The Hampstead Mystery Part 24

He had come to court with the object of witnessing Birchill's behaviour in the dock and the efforts of any of his criminal friends to communicate with him. As a man who had had considerable experience in criminal trials he knew the irresistible desire of the criminal in the gallery of the court to encourage the man in the dock to keep up his courage.

Communications of the kind had to be made by signs. It was Crewe's impression that by watching Birchill in the dock and Birchill's friends in the gallery he might pick up a valuable hint or two. It was also his intention to study closely the defence which Counsel for the prisoner intended to put forward.

It was therefore with a feeling of mingled annoyance and surprise that Crewe, looking down from his point of vantage at the bevy of fas.h.i.+onably-dressed ladies in the body of the court, recognised Mrs.

Holymead, Mademoiselle Chiron and Miss Fewbanks seated side by side, engaged in earnest conversation. Before he could withdraw from their view behind the pillar in front of him, Miss Fewbanks looked up and saw him.

She bowed to him in friendly recognition, and Crewe saw her whisper to Mrs. Holymead, who glanced quickly in his direction and then as quickly averted her gaze. But in that fleeting glance of her beautiful dark eyes Crewe detected an expression of fear, as though she dreaded his presence, and he noticed that she s.h.i.+vered slightly as she turned to resume her conversation with Miss Fewbanks.

His Honour Mr. Justice Hodson entered, and the persons in the court scrambled hurriedly to their feet to pay their tribute of respect to British law, as exemplified in the person of a stout red-faced old gentleman wearing a scarlet gown and black sash, and attended by four of the Sheriffs of London in their fur-trimmed robes. The judge bowed in response and took his seat. The spectators resumed theirs, craning their necks eagerly to look at the accused man, Birchill, who was brought into the dock by two warders. The work of empanelling a jury commenced, and when it was completed Mr. Walters, K.C., opened the case for the prosecution.

Mr. Walters was a long-winded Counsel who had detested the late Mr.

Justice Fewbanks because of the latter's habit of interrupting the addresses of Counsel with the object of inducing them to curtail their remarks. This practice was not only annoying to Counsel, who necessarily knew better than the judge what the jury ought to be told, but it also tended to hold Counsel up to ridicule in the eyes of ignorant jurymen as a man who could not do his work properly without the watchful correction of the judge. But Mr. Walters, whose legal training had imbued in him a respect for Latin tags, subscribed to the adage, _de mortuis nil nisi bonum_. Therefore he began his address to the jury with a glowing reference to the loss, he might almost say the irreparable loss, which the judiciary had sustained, he would go so far as to say the loss which the nation had sustained by the death, the violent death, in short, the murder, of an eminent judge of the High Court Bench, whose clear and vigorous intellect, whose marvellous mastery of the legal principles laid down by the judicial giants of the past, whose inexhaustible knowledge drawn from the storehouses of British law, whose virile interpretations of the principles of British justice, whose unfailing courtesy and consideration to Counsel, the memory of which would long be cherished by those who had had the privilege of pleading before him, had made him an acquisition and an ornament to a Bench which in the eyes of the nation had always represented, and at no time more than the present--at this point Mr. Walters bowed to the presiding judge--the embodiment of legal knowledge, legal experience, and legal wisdom.

After this tribute to the murdered man and the presiding judge, Mr.

Walters proceeded to lay the facts of the crime before the jury, who had read all about them in the newspapers.

With methodical care he built up the case against the accused man, cla.s.sifying the points of evidence against him in categorical order for the benefit of the jury. The most important witness for the prosecution was a man known as James Hill, who had been in Sir Horace Fewbanks's employ as a butler. Hill's connection with the prisoner was in some aspects unfortunate, for himself, and no doubt counsel for the defense would endeavour to discredit his evidence on that account, but the jury, when they heard the butler tell his story in the witness box, would have little difficulty in coming to the conclusion that the man Hill was the victim of circ.u.mstances and his own weakness of temperament. However much they might be disposed to blame him for the course he had pursued, he was innocent of all complicity in his master's death, and had done his best to help the ends of justice by coming forward with a voluntary confession to the police.

Mr. Walters made no attempt to conceal or extenuate the black page in Hill's past, but he asked the jury to believe that Hill had bitterly repented of his former crime, and would have continued to lead an honest life as Sir Horace Fewbanks's butler, if ill fate had not forged a cruel chain of circ.u.mstances to link him to his past life and drag him down by bringing him in contact with the accused man Birchill, whom he had met in prison. Sir Horace Fewbanks was the self-appointed guardian of a young woman named Doris Fanning, the daughter of a former employee on his country estate, who had died leaving her penniless. Sir Horace had deemed it his duty to bring up the girl and give her a start in life. After educating her in a style suitable to her station, he sent her to London and paid for music lessons for her in order to fit her for a musical career, for which she showed some apt.i.tude. Unfortunately the young woman had a self-willed and unbalanced temperament, and she gave her benefactor much trouble. Sir Horace bore patiently with her until she made the chance acquaintance of Birchill, and became instantly fascinated by him.

