“Excuse me, sir,” said Hobbes. “I have succeeded in waking Sir William. The key was on the inside of his door; I took the liberty of getting a pair of pliers and turning it from the outside. He is upset, sir, and not very well. He has not been well since Mr. Philip’s death. But he will be down presently, sir. And there is something else.”
“Eh?”
“Two policemen are at the door, sir. A recent guest of ours”—Hobbes spoke slowly, but with a certain inflection—“is with them. A Mr. Arbor. He says Mr. Hadley told him to come here.”
“H’m. Got a little confidential work for you, Hobbes. Do you follow me?”
“Well, sir?”
“Put those policemen somewhere out of sight. Tell Mr. Arbor Mr. Hadley is here in the library, and send him back to me. You needn’t inform Mr. Hadley yet. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
There was a brief interval while Dr. Fell stumped back and forth on the padded floor, muttering to himself. He turned sharply as the door opened again, and Hobbes ushered in Julius Arbor.
XVIII
Mr. Arbor Hears a Voice
RAMPOLE HAD withdrawn to the fireside. It was all very neat, the hearth rug not even disarranged. An upholstered chair had been drawn up close, and on a taboret beside it stood an empty cup with the brown dregs of cocoa inside. Here Lester Bitton had sat quietly, staring at the fire and drinking his cocoa, before he went upstairs to his room. From that blue china cup the American’s eyes moved up to the man who was just entering at the end of the room.
Mr. Arbor was now imbued with a certain degree of calmness. But he was not at his ease. His glance had gone to the portrait of Sir William, a white eagle in the dusky room, and his discomfort seemed to grow. He had not let Hobbes take his hat or coat; he was much on his dignity. Two lines were drawn about the mouth in the swarthy face; he kept touching his eyeglasses with a light finger, and smoothing the thin black hair that was brushed straight across his large skull.
“Good evening, Inspector,” he said. He shifted his hat to his left hand and extended the other in a fishy gesture. Dr. Fell did not notice this. “Tritely, I suppose I ought to say good morning. I—er—I confess, Inspector, that your request to come here somewhat startled me. I—was about to refuse. You must understand that the unpleasant circumstances—”
“Sit down there,” interrupted the doctor, leading him to the fire. “You remember my colleague here, don’t you?”
“Yes. Er—yes, of course. How do you do?” Arbor said, vaguely. He added, “Is Sir William about?”
“No. That’s it, sit down.”
“I presume he has been informed of my purchase of the manuscript?” inquired Arbor, his nervous eye straying to the portrait.
“He has. But it doesn’t matter now, you know. Neither of you will ever have it. It’s burned.”
The man’s finger darted to his eyeglasses to keep them on. He said, “You mean—he—somebody—that is,” Arbor made an uncertain gesture. “How was it destroyed? This is terrible, Inspector! I could take the law to prove—”
The doctor drew out his pocket book. Carefully he took from it the only part of the manuscript which remained, and stood weighing it thoughtfully.
“May I—may I see that, Inspector?”
He took the flimsy strip of paper in unsteady hands and held it close under the pink-shaded lamp. For some time he studied it, back and front. Then he looked up. “Undoubtedly—ah—undoubtedly. Inspector, this is an outrage, you know! I own this. I—
“Is it worth anything now?”
“Well—”
“I see that there’s some hope for you, then. Now, I’ll tell you how it is, Arbor,” said Dr. Fell, in an argumentative voice suggestive of the elder Weller. “If I were in your shoes, I should take that bit of paper, and put it in my pocket, and forget all about it for the present. You’re in enough trouble as it is, and you don’t want more.”
“Trouble?” demanded Arbor, in rather too challenging a voice. The way he held the paper reminded Rampole of a man with stage-fright holding his notes on a lecture platform; calm in every way except that betraying flutter of the paper
“Do you know,” continued the doctor, pleasantly, “that all evening I’ve been of half a mind to let you cool off in jail for a day or two? You might be able to prove your innocence, but the newspaper publicity would be sad, my friend. Sad. Why did you run away?”
“Run away? My dear man!”
