1. A Cab Horse in a Barrister's Wig

It began, like most of Dr Fell's adventures, in a bar. It dealt with the reason why a man was found dead on the steps of Traitors' Gate, at the Tower of London, and with the odd headgear of this man in the golf suit. That was the worst part of it. The whole case threatened for a time to become a nightmare of hats.

Abstractly considered, there is nothing very terrifying about a hat. We may pass a shop-window full of them without the slightest qualm. We may even see a policeman's helmet decorating the top of a lamp-post, with no more than an impression that some practical joker is exercising a primitive sense of humour. Young Rampole, when he saw the newspaper, was inclined to grin at the matter as just that.

Chief Inspector Hadley was not so sure.

They were waiting for Dr Fell at Scott's, a tavern in the heart of Piccadilly Circus. Sitting in an alcove with a glass of beer, Rampole studied the chief inspector. He was wondering. He had only arrived from America that morning, and the press of events seemed rather sudden.

He said: `I've often wondered, sir, about Dr Fell. He seems to be all sorts of things.'

The other nodded, smiling faintly. You could not, Rampole felt, help liking the chief inspector of the C.I.D. He was the sort of man who might be described as compact; very neatly dressed, with a military moustache and smooth hair the colour of dull steel. If there was a quality about him you noticed at once, it was a quality of repose, of quiet watchfulness.

`Have you known him long?' Hadley asked.

`As a matter of fact, only since last July.' The American found himself rather startled to remember that. `Good Lord! It seems years! He… well, in a manner of speaking, he introduced me to my wife.'

Hadley nodded. `I know. That would be the Starberth case. He wired me from Lincolnshire, and I sent the men he wanted.'

A little more than eight months ago.. Rampole looked back on those terrifying scenes in the Hag's Nook, and the twilight by the railway station where Dr Fell had put his hand on the shoulder of Martin Starberth's murderer. Now there were only happiness and Dorothy.

Again the chief inspector smiled faintly. `And you, I believe,' he continued in his deliberate voice, `carried off the young lady. I hear glowing reports of you from Fell… He did rather a brilliant piece of work in that affair,' Hadley added abruptly. `I wonder… '

`Whether he can do it again?'

The other's expression grew quizzical. `Not so fast please. You seem to be scenting crime again.'

`Well, sir, he wrote me a note to meet you here..'

`And,' said Hadley, `you may be right. I have a feeling.' He touched a folded newspaper in his pocket, hesitated and frowned. `Still, I thought that this thing' might be rather more in his line than mine. Bitton appealed to me personally, as a friend, and it's hardly a job for the Yard. I don't want to turn him down. I suppose you've heard of Sir- William Bitton?’

`The collector??

'Ah,' said Hadley, `I fancied you would. Fell said it would be in your line, too. The book-collector, yes, Though I knew him better before he retired from politics.' He glanced at his watch. `He should be here by two o'clock, and so should Fell.'

A thunderous voice boomed, `AHA!' They were conscious of somebody flourishing a cane at them across the room, and of a great bulk filling the stairway to the street. The only other occupants of the room were two business men conversing in low tones in one corner, and they jerked round to stare at the beaming appearance of Gideon Fell.

All the old genial days, all the beer-drinking and fiery moods and table-pounding conversations, beamed back at Rampole in the person of Dr Fell. The American felt like calling for another drink and striking up a song for sheer joyousness. There was the doctor, bigger and stouter than ever. He wheezed. His red face shone, and his small eyes twinkled over eyeglasses on a broad black ribbon. There was a grin under his bandit's moustache, and chuckling upheavals animated his several chins. On his head was the inevitable black shovel hat; his paunch projected from a voluminous black cloak.

`Heh,', he said. `Heh-heh-heh.' He came rolling over to the alcove and wrung Rampole's hand. `My boy, I'm delighted. Delighted! Heh. I say, you're' looking fine. And Dorothy?

... Excellent; I'm glad to hear it. My wife sends her warmest regards'

There are people before whom you instantly unbend. Dr Fell was one of them. No constraint could exist before him; he blew it away with a superb puff; and, if you had any affectations, you forgot them immediately. Hadley looked indulgent, and beckoned a waiter.

`This might interest you,' the chief inspector suggested, handing Dr Fell a wine-card. He assumed a placid, innocent air. `The cocktails are recommended. There is one called an "Angel's Kiss"

'Hah?' said Dr Fell, starting in his seat.

`or a "Love's Delight"-'

`Gunk!' said Dr Fell. He stared at the card. `Young man, do you serve these?'

`Yes, sir,' said the waiter, jumping involuntarily.

`Young man,' continued the doctor, rumbling and polishing his glasses, `have you never reflected on what American influence has done to stalwart England? Where are your finer instincts? This is enough to make decent tipplers shudder.'

`I think you'd better order something,' suggested Hadley.

`A large glass of beer,' said the doctor. `Lager.'

Snorting he produced his cigar-case and offered it round as the waiter took away the glasses. But with the first healing puffs of smoke he settled himself back benignly against the alcove.

`My young friend here will tell you, Hadley,' Dr Fell rumbled, making an immense gesture with his cigar, `that I have been working for seven years on the materials of my book, The Drinking Customs of England from the Earliest Days, and I blush to have to include such manifestations as these, even in the appendix. They sound almost bad enough to be soft drinks. I…'

He paused, small eyes blinking over his glasses. A quiet, impeccably dressed man, who seemed like a manager of some sort, was hesitating near their alcove. He appeared to be ill-at-ease, and feeling slightly ridiculous. But he was contemplating Dr Fell's very picturesque shovel hat which lay across the cloak on a chair. As the waiter brought three rounds of beer, this man entered the alcove.

`Excuse me, sir,' he said, `but may I make a suggestion? If I were you, I should be very careful of this hat.'

The doctor stared at him for a moment, his glass halfway to his lips. Then a bright and pleased expression animated his red face.

`Permit me, sir,' he requested earnestly, `to shake your hand. You are, I perceive, a person of sound taste and judgement. I wish you could talk to my wife on this matter. It is, I agree, an excellent hat. But why should I exercise more than my usual care in guarding it?'

The man's face was growing pink. He said stiffly: 'I had no wish to intrude, sir. I thought you knew… That is to say, there have been several such outrages in this vicinity, and I did not wish to have our patrons incommoded. That hat — well, hang it!' the manager exploded, volplaning down into honest speech, `that thing would be too much. He couldn't miss. The Hatter would be bound to steal it.'

'Who?'

`The Hatter, sir. The Mad Hatter.'

Hadley's mouth was twitching back, and he seemed about to burst out laughing or leave the table in haste. But Dr Fell did not notice. He took out a large handkerchief and wiped his forehead.

`My dear sir,' he said, `this is most refreshing. Let me see if I follow you. Am I to understand that there is in this neighbourhood a hatter of such notoriously unbalanced mind that, as I walk innocently past his shop, he would be apt to dash into the street and steal my hat? That is carrying the aesthetic sense too far. I must courteously but firmly refuse,' continued Dr Fell, raising his voice warmly, `to run up Piccadilly pursued by impassioned hatters.'

The chief inspector said sharply to the manager: `Thank you very much. This gentleman has just arrived in London; he knows nothing about it. I can explain.'

As the red-faced manager hurried towards the restaurant, Dr Fell sighed.

`Now you've driven him away,' he protested, querulously, `and I was just beginning to enjoy it. I perceive among London hatters a bustling, up-to-the-minute, go-get-'em spirit.' He took a deep drink of beer, and shook his great head of hair like a mane. Then he beamed on his companions.

`Blast you… ' said the chief inspector. He struggled with dignity, and lost. `Oh well. Confound it, I hate scenes, and you seem to revel in them. All the same, he was talking perfect sense. It's a kid's prank, of course. But it keeps on and on. If he'd stopped at stealing one or two hats, and this infernal newspaper ragging hadn't begun, no harm would have been done. But it's making us look foolish.'

The doctor adjusted his glasses.

`Do you mean to say,' he demanded, `that a real hatter is going about London stealing… '

"'Mad Hatter" is what the newspapers call him. It was started by this young cub Driscoll, the free-lance. Driscoll is Bitton's nephew; it would be difficult to muzzle him, and if we did try to muzzle him we should look foolish. He's doing the damage… Laugh, by all means!' Hadley invited.

Dr Fell lowered his chins into his collar.

`And Scotland Yard, he asked, with suspicious politeness, `is unable to apprehend this villainous.:. '

Hadley retained his repose with an effort. Hadley said, in a quiet voice: `I don't give a damn, personally, if he steals the Archbishop of Canterbury's mitre. But the effect of a police force's being laughed at is not at all humorous. Besides, suppose we catch him? To the newspapers the trial would be much funnier than the offence.' Can you imagine two stolen wigged counsel battling as to whether the defendant did, or did not, on the evening of March 5, 1932, abstract the helmet of Police Constable Thomas Sparkle from the head of the said constable in or about the premises of Euston Road, and did thereafter elevate the said helmet to the top of a lamp-standard before the premises of New Scotland Yard, SW — or whatever they say?'

'Did he do that?' Dr Fell queried, with interest.

`Read it,' said Hadley, and drew the newspaper from his pocket. `That's young Driscoll's column. It's the worst, but the others are almost as facetious.'

Dr Fell grunted. `I say, Hadley, this isn't the case you wanted to talk to me about, is it? Because, if it is, I'm damned if I help you. Why man, it's glorious!'

Hadley was not amused. `That,' he answered, coldly, `is not the case. But out of what I have on hand, I hope to put a brake on Driscoll. Unless… ' He hesitated, turning something over in his mind. `Read it. It will probably delight you.

HAT-FIEND STRIKES AGAIN! Is There a Political Significance in the Movements of the Sinister Master Mind? BY PHILIP C. DRISCOLL, our special correspondent in charge of the latest Mad Hatter atrocities. London, March 12. Not since the days of Jack the Ripper has this city been so terrorized by a mysterious fiend who strikes and vanishes without a clue, as in the exploits of the diabolical criminal genius known as the Mad Hatter. On Sunday morning fresh exploits of the Mad Hatter challenged the best brains of Scotland Yard. passing the, cab-rank on the east side of Leicester Square about 5 A.M., P.C. James McGuire was struck by a somewhat unusual circumstance. A hansom-cab was drawn up at the kerb, from which certain not untuneful noises indicated that the driver was asleep inside. The horse (whose name has subsequently been ascertained to be Jennifer) was chewing a large stick of peppermint and looking benevolently upon P.C. McGuire. What. especially, struck the quick-witted policeman, however, was the fact that on her head Jennifer wore a large white wig with flowing sides: in fact, a barrister's wig. Though some caution was manifested in taking steps when Mr McGuire reported to Vine Street Police Station the presence of a horse in a barrister's wig eating peppermint in Leicester Square, ultimate investigation proved it true. It became obvious that the Hat-Fiend was again at large. Readers of the Daily Recorder are, already aware how, on the preceding day, a beautiful pearl-grey top-hat was discovered on the head of one of the lions on the Nelson Monument in Trafalgar Square, looking towards Whitehall. By its inscription it was found to belong to Sir Isaac Simonides Levy, of Curzon Street, the well-known member of the Stock Exchange. Under, cover of a light mist, that cloak of evil-doers, it had been twitched from Sir Isaac's head as he was leaving his home the preceding evening to address a meeting of the Better Orphans' League., It will be obvious that Sir Isaac, in a pearl-grey top-hat for evening wear, was (at the least) conspicuous. The origin of the wig on Jennifer's head was, therefore, clear to the authorities. At the present moment its owner has not been ascertained, nor has he come forward. Detectives believe that the Mad Hatter must have been near the cab-rank only, a few moments before the arrival of P.C. McGuire, inasmuch as the stick of peppermint was scarcely a third gone when the policeman first saw her. It is further inferred that the criminal was well acquainted with Leicester Square, and probably with the horse Jennifer, since he took advantage of her liking for peppermints to place the wig upon her head. Beyond this, the police have little to work on….

`There's more of it,' Hadley said, when he saw Dr Fell fold over the paper at this point, `but it doesn't matter. I hate this damned ragging, that's all.'

`Undoubtedly,' said Dr Fell, sadly, `you police are a persecuted lot. And no clue, I suppose. I'm sorry I can't take the case. Perhaps, though, if you sent your best men to all the sweet-shops near Leicester Square, and inquire who bought…'

'`I didn't bring you down from Chatterham,' Hadley retorted, with asperity, `to talk about an undergraduate prank. But I may stop this young pup Driscoll from writing such tosh; and that will stop the rest of them. I wired you that it had something to do with Bitton; Bitton is this boy's uncle, and holds the purse strings…. One of the most valuable manuscripts in Bitton's collection, he tells me, has been stolen.'

`Ah,' said Dr Fell. He put aside the paper, and sat back with his arms folded.

`The devil about these thefts of manuscripts or rare books,' Hadley continued, `is that you can't trace them like an ordinary theft. In the case of precious stones, or plate, or even pictures, it's fairly simple. We know our pawnshops and our receivers of stolen goods too well. But you can't do it with books or manuscripts. When a thief takes something like that, he has a definite person in mind to whom he intends to dispose of it; or else he's acting under the buyer's orders, to begin with. In any case, you can be sure the buyer won't tell.'

The chief inspector paused.

`And the Yard's intervention in the matter is further complicated by the fact that the manuscript stolen from Bitton was one to which he had well, a rather dubious right himself.'

`I see,' murmured the doctor. `And what was it?'

Hadley picked up his glass slowly, and set it down hastily. Feet clattered on the brass stair-rods. A tall man in a flapping greatcoat strode down into the room; the bartender drew a deep breath, resignedly, and tried not to notice the wild look in the stranger's eye. The bartender murmured, `Good afternoon, Sir William,' and returned to polishing glasses.

`It's not a good afternoon,' Sir William Bitton announced, violently. He passed the end of his white scarf across his face, moist from the thickening mist outside, and glared. `Ah, hallo, Hadley! Now, look here, something's got to be done. I tell you I won't… ' He strode into the alcove, and his eye fell on the paper Dr Fell had discarded. `So you're reading about that swine who steals hats?'

`Quite, quite,' said Hadley, looking about nervously. `Sit down, man! What's he done to you?'

`What's he done?' inquired Sir William, with deadly politeness. He raised the forelock of his white hair. `You can see for yourself what he's done. Right in front of my house — car standing there — chauffeur down buying cigarettes. I went out to it. Misty in the square. Saw what I thought was a sneak-thief putting his hand into the side pocket of the car door through the window in the tonneau. I said, "Hi!" and jumped on the running board. Then the swine shot out his hand and…'

Sir William gulped.

`I had three appointments this afternoon before I came here; two of 'em in the City. Even going to make monthly calls. Call on Lord Tarlotts. Call on my nephew. Call — Never mind. But I couldn't and wouldn't go anywhere, because I hadn't got one. And I was damned if I'd pay three guineas for a third one that swine might… What's he done?' bellowed Sir William, breaking off again. `He's stolen my hat, that's what he's done! And it's the second hat he's stolen from me in three days!'

2. Manuscripts and Murder

Hadley rapped on the table. `A double whisky here,' he said to the waiter. `Now sit down and calm yourself. People think this is a madhouse already… And let me introduce you to some friends of mine.'

`D'ye do?' said the other, grudgingly, and bobbed his head at the introductions. He resumed in his high, argumentative voice as he sat down. `The only reason I came here was because I'd got to see you if I’d had to come without my boots. Ha. No other hat in the house. Just bought two new hats last week — top-hat and Homburg. And Saturday night this maniac pinched the top-hat, and this afternoon he got the Homburg. By God! I won't have it! I tell you — He glared round as the waiter appeared. 'Eli? — Oh, Whisky.' Just a splash.'

Spluttering, he sat back to take a drink, and Rampole studied him. Everybody knew, by hearsay of this man's fiery humours. Jingo newspapers frequently dwelt on his career: how he had begun in a draper's shop at the age of eighteen, become a whip in Parliament at forty-two, managed the armament policy of one Government, and had gone down still battling for a bigger navy in the peace reaction after the war. He had been the prince of jingoes; his speeches were full of reference to Drake, the long-bow, and hurrah for old England; and he still wrote letters vilifying the present Prime Minister. Now Rampole saw a man hardly past his prime at seventy: wiry, vigorous, with a long neck thrust out of his wing collar, and uncannily shrewd blue eyes.

Suddenly Sir William put down his glass and stared at Dr Fell with narrowed eyes. `Excuse me, he said, in his jerky but wonderfully clear fashion, `I didn't catch your name at first. Dr Gideon Fell? — Ah, I thought so. I have been wanting to meet you, I have your work on the history of the supernatural in English fiction. But this damned business about hats…'

Hadley said, brusquely `I think we've heard quite enough about hats, for the, moment. You understand that according to the story you told me we can't take official cognizance of it at the Yard. That's why I've summoned Dr Fell. There's no time to go into it now, but he has helped us before. I am not one of those fools who distrust amateurs. And it is particularly in his line. All the same… '

The chief inspector was troubled. Suddenly he drew a long breath. Evenly he continued:

`Gentlemen, neither am I one of those fools who call themselves thoroughly practical men. A moment ago I said we had heard quite enough about hats; and before I saw Sir William I thought so. But this second theft of his hat has it occurred to you that in some fashion (I do not pretend to understand it) this may relate to the theft of the manuscript?'

`It had occurred to me, of course,' Dr Fell rumbled, beckoning the waiter and pointing to his empty glass, `that the theft of the hats was more than an undergraduate prank. It's quite possible that some scatter-brained chap might want to collect stolen hats a policeman's helmet, a barristers wig, any sort of picturesque headgear he could proudly display to his friends. I noticed the same habit when I was teaching in America, among the students. There it ran to signs and signboards of all kinds to decorate the walls of their rooms.

`But this is a different thing, you see. This chap isn't a lunatic collector. He steals the hat and props it up somewhere else, like a symbol, for everybody to see. There's one other explanation, nonetheless..'

Sir William's thin lips wore a wintry smile as he glanced from Rampole to the absorbed face of the doctor; but shrewd calculation moved his eyes.

`You're a quaint parcel of detectives,' he said. `Are you seriously suggesting that a thief begins pinching hats all over London so that he can pinch a manuscript from me? Do you think I'm in the habit of carrying valuable manuscripts around in my hat? Besides, I might point out that it was stolen several days before either one of my hats.'

Dr Fell ruffled his big dark mane with a thoughtful hand. `The repetition of that word "hat",' he observed, `has rather a confusing effect. I'm afraid I shall say "hat" when I mean almost anything else…: Suppose you tell us about the manuscript first — what was it, and how did you get it, and when was it stolen?'

`I'll tell you what it was,' Sir William answered, in a low voice, `because Hadley vouches for you. Only one collector in the world — no, say two — know that I found it. One of them had to know; I had to show it to him to make sure it was genuine. The other I'll speak of presently. But I found it.

`It is the manuscript of a completely unknown story by Edgar Allan Poe. Myself and one other person excepted, nobody except Poe has ever seen or heard of it…. Find that hard to believe, do you?'

There was a frosty pleasure in his look, and he chuckled without opening his mouth.

`I've never collected Poe manuscripts. But I have a first edition of the Al Araaf collection, published by subscription while he was at West Point, and a few copies of the Southern Literary Messenger he edited in Baltimore. Well! — I was poking about for odds and ends in the States last September, and I happened to be visiting Dr Masters, the Philadelphia collector. He suggested that I have a look at the house where Poe lived there, at the corner of Seventh and Spring Garden Streets. I did. I went alone. And a jolly good thing I did.'

`It was a mean neighbourhood, dull brick fronts and washing hung in gritty backyards. The house was at the corner of an alley, and I could hear a man in a garage swearing at a back-firing motor. Very little about the house had been changed.

`From the alley I went through a gate in a high board fence, and into a paved yard with a crooked tree growing through the bricks. In a little brick kitchen a glum-looking workman was making some notations on an envelope; there was a noise of hammering from the front room. I excused myself; I said that the house used to be occupied by a writer I had heard of, and I was looking round. He growled

to go ahead, and went on ciphering. So I went to the other room. You know the type; small and low-ceilinged; cupboards set flush with the wall, and papered over, on either side of a low black mantelpiece.'

Sir William Bitton obviously saw that he had caught his audience, and it was clear from his mannerisms and pauses that he enjoyed telling a story.