The acquaintance speedily drifted into intimacy, and the girl became the pliant tool of Birchill, who acquired an almost magnetic influence over her. As the intimacy progressed she seemed to have become a willing partner in his criminal schemes.

When Sir Horace Fewbanks heard that the girl had drifted into an a.s.sociation with a criminal like Birchill he endeavoured to save her from her folly by remonstrating with her, and the girl promised to give up Birchill, but did not do so. When Sir Horace found out that he was being deceived he was compelled to renounce her. Birchill, who had been living on the girl, was furious with anger when he learnt that Sir Horace had cut off the monetary allowance he had been making her, and, on discovering by some means that his former prison a.s.sociate Hill was now the butler at Sir Horace Fewbanks's house, he planned his revenge. He sent the girl Fanning to Riversbrook with a message to Hill, directing him, under threat of exposure, to see him at the Westminster flat.

Hill, who dreaded nothing so much as an exposure of that past life of his which he hoped was a secret between his master and himself, kept the appointment. Birchill told him he intended to rob the judge's house in order to revenge himself on Sir Horace for cutting off the girl's allowance, and he asked Hill to a.s.sist him in carrying out the burglary.

Hill strenuously demurred at first, but weakly allowed himself to be terrorised into compliance under Birchill's threats of exposure. Hill's partic.i.p.ation in the crime was to be confined to preparing a plan of Riversbrook as a guide for Birchill. Birchill said nothing about murder at this time, but there is no doubt he contemplated violence when he first spoke to Hill. When Hill, alarmed by his master's return on the actual night for which the burglary had been arranged, hurried across to the flat to urge Birchill to abandon the contemplated burglary, Birchill obstinately decided to carry out the crime, and left the flat with a revolver in his hand, threatening to murder Sir Horace if he found him, because of his harsh treatment--as he termed it--of the girl Fanning.

"Birchill left the flat at nine o'clock," continued Mr. Walters, who had now reached the vital facts of the night of the murder. "I ask the jury to take careful note of the time and the subsequent times mentioned, for they have an important bearing on the circ.u.mstantial evidence against the accused man. He returned, according to Hill's evidence, shortly after midnight. Evidence will be called to show that Birchill, or a man answering his description, boarded a tramcar at Euston Road at 9.30 p.m., and journeyed in it to Hampstead. He was observed both at Euston Road and the Hampstead terminus by the conductor, because of his obvious desire to avoid attention. There were only two other pa.s.sengers on the top of the car when it left Euston Road. The conductor directed the attention of the driver to his movements, and they both watched him till he disappeared in the direction of the Heath. In fairness to the prisoner, it was necessary to point out, however, that neither the conductor nor the driver can identify him positively as the man they had seen on their car that night, but both will swear that to the best of their belief Birchill is the man.

a.s.suming that it was the prisoner who travelled to Hampstead by the Euston Road tram--a route he would probably prefer because it took him to Hampstead by the most unfrequented way--he would have a distance of nearly a mile to walk across Hampstead Heath to Tanton Gardens, where Sir Horace Fewbanks's house was situated. The evidence of the tram-men is that he set off across the Heath at a very rapid rate. The tram reached Hampstead at four minutes past ten, so that, by walking fast, it would be possible for a young energetic man to reach Riversbrook before a quarter to eleven. Another five minutes would see an experienced housebreaker like Birchill inside the house. At twenty minutes past eleven a young man named Ryder, who had wandered into Tanton Gardens while endeavouring to take a short cut home, heard the sound of a report, which at the time he took to be the noise of a door violently slammed, coming from the direction of Riversbrook. A few moments afterwards he saw a man climb over the front fence of Riversbrook to the street. He drew back cautiously into the shade of one of the chestnut trees of the street avenue, and saw the man plainly as he ran past him. Ryder will swear that the man he saw was Birchill."

"It's a lie! It's a lie! You're trying to hang him, you wicked man. Oh, Fred, Fred!"

The cry proceeded from the girl Doris Fanning. Her unbalanced temperament had been unable to bear the strain of sitting there and listening to Mr.

Walters' cold inexorable construction of a legal chain of evidence against her lover. She rose to her feet, shrieking wildly, and gesticulating menacingly at Mr. Walters. The Society ladies turned eagerly in their seats to take in through their _lorgnons_ every detail of the interruption.

"Remove that woman," the judge sternly commanded.

Several policemen hastened to her, and the girl was partly hustled and partly carried out of court, shrieking as she went. When the commotion caused by the scene subsided, the judge irritably requested to be informed who the woman was.

