`Do you know,' continued the,' doctor, pleasantly, `that I've been of half a mind to let you cool off in gaol for a day or two? Why did you run away?'
`Run away? My dear man…!’
'Don't try to deceive me,' said the doctor, in a sinister voice. It was a rather less blatant resurrection of Hamlet's father's Ghost. 'Scotland Yard sees all. Shall I tell you what you did?'
He proceeded to give an account of Arbor's behaviour after leaving the Tower. It was accurate enough in its details, but so neatly distorted that it sounded like the flight of a guilty man from the law.
`You said,' he concluded, `that you had important information to give me personally. I am willing to listen. But I warn, you, man, that your position is very bad. And if you don't tell me the whole truth.
Arbor leaned back in the chair, breathing noisily. The strain of the day, the late hour, all his experiences since the murder, held him limp and nerveless.
`Ah yes,' he murmured. `Yes. I perceive, Inspector, that circumstances have put me in a false light. I will tell you everything. I had intended to do so, but now I see I have no choice. You see, I felt that I was in a doubly unfortunate and precarious position, I feared that I might not be threatened only by the police, but by some criminal as well.
I am… a man of books, Inspector. My life is sheltered. I do not mingle with the more… ah… tempestuous portions of the world. You, who are a man of rough existence, and accustomed to hand-to-hand encounters with desperate ruffians, will not understand what I felt when I was faced with a bewildering problem of criminal nature.
'It began with that cursed manuscript. I came here for the purpose, of getting it from Bitton. Not unnaturally — a querulous note raised his voice — `I wanted my own property; But I hesitated. Owing to the unpredictable eccentricities of Bitton's nature, I was placed in a distressing dilemma.. '
`I see,' said Dr Fell. `What you, mean is that you were afraid of Bitton, and so you had to hire somebody to pinch it for you.'