telling her he was Dalrye here; and she believed it? You've' got a voice very much like Driscoll's, haven't you, my boy?'
`If I hadn't had,' muttered the other, `I couldn't have put this thing over. I'm no actor, you know. But if he could imitate me, then I could imitate him, and talk to Parker on the telephone to change the appointment and send myself up to his flat.'
`Hold on!' snapped Hadley. `This is getting ahead of me. 'You say that first you phoned Arbor and offered him the manuscript, when you didn't have it yet, and then… But why? Why did you want to steal it?'
Dalrye drained his glass. `I had to have twelve hundred pounds,' he said, evenly.
Leaning back in his chair, he stared at the fire.
`Let me tell you a little about it,' he went on. `My father is a clergyman in the north of England, and I'm the youngest of five sons. I got an education, but I had to work for my scholarships, because I wasn't one of those tremendously bright chaps. If 'I had anything, it was imagination, and I wanted — some day — and this is funny… no, I won't tell you what I wanted. It was something I wanted to write. But imagination doesn't help you in passing examinations, and it wasn't easy going to keep at the top. I'd been doing some research work on the Tower of London, and I happened to meet General Mason. He liked me, and I liked him, and he asked me to become his secretary.
`That was how I met the Bittons. It's odd… but, you know, I admired Driscoll. He was everything I wasn't. I'm tall, and awkward, and near sighted. I was never good at games, either, and women thought I was — oh, nice and pleasant, and they'd tell me all about how they fell in love with other chaps.
`Driscoll — well, you know him. He had the air. And it was the case of the brilliant meteor and the good old plodding cab-horse who helped him out of difficulties. And I told you I was flattered to have my advice taken. But then I met Sheila….’
`It's damned funny why she looked at me. Other women never did. They thought it was funny, too. -I mean Phil's friends. And by funny, 'I mean comical, this time. One nice young dandy made a remark about 'Old, parson- face and the moron daughter of Bitton's.' I didn't mind being called parson-face; they all did it. But the other… I couldn't do anything then. I had to find another occasion, so I ran into him one night, and said I didn't like his face, and knocked it off. He didn't get out of the house for a week. But then they began laughing again, and said, 'Good old Bob; he's a sly one,' and they said I was after Sheila's money. That was awful. And it was worse when Sheila and I knew we loved each other, and told each other so, and the old man learned about it.
`He took me over for an interview and as much as said the same thing. I don't remember what I said, but I know I told him he could take his dirty money, well, you know. That surprised him. Sheila and I were going to be married, anyhow. Then he thought it over, and thought it over, and Major Bitton intervened. Somehow, I don't think the old man was so upset about what I said as I thought he'd be. He came down to see me, and said Sheila wasn't capable of looking after herself, and that if we'd promise to wait a year, and still felt the same way — there it was. I said that was all right, provided I did all the supporting of the new family without any help….
`I'll skip over the next part. Phil said he could tell me a way to make some easy money, and everything would be fine. And I was pretty desperate; Bitton's 'year' only meant — and we both knew it — that at the end of the time he'd say my prospects were no better, were they? And I couldn't — expect Sheila to wait for me when she had so many chances for a good match!
`I got into a jam with my 'money-making.' Never mind that. It was my own fault. Phil… '
Dalrye hesitated. `That's neither here nor there. We were both in it, but I was the one who did the… Anyhow, if it ever got to the old man's ears, I was through. And I had to raise twelve hundred pounds in a week.'
He leaned back in his chair and, closed his eyes.
`Then I got this wild idea of stealing the manuscript from Phil and selling it to Arbor. It was insane. You know the scheme. I'd told him on Sunday night to phone me in the morning. He did wild-eyed. He was in some fresh difficulty. It was the — the wife matter, you know, but I didn't know it then. I had already impressed it on his mind that he had to conceal the manuscript; keep it in his rooms. It was so that I could get it out of the flat.
`And he did. He tried putting it back in the old man's car — you know about that before he came to the Tower to see me. But my instructions had so impressed him that, before he came to the Tower, he returned to his flat and hid the manuscript at the back of the grate in his study.
`Arranging the fake telephone call had been easy. The first one was genuine. When the second came through, I was in the record-room; I'd simply rung up Parker and spoken as Driscoll. I knew he would call me on the speaking-tube. Then I would go to the phone again, say 'Hallo Phil!' to myself, and answer myself in his voice, and Parker would hang up.
`But I had to work fast. The plan was, simple. I was going to leave the General's car at a garage in Holborn, hurry to Driscoll's flat, and pinch the manuscript. Then I was going to open a window, ransack the flat a bit, and steal a few odd things so that it would look like the work of a burglar. I knew Phil would never be blamed for stealing it from the old man; the old man would never know. The only danger Phil ran was in trying to return it. And, by God! if you think I hesitated to steal from the old man…. I'd pinch his shirt off his back.'
He took the bottle of whisky from the table and poured out almost half a tumbler. He was growing defiant, and swallowed the drink neat….
`It sounded good enough. I don't think Phil would ever suspect me. When I got to the flat and found he wasn't there, I had time enough to search. A phone call came from Parker at the Tower while I was searching. I made a mistake by answering it; but I was rattled: Still — later,' he choked a little, `later it. gave an alibi. It was `just before a quarter to two….
`Listen! I'd tumbled the study about some, because at first I didn't think of looking in the grate. But I did look there, and found it. I wasn't hurrying, because I thought Phil was safely at the Tower: — I examined, it carefully, and put it in my pocket. I was just going on to rumple up the room some more..’ `I turned round; heard a noise or, 'something — I don't know. And there was Phil in the doorway, looking at me. I knew he'd been, standing there, and he'd seen everything.'
Dalrye's fixed, absent look had turned horrible.
`You never saw Phil in one of his rages, did you? When he had them, he was a crazy man. He tried to kill a man once, with a penknife, because the man made fun of something he was wearing. He would go what they call — berserk, and he was as dangerous as hell
`I don't think I've ever heard anybody curse in my life the way he did; then. It was so violent it sounded… I don't know how to describe it… obscene. He had a brown cap, all pulled over one ear. I always knew when he would jump. We'd had boxing-bouts with soft gloves several times; but I stopped sparring with him because I was a better boxer, and when I got' inside his guard too smartly he'd fly off the handle and tell me he wanted to fight with knives. I saw him crouch down. I said, 'Phil, for God's sake don't be a fool — ' and he was looking round for something and he saw it. It was that crossbow bolt, lying on a low bookcase beside the door. Then he jumped.
`I tried to dodge aside and get him by the collar, the way you might a charging-dog. But he landed full. We whirled around… I I don't' exactly know what happened. I heard a chair hit the floor. And the next thing I knew we smashed over together, with me on top of him, and I heard a sort of dull crunch…. And just after that…
`F-Funny,' Dalrye said wildly. `When I was a kid I had a rubber toy once that wheezed and squeaked when you punched it. I thought of that. Because the noise he made was just like that toy, only a hundred times louder, and more horrible. Then there was a kind of hiss and gurgle of the toy getting the air in it again. And he didn't move any more.
`I got up. He'd driven that bolt into himself, or my falling on him had done it, until the point hit the floor. The back of his head had hit the iron fender when we went over.'
Dalrye sat back with his hands over his eyes.
21. Unsolved
For a moment he could not go on. He reached blindly after the whisky again. Rampole hesitated; and then helped him pour some more.