`They were altering the cupboards. The cupboards, mind you.' He bent forward suddenly. `And again — a jolly good thing they took out the inner framework instead of just putting up plaster-board and papering them out. There was a cloud of dust and mortar in the place. Two workmen were just bumping down the framework, and I saw…’

`Gentlemen, I went cold and shaky all over. It had been shoved down between the edges of the framework: thin sheets of paper, spotted with damp, and folded twice lengthwise. It was like a revelation, for when I had pushed open — the gate, and first saw those workmen altering the house, I thought: Suppose I were to find… Well, I confess I almost lunged past those men. One of them said, "What the hell!" and almost dropped the frame. One glance at the handwriting, what I could make out of it, was enough; you know that distinctive curly line beneath the title in Poe's MSS., and the fashioning of the E. A. Poe?

`But I had to be careful. I didn't know the owner of the house; and he might know the value of this. If I offered the workmen money to let me have it, I must be careful not to offer too much, or they would grow suspicious and insist on more….'

Sir William smiled tightly. `I explained it was something of sentimental interest to a man who had lived here before. And I said, "Look here, I'll give you ten dollars for this." Even at that, they were suspicious; I think they had some idea of buried — treasure, or directions for finding it, or something. The ghost of Poe, would have enjoyed that.’ Again that chuckle behind the closed teeth. Sir William swept out his arm.

'But they looked over it, and saw that it was only — "a kind of a story, or some silly damn thing, with long words at the beginning." Finally they compromised at twenty dollars, and I took the manuscript away

`As you may know, the leading authorities on Poe are Professor Hervey. Allen of New York and Dr Robertson of Baltimore. I knew Robertson, and took my find to him. First I made him promise that, no, matter what I showed him, he would never mention it to anybody.’

Rampole was watching the chief inspector. During the recital Hadley had become — not precisely bored, but restive and impatient.

`But why, keep it a secret?' he demanded. `If there, was any trouble about your right, you were at least first claimant; you could have; bought it. And you'd made what you say, is a great discovery.'

Sir William stared at him, and then shook his head. `You don't understand,' he replied at length. `And I can't: explain. I wanted no trouble. I wanted this great thing, a secret between Poe and myself, for myself. For nobody else to see unless I chose.'

A sort of pale fierceness was in his face; the orator was at a loss for words to explain something powerful and intangible.

`At any rate, Robertson is a man of honour. He promised, and he will keep; his, promise, even though he urged me to do as you say, Hadley. But, naturally, 'I refused… Gentlemen, the manuscript was what I thought; it was even better.!

'And what was it?' Dr Fell asked, rather sharply.

Sir William opened his lips, and then hesitated.

`One moment, gentlemen. It is not that I do not — ah — trust you. Of course not. Ha! But so much I have told openly, to strangers. Excuse me. I prefer to keep my secret a bit longer. Well enough to tell you what it was when you have heard my story of the theft, and decide whether you can help me.'

There was a curious expression on Dr Fell's face; not contemptuous, not humorous, not bored, but a mixture of the three.

`Suppose, you tell us,' he suggested, `the facts of the theft, and whom you suspect!

'It was taken from my house in Berkeley Square at sometime between Saturday afternoon and Sunday — morning. Adjoining my bedroom upstairs I have a dressing-room which I use a good deal as a study. The greater part of my collection is, of course, downstairs in the library and my study there. I had been examining the manuscript in my upstairs study on Saturday afternoon.. '

`Was it locked up?' Hadley inquired.

`No. Nobody — at least, so I thought — knew of it, and I saw no reason for unusual precautions. It was merely in a drawer of my desk.'

`What about the members of your household? Did they know of it?'

Sir William jerked his head down in a sort of bow. 'I'm glad you asked that, Hadley. Don't think 'I shall take um brage at the suggestion; but I couldn't make it myself. At least — not immediately. Naturally I don't suspect them; ha!'

'Naturally,' said the inspector, placidly. `Well?'

'At the present, my household consists of my daughter Sheila, my brother Lester, and his wife. My nephew by marriage, Philip, has a flat of his own, but he generally eats Sunday dinner with us. That is all — with the exception of one guest, Mr Julius Arbor, the American collector.'

Sir William examined his finger nails. There was a pause.

`As to who knew about it,' he resumed, waving a careless hand; `my family knew that I had brought back a valuable manuscript with me, of course. But none of them is in the least interested in such matters, and the mere words, "another manuscript," was sufficient explanation.!

'And Mr Arbor?'

Sir William said, evenly: `I had intended to show it to him. He has a fine collection of Poe first editions. But I had not mentioned it.!

'Go on,' said Hadley, stolidly.

`As I have said, I was examining the manuscript on Saturday afternoon; fairly early. Later I went to the Tower of London…'

`To the Tower of London?'

`A very old friend of mine, General Mason, is deputy governor there. He and his secretary have done some very fine research into the Tower records. They wanted me to see a recently discovered record dealing with Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. I returned home, dined alone, and afterwards went to the theatre. I did not go into my study then, and after the theatre it was rather late; so I turned in immediately. I discovered the theft on Sunday morning. There was no attempt at burglarious entry at any time; all the windows were locked, and nothing else in the house had been touched.'

'Was the drawer locked?' Hadley asked. `No.'

`I see. What did you do then?'

`I summoned my valet,' Sir William's bony fingers rapped flatly on the table; he twisted his long neck, and several times started to speak before he resumed. `And I must confess, Hadley, that I was at first suspicious of him. He was a new man; he had been in my employ only a few months. He had the closest access to my rooms and could prowl as he liked without suspicion. But — well, he seemed too earnest, too dog-like, too thoroughly stupid at anything beyond his immediate duties. He was obviously upset and tongue-tied when I questioned him later, but that was a product of his natural dullness.!

'And his story?'

`He had no story,' Sir William said, irritably. `He had noticed nothing suspicious, seen nothing whatever. I had difficulty getting it through his head how important the thing was; even what I was looking for. It was the same thing with the rest of the servants. They had noticed nothing.'

`What about the members of the — household?'

`My daughter Sheila had been out all Saturday afternoon. When she returned, she was in the house only a short time, and then she went out to dinner with the chap she's engaged to.. General Mason's secretary, by the way. My brother Lester and his wife were visiting friends in the west of England; they only returned on Sunday evening. Philip -

Philip Driscoll, my nephew — comes to see us only on Sundays. Consequently, nobody noticed anything suspicious at the time the manuscript could have been stolen.'

`And this — Mr Arbor?' The other reflected, rubbing his dry hands together.

`A very fine chap,' he answered. `Reserved, scholarly, a trifle sardonic at times. Quite a young man, I should say scarcely more than forty — Ah, what were you asking? Mr Arbor, yes. Unfortunately, he was not in a position to observe. An American friend of his had invited him to the country for the week-end. He left on Saturday, and did not return until this morning… That's true, by the way,' he added, dropping into normal speech and almost leering across the table; `I phoned up about it.'

Hadley nodded. He seemed to be debating something.

`I've brought you in a consulting expert,' he said slowly; nodding towards the doctor. `Dr Fell has come some little distance as a favour to me. Hence I shall wash my hand: of the business, unless you should find the thief and want to prosecute. But I should like to ask a favour it return.'

`A favour?' Sir William repeated. `Good God! yes, of course! Anything, in reason, I mean.'

`You spoke of your nephew, Mr Driscoll. `Philip? Yes. What about him?'

`- who writes for the newspapers.. ‘

`Oh, ah. Yes. At least, he tries to. I’ve exerted considerable influence to get him a real position on a newspaper. Bah! Between ourselves, the editors tell me he can turn out a good story, but he hasn't any news sense. Harbottle says he would walk through rice an inch deep in front of St Margaret's and never guess there'd been a wedding. So he's freelancing'

Hadley turned an expressionless face and picked up the newspaper on the table. He was just about to speak when a waiter, hurried to his side, glanced at him nervously, and whispered.

`Eh?' said the chief inspector. `Speak louder, man!… Yes, that's my name.. Right. Thanks.' He drained his glass and looked sharply at his companions. `That's damned funny.I told them not to get in touch with me unless. Excuse me for a moment.'

What's the matter?' inquired Dr Fell. `Phone. Back in a moment'

They were silent as Hadley followed the waiter. In Hadley's look there had been a startled uneasiness which gave Rampole a shock….

He returned in less than two minutes, and Rampole felt something tighten in his throat. The chief inspector did not hurry he was as quiet and deliberate as ever; but his footfalls sounded louder on the tiled floor, and under the bright lights his face was pale.

Stopping a moment at the bar, he spoke a few words and then returned to the table.

`I've ordered you all a drink,' he said slowly. `A whisky. It's just three minutes until closing time, and then we shall have to go.'

`Go?' repeated Sir William. `Go where?'

Hadley did not speak until the waiter had brought the drinks and left the table. Then he said, `Good luck!' hastily drank a little whisky, and set the glass down with care. Again Rampole was conscious of that tightening sense of terror….

'Sir William,' Hadley, went on, looking at the other levelly, `I hope you will prepare yourself for a shock:

'Yes?' said the knight.

`We were speaking a moment ago of your nephew.'

`Yes? Well, good God! What about him?'

'I'm afraid I must tell you that he is dead. He has just been found at the Tower of London. There is reason to believe that he was murdered.'

The foot of Sir William's glass rattled on the polished table-top. He did not move; his eyes were fixed steadily and rather glassily on Hadley, and he seemed to have stopped breathing. At last he said, with an effort.

`I–I have my, car here…. ‘

`There is also reason to believe,' Hadley went on, `that what we thought a practical joke has turned into murder.

Sir William, your nephew is wearing a golf suit. And on the head of his dead body, somebody has put your stolen top hat.'

3. The Body at Traitors' Gate

The Tower of London….

Over the White Tower flew the banner of the three Norman lions, when William the Conqueror reigned, and above the Thames its ramparts gleamed white with stone quarried at Caen. And on this spot, a thousand years before the Domesday Book, Roman sentinels cried the hours of the night from Divine Julius's Tower.'

Richard of the Lion's Heart widened the moat about a squat grey fortress, fourteen acres ringed with the strength of inner and outer ballium walls. Here rode the kings, stiff-kneed in iron and scarlet; amiable Henry, and Edward, Hammer of the Scots; and the cross went before them to Westminster, and the third Edward bent to pick up a lady's garter, and Becket's lonely ghost prowled through St Thomas's Tower.

A palace, a fortress, a prison. Until Charles Stuart came back from exile it was the home of the kings, and it remains a royal palace to-day. Bugles sound before Waterloo Barracks, where once the tournaments were held, and you will hear the wheel and stamp of the Guards.

On certain dull and chilly days there creeps from the Thames a smoky- vapour which is not light enough to be called mist nor thick enough to be called fog. The rumble of traffic is muffled on Tower Hill. In the uncertain light, battlements stand up ghostly above the brutish curve of the round-towers; boat whistles hoot and echo mournfully from the river; and the rails of the iron fence round the dry moat become the teeth of a prison….

Rampole had visited the Tower before. He had seen it in the grace of summer, when grass and trees mellow the aisles between the walls. But he could visualize what it would be like now. The imaginings grew on him during that interminable ride in Sir William's car between Piccadilly Circus and the Tower.

When he thought about it afterwards, he knew that those last words Hadley spoke were the most horrible he had ever heard. It was not so much that a man had been found dead at the Tower of London. He had eaten horrors with a wide spoon during those days of the. Starberth case in Lincolnshire. But a corpse in a golfing suit, on which some satanic hand had placed the top-hat stolen from Sir William, was a final touch in the hideous. After' placing his stolen hats on cab horses, lamp-posts, and stone lions, this madman seemed to have created a corpse so that he could have at last a fitting place to hang his hat.

The ride was endless. In the West End there had been a fairly light mist, but it thickened as they neared the river, and in Cannon Street it was almost dark, Sir William's chauffeur had to proceed with the utmost care. Hatless, his scarf wound crazily about his throat, strained forward with his hands gripping his knees, Sir William was jammed into the tonneau between Hadley and Dr Fell. Rampole sat on one of the small seats.

Sir William was breathing heavily.

`We'd better talk,' Dr Fell said in a gruff voice. `My dear sir, you will feel better… It's murder now, Hadley. Do you still want me?'

`More than ever,' said the chief inspector.

Dr Fell puffed out his cheeks meditatively.

`Then if you don't mind, I should like' to ask…?’

'Eh?' said Sir William, blankly. `Oh. No, no. Not at all. Carry on.' He kept peering ahead into the mist.

The car bumped. Sir William turned and said: `I was very fond of the boy, you see"

`Quite,' said Dr Fell, gruffly. `What did they tell you over the phone, Hadley?'

`Just that. That the boy was dead; stabbed in some way. And that he wore a golf suit and Sir William's top-hat. It was a relay call from the Yard, Ordinarily, I shouldn't have

got the call at all. The matter would have been handled by the local police station, unless they asked the Yard for help. But in this case

`Well?'

`I had a feeling that this damned hat business wasn't sheer sport. I left orders — and got smiled at behind my back for it, that if any further hat antics were discovered, they should be reported to the Yard by the local station, and sent through Sergeant Anders directly to me.'

`How did the people at the Tower know it was Sir William's hat?'

`I can tell you that,' snapped Sir William, rousing himself. `I'm tired of picking up the wrong hat when I go out in the evenings. All top-hats look alike in a row, and initials only confuse you. I have Bitton stamped in gold inside the crown of the formal ones, opera hats and silk ones; yes, and bowlers too, for that matter.' He was speaking rapidly and confusedly, and his mind was on other things. `Yes, and come to think of it, that was a new hat, too. I bought it when I bought the Homburg, because my other. opera hat got its spring broken…'

He paused, and brushed a hand over blank eyes.

`Ha,' he went on, dully, `Odd. That's odd. You said my "stolen" hat, Hadley. Yes, the top-hat was stolen. That's, quite right; how did you know it was the stolen hat they found on Philip?'

Hadley was irritable. 'I don't know. They told me over the phone. But they said General Mason discovered the body, and so..;'

`Ah,' muttered Sir William, nodding and pinching the bridge of his nose. `Yes. Mason was at the house on Sunday, and I daresay I told him. I.'

Dr Fell leaned forward, So,' he said, `it was a new hat, Sir' William,?'

`Yes. I told you °

'An opera hat,' Dr Fell mused, `which you were wearing for the first time…. When was it stolen'?'

`Eh? Oh. Saturday night. When I was coming home from the theatre. We'd turned off Piccadilly into Berkeley Street.

It was a muggy night, rather warm, and all the windows of

the car were down. Just opposite Lansdowne Passage. Simpson slowed down to let some sort of blind man with a tray of pencils, or something, get across the street. Then somebody jumped out of the shadows near the entrance to the passage, thrust his arm into the rear of the car, twitched off my hat, and ran.'

`What did you do?'

`Nothing. I was too startled.'

`Did you chase the man?'

`And look a fool? Good God! No.'

`So naturally; said Dr Fell, `you didn't report it. Did you catch a glimpse of the man?'

`No. It was too sudden, I tell you. Flick, and it was gone. Ha. Damn him. And now…. You see,' Sir William muttered, hesitantly, turning his head from, side to side `you see… Never mind the hat; I'm thinking about Philip. I never treated him as I should, I was as fond of him as a son. But I always acted the Dutch uncle. Kept him on a starvation allowance, always threatened to cut him off, and always told him how worthless he was. I don't know why I did it, but every time I saw that boy I wanted to preach. He had no idea of the value of money'

The limousine slid among red houses, and street lamps, made pale gleams through its windows in a canopy of mist. Emerging from Mark Lane, it swerved round the Monument and descended Tower Hill.

Rampole could see nothing more than a few feet ahead. Lamps winked in smoky twilight, and the immensity which should have been the river was full of short, sharp whistle blasts answered by deeper hootings from a distance.

When the limousine passed through the gate in the rails surrounding the whole enclosure, Rampole tried to rub the blur from the window to peer out. Vaguely he saw a dry moat paved in white concrete, with a forlorn hockey-net near the middle. The drive swung to the left, past a frame building he remembered as the ticket-office and refreshment room, and under an arch flanked by low, squat round towers. Just under this, arch they were brought up short. A sentry, in the high black shako and grey uniform of the Spur Guard, moved out smartly and crossed his rifle on his, breast. The limousine slithered to a halt and Hadley sprang out.

In the dim, ghostly half-light another figure emerged at the sentry's side. It was one of the Yeoman Warders, buttoned up in a short blue cloak and wearing the red-and-blue Beefeater hat. He said:

`Chief Inspector Hadley?…Thank you. If you'll' follow me, sir…?'

Hadley asked, shortly: 'Who is in charge?'

'The chief warder, sir, under the orders of the deputy governor. These gentlemen…?''

'My associates. This is Sir William Bitton. What has been done?'

'The chief warder will explain, sir. The young gentleman's body was discovered by. General Mason.' 'Where?'

'I believe it was on the steps leading down to Traitors' Gate, sir. You know, of course, that the warders are sworn in as special constables. General Mason suggested that, as you were a friend of the young gentleman's uncle, we communicate directly with you instead of with the district police station.'

'Precautions?'

'An order has been issued that no one is to enter or leave the Tower until permission has been given.'

'Good! You had better leave instructions to admit the police surgeon and his associates when they arrive.'

'Yes, sir.' He spoke briefly to the sentry, and led them under the arch of the Tower.

A stone bridge led across the moat from this (called the Middle Tower) to another and larger tower, with circular bastions, whose arch formed the entrance to the outer walls.

Grey-black, picked out with whitish stones, these heavy defences ran left and right; but the damp mist was so thick that the entrance was entirely invisible.

Just under the arch of this next tower, another figure appeared with the same eerie suddenness as the others: a thick, rather short man with a straight back, his hands thrust into the pockets of a dripping waterproof. A soft hat was drawn down on his brows. He came forward, peering, as he heard their muffled footfalls on the road.

He said: `Good God, Bitton! How did you get here?' Then he hurried up to grasp Sir William's hand.

`Never mind,' Sir William answered, stolidly. 'Thanks, Mason. Where have you got him?'

The other man looked into his face. He wore a gingery moustache and imperial, drooping with the damp there were furrows in his dull-coloured face and lines round his hard, bright unwinking eyes.

'Good man!' he said releasing his hand. `This is?'

'Chief Inspector Hadley. Dr Fell. Mr Rampole… General Mason,' explained Sir William, jerking his head. 'Where is he, Mason? I want to see him.'

General Mason took his arm. 'You understand; of course, that we couldn't disturb the body until the police arrived. He's where we found him. That's correct, isn't it, Mr Hadley?'

'Quite correct, General. If you will show us the place…? Thank you. I'm afraid we shall have to leave him there, though, until the police surgeon examines him.'

`For God's' sake, Mason,' Sir. William said, in a low voice, 'how was he killed?'

General Mason drew a hand hard over his moustache and imperial. It was his only sign of nervousness. He said:

'It appears to be a crossbow bolt, from what I can judge. There's about four inches projecting from his chest, and the point barely came out the other…. Excuse me. A crossbow bolt. We have some in the armoury. Straight through the heart. Intantaneous death, Bitton. No pain whatever.'

`You mean,' said the chief inspector, `he was shot… '

`Or stabbed with it like a dagger. More likely the latter. Come and look at him, Mr Hadley and then take charge of my court he nodded towards the Tower behind him `in there. I'm using the Warders' Hall as a third degree room.’

`What about visitors? They tell me you've given orders nobody is to leave.'

`Yes. Fortunately, it's a bad day and there aren't many visitors. Also, fortunately, the fog is very thick down in the well around the steps of Traitors' Gate; I don't think a passer-by would notice him there. So far as I'm aware, nobody knows about it yet. When the visitors try to leave, they are stopped at the gate and told that an accident has happened; we're trying to make them comfortable until you can talk to them.'

Ahead of them the hard road ran arrow-straight. Towards the left, a little distance beyond the long arch beneath which they stood, Rampole could see the murky outlines of another round tower. Joining it, a high wall ran parallel with the road. And Rampole remembered now. This left-hand wall was the defence of the inner fortress; roughly, a square within a square. On their right ran the outer wall, giving on the wharf. Thus was formed a lane some twenty-five or thirty feet broad, which stretched the whole length of the enclosure on the riverside. For perhaps a hundred yards along this road General Mason led them; then he stopped and pointed towards the right.

`St Thomas's Tower,' he said. `And that's the Traitors' Gate under it.'

Traitors' Gate was a long, flattened arch of stone, like the hood of an unholy fireplace in the thick wall. From the level of the road, sixteen broad stone steps led down to the floor of a large paved area, which had once been the bed of the Thames. For originally this had been the gateway to the Tower by water; the river had flowed in at a level with the topmost steps, and barges had moved under the arch to their mooring. There were the ancient barriers, closed as of old: two heavy gates of oaken timbers and vertical iron bars, with an oaken lattice stretching above them to fill in the arch. Thames-wharf had been built up beyond, and the vast area below was now dry.

