"Well, Fred got into the house through one of the windows at the
side--the one Hill had told him to try," continued the girl. "But first
of all he waited about half an hour in the garden, so as to give Sir
Horace time to go to sleep. He was able to find his way about the house
as Hill had given him a plan. He felt his way upstairs and finding a door
open he went into the room and flashed his electric torch. By its light
he saw Sir Horace Fewbanks lying huddled up in a corner with a big pool
of blood beside him on the floor. He felt him to see if he was dead. The
body was quite warm, but it was limp. Sir Horace was dead. Fred says he
lost his nerve and ran for it as hard as he could. He rushed down stairs
and out of the house and got back to the flat as fast as he could.
"The three of us sat there shaking with fear and wondering what to do.
Hill was the first to recover himself. In his cunning plausible way, he
pointed out that it was altogether unlikely that suspicion would fall on
Fred or him. All we had to do was to keep quiet and say nothing; then
we'd have no awkward questions put to us. It was his suggestion that we
should send an anonymous letter to Scotland Yard telling them Sir Horace
had been murdered. That would be much better, he said, than leaving the
body there until he went over and found it when he had to go over to
Riversbrook to take a look round, in accordance with the instructions
that had been given him when Sir Horace went to Scotland. Knowing what he
did, he was afraid that if he was allowed to discover the body and inform
the police, he would let something slip when the police came at him with
their hundreds of questions. We printed the letter to Scotland Yard, each
one doing a letter at a time. Hill took it with him, saying he would post
it on his way home.
"When he left, Fred and I sat there thinking. Suddenly it came to me as
clear as daylight that Hill had committed the murder, and had fixed up
things so as to throw suspicion on Fred. He must have known Sir Horace
was coming back from Scotland that night, and he had laid in wait for him
and shot him. Then he had come over to my flat in order to persuade Fred
to carry out the burglary, and direct suspicion to Fred for the murder,
if the police worried him. I told Fred what I thought, but he only
laughed at me and said I was talking nonsense. But I was right, for a
week afterwards the police came and arrested Fred at the flat."
"How did they get him?" asked Kemp.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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