Джорджетт Хейер - Duplicate Death

"I don't know. You'd think so, but old Darliston's just been warning me he was a damned slippery customer. It would be a smart trick to install a secret safe, just to put chaps like Cathercott off the scent. Did you say there were two or three hundred pounds in it? I suppose Cathercott was so busy sniffing for drugs he never noticed a nasty smell of rat. I would have. What did the fellow want with all that amount of money in the flat? Planning a midnight flit, in case we got after him?"

"Well," said the Inspector mildly, "it is not an offence to keep money by you!"

"No, and if he ran a big estate, no doubt he would have a lot of cash in his safe from time to time, so as he could pay wages, and such-like. If you can tell me what he should want with a great wad of bank-notes in a small flat in town, you'll be clever! Did you check up on what the Birtley girl said about Mrs. Haddington having kicked up a row because of some towel or other in that cloakroom?"

"I was not able. The girl she would have spoken to, if she spoke at all, is the head housemaid, and she has been ill with the influenza since two days. You would not have me push my way into the lassie's bedroom!"

"Quite right! You can't be too careful," agreed his incorrigible superior. "Nice thing it would be if we had members of the Department getting compromised!"

"I am susceptible to the influenza," said Inspector Grant austerely. "Not but what I would have taken the risk, if I had thought it proper."

"All right, all right!" said Hemingway soothingly. "It'll have to be checked up on, but I'm bound to say it wouldn't have been at all proper. One subject throwing a handful of mud at another isn't anything to get excited about. Not but what there's quite a lot about Mrs. Haddington I could bear to have explained to me. If I could believe that a dame who looks to me to have about as much passion in her as a cod-fish would murder the boy-friend because he got off with her daughter, I think I'd pinch her."

Inspector Grant was well-acquainted with his chief, but this made him gasp. "There is no evidence! Thoir ort, you are joking!"

"It's my belief," said Hemingway severely, "that when you cough that nasty Gaelic of yours at me you're just handing me out a slice of damned cheek, banking on me not understanding a word of it! One of these days I'll learn the language, and then you'll precious soon find yourself reduced to the ranks, my lad! There isn't any evidence - not what you could call evidence! - against any of them: that's the trouble. You take this Haddington dame! She had a row with Seaton-Carew earlier in the evening -"

"So also did Miss Birtley."

"That's so, and don't you run away with the idea that I've ruled her out, because I haven't! But she doesn't so far seem to have had any motive at all for strangling the chap."

"It might be that she was afraid he would tell Mr. Harte she had been in prison."

"It might," conceded Hemingway. "Now tell me what that bird had to gain by telling Terrible Timothy anything at all about her!"

"That," said Grant, "I do not know."

"No, nor anyone else. At this rate, there must be quite a few people she'll have to bump off. If you ask me, it was a darned sight more likely Mrs. Haddington would be the one to split to Terrible Timothy. He wouldn't be a bad catch for that daughter of hers: not at all bad! As far as I remember, his father was very comfortably off, besides being a baronet. Leave the Birtley girl out of it for the moment! What have we against Hard-faced Hannah? She had a quarrel with Seaton-Carew; he was known to have been her lover; there doesn't seem to have been much doubt that he was running after her daughter; she knew he was being rung-up that evening; she knew when the call came through; she had the opportunity to commit the murder; and her account of her movements is uncorroborated. In fact, the more I think of it, the more I think I'm a fool not to pinch her at once."

"Seadh! But there are others! There is young Mr. Butterwick!"

"That's why I haven't pinched her," said Hemingway brazenly. "Did you see him this afternoon?"

"I did, and och, I don't know at all what to make of him! He is afraid for his life, that is sure; but at one moment he will be weeping like a caileag, and the next in such a fury that he looks fit to murder anyone! It was no more than a hint that I gave him, that, according to Mrs. Haddington, he had been only twice to that house, and each time to a large party, when it is not likely he would have heard the telephone-bell ring. He went so white I thought he would have fainted; and so angry he was he could barely speak. He said he had dined with the Haddingtons once, and he had clearly heard the bell. He said I should ask myself why Mrs. Haddington had told us such lies. He said we were fools to think he would have murdered his friend, speaking of that man in such terms as would have made you blush, sir! He said he would go mad, perhaps, and those may have been the only true words he spoke! It did not take him more than five minutes to prove to me it was Mrs. Haddington, and Miss Birtley, and Mr. Poulton, and Mr. Harte that had murdered Seaton-Carew. And then, the silly creature, he would have me believe it was all wicked lies that he had quarrelled with his friend that very evening! Och, there was no dealing with him at all!"

"No, he's difficult," agreed Hemingway, scratching his chin. "You never know where you are with neurotics. I'm bound to say, though I don't fancy him much."

"He has more motive than any other."

"I'm not so sure of that. It'll depend on what Cathercott finds in that flat. Yes, come in!"

Inspector Cathercott himself walked into the room, heavily wrapped in a hairy overcoat, and with a muffler wound round the lower part of his face. He pulled this away from his mouth, and said, setting a neat package down on the desk: "You win, Chief! Take a look at that! Two of 'em!"

"Snow?" Hemingway said. "Good man! Where did you find it?"

"Several of the books in that glass-fronted case were hollow dummies. I might have got on to 'em quicker if it hadn't been for that safe! Clever operator, this Seaton-Carew. I'm sorry he's dead: I'd liked to have had him here for half an hour! But," said Cathercott, looking like a terrier on the scent of a rat, "I think this may have given me a line on the little gang we've been after for the past four months!"

"Is that going to help me?" demanded Hemingway.

Cathercott glanced indifferently down at him. "Help you? Oh, this murder of yours! No, sir, I shouldn't think so. With any luck this little lot may lead us to the boys who are bringing the stuff into the country. I'll be making a report on this find to Superintendent Heathcote first thing in the morning." He rubbed his hands together. "He'll be interested - very much interested!"

"I'm sure he will," said Hemingway. "You can go home to bed, and put some oil of cloves in that tooth of yours, George! You've done very nicely, and you don't want to go writing reports at this hour of night!"

"Well, if you don't want me any more, I'll be off," Cathercott said, picking up his treasured package. "Unless I miss my bet, it's snow all right. Enough here to keep your friend at the Ritz for months! Good-night, sir! "Night, Sandy!"

"Talk of one-track minds!" said Hemingway, as the door shut behind Cathercott. "Little details like murder don't mean a thing to him! Well, now, Sandy, we've got a highly significant angle on the case. We'll pay another call on Lady Nest Poulton in the morning!"

"Not on Mrs. Haddington?" said the Inspector, with the glimmer of a smile.

"No, because I've not got a one-track mind!" retorted Hemingway.

But when he arrived at the house in Belgrave Square next day, he was met by the intelligence that her ladyship was not at home.

"If you mean she isn't receiving callers, just take my card up to her, will you?" said Hemingway.