Nobody knew about Birchill's visit to the
house except our two selves and the girl, and there was no reason why
anybody should suspect us as long as we kept that knowledge to ourselves.
Birchill's idea, after we'd talked this over, was that I should go
quietly home to bed, and pay a visit to Riversbrook on Friday as usual,
discover Sir Horace Fewbanks's body, and then tell the police. But I
didn't like to do that for two reasons. I didn't think that my nerves
would be in a fit state to tell the police how I found the body without
betraying to them that I knew something about it; and I couldn't bear to
think of Sir Horace's body lying neglected all alone in that empty house
till the following day--though I kept that reason to myself.
"It was the girl who hit on the idea of sending a letter to the police.
She said that it would be the best thing to do, because if they were
informed and went to the house and discovered the body it wouldn't be so
difficult for me to face them afterwards. I agreed to that, and so did
Birchill, who was very frightened in case I might give anything away, and
consented on that account. The girl showed us how to write the letter,
too--she said she'd often heard of anonymous letters being written that
way--and she brought out three different pens and a bottle of ink and a
writing pad.
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