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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.
Birchill's idea, after we'd talked this over, was that I should go quietly home to bed, and pay a visit to Riversbrook on Friday as usual, discover Sir Horace Fewbanks's body, and then tell the police. But I didn't like to do that for two reasons.
I would feel sore myself in your place, and I don't deny that we got information that put us on Birchill's track, and therefore it was easier for us to solve the mystery than it was for you." "I'm not a bit sore," said Crewe. "I can take a beating, especially when the men who beat me are good sportsmen."
He had come to court with the object of witnessing Birchill's behaviour in the dock and the efforts of any of his criminal friends to communicate with him. As a man who had had considerable experience in criminal trials he knew the irresistible desire of the criminal in the gallery of the court to encourage the man in the dock to keep up his courage.
Communications of the kind had to be made by signs. It was Crewe's impression that by watching Birchill in the dock and Birchill's friends in the gallery he might pick up a valuable hint or two. It was also his intention to study closely the defence which Counsel for the prisoner intended to put forward.
"Hill is left locked up in the flat with the girl; for Birchill, who has just trusted him implicitly in a far more important matter affecting his own liberty, has a belated sense of caution about trusting his unworthy accomplice while he is away committing the burglary. The time goes on; the couple in the flat hear the clock strike twelve before Birchill's returning footsteps are heard.
On the other hand he told the judge and jury everything that his professional experience prompted him as necessary and proper for them to know in order to bring about a conviction. In the course of his evidence he made several attempts to introduce damaging facts as to Birchill's past, but Mr. Holymead protested to the judge.
He inclined to Inspector Chippenfield's conclusions regarding Birchill's admission about the body. The idea that he had assisted in arresting the wrong man and had helped to build up a case against him was too unpalatable for him to accept it. But he was forced to admit that Crewe's theory was distinctly a plausible one.
He plunged his hand into a jardinière and withdrew a briar-wood pipe. "This looks to me like Birchill's property. Keep that dog back, Rolfe." The little dog had sprung off his cushion and was eagerly following the inspector out of the room. Rolfe caught up the animal in his arms, and returned to where the girl was sitting.
"She behaved with remarkable courage and coolness, but she overlooked the glove in the room of the tragedy, and Holymead's stick in the hall-stand. Later in the night we have Birchill's entry into the house, his alarm at finding your father had been killed, and his return to the flat where Hill was waiting for him." When Crewe had finished he looked at the girl.
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