"Six-thirty edition: High Court Judge murdered!"
It was not quite 5 p.m., but the enterprising section of the London evening newspapers had their 6.30 editions on sale in the streets. To such a pitch had the policy of giving the public what it wants been elevated that the halfpenny newspapers were able to give the people of London the news each afternoon a full ninety minutes before the edition was supposed to have left the press. The time of the edition was boldly printed in the top right-hand corner of each paper as a guarantee of enterprise if not of good faith. On practical enterprise of this kind does journalism forge ahead. Some people who have been bred up in a conservative atmosphere sneer at such journalistic enterprise. They affect to regard as unreliable the up-to-date news contained in newspapers which are unable to tell the truth about the hands of the clock.
From the cries of the news-boys and from the announcements on the newspaper bills which they displayed, it was assumed by those with a greedy appetite for sensations that a judge of the High Court had been murdered on the bench. Such an appetite easily swallowed the difficulty created by the fact that the Law Courts had been closed for the long vacation. In imagination they saw a dramatic scene in court--the disappointed demented desperate litigant suddenly drawing a revolver and with unerring aim shooting the judge through the brain before the deadly weapon could be wrenched from his hands. But though the sensation created by the murder of a judge of the High Court was destined to grow and to be fed by unexpected developments, the changing phases of which monopolised public attention throughout England on successive occasions, there was little in the evening papers to satisfy the appetite for sensation. In journalistic vernacular "they were late in getting on to it," and therefore their reference to the crime occupied only a few lines in the "stop press news," beneath some late horse-racing results. The _Evening Courier,_ which was first in the streets with the news, made its announcement of the crime in the following brief paragraph:
"The dead body of Sir Horace Fewbanks, the distinguished High Court judge, was found by the police at his home, Riversbrook in Tanton Gardens, Hampstead, to-day. Deceased had been shot through the heart. The police have no doubt that he was murdered."
But the morning papers of the following day did full justice to the sensation. It was the month of August when Parliament is "up," the Law Courts closed for the long vacation, and when everybody who is anybody is out of London for the summer holidays. News was scarce and the papers vied with one another in making the utmost of the murder of a High Court judge. Each of the morning papers sent out a man to Hampstead soon after the news of the crime reached their offices in the afternoon, and some of the more enterprising sent two or three men. Scotland Yard and Riversbrook were visited by a succession of pressmen representing the London dailies, the provincial press, and the news agencies.
The two points on which the newspaper accounts of the tragedy laid stress were the mysterious letter which had been sent to Scotland Yard stating that Sir Horace Fewbanks had been murdered, and the mystery surrounding the sudden return of Sir Horace from Scotland to his town house. On the first point there was room for much varied speculation. Why was information about the murder sent to Scotland Yard, and why was it sent in a disguised way? If the person who had sent this letter had no connection with the crime and was anxious to help the police, why had he not gone to Scotland Yard personally and told the detectives all he knew about the tragedy? If, on the other hand, he was implicated in the crime, why had he informed the police at all?
It would have been to his interest as an accomplice--even if he had been an unwilling accomplice--to leave the crime undiscovered as long as possible, so that he and those with whom he had been associated might make their escape to another country. But he had sent his letter to Scotland Yard within a few hours of the perpetration of the crime, and had not given the actual murderer time to get out of England. Was he not afraid of the vengeance the actual murderer would endeavour to exact for this disclosure which would enable the police to take measures to prevent his escape?
No light was thrown on the cause of the murdered man's sudden return from grouse-shooting in Scotland. The newspaper accounts, though they differed greatly in their statements, surmises, and suggestions concerning the tragedy, agreed on the point that Sir Horace had been a keen sportsman and was a very fine shot. In years past he had made a practice of spending the early part of the long vacation in Scotland, going there for the opening of the grouse season on the 12th of August. This year he had been one of a party of five who had rented Craigleith Hall in the Western Highlands, and after five days' shooting he had announced that he had to go to London on urgent business, but would return in the course of a week or less. It was suggested in some of the newspaper accounts that an explanation of the cause of his return might throw some light on the murder. Inquiries were being made at Craigleith Hall to ascertain the reason for his journey to London, or whether any telegram had been received by him previous to his departure.
The fact that one of the windows on the ground floor of Riversbrook had been found open was regarded as evidence that the murderer had broken into the house. Imprints of footsteps had been found in the ground outside the window, and the police had taken several casts of these; but whether the man who had broken into the house with the intention of committing burglary or murder was a matter on which speculation differed. If the murderer was a criminal who had broken into the house with the intention of committing a burglary, there could be no connection between the return of Sir Horace Fewbanks from Scotland and his murder. The burglary had probably been arranged in the belief that the house was empty, Sir Horace having sent the servants away to his country house in Dellmere a week before. But if the murderer was a burglar he had stolen nothing and had not even collected any articles for removal. The only thing that was known to be missing was the dead man's pocket-book, but there was nothing to prove that the murderer had stolen it. It was quite possible that it had been lost or mislaid by Sir Horace; it was even possible that it had been stolen from him in the train during his journey from Scotland.
