Dr Fell did not take his hand away from his eyes; he parted two fingers, and the bright eye gleamed suddenly behind his, glasses.
`I say, Hadley… when you, talked to Mrs Bitton, did she say Driscoll really did go under the arch of the Bloody Tower?'
`She didn't notice. She turned away and walked in the roadway — where, you remember, Mrs Larkin saw her, walking with her back to the Bloody Tower…. '
'Ah!'
`She didn't conceal anything,' Hadley said dully. `I thought, when I spoke to her, that I was talking to an automaton — a dead person, or something of the sort. Driscoll went under the arch. It was all over in a moment: Bitton's hand over his mouth, a wrench and a blow, and Driscoll died without a sound. And when Mrs Bitton walked through the arch a, few seconds later, her husband was holding against the wall the dead body of her lover. When they had gone, he took off Driscoll's cap, opened the top-hat — it was an opera-hat, you know, and collapsible, so that it was easily concealed under a coat — and put it down over Driscoll's eyes. He went out quickly and flung the body over the rail, where it got that smash on the back of the head. Then he went out by one of the side gates, unobserved.'
When Hadley had finished, he did not immediately go on eating his sandwich. He stared at the sandwich queerly, put it down; and they were all very quiet. Over their heads, now, somebody was pacing with slow steps. Back and forth, back and forth.
They heard a clock strike a musical note; then, faintly, voices in the front hall, and the boom of the big door closing.
It echoed hollowly through the house. The steps upstairs hesitated, then resumed their slow pacing….
`That'll be the police surgeon,' said Hadley. He rubbed his eyes drowsily and stretched stiff muscles. 'A bit more routine work, and I'm going home to bed.'
`Excuse me,' interrupted a voice at the door. `May I see you a moment?'