General Mason took an electric torch from his pocket, snapped it on, and directed the beam towards the ground. A warder had been standing motionless near the fence; and the General gestured with his light.

`Stand at the gate of the Bloody Tower,' he said, `and don't let anybody come near… Now, gentlemen. I don't think we need to climb this fence. I've been down once before.'

Just before the beam of his flashlight moved down the steps, Rampole felt almost a physical nausea. Then he saw it.

The thing lay with its head near the foot of the stairs, on its right side, and sprawled as though it had rolled down the entire flight of steps. Philip Driscoll wore a suit of heavy tweed, with plus fours, golf stockings, and thick shoes. As General Mason's light moved along the body, they saw the dull gleam of several inches of steel projecting from the left breast. Apparently the wound had not bled much.

The face was flung up towards them, just as the chest was slightly arched to show the bolt in the heart. White and waxy, the face was, with eyelids nearly closed; it had a stupid, sponged expression which would not have been terrifying at all but for the hat.

That opera hat had not been crushed in the fall. It was much too large for Philip Driscoll; whether it had been jammed on or merely dropped on his head, it came down nearly to his eyes, and flattened out his ears grotesquely.

General Mason switched off the light.

'You see?' he said out of the dimness. `If that hat hadn't looked so weird, I shouldn't have taken it off at all, and seen your name inside it… Mr Hadley, do you want to make an examination now, or shall you wait for the police surgeon?'

`Give me your torch, please,' the chief-inspector requested. He snapped on the light again and swung it round. `How did you happen to find him, General?'

`There's more of a story connected with that,' the deputy governor replied, `than I can tell you: The prelude to it you can hear from the people who saw him here when he arrived, earlier in the afternoon.'

When was that?'

`The time he arrived? Somewhere about twenty minutes past one, I believe; I wasn't here…. Dalrye, my secretary, drove me from the middle of town in my car, and we got here at precisely, two-thirty. We drove along Water Lane… this road.. and Dalrye let me out at the gate of the Bloody Tower, directly opposite us.'

They peered into the gloom. The gate of the Bloody Tower was in the inner ballium wall, facing them across the road. They could see the teeth of the raised portcullis over it, and beyond, a gravelled road which led up to higher ground.

'My own quarters are in the King's House, inside that wall. I was just inside the gate, and Dalrye was driving off down Water Lane to put the car away, when I remembered that I had to speak to Sir Leonard Haldyne.'

Sir Leonard Haldyne?'

`The Keeper of the Jewel House. He lives on the other side of St Thomas's Tower. Turn on your light, please; now move it over to the right, just at the side of Traitors' Gate arch… There, The misty beam showed a heavy iron-bound door sunk in the thick wall. `That leads to a staircase going up to the oratory, and Sir Leonard's quarters are on the other side.

'By this time, in addition to the fog, it was raining. I came across Water Lane, and took hold of the railing here in front of the steps to guide me over to the door. What made me look down I don't know. Anyhow, I did glance down. I couldn't see anything clearly, but by what I did see I knew something was wrong. I climbed over the railing, went down cautiously, and struck a match. I found him.'

`What did you do then?'

It was obviously murder,' the general continued, without seeming to notice the question. 'A man who stabs himself can't drive a steel bolt through his own chest so far that the point comes out under his shoulder-blade; certainly not such a small and weak person as young Driscoll. And he had clearly been dead for some time… the body was growing cold.

`Young Dalrye was coming back from the garage then, and I hailed him. I didn't tell him who the dead man was. He's engaged to Sheila Bitton, and well, you shall hear. But I told him to send one of the warders for Dr Benedict.

'Who is that?'

`The chief of staff in charge of the army hospital here. I told Dalrye to go to the White Tower and find Mr Radburn, the chief warder. He generally finishes his afternoon round at the White Tower at two-thirty. I also told him to leave instructions that nobody was to leave the Tower by any gate. I knew it was a useless precaution, because Driscoll had been dead some time and the murderer had every opportunity for a getaway; but it was the only thing to do.'

`Just a moment,' interposed Hadley. `How many gates are there through the outer walls?'

`Three, not counting the Queen's Gate, nobody could get through there. There's the main gate, under the Middle Tower, through which you came. And two more giving on the wharf. They are both in this lane, by the way, some distance farther down.'

`Sentries?'

`Naturally. A Spur Guard at every gate, and a warder also. But if you're looking for a description of somebody who went out, I'm afraid it's useless. Thousands of visitors use those gates every day. Some of the warders have a habit of amusing themselves by cataloguing the people who go in and out, but it's been foggy all day and raining part of the time. Unless the murderer is some sort of freak, he had a thousand-to-one chance of having escaped unnoticed.'

`Damn!' said Hadley, under his breath. `Go on, General.'

`That's about all. Dr Benedict — he's on his rounds now — confirmed my own diagnosis. He said that Driscoll had been dead at least three-quarters of an hour when I found him, and probably longer?

General Mason hesitated.

`There's a strange, an incredible story concerned' with Driscoll's activities here this afternoon. Either the boy went mad, or.. another sharp gesture. `I suggest that you look at him, Mr Hadley; then we can talk more comfortably in the Warders' Hall.'

Hadley nodded. He turned to Dr Fell. `Can you manage the fence?'

Dr Fell's big bulk had been towering silently in the background, hunched into his cloak like a bandit. Several times General Mason had looked at him sharply. He was obviously wondering about this stout man with the shovel hat and the wheezy walk; wondering who he was and why he was there.

`No,' said the doctor. `I'm not so spry as all that. But I don't think it's necessary. Carry on; I'll watch from here.'

The chief inspector drew on his gloves and climbed the barrier. A luminous circle from his flashlight preceded him down the, steps.

First he carefully noted the position of the body, and made some sketches and markings in a notebook, with the torch propped under one arm. He flexed the muscles, rolled the body slightly over, and felt at the base of the skull. Most meticulously he examined the pavement of the area; then he returned to the few inches of steel projecting from the chest. It had been polished steel, rounded and thin, and it was not notched at the end as in the case of an arrow.

Finally Hadley removed the hat. The wet face of the small, dandyish youth was turned full up at them, pitiful and witless. Hadley did not even look at it. But he examined the hat carefully, and brought it up with him as he slowly mounted the stairs.

` Over the fence again, Hadley was silent for a long time. He stood motionless, his light off, slapping the torch with slow beats against his palm. Rampole could not see him well, but he knew that his eyes were roving about the lane. Finally he spoke.

`There's one thing your surgeon overlooked, General. There's a contusion at the base of the skull. It could have come either from a blow over the head, or — which is more likely — he got it by being tumbled down those stairs after the murderer stabbed him.'

The chief inspector peered about him slowly.

`Suppose he were standing at this rail, or near it, when the murderer struck. The rail is more than waist high, and Driscoll is quite small. It's unlikely that even such a terrific blow with that weapon would have knocked him over the rail. Undoubtedly the murderer pitched him over to put him out of sight.

`Still, we mustn't overlook the possibility that the bolt might have been fired instead of being used as a dagger. That's improbable; it's almost insane, on the face of it. If a crossbow is what I think it is, then it's highly unlikely that the murderer went wandering about the Tower of London carrying any such complicated apparatus.

`A knife, or the blow of a blackjack in the fog, would have done just as well. And because of the fog — as you say,

General — it's impossible that a marksman could have seen his target very far: certainly not to put a bolt so cleanly through the heart. Finally, there's the hat.' He took it from under his arm. `For whatever purpose, the murderer wanted to set his hat on the dead man's head. I think I may take it for granted that Mr Driscoll wasn't wearing it when he came to the Tower?'

`Naturally not. The Spur Guard and the warder at, the Middle Tower, who saw him come in, said he was wearing a cloth cap?

`Which isn't here now,' the chief inspector said, thoughtfully.. `But tell me, General. You said that so many people are always passing through here. - how did they happen to notice Driscoll?'

`Because they knew him. At least, that warder had a nodding acquaintance with him; the guard, of course, is always changing. He's quite a frequent visitor. Dalrye has got him out of so many scrapes in the past that Driscoll came to count on him that was why, he was here to-day!' I see. Now, before we go into this matter of the weapon, there's something, I want to know…. To begin with, we must admit this: whether he was shot or stabbed, he was killed very close to these steps. The murderer couldn't walk about here, with all the warders present, carrying a dead body; these steps were made to order for concealment, and they were used. So let's assume the most improbable course. Let's assume (a) that he was shot with a crossbow; (b) that the force of the shot — and it was a very powerful one knocked him over this rail, or that the murderer later pushed him over and; (c) that subsequently the killer decorated him with Sir William's hat. You see? Then from where could that bolt have been fired?'

General Mason massaged his imperial. They were peering at the wall across the way, at the gate of the Bloody Tower just opposite, and the bulk of a higher round tower just beside it.

`Well,' said the general, `it could have been fired from anywhere. From this lane, east or west, on either side of Traitors' Gate. From under the gate of the Bloody Tower; that's the most likely direction — a straight line. But it's tommyrot. You can't go marching about here with a crossbow, as though it were a rifle. It couldn't be done.'

Hadley nodded placidly.

`I know it couldn't: But, as you say, that's the most likely direction. So what about windows, or the top of a wall? Where could you stand and shoot a bolt from some such place? I shouldn't have asked, but I can't see anything beyond outlines in this fog.'

The general stared at him. Then he nodded curtly. There was a hard, jealous, angry parade-ground ring in his voice when he spoke; it made Rampole jump.

`I see. If you're suggesting, Mr Hadley, that any member of this garrison… ‘

'I didn't say that, my dear sir,' Hadley answered, mildly. `I asked you a perfectly ordinary question.'

The general jammed his hands deeper, in the pockets of his waterproof. After a moment he turned sharply and pointed to the opposite wall.

`Up there on your left,' he said, `in that block of buildings jutting up above the wall proper, you may, be able to make out some windows. They are the windows of the King's house. It is occupied by some of the Yeomen Warders and their families and by myself,' I might add…. Then the ramparts of the wall overlooking us run straight along to the Bloody Tower. That space is called Raleigh's Walk, and only a rather tall man can see over the rampart at all… Raleigh's Walk joins the Bloody Tower, in which there are some windows looking down at us, Next to the Bloody Tower, on the right, and joined to it, you see that large round tower? That's the Wakefield Tower, where the Crown jewels are kept. You will find some windows there. You will also — not unnaturally find two warders on guard. Does that answer your question, sir?'

`Thanks,' said the chief inspector; `I'll look into it when the mist clears a bit. If you're ready, gentlemen, I think we can return to the Warders' Hall.'

4. Inquisition

Gently General Mason touched Sir William's arm as they turned away. The latter had not spoken for a long time; he had remained holding to the rail and staring into the dimness of the area; and he did not speak now. He walked quietly at the general's side as they returned.

Still holding the hat under his arm, and propping flashlight against notebook, Hadley made several notations. His heavy, quiet face, with the expressionless dark eyes, was bent close over it in the torch-gleam.

He nodded, and shut the book.

`To continue, General. About that crossbow bolt. Does it belong here?'

`I have been wondering how long you would take to get to that,' the other answered, sharply. `I don't know. I am inquiring. There is a collection of crossbows and a few bolts here; it is in a glass case in the armoury on the second floor of the White Tower. But I am perfectly certain nothing has been stolen from there…. However, we have a workshop in the Brick Tower, on the other side of the parade-ground, which we use for cleaning and repairing the armour and weapons on display. I've sent for the warder in charge. He will be able to tell you.'

`But could one of your display crossbows have been used?' `Oh yes. They are kept in as careful repair as though we meant to use them as weapons ourselves.'

Hadley fell to whistling between his teeth. Then he turned to Dr Fell.

`For a, person who enjoys talking as much as you do, Doctor,' he said, `you have been incredibly silent. Have you any ideas?'

A long sniff rumbled in the doctor's nose. `Yes,' he returned, `yes, I have. But they don't concern windows or crossbows. They concern hats. Let me have that topper, will you?'

Hadley handed it over without a word.

`This,' General Mason explained, as they turned to the left at the Byward Tower, 'is the smaller Warders' Hall; we have our enforced guests in the other.' He pushed open a door under the arch, and motioned to them to pass.

It was not until Rampole entered the warmth of the room that he realized how chilled and stiff he was. A large coal fire crackled under a hooded fireplace. The room was circular and comfortable, with a groined roof from which hung a cluster of electric lights, and cross-slits of windows high up in the wall. Behind a large flat desk, his hands folded upon it, sat a straight-backed elderly man, regarding them from under tufted white eyebrows. He wore the costume of the Yeomen Warders, but his was much more elaborate than those Rampole had seen. Besides him a tall, thin young man with a stoop was making notes on a slip of paper.

`Sit down, gentlemen,' said General Mason. `This is Mr Radburn, the chief warder; and Mr Dalrye, my secretary.'

He waved his guests to chairs after he had performed the introductions, and produced a cigar-case. `What have you got now?'

The chief warder shook his head. He pushed out the chair in which he had been sitting for General Mason.

`Not much, I'm afraid, sir. I've just questioned the guards from the White Tower, and the head workman from the repair shop. Mr Dalrye has the notes in shorthand.'

The young man shuffled some papers and blinked at General Mason. He had a long, rather doleful face, but a humorous mouth. His good-humoured, rather near-sighted grey eyes were bitter; he fumbled with a pair of pince-nez on a chain, then stared down at his papers.

`Good afternoon, sir,' he, said to Sir William. 'They told me you were here. I… — I can't say anything, can I? You know how I feel.'

Then, still staring at his papers, he changed the subject with a rush. `I have the notes here, sir,' he told General Mason. `Nothing has, been stolen from the armoury, of course. And the head workman at the shop, as well as both warders from the second floor of the White Tower, are willing to swear that crossbow bolt is not in the collection and never has been in any collection here!’

'Why? You can't possibly identify a thing like that, can you?'

`John Brownlow got rather technical about it. And he's by way of being an authority, sir. It's here. He says' — Dalrye adjusted his pince-nez and blinked `he says it's a much earlier type of bolt than any we have here. That is, judging from what he can see of it… in the body. Late fourteenth-century pattern. Ah, here we are. "The later ones are much shorter and thicker, and with a broader barb at the head. That one's so thin it wouldn't fit smoothly in the groove of any crossbow in the lot."

General Mason turned to Hadley, who was carefully removing his overcoat. `You're in charge now. So ask any questions you like. Give that chair to the chief inspector..;. But I think that proves it wasn't fired, unless you believe the murderer brought his own bow.' Then it couldn't have been shot from one of the crossbows here, Dalrye?'

Brownlow says it could have been, but that there would be a hundred-to-one chance of the bolt going wild.'

Mason nodded, and regarded the chief inspector with tight-lipped satisfaction. Rampole saw him for the first time in full light. He had removed his soggy hat and waterproof, and flung them on a bench; evidently there was about him none of that fussiness which is associated with the brass hat. Now he stood warming his hands at the fire, and peering round his shoulder at Hadley.

`Well?' he demanded. `What's the first step' now?'

Dalrye put down his papers on the table,

`I think you'd better know,' he said, speaking between Mason and Sir William. `There are two people here among the visitors who are certain to have an interest in this. They're over with the others in the Warders' Hall, I wish you'd give me instructions, sir. Mrs Bitton has been raising the devil ever since…'

`Who?' demanded Sir William. He had been staring at the fire, and he lifted his head suddenly.

`Mrs Lester Bitton. As I say, she's been — '

Sir William rumpled his white pompadour and looked blankly at Mason. `My sister-in-law… What on earth would she be doing here?'

Hadley had sat, down at his desk, and was arranging note-book, pencil, and flashlight in a line with the utmost precision He glanced up with mild interest.

`Ah,' he said, `I'm glad to hear it. It centres our efforts, so to speak. But don't trouble her for the moment, Mr Dalrye; we can see her presently.' He folded his hands and contemplated Sir William, a wrinkle between his brows. `Why does it surprise you that Mrs Lester Bitton should be here?'

`Why, you know…' Sir William began in some perplexity, and broke off. `No. As a matter of fact, you don't know her, do you? Well she's of the sporting type; you'll' see. I say, did you tell her about… about Philip, Bob?' He spoke hesitantly.

`I had to,' Dalrye' answered, grimly.

Hadley had picked up his pencil, and seemed intent on boring a hole in the desk top with its point.

`And the second person among the visitors, Mr` Dalrye?' he asked.

The other frowned. `It's a Mr Arbor, Inspector. Julius Arbor. He's rather famous as a book-collector, and I believe he's stopping at Sir William's house.'

Sir William raised his head. His eyes grew sharp again, for the first time since he had heard: the news of the murder.

He said: `Interesting. 'Damned interesting.' And he walked over with' a springy step to sit down in a chair near the desk.

`That's better,' approved the chief inspector, laying down his pencil. 'But for the moment we shan't trouble Mr Arbor, either. I should like to get the complete story of Mr Driscoll's movements to-day. You said something, General, about a rather wild tale connected with it.'

General Mason turned from the fire.

`Mr Radburn,' he said to the chief warder, `will you send to the King's House for Parker? Parker,' he explained, as the other left the room, 'is my orderly and general handyman. Meantime, Dalrye, you might tell the chief inspector about the wild-goose chase.'

Dalrye nodded. He looked suddenly older.

`You see, Inspector,' he said, `I didn't know what it meant then, and I don't know now. Except that it was a frame-up of some sort against Phil.'

His long legs were shaking a trifle as he lowered himself into a chair.

`Take your time, Mr Dalrye,' said the chief inspector. `Sir William — excuse me — has told us you are his daughter's fiance. So I presume you knew young Driscoll well?'

`Very well. I thought a hell of a lot of Phil,' Dalrye answered quietly. He blinked as the smoke got into one eye. `And naturally this business isn't pleasant. Well — you see, he had the idea that I was one of these intensely, practical people who can find a way out of any difficulty. He was always getting into scrapes, and always coming to me to help him out of them.'

`Difficulties?' repeated the chief inspector. He was sitting back in his chair, his eyes half closed, but he was looking at Sir William. `What sort of difficulties?'

Dalrye hesitated. `Financial, as a rule. Nothing important. He'd run up bills, and things like that…'

`Women?' asked Hadley, suddenly. "

'Oh Lord! don't we all?' demanded the other, uncomfortably. `I mean to say.. ' He flushed. `Sorry. But nothing important there, either; I know that. He was always ringing me up in the middle of the night to say he'd met some girl at a dance who was the-absolute One and Only. He would rave. It lasted about a month, generally.'

`But nothing serious? Excuse me, Mr Dalrye,' said the chief inspector, as the other waved his, hand, `but I am looking for a motive for murder, you know. I have to ask such questions. So there was nothing serious?'

`No.'

`Please go on.'

`Well, Phil telephoned here early this morning, and Parker answered the telephone in the general's study. I wasn't up as a matter of fact. He began talking rather incoherently, Parker says, and said they were to tell me he would be down here at the Tower at one o'clock sharp; that he was in bad trouble and needed help. In the middle of it I heard my name mentioned, and came out and talked to him myself.

`I thought it was probably nothing at all, but to humour him I said I should be here. Though, I told Jim, I had to go out early in the afternoon.’

`You see, if it hadn't been for that. As it happened, General Mason had asked me to take the touring-car up to a garage in Holborn and have the horn repaired. It's an, electric horn, and it got so that if you pressed it you couldn't stop the thing's blowing.'

Hadley frowned. `A garage in Holborn? That's rather unnecessarily out of the way, isn't it?'

Again a dull anger at the back of Mason's eyes. He was standing with his back to the fireplace, legs wide apart; he spoke curtly.

`Quite right, sir. You see it in a moment. But it happens to be run by an old army man; sergeant, by the way, who did me rather a good turn once.'

`Ah,' said Hadley. `Well, Mr Dalrye?'

Rampole, leaning against a row of bookshelves with an unlighted cigarette in his fingers, tried again to imagine that all this was real; that he was really being drawn again into the dodges and terrors of a murder case. Undoubtedly it was true. But there was a difference between this affair and the murder of Martin Starberth. He was not, now, vitally concerned in its outcome. Through chance and, courtesy he was allowed to be present merely as a witness, detached and unprejudiced, of the lighted playbox where lay a corpse in an opera hat.

