Джорджетт Хейер - Duplicate Death

"Well," said Pershore, "it's only fair to state that both the butler and the parlourmaid say that after dinner tonight Mrs. Haddington and Seaton-Carew were alone together in the library, and it sounded as if they were having some kind of a dispute — to put it no higher. And Miss Haddington says that when Butterwick arrived he found her talking to Seaton-Carew in the back drawingroom, and created a scene. She says he flew into a rage, and she was afraid he was going to do something silly, he was so upset. Lady Nest Poulton more or less agrees with that, though she didn't hear the actual words that passed between him and Seaton-Carew. She just says he seemed to be upset, but it wasn't anything out of the way with him. A Miss Cheadle, who was his partner, says that she thought he had something on his mind, but she knew nothing about the quarrel with Seaton-Carew."

"Oh!" said Hemingway. "Did Miss Birtley have a row with this Seaton-Carew as well?"

"According to the servants, Miss Birtley has always disliked him, and made no bones about showing it. He and she arrived at the house together tonight, and when the butler opened the door to them it was plain Miss Birtley was very angry with Seaton-Carew. He was laughing, and taunting her, by what the butler could make out, and she said something of a threatening nature about being determined as well as cruel, and he'd better not be too sure of something."

"Yes, that's the sort of evidence that makes me wish I'd gone in for lorry-driving, or something easy. Any more people who had a silly quarrel with this popular number?"

"No, not exactly," replied Pershore. "But it seems that Lord Guisborough couldn't stand him - in fact, he as good as told me so. He's in love with Miss Haddington too, but he's accounted for: he was playing Bridge at one of the tables in the library, and he never left the room till the murder had been discovered. None of them did, at his table."

"What a shame!" said Hemingway. "Quite my fancy, he was. I've never arrested a lord yet, and he seems to have got just as much motive as anyone else I've heard of so far. What about the rest of the gang in the library?"

"Two only left the room while Seaton-Carew was absent. Mr. Poulton, who was playing at his table, went out to get a breather - they all agree it was a bit stuffy in the room by that time. He states that he strolled along the hall to the front-door, and stood for a moment or two at the top of the steps. Then he went back to the library, visiting the cloakroom on the way. No corroboration."

"Any motive either?"

"Not," said the Inspector, "that I have been able to discover."

"That's fine: we'd better fasten on him," said Hemingway.

"Fasten on him?" repeated the Inspector, staring.

"Well, I'd rather have no motive at all than the lot I've been listening to. Who else left the library?"

"Mr. Harte. He was playing with Miss Haddington, against Mr. and Mrs. Kenelm Guisborough, who are by way of being Lord Guisborough's cousins. Some minutes after Mr. Poulton had gone out, Mr. Harte became dummy, and he too left the room. He met Mr. Poulton coming out of the cloakroom."

"And what did he do?"

"According to his story, he too went into the cloakroom. Mr. Harte has no apparent motive - so perhaps you'd prefer to fasten on him, Chief Inspector!" said Pershore, with heavy sarcasm.

"You know, every time you say that name it rings a bell with me," said Hemingway, frowning. "But for the life of me I can't place it. Harte - Harte - I know I've met it before!"

"He is a nice-looking young gentleman," offered Pershore. "In the late twenties, I should say. He's a barrister, so perhaps that's how you come to know of him."

Hemingway shook his head. "No, that's not it. Oh, well! Perhaps I'll remember when I see him."

"He is being detained in the drawing-room, along with Miss Birtley, Mr. Butterwick, Mr. Poulton, and Dr Westruther. Dr. Westruther, being a scorer, was in the library when Seaton-Carew left it, and went up to the drawing-room to inform them there of the cause of the delay in the game before the discovery of the murder. Dr Westruther states that he had not met Seaton-Carew previous to this evening."

"Well, what do you want to go detaining him for?" demanded Hemingway. "A nice temper he'll be in by this time!"

"Properly speaking, I did not detain him. He remained of his own choice, or perhaps Mrs. Haddington asked him to, Miss Haddington being a good deal upset - quite hysterical, she was, at first, but he got her calmed down."

"Thank God for that, at all events! What I'd better do is to see these people, and get rid of those who don't belong here, or we shall have them pitching complaints in about the way they were kept up all night for no reason. What about the servants? Are they sitting up too?"

"Only the butler and the parlourmaid. None of the others was unaccounted for at the time, being in the servants' hall, and the kitchen."

"Sandy, go and talk to them, and pack them off to bed! One last thing before I give your suspects the once-over, Pershore! Anyone know where that bit of picture-wire that was used for the job came from?"

"The wire, Chief Inspector, is part of a coil bought this morning - that is to say, yesterday morning - by Miss Birtley, at Mrs. Haddington's instigation. Some of it she used to make what I understand to be a kind of flowerholder; and the rest she left on a shelf in the cloakroom."

"In full view of any of the gentlemen who went into the cloakroom, I suppose?"

"Yes," said the Inspector, considering it. "Anyone washing his hands, or maybe straightening his tie in the mirror, would be pretty well bound to see it, if she left it where she says she did."

"It gets easier and easier, doesn't it?" said Hemingway.

"It doesn't strike me that way. And not one of them did see it. Or, if they did, they won't own to it," said the Inspector.

A group of six people was assembled in the front half of the drawing-room, from which the card tables had been removed. The velvet curtains had been drawn across the archway leading into the back drawing-room, and the fire was burning brightly in the grate. The room presented a comfortable, if slightly overopulent, appearance, but nothing could have looked less comfortable than five of the six persons disposed round the fire. In one corner of a sofa, Mrs. Haddington sat bolt upright, staring into the flames, her thin, ringed hands tightly clasping her fan. She had risen magnificently to the occasion, when first the body of her old friend had been discovered, her social instincts prevailing over more primitive emotions; but the effort of carrying off an entirely unprecedented situation, coupled with the rapid collapse of her daughter into strong hysterics, had levied a toll on her vitality. She looked haggard, every muscle on the stretch, as though it was only by a supreme .exercise of will-power that she refrained from breakingdown. Beside her, occasionally glancing at his wristwatch, and imperfectly stifling a yawn, sat Dr Westruther, wondering why he had allowed his nobility to lead him to announce that he would remain on the premises until the arrival of "the man from Scotland Yard'. He had not, of course, supposed that this would be so long delayed.

Opposite the sofa, in a deep armchair with wings, Mr. Godfrey Poulton sat, contemptuously flicking over the pages of a weekly periodical, yawning quite openly, and presenting the appearance of one who ought to have been in bed several hours earlier. A little withdrawn from the fire, and seated limply in a chair, her eyes shaded by her hand, was Miss Birtley. Her other hand ceaselessly kneaded her handkerchief. Completing the circle, were Mr. Sydney Butterwick, and Mr. Timothy Harte. Mr. Butterwick's first reactions to the tragedy had rivalled Cynthia's in intensity and dramatic expression. From these transports of unbridled and slightly spirituous emotion, he had passed into a mood of such distressing despair, that Mr. Harte, the only unaffected member of the party, had exerted himself, partly from pity and partly from dislike of watching adult males weeping bitterly, to divert his mind. The task had been a difficult one, but Timothy had persevered, to such good effect that by the time Chief Inspector Hemingway walked into the room Sydney had been coaxed into his paramount hobby, and was passionately assuring Timothy that Giselle was the only real test of a classical dancer's art.