The Mad Hatter Mystery

by The Mad Hatter Mystery (retail) (epub)

  “But surely, Miss Bitton, something must have been said at the breakfast table?”

  “No, Mr. Hadley. Truly. Of course I don’t like being at the table when just Daddy and that horrible Mr. Arbor are there, because mostly I can’t understand what they’re talking about, books and things like that, and jokes I don’t think funny. Or else the talk gets horrid, like the night when Phil told Uncle Lester he wanted to die in a top hat. But there wasn’t anything important that I heard. Of course, Uncle Lester did say he was going to see Phil today. But there wasn’t anything important. Really.”

  XIV

  “To Die in a Top Hat—”

  HADLEY MADE a convulsive movement in his seat. Then he got out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead.

  “Ha, ha,” he said, automatically. He seemed to be getting quite used to it by this time; but the laugh sounded a trifle hollow. “Ha, ha, ha. You never hear anything important, Miss Bitton. It’s most unfortunate. Now, Miss Bitton, please try to grasp the fact that some of the meaningless, unimportant conversations you overheard may be of the utmost importance. Miss Bitton, just how much do you know about your cousin’s death?”

  “Nothing much, Mr. Hadley,” she said, fretfully. “They won’t tell me. I couldn’t get a word out of Laura or Daddy, and Bob just said there was a sort of accident and he was killed by this man who steals all the hats; but that’s the only—”

  She broke off short, rather guiltily, as Dalrye came back into the room again. He looked more presentable now.

  “Sheila,” he said, “whatever the things you want happen to be, you’d better go and pick ’em out. That place gives me the horrors. Everywhere I look Phil seems to be sitting there. The place is full of him. I wish I hadn’t got any imagination.”

  He shivered. Automatically he reached for a cigarette in the box on the taboret; then he seemed to remember, and closed the box without touching one. Rampole extended his case, and Dalrye nodded thanks.

  “I’m not afraid,” the girl announced, sticking out her underlip. “I don’t believe in ghosts. You’ve been so long in that musty old Tower of London that you—”

  “Tower!” Dalrye exclaimed, suddenly rumpling his sandy hair. “Lord! I forgot.” He dragged out his watch. “Whoof! A quarter to eleven. I’ve been locked out three-quarters of an hour. My dear, your father will have to put up with me in the house for tonight. I’m dashed if I stay here.”

  His eye wandered over to a leather couch against one wall, and he shuddered again. Hadley said, “Now, if you please, Miss Bitton, let’s go on. First tell us about this extraordinary business of your cousin wanting to die in a top hat?”

  “Eh?” said Dalrye. “Good God! What’s this!”

  “Why, Robert Dalrye,” Sheila Bitton said, warmly, “you know perfectly well— Oh no, you don’t. I remember now, when you spoke about getting back to that hateful Tower. You had to leave the table early to get there. It was the first night that Mr. Arbor—no, it wasn’t, because Uncle Lester wasn’t there then. Anyway, it was some night.”

  “Undoubtedly, Miss Bitton,” agreed the chief inspector. “Never mind the precise date. How did it happen?”

  “Yes, I remember now. Just Daddy and Uncle Lester and Laura and I were at the table; and Philip, of course. It was a sort of spooky night, if you know what I mean; and I know just when it was, too, now, because it wasn’t a Sunday night at all, and Philip was there. That’s how I remember. It was the night before Laura and Uncle Lester went to Cornwall. And Philip was taking Laura to the theatre, because at the last minute Uncle Lester had business and couldn’t go, you see; but they were taking the trip to Cornwall because Uncle Lester had lost a lot of money or something, and he was all run down and had things under his eyes, and the doctor advised it.

  “Oh yes. I couldn’t think for a minute. It was a sort of spooky night, you see, with rain and hail coming down, and Daddy never likes any lights in the dining room but candles, because he says that’s like Old England, and a big fire, too, and the house is old and it creaks and maybe that’s why we all felt the way we did. But, anyway, we started talking about death. And Uncle Lester talked about death, which was funny of him, and he’d got his white tie crooked and I wanted to straighten it, but he wouldn’t let me, and he looked as though he hadn’t been sleeping much, what with losing all that money. And he asked Daddy how he’d choose to die if he had to die. Daddy was in a good humor that night, which he isn’t usually, and first he laughed and said he supposed he’d choose to die like some duke or other who said he wanted to be drowned in a barrel of wine—fancy! But then they got serious about it, the way people do, and I was getting scared because they didn’t talk very loud, and it was storming outside.

