Duplicate Death (18 page)

"You can, if you will be so good, sir, tell me where I can find Lady Nest Poulton," replied Hemingway. "I understand she has gone out of town."

"Where you can find my wife?" said Poulton, an inflexion of surprise in his tone. "May I know what your business is with her? So far as I am aware, she has no possible connection with your case."

"Nevertheless, I should like her address, sir."

"I trust you will be able to manage to get on without it."

"Am I to understand that you refuse to disclose it, sir, or that you don't know what it is?" demanded Hemingway.

"The first," replied Poulton calmly. "You have already interrogated my wife once - with what object I am at a loss to know! - and she does not wish to be troubled any further about the affair."

"No doubt, sir, but -"

"Nor do I wish it for her," added Poulton. "If it were even remotely possible that she could have had something to do with the murder, the position would, of course, be very different, and I should not for a moment withhold her address from you. As it is, I rather think I am within my rights in refusing to disclose it."

"No, sir. No one trying to obstruct an officer of the law in the pursuance of his duty is within his rights!" countered Hemingway promptly.

"Did I say that? In what way does my wife's absence from home obstruct you, Chief Inspector?"

"That's for me to judge, sir. There are certain questions I wish to put to Lady Nest."

"That is unfortunate - but perhaps I can answer your questions?"

"Perhaps, sir, but I prefer to put them to her ladyship."

"I regret, Chief Inspector, I cannot permit you to see her. It will save time, and, I hope, argument, if I tell you that she is extremely unwell, and in no condition to receive visitors."

"I'm sorry to hear that, sir. Very sudden, her illness, isn't it?"

"No," replied Poulton. "My wife has been on the verge of a nervous breakdown for weeks. The unfortunate affair in Charles Street merely precipitated a crisis. I am surprised that you should not have seen for yourself that she was far from well yesterday."

"I certainly got the impression that her ladyship was not herself," said Hemingway rather grimly.

"I imagine you might," was the imperturbable answer. "She is a very highly-strung woman, easily upset; and she has for some time been suffering from neurasthenia."

"That wasn't quite what I thought, sir."

Poulton looked faintly amused. "A medical man, Chief Inspector?"

"No, sir: merely a police-officer! There are certain symptoms we get to recognise in our job."

"Really? I haven't the least idea what you're talking about: it sounds very mysterious! But there is no mystery about my wife's illness, or about her whereabouts. I will tell you at once that she is in a Nursing Home, and that her doctor has forbidden even me to see her for the next week or so." He paused. "If you doubt that, I would suggest -"

"I don't doubt it, Mr.. Poulton. I believe Lady Nest is in a Nursing Home, and I believe she isn't allowed to see anyone. Which forces me to speak more frankly to you than I might have liked to do if I'd been able first to see her ladyship. But what I've got to say I don't think will be a surprise to you - the way things are. When I called on her ladyship yesterday morning, it was pretty plain to me, and to Inspector Grant here, who's had a good deal of experience in that branch, that she was in the habit of taking drugs."

"I believe," said Poulton, unmoved, "that she takes far more phenacetin than is at all good for her. Ah, yes, and also valerian - but that, I need hardly say, was prescribed for her."

"No, sir, not that kind of drug. What we call the White Drugs - cocaine, heroin, morphia. In your wife's case, cocaine."

Poulton had been playing idly with a pencil. He laid it down, saying icily: "That, Chief Inspector, is an infamous suggestion!"

"You can take it from me, sir, that it isn't a charge I'd bring against anyone without very good reason."

"It is a charge you may regret having brought against her ladyship!"

"If I were wrong I should regret it very much. I will tell you now, sir, that a considerable amount of cocaine has been discovered in Seaton-Carew's flat."

