-paper which this
confidential servant was apparently in the habit of using for private
purposes--and that he gave it to Birchill when he asked Birchill to join
him in the crime?

"When one of the main features of Hill's story is proved to be false, how
can you believe any of the rest? In the light in which we now see him,
with his cunning exposed, what significance is to be attached to his
statement that Birchill in his presence threatened to shoot Sir Horace
Fewbanks if the master of Riversbrook interfered with him? Such a threat
was not made, but why should Hill say it was made? For the same reason
that he lied about the plan--to save his own skin. I submit to you,
gentlemen, that when Hill went to see Birchill at the Westminster flat on
the night arranged for the burglary Sir Horace Fewbanks was
dead--murdered--and that Hill knew he was murdered. His own story is that
he tried to persuade Birchill to abandon the proposed burglary, but,
according to the witness Fanning, he did all in his power to induce
Birchill to carry out the original plan when he saw that Birchill was
disposed to postpone the burglary in view of the return of the master of
Riversbrook. Why did he want Birchill to carry out the burglary? Because
he knew that his master's murdered body was lying in the house, and he
wanted to be in the position to produce evidence against Birchill as the
murderer if he found himself in a tight corner as the result of the
subsequent investigations of the police. Remember that the body of the
victim was fully dressed when it was discovered by the police, and that
none of the electric lights were burning. Does not that prove
conclusively that the murder was not committed by Birchill, that Sir
Horace Fewbanks was dead when Birchill broke into the house?

"Birchill, an experienced criminal, would not break into the house while
there was anybody moving about. He would wait until the house was in
darkness and the inmates asleep. To do otherwise would increase
enormously the risks of capture. But the fact that the police found the
body of the murdered man fully dressed shows that Sir Horace was murdered
before he went to bed--before Birchill broke into the house. It shows
conclusively that the murder was committed before dusk. Your only
alternatives to that conclusion are that the murdered man went to bed
with his clothes on, or that the murderer broke into the house before Sir
Horace had gone to bed and after killing Sir