once and wait for me."
+
+Crewe quickened his pace to overtake the man in front of him. He gave no
+glance backward at the boy, for he knew his instructions would be carried
+out faithfully and intelligently. He allowed Holymead to reach the big
+open gates, and turn from the gravelled carriage drive into the private
+street. Then he hurried after him and drew level with Holymead. As he did
+so there was a sound of running footsteps from behind, and then a shout.
+Joe had cleverly tripped and fallen heavily between the two men, bringing
+down Holymead in his fall. The K.C.'s stick flew off his arm and bounded
+half a dozen yards away. Crewe stepped forward quickly, secured the
+stick, glanced quickly at the monogram engraved on it, and held it out to
+Holymead, who was brushing the dust off his clothes with vexatious
+remarks about the clumsiness and impudence of street boys. For a moment
+he seemed to hesitate about taking the stick.
+
+"I believe this is yours," said Crewe politely.
+
+"Ah--yes. Thank you," said the K.C., giving him a keen suspicious glance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Crewe had well-furnished offices in Holborn but lived in a luxurious flat
+in Jermyn Street. Although he went to and fro between them daily, his
+personality was almost a dual one, though not consciously so; his passion
+for crime investigation was distinct--in outward seeming, at all
+events--from his polished West End life of wealthy ease. Grave,
+self-contained, and inscrutable, he slipped from one to the other with an
+effortless regularity, and the fashionable folk with whom he mixed in his
+leisured bachelor existence in the West End, apart from knowing him as
+the famous Crewe, had even less knowledge of the real man behind his
+suave exterior than the clients who visited his inquiry rooms in Holborn
+to confide in him their stories of suffering, shame, or crimes committed
+against them. His commissionaire and body-servant, Stork, had once, in a
+rare--almost unique--convivial moment, declared to the caretaker of the
+building that he knew no more about his master after ten years than he
+did the first day he entered his service. He was deep beyond all belief,
+was Stork's opinion, delivered with reluctant admiration.
+
+Although Crewe did not allow the externals of his two existences to
+become involved, his chief interest in life was in his work. He had
+originally taken up detective work more as a relief from the boredom of
+his lot as a wealthy young man, leading an aimless, useless life with
+others of his class, than by deliberate choice of his vocation. His
+initial successes surprised him; then the work absorbed him and became
+his life's career. He had achieved some memorable successes and he had
+made a few failures, but the failures belonged to the earlier portion of
+his career, before he had learnt to trust thoroughly in his own great
+gifts of intuition and insight, and that uncanny imagination which
+sometimes carried him successfully through when all else failed.
+
+Serious devotees of chess knew the name of Crewe in another capacity--as
+the name of a man who might have aspired to great deeds if he had but
+taken the game as his life's career. He had flashed across the chess
+horizon some years previously as a player of surpassing brilliance by
+defeating Turgieff, when the great Russian master had visited London and
+had played twelve simultaneous boards at the London Chess Club. Crewe was
+the only player of the twelve to win his game, and he did so by a
+masterly concealed ending in which he handled his pawns with consummate
+skill, proffering the sacrifice of a bishop with such art that Turgieff
+fell into the trap, and was mated in five subsequent moves. Crewe proved
+this was not merely a lucky win by defeating the young South American
+champion, Caranda, shortly afterwards, when the latter visited England
+and played a series of exhibition games in London on his way to Moscow,
+where he was engaged in the championship tourney. Once again it was
+masterly pawn play which brought Crewe a fine victory, and aged chess
+enthusiasts who followed every move of the game with trembling
+excitement, declared afterwards that Crewe's conception of this
+particular game had not been equalled since Morphy died.
+
+They predicted a dazzling chess career for Crewe, but he disappointed
+their aged hearts by retiring suddenly from match chess, and they mourned
+him as one unworthy of his great chess gifts and the high hopes they had
+placed in him. But, as a matter of fact, Crewe's intellect was too
+vigorous and active to be satisfied with the triumphs of chess, and his
+disappearance from the chess world was contemporary with his entrance
+into detective work, which appealed to his imagination and found scope
+for his restless mental activity. But if detective work so absorbed him
+that he gave up match chess entirely, he still retained an interest in
+the science of chess, reserving problem play for his spare moments, and,
+when not immersed in the solution of a problem of human mystery, he would
+turn to the chessboard and seek solace and relaxation in the mysteries of
+an intricate "four-mover."
+
+He had once said that there was a certain affinity between solving chess
+problems and the detection of crime mystery: once the key-move was found,
+the rest was comparatively easy. But he added with a sigh that a really
+perfect crime mystery was as rare as a perfect chess problem: human
+ingenuity was not sufficiently skilful, as a rule, to commit a crime or
+construct a chess problem with completely artistic concealment of the
+key-move, and for that reason most problems and crimes were far too easy
+of detection to absorb one's intellectual interests and attention.
+
+It was the morning after Crewe's visit to Riversbrook, and the detective
+sat in his private office glancing through a note-book which contained a
+summary of the Hampstead mystery. Crewe was a painstaking detective as
+well as a brilliant one, and it was his custom to prepare several
+critical summaries of any important case on which he was engaged, writing
+and rewriting the facts and his comments, until he was satisfied that he
+had a perfect outline to work upon, with the details and clues of the
+crime in consecutive order and relation to one another. Experience had
+taught him that the time and labour this task involved were well-spent.
+If an unexpected development of the case altered the facts of the
+original summary Crewe prepared another one in the same painstaking way.
+The summaries, when done with, were methodically filed and indexed and
+stored in a strong room at the office for future reference, where he also
+kept full records of all the cases upon which he had been engaged,
+together with the weapons and articles that had figured in them: huge
+volumes of newspaper reports and clippings; photographs of criminals with
+their careers appended; and a host of other odds and ends of his
+detective investigations--the whole forming an interesting museum of
+crime and mystery which would have furnished a store of rich material
+for a fresh Newgate Calendar. It was an axiom of Crewe's that a detective
+never knew when some old scrap of information or some trifling article of
+some dead and forgotten crime might not afford a valuable clue. Expert
+criminals frequently repeated themselves, like people in lesser walks of
+life, and Crewe's "library and museum," as he called it, had sometimes
+furnished him with a simple hint for the solution of a mystery which had
+defied more subtle methods of analysis.
+
+Crewe, after carefully reading his summary of the murder of Sir Horace
+Fewbanks, and making a few alterations in the text, drew from his pocket
+the glove which Inspector Chippenfield had handed him as a clue, took it
+to the window, and carefully examined it through a large magnifying
+glass. He was thus engrossed when the door was noiselessly opened, and
+Stork, the bodyguard, entered. Stork belied his name. He was short and
+fat, with a red mottled face; a model of discretion and imperturbability,
+who had served Crewe for ten years, and bade fair to serve him another
+ten, if he lived that long. In his heart of hearts he often wondered why
+a gentleman like Crewe should so far forget what was due to his birth and
+position as to have offices in Holborn--Holborn, of all parts of London!
+But the awe he felt for Crewe prevented his seeking information on the
+point from the only person who could give it to him, so he served him and
+puzzled over him in silence, his inward perturbation of spirits being
+made manifest occasionally by a puzzled glance at his master when the
+latter was not looking. It was nothing to Stork that his master was a
+famous detective; the problem to him was _why_ he was a detective when he
+had no call to be one, having more money than any man--and let alone a
+single man--could spend in a lifetime.
+
+Stork coughed slightly to attract Crewe's attention.
+
+"If you please, sir," he said, "the boy has come."
+
+While Crewe was busy with his magnifying glass Stork returned with the
+boy who had accompanied Crewe on his visit to Riversbrook on the
+previous day.
+
+The boy, a thin white-faced, sharp-eyed London street urchin, seemed
+curiously out of place in the handsomely furnished office, with his legs
+tucked up under the carved rail of a fine old oak chair, and his big
+dark eyes fixed intently on Crewe's face. The tie between him and the
+detective was an unusual one. It dated back some twelve months, when
+Crewe, in the investigation of a peculiarly baffling crime, found it
+advisable to disguise himself and live temporarily in a crowded criminal
+quarter of Islington. The rooms he took were above a secondhand clothing
+shop kept by a drunken female named Leaver; a supposed widow who lived
+at the back of the shop with her two children, Lizzie, a bold-eyed girl
+of 17, who worked at a Clerkenwell clothing factory, and Joe, a typical
+Cockney boy of fourteen, who sold papers in the streets during the day
+and was fast qualifying for a thief at night when Crewe went to the
+place to live.
+
+Crewe soon discovered, through overhearing a loud quarrel between his
+landlady and her daughter, that Mrs. Leaver's husband was alive, though
+dead to his wife for all practical purposes, inasmuch as he was serving a
+life's imprisonment for manslaughter. A fortnight after he had taken up
+his temporary quarters above the shop the woman was removed to the
+hospital suffering from the effects of a hard drinking bout, and died
+there. The girl disappeared, and the boy would have been turned out on
+the streets but for Crewe, who had taken a liking to him. Joe was
+self-reliant, alert, and precocious, like most London street boys, but in
+addition to these qualities he had a vein of imagination unusual in a lad
+of his upbringing and environment. He devoured the exciting feuilleton
+stories in the evening papers he vended, and spent his spare pennies at
+the cinema theatres in the vicinity of his poor home. His appreciation of
+the crude mysteries of the filmed detective drama amused the famous
+expert in the finer art of actual crime detection, until he discovered
+that the boy possessed natural gifts of intuition and observation,
+combined with penetration. Crewe grew interested in developing the boy's
+talent for detective work. When the lad's mother died Crewe decided to
+take him into his Holborn offices as messenger-boy. Crewe soon discovered
+that Joe had a useful gift for "shadowing" work, and his street training
+as a newspaper runner enabled him not only to follow a person through the
+thickest of London traffic, but to escape observation where a man might
+have been noticed and suspected.
+
+"Well, Joe," said Crewe, as the boy entered on the heels of Stork, "I
+have a job for you this morning. I want you to find the glove
+corresponding to this one."
+
+Crewe, having finished his examination of the glove, handed it to the
+boy, whose first act was to slip it on his left hand and move his fingers
+about to assure himself that they were in good working order in spite of
+being hidden. It was the first occasion on which Joe had worn a glove.
+
+"It was found in the room in which Sir Horace Fewbanks was murdered,"
+continued Crewe. "The other one was not there. The question I want to
+solve is, did it belong to Sir Horace, or to some one who visited him on
+the night he was murdered? The police think it belonged to Sir Horace
+because it is the same size as the gloves he wore, and because Sir
+Horace's hosier stocks the same kind--as does nearly every fashionable
+hosier in London. They think he lost the right-hand glove on his way up
+from Scotland. It will occur to you, Joe, though you don't wear gloves,
+that it is more common for men to lose the right-hand glove than the
+left-hand, because the right hand is used a great deal more than the
+left, and even men who would not be seen in the street without gloves
+find there are many things they cannot do with a gloved hand. For
+instance, to dive one's hand into one's trouser pocket where most men
+keep their loose change the glove has to be removed."
+
+"Then the gentleman would take off his right glove when he paid for his
+taxi-cab from St. Pancras," said Joe, who was familiar through the
+accounts in the newspapers with the main details of the Fewbanks mystery.
+
+"Right, Joe," said his master approvingly. "And in that case he dropped
+the glove between the taxi-cab outside his front gates and his room, and
+it would have been found. I have made inquiries and I am satisfied it was
+not found."
+
+"He might have lost it when he was getting into the train at Scotland,"
+suggested the lad. "He had to change trains at Glasgow--he might have
+lost it there."
+
+"That is a rule-of-thumb deduction," said Crewe, with a kindly smile. "It
+is good enough for the police, for they have apparently adopted it, but
+it is not good enough for me. What you don't understand, Joe, is that an
+odd glove is of no value in the eyes of a man who wears gloves. He
+doesn't take it home as a memento of his carelessness in losing the
+other. He throws it away. Therefore if this is Sir Horace's glove he took
+it home because he was unaware that he had lost the other. He would put
+on his gloves before leaving the train at St. Pancras. And he would pull
+off the right-hand one--he was not left-handed--when the taxi-cab was
+nearing his home so as to be able to pay the fare. Therefore, if it is
+Sir Horace's glove the fellow to it was dropped in the taxi-cab, or
+dropped between the taxi-cab and the house. If the glove had been lost at
+the other end of the journey in Scotland Sir Horace would have flung this
+one out of the carriage window when he became aware of the loss. As I
+have told you no glove was found between the gate at Riversbrook and the
+room in which Sir Horace was murdered. I got from the police the number
+of the taxi-cab in which Sir Horace was driven from St. Pancras, and the
+driver tells me that no glove was left in his cab. So what have we to do
+next, Joe?"
+
+"To find the missing glove? It's a tough job, ain't it, sir?"
+
+"Yes and no," replied Crewe. "It is possible to make some reasonable
+safe deductions in regard to it. These would indicate what had happened
+to it, and knowing where to look, or, rather, in what circumstances we
+might expect to find it, we might throw a little light on it. In the
+first place, it might be assumed that if the glove did not belong to Sir
+Horace it belonged to some one who visited him on the night he returned
+unexpectedly from Scotland. That indicates that his visitor knew Sir
+Horace was returning; a most important point, for if he knew Sir Horace
+was returning he knew why he was returning--which no one else knows up to
+the present as far as I have been able to gather--and in all probability
+was responsible for his return, say, sent him a letter or a telegram
+which brought him to London. So we come to the possibility of an angry
+scene in the room in which Sir Horace's dead body was subsequently found.
+We have the possibility of the visitor leaving the house in a high state
+of excitement, hastily snatching up the hat and gloves he had taken off
+when he arrived, and in his excitement dropping unnoticed the right-hand
+glove on the floor."
+
+"And leaving his gold-mounted stick behind him," said Joe, who was
+following his master's line of reasoning with keen interest.
+
+"Right, Joe," said Crewe. "That was placed in the stand in the hall, and
+when the visitor left hurriedly was entirely forgotten. But at what stage
+did the visitor become conscious of the loss of his glove? Not until his
+excitement cooled down a little. How long he took to cool down depends
+upon the cause of his excitement and his temperament, things which, at
+present, we can only guess at. He would probably walk a long distance
+before he cooled down. Then he would resume his normal habits and among
+other things would put on his gloves--if he had them. He would find that
+he had lost one and that he had left his stick behind. He would know that
+the stick had been left behind in the hall, but he would not know the
+glove had been dropped in the house. The probabilities are that he would
+think he had dropped it while walking. But if he felt that he had dropped
+it in the house, and he had the best of all reasons for not wishing
+anyone to know that he had visited Sir Horace that night, he would
+destroy the remaining glove and our chance of tracing it would be gone.
+The fact that he had left his stick behind was a minor matter that he
+could easily account for if he had been a friend of Sir Horace who had
+been in the habit of visiting Riversbrook. If anything cropped up
+subsequently about the stick he could say that he had left it there
+before Sir Horace closed up his house and went to Scotland.
+
+"But the problem of the glove is a different matter, Joe. There are three
+phases to it: first, if the visitor thought he had dropped it in the
+house and wanted to keep his visit there a profound secret from
+subsequent inquiry he would take home the remaining glove and destroy
+it--probably by burning it. Secondly, if he thought he had dropped it
+after leaving the house he would not feel that safety necessitated the
+destruction of the remaining one, but he would probably throw it away
+where it would not be likely to be found. In the third place, if he had
+no particular reason for wishing to hide the fact that he had visited
+Riversbrook he would throw it away anywhere when he became conscious that
+he had lost the other. He would throw it away merely because an odd glove
+is of no use to a man who wears gloves. The man who doesn't wear gloves
+would pick up an odd glove from the ground and think he had made a find.
+He would take it home to his wife and she would probably keep it for
+finger-stalls for the children."
+
+Crewe put down his notes and got up from his chair. "Your job is this,
+Joe. Go to Riversbrook and make a careful search on both sides of the
+road for the missing glove. I do not think he threw it away--if he did
+throw it away--until he had walked some distance, but you mustn't act on
+that assumption. Look over the fences of the houses and into the hedges.
+Walk along in the direction of Hampstead Underground. Search the gutters
+and all the trees and hedges along the road. Take one side of the street
+to the Underground station and if you do not find the glove go back to
+Riversbrook along the other side. Make a thorough job of it, as it is
+most important that the glove should be found--if it is to be found."
+
+After Joe had departed Crewe put on his hat and left his office for the
+Strand. His first call was at the shop of Bruden and Marshall, hosiers,
+in order to find out if any information was to be obtained there about
+the ownership of the glove. He was aware that the police had been there
+on the same mission, but his experience had often shown that valuable
+information was to be gathered after the police had been over the ground.
+
+On introducing himself to the manager of the shop that gentleman
+displayed as much humble civility as he would have done towards a valued
+customer. He could not say anything about the ownership of the glove
+which Crewe had brought, and he could not even say if it had come from
+their shop. It was an excellent glove, the line being known in the trade
+as "first-choice reindeer." They stocked that particular kind of article
+at 10/6 the pair. They had the pleasure of having had the late Sir Horace
+Fewbanks on their books. He was quite an old account, if he might use the
+expression. He was one of their best customers, being a gentleman who was
+particular about his appearance and who would have nothing but the best
+in any line that he fancied. On the subject of Sir Horace's taste in hose
+the manager had much to say, and, in spite of Crewe's efforts to confine
+the conversation to gloves, the manager repeatedly dragged in socks. He
+did it so frequently that he became conscious his visitor was showing
+signs of annoyance, so he apologised, adding, with an inspiration, "After
+all, hose is really gloves for the feet."
+
+Crewe ascertained that a large number of legal gentlemen were
+customers of Bruden and Marshall. He innocently suggested that the
+reason was because the shop was the nearest one of its kind to the Law
+Courts, but this explanation offended the shopman's pride. It was
+because they stocked high-class goods and gave good value in every way,
+combined with attention and civility and a desire to please, that they
+did such an excellent business with legal gentlemen. In refutation of
+the idea that proximity to the Courts was the direct reason of their
+having so many legal gentlemen among their customers the manager
+declared that they received orders from all parts of the world--India,
+Canada, Australia, and South Africa, to say nothing of American
+gentlemen who liked their hosiery to have the London hall-mark. Their
+orders from the Colonies came from gentlemen who found that these
+things in the Colonies were not what they had been used to, and so they
+sent their orders to Bruden and Marshall.
+
+Crewe's interest was in the legal customers and he asked for the names of
+some. The manager ran through a list of names of judges, barristers and
+solicitors, but the name Crewe wanted to hear was not among them. He was
+compelled to include the name among half a dozen others he mentioned to
+the manager. He ascertained that Mr. Charles Holymead was a customer of
+the firm, but it was apparent from the manager's spiritless attitude
+towards Mr. Holymead that the famous K.C. was not a man who ran up a big
+bill with his hosier, or was very particular about what he wore. The
+world regarded some of the men of this type famous or distinguished, but
+in the hosier's mind they were all classed as commonplace. But the
+manager would not go so far as to say that Mr. Holymead would not buy
+such a glove as that which Crewe had brought in. He might and he might
+not, but, as a general rule, he did not pay more than 8/6 for his gloves.
+
+Crewe took a taxi to Princes Gate in order to have a look at the house
+in which Holymead lived. It occurred to him that if Holymead was not
+particular about what he spent on his clothes he was extravagant about
+the amount he spent in house rent. Of course, a leading barrister
+earning a huge income could afford to live in a palatial residence in
+Princes Gate, but it was not the locality or residence that an
+economically-minded man would have chosen for his home. But Crewe had
+little doubt that the beautiful wife Holymead possessed was responsible
+for the choice of house and locality.
+
+After looking at the house Crewe walked back to the cab-stand at Hyde
+Park Corner. He had arrived at the conclusion that it was necessary to
+settle beyond doubt whether the K.C. had visited Riversbrook the night Sir
+Horace had returned from Scotland. If the K.C. had done so, he was
+anxious to keep the visit secret, for not only had he not informed the
+police of his visit but he had kept it from Miss Fewbanks. Crewe had
+ascertained from Miss Fewbanks that Mr. Holymead when he had called at
+Riversbrook on a visit of condolence had not mentioned to her anything
+about having left his stick in the hall stand on a previous visit. On
+leaving Miss Fewbanks Mr. Holymead had gone up to the hall stand and
+taken both his hat and stick as if he had left them both there a few
+minutes before.
+
+Crewe reasoned that if Holymead had gone out to see Sir Horace Fewbanks
+at Riversbrook and had desired to keep his visit a secret he would not
+have taken a cab at Hyde Park Corner to Hampstead, but would have
+travelled by underground railway or omnibus. In all probability the Tube
+had been used because of its speed being more in harmony with the
+feelings of a man impatient to get done with a subject so important that
+Sir Horace had been recalled from Scotland to deal with it. He would
+leave the Tube at Hampstead and take a taxi-cab. He would not be likely
+to go straight to Riversbrook in the taxi-cab, if he were anxious that
+his movements should not be traced subsequently. He would dismiss the
+taxi-cab at one of the hotels bordering on Hampstead Heath, for they
+were the resort of hundreds of visitors on summer nights, and his actions
+would thus easily escape notice. From the hotel he would walk across to
+Riversbrook. But the return journey would be made in a somewhat different
+way. If Holymead left Riversbrook in a state of excitement he would walk
+a long way without being conscious of the exertion. He would want to be
+alone with his own thoughts. Gradually he would cool down, and becoming
+conscious of his surroundings would make his way home. Again he would use
+the Tube, for it would be more difficult for his movements to be traced
+if he mixed with a crowd of travellers than if he took a cab to his home.
+It was impossible to say what station he got in at, for that would depend
+on how far he walked before he cooled down, but he would be sure to get
+out at Hyde Park Corner because that was the station nearest to his
+house. Allowing for a temperamental reaction during a train journey of
+about twenty minutes, he would feel depressed and weary and would
+probably take a taxi-cab outside Hyde Park station to his home. That was
+a thing he would often be in the habit of doing when returning late at
+night from the theatre or elsewhere, and therefore could be easily
+explained by him if the police happened to make inquiries as to his
+movements.
+
+As Crewe anticipated, he had no difficulty in finding the driver of the
+taxi-cab in which Holymead had driven home on the night of Wednesday
+last. The K.C. frequently used cabs, and he was well-known to all the
+drivers on the rank. Crewe got into the cab he had used and ordered the
+man to drive him to his office, and there invited him upstairs. He
+adopted this course because he knew that the driver, who gave his name as
+Taylor, would be more likely to talk freely in an office where he could
+not be overheard than he would do on the cab-rank with his fellow-drivers
+crowding him, or in an hotel parlour where other people were present.
+
+"Tell me exactly what happened when you drove Mr. Holymead home on
+Wednesday night," said Crewe. "Did you notice anything strange about
+him, or was his manner much the same as on other occasions that he used
+your cab?"
+
+"Well, I don't see whether I should tell you whether he was or whether he
+wasn't," replied the taxi-cab driver, who was as surly as most of his
+class. "What's it to do with you, anyway? He's a regular customer of mine
+on the rank, and he's not one of your tuppenny tipsters, either. He's a
+gentleman. And if he got to know that I had been telling tales about him
+it would not do me any good."
+
+"It would not," replied Crewe, with cordial acquiescence. "Therefore,
+Taylor, I give you my word of honour not to mention anything you tell me.
+Furthermore, I'll see that you don't lose by it now or at any other time.
+I cannot say more than that, but that's a great deal more than the police
+would say. Now, would you sooner tell me or tell the police? Here's a
+sovereign to start with, and if you have an interesting story to tell
+you'll have another one before you leave."
+
+The appeal of money and the conviction that the police would use less
+considerate methods if Crewe passed him over to them abolished Taylor's
+scruples about discussing a fare, and it was in a much less surly tone
+that he responded:
+
+"I didn't notice anything strange about him when he called me off the
+rank, but I did afterwards. First of all, I didn't drive him home. That
+is, I did drive him home, but he didn't go inside. When I drew up outside
+his house in Princes Gate, I looked around expecting to see him get out.
+As he didn't move I got down and opened the door. 'Aren't you getting out
+here, sir?' I said, in a soft voice. 'No,' he said. 'Drive on.' 'This is
+your house, sir,' I ventured to say. 'I'm not going in,' he replied,
+'drive on.' I was surprised. I thought he was the worse for drink, and
+I'd never seen him that way before. But some gentlemen are so obstinate
+in liquor that you can't get them to do anything except the opposite of
+what you ask them. I thought I'd try and coax him. 'Better go inside,
+sir,' I said. 'You'll be better off in bed.' 'Do you think I am drunk?'
+he said sharply. You could have knocked me down with a feather. He was as
+sober as a judge, all in a moment. 'No, sir, I didn't,' I said. 'I
+wouldn't take the liberty,' I said. 'Then get back on your seat and drive
+me to the Hyde Park Hotel--no, I think I'll go to Verney's. But don't go
+there direct. Drive me round the Park first. I feel I want a breath of
+cool air.'"
+
+"Go on," said Crewe, in a tone which indicated approval of Taylor's
+method of telling his story.
+
+"Well, I turned the cab round and drove through the Park. But I was
+puzzled about him and looked back at him once or twice pretending that I
+was looking to see if a cab or car was coming up behind. And as we passed
+over the Serpentine Bridge I saw him throw something out of the window."
+
+"A glove?" suggested Crewe quickly.
+
+The driver looked at him in profound admiration.
+
+"Well, if you don't beat all the detectives I've ever heard of."
+
+"He tried to throw it in the water," continued Crewe, as if explaining
+the matter to himself rather than to his visitor. "Did you get it?"
+
+"Hold on a bit," said Taylor, who had his own ideas of how to give value
+for the extra sovereign he hoped to obtain. "I couldn't see what it was
+he had thrown away, and, of course, I couldn't pull up to find out. I
+drove on, but I kept my eye on him, though I had my back to him. As we
+were driving back along the Broad Walk I had another look at him, and
+bless me if he wasn't crying--crying like a child. He had his hands up to
+his face and his head was shaking as if he was sobbing. I said to myself,
+'He's barmy--he's gone off his rocker.' I thought to myself I ought to
+drive him to the police station, but I reckoned it was none of my
+business, after all, so I'll take him to Verney's and be done with it.
+So I drove to Verney's. He got out, and paid me, but I couldn't see that
+he had been crying, and he looked much as usual, so far as I could see. I
+thought to myself that perhaps, after all, he'd only had a queer turn;
+however, I said to myself I'd drive back to the bridge and see what he'd
+thrown out of the window. It _was_ a glove, sure enough. It had fallen
+just below the railing. I looked about for the other one, but I couldn't
+find it, so I suppose it must have fallen into the water."
+
+"No, it didn't," said Crewe. "I have it here." He opened a drawer in his
+desk and produced a glove. "It was a right-hand glove you found. Just
+look at this one and see if it corresponds to the one you picked up."
+
+Taylor looked at the glove.
+
+"They're as like as two peas," he said.
+
+"What did you do with the one you found?" inquired Crewe. "I hope you
+didn't throw it away?"
+
+"I'm not a fool," retorted Taylor. "I've had odd gloves left in my cab
+before. I kept this one thinking that sooner or later somebody might
+leave another like it, and then I'd have a pair for nothing."
+
+"Well, I'll buy it from you," said Crewe. "Have you anything more
+to tell me?"
+
+"I went back to the rank and one of the chaps was curious that I'd been
+so long away, for he knew that Mr. Holymead's place isn't more than ten
+minutes' drive from the station. But he got nothing out of me. I know how
+to keep my mouth shut. You're the first man I've told what happened, and
+I hope you won't give me away."
+
+"I've already promised you that," said Crewe, flipping another sovereign
+from his sovereign case and handing it to Taylor, "and I'll give you five
+shillings for the glove."
+
+Taylor looked at him darkly.
+
+"Five shillings isn't much for a glove like that," he said insolently.
+"What about my loss of time going home for it? I suppose you'll pay the
+taxi-fare for the run down from Hyde Park?"
+
+"No, I won't," said Crewe cheerfully.
+
+"Then I don't see why I should bring it for a paltry five shillings,"
+said Taylor. "If you want the glove you'll have to pay for it."
+
+"But I don't want the glove," said Crewe, who disliked being made the
+victim of extortion. "What made you think so? I'll sell you this one for
+five shillings. We may as well do a deal of some kind; it is no use each
+of us having one glove. What do you say, Taylor? Will you buy mine for
+five shillings, or shall I buy yours?"
+
+Taylor smiled sourly.
+
+"You're a deep one," he said. "Here's the other glove." He dipped his
+hand into the deep pocket of his driving coat and produced a glove. "I
+suppose you knew I'd have it on me. Five shillings, and it's yours."
+
+"The pair are worth about five shillings to me," said Crewe as he paid
+over the money. "Do you remember what time it was when Mr. Holymead
+engaged you at Hyde Park?"
+
+"Eleven o'clock."
+
+"You are quite sure as to the time?"
+
+"I heard one of the big clocks striking as he was getting into my cab."
+
+Taylor took his departure, and Crewe, after wrapping up the left-hand
+glove which he had to return to Inspector Chippenfield, put the other one
+in his safe.
+
+"We are getting on," he said in a pleased tone. "This means a trip to
+Scotland, but I'll wait until the inquest is over."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+At the inquest on the body of Sir Horace Fewbanks, which was held at
+the Hampstead Police Court, there was an odd mixture of classes in the
+crowd that thronged that portion of the court in which the public were
+allowed to congregate. The accounts of the crime which had been
+published in the press, and the atmosphere of mystery which enshrouded
+the violent death of one of the most prominent of His Majesty's judges,
+had stirred the public curiosity, and therefore, in spite of the fact
+that every one was supposed to be out of town in August, the attendance
+at the court included a sprinkling of ladies of the fashionable world,
+and their escorts.
+
+Both branches of the legal profession were numerously represented. All of
+the victim's judicial colleagues were out of town, and though some of
+them intended as a mark of respect for the dead man to come up for the
+funeral, which was to take place two days later, they were too familiar
+with legal procedure to feel curiosity as to the working of the machinery
+at a preliminary inquiry into the crime. They were emphatic among their
+friends on the degeneracy of these days which rendered possible such an
+outrageous crime as the murder of a High Court judge. The fact that it
+was without precedent in the history of British law added to its enormity
+in the eyes of gentlemen who had been trained to worship precedent as the
+only safe guide through the shifting quicksands of life. They were
+insistent on the urgency of the murderer being arrested and handed over
+to Justice in the person of the hangman, for--as each asked
+himself--where was this sort of crime to end? In spite of the degeneracy
+of the times they were reluctant to believe in such a far-fetched
+supposition as the existence of a band of criminals who, in revenge for
+the judicial sentences imposed on members of their class, had sworn to
+exterminate the whole of His Majesty's judges; but, until the murderer
+was apprehended and the reason for the crime was discovered, it was
+impossible to say that the English judicature would not soon be called
+upon to supply other victims to criminal violence. The murder of a judge
+seemed to them a particularly atrocious crime, in the punishment of which
+the law might honourably sacrifice temporarily its well-earned reputation
+for delay.
+
+The bar was represented chiefly by junior members. The senior members
+were able to make full use of the long vacation, spending it at health
+resorts or in the country, but the incomes of the young shoots of the
+great parasitical profession did not permit them to enjoy more than a
+brief holiday out of town. Of course it would never have done for them
+to admit even to each other that they could not afford to go away for an
+extended holiday, and therefore they told one another in bored tones
+that they had not been able to make up their minds where to go. The
+junior bar included old men, who, through lack of influence, want of
+energy, want of advertisement, want of ability, or some other
+deficiency, had never earned more than a few guineas at their
+profession, though they had spent year after year in chambers. They
+lived on scanty private means. Broken in spirit they had even ceased to
+attend the courts in order to study the methods and learn the tricks of
+successful counsel. But the murder of a High Court judge was a thing
+which stirred even their sluggish blood, and in the hope of some
+sensational development they had put on faded silk hats and shabby black
+suits and gone out to Hampstead to attend the inquest.
+
+The interest of the junior bar in the crime was as personal as that of
+the members of the Judicial Bench, though it manifested itself in an
+entirely different direction. They speculated among themselves as to who
+would be appointed to the vacancy on the High Court Bench. A leading K.C.
+with a political pull would of course be selected by the
+Attorney-General, but there were several K.C.'s who possessed these
+qualifications, and therefore there was room for differences of opinion
+among the junior bar as to who would get the offer. The point on which
+they were all united was that vacancies of the High Court Bench were a
+good thing for the bar as a whole, for they removed leading K.C.'s, and
+the dispersion of their practice was like rain on parched ground.
+Metaphorically speaking, every one--including even the junior bar--had
+the chance of getting a shove up when a leading K.C. accepted a judicial
+appointment. Some of the more irreverent spirits among the junior bar, in
+drawing attention to the fact that Sir Horace Fewbanks had been one of
+the youngest members of the High Court Bench, expressed the hope that the
+shock of his death would be felt by some of the extremely aged members of
+the bench who were too infirm in health to be able to stand many shocks.
+
+The members of the junior bar chatted with the representatives of the
+lower branch of the profession who ranged from articled clerks whose
+young souls had not been entirely dried up by association with parchment,
+to hard old delvers in dusty documents who had lived so long in the legal
+atmosphere of quibbling, obstruction, and deceit, that they were as
+incapable of an honest impetuous act as of an illegal one. The gossip
+concerning the murdered judge in which the two branches of the profession
+joined had reference to his moral character in legal circles. There had
+always been gossip of the kind in his life-time. Sir Horace's judicial
+reputation was beyond reproach and he had known his law a great deal
+better than most of his judicial colleagues. Comparatively few of his
+decisions had been upset on appeal. But every one about the courts knew
+that he was susceptible to a pretty feminine face and a good figure.
+
+Many were the conflicts that arose in court between bench and bar as the
+result of Mr. Justice Fewbanks's habit of protecting pretty witnesses
+from cross-examining questions which he regarded as outside the case.
+There was no suggestion that his judicial decisions were influenced by
+the good looks of ladies who were parties to the cases heard by him, but
+there were rumours that on occasions the relations between the judge and
+a pretty witness begun in court had ripened into something at which moral
+men might well shake their heads.
+
+While the members of the legal profession struggled to obtain seats in
+the body of the court, an entirely different class of spectators
+struggled to get into the gallery. For the most part they were badly
+dressed men who needed a shave, but there were a few well-dressed men
+among them, and also a few ladies. Detective Rolfe took a professional
+interest in the occupants of the gallery. "What a collection of crooks,"
+he whispered to Inspector Chippenfield. "A regular rogues' gallery.
+Look--there is 'Nosey George'; it is time he was in again. And behind him
+is that cunning old 'drop' Ikey Samuels--I wish we could get him. Look at
+the other end of the first row. Isn't that 'Sunny Jim'? I hardly knew
+him. He's grown a beard since he's been out. We'll soon have it off again
+for him. He's got the impudence to scowl at us. He'll lay for you one of
+these nights, Inspector."
+
+The judicial duties of the murdered man had been concerned chiefly with
+civil cases at the Royal Courts of Justice, but when the criminal
+calendar had been heavy he had often presided at Number One Court at the
+Old Bailey. It was this fact which had given the criminal class a sort of
+personal interest in his murder and accounted for the presence of many
+well-known criminals who happened to be out of gaol at the time. The
+spectators in the gallery included men whom the murdered man had
+sentenced and men who had been fortunate enough to escape being sentenced
+by him owing to the vagaries of juries. There were pickpockets, sneak
+thieves, confidence men, burglars, and receivers among the occupants of
+the gallery, and many of them had brought with them the ladies who
+assisted them professionally or presided over their homes when they were
+not in gaol.
+
+"I wouldn't be surprised if the man we want is among that bunch," said
+Rolfe to Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+"You've a lot to learn about them, my boy," said his superior.
+
+"There is Crewe up among them," continued Rolfe. "I wonder what he thinks
+he's after."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield gave a glance in the direction of Crewe, but did
+not deign to give any sign of recognition. The fact that Crewe by his
+presence in the gallery seemed to entertain the idea that the murderer
+might be found among the occupants of that part of the court could not be
+as lightly dismissed as Rolfe's vague suggestion. It annoyed Inspector
+Chippenfield to think that Crewe might be nearer at the moment to the
+murderer than he himself was, even though that proximity was merely
+physical and unsupported by evidence or even by any theory. It would have
+been a great relief to him if he had known that Crewe's object in going
+to the gallery was not to mix with the criminal classes, but in order to
+keep a careful survey of what took place in the body of the court without
+making himself too prominent.
+
+Mr. Holymead, K.C., arrived, and members of the junior bar deferentially
+made room for him. He shook hands with some of these gentlemen and also
+with Inspector Chippenfield, much to the gratification of that officer.
+Miss Fewbanks arrived in a taxi-cab a few minutes before the appointed
+hour of eleven. She was accompanied by Mrs. Holymead, and they were shown
+into a private room by Police-Constable Flack, who had received
+instructions from Inspector Chippenfield to be on the lookout for the
+murdered man's daughter.
+
+Miss Fewbanks and Mrs. Holymead had been almost inseparable since the
+tragedy had been discovered. Immediately on the arrival of Miss Fewbanks
+from Dellmere, Mrs. Holymead had gone out to Riversbrook to condole with
+her, and to support her in her great sorrow. But the murdered man's
+daughter, who, on account of having lived apart from her father, had
+developed a self-reliant spirit, seemed to be less overcome by the
+horror of the tragedy than Mrs. Holymead was. It was with a feeling that
+there was something lacking in her own nature, that the girl realised
+that Mrs. Holymead's grief for the violent death of a man who had been
+her husband's dearest friend was greater than her own grief at the loss
+of a father.
+
+One of the directions in which Mrs. Holymead's grief found expression was
+in a feverish desire to know all that was being done to discover the
+murderer. She displayed continuous interest in the investigations of the
+detectives engaged on the case, and she had implored Miss Fewbanks to let
+her know when any important discovery was made. She applauded the action
+of her young friend in engaging such a famous detective as Crewe, and
+declared that if anyone could unravel the mystery, Crewe would do it. She
+had been particularly anxious to hear through Miss Fewbanks what Crewe's
+impressions were, with regard to the tragedy.
+
+The court was opened punctually, the coroner being Mr. Bodyman, a stout,
+clean-shaven, white-haired gentleman who had spent thirty years of his
+life in the stuffy atmosphere of police courts hearing police-court
+cases. Police-Inspector Seldon nodded in reply to the inquiring glance of
+the coroner, and the inquest was opened.
+
+The first witness was Miss Fewbanks. She was dressed in deep black and
+was obviously a little unnerved. In a low tone she said she had
+identified the body as that of her father. She was staying at her
+father's country house in Dellmere, Sussex, when the crime was committed.
+She had no knowledge of anyone who was evilly disposed towards her
+father. He had never spoken to her of anyone who cherished a grudge
+against him.
+
+Evidence relating to the circumstances in which the body was found
+was given by Police-Constable Flack. He described the position of the
+room in which the body was found, and the attitude in which the body
+was stretched. He was on duty in the neighbourhood of Tanton Gardens
+on the night of the murder, but saw no suspicious characters and
+heard no sounds.
+
+The evidence of Hill was chiefly a repetition of what he had told
+Inspector Chippenfield as to his movements on the day of the crime, and
+his methods of inspecting the premises three times a week in accordance
+with his master's orders. He knew nothing about Sir Horace's sudden
+return from Scotland. His first knowledge of this was the account of the
+murder, which he read in the papers.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield gave evidence for the purpose of producing the
+letter received at Scotland Yard announcing that Sir Horace Fewbanks had
+been murdered. The letter was passed up to the coroner for his
+inspection, and when he had examined it he sent it to the foreman of the
+jury. Then followed medical evidence, which showed that death was due to
+a bullet wound and could not have been self-inflicted.
+
+The coroner, in his summing-up, dwelt upon the loss sustained by the
+Judiciary by the violent death of one of its most distinguished members,
+and the jury, after a retirement of a few minutes, brought in a verdict
+of wilful murder by some person or persons unknown.
+
+As the occupants of the court filed out into the street, Crewe, who was
+watching Holymead, noticed the K.C. give a slight start when he saw Miss
+Fewbanks and his wife. Mr. Holymead went up to the ladies and shook hands
+with Miss Fewbanks, and to Crewe it seemed as if he was on the point of
+shaking hands with his wife, but he stopped himself awkwardly. He saw the
+ladies into their cab, and, raising his hat, went off. As Mr. Holymead
+had seen Miss Fewbanks in court when she gave evidence, it was obvious to
+Crewe that he could not have been surprised at meeting her outside. It
+was therefore the presence of his wife which had surprised him. That
+fact--if it were a fact--opened a limitless field of speculation to
+Crewe, but in spite of the possibility of error--a possibility which he
+frankly recognised--he was pleased with himself for having noticed the
+incident. To him it seemed to provide another link in the chain he was
+constructing. It harmonised with Taylor's story of Mr. Holymead's
+decision to stay at Verney's instead of entering his own home the night
+Taylor drove him from Hyde Park Corner.
+
+Rolfe also possessed the professional faculty of observation, but in a
+different degree. He had seen Mr. Holymead talking to his wife and Miss
+Fewbanks, but he had noticed nothing but gentlemanly ease in the
+barrister's manner. What did astonish him in connection with Mr. Holymead
+was that after he had left the ladies and was walking in the direction of
+the cab-rank he spoke to one of the former occupants of the gallery. This
+was a man known to the police and his associates as "Kincher." His name
+was Kemp, and how he had obtained his nick-name was not known. He was a
+criminal by profession and had undergone several heavy sentences for
+burglary. He was a thick-set man of medium height, about fifty years of
+age. Apart from a rather heavy lower jaw, he gave no external indication
+of his professional pursuits, but looked, with his brown and
+weather-beaten face and rough blue reefer suit, not unlike a seafaring
+man. The likeness was heightened by a tattooed device which covered the
+back of his right hand, and a slight roll in his gait when he walked. But
+appearances are deceptive, for Mr. Kemp, at liberty or in gaol, had never
+been out of London in his life. He was born and bred a London thief, and
+had served all his sentences at Wormwood Scrubbs. For over a minute he
+and Mr. Holymead remained in conversation. Rolfe would have described it
+officially as familiar conversation, but that description would have
+overlooked the deference, the sense of inferiority, in "Kincher's"
+manner. For a time Rolfe was puzzled by the incident, but he eventually
+lighted on an explanation which satisfied himself. It was that in the
+earlier days before Mr. Holymead had reached such a prominent position at
+the bar, he had been engaged in practice in the criminal courts, and
+"Kincher" had been one of his clients.
+
+With a cheerful smile Holymead brought the conversation to an end and
+went on his way. Kemp walked on hurriedly in the opposite direction. He
+had his eyes on a young man whom he had seen in the gallery, and who had
+seemed to avoid his eye. It was obvious to him that this young man, for
+whom he had been on the watch when Mr. Holymead spoke to him, had seized
+the opportunity to slip past him while he was talking to the eminent K.C.
+The young man, even from the back view, seemed to be well-dressed.
+
+"Hallo, Fred," exclaimed Mr. Kemp, as he reached within a yard or two of
+his quarry.
+
+"Hallo, Kincher," replied the young man, turning round. "I didn't notice
+you. Were you up at the court?"
+
+"Yes, I looked in," said Mr. Kemp. "There wasn't much doing, was there?"
+
+"No," said Fred.
+
+"He won't trouble us any more," pursued Mr. Kemp.
+
+"No." The young man seemed to have a dread of helping along the
+conversation, and therefore sought refuge in monosyllables.
+
+Mr. Kemp coughed before he formed his question.
+
+"Did you go up there that night?"
+
+"No." The reply came instantaneously, but the young man followed it up
+with a look of inquiry to ascertain if his denial was believed.
+
+"A good thing as it happened," said Mr. Kemp.
+
+"I had nothing to do with it," said Fred, earnestly.
+
+"I never said you had," replied Mr. Kemp.
+
+"Nothing whatever to do with it," continued the young man with emphasis.
+"That's not my sort of game."
+
+"I'm not saying anything, Fred," replied the elder man. "But whoever done
+it might have done it by accident-like."
+
+"Accident or no accident, I had nothing to do with it, thank God."
+
+"That is all right, Fred. I'm not saying you know anything about it. But
+even if you did you'd find I could be trusted. I don't go blabbing round
+to everybody."
+
+"I know you don't. But as I said before I had nothing to do with it. I
+didn't go there that night--I changed my mind."
+
+"A very lucky thing then, because if they do look you up you can prove
+an alibi."
+
+"Yes," said Fred, "I can prove an alibi easy enough. But what makes you
+talk about them looking me up? Why should they get into me--why should
+they look me up? I've told you I didn't go there."
+
+"That is all right, Fred," said the other, in a soothing tone. "If that
+pal of yours keeps his mouth shut there is nothing to put them on your
+tracks. But I don't like the looks of him. He seems to me a bit nervous,
+and if they put him through the third degree he'll squeak. That's my
+impression."
+
+"If he squeaks he'll have to settle with me," said Fred. "And he'll find
+there is something to pay. If he tries to put me away I'll--I'll--I'll
+do him in."
+
+"Kincher" instead of being horrified at this sentiment seemed to approve
+of it as the right thing to be done. "I'd let him know if I was you,
+Fred," he said. "I didn't like the look of him. The reason I came out
+here to-day was to have a look at him. And when I saw him in the box I
+said to myself, 'Well, I'm glad I've staked nothing on you, for it seems
+to me that you'll crack up if the police shake their thumb-screws in your
+face.' I felt glad I hadn't accepted your invitation to make it a
+two-handed job, Fred. It was the fact that some one else I'd never seen
+had put up the job that kept me out of it when you asked me to go with
+you. A man can't be too careful--especially after he's had a long spell
+in 'stir,' But of course you're all right if you changed your mind and
+didn't go up there. But if I was you I'd have my alibi ready. It is no
+good leaving things until the police are at the door and making one up on
+the spur of the moment."
+
+"Yes, I'll see about it," said Fred. "It's a good idea."
+
+"Come in and have a drink, Fred," said "Kincher." "It will do you good.
+It was dry work listening to them talking up there about the murder."
+
+Fred accompanied Mr. Kemp into the bar of the hotel they reached, and the
+elder man, after an inquiring glance at his companion, ordered two
+whiskies. "Kincher" added water to the contents of each glass, and,
+lifting his glass in his right hand, waited until Fred had done the same
+and then said:
+
+"Well, here's luck and long life to the man that did it--whoever he is."
+
+Fred offered no objection to this sentiment and they drained glasses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+"And so you've had no luck, Rolfe?"
+
+Inspector Chippenfield, glancing up from his official desk in Scotland
+Yard, put this question in a tone of voice which suggested that the
+speaker had expected nothing better.
+
+"I've seen the heads of at least half a dozen likely West End shops,"
+Rolfe replied, "and they tell me there is nothing to indicate where the
+handkerchief was bought. The scrap of lace merely shows that it was torn
+off a good handkerchief, but there is nothing about it to show that the
+handkerchief was different in any marked way from the average filmy scrap
+of muslin and lace which every smart woman carries as a handkerchief. I
+thought so myself, before I started to make inquiries."
+
+"Well, Rolfe, we must come at it another way," said the inspector.
+"Undoubtedly there is a woman in the case, and it ought not to be
+impossible to locate her. Your theory, Rolfe, is that the murder was
+committed by some one who broke into the place while Sir Horace was
+entertaining a lady friend or waiting for the arrival of a lady he
+expected. Either the lady had not arrived or had left the room
+temporarily when the burglar broke into the house. He had spotted the
+place some days before and ascertained that it was empty, and when he
+found that Sir Horace had returned alone he decided to break in, and,
+covering Sir Horace with a revolver, try to extort money from him. A
+riskier but more profitable game than burgling an empty house--if it came
+off. With his revolver in his hand he made his way up to the library. Sir
+Horace parleyed with him until he could reach his own revolver, and then
+got in the first shot but missed his man. The burglar shot him and then
+bolted. The lady heard the shots, and, rushing in, found Sir Horace in
+his death agony. She was stooping over him with her handkerchief in her
+hand, and in his convulsive moments he caught hold of a corner of it and
+the handkerchief was torn. The lady left the place and on arrival home
+concocted that letter which was sent here telling us that Sir Horace had
+been murdered. Is that it?"
+
+"Yes," assented Rolfe. "Of course, I don't lay it down that everything
+happened just as you've said. But that's my idea of the crime. It
+accounts for all the clues we've picked up, and that is something."
+
+"It is an ingenious theory and it does you credit," said the inspector,
+who had not forgotten that he had proposed to Rolfe that they should help
+one another to the extent of taking one another fully into each other's
+confidence, for the purpose of getting ahead of Crewe. "But you have
+overlooked the fact that it is possible to account in another way for all
+the clues we have picked up. Suppose Sir Horace's return from Scotland
+was due to a message from a lady friend; suppose the lady went to see him
+accompanied by a friend whom Sir Horace did not like--a friend of whom
+Sir Horace was jealous. Suppose they asked for money--blackmail--and
+there was a quarrel in which Sir Horace was shot. Then we have your idea
+as to how the lady's handkerchief was torn--I agree with that in the
+main. The lady and her friend fled from the place. Later in the night the
+place is burgled by some one who has had his eye on it for some time, and
+on entering the library he is astounded to find the dead body of the
+owner. Suppose he went home, and on thinking things over sent the letter
+to Scotland Yard with the idea that if the police got on to his tracks
+about the burglary the fact that he had told us about the murder would
+show he had nothing to do with killing Sir Horace."
+
+"That is a good theory, too," said Rolfe, in a meditative tone. "And the
+only person who can tell us which is the right one is Sir Horace's lady
+friend. The problem is to find her."
+
+"Right," said the inspector approvingly. "And while you have been making
+inquiries at the shops about the handkerchief I have been down to the Law
+Courts branch of the Equity Bank where Sir Horace kept his account. It
+occurred to me that a look at Sir Horace's account might help us. You
+know the sort of man he was--you know his weakness for the ladies. But he
+was careful. I looked through his private papers out at Riversbrook
+expecting to get on the track of something that would show some one had
+been trying to blackmail him over an entanglement with a woman, but I
+found nothing. I couldn't even find any feminine correspondence. If Sir
+Horace was in the habit of getting letters from ladies he was also in the
+habit of destroying them. No doubt he adopted that precaution when his
+wife was alive, and found it such a wise one that he kept it up when
+there was less need for it. But a weakness for the ladies costs money,
+Rolfe, as you know, and that is why I had a look at his banking account.
+He made some payments that it would be worth while to trace--payments to
+West End drapers and that sort of thing. Of course, Sir Horace, being a
+cautious man and occupying a public position, might not care to flaunt
+his weakness in the eyes of West End shopkeepers, and instead of paying
+the accounts of his lady friend of the moment, may have given her the
+money and trusted to her paying the bills--a thing that women of that
+kind are never in a hurry to do. In that case the payments to West End
+shopkeepers are for goods supplied to his daughter. However, I've taken a
+note of the names, dates, and amounts of a number of them, and I want you
+to see the managers of these shops."
+
+"We are getting close to it now," said Rolfe, approvingly.
+
+"I think so," was the modest reply of his superior. "There is one thing
+about Sir Horace's account which struck me as peculiar. Every four weeks
+for the past eight months Sir Horace drew a cheque for £24, and every
+cheque of the kind was made payable to Number 365. Now, unless he wished
+to hide the nature of the transaction from his bankers, why not put in
+the cheque in the name of the person who received the money? It couldn't
+have been for his personal use, for in that case he would have made the
+cheques payable to self. Besides, a man with a banking account doesn't
+draw a regular £24 every four weeks for personal expenses. He draws a
+cheque just when he wants a few pounds, instead of carrying five-pound
+notes about with him. I asked the bank manager about these cheques and he
+looked up a couple of them and found they had been cashed over the
+counter. So he called up the cashier and from him I learnt that Sir
+Horace came in and cashed them. As far as he can remember Sir Horace
+cashed all these £24 cheques. I assume he did so because he realised that
+there was less likely to be comment in the bank than if a well-dressed
+good-looking young lady arrived at the bank with them. This £24 a month
+suggests that Sir Horace had something choice and not too expensive
+stowed away in a flat. That is a matter on which Hill ought to be able to
+throw some light. If he knows anything I'll get it out of him. It struck
+me as extraordinary that Sir Horace should have taken Hill into his
+service knowing what he was. But this, apparently, is the explanation. He
+knew that Hill wouldn't gossip about him for fear of being exposed, for
+that would mean that Hill would lose his situation and would find it
+impossible to get another one without a reference from him. We'll have
+Hill brought here--"
+
+There was a knock at the door, and a boy in buttons entered and handed
+Inspector Chippenfield a card.
+
+"Seldon from Hampstead," he explained to Rolfe. "Don't go away yet. It
+may be something about this case."
+
+Police-Inspector Seldon entered the office, and held the door ajar for a
+man behind him. He shook hands with Inspector Chippenfield and Rolfe, and
+then motioned his companion to a chair.
+
+"This is Mr. Robert Evans, the landlord of the Flowerdew Hotel, Covent
+Garden," he explained. He looked at Mr. Evans with the air of a
+police-court inspector waiting for a witness to corroborate his
+statement, but as that gentleman remained silent he sharply asked,
+"Isn't that so?"
+
+"Quite right," said Mr. Evans, in a moist, husky voice.
+
+He was a short fat man, with an extremely red face and bulging eyes,
+which watered very much and apparently required to be constantly mopped
+with a handkerchief which he carried in his hand. This peculiarity gave
+Mr. Evans the appearance of a man perpetually in mourning, and this
+effect was heightened by a species of incipient palsy which had seized on
+his lower facial muscles, and caused his lips to tremble violently. He
+was bald in the front of the head but not on the top. The baldness over
+the temples had joined hands and left isolated over the centre of the
+forehead a small tuft of hair, which, with the playfulness of second
+childhood, showed a tendency to curl.
+
+"Yes, you're quite right," he repeated huskily, as though some one had
+doubted the statement. "Evans is my name and I'm not ashamed of it."
+
+"He came to me this morning and told me that Hill gave false evidence at
+the inquest yesterday," Inspector Seldon explained. "So I brought him
+along to see you."
+
+"False evidence--Hill?" exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield, with keen
+interest. "Let us hear about it."
+
+"Well, you will remember Hill said he was at home on the night of the
+murder," pursued Inspector Seldon. "I looked up his depositions before I
+came away and what he said was this: 'I took my daughter to the Zoo in
+the afternoon. We left the Zoo at half past five and went home and had
+tea. My wife then took the child to the picture-palace and I remained at
+home. I did not go out that night. They returned about half-past ten, and
+after supper we all went to bed.' But Evans tells me he saw Hill in his
+bar at three o'clock on the morning of the 19th of August. He has an
+early license for the accommodation of the Covent Garden traffic. He can
+swear to Hill. A man who goes to bed at half-past ten has no right to be
+wandering about Covent Garden at 3 a. m. And besides, Hill told us
+nothing about this. So I brought Evans along to see what you make of it."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield had taken up a pencil and was making a few notes.
+
+"Very interesting indeed," he said. Then he turned to Evans and asked,
+"Are you sure you saw Hill in your bar at three a. m.? There is no
+possibility of a mistake?"
+
+"He is the man who was knocked down outside by a porter running into
+him," said Mr. Evans, mopping his eyes. "I could bring half a dozen
+witnesses who will swear to him."
+
+"You see, it's this way," interpolated Inspector Seldon, taking up the
+landlord's narrative. His police-court training had taught him to bring
+out the salient points of a story, and he was naturally of the opinion
+that he could tell another man's story better than the man could tell it
+himself. "Hill was staring about him--it was probably the first time he
+had been to Covent Garden in the early morning--and got knocked over. He
+was stunned, and some porters took him in to the bar, sat him on a form,
+and poured some rum into him. Some of the porters were for ringing up the
+ambulance; others were for carrying Hill off to the hospital, but he soon
+recovered. However, he sat there for about twenty minutes, and after
+having several drinks at his own expense he went away. Evans served him
+with the drinks."
+
+"Good," said Inspector Chippenfield, who liked the circumstantial details
+of the story. "And you can get half a dozen porters to identify him?"
+
+"Bill Cribb, Harry Winch, Charlie Brown, a fellow they call 'Green
+Violets'--I don't know his real name--"
+
+Mr. Evans was calling on his memory for further names but was stopped by
+Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+"That will do very well. And how did you happen to be at the inquest at
+Hampstead? That is a bit out of your way."
+
+Mr. Evans mopped his eyes, and Inspector Seldon took upon himself to
+reply for him. "He has a brother-in-law in the trade at Hampstead--keeps
+the _Three Jugs_ in Coulter Street. Evans had to go out to see his
+brother-in-law on business, and his brother-in-law took him along to the
+court out of curiosity."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield nodded.
+
+"Rolfe," he said, "take down Mr. Evans's statement outside and get him to
+sign it. Don't go away when you've finished. I want you."
+
+Mr. Evans, even if he felt that full justice had been done to his story
+by Inspector Seldon, was disappointed at the police officer's failure to
+do justice to his manly scruples in coming forward to give evidence
+against a man who had never done him any harm. Addressing Inspector
+Chippenfield he said:
+
+"I don't altogether like mixing myself up in this business. That isn't my
+way. If I have a thing to say to a man I like to say it to his face. I
+don't like a man to say things behind a man's back, that is, if he calls
+himself a man. But I thought over this thing after leaving the court and
+hearing this chap Hill say he hadn't left home that night, and I talked
+it over with my wife--"
+
+"You did the right thing," said Inspector Chippenfield, with the emphasis
+of a man who had profited by the triumph of right.
+
+Mr. Evans was under the impression that the inspector's approval referred
+chiefly to the part he had played as a husband in talking over his
+perplexity with his wife, rather than the part he had played as a man in
+revealing that Hill had lied in his evidence.
+
+"I always do," he said. "My wife's one of the sensible sort, and when a
+man takes her advice he don't go far wrong. She advised me to go straight
+to the police-station and tell them all I know. 'It is a cruel murder,'
+she said, 'and who knows but it might be our turn next?'"
+
+This example of the imaginative element in feminine logic made no
+impression on the practical official who listened to the admiring
+husband.
+
+"That is all right," said Inspector Chippenfield soothingly. "I
+understand your scruples. They do you credit. But an honest man like you
+doesn't want to shield a criminal from justice--least of all a
+cold-blooded murderer."
+
+When Rolfe returned to his superior with Evans's signed statement in his
+hand, he found the inspector preparing to leave the office.
+
+"Put on your hat and come with me," said the inspector. "We will go out
+and see Mrs. Hill. I'll frighten the truth out of her and then tackle
+Hill. He is sure to be up at Riversbrook, and we can go on there from
+Camden Town."
+
+While on the way to Camden Town by Tube, Inspector Chippenfield
+arranged his plans with the object of saving time. He would interview
+Mrs. Hill and while he was doing so Rolfe could make inquiries at the
+neighbouring hotels about Hill. It was the inspector's conviction that
+a man who had anything to do with a murder would require a steady
+supply of stimulants next day.
+
+Mrs. Hill kept a small confectionery shop adjoining a cinema theatre to
+supplement her husband's wages by a little earnings of her own in order
+to support her child. Although the shop was an unpretentious one, and
+catered mainly for the ha'p'orths of the juvenile patrons of the picture
+house next door, it was called "The Camden Town Confectionery Emporium,"
+and the title was printed over the little shop in large letters.
+Inspector Chippenfield walked into the empty shop, and rapped sharply on
+the counter.
+
+A little thin woman, with prematurely grey hair, and a depressed
+expression, appeared from the back in response to the summons. She
+started nervously as her eye encountered the police uniform, but she
+waited to be spoken to.
+
+"Is your name Hill?" asked the inspector sternly. "Mrs. Emily Hill?"
+
+The woman nodded feebly, her frightened eyes fixed on the
+inspector's face.
+
+"Then I want to have a word with you," continued the inspector, walking
+through the shop into the parlour. "Come in here and answer my
+questions."
+
+Mrs. Hill followed him timidly into the room he had entered. It was a
+small, shabbily-furnished apartment, and the inspector's massive
+proportions made it look smaller still. He took up a commanding position
+on the strip of drugget which did duty as a hearth-rug, and staring
+fiercely at her, suddenly commenced:
+
+"Mrs. Hill, where was your husband on the night of the 18th of August,
+when his employer, Sir Horace Fewbanks, was murdered?"
+
+Mrs. Hill shrank before that fierce gaze, and said, in a low tone:
+
+"Please, sir, he was at home."
+
+"At home, was he? I'm not so sure of that. Tell me all about your
+husband's movements on that day and night. What time did he come home, to
+begin with?"
+
+"He came home early in the afternoon to take our little girl to the
+Zoo--which was a treat she had been looking forward to for a long while.
+I couldn't go myself, there being the shop to look after. So Mr. Hill and
+Daphne went to the Zoo, and after they came home and had tea I took her
+to the pictures while Mr. Hill minded the shop. It was not the
+picture-palace next door, but the big one in High Street, where they were
+showing 'East Lynne,' Then when we come home about ten o'clock we all
+had supper and went to bed."
+
+"And your husband didn't go out again?"
+
+"No, sir. When I got up in the morning to bring him a cup of tea he was
+still sound asleep."
+
+"But might he not have gone out in the night while you were asleep?"
+
+"No, sir. I'm a very light sleeper, and I wake at the least stir."
+
+Mrs. Hill's story seemed to ring true enough, although she kept her eyes
+fixed on her interrogator with a kind of frightened brightness. Inspector
+Chippenfield looked at her in silence for a few seconds.
+
+"So that's the whole truth, is it?" he said at length.
+
+"Yes, sir," the woman earnestly assured him. "You can ask Mr. Hill and
+he'll tell you the same thing."
+
+Something reminiscent in Inspector Chippenfield's mind responded to this
+sentence. He pondered over it for a moment, and then remembered that Hill
+had applied the same phrase to his wife. Evidently there had been
+collusion, a comparing of tales beforehand. The woman had been tutored by
+her cunning scoundrel of a husband, but undoubtedly her tale was false.
+
+"The whole truth?" said the inspector, again.
+
+"Yes, sir," answered Mrs. Hill.
+
+"Now, look here," said the police officer, in his sternest tones, as he
+shook a warning finger at the little woman, "I know you are lying. I know
+Hill didn't sleep in the house, that night. He was seen near Riversbrook
+in the early part of the night and he was seen wandering about Covent
+Garden after the murder had been committed. It is no use lying to me,
+Mrs. Hill. If you want to save your husband from being arrested for this
+murder you'll tell the truth. What time did he leave here that night?"
+
+"I've already told you the truth, sir," replied the little woman. "He
+didn't leave the place after he came back from the Zoo."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield was puzzled. It seemed to him that Mrs. Hill was
+a woman of weak character, and yet she stuck firmly to her story. Perhaps
+Evans had made a mistake in identifying Hill as the man who had been
+carried into his bar after being knocked down. Nothing was more common
+than mistakes of identification. His glance wandered round the room, as
+though in search of some inspiration for his next question. His eye took
+mechanical note of the trumpery articles of rickety furniture; wandered
+over the cheap almanac prints which adorned the walls; but became riveted
+in the cheap overmantel which surmounted the fire-place. For, in the slip
+of mirror which formed the centre of that ornament, Inspector
+Chippenfield caught sight of the features of Mrs. Hill frowning and
+shaking her head at somebody invisible. He turned his head warily, but
+she was too quick for him, and her features were impassive again when he
+looked at her. Following the direction indicated by the mirror, Inspector
+Chippenfield saw Mrs. Hill had been signalling through a window which
+looked into the back yard. He reached it in a step and threw open the
+window. A small and not over-clean little girl was just leaving the yard
+by the gate.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield called to her pleasantly, and she retraced her
+steps with a frightened face.
+
+"Come in, my dear, I want you," said the inspector, wreathing his red
+face into a smile. "I'm fond of little girls."
+
+The little girl smiled, nodded her head, and presently appeared in
+response to the inspector's invitation. He glanced at Mrs. Hill, noticed
+that her face was grey and drawn with sudden terror. She opened her mouth
+as though to speak, but no words came.
+
+The inspector lifted the child on to his knee. She nestled to him
+confidingly enough, and looked up into his face with an artless glance.
+
+"What is your name, my dear?"
+
+"Daphne, sir--Daphne Hill."
+
+"How old are you, Daphne?"
+
+"Please, sir, I'm eight next birthday."
+
+"Why, you're quite a big girl, Daphne! Do you go to school?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir. I'm in the second form."
+
+"Do you like going to school, Daphne?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I suppose you like going to the Zoo better? Did you like going with
+father the other day?"
+
+The child's eyes sparkled with retrospective pleasure.
+
+"Oh, yes," she said, delightedly. "We saw all kinds of things: lions and
+tigers, and elephants. I had a ride on a elephant"--her eyes grew big
+with the memory--"an' 'e took a bun with his long nose out of my hand."
+
+"That was splendid, Daphne! Which did you like best--the Zoo or the
+pictures?"
+
+"I liked them both," she replied.
+
+"Was Father at home when you came home from the pictures?"
+
+"No," said the little girl innocently. "He was out."
+
+Mrs. Hill, standing a little way off with fear on her face, uttered
+an inarticulate noise, and took a step towards the inspector and
+her daughter.
+
+"Better not interfere, Mrs. Hill, unless you want to make matters worse,"
+said the inspector meaningly. "Now, tell me, Daphne, dear, when did your
+father come home?"
+
+"Not till morning," replied the little girl, with a timid glance at
+her mother.
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"Because I slept in Mother's bed that night with Mother, like I always do
+when Father is away, but Father came home in the morning and lifted me
+into my own bed, because he said he wanted to go to bed."
+
+"What time was that, Daphne?"
+
+"I don't know, sir."
+
+"It was light, Daphne? You could see?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield told the child she was a good girl, and gave her
+sixpence. The little one slipped off his knee and ran across to her
+mother with delight, to show the coin; all unconscious that she had
+betrayed her father. The mother pushed the child from her with a
+heart-broken gesture.
+
+A heavy step was heard in the shop, and the inspector, looking through
+the window, saw Rolfe. He opened the door leading from the shop and
+beckoned his subordinate in.
+
+Rolfe was excited, and looked like a man burdened with weighty news. He
+whispered a word in Inspector Chippenfield's ear.
+
+"Let's go into the shop," said Inspector Chippenfield promptly. "But,
+first, I'll make things safe here." He locked the door leading to the
+kitchen, put the key into his pocket, and followed his colleague into the
+shop. "Now, Rolfe, what is it?"
+
+"I've found out that Hill put in nearly the whole day after the murder
+drinking in a wine tavern. He sat there like a man in a dream and spoke
+to nobody. The only thing he took any interest in was the evening papers.
+He bought about a dozen of them during the afternoon."
+
+"Where was this?" asked the inspector.
+
+"At a little wine tavern in High Street, where he's never been seen
+before. The man who keeps the place gave me a good description of him,
+though. Hill went there about ten o'clock in the morning, and started
+drinking port wine, and as fast as the evening papers came out he sent
+the boy out for them, glanced through them, and then crumpled them up. He
+stayed there till after five o'clock. By that time the 6.30 editions
+would reach Camden Town, and if you remember it was the six-thirty
+editions which had the first news of the murder. The tavern-keeper
+declares that Hill drank nearly two bottles of Tarragona port, in
+threepenny glasses, during the day."
+
+"I should have credited Hill with a better taste in port, with his
+opportunities as Sir Horace Fewbanks's butler," said Inspector
+Chippenfield drily. "What you have found out, Rolfe, only goes to bear
+out my own discovery that Hill is deeply implicated in this affair. I
+have found out, for my part, that Hill did not spend the night of the
+murder at home here."
+
+There was a ring of triumph in Inspector Chippenfield's voice as he
+announced this discovery, but before Rolfe could make any comment upon
+it there was a quick step behind them, and both men turned, to see Hill.
+The butler was astonished at finding the two police officers in his
+wife's shop. He hesitated, and apparently his first impulse was to turn
+into the street again; but, realising the futility of such a course, he
+came forward with an attempt to smooth his worried face into a
+conciliatory smile.
+
+"Hill!" said Inspector Chippenfield sternly. "Once and for all, will you
+own up where you were on the night of the murder?"
+
+Hill started slightly, then, with admirable self-command, he recovered
+himself and became as tight-lipped and reticent as ever.
+
+"I've already told you, sir," he replied smoothly. "I spent it in my own
+home. If you ask my wife, sir, she'll tell you I never stirred out of the
+house after I came back from taking my little girl to the Zoo."
+
+"I know she will, you scoundrel!" burst out the choleric inspector.
+"She's been well tutored by you, and she tells the tale very well. But
+it's no good, Hill. You forgot to tutor your little daughter, and she's
+innocently put you away. What's more, you were seen in London before
+daybreak the night after the murder. The game's up, my man."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield produced a pair of handcuffs as he spoke. Hill
+passed his tongue over his dry lips before he was able to speak.
+
+"Don't put them on me," he said imploringly, as Inspector Chippenfield
+advanced towards him. "I'll--I'll confess!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Inspector Chippenfield's first words were a warning.
+
+"You know what you are saying, Hill?" he asked. "You know what this
+means? Any statement you make may be used in evidence against you at
+your trial."
+
+"I'll tell you everything," faltered Hill. The impassive mask of the
+well-trained English servant had dropped from him, and he stood revealed
+as a trembling elderly man with furtive eyes, and a painfully shaken
+manner. "I'll be glad to tell you everything," he declared, laying a
+twitching hand on the inspector's coat. "I've not had a minute's peace or
+rest since--since it happened."
+
+The dry official manner in which Inspector Chippenfield produced a
+note-book was in striking contrast to the trapped man's attitude.
+
+"Go ahead," he commanded, wetting his pencil between his lips.
+
+Before Hill could respond a small boy entered the shop--a ragged,
+shock-headed dirty urchin, bareheaded and barefooted. He tapped loudly on
+the counter with a halfpenny.
+
+"What do you want, boy?" roughly asked the inspector.
+
+"A 'a'porth of blackboys," responded the child, in the confident tone of
+a regular customer.
+
+"If you'll permit me, sir, I'll serve him," said Hill and he glided
+behind the little counter, took some black sticky sweetmeats from one of
+the glass jars on the shelf and gave them to the boy, who popped one in
+his mouth and scurried off.
+
+"I think we had better go inside and hear what Hill has to say,
+Inspector, while Mrs. Hill minds the shop," said Rolfe. He had caught a
+glimpse of Mrs. Hill's white frightened face peering through the dirty
+little glass pane in the parlour door.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield approved of the idea.
+
+"We don't want to spoil your wife's business, Hill--she's likely to need
+it," he said, with cruel official banter. "Come here, Mrs. Hill," he
+said, raising his voice.
+
+The faded little woman appeared in response to the summons, bringing the
+child with her. She shot a frightened glance at her husband, which
+Inspector Chippenfield intercepted.
+
+"Never mind looking at your husband, Mrs. Hill," he said roughly.
+"You've done your best for him, and the only thing to be told now is the
+truth. Now you and your daughter can stay in the shop. We want your
+husband inside."
+
+Mrs. Hill clasped her hands quickly.
+
+"Oh, what is it, Henry?" she said. "Tell me what has happened? What have
+they found out?"
+
+"Keep your mouth shut," commanded her husband harshly. "This way, sir, if
+you please."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield and Rolfe followed him into the parlour.
+
+"Now, Hill," impatiently said Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+The butler raised his head wearily.
+
+"I suppose I may as well begin at the beginning and tell you
+everything," he said.
+
+"Yes," replied the inspector, "it's not much use keeping anything
+back now."
+
+"Oh, it's not a case of keeping anything back," replied Hill. "You're too
+clever for me, and I've made up my mind to tell you everything, but I
+thought I might be able to cut the first part short, so as to save your
+time. But so that you'll understand everything I've got to go a long way
+back--shortly after I entered Sir Horace Fewbanks's service. In fact, I
+hadn't been long with him before I began to see he was leading a strange
+life--a double life, if I may say so. A servant in a gentleman's
+house--particularly one in my position--sees a good deal he is not meant
+to see; in fact, he couldn't close his eyes to it if he wanted to, as no
+doubt you, from your experience, sir, know very well. A confidential
+servant sees and hears a lot of things, sir."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield nodded his head sharply, but he did not speak.
+
+"I think Sir Horace trusted me, too," continued Hill humbly, "more than
+he would have trusted most servants, on account of my--my past. I fancy,
+if I may say so, that he counted on my gratitude because he had given me
+a fresh start in life. And he was quite right--at first." Hill dropped
+his voice and looked down as he uttered the last two words. "I'd have
+done anything for him. But as I was saying, sir, I hadn't been long in
+his house before I found out that he had a--a weakness--" Hill timidly
+bowed his head as though apologising to the dead judge for assailing his
+character--"a weakness for--for the ladies. Sometimes Sir Horace went
+off for the week-end without saying where he was going and sometimes he
+went out late at night and didn't return till after breakfast. Then he
+had ladies visiting him at Riversbrook--not real ladies, if you
+understand, sir. Sometimes there was a small party of them, and then they
+made a noise singing music-hall songs and drinking wine, but generally
+they came alone. Towards the end there was one who came a lot oftener
+than the others. I found out afterwards that her name was Fanning--Doris
+Fanning. She was a very pretty young woman, and Sir Horace seemed very
+fond of her. I knew that because I've heard him talking to her in the
+library. Sir Horace had rather a loud voice, and I couldn't help
+overhearing him sometimes, when I took things to his rooms.
+
+"One night,--it was before Sir Horace left for Scotland--a rainy gusty
+night, this young woman came. I forgot to mention that when Sir Horace
+expected visitors he used to tell me to send the servants to bed early.
+He told me to do so this night, saying as usual, 'You understand, Hill?'
+and I replied, 'Yes, Sir Horace,' The young woman came about half-past
+ten o'clock, and I let her in the side door and showed her up to the
+library on the first floor, where he used to sit and work and read. Half
+an hour afterwards I took up some refreshments--some sandwiches and a
+small bottle of champagne for the young lady--and then went back
+downstairs till Sir Horace rang for me to let the lady out, which was
+generally about midnight. But this night, I'd hardly been downstairs more
+than a quarter of an hour, when I heard a loud crash, followed by a sort
+of scream. Before I could get out of my chair to go upstairs I heard the
+study door open, and Sir Horace called out, 'Hill, come here!'
+
+"I went upstairs as quick as I could, and the door of the study being
+wide open, I could see inside. Sir Horace and the young lady had
+evidently been having a quarrel. They were standing up facing each other,
+and the table at which they had been sitting was knocked over, and the
+refreshments I had taken up had been scattered all about. The young woman
+had been crying--I could see that at a glance--but Sir Horace looked
+dignified and the perfect gentleman--like he always was. He turned to me
+when he saw me, and said, 'Hill, kindly show this young lady out,' I
+bowed and waited for her to follow me, which she did, after giving Sir
+Horace an angry look. I let her out the same way as I let her in, and
+took her through the plantation to the front gate, which I locked after
+her. When I got inside the house again, and was beginning to bolt up
+things for the night Sir Horace called me again and I went upstairs.
+'Hill,' he said, in the same calm and collected voice, 'if that young
+lady calls again you're to deny her admittance. That is all, Hill,' And
+he turned back into his room again.
+
+"I didn't see her again until the morning after Sir Horace left for
+Scotland. I had arranged for the female servants to go to Sir Horace's
+estate in the country during his absence, as he instructed before his
+departure, and they and I were very busy on this morning getting the
+house in order to be closed up--putting covers on the furniture and
+locking up the valuables.
+
+"It was Sir Horace's custom to have this done when he was away every
+year instead of keeping the servants idling about the house on board
+wages, and the house was then left in my charge, as I told you, sir, and
+after the servants went to the country it was my custom to live at home
+till Sir Horace returned, coming over two or three times a week to look
+over the place and make sure that everything was all right. On this
+morning, sir, after superintending the servants clearing up things, I
+went outside the house to have a final look round, and to see that the
+locks of the front and back gates were in good working order. I was going
+to the back first, sir, but happening to glance about me as I walked
+round the house, I saw the young woman that Sir Horace had ordered me to
+show out of the house the night before he went to Scotland, peering out
+from behind one of the fir trees of the plantation in front of the house.
+As soon as she saw that I saw her she beckoned to me.
+
+"I would not have taken any notice of her, only I didn't want the women
+servants to see her. Sir Horace, I knew, would not have liked that. So I
+went across to her. I asked her what she wanted, and I told her it was no
+use her wanting to see Sir Horace, for he had gone to Scotland. 'I don't
+want to see him,' she said, as impudent as brass. 'It's you I want to
+see, Field or Hill or whatever you call yourself now.' It gave me quite a
+turn, I assure you, to find that this young woman knew my secret, and I
+turned round apprehensive-like, to make sure that none of the servants
+had heard her. She noticed me and she laughed. 'It's all right, Hill,'
+she said. 'I'm not going to tell on you. I've just brought you a message
+from an old friend--Fred Birchill--he wants to see you to-night at this
+address.' And with that she put a bit of paper into my hand. I was so
+upset and excited that I said I'd be there, and she went away.
+
+"This Fred Birchill was a man I'd met in prison, and he was in the cell
+next to me. How he'd got on my tracks I had no idea, but I seemed to see
+all my new life falling to pieces now he knew. I'd tried to run straight
+since I served my sentence, and I knew Sir Horace would stand to me, but
+he couldn't afford to have any scandal about it, and I knew that if there
+was any possibility of my past becoming known I should have to leave his
+employ. And then there was my poor wife and child, and this little
+business, sir. Nothing was known about my past here. So I determined to
+go and see this Birchill, sir. The address she had given me was in
+Westminster, and, as my time was practically my own when Sir Horace
+wasn't home, I went down that same evening, and when I got up the flight
+of stairs and knocked at the door it was a woman's voice that said 'Come
+in,' I thought I recognised the voice. When I opened the door, you can
+imagine my surprise when I saw the young woman to be Doris Fanning, who
+had had the quarrel with Sir Horace that night and had brought me the
+note that morning. Birchill was sitting in a corner of the room, with his
+feet on another chair, smoking a pipe. 'Come in, No. 21,' he says, with
+an unpleasant smile, 'come in and see an old friend. Put a chair for him,
+Doris, and leave the room.'
+
+"The girl did so, and as soon as the door was closed behind her Birchill
+turned round to me and burst out, 'Hill, that damned employer of yours
+has served me a nasty trick, but I'm going to get even with him, and
+you're going to help me!' I was taken back at his words, but I wanted to
+hear more before I spoke. Then he told me that the young woman I had seen
+had been brutally treated by Sir Horace. She had been living in a little
+flat in Westminster on a monthly allowance which Sir Horace made her, but
+he'd suddenly cut off her allowance and she'd have to be turned out in
+the street to starve because she couldn't pay her rent. 'A nice thing,'
+said Birchill fiercely, 'for this high-placed loose liver to carry on
+like this with a poor innocent girl whose only fault was that she loved
+him too well. If I could show him up and pull him down, I would. But I've
+done time, like you, Hill. He was the judge who sentenced me, and if I
+tried to injure him that way my word would carry no weight; but I'll put
+up a job on him that'll make him sorry the longest day he lives, and
+you'll help me. Sir Horace is in Scotland, Hill, and you're in charge of
+his place. Get rid of the servants, Hill, and we'll burgle his house. We
+can easily do it between us.'"
+
+At this stage of his narrative, Hill stopped and looked anxiously at his
+audience as though to gather some idea of their feelings before he
+proceeded further. But Inspector Chippenfield, with a fierce stare,
+merely remarked:
+
+"And you consented?"
+
+"I didn't at first," Hill retorted earnestly, "but when I refused he
+threatened me--threatened that he'd expose me and drag me and my wife and
+child down to poverty. I pleaded with him, but it was of no use, and at
+last I had to consent. I had some hope that in doing so I might find an
+opportunity to warn Sir Horace, but Birchill did not give me a chance. He
+insisted that the burglary should take place without delay. All I was to
+do was to give him a plan of the house, explain where to find the most
+valuable articles that had been left there, and wait for him at the flat
+while he committed the burglary. His idea in making me wait for him at
+the flat was to make sure that I didn't play him false--put the double on
+him, as he called it--and he told the girl not to let me out of her sight
+till he came back, if anything went wrong I should have to pay for it
+when he came back.
+
+"In accordance with Sir Horace's instructions, I sent the servants off to
+his country estate. It had been arranged that Birchill was to wait for me
+to come over to the flat on the 18th of August, the night fixed for the
+burglary. But about 7 o'clock, while I was at Riversbrook, I heard the
+noise of wheels outside, and looking out, I saw to my dismay Sir Horace
+getting out of a taxi-cab with a suit-case in his hand. My first impulse
+was to tell him everything--indeed, I think that if I had had a chance I
+would have--but he came in looking very severe, and without saying a word
+about why he had returned from Scotland, said very sharply, 'Hill, have
+the servants been sent down to the country, as I directed?' I told him
+that they had. 'Very good,' he said, 'then you go away at once, I won't
+want you any more. I want the house to myself to-night.' 'Sir Horace,' I
+began, trembling a little, but he stopped me. 'Go immediately,' he said;
+'don't stand there,' And he said it in such a tone that I was glad to go.
+There was something in his look that frightened me that night. I got
+across to Birchill's place and found him and the girl waiting for me. I
+told him what had happened, and begged him to give up the idea of the
+burglary. But he'd been drinking heavily, and was in a nasty mood. First
+he said I'd been playing him false and had warned Sir Horace, but when I
+assured him that I hadn't he insisted on going to commit the burglary
+just the same. With that he pulled out a revolver from his pocket, and
+swore with an oath that he'd put a bullet through me when he came back if
+I'd played him false and put Sir Horace on his guard, and that he'd put a
+bullet in the old scoundrel--meaning Sir Horace--if he interrupted him
+while he was robbing the house.
+
+"He sat there, cursing and drinking, till he fell asleep with his head on
+the table, snoring. I sat there not daring to breathe, hoping he'd sleep
+till morning, but Miss Fanning woke him up about nine, and he staggered
+to his feet to get out, with his revolver stuck in his coat pocket. He
+was away over three hours and the girl and I sat there without saying a
+word, just looking at each other and waiting for a clock on the
+mantelpiece to chime the quarters. It was a cuckoo clock, and it had just
+chimed twelve when we heard a quick step coming upstairs to the flat. The
+girl fixed her big dark eyes inquiringly on me, and then we heard a
+hoarse whisper through the keyhole telling us to open the door.
+
+"The girl ran to the door and let him in, but she shrieked at the sight
+of him when she saw him in the light. For he looked ghastly, and there
+was a spot of blood on his face, and his hands were smeared with it. He
+was shaking all over, and he went to the whisky bottle and drained the
+drop of spirit he'd left in it. Then he turned to us and said, 'Sir
+Horace Fewbanks is dead--murdered!' I suppose he read what he saw in our
+eyes, for he burst out angrily, 'Don't stand staring at me like a pair of
+damned fools. You don't think I did it? As God's my judge, I never did
+it. He was dead and stiff when I got there.'
+
+"Then he told us his story of what had happened. He said that when he got
+to Riversbrook there was a light in the library and he got over the fence
+and hid himself in the garden. Then he noticed that there was a light in
+the hall and that the hall door was open. He thought Sir Horace had left
+it open by mistake, and he was going to creep into the house and hide
+himself there till after Sir Horace went to bed. But suddenly the light
+in the library went out and Birchill again hid behind a tree, for he
+thought Sir Horace was retiring for the night. Then the light in the hall
+went out and immediately after Birchill heard the hall door being closed.
+Then he heard a step on the gravel path and saw a woman walking quickly
+down the path to the gate. She was a well-dressed woman, and Birchill
+naturally thought that she was one of Sir Horace's lady friends. But he
+thought it odd that Sir Horace, who was always a very polite gentleman to
+the ladies, should not have shown her off the premises. He waited in the
+garden about half an hour, and as everything in the house seemed quite
+still, he made his way to a side window and forced it open. He had an
+electric torch with him, and he used this to find his way about the
+house. First of all, he wanted to find out in which room Sir Horace was
+sleeping, and he knew from the plan he'd made me draw for him which was
+Sir Horace's bedroom, so he went there and opened the door quietly and
+listened. But he could not hear anyone breathing. Then he tried some of
+the other rooms and turned on his torch, but could see no one. He thought
+that perhaps Sir Horace had fallen asleep in a chair in the library, and
+he went there. He listened at the door but could hear no sound. Then he
+turned on his torch and by its light he saw a dreadful sight. Sir Horace
+was lying huddled up near the desk--dead--just dead, he thought, because
+there were little bubbles of blood on his lips as if they had been blown
+there when breathing his last. He didn't wait to see any more, but he
+turned and ran out of the house.
+
+"I didn't believe his story, though Miss Fanning did, but he stuck to it
+and seemed so frightened that I thought there might be something in it
+till he brought out that he'd lost his revolver somewhere. Then I
+remembered the horrid threats he'd used against Sir Horace, and I was
+convinced that he had committed the murder. But of course I dared not let
+him think I suspected him, and I pretended to console him. But the
+feeling that kept running through my head was that both of us would be
+suspected of the murder.
+
+"I told this to Birchill, and that frightened him still more. 'What are
+we to do?' he kept saying. 'We shall both be hanged.' Then, after a
+while, we recovered ourselves a bit and began to look at it from a more
+common-sense point of view. Nobody knew about Birchill's visit to the
+house except our two selves and the girl, and there was no reason why
+anybody should suspect us as long as we kept that knowledge to ourselves.
+Birchill's idea, after we'd talked this over, was that I should go
+quietly home to bed, and pay a visit to Riversbrook on Friday as usual,
+discover Sir Horace Fewbanks's body, and then tell the police. But I
+didn't like to do that for two reasons. I didn't think that my nerves
+would be in a fit state to tell the police how I found the body without
+betraying to them that I knew something about it; and I couldn't bear to
+think of Sir Horace's body lying neglected all alone in that empty house
+till the following day--though I kept that reason to myself.
+
+"It was the girl who hit on the idea of sending a letter to the police.
+She said that it would be the best thing to do, because if they were
+informed and went to the house and discovered the body it wouldn't be so
+difficult for me to face them afterwards. I agreed to that, and so did
+Birchill, who was very frightened in case I might give anything away, and
+consented on that account. The girl showed us how to write the letter,
+too--she said she'd often heard of anonymous letters being written that
+way--and she brought out three different pens and a bottle of ink and a
+writing pad. After we'd agreed what to write, she showed us how to do it,
+each one printing a letter on the paper in turn, and using a different
+pen each time."
+
+"You took care to leave no finger-prints," said Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+"We used a handkerchief to wrap our hands in," said Hill. "Birchill got
+tired of passing the paper from one to another and wrote all his letters,
+leaving spaces for the girl and me to write in ours. When the letter was
+written we wrote the address on the envelope the same way, and stamped
+it. Then I went out and posted the letter in a pillar-box."
+
+"At Covent Garden?" suggested Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+"Yes, at Covent Garden," said Hill.
+
+"When I got home my wife was awake and in a terrible fright. She wanted
+to know where I'd been, but I didn't tell her. I told her, though, that
+my very life depended on nobody knowing I'd been out of my own home that
+night, and I made her swear that no matter who questioned her she'd stick
+to the story that I'd been at home all night, and in bed. She begged me
+to tell her why, and as I knew that she'd have to be told the next day, I
+told her that Sir Horace Fewbanks had been murdered. She buried her face
+in her pillow with a moan, but when I took an oath that I had had no hand
+in it she recovered, and promised not to tell a living soul that I had
+been out of the house and I knew I could depend on her.
+
+"Next morning, as soon as I got up, I hurried off to a little wine tavern
+and asked to see the morning papers. It was a foolish thing to do,
+because I might have known that nothing could have been discovered in
+time to get into the morning papers, for I hadn't posted the letter until
+nearly four o'clock. But I was all nervous and upset, and as I couldn't
+face my wife or settle to anything until I knew the police had got the
+letter and found the body, I--though a strictly temperate man in the
+ordinary course of life, sir--sat down in one of the little compartments
+of the place and ordered a glass of wine to pass the time till the first
+editions of the evening papers came out--they are usually out here about
+noon. But there was no news in the first editions, and so I stayed there,
+drinking port wine and buying the papers as fast as they came out. But it
+was not till the 6.30 editions came out, late in the afternoon, that the
+papers had the news. I hurried home and then went up to Riversbrook and
+reported myself to you, sir."
+
+As Hill finished his story he buried his face in his hands, and bowed his
+head on the table in an attitude of utter dejection. Rolfe, looking at
+him, wondered if he were acting a part, or if he had really told the
+truth. He looked at Inspector Chippenfield to see how he regarded the
+confession, but his superior officer was busily writing in his note-book.
+In a few moments, however, he put the pocket-book down on the table and
+turned to the butler.
+
+"Sit up, man," he commanded sternly. "I want to ask you some questions."
+
+Hill raised a haggard face.
+
+"Yes, sir," he said, with what seemed to be a painful effort.
+
+"What is this girl Fanning like?"
+
+"Rather a showy piece of goods, if I may say so, sir. She has big black
+eyes, and black hair and small, regular teeth."
+
+"And Sir Horace had been keeping her?"
+
+"I think so, sir."
+
+"And a fortnight before Sir Horace left for Scotland there was a
+quarrel--Sir Horace cast her off?"
+
+"That is what it looked like to me," said the butler.
+
+"What was the cause of the quarrel?"
+
+"That I don't know, sir."
+
+"Didn't Birchill tell you?"
+
+"Well, not in so many words. But I gathered from things he dropped that
+Sir Horace had found out that he was a friend of Miss Fanning's and
+didn't like it."
+
+"Naturally," said the philosophic police official. "Is Birchill still at
+this flat and is the girl still there?"
+
+"The last I heard of them they were, sir. Of course they had been talking
+of moving after Sir Horace stopped the allowance."
+
+"Well, Hill, I'll investigate this story of yours," said the inspector,
+as he rose to his feet and placed his note-book in his pocket. "If it is
+true--if you have given us all the assistance in your power and have kept
+nothing back, I'll do my best for you. Of course you realise that you are
+in a very serious position. I don't want to arrest you unless I have to,
+but I must detain you while I investigate what you have told us. You will
+come up with us to the Camden Town Station and then your statement will
+be taken down fully. I'll give you three minutes in which to explain
+things to your wife."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+"Do you think Hill's story is true?" Rolfe asked Inspector Chippenfield,
+as they left the Camden Town Police Station and turned in the direction
+of the Tube station.
+
+"We'll soon find out," replied the inspector. "Of course, there is
+something in it, but there is no doubt Hill will not stick at a lie to
+save his own skin. But we are more likely to get at the truth by
+threatening to arrest him than by arresting him. If he were arrested he
+would probably shut up and say no more."
+
+"And are you going to arrest Birchill?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"For the murder?" asked Rolfe.
+
+"No; for burglary. It would be a mistake to charge him with murder until
+we get more evidence. The papers would jeer at us if we charged him with
+murder and then dropped the charge."'
+
+"Do you think Birchill will squeak?"
+
+"On Hill?" said the inspector. "When he knows that Hill has been trying
+to fit him for the murder he'll try and do as much for Hill. And between
+them we'll come at the truth. We are on the right track at last, my boy.
+And, thank God, we have beaten our friend Crewe."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield's satisfaction in his impending triumph over Crewe
+was increased by a chance meeting with the detective. As the two police
+officials came out of Leicester Square Station on their way to Scotland
+Yard to obtain a warrant for Birchill's arrest, they saw Crewe in a
+taxi-cab. Crewe also saw them, and telling the driver to pull up leaned
+out of the window and looked back at the two detectives. When they came
+up with the taxi-cab they saw that Crewe had on a light overcoat and
+that there was a suit-case beside the driver. Crewe was going on a
+journey of some kind.
+
+"Anything fresh about the Riversbrook case?" he asked.
+
+"No; nothing fresh," replied Inspector Chippenfield, looking Crewe
+straight in the face.
+
+"You are a long time in making an arrest," said Crewe, in a
+bantering tone.
+
+"We want to arrest the right man," was the reply. "There's nothing like
+getting the right man to start with; it saves such a lot of time and
+trouble. Where are you off to?"
+
+"I'm taking a run down to Scotland."
+
+The inspector glanced at Crewe rather enviously.
+
+"You are fortunate in being able to enjoy yourself just now," he said
+meaningly.
+
+"I won't drop work altogether," remarked Crewe. "I'll make a few
+inquiries there."
+
+"About the Riversbrook affair?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+With the murderer practically arrested, Inspector Chippenfield permitted
+himself the luxury of smiling at the way in which Crewe was following up
+a false scent.
+
+"I thought the murder was committed in London--not in Scotland," he said.
+
+"Wrong, Chippenfield," said Crewe, with a smile. "Sir Horace was murdered
+in Scotland and his body was brought up to London by train and placed in
+his own house in order to mislead the police. Good-bye."
+
+As the taxi-cab drove off, Inspector Chippenfield turned to his
+subordinate and said, "We'll rub it into him when he comes back and finds
+that we have got our man under lock and key. He's on some wild-goose
+chase. Scotland! He might as well go to Siberia while's he's about it."
+
+With a warrant in his pocket Inspector Chippenfield, accompanied by
+Rolfe, set out for Macauley Mansions, Westminster. They found the
+Mansions to be situated in a quiet and superior part of Westminster, not
+far from Victoria Station, and consisting of a large block of flats
+overlooking a square--a pocket-handkerchief patch of green which was
+supposed to serve as breathing-space for the flats which surrounded it.
+
+Macauley Mansions had no lift, and Number 43, the scene of the events of
+Hill's confession, was on the top floor. Inspector Chippenfield and Rolfe
+mounted the stairs steadily, and finally found themselves standing on a
+neat cocoanut door-mat outside the door of No. 43. The door was closed.
+
+"Well, well," said the inspector, as he paused, panting, on the door-mat
+and rang the bell. "Snug quarters these--very snug. Strange that these
+sort of women never know enough to run straight when they are well off."
+
+The door opened, and a young woman confronted them. She was hardly more
+than a girl, pretty and refined-looking, with large dark eyes, a pathetic
+drooping mouth, and a wistful expression. She wore a well-made indoor
+dress of soft satin, without ornaments, and her luxuriant dark hair was
+simply and becomingly coiled at the back of her head. She held a book in
+her left hand, with one finger between the leaves, as though the summons
+to the door had interrupted her reading, and glanced inquiringly at the
+visitors, waiting for them to intimate their business. She was so
+different from the type of girl they had expected to see that Inspector
+Chippenfield had some difficulty in announcing it.
+
+"Are you Miss Fanning?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she replied.
+
+"Then you are the young woman we wish to see, and, with your permission,
+we'll come inside," said Inspector Chippenfield, recovering from his
+first surprise and speaking briskly.
+
+They followed the girl into the hall, and into a room off the hall to
+which she led the way. A small Pomeranian dog which lay on an easy
+chair, sprang up barking shrilly at their entrance, but at the command of
+the girl it settled down on its silk cushion again. The apartment was a
+small sitting-room, daintily furnished in excellent feminine taste. Both
+police officers took in the contents of the room with the glance of
+trained observers, and both noticed that, prominent among the ornaments
+on the mantelpiece, stood a photograph of the late Sir Horace Fewbanks in
+a handsome silver frame.
+
+The photograph made it easy for Inspector Chippenfield to enter upon the
+object of the visit of himself and his subordinate to the flat.
+
+"I see you have a photograph of Sir Horace Fewbanks there," he said, in
+what he intended to be an easy conversational tone, waving his hand
+towards the mantelpiece.
+
+The wistful expression of the girl's face deepened as she followed
+his glance.
+
+"Yes," she said simply. "It is so terrible about him."
+
+"Was he a--a relative of yours?" asked the inspector.
+
+She had come to the conclusion they were police officers and that they
+were aware of the position she occupied.
+
+"He was very kind to me," she replied.
+
+"When did you see him last? How long before he--before he died?"
+
+"Are you detectives?" she asked.
+
+"From Scotland Yard," replied Inspector Chippenfield with a bow.
+
+"Why have you come here? Do you think that I--that I know anything about
+the murder?"
+
+"Not in the least." The inspector's tone was reassuring. "We merely want
+information about Sir Horace's movements prior to his departure for
+Scotland. When did you see him last?"
+
+"I don't remember," she said, after a pause.
+
+"You must try," said the inspector, in a tone which contained a
+suggestion of command.
+
+"Oh, a few days before he went away."
+
+"A few days," repeated the inspector. "And you parted on good terms?"
+
+"Yes, on very good terms." She met his glance frankly.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield was silent for a moment. Then, fixing his fiercest
+stare on the girl, he remarked abruptly:
+
+"Where's Birchill?"
+
+"Birchill?" She endeavoured to appear surprised, but her sudden
+pallor betrayed her inward anxiety at the question. "I--I don't know
+who you mean."
+
+"I mean the man you've been keeping with Sir Horace Fewbanks's money,"
+said the inspector brutally.
+
+"I've been keeping nobody with Sir Horace Fewbanks's money," protested
+the girl feebly. "It's cruel of you to insult me."
+
+"That'll about do to go on with," said Inspector Chippenfield, with a
+sudden change of tone, rising to his feet as he spoke. "Rolfe, keep an
+eye on her while I search the flat."
+
+Rolfe crossed over from where he had been sitting and stood beside the
+girl. She glanced up at him wildly, with terror dawning in the depths of
+her dark eyes.
+
+"What do you mean? How dare you?" she cried, in an effort to be
+indignant.
+
+"Now, don't try your tragedy airs on us," said the inspector. "We've no
+time for them. If you won't tell the truth you had better say nothing
+at all." He plunged his hand into a _jardinière_ and withdrew a
+briar-wood pipe. "This looks to me like Birchill's property. Keep that
+dog back, Rolfe."
+
+The little dog had sprung off his cushion and was eagerly following the
+inspector out of the room. Rolfe caught up the animal in his arms, and
+returned to where the girl was sitting. Her face was white and strained,
+and her big dark eyes followed Inspector Chippenfield, but she did not
+speak. The inspector tramped noisily into the little hall, leaving the
+door of the room wide open. Rolfe and the girl saw him fling open the
+door of another room--a bedroom--and stride into it. He came out again
+shortly, and went down the hall to the rear of the flat. A few minutes
+later he came back to the room where he had left Rolfe and the girl. His
+knees were dusty, and some feathers were adhering to his jacket, as
+though he had been plunging in odd nooks and corners, and beneath beds.
+He was hot, flurried, and out of temper.
+
+"The bird's flown!" were his first words, addressed to Rolfe. "I've
+hunted high and low, but I cannot find a sign of him. It beats me how
+he's managed it. He couldn't have gone out the front way without my
+seeing him go past the door, and the back windows are four stories high
+from the ground."
+
+"Perhaps he wasn't here when we came in," suggested Rolfe.
+
+"Oh, yes, he was. Why, he'd been smoking that pipe in this very room. She
+was clever enough to open the window to let out the tobacco smoke before
+she let us in, but she didn't hide the pipe properly, for I saw the smoke
+from it coming out of the _jardinière_, and when I put my hand on the
+bowl it was hot. Feel it now."
+
+Rolfe placed his hand on the pipe, which Inspector Chippenfield had
+deposited on the table. The bowl was still warm, indicating that the pipe
+had recently been alight.
+
+"He must have been smoking the pipe when we knocked at the door, and
+dashed away to hide before she let us in," grumbled the inspector. "But
+the question is--where can he have got to? I've hunted everywhere, and
+there's no way out except by the front door, so far as I can see. Go and
+have a look yourself, Rolfe, and see if you can find a trace of him. I'll
+watch the girl."
+
+Rolfe put down the little dog he had been holding, and went out into the
+hall. The dog accompanied him, frisking about him in friendly fashion.
+Rolfe first examined the bedroom that he had seen Inspector Chippenfield
+enter. It was a small room, containing a double bed. It was prettily
+furnished in white, with white curtains, and toilet-table articles in
+ivory to match. A glance round the room convinced Rolfe that it was
+impossible for a man to secrete himself in it. The door of the wardrobe
+had been flung open by the inspector, and the dresses and other articles
+of feminine apparel it contained flung out on the floor. There was no
+other hiding-place possible, except beneath the bed, and the ruthless
+hand of the inspector had torn off the white muslin bed hangings,
+revealing emptiness underneath. Rolfe went out into the hall again, and
+entered the room next the bedroom. This apartment was apparently used as
+a dining-room, for it contained a large table, a few chairs, a small
+sideboard, a spirit-stand, a case of books and ornaments, and two small
+oak presses. Plainly, there was no place in it where a man could hide
+himself. The next room was the bathroom, which was also empty. Opposite
+the bathroom was a small bedroom, very barely furnished, offering no
+possibility of concealment. Then the passage opened into a large roomy
+kitchen, the full width of the rooms on both sides of the hall, and the
+kitchen completed the flat.
+
+Rolfe glanced keenly around the kitchen. There were no cooking appliances
+visible, or pots or pans, but there was much lumber and odds and ends, as
+though the place were used as a store-room. Presumably Miss Fanning
+obtained her meals from the restaurant on the ground floor of the
+mansions and had no use for a kitchen. The room was dirty and dusty and
+crowded with all kinds of rubbish. But the miscellaneous rubbish stored
+in the room offered no hiding-place for a man. Rolfe nevertheless made a
+conscientious search, shifting the lumber about and ferreting into dark
+corners, without result. Finally he crossed the room to look out of the
+window, which had been left open, no doubt by Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+The mansions in which the flat was situated formed part of a large
+building, with back windows overlooking a small piece of ground. The
+flat was on the fourth story. Rolfe looked around the neighbouring roofs
+and down onto the ground fifty feet below, but could see nothing.
+
+He withdrew his head and was turning to leave the room when his attention
+was attracted by the peculiar behaviour of the dog, which had followed
+him throughout on his search. The little animal, after sniffing about the
+floor, ran to the open window and started whining and jumping up at it.
+Rolfe quickly returned to the window and looked out.
+
+"Why, of course!" he muttered. "How could I have overlooked it?
+Inspector," he called aloud, "come here!"
+
+Inspector Chippenfield appeared in the kitchen in a state of some
+excitement at the summons. He carried the key of the front room in his
+hand, having taken the precaution to lock Miss Fanning in before he
+responded to the call of his colleague.
+
+"What is it, Rolfe?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"This dog has tracked him to the window, so he's evidently escaped that
+way," explained Rolfe briefly. "He's climbed along the window-ledge."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield approached the window and looked out. A broad
+window-ledge immediately beneath the window ran the whole length of the
+building beneath the windows on the fourth floor, and, so far as could be
+seen, continued round the side of the house. It was a dizzy, but not a
+difficult feat for a man of cool head to walk along the ledge to the
+corner of the house.
+
+"I wonder where that infernal ledge goes to?" said Inspector
+Chippenfield, vainly twisting his neck and protruding his body through
+the window to a dangerous extent to see round the corner of the building.
+"I daresay it leads to the water-pipe, and the scoundrel, knowing that,
+has been able to get round, shin down, and get clear away."
+
+"I'll soon find out," said Rolfe. "I'll walk along to the corner and
+see."
+
+"Do you think you can do it, Rolfe?" asked the inspector nervously. "If
+you fell--" he glanced down to the ground far below with a shudder.
+
+"Nonsense!" laughed Rolfe. "I won't fall. Why, the ledge is a foot broad,
+and I've got a steady head. He may not have got very far, after all, and
+I may be able to see him from the corner."
+
+He got out of the window as he spoke, and started to walk carefully along
+the ledge towards the corner of the building. He reached it safely,
+peered round, screwed himself round sharply, and came back to the open
+window almost at a run.
+
+"You're right!" he gasped, as he sprang through. "I saw him. He is
+climbing down the spouting, using the chimney brickwork as a brace for
+his feet. If we get downstairs we may catch him."
+
+He was out of the kitchen in an instant, up the passage, and racing down
+three steps at a time before the inspector had recovered from his
+surprise. Then he followed as quickly as he could, but Rolfe had a long
+start of him. When Inspector Chippenfield reached the ground floor Rolfe
+was nowhere in sight. The inspector looked up and down the street,
+wondering what had become of him.
+
+At that instant a tall young man, bareheaded and coat-less, came running
+out of an alley-way, pursued by Rolfe.
+
+"Stop him!" cried Rolfe, to his superior officer.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield stepped quickly out into the street in front of
+the fugitive. The young man cannoned into the burly officer before he
+could stop himself, and the inspector clutched him fast. He attempted to
+wrench himself free, but Rolfe had rushed to his superior's assistance,
+and drew the baton with which he had provided himself when he set out
+from Scotland Yard.
+
+"You needn't bother about using that thing," said the young man
+contemptuously. "I'm not a fool; I realise you've got me."
+
+"We'll not give you another chance." Inspector Chippenfield dexterously
+snapped a pair of handcuffs on the young man's wrists.
+
+"What are these for?" said the captive, regarding them sullenly.
+
+"You'll know soon enough when we get you upstairs," replied the
+inspector. "Now then, up you go."
+
+They reascended the stairs in silence, Inspector Chippenfield and Rolfe
+walking on each side of their prisoner holding him by the arms, in case
+he tried to make another bolt. They reached the flat and found the front
+door open as they had left it. The inspector entered the hall and
+unlocked the drawing-room door.
+
+The girl was sitting on the chair where they had left her, with her head
+bowed down in an attitude of the deepest dejection. She straightened
+herself suddenly as they entered, and launched a terrified glance at the
+young man.
+
+"Oh, Fred!" she gasped.
+
+"They were too good for me, Doris," he responded, as though in reply to
+her unspoken query. "I would have got away from this chap"--he indicated
+Rolfe with a nod of his head--"but I ran into the other one."
+
+He stooped as he spoke to brush with his manacled hands some of the dirt
+from his clothes, which he had doubtless gained in his perilous climb
+down the side of the house, and then straightened himself to look
+loweringly at his captors. He was a tall, slender young fellow of about
+twenty-five or twenty-six, clean-shaven, with a fresh complexion and a
+rather effeminate air. He was well dressed in a grey lounge suit, a soft
+shirt, with a high double collar and silk necktie. He looked, as he stood
+there, more like a dandified city clerk than the desperate criminal
+suggested by Hill's confession.
+
+"Come on, what's the charge?" he demanded insolently, with a slight
+glance at his manacled hands.
+
+"Is your name Frederick Birchill?" asked Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+The young man nodded.
+
+"Then, Frederick Birchill, you're charged with burglariously entering
+the house of Sir Horace Fewbanks, at Hampstead, on the night of the 18th
+of August."
+
+"Burglary?" said Birchill "Anything else?"
+
+"That will do for the present," replied the inspector. "We may find it
+necessary to charge you with a more serious crime later."
+
+"Well, all I can say is that you've got the wrong man. But that is
+nothing new for you chaps," he added with a sneer.
+
+"Surely you are not going to charge him with the murder?" said the girl
+imploringly.
+
+The inspector's reply was merely to warn the prisoner that anything he
+said might be used in evidence against him at his trial.
+
+"He had nothing whatever to do with it--he knows nothing about it,"
+protested the girl. "If you let him go I'll tell you who murdered
+Sir Horace."
+
+"Who murdered him?" asked the inspector.
+
+"Hill," was the reply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Doris Fanning got off a Holborn tram at King's Cross, and with a hasty
+glance round her as if to make sure she was not followed, walked at a
+rapid pace across the street in the direction of Caledonian Road. She
+walked up that busy thoroughfare at the same quick gait for some minutes,
+then turned into a narrow street and, with another suspicious look around
+her, stopped at the doorway of a small shop a short distance down.
+
+The shop sold those nondescript goods which seem to afford a living to a
+not inconsiderable class of London's small shopkeepers. The windows and
+the shelves were full of dusty old books and magazines, trumpery curios
+and cheap china, second-hand furniture and a collection of miscellaneous
+odds and ends. A thick dust lay over the whole collection, and the shop
+and its contents presented a deserted and dirty appearance. Moreover, the
+door was closed as though customers were not expected. The girl tried the
+door and found it locked--a fact which seemed to indicate that customers
+were not even desired. After another hasty look up and down the street
+she tapped sharply on the door in a peculiar way.
+
+The door was opened after the lapse of a few minutes by a short thickset
+man of over fifty, whose heavy face displayed none of the suavity and
+desire to please which is part of the stock-in-trade of the small
+shopkeeper of London. A look of annoyance crossed his face at the sight
+of the girl, and his first remark to her was one which no well-regulated
+shopkeeper would have addressed to a prospective customer.
+
+"You!" he exclaimed. "What in God's name has brought you here? I told you
+on no account to come to the shop. How do you know somebody hasn't
+followed you?"
+
+"I could not help it, Kincher," the girl responded piteously. "I'm
+distracted about Fred, and I had to come over to ask your advice."
+
+"You women are all fools," the man retorted. "You might have known that
+I would read all about the case in the papers, and that I'd let you
+hear from me."
+
+"Yes, Kincher," she replied humbly, "but they let me see Fred for a
+few minutes yesterday at the police court and he told me to come over
+and see you. Oh, if you only knew what I've suffered since he was
+arrested. Yesterday he was committed for trial. I haven't closed my
+eyes for over a week."
+
+"So you attended the police-court proceedings?" said Kemp. And when the
+girl nodded her head he went on, "The more fool you. I suppose it would
+be too much to expect a woman to keep away even though she knew she could
+do no good."
+
+"I knew that, Kincher, but I simply had to go. I should have died if I
+had stayed in that dreadful flat alone. I tried to, but I couldn't. I got
+so nervous that I had to put my handkerchief into my mouth to prevent
+myself from screaming aloud."
+
+"Well, since you are here you had better come inside instead of standing
+there and giving yourself and me away to every passing policeman."
+
+He led the way inside, and the girl followed him to a dirty, cheerless
+room behind the shop which was furnished with a sofa-bedstead, a table,
+and a chair. It was evident that Kemp lived alone and attended to his own
+wants. The remains of an unappetising meal were on a corner of the table,
+and a kettle and a teapot stood by the fireplace in which a fire had
+recently been made with a few sticks for the purpose of boiling a kettle.
+Bedclothes were heaped on the sofa-bedstead in a disordered state, and in
+the midst of them nestled a large tortoise-shell cat.
+
+"Sit down," said Kemp. There was an old chair near the fireplace and he
+pushed it towards her with his foot. "What's brought you over here?"
+
+The girl sank into the chair and began to cry.
+
+"I can't help it, Kincher," she said. "I don't know what to say or do.
+Fancy Fred being charged with murder! Oh, it's too dreadful to think
+about. And yet I can think of nothing else."
+
+"Crying your eyes out won't help matters much," replied the
+unsympathetic Kemp.
+
+The girl did not reply, but rocked herself backwards and forwards on the
+chair. She sobbed so violently that she appeared to be threatened with an
+attack of hysteria. Kemp watched her silently. The cat on the
+sofa-bedstead, as if awakened by the noise, got up, yawned, looked
+inquiringly round, and then with a measured leap sprang into the girl's
+lap. She was startled by his act and then she smiled through her sobs as
+she stroked the animal's coat.
+
+"Poor old Peter!" she exclaimed. "He wants to console me! don't you,
+Peter? I say, Kincher, I wish you'd give me Peter; you don't want him.
+Oh, look at the dear!" The cat had perched himself on one of her knees
+to beg, and he sawed the air appealingly with his forepaws. "I must give
+him a tit-bit for that." She eyed the remains of the meal on the table
+disdainfully. "No, Peter, there is nothing fit for you to
+eat--positively nothing. Why, he understands me like a human being," she
+continued in amazement as the huge cat dropped on all fours and
+deliberately sprang back to the sofa-bedstead. "I say, Kincher, you
+really want a woman in this place to look after you. It's in a most
+shocking state--it's like a pigsty."
+
+Kemp made no reply but continued to watch her. Her tears had vanished and
+she sat forward with her dark eyes sparkling, one hand supporting her
+pretty face as she glanced round the room.
+
+"Have you a cigarette?" she asked suddenly.
+
+Kemp went into the shop and came back with a packet of cheap cigarettes.
+The girl pushed them away petulantly.
+
+"I don't like that brand," she said; "haven't you anything better?"
+
+The man shook his head.
+
+"No? Then here goes--I must have a smoke of some sort." She stuck one of
+the cheap cigarettes daintily into her mouth. "A match, Kincher! Why, the
+box is filthy! You must have a woman in to look after you, even if I have
+to find you one myself."
+
+"I don't want any woman in the place," retorted Kemp. "There is no peace
+for a man when a woman is about. But let us have no more of this idle
+chatter. What's brought you over here? I suppose it's about Fred."
+
+"Poor Fred!" The girl looked downcast for a moment, then she tossed her
+head, puffed out some smoke, and exclaimed energetically, "But he's not
+guilty, Kincher, and we'll get him off, won't we?"
+
+"Not merely by saying so," replied Kemp. "But you'd better tell me how it
+came about that he was arrested for the murder. The police gave away
+nothing at the police court. Bill Dobbs was down there and he told me
+they let out nothing, except that their principal witness against Fred is
+that fellow Hill. I always knew he'd squeak. I told Fred to have nothing
+to do with the job."
+
+The girl's eyes flashed viciously. She tossed the cigarette into the
+fire-place and straightened herself.
+
+"That's the low, dirty scoundrel who committed the murder," she
+exclaimed. "He ought to be in the dock--not Fred."
+
+"Was Fred up there that night?" asked Kemp.
+
+"Up where?"
+
+"At Riversbrook, or whatever they call it."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He told me he didn't go."
+
+"It's because he was up there that the police have arrested him," said
+the girl. "Hill gave him away. Oh, he's a double-dyed villain, is Hill.
+And so quiet and respectable looking with it all! He used to let me in
+when I went to Riversbrook, and let me out again, and pocket the
+half-crowns I gave him. And I like a fool never suspected him once, or
+thought that he knew anything about Fred coming to the flat. He didn't
+let it out till the night Sir Horace quarrelled with me. Sir Horace found
+out about--about Fred--and when I went up to see him as usual, he told me
+that he had finished with me and he called Hill up to show me out. 'Show
+this young lady out,' he said in that cold haughty voice of his, and the
+wily old villain Hill just bowed and held the door open. He followed me
+down stairs and let me out at the side door. There he said, 'I'll escort
+you to the front gate, if you will permit me, miss. I usually lock the
+gate about this time.' I thought nothing of this because he had come with
+me to the front gate before. He followed me down the garden path through
+the plantation till we reached the front gate. He opened the gate for me
+and I said 'Good night, Hill,' but instead of his replying 'Good night,
+Miss Fanning,' as he usually did, he hissed out like a serpent, 'You tell
+Birchill I want to see him to-morrow, and I'll come to the flat about 9
+o'clock. Tell him an old friend named Field wants to see him. Don't
+forget the name--Field!' Then he locked the gate and was gone before I
+could speak a word.
+
+"I gave Fred his message next morning--I wish to God that I hadn't," she
+continued. "I asked Fred not to keep the appointment, but he insisted on
+doing so. He said that he and Field had been good friends in the gaol,
+and that Field had told him that if he ever got on to anything he would
+let him know. He seemed quite pleased at the idea of meeting Field again.
+I told him to beware that Field wasn't laying a trap for him, but he
+wouldn't listen to me.
+
+"Sure enough, Field--or Hill as he calls himself now--did come over
+that evening and I let him in myself. I took him into the sitting-room
+where Fred was, and I sat down in a corner of the room pretending to read
+a book so that I could hear what our visitor had to say. But the cunning
+old devil whispered something to Fred, and Fred came over to me and asked
+if I'd mind leaving them alone for half an hour. I didn't mind so much
+because I knew I could get it all out of Fred after Hill had gone.
+
+"He remained shut up with Fred for nearly two hours and then I heard Fred
+letting him out of the front door. Fred came in to me, and I soon got the
+strength of it all from him. What do you think Hill had come for? To get
+Fred to burgle Sir Horace's house! And Fred had agreed to do it. I cried
+and I stormed and went into hysterics, but he wouldn't budge--you know
+how obstinate he can be when he likes. He said that Hill had told him
+there was a good haul to be picked up. Sir Horace was going to Scotland
+for the shooting, and the servants were to be sent to his country house,
+so the coast would be clear. Hill was to leave everything right at
+Riversbrook on the afternoon of the 18th of August, and he was to come
+across to the flat and let Fred know.
+
+"Hill came, as he promised, but as soon as he came in I could see that
+something had happened. The first words he said were that Sir Horace had
+returned unexpectedly from Scotland. I was glad to hear it, for I thought
+that meant that there would be no burglary. I said as much to Fred, and
+he would have agreed with me, but that devil Hill was too full of
+cunning. 'Of course, if you're frightened, we'd better call it off,' he
+said. Fred had been drinking during the day, and you know what he's like
+when he's had a little too much. 'I was never frightened of any job yet,'
+he said, 'and I'd do this job to-night if the house was full of rozzers,'
+Hill pretended that he wasn't particular whether the thing came off or
+not that night, but all the while he kept egging Fred on to do it. Oh, I
+can see now what his game was. In spite of all I could do or say, it was
+arranged that Fred should go over, and see if it was quite safe to carry
+out the job. Hill said he thought Sir Horace was going out that night,
+and wouldn't be home until the early morning. About 9 o'clock Fred went
+off, leaving Hill and me alone in the flat together. How I wish now that
+I had killed him when I had such a good chance.
+
+"We sat there scarcely speaking, and heard the clock strike the hours.
+After midnight I began to get restless, for I thought something must have
+happened to Fred. Hill said in a low voice: 'It's time Fred was back.'
+The words were scarcely out of his mouth when I heard Fred's step
+outside, and I ran to let him in. He came in as white as a sheet. 'Fred,'
+I cried as soon as I saw him, 'there's some blood on your face.'
+
+"He didn't answer a word until he had taken a big drink of whisky out of
+the decanter. Then he said in a whisper: 'Sir Horace Fewbanks has been
+murdered!' 'Murdered!' cried Hill, leaping up from his chair--he can act
+well, I can tell you--'My God, Fred, you don't mean it!' 'He's dead, I
+tell you,' replied Fred fiercely. I thought, and at the time I suppose
+Hill thought, that Fred had shot him either accidentally or in order to
+escape capture. He seemed to guess what we were thinking, for he swore
+that he had had nothing to do with it--Sir Horace was dead on the floor
+when he got there.
