"Look at that man," said Crewe, in a sharp imperative tone to the police-constable, as the K.C. was walking down the path of the Italian garden to the plantation. "You saw him come in?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you see any difference?"

"No, sir; he's the same man," said Flack, with stolid certainty.

"Anything about him that is different?" continued Crewe.

Police-Constable Flack looked at Crewe in some bewilderment. He was not a deductive expert, and, as he told his wife afterwards, he did not know what the detective was "driving at." He took another long look at Holymead, who was then within a few yards of the plantation on his way to the gates, and remarked, in a hesitating tone, as though to justify his failure:

"Well, you see, sir, when he was coming in it was the front view I saw, now I can only see his back."

But before he had finished speaking Crewe had left him and was following the K.C. Holymead had gone into the house without a walking-stick, and had reappeared carrying one on his arm. Crewe admired the cool audacity which had prompted Holymead to go into a house where a murder had been committed to recover his stick under the very eyes of the police, and he immediately formed the conclusion that the K.C. had come to the house to recover the stick for some urgent reason possibly not unconnected with the crime. And it was apparent that Holymead was a shrewd judge of human nature, Crewe reflected, for he calculated that the rareness of the quality of observation, even in those who, like Flack, were supposed to keep their eyes open, would permit him to do so unnoticed.

As Crewe went down the path he beckoned to the boy Joe, who at the moment was acting the part of a comic dentist binding a recalcitrant patient to a chair, using an immense old-fashioned straight-backed chair which stood in the hall, for his stage setting. Joe overtook his master as he entered the ornamental plantation in front of the house, and Crewe quickly whispered his instructions, as the retreating figure of the K.C. threaded the wood towards the gates.

"When I catch up level with him, Joe, you are to run into him accidentally from behind, and knock his stick off his arm, so that it falls near me. I will pick it up and return it to him. I must handle the stick—you understand? Do not wait to see how he takes it when you bump into him—get off round the corner at once and wait for me."

Crewe quickened his pace to overtake the man in front of him. He gave no glance backward at the boy, for he knew his instructions would be carried out faithfully and intelligently. He allowed Holymead to reach the big open gates, and turn from the gravelled carriage drive into the private street. Then he hurried after him and drew level with Holymead. As he did so there was a sound of running footsteps from behind, and then a shout. Joe had cleverly tripped and fallen heavily between the two men, bringing down Holymead in his fall. The K.C.'s stick flew off his arm and bounded half a dozen yards away. Crewe stepped forward quickly, secured the stick, glanced quickly at the monogram engraved on it, and held it out to Holymead, who was brushing the dust off his clothes with vexatious remarks about the clumsiness and impudence of street boys. For a moment he seemed to hesitate about taking the stick.

"I believe this is yours," said Crewe politely.

"Ah—yes. Thank you," said the K.C., giving him a keen suspicious glance.



CHAPTER VIII

Crewe had well-furnished offices in Holborn but lived in a luxurious flat in Jermyn Street. Although he went to and fro between them daily, his personality was almost a dual one, though not consciously so; his passion for crime investigation was distinct—in outward seeming, at all events—from his polished West End life of wealthy ease. Grave, self-contained, and inscrutable, he slipped from one to the other with an effortless regularity, and the fashionable folk with whom he mixed in his leisured bachelor existence in the West End, apart from knowing him as the famous Crewe, had even less knowledge of the real man behind his suave exterior than the clients who visited his inquiry rooms in Holborn to confide in him their stories of suffering, shame, or crimes committed against them. His commissionaire and body-servant, Stork, had once, in a rare—almost unique—convivial moment, declared to the caretaker of the building that he knew no more about his master after ten years than he did the first day he entered his service. He was deep beyond all belief, was Stork's opinion, delivered with reluctant admiration.

Although Crewe did not allow the externals of his two existences to become involved, his chief interest in life was in his work. He had originally taken up detective work more as a relief from the boredom of his lot as a wealthy young man, leading an aimless, useless life with others of his class, than by deliberate choice of his vocation. His initial successes surprised him; then the work absorbed him and became his life's career. He had achieved some memorable successes and he had made a few failures, but the failures belonged to the earlier portion of his career, before he had learnt to trust thoroughly in his own great gifts of intuition and insight, and that uncanny imagination which sometimes carried him successfully through when all else failed.

Serious devotees of chess knew the name of Crewe in another capacity—as the name of a man who might have aspired to great deeds if he had but taken the game as his life's career. He had flashed across the chess horizon some years previously as a player of surpassing brilliance by defeating Turgieff, when the great Russian master had visited London and had played twelve simultaneous boards at the London Chess Club. Crewe was the only player of the twelve to win his game, and he did so by a masterly concealed ending in which he handled his pawns with consummate skill, proffering the sacrifice of a bishop with such art that Turgieff fell into the trap, and was mated in five subsequent moves. Crewe proved this was not merely a lucky win by defeating the young South American champion, Caranda, shortly afterwards, when the latter visited England and played a series of exhibition games in London on his way to Moscow, where he was engaged in the championship tourney. Once again it was masterly pawn play which brought Crewe a fine victory, and aged chess enthusiasts who followed every move of the game with trembling excitement, declared afterwards that Crewe's conception of this particular game had not been equalled since Morphy died.

They predicted a dazzling chess career for Crewe, but he disappointed their aged hearts by retiring suddenly from match chess, and they mourned him as one unworthy of his great chess gifts and the high hopes they had placed in him. But, as a matter of fact, Crewe's intellect was too vigorous and active to be satisfied with the triumphs of chess, and his disappearance from the chess world was contemporary with his entrance into detective work, which appealed to his imagination and found scope for his restless mental activity. But if detective work so absorbed him that he gave up match chess entirely, he still retained an interest in the science of chess, reserving problem play for his spare moments, and, when not immersed in the solution of a problem of human mystery, he would turn to the chessboard and seek solace and relaxation in the mysteries of an intricate "four-mover."

He had once said that there was a certain affinity between solving chess problems and the detection of crime mystery: once the key-move was found, the rest was comparatively easy. But he added with a sigh that a really perfect crime mystery was as rare as a perfect chess problem: human ingenuity was not sufficiently skilful, as a rule, to commit a crime or construct a chess problem with completely artistic concealment of the key-move, and for that reason most problems and crimes were far too easy of detection to absorb one's intellectual interests and attention.

It was the morning after Crewe's visit to Riversbrook, and the detective sat in his private office glancing through a note-book which contained a summary of the Hampstead mystery. Crewe was a painstaking detective as well as a brilliant one, and it was his custom to prepare several critical summaries of any important case on which he was engaged, writing and rewriting the facts and his comments, until he was satisfied that he had a perfect outline to work upon, with the details and clues of the crime in consecutive order and relation to one another. Experience had taught him that the time and labour this task involved were well-spent. If an unexpected development of the case altered the facts of the original summary Crewe prepared another one in the same painstaking way. The summaries, when done with, were methodically filed and indexed and stored in a strong room at the office for future reference, where he also kept full records of all the cases upon which he had been engaged, together with the weapons and articles that had figured in them: huge volumes of newspaper reports and clippings; photographs of criminals with their careers appended; and a host of other odds and ends of his detective investigations—the whole forming an interesting museum of crime and mystery which would have furnished a store of rich material for a fresh Newgate Calendar. It was an axiom of Crewe's that a detective never knew when some old scrap of information or some trifling article of some dead and forgotten crime might not afford a valuable clue. Expert criminals frequently repeated themselves, like people in lesser walks of life, and Crewe's "library and museum," as he called it, had sometimes furnished him with a simple hint for the solution of a mystery which had defied more subtle methods of analysis.

Crewe, after carefully reading his summary of the murder of Sir Horace Fewbanks, and making a few alterations in the text, drew from his pocket the glove which Inspector Chippenfield had handed him as a clue, took it to the window, and carefully examined it through a large magnifying glass. He was thus engrossed when the door was noiselessly opened, and Stork, the bodyguard, entered. Stork belied his name. He was short and fat, with a red mottled face; a model of discretion and imperturbability, who had served Crewe for ten years, and bade fair to serve him another ten, if he lived that long. In his heart of hearts he often wondered why a gentleman like Crewe should so far forget what was due to his birth and position as to have offices in Holborn—Holborn, of all parts of London! But the awe he felt for Crewe prevented his seeking information on the point from the only person who could give it to him, so he served him and puzzled over him in silence, his inward perturbation of spirits being made manifest occasionally by a puzzled glance at his master when the latter was not looking. It was nothing to Stork that his master was a famous detective; the problem to him was why he was a detective when he had no call to be one, having more money than any man—and let alone a single man—could spend in a lifetime.

Stork coughed slightly to attract Crewe's attention.

"If you please, sir," he said, "the boy has come."

While Crewe was busy with his magnifying glass Stork returned with the boy who had accompanied Crewe on his visit to Riversbrook on the previous day.

