Джорджетт Хейер - Duplicate Death

The Chief Inspector had called to interview Lady Nest more as a matter of routine than with any very real expectation of learning anything from her of value; but this speech made him suddenly alert. Not only was it artificial, but he did not think it was customary for ladies in her position to talk in that strain to police officers. She had cast the butt of her cigarette into the fire, and was already fitting another into a little jewelled holder. She had twice shifted the cushions behind her back and three times crossed and uncrossed her nylon-covered legs; her face twitched from time to time; and never were her hands still: one incessantly flicked ash from her cigarette; the other either pressed the feathery curls above her ears, or fidgeted with the row of pearls round her neck, or pleated a fold of her dress.

"Well, as a matter of fact I knew you must be over fifty, my lady, because I used to look at your photos in all the shiny papers," said Hemingway brazenly.

"No, did you? How sweet! What fun they were, those days! I sat for somebody's face-cream, once, which maddened all my family, poor darlings! They paid me the earth for it, but of course I wouldn't really have put the stuff on my feet!"

"I'm sure every lady bought the cream," said Hemingway. "Did you say it was years since you first met Mr. Seaton-Carew, my lady?"

"No, I didn't say anything, and well you know it! Must I be accurate? I don't think I can. I never have been: accurate people are such bores, and say, let me see, was it Wednesday, or Tuesday? just as though it mattered! Years. Oh dear, how many? I don't know! Three, perhaps. Or even longer. Not a bosom friend of mine, of course: devastatingly attractive, but just the teeniest bit off-white!"

"Were you acquainted with any of his family?"

"Good heavens, no! Had he any family? I expect they are quite impossible: he never spoke of any relations. Not to me, at any rate. Why don't you ask Mrs. Haddington? She knew him so much better than I did!"

"Yes, I understand they were very old friends?"

"Oh, rather more than that, I think! Don't look so shocked! I told you he was very attractive, but not, of course, a marrying man. I don't blame Lilias at all: I daresay I should have done the same in her shoes. But that's the worst of that kind of an alliance. Enchanting while it lasts, but it doesn't generally survive the first wrinkle. And then to have a raving beauty for a daughter! I'm so thankful I never had any children: I should never have survived losing a lover to my daughter. No woman could! It would make one ridiculous. I do so much admire Lilias Haddington for managing to ignore the whole thing in that wonderfully cool way. Marvellous, isn't she? She never turns a hair!"

"She's a great friend of yours, isn't she?" said Hemingway.

"Oh - ! Such an exaggerated term to use! One knows her socially, just as one knows so many people!"

"You presented Miss Haddington last year, I think. At least, that's what I seem to remember being told."

"Yes. Yes, I rather took them up. Such a pretty girl, Cynthia Haddington!"

"Well, if you don't mind my saying so, Lady Nest, they must both of them feel they owe you a debt! Everyone knows that what you say goes in High Society."

She smiled uncertainly, and put up a hand as though to shade her eyes from the light. "How kind of you! I think someone must have asked me to call on Mrs. Haddington: it's always happening. So difficult to refuse! Then one drifts into a certain degree of intimacy, really without knowing it!"

Hemingway's eyes travelled to Inspector Grant's face. The Inspector rose, and with a murmured excuse, walked out of the room. Following the intuition which he so often told his exasperated fellows never failed him, Hemingway said: "We don't always take down what is said, and use it as evidence, my lady: particularly when we're working on a case like this, which might turn out to be a bit delicate. Now, I don't want to start something which, properly speaking, is none of my business; and I don't at all want to go asking Mr. Poulton a whole lot of questions which might stir up trouble."

"My husband! What's it got to do with him?" she said sharply. "What questions? Is it so extraordinary that I should be friendly with Lilias Haddington?"

"Well, yes, my lady, I think it is!" replied Hemingway frankly. "I thought so at the outset. I don't move in High Society myself, but in my job one gets to learn a few what-you-might-call elementary facts. Why did you introduce Mrs. Haddington to your friends, and what was the tie-up between you, and her, and Seaton-Carew?"

She sat up jerkily from the sofa, and moved away to the window. "Absurd!"

"Was it Mrs. Haddington who introduced Seaton-Carew to you, my lady?"

"No!"

"Other way around?" suggested Hemingway.

She put up a hand to her brow, pressing it. "No. How can this help you? Do you mean to ask my husband these - foolish questions?"

"Not if I can help it. If ever there's any suspicion of blackmail, we're as discreet as we know how to be."

She stared at him over her shoulder. "You're very acute! Who told you this?"

"No one told me."

"What makes you think - ?"

"Mrs. Haddington isn't your sort, my lady. Nor, from what I can make out, was Seaton-Carew."

She said quickly: "Put that out of your mind! There was never any question of such a thing between Seaton-Carew and me! Just an acquaintance! A man I asked to my parties!"

"And he was pretty closely tied-up with Mrs. Haddington?"

"That had nothing to do with it! I met him in the South of France - before I knew of her existence!"

"I see. And you met Mrs. Haddington - ?"

Her thin chest heaved; she said breathlessly: "I need not account to Scotland Yard for my friends, I suppose!"

"No," replied Hemingway. "You needn't, but it might be a good thing if you did, my lady. Of course, I don't know, but it did occur to me that you might - in a manner of speaking - have been forced to take Mrs. Haddington up. Just because you didn't want any truck with Scotland Yard." He smiled. "I often get funny ideas into my head," he offered. "You'd be surprised the number of times ladies of position go and do something indiscreet, and then don't like to say anything about it to the police. Some of them would rather be bled white, in fact. Silly, but there it is!"

She burst out laughing. "Me? No one has ever bled me for a penny, Chief Inspector!"

"You do sometimes come across blackmailers that want something other than money," said Hemingway thoughtfully. "Not often, of course, but I have heard of it."

"You are quite, quite mistaken!" she said, gripping the back of a chair with both hands.

"Well, if that's so, I won't trouble you any longer, my lady," he said, getting up.

"I'm glad to hear it! What - what do you mean to do now?"

"Pursue my investigations," responded Hemingway promptly.

Her face twitched. "You'd better not hint at these really rather insulting ideas of yours to my husband," she said. "He is old-fashioned in his outlook, and I fear he might resent it - quite violently! That's just a friendly warning!"

"I'm very grateful, my lady."

"You're supposed to be enquiring into a case of murder," she pointed out, still gripping the chairback. "Neither I nor my husband had anything to do with that - indeed, how should we? I suggest you turn your attention to another household. Naturally, I don't wish to say anything against Lilias Haddington, but she is the person most closely linked with Seaton-Carew, not I! I ought perhaps to mention that my husband was barely acquainted with him."

"Yes," said Hemingway, "so he told me. Still, it was quite right of you to tell me, my lady, if you thought perhaps he'd forgotten to."

He then bade her a civil good-morning, to which she made no answer, and withdrew.