+
+"He told us all that had happened. When he got to Riversbrook he found
+lights burning on the ground floor. He jumped over the fence at the side
+and hid in the garden. He was there only a few minutes when he saw the
+lights go out. Then the front door was slammed and a woman walked down
+the garden path to the gate."
+
+"A woman!" exclaimed Kemp.
+
+"Yes, a woman. Why not? She had been to see Sir Horace. One of his
+Society mistresses. I'll bet it was on her account that he came back from
+Scotland."
+
+"What time was this?" he asked with interest.
+
+"About half-past ten," replied the girl.
+
+"And this woman--this lady--turned out the lights and closed the
+front door?"
+
+"So Fred says. Of course he thought Sir Horace had done it, but he found
+out later that Sir Horace was dead."
+
+"I can't understand it," said Kemp. "What was she doing there? If she
+found the man dead, why didn't she inform the police? No, wait a minute!
+She'd be afraid to do that if she was a Society woman."
+
+"It might be her who killed him," said the girl.
+
+"Does Fred think that?" asked Kemp, looking at her closely.
+
+"Fred doesn't know what to think," she replied. "But it must have been
+this woman or Hill who killed him. I feel sure myself that it was Hill."
+
+"This woman puzzles me," said Kemp thoughtfully. "She must have been a
+cool hand if she went round turning out the lights after finding his dead
+body. About half-past ten, you said?"
+
+"That is as near as Fred can make it."
+
+"Go on with your story," he said. "I'm interested in this. You were
+saying that Fred saw the lights go out, and then this woman came out of
+the house and walked away."
+
+"Well, Fred got into the house through one of the windows at the
+side--the one Hill had told him to try," continued the girl. "But first
+of all he waited about half an hour in the garden, so as to give Sir
+Horace time to go to sleep. He was able to find his way about the house
+as Hill had given him a plan. He felt his way upstairs and finding a door
+open he went into the room and flashed his electric torch. By its light
+he saw Sir Horace Fewbanks lying huddled up in a corner with a big pool
+of blood beside him on the floor. He felt him to see if he was dead. The
+body was quite warm, but it was limp. Sir Horace was dead. Fred says he
+lost his nerve and ran for it as hard as he could. He rushed down stairs
+and out of the house and got back to the flat as fast as he could.
+
+"The three of us sat there shaking with fear and wondering what to do.
+Hill was the first to recover himself. In his cunning plausible way, he
+pointed out that it was altogether unlikely that suspicion would fall on
+Fred or him. All we had to do was to keep quiet and say nothing; then
+we'd have no awkward questions put to us. It was his suggestion that we
+should send an anonymous letter to Scotland Yard telling them Sir Horace
+had been murdered. That would be much better, he said, than leaving the
+body there until he went over and found it when he had to go over to
+Riversbrook to take a look round, in accordance with the instructions
+that had been given him when Sir Horace went to Scotland. Knowing what he
+did, he was afraid that if he was allowed to discover the body and inform
+the police, he would let something slip when the police came at him with
+their hundreds of questions. We printed the letter to Scotland Yard, each
+one doing a letter at a time. Hill took it with him, saying he would post
+it on his way home.
+
+"When he left, Fred and I sat there thinking. Suddenly it came to me as
+clear as daylight that Hill had committed the murder, and had fixed up
+things so as to throw suspicion on Fred. He must have known Sir Horace
+was coming back from Scotland that night, and he had laid in wait for him
+and shot him. Then he had come over to my flat in order to persuade Fred
+to carry out the burglary, and direct suspicion to Fred for the murder,
+if the police worried him. I told Fred what I thought, but he only
+laughed at me and said I was talking nonsense. But I was right, for a
+week afterwards the police came and arrested Fred at the flat."
+
+"How did they get him?" asked Kemp.
+
+"I saw them coming along the street from the window, and I pointed them
+out to Fred. He tried to get away through the kitchen window along the
+ledge and down the spouting. He almost got away, but one of the
+detectives saw him before he reached the ground, and they dashed down
+stairs and got him in the street. Next day I saw in the papers that Hill
+had made an important statement to the police, and this had led to
+Fred's arrest. Hill is the murderer, Kincher. The cunning, wicked,
+treacherous villain told the police about Fred being up there. He wants
+to see Fred hang in order to save his own neck." The girl's voice rose
+to a shriek, and she sprang to her feet with blazing eyes. "Kincher,"
+she cried, "you've got to help me put the rope round this wretch's neck.
+Do you hear me?"
+
+Kemp's impassivity was in marked contrast to the girl's hysterical
+excitement.
+
+"What do you want me to do?" he asked.
+
+"Fred wants you to get up an alibi for him. He sent me over to ask you to
+arrange it without delay. He wants you and two or three others to swear
+that he was over here on the night of the murder. That will be sufficient
+to get him off."
+
+"Not me," said Kemp, shaking his head decidedly. "I won't do it; it's too
+risky. The police have too many things against me for my word to be any
+good as a witness. I'd only be landing myself in trouble for perjury
+instead of helping Fred out of trouble. He ought to have got an alibi
+ready before he was arrested. I told him at the inquest that he ought to
+look after it, and he swore he'd not been up there on the night of the
+murder. It is too late to do anything in the alibi line now. I don't know
+anybody I could get to come forward and swear Fred was in their company
+that night--there is a difference between fixing up a tale for the police
+before a man's arrested, and going into the witness box and committing
+perjury on oath."
+
+He spoke in such an uncompromising tone that the girl saw it was useless
+to pursue the matter further.
+
+"Suppose I went to the police and told them that Hill is the murderer?"
+she suggested.
+
+Kemp shook his head slowly.
+
+"There is only your word for it that Hill killed him," he said. "It
+doesn't look to me as if he did, when he went over to your flat and told
+Fred that Sir Horace had come back from Scotland. If he had killed him he
+would have let Fred go over without saying a word about it."
+
+"That was part of his cunning," said the girl. "If he had said nothing
+about Sir Horace's return, Fred would have suspected him when he found
+the dead body. I'm as certain that Hill committed the murder as if I had
+seen him do it with my own eyes."
+
+Kemp shrugged his shoulders as though realising the uselessness of
+attempting to combat such a feminine form of reasoning.
+
+"Didn't Fred say that the body was warm when he touched it?" he asked.
+
+She meditated a moment over this evidence of Hill's innocence.
+
+"Well, if Hill didn't kill him, the woman Fred saw leaving the house must
+have done so," she declared.
+
+"There is something in that," said Kemp. "Look here, we've got to get
+Fred a good lawyer to defend him, and we must be guided by his advice as
+to what is the best thing to do. He knows more about what will go down
+with a jury than you do."
+
+"I paid a solicitor to defend him at the police court," said the
+girl, "but the money I gave him was thrown away. He said nothing and
+did nothing."
+
+"That shows he is a man who knows his business," replied Kemp. "What's
+the good of talking to police court beaks in a case that is bound to go
+to trial? It's a waste of breath. The thing is to see that Fred is
+properly defended when the case comes on at the Old Bailey. We want
+somebody who can manage the jury. I should say Holymead is the man if you
+can get him. I don't know as he'd be likely to take up the case, for he
+don't go in much for criminal courts--and yet it seems to me that he
+might. You ought to try to get him, at least. He used to be a friend of
+your friend Sir Horace, so if he took up the case it would look as if he
+believed Fred had nothing to do with the murder. It would be bound to
+make a good impression on the jury."
+
+"Wouldn't he be very expensive?" asked the girl.
+
+"Not so expensive as getting hanged," said Kemp grimly. "You take my
+advice and have him if you can get him. Never mind what he costs, if you
+can raise the money. You've got some money saved up, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes, I've nearly £200. Sir Horace put £100 in the Savings Bank for me on
+my last birthday. And the furniture at the flat is mine. I'd sell that
+and everything I've got, for Fred's sake."
+
+"That is the way to talk," said Kemp. "You go to this solicitor you had
+at the police court, and tell him you want Holymead to defend Fred. Tell
+him he must brief Holymead--have nobody else but Holymead. Tell him that
+Holymead was a friend of Sir Horace Fewbanks's and that if he appears for
+Fred the jury will never believe that Fred had anything to do with the
+murder. And I don't think he had, though he did lie to me and swear he
+hadn't been up there that night," he added after a moment's reflection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+"There is one link in the chain missing," said Rolfe, who was discussing
+with Inspector Chippenfield, in the latter's room at Scotland Yard, the
+strength of the case against Birchill.
+
+"And what is that?" asked his superior.
+
+"The piece of woman's handkerchief that I found in the dead man's hand.
+You remember we agreed that it showed there was a woman in the case."
+
+"Well, what do you call this girl Fanning? Isn't she in the case? Surely,
+you don't want any better explanation of the murder than a quarrel
+between her and Sir Horace over this man Birchill?"
+
+"Yes, I see that plain enough," replied Rolfe. "There is ample motive for
+the crime, but how that piece of handkerchief got into the dead man's
+hand is still a mystery to me. It would be easily explained if this girl
+was present in the room or the house when the murder was committed. But
+she wasn't. Hill's story is that she was at the flat with him."
+
+"When you have had as much experience in investigating crime as I have,
+you won't worry over little points that at first don't seem to fit in
+with what we know to be facts," responded the inspector in a patronising
+tone. "I noticed from the first, Rolfe, that you were inclined to make
+too much of this handkerchief business, but I said nothing. Of course, it
+was your own discovery, and I have found during my career that young
+detectives are always inclined to make too much of their own discoveries.
+Perhaps I was myself, when I was young and inexperienced. Now, as to this
+handkerchief: what is more likely than that Birchill had it in his pocket
+when he went out to Riversbrook on that fatal night? He was living in
+the flat with this girl Fanning: what was more natural than that he
+should pick up a handkerchief off the floor that the girl had dropped and
+put it in his pocket with the intention of giving it to her when she
+returned to the room? Instead of doing so he forgot all about it. When he
+shot Sir Horace Fewbanks he put his hand into his pocket for a
+handkerchief to wipe his forehead or his hands--it was a hot night, and I
+take it that a man who has killed another doesn't feel as cool as a
+cucumber. While stooping over his victim with the handkerchief still in
+his hand, the dying man made a convulsive movement and caught hold of a
+corner of the handkerchief, which was torn off." Inspector Chippenfield
+looked across at his subordinate with a smile of triumphant superiority.
+
+"Yes," said Rolfe meditatively. "There is nothing wrong about that as far
+as I can see. But I would like to know for certain how it got there."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield was satisfied with his subordinate's testimony to
+his perspicacity.
+
+"That is all right, Rolfe," he said in a tone of kindly banter. "But
+don't make the mistake of regarding your idle curiosity as a virtue.
+After the trial, if you are still curious on the point, I have no
+doubt Birchill will tell you. He is sure to make a confession before
+he is hanged."
+
+But it was more a spirit of idle curiosity than anything else that
+brought Rolfe to Crewe's chambers in Holborn an hour later. Having
+secured the murderer, he felt curious as to what Crewe's feelings were on
+his defeat. It was the first occasion that he had been on a case which
+Crewe had been commissioned to investigate, and he was naturally pleased
+that Inspector Chippenfield and he had arrested the author of the crime
+while Crewe was all at sea. It was plain from the fact that the latter
+had thought it necessary to visit Scotland that he had got on a false
+scent. It was not Scotland, but Scotland Yard that Crewe should have
+visited, Rolfe said to himself with a smile.
+
+Crewe, in pursuance of his policy of keeping on the best of terms with
+the police, gave Rolfe a very friendly welcome. He produced from a
+cupboard two glasses, a decanter of whisky, a siphon of soda, and a box
+of cigars. Rolfe quickly discovered that the cigars were of a quality
+that seldom came his way, and he leaned back in his chair and puffed with
+steady enjoyment.
+
+"Then you are determined to hang Birchill?" said Crewe, as with a cigar
+in his fingers he faced his visitor with a smile.
+
+"We'll hang him right enough," said Rolfe. He pulled the cigar out of his
+mouth and looked at it approvingly. Though the talk was of hanging, he
+had never felt more thoroughly at peace with the world.
+
+"It will be a pity if you do," said Crewe.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because he's the wrong man."
+
+"It would take a lot to make me believe that," said Rolfe stoutly. "We've
+got a strong case against him--there is not a weak point in it. I admit
+that Hill is a tainted witness, but they'll find it pretty hard to break
+down his story. We've tested it in every way and find it stands. Then
+there are the bootmarks outside the window. Birchill's boots fit them to
+the smallest fraction of an inch. The jemmy found in the flat fits the
+mark made in the window at Riversbrook, and we've got something
+more--another witness who saw him in Tanton Gardens about the time of the
+murder. If Birchill can get his neck out of the noose, he's cleverer than
+I take him for."
+
+Crewe did not reply directly to Rolfe's summary of the case.
+
+"I see that they've briefed Holymead for the defence," he said
+after a pause.
+
+"A waste of good money," said the police officer. Something appealed to
+his sense of humour, for he broke out into a laugh.
+
+"What are you laughing at?" asked Crewe.
+
+"I was wondering how Sir Horace feels when he sees the money he gave
+this girl Fanning being used to defend his murderer."
+
+"You are a hardened scamp, Rolfe, with a very perverse sense of humour,"
+said Crewe.
+
+"It was a cunning move of them to get Holymead," said Rolfe. "They think
+it will weigh with the jury because he was such a close friend of Sir
+Horace--that he wouldn't have taken up the case unless he felt that
+Birchill was innocent. But you and I know better than that, Mr. Crewe. A
+lawyer will prove that black is white if he is paid for it. In fact, I
+understand that, according to the etiquette of the bar, they have got to
+do it. A barrister has to abide by his brief and leave his personal
+feelings out of account."
+
+"That's so. Theoretically he is an officer of the Court, and his services
+are supposed to be at the call of any man who is in want of him and can
+afford to pay for them. Of course, a leading barrister, such as Holymead,
+often declines a brief because he has so much to do, but he is not
+supposed to decline it for personal reasons."
+
+"His heart will not be in the case," said Rolfe philosophically.
+
+"On the contrary, I think it will," said Crewe. "My own opinion is that,
+if necessary, he will exert his powers to the utmost in order to get
+Birchill off, and that he will succeed."
+
+"Not he," said Rolfe confidently. "Our case is too strong."
+
+"You've got a lot of circumstantial evidence, but a clever lawyer will
+pull it to pieces. Circumstantial evidence has hung many a man, and it
+will hang many more. But a jury will hesitate to convict on
+circumstantial evidence when it can be shown that the conduct of the
+prisoner is at variance with what the conduct of a guilty man would be. I
+don't bet, but I'll wager you a box of cigars to nothing that Holymead
+gets Birchill off."
+
+"It's a one-sided wager, but I'll take the cigars because I could do
+with a box of these," said Rolfe. "You might as well give them to me now,
+Mr. Crewe."
+
+"No, no," said Crewe with a smile. "Put a couple in your pocket now,
+because you won't win the box."
+
+"Of course, I understand, Mr. Crewe, why you say Birchill is the wrong
+man. You feel a bit sore because we have beaten you. I would feel sore
+myself in your place, and I don't deny that we got information that put
+us on Birchill's track, and therefore it was easier for us to solve the
+mystery than it was for you."
+
+"I'm not a bit sore," said Crewe. "I can take a beating, especially when
+the men who beat me are good sportsmen." He bowed towards Rolfe, and
+that officer blushed as he recalled how Inspector Chippenfield and he
+had agreed to withhold information from Crewe and try to put him on a
+false scent.
+
+"I wish you'd tell me what you consider the weak points of our case
+against Birchill," asked Rolfe.
+
+"Your case is based on Hill's confession, and that to my mind is false in
+many details," said Crewe. "Take, for instance, his account of how he
+came into contact with Birchill again. This girl Fanning, after a quarrel
+with Sir Horace, came over to Riversbrook with a message for Hill which
+was virtually a threat. Now does that seem probable? The girl who had
+been in the habit of visiting Sir Horace goes over to see Hill. No woman
+in the circumstances would do anything of the sort. She had too good an
+opinion of herself to take a message to a servant at a house from which
+she had been expelled by the owner, who had been keeping her. How would
+she have felt if she had run into Sir Horace? It is true that Sir Horace
+left for Scotland the day before, but it is improbable that the girl who
+had quarrelled with Sir Horace a fortnight before knew the exact date on
+which he intended to leave. And how did Hill behave when he got the
+message? According to his story, he consented to go and see Birchill
+under threat of exposure, and he consented to become an accomplice in the
+burglary for the same reason. Sir Horace knew all about Hill's past, so
+why should he fear a threat of exposure?"
+
+"Hill explained that," interposed Rolfe. "He pointed out that, though Sir
+Horace knew his past, he couldn't afford to have any scandal about it."
+
+"Quite so. But could Birchill afford to threaten a man who was under the
+protection of Sir Horace Fewbanks? Would Birchill pit himself against Sir
+Horace? I think that Sir Horace, knowing the law pretty thoroughly, would
+soon have found a way to deal with Birchill. If Hill was threatened by
+Birchill, his first impulse, knowing what a powerful protector he had in
+Sir Horace Fewbanks, would have been to go to him and seek his protection
+against this dangerous old associate of his convict days. According to
+Hill's own story, he was something in the nature of a confidential
+servant, trusted to some extent with the secrets of Sir Horace's double
+life. What more likely than such a man, threatened as he describes,
+should turn to his master who had shielded him and trusted him?"
+
+"I confess that is a point which never struck me," said Rolfe
+thoughtfully.
+
+"Now, let us go on to the meeting between Hill and Birchill," continued
+Crewe. "This girl Fanning, discarded by Sir Horace, because he'd
+discovered she was playing him false with Birchill, is made the
+ostensible reason for Birchill's wishing to commit a burglary at
+Riversbrook, because Birchill wants, as he says, to get even with Sir
+Horace Fewbanks. Is it likely that Birchill would confide his desire for
+revenge so frankly to Sir Horace's confidential servant, the trusted
+custodian of his master's valuables, who could rely on his master's
+protection--the protection of a highly-placed man of whom Birchill stood
+admittedly in fear, and whom he knew, according to Hill's story, was
+unassailable from his slander? What had Hill to fear, from the threats of
+a man like Birchill, when he was living under Sir Horace Fewbanks's
+protection? All that Hill had to do when Birchill tried to induce him,
+by threats of exposure of his past, to help in a burglary at his master's
+house, was to threaten to tell everything to Sir Horace. Birchill told
+Hill that he was frightened of Sir Horace Fewbanks, the judge who had
+sentenced him.
+
+"Then Birchill's confidence in Hill is remarkable, any way you look at
+it. He sends for Hill, whom he had known in gaol, and whom he hadn't seen
+since, to confide in him that it is his intention to burgle his
+employer's house. He rashly assumes that Hill will do all that he wishes,
+and he proceeds to lay his cards on the table. But even supposing that
+Birchill was foolish enough to do this--to trust a chance gaol
+acquaintance so implicitly--there is a far more puzzling action on his
+part. Why did he want Hill's assistance to burgle a practically
+unprotected house? I confess I have great difficulty in understanding why
+such an accomplished flash burglar as Birchill, one of the best men at
+the game in London at the present time, should want the assistance of an
+amateur like Hill in such a simple job."
+
+Rolfe looked startled.
+
+"Hill says he wanted a plan of the house and to know what valuables it
+contained."
+
+Crewe smiled.
+
+"And has it been your experience among criminals, Rolfe, that a burglar
+must have a plan of the place he intends to burgle, and that to get this
+plan he will give himself away to any man who can supply it? A plan has
+its uses, but it is indispensable only when a very difficult job is being
+undertaken, such as breaking through a wall or a ceiling to get at a room
+which contains a safe. This job was as simple as A B C. And besides, as
+far as I can make out, Birchill knew--the girl Fanning must have
+known--that Sir Horace would be going away some time in August and that
+the house would be empty. Did he want a plan of an empty house? He would
+be free to roam all over it when he had forced a window."
+
+"He wanted to know what valuables were there," said Rolfe.
+
+"And therefore took Hill into his confidence. If Hill had told his
+master--even Birchill would realise the risk of that--there would be no
+valuables to get. Next, we come to Sir Horace Fewbanks's unexpected
+return. According to Hill's story, he made some tentative efforts to
+commence a confession as soon as he saw his employer, but Sir Horace was
+upset about something and was too impatient to listen to a word. Is such
+a story reasonable or likely? Hill says that Sir Horace had always
+treated him well; and according to his earlier statement, when he
+permitted himself to be terrorised into agreeing to this burglary, he
+told himself that chance would throw in his way some opportunity of
+informing his master. And he told you that Birchill, mistrusting his
+unwilling accomplice, hurried on the date of the burglary so as to give
+him no such opportunity. Well, chance throws in Hill's way the very
+opportunity he has been seeking, but he is too frightened to use it
+because Sir Horace happens to return in an angry or impatient mood.
+
+"Let us take Birchill's attitude when Hill tells him that Sir Horace has
+unexpectedly returned from Scotland. Birchill is suspicious that Hill
+has played him false, and naturally so, but Hill, instead of letting him
+think so, and thus preventing the burglary from taking place, does all
+he can to reassure him, while at the same time begging him to postpone
+the burglary. That was hardly the best way to go about it. Let us
+charitably assume that Hill was too frightened to let Birchill remain
+under the impression that he'd played him false, and let us look at
+Birchill's attitude. It is inconceivable that Birchill should have
+permitted himself to be reassured, when right through the negotiations
+between himself and Hill he showed the most marked distrust of the
+latter. Yet, according to Hill, he suddenly abandons this attitude for
+one of trusting credulity, meekly accepting the assurance of the man he
+distrusts that Sir Horace Fewbanks's unexpected return from Scotland on
+the very night the burglary is to be committed is not a trap to catch
+him, but a coincidence. Then, after drinking himself nearly blind, he
+sets forth with a revolver to commit a burglary on the house of the
+judge who tried him, on Hill's bare word that everything is all right.
+Guileless, trusting, simple-minded Birchill!
+
+"Hill is left locked up in the flat with the girl; for Birchill, who has
+just trusted him implicitly in a far more important matter affecting his
+own liberty, has a belated sense of caution about trusting his unworthy
+accomplice while he is away committing the burglary. The time goes on;
+the couple in the flat hear the clock strike twelve before Birchill's
+returning footsteps are heard. He enters, and immediately announces to
+Hill and the girl, with every symptom of strongly marked terror, that
+while on his burglarious mission, he has come across the dead body of Sir
+Horace Fewbanks--murdered in his own house. Mark that! he tells them
+freely and openly--tells Hill--as soon as he gets in the flat. Allowing
+for possible defects in my previous reasoning against Hill's story,
+admitting that an adroit prosecuting counsel may be able to buttress up
+some of the weak points, allowing that you may have other circumstantial
+evidence supporting your case, that is the fatal flaw in your chain:
+because of Birchill's statement on his return to the flat no jury in the
+world ought to convict him."
+
+"I don't see why," said Rolfe.
+
+Crewe fixed his deep eyes intently on Rolfe as he replied:
+
+"Because, if Birchill had committed this murder, he would never have
+admitted immediately on his returning, least of all to Hill, anything
+about the dead body."
+
+"But he told Hill that he didn't commit the murder," protested Rolfe.
+
+"But you say that he did commit the murder," retorted the detective.
+"You cannot use that piece of evidence both ways. Your case is that this
+man Birchill, while visiting Riversbrook to commit a burglary which he
+and Hill arranged, encountered Sir Horace Fewbanks and murdered him. I
+say that his admission to Hill on his return to the flat that he had come
+across the body of Sir Horace Fewbanks, is proof that Birchill did not
+commit the murder. No murderer would make such a damning admission, least
+of all to a man he didn't trust--to a man who he believed was capable of
+entrapping him. Next you have Birchill consenting to a message being sent
+to Scotland Yard conveying the information that Sir Horace had been
+murdered. Is that the action of a guilty man? Wouldn't it have been more
+to his interest to leave the dead man's body undiscovered in the empty
+house and bolt from the country? It might have remained a week or more
+before being discovered. True, he would have had to find some way of
+silencing Hill while he got away from the country. He might have had to
+resort to the crude method of tying Hill up, gagging him, and leaving him
+in the flat. But even that would have been better than to inform the
+police immediately of the murder and place his life at the mercy of Hill,
+whom he distrusted."
+
+"Looked at your way, I admit that there are some weak points in our
+case," said Rolfe. "But you'll find that our Counsel will be able to
+answer most of them in his address to the jury. If Birchill didn't
+commit the murder, who did? Do you deny that he went up to Riversbrook
+that night?"
+
+"The letter sent to Scotland Yard shows that some one was there besides
+the murderer. If Birchill was there and helped to write the letter--and
+so much is part of your case--he wasn't the murderer. In short, I believe
+Birchill went up there to commit a burglary and found the murdered body
+of Sir Horace."
+
+"Do you think that Hill did it?" asked Rolfe.
+
+"That is more than I'd like to say. As a matter of fact I have been so
+obtuse as to neglect Hill somewhat in my investigations. In fact, I
+didn't know until I got hold of a copy of his statement to the police
+that he was an ex-convict. Inspector Chippenfield omitted to inform me of
+the fact."
+
+"I didn't know that," said Rolfe, without a blush, as he rose to go. "He
+ought to have told you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+When Rolfe left Crewe's office he went back to Scotland Yard. He found
+Inspector Chippenfield still in his office, and related to him the
+substance of his interview with Crewe. The inspector listened to the
+recital in growing anger.
+
+"Birchill not the right man?" he spluttered. "Why, of course he is. The
+case against him is purely circumstantial, but it's as clear as
+daylight."
+
+"Then you don't think there's anything in Crewe's points?" asked Rolfe.
+
+"I think so little of them that I look upon Birchill as good as hanged!
+That for Crewe's points!" Inspector Chippenfield snapped his fingers
+contemptuously. "And I'm surprised to think that you, Rolfe, whose
+loyalty to your superior officer is a thing I would have staked my life
+on, should have sat there and listened to such rubbish. I wouldn't have
+listened to him for two minutes--no, not for half a minute. He was trying
+to pick our case to pieces out of blind spite and jealousy, because we've
+got ahead of him in the biggest murder case London's had for many a long
+day. A man who jaunts off to Scotland looking for clues to a murder
+committed in London is a fool, Rolfe--that's what I call him. We have
+beaten him--beaten him badly, and he doesn't like it. But it is not the
+first time Scotland Yard has beaten him, and it won't be the last."
+
+"I suppose you're right," said Rolfe. "But there's one point he made
+which rather struck me, I must say--that about Birchill telling Hill he'd
+found the dead body. Would Birchill have told Hill that, if he'd
+committed the murder?"
+
+"Nothing more likely," exclaimed the inspector. "My theory is that
+Birchill, while committing the burglary at Riversbrook, was surprised by
+Sir Horace Fewbanks. It is possible that the judge tried to capture
+Birchill to hand him over to the police, and Birchill shot him. I believe
+that Birchill fired both shots--that he had two revolvers. But whatever
+took place, a dangerous criminal like Birchill would not require much
+provocation to silence a man who interrupted him while he was on business
+bent, and a man, moreover, against whom he nursed a bitter grudge. In
+this case it is possible there was no provocation at all. Sir Horace
+Fewbanks may have simply heard a noise, entered the room where Birchill
+was, and been shot down without mercy. Birchill heard him coming and was
+ready for him with a revolver in each hand. You've got to bear in mind
+that Birchill went to the house in a dangerous mood, half mad with drink,
+and furious with anger against Sir Horace Fewbanks for cutting off the
+allowance of the girl he was living with. He threatened before he left
+the flat to commit the burglary that he'd do for the judge if he
+interfered with him."
+
+"That's according to Hill's statement," said Rolfe.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield glanced at his subordinate in some surprise.
+
+"Of course it's Hill's statement," he said. "Isn't he our principal
+witness, and doesn't his statement fit in with all the facts we have been
+able to gather? Well, the murder of Sir Horace, no matter how it was
+committed, was committed in cold blood. But immediately Birchill had done
+it the fact that he had committed a murder would have a sobering effect
+on him. Although he bragged before he left the flat for Riversbrook
+about killing the judge if he came across him, he had no intention of
+jeopardising his neck unnecessarily, and after he had shot down the judge
+in a moment of drunken passion he would be anxious to keep Hill--whom he
+mistrusted--from knowing that he had committed the murder. But he was
+fully aware that Hill would be the person who'd discover the body next
+day, and that if he wasn't put on his guard he would bring in the police
+and probably give away everything that Birchill had said and done. So, to
+obviate this risk and prepare Hill, Birchill hit on the plan of telling
+him that he'd found the judge's dead body while burgling the place. It
+was a bold idea, and not without its advantages when you consider what an
+awkward fix Birchill was in. Not only did it keep Hill quiet, but it
+forced him into the position of becoming a kind of silent accomplice in
+the crime. You remember Hill did not give the show away until he was
+trapped, and then he only confessed to save his own skin. He's a
+dangerous and deep scoundrel, this Birchill, but he'll swing this time,
+and you'll find that his confession of finding the body will do more than
+anything else to hang him--properly put to the jury, and I'll see that it
+is properly put."
+
+Rolfe pondered much over these two conflicting points of view--Crewe's
+and Inspector Chippenfield's--for the rest of the day. He inclined to
+Inspector Chippenfield's conclusions regarding Birchill's admission about
+the body. The idea that he had assisted in arresting the wrong man and
+had helped to build up a case against him was too unpalatable for him to
+accept it. But he was forced to admit that Crewe's theory was distinctly
+a plausible one. Though it was impossible for him to give up the
+conviction that Birchill was the murderer, he felt that Crewe's analysis
+of the case for the prosecution contained several telling points which
+might be used with some effect on a jury in the hands of an experienced
+counsel. Rolfe had no doubt that Holymead would make the most of those
+points, and he also knew that the famous barrister was at his best in
+attacking circumstantial evidence.
+
+That night, while walking home, the idea occurred to Rolfe of going over
+to Camden Town after supper to see if by questioning Hill again he could
+throw a little more light on what had taken place at Doris Tanning's
+flat the night Sir Horace Fewbanks was murdered. Hill had been
+questioned and cross-questioned at Scotland Yard by Inspector
+Chippenfield concerning the events of that night, and professed to have
+confessed to everything that had happened, but Rolfe thought it possible
+he might be able to extract something more which might assist in
+strengthening what Crewe regarded as the weak points in the police case
+against Birchill. Rolfe had every justification for such a visit, for,
+though Hill had not been arrested, he had been ordered by Inspector
+Chippenfield to report himself daily to the Camden Town Police Station,
+and the police of that district had been instructed to keep a strict eye
+on his movements. Inspector Chippenfield did not regard his principal
+witness in the forthcoming murder trial as the sort of man likely to
+bolt, but if he permitted him for politic reasons to retain his liberty,
+he took every precaution to ensure that Hill should not abuse his
+privilege.
+
+Rolfe lived in lodgings at King's Cross, and, as the evening was fine and
+he was fond of exercise, he decided to walk across to Hill's place.
+
+As he walked along his thoughts revolved round the murder of Sir Horace
+Fewbanks, and the baffling perplexities which had surrounded its
+elucidation. Had they got hold of the right man--the real murderer--in
+Fred Birchill? Rolfe kept asking himself that question again and again. A
+few hours ago he had not the slightest doubt on the point; he had looked
+upon the great murder case as satisfactorily solved, and he had thought
+with increasing satisfaction of his own share in bringing the murderer to
+justice. He had anticipated newspaper praise on his sharpness: judicial
+commendation, a favourable official entry in the departmental records of
+Scotland Yard, with perhaps promotion for the good work he had
+accomplished in this celebrated case. These rosy visions had been
+temporarily dissipated by the conversation he had had with Crewe that
+morning. If Crewe had not succeeded in destroying Rolfe's conviction that
+the murderer of Sir Horace Fewbanks had been caught, he had pointed out
+sufficient flaws in the police case to shake Rolfe's previous assurance
+of the legal conviction of Birchill for the crime. The way in which Crewe
+had pulled the police case to pieces had shown Rolfe that the conviction
+of Birchill was by no means a foregone conclusion, and had left him a
+prey to doubts and anxiety which Inspector Chippenfield's subsequent
+depreciation of the detective's views had not altogether removed.
+
+The little shop kept by the Hills was empty when Rolfe entered it, but
+Mrs. Hill appeared from the inner room in answer to his knock. The
+faded little woman did not recognise the police officer at first, but
+when he spoke she looked into his face with a start. She timidly said,
+in reply to his inquiry for her husband, that he had just "stepped out"
+down the street.
+
+"Then you had better send your little girl after him," said Rolfe,
+seating himself on the one rickety chair on the outside of the counter.
+"I want to see him."
+
+Mrs. Hill seemed at a loss to reply for a moment. Then she answered,
+nervously plucking at her apron the while: "I don't think it'd be much
+use doing that, sir. You see, Mr. Hill doesn't always tell me where he's
+going and I don't really know where he is."
+
+"Then why did you tell me that he had just stepped out down the street?"
+asked Rolfe sharply.
+
+"Because I thought he mightn't be far away."
+
+"Then, as a matter of fact, you don't know where he is or when
+he'll be back?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+Her prompt and uncompromising reply indicated that she did not want him
+to wait for her husband.
+
+"I think I'll wait," said Rolfe, looking at her steadily.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Daphne appeared at the door of the parlour which led into the shop and
+her mother waved her back angrily.
+
+"Go to bed this instant, miss; it's long past your bedtime," she said.
+
+It was obvious that Mrs. Hill retained a vivid recollection of how
+disastrous had been Daphne's appearance during Inspector Chippenfield's
+first visit to the shop.
+
+"Perhaps your little girl knows where her father is," said Rolfe
+maliciously.
+
+"No, she doesn't," replied Mrs. Hill with some spirit. "You can ask her
+if you like."
+
+Rolfe was suddenly struck with an idea and he decided to test it.
+
+"I won't wait--I've changed my mind. But if your husband comes in tell
+him not to go to bed until I've seen him. I'll be back."
+
+"Yes, sir," she replied.
+
+"Do you think he was going to Riversbrook?" he asked.
+
+The woman flushed suddenly and then went pale. She knew as well as Rolfe
+that her husband was strictly forbidden, pending the trial, to go near
+the place of his former employment, and that the police had relieved him
+of his keys and taken possession of the silent house and locked
+everything up.
+
+"No, sir," she replied, with trembling lips, "Mr. Hill hasn't gone
+over there."
+
+"How can you be certain, if he didn't tell you where he was going?"
+asked Rolfe.
+
+"Because it's the last place in the world he'd think of going to," gasped
+Mrs. Hill. "Such a thought would never enter his head. I do assure you,
+sir, Mr. Hill would never dream of going over there, sir, you can take my
+word for it."
+
+Rolfe walked thoughtfully up High Street. Was it possible that Hill had
+gone to his late master's residence in defiance of the orders of the
+police? If so, only some very powerful motive, and probably one which
+affected the crime, could have induced him to risk his liberty by making
+such a visit after he had been commanded to keep away from the place.
+And how would he get into the house? Rolfe had himself locked up the
+house and had locked the gates, and the bunch of keys was at that moment
+hanging up in Inspector Chippenfield's room in Scotland Yard. But even as
+he asked that question, Rolfe found himself smiling at himself for his
+simplicity. Nothing could be easier for a man like Hill--an
+ex-criminal--to have obtained a duplicate key, before handing over
+possession of the keys. Rolfe had noticed with surprise when he was
+locking up the house that the French windows of the morning room were
+locked from the outside by a small key as well as being bolted from the
+inside. Hill had explained that the late Sir Horace Fewbanks had
+generally used this French window for gaining access to his room after a
+nocturnal excursion.
+
+Rolfe looked at his watch. It was nine o'clock. He decided to go to
+Hampstead and put his suspicions to the test. It was quite possible he
+was mistaken, but if, on the other hand, Hill was paying a nocturnal
+visit to Riversbrook and he had the luck to capture him, he might extract
+from him some valuable evidence for the forthcoming trial that Hill had
+kept back. And Rolfe was above all things interested at that moment in
+making the case for the prosecution as strong as possible.
+
+Rolfe walked to the Camden Town Underground station, bought a ticket for
+Hampstead, and took his seat in the tube in that state of exhilarated
+excitement which comes to the detective when he feels that he is on the
+road to a disclosure. The speed of the train seemed all too slow for the
+police officer, and he looked at his watch at least a dozen times during
+the short journey from Camden Town to Hampstead.
+
+When Rolfe arrived at Hampstead he set out at a rapid walk for
+Riversbrook. It was quite dark when he reached Tanton Gardens. He turned
+into the rustling avenue of chestnut trees, and strode swiftly down till
+he reached the deserted house of the murdered man.
+
+The gate was locked as he had left it, but Rolfe climbed over it. A late
+moon was already throwing a refulgent light through the evening mists,
+silvering the tops of the fir trees in front of the house. Rolfe walked
+through the plantation, his footsteps falling noiselessly on the pine
+needles which strewed the path. He quickly reached the other side of the
+little wood, and the Italian garden lay before him, stretching in silver
+glory to the dark old house beyond.
+
+Rolfe stood still at the edge of the wood, and glanced across the moonlit
+garden to the house. It seemed dark, deserted and desolate. There was no
+sign of a light in any of the windows facing the plantation.
+
+The moon, rising above the fringe of trees in the woodland which skirted
+the meadows of the east side of the house, cast a sudden ray athwart the
+upper portion of the house. But the windows of the retreating first story
+still remained in shadow. Rolfe scrutinised these windows closely. There
+were three of them--he knew that two of them opened out from the bedroom
+the dead man used to occupy, and the third one belonged to the library
+adjoining--the room where the murder had been committed. The moonlight,
+gradually stealing over the house, revealed the windows of the bedroom
+closed and the blinds down, but the library was still in shadow, for a
+large chestnut-tree which grew in front of the house was directly in the
+line of Rolfe's vision.
+
+Rolfe remained watching the house for some time, but no sign or sound of
+life could he detect in its silent desolation. "I must have been
+mistaken," he muttered, with a final glance at the windows of the first
+story. "There's nobody in the house."
+
+He turned to go, and had taken a few steps through the pinewood when
+suddenly he started and stood still. His quick ear had caught a faint
+sound--a kind of rattle--coming from the direction of the house. What was
+that noise which sounded so strangely familiar to his ears? He had it! It
+was the fall of a Venetian blind. Instantaneously there came to Rolfe
+the remembrance that Inspector Chippenfield had ordered the library blind
+to be left up, so that when the sun was high in the heavens its rays,
+striking in through the window over the top of the chestnut-tree, might
+dry up the stain of blood on the floor, which washing had failed to
+efface. Somebody was in the library and had dropped the blind.
+
+Rolfe hurriedly retraced his steps to the edge of the plantation, and
+raced across the Italian garden, feeling for his revolver as he ran. Some
+instinct told him that he would find entrance through the French windows
+on the west side of the morning room, and thither he directed his steps.
+He pulled out his electric torch and tried the windows. They were shut,
+and the first one was locked. The second one yielded to his hand. He
+pulled it open, and stepped into the room. Making his way by the light of
+his torch to the stairs, he swiftly but silently crept up them and turned
+to the library on the left of the first landing. The door was closed but
+not locked, and a faint light came through the keyhole. Rolfe pushed the
+door open, and looked into the room. A man was leaning over the dead
+judge's writing-desk, examining its contents by the light of a candle
+which he had set down on the desk. He was so engrossed in his occupation
+that he did not hear the door open.
+
+"What are you doing there?" demanded Rolfe sternly. His voice sounded
+hollow and menacing as it reverberated through the room.
+
+The man at the desk started up, and turned round. It was Hill. When
+he saw Rolfe he looked as though he would fall. He made as if to
+step forward. Then he stood quite still, looking at the officer with
+ashen face.
+
+"Hill," said Rolfe quietly, "what does this mean?"
+
+The butler had regained his self-composure with wonderful quickness. The
+mask of reticence dropped over his face again, and it was in the smooth
+deferential tones of a well-trained servant that he replied:
+
+"Nothing, sir, I just slipped over from the shop to see if everything
+was all right."
+
+"How did you get into the house?"
+
+"By the French window, sir. I had a duplicate key which Sir Horace
+had made."
+
+"And I see you also have a duplicate key of the desk. Why didn't you give
+these keys up with the others to Inspector Chippenfield?"
+
+"I forgot about them at the time, sir. I found them in an old pocket this
+evening, and I was so uneasy about the house shut up with a lot of
+valuable things in it and nobody to give an eye to them that I just
+slipped across to see everything was all right."
+
+"You came here after dark, and let yourself in with a private key after
+you had been strictly ordered not to come near the place? You have the
+audacity to admit you have done this?"
+
+"Well, it's this way, sir. I was a trusted servant of Sir Horace's. I
+knew a great deal about his private life, if I may say so. I know he
+kept a lot of private papers in this room, and I wanted to make sure
+they were safe--I didn't like them being in this empty house, sir. I
+couldn't sleep in my bed of nights for thinking of them, sir. I felt
+last night as if my poor dead master was standing at my bedside, urging
+me to go over. I am very sorry I disobeyed the police orders, Mr. Rolfe,
+but I acted for the best."
+
+"Hill, you are lying, you are keeping something back. Unless you
+immediately tell me the real reason of your visit to this house tonight I
+will take you down to the Hampstead Police Station and have you locked
+up. This visit of yours will take a lot of explaining away after your
+previous confession, Hill. It's enough to put you in the dock with
+Birchill."
+
+Hill's eyes, which had been fixed on Rolfe's face, wavered towards the
+doorway, as though he were meditating a rush for freedom. But he
+merely remarked:
+
+"I've told you the truth, sir, though perhaps not all of it. I came
+across to see if I could find some of Sir Horace's private papers which
+are missing."
+
+"How do you know there are any papers missing?"
+
+"As I said before, Mr. Rolfe, Sir Horace trusted me and he didn't take
+the trouble to hide things from me."
+
+"You mean that he often left his desk open with important papers
+scattered about it?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And you made a practice of going through them?"
+
+"I didn't make a practice of it," protested Hill. "But sometimes I
+glanced at one or two of them. I thought there was no harm in it, knowing
+that Sir Horace trusted me."
+
+"And some papers that you knew were there are now missing. Do you
+mean stolen?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"When did you see them last?"
+
+"Just before Inspector Chippenfield came--the morning after the body was
+discovered. You remember, sir, that he came straight up here while you
+stayed downstairs talking to Constable Flack."
+
+"Do you mean to suggest that Inspector Chippenfield stole them?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir, I don't think he saw them. Sir Horace kept them in this
+little place at the back of the desk. Look at it, sir. It's a sort of
+secret drawer."
+
+Rolfe went over to the desk, and Hill explained to him how the hiding
+place could be closed and opened. It was at the back of the desk under
+the pigeonholes, and the fact that the pigeonholes came close down to the
+desk hid the secret drawer and the spring which controlled it.
+
+"What was the nature of these papers?" asked Rolfe.
+
+"Well, sir, I never read them. Sir Horace set such store by them that I
+never dared to open them for fear he would find out. They were mostly
+letters and they were tied up with a piece of silk ribbon."
+
+"A lady's letters, of course," said Rolfe.
+
+"Judging from the writing on the envelopes they were sent by a lady,"
+said Hill.
+
+Rolfe breathed quickly, for he felt that he was on the verge of a
+discovery. Here was evidence of a lady in the case, which might lead to a
+startling development. Perhaps Crewe was right in declaring that Birchill
+was the wrong man, he said to himself. Perhaps the murderer was not a
+man, but a woman.
+
+"And who do you think stole them?" he asked Hill.
+
+"That is more than I would like to say," replied the butler.
+
+"Are you sure they were in this hiding place when Inspector Chippenfield
+took charge of everything?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I dusted out the room the morning you and he came to
+Riversbrook together, and the papers were there then, because I happened
+to touch the spring as I was dusting the desk, and it flew open and I saw
+the bundle there."
+
+"Why didn't you tell Inspector Chippenfield about the papers and the
+secret drawer?"
+
+"That is what I intended to do, sir, if he didn't find them himself. But
+when I had found they had gone I didn't like to say anything to him,
+because, as you may say, I had no right to know anything about them."
+
+"When did they go: when did you find they were missing?"
+
+"When Inspector Chippenfield went out for his lunch. I looked in the desk
+and found they had gone."
+
+"Who could have taken them? Who had access to the room?"
+
+"Well, sir, Mr. Chippenfield had some visitors that morning."
+
+"Yes. There were about a dozen newspaper reporters during the day at
+various times. There were Dr. Slingsby and his assistant, who came out to
+make the post-mortem: Inspector Seldon, who came to arrange about the
+inquest, and there was that man from the undertakers who came to inquire
+about the funeral arrangements. But none of these men were likely to
+take the papers, and still less to know where they were hidden. In any
+case, no visitor could get at the desk while Mr. Chippenfield was in the
+room. And he is too careful to have left any visitor alone in this
+room--it was here that the murder was committed."
+
+"He left one of his visitors alone here for a few minutes," said Hill in
+a voice which was little more than a whisper.
+
+"Which one?" asked Rolfe eagerly.
+
+"A lady."
+
+"Who was she?"
+
+"Mrs. Holymead."
+
+"Oh!" Rolfe's exclamation was one of disappointment. "She is a friend of
+the family. She came out to see Miss Fewbanks--it was a visit of
+condolence."
+
+"Yes, sir," said the obsequious butler. "She was a friend of the family,
+as you say. She was a friend of Sir Horace's. I have heard that Sir
+Horace paid her considerable attention before she married Mr.
+Holymead--it was a toss up which of them she married, so I've been told."
+
+Rolfe saw that he had made a mistake in dismissing the idea of Mrs.
+Holymead having anything to do with the missing papers. "Do you think
+that she stole these letters--these papers?" he asked. "Do you think she
+knew where they were?"
+
+"While she was in the room, Inspector Chippenfield came rushing
+downstairs for a glass of water. He said she had fainted."
+
+"Whew!" Rolfe gave a low prolonged whistle. "And after she left you took
+the first opportunity of looking to see if the papers were still there,
+and you found they were gone?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What made you suspect Mrs. Holymead would take them?"
+
+"Well, sir, I didn't suspect her at the time. I just looked to see if
+Inspector Chippenfield had found them. I saw they had gone, and as I
+couldn't see any sign of them about anywhere else I concluded they must
+have been taken without Inspector Chippenfield knowing anything about it.
+The reason I came over here to-night was to have another careful look
+round for them."
+
+Rolfe was silent for a moment.
+
+"What would you have done with the papers if you had found them?" he
+asked suddenly.
+
+"I would have handed them over to the police, sir," said the butler, who
+obviously had been prepared for a question of the kind.
+
+"And what explanation would you have given for having found them--for
+having come over here in defiance of your orders from Inspector
+Chippenfield?"
+
+"The true explanation, sir," said the butler, with a mild note of protest
+in his voice. "I would have told Inspector Chippenfield what I have
+already told you. And it is the simple truth."
+
+Rolfe was plainly taken back at this rebuke, but he did not reply to it.
+
+"In your statement of what took place when Birchill returned to the flat
+after committing the murder, he said something about having seen a woman
+leave the house by the front door as he was hiding in the garden--a
+fashionably dressed woman I think he said."
+
+"Yes, sir, that was it."
+
+"Do you believe that part of his story was true?"
+
+"Well, sir, with a man like Birchill it is impossible to say when he is
+telling the truth, and when he isn't."
+
+"There was no lady with Sir Horace when you left him that night when he
+returned from Scotland?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"I think you said he was in a hurry to get you out of the house, and told
+you not to come back?"
+
+"That is what I thought at the time, sir."
+
+"Well, Hill," said Rolfe, resuming his severe official tone; "all this
+does not excuse in any way your conduct in coming over here and
+forcing your way into the house in defiance of the police; opening this
+desk, and prying about for private papers that don't concern you. The
+proper course for you to adopt was to come to Scotland Yard and tell
+your story about these missing papers to Inspector Chippenfield or
+myself. However, I don't propose to take any action against you at
+present. Only there is to be no more of it. If you come hanging about
+here again on your own account, you'll find yourself in the dock beside
+Birchill. Hand me over the duplicate key of the door by which you came
+in, and also the key of the desk which you had still less right to have
+in your possession. Say nothing to anyone about those papers until I
+give you permission to do so."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+The day fixed for the trial of Frederick Birchill was wet, dismal, and
+dreary. The rain pelted intermittently through a hazy, chilly atmosphere,
+filling the gutters and splashing heavily on the slippery pavements. But
+in spite of the rain a long queue, principally of women, assembled
+outside the portals of the Old Bailey long before the time fixed for the
+opening of the court. At the private entrance to the courthouse arrived
+fashionably-dressed ladies accompanied by well-groomed men. They had
+received cards of admission and had seats reserved for them in the body
+of the court. Many of them had personally known the late Sir Horace
+Fewbanks, and their interest in the trial of the man accused of his
+murder was intensified by the rumours afloat that there were to be some
+spicy revelations concerning the dead judge's private life.
+
+The arrival of Mr. Justice Hodson, who was to preside at the trial,
+caused a stir among some of the spectators, many of whom belonged to the
+criminal class. Sir Henry Hodson had presided at so many murder trials
+that he was known among them as "the Hanging Judge." Among the spectators
+were some whom Sir Henry had put into mourning at one time or another;
+there were others whom he had deprived of their bread-winners for
+specified periods. These spectators looked at him with curiosity, fear,
+and hatred. Mr. Holymead, K.C., drove up in a taxi-cab a few minutes
+later, and his arrival created an impression akin to admiration. In the
+eyes of the criminal class he was an heroic figure who had assumed the
+responsibility of saving the life of one of their fraternity. The eminent
+counsel's success in the few criminal cases in which he had consented to
+appear had gained him the respectful esteem of those who considered
+themselves oppressed by the law, and the spectators on the pavement might
+have raised a cheer for him if their exuberance had not been restrained
+by the proximity of the policeman guarding the entrance.
+
+When the court was opened Inspector Chippenfield took a seat in the body
+of the court behind the barrister's bench. He ranged his eye over the
+closely-packed spectators in the gallery, and shook his head with
+manifest disapproval. It seemed to him that the worst criminals in London
+had managed to elude the vigilance of the sergeant outside in order to
+see the trial of their notorious colleague, Fred Birchill. He pointed out
+their presence to Rolfe, who was seated alongside him.
+
+"There's that scoundrel Bob Rogers, who slipped through our hands over
+the Ealing case, and his pal, Breaker Jim, who's just done seven years,
+looking down and grinning at us," he angrily whispered. "I'll give them
+something to grin about before they're much older. You'd think Breaker
+would have had enough of the Old Bailey to last him a lifetime. And look
+at that row alongside of them--there's Morris, Hart, Harry the Hooker,
+and that chap Willis who murdered the pawnbroker in Commercial Road last
+year, only we could never sheet it home to him. And two rows behind them
+is old Charlie, the Covent Garden 'drop,' with Holder Jack and Kemp,
+Birchill's mate. Why, they're everywhere. The inquest was nothing to
+this, Rolfe."
+
+"Kemp must be thanking his lucky stars he wasn't in that Riversbrook job
+with Fred Birchill," said Rolfe, "for they usually work together. And
+there's Crewe, up in the gallery."
+
+"Where?" exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield, with an indignant start.
+
+"Up there behind that pillar there--no, the next one. See, he's looking
+down at you."
+
+Crewe caught the inspector's eye, and nodded and smiled in a friendly
+fashion, but Inspector Chippenfield returned the salutation with a
+haughty glare.
+
+"The impudence of that chap is beyond belief," he said to his
+subordinate. "One would have thought he'd have kept away from court after
+his wild-goose chase to Scotland and piling up expenses, but not him!
+Brazen impudence is the stock-in-trade of the private detective. If
+Scotland Yard had a little more of the impudence of the private
+detective, Rolfe, we should be better appreciated."
+
+"I suppose he's come in the hopes of seeing the jury acquit Birchill,"
+said Rolfe.
+
+"No doubt," replied Inspector Chippenfield. "But he's come to the wrong
+shop. A good jury should convict without leaving the box if the case is
+properly put before them by the prosecution. Crewe would like to triumph
+over us, but it is our turn to win."
+
+But Inspector Chippenfield was wrong in thinking that Crewe's presence
+in court was due to a desire for the humiliation of his rivals. Crewe
+had spent most of the previous night reading and revising his summaries
+and notes of the Riversbrook case, and in minutely reviewing his
+investigations of it. Over several pipes in the early morning hours he
+pondered long and deeply on the secret of Sir Horace Fewbanks's murder,
+without finding a solution which satisfactorily accounted for all the
+strange features of the case. But one thing he felt sure of was that
+Birchill had not committed the murder. He based that belief partly on
+the butler's confession, and partly on his own discoveries. He believed
+Hill to be a cunning scoundrel who had overreached the police for some
+purpose of his own by accusing Birchill, and who, to make his story more
+probable, had even implicated himself in the supposed burglary as a
+terrorised accomplice. And Crewe had been unable to test the butler's
+story, or find out what game he was playing, because of the assiduity
+with which the principal witness for the prosecution had been "nursed"
+by the police from the moment he made his confession. Crewe bit hard
+into his amber mouthpiece in vexation as he recalled the ostrich-like
+tactics of Inspector Chippenfield, who, having accepted Hill's story as
+genuine, had officially baulked all his efforts to see the man and
+question him about it.
+
+He had come to court with the object of witnessing Birchill's behaviour
+in the dock and the efforts of any of his criminal friends to communicate
+with him. As a man who had had considerable experience in criminal trials
+he knew the irresistible desire of the criminal in the gallery of the
+court to encourage the man in the dock to keep up his courage.
+Communications of the kind had to be made by signs. It was Crewe's
+impression that by watching Birchill in the dock and Birchill's friends
+in the gallery he might pick up a valuable hint or two. It was also his
+intention to study closely the defence which Counsel for the prisoner
+intended to put forward.
+
+It was therefore with a feeling of mingled annoyance and surprise that
+Crewe, looking down from his point of vantage at the bevy of
+fashionably-dressed ladies in the body of the court, recognised Mrs.
+Holymead, Mademoiselle Chiron and Miss Fewbanks seated side by side,
+engaged in earnest conversation. Before he could withdraw from their view
+behind the pillar in front of him, Miss Fewbanks looked up and saw him.
+She bowed to him in friendly recognition, and Crewe saw her whisper to
+Mrs. Holymead, who glanced quickly in his direction and then as quickly
+averted her gaze. But in that fleeting glance of her beautiful dark eyes
+Crewe detected an expression of fear, as though she dreaded his presence,
+and he noticed that she shivered slightly as she turned to resume her
+conversation with Miss Fewbanks.
+
+His Honour Mr. Justice Hodson entered, and the persons in the court
+scrambled hurriedly to their feet to pay their tribute of respect to
+British law, as exemplified in the person of a stout red-faced old
+gentleman wearing a scarlet gown and black sash, and attended by four of
+the Sheriffs of London in their fur-trimmed robes. The judge bowed in
+response and took his seat. The spectators resumed theirs, craning their
+necks eagerly to look at the accused man, Birchill, who was brought into
+the dock by two warders. The work of empanelling a jury commenced, and
+when it was completed Mr. Walters, K.C., opened the case for the
+prosecution.
+
+Mr. Walters was a long-winded Counsel who had detested the late Mr.
+Justice Fewbanks because of the latter's habit of interrupting the
+addresses of Counsel with the object of inducing them to curtail their
+remarks. This practice was not only annoying to Counsel, who necessarily
+knew better than the judge what the jury ought to be told, but it also
+tended to hold Counsel up to ridicule in the eyes of ignorant jurymen as
+a man who could not do his work properly without the watchful correction
+of the judge. But Mr. Walters, whose legal training had imbued in him a
+respect for Latin tags, subscribed to the adage, _de mortuis nil nisi
+bonum_. Therefore he began his address to the jury with a glowing
+reference to the loss, he might almost say the irreparable loss, which
+the judiciary had sustained, he would go so far as to say the loss which
+the nation had sustained by the death, the violent death, in short, the
+murder, of an eminent judge of the High Court Bench, whose clear and
+vigorous intellect, whose marvellous mastery of the legal principles laid
+down by the judicial giants of the past, whose inexhaustible knowledge
+drawn from the storehouses of British law, whose virile interpretations
+of the principles of British justice, whose unfailing courtesy and
+consideration to Counsel, the memory of which would long be cherished by
+those who had had the privilege of pleading before him, had made him an
+acquisition and an ornament to a Bench which in the eyes of the nation
+had always represented, and at no time more than the present--at this
+point Mr. Walters bowed to the presiding judge--the embodiment of legal
+knowledge, legal experience, and legal wisdom.
+
+After this tribute to the murdered man and the presiding judge, Mr.
+Walters proceeded to lay the facts of the crime before the jury, who had
+read all about them in the newspapers.
+
+With methodical care he built up the case against the accused man,
+classifying the points of evidence against him in categorical order for
+the benefit of the jury. The most important witness for the prosecution
+was a man known as James Hill, who had been in Sir Horace Fewbanks's
+employ as a butler. Hill's connection with the prisoner was in some
+aspects unfortunate, for himself, and no doubt counsel for the defense
+would endeavour to discredit his evidence on that account, but the jury,
+when they heard the butler tell his story in the witness box, would have
+little difficulty in coming to the conclusion that the man Hill was the
+victim of circumstances and his own weakness of temperament. However much
+they might be disposed to blame him for the course he had pursued, he was
+innocent of all complicity in his master's death, and had done his best
+to help the ends of justice by coming forward with a voluntary confession
+to the police.
+
+Mr. Walters made no attempt to conceal or extenuate the black page in
+Hill's past, but he asked the jury to believe that Hill had bitterly
+repented of his former crime, and would have continued to lead an honest
+life as Sir Horace Fewbanks's butler, if ill fate had not forged a cruel
+chain of circumstances to link him to his past life and drag him down by
+bringing him in contact with the accused man Birchill, whom he had met in
+prison. Sir Horace Fewbanks was the self-appointed guardian of a young
+woman named Doris Fanning, the daughter of a former employee on his
+country estate, who had died leaving her penniless. Sir Horace had deemed
+it his duty to bring up the girl and give her a start in life. After
+educating her in a style suitable to her station, he sent her to London
+and paid for music lessons for her in order to fit her for a musical
+career, for which she showed some aptitude. Unfortunately the young woman
+had a self-willed and unbalanced temperament, and she gave her benefactor
+much trouble. Sir Horace bore patiently with her until she made the
+chance acquaintance of Birchill, and became instantly fascinated by him.
+The acquaintance speedily drifted into intimacy, and the girl became the
+pliant tool of Birchill, who acquired an almost magnetic influence over
+her. As the intimacy progressed she seemed to have become a willing
+partner in his criminal schemes.
+
+When Sir Horace Fewbanks heard that the girl had drifted into an
+association with a criminal like Birchill he endeavoured to save her from
+her folly by remonstrating with her, and the girl promised to give up
+Birchill, but did not do so. When Sir Horace found out that he was being
+deceived he was compelled to renounce her. Birchill, who had been living
+on the girl, was furious with anger when he learnt that Sir Horace had
+cut off the monetary allowance he had been making her, and, on
+discovering by some means that his former prison associate Hill was now
+the butler at Sir Horace Fewbanks's house, he planned his revenge. He
+sent the girl Fanning to Riversbrook with a message to Hill, directing
+him, under threat of exposure, to see him at the Westminster flat.
+
+Hill, who dreaded nothing so much as an exposure of that past life of his
+which he hoped was a secret between his master and himself, kept the
+appointment. Birchill told him he intended to rob the judge's house in
+order to revenge himself on Sir Horace for cutting off the girl's
+allowance, and he asked Hill to assist him in carrying out the burglary.
+Hill strenuously demurred at first, but weakly allowed himself to be
+terrorised into compliance under Birchill's threats of exposure. Hill's
+participation in the crime was to be confined to preparing a plan of
+Riversbrook as a guide for Birchill. Birchill said nothing about murder
+at this time, but there is no doubt he contemplated violence when he
+first spoke to Hill. When Hill, alarmed by his master's return on the
+actual night for which the burglary had been arranged, hurried across to
+the flat to urge Birchill to abandon the contemplated burglary, Birchill
+obstinately decided to carry out the crime, and left the flat with a
+revolver in his hand, threatening to murder Sir Horace if he found him,
+because of his harsh treatment--as he termed it--of the girl Fanning.
+
+"Birchill left the flat at nine o'clock," continued Mr. Walters, who had
+now reached the vital facts of the night of the murder. "I ask the jury
+to take careful note of the time and the subsequent times mentioned, for
+they have an important bearing on the circumstantial evidence against the
+accused man. He returned, according to Hill's evidence, shortly after
+midnight. Evidence will be called to show that Birchill, or a man
+answering his description, boarded a tramcar at Euston Road at 9.30 p.m.,
+and journeyed in it to Hampstead. He was observed both at Euston Road and
+the Hampstead terminus by the conductor, because of his obvious desire to
+avoid attention. There were only two other passengers on the top of the
+car when it left Euston Road. The conductor directed the attention of the
+driver to his movements, and they both watched him till he disappeared in
+the direction of the Heath. In fairness to the prisoner, it was necessary
+to point out, however, that neither the conductor nor the driver can
+identify him positively as the man they had seen on their car that night,
+but both will swear that to the best of their belief Birchill is the man.
+Assuming that it was the prisoner who travelled to Hampstead by the
+Euston Road tram--a route he would probably prefer because it took him to
+Hampstead by the most unfrequented way--he would have a distance of
+nearly a mile to walk across Hampstead Heath to Tanton Gardens, where
+Sir Horace Fewbanks's house was situated. The evidence of the tram-men is
+that he set off across the Heath at a very rapid rate. The tram reached
+Hampstead at four minutes past ten, so that, by walking fast, it would be
+possible for a young energetic man to reach Riversbrook before a quarter
+to eleven. Another five minutes would see an experienced housebreaker
+like Birchill inside the house. At twenty minutes past eleven a young man
+named Ryder, who had wandered into Tanton Gardens while endeavouring to
+take a short cut home, heard the sound of a report, which at the time he
+took to be the noise of a door violently slammed, coming from the
+direction of Riversbrook. A few moments afterwards he saw a man climb
+over the front fence of Riversbrook to the street. He drew back
+cautiously into the shade of one of the chestnut trees of the street
+avenue, and saw the man plainly as he ran past him. Ryder will swear that
+the man he saw was Birchill."
+
+"It's a lie! It's a lie! You're trying to hang him, you wicked man. Oh,
+Fred, Fred!"
+
+The cry proceeded from the girl Doris Fanning. Her unbalanced temperament
+had been unable to bear the strain of sitting there and listening to Mr.
+Walters' cold inexorable construction of a legal chain of evidence
+against her lover. She rose to her feet, shrieking wildly, and
+gesticulating menacingly at Mr. Walters. The Society ladies turned
+eagerly in their seats to take in through their _lorgnons_ every detail
+of the interruption.
+
+"Remove that woman," the judge sternly commanded.
+
+Several policemen hastened to her, and the girl was partly hustled and
+partly carried out of court, shrieking as she went. When the commotion
+caused by the scene subsided, the judge irritably requested to be
+informed who the woman was.
+
+"I don't know, my lord," replied Mr. Walters. "Perhaps--" He stopped and
+bent over to Detective Rolfe, who was pulling at his gown. "Er--yes, I'm
+informed by Detective Rolfe of Scotland Yard, my lord, that the young
+woman is a witness in the case."
+
+"Then why was she permitted to remain in court?" asked Sir Henry Hodson
+angrily. "It is a piece of gross carelessness."
+
+"I do not know, my lord. I was unaware she was a witness until this
+moment," returned Mr. Walters, with a discreet glance in the direction of
+Detective Rolfe, as an indication to His Honour that the judicial storm
+might safely veer in that direction. Sir Henry took the hint and
+administered such a stinging rebuke to Detective Rolfe that that
+officer's face took on a much redder tint before it was concluded. Then
+the judge motioned to Mr. Walters to resume the case.
+
+Counsel, with his index finger still in the place in his brief where he
+had been interrupted, rose to his feet again and turned to the jury.
+
+"Birchill returned to the flat at Westminster shortly after midnight," he
+continued. "Hill had been compelled by Birchill's threats to remain at the
+flat with the girl while Birchill visited Riversbrook, and the first
+thing Birchill told him on his return was that he had found Sir Horace
+Fewbanks dead in his house when he entered it. On his way back from
+committing the crime belated caution had probably dictated to Birchill
+the wisdom of endeavouring to counteract his previous threat to murder
+Sir Horace Fewbanks. He probably remembered that Hill, who had heard the
+threat, was an unwilling participator in the plan for the burglary, and
+might therefore denounce him to the police for the greater crime if he
+(Birchill) admitted that he had committed it. In order to guard against
+this contingency still further Birchill forced Hill to join in writing a
+letter to Scotland Yard, acquainting them with the murder, and the fact
+that the body was lying in the empty house. Birchill's object in acting
+thus was a twofold one. He dared not trust Hill to pretend to discover
+the body the next day and give information to the police, for fear he
+should not be able to retain sufficient control of himself to convince
+the detectives that he was wholly ignorant of the crime, and he also
+thought that if Hill had a share in writing the letter he would feel an
+additional complicity in the crime, and keep silence for his own sake.
+Birchill was right in his calculations--up to a point. Hill was at first
+too frightened to disclose what he knew, but as time went on his
+affection for his murdered master, and his desire to bring the murderer
+to justice, overcame his feelings of fear for his own share in bringing
+about the crime, and he went and confessed everything to the police,
+regardless of the consequences that might recoil upon his own head. The
+case against Birchill depends largely on Hill's evidence, and the jury,
+when they have heard his story in the witness-box, and bearing in mind
+the extenuating circumstances of his connection with the crime, will have
+little hesitation in coming to the conclusion that the prisoner in the
+dock murdered Sir Horace Fewbanks."
+
+The first witness called was Inspector Seldon, who gave evidence as to
+his visit to Riversbrook shortly before 1 p. m. on the 19th of August as
+the result of information received, and his discovery of the dead body of
+Sir Horace Fewbanks. He described the room in which the body was found;
+the position of the body; and he identified the blood-stained clothes
+produced by the prosecution as being those in which the dead man was
+dressed when the body was discovered. In cross-examination by Holymead he
+stated that Sir Horace Fewbanks was fully dressed when the body was
+found. The witness also stated in cross-examination that none of the
+electric lights in the house were burning when the body was discovered.
+
+The next witness was Dr. Slingsby, the pathological expert from the Home
+Office who had made the post mortem examination, and who was much too
+great a man to be kept waiting while other witnesses of more importance
+to the case but of less personal consequence went into the box. Dr.
+Slingsby stated that his examinations had revealed that death had been
+caused by a bullet wound which had penetrated the left lung, causing
+internal hemorrhage.
+
+Mr. Finnis, the junior counsel for the defence, suggested to the witness
+that the wound might have been self-inflicted, but Dr. Slingsby permitted
+himself to be positive that such was not the case. With professional
+caution he assured Mr. Finnis, who briefly cross-examined him, that it
+was impossible for him to state how long Sir Horace Fewbanks had been
+dead. _Rigor mortis_, in the case of the human body, set in from eight to
+ten hours after death, and it was between three and four o'clock in the
+afternoon of the day the crime was discovered that he first saw the
+corpse. The body was quite stiff and cold then.
+
+"Is it not possible for death to have taken place nineteen or twenty
+hours before you saw the body?" asked Mr. Finnis, eagerly.
+
+"Quite possible," replied Dr. Slingsby.
+
+"Is it not also possible, from the state of the body when you examined
+it, that death took place within sixteen hours of your examination of the
+body?" asked Mr. Walters, as Mr. Finnis sat down with the air of a man
+who had elicited an important point.
+
+"Quite possible," replied Dr. Slingsby, with the prim air of a
+professional man who valued his reputation too highly to risk it by
+committing himself to anything definite.
+
+Dr. Slingsby was allowed to leave the box, and Inspector Chippenfield
+took his place. Inspector Chippenfield did not display any professional
+reticence about giving his evidence--at least, not on the surface, though
+he by no means took the court completely into his confidence as to all
+that had passed between him and Hill. On the other hand he told the judge
+and jury everything that his professional experience prompted him as
+necessary and proper for them to know in order to bring about a
+conviction. In the course of his evidence he made several attempts to
+introduce damaging facts as to Birchill's past, but Mr. Holymead
+protested to the judge. Counsel for the defence protested that he had
+allowed his learned friend in opening the case a great deal of latitude
+as to the relations which had previously existed between the witness Hill
+and the prisoner, because the defence did not intend to attempt to hide
+the fact that the prisoner had a criminal record, but he had no intention
+of allowing a police witness to introduce irrelevant matter in order to
+prejudice the jury against the prisoner. His Honour told the witness to
+confine himself to answering the questions put to him, and not to
+volunteer information.
+
+After this rebuke Inspector Chippenfield resumed giving evidence. He
+related what Birchill had said when arrested, and declared that he was
+positive that the footprints found outside the kitchen window were made
+by the boots produced in court which Birchill had been wearing at the
+time he was arrested. He produced a jemmy which he had found at Fanning's
+flat, and said that it fitted the marks on the window at Riversbrook
+which had been forced on the night of the 18th of August.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield's evidence was followed by that of the two tramway
+employees, who declared that to the best of their belief Birchill was the
+man who boarded their tram at half-past nine on the night of the 18th of
+August, and rode to the terminus at Hampstead, which they reached at 10.4
+p. m. Both the witnesses showed a very proper respect for the law, and
+were obviously relieved when the brief cross-examination was over and
+they were free to go back to their tram-car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+"James Hill!" called the court crier.
+
+The butler stepped forward, mounted the witness-stand, and bowed his head
+deferentially towards the judge. He was neatly dressed in black, and his
+sandy-grey hair was carefully brushed. His face was as expressionless as
+ever, but a slight oscillation of the Court Bible in his right hand as he
+was sworn indicated that his nerves were not so calm as he strove to
+appear. He looked neither to the right nor left, but kept his glance
+downcast. Only once, as he stood there waiting to be questioned, did he
+cast a furtive look towards the man whose life hung on his evidence, but
+the malevolent vindictive gaze Birchill shot back at him caused him to
+lower his eyelids instantly.
+
+Hill commenced his evidence in a voice so low that Mr. Walters stopped
+him at the outset and asked him to speak in a louder tone. It soon became
+apparent that his evidence was making a deep impression on the court. Sir
+Henry Hodson listened to him intently, and watched him keenly, as Hill,
+with impassive countenance and smooth even tones, told his strange story
+of the night of the murder. When he had drawn to a conclusion he gave
+another furtive glance at the dock, but Birchill was seated with his head
+bowed down, as though tired, and with one hand supporting his face.
+
+Mr. Walters methodically folded up his brief and sat down, with a
+sidelong glance in the direction of Mr. Holymead as he did so. Every eye
+in court was turned on Holymead as the great K.C. settled his gown on his
+shoulders and got up to cross-examine the principal Crown witness.
+
+His cross-examination was the admiration of those spectators whose
+sympathies were on the side of the man in the dock as one of themselves.
+Hill was cross-examined as to the lapse from honesty which had sent him
+to gaol, and he was reluctantly forced to admit, that so far from the
+theft being the result of an impulse to save his wife and child from
+starvation, as the Counsel for the prosecution had indicated, it was the
+result of the impulse of cupidity. He had robbed a master who had trusted
+him and had treated him with kindness. Having extracted this fact, in
+spite of Hill's evasions and twistings, Holymead straightened himself to
+his full height, and, shaking a warning finger at the witness, said:
+
+"I put it to you, witness, that the reason Sir Horace Fewbanks engaged
+you as butler in his household at Riversbrook was because he knew you to
+be a man of few scruples, who would be willing to do things that a more
+upright honest man would have objected to?"
+
+"That is not true," replied Hill.
+
+"Is it not true that your late master frequently entertained women of
+doubtful character at Riversbrook?" thundered the K.C.
+
+Hill gasped at the question. When he had first heard that his late
+master's old friend, Mr. Holymead, was to appear for Birchill, he had
+immediately come to the conclusion that Mr. Holymead was taking up the
+case in order to save Sir Horace's name from exposure by dealing
+carefully with his private life at Riversbrook. But here he was
+ruthlessly tearing aside the veil of secrecy. Hill hesitated. He glanced
+round the curious crowded court and saw the eager glances of the women as
+they impatiently awaited his reply. He hesitated so long that Holymead
+repeated the question.
+
+"Women of doubtful character?" faltered the witness. "I do not
+understand you."
+
+"You understand me perfectly well, Hill. I do not mean women off the
+streets, but women who have no moral reputation to maintain--women who do
+not mind letting confidential servants see that they have no regard for
+the conventional standards of life. I mean, witness, that your late
+master frequently entertained at Riversbrook, women--I will not call them
+ladies--who were not particular at what hour they went home. Sometimes
+one or more of them stayed all night, and you were entrusted with the
+confidential task of smuggling them out of the house without other
+servants knowing of their presence. Is not that so?"
+
+"I--I--"
+
+"Answer the question without equivocation, witness."
+
+"Y-es, sir."
+
+There was a slight stir in the body of the court due to the fact that
+Miss Fewbanks and Mrs. Holymead had risen and were making their way to
+the door. The fashionably-dressed women in the court stared with much
+interest at the daughter of the murdered man, whom most of them knew, in
+order to see how she was taking the disclosures about her dead father's
+private life.
+
+"And sometimes there were quarrels between your late master and these
+visitors, were there not?" continued Holymead.
+
+"Quarrels, sir?"
+
+"Surely you know that under the influence of wine some people become
+quarrelsome?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, did your late master's nocturnal visitors ever become
+quarrelsome?"
+
+"Sometimes, sir."
+
+"In the exercise of your confidential duties did you sometimes see
+quarrelsome ladies off the premises?"
+
+"Sometimes, sir."
+
+"And it was no uncommon thing for them to say things to you about your
+master, eh?"
+
+"Sometimes they didn't care what they said."
+
+"Quite so," commented Counsel drily. "They indulged in threats?"
+
+"Not all of them," replied Hill, who at length saw where the
+cross-examination was tending.
+
+"I do not suggest that all of them did--only that the more violent of
+them did so."
+
+"Quite so, sir."
+
+"So we may take it that the quarrel between your late master and
+Miss Fanning was not the only quarrel of the kind which came under
+your notice?"
+
+"There were not many others," said Hill.
+
+"It was not the only one?" persisted Counsel.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"In your evidence-in-chief you said nothing about Miss Fanning using
+threats against your master when you were showing her out?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"She did not use any?"
+
+"Not in my hearing, sir."
+
+There was a pause at this stage while Mr. Holymead consulted the notes he
+had made of Mr. Walters's cross-examination of the witness.
+
+"What o'clock was it when you left Riversbrook on the 18th of August
+after your master's return from Scotland?"
+
+"About half-past seven, sir."
+
+"And what time did Sir Horace arrive home?"
+
+"About seven o'clock, sir."
+
+"What were you doing between seven and seven-thirty?"
+
+"I unpacked his bags and got his bedroom ready. I took him some
+refreshment up to the library."
+
+"And he told you he wouldn't want you again until the following night
+about eight o'clock?"
+
+"Yes, sir. He said he thought he would be going back to Scotland by the
+night express, and I was to get his bag packed and lock up the house."
+
+"You told Counsel for the prosecution in the course of your evidence
+that you were afraid of Birchill," continued Holymead.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Were you afraid of physical violence from him, or only that he would
+expose your past to the other servants?"
+
+"I was afraid of him both ways," said Hill.
+
+"Was it because of this fear that you made out for him a plan of
+Riversbrook to assist him in the burglary?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"When did you make out this plan?"
+
+"The day after Sir Horace left for Scotland."
+
+"Was that on your first visit to Miss Fanning's flat in Westminster
+after the prisoner had sent her to Riversbrook to tell you he wanted
+to see you?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Did Birchill stand over you while you made out this plan?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Would you know the plan again if you saw it?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Mr. Finnis, who had been hiding the plan under the papers before him,
+handed a document up to his chief.
+
+Mr. Holymead unfolded it, and with a brief glance at it handed it up to
+the witness.
+
+"Is that the plan?" he asked.
+
+Hill was somewhat taken aback at the production of the plan. It was drawn
+in ink on a white sheet of paper of foolscap size, with a slightly bluish
+tint. The paper was by no means clean, for Birchill had carried it about
+in his pocket. The witness reluctantly admitted that the plan was the one
+he had given to Birchill. To his manifest relief Counsel asked no further
+questions about it. In a low tone Mr. Holymead formally expressed his
+intention to put the plan in as evidence. He handed it to Mr. Walters,
+who, after a close inspection of it, passed it along to the judge's
+Associate for His Honour's inspection.
+
+The rest of Hill's cross-examination concerned what happened at the flat
+on the night of the burglary. He adhered to the story he had told, and
+could not be shaken in the main points of it. But Mr. Holymead made some
+effective use of the discrepancy between the witness's evidence at the
+inquest as to his movements on the night of the murder and his evidence
+in court. He elicited the fact that the police had discovered his
+evidence at the inquest was false and had forced him to make a confession
+by threatening to arrest him for the murder.
+
+Mr. Holymead signified that he had nothing further to ask the witness,
+and Mr. Walters called his last witness, a young man named Charles Ryder,
+a resident of Liverpool, who had spent a week's holiday in London from
+the 14th to the 21st of August. Ryder had stayed with some friends at
+Hampstead, and when making his way home on the night of the 18th of
+August had walked down Tanton Gardens in the belief that he was taking a
+short cut. The time was about 11.20. He saw a man running towards him
+along the footpath from the direction of Riversbrook. He caught a good
+glimpse of the man, who seemed to be very excited. He was sure the
+prisoner was the man he had seen. In cross-examination by Mr. Holymead he
+was far less positive in his identification of the prisoner, and finally
+admitted that the man he saw that night might be somebody else who
+resembled the prisoner in build.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+The second day of the trial began promptly when Mr. Justice Hodson took
+his seat. Mr. Holymead's opening statement to the jury was brief. He
+reminded them that the life of a fellow creature rested on their verdict.
+If there was any doubt in their minds whether the prisoner had fired the
+shot which killed Sir Horace Fewbanks the prisoner was entitled to a
+verdict of "not guilty." It was obligatory on the prosecution to prove
+guilt beyond all reasonable doubt.
+
+He submitted that the prosecution had not established their case. After
+hearing the case for the prosecution the jury must have grave doubts as
+to the guilt of the prisoner, and it was his duty as Counsel for the
+prisoner to put before the jury facts which would not only increase their
+doubts but bring them to the positive conclusion that the prisoner was
+not guilty. He was not going to attempt to deny that the prisoner went to
+Riversbrook on the night of the murder. He went there to commit a
+burglary. But so far from Hill being terrorised into complicity in that
+crime it was he who had first suggested it to Birchill and had arranged
+it. Material evidence on that point would be submitted to the jury.
+
+Hill was a man who was incapable of gratitude. His disposition was to
+bite the hand that fed him. After being well treated by Sir Horace
+Fewbanks he had made up his mind to rob him as he had robbed his former
+master Lord Melhurst. He knew that Sir Horace had quarrelled with this
+girl Fanning because of her association with Birchill, and he went to
+Birchill and put before him a proposal to rob Riversbrook. Birchill
+consented to the plan, and when on the night of the 18th August he
+broke into the house he found the murdered body of Sir Horace in the
+library. That was the full extent of the prisoner's connection with
+the crime. To the superficial and suspicious mind it might seem an
+improbable story, but to an earnest mind it was a story that carried
+conviction because of its simple straightforwardness--its crudity, if
+the jury liked to call it that. It lacked the subtlety and the finish
+of a concocted story. The murder took place before Birchill reached
+Riversbrook on his burglarious errand.
+
+"It is my place," added Mr. Holymead, in concluding his address, "to
+convince you that my client is not guilty, or, in other words, to
+convince you that the murder was committed before he reached the house.
+It is only with the greatest reluctance that I take upon myself the
+responsibility of pointing an accusing finger at another man. In crimes
+of this kind you cannot expect to get anything but circumstantial
+evidence. But there are degrees of circumstantial evidence, and my duty
+to my client lays upon me the obligation of pointing out to you that
+there is one person against whom the existing circumstantial evidence is
+stronger than it is against my client."
+
+Crewe, who had secured his former place in the gallery of the court,
+looked down on the speaker. He had carefully followed every word of
+Holymead's address, but the concluding portion almost electrified him. He
+flattered himself that he was the only person in court who understood the
+full significance of the sonorous sentences with which the famous K.C.
+concluded his address to the jury.
+
+As his eyes wandered over the body of the court below, Crewe saw that
+Mrs. Holymead and Mademoiselle Chiron were sitting in one of the back
+seats, but that they were not accompanied by Miss Fewbanks. It was
+evident to him by the way in which Mrs. Holymead followed the proceedings
+that her interest in the case was something far deeper than wifely
+interest in her husband's connection with it as counsel for the defence.
+Leaning forward in her seat, with her hands clasped in her lap, she
+listened eagerly to every word. During the day his gaze went back to her
+at intervals, and on several occasions he became aware that she had been
+watching him while he watched her husband.
+
+The first witness for the defence was Doris Fanning. The drift of her
+evidence was to exonerate the prisoner at the expense of Hill. She
+declared that she had not gone to Riversbrook to see Hill after the final
+quarrel with Sir Horace. Hill had come to her flat in Westminster of his
+own accord and had asked for Birchill. She went out of the room while
+they discussed their business, but after Hill had gone Birchill told her
+that Hill had put up a job for him at Riversbrook. Birchill showed her
+the plan of Riversbrook that Hill had made, and asked her if it was
+correct as far as she knew. Yes, she was sure she would know the plan
+again if she saw it.
+
+The judge's Associate handed it to Mr. Holymead, who passed it to
+the witness.
+
+"Is this it?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she replied emphatically, almost without inspecting it.
+
+"I want you to look at it closely," said Counsel. "When Birchill showed
+you the plan immediately after Hill's departure, what impression did you
+get regarding it?"
+
+She looked at him blankly.
+
+"I don't understand you," she said.
+
+"You can tell the difference between ink that has been newly used and ink
+that has been on the paper some days. Was the ink fresh?"
+
+"No, it was old ink," she said.
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"Because ink doesn't go black till a long while after it is written. At
+least, the letters _I_ write don't." She shot a veiled coquettish glance
+at the big K.C. from under her long eyelashes.
+
+The K.C. returned the glance with a genial smile.
+
+"What do you write your letters on, Miss Fanning?"
+
+She almost giggled at the question.
+
+"I use a writing tablet," she replied.
+
+"Ruled or unruled?"
+
+"Ruled. I couldn't write straight if there weren't lines." She
+smiled again.
+
+"And what colour do you affect--grey, rose-pink or white paper?"
+
+"Always white."
+
+"Is that all the paper you have at your flat for writing purposes?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then what did Birchill write on when he wanted to write a letter?"
+
+"He used mine."
+
+"Are you sure of that?"
+
+"Yes. When he wanted to write a letter he used to ask me for my tablet
+and an envelope. And generally he used to borrow a stamp as well." She
+pouted slightly, with another coquettish glance.
+
+"Look at that plan again," said the K.C. "Have you ever had paper like it
+at your flat?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Never."
+
+"Have you ever seen paper of that kind in Birchill's possession before he
+showed you the plan?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"When he showed you the plan had the paper been folded?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The K.C. took the witness, now very much at her ease, to the night of the
+murder. She denied strenuously that Hill tried to dissuade Birchill from
+carrying out the burglary because Sir Horace Fewbanks had returned
+unexpectedly from Scotland. It was Birchill who suggested postponing the
+burglary until Sir Horace left, but Hill urged that the original plan
+should be adhered to. He declared that Sir Horace would remain at home at
+least a fortnight, and perhaps longer. His master was a sound sleeper, he
+said, and if Birchill waited until he went to bed there would be no
+danger of awakening him. She contradicted many details of Hill's evidence
+as to what took place when the prisoner returned from breaking into
+Riversbrook. It was untrue, she said, that there was a spot of blood on
+Birchill's face or that his hands were smeared with blood. He was a
+little bit excited when he returned, but after one glass of whisky he
+spoke quite calmly of what had happened.
+
+The next witness was a representative of the firm of Holmes and Jackson,
+papermakers, who was handed the plan of Riversbrook which Hill had drawn.
+He stated that the paper on which the plan was drawn was manufactured by
+his firm, and supplied to His Majesty's Stationery Office. He identified
+it by the quality of the paper and the watermark. In reply to Mr. Walters
+the witness was sure that the paper he held in his hand had been
+manufactured by his firm for the Government. It was impossible for him to
+be mistaken. Other firms might manufacture paper of a somewhat similar
+quality and tint, but it would not be exactly similar. Besides, he
+identified it by his firm's watermark, and he held the plan up to the
+light and pointed it out to the court.
+
+Counsel for the defence called two more witnesses on this point--one to
+prove that supplies of the paper on which the plan was drawn were issued
+to legal departments of the Government, and an elderly man named Cobb,
+Sir Horace Fewbanks's former tipstaff, who stated that he took some of
+the paper in question to Riversbrook on Sir Horace's instructions. And
+then, to the astonishment of junior members of the bar who were in court
+watching his conduct of the case in order to see if they could pick up a
+few hints, he intimated that his case was closed. It seemed to them that
+the great K.C. had put up a very flimsy case for the defence, and that in
+spite of the fact that the prosecutor's case rested mainly on the
+evidence of a tainted witness Holymead would be very hard put to it to
+get his man off.
+
+"Isn't my learned friend going to call the prisoner?" suggested Mr.
+Walters, with the cunning design of giving the jury something to think of
+when they were listening to his learned friend's address.
+
+"It's scarcely necessary," said Mr. Holymead, who saw the trap, and
+replied in a tone which indicated that the matter was not worth a
+moment's consideration.
+
+He began his address to the jury by emphasising the fact that a fellow
+creature's life depended on the result of their deliberations. The duty
+that rested upon them of saying whether the prosecution had established
+beyond all reasonable doubt that the prisoner shot Sir Horace Fewbanks
+was a solemn and impressive one. He asked them to consider the case
+carefully in all its bearings. He could not claim for his client that
+he was a man of spotless reputation. The prisoner belonged to a class
+who earned their living by warring against society. But that fact did
+not make him a murderer. On what did the case for the prosecution rest?
+On the evidence of Hill and three other witnesses who, on the night of
+the murder, had seen a man somewhat resembling the prisoner in the
+vicinity of Riversbrook, or making towards the vicinity of that house.
+But so far from wishing to emphasise the weakness of identification he
+admitted that the prisoner went to Riversbrook with the intention of
+committing a burglary.
+
+"We admit that he went there the night Sir Horace Fewbanks returned from
+Scotland," he continued. "Counsel for the prosecution will make the most
+of those admissions in the course of his address to you, but the point to
+which I wish to direct your attention is that we make this damaging
+admission so that you may decide between the prisoner and the man who
+led him into a trap by instigating the burglary. Now we come to the
+evidence of Hill. I know you will not convict a man of murder on the
+unsupported evidence of a fellow criminal. But I want to point out to you
+that even if Hill's evidence were true in every detail, even if Hill had
+not swerved one iota from the truth, there is nothing in his evidence to
+lead to the positive conclusion that the prisoner murdered Hill's master,
+Sir Horace Fewbanks. What does Hill's evidence against the prisoner
+amount to? Let us accept it for the moment as absolutely true. Later on I
+will show you plainly that the man is a liar, that he is a cunning
+scoundrel, and that his evidence is utterly unreliable. But accepting for
+the moment his evidence as true the case against the prisoner amounts to
+this: by threats of exposure Birchill compelled Hill to consent to
+Riversbrook being robbed while the owner was in Scotland.
+
+"Hill's complicity, according to his own story, extended only to
+supplying a plan of the house and giving Birchill some information as to
+where various articles of value would be found. On the 18th of August
+Hill went to Riversbrook to see that everything was in order for the
+burglary that night. While he was there his master returned unexpectedly.
+Hill then went to the flat in Westminster and told Birchill that Sir
+Horace had returned. His own story is that he tried to get Birchill to
+abandon the idea of the burglary, but that Birchill, who had been
+drinking, swore that he would carry out the plan, and that if he came
+across Sir Horace he would shoot him. What grudge had Birchill against
+Sir Horace Fewbanks? The fact that Sir Horace had discarded the woman
+Fanning because of her association with Birchill. Gentlemen, does a man
+commit a murder for a thing of that kind?
+
+"Let us test the credibility of the man who has tried to swear away the
+life of the prisoner. You saw him in the witness-box, and I have no doubt
+formed your own conclusions as to the type of man he is. Did he strike
+you as a man who would stand by the truth above all things, or a man who
+would lie persistently in order to save his own skin? That the man cannot
+be believed even when on his oath has been publicly demonstrated in the
+courts of the land. The story he told the court yesterday in the
+witness-box of his movements on the day of the murder is quite different
+to the story he told on his oath at the inquest on the body of Sir Horace
+Fewbanks. Let me read to you the evidence he gave at the inquest."
+
+Mr. Finnis handed to his leader a copy of Hill's evidence at the inquest,
+and Mr. Holymead read it out to the jury. He then read out a shorthand
+writer's account of Hill's evidence on the previous day.
+
+"Which of these accounts are we to believe?" he said, turning to the
+jury. "The latter one, the prosecution says. But why, I ask? Because it
+tallies with the statement extorted from Hill by the police under the
+threat of charging him with the murder. Does that make it more credible?
+Is a man like Hill, who is placed in that position, likely to tell the
+truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? It is an insult to the
+jury as men of intelligence to ask you to believe Hill's evidence. I do
+not ask you to believe the story he told at the inquest in preference to
+the story he told here in the witness-box yesterday. I ask you to regard
+both stories as the evidence of a man who is too deeply implicated in
+this crime to be able to speak the truth.
+
+"I will prove to you, gentlemen of the jury, that the man is a criminal
+by instinct and a liar by necessity--the necessity of saving his own
+skin. He robbed his former master, Lord Melhurst, and he planned to rob
+his late master, Sir Horace Fewbanks. But knowing that his former crime
+would be brought against him when the police came to investigate a
+robbery at Riversbrook he was too cunning to rob Riversbrook himself. He
+looked about him for an accomplice and he selected Birchill. You heard
+him say in the witness-box that he drew Birchill a plan of
+Riversbrook--the plan I now hold in my hand. I will ask you to inspect
+the plan closely. Hill told us that Birchill terrorised him into drawing
+this plan by threats of exposure. Exposure of what? His master, Sir
+Horace Fewbanks, knew he had been in gaol, so what had he to fear from
+exposure? His proper course, if he were an honest man, would have been to
+tell his master that Birchill was planning to rob the house and had
+endeavoured to draw him into the crime. But he did nothing of the kind,
+for the simple reason that the plan to rob Riversbrook was his own, and
+not Birchill's.
+
+"Now, gentlemen, you have all seen the plan which this tainted witness
+declares was drawn by him because Birchill terrorised him and stood over
+him while he drew it. Is there anything in that plan to suggest that it
+was drawn by a man in a state of nervous terror? Why, the lines are as
+firmly drawn as if they had been made by an architect working at his
+leisure in his office. Was this plan drawn by a man in a state of nervous
+terror with his tormentor standing threateningly over him, or was it
+drawn up by a man working at leisure, free not only from terror but from
+interruption? The answer to that question is supplied in the evidence
+given by three witnesses as to the paper used. Hill says the plan was
+drawn at the flat. Two other witnesses swore that it was paper supplied
+exclusively for Government Departments, and another witness swore that he
+had taken such paper to Riversbrook for the use of Sir Horace Fewbanks,
+who, like every one of His Majesty's judges, found it necessary to do
+some of his judicial work at home. What is the inevitable inference? I
+ask you if you can have any doubt, after looking at that plan and after
+hearing the evidence given to-day about the paper, that the proposal to
+rob Riversbrook was Hill's own proposal, that Hill drew a plan of the
+house on paper he abstracted from his master's desk--paper which this
+confidential servant was apparently in the habit of using for private
+purposes--and that he gave it to Birchill when he asked Birchill to join
+him in the crime?
+
+"When one of the main features of Hill's story is proved to be false, how
+can you believe any of the rest? In the light in which we now see him,
+with his cunning exposed, what significance is to be attached to his
+statement that Birchill in his presence threatened to shoot Sir Horace
+Fewbanks if the master of Riversbrook interfered with him? Such a threat
+was not made, but why should Hill say it was made? For the same reason
+that he lied about the plan--to save his own skin. I submit to you,
+gentlemen, that when Hill went to see Birchill at the Westminster flat on
+the night arranged for the burglary Sir Horace Fewbanks was
+dead--murdered--and that Hill knew he was murdered. His own story is that
+he tried to persuade Birchill to abandon the proposed burglary, but,
+according to the witness Fanning, he did all in his power to induce
+Birchill to carry out the original plan when he saw that Birchill was
+disposed to postpone the burglary in view of the return of the master of
+Riversbrook. Why did he want Birchill to carry out the burglary? Because
+he knew that his master's murdered body was lying in the house, and he
+wanted to be in the position to produce evidence against Birchill as the
+murderer if he found himself in a tight corner as the result of the
+subsequent investigations of the police. Remember that the body of the
+victim was fully dressed when it was discovered by the police, and that
+none of the electric lights were burning. Does not that prove
+conclusively that the murder was not committed by Birchill, that Sir
+Horace Fewbanks was dead when Birchill broke into the house?
+
+"Birchill, an experienced criminal, would not break into the house while
+there was anybody moving about. He would wait until the house was in
+darkness and the inmates asleep. To do otherwise would increase
+enormously the risks of capture. But the fact that the police found the
+body of the murdered man fully dressed shows that Sir Horace was murdered
+before he went to bed--before Birchill broke into the house. It shows
+conclusively that the murder was committed before dusk. Your only
+alternatives to that conclusion are that the murdered man went to bed
+with his clothes on, or that the murderer broke into the house before Sir
+Horace had gone to bed and after killing Sir Horace went coolly round the
+house turning out the lights instead of fleeing in terror at his deed
+without even waiting to collect any booty. I am sure that as reasonable
+men you will reject both these alternatives as absurd. No evidence has
+been produced to show that anything has been stolen from the place. It
+was evidently the theory of the prosecution that the prisoner, after
+shooting Sir Horace, had fled. The evidence of Hill was that he arrived
+at Fanning's flat in a state of great excitement. His excitement would be
+consistent with his story of having discovered the body of a murdered
+man, but not consistent with the conduct of a cold-blooded calculating
+murderer who had broken into the house before Sir Horace had undressed
+for bed, had shot him, and had then gone round the house turning out the
+lights without having any apparent object in doing so.
+
+"Gentlemen, I think you will admit that the crime must have been
+committed before dusk; before any lights were turned on. I do not ask you
+to say that Hill is guilty. The responsibility of saying what man other
+than the prisoner shot Sir Horace Fewbanks does not rest with you. But I
+do urge you to ask yourselves whether, as between Hill and the prisoner,
+the probability of guilt is not on the side of this witness who lied to
+the coroner's court about his movements on the night of the murder, and
+who lied to this court about the plan for the robbery of Riversbrook. I
+have shown you that Hill was the master mind in planning the burglary,
+and, that being so, would not Birchill have consented to the postponement
+of the burglary if Hill had urged him to do so when he visited the flat
+after the unexpected return of the master of Riversbrook? Is not the
+evidence of the witness Fanning, that Hill urged Birchill to carry out
+the burglary after Sir Horace had gone to sleep, more credible than
+Hill's statement that he endeavoured to induce Birchill to abandon the
+proposed crime? Knowing what you know of Hill's past as a man who will
+rob his master, knowing that he attempted to deceive you with regard to
+this plan of Riversbrook in order that you might play your part in his
+cunning scheme, I urge you to ask yourselves whether it is not more
+probable that Hill fired the shot which killed Sir Horace Fewbanks than
+that the prisoner did so. Is it not extremely probable that the
+unexpected return of Sir Horace upset Hill, who was giving a final look
+round the house before the burglary took place? That, instead of
+answering his master with the suave obsequious humility of the
+well-trained servant, he revealed the baffled ferocity of a criminal
+whose carefully arranged plan seemed to have miscarried; that his master
+angrily rebuked him, and Hill, losing control of himself, sprang at Sir
+Horace, and the struggle ended with Hill drawing a revolver and shooting
+his master?
+
+"The rest of the story from that point can be constructed without
+difficulty. The murderer's first thought was to divert suspicion from
+himself, and the best way to do that was to divert suspicion elsewhere.
+He locked up the house and went to see Birchill. He urged Birchill to
+break into Riversbrook, in which the dead body of the murdered man lay.
+It is true that he need not have told Birchill that Sir Horace had
+returned unexpectedly; but his object in doing so was to make Birchill
+search about the house until he inadvertently stumbled across the dead
+body. Had Birchill been under the impression that he had broken into an
+entirely empty house he would have collected the valuables and might not
+have entered the library in which the dead body lay. It was necessary
+for Hill's purpose that Birchill should come across the corpse; then he
+would be vitally interested in diverting suspicion from himself
+(Birchill) and that is why he cunningly revealed to Birchill that Sir
+Horace had returned. I put it to the jury that such is a more probable
+explanation of how Sir Horace met his death than that he was shot down
+by Birchill. I ask you again to remember that the body was fully dressed
+when it was found by the police. I put it to you that in this matter the
+prisoner walked into a trap prepared by his more cunning fellow
+criminal. And I urge you, with all the earnestness it is possible for a
+man to use when the life of a fellow creature is at stake, not to be led
+into a trap--not to play the part this cunning criminal Hill has
+designed for you--in the sacrifice of the life of an innocent man for
+the purpose of saving himself from his just deserts. Looking at the
+whole case--as you will not fail to do--with the breadth of view of
+experienced men of the world, with some knowledge of the workings of
+human nature, with a natural horror of the depths of cunning of which
+some natures are capable, with a deep sense of the solemn responsibility
+for a human life upon you, I confidently appeal to you to say that the
+prisoner was not the man who shot Sir Horace Fewbanks, and to bring in a
+verdict of 'not guilty.'"
+
+A short discussion arose between the bench and bar on the question of
+adjourning the court or continuing the case in the hope of finishing it
+in a few hours. Sir Henry Hodson wanted to finish the case that night,
+but Counsel for the prosecution intimated that his address to the jury
+would take nearly two hours. As it was then nearly five o'clock, and His
+Honour had to sum up before the jury could retire, it was hardly to be
+hoped that the case could be finished that night, as the jury might be
+some time in arriving at a verdict. His Honour decided to adjourn the
+court and finish the case next day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+Mr. Walters began his address to the jury on orthodox lines. He referred
+to the fact that his learned friend had warned them that the life of a
+fellow creature rested on their verdict. It was right that they should
+keep that in mind; it was right that they should fully realise the
+responsible nature of the duty they were called upon to perform, but it
+would be wrong for them to over-estimate their responsibility, or to feel
+weighed down by it. It would be wrong for them to be influenced by
+sentimental considerations of the fact that a fellow creature's life was
+at stake. Strictly speaking, that had nothing whatever to do with them.
+Their responsibility ended with their verdict. If their verdict was
+"guilty" the responsibility of taking the prisoner's life would rest upon
+the law--not on the jury, not on His Honour who passed the sentence of
+death, not on the prison officials who carried out the execution. The
+jury would do well to keep in mind the fact that their responsibility in
+this trial, impressive and important as every one must acknowledge it to
+be, was nevertheless strictly limited as far as the taking of the life of
+the prisoner was concerned.
+
+He then went over the evidence in detail, building up again the case for
+the prosecution where Mr. Holymead had made breaches in it, and
+attempting to demolish the case for the defence. Hill, he declared, was
+an honest witness. The man had made one false step but he had done his
+best to retrieve it, and with the help he had received from his late
+master, Sir Horace Fewbanks, he would have buried the past effectively if
+it had not been for the fact that the prisoner, who was a confirmed
+criminal, had determined to drag him down. There was no doubt that
+Hill's association with Birchill had been unfortunate for him. It had
+dragged his past into the light of day, and he stood before them a ruined
+man. He had tried to live down the past, and but for Birchill he would
+have succeeded in doing so. But now no one would employ him as a house
+servant after the revelations that had been made in this court. They had
+seen Hill in the witness-box, and he would ask the jury whether he looked
+like the masterful cunning scoundrel which the defence had described, or
+a weak creature who would be easily led by a man of strong will, such as
+the prisoner was.
+
+As to what took place at the flat, they had a choice between the
+evidence of Hill and the evidence of the girl Fanning. Hill had told
+them that he had tried to dissuade the prisoner from going to
+Riversbrook to burgle the premises, because his master had returned
+unexpectedly; Fanning had told them that the prisoner was in favour of
+postponing the crime, but that Hill had urged him to carry it out. Which
+story was the more probable? What reliance could they place on the
+evidence of Fanning? He did not wish to say that the witness was utterly
+vicious and incapable of telling the truth--a description that the
+defence had applied to Hill--but they must take into consideration the
+fact that Fanning was the prisoner's mistress. Was it likely that a
+woman, knowing her lover's life was at stake, would come here and speak
+the truth, if she knew the truth would hang him? He was sure that the
+jury, as men who knew the world thoroughly, would not hesitate between
+the evidence of Hill and that of Fanning.
+
+The case for the defence depended to a great extent on the plan of
+Riversbrook which Hill candidly admitted he had drawn. His learned
+friend had called evidence to show that the paper on which the plan was
+drawn was of a quality which was not procurable by the general public.
+That might be so, but what his learned friend had not succeeded in
+doing, and could not possibly have hoped to succeed in doing, was to
+show that Birchill could not have obtained possession in any other way
+of paper of that kind. Yet it was necessary for the defence to prove
+that, in order to prove that the plan was not drawn at Fanning's flat by
+Hill under threats from Birchill, but that Hill had drawn it at
+Riversbrook, and that he gave it to Birchill in order to induce him to
+consent to the proposal to break into the house. There were dozens of
+ways in which paper of this particular quality might have got to the
+flat. Might not Birchill have a friend in His Majesty's Stationery
+Office? Was it impossible that the witness Fanning had a friend in that
+Office, or in one of the Government Departments to which the paper was
+supplied? Was it impossible in view of her relations with the victim of
+this crime for Fanning to have obtained some of the paper at Riversbrook
+and to have taken it home to her flat? She had sworn in the witness-box
+that she had not had paper of that kind in her possession, but with her
+lover's life at stake was she likely to stick at a lie if it would help
+to get him off?
+
+Counsel for the defence had endeavoured to make much of the fact that the
+dead body of Sir Horace Fewbanks was fully dressed when the police
+discovered it. He endeavoured to persuade them that such a fact
+established the complete innocence of the prisoner and that because of it
+they must bring in a verdict of "not guilty." He asked them to accept it
+as evidence not only that Sir Horace Fewbanks was dead when the prisoner
+broke into the house, but that he was dead when Hill left Riversbrook at
+7.30 p. m. to meet Birchill at Fanning's flat. With an ingenuity which
+did credit to his imagination, he put before them as his theory of the
+crime that a quarrel took place between Sir Horace Fewbanks and Hill at
+Riversbrook, that Hill shot his master and then went to Fanning's flat so
+as to see that Birchill carried out the burglary as arranged, and at the
+same time found Sir Horace's dead body, and thus directed suspicion to
+himself. The only support for this, far-fetched theory was that the body
+when discovered by the police was fully dressed, and that none of the
+electric lights were burning. Counsel for the defence contended that
+these two facts established his theory that the murder was committed
+before dusk. They established nothing of the kind. There were half a
+dozen more credible explanations of these things than the one he asked
+the jury to accept. What mystery was there in a man being fully dressed
+in his own house at midnight? The defence had been at great pains to show
+that Sir Horace Fewbanks was a man of somewhat irregular habits in his
+private life. Did not that suggest that he might have turned off the
+lights and gone to sleep in an arm-chair in the library with the
+intention of going out in an hour or two to keep an appointment? If he
+had an appointment--and his sudden and unexpected return from Scotland
+would suggest that he had a secret and important appointment--he would be
+more likely to take a short nap in his chair than to undress and go to
+bed. Might not the prisoner, who was a bold and reckless man, have broken
+into the house when the lights were burning and his victim was awake and
+fully dressed? In that case what was to prevent his turning off the
+lights before leaving the house instead of leaving them burning to
+attract attention? What was to prevent the prisoner turning off the
+lights in order to convey the impression that the crime had been
+committed in daylight?
+
+"I want you to keep in mind, when arriving at your verdict, that there
+are certain material facts which have been admitted by the defence," said
+Mr. Walters in concluding his address to the jury. "It has been admitted
+that the prisoner was a party to a proposal to break into Riversbrook. As
+far as that goes, there is no suggestion that he walked into a trap.
+Whether he arranged the burglary and compelled Hill to help him, or
+whether Hill arranged it and sought out the prisoner's assistance is,
+after all, not very material. What is admitted is that the prisoner went
+to Riversbrook with the intention of committing a crime. It is admitted
+that he knew Sir Horace Fewbanks had returned home. In that case is it
+not reasonable to suppose that the prisoner would arm himself, I do not
+say with the definite intention of committing murder, but for the purpose
+of threatening Sir Horace if necessary in order to make good his escape?
+What is more likely than that Sir Horace heard the burglar in the house,
+crept upon him, and then tried to capture him? There was a struggle, and
+the prisoner, determined to free himself, drew his revolver and shot Sir
+Horace. Is not such a theory of the crime--that Sir Horace was shot while
+trying to capture the prisoner--more probable than the theory of the
+defence that Hill, the weak-willed, frightened-looking man you saw in the
+witness-box, was a masterful, cunning criminal who for some inexplicable
+reason had turned ferociously on the master who had befriended him and
+given him a fresh start in life, had killed him and left the body in the
+house, and had then managed to direct suspicion to the prisoner? The
+theory of the defence does great credit to my learned friend's
+imagination, but it is one which I am sure the jury will reject as too
+highly coloured. Looking at the plain facts of the case and dismissing
+from your minds the attempt to make them fit into a purely imaginative
+theory, I am sure that you will come to the conclusion that Sir Horace
+Fewbanks met his death at the hands of the prisoner."
+
+The junior bar agreed that the case was one which might go either way. If
+they had possessed any money the betting market would have shown scarcely
+a shade of odds. Everything depended on the way the jury looked at the
+case, on the particular bits of evidence to which they attached most
+weight, on the view the most argumentative positive-minded members of the
+jury adopted, for they would be able to carry the others with them. In
+the opinion of the junior bar the summing up of Mr. Justice Hodson would
+not help the jury very much in arriving at a verdict. There were some
+judges who summed up for or against a prisoner according to the view they
+had formed as to the prisoner's guilt or innocence. There were other
+judges who summed up so impartially and gave such even-balanced weight to
+the points against the prisoner and to the points in his favour, as to
+make on the minds of the jurymen the impression that the only way to
+arrive at a well-considered verdict was to toss a coin. Another type of
+judge conveyed to the jury that the prosecution had established an
+unanswerable case, but the defence had shown equal skill in shattering
+it, and therefore he did not know on which side to make up his mind, and
+fortunately English legal procedure did not render it necessary for him
+to do so. The prisoner might be guilty and he might be innocent. Some of
+the jury might think one thing and the rest of the jury might think
+another. But it was the duty of the jury to come to an unanimous verdict.
+It did not matter if they looked at some things in different ways, but
+their final decision must be the same.
+
+Mr. Justice Hodson belonged to the impartial, impersonal type of judge.
+He had no personal feelings or conviction as to the guilt or innocence of
+the prisoner. It was for the jury to settle that point and it was his
+duty to assist them to the best of his ability. He went over his notes
+carefully and dealt with the evidence of each of the witnesses. It was
+for the jury to say what evidence they believed and what they
+disbelieved. There was a pronounced conflict of evidence between Hill and
+Fanning. They were the chief witnesses in the case, but the guilt or
+innocence of the prisoner did not rest entirely upon the evidence of
+either of these witnesses. Hill might be speaking the truth and the
+prisoner might be innocent though the presumption would be, if Hill's
+evidence were truthful in every detail, that the prisoner was guilty.
+Fanning's evidence might be true as far as it went, but it would not in
+itself prove that the prisoner was innocent. Hill had admitted that he
+had drawn the plan of Riversbrook to assist Birchill to commit burglary.
+It was for the jury to determine for themselves whether he had been
+terrorised into drawing the plan for Birchill or whether he was the
+instigator of the burglary.
+
+The defence had contended that Hill had drawn the plan at his leisure
+at a time when he had access to a special quality of paper supplied to
+his master. If that were so, Hill's version of how he came to draw the
+plan was deliberately false and had been concocted for the purpose of
+exculpating himself. But they would not be justified in dismissing
+Hill's evidence entirely from their minds because they were satisfied
+he had perjured himself with regard to the plan. They would be
+justified, however, in viewing the rest of his evidence with some
+degree of distrust. Counsel for the defence had made an ingenious use
+of the facts that the body of the victim was fully dressed when
+discovered and that none of the electric lights in the house were
+burning. These facts lent support to the idea that the murder was
+committed in daylight, but they by no means established the theory as
+unassailable. They did not establish the innocence of the prisoner,
+although to some extent they told in his favour. Counsel for the
+prosecution had put before them several theories to account for these
+two facts consistent with his contention that the murder had been
+committed by the prisoner. The jury must give full consideration to
+these theories as well as to the theory of the defence. They were not
+called upon to say which theory was true except in so far as their
+opinions might be implied in the verdict they gave.
+
+The defence, continued His Honour, was that Hill had committed the murder
+and had then decided to direct suspicion to the prisoner. If the jury
+acquitted the prisoner, their verdict would not necessarily mean that
+they endorsed the theory of the defence. It might mean that, but it might
+mean only that they were not satisfied that the prisoner had committed
+the murder. If the jury were convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that
+the prisoner had committed the murder, they must bring in a verdict of
+"guilty," and if they were not satisfied they must bring in a verdict of
+acquittal.
+
+The jury filed out of their apartment, and as they retired to consider
+their verdict the judge retired to his own room. The prisoner was removed
+from the dock and taken down the stairs out of sight. There was an
+immediate hum of voices in the court. Inspector Chippenfield approached
+the table and whispered to Mr. Walters. The latter nodded affirmatively
+and left the court room in company with Mr. Holymead. The sibilant sound
+of whispering voices died down after a few minutes and then began the
+long tedious wait for the return of the jury.
+
+The occupants of the gallery, who had no difficulty in coming to an
+immediate decision on the guilt or innocence of the prisoner, could not
+understand what was keeping the jury away so long. They failed to
+understand the jury's point of view. These gentlemen had sat in court for
+three days listening intently to proceedings concerning a matter in which
+their degree of personal interest was only a form of curiosity. And now
+the end of the case had been reached, except for the climax, which was in
+their control. To arrive at an immediate decision in a case that had
+occupied the court for three days would indicate they had no proper
+realisation of the responsibilities of their position. A verdict was a
+thing that had to be nicely balanced in relation to the evidence. Where
+the case against the prisoner was weak or overwhelmingly strong, the jury
+might arrive at a verdict with great speed as an indication that too much
+of their valuable time had already been wasted on the case. But where the
+evidence for and against the prisoner was fairly equal it behoved the
+jury to indicate by the time they took in arriving at their verdict that
+they had given the case the most careful consideration.
+
+Two hours and twenty minutes after the jury had retired, the prisoner was
+brought back into the dock. This was an indication that the jury had
+arrived at their verdict and were ready to deliver it. The prisoner
+looked worn and anxious, but he received encouraging smiles from his
+friends in the gallery. A minute later the judge entered the court and
+resumed his seat. The jury filed into court and entered the jury-box.
+Amid the noise of barristers resuming their seats and court officials
+gliding about, the judge's Associate called over the names of the
+jurymen. The suspense reached its climax as the Associate put the formal
+questions to the foreman whether the jury had agreed on their verdict.
+
+"What say you: guilty or not guilty?" asked the Associate in a hard
+metallic voice in which there was no trace of interest in the answer.
+
+"Not guilty," replied the foreman.
+
+There was a muffled cheer from the gallery, which was suppressed by the
+stentorian cry of the ushers, "Silence in the court!"
+
+"A pack of damned fools," said the exasperated Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+Rolfe understood that his chief referred to the jury, and he nodded the
+assent of a subordinate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+"Hill has bolted!"
+
+Rolfe flung the words at Inspector Chippenfield in a tone which he was
+unable to divest entirely of satisfaction. "Fancy his being the guilty
+party after all," he added, with the tone of satisfaction still more
+evident in his voice. "I often thought that he was our man, and that he
+was playing with you--I mean with us."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield had betrayed surprise at the news by dropping his
+pen on the official report he was preparing. But it was in his usual tone
+of cold official superiority that he replied:
+
+"Do you mean that Hill, the principal witness in the Riversbrook murder
+trial, has disappeared from London?"
+
+"Disappeared from London? He's bolted clean out of the country by this
+time, I tell you! Cleared out for good and left his unfortunate wife and
+child to starve."
+
+"How have you learnt this, Rolfe?"
+
+"His wife told me herself. I went to the shop this afternoon to have a
+few words with Hill and see how he felt after the way Holymead had gone
+for him at the trial. His wife burst out crying when she saw me, and she
+told me that her husband had cleared out last night after he came home
+from court. The hardened scoundrel took with him the few pounds of her
+savings which she kept in her bedroom, and had even emptied the contents
+of the till of the few shillings and coppers it contained. All he left
+were the half-pennies in the child's money-box. He cleared out in the
+middle of the night after his wife had gone to bed. He left her a note
+telling her she must get along without him. I have the note here--his
+wife gave it to me."
+
+Rolfe took a dirty scrap of paper out of his pocket-book and laid it
+before Inspector Chippenfield. The paper was a half sheet torn from an
+exercise-book, and its contents were written in faint lead pencil.
+They read:
+
+"Dear Mary:
+
+"I have got to leave you. I have thought it out and this is the only
+thing to do. I am too frightened to stay after what took place in the
+court to-day. I'll make a fresh start in some place where I am not known,
+and as soon as I can send a little money I will send for you and Daphne.
+Keep your heart up and it will be all right.
+
+"Keep on the shop.
+
+"YOUR LOVING HUSBAND."
+
+"The poor little woman is heartbroken," continued Rolfe, when his
+superior officer had finished reading the note. "She wants to know if we
+cannot get her husband back for her. She says the shop won't keep her and
+the child. Unless she can find her husband she'll be turned into the
+streets, because she's behind with the rent, and Hill's taken every penny
+she'd put by."
+
+"Then she'd better go to the workhouse," retorted Inspector Chippenfield
+brutally. "We'd have something to do if Scotland Yard undertook to trace
+all the absconding husbands in London. We can do nothing in the matter,
+and you'd better tell her so."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield handed back Hill's note as he spoke. Rolfe eyed
+him in some surprise.
+
+"But surely you're going to take out a warrant for Hill's arrest?" he
+said.
+
+"Certainly not," responded Inspector Chippenfield impatiently. "I've
+already said that Scotland Yard has something more to do than trace
+absconding husbands. There's nothing to prevent your giving a little of
+your private time to looking for him, Rolfe, if you feel so
+tender-hearted about the matter. But officially--no. I'm astonished at
+your suggesting such a thing."
+
+"It isn't that," replied Rolfe, flushing a little, and speaking with
+slight embarrassment. "But surely after Hill's flight you'll apply for a
+warrant for his arrest on--the other ground."
+
+"On what other ground?" asked his chief coldly.
+
+"Why, on a charge of murdering Sir Horace Fewbanks," Rolfe burst out
+indignantly. "Doesn't this flight point to his guilt?"
+
+"Not in my opinion." Inspector Chippenfield's voice was purely official.
+
+"Why, surely it does!" Rolfe's glance at his chief indicated that there
+was such a thing as carrying official obstinacy too far. "This letter he
+left behind suggests his guilt, clearly enough."
+
+"I didn't notice that," replied Inspector Chippenfield impassively.
+"Perhaps you'll point out the passage to me, Rolfe."
+
+Rolfe hastily produced the note again.
+
+"Look here!"--his finger indicated the place--"'I'm frightened to stay
+after what took place in the court to-day,' Doesn't that mean, clearly
+enough, that Hill realised the acquittal pointed to him as the murderer,
+and he determined to abscond before he could be arrested?"
+
+"So that's your way of looking at it, eh, Rolfe?" said Inspector
+Chippenfield quizzically.
+
+"Certainly it is," responded Rolfe, not a little nettled by his chief's
+contemptuous tone. "It's as plain as a pikestaff that the jury acquitted
+Birchill because they believed Hill was guilty. Holymead made out too
+strong a case for them to get away from--Hill's lies about the plan and
+the fact that the body was fully dressed when discovered."
+
+"You're a young man, Rolfe," responded Inspector Chippenfield in a
+tolerant tone, "but you'll have to shed this habit of jumping impulsively
+to conclusions--and generally wrong conclusions--if you want to succeed
+in Scotland Yard. This letter of Hill's only strengthens my previous
+opinion that a damned muddle-headed jury let a cold-blooded murderer
+loose on the world when they acquitted Fred Birchill of the charge of
+shooting Sir Horace Fewbanks. Why, man alive, Holymead no more believes
+Hill is guilty than I do. He set himself to bamboozle the jury and he
+succeeded. If he had to defend Hill to-morrow he would show the jury that
+Hill couldn't have committed the murder and that it must have been
+committed by Birchill and no one else. He's a clever man, far cleverer
+than Walters, and that is why I lost the case."
+
+"He led Hill into a trap about the plan of Riversbrook," said Rolfe.
+"When I saw that Hill had been trapped on that point I felt we had lost
+the jury."
+
+"Only because the jury were a pack of fools who knew nothing about
+evidence. Granted that Hill lied about the plan--that he drew it up
+voluntarily in his spare time to assist Birchill--it proves nothing. It
+doesn't prove that Hill committed the murder. It only proves that Hill
+was going to share in the proceeds of the burglary; that he was a willing
+party to it. The one big outstanding fact in all the evidence, the fact
+that towered over all the others, is that Birchill broke into the house
+on the night Sir Horace Fewbanks was murdered. The defence made no
+attempt to get away from that fact because they could not do so. But
+Holymead vamped up all sorts of surmises and suppositions for the purpose
+of befogging the jury and getting their minds away from the outstanding
+feature of the case for the prosecution. We proved that Birchill was in
+the house on a criminal errand. What more could they expect us to prove?
