Джорджетт Хейер - Duplicate Death

"But it has nothing to do with you! Look, I'll put it back in Mummy's box, and Mr.. Eddleston can keep it! I don't mind doing that!"

"Miss Haddington," said Hemingway, "I don't want to make things any more unpleasant for you than what they are already, but if you don't give me that compact I shall have to. You see, I'm going to inspect it, whether you want me to or not, and it will be very much better for you to give it to me without any more fuss."

She began to cry again, but when Hemingway unclasped her fingers from about the compact she only feebly resisted.

Inspector Grant said: "Will you give it to me, if you please, sir?"

He took it from Hemingway, and walked over to the window with it, standing there with his back to the room, his head a little bent. After a moment, he glanced over his shoulder. Hemingway went to him, while Miss Pickhill and Mr.. Eddleston stared at him. Cynthia had collapsed on the day-bed, and was sobbing into one of its opulent cushions. The Inspector said nothing at all, but showed Hemingway the compact, lying in the palm of his hand. He had opened it, but no little powder-puff and mirror were disclosed. A very small quantity of white powder was all that met Hemingway's gaze. He looked up questioningly, and the Inspector nodded, shut the case, and opened it again, this time revealing mirror, puff, and powder-filter. Hemingway turned from him.

"Miss Haddington," he said, "I want to have a word with you. Now, I think it would be best if I saw you privately, but if you wish it you may have your aunt or Mr.. Eddleston with you."

She raised her head, gazing up at him out of terrified, tear-drowned eyes. "What are you going to do to me?"

"I'm going to ask you one or two questions, miss, and you may take it from me that if you answer me truthfully you've got nothing to be afraid of."

She seemed to be undecided; Miss Pickhill exclaimed: "I demand to be told what all this means!"

"No, no, don't!" shrieked Cynthia. "Please don't!"

"No, miss, I've no wish to do so. Suppose we were to go down to the drawing-room -just you and me, and Inspector Grant?"

"I think," said Mr.. Eddleston, clearing his throat, "that I ought to be present, Chief Inspector, if you wish to question Miss Haddington on any serious matter."

"I have no objection to your presence, sir."

"No, no, I don't want him!" Cynthia said. "I'll go with you, if you swear you aren't going to do anything to me!"

"No, miss, I'm not going to do anything to you at all."

"Well!" said Miss Pickhill. "I'm sure I don't know what the world is coming to! I consider this most extraordinary!"

Nobody paid any attention to this, Hemingway merely opening the door for Cynthia to pass out of the room, and Mr.. Eddleston looking as though he were uncertain what to do.

A fire was burning in the drawing-room, and Hemingway suggested to Cynthia that she should sit down beside it. She seemed relieved by this humane invitation, but poised herself on the very edge of one of the deep armchairs, and, for once in her life, sat bolt upright. Her eyes watched the two detectives warily, with something in them of a child caught out in wrongdoing.

Hemingway said: "Now, miss, we won't beat about the bush. I know just what you've been up to and very wrong of you it was, which I'll be bound you know already, for I think Mr.. Seaton-Carew warned you that there would be bad trouble if anyone found out you had cocaine in your possession, didn't he?"

She gave a frightened nod, catching her breath on a sob.

"When did he start giving you the stuff?"

"I don't know. I only tried it for f-fun, at first! Only I felt so marvellous afterwards - It's my nerves!"

"It precious soon would be, if you went on at that game!" said Hemingway dryly. "What made Mr.. Seaton-Carew give it to you at all?"

"Oh, I don't know! It was the night of the Gem Ball, and I felt so bloody, and I looked haggish, and my head was splitting, and Dan was utterly divine to me! Actually, he always rather bored me before - I mean, definitely old, and uncle-ish, besides being Mummy's boy-friend, which made me choke him off, on account of its being so dim to get a Thing about one's Mother's boy-friend! Of course, I just didn't know him properly, because really he utterly understood about my nerves, and always being tired to death, and he was too cherishing!" Her eyes filled. "It's awful now he's dead! I can't bear it! Mummy never understood a bit, but Dan did!"

"When did he give you that powder-compact?"

"Oh, it was a Christmas present! He made me promise not to use it unless I felt absolutely finished, and he swore he wouldn't refill it till Easter, but I expect he would have, if I'd been nice to him, because, if you want to know, he had a complete yen for me!"

"I don't doubt it," Hemingway said, more dryly still. "When did your mother discover that you were taking drugs, Miss Haddington?"

"Mummy never knew a thing about it!" she exclaimed. "She couldn't have known!"

He gave her an appraising look. "No! Well, when did you lose the compact, miss?"

"It was the day of that ghastly Bridge-party. I don't know when Mummy found it, because she hadn't the least idea - reallyy she hadn't! I can't think why she locked it up in her jewel-box! Unless she wanted to get back on me for going out with Lance Guisborough, when she said I wasn't to, which is quite likely, because she simply loathed him, God knows why!"

"I see. Now, I understand that Dr Westruther called here yesterday, at lunch-time, miss. Did you see him?"

"Yes, he gave me a prescription for my nerves."

"Wasn't what he gave you a prescription for someone who'd been taking dangerous drugs?"

She looked startled. "No!"

"Are you quite sure of that, miss? Didn't Dr Westruther ask you certain questions about the length of time you'd been -"

"No, no, no! I swear he didn't! He just went over me like they do, and said I had been overdoing things, and he was going to give me some dope or other which would make me feel utterly different, and Mummy said we'd go to some marvellous place he knew of, where I could ride, and get absolutely fit before the Season starts - and he never said one single word about - about that! I promise you he didn't!"

"Very well, miss. Don't get all worked-up! You take the doctor's medicine, and I daresay you'll find, after a bit, that you don't hanker after that filthy drug any more. I don't know if Mr.. Seaton-Carew told you this, but in case he didn't, I will! It's an offence against the law to have that kind of drug in your possession. You could get into very serious trouble, let alone ending up as a hopeless addict - and if you'd ever seen anyone in that state, believe you me, you'd take good care never to let the habit get a hold on you! I'm not going to take any steps, because I can see you're only a kid that didn't know any better, and I've got a pretty good idea that now Mr.. Seaton-Carew's dead, you don't know how to get hold of the stuff. What I am going to do, and I know you won't like it, is to tell your aunt." Cynthia uttered a shriek of dismay. "No, don't start to carry on, miss! It's my belief Miss Pickhill's very fond of you: I wouldn't mind betting she'll do everything she can to help you - and it's that or worse! You wouldn't want to be prosecuted, would you?"

"You promised!" panted Cynthia.

"Yes, I know I did, and I'll keep it, if I can. But you've got to pull up, and maybe it won't be easy, not at first. And if you didn't pull up - well, then, it wouldn't rest with me any longer, but you'd wake up to find yourself in a Home, undergoing the sort of treatment you wouldn't like at all, with a prosecution looming on top of that!"

The warning frightened Cynthia so much that she only cowered in her chair. Hemingway then left her, and, encountering Miss Pickhill on the landing, took her into the boudoir, and embarked on an extremely trying half-hour with her. However, after running the gamut of shock, horror, revulsion and condemnation, the good lady dissolved into tears, saying into a large linen handkerchief: "I blame my sister! Anyone could have seen with half an eye the child was never robust, and what did she do but drag her from party to party? Over and over again did I tell her that she was heading for trouble, and now we see how right I was! If I have to devote the rest of my life to her, I shall cure her! No principles, of course! Brought up in that Godless way! It doesn't bear thinking of!"