`As a witness,' said Hadley, `he was either too difficult or too easy, at various times. He started off smoothly enough. Then he went, into a complete funk at the mention of the murder. Finally, I'd swear he was, telling the truth when he described what he knew of the happenings here.'
`Meaning?' prompted the General.
'He obviously didn't know it was Driscoll who had been murdered here. At least, he didn't know it was the young chap he'd met at Sir William's. And it nearly knocked him over when he heard. Why?
`Put it this way. Arbor's clever, and he's tricky. He dislikes unpleasantness, because it upsets his own self-conscious dignity; but he has no more courage than a rabbit. You could see that in everything he said. Agreed?'
`Without a struggle,' said the General.
`All right. Now, he tried to make a joke out of the suggestion that he himself might have stolen that manuscript. But when you know Arbor's character, and Sir William's, it isn't quite so fantastic as it sounds. He knew the old man would raise thirty-eight different kinds of hell if he demanded his manuscript. But if the thing were stolen, Sir William could whistle for it. He had no case. Arbor could point all this out to him (by telephone, if necessary) after he'd safely got the manuscript and left the house.'
`I doubt whether Arbor would actually pinch the manuscript himself,' said the General, shaking his head. `He wouldn't dare?
'Wait a minute. Now, he wasn't worried about that theft. He wasn't exerting himself, you see. Well, who might have stolen it for him?'
The General whistled. `You mean…'
`It can't be!' snapped the chief inspector. `It would be too much. But the possibility stares us right in the face. I mean this. Arbor said he talked Poe in that house until even the family began to wonder; broader and broader hints. He also said that with the dark and mysterious hints Sir William constantly let fall, everybody must have known about, the manuscript. Certainly a clever young fellow like Driscoll couldn't', have failed to know it. And. Driscoll was there to dinner when Arbor did much of his talking….'