 CHAPTER ONE of THE HAMPSTERED MYSTERY reading by Lars Rolander THE HAMPSTERED MYSTERY by John R. Watson and Arthur G. Rees to Arthur Black in Memory of Old Times CHAPTER ONE Hello, is that Hamster Police Station? Yes, who are you? Detective Inspector Chippenfield of Scotland Yard Tell Inspector Seldon I want him and be quick about it. Yes, sir. Hang on, sir. I'll put you through to him at once. Detective Inspector Chippenfield of Scotland Yard waited with the receiver held to his ear. While he waited, he scrutinised keenly a sheet of paper which lay on the desk in front of him. It was a flimsy, faintly ruled sheet from a cheap writing pad, blotted and soiled and covered with sprawling letters which had been roughly printed at irregular intervals as though to hide the identity of the writer. But the letters formed words and the words read, Sir Horace Few Banks was murdered last night. Who did it, I don't know, so it's no use trying to find out who I am. You will find his dead body in the library at Riverbrook. He was shot through the heart. Hello? Is that you, Inspector Chippenfield? Yes, that's you, Seldon. Have you heard anything of a murder out your way? Can't say that I have, have you? Yes, we have information that Sir Horace Few Banks has been murdered, shot. Mr Justice Few Banks shot? Murdered. Inspector Seldon gave expression to his surprise in a long, low whistle which travelled through the telephone. Then he added, after a moment's reflection, there must be some mistake, he's away. Away where? In Scotland, he went there for the twelfths when the shooting season opened. Are you sure of that? Yes, he rang me up the day before he left to ask us to keep an eye on his house while he was away. There was a pulse at the Scotland yard end of the telephone. Inspector Chippenfield was evidently thinking hard. We may have been hoaxed, he said at length, but I have been ringing up his house and can't get no answer. You had better send up a couple of men there at once. Better still go yourself. It is a matter which may require tactful handling. Let me know and I'll come out immediately if there is anything wrong. Stay, how long will it take you to get up to the house? A not more than fifteen minutes in a taxi. Well, I'll bring you up at the house in half an hour. Should our information be correct, see that everything is left exactly as you find it till I arrive? Inspector Seldon hang up the receiver of his telephone, bundled up the papers scattered on his desk, closed it and stepped out of his office, into the next room. Anyone about? He hurriedly asked the sergeant who was making interest in the chargebook. Yes, sir, I saw Flack here a moment ago. Get him at once and call a taxi. Scotland Yard's running through to say they've received a report that Sir Horace Feubanks has been murdered. Murdered? Echoed the sergeant in a tone of keen interest. Who told Scotland Yard that? I don't know. Who wasn't that beat last night? Flack, sir. Sir Horace murdered in his own house? I thought he was in Scotland. So did I, but he may have returned. Ah, here is the taxi. Inspector Seldon had been waiting on the steps for the appearance of a cab from the rank round the corner in response to the shrill blast which the sergeant had blown on his whistle. The sergeant went to the door of the station, leading into the yard and sharply called Flack. In response the police constable, without helmet or tunic, came running up the steps from the basement which was used as a gymnasium. Seldon wants you. Get on your tunic as quick as you can. He is in the devil of a hurry. Inspector Seldon was seated in the taxi cab when Flack appeared. He had been impatiently drumming his fingers on the door of the cab. Jumping man, he said angrily, what has kept you all this time? Flack reached statoriously to show that he had been running and was out of breath, but he made no reply to the official rebuke. Inspector Seldon turned to him and remarked severely, Why didn't you let me know that Sir Horace Feubanks had returned from Scotland? Flack looked astonished. But he hasn't returned, sir, he said. He's away for a month at least, he ventured to add. Who told you that? The house made at Riverbrook before he went away. Hmm. The inspector's next question contained a moral rebuke rather than an official one. You were a married man, Flack? Yes, sir. So the housemaid told you he was going away for a month? Well, she ought to know. When did she tell you? A week ago, yesterday, sir. She told me that all the servants except the butler were going down to Delmere the next day. That is Sir Horace's country place, and that Sir Horace was going to Scotland for the shooting, and would put in some weeks at Delmere after the shooting season was over. Are you sure he hasn't returned? Quite, sir. I saw Hill, the butler, only yesterday morning, and he told me that his master was sure to be in Scotland for at least a month longer. It's very strange, muttered the inspector half to himself. It will be a juice-awkward situation to face if Scotland Yard has been hoaxed. Beg your pardon, sir? But is there anything wrong about Sir Horace? Yes. Scotland Yard has received a report that he has been murdered. Flack's surprise was so great that it lifted the lid of official humility, which habitually covered his natural feelings. Murdered, he exclaimed. Sir Horace Fubanks murdered? You don't say so. But I do say so, retorted the inspector irritably. He was angry at the fact that the information, whether true or false, had gone direct to Scotland Yard instead of reaching him first. When was he murdered, sir? Asked Flack. Last night, when you were on that beat, Flack paled at this remark. Last night, sir? He cried. Don't repeat my words like a parrot. He accoladed the inspector peevishly. Didn't you notice anything suspicious when you were along there? No, sir. Was he murdered in his own house? His dead body is supposed to be lying there now in the library, said Inspector Selden. How Scotland Yard got wind of it is more than I know. We ought to have heard of it before them. How many times did you go along there last night? Twice, sir, about eleven o'clock, and then about three. And there was nothing suspicious you saw no one? I saw Mr. Roberts and his lady coming home from the theatre. But he lives at the other end of Tanton Gardens, and I saw the housemaid of Mr. Feelings come out to the pillar box. That was a few minutes after eleven. I didn't see anybody at all the second time. Nobody at the judge's place? No taxi or anything like that? No, sir. The taxi cab turned swiftly into the shady avenue of Tanton Gardens, where Sir Horace Feubanks lived, and in a few moments pulled up outside of Riverbrook. The house stood a long way back from the road in its own grounds. Inspector Selden and Flack passed rapidly through the grounds and reached the front door of the mansion. There was nobody about. The place seemed deserted, and the blinds were down on the ground floor windows. Inspector Selden knocked loudly at the front door with a big old-fashioned brass knocker and rang the bell. He listened intently for a response, but no sound followed except the sharp note of the electric bell as Flack rang it again while Inspector Selden bent down with his ear at the keyhole. Then the inspector stepped back and regarded the house keenly for a moment or two. Put your finger on that bell and keep on ringing it, Flack, he said suddenly. I see that some of the blinds are down, but there is one on the first floor which is partly up. It looks as though the house had been shut up and somebody had come back unexpectedly. Perhaps it's Hill the Butler, said Flack. If he's inside, he ought to answer the bell, but keep on ringing while I knock again. The heavy brass knocker again reverberated on the thick oak door, and Inspector Selden placed his ear against the keyhole to ascertain if any sound was to be heard. Take your finger off that bell, Flack, he commanded. I cannot hear whether anybody is coming or not. He remained in a listening attitude for half a minute and then plied the knocker again. Again he listened for footsteps within the house. Ring again, Flack. Keep on ringing while I go round the house to see if there is any way I can get in. I may have to break a window. Don't move from here. Inspector Selden went quickly round the side of the house trying the windows as he went. Towards the rear of the house, on the west side, he came across a curious abutment of masonry jutting out squarely from the wall. On the other side of this abutment, which gave the house something of an unfinished appearance, were three French windows close together. The blinds of these windows were closely drawn, but the inspector's keen eye detected that one of the catches had been broken, and there were marks of some instrument on the outside woodwork. This looks like business, he muttered. He pulled open the window and walked into the room. The light of an afternoon sun showed him that the apartment was a breakfast room, well and solidly furnished in an old-fashioned way, with most of the furniture in covers as though the occupants of the house were away. The daylight penetrated to the door at the far end of the room. It was wide open and revealed an empty passage. Inspector Seldon walked into the passage. The drawn blinds made the passage seem quite dark after the bright August sunshine outside, but he produced an electric torch, and by its light he saw that the passage ran into the main hall. His footsteps echoed in the empty house. The electric bell rang continuously as flag pressed it outside. Inspector Seldon walked along the passage to the hall, flashing his torch into each room his past. He saw nothing and went to the front door to admit flag. That is enough of that noise flag, he said. Come inside and help me search the house above. It's empty on this floor so far as I've been over it. If you find anything, call me, and mind you do not touch anything. Where did you say the library was? I don't know, sir. Well, look about you on the ground floor while I go upstairs. Call me if you hear anything. Inspector Seldon mounted the stairs swiftly in order to continue his search. The staircase was a wide one, with broad shallow steps thickly carpeted, and a handsome carved mahogany baluster. The inspector, flashing his torch as he ran up, saw a small electric light niche in the wall before he reached the first landing. The catch of the light was underneath, and Inspector Seldon turned it on. The light revealed that the stairs swept round at that point to the landing on the first floor, which was screened from view by heavy velvet hangings partly caught back by the bent arm of a marble figure of Diana, which faced downstairs with this other arm upraised and about to launch a hunting spear. By this graceful device the curtains were drawn back sufficiently to give access