It was as bright as a play in the ancient room. There behind the desk sat the patient, watchful chief inspector, with his steel-wire hair and his clipped moustache, indolently folding his hands. On one side of him sat Sir William, his shrewdness glittering again behind impassive eyes; and on the other was the thin, wry-faced Robert Dalrye. Still bristling, General Mason stood with his back to the fire. And in the largest chair over against the fireplace, Dr Fell bad spread himself out and, he was contemplating with an owlish and naive gaze the opera hat in his hands.

Rampole became aware that Dalrye was speaking, and jerked his thoughts back.

‘so I didn't think much more about it. That was all, until somewhere about one o'clock, the time Phil said he would be here. The phone rang again, and Parker answered it. It was Phil, asking for me. At least,' said Dalrye, squashing out his cigarette suddenly, 'it sounded like Phil. I was in the record-room at the time, working on the notes for the general's book, and Parker transferred the call. Phil was more chaotic than he had been in the morning. He said that, for a reason he couldn't explain over the phone,' he couldn't come to the Tower, but that I had got to come to his flat and see him. He used his old phrase — I'd heard it dozens of times before — that it was a matter of life or death.’

`I was annoyed. I said I had work to do, and I damned well wouldn't do it, and that if he, wanted to see me he could come down here. Then he swore it really was a matter of life or death. And he said I had to come to Town, anyway; his flat was in Bloomsbury, and I had, to take the car to a garage which wasn't very far away; it wouldn't be out of my way if I dropped in. That was perfectly true. So I agreed.

Dalrye shifted in his chair. `I'll admit — well, it did sound more convincing than the other times. I thought he might really have got himself into a genuine mess.'

`Had you any definite reason to believe this?'

`N-no. Yes. Well, make of it what you like.' Dalrye's gaze strayed across to the corner, where Dr Fell was still examining the top-hat with absorbed interest. Dalrye shifted uneasily. `You see, Phil had been in rather high spirits recently. That was why I was so surprised at this change of front. He had been making a play with his stories on this hat-thief thing… you know?'

`We have good reason, to know,' the inspector said. His look had suddenly become one of 'veiled' interest. `Go on, please!’

'It was the sort of story he could do admirably.' He'd been free-lancing, and he hoped the editor might give him a permanent column. So, as I say, I, was astonished when I heard him say what he did. And I remember, I said, "What's the row, anyway? I thought you were following the hat-thief, " And he said, "That's just it," in a sort of queer voice. "I've followed it too, far. I've stirred up something, and it's got me."

The chief inspector leaned forward.

`Yes?' he prompted. `You gathered that Driscoll, thought he was in danger from this hat-thief?'

`Something like that. Naturally, I joked about it. I remember asking, "What's the matter; are you afraid he'll steal your hat?" And he said, "It's' not my hat I'm worried about. It's my head."

There was a silence. Then Hadley spoke casually:

`So you left the Tower. to go to his place. What then?'

`Now comes the odd part of it. I drove up to the garage; it's in Dane Street, High Holborn. The mechanic was busy on a job at the moment. He said he could fix the horn in a few minutes, but I should have to wait until he finished with the car he was working on. So I decided to walk to the flat, and pick up the car later. There was no hurry.'

Hadley reached for his notebook. `The address of the flat?' 'Tavistock Chambers, 34 Tavistock Square, WC. It's number two, on the ground floor…. Well, when I got there I rang at his door for a long time, and nobody answered.` So I went in.'

`The door was open?'

`No. But I have a key. You see, the gates of the Tower of London are closed at ten o'clock sharp every night, and the King himself would have a time getting in after that. So, when I went to a theatre or a dance or something of the sort, I had to have a place to stay the night, and I usually stopped on the couch in Phil's sitting-room…. Where was I? Oh yes. Well, I sat down to wait for him.'

Dalrye drew a long breath. He put the palm of his hand suddenly down on the table.

`About fifteen minutes or so after I had left the Tower, Phil Driscoll appeared at the general's quarters here and asked for me. Parker naturally said I had gone out in response to his phone message. Then, Parker says, Phil got as pale as death; he began to rave and call Parker mad. He had phoned that morning asking to see me at one o'clock… But he swore he had not changed the appointment. He swore he had never telephoned a second time at all.'

5. The Shadow by the Rail

Hadley stiffened. He laid down the pencil quietly, but there were tight muscles down the line of his jaw.

`Just so,' he said quietly. `What then?'

`I waited. It was getting foggier, and it had started to rain, and I got impatient. Then the phone in the flat rang, and I answered it.

`It was Parker, telling me what I've just told you. He had called once before to get me, but I was at the garage and hadn't arrived. Phil was waiting for me at the Tower, in a hell of a stew. Parker said he wasn't drunk, and I thought somebody had gone mad. But there was nothing to do but return; I had to do that, anyway. I Hurried over to get the car, and when I was leaving the garage I met the General…. '

`You also,' inquired Hadley, glancing up, `were in town, General?'

Mason was gloomily regarding his shoes. He looked up with a somewhat satiric expression.

`It would seem so. I had a luncheon engagement, and afterwards I went to the British Museum to pick up some books they had for me. As Dalrye says, it began to rain, so of course there weren't any taxis. Then I remembered the car would probably be at Stapleman's garage or, if it weren't, Stapleman would lend me a car to go back in. It's not far away from the Museum, so I started out. And I saw Dalrye in the car, and hailed him…. I've told you the rest of it. We got here at two-thirty, and found him.'

`Was it a very important luncheon engagement, General Mason?' asked Dr Fell suddenly.

The query was startling in its very naivete, and they all turned to look at him. His round and ruddy face was sunk into his collar, the great white plumed mop of hair straggling over one ear,

The General stared. `I don't think I understand.!

'Was it by any chance,' pursued the doctor, 'a society of some sort, a board of directors' meeting, a gathering of…'

`As a matter of fact,' said Mason, `it was.' He seemed puzzled and his hard eyes grew brighter. `The Antiquarians' Society. We meet for lunch on the first Monday of every month. I don't like the crowd. Gaa-a! Sedentary fossils of the worst type.- I only stay in the organization because you get the benefit of their knowledge, on a doubtful question. Sir Leonard Haldyne — the Keeper of the jewels here drove me up in his car, at noon.'

I suppose your membership in the society is well known?'

`All my friends know of it, if that's what you mean. It seems' to amuse them at the Rag.'

Hadley nodded slowly, contemplating Dr Fell. 'I begin to see what you're driving at. Tell me, General. You and Mr Dalrye were the only people at the Tower whom young Driscoll knew at all well?'

'Ye-es, I suppose so. I think he'd met Sir Leonard, and he had a nodding acquaintance with a number of the warders, but, . ' `But you were the only ones he'd be apt to call on?'

`Probably.'

Dalrye's mouth opened a trifle, and he sat up. Then he sank back into his chair.

`I see, sir. You mean the murderer had made certain both General Mason and I were out?'

The doctor spoke in a testy voice, ringing the ferrule of his cane as he hammered it on the floor:

`Of course he did. If you had been there, he'd certainly have been with you. If the General had been here in your absence, he might have been with the General. And, the murderer wouldn't have any chance to lure him to a suitable spot in the fog and put an end to him.'

Dalrye looked troubled. `All the same,' he said, `I'm willin g to swear it was really Phil's voice on the phone that second time. My God! man — excuse me, sir!' He swallowed, and as Dr Fell only beamed blandly he went on with more assurance, `What I mean is, I knew that voice as well as I knew anybody's. And if what you say is true, it couldn't have been Phil's voice at all..: Besides, how did this person, whoever it was, know that Phil had arranged to meet me down here at one o'clock? And why all the rigmarole about being "afraid of his head"?’

'Those facts,' said Dr Fell composedly, `may provide us with very admirable clues. Think them over. By the way, what sort of voice did Driscoll have?'

Dalrye hesitated. `The only way to describe it is incoherent. He thought so fast that he ran miles ahead of what he was trying to say. And when he was excited his voice tended to grow high.'

Dr Fell, his head on one side and his eyes half closed, was nodding slowly. He peered up, as a knock sounded at the door, and the chief warder entered.

'The police surgeon is here, sir,' he said, `and several other men from Scotland Yard. Are there any instructions?'

Hadley started to rise, and reconsidered.. 'No. Just tell them the usual routine, if you please; they'll understand. I want about a dozen pictures of the body, from all angles. Is there any place the body can conveniently be taken for examination?'

`The Bloody Tower, Mr Radburn,' said General Mason. `Use the Princes Room that's very suitable. Have you got Parker here?'

`Outside, sir; Have you any instructions about those visitors? They're getting impatient, and

`In a moment,' said Hadley. `Would you mind sending Parker in?' As, the chief warder withdrew, he turned to Dalrye. `You have those visitors' names?'

`Yes. And I rather overstepped my rights,' said Dalrye. He drew from his wallet a number of sheets of paper. `I was very solemn about it. I instructed them to write down names, addresses, occupations, and references. Most of them were obvious tourists. I don't think there's any harm in them, and they didn't show any fight. Except Mrs Bitton, that is. And one other woman.'

He handed the bundle of sheets to Hadley. The chief inspector glanced up sharply. `One other woman? Who was she?'

`I didn't notice what she wrote, but I remembered her name from the way she acted. Hard-faced party. You see, I had it all very official, to scare 'em into writing the truth. And this woman was wary. She said, "You're not a notary, are you, young man?" and I was so surprised that I looked at her. Then she said, "You've got no right to do this, young man. We're not under oath. My name is Larkin, and I'm a respectable widow, and that's all you need to know."

Hadley shuffled through the papers.

`Larkin,' he repeated. `H'm. We must look into this. When the net goes out, we often get small fish we're not after at all…. Larkin, Larkin here it is. "Mrs Amanda Georgette Larkin." The "Mrs" in brackets; she wants that clearly understood. Stiff handwriting. Address — Hallo!'

He put down the sheets and frowned. `Well, well! The address is "Tavistock Chambers, 34 Tavistock Square." So she lives in the same building as young Driscoll, eh? This is getting to be quite a convention.'

Sir William had been rubbing his jaw uneasily. He said: `Look here, Hadley, don't you think you'd better bring Mrs Bitton away from the crowd? — She's my sister-in-law, you know, and after all…'

`Most unfortunate,' said Hadley, composedly. `Where's that man Parker?'

Parker had been standing hatless and coatless in the fog just outside the crack of the door, waiting to be summoned. At Hadley's remark he knocked; came inside, and stood at attention.

He was a square, brownish man with a military cut. Like most corporals of his day, he ran largely to moustache; nor did he in the least resemble a valet. The high white collar pinioned his head, as though he were having a daguerreotype taken.

`You are General Mason's orderly?' Hadley inquired. Parker looked pleased. 'Yussir.'

`Mr Dalrye has already told us of the two phone calls

from Mr Driscoll… You answered the phone both times, I believe?'

`Yussir. On both occasions.'

`So you had some conversation with Mr Driscoll?'

`I did, sir. Our talks was not lengthy, but full of meat.' `Could you swear it was Mr Driscoll's voice both times?' Parker frowned. `Well, sir, when you say, "Could you swear it?" ‘- that's a long word,' he answered, judicially. `To the best of my knowledge and discernment from previous occasions, sir, it were.'

`Very well. Now, Mr Dalrye left here in the car shortly before one o'clock. Do you remember at what time Mr Driscoll arrived?'

'One-fifteen, sir.'

'How are you so positive?'

`Excuse me, sir,' Parker said, stolidly. 'I can inform you of everything that happens at the time which it happens, exact, sir, by the movements at the barracks. Or by the bugles. One-fifteen it was.'

Hadley tapped his fingers slowly on the desk.

`Now, take your time, Parker. I want you to remember everything that happened after Mr Driscoll arrived. Try to remember conversations, if you can… First, what was his manner? Nervous? Upset?'

`Very nervous and upset, sir.' 'And how was he dressed?'

`Cloth cap, light-brown golf suit, worsted stockings, club tie, sir. No overcoat. He asked for Mr Dalrye. I said Mr Dalrye had gone to his rooms in response to his own message. He then demonstrated incredulity. He used strong language, at which I was forced to say, "Mr Driscoll, sir,"

I said, "I talked to you myself." I said, "When I answered the telephone you thought I was Mr Dalrye; and you said all in a rush, `Look here, you've got to help me out I can't come down now,' and — `That's what you said'."' Parker cleared his throat. `I explained that to him, sir.'

`What did he say?'

'He said, "How long has Mr Dalrye been gone?" I told him about fifteen' minutes. And he said, "Was he in the car?" and I said "Yes," and he said — excuse me, sir,’ "Oh, my God! that's not long enough to drive up there on a foggy day." But, anyway, he went to the telephone and rang up his own flat.' There was no, answer. He said to get him, a drink, which I did. And while I was getting it I noticed that he kept looking out of the window…. ‘

Hadley- opened his half-closed eyes. `Window? What window?'

`The window of the little room where Mr Dalrye works, sir, in the east wing of the King's House.'

'What can you see from there?'

Parker, who had become so interested in his story that he forgot to be flowery, blinked and tried to right his thoughts. 'See, sir?'

`Yes! The' view. Can you see the Traitors' Gate, for instance?’

"Oh. Yussir! I thought you was referring to… well, sir, to something I saw, which I didn't think was important, but now I get to thinking.. '

You saw something?'

`Yussir. That is, it was after Mr Driscoll had left me, sir.' '

Hadley seemed to fight down a desire to probe hard. He had half-risen, but he sat back and said, evenly: `Very well. Now go on with the story, Parker, from the time you saw Mr Driscoll looking out of the window.'

'Very good, sir. He finished his drink, and had another neat. I asked, him why he didn't go back to his flat, if he wanted to see Mr Dalrye. And he said, "Don't be a fool; I don't want to take the chance of missing him again. We'll keep ringing my place every five minutes until I know where he is."

Parker recounted the conversation in a gruff, sing-song voice, and in such a monotone that Rampole could tell only with difficulty where he was quoting Driscoll and where he spoke himself.`But he could not sit still, sir. He roamed about. Finally 'he said: "My God — I can't stand this; I'm going for a walk in the grounds.. So he went out.’`How long was he with you?'

'A matter of ten minutes, say, sir. No; it was less than that… Well, sir, I paid no more attention. I should not have seen anything, except ' Parker hesitated. He saw the veiled gleam in Hadley's eyes; he saw Sir William bent forward, and Dalrye pausing with a match almost to his cigarette. And he seemed to realize he was a person of importance. He gave the hush its full value.

`except, sir,' he suddenly continued in a louder voice; `for the match-in-ashuns of fate. I may remark, sir; that earlier in the day there had been a light mist. But nothing of what might be termed important. It was possible to see some distance and objects was distinct: But it was a-growing very misty. That was how I come to look out of the window. And that was when I saw Mr Driscoll.'

Hadley's fingers stopped tapping while he scrutinized the other.

'How did you know it was Mr Driscoll? You said the mist was thickening….'

'I didn't say I saw his face. Nobody could have recognized him that way: he was just an outline. But, sir, wait! There was his size. There was his plus-fours, which he always wore lower-down than other gentlemen. And when he went out he was a wearing his cap: with the top all pulled over to one side. Then I saw him walking back and forth in Water Lane.'

`But you can't swear it was actually he?'

`Yussir. I can. Becos, sir, he went to the rail in front of

Traitors' Gate and leaned on it. And whereupon he struck a match to light a cigarette. Just for a second I saw part of his face. Yussir, I'm positive. I know. I saw 'im just before the other person touched 'im on the arm…. '

`What?' demanded Hadley, with such suddenness that Parker took it for a slur on his veracity.

`Sir, so help me God' The other person that was standing over by the side of Traitors' Gate. And that came out and touched Mr Driscoll on the arm.'

`Did you see this other person, Parker?'

`No sir. It was too dark there; shadowed, sir. I shouldn't even have seen Mr Driscoll if I hadn't been watching him and saw 'im strike the match.'

`Could you tell whether this person was a man or a woman?'

'Er — no, sir. I turned away then. I was not endowed with the opportunity to see no further occurrences.'

`Quite. Do you know at what time this was?' `It were shortly past one-thirty.'

Hadley, brooded, his head in his hands. After a time he looked across at General Mason.

`And the doctor here said, General, that when you discovered the body at two-thirty. Driscoll had been dead at least half an hour — probably three-quarters? Yes. Well, that's that. He was murdered within ten minutes or fifteen minutes after this other person touched his arm at the rail.

The police surgeon will be able to tell us exactly.'

He paused, and looked at Mason's orderly.

`Very well, Parker. That's all, and thank you. You've been most helpful.'

Parker clicked his heels and went out glowing.

The chief inspector drew a long breath. `Well, gentlemen, there you are. The murderer had considerably over half an hour's time to clear out. And, as the general says, what between rain and fog the sentries at the gates wouldn't have been able to see anything of a person who 'slipped' out. Now, we get down to work. Our first hope… '

He picked up the sheets containing the names of the visitors.

`Sincee we have something to go on,' he continued, 'we can use our guests. We know the approximate time of the murder. Hallo!' he called towards the door, and a warder opened it. `Will you go down to the Bloody Tower and send up the sergeant in charge of the police officers who have just arrived?'

'I hope it's Hamper,' he added to his companions. `First, we'll put aside the slips made out by the three people we want to interview ourselves — Mrs Bitton, Mr Arbor, and, just as a precaution, the careful Mrs Larkin. Let's see, Larkin —'

`Mrs Bitton didn't make out any, sir,' Dalrye told him.' `She laughed at the idea.'

`Right, then. Here's the Arbor one. Let's see. I say, that's a beautiful handwriting; like the lettering on a calling card. Fastidious, this chap.' He examined the paper curiously. "Julius Arbor, 440 Park Avenue, New York City. No occupation

'Doesn't need one,' Sir William growled. `He's got pots.'

"Arrived Southampton, March 4, S.S. Bremen. Duration of stay indefinite. Destination, Villa Seule, Nice, France." He adds, very curtly, "If further information is necessary, suggest communicating with my London solicitors, Messrs Hillton and Dane, Lincoln's Inn Fields." H'm.'

He smiled to himself, put the sheet aside, and glanced hastily at the others.

`If you've ever heard any of these other names, gentlemen, sing out; otherwise I'll let the sergeant handle them.

`Mr and Mrs George G. Bebber, 291 Aylesborough Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.A. - Lucien Lefevre, 6o Avenue Foch, Paris. Mlle Clementine Lefevre, as above. - Miss Dorothea Delevan Mercenay, 23 Elm Avenue, Meadville, Ohio, U.S.A. Miss Mercenay adds M.A. to her name, underscored heavily. That's the lot. They sound harmless enough.’

`Sergeant Betts, sir,' said a voice at the door. A very serious-faced young man saluted nervously.

`Betts,' said Hadley. `Betts.. oh yes. Did you get a picture of the dead man's face?'

`Yes, sir. They've set up the outfit in that Tower place, and the pictures are drying now.'

`Right.. Take a copy of that picture and show it to all the people listed here; the warder will show you where they are. Ask them if they saw him today; when and where. Be particular about anybody they may have seen in the vicinity of the Traitors' Gate at any time, or anybody acting suspiciously. Mr Dalrye, I should be obliged if you would go along and make shorthand notes of anything important'

Dalrye rose, reaching for pencil and notebook.

'I want particularly to know, Betts, where they were between one-thirty and one forty-five o'clock. That's vital. Mr Dalrye, will you kindly ask Mrs Lester Bitton to step in here?'

6. The Souvenir Crossbow Bolt

`Now, then,' Hadley pursued. Again with meticulous attention he straightened the pencil, the notebook, and the flashlight before him. `The police surgeon will bring in the contents of Driscoll's pockets, and we can have a good look at the weapon. I'll leave it up to the chief warder to take charge of questioning the warders about whether they saw anything.

`Now, Gentlemen. Before we see Mrs Bitton, suppose we try to clarify our ideas. Let's go around, the circle here, and see what we all have to say. Sir William, what strikes you about the case?'

`That's easy,' Sir William said, twisting the ends of his white scarf. `You can't miss it. It's the absolute lack of motive. Nobody in the world had the slightest reason for killing Philip.'

`Yes. But you're forgetting one thing,' Hadley pointed out. `We're dealing, in some fashion with a madman. It's useless to deny that this hat-thief is mixed up in it. Whether he, killed Philip Driscoll or not, he seems to have put that hat on his head. Now, from what Dalrye said, it's clear that Driscoll was on the hat-man's track pretty closely..’

`But, good God, man! You can't seriously suggest that this fellow killed Philip because Philip found out who he was! That's absurd.'

`Quite. But worth looking into. Therefore, what's our obvious move?'