“Don’t try to deceive me,” said the doctor, in a sinister voice. It was a rather less blatant resurrection of Hamlet’s father’s Ghost. “Scotland Yard sees all. Shall I tell you what you did?”
He then proceeded to give a graphic account of Arbor’s behavior after leaving the Tower. It was accurate enough in its details, but so neatly distorted that it sounded like the flight of a guilty man from the law.
“You said,” he concluded, “that you had important information to give me personally. I am willing to listen. But I warn you, man, that your position is very bad. And if you don’t tell me the whole truth, or I have any reason to doubt what you say, then—”
Arbor leaned back in the chair, breathing noisily. The strain of the day, the late hour, all his experiences since the murder, held him limp and nerveless. He kept adjusting his glasses, staring at Sir William’s portrait, until he had recovered himself.
“Ah yes,” he murmured. “Yes. I perceive, Inspector, that circumstances have put me in a false light. I will tell you everything. I had intended to do so, but now I see I have no choice. You see, I felt that I was in a doubly unfortunate and precarious position. I feared that I might not be threatened only by the police, but by some criminal as well.”
He got out his ornate cigarette case and hurriedly solaced himself with a breath of smoke before he went on.
“I am—a man of books, Inspector. My life is leisured; I may say sheltered. I do not mingle with the more—ah—tempestuous portions of the world. You, who are a man of rough existence, and—ah—accustomed to hand-to-hand encounters with desperate ruffians, will not understand what I felt when I was faced with a bewildering problem of criminal nature.
“It began with that cursed manuscript. I needn’t go into details; I gave you enough of them this afternoon. I came here for the purpose of getting the manuscript from Bitton. Not unnaturally”—a querulous note raised his voice —“I wanted my own property. But I hesitated. Due to the unpredictable eccentricities of Bitton’s nature, I was placed in a distressing dilemma.”
“I see,” said Dr. Fell. “What you mean is that you were afraid of Bitton, and so you had to hire somebody to pinch it for you.”
“No!” Arbor insisted, gripping the arms of the chair in his earnestness. “That is precisely what I do not mean. I feared you would think so, as your colleague indicated this afternoon. And I was careful to point out to all of you there could have been no legal steps taken against me had I done so. But, Inspector, I did not do it. I will take my oath on it. I confess that the procedure had occurred to me; but I dismissed it. It was absurd and mad, and if I were discovered— No! I would hire no burglar.” He spread out his hands. “When the manuscript was stolen it was as much of a surprise to me as it was to Bitton. The first I heard of the theft, you see, was when he telephoned to my friends, the Spenglers, on Sunday night to—ah—to see where I was. But then—”
He caught Dr. Fell’s cold eye, and there was a new vehemence in his tone. They knew he was telling the truth.
“Then, considerably later the same night, I received another phone call at the Spenglers’.”
“Ah!” grunted the doctor. “From whom?”
“The person refused to give his name. But I was almost positive I knew whose voice it was. I have rather a good ear, and I was sure I knew it, though I had heard it only once before. I thought it was the voice of young Mr. Driscoll.”
Dr. Fell jumped. He glared at Arbor, who returned his gaze with a dogged steadiness. Arbor went on.
“I reviewe
d everything in my mind, and I was sure. I had met this young man at dinner the week before, when I had made almost reckless remarks and exceedingly broad hints about the Poe manuscript. The only other persons who could have heard them were Miss Bitton and Sir William; they were the only others at the table. Hence I was sure when this voice spoke. He asked me whether I was interested in a Poe manuscript belonging to Sir William Bitton, and gave such details of what I remembered having said, that I had no doubt. He asked me what price I should be willing to pay, no questions asked, if the manuscript were handed over to me.
“I am—ah—accustomed to rapid decisions and prompt action, Inspector. I was sure I was dealing with a member of the family. The voice, it is true, was somewhat gruff; but I had little difficulty, in seeing through the disguise. Dealing with a member of the family was very different from dealing with a hired burglar. In case of trouble, there would be no scandal. In any case, there could be no prosecution against me. This person naturally did not know I was the owner of the manuscript; nobody did. If, therefore, he had any ideas of blackmail in his mind after the theft, I could afford to smile. He would be the only one to take the risk.