to the corridor on the first floor. Inspector Seldon looked closely at the figure and the hangings, something strange about the former arrested his eye. It was standing oary on its pedestal, was indeed almost toppling over. He looked up and saw that one of the curtains supported by the arm hung loosely from one of the curtain rings. It was as though some violent hand had torn the curtain in passing, almost dragging it from the pool and precipitating the figure down the stairs. Immediately beyond the landing in the corridor was a door on the right, flung wide open. The Inspector entered the room with the open door. It was a large room forming part of the front of the house, a lofty large room partly lighted by the half-drawn blind of one of the windows. One side was lined with bookshows. In the corner of the room farthest from the door was a roll-top desk which was open. In the centre of the room was a table and a huddle-up figure was lying beside it in a dark pool of blood which had oozed into the carpet. The Inspector stepped quickly back to the landing. Flack, he called and unconsciously his voice dropped to sharp whisper in the presence of death. Flack, come here! When Flack reached the door of the library he saw his chief kneeling beside the prostrate body of a dead man. The body lay clear of the table near the foot of an armchair. Instinctively, Flack walked on tiptoe to his chief. Is it dead, sir? he asked. Cold and stiff replied the Inspector in a hushed voice. He's been dead for hours. Flack noted that the body was fully dressed and he saw a dark stain above the breast where the blood had welled forth and soaked the dead man's clothes and formed a pool on the carpet beside him. Inspector Seldon opened the dead man's clothes. Over his heart he found the wound from which the blood had flowed. There it is, Flack, he said, touching the wound lightly with his finger. It doesn't take a big wound to kill a man. As he spoke, the sharp ring of a telephone bell from downstairs reached them. That's Inspector Chippenfield, said Inspector Seldon, rising to his feet. Stay here, Flack, till I go and speak to him. End of Chapter 1 of The Hampstead Mystery by John R. Watson and Arthur G. Rees Read by Lars Rolander Chapter 2 630 Edition Hike or Judge-Murdered It was not quite 5 p.m. but the enterprising section of the London Evening Newspapers had their 630 editions on sale in the streets. To such a pitch had the policy of giving the public what it wants been elevated, that the hipony newspapers were able to give the people of London the news each afternoon, a full 90 minutes before the edition was supposed to have left the press. The time of the edition was boldly printed in the top right-hand corner of each paper as a guarantee of enterprise, if not of good faith. On practical enterprise of this kind does journalism forge ahead. Some people who have been bred up in a conservative atmosphere sneer at such journalistic enterprise. They affect to regard as unreliable the up-to-date news contained in newspapers which are unable to tell the truth about the hands of the clock. From the cries of the news boys and from the announcements of the newspaper bills which they displayed, it was assumed by those with a greedy appetite for sensations that a judge of the High Court had been murdered on the bench. Such an appetite easily swallowed the difficulty created by the fact that the Low Courts had been closed for the long vacation. In imagination they saw a dramatic scene in court. The disappointed, demented, desperate, litigant suddenly drawing a revolver and with unerring aims shooting the judge through the brain before the deadly weapon could be wrenched from his hands. But though the sensation created by the murder of a judge of the High Courts destined to grow and to be fed by unexpected developments the changing phases of which monopolized public attention throughout England on successive occasions there was little in the evening papers to satisfy the appetite for sensation. In journalistic vernacular they were late in getting on to it and therefore their reference to the crime occupied only a few lines in the stopped press news beneath some late horse racing results. The evening courier which was first in the streets for the news made its announcement of the crime in the following brief paragraph. The dead body of Sir Horace Fubanks the distinguished High Court judge was found by the police at his home Riverbrook in Tanton Gardens hamstered today. Deceased had been shot through the heart. The police have no doubt that he was murdered but the morning papers of the following day did full justice to the sensation. It was the month of August when Parliament is up the law courts closed for the long vacation and when everybody who is anybody is out of London for the summer holidays. News for scares and the papers read with one another in making the utmost of the murder of a High Court judge. Each of the morning papers sent out a man to Hampstead soon after the news of the crime reached their offices in the afternoon and some of the more enterprising sent two or three men. Scotland Yard and Riverbrook were visited by a succession of pressmen representing the London Dailies the Provincial Press and the news agencies. The two points on which the newspaper accounts of the tragedy laid stress were the mysterious letter which had been sent to Scotland Yard stating that Sir Horace Few Banks had been murdered and the mystery surrounding the sudden return of Sir Horace from Scotland to his townhouse. On the first point there was room for much varied speculation. Why was information about the murder sent to Scotland Yard and why was it sent in a disguised way? If the person who had sent this letter had no connection with the crime and was anxious to help the police why had he not gone to Scotland Yard personally and told the detectives all he knew about the tragedy? If on the other hand he was implicated in the crime why had he informed the police at all? It would have been to his interest as an accomplice even if he had been an unwilling accomplice to leave the crime undiscovered as long as possible so that he and those with whom he had been associated might make their escape to another country. But he had sent his letter to Scotland Yard within a few hours of the perpetration of the crime and had not given the actual murder time to get out of England. Was he not afraid of the vengeance the actual murder would endeavor to exact for this disclosure which would enable the police to take measures to prevent his escape? No light was thrown on the course of the murdered man's son returned from the grouse shooting in Scotland. The newspaper accounts though they differed greatly in their statements, surmises and suggestions concerning the tragedy agreed on the point that Sir Horace had been a keen sportsman and was a very fine shot. In years past he had made a practice of spending the early part of the long vacation in Scotland going there for the opening of the grouse season on the 12th of August. This year he had been one of a party of five who had rented Cray Lake Hall in the Western Highlands and after five days shooting he had announced that he had to go to London on urgent business but would return in the course of a week or less. It was suggested in some of the newspaper's accounts that an explanation of the course of his return might throw some light on the murder. Inquires were being made at Cray Lake Hall to ascertain the reason for his journey to London or whether any telegram had been received by him previous to his departure. The fact that one of the windows on the ground floor of Riversbrook had been found open was regarded as evidence that the murderer had broken into the house. Imprints of footsteps had been found in the ground outside the window and the police had taken several casts of these. But whether the man who had broken into the house with the intention of committing burglary on murder was a matter on which speculation differed. If the murderer was a criminal who had broken into the house with the intention of committing a burglary there could be no connection between the return of Sir Horace Fewbanks from Scotland and his murderer. The burglary had probably been arranged in the belief that the house was empty. Sir Horace having sent the servants away to his country house in Delmer a week before. But if the murderer was a burglar he had stolen nothing and had not even collected any articles for removal. The only thing that was known to be missing was the dead man's pocketbook but there was nothing to prove that the murderer had stolen it. It was quite possible that it had been lost or mislaid by Sir Horace. It was even possible that it had been stolen from him in the train during the journey from Scotland. It might be that while prowling through the rooms after breaking into the house and before he had collected any goods for removal the burglar had come unexpectedly on Sir Horace and after shooting him had fled from the house. Only as a last resort to prevent capture did burglars commit murder. Had Sir Horace been shot while attempting to cease the intruder the position in which the body was found did not support that theory. Two shots had been fired the first of which had missed its victim and entered the wall of the library. Evidently the murdered man had been hit by the second while attempting to leave the room. It was ingeniously suggested by the Daily Record that the murderer was a criminal who knew Sir Horace and was known to him as a man who had been before him at the Old Bailey. This would account for Sir Horace being ruthlessly shot down without having made any attempt to cease the intruder. The burglar would have felt on seeing Sir Horace in the room that he was identified and the only way of escaping ultimate arrest by the police was to kill the man who could put the police on his track. Mr. Justice Feubanks had had the reputation of being a somewhat severe judge and it was possible that some of the criminals who had been sentenced by him at Old Bailey entertained a grudge against him. The question of when the murder was committed was regarded as important. Dr. Slingsby of the Home Office who had examined the body shortly after it was discovered by the police was of opinion that death had taken place at least 12 hours before and probably longer than that. His opinion on this point lent support of the theory that the murder had been committed before midnight on Wednesday. It was the Daily Record that ceased on the mystery contained in the facts that the body when discovered was fully clothed and that the electric lights were not turned on. If the murder was committed late at night how came it that there were no lights in the empty house when the police discovered the body? Had the murderer, after shooting his victim turned out the lights