It might be that while prowling through the rooms after breaking into the house, and before he had collected any goods for removal, the burglar had come unexpectedly on Sir Horace, and after shooting him had fled from the house. Only as a last resort to prevent capture did burglars commit murder. Had Sir Horace been shot while attempting to seize the intruder? The position in which the body was found did not support that theory. Two shots had been fired, the first of which had missed its victim, and entered the wall of the library. Evidently the murdered man had been hit by the second while attempting to leave the room. It was ingeniously suggested by the Daily Record that the murderer was a criminal who knew Sir Horace, and was known to him as a man who had been before him at Old Bailey. This would account for Sir Horace being ruthlessly shot down without having made any attempt to seize the intruder. The burglar would have felt on seeing Sir Horace in the room that he was identified, and that the only way of escaping ultimate arrest by the police was to kill the man who could put the police on his track. Mr. Justice Fewbanks had had the reputation of being a somewhat severe judge, and it was possible that some of the criminals who had been sentenced by him at Old Bailey entertained a grudge against him.
The question of when the murder was committed was regarded as important. Dr. Slingsby, of the Home Office, who had examined the body shortly after it was discovered by the police, was of opinion that death had taken place at least twelve hours before and probably longer than that. His opinion on this point lent support to the theory that the murder had been committed before midnight on Wednesday. It was the Daily Record that seized on the mystery contained in the facts that the body when discovered was fully clothed and that the electric lights were not turned on. If the murder was committed late at night how came it that there were no lights in the empty house when the police discovered the body? Had the murderer, after shooting his victim, turned out the lights so that on the following day no suspicion would be created as would be the case if anyone saw lights burning in the house in the day-time? If he had done so, he was a cool hand. But if the burglar was such a cool hand as to stop to turn out the lights after the murder why did he not also stop to collect some valuables? Was he afraid that in attempting to get rid of them to a "fence" or "drop" he would practically reveal himself as the murderer and so place himself in danger in case the police offered a reward for the apprehension of the author of the crime?
If Sir Horace had gone to bed before the murderer entered the house it would have been natural to expect no lights turned on. But he had returned unexpectedly; there were no servants in the house, and there was no bed ready for him. In any case, if he intended stopping in the empty house instead of going to a hotel he would have been wearing a sleeping suit when his body was discovered; or, at most, he would be only partially dressed if he had got up on hearing somebody moving about the house. But the body was fully dressed, even to collar and tie. It was absurd to suppose that the victim had been sitting in the darkness when the murderer appeared.
Another difficult problem Scotland Yard had to face was the discovery of the person who had sent them the news of the murder. How had Scotland Yard's anonymous correspondent learned about the murder, and what were his motives in informing the police in the way he had done? Was he connected with the crime? Had the murderer a companion with him when he broke into Riversbrook for the purpose of burglary? That seemed to be the most probable explanation. The second man had been horrified at the murder, and desired to disassociate himself from it so that he might escape the gallows. The only alternative was to suppose that the murderer had confessed his crime to some one, and that his confidant had lost no time in informing the police of the tragedy.
The newspaper accounts of the case threw some light on the private and domestic affairs of the victim. He was a widower with a grown-up daughter; his wife, a daughter of the late Sir James Goldsworthy, who changed his ancient family patronymic from Granville to Goldsworthy on inheriting the great fortune of an American kinsman, had died eight years before. Sir Horace's Hampstead household consisted of a housekeeper, butler, chauffeur, cook, housemaid, kitchenmaid and gardener. With the exception of the butler the servants had been sent the previous week to Sir Horace's country house in Dellmere, Sussex. It appeared that Miss Fewbanks spent most of her time at the country house and came up to London but rarely. She was at Dellmere when the murder was committed, and had been under the impression that her father was in Scotland. According to a report received from the police at Dellmere the first intimation that Miss Fewbanks had received of the tragic death of her father came from them. Naturally, she was prostrated with grief at the tragedy.
The butler who had been left behind in charge of Riversbrook was a man named Hill, but he was not in the house on the night of the tragedy. He was a married man, and his wife and child lived in Camden Town, where Mrs. Hill kept a confectionery shop. Hill's master had given him permission to live at home for three weeks while he was in Scotland. The house in Tanton Gardens had been locked up and most of the valuables had been sent to the bank for safe-keeping, but there were enough portable articles of value in the house to make a good haul for any burglar. Hill had instructions to visit the house three times a week for the purpose of seeing that everything was safe and in order. He had inspected the place on Wednesday morning, and everything was as it had been left when his master went to Scotland. Sir Horace Fewbanks had returned to London on Wednesday evening, reaching St. Pancras by the 6.30 train. Hill was unaware that his master was returning, and the first he learned of the murder was the brief announcement in the evening papers on Thursday.
