"Perhaps so," said Rolfe, "but the possession of handkerchiefs of this kind is surely suspicious when taken in conjunction with her removal of the letters. I wish I could get hold of that infernal scoundrel Hill again. I am convinced that he knows a great deal more about this murder than he has yet told us, and a great deal more about Mrs. Holymead and her letters. I've had his shop watched day and night since he disappeared, but he keeps close to his burrow, and I've not been able to get on his track."
"I'd give up watching for him if I were you," said Crewe, as he flicked the ash of his cigar into the fireplace. "You're not likely to find him now. As a matter of fact, he has left the country."
"Hill left the country?" echoed Rolfe. "I think you are mistaken there,
Mr. Crewe. He had no money; how could he get away?"
Crewe selected another cigar from his case and lighted it before answering.
"The fact is, I advanced him the money," he said. "Technically it's a loan, but I do not think any of it will be paid back."
Rolfe stared hard at Crewe to see if he was joking.
"What on earth made you do that?" he demanded at length. "Hill may be the actual murderer for all we know."
"Not at all," was the reply. "Before I helped him to leave England I satisfied myself that he had absolutely nothing to do with the murder. He does not know who shot Sir Horace Fewbanks, though, of course, he still half believes that it was Birchill. When I got in touch with him after his disappearance he was in a pitiable state of fright—waking or sleeping, he couldn't get his mind off the gallows. There were two or three points on which I wanted his assistance in clearing up the Riversbrook case, and I promised to get him out of the country if he would make a clean breast of things and tell me the truth as far as he knew it. He made a confession—a true one this time. I took it down and I'll let you have a copy. There are a few interesting points on which it differs materially from the statement he made to the police when you and Chippenfield cornered him."
"What are they?" asked Rolfe.
"In the first place the burglary was his idea, and not Birchill's," replied Crewe. "After the quarrel between Sir Horace and the girl Fanning, he went out to her flat and suggested to Birchill that he should rob Riversbrook. Hill's real object in arranging this burglary was to get possession of the letters which Mrs. Holymead subsequently removed, but he did not tell Birchill this. His plan was to go to Riversbrook the morning after the burglary and then break open Sir Horace's desk and open the secret drawer before informing the police of the burglary. To the police and Sir Horace it would look as though the burglar had accidentally found the spring of the secret drawer. With these letters in his possession Hill intended to blackmail Sir Horace, or Mrs. Holymead, without disclosing himself in the transaction.