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

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