`Not much, I'm afraid, sir. I've just questioned the guards from the White Tower, and the head workman from the repair shop. Mr Dalrye has the notes in shorthand.'
The young man shuffled some papers and blinked at General Mason. He had a long, rather doleful face, but a humorous mouth. His good-humoured, rather near-sighted grey eyes were bitter; he fumbled with a pair of pince-nez on a chain, then stared down at his papers.
`Good afternoon, sir,' he, said to Sir William. 'They told me you were here. I… — I can't say anything, can I? You know how I feel.'
Then, still staring at his papers, he changed the subject with a rush. `I have the notes here, sir,' he told General Mason. `Nothing has, been stolen from the armoury, of course. And the head workman at the shop, as well as both warders from the second floor of the White Tower, are willing to swear that crossbow bolt is not in the collection and never has been in any collection here!’
'Why? You can't possibly identify a thing like that, can you?'
`John Brownlow got rather technical about it. And he's by way of being an authority, sir. It's here. He says' — Dalrye adjusted his pince-nez and blinked `he says it's a much earlier type of bolt than any we have here. That is, judging from what he can see of it… in the body. Late fourteenth-century pattern. Ah, here we are. "The later ones are much shorter and thicker, and with a broader barb at the head. That one's so thin it wouldn't fit smoothly in the groove of any crossbow in the lot."
General Mason turned to Hadley, who was carefully removing his overcoat. `You're in charge now. So ask any questions you like. Give that chair to the chief inspector..;. But I think that proves it wasn't fired, unless you believe the murderer brought his own bow.' Then it couldn't have been shot from one of the crossbows here, Dalrye?'
Brownlow says it could have been, but that there would be a hundred-to-one chance of the bolt going wild.'
Mason nodded, and regarded the chief inspector with tight-lipped satisfaction. Rampole saw him for the first time in full light. He had removed his soggy hat and waterproof, and flung them on a bench; evidently there was about him none of that fussiness which is associated with the brass hat. Now he stood warming his hands at the fire, and peering round his shoulder at Hadley.
`Well?' he demanded. `What's the first step' now?'
Dalrye put down his papers on the table,
`I think you'd better know,' he said, speaking between Mason and Sir William. `There are two people here among the visitors who are certain to have an interest in this. They're over with the others in the Warders' Hall, I wish you'd give me instructions, sir. Mrs Bitton has been raising the devil ever since…'
`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.