Sir William's hooded eyelids drooped. `I see. Philip was turning in regular, copy to his newspaper. One of his articles appeared to-day, in the morning edition. That means he turned it in last night. And if he went to the office, he may have told his editor something…?'

`Precisely. That's our first line of inquiry. If by any wild chance his agitation to-day was caused by some sort of threat, it would probably have been sent to the office; or at least he might have mentioned it there. It's worth trying.!

'Rubbish,' said Dr Fell. I

`Indeed?' said the chief inspector, with heavy politeness. `Would you mind telling us why?'

The doctor made a capacious gesture. `Hadley, you know your own game, Heaven knows. But you don't know the newspaper business. I, for my sins, do. Did you ever hear the story of the cub reporter whose first assignment was to cover a big Pacifist meeting in the West End? Well, he came back with a doleful face. "Where's your story?" says thee news editor. "I couldn't get one," says the cub; "there wasn't any meeting." "No meeting?" says the news editor. "Why not?" "Well," says' the cub, "the first speaker had no sooner got started than somebody threw a brick at him. And then Lord Dinwiddie fell through the bass drum, and a fight started all around the platform, and they began hitting each other over the head with the chairs, and when I saw the Black Maria at the door I knew there wouldn't be any more meeting, so I left."'

Dr Fell shook his head sadly. `That's the sort of picture you're drawing, Hadley. Man, don't you see that if Driscoll had found out anything, or particularly been threatened, it would have been NEWS? News in capitals, "HAT FIEND THREATENS DAILY SOMETHING' MAN." Certainly he'd have mentioned it at the office. Rest assured you'd have seen it to-day on the first page.'

`He mightn't,' Hadley said, irritably, `if he had been as nervous as he seems to have been.'

`Wait a bit. You're wrong there,' put in Sir William. `Give the boy his due. Whatever he was, he wasn't a coward. His upsets never came because he feared any sort of violence.!

'But he said…'

`That isn't the point, you see,' Dr Fell said, patiently. `To publish anything of the sort couldn't have done any harm. They might say they'd found a vital clue, or that there had been a threat. The first would only warn their victim. The second would have been more publicity, which the hat-fellow wanted in the-first place; look at the way he acts. It would have done no harm, and assuredly it would have helped young Driscoll's job.'

'Suppose he'd actually found out who the man was, though?'

`Why, the newspaper would have communicated with the police,' and Driscoll would have got the credit. Do you seriously think anybody would have been afraid, at the time, of a person who seemed to be a mere genial practical joker?

No, no. You're letting the hat on the corpse run away with your own sense of humour. I'm willing to agree with Sir William's statement the boy wasn't a coward but what was it he did fear? There's a tip. Think it over.'

`I have something to say to you in a moment,' the chief inspector told him. `But, for the moment, let's continue. Have you any suggestions, General?'

General Mason had been smoking glumly. He took the cigar out of his mouth and shook his head.

`None whatever. Except that it's fairly obvious now he was stabbed and not shot with that bolt.'

`Mr Rampole?' Hadley saw that the American was ill at ease, and raised his eyebrows encouragingly. `Any ideas?'

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?'

For a moment Sir William seemed about to stretch out his hand, as General Mason took the hat from Dr Fell and passed it across. Then he sat rigid.

`You'll have to excuse me,' he said through his teeth. `I — sorry, but I can't do it.'

`Well, well, it's of no consequence,' Dr Fell said, genially. He took back the hat, pressed it down so that it collapsed, and fanned his ruddy face with it. `Not for the moment, anyhow. Who are your hatters?'

`Steele's, in Regent,' Street. Why?'

'Mrs Lester Bitton,'' said a voice at the door. The warder on guard pushed it open.

Mrs Bitton was not backward. She came into the room with an assurance which betokened a free stride, and she radiated energy. Mrs Bitton was a slim woman in the late twenties, with a sturdy, well-shaped figure like a swimmer's. She had level, rather shining brown eyes, a straight nose, and a humorous but determined mouth. Her light-brown hair was caught under the tilt of a tight blue hat; beneath a broad fur collar the tight-fitting coat showed off her full breasts and rather voluptuous hips..:. As she caught sight of Sir William she became less assured.

'Hallo!' she said. The voice was quick and self-determined. 'Bob didn't tell me you were here. I'm sorry you got here so soon.'

Sir William performed the introductions. Rampole set out a chair for her beside Hadley's desk.

'So you're Mr Hadley,' she observed, studying him with her bead slightly back. Then she looked at Sir William. `I've heard Will speak of you.' She made a cool inspection of everybody in the room, finally craning round the better to see Dr Fell. `And these are your inspectors or something. I'm afraid I kicked up rather a row across the way. But then I didn't know. Even when Bob told me… told me it was Phil, I didn't believe him.'

Despite her assurance Rampole got a definite impression that she was nervous.

`You know the circumstances, Mrs Bitton?' Hadley asked impassively.

`What Bob was able to tell me. Poor Phil! I'd like to..'

She paused, seeming to meditate punishments for a murderer. `Of course it was absurd asking me to fill out that silly paper. As though I had to explain:

`It was merely a matter of form. However, you under that all the people who were here near the time of the tragedy must be questioned.!

'Of course I understand that.' She looked at Hadley sharply. `When was Phil killed?'

`Well come to that in a moment, Mrs Bitton. Let's get things in order, if you don't mind…. To begin with, I dare say this isn't the first time you've visited the Tower? Naturally, you're interested in the — er — historic treasures of the place?'

A rather humorous look crept into her face. `That's- a gentleman's way of asking me my business:' Her eyes wandered to Sir William. `I imagine Will has already told you about me. He thinks I haven't any interest in musty ruins and things like that.'

General Mason was stung. The word `ruins' had shocked him. He took the cigar out of his mouth.

`Madam,' he interposed, warmly, `if you will excuse my reminding you.. '

`Certainly,' she agreed, with a bright smile, and looked back at Hadley. `However, that's not true. I do like them. I like to think about those people in armour, and the tournaments and things, and fights. But I was going to tell you why I was here. It wasn't the Tower exactly. It was the walk.'

`The walk?'

`I'm afraid, Mr Hadley,' she observed, critically, `that you don't walk enough. Good for you. Keeps you fit. Lester is getting a paunch that's why I take him on walking tours as often as he'll let me. We just came back yesterday from a walking trip in the West Country. So to-day I decided to walk from Berkeley Square to the Tower of London.

'I couldn't persuade Lester to go along, so I came down 1, here alone. And then I thought, "So long as I'm here, I' might as well look at the place."

'I see. Do you' remember what time you arrived?'

`One o'clock or some time afterwards, I fancy. I had a sandwich in the refreshment-room up by the gate. That was where I bought the tickets for the towers; three of 'em. A white one, a pink one, and a green one.'

Hadley glanced at General Mason. The latter said:

`For the White Tower, the Bloody Tower, and the Crown Jewels. There's an admission fee for those.'

`'M, — yes. Did you use these tickets, Mrs Bitton?'

For a moment, the movement of her full breast was quicker. Then her lip curled slightly.

`I had a look at the Crown jewels,' she replied, with no expression of candour. `They looked like glass to me. And I'll bet they're not real, either.'

General Mason's face had assumed a brickish hue, and a strangled noise issued from him.

`May I ask why you didn't use the other tickets, Mrs Bitton?'Hadley asked quickly.

'O Lord, how should I know? I changed my mind.' She slid her body about in the chair, seeming to have lost interest. But her eyes looked strained. `I did wander about a bit in that inner courtyard up there. And I talked to one nice old Beefeater.’

General Mason broke in with cold courtesy:

`Madam, may I, request you not to use that word? The guards at the Tower are called Yeoman Warders, not Beefeaters. The term is applied.. '

`I'm sorry. Of course I didn't know. You hear people talk, that's all. I pointed to that place where the stone slab is, where it says they used to chop people's heads off, you know, and I asked the Bee… the man, "Is that where Queen Elizabeth was executed?" And he nearly fainted. He cleared his throat a couple of times, and said, "Madam..er… Queen Elizabeth had not the honour to be… ah… I mean, Queen Elizabeth died in her bed." And then reeled off a list of people who got their heads chopped off there; and I said, "What did she die of?" and he said,

"Who, ma'am?" and I said, "Queen Elizabeth" and he made a sort of funny noise.'

Hadley was not impressed. `Please keep to the subject, Mrs Litton. When did you leave?' '

`My dear man, I don't carry a watch. But I know that I came down from the parade-ground under the arch of that big place called the Bloody Tower. And I saw a group of people standing over by the rail around these steps, and there was a Beefeater who asked me if I would mind going on. So I suppose it was after you found… Phil.'

`Did you run into Mr Driscoll at any time?'

'No. Naturally, I didn't know he was there.'

Hadley absently, tapped his fingers on the desk for some time. He resumed suddenly: 'Now, Mrs Bitton, according to your own statement you arrived here in the vicinity of one o'clock. The body was discovered at two-thirty, and of course you started to leave after that time, or you wouldn't be here. So you spent all, that time looking at the Crown Jewels and wandering about the parade-ground in the fog? Is that correct?'

She laughed and regarded Hadley with some defiance. But she was not so cool as before.

`I hope you don't think I'm afraid of a bit of mist or rain? Good Lord! You surely don't think I had anything to do with killing Phil, do you?'

'It is my duty to ask these questions,' Mrs Bitton. Since you carried no watch, I suppose you do not know whether you were anywhere near the Traitors' Gate between half past one and a quarter to two?'

'The Traitors' Gate,' she repeated. `Let's see. Which one is that?'

Hadley nodded towards her handbag. `May I ask what you have there, under the strap on the other side of your bag? Folded over, I mean; a green pamphlet of some sort.'

It's… I say, I'd forgotten all about it! It's a guide to the Tower of London. I bought it for twopence at the ticket-window.'

`Were you anywhere near the Traitors' Gate between half past one and a quarter to two?'

She took out a cigarette, lighted it with a sweep of the match, against the table, and regarded him with cold anger.

`Thanks for repeating the question,' she returned. `It's most considerate. If by the Traitors' Gate you mean the one where Phil was found, as I assume you do, the answer is No. I was not near it, at any time except when I passed it going in and coming out.'

Hadley grinned. It was a placid, slow, homely grin, and it made his face almost genial. The woman's face, had hardened, and there was a strained look about her eyes; but she caught the grin, and suddenly laughed.

`All right. Touche. But I'm hanged if I let you pull my leg again, Mr Hadley. I thought you meant it.'

`We now come to the inevitable. Mrs Bitton, do you know anybody who would desire to take Mr Driscoll's life?'

`Nobody would want to kill him. It's absurd. Phil was wonderful. He was a precious lamb.'

General Mason shuddered, and even Hadley winced.

`Ah,' he said. 'He, may have been as you say, a… never mind. When did you last see him?'

`H'm. Well, it's been some time. It was before Lester and I went to Cornwall. He only comes to the house on Sundays. And he wasn't there yesterday, now that I come to think of it.' She frowned. `Yes. Will was so cut up over losing that manuscript, and turning the house upside down.. or did you know about that?'

`We know,' Hadley answered, grimly.

`Wait a bit. Wait. I'm wrong,' she corrected, putting her hand down on the desk. 'He did come in for, a short time rather late Sunday night, to pay his respects to us. He was on his way, to the newspaper, office to turn in his story, I remember: about the barrister's wig on the cab-horse. Don't you remember, Will?'

Sir William rubbed his forehead. `I don't know. I didn't see him, but then I was occupied.'

Sheila told us about this new newspaper line of his chasing hats.' For the first time Laura Bitton shuddered. `And I told him what Sheila told me, about Will's hat being stolen the night before.'

`What did he say?'

`Well, he asked a lot of questions, about where it had been stolen, and when, and all about it; and then I remember he started to pace up and down the drawing-room, and he said he'd got a "lead", and went hurrying away before we could ask what he meant'

A knock at the door preceded the appearance of an oldish tired man carrying a bundle made out of a handkerchief. He saluted. I

'Sergeant Hamper, sir. I have the dead man's belongings here. And the police surgeon would like to speak to you.'

A mild-mannered, peering little man with a goatee doddered in at the door.

`Howdy!' he said, pushing his derby hat slightly back on his head with the hand containing his black satchel. In the other he held a straight length of steel. `Here's your weapon, Hadley. Hur-umph… No, no fingerprints. I washed it'

He doddered over to the table, examined it as though he were looking for a suitable place, and put down the crossbow bolt. It was rounded, thin, and about eighteen inches long, with a barbed steel head.

`Funny-lookin' things they're usin' nowadays,' commented the doctor, rubbing his nose.

`It's a crossbow bolt from the late fourteenth century!

'My eye,' said the doctor, 'and Betty Martin. Look what's engraved down it. "Souvenir de Carcassonne, 1932." The pirate French sell 'em at little souvenir booths'

`But, Doctor said Sir. William.

The other blinked at him. `My, name,' he observed, with a sudden querulous suspicion — 'my name, sir, is Watson. Doctor Watson. And if any alleged humorist… squeaked the doctor, flourishing his satchel — `if any alleged humorist makes the obvious remark, I'll brain him. For thirty years on this force I've been hearin' nothing else. And I'm tired of it. People hiss at me round corners. They ask me for needles and four-wheelers and Shag tobacco, and have I my revolver handy?'

Laura Bitton had paid no attention to this tirade. She had grown a trifle pale, and she was standing motionless, staring down at the crossbow bolt.

She said, in a voice she tried to keep matter-of-fact:

`I know where this belongs, Mr Hadley.!

'You've seen it before?'

'It comes,' said Mrs Bitton, in a careful voice, `from our house. Lester and I bought it when we were on a walking trip in southern France.'

7. Mrs Larkin's Cuff

`Sit down, everybody!' Hadley said, sharply. `This place is turning into a madhouse. You're certain of that, Mrs Bitton?'

She seemed to recover herself from an almost hypnotized stare at the bright steel

‘I., I mean… of course I can't; say. Things like that are on sale at Carcassonne, and hundreds of people must buy them.'

`Quite,' Hadley agreed, dryly. `However, you bought one just like it. Where did you keep it?'

`I honestly don't know. I haven't seen it for months. I remember when we returned from the trip I ran across it in the baggage and thought, "Now, why on earth did I buy that stupid thing?" My impression is that I chucked it away somewhere.'

Hadley turned the bolt over in his hand, weighing it. Then he felt the point and sides of the head,

`Mrs Bitton, the point, and barb are as sharp as a knife. Was it like that when you bought it?'

`Good Lord, no! It was very blunt. You couldn't possibly have cut yourself with it.'

`As a matter of fact,' said the chief inspector, holding the head close, 'I think it's been filed and whetted. And there's something else. Has anybody got a lens?… Ah, thanks; Hamper.' He took the small magnifying glass which the sergeant passed over, and tilted up the bolt to scrutinize the engraving along the side. `Somebody has been trying to efface this Souvenir de Carcassonne thing with a file. H'm. And it isn't as though the person had given it up as a bad job. The s-o-u part is blurred and filed almost out, systematically. It's as though the person had been interrupted and hadn't finished his job.'

He put down the bolt glumly. Dr Watson, having evidently satisfied himself that nobody was in a joking mood, had grown more amiable.

`Well. I'm goin', he volunteered. `Anything, you want to know? No use tellin' you that did for him.. Clean puncture; plenty of strength behind it. Might have lived half a minute, Hur-umph. Oh yes. Concussion. Might have, got it falling down the steps, or maybe somebody batted him. That's your job.'

`What about the time of death, Watson? The doctor here says he died between one-thirty and one-forty-five.'

`Oh,' he does, does he?' said the police surgeon. `Wasn't a bad guess, though. He died about ten minutes to two. I'll take him along in the ambulance for a good look, and let you know.'

He doddered out, swinging his black bag.

`But look here!' protested Sir William, when the door had closed. 'He can't possibly know it so exactly, can he? I thought doctors gave a good deal of leeway on a thing like that.'

`He doesn't,' said Hadley. `That's why he's so invaluable. And in twenty years I've never known him more than ten minutes wrong about the, time of death.'

He turned to Laura Bitton.

`To proceed, Mrs Bitton. Let's assume that this bolt came from your house. Who knew it was there?'

`Why, everybody, I imagine. I don't remember, but I suppose I must have shown the junk we accumulated on that trip.'

'Had you seen it before, Sir William?'

`I'm not sure,' the other answered, slowly. `I may, have. But I can't recall ever having seen it. Ah yes. Ha! Now I know, Laura. You and Lester made the trip while I was abroad in the States, and I came back after you. That accounts for it.'

Hadley drew a long breath. `There's no use speculating,' he said, `We shall have to make inquiries at the house…and now, Mrs Bitton, I, don't think we need detain you any longer. One of the warders will escort you to a cab. Or perhaps Sir William will do it… And look here, old man he put his hand on the knight's arm `you've a perfect right to stay, if you like; at least, I shan't try to drive you away.. But you've had a trying day. Don't you think it would be better if you went home with Mrs Bitton?'

`No — I'm waiting to hear what you have to say to Arbor.'

`Which is exactly what you mustn't do, don't you see? It would spoil everything.'

`Tell you what, Bitton,' the General suggested, gruffly, `go up to my rooms. Parker will give you a cigar and a brandy, and if there's any news we'll let you know. That Devereux record is in the portfolio in my desk; have a look at it.'

Sir William rose to his great height. As he turned towards the woman, Rampole turned also and Rampole was startled to see on Laura's face an expression of stark terror. It was riot caused by anything she saw; it was the expression of one who remembers something momentarily forgotten; who stops breathless, eyes opening wide. It was gone immediately, and Rampole wondered whether Hadley had noticed it.

`I don't suppose I might be allowed to remain?' she asked, in her cool voice. But two kinks were working at the corners of her nostrils, and she seemed 'almost to have stopped breathing. `I might be helpful.' As Hadley smiled and shook his head, she seemed to weigh something in her mind. Then she shrugged. `Ah, well. Excuse the morbid curiosity. And I will go home in a cab. Good afternoon, gentlemen.'

She nodded curtly. Followed by her brother-in-law, she swung out of the room.

`Hum!' said General Mason, after a long pause. The fire was getting low, and. he kicked at it. Then he noticed Sergeant Hamper, who had been standing, patient and forgotten, since Dr Watson's entrance; and the general did not continue. `Oh, ah yes,' the chief inspector coughed, as though he had just noticed it, too. `Sorry, Hamper, for keeping you waiting. Those are the contents of the pockets you have there, eh? Put them down, and see if you can pick up any news from the chief warder. But before you do, go across the way and find Mrs Amanda Larkin. Wait about five minutes, and send her in here.'

The sergeant saluted and withdrew. Hadley contemplated the small bundle on the desk before him, but he did not immediately open it.

`I say, Mr Hadley,' said the General. `What did you make of that woman?'

`Mrs Bitton? I wonder… She's an old hand at evasion, and a very good one. She sees the traps as soon as you set them. What do you know about her?'

`I'd never met her. But I know her husband slightly, through Bitton.'

'What's this Lester Bitton like?.

'I don't like to say,' the General answered, doubtfully. `Don't know the man well enough. He's older than she is; considerably, I should think. Can't imagine him enjoying these athletic activities of hers. I believe he made a lot of money in some financial scheme.'

Hadley turned his attention to the handkerchief, knotted up like a bundle, which contained the dead man's effects.

`Here we are. Wrist-watch; crystal broken, but still running. Bunch of keys. Fountain-pen and stylo pencil. Banknotes, silver and coppers. Only one letter…. Pure trash pale mauve envelope, and scented; woman's handwriting.'

He drew out a single sheet of paper, and Rampole and the General bent over it as he spread it out on the table. There was no date or heading. The message was written in the centre of the sheet: `Be careful. Tower of London, one-thirty. Suspect. Vital.- Mary.'

Hadley read it aloud, scowling. `Mary?' he repeated. 'Now we've got to find a Mary. Let's see. Postmarked London, W, ten-thirty last night. This thing is beginning to get on my nerves.' Pushing the letter out on the desk, he turned to the contents of the handkerchief again. `I must say the sergeant is thorough. He even included the dead man's ring and tie-pin. But here's our hope. Loose-leaf note-book, black leather.'

Opening the note-book, he let his eye run along the few scrawled lines on the first sheet.

`Listen to this! Notes of some sort, with dashes between. Apparently it's in Driscoll's handwriting:

` "Best place?.:. Tower?… Track down hat… Unfortunate Trafalgar… can't transfix… 10… Wood Hedges or shield. Find out".'

`But that's gibberish!' General Mason protested, somewhat — superfluously. `It doesn't mean anything. At least, it may have meant something, but….'

