The Hampstead Mystery, John R. Watson [best ereader for academics txt] 📗

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—"

"Answer the question without equivocation, witness."

"Y-es, sir."

There was a slight stir in the body of the court due to the fact that Miss Fewbanks and Mrs. Holymead had risen and were making their way to the door. The fashionably-dressed women in the court stared with much interest at the daughter of the murdered man, whom most of them knew, in order to see how she was taking the disclosures about her dead father's private life.

"And sometimes there were quarrels between your late master and these visitors, were there not?" continued Holymead.

"Quarrels, sir?"

"Surely you know that under the influence of wine some people become quarrelsome?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, did your late master's nocturnal visitors ever become quarrelsome?"

"Sometimes, sir."

"In the exercise of your confidential duties did you sometimes see quarrelsome ladies off the premises?"

"Sometimes, sir."

"And it was no uncommon thing for them to say things to you about your master, eh?"

"Sometimes they didn't care what they said."

"Quite so," commented Counsel drily. "They indulged in threats?"

"Not all of them," replied Hill, who at length saw where the cross-examination was tending.

"I do not suggest that all of them did—only that the more violent of them did so."

"Quite so, sir."

"So we may take it that the quarrel between your late master and Miss Fanning was not the only quarrel of the kind which came under your notice?"

"There were not many others," said Hill.

"It was not the only one?" persisted Counsel.

"No, sir."

"In your evidence-in-chief you said nothing about Miss Fanning using threats against your master when you were showing her out?"

"No, sir."

"She did not use any?"

"Not in my hearing, sir."

There was a pause at this stage while Mr. Holymead consulted the notes he had made of Mr. Walters's cross-examination of the witness.

"What o'clock was it when you left Riversbrook on the 18th of August after your master's return from Scotland?"

"About half-past seven, sir."

"And what time did Sir Horace arrive home?"

"About seven o'clock, sir."

"What were you doing between seven and seven-thirty?"

"I unpacked his bags and got his bedroom ready. I took him some refreshment up to the library."

"And he told you he wouldn't want you again until the following night about eight o'clock?"

"Yes, sir. He said he thought he would be going back to Scotland by the night express, and I was to get his bag packed and lock up the house."

"You told Counsel for the prosecution in the course of your evidence that you were afraid of Birchill," continued Holymead.

"Yes, sir."

"Were you afraid of physical violence from him, or only that he would expose your past to the other servants?"

"I was afraid of him both ways," said Hill.

"Was it because of this fear that you made out for him a plan of
Riversbrook to assist him in the burglary?"

"Yes, sir."

"When did you make out this plan?"

"The day after Sir Horace left for Scotland."

"Was that on your first visit to Miss Fanning's flat in Westminster after the prisoner had sent her to Riversbrook to tell you he wanted to see you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did Birchill stand over you while you made out this plan?"

"Yes, sir."

"Would you know the plan again if you saw it?"

"Yes, sir."

Mr. Finnis, who had been hiding the plan under the papers before him, handed a document up to his chief.

Mr. Holymead unfolded it, and with a brief glance at it handed it up to the witness.

"Is that the plan?" he asked.

Hill was somewhat taken aback at the production of the plan. It was drawn in ink on a white sheet of paper of foolscap size, with a slightly bluish tint. The paper was by no means clean, for Birchill had carried it about in his pocket. The witness reluctantly admitted that the plan was the one he had given to Birchill. To his manifest relief Counsel asked no further questions about it. In a low tone Mr. Holymead formally expressed his intention to put the plan in as evidence. He handed it to Mr. Walters, who, after a close inspection of it, passed it along to the judge's Associate for His Honour's inspection.

The rest of Hill's cross-examination concerned what happened at the flat on the night of the burglary. He adhered to the story he had told, and could not be shaken in the main points of it. But Mr. Holymead made some effective use of the discrepancy between the witness's evidence at the inquest as to his movements on the night of the murder and his evidence in court. He elicited the fact that the police had discovered his evidence at the inquest was false and had forced him to make a confession by threatening to arrest him for the murder.

Mr. Holymead signified that he had nothing further to ask the witness, and Mr. Walters called his last witness, a young man named Charles Ryder, a resident of Liverpool, who had spent a week's holiday in London from the 14th to the 21st of August. Ryder had stayed with some friends at Hampstead, and when making his way home on the night of the 18th of August had walked down Tanton Gardens in the belief that he was taking a short cut. The time was about 11.20. He saw a man running towards him along the footpath from the direction of Riversbrook. He caught a good glimpse of the man, who seemed to be very excited. He was sure the prisoner was the man he had seen. In cross-examination by Mr. Holymead he was far less positive in his identification of the prisoner, and finally admitted that the man he saw that night might be somebody else who resembled the prisoner in build.