  “And finally Daddy said he thought he’d choose some kind of poison he talked about that kills you in one whiff when you breathe it, and Uncle Lester said he thought a bullet through the head would be best, and Laura kept saying, ‘What rot, what rot,’ and ‘Come on, Phil, or we’ll be late for the first-act curtain.’ And when Phil got up from the table Uncle Lester asked him how he’d like to die. And Phil just laughed, and, I say, he was jolly good-looking with the candles and his white shirt and the way he had his hair combed and everything! And he said something in French and Daddy told me afterwards it meant, ‘Always the gentleman,’ and he said a lot of absurd things and said— Well, anyway, he didn’t care so much how he died, if he could die with a top hat on and at least one woman to weep at his grave. Fancy! How absurd of anybody to get that idea, I mean. And then he took Laura to the theater.”

  Out in the square, the tireless barrel-organ was still tinkling out the “Maine Stein Song.”

  Four pairs of eyes fixed upon her had roused even Sheila Bitton to something like nervousness. As she came towards the end of her recital she was fidgeting and talking faster and faster. Now she cried, “Please, I won’t—I won’t have you looking at me like that! And I won’t be put upon, and nobody ever tells me anything, and I know I’ve said something I shouldn’t. What is the matter?”

  She sprang up. Dalrye put a clumsy hand on her shoulder.

  He said, “My dear—er—” and stopped, because he had nothing to say. He was looking pale. His voice had a sort of rasp and whir like a Gramophone running down.

  A long silence.

  “My dear Miss Bitton,” the chief inspector said, briskly, “you’ve said nothing wrong at all. Mr. Dalrye will explain presently. But now about this morning, at the breakfast table. What was it your uncle said about seeing Philip today?”

  “I say, Mr. Hadley,” Dalrye struck in, clearing his throat. “After all, I mean to say, they treat her like a kid; and when the news came Sir William ordered her to go up to her room and stay there. He made me tell her it was a sort of accident. Do you think it’s quite fair?”

  “Yes,” Hadley returned, sharply. “Yes, I do. Now, Miss Bitton?”

  She hesitated, looked at Dalrye, and wet her lips.

  “Why, there wasn’t anything, much. Only Uncle Lester said he was going to have a talk with Phil today. And when I said that, about Phil meaning to go to the Tower at one o’clock, he said he thought he’d better run over to Phil’s flat in the morning, then, before he got out.”

  “And did he?”

  “Uncle Lester? Yes, he did. I saw him when he came back about noon. And I remember, Uncle Lester said to Daddy, ‘Oh, I say, you’d better let me have your key, in case he isn’t in this morning; I’ll sit down and wait for him.’”

  Hadley stared. “Your father,” he asked, “has a key to this flat?”

  “I told you,” Sheila answered with some bitterness, “he treats us all like kids. That was one of the things that used to make Phil furious with him. He said he wouldn’t pay for Phil’s flat unless he could have a key, so that he could see what was going on whenever he wanted to. Fancy! As though Phil were a kid. You don’t know Daddy. But it was just—well, I mean, he didn’t really mean it, because he never visited Phil except once a month. So Dad
dy gave Uncle Lester the key.”

  Hadley bent forward. “Did he see Phil this morning?”

  “No, he didn’t, truly. Because, as I say, I saw him when he came back. And Phil was out, and Uncle Lester waited half an hour and left. He seemed to be—”

  “Angry?” prompted Hadley, as she hesitated.

  “N-o. Sort of tired and shaky. I know he’d overexerted himself. And—funny. He seemed queer, too, and excited; and he laughed.”

  “Laughed?”

  “Hold on!” Dr. Fell suddenly boomed. He was having trouble keeping his glasses on his nose, and he held them to look at the girl. “Tell me, my dear. Was he carrying anything when he came back?”