`But he's left out the connecting words,' Hadley supplied. `It seems to refer to some clue for following our hat-man.'

`Read that again!' Dr Fell. suddenly boomed from his coreer. On his big face was a blank expression which slowly turned to something like amusementas the chief inspector; repeated the words….

`Mrs Larkin is here, sir,' said the voice of Sergeant Hamper from the door.

A series of chuckles were running down the bulges of Dr Fell's waistcoat. His small eyes twinkled, and ashes' from his pipe were blown about him. He looked like the Spirit of the Volcano.

Mrs Amanda Georgette. Larkin looked about carefully before she entered, rather as though she expected to find a bucket of water balanced on the top of the door. Then she marched in, saw the empty chair beside Hadley's' desk, and sat down without further ado. She was a tall, rather heavy, woman, well dressed in dark clothes of the sort called 'sensible'; which word, as in its usual context, means an absence of charm.

Hadley hitched his own chair round. `Mrs Larkin, I am Chief Inspector Hadley. Naturally, you understand, I dislike having to inconvenience any of you. But you may be able to give us some very important information.'

`Maybe,' grunted Mrs Larkin, hitching her shoulders. 'But, first, before you ask me any questions, give me your word anything I say will be treated as a confidence.'

Hadley considered gravely. 'I can make no promises. If anything you say has a direct bearing on this investigation, I can't treat it as a confidence. Is that clear?'.. Besides, Mrs Larkin, I'm almost positive I've seen you somewhere before.'

She shrugged, `Maybe you have, and maybe you haven't. That's as it may be. But there's no slop in the business who's got anything on me. I'm a respectable widow. I don't know anything, about your investigation, and I haven't anything to tell you.'

All this time Mrs Larkin seemed to be having: some difficulty with her cuff. Under her dark coat she, seemed to have on some sort of tailored suit, with turned-up white cuffs; whether the, left-hand one was sliding down, or her capable fingers had a habit of, playing with it, Rampole could not tell. If Hadley, noticed it, he gave no sign.

'Do you know what happened here, Mrs Larkin?'

`Certainly I know. There was enough talk from the crowd over the way.'

`Then you may know that the, dead man is Mr Philip Driscoll, of Tavistock Chambers, Tavistock Square. On the paper you filled out you say that you lived in this building also. What is the number of your flat?'

A brief hesitation. `Number 1.'

'Number 1. Ground floor, I suppose?’ Quite so. You must be an old resident, Mrs Larkin?'

She blazed. `What the hell difference is it to you? If you've got any complaint to make, make it to the maeager of the flats.

Again Hadley gravely considered, his hands folded. `Who would also tell me how long you had been a resident. After all, it can't harm you to give us a bit of assistance, can it?' Some time' — he raised his eyes — 'some time it 'might help you a good deal.'

Another hesitation. `I didn't mean to speak so sharp,' she told him, moving sullenly in the chair. `Well, if it does you any good, I've been there a few weeks; something like that'

`That's better. How many flats on each floor?'

`Two. Two in each entry of the building.'

'So,' Hadley said, musingly, `you must have lived directly

across the way from Mr Driscoll. Did you know him?' `No. I've seen him, that's all.'

`Inevitable, of course. And passing in and out, you may have noticed whether he had visitors?'

`Sure I did. I couldn't help it. He had lots of people coming to see him.'

'I was thinking particularly of women.'

For a moment Mrs Larkin scrutinized him with an ugly eye. `Yes. There was women. But what about it? Live and let live, that's what I say. It was none of my business. But if you're going to ask me who the women were, you can save your breath. I don't know.'

`For instance,' said Hadley. He glanced over at the sheet of mauve notepaper. `You never heard the name "Mary used, did you?'

She stiffened. Her eyes remained fixed on the notepaper, and she stopped fiddling with her cuff.

`No. I told you I didn't know him. The only woman's name I ever heard in connexion with him was on — the up-and-up. It was a little blonde. She used to come with a big thin bird with eyeglasses on. One day she stopped me as I was coming in and asked me how she could find the porter to get into his flat. There's no hall-porter; it's an automatic lift. She said her name was Sheila and she was his cousin. And that's all I ever heard.'

Hadley remained silent for a time.

`Now, about this afternoon, Mrs Larkin…. How did you happen to come to the Tower of London?'

`I've got a right to come here if I want to. I don't need to explain why I go to a public building, do I?’

'When, did you arrive?'

`Past two o'clock. Mind, I don't swear to that! I'm not under oath. That's what time I think it was.'

`Did you make the tour..go all round?'

`I went to two of them — Crown Jewels and Bloody Tower. Not the other one. Then I got tired and started out. They stopped me.'

Hadley went through the routine of questions, and elicited nothing. She had been deaf, dumb, and blind. There were other people about her… she remembered an American cursing the fog… but she had paid no attention to the others. At length he dismissed her, with the warning that he would probably have future questions.

The moment she had disappeared Hadley hurried to the door. He said to the warder there:

`Find Sergeant Hamper and tell him to put a tail on the woman who's just left here. Hurry! Then tell Hamper to come back here.' he turned back to the desk, thoughtfully beating his hands together.

`Hang it all, man,' General Mason burst out, impatiently, `why the kid-glove tactics? A little third degree wouldn't have hurt. her. She knows something, right enough. And she probably is a criminal.'

`Undoubtedly, General. But I had nothing to hold over her; and, above all, she's much more valuable on the string. I think we'll find there is nothing against her at present at the Yard. And I'm almost sure we'll find she's a private detective.'

'Ha!' muttered the General. He twisted his moustache. 'A private detective. But why?'

`There are any number of indications. Clearly she has nothing to fear from the police; she challenged that with every word. She lives in Tavistock Square. The neighbourhood isn't "flash" enough for her if she had that much money of her own to spend, and it isn't cheap enough if she had less. I know the type. She has lived there only a few weeks… just opposite Driscoll. She obviously had paid a great deal of attention to his visitors. She told us only one incident, the visit of his cousin Sheila, because that wouldn't help us; but you notice she had all the details.

`Then did you see her fumbling at her cuff? She hasn't been in the business long; she was afraid it would show out of the arm of her coat, and she was afraid to take it off over in the Warders' Hall, for fear of looking suspicious.'

`Her cuff?'

Hadley nodded. `These private snoopers who get material for divorces. They have to make notes of times and places quickly, and often in the dark. Oh yes. That's what she's up to. She was following somebody this afternoon.'

The General said, `Hum!' He scuffled his feet a moment before asking, 'Something to do with Driscoll?'

Hadley put his head down in his hands.

`Yes. You saw the start she couldn't help giving when she saw that note on my desk. She wasn’t close enough to have read it, but the colour of the paper was enough to identify it.. if she's ever seen any similar notes in connexion with Driscoll. H'm, yes. But that's not the point. I strongly suspect that the person she was actually shadowing this afternoon was… whom do you say, Doctor?'

Dr Fell relighted his pipe. `Mrs Bitton, of course. I'm afraid she rather gave herself away, if you listened to what she said.'

But, good God!' muttered the General. `You mean to say there's something between Driscoll and.. H'm. Yes. It fits, I suppose. But where's your proof?'

`I haven't any proof. As I say, it's only a suspicion.' Hadley rubbed his chin, 'Still, let's take it as a hypothesis for the moment, and work back. Let's assume Larkin was shadowing Mrs Bitton…. Now, this White Tower, General. That's the biggest and most important one isn't it? And it's some distance away from the Bloody Tower, isn't it?'

`Well, yes… it stands alone; it's in the middle of the inner ballium walls just beside the parade-ground.'

`And the tower where the Crown jewels are kept is directly beside the Bloody Tower?'

`The Wakefield Tower. Yes. Wait a minute!' said Mason, excitedly. `I've got it. Mrs Bitton went to see the Crown Jewels. So did Larkin. Mrs Bitton said she wandered up through the arch of the Bloody Tower; and up to the parade-ground…. Larkin' went to the Bloody Tower. She couldn't keep too close to Mrs Bitton. And if she went up the stairs of the Bloody Tower to Raleigh's Walk, she could have seen from a height where Mrs Bitton was going.'

`That's what I wanted to ask you,' said Hadley, knocking his fists against his temples. `She couldn't have seen very far in the mist, of course. It's more probable she did that — if she did — to keep up the illusion of being a tourist. Or she might, have thought Mrs Bitton had gone into the Bloody Tower. It's all supposition. But neither of them went to the White Tower, you see…. Those may be coincidences, but when you couple them with the presence of those two women here, and the statements of Mrs Bitton and Larkin, they sound pretty plausible indications.'

`You're assuming,' said the General, pointing to the table, `that Mrs Bitton wrote that note?' -

`And all the time,' Hadley mused, `suspecting she was being watched, see what the note says: "Be careful. Suspect. Vital." The letter was posted at ten-thirty last night in Mrs Bitton' s district, after Driscoll had paid a short visit that evening. Mrs Bitton had just come back from a walking tour of Cornwall…, and why, in God's name, a walking tour in Cornwall in the worst part of March, unless somebody wanted to get her away from a dangerous infatuation?’

'I'm running on, I suppose. Still, if we assume all this, we must assume it was a dangerous infatuation. For here's a private detective who has been planted in a flat opposite Driscoll for some weeks, even during the time she and her husband were away!… Does that mean anything? And who planted her there? Offhand, of course, the husband.!

'But the name, "Mary"?' suggested General Mason.

`I've heard many more hilariously funny nicknames whatd'yecallem pet names… in my time,' Hadley said, grimly. 'And the handwriting's undoubtedly disguised. Even if it were stolen, it couldn't be used as evidence against her. She's a clever woman.

`Do you see the deep waters we're in now? Come along, Mr Rampole,' he prompted, turning so suddenly that the American jumped; `do you see how it mixes everything up?'

Rampole hesitated. `I can see plenty of difficulties,' he returned. `That letter would have been delivered fairly early this morning. Now we've been assuming all along that the reason why Driscoll telephoned Mr Dalrye had something to do with the hat-thief and his pursuit of the hat-thief. But Driscoll never actually said it did. Dalrye asked him jokingly, if I remember it right, whether he was afraid of his hat being stolen. But all Driscoll actually answered was, "It's not my hat I'm afraid of; it's my head." Dalrye thought it referred to the hat affair; but did it?'

He looked bewilderedly at the chief inspector.

`I don't know,' snapped Hadley. `But he makes that appointment with Dalrye for one o'clock. The appointment in the letter is for one-thirty. He has received the letter that morning; it's scared him, and he wants Dalrye's help. Then some other person sends Dalrye on a wild-goose chase to Driscoll's flat. Driscoll arrived here, in a bad state. He is seen by Parker looking out o f the window, and later somebody touches him on the arm by Traitors' Gate.

`What went on in the merry-go-round composed of Driscoll, Mrs Bitton, Larkin, and a possible fourth party? Was it some sort of crime passionel? And if it was, can anybody on this' side of sanity inform me why Driscoll's body should be found wearing Sir William's stolen top-hat? It's the hat thief angle that's mad and impossible.'

There was a pause. Dr Fell took!he pipe out of his mouth and spoke rather plaintively.

'I say, Hadley,' he remonstrated. 'You're working yourself up into a lather. Be calm, It'll come out all right. Just keep on in your normal course.'

The chief inspector regarded him bitterly.

`Unless our questioning of the other visitors turns up. something,' he said, `we have only one other person to interview. And thank God. I need a brandy. Several brandies. But for the next few minutes, Doctor, you are going to be the chief inspector. With the next witness it becomes your case. In other words, you are going to examine Julius Arbor.?

'With pleasure,' said the doctor, `if you'll give me your chair.' He hauled himself to his feet as Hadley summoned the warder on guard and gave instructions. `It's what I should have asked to do, in any case, Hadley. Because why? Because a good part of the case depends on it. And that side of the case — shall I tell you what that side of the case hinges on, Hadley?'

`You will, anyhow. Well?'

`It hinges on a stolen manuscript,' said Dr Fell.

8. Mr Arbor's Aura

Dr Fell hung his cloak over the back of the chair: Then he squeezed himself into the chair and arranged his various ridges of stomach.

'I don't know whether I ought to let you do this,' said, Hadley. 'I don't want the, General to think we're both mad. And for the love of God try to control your deplorable sense of humour. This is serious business.' He massaged his chin uncomfortably. 'You see, General, in his own way Doctor Fell is invaluable. But he gets his ideas of police procedure from the cinema, and he is under the impression that he can act any sort of part. Whenever I let him question anybody in my presence he tries to give an imitation of me. The result sounds like a schoolmaster with homicidal mania trying to find out what fourth-former spread the axle grease on the, stairs when the headmaster was coming down to dinner

Dr Fell grunted. 'Ha,' he said. 'Your analogy, while classical, supports me rather than you. It seems to me, Hadley, that you are the one who is going about grimly determined to discover who put the barrister's wig on the cabhorse. I'm exactly the detective you want. Besides schoolboys; are much more ingenious than that. Now, an outhouse of medium weight, carefully substituted for the statue of the headmaster on the night before the public unveiling of the latter'

General Mason shook his head. 'Personally,' he observed, frowning at his cigar, 'I remember my own schoolboy holidays in France. And I have always maintained that there is nothing more edifying than the experiment of placing a red lamp over the door of, the mayor's house in a district full of sailors. Ahem!'

'Go ahead,' Hadley said, bitterly. 'Have a good time. I suppose if this case hadn't wound up in a murder you'd be stealing hats yourself, and thinking up new places to hang them!'

There was a knock at the door.

`Pardon me,' said a calm, slightly edged voice. `I've knocked several times, and there seemed to be no answer. You sent for me, I think.'

Rampole had been wondering what to expect from the enigmatic Mr Julius Arbor. He remembered Sir William's description earlier that afternoon: 'Reserved, scholarly, a trifle sardonic.' The, American had been vaguely expecting someone tall and thin and swarthy, with a hooked nose. The man who entered now, slowly drawing off his gloves and looking about with cool curiosity, was somewhat swarthy. And in every movement he, was austere. But that was all.

Mr Arbor was not above middle height, and he was inclined towards pudginess. He was perfectly dressed, too well dressed: there was a white pique edging to the front of his waistcoat, and a small pearl pin in his tie… His face was flattish, with heavy black eyebrows; and the rimless eye-glasses were such delicate shells that they seemed to blend with his eyes.

'Am I addressing Chief Inspector Hadley?' he inquired.

'Good day,' said Dr Fell, waving his hand affably. 'I'm in charge of the investigation, if that's what you mean. Sit down. I presume you're Mr Arbor.'

Arbor shifted his umbrella from the crook of one arm to hang it over the other; he moved across to the chair, inspected it for dust, and sat down.

'That's better,' said the doctor. 'Now we can begin.' From his pocket he took his battered cigar-case and extended it. 'Smoke!'

`Thank you no' the other answered. He waited until Dr Fell had replaced the disreputable, case. Then he produced an elaborately chased silver cigarette-case of his own, containing long and slender cigarettes with a cork tip. Snapping on a silver lighter, he applied it to a cigarette with nicety.

Dr Fell studied him sleepily, hands folded over his stomach. Arbor seemed to grow a trifle restless. He cleared his throat.

'I do not wish to hurry you, Inspector,' he said at length, `but I should like to point out that I have been put to considerable inconvenience this afternoon. If you will tell me what you wish to know, I shall be happy to assist you in any way I can?

Dr Fell nodded. `Got any Poe manuscripts?' he inquired, rather like a customs officer asking for contraband.

The question was so sudden that Arbor stiffened. A faint frown ruffled his swarthy forehead. 'I don't think I quite understand you. At my home in New York I certainly have a number of first editions of Edgar Allan Poe, and a few of the manuscript originals. But I scarcely think they would be of interest to you. I understand you wished to question me concerning a murder.'

`Oh, the murder!' grunted Dr Fell, with a careless wave of his hand. `Never mind that.'

`Indeed?' said Arbor. `I had supposed that the police might have some curiosity concerning it. However, that is none of my affair. I must remark, with Pliny "Quot homines, tot sententiae'.'

`It wasn't Pliny,' said the doctor, testily. `That's an inexcusable blunder. And if you must use that deplorable platitude, try to pronounce it correctly. The "o" in homines is short, and there's no long. nasal sound to the "en" in sententiae But never mind that. What do you know about Poe?'

Hadley was making weird noises in the corner. Mr Arbor's flattish face had stiffened; the aura about him conveyed anger.

`I am not sure,' he said, quietly, `that I know what you are driving at or whether this is an elaborate joke. If so, kindly tell me.?

'I'll put it this way, then. Are you interested in Poe? If you were offered the authentic manuscript of one of his stories would you buy it?'

This sudden swoop to the practical put Arbor right again. There was a trace of a smile on his face.,

`Now I see, Mr Hadley,' he said to Dr Fell. `This tribunal, then, was called because of Sir William Bitton's stolen manuscript. I was a bit puzzled at first.' He smiled again, a mere wrinkle on his pudgy face. Then he considered. 'Yes, I should certainly buy a Poe item if it were offered to me.'

`H'm, yes. You know there has been a theft at Bitton's house, then?'

`Oh yes. And you, Inspector, know that I am stopping at Bitton's home. I should say,' Arbor corrected himself, impassively, `I was stopping there. To-morrow I shall remove

myself to the "Savoy".'

`Why?'

`Let's be frank, Mr Inspector. I am aware of what. Bitton thinks. I am not insulted. We must accept these little things. But I dislike awkwardness. You see; or don't you?'

`Do you know the nature of the manuscript that was stolen?'

`Perfectly. In point of fact, I had some intention of intending to buy it?

'He told you about it, then, did he?'

The flattish face was a polite mask of deprecation. `You know he didn't. But Bitton is like a child, if I may say so. I have heard him let fall enough mysterious hints at the dinner table for even his family to guess the nature of his find. However, I knew all about the manuscript before I left the States.'

He chuckled. It was the first human, sound Rampole had heard out of him.

`I dislike commenting on the infantile nature of some of these gentlemen, but I fear Doctor Robertson, who had been Bitton's confidant, was indiscreet'

Dr Fell thoughtfully took the handle of his stick, which was lying across the desk, and poked at the crossbow bolt. Then he glanced up amiably.

`Mr Arbor, would you have stolen that manuscript, if you were given the opportunity?'

Across the room Rampole saw the despairing expression on Hadley's face. But Arbor was not in the least perturbed.

'No, Inspector, I don't think I would,' he replied. `It would entail so much awkwardness, you see. And I dislike violating hospitality in that fashion. Don't misunderstand me. I have no moral scruples, and it might seriously be questioned as to whether Bitton has any right to it at all.'

`But suppose somebody offered to sell you that manuscript, Mr Arbor?'

Arbor took off his delicate eyeglasses and polished them with a white silk handkerchief. He was easy, smug, and half smiling now. The black eyebrows were wrinkled with amusement.

'Let me tell you a story, Inspector. The police should know; it, to support, my claim in case it is — ah — successful.' Before I came to England I went to Philadelphia and looked up Mr Joseph McCartney, of Mount Airy Avenue, who owns the property on which the manuscript was found. For the fact that it was found there I had the testimony of three honest labouring men. I laid my case with a tolerable degree of frankness before Mr McCartney. He was the owner. I informed him that if he would give me three months' written option on that manuscript, wherever it might be, I would hand him one thousand dollars in cash. There was also — another agreement. It specified that, if the manuscript proved to be what I wanted (the decision to rest with me), I should pay him four thousand dollars for a complete sale.'

'Actually, Mr Arbor, what is the manuscript worth?' Dr Fell asked, leaning forward.

`I should be willing to go as high as, say, ten thousand pounds.'

General Mason, who had been scowling and pulling at his imperial, interrupted. `But, my God! man, that's fantastic! No Poe manuscript… '

'I venture to predict,' Arbor said, placidly, `that this one would. It is the first analytic detective story in the history of the world. It antedates Poe's own Murders in the Rue Morgue. Dr Robertson informs me that even from an artistic point of view it surpasses Poe's other three Dupin crime tales…, I could name you offhand three fellow collectors who would go as high as twelve or fifteen. And I enjoy thinking what it would fetch at auction — where, I need not tell you, I intend to place it'

Dr Fell cleared his throat with a rumbling noise.

`How do you know this? Have you seen the manuscript?'

'I have the word of Dr Robertson, the greatest living authority on Poe. He only told me all this because — well, Inspector, my wine-cellar is considered excellent. And even Imperial Tokay is cheap at the price. Of course, he regretted his indiscretion next day; he had promised Bitton, and he begged me to take no action. I was sorry.'

