`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