The boy, a thin white-faced, sharp-eyed London street urchin, seemed curiously out of place in the handsomely furnished office, with his legs tucked up under the carved rail of a fine old oak chair, and his big dark eyes fixed intently on Crewe's face. The tie between him and the detective was an unusual one. It dated back some twelve months, when Crewe, in the investigation of a peculiarly baffling crime, found it advisable to disguise himself and live temporarily in a crowded criminal quarter of Islington. The rooms he took were above a secondhand clothing shop kept by a drunken female named Leaver; a supposed widow who lived at the back of the shop with her two children, Lizzie, a bold-eyed girl of 17, who worked at a Clerkenwell clothing factory, and Joe, a typical Cockney boy of fourteen, who sold papers in the streets during the day and was fast qualifying for a thief at night when Crewe went to the place to live.

Crewe soon discovered, through overhearing a loud quarrel between his landlady and her daughter, that Mrs. Leaver's husband was alive, though dead to his wife for all practical purposes, inasmuch as he was serving a life's imprisonment for manslaughter. A fortnight after he had taken up his temporary quarters above the shop the woman was removed to the hospital suffering from the effects of a hard drinking bout, and died there. The girl disappeared, and the boy would have been turned out on the streets but for Crewe, who had taken a liking to him. Joe was self-reliant, alert, and precocious, like most London street boys, but in addition to these qualities he had a vein of imagination unusual in a lad of his upbringing and environment. He devoured the exciting feuilleton stories in the evening papers he vended, and spent his spare pennies at the cinema theatres in the vicinity of his poor home. His appreciation of the crude mysteries of the filmed detective drama amused the famous expert in the finer art of actual crime detection, until he discovered that the boy possessed natural gifts of intuition and observation, combined with penetration. Crewe grew interested in developing the boy's talent for detective work. When the lad's mother died Crewe decided to take him into his Holborn offices as messenger-boy. Crewe soon discovered that Joe had a useful gift for "shadowing" work, and his street training as a newspaper runner enabled him not only to follow a person through the thickest of London traffic, but to escape observation where a man might have been noticed and suspected.

"Well, Joe," said Crewe, as the boy entered on the heels of Stork, "I have a job for you this morning. I want you to find the glove corresponding to this one."

Crewe, having finished his examination of the glove, handed it to the boy, whose first act was to slip it on his left hand and move his fingers about to assure himself that they were in good working order in spite of being hidden. It was the first occasion on which Joe had worn a glove.

"It was found in the room in which Sir Horace Fewbanks was murdered," continued Crewe. "The other one was not there. The question I want to solve is, did it belong to Sir Horace, or to some one who visited him on the night he was murdered? The police think it belonged to Sir Horace because it is the same size as the gloves he wore, and because Sir Horace's hosier stocks the same kind—as does nearly every fashionable hosier in London. They think he lost the right-hand glove on his way up from Scotland. It will occur to you, Joe, though you don't wear gloves, that it is more common for men to lose the right-hand glove than the left-hand, because the right hand is used a great deal more than the left, and even men who would not be seen in the street without gloves find there are many things they cannot do with a gloved hand. For instance, to dive one's hand into one's trouser pocket where most men keep their loose change the glove has to be removed."

"Then the gentleman would take off his right glove when he paid for his taxi-cab from St. Pancras," said Joe, who was familiar through the accounts in the newspapers with the main details of the Fewbanks mystery.

"Right, Joe," said his master approvingly. "And in that case he dropped the glove between the taxi-cab outside his front gates and his room, and it would have been found. I have made inquiries and I am satisfied it was not found."

"He might have lost it when he was getting into the train at Scotland," suggested the lad. "He had to change trains at Glasgow—he might have lost it there."

"That is a rule-of-thumb deduction," said Crewe, with a kindly smile. "It is good enough for the police, for they have apparently adopted it, but it is not good enough for me. What you don't understand, Joe, is that an odd glove is of no value in the eyes of a man who wears gloves. He doesn't take it home as a memento of his carelessness in losing the other. He throws it away. Therefore if this is Sir Horace's glove he took it home because he was unaware that he had lost the other. He would put on his gloves before leaving the train at St. Pancras. And he would pull off the right-hand one—he was not left-handed—when the taxi-cab was nearing his home so as to be able to pay the fare. Therefore, if it is Sir Horace's glove the fellow to it was dropped in the taxi-cab, or dropped between the taxi-cab and the house. If the glove had been lost at the other end of the journey in Scotland Sir Horace would have flung this one out of the carriage window when he became aware of the loss. As I have told you no glove was found between the gate at Riversbrook and the room in which Sir Horace was murdered. I got from the police the number of the taxi-cab in which Sir Horace was driven from St. Pancras, and the driver tells me that no glove was left in his cab. So what have we to do next, Joe?"

"To find the missing glove? It's a tough job, ain't it, sir?"

"Yes and no," replied Crewe. "It is possible to make some reasonable safe deductions in regard to it. These would indicate what had happened to it, and knowing where to look, or, rather, in what circumstances we might expect to find it, we might throw a little light on it. In the first place, it might be assumed that if the glove did not belong to Sir Horace it belonged to some one who visited him on the night he returned unexpectedly from Scotland. That indicates that his visitor knew Sir Horace was returning; a most important point, for if he knew Sir Horace was returning he knew why he was returning—which no one else knows up to the present as far as I have been able to gather—and in all probability was responsible for his return, say, sent him a letter or a telegram which brought him to London. So we come to the possibility of an angry scene in the room in which Sir Horace's dead body was subsequently found. We have the possibility of the visitor leaving the house in a high state of excitement, hastily snatching up the hat and gloves he had taken off when he arrived, and in his excitement dropping unnoticed the right-hand glove on the floor."

"And leaving his gold-mounted stick behind him," said Joe, who was following his master's line of reasoning with keen interest.

"Right, Joe," said Crewe. "That was placed in the stand in the hall, and when the visitor left hurriedly was entirely forgotten. But at what stage did the visitor become conscious of the loss of his glove? Not until his excitement cooled down a little. How long he took to cool down depends upon the cause of his excitement and his temperament, things which, at present, we can only guess at. He would probably walk a long distance before he cooled down. Then he would resume his normal habits and among other things would put on his gloves—if he had them. He would find that he had lost one and that he had left his stick behind. He would know that the stick had been left behind in the hall, but he would not know the glove had been dropped in the house. The probabilities are that he would think he had dropped it while walking. But if he felt that he had dropped it in the house, and he had the best of all reasons for not wishing anyone to know that he had visited Sir Horace that night, he would destroy the remaining glove and our chance of tracing it would be gone. The fact that he had left his stick behind was a minor matter that he could easily account for if he had been a friend of Sir Horace who had been in the habit of visiting Riversbrook. If anything cropped up subsequently about the stick he could say that he had left it there before Sir Horace closed up his house and went to Scotland.

"But the problem of the glove is a different matter, Joe. There are three phases to it: first, if the visitor thought he had dropped it in the house and wanted to keep his visit there a profound secret from subsequent inquiry he would take home the remaining glove and destroy it—probably by burning it. Secondly, if he thought he had dropped it after leaving the house he would not feel that safety necessitated the destruction of the remaining one, but he would probably throw it away where it would not be likely to be found. In the third place, if he had no particular reason for wishing to hide the fact that he had visited Riversbrook he would throw it away anywhere when he became conscious that he had lost the other. He would throw it away merely because an odd glove is of no use to a man who wears gloves. The man who doesn't wear gloves would pick up an odd glove from the ground and think he had made a find. He would take it home to his wife and she would probably keep it for finger-stalls for the children."

Crewe put down his notes and got up from his chair. "Your job is this, Joe. Go to Riversbrook and make a careful search on both sides of the road for the missing glove. I do not think he threw it away—if he did throw it away—until he had walked some distance, but you mustn't act on that assumption. Look over the fences of the houses and into the hedges. Walk along in the direction of Hampstead Underground. Search the gutters and all the trees and hedges along the road. Take one side of the street to the Underground station and if you do not find the glove go back to Riversbrook along the other side. Make a thorough job of it, as it is most important that the glove should be found—if it is to be found."

After Joe had departed Crewe put on his hat and left his office for the Strand. His first call was at the shop of Bruden and Marshall, hosiers, in order to find out if any information was to be obtained there about the ownership of the glove. He was aware that the police had been there on the same mission, but his experience had often shown that valuable information was to be gathered after the police had been over the ground.

On introducing himself to the manager of the shop that gentleman displayed as much humble civility as he would have done towards a valued customer. He could not say anything about the ownership of the glove which Crewe had brought, and he could not even say if it had come from their shop. It was an excellent glove, the line being known in the trade as "first-choice reindeer." They stocked that particular kind of article at 10/6 the pair. They had the pleasure of having had the late Sir Horace Fewbanks on their books. He was quite an old account, if he might use the expression. He was one of their best customers, being a gentleman who was particular about his appearance and who would have nothing but the best in any line that he fancied. On the subject of Sir Horace's taste in hose the manager had much to say, and, in spite of Crewe's efforts to confine the conversation to gloves, the manager repeatedly dragged in socks. He did it so frequently that he became conscious his visitor was showing signs of annoyance, so he apologised, adding, with an inspiration, "After all, hose is really gloves for the feet."

