If
Scotland Yard had a little more of the impudence of the private
detective, Rolfe, we should be better appreciated."
"I suppose he's come in the hopes of seeing the jury acquit Birchill,"
said Rolfe.
"No doubt," replied Inspector Chippenfield. "But he's come to the wrong
shop. A good jury should convict without leaving the box if the case is
properly put before them by the prosecution. Crewe would like to triumph
over us, but it is our turn to win."
But Inspector Chippenfield was wrong in thinking that Crewe's presence
in court was due to a desire for the humiliation of his rivals. Crewe
had spent most of the previous night reading and revising his summaries
and notes of the Riversbrook case, and in minutely reviewing his
investigations of it. Over several pipes in the early morning hours he
pondered long and deeply on the secret of Sir Horace Fewbanks's murder,
without finding a solution which satisfactorily accounted for all the
strange features of the case. But one thing he felt sure of was that
Birchill had not committed the murder. He based that belief partly on
the butler's confession, and partly on his own discoveries. He believed
Hill to be a cunning scoundrel who had overreached the police for some
purpose of his own by accusing Birchill, and who, to make his story more
probable, had even implicated himself in the supposed burglary as a
terrorised accomplice.
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