`Then,' said Dr Fell, `it wasn't a mere matter of a find you were interested in? You were after this, manuscript to sell it?

'It was, my dear Inspector. The manuscript — wherever it is — happens to belong to me. I may remind you. Shall I, go on?'

By all means'

`My business with Mr McCartney was easily settled,' Arbor continued comfortably. `He seemed staggered. It was incredible to him that any written document could be worth five thousand dollars. I found in Mr McCartney a great reader of sensational fiction…. My next move — you follow it, Inspector?’

`You got yourself, invited to Bitton's house,' grunted Dr Fell.;

`Not exactly. I had a standing invitation there. As a rule, I do not stay with friends when I am in London. I own a cottage in the suburbs, at which I often stay in summer; and in winter I go to a hotel. But, you see, I had to be tactful. He was a friend.

`I could not, of course, say to him, "Bitton, I think you have a manuscript of mine. Hand it over." That would have been distasteful, and, I thought, unnecessary. I expected him to show me his find voluntarily. Then I would lead up to my subject by gradual degrees, explain the unfortunate " circumstances, and make him a fair offer. '

`Now, Inspector — and gentlemen — that was difficult. You know Bitton? Ah. I knew him as a headstrong, stubborn, f and secretive fellow; rather a monomaniac on cherishing his discoveries. But I had not expected him to be quite so difficult. He did not speak of his find, as I had expected. For some days I hinted. I thought he was merely obtuse, and I fear my hints grew so outrageously broad that they puzzled even his family. But I am aware now that he must have known, and suspected me. He merely kept his mouth more tightly closed. It was distasteful to me — but I was coming to the point where I should have to claim my rights.' Under the law,' said Arbor, his leisurely voice growing suddenly harsh, `I was not required to pay him a penny for my property.!’

'The sale had not been concluded between you and Mc Cartney, had it?' inquired Dr Fell.;

Arbor shrugged. `Virtually. I had my option. Of course, I was not willing to hand over five thousand dollars on a manuscript I had never seen, even on the word of Dr Robertson; and a manuscript, besides, which might conceivably have been lost or destroyed by the time I came to claim it. However, to all intents and purposes it was mine.'

`Did you tell Bitton you were the owner, then?'

Arbor's nostrils tightened with anger. `Obviously not. Or would he have been so mad as to do what he did — seek the aid of the police when it was stolen?

`But before that. Consider the difficulty of my position. I began to see that, if I asked him outright, this — ah — this, lunatic might make all sorts of trouble. He would probably refuse, and question my rights. My rights could be proved; but it would mean delay and, all sorts of unpleasantness. He might maintain he, had lost the manuscript, and that would be worse.'

Mr Arbor's aura conveyed an acute spasm of anguish at this thought. General Mason coughed, and Dr Fell contrived to twist his moustache with a hand that hid his mouth.

`And at this juncture,' continued the other, `everything blew up. The manuscript was stolen. And I, you notice, I was the loser.

`Now, gentlemen.' He sat back and gazed about, fixing the eye of each in turn. `Now you will understand why I have gone into such thorough explanations, and why I wish to establish the ownership of that manuscript. Bitton undoubtedly thinks I stole it. I am not particularly concerned with what he thinks; but I cannot have the police thinking so.’

`I was away over the week-end during which the manuscript was stolen, and I arrived back only this morning. I was visiting Mr and Mrs Spengler, some friends of mine who live close to that cottage of my own I mentioned, at Golders Green. "Ah," says the cunning Bitton; "an alibi." And he has the impudence to telephone them in order to confirm it. "Ah," he says then; "it was done by somebody in his employ."

`Now, all this might be at least remotely possible in Bitton's wild imagination. But why, in the name of Heaven, should I go to all the trouble of stealing a manuscript which was already mine?'

There was a silence. Hadley, who had perched himself on the edge of the desk, nodded.

`I suppose, Mr Arbor,' he said, `you are prepared to prove this claim of yours?'

`Naturally. An agreement between Mr McCartney and myself was drawn up by my lawyer in New York and duly attested. A copy of this agreement is now filed with my solicitors in London.'

Hadley lifted his shoulders. `In that case, Mr Arbor, there is nothing more to, be said. Sir William simply took a chance that his discovery would go unnoted.' Hadley spoke coldly and levelly. `Even if you had abstracted the manuscript, to avoid trouble at Sir William's hands, the law could do nothing.’

Mr Arbor's aura radiated a sort of sputter, like a muffled wireless-key.

`We'll let that pass,' be observed, with an effort. `The absurdity of your suggestion is as evident as — ah your somewhat noticeable manners. That a man of my well-known standing. 'The aura sputtered again. Then Mr Arbor recovered himself. 'It would amuse some, of my associates in New York,' he said. `Ha, ha. Ha. Very amusing. But, as I think we agreed to begin with, perfectly legal.'

'Not if it concerned.a murder,' said Dr Fell.

There was an abrupt and rather terrible silence.

The doctor had spoken in a casual tone. In the stillness they could all hear the last rattle of coals falling in the grate, and, very faintly, the thin sudden note of a bugle from the parade-ground.

Arbor had been gathering his coat about him to rise, and his hand jerked on the lapel. `I–I beg your pardon?' he said.

`I said, "Not if it concerned a murder,"' Dr Fell repeated in a louder voice. `Don't get up, Mr Arbor. Were going to talk about the murder now. That doesn't surprise you, does it?' His half-closed eyes opened wide. `Don't you know who was murdered, Mr Arbor?' he pursued.

`I–I heard them talking over there,' the other answered, regarding his interrogator fixedly.;'I think I heard somebody say his name was Drakell or Driscoll or something of the sort.'

`The name was Driscoll, Philip Driscoll. He was Sir William Bitton's nephew.'

Whatever sort of effect Dr Fell had hoped to produce, there was no question about an effect. Arbor's swarthy face turned white; literally white, for mottled blotches stood out against; his pallor. The thin eyeglasses jerked on his nose, and he covered them with a shaking hand. Undoubtedly Arbor had a weak heart. The effect was as much physical as nervous.

`You must — you must excuse me, gentlemen, he muttered. His voice grew stronger. `I it was the shock of hearing the name of — somebody — I did know. This — this Driscoll, was he a small young man, with — let me see — with reddish hair?'

`Yes,' said Dr Fell. `You did know him, then?'

'I met him — ah- Sunday before last, at dinner in Bitton's house. It was the day. I arrived. I hadn't caught his last name. They all called him Phil; that's how I remembered. How did he die?'

`He was stabbed with this crossbow bolt,' said Dr Fell, picking it up. `It comes from Bitton's house.'

The other said, `Most interesting — ' in a way that sounded like a horrible burlesque. But he was better now. `I don't want you to think, gentlemen, that I know anything of the poor boy's murder because I seemed — ah — upset when you mentioned it. After all, murderers don't do that, do they? `It would be too easy if they did. A person with courage enough to use one of those vicious-looking things isn't apt to faint when it's produced afterwards.. Bitton… poor devil. Does he know?'

`He knows, Mr Arbor. But about young Driscoll: you can't think of any reason for his murder?'

`My dear sir, no! No, of course not. I only met him once, at that dinner. I haven't seen him since.'

`He was killed, at the Traitors' Gate out there,' pursued Dr Fell, nodding, `and his body thrown on the steps. I don't suppose you noticed anything suspicious while you were there?'

`No. What I — er — wanted to tell you when I first came in was that it was only by chance I was detained here at all. You see, I wanted to examine that copy of Sir Walter Raleigh's History o f the World which is on display at the Bloody Tower, in the room where he wrote it. I arrived here shortly after one o'clock, and went directly to the Bloody Tower. I presented my card to the warder on duty, and asked whether I might make a detailed examination. He said he was sorry, but that it was a part of the Tower exhibits and that I couldn't handle it without a written order from the resident governor or deputy governor. Even then, he said, it was doubtful whether I could get the order. But I asked to be directed to where I might find either one. He sent me across the way… '

`Inside the ballium wall?' Hadley interrupted.

'Yes. To a row of buildings facing up towards; the Green and the parade-ground. But it was foggy, and there were several doors, and I was uncertain. When I hesitated, a man came out of one of the doors.'

`A man in knickerbockers and a cap?' Dr Fell inquired.

`I don't know. Er — yes, I believe he did wear knickerbockers I recall it because they seemed a bit absurd on such a day. But it was foggy, and I could not swear to it. I spoke to him to find out which door I should use, but he brushed past me without listening. Then another warder hailed me and told me that visitors were not permitted on the side of the grounds where I was walking. I explained. He then said he was positive neither of the persons I wanted to see were in their quarters at the time.'

`Quite correct,' said General Mason, dryly.

`But surely, gentlemen!' Arbor protested, wetting his lips, `surely you can't be interested…. You are? Well, let me see. I returned to the Bloody Tower and tried the judicious use of a bank-note. It was not accepted. So I determined to leave. On my way out to Water Lane I collided with a young lady who had just come under the arch of the gate from Water Lane and was walking very rapidly up the incline that goes towards the parade-ground.!

'Could you describe this young lady?'

'No, I'm afraid 'not. I scarcely glanced at her. All I remember is that she was in a great hurry, and that she wore some sort of fur collar, and that she seemed ah uncommonly solid. It gave me a jar when we bumped. My wristwatch was a bit loose, and I thought it had slipped off. Well, I walked through the arch of the Bloody Tower, into Water Lane…. ‘

'Now, Mr Arbor, for the Lord's sake think! Think! Was there anybody near the railing around Traitors' Gate then? Did you see anybody standing there?'

Arbor sat back. `I begin to see the drift,' he answered, nervously. 'I didn't go close to the rail, or look over. But there was nobody standing near it, Inspector. Nobody!'

`And could you remember the time then?'

'I can tell you the time precisely,' said the other. `It was just twenty-five minutes to two.'

9. The Three Hints

It was the placid Hadley who was momentarily jarred out of his calm then. `But look here!' he protested, `the police surgeon said he died at a quarter to….'

'Hold on!' bellowed Dr Fell. He struck the top of the desk such a sharp blow with his cane that the sheet of mauve notepaper fluttered, off. `That's what I was hoping and waiting for. And to think I never took this man's testimony of the murder before! I nearly passed it up; My friend, I am grateful. I am profoundly grateful… Now, you're absolutely positive of that time, are you?'

`Positive. As I told you, my encounter with the young lady had jarred my watch. I stepped back into the door of the Wakefield Tower to see whether it was in danger of slipping off, and I noted the time just before I walked down to Water Lane.'

`Get out your watches, gentlemen,' rumbled Dr Fell, `and let's compare notes. Eheu! So! it's a quarter past six.

That's what I have, anyhow. What about the rest of you?' `Quarter past six,' said General Mason. `Thirteen and a half minutes past,' said Rampole.

`And I?' concluded Arbor. `Fifteen and one half minutes past, to the second. I never am wrong. This watch was made by…'

`Never mind,' interposed Dr Fell. `We shan't row about half a minute. There is, however, one thing I should like to ask. You said you were on your way out at this time, Mr Arbor. But the murder wasn't discovered until half-past two. How is it you were caught here when the detention order was issued?'

`I left one of my gloves behind, on the railing round the Raleigh first-edition in the Bloody Tower. They're — ah — rather special gloves,' he explained, carelessly. `Carter of Fifth Avenue does them for me, and I have no other pair of exactly this sort.'

General Mason looked pained, and Arbor lifted the shiny grey hat from his lap and indicated the gloves.

`I was all the way to the Strand in my cab before I remembered, and I returned. It was about twenty minutes to three when I arrived, and then I couldn't, get out.'

`I hope that cabby isn't still waiting,' the General mused. `It would be unfortunate,' Mr Arbor, if such an unfortunate witness got his head bashed in. Hold on! Wait! I remember now. There s something I wanted to ask, you.'

`With pleasure.' Arbor frowned. `You are…?'

'I'm the man you wanted to see,' the General replied, with some asperity. `I'm the deputy governor of the Tower. And what's more, sir, I'm damned if I let you paw over that Raleigh book. General Sir Ian Hamilton presented that to us. What was I saying? Oh yes. About the Raleigh. You said you had never seen it. Is this your first visit to the Tower?'

'It is.'

`The reason I asked is that you have all the names down pat. You speak familiarly of "Water Lane", and the Green, and all the rest of it, when you didn't go any farther than the Bloody Tower.'

`Perfectly simple,' said, Arbor, with the air of a detective speaking to his dull-witted assistant. `I dislike, asking directions.' From his pocket he produced one of the green pamphlets. `This little guide, with a map, which I studied before entering the Tower at all, gave me a thorough working knowledge.'

Dr Fell pulled at his moustache.

`I've got just one more question, my friend, and then you are free to go. Are you acquainted with Mrs Lester Bitton, your host's sister-in-law?'

`Unfortunately, no. You see, as I told you, I have never before stopped at Bitton's house. Mr and Mrs Bitton were away when I first arrived. They returned last night. I am told, but I only came back from my week-end this morning, and both were out of the house.'

`You wouldn't recognize her, then, if you saw her?'

`I'm afraid not.'

'Before you go, though,' Hadley suggested, `isn't there something you want to tell us?'

Arbor had risen with almost a shake of relief. He was buttoning his coat slowly, so as not to `seem in a hurry; but he stopped. `Tell you? I don't understand.'

`Any hints, or instructions, Mr Arbor? A valuable manuscript virtually belonging to you has been stolen, you know. Aren't you interested in, recovering it? It would seem that you are very easily diverted from the loss of a ten-thousand pound possession, considering the trouble you took to acquire it. Aren't you making any inquiries at all?'

Arbor, Rampole sensed, had been dreading that question. But he did not immediately speak. He adjusted his hat to a nicety, drew on his gloves, and hooked his umbrella over his arm.

`Just so,' he agreed. `But you are forgetting something. I want no unpleasantness in this matter, gentlemen; I have already outlined my reasons. I prefer not to use the assistance of the police. But I assure you I have not been idle. I have made certain contacts and leads which are — excuse me — not open to you. Good day, gentlemen.'

After he had gone there was a long silence. An expression of malignancy was on General Mason's face. He moved his hands in the air after the fashion of a burlesque hypnotist.

`Hocus-pocus,' he muttered. 'Allagazam. I hope you haven't got any more witnesses, Hadley. That's enough. First hats, and then love-affairs, and now manuscripts; It hasn't helped any. It's only mixed us up worse… What did you make of our aesthete?'

`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….'

`Oh, look here!' General Mason protested. `An infernal counter-jumper like Arbor might have done it, of course. But if you're suggesting young Driscoll… Out of the question.'

`I didn't say it was true,' Hadley said, patiently. `But consider, Driscoll was discontented. Driscoll was always short of money. So suppose he takes Arbor aside and says, "Look here, if you happened to find that manuscript under your pillow one morning, what would it be worth to you?",' Hadley raised his eyebrows. `Perhaps Arbor then explained, as he might, that he was really the owner. Perhaps that didn't matter to Driscoll. But, since Arbor would have had to pay some sort of price to the old man if he bought it outright well? It was a good chance for a stroke of business.'

`NO!' boomed a thunderous voice.

Hadley jumped. There had been in that voice not only protest, but a sort of agonized appeal. They all turned to see Dr Fell lumbering to his feet.

`I beg of, you,' he said, almost imploringly — `I beg; and plead with you, whatever else you think of, anything in this case, not to get that absurd idea. If you do, Hadley, I warn you, you'll never, see the truth. Say whatever else you like. Say that the thief was Arbor, if you like. Say that it was General Mason or Father Christmas or Mussolini. But don't, I entreat you ever for a moment believe it was Driscoll.'

The chief inspector was peevish'. `Well, why not?'

`Cast your minds back a couple of hours. Damn it, where's my pipe? Ah. Well, we were speaking of Driscoll. And Sir William said he wasn't a coward. But one thing he most definitely did fear.'

And that?'

`He feared his uncle,' said Dr Fell. After a pause, while he spilled a considerable amount of tobacco in filling his pipe, he went on wheezily: `Look, here. Driscoll was an improvident sort, with expensive tastes. He lived entirely off his uncle's bounty. He got precious little from what freelance newspaper work he did, and Bitton helped him get along even with that.

'But — Bitton wasn't an' indulgent uncle. Quite to the contrary. He was always quarrelling with his nephew on some point or other. And why? Because he was so fond of him.

He had no son of his own. He had risen from small beginnings, and he wanted to see the boy exhibit some of his own violent energy. And do you think Driscoll didn't know that? Ha!' said the doctor, snorting. `Of course he did. The old man might squeeze the purse strings tighter than a slip knot.' But: Driscoll knew he was the old man's favourite. And when it came to the last. I rather suspect Driscoll figured conspicuously in the old man's will Didn't he, General Mason?'

`I happen to know,' the General said, rather guardedly, `that he wasn't forgotten.'

`So, Hadley, are you really mad enough to think the; boy would have endangered all that? Why, that manuscript was literally Bitton's most cherished possession. You saw how he gloated. If Driscoll had stolen it, and he ever had the faintest suspicion Driscoll had stolen it, out the boy would have gone for ever. You know Bitton's temper and, above all, his stubbornness. And what had Driscoll to gain? At most a few pounds from Arbor. Why should Arbor, a good man of business, give money to a thief for his own property? He would simply smile in that mincing way of his. "A thousand guilders? Come, take fifty! Or I might tell your uncle where you got this manuscript." — No, Hadley. The last thing in the world Driscoll would have done would have been to dare steal it. The person he feared most, I tell you, was his uncle.'

Hadley nodded thoughtfully

'Yes. Yes,' he said, `that's true. But why are you so aggressive on the point?'

Dr Fell sighed. He was very much relieved.

`Because, if you understand that, you're half-way, along the right track. I..' Wearily he raised his eyes to the door at another of the inevitable knocks. He went on vigorously: `But I was going to say that I absolutely refuse to listen to another witness this afternoon. It's past six and the pubs are open.'

A very tired looking Sergeant Betts entered.

`I've just been talking to the other visitors, sir,' he said to Hadley. `And I'm afraid it's been a long job. They all wanted to talk, and I had to listen for fear of missing something. But not one of them knew anything whatever, so I let them go Was that correct sir?'

`Yes. But keep those names and addresses in case you need them.' Wearily Hadley passed a hand over his eyes. He hesitated, and then looked at his watch. `'H'm. Well, it's getting late, sergeant, and we'll run along. I'll take charge of these articles on the table.'

He took down his overcoat and donned it slowly.

`Well, gentlemen,' said General Mason, `that seems to be all for the moment. And I think we could all deal with a large brandy and soda. If you'll do me the honour to come up to my rooms…?'

Hadley hesitated; but he looked at his watch again, and shook his head.

`Thanks, General. It's good of you, but I'm afraid I can't. I have to get back to the Yard; I've the devil's own lot of routine business, you know, and I've taken far too much time as it is. I shouldn't be handling the affair at all.' He frowned. `Besides, I think it's best that none of us go up. Sir William will be waiting for you, General. You know him best and you had better tell him everything. About Arbor, you see.?

'Hum! I'm bound to admit I don't like the job,' the other said. `But I suppose you're right.'

`Tell him we shall probably pay him a visit in Berkeley Square to-night, and to be sure everybody is at home.' Oh — yes. And the newspapers. There will be reporters here soon, if they're not being held outside already. For the Lord's sake don't say anything yourself. Just say, "I have no statement to make at the present time," and refer them to Sergeant Hamper.'

He was already gathering up the objects which had been in Driscoll's pocket. Rampole handed him an old newspaper from the top of a bookcase; he wrapped the crossbow bolt inside it and stowed it away in the breast pocket of his overcoat.

`Right you are. But at least,' said the general, `let me give you a stirrup cup before you go.' He went to the door and spoke a few words. In a remarkably short time the impassive Parker appeared, bearing a tray with a bottle of whisky, a siphon, and four glasses.

`Well,' he continued, watching the-soda foam as Parker mixed the drinks, `this has been an afternoon. It it weren't for poor Bitton and the damnable closeness of this thing, I should even call it entertaining. But I'm bound to say I can't make head or tail of it.'

`You wouldn't call it entertaining,' Hadley asserted, moodily, `if you had my job. And yet — I don't know.' There was a wry smile under his clipped moustache. He accepted a glass and stared into it. `I've been thirty years in this game, General. And yet I can't help getting something like a quickened pulse when I see "Scotland Yard has been called in on the case." What's the magic in the damned name?' I don't know. I'm a part of it. Sometimes I am it. But I'm still as intrigued as a naive old dodderer like Dr Fell.'