Crewe ascertained that a large number of legal gentlemen were customers of Bruden and Marshall. He innocently suggested that the reason was because the shop was the nearest one of its kind to the Law Courts, but this explanation offended the shopman's pride. It was because they stocked high-class goods and gave good value in every way, combined with attention and civility and a desire to please, that they did such an excellent business with legal gentlemen. In refutation of the idea that proximity to the Courts was the direct reason of their having so many legal gentlemen among their customers the manager declared that they received orders from all parts of the world—India, Canada, Australia, and South Africa, to say nothing of American gentlemen who liked their hosiery to have the London hall-mark. Their orders from the Colonies came from gentlemen who found that these things in the Colonies were not what they had been used to, and so they sent their orders to Bruden and Marshall.

Crewe's interest was in the legal customers and he asked for the names of some. The manager ran through a list of names of judges, barristers and solicitors, but the name Crewe wanted to hear was not among them. He was compelled to include the name among half a dozen others he mentioned to the manager. He ascertained that Mr. Charles Holymead was a customer of the firm, but it was apparent from the manager's spiritless attitude towards Mr. Holymead that the famous K.C. was not a man who ran up a big bill with his hosier, or was very particular about what he wore. The world regarded some of the men of this type famous or distinguished, but in the hosier's mind they were all classed as commonplace. But the manager would not go so far as to say that Mr. Holymead would not buy such a glove as that which Crewe had brought in. He might and he might not, but, as a general rule, he did not pay more than 8/6 for his gloves.

Crewe took a taxi to Princes Gate in order to have a look at the house in which Holymead lived. It occurred to him that if Holymead was not particular about what he spent on his clothes he was extravagant about the amount he spent in house rent. Of course, a leading barrister earning a huge income could afford to live in a palatial residence in Princes Gate, but it was not the locality or residence that an economically-minded man would have chosen for his home. But Crewe had little doubt that the beautiful wife Holymead possessed was responsible for the choice of house and locality.

After looking at the house Crewe walked back to the cab-stand at Hyde Park Corner. He had arrived at the conclusion that it was necessary to settle beyond doubt whether the K.C. had visited Riversbrook the night Sir Horace had returned from Scotland. If the K.C. had done so, he was anxious to keep the visit secret, for not only had he not informed the police of his visit but he had kept it from Miss Fewbanks. Crewe had ascertained from Miss Fewbanks that Mr. Holymead when he had called at Riversbrook on a visit of condolence had not mentioned to her anything about having left his stick in the hall stand on a previous visit. On leaving Miss Fewbanks Mr. Holymead had gone up to the hall stand and taken both his hat and stick as if he had left them both there a few minutes before.

Crewe reasoned that if Holymead had gone out to see Sir Horace Fewbanks at Riversbrook and had desired to keep his visit a secret he would not have taken a cab at Hyde Park Corner to Hampstead, but would have travelled by underground railway or omnibus. In all probability the Tube had been used because of its speed being more in harmony with the feelings of a man impatient to get done with a subject so important that Sir Horace had been recalled from Scotland to deal with it. He would leave the Tube at Hampstead and take a taxi-cab. He would not be likely to go straight to Riversbrook in the taxi-cab, if he were anxious that his movements should not be traced subsequently. He would dismiss the taxi-cab at one of the hotels bordering on Hampstead Heath, for they were the resort of hundreds of visitors on summer nights, and his actions would thus easily escape notice. From the hotel he would walk across to Riversbrook. But the return journey would be made in a somewhat different way. If Holymead left Riversbrook in a state of excitement he would walk a long way without being conscious of the exertion. He would want to be alone with his own thoughts. Gradually he would cool down, and becoming conscious of his surroundings would make his way home. Again he would use the Tube, for it would be more difficult for his movements to be traced if he mixed with a crowd of travellers than if he took a cab to his home. It was impossible to say what station he got in at, for that would depend on how far he walked before he cooled down, but he would be sure to get out at Hyde Park Corner because that was the station nearest to his house. Allowing for a temperamental reaction during a train journey of about twenty minutes, he would feel depressed and weary and would probably take a taxi-cab outside Hyde Park station to his home. That was a thing he would often be in the habit of doing when returning late at night from the theatre or elsewhere, and therefore could be easily explained by him if the police happened to make inquiries as to his movements.

As Crewe anticipated, he had no difficulty in finding the driver of the taxi-cab in which Holymead had driven home on the night of Wednesday last. The K.C. frequently used cabs, and he was well-known to all the drivers on the rank. Crewe got into the cab he had used and ordered the man to drive him to his office, and there invited him upstairs. He adopted this course because he knew that the driver, who gave his name as Taylor, would be more likely to talk freely in an office where he could not be overheard than he would do on the cab-rank with his fellow-drivers crowding him, or in an hotel parlour where other people were present.

"Tell me exactly what happened when you drove Mr. Holymead home on Wednesday night," said Crewe. "Did you notice anything strange about him, or was his manner much the same as on other occasions that he used your cab?"

"Well, I don't see whether I should tell you whether he was or whether he wasn't," replied the taxi-cab driver, who was as surly as most of his class. "What's it to do with you, anyway? He's a regular customer of mine on the rank, and he's not one of your tuppenny tipsters, either. He's a gentleman. And if he got to know that I had been telling tales about him it would not do me any good."

"It would not," replied Crewe, with cordial acquiescence. "Therefore, Taylor, I give you my word of honour not to mention anything you tell me. Furthermore, I'll see that you don't lose by it now or at any other time. I cannot say more than that, but that's a great deal more than the police would say. Now, would you sooner tell me or tell the police? Here's a sovereign to start with, and if you have an interesting story to tell you'll have another one before you leave."

The appeal of money and the conviction that the police would use less considerate methods if Crewe passed him over to them abolished Taylor's scruples about discussing a fare, and it was in a much less surly tone that he responded:

"I didn't notice anything strange about him when he called me off the rank, but I did afterwards. First of all, I didn't drive him home. That is, I did drive him home, but he didn't go inside. When I drew up outside his house in Princes Gate, I looked around expecting to see him get out. As he didn't move I got down and opened the door. 'Aren't you getting out here, sir?' I said, in a soft voice. 'No,' he said. 'Drive on.' 'This is your house, sir,' I ventured to say. 'I'm not going in,' he replied, 'drive on.' I was surprised. I thought he was the worse for drink, and I'd never seen him that way before. But some gentlemen are so obstinate in liquor that you can't get them to do anything except the opposite of what you ask them. I thought I'd try and coax him. 'Better go inside, sir,' I said. 'You'll be better off in bed.' 'Do you think I am drunk?' he said sharply. You could have knocked me down with a feather. He was as sober as a judge, all in a moment. 'No, sir, I didn't,' I said. 'I wouldn't take the liberty,' I said. 'Then get back on your seat and drive me to the Hyde Park Hotel—no, I think I'll go to Verney's. But don't go there direct. Drive me round the Park first. I feel I want a breath of cool air.'"

"Go on," said Crewe, in a tone which indicated approval of Taylor's method of telling his story.

"Well, I turned the cab round and drove through the Park. But I was puzzled about him and looked back at him once or twice pretending that I was looking to see if a cab or car was coming up behind. And as we passed over the Serpentine Bridge I saw him throw something out of the window."

"A glove?" suggested Crewe quickly.

The driver looked at him in profound admiration.

"Well, if you don't beat all the detectives I've ever heard of."

"He tried to throw it in the water," continued Crewe, as if explaining the matter to himself rather than to his visitor. "Did you get it?"

"Hold on a bit," said Taylor, who had his own ideas of how to give value for the extra sovereign he hoped to obtain. "I couldn't see what it was he had thrown away, and, of course, I couldn't pull up to find out. I drove on, but I kept my eye on him, though I had my back to him. As we were driving back along the Broad Walk I had another look at him, and bless me if he wasn't crying—crying like a child. He had his hands up to his face and his head was shaking as if he was sobbing. I said to myself, 'He's barmy—he's gone off his rocker.' I thought to myself I ought to drive him to the police station, but I reckoned it was none of my business, after all, so I'll take him to Verney's and be done with it. So I drove to Verney's. He got out, and paid me, but I couldn't see that he had been crying, and he looked much as usual, so far as I could see. I thought to myself that perhaps, after all, he'd only had a queer turn; however, I said to myself I'd drive back to the bridge and see what he'd thrown out of the window. It was a glove, sure enough. It had fallen just below the railing. I looked about for the other one, but I couldn't find it, so I suppose it must have fallen into the water."

"No, it didn't," said Crewe. "I have it here." He opened a drawer in his desk and produced a glove. "It was a right-hand glove you found. Just look at this one and see if it corresponds to the one you picked up."

Taylor looked at the glove.

"They're as like as two peas," he said.