“I reviewed my position in a moment, Inspector, and I perceived that this was—ah—the easiest solution of my difficulties. After the manuscript came to my hands, I could always drop a note to Sir William explaining my ownership, and referring him to my solicitors in case he did not believe me and wished to prosecute. I knew he would not do so. Besides, it was—ah—obvious,” said Arbor, hesitantly, “that the amount of the commission—ah—”
“You could promise him whatever he asked,” said the doctor, bluntly. “And when you got the manuscript you could give him fifty pounds and tell him to whistle for the rest because you owned it and he was the only thief. And the fifty pounds would be much less than you’d have to pay Bitton.”
“Considerably less. You—ah—state matters very succinctly, Inspector,” Arbor nodded. He took a few short puffs at his cigarette. “I agreed to what the unknown person said, and asked him whether he had the manuscript. He replied that he had, and again demanded how much I should pay for it. I mentioned rather a large sum; he hesitated, and I named a sum considerably larger. I had nothing to lose. He agreed, and stated that he would name a rendezvous in the course of the next day. I was to be communicated with through the Spenglers. His stipulation was that I must never inquire into his identity; he said he would find a means of concealing it altogether. Again I smiled.”
“Well?” prompted the doctor.
“I—er—naturally I attempted to trace the call, when he had hung up. It was impossible. In fiction it is—ah—very simple, I have noticed. But my utmost efforts were unavailing; I was told curtly that it was impossible.”
“Go on.”
Arbor glanced over his shoulder. The nervousness had come back again; he peered into the shadows of the room, and spilled some ash on himself without noticing it.
“I looked forward to it with—ah—a light heart. The following day, today, I went about my affairs as usual. I paid a long-delayed visit to the Tower of London; and I proceeded exactly as I have told you. When I was detained on my attempt to leave by the news of a murder, I was not unduly upset. I thought, indeed, that it would be fascinating to watch the—ah—famous Scotland Yard at work, and I assumed that it was some member of the underworld who had been killed; I was, if anything, pleased, and I resolved to be a good witness if the police spoke to me.”
Again Arbor adjusted his glasses. “You will own, Inspector, that it came as a shock when you began your questioning of me by inquiring about Poe manuscripts. Even so, I flatter myself that I was cool and—you will pardon me—triumphant over you. I was nervous, yes; I fancied all sorts of possibilities, but I effectively deceived you. It was not until you mentioned the name of the dead man that—” He drew out the silk handkerchief and mopped his forehead. “My heart, Inspector; I could not see it would make me betray weakness. The possibilities had suddenly become menacing and horrible. Driscoll, at my order, had promised to deliver me that manuscript; and now he was murdered. I must assume even now that he was killed because of it. It occurred to me that in some heinous fashion I might come into the case as accessory of some sort. A murder case.” He shuddered. “I told you, Inspector, that I am—a man of books. This ghastly thing—I could not see how it might concern me directly, but there were any number of dangers. And where was the manuscript? You had not found it on Driscoll’s body; I knew you had not found it at all. I wanted to forget it. As you saw, I wanted no search for it, above all things, because a search might uncover evidence to lead to me.”
“So far,” said the doctor, “very well. What then?”
Rampole was puzzled. If the doctor had insisted on anything in the case so far, he had insisted Driscoll would never attempt to dispose of the manuscript to Arbor. But here he was, nodding ponderously and firing his sharp little eyes on the collector as though he believed every word. And Rampole, too, was compelled to believe Arbor. There was only the possible explanation that Driscoll, in a moment of panic, had made to Arbor an offer whose dangers he saw in a calmer moment the next day, and decided to drop the whole affair.
“Now,” said Arbor, clearing his throat—“now, Inspector, I come to the amazing, the incredible part of my whole story. It is only fortunate, with my weak heart, that I am not now a dead man. If you could have imagined—”
“Just after you left us in the Warders’ Hall,” the doctor interposed, slowly, “you got the fright of your life, and it sent you out to Golder’s Green in a blind panic. What was it?”
