The Hampstead Mystery Part 15

"I went upstairs as quick as I could, and the door of the study being wide open, I could see inside. Sir Horace and the young lady had evidently been having a quarrel. They were standing up facing each other, and the table at which they had been sitting was knocked over, and the refreshments I had taken up had been scattered all about. The young woman had been crying--I could see that at a glance--but Sir Horace looked dignified and the perfect gentleman--like he always was. He turned to me when he saw me, and said, 'Hill, kindly show this young lady out,' I bowed and waited for her to follow me, which she did, after giving Sir Horace an angry look. I let her out the same way as I let her in, and took her through the plantation to the front gate, which I locked after her. When I got inside the house again, and was beginning to bolt up things for the night Sir Horace called me again and I went upstairs.

'Hill,' he said, in the same calm and collected voice, 'if that young lady calls again you're to deny her admittance. That is all, Hill,' And he turned back into his room again.

"I didn't see her again until the morning after Sir Horace left for Scotland. I had arranged for the female servants to go to Sir Horace's estate in the country during his absence, as he instructed before his departure, and they and I were very busy on this morning getting the house in order to be closed up--putting covers on the furniture and locking up the valuables.

"It was Sir Horace's custom to have this done when he was away every year instead of keeping the servants idling about the house on board wages, and the house was then left in my charge, as I told you, sir, and after the servants went to the country it was my custom to live at home till Sir Horace returned, coming over two or three times a week to look over the place and make sure that everything was all right. On this morning, sir, after superintending the servants clearing up things, I went outside the house to have a final look round, and to see that the locks of the front and back gates were in good working order. I was going to the back first, sir, but happening to glance about me as I walked round the house, I saw the young woman that Sir Horace had ordered me to show out of the house the night before he went to Scotland, peering out from behind one of the fir trees of the plantation in front of the house.

As soon as she saw that I saw her she beckoned to me.

"I would not have taken any notice of her, only I didn't want the women servants to see her. Sir Horace, I knew, would not have liked that. So I went across to her. I asked her what she wanted, and I told her it was no use her wanting to see Sir Horace, for he had gone to Scotland. 'I don't want to see him,' she said, as impudent as bra.s.s. 'It's you I want to see, Field or Hill or whatever you call yourself now.' It gave me quite a turn, I a.s.sure you, to find that this young woman knew my secret, and I turned round apprehensive-like, to make sure that none of the servants had heard her. She noticed me and she laughed. 'It's all right, Hill,'

she said. 'I'm not going to tell on you. I've just brought you a message from an old friend--Fred Birchill--he wants to see you to-night at this address.' And with that she put a bit of paper into my hand. I was so upset and excited that I said I'd be there, and she went away.

"This Fred Birchill was a man I'd met in prison, and he was in the cell next to me. How he'd got on my tracks I had no idea, but I seemed to see all my new life falling to pieces now he knew. I'd tried to run straight since I served my sentence, and I knew Sir Horace would stand to me, but he couldn't afford to have any scandal about it, and I knew that if there was any possibility of my past becoming known I should have to leave his employ. And then there was my poor wife and child, and this little business, sir. Nothing was known about my past here. So I determined to go and see this Birchill, sir. The address she had given me was in Westminster, and, as my time was practically my own when Sir Horace wasn't home, I went down that same evening, and when I got up the flight of stairs and knocked at the door it was a woman's voice that said 'Come in,' I thought I recognised the voice. When I opened the door, you can imagine my surprise when I saw the young woman to be Doris Fanning, who had had the quarrel with Sir Horace that night and had brought me the note that morning. Birchill was sitting in a corner of the room, with his feet on another chair, smoking a pipe. 'Come in, No. 21,' he says, with an unpleasant smile, 'come in and see an old friend. Put a chair for him, Doris, and leave the room.'