"What did you do with the one you found?" inquired Crewe. "I hope you didn't throw it away?"

"I'm not a fool," retorted Taylor. "I've had odd gloves left in my cab before. I kept this one thinking that sooner or later somebody might leave another like it, and then I'd have a pair for nothing."

"Well, I'll buy it from you," said Crewe. "Have you anything more to tell me?"

"I went back to the rank and one of the chaps was curious that I'd been so long away, for he knew that Mr. Holymead's place isn't more than ten minutes' drive from the station. But he got nothing out of me. I know how to keep my mouth shut. You're the first man I've told what happened, and I hope you won't give me away."

"I've already promised you that," said Crewe, flipping another sovereign from his sovereign case and handing it to Taylor, "and I'll give you five shillings for the glove."

Taylor looked at him darkly.

"Five shillings isn't much for a glove like that," he said insolently. "What about my loss of time going home for it? I suppose you'll pay the taxi-fare for the run down from Hyde Park?"

"No, I won't," said Crewe cheerfully.

"Then I don't see why I should bring it for a paltry five shillings," said Taylor. "If you want the glove you'll have to pay for it."

"But I don't want the glove," said Crewe, who disliked being made the victim of extortion. "What made you think so? I'll sell you this one for five shillings. We may as well do a deal of some kind; it is no use each of us having one glove. What do you say, Taylor? Will you buy mine for five shillings, or shall I buy yours?"

Taylor smiled sourly.

"You're a deep one," he said. "Here's the other glove." He dipped his hand into the deep pocket of his driving coat and produced a glove. "I suppose you knew I'd have it on me. Five shillings, and it's yours."

"The pair are worth about five shillings to me," said Crewe as he paid over the money. "Do you remember what time it was when Mr. Holymead engaged you at Hyde Park?"

"Eleven o'clock."

"You are quite sure as to the time?"

"I heard one of the big clocks striking as he was getting into my cab."

Taylor took his departure, and Crewe, after wrapping up the left-hand glove which he had to return to Inspector Chippenfield, put the other one in his safe.

"We are getting on," he said in a pleased tone. "This means a trip to Scotland, but I'll wait until the inquest is over."



CHAPTER IX

At the inquest on the body of Sir Horace Fewbanks, which was held at the Hampstead Police Court, there was an odd mixture of classes in the crowd that thronged that portion of the court in which the public were allowed to congregate. The accounts of the crime which had been published in the press, and the atmosphere of mystery which enshrouded the violent death of one of the most prominent of His Majesty's judges, had stirred the public curiosity, and therefore, in spite of the fact that every one was supposed to be out of town in August, the attendance at the court included a sprinkling of ladies of the fashionable world, and their escorts.

Both branches of the legal profession were numerously represented. All of the victim's judicial colleagues were out of town, and though some of them intended as a mark of respect for the dead man to come up for the funeral, which was to take place two days later, they were too familiar with legal procedure to feel curiosity as to the working of the machinery at a preliminary inquiry into the crime. They were emphatic among their friends on the degeneracy of these days which rendered possible such an outrageous crime as the murder of a High Court judge. The fact that it was without precedent in the history of British law added to its enormity in the eyes of gentlemen who had been trained to worship precedent as the only safe guide through the shifting quicksands of life. They were insistent on the urgency of the murderer being arrested and handed over to Justice in the person of the hangman, for—as each asked himself—where was this sort of crime to end? In spite of the degeneracy of the times they were reluctant to believe in such a far-fetched supposition as the existence of a band of criminals who, in revenge for the judicial sentences imposed on members of their class, had sworn to exterminate the whole of His Majesty's judges; but, until the murderer was apprehended and the reason for the crime was discovered, it was impossible to say that the English judicature would not soon be called upon to supply other victims to criminal violence. The murder of a judge seemed to them a particularly atrocious crime, in the punishment of which the law might honourably sacrifice temporarily its well-earned reputation for delay.

The bar was represented chiefly by junior members. The senior members were able to make full use of the long vacation, spending it at health resorts or in the country, but the incomes of the young shoots of the great parasitical profession did not permit them to enjoy more than a brief holiday out of town. Of course it would never have done for them to admit even to each other that they could not afford to go away for an extended holiday, and therefore they told one another in bored tones that they had not been able to make up their minds where to go. The junior bar included old men, who, through lack of influence, want of energy, want of advertisement, want of ability, or some other deficiency, had never earned more than a few guineas at their profession, though they had spent year after year in chambers. They lived on scanty private means. Broken in spirit they had even ceased to attend the courts in order to study the methods and learn the tricks of successful counsel. But the murder of a High Court judge was a thing which stirred even their sluggish blood, and in the hope of some sensational development they had put on faded silk hats and shabby black suits and gone out to Hampstead to attend the inquest.

The interest of the junior bar in the crime was as personal as that of the members of the Judicial Bench, though it manifested itself in an entirely different direction. They speculated among themselves as to who would be appointed to the vacancy on the High Court Bench. A leading K.C. with a political pull would of course be selected by the Attorney-General, but there were several K.C.'s who possessed these qualifications, and therefore there was room for differences of opinion among the junior bar as to who would get the offer. The point on which they were all united was that vacancies of the High Court Bench were a good thing for the bar as a whole, for they removed leading K.C.'s, and the dispersion of their practice was like rain on parched ground. Metaphorically speaking, every one—including even the junior bar—had the chance of getting a shove up when a leading K.C. accepted a judicial appointment. Some of the more irreverent spirits among the junior bar, in drawing attention to the fact that Sir Horace Fewbanks had been one of the youngest members of the High Court Bench, expressed the hope that the shock of his death would be felt by some of the extremely aged members of the bench who were too infirm in health to be able to stand many shocks.

The members of the junior bar chatted with the representatives of the lower branch of the profession who ranged from articled clerks whose young souls had not been entirely dried up by association with parchment, to hard old delvers in dusty documents who had lived so long in the legal atmosphere of quibbling, obstruction, and deceit, that they were as incapable of an honest impetuous act as of an illegal one. The gossip concerning the murdered judge in which the two branches of the profession joined had reference to his moral character in legal circles. There had always been gossip of the kind in his life-time. Sir Horace's judicial reputation was beyond reproach and he had known his law a great deal better than most of his judicial colleagues. Comparatively few of his decisions had been upset on appeal. But every one about the courts knew that he was susceptible to a pretty feminine face and a good figure.

Many were the conflicts that arose in court between bench and bar as the result of Mr. Justice Fewbanks's habit of protecting pretty witnesses from cross-examining questions which he regarded as outside the case. There was no suggestion that his judicial decisions were influenced by the good looks of ladies who were parties to the cases heard by him, but there were rumours that on occasions the relations between the judge and a pretty witness begun in court had ripened into something at which moral men might well shake their heads.

While the members of the legal profession struggled to obtain seats in the body of the court, an entirely different class of spectators struggled to get into the gallery. For the most part they were badly dressed men who needed a shave, but there were a few well-dressed men among them, and also a few ladies. Detective Rolfe took a professional interest in the occupants of the gallery. "What a collection of crooks," he whispered to Inspector Chippenfield. "A regular rogues' gallery. Look—there is 'Nosey George'; it is time he was in again. And behind him is that cunning old 'drop' Ikey Samuels—I wish we could get him. Look at the other end of the first row. Isn't that 'Sunny Jim'? I hardly knew him. He's grown a beard since he's been out. We'll soon have it off again for him. He's got the impudence to scowl at us. He'll lay for you one of these nights, Inspector."

The judicial duties of the murdered man had been concerned chiefly with civil cases at the Royal Courts of Justice, but when the criminal calendar had been heavy he had often presided at Number One Court at the Old Bailey. It was this fact which had given the criminal class a sort of personal interest in his murder and accounted for the presence of many well-known criminals who happened to be out of gaol at the time. The spectators in the gallery included men whom the murdered man had sentenced and men who had been fortunate enough to escape being sentenced by him owing to the vagaries of juries. There were pickpockets, sneak thieves, confidence men, burglars, and receivers among the occupants of the gallery, and many of them had brought with them the ladies who assisted them professionally or presided over their homes when they were not in gaol.

"I wouldn't be surprised if the man we want is among that bunch," said Rolfe to Inspector Chippenfield.

"You've a lot to learn about them, my boy," said his superior.

"There is Crewe up among them," continued Rolfe. "I wonder what he thinks he's after."

Inspector Chippenfield gave a glance in the direction of Crewe, but did not deign to give any sign of recognition. The fact that Crewe by his presence in the gallery seemed to entertain the idea that the murderer might be found among the occupants of that part of the court could not be as lightly dismissed as Rolfe's vague suggestion. It annoyed Inspector Chippenfield to think that Crewe might be nearer at the moment to the murderer than he himself was, even though that proximity was merely physical and unsupported by evidence or even by any theory. It would have been a great relief to him if he had known that Crewe's object in going to the gallery was not to mix with the criminal classes, but in order to keep a careful survey of what took place in the body of the court without making himself too prominent.

