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