CHAPTER XVIII

The second day of the trial began promptly when Mr. Justice Hodson took his seat. Mr. Holymead's opening statement to the jury was brief. He reminded them that the life of a fellow creature rested on their verdict. If there was any doubt in their minds whether the prisoner had fired the shot which killed Sir Horace Fewbanks the prisoner was entitled to a verdict of "not guilty." It was obligatory on the prosecution to prove guilt beyond all reasonable doubt.

He submitted that the prosecution had not established their case. After hearing the case for the prosecution the jury must have grave doubts as to the guilt of the prisoner, and it was his duty as Counsel for the prisoner to put before the jury facts which would not only increase their doubts but bring them to the positive conclusion that the prisoner was not guilty. He was not going to attempt to deny that the prisoner went to Riversbrook on the night of the murder. He went there to commit a burglary. But so far from Hill being terrorised into complicity in that crime it was he who had first suggested it to Birchill and had arranged it. Material evidence on that point would be submitted to the jury.

Hill was a man who was incapable of gratitude. His disposition was to bite the hand that fed him. After being well treated by Sir Horace Fewbanks he had made up his mind to rob him as he had robbed his former master Lord Melhurst. He knew that Sir Horace had quarrelled with this girl Fanning because of her association with Birchill, and he went to Birchill and put before him a proposal to rob Riversbrook. Birchill consented to the plan, and when on the night of the 18th August he broke into the house he found the murdered body of Sir Horace in the library. That was the full extent of the prisoner's connection with the crime. To the superficial and suspicious mind it might seem an improbable story, but to an earnest mind it was a story that carried conviction because of its simple straightforwardness—its crudity, if the jury liked to call it that. It lacked the subtlety and the finish of a concocted story. The murder took place before Birchill reached Riversbrook on his burglarious errand.

"It is my place," added Mr. Holymead, in concluding his address, "to convince you that my client is not guilty, or, in other words, to convince you that the murder was committed before he reached the house. It is only with the greatest reluctance that I take upon myself the responsibility of pointing an accusing finger at another man. In crimes of this kind you cannot expect to get anything but circumstantial evidence. But there are degrees of circumstantial evidence, and my duty to my client lays upon me the obligation of pointing out to you that there is one person against whom the existing circumstantial evidence is stronger than it is against my client."

Crewe, who had secured his former place in the gallery of the court, looked down on the speaker. He had carefully followed every word of Holymead's address, but the concluding portion almost electrified him. He flattered himself that he was the only person in court who understood the full significance of the sonorous sentences with which the famous K.C. concluded his address to the jury.

As his eyes wandered over the body of the court below, Crewe saw that Mrs. Holymead and Mademoiselle Chiron were sitting in one of the back seats, but that they were not accompanied by Miss Fewbanks. It was evident to him by the way in which Mrs. Holymead followed the proceedings that her interest in the case was something far deeper than wifely interest in her husband's connection with it as counsel for the defence. Leaning forward in her seat, with her hands clasped in her lap, she listened eagerly to every word. During the day his gaze went back to her at intervals, and on several occasions he became aware that she had been watching him while he watched her husband.

The first witness for the defence was Doris Fanning. The drift of her evidence was to exonerate the prisoner at the expense of Hill. She declared that she had not gone to Riversbrook to see Hill after the final quarrel with Sir Horace. Hill had come to her flat in Westminster of his own accord and had asked for Birchill. She went out of the room while they discussed their business, but after Hill had gone Birchill told her that Hill had put up a job for him at Riversbrook. Birchill showed her the plan of Riversbrook that Hill had made, and asked her if it was correct as far as she knew. Yes, she was sure she would know the plan again if she saw it.

The judge's Associate handed it to Mr. Holymead, who passed it to the witness.

"Is this it?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied emphatically, almost without inspecting it.

"I want you to look at it closely," said Counsel. "When Birchill showed you the plan immediately after Hill's departure, what impression did you get regarding it?"

She looked at him blankly.

"I don't understand you," she said.

"You can tell the difference between ink that has been newly used and ink that has been on the paper some days. Was the ink fresh?"

"No, it was old ink," she said.

"How do you know that?"

"Because ink doesn't go black till a long while after it is written. At least, the letters I write don't." She shot a veiled coquettish glance at the big K.C. from under her long eyelashes.

The K.C. returned the glance with a genial smile.

"What do you write your