The Hampstead Mystery Part 4

"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 fict.i.tious 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 sc.r.a.p 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 sc.r.a.p 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."

CHAPTER V

"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 endors.e.m.e.nt 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?"