Inspector Chippenfield, who had come into prominence in the newspapers as the man who had caught the gang who had stolen Lady Gladville's jewels--which included the most costly pearl necklace in the world--was placed in charge of the case. It was to his success in this famous case that he owed his promotion to Inspector. He had the assistance of his subordinate, Detective Rolfe. So generous were the newspaper references to the acumen of these two terrors of the criminal classes that it was to be assumed that anything which inadvertently escaped one of them would be pounced upon by the other.
On the morning after the discovery of the murdered man's body, the two officers made their way to Tanton Gardens from the Hampstead tube station. Inspector Chippenfield was a stout man of middle age, with a red face the colour of which seemed to be accentuated by the daily operation of removing every vestige of hair from it. He had prominent grey eyes with which he was accustomed to stare fiercely when he desired to impress a suspected person with what some of the newspapers had referred to as "his penetrating glance." His companion, Rolfe, was a tall well-built man in the early thirties. Like most men in a subordinate position, Rolfe had not a high opinion of the abilities of his immediate superiors. He was sure that he could fill the place of any one of them better than it was filled by its occupant. He believed that it was the policy of superiors to keep junior men back, to stand in their light, and to take all the credit for their work. He was confident that he was destined to make a name for himself in the detective world if only he were given the chance.
When Inspector Chippenfield had visited Riversbrook the previous afternoon, Rolfe had not been selected as his assistant. A careful inspection of the house and especially of the room in which the tragedy had been committed had been made by the inspector. He had then turned his attention to the garden and the grounds surrounding the house.
Whatever he had discovered and what theories he had formed were not disclosed to anyone, not even his assistant. He believed that the proper way to train a subordinate was to let him collect his own information and then test it for him. This method enabled him to profit by his subordinate's efforts and to display a superior knowledge when the other propounded a theory by which Inspector Chippenfield had also been misled.
When they arrived at the house in which the crime had been committed, they found a small crowd of people ranging from feeble old women to babies in arms, and including a large proportion of boys and girls of school age, collected outside the gates, staring intently through the bars towards the house, which was almost hidden by trees. The morbid crowd made way for the two officers and speculated on their mission. The general impression was that they were the representatives of a fashionable firm of undertakers and had come to measure the victim for his coffin. Inside the grounds the Scotland Yard officers encountered a police-constable who was on guard for the purpose of preventing inquisitive strangers penetrating to the house.
"Well, Flack," said Inspector Chippenfield in a tone in which geniality was slightly blended with official superiority. "How are you to-day?"
"I'm very well indeed, sir," replied the police-constable. He knew that the state of his health was not a matter of deep concern to the inspector, but such is the vanity of human nature that he was pleased at the inquiry. The fact that there was a murdered man in the house gave mournful emphasis to the transience of human life, and made Police-Constable Flack feel a glow of satisfaction in being very well indeed.
Inspector Chippenfield hesitated a moment as if in deep thought. The object of his hesitation was to give Flack an opportunity of imparting any information that had come to him while on guard. The inspector believed in encouraging people to impart information but regarded it as subversive of the respect due to him to appear to be in need of any. As Flack made no attempt to carry the conversation beyond the state of his health, Inspector Chippenfield came to the conclusion that he was an extremely dull policeman. He introduced Flack to Detective Rolfe and explained to the latter:
"Flack was on duty on the night of the murder but heard no shots. Probably he was a mile or so away. But in a way he discovered the crime. Didn't you, Flack? When we rang up Seldon he came up here and brought Flack with him. He'll be only too glad to tell you anything you want to know."
Rolfe took an official notebook from a breast pocket and proceeded to question the police-constable. The inspector made his way upstairs to the room in which the crime had been committed, for it was his system to seek inspiration in the scene of a crime.
Tanton Gardens, a short private street terminating in a cul-de-sac, was in a remote part of Hampstead. The daylight appearance of the street betokened wealth and exclusiveness. The roadway which ran between its broad white-gravelled footwalks was smoothly asphalted for motor tyres; the avenues of great chestnut trees which flanked the footpaths served the dual purpose of affording shade in summer and screening the houses of Tanton Gardens from view. But after nightfall Tanton Gardens was a lonely and gloomy place, lighted only by one lamp, which stood in the high road more to mark the entrance to the street than as a guide to traffic along it, for its rays barely penetrated beyond the first pair of chestnut trees.
