The great clock in Westminster tower struck eight-thirty.
Dorothy had not been at the hotel when Rampole and the doctor arrived there on their return from the Tower. A note left for Rampole at the desk informed him that Sylvia Somebody, who had been at school with her, was taking her home for a gathering of some of the other old girls. Owing, she said, to previous knowledge of her husband's passionate aversion to jolly little evenings of this kind, she had informed them that he was in the hospital with a violent attack of delirium tremens. She said he was to give her love to Dr Fell; and not to forget to pin the name of his hotel to his coat lapel so that the cabman would know where to put him at the end of the evening.
Rampole and the doctor dined at a little French restaurant in Wardour Street. Hadley, who had gone to Scotland Yard immediately after leaving the Tower, had promised to meet them there for a visit to the Bitton home that night. Dr Fell dug himself in behind a steaming parapet of dishes and a formidable array of wine-bottles; but throughout the meal he steadily refused to discuss crime.
On any other subject, however, it was practically impossible to stop him. He discussed in turn the third Crusade, the origin of the Christmas cracker, Sir Richard Steele, Beowulf, and Buddhism. It was eight-thirty before they finished dinner. Rampole, comfortably lazy and warmed with wine, had just sat back for the lighting of the cigars when Hadley arrived.
The chief inspector was restless, and drew up a chair without removing his overcoat.
`I'll have a sandwich and a whisky with you,' he said, in reply to Dr Fell's invitation.
The doctor peered at him over the flame of the match for his cigar.
`Developments?'
`Serious ones, I'm afraid. At least two unforeseen things have occurred. One of them I can't make head or tail of.' He began to rummage in his brief-case and draw out papers. `To begin with, somebody broke into Driscoll's flat about a quarter to five o'clock this afternoon.!
'Broke into…'
`Yes. Here are the facts, briefly. You remember, when we questioned that Larkin woman I left orders to have her shadowed. Fortunately, Hamper had an excellent man there a plain-clothes constable, new man, whose only talent seems to be along that line. He took up Larkin's trail as soon as she left the gates. She walked straight up Tower Hill, without hesitating.
'At the top of Tower Hill she cut across and went into the Mark Lane Underground Station. There was a queue in front of the booking-office, and Somers couldn't get close enough to hear the station to which she booked. But Somers had a hunch. He took a ticket to Russell Square, which is the tube station nearest to where she lives. She changed at King's Cross, and then he knew he was right. He got out after her at the Russell Square station in Bernard Street, and followed her down Woburn Place to Tavistock Square.
She went into the third entry of Tavistock Chambers. Somers walked straight in after her, like a fool. But it's fortunate he did.
'He describes it as a rather narrow entry, badly lighted by a door with a glass panel at the rear, and with an automatic lift in the centre. The doors to the two flats on that floor are on either side. He had seen her closing the door of No.1 after her. And, at the same time she was going in, a woman slid out of the door of No. 2, darted past the lift, down a couple of steps, and out of the glass door at the back.'
The woman again, eh?' said Dr Fell, blowing out smoke placidly. `Did he catch a glimpse of her?'
`There were no lights on, and what with the mist, the darkness of the hall, and the sudden run she made, he could just be sure it was a woman. Of course, he wasn't sure that anything was wrong. But as a matter of caution, he went close and looked at the door, and then he was sure.
`The lock of the door had been splintered out from, the jamb with some sharp instrument like a chisel or a heavy screwdriver. Somers ran down the way she had gone. The glass door opened on a large paved court, with a driveway going out to the street. Of course, the woman was gone. And Somers came back.'
`Now, at the time he didn't know Driscoll lived there he only knew the Larkin woman did, from what instructions he'd been given. But he struck a match and saw the card on the door, and then he was inside in a hurry.
`The place was in a wild state of disorder; somebody had been searching for something.. Somers went out after the porters and had the devil's own time finding him. The porter is an old man, rather deaf, and he was in a bad state when Somers made him understand what had happened. The only person he had seen there that afternoon was a young man who had been there many times before, and had a key. He knew he hadn't burgled the place, because he had met the young man coming out of the door of the flat, and walked out to his car with him, and he knew everything had been in order then. Somers explained he meant a woman, who had, been there just a moment ago; and the porter refused to believe him.'
`Had anything been stolen from the flat?' Dr Fell inquired.
`We can't tell yet. I haven't seen the place, but one of my best men is up there now. According to Somers' report, the desk had been broken open, every drawer in the flat ransacked, and most of Driscoll's papers scattered over the floor.'
In search for some sort of letter or document?'
`Apparently. And I think we have an explanation of `Mary" '
`I rather thought we should,' said the doctor.
`One thing in the study struck Somers' eye because it seemed so out of place. It was your typical bachelor digs: hunting-prints, leather chairs, a silver cup or two, sport groups, things' like that. But on the mantelpiece were two plaster figures on bases, painted in bright colours — a man and a woman. They wore what Somers called "old-time clothes; like the ones in Madame Tussaud's," and they were labelled… '
Dr Fell raised his' eyebrows and grunted. 'I see. Philip II and Mary Tudor. They probably got them at some outing together, and kept them for the sentimental remembrance. Well who was the woman?'
The waiter brought Hadley a ham sandwich and a; stiff whisky and soda. He took a pull at the latter before he answered.
