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

you suppose I'm doing it for? I tell you you're riding for a very bad fall in suspecting Mrs. Holymead and shadowing her."

Crewe's plain words were an echo of a secret fear which Rolfe had entertained from the time his suspicions were directed towards Mrs. Holymead. But he was not going to allow Crewe to think he was alarmed.

"If I'm making inquiries about Mrs. Holymead, it's because I have ample justification for doing so," he said stiffly.

"And I tell you that you have not."

"Prove it!" exclaimed Rolfe defiantly.

Crewe produced from his pocket a revolver and a lady's handkerchief, and handed them to Rolfe without speaking.

Rolfe's embarrassment was almost equal to his astonishment as he examined the articles. In the handkerchief with its missing corner, he speedily recognised something for which he had searched in vain. He had never confided to Crewe the discovery of the missing corner in the dead man's hand, and therefore the production of the handkerchief by Crewe considerably embarrassed him. He longed to ask Crewe how he had obtained possession of the handkerchief, but he could not trust his voice to frame the question without betraying his feelings, so he picked up the revolver and examined it closely. Then he put it down and again gave his attention to the handkerchief, bending his head over it so that Crewe should not see his face.

"You do not seem very astonished at my finds, Rolfe," said Crewe quizzically. "Perhaps you've seen these articles before?"

"No, I haven't," said Rolfe, still avoiding his visitor's eye.

"Well, the torn handkerchief is not exactly new to you," said Crewe. "You've got the missing part; you found it in Sir Horace's hand after he was murdered."

"You're too clever for me, and that's the simple truth, Mr. Crewe," said Rolfe, in a mortified tone. "I did find a small piece of a lady's handkerchief in his hand, and here it is." He produced his pocket-book and took out the piece. "How you found out I had it, is more than I know."

"Mere guess-work," said Crewe.

Rolfe shook his head slowly.

"I know better than that," he said. "You're deep. You don't miss much. I wish now that I had told you about that bit of handkerchief at the first. But Chippenfield and I wanted to have all the credit of elucidating the Riversbrook mystery. I hunted high and low to get trace of this handkerchief, but I couldn't. And now you've beaten me, although you couldn't have known at first that there was such a thing as a missing handkerchief in the case. I hope you bear me no malice, Mr. Crewe."

"What for, Rolfe?"

"For not telling you about the handkerchief, after I found this piece in
Sir Horace's hand."

"Not in the least," said Crewe. "Why should you have told me? I don't tell you everything that I find out. It's all part of the game. That piece of the handkerchief was a good find, Rolfe, and I congratulate you on getting it. How did you come to discover it?"

"I was trying to force open the murdered man's hand, and I found it clenched between the little finger and the next. Of course it was not visible with his hand closed. Chippenfield, who missed it, didn't half like my discovery, and all along he underestimated the value of it as a clue."

"Well, he has had to pay for his folly."

"He has, and serves him right," replied Rolfe viciously. "He's the most pig-headed, obstinate, vain, narrow-minded man you could come across." It occurred to Rolfe that it was not exactly good form on his part to condemn his superior officer so vigorously in the presence of a rival, so he broke off abruptly and asked Crewe how he came into possession of the revolver and handkerchief.

Crewe's reply was that he had obtained these articles under a promise of secrecy from some one who had assured him that Mrs. Holymead had no connection with the crime. When he was at liberty to tell the story as it had been told to him, Rolfe would be the first to hear it.

"Mrs. Holymead had no connection with the crime?" exclaimed Rolfe impatiently. "Perhaps you don't know that the morning after the murder was discovered she went out to Riversbrook and removed some secret papers from the murdered man's desk—papers that he had been in the habit of hiding in a secret drawer?"

"Yes, I know that," said Crewe.

"Well, doesn't that look as if she knew something about the crime?"

"Not necessarily."

"Well, to me it does. What were these secret papers? They were letters,
I am told."

"I believe so. And you, Rolfe, as a man of the world, know that a married woman would not like the police to get possession of letters she had written to a man of the reputation of Sir Horace Fewbanks."

"I admit that her action is capable of a comparatively innocent interpretation, but taken in conjunction with other things it looks to me mighty suspicious. In Hill's statement to us he told us that on the night of the murder, Birchill when hiding in the garden waiting for the lights to go out before breaking into the house, heard the front door slam and saw a stylish sort of woman walk down the path to the gate."

"That was not Mrs. Holymead," said Crewe.

"How do you know? If it was not her, who was it? Do you know?"

"I think I know, and when I am at liberty to speak I will tell you."

"Then there is a third point," continued Rolfe. "Look at this handkerchief you brought. I saw a handkerchief of exactly similar pattern at Mrs. Holymead's house when I called there."

"Wasn't that the property of her French cousin, Mademoiselle Chiron?"

"Yes, she dropped it on the floor while I was there. But it is probable the handkerchief was one of a set given her by Mrs. Holymead."

