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

She almost giggled at the question.

"I use a writing tablet," she replied.

"Ruled or unruled?"

"Ruled. I couldn't write straight if there weren't lines." She smiled again.

"And what colour do you affect—grey, rose-pink or white paper?"

"Always white."

"Is that all the paper you have at your flat for writing purposes?"

"Yes."

"Then what did Birchill write on when he wanted to write a letter?"

"He used mine."

"Are you sure of that?"

"Yes. When he wanted to write a letter he used to ask me for my tablet and an envelope. And generally he used to borrow a stamp as well." She pouted slightly, with another coquettish glance.

"Look at that plan again," said the K.C. "Have you ever had paper like it at your flat?"

She shook her head.

"Never."

"Have you ever seen paper of that kind in Birchill's possession before he showed you the plan?"

"Never."

"When he showed you the plan had the paper been folded?"

"Yes."

The K.C. took the witness, now very much at her ease, to the night of the murder. She denied strenuously that Hill tried to dissuade Birchill from carrying out the burglary because Sir Horace Fewbanks had returned unexpectedly from Scotland. It was Birchill who suggested postponing the burglary until Sir Horace left, but Hill urged that the original plan should be adhered to. He declared that Sir Horace would remain at home at least a fortnight, and perhaps longer. His master was a sound sleeper, he said, and if Birchill waited until he went to bed there would be no danger of awakening him. She contradicted many details of Hill's evidence as to what took place when the prisoner returned from breaking into Riversbrook. It was untrue, she said, that there was a spot of blood on Birchill's face or that his hands were smeared with blood. He was a little bit excited when he returned, but after one glass of whisky he spoke quite calmly of what had happened.

The next witness was a representative of the firm of Holmes and Jackson, papermakers, who was handed the plan of Riversbrook which Hill had drawn. He stated that the paper on which the plan was drawn was manufactured by his firm, and supplied to His Majesty's Stationery Office. He identified it by the quality of the paper and the watermark. In reply to Mr. Walters the witness was sure that the paper he held in his hand had been manufactured by his firm for the Government. It was impossible for him to be mistaken. Other firms might manufacture paper of a somewhat similar quality and tint, but it would not be exactly similar. Besides, he identified it by his firm's watermark, and he held the plan up to the light and pointed it out to the court.

Counsel for the defence called two more witnesses on this point—one to prove that supplies of the paper on which the plan was drawn were issued to legal departments of the Government, and an elderly man named Cobb, Sir Horace Fewbanks's former tipstaff, who stated that he took some of the paper in question to Riversbrook on Sir Horace's instructions. And then, to the astonishment of junior members of the bar who were in court watching his conduct of the case in order to see if they could pick up a few hints, he intimated that his case was closed. It seemed to them that the great K.C. had put up a very flimsy case for the defence, and that in spite of the fact that the prosecutor's case rested mainly on the evidence of a tainted witness Holymead would be very hard put to it to get his man off.

"Isn't my learned friend going to call the prisoner?" suggested Mr. Walters, with the cunning design of giving the jury something to think of when they were listening to his learned friend's address.

"It's scarcely necessary," said Mr. Holymead, who saw the trap, and replied in a tone which indicated that the matter was not worth a moment's consideration.

He began his address to the jury by emphasising the fact that a fellow creature's life depended on the result of their deliberations. The duty that rested upon them of saying whether the prosecution had established beyond all reasonable doubt that the prisoner shot Sir Horace Fewbanks was a solemn and impressive one. He asked them to consider the case carefully in all its bearings. He could not claim for his client that he was a man of spotless reputation. The prisoner belonged to a class who earned their living by warring against society. But that fact did not make him a murderer. On what did the case for the prosecution rest? On the evidence of Hill and three other witnesses who, on the night of the murder, had seen a man somewhat resembling the prisoner in the vicinity of Riversbrook, or making towards the vicinity of that house. But so far from wishing to emphasise the weakness of identification he admitted that the prisoner went to Riversbrook with the intention of committing a burglary.

"We admit that he went there the night Sir Horace Fewbanks returned from Scotland," he continued. "Counsel for the prosecution will make the most of those admissions in the course of his address to you, but the point to which I wish to direct your attention is that we make this damaging admission so that you may decide between the prisoner and the man who led him into a trap by instigating the burglary. Now we come to the evidence of Hill. I know you will not convict a man of murder on the unsupported evidence of a fellow criminal. But I want to point out to you that even if Hill's evidence were true in every detail, even if Hill had not swerved one iota from the truth, there is nothing in his evidence to lead to the positive conclusion that the prisoner murdered Hill's master, Sir Horace Fewbanks. What does Hill's evidence against the prisoner amount to? Let us accept it for the moment as absolutely true. Later on I will show you plainly that the man is a liar, that he is a cunning scoundrel, and that his evidence is utterly unreliable. But accepting for the moment his evidence as true the case against the prisoner amounts to this: by threats of exposure Birchill compelled Hill to consent to Riversbrook being robbed while the owner was in Scotland.