`It looks fairly clear, doesn't it, after what we decided this afternoon?' he demanded. `It had to be somebody who already knew about the murder. She would realize that, with Driscoll dead, his papers would be examined immediately. And if there were any letters that incriminate her.-?'
In short, Mrs Bitton,' said Dr Fell. `No, I don't have any doubt you're right.' Let's see. We questioned her before we questioned Larkin, didn't we? And then let her go.'
`Yes. And think back, now! Do you remember just before she was about to leave…? Ah, Rampole, you remember it, I can see. You noticed?
The American nodded. `Just for a moment; an expression of real and close terror. She seemed to remember something?
`And do you recall what General Mason had just said? I saw the expression on her face, and I tried to account for it; but I understand now. General Mason had been urging Sir William to go up to his rooms and rest, and he said, "The Devereux record is in the portfolio on my desk." And that instantly suggested to her the damning evidence that might be lying in Driscoll's desk for the police to discover. Evidently she has called herself; "Mary" only since she had reason to believe she was being watched.'
'But would she have had time to get up to Driscoll's flat and do all this?' Rampole asked. 'We didn't talk very long with Mrs Larkin. And Sir William went out to put Mrs Bitton into a cab…'
`Which she dismissed at the top of Tower Hill for the Underground. She could have gone from Mark Lane to King's Cross in less than fifteen minutes; she could have even saved the risk of time lost in changing trains by getting out at King's Cross and walking to Tavistock Square. Oh yes. The taxi would have been much too slow… And as for getting into the flat, you've only got to take one look at her to realize that she could have broken open a much less flimsy door with no particular trouble. The deaf porter wouldn't be apt to hear any noise, and the only other person who could have discovered her was Mrs Larkin — whom she knew to be detained at the Tower.'
'That tears it,'' said Dr Fell. 'That undoubtedly tears it. Hah!' He put his big head in his hands. 'This is bad, Hadley. And what I don't like is the symbolism.'
'Symbolism?'
'I mean those two plaster figures you've described. Suppose you and your lady-love have two china dolls in which you like to fancy an analogy to; yourselves. One of them' is labelled "Abelard" and the other "Heloise." You're very apt to look up Heloise and Abelard, aren't you, and see, who they were? — if you don't already know. And I tell 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 find it stowed away in the kitchen….'
The mist was clearing as they emerged from the restaurant. The theatre traffic had just begun to thin in the glare of Shaftesbury Avenue, and Hadley had some difficulty in manoeuvring his car. But, once out of the centre of town and across Oxford Street, he accelerated the big Daimler to a fast pace. Bloomsbury lay deserted under high and mournful gaslamps. They cut across into Great Russell Street, and turned left past the long shadows of the British Museum….
Tavistock Square was large and oblong in shape, not too well supplied with street lights. Along the west side the buildings were higher than on the others, and rather more imposing in a heavy. Georgian style. Tavistock Chambers proved to be a red-brick block of flats with four entry halls, two on either side of an arch beneath which a driveway led into the court. Into this court Hadley drove the car.
`So this,' he said, `is the way the woman escaped. I don't wonder she wasn't noticed.'
He slid from under the wheel and peered about. There was only one lamp in the court, but the mist was rapidly lifting into a clear, cold night.
`Lower parts of the windows frosted glass,' the chief inspector grunted. `I left instructions to question the tenants about her, but it's useless. A Red Indian in his war bonnet could have walked out of here without being seen. Let's see…. Those are the glass doors giving on the rear of the entry halls. We want the third- entry. There it is. That'll be Driscoll's flat, with the light in the rear window. Evidently my man hasn't left the place yet.'
He crossed to the glass door, stumbled over a rubbish can, and disturbed a hysterical cat. The others followed him up some steps into a red-tiled hall with brown distempered walls. Its only illumination was a sickly electric bulb in the cage of the automatic lift.' But a thin line of light slanted out from the door on their left, which was not quite closed, and they saw the splintered wood about the lock.
Flat 2. Rampole's eyes moved to the door facing it across the hall, where the watchful Mrs Larkin might be peering out from the flap of the letter-slot.
There was a crash, sudden and violent. The line of light in the doorway of Flat 2 seemed to shake, and the noise echoed hollowly up the lift-well. It had come from that door….
While the echoes were still trembling, Hadley moved swiftly across to the door and pushed it open. Rampole, peering over his shoulder, saw the disorder of Philip Driscoll's sitting-room as it had been described a short time ago, But there was another piece of disorder now.
In the wall directly opposite was a mantelpiece with an ornate mirror behind the shelf. And in front of this mantel piece, his back to the new-comers, a tall and heavy man stood with his head bowed., They saw past his shoulder a foolish plaster figurine standing on the mantelshelf; a woman painted in bright colours, with,a tight-waisted dress and a silver hair-net, But there was no companion figure beside it. The hearthstone was littered with a. thousand white fragments to show where the other figure had been flung down a moment before.
Just for a moment the tableau held — weird and somehow terrible in its power. The echo of that crash seemed to linger; its passion still quivered in the bent back of the man standing there.
Then his hand moved out slowly, and seized the other figure. And as he raised it his head lifted and they saw his face in the mirror.
`Good evening,' said, Dr Fell. `You're Mr Lester Bitton, aren't you?'