`And a million other fancies that would come into a, head like his. Mr Dalrye said this flat was full of his presence,' the doctor said suddenly, in a louder voice. `What must it have been like when he came home here and discovered, with one of the sickest feelings of horror he ever had, that he'd unintentionally stolen his uncle's most cherished possession? How could he explain it? Here was his uncle raving, and here he was with the manuscript how had it got into the hat to begin with? Not by any stretch of madness could he have imagined his uncle deliberately putting that fragile thing into a hat of his own accord, and wearing it about the streets. And, worst of all, Driscoll wasn't supposed to know about the manuscript in the first place!’
`Imagine that wild, red-headed kid running about here like a bat trying to get out! A moment before, he'd been the reckless adventurer. Now he was threatened with a hellish scandal, with the price of swaggering, and worst of all with his ugly-tempered uncle.'
'If he had been sensible,' the chief inspector growled, `he'd have gone to his uncle, and…' Would- he?' Dr Fell frowned. 'I wonder if even a sensible person would have done that: at least, with Sir William Bitton. What could Driscoll say? "Oh, I say, uncle, I'm sorry. Here's your Poe manuscript. I pinched it bymistake at the same time I pinched your hat" Can you imagine the result? Driscoll wasn't supposed to know about the manuscript; nobody was. Bitton imagined he was being very sly and clever, when he was advertising its presence all the time. To begin with, he wouldn't have believed Driscoll. What would you think of somebody who walked in and said, "By, the way, Hadley, you know that thousand-pound bank-note you've been hiding away from everybody in your
drawer upstairs? Well, when I was stealing your umbrella last night, I accidentally discovered the bank-note hanging by a string from the handle of the umbrella., Odd, what?" No, my boy. You'd scarcely have been in a receptive mood. And if, to cap the business your brother later came in and observed, "Yes, Hadley, and the curious thing is that I discovered in that chap's flat not only your umbrella and. your thousand pound note, but also my wife, I venture to suggest, old man, that you would have thought your friend's conduct at least a trifle eccentric:
Dr Fell snorted.
`Perhaps that's what the sensible man would, have done. But Driscoll wasn't sensible. Call him anything else you like, but not a clear thinker.'
Dr Fell bent forward and prodded the rubber mouse with his forefinger. It ran round in a circle on the table and bounced off.
`For the Lord's sake,' cried the exasperated chief inspector, 'let that mouse alone and get on with it! So he wrestled 'with- this thing all night, and in the morning he telephoned Mr Dalrye here and determined to tell him everything?'
'Exactly.'
Dalrye, who had been sitting quietly all through this, turned a puzzled face.