"I'm not a bit sore," said Crewe. "I can take a beating, especially when the men who beat me are good sportsmen." He bowed towards Rolfe, and that officer blushed as he recalled how Inspector Chippenfield and he had agreed to withhold information from Crewe and try to put him on a false scent.
"I wish you'd tell me what you consider the weak points of our case against Birchill," asked Rolfe.
"Your case is based on Hill's confession, and that to my mind is false in many details," said Crewe. "Take, for instance, his account of how he came into contact with Birchill again. This girl Fanning, after a quarrel with Sir Horace, came over to Riversbrook with a message for Hill which was virtually a threat. Now does that seem probable? The girl who had been in the habit of visiting Sir Horace goes over to see Hill. No woman in the circumstances would do anything of the sort. She had too good an opinion of herself to take a message to a servant at a house from which she had been expelled by the owner, who had been keeping her. How would she have felt if she had run into Sir Horace? It is true that Sir Horace left for Scotland the day before, but it is improbable that the girl who had quarrelled with Sir Horace a fortnight before knew the exact date on which he intended to leave. And how did Hill behave when he got the message? According to his story, he consented to go and see Birchill under threat of exposure, and he consented to become an accomplice in the burglary for the same reason. Sir Horace knew all about Hill's past, so why should he fear a threat of exposure?"
"Hill explained that," interposed Rolfe. "He pointed out that, though Sir
Horace knew his past, he couldn't afford to have any scandal about it."
"Quite so. But could Birchill afford to threaten a man who was under the protection of Sir Horace Fewbanks? Would Birchill pit himself against Sir Horace? I think that Sir Horace, knowing the law pretty thoroughly, would soon have found a way to deal with Birchill. If Hill was threatened by Birchill, his first impulse, knowing what a powerful protector he had in Sir Horace Fewbanks, would have been to go to him and seek his protection against this dangerous old associate of his convict days. According to Hill's own story, he was something in the nature of a confidential servant, trusted to some extent with the secrets of Sir Horace's double life. What more likely than such a man, threatened as he describes, should turn to his master who had shielded him and trusted him?"
"I confess that is a point which never struck me," said Rolfe thoughtfully.
"Now, let us go on to the meeting between Hill and Birchill," continued Crewe. "This girl Fanning, discarded by Sir Horace, because he'd discovered she was playing him false with Birchill, is made the ostensible reason for Birchill's wishing to commit a burglary at Riversbrook, because Birchill wants, as he says, to get even with Sir Horace Fewbanks. Is it likely that Birchill would confide his desire for revenge so frankly to Sir Horace's confidential servant, the trusted custodian of his master's valuables, who could rely on his master's protection—the protection of a highly-placed man of whom Birchill stood admittedly in fear, and whom he knew, according to Hill's story, was unassailable from his slander? What had Hill to fear, from the threats of a man like Birchill, when he was living under Sir Horace Fewbanks's protection? All that Hill had to do when Birchill tried to induce him, by threats of exposure of his past, to help in a burglary at his master's house, was to threaten to tell everything to Sir Horace. Birchill told Hill that he was frightened of Sir Horace Fewbanks, the judge who had sentenced him.
"Then Birchill's confidence in Hill is remarkable, any way you look at it. He sends for Hill, whom he had known in gaol, and whom he hadn't seen since, to confide in him that it is his intention to burgle his employer's house. He rashly assumes that Hill will do all that he wishes, and he proceeds to lay his cards on the table. But even supposing that Birchill was foolish enough to do this—to trust a chance gaol acquaintance so implicitly—there is a far more puzzling action on his part. Why did he want Hill's assistance to burgle a practically unprotected house? I confess I have great difficulty in understanding why such an accomplished flash burglar as Birchill, one of the best men at the game in London at the present time, should want the assistance of an amateur like Hill in such a simple job."
Rolfe looked startled.
"Hill says he wanted a plan of the house and to know what valuables it contained."