so that on the following day no suspicion would be created as would be the case if anyone saw lights burning in the house in the daytime. If he had done so he was a cool hand but if the burglar was such a cool hand as to stop to turn out the lights after the murder why did he not also stop to collect some valuables? Was he afraid that in attempting to get rid of them to a fence or drop he would practically reveal himself as the murderer and so place himself in danger in case the police offered a reward for the apprehension of the author of the crime? If Sir Horace had gone to bed before the murderer entered the house it would have been natural to expect no lights turned on but he had returned unexpectedly there were no servants in the house and there was no bed ready for him in any case if he intended stopping in the empty house instead of going to a hotel he would have been wearing a sleeping suit when his body was discovered or at most he would be only path-shirly dressed if he had got up on hearing somebody moving about the house but the body was fully dressed even to collar and tie it was absurd to suppose that the victim had been sitting in the darkness when the murderer appeared another difficult problem Scotland Yard had to face was the discovery of the person who had sent them the news of the murder how had Scotland Yard's anonymous correspondent learnt about the murder and what were his motives in informing the police in the way he had done was he connected with the crime had the murderer a companion with him when he broke into Riversbrook for the purpose of burglary that seemed to be the most probable explanation the second man had been horrified at the murder and decided to disassociate himself from it so that he might escape the gallows the only alternative was to suppose that the murderer had confessed his crime to someone and that his confidant had lost no time in informing the police of the tragedy the newspaper counts the case through some light on the private and domestic affairs of the victim he was a widower with a grown-up daughter his wife a daughter of the late Sir James Goldsworthy who changed his ancient family patronymic from Granwell to Goldsworthy on inheriting the great fortune of an American kinsman had died eight years before Sir Horace's hamstered household consisted of a housekeeper, butler, chauffeur cook, housemaid, kitchen maid and gardener with the exception of the butler the servants had been sent the previous week to Sir Horace's country house in Delmer, Sussex it appeared that Miss Feubanks spent most of her time at the country house and came up to London but rarely she was at Delmer when the murderer was committed and had been under the impression that her father was in Scotland according to a report received from the police at Delmer the first intimation that Miss Feubanks had received of the tragic death of her father came from them naturally she was prostrated with grieve at the tragedy the butler who had been left behind in charge of Riversbrook was a man named Hill but he was not in the house on the night of the tragedy he was a married man and his wife and child lived in Camden Town where Mrs Hill worked at a confectionery shop Hill's master had given him permission to live at home for three weeks while he was in Scotland the house in Tanton Gardens had been locked up and most of the valuables had been sent to the bank for safekeeping but there were enough portable articles of value in the house to make a good haul for any burglar Hill had instructions to visit the house three times a week for the purpose of seeing that everything was safe and in order he had inspected the place on Wednesday morning and everything was as it had been left when his master went to Scotland Sir Horace Feubanks had returned to London on Wednesday evening reaching St. Pancras by the 6.30 train Hill was unaware that his master was returning and the first he learned of the murder was the brief announcement in the evening papers on Thursday End of Chapter 2 of The Hampstead Mystery by John R. Watson and Arthur G. Rees Read by Lars Rolander Chapter 3 of The Hampstead Mystery This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Reading by Lars Rolander The Hampstead Mystery by John Watson and Arthur Rees Chapter 3 Inspector Chippenfield who had come into prominence in the newspapers as the man who had caught the gang who had stolen Lady Gladwell's jewels which included the most costly pearl necklace in the world was placed in charge of the case It was to his success in this famous case that he owed his promotion to Inspector He had the assistance of his subordinate Detective Rolf So generous were the newspaper references to the acumen of these two terrors of the criminal classes that it was to be assumed that anything which inadvertently escaped one of them would be pounced upon by the other On the morning after the discovery of the murdered man's body the two officers made their way to Tanton Gardens from the Hampstead Tube station Inspector Chippenfield was a stout man of middle age with a red face the color which seemed to be accentuated by the daily operation of removing every vestige of hair from it He had prominent grey eyes with which he was accustomed to stare fiercely when he decided to impress a suspected person with what some of the newspapers had referred to as his penetrating glance His companion Rolf was a tall, well-built man in the early 30s Like most men in a subordinate position Rolf had not a high opinion of the abilities of his immediate superiors He was sure that he could fill the place of any one of them better than it was filled by its occupant He believed that it was the policy of superiors to keep junior men back to stand in their light and to take all the credit for their work He was confident that he was destined to make a name for himself in the detective world if only he were given the chance When Inspector Chippenfield had visited Riversbrook the previous afternoon Rolf had not been selected as his assistant A careful inspection of the house and especially of the room in which the trident had been committed had been made by the inspector He had then turned his attention to the garden and the grounds surrounding the house Whatever he had discovered and what theories he had formed were not disclosed to anyone not even his assistant He believed that the proper way to train a subordinate was to let him collect his own information and then test it for him This method enabled him to profit by his subordinate's efforts and to display a superior knowledge when the other propounded a theory by which Inspector Chippenfield had also been misled When they arrived at the house in which the crime had been committed they found a small crowd of people ranging from feeble old women to babies in arms and including a large proportion of boys and girls of school age collected outside the gates staring intently through the bars towards the house which was almost hidden by trees The morbid crowd made way for the two officers and speculated on their mission The general impression was that they were the representatives of a fashionable firm of undertakers and had come to measure the victim for his coffin Inside the grounds the Scotland Yard officers encountered a police constable who was on guard for the purpose of preventing inquisitive strangers penetrating to the house Well, flak, said Inspector Chippenfield in a tone in which genealogy was slightly blended with official superiority How are you today? I'm very well indeed, sir replied the police constable He knew that the state of his health was not a matter of deep concern to the inspector but such is the vanity of human nature that he was pleased at the inquiry The fact that there was a murdered man in the house gave mournful emphasis to the transience of human life and made police constable flak feel a glow of satisfaction in being very well indeed Inspector Chippenfield hesitated a moment as if in deep thought The object of his hesitation was to give flak an opportunity of imparting any information that had come to him while on guard The inspector believed in encouraging people to impart information but regarded it as subversive of the respect due to him to appear to be in need of any As flak made no attempt to carry the conversation beyond the state of his health Inspector Chippenfield came to the conclusion that he was an extremely dull policeman He introduced flak to detective Rolf and explained to the latter Flak was on duty on the night of the murder but heard no shots Probably he was a mile or so away but in a way he discovered the crime Didn't you flak? When we rang up Saldon he came up here and brought flak with him He'll be only too glad to tell you anything you want to know Rolf took an official notebook from a breast pocket and proceeded to question the police constable The inspector made his way upstairs to the room in which the criminal had been committed for it was his system to seek inspiration in the scene of a crime Tanton Gardens, a short private street terminating in a cul-de-sac was in a remote part of Hampstead The daylight appearance of the street contained wealth and exclusiveness The roadway which ran between its broad white-graveled footwalks was smoothly asphalted for motor-tires The avenues of great chestnut trees which flanked the footpaths served the dual purpose of affording shade in summer and screening the houses of Tanton Gardens from view But after nightfall Tanton Gardens was a lonely and gloomy place The house was surrounded by one lamp which stood in the high-road moor to mark the entrance to the street then as a guide to traffic along it for its rays barely penetrated beyond the first pair of chestnut trees The houses in Tanton Gardens were in keeping with the street They indicated wealth and comfort They were of a solid exterior of a size that suggested a fine roominess in its own grounds Riversbrook was the last house at the blind end of the street and its east windows looked out on a wood which sloped down to a valley The street having originally been an incursion into a large private estate of which the wood alone remained On the other side a tangled nutwood copies separated the judge's residence from its nearest neighbors so the house was completely isolated It stood well back in about four acres of ground and only a glimpse of it could be seen from the street front because of a small plantation of ornamental trees which grew in front of the house and hid it almost completely from view When the carriage drive which wound through the plantation had been passed the house burst abruptly into view A big rambling building of uncompromising ugliness Its architecture was remarkable The impression which it conveyed was that the original builder had been prevented by lack of money from carrying out its original intention of