The houses in Tanton Gardens were in keeping with the street: they indicated wealth and comfort. They were of solid exterior, of a size that suggested a fine roominess, and each house stood in its own grounds. Riversbrook was the last house at the blind end of the street, and its east windows looked out on a wood which sloped down to a valley, the street having originally been an incursion into a large private estate, of which the wood alone remained. On the other side a tangled nutwood coppice separated the judge's residence from its nearest neighbours, so the house was completely isolated. It stood well back in about four acres of ground, and only a glimpse of it could be seen from the street front because of a small plantation of ornamental trees, which grew in front of the house and hid it almost completely from view. When the carriage drive which wound through the plantation had been passed the house burst abruptly into view--a big, rambling building of uncompromising ugliness. Its architecture was remarkable. The impression which it conveyed was that the original builder had been prevented by lack of money from carrying out his original intention of erecting a fine symmetrical house. The first story was well enough--an imposing, massive, colonnaded front in the Greek style, with marble pillars supporting the entrance. But the two stories surmounting this failed lamentably to carry on the pretentious design. Viewed from the front, they looked as though the builder, after erecting the first story, had found himself in pecuniary straits, but, determined to finish his house somehow, had built two smaller stories on the solid edifice of the first. For the two second stories were not flush with the front of the house, but reared themselves from several feet behind, so that the occupants of the bedrooms on the first story could have used the intervening space as a balcony. Viewed from the rear, the architectural imperfections of the upper part of the house were in even stronger contrast with the ornamental first story. Apparently the impecunious builder, by the time he had reached the rear, had completely run out of funds, for on the third floor he had failed altogether to build in one small room, and had left the unfinished brickwork unplastered.
The large open space between the house and the fir plantation had once been laid out as an Italian garden at the cost of much time and money, but Sir Horace Fewbanks had lacked the taste or money to keep it up, and had allowed it to become a luxuriant wilderness, though the sloping parterres and the centre flowerbeds still retained traces of their former beauty. The small lake in the centre, spanned by a rustic hand-bridge, was still inhabited by a few specimens of the carp family--sole survivors of the numerous gold-fish with which the original designer of the garden had stocked the lake.
Sir Horace Fewbanks had rented Riversbrook as a town house for some years before his death, having acquired the lease cheaply from the previous possessor, a retired Indian civil servant, who had taken a dislike to the place because his wife had gone insane within its walls. Sir Horace had lived much in the house alone, though each London season his daughter spent a few weeks with him in order to preside over the few Society functions that her father felt it due to his position to give, and which generally took the form of solemn dinners to which he invited some of his brother judges, a few eminent barristers, a few political friends, and their wives. But rumour had whispered that the judge and his daughter had not got on too well together--that Miss Fewbanks was a strange girl who did not care for Society or the Society functions which most girls of her age would have delighted in, but preferred to spend her time on her father's country estate, taking an interest in the villagers or walking the country-side with half a dozen dogs at her heels.
Rumour had not spared the dead judge's name. It was said of him that he was fond of ladies' society, and especially of ladies belonging to a type which he could not ask his daughter to meet; that he used to go out motoring, driving himself, after other people were in bed; and that strange scenes had taken place at Riversbrook. Flack had told his wife on several occasions that he had heard sounds of wild laughter and rowdy singing coming from Riversbrook as he passed along the street on his beat in the small hours of the morning. Several times in the early dawn Flack had seen two or three ladies in evening dress come down the carriage drive and enter a taxi-cab which had been summoned by telephone.
When Rolfe had finished questioning Police-Constable Flack and joined his chief upstairs, the latter, who had been going through the private papers in the murdered man's desk in the hope of alighting on a clue to the crime, received him genially.
"Well," he said, "what do you think of Flack?"
Rolfe had obtained from the police-constable a straightforward story of what he had seen, and in this way had picked up some useful information about the crime which it would have taken a long time to extract from the inspector, but he was a sufficiently good detective to have learned that by disparaging the source of your information you add to your own reputation for acumen in drawing conclusions in regard to it. He nodded his head in a deprecating way and emitted a slight cough which was meant to express contempt.
"It looks very much like a case of burglary and murder," he said.
He was anxious to know what theory his superior officer had formed.
"And how do you fit in the letter advising us of the murder?" asked the inspector.
He produced the letter from his pocket-book and looked at it earnestly.
"There were two of them in it--one a savage ruffian who will stick at nothing, and the other a chicken-hearted specimen. They often work in pairs like that."
"So your theory is that one of the two shot him, and the other was so unnerved that he sent us the letter and put us on the track to save his own neck?"
"Something like that."
"It is not impossible," was the senior officer's comment. "Mind you, I don't say it is my theory. In fact, I am in no hurry to form one. I believe in going carefully over the whole ground first, collecting all the clues and then selecting the right one."
Rolfe admitted that his chief's way of setting to work to solve a mystery was an ideal one, but he made the reservation that it was a difficult one to put into operation. He was convinced that the only way of finding the right clue was to follow up every one until it was proved to be a wrong one.
Inspector Chippenfield continued his study of the mysterious message which had been sent to Scotland Yard. It was written on a sheet of paper which had been taken from a writing pad of the kind sold for a few pence by all stationers. It was flimsy and blue-lined, and the message it contained was smudged and badly printed. But to the inspector's annoyance, there were no finger-prints on the paper. The finger-print expert at Scotland Yard had examined it under the microscope, but his search for finger-prints had been vain.
