'Symbolism?'
'I mean those two plaster figures you've described. Suppose you and your lady-love have two china dolls in which you like to fancy an analogy to; yourselves. One of them' is labelled "Abelard" and the other "Heloise." You're very apt to look up Heloise and Abelard, aren't you, and see, who they were? — if you don't already know. And I tell you, Hadley, I didn't like that Bitton woman's much too palpably idiotic prattle about Queen Elizabeth being executed.'
`What are you driving, at?'
`If there is a symbolism about those two figures,' said the doctor, `we have got to remember two things about Queen Mary Tudor of England and her husband, King Philip II of Spain. One is that all her life Mary was violently in love with Philip, a passion almost as strong as her religious faith; while Philip was never in the least interested in her. And the second thing we must remember is that they called her "Bloody Mary."'
There was a long silence. The little restaurant, almost empty of diners, whispered to that suggestion as with the ticking of a clock.
'Whatever that amounts to,' Hadley said, at length, with ' grim doggedness, 'I'll go on to the second thing that's happened since I've seen you. And it's the really disturbing one. It's about Julius Arbor.'
Dr Fell struck the table. 'Go on!' he said. 'Good God! I might have known… '
'He's at Golders Green. They didn't tell us this when we left the Tower, but Sergeant Hamper found it. out and phoned to me, and I've just finished tracing down the rest. When Arbor left us, it couldn't have been much more than twenty past six o'clock. ‘
'Well, the word had already been carried up to the Middle Tower to let him go through. He told us, you're member, that he'd brought a taxi down there; told the, driver to wait, and then couldn't reappear. After some length of time, the driver wondered what was wrong and came down to the Middle Tower to investigate. The Spur Guard barred his way, and the warder on duty said something about an accident. Apparently the driver had happy visions of his meter clicking into pounds; he planted himself there and waited for over three hours.
'Then Arbor came out from the Byward Tower, where we were, and started to walk along the causeway between there and the Middle Tower: It was dark then, and still rather misty. But there's a gas-lamp on the parapet of the bridge. The taxi-driver and the warder on duty at the Middle Tower happened to glance along the causeway, and saw Arbor leaning against the lamp-standard as though he were about to collapse. Then he straightened up: and stumbled ahead.