Arbor replaced his handkerchief inside his coat. He seemed to have come to a jumping-off place in his narrative; he hesitated on the brink of the leap, tapping his glasses and peering over.
“Inspector,” he said, “before I tell you what you must regard as completely incredible, let me ask you a question or two. I assure you”—he held up his hand as the doctor shifted—“I am not trying to divert you. In that room where you were questioning me, who was present?”
Dr. Fell regarded him narrowly. “While we were speaking to you, you mean?”
“Yes!”
“H’m. There was Hadley, my—my colleague; and Mr. Rampole here; and General Mason, and Sir Wil— Hold on, no! I’m wrong. Bitton wasn’t there. He had gone up to Mason’s rooms so that we could question you more fr— He had gone up to Mason’s rooms. Yes. There were just the four of us.”
Arbor stared. “Bitton was at the Tower?”
“Yes, yes. But he wasn’t in the room with us. Proceed.”
“The next thing,” Arbor said, carefully, “is—ah, what shall I say?—an impression, rather than a question. Speaking with someone on the telephone is, in a certain sense, and aside from the mechanical interventions, somewhat like speaking to a person in the dark. You follow me, Inspector? You hear the voice alone. There is no personality or physical appearance to distract you from your impressions of the voice itself. If you heard a voice on the telephone, without having seen the speaker, and later you meet the speaker in real life, you might not recognize him, because his appearance or his personality might destroy the impressions of the voice. But if you heard him in the dark—”
“I think I understand.”
“Ah! I was afraid, Inspector, that the subtlety of the point I was endeavoring to make would—ah—not be fully apprehended by—by the police,” Arbor said, with evident relief. “I feared ridicule or even suspicion.” He swallowed hard. “Very well. You dismissed me after the questioning, you will recall, and I went outside.
“The door of the room in which you had been talking to me was not quite closed. It was very dark and quite misty under the arch of the tower there. I stood outside the door to accustom my eyes to the gloom, and to draw my scarf more tightly about my neck. As it was, I was terrified; I admit it. I could with difficulty make a good exit from the room. There was a warder on duty, but he stood at some distance from me. I could hear you t
alking in the room I had left; a mumble of voices.
“Then, Inspector,” said Arbor, bending forward with his fist clenched, “I think I received the most horrible shock of my life. In the room I had not noticed it, I suppose, because the influence of personalities had overborne the impressions of my hearing; if I may put it that way. But—
“As I stood there in the dark, I heard a voice speak from the room. It sounded little louder than a whisper or a mumble. But I knew that the voice I heard from that room was the same voice which has spoken to me on the telephone the day before, and offered to sell me the Poe manuscript.”
XIX
Under the Bloody Tower?
THIS ASTOUNDING intelligence did not seem to affect Dr. Fell in the least. He did not move or even blink. His wonderfully sharp dark eyes remained fixed on Arbor; he was still bent slightly forward, balanced on the cane.
“I suppose,” he said at length, “the voice really came from that room?”
“Why, yes. Yes, I assume so. There was nobody else about who could have spoken, and the words were not addressed to me; they were a part of a conversation, it seemed to me.”
“What did the voice say?”
Again Arbor became tense. “Now I know, Inspector, that you won’t believe me. But I cannot tell you. I have tried until I am ill, but I cannot remember. You must understand the shock of hearing that voice—” He moved his arm, and the fist clenched spasmodically. “To begin with, it was like hearing a dead man’s voice. I had been willing to swear that the voice over the telephone belonged to Bitton’s nephew. Then Bitton’s nephew was dead. And suddenly this hideous whisper. Listen, Inspector. I told you that the telephone voice seemed disguised; gruffer, as it were; and I had attributed it to Driscoll. But this was the telephone voice. Of that I am absolutely certain now. I don’t know what it said. I only know that I put my hand against the wall of the tower and wondered whether I were going mad. I tried to visualize with whom I had spoken in the room, and I discovered that I could scarcely remember who had been there. I could not remember who had talked, or who had remained silent; it was impossible to think which one of you had uttered what I heard.
The Mad Hatter Mystery Page 24
