Part 35 (2/2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

”What are they?” asked Rolfe.

”In the first place the burglary was his idea, and not Birchill's,”

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

”When Sir Horace returned unexpectedly from Scotland on the 18th of August, Hill had just removed the letters from the desk, being afraid that when Birchill broke into the house he might find them accidentally.

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

”What a d.a.m.ned cunning scoundrel he is,” exclaimed Rolfe, in unwilling admiration of the completeness of Hill's scheme. ”Don't you think, Mr.

Crewe, that, after all, he may be the actual murderer--that he told you a lot of lies just as he did to us? Holymead in his address to the jury made out a pretty strong case against him.”

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

”Did he put the letters back?” asked Rolfe. ”He told me that Mrs.

Holymead stole them the day after the murder was discovered. But he is such a liar--”

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

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

”It was Joe who found him,” said Crewe. ”I knew you were watching Mrs.

Hill's shop, so it was superfluous for me to set anybody to watch it.

Besides, I didn't think Hill would visit his wife or attempt to communicate with her, for he would think that the police, if they wanted him, would be sure to watch the shop. I tried to consider what a man like Hill would do in the circ.u.mstances. He had no money--I knew that--and, so far as I was able to ascertain, he had no friends who were likely to hide him. Without friends or money he could not go very far. Finally it occurred to me that he might be hiding somewhere in Riversbrook--either in that unfinished portion of the third floor, or in one of the outbuildings. He knew the run of the rambling old place so well. Have you ever been over it carefully? No. Well, there are several good places in the upper stories where a man might conceal himself. I put Joe on the job, and after watching for several nights Joe got him. Hill had made a hiding place in the loft above the garage. It appears that he subsisted on the stores that had been left in the house; he was able to make his way into the main building through one of the kitchen windows. He was on one of these foraging expeditions when Joe discovered him--emaciated, dirty, and half demented through terror of the gallows.”

”So that is how you got him!” said Rolfe. ”I never thought of looking for him at Riversbrook. Sometimes I am inclined to agree with you that he had no nerve for murder. But an unpremeditated murder doesn't want much nerve. He might have done it in a moment of pa.s.sion.” Rolfe was endeavouring to take advantage of Crewe's communicative mood and to arrive by a process of elimination at the person against whom Crewe had acc.u.mulated his evidence.

”It was not Hill,” said Crewe. ”The murder was committed in a moment of pa.s.sion, and yet it was far from being unpremeditated.”

”You are trying to mystify me,” said Rolfe despairingly.

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