The Hampstead Mystery Part 13

and the t.i.tle 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 ma.s.sive 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 a.s.sured 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 impa.s.sive 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?"