The Hampstead Mystery Part 23

"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 a.s.sistant, 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 Sir Horace 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 rus.h.i.+ng downstairs for a gla.s.s 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 fas.h.i.+onably 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."

CHAPTER XVI

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 splas.h.i.+ng heavily on the slippery pavements. But in spite of the rain a long queue, princ.i.p.ally of women, a.s.sembled 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 fas.h.i.+onably-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 cla.s.s. 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 cla.s.s he was an heroic figure who had a.s.sumed 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 p.a.w.nbroker 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 fas.h.i.+on, 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 a.s.siduity with which the princ.i.p.al 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.