`You dismissed him damned quickly,' growled the chief inspector, but, without much interest, `after all the trouble he gave us. What did he say?'
Dr Fell chuckled. `Driscoll phoned him and offered him the manuscript. He thought he might get mixed up as some sort of accessory;. '
`But, good God! I thought you said…"
`Blind panic, my boy. Driscoll would never have done it, you can rest assured. And, as you pointed out, it was in blind panic that he burnt the manuscript…. Then Arbor had some sort of wild idea that he heard, the dead man's voice talking to him. You know, Hadley, if I were you I should never bring that man before a coroner's jury. He'd snake us all sound mad… But you don't need him, do you?'
Oh no. He wouldn't have been called unless he turned up some evidence hearing on the murder.' The chief inspector rubbed a hand wearily over his eyes. `Voices! Bah. The man's as neurotic as an old woman. And all the time that confounded manuscript's been only a red herring., Well, I'm glad he didn't complicate matters by trying to identify the murderer's voice.'
`So am I,' said Dr Fell.
`Well, it's all over,' Hadley remarked, in a tired voice. `The poor devil took the best way out. A few routine questions to go over, and we close the book. I've had a talk with the wife… '
`What do you do with the case, then?'
Hadley frowned. His dull eyes wandered about the hall. `I think,' he said, `it will go down officially as "unsolved." We'll let it die down, and issue a bulletin to the Press Association to handle it lightly. There's no good in the stink of a public inquest, anyway.'
`By the way, where is Sir William?'