Then, after drinking himself nearly blind, he
sets forth with a revolver to commit a burglary on the house of the
judge who tried him, on Hill's bare word that everything is all right.
Guileless, trusting, simple-minded Birchill!
"Hill is left locked up in the flat with the girl; for Birchill, who has
just trusted him implicitly in a far more important matter affecting his
own liberty, has a belated sense of caution about trusting his unworthy
accomplice while he is away committing the burglary. The time goes on;
the couple in the flat hear the clock strike twelve before Birchill's
returning footsteps are heard. He enters, and immediately announces to
Hill and the girl, with every symptom of strongly marked terror, that
while on his burglarious mission, he has come across the dead body of Sir
Horace Fewbanks--murdered in his own house. Mark that! he tells them
freely and openly--tells Hill--as soon as he gets in the flat. Allowing
for possible defects in my previous reasoning against Hill's story,
admitting that an adroit prosecuting counsel may be able to buttress up
some of the weak points, allowing that you may have other circumstantial
evidence supporting your case, that is the fatal flaw in your chain:
because of Birchill's statement on his return to the flat no jury in the
world ought to convict him.
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