Джорджетт Хейер - Duplicate Death

"I daresay you didn't handle him right: there's a knack in examining butlers. So, on the face of it, only five people knew this call was coming through? Quite enough to be going on with too. Who answered the 'phone? The butler?"

"Miss Birtley states that she answered it, in this room. It was a Personal Call for the murdered man, from Doncaster."

"Have it traced, Sandy."

"At the time when it came- through, the murdered man was playing at one of the tables in the library, which is the room directly underneath this one. There were eight other tables in the drawing-room, which occupies the whole of the first floor; and barring Mrs. Haddington, and one of the guests, whom I will come to in due course, no one left that room during the period in question. We checked up carefully on that, and there doesn't seem to be any doubt about it, for they were all playing this Bridge-game, and nobody could have left the room without the three other people at his table remembering it. The names and addresses were taken, of course, but I saw no reason to detain anyone but this Sydney Butterwick I was speaking about."

"Quite right. Go on!"

The Inspector once more consulted his notes. "Miss Birtley's story is that when she came out of this room, with the intention of summoning Mr. Seaton-Carew to the telephone, Mrs. Haddington had come out of the drawing-room on to the landing above this. Mrs. Haddington, according to Miss Birtley, showed annoyance when she heard the call was for Mr. Seaton-Carew, but told Miss Birtley to go and fetch him up to take it. In this, Mrs. Haddington concurs. She then told Miss Birtley to keep an eye on things while she went up to her room, which is on the second floor. Miss Birtley then went down to the library, where the murdered man was playing -"

"Look, I thought you'd shaken off that habit!" objected Hemingway. "Stick to the man's name! If you're going to talk about the murdered man playing Bridge you'll give me the creeps!"

"Very well, Chief Inspector. What I was about to say when interrupted was, where the - Mr. Seaton-Carew was playing Bridge at one of the tables. At the same table were Miss Guisborough, who was his partner, and is twin sister to Lord Guisborough, also in the library at the time; Mr. Godfrey Poulton; and a foreign lady, calling herself Baroness -" He drew a breath, and enunciated painstakingly: "Baroness Rozhdesvenskiy!"

"How much?"

The Inspector displayed his printed note. "I got her to spell it, and the way I said it is the way she did."

"It may be, but if you take my advice you won't say it any more, or you'll have people thinking you've got something the matter with you. As far as I'm concerned, she's the Baroness. Don't tell me! She's a Russian, and talked you silly! Let's get back to Miss Birtley's story!"

"Miss Birtley states that a moment or two after Mr. Seaton-Carew left the library, during which time she emptied a couple of ashtrays, and replaced them, she went up to the drawing-room, picking up on the way a tray containing a whisky-and-soda, which she had put down on the chair outside this door when she originally answered the call. This she carried to a Colonel Cartmel, in the drawing-room, setting it down on a small table at his elbow. The Colonel more or less corroborated this, saying that he did not remember Miss Birtley doing it, but found the glass there when next he looked round. He was playing the hand at the time, and Miss Birtley did not speak to him. The other people at the table seem to think they remember seeing Miss Birtley put the glass down, but they are what I should call vague about it. Miss Birtley states that she lingered for a minute or two in the drawing-room, saw that one of the cigarette-boxes was nearly empty, and went downstairs to fetch up a fresh supply from a cupboard in the dining-room. In the dining-room, she states that she found Mr. Butterwick, drinking a whisky-and-soda, supplied to him by the butler. She did not exchange any words with him, but got out the cigarettes, and went back to the drawing-room. That," said Inspector Pershore, "is her story."

"And why have you got it in for her?" asked Hemingway, who had been watching him closely.

"I hope I have not got it in for anyone, Chief Inspector, but I should describe Miss Birtley as a very unsatisfactory witness. What is more, I have reason to think that she was concealing part of the truth from me. She was hostile, for one thing. Very unwilling to answer my questions, and very anxious to make me believe she hadn't had time to have murdered Mr. Seaton-Carew - which it's my belief she had, only one person corroborating her story that she lingered for a minute or two in the library when Seaton-Carew had left it. And I didn't set much store by that, because it was as plain as a pikestaff he'd have corroborated anything she chose to say! The rest of the people in the library say they don't remember, that she was in and out a good many times during the evening. Also, I had occasion to ask her if she noticed whether Mr. Butterwick seemed at all agitated. She said she didn't notice anything about him that was unusual, but the butler says nobody could have failed to have noticed it, because he looked very queer and jumpy, didn't seem to pay much attention to what was said to him, and drank off a couple of doubles before you could say Jack Robinson."

"Before we come to him," said Hemingway, "what's Mrs. Haddington's evidence?"

"Mrs. Haddington states that after Miss Birtley had set off downstairs to fetch Seaton-Carew to the telephone, she was just going up to her room when she found that Mr. Butterwick had come out of the drawingroom, and was standing behind her. He said he was going down to the dining-room to get himself a drink, play having finished at his table. She then went on up to her bedroom, and cannot state whether he went straight downstairs or not. She remained in her room for a few minutes only - uncorroborated, except that one or two people in the drawing-room say she wasn't gone for long - and then returned to the drawing-room, which she did not again leave until after the murder had been discovered. Mr. Butterwick tells the same story. He says he left Mrs. Haddington going upstairs, and himself went running down to the dining-room. He did not meet either Seaton-Carew or Miss Birtley and that, Chief Inspector, is where I think he's lying. He also states that he didn't hear any of the conversation between Mrs. Haddington and Miss Birtley about this telephone-call, and that's another lie, or I'm much mistaken. He stayed in the dining-room, and came back into the drawing-room just as Sir Roderick Vickerstown was leaving it to find out what was keeping Seaton-Carew. Corroborated by Sir Roderick. The butler doesn't know when he left the dining-room, because he himself had gone down to his pantry while Mr. Butterwick was still there."

"I see. And has this Butterwick any reason for killing Seaton-Carew?"

"To my mind, he's got more reason than anyone else," said Pershore. "By what I've gathered, and from the looks of him I don't find it hard to believe, he used to be very thick with Seaton-Carew, and always flying into tantrums if ever Seaton-Carew paid too much attention to anyone else."

"Oh, a homosexual, is he? Of course, I would have to strike a case with one of them in it!"

The Inspector looked down his nose. "That is how he seems to me, and it's what I've been given to understand. But the butler, and Mrs. Haddington's personal maid, both state that Seaton-Carew was after Miss Cynthia Haddington, which was not at all what Mrs. Haddington wished, for he was as old as she was, and, what's more, he was very intimate with her. But that," he added austerely, "is uncorroborated gossip."

"Nice goings-on!" commented Hemingway. "Where are we getting to? Did Mrs. Haddington strangle Seaton-Carew because he was making up to her daughter, or did Butterwick do it for the same reason?"