When Hadley had finished, he did not immediately go on eating his sandwich. He stared at the sandwich queerly, put it down; and they were all very quiet. A fierce blaze was roaring and snapping in the fireplace, but it only intensified the stillness of that drugged hour. Over their heads, now, somebody was pacing with slow steps. Back and forth, back and forth.
A cold wind seethed in the dead shrubs of the garden beyond the windows. They heard a clock strike a musical note; then, very faintly, voices in the front hall, and the boom of the big door closing.
It echoed hollowly through the house. The steps upstairs hesitated, and then resumed their slow pacing.
“That’ll be the police surgeon,” said Hadley. He rubbed his eyes drowsily and stretched stiff muscles. “A bit more routine work, and I’m going home to bed. It’s been years since I’ve taken hold of a regular investigation of this sort. I let the others work. I’m tired—”
“Excuse me,” interrupted a voice at the door. “May I see you a moment?”
The tone was such that Hadley spun round. It began levelly, and then gave a sort of horrible jerk. It was a dead voice. Coming out of the shadows they saw Dalrye. His tie was loosened and there was sweat on his face. His eyes, as he moved them from one to the other of these men, were glazed.
“Don’t say anything!” Dr. Fell suddenly boomed. He lurched out of his chair and seized the young man’s arm. “For God’s sake keep your mouth shut! You’ll think better of it—you’ll—”
Dalrye put out his hand. “It’s no good,” he said. His eyes fixed on Hadley.
“I wish to give myself up, sir,” he said, in a clear voice. “I killed Philip Driscoll.”
XX
The Murderer Speaks
IN THE utter and appalled silence of that library, even the footsteps upstairs seemed to have stopped as though they had heard him. The fire drew clearly and quietly; it drew yellow light on the long, pale, dull face. Dalrye mechanically yanked open his collar. His eyes were on the fire as he went on.
“I didn’t mean to kill him, you know. It was an accident. I shouldn’t have attempted to conceal it afterwards; that was the mistake. So now I don’t suppose you’ll believe me. I don’t care, much. I shouldn’t have told you at all if it hadn’t been for your suspecting Major Bitton—and then his killing himself, and your being sure he’d done it. I couldn’t stand that. He was—a real—friend. Phil never thought about anybody but himself. But Major Bitton—” He fumbled at his eyes. “I’ve lost my glasses, and I can’t see very well without them. May I sit down, sir? I’m all in.”
Nobody moved. He stumbled over to the fire, sat down, and as he spread out his hands before it they saw he was shivering.
“You young fool,” Dr. Fell said, slowly. “You’ve ruined everything. I’ve been trying to cover you all evening, ever since I saw that girl of yours. And now you’ve wrecked it. There wasn’t any sense in your telling. You’ve only brought more tragedy on this house.”
Hadley straightened himself up, almost as though he were trying to recover from a blow in the face. He remained staring at Dalrye.
Then Hadley cleared his throat.
“This isn’t real,” he said. “It can’t be. Are you telling me, as a police officer, without any joking—”
“I’ve been walking the streets for an hour,” the young man answered. His shoulders were still quivering with cold. “When I kissed Sheila good night over at her friend’s place, I knew it was the last time I’d ever see her outside the dock. And so I thought I couldn’t tell you. But I realized I couldn’t go on this way, either. I’m rotten, but I’m not so very rotten. I tried to look at myself while I was walking. I don’t know. It’s all mixed up.” He put his head in his hands. Then an idea seemed to strike him and he peered round. “I heard somebody say—did somebody say he knew it already?”