Mr. Holymead, K.C., arrived, and members of the junior bar deferentially made room for him. He shook hands with some of these gentlemen and also with Inspector Chippenfield, much to the gratification of that officer. Miss Fewbanks arrived in a taxi-cab a few minutes before the appointed hour of eleven. She was accompanied by Mrs. Holymead, and they were shown into a private room by Police-Constable Flack, who had received instructions from Inspector Chippenfield to be on the lookout for the murdered man's daughter.

Miss Fewbanks and Mrs. Holymead had been almost inseparable since the tragedy had been discovered. Immediately on the arrival of Miss Fewbanks from Dellmere, Mrs. Holymead had gone out to Riversbrook to condole with her, and to support her in her great sorrow. But the murdered man's daughter, who, on account of having lived apart from her father, had developed a self-reliant spirit, seemed to be less overcome by the horror of the tragedy than Mrs. Holymead was. It was with a feeling that there was something lacking in her own nature, that the girl realised that Mrs. Holymead's grief for the violent death of a man who had been her husband's dearest friend was greater than her own grief at the loss of a father.

One of the directions in which Mrs. Holymead's grief found expression was in a feverish desire to know all that was being done to discover the murderer. She displayed continuous interest in the investigations of the detectives engaged on the case, and she had implored Miss Fewbanks to let her know when any important discovery was made. She applauded the action of her young friend in engaging such a famous detective as Crewe, and declared that if anyone could unravel the mystery, Crewe would do it. She had been particularly anxious to hear through Miss Fewbanks what Crewe's impressions were, with regard to the tragedy.

The court was opened punctually, the coroner being Mr. Bodyman, a stout, clean-shaven, white-haired gentleman who had spent thirty years of his life in the stuffy atmosphere of police courts hearing police-court cases. Police-Inspector Seldon nodded in reply to the inquiring glance of the coroner, and the inquest was opened.

The first witness was Miss Fewbanks. She was dressed in deep black and was obviously a little unnerved. In a low tone she said she had identified the body as that of her father. She was staying at her father's country house in Dellmere, Sussex, when the crime was committed. She had no knowledge of anyone who was evilly disposed towards her father. He had never spoken to her of anyone who cherished a grudge against him.

Evidence relating to the circumstances in which the body was found was given by Police-Constable Flack. He described the position of the room in which the body was found, and the attitude in which the body was stretched. He was on duty in the neighbourhood of Tanton Gardens on the night of the murder, but saw no suspicious characters and heard no sounds.

The evidence of Hill was chiefly a repetition of what he had told Inspector Chippenfield as to his movements on the day of the crime, and his methods of inspecting the premises three times a week in accordance with his master's orders. He knew nothing about Sir Horace's sudden return from Scotland. His first knowledge of this was the account of the murder, which he read in the papers.

Inspector Chippenfield gave evidence for the purpose of producing the letter received at Scotland Yard announcing that Sir Horace Fewbanks had been murdered. The letter was passed up to the coroner for his inspection, and when he had examined it he sent it to the foreman of the jury. Then followed medical evidence, which showed that death was due to a bullet wound and could not have been self-inflicted.

The coroner, in his summing-up, dwelt upon the loss sustained by the Judiciary by the violent death of one of its most distinguished members, and the jury, after a retirement of a few minutes, brought in a verdict of wilful murder by some person or persons unknown.

As the occupants of the court filed out into the street, Crewe, who was watching Holymead, noticed the K.C. give a slight start when he saw Miss Fewbanks and his wife. Mr. Holymead went up to the ladies and shook hands with Miss Fewbanks, and to Crewe it seemed as if he was on the point of shaking hands with his wife, but he stopped himself awkwardly. He saw the ladies into their cab, and, raising his hat, went off. As Mr. Holymead had seen Miss Fewbanks in court when she gave evidence, it was obvious to Crewe that he could not have been surprised at meeting her outside. It was therefore the presence of his wife which had surprised him. That fact—if it were a fact—opened a limitless field of speculation to Crewe, but in spite of the possibility of error—a possibility which he frankly recognised—he was pleased with himself for having noticed the incident. To him it seemed to provide another link in the chain he was constructing. It harmonised with Taylor's story of Mr. Holymead's decision to stay at Verney's instead of entering his own home the night Taylor drove him from Hyde Park Corner.

Rolfe also possessed the professional faculty of observation, but in a different degree. He had seen Mr. Holymead talking to his wife and Miss Fewbanks, but he had noticed nothing but gentlemanly ease in the barrister's manner. What did astonish him in connection with Mr. Holymead was that after he had left the ladies and was walking in the direction of the cab-rank he spoke to one of the former occupants of the gallery. This was a man known to the police and his associates as "Kincher." His name was Kemp, and how he had obtained his nick-name was not known. He was a criminal by profession and had undergone several heavy sentences for burglary. He was a thick-set man of medium height, about fifty years of age. Apart from a rather heavy lower jaw, he gave no external indication of his professional pursuits, but looked, with his brown and weather-beaten face and rough blue reefer suit, not unlike a seafaring man. The likeness was heightened by a tattooed device which covered the back of his right hand, and a slight roll in his gait when he walked. But appearances are deceptive, for Mr. Kemp, at liberty or in gaol, had never been out of London in his life. He was born and bred a London thief, and had served all his sentences at Wormwood Scrubbs. For over a minute he and Mr. Holymead remained in conversation. Rolfe would have described it officially as familiar conversation, but that description would have overlooked the deference, the sense of inferiority, in "Kincher's" manner. For a time Rolfe was puzzled by the incident, but he eventually lighted on an explanation which satisfied himself. It was that in the earlier days before Mr. Holymead had reached such a prominent position at the bar, he had been engaged in practice in the criminal courts, and "Kincher" had been one of his clients.

With a cheerful smile Holymead brought the conversation to an end and went on his way. Kemp walked on hurriedly in the opposite direction. He had his eyes on a young man whom he had seen in the gallery, and who had seemed to avoid his eye. It was obvious to him that this young man, for whom he had been on the watch when Mr. Holymead spoke to him, had seized the opportunity to slip past him while he was talking to the eminent K.C. The young man, even from the back view, seemed to be well-dressed.

"Hallo, Fred," exclaimed Mr. Kemp, as he reached within a yard or two of his quarry.

"Hallo, Kincher," replied the young man, turning round. "I didn't notice you. Were you up at the court?"

"Yes, I looked in," said Mr. Kemp. "There wasn't much doing, was there?"

"No," said Fred.

"He won't trouble us any more," pursued Mr. Kemp.

"No." The young man seemed to have a dread of helping along the conversation, and therefore sought refuge in monosyllables.

Mr. Kemp coughed before he formed his question.

"Did you go up there that night?"

"No." The reply came instantaneously, but the young man followed it up with a look of inquiry to ascertain if his denial was believed.

"A good thing as it happened," said Mr. Kemp.

"I had nothing to do with it," said Fred, earnestly.

"I never said you had," replied Mr. Kemp.

"Nothing whatever to do with it," continued the young man with emphasis. "That's not my sort of game."

"I'm not saying anything, Fred," replied the elder man. "But whoever done it might have done it by accident-like."

"Accident or no accident, I had nothing to do with it, thank God."

"That is all right, Fred. I'm not saying you know anything about it. But even if you did you'd find I could be trusted. I don't go blabbing round to everybody."

"I know you don't. But as I said before I had nothing to do with it. I didn't go there that night—I changed my mind."

"A very lucky thing then, because if they do look you up you can prove an alibi."

"Yes," said Fred, "I can prove an alibi easy enough. But what makes you talk about them looking me up? Why should they get into me—why should they look me up? I've told you I didn't go there."

"That is all right, Fred," said the other, in a soothing tone. "If that pal of yours keeps his mouth shut there is nothing to put them on your tracks. But I don't like the looks of him. He seems to me a bit nervous, and if they put him through the third degree he'll squeak. That's my impression."

"If he squeaks he'll have to settle with me," said Fred. "And he'll find there is something to pay. If he tries to put me away I'll—I'll—I'll do him in."

"Kincher" instead of being horrified at this sentiment seemed to approve of it as the right thing to be done. "I'd let him know if I was you, Fred," he said. "I didn't like the look of him. The reason I came out here to-day was to have a look at him. And when I saw him in the box I said to myself, 'Well, I'm glad I've staked nothing on you, for it seems to me that you'll crack up if the police shake their thumb-screws in your face.' I felt glad I hadn't accepted your invitation to make it a two-handed job, Fred. It was the fact that some one else I'd never seen had put up the job that kept me out of it when you asked me to go with you. A man can't be too careful—especially after he's had a long spell in 'stir,' But of course you're all right if you changed your mind and didn't go up there. But if I was you I'd have my alibi ready. It is no good leaving things until the police are at the door and making one up on the spur of the moment."

"Yes, I'll see about it," said Fred. "It's a good idea."

"Come in and have a drink, Fred," said "Kincher." "It will do you good. It was dry work listening to them talking up there about the murder."