erecting a fine symmetrical house The first story was well enough an imposing, massive, colonnaded front in the Greek style with marble pillars supporting the entrance but the two stories surmounting this failed lamentably to carry on the pretentious design Viewed from the front they looked as though the builder after erecting the first story had found himself in pecuniary straits but determined to finish his house somehow had built two smaller stories on the solid edifice of the first For the two second stories were not flush with the front of the house but rear themselves from several feet behind so that the occupants of the bedrooms on the first story could have used the intervening space as a balcony Viewed from the rear the architectural imperfections of the upper part of the house were in either stronger contrast with the ornamental first story Apparently the impiccunious builder by the time he had reached the rear had completely run out of funds for on the third floor he had failed altogether to build in one small room and had left the unfinished brickwork unplastered The large open space between the house and the fur plantation had once been laid out as an Italian garden at the cost of much time and money but Sir Horace Feubanks had lacked the taste or money to keep it up and had allowed it to become a luxuriant wildness though the sloping parters of the centre flowerbed still retained traces of their former beauty The small lake in the centre spanned by a rustic handbridge was still inhabited by a few specimens of the carp family sole survivors of the numerous goldfish with which the original designer of the garden had stocked the lake Sir Horace Feubanks had rented Riversbrook as a townhouse for some years before his death Having acquired the lease cheaply from the previous possessor a retired Indian civil servant who had taken a dislike to the place because his wife had gone insane within its walls Sir Horace had lived much in the house alone though each London season his daughter spent a few weeks with him in order to preside over a few society functions that her father felt it due to his position to give and which generally took the form of solemn dinners to which he invited some of his brother judges a few eminent barristers a few political friends and their wives but rumour had whispered that the judge and his daughter had not got on to world together that Miss Feubanks was a strange girl who did not care for society or the society functions which most girls of her age would have delighted him but preferred to spend a time on her father's country state taking an interest in the villagers or walking the countryside with half a dozen dogs at her eels Rumour had not spared the dead judge's name it was said of him that he was fond of lady's society and especially of ladies belonging to a type which he could not ask his daughter to meet that he used to go out motoring driving himself after other people were in bed and that strange scenes had taken place at Riversbrook Flack had told his wife on several occasions that he had heard sounds of wild laughter and rowdy singing coming from Riversbrook as he passed along the street on his beat in the small hours of the morning Several times in the early dawn Flack had seen two or three ladies in evening dress come down the carriage drive and enter a taxi cab which had been summoned by telephone End of Chapter 3 of The Hampstead Mystery by John Watson and Arthur Reese Read by Lars Rolander Chapter 4 of The Hampstead Mystery This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Reading by Lars Rolander The Hampstead Mystery by John Watson and Arthur Reese Chapter 4 When Rolf had finished questioning police Constable Flack and joined his chief upstairs the latter who had been going through the private papers in the murder man's desk in the hope of alighting on a clue to the crime received him genially Well, he said What do you think of Flack? Rolf had obtained from the police Constable a straightforward story of what he had seen and in this way had picked up some useful information about the crime which it would have taken a long time to extract from the inspector But he was a sufficiently good detective to have learnt that by dispersing the source of your information you add to your own reputation for acumen in drawing conclusions in regard to it He nodded his head in a depreciating way and emitted a slight cough which was meant to express contempt It looks very much like a case of burglary and murder, he said He was anxious to know what theory his superior officer had formed And how do you fit in the letter advising us of the murder? asked the inspector He produced the letter from his pocketbook and looked at it earnestly There were two of them in it One Savage Ruffian who will stick at nothing and the other a chicken-hearted specimen They often work in pairs like that So, your theory is that one of the two shot him and the other was so unnerved that he sent us the letter and put us on the track to save his own neck Something like that It is not impossible, was the senior officer's comment Mind you, I don't say it is my theory In fact, I'm in no hurry to form one I believe in going carefully over the whole ground first collecting all the clues and then selecting the right one Rolf admitted that his chief's way of setting to work to solve a mystery was an ideal one but he made the reservation that it was a difficult one to put into operation He was convinced that the only way of finding the right clue was to follow up every one until it was proved to be a wrong one Inspector Chippenfield continued his study of the mysterious message which had been sent to Scotland Yard It was written on a sheet of paper which had been taken from a writing pad of the kind sold for a few pens by all stationers It was flimsy and blue-lined The message it contained was smudged and badly printed But to the inspector's annoyance there were no fingerprints on the paper The fingerprint expert at Scotland Yard had examined it under the microscope but his search for fingerprints had been vain Depend upon it We'll hear from this chap again said the inspector, tapping the sheet of paper with a finger I think I may go so far as to say that this fellow thinks suspicion will be directed to him and he wants to save his neck It's a disguised hand, said Rolf Of course he printed it in order not to give us a specimen of his handwriting There are telltale things about a man's handwriting which give him away even when he tries to disguise it but he tries to disguise even his printing Look how irregular the letters are Some slanting to the right and some to the left and some are upright Look at the two different kinds of use He's used two different kinds of pens, said Inspector Chippenfield Look at the difference in the thickness of the letters The sooner he writes again, the better, said Rolf I'm curious to know what he'll say next My idea is to find out who he is and make him speak, said the inspector Speaking is quicker than writing I could frighten more out of him in ten minutes than he would give away voluntarily in a month or Sundays Again Rolf had to admit that his chief's plan to get the truth was an ideal one Have you any idea who he is, he asked Inspector Chippenfield had brought his methods too near to perfection to make it possible for him to fall into an open trap I won't be very long putting my hands on him, he said But this thing has been in the papers, said Rolf Don't you think the murderer will bolt out of the country when he knows his mate is prepared to turn King's evidence against him Ah, said Inspector Chippenfield I haven't adopted your theory Then you think that the man who wrote this note knew of the murderer but doesn't know who did it Now you are going too far, said Inspector Chippenfield The inspector was so wary about disclosing what was in his mind in regard to the letter that Rolf, who disliked his chief very cordially jumped to the conclusion that Inspector Chippenfield had no intelligible ideas concerning it If it was burglars, they took nothing as far as we can ascertain up to the present, said Inspector Chippenfield after a pause They were surprised to find anyone in the house and after the shot was fired they immediately bolted for fear that the noise would attract attention What knocks a hole in the burglar theory is the fact that Sir Horus was fully dressed when he was shot, said the inspector Burgars don't break into the house when there are lights about especially after having been led to believe that the house was empty So you think, said Rolf, that the window was forged after the murder with the object of misleading us? I haven't said so, replied the inspector All I'm prepared to say is that even that was not impossible It was forged from the outside, continued Rolf I've seen the marks of a gemmy on the windowsill If it was forged after the murder, the murderer was a cool hand You can take it from me, exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield with unexpected candor, that he was a cool hand We are going to have a bit of trouble in getting to the bottom of this, Rolf If anyone can get to the bottom of it, you can, said Rolf who believed with Voltaire that speech was given us in order to enable us to conceal our thoughts Inspector Chippenfield was so astonished at this handsome compliment that he began to think that he had underrated Rolf's powers of discernment His tone of cold official superiority immediately thought There were two shots fired, he said but whether both were fired by the murderer, I don't know yet One of them may have been fired by Sir Horace Just behind you in the wall is the mark of one of the bullets I dug it out of the plaster yesterday and here it is He produced from a waistcoat pocket a flatten bullet The other is inside him at present He waved his hand in the direction of the room in which the corpse lay Of course you cannot say whether both bullets are out of the same revolvers, said Rolf Can't tell till after the post mortem, said the inspector and then all we can tell for certain is whether they are of the same pattern They might be the same size and yet fired out of different revolvers of the same caliber Well, it's no use theorizing about what happened in this room until after the post mortem, said Rolf You'd better give it some thought, suggested the inspector In the meantime, I want you to interview the people in the neighborhood and ascertain whether they heard any shots They'll all say they did whether they heard them or not You know how people persuade themselves into imagining things so as to get some sort of prominence in these crimes But you can sift what they tell you and preserve the grain of truth Try and get them to be accurate as to the time as we want to fix the time of the crime as near as possible Ask Flak to tell you something