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Updated: June 4, 2025
That tallied with Birchill's statement to Hill that he had seen a woman close the front door and walk along the garden path while he was hiding in the garden. Crewe, recalling Gabrielle's description of the room, came to the conclusion that it was probably she who had been with the judge in his dying moments.
When he wanted to write a letter he used to ask me for my tablet and an envelope. And generally he used to borrow a stamp as well." She pouted slightly, with another coquettish glance. "Look at that plan again," said the K.C. "Have you ever had paper like it at your flat?" She shook her head. "Never." "Have you ever seen paper of that kind in Birchill's possession before he showed you the plan?"
If I remember rightly, she asked you to keep her in touch with all the developments of the investigations of the police and myself. You told me that she was greatly interested in the fact that I did not believe Birchill was guilty, and particularly anxious to know if I suspected anyone. At Birchill's trial she did me the honour of watching me very closely. I was watching both her and her husband.
Birchill told Hill that he was frightened of Sir Horace Fewbanks, the judge who had sentenced him. "Then Birchill's confidence in Hill is remarkable, any way you look at it. He sends for Hill, whom he had known in gaol, and whom he hadn't seen since, to confide in him that it is his intention to burgle his employer's house.
'We shall both be hanged. Then, after a while, we recovered ourselves a bit and began to look at it from a more common-sense point of view. Nobody knew about Birchill's visit to the house except our two selves and the girl, and there was no reason why anybody should suspect us as long as we kept that knowledge to ourselves.
But he did nothing of the kind, for the simple reason that the plan to rob Riversbrook was his own, and not Birchill's. "Now, gentlemen, you have all seen the plan which this tainted witness declares was drawn by him because Birchill terrorised him and stood over him while he drew it. Is there anything in that plan to suggest that it was drawn by a man in a state of nervous terror?
Rolfe, who thought he detected a suspicion of banter in Crewe's remarks, evaded the latter question by answering the first part of Crewe's inquiry. "Why hardly that, Mr. Crewe. But the chief is not very keen on the case. Birchill's acquittal was too much of a blow to him. He reckons that nowadays juries are too soft-hearted to convict on a capital charge."
"Let us take Birchill's attitude when Hill tells him that Sir Horace has unexpectedly returned from Scotland. Birchill is suspicious that Hill has played him false, and naturally so, but Hill, instead of letting him think so, and thus preventing the burglary from taking place, does all he can to reassure him, while at the same time begging him to postpone the burglary.
Birchill's object in acting thus was a twofold one.
And look at that row alongside of them there's Morris, Hart, Harry the Hooker, and that chap Willis who murdered the pawnbroker in Commercial Road last year, only we could never sheet it home to him. And two rows behind them is old Charlie, the Covent Garden 'drop, with Holder Jack and Kemp, Birchill's mate. Why, they're everywhere. The inquest was nothing to this, Rolfe."
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