`But I always thought you were dead against amateurs„' said the General. `Of course you can hardly call the doctor, an amateur, but… '

Hadley shook his head. `Sir Basil Thomson, one of the greatest men the Yard ever had, used to say that a detective had to be jack of all trades and a master of none. The only thing I regret about the doctor here is the deliberate way he patterns himself after the detectives in sensational fiction; of which, by the way, he's an omnivorous, reader. His silences. His mysterious "Aha's!" his….’

`Thank you,' rumbled Dr Fell, satirically. He had put on his cloak and his long shovel-hat. Stumping round near the door, he accepted a glass from Parker. `Hadley,' he continued, `that's an outworn maxim, and a baseless slur on a noble branch of literature. You say that the detective in fiction is mysterious and slyly secret. All right; but he only reflects real life. What about the genuine detective? He is the one who looks mysterious, says "Aha!" and assures everybody that there will be an arrest within twenty-four hours.. In other words, he has all the pose, whether he has the knowledge or not. But, like the fictional detective, very sensibly he doesn't tell what he thinks, for the excellent and commonplace reason that he may be wrong.'

`All right,' said Hadley, — resignedly. 'If you like. Well, good health, gentlemen..!' He drained his glass and put it down. `I' suppose, doctor, this is a preamble to some mysterious predictions of yours?'

`I hadn't thought of doing so,' he replied. `But as a matter of fact, I will give you three hints about what I think. I won't elaborate them' — his scowl became ferocious as he saw Hadley's grin `because I may be wrong. Ha!'

`I thought so. Well, number one?'

`Number one is this. There was some dispute about the time Driscoll died. The only period in which we seem absolutely to be able to fix it lies between one-thirty when he was seen by Parker lighting a cigarette at the rail in front of Traitors' Gate, and ten minutes to two, which is the time

Doctor Watson said he died. Mr Arbor, coming into Water Lane at twenty-five minutes, to two, was positive there was nobody near the rail.'

`I don't see any implication there,' General Mason said, after a pause; `unless it's the implication that Arbor was lying. What's your second hint?'

`The second hint,' Dr Fell answered, `concerns that crossbow bolt. It was, as you saw, filed sharp into a deadly weapon. Now you are assuming, quite naturally, that this filing was done by the murderer.' We have also noticed that the same hand had started to file off those words, Souvenir de Carcassonne, but had stopped with three letters neatly effaced, and gone no farther…. Why weren't those other letters effaced? When we found the body, we were of course bound to learn of the bolt Mrs Bitton purchased at Carcassonne, and, since the victim was Driscoll, it would be too monstrous to assume a mere coincidence. I repeat: why weren't those letters effaced?'

`Yes,' said Hadley. `I'd thought of that point, too. I hope you're sure of the answer. I'm not. And the third hint?'

By this time Dr Fell, and the black ribbon of his eyeglasses, quivered to his chuckle.

`And the third hint,' he said, `is very short. It is a simple query. Why did Sir William's hat fit him?'

With a capacious tilt of his head he swallowed off his drink, glanced blandly, about the group, pushed open the door, and shouldered out into the mist.

10. Eyes in a Mirror

The great clock in Westminster tower struck eight-thirty.

Dorothy had not been at the hotel when Rampole and the doctor arrived there on their return from the Tower. A note left for Rampole at the desk informed him that Sylvia Somebody, who had been at school with her, was taking her home for a gathering of some of the other old girls. Owing, she said, to previous knowledge of her husband's passionate aversion to jolly little evenings of this kind, she had informed them that he was in the hospital with a violent attack of delirium tremens. She said he was to give her love to Dr Fell; and not to forget to pin the name of his hotel to his coat lapel so that the cabman would know where to put him at the end of the evening.

Rampole and the doctor dined at a little French restaurant in Wardour Street. Hadley, who had gone to Scotland Yard immediately after leaving the Tower, had promised to meet them there for a visit to the Bitton home that night. Dr Fell dug himself in behind a steaming parapet of dishes and a formidable array of wine-bottles; but throughout the meal he steadily refused to discuss crime.

On any other subject, however, it was practically impossible to stop him. He discussed in turn the third Crusade, the origin of the Christmas cracker, Sir Richard Steele, Beowulf, and Buddhism. It was eight-thirty before they finished dinner. Rampole, comfortably lazy and warmed with wine, had just sat back for the lighting of the cigars when Hadley arrived.

The chief inspector was restless, and drew up a chair without removing his overcoat.

`I'll have a sandwich and a whisky with you,' he said, in reply to Dr Fell's invitation.

The doctor peered at him over the flame of the match for his cigar.

`Developments?'

`Serious ones, I'm afraid. At least two unforeseen things have occurred. One of them I can't make head or tail of.' He began to rummage in his brief-case and draw out papers. `To begin with, somebody broke into Driscoll's flat about a quarter to five o'clock this afternoon.!

'Broke into…'

`Yes. Here are the facts, briefly. You remember, when we questioned that Larkin woman I left orders to have her shadowed. Fortunately, Hamper had an excellent man there a plain-clothes constable, new man, whose only talent seems to be along that line. He took up Larkin's trail as soon as she left the gates. She walked straight up Tower Hill, without hesitating.

'At the top of Tower Hill she cut across and went into the Mark Lane Underground Station. There was a queue in front of the booking-office, and Somers couldn't get close enough to hear the station to which she booked. But Somers had a hunch. He took a ticket to Russell Square, which is the tube station nearest to where she lives. She changed at King's Cross, and then he knew he was right. He got out after her at the Russell Square station in Bernard Street, and followed her down Woburn Place to Tavistock Square.

She went into the third entry of Tavistock Chambers. Somers walked straight in after her, like a fool. But it's fortunate he did.

'He describes it as a rather narrow entry, badly lighted by a door with a glass panel at the rear, and with an automatic lift in the centre. The doors to the two flats on that floor are on either side. He had seen her closing the door of No.1 after her. And, at the same time she was going in, a woman slid out of the door of No. 2, darted past the lift, down a couple of steps, and out of the glass door at the back.'

The woman again, eh?' said Dr Fell, blowing out smoke placidly. `Did he catch a glimpse of her?'

`There were no lights on, and what with the mist, the darkness of the hall, and the sudden run she made, he could just be sure it was a woman. Of course, he wasn't sure that anything was wrong. But as a matter of caution, he went close and looked at the door, and then he was sure.

`The lock of the door had been splintered out from, the jamb with some sharp instrument like a chisel or a heavy screwdriver. Somers ran down the way she had gone. The glass door opened on a large paved court, with a driveway going out to the street. Of course, the woman was gone. And Somers came back.'

`Now, at the time he didn't know Driscoll lived there he only knew the Larkin woman did, from what instructions he'd been given. But he struck a match and saw the card on the door, and then he was inside in a hurry.

`The place was in a wild state of disorder; somebody had been searching for something.. Somers went out after the porters and had the devil's own time finding him. The porter is an old man, rather deaf, and he was in a bad state when Somers made him understand what had happened. The only person he had seen there that afternoon was a young man who had been there many times before, and had a key. He knew he hadn't burgled the place, because he had met the young man coming out of the door of the flat, and walked out to his car with him, and he knew everything had been in order then. Somers explained he meant a woman, who had, been there just a moment ago; and the porter refused to believe him.'

`Had anything been stolen from the flat?' Dr Fell inquired.

`We can't tell yet. I haven't seen the place, but one of my best men is up there now. According to Somers' report, the desk had been broken open, every drawer in the flat ransacked, and most of Driscoll's papers scattered over the floor.'

In search for some sort of letter or document?'

`Apparently. And I think we have an explanation of `Mary" '

`I rather thought we should,' said the doctor.

`One thing in the study struck Somers' eye because it seemed so out of place. It was your typical bachelor digs: hunting-prints, leather chairs, a silver cup or two, sport groups, things' like that. But on the mantelpiece were two plaster figures on bases, painted in bright colours — a man and a woman. They wore what Somers called "old-time clothes; like the ones in Madame Tussaud's," and they were labelled… '

Dr Fell raised his' eyebrows and grunted. 'I see. Philip II and Mary Tudor. They probably got them at some outing together, and kept them for the sentimental remembrance. Well who was the woman?'

The waiter brought Hadley a ham sandwich and a; stiff whisky and soda. He took a pull at the latter before he answered.

`It looks fairly clear, doesn't it, after what we decided this afternoon?' he demanded. `It had to be somebody who already knew about the murder. She would realize that, with Driscoll dead, his papers would be examined immediately. And if there were any letters that incriminate her.-?'

In short, Mrs Bitton,' said Dr Fell. `No, I don't have any doubt you're right.' Let's see. We questioned her before we questioned Larkin, didn't we? And then let her go.'

`Yes. And think back, now! Do you remember just before she was about to leave…? Ah, Rampole, you remember it, I can see. You noticed?

The American nodded. `Just for a moment; an expression of real and close terror. She seemed to remember something?

`And do you recall what General Mason had just said? I saw the expression on her face, and I tried to account for it; but I understand now. General Mason had been urging Sir William to go up to his rooms and rest, and he said, "The Devereux record is in the portfolio on my desk." And that instantly suggested to her the damning evidence that might be lying in Driscoll's desk for the police to discover. Evidently she has called herself; "Mary" only since she had reason to believe she was being watched.'

'But would she have had time to get up to Driscoll's flat and do all this?' Rampole asked. 'We didn't talk very long with Mrs Larkin. And Sir William went out to put Mrs Bitton into a cab…'

`Which she dismissed at the top of Tower Hill for the Underground. She could have gone from Mark Lane to King's Cross in less than fifteen minutes; she could have even saved the risk of time lost in changing trains by getting out at King's Cross and walking to Tavistock Square. Oh yes. The taxi would have been much too slow… And as for getting into the flat, you've only got to take one look at her to realize that she could have broken open a much less flimsy door with no particular trouble. The deaf porter wouldn't be apt to hear any noise, and the only other person who could have discovered her was Mrs Larkin — whom she knew to be detained at the Tower.'

'That tears it,'' said Dr Fell. 'That undoubtedly tears it. Hah!' He put his big head in his hands. 'This is bad, Hadley. And what I don't like is the symbolism.'

'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.

'They thought he was drunk. But when he reached them his face was white and sweaty, and he could hardly talk. Another of those attacks we witnessed, undoubtedly, but a worse attack because, somehow, he'd got a worse fright. The taxi-driver took him over to the refreshment-room, and he drank about half a tumbler of brandy neat. He seemed a bit better, and ordered the driver to take him to Sir William's house in Berkeley Square.

`When he arrived there he again told the driver to wait. He said he wanted to pack a bag and then to go to an address at Golders Green. At this the driver protested volubly. He'd been waiting over three hours, there was a big bill on the meter, and he hadn't seen the colour of his fare's money: besides, Golders Green was a; long distance out, Then Arbor shoved-a five-pound note into his hand, and said he could have another if he would do as he was told.

`Naturally, the taxi-driver began to suspect something fishy. During all the time he spent hanging about the Middle Tower, the warder had let slip a few hints about the real state of affairs. Arbor wasn't in the house long before he came out carrying a valise and a couple of coats over his arm. On the drive to Golders Green the driver grew decidedly uneasy.'

Hadley paused, and turned over a sheet of paper from his brief-case as though to refresh his memory.

Did you ever notice how even the most reticent people will speak freely to taxi-drivers? I don't know why it is, unless it's because a taxi-driver is never surprised at anything. Now, but for what this driver knew of the murder, and Arbor's rather remarkable mumblings in the cab, I shouldn't have heard this at all. But the taxi-driver was afraid he'd be mixed up in a murder. So after he drove

Arbor to Golders Green, he came straight back and went to Scotland Yard. Like most Cockneys, he had a flair for description and vivid pantomime. He perched on the edge of a chair in my office, turning his cap round in his hands and imitating Arbor to the life.

`First Arbor asked him whether he carried a revolver.

The, taxi-driver said "No!" and laughed, Then Arbor wondered whether they were being followed; he began talking about how he wasn't in the directory at all, and he had a cottage at Golders Green which nobody knew about except some friends near by. But what the driver especially remembered was his constant reference, to a "voice" ‘

'A voice?' Doctor Fell repeated.' `Whose voice?'

'Arbor didn't say. But he asked whether telephone calls could be traced that was the only point he definitely mentioned in connexion with it. Well, they reached the cottage, in an outlying district. But Arbor said he wouldn't go in just at the moment the place hadn't been opened for months. He had the driver drop him at a villa not far away, which was well lighted. The driver noted the name. It was called `Briarbrae".'

`The friends of his, I suppose. H'm.!

'Yes. We looked it up later. It belongs to a Mr Daniel Spengler. What do you make of it?'

'It looks bad, Hadley. This man may be in very grave danger.'

'I don't need you to tell: me that,' the chief inspector said, irritably. 'If the damned fools would only come to us when they get into trouble! But they won't. And if he is in any danger, he took the worst possible course. Instead of going, to a hotel, as he said he intended, he thought he was choosing a spot where nobody could find him. And instead' he picked a place ideally suited for — well, murder:

'What have you done?'

'I sent a man immediately to watch the house, and to phone the Yard every half-hour. But what danger is he in? Do you think he knows something about the murder, and the murderer knows he knows?'

For a moment Dr Fell puffed furiously at his cigar.

`This is getting much too serious, Hadley. Much. You see, I've been basing everything on a belief that I knew how all this came about. I told you this afternoon that everybody liked playing the master-mind. And I could afford to chuckle, because so much of it is really funny… '

`Funny'

'Yes. Ironically, impossibly funny. It's like a farce comedy suddenly gone mad. Do you remember Mark Twain's description of his experiences in learning to ride a bicycle? He said he was always doing exactly what he didn't want to do. He tried to keep from running over rocks and being thrown. But if he rode down a street. two hundreds yards wide, and there, happened to be one small piece of brick lying anywhere in the road, inevitably he would run over it. Well, that has a very deadly application to this case.

`I've got to separate the nonsense and the happenings of pure chance from the really ugly angle of the business. Chance started it, and murder only finished it; that's what I think. I must show you the absurd part of it, and then you can judge whether I'm right. But first there are two things to be done.'

`What?'

`Can you communicate with that man you have on guard at Arbor's cottage?' the doctor asked, abruptly.

`Yes. Through the local police station.'

'Get in touch with him. Tell him, far from keeping in the background, to make himself as conspicuous as possible. But under no circumstances — even if he is hailed to go near Arbor or make himself known to Arbor.'

`What's the purpose of that?'

`I don't believe Arbor's in any danger. But obviously he thinks he is. He also thinks the police haven't any idea where he is. You see, there's something that man knows, which for one reason or another he wouldn't tell us. If he notices your man lurking about his cottage, he'll jump to the conclusion that it's his enemy. 'If he tries calling the local police, they will find nobody — naturally. It's rather rough on him, but we've got to terrify him into telling what he knows. Sooner or later he'll seek your protection, and by that time we shall be able to get the truth.'

`That,' said the chief inspector, grimly, `is the only good suggestion you've made so far. I'll do it'

'It can't do any harm. If he is, in danger, the obvious presence of a guard will have a salutary effect on the enemy. If he does call the local police and there's a real enemy about, the police can have a look for the real enemy while they pass up your own man… The next thing, we've got to pay a very brief visit to Driscoll's flat.

`If you're thinking something is hidden there, I can tell you that my men will find it more easily than we can ever'

`No. Your men will attach no importance to what I want to find. I don't suppose they bothered to look at his typewriter, did they? Also, I want a brief look about the kitchen. If he has one, as I'm sure he has, we shall probably find it stowed away in the kitchen….'

The mist was clearing as they emerged from the restaurant. The theatre traffic had just begun to thin in the glare of Shaftesbury Avenue, and Hadley had some difficulty in manoeuvring his car. But, once out of the centre of town and across Oxford Street, he accelerated the big Daimler to a fast pace. Bloomsbury lay deserted under high and mournful gaslamps. They cut across into Great Russell Street, and turned left past the long shadows of the British Museum….

Tavistock Square was large and oblong in shape, not too well supplied with street lights. Along the west side the buildings were higher than on the others, and rather more imposing in a heavy. Georgian style. Tavistock Chambers proved to be a red-brick block of flats with four entry halls, two on either side of an arch beneath which a driveway led into the court. Into this court Hadley drove the car.

`So this,' he said, `is the way the woman escaped. I don't wonder she wasn't noticed.'

He slid from under the wheel and peered about. There was only one lamp in the court, but the mist was rapidly lifting into a clear, cold night.

`Lower parts of the windows frosted glass,' the chief inspector grunted. `I left instructions to question the tenants about her, but it's useless. A Red Indian in his war bonnet could have walked out of here without being seen. Let's see…. Those are the glass doors giving on the rear of the entry halls. We want the third- entry. There it is. That'll be Driscoll's flat, with the light in the rear window. Evidently my man hasn't left the place yet.'

He crossed to the glass door, stumbled over a rubbish can, and disturbed a hysterical cat. The others followed him up some steps into a red-tiled hall with brown distempered walls. Its only illumination was a sickly electric bulb in the cage of the automatic lift.' But a thin line of light slanted out from the door on their left, which was not quite closed, and they saw the splintered wood about the lock.

Flat 2. Rampole's eyes moved to the door facing it across the hall, where the watchful Mrs Larkin might be peering out from the flap of the letter-slot.

There was a crash, sudden and violent. The line of light in the doorway of Flat 2 seemed to shake, and the noise echoed hollowly up the lift-well. It had come from that door….

While the echoes were still trembling, Hadley moved swiftly across to the door and pushed it open. Rampole, peering over his shoulder, saw the disorder of Philip Driscoll's sitting-room as it had been described a short time ago, But there was another piece of disorder now.

In the wall directly opposite was a mantelpiece with an ornate mirror behind the shelf. And in front of this mantel piece, his back to the new-comers, a tall and heavy man stood with his head bowed., They saw past his shoulder a foolish plaster figurine standing on the mantelshelf; a woman painted in bright colours, with,a tight-waisted dress and a silver hair-net, But there was no companion figure beside it. The hearthstone was littered with a. thousand white fragments to show where the other figure had been flung down a moment before.

Just for a moment the tableau held — weird and somehow terrible in its power. The echo of that crash seemed to linger; its passion still quivered in the bent back of the man standing there.

Then his hand moved out slowly, and seized the other figure. And as he raised it his head lifted and they saw his face in the mirror.

`Good evening,' said, Dr Fell. `You're Mr Lester Bitton, aren't you?'

11. The Little Plaster Dolls

Never before that time, Rampole afterwards thought, had he ever seen a man's naked face. Never had he seen it as for a brief instant he saw Lester Bitton's face in the mirror. At all times in life there are masks and guards, and in the brain a tiny bell gives warning. But here was a man caught blind in his anguish.

He looked a little like his brother, though his face was inclined to be reddish and have heavy folds. But you could not tell now.

The lost, damned eyes stared back at them from the mirror. His wrist wobbled, and the figure almost slid through his fingers. He took it with his other hand and put it back up on the mantelpiece..

`Who the hell,' said Lester Bitton, `are you?'

His deep voice was hoarse, and it cracked. That almost finished him, but he fought his nerves. `What God damned right have you got to walk in… '

`Steady,' said Hadley, quietly. `I'm afraid it's you who have to make an explanation. This flat has been taken over by the police, you know. And I'm afraid we can't respect private feelings in a murder case. You are Lester Bitton, aren't you?'

The man's heavy breathing quieted somewhat, and the wrath died out of his eyes.

`I am,' he said in a lower voice. `Who are you?' 'My name is Hadley

'Ah,' said the other, 'I see.' He was groping backwards, and he found the edge of, a heavy leather chair. Slowly he lowered himself until he was sitting on the arm. Then he made, a gesture. `Well, here I am.'

`What are you doing here, Mr Bitton?'

'I suppose you don't know?' Bitton asked, bitterly. He glanced back over his shoulder, at the smashed figure on the hearthstone.

The chief inspector played his advantage. He studied Bitton without threat and almost without interest. Slowly he opened his brief-case, drew out a typewritten sheet — which was only Constable Somers' report, as Rampole saw — and glanced at it.

`We know, of course, that you have employed a firm of private detectives to watch your wife. And — he glanced at the sheet again- `that one of their operatives, a Mrs. Larkin, lives directly across the hall from here.'

`Rather smart, you Scotland Yard men,'' the other observed in an impersonal voice. `Well, that's right. Nothing illegal in that, I suppose. You also know, then, that I don't need to waste my money any longer.'

`We know that Mr Driscoll is dead.'