"Quite probably, Rolfe. But scores of ladies who are fond of expensive things have handkerchiefs of a similar pattern. You will find if you inquire among the West End shops, that although it is a dainty, expensive article from the man's point of view, there is nothing singular about the quality or the pattern."

"Perhaps so," said Rolfe, "but the possession of handkerchiefs of this kind is surely suspicious when taken in conjunction with her removal of the letters. I wish I could get hold of that infernal scoundrel Hill again. I am convinced that he knows a great deal more about this murder than he has yet told us, and a great deal more about Mrs. Holymead and her letters. I've had his shop watched day and night since he disappeared, but he keeps close to his burrow, and I've not been able to get on his track."

"I'd give up watching for him if I were you," said Crewe, as he flicked the ash of his cigar into the fireplace. "You're not likely to find him now. As a matter of fact, he has left the country."

"Hill left the country?" echoed Rolfe. "I think you are mistaken there,
Mr. Crewe. He had no money; how could he get away?"

Crewe selected another cigar from his case and lighted it before answering.

"The fact is, I advanced him the money," he said. "Technically it's a loan, but I do not think any of it will be paid back."

Rolfe stared hard at Crewe to see if he was joking.

"What on earth made you do that?" he demanded at length. "Hill may be the actual murderer for all we know."

"Not at all," was the reply. "Before I helped him to leave England I satisfied myself that he had absolutely nothing to do with the murder. He does not know who shot Sir Horace Fewbanks, though, of course, he still half believes that it was Birchill. When I got in touch with him after his disappearance he was in a pitiable state of fright—waking or sleeping, he couldn't get his mind off the gallows. There were two or three points on which I wanted his assistance in clearing up the Riversbrook case, and I promised to get him out of the country if he would make a clean breast of things and tell me the truth as far as he knew it. He made a confession—a true one this time. I took it down and I'll let you have a copy. There are a few interesting points on which it differs materially from the statement he made to the police when you and Chippenfield cornered him."

"What are they?" asked Rolfe.

"In the first place the burglary was his idea, and not Birchill's," replied Crewe. "After the quarrel between Sir Horace and the girl Fanning, he went out to her flat and suggested to Birchill that he should rob Riversbrook. Hill's real object in arranging this burglary was to get possession of the letters which Mrs. Holymead subsequently removed, but he did not tell Birchill this. His plan was to go to Riversbrook the morning after the burglary and then break open Sir Horace's desk and open the secret drawer before informing the police of the burglary. To the police and Sir Horace it would look as though the burglar had accidentally found the spring of the secret drawer. With these letters in his possession Hill intended to blackmail Sir Horace, or Mrs. Holymead, without disclosing himself in the transaction.

"When Sir Horace returned unexpectedly from Scotland on the 18th of August, Hill had just removed the letters from the desk, being afraid that when Birchill broke into the house he might find them accidentally. He was naturally in a state of alarm at Sir Horace's return. He tried to get an opportunity to put the letters back as Sir Horace might discover they had been removed, but Sir Horace dismissed him for the night before he could get such an opportunity. Then he went to Fanning's flat and told Birchill that Sir Horace had returned. Birchill was in favour of postponing the burglary, but Hill, who had possession of the letters, and did not know when he would get an opportunity to put them back, urged Birchill to carry out the burglary. He assured Birchill that Sir Horace was a very sound sleeper and that there would be no risk. In order to arouse Birchill's cupidity and to protect himself from the suspicions of Sir Horace regarding the letters, he told Birchill that he had seen a large sum of money in his possession when he returned, and that this money would probably be hidden in the secret drawer of the desk, until Sir Horace had an opportunity of banking it. He told Birchill to break open the desk, and explained to him how to find the spring of the secret drawer."

"What a damned cunning scoundrel he is," exclaimed Rolfe, in unwilling admiration of the completeness of Hill's scheme. "Don't you think, Mr. Crewe, that, after all, he may be the actual murderer—that he told you a lot of lies just as he did to us? Holymead in his address to the jury made out a pretty strong case against him."

"No one knows better than Holymead that Hill did not commit the murder," said Crewe. "Hill is an incorrigible liar, but he has no nerve for murder."

"Did he put the letters back?" asked Rolfe. "He told me that Mrs. Holymead stole them the day after the murder was discovered. But he is such a liar—"

"I believe he spoke the truth in that case," said Crewe. "He told me he put the letters back in the secret drawer the night after the murder, when he went to Riversbrook to report himself to Chippenfield. He put them back because he was afraid that if the police found them in his possession, they would think he had a hand in the murder. His idea was to remove them from the secret drawer after the excitement about the murder died down, and then blackmail Mrs. Holymead, but she acted with a skill and decision that robbed him of his chance to blackmail her."

"How did you get hold of the cunning scoundrel?" asked Rolfe. "I've had his wife's shop watched day and night, as I've said. I made sure he would try to communicate with her sooner or later, but he didn't."

"It was Joe who found him," said Crewe. "I knew you were watching Mrs. Hill's shop, so it was superfluous for me to set anybody to watch it. Besides, I didn't think Hill would visit his wife or attempt to communicate with her, for