`I never believed it for an instant,' the chief inspector admitted, cheerfully. `There were too many holes in it. If Mrs Bitton killed Driscoll, what about the hat on Driscoll's head? That becomes, nonsense. If she killed him by Traitors' Gate with a blow straight through the heart at one-thirty, how did he contrive to keep alive until ten minutes to two? — Why didn't she leave the Tower after she had killed him, instead of hanging about unnecessarily for nearly an hour and getting herself drawn into the mess without reason?… Besides, my explanation of the faked telephone call to Dalrye was very thin. If Bitton hadn't been so upset he would have seen it. Dalrye, of course, never talked to Sheila, Bitton this morning and told her Driscoll had made an appointment. But I had to hit Bitton hard while his guard was down.'
Rampole stared across at the smashed plaster on the hearthstone. `You had to do that. Otherwise you'd never have got Mrs Larkin's' testimony. If she followed Mrs Bitton, she knows all Mrs Bitton's movements, but… '
`Exactly. But she would never tell them to the police. This afternoon she swore to us she had seen nothing. That was a part of her job; she took the risk. She couldn't tell us she was following Mrs Bitton; without exposing the whole thing and losing her position. More than that — and a much sounder reason — I think she has tidy blackmail schemes in her mind. Now we've knocked that on the head.'.'. She's already told Bitton, of course. So if she won't tell, he will to clear his wife.'
Rampole pushed back his hat.
`Neat!' he said. `Very neat, sir. Now, if your plan to persuade Arbor to talk works as well…'
`Arbor…. '' The chief inspector sprang up. 'I've been sitting here explaining my own cleverness, and I clean forgot that. I've got to telephone Golders Green, and do it quickly. Where' the devil is the phone? And, incidentally, where's the man who was supposed to be guarding this flat; how did Bitton get in here, anyhow? And where, by the way, is Fell?'
He was answered without delay. From beyond the closed door, somewhere in the interior of the flat, there was a scrape, a thud, and a terrific metallic crash.
`It's all right!' a muffled voice boomed out to them from some distance away, 'No more plaster figures broken. I've just dropped a basket of tools.'
Hadley and Rampole hurried in the direction of the voice. Beyond the door through which the doctor had gone, a narrow passage ran straight back. There were two doors in either wall; those on the left leading to a study and a bedroom, and those on the right to a bath and a dining-room. The kitchen was at the extreme rear of the passage.
To add to the confusion of the room, Driscoll had never been especially neat in his habits. The study had been cluttered up long before the woman's frantic search that afternoon. The floor was a drift of papers; rows of shelves gaped where whole sections of books had been' tossed out; and the drawers of the desk hung out empty and drunken. A portable typewriter, its cover off, had become entangled with the telephone, and the contents of several brass ash-trays were sprayed across some carbon paper and pencils.