"Now, Rolfe, what is it?"
"I've found out that Hill put in nearly the whole day after the murder
drinking in a wine tavern. He sat there like a man in a dream and spoke
to nobody. The only thing he took any interest in was the evening papers.
He bought about a dozen of them during the afternoon."
"Where was this?" asked the inspector.
"At a little wine tavern in High Street, where he's never been seen
before. The man who keeps the place gave me a good description of him,
though. Hill went there about ten o'clock in the morning, and started
drinking port wine, and as fast as the evening papers came out he sent
the boy out for them, glanced through them, and then crumpled them up. He
stayed there till after five o'clock. By that time the 6.30 editions
would reach Camden Town, and if you remember it was the six-thirty
editions which had the first news of the murder. The tavern-keeper
declares that Hill drank nearly two bottles of Tarragona port, in
threepenny glasses, during the day."
"I should have credited Hill with a better taste in port, with his
opportunities as Sir Horace Fewbanks's butler," said Inspector
Chippenfield drily. "What you have found out, Rolfe, only goes to bear
out my own discovery that Hill is deeply implicated in this affair.
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