The Hampstead Mystery | Page 4

Inspector Seldon opened the dead man's clothes. Over his heart he
found the wound from which the blood had flowed.
"There it is, Flack," he said, touching the wound lightly with his finger.
"It doesn't take a big wound to kill a man."
As he spoke the sharp ring of a telephone bell from downstairs reached
them.
"That's Inspector Chippenfield," said Inspector Seldon, rising to his feet.
"Stay here, Flack, till I go and speak to him."
CHAPTER II
"Six-thirty edition: High Court Judge murdered!"
It was not quite 5 p.m., but the enterprising section of the London
evening newspapers had their 6.30 editions on sale in the streets. To
such a pitch had the policy of giving the public what it wants been
elevated that the halfpenny newspapers were able to give the people of
London the news each afternoon a full ninety minutes before the
edition was supposed to have left the press. The time of the edition was
boldly printed in the top right-hand corner of each paper as a guarantee
of enterprise if not of good faith. On practical enterprise of this kind
does journalism forge ahead. Some people who have been bred up in a
conservative atmosphere sneer at such journalistic enterprise. They

affect to regard as unreliable the up-to-date news contained in
newspapers which are unable to tell the truth about the hands of the
clock.
From the cries of the news-boys and from the announcements on the
newspaper bills which they displayed, it was assumed by those with a
greedy appetite for sensations that a judge of the High Court had been
murdered on the bench. Such an appetite easily swallowed the
difficulty created by the fact that the Law Courts had been closed for
the long vacation. In imagination they saw a dramatic scene in
court--the disappointed demented desperate litigant suddenly drawing a
revolver and with unerring aim shooting the judge through the brain
before the deadly weapon could be wrenched from his hands. But
though the sensation created by the murder of a judge of the High
Court was destined to grow and to be fed by unexpected developments,
the changing phases of which monopolised public attention throughout
England on successive occasions, there was little in the evening papers
to satisfy the appetite for sensation. In journalistic vernacular "they
were late in getting on to it," and therefore their reference to the crime
occupied only a few lines in the "stop press news," beneath some late
horse-racing results. The _Evening Courier,_ which was first in the
streets with the news, made its announcement of the crime in the
following brief paragraph:
"The dead body of Sir Horace Fewbanks, the distinguished High Court
judge, was found by the police at his home, Riversbrook in Tanton
Gardens, Hampstead, to-day. Deceased had been shot through the heart.
The police have no doubt that he was murdered."
But the morning papers of the following day did full justice to the
sensation. It was the month of August when Parliament is "up," the
Law Courts closed for the long vacation, and when everybody who is
anybody is out of London for the summer holidays. News was scarce
and the papers vied with one another in making the utmost of the
murder of a High Court judge. Each of the morning papers sent out a
man to Hampstead soon after the news of the crime reached their
offices in the afternoon, and some of the more enterprising sent two or

three men. Scotland Yard and Riversbrook were visited by a succession
of pressmen representing the London dailies, the provincial press, and
the news agencies.
The two points on which the newspaper accounts of the tragedy laid
stress were the mysterious letter which had been sent to Scotland Yard
stating that Sir Horace Fewbanks had been murdered, and the mystery
surrounding the sudden return of Sir Horace from Scotland to his town
house. On the first point there was room for much varied speculation.
Why was information about the murder sent to Scotland Yard, and why
was it sent in a disguised way? If the person who had sent this letter
had no connection with the crime and was anxious to help the police,
why had he not gone to Scotland Yard personally and told the
detectives all he knew about the tragedy? If, on the other hand, he was
implicated in the crime, why had he informed the police at all?
It would have been to his interest as an accomplice--even if he had been
an unwilling accomplice--to leave the crime undiscovered as long as
possible, so that he and those with whom he had been associated might
make their escape to another country. But he had sent his letter to
Scotland Yard within a few hours of the