about the neighbors He's been in this district fifteen years and ought to know all about them While you're away, I'll go through these private papers I want to find out why he came back from Scotland so suddenly If we knew that, the rest might be easy I haven't seen the body yet, said Rolf I'd like to look at it Where is it? I had it removed downstairs You will find it in a big room on the left as you go down the hall By the by, there is another matter, Rolf This glove was found in the room It may be a clue, but it is more likely that it is one of Sir Horace's gloves and that he lost the other one on his way up from Scotland It's a left-hand glove Men always lose the right-hand glove because they take it off so often I've compared it with other gloves in Sir Horace's wardrobe and I find it is the same size and much the same quality But find out from Sir Horace's hoiser if he sold it Here's the address of the hoiser Bruden and Marshall in the strand Rolf went slowly downstairs into the room in which the corpse lay and closed the door behind him It was a very large room overlooking the garden on the right side of the house Somebody had lowered the Venetian blinds as a conventional intimation to the outside world that the house was one of mourning and the room was almost dark For nearly a minute Rolf stood in silence his hand resting on the knob of the door he had closed behind him Gradually the outline of the room and the objects within it began to reveal themselves in shadowy shape as his eyes became accustomed to the dim light He had a growing impression of a big lofty room with heavy furniture and a huddle-up figure lying on a couch at the end furthest from the window and deepest in shadow He stepped across to the window and gently raised one of the blinds The light of an august sun penetrated through the screen of trees in front of the house and revealed the interior of the room more clearly Rolf was amazed at its size From the window to the couch at the other end of the room where the body lay was nearly 30 feet Glancing down the apartment he noticed that it was really two rooms divided in the middle by folding doors These doors folded neatly into a slightly protruding ridge of ore arch almost opposite the door by which he had entered and was screened from observation by heavy damask curtains which drooped of the archway slightly into the room Evidently the deceased judge had been in the habit of using the divided rooms as a single apartment for the heavier furniture in both halves of it was of the same pattern The chairs and tables were of heavy ponderous mid-Victorian make and they were matched by a number of old-fashioned mahogany sideboards and presses arranged methodically at regular intervals on both sides of the room Rolf as his eye took in these articles wondered why Sir Horace few banks had bought so many One sideboard, a vast piece of furniture fully eight feet long had a whiskey decanter and siphon of soda water on it as though Sir Horace had served himself with refreshments on his return to the house The tops of the other sideboards were bare and the presses used in such a room Rolf was at a loss to conjecture were locked up The antique somber uniformity of the furniture as a whole was broken at odd intervals by several articles of bizarre modernity including a few daring French prints which struck an odd note of incongruity in such a room The murdered man had been laid on an old-fashioned sofa at the end of this double apartment which was furthest from the window Rolf walked slowly over the thick turkey carpets and rugs with which the floor was covered glanced at the sofa curiously and then turned down the sheet from the dead man's face At the time of his death Sir Horace few banks was 58 years of age but since death the gray bristles had grown so rapidly through his clean-shaven face that he looked much older The face showed none of the wanted placidity of death The mouth was twisted in an ugly fashion as though the murdered man had endeavored to cry for help and had been attacked and killed while doing so One of Sir Horace's arms, the right one, was thrust forward diagonally across his breast as if in self-defense and the hand was tightly clenched Rolf would last seen his honour presiding on the bench in the full pomp and majesty of law felt a chill strike his heart and the fell power of death which did not even respect the person of a high court judge and had stripped him of every vestige of human dignity in the pangs of a violent end The face he had last seen on the bench full of wisdom and austerity of the law was now distorted into a living mask in which it was hard to trace any semblance of the features of the dead judge Rolf's official alertness of mind in the face of a mysterious crime soon reasserted itself, however and he shook off the feeling of sentiment and proceeded to make a closer examination of the dead body As he turned down the sheet to examine the wound that ended the judge's life it slipped from his hand and fell on the floor revealing that a judge had been laid on the couch just as he had been killed, fully closed He had been shot through the body near the heart and a large patch of blood had welled from the wound and congealed in his shirt One trouser leg was ruffled up and had caught in the top of the boot The corpse presented a repellent spectacle but Rolf who had seen unpleasant sights of various kinds in his career bent over the body with keen interest noting these details with all his professional instinct aroused for though Rolf had not yet risen very high in the police force he had many of the qualities which make the good detective observation, sagacity and some imagination The extraordinary crime which he had been called upon to help Unravel presented a baffling mystery which was likely to test the value of these qualities to the utmost Rolf looked steadily at the corpse for some time impressing a picture of it in every detail on his mental retina struck by an idea he bent over and touched the patch of blood in the dead man's breast then looked at his finger there was no stain the blood was quite congealed then he tried to unclench the judge's right hand but it was rigid As Rolf stood there gazing intently at the corpse and trying to form some theory of the reason for the murder certain old stories he had heard of Sir Horace Feubank's private life and character recurred to him these rumours had not been much a jocular hint or two among his fellows at Scotland Yard that his honour had a weakness for a pretty face and in private life led a less decorous existence than a judge ought to do Rolf wondered how much or how little truth was contained in these stories he glanced around the vast room certainly it was not the sort of apartment in which a high court judge might be expected to do his entertaining but Rolf recalled that he had heard gossip to the effect that Sir Horace because of his virtual estrangement from his daughter did very little entertaining beyond an occasional bridge or supper party to his sporting friends and rarely went into society Rolf began to scrutinise the articles of furniture in the room wondering if there was anything about them that might reveal something of the habits of the dead man he produced a small electric torch from his pocket and with his light to guide him in the half darkened room he closely inspected each piece of furniture then with a torch in his hand he returned to the sofa and flashed it over the dead body he started violently when the light falling on the dead man's closed hand revealed a tiny scrap of white eagerly he endeavoured to release the fragment from the tenacious clutch of the dead without tearing it and eventually he managed to detach it his heart bounded when he saw that it was a small torn piece of a lace and muslin he placed it in the palm of his left hand and examined it closely under the light of his torch to him it looked to be part of a fashion of a lady's dainty handkerchief he was elated at his discovery and he wondered how Inspector Chippenfield had overlooked it then the explanations struck him the small piece of lace and muslin had been effectively hidden in the dead man's clenched hand and his efforts to open the hand had loosened it well Rolf said Inspector Chippenfield when his subordinatory appeared you've been long enough to have unearthed the criminal or revived the corpse have you discovered anything fresh? only this replied Rolf displaying the piece of handkerchief the fine startled Inspector Chippenfield out of his air of bantering superiority 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 what promised to be an important clue especially after the clue had been missed by himself but he congratulated Rolf in a tone of fixtures heartiness well done Rolf he exclaimed you are coming on anyone can see you've the makings of a good detective Rolf could afford you 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 scrap of lace in muslin there can't be much doubt about that replied Rolf we mustn't be in a hurry in jumping to conclusions remarked Inspector no and we mustn't ignore obvious facts said Rolf 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 and 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 scrap of handkerchief in the dead man's hand he felt that he was not making much progress in 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 Rolf admitted that goes by the board End of Chapter 4 of the Hampstead Mystery by John Watson and Arthur Rees Read by Lars Rolander Chapter 5 of the Hampstead Mystery This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Reading by Lars Rolander The Hampstead Mystery by John Watson and Arthur Rees Chapter 5 What is your name? James Hill sir That is an alias What is your real name? Inspector Chippenfield cleared 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 summons and he took from it a photograph and he handed it to the man he was interrogating Is that your photograph? he asked Police photographs taken in jail 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 putting him through the criminal court into jail He made the same reply Yes sir I'm glad to see your Berminio 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 endorsement 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 viticis 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 the 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 He 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 are exclaimed inspector Chippenfield in astonishment And he took you into 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 he 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 While 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? The butler was startled by the suddenness of the accusation As inspector Chippenfield intended he should be Me? he exclaimed As sure as there is a God in