  “This,” she cried again—“this is something horrible to do with Uncle Lester, and I won’t have it! He’s the only one who’s really frightfully nice to me, and he is, and I won’t have it. Even when I was a little girl, he was always the one who brought me bunny rabbits, and chocolates, and dolls; Daddy said they were absurd. And—”

  She was stamping on the floor, bewildered, turning suddenly to Dalrye.

  “I’ll be damned,” the other flared, “if she answers you another question. Listen, Sheila. Go into the other rooms and see if there’s anything you want to take along.”

  Hadley was about to interpose when Dr. Fell silenced him with a fierce gesture. Then the doctor spoke amiably.

  “It’s quite all right, my dear. I hadn’t meant to upset you, and it wasn’t important, anyway. Do as Mr. Dalrye suggests, please. But there is one thing— No, no,” as she was about to speak, “no more questions about what you’re thinking. You know, I asked you on the telephone whether you would bring somebody along to help you with your things? And I suggested your father’s valet?”

  “Marks?” she exclaimed, puzzled. “Why, yes. I forgot. He’s out in the car.”

  “Thank you, my dear. There isn’t anything else.”

  “You go in there and look about, Sheila,” Dalrye suggested. “I’ll join you in a moment. I should like to talk to these gentlemen.”

  He waited until the door had closed. Then he turned slowly. There was dull color under his cheek-bones; he was still visibly shaken, and his mouth worked.

  “Listen,” he said. His voice was thick. He cleared it with an effort. “I understand all your implications, of course. And you know how much I thought of Phil. But so far as Mr. Bitton’s concerned—Mr. Lester Bitton—Major Bitton—I feel the way she does. And I’ll tell you you’re a lot of damned fools. I know him pretty well. Sheila didn’t tell you he was the one who stood up for our marriage when the old man was against it. But I’ll tell you.

  “He’s not likeable on the surface, as General Mason is. I know the general dislikes him, because the general’s the old, roaring, damn-your-eyes type of army man. Bitton’s cold and efficient when you just look at him. He’s not clever, or a good talker. But he’s—you’re—a—lot—of—fools,” Dalrye said, suddenly miserable. He struck the back of a chair.

  Hadley drummed his fingers on his briefcase.

  “Tell us the truth, Mr. Dalrye,” he said, after a time. “We’ve pretty well found out that there was an affair between Mrs. Bitton and Driscoll. Well, I’ll be frank: we know it for a positive fact. Did you know about it?”

  “I give you my word,” said Dalrye, simply, “I didn’t. Believe me or not. I only got wind of it—well, afterwards.” He looked from face to face, and they all knew he was telling the truth. “Phil wouldn’t have been such a fool as to tell me. I’d have covered him, I suppose because—oh, well, you can see. But I’d have stopped it, somehow.”

  “And do you suppose Sir William knew of it?”

  “Oh Lord, no! He’s the last person who would. He’s too tied up with his books and his lectures about how the government is running on senile decay. But, for God’s sake, find out who killed Phil, and what all this nonsense is about, before we all go mad. Find out!”

  “We are going to begin,” Dr. Fell said, quietly, “in precisely two minutes.”

  There was a silence as sudden as the stroke of a gong.

  “I mean,” rumbled the doctor, lifting himself in his chair and raising one cane, “we are going to dispose of the nonsense, and then see our way straight to the sense. Mr. Dalrye, will you step outside and ask that valet chap, Marks, to step in here?”

  Dalrye hesitated, running a hand through his hair; but at the doctor’s imperious gesture he hurried out.

  “Now!” urged Dr. Fell, hammering his stick on the floor. “Set that table over in front of me. That’s it, my boy; hurry!” He struggled up as Rampole lifted the heavy table and set it down with a thump before him. “Now, Hadley, give me your briefcase.”

  “Here!” protested the chief inspector; “stop scattering those papers all over the table! What the hell are you doing?”

  Rampole stared in astonishment as the doctor waddled over and picked up a bridge-lamp with a powerful electric bulb. Reeling out its cord from the baseboard, he set the lamp at some short distance from the table. Then he rolled a low chair under it, and switched on the light. Rampole found the chief inspector’s black notebook thrust into his hands.

  “That, my boy, is for you,” said the doctor. “Sit down here beside me, on my left. Have you a pencil? Good! When I give you the word, you are to pretend to be making shorthand notes. Scrawl down anything you like, but keep your pencil working fast. Understand?”