Fred accompanied Mr. Kemp into the bar of the hotel they reached, and the elder man, after an inquiring glance at his companion, ordered two whiskies. "Kincher" added water to the contents of each glass, and, lifting his glass in his right hand, waited until Fred had done the same and then said:

"Well, here's luck and long life to the man that did it—whoever he is."

Fred offered no objection to this sentiment and they drained glasses.



CHAPTER X

"And so you've had no luck, Rolfe?"

Inspector Chippenfield, glancing up from his official desk in Scotland Yard, put this question in a tone of voice which suggested that the speaker had expected nothing better.

"I've seen the heads of at least half a dozen likely West End shops," Rolfe replied, "and they tell me there is nothing to indicate where the handkerchief was bought. The scrap of lace merely shows that it was torn off a good handkerchief, but there is nothing about it to show that the handkerchief was different in any marked way from the average filmy scrap of muslin and lace which every smart woman carries as a handkerchief. I thought so myself, before I started to make inquiries."

"Well, Rolfe, we must come at it another way," said the inspector. "Undoubtedly there is a woman in the case, and it ought not to be impossible to locate her. Your theory, Rolfe, is that the murder was committed by some one who broke into the place while Sir Horace was entertaining a lady friend or waiting for the arrival of a lady he expected. Either the lady had not arrived or had left the room temporarily when the burglar broke into the house. He had spotted the place some days before and ascertained that it was empty, and when he found that Sir Horace had returned alone he decided to break in, and, covering Sir Horace with a revolver, try to extort money from him. A riskier but more profitable game than burgling an empty house—if it came off. With his revolver in his hand he made his way up to the library. Sir Horace parleyed with him until he could reach his own revolver, and then got in the first shot but missed his man. The burglar shot him and then bolted. The lady heard the shots, and, rushing in, found Sir Horace in his death agony. She was stooping over him with her handkerchief in her hand, and in his convulsive moments he caught hold of a corner of it and the handkerchief was torn. The lady left the place and on arrival home concocted that letter which was sent here telling us that Sir Horace had been murdered. Is that it?"

"Yes," assented Rolfe. "Of course, I don't lay it down that everything happened just as you've said. But that's my idea of the crime. It accounts for all the clues we've picked up, and that is something."

"It is an ingenious theory and it does you credit," said the inspector, who had not forgotten that he had proposed to Rolfe that they should help one another to the extent of taking one another fully into each other's confidence, for the purpose of getting ahead of Crewe. "But you have overlooked the fact that it is possible to account in another way for all the clues we have picked up. Suppose Sir Horace's return from Scotland was due to a message from a lady friend; suppose the lady went to see him accompanied by a friend whom Sir Horace did not like—a friend of whom Sir Horace was jealous. Suppose they asked for money—blackmail—and there was a quarrel in which Sir Horace was shot. Then we have your idea as to how the lady's handkerchief was torn—I agree with that in the main. The lady and her friend fled from the place. Later in the night the place is burgled by some one who has had his eye on it for some time, and on entering the library he is astounded to find the dead body of the owner. Suppose he went home, and on thinking things over sent the letter to Scotland Yard with the idea that if the police got on to his tracks about the burglary the fact that he had told us about the murder would show he had nothing to do with killing Sir Horace."

"That is a good theory, too," said Rolfe, in a meditative tone. "And the only person who can tell us which is the right one is Sir Horace's lady friend. The problem is to find her."

"Right," said the inspector approvingly. "And while you have been making inquiries at the shops about the handkerchief I have been down to the Law Courts branch of the Equity Bank where Sir Horace kept his account. It occurred to me that a look at Sir Horace's account might help us. You know the sort of man he was—you know his weakness for the ladies. But he was careful. I looked through his private papers out at Riversbrook expecting to get on the track of something that would show some one had been trying to blackmail him over an entanglement with a woman, but I found nothing. I couldn't even find any feminine correspondence. If Sir Horace was in the habit of getting letters from ladies he was also in the habit of destroying them. No doubt he adopted that precaution when his wife was alive, and found it such a wise one that he kept it up when there was less need for it. But a weakness for the ladies costs money, Rolfe, as you know, and that is why I had a look at his banking account. He made some payments that it would be worth while to trace—payments to West End drapers and that sort of thing. Of course, Sir Horace, being a cautious man and occupying a public position, might not care to flaunt his weakness in the eyes of West End shopkeepers, and instead of paying the accounts of his lady friend of the moment, may have given her the money and trusted to her paying the bills—a thing that women of that kind are never in a hurry to do. In that case the payments to West End shopkeepers are for goods supplied to his daughter. However, I've taken a note of the names, dates, and amounts of a number of them, and I want you to see the managers of these shops."

"We are getting close to it now," said Rolfe, approvingly.

"I think so," was the modest reply of his superior. "There is one thing about Sir Horace's account which struck me as peculiar. Every four weeks for the past eight months Sir Horace drew a cheque for L24, and every cheque of the kind was made payable to Number 365. Now, unless he wished to hide the nature of the transaction from his bankers, why not put in the cheque in the name of the person who received the money? It couldn't have been for his personal use, for in that case he would have made the cheques payable to self. Besides, a man with a banking account doesn't draw a regular L24 every four weeks for personal expenses. He draws a cheque just when he wants a few pounds, instead of carrying five-pound notes about with him. I asked the bank manager about these cheques and he looked up a couple of them and found they had been cashed over the counter. So he called up the cashier and from him I learnt that Sir Horace came in and cashed them. As far as he can remember Sir Horace cashed all these L24 cheques. I assume he did so because he realised that there was less likely to be comment in the bank than if a well-dressed good-looking young lady arrived at the bank with them. This L24 a month suggests that Sir Horace had something choice and not too expensive stowed away in a flat. That is a matter on which Hill ought to be able to throw some light. If he knows anything I'll get it out of him. It struck me as extraordinary that Sir Horace should have taken Hill into his service knowing what he was. But this, apparently, is the explanation. He knew that Hill wouldn't gossip about him for fear of being exposed, for that would mean that Hill would lose his situation and would find it impossible to get another one without a reference from him. We'll have Hill brought here—"

There was a knock at the door, and a boy in buttons entered and handed Inspector Chippenfield a card.

"Seldon from Hampstead," he explained to Rolfe. "Don't go away yet. It may be something about this case."

Police-Inspector Seldon entered the office, and held the door ajar for a man behind him. He shook hands with Inspector Chippenfield and Rolfe, and then motioned his companion to a chair.

"This is Mr. Robert Evans, the landlord of the Flowerdew Hotel, Covent Garden," he explained. He looked at Mr. Evans with the air of a police-court inspector waiting for a witness to corroborate his statement, but as that gentleman remained silent he sharply asked, "Isn't that so?"

"Quite right," said Mr. Evans, in a moist, husky voice.

He was a short fat man, with an extremely red face and bulging eyes, which watered very much and apparently required to be constantly mopped with a handkerchief which he carried in his hand. This peculiarity gave Mr. Evans the appearance of a man perpetually in mourning, and this effect was heightened by a species of incipient palsy which had seized on his lower facial muscles, and caused his lips to tremble violently. He was bald in the front of the head but not on the top. The baldness over the temples had joined hands and left isolated over the centre of the forehead a small tuft of hair, which, with the playfulness of second childhood, showed a tendency to curl.

"Yes, you're quite right," he repeated huskily, as though some one had doubted the statement. "Evans is my name and I'm not ashamed of it."

"He came to me this morning and told me that Hill gave false evidence at the inquest yesterday," Inspector Seldon explained. "So I brought him along to see you."

"False evidence—Hill?" exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield, with keen interest. "Let us hear about it."

"Well, you will remember Hill said he was at home on the night of the murder," pursued Inspector Seldon. "I looked up his depositions before I came away and what he said was this: 'I took my daughter to the Zoo in the afternoon. We left the Zoo at half past five and went home and had tea. My wife then took the child to the picture-palace and I remained at home. I did not go out that night. They returned about half-past ten, and after supper we all went to bed.' But Evans tells me he saw Hill in his bar at three o'clock on the morning of the 19th of August. He has an early license for the accommodation of the Covent Garden traffic. He can swear to Hill. A man who goes to bed at half-past ten has no right to be wandering about Covent Garden at 3 a. m. And besides, Hill told us nothing about this. So I brought Evans along to see what you make of it."

Inspector Chippenfield had taken up a pencil and was making a few notes.

"Very interesting indeed," he said. Then he turned to Evans and asked, "Are you sure you saw Hill in your bar at three a. m.? There is no possibility of a mistake?"

"He is the man who was knocked down outside by a porter running into him," said Mr. Evans, mopping his eyes. "I could bring half a dozen witnesses who will swear to him."