"The girl did so, and as soon as the door was closed behind her Birchill turned round to me and burst out, 'Hill, that d.a.m.ned employer of yours has served me a nasty trick, but I'm going to get even with him, and you're going to help me!' I was taken back at his words, but I wanted to hear more before I spoke. Then he told me that the young woman I had seen had been brutally treated by Sir Horace. She had been living in a little flat in Westminster on a monthly allowance which Sir Horace made her, but he'd suddenly cut off her allowance and she'd have to be turned out in the street to starve because she couldn't pay her rent. 'A nice thing,'

said Birchill fiercely, 'for this high-placed loose liver to carry on like this with a poor innocent girl whose only fault was that she loved him too well. If I could show him up and pull him down, I would. But I've done time, like you, Hill. He was the judge who sentenced me, and if I tried to injure him that way my word would carry no weight; but I'll put up a job on him that'll make him sorry the longest day he lives, and you'll help me. Sir Horace is in Scotland, Hill, and you're in charge of his place. Get rid of the servants, Hill, and we'll burgle his house. We can easily do it between us.'"

At this stage of his narrative, Hill stopped and looked anxiously at his audience as though to gather some idea of their feelings before he proceeded further. But Inspector Chippenfield, with a fierce stare, merely remarked:

"And you consented?"

"I didn't at first," Hill retorted earnestly, "but when I refused he threatened me--threatened that he'd expose me and drag me and my wife and child down to poverty. I pleaded with him, but it was of no use, and at last I had to consent. I had some hope that in doing so I might find an opportunity to warn Sir Horace, but Birchill did not give me a chance. He insisted that the burglary should take place without delay. All I was to do was to give him a plan of the house, explain where to find the most valuable articles that had been left there, and wait for him at the flat while he committed the burglary. His idea in making me wait for him at the flat was to make sure that I didn't play him false--put the double on him, as he called it--and he told the girl not to let me out of her sight till he came back, if anything went wrong I should have to pay for it when he came back.

"In accordance with Sir Horace's instructions, I sent the servants off to his country estate. It had been arranged that Birchill was to wait for me to come over to the flat on the 18th of August, the night fixed for the burglary. But about 7 o'clock, while I was at Riversbrook, I heard the noise of wheels outside, and looking out, I saw to my dismay Sir Horace getting out of a taxi-cab with a suit-case in his hand. My first impulse was to tell him everything--indeed, I think that if I had had a chance I would have--but he came in looking very severe, and without saying a word about why he had returned from Scotland, said very sharply, 'Hill, have the servants been sent down to the country, as I directed?' I told him that they had. 'Very good,' he said, 'then you go away at once, I won't want you any more. I want the house to myself to-night.' 'Sir Horace,' I began, trembling a little, but he stopped me. 'Go immediately,' he said; 'don't stand there,' And he said it in such a tone that I was glad to go.

There was something in his look that frightened me that night. I got across to Birchill's place and found him and the girl waiting for me. I told him what had happened, and begged him to give up the idea of the burglary. But he'd been drinking heavily, and was in a nasty mood. First he said I'd been playing him false and had warned Sir Horace, but when I a.s.sured him that I hadn't he insisted on going to commit the burglary just the same. With that he pulled out a revolver from his pocket, and swore with an oath that he'd put a bullet through me when he came back if I'd played him false and put Sir Horace on his guard, and that he'd put a bullet in the old scoundrel--meaning Sir Horace--if he interrupted him while he was robbing the house.

"He sat there, cursing and drinking, till he fell asleep with his head on the table, snoring. I sat there not daring to breathe, hoping he'd sleep till morning, but Miss Fanning woke him up about nine, and he staggered to his feet to get out, with his revolver stuck in his coat pocket. He was away over three hours and the girl and I sat there without saying a word, just looking at each other and waiting for a clock on the mantelpiece to chime the quarters. It was a cuckoo clock, and it had just chimed twelve when we heard a quick step coming upstairs to the flat. The girl fixed her big dark eyes inquiringly on me, and then we heard a hoa.r.s.e whisper through the keyhole telling us to open the door.

