The Hampstead Mystery by John R. Watson (sneezy the snowman read aloud .txt) 📕

"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.

"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