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.
`I don't understand,' Dalrye muttered in a dull voice,' `I don't know why he came back..
`Perhaps,' said Dr Fell, `I can tell you. Sit quietly for a moment, boy, and rest yourself…. Hadley, do you see now?'
'You mean.?'
`I mean this. When Driscoll stood there at the Traitors' Gate, at the Tower of London, talking to Mrs Bitton at one-thirty, he remembered something. The recollection of it startled him nearly out of his wits. He said he had to go and attend to it. What did he remember?'
`Well?' queried Hadley.
`Think back! He was talking to her, and he mentioned something, about his uncle. That was what made him remember, for his outburst followed it. Think!'
Hadley sat up suddenly. `My God! it was the afternoon of his uncle's monthly visit to him!'
.''Exactly. Bitton didn't intend making the call, but Driscoll didn't know that. He'd forgotten that visit. And Bitton had a key to his flat. He would walk in there, and there, in the flat with no attempt to hide them, were the two hats he had stolen. That was bad enough. But if Bitton grew suspicious, and searched, and found his manuscript
Hadley nodded. `He had to get back to his flat to head off Sir William.'
`He couldn't explain to Laura Bitton, you see. And, if he could, he couldn't take the time. So he did what many another man has done with a woman. He shooed her away and said he would join her in five minutes. Of course, with out any idea of doing it….’
`And do you see what he did? Remember your plan of the Tower, Hadley. He couldn't walk along Water Lane towards the main gate. That way led only to the way out; he couldn't have pretended an errand, and it would have roused the woman's suspicions. So he went the other way along Water Lane, and out of the other gate to Thames Wharf — unnoticed in the fog. That was at half past one.
`You yourself told me, Hadley, that by Underground a person could go to Russell Square in fifteen minutes or even less. And it seemed to me, if Mrs Bitton could do it at five o'clock, why couldn't Driscoll have done it at one-thirty? He would arrive at the flat, in short, about ten minutes to two or a trifle later. the time the police surgeon said he died. But, you see, where all your calculations went wrong was in assuming Driscoll had never left the Tower. The possibility never entered your head. I don't think we should have found a warder who saw him go out, even if we had tried, at that side gate. But the thing simply didn't occur to anybody.'
`But he was found on the Traitors' Gate! I… Never mind,' said Hadley. `Do you feel like going on, Dalrye?'
`So that was it,' the other said, dully. `I see. I see now. I only thought he might have suspected me….
`Let me tell you what I did. He was dead. I saw that. And for a second I went into a sheer panic. I saw that I'd committed a murder. I had already prepared the way for a theft, and I was in deeply enough,' but here was a murder. Nobody would believe it had been an accident. And where I made my mistake was this: I thought Driscoll had told them at the Tower he was coming back there! I could only imagine that they knew! And I had already definitely proved that I was at the flat, because I'd spoken to Parker on the telephone. I thought Driscoll had just changed his mind, and returned — and there I was with the body, when everybody knew we were both there.'
He shuddered.
`Then my common sense came back all in a rush. I had only one chance. That was to get his body away from this flat, somehow, and dump it somewhere out in the open. Somewhere, say, on the way to the Tower — so that they would think he'd been caught on the way back.
`And it all came to me in a flash — the car. The car was in that garage, not far away. The day was very foggy. I could get the car and drive it into the courtyard with the side-curtains on. Phil's body was as light as a kitten. There were only two flats on the floor; and the windows overlooking the court were blank ones; with the fog to help me, there wasn't great danger of being seen Dr Fell looked at Hadley. `Quite right. The chief inspector was positive on that point, too, when he was considering how Mrs Bitton could have got out of the flat. I think he remarked that a Red Indian in a war bonnet could have walked out of that court without being observed. It was suggestive.' `Well… ' Again Dalrye rubbed his eyes unsteadily. `I hadn't much time. The thing to do was to save time by shooting over to the garage by the Underground — I could do it, with luck, in two minutes, where it would have taken me ten to walk to get the car, and come back for the body.
`I don't know what sort of face I put up in front of those garage people. I told them I was going home, rolled out, and shot back to the flat. If I'd been arrested then… ' He swallowed hard. `I took up Phil's body and carried it out. That was a ghastly time; carrying that thing. My God! I nearly fell down those little steps, and I nearly ran his head through the glass door. When I'd got him stowed in the back of the car, under a rug, I was so weak I thought I hadn't any arms. But I had to go back to the flat to be sure I hadn't overlooked anything. And when I looked round, I got an idea. That top-hat. If I took that along, and put it on Phil… why, you see, they would think the Mad Hatter had killed him! Nobody knew who the hat-thief was. I didn't want to get anybody else in trouble, and that way it was perfectly safe…'
`The chief inspector,' said Dr Fell, 'will have no difficulty understanding you. You needn't elaborate. He had just finished outlining the same idea himself, as being the murderer's line of thought, before you came in. What about the crossbow bolt?'