+They couldn't expect us to have a man looking through the window or
+hiding behind the door when the murder was committed. If we could get
+evidence of that kind we could do without juries. We could hang our man
+first and try him afterwards. I don't think a verdict of acquittal from a
+befogged jury would do so much harm in such a case."
+
+"You are still convinced that Birchill did it?" said Rolfe
+questioningly.
+
+"I have never wavered from that opinion," said his superior. "If I had,
+this note of Hill's would restore my conviction in Birchill's guilt."
+
+"Why, how do you make out that?" replied Rolfe blankly.
+
+"Hill says he's clearing out of the country because he's frightened.
+What's he frightened of? His own guilty conscience and the long arm of
+the law? Not a bit of it! Hill's an innocent man. If he had been guilty
+he'd never have stood the ordeal of the witness-box and the
+cross-examination. Hill's cleared out because he was frightened of
+Birchill."
+
+"Of Birchill?"
+
+"Yes. Didn't Birchill tell Hill, just before he set out for Riversbrook
+on the night of the murder, that if Hill played him false he'd murder
+him? Hill _did_ play him false, not then, but afterwards, when he made
+his confession and Birchill was arrested for the murder in consequence.
+When Birchill was acquitted at the trial his first thought would be to
+wreak vengeance on Hill. A man with one murder on his soul would not be
+likely to hesitate about committing another. Hill knew this, and fled to
+save his life when Birchill was acquitted. That's the explanation of his
+letter, Rolfe."
+
+"So that's the way you look at it?" said Rolfe.
+
+"Of course I do! It's the only way Hill's flight can be looked at in the
+light of all that's happened. The theory dovetails in every part. I'm
+more used than you to putting these things together, Rolfe. Hill's as
+innocent of the murder as you are."
+
+"And where do you think Hill's gone to?"
+
+"Certainly not out of London. He's too much of a Cockney for that.
+Besides, he's a man who is fond of his wife and child. He's hiding
+somewhere close at hand, and I shouldn't wonder if the whole thing's a
+plant between him and his wife. Have you forgotten how she tried to
+hoodwink us before? I'll go to the shop to-morrow and see if I can't
+frighten the truth out of her. Meanwhile, you'd better put the Camden
+Town police on to watching the shop. If he's hiding in London he's bound
+to visit his wife sooner or later, or she'll visit him, so we ought not
+to have much difficulty in getting on to his tracks again."
+
+Rolfe departed, to do his chief's bidding, a little crestfallen. He was
+at first inclined to think that he had made a bit of a fool of himself in
+his desire to prove to Inspector Chippenfield that he had been hoodwinked
+by Hill into arresting Birchill. But that night, as he sat in his bedroom
+smoking a quiet pipe, and reviewing this latest phase of the puzzling
+case, the earlier doubts which had assailed him on first learning of
+Hill's flight recurred to him with increasing force. If Hill were
+innocent he would have been more likely to seek police protection before
+flight. Hill's flight was hardly the action of an innocent man. It
+pointed more to a guilty fear of his own skin, now that the man he had
+accused of the murder was free to seek vengeance. Chippenfield's theory
+seemed plausible enough at first sight, but Rolfe now recalled that he
+knew nothing of the missing letters and Hill's midnight visit to
+Riversbrook to recover them. Rolfe had concealed that episode from his
+superior officer because he lacked the courage to reveal to him how he
+had been hoodwinked by Mrs. Holymead's fainting fit the morning he was
+conducting his official inquiry at Riversbrook into the murder.
+
+"It's an infernally baffling case," muttered Rolfe, refilling his pipe
+from a tin of tobacco on the mantelpiece, and walking up and down the
+cheap lodging-house drugget with rapid strides. "If Birchill is not the
+murderer who is? Is it Hill?"
+
+He lit his pipe, closed the window, opened his pocket-book and sat down
+to peruse the notes he had taken during his investigation of Sir Horace
+Fewbanks's murder. He read and re-read them, earnestly searching for a
+fresh clue in the pencilled pages. After spending some time in this
+occupation he took a clean sheet of paper and a pencil, and copied afresh
+the following entries from his notebook:
+
+August 19. Went Riversbrook. Saw Sir H.F.'s body. Discovered fragment of
+lady's handkerchief clenched in right hand.
+
+August 22. Made inquiries handkerchief. Unable find where purchased.
+
+September 8. Found Hill at Riversbrook searching Sir H.F.'s papers. Told
+me about bundle of lady's letters tied up with pink ribbon which had been
+taken from secret drawer. Says they disappeared morning after murder when
+investigation was taking place. C.'s visitors that day: Dr. Slingsby /
+Seldon to arrange inquest / newspaper men / undertaker's representatives
+/ Crewe. C. saw one visitor alone, Hill says. Mrs. H----, who fainted. C.
+fetched glass of water, leaving her alone in room. Hill suggests her
+letters indicate friendly relations between her and Sir H.F. Sir H.F.
+expected visit, probably from lady, night of murder. Hurried Hill off
+when he returned from Scotland. Mem: Inadvisable disclose this to C.
+
+Underneath his entries of the case Rolfe had written finally:
+
+Points to be remembered:
+
+(1) Crewe said before the trial that Birchill was not the murderer and
+    would be acquitted. Birchill was acquitted.
+
+(2) Crewe suggested we had not got the whole truth out of Hill. Hill
+    disappears the night after the trial. Is Hill the murderer?
+
+(3) The handkerchief and the letters point to a woman in the case,
+    although this was not brought out at the trial. Is it possible that
+    woman is Mrs. H.?
+
+Rolfe realised that the chief pieces of the puzzle were before him, but
+the difficulty was to put them together. He felt sure there was a
+connection between these facts, which, if brought to light, would solve
+the Riversbrook mystery. Without knowing it, he had been so influenced by
+Crewe's analysis of the case that he had practically given up the idea
+that Birchill had anything to do with the murder. His real reason for
+going to Hill's shop that morning was to try and extract something from
+Hill which might put him on the track of the actual murderer. He believed
+Hill knew more than he had divulged. Hill, before his disappearance, had
+placed in his hands an important clue, if he only knew how to follow it
+up. That incident of the missing letters must have some bearing on the
+case, if he could only elucidate it.
+
+Should he disclose to Chippenfield Hill's story of the missing letters?
+Rolfe dismissed the idea as soon as it crossed his mind. He knew his
+superior officer sufficiently well to understand that he would be very
+angry to learn that he had been deceived by Mrs. Holymead, and, as she
+was outside the range of his anger, he would bear a grudge against his
+junior officer for discovering the deception which had been practised on
+him, and do all he could to block his promotion in Scotland Yard in
+consequence. Apart from that, he could offer Chippenfield no excuse for
+not having told him before.
+
+Should he consult Crewe?
+
+Rolfe dismissed that thought also, but more reluctantly. Hang it all, it
+was too humiliating for an accredited officer of Scotland Yard to consult
+a private detective! Rolfe had acquired an unwilling respect for Crewe's
+abilities during the course of the investigations into the Riversbrook
+case, but he retained all the intolerance which regular members of the
+detective force feel for the private detectives who poach on their
+preserves. Rolfe's professional jealousy was intensified in Crewe's case
+because of the brilliant successes Crewe had achieved during his career
+at the expense of the reputation of Scotland Yard. Rolfe had an
+instinctive feeling that Crewe's mind was of finer quality than his own,
+and would see light where he only groped in darkness. If Crewe had been
+his superior officer in Scotland Yard, Rolfe would have gone to him
+unhesitatingly and profited by his keener vision, but he could not do so
+in their existing relative positions. He ransacked his brain for some
+other course.
+
+After long consideration, Rolfe decided to go and see Mrs. Holymead and
+question her about the packet of letters which Hill declared she had
+removed from Riversbrook after the murder. He realised that this was
+rather a risky course to pursue, for Mrs. Holymead was highly placed and
+could do him much harm if she got her husband to use his influence at the
+Home Office, for then he would have to admit that he had gone to her
+without the knowledge of his superior officer, on the statement of a
+discredited servant who had arranged a burglary in his master's house the
+night he was murdered. Nevertheless, Rolfe decided to take the risk. The
+chance of getting somewhere nearer the solution of the Riversbrook
+mystery was worth it, and what a feather in his cap it would be if he
+solved the mystery! He was convinced that Chippenfield had shut out
+important light on the mystery by doggedly insisting, in order to
+buttress up his case against Birchill, that the piece of handkerchief
+which had been found in the dead man's hand was a portion of a
+handkerchief which had belonged to the girl Fanning, and had been brought
+by Birchill from the Westminster flat on the night of the murder. It was
+more likely, in view of Hill's story of the letters, that the
+handkerchief belonged to Mrs. Holymead. Rolfe had not made up his mind
+that Mrs. Holymead had committed the murder, but he was convinced that
+she and her letters had some connection with the baffling crime, and he
+determined to try and pierce the mystery by questioning her. Having
+arrived at this decision, he replaced his notebook in his coat pocket,
+knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and went to bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Rolfe went to Hyde Park next day and walked from the Tube station
+to Holymead's house at Princes Gate. The servant who answered his
+ring informed him, in reply to his question, that Mrs. Holymead was
+"Not at home."
+
+"Do you know when she will be home?" persisted Rolfe, forestalling an
+evident desire on the servant's part to shut the door in his face.
+
+The man looked at Rolfe doubtfully. Well-trained English servant though
+he was, and used to summing up strangers at a glance, he could not quite
+make out who Rolfe might be. But before he could come to a decision on
+the point a feminine voice behind him said:
+
+"What is it, Trappon?"
+
+The servant turned quickly in the direction of the voice. "It's a
+er--er--party who wants to see Madam, mademoiselle," he replied.
+
+"_Parti?_ What mean you by _parti_? Explain yourself, Trappon."
+
+"A person--a gentleman, mademoiselle," replied Trappon, determined to be
+on the safe side.
+
+"Open the door, Trappon, that I may see this gentleman."
+
+Trappon somewhat reluctantly complied, and a young lady stepped forward.
+She was tall and dark, with charming eyes which were also shrewd; she had
+a fine figure which a tight-fitting dress displayed rather too boldly for
+good taste, and she was sufficiently young to be able to appear quite
+girlish in the half light.
+
+"You wish to see Madame Holymead?" she said to Rolfe. Her manner was
+engagingly pleasant and French.
+
+Rolfe felt it incumbent upon him to be gallant in the presence of the
+fair representative of a nation whom he vaguely understood placed
+gallantry in the forefront of the virtues. He took off his hat with a
+courtly bow.
+
+"I do, mademoiselle," he replied, "and my business is important."
+
+"Then, monsieur, step inside if you will be so good, and I will see you."
+
+She led Rolfe to a small, prettily-furnished room at the end of the hall,
+and carefully shut the door. Then she invited Rolfe to be seated, and
+asked him to state his business.
+
+But this was precisely what Rolfe was not anxious to do except to Mrs.
+Holymead herself.
+
+"My business is private, and must be placed before Mrs. Holymead," he
+said firmly. "I wish to see her."
+
+"I regret, monsieur, but Madame Holymead is out of town. She went last
+week. If you had only come before she went"--Mademoiselle Chiron looked
+genuinely sorry.
+
+Rolfe was a little taken aback at this intelligence, and showed it.
+
+"Out of town!" he repeated. "Where has she gone to?"
+
+She looked at him almost timidly.
+
+"But, monsieur, I do not know if I ought to tell you without knowing who
+you are. Are you a friend of Madame's?"
+
+"My name is Detective Rolfe--I come from Scotland Yard," replied Rolfe,
+in the authoritative tone of a man who knew that the disclosure was sure
+to command respect, if not a welcome.
+
+"Scotland? You come from Scotland? Madame will regret much that she has
+missed you."
+
+"Scotland Yard, I said," corrected Rolfe, "not Scotland."
+
+"Is it not the same?" Mademoiselle Chiron looked at him helplessly.
+"Scotland Yard--is it not in Scotland? What is the difference?"
+
+Rolfe, with a Londoner's tolerance for foreign ignorance, painstakingly
+explained the difference. She looked so puzzled that he felt sure she did
+not understand him. But that, he reflected, was not his fault.
+
+"So you see, mademoiselle, my business with Mrs. Holymead is important,
+therefore I'll be obliged if you will tell me where I can find her," he
+said. "In what part of the country is she?"
+
+Mademoiselle Chiron looked distressed. "Really, monsieur, I cannot tell
+you. She is motoring, and I should have been with her but that I have _un
+gros rhume"_--she produced a tiny scrap of lace handkerchief and held it
+to her nose as though in support of her statement--"and she rings me on
+the telephone from different places and tells me the things she does
+need, and I do send them on to her."
+
+"Where does she ring you up from?" asked Rolfe, eyeing Mademoiselle
+Chiron's handkerchief intently.
+
+"From Brighton--from Eastbourne--wherever she stops."
+
+"What place was she stopping at when you heard from her last?"
+
+"Eastbourne, monsieur."
+
+"And when will she return here?"
+
+"That, monsieur, I do not know. To-night--to-morrow--next week--she does
+not tell me. If Monsieur will leave me a message I will see that she gets
+it, for it is always me she wants, and it is always me that talks to her.
+What shall I tell her when next she rings the telephone? If Monsieur will
+state his business I will tell Madame what he tells me. I am Madame's
+cousin by marriage--in me she has confidence."
+
+She spoke in a tone which invited confidence, but Rolfe was not prepared
+to go to the length of trusting the young woman he saw before him,
+despite her assurance that she was in the confidence of Mrs. Holymead. He
+rose to his feet with a keen glance at Mademoiselle Chiron's
+handkerchief, which she had rolled into a little ball in her hand.
+
+"I cannot disclose my business to you, mademoiselle," he said
+courteously. "I must see Mrs. Holymead personally, so I shall call again
+when she has returned."
+
+"But, monsieur, why will you not tell me?" she asked coaxingly. "You are
+a police agent? Have you therefore come to see Madame about the case?"
+
+Rolfe showed that he was taken aback by the direct question.
+
+"The case!" he stammered. "What case?"
+
+"Why, monsieur, what case should it be but that of which I have so often
+heard Madame speak? Le judge--the good friend of Monsieur and Madame
+Holymead, who was killed by the base assassin! Madame is disconsolate
+about his terrible end!" Mademoiselle Chiron here applied the
+handkerchief to her eyes on her own account. "Have you come to tell her
+that you have caught the wicked man who did assassinate him? Madame will
+be overjoyed!"
+
+"Why, hardly that," replied Rolfe, completely off his guard. "But we're
+on the track, mademoiselle--we're on the track."
+
+"And is it that you wanted me to tell Madame?" persisted
+Mademoiselle Chiron.
+
+"I wanted to ask her a question or two about several things," said Rolfe,
+who had determined to disclose his hand sufficiently to bring Mrs.
+Holymead back to London if she had anything to do with the crime. "I want
+to ask her about some letters that were stolen--no, I won't say
+stolen--letters that were removed from Riversbrook. I have been informed
+that even if these letters are no longer in existence she can give the
+police a good idea of what was in them."
+
+The telephone bell in the corner of the room rang suddenly. Mademoiselle
+Chiron ran to answer it, and accidentally dropped her handkerchief on the
+floor in picking up the receiver.
+
+Mademoiselle Chiron began speaking on the telephone, but she stopped
+suddenly, staring with frightened eyes into the mirror at the other side
+of the room. The glass reflected the actions of Rolfe at the table.
+Seated with his back towards her, he had taken advantage of her being
+called to the telephone to examine her handkerchief, which he had picked
+up from the floor. He had produced from his pocketbook the scrap of lace
+and muslin which he had found in the murdered man's hand. He had the two
+on the table side by side comparing them, and Mademoiselle Chiron noticed
+a smile of satisfaction flit across his face as he did so. While she
+looked he restored the scrap to his pocket-book, and the pocket-book to
+his pocket. Hastily she turned to the telephone again and continued, in a
+voice which a quick ear would have detected was slightly hysterical.
+
+Then she hung up the receiver and turned to Rolfe.
+
+"But, monsieur, you were saying--"
+
+Rolfe handed the handkerchief to its owner with a courtly bow which he
+flattered himself was equal to the best French school.
+
+"I picked this up off the floor, mademoiselle. It is yours, I think?"
+
+"This?" Mademoiselle Chiron touched the handkerchief with a dainty
+forefinger. "It is my handkerchief. I dropped it."
+
+"It is very pretty," said Rolfe, with simulated indifference. "I suppose
+you bought that in Paris. It does not look English,''
+
+"But no, monsieur, it is quite Engleesh. I bought it in the shop."
+
+"Indeed! A London shop?" inquired Rolfe, with equal indifference.
+
+"The _lingerie_ shop in Oxford Street--what do you call it--Hobson's?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know--these ladies' things are a bit out of my line,"
+said Rolfe, rising as he spoke with a smile, in which there was more
+than a trace of self-satisfaction.
+
+He felt that he had acquitted himself with an adroitness which Crewe
+himself might have envied. He had made an important discovery and
+extracted the name of the shop where the handkerchief had been bought
+without--so he flattered himself--arousing any suspicions on the part of
+the lady. Rolfe knew from his inquiries in West End shops that
+handkerchiefs of that pattern and quality were stocked by many of the
+good shops, but the fact that he had found a handkerchief of this kind in
+the house of a lady who had abstracted secret letters from the murdered
+man's desk, and had, moreover, discovered the name of the shop where she
+bought her handkerchiefs, convinced him that he had struck a path which
+must lead to an important discovery.
+
+Mademoiselle Chiron followed Rolfe into the hall and watched his
+departure from a front window. When she saw his retreating figure turn
+the corner of the street she left the window, ran upstairs quickly, and
+knocked lightly at the closed door.
+
+The door was opened by Mrs. Holymead, who appeared to be in a state of
+nervous agitation. Her large brown eyes were swollen and dim with
+weeping, her hair had become partly unloosened, her face was white and
+her dress disordered. She caught the Frenchwoman by the wrist and drew
+her into the bedroom, closing the door after her.
+
+"What did he want, Gabrielle?" she gasped. "What did he say? Has he come
+about--_that_?"
+
+Gabrielle nodded her head.
+
+"Gabrielle!" Mrs. Holymead's voice rose almost to a cry. "Oh, what are we
+to do? Did he come to arrest--"
+
+"No, no! He was not so bad. He did not come to do dreadful things, but
+just to have a little talk.''
+
+"A little talk? What about?"
+
+"He wanted to see you, and ask you one or two little questions. I put
+him off. He was like wax in my hands. Pouf! He has gone, so why trouble?"
+
+"But he will come again! He is sure to come again!"
+
+"No doubt. He says he will come again--in a week--when you return."
+
+Mrs. Holymead wrung her hands helplessly.
+
+"What are we to do then?" she wailed.
+
+"We will look the tragedy in the face when it comes. _Ma foi!_ What have
+you been doing to yourself? For nothing is it worth to look like _that_."
+With deft and loving fingers Gabrielle began to arrange Mrs. Holymead's
+hair. "We will have everything right before this little police agent
+returns. We will show him he is the complete fool for suspecting you know
+about the murder."
+
+"But what can you do, Gabrielle?" asked Mrs. Holymead.
+
+She looked at Gabrielle with her large brown eyes, as though she were
+utterly dependent on the other's stronger will for support and
+assistance. Mademoiselle Chiron stopped in her arrangement of Mrs.
+Holymead's hair and, bending over, kissed her affectionately.
+
+"_Ma petite_," she said, "do not worry. I have thought of a plan--oh, a
+most excellent plan--which I will myself execute to-morrow, and then
+shall all your troubles be finished, and you will be happy again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+"A lady to see you, sir."
+
+"What sort of a lady, Joe?"
+
+"Furren, I should say, sir, by the way she speaks. I arskt her if she had
+an appointment, and she said no, but she said she wanted to see you on
+very urgent and particular business. I told her most people says that wot
+comes to see you, but she says hers was _reely_ important. Arskt me to
+tell you, sir, that it was about the Riversbrook case."
+
+"The Riversbrook case? I'll see her, Joe. Has not Stork returned yet?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Tell him to go to his dinner when he comes back. Show the lady in, Joe."
+
+Crewe regarded his caller keenly as Joe ushered her in, placed a chair
+for her, and went out, closing the door noiselessly behind him. She was a
+tall, well-dressed, graceful woman, fairly young, with dark hair and
+eyes. She looked quickly at the detective as she entered, and Crewe was
+struck by the shrewd penetration of her glance.
+
+"You are Monsieur Crewe, the great detective--is it not so?" she asked,
+as she sat down. The glance she now gave the detective at closer range
+from her large dark eyes was innocent and ingenuous, with a touch of
+admiration. The contrast between it and her former look was not lost on
+Crewe, and he realised that his visitor was no ordinary woman.
+
+"My name is Crewe," he said, ignoring the compliment. "What do you wish
+to see me for?"
+
+The visitor did not immediately reply. She nervously unfastened a bag she
+carried, and taking out a singularly unfeminine-looking handkerchief--a
+large cambric square almost masculine in its proportions, and guiltless
+of lace or perfume--held it to her face for a moment. But Crewe noticed
+that her eyes were dry when she removed it to remark:
+
+"What I say to you, monsieur, is in strictest confidence--as sacred as
+the confession."
+
+"Anything you say to me will be in strict confidence," said Crewe a
+little grimly.
+
+"And the boy? Can he not hear through the keyhole?" Crewe's visitor
+glanced expressively at the door by which she had entered.
+
+"You are quite safe here, madame--mademoiselle, I should say," he added,
+with a quick glance at her left hand, from which she slowly removed the
+glove as she spoke.
+
+"Mademoiselle Chiron, monsieur," said Gabrielle, flashing another smile
+at him. "I am Madame Holymead's relative--her cousin. I come to see you
+about the dreadful murder of the judge, Madame's friend."
+
+"You come from Mrs. Holymead?" said Crewe quickly. "Then, Mademoiselle
+Chiron, before--"
+
+"No, no, monsieur, no!" Her agitation was unmistakably genuine. "I do not
+come _from_ Madame Holymead. I am her relative, it is true, but I
+come--how shall I say it?--from myself. I mean she does not know of my
+visit to you, monsieur."
+
+"I quite understand," replied Crewe.
+
+"Monsieur Crewe," said Gabrielle hurriedly, "although I have not come
+from Madame Holymead, it is for her sake that I come to see you--to save
+her from the persecution of one of your police agents who wants to ask
+her questions about this so sordid--so terrible a crime! He has come
+once, this agent--last night he came--and he told me he wanted to
+question Madame Holymead about the murder of her dear friend the judge. I
+do not want Madame worried with these questions, so I told him Madame was
+away in the motor in the country; but he says he will come again and
+again till he sees her. Madame is distracted when she learns of his
+visit; it opens up her bleeding heart afresh, for she and her husband
+were _intime_ with the dead judge, and deeply, terribly, they deplore his
+so dreadful end. I see Madame cry, and I say to myself I will not let
+this little police agent spoil her beauty and give her the migraine: his
+visits must be, shall be, prevented. I have heard of the so great and
+good Monsieur Crewe, and I will go and see him. We will--as you say in
+your English way--put our heads together, this famous detective and I,
+and we will find some way of--how do you call it?--circumventing this
+police agent so that my dear Madame shall cry no more. Monsieur Crewe, I
+am here, and I beg of you to help me."
+
+Crewe listened to this outburst with inward surprise but impassive
+features. Apparently the police had come to the conclusion that they had
+blundered in arresting Birchill for the murder of Sir Horace Fewbanks,
+and had recommenced inquiries with a view to bringing the crime home to
+somebody else. He did not know whether their suspicions were now directed
+against Mrs. Holymead, but they had conducted their preliminary inquiries
+so clumsily as to arouse her fears that they did. So much was apparent
+from Mademoiselle Chiron's remarks, despite the interpretation she sought
+to place on Mrs. Holymead's fears. He wondered if the "police agent" was
+Rolfe or Chippenfield. It was obvious that the cool proposal that he
+should help to shield Mrs. Holymead against unwelcome police attentions
+covered some deeper move, and he shaped his conversation in the endeavour
+to extract more from the Frenchwoman.
+
+"I am very sorry to hear that Mrs. Holymead has been subjected to this
+annoyance," he said warily. "This police agent, did he come by himself?"
+
+"But yes, monsieur, I have already said it."
+
+"I know, but I thought he might have had a companion waiting for him in
+a taxi-cab outside. Scotland Yard men frequently travel in pairs."
+
+"He had no taxi-cab," declared Mademoiselle Chiron, positively. "He
+walked away on foot by himself. I watched him from the window."
+
+Crewe registered a mental note of this admission. If she had watched the
+detective's departure from the window she evidently had some reason for
+wanting to see the last of him. Aloud he said:
+
+"I expect I know him. What was he like?"
+
+"Tall, as tall as you, only bigger--much bigger. And he had the great
+moustache which he caressed again and again with his fingers." Gabrielle
+daintily imitated the action on her own short upper lip.
+
+"I know him," declared Crewe with a smile. "His name is Rolfe. There
+should be nothing about him to alarm you, mademoiselle. Why, he is quite
+a ladies' man."
+
+Gabrielle shrugged her shoulders disdainfully.
+
+"That may be," she replied; "but I like him not, and I do not wish him to
+worry Madame Holymead."
+
+"But why not let him see Mrs. Holymead?" suggested Crewe, after a short
+pause. "As he only wants to ask her a few short questions, it seems to me
+that would be the quickest way out of the difficulty, and would save you
+all the trouble and worry you speak of."
+
+"I tell you I will not," declared Gabrielle vehemently. "I will not have
+Madame Holymead worried and made ill with the terrible ordeal. Bah! What
+do you men--so clumsy--know of the delicate feelings of a lady like
+Madame Holymead? The least soupçon of excitement and she is disturbed,
+distraite, for days. After last night--after the visit of the police
+agent--she was quite hysterical."
+
+"Why should she be when she had nothing to be afraid of?" rejoined Crewe.
+
+He spoke in a tone of simple wonder, but Gabrielle shot a quick glance
+at him from under her veiled lashes as she replied:
+
+"Bah! What has that to do with it? I repeat: Monsieur Crewe, you men
+cannot understand the feelings of a lady like Madame Holymead in a matter
+like this. She and her husband were, as I have said before, _intime_ with
+the great judge. They visited his house, they dined with him, they met
+him in Society. Behold, he is brutally, horribly killed. Madame, when she
+hears the terrible news, is ill for days; she cannot eat, she cannot
+sleep; she can interest herself in nothing. She is forgetting a little
+when the police agents they catch a man and say he is the murderer. Then
+comes the trial of this man at the court with so queer a name--Old
+Bailee. The papers are full of the terrible story again; of the dead man;
+how he looked killed; how he lay in a pool of blood; how they cut him
+open! Madame Holymead cannot pick up a paper without seeing these things,
+and she falls ill again. Then the jury say the man the police agents
+caught is not the murderer. He goes free, and once more the talk dies
+away. Madame Holymead once more begins to forget, when this police agent
+comes to her house to remind her once more all about it. It is too cruel,
+monsieur, it is too cruel!"
+
+Gabrielle's voice vibrated with indignation as she concluded, and Crewe
+regarded her closely. He decided that her affection for Mrs. Holymead
+was not simulated, and that it would be best to handle her from that
+point of view.
+
+"I am sorry," he said coldly, "but I do not see how I can help you."
+
+"Monsieur," said the Frenchwoman, clasping her hands, "I entreat you not
+to say so. It would be so easy for you to help--not me, but Madame."
+
+"How?"
+
+"You know this police agent. You also are a police agent, though so much
+greater. Therefore you whisper just one little word in the ear of your
+friend the police agent, and he will not bother Madame Holymead again. I
+think you could do this. And if you need money to give to the police
+agent, why, I have brought some." She fumbled nervously at her hand-bag.
+
+"Stay," said Crewe. "What you ask is impossible. I have nothing whatever
+to do with Scotland Yard. I could not interfere in their inquiries, even
+if I wished to. They would only laugh at me."
+
+Gabrielle's dark eyes showed her disappointment, but she made one more
+effort to gain her end. She leant nearer to Crewe, and laid a persuasive
+hand on his arm.
+
+"If you would only make the effort," she said coaxingly, "my beautiful
+Madame Holymead would be for ever grateful."
+
+"Mademoiselle, once more I repeat that what you ask is impossible,"
+returned Crewe decisively. "I repeat, I cannot see why Mrs. Holymead
+should object to answering a few questions the police wish to ask her.
+She is too sensitive about such a trifle."
+
+Gabrielle shrugged her shoulders slightly in tacit recognition of the
+fact that the man in front of her was too shrewd to be deceived by
+subterfuge.
+
+"There is another reason, monsieur," she whispered.
+
+"You had better tell it to me."
+
+"If you had been a woman you would have guessed. The great judge who was
+killed was in his spare moments what you call a gallant--he did love my
+sex. In France this would not matter, but in England they think much of
+it--so very much. Madame Holymead is frightened for fear the least breath
+of scandal should attach to her name, if the world knew that the police
+agent had visited her house on such an errand. Madame is innocent--it is
+not necessary to assure you of that; but the prudish dames of England are
+censorious."
+
+"The Scotland Yard people are not likely to disclose anything about it,"
+said Crewe.
+
+"That may be so, but these things come out," retorted Gabrielle.
+
+"Monsieur," she added, after a pause, and speaking in a low tone, "I
+know that you can do much--very much--if you will, and can stop Madame
+Holymead from being worried. Would you do so if you were told who the
+murderer was--I mean he who did really kill the great judge?" Crewe was
+genuinely surprised, but his control over his features was so complete
+that he did not betray it. "Do you know who Sir Horace Fewbanks's
+murderer is?" he asked, in quiet even tones. "Monsieur, I do. I will tell
+you the whole story in secret--how do you say?--in confidence, if you
+promise me you will help Madame Holymead as I have asked you." "I cannot
+enter into a bargain like that," rejoined Crewe. "I do not know whether
+Mrs. Holymead may not be implicated--concerned--in what you say."
+
+"Monsieur, she is not!" flashed Gabrielle indignantly. "She knows nothing
+about it. What I have to tell you concerns myself alone."
+
+"In that case," rejoined Crewe, "I think you had better speak to me
+frankly and freely, and if I can I will help you."
+
+"You are perhaps right," she replied. "I will tell you everything,
+provided you give me your word of honour that you will not inform the
+police of what I will tell you."
+
+"If you bind me to that promise I do not see how I can help you in the
+direction you indicate," said Crewe, after a moment's thought. "If the
+police are asked to abandon their inquiries about Mrs. Holymead, they
+will naturally wish to know the reason."
+
+"You are quite right," said Gabrielle. "I did not think of that. But if
+I tell you everything, and you have to tell the police agents so as to
+help Madame, will you promise that the police agents do not come and
+arrest _me_?"
+
+"Provided you have not committed murder or been in any way accessory to
+it, I think I can promise you that," rejoined Crewe.
+
+"Monsieur, I do not understand you, but I can almost divine your meaning.
+Your promise is what you call a guarded one. Nevertheless, I like your
+face, and I will trust you."
+
+Gabrielle relapsed into silence for some moments, looking at Crewe
+earnestly.
+
+"Monsieur," she said at length, "it is a terrible story I have to relate,
+and it is difficult for me to tell a stranger what I know. Nevertheless,
+I will begin. I knew the great judge well."
+
+"You knew Sir Horace Fewbanks?" exclaimed Crewe.
+
+"He was--my lover, monsieur."
+
+She brought the last two words out defiantly, with a quick glance
+at Crewe to see how he took the avowal. She seemed to find
+something reassuring in his answering glance, and she continued, in
+more even tones:
+
+"I had often seen him at the house of Madame Holymead when I came to
+London to visit her. I admired Sir Horace when I saw him--often he used
+to call and dine, for he was the friend of Monsieur Holymead. But Madame
+told me that the great judge was what in England you call a lover of the
+ladies--that he was dangerous--so I must be careful of him. I used to
+look at him when he called, and thought he was handsome in the English
+way, and sometimes he looked at me when he was unobserved, and smiled at
+me. But Madame did not like me looking at him; she said I was foolish;
+she warned me to be careful."
+
+Gabrielle shrugged her shoulders expressively.
+
+"Of what use was Madame's warning? It did but make me wish to know more
+of this great lover of my sex. He saw that, and made the opportunity, and
+made love to me. He was so ardent, so fervid a lover that I was
+conquered.
+
+"After we had been lovers I told him my secret--that I was married.
+Pierre Simon, my husband, was a bad man, and so I left him. But Madame
+must not know that I was married, for that is my secret. It does not do
+to tell everything--besides, it would have distressed her.
+
+"Monsieur, I was happy with my lover, the great judge. He was charming.
+He had that charm of manner which you English lack. Faithful? I do not
+know. Often we were together, and often we wrote letters when to meet was
+impossible. He kept my letters--they amused him so, he said--they were so
+French, so piquant, so different to English ladies' letters. Alas,
+monsieur, there had been others--many others there must have been, for he
+understood my sex so well.
+
+"One afternoon I was out for a walk looking in the great shops in Regent
+Street, when I felt a hand placed on my shoulder, and looking round I saw
+Pierre, my husband. He was pleased at the meeting, but I was not pleased.
+He took me to a café where we could talk. It was what he always did talk
+about--money, money, money. He always wanted money. He said I must find
+him some, and when I told him I had none he said I must find some way of
+getting it, or he would come to the house and expose my secret. I walked
+away out of the café and left him there. But I soon saw him again, and
+again. He followed me and talked to me against my will.
+
+"Monsieur, I was very much distressed, and for a long time I tried to
+think of a way to get rid of Pierre, for I was afraid that he would come
+to the house and tell Madame Holymead I was married. Then I thought of
+the great judge, my lover. He would know how to send Pierre away, for
+Pierre would be frightened of him. But Sir Horace was in Scotland,
+shooting the poor birds. But I wrote to him and asked him for my sake to
+come at once, because I was in distress and needed help. Monsieur, he
+came--but he came to his death. He sent me a letter to meet him at
+Riversbrook at half-past ten o'clock. He was sorry it was so late, but
+he thought it would be safer not to come to the house till after dark in
+the long summer evening, for people were so censorious. I was to tell
+Madame Holymead that I was going to the theatre with a friend.
+
+"I was so pleased to think that I would get rid of Pierre, that on the
+morning, when he stopped me to ask me again about the money, I showed him
+the letter of the great judge, and told him I would make the judge put
+him in prison if he did not go away and leave me alone. 'He is your
+lover,' said Pierre. 'I will kill him.' But I laughed, for I knew Pierre
+did not care if I had many lovers. I said to him, 'Pierre, you would
+extort the money'--blackmail, the English call it, do they not, Monsieur
+Crewe?--'but you would not kill. Sir Horace is not afraid of you. If you
+go near him he would have you taken off to gaol,' But Pierre he was deep
+in thought. Several times he said, 'I want money,' Each time I said to
+him, 'Then you must work for it,' 'That is no way to get money,' he
+answered. 'This great judge, he has much money, is it not so?'
+
+"I left him, monsieur, thinking of money. But I did not know how bad his
+thoughts were. I returned home, and I told Madame Holymead I would go to
+the theatre that night. I left the house at eight o'clock, and after
+walking along Piccadilly and Regent Street took the train to Hampstead.
+Then I walked up to the house of Sir Horace so as not to be too early.
+The gate was open and I thought that strange, but I had no thought of
+murder. As I walked up the garden I heard a shot--two shots--and then a
+cry, and the sound of something falling on the floor. The door of the
+house was open, and the light was burning in the hall. Upstairs I heard
+the noise of footsteps--quick footsteps--and then I heard them coming
+down the staircase. I was afraid, and I hid myself behind the curtains in
+the hall. The footsteps came down, and nearer and nearer, and when they
+passed me I looked out to see. Monsieur, it was Pierre. I called to him
+softly, 'Pierre, Pierre!' He looked round, and his face, it was so
+different--so dreadful. He did not know my voice, and he ran away from me
+with a cry.
+
+"Monsieur, my heart is a brave one. I have not what you call nerves, but
+when I knew I was alone in the great house with I knew not what, a great
+fear clutched me. I stood still in the hall with my eyes fixed on the
+stairs above. At first all was silent, then I heard a dreadful sound--a
+groan. I wanted to run away then, monsieur, but the good God commanded me
+to go up and into the room, where a fellow creature needed me. I went
+upstairs, and along to the door of a room which was half open. I pushed
+it wide open and went in.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_ the judge was alone there, dying. Pierre had shot him. He
+lay along the floor, gasping, groaning, and the blood dripping from his
+breast. When I saw this I ran forward and took his poor head on my knee,
+and tried to stop the blood with my handkerchief. But as I did this the
+judge groaned once more. He knew me not, though I called him by name. In
+terrible agony he writhed his head off my breast. His hand clutched at
+the hole in his breast, closing on my handkerchief. And so he died.
+
+"Monsieur, strange it may seem, but I do assure you that I became calm
+again when he was dead. I rose to my feet and looked round me in the
+room. On the floor near him I saw a revolver. I picked it up and hid it
+in my bag. The tube of it was warm. Then I sat down in a chair and
+thought what I must do. The police must not know I was there. They must
+not know he was my lover. I thought of my letters that I wrote to him. He
+had them hidden in a little drawer at the back of his desk--a secret
+drawer. Often had he showed me my letters there, and once he had showed
+me where to find the spring that opened the drawer. So I searched for the
+spring and I found it. The drawer opened and there were my letters tied
+together. I took them all and hid them in my bag, and then I closed the
+hiding place. There remained but the handkerchief which my lover held in
+his hand. I tried to get it out, but I could not. In my hurry I dragged
+it out--it came away then, but left a little bit in his hand. It did not
+show. I dared not wait longer. I turned out the light, and hurried out of
+the room and downstairs. Again I turned out the light, and closed the
+door, and hurried away.
+
+"That, monsieur, is my story."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+As Gabrielle finished her story, she cast a quick glance at Crewe's face
+as though seeking to divine his decision. But apparently she could read
+nothing there, and with an imperious gesture she exclaimed:
+
+"You will do what I ask now that I have exposed my secret--my shame to
+you--and told everything? You will save Madame Holymead from being
+persecuted by these police agents?"
+
+"I must ask you a few questions first."
+
+The contrast between the detective's quiet English tones and the
+Frenchwoman's impetuous appeal was accentuated by the methodical way in
+which Crewe slowly jotted down an entry in his open notebook. Her dark
+eyes sparkled in an agony of impatience as she watched him.
+
+"Ask them quick, monsieur, for I burn in the suspense."
+
+"In the first place, then, have you any--"
+
+"Hold, monsieur! I know what you would ask! You would say if I have any
+proofs? Stupid that I am to forget things so important. I have brought
+you the proofs."
+
+She fumbled at the clasp of her hand-bag, as she spoke, and before she
+had finished speaking she had torn it open and emptied its contents on
+the table in front of Crewe--a dainty handkerchief and a revolver.
+
+"See, monsieur!" she cried; "here is the handkerchief of which I told
+you. It is that which the judge seized when I tried to stop the blood
+flowing in his breast--look at the corner and you will see that a little
+bit has been torn off by his almost dead hand. And the revolver--it is
+that which I picked up on the floor near him. I have had it locked up
+ever since."
+
+Crewe examined both articles closely. The revolver was a small,
+nickel-plated weapon with silver chasing, with the murdered man's
+initials engraved in the handle. It had five chambers, and one of the
+cartridges had been discharged. The other four chambers were still
+loaded. Crewe carefully extracted the cartridges, and examined them
+closely. One of them he held up to the light in order to inspect it
+more minutely.
+
+"Did you do this?" he asked: "Have you been trying to fire off the
+revolver?"
+
+"No, no, monsieur," she exclaimed quickly. "I would not fire it, I do not
+understand it. I have been careful not to touch the little thing that
+sets it going."
+
+"The trigger," said Crewe. He again studied the cartridge that had
+attracted his attention. It had missed fire, for on the cap was a dint
+where the hammer had struck it. He placed the four cartridges on the
+table and turning his attention to the handkerchief examined it minutely.
+It was one of those filmy scraps of muslin and lace which ladies call a
+handkerchief--an article whose cost is out of all proportion to its
+usefulness. Gabrielle, who was watching him keenly as he examined it,
+exclaimed:
+
+"The handkerchief--a box of them--were given me by Sir Horace because he
+knew I love pretty things."
+
+She laid a finger on the missing corner, which might indeed have been
+torn off in the manner described. A scrap of the lace was missing, and it
+was evident that it had been removed with violence, for the lace around
+the gap was loosened, and the muslin slightly frayed.
+
+"You say that the corner was torn off when you wrenched the handkerchief
+from the dead man's hold?" said Crewe. "But it was not found in his hand
+by the police or anyone else. And he was not buried with it, for I
+examined the body carefully. What became of it?"
+
+Gabrielle looked at him quickly as though she suspected some trap.
+
+"You would play with me," she said at length. "What became of it? Why,
+you must surely know that the police of Scot--Scotland Yard have it. The
+police agent who called on Madame had it. What is his name--Rudolf?"
+
+"Rolfe?" exclaimed Crewe. "Has he got it?"
+
+"Yes," she replied. "He did not show it to me, but I saw it nevertheless.
+I dropped my handkerchief when I spoke at the telephone and Monsieur
+Rolfe picked it up. Quickly he studied my handkerchief--not this one,
+monsieur, but one of the same kind--and from his pocket-book he took out
+the missing piece that was in the dead man's hand and he studied them
+side by side. He thought I did not see--that my back was turned--but I
+saw in the mirror which hung on the wall. Then, when I finished my
+telephone, he bowed and said, 'Your handkerchief, mademoiselle.' It was
+not so badly done--for a clumsy police agent."
+
+She was not able to recognise how keen was Crewe's interest in her
+statement, but she saw that she had pleased him.
+
+"It is because of this that he will come again," she continued. "It is
+because of this that he would question Madame Holymead. And then what
+will happen? I do not know. The police make so many mistakes--blunders
+you English call them. Would they arrest her with their blunders? That is
+why I come to you to ask you to save her."
+
+"May I have the revolver and the handkerchief?" asked Crewe. "I will take
+great care of them."
+
+"They are at your disposal, for you will use them to confront the
+police agent."
+
+Crewe again examined the articles in silence before taking them to his
+secrétaire and locking them up in one of the pigeon-holes. Then he turned
+to Gabrielle, whose large luminous eyes met his unhesitatingly. She even
+smiled slightly--a frank engaging smile, as she remarked:
+
+"And now, monsieur, any more questions?"
+
+Crewe smiled back at her.
+
+"You have told a remarkable story, mademoiselle, and corroborated it with
+two important pieces of evidence, which are in themselves almost
+sufficient to carry conviction," he said. "But the Scotland Yard police
+are a suspicious lot, and it is necessary for me to have further
+information in order to convince them--if I am to help you as you wish."
+
+Gabrielle flashed a look of gratitude at Crewe. She understood from his
+words that he believed her story and was disposed to help her, although
+the police of Scotland Yard might prove harder to convince than him.
+
+"Bah! those police agents--they are the same everywhere," she exclaimed.
+"They deal so much with crime that their minds get the taint, and between
+the false and true they cannot tell the difference. _Que voulez-vous?_
+They are but small in brains. With you, the case is different. You have
+it here--and there." She touched her temples lightly with a finger of
+each hand. "Proceed, monsieur: ask me what questions you will. I shall
+endeavour to answer them."
+
+"You said that as you were hiding behind the curtains on the stairway
+landing, Pierre, your husband, rushed down past you. You are quite sure
+it was he?"
+
+"Of that, monsieur, unfortunately there is no doubt. I saw his face quite
+distinctly when he passed me, and when he turned round."
+
+"The light would be shining from behind, and would not reveal his face
+very closely," suggested Crewe.
+
+"Nevertheless, monsieur, it was quite sufficient for me to see Pierre
+clearly. His head was half-turned as he ran, as though he was looking
+back expecting to see the judge rise up and punish him for his dreadful
+deed, and I saw him _en silhouette_, oh, most distinctly--impossible him
+to mistake. I called softly--'Pierre!' just like that, and he turned his
+face right round, and then with a cry he disappeared along the path."
+
+"About what time was this?"
+
+"The time--it was half-past ten, for that was the time I was to be there
+according to the letter the judge sent me."
+
+"But are you sure it was half-past ten? Weren't you early? Wasn't it just
+about ten o'clock?"
+
+"No, monsieur," she replied sadly. "If it had been ten o'clock I would
+have been in time to save the life of my lover--to prevent this great
+tragedy which brings grief to so many."
+
+Crewe looked at her sharply, and then nodded his head in acquiescence of
+the fact that much misery would have been averted if she had been in time
+to save the life of Sir Horace Fewbanks.
+
+"When you went into the room, Sir Horace Fewbanks, you say, was lying on
+the floor, dying. Whereabouts in the room was he?"
+
+"If he had been in this room he would have been lying just behind you,
+with his head to the wall and his feet pointing towards that window. He
+struggled and groaned after I went in, and altered his position a little,
+but not much. He died so."
+
+Crewe rapidly reviewed his recollection of the room in which the judge
+had been killed. Once again Gabrielle's statement tallied with his own
+reconstruction of the crime and the manner of its perpetration. If the
+murder had been committed in his office the second bullet would have gone
+through the window instead of imbedding itself in the wall, and the judge
+would have fallen in the spot where she indicated.
+
+"And where was the writing-desk from where you got your letters?" was
+Crewe's next question.
+
+"It was over there--almost by that--your little bookcase there."
+
+She pointed to a small oaken bookstand which stood slightly in advance
+of the more imposing shelves in which reposed the portentous volumes
+of newspaper clippings and photographs which constituted Crewe's
+"Rogues' Library."
+
+"Now we come to the letters. You took them from the secret drawer in the
+desk. Why did you remove them?"
+
+"Because I would not have the police agents find them, for then they
+would want to know so much."
+
+"And what did you do with them?"
+
+"Monsieur Crewe, I destroyed them. When I got home I burnt them all--I
+was so frightened."
+
+"You mean you were frightened to keep them in your possession after the
+judge was killed?"
+
+"Yes. What place had I to keep them safe from prying eyes? So, monsieur,
+I burnt them all--one by one--and the charred fragments I kept and took
+into the Park next day, where I scattered them unobserved."
+
+"And what became of the letter you wrote to Sir Horace Fewbanks at
+Craigleith Hall, asking him to come to London and save you from your
+husband's persecutions?"
+
+She looked at him earnestly in the endeavour to ascertain if he had laid
+a trap for her.
+
+"Sir Horace destroyed it in Scotland, I suppose, if the police did
+not find it."
+
+"Strange that he should have kept all your other letters so carefully and
+destroyed that one. Perhaps it was in his pocket-book that was stolen."
+
+"I do not know. What does it matter? It has gone." She shrugged her
+shoulders lightly and indifferently.
+
+"Do you know who stole the pocket-book?"
+
+"No, monsieur. I thought it was stolen in the train."
+
+"That is the police theory," replied Crewe. "But let that go. Have you,
+since the night of the murder, seen anything of Pierre?"
+
+"Monsieur, I have not. It is as though the earth has him swallowed. He
+keeps silent with the silence of the grave."
+
+"He is wise to do so," responded Crewe. "Now, mademoiselle, I have no
+more questions to ask you. Your confidence is safe; you need be under no
+apprehensions on that score."
+
+"I care not for myself, Monsieur Crewe, so long as Madame Holymead is
+freed from the persecutions of the police agents," replied Gabrielle,
+rising from her seat as she spoke. "If, after hearing my story, you could
+but give me the assurance--"
+
+"I think I can safely promise you that Mrs. Holymead will not be troubled
+with any further police attentions," said Crewe, after a moment's pause.
+
+Gabrielle broke into profuse expressions of gratitude as she
+turned to go.
+
+"For the rest then, I care not what happens. I am--how do you say it--I
+am overjoyed. _Je vous remercie_, monsieur, I beg you not, I can find my
+way out unattended."
+
+But Crewe showed her to the stairs, where again he had to listen to her
+profuse thanks before she finally departed. He watched her graceful
+figure till it was lost to sight in the winding staircase, and then he
+turned back to his office. In the outer office he stopped to speak to
+Joe, who, perched on an office-footstool, was tapping quickly on the
+office-table with his pen-knife, swaying backwards and forwards
+dangerously on his perch in the intensity of his emotions as he played
+the hero's part in the drama of saving the runaway engine from dashing
+into the 4.40 express by calling up the Red Gulch station on the wire.
+
+"Joe," said Crewe, "I'll see nobody for an hour at least--nobody. You
+understand?"
+
+Joe came out of the cinema world long enough to nod his head in emphatic
+understanding of the instructions. In his own room Crewe pulled out his
+notebook and once more gave himself up to the study of the baffling
+Riversbrook mystery, in the new light of Gabrielle's confession.
+
+Part of her story, he reflected, must be true. She had produced Sir
+Horace's revolver, and, still more important, a handkerchief which he had
+clutched in his dying struggles. It was obvious that she or some other
+woman had been at Riversbrook the night of the murder, and in the room
+with the murdered man before he died. That tallied with Birchill's
+statement to Hill that he had seen a woman close the front door and walk
+along the garden path while he was hiding in the garden. Crewe, recalling
+Gabrielle's description of the room, came to the conclusion that it was
+probably she who had been with the judge in his dying moments. No one but
+a person who had actually seen it could have described the room with such
+minuteness.
+
+She had been in the room, then. For what object? For the reasons stated
+in her confession? Crewe shook his head doubtfully.
+
+"She evaded the trap about the pocket-book, but she made one bad
+mistake," he mused. "The letters in the secret drawer were taken away,
+and I have no doubt were burnt as she says. But were they her letters?
+Was Sir Horace her lover? At any rate, she did not get hold of them in
+the way she said. They were not taken away on the night Sir Horace was
+murdered, for the simple reason that they were not in the secret drawer
+at the time."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+Rolfe was spending a quiet evening in his room after a trying day's
+inquiries into a confidence trick case; inquiries so fruitless that they
+had brought down on his head an official reproof from Inspector
+Chippenfield.
+
+Rolfe had left Scotland Yard that evening in a somewhat despondent frame
+of mind in consequence, but a brisk walk home and a good supper had done
+him so much good, that with a tranquil mind and his pipe in his mouth, he
+was able to devote himself to the hobby of his leisure hours with keen
+enjoyment.
+
+This hobby would have excited the wondering contempt of Joe Leaver, whose
+frequent attendance at cinema theatres had led him to the conclusion that
+police detectives--who, unlike his master, had to take the rough with the
+smooth--spent their spare time practising revolver shooting, and throwing
+daggers at an ace of hearts on the wall. Rolfe's hobby was nothing more
+exciting than stamp collecting. He was deeply versed in the lore of
+stamps, and his private ambition was to become the possessor of a "blue
+Mauritius." His collection, though extensive, was by no means of fabulous
+value, being made up chiefly of modest purchases from the stamp
+collecting shops, and finds in the waste-paper-baskets at Scotland Yard
+after the arrival of the foreign mails.
+
+That day he had made a particularly good haul from the
+waste-paper-baskets, for his "catch" included several comparatively good
+specimens from Japan and Fiji. He sat gloating over these treasures,
+examining them carefully and holding each one up to the light as he
+separated it from the piece of paper to which it had been affixed. He
+pasted them one by one in his stamp album with loving, lingering fingers,
+adjusting each stamp in its little square in the book with meticulous
+care. He was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not hear the
+ascending footsteps drawing nearer to his door, and did not see a visitor
+at the door when the footsteps ceased. It was Crewe's voice that recalled
+him back from the stamp collector's imaginary world.
+
+"Why, Mr. Crewe," said Rolfe, with evident pleasure, "who'd have thought
+of seeing you?"
+
+"Your landlady asked me if I'd come up myself," said Crewe, in explaining
+his intrusion. "She's 'too much worried and put about, to say nothing of
+having a bad back,' to show me upstairs."
+
+"I've never known her to be well," said Rolfe, with a laugh. "Every
+morning when she brings up my breakfast I've got to hear details of her
+bad back which should be kept for the confidential ear of the doctor. But
+she regards me as a son, I think--I've been here so long. But now you are
+here, Mr. Crewe--" Rolfe waited in polite expectation that his visitor
+would disclose the object of his visit.
+
+But Crewe seemed in no hurry to do so. He produced his cigar case and
+offered Rolfe a cigar, which the latter accepted with a pleasant
+recollection of the excellent flavour of the cigars the private detective
+kept. When each of them had his cigar well alight, Crewe glanced at the
+open stamp album and commenced talking about stamps. It was a subject
+which Rolfe was always willing to discuss. Crewe declared that he was an
+ignorant outsider as far as stamps were concerned, but he professed to
+have a respectful admiration for those who immersed themselves in such a
+fascinating subject. Rolfe, with the fervid egoism of the collector,
+talked about stamps for half an hour without recalling that his visitor
+must have come to talk about something else.
+
+"I've got a small stamp collection in my office," said Crewe, when Rolfe
+paused for a moment. "It belonged to that Jewish diamond merchant who was
+shot in Hatton Gardens two years ago. You remember his case?"
+
+"Rather! That was a smart bit of work of yours, Mr. Crewe, in laying
+your hands on the woman who did it and getting back the diamond."
+
+Crewe smiled in response.
+
+"The Jew was very grateful, poor fellow. He died in the hospital after
+the trial, so she was lucky to escape with twelve years. He left me a
+diamond ring and a stamp album that had come into his possession."
+
+"I should like to see it," said Rolfe eagerly. "It is more than likely
+that there are some good specimens in it. The Jews are keen
+collectors. If you let me have a look at it, I'll tell you what the
+collection is worth."
+
+"You can have it altogether," said Crewe. "I'll send my boy Joe round
+with it in the morning."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Crewe, it's very good of you," said Rolfe, with the covetousness
+of the collector shining in his eyes.
+
+"Nonsense! Why shouldn't you have it? But I didn't come round here solely
+to talk about stamps, Rolfe. I came to have a little chat about the
+Riversbrook case. How are you getting on with it?"
+
+"Why, really," said Rolfe, "I've not done much with it since, since--"
+
+"Since Birchill was acquitted, eh! But you are not letting it drop
+altogether, are you? That would be a pity--such an interesting case.
+Whom have you your eye on now as the right man?"
+
+Rolfe, who thought he detected a suspicion of banter in Crewe's
+remarks, evaded the latter question by answering the first part of
+Crewe's inquiry.
+
+"Why hardly that, Mr. Crewe. But the chief is not very keen on the case.
+Birchill's acquittal was too much of a blow to him. He reckons that
+nowadays juries are too soft-hearted to convict on a capital charge."
+
+"It's just as well that they are too soft-hearted to convict the wrong
+man," said Crewe.
+
+"Yes; you told me from the first that we were on the wrong track," was
+the reply. "I haven't forgotten that and the chief is not allowed to
+forget it, either. All the men at the Yard know that you held the
+opinion that we had got hold of the wrong man when we arrested Birchill,
+and he has had to stand so much chaff in the office, that he's pretty raw
+about it." Rolfe spoke in the detached tone of a junior who had no share
+in his chief's mistakes or their attendant humiliation, and he added,
+"That's once more that you've scored over Scotland Yard, Mr. Crewe, and
+you ought to be proud of it." He glanced covertly at Crewe to see how he
+took the flattery.
+
+"So you've done very little about the case since Birchill was acquitted?"
+was his only remark.
+
+"I've been so busy," replied Rolfe, again evading the question, and
+avoiding meeting Crewe's glance by turning over the leaves of his stamp
+album. "You see, there has been a rush of work at Scotland Yard lately.
+There is that big burglary at Lord Emden's, and the case of the woman
+whose body was found in the river lock at Peyton, and half a dozen other
+cases, all important in their way. There has been quite an epidemic of
+crime lately, as you know, Mr. Crewe. I don't seem to get a minute to
+myself these times."
+
+"Rolfe," said Crewe drily, "you protest too much. You don't suppose that
+after coming over here to see you that I can be deceived by such talk?"
+
+Rolfe flushed at these uncompromising words, but before he could speak
+Crewe proceeded in a milder tone.
+
+"I don't blame you a bit for trying to put me off. It's all part of the
+game. We're rivals, in a sense, and you are quite right not to lose sight
+of that fact. But as a detective, Rolfe, your methods lack polish.
+Really, I blush for them. You might have known that I came over here to
+see you to-night because I had an important object in view, and you
+should have tried to find out what it was before playing your own
+cards,--and such cards, too! You're sadly lacking in finesse, Rolfe.
+You'd never make a chess player; your concealed intentions are too
+easily discovered. You must try not to be so transparent if you want to
+succeed in your profession."
+
+Crewe delivered his reproof with such good humour that Rolfe stared at
+him, as if unable to make out what his visitor was driving at.
+
+"I don't know what you are talking about, Mr. Crewe," he said at length.
+
+"Oh, yes, you do. You know I'm speaking about your latest move in the
+Riversbrook case, which you've been so busy with of late. And I've come
+to tell you in a friendly way that once more you're on the wrong track."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Rolfe quickly.
+
+"Why, Princes Gate, of course," replied Crewe cheerily. "You don't
+suppose that a fine-looking young man like yourself could be seen in the
+neighbourhood of Princes Gate without causing a flutter among feminine
+hearts there, do you?"
+
+"So the servants have been talking, have they?" muttered Rolfe.
+
+"They have and they haven't. But that's beside the point. What I want to
+say is that you're on the wrong track in suspecting Mrs. Holymead, and I
+strongly advise you to drop your inquiries if you don't want to get
+yourself into hot water. She's as innocent of the murder of Sir Horace
+Fewbanks as Birchill is, but you cannot afford to make a false shot in
+the case of a lady of her social standing, as you did with a criminal
+like Birchill."
+
+At this rebuke Rolfe gave way to irritation.
+
+"Look here, Mr. Crewe, I'll thank you to mind your own business," he
+said. "It's got nothing to do with you where I make inquiries. I'll have
+you remember that! I don't interfere with you, and I won't have you
+interfering with me."
+
+"But I'm interfering only for your own good, man! What do you suppose I'm
+doing it for? I tell you you're riding for a very bad fall in suspecting
+Mrs. Holymead and shadowing her."
+
+Crewe's plain words were an echo of a secret fear which Rolfe had
+entertained from the time his suspicions were directed towards Mrs.
+Holymead. But he was not going to allow Crewe to think he was alarmed.
+
+"If I'm making inquiries about Mrs. Holymead, it's because I have ample
+justification for doing so," he said stiffly.
+
+"And I tell you that you have not."
+
+"Prove it!" exclaimed Rolfe defiantly.
+
+Crewe produced from his pocket a revolver and a lady's handkerchief, and
+handed them to Rolfe without speaking.
+
+Rolfe's embarrassment was almost equal to his astonishment as he examined
+the articles. In the handkerchief with its missing corner, he speedily
+recognised something for which he had searched in vain. He had never
+confided to Crewe the discovery of the missing corner in the dead man's
+hand, and therefore the production of the handkerchief by Crewe
+considerably embarrassed him. He longed to ask Crewe how he had obtained
+possession of the handkerchief, but he could not trust his voice to frame
+the question without betraying his feelings, so he picked up the revolver
+and examined it closely. Then he put it down and again gave his attention
+to the handkerchief, bending his head over it so that Crewe should not
+see his face.
+
+"You do not seem very astonished at my finds, Rolfe," said Crewe
+quizzically. "Perhaps you've seen these articles before?"
+
+"No, I haven't," said Rolfe, still avoiding his visitor's eye.
+
+"Well, the torn handkerchief is not exactly new to you," said Crewe.
+"You've got the missing part; you found it in Sir Horace's hand after he
+was murdered."
+
+"You're too clever for me, and that's the simple truth, Mr. Crewe,"
+said Rolfe, in a mortified tone. "I did find a small piece of a
+lady's handkerchief in his hand, and here it is." He produced his
+pocket-book and took out the piece. "How you found out I had it, is
+more than I know."
+
+"Mere guess-work," said Crewe.
+
+Rolfe shook his head slowly.
+
+"I know better than that," he said. "You're deep. You don't miss much. I
+wish now that I had told you about that bit of handkerchief at the first.
+But Chippenfield and I wanted to have all the credit of elucidating the
+Riversbrook mystery. I hunted high and low to get trace of this
+handkerchief, but I couldn't. And now you've beaten me, although you
+couldn't have known at first that there was such a thing as a missing
+handkerchief in the case. I hope you bear me no malice, Mr. Crewe."
+
+"What for, Rolfe?"
+
+"For not telling you about the handkerchief, after I found this piece in
+Sir Horace's hand."
+
+"Not in the least," said Crewe. "Why should you have told me? I don't
+tell you everything that I find out. It's all part of the game. That
+piece of the handkerchief was a good find, Rolfe, and I congratulate you
+on getting it. How did you come to discover it?"
+
+"I was trying to force open the murdered man's hand, and I found it
+clenched between the little finger and the next. Of course it was not
+visible with his hand closed. Chippenfield, who missed it, didn't
+half like my discovery, and all along he underestimated the value of
+it as a clue."
+
+"Well, he has had to pay for his folly."
+
+"He has, and serves him right," replied Rolfe viciously. "He's the most
+pig-headed, obstinate, vain, narrow-minded man you could come across." It
+occurred to Rolfe that it was not exactly good form on his part to
+condemn his superior officer so vigorously in the presence of a rival, so
+he broke off abruptly and asked Crewe how he came into possession of the
+revolver and handkerchief.
+
+Crewe's reply was that he had obtained these articles under a promise of
+secrecy from some one who had assured him that Mrs. Holymead had no
+connection with the crime. When he was at liberty to tell the story as it
+had been told to him, Rolfe would be the first to hear it.
+
+"Mrs. Holymead had no connection with the crime?" exclaimed Rolfe
+impatiently. "Perhaps you don't know that the morning after the murder
+was discovered she went out to Riversbrook and removed some secret papers
+from the murdered man's desk--papers that he had been in the habit of
+hiding in a secret drawer?"
+
+"Yes, I know that," said Crewe.
+
+"Well, doesn't that look as if she knew something about the crime?"
+
+"Not necessarily."
+
+"Well, to me it does. What were these secret papers? They were letters,
+I am told."
+
+"I believe so. And you, Rolfe, as a man of the world, know that a married
+woman would not like the police to get possession of letters she had
+written to a man of the reputation of Sir Horace Fewbanks."
+
+"I admit that her action is capable of a comparatively innocent
+interpretation, but taken in conjunction with other things it looks to me
+mighty suspicious. In Hill's statement to us he told us that on the night
+of the murder, Birchill when hiding in the garden waiting for the lights
+to go out before breaking into the house, heard the front door slam and
+saw a stylish sort of woman walk down the path to the gate."
+
+"That was not Mrs. Holymead," said Crewe.
+
+"How do you know? If it was not her, who was it? Do you know?"
+
+"I think I know, and when I am at liberty to speak I will tell you."
+
+"Then there is a third point," continued Rolfe. "Look at this
+handkerchief you brought. I saw a handkerchief of exactly similar pattern
+at Mrs. Holymead's house when I called there."
+
+"Wasn't that the property of her French cousin, Mademoiselle Chiron?"
+
+"Yes, she dropped it on the floor while I was there. But it is probable
+the handkerchief was one of a set given her by Mrs. Holymead."
+
+"Quite probably, Rolfe. But scores of ladies who are fond of expensive
+things have handkerchiefs of a similar pattern. You will find if you
+inquire among the West End shops, that although it is a dainty, expensive
+article from the man's point of view, there is nothing singular about the
+quality or the pattern."
+
+"Perhaps so," said Rolfe, "but the possession of handkerchiefs of this
+kind is surely suspicious when taken in conjunction with her removal of
+the letters. I wish I could get hold of that infernal scoundrel Hill
+again. I am convinced that he knows a great deal more about this murder
+than he has yet told us, and a great deal more about Mrs. Holymead and
+her letters. I've had his shop watched day and night since he
+disappeared, but he keeps close to his burrow, and I've not been able to
+get on his track."
+
+"I'd give up watching for him if I were you," said Crewe, as he flicked
+the ash of his cigar into the fireplace. "You're not likely to find him
+now. As a matter of fact, he has left the country."
+
+"Hill left the country?" echoed Rolfe. "I think you are mistaken there,
+Mr. Crewe. He had no money; how could he get away?"
+
+Crewe selected another cigar from his case and lighted it before
+answering.
+
+"The fact is, I advanced him the money," he said. "Technically it's a
+loan, but I do not think any of it will be paid back."
+
+Rolfe stared hard at Crewe to see if he was joking.
+
+"What on earth made you do that?" he demanded at length. "Hill may be the
+actual murderer for all we know."
+
+"Not at all," was the reply. "Before I helped him to leave England I
+satisfied myself that he had absolutely nothing to do with the murder. He
+does not know who shot Sir Horace Fewbanks, though, of course, he still
+half believes that it was Birchill. When I got in touch with him after
+his disappearance he was in a pitiable state of fright--waking or
+sleeping, he couldn't get his mind off the gallows. There were two or
+three points on which I wanted his assistance in clearing up the
+Riversbrook case, and I promised to get him out of the country if he
+would make a clean breast of things and tell me the truth as far as he
+knew it. He made a confession--a true one this time. I took it down and
+I'll let you have a copy. There are a few interesting points on which it
+differs materially from the statement he made to the police when you and
+Chippenfield cornered him."
+
+"What are they?" asked Rolfe.
+
+"In the first place the burglary was his idea, and not Birchill's,"
+replied Crewe. "After the quarrel between Sir Horace and the girl
+Fanning, he went out to her flat and suggested to Birchill that he should
+rob Riversbrook. Hill's real object in arranging this burglary was to get
+possession of the letters which Mrs. Holymead subsequently removed, but
+he did not tell Birchill this. His plan was to go to Riversbrook the
+morning after the burglary and then break open Sir Horace's desk and open
+the secret drawer before informing the police of the burglary. To the
+police and Sir Horace it would look as though the burglar had
+accidentally found the spring of the secret drawer. With these letters in
+his possession Hill intended to blackmail Sir Horace, or Mrs. Holymead,
+without disclosing himself in the transaction.
+
+"When Sir Horace returned unexpectedly from Scotland on the 18th of
+August, Hill had just removed the letters from the desk, being afraid
+that when Birchill broke into the house he might find them accidentally.
+He was naturally in a state of alarm at Sir Horace's return. He tried to
+get an opportunity to put the letters back as Sir Horace might discover
+they had been removed, but Sir Horace dismissed him for the night before
+he could get such an opportunity. Then he went to Fanning's flat and
+told Birchill that Sir Horace had returned. Birchill was in favour of
+postponing the burglary, but Hill, who had possession of the letters,
+and did not know when he would get an opportunity to put them back,
+urged Birchill to carry out the burglary. He assured Birchill that Sir
+Horace was a very sound sleeper and that there would be no risk. In
+order to arouse Birchill's cupidity and to protect himself from the
+suspicions of Sir Horace regarding the letters, he told Birchill that he
+had seen a large sum of money in his possession when he returned, and
+that this money would probably be hidden in the secret drawer of the
+desk, until Sir Horace had an opportunity of banking it. He told
+Birchill to break open the desk, and explained to him how to find the
+spring of the secret drawer."
+
+"What a damned cunning scoundrel he is," exclaimed Rolfe, in unwilling
+admiration of the completeness of Hill's scheme. "Don't you think, Mr.
+Crewe, that, after all, he may be the actual murderer--that he told you a
+lot of lies just as he did to us? Holymead in his address to the jury
+made out a pretty strong case against him."
+
+"No one knows better than Holymead that Hill did not commit the
+murder," said Crewe. "Hill is an incorrigible liar, but he has no nerve
+for murder."
+
+"Did he put the letters back?" asked Rolfe. "He told me that Mrs.
+Holymead stole them the day after the murder was discovered. But he is
+such a liar--"
+
+"I believe he spoke the truth in that case," said Crewe. "He told me he
+put the letters back in the secret drawer the night after the murder,
+when he went to Riversbrook to report himself to Chippenfield. He put
+them back because he was afraid that if the police found them in his
+possession, they would think he had a hand in the murder. His idea was to
+remove them from the secret drawer after the excitement about the murder
+died down, and then blackmail Mrs. Holymead, but she acted with a skill
+and decision that robbed him of his chance to blackmail her."
+
+"How did you get hold of the cunning scoundrel?" asked Rolfe. "I've had
+his wife's shop watched day and night, as I've said. I made sure he would
+try to communicate with her sooner or later, but he didn't."
+
+"It was Joe who found him," said Crewe. "I knew you were watching Mrs.
+Hill's shop, so it was superfluous for me to set anybody to watch it.
+Besides, I didn't think Hill would visit his wife or attempt to
+communicate with her, for he would think that the police, if they wanted
+him, would be sure to watch the shop. I tried to consider what a man like
+Hill would do in the circumstances. He had no money--I knew that--and, so
+far as I was able to ascertain, he had no friends who were likely to hide
+him. Without friends or money he could not go very far. Finally it
+occurred to me that he might be hiding somewhere in Riversbrook--either
+in that unfinished portion of the third floor, or in one of the
+outbuildings. He knew the run of the rambling old place so well. Have you
+ever been over it carefully? No. Well, there are several good places in
+the upper stories where a man might conceal himself. I put Joe on the
+job, and after watching for several nights Joe got him. Hill had made a
+hiding place in the loft above the garage. It appears that he subsisted
+on the stores that had been left in the house; he was able to make his
+way into the main building through one of the kitchen windows. He was on
+one of these foraging expeditions when Joe discovered him--emaciated,
+dirty, and half demented through terror of the gallows."
+
+"So that is how you got him!" said Rolfe. "I never thought of looking for
+him at Riversbrook. Sometimes I am inclined to agree with you that he had
+no nerve for murder. But an unpremeditated murder doesn't want much
+nerve. He might have done it in a moment of passion." Rolfe was
+endeavouring to take advantage of Crewe's communicative mood and to
+arrive by a process of elimination at the person against whom Crewe had
+accumulated his evidence.
+
+"It was not Hill," said Crewe. "The murder was committed in a moment of
+passion, and yet it was far from being unpremeditated."
+
+"You are trying to mystify me," said Rolfe despairingly.
+
+"No; it is the case itself which has mystified you," replied Crewe.
+
+"It has," was Rolfe's candid confession. "The more thought I give it, the
+more impossible it seems to see through it. Was Sir Horace killed before
+dusk--before the lights were turned on? If he was killed after dark, who
+turned out the lights?"
+
+"He was killed between 10 and 10.30 at night," said Crewe. "The lights
+were turned out by the woman Birchill saw leaving the house about 10.30.
+But she was not the murderer, and she was not present in the room, or
+even in the house, when Sir Horace was shot. She arrived a few minutes
+too late to prevent the tragedy. Turning out the lights was an
+instinctive act due to her desire to hide the crime, or rather to hide
+the murderer."
+
+"How do you know all this?" asked Rolfe, who had been staring at Crewe
+with open-mouthed astonishment.
+
+"That woman was not Mrs. Holymead," continued Crewe. "I had a visit
+to-day from the woman who did these things, and as evidence of the truth
+of her story she brought me the revolver and the handkerchief."
+
+"What did she come to you for?" asked Rolfe, with breathless interest.
+"What did she want?"
+
+"She came to me to make a full confession," said Crewe, in even tones.
+
+"A confession!" exclaimed Rolfe. "She ought to have come to the police.
+Why didn't she come to us?"
+
+Crewe smiled at the puzzled, indignant detective.
+
+"I think she came to me because she wanted to mislead me," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+Joe Leaver, worn out after nearly a week's work of watching the movements
+of Mr. Holymead, had fallen asleep in an empty loft above a garage which
+overlooked Verney's Hotel in Mayfair. He had seen Mr. Holymead disappear
+into the hotel, and he knew from the experience gained in his watch that
+the K.C. would spend the next couple of hours in dressing for dinner,
+sitting down to that meal, and smoking a cigar in the lounge. So Joe had
+relaxed, for the time being, the new task which his master had set him,
+and had flung himself on some straw in the loft to rest. He did not
+intend to go to sleep, but he was very tired, and in a few minutes he was
+in a profound slumber.
+
+In his sleep Joe dreamed that he had attained the summit of his ambition,
+and was being paid a huge salary by an American film company to display
+himself in emotional dramas for the educational improvement of the
+British working classes. In his dream he had to rescue the heroine from
+the clutches of the villains who had carried her off. They had imprisoned
+her at the top of a "skyscraper" building and locked the lift, but Joe
+climbed the fire escape and caught the beautiful girl in his arms. The
+villains, who were on the watch, set fire to the building, and when Joe
+attempted to climb out of the window with the heroine clinging round his
+neck, the flames drove him back. As he stood there the wind swept a sheet
+of flame towards Joe until it scorched his face. The pain was so real
+that Joe opened his eyes and sprang up with a cry.
+
+A man was standing over him, a man past middle age, short and broad in
+figure, whose clean-shaven face directed attention to his protruding
+jaw. He was wearing a blue serge suit which had seen much use.
+
+"You are a sound sleeper, sonny," said the man, grinning at Joe's alarm.
+"But when you wake--why you wake up properly; I'll say that for you. You
+nearly broke my pipe, you woke up that sudden."
+
+He made this remark with such a malicious grin that Joe, whose face was
+still smarting, had no hesitation in connecting his sudden awakening with
+the hot bowl of the man's pipe. It was a joke Joe had often seen played
+on drunken men in Islington public-houses in his young days.
+
+"You just leave me alone, will you?" he said, rubbing his cheek ruefully.
+"It's nothing to do with you whether I'm a sound sleeper or not."
+
+"That's just where you're wrong, young fellow," was the reply. "It's a
+lot to do with me. Ain't your name Joe Leaver?"
+
+Joe nodded his head.
+
+"How did you find out?" he asked.
+
+"Perhaps a friend of mine pointed you out to me."
+
+"Perhaps he did, and perhaps he didn't," said Joe. "Anyway, what is
+your name?"
+
+"Mr. Kemp is my name, my boy. And unless you're pretty civil I'll give
+you cause to remember it."
+
+"What have you got to do with me?" asked the boy in an injured tone.
+"I've never done nothing to you."
+
+"You mind your P's and Q's and me and you'll get along all right," said
+Mr. Kemp, in a somewhat softer tone. "When you ask me what I've got to do
+with you, my answer is I've got a lot to do with you, for I'm your
+guardian, so to speak."
+
+Joe looked at Mr. Kemp with a gleam of comprehension in his amazement. He
+had had some experience in his Islington days of the strange phenomena
+produced by drink.
+
+"Rats!" he retorted rudely. "I've never had a guardian and I don't want
+none. What made you a guardian, I'd like to know?"
+
+"Your father did," was the reply.
+
+"Oh, him!" said Joe, in a tone which indicated pronounced antipathy to
+his parent. "Do you know him? Are you one of his sort?"
+
+"Now don't try to be insulting, my boy, or I'll take you across my knee.
+We won't say nothing about where your father is, because in high society
+Wormwood Scrubbs isn't mentioned. All we'll say is that he has been
+unfortunate like many another man before him, and that for the present he
+can't come and go as he likes. But he has still got a father's heart,
+Joe, and there are times when he worries about his family and about there
+being no one with them to keep an eye on them and see they grow up a
+credit to him. He has been particularly worried about you, Joe. So when I
+was coming away he asked me to look you up if I had time, and let him
+know how you was getting on, seeing that none of his family has gone near
+him for a matter of three years or so, though there is one regular
+visiting day each week."
+
+"I don't want to see him no more," said Joe. "He's no good."
+
+"That's a nice way for a boy to talk about his own father," said Mr.
+Kemp, in a reproving tone. "I don't know what the young generation is
+coming to."
+
+"If you want to send him word about me, you can tell him that I'm not
+going to be a thief," said Joe defiantly.
+
+"No," said Mr. Kemp tauntingly, "you'd sooner be a nark."
+
+"Yes, I would," said the boy.
+
+"And that's what you are now," declared the man wrathfully. "You're a
+nark for that fellow Crewe. I know all about you."
+
+"I'm earning an honest living," said Joe.
+
+"As a nark," said Mr. Kemp, with a sneer.
+
+"I'm earning an honest living," said the boy doggedly. So much of his
+youth had been spent among the criminal classes that he still retained
+the feeling that there was an indelible stigma attached to those
+individuals described as narks.
+
+"How can any one earn a respectable honest living by being a nark?" asked
+Mr. Kemp contemptuously. "And more than that, it's one of the best men
+that ever breathed that you are a-spying on. I'll have you know that he's
+a friend of mine. That is to say he's done things for me that I ain't
+likely to forget. There's nothing I won't do for him, if the chance comes
+my way. I'll see that no harm happens to him through you and your Mr.
+Crewe. You've got to stop this here spying. Stop it at once, do you
+understand? For if you don't, by God, I'll deal with you so that you'll
+do no more spying in this world! And I'd have you and your master know
+that I'm a man what means what he says." Mr. Kemp shook his fist angrily
+at Joe as he moved away to the door of the loft after having delivered
+his menacing warning. "My last words to you is, Stop it!" he said, as he
+turned to go down the stairs.
+
+Half an hour later Mr. Kemp entered the lounge of Verney's Hotel as
+though in quest of some one. Most of the hotel guests had finished their
+after-dinner coffee and liqueurs, and the hall was comparatively empty,
+but a few who remained raised their eyes in well-bred protest at the
+intrusion of a member of the lower orders into the corridor of an
+exclusive hotel. Mr. Kemp felt somewhat out of place, and he stared about
+the luxuriously furnished lounge with a look in which awe mingled with
+admiration. Before he could advance further, a liveried porter of massive
+proportions came up to him and barred the way.
+
+"Now, now, my man," said the porter haughtily, "what do you think you
+are doing here? This ain't your place, you know. You've made a mistake.
+Out you go."
+
+"I want to see Mr. Holymead," said Mr. Kemp in a gruff voice.
+
+Verney's was such a high-class hotel that seedy-looking persons seldom
+dared to put a foot within the palatial entrance. The porter, unused to
+dealing with the obtrusive impecunious type to which he believed Mr. Kemp
+to belong, made the mistake of trying to argue with him.
+
+"Want to see Mr. Holymead?" he repeated. "How do you know he's here? Who
+told you? What do you want to see him for?"
+
+"What's that got to do with you?" retorted Mr. Kemp. "You don't think Mr.
+Holymead would like me to discuss his business with the likes of you?
+That ain't what you're here for. You go and tell Mr. Holymead that some
+one wants to see him. Tell him Mr. Kemp wants to see him." Mr. Kemp drew
+himself up and buttoned the coat of his faded serge suit.
+
+The porter, uncertain how to deal with the situation, looked around for
+help. The manager of the hotel emerged from the booking office at that
+moment, and the porter's appealing look was seen by him. The manager
+approached. He was faultlessly attired, suave in demeanour, and walked
+with a noiseless step, despite his tendency to corpulence. It was his
+daily task to wrestle with some of the manifold difficulties arising out
+of the eccentricities of human nature as exhibited by a constant stream
+of arriving and departing guests. But though he approached the distressed
+porter with full confidence in his ability to deal with any situation,
+his eyebrows arched in astonishment as he took in the full details of the
+intruder's attire.
+
+"What does this mean, Hawkins?" he exclaimed, in a tone of disapproval.
+
+The porter trembled at the implication that he had grievously failed in
+his duty by allowing such an individual as Mr. Kemp to get so far within
+the exclusive portals of Verney's, and in his nervousness he relaxed from
+the polish of the hotel porter to his native cockney.
+
+"This 'ere party says 'e wants to see Mr. Holymead, Sir."
+
+The manager went through the motion of washing a spotlessly clean pair of
+hands, and then brought the palms together in a gentle clap. He smiled
+pityingly at Hawkins and then looked condescendingly at Mr. Kemp.
+
+"Wants to see Mr. Holymead, does he?" he said, transferring his glance to
+the worried porter. "And didn't you tell him that Mr. Holymead has gone
+to the theatre and won't be back for some considerable time?"
+
+"That's a lie!" said Mr. Kemp, who had acquired none of the art of
+dealing with his fellow men, and was too uneducated to appreciate art in
+any form. "I've been watching over the other side of the street, and I
+saw him passing a window not ten minutes ago. I'm going to see him if I
+wait here all night. I'll soon make meself comfortable on one of them big
+chairs." He pointed to an empty chair beside a man in evening dress, who
+was holding a conversation with a haughty looking matron. "You tell Mr.
+Holymead Mr. Kemp wants to see him," he said to the manager.
+
+"What name did you say?" asked the manager in a tone which seemed to
+express astonishment that the lower orders had names.
+
+"Mr. Kemp. You tell him Mr. Kemp wants to see him on important business."
+He walked towards the vacant chair and seated himself on it. He dug his
+toes into the velvet pile carpet with the air of a man who was trying to
+take anchor. Fortunately the man on the adjoining chair, and the haughty
+matron, were so engrossed in their conversation that they did not notice
+that the air in their immediate vicinity was being polluted by the
+presence of a man in shabby clothes and heavy boots.
+
+The manager despatched the porter in search of Mr. Holymead and then went
+in pursuit of Mr. Kemp.
+
+"Will you come this way, if you please, Mr. Kemp?" he said, with a low
+bow.
+
+He saw that Mr. Kemp was following him and led the way into an
+unfrequented corner of the smoking room, where, with the information
+that Mr. Holymead would come to him in a few moments, he asked Mr. Kemp
+to be seated.
+
+The manager withdrew a few yards, and then took up a position which
+enabled him to guard the hotel guests from having their digestions
+interfered with by the contaminating spectacle of a seedy man. To the
+manager's great relief, Mr. Holymead appeared, having been informed by
+the hall porter that a party who said his name was Kemp had asked to see
+him. The manager hurried towards Mr. Holymead and endeavoured to explain
+and apologise, but the K.C. assured him that there was nothing to
+apologise for. He went over to the corner of the smoking room, where the
+visitor who had caused so much perturbation was waiting for him.
+
+"Well, Kemp, what do you want?" There was nothing in his manner to
+indicate that he was put out by Mr. Kemp's appearance. He spoke in quiet
+even tones such as would seem to suggest that he was well acquainted with
+his visitor.
+
+"Can I speak to you on the quiet for a moment, sir?" whispered
+Kemp hoarsely.
+
+Holymead looked round the room. The manager had gone back to the booking
+office and Hawkins had vanished. The few people who were in the room
+seemed occupied with their own affairs.
+
+"No one will overhear us if we speak quietly," he said as he took a seat
+close to Kemp. "What is it?"
+
+"You're watched and followed, sir," said Kemp in a whisper. "Somebody has
+been watching this place for days past and whenever you go out you're
+followed."
+
+"By whom?" asked Holymead.
+
+"By a varmint of a boy--a slippery young imp whose father's in gaol for
+a long stretch. I got hold of him this afternoon and told him what I'd
+do to him if he kept on with his game. He's living in an old loft at
+the back of the hotel garage, and he keeps a watch on you day and
+night. I thought I'd better come here and tell you, as you mightn't
+know about him."
+
+"You did quite right, Kemp. What's this boy like?"
+
+"An undersized putty-faced brat with a big head. He's about fourteen or
+fifteen, I should say."
+
+"Who is he? Do you know him?"
+
+"Leaver is the name, sir. To tell you the truth, I don't know him as well
+as I know his father. His father is a 'lifer' for manslaughter. I've
+known him both in and out of gaol. And when I was coming out four months
+ago Bob Leaver, this here boy's father, asked me to look up his family
+and send him word about them. I went to the address Bob told me, in
+Islington, but I found they had all gone. The mother was dead and the
+kids--a girl and this here boy--had cleared out. The old Jew who had the
+second-hand clothes shop Mrs. Leaver used to keep told me that the boy
+had gone off with that private detective, Crewe, more than two years ago.
+So it looks to me as if he has turned nark and Crewe has put him on to
+watch you."
+
+"Can you describe this boy more closely?"
+
+"Well, sir, I don't know if I can say anything more about him except that
+he has red hair and big bright eyes that are too large for his face."
+
+"I thought so," said Holymead as if speaking to himself. "It's the
+same boy."
+
+"What did you say, sir?" asked Kemp.
+
+"Nothing, Kemp, except that I think I've seen a boy of this description
+hanging about the street near the hotel."
+
+Holymead rose to his feet as he spoke, as an indication that the
+interview was at an end. Kemp got up and looked at him anxiously.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir, for coming here," he said, fumbling with the rim
+of his hat as he spoke. "I didn't know how you'd take it, but I hope I've
+done right. They didn't want to let me see you."
+
+"You did quite right, Kemp. I am very much obliged to you." He was
+feeling in his pocket for silver, but Kemp stopped him.
+
+"No, no, sir. I don't want to be paid anything. I wanted to oblige you
+like; I wanted to do you a good turn. I'd do anything for you, sir--you
+know I would."
+
+"I believe you would, Kemp. Good night."
+
+"Good night, sir."
+
+As Kemp passed down the hall he met the manager, who was obviously
+pleased to see such an unwelcome visitor making his departure. Kemp
+scowled at the manager as if he were a valued patron of the hotel and
+said, "It seems to me that you don't know how to treat people properly
+when they come here."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+It was the first occasion on which Mrs. Holymead had visited her
+husband's chambers in the Middle Temple. Mr. Mattingford, who had been
+Mr. Holymead's clerk for nearly twenty years, seemed to realise that the
+visit was important, though as a married man he knew that a meeting
+between husband and wife in town was usually so commonplace as to verge
+on boredom for the husband. There were occasions when he had to meet Mrs.
+Mattingford, but these meetings were generally for the purpose of handing
+over to the lady her weekly dress allowance of ten shillings out of his
+salary, so that she might attend the sales at the big drapery shops in
+the West End and inspect the windows containing expensive articles that
+she could not hope to buy. Mr. Mattingford was an exceedingly thrifty
+man, and his wife possessed some of the qualities of a spendthrift. Thus
+it came about that Mr. Mattingford kept up the fiction that he had no
+savings and that each week's salary must see him through till the next
+week. Mrs. Mattingford knew that her husband had saved money, and
+theoretically she would have given a great deal to know how much. She
+repeatedly accused him of being a miser, but this is a wifely
+denunciation which in all classes of life is lightly made when the
+purchase of feminine finery is under discussion. There are some men who
+resent it, but Mr. Mattingford was not one of these. Protests and
+prayers, abuse and cajolery, were alike powerless to win his consent to
+his wife's perpetual proposal that she should be allowed to draw her
+dress allowance for some months, or even some weeks ahead. Mr.
+Mattingford had a horror of bad debts. He endeavoured to show his wife
+that the transaction she proposed was unsound from a business point of
+view and reckless from a legal point of view. She had no security to
+offer for the repayment of the advance--even if he were in a financial
+position to make the advance--and he stoutly declared that he was not.
+She might die at any moment, and then he would be left with no means of
+redress against her estate because she had no estate. Of course, if she
+first insured her life out of her dress allowance and handed the policy
+to him it would constitute protection for the repayment of the advance,
+in the event of her death, but it was not any real protection in the
+event of her continuing to live, for a newly-executed policy had no
+surrender value. As his own legal adviser, Mr. Mattingford strongly urged
+himself not to consider his wife's proposal, and such was his respect for
+the law and for those who had been brought up in a legal atmosphere that
+he had no hesitation in accepting the advice.
+
+He was a little man of nearly fifty years, with a very bald head and an
+extremely long moustache, which when waxed at the ends made him look as
+fierce as a clipped poodle. He knew Mrs. Holymead from his having called
+frequently at his chief's house in Princes Gate on business matters, and
+he admired her for her good looks, but still more for her good taste in
+staying away from her husband's chambers. There were some ladies, the
+wives of barristers, who almost haunted their husbands' chambers--a
+practice of which Mr. Mattingford strongly disapproved. It seemed to him
+an insidious attempt on the part of an insidious sex to force the legal
+profession to throw open its doors to women. As a man who lived in the
+mouldy atmosphere of precedent, Mr. Mattingford hated the idea of change,
+and to him the thought of a lady in wig and gown pleading in the law
+courts indicated not merely change but a revolution which might well
+usher in the end of the world. So strict was he in keeping the precincts
+of the law sacred from the violating tread of women that he never
+allowed his wife to set foot in the Middle Temple. Their meetings on
+those urgent occasions when Mrs. Mattingford came to town for her dress
+allowance in order to go bargain-hunting took place at one of the cheap
+tearooms in Fleet Street.
+
+Although Mr. Mattingford was somewhat flustered by the unexpected
+appearance of Mrs. Holymead, he did not depart from precedent to the
+extent of regarding her as entitled to any other treatment than that
+accorded to clients who called on business. He asked her if she wanted to
+see Mr. Holymead, placed a chair for her, then knocked deferentially at
+his chief's door, went inside to announce Mrs. Holymead to her husband,
+and came out with the information that Mr. Holymead would see her. He
+held open the door leading into his chief's private room, and after Mrs.
+Holymead had entered closed it softly and firmly.
+
+But the formal business manner of Mr. Mattingford to his chief's wife
+seemed to her friendly and cordial compared with the strained greetings
+she received from her husband. He motioned her to a chair and then got up
+from his own.
+
+"I wrote to you to come and see me here instead of going to the house
+to see you," he said, "because I thought it would be better for both.
+It would have given the servants something to talk about. I hope you
+don't mind?"
+
+She looked at him with her large dark eyes in which there was more than a
+suggestion of tears. What she had read into his note, when she received
+it, was his determination not to go to his home to see her for fear she
+would interpret that as a first step towards reconciliation.
+
+"What I wanted to speak to you about is this detective Crewe whom Miss
+Fewbanks has employed in connection with her father's death," he
+continued.
+
+Her breath came quickly at this unwelcome information. She noted that he
+had spoken of Sir Horace's death and not his murder.
+
+He began pacing backwards and forwards across the room as if with the
+purpose of avoiding looking at her.
+
+"This man Crewe is a nuisance--I might even say a danger. I don't know
+what he has found out, but I object to his ferreting into my affairs. He
+must be stopped."
+
+She nodded her assent, for she could not trust herself to speak. Each
+time he turned his back on her as he crossed the room her eyes followed
+him, but as he faced her she turned her gaze on the floor.
+
+"There is no legal redress--no legal means of dealing with his
+impertinent curiosity," he went on. "He is within his rights in trying to
+find out all he can. But if he is allowed to go on unchecked the thing
+may reach a disastrous stage. I have no doubt that he knows that I was at
+Riversbrook the night that man was killed. He was not long in getting on
+the track of that. And the more mysterious my visit seems to him--and the
+fact that I have not disclosed to the police that I went up to
+Riversbrook and saw Sir Horace on the night of the tragedy is to his way
+of thinking very significant--the more reason is there for suspecting me
+of complicity in the crime."
+
+When he turned to cross the room her eyes lingered on him and she glanced
+quickly at his face.
+
+"I don't want to dwell on matters that must pain you--that must pain us
+both," he said slowly, "but it is necessary that you should be made
+acquainted with the danger that threatens me from this man. I am anxious
+to avoid anything in the nature of a public scandal--I am anxious quite
+as much if not more on your account than my own. But if this wretched man
+is allowed to go on trying to build up a case against me--and I must
+admit that he would probably obtain circumstantial evidence of a kind
+which would make some sort of a case for the prosecution--there is grave
+danger of everything coming out. If he went to the length of having me
+arrested and charged with the crime, there are bound to be some
+disclosures and the newspapers would make the most of them. It is
+impossible to foresee the exact nature of them, but I do not see how I
+could adopt any line of defence which would not hint at things that are
+best unrevealed. You yourself might be so ill-advised as to tell the
+whole story in the end. Of course, I would try to prevent you, and as far
+as the trial is concerned, I think I could use means to prevent you. But
+if the result was unfavourable--and knowing what eccentric things juries
+do, we must recognise the possibility of an unfavourable verdict--you
+might consider it advisable to disclose everything in the hope of having
+the conviction quashed by an appeal."
+
+For the first time since she had sat down he looked at her, and as he
+caught her upward gaze he flushed.
+
+"I would tell everything if you were arrested," she said, in a low voice.
+
+"Ah, so I thought," he said, in a tone of disapproval. "The question now
+is what means can be adopted to prevent a catastrophe. I have thought
+earnestly about it, and as you are almost as much concerned in preventing
+public disclosures as I am, I desired to consult you before taking any
+definite course. It is this man Crewe who is the danger, and the question
+is how are we to stop him proceeding to extremes. One way is for me to
+see him and take him into my confidence--to explain fully to him what
+happened. He would not be satisfied with less than the full story. If I
+kept anything back his suspicions would remain; in fact, they would be
+strengthened. I would have to explain to him why and how I induced Sir
+Horace to return unexpectedly from Scotland on that fatal night, and what
+took place at Riversbrook. You will understand why I have hesitated to
+adopt that course. I would not suggest it to you now except that I see it
+would save you from the danger of something a great deal worse. Of
+course it would save me from the annoyance of being suspected of knowing
+something about the actual murder, but it is your interests that come
+first in the matter. It would be effective in putting an end to all our
+fears--all my fears. I would bind him to secrecy, of course. I do not ask
+you to come to a decision immediately, but I do ask you to think it over
+and let me know. I have been extremely reluctant to put this proposal
+before you, because I should hate carrying it out, because I should hate
+telling this man of things which are really no concern of anyone but
+ourselves. But I cannot disguise from myself that it would remove a
+greater danger. I believe the secret would be safe with him. I understand
+that in private life he is a gentleman, and that I would be safe in
+taking his word of honour. It would not be necessary for him to tell the
+police--still less to tell Miss Fewbanks."
+
+"Is there no other way?" she asked. "Have you thought of any other way?"
+
+"Yes. The only other way out that I have been able to find is for me to
+see Miss Fewbanks and ask her to withdraw the case from Crewe. I would
+not tell her everything--I would not bring you into it at all. But I
+could tell her that I had had an urgent matter to discuss with her
+father; that he came from Scotland to discuss it with me, and that after
+I left him he was murdered. I would tell her that it was quite impossible
+for me to disclose what the business was about, but that Crewe, having
+learnt that I had seen her father that night, was extremely suspicious. I
+would ask her to accept my word of honour that I had no knowledge of who
+killed her father, and to relieve me of the annoyance of the attentions
+of this man Crewe. I think she would agree to that proposal. That is the
+other way out, and from something which has happened this morning I am
+inclined to think that it is the better and quicker course to pursue."
+
+She was thinking so deeply that she did not reply. At length she became
+conscious of a long silence.
+
+"It is very good of you to ask my opinion--to consult with me at all. It
+is you that have everything at stake. I would like to do my best, but I
+think if you gave me time--Is there any great urgency? Two days at most
+is all I want."
+
+"I cannot give you two days," he replied, with a sombre smile. "You must
+decide to-day--at once--otherwise it will be too late."
+
+She looked at him with parted lips and alarm in her eyes.
+
+"What do you mean?" she breathed. "What have you hidden? Is the danger
+immediate?"
+
+"I think so. For some days past my movements have been dogged by a boy in
+Crewe's employ. Nearly a week ago I decided, after the worry and anxiety
+of this--this unhappy affair, to go away for a short trip. I thought a
+sea-voyage to America and back might do me good and fit me for my work
+again." He sighed unconsciously, and went on: "Crewe has become
+acquainted with my intended departure and has placed his own
+interpretation on it. He assumes that I am seeking safety in flight--that
+I have no intention of coming back to England. The result has been that
+the boy Crewe had set to watch my movements has been replaced by two men
+from Scotland Yard--one watching these chambers from the front, and the
+other from the rear." He walked across to the window and glanced quickly
+through the curtain. "Yes, they are still here."
+
+She sprang from her seat and followed him to the window.
+
+"Where are they?" she gasped. "Show them to me."
+
+"There. Do not move the curtain or they will suspect we are watching
+them. Look a little to the left, by the lamp-post. The other you can
+catch a glimpse of if you look between those two trees."
+
+"What does it mean? Why are they waiting?" she burst out. Her face had
+gone very pale, and her big dark eyes glared affrightedly from the window
+to her husband.
+
+"Hush! I beg you not to lose your self-control; it is essential neither
+of us should lose our heads," he said, warningly.
+
+She regained command of herself with an effort, and whispered, rather
+than spoke, with twitching lips;
+
+"What does the presence of these men mean?"
+
+"It means that Crewe has already communicated with Scotland Yard."
+
+"And that you will be arrested for _his_ murder?" Her trembling lips
+could hardly frame the words.
+
+"I think so--it's almost certain. But apparently the warrant is not yet
+issued, or those men would come here and arrest me. But they are watching
+to prevent my escape--if I thought of escaping. We may yet have a few
+hours to arrange something, but you must come to a prompt decision."
+
+"Tell me what to do, and I will do it. Oh, let me help you if I can. What
+is the best thing to do? To see Crewe?"
+
+"No. I forbid you to see Crewe," he said harshly. "If we decide on that
+course I will see him myself."
+
+"And you may be arrested the moment you go out of these chambers," she
+returned. "Oh, no, no; that is not a good plan--we have not the time. I
+will go to Mabel Fewbanks at once, and beg her, for all our sakes, not to
+allow this to go any further."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"You must not sacrifice yourself," he said. "That would be foolish."
+
+"I will not sacrifice myself. I would tell her just what you have told
+me--that her father came from Scotland to discuss an urgent matter with
+you, and that he was murdered after you left. I feel certain this man
+Crewe is going to extremes without her knowledge or consent, and that she
+will be the first to bury this awful thing when she learns that you have
+been implicated. Is not this the best thing to do?"
+
+"It is," he reluctantly admitted. "But I do not wish you to be mixed up
+in it at all."
+
+"I am not mixing myself up in it--I am too selfish for that. But I swear
+to you if you do not let me do this I will confess everything. I know
+Mabel Fewbanks, and I repeat, she is not aware of what this man Crewe has
+done. She would not--will not, permit it. I shall go down to Dellmere at
+once." Her face was pale, and her eyes glittered as she looked at her
+husband, but she spoke with unnatural self-possession. With feverish
+energy she pulled on a glove she had taken off when she entered, and
+buttoned it. "I will--I shall--arrive in time. In two hours--in three at
+most--you will hear from me."
+
+She passed out into the outer office before her husband could reply, and
+closed the door behind her. Mr. Mattingford dashed to open the outer door
+of his room leading into the main staircase. He thought Mrs. Holymead
+looked strange as she passed him and descended the stairs, and he rubbed
+his hands gleefully. He came to the conclusion that she had come in for a
+cheque for £50 as an advance of her dress allowance, and that her request
+had been refused.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+She left her husband's chambers with her brain in a whirl, hardly knowing
+where she was going until she found herself held up with a stream of
+pedestrians at the island intersection of Waterloo Bridge and the Strand.
+She thought the policeman who was regulating the traffic eyed her
+curiously, and, more with the object of evading his eye than with any set
+plan in her mind, she stepped into an empty taxi-cab which was waiting to
+cross the street.
+
+"Where to, ma'am?" asked the driver.
+
+"Where to?" she repeated vacantly. With an effort of will she
+concentrated her thoughts on the task in front of her, and hastily added,
+"To Victoria, as quick as you can. No--wait--driver, first take me to the
+nearest bookstall."
+
+The taxi-cab took her to a bookstall in the Strand, where she got out and
+purchased a railway guide. As the taxi-cab proceeded towards Victoria she
+hastily turned the pages to the trains for Dellmere. She had never been
+to Dellmere, but she had heard from Miss Fewbanks that her father's place
+was reached from a station called Horleydene, on the main line to
+Wennesden, and that though there were many through trains, comparatively
+few stopped at Horleydene. But she was unused to time-tables, and found
+it difficult to grasp the information she required. There was such a
+bewildering diversity of letters at the head of the lists of trains for
+that line, and so many reference notes on different pages to be looked up
+before it was possible to ascertain with any degree of certainty what
+trains stopped at Horleydene on week-days, that, in her shaken frame of
+mind, with the necessity for hurry haunting her, she became confused,
+and failed to comprehend the perplexing figures. She signalled to the
+driver to stop, and handed him the book.
+
+"I cannot understand this time-table," she said, in an agitated way.
+"Would you find out for me, please, when the next train leaves Victoria
+for Horleydene?"
+
+The driver consulted the time-table with a businesslike air.
+
+"The next train leaves at 12.40," he informed her. "After that there
+isn't another one stopping there till 4.5."
+
+Mrs. Holymead consulted her watch anxiously.
+
+"It's almost half-past twelve now. Can you catch the 12.40?" she asked.
+
+The driver looked dubious.
+
+"I'll try, ma'am, but it'll take some doing. It depends whether I get a
+clear run at Trafalgar Square."
+
+"Try, try!" she cried. "Catch it, and I will double your fare."
+
+She caught the train with a few seconds to spare. She had a first-class
+compartment to herself, and as the train rushed out of London, and the
+grimy environs of the metropolis gradually gave place to green fields,
+she endeavoured to compose her mind and collect her thoughts for her
+coming interview with the daughter of the murdered man. But her mind was
+in such a distraught condition that she could think of no plan but to
+sacrifice herself in order to save her husband. With cold hands pressed
+against her hot forehead, she muttered again and again, as if offering up
+an invocation that gained force by repetition:
+
+"I must save him. I will tell her everything."
+
+The train ran into Horleydene shortly after two, and Mrs. Holymead was
+the only passenger who alighted at the lonely little wayside station
+which stood in a small wood in a solitude as profound as though it had
+been in the American prairie, instead of the heart of an English
+county. The only sign of life was a dilapidated vehicle with an
+elderly man in charge, which stood outside the station yard all day
+waiting for chance visitors.
+
+"Cab, ma'am?" exclaimed the driver of this vehicle in an ingratiating
+voice, touching his hat.
+
+"No, thank you," replied Mrs. Holymead. "I'll walk."
+
+Miss Fewbanks was astonished when the parlourmaid announced the arrival
+of Mrs. Holymead. She hurried to the drawing-room to meet her visitor,
+but the warm greeting she offered her was checked by her astonishment at
+the ill and worn appearance of her beautiful friend.
+
+"Please, don't," said the visitor, as she held up a warning hand to keep
+away a sisterly kiss. She looked at Miss Fewbanks with the air of a woman
+nerving herself for a desperate task, and said quickly: "I have dreadful
+things to tell you. You can never think of me again except with
+loathing--with horror."
+
+The impression Miss Fewbanks received was that her visitor had taken
+leave of her senses. This impression was deepened by Mrs. Holymead's
+next remark.
+
+"I want you to save my husband."
+
+There was an awkward pause while Mrs. Holymead waited for a reply and
+Miss Fewbanks wondered what was the best thing to do.
+
+"Say you will save him!" exclaimed Mrs. Holymead. "Do what you like with
+me, but save him."
+
+"Don't you think, dear, you would be better if you had a rest and a
+little sleep?" said Miss Fewbanks. "I am sure you could sleep if you
+tried. Come upstairs and I'll make you so comfortable."
+
+"You think I am mad," said the elder woman. "Would to God that I was."
+
+"Come, dear," said Miss Fewbanks coaxingly. She turned to the door and
+prepared to lead the way upstairs.
+
+"Sleep!" exclaimed Mrs. Holymead bitterly. "I have not had a peaceful
+sleep since your father was killed. I have been haunted day and night. I
+cannot sleep."
+
+"I know it was a dreadful shock to you, but you must not take it so much
+to heart. You must see your doctor and do what he tells you. Mr. Holymead
+should send you away."
+
+At the mention of her husband's name Mrs. Holymead came back to the
+thought that had been foremost in her mind.
+
+"Will you save him?" she exclaimed.
+
+"You know I will do anything I can for him," answered the girl gently.
+Her intention was to humour her visitor, for she was quite sure that Mr.
+Holymead was in no danger.
+
+"Will you stop Mr. Crewe?"
+
+"Stop Mr. Crewe?" Miss Fewbanks repeated the words in a tone that showed
+her interest had been awakened. "Stop him from what?"
+
+"Stop him from arresting my husband."
+
+"Do you mean to say that Mr. Crewe thinks Mr. Holymead had anything to do
+with the murder of my father?"
+
+"If I tell you everything will you stop him? Oh, Mabel, darling, for the
+sake of the past--before I came on the scene to mar the lives of both of
+them--will you save him? It is I--not he--who should pay the penalty of
+this awful tragedy. Will you save him?"
+
+"Tell me everything," said the girl firmly.
+
+To the stricken wife there was a promise in the demand for light, and in
+broken phrases she poured out her story of shame and sorrow. With a
+feeling that everything was falling away from her the girl learnt from
+her visitor's disconnected story that there had been a liaison between
+her murdered father and her friend. Mr. Holymead had discovered it after
+Sir Horace had gone to Scotland and husband and wife were away in the
+country. He was at first distracted at finding that his lifelong friend
+had seduced his wife, then he made her promise not to see or communicate
+with Sir Horace until he made up his mind what course of action to take.
+Three days later he caught an evening train to London and told her he
+was not returning, but would write to her.
+
+It crossed her mind that he had gone up to London to meet Sir Horace, and
+in her distress at the thought of what might happen when they met she
+consulted her cousin Gabrielle, who had always been in her confidence.
+Gabrielle had offered to go to Riversbrook to see if Sir Horace had
+returned from Scotland, or was expected back. Her train was delayed by an
+accident, and when she arrived at Riversbrook it was after half-past ten.
+She arrived a few minutes too late to prevent the tragedy. She found the
+front door open and the electric light burning in the hall. She went up
+the staircase and in the library she found Sir Horace, who was lying on
+the floor at the point of death. She tried to lift him to a sitting
+position, but with a convulsive gasp he died in her arms.
+
+She laid him down and then looked hurriedly around the room with the
+object of removing any evidence of how or why the crime had been
+committed, her main thought being to save her friend from the shame of a
+public scandal. She picked up a revolver which was lying on the floor
+near Sir Horace, turned out the lights in the library and in the hall so
+that the house was in darkness, and then closed the hall door after her
+as she went out. But Mr. Crewe had discovered in some way that Mr.
+Holymead had visited Sir Horace that night. Only a week ago Gabrielle had
+gone to him and tried to put him off the track, but it was no use.
+
+The wretched woman made a pathetic appeal for her husband's life. She
+deplored the sinfulness which had resulted in the tragedy. She took on
+herself the blame for it all. She had sent one man to his death, and her
+husband stood in peril of a shameful death on the gallows. But it was in
+the power of Mabel to save him. On her knees she pleaded for his life;
+she pleaded to be saved from the horror of sending her husband to the
+gallows. If Mabel's father could make his wishes known he too would
+plead for the life of the friend he had betrayed.
+
+The door opened and the parlourmaid entered. Miss Fewbanks stepped
+quickly across the room so that she should not witness the distress of
+Mrs. Holymead. The servant handed her a card and waited for instructions.
+Miss Fewbanks looked at the card in an agony of indecision. Then she made
+up her mind firmly.
+
+"Show him into my study," she whispered to the girl.
+
+She returned to her visitor, who was sitting with her face buried in
+her hands.
+
+"Mr. Crewe has just motored down," she said. "I will save your husband
+if I can."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+She was conscious that the revelation that her father had been killed
+by Mr. Holymead was a less shock than the revelation that her father
+had dishonoured the great friendship of his life by seducing his
+friend's wife. Her father had been dead three months, and her grief had
+run its course. The shock caused by the discovery that he had been
+murdered had passed away, and she had begun to accept his violent death
+as part of her own experience of life. But the discovery that he had
+betrayed his best friend, in a way that a pure-minded woman regards as
+the most dishonourable way possible, was a fresh revelation to her of
+human infamy.
+
+The knowledge that her father had been a man of immoral habits was not
+new to her. His predilection for fast women had long ago made it
+impossible for her to live in the same house with him for more than a
+week at a time. But that he had trampled in the mire the lifelong
+friendship of an honourable man for the sake of an ignoble passion
+revealed an unexpected depth of shame. That Mr. Holymead had killed him
+seemed almost a natural result of the situation. It was not that she felt
+that a just retribution had overtaken her father, but rather that she was
+glad his shameful conduct had come to an end. As she thought of her dead
+father--dead these three months--she gave a sigh of relief. The wretched
+guilty woman, who had shared with him the shame of his ignoble intrigue,
+had said that if her father could make his wishes known he would plead
+for the life of the friend he had dishonoured. But it was not her
+father's plea for the life of his friend that would have impressed her so
+much as a plea to bury the whole unsavoury scandal from the light. She
+had promised to save Mr. Holymead if she could, but that promise had
+sprung less from the spirit of mercy than from the desire to save her
+father's name from a scandal, which would hold him up to public obloquy.
+
+She greeted Crewe with friendly warmth in spite of the feeling of
+oppression caused by the consciousness of the situation in front of her.
+He did not sit down again after greeting her, but stood with one hand
+resting on an inlaid chess table, with wonderful carved red and white
+Japanese chessmen ranged on each side, which he had been examining when
+she entered the room.
+
+"I came down to make my report to you because I think my work is
+finished," he said.
+
+"You have found out who killed my father?" she asked quietly.
+
+Crewe had sufficient personal pride to feel a little hurt when he saw the
+calm way in which she accepted the result of his investigations, instead
+of congratulating him on his success in a difficult task.
+
+"I think so," he said. "Before I tell you who it is you must prepare
+yourself for a great shock."
+
+"I know who it is" she said--"Mr. Holymead."
+
+There was no pretence about his astonishment.
+
+"How on earth did you find out?"
+
+She smiled a little at such a revelation of his appreciation of his own
+cleverness in having probed the mystery.
+
+"I did not find it out," she said. "I had to be told."
+
+"And who told you, Miss Fewbanks?" he asked. "Has he confessed to you?
+How long have you known it?"
+
+"I have known it only a few minutes," she said. "Will you tell me how you
+got on the track and all you have done? I am greatly interested. You have
+been wonderfully clever to find out. I should never have guessed Mr.
+Holymead had anything to do with it--I should never have thought it
+possible. When you have finished I will tell you how I came to know. The
+story is extremely simple--and sordid."
+
+The fact that the key of the mystery had been in her hands only a few
+minutes was a solace to Crewe, as it detracted but little from the story
+he had to tell of patient investigations extending over weeks.
+
+He pieced together the story of the tragedy as he had unravelled it.
+Hill, he said, had conceived the idea of blackmailing her father after he
+had discovered the existence of some letters in a secret drawer of Sir
+Horace's desk. The fact that Sir Horace had kept these letters instead of
+destroying them as he had destroyed other letters of a somewhat similar
+kind showed that he was very much infatuated with the lady who wrote
+them. That lady, as doubtless Miss Fewbanks had guessed, was Mrs.
+Holymead--a lady with whom Sir Horace had been on very friendly terms
+before she married Mr. Holymead.
+
+"What became of the letters?" asked Miss Fewbanks. "Have you got them?"
+
+"I think they are destroyed," he said. "Mrs. Holymead removed them from
+the secret drawer the day after the discovery of the murder. She
+removed them when the police had charge of the house, and almost from
+under the eyes of Inspector Chippenfield. It was a daring plan and well
+carried out."
+
+Miss Fewbanks heaved a sigh of relief on learning the fate of the
+letters. It had been her intention to endeavour to obtain them if they
+were in Crewe's possession, and destroy them.
+
+Crewe explained that Hill was afraid to take the letters and then boldly
+blackmail Sir Horace. The butler conceived the plan of getting Birchill
+to break into the house. He did not take Birchill into his confidence
+with regard to the blackmailing scheme, but in order to induce Sir Horace
+to believe the burglar had stolen the letters he told Birchill to force
+open the desk, as he would probably find money or papers of value there.
+But in order to prevent Birchill getting the letters if he should happen
+to stumble across the secret drawer, Hill removed them the day before.
+His plan was to go to Riversbrook in the morning after the burglary, and
+after leaving open the secret drawer which had contained the letters, to
+report the burglary to the police. When Sir Horace came home unexpectedly
+Hill had just removed the letters and had them in his possession. Hill
+was greatly perturbed at his master's unexpected return, and had to get
+an opportunity to replace the letters in the secret drawer, but Sir
+Horace told him to go home, as he was not wanted till the morning. Hill
+went to that girl's flat in Westminster, and there saw Birchill. He told
+Birchill that Sir Horace had returned unexpectedly, but he urged Birchill
+to carry out the burglary as arranged, and assured him that as Sir Horace
+was a heavy sleeper there would be no risk if he waited until Sir Horace
+went to bed. Hill's position was that if the burglary was postponed Sir
+Horace might make the discovery that the letters had been stolen from the
+secret drawer. In that case Sir Horace would immediately suspect Hill,
+who, he knew, was an ex-convict. It was just possible that Sir Horace,
+before going to bed, would discover that the letters had been
+stolen--that is, if he went to bed before Birchill got into the
+place--but Hill had to take that risk.
+
+It was the fact that the burglary Hill had arranged with Birchill took
+place on the night Sir Horace was killed that had given rise to the false
+clues which had misled the police. Crewe, as he himself modestly put it,
+was so fortunate as to get on the right track from the start. His
+suspicions were directed to Holymead when he saw the latter carrying away
+a walking-stick from Riversbrook after his visit of condolence to Miss
+Fewbanks. Crewe explained what tactics he had adopted to obtain a brief
+inspection of the stick in order to ascertain for his own satisfaction if
+it had belonged to Holymead. His suspicions against Holymead were
+strengthened when he discovered that the latter, when driving to his
+hotel on the night of the tragedy, had thrown away a glove which was the
+fellow of the one found by the police in Sir Horace's library.
+
+"The next point to settle was whether Holymead had had anything to do
+with your father's sudden return from Scotland," said Crewe, continuing
+his story. "If that proved to be the case, and if evidence could be
+obtained on which to justify the conclusion that these two old friends
+had had a deadly quarrel, the circumstantial evidence against Holymead as
+the man who killed your father was very strong. I may say that before I
+went to Scotland I came across evidence of the estrangement of Holymead
+and his wife. Do you remember when you and Mrs. Holymead were leaving the
+court after the inquest that Mr. Holymead came up and spoke to you? He
+shook hands with you and was on the point of shaking hands with his wife
+as if she were a lady he had met casually. Then, on the night of the
+murder, the taxi-cab driver at Hyde Park Corner drove him to his house at
+Princes Gate, but was ordered to drive back and take him to Verney's
+Hotel. All this was interesting to me--doubly interesting in the light of
+the fact that Sir Horace had known Mrs. Holymead before her second
+marriage, and had paid her every attention.
+
+"I went to Scotland and made inquiries at Craigleith Hall, where Sir
+Horace had been shooting. My object was to endeavour to obtain a clue to
+the reason for his sudden journey to London. The local police had made
+inquiries on this point on behalf of Scotland Yard, and had been unable
+to obtain any clue. No telegram had been received by Sir Horace, and he
+had sent none. Of course he had received some letters. He had told none
+of the other members of the shooting party the object of his departure
+for London, but he had declared his intention of being back with them in
+less than a week. It had occurred to me when the crime was discovered
+that his missing pocket-book might not have been stolen by his murderer,
+but might have been lost in Scotland. I made inquiries in that direction
+and eventually found that the man who had attended to Sir Horace on the
+moors had the pocket-book. His story was that Sir Horace had lost it the
+day before his departure for London. He had taken off his coat owing to
+the heat on the moor, and the pocket-book had dropped out. He
+ascertained his loss before he left for London, and told this man
+Sanders where he thought the pocket-book had dropped out. Sanders was to
+look for it, and if he found it was to keep it until Sir Horace came
+back. He did find it, and after learning of your father's death was
+tempted to keep it, as it contained four five-pound notes. Sanders is an
+ignorant man, and can scarcely read. He professed to know nothing of the
+pocket-book when I questioned him, but I became suspicious of him, and
+laid a trap which he fell into. Then he handed me the pocket-book, which
+he had hidden on the moor, under a stone. In the pocket-book I found a
+letter from Holymead asking your father to come to London at once as
+there were to be two new appointments to the Court of Appeal, and that
+Sir Horace had an excellent chance of obtaining one if he came to London
+and used his influence with the Chancellor and the Chief Justice, who
+were still in town. The writer indicated that he was doing all that was
+possible in Sir Horace's interests, and that he would meet Sir Horace at
+Riversbrook at 9.30 on Wednesday night and let him know the exact
+position. There is nothing suspicious in such a letter, but my inquiries
+concerning new appointments to the Court of Appeal suggest that the
+statements in the letter are false.
+
+"Now let us consider the conduct of Holymead and his wife since the night
+of the murder. His course of action has not been that of a man anxious to
+assist the police in the discovery of the murderer of his old friend. We
+have first of all his secrecy regarding his visit to Riversbrook that
+night; the fact of the visit being established by the stick, and the
+glove he left behind. We have the estrangement of husband and wife. We
+have Mrs. Holymead's visit to Riversbrook on the morning that the first
+details of the crime appeared in the newspapers. Ostensibly she came to
+see you and pay her condolences, but as she knew that you had been away
+in the country she ought to have telephoned to learn if you had come up
+to London. Instead of telephoning, she went to Riversbrook direct, and
+when she found you were not there she was admitted to the presence of my
+old friend, Inspector Chippenfield. He is an excellent police officer,
+but I do not think he is a match for a clever woman. And Mrs. Holymead is
+such a fine-looking woman that I feel sure Chippenfield was so impressed
+by her appearance that he forgot he was a police officer and remembered
+only that he was a man. She managed to get him out of the room long
+enough to enable her to open the secret drawer in Sir Horace's desk and
+remove the letters. No doubt Sir Horace had shown her where he kept them,
+as their neat little hiding place was an indication of the value he
+placed upon them. She was under the impression that no one knew about the
+letters, and her object in removing them was to prevent the police
+stumbling across them and so getting on the track of her husband. But as
+I have already told you, Hill knew about the letters, and on the night of
+the murder had them in his possession. On the night after the murder,
+while Inspector Chippenfield was making investigations at Riversbrook,
+Hill had managed to obtain the opportunity to put the letters back. He
+naturally thought that if the police discovered some of Sir Horace's
+private papers in his possession they would conclude that he had had
+something to do with the murder.