“Yes,” snapped Dr. Fell, grimly. “And if you’d had the sense to keep your mouth shut—”
Hadley had taken out his notebook. His fingers were shaking and his voice was not clear. “Mr. Dalrye,” he said, “it is my duty to warn you that anything you say may be taken down—”
“All right,” said Dalrye. “I’ll talk in a minute. I’m cold; Oh, my God, but I’m cold! Let me sit here. Is that—?” He peered blindly at the drink Rampole was holding out, and clutched it. “Thanks. Thanks. I can use that. I suppose there’s no good telling you it was an accident, is there? He really killed himself, you know; that is, he jumped at me, and in the fight—Christ knows, I didn’t want to hurt him. I liked him. I only—I only tried to steal that damned manuscript.”
He breathed noisily for a moment.
“This may be true,” the chief inspector said, studying him queerly. “But I hope it’s not. I hope you can tell me how you answered the telephone in Driscoll’s flat at a quarter to two and killed Driscoll at the Tower of London a few minutes later.”
Dr. Fell rapped his stick against the edge of the mantelpiece. “It’s out now, Hadley. The damage is done. And I may as well tell you that you’ve put your finger on the essential point. It’s where your whole case went wrong. You see, Driscoll was not killed at the Tower of London. He was killed in his own flat.”
“He was— Great God!” Hadley said, despairingly. “All this is nonsense!”
“No, it isn’t” said Dalrye. He took another swallow of the whiskey, and it seemed to warm him. “It’s true enough. Why Phil came back to his flat I don’t know; I can’t imagine. I’d taken good care he should be at the Tower. That was why I faked the telephone call to myself. But I—I only wanted to keep him out of the way so that I could steal the manuscript and—and pretend it was some burglar.”
His trembling had almost ceased now; he was only dull and drowsily tired. He spoke in a queer, absent-minded voice, like a sick man.
“I feel better,” he said, suddenly. “I feel better, now I’ve told you. I couldn’t have kept it up long. I’m not built that way.”
“Suppose we get this thing from the beginning,” said the chief inspector. “You say you wanted to steal the Poe manuscript.”
“I had to,” the other said, as though that explained everything. “I had to, you see.”
“You had to?”
“Oh!” muttered Dalrye. His hand went to his eyes automatically, and found no glasses. “Oh yes. I didn’t tell you. It was all on the spur of the moment. Bing. Like that. I don’t think I should ever have thought of stealing it out of the house here. That wouldn’t have been—oh, I don’t know! I can’t explain it. But when he telephoned me early Sunday evening at the Tower and told me that when he’d pinched his uncle’s hat he’d stolen the manuscript with it—”
“You knew Driscoll was the hat thief?”
“Oh, Lord!” said Dalrye, with a sort of feeble irritation. “Of course I did. Of course he’d come to me. I helped him. He—he always had to have help. And of course, you see, he’d have told me, anyway. Because one of his choicest ideas was to get a Yeoman Warder’s cap from the Tower of London.”
“By God and Bacchus!” muttered Dr. Fell. “I overlooked that. Yes, certainly. Any respectable hat thief would have tried to—”
“Be quiet, will you?” snapped Hadley. “Listen, Mr. Dalrye. He told you about it?”
“And that’s when I got the idea,” Dalrye nodded absently. “I was pretty desperate, you see. They were after me, and it would have come out within a week. So I told Phil over the telephone to hang on to that manuscript; not to stir until I found him a plan; and to go round to the house Sunday night and find out what he could before he acted. And in the meantime—” He sat back in his chair. “I knew where Arbor was, over the week-end. I’d been out with Sheila Saturday night, and so of course I knew. I wouldn’t have dared phone him if he’d been in this house.”
“You phoned Arbor?”
“Uh. Didn’t he tell you? I was afraid he had recognized the voice, and I was panicky tonight when I heard he was coming in.”
Hadley stared sharply at D
r. Fell. “What did Arbor mean, then? I thought you told me he said he was sure it was Driscoll?”
“He did,” said the doctor. “But I’m afraid you didn’t pay close enough attention to what Miss Bitton said tonight, Hadley. Don’t you remember her telling us about how Driscoll had played jokes on her, by telephoning and telling her he was Dalrye here; and she believed it? You’ve got a voice very much like Driscoll’s haven’t you, my boy?”