"The girl ran to the door and let him in, but she shrieked at the sight of him when she saw him in the light. For he looked ghastly, and there was a spot of blood on his face, and his hands were smeared with it. He was shaking all over, and he went to the whisky bottle and drained the drop of spirit he'd left in it. Then he turned to us and said, 'Sir Horace Fewbanks is dead--murdered!' I suppose he read what he saw in our eyes, for he burst out angrily, 'Don't stand staring at me like a pair of d.a.m.ned fools. You don't think I did it? As G.o.d's my judge, I never did it. He was dead and stiff when I got there.'

"Then he told us his story of what had happened. He said that when he got to Riversbrook there was a light in the library and he got over the fence and hid himself in the garden. Then he noticed that there was a light in the hall and that the hall door was open. He thought Sir Horace had left it open by mistake, and he was going to creep into the house and hide himself there till after Sir Horace went to bed. But suddenly the light in the library went out and Birchill again hid behind a tree, for he thought Sir Horace was retiring for the night. Then the light in the hall went out and immediately after Birchill heard the hall door being closed.

Then he heard a step on the gravel path and saw a woman walking quickly down the path to the gate. She was a well-dressed woman, and Birchill naturally thought that she was one of Sir Horace's lady friends. But he thought it odd that Sir Horace, who was always a very polite gentleman to the ladies, should not have shown her off the premises. He waited in the garden about half an hour, and as everything in the house seemed quite still, he made his way to a side window and forced it open. He had an electric torch with him, and he used this to find his way about the house. First of all, he wanted to find out in which room Sir Horace was sleeping, and he knew from the plan he'd made me draw for him which was Sir Horace's bedroom, so he went there and opened the door quietly and listened. But he could not hear anyone breathing. Then he tried some of the other rooms and turned on his torch, but could see no one. He thought that perhaps Sir Horace had fallen asleep in a chair in the library, and he went there. He listened at the door but could hear no sound. Then he turned on his torch and by its light he saw a dreadful sight. Sir Horace was lying huddled up near the desk--dead--just dead, he thought, because there were little bubbles of blood on his lips as if they had been blown there when breathing his last. He didn't wait to see any more, but he turned and ran out of the house.

"I didn't believe his story, though Miss Fanning did, but he stuck to it and seemed so frightened that I thought there might be something in it till he brought out that he'd lost his revolver somewhere. Then I remembered the horrid threats he'd used against Sir Horace, and I was convinced that he had committed the murder. But of course I dared not let him think I suspected him, and I pretended to console him. But the feeling that kept running through my head was that both of us would be suspected of the murder.

"I told this to Birchill, and that frightened him still more. 'What are we to do?' he kept saying. 'We shall both be hanged.' Then, after a while, we recovered ourselves a bit and began to look at it from a more common-sense point of view. n.o.body knew about Birchill's visit to the house except our two selves and the girl, and there was no reason why anybody should suspect us as long as we kept that knowledge to ourselves.

Birchill's idea, after we'd talked this over, was that I should go quietly home to bed, and pay a visit to Riversbrook on Friday as usual, discover Sir Horace Fewbanks's body, and then tell the police. But I didn't like to do that for two reasons. I didn't think that my nerves would be in a fit state to tell the police how I found the body without betraying to them that I knew something about it; and I couldn't bear to think of Sir Horace's body lying neglected all alone in that empty house till the following day--though I kept that reason to myself.

"It was the girl who hit on the idea of sending a letter to the police.

She said that it would be the best thing to do, because if they were informed and went to the house and discovered the body it wouldn't be so difficult for me to face them afterwards. I agreed to that, and so did Birchill, who was very frightened in case I might give anything away, and consented on that account. The girl showed us how to write the letter, too--she said she'd often heard of anonymous letters being written that way--and she brought out three different pens and a bottle of ink and a writing pad. After we'd agreed what to write, she showed us how to do it, each one printing a letter on the paper in turn, and using a different pen each time."

"You took care to leave no finger-prints," said Inspector Chippenfield.

