Джорджетт Хейер - Duplicate Death

"I was not hearing from the servants anything that would bear that out," observed Grant doubtfully.

"I don't suppose you were. What they had to say, by what I can make out, they might as well have kept to themselves, for all the good it's likely to do us. They've none of them been with her above two years, and most of 'em not half as long. She's a bad mistress, but that doesn't make her a criminal."

"It does not. But they think she is not a lady, for all such grand people visit her house."

"One up to you," agreed Hemingway generously. "If they say that, they're right: they always know!"

He ate his supper that evening in the cosy little house in Bromley in which Ex-Superintendent Darliston had retired. While this meal was in progress, and Mrs. Darliston sat presiding over a teapot almost as enormous as herself, nothing was talked of but the prospects of the Ex-Superintendent's three sons, the amazing intelligence of his five grandchildren, the iniquitous behaviour of his hens, and the success he had enjoyed at the last local Show with his tomatoes; but when the Ex-Superintendent had let his belt out a hole or two, and had drawn a pipe and an aged pouch from his pocket, his spouse heaved her massive form out of her chair, piled all the crockery on a tray, and said: "Well, I'll go and wash up. If Stanley came out here to talk to you about the new greenhouse, Herbert, I didn't marry a policeman, thirty years ago, more fool me! No, I don't want any help, Stanley, thanking you all the same! Just open that door for me, and give over doing the polite!"

So saying, this admirable woman picked up the tray, and sailed off with it to the scullery.

"You can't fool Mother," observed Mr. Darliston. He pushed his pouch across the table. "Here, have a fill of mine! Now, what's eating you, young fellow?"

"Come to pick your brains, Super," said Hemingway.

"Ah!" said Mr. Darliston, leaning back at his ease. "I daresay I've forgotten more than you'll ever know."

"Well, have a shot at remembering, will you, granddad?" retorted Hemingway disrespectfully. "Going on as if you were Methuselah, and me in my first pair of long trousers!"

Mr. Darliston's bulk quivered slightly as he chuckled. He jerked his thumb suggestively towards the beer jug, and invited his guest to unburden himself. He heard the Chief Inspector out in silence, remarking at the end of his discourse: "Yes, I remember young Grant. A good lad: how's he getting on?"

"Fine, for a toddler like him!" said Hemingway. "I'll tell him you remembered him. That'll please him a lot more than it does me. What 1 want you to remember -"

"Slow, but careful," pursued the Ex-Superintendent. "Of course, he owed a lot to the training he had under me. Get on with him all right?"

"I've known worse. In fact, if it wasn't for him breathing that Gaelic of his all over me, I wouldn't have a thing against him."

"Garlic?" repeated Mr. Darliston, staring. "What's he want to eat garlic for? Tell him to stop it!"

"He doesn't eat it: he talks it. At least, that's what he says it is. He's got a shocking outbreak at the moment. They went and gave him Christmas leave, and he jumped on to the first train up to Inverness. By what I can make out, it took him the best part of twenty-four hours to get to this village of his, but he seems to think it was worth it. Never mind him! Do you remember this Seaton-Carew, alias Plain-Carew?"

"Yes, I remember the chap, and I'll tell you this, Stanley: you've got a real slippery customer in him!"

"Well, if he slips out of the mortuary, I'll know you were right. Meanwhile, I'd be glad if you'd tell me if you were playing a hunch when you tailed him, or whether you had any tabs on him?"

"Not to say tabs. Call it a lot of leads. Not one of them led me to his front-door. I could look out my old casebooks, if you like, but they wouldn't tell you much."

"No, that's all right. When you cleared up that particular gang, what became of friend Carew?"

"I don't know. He faded out, and I was under the impression that he skipped over to France."

"Never had any enquiries about him from the Surete?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"I see. Now, I've put Cathercott on to his flat, but drugs aren't my line, and I'd be grateful for a tip or two. Would he be likely to keep the stuff there?"

"He'd probably keep it there, any time he had some to dispose of- though I once met a fellow that used to dump it in a safe-deposit. That's how I caught him: seemed an unnatural sort of thing for a chap to be going two and three times a week to his safe-deposit."

"Could he hide it in a small flat, so as his man wouldn't find it?"

"Easy. If he's been selling it to people like this Lady Nest of yours, it's white drugs he's handling - probably snow, might be heroin, might even be morphia, but that's unlikely. You don't want to go looking for a consignment of hemp, you know. The stuff's worth a blooming sight more than its weight in gold, and the amount he'd have on the premises he could hide pretty well anywhere. Take any cigarettes you find - but Cathercott knows the ropes! Probably handed it over to his customers in neat little packets of powder, anyway. One of the cleverest rogues I ever arrested used to paste chemist's labels on his packets, with Boric Acid written on 'em, and the ends sealed up with red sealing-wax. Life-like, they were."

"That 'ud be more in this bloke's line than handing out boxes of cigarettes," said Hemingway shrewdly. "If that was his trade, it's my belief he'd have done his handing over at all those parties he used to go to. There were no flies on him, and, unless I find he's got a secret deposit for his papers, he's been careful to destroy every last bit of written evidence. I wouldn't be surprised if that was your fault, Super. You went and frightened the poor fellow, and a nice mess that leaves me with!"

"Well," said Mr. Darliston, reaching out his hand for the beer jug, "I don't blame you for wanting to pinch the man that murdered him, Stanley, because that's your job; but I've seen something of the horrors him and vermin like him batten on, and what I say is that whoever did him in did a good job, and ought properly to be given a medal. In fact," he added, refilling the Chief Inspector's glass, "it's those bastards which make me believe in hell! If I didn't think they were roasting down there, I wouldn't be able to sleep o' nights!"

The Chief Inspector, reaching London again shortly after nine o'clock, betook himself to Scotland Yard, and found Inspector Grant awaiting him patiently in his office. He was seated at the desk, studying a dossier, but he rose when his chief came in, and closed the file. "I thought maybe you would be looking in," he remarked.

"I will say this for you, Sandy: you're a conscientious bloke!" said Hemingway, hanging up his hat and overcoat. "Got anything for me?"

"Verra little, I am afraid. Cathercott was on the telephone a while back. He was wanting to know if you would have him continue searching, or if it was a mare's nest he was looking for. They found a safe, hidden in a verra unusual place, and it cost them a deal of trouble to open it. There was two or three hundred pounds in banknotes in it, and some bonds, and never a sniff of snow, nor a speck to show there had ever been any there. Och, the truaghan! What with the toothache he has had all day, and the pains he took to get the safe open; and then nothing to reward him, it's a fine temper he is in! There was a secret drawer in the desk, too, which Sergeant Cringleford found, and bare as the palm of your hand when they got that open!"

Hemingway grinned, but he said: "Did you tell him to keep on at it?"

"I did, the duine bochd, but it went to my heart! If he had had it, would Seaton-Carew not have kept the stuff in the hidden safe?"