General Mason took an electric torch from his pocket, snapped it on, and directed the beam towards the ground. A warder had been standing motionless near the fence; and the General gestured with his light.
`Stand at the gate of the Bloody Tower,' he said, `and don't let anybody come near… Now, gentlemen. I don't think we need to climb this fence. I've been down once before.'
Just before the beam of his flashlight moved down the steps, Rampole felt almost a physical nausea. Then he saw it.
The thing lay with its head near the foot of the stairs, on its right side, and sprawled as though it had rolled down the entire flight of steps. Philip Driscoll wore a suit of heavy tweed, with plus fours, golf stockings, and thick shoes. As General Mason's light moved along the body, they saw the dull gleam of several inches of steel projecting from the left breast. Apparently the wound had not bled much.
The face was flung up towards them, just as the chest was slightly arched to show the bolt in the heart. White and waxy, the face was, with eyelids nearly closed; it had a stupid, sponged expression which would not have been terrifying at all but for the hat.
That opera hat had not been crushed in the fall. It was much too large for Philip Driscoll; whether it had been jammed on or merely dropped on his head, it came down nearly to his eyes, and flattened out his ears grotesquely.
General Mason switched off the light.
'You see?' he said out of the dimness. `If that hat hadn't looked so weird, I shouldn't have taken it off at all, and seen your name inside it… Mr Hadley, do you want to make an examination now, or shall you wait for the police surgeon?'
`Give me your torch, please,' the chief-inspector requested. He snapped on the light again and swung it round. `How did you happen to find him, General?'
`There's more of a story connected with that,' the deputy governor replied, `than I can tell you: The prelude to it you can hear from the people who saw him here when he arrived, earlier in the afternoon.'
When was that?'
`The time he arrived? Somewhere about twenty minutes past one, I believe; I wasn't here…. Dalrye, my secretary, drove me from the middle of town in my car, and we got here at precisely, two-thirty. We drove along Water Lane… this road.. and Dalrye let me out at the gate of the Bloody Tower, directly opposite us.'
They peered into the gloom. The gate of the Bloody Tower was in the inner ballium wall, facing them across the road. They could see the teeth of the raised portcullis over it, and beyond, a gravelled road which led up to higher ground.
'My own quarters are in the King's House, inside that wall. I was just inside the gate, and Dalrye was driving off down Water Lane to put the car away, when I remembered that I had to speak to Sir Leonard Haldyne.'
Sir Leonard Haldyne?'
`The Keeper of the Jewel House. He lives on the other side of St Thomas's Tower. Turn on your light, please; now move it over to the right, just at the side of Traitors' Gate arch… There, The misty beam showed a heavy iron-bound door sunk in the thick wall. `That leads to a staircase going up to the oratory, and Sir Leonard's quarters are on the other side.
'By this time, in addition to the fog, it was raining. I came across Water Lane, and took hold of the railing here in front of the steps to guide me over to the door. What made me look down I don't know. Anyhow, I did glance down. I couldn't see anything clearly, but by what I did see I knew something was wrong. I climbed over the railing, went down cautiously, and struck a match. I found him.'
`What did you do then?'
It was obviously murder,' the general continued, without seeming to notice the question. 'A man who stabs himself can't drive a steel bolt through his own chest so far that the point comes out under his shoulder-blade; certainly not such a small and weak person as young Driscoll. And he had clearly been dead for some time… the body was growing cold.
`Young Dalrye was coming back from the garage then, and I hailed him. I didn't tell him who the dead man was. He's engaged to Sheila Bitton, and well, you shall hear. But I told him to send one of the warders for Dr Benedict.
'Who is that?'
`The chief of staff in charge of the army hospital here. I told Dalrye to go to the White Tower and find Mr Radburn, the chief warder. He generally finishes his afternoon round at the White Tower at two-thirty. I also told him to leave instructions that nobody was to leave the Tower by any gate. I knew it was a useless precaution, because Driscoll had been dead some time and the murderer had every opportunity for a getaway; but it was the only thing to do.'
`Just a moment,' interposed Hadley. `How many gates are there through the outer walls?'
`Three, not counting the Queen's Gate, nobody could get through there. There's the main gate, under the Middle Tower, through which you came. And two more giving on the wharf. They are both in this lane, by the way, some distance farther down.'
`Sentries?'
`Naturally. A Spur Guard at every gate, and a warder also. But if you're looking for a description of somebody who went out, I'm afraid it's useless. Thousands of visitors use those gates every day. Some of the warders have a habit of amusing themselves by cataloguing the people who go in and out, but it's been foggy all day and raining part of the time. Unless the murderer is some sort of freak, he had a thousand-to-one chance of having escaped unnoticed.'
`Damn!' said Hadley, under his breath. `Go on, General.'
`That's about all. Dr Benedict — he's on his rounds now — confirmed my own diagnosis. He said that Driscoll had been dead at least three-quarters of an hour when I found him, and probably longer?
General Mason hesitated.
`There's a strange, an incredible story concerned' with Driscoll's activities here this afternoon. Either the boy went mad, or.. another sharp gesture. `I suggest that you look at him, Mr Hadley; then we can talk more comfortably in the Warders' Hall.'
Hadley nodded. He turned to Dr Fell. `Can you manage the fence?'
Dr Fell's big bulk had been towering silently in the background, hunched into his cloak like a bandit. Several times General Mason had looked at him sharply. He was obviously wondering about this stout man with the shovel hat and the wheezy walk; wondering who he was and why he was there.
`No,' said the doctor. `I'm not so spry as all that. But I don't think it's necessary. Carry on; I'll watch from here.'
The chief inspector drew on his gloves and climbed the barrier. A luminous circle from his flashlight preceded him down the, steps.
First he carefully noted the position of the body, and made some sketches and markings in a notebook, with the torch propped under one arm. He flexed the muscles, rolled the body slightly over, and felt at the base of the skull. Most meticulously he examined the pavement of the area; then he returned to the few inches of steel projecting from the chest. It had been polished steel, rounded and thin, and it was not notched at the end as in the case of an arrow.
Finally Hadley removed the hat. The wet face of the small, dandyish youth was turned full up at them, pitiful and witless. Hadley did not even look at it. But he examined the hat carefully, and brought it up with him as he slowly mounted the stairs.
` Over the fence again, Hadley was silent for a long time. He stood motionless, his light off, slapping the torch with slow beats against his palm. Rampole could not see him well, but he knew that his eyes were roving about the lane. Finally he spoke.