"You see, it's this way," interpolated Inspector Seldon, taking up the landlord's narrative. His police-court training had taught him to bring out the salient points of a story, and he was naturally of the opinion that he could tell another man's story better than the man could tell it himself. "Hill was staring about him—it was probably the first time he had been to Covent Garden in the early morning—and got knocked over. He was stunned, and some porters took him in to the bar, sat him on a form, and poured some rum into him. Some of the porters were for ringing up the ambulance; others were for carrying Hill off to the hospital, but he soon recovered. However, he sat there for about twenty minutes, and after having several drinks at his own expense he went away. Evans served him with the drinks."

"Good," said Inspector Chippenfield, who liked the circumstantial details of the story. "And you can get half a dozen porters to identify him?"

"Bill Cribb, Harry Winch, Charlie Brown, a fellow they call 'Green Violets'—I don't know his real name—"

Mr. Evans was calling on his memory for further names but was stopped by Inspector Chippenfield.

"That will do very well. And how did you happen to be at the inquest at Hampstead? That is a bit out of your way."

Mr. Evans mopped his eyes, and Inspector Seldon took upon himself to reply for him. "He has a brother-in-law in the trade at Hampstead—keeps the Three Jugs in Coulter Street. Evans had to go out to see his brother-in-law on business, and his brother-in-law took him along to the court out of curiosity."

Inspector Chippenfield nodded.

"Rolfe," he said, "take down Mr. Evans's statement outside and get him to sign it. Don't go away when you've finished. I want you."

Mr. Evans, even if he felt that full justice had been done to his story by Inspector Seldon, was disappointed at the police officer's failure to do justice to his manly scruples in coming forward to give evidence against a man who had never done him any harm. Addressing Inspector Chippenfield he said:

"I don't altogether like mixing myself up in this business. That isn't my way. If I have a thing to say to a man I like to say it to his face. I don't like a man to say things behind a man's back, that is, if he calls himself a man. But I thought over this thing after leaving the court and hearing this chap Hill say he hadn't left home that night, and I talked it over with my wife—"

"You did the right thing," said Inspector Chippenfield, with the emphasis of a man who had profited by the triumph of right.

Mr. Evans was under the impression that the inspector's approval referred chiefly to the part he had played as a husband in talking over his perplexity with his wife, rather than the part he had played as a man in revealing that Hill had lied in his evidence.

"I always do," he said. "My wife's one of the sensible sort, and when a man takes her advice he don't go far wrong. She advised me to go straight to the police-station and tell them all I know. 'It is a cruel murder,' she said, 'and who knows but it might be our turn next?'"

This example of the imaginative element in feminine logic made no impression on the practical official who listened to the admiring husband.

"That is all right," said Inspector Chippenfield soothingly. "I understand your scruples. They do you credit. But an honest man like you doesn't want to shield a criminal from justice—least of all a cold-blooded murderer."

When Rolfe returned to his superior with Evans's signed statement in his hand, he found the inspector preparing to leave the office.

"Put on your hat and come with me," said the inspector. "We will go out and see Mrs. Hill. I'll frighten the truth out of her and then tackle Hill. He is sure to be up at Riversbrook, and we can go on there from Camden Town."

While on the way to Camden Town by Tube, Inspector Chippenfield arranged his plans with the object of saving time. He would interview Mrs. Hill and while he was doing so Rolfe could make inquiries at the neighbouring hotels about Hill. It was the inspector's conviction that a man who had anything to do with a murder would require a steady supply of stimulants next day.

Mrs. Hill kept a small confectionery shop adjoining a cinema theatre to supplement her husband's wages by a little earnings of her own in order to support her child. Although the shop was an unpretentious one, and catered mainly for the ha'p'orths of the juvenile patrons of the picture house next door, it was called "The Camden Town Confectionery Emporium," and the title was printed over the little shop in large letters. Inspector Chippenfield walked into the empty shop, and rapped sharply on the counter.

A little thin woman, with prematurely grey hair, and a depressed expression, appeared from the back in response to the summons. She started nervously as her eye encountered the police uniform, but she waited to be spoken to.

"Is your name Hill?" asked the inspector sternly. "Mrs. Emily Hill?"

The woman nodded feebly, her frightened eyes fixed on the inspector's face.

"Then I want to have a word with you," continued the inspector, walking through the shop into the parlour. "Come in here and answer my questions."

Mrs. Hill followed him timidly into the room he had entered. It was a small, shabbily-furnished apartment, and the inspector's massive proportions made it look smaller still. He took up a commanding position on the strip of drugget which did duty as a hearth-rug, and staring fiercely at her, suddenly commenced:

"Mrs. Hill, where was your husband on the night of the 18th of August, when his employer, Sir Horace Fewbanks, was murdered?"

Mrs. Hill shrank before that fierce gaze, and said, in a low tone:

"Please, sir, he was at home."

"At home, was he? I'm not so sure of that. Tell me all about your husband's movements on that day and night. What time did he come home, to begin with?"

"He came home early in the afternoon to take our little girl to the Zoo—which was a treat she had been looking forward to for a long while. I couldn't go myself, there being the shop to look after. So Mr. Hill and Daphne went to the Zoo, and after they came home and had tea I took her to the pictures while Mr. Hill minded the shop. It was not the picture-palace next door, but the big one in High Street, where they were showing 'East Lynne,' Then when we come home about ten o'clock we all had supper and went to bed."

"And your husband didn't go out again?"

"No, sir. When I got up in the morning to bring him a cup of tea he was still sound asleep."

"But might he not have gone out in the night while you were asleep?"

"No, sir. I'm a very light sleeper, and I wake at the least stir."

Mrs. Hill's story seemed to ring true enough, although she kept her eyes fixed on her interrogator with a kind of frightened brightness. Inspector Chippenfield looked at her in silence for a few seconds.

"So that's the whole truth, is it?" he said at length.

"Yes, sir," the woman earnestly assured him. "You can ask Mr. Hill and he'll tell you the same thing."

Something reminiscent in Inspector Chippenfield's mind responded to this sentence. He pondered over it for a moment, and then remembered that Hill had applied the same phrase to his wife. Evidently there had been collusion, a comparing of tales beforehand. The woman had been tutored by her cunning scoundrel of a husband, but undoubtedly her tale was false.

"The whole truth?" said the inspector, again.

"Yes, sir," answered Mrs. Hill.

"Now, look here," said the police officer, in his sternest tones, as he shook a warning finger at the little woman, "I know you are lying. I know Hill didn't sleep in the house, that night. He was seen near Riversbrook in the early part of the night and he was seen wandering about Covent Garden after the murder had been committed. It is no use lying to me, Mrs. Hill. If you want to save your husband from being arrested for this murder you'll tell the truth. What time did he leave here that night?"

"I've already told you the truth, sir," replied the little woman. "He didn't leave the place after he came back from the Zoo."

Inspector Chippenfield was puzzled. It seemed to him that Mrs. Hill was a woman of weak character, and yet she stuck firmly to her story. Perhaps Evans had made a mistake in identifying Hill as the man who had been carried into his bar after being knocked down. Nothing was more common than mistakes of identification. His glance wandered round the room, as though in search of some inspiration for his next question. His eye took mechanical note of the trumpery articles of rickety furniture; wandered over the cheap almanac prints which adorned the walls; but became riveted in the cheap overmantel which surmounted the fire-place. For, in the slip of mirror which formed the centre of that ornament, Inspector Chippenfield caught sight of the features of Mrs. Hill frowning and shaking her head at somebody invisible. He turned his head warily, but she was too quick for him, and her features were impassive again when he looked at her. Following the direction indicated by the mirror, Inspector Chippenfield saw Mrs. Hill had been signalling through a window which looked into the back yard. He reached it in a step and threw open the window. A small and not over-clean little girl was just leaving the yard by the gate.

Inspector Chippenfield called to her pleasantly, and she retraced her steps with a frightened face.

"Come in, my dear, I want you," said the inspector, wreathing his red face into a smile. "I'm fond of little girls."

The little girl smiled, nodded her head, and presently appeared in response to the inspector's invitation. He glanced at Mrs. Hill, noticed that her face was grey and drawn with sudden terror. She opened her mouth as though to speak, but no words came.

The inspector lifted the child on to his knee. She nestled to him confidingly enough, and looked up into his face with an artless glance.

"What is your name, my dear?"

"Daphne, sir—Daphne Hill."

"How old are you, Daphne?"

"Please, sir, I'm eight next birthday."

"Why, you're quite a big girl, Daphne! Do you go to school?"

"Oh, yes, sir. I'm in the second form."

"Do you like going to school, Daphne?"

"Yes, sir."

"I suppose you like going to the Zoo better? Did you like going with father the other day?"

The child's eyes sparkled with retrospective pleasure.

"Oh, yes," she said, delightedly. "We saw all kinds of things: lions and tigers, and elephants. I had a ride on a elephant"—her eyes grew big with the memory—"an' 'e took a bun with his long nose out of my hand."

"That was splendid, Daphne! Which did you like best—the Zoo or the pictures?"

"I liked them both," she replied.

"Was Father at home when you came home from the pictures?"

"No," said the little girl innocently. "He was out."

Mrs. Hill, standing a little way off with fear on her face, uttered an inarticulate noise, and took a step towards the inspector and her daughter.