"Depend upon it, we'll hear from this chap again," said the inspector, tapping the sheet of paper with a finger. "I think I may go so far as to say that this fellow thinks suspicion will be directed to him and he wants to save his neck."
"It's a disguised hand," said Rolfe. "Of course he printed it in order not to give us a specimen of his handwriting. There are telltale things about a man's handwriting which give him away even when he tries to disguise it. But he's tried to disguise even his printing. Look how irregular the letters are--some slanting to the right and some to the left, and some are upright. Look at the two different kinds of 'U's.'"
"He's used two different kinds of pens," said Inspector Chippenfield. "Look at the difference in the thickness of the letters."
"The sooner he writes again the better," said Rolfe. "I am curious to know what he'll say next."
"My idea is to find out who he is and make him speak," said the inspector, "Speaking is quicker than writing. I could frighten more out of him in ten minutes than he would give away voluntarily in a month of Sundays."
Again Rolfe had to admit that his chief's plan to get at the truth was an ideal one.
"Have you any idea who he is?" he asked.
Inspector Chippenfield had brought his methods too near to perfection to make it possible for him to fall into an open trap.
"I won't be very long putting my hand on him," he said.
"But this thing has been in the papers," said Rolfe. "Don't you think the murderer will bolt out of the country when he knows his mate is prepared to turn King's evidence against him?"
"Ah," said Inspector Chippenfield, "I haven't adopted your theory."
"Then you think that the man who wrote this note knew of the murder but doesn't know who did it?"
"Now you are going too far," said Inspector Chippenfield.
The inspector was so wary about disclosing what was in his mind in regard to the letter that Rolfe, who disliked his chief very cordially, jumped to the conclusion that Inspector Chippenfield had no intelligible ideas concerning it.
"If it was burglars they took nothing as far as we can ascertain up to the present," said Inspector Chippenfield after a pause.
"They were surprised to find anyone in the house. And after the shot was fired they immediately bolted for fear the noise would attract attention."
"What knocks a hole in the burglar theory is the fact that Sir Horace was fully dressed when he was shot," said the inspector. "Burglars don't break into a house when there are lights about, especially after having been led to believe that the house was empty."
"So you think," said Rolfe, "that the window was forced after the murder with the object of misleading us."
"I haven't said so," replied the inspector. "All I am prepared to say is that even that was not impossible."
"It was forced from the outside," continued Rolfe. "I've seen the marks of a jemmy on the window-sill. If it was forced after the murder the murderer was a cool hand."
"You can take it from me," exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield with unexpected candour, "that he was a cool hand. We are going to have a bit of trouble in getting to the bottom of this, Rolfe."
"If anyone can get to the bottom of it, you can," said Rolfe, who believed with Voltaire that speech was given us in order to enable us to conceal our thoughts.
Inspector Chippenfield was so astonished at this handsome compliment that he began to think he had underrated Rolfe's powers of discernment. His tone of cold official superiority immediately thawed.
"There were two shots fired," he said, "but whether both were fired by the murderer I don't know yet. One of them may have been fired by Sir Horace. Just behind you in the wall is the mark of one of the bullets. I dug it out of the plaster yesterday and here it is." He produced from a waistcoat pocket a flattened bullet. "The other is inside him at present." He waved his hand in the direction of the room in which the corpse lay.
"Of course you cannot say yet whether both bullets are out of the same revolver?" said Rolfe.
"Can't tell till after the post-mortem," said the inspector. "And then all we can tell for certain is whether they are of the same pattern. They might be the same size, and yet be fired out of different revolvers of the same calibre."
"Well, it is no use theorising about what happened in this room until after the post-mortem," said Rolfe.
"You'd better give it some thought," suggested the inspector. "In the meantime I want you to interview the people in the neighbourhood and ascertain whether they heard any shots. They'll all say they did whether they heard them or not--you know how people persuade themselves into imagining things so as to get some sort of prominence in these crimes. But you can sift what they tell you and preserve the grain of truth. Try and get them to be accurate as to the time, as we want to fix the time of the crime as near as possible. Ask Flack to tell you something about the neighbours--he's been in this district fifteen years, and ought to know all about them. While you're away I'll go through these private papers. I want to find out why he came back from Scotland so suddenly. If we knew that the rest might be easy."
"I haven't seen the body yet," said Rolfe. "I'd like to look at it. Where is it?"
"I had it removed downstairs. You will find it in a big room on the left as you go down the hall. By the by, there is another matter, Rolfe. This glove was found in the room. It may be a clue, but it is more likely that it is one of Sir Horace's gloves and that he lost the other one on his way up from Scotland. It's a left-hand glove--men always lose the right-hand glove because they take it off so often. I've compared it with other gloves in Sir Horace's wardrobe, and I find it is the same size and much the same quality. But find out from Sir Horace's hosier if he sold it. Here's the address of the hosiers,--Bruden and Marshall, in the Strand."