"We used a handkerchief to wrap our hands in," said Hill. "Birchill got tired of pa.s.sing the paper from one to another and wrote all his letters, leaving s.p.a.ces for the girl and me to write in ours. When the letter was written we wrote the address on the envelope the same way, and stamped it. Then I went out and posted the letter in a pillar-box."

"At Covent Garden?" suggested Inspector Chippenfield.

"Yes, at Covent Garden," said Hill.

"When I got home my wife was awake and in a terrible fright. She wanted to know where I'd been, but I didn't tell her. I told her, though, that my very life depended on n.o.body knowing I'd been out of my own home that night, and I made her swear that no matter who questioned her she'd stick to the story that I'd been at home all night, and in bed. She begged me to tell her why, and as I knew that she'd have to be told the next day, I told her that Sir Horace Fewbanks had been murdered. She buried her face in her pillow with a moan, but when I took an oath that I had had no hand in it she recovered, and promised not to tell a living soul that I had been out of the house and I knew I could depend on her.

"Next morning, as soon as I got up, I hurried off to a little wine tavern and asked to see the morning papers. It was a foolish thing to do, because I might have known that nothing could have been discovered in time to get into the morning papers, for I hadn't posted the letter until nearly four o'clock. But I was all nervous and upset, and as I couldn't face my wife or settle to anything until I knew the police had got the letter and found the body, I--though a strictly temperate man in the ordinary course of life, sir--sat down in one of the little compartments of the place and ordered a gla.s.s of wine to pa.s.s the time till the first editions of the evening papers came out--they are usually out here about noon. But there was no news in the first editions, and so I stayed there, drinking port wine and buying the papers as fast as they came out. But it was not till the 6.30 editions came out, late in the afternoon, that the papers had the news. I hurried home and then went up to Riversbrook and reported myself to you, sir."

As Hill finished his story he buried his face in his hands, and bowed his head on the table in an att.i.tude of utter dejection. Rolfe, looking at him, wondered if he were acting a part, or if he had really told the truth. He looked at Inspector Chippenfield to see how he regarded the confession, but his superior officer was busily writing in his note-book.

In a few moments, however, he put the pocket-book down on the table and turned to the butler.

"Sit up, man," he commanded sternly. "I want to ask you some questions."

Hill raised a haggard face.

"Yes, sir," he said, with what seemed to be a painful effort.

"What is this girl Fanning like?"

"Rather a showy piece of goods, if I may say so, sir. She has big black eyes, and black hair and small, regular teeth."

"And Sir Horace had been keeping her?"

"I think so, sir."

"And a fortnight before Sir Horace left for Scotland there was a quarrel--Sir Horace cast her off?"

"That is what it looked like to me," said the butler.

"What was the cause of the quarrel?"

"That I don't know, sir."

"Didn't Birchill tell you?"

"Well, not in so many words. But I gathered from things he dropped that Sir Horace had found out that he was a friend of Miss Fanning's and didn't like it."

"Naturally," said the philosophic police official. "Is Birchill still at this flat and is the girl still there?"

"The last I heard of them they were, sir. Of course they had been talking of moving after Sir Horace stopped the allowance."

"Well, Hill, I'll investigate this story of yours," said the inspector, as he rose to his feet and placed his note-book in his pocket. "If it is true--if you have given us all the a.s.sistance in your power and have kept nothing back, I'll do my best for you. Of course you realise that you are in a very serious position. I don't want to arrest you unless I have to, but I must detain you while I investigate what you have told us. You will come up with us to the Camden Town Station and then your statement will be taken down fully. I'll give you three minutes in which to explain things to your wife."

CHAPTER XII

"Do you think Hill's story is true?" Rolfe asked Inspector Chippenfield, as they left the Camden Town Police Station and turned in the direction of the Tube station.

"We'll soon find out," replied the inspector. "Of course, there is something in it, but there is no doubt Hill will not stick at a lie to save his own skin. But we are more likely to get at the truth by threatening to arrest him than by arresting him. If he were arrested he would probably shut up and say no more."

"And are you going to arrest Birchill?"