"Better not interfere, Mrs. Hill, unless you want to make matters worse," said the inspector meaningly. "Now, tell me, Daphne, dear, when did your father come home?"

"Not till morning," replied the little girl, with a timid glance at her mother.

"How do you know that?"

"Because I slept in Mother's bed that night with Mother, like I always do when Father is away, but Father came home in the morning and lifted me into my own bed, because he said he wanted to go to bed."

"What time was that, Daphne?"

"I don't know, sir."

"It was light, Daphne? You could see?"

"Oh, yes, sir."

Inspector Chippenfield told the child she was a good girl, and gave her sixpence. The little one slipped off his knee and ran across to her mother with delight, to show the coin; all unconscious that she had betrayed her father. The mother pushed the child from her with a heart-broken gesture.

A heavy step was heard in the shop, and the inspector, looking through the window, saw Rolfe. He opened the door leading from the shop and beckoned his subordinate in.

Rolfe was excited, and looked like a man burdened with weighty news. He whispered a word in Inspector Chippenfield's ear.

"Let's go into the shop," said Inspector Chippenfield promptly. "But, first, I'll make things safe here." He locked the door leading to the kitchen, put the key into his pocket, and followed his colleague into the shop. "Now, Rolfe, what is it?"

"I've found out that Hill put in nearly the whole day after the murder drinking in a wine tavern. He sat there like a man in a dream and spoke to nobody. The only thing he took any interest in was the evening papers. He bought about a dozen of them during the afternoon."

"Where was this?" asked the inspector.

"At a little wine tavern in High Street, where he's never been seen before. The man who keeps the place gave me a good description of him, though. Hill went there about ten o'clock in the morning, and started drinking port wine, and as fast as the evening papers came out he sent the boy out for them, glanced through them, and then crumpled them up. He stayed there till after five o'clock. By that time the 6.30 editions would reach Camden Town, and if you remember it was the six-thirty editions which had the first news of the murder. The tavern-keeper declares that Hill drank nearly two bottles of Tarragona port, in threepenny glasses, during the day."

"I should have credited Hill with a better taste in port, with his opportunities as Sir Horace Fewbanks's butler," said Inspector Chippenfield drily. "What you have found out, Rolfe, only goes to bear out my own discovery that Hill is deeply implicated in this affair. I have found out, for my part, that Hill did not spend the night of the murder at home here."

There was a ring of triumph in Inspector Chippenfield's voice as he announced this discovery, but before Rolfe could make any comment upon it there was a quick step behind them, and both men turned, to see Hill. The butler was astonished at finding the two police officers in his wife's shop. He hesitated, and apparently his first impulse was to turn into the street again; but, realising the futility of such a course, he came forward with an attempt to smooth his worried face into a conciliatory smile.

"Hill!" said Inspector Chippenfield sternly. "Once and for all, will you own up where you were on the night of the murder?"

Hill started slightly, then, with admirable self-command, he recovered himself and became as tight-lipped and reticent as ever.

"I've already told you, sir," he replied smoothly. "I spent it in my own home. If you ask my wife, sir, she'll tell you I never stirred out of the house after I came back from taking my little girl to the Zoo."

"I know she will, you scoundrel!" burst out the choleric inspector. "She's been well tutored by you, and she tells the tale very well. But it's no good, Hill. You forgot to tutor your little daughter, and she's innocently put you away. What's more, you were seen in London before daybreak the night after the murder. The game's up, my man."

Inspector Chippenfield produced a pair of handcuffs as he spoke. Hill passed his tongue over his dry lips before he was able to speak.

"Don't put them on me," he said imploringly, as Inspector Chippenfield advanced towards him. "I'll—I'll confess!"



CHAPTER XI

Inspector Chippenfield's first words were a warning.

"You know what you are saying, Hill?" he asked. "You know what this means? Any statement you make may be used in evidence against you at your trial."

"I'll tell you everything," faltered Hill. The impassive mask of the well-trained English servant had dropped from him, and he stood revealed as a trembling elderly man with furtive eyes, and a painfully shaken manner. "I'll be glad to tell you everything," he declared, laying a twitching hand on the inspector's coat. "I've not had a minute's peace or rest since—since it happened."

The dry official manner in which Inspector Chippenfield produced a note-book was in striking contrast to the trapped man's attitude.

"Go ahead," he commanded, wetting his pencil between his lips.

Before Hill could respond a small boy entered the shop—a ragged, shock-headed dirty urchin, bareheaded and barefooted. He tapped loudly on the counter with a halfpenny.

"What do you want, boy?" roughly asked the inspector.

"A 'a'porth of blackboys," responded the child, in the confident tone of a regular customer.

"If you'll permit me, sir, I'll serve him," said Hill and he glided behind the little counter, took some black sticky sweetmeats from one of the glass jars on the shelf and gave them to the boy, who popped one in his mouth and scurried off.

"I think we had better go inside and hear what Hill has to say, Inspector, while Mrs. Hill minds the shop," said Rolfe. He had caught a glimpse of Mrs. Hill's white frightened face peering through the dirty little glass pane in the parlour door.

Inspector Chippenfield approved of the idea.

"We don't want to spoil your wife's business, Hill—she's likely to need it," he said, with cruel official banter. "Come here, Mrs. Hill," he said, raising his voice.

The faded little woman appeared in response to the summons, bringing the child with her. She shot a frightened glance at her husband, which Inspector Chippenfield intercepted.

"Never mind looking at your husband, Mrs. Hill," he said roughly. "You've done your best for him, and the only thing to be told now is the truth. Now you and your daughter can stay in the shop. We want your husband inside."

Mrs. Hill clasped her hands quickly.

"Oh, what is it, Henry?" she said. "Tell me what has happened? What have they found out?"

"Keep your mouth shut," commanded her husband harshly. "This way, sir, if you please."

Inspector Chippenfield and Rolfe followed him into the parlour.

"Now, Hill," impatiently said Inspector Chippenfield.

The butler raised his head wearily.

"I suppose I may as well begin at the beginning and tell you everything," he said.

"Yes," replied the inspector, "it's not much use keeping anything back now."

"Oh, it's not a case of keeping anything back," replied Hill. "You're too clever for me, and I've made up my mind to tell you everything, but I thought I might be able to cut the first part short, so as to save your time. But so that you'll understand everything I've got to go a long way back—shortly after I entered Sir Horace Fewbanks's service. In fact, I hadn't been long with him before I began to see he was leading a strange life—a double life, if I may say so. A servant in a gentleman's house—particularly one in my position—sees a good deal he is not meant to see; in fact, he couldn't close his eyes to it if he wanted to, as no doubt you, from your experience, sir, know very well. A confidential servant sees and hears a lot of things, sir."

Inspector Chippenfield nodded his head sharply, but he did not speak.

"I think Sir Horace trusted me, too," continued Hill humbly, "more than he would have trusted most servants, on account of my—my past. I fancy, if I may say so, that he counted on my gratitude because he had given me a fresh start in life. And he was quite right—at first." Hill dropped his voice and looked down as he uttered the last two words. "I'd have done anything for him. But as I was saying, sir, I hadn't been long in his house before I found out that he had a—a weakness—" Hill timidly bowed his head as though apologising to the dead judge for assailing his character—"a weakness for—for the ladies. Sometimes Sir Horace went off for the week-end without saying where he was going and sometimes he went out late at night and didn't return till after breakfast. Then he had ladies visiting him at Riversbrook—not real ladies, if you understand, sir. Sometimes there was a small party of them, and then they made a noise singing music-hall songs and drinking wine, but generally they came alone. Towards the end there was one who came a lot oftener than the others. I found out afterwards that her name was Fanning—Doris Fanning. She was a very pretty young woman, and Sir Horace seemed very fond of her. I knew that because I've heard him talking to her in the library. Sir Horace had rather a loud voice, and I couldn't help overhearing him sometimes, when I took things to his rooms.

"One night,—it was before Sir Horace left for Scotland—a rainy gusty night, this young woman came. I forgot to mention that when Sir Horace expected visitors he used to tell me to send the servants to bed early. He told me to do so this night, saying as usual, 'You understand, Hill?' and I replied, 'Yes, Sir Horace,' The young woman came about half-past ten o'clock, and I let her in the side door and showed her up to the library on the first floor, where he used to sit and work and read. Half an hour afterwards I took up some refreshments—some sandwiches and a small bottle of champagne for the young lady—and then went back downstairs till Sir Horace rang for me to let the lady out, which was generally about midnight. But this night, I'd hardly been downstairs more than a quarter of an hour, when I heard a loud crash, followed by a sort of scream. Before I could get out of my chair to go upstairs I heard the study door open, and Sir Horace called out, 'Hill, come here!'

"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 brass. 'It's you I want to see, Field or Hill or whatever you call yourself now.' It gave me quite a turn, I assure 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 damned 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 assured 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 hoarse 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 damned fools. You don't think I did it? As God's my judge, I never did it. He was dead and stiff when I got there.'