heaven I have nothing to do with it That won't go down with me field Said the police officer Giving the wretched man another prolonged penetrating look It's true, it's true He protested wildly I had nothing to do with it I couldn't do a thing like that sir I couldn't kill a man if I wanted to I haven't the nerve But I knew I would be suspected He added in a tone of self-pity Oh, you did! replied inspector Chippenfield And why was that? Because of my past Where were you on the date of the murder? In the morning I came over here to look round as usual And I found everything all right You did that every day while Sir Horace was away? Not every day sir Three times a week, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays Did you enter the house or just look round? I always came inside What for? To make quite sure that everything was all right And was everything all right the morning of the 18th? Yes sir You are quite sure of that You looked round carefully Well sir, I just gave a glance round For of course I didn't expect anything would be wrong Inspector Chippenfield fixed a steady glance On the butler to ascertain If he was conscious of the trap he had avoided Did you look in this room? Yes sir, I made a point of looking in all the rooms You are sure that Sir Horace's dead body wasn't lying here? Inspector Chippenfield pointed beside the desk Where the body had been found Oh no sir, I'd have seen it if it had There was no sign anywhere of his having returned from Scotland No sir You didn't know he was returning? No sir What time did you leave the house? It would be about a quarter past twelve sir And what did you do after that? I went home and had my dinner In the afternoon I took my little girl to the zoo I'd promised her for a long time that I would take her to the zoo And what did you do after visiting the zoo? We went home for supper After supper my wife took the little girl to the picture palace in Camden Road It was quite a holiday sir for her And what did you do while your wife and child were at the pictures? I stayed at home and mined the shop When they came home we all went to bed My wife will tell you the same thing I'm no doubt she will said the inspector dryly Well, if you didn't murder Sir Horace yourself When did you first hear that he had been murdered? I saw it in the papers yesterday evening And you immediately came up here to see if it was true? Yes sir And you were taken to the Hamstead police station To make a statement as to your movements on the day and night of the murder? Yes sir And the story you have just told me about zoo and the pictures and the rest Is virtually the same as the statement you made at the station? Yes sir Do you know if Sir Horace kept a revolver? I think he did sir Where did he keep it? In the second drawer of his desk sir Well, it's gone remarked inspector Chippenfield without opening the drawer What sort of a revolver was it? Did you ever see it? You know he kept one Once or twice I saw something that looked like a revolver in that drawer While Sir Horace had it open It was a small nickel revolver Sir Horace always locked his desk? Yes sir None of your keys will open it of course? No sir That is I don't know sir I've never tried Inspector Chippenfield grunted slightly He had trapped the butler had not seen until too late But of course all servants went through their master's private papers When they got the chance Do you know if Sir Horace was in the habit of carrying a pocketbook? He asked Yes sir he was What sort of a pocketbook? A large Russian leather one with a gold clasp Did he take it away with him when he went to Scotland? Did you see it about the house after he left? No sir I think he took it with him It would not be like him to forget it or to leave it lying about And what sort of a man was Sir Horace Field? A very good master sir He could be very stern when he was angry but I got on very well with him Quite so Do you know if he had a weakness for the ladies? Well sir I've heard people say he had I want your own opinion I don't want what other people said You were with him for three years and kept a pretty close watch on him I've no doubt Spaking confidentially I might say that I think he was said he He glanced apprehensively behind him As if afraid of the dead man appearing at the door to rebuke him For presuming to speak ill of him I thought as much said the inspector Have you any idea why he came down from Scotland? No sir Well that will do for the present field If I want you again I'll send for you Thank you sir May I ask a question sir? What is it? You don't really think I had anything to do with it sir? I'm not here Field to tell you what I think This much I will say If I find you have tried to deceive me in any way It will be a bad day for you Yes sir Grave, taciturn, watchful, secret and suave With an appearance of tightly reticence about him Which a perpetual faint questioning look in his eyes denied He looked an ideal man sir Who knew his station in life And was able to uphold it with meek dignity From the top of his trimly cut grey crown To his neatly shot silent feet He exuded deference and respectability His impassive mask of a face was incapable Apart from the faint query note in the eyes Of betraying any of the feelings or emotions Which ruffle the countenances of common humanity On the way downstairs He saw police constable flak in conversation with the lady at the front door The lady was well known to the butler as Mrs. Hollamed The wife of a distinguished barrister Who had been one of his master's closest friends She seemed glad to see the butler For she greeted him with a remark that seems to imply a kinship in sorrow Isn't this a dreadful thing, Hill? she said It's terrible, madam Replied Hill respectfully Mrs. Hollamed was extremely beautiful But it was obvious that she was distressed at the tragedy For her eyes were full of tears And her olive-tinted face was pale She was about thirty years of age Tall, slim, and graceful Her beauty was of the Spanish type Straight-browed, lustrous-eyed, and vivid A clear olive skin and full, petulant, crimson lips She was fashionably dressed in black with a black hat The policeman tells me that Miss Feubanks has not come up from Delmer yet, she continued No, madam, we expect her tomorrow I believe Miss Feubanks has been too prostrated to come Dreadful, dreadful, murmured Mrs. Hollamed I feel I want to know all about it And yet I'm afraid it's all too terrible for words It has been a terrible shock, madam, said Hill Has the housekeeper come up, Hill? No, madam, she will be up tomorrow with Miss Feubanks Well, is there nobody I can see? Asked Mrs. Hollamed Police constable Flack was impressed by the spectacle Of a beautiful, fashionably dressed lady in distress The inspector in charge of the case is upstairs, madam He suggested, perhaps you'd like to see him It suddenly occurred to him that he had instructions Not to allow any stranger into the house And police instructions at such a time Were of a nature which classed a friend of the family As a stranger Perhaps I'd better ask him first, he added And he went upstairs with a feeling That he had laid himself open to severe official censure From Inspector Chippenfield He came downstairs with a smile on his face And the message that the inspector would be pleased to see Mrs. Hollamed In his brief interview with his superior He had contrived to convey the unofficial information That Mrs. Hollamed was a fine-looking woman And he had no doubt that Inspector Chippenfield's readiness to see her Was due to the impression this information had made On his unofficial feelings Mrs. Hollamed was conducted upstairs And announced by the butler Inspector Chippenfield greeted her with a low bow Of conscious inferiority And anticipated Hill in placing a chair for her His large red face went a deeper scarlet in colour As he looked at her Flack tells me that you are a friend of the family Mrs. Hollamed What is it that I can do for you? I need scarcely say, Mrs. Hollamed That your distinguished husband is well known to us all I have had the pleasure of being cross-examined by him On several occasions Anything you wish to know, I'll be pleased to tell you If it lies within my power Thank you, said Mrs. Hollamed She seemed to be slightly nervous In the presence of a member of the Scotland Yard Police In spite of his obvious humility In the company of a fashionable lady He belonged to a different social world from that In which police inspectors moved It took Inspector Chippenfield some minutes To discover that the object of Mrs. Hollamed's visit Was to learn some of the details of the tragedy As one who had known the murdered man for several years And the wife of his intimate friend She was overwhelmed by the awful tragedy She endeavoured to explain The crime was like a horrible dream Which she could not get rid of But in spite of the repugnance With which she contemplated the fact That a gentleman she had known so well Had been shot down in his own house She felt a natural curiosity to know How the dreadful crime had been committed Inspector Chippenfield availed himself Of the opportunity to the honours of the occasion He went over the details of the tragedy And pointed out where the body had been found He showed her the bullet mark on the wall And the flattened bullet which had been extracted Although from the mere habit of official caution He gave away no information Which was not of a superficial and obvious kind It was apparent he liked talking about the crime And his responsibilities as the officer Who had been placed in charge of the investigations He noted the interest Which Mrs. Hollamied followed his words And he was satisfied that he had created A favourable impression on her It was his desire to do the honours thoroughly Which led him to remark after he had given her The main facts of the tragedy I am sorry I cannot take you to view the body It is downstairs but the fact is The home office doctors are in there Making the post mortem to extract the bullet Mrs. Hollamied shuddered at this information The fact that such gruesome work As a post mortem examination Was proceeding on the body of a man Whom she had known so well Brought on a fit of nausea Her head fell back as if she was about to faint Can I have a glass of water? She whispered A fainting woman If she is beautiful and fashionably dressed Or even a resourceful police official Had she been one of the servants Inspector Chippenfield would have rang the bell For a glass of water to throw over her face And meantime would have looked on calmly At such evidence of the weakness of sex But in this case he dashed out of the room Ran downstairs, shouted for hill Ordered him to find a glass Snatched the glass from him, filled it with water And dashed upstairs again His absence from the room Totaled a little less than three minutes And when he