The impassive countenance before him betrayed nothing either of surprise or of alarm. Poulton was still frowning. "Indeed! I was too little acquainted with the man to know whether that was to be expected or not. I am quite sure my wife can have known nothing of it. You seem to imagine that he and she were close friends: they were not. This misapprehension, coupled with her ladyship's neurasthenic condition, has led you to assume that Seaton-Carew had been supplying her with drugs. I perceive, of course, that if that had been true I should have had an excellent motive for strangling the fellow. I may add, in view of this disclosure, that I have every sympathy for the man who did strangle him! That, however, is beside the point. You may search my house with my goodwill; and I recommend you to call on my wife's medical attendant. You have already met him: he is Dr Theodore Westruther. Pray ask him to explain to you the nature of my wife's illness! Now, since I am reasonably certain that you do not, on these fantastic grounds, hold a warrant for my arrest, I am going to request you to leave. I am a very busy man, and I have neither the leisure nor the inclination to listen to police theories which are nothing short of insulting! Good morning, gentlemen!"

When he stood upon the pavement outside the block of offices, the Inspector wiped his brow. "Phew!" he breathed.

"Good, wasn't he?" said Hemingway, bright-eyed and appreciative. "Carried on from the start as if we'd come to sell him a vacuum-cleaner he didn't want. Playing it very boldly, and very coolly. He had one advantage: he knew we'd be coming to question him. Something tells me you wouldn't easily catch that chap on the wrong foot."

"Well," said Grant, thinking it over. "He behaved as you would expect a decent man to behave if he was told his wife was a drug-addict, when she was no such thing."

"Lifelike!" agreed Hemingway. "Even down to inviting me to search his house! Though that was overdoing it a bit, perhaps."

"He told you the name of her doctor. It's queer that one should turn up again. Will you see him?"

"I must, of course. He won't tell me a thing, beyond a string of long words I shan't understand, but it wouldn't do for me not to see him."

"I was thinking that it is a waste of time. He will cover up for his patient."

"I know that. And if I didn't go and see him, what would happen? - Did you question the doctor? — No. - Why not? - Because I knew he'd only tell me a pack of lies. You can just see me falling into that one, can't you?"

"There is that, of course," admitted the Inspector. "But will you tell me this? - If Mr.. Poulton knew that his lady was taking drugs, why is it only now that he puts her in a Home to be cured of it? You would say it was a verra bad moment to choose, for it would be bound to make us suspicious."

"I wouldn't say anything of the sort. In her state, she'd be liable to give herself away, not to mention him. He knows very well she'd break up under close questioning. What's more, her source of supply has dried up, and that's going to send her pretty well haywire. He's running far less risk this way than if he let her traipse around on the loose. I daresay it was Seaton-Carew's death that persuaded her to consent to go and be cured, too. You can't go shoving people into hospital to be cured of the drug habit without they do consent, you know."

"I do, of course."

"And furthermore," Hemingway continued, "he may well have hoped we shouldn't search Seaton-Carew's flat, or, if we did search it, that we shouldn't find any of the stuff. I wonder if the fellow had any on him, the night he was done in? Lady Nest wasn't under the influence when we saw her: she was hungry for it. Quite possible that he was to have slipped over a little packet to her during the evening. Whoever murdered him would have had plenty of time to have slid his fingers into his breastpocket, and taken out any little parcel he found there."

"It is a theory," said Grant. "You would never prove it."

"There's quite a few things that go to build up a case that never get proved," replied Hemingway. "We'd better bite off a bit of lunch now; and after that you can go and see whether you can prove Beulah Birtley was telling the truth when she said Mrs. Haddington had been in that cloakroom after she left the wire there. I don't suppose Mrs. H. encourages her servants to stop in bed a minute longer than they need, and if that housemaid's been having this forty-eight hour 'flu, she'll very likely be on view again by now. I don't need you in Harley Street, and I'll go back to the Yard when I'm through there. I want to have a careful look at one or two of the exhibits. Come on!"