+
+"The next point of any consequence is Holymead's defence of Birchill
+and the deliberate way in which he blackened your father's name while
+cross-examining Hill. If we regard Holymead's conduct solely from the
+standpoint of a barrister doing his best for his client his defence of
+Birchill is not so remarkable. But we have to remember that your
+father and Holymead had been life-long friends. His acceptance of the
+brief for the defence was in itself remarkable. The fee, as I took the
+trouble to find out, was not large; indeed, for a man of Holymead's
+commanding eminence at the bar it might be called a small one, and he
+should have returned the brief because the fee was inadequate. We have,
+therefore, two things to consider--his defence of the man charged with
+the murder of your father, and his readiness to do the work without
+regard to the monetary side of it. Much was said at the time in some of
+the papers about a barrister being a servant of the court and compelled
+by the etiquette of the bar to place his services at the disposal of
+anyone who needs them and is prepared to pay for them. A great deal of
+nonsense has been said and written on that subject. A barrister can
+return a brief because for private reasons he does not wish to have
+anything to do with the case. It was Holymead's duty to do his best to
+get Birchill off whether he believed his client was guilty or innocent.
+Could Holymead have done his best for Birchill if he had believed that
+Birchill was the murderer of his lifelong friend? Would he have trusted
+himself to do his best? No, Holymead knew that Birchill was innocent;
+he knew who the guilty man was, and, knowing that, knowing that his
+action in defending the man charged with the murder of an old friend
+would weigh with the jury, he took up the case because he felt there
+was a moral obligation on him to get Birchill off. His conduct of the
+defence, during which he attacked the moral character of your father,
+was remarkable, coming from him--the friend of the dead man. As the
+action of defending counsel it was perfectly legitimate. It gave rise
+to some discussion in purely legal circles--whether Holymead did right
+or wrong in violating a long friendship in order to get his man off.
+The academic point is whether he ought to have violated his personal
+feelings for an old friend, or violated his duty to his client by
+doing something less than his best for him.
+
+"Apart from the circumstantial and inferential evidence against Holymead,
+there is the fact that his wife knows that he committed the crime. Her
+acts point to that; her conduct throughout springs from the desire to
+shield him. Even the removal of the letters from the secret drawer was
+prompted more by the desire to save him than to save herself. Their
+discovery would not have been very serious for her, but it would have put
+the police on her husband's track. If I remember rightly, she asked you
+to keep her in touch with all the developments of the investigations of
+the police and myself. You told me that she was greatly interested in the
+fact that I did not believe Birchill was guilty, and particularly anxious
+to know if I suspected anyone. At Birchill's trial she did me the honour
+of watching me very closely. I was watching both her and her husband.
+When she discovered through her womanly intuition that I suspected her
+husband; that I was accumulating evidence against him; she sent round her
+friend, Mademoiselle Chiron, with some interesting information for me. An
+extremely clever young woman that--like all her countrywomen she is
+wonderfully sharp and quick, with a natural aptitude for intrigue. Of
+course, the information she gave me was intended to mislead me--intended
+to show me that Mr. Holymead had nothing to do with the crime. But some
+of it was extremely interesting when it dealt with actual facts, and some
+of the facts were quite new to me. For instance, I had not previously
+known that a piece of a lady's handkerchief was found clenched in your
+father's right hand after he was dead. The police very kindly kept that
+information from me. Had they told me about it I might have been inclined
+to suspect Mrs. Holymead and to believe that her husband was trying to
+shield her. His conduct would bear that interpretation if she had
+happened to be guilty. The police unconsciously saved me from taking up
+that false scent.
+
+"I have detained you a long time in dealing with these points, Miss
+Fewbanks, but I wanted to make everything clear. I have all but reached
+the end. Let us take in chronological order what happened on the night of
+the tragedy. We have your father's sudden return from Scotland. Hill was
+at Riversbrook when he arrived, and having the secret letters in his
+possession, was greatly perturbed by the unexpected return of Sir Horace.
+He went to Doris Fanning's flat in Westminster to see Birchill. In his
+absence Holymead arrived. It is probable that he took the Tube from Hyde
+Park Corner to Hampstead and walked to Riversbrook. He rang the bell; was
+admitted by your father, and, leaving his hat and stick in the hall-stand
+as he had often done before, the two went upstairs to the library. There
+was an angry interview, Holymead accusing your father of having wronged
+him and demanding satisfaction. My own opinion is that there was an
+irregular sort of duel. Each of them fired one shot. It is quite
+conceivable that Holymead, in spite of his mission, being that of
+revenge, gave your father a fair chance for his life. A man in Holymead's
+position would probably feel indifferent whether he killed the man who
+had ruined his home or was killed by him. But whereas your father's shot
+missed by a few inches, Holymead's inflicted a fatal wound. When he saw
+your father fall and realised what he had done, the instinct of
+self-preservation asserted itself. He grabbed at the gloves he had taken
+off, but in his hurry dropped one on the floor. He ran downstairs, took
+his hat from the hall-stand, but left his stick. Then he rushed out of
+the house, leaving the front door open. He made his way back to Hampstead
+Tube station, got out at Hyde Park and took a cab to his hotel.
+
+"Within a few minutes of Holymead's departure from Riversbrook the
+Frenchwoman arrived. She may have passed Holymead in Tanton Gardens, or
+Holymead, when he saw her approaching, may have hidden inside the
+gateway of a neighbouring house. She had come up from the country on
+learning that Holymead had come to London. She caught the next train, but
+unfortunately it was late on arriving at Victoria owing to a slight
+accident to the engine. I take it that she was sent by Mrs. Holymead to
+follow her husband if possible and see if he had any designs on Sir
+Horace. She took a cab as far as the Spaniards Inn and then got out, and
+walked to Riversbrook. When she arrived at the house she found the front
+door open and the lights burning. There was no answer to her ring and she
+entered the house and crept upstairs. Opening the library door, she saw
+your father lying on the floor. She endeavoured to raise him to a sitting
+posture, but it was too late to do anything for him. With a convulsive
+movement he grasped at the handkerchief she was holding in one hand, and
+a corner of it was torn off and remained in his hand. When she saw he had
+breathed his last she laid him down on the floor. Since she had been too
+late to prevent the crime, the next best thing in the interests of Mrs.
+Holymead was to remove traces of Holymead's guilt. She picked up the
+revolver, which she thought belonged to Holymead, turned off the light in
+the room, went downstairs, turned off the light in the hall, and closed
+the hall door as she went out.
+
+"She behaved with remarkable courage and coolness, but she overlooked the
+glove in the room of the tragedy, and Holymead's stick in the hall-stand.
+Later in the night we have Birchill's entry into the house, his alarm at
+finding your father had been killed, and his return to the flat where
+Hill was waiting for him."
+
+When Crewe had finished he looked at the girl. She had followed his
+statement with breathless interest.
+
+"You have been wonderfully clever," she said. "It is perfectly
+marvellous."
+
+Crewe's eyes had wandered to the inlaid chess-table and the Japanese
+chessmen set in prim rows on either side. Mechanically he began to
+arrange a problem on the board. His interest in the famous murder mystery
+seemed to have evaporated.
+
+"I was very fortunate," he said absently, in reply to Miss Fewbanks.
+"Everything seemed to come right for me."
+
+"You made everything come right," she replied. "I do not know how to
+thank you for giving so much of your time to unravelling the mystery."
+
+"It was fascinating while it lasted," he replied, his fingers still busy
+with the chessmen. "Of course, I am pleased with my success, but in a way
+I am sorry the work has come to an end. I thought that the knowledge that
+Holymead was the guilty man would come as a great shock to you. But I am
+glad you are able to take it so well."
+
+"A few minutes before you arrived I learned that it was Mr. Holymead. But
+what has been more of a shock to me, Mr. Crewe, is the discovery that my
+father had ruined his home. Oh, Mr. Crewe, it is terrible for me to have
+to hold my dead father up to judgment, but it is more terrible still to
+know that he was not faithful even to his lifelong friendship with Mr.
+Holymead."
+
+"Your nerves are unstrung," he said. "You want rest and quiet--you want a
+long sea voyage."
+
+"Yes, I want to forget," she said. "But there are others who want to
+forget, too. Cannot we bury the whole thing in forgetfulness?"
+
+Crewe's growing interest in the chessboard and his problem suddenly
+vanished. His eyes became instantly riveted on her face in a keen,
+questioning look.
+
+"What is it to me or you that Mr. Holymead should be publicly proved
+guilty of this terrible thing?" she went on, passionately. "Why drag into
+the light my father's conduct in order to make a day's sensation for the
+newspapers? For his sake, what better thing could I do than let his
+memory rest?"
+
+"Do you mean that Holymead should be allowed to go free?" he asked, in
+astonishment.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'm extremely sorry," he said slowly.
+
+"Won't you let it all drop?" she pleaded.
+
+"I could not take upon myself the responsibility of condoning such a
+crime--the responsibility of judging between your father and his
+murderer," he said solemnly. "But even if I could it is too late to think
+of doing so. There is already a warrant out for Holymead's arrest"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+The newspapers made a sensation out of the announcement of Holymead's
+arrest on a charge of having murdered Sir Horace Fewbanks. They declared
+that the arrest of the eminent K.C. on a capital charge would come as a
+surprising development of the Riversbrook case. It would cause a shock to
+his many friends, and especially to those who knew what a close
+friendship had existed between the arrested man and the dead judge. The
+papers expatiated on the fact that Holymead had appeared for the defence
+when Frederick Birchill had been tried for the murder. As the public
+would remember, Birchill had been acquitted owing to the great ability
+with which his defence was conducted.
+
+It was somewhat remarkable, said the _Daily Record_, that in his speech
+for the defence Holymead had attempted to throw suspicion on one of the
+witnesses for the prosecution. The journal hinted that it was the result
+of something which Counsel for the defence had let drop at this trial
+that Inspector Chippenfield had picked up the clue which had led to
+Holymead's arrest. The papers had very little information to give the
+public about this new development of the Fewbanks mystery, but they
+boldly declared that some startling revelations were expected when the
+case came before the court.
+
+In the absence of interesting facts apropos of the arrest of the
+distinguished K.C., some of the papers published summaries of his legal
+career, and the more famous cases with which he had been connected. These
+summaries would have been equally suitable to an announcement that Mr.
+Holymead had been promoted to the peerage or that he had been run over by
+a London bus.
+
+There were people who declared without knowing anything about the
+evidence the police had in their possession that in arresting the famous
+barrister the police had made a far worse blunder than in arresting
+Birchill. It was even hinted that the arrest of the man who had got
+Birchill off was an expression of the police desire for revenge. To these
+people the acquittal of Holymead was a foregone conclusion. The man who
+had saved Birchill's life by his brilliant forensic abilities was not
+likely to fail when his own life was at stake.
+
+But when the case came before the police court and the police produced
+their evidence, it was seen that there was a strong case against the
+prisoner. The whispers as to the circumstances under which the prisoner
+had taken the life of a friend of many years appealed to a sentimental
+public. These whispers concerned the discovery by the prisoner that his
+friend had seduced his beautiful wife. In the police court proceedings
+there were no disclosures under this head, but the thing was hinted at.
+In view of the legal eminence of the prisoner and the fear of the police
+that he would prove too much for any police officer who might take charge
+of the prosecution, the Direction of Public Prosecutions sent Mr.
+Walters, K.C., to appear at the police court. The prisoner was
+represented by Mr. Lethbridge, K.C., an eminent barrister to whom the
+prisoner had been opposed in many civil cases.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield, who realised that the important position the
+prisoner occupied at the bar added to the importance of the officer who
+had arrested him, gave evidence as to the arrest of the prisoner at his
+chambers in the Middle Temple. With a generous feeling, which was
+possibly due to the fact that he was entitled to none of the credit of
+collecting the evidence against the prisoner, Inspector Chippenfield
+allowed Detective Rolfe a subordinate share in the glory that hung round
+the arrest by volunteering the information in the witness-box that when
+making the arrest he was accompanied by that officer. He declared that
+the prisoner made no remark when arrested and did not seem surprised. Mr.
+Walters produced a left-hand glove and witness duly identified it as the
+glove which he found in the room in which the murder took place.
+
+Inspector Seldon gave formal evidence of the discovery of the body of Sir
+Horace Fewbanks on the 19th of August. Dr. Slingsby repeated the evidence
+that he had given at the trial of Birchill as to the cause of death, and
+was again professionally indefinite as to the length of time the victim
+had been dead when he saw the body. Thomas Taylor, taxi-cab driver, gave
+evidence as to driving the prisoner from Hyde Park Corner on the night of
+the 18th of August and the finding of the glove.
+
+Crewe went into the witness-box and swore that on the second day after
+the discovery of the murder he was present at Riversbrook when the
+prisoner visited the house and saw Miss Fewbanks. When the prisoner
+arrived he was not carrying a walking-stick, but he had one in his hand
+when he took his departure from the house. Witness followed the prisoner,
+and a boy who collided with the prisoner knocked the stick out of his
+hands. Witness picked up the stick and inspected it. He identified the
+stick produced in court as the one which the prisoner had been carrying
+on that day.
+
+The most difficult, and most important witness, as far as new evidence
+was concerned was Alexander Saunders, a big, broad red-faced Scotchman,
+whose firm grasp on the tam-o'-shanter he held in his hand seemed to
+indicate a fear that all the pickpockets in London had designs on it.
+With great difficulty he was made to understand his part in the
+witness-box, and some of the questions had to be repeated several times
+before he could grasp their meaning. Mr. Lethbridge humorously suggested
+that his learned friend should have provided an interpreter so that his
+pure English might be translated into Lowland Scotch.
+
+By slow degrees Saunders was able to explain how he had found the
+pocket-book which Sir Horace Fewbanks had lost while shooting at
+Craigleith Hall. Witness identified a letter produced as having been in
+the pocket-book when he found it. The letter, which had been written by
+the prisoner to Sir Horace Fewbanks, urged Sir Horace to return to London
+at once, as if he did so there was a good possibility of his obtaining
+promotion to the Court of Appeal. The writer promised to do all he could
+in the matter, and to call on Sir Horace at Riversbrook as soon as he
+returned from Scotland.
+
+Percival Chambers, an elderly well-dressed man with a grey beard, and
+wearing glasses, who was secretary of the Master of Rolls, swore that he
+knew of no prospective vacancies on the Court of Appeal Bench. Were any
+vacancies of the kind in view he believed he would be aware of them.
+
+This closed the case for the police, and Mr. Lethbridge immediately asked
+for the discharge of the prisoner on the ground that there was no case to
+go before a jury. The magistrate shook his head, and merely asked Mr.
+Lethbridge if he intended to reserve his defence. Mr. Lethbridge replied
+with a nod, and the accused was formally committed for trial at the next
+sittings at the Old Bailey.
+
+The newspapers reported at great length the evidence given in the police
+court, and their reports were eagerly read by a sensation-loving public.
+Even those people who, when Holymead's arrest was announced, had
+ridiculed the idea of a man like Holymead murdering a lifelong friend,
+had to admit that the police had collected some damaging evidence. Those
+people who at the time of the arrest had prided themselves on possessing
+an open mind as to the guilt of the famous barrister, confessed after
+reading the police court evidence that there could be little doubt of his
+guilt. The only thing that was missing from the police court proceedings
+was the production of a motive for the crime, but it was whispered that
+there would be some interesting revelations on this point when the
+prisoner was tried at the Old Bailey.
+
+Fortunately he had not long to wait for his trial, as the next sittings
+of the Central Criminal Court had previously been fixed a week ahead of
+the date of his commitment. That week was full of anxiety for Mr.
+Lethbridge, for he realised that he had a poor case. What increased his
+anxiety was the fact that Holymead insisted on the defence being
+conducted on the lines he laid down. It was a new thing in Lethbridge's
+experience to accept such instructions from a prisoner, but Holymead had
+threatened to dispense with all assistance unless his instructions were
+carried out. He was particularly anxious that his wife's name should be
+kept out of court as much as possible. Lethbridge had pointed out to him
+that the prosecution would be sure to drag it in at the trial in
+suggesting a motive for the murder, and that for the purposes of the
+defence it was best to have a full and frank disclosure of everything so
+that an appeal could be made to the jury's feelings. Holymead's beautiful
+wife, who was almost distracted by her husband's position, implored his
+Counsel to allow her to go into the box and make a confession. But that
+course did not commend itself to Lethbridge, who realised that she would
+make an extremely bad witness and would but help to put the rope round
+her husband's neck. He put her off by declaring that there was a good
+prospect of her husband being acquitted, but that if the verdict
+unfortunately went against him her confession would have more weight in
+saving him, when the appeal against the verdict was heard.
+
+It amazed Lethbridge to find that the prisoner expressed the view that
+Birchill had committed the murder. This view was based on his contention
+that Sir Horace Fewbanks was alive when he (Holymead) left him about ten
+o'clock. The interview between them had been an angry one, but Holymead
+persisted in asserting that he had not shot his former friend. He
+declared that he had not taken a revolver with him when he went to
+Riversbrook.
+
+Lethbridge was one of those barristers who believe that a knowledge of
+the guilt of a client handicapped Counsel in defending him. He had his
+private opinion as to the result of the angry interview between Holymead
+and Sir Horace Fewbanks, but he preferred that Holymead should protest
+his innocence even to him. That made it easier for him to make a stirring
+appeal to the jury than it would have been if his client had fully
+confessed to him. His private opinion as to the author of the crime was
+strengthened by Holymead's admission that Birchill had not confessed to
+him or to his solicitor at the time of his trial that he had shot Sir
+Horace Fewbanks. He was astonished that Holymead had taken up Birchill's
+defence, but Holymead's explanation was the somewhat extraordinary one
+that the man who had killed the seducer of his wife had done him a
+service by solving a problem that had seemed insoluble without a public
+scandal. There was no doubt that although Sir Horace Fewbanks was in his
+grave, Holymead's hatred of him for his betrayal of his wife burned as
+strongly as when he had made the discovery that wrecked his home life.
+Neither death nor time could dim the impression, nor lessen his hatred
+for the dead man who had once been his closest friend.
+
+Lethbridge, feeling that it was his duty as Counsel for the prisoner to
+try every avenue which might help to an acquittal, asked Mr. Tomlinson,
+the solicitor who was instructing him in the case, to find Birchill and
+bring him to his chambers. Birchill was found and kept an appointment.
+Lethbridge explained to him that he had nothing further to fear from the
+police with regard to the murder of Sir Horace Fewbanks. Having been
+acquitted on this charge he could not be tried on it again, no matter
+what discoveries were made. He could not even be tried for perjury, as he
+had not gone into the witness-box. Having allowed these facts to sink
+home, he delicately suggested to Birchill that he ought to come forward
+as a witness for the defence of Holymead--he ought to do his best to try
+and save the life of the man who had saved his life.
+
+"What do you want me to swear?" asked Birchill, in a tone which indicated
+that although he did not object to committing perjury, he wanted to know
+how far he was to go.
+
+"Well, that Sir Horace Fewbanks was alive when you went to Riversbrook,"
+suggested Lethbridge.
+
+"But I tell you he was dead," protested Birchill. He seemed to think that
+reviving a dead man was beyond even the power of perjury.
+
+"That was your original story, I know," agreed Lethbridge suavely. "But
+as you were not put into the witness-box to swear it you can alter it
+without fear of any consequences."
+
+"You want me to swear that he was alive?" said Birchill, meditatively.
+
+"If you can conscientiously do so," replied Lethbridge.
+
+"That he was alive when I left Riversbrook?" asked Birchill.
+
+"Well, not necessarily that," said Lethbridge.
+
+Birchill sprang up in alarm.
+
+"Good God, do you want me to swear that I killed him?" he demanded.
+
+Lethbridge endeavoured to explain that he would have nothing to fear from
+such a confession in the witness-box, but Birchill would listen to no
+further explanations. He felt that he was in dangerous company, and that
+his safety depended on getting out of the room.
+
+"You've made a mistake," he said, as he reached the door. "If you want a
+witness of that kind you ought to look for him in Colney Hatch."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+The impending trial of Holymead produced almost as much excitement in
+staid legal circles as it did among the general public. It was rumoured
+that there was a difficulty in obtaining a judge to preside at the trial,
+as they all objected to being placed in the position of trying a man who
+was well-known to them and with whom most of them had been on friendly
+terms. There was a great deal of sympathy for the prisoner among the
+judges. Of course, they could not admit that any man had the right to
+take the law into his own hands, but they realised that if any wrong done
+to an individual could justify this course it was the wrong Sir Horace
+Fewbanks had done to an old friend.
+
+When it became known that Mr. Justice Hodson was to preside at the Old
+Bailey during the trial of Holymead, legal rumour concerned itself with
+statements to the effect that there was now a difficulty in obtaining a
+K.C. to undertake the prosecution. When it was discovered that Mr.
+Walters, K.C., was to conduct the prosecution, it was whispered that he
+had asked to be relieved of the work and had even waited on the
+Attorney-General in the matter, but that the latter had told him that he
+must put his personal feelings aside and act in accordance with that high
+sense of duty he had always shown in his professional career.
+
+In Newgate Street a long queue of people waited for admission to Old
+Bailey on the day the trial was to begin. They were inspected by two fat
+policemen to decide whether they appeared respectable enough to be
+entitled to a free seat at the entertainment in Number One Court. When
+the doors opened at 10.15 a.m. the first batch of them were admitted, but
+on reaching the top of the stairs, where they were inspected by a
+sergeant, they were informed that all the seats in the gallery of Number
+One Court had been filled, but that he would graciously permit them to go
+to Numbers Two, Three, Four, or Five Courts. Those who were not satisfied
+with this generosity could get out the way they had come in and be quick
+about it. What the sergeant did not explain was that so many people with
+social influence had applied to the presiding judge for permission to be
+present at the trial that it had been found necessary to reserve the
+gallery for them as well as most of the seats in the body of the court.
+Fashionably-dressed ladies and well-groomed men drove up to the main
+entrance of the Old Bailey in motors and taxi-cabs. The scene was as busy
+as the scene outside a West End theatre on a first night. The services of
+several policemen were necessary to regulate the arrival and departure of
+taxi-cabs and motor-cars and to keep back the staring mob of disappointed
+people who had been refused admission to the court by the fat sergeant,
+but were determined to see as much as they could before they went away.
+Elderly ladies and young ladies were assisted from smart motor-cars by
+their escorts, and greeted their friends with feminine fervour. Some of
+the younger ones exchanged whispered regrets, as they swept into the
+court, that such a fine-looking man as Holymead should have got himself
+into such a terrible predicament.
+
+The legal profession was numerously represented among the spectators in
+the body of the court. So many distinguished members of the profession
+had applied for tickets of admission that there was little room for
+members of the junior bar. It was many years since a trial had created
+so much interest in legal circles. When Mr. Justice Hodson entered the
+court, followed by no fewer than eight of the Sheriffs of London, those
+present in the court rose. The members of the profession bowed slowly in
+the direction of His Honour. The prisoner was brought into the dock from
+below, and took the seat that was given to him beside one of the two
+warders who remained in the dock with him. He looked a little careworn,
+as though with sleepless nights, but his strong, clean-shaven face was
+as resolute as ever, and betrayed nothing of the mental agony which he
+endured. His keen dark eyes glanced quietly through the court, and
+though many members of the bar smiled at him when they thought they had
+caught his eye, he gave no smile in return. As he looked at Mr. Justice
+Hodson, the distinguished judge inclined his head to what was almost a
+nod of recognition, but the prisoner looked calmly at the judge as
+though he had never seen him before and had never been inside a court in
+his life till then.
+
+Among those persons standing in the body of the court were Crewe and
+Inspector Chippenfield and Detective Rolfe. Inspector Chippenfield
+displayed so much friendliness to Crewe as he drew his attention to the
+number of celebrities in court that it was evident he had buried for the
+time being his professional enmity. This was because Crewe had allowed
+him to appropriate some of the credit of unravelling Holymead's
+connection with the crime. As the jury were being sworn in Crewe and
+Chippenfield made their way out of court into the corridor. As they were
+to be called as witnesses they would not be allowed in court until after
+they had given their evidence.
+
+Mr. Walters in his opening address paid tribute to the exceptional
+circumstances of the case by some slight show of nervousness. Several
+times he insisted that the case was what he termed unique. The prisoner
+in the dock was a man who by his distinguished abilities had won for
+himself a leading position at the bar, and had been honoured and
+respected by all who knew him. It was not the first occasion that a
+member of the legal profession had been placed on trial on a capital
+charge, though he was glad to say, for the honour of the profession, that
+cases of the kind were extremely rare. But what made the case unique was
+that it was not the first trial in connection with the murder of Sir
+Horace Fewbanks, and that at the first trial when a man named Frederick
+Birchill had been placed in the dock, the prisoner now before the court
+had appeared as defending Counsel, and by his brilliant conduct of the
+defence had materially contributed to the verdict of acquittal which had
+been brought in by the jury. Some evidence would be placed before the
+jury about the first trial and the conduct of the defence. He ventured to
+assert that the jury would find in this evidence some damaging facts
+against the prisoner--that they would find a clear indication that the
+prisoner had defended Birchill because he knew himself to be guilty of
+this murder, and felt an obligation on him to place his legal knowledge
+and forensic powers at the disposal of a man whom he knew to be innocent.
+At the former trial the prisoner, as Counsel for the defence, had
+attempted to throw suspicion on a man named Hill, who had been butler to
+the late Sir Horace Fewbanks, but evidence would be placed before the
+jury to show that in doing so the prisoner had been smitten by some pangs
+of conscience at casting suspicion on a man who he knew was not guilty.
+
+It was not incumbent on the prosecution to prove a motive for the murder,
+continued Mr. Walters, though where the motive was plainly proved the
+case against the prisoner was naturally strengthened. In this case there
+was no doubt about the motive, but the extent of the evidence to be
+placed before the jury under that head would depend upon the defence. The
+prosecution would submit some evidence on the point, but the full story
+could only be told if the defence placed the wife of the prisoner in the
+witness-box. It was impossible for the prosecution to call her as a
+witness, as English law prevented a wife giving evidence against her
+husband. She could, however, give evidence in favour of her husband, and
+doubtless the defence would take full advantage of the privilege of
+calling her.
+
+The evidence which he intended to call would show that for years past
+very friendly relations had existed between the prisoner and the murdered
+man. They had been at Cambridge together and had studied law together in
+chambers. Their friendship continued after their marriages. The prisoner
+had married a second time, and at that time Sir Horace Fewbanks was a
+widower. Sir Horace Fewbanks was what was known as a ladies' man, and at
+the previous trial prisoner, as defending Counsel, had tried to bring out
+that Sir Horace was a man of immoral reputation among women. There was no
+doubt that the prisoner, during Sir Horace's absence in Scotland, became
+convinced that Sir Horace had been paying attention to his wife. There
+was no doubt that, being a man of a jealous disposition, his suspicions
+went beyond that. At any rate he wrote a letter to Sir Horace at
+Craigleith Hall, where the latter was shooting, asking him to come to
+London at once. In order to induce Sir Horace to return, and in order not
+to arouse suspicion as to his real object, he concocted a story about a
+vacancy in the Court of Appeal Bench to which, it appeared, Sir Horace
+Fewbanks desired to be appointed. In this letter, which would be produced
+in evidence, the prisoner pretended to be working in Sir Horace's
+interests, and offered to meet him on the night of his return at
+Riversbrook and let him know fully how matters stood. Sir Horace
+apparently wrote to the prisoner making an appointment with him for the
+night of the 18th of August. The prisoner kept that appointment, charged
+Sir Horace with carrying on an intrigue with his wife, and then shot him.
+
+"That is the case for the prosecution which I will endeavour to establish
+to the satisfaction of the jury," said Mr. Walters, in concluding his
+speech, "Of course it is impossible to produce direct evidence of the
+actual shooting. But I will produce a silent but indisputable witness in
+the form of a glove which belonged to the prisoner, that he was present
+in the room in which the murder took place. I will produce evidence to
+show that the prisoner left his stick behind in the hat-stand in the
+hall on the night of the murder. These things prove conclusively that he
+left Riversbrook in a state of considerable excitement. The fact that
+after the murder was discovered he kept hidden in his own breast the
+knowledge that he had been there on that night, instead of going to the
+police and, in the endeavour to assist them to detect the murderer of his
+lifelong friend, informing them that he had called on Sir Horace, shows
+conclusively that he went there on a mission on which he dared not throw
+the light of day."
+
+Those witnesses who had given evidence at the police court were called
+and repeated their statements. Inspector Seldon was closely
+cross-examined by Mr. Lethbridge as to the way in which the dead body was
+dressed when he discovered it. He declared that Sir Horace had been
+wearing a light lounge suit of grey colour, a silk shirt, wing collar and
+black bow tie. Dr. Slingsby's cross-examination was directed to
+ascertaining as near as possible the time when the murder was committed,
+but this was a point on which the witness allowed himself to be
+irritatingly indefinite. The murder might have taken place three or four
+hours before midnight on the 18th of August, and on the other hand it
+might have taken place any time up to three or four hours after midnight.
+
+Hill, who had not been available as a witness at the police
+court--being then on the way back from America in response to a
+cablegram from Crewe--reappeared as a witness. He looked much more at
+ease in the witness-box than on the occasion when he gave evidence
+against Birchill. He had fully recovered from his terror of being
+arrested for the murder, and obviously had much satisfaction in giving
+evidence against the man who, according to his impression, had tried to
+bring the crime home to him.
+
+He gave evidence as to the unexpected return of his master from Scotland
+on the 18th of August, and also in regard to the relations between his
+master and Mrs. Holymead. On several occasions he had seen his master
+kiss Mrs. Holymead, and once he had heard the door of the room in which
+they were together being locked.
+
+Two new witnesses were called to testify to the suggestion of the
+prosecution that illicit relations had existed between Sir Horace
+Fewbanks and Mrs. Holymead. These were Philip Williams, who had been the
+dead man's chauffeur, and Dorothy Mason, who had been housemaid at
+Riversbrook. The chauffeur gave evidence as to meeting Mrs. Holymead's
+car at various places in the country. He formed the opinion from the
+first that these meetings between Sir Horace and the lady were not
+accidental.
+
+The last of the prosecution's witnesses was the legal shorthand writer
+who had taken the official report of the trial of Birchill. In response
+to the request of Mr. Walters, he read from his notebook the final
+passage in the opening address delivered by the prisoner at that trial as
+defending Counsel: "'It is my duty to convince you that my client is not
+guilty, or, in other words, to convince you that the murder was committed
+before he reached the house. It is only with the greatest reluctance that
+I take upon myself the responsibility of pointing an accusing finger at
+another man. In crimes of this kind you cannot expect to get anything but
+circumstantial evidence. But there are degrees of circumstantial
+evidence, and my duty to my client lays upon me the obligation of
+pointing out to you that there is one person against whom the existing
+circumstantial evidence is stronger than it is against my client.'"
+
+Mr. Lethbridge was unexpectedly brief in his opening address. He
+ridiculed the idea that a man like the prisoner, trained in the
+atmosphere of the law, would take the law into his own hands in seeking
+revenge for a wrong that had been done to him. According to the
+prosecution the prisoner had calmly and deliberately carried out this
+murder. He had sent a letter to Sir Horace Fewbanks with the object of
+inducing him to return to London, and had subsequently gone to
+Riversbrook and shot the man who had been his lifelong friend. Could
+anything be more improbable than to suppose that a man of the accused's
+training, intellect, and force of character, would be swayed by a gust of
+passion into committing such a dreadful crime like an immature ignorant
+youth of unbalanced temperament? The discovery that his wife and his
+friend were carrying on an intrigue would be more likely to fill him with
+disgust than inspire him with murderous rage. He would not deny that
+accused had gone up to Riversbrook a few hours after Sir Horace Fewbanks
+returned from Scotland; he would admit that when the accused sought this
+interview he knew that his quondam friend had done him the greatest wrong
+one man could do another; but he emphatically denied that the prisoner
+killed Sir Horace Fewbanks or threatened to take his life.
+
+His learned friend had asked why had not the prisoner gone to the police
+after the murder was discovered and told them that he had seen Sir Horace
+at Riversbrook that night. The answer to that was clear and emphatic. He
+did not want to take the police into his confidence with regard to the
+relations that had existed between his wife and the dead man. He wanted
+to save his wife's name from scandal. Was not that a natural impulse for
+a high-minded man? The prisoner had believed that in due course the
+police would discover the actual murderer, and that in the meantime the
+scandal which threatened his wife's name would be buried with the man who
+had wronged her. If the prisoner could have prevented it his wife's name
+would not have been dragged into this case even for the purpose of saving
+himself from injustice. But the prosecution, in order to establish a
+motive for the crime, had dragged this scandal into light. He did not
+blame the prosecution in the least for that. In fact he was grateful to
+his learned friend for doing so, for it had released him from a promise
+extracted from him by the prisoner not to make any use of the matter in
+his conduct of the case. The defence was that, although the accused man
+had gone to Riversbrook on the night of the 18th of August to accuse Sir
+Horace Fewbanks of base treachery, he went there unarmed, and with no
+intention of committing violence. No threats were used and no shot was
+fired during the interview. And in proof of the latter contention he
+intended to call witnesses to prove that Sir Horace Fewbanks was alive
+after the prisoner had left the house.
+
+The name of Daniel Kemp was loudly called by the ushers, and when Kemp
+crossed the court on the way to the witness-box, Chippenfield and
+Crewe, who had returned to the court after giving their evidence,
+looked at one another.
+
+"He's a dead man," whispered Chippenfield, nodding his head towards the
+prisoner, "if this is a sample of their witnesses."
+
+Kemp had brushed himself up for his appearance in the witness-box. He
+wore a new ready-made tweed suit; his thick neck was encased in a white
+linen collar which he kept fingering with one hand as though trying to
+loosen it for his greater comfort; and his hair had been plastered flat
+on his head with plenty of cold water. His red and scratched chin further
+indicated that he had taken considerable pains with a razor to improve
+his personal appearance in keeping with his unwonted part of a
+respectable witness in a place which knew a more sinister side of him. As
+he stood in the witness-box, awkwardly avoiding the significant glances
+that the Scotland Yard men and the police cast at him, he appeared to be
+more nervous and anxious than he usually was when in the dock. But Crewe,
+who was watching him closely, was struck by the look of dog-like devotion
+he hurriedly cast at the weary face of the man in the dock before he
+commenced to give his evidence.
+
+He told the court a remarkable story. He declared that Birchill had told
+him on the 16th of August that he had a job on at Riversbrook, and had
+asked him to join him in it. When Birchill explained the details witness
+declined to have a hand in it. He did not like these put-up jobs.
+
+Mr. Lethbridge interposed to explain to any particularly unsophisticated
+jurymen that "a put-up job" meant a burglary that had been arranged with
+the connivance of a servant in the house to be broken into.
+
+Kemp declared that the reason he had declined to have anything to do with
+the project to burgle Riversbrook was that he felt sure Hill would squeak
+if the police threatened him when they came to investigate the burglary.
+He happened to be at Hampstead on the evening of the 18th of August and
+he took a walk along Tanton Gardens to have another look at the place
+which Birchill was to break into. It had occurred to him that things
+might not be square, and that Hill might have laid a trap for Birchill.
+That was about 9.30 p.m. He was just able to catch a glimpse of the house
+through the plantation in front of it. The mansion appeared all in
+darkness, but while he looked he was surprised to see a light appear in
+the upper portion of the house which was visible from the road. He went
+through the carriage gates with the intention of getting a closer view of
+the house. As he walked along he heard a quick footstep on the gravel
+walk behind him, and he slipped into the plantation. Looking out from
+behind a tree he could discern the figure of a man walking quickly
+towards the house. As he drew near him the man paused, struck a match and
+looked at his watch, and he saw that it was Mr. Holymead. Witness's
+suspicions in regard to a trap having been laid for Birchill were
+strengthened, and he decided to ascertain what was in the wind. He crept
+through the plantation to the edge of the garden in front of the house.
+From there he could hear voices in a room upstairs. He tried to make out
+what was being said, but he was too far away for that. In about half an
+hour the voices stopped, and a minute later a man came out of the house
+and walked down the path through the garden, and entered the carriage
+drive close to where witness was concealed in the plantation. As he
+passed him witness saw that it was Mr. Holymead.
+
+About five minutes afterwards the window upstairs in the room where the
+voices had come from was opened, and Sir Horace Fewbanks leaned out and
+looked at the sky as if to ascertain what sort of a night it was. He was
+quite certain that it was Sir Horace Fewbanks. He was well acquainted
+with that gentleman's features, having been sentenced by him three years
+ago. Sir Horace seemed quite calm and collected. Witness was so surprised
+to see him, after having been told by Birchill that he was in Scotland,
+that he did not take his eyes off him during the two or three minutes
+that he remained at the window, breathing the night air. Sir Horace was
+fully dressed. He had on a light tweed suit, and he was wearing a soft
+shirt of a light colour, with a stiff collar, and a small black bow tie.
+When Sir Horace closed the window witness jumped over the fence back into
+the wood and made his way to the Hampstead Tube station with the
+intention of warning Birchill that Sir Horace Fewbanks was at home. He
+waited at the station over an hour, and as he did not see Birchill he
+then made his way home. During the time he was in the garden at
+Riversbrook listening to the voices, he heard no sound of a shot. He was
+certain that no shot had been fired inside the house from the time the
+prisoner entered the house until he left. Had a shot been fired witness
+could not have failed to hear it.
+
+There could be no doubt that the effect produced in court by the evidence
+of the witness was extremely favourable to the prisoner. Kemp had told a
+plain, straightforward story. The fact that he had shown no reluctance in
+disclosing in his evidence that he was a criminal and the associate of
+criminals seemed to add to the credibility of his evidence. It was felt
+that he would not have come to court to swear falsely on behalf of a man
+who was so far removed from the class to which he belonged.
+
+While Kemp was giving his evidence, Crewe had despatched a messenger to
+his chambers in Holborn for Joe. When the boy returned with the messenger
+Kemp was still in the witness-box, undergoing an examination at the hands
+of the judge. Sir Henry Hodson seemed to have been impressed by the
+witness's story, for he asked Kemp a number of questions, and entered his
+answers in his notebook.
+
+"Joe," whispered Crewe, as the boy stole noiselessly behind him, "look at
+that man in the witness-box. Have you ever seen him before?"
+
+"Rayther, guv'nor!" whispered the boy in reply. "Why, it's 'im who tried
+to frighten me in the loft if I didn't promise to give up watching Mr.
+Holymead."
+
+"You are quite certain, Joe?"
+
+"Certain sure, guv'nor. There ain't no charnst of me mistaking a man
+like that."
+
+Crewe listened intently to Kemp's evidence, and he watched the man's face
+as he swore that he had seen Sir Horace Fewbanks leaning out of the
+window after Holymead had left the house. He hastily took out a notebook,
+scribbled a few lines on one of the leaves, tore it out, and beckoned to
+a court usher.
+
+"Take that to Mr. Walters," he whispered.
+
+The man did so. Mr. Walters opened the note, adjusted his glasses and
+read it. He started with surprise, read the note through again, then
+turned round as though in search of the writer. When he saw Crewe he
+raised his eyebrows interrogatively, and the detective nodded
+emphatically.
+
+Mr. Lethbridge sat down, having finished his examination of Kemp. Mr.
+Walters, with another glance at Crewe's note, rose slowly in his place.
+
+"I ask Your Honour that I may be allowed to defer until the morning my
+cross-examination of this witness," he said. "I am, of course, in Your
+Honour's hands in this matter, but I can assure Your Honour that it is
+desirable--highly desirable--in the interests of justice that the
+cross-examination of the witness should be postponed."
+
+"I protest, Your Honour, against the cross-examination of the witness
+being deferred," said Mr. Lethbridge. "There is no justification of it."
+
+"I would urge Your Honour to accede to my request," said Mr. Walters. "It
+is a matter of the utmost importance."
+
+"Is your next witness available, Mr. Lethbridge?" asked the judge.
+
+"Surely, Your Honour, you're not going to allow the cross-examination of
+this witness to be postponed?" protested Mr. Lethbridge. "My learned
+friend has given no reason for such a course."
+
+Sir Henry Hodson looked at the court clock.
+
+"It is now within a quarter of an hour of the ordinary time for
+adjournment," he began. "I think the fairest way out of the difficulty
+will be to adjourn the court now until to-morrow morning."
+
+There was a loud buzz of conversation when the court adjourned. After
+asking Chippenfield and Rolfe to wait for him, Crewe made his way to Mr.
+Walters, and, after a few whispered words with that gentleman, Mr.
+Mathers, his junior, and Mr. Salter, the instructing solicitor, he
+returned to Chippenfield and Rolfe and asked them to accompany him in a
+taxi-cab to Riversbrook.
+
+"What do you want to go out there for?" asked Inspector
+Chippenfield. "You don't expect to discover anything there this late
+in the day, do you?"
+
+"I want to find out whether this man Kemp is lying or telling the truth."
+
+"Of course he is lying," replied the positive police official. "When
+you've had as much experience with criminals as I have had, Mr. Crewe,
+you won't expect a word of truth from any of them."
+
+"Well, let us go to Riversbrook and prove that he is lying," said Crewe.
+
+"We'll go with you," said Inspector Chippenfield, speaking for Rolfe and
+himself. He did not understand how Crewe expected to obtain any evidence
+at Riversbrook about the truth or falsity of Kemp's story, but he did not
+intend to admit that. "But you can set your mind at rest. No jury will
+believe Kemp after we've given them his record in cross-examination."
+
+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."
+
+"Why, that explains it!" exclaims Crewe, in the voice of a man who had
+solved a difficulty.
+
+"Explains what?" asked Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+"Explains why her father has taken the risk of coming forward in this
+case to give evidence for Holymead. Gratitude for what Holymead had done
+for his girl while he was in prison. My experience of criminals is that
+they frequently show more real gratitude to those who do them a good turn
+than people in a respectable walk of life. Besides, you know what a
+sentimental value people of his class attach to seeing their kin buried
+decently. If Holymead hadn't come forward the girl would have been buried
+as a pauper, in all probability."
+
+"But I don't see that old Kemp is taking much risk," said Inspector
+Chippenfield. "He is only perjuring himself, and he is too used to that
+to regard it as a risk."
+
+"Don't you think he will be in an awkward position if the jury were to
+acquit Holymead?" asked Crewe. "One jury has already said that Sir Horace
+Fewbanks was dead when Birchill broke into the house, and if this jury
+believes Kemp's story and says Sir Horace was alive when Holymead left
+it, don't you think Kemp will conclude that it will be best for him to
+disappear? Some one must have killed Sir Horace after Holymead left, and
+before Birchill arrived."
+
+"Whew! I never thought of that," said Rolfe candidly.
+
+"Kemp is a liar from first to last," said Inspector Chippenfield
+decisively.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+When they reached Riversbrook they entered the carriage drive and
+traversed the plantation until they stood on the edge of the Italian
+garden facing the house. The gaunt, irregular mansion stood empty and
+deserted, for Miss Fewbanks had left the place after her father's
+funeral, with the determination not to return to it. The wind whistled
+drearily through the nooks and crannies of the unfinished brickwork of
+the upper story, and a faint evening mist rose from the soddened garden
+and floated in a thin cloud past the library window, as though the ghost
+of the dead judge were revisiting the house in search of his murderer.
+The garden had lost its summer beauty and was littered with dead leaves
+from the trees. The gathering greyness of an autumn twilight added to the
+dreariness of the scene.
+
+"Kemp didn't say how far he stood from the house," said Crewe, "but we'll
+assume he stood at the edge of the plantation--about where we are
+standing now--to begin with. How far are we from that library window,
+Chippenfield?"
+
+"About fifty yards, I should say," said the inspector, measuring it
+with his eye.
+
+"I should say seventy," said Rolfe.
+
+"And I say somewhere midway between the two," said Crewe, with a smile.
+"But we will soon see. Just hold down the end of this measuring tape, one
+of you." He produced a measuring tape as he spoke, and started to unwind
+it, walking rapidly towards the house as he did so. "Sixty-two yards!" he
+said, as he returned. He made a note of the distance in his pocket-book.
+"So much for that," he said, "but that's not enough. I want you to stand
+under the library window, Rolfe, by that chestnut-tree in front of it,
+and act as pivot for the measuring tape while I look at that window from
+various angles. My idea is to go in a semicircle right round the garden,
+starting at the garage by the edge of the wood, so as to see the library
+window and measure the distance at every possible point at which Kemp
+could have stood."
+
+"You're going to a lot of trouble for nothing, if your object is to try
+and prove that he couldn't have seen into the window," grunted Inspector
+Chippenfield, in a mystified voice. "Why, I can see plainly into the
+window from here."
+
+Crewe smiled, but did not reply. Followed by Rolfe, he went back to the
+tree by the library window, where he posted Rolfe with the end of the
+tape in his hand. Then he walked slowly back across the garden in the
+direction of the garage, keeping his eye on the library window on the
+first floor from which Kemp, according to his evidence, had seen Sir
+Horace leaning out after Holymead had left the house. He returned to the
+tree, noting the measurement in his book as he did so, and then repeated
+the process, walking backwards with his eye fixed on the window, but this
+time taking a line more to the left. Again and again he repeated the
+process, until finally he had walked backwards from the tree in narrow
+segments of a big semicircle, finishing up on the boundary of the Italian
+garden on the other side of the grounds, and almost directly opposite to
+the garage from which he had started.
+
+"There's no use going further back than that," he said, turning to
+Inspector Chippenfield, who had followed him round, smoking one of
+Crewe's cigars, and very much mystified by the whole proceedings, though
+he would not have admitted it on any account. "At this point we
+practically lose sight of the window altogether, except for an oblique
+glimpse. Certainly Kemp would not come as far back as this--he would have
+no object in doing so."
+
+"I quite agree with you," said Inspector Chippenfield. "He would stand
+more in the front of the house. The tree in front of the house doesn't
+obstruct the view of the window to any extent."
+
+The tree to which Inspector Chippenfield referred was a solitary
+chestnut-tree, which grew close to the house a little distance from the
+main entrance, and reached to a height of about forty feet. Its branches
+were entirely bare of leaves, for the autumn frosts and winds had swept
+the foliage away.
+
+Rolfe, who had been watching Crewe's manoeuvres curiously, walked up to
+them with the tape in his hand. He glanced at the library window on the
+first floor as he reached them.
+
+"Kemp could have seen the library window if he had stood here," he said.
+"I should say that if the blind were up it would be possible to see right
+into the room."
+
+"What do you say, Chippenfield?" asked Crewe, turning to that officer.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield had taken his stand stolidly on the centre path of
+the Italian garden, directly in front of the window of the library.
+
+"I say Kemp is a liar," he replied, knocking the ash off his cigar. "A
+d----d liar," he added emphatically. "I don't believe he was here at all
+that night."
+
+"But if he was here, do you think he saw Sir Horace leaning out of
+the window?"
+
+"I don't see what was to prevent him," was the reply. "But my point is
+that he was a liar and that he wasn't here at all."
+
+"And you, Rolfe--do you think Kemp could have seen Sir Horace leaning out
+of the window if he had been here?"
+
+"I should say so," remarked Rolfe, in a somewhat puzzled tone.
+
+"I am sorry I cannot agree with either of you," said Crewe. "I think Kemp
+was here, but I am sure he couldn't have seen Sir Horace from the window.
+Kemp has been up here during the past few days in order to prepare his
+evidence, and he's been led astray by a very simple mistake. If a man
+were to lean outside the library window now there would not be much
+difficulty in identifying him, but when the murder took place it would
+have been impossible to see him from any part of the garden or grounds."
+
+"Why?" demanded Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+"Because it was the middle of summer when Sir Horace Fewbanks was
+murdered. At that time that chestnut-tree would be in full leaf, and the
+foliage would hide the window completely. Look at the number of branches
+the tree has! They stretch all over the window and even round the corners
+of that unfinished brickwork on the first floor by the side of the
+library window. A man could no more see through that tree in summer time
+than he could see through a stone wall."
+
+"What did I tell you?" exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield in the voice of a
+man whose case had been fully proved. "Didn't I say Kemp was a liar?
+We'll call evidence in rebuttal to prove that he is a liar--that he
+couldn't have seen the window. And after Holymead is convicted I'll see
+if I cannot get a warrant out for Kemp for perjury."
+
+"And yet Kemp did see Sir Horace that night," said Crewe quietly.
+
+"How do you know? What makes you say that?" The inspector was
+unpleasantly startled by Crewe's contention.
+
+"He was able to describe accurately how Sir Horace was dressed--for one
+thing," responded Crewe.
+
+"He might have got that from Seldon's evidence," said Inspector
+Chippenfield thoughtfully. "He may have had some one in court to tell him
+what Seldon said."
+
+"You do not think Lethbridge would be a party to such tactics?" said
+Crewe. "No, no. One could tell from the way he examined Seldon and Kemp
+on the point that it was in his brief."
+
+"But the fact that Kemp knew how Sir Horace was dressed doesn't prove
+that he saw Sir Horace after Holymead left the house," said Rolfe. "Kemp
+may have seen Sir Horace before Holymead arrived."
+
+"Quite true, Rolfe," said Crewe. "I haven't lost sight of that point. I
+think you will agree with me that there is a bit of a mystery here which
+wants clearing up."
+
+They drove back to town, and, in accordance with the arrangement Crewe
+had made with Mr. Walters before leaving the court, they waited on that
+gentleman at his chambers in Lincoln's Inn. There Crewe told him of the
+result of their investigations at Riversbrook. Mr. Walters was
+professionally pleased at the prospect of destroying the evidence of
+Kemp. He was not a hard-hearted man, and personally he would have
+preferred to see Holymead acquitted, if that were possible, but as the
+prosecuting Counsel he felt a professional satisfaction in being placed
+in the position to expose perjured evidence.
+
+"Excellent! excellent!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands with
+gratification as he spoke. "Knowing what we know now, it will be a
+comparatively easy task to expose the witness Kemp under
+cross-examination, and show his evidence to be false." Mr. Walters looked
+as though he relished the prospect.
+
+It was arranged that Inspector Chippenfield should be called to give
+evidence in rebuttal as to the impossibility of seeing the library
+window through the tree, and that an arboriculturist should also be
+called. Mr. Walters agreed to have the expert in attendance at the court
+in the morning.
+
+But Crewe had something more on his mind, and he waited until
+Chippenfield and Rolfe had taken their departure in order to put his
+views before the prosecuting counsel. Then he pointed out to him that to
+prove that Kemp's evidence was false was merely to obtain a negative
+result. What he wanted was a positive result. In other words, he wanted
+Kemp's true story.
+
+"You do not think, then, that Kemp is merely committing perjury in order
+to get Holymead off?" asked Walters meditatively. "You think he is hiding
+something?"
+
+Crewe replied, with his faint, inscrutable smile, that he had no doubt
+whatever that such was the case. He thought Kemp's true story might be
+obtained if Walters directed his cross-examination to obtaining the truth
+instead of merely to exposing falsehood. It was evident to him that Kemp
+had come forward in order to save the prisoner. How far was he prepared
+to go in carrying out that object? When he was made to realise that his
+perjury, instead of helping Holymead, had helped to convince the jury of
+the prisoner's guilt, would he tell the true story of how much he knew?
+
+"My own opinion is that he will," continued Crewe. "I studied his face
+very closely while he was in the box to-day, and I am convinced he would
+go far--even to telling the truth--in order to save the only man who was
+ever kind to him."
+
+Walters was slow in coming round to Crewe's point of view. He had a high
+opinion of Crewe, for in his association with the case he had realised
+how skilfully Crewe had worked out the solution of the Riversbrook
+mystery. But he took the view that now the case was before the court it
+was entirely a matter for the legal profession to deal with. He pointed
+out to Crewe the professional view that his own duty did not extend
+beyond the exposure of Kemp's perjury. It was not his duty to give Kemp a
+second chance--an opportunity to qualify his evidence. He believed the
+defence had called Kemp in the belief that his evidence was true, but the
+defence must take the consequences if they built up their case on
+perjured evidence which they had not taken the trouble to sift.
+
+Crewe entered into the professional view sympathetically, but he was not
+to be turned from his purpose. He felt that too much was at stake, and he
+lifted the discussion out of the atmosphere of professional procedure
+into that of their common manhood.
+
+"Walters, I know you are not a vain man," he said, earnestly. "A personal
+triumph in this case means even less to you than it does to me. I have
+built up what I regard as an overwhelming case against Holymead. But it
+is based on circumstantial evidence, and I would willingly see the whole
+thing toppled over if by that means we could get the final truth. This
+man Kemp knows the truth, and you are in a position in which you can get
+the truth from him. It may be the last chance anyone will have of getting
+it. Apart from all questions of professional procedure, isn't there an
+obligation upon you to get at the truth?"
+
+"If you put it that way, I believe there is," replied Walters slowly and
+meditatively. There was a pause, and then he spoke with a sudden impulse.
+"Yes, Crewe; you can depend on me. I'll do my best."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+The public interest in the Holymead trial on the second day was even
+greater than on the first. It was realised that Kemp's evidence had
+given an unexpected turn to the proceedings, and that if it could be
+substantiated the jury's verdict would be "not guilty." There were
+confident persons who insisted that Kemp's evidence was sufficient to
+acquit the prisoner. But every one grasped the fact that the Counsel
+for the prosecution, by his action in applying for an adjournment of
+the cross-examination of Kemp, clearly realised that his case was in
+danger if the evidence of the first witness for the defence could not
+be broken down.
+
+The public appetite for sensation having been whetted by sensational
+newspaper reports of the latest phase of the Riversbrook mystery, there
+was a great rush of people to the Old Bailey early on the morning of the
+second day to witness the final stages of the trial. The queue in Newgate
+Street commenced to assemble at daybreak, and grew longer and longer as
+the day wore on, but it was composed of persons who did not know that
+there was not the slightest possibility of their gaining admittance to
+Number One Court. The policeman who was invested with the duty of keeping
+the queue close to the wall of the building forbore to break this sad
+news to them. Being faithful to the limitations of the official mind, he
+believed that the right thing to do was to let the people in the queue
+receive this important information from the sergeant inside. How was he
+to know without authority from his superior officer that any of these
+people wanted to be admitted to Number One Court? So the policeman pared
+his nails, gallantly "minding" the places of pretty girls in the queue
+who, worn out by hours of waiting in the cold, desired to slip away to a
+neighbouring tea-shop to get a cup of tea before the court opened, and
+sternly rebuking enterprising youths who endeavoured to wedge themselves
+in ahead of their proper place.
+
+The body of the court was packed before the proceedings commenced. The
+number of ladies present was even greater than on the first day, and the
+resources of the ushers were severely taxed to find accommodation for
+them all. In the back row Crewe noticed Mrs. Holymead, accompanied by
+Mademoiselle Chiron. They had not been in court on the previous day. Mrs.
+Holymead seemed anxious to escape notice, but Crewe could see that
+although she looked anxious and distressed, she was buoyed up by a new
+hope, which doubtless had come to her since Kemp had given his evidence.
+
+There was an expectant silence in the court when Mr. Justice Hodson took
+his seat and the names of the jurymen were called over. Kemp entered the
+witness-box with a more confident air than he had worn the previous day.
+Mr. Walters rose to begin his cross-examination, and the witness faced
+the barrister with the air of an old hand who knew the game, and was not
+to be caught by any legal tricks or traps.
+
+"You said yesterday, witness," commenced Mr. Walters, adjusting his
+glasses and glancing from his brief to the witness and from the witness
+back to the brief again, "that you saw the prisoner enter the gate at
+Riversbrook about 9.30 on the night of the 18th of August?"
+
+"Yes." The monosyllable was flung out as insolently as possible. The
+speaker watched his interrogator with the lowering eyes of a man at
+war with society, and who realised that he was facing one of his
+natural enemies.
+
+"Did he see you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You are quite sure of that?"
+
+"Haven't I just said so?"
+
+"Do not be insolent, witness"--it was the judge's warning voice that
+broke into the cross-examination--"answer the questions."
+
+"How long was it after the prisoner entered the carriage drive that you
+went to the edge of the plantation and heard voices upstairs?" continued
+Mr. Walters.
+
+"I went as soon as Mr. Holymead passed me."
+
+"How far were you from the house?"
+
+"About sixty yards."
+
+"And from that distance you could hear the voices?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Plainly?"
+
+"Not very. I could hear the voices, but I couldn't hear what they
+were saying."
+
+"Were they angry voices?"
+
+"They seemed to me to be talking loudly."
+
+"Yet you couldn't hear what they were saying?"
+
+"No; I was sixty yards away."
+
+"You said in your evidence in chief that the talking continued half an
+hour. Did you time it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then what made you swear that?"
+
+"I said about half an hour. I smoked out a pipeful of tobacco while I was
+standing there, and that would be about half an hour." Kemp disclosed his
+broken teeth in a faint grin.
+
+"What happened next?"
+
+"I heard the front door slam, and I saw somebody walking across the
+garden, and go into the carriage drive towards the gate."
+
+"Did you recognise who it was?"
+
+"Yes; Mr. Holymead." Kemp looked at the prisoner as he gave the answer.
+
+"You swear it was the prisoner?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Let me recall your evidence in chief, witness. You swore that you
+identified Mr. Holymead as he went in because he struck a match to look
+at the time as he passed you, and you saw his face. Did he strike
+matches as he went out?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then how are you able to swear so positively as to his identity in
+the dark?"
+
+Kemp considered a moment before replying.
+
+"Because I know him well and I was close to him," he said at length. "I
+was close enough to him almost to touch him. I knew him by his walk, and
+by the look of him. It was him right enough, I'll swear to that."
+
+"I put it to you, witness," persisted Counsel, "that you could not
+positively identify a man in a plantation at that time of night. Do you
+still swear it was Mr. Holymead?"
+
+"I do," replied Kemp doggedly.
+
+"What did you do then?"
+
+"I stayed where I was."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I don't know. I didn't have any particular reason. I just stayed there
+watching."
+
+"Did you think the prisoner might return?"
+
+"No," replied the witness quickly. "Why should I think that?"
+
+"How long did you stay watching the house?"
+
+"It might be a matter of ten minutes more."
+
+"And the prisoner didn't return during that time?"
+
+"No," replied the witness emphatically.
+
+"What did you do after that?"
+
+"I went to the Tube station."
+
+"Prisoner might have returned after you left?"
+
+"I suppose he might," replied the witness reluctantly.
+
+"Well, now, witness, you say you stayed ten minutes after Holymead left,
+and during that time Sir Horace opened the window and leaned out of it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You saw him distinctly?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are sure it was Sir Horace Fewbanks?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Now, witness," said Mr. Walters, suddenly changing his tone to one of
+more severity than he had previously used, "you have told us that you
+heard Sir Horace Fewbanks and the prisoner in the library while you stood
+in the wood by the garage, and that subsequently you saw Sir Horace
+leaning out of the window after the prisoner had gone. You are quite sure
+you were able to see and hear all this from where you stood?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Are you aware, witness, that there is a large chestnut-tree at the side
+of the library, in front of the window?"
+
+Kemp considered for a moment.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"And did not that tree obstruct your view of the library window?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Witness," said Mr. Walters solemnly, "listen to me. This tree did not
+obstruct your view when you went to Riversbrook a week or so ago to
+decide on the nature of the evidence you would give in this court. It is
+bare of leaves now, and you could see the library window and even see
+into the library from where you stood. But I put it to you that on the
+18th of August, when this tree was covered with its summer foliage, you
+could no more have seen the library window behind its branches than you
+could have seen the inhabitants of Mars. What answer have you got to
+that, witness?"
+
+There was a slight stir in court--an expression of the feeling of tension
+among the spectators. Kemp drew the back of his hand across his lips,
+then moistened his lips with his tongue.
+
+"Come, witness, give me an answer," thundered prosecuting Counsel.
+
+"I tell you I saw him after Mr. Holymead had left," declared Kemp
+defiantly. His voice had suddenly become hoarse.
+
+To the surprise of the members of the legal profession who were in
+court, Mr. Walters, instead of pressing home his advantage, switched off
+to something else.
+
+"I believe you have a feeling of gratitude towards the prisoner?" he
+asked, in a milder tone.
+
+"I have," said Kemp. His defiant, insolent attitude had suddenly
+vanished, and he gave the impression of a man who feared that every
+question contained a trap.
+
+"He did something for a relative of yours which at that time greatly
+relieved your mind?"
+
+"He did, and I'll never forget it."
+
+"Well, we won't go further into that at present. But it is a fact that
+you would like to do him a good turn?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You came here with the intention of doing him a good turn?"
+
+Kemp considered for a moment before answering:
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You came here with the intention of giving evidence that would
+get him off?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You came here with the intention of committing perjury in order to get
+him off?" Mr. Walters waited, but there was no reply to the question, and
+he added, "You see what your perjured evidence has done for him?"
+
+"What has it done?" asked Kemp sullenly.
+
+"It has established the prisoner's guilt beyond all reasonable doubt in
+the minds of men of common sense. You did not see Sir Horace Fewbanks
+that night after the prisoner left him. You could not have seen him even
+if he had leaned out of the window. But your whole story is a lie,
+because Sir Horace was dead when the prisoner left him."
+
+"He was not," shouted Kemp. "I saw him alive. I saw him as plain as I
+see you now."
+
+The man in court who was most fascinated by the witness was Crewe. He
+had watched every movement of Kemp's face, every change in the tone of
+his voice.
+
+"I wonder what the fool will say next," whispered Inspector
+Chippenfield to Crewe.
+
+"He will tell us how Sir Horace Fewbanks was shot," was Crewe's reply.
+
+Mr. Walters approached a step nearer to the witness-box. "You saw him as
+plainly as you see me now?" he repeated.
+
+"Yes," declared Kemp, who, it was evident, was labouring under great
+excitement. "You say I came here to commit perjury if it would get him
+off." He pointed with a dramatic finger to the man in the dock. "I did.
+And I came here to get him off by telling the truth if perjury didn't do
+it. You say I've helped to put the rope round his neck. But I'm man
+enough to tell the truth. I'll get him off even if I have to swing for
+it myself."
+
+This outburst from the witness-box created a sensation in court. Many of
+the spectators stood up in order to get a better view of the witness, and
+some of the ladies even jumped on their seats. Mr. Justice Hodson was
+momentarily taken aback. His first instinct was to check the witness and
+to ask him to be calm, but the witness took no notice of him. He
+displayed his judicial authority by an impressive descent of an uplifted
+hand which compelled the unruly spectators to resume their seats.
+
+It was on Mr. Walters that Kemp concentrated his attention. It was Mr.
+Walters whom he set himself to convince as if he were the man who could
+set the prisoner free. Of the rest of the people in court Kemp in his
+excitement had become oblivious.
+
+"Listen to me," said Kemp, "and I'll tell you who shot this scoundrel. He
+was a scoundrel, I say, and he ought to have been in gaol himself instead
+of sending other people there. I went up to the house that night to see
+if everything was clear, or whether that cur Hill had laid a trap--that
+part of my evidence is true. And from behind a tree in the plantation I
+saw Mr. Holymead pass me--he struck a match to look at the time, and I
+saw his face distinctly. A few minutes afterwards I heard loud, angry
+voices coming from somewhere upstairs in the house. I thought the best
+thing I could do was to find out what it was about. I said to myself that
+Mr. Holymead might want help. I walked across the garden and found that
+the hall door was wide open. I went inside and crept upstairs to the
+library. The light in the hall was turned on, as well as a little lamp on
+the turn of the staircase behind a marble figure holding some curtains,
+which led the way to the library. The library door was open an inch or
+two, and I listened.
+
+"I could hear them quite plainly. Mr. Holymead was telling him what he
+thought of him. And no wonder. It made my blood boil to think of such a
+scoundrel sitting on the bench and sentencing better men than himself. I
+thought of the way in which he had killed my girl by giving her five
+years. It was the shock that killed her. Five years for stealing
+nothing, for she didn't handle the jewels. And here he had been stealing
+a man's wife and nothing said except what Mr. Holymead called him. I
+stood there listening in case they started to fight, and I might be
+wanted. But they didn't.
+
+"I heard Mr. Holymead step towards the door, and I slipped away from
+where I had been standing. I saw the door of another room near me, and I
+opened it and went in quickly. I closed the door behind me, but I did not
+shut it. I looked through the crack and saw Mr. Holymead making his way
+downstairs. He walked as if he didn't see anything, and I watched him
+till he went through the curtains on the stairs at the bend of the
+staircase and I could see him no more.
+
+"Then I heard a step, and looking through the crack I saw the judge
+coming out of the library. He walked to the head of the stairs and began
+to walk slowly down them. But when he reached the bend where the curtains
+and the marble figure were, he turned round and walked up the stairs
+again. He walked along as though he was thinking, with his hands behind
+his back, and nodding his head a little, and a little cruel, crafty smile
+on his face. He passed so close to me that I could have touched him by
+putting out my hand, and he went into the library again, leaving the door
+open behind him.
+
+"Then suddenly, as I stood there, the thought came over me to go in to
+him and tell him what I thought about him. I opened the door softly so as
+not to frighten him, and walked out into the passage and into the
+library, and as I did so I took my revolver out of my pocket and carried
+it in my hand. I wasn't going to shoot him, but I meant to hold him up
+while I told him the truth.
+
+"He was standing at the opposite side of the room with his back towards
+me and a book in his hand, but a board creaked as I stepped on it, and he
+swung round quickly. He was surprised to see me, and no mistake. 'What do
+you want here?' he said, in a sharp voice, and I could see by the way he
+eyed the revolver that he was frightened. Then I opened out on him and
+told him off for the damned scoundrel he was. And he didn't like that
+either. He edged away to a corner, but I kept following him round the
+room telling him what I thought of him. And seeing him so frightened, I
+put the revolver back in my pocket and walked close to him while I told
+him all the things I could think of.
+
+"As I thought of my poor girl that he'd killed I grew savage, and I told
+him that I had a good mind to break every bone in his body. He threatened
+to have me arrested for breaking into the place, but I only laughed and
+hit him across the face. He backed away from me with a wicked look in his
+eyes, and I followed him. He backed quickly towards the door, and before
+I knew what game he was up to he made a dart out of the room. But I was
+too quick for him. I got him at the head of the stairs and dragged him
+back into the room and shut the door and stood with my back against it.
+I told him I hadn't finished with him. I had mastered him so quickly, and
+was able to handle him so easily, that I didn't watch him as closely as I
+ought to have done. He had backed away to his desk with his hand behind
+him, and suddenly he brought it up with a revolver in his hand.
+
+"'Now it's my turn,' he said to me with his cunning smile. Throw up
+your hands.'
+
+"I saw then it was man for man. If I let him take me I was in for a
+good seven years. I'd sooner be dead than do seven years for him.
+'Shoot and be damned,' I said. I ducked as I spoke, and as I ducked I
+made a dive with my hand for my hip pocket where I had put my revolver.
+He fired and missed. He fired again, but his toy revolver missed fire,
+for I heard the hammer click. But that was his last chance. I fired at
+his heart and he dropped beside the desk, I didn't wait for anything
+more--I bolted. I got tangled in the staircase curtains and fell down
+the stairs. As I was falling I thought what a nice trap I would be in
+if I broke my leg and had to lie there until the police came. But I
+wasn't much hurt and I got up and dashed out of the house and over the
+fence into the wood, the way I came."
+
+He stopped, and his gaze wandered round the hushed court till it rested
+on the prisoner, who with his hands grasping the rail of the dock had
+leaned forward in order to catch every word. Kemp turned his gaze from
+the man in the dock to the man in the scarlet robe on the bench, and it
+was to the judge that he addressed his concluding words.
+
+"You can call it murder, you can call it manslaughter, you can call it
+justifiable homicide, you can call it what you like, but what I say is
+that the man you have in the dock had nothing to do with it. It was me
+that killed him. Let him go, and put me in his place."
+
+He held his hands outstretched with the wrists together as though waiting
+for the handcuffs to be placed on them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+An hour after the trial Crewe entered the chambers of Mr. Walters, K.C.
+
+"I congratulate you on the way you handled him in the witness-box," said
+Crewe, who was warmly welcomed by the barrister. "You did splendidly to
+get it all out of him--and so dramatically too."
+
+"I think it is you who deserves all the congratulations," replied
+Walters. "If it had not been for you there would not have been such a
+sensational development at the trial and in all probability Kemp's
+evidence would have got Holymead off."
+
+"Yes, I'm glad to think that Holymead would have got off even if I hadn't
+seen through Kemp," replied Crewe thoughtfully. "I made a bad mistake in
+being so confident that he was the guilty man."
+
+"The completeness of the circumstantial evidence against him was
+extraordinary," said Walters, to whom the legal aspects of the case
+appealed. "Personally I am inclined to blame Holymead himself for the
+predicament in which he was placed. If he had gone to the police after
+the murder was discovered, told them the story of his visit to Sir Horace
+that night, and invited investigation into the truth of it, all would
+have been well."
+
+"No," said Crewe in a voice which indicated a determination not to have
+himself absolved at the expense of another. "The fact that he did not do
+what he ought to have done does not mitigate my sin of having had the
+wrong man arrested. The mistake I made was in not going to see him before
+the warrant was taken out. If I had had a quiet talk with him I think I
+would have been able to discover a flaw in my case against him. What
+made me confident it was flawless was the fact that both his wife and her
+French cousin believed him to be guilty. Mademoiselle Chiron followed
+Holymead from the country on the 18th of August with the intention of
+averting a tragedy. She arrived at Riversbrook too late for that, but in
+time to see Sir Horace expire, and naturally she thought that Holymead
+had shot him. When Mrs. Holymead realised that I also suspected her
+husband and had accumulated some evidence against him, she sent
+Mademoiselle Chiron to me with a concocted story of how the murder had
+been committed by a more or less mythical husband belonging to
+Mademoiselle's past. Ostensibly the reason for the visit of this
+extremely clever French girl was to induce me to deal with Rolfe, who had
+begun to suspect Mrs. Holymead of some complicity in the crime; but the
+real reason was to convince me that I was on the wrong track in
+suspecting Holymead. Of course she said nothing to me on that point. She
+produced evidence which convinced me that she was in the room when Sir
+Horace died, and, as I was quite sure that she believed Holymead to be
+guilty, I felt that there could be no doubt whatever of his guilt."
+
+"It is one of the most extraordinary cases on record--one of the most
+extraordinary trials," said Walters. "You blame yourself for having had
+Holymead arrested but you have more than redeemed yourself by the final
+discovery when Kemp was in the witness-box that he was the guilty man.
+That was an inspiration."
+
+"Hardly that," said Crewe with a smile. "I knew when he swore that he had
+seen Sir Horace leaning out of the library window that he was lying.
+After the murder was discovered I inspected the house and grounds
+carefully, and one of the first things of which I took a mental note was
+the fact that the foliage of the chestnut-tree completely hid the only
+window of the library."
+
+"Ah, but there is a difference between knowing Kemp was committing
+perjury and knowing that he was the guilty man."
+
+"There is at least a distinct connection between the two facts," said
+Crewe, who after his mistake in regard to Holymead was reluctant to
+accept any praise. "Kemp's description of the way in which Sir Horace was
+dressed showed that he had seen him. The inference that Kemp had been
+inside the house was irresistible. Sir Horace had arrived home at 7
+o'clock and it was not likely that Kemp would hang about Riversbrook--the
+scene of a prospective burglary--until after dark, which at that time of
+the year would be about 8.30. He must have seen Sir Horace after dark,
+and in order to be able to say how the judge was dressed he must have
+seen him at close quarters. The rest was a matter of simple deduction.
+Kemp inside the house listening to the angry interview between Holymead
+and Fewbanks--Kemp with his hatred of the judge who had killed his
+daughter in the dock and with his desire to do Holymead a good turn--I
+had previously had proof of that from my boy Joe, whom you have seen.
+Besides Kemp fitted into my reconstruction of the tragedy on the vital
+question of time. How long did Sir Horace live after being shot? The
+medical opinions I was able to obtain on the point varied, but after
+sifting them I came to the conclusion that though he might have lived for
+half an hour, it was more probable that he had died within ten minutes of
+being hit."
+
+"How is that vital?" asked Walters, who was keenly interested in
+understanding how Crewe had arrived at his conviction of Kemp's guilt.
+
+"Holymead's appointment with Sir Horace at Riversbrook was for 9.30 p.m.
+The letter found in Sir Horace's pocket-book fixed that time. It was
+exactly 11 p.m. when he got into a taxi at Hyde Park Corner after his
+visit to Riversbrook. On that point the driver of the taxi was absolutely
+certain. I was so anxious for him to make it 11.30 that I went to see him
+twice about it. Assuming that Holymead arrived at Riversbrook at 9.30, I
+allowed half an hour for his angry interview with Sir Horace, half an
+hour for the walk from Riversbrook to Hampstead Tube station, and half an
+hour for the journey from Hampstead to Hyde Park Corner, which would have
+involved a change at Leicester Square. As I could not induce the driver
+of the taxi to make Holymead's appearance at Hyde Park Corner 11.30
+instead of 11, I had to admit that Holymead must have left Riversbrook at
+10. But it was 10.30 according to Mademoiselle Chiron when she found Sir
+Horace dying on the floor of the library. Therefore if Holymead did the
+shooting, the victim's death agonies must have lasted half an hour or
+more. Medically that was not impossible, but somewhat improbable. But a
+meeting between Kemp and Sir Horace after Holymead had gone filled in the
+blank in time. That came home to me yesterday when Kemp was in the
+witness-box committing perjury in his determination to get Holymead off.
+I take it that the interview between Kemp and his victim lasted about 20
+minutes. Therefore Sir Horace was shot about 10.20; certainly before
+10.30, for Mademoiselle heard no shots while nearing the house."
+
+"You have worked it out very ingeniously," said Walters. "You must find
+the work of crime detection very fascinating. I am afraid that if I had
+been in your place--that is if I had known as much about the tragedy as
+you do--when Kemp was in the witness-box yesterday, I would not have seen
+anything more in his evidence than the fact that he was committing
+perjury in order to help Holymead."
+
+"I think you would," said Crewe. "These discoveries come to one naturally
+as the result of training one's mind in a particular direction."
+
+"They come to you, but they wouldn't come to me," said Walters with a
+smile. "But do you think Kemp's story of how Sir Horace was shot is
+literally true? Do you think Sir Horace got in the first shot and then
+tried to fire again? If that is so, I don't see how they can hope to
+convict Kemp of murder--a jury would not go beyond a verdict of
+manslaughter in such a case."
+
+"You handled Kemp so well that he was too excited to tell anything but
+the truth," said Crewe. "Sir Horace fired first and missed--the bullet
+which Chippenfield removed from the wall of the library shows that--and
+he pulled the trigger again but the cartridge which had been in the
+revolver for a considerable time, probably for years, missed fire. Here
+is a silent witness to the truth of that part of Kemp's story."
+
+Crewe produced from a waistcoat pocket one of the four cartridges he had
+removed from the revolver Mademoiselle Chiron had handed to him and he
+placed it on the table. On the cap of the cartridge was a mark where the
+hammer had struck without exploding the powder.
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Hampstead Mystery , by John R. Watson, et
+al
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Hampstead Mystery
+
+Author: John R. Watson
+
+Release Date: November 14, 2003  [eBook #10082]
+[Date last updated: December 22, 2004]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY ***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+THE HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY
+
+BY JOHN R. WATSON & ARTHUR J. REES
+
+1916
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TO ARTHUR BLACK IN MEMORY OF OLD TIMES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+"Hallo! Is that Hampstead Police Station?"
+
+"Yes. Who are you?"
+
+"Detective-Inspector Chippenfield of Scotland Yard. Tell Inspector Seldon
+I want him, and be quick about it."
+
+"Yes, sir. Hang on, sir. I'll put you through to him at once."
+
+Detective-Inspector Chippenfield, of Scotland Yard, waited with the
+receiver held to his ear. While he waited he scrutinised keenly a sheet
+of paper which lay on the desk in front of him. It was a flimsy,
+faintly-ruled sheet from a cheap writing-pad, blotted and soiled, and
+covered with sprawling letters which had been roughly printed at
+irregular intervals as though to hide the identity of the writer. But the
+letters formed words, and the words read:
+
+SIR HORACE FEWBANKS WAS MURDERED LAST NIGHT
+
+WHO DID IT I DONT KNOW SO IT IS NO USE TRYING TO FIND OUT WHO I AM YOU
+WILL FIND HIS DEAD BODY IN THE LIBRARY AT RIVERSBROOK
+
+HE WAS SHOT THOUGH THE HEART
+
+"Hallo!"
+
+"Is that you, Inspector Chippenfield?"
+
+"Yes. That you, Seldon? Have you heard anything of a murder out
+your way?"
+
+"Can't say that I have. Have you?"
+
+"Yes. We have information that Sir Horace Fewbanks has been
+murdered--shot."
+
+"Mr. Justice Fewbanks shot--murdered!" Inspector Seldon gave expression
+to his surprise in a long low whistle which travelled through the
+telephone. Then he added, after a moment's reflection, "There must be
+some mistake. He is away."
+
+"Away where?"
+
+"In Scotland. He went there for the Twelfth--when the shooting
+season opened."
+
+"Are you sure of that?"
+
+"Yes; he rang me up the day before he left to ask us to keep an eye on
+his house while he was away."
+
+There was a pause at the Scotland Yard end of the telephone. Inspector
+Chippenfield was evidently thinking hard.
+
+"We may have been hoaxed," he said at length. "But I have been ringing
+up his house and can get no answer. You had better send up a couple of
+men there at once--better still, go yourself. It is a matter which may
+require tactful handling. Let me know, and I'll come out immediately if
+there is anything wrong. Stay! How long will it take you to get up to
+the house?"
+
+"Not more than fifteen minutes--in a taxi."
+
+"Well, I'll ring you up at the house in half an hour. Should our
+information be correct see that everything is left exactly as you find it
+till I arrive."
+
+Inspector Seldon hung up the receiver of his telephone, bundled up the
+papers scattered on his desk, closed it, and stepped out of his office
+into the next room.
+
+"Anyone about?" he hurriedly asked the sergeant who was making entries in
+the charge-book.
+
+"Yes, sir. I saw Flack here a moment ago."
+
+"Get him at once and call a taxi. Scotland Yard's rung through to say
+they've received a report that Sir Horace Fewbanks has been murdered."
+
+"Murdered?" echoed the sergeant in a tone of keen interest. "Who told
+Scotland Yard that?"
+
+"I don't know. Who was on that beat last night?"
+
+"Flack, sir. Was Sir Horace murdered in his own house? I thought he was
+in Scotland."
+
+"So did I, but he may have returned--ah, here's the taxi."
+
+Inspector Seldon had been waiting on the steps for the appearance of a
+cab from the rank round the corner in response to the shrill blast which
+the sergeant had blown on his whistle. The sergeant went to the door of
+the station leading into the yard and sharply called:
+
+"Flack!"
+
+In response a police-constable, without helmet or tunic, came running up
+the steps from the basement, which was used as a gymnasium.
+
+"Seldon wants you. Get on your tunic as quick as you can. He is in a
+devil of a hurry."
+
+Inspector Seldon was seated in the taxi-cab when Flack appeared. He had
+been impatiently drumming his fingers on the door of the cab.
+
+"Jump in, man," he said angrily. "What has kept you all this time?"
+
+Flack breathed stertorously to show that he had been running and was out
+of breath, but he made no reply to the official rebuke. Inspector Seldon
+turned to him and remarked severely:
+
+"Why didn't you let me know that Sir Horace Fewbanks had returned from
+Scotland?"
+
+Flack looked astonished.
+
+"But he hasn't returned, sir," he said. "He's away for a month at least,"
+he ventured to add.
+
+"Who told you that?"
+
+"The housemaid at Riversbrook--before he went away."
+
+"H'm." The inspector's next question contained a moral rebuke rather than
+an official one. "You're a married man, Flack?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"So the housemaid told you he was going away for a month. Well, she ought
+to know. When did she tell you?"
+
+"A week ago yesterday, sir. She told me that all the servants except the
+butler were going down to Dellmere the next day--that is Sir Horace's
+country place--and that Sir Horace was going to Scotland for the
+shooting and would put in some weeks at Dellmere after the shooting
+season was over."
+
+"And are you sure he hasn't returned?"
+
+"Quite, sir. I saw Hill, the butler, only yesterday morning, and he
+told me that his master was sure to be in Scotland for at least a
+month longer."
+
+"It's very strange," muttered the inspector, half to himself. "It will be
+a deuced awkward situation to face if Scotland Yard has been hoaxed."
+
+"Beg your pardon, sir, but is there anything wrong about Sir Horace?"
+
+"Yes. Scotland Yard has received a report that he has been murdered."
+
+Flack's surprise was so great that it lifted the lid of official humility
+which habitually covered his natural feelings.
+
+"Murdered!" he exclaimed. "Sir Horace Fewbanks murdered? You
+don't say so!"
+
+"But I do say so. I've just said so," retorted Inspector Seldon
+irritably. He was angry at the fact that the information, whether true or
+false, had gone direct to Scotland Yard instead of reaching him first.
+
+"When was he murdered, sir?" asked Flack.
+
+"Last night--when you were on that beat."
+
+Flack paled at this remark.
+
+"Last night, sir?" he cried.
+
+"Don't repeat my words like a parrot," ejaculated the inspector
+peevishly. "Didn't you notice anything suspicious when you were
+along there?"
+
+"No, sir. Was he murdered in his own house?"
+
+"His dead body is supposed to be lying there now in the library," said
+Inspector Seldon. "How Scotland Yard got wind of it is more than I know.
+We ought to have heard of it before them. How many times did you go along
+there last night?"
+
+"Twice, sir. About eleven o'clock, and then about three."
+
+"And there was nothing suspicious--you saw no one?"
+
+"I saw Mr. Roberts and his lady coming home from the theatre. But he
+lives at the other end of Tanton Gardens. And I saw the housemaid at Mr.
+Fielding's come out to the pillar-box. That was a few minutes after
+eleven. I didn't see anybody at all the second time."
+
+"Nobody at the judge's place--no taxi, or anything like that?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+The taxi-cab turned swiftly into the shady avenue of Tanton Gardens,
+where Sir Horace Fewbanks lived, and in a few moments pulled up outside
+of Riversbrook. The house stood a long way back from the road in its own
+grounds. Inspector Seldon and Flack passed rapidly through the grounds
+and reached the front door of the mansion. There was nobody about; the
+place seemed deserted, and the blinds were down on the ground-floor
+windows. Inspector Seldon knocked loudly at the front door with the big,
+old-fashioned brass knocker, and rang the bell. He listened intently for
+a response, but no sound followed except the sharp note of the electric
+bell as Flack rang it again while Inspector Seldon bent down with his ear
+at the keyhole. Then the inspector stepped back and regarded the house
+keenly for a moment or two.
+
+"Put your finger on that bell and keep on ringing it, Flack," he said
+suddenly. "I see that some of the blinds are down, but there's one on the
+first floor which is partly up. It looks as though the house had been
+shut up and somebody had come back unexpectedly."
+
+"Perhaps it's Hill, the butler," said Flack.
+
+"If he's inside he ought to answer the bell. But keep on ringing while I
+knock again."
+
+The heavy brass knocker again reverberated on the thick oak door, and
+Inspector Seldon placed his ear against the keyhole to ascertain if any
+sound was to be heard.
+
+"Take your finger off that bell, Flack," he commanded. "I cannot hear
+whether anybody is coming or not." He remained in a listening attitude
+for half a minute and then plied the knocker again. Again he listened for
+footsteps within the house. "Ring again, Flack. Keep on ringing while I
+go round the house to see if there is any way I can get in. I may have to
+break a window. Don't move from here."
+
+Inspector Seldon went quickly round the side of the house, trying the
+windows as he went. Towards the rear of the house, on the west side, he
+came across a curious abutment of masonry jutting out squarely from the
+wall. On the other side of this abutment, which gave the house something
+of an unfinished appearance, were three French windows close together.
+The blinds of these windows were closely drawn, but the inspector's keen
+eye detected that one of the catches had been broken, and there were
+marks of some instrument on the outside woodwork.
+
+"This looks like business," he muttered.
+
+He pulled open the window, and walked into the room. The light of an
+afternoon sun showed him that the apartment was a breakfast room, well
+and solidly furnished in an old-fashioned way, with most of the furniture
+in covers, as though the occupants of the house were away. The daylight
+penetrated to the door at the far end of the room. It was wide open, and
+revealed an empty passage. Inspector Seldon walked into the passage. The
+drawn blinds made the passage seem quite dark after the bright August
+sunshine outside, but he produced an electric torch, and by its light he
+saw that the passage ran into the main hall.
+
+His footsteps echoed in the empty house. The electric bell rang
+continuously as Flack pressed it outside. Inspector Seldon walked along
+the passage to the hall, flashing his torch into each room he passed. He
+saw nothing, and went to the front door to admit Flack.
+
+"That is enough of that noise, Flack," he said. "Come inside and help me
+search the house above. It's empty on this floor so far as I've been over
+it. If you find anything call me, and mind you do not touch anything.
+Where did you say the library was?"
+
+"I don't know, sir."
+
+"Well, look about you on the ground floor while I go upstairs. Call me if
+you hear anything."
+
+Inspector Seldon mounted the stairs swiftly in order to continue
+his search.
+
+The staircase was a wide one, with broad shallow steps, thickly carpeted,
+and a handsome carved mahogany baluster. The inspector, flashing his
+torch as he ran up, saw a small electric light niche in the wall before
+he reached the first landing. The catch of the light was underneath, and
+Inspector Seldon turned it on. The light revealed that the stairs swept
+round at that point to the landing of the first floor, which was screened
+from view by heavy velvet hangings, partly caught back by the bent arm
+of a marble figure of Diana, which faced downstairs, with its other arm
+upraised and about to launch a hunting spear. By this graceful device the
+curtains were drawn back sufficiently to give access to the corridor on
+the first floor.
+
+Inspector Seldon looked closely at the figure and the hangings. Something
+strange about the former arrested his eye. It was standing awry on its
+pedestal--was, indeed, almost toppling over. He looked up and saw that
+one of the curtains supported by the arm hung loosely from one of the
+curtain rings. It was as though some violent hand had torn at the curtain
+in passing, almost dragging it from the pole and precipitating the figure
+down the stairs. Immediately beyond the landing, in the corridor, was a
+door on the right, flung wide open.
+
+The inspector entered the room with the open door. It was a large room
+forming part of the front of the house--a lofty large room, partly
+lighted by the half-drawn blind of one of the windows. One side was lined
+with bookshelves. In the corner of the room farthest from the door, was a
+roll-top desk, which was open. In the centre of the room was a table, and
+a huddled up figure was lying beside it, in a dark pool of blood which
+had oozed into the carpet.
+
+The inspector stepped quickly back to the landing.
+
+"Flack!" he called, and unconsciously his voice dropped to a sharp
+whisper in the presence of death. "Flack, come here."
+
+When Flack reached the door of the library he saw his chief kneeling
+beside the prostrate body of a dead man. The body lay clear of the table,
+near the foot of an arm-chair. Instinctively Flack walked on tiptoe to
+his chief.
+
+"Is he dead, sir?" he asked.
+
+"Cold and stiff," replied the inspector, in a hushed voice. "He's been
+dead for hours."
+
+Flack noted that the body was fully dressed, and he saw a dark stain
+above the breast where the blood had welled forth and soaked the dead
+man's clothes and formed a pool on the carpet beside him.
+
+Inspector Seldon opened the dead man's clothes. Over his heart he found
+the wound from which the blood had flowed.
+
+"There it is, Flack," he said, touching the wound lightly with his
+finger. "It doesn't take a big wound to kill a man."
+
+As he spoke the sharp ring of a telephone bell from downstairs
+reached them.
+
+"That's Inspector Chippenfield," said Inspector Seldon, rising to his
+feet. "Stay here, Flack, till I go and speak to him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+"Six-thirty edition: High Court Judge murdered!"
+
+It was not quite 5 p.m., but the enterprising section of the London
+evening newspapers had their 6.30 editions on sale in the streets. To
+such a pitch had the policy of giving the public what it wants been
+elevated that the halfpenny newspapers were able to give the people of
+London the news each afternoon a full ninety minutes before the
+edition was supposed to have left the press. The time of the edition
+was boldly printed in the top right-hand corner of each paper as a
+guarantee of enterprise if not of good faith. On practical enterprise
+of this kind does journalism forge ahead. Some people who have been
+bred up in a conservative atmosphere sneer at such journalistic
+enterprise. They affect to regard as unreliable the up-to-date news
+contained in newspapers which are unable to tell the truth about the
+hands of the clock.
+
+From the cries of the news-boys and from the announcements on the
+newspaper bills which they displayed, it was assumed by those with a
+greedy appetite for sensations that a judge of the High Court had been
+murdered on the bench. Such an appetite easily swallowed the difficulty
+created by the fact that the Law Courts had been closed for the long
+vacation. In imagination they saw a dramatic scene in court--the
+disappointed demented desperate litigant suddenly drawing a revolver and
+with unerring aim shooting the judge through the brain before the deadly
+weapon could be wrenched from his hands. But though the sensation created
+by the murder of a judge of the High Court was destined to grow and to be
+fed by unexpected developments, the changing phases of which monopolised
+public attention throughout England on successive occasions, there was
+little in the evening papers to satisfy the appetite for sensation. In
+journalistic vernacular "they were late in getting on to it," and
+therefore their reference to the crime occupied only a few lines in the
+"stop press news," beneath some late horse-racing results. The _Evening
+Courier,_ which was first in the streets with the news, made its
+announcement of the crime in the following brief paragraph:
+
+"The dead body of Sir Horace Fewbanks, the distinguished High Court
+judge, was found by the police at his home, Riversbrook in Tanton
+Gardens, Hampstead, to-day. Deceased had been shot through the heart. The
+police have no doubt that he was murdered."
+
+But the morning papers of the following day did full justice to the
+sensation. It was the month of August when Parliament is "up," the Law
+Courts closed for the long vacation, and when everybody who is anybody is
+out of London for the summer holidays. News was scarce and the papers
+vied with one another in making the utmost of the murder of a High Court
+judge. Each of the morning papers sent out a man to Hampstead soon after
+the news of the crime reached their offices in the afternoon, and some of
+the more enterprising sent two or three men. Scotland Yard and
+Riversbrook were visited by a succession of pressmen representing the
+London dailies, the provincial press, and the news agencies.
+
+The two points on which the newspaper accounts of the tragedy laid stress
+were the mysterious letter which had been sent to Scotland Yard stating
+that Sir Horace Fewbanks had been murdered, and the mystery surrounding
+the sudden return of Sir Horace from Scotland to his town house. On the
+first point there was room for much varied speculation. Why was
+information about the murder sent to Scotland Yard, and why was it sent
+in a disguised way? If the person who had sent this letter had no
+connection with the crime and was anxious to help the police, why had he
+not gone to Scotland Yard personally and told the detectives all he knew
+about the tragedy? If, on the other hand, he was implicated in the crime,
+why had he informed the police at all?
+
+It would have been to his interest as an accomplice--even if he had been
+an unwilling accomplice--to leave the crime undiscovered as long as
+possible, so that he and those with whom he had been associated might
+make their escape to another country. But he had sent his letter to
+Scotland Yard within a few hours of the perpetration of the crime, and
+had not given the actual murderer time to get out of England. Was he not
+afraid of the vengeance the actual murderer would endeavour to exact for
+this disclosure which would enable the police to take measures to prevent
+his escape?
+
+No light was thrown on the cause of the murdered man's sudden return from
+grouse-shooting in Scotland. The newspaper accounts, though they differed
+greatly in their statements, surmises, and suggestions concerning the
+tragedy, agreed on the point that Sir Horace had been a keen sportsman
+and was a very fine shot. In years past he had made a practice of
+spending the early part of the long vacation in Scotland, going there for
+the opening of the grouse season on the 12th of August. This year he had
+been one of a party of five who had rented Craigleith Hall in the Western
+Highlands, and after five days' shooting he had announced that he had to
+go to London on urgent business, but would return in the course of a week
+or less. It was suggested in some of the newspaper accounts that an
+explanation of the cause of his return might throw some light on the
+murder. Inquiries were being made at Craigleith Hall to ascertain the
+reason for his journey to London, or whether any telegram had been
+received by him previous to his departure.
+
+The fact that one of the windows on the ground floor of Riversbrook had
+been found open was regarded as evidence that the murderer had broken
+into the house. Imprints of footsteps had been found in the ground
+outside the window, and the police had taken several casts of these; but
+whether the man who had broken into the house with the intention of
+committing burglary or murder was a matter on which speculation differed.
+If the murderer was a criminal who had broken into the house with the
+intention of committing a burglary, there could be no connection between
+the return of Sir Horace Fewbanks from Scotland and his murder. The
+burglary had probably been arranged in the belief that the house was
+empty, Sir Horace having sent the servants away to his country house in
+Dellmere a week before. But if the murderer was a burglar he had stolen
+nothing and had not even collected any articles for removal. The only
+thing that was known to be missing was the dead man's pocket-book, but
+there was nothing to prove that the murderer had stolen it. It was quite
+possible that it had been lost or mislaid by Sir Horace; it was even
+possible that it had been stolen from him in the train during his journey
+from Scotland.
+
+It might be that while prowling through the rooms after breaking into the
+house, and before he had collected any goods for removal, the burglar had
+come unexpectedly on Sir Horace, and after shooting him had fled from the
+house. Only as a last resort to prevent capture did burglars commit
+murder. Had Sir Horace been shot while attempting to seize the intruder?
+The position in which the body was found did not support that theory. Two
+shots had been fired, the first of which had missed its victim, and
+entered the wall of the library. Evidently the murdered man had been hit
+by the second while attempting to leave the room. It was ingeniously
+suggested by the _Daily Record_ that the murderer was a criminal who
+knew Sir Horace, and was known to him as a man who had been before him at
+Old Bailey. This would account for Sir Horace being ruthlessly shot down
+without having made any attempt to seize the intruder. The burglar would
+have felt on seeing Sir Horace in the room that he was identified, and
+that the only way of escaping ultimate arrest by the police was to kill
+the man who could put the police on his track. Mr. Justice Fewbanks had
+had the reputation of being a somewhat severe judge, and it was possible
+that some of the criminals who had been sentenced by him at Old Bailey
+entertained a grudge against him.
+
+The question of when the murder was committed was regarded as important.
+Dr. Slingsby, of the Home Office, who had examined the body shortly after
+it was discovered by the police, was of opinion that death had taken
+place at least twelve hours before and probably longer than that. His
+opinion on this point lent support to the theory that the murder had been
+committed before midnight on Wednesday. It was the _Daily Record_ that
+seized on the mystery contained in the facts that the body when
+discovered was fully clothed and that the electric lights were not turned
+on. If the murder was committed late at night how came it that there were
+no lights in the empty house when the police discovered the body? Had the
+murderer, after shooting his victim, turned out the lights so that on the
+following day no suspicion would be created as would be the case if
+anyone saw lights burning in the house in the day-time? If he had done
+so, he was a cool hand. But if the burglar was such a cool hand as to
+stop to turn out the lights after the murder why did he not also stop to
+collect some valuables? Was he afraid that in attempting to get rid of
+them to a "fence" or "drop" he would practically reveal himself as the
+murderer and so place himself in danger in case the police offered a
+reward for the apprehension of the author of the crime?
+
+If Sir Horace had gone to bed before the murderer entered the house it
+would have been natural to expect no lights turned on. But he had
+returned unexpectedly; there were no servants in the house, and there was
+no bed ready for him. In any case, if he intended stopping in the empty
+house instead of going to a hotel he would have been wearing a sleeping
+suit when his body was discovered; or, at most, he would be only
+partially dressed if he had got up on hearing somebody moving about the
+house. But the body was fully dressed, even to collar and tie. It was
+absurd to suppose that the victim had been sitting in the darkness when
+the murderer appeared.
+
+Another difficult problem Scotland Yard had to face was the discovery of
+the person who had sent them the news of the murder. How had Scotland
+Yard's anonymous correspondent learned about the murder, and what were
+his motives in informing the police in the way he had done? Was he
+connected with the crime? Had the murderer a companion with him when he
+broke into Riversbrook for the purpose of burglary? That seemed to be the
+most probable explanation. The second man had been horrified at the
+murder, and desired to disassociate himself from it so that he might
+escape the gallows. The only alternative was to suppose that the murderer
+had confessed his crime to some one, and that his confidant had lost no
+time in informing the police of the tragedy.
+
+The newspaper accounts of the case threw some light on the private and
+domestic affairs of the victim. He was a widower with a grown-up
+daughter; his wife, a daughter of the late Sir James Goldsworthy, who
+changed his ancient family patronymic from Granville to Goldsworthy on
+inheriting the great fortune of an American kinsman, had died eight years
+before. Sir Horace's Hampstead household consisted of a housekeeper,
+butler, chauffeur, cook, housemaid, kitchenmaid and gardener. With the
+exception of the butler the servants had been sent the previous week to
+Sir Horace's country house in Dellmere, Sussex. It appeared that Miss
+Fewbanks spent most of her time at the country house and came up to
+London but rarely. She was at Dellmere when the murder was committed, and
+had been under the impression that her father was in Scotland. According
+to a report received from the police at Dellmere the first intimation
+that Miss Fewbanks had received of the tragic death of her father came
+from them. Naturally, she was prostrated with grief at the tragedy.
+
+The butler who had been left behind in charge of Riversbrook was a man
+named Hill, but he was not in the house on the night of the tragedy. He
+was a married man, and his wife and child lived in Camden Town, where
+Mrs. Hill kept a confectionery shop. Hill's master had given him
+permission to live at home for three weeks while he was in Scotland. The
+house in Tanton Gardens had been locked up and most of the valuables had
+been sent to the bank for safe-keeping, but there were enough portable
+articles of value in the house to make a good haul for any burglar. Hill
+had instructions to visit the house three times a week for the purpose of
+seeing that everything was safe and in order. He had inspected the place
+on Wednesday morning, and everything was as it had been left when his
+master went to Scotland. Sir Horace Fewbanks had returned to London on
+Wednesday evening, reaching St. Pancras by the 6.30 train. Hill was
+unaware that his master was returning, and the first he learned of the
+murder was the brief announcement in the evening papers on Thursday.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Inspector Chippenfield, who had come into prominence in the newspapers as
+the man who had caught the gang who had stolen Lady Gladville's
+jewels--which included the most costly pearl necklace in the world--was
+placed in charge of the case. It was to his success in this famous case
+that he owed his promotion to Inspector. He had the assistance of his
+subordinate, Detective Rolfe. So generous were the newspaper references
+to the acumen of these two terrors of the criminal classes that it was to
+be assumed that anything which inadvertently escaped one of them would be
+pounced upon by the other.
+
+On the morning after the discovery of the murdered man's body, the two
+officers made their way to Tanton Gardens from the Hampstead tube
+station. Inspector Chippenfield was a stout man of middle age, with a red
+face the colour of which seemed to be accentuated by the daily operation
+of removing every vestige of hair from it. He had prominent grey eyes
+with which he was accustomed to stare fiercely when he desired to impress
+a suspected person with what some of the newspapers had referred to as
+"his penetrating glance." His companion, Rolfe, was a tall well-built man
+in the early thirties. Like most men in a subordinate position, Rolfe had
+not a high opinion of the abilities of his immediate superiors. He was
+sure that he could fill the place of any one of them better than it was
+filled by its occupant. He believed that it was the policy of superiors
+to keep junior men back, to stand in their light, and to take all the
+credit for their work. He was confident that he was destined to make a
+name for himself in the detective world if only he were given the chance.
+
+When Inspector Chippenfield had visited Riversbrook the previous
+afternoon, Rolfe had not been selected as his assistant. A careful
+inspection of the house and especially of the room in which the tragedy
+had been committed had been made by the inspector. He had then turned his
+attention to the garden and the grounds surrounding the house.
+
+Whatever he had discovered and what theories he had formed were not
+disclosed to anyone, not even his assistant. He believed that the proper
+way to train a subordinate was to let him collect his own information and
+then test it for him. This method enabled him to profit by his
+subordinate's efforts and to display a superior knowledge when the other
+propounded a theory by which Inspector Chippenfield had also been misled.
+
+When they arrived at the house in which the crime had been committed,
+they found a small crowd of people ranging from feeble old women to
+babies in arms, and including a large proportion of boys and girls of
+school age, collected outside the gates, staring intently through the
+bars towards the house, which was almost hidden by trees. The morbid
+crowd made way for the two officers and speculated on their mission. The
+general impression was that they were the representatives of a
+fashionable firm of undertakers and had come to measure the victim for
+his coffin. Inside the grounds the Scotland Yard officers encountered a
+police-constable who was on guard for the purpose of preventing
+inquisitive strangers penetrating to the house.
+
+"Well, Flack," said Inspector Chippenfield in a tone in which geniality
+was slightly blended with official superiority. "How are you to-day?"
+
+"I'm very well indeed, sir," replied the police-constable. He knew
+that the state of his health was not a matter of deep concern to the
+inspector, but such is the vanity of human nature that he was
+pleased at the inquiry. The fact that there was a murdered man in
+the house gave mournful emphasis to the transience of human life,
+and made Police-Constable Flack feel a glow of satisfaction in being
+very well indeed.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield hesitated a moment as if in deep thought. The
+object of his hesitation was to give Flack an opportunity of imparting
+any information that had come to him while on guard. The inspector
+believed in encouraging people to impart information but regarded it as
+subversive of the respect due to him to appear to be in need of any. As
+Flack made no attempt to carry the conversation beyond the state of his
+health, Inspector Chippenfield came to the conclusion that he was an
+extremely dull policeman. He introduced Flack to Detective Rolfe and
+explained to the latter:
+
+"Flack was on duty on the night of the murder but heard no shots.
+Probably he was a mile or so away. But in a way he discovered the
+crime. Didn't you, Flack? When we rang up Seldon he came up here and
+brought Flack with him. He'll be only too glad to tell you anything you
+want to know."
+
+Rolfe took an official notebook from a breast pocket and proceeded to
+question the police-constable. The inspector made his way upstairs to the
+room in which the crime had been committed, for it was his system to seek
+inspiration in the scene of a crime.
+
+Tanton Gardens, a short private street terminating in a cul-de-sac, was
+in a remote part of Hampstead. The daylight appearance of the street
+betokened wealth and exclusiveness. The roadway which ran between its
+broad white-gravelled footwalks was smoothly asphalted for motor tyres;
+the avenues of great chestnut trees which flanked the footpaths served
+the dual purpose of affording shade in summer and screening the houses
+of Tanton Gardens from view. But after nightfall Tanton Gardens was a
+lonely and gloomy place, lighted only by one lamp, which stood in the
+high road more to mark the entrance to the street than as a guide to
+traffic along it, for its rays barely penetrated beyond the first pair
+of chestnut trees.
+
+The houses in Tanton Gardens were in keeping with the street: they
+indicated wealth and comfort. They were of solid exterior, of a size that
+suggested a fine roominess, and each house stood in its own grounds.
+Riversbrook was the last house at the blind end of the street, and its
+east windows looked out on a wood which sloped down to a valley, the
+street having originally been an incursion into a large private estate,
+of which the wood alone remained. On the other side a tangled nutwood
+coppice separated the judge's residence from its nearest neighbours, so
+the house was completely isolated. It stood well back in about four acres
+of ground, and only a glimpse of it could be seen from the street front
+because of a small plantation of ornamental trees, which grew in front of
+the house and hid it almost completely from view. When the carriage drive
+which wound through the plantation had been passed the house burst
+abruptly into view--a big, rambling building of uncompromising ugliness.
+Its architecture was remarkable. The impression which it conveyed was
+that the original builder had been prevented by lack of money from
+carrying out his original intention of erecting a fine symmetrical house.
+The first story was well enough--an imposing, massive, colonnaded front
+in the Greek style, with marble pillars supporting the entrance. But the
+two stories surmounting this failed lamentably to carry on the
+pretentious design. Viewed from the front, they looked as though the
+builder, after erecting the first story, had found himself in pecuniary
+straits, but, determined to finish his house somehow, had built two
+smaller stories on the solid edifice of the first. For the two second
+stories were not flush with the front of the house, but reared themselves
+from several feet behind, so that the occupants of the bedrooms on the
+first story could have used the intervening space as a balcony. Viewed
+from the rear, the architectural imperfections of the upper part of the
+house were in even stronger contrast with the ornamental first story.
+Apparently the impecunious builder, by the time he had reached the rear,
+had completely run out of funds, for on the third floor he had failed
+altogether to build in one small room, and had left the unfinished
+brickwork unplastered.
+
+The large open space between the house and the fir plantation had once
+been laid out as an Italian garden at the cost of much time and money,
+but Sir Horace Fewbanks had lacked the taste or money to keep it up, and
+had allowed it to become a luxuriant wilderness, though the sloping
+parterres and the centre flowerbeds still retained traces of their former
+beauty. The small lake in the centre, spanned by a rustic hand-bridge,
+was still inhabited by a few specimens of the carp family--sole survivors
+of the numerous gold-fish with which the original designer of the garden
+had stocked the lake.
+
+Sir Horace Fewbanks had rented Riversbrook as a town house for some years
+before his death, having acquired the lease cheaply from the previous
+possessor, a retired Indian civil servant, who had taken a dislike to the
+place because his wife had gone insane within its walls. Sir Horace had
+lived much in the house alone, though each London season his daughter
+spent a few weeks with him in order to preside over the few Society
+functions that her father felt it due to his position to give, and which
+generally took the form of solemn dinners to which he invited some of his
+brother judges, a few eminent barristers, a few political friends, and
+their wives. But rumour had whispered that the judge and his daughter had
+not got on too well together--that Miss Fewbanks was a strange girl who
+did not care for Society or the Society functions which most girls of her
+age would have delighted in, but preferred to spend her time on her
+father's country estate, taking an interest in the villagers or walking
+the country-side with half a dozen dogs at her heels.
+
+Rumour had not spared the dead judge's name. It was said of him that he
+was fond of ladies' society, and especially of ladies belonging to a type
+which he could not ask his daughter to meet; that he used to go out
+motoring, driving himself, after other people were in bed; and that
+strange scenes had taken place at Riversbrook. Flack had told his wife on
+several occasions that he had heard sounds of wild laughter and rowdy
+singing coming from Riversbrook as he passed along the street on his beat
+in the small hours of the morning. Several times in the early dawn Flack
+had seen two or three ladies in evening dress come down the carriage
+drive and enter a taxi-cab which had been summoned by telephone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+When Rolfe had finished questioning Police-Constable Flack and joined his
+chief upstairs, the latter, who had been going through the private papers
+in the murdered man's desk in the hope of alighting on a clue to the
+crime, received him genially.
+
+"Well," he said, "what do you think of Flack?"
+
+Rolfe had obtained from the police-constable a straightforward story of
+what he had seen, and in this way had picked up some useful information
+about the crime which it would have taken a long time to extract from the
+inspector, but he was a sufficiently good detective to have learned that
+by disparaging the source of your information you add to your own
+reputation for acumen in drawing conclusions in regard to it. He nodded
+his head in a deprecating way and emitted a slight cough which was meant
+to express contempt.
+
+"It looks very much like a case of burglary and murder," he said.
+
+He was anxious to know what theory his superior officer had formed.
+
+"And how do you fit in the letter advising us of the murder?" asked the
+inspector.
+
+He produced the letter from his pocket-book and looked at it earnestly.
+
+"There were two of them in it--one a savage ruffian who will stick at
+nothing, and the other a chicken-hearted specimen. They often work in
+pairs like that."
+
+"So your theory is that one of the two shot him, and the other was so
+unnerved that he sent us the letter and put us on the track to save his
+own neck?"
+
+"Something like that."
+
+"It is not impossible," was the senior officer's comment. "Mind you, I
+don't say it is my theory. In fact, I am in no hurry to form one. I
+believe in going carefully over the whole ground first, collecting all
+the clues and then selecting the right one."
+
+Rolfe admitted that his chief's way of setting to work to solve a
+mystery was an ideal one, but he made the reservation that it was a
+difficult one to put into operation. He was convinced that the only way
+of finding the right clue was to follow up every one until it was proved
+to be a wrong one.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield continued his study of the mysterious message
+which had been sent to Scotland Yard. It was written on a sheet of paper
+which had been taken from a writing pad of the kind sold for a few pence
+by all stationers. It was flimsy and blue-lined, and the message it
+contained was smudged and badly printed. But to the inspector's
+annoyance, there were no finger-prints on the paper. The finger-print
+expert at Scotland Yard had examined it under the microscope, but his
+search for finger-prints had been vain.
+
+"Depend upon it, we'll hear from this chap again," said the inspector,
+tapping the sheet of paper with a finger. "I think I may go so far as to
+say that this fellow thinks suspicion will be directed to him and he
+wants to save his neck."
+
+"It's a disguised hand," said Rolfe. "Of course he printed it in order
+not to give us a specimen of his handwriting. There are telltale things
+about a man's handwriting which give him away even when he tries to
+disguise it. But he's tried to disguise even his printing. Look how
+irregular the letters are--some slanting to the right and some to the
+left, and some are upright. Look at the two different kinds of 'U's.'"
+
+"He's used two different kinds of pens," said Inspector Chippenfield.
+"Look at the difference in the thickness of the letters."
+
+"The sooner he writes again the better," said Rolfe. "I am curious to
+know what he'll say next."
+
+"My idea is to find out who he is and make him speak," said the
+inspector, "Speaking is quicker than writing. I could frighten more
+out of him in ten minutes than he would give away voluntarily in a
+month of Sundays."
+
+Again Rolfe had to admit that his chief's plan to get at the truth was an
+ideal one.
+
+"Have you any idea who he is?" he asked.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield had brought his methods too near to perfection to
+make it possible for him to fall into an open trap.
+
+"I won't be very long putting my hand on him," he said.
+
+"But this thing has been in the papers," said Rolfe. "Don't you think the
+murderer will bolt out of the country when he knows his mate is prepared
+to turn King's evidence against him?"
+
+"Ah," said Inspector Chippenfield, "I haven't adopted your theory."
+
+"Then you think that the man who wrote this note knew of the murder but
+doesn't know who did it?"
+
+"Now you are going too far," said Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+The inspector was so wary about disclosing what was in his mind in regard
+to the letter that Rolfe, who disliked his chief very cordially, jumped
+to the conclusion that Inspector Chippenfield had no intelligible ideas
+concerning it.
+
+"If it was burglars they took nothing as far as we can ascertain up to
+the present," said Inspector Chippenfield after a pause.
+
+"They were surprised to find anyone in the house. And after the shot was
+fired they immediately bolted for fear the noise would attract
+attention."
+
+"What knocks a hole in the burglar theory is the fact that Sir Horace was
+fully dressed when he was shot," said the inspector. "Burglars don't
+break into a house when there are lights about, especially after having
+been led to believe that the house was empty."
+
+"So you think," said Rolfe, "that the window was forced after the murder
+with the object of misleading us."
+
+"I haven't said so," replied the inspector. "All I am prepared to say is
+that even that was not impossible."
+
+"It was forced from the outside," continued Rolfe. "I've seen the marks
+of a jemmy on the window-sill. If it was forced after the murder the
+murderer was a cool hand."
+
+"You can take it from me," exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield with
+unexpected candour, "that he was a cool hand. We are going to have a bit
+of trouble in getting to the bottom of this, Rolfe."
+
+"If anyone can get to the bottom of it, you can," said Rolfe, who
+believed with Voltaire that speech was given us in order to enable us to
+conceal our thoughts.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield was so astonished at this handsome compliment that
+he began to think he had underrated Rolfe's powers of discernment. His
+tone of cold official superiority immediately thawed.
+
+"There were two shots fired," he said, "but whether both were fired by
+the murderer I don't know yet. One of them may have been fired by Sir
+Horace. Just behind you in the wall is the mark of one of the bullets. I
+dug it out of the plaster yesterday and here it is." He produced from a
+waistcoat pocket a flattened bullet. "The other is inside him at
+present." He waved his hand in the direction of the room in which the
+corpse lay.
+
+"Of course you cannot say yet whether both bullets are out of the same
+revolver?" said Rolfe.
+
+"Can't tell till after the post-mortem," said the inspector. "And then
+all we can tell for certain is whether they are of the same pattern. They
+might be the same size, and yet be fired out of different revolvers of
+the same calibre."
+
+"Well, it is no use theorising about what happened in this room until
+after the post-mortem," said Rolfe.
+
+"You'd better give it some thought," suggested the inspector. "In the
+meantime I want you to interview the people in the neighbourhood and
+ascertain whether they heard any shots. They'll all say they did whether
+they heard them or not--you know how people persuade themselves into
+imagining things so as to get some sort of prominence in these crimes.
+But you can sift what they tell you and preserve the grain of truth. Try
+and get them to be accurate as to the time, as we want to fix the time of
+the crime as near as possible. Ask Flack to tell you something about the
+neighbours--he's been in this district fifteen years, and ought to know
+all about them. While you're away I'll go through these private papers. I
+want to find out why he came back from Scotland so suddenly. If we knew
+that the rest might be easy."
+
+"I haven't seen the body yet," said Rolfe. "I'd like to look at it.
+Where is it?"
+
+"I had it removed downstairs. You will find it in a big room on the left
+as you go down the hall. By the by, there is another matter, Rolfe. This
+glove was found in the room. It may be a clue, but it is more likely
+that it is one of Sir Horace's gloves and that he lost the other one on
+his way up from Scotland. It's a left-hand glove--men always lose the
+right-hand glove because they take it off so often. I've compared it
+with other gloves in Sir Horace's wardrobe, and I find it is the same
+size and much the same quality. But find out from Sir Horace's hosier if
+he sold it. Here's the address of the hosiers,--Bruden and Marshall, in
+the Strand."
+
+Rolfe went slowly downstairs into the room in which the corpse lay, and
+closed the door behind him. It was a very large room, overlooking the
+garden on the right side of the house. Somebody had lowered the Venetian
+blinds as a conventional intimation to the outside world that the house
+was one of mourning, and the room was almost dark. For nearly a minute
+Rolfe stood in silence, his hand resting on the knob of the door he had
+closed behind him. Gradually the outline of the room and the objects
+within it began to reveal themselves in shadowy shape as his eyes became
+accustomed to the dim light. He had a growing impression of a big lofty
+room, with heavy furniture, and a huddled up figure lying on a couch at
+the end furthest from the window and deepest in shadow.
+
+He stepped across to the window and gently raised one of the blinds. The
+light of an August sun penetrated through the screen of trees in front of
+the house and revealed the interior of the room more clearly. Rolfe was
+amazed at its size. From the window to the couch at the other end of the
+room, where the body lay, was nearly thirty feet. Glancing down the
+apartment, he noticed that it was really two rooms, divided in the middle
+by folding doors. These doors folded neatly into a slightly protruding
+ridge or arch almost opposite the door by which he had entered, and were
+screened from observation by heavy damask curtains, which drooped over
+the archway slightly into the room.
+
+Evidently the deceased judge had been in the habit of using the divided
+rooms as a single apartment, for the heavier furniture in both halves of
+it was of the same pattern. The chairs and tables were of heavy,
+ponderous, mid-Victorian make, and they were matched by a number of
+old-fashioned mahogany sideboards and presses, arranged methodically at
+regular intervals on both sides of the room. Rolfe, as his eye took in
+these articles, wondered why Sir Horace Fewbanks had bought so many. One
+sideboard, a vast piece of furniture fully eight feet long, had a whisky
+decanter and siphon of soda water on it, as though Sir Horace had served
+himself with refreshments on his return to the house. The tops of the
+other sideboards were bare, and the presses, use in such a room Rolfe was
+at a loss to conjecture, were locked up. The antique sombre uniformity
+of the furniture as a whole was broken at odd intervals by several
+articles of bizarre modernity, including a few daring French prints,
+which struck an odd note of incongruity in such a room.
+
+The murdered man had been laid on an old-fashioned sofa at the end of
+this double apartment which was furthest from the window. Rolfe walked
+slowly over the thick Turkey carpets and rugs with which the floor was
+covered, glanced at the sofa curiously, and then turned down the sheet
+from the dead man's face.
+
+At the time of his death Sir Horace Fewbanks was 58 years of age, but
+since death the grey bristles had grown so rapidly through his
+clean-shaven face that he looked much older. The face showed none of the
+wonted placidity of death. The mouth was twisted in an ugly fashion, as
+though the murdered man had endeavoured to cry for help and had been
+attacked and killed while doing so. One of Sir Horace's arms--the right
+one--was thrust forward diagonally across his breast as if in
+self-defence, and the hand was tightly clenched. Rolfe, who had last seen
+His Honour presiding on the Bench in the full pomp and majesty of law,
+felt a chill strike his heart at the fell power of death which did not
+even respect the person of a High Court judge, and had stripped him of
+every vestige of human dignity in the pangs of a violent end. The face he
+had last seen on the Bench full of wisdom and austerity of the law was
+now distorted into a livid mask in which it was hard to trace any
+semblance of the features of the dead judge.
+
+Rolfe's official alertness of mind in the face of a mysterious crime soon
+reasserted itself, however, and he shook off the feeling of sentiment and
+proceeded to make a closer examination of the dead body. As he turned
+down the sheet to examine the wound which had ended the judge's life, it
+slipped from his hand and fell on the floor, revealing that the judge had
+been laid on the couch just as he had been killed, fully clothed. He had
+been shot through the body near the heart, and a large patch of blood had
+welled from the wound and congealed in his shirt. One trouser leg was
+ruffled up, and had caught in the top of the boot.
+
+The corpse presented a repellent spectacle, but Rolfe, who had seen
+unpleasant sights of various kinds in his career, bent over the body
+with keen interest, noting these details, with all his professional
+instincts aroused. For though Rolfe had not yet risen very high in the
+police force, he had many of the qualities which make the good
+detective--observation, sagacity, and some imagination. The
+extraordinary crime which he had been called upon to help unravel
+presented a baffling mystery which was likely to test the value of these
+qualities to the utmost.
+
+Rolfe looked steadily at the corpse for some time, impressing a picture
+of it in every detail on his mental retina. Struck by an idea, he bent
+over and touched the patch of blood in the dead man's breast, then looked
+at his finger. There was no stain. The blood was quite congealed. Then he
+tried to unclench the judge's right hand, but it was rigid.
