The Hampstead Mystery (Thriller Novel). Arthur J. Rees
to the front door to admit Flack.
"That is enough of that noise, Flack," 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 of 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 its 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 awry 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 at the curtain in passing, almost dragging it from the pole 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 bookshelves. 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 huddled 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 a 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 arm-chair. Instinctively Flack walked on tiptoe to his chief.
"Is he 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."
CHAPTER II
"Six-thirty edition: High Court Judge murdered!"
It was not quite 5 p.m., but the enterprising section of the London evening newspapers had their 6.30 editions on sale in the streets. To such a pitch had the policy of giving the public what it wants been elevated that the halfpenny newspapers were able to give the people of London the news each afternoon a full ninety 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 on 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 Law 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 aim 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 Court was destined to grow and to be fed by unexpected developments, the changing phases of which monopolised 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 "stop press news," beneath some late horse-racing results. The _Evening Courier,_ which was first in the streets with the news, made its announcement of the crime in the following brief paragraph:
"The dead body of Sir Horace Fewbanks, the distinguished High Court judge, was found by the police at his home, Riversbrook in Tanton Gardens, Hampstead, to-day. 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 was scarce and the papers vied 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 Riversbrook 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 Fewbanks had been murdered, and the mystery surrounding the sudden return of Sir Horace from Scotland to his town house. 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 murderer time to get out of England. Was he not afraid of the vengeance the actual murderer would endeavour to exact for this disclosure which would enable the police to take measures to prevent his escape?
No light was thrown on the cause of the murdered man's sudden return from 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 Craigleith 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