Rolfe went slowly downstairs into the room in which the corpse lay, and closed the door behind him. It was a very large room, overlooking the garden on the right side of the house. Somebody had lowered the Venetian blinds as a conventional intimation to the outside world that the house was one of mourning, and the room was almost dark. For nearly a minute Rolfe stood in silence, his hand resting on the knob of the door he had closed behind him. Gradually the outline of the room and the objects within it began to reveal themselves in shadowy shape as his eyes became accustomed to the dim light. He had a growing impression of a big lofty room, with heavy furniture, and a huddled up figure lying on a couch at the end furthest from the window and deepest in shadow.
He stepped across to the window and gently raised one of the blinds. The light of an August sun penetrated through the screen of trees in front of the house and revealed the interior of the room more clearly. Rolfe was amazed at its size. From the window to the couch at the other end of the room, where the body lay, was nearly thirty feet. Glancing down the apartment, he noticed that it was really two rooms, divided in the middle by folding doors. These doors folded neatly into a slightly protruding ridge or arch almost opposite the door by which he had entered, and were screened from observation by heavy damask curtains, which drooped over the archway slightly into the room.
Evidently the deceased judge had been in the habit of using the divided rooms as a single apartment, for the heavier furniture in both halves of it was of the same pattern. The chairs and tables were of heavy, ponderous, mid-Victorian make, and they were matched by a number of old-fashioned mahogany sideboards and presses, arranged methodically at regular intervals on both sides of the room. Rolfe, as his eye took in these articles, wondered why Sir Horace Fewbanks had bought so many. One sideboard, a vast piece of furniture fully eight feet long, had a whisky decanter and siphon of soda water on it, as though Sir Horace had served himself with refreshments on his return to the house. The tops of the other sideboards were bare, and the presses, use in such a room Rolfe was at a loss to conjecture, were locked up. The antique sombre uniformity of the furniture as a whole was broken at odd intervals by several articles of bizarre modernity, including a few daring French prints, which struck an odd note of incongruity in such a room.
The murdered man had been laid on an old-fashioned sofa at the end of this double apartment which was furthest from the window. Rolfe walked slowly over the thick Turkey carpets and rugs with which the floor was covered, glanced at the sofa curiously, and then turned down the sheet from the dead man's face.
At the time of his death Sir Horace Fewbanks was 58 years of age, but since death the grey bristles had grown so rapidly through his clean-shaven face that he looked much older. The face showed none of the wonted placidity of death. The mouth was twisted in an ugly fashion, as though the murdered man had endeavoured to cry for help and had been attacked and killed while doing so. One of Sir Horace's arms--the right one--was thrust forward diagonally across his breast as if in self-defence, and the hand was tightly clenched. Rolfe, who had last seen His Honour presiding on the Bench in the full pomp and majesty of law, felt a chill strike his heart at the fell power of death which did not even respect the person of a High Court judge, and had stripped him of every vestige of human dignity in the pangs of a violent end. The face he had last seen on the Bench full of wisdom and austerity of the law was now distorted into a livid mask in which it was hard to trace any semblance of the features of the dead judge.
Rolfe's official alertness of mind in the face of a mysterious crime soon reasserted itself, however, and he shook off the feeling of sentiment and proceeded to make a closer examination of the dead body. As he turned down the sheet to examine the wound which had ended the judge's life, it slipped from his hand and fell on the floor, revealing that the judge had been laid on the couch just as he had been killed, fully clothed. He had been shot through the body near the heart, and a large patch of blood had welled from the wound and congealed in his shirt. One trouser leg was ruffled up, and had caught in the top of the boot.
The corpse presented a repellent spectacle, but Rolfe, who had seen unpleasant sights of various kinds in his career, bent over the body with keen interest, noting these details, with all his professional instincts aroused. For though Rolfe had not yet risen very high in the police force, he had many of the qualities which make the good detective--observation, sagacity, and some imagination. The extraordinary crime which he had been called upon to help unravel presented a baffling mystery which was likely to test the value of these qualities to the utmost.
Rolfe looked steadily at the corpse for some time, impressing a picture of it in every detail on his mental retina. Struck by an idea, he bent over and touched the patch of blood in the dead man's breast, then looked at his finger. There was no stain. The blood was quite congealed. Then he tried to unclench the judge's right hand, but it was rigid.
As Rolfe stood there gazing intently at the corpse, and trying to form some theory of the reason for the murder, certain old stories he had heard of Sir Horace Fewbanks's private life and character recurred to him. These rumours had not been much--a jocular hint or two among his fellows at Scotland Yard that His Honour had a weakness for a pretty face and in private life led a less decorous existence than a judge ought to do. Rolfe wondered how much or how little truth was contained in these stories. He glanced around the vast room. Certainly it was not the sort of apartment in which a High Court judge might be expected to do his entertaining, but Rolfe recalled that he had heard gossip to the effect that Sir Horace, because of his virtual estrangement from his daughter, did very little entertaining beyond an occasional bridge or supper party to his sporting friends, and rarely went into Society.