+
+As Rolfe stood there gazing intently at the corpse, and trying to form
+some theory of the reason for the murder, certain old stories he had
+heard of Sir Horace Fewbanks's private life and character recurred to
+him. These rumours had not been much--a jocular hint or two among his
+fellows at Scotland Yard that His Honour had a weakness for a pretty face
+and in private life led a less decorous existence than a judge ought to
+do. Rolfe wondered how much or how little truth was contained in these
+stories. He glanced around the vast room. Certainly it was not the sort
+of apartment in which a High Court judge might be expected to do his
+entertaining, but Rolfe recalled that he had heard gossip to the effect
+that Sir Horace, because of his virtual estrangement from his daughter,
+did very little entertaining beyond an occasional bridge or supper party
+to his sporting friends, and rarely went into Society.
+
+Rolfe began to scrutinise the articles of furniture in the room,
+wondering if there was anything about them which might reveal something
+of the habits of the dead man. He produced a small electric torch from
+his pocket, and with its light to guide him in the half-darkened room, he
+closely inspected each piece of furniture. Then, with the torch in his
+hand, he returned to the sofa and flashed it over the dead body. He
+started violently when the light, falling on the dead man's closed hand,
+revealed a tiny scrap of white. Eagerly he endeavoured to release the
+fragment from the tenacious clutch of the dead without tearing it, and
+eventually he managed to detach it. His heart bounded when he saw that it
+was a small torn piece of lace and muslin. He placed it in the palm of
+his left hand and examined it closely under the light of his torch. To
+him it looked to be part of a fashionable lady's dainty handkerchief. He
+was elated at his discovery and he wondered how Inspector Chippenfield
+had overlooked it. Then the explanation struck him. The small piece of
+lace and muslin had been effectually hidden in the dead man's clenched
+hand, and his efforts to open the hand had loosened it.
+
+"Well, Rolfe," said Inspector Chippenfield, when his subordinate
+reappeared, "you've been long enough to have unearthed the criminal or
+revived the corpse. Have you discovered anything fresh?"
+
+"Only this," replied Rolfe, displaying the piece of handkerchief.
+
+The find startled Inspector Chippenfield out of his air of bantering
+superiority.
+
+"Where did you get that?" he stammered, as he reached out eagerly for it.
+
+"The dead man had it clenched in his right hand. I wondered if he had
+anything hidden in his hand when I saw it so tightly clenched. I tried to
+force open the fingers and that fell out."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield was by no means pleased at his subordinate's
+discovery of what promised to be an important clue, especially after the
+clue had been missed by himself. But he congratulated Rolfe in a tone of
+fictitious heartiness.
+
+"Well done, Rolfe!" he exclaimed. "You are coming on. Anyone can see that
+you've the makings of a good detective."
+
+Rolfe could afford to ignore the sting contained in such faint praise.
+
+"What do you make of it?" he asked.
+
+"Looks as though there is a woman in it," said the inspector, who was
+still examining the scrap of lace and muslin.
+
+"There can't be much doubt about that," replied Rolfe.
+
+"We mustn't be in a hurry in jumping at conclusions," remarked the
+inspector.
+
+"No, and we mustn't ignore obvious facts," said Rolfe.
+
+"You think a woman murdered him?" asked the inspector.
+
+"I think a woman was present when he was shot: whether she fired the shot
+there is nothing to show at present. There may have been a man with her.
+But there was a struggle just before the shot was fired and as Sir Horace
+fell he grasped at the hand in which she was holding her handkerchief. Or
+perhaps her handkerchief was torn in his dying struggles when she was
+leaning over him."
+
+"You have overlooked the possibility of this having been placed in the
+dying man's hand to deceive us," said the inspector.
+
+"If the intention was to mislead us it wouldn't have been placed where it
+might have been overlooked."
+
+As the inspector had overlooked the presence of the scrap of handkerchief
+in the dead man's hand, he felt that he was not making much progress with
+the work of keeping his subordinate in his place.
+
+"Well, it is a clue of a sort," he said. "The trouble is that we have
+too many clues. I wish we knew which is the right one. Anyway, it knocks
+over your theory of a burglary," he added in a tone of satisfaction.
+
+"Yes," Rolfe admitted. "That goes by the board."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"James Hill, sir."
+
+"That is an alias. What is your real name?" Inspector Chippenfield glared
+fiercely at the butler in order to impress upon him the fact that
+subterfuge was useless.
+
+"Henry Field, sir," replied the man, after some hesitation.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield opened the capacious pocketbook which he had
+placed before him on the desk when the butler had entered in response to
+his summons, and he took from it a photograph which he handed to the man
+he was interrogating.
+
+"Is that your photograph?" he asked.
+
+Police photographs taken in gaol for purposes of future identification
+are always far from flattering, and Henry Field, after looking at the
+photograph handed to him, hesitated a little before replying:
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"So, Henry Field, in November 1909 you were sentenced to three years for
+robbing your master, Lord Melhurst."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Let me see," said the inspector, as if calling on his memory to perform
+a reluctant task. "It was a diamond scarf-pin and a gold watch. Lord
+Melhurst had come home after a good day at Epsom and a late supper in
+town. Next morning he missed his scarf-pin and his watch. He thought he
+had been robbed at Epsom or in town. He was delightfully vague about what
+had happened to him after his glorious day at Epsom, but unfortunately
+for you the taxi-cab driver who drove him remembered seeing the pin on
+him when he got out of the cab. As you had waited up for him suspicion
+fell on you, and you were arrested and confessed. I think those are the
+facts, Field?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said the distressed looking man who stood before him.
+
+"I think I had the pleasure of putting you through," added the inspector.
+
+The butler understood that in police slang "putting a man through" meant
+arresting him and putting him through the Criminal Court into gaol. He
+made the same reply:
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I'm glad to see you bear me no ill-will for it," said Inspector
+Chippenfield. "You don't, do you?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"I never forget a face," pursued the officer, glancing up at the face of
+the man before him. "When I saw you yesterday I knew you again in a
+moment, and when I went back to the Yard I looked up your record."
+
+The butler was doubtful whether any reply was called for, but after a
+pause, as an endorsement of the inspector's gift for remembering faces,
+he ventured on:
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And how did you, an ex-convict, come to get into the service of one of
+His Majesty's judges?"
+
+"He took me in," replied the butler.
+
+"You mean that you took him in," replied the inspector, with a pleasant
+laugh at his own witticism.
+
+"No, sir, I didn't take him in," declared the butler. He had not joined
+in the laugh at the inspector's joke.
+
+"Get away with you," said Inspector Chippenfield. "You don't expect me to
+believe that you told him you were an ex-convict? You must have used
+forged references."
+
+"No, sir. He knew I was a--" Hill hesitated at referring to himself as
+an ex-convict, though he had not shrunk from the description by Inspector
+Chippenfield. "He knew that I had been in trouble. In fact, sir, if you
+remember, I was tried before him."
+
+"The devil you were!" exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield, in astonishment.
+"And he took you into his service after you had served your sentence. He
+must have been mad. How did you manage it?"
+
+"After I came out I found it hard to get a place," said Hill, "and when
+Sir Horace's butler died I wrote to him and asked if he would give me a
+chance. I had a wife and child, sir, and they had a hard struggle while I
+was in prison. My wife had a shop, but she sold it to find money for my
+defence. Sir Horace told me to call on him, and after thinking it over he
+decided to engage me. He was a good master to me."
+
+"And how did you repay him," exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield sternly,
+"by murdering him?"
+
+The butler was startled by the suddenness of the accusation, as Inspector
+Chippenfield intended he should be.
+
+"Me!" he exclaimed. "As sure as there is a God in Heaven I had nothing to
+do with it."
+
+"That won't go down with me, Field," said the police officer, giving the
+wretched man another prolonged penetrating look.
+
+"It's true; it's true!" he protested wildly. "I had nothing to do with
+it. I couldn't do a thing like that, sir. I couldn't kill a man if I
+wanted to--I haven't the nerve. But I knew I would be suspected," he
+added, in a tone of self-pity.
+
+"Oh, you did?" replied Inspector Chippenfield. "And why was that?"
+
+"Because of my past."
+
+"Where were you on the date of the murder?"
+
+"In the morning I came over here to look round as usual, and I found
+everything all right."
+
+"You did that every day while Sir Horace was away?"
+
+"Not every day, sir. Three times a week: Mondays, Wednesdays, and
+Fridays."
+
+"Did you enter the house or just look round?"
+
+"I always came inside."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To make quite sure that everything was all right."
+
+"And was everything all right the morning of the 18th?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You are quite sure of that? You looked round carefully?"
+
+"Well, sir, I just gave a glance round, for of course I didn't expect
+anything would be wrong."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield fixed a steady glance on the butler to ascertain
+if he was conscious of the trap he had avoided.
+
+"Did you look in this room?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I made a point of looking in all the rooms."
+
+"You are sure that Sir Horace's dead body was not lying here?" Inspector
+Chippenfield pointed beside the desk where the body had been found.
+
+"Oh, no, sir. I'd have seen it if it had."
+
+"There was no sign anywhere of his having returned from Scotland?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"You didn't know he was returning?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"What time did you leave the house?"
+
+"It would be about a quarter past twelve, sir."
+
+"And what did you do after that?"
+
+"I went home and had my dinner. In the afternoon I took my little girl
+to the Zoo. I had promised her for a long time that I would take her
+to the Zoo."
+
+"And what did you do after visiting the Zoo?"
+
+"We went home for supper. After supper my wife took the little girl to
+the picture palace in Camden Road. It was quite a holiday, sir, for her."
+
+"And what did you do while your wife and child were at the pictures?"
+
+"I stayed at home and minded the shop. When they came home we all went
+to bed. My wife will tell you the same thing."
+
+"I've no doubt she will," said the inspector drily. "Well, if you didn't
+murder Sir Horace yourself when did you first hear that he had been
+murdered?"
+
+"I saw it in the papers yesterday evening."
+
+"And you immediately came up here to see if it was true?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And you were taken to the Hampstead Police Station to make a statement
+as to your movements on the day and night of the murder?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And the story you have just told me about the Zoo and the pictures and
+the rest is virtually the same as the statement you made at the station?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Do you know if Sir Horace kept a revolver?"
+
+"I think he did, sir."
+
+"Where did he keep it?"
+
+"In the second drawer of his desk, sir."
+
+"Well, it's gone," remarked Inspector Chippenfield without opening the
+drawer. "What sort of a revolver was it? Did you ever see it? How do you
+know he kept one?"
+
+"Once or twice I saw something that looked like a revolver in that drawer
+while Sir Horace had it open. It was a small nickel revolver."
+
+"Sir Horace always locked his desk?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"None of your keys will open it, of course?"
+
+"No, sir. That is--I don't know, sir. I've never tried."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield grunted slightly. That trap the butler had not
+seen until too late. But of course all servants went through their
+masters' private papers when they got the chance.
+
+"Do you know if Sir Horace was in the habit of carrying a
+pocket-book?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, sir; he was."
+
+"What sort of a pocket-book?"
+
+"A large Russian leather one with a gold clasp."
+
+"Did he take it away with him when he went to Scotland? Did you see it
+about the house after he left?"
+
+"No, sir. I think he took it with him. It would not be like him to forget
+it, or to leave it lying about."
+
+"And what sort of a man was Sir Horace, Field?"
+
+"A very good master, sir. He could be very stern when he was angry, but I
+got on very well with him."
+
+"Quite so. Do you know if he had a weakness for the ladies?"
+
+"Well, sir, I've heard people say he had."
+
+"I want your own opinion; I don't want what other people said. You
+were with him for three years and kept a pretty close watch on him,
+I've no doubt."
+
+"Speaking confidentially, I might say that I think he was," said Hill.
+
+He glanced apprehensively behind him as if afraid of the dead man
+appearing at the door to rebuke him for presuming to speak ill of him.
+
+"I thought as much," said the inspector. "Have you any idea why he came
+down from Scotland?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Well, that will do for the present, Field. If I want you again I'll
+send for you."
+
+"Thank you, sir. May I ask a question, sir?"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"You don't really think I had anything to do with it, sir?"
+
+"I'm not here, Field, to tell you what I think. This much I will say:
+If I find you have tried to deceive me in any way it will be a bad
+day for you."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Grave, taciturn, watchful, secret and suave, with an appearance of
+tight-lipped reticence about him which a perpetual faint questioning
+look in his eyes denied, Hill looked an ideal man servant, who knew
+his station in life, and was able to uphold it with meek dignity. From
+the top of his trimly-cut grey crown to his neatly-shod silent feet he
+exuded deference and respectability. His impassive mask of a face was
+incapable--apart from the faint query note in the eyes--of betraying
+any of the feelings or emotions which ruffle the countenances of
+common humanity.
+
+On the way downstairs, Hill saw Police-Constable Flack in conversation
+with a lady at the front door. The lady was well-known to the butler as
+Mrs. Holymead, the wife of a distinguished barrister, who had been one of
+his master's closest friends. She seemed glad to see the butler, for she
+greeted him with a remark that seemed to imply a kinship in sorrow.
+
+"Isn't this a dreadful thing, Hill?" she said.
+
+"It's terrible, madam," replied Hill respectfully.
+
+Mrs. Holymead was extremely beautiful, but it was obvious that she was
+distressed at the tragedy, for her eyes were full of tears, and her
+olive-tinted face was pale. She was about thirty years of age; tall,
+slim, and graceful. Her beauty was of the Spanish type: straight-browed,
+lustrous-eyed, and vivid; a clear olive skin, and full, petulant, crimson
+lips. She was fashionably dressed in black, with a black hat.
+
+"The policeman tells me that Miss Fewbanks has not come up from Dellmere
+yet," she continued.
+
+"No, madam. We expect her to-morrow. I believe Miss Fewbanks has been too
+prostrated to come."
+
+"Dreadful, dreadful," murmured Mrs. Holymead. "I feel I want to know all
+about it and yet I am afraid. It is all too terrible for words."
+
+"It has been a terrible shock, madam," said Hill.
+
+"Has the housekeeper come up, Hill?"
+
+"No, madam. She will be up to-morrow with Miss Fewbanks."
+
+"Well, is there nobody I can see?" asked Mrs. Holymead.
+
+Police-Constable Flack was impressed by the spectacle of a beautiful
+fashionably-dressed lady in distress.
+
+"The inspector in charge of the case is upstairs, madam," he suggested.
+"Perhaps you'd like to see him." It suddenly occurred to him that he had
+instructions not to allow any stranger into the house, and police
+instructions at such a time were of a nature which classed a friend of
+the family as a stranger. "Perhaps I'd better ask him first," he added,
+and he went upstairs with the feeling that he had laid himself open to
+severe official censure from Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+He came downstairs with a smile on his face and the message that the
+inspector would be pleased to see Mrs. Holymead. In his brief interview
+with his superior he had contrived to convey the unofficial information
+that Mrs. Holymead was a fine-looking woman, and he had no doubt that
+Inspector Chippenfield's readiness to see her was due to the impression
+this information had made on his unofficial feelings.
+
+Mrs. Holymead was conducted upstairs and announced by the butler.
+Inspector Chippenfield greeted her with a low bow of conscious
+inferiority, and anticipated Hill in placing a chair for her. His large
+red face went a deeper scarlet in colour as he looked at her.
+
+"Flack tells me that you are a friend of the family, Mrs. Holymead.
+What is it that I can do for you? I need scarcely say, Mrs. Holymead,
+that your distinguished husband is well known to us all. I have had
+the pleasure of being cross-examined by him on several occasions.
+Anything you wish to know I'll be pleased to tell you, if it lies
+within my power."
+
+"Thank you," said Mrs. Holymead.
+
+She seemed to be slightly nervous in the presence of a member of the
+Scotland Yard police, in spite of his obvious humility in the company of
+a fashionable lady who belonged to a different social world from that in
+which police inspectors moved. It took Inspector Chippenfield some
+minutes to discover that the object of Mrs. Holymead's visit was to learn
+some of the details of the tragedy. As one who had known the murdered man
+for several years, and the wife of his intimate friend, she was
+overwhelmed by the awful tragedy. She endeavoured to explain that the
+crime was like a horrible dream which she could not get rid of. But in
+spite of the repugnance with which she contemplated the fact that a
+gentleman she had known so well had been shot down in his own house she
+felt a natural curiosity to know how the dreadful crime had been
+committed.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield availed himself of the opportunity to do the
+honours of the occasion. He went over the details of the tragedy and
+pointed out where the body had been found. He showed her the bullet mark
+on the wall and the flattened bullet which had been extracted. Although
+from the mere habit of official caution he gave away no information which
+was not of a superficial and obvious kind, it was apparent he liked
+talking about the crime and his responsibilities as the officer who had
+been placed in charge of the investigations. He noted the interest with
+which Mrs. Holymead followed his words and he was satisfied that he had
+created a favourable impression on her. It was his desire to do the
+honours thoroughly which led him to remark after he had given her the
+main facts of the tragedy:
+
+"I'm sorry I cannot take you to view the body. It is downstairs, but the
+fact is the Home Office doctors are in there making the post-mortem to
+extract the bullet."
+
+Mrs. Holymead shuddered at this information. The fact that such gruesome
+work as a post-mortem examination was proceeding on the body of a man
+whom she had known so well brought on a fit of nausea. Her head fell back
+as if she was about to faint.
+
+"Can I have a glass of water?" she whispered.
+
+A fainting woman, if she is beautiful and fashionably dressed, will
+unnerve even a resourceful police official. Had she been one of the
+servants Inspector Chippenfield would have rung the bell for a glass of
+water to throw over her face, and meantime would have looked on calmly at
+such evidence of the weakness of sex. But in this case he dashed out of
+the room, ran downstairs, shouted for Hill, ordered him to find a glass,
+snatched the glass from him, filled it with water, and dashed upstairs
+again. His absence from the room totalled a little less than three
+minutes, and when he held the glass to the lady's lips he was out of
+breath with his exertions.
+
+Mrs. Holymead took a sip of water, shuddered, took another sip, then
+heaved a sigh, and opened to the full extent her large dark eyes on the
+man bending over her, who felt amply repaid by such a glance. She
+thanked him prettily for his great kindness and took her departure,
+being conducted downstairs, and to her waiting motor-car at the gate, by
+Inspector Chippenfield. That officer went back to the house with a
+pleased smile on his features. But he would not have been so pleased
+with himself if he had known that his brief absence from the room of the
+tragedy for the purpose of obtaining a glass of water had been more than
+sufficient to enable the lady to run to the open desk of the murdered
+man, touch a spring which opened a secret receptacle at the back of it,
+extract a small bundle of papers, close the spring, and return to her
+chair to await in a fainting attitude the return of the chivalrous
+police officer.
+
+Mrs. Holymead's return to her home in Princes Gate was awaited with
+feverish anxiety by one of the inmates. This was Mademoiselle Gabrielle
+Chiron, a French girl of about twenty-eight, who was a distant connection
+of Mrs. Holymead's by marriage. A cousin of Mrs. Holymead's had married
+Lucille Chiron, the younger sister of Gabrielle, two years ago. Mrs.
+Holymead on visiting the French provincial town where the marriage was
+celebrated, was attracted by Gabrielle. As the Chiron family were not
+wealthy they welcomed the friendship between Gabrielle and the beautiful
+American who had married one of the leading barristers in London, and
+finally Gabrielle went to live with Mrs. Holymead as a companion.
+
+From the window of an upstairs room which commanded a view of the street,
+Gabrielle Chiron waited impatiently for the return of the motor-car in
+which Mrs. Holymead had driven to Riversbrook. When at length it turned
+the corner and came into view, she rushed downstairs to meet Mrs.
+Holymead. She opened the street door before the lady of the house could
+ring. Her gaze was fixed on a hand-bag which Mrs. Holymead carried--a
+comparatively big hand-bag which the lady had taken the precaution to
+purchase before driving out to Riversbrook.
+
+The French girl's face lighted up with a smile as she saw by the shape of
+the bag that it was not empty.
+
+"Have you got them?" she whispered.
+
+"Yes," was the reply. "I followed out your plan--it worked without a
+hitch."
+
+"Ah, I knew you would manage it," said the girl. "I would have gone, but
+it was best that you should go. These police agents do not like
+foreigners--they would be suspicious if I had gone."
+
+"There was a big red-faced man in charge--Inspector Chippenfield, they
+called him," said Mrs. Holymead. "He was in the library as you said he
+would be--he was sitting there calmly as if he did not know what nerves
+were. He knew me as a friend of the family and was quite nice to me. I
+saw as soon as I went in that the desk was open--he had been examining
+Sir Horace's private papers. I asked him to tell me about the--about the
+tragedy. He piled horror on horror and then I pretended to faint. He ran
+down stairs for a glass of water, and that gave me time to open the
+secret drawer. They are here," she added, patting the hand-bag
+affectionately; "let us go upstairs and burn them."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+There was unpleasant news for Inspector Chippenfield when Miss Fewbanks
+arrived at Riversbrook accompanied by the housekeeper, Mrs. Hewson. In
+the first place, he learnt with considerable astonishment that it was
+Miss Fewbanks's intention to stay at the house until after the funeral,
+and for that purpose she had brought the housekeeper to keep her company
+in the lonely old place. Although they had taken up their quarters in the
+opposite wing of the rambling mansion to that in which the dead body lay,
+it seemed to Inspector Chippenfield--whose mind was very impressionable
+where the fair sex was concerned--that Miss Fewbanks must be a very
+peculiar girl to contemplate staying in the same house with the body of
+her murdered father for nearly a week. He was convinced that she must be
+a strong-minded young woman, and he did not like strong-minded young
+women. He preferred the weak and clinging type of the sex as more of a
+compliment to his own sturdy manliness.
+
+His unfavourable impression of Miss Fewbanks was deepened when he saw her
+and heard what she had to tell him. The girl had come up from the country
+filled with horror at the crime which had deprived her of a father, and
+firmly determined to leave no stone unturned to bring the murderer to
+justice. It was true that she and her father had lived on terms of
+partial estrangement for some time past because of his manner of life,
+but all the girl's feelings of resentment against him had been swept away
+by the news of his dreadful death, and all she remembered now was that he
+was her father, and had been brutally murdered.
+
+When she sent for Inspector Chippenfield she had visited the room in
+which lay the body of her father. It had been placed in a coffin which
+was resting on the undertaker's trestles in the bay embrasure of the big
+room with the folding doors. There was nothing in the appearance of the
+corpse to suggest that a crime had been committed, but it had been
+impossible for the undertaker's men to erase entirely the distortion of
+the features so that they might suggest the cold, calm dignity of a
+peaceful death. The ordeal of looking on the dead body of her father had
+nerved her to carry through resolutely the task of discovering the author
+of the crime.
+
+She awaited the coming of the inspector in a small sitting-room, and
+when he entered she pointed quickly to a chair, but remained standing
+herself. In appearance Miss Fewbanks was a charming girl of the typical
+English type. She was of medium height, slight, but well-built, with
+fair hair and dark blue eyes, an imperious short upper lip and a
+determined chin, and the clear healthy complexion of a girl who has
+lived much out of doors. The inspector noted all these details; noted,
+too, that although her breast heaved with agitation she had herself well
+under control; her pretty head was erect, and one of her small hands was
+tightly clenched by her side.
+
+"Have you found out--anything?" she asked the inspector as he entered.
+
+The girl had chosen a vague word because she felt that there were many
+things which must come to light in unravelling the crime, but, from the
+police point of view of Inspector Chippenfield, the question whether he
+had found out anything was a stinging reflection on his ability.
+
+"I consider it inadvisable to make any arrest at the present stage of my
+investigations," he said, with cold official dignity.
+
+"Do you think you know who did it?" asked the girl.
+
+"It is my business to find out," replied the inspector, in a voice that
+indicated confidence in his ability to perform the task.
+
+The girl was too unsophisticated to follow the subtle workings of
+official pride. "The papers call it a mysterious crime. Do you think it
+is mysterious?"
+
+"There are certainly some mysterious features about it," said the
+inspector. "But I do not regard them as insoluble. Nothing is insoluble,"
+he added, in a sententious tone.
+
+"If there are mysteries to be solved you ought to have help," said the
+young lady.
+
+She glanced at Mrs. Hewson significantly, and then proceeded to explain
+to Inspector Chippenfield what she meant.
+
+"I have asked Mr. Crewe, the celebrated detective, to assist you. Of
+course you know Mr. Crewe--everybody does. I know you are a very clever
+man at your profession, but in a thing of this kind two clever men are
+better than one. I hope you will not mind--there is no reflection
+whatever on your ability. In fact, I have the utmost confidence in you.
+But it is due to my father's memory to do all that is possible to get to
+the bottom of this dreadful crime. If money is needed it will be
+forthcoming. That applies to you no less than to Mr. Crewe. But I hope
+you will be able to carry out your investigations amicably together, and
+that you will be willing to assist one another. You will lose nothing by
+doing so. I trust you will place at Mr. Crewe's disposal all the
+facilities that are available to you as an officer of the police."
+
+This statement was so clear that Inspector Chippenfield had no choice but
+to face the conclusion that Miss Fewbanks had more faith in the abilities
+of a private detective to unravel the mystery than she had in the
+resources of Scotland Yard. He would have liked to have told the young
+lady what he thought of her for interfering with his work, and he
+determined to avail himself of the right opportunity to do so if it came
+along. But the statement that money was not to be spared had a soothing
+influence on his feelings. Of course, officers of Scotland Yard were not
+allowed to take gratuities however substantial they might be, but there
+were material ways of expressing gratitude which were outside the
+regulations of the department.
+
+"I shall be very pleased to give Mr. Crewe any assistance he wants," said
+Inspector Chippenfield, bowing stiffly.
+
+It was seldom that he took a subordinate fully into his confidence, but
+after he left Miss Fewbanks he flung aside his official pride in order to
+discuss with Rolfe the enlistment of the services of Crewe. Rolfe was no
+less indignant than his chief at the intrusion of an outsider into their
+sphere. Crewe was an exponent of the deductive school of crime
+investigation, and had first achieved fame over the Abbindon case some
+years ago, when he had succeeded in restoring the kidnapped heir of the
+Abbindon estates after the police had failed to trace the missing child.
+In detective stories the attitude of members of Scotland Yard to the
+deductive expert is that of admiration based on conscious inferiority,
+but in real life the experts of Scotland Yard have the utmost contempt
+for the deductive experts and their methods. The disdainful pity of the
+deductive experts for the rule-of-thumb methods of the police is not to
+be compared with the vigorous scorn of the official detective for the
+rival who has not had the benefit of police training.
+
+"Look here, Rolfe," said Inspector Chippenfield, "we mustn't let Crewe
+get ahead of us in this affair, or we'll never hear the last of it. It's
+scandalous of a man like Crewe, who has money of his own and could live
+like a gentleman, coming along and taking the bread out of our mouths by
+accepting fees and rewards for hunting after criminals. Of course I know
+they say he is lavish with his money and gives away more than he earns,
+but that's all bosh--he sticks it in his own pocket, right enough. One
+thing is certain: he gets paid whether he wins or loses; that is to say,
+he gets his fee in any case, but of course if he wins something will be
+added to his fee. In the meantime all you and I get is our salaries, and,
+as you know, the pay of an inspector isn't what it ought to be."
+
+Rolfe assured his superior of his conviction that the pay at Scotland
+Yard ought to be higher for all ranks--especially the rank and file. He
+also declared that he was ready to do his best to thwart Crewe.
+
+"That is the right spirit," commented Inspector Chippenfield approvingly.
+"Of course we'll tell him we're willing to help him all we can, and of
+course hell tell us we can depend on his help. But we know what his help
+will amount to. He'll keep back from us anything he finds out, and we'll
+do the same for him. But the point is, Rolfe, that you and I have to put
+all our brains into this and help one another. I'm not the man to despise
+help from a subordinate. If you have any ideas about this case, Rolfe, do
+not be afraid to speak out, I'll give them sympathetic consideration."
+
+"I know you will," said Rolfe, who was by no means sure of the fact. "You
+can count on me."
+
+"As you know, Rolfe, there have been cases in which men from the Yard
+haven't worked together as amicably as they ought to have done. It used
+to be said when I was one of the plain-clothes men that the man in charge
+got all the credit and the men under him did all the work. But as an
+inspector I can tell you that is very rarely the case. In my reports I
+believe in giving my junior credit for all he has done, and generally a
+bit more. It may be foolish of me, but that is my way. I never miss a
+chance of putting in a good word for the man under me."
+
+"It would be better if they were all like that," said Rolfe.
+
+"Well, it's a bargain, Rolfe," said Inspector Chippenfield. "You do your
+best on this job and you won't lose by it. I'll see to that. But in the
+meantime we don't want to put Crewe on the scent. Let us see how much
+we'll tell him and how much we won't."
+
+"He'll want to see the letter sent to the Yard about the murder," said
+Rolfe. "The _Daily Recorder_ published a facsimile of it this morning."
+
+"Yes, I knew about that. Well, he can have it. But don't say anything to
+him about that lace you found in the dead man's hand--or at any rate not
+until you find out more about it. The glove he can have since it is
+pretty obvious that it belonged to Sir Horace. We'll spin Crewe a yarn
+that we are depending on it as a clue."
+
+Crewe arrived during the afternoon to inspect the house and the room in
+which the crime had been committed. There was every appearance of
+cordiality in the way in which he greeted the police officials.
+
+"Delighted to see you, Inspector," he said. "Who is working this case
+with you? Rolfe? Don't think we have met before, Rolfe, have we?"
+
+Rolfe politely murmured something about not having had the pleasure
+of meeting Mr. Crewe, but of always having wanted to meet him,
+because of his fame.
+
+"Very good of you," replied Crewe. "This is a very sad business. I
+understand there are some attractive points of mystery in the crime. I
+hope you haven't unravelled it yet before I have got a start. You fellows
+are so quick."
+
+"Slow and sure is our motto," said Inspector Chippenfield, feeling
+certain that a sneer and not a compliment had been intended. "There is
+nothing to be gained in arresting the wrong man."
+
+"That's a sound maxim for us all," said Crewe. "However, let's get to
+business. I rang up the Yard this morning and they told me you were
+in charge of the case and that I'd probably find you here. Can you
+let me have a look at the original of that letter which was sent to
+Scotland Yard informing you of the murder? There is a facsimile of it
+in the _Daily Recorder_ this morning, and from all appearances there
+are some interesting conclusions to be drawn from it. But the
+original is the thing."
+
+"Here you are," said the inspector, producing his pocket-book, taking out
+the paper, and handing it to Crewe. "What do you make of it?"
+
+Crewe sat down, and placing the paper before him took a magnifying glass
+from his pocket. As he sat there, in his grey tweed suit, his hat pushed
+carelessly back from his forehead, he might have been mistaken for a
+young man of wealth with no serious business in life, for his clothes
+were of fashionable cut, and he wore them with an air of distinction. But
+a glance at his face would have dispelled the impression. The clear-cut,
+clean-shaven features riveted attention by reason of their strength and
+intelligence, and though the dark eyes were rather too dreamy for the
+face, the heavy lines of the lower jaw indicated the man of action and
+force of character. The thick neck and heavily-lipped firm mouth
+suggested tireless energy and abounding vitality.
+
+"At least two people have had a hand in it," he said, after studying the
+paper for a few minutes.
+
+"In the murder?" asked the inspector, who was astonished at a deduction
+which harmonised with a theory which had begun to take shape in his mind.
+
+"In writing this," said Crewe, with his attention still fixed on the
+paper. "But of course you know that yourself."
+
+"Of course," assented the inspector, who was surprised at the
+information, but was too experienced an official to show his feelings.
+"And both hands disguised."
+
+"Disguised to the extent of being printed in written characters,"
+continued Crewe. "It is so seldom that a person writes printed characters
+that any method in which they are written suggests disguise. The original
+intention of the two persona who wrote this extraordinary note was for
+each to write a single letter in turn. That system was carried as far as
+'Sir Horace' or, perhaps, up to the 'B' in 'Fewbanks.' After that they
+became weary of changing places and one of them wrote alternate letters
+to the end, leaving blanks for the other to fill in. That much is to be
+gathered from the variations in the spaces between the letters--sometimes
+there was too much room for an intermediate letter, sometimes too little,
+so the letter had to be cramped. Here and there are dots made with the
+pen as the first of the two spelled out the words so as to know what
+letters to write and what to leave blank. Look at the differences in the
+letter 'U.' One of the writers makes it a firm downward and upward
+stroke; the other makes the letter fainter and adds another downward
+stroke, the letter being more like a small 'u' written larger than a
+capital letter. The differences in the two hands are so pronounced
+throughout the note that I am inclined to think that one of the writers
+was a woman."
+
+"Exactly what I thought," said Inspector Chippenfield, looking hard at
+Crewe so that the latter should not question his good faith.
+
+"Then there are sometimes slight differences in the alternate letters
+written by the same hand. Look at the 'T' in 'last' and the 'T' in
+'night'--the marked variation in the length and angle of the cross
+stroke. It is evident that the writers were labouring under serious
+excitement when they wrote this."
+
+Rolfe was so interested in Crewe's revelations that he stood beside the
+deductive expert and studied the paper afresh.
+
+"And now, about finger-prints?" asked Crews.
+
+"None," was the reply of the inspector, "We had it under the microscope
+at Scotland Yard."
+
+"None?" exclaimed Crewe, in surprise. "Why adopt such precautions as
+wearing gloves to write a note giving away this startling secret?"
+
+"Easy enough," replied Inspector Chippenfield. "The people who wrote the
+note either had little or nothing to do with the murder, but were afraid
+suspicion might be directed to them, or else they are the murderers and
+want to direct suspicion from themselves."
+
+"And now for the bullets," said Crewe, "I understand two shots
+were fired."
+
+"From two revolvers," said the inspector. "Here are both bullets. This
+one I picked out of the wall over there. You can see where I've broken
+away the plaster. This one--much the bigger one of the two--was the one
+that killed Sir Horace. The doctor handed it to me after the
+post-mortem."
+
+"Did Sir Horace keep a revolver?"
+
+"The butler says yes. But if he did it's gone."
+
+Crewe stood up and examined the hole in the wall where Inspector
+Chippenfield had dug out the smaller bullet.
+
+"Sir Horace made a bid for his life but missed. Of course, he had no time
+to take aim while there was a man on the other side of the room covering
+him, but in any case those fancy firearms cannot be depended upon to
+shoot straight."
+
+"You think Sir Horace fired at his murderer--fired first?" asked Rolfe.
+
+"This small bullet suggests one of those fancy silver-mounted weapons
+that are made to sell to wealthy people. Sir Horace was a bit of a
+sportsman, and knew something about game-shooting, but, I take it, he had
+no use for a revolver. I assume he kept one of those fancy weapons on
+hand thinking he would never have to use it, but that it would do to
+frighten a burglar if the occasion did arise."
+
+"And when he was held up in this room by a man with a revolver he made a
+dash for his own revolver and got in the first shot?" suggested Rolfe,
+with the idea of outlining Crewe's theory of how the crime was committed.
+
+"It is scarcely possible to reconstruct the crime to that extent," said
+Crewe with a smile. "But undoubtedly Sir Horace got in the first shot. If
+he fired after he was hit his bullet would have gone wild--would probably
+have struck the ceiling--whereas it landed there. Let us measure the
+height from the floor." He pulled a small spool out of a waistcoat pocket
+and drew out a tape measure. "A little high for the heart of an average
+man, and probably a foot wide of the mark."
+
+"And what do you make of the disappearance of Sir Horace's revolver?"
+asked Rolfe, who seemed to his superior officer to be in danger of
+displaying some admiration for deductive methods.
+
+"I'm no good at guess-work," replied Crewe, who felt that he had given
+enough information away.
+
+"Well," said Rolfe, "here is a glove which was found in the room. The
+other one is missing. It might be a clue."
+
+Crewe took the glove and examined it carefully. It was a left-hand glove
+made of reindeer-skin, and grey in colour. It bore evidence of having
+been in use, but it was still a smart-looking glove such as a man who
+took a pride in his appearance might wear.
+
+"Burglars wear gloves nowadays," said Crewe, "but not this kind. The
+india-rubber glove with only the thumb separate is best for their work.
+They give freedom of action for the fingers and leave no finger-prints.
+Have you made inquiries whether this is one of Sir Horace's gloves?"
+
+"Well, it is the same size as he wore--seven and a half," said Inspector
+Chippenfield. "The butler is the only servant here and he can't say for
+certain that it belonged to his master. I've been through Sir Horace's
+wardrobe and through the suit-case he brought from Scotland, but I can
+find no other pair exactly similar. Rolfe took it to Sir Horace's hosier,
+and he is practically certain that the glove is one of a pair he sold to
+Sir Horace."
+
+"That should be conclusive," said Crewe thoughtfully.
+
+"So I think," replied the inspector.
+
+"Well, I'll take it with me, if you don't mind," said Crewe. "You can
+have it back whenever you want it. Let me have the address of Sir
+Horace's hosier--I'll give him a call."
+
+"Take it by all means," said the inspector cordially, referring to the
+glove. And with a wink at Rolfe he added, "And when you are ready to fit
+it on the guilty hand I hope you will let us know."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Crewe made a careful inspection of the house and the grounds. He took
+measurements of the impressions left on the sill of the window which had
+been forced and also of the foot-prints immediately beneath the window.
+He had a long conversation with Hill and questioned him regarding his
+movements on the night of the murder. He also asked about the other
+servants who were at Dellmere, and probed for information about Sir
+Horace's domestic life and his friends. As he was talking to Hill,
+Police-Constable Flack came up to them with a card in his hand. Hill
+looked at the card and exclaimed:
+
+"Mr. Holymead? What does he want?"
+
+"He asked if Miss Fewbanks was at home."
+
+Hill took the card in to Miss Fewbanks, and on coming out went to the
+front door and escorted Mr. Holymead to his young mistress. Crewe, as was
+his habit, looked closely at Holymead. The eminent K.C. was a tall man,
+nearly six feet in height, with a large, resolute, strongly-marked face
+which, when framed in a wig, was suggestive of the dignity and severity
+of the law. In years he was about fifty, and in his figure there was a
+suggestion of that rotundity which overtakes the man who has given up
+physical exercise. He was correctly, if sombrely, dressed in dark
+clothes, and he wore a black tie--probably as a symbol of mourning for
+his friend. His gloves were a delicate grey.
+
+Crewe sought out Hill again and questioned him closely about the
+relations which had existed between Sir Horace Fewbanks and Mr. Holymead,
+whose enormous practice brought him in an income three times as large as
+the dead judge's, and kept him constantly before the public. Hill was
+able to supply the detective with some interesting information regarding
+the visitor, and, in contrast to his manner when previously questioned at
+random by Crewe, concerning his young mistress's habits, seemed willing,
+if not actually anxious, to talk. He had heard from Sir Horace's
+housekeeper that his late master and Mr. Holymead had been law students
+together, and after they were called to the Bar they used to spend their
+holidays together as long as they were single.
+
+When they were married their wives became friends. Mrs. Holymead had died
+fourteen years ago, but Mrs. Fewbanks--Sir Horace had not been a baronet
+while his wife was alive--had lived some years longer. Mr. Holymead had
+married again. His second wife was a very beautiful young lady, if he
+might make so bold as to say so, who had come from America. The butler
+added deprecatingly that he had been told that both Sir Horace and Mr.
+Holymead had paid her some attention, and that she could have had either
+of them. She was different to English ladies, he added. She had more to
+say for herself, and laughed and talked with the gentlemen just as if she
+was one of themselves. Hill mentioned that she had been out to see Miss
+Fewbanks the previous day, but that Miss Fewbanks had not come up from
+Dellmere then, so she had seen Inspector Chippenfield instead.
+
+While Crewe and the butler were talking a boy of about fourteen, with the
+shrewd face of a London arab, approached them with an air of mystery. He
+came down the hall with long cautious strides, and halted at each step as
+if he were stalking a band of Indians in a forest.
+
+"Well, Joe, what is it?" asked Crewe, as he came to a halt in
+front of them.
+
+"If you don't want me for half an hour, sir, I'd like to take a run up
+the street. There is a real good picture house just been opened." The boy
+spoke eagerly, with his bright eyes fixed on Crewe.
+
+"I may want you any minute, Joe," replied Crewe. "Don't go away."
+
+The boy nodded his head, and turned away. As he went down the hall again
+to the front door he gave an imitation of a man walking with extended
+arms across a plank spanning a chasm.
+
+"Picture mad," commented Crewe, as he watched him.
+
+"I didn't quite understand you, sir," replied the butler.
+
+"Spends all his spare time in cinemas," said Crewe, "and when he is not
+there he is acting picture dramas. His ambition in life is to be a
+cinema actor."
+
+Crewe engaged Police-Constable Flack in conversation while waiting for
+Mr. Holymead to take his departure. Flack had so little professional
+pride that he was pleased at meeting a gentleman who usurped the
+functions of a detective without having had any police training, and who
+could beat the best of the Scotland Yard men like shelling peas, as he
+confided to his wife that night. He was especially flattered at the
+interest Crewe seemed to display in his long connection with the police
+force, and also in his private affairs. The constable was explaining with
+parental vanity the precocious cleverness of his youngest child, a girl
+of two, when Holymead made his appearance, and he became aware that Mr.
+Crewe's interest in children was at an end.
+
+"Look at that man," said Crewe, in a sharp imperative tone to the
+police-constable, as the K.C. was walking down the path of the Italian
+garden to the plantation. "You saw him come in?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Do you see any difference?"
+
+"No, sir; he's the same man," said Flack, with stolid certainty.
+
+"Anything about him that is different?" continued Crewe.
+
+Police-Constable Flack looked at Crewe in some bewilderment. He was not
+a deductive expert, and, as he told his wife afterwards, he did not know
+what the detective was "driving at." He took another long look at
+Holymead, who was then within a few yards of the plantation on his way
+to the gates, and remarked, in a hesitating tone, as though to justify
+his failure:
+
+"Well, you see, sir, when he was coming in it was the front view I saw,
+now I can only see his back."
+
+But before he had finished speaking Crewe had left him and was following
+the K.C. Holymead had gone into the house without a walking-stick, and
+had reappeared carrying one on his arm. Crewe admired the cool audacity
+which had prompted Holymead to go into a house where a murder had been
+committed to recover his stick under the very eyes of the police, and he
+immediately formed the conclusion that the K.C. had come to the house to
+recover the stick for some urgent reason possibly not unconnected with
+the crime. And it was apparent that Holymead was a shrewd judge of human
+nature, Crewe reflected, for he calculated that the rareness of the
+quality of observation, even in those who, like Flack, were supposed to
+keep their eyes open, would permit him to do so unnoticed.
+
+As Crewe went down the path he beckoned to the boy Joe, who at the moment
+was acting the part of a comic dentist binding a recalcitrant patient to
+a chair, using an immense old-fashioned straight-backed chair which stood
+in the hall, for his stage setting. Joe overtook his master as he entered
+the ornamental plantation in front of the house, and Crewe quickly
+whispered his instructions, as the retreating figure of the K.C. threaded
+the wood towards the gates.
+
+"When I catch up level with him, Joe, you are to run into him
+accidentally from behind, and knock his stick off his arm, so that it
+falls near me. I will pick it up and return it to him. I must handle the
+stick--you understand? Do not wait to see how he takes it when you bump
+into him--get off round the corner at once and wait for me."
+
+Crewe quickened his pace to overtake the man in front of him. He gave no
+glance backward at the boy, for he knew his instructions would be carried
+out faithfully and intelligently. He allowed Holymead to reach the big
+open gates, and turn from the gravelled carriage drive into the private
+street. Then he hurried after him and drew level with Holymead. As he did
+so there was a sound of running footsteps from behind, and then a shout.
+Joe had cleverly tripped and fallen heavily between the two men, bringing
+down Holymead in his fall. The K.C.'s stick flew off his arm and bounded
+half a dozen yards away. Crewe stepped forward quickly, secured the
+stick, glanced quickly at the monogram engraved on it, and held it out to
+Holymead, who was brushing the dust off his clothes with vexatious
+remarks about the clumsiness and impudence of street boys. For a moment
+he seemed to hesitate about taking the stick.
+
+"I believe this is yours," said Crewe politely.
+
+"Ah--yes. Thank you," said the K.C., giving him a keen suspicious glance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Crewe had well-furnished offices in Holborn but lived in a luxurious flat
+in Jermyn Street. Although he went to and fro between them daily, his
+personality was almost a dual one, though not consciously so; his passion
+for crime investigation was distinct--in outward seeming, at all
+events--from his polished West End life of wealthy ease. Grave,
+self-contained, and inscrutable, he slipped from one to the other with an
+effortless regularity, and the fashionable folk with whom he mixed in his
+leisured bachelor existence in the West End, apart from knowing him as
+the famous Crewe, had even less knowledge of the real man behind his
+suave exterior than the clients who visited his inquiry rooms in Holborn
+to confide in him their stories of suffering, shame, or crimes committed
+against them. His commissionaire and body-servant, Stork, had once, in a
+rare--almost unique--convivial moment, declared to the caretaker of the
+building that he knew no more about his master after ten years than he
+did the first day he entered his service. He was deep beyond all belief,
+was Stork's opinion, delivered with reluctant admiration.
+
+Although Crewe did not allow the externals of his two existences to
+become involved, his chief interest in life was in his work. He had
+originally taken up detective work more as a relief from the boredom of
+his lot as a wealthy young man, leading an aimless, useless life with
+others of his class, than by deliberate choice of his vocation. His
+initial successes surprised him; then the work absorbed him and became
+his life's career. He had achieved some memorable successes and he had
+made a few failures, but the failures belonged to the earlier portion of
+his career, before he had learnt to trust thoroughly in his own great
+gifts of intuition and insight, and that uncanny imagination which
+sometimes carried him successfully through when all else failed.
+
+Serious devotees of chess knew the name of Crewe in another capacity--as
+the name of a man who might have aspired to great deeds if he had but
+taken the game as his life's career. He had flashed across the chess
+horizon some years previously as a player of surpassing brilliance by
+defeating Turgieff, when the great Russian master had visited London and
+had played twelve simultaneous boards at the London Chess Club. Crewe was
+the only player of the twelve to win his game, and he did so by a
+masterly concealed ending in which he handled his pawns with consummate
+skill, proffering the sacrifice of a bishop with such art that Turgieff
+fell into the trap, and was mated in five subsequent moves. Crewe proved
+this was not merely a lucky win by defeating the young South American
+champion, Caranda, shortly afterwards, when the latter visited England
+and played a series of exhibition games in London on his way to Moscow,
+where he was engaged in the championship tourney. Once again it was
+masterly pawn play which brought Crewe a fine victory, and aged chess
+enthusiasts who followed every move of the game with trembling
+excitement, declared afterwards that Crewe's conception of this
+particular game had not been equalled since Morphy died.
+
+They predicted a dazzling chess career for Crewe, but he disappointed
+their aged hearts by retiring suddenly from match chess, and they mourned
+him as one unworthy of his great chess gifts and the high hopes they had
+placed in him. But, as a matter of fact, Crewe's intellect was too
+vigorous and active to be satisfied with the triumphs of chess, and his
+disappearance from the chess world was contemporary with his entrance
+into detective work, which appealed to his imagination and found scope
+for his restless mental activity. But if detective work so absorbed him
+that he gave up match chess entirely, he still retained an interest in
+the science of chess, reserving problem play for his spare moments, and,
+when not immersed in the solution of a problem of human mystery, he would
+turn to the chessboard and seek solace and relaxation in the mysteries of
+an intricate "four-mover."
+
+He had once said that there was a certain affinity between solving chess
+problems and the detection of crime mystery: once the key-move was found,
+the rest was comparatively easy. But he added with a sigh that a really
+perfect crime mystery was as rare as a perfect chess problem: human
+ingenuity was not sufficiently skilful, as a rule, to commit a crime or
+construct a chess problem with completely artistic concealment of the
+key-move, and for that reason most problems and crimes were far too easy
+of detection to absorb one's intellectual interests and attention.
+
+It was the morning after Crewe's visit to Riversbrook, and the detective
+sat in his private office glancing through a note-book which contained a
+summary of the Hampstead mystery. Crewe was a painstaking detective as
+well as a brilliant one, and it was his custom to prepare several
+critical summaries of any important case on which he was engaged, writing
+and rewriting the facts and his comments, until he was satisfied that he
+had a perfect outline to work upon, with the details and clues of the
+crime in consecutive order and relation to one another. Experience had
+taught him that the time and labour this task involved were well-spent.
+If an unexpected development of the case altered the facts of the
+original summary Crewe prepared another one in the same painstaking way.
+The summaries, when done with, were methodically filed and indexed and
+stored in a strong room at the office for future reference, where he also
+kept full records of all the cases upon which he had been engaged,
+together with the weapons and articles that had figured in them: huge
+volumes of newspaper reports and clippings; photographs of criminals with
+their careers appended; and a host of other odds and ends of his
+detective investigations--the whole forming an interesting museum of
+crime and mystery which would have furnished a store of rich material
+for a fresh Newgate Calendar. It was an axiom of Crewe's that a detective
+never knew when some old scrap of information or some trifling article of
+some dead and forgotten crime might not afford a valuable clue. Expert
+criminals frequently repeated themselves, like people in lesser walks of
+life, and Crewe's "library and museum," as he called it, had sometimes
+furnished him with a simple hint for the solution of a mystery which had
+defied more subtle methods of analysis.
+
+Crewe, after carefully reading his summary of the murder of Sir Horace
+Fewbanks, and making a few alterations in the text, drew from his pocket
+the glove which Inspector Chippenfield had handed him as a clue, took it
+to the window, and carefully examined it through a large magnifying
+glass. He was thus engrossed when the door was noiselessly opened, and
+Stork, the bodyguard, entered. Stork belied his name. He was short and
+fat, with a red mottled face; a model of discretion and imperturbability,
+who had served Crewe for ten years, and bade fair to serve him another
+ten, if he lived that long. In his heart of hearts he often wondered why
+a gentleman like Crewe should so far forget what was due to his birth and
+position as to have offices in Holborn--Holborn, of all parts of London!
+But the awe he felt for Crewe prevented his seeking information on the
+point from the only person who could give it to him, so he served him and
+puzzled over him in silence, his inward perturbation of spirits being
+made manifest occasionally by a puzzled glance at his master when the
+latter was not looking. It was nothing to Stork that his master was a
+famous detective; the problem to him was _why_ he was a detective when he
+had no call to be one, having more money than any man--and let alone a
+single man--could spend in a lifetime.
+
+Stork coughed slightly to attract Crewe's attention.
+
+"If you please, sir," he said, "the boy has come."
+
+While Crewe was busy with his magnifying glass Stork returned with the
+boy who had accompanied Crewe on his visit to Riversbrook on the
+previous day.
+
+The boy, a thin white-faced, sharp-eyed London street urchin, seemed
+curiously out of place in the handsomely furnished office, with his legs
+tucked up under the carved rail of a fine old oak chair, and his big
+dark eyes fixed intently on Crewe's face. The tie between him and the
+detective was an unusual one. It dated back some twelve months, when
+Crewe, in the investigation of a peculiarly baffling crime, found it
+advisable to disguise himself and live temporarily in a crowded criminal
+quarter of Islington. The rooms he took were above a secondhand clothing
+shop kept by a drunken female named Leaver; a supposed widow who lived
+at the back of the shop with her two children, Lizzie, a bold-eyed girl
+of 17, who worked at a Clerkenwell clothing factory, and Joe, a typical
+Cockney boy of fourteen, who sold papers in the streets during the day
+and was fast qualifying for a thief at night when Crewe went to the
+place to live.
+
+Crewe soon discovered, through overhearing a loud quarrel between his
+landlady and her daughter, that Mrs. Leaver's husband was alive, though
+dead to his wife for all practical purposes, inasmuch as he was serving a
+life's imprisonment for manslaughter. A fortnight after he had taken up
+his temporary quarters above the shop the woman was removed to the
+hospital suffering from the effects of a hard drinking bout, and died
+there. The girl disappeared, and the boy would have been turned out on
+the streets but for Crewe, who had taken a liking to him. Joe was
+self-reliant, alert, and precocious, like most London street boys, but in
+addition to these qualities he had a vein of imagination unusual in a lad
+of his upbringing and environment. He devoured the exciting feuilleton
+stories in the evening papers he vended, and spent his spare pennies at
+the cinema theatres in the vicinity of his poor home. His appreciation of
+the crude mysteries of the filmed detective drama amused the famous
+expert in the finer art of actual crime detection, until he discovered
+that the boy possessed natural gifts of intuition and observation,
+combined with penetration. Crewe grew interested in developing the boy's
+talent for detective work. When the lad's mother died Crewe decided to
+take him into his Holborn offices as messenger-boy. Crewe soon discovered
+that Joe had a useful gift for "shadowing" work, and his street training
+as a newspaper runner enabled him not only to follow a person through the
+thickest of London traffic, but to escape observation where a man might
+have been noticed and suspected.
+
+"Well, Joe," said Crewe, as the boy entered on the heels of Stork, "I
+have a job for you this morning. I want you to find the glove
+corresponding to this one."
+
+Crewe, having finished his examination of the glove, handed it to the
+boy, whose first act was to slip it on his left hand and move his fingers
+about to assure himself that they were in good working order in spite of
+being hidden. It was the first occasion on which Joe had worn a glove.
+
+"It was found in the room in which Sir Horace Fewbanks was murdered,"
+continued Crewe. "The other one was not there. The question I want to
+solve is, did it belong to Sir Horace, or to some one who visited him on
+the night he was murdered? The police think it belonged to Sir Horace
+because it is the same size as the gloves he wore, and because Sir
+Horace's hosier stocks the same kind--as does nearly every fashionable
+hosier in London. They think he lost the right-hand glove on his way up
+from Scotland. It will occur to you, Joe, though you don't wear gloves,
+that it is more common for men to lose the right-hand glove than the
+left-hand, because the right hand is used a great deal more than the
+left, and even men who would not be seen in the street without gloves
+find there are many things they cannot do with a gloved hand. For
+instance, to dive one's hand into one's trouser pocket where most men
+keep their loose change the glove has to be removed."
+
+"Then the gentleman would take off his right glove when he paid for his
+taxi-cab from St. Pancras," said Joe, who was familiar through the
+accounts in the newspapers with the main details of the Fewbanks mystery.
+
+"Right, Joe," said his master approvingly. "And in that case he dropped
+the glove between the taxi-cab outside his front gates and his room, and
+it would have been found. I have made inquiries and I am satisfied it was
+not found."
+
+"He might have lost it when he was getting into the train at Scotland,"
+suggested the lad. "He had to change trains at Glasgow--he might have
+lost it there."
+
+"That is a rule-of-thumb deduction," said Crewe, with a kindly smile. "It
+is good enough for the police, for they have apparently adopted it, but
+it is not good enough for me. What you don't understand, Joe, is that an
+odd glove is of no value in the eyes of a man who wears gloves. He
+doesn't take it home as a memento of his carelessness in losing the
+other. He throws it away. Therefore if this is Sir Horace's glove he took
+it home because he was unaware that he had lost the other. He would put
+on his gloves before leaving the train at St. Pancras. And he would pull
+off the right-hand one--he was not left-handed--when the taxi-cab was
+nearing his home so as to be able to pay the fare. Therefore, if it is
+Sir Horace's glove the fellow to it was dropped in the taxi-cab, or
+dropped between the taxi-cab and the house. If the glove had been lost at
+the other end of the journey in Scotland Sir Horace would have flung this
+one out of the carriage window when he became aware of the loss. As I
+have told you no glove was found between the gate at Riversbrook and the
+room in which Sir Horace was murdered. I got from the police the number
+of the taxi-cab in which Sir Horace was driven from St. Pancras, and the
+driver tells me that no glove was left in his cab. So what have we to do
+next, Joe?"
+
+"To find the missing glove? It's a tough job, ain't it, sir?"
+
+"Yes and no," replied Crewe. "It is possible to make some reasonable
+safe deductions in regard to it. These would indicate what had happened
+to it, and knowing where to look, or, rather, in what circumstances we
+might expect to find it, we might throw a little light on it. In the
+first place, it might be assumed that if the glove did not belong to Sir
+Horace it belonged to some one who visited him on the night he returned
+unexpectedly from Scotland. That indicates that his visitor knew Sir
+Horace was returning; a most important point, for if he knew Sir Horace
+was returning he knew why he was returning--which no one else knows up to
+the present as far as I have been able to gather--and in all probability
+was responsible for his return, say, sent him a letter or a telegram
+which brought him to London. So we come to the possibility of an angry
+scene in the room in which Sir Horace's dead body was subsequently found.
+We have the possibility of the visitor leaving the house in a high state
+of excitement, hastily snatching up the hat and gloves he had taken off
+when he arrived, and in his excitement dropping unnoticed the right-hand
+glove on the floor."
+
+"And leaving his gold-mounted stick behind him," said Joe, who was
+following his master's line of reasoning with keen interest.
+
+"Right, Joe," said Crewe. "That was placed in the stand in the hall, and
+when the visitor left hurriedly was entirely forgotten. But at what stage
+did the visitor become conscious of the loss of his glove? Not until his
+excitement cooled down a little. How long he took to cool down depends
+upon the cause of his excitement and his temperament, things which, at
+present, we can only guess at. He would probably walk a long distance
+before he cooled down. Then he would resume his normal habits and among
+other things would put on his gloves--if he had them. He would find that
+he had lost one and that he had left his stick behind. He would know that
+the stick had been left behind in the hall, but he would not know the
+glove had been dropped in the house. The probabilities are that he would
+think he had dropped it while walking. But if he felt that he had dropped
+it in the house, and he had the best of all reasons for not wishing
+anyone to know that he had visited Sir Horace that night, he would
+destroy the remaining glove and our chance of tracing it would be gone.
+The fact that he had left his stick behind was a minor matter that he
+could easily account for if he had been a friend of Sir Horace who had
+been in the habit of visiting Riversbrook. If anything cropped up
+subsequently about the stick he could say that he had left it there
+before Sir Horace closed up his house and went to Scotland.
+
+"But the problem of the glove is a different matter, Joe. There are three
+phases to it: first, if the visitor thought he had dropped it in the
+house and wanted to keep his visit there a profound secret from
+subsequent inquiry he would take home the remaining glove and destroy
+it--probably by burning it. Secondly, if he thought he had dropped it
+after leaving the house he would not feel that safety necessitated the
+destruction of the remaining one, but he would probably throw it away
+where it would not be likely to be found. In the third place, if he had
+no particular reason for wishing to hide the fact that he had visited
+Riversbrook he would throw it away anywhere when he became conscious that
+he had lost the other. He would throw it away merely because an odd glove
+is of no use to a man who wears gloves. The man who doesn't wear gloves
+would pick up an odd glove from the ground and think he had made a find.
+He would take it home to his wife and she would probably keep it for
+finger-stalls for the children."
+
+Crewe put down his notes and got up from his chair. "Your job is this,
+Joe. Go to Riversbrook and make a careful search on both sides of the
+road for the missing glove. I do not think he threw it away--if he did
+throw it away--until he had walked some distance, but you mustn't act on
+that assumption. Look over the fences of the houses and into the hedges.
+Walk along in the direction of Hampstead Underground. Search the gutters
+and all the trees and hedges along the road. Take one side of the street
+to the Underground station and if you do not find the glove go back to
+Riversbrook along the other side. Make a thorough job of it, as it is
+most important that the glove should be found--if it is to be found."
+
+After Joe had departed Crewe put on his hat and left his office for the
+Strand. His first call was at the shop of Bruden and Marshall, hosiers,
+in order to find out if any information was to be obtained there about
+the ownership of the glove. He was aware that the police had been there
+on the same mission, but his experience had often shown that valuable
+information was to be gathered after the police had been over the ground.
+
+On introducing himself to the manager of the shop that gentleman
+displayed as much humble civility as he would have done towards a valued
+customer. He could not say anything about the ownership of the glove
+which Crewe had brought, and he could not even say if it had come from
+their shop. It was an excellent glove, the line being known in the trade
+as "first-choice reindeer." They stocked that particular kind of article
+at 10/6 the pair. They had the pleasure of having had the late Sir Horace
+Fewbanks on their books. He was quite an old account, if he might use the
+expression. He was one of their best customers, being a gentleman who was
+particular about his appearance and who would have nothing but the best
+in any line that he fancied. On the subject of Sir Horace's taste in hose
+the manager had much to say, and, in spite of Crewe's efforts to confine
+the conversation to gloves, the manager repeatedly dragged in socks. He
+did it so frequently that he became conscious his visitor was showing
+signs of annoyance, so he apologised, adding, with an inspiration, "After
+all, hose is really gloves for the feet."
+
+Crewe ascertained that a large number of legal gentlemen were
+customers of Bruden and Marshall. He innocently suggested that the
+reason was because the shop was the nearest one of its kind to the Law
+Courts, but this explanation offended the shopman's pride. It was
+because they stocked high-class goods and gave good value in every way,
+combined with attention and civility and a desire to please, that they
+did such an excellent business with legal gentlemen. In refutation of
+the idea that proximity to the Courts was the direct reason of their
+having so many legal gentlemen among their customers the manager
+declared that they received orders from all parts of the world--India,
+Canada, Australia, and South Africa, to say nothing of American
+gentlemen who liked their hosiery to have the London hall-mark. Their
+orders from the Colonies came from gentlemen who found that these
+things in the Colonies were not what they had been used to, and so they
+sent their orders to Bruden and Marshall.
+
+Crewe's interest was in the legal customers and he asked for the names of
+some. The manager ran through a list of names of judges, barristers and
+solicitors, but the name Crewe wanted to hear was not among them. He was
+compelled to include the name among half a dozen others he mentioned to
+the manager. He ascertained that Mr. Charles Holymead was a customer of
+the firm, but it was apparent from the manager's spiritless attitude
+towards Mr. Holymead that the famous K.C. was not a man who ran up a big
+bill with his hosier, or was very particular about what he wore. The
+world regarded some of the men of this type famous or distinguished, but
+in the hosier's mind they were all classed as commonplace. But the
+manager would not go so far as to say that Mr. Holymead would not buy
+such a glove as that which Crewe had brought in. He might and he might
+not, but, as a general rule, he did not pay more than 8/6 for his gloves.
+
+Crewe took a taxi to Princes Gate in order to have a look at the house
+in which Holymead lived. It occurred to him that if Holymead was not
+particular about what he spent on his clothes he was extravagant about
+the amount he spent in house rent. Of course, a leading barrister
+earning a huge income could afford to live in a palatial residence in
+Princes Gate, but it was not the locality or residence that an
+economically-minded man would have chosen for his home. But Crewe had
+little doubt that the beautiful wife Holymead possessed was responsible
+for the choice of house and locality.
+
+After looking at the house Crewe walked back to the cab-stand at Hyde
+Park Corner. He had arrived at the conclusion that it was necessary to
+settle beyond doubt whether the K.C. had visited Riversbrook the night Sir
+Horace had returned from Scotland. If the K.C. had done so, he was
+anxious to keep the visit secret, for not only had he not informed the
+police of his visit but he had kept it from Miss Fewbanks. Crewe had
+ascertained from Miss Fewbanks that Mr. Holymead when he had called at
+Riversbrook on a visit of condolence had not mentioned to her anything
+about having left his stick in the hall stand on a previous visit. On
+leaving Miss Fewbanks Mr. Holymead had gone up to the hall stand and
+taken both his hat and stick as if he had left them both there a few
+minutes before.
+
+Crewe reasoned that if Holymead had gone out to see Sir Horace Fewbanks
+at Riversbrook and had desired to keep his visit a secret he would not
+have taken a cab at Hyde Park Corner to Hampstead, but would have
+travelled by underground railway or omnibus. In all probability the Tube
+had been used because of its speed being more in harmony with the
+feelings of a man impatient to get done with a subject so important that
+Sir Horace had been recalled from Scotland to deal with it. He would
+leave the Tube at Hampstead and take a taxi-cab. He would not be likely
+to go straight to Riversbrook in the taxi-cab, if he were anxious that
+his movements should not be traced subsequently. He would dismiss the
+taxi-cab at one of the hotels bordering on Hampstead Heath, for they
+were the resort of hundreds of visitors on summer nights, and his actions
+would thus easily escape notice. From the hotel he would walk across to
+Riversbrook. But the return journey would be made in a somewhat different
+way. If Holymead left Riversbrook in a state of excitement he would walk
+a long way without being conscious of the exertion. He would want to be
+alone with his own thoughts. Gradually he would cool down, and becoming
+conscious of his surroundings would make his way home. Again he would use
+the Tube, for it would be more difficult for his movements to be traced
+if he mixed with a crowd of travellers than if he took a cab to his home.
+It was impossible to say what station he got in at, for that would depend
+on how far he walked before he cooled down, but he would be sure to get
+out at Hyde Park Corner because that was the station nearest to his
+house. Allowing for a temperamental reaction during a train journey of
+about twenty minutes, he would feel depressed and weary and would
+probably take a taxi-cab outside Hyde Park station to his home. That was
+a thing he would often be in the habit of doing when returning late at
+night from the theatre or elsewhere, and therefore could be easily
+explained by him if the police happened to make inquiries as to his
+movements.
+
+As Crewe anticipated, he had no difficulty in finding the driver of the
+taxi-cab in which Holymead had driven home on the night of Wednesday
+last. The K.C. frequently used cabs, and he was well-known to all the
+drivers on the rank. Crewe got into the cab he had used and ordered the
+man to drive him to his office, and there invited him upstairs. He
+adopted this course because he knew that the driver, who gave his name as
+Taylor, would be more likely to talk freely in an office where he could
+not be overheard than he would do on the cab-rank with his fellow-drivers
+crowding him, or in an hotel parlour where other people were present.
+
+"Tell me exactly what happened when you drove Mr. Holymead home on
+Wednesday night," said Crewe. "Did you notice anything strange about
+him, or was his manner much the same as on other occasions that he used
+your cab?"
+
+"Well, I don't see whether I should tell you whether he was or whether he
+wasn't," replied the taxi-cab driver, who was as surly as most of his
+class. "What's it to do with you, anyway? He's a regular customer of mine
+on the rank, and he's not one of your tuppenny tipsters, either. He's a
+gentleman. And if he got to know that I had been telling tales about him
+it would not do me any good."
+
+"It would not," replied Crewe, with cordial acquiescence. "Therefore,
+Taylor, I give you my word of honour not to mention anything you tell me.
+Furthermore, I'll see that you don't lose by it now or at any other time.
+I cannot say more than that, but that's a great deal more than the police
+would say. Now, would you sooner tell me or tell the police? Here's a
+sovereign to start with, and if you have an interesting story to tell
+you'll have another one before you leave."
+
+The appeal of money and the conviction that the police would use less
+considerate methods if Crewe passed him over to them abolished Taylor's
+scruples about discussing a fare, and it was in a much less surly tone
+that he responded:
+
+"I didn't notice anything strange about him when he called me off the
+rank, but I did afterwards. First of all, I didn't drive him home. That
+is, I did drive him home, but he didn't go inside. When I drew up outside
+his house in Princes Gate, I looked around expecting to see him get out.
+As he didn't move I got down and opened the door. 'Aren't you getting out
+here, sir?' I said, in a soft voice. 'No,' he said. 'Drive on.' 'This is
+your house, sir,' I ventured to say. 'I'm not going in,' he replied,
+'drive on.' I was surprised. I thought he was the worse for drink, and
+I'd never seen him that way before. But some gentlemen are so obstinate
+in liquor that you can't get them to do anything except the opposite of
+what you ask them. I thought I'd try and coax him. 'Better go inside,
+sir,' I said. 'You'll be better off in bed.' 'Do you think I am drunk?'
+he said sharply. You could have knocked me down with a feather. He was as
+sober as a judge, all in a moment. 'No, sir, I didn't,' I said. 'I
+wouldn't take the liberty,' I said. 'Then get back on your seat and drive
+me to the Hyde Park Hotel--no, I think I'll go to Verney's. But don't go
+there direct. Drive me round the Park first. I feel I want a breath of
+cool air.'"
+
+"Go on," said Crewe, in a tone which indicated approval of Taylor's
+method of telling his story.
+
+"Well, I turned the cab round and drove through the Park. But I was
+puzzled about him and looked back at him once or twice pretending that I
+was looking to see if a cab or car was coming up behind. And as we passed
+over the Serpentine Bridge I saw him throw something out of the window."
+
+"A glove?" suggested Crewe quickly.
+
+The driver looked at him in profound admiration.
+
+"Well, if you don't beat all the detectives I've ever heard of."
+
+"He tried to throw it in the water," continued Crewe, as if explaining
+the matter to himself rather than to his visitor. "Did you get it?"
+
+"Hold on a bit," said Taylor, who had his own ideas of how to give value
+for the extra sovereign he hoped to obtain. "I couldn't see what it was
+he had thrown away, and, of course, I couldn't pull up to find out. I
+drove on, but I kept my eye on him, though I had my back to him. As we
+were driving back along the Broad Walk I had another look at him, and
+bless me if he wasn't crying--crying like a child. He had his hands up to
+his face and his head was shaking as if he was sobbing. I said to myself,
+'He's barmy--he's gone off his rocker.' I thought to myself I ought to
+drive him to the police station, but I reckoned it was none of my
+business, after all, so I'll take him to Verney's and be done with it.
+So I drove to Verney's. He got out, and paid me, but I couldn't see that
+he had been crying, and he looked much as usual, so far as I could see. I
+thought to myself that perhaps, after all, he'd only had a queer turn;
+however, I said to myself I'd drive back to the bridge and see what he'd
+thrown out of the window. It _was_ a glove, sure enough. It had fallen
+just below the railing. I looked about for the other one, but I couldn't
+find it, so I suppose it must have fallen into the water."
+
+"No, it didn't," said Crewe. "I have it here." He opened a drawer in his
+desk and produced a glove. "It was a right-hand glove you found. Just
+look at this one and see if it corresponds to the one you picked up."
+
+Taylor looked at the glove.
+
+"They're as like as two peas," he said.
+
+"What did you do with the one you found?" inquired Crewe. "I hope you
+didn't throw it away?"
+
+"I'm not a fool," retorted Taylor. "I've had odd gloves left in my cab
+before. I kept this one thinking that sooner or later somebody might
+leave another like it, and then I'd have a pair for nothing."
+
+"Well, I'll buy it from you," said Crewe. "Have you anything more
+to tell me?"
+
+"I went back to the rank and one of the chaps was curious that I'd been
+so long away, for he knew that Mr. Holymead's place isn't more than ten
+minutes' drive from the station. But he got nothing out of me. I know how
+to keep my mouth shut. You're the first man I've told what happened, and
+I hope you won't give me away."
+
+"I've already promised you that," said Crewe, flipping another sovereign
+from his sovereign case and handing it to Taylor, "and I'll give you five
+shillings for the glove."
+
+Taylor looked at him darkly.
+
+"Five shillings isn't much for a glove like that," he said insolently.
+"What about my loss of time going home for it? I suppose you'll pay the
+taxi-fare for the run down from Hyde Park?"
+
+"No, I won't," said Crewe cheerfully.
+
+"Then I don't see why I should bring it for a paltry five shillings,"
+said Taylor. "If you want the glove you'll have to pay for it."
+
+"But I don't want the glove," said Crewe, who disliked being made the
+victim of extortion. "What made you think so? I'll sell you this one for
+five shillings. We may as well do a deal of some kind; it is no use each
+of us having one glove. What do you say, Taylor? Will you buy mine for
+five shillings, or shall I buy yours?"
+
+Taylor smiled sourly.
+
+"You're a deep one," he said. "Here's the other glove." He dipped his
+hand into the deep pocket of his driving coat and produced a glove. "I
+suppose you knew I'd have it on me. Five shillings, and it's yours."
+
+"The pair are worth about five shillings to me," said Crewe as he paid
+over the money. "Do you remember what time it was when Mr. Holymead
+engaged you at Hyde Park?"
+
+"Eleven o'clock."
+
+"You are quite sure as to the time?"
+
+"I heard one of the big clocks striking as he was getting into my cab."
+
+Taylor took his departure, and Crewe, after wrapping up the left-hand
+glove which he had to return to Inspector Chippenfield, put the other one
+in his safe.
+
+"We are getting on," he said in a pleased tone. "This means a trip to
+Scotland, but I'll wait until the inquest is over."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+At the inquest on the body of Sir Horace Fewbanks, which was held at
+the Hampstead Police Court, there was an odd mixture of classes in the
+crowd that thronged that portion of the court in which the public were
+allowed to congregate. The accounts of the crime which had been
+published in the press, and the atmosphere of mystery which enshrouded
+the violent death of one of the most prominent of His Majesty's judges,
+had stirred the public curiosity, and therefore, in spite of the fact
+that every one was supposed to be out of town in August, the attendance
+at the court included a sprinkling of ladies of the fashionable world,
+and their escorts.
+
+Both branches of the legal profession were numerously represented. All of
+the victim's judicial colleagues were out of town, and though some of
+them intended as a mark of respect for the dead man to come up for the
+funeral, which was to take place two days later, they were too familiar
+with legal procedure to feel curiosity as to the working of the machinery
+at a preliminary inquiry into the crime. They were emphatic among their
+friends on the degeneracy of these days which rendered possible such an
+outrageous crime as the murder of a High Court judge. The fact that it
+was without precedent in the history of British law added to its enormity
+in the eyes of gentlemen who had been trained to worship precedent as the
+only safe guide through the shifting quicksands of life. They were
+insistent on the urgency of the murderer being arrested and handed over
+to Justice in the person of the hangman, for--as each asked
+himself--where was this sort of crime to end? In spite of the degeneracy
+of the times they were reluctant to believe in such a far-fetched
+supposition as the existence of a band of criminals who, in revenge for
+the judicial sentences imposed on members of their class, had sworn to
+exterminate the whole of His Majesty's judges; but, until the murderer
+was apprehended and the reason for the crime was discovered, it was
+impossible to say that the English judicature would not soon be called
+upon to supply other victims to criminal violence. The murder of a judge
+seemed to them a particularly atrocious crime, in the punishment of which
+the law might honourably sacrifice temporarily its well-earned reputation
+for delay.
+
+The bar was represented chiefly by junior members. The senior members
+were able to make full use of the long vacation, spending it at health
+resorts or in the country, but the incomes of the young shoots of the
+great parasitical profession did not permit them to enjoy more than a
+brief holiday out of town. Of course it would never have done for them
+to admit even to each other that they could not afford to go away for an
+extended holiday, and therefore they told one another in bored tones
+that they had not been able to make up their minds where to go. The
+junior bar included old men, who, through lack of influence, want of
+energy, want of advertisement, want of ability, or some other
+deficiency, had never earned more than a few guineas at their
+profession, though they had spent year after year in chambers. They
+lived on scanty private means. Broken in spirit they had even ceased to
+attend the courts in order to study the methods and learn the tricks of
+successful counsel. But the murder of a High Court judge was a thing
+which stirred even their sluggish blood, and in the hope of some
+sensational development they had put on faded silk hats and shabby black
+suits and gone out to Hampstead to attend the inquest.
+
+The interest of the junior bar in the crime was as personal as that of
+the members of the Judicial Bench, though it manifested itself in an
+entirely different direction. They speculated among themselves as to who
+would be appointed to the vacancy on the High Court Bench. A leading K.C.
+with a political pull would of course be selected by the
+Attorney-General, but there were several K.C.'s who possessed these
+qualifications, and therefore there was room for differences of opinion
+among the junior bar as to who would get the offer. The point on which
+they were all united was that vacancies of the High Court Bench were a
+good thing for the bar as a whole, for they removed leading K.C.'s, and
+the dispersion of their practice was like rain on parched ground.
+Metaphorically speaking, every one--including even the junior bar--had
+the chance of getting a shove up when a leading K.C. accepted a judicial
+appointment. Some of the more irreverent spirits among the junior bar, in
+drawing attention to the fact that Sir Horace Fewbanks had been one of
+the youngest members of the High Court Bench, expressed the hope that the
+shock of his death would be felt by some of the extremely aged members of
+the bench who were too infirm in health to be able to stand many shocks.
+
+The members of the junior bar chatted with the representatives of the
+lower branch of the profession who ranged from articled clerks whose
+young souls had not been entirely dried up by association with parchment,
+to hard old delvers in dusty documents who had lived so long in the legal
+atmosphere of quibbling, obstruction, and deceit, that they were as
+incapable of an honest impetuous act as of an illegal one. The gossip
+concerning the murdered judge in which the two branches of the profession
+joined had reference to his moral character in legal circles. There had
+always been gossip of the kind in his life-time. Sir Horace's judicial
+reputation was beyond reproach and he had known his law a great deal
+better than most of his judicial colleagues. Comparatively few of his
+decisions had been upset on appeal. But every one about the courts knew
+that he was susceptible to a pretty feminine face and a good figure.
+
+Many were the conflicts that arose in court between bench and bar as the
+result of Mr. Justice Fewbanks's habit of protecting pretty witnesses
+from cross-examining questions which he regarded as outside the case.
+There was no suggestion that his judicial decisions were influenced by
+the good looks of ladies who were parties to the cases heard by him, but
+there were rumours that on occasions the relations between the judge and
+a pretty witness begun in court had ripened into something at which moral
+men might well shake their heads.
+
+While the members of the legal profession struggled to obtain seats in
+the body of the court, an entirely different class of spectators
+struggled to get into the gallery. For the most part they were badly
+dressed men who needed a shave, but there were a few well-dressed men
+among them, and also a few ladies. Detective Rolfe took a professional
+interest in the occupants of the gallery. "What a collection of crooks,"
+he whispered to Inspector Chippenfield. "A regular rogues' gallery.
+Look--there is 'Nosey George'; it is time he was in again. And behind him
+is that cunning old 'drop' Ikey Samuels--I wish we could get him. Look at
+the other end of the first row. Isn't that 'Sunny Jim'? I hardly knew
+him. He's grown a beard since he's been out. We'll soon have it off again
+for him. He's got the impudence to scowl at us. He'll lay for you one of
+these nights, Inspector."
+
+The judicial duties of the murdered man had been concerned chiefly with
+civil cases at the Royal Courts of Justice, but when the criminal
+calendar had been heavy he had often presided at Number One Court at the
+Old Bailey. It was this fact which had given the criminal class a sort of
+personal interest in his murder and accounted for the presence of many
+well-known criminals who happened to be out of gaol at the time. The
+spectators in the gallery included men whom the murdered man had
+sentenced and men who had been fortunate enough to escape being sentenced
+by him owing to the vagaries of juries. There were pickpockets, sneak
+thieves, confidence men, burglars, and receivers among the occupants of
+the gallery, and many of them had brought with them the ladies who
+assisted them professionally or presided over their homes when they were
+not in gaol.
+
+"I wouldn't be surprised if the man we want is among that bunch," said
+Rolfe to Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+"You've a lot to learn about them, my boy," said his superior.
+
+"There is Crewe up among them," continued Rolfe. "I wonder what he thinks
+he's after."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield gave a glance in the direction of Crewe, but did
+not deign to give any sign of recognition. The fact that Crewe by his
+presence in the gallery seemed to entertain the idea that the murderer
+might be found among the occupants of that part of the court could not be
+as lightly dismissed as Rolfe's vague suggestion. It annoyed Inspector
+Chippenfield to think that Crewe might be nearer at the moment to the
+murderer than he himself was, even though that proximity was merely
+physical and unsupported by evidence or even by any theory. It would have
+been a great relief to him if he had known that Crewe's object in going
+to the gallery was not to mix with the criminal classes, but in order to
+keep a careful survey of what took place in the body of the court without
+making himself too prominent.
+
+Mr. Holymead, K.C., arrived, and members of the junior bar deferentially
+made room for him. He shook hands with some of these gentlemen and also
+with Inspector Chippenfield, much to the gratification of that officer.
+Miss Fewbanks arrived in a taxi-cab a few minutes before the appointed
+hour of eleven. She was accompanied by Mrs. Holymead, and they were shown
+into a private room by Police-Constable Flack, who had received
+instructions from Inspector Chippenfield to be on the lookout for the
+murdered man's daughter.
+
+Miss Fewbanks and Mrs. Holymead had been almost inseparable since the
+tragedy had been discovered. Immediately on the arrival of Miss Fewbanks
+from Dellmere, Mrs. Holymead had gone out to Riversbrook to condole with
+her, and to support her in her great sorrow. But the murdered man's
+daughter, who, on account of having lived apart from her father, had
+developed a self-reliant spirit, seemed to be less overcome by the
+horror of the tragedy than Mrs. Holymead was. It was with a feeling that
+there was something lacking in her own nature, that the girl realised
+that Mrs. Holymead's grief for the violent death of a man who had been
+her husband's dearest friend was greater than her own grief at the loss
+of a father.
+
+One of the directions in which Mrs. Holymead's grief found expression was
+in a feverish desire to know all that was being done to discover the
+murderer. She displayed continuous interest in the investigations of the
+detectives engaged on the case, and she had implored Miss Fewbanks to let
+her know when any important discovery was made. She applauded the action
+of her young friend in engaging such a famous detective as Crewe, and
+declared that if anyone could unravel the mystery, Crewe would do it. She
+had been particularly anxious to hear through Miss Fewbanks what Crewe's
+impressions were, with regard to the tragedy.
+
+The court was opened punctually, the coroner being Mr. Bodyman, a stout,
+clean-shaven, white-haired gentleman who had spent thirty years of his
+life in the stuffy atmosphere of police courts hearing police-court
+cases. Police-Inspector Seldon nodded in reply to the inquiring glance of
+the coroner, and the inquest was opened.
+
+The first witness was Miss Fewbanks. She was dressed in deep black and
+was obviously a little unnerved. In a low tone she said she had
+identified the body as that of her father. She was staying at her
+father's country house in Dellmere, Sussex, when the crime was committed.
+She had no knowledge of anyone who was evilly disposed towards her
+father. He had never spoken to her of anyone who cherished a grudge
+against him.
+
+Evidence relating to the circumstances in which the body was found
+was given by Police-Constable Flack. He described the position of the
+room in which the body was found, and the attitude in which the body
+was stretched. He was on duty in the neighbourhood of Tanton Gardens
+on the night of the murder, but saw no suspicious characters and
+heard no sounds.
+
+The evidence of Hill was chiefly a repetition of what he had told
+Inspector Chippenfield as to his movements on the day of the crime, and
+his methods of inspecting the premises three times a week in accordance
+with his master's orders. He knew nothing about Sir Horace's sudden
+return from Scotland. His first knowledge of this was the account of the
+murder, which he read in the papers.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield gave evidence for the purpose of producing the
+letter received at Scotland Yard announcing that Sir Horace Fewbanks had
+been murdered. The letter was passed up to the coroner for his
+inspection, and when he had examined it he sent it to the foreman of the
+jury. Then followed medical evidence, which showed that death was due to
+a bullet wound and could not have been self-inflicted.
+
+The coroner, in his summing-up, dwelt upon the loss sustained by the
+Judiciary by the violent death of one of its most distinguished members,
+and the jury, after a retirement of a few minutes, brought in a verdict
+of wilful murder by some person or persons unknown.
+
+As the occupants of the court filed out into the street, Crewe, who was
+watching Holymead, noticed the K.C. give a slight start when he saw Miss
+Fewbanks and his wife. Mr. Holymead went up to the ladies and shook hands
+with Miss Fewbanks, and to Crewe it seemed as if he was on the point of
+shaking hands with his wife, but he stopped himself awkwardly. He saw the
+ladies into their cab, and, raising his hat, went off. As Mr. Holymead
+had seen Miss Fewbanks in court when she gave evidence, it was obvious to
+Crewe that he could not have been surprised at meeting her outside. It
+was therefore the presence of his wife which had surprised him. That
+fact--if it were a fact--opened a limitless field of speculation to
+Crewe, but in spite of the possibility of error--a possibility which he
+frankly recognised--he was pleased with himself for having noticed the
+incident. To him it seemed to provide another link in the chain he was
+constructing. It harmonised with Taylor's story of Mr. Holymead's
+decision to stay at Verney's instead of entering his own home the night
+Taylor drove him from Hyde Park Corner.
+
+Rolfe also possessed the professional faculty of observation, but in a
+different degree. He had seen Mr. Holymead talking to his wife and Miss
+Fewbanks, but he had noticed nothing but gentlemanly ease in the
+barrister's manner. What did astonish him in connection with Mr. Holymead
+was that after he had left the ladies and was walking in the direction of
+the cab-rank he spoke to one of the former occupants of the gallery. This
+was a man known to the police and his associates as "Kincher." His name
+was Kemp, and how he had obtained his nick-name was not known. He was a
+criminal by profession and had undergone several heavy sentences for
+burglary. He was a thick-set man of medium height, about fifty years of
+age. Apart from a rather heavy lower jaw, he gave no external indication
+of his professional pursuits, but looked, with his brown and
+weather-beaten face and rough blue reefer suit, not unlike a seafaring
+man. The likeness was heightened by a tattooed device which covered the
+back of his right hand, and a slight roll in his gait when he walked. But
+appearances are deceptive, for Mr. Kemp, at liberty or in gaol, had never
+been out of London in his life. He was born and bred a London thief, and
+had served all his sentences at Wormwood Scrubbs. For over a minute he
+and Mr. Holymead remained in conversation. Rolfe would have described it
+officially as familiar conversation, but that description would have
+overlooked the deference, the sense of inferiority, in "Kincher's"
+manner. For a time Rolfe was puzzled by the incident, but he eventually
+lighted on an explanation which satisfied himself. It was that in the
+earlier days before Mr. Holymead had reached such a prominent position at
+the bar, he had been engaged in practice in the criminal courts, and
+"Kincher" had been one of his clients.
+
+With a cheerful smile Holymead brought the conversation to an end and
+went on his way. Kemp walked on hurriedly in the opposite direction. He
+had his eyes on a young man whom he had seen in the gallery, and who had
+seemed to avoid his eye. It was obvious to him that this young man, for
+whom he had been on the watch when Mr. Holymead spoke to him, had seized
+the opportunity to slip past him while he was talking to the eminent K.C.
+The young man, even from the back view, seemed to be well-dressed.
+
+"Hallo, Fred," exclaimed Mr. Kemp, as he reached within a yard or two of
+his quarry.
+
+"Hallo, Kincher," replied the young man, turning round. "I didn't notice
+you. Were you up at the court?"
+
+"Yes, I looked in," said Mr. Kemp. "There wasn't much doing, was there?"
+
+"No," said Fred.
+
+"He won't trouble us any more," pursued Mr. Kemp.
+
+"No." The young man seemed to have a dread of helping along the
+conversation, and therefore sought refuge in monosyllables.
+
+Mr. Kemp coughed before he formed his question.
+
+"Did you go up there that night?"
+
+"No." The reply came instantaneously, but the young man followed it up
+with a look of inquiry to ascertain if his denial was believed.
+
+"A good thing as it happened," said Mr. Kemp.
+
+"I had nothing to do with it," said Fred, earnestly.
+
+"I never said you had," replied Mr. Kemp.
+
+"Nothing whatever to do with it," continued the young man with emphasis.
+"That's not my sort of game."
+
+"I'm not saying anything, Fred," replied the elder man. "But whoever done
+it might have done it by accident-like."
+
+"Accident or no accident, I had nothing to do with it, thank God."
+
+"That is all right, Fred. I'm not saying you know anything about it. But
+even if you did you'd find I could be trusted. I don't go blabbing round
+to everybody."
+
+"I know you don't. But as I said before I had nothing to do with it. I
+didn't go there that night--I changed my mind."
+
+"A very lucky thing then, because if they do look you up you can prove
+an alibi."
+
+"Yes," said Fred, "I can prove an alibi easy enough. But what makes you
+talk about them looking me up? Why should they get into me--why should
+they look me up? I've told you I didn't go there."
+
+"That is all right, Fred," said the other, in a soothing tone. "If that
+pal of yours keeps his mouth shut there is nothing to put them on your
+tracks. But I don't like the looks of him. He seems to me a bit nervous,
+and if they put him through the third degree he'll squeak. That's my
+impression."
+
+"If he squeaks he'll have to settle with me," said Fred. "And he'll find
+there is something to pay. If he tries to put me away I'll--I'll--I'll
+do him in."
+
+"Kincher" instead of being horrified at this sentiment seemed to approve
+of it as the right thing to be done. "I'd let him know if I was you,
+Fred," he said. "I didn't like the look of him. The reason I came out
+here to-day was to have a look at him. And when I saw him in the box I
+said to myself, 'Well, I'm glad I've staked nothing on you, for it seems
+to me that you'll crack up if the police shake their thumb-screws in your
+face.' I felt glad I hadn't accepted your invitation to make it a
+two-handed job, Fred. It was the fact that some one else I'd never seen
+had put up the job that kept me out of it when you asked me to go with
+you. A man can't be too careful--especially after he's had a long spell
+in 'stir,' But of course you're all right if you changed your mind and
+didn't go up there. But if I was you I'd have my alibi ready. It is no
+good leaving things until the police are at the door and making one up on
+the spur of the moment."
+
+"Yes, I'll see about it," said Fred. "It's a good idea."
+
+"Come in and have a drink, Fred," said "Kincher." "It will do you good.
+It was dry work listening to them talking up there about the murder."
+
+Fred accompanied Mr. Kemp into the bar of the hotel they reached, and the
+elder man, after an inquiring glance at his companion, ordered two
+whiskies. "Kincher" added water to the contents of each glass, and,
+lifting his glass in his right hand, waited until Fred had done the same
+and then said:
+
+"Well, here's luck and long life to the man that did it--whoever he is."
+
+Fred offered no objection to this sentiment and they drained glasses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+"And so you've had no luck, Rolfe?"
+
+Inspector Chippenfield, glancing up from his official desk in Scotland
+Yard, put this question in a tone of voice which suggested that the
+speaker had expected nothing better.
+
+"I've seen the heads of at least half a dozen likely West End shops,"
+Rolfe replied, "and they tell me there is nothing to indicate where the
+handkerchief was bought. The scrap of lace merely shows that it was torn
+off a good handkerchief, but there is nothing about it to show that the
+handkerchief was different in any marked way from the average filmy scrap
+of muslin and lace which every smart woman carries as a handkerchief. I
+thought so myself, before I started to make inquiries."
+
+"Well, Rolfe, we must come at it another way," said the inspector.
+"Undoubtedly there is a woman in the case, and it ought not to be
+impossible to locate her. Your theory, Rolfe, is that the murder was
+committed by some one who broke into the place while Sir Horace was
+entertaining a lady friend or waiting for the arrival of a lady he
+expected. Either the lady had not arrived or had left the room
+temporarily when the burglar broke into the house. He had spotted the
+place some days before and ascertained that it was empty, and when he
+found that Sir Horace had returned alone he decided to break in, and,
+covering Sir Horace with a revolver, try to extort money from him. A
+riskier but more profitable game than burgling an empty house--if it came
+off. With his revolver in his hand he made his way up to the library. Sir
+Horace parleyed with him until he could reach his own revolver, and then
+got in the first shot but missed his man. The burglar shot him and then
+bolted. The lady heard the shots, and, rushing in, found Sir Horace in
+his death agony. She was stooping over him with her handkerchief in her
+hand, and in his convulsive moments he caught hold of a corner of it and
+the handkerchief was torn. The lady left the place and on arrival home
+concocted that letter which was sent here telling us that Sir Horace had
+been murdered. Is that it?"
+
+"Yes," assented Rolfe. "Of course, I don't lay it down that everything
+happened just as you've said. But that's my idea of the crime. It
+accounts for all the clues we've picked up, and that is something."
+
+"It is an ingenious theory and it does you credit," said the inspector,
+who had not forgotten that he had proposed to Rolfe that they should help
+one another to the extent of taking one another fully into each other's
+confidence, for the purpose of getting ahead of Crewe. "But you have
+overlooked the fact that it is possible to account in another way for all
+the clues we have picked up. Suppose Sir Horace's return from Scotland
+was due to a message from a lady friend; suppose the lady went to see him
+accompanied by a friend whom Sir Horace did not like--a friend of whom
+Sir Horace was jealous. Suppose they asked for money--blackmail--and
+there was a quarrel in which Sir Horace was shot. Then we have your idea
+as to how the lady's handkerchief was torn--I agree with that in the
+main. The lady and her friend fled from the place. Later in the night the
+place is burgled by some one who has had his eye on it for some time, and
+on entering the library he is astounded to find the dead body of the
+owner. Suppose he went home, and on thinking things over sent the letter
+to Scotland Yard with the idea that if the police got on to his tracks
+about the burglary the fact that he had told us about the murder would
+show he had nothing to do with killing Sir Horace."
+
+"That is a good theory, too," said Rolfe, in a meditative tone. "And the
+only person who can tell us which is the right one is Sir Horace's lady
+friend. The problem is to find her."
+
+"Right," said the inspector approvingly. "And while you have been making
+inquiries at the shops about the handkerchief I have been down to the Law
+Courts branch of the Equity Bank where Sir Horace kept his account. It
+occurred to me that a look at Sir Horace's account might help us. You
+know the sort of man he was--you know his weakness for the ladies. But he
+was careful. I looked through his private papers out at Riversbrook
+expecting to get on the track of something that would show some one had
+been trying to blackmail him over an entanglement with a woman, but I
+found nothing. I couldn't even find any feminine correspondence. If Sir
+Horace was in the habit of getting letters from ladies he was also in the
+habit of destroying them. No doubt he adopted that precaution when his
+wife was alive, and found it such a wise one that he kept it up when
+there was less need for it. But a weakness for the ladies costs money,
+Rolfe, as you know, and that is why I had a look at his banking account.
+He made some payments that it would be worth while to trace--payments to
+West End drapers and that sort of thing. Of course, Sir Horace, being a
+cautious man and occupying a public position, might not care to flaunt
+his weakness in the eyes of West End shopkeepers, and instead of paying
+the accounts of his lady friend of the moment, may have given her the
+money and trusted to her paying the bills--a thing that women of that
+kind are never in a hurry to do. In that case the payments to West End
+shopkeepers are for goods supplied to his daughter. However, I've taken a
+note of the names, dates, and amounts of a number of them, and I want you
+to see the managers of these shops."
+
+"We are getting close to it now," said Rolfe, approvingly.
+
+"I think so," was the modest reply of his superior. "There is one thing
+about Sir Horace's account which struck me as peculiar. Every four weeks
+for the past eight months Sir Horace drew a cheque for L24, and every
+cheque of the kind was made payable to Number 365. Now, unless he wished
+to hide the nature of the transaction from his bankers, why not put in
+the cheque in the name of the person who received the money? It couldn't
+have been for his personal use, for in that case he would have made the
+cheques payable to self. Besides, a man with a banking account doesn't
+draw a regular L24 every four weeks for personal expenses. He draws a
+cheque just when he wants a few pounds, instead of carrying five-pound
+notes about with him. I asked the bank manager about these cheques and he
+looked up a couple of them and found they had been cashed over the
+counter. So he called up the cashier and from him I learnt that Sir
+Horace came in and cashed them. As far as he can remember Sir Horace
+cashed all these L24 cheques. I assume he did so because he realised that
+there was less likely to be comment in the bank than if a well-dressed
+good-looking young lady arrived at the bank with them. This L24 a month
+suggests that Sir Horace had something choice and not too expensive
+stowed away in a flat. That is a matter on which Hill ought to be able to
+throw some light. If he knows anything I'll get it out of him. It struck
+me as extraordinary that Sir Horace should have taken Hill into his
+service knowing what he was. But this, apparently, is the explanation. He
+knew that Hill wouldn't gossip about him for fear of being exposed, for
+that would mean that Hill would lose his situation and would find it
+impossible to get another one without a reference from him. We'll have
+Hill brought here--"
+
+There was a knock at the door, and a boy in buttons entered and handed
+Inspector Chippenfield a card.
+
+"Seldon from Hampstead," he explained to Rolfe. "Don't go away yet. It
+may be something about this case."
+
+Police-Inspector Seldon entered the office, and held the door ajar for a
+man behind him. He shook hands with Inspector Chippenfield and Rolfe, and
+then motioned his companion to a chair.
+
+"This is Mr. Robert Evans, the landlord of the Flowerdew Hotel, Covent
+Garden," he explained. He looked at Mr. Evans with the air of a
+police-court inspector waiting for a witness to corroborate his
+statement, but as that gentleman remained silent he sharply asked,
+"Isn't that so?"
+
+"Quite right," said Mr. Evans, in a moist, husky voice.
+
+He was a short fat man, with an extremely red face and bulging eyes,
+which watered very much and apparently required to be constantly mopped
+with a handkerchief which he carried in his hand. This peculiarity gave
+Mr. Evans the appearance of a man perpetually in mourning, and this
+effect was heightened by a species of incipient palsy which had seized on
+his lower facial muscles, and caused his lips to tremble violently. He
+was bald in the front of the head but not on the top. The baldness over
+the temples had joined hands and left isolated over the centre of the
+forehead a small tuft of hair, which, with the playfulness of second
+childhood, showed a tendency to curl.
+
+"Yes, you're quite right," he repeated huskily, as though some one had
+doubted the statement. "Evans is my name and I'm not ashamed of it."
+
+"He came to me this morning and told me that Hill gave false evidence at
+the inquest yesterday," Inspector Seldon explained. "So I brought him
+along to see you."
+
+"False evidence--Hill?" exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield, with keen
+interest. "Let us hear about it."
+
+"Well, you will remember Hill said he was at home on the night of the
+murder," pursued Inspector Seldon. "I looked up his depositions before I
+came away and what he said was this: 'I took my daughter to the Zoo in
+the afternoon. We left the Zoo at half past five and went home and had
+tea. My wife then took the child to the picture-palace and I remained at
+home. I did not go out that night. They returned about half-past ten, and
+after supper we all went to bed.' But Evans tells me he saw Hill in his
+bar at three o'clock on the morning of the 19th of August. He has an
+early license for the accommodation of the Covent Garden traffic. He can
+swear to Hill. A man who goes to bed at half-past ten has no right to be
+wandering about Covent Garden at 3 a. m. And besides, Hill told us
+nothing about this. So I brought Evans along to see what you make of it."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield had taken up a pencil and was making a few notes.
+
+"Very interesting indeed," he said. Then he turned to Evans and asked,
+"Are you sure you saw Hill in your bar at three a. m.? There is no
+possibility of a mistake?"
+
+"He is the man who was knocked down outside by a porter running into
+him," said Mr. Evans, mopping his eyes. "I could bring half a dozen
+witnesses who will swear to him."
+
+"You see, it's this way," interpolated Inspector Seldon, taking up the
+landlord's narrative. His police-court training had taught him to bring
+out the salient points of a story, and he was naturally of the opinion
+that he could tell another man's story better than the man could tell it
+himself. "Hill was staring about him--it was probably the first time he
+had been to Covent Garden in the early morning--and got knocked over. He
+was stunned, and some porters took him in to the bar, sat him on a form,
+and poured some rum into him. Some of the porters were for ringing up the
+ambulance; others were for carrying Hill off to the hospital, but he soon
+recovered. However, he sat there for about twenty minutes, and after
+having several drinks at his own expense he went away. Evans served him
+with the drinks."
+
+"Good," said Inspector Chippenfield, who liked the circumstantial details
+of the story. "And you can get half a dozen porters to identify him?"
+
+"Bill Cribb, Harry Winch, Charlie Brown, a fellow they call 'Green
+Violets'--I don't know his real name--"
+
+Mr. Evans was calling on his memory for further names but was stopped by
+Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+"That will do very well. And how did you happen to be at the inquest at
+Hampstead? That is a bit out of your way."
+
+Mr. Evans mopped his eyes, and Inspector Seldon took upon himself to
+reply for him. "He has a brother-in-law in the trade at Hampstead--keeps
+the _Three Jugs_ in Coulter Street. Evans had to go out to see his
+brother-in-law on business, and his brother-in-law took him along to the
+court out of curiosity."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield nodded.
+
+"Rolfe," he said, "take down Mr. Evans's statement outside and get him to
+sign it. Don't go away when you've finished. I want you."
+
+Mr. Evans, even if he felt that full justice had been done to his story
+by Inspector Seldon, was disappointed at the police officer's failure to
+do justice to his manly scruples in coming forward to give evidence
+against a man who had never done him any harm. Addressing Inspector
+Chippenfield he said:
+
+"I don't altogether like mixing myself up in this business. That isn't my
+way. If I have a thing to say to a man I like to say it to his face. I
+don't like a man to say things behind a man's back, that is, if he calls
+himself a man. But I thought over this thing after leaving the court and
+hearing this chap Hill say he hadn't left home that night, and I talked
+it over with my wife--"
+
+"You did the right thing," said Inspector Chippenfield, with the emphasis
+of a man who had profited by the triumph of right.
+
+Mr. Evans was under the impression that the inspector's approval referred
+chiefly to the part he had played as a husband in talking over his
+perplexity with his wife, rather than the part he had played as a man in
+revealing that Hill had lied in his evidence.
+
+"I always do," he said. "My wife's one of the sensible sort, and when a
+man takes her advice he don't go far wrong. She advised me to go straight
+to the police-station and tell them all I know. 'It is a cruel murder,'
+she said, 'and who knows but it might be our turn next?'"
+
+This example of the imaginative element in feminine logic made no
+impression on the practical official who listened to the admiring
+husband.
+
+"That is all right," said Inspector Chippenfield soothingly. "I
+understand your scruples. They do you credit. But an honest man like you
+doesn't want to shield a criminal from justice--least of all a
+cold-blooded murderer."
+
+When Rolfe returned to his superior with Evans's signed statement in his
+hand, he found the inspector preparing to leave the office.
+
+"Put on your hat and come with me," said the inspector. "We will go out
+and see Mrs. Hill. I'll frighten the truth out of her and then tackle
+Hill. He is sure to be up at Riversbrook, and we can go on there from
+Camden Town."
+
+While on the way to Camden Town by Tube, Inspector Chippenfield
+arranged his plans with the object of saving time. He would interview
+Mrs. Hill and while he was doing so Rolfe could make inquiries at the
+neighbouring hotels about Hill. It was the inspector's conviction that
+a man who had anything to do with a murder would require a steady
+supply of stimulants next day.
+
+Mrs. Hill kept a small confectionery shop adjoining a cinema theatre to
+supplement her husband's wages by a little earnings of her own in order
+to support her child. Although the shop was an unpretentious one, and
+catered mainly for the ha'p'orths of the juvenile patrons of the picture
+house next door, it was called "The Camden Town Confectionery Emporium,"
+and the title was printed over the little shop in large letters.
+Inspector Chippenfield walked into the empty shop, and rapped sharply on
+the counter.
+
+A little thin woman, with prematurely grey hair, and a depressed
+expression, appeared from the back in response to the summons. She
+started nervously as her eye encountered the police uniform, but she
+waited to be spoken to.
+
+"Is your name Hill?" asked the inspector sternly. "Mrs. Emily Hill?"
+
+The woman nodded feebly, her frightened eyes fixed on the
+inspector's face.
+
+"Then I want to have a word with you," continued the inspector, walking
+through the shop into the parlour. "Come in here and answer my
+questions."
+
+Mrs. Hill followed him timidly into the room he had entered. It was a
+small, shabbily-furnished apartment, and the inspector's massive
+proportions made it look smaller still. He took up a commanding position
+on the strip of drugget which did duty as a hearth-rug, and staring
+fiercely at her, suddenly commenced:
+
+"Mrs. Hill, where was your husband on the night of the 18th of August,
+when his employer, Sir Horace Fewbanks, was murdered?"
+
+Mrs. Hill shrank before that fierce gaze, and said, in a low tone:
+
+"Please, sir, he was at home."
+
+"At home, was he? I'm not so sure of that. Tell me all about your
+husband's movements on that day and night. What time did he come home, to
+begin with?"
+
+"He came home early in the afternoon to take our little girl to the
+Zoo--which was a treat she had been looking forward to for a long while.
+I couldn't go myself, there being the shop to look after. So Mr. Hill and
+Daphne went to the Zoo, and after they came home and had tea I took her
+to the pictures while Mr. Hill minded the shop. It was not the
+picture-palace next door, but the big one in High Street, where they were
+showing 'East Lynne,' Then when we come home about ten o'clock we all
+had supper and went to bed."
+
+"And your husband didn't go out again?"
+
+"No, sir. When I got up in the morning to bring him a cup of tea he was
+still sound asleep."
+
+"But might he not have gone out in the night while you were asleep?"
+
+"No, sir. I'm a very light sleeper, and I wake at the least stir."
+
+Mrs. Hill's story seemed to ring true enough, although she kept her eyes
+fixed on her interrogator with a kind of frightened brightness. Inspector
+Chippenfield looked at her in silence for a few seconds.
+
+"So that's the whole truth, is it?" he said at length.
+
+"Yes, sir," the woman earnestly assured him. "You can ask Mr. Hill and
+he'll tell you the same thing."
+
+Something reminiscent in Inspector Chippenfield's mind responded to this
+sentence. He pondered over it for a moment, and then remembered that Hill
+had applied the same phrase to his wife. Evidently there had been
+collusion, a comparing of tales beforehand. The woman had been tutored by
+her cunning scoundrel of a husband, but undoubtedly her tale was false.
+
+"The whole truth?" said the inspector, again.
+
+"Yes, sir," answered Mrs. Hill.
+
+"Now, look here," said the police officer, in his sternest tones, as he
+shook a warning finger at the little woman, "I know you are lying. I know
+Hill didn't sleep in the house, that night. He was seen near Riversbrook
+in the early part of the night and he was seen wandering about Covent
+Garden after the murder had been committed. It is no use lying to me,
+Mrs. Hill. If you want to save your husband from being arrested for this
+murder you'll tell the truth. What time did he leave here that night?"
+
+"I've already told you the truth, sir," replied the little woman. "He
+didn't leave the place after he came back from the Zoo."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield was puzzled. It seemed to him that Mrs. Hill was
+a woman of weak character, and yet she stuck firmly to her story. Perhaps
+Evans had made a mistake in identifying Hill as the man who had been
+carried into his bar after being knocked down. Nothing was more common
+than mistakes of identification. His glance wandered round the room, as
+though in search of some inspiration for his next question. His eye took
+mechanical note of the trumpery articles of rickety furniture; wandered
+over the cheap almanac prints which adorned the walls; but became riveted
+in the cheap overmantel which surmounted the fire-place. For, in the slip
+of mirror which formed the centre of that ornament, Inspector
+Chippenfield caught sight of the features of Mrs. Hill frowning and
+shaking her head at somebody invisible. He turned his head warily, but
+she was too quick for him, and her features were impassive again when he
+looked at her. Following the direction indicated by the mirror, Inspector
+Chippenfield saw Mrs. Hill had been signalling through a window which
+looked into the back yard. He reached it in a step and threw open the
+window. A small and not over-clean little girl was just leaving the yard
+by the gate.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield called to her pleasantly, and she retraced her
+steps with a frightened face.
+
+"Come in, my dear, I want you," said the inspector, wreathing his red
+face into a smile. "I'm fond of little girls."
+
+The little girl smiled, nodded her head, and presently appeared in
+response to the inspector's invitation. He glanced at Mrs. Hill, noticed
+that her face was grey and drawn with sudden terror. She opened her mouth
+as though to speak, but no words came.
+
+The inspector lifted the child on to his knee. She nestled to him
+confidingly enough, and looked up into his face with an artless glance.
+
+"What is your name, my dear?"
+
+"Daphne, sir--Daphne Hill."
+
+"How old are you, Daphne?"
+
+"Please, sir, I'm eight next birthday."
+
+"Why, you're quite a big girl, Daphne! Do you go to school?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir. I'm in the second form."
+
+"Do you like going to school, Daphne?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I suppose you like going to the Zoo better? Did you like going with
+father the other day?"
+
+The child's eyes sparkled with retrospective pleasure.
+
+"Oh, yes," she said, delightedly. "We saw all kinds of things: lions and
+tigers, and elephants. I had a ride on a elephant"--her eyes grew big
+with the memory--"an' 'e took a bun with his long nose out of my hand."
+
+"That was splendid, Daphne! Which did you like best--the Zoo or the
+pictures?"
+
+"I liked them both," she replied.
+
+"Was Father at home when you came home from the pictures?"
+
+"No," said the little girl innocently. "He was out."
+
+Mrs. Hill, standing a little way off with fear on her face, uttered
+an inarticulate noise, and took a step towards the inspector and
+her daughter.
+
+"Better not interfere, Mrs. Hill, unless you want to make matters worse,"
+said the inspector meaningly. "Now, tell me, Daphne, dear, when did your
+father come home?"
+
+"Not till morning," replied the little girl, with a timid glance at
+her mother.
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"Because I slept in Mother's bed that night with Mother, like I always do
+when Father is away, but Father came home in the morning and lifted me
+into my own bed, because he said he wanted to go to bed."
+
+"What time was that, Daphne?"
+
+"I don't know, sir."
+
+"It was light, Daphne? You could see?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield told the child she was a good girl, and gave her
+sixpence. The little one slipped off his knee and ran across to her
+mother with delight, to show the coin; all unconscious that she had
+betrayed her father. The mother pushed the child from her with a
+heart-broken gesture.
+
+A heavy step was heard in the shop, and the inspector, looking through
+the window, saw Rolfe. He opened the door leading from the shop and
+beckoned his subordinate in.
+
+Rolfe was excited, and looked like a man burdened with weighty news. He
+whispered a word in Inspector Chippenfield's ear.
+
+"Let's go into the shop," said Inspector Chippenfield promptly. "But,
+first, I'll make things safe here." He locked the door leading to the
+kitchen, put the key into his pocket, and followed his colleague into the
+shop. "Now, Rolfe, what is it?"
+
+"I've found out that Hill put in nearly the whole day after the murder
+drinking in a wine tavern. He sat there like a man in a dream and spoke
+to nobody. The only thing he took any interest in was the evening papers.
+He bought about a dozen of them during the afternoon."
+
+"Where was this?" asked the inspector.
+
+"At a little wine tavern in High Street, where he's never been seen
+before. The man who keeps the place gave me a good description of him,
+though. Hill went there about ten o'clock in the morning, and started
+drinking port wine, and as fast as the evening papers came out he sent
+the boy out for them, glanced through them, and then crumpled them up. He
+stayed there till after five o'clock. By that time the 6.30 editions
+would reach Camden Town, and if you remember it was the six-thirty
+editions which had the first news of the murder. The tavern-keeper
+declares that Hill drank nearly two bottles of Tarragona port, in
+threepenny glasses, during the day."
+
+"I should have credited Hill with a better taste in port, with his
+opportunities as Sir Horace Fewbanks's butler," said Inspector
+Chippenfield drily. "What you have found out, Rolfe, only goes to bear
+out my own discovery that Hill is deeply implicated in this affair. I
+have found out, for my part, that Hill did not spend the night of the
+murder at home here."
+
+There was a ring of triumph in Inspector Chippenfield's voice as he
+announced this discovery, but before Rolfe could make any comment upon
+it there was a quick step behind them, and both men turned, to see Hill.
+The butler was astonished at finding the two police officers in his
+wife's shop. He hesitated, and apparently his first impulse was to turn
+into the street again; but, realising the futility of such a course, he
+came forward with an attempt to smooth his worried face into a
+conciliatory smile.
+
+"Hill!" said Inspector Chippenfield sternly. "Once and for all, will you
+own up where you were on the night of the murder?"
+
+Hill started slightly, then, with admirable self-command, he recovered
+himself and became as tight-lipped and reticent as ever.
+
+"I've already told you, sir," he replied smoothly. "I spent it in my own
+home. If you ask my wife, sir, she'll tell you I never stirred out of the
+house after I came back from taking my little girl to the Zoo."
+
+"I know she will, you scoundrel!" burst out the choleric inspector.
+"She's been well tutored by you, and she tells the tale very well. But
+it's no good, Hill. You forgot to tutor your little daughter, and she's
+innocently put you away. What's more, you were seen in London before
+daybreak the night after the murder. The game's up, my man."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield produced a pair of handcuffs as he spoke. Hill
+passed his tongue over his dry lips before he was able to speak.
+
+"Don't put them on me," he said imploringly, as Inspector Chippenfield
+advanced towards him. "I'll--I'll confess!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Inspector Chippenfield's first words were a warning.
+
+"You know what you are saying, Hill?" he asked. "You know what this
+means? Any statement you make may be used in evidence against you at
+your trial."
+
+"I'll tell you everything," faltered Hill. The impassive mask of the
+well-trained English servant had dropped from him, and he stood revealed
+as a trembling elderly man with furtive eyes, and a painfully shaken
+manner. "I'll be glad to tell you everything," he declared, laying a
+twitching hand on the inspector's coat. "I've not had a minute's peace or
+rest since--since it happened."
+
+The dry official manner in which Inspector Chippenfield produced a
+note-book was in striking contrast to the trapped man's attitude.
+
+"Go ahead," he commanded, wetting his pencil between his lips.
+
+Before Hill could respond a small boy entered the shop--a ragged,
+shock-headed dirty urchin, bareheaded and barefooted. He tapped loudly on
+the counter with a halfpenny.
+
+"What do you want, boy?" roughly asked the inspector.
+
+"A 'a'porth of blackboys," responded the child, in the confident tone of
+a regular customer.
+
+"If you'll permit me, sir, I'll serve him," said Hill and he glided
+behind the little counter, took some black sticky sweetmeats from one of
+the glass jars on the shelf and gave them to the boy, who popped one in
+his mouth and scurried off.
+
+"I think we had better go inside and hear what Hill has to say,
+Inspector, while Mrs. Hill minds the shop," said Rolfe. He had caught a
+glimpse of Mrs. Hill's white frightened face peering through the dirty
+little glass pane in the parlour door.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield approved of the idea.
+
+"We don't want to spoil your wife's business, Hill--she's likely to need
+it," he said, with cruel official banter. "Come here, Mrs. Hill," he
+said, raising his voice.
+
+The faded little woman appeared in response to the summons, bringing the
+child with her. She shot a frightened glance at her husband, which
+Inspector Chippenfield intercepted.
+
+"Never mind looking at your husband, Mrs. Hill," he said roughly.
+"You've done your best for him, and the only thing to be told now is the
+truth. Now you and your daughter can stay in the shop. We want your
+husband inside."
+
+Mrs. Hill clasped her hands quickly.
+
+"Oh, what is it, Henry?" she said. "Tell me what has happened? What have
+they found out?"
+
+"Keep your mouth shut," commanded her husband harshly. "This way, sir, if
+you please."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield and Rolfe followed him into the parlour.
+
+"Now, Hill," impatiently said Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+The butler raised his head wearily.
+
+"I suppose I may as well begin at the beginning and tell you
+everything," he said.
+
+"Yes," replied the inspector, "it's not much use keeping anything
+back now."
+
+"Oh, it's not a case of keeping anything back," replied Hill. "You're too
+clever for me, and I've made up my mind to tell you everything, but I
+thought I might be able to cut the first part short, so as to save your
+time. But so that you'll understand everything I've got to go a long way
+back--shortly after I entered Sir Horace Fewbanks's service. In fact, I
+hadn't been long with him before I began to see he was leading a strange
+life--a double life, if I may say so. A servant in a gentleman's
+house--particularly one in my position--sees a good deal he is not meant
+to see; in fact, he couldn't close his eyes to it if he wanted to, as no
+doubt you, from your experience, sir, know very well. A confidential
+servant sees and hears a lot of things, sir."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield nodded his head sharply, but he did not speak.
+
+"I think Sir Horace trusted me, too," continued Hill humbly, "more than
+he would have trusted most servants, on account of my--my past. I fancy,
+if I may say so, that he counted on my gratitude because he had given me
+a fresh start in life. And he was quite right--at first." Hill dropped
+his voice and looked down as he uttered the last two words. "I'd have
+done anything for him. But as I was saying, sir, I hadn't been long in
+his house before I found out that he had a--a weakness--" Hill timidly
+bowed his head as though apologising to the dead judge for assailing his
+character--"a weakness for--for the ladies. Sometimes Sir Horace went
+off for the week-end without saying where he was going and sometimes he
+went out late at night and didn't return till after breakfast. Then he
+had ladies visiting him at Riversbrook--not real ladies, if you
+understand, sir. Sometimes there was a small party of them, and then they
+made a noise singing music-hall songs and drinking wine, but generally
+they came alone. Towards the end there was one who came a lot oftener
+than the others. I found out afterwards that her name was Fanning--Doris
+Fanning. She was a very pretty young woman, and Sir Horace seemed very
+fond of her. I knew that because I've heard him talking to her in the
+library. Sir Horace had rather a loud voice, and I couldn't help
+overhearing him sometimes, when I took things to his rooms.
+
+"One night,--it was before Sir Horace left for Scotland--a rainy gusty
+night, this young woman came. I forgot to mention that when Sir Horace
+expected visitors he used to tell me to send the servants to bed early.
+He told me to do so this night, saying as usual, 'You understand, Hill?'
+and I replied, 'Yes, Sir Horace,' The young woman came about half-past
+ten o'clock, and I let her in the side door and showed her up to the
+library on the first floor, where he used to sit and work and read. Half
+an hour afterwards I took up some refreshments--some sandwiches and a
+small bottle of champagne for the young lady--and then went back
+downstairs till Sir Horace rang for me to let the lady out, which was
+generally about midnight. But this night, I'd hardly been downstairs more
+than a quarter of an hour, when I heard a loud crash, followed by a sort
+of scream. Before I could get out of my chair to go upstairs I heard the
+study door open, and Sir Horace called out, 'Hill, come here!'
+
+"I went upstairs as quick as I could, and the door of the study being
+wide open, I could see inside. Sir Horace and the young lady had
+evidently been having a quarrel. They were standing up facing each other,
+and the table at which they had been sitting was knocked over, and the
+refreshments I had taken up had been scattered all about. The young woman
+had been crying--I could see that at a glance--but Sir Horace looked
+dignified and the perfect gentleman--like he always was. He turned to me
+when he saw me, and said, 'Hill, kindly show this young lady out,' I
+bowed and waited for her to follow me, which she did, after giving Sir
+Horace an angry look. I let her out the same way as I let her in, and
+took her through the plantation to the front gate, which I locked after
+her. When I got inside the house again, and was beginning to bolt up
+things for the night Sir Horace called me again and I went upstairs.
