Джорджетт Хейер - Duplicate Death

Beulah was well aware that Mr. Harte had tried to catch her eye, and equally well aware that he had observed her brief encounter with Seaton-Carew. She hoped that he would make no attempt to single her out during the supper-interval, and made up her mind to keep as much out of his way as was possible. She was conscious of being kept under observation by Mrs. Haddington, whose double-edged remark earlier in the evening had not been lost on her.

She was on her way upstairs, bearing a whisky-andsoda for Colonel Cartmel, when the intermittent ringing of the telephone-bell informed her that Mr. Seaton-Carew's call had at last come through. In expectation of it, she had informed him that it would be best for him to take it in Mrs. Haddington's sitting-room, and she now set down the little silver tray she carried, and went into this apartment. She emerged a moment later to see her employer upon the landing outside the drawing-room.

"If that is for me, I hope you told whoever it is that I can't possibly come to the telephone now!" said Mrs. Haddington.

"It isn't. It's a long-distance call for Mr. Seaton-Carew," replied Beulah.

Mrs. Haddington uttered an impatient exclamation. "I'd forgotten. Really, I do think - Well, it can't be helped! He's in the library: you'd better go down and tell him at once. He can take it in my boudoir."

"I've already told him so," said Beulah, departing on her errand.

"And just keep your eye on things for a minute or two!" added Mrs. Haddington, carefully gathering up her long skirt, preparatory to ascending the flight that led to her bedroom. "I'm going to powder my face." She became aware of Sydney Butterwick at her elbow, and stared at him. "Dear me! Is anything wrong, Mr. Butterwick?"

"No - oh, no!" he said, stammering a little. "I just thought I'd get myself a drink - we've finished at our table!"

"Of course!" she said, with a graciousness he found even more quelling than her asperity. "You know your way to the dining-room, don't you?"

At the table he had deserted, in the front drawingroom, Lady Nest sighed: "I can't imagine what induces him even to try to play Bridge. Darling Jennifer, too cruel to have saddled you with him! My heart bleeds for you! Why do you suppose he took you out of your heart call?"

"God knows!" responded Miss Cheadle, a raw-boned lady with the indefinable look of a horsewoman. "Feel a bit sorry for the boy: got something on his mind."

"I don't want to depress you, Jenny," remarked Mr. Charles Ashbourne, "but, according to Roddy, you've been fobbed off with a stop-gap. Jack Doveridge stood Lilias up at the last moment."

"Oh, well!" said Miss Cheadle largemindedly. "That's all right: somebody had to have him!"

At this moment, two redoubtable ladies at a table in the middle of the room created a diversion by arguing with steadily mounting choler on the correct play of the hand which one of them had just (according to the other) mismanaged. It was a cardinal rule that these devoted friends should be kept apart at any Bridge-party, for each had a voice like the screech of a macaw, and neither had the smallest control over her temper. It was of course impossible to keep them apart throughout a duplicate contest, but it had been hoped that since one was North and the other West no cause for dissension would arise. Unfortunately, North saw fit to criticise West's play, which, considering she and her partner had benefited by it to the tune of five hundred points above the line, was unhandsome of her. An altercation arose which showed every sign of developing into a brawl; and Mrs. Haddington came back into the room to find play at all tables at a standstill. It said much for her tact that she was speedily able to soothe both ruffled ladies; and still more for her admirable command over herself that she did not betray her annoyance by so much as the flicker of an eyelid. Only Beulah, entering the room a moment later, knew that she was at all put out. Mrs. Haddington, smiling with determination, said to her in an acid undertone: "I thought I told you to keep an eye on things for me!"

Play was resumed, but another hitch soon occurred, which was explained by Dr Westruther, who came up from the library to say that they were held up there by Seaton-Carew's absence. "Called away to the telephone in the middle of a hand," he said. "They're waiting to finish it."

"Still telephoning?" said Mrs. Haddington. "Nonsense! He can't be. Or, if he is, he oughtn't to be!" she added, with a perfunctory laugh. "It's really very naughty and inconsiderate of him, and I shall scold him severely! Roddy, do go and remind him that he's holding everyone up! In my boudoir: you know where it is!"

"I'll soon have him out of it," said Sir Roderick, who disliked him, and had already confided to Dr Westruther that the fellow was a bounder.

He then stumped out of the room, colliding in the doorway with Sydney Butterwick. He glared, his sapient eye taking in the fact that this weakheaded young man had been fortifying himself a little too liberally. "Now then, now then, look where you're goin', young fellow!" he growled, and went off down the stairs to the boudoir.

A minute later he came back into the drawing-room, breathing rather hard, and looking very much shaken. He seemed to find some difficulty in speaking, and it was seen that his hand was trembling. Everyone stared at him; and Lady Nest, perceiving his pallor, jumped up from her chair, exclaiming: 'Roddy, are you feeling ill?"

He gulped, and made a gesture waving her aside. "Westruther!" he said. Job for you! Go down there! That fellow - Seaton-Carew!"

"What is it?" Mrs. Haddington demanded sharply. "Roddy, what's the matter? Where's Dan?"

Sir Roderick tottered to a chair, and sat down. "He's dead," he said bluntly. "Turned me up a bit. Nasty shock. No, no, Lilias, you stay where you are! Job for Westruther, not you. The fellow's been strangled!"

The insistent clamour which had been intruding for some time into Chief Inspector Hemingway's dreams at last woke him. He swore, raised himself on one elbow, and groped for the lamp beside his bed. A moment later a voice said in his ear: "Chief Inspector Hemingway?"

It was a brisk, official voice: the Chief Inspector recognised it as one that belonged to his superior, and life-long friend, Superintendent Hinckley, of the Criminal Investigation Department. He said, with great correctness: "Yes, sir."

"Sound sleeper, aren't you? Easy conscience, I expect. There's a job waiting for you."

"Now, look here, Bob!" said the Chief Inspector, abandoning the official manner. "If you're having a joke with me -"

At the other end of the wire, Superintendent Hinckley grinned unseen. "I'm not lying in my nice, warm bed! I'm on duty, and I'll thank you to remember it, my lad!"

Chief Inspector Hemingway, around whose exposed shoulders an icy draught was blowing, replied to this sally in terms which caused his superior to inform him severely that he wanted to hear no more of his lip. "Wake up!" he said. "This is a job after your own heart."

"At this time of night?" said Hemingway indignantly. "Don't tell me another Pole has gone and got himself knifed by one of his pals, because I'm not as young as I was, and if I've got to go off at this hour and listen to a lot of highly excitable foreigners, all jabbering different lies at me, I'm chucking the Force right now!"

"It isn't anything like that," replied the Superintendent. "Didn't I tell you it was after your own heart? Some bloke's been strangled in a house in Charles Street. Very classy joint: what you call good decor!"

In spite of himself, Hemingway was interested. "You don't say! What's-it all about? Robbery with violence?"

"No, nothing of that sort, as far as I can make out. In fact, no one knows rightly what it's all about. It happened in the middle of a Bridge-party, that I can tell you!"