Rolfe began to scrutinise the articles of furniture in the room, wondering if there was anything about them which might reveal something of the habits of the dead man. He produced a small electric torch from his pocket, and with its light to guide him in the half-darkened room, he closely inspected each piece of furniture. Then, with the torch in his hand, he returned to the sofa and flashed it over the dead body. He started violently when the light, falling on the dead man's closed hand, revealed a tiny scrap of white. Eagerly he endeavoured to release the fragment from the tenacious clutch of the dead without tearing it, and eventually he managed to detach it. His heart bounded when he saw that it was a small torn piece of lace and muslin. He placed it in the palm of his left hand and examined it closely under the light of his torch. To him it looked to be part of a fashionable lady's dainty handkerchief. He was elated at his discovery and he wondered how Inspector Chippenfield had overlooked it. Then the explanation struck him. The small piece of lace and muslin had been effectually hidden in the dead man's clenched hand, and his efforts to open the hand had loosened it.
"Well, Rolfe," said Inspector Chippenfield, when his subordinate reappeared, "you've been long enough to have unearthed the criminal or revived the corpse. Have you discovered anything fresh?"
"Only this," replied Rolfe, displaying the piece of handkerchief.
The find startled Inspector Chippenfield out of his air of bantering superiority.
"Where did you get that?" he stammered, as he reached out eagerly for it.
"The dead man had it clenched in his right hand. I wondered if he had anything hidden in his hand when I saw it so tightly clenched. I tried to force open the fingers and that fell out."
Inspector Chippenfield was by no means pleased at his subordinate's discovery of what promised to be an important clue, especially after the clue had been missed by himself. But he congratulated Rolfe in a tone of fictitious heartiness.
"Well done, Rolfe!" he exclaimed. "You are coming on. Anyone can see that you've the makings of a good detective."
Rolfe could afford to ignore the sting contained in such faint praise.
"What do you make of it?" he asked.
"Looks as though there is a woman in it," said the inspector, who was still examining the scrap of lace and muslin.
"There can't be much doubt about that," replied Rolfe.
"We mustn't be in a hurry in jumping at conclusions," remarked the inspector.
"No, and we mustn't ignore obvious facts," said Rolfe.
"You think a woman murdered him?" asked the inspector.
"I think a woman was present when he was shot: whether she fired the shot there is nothing to show at present. There may have been a man with her. But there was a struggle just before the shot was fired and as Sir Horace fell he grasped at the hand in which she was holding her handkerchief. Or perhaps her handkerchief was torn in his dying struggles when she was leaning over him."
"You have overlooked the possibility of this having been placed in the dying man's hand to deceive us," said the inspector.
"If the intention was to mislead us it wouldn't have been placed where it might have been overlooked."
As the inspector had overlooked the presence of the scrap of handkerchief in the dead man's hand, he felt that he was not making much progress with the work of keeping his subordinate in his place.
"Well, it is a clue of a sort," he said. "The trouble is that we have too many clues. I wish we knew which is the right one. Anyway, it knocks over your theory of a burglary," he added in a tone of satisfaction.
"Yes," Rolfe admitted. "That goes by the board."
"What is your name?"
"James Hill, sir."
"That is an alias. What is your real name?" Inspector Chippenfield glared fiercely at the butler in order to impress upon him the fact that subterfuge was useless.
"Henry Field, sir," replied the man, after some hesitation.
Inspector Chippenfield opened the capacious pocketbook which he had placed before him on the desk when the butler had entered in response to his summons, and he took from it a photograph which he handed to the man he was interrogating.
"Is that your photograph?" he asked.
Police photographs taken in gaol for purposes of future identification are always far from flattering, and Henry Field, after looking at the photograph handed to him, hesitated a little before replying:
"Yes, sir."
"So, Henry Field, in November 1909 you were sentenced to three years for robbing your master, Lord Melhurst."
"Yes, sir."
"Let me see," said the inspector, as if calling on his memory to perform a reluctant task. "It was a diamond scarf-pin and a gold watch. Lord Melhurst had come home after a good day at Epsom and a late supper in town. Next morning he missed his scarf-pin and his watch. He thought he had been robbed at Epsom or in town. He was delightfully vague about what had happened to him after his glorious day at Epsom, but unfortunately for you the taxi-cab driver who drove him remembered seeing the pin on him when he got out of the cab. As you had waited up for him suspicion fell on you, and you were arrested and confessed. I think those are the facts, Field?"
"Yes, sir," said the distressed looking man who stood before him.
"I think I had the pleasure of putting you through," added the inspector.
The butler understood that in police slang "putting a man through" meant arresting him and putting him through the Criminal Court into gaol. He made the same reply:
"Yes, sir."
"I'm glad to see you bear me no ill-will for it," said Inspector Chippenfield. "You don't, do you?"
"No, sir."