"Hill's complicity, according to his own story, extended only to supplying a plan of the house and giving Birchill some information as to where various articles of value would be found. On the 18th of August Hill went to Riversbrook to see that everything was in order for the burglary that night. While he was there his master returned unexpectedly. Hill then went to the flat in Westminster and told Birchill that Sir Horace had returned. His own story is that he tried to get Birchill to abandon the idea of the burglary, but that Birchill, who had been drinking, swore that he would carry out the plan, and that if he came across Sir Horace he would shoot him. What grudge had Birchill against Sir Horace Fewbanks? The fact that Sir Horace had discarded the woman Fanning because of her association with Birchill. Gentlemen, does a man commit a murder for a thing of that kind?

"Let us test the credibility of the man who has tried to swear away the life of the prisoner. You saw him in the witness-box, and I have no doubt formed your own conclusions as to the type of man he is. Did he strike you as a man who would stand by the truth above all things, or a man who would lie persistently in order to save his own skin? That the man cannot be believed even when on his oath has been publicly demonstrated in the courts of the land. The story he told the court yesterday in the witness-box of his movements on the day of the murder is quite different to the story he told on his oath at the inquest on the body of Sir Horace Fewbanks. Let me read to you the evidence he gave at the inquest."

Mr. Finnis handed to his leader a copy of Hill's evidence at the inquest, and Mr. Holymead read it out to the jury. He then read out a shorthand writer's account of Hill's evidence on the previous day.

"Which of these accounts are we to believe?" he said, turning to the jury. "The latter one, the prosecution says. But why, I ask? Because it tallies with the statement extorted from Hill by the police under the threat of charging him with the murder. Does that make it more credible? Is a man like Hill, who is placed in that position, likely to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? It is an insult to the jury as men of intelligence to ask you to believe Hill's evidence. I do not ask you to believe the story he told at the inquest in preference to the story he told here in the witness-box yesterday. I ask you to regard both stories as the evidence of a man who is too deeply implicated in this crime to be able to speak the truth.

"I will prove to you, gentlemen of the jury, that the man is a criminal by instinct and a liar by necessity—the necessity of saving his own skin. He robbed his former master, Lord Melhurst, and he planned to rob his late master, Sir Horace Fewbanks. But knowing that his former crime would be brought against him when the police came to investigate a robbery at Riversbrook he was too cunning to rob Riversbrook himself. He looked about him for an accomplice and he selected Birchill. You heard him say in the witness-box that he drew Birchill a plan of Riversbrook—the plan I now hold in my hand. I will ask you to inspect the plan closely. Hill told us that Birchill terrorised him into drawing this plan by threats of exposure. Exposure of what? His master, Sir Horace Fewbanks, knew he had been in gaol, so what had he to fear from exposure? His proper course, if he were an honest man, would have been to tell his master that Birchill was planning to rob the house and had endeavoured to draw him into the crime. But he did nothing of the kind, for the simple reason that the plan to rob Riversbrook was his own, and not Birchill's.

"Now, gentlemen, you have all seen the plan which this tainted witness declares was drawn by him because Birchill terrorised him and stood over him while he drew it. Is there anything in that plan to suggest that it was drawn by a man in a state of nervous terror? Why, the lines are as firmly drawn as if they had been made by an architect working at his leisure in his office. Was this plan drawn by a man in a state of nervous terror with his tormentor standing threateningly over him, or was it drawn up by a man working at leisure, free not only from terror but from interruption? The answer to that question is supplied in the evidence given by three witnesses as to the paper used. Hill says the plan was drawn at the flat. Two other witnesses swore that it was paper supplied exclusively for Government Departments, and another witness swore that he had taken such paper to Riversbrook for the use of Sir Horace Fewbanks, who, like every one of His Majesty's judges, found it necessary to do some of his judicial work at home. What is the inevitable inference? I ask you if you can have any doubt, after looking at that plan and after hearing the evidence given to-day about the paper, that the proposal to rob Riversbrook was Hill's own proposal, that Hill drew a plan of the house on paper he abstracted from his master's desk—paper which this confidential servant was apparently in the habit of using for private purposes—and that he gave it to Birchill when he asked Birchill to join him in the crime?

"When one of the main features of Hill's story is proved to be false, how can you believe any of the rest? In the light in which we now see him, with his cunning exposed, what significance is to be attached to his statement that Birchill in his presence threatened to shoot Sir Horace Fewbanks if the master of Riversbrook interfered with him? Such a threat was not made, but why should Hill say it was made? For the same reason that he lied about