driving down streets where the arrows point the other way; and why not? because there's no traffic coming and I can go ever so much faster.’ And Then she remembered again why she was here, and stopped with a jerk; the rest of them were afraid there would, be sudden tears.
'Of course, Miss Bitton,' the chief inspector said, hastily. `Now if you'll just sit down a moment and get your breath, then I'm sure.'
`Excuse me,', said Dalrye. `I'm going to wash my hands.' Hee shivered a little, shut his jaws hard and left the room. Miss Bitton said, `Poor Phil' suddenly, and sat down.
There was a silence.
`You….. somebody,' she remarked in a small voice, `somebody's tipped over that pretty little figure on the mantel. I'm sorry, It was one of the things I wanted to take back with me.'
`Had you seen, it before?' asked Hadley. His discomfort had disappeared as he saw a possible lead.
'Why, of course. I was there when they got them.'
'When who got them?'
`At the fair. Phil and Laura and Uncle Lester and I all went to it. Uncle Lester said it was all silly, and didn't want to go, but, Laura used that sort of pitying way she has and he said, 'All right, he'd go. He wouldn't ride on any of the swings or giddy-go-rounds or things, though.'
`Phil started ragging Uncle Lester, and Uncle Lester got sort of red in the face, but he didn't say anything and then we got to a shooting-gallery where they have the rifles and things, and Uncle Lester spoke up sort of sharp, but not very loud, and said this was a man's game, and not for children, and did Phil want to try? And Phil did, but he wasn't very good. And then Uncle Lester just picked up a pistol instead of a rifle and shot off a whole row of pipes clear across the gallery so fast you couldn't count them; and then he put down the pistol and walked away without saying anything. So Phil didn't like that… I could see he didn't. And every booth we passed he began challenging Uncle Lester to all kinds of games, and Laura joined in too.’
'But about the dolls, Miss Bitton?' Hadley asked.
`Oh yes. It was Laura who won them; they're a pair. It was at throwing darts, and she was ever so good. And, you got prizes for it, and Laura got the highest prize for her score, and she said, 'Look, Philip and Mary,' and laughed. Because that's what the dolls have written on them, and, you see, Laura's middle name is Mary. Then Uncle Lester said he wouldn't have her keeping that trash; it was disgraceful-looking and of course I wanted them ever so badly. But Laura said no, she'd give them to Philip if Mary couldn't have them. And Phil did the meanest thing I ever knew, because he made the absurdest bow and said he would keep them.
`All the way back I kept teasing Phil to give them to me; and he made all sorts of ridiculous speeches that didn't mean anything, and looked at Laura, but he wouldn't give them to me. And that's how I remember them, because they remind me of Phil… You see, I even asked Bob to, see if he could get Phil to give them to me; I asked him the next day.. that was ages ago… when I called Bob on the telephone, because I always make him ring me up every day, or else I ring him up.'
She paused, her thin eyebrows raised again as she saw Hadley's face.
`You say,' the chief inspector observed, in a voice he tried to make' casual, `that you talk every day to Mr Dalrye on the telephone?'
Rampole started. He remembered now. Earlier in the evening Hadley had made a wild shot when he was building up a fake case against Laura Bitton in front of her husband. He had said that Dalrye had informed Sheila of Driscoll's proposed visit to the Tower at one o'clock, because Dalrye talked to her on the telephone that morning; and that, therefore anybody in the Bitton house could have known of the one-o'clock engagement. Hadley, thought it was a wild shot, and nothing more. But, Rampole remembered, Lester Bitton had shown no disposition to doubt it.
Sheila Bitton's blue eyes were fixed on Hadley.
`Oh, please!' she said, `don't you preach! You sound like Daddy. He tells me what a fool I am, calling up every day, and I don't think he likes Bob, anyway, because Bob hasn't any money.'
`My, dear Miss Bitton,' Hadley interposed, with a sort of desperate joviality, `I certainly am not preaching. I think it's' a splendid idea.'
`You're a dear!' cooed Miss Bitton. `And they rag me so about it, and even Phil used to phone me and pretend he was Bob and ask me to go to the police station because Bob had been arrested for flirting with women in Hyde Park, and was in gaol, and would I bail him out, and '
`Ha, ha,' said Hadley. `But what I wanted to ask you, did you speak to Mr Dalrye to-day?'
`Yes, I- did talk to him to-day.'
`When, Miss Bitton? In the morning?'
`Yes. That's when I usually call, you know, because then General Mason isn't there.'
`But, `Miss Bitton, when you spoke to Mr Dalrye this morning did he tell you that Philip Driscoll… your cousin, you know… was coming to see him at the Tower?'
`Yes,' she said, after a pause. `I know, because Bob wanted to know what sort of mess Phil had got into now, and did I know anything about it? He told me not to say anything about it to the others'
`And you didn't?'
`I sort of hinted, that's all, at the breakfast table. 1 asked them if they knew why Phil was going to the Tower of London at one o'clock, and they didn't know, and of course I obeyed Bob and didn't say anything more….'
`I fancy that should be sufficient,' said Hadley. `Was any comment made?'
`Comment?' the girl repeated, doubtfully. `N — no; they just talked a bit, and joked.'
`Who was at the table?'
`Just Daddy, and Uncle Lester and that horrible man who's been stopping with us; the one who rushed out this afternoon without saying a word to anybody.'
`Was Mrs Bitton at the table?'
`Laura? Oh! Oh no. She, didn't come down. She wasn't feeling well, and, anyway, I don't blame her, because she and Uncle Lester must have been up all last night, talking; I heard them, and. ’
`But surely Miss. Bitton, something must have been said at the breakfast table?'
`No, Mr Hadley. Truly. Of course I don't like being at the table when just Daddy and that horrible Mr Arbor are there, because mostly.I can't understand what they're talking about, books and things like that, and jokes I don't think funny. Or else the talk gets horrid, like the night when Phil told Uncle Lester he wanted to die in a top- hat. But I there wasn't anything important that I heard. Of course, Uncle Lester did say he was going to see Phil to-day…. But there wasn't anything important. Really.'
14. To Die in a Top-Hat
Hadley made a convulsive movement in his seat. Then he got out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead.
`Ha, ha,' he said, automatically. `You never hear anything important, Miss Bitton. It's most unfortunate. Now, Miss Bitton, please try to grasp the fact that some of the meaningless, unimportant conversations you overheard may be of the utmost importance. Miss Bitton, ' just how much do you know about your cousin's death?'
`Nothing, much, Mr Hadley,' she said, fretfully. `They won't tell me. I couldn't get a word out of Laura or Daddy, and Bob just said there was a sort of accident and he was killed by this man who steals all the hats but that's the only…
She broke off short as Dalrye came back into the room again. He looked more presentable now.
`Sheila,' he said, `whatever the things you want happen to be, you'd better go and pick 'em out. That place gives me the horrors. Everywhere I look Phil seems to be sitting there.'
`I'm not afraid,' the girl announced, sticking out her under-lip. `I don't believe in ghosts. You've been so long in that musty old Tower of London…'
'Tower!' Dalrye exclaimed, suddenly rumpling his sandy hair. 'Lord! I forgot.' He dragged out his watch. `Whoof! A quarter to eleven. I've been locked out three-quarters of an hour. My dear, your father will have to put
