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

my story, you could but give me the assurance—"

"I think I can safely promise you that Mrs. Holymead will not be troubled with any further police attentions," said Crewe, after a moment's pause.

Gabrielle broke into profuse expressions of gratitude as she turned to go.

"For the rest then, I care not what happens. I am—how do you say it—I am overjoyed. Je vous remercie, monsieur, I beg you not, I can find my way out unattended."

But Crewe showed her to the stairs, where again he had to listen to her profuse thanks before she finally departed. He watched her graceful figure till it was lost to sight in the winding staircase, and then he turned back to his office. In the outer office he stopped to speak to Joe, who, perched on an office-footstool, was tapping quickly on the office-table with his pen-knife, swaying backwards and forwards dangerously on his perch in the intensity of his emotions as he played the hero's part in the drama of saving the runaway engine from dashing into the 4.40 express by calling up the Red Gulch station on the wire.

"Joe," said Crewe, "I'll see nobody for an hour at least—nobody. You understand?"

Joe came out of the cinema world long enough to nod his head in emphatic understanding of the instructions. In his own room Crewe pulled out his notebook and once more gave himself up to the study of the baffling Riversbrook mystery, in the new light of Gabrielle's confession.

Part of her story, he reflected, must be true. She had produced Sir Horace's revolver, and, still more important, a handkerchief which he had clutched in his dying struggles. It was obvious that she or some other woman had been at Riversbrook the night of the murder, and in the room with the murdered man before he died. That tallied with Birchill's statement to Hill that he had seen a woman close the front door and walk along the garden path while he was hiding in the garden. Crewe, recalling Gabrielle's description of the room, came to the conclusion that it was probably she who had been with the judge in his dying moments. No one but a person who had actually seen it could have described the room with such minuteness.

She had been in the room, then. For what object? For the reasons stated in her confession? Crewe shook his head doubtfully.

"She evaded the trap about the pocket-book, but she made one bad mistake," he mused. "The letters in the secret drawer were taken away, and I have no doubt were burnt as she says. But were they her letters? Was Sir Horace her lover? At any rate, she did not get hold of them in the way she said. They were not taken away on the night Sir Horace was murdered, for the simple reason that they were not in the secret drawer at the time."

CHAPTER XXIV

Rolfe was spending a quiet evening in his room after a trying day's inquiries into a confidence trick case; inquiries so fruitless that they had brought down on his head an official reproof from Inspector Chippenfield.

Rolfe had left Scotland Yard that evening in a somewhat despondent frame of mind in consequence, but a brisk walk home and a good supper had done him so much good, that with a tranquil mind and his pipe in his mouth, he was able to devote himself to the hobby of his leisure hours with keen enjoyment.

This hobby would have excited the wondering contempt of Joe Leaver, whose frequent attendance at cinema theatres had led him to the conclusion that police detectives—who, unlike his master, had to take the rough with the smooth—spent their spare time practising revolver shooting, and throwing daggers at an ace of hearts on the wall. Rolfe's hobby was nothing more exciting than stamp collecting. He was deeply versed in the lore of stamps, and his private ambition was to become the possessor of a "blue Mauritius." His collection, though extensive, was by no means of fabulous value, being made up chiefly of modest purchases from the stamp collecting shops, and finds in the waste-paper-baskets at Scotland Yard after the arrival of the foreign mails.

That day he had made a particularly good haul from the waste-paper-baskets, for his "catch" included several comparatively good specimens from Japan and Fiji. He sat gloating over these treasures, examining them carefully and holding each one up to the light as he separated it from the piece of paper to which it had been affixed. He pasted them one by one in his stamp album with loving, lingering fingers, adjusting each stamp in its little square in the book with meticulous care. He was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not hear the ascending footsteps drawing nearer to his door, and did not see a visitor at the door when the footsteps ceased. It was Crewe's voice that recalled him back from the stamp collector's imaginary world.

"Why, Mr. Crewe," said Rolfe, with evident pleasure, "who'd have thought of seeing you?"

"Your landlady asked me if I'd come up myself," said Crewe, in explaining his intrusion. "She's 'too much worried and put about, to say nothing of having a bad back,' to show me upstairs."

"I've never known her to be well," said Rolfe, with a laugh. "Every morning when she brings up my breakfast I've got to hear details of her bad back which should be kept for the confidential ear of the doctor. But she regards me as a son, I think—I've been here so long. But now you are here, Mr. Crewe—" Rolfe waited in polite expectation that his visitor would disclose the object of his visit.

But Crewe seemed in no hurry to do so. He produced his cigar case and offered Rolfe a cigar, which the latter accepted with a pleasant recollection of the excellent flavour of the cigars the private detective kept. When each of them had his cigar well alight, Crewe glanced at the open stamp album and commenced talking about stamps. It was a subject which Rolfe was always willing to discuss. Crewe declared that he was an ignorant outsider as far as stamps were concerned, but he professed to have a respectful admiration for those who immersed themselves in such a fascinating subject. Rolfe, with the fervid egoism of the collector, talked about stamps for half an hour without recalling that his visitor must have come to talk about something else.