held the glass to the lady's lips He was out of breath with his exertions Mrs. Hollamied took a sip of water Shuddered, took another sip Then heaved a sigh and opened To the full extent her large dark eyes On the man bending over her Who felt amply repaid by such a glance She thanked him prettily for his great kindness And took her departure, being conducted downstairs And to her waiting motor car at the gate By Inspector Chippenfield That officer went back to the house With a pleased smile on his features But he would not have been so pleased with himself If he had known that his brief absence From the room of the tragedy For the purpose of obtaining a glass of water More than sufficient to enable the lady To run to the open desk of the murdered man Touched a spring which opened a secret Receptible at the back of it Extract a small bundle of papers Close the spring and return to her chair To await in a fainting attitude The return of the chivalrous police officer Mrs. Hollamied's return to her home in Princess Gate Was awaited with feverish anxiety By one of the inmates This was mademoiselle Gabrielle Chiron A French girl of about 28 Who was a distant connection Of Mrs. Hollamied's by marriage A cousin of Mrs. Hollamied's Had married Lucille Chiron The younger sister of Gabrielle Two years ago Mrs. Hollamied on visiting the French Provincial Town Where the marriage was celebrated Was attracted by Gabrielle As the Chiron family were not wealthy They welcomed the friendship between Gabrielle And the beautiful American Who had married one of the leading barristers In London And finally Gabrielle Went to live with Mrs. Hollamied As a companion From the window of an upstairs room Which commanded a view of the street Gabrielle Chiron waited impatiently For the return of the motor car In which Mrs. Hollamied Had driven to Riversbrook When at length it turned the corner And came into view She rushed downstairs to meet Mrs. Hollamied She opened the street door Before the lady of the house could ring Her gaze was fixed on the handbag Which Mrs. Hollamied carried A comparatively big handbag Which the lady had taken the precaution To purchase before driving out To Riversbrook The French girl's face Lighted up with a smile As she saw by the shape of the bag Was not empty Have you got them? She whispered Yes, was the reply I followed out your plan It worked without a hitch Ah, I knew you would manage it Said the girl I would have gone But it was best that you should go These police agents do not like foreigners They would be suspicious if I had gone There was a big red-faced man in charge Inspector Chippenfiel, they called him, said Mrs. Hollamied He was in the library as you said he would be He was sitting there calmly as if he did not know What nerves were He knew me as a friend of the family And was quite nice to me I saw as soon as I went in That the desk was open He had been examining Sir Horace's private papers I asked him to tell me about the About the tragedy He piled horror on horror And then I pretended to faint He ran downstairs for a glass of water And that gave me time to open the secret drawer They are here, she added Patting the handbag affectionately Let us go upstairs and burn them End of Chapter 5 of The Hampstead Mystery By John Watson and Arthur Rees Read by Lars Rolander Chapter 6 of The Hampstead Mystery This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit LibriVox.org Reading by Lars Rolander The Hampstead Mystery By John Watson and Arthur Rees Chapter 6 There was unpleasant news for Inspector Chipmanfield When Miss Fewbanks arrived at Riversbrook Accompanied by the housekeeper Mrs. Euston In the first place he learned With considerable astonishment That it was Miss Fewbanks' intention To stay in the house until after the funeral And for that purpose she had brought the housekeeper To keep her company in the lonely old place Although they had taken up their quarters In the opposite wing of the rambling mansion To that in which the dead body lay It seemed to Inspector Chipmanfield Whose mind was very impressionable Where the fair sex was concerned That Miss Fewbanks must be a very peculiar girl To contemplate staying in the same house With the body of her murdered father For nearly a week He was convinced that she must be A strong-minded young woman And he did not like strong-minded young women He preferred the weak and clinging type Of the sex as more of a compliment To his own sturdy manliness His unfavorable impression of Miss Fewbanks Was steepened when he saw her And heard what she had to tell him The girl had come up from the country Filled with horror at the crime Which had depraved her of her father And firmly determined to leave no stone unturned To bring the murderer to justice It was true that she and her father Had lived on terms of partial estrangement For some time past because of his manner of life But all the girl's feelings Of resentment against him had been swept away By the news of his dreadful death And all she remembered now was that He was her father and had been brutally murdered When she sent for Inspector Chippenfield She had visited the room in which Lay the body of her father It had been placed in a coffin Which was resting on the undertaker's trestles In the bay and pressure, the big room With the folding doors There was nothing in the appearance of the corpse To suggest that a crime had been committed But it had been impossible for the undertaker's men To erase entirely the distortion of the features So that they might suggest the cold, calm Dignity of a peaceful death The ordeal of looking on the dead body of her father Had nerved her to carry through Resolutely the task of discovering The author of the crime She evaded the coming of the Inspector In a small sitting room And when he entered, she pointed quickly to a chair But remained standing herself In appearance, his few banks was a charming girl Of the typical English type She was a medium height, slight but well built With fair hair and dark blue eyes An imperious short upper lip and a determined chin And the clear healthy complexion of a girl Who slid much out of doors The Inspector noted all these details Noted too that although her breast heaved With agitation, she had herself well under control Her pretty head was erect And one of her small hands was tightly clenched by her side Have you found out anything? She asked the Inspector as he entered The girl had chosen a vague word Because she felt that there were many things Which must come to light in unravelling the crime But from the police point of view of Inspector Chippenfield The question whether he had found out anything Was a stinging reflection on his ability I consider it inadvisable to make any arrest At the present stage of my investigations He said with cold official dignity Do you think you know who did it? Asked the girl It is my business to find out Replied the Inspector in a voice that indicated Confidence in his ability to perform the task The girl was too unsophisticated To follow the subtle workings of his official pride The papers call it a mysterious crime Do you think it is mysterious? There are certainly some mysterious features about it Said the Inspector But I do not regard them as insoluble Nothing is insoluble He added in a centenuous tone If there are mysteries to be solved You ought to have a help Said the young lady She glanced at Mrs. Euston significantly And then proceeded to explain To Inspector Chippenfield what she meant I have asked Mr. Crew the celebrated detective To assist you Of course you know Mr. Crew everybody does I know you are a very clever man at your profession But in a thing of this kind Two clever men are better than one I hope you will not mind There is no reflection whatever on your ability In fact I have the outmost confidence in you But it is due to my father's memory to do all that is possible To get to the bottom of this dreadful crime If money is needed it will be forthcoming That applies to you no less than to Mr. Crew But I hope you will be able to carry out Your investigations amicably together And that you will be willing to assist one another You will lose nothing by doing so I trust you will place at Mr. Crew's disposal The facilities that are available to you As an officer of the police This statement was so clear that Inspector Chippenfield had no choice But to face the conclusion That Ms. Feubanks had more faith in the abilities Of a private detective to unravel the mystery Than she had in the resources of Scotland Yard He would have liked to have told the young lady What he thought of her interfering with this work And he determined to avail himself Of the right opportunity to do so If it came along But the statement that money was not to be spared Had a soothing influence on his feelings Of course officers of Scotland Yard Were not allowed to take gratitudes However substantial they might be But there were material ways of expressing Gratitude which were outside The regulation of the department I shall be very pleased to give Mr. Crew Any assistance he wants Said Inspector Chippenfield bowing stiffly It was seldom that he took a subordinate Full into his confidence But after he left Ms. Feubanks He flung aside his official pride In order to discuss with Rolf The enlistment on the services of Crew Rolf was no less indignant than his chief At the intrusion of an outsider Into their swear Crew was an exponent Of the detective school of crime investigation And had first achieved fame Over the Abinon case some years ago When he had succeeded in restoring The kidnapped heir of the Abinon estates After the police had failed to trace The missing child In detective stories The attitude of members of Scotland Yard To the deductive expertise That of admiration Based on conscious inferiority But in real life The experts of Scotland Yard Have the outmost contempt For the deductive experts and their methods The disdainful pity of the deductive experts For the rule of thumb methods of the police Is not to be compared With the vigorous scorn of the official detective For the rival who has not had The benefit of police training Look here, Rolf, said Inspector Chippenfield We mustn't let Crew get ahead of us in this affair Or we'll never hear the last of it It is scandalous of a man like Crew Who has money of his own And could live like a gentleman Coming along and taking the bread out of our mouths By accepting fees and rewards For hunting after criminals Of course, I know They say he's lavish with his money And gives away more than he earns But that's all posh He sticks it in his own pocket right enough One thing is certain He gets paid whether he wins or loses That is to say, he gets his fee in any case But, of course, if he wins something Will be added to his fee In the meantime, all you and I Get is our salaries And, as you know, the pay