Mad Hatter Mystery

Author:John Dickson Carr [Carr, John Dickson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780706608878
Publisher: Remploy
Published: 1980-06-14T18:30:00+00:00

`This is getting much too serious, Hadley. Much. You see, I've been basing everything on a belief that I knew how all this came about. I told you this afternoon that everybody liked playing the master-mind. And I could afford to chuckle, because so much of it is really funny ... '`Funny'

'Yes. Ironically, impossibly funny. It's like a farce comedy suddenly gone mad. Do you remember Mark Twain's description of his experiences in learning to ride a bicycle? He said he was always doing exactly what he didn't want to do. He tried to keep from running over rocks and being thrown. But if he rode down a street. two hundreds yards wide, and there, happened to be one small piece of brick lying anywhere in the road, inevitably he would run over it. Well, that has a very deadly application to this case.

`I've got to separate the nonsense and the happenings of pure chance from the really ugly angle of the business. Chance started it, and murder only finished it; that's what I think. I must show you the absurd part of it, and then you can judge whether I'm right. But first there are two things to be done.'

`What?'

`Can you communicate with that man you have on guard at Arbor's cottage?' the doctor asked, abruptly.

`Yes. Through the local police station.'

'Get in touch with him. Tell him, far from keeping in the background, to make himself as conspicuous as possible. But under no circumstances - even if he is hailed to go near Arbor or make himself known to Arbor.'

`What's the purpose of that?'

`I don't believe Arbor's in any danger. But obviously he thinks he is. He also thinks the police haven't any idea where he is. You see, there's something that man knows, which for one reason or another he wouldn't tell us. If he notices your man lurking about his cottage, he'll jump to the conclusion that it's his enemy. 'If he tries calling the local police, they will find nobody - naturally. It's rather rough on him, but we've got to terrify him into telling what he knows. Sooner or later he'll seek your protection, and by that time we shall be able to get the truth.'

`That,' said the chief inspector, grimly, `is the only good suggestion you've made so far. I'll do it'

'It can't do any harm. If he is, in danger, the obvious presence of a guard will have a salutary effect on the enemy. If he does call the local police and there's a real enemy about, the police can have a look for the real enemy while they pass up your own man. ... The next thing, we've got to pay a very brief visit to Driscoll's flat.

`If you're thinking something is hidden there, I can tell you that my men will find it more easily than we can ever'

`No. Your men will attach no importance to what I want to find. I don't suppose they bothered to look at his typewriter, did they? Also, I want a brief look about the kitchen.

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