Three pairs of eyes were fixed on him, and he tried to be casual under the scrutiny. This might be the test as to whether he heard anything more of the case after today.
`There was something,' he said, feeling his voice a trifle unsteady. `The crossbow bolt didn't come from the collection here, and one of the warders said its pattern was late fourteenth century. Now, it isn't probable, is it, that Driscoll was really killed with a steel bolt made in thirteen hundred and something?' He hesitated. `I used to dabble a bit with arms and armour; one of the finest collections in the world is at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. In a bolt so old as that one, the steel would be far gone in corrosion. Would it be possible to get that bright polish and temper on the one used to kill Driscoll? It looks new. If I remember correctly, you have no arms exhibits here previous to the fifteenth century. And even your early fifteenth-century helmets are worn to a sort of rusty shell.'
There was a silence. `I begin to see,' nodded the chief inspector. `You mean that the bolt is of recent manufacture. And if it is ?'
`Well, sir, if it, is, who made it? Certainly there aren't many smiths turning out crossbow bolts of fourteenth-century pattern. It may be a curio of some kind, or there may be somebody who does it for amusement or for decorative purposes.'
Hadley made a note in his black book. -`It's a long shot,' he remarked, shaking his head, `but undoubtedly there's something in it. Good work! Now we come to my usually garrulous colleague, Dr Fell. What are your comments on the testimony we've heard?'
Dr' Fell cocked his head on one side. He seemed to meditate.
`Why, I'm afraid I wasn't paying a great deal of attention to it. However, I want to ask one question.' `That's gratifying. What is it?'
`This hat.' He picked up the topper. `I suppose you noticed. When it was put on the boy's head, it slid down over his ears. Of course, he's very, small, Sir William, and you're tall. But you have rather a long narrow head. Wasn't' it too large even for you?'
'Too… ' The other looked bewildered. `Why, no! No, it wasn't too large. Hold on, though. I remember now. When I was trying, on hats at the shop, I remember one I tried on, among others, was too large. But the one they sent me was quite all right: a good fit.'
`Well, would you mind putting this one on?'