Джорджетт Хейер - Duplicate Death

"No, I don't know what they said. I mean, now you bring it to my mind I do seem to remember vaguely that Miss Birtley was there, but that's definitely all. If you're thinking that I knew she'd gone to fetch Dan up to take the call, and that it was I who murdered him in that ghastly way - well, you're not only wrong, but it's utterly absurd! If you must know, I was terribly upset by the whole affair - anyone will tell you that! It was the most appalling shock: in fact, for a moment I damned nearly fainted!" He glanced at Inspector Grant, seated with a notebook in one hand, and a pencil in the other, and burst out angrily: "It's no use asking me to sign a statement, because I won't! I'm too terribly shattered to know what happened this evening!"

"Well, you haven't made a statement yet, have you, sir?" said Hemingway. "All you've done is to answer a few questions, and hand me a few lies, which it's only fair to tell you I don't believe."

"You've no right to say that!" Sydney declared, a trifle shrilly. "You've no shadow of right to talk to me like that!"

"Well, if that's what you think, sir, all you have to do is to lodge a complaint against me with the Department," replied Hemingway. "You'll have to convince them that you didn't hand me a lot of silly lies, of course - and, come to think of it, you might just as well convince me of that, and save us both a heap of unpleasantness. And if you'd stop thinking you'll be pinched for murder if you admit you knew Mr. Seaton-Carew was telephoning in this room, we'd get on much faster. There isn't any question but that Mrs. Haddington and Miss Birtley both knew it, but I can't arrest the three of you, nor I don't want to!"

"O God!" Sydney ejaculated, and, to the patent horror of Inspector Grant, dropped his head in his hands, and broke into sobs.

"Och, what a truaghan!" muttered Grant. "Ist, Ist, nach ist thu?"

"Now, don't you start to annoy me!" his superior admonished him. "Come, now, sir, there's no need for you to take on like that!"

"I know you think I murdered him!" Sydney said, in a choked voice. "All right, think it! Arrest me! What do you think I care, now Dan's dead? Oh, Dan, oh, Dan, I didn't mean it!"

This extremely embarrassing scene caused the Inspector so much discomfort that he could only be glad to hear Hemingway recommending Mr. Butterwick to go home, and to bed. He ushered him out of the room, and came back himself, mopping his brow. "Indeed, sir, I was glad to see you get rid of that one!" he remarked. "Though I would not say Pershore was wrong when he thought it possible he was the man we are after. To my mind, he would be likely to weep the eyes out of his head if he had killed his friend."

"Very likely. And to my mind it was a case of drink taken; and waste my time on maudlin drunks, without a bit of solid evidence to go on, I will not!"

"He was not drunk precisely," said the Inspector, with native caution. "I should say, however, that he had had a dram this night."

"Half a dozen, more like. I'll see Mrs. Haddington next."

Mrs. Haddington walked calmly into the room five minutes later. She looked quite as well-groomed and as well made-up as when she had stood within the drawing room to receive her guests, many hours earlier; but she had removed her diamonds, and her gloves. She inclined her head in a stately fashion to Hemingway, and disposed herself in a chair beside the fireplace. "What is it that you wish to ask me - er - Chief Inspector, I believe?"

"I want first to ask you, madam, where you were when the telephone rang this evening. In fact, I should like you to tell me just what your recollection is of what happened then, and up till the moment that Sir Roderick Vickerstown found Mr. Seaton-Carew dead in this room.

She replied without hesitation: "When the telephone rang, I was standing just inside the front drawing-room. I went out on to the landing, meaning to tell whoever answered the call that I could not speak on the telephone at that moment."

"You thought the call was for you?"

"I did think so," she admitted. "That, however, was forgetfulness: I knew that Mr. Seaton-Carew expected to be rung up, for he had mentioned it to me at dinner. I was not best pleased, though it seems heartless to say that now. Telephone conversations in the middle of a Bridge evening hold up the game, and are extremely annoying for everyone else. Miss Birtley answered the call, and I told her to fetch Mr. Seaton-Carew up from the library, where he was playing, to do his talking where he would not be disturbed - and where he would not disturb others. I can't tell you when he came up to this room, because by that time I had myself gone upstairs to my bedroom. Nor can I tell you how long I was absent from the drawing-room: not, I think, many minutes. When I came down again, there was no one either on the landing, or on the staircase, and the door into this room was shut. I assumed that Mr. Seaton-Carew was still telephoning, and went back into the drawing-room. There was a slight dispute going on at one of the tables, which occupied my attention. I recall that I was very much displeased with my secretary - Miss Birtley - for not keeping an eye on the smooth running of things while I was absent from the room, as I had asked her to do. She was not even in the room, but only entered it some minutes after I did. Then Dr Westruther came up from the library, to say that everyone was waiting for Mr. Seaton-Carew to return, and I asked Sir Roderick to come down to this room, and - well, put an end to all this telephoning."

"I think you expressed surprise, didn't you, madam, that Mr. Seaton-Carew should still be speaking on the 'phone?"

"Did I? Quite likely: I remember thinking that he had had ample time to have made two calls."

"Can you form any estimate of the time that had elapsed between your going up to your room, and Sir Roderick's coming here to look for Mr. Seaton-Carew?"

"Really, I would rather not commit myself," she said. "I wasn't paying any particular heed to the time, you see. It might have been ten minutes - I think not less - or it might have been longer. I have no idea."

"I see. And did anyone, other than yourself and Miss Birtley, know of this call?"

"Everyone who dined here knew that the call was expected. I assume that those people who were in the library must all have known that he was fetched to answer the telephone. Mr. Butterwick also knew: he was standing at my elbow when I told Miss Birtley to fetch Mr. Seaton-Carew."

"You are quite sure of that, Mrs. Haddington?"

She stared at him. "Perfectly."

"You don't think that there is any doubt that he heard your conversation with Miss Birtley?"

"Not the slightest. He is not deaf."

"That wasn't quite my meaning. You don't think it possible that he came out on to the landing after you had finished speaking to Miss Birtley?"

"Certainly not. At one moment I was speaking to Miss Birtley; at the next I became aware of young Butterwick hovering just behind me."

"Thank you, that's very clear. Now, I understand that the wire found twisted round Mr. Seaton-Carew's neck has been identified as part of a length bought yesterday afternoon by Miss Birtley, and left by her on the shelf in the cloakroom."

"So I have been told. I never saw the wire myself."

"You didn't go into the cloakroom?"

"I had no occasion to do so. I am aware that Miss Birtley has stated that she left what she did not use of the wire on the shelf. I can only say that if this is true she had no business to do so: the shelf in the cloakroom is not the place for odds and ends. Furthermore," she added, "it seems to me a very peculiar circumstance that not one of my guests saw the wire in the cloakroom."

"Have you any reason for thinking, madam, that Miss Birtley did not leave the wire there?"

She shrugged. "I should not, myself, place any very great reliance on what Miss Birtley said," she replied.