+'Hill,' he said, in the same calm and collected voice, 'if that young
+lady calls again you're to deny her admittance. That is all, Hill,' And
+he turned back into his room again.
+
+"I didn't see her again until the morning after Sir Horace left for
+Scotland. I had arranged for the female servants to go to Sir Horace's
+estate in the country during his absence, as he instructed before his
+departure, and they and I were very busy on this morning getting the
+house in order to be closed up--putting covers on the furniture and
+locking up the valuables.
+
+"It was Sir Horace's custom to have this done when he was away every
+year instead of keeping the servants idling about the house on board
+wages, and the house was then left in my charge, as I told you, sir, and
+after the servants went to the country it was my custom to live at home
+till Sir Horace returned, coming over two or three times a week to look
+over the place and make sure that everything was all right. On this
+morning, sir, after superintending the servants clearing up things, I
+went outside the house to have a final look round, and to see that the
+locks of the front and back gates were in good working order. I was going
+to the back first, sir, but happening to glance about me as I walked
+round the house, I saw the young woman that Sir Horace had ordered me to
+show out of the house the night before he went to Scotland, peering out
+from behind one of the fir trees of the plantation in front of the house.
+As soon as she saw that I saw her she beckoned to me.
+
+"I would not have taken any notice of her, only I didn't want the women
+servants to see her. Sir Horace, I knew, would not have liked that. So I
+went across to her. I asked her what she wanted, and I told her it was no
+use her wanting to see Sir Horace, for he had gone to Scotland. 'I don't
+want to see him,' she said, as impudent as brass. 'It's you I want to
+see, Field or Hill or whatever you call yourself now.' It gave me quite a
+turn, I assure you, to find that this young woman knew my secret, and I
+turned round apprehensive-like, to make sure that none of the servants
+had heard her. She noticed me and she laughed. 'It's all right, Hill,'
+she said. 'I'm not going to tell on you. I've just brought you a message
+from an old friend--Fred Birchill--he wants to see you to-night at this
+address.' And with that she put a bit of paper into my hand. I was so
+upset and excited that I said I'd be there, and she went away.
+
+"This Fred Birchill was a man I'd met in prison, and he was in the cell
+next to me. How he'd got on my tracks I had no idea, but I seemed to see
+all my new life falling to pieces now he knew. I'd tried to run straight
+since I served my sentence, and I knew Sir Horace would stand to me, but
+he couldn't afford to have any scandal about it, and I knew that if there
+was any possibility of my past becoming known I should have to leave his
+employ. And then there was my poor wife and child, and this little
+business, sir. Nothing was known about my past here. So I determined to
+go and see this Birchill, sir. The address she had given me was in
+Westminster, and, as my time was practically my own when Sir Horace
+wasn't home, I went down that same evening, and when I got up the flight
+of stairs and knocked at the door it was a woman's voice that said 'Come
+in,' I thought I recognised the voice. When I opened the door, you can
+imagine my surprise when I saw the young woman to be Doris Fanning, who
+had had the quarrel with Sir Horace that night and had brought me the
+note that morning. Birchill was sitting in a corner of the room, with his
+feet on another chair, smoking a pipe. 'Come in, No. 21,' he says, with
+an unpleasant smile, 'come in and see an old friend. Put a chair for him,
+Doris, and leave the room.'
+
+"The girl did so, and as soon as the door was closed behind her Birchill
+turned round to me and burst out, 'Hill, that damned employer of yours
+has served me a nasty trick, but I'm going to get even with him, and
+you're going to help me!' I was taken back at his words, but I wanted to
+hear more before I spoke. Then he told me that the young woman I had seen
+had been brutally treated by Sir Horace. She had been living in a little
+flat in Westminster on a monthly allowance which Sir Horace made her, but
+he'd suddenly cut off her allowance and she'd have to be turned out in
+the street to starve because she couldn't pay her rent. 'A nice thing,'
+said Birchill fiercely, 'for this high-placed loose liver to carry on
+like this with a poor innocent girl whose only fault was that she loved
+him too well. If I could show him up and pull him down, I would. But I've
+done time, like you, Hill. He was the judge who sentenced me, and if I
+tried to injure him that way my word would carry no weight; but I'll put
+up a job on him that'll make him sorry the longest day he lives, and
+you'll help me. Sir Horace is in Scotland, Hill, and you're in charge of
+his place. Get rid of the servants, Hill, and we'll burgle his house. We
+can easily do it between us.'"
+
+At this stage of his narrative, Hill stopped and looked anxiously at his
+audience as though to gather some idea of their feelings before he
+proceeded further. But Inspector Chippenfield, with a fierce stare,
+merely remarked:
+
+"And you consented?"
+
+"I didn't at first," Hill retorted earnestly, "but when I refused he
+threatened me--threatened that he'd expose me and drag me and my wife and
+child down to poverty. I pleaded with him, but it was of no use, and at
+last I had to consent. I had some hope that in doing so I might find an
+opportunity to warn Sir Horace, but Birchill did not give me a chance. He
+insisted that the burglary should take place without delay. All I was to
+do was to give him a plan of the house, explain where to find the most
+valuable articles that had been left there, and wait for him at the flat
+while he committed the burglary. His idea in making me wait for him at
+the flat was to make sure that I didn't play him false--put the double on
+him, as he called it--and he told the girl not to let me out of her sight
+till he came back, if anything went wrong I should have to pay for it
+when he came back.
+
+"In accordance with Sir Horace's instructions, I sent the servants off to
+his country estate. It had been arranged that Birchill was to wait for me
+to come over to the flat on the 18th of August, the night fixed for the
+burglary. But about 7 o'clock, while I was at Riversbrook, I heard the
+noise of wheels outside, and looking out, I saw to my dismay Sir Horace
+getting out of a taxi-cab with a suit-case in his hand. My first impulse
+was to tell him everything--indeed, I think that if I had had a chance I
+would have--but he came in looking very severe, and without saying a word
+about why he had returned from Scotland, said very sharply, 'Hill, have
+the servants been sent down to the country, as I directed?' I told him
+that they had. 'Very good,' he said, 'then you go away at once, I won't
+want you any more. I want the house to myself to-night.' 'Sir Horace,' I
+began, trembling a little, but he stopped me. 'Go immediately,' he said;
+'don't stand there,' And he said it in such a tone that I was glad to go.
+There was something in his look that frightened me that night. I got
+across to Birchill's place and found him and the girl waiting for me. I
+told him what had happened, and begged him to give up the idea of the
+burglary. But he'd been drinking heavily, and was in a nasty mood. First
+he said I'd been playing him false and had warned Sir Horace, but when I
+assured him that I hadn't he insisted on going to commit the burglary
+just the same. With that he pulled out a revolver from his pocket, and
+swore with an oath that he'd put a bullet through me when he came back if
+I'd played him false and put Sir Horace on his guard, and that he'd put a
+bullet in the old scoundrel--meaning Sir Horace--if he interrupted him
+while he was robbing the house.
+
+"He sat there, cursing and drinking, till he fell asleep with his head on
+the table, snoring. I sat there not daring to breathe, hoping he'd sleep
+till morning, but Miss Fanning woke him up about nine, and he staggered
+to his feet to get out, with his revolver stuck in his coat pocket. He
+was away over three hours and the girl and I sat there without saying a
+word, just looking at each other and waiting for a clock on the
+mantelpiece to chime the quarters. It was a cuckoo clock, and it had just
+chimed twelve when we heard a quick step coming upstairs to the flat. The
+girl fixed her big dark eyes inquiringly on me, and then we heard a
+hoarse whisper through the keyhole telling us to open the door.
+
+"The girl ran to the door and let him in, but she shrieked at the sight
+of him when she saw him in the light. For he looked ghastly, and there
+was a spot of blood on his face, and his hands were smeared with it. He
+was shaking all over, and he went to the whisky bottle and drained the
+drop of spirit he'd left in it. Then he turned to us and said, 'Sir
+Horace Fewbanks is dead--murdered!' I suppose he read what he saw in our
+eyes, for he burst out angrily, 'Don't stand staring at me like a pair of
+damned fools. You don't think I did it? As God's my judge, I never did
+it. He was dead and stiff when I got there.'
+
+"Then he told us his story of what had happened. He said that when he got
+to Riversbrook there was a light in the library and he got over the fence
+and hid himself in the garden. Then he noticed that there was a light in
+the hall and that the hall door was open. He thought Sir Horace had left
+it open by mistake, and he was going to creep into the house and hide
+himself there till after Sir Horace went to bed. But suddenly the light
+in the library went out and Birchill again hid behind a tree, for he
+thought Sir Horace was retiring for the night. Then the light in the hall
+went out and immediately after Birchill heard the hall door being closed.
+Then he heard a step on the gravel path and saw a woman walking quickly
+down the path to the gate. She was a well-dressed woman, and Birchill
+naturally thought that she was one of Sir Horace's lady friends. But he
+thought it odd that Sir Horace, who was always a very polite gentleman to
+the ladies, should not have shown her off the premises. He waited in the
+garden about half an hour, and as everything in the house seemed quite
+still, he made his way to a side window and forced it open. He had an
+electric torch with him, and he used this to find his way about the
+house. First of all, he wanted to find out in which room Sir Horace was
+sleeping, and he knew from the plan he'd made me draw for him which was
+Sir Horace's bedroom, so he went there and opened the door quietly and
+listened. But he could not hear anyone breathing. Then he tried some of
+the other rooms and turned on his torch, but could see no one. He thought
+that perhaps Sir Horace had fallen asleep in a chair in the library, and
+he went there. He listened at the door but could hear no sound. Then he
+turned on his torch and by its light he saw a dreadful sight. Sir Horace
+was lying huddled up near the desk--dead--just dead, he thought, because
+there were little bubbles of blood on his lips as if they had been blown
+there when breathing his last. He didn't wait to see any more, but he
+turned and ran out of the house.
+
+"I didn't believe his story, though Miss Fanning did, but he stuck to it
+and seemed so frightened that I thought there might be something in it
+till he brought out that he'd lost his revolver somewhere. Then I
+remembered the horrid threats he'd used against Sir Horace, and I was
+convinced that he had committed the murder. But of course I dared not let
+him think I suspected him, and I pretended to console him. But the
+feeling that kept running through my head was that both of us would be
+suspected of the murder.
+
+"I told this to Birchill, and that frightened him still more. 'What are
+we to do?' he kept saying. 'We shall both be hanged.' Then, after a
+while, we recovered ourselves a bit and began to look at it from a more
+common-sense point of view. Nobody knew about Birchill's visit to the
+house except our two selves and the girl, and there was no reason why
+anybody should suspect us as long as we kept that knowledge to ourselves.
+Birchill's idea, after we'd talked this over, was that I should go
+quietly home to bed, and pay a visit to Riversbrook on Friday as usual,
+discover Sir Horace Fewbanks's body, and then tell the police. But I
+didn't like to do that for two reasons. I didn't think that my nerves
+would be in a fit state to tell the police how I found the body without
+betraying to them that I knew something about it; and I couldn't bear to
+think of Sir Horace's body lying neglected all alone in that empty house
+till the following day--though I kept that reason to myself.
+
+"It was the girl who hit on the idea of sending a letter to the police.
+She said that it would be the best thing to do, because if they were
+informed and went to the house and discovered the body it wouldn't be so
+difficult for me to face them afterwards. I agreed to that, and so did
+Birchill, who was very frightened in case I might give anything away, and
+consented on that account. The girl showed us how to write the letter,
+too--she said she'd often heard of anonymous letters being written that
+way--and she brought out three different pens and a bottle of ink and a
+writing pad. After we'd agreed what to write, she showed us how to do it,
+each one printing a letter on the paper in turn, and using a different
+pen each time."
+
+"You took care to leave no finger-prints," said Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+"We used a handkerchief to wrap our hands in," said Hill. "Birchill got
+tired of passing the paper from one to another and wrote all his letters,
+leaving spaces for the girl and me to write in ours. When the letter was
+written we wrote the address on the envelope the same way, and stamped
+it. Then I went out and posted the letter in a pillar-box."
+
+"At Covent Garden?" suggested Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+"Yes, at Covent Garden," said Hill.
+
+"When I got home my wife was awake and in a terrible fright. She wanted
+to know where I'd been, but I didn't tell her. I told her, though, that
+my very life depended on nobody knowing I'd been out of my own home that
+night, and I made her swear that no matter who questioned her she'd stick
+to the story that I'd been at home all night, and in bed. She begged me
+to tell her why, and as I knew that she'd have to be told the next day, I
+told her that Sir Horace Fewbanks had been murdered. She buried her face
+in her pillow with a moan, but when I took an oath that I had had no hand
+in it she recovered, and promised not to tell a living soul that I had
+been out of the house and I knew I could depend on her.
+
+"Next morning, as soon as I got up, I hurried off to a little wine tavern
+and asked to see the morning papers. It was a foolish thing to do,
+because I might have known that nothing could have been discovered in
+time to get into the morning papers, for I hadn't posted the letter until
+nearly four o'clock. But I was all nervous and upset, and as I couldn't
+face my wife or settle to anything until I knew the police had got the
+letter and found the body, I--though a strictly temperate man in the
+ordinary course of life, sir--sat down in one of the little compartments
+of the place and ordered a glass of wine to pass the time till the first
+editions of the evening papers came out--they are usually out here about
+noon. But there was no news in the first editions, and so I stayed there,
+drinking port wine and buying the papers as fast as they came out. But it
+was not till the 6.30 editions came out, late in the afternoon, that the
+papers had the news. I hurried home and then went up to Riversbrook and
+reported myself to you, sir."
+
+As Hill finished his story he buried his face in his hands, and bowed his
+head on the table in an attitude of utter dejection. Rolfe, looking at
+him, wondered if he were acting a part, or if he had really told the
+truth. He looked at Inspector Chippenfield to see how he regarded the
+confession, but his superior officer was busily writing in his note-book.
+In a few moments, however, he put the pocket-book down on the table and
+turned to the butler.
+
+"Sit up, man," he commanded sternly. "I want to ask you some questions."
+
+Hill raised a haggard face.
+
+"Yes, sir," he said, with what seemed to be a painful effort.
+
+"What is this girl Fanning like?"
+
+"Rather a showy piece of goods, if I may say so, sir. She has big black
+eyes, and black hair and small, regular teeth."
+
+"And Sir Horace had been keeping her?"
+
+"I think so, sir."
+
+"And a fortnight before Sir Horace left for Scotland there was a
+quarrel--Sir Horace cast her off?"
+
+"That is what it looked like to me," said the butler.
+
+"What was the cause of the quarrel?"
+
+"That I don't know, sir."
+
+"Didn't Birchill tell you?"
+
+"Well, not in so many words. But I gathered from things he dropped that
+Sir Horace had found out that he was a friend of Miss Fanning's and
+didn't like it."
+
+"Naturally," said the philosophic police official. "Is Birchill still at
+this flat and is the girl still there?"
+
+"The last I heard of them they were, sir. Of course they had been talking
+of moving after Sir Horace stopped the allowance."
+
+"Well, Hill, I'll investigate this story of yours," said the inspector,
+as he rose to his feet and placed his note-book in his pocket. "If it is
+true--if you have given us all the assistance in your power and have kept
+nothing back, I'll do my best for you. Of course you realise that you are
+in a very serious position. I don't want to arrest you unless I have to,
+but I must detain you while I investigate what you have told us. You will
+come up with us to the Camden Town Station and then your statement will
+be taken down fully. I'll give you three minutes in which to explain
+things to your wife."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+"Do you think Hill's story is true?" Rolfe asked Inspector Chippenfield,
+as they left the Camden Town Police Station and turned in the direction
+of the Tube station.
+
+"We'll soon find out," replied the inspector. "Of course, there is
+something in it, but there is no doubt Hill will not stick at a lie to
+save his own skin. But we are more likely to get at the truth by
+threatening to arrest him than by arresting him. If he were arrested he
+would probably shut up and say no more."
+
+"And are you going to arrest Birchill?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"For the murder?" asked Rolfe.
+
+"No; for burglary. It would be a mistake to charge him with murder until
+we get more evidence. The papers would jeer at us if we charged him with
+murder and then dropped the charge."'
+
+"Do you think Birchill will squeak?"
+
+"On Hill?" said the inspector. "When he knows that Hill has been trying
+to fit him for the murder he'll try and do as much for Hill. And between
+them we'll come at the truth. We are on the right track at last, my boy.
+And, thank God, we have beaten our friend Crewe."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield's satisfaction in his impending triumph over Crewe
+was increased by a chance meeting with the detective. As the two police
+officials came out of Leicester Square Station on their way to Scotland
+Yard to obtain a warrant for Birchill's arrest, they saw Crewe in a
+taxi-cab. Crewe also saw them, and telling the driver to pull up leaned
+out of the window and looked back at the two detectives. When they came
+up with the taxi-cab they saw that Crewe had on a light overcoat and
+that there was a suit-case beside the driver. Crewe was going on a
+journey of some kind.
+
+"Anything fresh about the Riversbrook case?" he asked.
+
+"No; nothing fresh," replied Inspector Chippenfield, looking Crewe
+straight in the face.
+
+"You are a long time in making an arrest," said Crewe, in a
+bantering tone.
+
+"We want to arrest the right man," was the reply. "There's nothing like
+getting the right man to start with; it saves such a lot of time and
+trouble. Where are you off to?"
+
+"I'm taking a run down to Scotland."
+
+The inspector glanced at Crewe rather enviously.
+
+"You are fortunate in being able to enjoy yourself just now," he said
+meaningly.
+
+"I won't drop work altogether," remarked Crewe. "I'll make a few
+inquiries there."
+
+"About the Riversbrook affair?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+With the murderer practically arrested, Inspector Chippenfield permitted
+himself the luxury of smiling at the way in which Crewe was following up
+a false scent.
+
+"I thought the murder was committed in London--not in Scotland," he said.
+
+"Wrong, Chippenfield," said Crewe, with a smile. "Sir Horace was murdered
+in Scotland and his body was brought up to London by train and placed in
+his own house in order to mislead the police. Good-bye."
+
+As the taxi-cab drove off, Inspector Chippenfield turned to his
+subordinate and said, "We'll rub it into him when he comes back and finds
+that we have got our man under lock and key. He's on some wild-goose
+chase. Scotland! He might as well go to Siberia while's he's about it."
+
+With a warrant in his pocket Inspector Chippenfield, accompanied by
+Rolfe, set out for Macauley Mansions, Westminster. They found the
+Mansions to be situated in a quiet and superior part of Westminster, not
+far from Victoria Station, and consisting of a large block of flats
+overlooking a square--a pocket-handkerchief patch of green which was
+supposed to serve as breathing-space for the flats which surrounded it.
+
+Macauley Mansions had no lift, and Number 43, the scene of the events of
+Hill's confession, was on the top floor. Inspector Chippenfield and Rolfe
+mounted the stairs steadily, and finally found themselves standing on a
+neat cocoanut door-mat outside the door of No. 43. The door was closed.
+
+"Well, well," said the inspector, as he paused, panting, on the door-mat
+and rang the bell. "Snug quarters these--very snug. Strange that these
+sort of women never know enough to run straight when they are well off."
+
+The door opened, and a young woman confronted them. She was hardly more
+than a girl, pretty and refined-looking, with large dark eyes, a pathetic
+drooping mouth, and a wistful expression. She wore a well-made indoor
+dress of soft satin, without ornaments, and her luxuriant dark hair was
+simply and becomingly coiled at the back of her head. She held a book in
+her left hand, with one finger between the leaves, as though the summons
+to the door had interrupted her reading, and glanced inquiringly at the
+visitors, waiting for them to intimate their business. She was so
+different from the type of girl they had expected to see that Inspector
+Chippenfield had some difficulty in announcing it.
+
+"Are you Miss Fanning?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she replied.
+
+"Then you are the young woman we wish to see, and, with your permission,
+we'll come inside," said Inspector Chippenfield, recovering from his
+first surprise and speaking briskly.
+
+They followed the girl into the hall, and into a room off the hall to
+which she led the way. A small Pomeranian dog which lay on an easy
+chair, sprang up barking shrilly at their entrance, but at the command of
+the girl it settled down on its silk cushion again. The apartment was a
+small sitting-room, daintily furnished in excellent feminine taste. Both
+police officers took in the contents of the room with the glance of
+trained observers, and both noticed that, prominent among the ornaments
+on the mantelpiece, stood a photograph of the late Sir Horace Fewbanks in
+a handsome silver frame.
+
+The photograph made it easy for Inspector Chippenfield to enter upon the
+object of the visit of himself and his subordinate to the flat.
+
+"I see you have a photograph of Sir Horace Fewbanks there," he said, in
+what he intended to be an easy conversational tone, waving his hand
+towards the mantelpiece.
+
+The wistful expression of the girl's face deepened as she followed
+his glance.
+
+"Yes," she said simply. "It is so terrible about him."
+
+"Was he a--a relative of yours?" asked the inspector.
+
+She had come to the conclusion they were police officers and that they
+were aware of the position she occupied.
+
+"He was very kind to me," she replied.
+
+"When did you see him last? How long before he--before he died?"
+
+"Are you detectives?" she asked.
+
+"From Scotland Yard," replied Inspector Chippenfield with a bow.
+
+"Why have you come here? Do you think that I--that I know anything about
+the murder?"
+
+"Not in the least." The inspector's tone was reassuring. "We merely want
+information about Sir Horace's movements prior to his departure for
+Scotland. When did you see him last?"
+
+"I don't remember," she said, after a pause.
+
+"You must try," said the inspector, in a tone which contained a
+suggestion of command.
+
+"Oh, a few days before he went away."
+
+"A few days," repeated the inspector. "And you parted on good terms?"
+
+"Yes, on very good terms." She met his glance frankly.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield was silent for a moment. Then, fixing his fiercest
+stare on the girl, he remarked abruptly:
+
+"Where's Birchill?"
+
+"Birchill?" She endeavoured to appear surprised, but her sudden
+pallor betrayed her inward anxiety at the question. "I--I don't know
+who you mean."
+
+"I mean the man you've been keeping with Sir Horace Fewbanks's money,"
+said the inspector brutally.
+
+"I've been keeping nobody with Sir Horace Fewbanks's money," protested
+the girl feebly. "It's cruel of you to insult me."
+
+"That'll about do to go on with," said Inspector Chippenfield, with a
+sudden change of tone, rising to his feet as he spoke. "Rolfe, keep an
+eye on her while I search the flat."
+
+Rolfe crossed over from where he had been sitting and stood beside the
+girl. She glanced up at him wildly, with terror dawning in the depths of
+her dark eyes.
+
+"What do you mean? How dare you?" she cried, in an effort to be
+indignant.
+
+"Now, don't try your tragedy airs on us," said the inspector. "We've no
+time for them. If you won't tell the truth you had better say nothing
+at all." He plunged his hand into a _jardiniere_ and withdrew a
+briar-wood pipe. "This looks to me like Birchill's property. Keep that
+dog back, Rolfe."
+
+The little dog had sprung off his cushion and was eagerly following the
+inspector out of the room. Rolfe caught up the animal in his arms, and
+returned to where the girl was sitting. Her face was white and strained,
+and her big dark eyes followed Inspector Chippenfield, but she did not
+speak. The inspector tramped noisily into the little hall, leaving the
+door of the room wide open. Rolfe and the girl saw him fling open the
+door of another room--a bedroom--and stride into it. He came out again
+shortly, and went down the hall to the rear of the flat. A few minutes
+later he came back to the room where he had left Rolfe and the girl. His
+knees were dusty, and some feathers were adhering to his jacket, as
+though he had been plunging in odd nooks and corners, and beneath beds.
+He was hot, flurried, and out of temper.
+
+"The bird's flown!" were his first words, addressed to Rolfe. "I've
+hunted high and low, but I cannot find a sign of him. It beats me how
+he's managed it. He couldn't have gone out the front way without my
+seeing him go past the door, and the back windows are four stories high
+from the ground."
+
+"Perhaps he wasn't here when we came in," suggested Rolfe.
+
+"Oh, yes, he was. Why, he'd been smoking that pipe in this very room. She
+was clever enough to open the window to let out the tobacco smoke before
+she let us in, but she didn't hide the pipe properly, for I saw the smoke
+from it coming out of the _jardiniere_, and when I put my hand on the
+bowl it was hot. Feel it now."
+
+Rolfe placed his hand on the pipe, which Inspector Chippenfield had
+deposited on the table. The bowl was still warm, indicating that the pipe
+had recently been alight.
+
+"He must have been smoking the pipe when we knocked at the door, and
+dashed away to hide before she let us in," grumbled the inspector. "But
+the question is--where can he have got to? I've hunted everywhere, and
+there's no way out except by the front door, so far as I can see. Go and
+have a look yourself, Rolfe, and see if you can find a trace of him. I'll
+watch the girl."
+
+Rolfe put down the little dog he had been holding, and went out into the
+hall. The dog accompanied him, frisking about him in friendly fashion.
+Rolfe first examined the bedroom that he had seen Inspector Chippenfield
+enter. It was a small room, containing a double bed. It was prettily
+furnished in white, with white curtains, and toilet-table articles in
+ivory to match. A glance round the room convinced Rolfe that it was
+impossible for a man to secrete himself in it. The door of the wardrobe
+had been flung open by the inspector, and the dresses and other articles
+of feminine apparel it contained flung out on the floor. There was no
+other hiding-place possible, except beneath the bed, and the ruthless
+hand of the inspector had torn off the white muslin bed hangings,
+revealing emptiness underneath. Rolfe went out into the hall again, and
+entered the room next the bedroom. This apartment was apparently used as
+a dining-room, for it contained a large table, a few chairs, a small
+sideboard, a spirit-stand, a case of books and ornaments, and two small
+oak presses. Plainly, there was no place in it where a man could hide
+himself. The next room was the bathroom, which was also empty. Opposite
+the bathroom was a small bedroom, very barely furnished, offering no
+possibility of concealment. Then the passage opened into a large roomy
+kitchen, the full width of the rooms on both sides of the hall, and the
+kitchen completed the flat.
+
+Rolfe glanced keenly around the kitchen. There were no cooking appliances
+visible, or pots or pans, but there was much lumber and odds and ends, as
+though the place were used as a store-room. Presumably Miss Fanning
+obtained her meals from the restaurant on the ground floor of the
+mansions and had no use for a kitchen. The room was dirty and dusty and
+crowded with all kinds of rubbish. But the miscellaneous rubbish stored
+in the room offered no hiding-place for a man. Rolfe nevertheless made a
+conscientious search, shifting the lumber about and ferreting into dark
+corners, without result. Finally he crossed the room to look out of the
+window, which had been left open, no doubt by Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+The mansions in which the flat was situated formed part of a large
+building, with back windows overlooking a small piece of ground. The
+flat was on the fourth story. Rolfe looked around the neighbouring roofs
+and down onto the ground fifty feet below, but could see nothing.
+
+He withdrew his head and was turning to leave the room when his attention
+was attracted by the peculiar behaviour of the dog, which had followed
+him throughout on his search. The little animal, after sniffing about the
+floor, ran to the open window and started whining and jumping up at it.
+Rolfe quickly returned to the window and looked out.
+
+"Why, of course!" he muttered. "How could I have overlooked it?
+Inspector," he called aloud, "come here!"
+
+Inspector Chippenfield appeared in the kitchen in a state of some
+excitement at the summons. He carried the key of the front room in his
+hand, having taken the precaution to lock Miss Fanning in before he
+responded to the call of his colleague.
+
+"What is it, Rolfe?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"This dog has tracked him to the window, so he's evidently escaped that
+way," explained Rolfe briefly. "He's climbed along the window-ledge."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield approached the window and looked out. A broad
+window-ledge immediately beneath the window ran the whole length of the
+building beneath the windows on the fourth floor, and, so far as could be
+seen, continued round the side of the house. It was a dizzy, but not a
+difficult feat for a man of cool head to walk along the ledge to the
+corner of the house.
+
+"I wonder where that infernal ledge goes to?" said Inspector
+Chippenfield, vainly twisting his neck and protruding his body through
+the window to a dangerous extent to see round the corner of the building.
+"I daresay it leads to the water-pipe, and the scoundrel, knowing that,
+has been able to get round, shin down, and get clear away."
+
+"I'll soon find out," said Rolfe. "I'll walk along to the corner and
+see."
+
+"Do you think you can do it, Rolfe?" asked the inspector nervously. "If
+you fell--" he glanced down to the ground far below with a shudder.
+
+"Nonsense!" laughed Rolfe. "I won't fall. Why, the ledge is a foot broad,
+and I've got a steady head. He may not have got very far, after all, and
+I may be able to see him from the corner."
+
+He got out of the window as he spoke, and started to walk carefully along
+the ledge towards the corner of the building. He reached it safely,
+peered round, screwed himself round sharply, and came back to the open
+window almost at a run.
+
+"You're right!" he gasped, as he sprang through. "I saw him. He is
+climbing down the spouting, using the chimney brickwork as a brace for
+his feet. If we get downstairs we may catch him."
+
+He was out of the kitchen in an instant, up the passage, and racing down
+three steps at a time before the inspector had recovered from his
+surprise. Then he followed as quickly as he could, but Rolfe had a long
+start of him. When Inspector Chippenfield reached the ground floor Rolfe
+was nowhere in sight. The inspector looked up and down the street,
+wondering what had become of him.
+
+At that instant a tall young man, bareheaded and coat-less, came running
+out of an alley-way, pursued by Rolfe.
+
+"Stop him!" cried Rolfe, to his superior officer.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield stepped quickly out into the street in front of
+the fugitive. The young man cannoned into the burly officer before he
+could stop himself, and the inspector clutched him fast. He attempted to
+wrench himself free, but Rolfe had rushed to his superior's assistance,
+and drew the baton with which he had provided himself when he set out
+from Scotland Yard.
+
+"You needn't bother about using that thing," said the young man
+contemptuously. "I'm not a fool; I realise you've got me."
+
+"We'll not give you another chance." Inspector Chippenfield dexterously
+snapped a pair of handcuffs on the young man's wrists.
+
+"What are these for?" said the captive, regarding them sullenly.
+
+"You'll know soon enough when we get you upstairs," replied the
+inspector. "Now then, up you go."
+
+They reascended the stairs in silence, Inspector Chippenfield and Rolfe
+walking on each side of their prisoner holding him by the arms, in case
+he tried to make another bolt. They reached the flat and found the front
+door open as they had left it. The inspector entered the hall and
+unlocked the drawing-room door.
+
+The girl was sitting on the chair where they had left her, with her head
+bowed down in an attitude of the deepest dejection. She straightened
+herself suddenly as they entered, and launched a terrified glance at the
+young man.
+
+"Oh, Fred!" she gasped.
+
+"They were too good for me, Doris," he responded, as though in reply to
+her unspoken query. "I would have got away from this chap"--he indicated
+Rolfe with a nod of his head--"but I ran into the other one."
+
+He stooped as he spoke to brush with his manacled hands some of the dirt
+from his clothes, which he had doubtless gained in his perilous climb
+down the side of the house, and then straightened himself to look
+loweringly at his captors. He was a tall, slender young fellow of about
+twenty-five or twenty-six, clean-shaven, with a fresh complexion and a
+rather effeminate air. He was well dressed in a grey lounge suit, a soft
+shirt, with a high double collar and silk necktie. He looked, as he stood
+there, more like a dandified city clerk than the desperate criminal
+suggested by Hill's confession.
+
+"Come on, what's the charge?" he demanded insolently, with a slight
+glance at his manacled hands.
+
+"Is your name Frederick Birchill?" asked Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+The young man nodded.
+
+"Then, Frederick Birchill, you're charged with burglariously entering
+the house of Sir Horace Fewbanks, at Hampstead, on the night of the 18th
+of August."
+
+"Burglary?" said Birchill "Anything else?"
+
+"That will do for the present," replied the inspector. "We may find it
+necessary to charge you with a more serious crime later."
+
+"Well, all I can say is that you've got the wrong man. But that is
+nothing new for you chaps," he added with a sneer.
+
+"Surely you are not going to charge him with the murder?" said the girl
+imploringly.
+
+The inspector's reply was merely to warn the prisoner that anything he
+said might be used in evidence against him at his trial.
+
+"He had nothing whatever to do with it--he knows nothing about it,"
+protested the girl. "If you let him go I'll tell you who murdered
+Sir Horace."
+
+"Who murdered him?" asked the inspector.
+
+"Hill," was the reply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Doris Fanning got off a Holborn tram at King's Cross, and with a hasty
+glance round her as if to make sure she was not followed, walked at a
+rapid pace across the street in the direction of Caledonian Road. She
+walked up that busy thoroughfare at the same quick gait for some minutes,
+then turned into a narrow street and, with another suspicious look around
+her, stopped at the doorway of a small shop a short distance down.
+
+The shop sold those nondescript goods which seem to afford a living to a
+not inconsiderable class of London's small shopkeepers. The windows and
+the shelves were full of dusty old books and magazines, trumpery curios
+and cheap china, second-hand furniture and a collection of miscellaneous
+odds and ends. A thick dust lay over the whole collection, and the shop
+and its contents presented a deserted and dirty appearance. Moreover, the
+door was closed as though customers were not expected. The girl tried the
+door and found it locked--a fact which seemed to indicate that customers
+were not even desired. After another hasty look up and down the street
+she tapped sharply on the door in a peculiar way.
+
+The door was opened after the lapse of a few minutes by a short thickset
+man of over fifty, whose heavy face displayed none of the suavity and
+desire to please which is part of the stock-in-trade of the small
+shopkeeper of London. A look of annoyance crossed his face at the sight
+of the girl, and his first remark to her was one which no well-regulated
+shopkeeper would have addressed to a prospective customer.
+
+"You!" he exclaimed. "What in God's name has brought you here? I told you
+on no account to come to the shop. How do you know somebody hasn't
+followed you?"
+
+"I could not help it, Kincher," the girl responded piteously. "I'm
+distracted about Fred, and I had to come over to ask your advice."
+
+"You women are all fools," the man retorted. "You might have known that
+I would read all about the case in the papers, and that I'd let you
+hear from me."
+
+"Yes, Kincher," she replied humbly, "but they let me see Fred for a
+few minutes yesterday at the police court and he told me to come over
+and see you. Oh, if you only knew what I've suffered since he was
+arrested. Yesterday he was committed for trial. I haven't closed my
+eyes for over a week."
+
+"So you attended the police-court proceedings?" said Kemp. And when the
+girl nodded her head he went on, "The more fool you. I suppose it would
+be too much to expect a woman to keep away even though she knew she could
+do no good."
+
+"I knew that, Kincher, but I simply had to go. I should have died if I
+had stayed in that dreadful flat alone. I tried to, but I couldn't. I got
+so nervous that I had to put my handkerchief into my mouth to prevent
+myself from screaming aloud."
+
+"Well, since you are here you had better come inside instead of standing
+there and giving yourself and me away to every passing policeman."
+
+He led the way inside, and the girl followed him to a dirty, cheerless
+room behind the shop which was furnished with a sofa-bedstead, a table,
+and a chair. It was evident that Kemp lived alone and attended to his own
+wants. The remains of an unappetising meal were on a corner of the table,
+and a kettle and a teapot stood by the fireplace in which a fire had
+recently been made with a few sticks for the purpose of boiling a kettle.
+Bedclothes were heaped on the sofa-bedstead in a disordered state, and in
+the midst of them nestled a large tortoise-shell cat.
+
+"Sit down," said Kemp. There was an old chair near the fireplace and he
+pushed it towards her with his foot. "What's brought you over here?"
+
+The girl sank into the chair and began to cry.
+
+"I can't help it, Kincher," she said. "I don't know what to say or do.
+Fancy Fred being charged with murder! Oh, it's too dreadful to think
+about. And yet I can think of nothing else."
+
+"Crying your eyes out won't help matters much," replied the
+unsympathetic Kemp.
+
+The girl did not reply, but rocked herself backwards and forwards on the
+chair. She sobbed so violently that she appeared to be threatened with an
+attack of hysteria. Kemp watched her silently. The cat on the
+sofa-bedstead, as if awakened by the noise, got up, yawned, looked
+inquiringly round, and then with a measured leap sprang into the girl's
+lap. She was startled by his act and then she smiled through her sobs as
+she stroked the animal's coat.
+
+"Poor old Peter!" she exclaimed. "He wants to console me! don't you,
+Peter? I say, Kincher, I wish you'd give me Peter; you don't want him.
+Oh, look at the dear!" The cat had perched himself on one of her knees
+to beg, and he sawed the air appealingly with his forepaws. "I must give
+him a tit-bit for that." She eyed the remains of the meal on the table
+disdainfully. "No, Peter, there is nothing fit for you to
+eat--positively nothing. Why, he understands me like a human being," she
+continued in amazement as the huge cat dropped on all fours and
+deliberately sprang back to the sofa-bedstead. "I say, Kincher, you
+really want a woman in this place to look after you. It's in a most
+shocking state--it's like a pigsty."
+
+Kemp made no reply but continued to watch her. Her tears had vanished and
+she sat forward with her dark eyes sparkling, one hand supporting her
+pretty face as she glanced round the room.
+
+"Have you a cigarette?" she asked suddenly.
+
+Kemp went into the shop and came back with a packet of cheap cigarettes.
+The girl pushed them away petulantly.
+
+"I don't like that brand," she said; "haven't you anything better?"
+
+The man shook his head.
+
+"No? Then here goes--I must have a smoke of some sort." She stuck one of
+the cheap cigarettes daintily into her mouth. "A match, Kincher! Why, the
+box is filthy! You must have a woman in to look after you, even if I have
+to find you one myself."
+
+"I don't want any woman in the place," retorted Kemp. "There is no peace
+for a man when a woman is about. But let us have no more of this idle
+chatter. What's brought you over here? I suppose it's about Fred."
+
+"Poor Fred!" The girl looked downcast for a moment, then she tossed her
+head, puffed out some smoke, and exclaimed energetically, "But he's not
+guilty, Kincher, and we'll get him off, won't we?"
+
+"Not merely by saying so," replied Kemp. "But you'd better tell me how it
+came about that he was arrested for the murder. The police gave away
+nothing at the police court. Bill Dobbs was down there and he told me
+they let out nothing, except that their principal witness against Fred is
+that fellow Hill. I always knew he'd squeak. I told Fred to have nothing
+to do with the job."
+
+The girl's eyes flashed viciously. She tossed the cigarette into the
+fire-place and straightened herself.
+
+"That's the low, dirty scoundrel who committed the murder," she
+exclaimed. "He ought to be in the dock--not Fred."
+
+"Was Fred up there that night?" asked Kemp.
+
+"Up where?"
+
+"At Riversbrook, or whatever they call it."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He told me he didn't go."
+
+"It's because he was up there that the police have arrested him," said
+the girl. "Hill gave him away. Oh, he's a double-dyed villain, is Hill.
+And so quiet and respectable looking with it all! He used to let me in
+when I went to Riversbrook, and let me out again, and pocket the
+half-crowns I gave him. And I like a fool never suspected him once, or
+thought that he knew anything about Fred coming to the flat. He didn't
+let it out till the night Sir Horace quarrelled with me. Sir Horace found
+out about--about Fred--and when I went up to see him as usual, he told me
+that he had finished with me and he called Hill up to show me out. 'Show
+this young lady out,' he said in that cold haughty voice of his, and the
+wily old villain Hill just bowed and held the door open. He followed me
+down stairs and let me out at the side door. There he said, 'I'll escort
+you to the front gate, if you will permit me, miss. I usually lock the
+gate about this time.' I thought nothing of this because he had come with
+me to the front gate before. He followed me down the garden path through
+the plantation till we reached the front gate. He opened the gate for me
+and I said 'Good night, Hill,' but instead of his replying 'Good night,
+Miss Fanning,' as he usually did, he hissed out like a serpent, 'You tell
+Birchill I want to see him to-morrow, and I'll come to the flat about 9
+o'clock. Tell him an old friend named Field wants to see him. Don't
+forget the name--Field!' Then he locked the gate and was gone before I
+could speak a word.
+
+"I gave Fred his message next morning--I wish to God that I hadn't," she
+continued. "I asked Fred not to keep the appointment, but he insisted on
+doing so. He said that he and Field had been good friends in the gaol,
+and that Field had told him that if he ever got on to anything he would
+let him know. He seemed quite pleased at the idea of meeting Field again.
+I told him to beware that Field wasn't laying a trap for him, but he
+wouldn't listen to me.
+
+"Sure enough, Field--or Hill as he calls himself now--did come over
+that evening and I let him in myself. I took him into the sitting-room
+where Fred was, and I sat down in a corner of the room pretending to read
+a book so that I could hear what our visitor had to say. But the cunning
+old devil whispered something to Fred, and Fred came over to me and asked
+if I'd mind leaving them alone for half an hour. I didn't mind so much
+because I knew I could get it all out of Fred after Hill had gone.
+
+"He remained shut up with Fred for nearly two hours and then I heard Fred
+letting him out of the front door. Fred came in to me, and I soon got the
+strength of it all from him. What do you think Hill had come for? To get
+Fred to burgle Sir Horace's house! And Fred had agreed to do it. I cried
+and I stormed and went into hysterics, but he wouldn't budge--you know
+how obstinate he can be when he likes. He said that Hill had told him
+there was a good haul to be picked up. Sir Horace was going to Scotland
+for the shooting, and the servants were to be sent to his country house,
+so the coast would be clear. Hill was to leave everything right at
+Riversbrook on the afternoon of the 18th of August, and he was to come
+across to the flat and let Fred know.
+
+"Hill came, as he promised, but as soon as he came in I could see that
+something had happened. The first words he said were that Sir Horace had
+returned unexpectedly from Scotland. I was glad to hear it, for I thought
+that meant that there would be no burglary. I said as much to Fred, and
+he would have agreed with me, but that devil Hill was too full of
+cunning. 'Of course, if you're frightened, we'd better call it off,' he
+said. Fred had been drinking during the day, and you know what he's like
+when he's had a little too much. 'I was never frightened of any job yet,'
+he said, 'and I'd do this job to-night if the house was full of rozzers,'
+Hill pretended that he wasn't particular whether the thing came off or
+not that night, but all the while he kept egging Fred on to do it. Oh, I
+can see now what his game was. In spite of all I could do or say, it was
+arranged that Fred should go over, and see if it was quite safe to carry
+out the job. Hill said he thought Sir Horace was going out that night,
+and wouldn't be home until the early morning. About 9 o'clock Fred went
+off, leaving Hill and me alone in the flat together. How I wish now that
+I had killed him when I had such a good chance.
+
+"We sat there scarcely speaking, and heard the clock strike the hours.
+After midnight I began to get restless, for I thought something must have
+happened to Fred. Hill said in a low voice: 'It's time Fred was back.'
+The words were scarcely out of his mouth when I heard Fred's step
+outside, and I ran to let him in. He came in as white as a sheet. 'Fred,'
+I cried as soon as I saw him, 'there's some blood on your face.'
+
+"He didn't answer a word until he had taken a big drink of whisky out of
+the decanter. Then he said in a whisper: 'Sir Horace Fewbanks has been
+murdered!' 'Murdered!' cried Hill, leaping up from his chair--he can act
+well, I can tell you--'My God, Fred, you don't mean it!' 'He's dead, I
+tell you,' replied Fred fiercely. I thought, and at the time I suppose
+Hill thought, that Fred had shot him either accidentally or in order to
+escape capture. He seemed to guess what we were thinking, for he swore
+that he had had nothing to do with it--Sir Horace was dead on the floor
+when he got there.
+
+"He told us all that had happened. When he got to Riversbrook he found
+lights burning on the ground floor. He jumped over the fence at the side
+and hid in the garden. He was there only a few minutes when he saw the
+lights go out. Then the front door was slammed and a woman walked down
+the garden path to the gate."
+
+"A woman!" exclaimed Kemp.
+
+"Yes, a woman. Why not? She had been to see Sir Horace. One of his
+Society mistresses. I'll bet it was on her account that he came back from
+Scotland."
+
+"What time was this?" he asked with interest.
+
+"About half-past ten," replied the girl.
+
+"And this woman--this lady--turned out the lights and closed the
+front door?"
+
+"So Fred says. Of course he thought Sir Horace had done it, but he found
+out later that Sir Horace was dead."
+
+"I can't understand it," said Kemp. "What was she doing there? If she
+found the man dead, why didn't she inform the police? No, wait a minute!
+She'd be afraid to do that if she was a Society woman."
+
+"It might be her who killed him," said the girl.
+
+"Does Fred think that?" asked Kemp, looking at her closely.
+
+"Fred doesn't know what to think," she replied. "But it must have been
+this woman or Hill who killed him. I feel sure myself that it was Hill."
+
+"This woman puzzles me," said Kemp thoughtfully. "She must have been a
+cool hand if she went round turning out the lights after finding his dead
+body. About half-past ten, you said?"
+
+"That is as near as Fred can make it."
+
+"Go on with your story," he said. "I'm interested in this. You were
+saying that Fred saw the lights go out, and then this woman came out of
+the house and walked away."
+
+"Well, Fred got into the house through one of the windows at the
+side--the one Hill had told him to try," continued the girl. "But first
+of all he waited about half an hour in the garden, so as to give Sir
+Horace time to go to sleep. He was able to find his way about the house
+as Hill had given him a plan. He felt his way upstairs and finding a door
+open he went into the room and flashed his electric torch. By its light
+he saw Sir Horace Fewbanks lying huddled up in a corner with a big pool
+of blood beside him on the floor. He felt him to see if he was dead. The
+body was quite warm, but it was limp. Sir Horace was dead. Fred says he
+lost his nerve and ran for it as hard as he could. He rushed down stairs
+and out of the house and got back to the flat as fast as he could.
+
+"The three of us sat there shaking with fear and wondering what to do.
+Hill was the first to recover himself. In his cunning plausible way, he
+pointed out that it was altogether unlikely that suspicion would fall on
+Fred or him. All we had to do was to keep quiet and say nothing; then
+we'd have no awkward questions put to us. It was his suggestion that we
+should send an anonymous letter to Scotland Yard telling them Sir Horace
+had been murdered. That would be much better, he said, than leaving the
+body there until he went over and found it when he had to go over to
+Riversbrook to take a look round, in accordance with the instructions
+that had been given him when Sir Horace went to Scotland. Knowing what he
+did, he was afraid that if he was allowed to discover the body and inform
+the police, he would let something slip when the police came at him with
+their hundreds of questions. We printed the letter to Scotland Yard, each
+one doing a letter at a time. Hill took it with him, saying he would post
+it on his way home.
+
+"When he left, Fred and I sat there thinking. Suddenly it came to me as
+clear as daylight that Hill had committed the murder, and had fixed up
+things so as to throw suspicion on Fred. He must have known Sir Horace
+was coming back from Scotland that night, and he had laid in wait for him
+and shot him. Then he had come over to my flat in order to persuade Fred
+to carry out the burglary, and direct suspicion to Fred for the murder,
+if the police worried him. I told Fred what I thought, but he only
+laughed at me and said I was talking nonsense. But I was right, for a
+week afterwards the police came and arrested Fred at the flat."
+
+"How did they get him?" asked Kemp.
+
+"I saw them coming along the street from the window, and I pointed them
+out to Fred. He tried to get away through the kitchen window along the
+ledge and down the spouting. He almost got away, but one of the
+detectives saw him before he reached the ground, and they dashed down
+stairs and got him in the street. Next day I saw in the papers that Hill
+had made an important statement to the police, and this had led to
+Fred's arrest. Hill is the murderer, Kincher. The cunning, wicked,
+treacherous villain told the police about Fred being up there. He wants
+to see Fred hang in order to save his own neck." The girl's voice rose
+to a shriek, and she sprang to her feet with blazing eyes. "Kincher,"
+she cried, "you've got to help me put the rope round this wretch's neck.
+Do you hear me?"
+
+Kemp's impassivity was in marked contrast to the girl's hysterical
+excitement.
+
+"What do you want me to do?" he asked.
+
+"Fred wants you to get up an alibi for him. He sent me over to ask you to
+arrange it without delay. He wants you and two or three others to swear
+that he was over here on the night of the murder. That will be sufficient
+to get him off."
+
+"Not me," said Kemp, shaking his head decidedly. "I won't do it; it's too
+risky. The police have too many things against me for my word to be any
+good as a witness. I'd only be landing myself in trouble for perjury
+instead of helping Fred out of trouble. He ought to have got an alibi
+ready before he was arrested. I told him at the inquest that he ought to
+look after it, and he swore he'd not been up there on the night of the
+murder. It is too late to do anything in the alibi line now. I don't know
+anybody I could get to come forward and swear Fred was in their company
+that night--there is a difference between fixing up a tale for the police
+before a man's arrested, and going into the witness box and committing
+perjury on oath."
+
+He spoke in such an uncompromising tone that the girl saw it was useless
+to pursue the matter further.
+
+"Suppose I went to the police and told them that Hill is the murderer?"
+she suggested.
+
+Kemp shook his head slowly.
+
+"There is only your word for it that Hill killed him," he said. "It
+doesn't look to me as if he did, when he went over to your flat and told
+Fred that Sir Horace had come back from Scotland. If he had killed him he
+would have let Fred go over without saying a word about it."
+
+"That was part of his cunning," said the girl. "If he had said nothing
+about Sir Horace's return, Fred would have suspected him when he found
+the dead body. I'm as certain that Hill committed the murder as if I had
+seen him do it with my own eyes."
+
+Kemp shrugged his shoulders as though realising the uselessness of
+attempting to combat such a feminine form of reasoning.
+
+"Didn't Fred say that the body was warm when he touched it?" he asked.
+
+She meditated a moment over this evidence of Hill's innocence.
+
+"Well, if Hill didn't kill him, the woman Fred saw leaving the house must
+have done so," she declared.
+
+"There is something in that," said Kemp. "Look here, we've got to get
+Fred a good lawyer to defend him, and we must be guided by his advice as
+to what is the best thing to do. He knows more about what will go down
+with a jury than you do."
+
+"I paid a solicitor to defend him at the police court," said the
+girl, "but the money I gave him was thrown away. He said nothing and
+did nothing."
+
+"That shows he is a man who knows his business," replied Kemp. "What's
+the good of talking to police court beaks in a case that is bound to go
+to trial? It's a waste of breath. The thing is to see that Fred is
+properly defended when the case comes on at the Old Bailey. We want
+somebody who can manage the jury. I should say Holymead is the man if you
+can get him. I don't know as he'd be likely to take up the case, for he
+don't go in much for criminal courts--and yet it seems to me that he
+might. You ought to try to get him, at least. He used to be a friend of
+your friend Sir Horace, so if he took up the case it would look as if he
+believed Fred had nothing to do with the murder. It would be bound to
+make a good impression on the jury."
+
+"Wouldn't he be very expensive?" asked the girl.
+
+"Not so expensive as getting hanged," said Kemp grimly. "You take my
+advice and have him if you can get him. Never mind what he costs, if you
+can raise the money. You've got some money saved up, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes, I've nearly L200. Sir Horace put L100 in the Savings Bank for me on
+my last birthday. And the furniture at the flat is mine. I'd sell that
+and everything I've got, for Fred's sake."
+
+"That is the way to talk," said Kemp. "You go to this solicitor you had
+at the police court, and tell him you want Holymead to defend Fred. Tell
+him he must brief Holymead--have nobody else but Holymead. Tell him that
+Holymead was a friend of Sir Horace Fewbanks's and that if he appears for
+Fred the jury will never believe that Fred had anything to do with the
+murder. And I don't think he had, though he did lie to me and swear he
+hadn't been up there that night," he added after a moment's reflection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+"There is one link in the chain missing," said Rolfe, who was discussing
+with Inspector Chippenfield, in the latter's room at Scotland Yard, the
+strength of the case against Birchill.
+
+"And what is that?" asked his superior.
+
+"The piece of woman's handkerchief that I found in the dead man's hand.
+You remember we agreed that it showed there was a woman in the case."
+
+"Well, what do you call this girl Fanning? Isn't she in the case? Surely,
+you don't want any better explanation of the murder than a quarrel
+between her and Sir Horace over this man Birchill?"
+
+"Yes, I see that plain enough," replied Rolfe. "There is ample motive for
+the crime, but how that piece of handkerchief got into the dead man's
+hand is still a mystery to me. It would be easily explained if this girl
+was present in the room or the house when the murder was committed. But
+she wasn't. Hill's story is that she was at the flat with him."
+
+"When you have had as much experience in investigating crime as I have,
+you won't worry over little points that at first don't seem to fit in
+with what we know to be facts," responded the inspector in a patronising
+tone. "I noticed from the first, Rolfe, that you were inclined to make
+too much of this handkerchief business, but I said nothing. Of course, it
+was your own discovery, and I have found during my career that young
+detectives are always inclined to make too much of their own discoveries.
+Perhaps I was myself, when I was young and inexperienced. Now, as to this
+handkerchief: what is more likely than that Birchill had it in his pocket
+when he went out to Riversbrook on that fatal night? He was living in
+the flat with this girl Fanning: what was more natural than that he
+should pick up a handkerchief off the floor that the girl had dropped and
+put it in his pocket with the intention of giving it to her when she
+returned to the room? Instead of doing so he forgot all about it. When he
+shot Sir Horace Fewbanks he put his hand into his pocket for a
+handkerchief to wipe his forehead or his hands--it was a hot night, and I
+take it that a man who has killed another doesn't feel as cool as a
+cucumber. While stooping over his victim with the handkerchief still in
+his hand, the dying man made a convulsive movement and caught hold of a
+corner of the handkerchief, which was torn off." Inspector Chippenfield
+looked across at his subordinate with a smile of triumphant superiority.
+
+"Yes," said Rolfe meditatively. "There is nothing wrong about that as far
+as I can see. But I would like to know for certain how it got there."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield was satisfied with his subordinate's testimony to
+his perspicacity.
+
+"That is all right, Rolfe," he said in a tone of kindly banter. "But
+don't make the mistake of regarding your idle curiosity as a virtue.
+After the trial, if you are still curious on the point, I have no
+doubt Birchill will tell you. He is sure to make a confession before
+he is hanged."
+
+But it was more a spirit of idle curiosity than anything else that
+brought Rolfe to Crewe's chambers in Holborn an hour later. Having
+secured the murderer, he felt curious as to what Crewe's feelings were on
+his defeat. It was the first occasion that he had been on a case which
+Crewe had been commissioned to investigate, and he was naturally pleased
+that Inspector Chippenfield and he had arrested the author of the crime
+while Crewe was all at sea. It was plain from the fact that the latter
+had thought it necessary to visit Scotland that he had got on a false
+scent. It was not Scotland, but Scotland Yard that Crewe should have
+visited, Rolfe said to himself with a smile.
+
+Crewe, in pursuance of his policy of keeping on the best of terms with
+the police, gave Rolfe a very friendly welcome. He produced from a
+cupboard two glasses, a decanter of whisky, a siphon of soda, and a box
+of cigars. Rolfe quickly discovered that the cigars were of a quality
+that seldom came his way, and he leaned back in his chair and puffed with
+steady enjoyment.
+
+"Then you are determined to hang Birchill?" said Crewe, as with a cigar
+in his fingers he faced his visitor with a smile.
+
+"We'll hang him right enough," said Rolfe. He pulled the cigar out of his
+mouth and looked at it approvingly. Though the talk was of hanging, he
+had never felt more thoroughly at peace with the world.
+
+"It will be a pity if you do," said Crewe.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because he's the wrong man."
+
+"It would take a lot to make me believe that," said Rolfe stoutly. "We've
+got a strong case against him--there is not a weak point in it. I admit
+that Hill is a tainted witness, but they'll find it pretty hard to break
+down his story. We've tested it in every way and find it stands. Then
+there are the bootmarks outside the window. Birchill's boots fit them to
+the smallest fraction of an inch. The jemmy found in the flat fits the
+mark made in the window at Riversbrook, and we've got something
+more--another witness who saw him in Tanton Gardens about the time of the
+murder. If Birchill can get his neck out of the noose, he's cleverer than
+I take him for."
+
+Crewe did not reply directly to Rolfe's summary of the case.
+
+"I see that they've briefed Holymead for the defence," he said
+after a pause.
+
+"A waste of good money," said the police officer. Something appealed to
+his sense of humour, for he broke out into a laugh.
+
+"What are you laughing at?" asked Crewe.
+
+"I was wondering how Sir Horace feels when he sees the money he gave
+this girl Fanning being used to defend his murderer."
+
+"You are a hardened scamp, Rolfe, with a very perverse sense of humour,"
+said Crewe.
+
+"It was a cunning move of them to get Holymead," said Rolfe. "They think
+it will weigh with the jury because he was such a close friend of Sir
+Horace--that he wouldn't have taken up the case unless he felt that
+Birchill was innocent. But you and I know better than that, Mr. Crewe. A
+lawyer will prove that black is white if he is paid for it. In fact, I
+understand that, according to the etiquette of the bar, they have got to
+do it. A barrister has to abide by his brief and leave his personal
+feelings out of account."
+
+"That's so. Theoretically he is an officer of the Court, and his services
+are supposed to be at the call of any man who is in want of him and can
+afford to pay for them. Of course, a leading barrister, such as Holymead,
+often declines a brief because he has so much to do, but he is not
+supposed to decline it for personal reasons."
+
+"His heart will not be in the case," said Rolfe philosophically.
+
+"On the contrary, I think it will," said Crewe. "My own opinion is that,
+if necessary, he will exert his powers to the utmost in order to get
+Birchill off, and that he will succeed."
+
+"Not he," said Rolfe confidently. "Our case is too strong."
+
+"You've got a lot of circumstantial evidence, but a clever lawyer will
+pull it to pieces. Circumstantial evidence has hung many a man, and it
+will hang many more. But a jury will hesitate to convict on
+circumstantial evidence when it can be shown that the conduct of the
+prisoner is at variance with what the conduct of a guilty man would be. I
+don't bet, but I'll wager you a box of cigars to nothing that Holymead
+gets Birchill off."
+
+"It's a one-sided wager, but I'll take the cigars because I could do
+with a box of these," said Rolfe. "You might as well give them to me now,
+Mr. Crewe."
+
+"No, no," said Crewe with a smile. "Put a couple in your pocket now,
+because you won't win the box."
+
+"Of course, I understand, Mr. Crewe, why you say Birchill is the wrong
+man. You feel a bit sore because we have beaten you. I would feel sore
+myself in your place, and I don't deny that we got information that put
+us on Birchill's track, and therefore it was easier for us to solve the
+mystery than it was for you."
+
+"I'm not a bit sore," said Crewe. "I can take a beating, especially when
+the men who beat me are good sportsmen." He bowed towards Rolfe, and
+that officer blushed as he recalled how Inspector Chippenfield and he
+had agreed to withhold information from Crewe and try to put him on a
+false scent.
+
+"I wish you'd tell me what you consider the weak points of our case
+against Birchill," asked Rolfe.
+
+"Your case is based on Hill's confession, and that to my mind is false in
+many details," said Crewe. "Take, for instance, his account of how he
+came into contact with Birchill again. This girl Fanning, after a quarrel
+with Sir Horace, came over to Riversbrook with a message for Hill which
+was virtually a threat. Now does that seem probable? The girl who had
+been in the habit of visiting Sir Horace goes over to see Hill. No woman
+in the circumstances would do anything of the sort. She had too good an
+opinion of herself to take a message to a servant at a house from which
+she had been expelled by the owner, who had been keeping her. How would
+she have felt if she had run into Sir Horace? It is true that Sir Horace
+left for Scotland the day before, but it is improbable that the girl who
+had quarrelled with Sir Horace a fortnight before knew the exact date on
+which he intended to leave. And how did Hill behave when he got the
+message? According to his story, he consented to go and see Birchill
+under threat of exposure, and he consented to become an accomplice in the
+burglary for the same reason. Sir Horace knew all about Hill's past, so
+why should he fear a threat of exposure?"
+
+"Hill explained that," interposed Rolfe. "He pointed out that, though Sir
+Horace knew his past, he couldn't afford to have any scandal about it."
+
+"Quite so. But could Birchill afford to threaten a man who was under the
+protection of Sir Horace Fewbanks? Would Birchill pit himself against Sir
+Horace? I think that Sir Horace, knowing the law pretty thoroughly, would
+soon have found a way to deal with Birchill. If Hill was threatened by
+Birchill, his first impulse, knowing what a powerful protector he had in
+Sir Horace Fewbanks, would have been to go to him and seek his protection
+against this dangerous old associate of his convict days. According to
+Hill's own story, he was something in the nature of a confidential
+servant, trusted to some extent with the secrets of Sir Horace's double
+life. What more likely than such a man, threatened as he describes,
+should turn to his master who had shielded him and trusted him?"
+
+"I confess that is a point which never struck me," said Rolfe
+thoughtfully.
+
+"Now, let us go on to the meeting between Hill and Birchill," continued
+Crewe. "This girl Fanning, discarded by Sir Horace, because he'd
+discovered she was playing him false with Birchill, is made the
+ostensible reason for Birchill's wishing to commit a burglary at
+Riversbrook, because Birchill wants, as he says, to get even with Sir
+Horace Fewbanks. Is it likely that Birchill would confide his desire for
+revenge so frankly to Sir Horace's confidential servant, the trusted
+custodian of his master's valuables, who could rely on his master's
+protection--the protection of a highly-placed man of whom Birchill stood
+admittedly in fear, and whom he knew, according to Hill's story, was
+unassailable from his slander? What had Hill to fear, from the threats of
+a man like Birchill, when he was living under Sir Horace Fewbanks's
+protection? All that Hill had to do when Birchill tried to induce him,
+by threats of exposure of his past, to help in a burglary at his master's
+house, was to threaten to tell everything to Sir Horace. Birchill told
+Hill that he was frightened of Sir Horace Fewbanks, the judge who had
+sentenced him.
+
+"Then Birchill's confidence in Hill is remarkable, any way you look at
+it. He sends for Hill, whom he had known in gaol, and whom he hadn't seen
+since, to confide in him that it is his intention to burgle his
+employer's house. He rashly assumes that Hill will do all that he wishes,
+and he proceeds to lay his cards on the table. But even supposing that
+Birchill was foolish enough to do this--to trust a chance gaol
+acquaintance so implicitly--there is a far more puzzling action on his
+part. Why did he want Hill's assistance to burgle a practically
+unprotected house? I confess I have great difficulty in understanding why
+such an accomplished flash burglar as Birchill, one of the best men at
+the game in London at the present time, should want the assistance of an
+amateur like Hill in such a simple job."
+
+Rolfe looked startled.
+
+"Hill says he wanted a plan of the house and to know what valuables it
+contained."
+
+Crewe smiled.
+
+"And has it been your experience among criminals, Rolfe, that a burglar
+must have a plan of the place he intends to burgle, and that to get this
+plan he will give himself away to any man who can supply it? A plan has
+its uses, but it is indispensable only when a very difficult job is being
+undertaken, such as breaking through a wall or a ceiling to get at a room
+which contains a safe. This job was as simple as A B C. And besides, as
+far as I can make out, Birchill knew--the girl Fanning must have
+known--that Sir Horace would be going away some time in August and that
+the house would be empty. Did he want a plan of an empty house? He would
+be free to roam all over it when he had forced a window."
+
+"He wanted to know what valuables were there," said Rolfe.
+
+"And therefore took Hill into his confidence. If Hill had told his
+master--even Birchill would realise the risk of that--there would be no
+valuables to get. Next, we come to Sir Horace Fewbanks's unexpected
+return. According to Hill's story, he made some tentative efforts to
+commence a confession as soon as he saw his employer, but Sir Horace was
+upset about something and was too impatient to listen to a word. Is such
+a story reasonable or likely? Hill says that Sir Horace had always
+treated him well; and according to his earlier statement, when he
+permitted himself to be terrorised into agreeing to this burglary, he
+told himself that chance would throw in his way some opportunity of
+informing his master. And he told you that Birchill, mistrusting his
+unwilling accomplice, hurried on the date of the burglary so as to give
+him no such opportunity. Well, chance throws in Hill's way the very
+opportunity he has been seeking, but he is too frightened to use it
+because Sir Horace happens to return in an angry or impatient mood.
+
+"Let us take Birchill's attitude when Hill tells him that Sir Horace has
+unexpectedly returned from Scotland. Birchill is suspicious that Hill
+has played him false, and naturally so, but Hill, instead of letting him
+think so, and thus preventing the burglary from taking place, does all
+he can to reassure him, while at the same time begging him to postpone
+the burglary. That was hardly the best way to go about it. Let us
+charitably assume that Hill was too frightened to let Birchill remain
+under the impression that he'd played him false, and let us look at
+Birchill's attitude. It is inconceivable that Birchill should have
+permitted himself to be reassured, when right through the negotiations
+between himself and Hill he showed the most marked distrust of the
+latter. Yet, according to Hill, he suddenly abandons this attitude for
+one of trusting credulity, meekly accepting the assurance of the man he
+distrusts that Sir Horace Fewbanks's unexpected return from Scotland on
+the very night the burglary is to be committed is not a trap to catch
+him, but a coincidence. Then, after drinking himself nearly blind, he
+sets forth with a revolver to commit a burglary on the house of the
+judge who tried him, on Hill's bare word that everything is all right.
+Guileless, trusting, simple-minded Birchill!
+
+"Hill is left locked up in the flat with the girl; for Birchill, who has
+just trusted him implicitly in a far more important matter affecting his
+own liberty, has a belated sense of caution about trusting his unworthy
+accomplice while he is away committing the burglary. The time goes on;
+the couple in the flat hear the clock strike twelve before Birchill's
+returning footsteps are heard. He enters, and immediately announces to
+Hill and the girl, with every symptom of strongly marked terror, that
+while on his burglarious mission, he has come across the dead body of Sir
+Horace Fewbanks--murdered in his own house. Mark that! he tells them
+freely and openly--tells Hill--as soon as he gets in the flat. Allowing
+for possible defects in my previous reasoning against Hill's story,
+admitting that an adroit prosecuting counsel may be able to buttress up
+some of the weak points, allowing that you may have other circumstantial
+evidence supporting your case, that is the fatal flaw in your chain:
+because of Birchill's statement on his return to the flat no jury in the
+world ought to convict him."
+
+"I don't see why," said Rolfe.
+
+Crewe fixed his deep eyes intently on Rolfe as he replied:
+
+"Because, if Birchill had committed this murder, he would never have
+admitted immediately on his returning, least of all to Hill, anything
+about the dead body."
+
+"But he told Hill that he didn't commit the murder," protested Rolfe.
+
+"But you say that he did commit the murder," retorted the detective.
+"You cannot use that piece of evidence both ways. Your case is that this
+man Birchill, while visiting Riversbrook to commit a burglary which he
+and Hill arranged, encountered Sir Horace Fewbanks and murdered him. I
+say that his admission to Hill on his return to the flat that he had come
+across the body of Sir Horace Fewbanks, is proof that Birchill did not
+commit the murder. No murderer would make such a damning admission, least
+of all to a man he didn't trust--to a man who he believed was capable of
+entrapping him. Next you have Birchill consenting to a message being sent
+to Scotland Yard conveying the information that Sir Horace had been
+murdered. Is that the action of a guilty man? Wouldn't it have been more
+to his interest to leave the dead man's body undiscovered in the empty
+house and bolt from the country? It might have remained a week or more
+before being discovered. True, he would have had to find some way of
+silencing Hill while he got away from the country. He might have had to
+resort to the crude method of tying Hill up, gagging him, and leaving him
+in the flat. But even that would have been better than to inform the
+police immediately of the murder and place his life at the mercy of Hill,
+whom he distrusted."
+
+"Looked at your way, I admit that there are some weak points in our
+case," said Rolfe. "But you'll find that our Counsel will be able to
+answer most of them in his address to the jury. If Birchill didn't
+commit the murder, who did? Do you deny that he went up to Riversbrook
+that night?"
+
+"The letter sent to Scotland Yard shows that some one was there besides
+the murderer. If Birchill was there and helped to write the letter--and
+so much is part of your case--he wasn't the murderer. In short, I believe
+Birchill went up there to commit a burglary and found the murdered body
+of Sir Horace."
+
+"Do you think that Hill did it?" asked Rolfe.
+
+"That is more than I'd like to say. As a matter of fact I have been so
+obtuse as to neglect Hill somewhat in my investigations. In fact, I
+didn't know until I got hold of a copy of his statement to the police
+that he was an ex-convict. Inspector Chippenfield omitted to inform me of
+the fact."
+
+"I didn't know that," said Rolfe, without a blush, as he rose to go. "He
+ought to have told you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+When Rolfe left Crewe's office he went back to Scotland Yard. He found
+Inspector Chippenfield still in his office, and related to him the
+substance of his interview with Crewe. The inspector listened to the
+recital in growing anger.
+
+"Birchill not the right man?" he spluttered. "Why, of course he is. The
+case against him is purely circumstantial, but it's as clear as
+daylight."
+
+"Then you don't think there's anything in Crewe's points?" asked Rolfe.
+
+"I think so little of them that I look upon Birchill as good as hanged!
+That for Crewe's points!" Inspector Chippenfield snapped his fingers
+contemptuously. "And I'm surprised to think that you, Rolfe, whose
+loyalty to your superior officer is a thing I would have staked my life
+on, should have sat there and listened to such rubbish. I wouldn't have
+listened to him for two minutes--no, not for half a minute. He was trying
+to pick our case to pieces out of blind spite and jealousy, because we've
+got ahead of him in the biggest murder case London's had for many a long
+day. A man who jaunts off to Scotland looking for clues to a murder
+committed in London is a fool, Rolfe--that's what I call him. We have
+beaten him--beaten him badly, and he doesn't like it. But it is not the
+first time Scotland Yard has beaten him, and it won't be the last."
+
+"I suppose you're right," said Rolfe. "But there's one point he made
+which rather struck me, I must say--that about Birchill telling Hill he'd
+found the dead body. Would Birchill have told Hill that, if he'd
+committed the murder?"
+
+"Nothing more likely," exclaimed the inspector. "My theory is that
+Birchill, while committing the burglary at Riversbrook, was surprised by
+Sir Horace Fewbanks. It is possible that the judge tried to capture
+Birchill to hand him over to the police, and Birchill shot him. I believe
+that Birchill fired both shots--that he had two revolvers. But whatever
+took place, a dangerous criminal like Birchill would not require much
+provocation to silence a man who interrupted him while he was on business
+bent, and a man, moreover, against whom he nursed a bitter grudge. In
+this case it is possible there was no provocation at all. Sir Horace
+Fewbanks may have simply heard a noise, entered the room where Birchill
+was, and been shot down without mercy. Birchill heard him coming and was
+ready for him with a revolver in each hand. You've got to bear in mind
+that Birchill went to the house in a dangerous mood, half mad with drink,
+and furious with anger against Sir Horace Fewbanks for cutting off the
+allowance of the girl he was living with. He threatened before he left
+the flat to commit the burglary that he'd do for the judge if he
+interfered with him."
+
+"That's according to Hill's statement," said Rolfe.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield glanced at his subordinate in some surprise.
+
+"Of course it's Hill's statement," he said. "Isn't he our principal
+witness, and doesn't his statement fit in with all the facts we have been
+able to gather? Well, the murder of Sir Horace, no matter how it was
+committed, was committed in cold blood. But immediately Birchill had done
+it the fact that he had committed a murder would have a sobering effect
+on him. Although he bragged before he left the flat for Riversbrook
+about killing the judge if he came across him, he had no intention of
+jeopardising his neck unnecessarily, and after he had shot down the judge
+in a moment of drunken passion he would be anxious to keep Hill--whom he
+mistrusted--from knowing that he had committed the murder. But he was
+fully aware that Hill would be the person who'd discover the body next
+day, and that if he wasn't put on his guard he would bring in the police
+and probably give away everything that Birchill had said and done. So, to
+obviate this risk and prepare Hill, Birchill hit on the plan of telling
+him that he'd found the judge's dead body while burgling the place. It
+was a bold idea, and not without its advantages when you consider what an
+awkward fix Birchill was in. Not only did it keep Hill quiet, but it
+forced him into the position of becoming a kind of silent accomplice in
+the crime. You remember Hill did not give the show away until he was
+trapped, and then he only confessed to save his own skin. He's a
+dangerous and deep scoundrel, this Birchill, but he'll swing this time,
+and you'll find that his confession of finding the body will do more than
+anything else to hang him--properly put to the jury, and I'll see that it
+is properly put."
+
+Rolfe pondered much over these two conflicting points of view--Crewe's
+and Inspector Chippenfield's--for the rest of the day. He inclined to
+Inspector Chippenfield's conclusions regarding Birchill's admission about
+the body. The idea that he had assisted in arresting the wrong man and
+had helped to build up a case against him was too unpalatable for him to
+accept it. But he was forced to admit that Crewe's theory was distinctly
+a plausible one. Though it was impossible for him to give up the
+conviction that Birchill was the murderer, he felt that Crewe's analysis
+of the case for the prosecution contained several telling points which
+might be used with some effect on a jury in the hands of an experienced
+counsel. Rolfe had no doubt that Holymead would make the most of those
+points, and he also knew that the famous barrister was at his best in
+attacking circumstantial evidence.
+
+That night, while walking home, the idea occurred to Rolfe of going over
+to Camden Town after supper to see if by questioning Hill again he could
+throw a little more light on what had taken place at Doris Tanning's
+flat the night Sir Horace Fewbanks was murdered. Hill had been
+questioned and cross-questioned at Scotland Yard by Inspector
+Chippenfield concerning the events of that night, and professed to have
+confessed to everything that had happened, but Rolfe thought it possible
+he might be able to extract something more which might assist in
+strengthening what Crewe regarded as the weak points in the police case
+against Birchill. Rolfe had every justification for such a visit, for,
+though Hill had not been arrested, he had been ordered by Inspector
+Chippenfield to report himself daily to the Camden Town Police Station,
+and the police of that district had been instructed to keep a strict eye
+on his movements. Inspector Chippenfield did not regard his principal
+witness in the forthcoming murder trial as the sort of man likely to
+bolt, but if he permitted him for politic reasons to retain his liberty,
+he took every precaution to ensure that Hill should not abuse his
+privilege.
+
+Rolfe lived in lodgings at King's Cross, and, as the evening was fine and
+he was fond of exercise, he decided to walk across to Hill's place.
+
+As he walked along his thoughts revolved round the murder of Sir Horace
+Fewbanks, and the baffling perplexities which had surrounded its
+elucidation. Had they got hold of the right man--the real murderer--in
+Fred Birchill? Rolfe kept asking himself that question again and again. A
+few hours ago he had not the slightest doubt on the point; he had looked
+upon the great murder case as satisfactorily solved, and he had thought
+with increasing satisfaction of his own share in bringing the murderer to
+justice. He had anticipated newspaper praise on his sharpness: judicial
+commendation, a favourable official entry in the departmental records of
+Scotland Yard, with perhaps promotion for the good work he had
+accomplished in this celebrated case. These rosy visions had been
+temporarily dissipated by the conversation he had had with Crewe that
+morning. If Crewe had not succeeded in destroying Rolfe's conviction that
+the murderer of Sir Horace Fewbanks had been caught, he had pointed out
+sufficient flaws in the police case to shake Rolfe's previous assurance
+of the legal conviction of Birchill for the crime. The way in which Crewe
+had pulled the police case to pieces had shown Rolfe that the conviction
+of Birchill was by no means a foregone conclusion, and had left him a
+prey to doubts and anxiety which Inspector Chippenfield's subsequent
+depreciation of the detective's views had not altogether removed.
+
+The little shop kept by the Hills was empty when Rolfe entered it, but
+Mrs. Hill appeared from the inner room in answer to his knock. The
+faded little woman did not recognise the police officer at first, but
+when he spoke she looked into his face with a start. She timidly said,
+in reply to his inquiry for her husband, that he had just "stepped out"
+down the street.
+
+"Then you had better send your little girl after him," said Rolfe,
+seating himself on the one rickety chair on the outside of the counter.
+"I want to see him."
+
+Mrs. Hill seemed at a loss to reply for a moment. Then she answered,
+nervously plucking at her apron the while: "I don't think it'd be much
+use doing that, sir. You see, Mr. Hill doesn't always tell me where he's
+going and I don't really know where he is."
+
+"Then why did you tell me that he had just stepped out down the street?"
+asked Rolfe sharply.
+
+"Because I thought he mightn't be far away."
+
+"Then, as a matter of fact, you don't know where he is or when
+he'll be back?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+Her prompt and uncompromising reply indicated that she did not want him
+to wait for her husband.
+
+"I think I'll wait," said Rolfe, looking at her steadily.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Daphne appeared at the door of the parlour which led into the shop and
+her mother waved her back angrily.
+
+"Go to bed this instant, miss; it's long past your bedtime," she said.
+
+It was obvious that Mrs. Hill retained a vivid recollection of how
+disastrous had been Daphne's appearance during Inspector Chippenfield's
+first visit to the shop.
+
+"Perhaps your little girl knows where her father is," said Rolfe
+maliciously.
+
+"No, she doesn't," replied Mrs. Hill with some spirit. "You can ask her
+if you like."
+
+Rolfe was suddenly struck with an idea and he decided to test it.
+
+"I won't wait--I've changed my mind. But if your husband comes in tell
+him not to go to bed until I've seen him. I'll be back."
+
+"Yes, sir," she replied.
+
+"Do you think he was going to Riversbrook?" he asked.
+
+The woman flushed suddenly and then went pale. She knew as well as Rolfe
+that her husband was strictly forbidden, pending the trial, to go near
+the place of his former employment, and that the police had relieved him
+of his keys and taken possession of the silent house and locked
+everything up.
+
+"No, sir," she replied, with trembling lips, "Mr. Hill hasn't gone
+over there."
+
+"How can you be certain, if he didn't tell you where he was going?"
+asked Rolfe.
+
+"Because it's the last place in the world he'd think of going to," gasped
+Mrs. Hill. "Such a thought would never enter his head. I do assure you,
+sir, Mr. Hill would never dream of going over there, sir, you can take my
+word for it."
+
+Rolfe walked thoughtfully up High Street. Was it possible that Hill had
+gone to his late master's residence in defiance of the orders of the
+police? If so, only some very powerful motive, and probably one which
+affected the crime, could have induced him to risk his liberty by making
+such a visit after he had been commanded to keep away from the place.
+And how would he get into the house? Rolfe had himself locked up the
+house and had locked the gates, and the bunch of keys was at that moment
+hanging up in Inspector Chippenfield's room in Scotland Yard. But even as
+he asked that question, Rolfe found himself smiling at himself for his
+simplicity. Nothing could be easier for a man like Hill--an
+ex-criminal--to have obtained a duplicate key, before handing over
+possession of the keys. Rolfe had noticed with surprise when he was
+locking up the house that the French windows of the morning room were
+locked from the outside by a small key as well as being bolted from the
+inside. Hill had explained that the late Sir Horace Fewbanks had
+generally used this French window for gaining access to his room after a
+nocturnal excursion.
+
+Rolfe looked at his watch. It was nine o'clock. He decided to go to
+Hampstead and put his suspicions to the test. It was quite possible he
+was mistaken, but if, on the other hand, Hill was paying a nocturnal
+visit to Riversbrook and he had the luck to capture him, he might extract
+from him some valuable evidence for the forthcoming trial that Hill had
+kept back. And Rolfe was above all things interested at that moment in
+making the case for the prosecution as strong as possible.
+
+Rolfe walked to the Camden Town Underground station, bought a ticket for
+Hampstead, and took his seat in the tube in that state of exhilarated
+excitement which comes to the detective when he feels that he is on the
+road to a disclosure. The speed of the train seemed all too slow for the
+police officer, and he looked at his watch at least a dozen times during
+the short journey from Camden Town to Hampstead.
+
+When Rolfe arrived at Hampstead he set out at a rapid walk for
+Riversbrook. It was quite dark when he reached Tanton Gardens. He turned
+into the rustling avenue of chestnut trees, and strode swiftly down till
+he reached the deserted house of the murdered man.
+
+The gate was locked as he had left it, but Rolfe climbed over it. A late
+moon was already throwing a refulgent light through the evening mists,
+silvering the tops of the fir trees in front of the house. Rolfe walked
+through the plantation, his footsteps falling noiselessly on the pine
+needles which strewed the path. He quickly reached the other side of the
+little wood, and the Italian garden lay before him, stretching in silver
+glory to the dark old house beyond.
+
+Rolfe stood still at the edge of the wood, and glanced across the moonlit
+garden to the house. It seemed dark, deserted and desolate. There was no
+sign of a light in any of the windows facing the plantation.
+
+The moon, rising above the fringe of trees in the woodland which skirted
+the meadows of the east side of the house, cast a sudden ray athwart the
+upper portion of the house. But the windows of the retreating first story
+still remained in shadow. Rolfe scrutinised these windows closely. There
+were three of them--he knew that two of them opened out from the bedroom
+the dead man used to occupy, and the third one belonged to the library
+adjoining--the room where the murder had been committed. The moonlight,
+gradually stealing over the house, revealed the windows of the bedroom
+closed and the blinds down, but the library was still in shadow, for a
+large chestnut-tree which grew in front of the house was directly in the
+line of Rolfe's vision.
+
+Rolfe remained watching the house for some time, but no sign or sound of
+life could he detect in its silent desolation. "I must have been
+mistaken," he muttered, with a final glance at the windows of the first
+story. "There's nobody in the house."
+
+He turned to go, and had taken a few steps through the pinewood when
+suddenly he started and stood still. His quick ear had caught a faint
+sound--a kind of rattle--coming from the direction of the house. What was
+that noise which sounded so strangely familiar to his ears? He had it! It
+was the fall of a Venetian blind. Instantaneously there came to Rolfe
+the remembrance that Inspector Chippenfield had ordered the library blind
+to be left up, so that when the sun was high in the heavens its rays,
+striking in through the window over the top of the chestnut-tree, might
+dry up the stain of blood on the floor, which washing had failed to
+efface. Somebody was in the library and had dropped the blind.
+
+Rolfe hurriedly retraced his steps to the edge of the plantation, and
+raced across the Italian garden, feeling for his revolver as he ran. Some
+instinct told him that he would find entrance through the French windows
+on the west side of the morning room, and thither he directed his steps.
+He pulled out his electric torch and tried the windows. They were shut,
+and the first one was locked. The second one yielded to his hand. He
+pulled it open, and stepped into the room. Making his way by the light of
+his torch to the stairs, he swiftly but silently crept up them and turned
+to the library on the left of the first landing. The door was closed but
+not locked, and a faint light came through the keyhole. Rolfe pushed the
+door open, and looked into the room. A man was leaning over the dead
+judge's writing-desk, examining its contents by the light of a candle
+which he had set down on the desk. He was so engrossed in his occupation
+that he did not hear the door open.
+
+"What are you doing there?" demanded Rolfe sternly. His voice sounded
+hollow and menacing as it reverberated through the room.
+
+The man at the desk started up, and turned round. It was Hill. When
+he saw Rolfe he looked as though he would fall. He made as if to
+step forward. Then he stood quite still, looking at the officer with
+ashen face.
+
+"Hill," said Rolfe quietly, "what does this mean?"
+
+The butler had regained his self-composure with wonderful quickness. The
+mask of reticence dropped over his face again, and it was in the smooth
+deferential tones of a well-trained servant that he replied:
+
+"Nothing, sir, I just slipped over from the shop to see if everything
+was all right."
+
+"How did you get into the house?"
+
+"By the French window, sir. I had a duplicate key which Sir Horace
+had made."
+
+"And I see you also have a duplicate key of the desk. Why didn't you give
+these keys up with the others to Inspector Chippenfield?"
+
+"I forgot about them at the time, sir. I found them in an old pocket this
+evening, and I was so uneasy about the house shut up with a lot of
+valuable things in it and nobody to give an eye to them that I just
+slipped across to see everything was all right."
+
+"You came here after dark, and let yourself in with a private key after
+you had been strictly ordered not to come near the place? You have the
+audacity to admit you have done this?"
+
+"Well, it's this way, sir. I was a trusted servant of Sir Horace's. I
+knew a great deal about his private life, if I may say so. I know he
+kept a lot of private papers in this room, and I wanted to make sure
+they were safe--I didn't like them being in this empty house, sir. I
+couldn't sleep in my bed of nights for thinking of them, sir. I felt
+last night as if my poor dead master was standing at my bedside, urging
+me to go over. I am very sorry I disobeyed the police orders, Mr. Rolfe,
+but I acted for the best."
+
+"Hill, you are lying, you are keeping something back. Unless you
+immediately tell me the real reason of your visit to this house tonight I
+will take you down to the Hampstead Police Station and have you locked
+up. This visit of yours will take a lot of explaining away after your
+previous confession, Hill. It's enough to put you in the dock with
+Birchill."
+
+Hill's eyes, which had been fixed on Rolfe's face, wavered towards the
+doorway, as though he were meditating a rush for freedom. But he
+merely remarked:
+
+"I've told you the truth, sir, though perhaps not all of it. I came
+across to see if I could find some of Sir Horace's private papers which
+are missing."
+
+"How do you know there are any papers missing?"
+
+"As I said before, Mr. Rolfe, Sir Horace trusted me and he didn't take
+the trouble to hide things from me."
+
+"You mean that he often left his desk open with important papers
+scattered about it?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And you made a practice of going through them?"
+
+"I didn't make a practice of it," protested Hill. "But sometimes I
+glanced at one or two of them. I thought there was no harm in it, knowing
+that Sir Horace trusted me."
+
+"And some papers that you knew were there are now missing. Do you
+mean stolen?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"When did you see them last?"
+
+"Just before Inspector Chippenfield came--the morning after the body was
+discovered. You remember, sir, that he came straight up here while you
+stayed downstairs talking to Constable Flack."
+
+"Do you mean to suggest that Inspector Chippenfield stole them?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir, I don't think he saw them. Sir Horace kept them in this
+little place at the back of the desk. Look at it, sir. It's a sort of
+secret drawer."
+
+Rolfe went over to the desk, and Hill explained to him how the hiding
+place could be closed and opened. It was at the back of the desk under
+the pigeonholes, and the fact that the pigeonholes came close down to the
+desk hid the secret drawer and the spring which controlled it.
+
+"What was the nature of these papers?" asked Rolfe.
+
+"Well, sir, I never read them. Sir Horace set such store by them that I
+never dared to open them for fear he would find out. They were mostly
+letters and they were tied up with a piece of silk ribbon."
+
+"A lady's letters, of course," said Rolfe.
+
+"Judging from the writing on the envelopes they were sent by a lady,"
+said Hill.
+
+Rolfe breathed quickly, for he felt that he was on the verge of a
+discovery. Here was evidence of a lady in the case, which might lead to a
+startling development. Perhaps Crewe was right in declaring that Birchill
+was the wrong man, he said to himself. Perhaps the murderer was not a
+man, but a woman.
+
+"And who do you think stole them?" he asked Hill.
+
+"That is more than I would like to say," replied the butler.
+
+"Are you sure they were in this hiding place when Inspector Chippenfield
+took charge of everything?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I dusted out the room the morning you and he came to
+Riversbrook together, and the papers were there then, because I happened
+to touch the spring as I was dusting the desk, and it flew open and I saw
+the bundle there."
+
+"Why didn't you tell Inspector Chippenfield about the papers and the
+secret drawer?"
+
+"That is what I intended to do, sir, if he didn't find them himself. But
+when I had found they had gone I didn't like to say anything to him,
+because, as you may say, I had no right to know anything about them."
+
+"When did they go: when did you find they were missing?"
+
+"When Inspector Chippenfield went out for his lunch. I looked in the desk
+and found they had gone."
+
+"Who could have taken them? Who had access to the room?"
+
+"Well, sir, Mr. Chippenfield had some visitors that morning."
+
+"Yes. There were about a dozen newspaper reporters during the day at
+various times. There were Dr. Slingsby and his assistant, who came out to
+make the post-mortem: Inspector Seldon, who came to arrange about the
+inquest, and there was that man from the undertakers who came to inquire
+about the funeral arrangements. But none of these men were likely to
+take the papers, and still less to know where they were hidden. In any
+case, no visitor could get at the desk while Mr. Chippenfield was in the
+room. And he is too careful to have left any visitor alone in this
+room--it was here that the murder was committed."
+
+"He left one of his visitors alone here for a few minutes," said Hill in
+a voice which was little more than a whisper.
+
+"Which one?" asked Rolfe eagerly.
+
+"A lady."
+
+"Who was she?"
+
+"Mrs. Holymead."
+
+"Oh!" Rolfe's exclamation was one of disappointment. "She is a friend of
+the family. She came out to see Miss Fewbanks--it was a visit of
+condolence."
+
+"Yes, sir," said the obsequious butler. "She was a friend of the family,
+as you say. She was a friend of Sir Horace's. I have heard that Sir
+Horace paid her considerable attention before she married Mr.
+Holymead--it was a toss up which of them she married, so I've been told."
+
+Rolfe saw that he had made a mistake in dismissing the idea of Mrs.
+Holymead having anything to do with the missing papers. "Do you think
+that she stole these letters--these papers?" he asked. "Do you think she
+knew where they were?"
+
+"While she was in the room, Inspector Chippenfield came rushing
+downstairs for a glass of water. He said she had fainted."
+
+"Whew!" Rolfe gave a low prolonged whistle. "And after she left you took
+the first opportunity of looking to see if the papers were still there,
+and you found they were gone?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What made you suspect Mrs. Holymead would take them?"
+
+"Well, sir, I didn't suspect her at the time. I just looked to see if
+Inspector Chippenfield had found them. I saw they had gone, and as I
+couldn't see any sign of them about anywhere else I concluded they must
+have been taken without Inspector Chippenfield knowing anything about it.
+The reason I came over here to-night was to have another careful look
+round for them."
+
+Rolfe was silent for a moment.
+
+"What would you have done with the papers if you had found them?" he
+asked suddenly.
+
+"I would have handed them over to the police, sir," said the butler, who
+obviously had been prepared for a question of the kind.
+
+"And what explanation would you have given for having found them--for
+having come over here in defiance of your orders from Inspector
+Chippenfield?"
+
+"The true explanation, sir," said the butler, with a mild note of protest
+in his voice. "I would have told Inspector Chippenfield what I have
+already told you. And it is the simple truth."
+
+Rolfe was plainly taken back at this rebuke, but he did not reply to it.
+
+"In your statement of what took place when Birchill returned to the flat
+after committing the murder, he said something about having seen a woman
+leave the house by the front door as he was hiding in the garden--a
+fashionably dressed woman I think he said."
+
+"Yes, sir, that was it."
+
+"Do you believe that part of his story was true?"
+
+"Well, sir, with a man like Birchill it is impossible to say when he is
+telling the truth, and when he isn't."
+
+"There was no lady with Sir Horace when you left him that night when he
+returned from Scotland?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"I think you said he was in a hurry to get you out of the house, and told
+you not to come back?"
+
+"That is what I thought at the time, sir."
+
+"Well, Hill," said Rolfe, resuming his severe official tone; "all this
+does not excuse in any way your conduct in coming over here and
+forcing your way into the house in defiance of the police; opening this
+desk, and prying about for private papers that don't concern you. The
+proper course for you to adopt was to come to Scotland Yard and tell
+your story about these missing papers to Inspector Chippenfield or
+myself. However, I don't propose to take any action against you at
+present. Only there is to be no more of it. If you come hanging about
+here again on your own account, you'll find yourself in the dock beside
+Birchill. Hand me over the duplicate key of the door by which you came
+in, and also the key of the desk which you had still less right to have
+in your possession. Say nothing to anyone about those papers until I
+give you permission to do so."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+The day fixed for the trial of Frederick Birchill was wet, dismal, and
+dreary. The rain pelted intermittently through a hazy, chilly atmosphere,
+filling the gutters and splashing heavily on the slippery pavements. But
+in spite of the rain a long queue, principally of women, assembled
+outside the portals of the Old Bailey long before the time fixed for the
+opening of the court. At the private entrance to the courthouse arrived
+fashionably-dressed ladies accompanied by well-groomed men. They had
+received cards of admission and had seats reserved for them in the body
+of the court. Many of them had personally known the late Sir Horace
+Fewbanks, and their interest in the trial of the man accused of his
+murder was intensified by the rumours afloat that there were to be some
+spicy revelations concerning the dead judge's private life.
+
+The arrival of Mr. Justice Hodson, who was to preside at the trial,
+caused a stir among some of the spectators, many of whom belonged to the
+criminal class. Sir Henry Hodson had presided at so many murder trials
+that he was known among them as "the Hanging Judge." Among the spectators
+were some whom Sir Henry had put into mourning at one time or another;
+there were others whom he had deprived of their bread-winners for
+specified periods. These spectators looked at him with curiosity, fear,
+and hatred. Mr. Holymead, K.C., drove up in a taxi-cab a few minutes
+later, and his arrival created an impression akin to admiration. In the
+eyes of the criminal class he was an heroic figure who had assumed the
+responsibility of saving the life of one of their fraternity. The eminent
+counsel's success in the few criminal cases in which he had consented to
+appear had gained him the respectful esteem of those who considered
+themselves oppressed by the law, and the spectators on the pavement might
+have raised a cheer for him if their exuberance had not been restrained
+by the proximity of the policeman guarding the entrance.
+
+When the court was opened Inspector Chippenfield took a seat in the body
+of the court behind the barrister's bench. He ranged his eye over the
+closely-packed spectators in the gallery, and shook his head with
+manifest disapproval. It seemed to him that the worst criminals in London
+had managed to elude the vigilance of the sergeant outside in order to
+see the trial of their notorious colleague, Fred Birchill. He pointed out
+their presence to Rolfe, who was seated alongside him.
+
+"There's that scoundrel Bob Rogers, who slipped through our hands over
+the Ealing case, and his pal, Breaker Jim, who's just done seven years,
+looking down and grinning at us," he angrily whispered. "I'll give them
+something to grin about before they're much older. You'd think Breaker
+would have had enough of the Old Bailey to last him a lifetime. And look
+at that row alongside of them--there's Morris, Hart, Harry the Hooker,
+and that chap Willis who murdered the pawnbroker in Commercial Road last
+year, only we could never sheet it home to him. And two rows behind them
+is old Charlie, the Covent Garden 'drop,' with Holder Jack and Kemp,
+Birchill's mate. Why, they're everywhere. The inquest was nothing to
+this, Rolfe."
+
+"Kemp must be thanking his lucky stars he wasn't in that Riversbrook job
+with Fred Birchill," said Rolfe, "for they usually work together. And
+there's Crewe, up in the gallery."
+
+"Where?" exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield, with an indignant start.
+
+"Up there behind that pillar there--no, the next one. See, he's looking
+down at you."
+
+Crewe caught the inspector's eye, and nodded and smiled in a friendly
+fashion, but Inspector Chippenfield returned the salutation with a
+haughty glare.
+
+"The impudence of that chap is beyond belief," he said to his
+subordinate. "One would have thought he'd have kept away from court after
+his wild-goose chase to Scotland and piling up expenses, but not him!
+Brazen impudence is the stock-in-trade of the private detective. If
+Scotland Yard had a little more of the impudence of the private
+detective, Rolfe, we should be better appreciated."
+
+"I suppose he's come in the hopes of seeing the jury acquit Birchill,"
+said Rolfe.
+
+"No doubt," replied Inspector Chippenfield. "But he's come to the wrong
+shop. A good jury should convict without leaving the box if the case is
+properly put before them by the prosecution. Crewe would like to triumph
+over us, but it is our turn to win."
+
+But Inspector Chippenfield was wrong in thinking that Crewe's presence
+in court was due to a desire for the humiliation of his rivals. Crewe
+had spent most of the previous night reading and revising his summaries
+and notes of the Riversbrook case, and in minutely reviewing his
+investigations of it. Over several pipes in the early morning hours he
+pondered long and deeply on the secret of Sir Horace Fewbanks's murder,
+without finding a solution which satisfactorily accounted for all the
+strange features of the case. But one thing he felt sure of was that
+Birchill had not committed the murder. He based that belief partly on
+the butler's confession, and partly on his own discoveries. He believed
+Hill to be a cunning scoundrel who had overreached the police for some
+purpose of his own by accusing Birchill, and who, to make his story more
+probable, had even implicated himself in the supposed burglary as a
+terrorised accomplice. And Crewe had been unable to test the butler's
+story, or find out what game he was playing, because of the assiduity
+with which the principal witness for the prosecution had been "nursed"
+by the police from the moment he made his confession. Crewe bit hard
+into his amber mouthpiece in vexation as he recalled the ostrich-like
+tactics of Inspector Chippenfield, who, having accepted Hill's story as
+genuine, had officially baulked all his efforts to see the man and
+question him about it.
+
+He had come to court with the object of witnessing Birchill's behaviour
+in the dock and the efforts of any of his criminal friends to communicate
+with him. As a man who had had considerable experience in criminal trials
+he knew the irresistible desire of the criminal in the gallery of the
+court to encourage the man in the dock to keep up his courage.
+Communications of the kind had to be made by signs. It was Crewe's
+impression that by watching Birchill in the dock and Birchill's friends
+in the gallery he might pick up a valuable hint or two. It was also his
+intention to study closely the defence which Counsel for the prisoner
+intended to put forward.
+
+It was therefore with a feeling of mingled annoyance and surprise that
+Crewe, looking down from his point of vantage at the bevy of
+fashionably-dressed ladies in the body of the court, recognised Mrs.
+Holymead, Mademoiselle Chiron and Miss Fewbanks seated side by side,
+engaged in earnest conversation. Before he could withdraw from their view
+behind the pillar in front of him, Miss Fewbanks looked up and saw him.
+She bowed to him in friendly recognition, and Crewe saw her whisper to
+Mrs. Holymead, who glanced quickly in his direction and then as quickly
+averted her gaze. But in that fleeting glance of her beautiful dark eyes
+Crewe detected an expression of fear, as though she dreaded his presence,
+and he noticed that she shivered slightly as she turned to resume her
+conversation with Miss Fewbanks.
+
+His Honour Mr. Justice Hodson entered, and the persons in the court
+scrambled hurriedly to their feet to pay their tribute of respect to
+British law, as exemplified in the person of a stout red-faced old
+gentleman wearing a scarlet gown and black sash, and attended by four of
+the Sheriffs of London in their fur-trimmed robes. The judge bowed in
+response and took his seat. The spectators resumed theirs, craning their
+necks eagerly to look at the accused man, Birchill, who was brought into
+the dock by two warders. The work of empanelling a jury commenced, and
+when it was completed Mr. Walters, K.C., opened the case for the
+prosecution.
+
+Mr. Walters was a long-winded Counsel who had detested the late Mr.
+Justice Fewbanks because of the latter's habit of interrupting the
+addresses of Counsel with the object of inducing them to curtail their
+remarks. This practice was not only annoying to Counsel, who necessarily
+knew better than the judge what the jury ought to be told, but it also
+tended to hold Counsel up to ridicule in the eyes of ignorant jurymen as
+a man who could not do his work properly without the watchful correction
+of the judge. But Mr. Walters, whose legal training had imbued in him a
+respect for Latin tags, subscribed to the adage, _de mortuis nil nisi
+bonum_. Therefore he began his address to the jury with a glowing
+reference to the loss, he might almost say the irreparable loss, which
+the judiciary had sustained, he would go so far as to say the loss which
+the nation had sustained by the death, the violent death, in short, the
+murder, of an eminent judge of the High Court Bench, whose clear and
+vigorous intellect, whose marvellous mastery of the legal principles laid
+down by the judicial giants of the past, whose inexhaustible knowledge
+drawn from the storehouses of British law, whose virile interpretations
+of the principles of British justice, whose unfailing courtesy and
+consideration to Counsel, the memory of which would long be cherished by
+those who had had the privilege of pleading before him, had made him an
+acquisition and an ornament to a Bench which in the eyes of the nation
+had always represented, and at no time more than the present--at this
+point Mr. Walters bowed to the presiding judge--the embodiment of legal
+knowledge, legal experience, and legal wisdom.
+
+After this tribute to the murdered man and the presiding judge, Mr.
+Walters proceeded to lay the facts of the crime before the jury, who had
+read all about them in the newspapers.
+
+With methodical care he built up the case against the accused man,
+classifying the points of evidence against him in categorical order for
+the benefit of the jury. The most important witness for the prosecution
+was a man known as James Hill, who had been in Sir Horace Fewbanks's
+employ as a butler. Hill's connection with the prisoner was in some
+aspects unfortunate, for himself, and no doubt counsel for the defense
+would endeavour to discredit his evidence on that account, but the jury,
+when they heard the butler tell his story in the witness box, would have
+little difficulty in coming to the conclusion that the man Hill was the
+victim of circumstances and his own weakness of temperament. However much
+they might be disposed to blame him for the course he had pursued, he was
+innocent of all complicity in his master's death, and had done his best
+to help the ends of justice by coming forward with a voluntary confession
+to the police.
+
+Mr. Walters made no attempt to conceal or extenuate the black page in
+Hill's past, but he asked the jury to believe that Hill had bitterly
+repented of his former crime, and would have continued to lead an honest
+life as Sir Horace Fewbanks's butler, if ill fate had not forged a cruel
+chain of circumstances to link him to his past life and drag him down by
+bringing him in contact with the accused man Birchill, whom he had met in
+prison. Sir Horace Fewbanks was the self-appointed guardian of a young
+woman named Doris Fanning, the daughter of a former employee on his
+country estate, who had died leaving her penniless. Sir Horace had deemed
+it his duty to bring up the girl and give her a start in life. After
+educating her in a style suitable to her station, he sent her to London
+and paid for music lessons for her in order to fit her for a musical
+career, for which she showed some aptitude. Unfortunately the young woman
+had a self-willed and unbalanced temperament, and she gave her benefactor
+much trouble. Sir Horace bore patiently with her until she made the
+chance acquaintance of Birchill, and became instantly fascinated by him.
+The acquaintance speedily drifted into intimacy, and the girl became the
+pliant tool of Birchill, who acquired an almost magnetic influence over
+her. As the intimacy progressed she seemed to have become a willing
+partner in his criminal schemes.
+
+When Sir Horace Fewbanks heard that the girl had drifted into an
+association with a criminal like Birchill he endeavoured to save her from
+her folly by remonstrating with her, and the girl promised to give up
+Birchill, but did not do so. When Sir Horace found out that he was being
+deceived he was compelled to renounce her. Birchill, who had been living
+on the girl, was furious with anger when he learnt that Sir Horace had
+cut off the monetary allowance he had been making her, and, on
+discovering by some means that his former prison associate Hill was now
+the butler at Sir Horace Fewbanks's house, he planned his revenge. He
+sent the girl Fanning to Riversbrook with a message to Hill, directing
+him, under threat of exposure, to see him at the Westminster flat.
+
+Hill, who dreaded nothing so much as an exposure of that past life of his
+which he hoped was a secret between his master and himself, kept the
+appointment. Birchill told him he intended to rob the judge's house in
+order to revenge himself on Sir Horace for cutting off the girl's
+allowance, and he asked Hill to assist him in carrying out the burglary.
+Hill strenuously demurred at first, but weakly allowed himself to be
+terrorised into compliance under Birchill's threats of exposure. Hill's
+participation in the crime was to be confined to preparing a plan of
+Riversbrook as a guide for Birchill. Birchill said nothing about murder
+at this time, but there is no doubt he contemplated violence when he
+first spoke to Hill. When Hill, alarmed by his master's return on the
+actual night for which the burglary had been arranged, hurried across to
+the flat to urge Birchill to abandon the contemplated burglary, Birchill
+obstinately decided to carry out the crime, and left the flat with a
+revolver in his hand, threatening to murder Sir Horace if he found him,
+because of his harsh treatment--as he termed it--of the girl Fanning.
+
+"Birchill left the flat at nine o'clock," continued Mr. Walters, who had
+now reached the vital facts of the night of the murder. "I ask the jury
+to take careful note of the time and the subsequent times mentioned, for
+they have an important bearing on the circumstantial evidence against the
+accused man. He returned, according to Hill's evidence, shortly after
+midnight. Evidence will be called to show that Birchill, or a man
+answering his description, boarded a tramcar at Euston Road at 9.30 p.m.,
+and journeyed in it to Hampstead. He was observed both at Euston Road and
+the Hampstead terminus by the conductor, because of his obvious desire to
+avoid attention. There were only two other passengers on the top of the
+car when it left Euston Road. The conductor directed the attention of the
+driver to his movements, and they both watched him till he disappeared in
+the direction of the Heath. In fairness to the prisoner, it was necessary
+to point out, however, that neither the conductor nor the driver can
+identify him positively as the man they had seen on their car that night,
+but both will swear that to the best of their belief Birchill is the man.
+Assuming that it was the prisoner who travelled to Hampstead by the
+Euston Road tram--a route he would probably prefer because it took him to
+Hampstead by the most unfrequented way--he would have a distance of
+nearly a mile to walk across Hampstead Heath to Tanton Gardens, where
+Sir Horace Fewbanks's house was situated. The evidence of the tram-men is
+that he set off across the Heath at a very rapid rate. The tram reached
+Hampstead at four minutes past ten, so that, by walking fast, it would be
+possible for a young energetic man to reach Riversbrook before a quarter
+to eleven. Another five minutes would see an experienced housebreaker
+like Birchill inside the house. At twenty minutes past eleven a young man
+named Ryder, who had wandered into Tanton Gardens while endeavouring to
+take a short cut home, heard the sound of a report, which at the time he
+took to be the noise of a door violently slammed, coming from the
+direction of Riversbrook. A few moments afterwards he saw a man climb
+over the front fence of Riversbrook to the street. He drew back
+cautiously into the shade of one of the chestnut trees of the street
+avenue, and saw the man plainly as he ran past him. Ryder will swear that
+the man he saw was Birchill."
+
+"It's a lie! It's a lie! You're trying to hang him, you wicked man. Oh,
+Fred, Fred!"
+
+The cry proceeded from the girl Doris Fanning. Her unbalanced temperament
+had been unable to bear the strain of sitting there and listening to Mr.
+Walters' cold inexorable construction of a legal chain of evidence
+against her lover. She rose to her feet, shrieking wildly, and
+gesticulating menacingly at Mr. Walters. The Society ladies turned
+eagerly in their seats to take in through their _lorgnons_ every detail
+of the interruption.
+
+"Remove that woman," the judge sternly commanded.
+
+Several policemen hastened to her, and the girl was partly hustled and
+partly carried out of court, shrieking as she went. When the commotion
+caused by the scene subsided, the judge irritably requested to be
+informed who the woman was.
+
+"I don't know, my lord," replied Mr. Walters. "Perhaps--" He stopped and
+bent over to Detective Rolfe, who was pulling at his gown. "Er--yes, I'm
+informed by Detective Rolfe of Scotland Yard, my lord, that the young
+woman is a witness in the case."
+
+"Then why was she permitted to remain in court?" asked Sir Henry Hodson
+angrily. "It is a piece of gross carelessness."
+
+"I do not know, my lord. I was unaware she was a witness until this
+moment," returned Mr. Walters, with a discreet glance in the direction of
+Detective Rolfe, as an indication to His Honour that the judicial storm
+might safely veer in that direction. Sir Henry took the hint and
+administered such a stinging rebuke to Detective Rolfe that that
+officer's face took on a much redder tint before it was concluded. Then
+the judge motioned to Mr. Walters to resume the case.
+
+Counsel, with his index finger still in the place in his brief where he
+had been interrupted, rose to his feet again and turned to the jury.
+
+"Birchill returned to the flat at Westminster shortly after midnight," he
+continued. "Hill had been compelled by Birchill's threats to remain at the
+flat with the girl while Birchill visited Riversbrook, and the first
+thing Birchill told him on his return was that he had found Sir Horace
+Fewbanks dead in his house when he entered it. On his way back from
+committing the crime belated caution had probably dictated to Birchill
+the wisdom of endeavouring to counteract his previous threat to murder
+Sir Horace Fewbanks. He probably remembered that Hill, who had heard the
+threat, was an unwilling participator in the plan for the burglary, and
+might therefore denounce him to the police for the greater crime if he
+(Birchill) admitted that he had committed it. In order to guard against
+this contingency still further Birchill forced Hill to join in writing a
+letter to Scotland Yard, acquainting them with the murder, and the fact
+that the body was lying in the empty house. Birchill's object in acting
+thus was a twofold one. He dared not trust Hill to pretend to discover
+the body the next day and give information to the police, for fear he
+should not be able to retain sufficient control of himself to convince
+the detectives that he was wholly ignorant of the crime, and he also
+thought that if Hill had a share in writing the letter he would feel an
+additional complicity in the crime, and keep silence for his own sake.
+Birchill was right in his calculations--up to a point. Hill was at first
+too frightened to disclose what he knew, but as time went on his
+affection for his murdered master, and his desire to bring the murderer
+to justice, overcame his feelings of fear for his own share in bringing
+about the crime, and he went and confessed everything to the police,
+regardless of the consequences that might recoil upon his own head. The
+case against Birchill depends largely on Hill's evidence, and the jury,
+when they have heard his story in the witness-box, and bearing in mind
+the extenuating circumstances of his connection with the crime, will have
+little hesitation in coming to the conclusion that the prisoner in the
+dock murdered Sir Horace Fewbanks."
+
+The first witness called was Inspector Seldon, who gave evidence as to
+his visit to Riversbrook shortly before 1 p. m. on the 19th of August as
+the result of information received, and his discovery of the dead body of
+Sir Horace Fewbanks. He described the room in which the body was found;
+the position of the body; and he identified the blood-stained clothes
+produced by the prosecution as being those in which the dead man was
+dressed when the body was discovered. In cross-examination by Holymead he
+stated that Sir Horace Fewbanks was fully dressed when the body was
+found. The witness also stated in cross-examination that none of the
+electric lights in the house were burning when the body was discovered.
+
+The next witness was Dr. Slingsby, the pathological expert from the Home
+Office who had made the post mortem examination, and who was much too
+great a man to be kept waiting while other witnesses of more importance
+to the case but of less personal consequence went into the box. Dr.
+Slingsby stated that his examinations had revealed that death had been
+caused by a bullet wound which had penetrated the left lung, causing
+internal hemorrhage.
+
+Mr. Finnis, the junior counsel for the defence, suggested to the witness
+that the wound might have been self-inflicted, but Dr. Slingsby permitted
+himself to be positive that such was not the case. With professional
+caution he assured Mr. Finnis, who briefly cross-examined him, that it
+was impossible for him to state how long Sir Horace Fewbanks had been
+dead. _Rigor mortis_, in the case of the human body, set in from eight to
+ten hours after death, and it was between three and four o'clock in the
+afternoon of the day the crime was discovered that he first saw the
+corpse. The body was quite stiff and cold then.
+
+"Is it not possible for death to have taken place nineteen or twenty
+hours before you saw the body?" asked Mr. Finnis, eagerly.
+
+"Quite possible," replied Dr. Slingsby.
+
+"Is it not also possible, from the state of the body when you examined
+it, that death took place within sixteen hours of your examination of the
+body?" asked Mr. Walters, as Mr. Finnis sat down with the air of a man
+who had elicited an important point.
+
+"Quite possible," replied Dr. Slingsby, with the prim air of a
+professional man who valued his reputation too highly to risk it by
+committing himself to anything definite.
+
+Dr. Slingsby was allowed to leave the box, and Inspector Chippenfield
+took his place. Inspector Chippenfield did not display any professional
+reticence about giving his evidence--at least, not on the surface, though
+he by no means took the court completely into his confidence as to all
+that had passed between him and Hill. On the other hand he told the judge
+and jury everything that his professional experience prompted him as
+necessary and proper for them to know in order to bring about a
+conviction. In the course of his evidence he made several attempts to
+introduce damaging facts as to Birchill's past, but Mr. Holymead
+protested to the judge. Counsel for the defence protested that he had
+allowed his learned friend in opening the case a great deal of latitude
+as to the relations which had previously existed between the witness Hill
+and the prisoner, because the defence did not intend to attempt to hide
+the fact that the prisoner had a criminal record, but he had no intention
+of allowing a police witness to introduce irrelevant matter in order to
+prejudice the jury against the prisoner. His Honour told the witness to
+confine himself to answering the questions put to him, and not to
+volunteer information.
+
+After this rebuke Inspector Chippenfield resumed giving evidence. He
+related what Birchill had said when arrested, and declared that he was
+positive that the footprints found outside the kitchen window were made
+by the boots produced in court which Birchill had been wearing at the
+time he was arrested. He produced a jemmy which he had found at Fanning's
+flat, and said that it fitted the marks on the window at Riversbrook
+which had been forced on the night of the 18th of August.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield's evidence was followed by that of the two tramway
+employees, who declared that to the best of their belief Birchill was the
+man who boarded their tram at half-past nine on the night of the 18th of
+August, and rode to the terminus at Hampstead, which they reached at 10.4
+p. m. Both the witnesses showed a very proper respect for the law, and
+were obviously relieved when the brief cross-examination was over and
+they were free to go back to their tram-car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+"James Hill!" called the court crier.
+
+The butler stepped forward, mounted the witness-stand, and bowed his head
+deferentially towards the judge. He was neatly dressed in black, and his
+sandy-grey hair was carefully brushed. His face was as expressionless as
+ever, but a slight oscillation of the Court Bible in his right hand as he
+was sworn indicated that his nerves were not so calm as he strove to
+appear. He looked neither to the right nor left, but kept his glance
+downcast. Only once, as he stood there waiting to be questioned, did he
+cast a furtive look towards the man whose life hung on his evidence, but
+the malevolent vindictive gaze Birchill shot back at him caused him to
+lower his eyelids instantly.
+
+Hill commenced his evidence in a voice so low that Mr. Walters stopped
+him at the outset and asked him to speak in a louder tone. It soon became
+apparent that his evidence was making a deep impression on the court. Sir
+Henry Hodson listened to him intently, and watched him keenly, as Hill,
+with impassive countenance and smooth even tones, told his strange story
+of the night of the murder. When he had drawn to a conclusion he gave
+another furtive glance at the dock, but Birchill was seated with his head
+bowed down, as though tired, and with one hand supporting his face.
+
+Mr. Walters methodically folded up his brief and sat down, with a
+sidelong glance in the direction of Mr. Holymead as he did so. Every eye
+in court was turned on Holymead as the great K.C. settled his gown on his
+shoulders and got up to cross-examine the principal Crown witness.
+
+His cross-examination was the admiration of those spectators whose
+sympathies were on the side of the man in the dock as one of themselves.
+Hill was cross-examined as to the lapse from honesty which had sent him
+to gaol, and he was reluctantly forced to admit, that so far from the
+theft being the result of an impulse to save his wife and child from
+starvation, as the Counsel for the prosecution had indicated, it was the
+result of the impulse of cupidity. He had robbed a master who had trusted
+him and had treated him with kindness. Having extracted this fact, in
+spite of Hill's evasions and twistings, Holymead straightened himself to
+his full height, and, shaking a warning finger at the witness, said:
+
+"I put it to you, witness, that the reason Sir Horace Fewbanks engaged
+you as butler in his household at Riversbrook was because he knew you to
+be a man of few scruples, who would be willing to do things that a more
+upright honest man would have objected to?"
+
+"That is not true," replied Hill.
+
+"Is it not true that your late master frequently entertained women of
+doubtful character at Riversbrook?" thundered the K.C.
+
+Hill gasped at the question. When he had first heard that his late
+master's old friend, Mr. Holymead, was to appear for Birchill, he had
+immediately come to the conclusion that Mr. Holymead was taking up the
+case in order to save Sir Horace's name from exposure by dealing
+carefully with his private life at Riversbrook. But here he was
+ruthlessly tearing aside the veil of secrecy. Hill hesitated. He glanced
+round the curious crowded court and saw the eager glances of the women as
+they impatiently awaited his reply. He hesitated so long that Holymead
+repeated the question.
+
+"Women of doubtful character?" faltered the witness. "I do not
+understand you."
+
+"You understand me perfectly well, Hill. I do not mean women off the
+streets, but women who have no moral reputation to maintain--women who do
+not mind letting confidential servants see that they have no regard for
+the conventional standards of life. I mean, witness, that your late
+master frequently entertained at Riversbrook, women--I will not call them
+ladies--who were not particular at what hour they went home. Sometimes
+one or more of them stayed all night, and you were entrusted with the
+confidential task of smuggling them out of the house without other
+servants knowing of their presence. Is not that so?"
+
+"I--I--"
+
+"Answer the question without equivocation, witness."
+
+"Y-es, sir."
+
+There was a slight stir in the body of the court due to the fact that
+Miss Fewbanks and Mrs. Holymead had risen and were making their way to
+the door. The fashionably-dressed women in the court stared with much
+interest at the daughter of the murdered man, whom most of them knew, in
+order to see how she was taking the disclosures about her dead father's
+private life.
+
+"And sometimes there were quarrels between your late master and these
+visitors, were there not?" continued Holymead.
+
+"Quarrels, sir?"
+
+"Surely you know that under the influence of wine some people become
+quarrelsome?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, did your late master's nocturnal visitors ever become
+quarrelsome?"
+
+"Sometimes, sir."
+
+"In the exercise of your confidential duties did you sometimes see
+quarrelsome ladies off the premises?"
+
+"Sometimes, sir."
+
+"And it was no uncommon thing for them to say things to you about your
+master, eh?"
+
+"Sometimes they didn't care what they said."
+
+"Quite so," commented Counsel drily. "They indulged in threats?"
+
+"Not all of them," replied Hill, who at length saw where the
+cross-examination was tending.
+
+"I do not suggest that all of them did--only that the more violent of
+them did so."
+
+"Quite so, sir."
+
+"So we may take it that the quarrel between your late master and
+Miss Fanning was not the only quarrel of the kind which came under
+your notice?"
+
+"There were not many others," said Hill.
+
+"It was not the only one?" persisted Counsel.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"In your evidence-in-chief you said nothing about Miss Fanning using
+threats against your master when you were showing her out?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"She did not use any?"
+
+"Not in my hearing, sir."
+
+There was a pause at this stage while Mr. Holymead consulted the notes he
+had made of Mr. Walters's cross-examination of the witness.
+
+"What o'clock was it when you left Riversbrook on the 18th of August
+after your master's return from Scotland?"
+
+"About half-past seven, sir."
+
+"And what time did Sir Horace arrive home?"
+
+"About seven o'clock, sir."
+
+"What were you doing between seven and seven-thirty?"