of an inspector Isn't what it ought to be Rolf assured his superior of his own conviction That the pay at Scotland Yard ought to be higher For all ranks, especially the rank and file He also declared that he was ready to do His best to thwart Crew That is the right spirit Commented Inspector Chippenfield approvingly Of course we'll tell him We're willing to help him all we can And, of course, he'll tell us That we can depend on his help But we know what his help will amount to He'll keep back from us anything he finds out And we'll do the same for him But the point is, Rolf, that you and I Have to put all our brains into this And help one another I'm not the man to despise help from a subordinate If you have any ideas about this case, Rolf Do not be afraid to speak out I'll give them sympathetic consideration I know you will, said Rolf Who was by no means sure of the fact You can count on me As you know, Rolf There have been cases in which men from the yard Haven't worked together as they ought to have done It used to be said When I was one of the plainclothes men That the man in charge got all the credit And the men under him did all the work But, as an inspector, I can tell you That is very rarely the case In my reports, I believe in giving my junior credit For all he has done And generally a bit more It may be foolish of me But that is my way I never miss a chance of putting in a good word For the man under me It would be better if they were all like that, said Rolf Well, it's a bargain, Rolf, said the inspector Chip and Field You do your best on this job And you won't lose by it I'll see to that But in the meantime, we don't want to put crew on the scent Let us see how much we tell him And how much we won't He'll want to see the letter sent to the yard About the murder, said Rolf The daily recorder published a fax-a-mill Of it this morning Yes, I know about that Well, he can have it But don't say anything to him about the lace You found in the dead man's hand Or at any rate, not until you find out more about it The glove he can have Since it's pretty obvious that it belonged to Sir Horace We'll spin crew a charm That we are depending on it as a clue Crew arrived during the afternoon To inspect the house and the room In which the crime had been committed There was every appearance of cordiality In the way in which he greeted the police officials Delighted to see you, Inspector, he said Who is working this case with you? Rolf, don't think we have met before Rolf, have we? Rolf politely murmured something about Not having had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Crew But of always having wanted to meet him Because of his fame Very good of you, replied Crew This is a very sad business I understand there are some attractive points Of mystery in the crime I hope you haven't unraveled it yet Before I have got a start Your fellows are so quick Slow and sure is our motto Said Inspector Chippenfield Feeling certain that a sneer And not a compliment had been intended There is nothing to be gained In arresting the wrong man That's a sound maxim for us all, said Crew However, let's get to business I rang up the jar this morning And they told me you were in charge of the case And that I'd probably find you here Can you let me have a look at the original of that letter Which was sent to Scotland Yard In forming you of the murder There is a faxing meal of it In the daily recorder this morning And from all appearances There are some interesting conclusions To be drawn from it But the original is the thing Here you are, said the Inspector Producing his pocketbook Taking out the paper and handing it to Crew What do you make out of it? Crew sat down And placing the paper before him Took a magnifying glass from his pocket As he sat there in his grey tweed suit His hat pushed carelessly back from his forehead He might have been mistaken for a young man of wealth With no serious business in life For his clothes were of a fashionable cut And he wore them with an air of distinction But a glance at his face Would have dispelled the impression The clear-cut clean-shaven features Riveted attention by reason Of their strength and intelligence And though the dark eyes Were rather too dreamy for the face The lines of the lower jaw Indicated the man of action And force of character The thick neck and heavily lipped firm mouth Suggested tireless energy And abounding vitality At least two peoples have had a hand in it He said after studying the paper for a few minutes In the murder Asked the Inspector who was astonished At a deduction which harmonized with a theory That began to take shape in his mind In writing this said Kru With his attention still fixed on the paper But of course you know that yourself Of course a cent in the Inspector Was surprised at the information But was too experienced and official To show his feelings And both hands disguised Disguised to the extent Of being printed in written characters Continued Kru Is so seldom that a person writes printed characters That any method in which they are written Suggests disguise The original intention of the two persons Who wrote this extraordinary note Was for each to write a single letter in turn That system was carried as far as Sir Horace Or perhaps up to the B in few banks After that they became wary of changing places And one of them wrote alternate letters to the end Leaving blanks for the other to fill in That much is to be gathered from the variations In the spaces between the letters Sometimes there was too much room for an intermediate letter Sometimes too little So the letter had to be cramped Here and there are dots made with a pen As the first of the two spelled out the words So as to know what letters to write And what to leave blank Look at the differences in the letter U One of the writers makes it a firm downward And upward stroke The other makes the letter fainter And adds another downward stroke The letter being more like a small U Written larger than a capital letter The differences in the two hands are so pronounced Throughout the note that I am inclined to think That one of the writers was a woman Exactly what I thought Said the inspector Chip and Feed Looking hard at crew so that the letter Should not question his good faith Then there are sometimes slight differences In the alternate letters written by the same hand Look at the T in last And the T in night The marked variation in the length An angle of the cross-stroke It is evident that the writers will Laboring under serious excitement When they wrote this Rolf was so interested in crew's revelations That he stood beside the deductive expert And studied the paper afresh And now about fingerprints Asked crews None was to the reply of the inspector We had it under the microscope At Scotland Yard None exclaimed crew in surprise Why adopt such precautions as wearing gloves To write a note giving away this starting secret Easy enough Replied inspector Chip and Feed The people who wrote the note Either had little or nothing to do with the murder But were afraid suspicion might be directed to them Or else they are the murderers And want to direct suspicion from themselves And now for the bullets said crew I understand two shots were fired From two revolvers said the inspector Here are both bullets This one I picked out of the wall over there You can see where I've broken away the plaster This one, much the bigger one of the two Was the one that killed Sir Horace The doctor handed it to me after the post-mortem Did Sir Horace keep a revolver? The bottle says yes But if he did it's gone Crew stood up and examined the hole in the wall Where Inspector Chip and Feed had dug out the smaller bullet Sir Horace made a bid for his life But missed Of course he had no time to take aim While there was a man on the other side of the room Covering him But in any case those fancy firearms Cannot be depended upon to shoot straight You think Sir Horace fired first, Astrolph? This small bullet suggests one of those fancy silver-mounted weapons That are made to sell to wealthy people Sir Horace was a bit of a sportsman And knew something about game shooting But I take it he had no use for a revolver I assume he kept one of those fancy weapons on hand Thinking he would never have to use it But that it would do to frighten a burglar If the occasion did arise And when he was held up in this room By a man with a revolver He made a dash for his own revolver And got in the first shot Suggested Rolf with the idea of outlining Crew's theory of how the crime was committed It is scarcely possible to reconstruct the crime To that extent said crew with a smile But undoubtedly Sir Horace got in the first shot If he fired after he was hit His bullet would have gone wild Would probably have struck the ceiling Whereas it landed there Let us measure the height from the floor He pulled a small spool out of a waistcoat pocket And drew out a tape measure A little high for the heart of an average man And probably a foot wide off the mark And what do you make of the disappearance Of Sir Horace's revolver Astrolf who seemed to his superior officer To be in danger of displaying some admiration For the deductive methods I'm now good at guys work Replied through who felt that he had Given enough information away Sir Horace said Rolf Here is a glove which was found in the room The other one is missing It might be a clue Crew took the glove And examined it carefully It was a left hand glove Made of reindeer skin And grey in color It bore evidence of having been in use But it was still a smart looking glove Such as a man who took a pride In his appearance might wear Burglars wear gloves nowadays It's true, but not this kind The Indio rubber glove With only the thumb separate Is best for their work They give freedom of action for the fingers And leave no fingerprints Have you made inquires Whether this is one of Sir Horace's gloves? Well, it is the same size as he wore Seven and a half, said Inspector Chippenfield The butler is the only servant here And he can't say for certain That it belonged to his master I've been through Sir Horace's wardrobe And through the suit case He brought from Scotland But I can find no other pair exactly similar Rolf took it to Sir Horace's hoiser And he is practically certain That the glove is one of a pair He sold to Sir Horace That should be conclusive Said crew thoughtfully So I think, replied the Inspector Well, I'll take it with me If you don't mind, said crew You can have it back whenever you want Let me have the address of Sir Horace's hoiser I'll give them a call Take it by all means Said the Inspector cordially Referring to the glove And with a wink at Rolf he added And when you are ready to fit it On the guilty hand I hope you will let us know End of Chapter 6 Of The Hampstead Mystery By John Watson And Arthur Rees Read by Lars Rulander