  Hadley made motions like one who sees a priceless vase tottering on the edge of a shelf. “Don’t! Look here, those are all my notes; and if you muck them up! You fat lunatic, what is all this—”

  “Don’t argue,” said the doctor, testily. “Have you got a revolver and a pair of handcuffs on you, by any chance?”

  Hadley looked at him. He said, “You’re mad. Fell, you’re stark, staring mad! They only carry those things in the stories and on the films. I haven’t had a revolver or a pair of handcuffs in my hands for ten years”

  “Then I have,” the doctor said, composedly. “I knew you’d forget them.” With the air of a conjuror he produced from his hip pockets both the articles he had mentioned and held them up, beaming. He pointed the revolver at Rampole and added, “Bing!”

  “Look out!” shouted the chief inspector, seizing at his arm. “You blithering idiot, be careful with that thing!”

  “You needn’t worry. Word of honor, you needn’t. It’s a dummy pistol; even a Scotland Yard man couldn’t hurt himself with it. It’s just painted tin, you see? The handcuffs are dummies, too, but they both look realistic. I got them at one of those curio-shop places in Glasshouse Street, where you buy all the trick things. Here are some more of them; I couldn’t resist buying several. There’s a mouse that runs across the table on some sort of roller when you press him down”—he was fumbling in his pockets—“but we don’t need ’em now. Ah, here was what I wanted.”

  With manifest pride on his large red face he produced an enormous and impressive-looking gold badge, which he hung on his lapel conspicuously.

  “To the man we’re going to question,” he observed, “we have got to look like a real crowd of detectives. That we do not look like the same to the chief of the C.I.D. is of no consequence. But we have got to look the part for Mr. Marks’s benefit, or we shall get nothing out of him. Now, draw up closely to this table, and look as solemn as possible. We have it all arranged now; the light in his face as he sits in that chair I’ve pushed out; the handcuffs will lie before me, and you, Hadley, will be suggestively fingering the revolver. My young friend here will take down his testimony. Turn out those center lights, will you?” he added to Rampole. “Just the brilliant spotlight on his face, and ourselves in shadow. I think I shall keep on my hat. We now look sufficiently like the classic group, I think, to have our pictures taken. Ha!” added the doctor, very pleased. “I feel in my element now. Real detectives don’t do this, but I wish to heaven they did.”

  Rampole inspected them as he went to turn out the center lights. There was
a slight suggestion of people having their pictures taken at one of those beach-resort places where you put your head over the top of a cardboard airship and look foolish. Dr. Fell was sitting back sternly, and Hadley looked with a weird expression at the tin revolver hanging by the trigger-guard from one finger. Then there were footfalls in the vestibule. Dr. Fell said, “Hist!” and Rampole hastily extinguished the center lights.

  Dalrye saw the tableau a moment later, and jumped violently.

  “Bring in the accused!” Dr. Fell intoned, with a voice strongly suggestive of Hamlet’s father’s Ghost.

  “Bring in who?” said Dalrye.

  “Bring in Marks,” said the Ghost, “and lock the door.”

  “You can’t do it,” said Dalrye, after a moment’s inspection. “The lock’s broken.”

  “Well, shoot him in,” the Ghost suggested, in a more matter-of-fact tone, slightly bordering on irritation, “and stand against it, then.”

  “Right-ho,” said Dalrye. He was not sure what was going on, but he caught the cue, and frowned sternly as he ushered in Marks.

  The man who appeared was mild, and correct, and very nervous. Not a wrinkle in his neat clothes was out of place, and there was no guile in him. He had a long, lean head, with thin black hair parted sharply in the middle and brushed behind each large ear. His features were blunt and still more nervous. He advanced with a slight stoop, holding a good but obviously not new bowler hat against his breast.

  At the sight of the tableau he froze. Nobody spoke.

  “You—you wished to speak to me, sir?” he said, in a curious voice, with a slight jump at the end of it.

  “Sit down,” said Dr. Fell.

  Another silence, while Marks’s eyes took in the properties. He lowered himself gingerly into the chair and blinked at the bright light in his face.

  “Sergeant Rampole,” said the doctor, with a massive gesture, “take down this man’s testimony. Your name?”

  “Theophilus Marks, sir.”