+
+"I unpacked his bags and got his bedroom ready. I took him some
+refreshment up to the library."
+
+"And he told you he wouldn't want you again until the following night
+about eight o'clock?"
+
+"Yes, sir. He said he thought he would be going back to Scotland by the
+night express, and I was to get his bag packed and lock up the house."
+
+"You told Counsel for the prosecution in the course of your evidence
+that you were afraid of Birchill," continued Holymead.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Were you afraid of physical violence from him, or only that he would
+expose your past to the other servants?"
+
+"I was afraid of him both ways," said Hill.
+
+"Was it because of this fear that you made out for him a plan of
+Riversbrook to assist him in the burglary?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"When did you make out this plan?"
+
+"The day after Sir Horace left for Scotland."
+
+"Was that on your first visit to Miss Fanning's flat in Westminster
+after the prisoner had sent her to Riversbrook to tell you he wanted
+to see you?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Did Birchill stand over you while you made out this plan?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Would you know the plan again if you saw it?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Mr. Finnis, who had been hiding the plan under the papers before him,
+handed a document up to his chief.
+
+Mr. Holymead unfolded it, and with a brief glance at it handed it up to
+the witness.
+
+"Is that the plan?" he asked.
+
+Hill was somewhat taken aback at the production of the plan. It was drawn
+in ink on a white sheet of paper of foolscap size, with a slightly bluish
+tint. The paper was by no means clean, for Birchill had carried it about
+in his pocket. The witness reluctantly admitted that the plan was the one
+he had given to Birchill. To his manifest relief Counsel asked no further
+questions about it. In a low tone Mr. Holymead formally expressed his
+intention to put the plan in as evidence. He handed it to Mr. Walters,
+who, after a close inspection of it, passed it along to the judge's
+Associate for His Honour's inspection.
+
+The rest of Hill's cross-examination concerned what happened at the flat
+on the night of the burglary. He adhered to the story he had told, and
+could not be shaken in the main points of it. But Mr. Holymead made some
+effective use of the discrepancy between the witness's evidence at the
+inquest as to his movements on the night of the murder and his evidence
+in court. He elicited the fact that the police had discovered his
+evidence at the inquest was false and had forced him to make a confession
+by threatening to arrest him for the murder.
+
+Mr. Holymead signified that he had nothing further to ask the witness,
+and Mr. Walters called his last witness, a young man named Charles Ryder,
+a resident of Liverpool, who had spent a week's holiday in London from
+the 14th to the 21st of August. Ryder had stayed with some friends at
+Hampstead, and when making his way home on the night of the 18th of
+August had walked down Tanton Gardens in the belief that he was taking a
+short cut. The time was about 11.20. He saw a man running towards him
+along the footpath from the direction of Riversbrook. He caught a good
+glimpse of the man, who seemed to be very excited. He was sure the
+prisoner was the man he had seen. In cross-examination by Mr. Holymead he
+was far less positive in his identification of the prisoner, and finally
+admitted that the man he saw that night might be somebody else who
+resembled the prisoner in build.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+The second day of the trial began promptly when Mr. Justice Hodson took
+his seat. Mr. Holymead's opening statement to the jury was brief. He
+reminded them that the life of a fellow creature rested on their verdict.
+If there was any doubt in their minds whether the prisoner had fired the
+shot which killed Sir Horace Fewbanks the prisoner was entitled to a
+verdict of "not guilty." It was obligatory on the prosecution to prove
+guilt beyond all reasonable doubt.
+
+He submitted that the prosecution had not established their case. After
+hearing the case for the prosecution the jury must have grave doubts as
+to the guilt of the prisoner, and it was his duty as Counsel for the
+prisoner to put before the jury facts which would not only increase their
+doubts but bring them to the positive conclusion that the prisoner was
+not guilty. He was not going to attempt to deny that the prisoner went to
+Riversbrook on the night of the murder. He went there to commit a
+burglary. But so far from Hill being terrorised into complicity in that
+crime it was he who had first suggested it to Birchill and had arranged
+it. Material evidence on that point would be submitted to the jury.
+
+Hill was a man who was incapable of gratitude. His disposition was to
+bite the hand that fed him. After being well treated by Sir Horace
+Fewbanks he had made up his mind to rob him as he had robbed his former
+master Lord Melhurst. He knew that Sir Horace had quarrelled with this
+girl Fanning because of her association with Birchill, and he went to
+Birchill and put before him a proposal to rob Riversbrook. Birchill
+consented to the plan, and when on the night of the 18th August he
+broke into the house he found the murdered body of Sir Horace in the
+library. That was the full extent of the prisoner's connection with
+the crime. To the superficial and suspicious mind it might seem an
+improbable story, but to an earnest mind it was a story that carried
+conviction because of its simple straightforwardness--its crudity, if
+the jury liked to call it that. It lacked the subtlety and the finish
+of a concocted story. The murder took place before Birchill reached
+Riversbrook on his burglarious errand.
+
+"It is my place," added Mr. Holymead, in concluding his address, "to
+convince you that my client is not guilty, or, in other words, to
+convince you that the murder was committed before he reached the house.
+It is only with the greatest reluctance that I take upon myself the
+responsibility of pointing an accusing finger at another man. In crimes
+of this kind you cannot expect to get anything but circumstantial
+evidence. But there are degrees of circumstantial evidence, and my duty
+to my client lays upon me the obligation of pointing out to you that
+there is one person against whom the existing circumstantial evidence is
+stronger than it is against my client."
+
+Crewe, who had secured his former place in the gallery of the court,
+looked down on the speaker. He had carefully followed every word of
+Holymead's address, but the concluding portion almost electrified him. He
+flattered himself that he was the only person in court who understood the
+full significance of the sonorous sentences with which the famous K.C.
+concluded his address to the jury.
+
+As his eyes wandered over the body of the court below, Crewe saw that
+Mrs. Holymead and Mademoiselle Chiron were sitting in one of the back
+seats, but that they were not accompanied by Miss Fewbanks. It was
+evident to him by the way in which Mrs. Holymead followed the proceedings
+that her interest in the case was something far deeper than wifely
+interest in her husband's connection with it as counsel for the defence.
+Leaning forward in her seat, with her hands clasped in her lap, she
+listened eagerly to every word. During the day his gaze went back to her
+at intervals, and on several occasions he became aware that she had been
+watching him while he watched her husband.
+
+The first witness for the defence was Doris Fanning. The drift of her
+evidence was to exonerate the prisoner at the expense of Hill. She
+declared that she had not gone to Riversbrook to see Hill after the final
+quarrel with Sir Horace. Hill had come to her flat in Westminster of his
+own accord and had asked for Birchill. She went out of the room while
+they discussed their business, but after Hill had gone Birchill told her
+that Hill had put up a job for him at Riversbrook. Birchill showed her
+the plan of Riversbrook that Hill had made, and asked her if it was
+correct as far as she knew. Yes, she was sure she would know the plan
+again if she saw it.
+
+The judge's Associate handed it to Mr. Holymead, who passed it to
+the witness.
+
+"Is this it?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she replied emphatically, almost without inspecting it.
+
+"I want you to look at it closely," said Counsel. "When Birchill showed
+you the plan immediately after Hill's departure, what impression did you
+get regarding it?"
+
+She looked at him blankly.
+
+"I don't understand you," she said.
+
+"You can tell the difference between ink that has been newly used and ink
+that has been on the paper some days. Was the ink fresh?"
+
+"No, it was old ink," she said.
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"Because ink doesn't go black till a long while after it is written. At
+least, the letters _I_ write don't." She shot a veiled coquettish glance
+at the big K.C. from under her long eyelashes.
+
+The K.C. returned the glance with a genial smile.
+
+"What do you write your letters on, Miss Fanning?"
+
+She almost giggled at the question.
+
+"I use a writing tablet," she replied.
+
+"Ruled or unruled?"
+
+"Ruled. I couldn't write straight if there weren't lines." She
+smiled again.
+
+"And what colour do you affect--grey, rose-pink or white paper?"
+
+"Always white."
+
+"Is that all the paper you have at your flat for writing purposes?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then what did Birchill write on when he wanted to write a letter?"
+
+"He used mine."
+
+"Are you sure of that?"
+
+"Yes. When he wanted to write a letter he used to ask me for my tablet
+and an envelope. And generally he used to borrow a stamp as well." She
+pouted slightly, with another coquettish glance.
+
+"Look at that plan again," said the K.C. "Have you ever had paper like it
+at your flat?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Never."
+
+"Have you ever seen paper of that kind in Birchill's possession before he
+showed you the plan?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"When he showed you the plan had the paper been folded?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The K.C. took the witness, now very much at her ease, to the night of the
+murder. She denied strenuously that Hill tried to dissuade Birchill from
+carrying out the burglary because Sir Horace Fewbanks had returned
+unexpectedly from Scotland. It was Birchill who suggested postponing the
+burglary until Sir Horace left, but Hill urged that the original plan
+should be adhered to. He declared that Sir Horace would remain at home at
+least a fortnight, and perhaps longer. His master was a sound sleeper, he
+said, and if Birchill waited until he went to bed there would be no
+danger of awakening him. She contradicted many details of Hill's evidence
+as to what took place when the prisoner returned from breaking into
+Riversbrook. It was untrue, she said, that there was a spot of blood on
+Birchill's face or that his hands were smeared with blood. He was a
+little bit excited when he returned, but after one glass of whisky he
+spoke quite calmly of what had happened.
+
+The next witness was a representative of the firm of Holmes and Jackson,
+papermakers, who was handed the plan of Riversbrook which Hill had drawn.
+He stated that the paper on which the plan was drawn was manufactured by
+his firm, and supplied to His Majesty's Stationery Office. He identified
+it by the quality of the paper and the watermark. In reply to Mr. Walters
+the witness was sure that the paper he held in his hand had been
+manufactured by his firm for the Government. It was impossible for him to
+be mistaken. Other firms might manufacture paper of a somewhat similar
+quality and tint, but it would not be exactly similar. Besides, he
+identified it by his firm's watermark, and he held the plan up to the
+light and pointed it out to the court.
+
+Counsel for the defence called two more witnesses on this point--one to
+prove that supplies of the paper on which the plan was drawn were issued
+to legal departments of the Government, and an elderly man named Cobb,
+Sir Horace Fewbanks's former tipstaff, who stated that he took some of
+the paper in question to Riversbrook on Sir Horace's instructions. And
+then, to the astonishment of junior members of the bar who were in court
+watching his conduct of the case in order to see if they could pick up a
+few hints, he intimated that his case was closed. It seemed to them that
+the great K.C. had put up a very flimsy case for the defence, and that in
+spite of the fact that the prosecutor's case rested mainly on the
+evidence of a tainted witness Holymead would be very hard put to it to
+get his man off.
+
+"Isn't my learned friend going to call the prisoner?" suggested Mr.
+Walters, with the cunning design of giving the jury something to think of
+when they were listening to his learned friend's address.
+
+"It's scarcely necessary," said Mr. Holymead, who saw the trap, and
+replied in a tone which indicated that the matter was not worth a
+moment's consideration.
+
+He began his address to the jury by emphasising the fact that a fellow
+creature's life depended on the result of their deliberations. The duty
+that rested upon them of saying whether the prosecution had established
+beyond all reasonable doubt that the prisoner shot Sir Horace Fewbanks
+was a solemn and impressive one. He asked them to consider the case
+carefully in all its bearings. He could not claim for his client that
+he was a man of spotless reputation. The prisoner belonged to a class
+who earned their living by warring against society. But that fact did
+not make him a murderer. On what did the case for the prosecution rest?
+On the evidence of Hill and three other witnesses who, on the night of
+the murder, had seen a man somewhat resembling the prisoner in the
+vicinity of Riversbrook, or making towards the vicinity of that house.
+But so far from wishing to emphasise the weakness of identification he
+admitted that the prisoner went to Riversbrook with the intention of
+committing a burglary.
+
+"We admit that he went there the night Sir Horace Fewbanks returned from
+Scotland," he continued. "Counsel for the prosecution will make the most
+of those admissions in the course of his address to you, but the point to
+which I wish to direct your attention is that we make this damaging
+admission so that you may decide between the prisoner and the man who
+led him into a trap by instigating the burglary. Now we come to the
+evidence of Hill. I know you will not convict a man of murder on the
+unsupported evidence of a fellow criminal. But I want to point out to you
+that even if Hill's evidence were true in every detail, even if Hill had
+not swerved one iota from the truth, there is nothing in his evidence to
+lead to the positive conclusion that the prisoner murdered Hill's master,
+Sir Horace Fewbanks. What does Hill's evidence against the prisoner
+amount to? Let us accept it for the moment as absolutely true. Later on I
+will show you plainly that the man is a liar, that he is a cunning
+scoundrel, and that his evidence is utterly unreliable. But accepting for
+the moment his evidence as true the case against the prisoner amounts to
+this: by threats of exposure Birchill compelled Hill to consent to
+Riversbrook being robbed while the owner was in Scotland.
+
+"Hill's complicity, according to his own story, extended only to
+supplying a plan of the house and giving Birchill some information as to
+where various articles of value would be found. On the 18th of August
+Hill went to Riversbrook to see that everything was in order for the
+burglary that night. While he was there his master returned unexpectedly.
+Hill then went to the flat in Westminster and told Birchill that Sir
+Horace had returned. His own story is that he tried to get Birchill to
+abandon the idea of the burglary, but that Birchill, who had been
+drinking, swore that he would carry out the plan, and that if he came
+across Sir Horace he would shoot him. What grudge had Birchill against
+Sir Horace Fewbanks? The fact that Sir Horace had discarded the woman
+Fanning because of her association with Birchill. Gentlemen, does a man
+commit a murder for a thing of that kind?
+
+"Let us test the credibility of the man who has tried to swear away the
+life of the prisoner. You saw him in the witness-box, and I have no doubt
+formed your own conclusions as to the type of man he is. Did he strike
+you as a man who would stand by the truth above all things, or a man who
+would lie persistently in order to save his own skin? That the man cannot
+be believed even when on his oath has been publicly demonstrated in the
+courts of the land. The story he told the court yesterday in the
+witness-box of his movements on the day of the murder is quite different
+to the story he told on his oath at the inquest on the body of Sir Horace
+Fewbanks. Let me read to you the evidence he gave at the inquest."
+
+Mr. Finnis handed to his leader a copy of Hill's evidence at the inquest,
+and Mr. Holymead read it out to the jury. He then read out a shorthand
+writer's account of Hill's evidence on the previous day.
+
+"Which of these accounts are we to believe?" he said, turning to the
+jury. "The latter one, the prosecution says. But why, I ask? Because it
+tallies with the statement extorted from Hill by the police under the
+threat of charging him with the murder. Does that make it more credible?
+Is a man like Hill, who is placed in that position, likely to tell the
+truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? It is an insult to the
+jury as men of intelligence to ask you to believe Hill's evidence. I do
+not ask you to believe the story he told at the inquest in preference to
+the story he told here in the witness-box yesterday. I ask you to regard
+both stories as the evidence of a man who is too deeply implicated in
+this crime to be able to speak the truth.
+
+"I will prove to you, gentlemen of the jury, that the man is a criminal
+by instinct and a liar by necessity--the necessity of saving his own
+skin. He robbed his former master, Lord Melhurst, and he planned to rob
+his late master, Sir Horace Fewbanks. But knowing that his former crime
+would be brought against him when the police came to investigate a
+robbery at Riversbrook he was too cunning to rob Riversbrook himself. He
+looked about him for an accomplice and he selected Birchill. You heard
+him say in the witness-box that he drew Birchill a plan of
+Riversbrook--the plan I now hold in my hand. I will ask you to inspect
+the plan closely. Hill told us that Birchill terrorised him into drawing
+this plan by threats of exposure. Exposure of what? His master, Sir
+Horace Fewbanks, knew he had been in gaol, so what had he to fear from
+exposure? His proper course, if he were an honest man, would have been to
+tell his master that Birchill was planning to rob the house and had
+endeavoured to draw him into the crime. But he did nothing of the kind,
+for the simple reason that the plan to rob Riversbrook was his own, and
+not Birchill's.
+
+"Now, gentlemen, you have all seen the plan which this tainted witness
+declares was drawn by him because Birchill terrorised him and stood over
+him while he drew it. Is there anything in that plan to suggest that it
+was drawn by a man in a state of nervous terror? Why, the lines are as
+firmly drawn as if they had been made by an architect working at his
+leisure in his office. Was this plan drawn by a man in a state of nervous
+terror with his tormentor standing threateningly over him, or was it
+drawn up by a man working at leisure, free not only from terror but from
+interruption? The answer to that question is supplied in the evidence
+given by three witnesses as to the paper used. Hill says the plan was
+drawn at the flat. Two other witnesses swore that it was paper supplied
+exclusively for Government Departments, and another witness swore that he
+had taken such paper to Riversbrook for the use of Sir Horace Fewbanks,
+who, like every one of His Majesty's judges, found it necessary to do
+some of his judicial work at home. What is the inevitable inference? I
+ask you if you can have any doubt, after looking at that plan and after
+hearing the evidence given to-day about the paper, that the proposal to
+rob Riversbrook was Hill's own proposal, that Hill drew a plan of the
+house on paper he abstracted from his master's desk--paper which this
+confidential servant was apparently in the habit of using for private
+purposes--and that he gave it to Birchill when he asked Birchill to join
+him in the crime?
+
+"When one of the main features of Hill's story is proved to be false, how
+can you believe any of the rest? In the light in which we now see him,
+with his cunning exposed, what significance is to be attached to his
+statement that Birchill in his presence threatened to shoot Sir Horace
+Fewbanks if the master of Riversbrook interfered with him? Such a threat
+was not made, but why should Hill say it was made? For the same reason
+that he lied about the plan--to save his own skin. I submit to you,
+gentlemen, that when Hill went to see Birchill at the Westminster flat on
+the night arranged for the burglary Sir Horace Fewbanks was
+dead--murdered--and that Hill knew he was murdered. His own story is that
+he tried to persuade Birchill to abandon the proposed burglary, but,
+according to the witness Fanning, he did all in his power to induce
+Birchill to carry out the original plan when he saw that Birchill was
+disposed to postpone the burglary in view of the return of the master of
+Riversbrook. Why did he want Birchill to carry out the burglary? Because
+he knew that his master's murdered body was lying in the house, and he
+wanted to be in the position to produce evidence against Birchill as the
+murderer if he found himself in a tight corner as the result of the
+subsequent investigations of the police. Remember that the body of the
+victim was fully dressed when it was discovered by the police, and that
+none of the electric lights were burning. Does not that prove
+conclusively that the murder was not committed by Birchill, that Sir
+Horace Fewbanks was dead when Birchill broke into the house?
+
+"Birchill, an experienced criminal, would not break into the house while
+there was anybody moving about. He would wait until the house was in
+darkness and the inmates asleep. To do otherwise would increase
+enormously the risks of capture. But the fact that the police found the
+body of the murdered man fully dressed shows that Sir Horace was murdered
+before he went to bed--before Birchill broke into the house. It shows
+conclusively that the murder was committed before dusk. Your only
+alternatives to that conclusion are that the murdered man went to bed
+with his clothes on, or that the murderer broke into the house before Sir
+Horace had gone to bed and after killing Sir Horace went coolly round the
+house turning out the lights instead of fleeing in terror at his deed
+without even waiting to collect any booty. I am sure that as reasonable
+men you will reject both these alternatives as absurd. No evidence has
+been produced to show that anything has been stolen from the place. It
+was evidently the theory of the prosecution that the prisoner, after
+shooting Sir Horace, had fled. The evidence of Hill was that he arrived
+at Fanning's flat in a state of great excitement. His excitement would be
+consistent with his story of having discovered the body of a murdered
+man, but not consistent with the conduct of a cold-blooded calculating
+murderer who had broken into the house before Sir Horace had undressed
+for bed, had shot him, and had then gone round the house turning out the
+lights without having any apparent object in doing so.
+
+"Gentlemen, I think you will admit that the crime must have been
+committed before dusk; before any lights were turned on. I do not ask you
+to say that Hill is guilty. The responsibility of saying what man other
+than the prisoner shot Sir Horace Fewbanks does not rest with you. But I
+do urge you to ask yourselves whether, as between Hill and the prisoner,
+the probability of guilt is not on the side of this witness who lied to
+the coroner's court about his movements on the night of the murder, and
+who lied to this court about the plan for the robbery of Riversbrook. I
+have shown you that Hill was the master mind in planning the burglary,
+and, that being so, would not Birchill have consented to the postponement
+of the burglary if Hill had urged him to do so when he visited the flat
+after the unexpected return of the master of Riversbrook? Is not the
+evidence of the witness Fanning, that Hill urged Birchill to carry out
+the burglary after Sir Horace had gone to sleep, more credible than
+Hill's statement that he endeavoured to induce Birchill to abandon the
+proposed crime? Knowing what you know of Hill's past as a man who will
+rob his master, knowing that he attempted to deceive you with regard to
+this plan of Riversbrook in order that you might play your part in his
+cunning scheme, I urge you to ask yourselves whether it is not more
+probable that Hill fired the shot which killed Sir Horace Fewbanks than
+that the prisoner did so. Is it not extremely probable that the
+unexpected return of Sir Horace upset Hill, who was giving a final look
+round the house before the burglary took place? That, instead of
+answering his master with the suave obsequious humility of the
+well-trained servant, he revealed the baffled ferocity of a criminal
+whose carefully arranged plan seemed to have miscarried; that his master
+angrily rebuked him, and Hill, losing control of himself, sprang at Sir
+Horace, and the struggle ended with Hill drawing a revolver and shooting
+his master?
+
+"The rest of the story from that point can be constructed without
+difficulty. The murderer's first thought was to divert suspicion from
+himself, and the best way to do that was to divert suspicion elsewhere.
+He locked up the house and went to see Birchill. He urged Birchill to
+break into Riversbrook, in which the dead body of the murdered man lay.
+It is true that he need not have told Birchill that Sir Horace had
+returned unexpectedly; but his object in doing so was to make Birchill
+search about the house until he inadvertently stumbled across the dead
+body. Had Birchill been under the impression that he had broken into an
+entirely empty house he would have collected the valuables and might not
+have entered the library in which the dead body lay. It was necessary
+for Hill's purpose that Birchill should come across the corpse; then he
+would be vitally interested in diverting suspicion from himself
+(Birchill) and that is why he cunningly revealed to Birchill that Sir
+Horace had returned. I put it to the jury that such is a more probable
+explanation of how Sir Horace met his death than that he was shot down
+by Birchill. I ask you again to remember that the body was fully dressed
+when it was found by the police. I put it to you that in this matter the
+prisoner walked into a trap prepared by his more cunning fellow
+criminal. And I urge you, with all the earnestness it is possible for a
+man to use when the life of a fellow creature is at stake, not to be led
+into a trap--not to play the part this cunning criminal Hill has
+designed for you--in the sacrifice of the life of an innocent man for
+the purpose of saving himself from his just deserts. Looking at the
+whole case--as you will not fail to do--with the breadth of view of
+experienced men of the world, with some knowledge of the workings of
+human nature, with a natural horror of the depths of cunning of which
+some natures are capable, with a deep sense of the solemn responsibility
+for a human life upon you, I confidently appeal to you to say that the
+prisoner was not the man who shot Sir Horace Fewbanks, and to bring in a
+verdict of 'not guilty.'"
+
+A short discussion arose between the bench and bar on the question of
+adjourning the court or continuing the case in the hope of finishing it
+in a few hours. Sir Henry Hodson wanted to finish the case that night,
+but Counsel for the prosecution intimated that his address to the jury
+would take nearly two hours. As it was then nearly five o'clock, and His
+Honour had to sum up before the jury could retire, it was hardly to be
+hoped that the case could be finished that night, as the jury might be
+some time in arriving at a verdict. His Honour decided to adjourn the
+court and finish the case next day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+Mr. Walters began his address to the jury on orthodox lines. He referred
+to the fact that his learned friend had warned them that the life of a
+fellow creature rested on their verdict. It was right that they should
+keep that in mind; it was right that they should fully realise the
+responsible nature of the duty they were called upon to perform, but it
+would be wrong for them to over-estimate their responsibility, or to feel
+weighed down by it. It would be wrong for them to be influenced by
+sentimental considerations of the fact that a fellow creature's life was
+at stake. Strictly speaking, that had nothing whatever to do with them.
+Their responsibility ended with their verdict. If their verdict was
+"guilty" the responsibility of taking the prisoner's life would rest upon
+the law--not on the jury, not on His Honour who passed the sentence of
+death, not on the prison officials who carried out the execution. The
+jury would do well to keep in mind the fact that their responsibility in
+this trial, impressive and important as every one must acknowledge it to
+be, was nevertheless strictly limited as far as the taking of the life of
+the prisoner was concerned.
+
+He then went over the evidence in detail, building up again the case for
+the prosecution where Mr. Holymead had made breaches in it, and
+attempting to demolish the case for the defence. Hill, he declared, was
+an honest witness. The man had made one false step but he had done his
+best to retrieve it, and with the help he had received from his late
+master, Sir Horace Fewbanks, he would have buried the past effectively if
+it had not been for the fact that the prisoner, who was a confirmed
+criminal, had determined to drag him down. There was no doubt that
+Hill's association with Birchill had been unfortunate for him. It had
+dragged his past into the light of day, and he stood before them a ruined
+man. He had tried to live down the past, and but for Birchill he would
+have succeeded in doing so. But now no one would employ him as a house
+servant after the revelations that had been made in this court. They had
+seen Hill in the witness-box, and he would ask the jury whether he looked
+like the masterful cunning scoundrel which the defence had described, or
+a weak creature who would be easily led by a man of strong will, such as
+the prisoner was.
+
+As to what took place at the flat, they had a choice between the
+evidence of Hill and the evidence of the girl Fanning. Hill had told
+them that he had tried to dissuade the prisoner from going to
+Riversbrook to burgle the premises, because his master had returned
+unexpectedly; Fanning had told them that the prisoner was in favour of
+postponing the crime, but that Hill had urged him to carry it out. Which
+story was the more probable? What reliance could they place on the
+evidence of Fanning? He did not wish to say that the witness was utterly
+vicious and incapable of telling the truth--a description that the
+defence had applied to Hill--but they must take into consideration the
+fact that Fanning was the prisoner's mistress. Was it likely that a
+woman, knowing her lover's life was at stake, would come here and speak
+the truth, if she knew the truth would hang him? He was sure that the
+jury, as men who knew the world thoroughly, would not hesitate between
+the evidence of Hill and that of Fanning.
+
+The case for the defence depended to a great extent on the plan of
+Riversbrook which Hill candidly admitted he had drawn. His learned
+friend had called evidence to show that the paper on which the plan was
+drawn was of a quality which was not procurable by the general public.
+That might be so, but what his learned friend had not succeeded in
+doing, and could not possibly have hoped to succeed in doing, was to
+show that Birchill could not have obtained possession in any other way
+of paper of that kind. Yet it was necessary for the defence to prove
+that, in order to prove that the plan was not drawn at Fanning's flat by
+Hill under threats from Birchill, but that Hill had drawn it at
+Riversbrook, and that he gave it to Birchill in order to induce him to
+consent to the proposal to break into the house. There were dozens of
+ways in which paper of this particular quality might have got to the
+flat. Might not Birchill have a friend in His Majesty's Stationery
+Office? Was it impossible that the witness Fanning had a friend in that
+Office, or in one of the Government Departments to which the paper was
+supplied? Was it impossible in view of her relations with the victim of
+this crime for Fanning to have obtained some of the paper at Riversbrook
+and to have taken it home to her flat? She had sworn in the witness-box
+that she had not had paper of that kind in her possession, but with her
+lover's life at stake was she likely to stick at a lie if it would help
+to get him off?
+
+Counsel for the defence had endeavoured to make much of the fact that the
+dead body of Sir Horace Fewbanks was fully dressed when the police
+discovered it. He endeavoured to persuade them that such a fact
+established the complete innocence of the prisoner and that because of it
+they must bring in a verdict of "not guilty." He asked them to accept it
+as evidence not only that Sir Horace Fewbanks was dead when the prisoner
+broke into the house, but that he was dead when Hill left Riversbrook at
+7.30 p. m. to meet Birchill at Fanning's flat. With an ingenuity which
+did credit to his imagination, he put before them as his theory of the
+crime that a quarrel took place between Sir Horace Fewbanks and Hill at
+Riversbrook, that Hill shot his master and then went to Fanning's flat so
+as to see that Birchill carried out the burglary as arranged, and at the
+same time found Sir Horace's dead body, and thus directed suspicion to
+himself. The only support for this, far-fetched theory was that the body
+when discovered by the police was fully dressed, and that none of the
+electric lights were burning. Counsel for the defence contended that
+these two facts established his theory that the murder was committed
+before dusk. They established nothing of the kind. There were half a
+dozen more credible explanations of these things than the one he asked
+the jury to accept. What mystery was there in a man being fully dressed
+in his own house at midnight? The defence had been at great pains to show
+that Sir Horace Fewbanks was a man of somewhat irregular habits in his
+private life. Did not that suggest that he might have turned off the
+lights and gone to sleep in an arm-chair in the library with the
+intention of going out in an hour or two to keep an appointment? If he
+had an appointment--and his sudden and unexpected return from Scotland
+would suggest that he had a secret and important appointment--he would be
+more likely to take a short nap in his chair than to undress and go to
+bed. Might not the prisoner, who was a bold and reckless man, have broken
+into the house when the lights were burning and his victim was awake and
+fully dressed? In that case what was to prevent his turning off the
+lights before leaving the house instead of leaving them burning to
+attract attention? What was to prevent the prisoner turning off the
+lights in order to convey the impression that the crime had been
+committed in daylight?
+
+"I want you to keep in mind, when arriving at your verdict, that there
+are certain material facts which have been admitted by the defence," said
+Mr. Walters in concluding his address to the jury. "It has been admitted
+that the prisoner was a party to a proposal to break into Riversbrook. As
+far as that goes, there is no suggestion that he walked into a trap.
+Whether he arranged the burglary and compelled Hill to help him, or
+whether Hill arranged it and sought out the prisoner's assistance is,
+after all, not very material. What is admitted is that the prisoner went
+to Riversbrook with the intention of committing a crime. It is admitted
+that he knew Sir Horace Fewbanks had returned home. In that case is it
+not reasonable to suppose that the prisoner would arm himself, I do not
+say with the definite intention of committing murder, but for the purpose
+of threatening Sir Horace if necessary in order to make good his escape?
+What is more likely than that Sir Horace heard the burglar in the house,
+crept upon him, and then tried to capture him? There was a struggle, and
+the prisoner, determined to free himself, drew his revolver and shot Sir
+Horace. Is not such a theory of the crime--that Sir Horace was shot while
+trying to capture the prisoner--more probable than the theory of the
+defence that Hill, the weak-willed, frightened-looking man you saw in the
+witness-box, was a masterful, cunning criminal who for some inexplicable
+reason had turned ferociously on the master who had befriended him and
+given him a fresh start in life, had killed him and left the body in the
+house, and had then managed to direct suspicion to the prisoner? The
+theory of the defence does great credit to my learned friend's
+imagination, but it is one which I am sure the jury will reject as too
+highly coloured. Looking at the plain facts of the case and dismissing
+from your minds the attempt to make them fit into a purely imaginative
+theory, I am sure that you will come to the conclusion that Sir Horace
+Fewbanks met his death at the hands of the prisoner."
+
+The junior bar agreed that the case was one which might go either way. If
+they had possessed any money the betting market would have shown scarcely
+a shade of odds. Everything depended on the way the jury looked at the
+case, on the particular bits of evidence to which they attached most
+weight, on the view the most argumentative positive-minded members of the
+jury adopted, for they would be able to carry the others with them. In
+the opinion of the junior bar the summing up of Mr. Justice Hodson would
+not help the jury very much in arriving at a verdict. There were some
+judges who summed up for or against a prisoner according to the view they
+had formed as to the prisoner's guilt or innocence. There were other
+judges who summed up so impartially and gave such even-balanced weight to
+the points against the prisoner and to the points in his favour, as to
+make on the minds of the jurymen the impression that the only way to
+arrive at a well-considered verdict was to toss a coin. Another type of
+judge conveyed to the jury that the prosecution had established an
+unanswerable case, but the defence had shown equal skill in shattering
+it, and therefore he did not know on which side to make up his mind, and
+fortunately English legal procedure did not render it necessary for him
+to do so. The prisoner might be guilty and he might be innocent. Some of
+the jury might think one thing and the rest of the jury might think
+another. But it was the duty of the jury to come to an unanimous verdict.
+It did not matter if they looked at some things in different ways, but
+their final decision must be the same.
+
+Mr. Justice Hodson belonged to the impartial, impersonal type of judge.
+He had no personal feelings or conviction as to the guilt or innocence of
+the prisoner. It was for the jury to settle that point and it was his
+duty to assist them to the best of his ability. He went over his notes
+carefully and dealt with the evidence of each of the witnesses. It was
+for the jury to say what evidence they believed and what they
+disbelieved. There was a pronounced conflict of evidence between Hill and
+Fanning. They were the chief witnesses in the case, but the guilt or
+innocence of the prisoner did not rest entirely upon the evidence of
+either of these witnesses. Hill might be speaking the truth and the
+prisoner might be innocent though the presumption would be, if Hill's
+evidence were truthful in every detail, that the prisoner was guilty.
+Fanning's evidence might be true as far as it went, but it would not in
+itself prove that the prisoner was innocent. Hill had admitted that he
+had drawn the plan of Riversbrook to assist Birchill to commit burglary.
+It was for the jury to determine for themselves whether he had been
+terrorised into drawing the plan for Birchill or whether he was the
+instigator of the burglary.
+
+The defence had contended that Hill had drawn the plan at his leisure
+at a time when he had access to a special quality of paper supplied to
+his master. If that were so, Hill's version of how he came to draw the
+plan was deliberately false and had been concocted for the purpose of
+exculpating himself. But they would not be justified in dismissing
+Hill's evidence entirely from their minds because they were satisfied
+he had perjured himself with regard to the plan. They would be
+justified, however, in viewing the rest of his evidence with some
+degree of distrust. Counsel for the defence had made an ingenious use
+of the facts that the body of the victim was fully dressed when
+discovered and that none of the electric lights in the house were
+burning. These facts lent support to the idea that the murder was
+committed in daylight, but they by no means established the theory as
+unassailable. They did not establish the innocence of the prisoner,
+although to some extent they told in his favour. Counsel for the
+prosecution had put before them several theories to account for these
+two facts consistent with his contention that the murder had been
+committed by the prisoner. The jury must give full consideration to
+these theories as well as to the theory of the defence. They were not
+called upon to say which theory was true except in so far as their
+opinions might be implied in the verdict they gave.
+
+The defence, continued His Honour, was that Hill had committed the murder
+and had then decided to direct suspicion to the prisoner. If the jury
+acquitted the prisoner, their verdict would not necessarily mean that
+they endorsed the theory of the defence. It might mean that, but it might
+mean only that they were not satisfied that the prisoner had committed
+the murder. If the jury were convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that
+the prisoner had committed the murder, they must bring in a verdict of
+"guilty," and if they were not satisfied they must bring in a verdict of
+acquittal.
+
+The jury filed out of their apartment, and as they retired to consider
+their verdict the judge retired to his own room. The prisoner was removed
+from the dock and taken down the stairs out of sight. There was an
+immediate hum of voices in the court. Inspector Chippenfield approached
+the table and whispered to Mr. Walters. The latter nodded affirmatively
+and left the court room in company with Mr. Holymead. The sibilant sound
+of whispering voices died down after a few minutes and then began the
+long tedious wait for the return of the jury.
+
+The occupants of the gallery, who had no difficulty in coming to an
+immediate decision on the guilt or innocence of the prisoner, could not
+understand what was keeping the jury away so long. They failed to
+understand the jury's point of view. These gentlemen had sat in court for
+three days listening intently to proceedings concerning a matter in which
+their degree of personal interest was only a form of curiosity. And now
+the end of the case had been reached, except for the climax, which was in
+their control. To arrive at an immediate decision in a case that had
+occupied the court for three days would indicate they had no proper
+realisation of the responsibilities of their position. A verdict was a
+thing that had to be nicely balanced in relation to the evidence. Where
+the case against the prisoner was weak or overwhelmingly strong, the jury
+might arrive at a verdict with great speed as an indication that too much
+of their valuable time had already been wasted on the case. But where the
+evidence for and against the prisoner was fairly equal it behoved the
+jury to indicate by the time they took in arriving at their verdict that
+they had given the case the most careful consideration.
+
+Two hours and twenty minutes after the jury had retired, the prisoner was
+brought back into the dock. This was an indication that the jury had
+arrived at their verdict and were ready to deliver it. The prisoner
+looked worn and anxious, but he received encouraging smiles from his
+friends in the gallery. A minute later the judge entered the court and
+resumed his seat. The jury filed into court and entered the jury-box.
+Amid the noise of barristers resuming their seats and court officials
+gliding about, the judge's Associate called over the names of the
+jurymen. The suspense reached its climax as the Associate put the formal
+questions to the foreman whether the jury had agreed on their verdict.
+
+"What say you: guilty or not guilty?" asked the Associate in a hard
+metallic voice in which there was no trace of interest in the answer.
+
+"Not guilty," replied the foreman.
+
+There was a muffled cheer from the gallery, which was suppressed by the
+stentorian cry of the ushers, "Silence in the court!"
+
+"A pack of damned fools," said the exasperated Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+Rolfe understood that his chief referred to the jury, and he nodded the
+assent of a subordinate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+"Hill has bolted!"
+
+Rolfe flung the words at Inspector Chippenfield in a tone which he was
+unable to divest entirely of satisfaction. "Fancy his being the guilty
+party after all," he added, with the tone of satisfaction still more
+evident in his voice. "I often thought that he was our man, and that he
+was playing with you--I mean with us."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield had betrayed surprise at the news by dropping his
+pen on the official report he was preparing. But it was in his usual tone
+of cold official superiority that he replied:
+
+"Do you mean that Hill, the principal witness in the Riversbrook murder
+trial, has disappeared from London?"
+
+"Disappeared from London? He's bolted clean out of the country by this
+time, I tell you! Cleared out for good and left his unfortunate wife and
+child to starve."
+
+"How have you learnt this, Rolfe?"
+
+"His wife told me herself. I went to the shop this afternoon to have a
+few words with Hill and see how he felt after the way Holymead had gone
+for him at the trial. His wife burst out crying when she saw me, and she
+told me that her husband had cleared out last night after he came home
+from court. The hardened scoundrel took with him the few pounds of her
+savings which she kept in her bedroom, and had even emptied the contents
+of the till of the few shillings and coppers it contained. All he left
+were the half-pennies in the child's money-box. He cleared out in the
+middle of the night after his wife had gone to bed. He left her a note
+telling her she must get along without him. I have the note here--his
+wife gave it to me."
+
+Rolfe took a dirty scrap of paper out of his pocket-book and laid it
+before Inspector Chippenfield. The paper was a half sheet torn from an
+exercise-book, and its contents were written in faint lead pencil.
+They read:
+
+"Dear Mary:
+
+"I have got to leave you. I have thought it out and this is the only
+thing to do. I am too frightened to stay after what took place in the
+court to-day. I'll make a fresh start in some place where I am not known,
+and as soon as I can send a little money I will send for you and Daphne.
+Keep your heart up and it will be all right.
+
+"Keep on the shop.
+
+"YOUR LOVING HUSBAND."
+
+"The poor little woman is heartbroken," continued Rolfe, when his
+superior officer had finished reading the note. "She wants to know if we
+cannot get her husband back for her. She says the shop won't keep her and
+the child. Unless she can find her husband she'll be turned into the
+streets, because she's behind with the rent, and Hill's taken every penny
+she'd put by."
+
+"Then she'd better go to the workhouse," retorted Inspector Chippenfield
+brutally. "We'd have something to do if Scotland Yard undertook to trace
+all the absconding husbands in London. We can do nothing in the matter,
+and you'd better tell her so."
+
+Inspector Chippenfield handed back Hill's note as he spoke. Rolfe eyed
+him in some surprise.
+
+"But surely you're going to take out a warrant for Hill's arrest?" he
+said.
+
+"Certainly not," responded Inspector Chippenfield impatiently. "I've
+already said that Scotland Yard has something more to do than trace
+absconding husbands. There's nothing to prevent your giving a little of
+your private time to looking for him, Rolfe, if you feel so
+tender-hearted about the matter. But officially--no. I'm astonished at
+your suggesting such a thing."
+
+"It isn't that," replied Rolfe, flushing a little, and speaking with
+slight embarrassment. "But surely after Hill's flight you'll apply for a
+warrant for his arrest on--the other ground."
+
+"On what other ground?" asked his chief coldly.
+
+"Why, on a charge of murdering Sir Horace Fewbanks," Rolfe burst out
+indignantly. "Doesn't this flight point to his guilt?"
+
+"Not in my opinion." Inspector Chippenfield's voice was purely official.
+
+"Why, surely it does!" Rolfe's glance at his chief indicated that there
+was such a thing as carrying official obstinacy too far. "This letter he
+left behind suggests his guilt, clearly enough."
+
+"I didn't notice that," replied Inspector Chippenfield impassively.
+"Perhaps you'll point out the passage to me, Rolfe."
+
+Rolfe hastily produced the note again.
+
+"Look here!"--his finger indicated the place--"'I'm frightened to stay
+after what took place in the court to-day,' Doesn't that mean, clearly
+enough, that Hill realised the acquittal pointed to him as the murderer,
+and he determined to abscond before he could be arrested?"
+
+"So that's your way of looking at it, eh, Rolfe?" said Inspector
+Chippenfield quizzically.
+
+"Certainly it is," responded Rolfe, not a little nettled by his chief's
+contemptuous tone. "It's as plain as a pikestaff that the jury acquitted
+Birchill because they believed Hill was guilty. Holymead made out too
+strong a case for them to get away from--Hill's lies about the plan and
+the fact that the body was fully dressed when discovered."
+
+"You're a young man, Rolfe," responded Inspector Chippenfield in a
+tolerant tone, "but you'll have to shed this habit of jumping impulsively
+to conclusions--and generally wrong conclusions--if you want to succeed
+in Scotland Yard. This letter of Hill's only strengthens my previous
+opinion that a damned muddle-headed jury let a cold-blooded murderer
+loose on the world when they acquitted Fred Birchill of the charge of
+shooting Sir Horace Fewbanks. Why, man alive, Holymead no more believes
+Hill is guilty than I do. He set himself to bamboozle the jury and he
+succeeded. If he had to defend Hill to-morrow he would show the jury that
+Hill couldn't have committed the murder and that it must have been
+committed by Birchill and no one else. He's a clever man, far cleverer
+than Walters, and that is why I lost the case."
+
+"He led Hill into a trap about the plan of Riversbrook," said Rolfe.
+"When I saw that Hill had been trapped on that point I felt we had lost
+the jury."
+
+"Only because the jury were a pack of fools who knew nothing about
+evidence. Granted that Hill lied about the plan--that he drew it up
+voluntarily in his spare time to assist Birchill--it proves nothing. It
+doesn't prove that Hill committed the murder. It only proves that Hill
+was going to share in the proceeds of the burglary; that he was a willing
+party to it. The one big outstanding fact in all the evidence, the fact
+that towered over all the others, is that Birchill broke into the house
+on the night Sir Horace Fewbanks was murdered. The defence made no
+attempt to get away from that fact because they could not do so. But
+Holymead vamped up all sorts of surmises and suppositions for the purpose
+of befogging the jury and getting their minds away from the outstanding
+feature of the case for the prosecution. We proved that Birchill was in
+the house on a criminal errand. What more could they expect us to prove?
+They couldn't expect us to have a man looking through the window or
+hiding behind the door when the murder was committed. If we could get
+evidence of that kind we could do without juries. We could hang our man
+first and try him afterwards. I don't think a verdict of acquittal from a
+befogged jury would do so much harm in such a case."
+
+"You are still convinced that Birchill did it?" said Rolfe
+questioningly.
+
+"I have never wavered from that opinion," said his superior. "If I had,
+this note of Hill's would restore my conviction in Birchill's guilt."
+
+"Why, how do you make out that?" replied Rolfe blankly.
+
+"Hill says he's clearing out of the country because he's frightened.
+What's he frightened of? His own guilty conscience and the long arm of
+the law? Not a bit of it! Hill's an innocent man. If he had been guilty
+he'd never have stood the ordeal of the witness-box and the
+cross-examination. Hill's cleared out because he was frightened of
+Birchill."
+
+"Of Birchill?"
+
+"Yes. Didn't Birchill tell Hill, just before he set out for Riversbrook
+on the night of the murder, that if Hill played him false he'd murder
+him? Hill _did_ play him false, not then, but afterwards, when he made
+his confession and Birchill was arrested for the murder in consequence.
+When Birchill was acquitted at the trial his first thought would be to
+wreak vengeance on Hill. A man with one murder on his soul would not be
+likely to hesitate about committing another. Hill knew this, and fled to
+save his life when Birchill was acquitted. That's the explanation of his
+letter, Rolfe."
+
+"So that's the way you look at it?" said Rolfe.
+
+"Of course I do! It's the only way Hill's flight can be looked at in the
+light of all that's happened. The theory dovetails in every part. I'm
+more used than you to putting these things together, Rolfe. Hill's as
+innocent of the murder as you are."
+
+"And where do you think Hill's gone to?"
+
+"Certainly not out of London. He's too much of a Cockney for that.
+Besides, he's a man who is fond of his wife and child. He's hiding
+somewhere close at hand, and I shouldn't wonder if the whole thing's a
+plant between him and his wife. Have you forgotten how she tried to
+hoodwink us before? I'll go to the shop to-morrow and see if I can't
+frighten the truth out of her. Meanwhile, you'd better put the Camden
+Town police on to watching the shop. If he's hiding in London he's bound
+to visit his wife sooner or later, or she'll visit him, so we ought not
+to have much difficulty in getting on to his tracks again."
+
+Rolfe departed, to do his chief's bidding, a little crestfallen. He was
+at first inclined to think that he had made a bit of a fool of himself in
+his desire to prove to Inspector Chippenfield that he had been hoodwinked
+by Hill into arresting Birchill. But that night, as he sat in his bedroom
+smoking a quiet pipe, and reviewing this latest phase of the puzzling
+case, the earlier doubts which had assailed him on first learning of
+Hill's flight recurred to him with increasing force. If Hill were
+innocent he would have been more likely to seek police protection before
+flight. Hill's flight was hardly the action of an innocent man. It
+pointed more to a guilty fear of his own skin, now that the man he had
+accused of the murder was free to seek vengeance. Chippenfield's theory
+seemed plausible enough at first sight, but Rolfe now recalled that he
+knew nothing of the missing letters and Hill's midnight visit to
+Riversbrook to recover them. Rolfe had concealed that episode from his
+superior officer because he lacked the courage to reveal to him how he
+had been hoodwinked by Mrs. Holymead's fainting fit the morning he was
+conducting his official inquiry at Riversbrook into the murder.
+
+"It's an infernally baffling case," muttered Rolfe, refilling his pipe
+from a tin of tobacco on the mantelpiece, and walking up and down the
+cheap lodging-house drugget with rapid strides. "If Birchill is not the
+murderer who is? Is it Hill?"
+
+He lit his pipe, closed the window, opened his pocket-book and sat down
+to peruse the notes he had taken during his investigation of Sir Horace
+Fewbanks's murder. He read and re-read them, earnestly searching for a
+fresh clue in the pencilled pages. After spending some time in this
+occupation he took a clean sheet of paper and a pencil, and copied afresh
+the following entries from his notebook:
+
+August 19. Went Riversbrook. Saw Sir H.F.'s body. Discovered fragment of
+lady's handkerchief clenched in right hand.
+
+August 22. Made inquiries handkerchief. Unable find where purchased.
+
+September 8. Found Hill at Riversbrook searching Sir H.F.'s papers. Told
+me about bundle of lady's letters tied up with pink ribbon which had been
+taken from secret drawer. Says they disappeared morning after murder when
+investigation was taking place. C.'s visitors that day: Dr. Slingsby /
+Seldon to arrange inquest / newspaper men / undertaker's representatives
+/ Crewe. C. saw one visitor alone, Hill says. Mrs. H----, who fainted. C.
+fetched glass of water, leaving her alone in room. Hill suggests her
+letters indicate friendly relations between her and Sir H.F. Sir H.F.
+expected visit, probably from lady, night of murder. Hurried Hill off
+when he returned from Scotland. Mem: Inadvisable disclose this to C.
+
+Underneath his entries of the case Rolfe had written finally:
+
+Points to be remembered:
+
+(1) Crewe said before the trial that Birchill was not the murderer and
+    would be acquitted. Birchill was acquitted.
+
+(2) Crewe suggested we had not got the whole truth out of Hill. Hill
+    disappears the night after the trial. Is Hill the murderer?
+
+(3) The handkerchief and the letters point to a woman in the case,
+    although this was not brought out at the trial. Is it possible that
+    woman is Mrs. H.?
+
+Rolfe realised that the chief pieces of the puzzle were before him, but
+the difficulty was to put them together. He felt sure there was a
+connection between these facts, which, if brought to light, would solve
+the Riversbrook mystery. Without knowing it, he had been so influenced by
+Crewe's analysis of the case that he had practically given up the idea
+that Birchill had anything to do with the murder. His real reason for
+going to Hill's shop that morning was to try and extract something from
+Hill which might put him on the track of the actual murderer. He believed
+Hill knew more than he had divulged. Hill, before his disappearance, had
+placed in his hands an important clue, if he only knew how to follow it
+up. That incident of the missing letters must have some bearing on the
+case, if he could only elucidate it.
+
+Should he disclose to Chippenfield Hill's story of the missing letters?
+Rolfe dismissed the idea as soon as it crossed his mind. He knew his
+superior officer sufficiently well to understand that he would be very
+angry to learn that he had been deceived by Mrs. Holymead, and, as she
+was outside the range of his anger, he would bear a grudge against his
+junior officer for discovering the deception which had been practised on
+him, and do all he could to block his promotion in Scotland Yard in
+consequence. Apart from that, he could offer Chippenfield no excuse for
+not having told him before.
+
+Should he consult Crewe?
+
+Rolfe dismissed that thought also, but more reluctantly. Hang it all, it
+was too humiliating for an accredited officer of Scotland Yard to consult
+a private detective! Rolfe had acquired an unwilling respect for Crewe's
+abilities during the course of the investigations into the Riversbrook
+case, but he retained all the intolerance which regular members of the
+detective force feel for the private detectives who poach on their
+preserves. Rolfe's professional jealousy was intensified in Crewe's case
+because of the brilliant successes Crewe had achieved during his career
+at the expense of the reputation of Scotland Yard. Rolfe had an
+instinctive feeling that Crewe's mind was of finer quality than his own,
+and would see light where he only groped in darkness. If Crewe had been
+his superior officer in Scotland Yard, Rolfe would have gone to him
+unhesitatingly and profited by his keener vision, but he could not do so
+in their existing relative positions. He ransacked his brain for some
+other course.
+
+After long consideration, Rolfe decided to go and see Mrs. Holymead and
+question her about the packet of letters which Hill declared she had
+removed from Riversbrook after the murder. He realised that this was
+rather a risky course to pursue, for Mrs. Holymead was highly placed and
+could do him much harm if she got her husband to use his influence at the
+Home Office, for then he would have to admit that he had gone to her
+without the knowledge of his superior officer, on the statement of a
+discredited servant who had arranged a burglary in his master's house the
+night he was murdered. Nevertheless, Rolfe decided to take the risk. The
+chance of getting somewhere nearer the solution of the Riversbrook
+mystery was worth it, and what a feather in his cap it would be if he
+solved the mystery! He was convinced that Chippenfield had shut out
+important light on the mystery by doggedly insisting, in order to
+buttress up his case against Birchill, that the piece of handkerchief
+which had been found in the dead man's hand was a portion of a
+handkerchief which had belonged to the girl Fanning, and had been brought
+by Birchill from the Westminster flat on the night of the murder. It was
+more likely, in view of Hill's story of the letters, that the
+handkerchief belonged to Mrs. Holymead. Rolfe had not made up his mind
+that Mrs. Holymead had committed the murder, but he was convinced that
+she and her letters had some connection with the baffling crime, and he
+determined to try and pierce the mystery by questioning her. Having
+arrived at this decision, he replaced his notebook in his coat pocket,
+knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and went to bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Rolfe went to Hyde Park next day and walked from the Tube station
+to Holymead's house at Princes Gate. The servant who answered his
+ring informed him, in reply to his question, that Mrs. Holymead was
+"Not at home."
+
+"Do you know when she will be home?" persisted Rolfe, forestalling an
+evident desire on the servant's part to shut the door in his face.
+
+The man looked at Rolfe doubtfully. Well-trained English servant though
+he was, and used to summing up strangers at a glance, he could not quite
+make out who Rolfe might be. But before he could come to a decision on
+the point a feminine voice behind him said:
+
+"What is it, Trappon?"
+
+The servant turned quickly in the direction of the voice. "It's a
+er--er--party who wants to see Madam, mademoiselle," he replied.
+
+"_Parti?_ What mean you by _parti_? Explain yourself, Trappon."
+
+"A person--a gentleman, mademoiselle," replied Trappon, determined to be
+on the safe side.
+
+"Open the door, Trappon, that I may see this gentleman."
+
+Trappon somewhat reluctantly complied, and a young lady stepped forward.
+She was tall and dark, with charming eyes which were also shrewd; she had
+a fine figure which a tight-fitting dress displayed rather too boldly for
+good taste, and she was sufficiently young to be able to appear quite
+girlish in the half light.
+
+"You wish to see Madame Holymead?" she said to Rolfe. Her manner was
+engagingly pleasant and French.
+
+Rolfe felt it incumbent upon him to be gallant in the presence of the
+fair representative of a nation whom he vaguely understood placed
+gallantry in the forefront of the virtues. He took off his hat with a
+courtly bow.
+
+"I do, mademoiselle," he replied, "and my business is important."
+
+"Then, monsieur, step inside if you will be so good, and I will see you."
+
+She led Rolfe to a small, prettily-furnished room at the end of the hall,
+and carefully shut the door. Then she invited Rolfe to be seated, and
+asked him to state his business.
+
+But this was precisely what Rolfe was not anxious to do except to Mrs.
+Holymead herself.
+
+"My business is private, and must be placed before Mrs. Holymead," he
+said firmly. "I wish to see her."
+
+"I regret, monsieur, but Madame Holymead is out of town. She went last
+week. If you had only come before she went"--Mademoiselle Chiron looked
+genuinely sorry.
+
+Rolfe was a little taken aback at this intelligence, and showed it.
+
+"Out of town!" he repeated. "Where has she gone to?"
+
+She looked at him almost timidly.
+
+"But, monsieur, I do not know if I ought to tell you without knowing who
+you are. Are you a friend of Madame's?"
+
+"My name is Detective Rolfe--I come from Scotland Yard," replied Rolfe,
+in the authoritative tone of a man who knew that the disclosure was sure
+to command respect, if not a welcome.
+
+"Scotland? You come from Scotland? Madame will regret much that she has
+missed you."
+
+"Scotland Yard, I said," corrected Rolfe, "not Scotland."
+
+"Is it not the same?" Mademoiselle Chiron looked at him helplessly.
+"Scotland Yard--is it not in Scotland? What is the difference?"
+
+Rolfe, with a Londoner's tolerance for foreign ignorance, painstakingly
+explained the difference. She looked so puzzled that he felt sure she did
+not understand him. But that, he reflected, was not his fault.
+
+"So you see, mademoiselle, my business with Mrs. Holymead is important,
+therefore I'll be obliged if you will tell me where I can find her," he
+said. "In what part of the country is she?"
+
+Mademoiselle Chiron looked distressed. "Really, monsieur, I cannot tell
+you. She is motoring, and I should have been with her but that I have _un
+gros rhume"_--she produced a tiny scrap of lace handkerchief and held it
+to her nose as though in support of her statement--"and she rings me on
+the telephone from different places and tells me the things she does
+need, and I do send them on to her."
+
+"Where does she ring you up from?" asked Rolfe, eyeing Mademoiselle
+Chiron's handkerchief intently.
+
+"From Brighton--from Eastbourne--wherever she stops."
+
+"What place was she stopping at when you heard from her last?"
+
+"Eastbourne, monsieur."
+
+"And when will she return here?"
+
+"That, monsieur, I do not know. To-night--to-morrow--next week--she does
+not tell me. If Monsieur will leave me a message I will see that she gets
+it, for it is always me she wants, and it is always me that talks to her.
+What shall I tell her when next she rings the telephone? If Monsieur will
+state his business I will tell Madame what he tells me. I am Madame's
+cousin by marriage--in me she has confidence."
+
+She spoke in a tone which invited confidence, but Rolfe was not prepared
+to go to the length of trusting the young woman he saw before him,
+despite her assurance that she was in the confidence of Mrs. Holymead. He
+rose to his feet with a keen glance at Mademoiselle Chiron's
+handkerchief, which she had rolled into a little ball in her hand.
+
+"I cannot disclose my business to you, mademoiselle," he said
+courteously. "I must see Mrs. Holymead personally, so I shall call again
+when she has returned."
+
+"But, monsieur, why will you not tell me?" she asked coaxingly. "You are
+a police agent? Have you therefore come to see Madame about the case?"
+
+Rolfe showed that he was taken aback by the direct question.
+
+"The case!" he stammered. "What case?"
+
+"Why, monsieur, what case should it be but that of which I have so often
+heard Madame speak? Le judge--the good friend of Monsieur and Madame
+Holymead, who was killed by the base assassin! Madame is disconsolate
+about his terrible end!" Mademoiselle Chiron here applied the
+handkerchief to her eyes on her own account. "Have you come to tell her
+that you have caught the wicked man who did assassinate him? Madame will
+be overjoyed!"
+
+"Why, hardly that," replied Rolfe, completely off his guard. "But we're
+on the track, mademoiselle--we're on the track."
+
+"And is it that you wanted me to tell Madame?" persisted
+Mademoiselle Chiron.
+
+"I wanted to ask her a question or two about several things," said Rolfe,
+who had determined to disclose his hand sufficiently to bring Mrs.
+Holymead back to London if she had anything to do with the crime. "I want
+to ask her about some letters that were stolen--no, I won't say
+stolen--letters that were removed from Riversbrook. I have been informed
+that even if these letters are no longer in existence she can give the
+police a good idea of what was in them."
+
+The telephone bell in the corner of the room rang suddenly. Mademoiselle
+Chiron ran to answer it, and accidentally dropped her handkerchief on the
+floor in picking up the receiver.
+
+Mademoiselle Chiron began speaking on the telephone, but she stopped
+suddenly, staring with frightened eyes into the mirror at the other side
+of the room. The glass reflected the actions of Rolfe at the table.
+Seated with his back towards her, he had taken advantage of her being
+called to the telephone to examine her handkerchief, which he had picked
+up from the floor. He had produced from his pocketbook the scrap of lace
+and muslin which he had found in the murdered man's hand. He had the two
+on the table side by side comparing them, and Mademoiselle Chiron noticed
+a smile of satisfaction flit across his face as he did so. While she
+looked he restored the scrap to his pocket-book, and the pocket-book to
+his pocket. Hastily she turned to the telephone again and continued, in a
+voice which a quick ear would have detected was slightly hysterical.
+
+Then she hung up the receiver and turned to Rolfe.
+
+"But, monsieur, you were saying--"
+
+Rolfe handed the handkerchief to its owner with a courtly bow which he
+flattered himself was equal to the best French school.
+
+"I picked this up off the floor, mademoiselle. It is yours, I think?"
+
+"This?" Mademoiselle Chiron touched the handkerchief with a dainty
+forefinger. "It is my handkerchief. I dropped it."
+
+"It is very pretty," said Rolfe, with simulated indifference. "I suppose
+you bought that in Paris. It does not look English,''
+
+"But no, monsieur, it is quite Engleesh. I bought it in the shop."
+
+"Indeed! A London shop?" inquired Rolfe, with equal indifference.
+
+"The _lingerie_ shop in Oxford Street--what do you call it--Hobson's?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know--these ladies' things are a bit out of my line,"
+said Rolfe, rising as he spoke with a smile, in which there was more
+than a trace of self-satisfaction.
+
+He felt that he had acquitted himself with an adroitness which Crewe
+himself might have envied. He had made an important discovery and
+extracted the name of the shop where the handkerchief had been bought
+without--so he flattered himself--arousing any suspicions on the part of
+the lady. Rolfe knew from his inquiries in West End shops that
+handkerchiefs of that pattern and quality were stocked by many of the
+good shops, but the fact that he had found a handkerchief of this kind in
+the house of a lady who had abstracted secret letters from the murdered
+man's desk, and had, moreover, discovered the name of the shop where she
+bought her handkerchiefs, convinced him that he had struck a path which
+must lead to an important discovery.
+
+Mademoiselle Chiron followed Rolfe into the hall and watched his
+departure from a front window. When she saw his retreating figure turn
+the corner of the street she left the window, ran upstairs quickly, and
+knocked lightly at the closed door.
+
+The door was opened by Mrs. Holymead, who appeared to be in a state of
+nervous agitation. Her large brown eyes were swollen and dim with
+weeping, her hair had become partly unloosened, her face was white and
+her dress disordered. She caught the Frenchwoman by the wrist and drew
+her into the bedroom, closing the door after her.
+
+"What did he want, Gabrielle?" she gasped. "What did he say? Has he come
+about--_that_?"
+
+Gabrielle nodded her head.
+
+"Gabrielle!" Mrs. Holymead's voice rose almost to a cry. "Oh, what are we
+to do? Did he come to arrest--"
+
+"No, no! He was not so bad. He did not come to do dreadful things, but
+just to have a little talk.''
+
+"A little talk? What about?"
+
+"He wanted to see you, and ask you one or two little questions. I put
+him off. He was like wax in my hands. Pouf! He has gone, so why trouble?"
+
+"But he will come again! He is sure to come again!"
+
+"No doubt. He says he will come again--in a week--when you return."
+
+Mrs. Holymead wrung her hands helplessly.
+
+"What are we to do then?" she wailed.
+
+"We will look the tragedy in the face when it comes. _Ma foi!_ What have
+you been doing to yourself? For nothing is it worth to look like _that_."
+With deft and loving fingers Gabrielle began to arrange Mrs. Holymead's
+hair. "We will have everything right before this little police agent
+returns. We will show him he is the complete fool for suspecting you know
+about the murder."
+
+"But what can you do, Gabrielle?" asked Mrs. Holymead.
+
+She looked at Gabrielle with her large brown eyes, as though she were
+utterly dependent on the other's stronger will for support and
+assistance. Mademoiselle Chiron stopped in her arrangement of Mrs.
+Holymead's hair and, bending over, kissed her affectionately.
+
+"_Ma petite_," she said, "do not worry. I have thought of a plan--oh, a
+most excellent plan--which I will myself execute to-morrow, and then
+shall all your troubles be finished, and you will be happy again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+"A lady to see you, sir."
+
+"What sort of a lady, Joe?"
+
+"Furren, I should say, sir, by the way she speaks. I arskt her if she had
+an appointment, and she said no, but she said she wanted to see you on
+very urgent and particular business. I told her most people says that wot
+comes to see you, but she says hers was _reely_ important. Arskt me to
+tell you, sir, that it was about the Riversbrook case."
+
+"The Riversbrook case? I'll see her, Joe. Has not Stork returned yet?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Tell him to go to his dinner when he comes back. Show the lady in, Joe."
+
+Crewe regarded his caller keenly as Joe ushered her in, placed a chair
+for her, and went out, closing the door noiselessly behind him. She was a
+tall, well-dressed, graceful woman, fairly young, with dark hair and
+eyes. She looked quickly at the detective as she entered, and Crewe was
+struck by the shrewd penetration of her glance.
+
+"You are Monsieur Crewe, the great detective--is it not so?" she asked,
+as she sat down. The glance she now gave the detective at closer range
+from her large dark eyes was innocent and ingenuous, with a touch of
+admiration. The contrast between it and her former look was not lost on
+Crewe, and he realised that his visitor was no ordinary woman.
+
+"My name is Crewe," he said, ignoring the compliment. "What do you wish
+to see me for?"
+
+The visitor did not immediately reply. She nervously unfastened a bag she
+carried, and taking out a singularly unfeminine-looking handkerchief--a
+large cambric square almost masculine in its proportions, and guiltless
+of lace or perfume--held it to her face for a moment. But Crewe noticed
+that her eyes were dry when she removed it to remark:
+
+"What I say to you, monsieur, is in strictest confidence--as sacred as
+the confession."
+
+"Anything you say to me will be in strict confidence," said Crewe a
+little grimly.
+
+"And the boy? Can he not hear through the keyhole?" Crewe's visitor
+glanced expressively at the door by which she had entered.
+
+"You are quite safe here, madame--mademoiselle, I should say," he added,
+with a quick glance at her left hand, from which she slowly removed the
+glove as she spoke.
+
+"Mademoiselle Chiron, monsieur," said Gabrielle, flashing another smile
+at him. "I am Madame Holymead's relative--her cousin. I come to see you
+about the dreadful murder of the judge, Madame's friend."
+
+"You come from Mrs. Holymead?" said Crewe quickly. "Then, Mademoiselle
+Chiron, before--"
+
+"No, no, monsieur, no!" Her agitation was unmistakably genuine. "I do not
+come _from_ Madame Holymead. I am her relative, it is true, but I
+come--how shall I say it?--from myself. I mean she does not know of my
+visit to you, monsieur."
+
+"I quite understand," replied Crewe.
+
+"Monsieur Crewe," said Gabrielle hurriedly, "although I have not come
+from Madame Holymead, it is for her sake that I come to see you--to save
+her from the persecution of one of your police agents who wants to ask
+her questions about this so sordid--so terrible a crime! He has come
+once, this agent--last night he came--and he told me he wanted to
+question Madame Holymead about the murder of her dear friend the judge. I
+do not want Madame worried with these questions, so I told him Madame was
+away in the motor in the country; but he says he will come again and
+again till he sees her. Madame is distracted when she learns of his
+visit; it opens up her bleeding heart afresh, for she and her husband
+were _intime_ with the dead judge, and deeply, terribly, they deplore his
+so dreadful end. I see Madame cry, and I say to myself I will not let
+this little police agent spoil her beauty and give her the migraine: his
+visits must be, shall be, prevented. I have heard of the so great and
+good Monsieur Crewe, and I will go and see him. We will--as you say in
+your English way--put our heads together, this famous detective and I,
+and we will find some way of--how do you call it?--circumventing this
+police agent so that my dear Madame shall cry no more. Monsieur Crewe, I
+am here, and I beg of you to help me."
+
+Crewe listened to this outburst with inward surprise but impassive
+features. Apparently the police had come to the conclusion that they had
+blundered in arresting Birchill for the murder of Sir Horace Fewbanks,
+and had recommenced inquiries with a view to bringing the crime home to
+somebody else. He did not know whether their suspicions were now directed
+against Mrs. Holymead, but they had conducted their preliminary inquiries
+so clumsily as to arouse her fears that they did. So much was apparent
+from Mademoiselle Chiron's remarks, despite the interpretation she sought
+to place on Mrs. Holymead's fears. He wondered if the "police agent" was
+Rolfe or Chippenfield. It was obvious that the cool proposal that he
+should help to shield Mrs. Holymead against unwelcome police attentions
+covered some deeper move, and he shaped his conversation in the endeavour
+to extract more from the Frenchwoman.
+
+"I am very sorry to hear that Mrs. Holymead has been subjected to this
+annoyance," he said warily. "This police agent, did he come by himself?"
+
+"But yes, monsieur, I have already said it."
+
+"I know, but I thought he might have had a companion waiting for him in
+a taxi-cab outside. Scotland Yard men frequently travel in pairs."
+
+"He had no taxi-cab," declared Mademoiselle Chiron, positively. "He
+walked away on foot by himself. I watched him from the window."
+
+Crewe registered a mental note of this admission. If she had watched the
+detective's departure from the window she evidently had some reason for
+wanting to see the last of him. Aloud he said:
+
+"I expect I know him. What was he like?"
+
+"Tall, as tall as you, only bigger--much bigger. And he had the great
+moustache which he caressed again and again with his fingers." Gabrielle
+daintily imitated the action on her own short upper lip.
+
+"I know him," declared Crewe with a smile. "His name is Rolfe. There
+should be nothing about him to alarm you, mademoiselle. Why, he is quite
+a ladies' man."
+
+Gabrielle shrugged her shoulders disdainfully.
+
+"That may be," she replied; "but I like him not, and I do not wish him to
+worry Madame Holymead."
+
+"But why not let him see Mrs. Holymead?" suggested Crewe, after a short
+pause. "As he only wants to ask her a few short questions, it seems to me
+that would be the quickest way out of the difficulty, and would save you
+all the trouble and worry you speak of."
+
+"I tell you I will not," declared Gabrielle vehemently. "I will not have
+Madame Holymead worried and made ill with the terrible ordeal. Bah! What
+do you men--so clumsy--know of the delicate feelings of a lady like
+Madame Holymead? The least soupcon of excitement and she is disturbed,
+distraite, for days. After last night--after the visit of the police
+agent--she was quite hysterical."
+
+"Why should she be when she had nothing to be afraid of?" rejoined Crewe.
+
+He spoke in a tone of simple wonder, but Gabrielle shot a quick glance
+at him from under her veiled lashes as she replied:
+
+"Bah! What has that to do with it? I repeat: Monsieur Crewe, you men
+cannot understand the feelings of a lady like Madame Holymead in a matter
+like this. She and her husband were, as I have said before, _intime_ with
+the great judge. They visited his house, they dined with him, they met
+him in Society. Behold, he is brutally, horribly killed. Madame, when she
+hears the terrible news, is ill for days; she cannot eat, she cannot
+sleep; she can interest herself in nothing. She is forgetting a little
+when the police agents they catch a man and say he is the murderer. Then
+comes the trial of this man at the court with so queer a name--Old
+Bailee. The papers are full of the terrible story again; of the dead man;
+how he looked killed; how he lay in a pool of blood; how they cut him
+open! Madame Holymead cannot pick up a paper without seeing these things,
+and she falls ill again. Then the jury say the man the police agents
+caught is not the murderer. He goes free, and once more the talk dies
+away. Madame Holymead once more begins to forget, when this police agent
+comes to her house to remind her once more all about it. It is too cruel,
+monsieur, it is too cruel!"
+
+Gabrielle's voice vibrated with indignation as she concluded, and Crewe
+regarded her closely. He decided that her affection for Mrs. Holymead
+was not simulated, and that it would be best to handle her from that
+point of view.
+
+"I am sorry," he said coldly, "but I do not see how I can help you."
+
+"Monsieur," said the Frenchwoman, clasping her hands, "I entreat you not
+to say so. It would be so easy for you to help--not me, but Madame."
+
+"How?"
+
+"You know this police agent. You also are a police agent, though so much
+greater. Therefore you whisper just one little word in the ear of your
+friend the police agent, and he will not bother Madame Holymead again. I
+think you could do this. And if you need money to give to the police
+agent, why, I have brought some." She fumbled nervously at her hand-bag.
+
+"Stay," said Crewe. "What you ask is impossible. I have nothing whatever
+to do with Scotland Yard. I could not interfere in their inquiries, even
+if I wished to. They would only laugh at me."
+
+Gabrielle's dark eyes showed her disappointment, but she made one more
+effort to gain her end. She leant nearer to Crewe, and laid a persuasive
+hand on his arm.
+
+"If you would only make the effort," she said coaxingly, "my beautiful
+Madame Holymead would be for ever grateful."
+
+"Mademoiselle, once more I repeat that what you ask is impossible,"
+returned Crewe decisively. "I repeat, I cannot see why Mrs. Holymead
+should object to answering a few questions the police wish to ask her.
+She is too sensitive about such a trifle."
+
+Gabrielle shrugged her shoulders slightly in tacit recognition of the
+fact that the man in front of her was too shrewd to be deceived by
+subterfuge.
+
+"There is another reason, monsieur," she whispered.
+
+"You had better tell it to me."
+
+"If you had been a woman you would have guessed. The great judge who was
+killed was in his spare moments what you call a gallant--he did love my
+sex. In France this would not matter, but in England they think much of
+it--so very much. Madame Holymead is frightened for fear the least breath
+of scandal should attach to her name, if the world knew that the police
+agent had visited her house on such an errand. Madame is innocent--it is
+not necessary to assure you of that; but the prudish dames of England are
+censorious."
+
+"The Scotland Yard people are not likely to disclose anything about it,"
+said Crewe.
+
+"That may be so, but these things come out," retorted Gabrielle.
+
+"Monsieur," she added, after a pause, and speaking in a low tone, "I
+know that you can do much--very much--if you will, and can stop Madame
+Holymead from being worried. Would you do so if you were told who the
+murderer was--I mean he who did really kill the great judge?" Crewe was
+genuinely surprised, but his control over his features was so complete
+that he did not betray it. "Do you know who Sir Horace Fewbanks's
+murderer is?" he asked, in quiet even tones. "Monsieur, I do. I will tell
+you the whole story in secret--how do you say?--in confidence, if you
+promise me you will help Madame Holymead as I have asked you." "I cannot
+enter into a bargain like that," rejoined Crewe. "I do not know whether
+Mrs. Holymead may not be implicated--concerned--in what you say."
+
+"Monsieur, she is not!" flashed Gabrielle indignantly. "She knows nothing
+about it. What I have to tell you concerns myself alone."
+
+"In that case," rejoined Crewe, "I think you had better speak to me
+frankly and freely, and if I can I will help you."
+
+"You are perhaps right," she replied. "I will tell you everything,
+provided you give me your word of honour that you will not inform the
+police of what I will tell you."
+
+"If you bind me to that promise I do not see how I can help you in the
+direction you indicate," said Crewe, after a moment's thought. "If the
+police are asked to abandon their inquiries about Mrs. Holymead, they
+will naturally wish to know the reason."
+
+"You are quite right," said Gabrielle. "I did not think of that. But if
+I tell you everything, and you have to tell the police agents so as to
+help Madame, will you promise that the police agents do not come and
+arrest _me_?"
+
+"Provided you have not committed murder or been in any way accessory to
+it, I think I can promise you that," rejoined Crewe.
+
+"Monsieur, I do not understand you, but I can almost divine your meaning.
+Your promise is what you call a guarded one. Nevertheless, I like your
+face, and I will trust you."
+
+Gabrielle relapsed into silence for some moments, looking at Crewe
+earnestly.
+
+"Monsieur," she said at length, "it is a terrible story I have to relate,
+and it is difficult for me to tell a stranger what I know. Nevertheless,
+I will begin. I knew the great judge well."
+
+"You knew Sir Horace Fewbanks?" exclaimed Crewe.
+
+"He was--my lover, monsieur."
+
+She brought the last two words out defiantly, with a quick glance
+at Crewe to see how he took the avowal. She seemed to find
+something reassuring in his answering glance, and she continued, in
+more even tones:
+
+"I had often seen him at the house of Madame Holymead when I came to
+London to visit her. I admired Sir Horace when I saw him--often he used
+to call and dine, for he was the friend of Monsieur Holymead. But Madame
+told me that the great judge was what in England you call a lover of the
+ladies--that he was dangerous--so I must be careful of him. I used to
+look at him when he called, and thought he was handsome in the English
+way, and sometimes he looked at me when he was unobserved, and smiled at
+me. But Madame did not like me looking at him; she said I was foolish;
+she warned me to be careful."
+
+Gabrielle shrugged her shoulders expressively.
+
+"Of what use was Madame's warning? It did but make me wish to know more
+of this great lover of my sex. He saw that, and made the opportunity, and
+made love to me. He was so ardent, so fervid a lover that I was
+conquered.
+
+"After we had been lovers I told him my secret--that I was married.
+Pierre Simon, my husband, was a bad man, and so I left him. But Madame
+must not know that I was married, for that is my secret. It does not do
+to tell everything--besides, it would have distressed her.
+
+"Monsieur, I was happy with my lover, the great judge. He was charming.
+He had that charm of manner which you English lack. Faithful? I do not
+know. Often we were together, and often we wrote letters when to meet was
+impossible. He kept my letters--they amused him so, he said--they were so
+French, so piquant, so different to English ladies' letters. Alas,
+monsieur, there had been others--many others there must have been, for he
+understood my sex so well.
+
+"One afternoon I was out for a walk looking in the great shops in Regent
+Street, when I felt a hand placed on my shoulder, and looking round I saw
+Pierre, my husband. He was pleased at the meeting, but I was not pleased.
+He took me to a cafe where we could talk. It was what he always did talk
+about--money, money, money. He always wanted money. He said I must find
+him some, and when I told him I had none he said I must find some way of
+getting it, or he would come to the house and expose my secret. I walked
+away out of the cafe and left him there. But I soon saw him again, and
+again. He followed me and talked to me against my will.
+
+"Monsieur, I was very much distressed, and for a long time I tried to
+think of a way to get rid of Pierre, for I was afraid that he would come
+to the house and tell Madame Holymead I was married. Then I thought of
+the great judge, my lover. He would know how to send Pierre away, for
+Pierre would be frightened of him. But Sir Horace was in Scotland,
+shooting the poor birds. But I wrote to him and asked him for my sake to
+come at once, because I was in distress and needed help. Monsieur, he
+came--but he came to his death. He sent me a letter to meet him at
+Riversbrook at half-past ten o'clock. He was sorry it was so late, but
+he thought it would be safer not to come to the house till after dark in
+the long summer evening, for people were so censorious. I was to tell
+Madame Holymead that I was going to the theatre with a friend.
+
+"I was so pleased to think that I would get rid of Pierre, that on the
+morning, when he stopped me to ask me again about the money, I showed him
+the letter of the great judge, and told him I would make the judge put
+him in prison if he did not go away and leave me alone. 'He is your
+lover,' said Pierre. 'I will kill him.' But I laughed, for I knew Pierre
+did not care if I had many lovers. I said to him, 'Pierre, you would
+extort the money'--blackmail, the English call it, do they not, Monsieur
+Crewe?--'but you would not kill. Sir Horace is not afraid of you. If you
+go near him he would have you taken off to gaol,' But Pierre he was deep
+in thought. Several times he said, 'I want money,' Each time I said to
+him, 'Then you must work for it,' 'That is no way to get money,' he
+answered. 'This great judge, he has much money, is it not so?'
+
+"I left him, monsieur, thinking of money. But I did not know how bad his
+thoughts were. I returned home, and I told Madame Holymead I would go to
+the theatre that night. I left the house at eight o'clock, and after
+walking along Piccadilly and Regent Street took the train to Hampstead.
+Then I walked up to the house of Sir Horace so as not to be too early.
+The gate was open and I thought that strange, but I had no thought of
+murder. As I walked up the garden I heard a shot--two shots--and then a
+cry, and the sound of something falling on the floor. The door of the
+house was open, and the light was burning in the hall. Upstairs I heard
+the noise of footsteps--quick footsteps--and then I heard them coming
+down the staircase. I was afraid, and I hid myself behind the curtains in
+the hall. The footsteps came down, and nearer and nearer, and when they
+passed me I looked out to see. Monsieur, it was Pierre. I called to him
+softly, 'Pierre, Pierre!' He looked round, and his face, it was so
+different--so dreadful. He did not know my voice, and he ran away from me
+with a cry.
+
+"Monsieur, my heart is a brave one. I have not what you call nerves, but
+when I knew I was alone in the great house with I knew not what, a great
+fear clutched me. I stood still in the hall with my eyes fixed on the
+stairs above. At first all was silent, then I heard a dreadful sound--a
+groan. I wanted to run away then, monsieur, but the good God commanded me
+to go up and into the room, where a fellow creature needed me. I went
+upstairs, and along to the door of a room which was half open. I pushed
+it wide open and went in.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_ the judge was alone there, dying. Pierre had shot him. He
+lay along the floor, gasping, groaning, and the blood dripping from his
+breast. When I saw this I ran forward and took his poor head on my knee,
+and tried to stop the blood with my handkerchief. But as I did this the
+judge groaned once more. He knew me not, though I called him by name. In
+terrible agony he writhed his head off my breast. His hand clutched at
+the hole in his breast, closing on my handkerchief. And so he died.
+
+"Monsieur, strange it may seem, but I do assure you that I became calm
+again when he was dead. I rose to my feet and looked round me in the
+room. On the floor near him I saw a revolver. I picked it up and hid it
+in my bag. The tube of it was warm. Then I sat down in a chair and
+thought what I must do. The police must not know I was there. They must
+not know he was my lover. I thought of my letters that I wrote to him. He
+had them hidden in a little drawer at the back of his desk--a secret
+drawer. Often had he showed me my letters there, and once he had showed
+me where to find the spring that opened the drawer. So I searched for the
+spring and I found it. The drawer opened and there were my letters tied
+together. I took them all and hid them in my bag, and then I closed the
+hiding place. There remained but the handkerchief which my lover held in
+his hand. I tried to get it out, but I could not. In my hurry I dragged
+it out--it came away then, but left a little bit in his hand. It did not
+show. I dared not wait longer. I turned out the light, and hurried out of
+the room and downstairs. Again I turned out the light, and closed the
+door, and hurried away.
+
+"That, monsieur, is my story."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+As Gabrielle finished her story, she cast a quick glance at Crewe's face
+as though seeking to divine his decision. But apparently she could read
+nothing there, and with an imperious gesture she exclaimed:
+
+"You will do what I ask now that I have exposed my secret--my shame to
+you--and told everything? You will save Madame Holymead from being
+persecuted by these police agents?"
+
+"I must ask you a few questions first."
+
+The contrast between the detective's quiet English tones and the
+Frenchwoman's impetuous appeal was accentuated by the methodical way in
+which Crewe slowly jotted down an entry in his open notebook. Her dark
+eyes sparkled in an agony of impatience as she watched him.
+
+"Ask them quick, monsieur, for I burn in the suspense."
+
+"In the first place, then, have you any--"
+
+"Hold, monsieur! I know what you would ask! You would say if I have any
+proofs? Stupid that I am to forget things so important. I have brought
+you the proofs."
+
+She fumbled at the clasp of her hand-bag, as she spoke, and before she
+had finished speaking she had torn it open and emptied its contents on
+the table in front of Crewe--a dainty handkerchief and a revolver.
+
+"See, monsieur!" she cried; "here is the handkerchief of which I told
+you. It is that which the judge seized when I tried to stop the blood
+flowing in his breast--look at the corner and you will see that a little
+bit has been torn off by his almost dead hand. And the revolver--it is
+that which I picked up on the floor near him. I have had it locked up
+ever since."
+
+Crewe examined both articles closely. The revolver was a small,
+nickel-plated weapon with silver chasing, with the murdered man's
+initials engraved in the handle. It had five chambers, and one of the
+cartridges had been discharged. The other four chambers were still
+loaded. Crewe carefully extracted the cartridges, and examined them
+closely. One of them he held up to the light in order to inspect it
+more minutely.
+
+"Did you do this?" he asked: "Have you been trying to fire off the
+revolver?"
+
+"No, no, monsieur," she exclaimed quickly. "I would not fire it, I do not
+understand it. I have been careful not to touch the little thing that
+sets it going."
+
+"The trigger," said Crewe. He again studied the cartridge that had
+attracted his attention. It had missed fire, for on the cap was a dint
+where the hammer had struck it. He placed the four cartridges on the
+table and turning his attention to the handkerchief examined it minutely.
+It was one of those filmy scraps of muslin and lace which ladies call a
+handkerchief--an article whose cost is out of all proportion to its
+usefulness. Gabrielle, who was watching him keenly as he examined it,
+exclaimed:
+
+"The handkerchief--a box of them--were given me by Sir Horace because he
+knew I love pretty things."
+
+She laid a finger on the missing corner, which might indeed have been
+torn off in the manner described. A scrap of the lace was missing, and it
+was evident that it had been removed with violence, for the lace around
+the gap was loosened, and the muslin slightly frayed.
+
+"You say that the corner was torn off when you wrenched the handkerchief
+from the dead man's hold?" said Crewe. "But it was not found in his hand
+by the police or anyone else. And he was not buried with it, for I
+examined the body carefully. What became of it?"
+
+Gabrielle looked at him quickly as though she suspected some trap.
+
+"You would play with me," she said at length. "What became of it? Why,
+you must surely know that the police of Scot--Scotland Yard have it. The
+police agent who called on Madame had it. What is his name--Rudolf?"
+
+"Rolfe?" exclaimed Crewe. "Has he got it?"
+
+"Yes," she replied. "He did not show it to me, but I saw it nevertheless.
+I dropped my handkerchief when I spoke at the telephone and Monsieur
+Rolfe picked it up. Quickly he studied my handkerchief--not this one,
+monsieur, but one of the same kind--and from his pocket-book he took out
+the missing piece that was in the dead man's hand and he studied them
+side by side. He thought I did not see--that my back was turned--but I
+saw in the mirror which hung on the wall. Then, when I finished my
+telephone, he bowed and said, 'Your handkerchief, mademoiselle.' It was
+not so badly done--for a clumsy police agent."
+
+She was not able to recognise how keen was Crewe's interest in her
+statement, but she saw that she had pleased him.
+
+"It is because of this that he will come again," she continued. "It is
+because of this that he would question Madame Holymead. And then what
+will happen? I do not know. The police make so many mistakes--blunders
+you English call them. Would they arrest her with their blunders? That is
+why I come to you to ask you to save her."
+
+"May I have the revolver and the handkerchief?" asked Crewe. "I will take
+great care of them."
+
+"They are at your disposal, for you will use them to confront the
+police agent."
+
+Crewe again examined the articles in silence before taking them to his
+secretaire and locking them up in one of the pigeon-holes. Then he turned
+to Gabrielle, whose large luminous eyes met his unhesitatingly. She even
+smiled slightly--a frank engaging smile, as she remarked:
+
+"And now, monsieur, any more questions?"
+
+Crewe smiled back at her.
+
+"You have told a remarkable story, mademoiselle, and corroborated it with
+two important pieces of evidence, which are in themselves almost
+sufficient to carry conviction," he said. "But the Scotland Yard police
+are a suspicious lot, and it is necessary for me to have further
+information in order to convince them--if I am to help you as you wish."
+
+Gabrielle flashed a look of gratitude at Crewe. She understood from his
+words that he believed her story and was disposed to help her, although
+the police of Scotland Yard might prove harder to convince than him.
+
+"Bah! those police agents--they are the same everywhere," she exclaimed.
+"They deal so much with crime that their minds get the taint, and between
+the false and true they cannot tell the difference. _Que voulez-vous?_
+They are but small in brains. With you, the case is different. You have
+it here--and there." She touched her temples lightly with a finger of
+each hand. "Proceed, monsieur: ask me what questions you will. I shall
+endeavour to answer them."
+
+"You said that as you were hiding behind the curtains on the stairway
+landing, Pierre, your husband, rushed down past you. You are quite sure
+it was he?"
+
+"Of that, monsieur, unfortunately there is no doubt. I saw his face quite
+distinctly when he passed me, and when he turned round."
+
+"The light would be shining from behind, and would not reveal his face
+very closely," suggested Crewe.
+
+"Nevertheless, monsieur, it was quite sufficient for me to see Pierre
+clearly. His head was half-turned as he ran, as though he was looking
+back expecting to see the judge rise up and punish him for his dreadful
+deed, and I saw him _en silhouette_, oh, most distinctly--impossible him
+to mistake. I called softly--'Pierre!' just like that, and he turned his
+face right round, and then with a cry he disappeared along the path."
+
+"About what time was this?"
+
+"The time--it was half-past ten, for that was the time I was to be there
+according to the letter the judge sent me."
+
+"But are you sure it was half-past ten? Weren't you early? Wasn't it just
+about ten o'clock?"
+
+"No, monsieur," she replied sadly. "If it had been ten o'clock I would
+have been in time to save the life of my lover--to prevent this great
+tragedy which brings grief to so many."
+
+Crewe looked at her sharply, and then nodded his head in acquiescence of
+the fact that much misery would have been averted if she had been in time
+to save the life of Sir Horace Fewbanks.
+
+"When you went into the room, Sir Horace Fewbanks, you say, was lying on
+the floor, dying. Whereabouts in the room was he?"
+
+"If he had been in this room he would have been lying just behind you,
+with his head to the wall and his feet pointing towards that window. He
+struggled and groaned after I went in, and altered his position a little,
+but not much. He died so."
+
+Crewe rapidly reviewed his recollection of the room in which the judge
+had been killed. Once again Gabrielle's statement tallied with his own
+reconstruction of the crime and the manner of its perpetration. If the
+murder had been committed in his office the second bullet would have gone
+through the window instead of imbedding itself in the wall, and the judge
+would have fallen in the spot where she indicated.
+
+"And where was the writing-desk from where you got your letters?" was
+Crewe's next question.
+
+"It was over there--almost by that--your little bookcase there."
+
+She pointed to a small oaken bookstand which stood slightly in advance
+of the more imposing shelves in which reposed the portentous volumes
+of newspaper clippings and photographs which constituted Crewe's
+"Rogues' Library."
+
+"Now we come to the letters. You took them from the secret drawer in the
+desk. Why did you remove them?"
+
+"Because I would not have the police agents find them, for then they
+would want to know so much."
+
+"And what did you do with them?"
+
+"Monsieur Crewe, I destroyed them. When I got home I burnt them all--I
+was so frightened."
+
+"You mean you were frightened to keep them in your possession after the
+judge was killed?"
+
+"Yes. What place had I to keep them safe from prying eyes? So, monsieur,
+I burnt them all--one by one--and the charred fragments I kept and took
+into the Park next day, where I scattered them unobserved."
+
+"And what became of the letter you wrote to Sir Horace Fewbanks at
+Craigleith Hall, asking him to come to London and save you from your
+husband's persecutions?"
+
+She looked at him earnestly in the endeavour to ascertain if he had laid
+a trap for her.
+
+"Sir Horace destroyed it in Scotland, I suppose, if the police did
+not find it."
+
+"Strange that he should have kept all your other letters so carefully and
+destroyed that one. Perhaps it was in his pocket-book that was stolen."
+
+"I do not know. What does it matter? It has gone." She shrugged her
+shoulders lightly and indifferently.
+
+"Do you know who stole the pocket-book?"
+
+"No, monsieur. I thought it was stolen in the train."
+
+"That is the police theory," replied Crewe. "But let that go. Have you,
+since the night of the murder, seen anything of Pierre?"
+
+"Monsieur, I have not. It is as though the earth has him swallowed. He
+keeps silent with the silence of the grave."
+
+"He is wise to do so," responded Crewe. "Now, mademoiselle, I have no
+more questions to ask you. Your confidence is safe; you need be under no
+apprehensions on that score."
+
+"I care not for myself, Monsieur Crewe, so long as Madame Holymead is
+freed from the persecutions of the police agents," replied Gabrielle,
+rising from her seat as she spoke. "If, after hearing my story, you could
+but give me the assurance--"
+
+"I think I can safely promise you that Mrs. Holymead will not be troubled
+with any further police attentions," said Crewe, after a moment's pause.
+
+Gabrielle broke into profuse expressions of gratitude as she
+turned to go.
+
+"For the rest then, I care not what happens. I am--how do you say it--I
+am overjoyed. _Je vous remercie_, monsieur, I beg you not, I can find my
+way out unattended."
+
+But Crewe showed her to the stairs, where again he had to listen to her
+profuse thanks before she finally departed. He watched her graceful
+figure till it was lost to sight in the winding staircase, and then he
+turned back to his office. In the outer office he stopped to speak to
+Joe, who, perched on an office-footstool, was tapping quickly on the
+office-table with his pen-knife, swaying backwards and forwards
+dangerously on his perch in the intensity of his emotions as he played
+the hero's part in the drama of saving the runaway engine from dashing
+into the 4.40 express by calling up the Red Gulch station on the wire.
+
+"Joe," said Crewe, "I'll see nobody for an hour at least--nobody. You
+understand?"
+
+Joe came out of the cinema world long enough to nod his head in emphatic
+understanding of the instructions. In his own room Crewe pulled out his
+notebook and once more gave himself up to the study of the baffling
+Riversbrook mystery, in the new light of Gabrielle's confession.
+
+Part of her story, he reflected, must be true. She had produced Sir
+Horace's revolver, and, still more important, a handkerchief which he had
+clutched in his dying struggles. It was obvious that she or some other
+woman had been at Riversbrook the night of the murder, and in the room
+with the murdered man before he died. That tallied with Birchill's
+statement to Hill that he had seen a woman close the front door and walk
+along the garden path while he was hiding in the garden. Crewe, recalling
+Gabrielle's description of the room, came to the conclusion that it was
+probably she who had been with the judge in his dying moments. No one but
+a person who had actually seen it could have described the room with such
+minuteness.
+
+She had been in the room, then. For what object? For the reasons stated
+in her confession? Crewe shook his head doubtfully.
+
+"She evaded the trap about the pocket-book, but she made one bad
+mistake," he mused. "The letters in the secret drawer were taken away,
+and I have no doubt were burnt as she says. But were they her letters?
+Was Sir Horace her lover? At any rate, she did not get hold of them in
+the way she said. They were not taken away on the night Sir Horace was
+murdered, for the simple reason that they were not in the secret drawer
+at the time."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+Rolfe was spending a quiet evening in his room after a trying day's
+inquiries into a confidence trick case; inquiries so fruitless that they
+had brought down on his head an official reproof from Inspector
+Chippenfield.
+
+Rolfe had left Scotland Yard that evening in a somewhat despondent frame
+of mind in consequence, but a brisk walk home and a good supper had done
+him so much good, that with a tranquil mind and his pipe in his mouth, he
+was able to devote himself to the hobby of his leisure hours with keen
+enjoyment.
+
+This hobby would have excited the wondering contempt of Joe Leaver, whose
+frequent attendance at cinema theatres had led him to the conclusion that
+police detectives--who, unlike his master, had to take the rough with the
+smooth--spent their spare time practising revolver shooting, and throwing
+daggers at an ace of hearts on the wall. Rolfe's hobby was nothing more
+exciting than stamp collecting. He was deeply versed in the lore of
+stamps, and his private ambition was to become the possessor of a "blue
+Mauritius." His collection, though extensive, was by no means of fabulous
+value, being made up chiefly of modest purchases from the stamp
+collecting shops, and finds in the waste-paper-baskets at Scotland Yard
+after the arrival of the foreign mails.
+
+That day he had made a particularly good haul from the
+waste-paper-baskets, for his "catch" included several comparatively good
+specimens from Japan and Fiji. He sat gloating over these treasures,
+examining them carefully and holding each one up to the light as he
+separated it from the piece of paper to which it had been affixed. He
+pasted them one by one in his stamp album with loving, lingering fingers,
+adjusting each stamp in its little square in the book with meticulous
+care. He was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not hear the
+ascending footsteps drawing nearer to his door, and did not see a visitor
+at the door when the footsteps ceased. It was Crewe's voice that recalled
+him back from the stamp collector's imaginary world.
+
+"Why, Mr. Crewe," said Rolfe, with evident pleasure, "who'd have thought
+of seeing you?"
+
+"Your landlady asked me if I'd come up myself," said Crewe, in explaining
+his intrusion. "She's 'too much worried and put about, to say nothing of
+having a bad back,' to show me upstairs."
+
+"I've never known her to be well," said Rolfe, with a laugh. "Every
+morning when she brings up my breakfast I've got to hear details of her
+bad back which should be kept for the confidential ear of the doctor. But
+she regards me as a son, I think--I've been here so long. But now you are
+here, Mr. Crewe--" Rolfe waited in polite expectation that his visitor
+would disclose the object of his visit.
+
+But Crewe seemed in no hurry to do so. He produced his cigar case and
+offered Rolfe a cigar, which the latter accepted with a pleasant
+recollection of the excellent flavour of the cigars the private detective
+kept. When each of them had his cigar well alight, Crewe glanced at the
+open stamp album and commenced talking about stamps. It was a subject
+which Rolfe was always willing to discuss. Crewe declared that he was an
+ignorant outsider as far as stamps were concerned, but he professed to
+have a respectful admiration for those who immersed themselves in such a
+fascinating subject. Rolfe, with the fervid egoism of the collector,
+talked about stamps for half an hour without recalling that his visitor
+must have come to talk about something else.
+
+"I've got a small stamp collection in my office," said Crewe, when Rolfe
+paused for a moment. "It belonged to that Jewish diamond merchant who was
+shot in Hatton Gardens two years ago. You remember his case?"
+
+"Rather! That was a smart bit of work of yours, Mr. Crewe, in laying
+your hands on the woman who did it and getting back the diamond."
+
+Crewe smiled in response.
+
+"The Jew was very grateful, poor fellow. He died in the hospital after
+the trial, so she was lucky to escape with twelve years. He left me a
+diamond ring and a stamp album that had come into his possession."
+
+"I should like to see it," said Rolfe eagerly. "It is more than likely
+that there are some good specimens in it. The Jews are keen
+collectors. If you let me have a look at it, I'll tell you what the
+collection is worth."
+
+"You can have it altogether," said Crewe. "I'll send my boy Joe round
+with it in the morning."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Crewe, it's very good of you," said Rolfe, with the covetousness
+of the collector shining in his eyes.
+
+"Nonsense! Why shouldn't you have it? But I didn't come round here solely
+to talk about stamps, Rolfe. I came to have a little chat about the
+Riversbrook case. How are you getting on with it?"
+
+"Why, really," said Rolfe, "I've not done much with it since, since--"
+
+"Since Birchill was acquitted, eh! But you are not letting it drop
+altogether, are you? That would be a pity--such an interesting case.
+Whom have you your eye on now as the right man?"
+
+Rolfe, who thought he detected a suspicion of banter in Crewe's
+remarks, evaded the latter question by answering the first part of
+Crewe's inquiry.
+
+"Why hardly that, Mr. Crewe. But the chief is not very keen on the case.
+Birchill's acquittal was too much of a blow to him. He reckons that
+nowadays juries are too soft-hearted to convict on a capital charge."
+
+"It's just as well that they are too soft-hearted to convict the wrong
+man," said Crewe.
+
+"Yes; you told me from the first that we were on the wrong track," was
+the reply. "I haven't forgotten that and the chief is not allowed to
+forget it, either. All the men at the Yard know that you held the
+opinion that we had got hold of the wrong man when we arrested Birchill,
+and he has had to stand so much chaff in the office, that he's pretty raw
+about it." Rolfe spoke in the detached tone of a junior who had no share
+in his chief's mistakes or their attendant humiliation, and he added,
+"That's once more that you've scored over Scotland Yard, Mr. Crewe, and
+you ought to be proud of it." He glanced covertly at Crewe to see how he
+took the flattery.
+
+"So you've done very little about the case since Birchill was acquitted?"
+was his only remark.
+
+"I've been so busy," replied Rolfe, again evading the question, and
+avoiding meeting Crewe's glance by turning over the leaves of his stamp
+album. "You see, there has been a rush of work at Scotland Yard lately.
+There is that big burglary at Lord Emden's, and the case of the woman
+whose body was found in the river lock at Peyton, and half a dozen other
+cases, all important in their way. There has been quite an epidemic of
+crime lately, as you know, Mr. Crewe. I don't seem to get a minute to
+myself these times."
+
+"Rolfe," said Crewe drily, "you protest too much. You don't suppose that
+after coming over here to see you that I can be deceived by such talk?"
+
+Rolfe flushed at these uncompromising words, but before he could speak
+Crewe proceeded in a milder tone.
+
+"I don't blame you a bit for trying to put me off. It's all part of the
+game. We're rivals, in a sense, and you are quite right not to lose sight
+of that fact. But as a detective, Rolfe, your methods lack polish.
+Really, I blush for them. You might have known that I came over here to
+see you to-night because I had an important object in view, and you
+should have tried to find out what it was before playing your own
+cards,--and such cards, too! You're sadly lacking in finesse, Rolfe.
+You'd never make a chess player; your concealed intentions are too
+easily discovered. You must try not to be so transparent if you want to
+succeed in your profession."
+
+Crewe delivered his reproof with such good humour that Rolfe stared at
+him, as if unable to make out what his visitor was driving at.
+
+"I don't know what you are talking about, Mr. Crewe," he said at length.
+
+"Oh, yes, you do. You know I'm speaking about your latest move in the
+Riversbrook case, which you've been so busy with of late. And I've come
+to tell you in a friendly way that once more you're on the wrong track."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Rolfe quickly.
+
+"Why, Princes Gate, of course," replied Crewe cheerily. "You don't
+suppose that a fine-looking young man like yourself could be seen in the
+neighbourhood of Princes Gate without causing a flutter among feminine
+hearts there, do you?"
+
+"So the servants have been talking, have they?" muttered Rolfe.
+
+"They have and they haven't. But that's beside the point. What I want to
+say is that you're on the wrong track in suspecting Mrs. Holymead, and I
+strongly advise you to drop your inquiries if you don't want to get
+yourself into hot water. She's as innocent of the murder of Sir Horace
+Fewbanks as Birchill is, but you cannot afford to make a false shot in
+the case of a lady of her social standing, as you did with a criminal
+like Birchill."
+
+At this rebuke Rolfe gave way to irritation.
+
+"Look here, Mr. Crewe, I'll thank you to mind your own business," he
+said. "It's got nothing to do with you where I make inquiries. I'll have
+you remember that! I don't interfere with you, and I won't have you
+interfering with me."
+
+"But I'm interfering only for your own good, man! What do you suppose I'm
+doing it for? I tell you you're riding for a very bad fall in suspecting
+Mrs. Holymead and shadowing her."
+
+Crewe's plain words were an echo of a secret fear which Rolfe had
+entertained from the time his suspicions were directed towards Mrs.
+Holymead. But he was not going to allow Crewe to think he was alarmed.
+
+"If I'm making inquiries about Mrs. Holymead, it's because I have ample
+justification for doing so," he said stiffly.
+
+"And I tell you that you have not."
+
+"Prove it!" exclaimed Rolfe defiantly.
+
+Crewe produced from his pocket a revolver and a lady's handkerchief, and
+handed them to Rolfe without speaking.
+
+Rolfe's embarrassment was almost equal to his astonishment as he examined
+the articles. In the handkerchief with its missing corner, he speedily
+recognised something for which he had searched in vain. He had never
+confided to Crewe the discovery of the missing corner in the dead man's
+hand, and therefore the production of the handkerchief by Crewe
+considerably embarrassed him. He longed to ask Crewe how he had obtained
+possession of the handkerchief, but he could not trust his voice to frame
+the question without betraying his feelings, so he picked up the revolver
+and examined it closely. Then he put it down and again gave his attention
+to the handkerchief, bending his head over it so that Crewe should not
+see his face.
+
+"You do not seem very astonished at my finds, Rolfe," said Crewe
+quizzically. "Perhaps you've seen these articles before?"
+
+"No, I haven't," said Rolfe, still avoiding his visitor's eye.
+
+"Well, the torn handkerchief is not exactly new to you," said Crewe.
+"You've got the missing part; you found it in Sir Horace's hand after he
+was murdered."
+
+"You're too clever for me, and that's the simple truth, Mr. Crewe,"
+said Rolfe, in a mortified tone. "I did find a small piece of a
+lady's handkerchief in his hand, and here it is." He produced his
+pocket-book and took out the piece. "How you found out I had it, is
+more than I know."
+
+"Mere guess-work," said Crewe.
+
+Rolfe shook his head slowly.
+
+"I know better than that," he said. "You're deep. You don't miss much. I
+wish now that I had told you about that bit of handkerchief at the first.
+But Chippenfield and I wanted to have all the credit of elucidating the
+Riversbrook mystery. I hunted high and low to get trace of this
+handkerchief, but I couldn't. And now you've beaten me, although you
+couldn't have known at first that there was such a thing as a missing
+handkerchief in the case. I hope you bear me no malice, Mr. Crewe."
+
+"What for, Rolfe?"
+
+"For not telling you about the handkerchief, after I found this piece in
+Sir Horace's hand."
+
+"Not in the least," said Crewe. "Why should you have told me? I don't
+tell you everything that I find out. It's all part of the game. That
+piece of the handkerchief was a good find, Rolfe, and I congratulate you
+on getting it. How did you come to discover it?"
+
+"I was trying to force open the murdered man's hand, and I found it
+clenched between the little finger and the next. Of course it was not
+visible with his hand closed. Chippenfield, who missed it, didn't
+half like my discovery, and all along he underestimated the value of
+it as a clue."
+
+"Well, he has had to pay for his folly."
+
+"He has, and serves him right," replied Rolfe viciously. "He's the most
+pig-headed, obstinate, vain, narrow-minded man you could come across." It
+occurred to Rolfe that it was not exactly good form on his part to
+condemn his superior officer so vigorously in the presence of a rival, so
+he broke off abruptly and asked Crewe how he came into possession of the
+revolver and handkerchief.
+
+Crewe's reply was that he had obtained these articles under a promise of
+secrecy from some one who had assured him that Mrs. Holymead had no
+connection with the crime. When he was at liberty to tell the story as it
+had been told to him, Rolfe would be the first to hear it.
+
+"Mrs. Holymead had no connection with the crime?" exclaimed Rolfe
+impatiently. "Perhaps you don't know that the morning after the murder
+was discovered she went out to Riversbrook and removed some secret papers
+from the murdered man's desk--papers that he had been in the habit of
+hiding in a secret drawer?"
+
+"Yes, I know that," said Crewe.
+
+"Well, doesn't that look as if she knew something about the crime?"
+
+"Not necessarily."
+
+"Well, to me it does. What were these secret papers? They were letters,
+I am told."
+
+"I believe so. And you, Rolfe, as a man of the world, know that a married
+woman would not like the police to get possession of letters she had
+written to a man of the reputation of Sir Horace Fewbanks."
+
+"I admit that her action is capable of a comparatively innocent
+interpretation, but taken in conjunction with other things it looks to me
+mighty suspicious. In Hill's statement to us he told us that on the night
+of the murder, Birchill when hiding in the garden waiting for the lights
+to go out before breaking into the house, heard the front door slam and
+saw a stylish sort of woman walk down the path to the gate."
+
+"That was not Mrs. Holymead," said Crewe.
+
+"How do you know? If it was not her, who was it? Do you know?"
+
+"I think I know, and when I am at liberty to speak I will tell you."
+
+"Then there is a third point," continued Rolfe. "Look at this
+handkerchief you brought. I saw a handkerchief of exactly similar pattern
+at Mrs. Holymead's house when I called there."
+
+"Wasn't that the property of her French cousin, Mademoiselle Chiron?"
+
+"Yes, she dropped it on the floor while I was there. But it is probable
+the handkerchief was one of a set given her by Mrs. Holymead."
+
+"Quite probably, Rolfe. But scores of ladies who are fond of expensive
+things have handkerchiefs of a similar pattern. You will find if you
+inquire among the West End shops, that although it is a dainty, expensive
+article from the man's point of view, there is nothing singular about the
+quality or the pattern."
+
+"Perhaps so," said Rolfe, "but the possession of handkerchiefs of this
+kind is surely suspicious when taken in conjunction with her removal of
+the letters. I wish I could get hold of that infernal scoundrel Hill
+again. I am convinced that he knows a great deal more about this murder
+than he has yet told us, and a great deal more about Mrs. Holymead and
+her letters. I've had his shop watched day and night since he
+disappeared, but he keeps close to his burrow, and I've not been able to
+get on his track."
+
+"I'd give up watching for him if I were you," said Crewe, as he flicked
+the ash of his cigar into the fireplace. "You're not likely to find him
+now. As a matter of fact, he has left the country."
+
+"Hill left the country?" echoed Rolfe. "I think you are mistaken there,
+Mr. Crewe. He had no money; how could he get away?"
+
+Crewe selected another cigar from his case and lighted it before
+answering.
+
+"The fact is, I advanced him the money," he said. "Technically it's a
+loan, but I do not think any of it will be paid back."
+
+Rolfe stared hard at Crewe to see if he was joking.
+
+"What on earth made you do that?" he demanded at length. "Hill may be the
+actual murderer for all we know."
+
+"Not at all," was the reply. "Before I helped him to leave England I
+satisfied myself that he had absolutely nothing to do with the murder. He
+does not know who shot Sir Horace Fewbanks, though, of course, he still
+half believes that it was Birchill. When I got in touch with him after
+his disappearance he was in a pitiable state of fright--waking or
+sleeping, he couldn't get his mind off the gallows. There were two or
+three points on which I wanted his assistance in clearing up the
+Riversbrook case, and I promised to get him out of the country if he
+would make a clean breast of things and tell me the truth as far as he
+knew it. He made a confession--a true one this time. I took it down and
+I'll let you have a copy. There are a few interesting points on which it
+differs materially from the statement he made to the police when you and
+Chippenfield cornered him."
+
+"What are they?" asked Rolfe.
+
+"In the first place the burglary was his idea, and not Birchill's,"
+replied Crewe. "After the quarrel between Sir Horace and the girl
+Fanning, he went out to her flat and suggested to Birchill that he should
+rob Riversbrook. Hill's real object in arranging this burglary was to get
+possession of the letters which Mrs. Holymead subsequently removed, but
+he did not tell Birchill this. His plan was to go to Riversbrook the
+morning after the burglary and then break open Sir Horace's desk and open
+the secret drawer before informing the police of the burglary. To the
+police and Sir Horace it would look as though the burglar had
+accidentally found the spring of the secret drawer. With these letters in
+his possession Hill intended to blackmail Sir Horace, or Mrs. Holymead,
+without disclosing himself in the transaction.
+
+"When Sir Horace returned unexpectedly from Scotland on the 18th of
+August, Hill had just removed the letters from the desk, being afraid
+that when Birchill broke into the house he might find them accidentally.
+He was naturally in a state of alarm at Sir Horace's return. He tried to
+get an opportunity to put the letters back as Sir Horace might discover
+they had been removed, but Sir Horace dismissed him for the night before
+he could get such an opportunity. Then he went to Fanning's flat and
+told Birchill that Sir Horace had returned. Birchill was in favour of
+postponing the burglary, but Hill, who had possession of the letters,
+and did not know when he would get an opportunity to put them back,
+urged Birchill to carry out the burglary. He assured Birchill that Sir
+Horace was a very sound sleeper and that there would be no risk. In
+order to arouse Birchill's cupidity and to protect himself from the
+suspicions of Sir Horace regarding the letters, he told Birchill that he
+had seen a large sum of money in his possession when he returned, and
+that this money would probably be hidden in the secret drawer of the
+desk, until Sir Horace had an opportunity of banking it. He told
+Birchill to break open the desk, and explained to him how to find the
+spring of the secret drawer."
+
+"What a damned cunning scoundrel he is," exclaimed Rolfe, in unwilling
+admiration of the completeness of Hill's scheme. "Don't you think, Mr.
+Crewe, that, after all, he may be the actual murderer--that he told you a
+lot of lies just as he did to us? Holymead in his address to the jury
+made out a pretty strong case against him."
+
+"No one knows better than Holymead that Hill did not commit the
+murder," said Crewe. "Hill is an incorrigible liar, but he has no nerve
+for murder."
+
+"Did he put the letters back?" asked Rolfe. "He told me that Mrs.
+Holymead stole them the day after the murder was discovered. But he is
+such a liar--"
+
+"I believe he spoke the truth in that case," said Crewe. "He told me he
+put the letters back in the secret drawer the night after the murder,
+when he went to Riversbrook to report himself to Chippenfield. He put
+them back because he was afraid that if the police found them in his
+possession, they would think he had a hand in the murder. His idea was to
+remove them from the secret drawer after the excitement about the murder
+died down, and then blackmail Mrs. Holymead, but she acted with a skill
+and decision that robbed him of his chance to blackmail her."
+
+"How did you get hold of the cunning scoundrel?" asked Rolfe. "I've had
+his wife's shop watched day and night, as I've said. I made sure he would
+try to communicate with her sooner or later, but he didn't."
+
+"It was Joe who found him," said Crewe. "I knew you were watching Mrs.
+Hill's shop, so it was superfluous for me to set anybody to watch it.
+Besides, I didn't think Hill would visit his wife or attempt to
+communicate with her, for he would think that the police, if they wanted
+him, would be sure to watch the shop. I tried to consider what a man like
+Hill would do in the circumstances. He had no money--I knew that--and, so
+far as I was able to ascertain, he had no friends who were likely to hide
+him. Without friends or money he could not go very far. Finally it
+occurred to me that he might be hiding somewhere in Riversbrook--either
+in that unfinished portion of the third floor, or in one of the
+outbuildings. He knew the run of the rambling old place so well. Have you
+ever been over it carefully? No. Well, there are several good places in
+the upper stories where a man might conceal himself. I put Joe on the
+job, and after watching for several nights Joe got him. Hill had made a
+hiding place in the loft above the garage. It appears that he subsisted
+on the stores that had been left in the house; he was able to make his
+way into the main building through one of the kitchen windows. He was on
+one of these foraging expeditions when Joe discovered him--emaciated,
+dirty, and half demented through terror of the gallows."
+
+"So that is how you got him!" said Rolfe. "I never thought of looking for
+him at Riversbrook. Sometimes I am inclined to agree with you that he had
+no nerve for murder. But an unpremeditated murder doesn't want much
+nerve. He might have done it in a moment of passion." Rolfe was
+endeavouring to take advantage of Crewe's communicative mood and to
+arrive by a process of elimination at the person against whom Crewe had
+accumulated his evidence.
+
+"It was not Hill," said Crewe. "The murder was committed in a moment of
+passion, and yet it was far from being unpremeditated."
+
+"You are trying to mystify me," said Rolfe despairingly.
+
+"No; it is the case itself which has mystified you," replied Crewe.
+
+"It has," was Rolfe's candid confession. "The more thought I give it, the
+more impossible it seems to see through it. Was Sir Horace killed before
+dusk--before the lights were turned on? If he was killed after dark, who
+turned out the lights?"
+
+"He was killed between 10 and 10.30 at night," said Crewe. "The lights
+were turned out by the woman Birchill saw leaving the house about 10.30.
+But she was not the murderer, and she was not present in the room, or
+even in the house, when Sir Horace was shot. She arrived a few minutes
+too late to prevent the tragedy. Turning out the lights was an
+instinctive act due to her desire to hide the crime, or rather to hide
+the murderer."
+
+"How do you know all this?" asked Rolfe, who had been staring at Crewe
+with open-mouthed astonishment.
+
+"That woman was not Mrs. Holymead," continued Crewe. "I had a visit
+to-day from the woman who did these things, and as evidence of the truth
+of her story she brought me the revolver and the handkerchief."
+
+"What did she come to you for?" asked Rolfe, with breathless interest.
+"What did she want?"
+
+"She came to me to make a full confession," said Crewe, in even tones.
+
+"A confession!" exclaimed Rolfe. "She ought to have come to the police.
+Why didn't she come to us?"
+
+Crewe smiled at the puzzled, indignant detective.
+
+"I think she came to me because she wanted to mislead me," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+Joe Leaver, worn out after nearly a week's work of watching the movements
+of Mr. Holymead, had fallen asleep in an empty loft above a garage which
+overlooked Verney's Hotel in Mayfair. He had seen Mr. Holymead disappear
+into the hotel, and he knew from the experience gained in his watch that
+the K.C. would spend the next couple of hours in dressing for dinner,
+sitting down to that meal, and smoking a cigar in the lounge. So Joe had
+relaxed, for the time being, the new task which his master had set him,
+and had flung himself on some straw in the loft to rest. He did not
+intend to go to sleep, but he was very tired, and in a few minutes he was
+in a profound slumber.
+
+In his sleep Joe dreamed that he had attained the summit of his ambition,
+and was being paid a huge salary by an American film company to display
+himself in emotional dramas for the educational improvement of the
+British working classes. In his dream he had to rescue the heroine from
+the clutches of the villains who had carried her off. They had imprisoned
+her at the top of a "skyscraper" building and locked the lift, but Joe
+climbed the fire escape and caught the beautiful girl in his arms. The
+villains, who were on the watch, set fire to the building, and when Joe
+attempted to climb out of the window with the heroine clinging round his
+neck, the flames drove him back. As he stood there the wind swept a sheet
+of flame towards Joe until it scorched his face. The pain was so real
+that Joe opened his eyes and sprang up with a cry.
+
+A man was standing over him, a man past middle age, short and broad in
+figure, whose clean-shaven face directed attention to his protruding
+jaw. He was wearing a blue serge suit which had seen much use.
+
+"You are a sound sleeper, sonny," said the man, grinning at Joe's alarm.
+"But when you wake--why you wake up properly; I'll say that for you. You
+nearly broke my pipe, you woke up that sudden."
+
+He made this remark with such a malicious grin that Joe, whose face was
+still smarting, had no hesitation in connecting his sudden awakening with
+the hot bowl of the man's pipe. It was a joke Joe had often seen played
+on drunken men in Islington public-houses in his young days.
+
+"You just leave me alone, will you?" he said, rubbing his cheek ruefully.
+"It's nothing to do with you whether I'm a sound sleeper or not."
+
+"That's just where you're wrong, young fellow," was the reply. "It's a
+lot to do with me. Ain't your name Joe Leaver?"
+
+Joe nodded his head.
+
+"How did you find out?" he asked.
+
+"Perhaps a friend of mine pointed you out to me."
+
+"Perhaps he did, and perhaps he didn't," said Joe. "Anyway, what is
+your name?"
+
+"Mr. Kemp is my name, my boy. And unless you're pretty civil I'll give
+you cause to remember it."
+
+"What have you got to do with me?" asked the boy in an injured tone.
+"I've never done nothing to you."
+
+"You mind your P's and Q's and me and you'll get along all right," said
+Mr. Kemp, in a somewhat softer tone. "When you ask me what I've got to do
+with you, my answer is I've got a lot to do with you, for I'm your
+guardian, so to speak."
+
+Joe looked at Mr. Kemp with a gleam of comprehension in his amazement. He
+had had some experience in his Islington days of the strange phenomena
+produced by drink.
+
+"Rats!" he retorted rudely. "I've never had a guardian and I don't want
+none. What made you a guardian, I'd like to know?"
+
+"Your father did," was the reply.
+
+"Oh, him!" said Joe, in a tone which indicated pronounced antipathy to
+his parent. "Do you know him? Are you one of his sort?"