"I've got a small stamp collection in my office," said Crewe, when Rolfe paused for a moment. "It belonged to that Jewish diamond merchant who was shot in Hatton Gardens two years ago. You remember his case?"

"Rather! That was a smart bit of work of yours, Mr. Crewe, in laying your hands on the woman who did it and getting back the diamond."

Crewe smiled in response.

"The Jew was very grateful, poor fellow. He died in the hospital after the trial, so she was lucky to escape with twelve years. He left me a diamond ring and a stamp album that had come into his possession."

"I should like to see it," said Rolfe eagerly. "It is more than likely that there are some good specimens in it. The Jews are keen collectors. If you let me have a look at it, I'll tell you what the collection is worth."

"You can have it altogether," said Crewe. "I'll send my boy Joe round with it in the morning."

"Oh, Mr. Crewe, it's very good of you," said Rolfe, with the covetousness of the collector shining in his eyes.

"Nonsense! Why shouldn't you have it? But I didn't come round here solely to talk about stamps, Rolfe. I came to have a little chat about the Riversbrook case. How are you getting on with it?"

"Why, really," said Rolfe, "I've not done much with it since, since—"

"Since Birchill was acquitted, eh! But you are not letting it drop altogether, are you? That would be a pity—such an interesting case. Whom have you your eye on now as the right man?"

Rolfe, who thought he detected a suspicion of banter in Crewe's remarks, evaded the latter question by answering the first part of Crewe's inquiry.

"Why hardly that, Mr. Crewe. But the chief is not very keen on the case. Birchill's acquittal was too much of a blow to him. He reckons that nowadays juries are too soft-hearted to convict on a capital charge."

"It's just as well that they are too soft-hearted to convict the wrong man," said Crewe.

"Yes; you told me from the first that we were on the wrong track," was the reply. "I haven't forgotten that and the chief is not allowed to forget it, either. All the men at the Yard know that you held the opinion that we had got hold of the wrong man when we arrested Birchill, and he has had to stand so much chaff in the office, that he's pretty raw about it." Rolfe spoke in the detached tone of a junior who had no share in his chief's mistakes or their attendant humiliation, and he added, "That's once more that you've scored over Scotland Yard, Mr. Crewe, and you ought to be proud of it." He glanced covertly at Crewe to see how he took the flattery.

"So you've done very little about the case since Birchill was acquitted?" was his only remark.

"I've been so busy," replied Rolfe, again evading the question, and avoiding meeting Crewe's glance by turning over the leaves of his stamp album. "You see, there has been a rush of work at Scotland Yard lately. There is that big burglary at Lord Emden's, and the case of the woman whose body was found in the river lock at Peyton, and half a dozen other cases, all important in their way. There has been quite an epidemic of crime lately, as you know, Mr. Crewe. I don't seem to get a minute to myself these times."

"Rolfe," said Crewe drily, "you protest too much. You don't suppose that after coming over here to see you that I can be deceived by such talk?"

Rolfe flushed at these uncompromising words, but before he could speak
Crewe proceeded in a milder tone.

"I don't blame you a bit for trying to put me off. It's all part of the game. We're rivals, in a sense, and you are quite right not to lose sight of that fact. But as a detective, Rolfe, your methods lack polish. Really, I blush for them. You might have known that I came over here to see you to-night because I had an important object in view, and you should have tried to find out what it was before playing your own cards,—and such cards, too! You're sadly lacking in finesse, Rolfe. You'd never make a chess player; your concealed intentions are too easily discovered. You must try not to be so transparent if you want to succeed in your profession."

Crewe delivered his reproof with such good humour that Rolfe stared at him, as if unable to make out what his visitor was driving at.

"I don't know what you are talking about, Mr. Crewe," he said at length.

"Oh, yes, you do. You know I'm speaking about your latest move in the Riversbrook case, which you've been so busy with of late. And I've come to tell you in a friendly way that once more you're on the wrong track."

"What do you mean?" asked Rolfe quickly.

"Why, Princes Gate, of course," replied Crewe cheerily. "You don't suppose that a fine-looking young man like yourself could be seen in the neighbourhood of Princes Gate without causing a flutter among feminine hearts there, do you?"

"So the servants have been talking, have they?" muttered Rolfe.

"They have and they haven't. But that's beside the point. What I want to say is that you're on the wrong track in suspecting Mrs. Holymead, and I strongly advise you to drop your inquiries if you don't want to get yourself into hot water. She's as innocent of the murder of Sir Horace Fewbanks as Birchill is, but you cannot afford to make a false shot in the case of a lady of her social standing, as you did with a criminal like Birchill."

At this rebuke Rolfe gave way to irritation.

"Look here, Mr. Crewe, I'll thank you to mind your own business," he said. "It's got nothing to do with you where I make inquiries. I'll have you remember that! I don't interfere with you, and I won't have you interfering with me."

"But I'm interfering only for your own good, man! What do