"I don't know, my lord," replied Mr. Walters. "Perhaps--" He stopped and bent over to Detective Rolfe, who was pulling at his gown. "Er--yes, I'm informed by Detective Rolfe of Scotland Yard, my lord, that the young woman is a witness in the case."

"Then why was she permitted to remain in court?" asked Sir Henry Hodson angrily. "It is a piece of gross carelessness."

"I do not know, my lord. I was unaware she was a witness until this moment," returned Mr. Walters, with a discreet glance in the direction of Detective Rolfe, as an indication to His Honour that the judicial storm might safely veer in that direction. Sir Henry took the hint and administered such a stinging rebuke to Detective Rolfe that that officer's face took on a much redder tint before it was concluded. Then the judge motioned to Mr. Walters to resume the case.

Counsel, with his index finger still in the place in his brief where he had been interrupted, rose to his feet again and turned to the jury.

"Birchill returned to the flat at Westminster shortly after midnight," he continued. "Hill had been compelled by Birchills threats to remain at the flat with the girl while Birchill visited Riversbrook, and the first thing Birchill told him on his return was that he had found Sir Horace Fewbanks dead in his house when he entered it. On his way back from committing the crime belated caution had probably dictated to Birchill the wisdom of endeavouring to counteract his previous threat to murder Sir Horace Fewbanks. He probably remembered that Hill, who had heard the threat, was an unwilling partic.i.p.ator in the plan for the burglary, and might therefore denounce him to the police for the greater crime if he (Birchill) admitted that he had committed it. In order to guard against this contingency still further Birchill forced Hill to join in writing a letter to Scotland Yard, acquainting them with the murder, and the fact that the body was lying in the empty house. Birchill's object in acting thus was a twofold one. He dared not trust Hill to pretend to discover the body the next day and give information to the police, for fear he should not be able to retain sufficient control of himself to convince the detectives that he was wholly ignorant of the crime, and he also thought that if Hill had a share in writing the letter he would feel an additional complicity in the crime, and keep silence for his own sake.

Birchill was right in his calculations--up to a point. Hill was at first too frightened to disclose what he knew, but as time went on his affection for his murdered master, and his desire to bring the murderer to justice, overcame his feelings of fear for his own share in bringing about the crime, and he went and confessed everything to the police, regardless of the consequences that might recoil upon his own head. The case against Birchill depends largely on Hill's evidence, and the jury, when they have heard his story in the witness-box, and bearing in mind the extenuating circ.u.mstances of his connection with the crime, will have little hesitation in coming to the conclusion that the prisoner in the dock murdered Sir Horace Fewbanks."

The first witness called was Inspector Seldon, who gave evidence as to his visit to Riversbrook shortly before 1 p. m. on the 19th of August as the result of information received, and his discovery of the dead body of Sir Horace Fewbanks. He described the room in which the body was found; the position of the body; and he identified the blood-stained clothes produced by the prosecution as being those in which the dead man was dressed when the body was discovered. In cross-examination by Holymead he stated that Sir Horace Fewbanks was fully dressed when the body was found. The witness also stated in cross-examination that none of the electric lights in the house were burning when the body was discovered.

The next witness was Dr. Slingsby, the pathological expert from the Home Office who had made the post mortem examination, and who was much too great a man to be kept waiting while other witnesses of more importance to the case but of less personal consequence went into the box. Dr.

Slingsby stated that his examinations had revealed that death had been caused by a bullet wound which had penetrated the left lung, causing internal hemorrhage.

Mr. Finnis, the junior counsel for the defence, suggested to the witness that the wound might have been self-inflicted, but Dr. Slingsby permitted himself to be positive that such was not the case. With professional caution he a.s.sured Mr. Finnis, who briefly cross-examined him, that it was impossible for him to state how long Sir Horace Fewbanks had been dead. _Rigor mortis_, in the case of the human body, set in from eight to ten hours after death, and it was between three and four o'clock in the afternoon of the day the crime was discovered that he first saw the corpse. The body was quite stiff and cold then.

"Is it not possible for death to have taken place nineteen or twenty hours before you saw the body?" asked Mr. Finnis, eagerly.

"Quite possible," replied Dr. Slingsby.

"Is it not also possible, from the state of the body when you examined it, that death took place within sixteen hours of your examination of the body?" asked Mr. Walters, as Mr. Finnis sat down with the air of a man who had elicited an important point.

"Quite possible," replied Dr. Slingsby, with the prim air of a professional man who valued his reputation too highly to risk it by committing himself to anything definite.

