The Hampstead Mystery Part 17

"I've been keeping n.o.body 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 cus.h.i.+on 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 fas.h.i.+on.

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 pa.s.sage 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, s.h.i.+fting 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, s.h.i.+n 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 pa.s.sage, 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 a.s.sistance, 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 att.i.tude 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 s.h.i.+rt, 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.