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Do you deny that he went up to Riversbrook that night?" "The letter sent to Scotland Yard shows that some one was there besides the murderer. If Birchill was there and helped to write the letter and so much is part of your case he wasn't the murderer. In short, I believe Birchill went up there to commit a burglary and found the murdered body of Sir Horace."
The writer indicated that he was doing all that was possible in Sir Horace's interests, and that he would meet Sir Horace at Riversbrook at 9.30 on Wednesday night and let him know the exact position. There is nothing suspicious in such a letter, but my inquiries concerning new appointments to the Court of Appeal suggest that the statements in the letter are false.
"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.
Walters, and, after a few whispered words with that gentleman, Mr. Mathers, his junior, and Mr. Salter, the instructing solicitor, he returned to Chippenfield and Rolfe and asked them to accompany him in a taxi-cab to Riversbrook. "What do you want to go out there for?" asked Inspector Chippenfield. "You don't expect to discover anything there this late in the day, do you?"
Walters, adjusting his glasses and glancing from his brief to the witness and from the witness back to the brief again, "that you saw the prisoner enter the gate at Riversbrook about 9.30 on the night of the 18th of August?" "Yes." The monosyllable was flung out as insolently as possible.
But in order to prevent Birchill getting the letters if he should happen to stumble across the secret drawer, Hill removed them the day before. His plan was to go to Riversbrook in the morning after the burglary, and after leaving open the secret drawer which had contained the letters, to report the burglary to the police.
What made me confident it was flawless was the fact that both his wife and her French cousin believed him to be guilty. Mademoiselle Chiron followed Holymead from the country on the 18th of August with the intention of averting a tragedy. She arrived at Riversbrook too late for that, but in time to see Sir Horace expire, and naturally she thought that Holymead had shot him. When Mrs.
Hill was at Riversbrook when he arrived, and having the secret letters in his possession, was greatly perturbed by the unexpected return of Sir Horace. He went to Doris Fanning's flat in Westminster to see Birchill. In his absence Holymead arrived. It is probable that he took the Tube from Hyde Park Corner to Hampstead and walked to Riversbrook.
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.
The jemmy found in the flat fits the mark made in the window at Riversbrook, and we've got something more another witness who saw him in Tanton Gardens about the time of the murder. If Birchill can get his neck out of the noose, he's cleverer than I take him for." Crewe did not reply directly to Rolfe's summary of the case.
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