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 SirHorace 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."
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 theirlorgnonsevery 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.
"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?"
"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 ofRiversbrook 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.