`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.'