"I never forget a face," pursued the officer, glancing up at the face of the man before him. "When I saw you yesterday I knew you again in a moment, and when I went back to the Yard I looked up your record."
The butler was doubtful whether any reply was called for, but after a pause, as an endorsement of the inspector's gift for remembering faces, he ventured on:
"Yes, sir."
"And how did you, an ex-convict, come to get into the service of one of His Majesty's judges?"
"He took me in," replied the butler.
"You mean that you took him in," replied the inspector, with a pleasant laugh at his own witticism.
"No, sir, I didn't take him in," declared the butler. He had not joined in the laugh at the inspector's joke.
"Get away with you," said Inspector Chippenfield. "You don't expect me to believe that you told him you were an ex-convict? You must have used forged references."
"No, sir. He knew I was a--" Hill hesitated at referring to himself as an ex-convict, though he had not shrunk from the description by Inspector Chippenfield. "He knew that I had been in trouble. In fact, sir, if you remember, I was tried before him."
"The devil you were!" exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield, in astonishment. "And he took you into his service after you had served your sentence. He must have been mad. How did you manage it?"
"After I came out I found it hard to get a place," said Hill, "and when Sir Horace's butler died I wrote to him and asked if he would give me a chance. I had a wife and child, sir, and they had a hard struggle while I was in prison. My wife had a shop, but she sold it to find money for my defence. Sir Horace told me to call on him, and after thinking it over he decided to engage me. He was a good master to me."
"And how did you repay him," exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield sternly, "by murdering him?"
The butler was startled by the suddenness of the accusation, as Inspector Chippenfield intended he should be.
"Me!" he exclaimed. "As sure as there is a God in Heaven I had nothing to do with it."
"That won't go down with me, Field," said the police officer, giving the wretched man another prolonged penetrating look.
"It's true; it's true!" he protested wildly. "I had nothing to do with it. I couldn't do a thing like that, sir. I couldn't kill a man if I wanted to--I haven't the nerve. But I knew I would be suspected," he added, in a tone of self-pity.
"Oh, you did?" replied Inspector Chippenfield. "And why was that?"
"Because of my past."
"Where were you on the date of the murder?"
"In the morning I came over here to look round as usual, and I found everything all right."
"You did that every day while Sir Horace was away?"
"Not every day, sir. Three times a week: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays."
"Did you enter the house or just look round?"
"I always came inside."
"What for?"
"To make quite sure that everything was all right."
"And was everything all right the morning of the 18th?"
"Yes, sir."
"You are quite sure of that? You looked round carefully?"
"Well, sir, I just gave a glance round, for of course I didn't expect anything would be wrong."
Inspector Chippenfield fixed a steady glance on the butler to ascertain if he was conscious of the trap he had avoided.
"Did you look in this room?"
"Yes, sir. I made a point of looking in all the rooms."
"You are sure that Sir Horace's dead body was not lying here?" Inspector Chippenfield pointed beside the desk where the body had been found.
"Oh, no, sir. I'd have seen it if it had."
"There was no sign anywhere of his having returned from Scotland?"
"No, sir."
"You didn't know he was returning?"
"No, sir."
"What time did you leave the house?"
"It would be about a quarter past twelve, sir."
"And what did you do after that?"
"I went home and had my dinner. In the afternoon I took my little girl to the Zoo. I had promised her for a long time that I would take her to the Zoo."
"And what did you do after visiting the Zoo?"
"We went home for supper. After supper my wife took the little girl to the picture palace in Camden Road. It was quite a holiday, sir, for her."
"And what did you do while your wife and child were at the pictures?"
"I stayed at home and minded the shop. When they came home we all went to bed. My wife will tell you the same thing."
"I've no doubt she will," said the inspector drily. "Well, if you didn't murder Sir Horace yourself when did you first hear that he had been murdered?"
"I saw it in the papers yesterday evening."
"And you immediately came up here to see if it was true?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you were taken to the Hampstead Police Station to make a statement as to your movements on the day and night of the murder?"
"Yes, sir."
"And the story you have just told me about the Zoo and the pictures and the rest is virtually the same as the statement you made at the station?"
"Yes, sir."
"Do you know if Sir Horace kept a revolver?"
"I think he did, sir."
"Where did he keep it?"
"In the second drawer of his desk, sir."
"Well, it's gone," remarked Inspector Chippenfield without opening the drawer. "What sort of a revolver was it? Did you ever see it? How do you know he kept one?"
"Once or twice I saw something that looked like a revolver in that drawer while Sir Horace had it open. It was a small nickel revolver."
"Sir Horace always locked his desk?"
"Yes, sir."
"None of your keys will open it, of course?"
"No, sir. That is--I don't know, sir. I've never tried."
Inspector Chippenfield grunted slightly. That trap the butler had not seen until too late. But of course all servants went through their masters' private papers when they got the chance.
"Do you know if Sir Horace was in the habit of carrying a pocket-book?" he asked.
"Yes, sir; he was."
"What sort of a pocket-book?"