Dr. Slingsby was allowed to leave the box, and Inspector Chippenfield took his place. Inspector Chippenfield did not display any professional reticence about giving his evidence--at least, not on the surface, though he by no means took the court completely into his confidence as to all that had pa.s.sed between him and Hill. On the other hand he told the judge and jury everything that his professional experience prompted him as necessary and proper for them to know in order to bring about a conviction. In the course of his evidence he made several attempts to introduce damaging facts as to Birchill's past, but Mr. Holymead protested to the judge. Counsel for the defence protested that he had allowed his learned friend in opening the case a great deal of lat.i.tude as to the relations which had previously existed between the witness Hill and the prisoner, because the defence did not intend to attempt to hide the fact that the prisoner had a criminal record, but he had no intention of allowing a police witness to introduce irrelevant matter in order to prejudice the jury against the prisoner. His Honour told the witness to confine himself to answering the questions put to him, and not to volunteer information.

After this rebuke Inspector Chippenfield resumed giving evidence. He related what Birchill had said when arrested, and declared that he was positive that the footprints found outside the kitchen window were made by the boots produced in court which Birchill had been wearing at the time he was arrested. He produced a jemmy which he had found at Fanning's flat, and said that it fitted the marks on the window at Riversbrook which had been forced on the night of the 18th of August.

Inspector Chippenfield's evidence was followed by that of the two tramway employees, who declared that to the best of their belief Birchill was the man who boarded their tram at half-past nine on the night of the 18th of August, and rode to the terminus at Hampstead, which they reached at 10.4 p. m. Both the witnesses showed a very proper respect for the law, and were obviously relieved when the brief cross-examination was over and they were free to go back to their tram-car.

CHAPTER XVII

"James Hill!" called the court crier.

The butler stepped forward, mounted the witness-stand, and bowed his head deferentially towards the judge. He was neatly dressed in black, and his sandy-grey hair was carefully brushed. His face was as expressionless as ever, but a slight oscillation of the Court Bible in his right hand as he was sworn indicated that his nerves were not so calm as he strove to appear. He looked neither to the right nor left, but kept his glance downcast. Only once, as he stood there waiting to be questioned, did he cast a furtive look towards the man whose life hung on his evidence, but the malevolent vindictive gaze Birchill shot back at him caused him to lower his eyelids instantly.

Hill commenced his evidence in a voice so low that Mr. Walters stopped him at the outset and asked him to speak in a louder tone. It soon became apparent that his evidence was making a deep impression on the court. Sir Henry Hodson listened to him intently, and watched him keenly, as Hill, with impa.s.sive countenance and smooth even tones, told his strange story of the night of the murder. When he had drawn to a conclusion he gave another furtive glance at the dock, but Birchill was seated with his head bowed down, as though tired, and with one hand supporting his face.

Mr. Walters methodically folded up his brief and sat down, with a sidelong glance in the direction of Mr. Holymead as he did so. Every eye in court was turned on Holymead as the great K.C. settled his gown on his shoulders and got up to cross-examine the princ.i.p.al Crown witness.

His cross-examination was the admiration of those spectators whose sympathies were on the side of the man in the dock as one of themselves.

Hill was cross-examined as to the lapse from honesty which had sent him to gaol, and he was reluctantly forced to admit, that so far from the theft being the result of an impulse to save his wife and child from starvation, as the Counsel for the prosecution had indicated, it was the result of the impulse of cupidity. He had robbed a master who had trusted him and had treated him with kindness. Having extracted this fact, in spite of Hill's evasions and twistings, Holymead straightened himself to his full height, and, shaking a warning finger at the witness, said:

"I put it to you, witness, that the reason Sir Horace Fewbanks engaged you as butler in his household at Riversbrook was because he knew you to be a man of few scruples, who would be willing to do things that a more upright honest man would have objected to?"

"That is not true," replied Hill.

"Is it not true that your late master frequently entertained women of doubtful character at Riversbrook?" thundered the K.C.

Hill gasped at the question. When he had first heard that his late master's old friend, Mr. Holymead, was to appear for Birchill, he had immediately come to the conclusion that Mr. Holymead was taking up the case in order to save Sir Horace's name from exposure by dealing carefully with his private life at Riversbrook. But here he was ruthlessly tearing aside the veil of secrecy. Hill hesitated. He glanced round the curious crowded court and saw the eager glances of the women as they impatiently awaited his reply. He hesitated so long that Holymead repeated the question.

"Women of doubtful character?" faltered the witness. "I do not understand you."

"You understand me perfectly well, Hill. I do not mean women off the streets, but women who have no moral reputation to maintain--women who do not mind letting confidential servants see that they have no regard for the conventional standards of life. I mean, witness, that your late master frequently entertained at Riversbrook, women--I will not call them ladies--who were not particular at what hour they went home. Sometimes one or more of them stayed all night, and you were entrusted with the confidential task of smuggling them out of the house without other servants knowing of their presence. Is not that so?"

"I--I--"