“If I hadn’t had,” muttered the other, “I couldn’t have put this thing over. I’m no actor, you know. But if he could imitate me, then I could imitate him, and talk to Parker on the telephone to change the appointment and send myself up to his flat—”
“Hold on!” snapped Hadley. “This is getting ahead of me. You say that first you phoned Arbor and offered him the manuscript, when you didn’t have it yet, and then— But why! Why did you want to steal it?”
Dalrye drained his glass. “I had to have twelve hundred pounds,” he said, evenly.
Leaning back in his chair, he stared at the fire. His eyes were wrinkled up and his heavy breathing slowed down.
“Let me tell you a little about it,” he went on. “Twelve hundred pounds wouldn’t be much to most of the people I know. But to me it might as well have been twelve thousand.
“I don’t know whether you know anything about me. My father is a clergyman in the north of England, and I’m the youngest of five sons. I never got much, to speak of. I don’t suppose I ever wanted much. I got an education, but I had to work for my scholarships, because I wasn’t one of these tremendously bright chaps. If I had anything, it was imagination, and I wanted—someday—and this is funny—no, I won’t tell you what I wanted. It was something I wanted to write. But imagination doesn’t help you in passing examinations, and it wasn’t easy going to keep at the top. Still, nothing ever bothered me much. I’d been doing some research work on the Tower of London, and I happened to meet General Mason. He liked me, and I liked him, and he asked me to become his secretary.
“That was how I met the Bittons. It’s odd but, you know, I admired Driscoll. He was everything I wasn’t. I’m tall, and awkward, and near-sighted, and ugly as a mud fence. I was never good at games, either, and women thought I was—oh, nice and pleasant, and they’d tell me all about how they fell in love with other chaps.
“Driscoll—well, you know him. He had the air. And it was the case of the brilliant meteor and the good old plodding cab horse who helped him out of difficulties. And I told you I was flattered to have my advice taken. But then I met Sheila.
“It’s damned funny why she looked at me. Other women never did. I’m telling you everything, so I—I—well, I can’t tell you how much I worship her. I mean to say, it sounds ridiculous or something.”
He glared round him; but every face was expressionless.
“And they thought it was funny, too. I mean Phil’s friends. And by funny, I mean comical, this time. One nice young dandy made a remark about ‘Old parson-face and that moron daughter of Bitton’s.’ I didn’t mind being called parson-face; they all did it. But the other— I couldn’t do anything then. I had to find another occasion, so I ran into him one night, and said I didn’t like his face, and knocked it off. He didn’t get out of the house for a week. But then they began laughing again, and said, ‘Good old Bob; he’s a sly one,’ and they said I was after Sheila’s money. That was awful. And it was worse when Sheila and I knew we loved each other, and told each other so, and the old man learned about it.
“He took me over for an interview and as much as said the same thing. Then I made an ass of myself. I was sick of the whole performance. I don’t remember what I said, but I know I told him he could take his dirty money— Well, you know. That surprised him. Sheila and I were going to be married, anyhow. Then he thought it over, and thought it over, and Major Bitton intervened. Somehow, I don’t think the old man was so upset about what I said as I thought he’d be. He came down to see me, and scratched his chin, and all that, and said, ‘Well, let’s not have a break-up in the family.’ He said Sheila wasn’t capable of looking after herself, and that if we’d promise to wait a year, and still felt the same way—there it was. I said that was all right, provided I did all the supporting of the new family without any help.
“I’ll skip over the next part. Phil said he could tell me a way to make some easy money, and everything would be fine. And I was pretty desperate; Bitton’s ‘year’ only meant—and we both knew it—that at the end of the time he’d say my prospects were no better, were they? And I couldn’t expect Sheila to wait for me when she had so many chances for a good match, could I? That was the point of it.