+
+"Now don't try to be insulting, my boy, or I'll take you across my knee.
+We won't say nothing about where your father is, because in high society
+Wormwood Scrubbs isn't mentioned. All we'll say is that he has been
+unfortunate like many another man before him, and that for the present he
+can't come and go as he likes. But he has still got a father's heart,
+Joe, and there are times when he worries about his family and about there
+being no one with them to keep an eye on them and see they grow up a
+credit to him. He has been particularly worried about you, Joe. So when I
+was coming away he asked me to look you up if I had time, and let him
+know how you was getting on, seeing that none of his family has gone near
+him for a matter of three years or so, though there is one regular
+visiting day each week."
+
+"I don't want to see him no more," said Joe. "He's no good."
+
+"That's a nice way for a boy to talk about his own father," said Mr.
+Kemp, in a reproving tone. "I don't know what the young generation is
+coming to."
+
+"If you want to send him word about me, you can tell him that I'm not
+going to be a thief," said Joe defiantly.
+
+"No," said Mr. Kemp tauntingly, "you'd sooner be a nark."
+
+"Yes, I would," said the boy.
+
+"And that's what you are now," declared the man wrathfully. "You're a
+nark for that fellow Crewe. I know all about you."
+
+"I'm earning an honest living," said Joe.
+
+"As a nark," said Mr. Kemp, with a sneer.
+
+"I'm earning an honest living," said the boy doggedly. So much of his
+youth had been spent among the criminal classes that he still retained
+the feeling that there was an indelible stigma attached to those
+individuals described as narks.
+
+"How can any one earn a respectable honest living by being a nark?" asked
+Mr. Kemp contemptuously. "And more than that, it's one of the best men
+that ever breathed that you are a-spying on. I'll have you know that he's
+a friend of mine. That is to say he's done things for me that I ain't
+likely to forget. There's nothing I won't do for him, if the chance comes
+my way. I'll see that no harm happens to him through you and your Mr.
+Crewe. You've got to stop this here spying. Stop it at once, do you
+understand? For if you don't, by God, I'll deal with you so that you'll
+do no more spying in this world! And I'd have you and your master know
+that I'm a man what means what he says." Mr. Kemp shook his fist angrily
+at Joe as he moved away to the door of the loft after having delivered
+his menacing warning. "My last words to you is, Stop it!" he said, as he
+turned to go down the stairs.
+
+Half an hour later Mr. Kemp entered the lounge of Verney's Hotel as
+though in quest of some one. Most of the hotel guests had finished their
+after-dinner coffee and liqueurs, and the hall was comparatively empty,
+but a few who remained raised their eyes in well-bred protest at the
+intrusion of a member of the lower orders into the corridor of an
+exclusive hotel. Mr. Kemp felt somewhat out of place, and he stared about
+the luxuriously furnished lounge with a look in which awe mingled with
+admiration. Before he could advance further, a liveried porter of massive
+proportions came up to him and barred the way.
+
+"Now, now, my man," said the porter haughtily, "what do you think you
+are doing here? This ain't your place, you know. You've made a mistake.
+Out you go."
+
+"I want to see Mr. Holymead," said Mr. Kemp in a gruff voice.
+
+Verney's was such a high-class hotel that seedy-looking persons seldom
+dared to put a foot within the palatial entrance. The porter, unused to
+dealing with the obtrusive impecunious type to which he believed Mr. Kemp
+to belong, made the mistake of trying to argue with him.
+
+"Want to see Mr. Holymead?" he repeated. "How do you know he's here? Who
+told you? What do you want to see him for?"
+
+"What's that got to do with you?" retorted Mr. Kemp. "You don't think Mr.
+Holymead would like me to discuss his business with the likes of you?
+That ain't what you're here for. You go and tell Mr. Holymead that some
+one wants to see him. Tell him Mr. Kemp wants to see him." Mr. Kemp drew
+himself up and buttoned the coat of his faded serge suit.
+
+The porter, uncertain how to deal with the situation, looked around for
+help. The manager of the hotel emerged from the booking office at that
+moment, and the porter's appealing look was seen by him. The manager
+approached. He was faultlessly attired, suave in demeanour, and walked
+with a noiseless step, despite his tendency to corpulence. It was his
+daily task to wrestle with some of the manifold difficulties arising out
+of the eccentricities of human nature as exhibited by a constant stream
+of arriving and departing guests. But though he approached the distressed
+porter with full confidence in his ability to deal with any situation,
+his eyebrows arched in astonishment as he took in the full details of the
+intruder's attire.
+
+"What does this mean, Hawkins?" he exclaimed, in a tone of disapproval.
+
+The porter trembled at the implication that he had grievously failed in
+his duty by allowing such an individual as Mr. Kemp to get so far within
+the exclusive portals of Verney's, and in his nervousness he relaxed from
+the polish of the hotel porter to his native cockney.
+
+"This 'ere party says 'e wants to see Mr. Holymead, Sir."
+
+The manager went through the motion of washing a spotlessly clean pair of
+hands, and then brought the palms together in a gentle clap. He smiled
+pityingly at Hawkins and then looked condescendingly at Mr. Kemp.
+
+"Wants to see Mr. Holymead, does he?" he said, transferring his glance to
+the worried porter. "And didn't you tell him that Mr. Holymead has gone
+to the theatre and won't be back for some considerable time?"
+
+"That's a lie!" said Mr. Kemp, who had acquired none of the art of
+dealing with his fellow men, and was too uneducated to appreciate art in
+any form. "I've been watching over the other side of the street, and I
+saw him passing a window not ten minutes ago. I'm going to see him if I
+wait here all night. I'll soon make meself comfortable on one of them big
+chairs." He pointed to an empty chair beside a man in evening dress, who
+was holding a conversation with a haughty looking matron. "You tell Mr.
+Holymead Mr. Kemp wants to see him," he said to the manager.
+
+"What name did you say?" asked the manager in a tone which seemed to
+express astonishment that the lower orders had names.
+
+"Mr. Kemp. You tell him Mr. Kemp wants to see him on important business."
+He walked towards the vacant chair and seated himself on it. He dug his
+toes into the velvet pile carpet with the air of a man who was trying to
+take anchor. Fortunately the man on the adjoining chair, and the haughty
+matron, were so engrossed in their conversation that they did not notice
+that the air in their immediate vicinity was being polluted by the
+presence of a man in shabby clothes and heavy boots.
+
+The manager despatched the porter in search of Mr. Holymead and then went
+in pursuit of Mr. Kemp.
+
+"Will you come this way, if you please, Mr. Kemp?" he said, with a low
+bow.
+
+He saw that Mr. Kemp was following him and led the way into an
+unfrequented corner of the smoking room, where, with the information
+that Mr. Holymead would come to him in a few moments, he asked Mr. Kemp
+to be seated.
+
+The manager withdrew a few yards, and then took up a position which
+enabled him to guard the hotel guests from having their digestions
+interfered with by the contaminating spectacle of a seedy man. To the
+manager's great relief, Mr. Holymead appeared, having been informed by
+the hall porter that a party who said his name was Kemp had asked to see
+him. The manager hurried towards Mr. Holymead and endeavoured to explain
+and apologise, but the K.C. assured him that there was nothing to
+apologise for. He went over to the corner of the smoking room, where the
+visitor who had caused so much perturbation was waiting for him.
+
+"Well, Kemp, what do you want?" There was nothing in his manner to
+indicate that he was put out by Mr. Kemp's appearance. He spoke in quiet
+even tones such as would seem to suggest that he was well acquainted with
+his visitor.
+
+"Can I speak to you on the quiet for a moment, sir?" whispered
+Kemp hoarsely.
+
+Holymead looked round the room. The manager had gone back to the booking
+office and Hawkins had vanished. The few people who were in the room
+seemed occupied with their own affairs.
+
+"No one will overhear us if we speak quietly," he said as he took a seat
+close to Kemp. "What is it?"
+
+"You're watched and followed, sir," said Kemp in a whisper. "Somebody has
+been watching this place for days past and whenever you go out you're
+followed."
+
+"By whom?" asked Holymead.
+
+"By a varmint of a boy--a slippery young imp whose father's in gaol for
+a long stretch. I got hold of him this afternoon and told him what I'd
+do to him if he kept on with his game. He's living in an old loft at
+the back of the hotel garage, and he keeps a watch on you day and
+night. I thought I'd better come here and tell you, as you mightn't
+know about him."
+
+"You did quite right, Kemp. What's this boy like?"
+
+"An undersized putty-faced brat with a big head. He's about fourteen or
+fifteen, I should say."
+
+"Who is he? Do you know him?"
+
+"Leaver is the name, sir. To tell you the truth, I don't know him as well
+as I know his father. His father is a 'lifer' for manslaughter. I've
+known him both in and out of gaol. And when I was coming out four months
+ago Bob Leaver, this here boy's father, asked me to look up his family
+and send him word about them. I went to the address Bob told me, in
+Islington, but I found they had all gone. The mother was dead and the
+kids--a girl and this here boy--had cleared out. The old Jew who had the
+second-hand clothes shop Mrs. Leaver used to keep told me that the boy
+had gone off with that private detective, Crewe, more than two years ago.
+So it looks to me as if he has turned nark and Crewe has put him on to
+watch you."
+
+"Can you describe this boy more closely?"
+
+"Well, sir, I don't know if I can say anything more about him except that
+he has red hair and big bright eyes that are too large for his face."
+
+"I thought so," said Holymead as if speaking to himself. "It's the
+same boy."
+
+"What did you say, sir?" asked Kemp.
+
+"Nothing, Kemp, except that I think I've seen a boy of this description
+hanging about the street near the hotel."
+
+Holymead rose to his feet as he spoke, as an indication that the
+interview was at an end. Kemp got up and looked at him anxiously.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir, for coming here," he said, fumbling with the rim
+of his hat as he spoke. "I didn't know how you'd take it, but I hope I've
+done right. They didn't want to let me see you."
+
+"You did quite right, Kemp. I am very much obliged to you." He was
+feeling in his pocket for silver, but Kemp stopped him.
+
+"No, no, sir. I don't want to be paid anything. I wanted to oblige you
+like; I wanted to do you a good turn. I'd do anything for you, sir--you
+know I would."
+
+"I believe you would, Kemp. Good night."
+
+"Good night, sir."
+
+As Kemp passed down the hall he met the manager, who was obviously
+pleased to see such an unwelcome visitor making his departure. Kemp
+scowled at the manager as if he were a valued patron of the hotel and
+said, "It seems to me that you don't know how to treat people properly
+when they come here."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+It was the first occasion on which Mrs. Holymead had visited her
+husband's chambers in the Middle Temple. Mr. Mattingford, who had been
+Mr. Holymead's clerk for nearly twenty years, seemed to realise that the
+visit was important, though as a married man he knew that a meeting
+between husband and wife in town was usually so commonplace as to verge
+on boredom for the husband. There were occasions when he had to meet Mrs.
+Mattingford, but these meetings were generally for the purpose of handing
+over to the lady her weekly dress allowance of ten shillings out of his
+salary, so that she might attend the sales at the big drapery shops in
+the West End and inspect the windows containing expensive articles that
+she could not hope to buy. Mr. Mattingford was an exceedingly thrifty
+man, and his wife possessed some of the qualities of a spendthrift. Thus
+it came about that Mr. Mattingford kept up the fiction that he had no
+savings and that each week's salary must see him through till the next
+week. Mrs. Mattingford knew that her husband had saved money, and
+theoretically she would have given a great deal to know how much. She
+repeatedly accused him of being a miser, but this is a wifely
+denunciation which in all classes of life is lightly made when the
+purchase of feminine finery is under discussion. There are some men who
+resent it, but Mr. Mattingford was not one of these. Protests and
+prayers, abuse and cajolery, were alike powerless to win his consent to
+his wife's perpetual proposal that she should be allowed to draw her
+dress allowance for some months, or even some weeks ahead. Mr.
+Mattingford had a horror of bad debts. He endeavoured to show his wife
+that the transaction she proposed was unsound from a business point of
+view and reckless from a legal point of view. She had no security to
+offer for the repayment of the advance--even if he were in a financial
+position to make the advance--and he stoutly declared that he was not.
+She might die at any moment, and then he would be left with no means of
+redress against her estate because she had no estate. Of course, if she
+first insured her life out of her dress allowance and handed the policy
+to him it would constitute protection for the repayment of the advance,
+in the event of her death, but it was not any real protection in the
+event of her continuing to live, for a newly-executed policy had no
+surrender value. As his own legal adviser, Mr. Mattingford strongly urged
+himself not to consider his wife's proposal, and such was his respect for
+the law and for those who had been brought up in a legal atmosphere that
+he had no hesitation in accepting the advice.
+
+He was a little man of nearly fifty years, with a very bald head and an
+extremely long moustache, which when waxed at the ends made him look as
+fierce as a clipped poodle. He knew Mrs. Holymead from his having called
+frequently at his chief's house in Princes Gate on business matters, and
+he admired her for her good looks, but still more for her good taste in
+staying away from her husband's chambers. There were some ladies, the
+wives of barristers, who almost haunted their husbands' chambers--a
+practice of which Mr. Mattingford strongly disapproved. It seemed to him
+an insidious attempt on the part of an insidious sex to force the legal
+profession to throw open its doors to women. As a man who lived in the
+mouldy atmosphere of precedent, Mr. Mattingford hated the idea of change,
+and to him the thought of a lady in wig and gown pleading in the law
+courts indicated not merely change but a revolution which might well
+usher in the end of the world. So strict was he in keeping the precincts
+of the law sacred from the violating tread of women that he never
+allowed his wife to set foot in the Middle Temple. Their meetings on
+those urgent occasions when Mrs. Mattingford came to town for her dress
+allowance in order to go bargain-hunting took place at one of the cheap
+tearooms in Fleet Street.
+
+Although Mr. Mattingford was somewhat flustered by the unexpected
+appearance of Mrs. Holymead, he did not depart from precedent to the
+extent of regarding her as entitled to any other treatment than that
+accorded to clients who called on business. He asked her if she wanted to
+see Mr. Holymead, placed a chair for her, then knocked deferentially at
+his chief's door, went inside to announce Mrs. Holymead to her husband,
+and came out with the information that Mr. Holymead would see her. He
+held open the door leading into his chief's private room, and after Mrs.
+Holymead had entered closed it softly and firmly.
+
+But the formal business manner of Mr. Mattingford to his chief's wife
+seemed to her friendly and cordial compared with the strained greetings
+she received from her husband. He motioned her to a chair and then got up
+from his own.
+
+"I wrote to you to come and see me here instead of going to the house
+to see you," he said, "because I thought it would be better for both.
+It would have given the servants something to talk about. I hope you
+don't mind?"
+
+She looked at him with her large dark eyes in which there was more than a
+suggestion of tears. What she had read into his note, when she received
+it, was his determination not to go to his home to see her for fear she
+would interpret that as a first step towards reconciliation.
+
+"What I wanted to speak to you about is this detective Crewe whom Miss
+Fewbanks has employed in connection with her father's death," he
+continued.
+
+Her breath came quickly at this unwelcome information. She noted that he
+had spoken of Sir Horace's death and not his murder.
+
+He began pacing backwards and forwards across the room as if with the
+purpose of avoiding looking at her.
+
+"This man Crewe is a nuisance--I might even say a danger. I don't know
+what he has found out, but I object to his ferreting into my affairs. He
+must be stopped."
+
+She nodded her assent, for she could not trust herself to speak. Each
+time he turned his back on her as he crossed the room her eyes followed
+him, but as he faced her she turned her gaze on the floor.
+
+"There is no legal redress--no legal means of dealing with his
+impertinent curiosity," he went on. "He is within his rights in trying to
+find out all he can. But if he is allowed to go on unchecked the thing
+may reach a disastrous stage. I have no doubt that he knows that I was at
+Riversbrook the night that man was killed. He was not long in getting on
+the track of that. And the more mysterious my visit seems to him--and the
+fact that I have not disclosed to the police that I went up to
+Riversbrook and saw Sir Horace on the night of the tragedy is to his way
+of thinking very significant--the more reason is there for suspecting me
+of complicity in the crime."
+
+When he turned to cross the room her eyes lingered on him and she glanced
+quickly at his face.
+
+"I don't want to dwell on matters that must pain you--that must pain us
+both," he said slowly, "but it is necessary that you should be made
+acquainted with the danger that threatens me from this man. I am anxious
+to avoid anything in the nature of a public scandal--I am anxious quite
+as much if not more on your account than my own. But if this wretched man
+is allowed to go on trying to build up a case against me--and I must
+admit that he would probably obtain circumstantial evidence of a kind
+which would make some sort of a case for the prosecution--there is grave
+danger of everything coming out. If he went to the length of having me
+arrested and charged with the crime, there are bound to be some
+disclosures and the newspapers would make the most of them. It is
+impossible to foresee the exact nature of them, but I do not see how I
+could adopt any line of defence which would not hint at things that are
+best unrevealed. You yourself might be so ill-advised as to tell the
+whole story in the end. Of course, I would try to prevent you, and as far
+as the trial is concerned, I think I could use means to prevent you. But
+if the result was unfavourable--and knowing what eccentric things juries
+do, we must recognise the possibility of an unfavourable verdict--you
+might consider it advisable to disclose everything in the hope of having
+the conviction quashed by an appeal."
+
+For the first time since she had sat down he looked at her, and as he
+caught her upward gaze he flushed.
+
+"I would tell everything if you were arrested," she said, in a low voice.
+
+"Ah, so I thought," he said, in a tone of disapproval. "The question now
+is what means can be adopted to prevent a catastrophe. I have thought
+earnestly about it, and as you are almost as much concerned in preventing
+public disclosures as I am, I desired to consult you before taking any
+definite course. It is this man Crewe who is the danger, and the question
+is how are we to stop him proceeding to extremes. One way is for me to
+see him and take him into my confidence--to explain fully to him what
+happened. He would not be satisfied with less than the full story. If I
+kept anything back his suspicions would remain; in fact, they would be
+strengthened. I would have to explain to him why and how I induced Sir
+Horace to return unexpectedly from Scotland on that fatal night, and what
+took place at Riversbrook. You will understand why I have hesitated to
+adopt that course. I would not suggest it to you now except that I see it
+would save you from the danger of something a great deal worse. Of
+course it would save me from the annoyance of being suspected of knowing
+something about the actual murder, but it is your interests that come
+first in the matter. It would be effective in putting an end to all our
+fears--all my fears. I would bind him to secrecy, of course. I do not ask
+you to come to a decision immediately, but I do ask you to think it over
+and let me know. I have been extremely reluctant to put this proposal
+before you, because I should hate carrying it out, because I should hate
+telling this man of things which are really no concern of anyone but
+ourselves. But I cannot disguise from myself that it would remove a
+greater danger. I believe the secret would be safe with him. I understand
+that in private life he is a gentleman, and that I would be safe in
+taking his word of honour. It would not be necessary for him to tell the
+police--still less to tell Miss Fewbanks."
+
+"Is there no other way?" she asked. "Have you thought of any other way?"
+
+"Yes. The only other way out that I have been able to find is for me to
+see Miss Fewbanks and ask her to withdraw the case from Crewe. I would
+not tell her everything--I would not bring you into it at all. But I
+could tell her that I had had an urgent matter to discuss with her
+father; that he came from Scotland to discuss it with me, and that after
+I left him he was murdered. I would tell her that it was quite impossible
+for me to disclose what the business was about, but that Crewe, having
+learnt that I had seen her father that night, was extremely suspicious. I
+would ask her to accept my word of honour that I had no knowledge of who
+killed her father, and to relieve me of the annoyance of the attentions
+of this man Crewe. I think she would agree to that proposal. That is the
+other way out, and from something which has happened this morning I am
+inclined to think that it is the better and quicker course to pursue."
+
+She was thinking so deeply that she did not reply. At length she became
+conscious of a long silence.
+
+"It is very good of you to ask my opinion--to consult with me at all. It
+is you that have everything at stake. I would like to do my best, but I
+think if you gave me time--Is there any great urgency? Two days at most
+is all I want."
+
+"I cannot give you two days," he replied, with a sombre smile. "You must
+decide to-day--at once--otherwise it will be too late."
+
+She looked at him with parted lips and alarm in her eyes.
+
+"What do you mean?" she breathed. "What have you hidden? Is the danger
+immediate?"
+
+"I think so. For some days past my movements have been dogged by a boy in
+Crewe's employ. Nearly a week ago I decided, after the worry and anxiety
+of this--this unhappy affair, to go away for a short trip. I thought a
+sea-voyage to America and back might do me good and fit me for my work
+again." He sighed unconsciously, and went on: "Crewe has become
+acquainted with my intended departure and has placed his own
+interpretation on it. He assumes that I am seeking safety in flight--that
+I have no intention of coming back to England. The result has been that
+the boy Crewe had set to watch my movements has been replaced by two men
+from Scotland Yard--one watching these chambers from the front, and the
+other from the rear." He walked across to the window and glanced quickly
+through the curtain. "Yes, they are still here."
+
+She sprang from her seat and followed him to the window.
+
+"Where are they?" she gasped. "Show them to me."
+
+"There. Do not move the curtain or they will suspect we are watching
+them. Look a little to the left, by the lamp-post. The other you can
+catch a glimpse of if you look between those two trees."
+
+"What does it mean? Why are they waiting?" she burst out. Her face had
+gone very pale, and her big dark eyes glared affrightedly from the window
+to her husband.
+
+"Hush! I beg you not to lose your self-control; it is essential neither
+of us should lose our heads," he said, warningly.
+
+She regained command of herself with an effort, and whispered, rather
+than spoke, with twitching lips;
+
+"What does the presence of these men mean?"
+
+"It means that Crewe has already communicated with Scotland Yard."
+
+"And that you will be arrested for _his_ murder?" Her trembling lips
+could hardly frame the words.
+
+"I think so--it's almost certain. But apparently the warrant is not yet
+issued, or those men would come here and arrest me. But they are watching
+to prevent my escape--if I thought of escaping. We may yet have a few
+hours to arrange something, but you must come to a prompt decision."
+
+"Tell me what to do, and I will do it. Oh, let me help you if I can. What
+is the best thing to do? To see Crewe?"
+
+"No. I forbid you to see Crewe," he said harshly. "If we decide on that
+course I will see him myself."
+
+"And you may be arrested the moment you go out of these chambers," she
+returned. "Oh, no, no; that is not a good plan--we have not the time. I
+will go to Mabel Fewbanks at once, and beg her, for all our sakes, not to
+allow this to go any further."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"You must not sacrifice yourself," he said. "That would be foolish."
+
+"I will not sacrifice myself. I would tell her just what you have told
+me--that her father came from Scotland to discuss an urgent matter with
+you, and that he was murdered after you left. I feel certain this man
+Crewe is going to extremes without her knowledge or consent, and that she
+will be the first to bury this awful thing when she learns that you have
+been implicated. Is not this the best thing to do?"
+
+"It is," he reluctantly admitted. "But I do not wish you to be mixed up
+in it at all."
+
+"I am not mixing myself up in it--I am too selfish for that. But I swear
+to you if you do not let me do this I will confess everything. I know
+Mabel Fewbanks, and I repeat, she is not aware of what this man Crewe has
+done. She would not--will not, permit it. I shall go down to Dellmere at
+once." Her face was pale, and her eyes glittered as she looked at her
+husband, but she spoke with unnatural self-possession. With feverish
+energy she pulled on a glove she had taken off when she entered, and
+buttoned it. "I will--I shall--arrive in time. In two hours--in three at
+most--you will hear from me."
+
+She passed out into the outer office before her husband could reply, and
+closed the door behind her. Mr. Mattingford dashed to open the outer door
+of his room leading into the main staircase. He thought Mrs. Holymead
+looked strange as she passed him and descended the stairs, and he rubbed
+his hands gleefully. He came to the conclusion that she had come in for a
+cheque for L50 as an advance of her dress allowance, and that her request
+had been refused.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+She left her husband's chambers with her brain in a whirl, hardly knowing
+where she was going until she found herself held up with a stream of
+pedestrians at the island intersection of Waterloo Bridge and the Strand.
+She thought the policeman who was regulating the traffic eyed her
+curiously, and, more with the object of evading his eye than with any set
+plan in her mind, she stepped into an empty taxi-cab which was waiting to
+cross the street.
+
+"Where to, ma'am?" asked the driver.
+
+"Where to?" she repeated vacantly. With an effort of will she
+concentrated her thoughts on the task in front of her, and hastily added,
+"To Victoria, as quick as you can. No--wait--driver, first take me to the
+nearest bookstall."
+
+The taxi-cab took her to a bookstall in the Strand, where she got out and
+purchased a railway guide. As the taxi-cab proceeded towards Victoria she
+hastily turned the pages to the trains for Dellmere. She had never been
+to Dellmere, but she had heard from Miss Fewbanks that her father's place
+was reached from a station called Horleydene, on the main line to
+Wennesden, and that though there were many through trains, comparatively
+few stopped at Horleydene. But she was unused to time-tables, and found
+it difficult to grasp the information she required. There was such a
+bewildering diversity of letters at the head of the lists of trains for
+that line, and so many reference notes on different pages to be looked up
+before it was possible to ascertain with any degree of certainty what
+trains stopped at Horleydene on week-days, that, in her shaken frame of
+mind, with the necessity for hurry haunting her, she became confused,
+and failed to comprehend the perplexing figures. She signalled to the
+driver to stop, and handed him the book.
+
+"I cannot understand this time-table," she said, in an agitated way.
+"Would you find out for me, please, when the next train leaves Victoria
+for Horleydene?"
+
+The driver consulted the time-table with a businesslike air.
+
+"The next train leaves at 12.40," he informed her. "After that there
+isn't another one stopping there till 4.5."
+
+Mrs. Holymead consulted her watch anxiously.
+
+"It's almost half-past twelve now. Can you catch the 12.40?" she asked.
+
+The driver looked dubious.
+
+"I'll try, ma'am, but it'll take some doing. It depends whether I get a
+clear run at Trafalgar Square."
+
+"Try, try!" she cried. "Catch it, and I will double your fare."
+
+She caught the train with a few seconds to spare. She had a first-class
+compartment to herself, and as the train rushed out of London, and the
+grimy environs of the metropolis gradually gave place to green fields,
+she endeavoured to compose her mind and collect her thoughts for her
+coming interview with the daughter of the murdered man. But her mind was
+in such a distraught condition that she could think of no plan but to
+sacrifice herself in order to save her husband. With cold hands pressed
+against her hot forehead, she muttered again and again, as if offering up
+an invocation that gained force by repetition:
+
+"I must save him. I will tell her everything."
+
+The train ran into Horleydene shortly after two, and Mrs. Holymead was
+the only passenger who alighted at the lonely little wayside station
+which stood in a small wood in a solitude as profound as though it had
+been in the American prairie, instead of the heart of an English
+county. The only sign of life was a dilapidated vehicle with an
+elderly man in charge, which stood outside the station yard all day
+waiting for chance visitors.
+
+"Cab, ma'am?" exclaimed the driver of this vehicle in an ingratiating
+voice, touching his hat.
+
+"No, thank you," replied Mrs. Holymead. "I'll walk."
+
+Miss Fewbanks was astonished when the parlourmaid announced the arrival
+of Mrs. Holymead. She hurried to the drawing-room to meet her visitor,
+but the warm greeting she offered her was checked by her astonishment at
+the ill and worn appearance of her beautiful friend.
+
+"Please, don't," said the visitor, as she held up a warning hand to keep
+away a sisterly kiss. She looked at Miss Fewbanks with the air of a woman
+nerving herself for a desperate task, and said quickly: "I have dreadful
+things to tell you. You can never think of me again except with
+loathing--with horror."
+
+The impression Miss Fewbanks received was that her visitor had taken
+leave of her senses. This impression was deepened by Mrs. Holymead's
+next remark.
+
+"I want you to save my husband."
+
+There was an awkward pause while Mrs. Holymead waited for a reply and
+Miss Fewbanks wondered what was the best thing to do.
+
+"Say you will save him!" exclaimed Mrs. Holymead. "Do what you like with
+me, but save him."
+
+"Don't you think, dear, you would be better if you had a rest and a
+little sleep?" said Miss Fewbanks. "I am sure you could sleep if you
+tried. Come upstairs and I'll make you so comfortable."
+
+"You think I am mad," said the elder woman. "Would to God that I was."
+
+"Come, dear," said Miss Fewbanks coaxingly. She turned to the door and
+prepared to lead the way upstairs.
+
+"Sleep!" exclaimed Mrs. Holymead bitterly. "I have not had a peaceful
+sleep since your father was killed. I have been haunted day and night. I
+cannot sleep."
+
+"I know it was a dreadful shock to you, but you must not take it so much
+to heart. You must see your doctor and do what he tells you. Mr. Holymead
+should send you away."
+
+At the mention of her husband's name Mrs. Holymead came back to the
+thought that had been foremost in her mind.
+
+"Will you save him?" she exclaimed.
+
+"You know I will do anything I can for him," answered the girl gently.
+Her intention was to humour her visitor, for she was quite sure that Mr.
+Holymead was in no danger.
+
+"Will you stop Mr. Crewe?"
+
+"Stop Mr. Crewe?" Miss Fewbanks repeated the words in a tone that showed
+her interest had been awakened. "Stop him from what?"
+
+"Stop him from arresting my husband."
+
+"Do you mean to say that Mr. Crewe thinks Mr. Holymead had anything to do
+with the murder of my father?"
+
+"If I tell you everything will you stop him? Oh, Mabel, darling, for the
+sake of the past--before I came on the scene to mar the lives of both of
+them--will you save him? It is I--not he--who should pay the penalty of
+this awful tragedy. Will you save him?"
+
+"Tell me everything," said the girl firmly.
+
+To the stricken wife there was a promise in the demand for light, and in
+broken phrases she poured out her story of shame and sorrow. With a
+feeling that everything was falling away from her the girl learnt from
+her visitor's disconnected story that there had been a liaison between
+her murdered father and her friend. Mr. Holymead had discovered it after
+Sir Horace had gone to Scotland and husband and wife were away in the
+country. He was at first distracted at finding that his lifelong friend
+had seduced his wife, then he made her promise not to see or communicate
+with Sir Horace until he made up his mind what course of action to take.
+Three days later he caught an evening train to London and told her he
+was not returning, but would write to her.
+
+It crossed her mind that he had gone up to London to meet Sir Horace, and
+in her distress at the thought of what might happen when they met she
+consulted her cousin Gabrielle, who had always been in her confidence.
+Gabrielle had offered to go to Riversbrook to see if Sir Horace had
+returned from Scotland, or was expected back. Her train was delayed by an
+accident, and when she arrived at Riversbrook it was after half-past ten.
+She arrived a few minutes too late to prevent the tragedy. She found the
+front door open and the electric light burning in the hall. She went up
+the staircase and in the library she found Sir Horace, who was lying on
+the floor at the point of death. She tried to lift him to a sitting
+position, but with a convulsive gasp he died in her arms.
+
+She laid him down and then looked hurriedly around the room with the
+object of removing any evidence of how or why the crime had been
+committed, her main thought being to save her friend from the shame of a
+public scandal. She picked up a revolver which was lying on the floor
+near Sir Horace, turned out the lights in the library and in the hall so
+that the house was in darkness, and then closed the hall door after her
+as she went out. But Mr. Crewe had discovered in some way that Mr.
+Holymead had visited Sir Horace that night. Only a week ago Gabrielle had
+gone to him and tried to put him off the track, but it was no use.
+
+The wretched woman made a pathetic appeal for her husband's life. She
+deplored the sinfulness which had resulted in the tragedy. She took on
+herself the blame for it all. She had sent one man to his death, and her
+husband stood in peril of a shameful death on the gallows. But it was in
+the power of Mabel to save him. On her knees she pleaded for his life;
+she pleaded to be saved from the horror of sending her husband to the
+gallows. If Mabel's father could make his wishes known he too would
+plead for the life of the friend he had betrayed.
+
+The door opened and the parlourmaid entered. Miss Fewbanks stepped
+quickly across the room so that she should not witness the distress of
+Mrs. Holymead. The servant handed her a card and waited for instructions.
+Miss Fewbanks looked at the card in an agony of indecision. Then she made
+up her mind firmly.
+
+"Show him into my study," she whispered to the girl.
+
+She returned to her visitor, who was sitting with her face buried in
+her hands.
+
+"Mr. Crewe has just motored down," she said. "I will save your husband
+if I can."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+She was conscious that the revelation that her father had been killed
+by Mr. Holymead was a less shock than the revelation that her father
+had dishonoured the great friendship of his life by seducing his
+friend's wife. Her father had been dead three months, and her grief had
+run its course. The shock caused by the discovery that he had been
+murdered had passed away, and she had begun to accept his violent death
+as part of her own experience of life. But the discovery that he had
+betrayed his best friend, in a way that a pure-minded woman regards as
+the most dishonourable way possible, was a fresh revelation to her of
+human infamy.
+
+The knowledge that her father had been a man of immoral habits was not
+new to her. His predilection for fast women had long ago made it
+impossible for her to live in the same house with him for more than a
+week at a time. But that he had trampled in the mire the lifelong
+friendship of an honourable man for the sake of an ignoble passion
+revealed an unexpected depth of shame. That Mr. Holymead had killed him
+seemed almost a natural result of the situation. It was not that she felt
+that a just retribution had overtaken her father, but rather that she was
+glad his shameful conduct had come to an end. As she thought of her dead
+father--dead these three months--she gave a sigh of relief. The wretched
+guilty woman, who had shared with him the shame of his ignoble intrigue,
+had said that if her father could make his wishes known he would plead
+for the life of the friend he had dishonoured. But it was not her
+father's plea for the life of his friend that would have impressed her so
+much as a plea to bury the whole unsavoury scandal from the light. She
+had promised to save Mr. Holymead if she could, but that promise had
+sprung less from the spirit of mercy than from the desire to save her
+father's name from a scandal, which would hold him up to public obloquy.
+
+She greeted Crewe with friendly warmth in spite of the feeling of
+oppression caused by the consciousness of the situation in front of her.
+He did not sit down again after greeting her, but stood with one hand
+resting on an inlaid chess table, with wonderful carved red and white
+Japanese chessmen ranged on each side, which he had been examining when
+she entered the room.
+
+"I came down to make my report to you because I think my work is
+finished," he said.
+
+"You have found out who killed my father?" she asked quietly.
+
+Crewe had sufficient personal pride to feel a little hurt when he saw the
+calm way in which she accepted the result of his investigations, instead
+of congratulating him on his success in a difficult task.
+
+"I think so," he said. "Before I tell you who it is you must prepare
+yourself for a great shock."
+
+"I know who it is" she said--"Mr. Holymead."
+
+There was no pretence about his astonishment.
+
+"How on earth did you find out?"
+
+She smiled a little at such a revelation of his appreciation of his own
+cleverness in having probed the mystery.
+
+"I did not find it out," she said. "I had to be told."
+
+"And who told you, Miss Fewbanks?" he asked. "Has he confessed to you?
+How long have you known it?"
+
+"I have known it only a few minutes," she said. "Will you tell me how you
+got on the track and all you have done? I am greatly interested. You have
+been wonderfully clever to find out. I should never have guessed Mr.
+Holymead had anything to do with it--I should never have thought it
+possible. When you have finished I will tell you how I came to know. The
+story is extremely simple--and sordid."
+
+The fact that the key of the mystery had been in her hands only a few
+minutes was a solace to Crewe, as it detracted but little from the story
+he had to tell of patient investigations extending over weeks.
+
+He pieced together the story of the tragedy as he had unravelled it.
+Hill, he said, had conceived the idea of blackmailing her father after he
+had discovered the existence of some letters in a secret drawer of Sir
+Horace's desk. The fact that Sir Horace had kept these letters instead of
+destroying them as he had destroyed other letters of a somewhat similar
+kind showed that he was very much infatuated with the lady who wrote
+them. That lady, as doubtless Miss Fewbanks had guessed, was Mrs.
+Holymead--a lady with whom Sir Horace had been on very friendly terms
+before she married Mr. Holymead.
+
+"What became of the letters?" asked Miss Fewbanks. "Have you got them?"
+
+"I think they are destroyed," he said. "Mrs. Holymead removed them from
+the secret drawer the day after the discovery of the murder. She
+removed them when the police had charge of the house, and almost from
+under the eyes of Inspector Chippenfield. It was a daring plan and well
+carried out."
+
+Miss Fewbanks heaved a sigh of relief on learning the fate of the
+letters. It had been her intention to endeavour to obtain them if they
+were in Crewe's possession, and destroy them.
+
+Crewe explained that Hill was afraid to take the letters and then boldly
+blackmail Sir Horace. The butler conceived the plan of getting Birchill
+to break into the house. He did not take Birchill into his confidence
+with regard to the blackmailing scheme, but in order to induce Sir Horace
+to believe the burglar had stolen the letters he told Birchill to force
+open the desk, as he would probably find money or papers of value there.
+But in order to prevent Birchill getting the letters if he should happen
+to stumble across the secret drawer, Hill removed them the day before.
+His plan was to go to Riversbrook in the morning after the burglary, and
+after leaving open the secret drawer which had contained the letters, to
+report the burglary to the police. When Sir Horace came home unexpectedly
+Hill had just removed the letters and had them in his possession. Hill
+was greatly perturbed at his master's unexpected return, and had to get
+an opportunity to replace the letters in the secret drawer, but Sir
+Horace told him to go home, as he was not wanted till the morning. Hill
+went to that girl's flat in Westminster, and there saw Birchill. He told
+Birchill that Sir Horace had returned unexpectedly, but he urged Birchill
+to carry out the burglary as arranged, and assured him that as Sir Horace
+was a heavy sleeper there would be no risk if he waited until Sir Horace
+went to bed. Hill's position was that if the burglary was postponed Sir
+Horace might make the discovery that the letters had been stolen from the
+secret drawer. In that case Sir Horace would immediately suspect Hill,
+who, he knew, was an ex-convict. It was just possible that Sir Horace,
+before going to bed, would discover that the letters had been
+stolen--that is, if he went to bed before Birchill got into the
+place--but Hill had to take that risk.
+
+It was the fact that the burglary Hill had arranged with Birchill took
+place on the night Sir Horace was killed that had given rise to the false
+clues which had misled the police. Crewe, as he himself modestly put it,
+was so fortunate as to get on the right track from the start. His
+suspicions were directed to Holymead when he saw the latter carrying away
+a walking-stick from Riversbrook after his visit of condolence to Miss
+Fewbanks. Crewe explained what tactics he had adopted to obtain a brief
+inspection of the stick in order to ascertain for his own satisfaction if
+it had belonged to Holymead. His suspicions against Holymead were
+strengthened when he discovered that the latter, when driving to his
+hotel on the night of the tragedy, had thrown away a glove which was the
+fellow of the one found by the police in Sir Horace's library.
+
+"The next point to settle was whether Holymead had had anything to do
+with your father's sudden return from Scotland," said Crewe, continuing
+his story. "If that proved to be the case, and if evidence could be
+obtained on which to justify the conclusion that these two old friends
+had had a deadly quarrel, the circumstantial evidence against Holymead as
+the man who killed your father was very strong. I may say that before I
+went to Scotland I came across evidence of the estrangement of Holymead
+and his wife. Do you remember when you and Mrs. Holymead were leaving the
+court after the inquest that Mr. Holymead came up and spoke to you? He
+shook hands with you and was on the point of shaking hands with his wife
+as if she were a lady he had met casually. Then, on the night of the
+murder, the taxi-cab driver at Hyde Park Corner drove him to his house at
+Princes Gate, but was ordered to drive back and take him to Verney's
+Hotel. All this was interesting to me--doubly interesting in the light of
+the fact that Sir Horace had known Mrs. Holymead before her second
+marriage, and had paid her every attention.
+
+"I went to Scotland and made inquiries at Craigleith Hall, where Sir
+Horace had been shooting. My object was to endeavour to obtain a clue to
+the reason for his sudden journey to London. The local police had made
+inquiries on this point on behalf of Scotland Yard, and had been unable
+to obtain any clue. No telegram had been received by Sir Horace, and he
+had sent none. Of course he had received some letters. He had told none
+of the other members of the shooting party the object of his departure
+for London, but he had declared his intention of being back with them in
+less than a week. It had occurred to me when the crime was discovered
+that his missing pocket-book might not have been stolen by his murderer,
+but might have been lost in Scotland. I made inquiries in that direction
+and eventually found that the man who had attended to Sir Horace on the
+moors had the pocket-book. His story was that Sir Horace had lost it the
+day before his departure for London. He had taken off his coat owing to
+the heat on the moor, and the pocket-book had dropped out. He
+ascertained his loss before he left for London, and told this man
+Sanders where he thought the pocket-book had dropped out. Sanders was to
+look for it, and if he found it was to keep it until Sir Horace came
+back. He did find it, and after learning of your father's death was
+tempted to keep it, as it contained four five-pound notes. Sanders is an
+ignorant man, and can scarcely read. He professed to know nothing of the
+pocket-book when I questioned him, but I became suspicious of him, and
+laid a trap which he fell into. Then he handed me the pocket-book, which
+he had hidden on the moor, under a stone. In the pocket-book I found a
+letter from Holymead asking your father to come to London at once as
+there were to be two new appointments to the Court of Appeal, and that
+Sir Horace had an excellent chance of obtaining one if he came to London
+and used his influence with the Chancellor and the Chief Justice, who
+were still in town. The writer indicated that he was doing all that was
+possible in Sir Horace's interests, and that he would meet Sir Horace at
+Riversbrook at 9.30 on Wednesday night and let him know the exact
+position. There is nothing suspicious in such a letter, but my inquiries
+concerning new appointments to the Court of Appeal suggest that the
+statements in the letter are false.
+
+"Now let us consider the conduct of Holymead and his wife since the night
+of the murder. His course of action has not been that of a man anxious to
+assist the police in the discovery of the murderer of his old friend. We
+have first of all his secrecy regarding his visit to Riversbrook that
+night; the fact of the visit being established by the stick, and the
+glove he left behind. We have the estrangement of husband and wife. We
+have Mrs. Holymead's visit to Riversbrook on the morning that the first
+details of the crime appeared in the newspapers. Ostensibly she came to
+see you and pay her condolences, but as she knew that you had been away
+in the country she ought to have telephoned to learn if you had come up
+to London. Instead of telephoning, she went to Riversbrook direct, and
+when she found you were not there she was admitted to the presence of my
+old friend, Inspector Chippenfield. He is an excellent police officer,
+but I do not think he is a match for a clever woman. And Mrs. Holymead is
+such a fine-looking woman that I feel sure Chippenfield was so impressed
+by her appearance that he forgot he was a police officer and remembered
+only that he was a man. She managed to get him out of the room long
+enough to enable her to open the secret drawer in Sir Horace's desk and
+remove the letters. No doubt Sir Horace had shown her where he kept them,
+as their neat little hiding place was an indication of the value he
+placed upon them. She was under the impression that no one knew about the
+letters, and her object in removing them was to prevent the police
+stumbling across them and so getting on the track of her husband. But as
+I have already told you, Hill knew about the letters, and on the night of
+the murder had them in his possession. On the night after the murder,
+while Inspector Chippenfield was making investigations at Riversbrook,
+Hill had managed to obtain the opportunity to put the letters back. He
+naturally thought that if the police discovered some of Sir Horace's
+private papers in his possession they would conclude that he had had
+something to do with the murder.
+
+"The next point of any consequence is Holymead's defence of Birchill
+and the deliberate way in which he blackened your father's name while
+cross-examining Hill. If we regard Holymead's conduct solely from the
+standpoint of a barrister doing his best for his client his defence of
+Birchill is not so remarkable. But we have to remember that your
+father and Holymead had been life-long friends. His acceptance of the
+brief for the defence was in itself remarkable. The fee, as I took the
+trouble to find out, was not large; indeed, for a man of Holymead's
+commanding eminence at the bar it might be called a small one, and he
+should have returned the brief because the fee was inadequate. We have,
+therefore, two things to consider--his defence of the man charged with
+the murder of your father, and his readiness to do the work without
+regard to the monetary side of it. Much was said at the time in some of
+the papers about a barrister being a servant of the court and compelled
+by the etiquette of the bar to place his services at the disposal of
+anyone who needs them and is prepared to pay for them. A great deal of
+nonsense has been said and written on that subject. A barrister can
+return a brief because for private reasons he does not wish to have
+anything to do with the case. It was Holymead's duty to do his best to
+get Birchill off whether he believed his client was guilty or innocent.
+Could Holymead have done his best for Birchill if he had believed that
+Birchill was the murderer of his lifelong friend? Would he have trusted
+himself to do his best? No, Holymead knew that Birchill was innocent;
+he knew who the guilty man was, and, knowing that, knowing that his
+action in defending the man charged with the murder of an old friend
+would weigh with the jury, he took up the case because he felt there
+was a moral obligation on him to get Birchill off. His conduct of the
+defence, during which he attacked the moral character of your father,
+was remarkable, coming from him--the friend of the dead man. As the
+action of defending counsel it was perfectly legitimate. It gave rise
+to some discussion in purely legal circles--whether Holymead did right
+or wrong in violating a long friendship in order to get his man off.
+The academic point is whether he ought to have violated his personal
+feelings for an old friend, or violated his duty to his client by
+doing something less than his best for him.
+
+"Apart from the circumstantial and inferential evidence against Holymead,
+there is the fact that his wife knows that he committed the crime. Her
+acts point to that; her conduct throughout springs from the desire to
+shield him. Even the removal of the letters from the secret drawer was
+prompted more by the desire to save him than to save herself. Their
+discovery would not have been very serious for her, but it would have put
+the police on her husband's track. If I remember rightly, she asked you
+to keep her in touch with all the developments of the investigations of
+the police and myself. You told me that she was greatly interested in the
+fact that I did not believe Birchill was guilty, and particularly anxious
+to know if I suspected anyone. At Birchill's trial she did me the honour
+of watching me very closely. I was watching both her and her husband.
+When she discovered through her womanly intuition that I suspected her
+husband; that I was accumulating evidence against him; she sent round her
+friend, Mademoiselle Chiron, with some interesting information for me. An
+extremely clever young woman that--like all her countrywomen she is
+wonderfully sharp and quick, with a natural aptitude for intrigue. Of
+course, the information she gave me was intended to mislead me--intended
+to show me that Mr. Holymead had nothing to do with the crime. But some
+of it was extremely interesting when it dealt with actual facts, and some
+of the facts were quite new to me. For instance, I had not previously
+known that a piece of a lady's handkerchief was found clenched in your
+father's right hand after he was dead. The police very kindly kept that
+information from me. Had they told me about it I might have been inclined
+to suspect Mrs. Holymead and to believe that her husband was trying to
+shield her. His conduct would bear that interpretation if she had
+happened to be guilty. The police unconsciously saved me from taking up
+that false scent.
+
+"I have detained you a long time in dealing with these points, Miss
+Fewbanks, but I wanted to make everything clear. I have all but reached
+the end. Let us take in chronological order what happened on the night of
+the tragedy. We have your father's sudden return from Scotland. Hill was
+at Riversbrook when he arrived, and having the secret letters in his
+possession, was greatly perturbed by the unexpected return of Sir Horace.
+He went to Doris Fanning's flat in Westminster to see Birchill. In his
+absence Holymead arrived. It is probable that he took the Tube from Hyde
+Park Corner to Hampstead and walked to Riversbrook. He rang the bell; was
+admitted by your father, and, leaving his hat and stick in the hall-stand
+as he had often done before, the two went upstairs to the library. There
+was an angry interview, Holymead accusing your father of having wronged
+him and demanding satisfaction. My own opinion is that there was an
+irregular sort of duel. Each of them fired one shot. It is quite
+conceivable that Holymead, in spite of his mission, being that of
+revenge, gave your father a fair chance for his life. A man in Holymead's
+position would probably feel indifferent whether he killed the man who
+had ruined his home or was killed by him. But whereas your father's shot
+missed by a few inches, Holymead's inflicted a fatal wound. When he saw
+your father fall and realised what he had done, the instinct of
+self-preservation asserted itself. He grabbed at the gloves he had taken
+off, but in his hurry dropped one on the floor. He ran downstairs, took
+his hat from the hall-stand, but left his stick. Then he rushed out of
+the house, leaving the front door open. He made his way back to Hampstead
+Tube station, got out at Hyde Park and took a cab to his hotel.
+
+"Within a few minutes of Holymead's departure from Riversbrook the
+Frenchwoman arrived. She may have passed Holymead in Tanton Gardens, or
+Holymead, when he saw her approaching, may have hidden inside the
+gateway of a neighbouring house. She had come up from the country on
+learning that Holymead had come to London. She caught the next train, but
+unfortunately it was late on arriving at Victoria owing to a slight
+accident to the engine. I take it that she was sent by Mrs. Holymead to
+follow her husband if possible and see if he had any designs on Sir
+Horace. She took a cab as far as the Spaniards Inn and then got out, and
+walked to Riversbrook. When she arrived at the house she found the front
+door open and the lights burning. There was no answer to her ring and she
+entered the house and crept upstairs. Opening the library door, she saw
+your father lying on the floor. She endeavoured to raise him to a sitting
+posture, but it was too late to do anything for him. With a convulsive
+movement he grasped at the handkerchief she was holding in one hand, and
+a corner of it was torn off and remained in his hand. When she saw he had
+breathed his last she laid him down on the floor. Since she had been too
+late to prevent the crime, the next best thing in the interests of Mrs.
+Holymead was to remove traces of Holymead's guilt. She picked up the
+revolver, which she thought belonged to Holymead, turned off the light in
+the room, went downstairs, turned off the light in the hall, and closed
+the hall door as she went out.
+
+"She behaved with remarkable courage and coolness, but she overlooked the
+glove in the room of the tragedy, and Holymead's stick in the hall-stand.
+Later in the night we have Birchill's entry into the house, his alarm at
+finding your father had been killed, and his return to the flat where
+Hill was waiting for him."
+
+When Crewe had finished he looked at the girl. She had followed his
+statement with breathless interest.
+
+"You have been wonderfully clever," she said. "It is perfectly
+marvellous."
+
+Crewe's eyes had wandered to the inlaid chess-table and the Japanese
+chessmen set in prim rows on either side. Mechanically he began to
+arrange a problem on the board. His interest in the famous murder mystery
+seemed to have evaporated.
+
+"I was very fortunate," he said absently, in reply to Miss Fewbanks.
+"Everything seemed to come right for me."
+
+"You made everything come right," she replied. "I do not know how to
+thank you for giving so much of your time to unravelling the mystery."
+
+"It was fascinating while it lasted," he replied, his fingers still busy
+with the chessmen. "Of course, I am pleased with my success, but in a way
+I am sorry the work has come to an end. I thought that the knowledge that
+Holymead was the guilty man would come as a great shock to you. But I am
+glad you are able to take it so well."
+
+"A few minutes before you arrived I learned that it was Mr. Holymead. But
+what has been more of a shock to me, Mr. Crewe, is the discovery that my
+father had ruined his home. Oh, Mr. Crewe, it is terrible for me to have
+to hold my dead father up to judgment, but it is more terrible still to
+know that he was not faithful even to his lifelong friendship with Mr.
+Holymead."
+
+"Your nerves are unstrung," he said. "You want rest and quiet--you want a
+long sea voyage."
+
+"Yes, I want to forget," she said. "But there are others who want to
+forget, too. Cannot we bury the whole thing in forgetfulness?"
+
+Crewe's growing interest in the chessboard and his problem suddenly
+vanished. His eyes became instantly riveted on her face in a keen,
+questioning look.
+
+"What is it to me or you that Mr. Holymead should be publicly proved
+guilty of this terrible thing?" she went on, passionately. "Why drag into
+the light my father's conduct in order to make a day's sensation for the
+newspapers? For his sake, what better thing could I do than let his
+memory rest?"
+
+"Do you mean that Holymead should be allowed to go free?" he asked, in
+astonishment.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'm extremely sorry," he said slowly.
+
+"Won't you let it all drop?" she pleaded.
+
+"I could not take upon myself the responsibility of condoning such a
+crime--the responsibility of judging between your father and his
+murderer," he said solemnly. "But even if I could it is too late to think
+of doing so. There is already a warrant out for Holymead's arrest"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+The newspapers made a sensation out of the announcement of Holymead's
+arrest on a charge of having murdered Sir Horace Fewbanks. They declared
+that the arrest of the eminent K.C. on a capital charge would come as a
+surprising development of the Riversbrook case. It would cause a shock to
+his many friends, and especially to those who knew what a close
+friendship had existed between the arrested man and the dead judge. The
+papers expatiated on the fact that Holymead had appeared for the defence
+when Frederick Birchill had been tried for the murder. As the public
+would remember, Birchill had been acquitted owing to the great ability
+with which his defence was conducted.
+
+It was somewhat remarkable, said the _Daily Record_, that in his speech
+for the defence Holymead had attempted to throw suspicion on one of the
+witnesses for the prosecution. The journal hinted that it was the result
+of something which Counsel for the defence had let drop at this trial
+that Inspector Chippenfield had picked up the clue which had led to
+Holymead's arrest. The papers had very little information to give the
+public about this new development of the Fewbanks mystery, but they
+boldly declared that some startling revelations were expected when the
+case came before the court.
+
+In the absence of interesting facts apropos of the arrest of the
+distinguished K.C., some of the papers published summaries of his legal
+career, and the more famous cases with which he had been connected. These
+summaries would have been equally suitable to an announcement that Mr.
+Holymead had been promoted to the peerage or that he had been run over by
+a London bus.
+
+There were people who declared without knowing anything about the
+evidence the police had in their possession that in arresting the famous
+barrister the police had made a far worse blunder than in arresting
+Birchill. It was even hinted that the arrest of the man who had got
+Birchill off was an expression of the police desire for revenge. To these
+people the acquittal of Holymead was a foregone conclusion. The man who
+had saved Birchill's life by his brilliant forensic abilities was not
+likely to fail when his own life was at stake.
+
+But when the case came before the police court and the police produced
+their evidence, it was seen that there was a strong case against the
+prisoner. The whispers as to the circumstances under which the prisoner
+had taken the life of a friend of many years appealed to a sentimental
+public. These whispers concerned the discovery by the prisoner that his
+friend had seduced his beautiful wife. In the police court proceedings
+there were no disclosures under this head, but the thing was hinted at.
+In view of the legal eminence of the prisoner and the fear of the police
+that he would prove too much for any police officer who might take charge
+of the prosecution, the Direction of Public Prosecutions sent Mr.
+Walters, K.C., to appear at the police court. The prisoner was
+represented by Mr. Lethbridge, K.C., an eminent barrister to whom the
+prisoner had been opposed in many civil cases.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield, who realised that the important position the
+prisoner occupied at the bar added to the importance of the officer who
+had arrested him, gave evidence as to the arrest of the prisoner at his
+chambers in the Middle Temple. With a generous feeling, which was
+possibly due to the fact that he was entitled to none of the credit of
+collecting the evidence against the prisoner, Inspector Chippenfield
+allowed Detective Rolfe a subordinate share in the glory that hung round
+the arrest by volunteering the information in the witness-box that when
+making the arrest he was accompanied by that officer. He declared that
+the prisoner made no remark when arrested and did not seem surprised. Mr.
+Walters produced a left-hand glove and witness duly identified it as the
+glove which he found in the room in which the murder took place.
+
+Inspector Seldon gave formal evidence of the discovery of the body of Sir
+Horace Fewbanks on the 19th of August. Dr. Slingsby repeated the evidence
+that he had given at the trial of Birchill as to the cause of death, and
+was again professionally indefinite as to the length of time the victim
+had been dead when he saw the body. Thomas Taylor, taxi-cab driver, gave
+evidence as to driving the prisoner from Hyde Park Corner on the night of
+the 18th of August and the finding of the glove.
+
+Crewe went into the witness-box and swore that on the second day after
+the discovery of the murder he was present at Riversbrook when the
+prisoner visited the house and saw Miss Fewbanks. When the prisoner
+arrived he was not carrying a walking-stick, but he had one in his hand
+when he took his departure from the house. Witness followed the prisoner,
+and a boy who collided with the prisoner knocked the stick out of his
+hands. Witness picked up the stick and inspected it. He identified the
+stick produced in court as the one which the prisoner had been carrying
+on that day.
+
+The most difficult, and most important witness, as far as new evidence
+was concerned was Alexander Saunders, a big, broad red-faced Scotchman,
+whose firm grasp on the tam-o'-shanter he held in his hand seemed to
+indicate a fear that all the pickpockets in London had designs on it.
+With great difficulty he was made to understand his part in the
+witness-box, and some of the questions had to be repeated several times
+before he could grasp their meaning. Mr. Lethbridge humorously suggested
+that his learned friend should have provided an interpreter so that his
+pure English might be translated into Lowland Scotch.
+
+By slow degrees Saunders was able to explain how he had found the
+pocket-book which Sir Horace Few-banks had lost while shooting at
+Craigleith Hall. Witness identified a letter produced as having been in
+the pocket-book when he found it. The letter, which had been written by
+the prisoner to Sir Horace Fewbanks, urged Sir Horace to return to London
+at once, as if he did so there was a good possibility of his obtaining
+promotion to the Court of Appeal. The writer promised to do all he could
+in the matter, and to call on Sir Horace at Riversbrook as soon as he
+returned from Scotland.
+
+Percival Chambers, an elderly well-dressed man with a grey beard, and
+wearing glasses, who was secretary of the Master of Rolls, swore that he
+knew of no prospective vacancies on the Court of Appeal Bench. Were any
+vacancies of the kind in view he believed he would be aware of them.
+
+This closed the case for the police, and Mr. Lethbridge immediately asked
+for the discharge of the prisoner on the ground that there was no case to
+go before a jury. The magistrate shook his head, and merely asked Mr.
+Lethbridge if he intended to reserve his defence. Mr. Lethbridge replied
+with a nod, and the accused was formally committed for trial at the next
+sittings at the Old Bailey.
+
+The newspapers reported at great length the evidence given in the police
+court, and their reports were eagerly read by a sensation-loving public.
+Even those people who, when Holymead's arrest was announced, had
+ridiculed the idea of a man like Holymead murdering a lifelong friend,
+had to admit that the police had collected some damaging evidence. Those
+people who at the time of the arrest had prided themselves on possessing
+an open mind as to the guilt of the famous barrister, confessed after
+reading the police court evidence that there could be little doubt of his
+guilt. The only thing that was missing from the police court proceedings
+was the production of a motive for the crime, but it was whispered that
+there would be some interesting revelations on this point when the
+prisoner was tried at the Old Bailey.
+
+Fortunately he had not long to wait for his trial, as the next sittings
+of the Central Criminal Court had previously been fixed a week ahead of
+the date of his commitment. That week was full of anxiety for Mr.
+Lethbridge, for he realised that he had a poor case. What increased his
+anxiety was the fact that Holymead insisted on the defence being
+conducted on the lines he laid down. It was a new thing in Lethbridge's
+experience to accept such instructions from a prisoner, but Holymead had
+threatened to dispense with all assistance unless his instructions were
+carried out. He was particularly anxious that his wife's name should be
+kept out of court as much as possible. Lethbridge had pointed out to him
+that the prosecution would be sure to drag it in at the trial in
+suggesting a motive for the murder, and that for the purposes of the
+defence it was best to have a full and frank disclosure of everything so
+that an appeal could be made to the jury's feelings. Holymead's beautiful
+wife, who was almost distracted by her husband's position, implored his
+Counsel to allow her to go into the box and make a confession. But that
+course did not commend itself to Lethbridge, who realised that she would
+make an extremely bad witness and would but help to put the rope round
+her husband's neck. He put her off by declaring that there was a good
+prospect of her husband being acquitted, but that if the verdict
+unfortunately went against him her confession would have more weight in
+saving him, when the appeal against the verdict was heard.
+
+It amazed Lethbridge to find that the prisoner expressed the view that
+Birchill had committed the murder. This view was based on his contention
+that Sir Horace Fewbanks was alive when he (Holymead) left him about ten
+o'clock. The interview between them had been an angry one, but Holymead
+persisted in asserting that he had not shot his former friend. He
+declared that he had not taken a revolver with him when he went to
+Riversbrook.
+
+Lethbridge was one of those barristers who believe that a knowledge of
+the guilt of a client handicapped Counsel in defending him. He had his
+private opinion as to the result of the angry interview between Holymead
+and Sir Horace Fewbanks, but he preferred that Holymead should protest
+his innocence even to him. That made it easier for him to make a stirring
+appeal to the jury than it would have been if his client had fully
+confessed to him. His private opinion as to the author of the crime was
+strengthened by Holymead's admission that Birchill had not confessed to
+him or to his solicitor at the time of his trial that he had shot Sir
+Horace Fewbanks. He was astonished that Holymead had taken up Birchill's
+defence, but Holymead's explanation was the somewhat extraordinary one
+that the man who had killed the seducer of his wife had done him a
+service by solving a problem that had seemed insoluble without a public
+scandal. There was no doubt that although Sir Horace Fewbanks was in his
+grave, Holymead's hatred of him for his betrayal of his wife burned as
+strongly as when he had made the discovery that wrecked his home life.
+Neither death nor time could dim the impression, nor lessen his hatred
+for the dead man who had once been his closest friend.
+
+Lethbridge, feeling that it was his duty as Counsel for the prisoner to
+try every avenue which might help to an acquittal, asked Mr. Tomlinson,
+the solicitor who was instructing him in the case, to find Birchill and
+bring him to his chambers. Birchill was found and kept an appointment.
+Lethbridge explained to him that he had nothing further to fear from the
+police with regard to the murder of Sir Horace Fewbanks. Having been
+acquitted on this charge he could not be tried on it again, no matter
+what discoveries were made. He could not even be tried for perjury, as he
+had not gone into the witness-box. Having allowed these facts to sink
+home, he delicately suggested to Birchill that he ought to come forward
+as a witness for the defence of Holymead--he ought to do his best to try
+and save the life of the man who had saved his life.
+
+"What do you want me to swear?" asked Birchill, in a tone which indicated
+that although he did not object to committing perjury, he wanted to know
+how far he was to go.
+
+"Well, that Sir Horace Fewbanks was alive when you went to Riversbrook,"
+suggested Lethbridge.
+
+"But I tell you he was dead," protested Birchill. He seemed to think that
+reviving a dead man was beyond even the power of perjury.
+
+"That was your original story, I know," agreed Lethbridge suavely. "But
+as you were not put into the witness-box to swear it you can alter it
+without fear of any consequences."
+
+"You want me to swear that he was alive?" said Birchill, meditatively.
+
+"If you can conscientiously do so," replied Lethbridge.
+
+"That he was alive when I left Riversbrook?" asked Birchill.
+
+"Well, not necessarily that," said Lethbridge.
+
+Birchill sprang up in alarm.
+
+"Good God, do you want me to swear that I killed him?" he demanded.
+
+Lethbridge endeavoured to explain that he would have nothing to fear from
+such a confession in the witness-box, but Birchill would listen to no
+further explanations. He felt that he was in dangerous company, and that
+his safety depended on getting out of the room.
+
+"You've made a mistake," he said, as he reached the door. "If you want a
+witness of that kind you ought to look for him in Colney Hatch."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+The impending trial of Holymead produced almost as much excitement in
+staid legal circles as it did among the general public. It was rumoured
+that there was a difficulty in obtaining a judge to preside at the trial,
+as they all objected to being placed in the position of trying a man who
+was well-known to them and with whom most of them had been on friendly
+terms. There was a great deal of sympathy for the prisoner among the
+judges. Of course, they could not admit that any man had the right to
+take the law into his own hands, but they realised that if any wrong done
+to an individual could justify this course it was the wrong Sir Horace
+Fewbanks had done to an old friend.
+
+When it became known that Mr. Justice Hodson was to preside at the Old
+Bailey during the trial of Holymead, legal rumour concerned itself with
+statements to the effect that there was now a difficulty in obtaining a
+K.C. to undertake the prosecution. When it was discovered that Mr.
+Walters, K.C., was to conduct the prosecution, it was whispered that he
+had asked to be relieved of the work and had even waited on the
+Attorney-General in the matter, but that the latter had told him that he
+must put his personal feelings aside and act in accordance with that high
+sense of duty he had always shown in his professional career.
+
+In Newgate Street a long queue of people waited for admission to Old
+Bailey on the day the trial was to begin. They were inspected by two fat
+policemen to decide whether they appeared respectable enough to be
+entitled to a free seat at the entertainment in Number One Court. When
+the doors opened at 10.15 a.m. the first batch of them were admitted, but
+on reaching the top of the stairs, where they were inspected by a
+sergeant, they were informed that all the seats in the gallery of Number
+One Court had been filled, but that he would graciously permit them to go
+to Numbers Two, Three, Four, or Five Courts. Those who were not satisfied
+with this generosity could get out the way they had come in and be quick
+about it. What the sergeant did not explain was that so many people with
+social influence had applied to the presiding judge for permission to be
+present at the trial that it had been found necessary to reserve the
+gallery for them as well as most of the seats in the body of the court.
+Fashionably-dressed ladies and well-groomed men drove up to the main
+entrance of the Old Bailey in motors and taxi-cabs. The scene was as busy
+as the scene outside a West End theatre on a first night. The services of
+several policemen were necessary to regulate the arrival and departure of
+taxi-cabs and motor-cars and to keep back the staring mob of disappointed
+people who had been refused admission to the court by the fat sergeant,
+but were determined to see as much as they could before they went away.
+Elderly ladies and young ladies were assisted from smart motor-cars by
+their escorts, and greeted their friends with feminine fervour. Some of
+the younger ones exchanged whispered regrets, as they swept into the
+court, that such a fine-looking man as Holymead should have got himself
+into such a terrible predicament.
+
+The legal profession was numerously represented among the spectators in
+the body of the court. So many distinguished members of the profession
+had applied for tickets of admission that there was little room for
+members of the junior bar. It was many years since a trial had created
+so much interest in legal circles. When Mr. Justice Hodson entered the
+court, followed by no fewer than eight of the Sheriffs of London, those
+present in the court rose. The members of the profession bowed slowly in
+the direction of His Honour. The prisoner was brought into the dock from
+below, and took the seat that was given to him beside one of the two
+warders who remained in the dock with him. He looked a little careworn,
+as though with sleepless nights, but his strong, clean-shaven face was
+as resolute as ever, and betrayed nothing of the mental agony which he
+endured. His keen dark eyes glanced quietly through the court, and
+though many members of the bar smiled at him when they thought they had
+caught his eye, he gave no smile in return. As he looked at Mr. Justice
+Hodson, the distinguished judge inclined his head to what was almost a
+nod of recognition, but the prisoner looked calmly at the judge as
+though he had never seen him before and had never been inside a court in
+his life till then.
+
+Among those persons standing in the body of the court were Crewe and
+Inspector Chippenfield and Detective Rolfe. Inspector Chippenfield
+displayed so much friendliness to Crewe as he drew his attention to the
+number of celebrities in court that it was evident he had buried for the
+time being his professional enmity. This was because Crewe had allowed
+him to appropriate some of the credit of unravelling Holymead's
+connection with the crime. As the jury were being sworn in Crewe and
+Chippenfield made their way out of court into the corridor. As they were
+to be called as witnesses they would not be allowed in court until after
+they had given their evidence.
+
+Mr. Walters in his opening address paid tribute to the exceptional
+circumstances of the case by some slight show of nervousness. Several
+times he insisted that the case was what he termed unique. The prisoner
+in the dock was a man who by his distinguished abilities had won for
+himself a leading position at the bar, and had been honoured and
+respected by all who knew him. It was not the first occasion that a
+member of the legal profession had been placed on trial on a capital
+charge, though he was glad to say, for the honour of the profession, that
+cases of the kind were extremely rare. But what made the case unique was
+that it was not the first trial in connection with the murder of Sir
+Horace Fewbanks, and that at the first trial when a man named Frederick
+Birchill had been placed in the dock, the prisoner now before the court
+had appeared as defending Counsel, and by his brilliant conduct of the
+defence had materially contributed to the verdict of acquittal which had
+been brought in by the jury. Some evidence would be placed before the
+jury about the first trial and the conduct of the defence. He ventured to
+assert that the jury would find in this evidence some damaging facts
+against the prisoner--that they would find a clear indication that the
+prisoner had defended Birchill because he knew himself to be guilty of
+this murder, and felt an obligation on him to place his legal knowledge
+and forensic powers at the disposal of a man whom he knew to be innocent.
+At the former trial the prisoner, as Counsel for the defence, had
+attempted to throw suspicion on a man named Hill, who had been butler to
+the late Sir Horace Fewbanks, but evidence would be placed before the
+jury to show that in doing so the prisoner had been smitten by some pangs
+of conscience at casting suspicion on a man who he knew was not guilty.
+
+It was not incumbent on the prosecution to prove a motive for the murder,
+continued Mr. Walters, though where the motive was plainly proved the
+case against the prisoner was naturally strengthened. In this case there
+was no doubt about the motive, but the extent of the evidence to be
+placed before the jury under that head would depend upon the defence. The
+prosecution would submit some evidence on the point, but the full story
+could only be told if the defence placed the wife of the prisoner in the
+witness-box. It was impossible for the prosecution to call her as a
+witness, as English law prevented a wife giving evidence against her
+husband. She could, however, give evidence in favour of her husband, and
+doubtless the defence would take full advantage of the privilege of
+calling her.
+
+The evidence which he intended to call would show that for years past
+very friendly relations had existed between the prisoner and the murdered
+man. They had been at Cambridge together and had studied law together in
+chambers. Their friendship continued after their marriages. The prisoner
+had married a second time, and at that time Sir Horace Fewbanks was a
+widower. Sir Horace Fewbanks was what was known as a ladies' man, and at
+the previous trial prisoner, as defending Counsel, had tried to bring out
+that Sir Horace was a man of immoral reputation among women. There was no
+doubt that the prisoner, during Sir Horace's absence in Scotland, became
+convinced that Sir Horace had been paying attention to his wife. There
+was no doubt that, being a man of a jealous disposition, his suspicions
+went beyond that. At any rate he wrote a letter to Sir Horace at
+Craigleith Hall, where the latter was shooting, asking him to come to
+London at once. In order to induce Sir Horace to return, and in order not
+to arouse suspicion as to his real object, he concocted a story about a
+vacancy in the Court of Appeal Bench to which, it appeared, Sir Horace
+Fewbanks desired to be appointed. In this letter, which would be produced
+in evidence, the prisoner pretended to be working in Sir Horace's
+interests, and offered to meet him on the night of his return at
+Riversbrook and let him know fully how matters stood. Sir Horace
+apparently wrote to the prisoner making an appointment with him for the
+night of the 18th of August. The prisoner kept that appointment, charged
+Sir Horace with carrying on an intrigue with his wife, and then shot him.
+
+"That is the case for the prosecution which I will endeavour to establish
+to the satisfaction of the jury," said Mr. Walters, in concluding his
+speech, "Of course it is impossible to produce direct evidence of the
+actual shooting. But I will produce a silent but indisputable witness in
+the form of a glove which belonged to the prisoner, that he was present
+in the room in which the murder took place. I will produce evidence to
+show that the prisoner left his stick behind in the hat-stand in the
+hall on the night of the murder. These things prove conclusively that he
+left Riversbrook in a state of considerable excitement. The fact that
+after the murder was discovered he kept hidden in his own breast the
+knowledge that he had been there on that night, instead of going to the
+police and, in the endeavour to assist them to detect the murderer of his
+lifelong friend, informing them that he had called on Sir Horace, shows
+conclusively that he went there on a mission on which he dared not throw
+the light of day."
+
+Those witnesses who had given evidence at the police court were called
+and repeated their statements. Inspector Seldon was closely
+cross-examined by Mr. Lethbridge as to the way in which the dead body was
+dressed when he discovered it. He declared that Sir Horace had been
+wearing a light lounge suit of grey colour, a silk shirt, wing collar and
+black bow tie. Dr. Slingsby's cross-examination was directed to
+ascertaining as near as possible the time when the murder was committed,
+but this was a point on which the witness allowed himself to be
+irritatingly indefinite. The murder might have taken place three or four
+hours before midnight on the 18th of August, and on the other hand it
+might have taken place any time up to three or four hours after midnight.
+
+Hill, who had not been available as a witness at the police
+court--being then on the way back from America in response to a
+cablegram from Crewe--reappeared as a witness. He looked much more at
+ease in the witness-box than on the occasion when he gave evidence
+against Birchill. He had fully recovered from his terror of being
+arrested for the murder, and obviously had much satisfaction in giving
+evidence against the man who, according to his impression, had tried to
+bring the crime home to him.
+
+He gave evidence as to the unexpected return of his master from Scotland
+on the 18th of August, and also in regard to the relations between his
+master and Mrs. Holymead. On several occasions he had seen his master
+kiss Mrs. Holymead, and once he had heard the door of the room in which
+they were together being locked.
+
+Two new witnesses were called to testify to the suggestion of the
+prosecution that illicit relations had existed between Sir Horace
+Fewbanks and Mrs. Holymead. These were Philip Williams, who had been the
+dead man's chauffeur, and Dorothy Mason, who had been housemaid at
+Riversbrook. The chauffeur gave evidence as to meeting Mrs. Holymead's
+car at various places in the country. He formed the opinion from the
+first that these meetings between Sir Horace and the lady were not
+accidental.
+
+The last of the prosecution's witnesses was the legal shorthand writer
+who had taken the official report of the trial of Birchill. In response
+to the request of Mr. Walters, he read from his notebook the final
+passage in the opening address delivered by the prisoner at that trial as
+defending Counsel: "'It is my duty to convince you that my client is not
+guilty, or, in other words, to convince you that the murder was committed
+before he reached the house. It is only with the greatest reluctance that
+I take upon myself the responsibility of pointing an accusing finger at
+another man. In crimes of this kind you cannot expect to get anything but
+circumstantial evidence. But there are degrees of circumstantial
+evidence, and my duty to my client lays upon me the obligation of
+pointing out to you that there is one person against whom the existing
+circumstantial evidence is stronger than it is against my client.'"
+
+Mr. Lethbridge was unexpectedly brief in his opening address. He
+ridiculed the idea that a man like the prisoner, trained in the
+atmosphere of the law, would take the law into his own hands in seeking
+revenge for a wrong that had been done to him. According to the
+prosecution the prisoner had calmly and deliberately carried out this
+murder. He had sent a letter to Sir Horace Fewbanks with the object of
+inducing him to return to London, and had subsequently gone to
+Riversbrook and shot the man who had been his lifelong friend. Could
+anything be more improbable than to suppose that a man of the accused's
+training, intellect, and force of character, would be swayed by a gust of
+passion into committing such a dreadful crime like an immature ignorant
+youth of unbalanced temperament? The discovery that his wife and his
+friend were carrying on an intrigue would be more likely to fill him with
+disgust than inspire him with murderous rage. He would not deny that
+accused had gone up to Riversbrook a few hours after Sir Horace Fewbanks
+returned from Scotland; he would admit that when the accused sought this
+interview he knew that his quondam friend had done him the greatest wrong
+one man could do another; but he emphatically denied that the prisoner
+killed Sir Horace Fewbanks or threatened to take his life.
+
+His learned friend had asked why had not the prisoner gone to the police
+after the murder was discovered and told them that he had seen Sir Horace
+at Riversbrook that night. The answer to that was clear and emphatic. He
+did not want to take the police into his confidence with regard to the
+relations that had existed between his wife and the dead man. He wanted
+to save his wife's name from scandal. Was not that a natural impulse for
+a high-minded man? The prisoner had believed that in due course the
+police would discover the actual murderer, and that in the meantime the
+scandal which threatened his wife's name would be buried with the man who
+had wronged her. If the prisoner could have prevented it his wife's name
+would not have been dragged into this case even for the purpose of saving
+himself from injustice. But the prosecution, in order to establish a
+motive for the crime, had dragged this scandal into light. He did not
+blame the prosecution in the least for that. In fact he was grateful to
+his learned friend for doing so, for it had released him from a promise
+extracted from him by the prisoner not to make any use of the matter in
+his conduct of the case. The defence was that, although the accused man
+had gone to Riversbrook on the night of the 18th of August to accuse Sir
+Horace Fewbanks of base treachery, he went there unarmed, and with no
+intention of committing violence. No threats were used and no shot was
+fired during the interview. And in proof of the latter contention he
+intended to call witnesses to prove that Sir Horace Fewbanks was alive
+after the prisoner had left the house.
+
+The name of Daniel Kemp was loudly called by the ushers, and when Kemp
+crossed the court on the way to the witness-box, Chippenfield and
+Crewe, who had returned to the court after giving their evidence,
+looked at one another.
+
+"He's a dead man," whispered Chippenfield, nodding his head towards the
+prisoner, "if this is a sample of their witnesses."
+
+Kemp had brushed himself up for his appearance in the witness-box. He
+wore a new ready-made tweed suit; his thick neck was encased in a white
+linen collar which he kept fingering with one hand as though trying to
+loosen it for his greater comfort; and his hair had been plastered flat
+on his head with plenty of cold water. His red and scratched chin further
+indicated that he had taken considerable pains with a razor to improve
+his personal appearance in keeping with his unwonted part of a
+respectable witness in a place which knew a more sinister side of him. As
+he stood in the witness-box, awkwardly avoiding the significant glances
+that the Scotland Yard men and the police cast at him, he appeared to be
+more nervous and anxious than he usually was when in the dock. But Crewe,
+who was watching him closely, was struck by the look of dog-like devotion
+he hurriedly cast at the weary face of the man in the dock before he
+commenced to give his evidence.
+
+He told the court a remarkable story. He declared that Birchill had told
+him on the 16th of August that he had a job on at Riversbrook, and had
+asked him to join him in it. When Birchill explained the details witness
+declined to have a hand in it. He did not like these put-up jobs.
+
+Mr. Lethbridge interposed to explain to any particularly unsophisticated
+jurymen that "a put-up job" meant a burglary that had been arranged with
+the connivance of a servant in the house to be broken into.
+
+Kemp declared that the reason he had declined to have anything to do with
+the project to burgle Riversbrook was that he felt sure Hill would squeak
+if the police threatened him when they came to investigate the burglary.
+He happened to be at Hampstead on the evening of the 18th of August and
+he took a walk along Tanton Gardens to have another look at the place
+which Birchill was to break into. It had occurred to him that things
+might not be square, and that Hill might have laid a trap for Birchill.
+That was about 9.30 p.m. He was just able to catch a glimpse of the house
+through the plantation in front of it. The mansion appeared all in
+darkness, but while he looked he was surprised to see a light appear in
+the upper portion of the house which was visible from the road. He went
+through the carriage gates with the intention of getting a closer view of
+the house. As he walked along he heard a quick footstep on the gravel
+walk behind him, and he slipped into the plantation. Looking out from
+behind a tree he could discern the figure of a man walking quickly
+towards the house. As he drew near him the man paused, struck a match and
+looked at his watch, and he saw that it was Mr. Holymead. Witness's
+suspicions in regard to a trap having been laid for Birchill were
+strengthened, and he decided to ascertain what was in the wind. He crept
+through the plantation to the edge of the garden in front of the house.
+From there he could hear voices in a room upstairs. He tried to make out
+what was being said, but he was too far away for that. In about half an
+hour the voices stopped, and a minute later a man came out of the house
+and walked down the path through the garden, and entered the carriage
+drive close to where witness was concealed in the plantation. As he
+passed him witness saw that it was Mr. Holymead.
+
+About five minutes afterwards the window upstairs in the room where the
+voices had come from was opened, and Sir Horace Fewbanks leaned out and
+looked at the sky as if to ascertain what sort of a night it was. He was
+quite certain that it was Sir Horace Fewbanks. He was well acquainted
+with that gentleman's features, having been sentenced by him three years
+ago. Sir Horace seemed quite calm and collected. Witness was so surprised
+to see him, after having been told by Birchill that he was in Scotland,
+that he did not take his eyes off him during the two or three minutes
+that he remained at the window, breathing the night air. Sir Horace was
+fully dressed. He had on a light tweed suit, and he was wearing a soft
+shirt of a light colour, with a stiff collar, and a small black bow tie.
+When Sir Horace closed the window witness jumped over the fence back into
+the wood and made his way to the Hampstead Tube station with the
+intention of warning Birchill that Sir Horace Fewbanks was at home. He
+waited at the station over an hour, and as he did not see Birchill he
+then made his way home. During the time he was in the garden at
+Riversbrook listening to the voices, he heard no sound of a shot. He was
+certain that no shot had been fired inside the house from the time the
+prisoner entered the house until he left. Had a shot been fired witness
+could not have failed to hear it.
+
+There could be no doubt that the effect produced in court by the evidence
+of the witness was extremely favourable to the prisoner. Kemp had told a
+plain, straightforward story. The fact that he had shown no reluctance in
+disclosing in his evidence that he was a criminal and the associate of
+criminals seemed to add to the credibility of his evidence. It was felt
+that he would not have come to court to swear falsely on behalf of a man
+who was so far removed from the class to which he belonged.
+
+While Kemp was giving his evidence, Crewe had despatched a messenger to
+his chambers in Holborn for Joe. When the boy returned with the messenger
+Kemp was still in the witness-box, undergoing an examination at the hands
+of the judge. Sir Henry Hodson seemed to have been impressed by the
+witness's story, for he asked Kemp a number of questions, and entered his
+answers in his notebook.
+
+"Joe," whispered Crewe, as the boy stole noiselessly behind him, "look at
+that man in the witness-box. Have you ever seen him before?"
+
+"Rayther, guv'nor!" whispered the boy in reply. "Why, it's 'im who tried
+to frighten me in the loft if I didn't promise to give up watching Mr.
+Holymead."
+
+"You are quite certain, Joe?"
+
+"Certain sure, guv'nor. There ain't no charnst of me mistaking a man
+like that."
+
+Crewe listened intently to Kemp's evidence, and he watched the man's face
+as he swore that he had seen Sir Horace Fewbanks leaning out of the
+window after Holymead had left the house. He hastily took out a notebook,
+scribbled a few lines on one of the leaves, tore it out, and beckoned to
+a court usher.
+
+"Take that to Mr. Walters," he whispered.
+
+The man did so. Mr. Walters opened the note, adjusted his glasses and
+read it. He started with surprise, read the note through again, then
+turned round as though in search of the writer. When he saw Crewe he
+raised his eyebrows interrogatively, and the detective nodded
+emphatically.
+
+Mr. Lethbridge sat down, having finished his examination of Kemp. Mr.
+Walters, with another glance at Crewe's note, rose slowly in his place.
+
+"I ask Your Honour that I may be allowed to defer until the morning my
+cross-examination of this witness," he said. "I am, of course, in Your
+Honour's hands in this matter, but I can assure Your Honour that it is
+desirable--highly desirable--in the interests of justice that the
+cross-examination of the witness should be postponed."
+
+"I protest, Your Honour, against the cross-examination of the witness
+being deferred," said Mr. Lethbridge. "There is no justification of it."
+
+"I would urge Your Honour to accede to my request," said Mr. Walters. "It
+is a matter of the utmost importance."
+
+"Is your next witness available, Mr. Lethbridge?" asked the judge.
+
+"Surely, Your Honour, you're not going to allow the cross-examination of
+this witness to be postponed?" protested Mr. Lethbridge. "My learned
+friend has given no reason for such a course."
+
+Sir Henry Hodson looked at the court clock.
+
+"It is now within a quarter of an hour of the ordinary time for
+adjournment," he began. "I think the fairest way out of the difficulty
+will be to adjourn the court now until to-morrow morning."
+
+There was a loud buzz of conversation when the court adjourned. After
+asking Chippenfield and Rolfe to wait for him, Crewe made his way to Mr.
+Walters, and, after a few whispered words with that gentleman, Mr.
+Mathers, his junior, and Mr. Salter, the instructing solicitor, he
+returned to Chippenfield and Rolfe and asked them to accompany him in a
+taxi-cab to Riversbrook.
+
+"What do you want to go out there for?" asked Inspector
+Chippenfield. "You don't expect to discover anything there this late
+in the day, do you?"
+
+"I want to find out whether this man Kemp is lying or telling the truth."
+
+"Of course he is lying," replied the positive police official. "When
+you've had as much experience with criminals as I have had, Mr. Crewe,
+you won't expect a word of truth from any of them."
+
+"Well, let us go to Riversbrook and prove that he is lying," said Crewe.
+
+"We'll go with you," said Inspector Chippenfield, speaking for Rolfe and
+himself. He did not understand how Crewe expected to obtain any evidence
+at Riversbrook about the truth or falsity of Kemp's story, but he did not
+intend to admit that. "But you can set your mind at rest. No jury will
+believe Kemp after we've given them his record in cross-examination."
+
+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."
+
+"Why, that explains it!" exclaims Crewe, in the voice of a man who had
+solved a difficulty.
+
+"Explains what?" asked Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+"Explains why her father has taken the risk of coming forward in this
+case to give evidence for Holymead. Gratitude for what Holymead had done
+for his girl while he was in prison. My experience of criminals is that
+they frequently show more real gratitude to those who do them a good turn
+than people in a respectable walk of life. Besides, you know what a
+sentimental value people of his class attach to seeing their kin buried
+decently. If Holymead hadn't come forward the girl would have been buried
+as a pauper, in all probability."
+
+"But I don't see that old Kemp is taking much risk," said Inspector
+Chippenfield. "He is only perjuring himself, and he is too used to that
+to regard it as a risk."
+
+"Don't you think he will be in an awkward position if the jury were to
+acquit Holymead?" asked Crewe. "One jury has already said that Sir Horace
+Fewbanks was dead when Birchill broke into the house, and if this jury
+believes Kemp's story and says Sir Horace was alive when Holymead left
+it, don't you think Kemp will conclude that it will be best for him to
+disappear? Some one must have killed Sir Horace after Holymead left, and
+before Birchill arrived."
+
+"Whew! I never thought of that," said Rolfe candidly.
+
+"Kemp is a liar from first to last," said Inspector Chippenfield
+decisively.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+When they reached Riversbrook they entered the carriage drive and
+traversed the plantation until they stood on the edge of the Italian
+garden facing the house. The gaunt, irregular mansion stood empty and
+deserted, for Miss Fewbanks had left the place after her father's
+funeral, with the determination not to return to it. The wind whistled
+drearily through the nooks and crannies of the unfinished brickwork of
+the upper story, and a faint evening mist rose from the soddened garden
+and floated in a thin cloud past the library window, as though the ghost
+of the dead judge were revisiting the house in search of his murderer.
+The garden had lost its summer beauty and was littered with dead leaves
+from the trees. The gathering greyness of an autumn twilight added to the
+dreariness of the scene.
+
+"Kemp didn't say how far he stood from the house," said Crewe, "but we'll
+assume he stood at the edge of the plantation--about where we are
+standing now--to begin with. How far are we from that library window,
+Chippenfield?"
+
+"About fifty yards, I should say," said the inspector, measuring it
+with his eye.
+
+"I should say seventy," said Rolfe.
+
+"And I say somewhere midway between the two," said Crewe, with a smile.
+"But we will soon see. Just hold down the end of this measuring tape, one
+of you." He produced a measuring tape as he spoke, and started to unwind
+it, walking rapidly towards the house as he did so. "Sixty-two yards!" he
+said, as he returned. He made a note of the distance in his pocket-book.
+"So much for that," he said, "but that's not enough. I want you to stand
+under the library window, Rolfe, by that chestnut-tree in front of it,
+and act as pivot for the measuring tape while I look at that window from
+various angles. My idea is to go in a semicircle right round the garden,
+starting at the garage by the edge of the wood, so as to see the library
+window and measure the distance at every possible point at which Kemp
+could have stood."
+
+"You're going to a lot of trouble for nothing, if your object is to try
+and prove that he couldn't have seen into the window," grunted Inspector
+Chippenfield, in a mystified voice. "Why, I can see plainly into the
+window from here."
+
+Crewe smiled, but did not reply. Followed by Rolfe, he went back to the
+tree by the library window, where he posted Rolfe with the end of the
+tape in his hand. Then he walked slowly back across the garden in the
+direction of the garage, keeping his eye on the library window on the
+first floor from which Kemp, according to his evidence, had seen Sir
+Horace leaning out after Holymead had left the house. He returned to the
+tree, noting the measurement in his book as he did so, and then repeated
+the process, walking backwards with his eye fixed on the window, but this
+time taking a line more to the left. Again and again he repeated the
+process, until finally he had walked backwards from the tree in narrow
+segments of a big semicircle, finishing up on the boundary of the Italian
+garden on the other side of the grounds, and almost directly opposite to
+the garage from which he had started.
+
+"There's no use going further back than that," he said, turning to
+Inspector Chippenfield, who had followed him round, smoking one of
+Crewe's cigars, and very much mystified by the whole proceedings, though
+he would not have admitted it on any account. "At this point we
+practically lose sight of the window altogether, except for an oblique
+glimpse. Certainly Kemp would not come as far back as this--he would have
+no object in doing so."
+
+"I quite agree with you," said Inspector Chippenfield. "He would stand
+more in the front of the house. The tree in front of the house doesn't
+obstruct the view of the window to any extent."
+
+The tree to which Inspector Chippenfield referred was a solitary
+chestnut-tree, which grew close to the house a little distance from the
+main entrance, and reached to a height of about forty feet. Its branches
+were entirely bare of leaves, for the autumn frosts and winds had swept
+the foliage away.
+
+Rolfe, who had been watching Crewe's manoeuvres curiously, walked up to
+them with the tape in his hand. He glanced at the library window on the
+first floor as he reached them.
+
+"Kemp could have seen the library window if he had stood here," he said.
+"I should say that if the blind were up it would be possible to see right
+into the room."
+
+"What do you say, Chippenfield?" asked Crewe, turning to that officer.
+
+Inspector Chippenfield had taken his stand stolidly on the centre path of
+the Italian garden, directly in front of the window of the library.
+
+"I say Kemp is a liar," he replied, knocking the ash off his cigar. "A
+d----d liar," he added emphatically. "I don't believe he was here at all
+that night."
+
+"But if he was here, do you think he saw Sir Horace leaning out of
+the window?"
+
+"I don't see what was to prevent him," was the reply. "But my point is
+that he was a liar and that he wasn't here at all."
+
+"And you, Rolfe--do you think Kemp could have seen Sir Horace leaning out
+of the window if he had been here?"
+
+"I should say so," remarked Rolfe, in a somewhat puzzled tone.
+
+"I am sorry I cannot agree with either of you," said Crewe. "I think Kemp
+was here, but I am sure he couldn't have seen Sir Horace from the window.
+Kemp has been up here during the past few days in order to prepare his
+evidence, and he's been led astray by a very simple mistake. If a man
+were to lean outside the library window now there would not be much
+difficulty in identifying him, but when the murder took place it would
+have been impossible to see him from any part of the garden or grounds."
+
+"Why?" demanded Inspector Chippenfield.
+
+"Because it was the middle of summer when Sir Horace Fewbanks was
+murdered. At that time that chestnut-tree would be in full leaf, and the
+foliage would hide the window completely. Look at the number of branches
+the tree has! They stretch all over the window and even round the corners
+of that unfinished brickwork on the first floor by the side of the
+library window. A man could no more see through that tree in summer time
+than he could see through a stone wall."
+
+"What did I tell you?" exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield in the voice of a
+man whose case had been fully proved. "Didn't I say Kemp was a liar?
+We'll call evidence in rebuttal to prove that he is a liar--that he
+couldn't have seen the window. And after Holymead is convicted I'll see
+if I cannot get a warrant out for Kemp for perjury."
+
+"And yet Kemp did see Sir Horace that night," said Crewe quietly.
+
+"How do you know? What makes you say that?" The inspector was
+unpleasantly startled by Crewe's contention.
+
+"He was able to describe accurately how Sir Horace was dressed--for one
+thing," responded Crewe.
+
+"He might have got that from Seldon's evidence," said Inspector
+Chippenfield thoughtfully. "He may have had some one in court to tell him
+what Seldon said."
+
+"You do not think Lethbridge would be a party to such tactics?" said
+Crewe. "No, no. One could tell from the way he examined Seldon and Kemp
+on the point that it was in his brief."
+
+"But the fact that Kemp knew how Sir Horace was dressed doesn't prove
+that he saw Sir Horace after Holymead left the house," said Rolfe. "Kemp
+may have seen Sir Horace before Holymead arrived."
+
+"Quite true, Rolfe," said Crewe. "I haven't lost sight of that point. I
+think you will agree with me that there is a bit of a mystery here which
+wants clearing up."
+
+They drove back to town, and, in accordance with the arrangement Crewe
+had made with Mr. Walters before leaving the court, they waited on that
+gentleman at his chambers in Lincoln's Inn. There Crewe told him of the
+result of their investigations at Riversbrook. Mr. Walters was
+professionally pleased at the prospect of destroying the evidence of
+Kemp. He was not a hard-hearted man, and personally he would have
+preferred to see Holymead acquitted, if that were possible, but as the
+prosecuting Counsel he felt a professional satisfaction in being placed
+in the position to expose perjured evidence.
+
+"Excellent! excellent!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands with
+gratification as he spoke. "Knowing what we know now, it will be a
+comparatively easy task to expose the witness Kemp under
+cross-examination, and show his evidence to be false." Mr. Walters looked
+as though he relished the prospect.
+
+It was arranged that Inspector Chippenfield should be called to give
+evidence in rebuttal as to the impossibility of seeing the library
+window through the tree, and that an arboriculturist should also be
+called. Mr. Walters agreed to have the expert in attendance at the court
+in the morning.
+
+But Crewe had something more on his mind, and he waited until
+Chippenfield and Rolfe had taken their departure in order to put his
+views before the prosecuting counsel. Then he pointed out to him that to
+prove that Kemp's evidence was false was merely to obtain a negative
+result. What he wanted was a positive result. In other words, he wanted
+Kemp's true story.
+
+"You do not think, then, that Kemp is merely committing perjury in order
+to get Holymead off?" asked Walters meditatively. "You think he is hiding
+something?"
+
+Crewe replied, with his faint, inscrutable smile, that he had no doubt
+whatever that such was the case. He thought Kemp's true story might be
+obtained if Walters directed his cross-examination to obtaining the truth
+instead of merely to exposing falsehood. It was evident to him that Kemp
+had come forward in order to save the prisoner. How far was he prepared
+to go in carrying out that object? When he was made to realise that his
+perjury, instead of helping Holymead, had helped to convince the jury of
+the prisoner's guilt, would he tell the true story of how much he knew?
+
+"My own opinion is that he will," continued Crewe. "I studied his face
+very closely while he was in the box to-day, and I am convinced he would
+go far--even to telling the truth--in order to save the only man who was
+ever kind to him."
+
+Walters was slow in coming round to Crewe's point of view. He had a high
+opinion of Crewe, for in his association with the case he had realised
+how skilfully Crewe had worked out the solution of the Riversbrook
+mystery. But he took the view that now the case was before the court it
+was entirely a matter for the legal profession to deal with. He pointed
+out to Crewe the professional view that his own duty did not extend
+beyond the exposure of Kemp's perjury. It was not his duty to give Kemp a
+second chance--an opportunity to qualify his evidence. He believed the
+defence had called Kemp in the belief that his evidence was true, but the
+defence must take the consequences if they built up their case on
+perjured evidence which they had not taken the trouble to sift.
+
+Crewe entered into the professional view sympathetically, but he was not
+to be turned from his purpose. He felt that too much was at stake, and he
+lifted the discussion out of the atmosphere of professional procedure
+into that of their common manhood.
+
+"Walters, I know you are not a vain man," he said, earnestly. "A personal
+triumph in this case means even less to you than it does to me. I have
+built up what I regard as an overwhelming case against Holymead. But it
+is based on circumstantial evidence, and I would willingly see the whole
+thing toppled over if by that means we could get the final truth. This
+man Kemp knows the truth, and you are in a position in which you can get
+the truth from him. It may be the last chance anyone will have of getting
+it. Apart from all questions of professional procedure, isn't there an
+obligation upon you to get at the truth?"
+
+"If you put it that way, I believe there is," replied Walters slowly and
+meditatively. There was a pause, and then he spoke with a sudden impulse.
+"Yes, Crewe; you can depend on me. I'll do my best."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+The public interest in the Holymead trial on the second day was even
+greater than on the first. It was realised that Kemp's evidence had
+given an unexpected turn to the proceedings, and that if it could be
+substantiated the jury's verdict would be "not guilty." There were
+confident persons who insisted that Kemp's evidence was sufficient to
+acquit the prisoner. But every one grasped the fact that the Counsel
+for the prosecution, by his action in applying for an adjournment of
+the cross-examination of Kemp, clearly realised that his case was in
+danger if the evidence of the first witness for the defence could not
+be broken down.
+
+The public appetite for sensation having been whetted by sensational
+newspaper reports of the latest phase of the Riversbrook mystery, there
+was a great rush of people to the Old Bailey early on the morning of the
+second day to witness the final stages of the trial. The queue in Newgate
+Street commenced to assemble at daybreak, and grew longer and longer as
+the day wore on, but it was composed of persons who did not know that
+there was not the slightest possibility of their gaining admittance to
+Number One Court. The policeman who was invested with the duty of keeping
+the queue close to the wall of the building forbore to break this sad
+news to them. Being faithful to the limitations of the official mind, he
+believed that the right thing to do was to let the people in the queue
+receive this important information from the sergeant inside. How was he
+to know without authority from his superior officer that any of these
+people wanted to be admitted to Number One Court? So the policeman pared
+his nails, gallantly "minding" the places of pretty girls in the queue
+who, worn out by hours of waiting in the cold, desired to slip away to a
+neighbouring tea-shop to get a cup of tea before the court opened, and
+sternly rebuking enterprising youths who endeavoured to wedge themselves
+in ahead of their proper place.
+
+The body of the court was packed before the proceedings commenced. The
+number of ladies present was even greater than on the first day, and the
+resources of the ushers were severely taxed to find accommodation for
+them all. In the back row Crewe noticed Mrs. Holymead, accompanied by
+Mademoiselle Chiron. They had not been in court on the previous day. Mrs.
+Holymead seemed anxious to escape notice, but Crewe could see that
+although she looked anxious and distressed, she was buoyed up by a new
+hope, which doubtless had come to her since Kemp had given his evidence.
+
+There was an expectant silence in the court when Mr. Justice Hodson took
+his seat and the names of the jurymen were called over. Kemp entered the
+witness-box with a more confident air than he had worn the previous day.
+Mr. Walters rose to begin his cross-examination, and the witness faced
+the barrister with the air of an old hand who knew the game, and was not
+to be caught by any legal tricks or traps.
+
+"You said yesterday, witness," commenced Mr. Walters, adjusting his
+glasses and glancing from his brief to the witness and from the witness
+back to the brief again, "that you saw the prisoner enter the gate at
+Riversbrook about 9.30 on the night of the 18th of August?"
+
+"Yes." The monosyllable was flung out as insolently as possible. The
+speaker watched his interrogator with the lowering eyes of a man at
+war with society, and who realised that he was facing one of his
+natural enemies.
+
+"Did he see you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You are quite sure of that?"
+
+"Haven't I just said so?"
+
+"Do not be insolent, witness"--it was the judge's warning voice that
+broke into the cross-examination--"answer the questions."
+
+"How long was it after the prisoner entered the carriage drive that you
+went to the edge of the plantation and heard voices upstairs?" continued
+Mr. Walters.
+
+"I went as soon as Mr. Holymead passed me."
+
+"How far were you from the house?"
+
+"About sixty yards."
+
+"And from that distance you could hear the voices?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Plainly?"
+
+"Not very. I could hear the voices, but I couldn't hear what they
+were saying."
+
+"Were they angry voices?"
+
+"They seemed to me to be talking loudly."
+
+"Yet you couldn't hear what they were saying?"
+
+"No; I was sixty yards away."
+
+"You said in your evidence in chief that the talking continued half an
+hour. Did you time it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then what made you swear that?"
+
+"I said about half an hour. I smoked out a pipeful of tobacco while I was
+standing there, and that would be about half an hour." Kemp disclosed his
+broken teeth in a faint grin.
+
+"What happened next?"
+
+"I heard the front door slam, and I saw somebody walking across the
+garden, and go into the carriage drive towards the gate."
+
+"Did you recognise who it was?"
+
+"Yes; Mr. Holymead." Kemp looked at the prisoner as he gave the answer.
+
+"You swear it was the prisoner?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Let me recall your evidence in chief, witness. You swore that you
+identified Mr. Holymead as he went in because he struck a match to look
+at the time as he passed you, and you saw his face. Did he strike
+matches as he went out?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then how are you able to swear so positively as to his identity in
+the dark?"
+
+Kemp considered a moment before replying.
+
+"Because I know him well and I was close to him," he said at length. "I
+was close enough to him almost to touch him. I knew him by his walk, and
+by the look of him. It was him right enough, I'll swear to that."
+
+"I put it to you, witness," persisted Counsel, "that you could not
+positively identify a man in a plantation at that time of night. Do you
+still swear it was Mr. Holymead?"
+
+"I do," replied Kemp doggedly.
+
+"What did you do then?"
+
+"I stayed where I was."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I don't know. I didn't have any particular reason. I just stayed there
+watching."
+
+"Did you think the prisoner might return?"
+
+"No," replied the witness quickly. "Why should I think that?"
+
+"How long did you stay watching the house?"
+
+"It might be a matter of ten minutes more."
+
+"And the prisoner didn't return during that time?"
+
+"No," replied the witness emphatically.
+
+"What did you do after that?"
+
+"I went to the Tube station."
+
+"Prisoner might have returned after you left?"
+
+"I suppose he might," replied the witness reluctantly.
+
+"Well, now, witness, you say you stayed ten minutes after Holymead left,
+and during that time Sir Horace opened the window and leaned out of it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You saw him distinctly?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are sure it was Sir Horace Fewbanks?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Now, witness," said Mr. Walters, suddenly changing his tone to one of
+more severity than he had previously used, "you have told us that you
+heard Sir Horace Fewbanks and the prisoner in the library while you stood
+in the wood by the garage, and that subsequently you saw Sir Horace
+leaning out of the window after the prisoner had gone. You are quite sure
+you were able to see and hear all this from where you stood?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Are you aware, witness, that there is a large chestnut-tree at the side
+of the library, in front of the window?"
+
+Kemp considered for a moment.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"And did not that tree obstruct your view of the library window?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Witness," said Mr. Walters solemnly, "listen to me. This tree did not
+obstruct your view when you went to Riversbrook a week or so ago to
+decide on the nature of the evidence you would give in this court. It is
+bare of leaves now, and you could see the library window and even see
+into the library from where you stood. But I put it to you that on the
+18th of August, when this tree was covered with its summer foliage, you
+could no more have seen the library window behind its branches than you
+could have seen the inhabitants of Mars. What answer have you got to
+that, witness?"
+
+There was a slight stir in court--an expression of the feeling of tension
+among the spectators. Kemp drew the back of his hand across his lips,
+then moistened his lips with his tongue.
+
+"Come, witness, give me an answer," thundered prosecuting Counsel.
+
+"I tell you I saw him after Mr. Holymead had left," declared Kemp
+defiantly. His voice had suddenly become hoarse.
+
+To the surprise of the members of the legal profession who were in
+court, Mr. Walters, instead of pressing home his advantage, switched off
+to something else.
+
+"I believe you have a feeling of gratitude towards the prisoner?" he
+asked, in a milder tone.
+
+"I have," said Kemp. His defiant, insolent attitude had suddenly
+vanished, and he gave the impression of a man who feared that every
+question contained a trap.
+
+"He did something for a relative of yours which at that time greatly
+relieved your mind?"
+
+"He did, and I'll never forget it."
+
+"Well, we won't go further into that at present. But it is a fact that
+you would like to do him a good turn?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You came here with the intention of doing him a good turn?"
+
+Kemp considered for a moment before answering:
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You came here with the intention of giving evidence that would
+get him off?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You came here with the intention of committing perjury in order to get
+him off?" Mr. Walters waited, but there was no reply to the question, and
+he added, "You see what your perjured evidence has done for him?"
+
+"What has it done?" asked Kemp sullenly.
+
+"It has established the prisoner's guilt beyond all reasonable doubt in
+the minds of men of common sense. You did not see Sir Horace Fewbanks
+that night after the prisoner left him. You could not have seen him even
+if he had leaned out of the window. But your whole story is a lie,
+because Sir Horace was dead when the prisoner left him."
+
+"He was not," shouted Kemp. "I saw him alive. I saw him as plain as I
+see you now."
+
+The man in court who was most fascinated by the witness was Crewe. He
+had watched every movement of Kemp's face, every change in the tone of
+his voice.
+
+"I wonder what the fool will say next," whispered Inspector
+Chippenfield to Crewe.
+
+"He will tell us how Sir Horace Fewbanks was shot," was Crewe's reply.
+
+Mr. Walters approached a step nearer to the witness-box. "You saw him as
+plainly as you see me now?" he repeated.
+
+"Yes," declared Kemp, who, it was evident, was labouring under great
+excitement. "You say I came here to commit perjury if it would get him
+off." He pointed with a dramatic finger to the man in the dock. "I did.
+And I came here to get him off by telling the truth if perjury didn't do
+it. You say I've helped to put the rope round his neck. But I'm man
+enough to tell the truth. I'll get him off even if I have to swing for
+it myself."
+
+This outburst from the witness-box created a sensation in court. Many of
+the spectators stood up in order to get a better view of the witness, and
+some of the ladies even jumped on their seats. Mr. Justice Hodson was
+momentarily taken aback. His first instinct was to check the witness and
+to ask him to be calm, but the witness took no notice of him. He
+displayed his judicial authority by an impressive descent of an uplifted
+hand which compelled the unruly spectators to resume their seats.
+
+It was on Mr. Walters that Kemp concentrated his attention. It was Mr.
+Walters whom he set himself to convince as if he were the man who could
+set the prisoner free. Of the rest of the people in court Kemp in his
+excitement had become oblivious.
+
+"Listen to me," said Kemp, "and I'll tell you who shot this scoundrel. He
+was a scoundrel, I say, and he ought to have been in gaol himself instead
+of sending other people there. I went up to the house that night to see
+if everything was clear, or whether that cur Hill had laid a trap--that
+part of my evidence is true. And from behind a tree in the plantation I
+saw Mr. Holymead pass me--he struck a match to look at the time, and I
+saw his face distinctly. A few minutes afterwards I heard loud, angry
+voices coming from somewhere upstairs in the house. I thought the best
+thing I could do was to find out what it was about. I said to myself that
+Mr. Holymead might want help. I walked across the garden and found that
+the hall door was wide open. I went inside and crept upstairs to the
+library. The light in the hall was turned on, as well as a little lamp on
+the turn of the staircase behind a marble figure holding some curtains,
+which led the way to the library. The library door was open an inch or
+two, and I listened.
+
+"I could hear them quite plainly. Mr. Holymead was telling him what he
+thought of him. And no wonder. It made my blood boil to think of such a
+scoundrel sitting on the bench and sentencing better men than himself. I
+thought of the way in which he had killed my girl by giving her five
+years. It was the shock that killed her. Five years for stealing
+nothing, for she didn't handle the jewels. And here he had been stealing
+a man's wife and nothing said except what Mr. Holymead called him. I
+stood there listening in case they started to fight, and I might be
+wanted. But they didn't.
+
+"I heard Mr. Holymead step towards the door, and I slipped away from
+where I had been standing. I saw the door of another room near me, and I
+opened it and went in quickly. I closed the door behind me, but I did not
+shut it. I looked through the crack and saw Mr. Holymead making his way
+downstairs. He walked as if he didn't see anything, and I watched him
+till he went through the curtains on the stairs at the bend of the
+staircase and I could see him no more.
+
+"Then I heard a step, and looking through the crack I saw the judge
+coming out of the library. He walked to the head of the stairs and began
+to walk slowly down them. But when he reached the bend where the curtains
+and the marble figure were, he turned round and walked up the stairs
+again. He walked along as though he was thinking, with his hands behind
+his back, and nodding his head a little, and a little cruel, crafty smile
+on his face. He passed so close to me that I could have touched him by
+putting out my hand, and he went into the library again, leaving the door
+open behind him.
+
+"Then suddenly, as I stood there, the thought came over me to go in to
+him and tell him what I thought about him. I opened the door softly so as
+not to frighten him, and walked out into the passage and into the
+library, and as I did so I took my revolver out of my pocket and carried
+it in my hand. I wasn't going to shoot him, but I meant to hold him up
+while I told him the truth.
+
+"He was standing at the opposite side of the room with his back towards
+me and a book in his hand, but a board creaked as I stepped on it, and he
+swung round quickly. He was surprised to see me, and no mistake. 'What do
+you want here?' he said, in a sharp voice, and I could see by the way he
+eyed the revolver that he was frightened. Then I opened out on him and
+told him off for the damned scoundrel he was. And he didn't like that
+either. He edged away to a corner, but I kept following him round the
+room telling him what I thought of him. And seeing him so frightened, I
+put the revolver back in my pocket and walked close to him while I told
+him all the things I could think of.
+
+"As I thought of my poor girl that he'd killed I grew savage, and I told
+him that I had a good mind to break every bone in his body. He threatened
+to have me arrested for breaking into the place, but I only laughed and
+hit him across the face. He backed away from me with a wicked look in his
+eyes, and I followed him. He backed quickly towards the door, and before
+I knew what game he was up to he made a dart out of the room. But I was
+too quick for him. I got him at the head of the stairs and dragged him
+back into the room and shut the door and stood with my back against it.
+I told him I hadn't finished with him. I had mastered him so quickly, and
+was able to handle him so easily, that I didn't watch him as closely as I
+ought to have done. He had backed away to his desk with his hand behind
+him, and suddenly he brought it up with a revolver in his hand.
+
+"'Now it's my turn,' he said to me with his cunning smile. Throw up
+your hands.'
+
+"I saw then it was man for man. If I let him take me I was in for a
+good seven years. I'd sooner be dead than do seven years for him.
+'Shoot and be damned,' I said. I ducked as I spoke, and as I ducked I
+made a dive with my hand for my hip pocket where I had put my revolver.
+He fired and missed. He fired again, but his toy revolver missed fire,
+for I heard the hammer click. But that was his last chance. I fired at
+his heart and he dropped beside the desk, I didn't wait for anything
+more--I bolted. I got tangled in the staircase curtains and fell down
+the stairs. As I was falling I thought what a nice trap I would be in
+if I broke my leg and had to lie there until the police came. But I
+wasn't much hurt and I got up and dashed out of the house and over the
+fence into the wood, the way I came."
+
+He stopped, and his gaze wandered round the hushed court till it rested
+on the prisoner, who with his hands grasping the rail of the dock had
+leaned forward in order to catch every word. Kemp turned his gaze from
+the man in the dock to the man in the scarlet robe on the bench, and it
+was to the judge that he addressed his concluding words.
+
+"You can call it murder, you can call it manslaughter, you can call it
+justifiable homicide, you can call it what you like, but what I say is
+that the man you have in the dock had nothing to do with it. It was me
+that killed him. Let him go, and put me in his place."
+
+He held his hands outstretched with the wrists together as though waiting
+for the handcuffs to be placed on them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+An hour after the trial Crewe entered the chambers of Mr. Walters, K.C.
+
+"I congratulate you on the way you handled him in the witness-box," said
+Crewe, who was warmly welcomed by the barrister. "You did splendidly to
+get it all out of him--and so dramatically too."
+
+"I think it is you who deserves all the congratulations," replied
+Walters. "If it had not been for you there would not have been such a
+sensational development at the trial and in all probability Kemp's
+evidence would have got Holymead off."
+
+"Yes, I'm glad to think that Holymead would have got off even if I hadn't
+seen through Kemp," replied Crewe thoughtfully. "I made a bad mistake in
+being so confident that he was the guilty man."
+
+"The completeness of the circumstantial evidence against him was
+extraordinary," said Walters, to whom the legal aspects of the case
+appealed. "Personally I am inclined to blame Holymead himself for the
+predicament in which he was placed. If he had gone to the police after
+the murder was discovered, told them the story of his visit to Sir Horace
+that night, and invited investigation into the truth of it, all would
+have been well."
+
+"No," said Crewe in a voice which indicated a determination not to have
+himself absolved at the expense of another. "The fact that he did not do
+what he ought to have done does not mitigate my sin of having had the
+wrong man arrested. The mistake I made was in not going to see him before
+the warrant was taken out. If I had had a quiet talk with him I think I
+would have been able to discover a flaw in my case against him. What
+made me confident it was flawless was the fact that both his wife and her
+French cousin believed him to be guilty. Mademoiselle Chiron followed
+Holymead from the country on the 18th of August with the intention of
+averting a tragedy. She arrived at Riversbrook too late for that, but in
+time to see Sir Horace expire, and naturally she thought that Holymead
+had shot him. When Mrs. Holymead realised that I also suspected her
+husband and had accumulated some evidence against him, she sent
+Mademoiselle Chiron to me with a concocted story of how the murder had
+been committed by a more or less mythical husband belonging to
+Mademoiselle's past. Ostensibly the reason for the visit of this
+extremely clever French girl was to induce me to deal with Rolfe, who had
+begun to suspect Mrs. Holymead of some complicity in the crime; but the
+real reason was to convince me that I was on the wrong track in
+suspecting Holymead. Of course she said nothing to me on that point. She
+produced evidence which convinced me that she was in the room when Sir
+Horace died, and, as I was quite sure that she believed Holymead to be
+guilty, I felt that there could be no doubt whatever of his guilt."
+
+"It is one of the most extraordinary cases on record--one of the most
+extraordinary trials," said Walters. "You blame yourself for having had
+Holymead arrested but you have more than redeemed yourself by the final
+discovery when Kemp was in the witness-box that he was the guilty man.
+That was an inspiration."
+
+"Hardly that," said Crewe with a smile. "I knew when he swore that he had
+seen Sir Horace leaning out of the library window that he was lying.
+After the murder was discovered I inspected the house and grounds
+carefully, and one of the first things of which I took a mental note was
+the fact that the foliage of the chestnut-tree completely hid the only
+window of the library."
+
+"Ah, but there is a difference between knowing Kemp was committing
+perjury and knowing that he was the guilty man."
+
+"There is at least a distinct connection between the two facts," said
+Crewe, who after his mistake in regard to Holymead was reluctant to
+accept any praise. "Kemp's description of the way in which Sir Horace was
+dressed showed that he had seen him. The inference that Kemp had been
+inside the house was irresistible. Sir Horace had arrived home at 7
+o'clock and it was not likely that Kemp would hang about Riversbrook--the
+scene of a prospective burglary--until after dark, which at that time of
+the year would be about 8.30. He must have seen Sir Horace after dark,
+and in order to be able to say how the judge was dressed he must have
+seen him at close quarters. The rest was a matter of simple deduction.
+Kemp inside the house listening to the angry interview between Holymead
+and Fewbanks--Kemp with his hatred of the judge who had killed his
+daughter in the dock and with his desire to do Holymead a good turn--I
+had previously had proof of that from my boy Joe, whom you have seen.
+Besides Kemp fitted into my reconstruction of the tragedy on the vital
+question of time. How long did Sir Horace live after being shot? The
+medical opinions I was able to obtain on the point varied, but after
+sifting them I came to the conclusion that though he might have lived for
+half an hour, it was more probable that he had died within ten minutes of
+being hit."
+
+"How is that vital?" asked Walters, who was keenly interested in
+understanding how Crewe had arrived at his conviction of Kemp's guilt.
+
+"Holymead's appointment with Sir Horace at Riversbrook was for 9.30 p.m.
+The letter found in Sir Horace's pocket-book fixed that time. It was
+exactly 11 p.m. when he got into a taxi at Hyde Park Corner after his
+visit to Riversbrook. On that point the driver of the taxi was absolutely
+certain. I was so anxious for him to make it 11.30 that I went to see him
+twice about it. Assuming that Holymead arrived at Riversbrook at 9.30, I
+allowed half an hour for his angry interview with Sir Horace, half an
+hour for the walk from Riversbrook to Hampstead Tube station, and half an
+hour for the journey from Hampstead to Hyde Park Corner, which would have
+involved a change at Leicester Square. As I could not induce the driver
+of the taxi to make Holymead's appearance at Hyde Park Corner 11.30
+instead of 11, I had to admit that Holymead must have left Riversbrook at
+10. But it was 10.30 according to Mademoiselle Chiron when she found Sir
+Horace dying on the floor of the library. Therefore if Holymead did the
+shooting, the victim's death agonies must have lasted half an hour or
+more. Medically that was not impossible, but somewhat improbable. But a
+meeting between Kemp and Sir Horace after Holymead had gone filled in the
+blank in time. That came home to me yesterday when Kemp was in the
+witness-box committing perjury in his determination to get Holymead off.
+I take it that the interview between Kemp and his victim lasted about 20
+minutes. Therefore Sir Horace was shot about 10.20; certainly before
+10.30, for Mademoiselle heard no shots while nearing the house."
+
+"You have worked it out very ingeniously," said Walters. "You must find
+the work of crime detection very fascinating. I am afraid that if I had
+been in your place--that is if I had known as much about the tragedy as
+you do--when Kemp was in the witness-box yesterday, I would not have seen
+anything more in his evidence than the fact that he was committing
+perjury in order to help Holymead."
+
+"I think you would," said Crewe. "These discoveries come to one naturally
+as the result of training one's mind in a particular direction."
+
+"They come to you, but they wouldn't come to me," said Walters with a
+smile. "But do you think Kemp's story of how Sir Horace was shot is
+literally true? Do you think Sir Horace got in the first shot and then
+tried to fire again? If that is so, I don't see how they can hope to
+convict Kemp of murder--a jury would not go beyond a verdict of
+manslaughter in such a case."
+
+"You handled Kemp so well that he was too excited to tell anything but
+the truth," said Crewe. "Sir Horace fired first and missed--the bullet
+which Chippenfield removed from the wall of the library shows that--and
+he pulled the trigger again but the cartridge which had been in the
+revolver for a considerable time, probably for years, missed fire. Here
+is a silent witness to the truth of that part of Kemp's story."
+
+Crewe produced from a waistcoat pocket one of the four cartridges he had
+removed from the revolver Mademoiselle Chiron had handed to him and he
+placed it on the table. On the cap of the cartridge was a mark where the
+hammer had struck without exploding the powder.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY ***
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