Джорджетт Хейер - Duplicate Death

"I want him because he's the handiest lawyer I can think of!" replied Hemingway.

Mr.. Harte was discovered in the library, arguing with his betrothed on the propriety of her accepting his mother's urgent invitation to her to seek asylum in Berkshire. Miss Birtley was moved by the news that Lady Harte, hearing her story, had been seized with a crusading fervour, and was not only determined to spread the mantle of her approval over her but was already formulating stern, and rather alarming, plans to bring her late employer to belated justice; but she maintained that until such time as Miss Pickhill had coerced or persuaded her niece to retire with her to Putney, her duty chained her to Charles Street.

"Hallo, here's Hemingway!" said Timothy as the Chief Inspector walked in. "Let's put it up to him!"

Appealed to by both parties, the Chief Inspector firmly refused to become embroiled in matters beyond his ken.

"Cowardly, very cowardly!" said Timothy. "All right, my girl, you'll have my Mamma descending upon you, that's all! What brings you back again, Hemingway?"

"Never you mind what brings me back, sir! Just you tell me what you know about the Legitimacy Act!"

"The questions the police ask one!" marvelled Timothy. Behind the amusement in them, his eyes were keen, and speculative. Keeping them on Hemingway's face, he said: "It is an Act, Chief Inspector, passed in 1926, legalising the position of children who were born out of wedlock, but whose parents afterwards married one another."

"That's what I thought," said Hemingway. "What it means is, that as long as you do get married, your children are legitimate, doesn't it?"

"Yes, within certain limits," agreed Timothy.

"What limits, sir?"

"Well, neither parent must have been married to someone else at the time of the child's birth, for instance; and legitimated offspring are debarred from inheriting titles, or the estates that go with them. Otherwise -" He broke off. "I seem to have uttered something momentous!"

"Yes, sir," said Hemingway. "You have!"

"Well," said Mrs. James Kane, replenishing her husband's cup, "I'm thankful to have you back again, anyway!"

Mr.. James Kane, luxuriously ensconced by his own fireside once more, bit into his third crumpet, and said somewhat thickly: "Cuckoo!"

"Not," said Mrs. Kane, with dignity, "because I was in the least anxious about you, but I thought I should either have to come to town myself, or go mad, if it went on much longer! All I had to go on were those lurid reports in the papers, and a letter from your mother which I couldn't make head or tail of!"

"I rang you up every night!" said Mr.. Kane indignantly.

"Yes, darling, and every time I asked you anything, you said you couldn't talk over the telephone!" retorted the wife of his bosom, with some asperity.

"Well, I couldn't. I did tell you there wasn't anything for you to worry about!"

"That was when I looked out the trains to London," said Mrs. Kane grimly. "And if it hadn't been for Cook having to go home to nurse her mother, I should have come up, let me tell you!"

"Oh, my God, has the Cook left?"

"She's coming back. At least, that's what she says. Anyway, Nanny and I can manage! Never mind about that! What actually happened? Tell me all about it!"

"I don't think there's anything much to tell, really," said the maddening male reflectively. "It was easy to see Hemingway never suspected young Timothy for as much as a split second, which is what mattered, as far as we're concerned. I only stood by because of Beulah. At one time it did look a bit as though she might have had a hand in the affair, and I thought, if that was so, Timothy would need a bit of support."

"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Kane, schooled into patience by thirteen years of marriage.

"Of course, he couldn't possibly have had anything to do with Mrs. Haddington's murder," pursued Mr.. Kane, licking his buttery fingers in a very vulgar way. "Matter of fact, Hemingway did a pretty neat bit of detection, taken all round. I should think, myself, that Guisborough must have been a bit unhinged. I mean, from what Timothy told me about the way he nattered about the Equality of Man, you wouldn't have expected him to have cared two hoots whether he had a title or not! What's more, if he'd stopped to think, he must have realised that the whole thing might have come out at any moment! I mean, you never know when you may have to produce your birth-certificate, do you? He might have wanted to apply for a passport, or something - though, I suppose, as a matter of fact, that wouldn't have mattered much, because the authorities wouldn't have been worrying about whether he was legitimate or only legitimated! Still - ! Young Timothy put Hemingway on to that, all unbeknownst. Then Hemingway got Guisborough's finger-prints, as soon as he heard the prints on the picture-frame didn't belong to any of the suspects for the first murder, and after that it was all U.P.! Silly young fool seems to have come badly unstuck when he was arrested. Nasty business, whichever way you look at it! Main spring of both murders, one nit-witted blonde!"

"What has happened to her?"

"Whisked off by formidable maiden-aunt. She'll probably marry a wealthy stockbroker within the year - if there are any wealthy stockbrokers left!"

Mrs. Kane shivered. "However nit-witted she may be, it's pretty ghastly for her, knowing that her mother was a murderess."

"Won't know it," said Jim, drawing out his pouch, and beginning to fill a pipe. "Hemingway will put in a report, and it'll be Murder by Persons Unknown."

"Did he tell you so?"

"More or less. After Guisborough's arrest, Timothy got hold of him, and he came round to Paper Buildings, to have a drink, and talk over old times. Lord, do you realise how many years it is since -"

"Yes," said Mrs. Kane. "I expect you had a lovely evening, but I don't want to remember those particular old times, thank you, dear! Isn't the girl bound to wonder about that first murder, and perhaps guess?"

"I shouldn't think so. As far as I could see, she isn't given either to speculation or to the process of reasoned thought. What's more, it stood out a mile that she didn't care two hoots for her mother. According to what the aunt poured into my ears yesterday, Mrs. Haddington's obsession about her took the form of sending her to expensive boarding-schools, arranging for her to spend her holidays winter-sporting, or sun-bathing, lavishing money on her, but rarely having her with her, until she brought her out."

"But why?"

"Not disclosed. Timothy thinks Mrs. Haddington and Seaton-Carew were hand-in-glove in various shady undertakings. Doesn't seem to be much doubt they lived together, so I daresay that was why Cynthia was kept away."

"It's all quite horrible!" Mrs. Kane said. "What will happen to Lord Guisborough?"

"He'll stand his trial, of course. I daresay he'll get a few trick-cyclists to go into the witness-box, and tell the court he'd got some kind of a fixation, or whatever they call it, due to seeing his mother taking her false teeth out, when he was five years old, which makes it all right and aboveboard for him to go about murdering people who get in his way. In fact," said Mr.. Kane gloomily, "it wouldn't in the least surprise me if we find ourselves helping to keep him at Broadmoor! Except," he added, on a more hopeful note, "that Timothy says juries have got a lot more common-sense than you'd think, to look at them."

Having packed his pipe to his satisfaction, he struck a match, and became partially enveloped in a smokecloud. Mrs. Kane at last reached the nub of the matter. "And what about the adventurers?" she asked. "The line was so bad last night I couldn't hear you properly at all. I thought you said she was going down to Chamfreys!"