“I got into a jam with my ‘money-making.’ Never mind that. It was my own fault. Phil—”
Dalrye hesitated. “That’s neither here nor there. We were both in it, but I was the one who did the— Anyhow, if it ever got to the old man’s ears, I was through. And I had to raise twelve hundred pounds in a week.”
He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.
“Queer. I can’t think of anything except ‘old parson-face.’ They even used to laugh to see me make cocktails. But then was when I got this wild idea of stealing the manuscript from Phil and selling it to Arbor. It was insane. So was I. I don’t excuse it; I was as childish as Phil, when it came to a real difficulty.
“You know the scheme. I’d told him on Sunday night to phone me in the morning. He did—wild-eyed. He was in some fresh difficulty. It was the—the wife matter, you know, but I didn’t know it then. I had already impressed it on his mind that he had to conceal the manuscript; keep it in his room. Over and over I impressed that on him. It was so that I could get it out of the flat.
“And he did. He tried putting it back in the old man’s car—you know about that—before he came to the Tower to see me. But my instructions had so impressed him that, before he came to the Tower, he returned to his flat and hid the manuscript at the back of the grate in his study.
“Arranging the fake telephone call had been easy. The first one was genuine. When the second came through, I was in the record room; I’d simply rung up Parker and spoken as Driscoll. I knew he would call me on the speaking-tube. Then I would go to the phone again, say ‘Hallo, Phil!’ to myself, and answer myself in his voice, and Parker would hang up. I thought everything was arranged.”
Dalrye brooded a moment, his head in his hands. The fire crackled. Hadley had not moved.
“But I had to work fast. The plan was simple. I was going to leave the general’s car at a garage in Holborn, hurry to Driscoll’s flat, and pinch the manuscript. Then I was going to open a window, ransack the flat a bit, and steal a few odd things so that it would look like the work of a burglar. I didn’t have any hesitation about stealing it. I knew Phil would never be blamed for stealing it from the old man; the old man would never know. The only danger Phil ran was in trying to return it. And, by God! If you think I hesitated to steal from the old man—I’d pinch his shirt off his back; that’s what I think of him. The damned— Never mind.”
He took the bottle of whisky from the table and poured out almost half a tumbler. He was growing defiant, with a dull stain of color in his cheeks, and the edge of the bottle clicked nervously against the glass. Dalrye swallowed most of the drink neat.
“It sounded good enough. I didn’t think Phil would ever suspect me. When I got to the flat and found he wasn’t there, I had time enough to search. A phone call came from Parker at the Tower while I was searching. I made a mistake by answering it; but I was rattled. Still—later,” he choked a little, “later it gave an alibi. It was just before a quarter to two.
“Listen! I’d tumbled the study about some, because at first I didn’t think of looking in the grate. But I did look there, and found it. I wasn’t hurrying, because I thought Phil was safely at the Tower. I found the manuscript, and examined it carefully, and put it in my pocket. I was just going on to rumple up the room some more—
“I turned round; hea
rd a noise or something—I don’t know. And there was Phil in the doorway, looking at me. I knew he’d been standing there, and he’d seen everything.”
The rest of the whisky was tossed off. Dalrye’s fixed, absent look had turned horrible. He put one hand a little way out, as though he were groping.
“You never saw Phil in one of his rages, did you? When he had them, he was a crazy man. He was standing there, breathing hard, with his mouth pulled back. I’d seen him that way before. He tried to kill a man once, with a penknife, because the man had made fun of something he was wearing. He would go what they call—berserk, and he was as dangerous as hell. It was cold and quiet in the room, and I could hear him breathe, and my watch ticking—and—
“Well, he started to scream. Literally screamed at me. 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. And he was dangerous, a sort of wildcat; he’d just as soon kick you below the belt as anything else. 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.
“You couldn’t avoid him in that little room. I tried to dodge aside and get him by the collar, the way you might a charging dog; I knew if I could get him in a wrestling grip I could keep him quiet. 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—
The Mad Hatter Mystery Page 26