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Updated: June 3, 2025
That was hardly the best way to go about it. Let us charitably assume that Hill was too frightened to let Birchill remain under the impression that he'd played him false, and let us look at Birchill's attitude.
He believed Hill to be a cunning scoundrel who had overreached the police for some purpose of his own by accusing Birchill, and who, to make his story more probable, had even implicated himself in the supposed burglary as a terrorised accomplice.
"Hill had been compelled by Birchills threats to remain at the flat with the girl while Birchill visited Riversbrook, and the first thing Birchill told him on his return was that he had found Sir Horace Fewbanks dead in his house when he entered it.
But he was fully aware that Hill would be the person who'd discover the body next day, and that if he wasn't put on his guard he would bring in the police and probably give away everything that Birchill had said and done. So, to obviate this risk and prepare Hill, Birchill hit on the plan of telling him that he'd found the judge's dead body while burgling the place.
Rolfe departed, to do his chief's bidding, a little crestfallen. He was at first inclined to think that he had made a bit of a fool of himself in his desire to prove to Inspector Chippenfield that he had been hoodwinked by Hill into arresting Birchill.
And he told you that Birchill, mistrusting his unwilling accomplice, hurried on the date of the burglary so as to give him no such opportunity. Well, chance throws in Hill's way the very opportunity he has been seeking, but he is too frightened to use it because Sir Horace happens to return in an angry or impatient mood.
Is it likely that Birchill would confide his desire for revenge so frankly to Sir Horace's confidential servant, the trusted custodian of his master's valuables, who could rely on his master's protection the protection of a highly-placed man of whom Birchill stood admittedly in fear, and whom he knew, according to Hill's story, was unassailable from his slander?
It was a bold idea, and not without its advantages when you consider what an awkward fix Birchill was in. Not only did it keep Hill quiet, but it forced him into the position of becoming a kind of silent accomplice in the crime. You remember Hill did not give the show away until he was trapped, and then he only confessed to save his own skin.
"Hill's complicity, according to his own story, extended only to supplying a plan of the house and giving Birchill some information as to where various articles of value would be found. On the 18th of August Hill went to Riversbrook to see that everything was in order for the burglary that night. While he was there his master returned unexpectedly.
He was convinced that Chippenfield had shut out important light on the mystery by doggedly insisting, in order to buttress up his case against Birchill, that the piece of handkerchief which had been found in the dead man's hand was a portion of a handkerchief which had belonged to the girl Fanning, and had been brought by Birchill from the Westminster flat on the night of the murder.
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