At three o'clock, having been kicking his heels for some time in the waiting-room, he was ushered into Dr Westruther's consulting-room, a gracious apartment, decorated in shades of grey, which ranged from palest pearl-grey on the walls and in the windows, whose lights were veiled by curtains of diaphanous chiffon, to a deep elephant-grey on the floor. A few chaste Chinese prints hung on the walls; and a magnificent screen of muttonfat jade stood in the centre of the mantelshelf, flanked by two Blanc-de-Chine Kuan-Yin figures of the Ming period. Hemingway, his feet sinking into the heavy-pile carpet, found himself wondering whether the doctor's more neurotic patients were soothed by this subdued but expensive decor. Dr Westruther enjoyed a reputation for dealing almost exclusively with wealthy, society women. He was not precisely known to the police, but once or twice the breath of ugly scandal had wafted perilously near to him. He had a controlling interest in an extremely luxurious Nursing Home, where the staff was paid with unusual generosity; he was always very well dressed, affecting the cutaway morning coat and butterfly collars of a more sartorial age; he owned, besides the house in Harley Street, a charming riverside residence at Marlow; and he generally managed to spend several weeks of the year at Biarritz, or Juan-les-Pins.

He greeted the Chief Inspector with perfect sangfroid, apologising for having kept him waiting. He had been called away to a case, he said, and had only just returned to Harley Street. As Hemingway had expected, he told him nothing that he wanted to know. Lady Nest Poulton was a woman who, in lay parlance, lived on her nerves: he would not bemuse the Chief Inspector with technical terms, but he might rest assured that the condition was one well-known to every practitioner. He agreed that certain symptoms might be mistaken by the unlearned for the after-effects of drugs. In view of what the police had discovered in Seaton-Carew's flat, he could pardon the Chief Inspector for having fallen into error, but he felt obliged to point out that such an allegation against a lady of his patient's birth and breeding was a very, very serious matter. He quite appreciated the Chief Inspector's wish to interrogate Lady Nest, and he hoped that within a week or so it would be possible for him to see her. At present he could not sanction any visits whatsoever. Rest and quiet were essential to her.

The Chief Inspector returned in due course to his headquarters, and sent down a message to the Fingerprint Department. When Inspector Grant at last joined him, he found him studying photographs through a magnifying-glass, a fair young man at his elbow. He glanced up as the door opened, and said: "Come and take a look at this, Sandy, and see what you make of it!"

Grant trod over to the desk, nodding to the fair youth. "I am sorry to have been away for so long," he said. "The lassie was sleeping, but I said I would wait. She came down to the servants' hall for her tea. In the meantime I had some talk with Mrs. Haddington's personal maid - making myself agreeable. What have you there? Is it the prints on the telephone?"

"It is - by which I mean Yes! I knew I should go and catch it! Next thing I know I shall have people thinking I'm Scotch too!"

"You will not, then," said the Inspector dryly. He bent over the desk, keenly surveying the several photographs laid out on it. "I have looked at these before: there is no trace of Seaton-Carew's finger-prints upon the instrument."

"Never mind about that! Anything else strike you?"

A frown creased the Inspector's brow; he picked up one of the photographs, and scanned it more closely. The fair young man coughed behind a discreet hand. "It's very blurred," he said apologetically. "I wouldn't care to swear to it myself, sir."

"No one's asking you to swear to anything. Don't try to prejudice the Inspector!"

The fair youth blushed hotly. "I'm sorry, sir! I'm sure I didn't mean -"

"Whisht!" said Inspector Grant, casting an indulgent glance in his direction. He picked up two more photographs from the desk, and compared them with the one he still held in his right hand. "I see what I recall I saw before: there is a clear impression of Miss Birtley's thumb, and first two fingers. It may be that all five fingers were laid upon the instrument, but there is a blur over the prints on the third and fourth finger. I observe one distinct impression of the butler's index finger - but that, I am thinking, has no bearing on the case."

"None at all. Take a look at that blur through the glass!" said Hemingway, handing it to him.

The Inspector took it, focused it, and intently studied the photograph. He then discarded one of the photographs he held in his left hand, and subjected the other to a minute scrutiny. The Chief Inspector, observing which of the photographs had been rejected, drew a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, and offered it to the young man beside him, saying: "There you are! Even a poor Scot can get on to what you fellows miss!"

"We didn't miss it, sir!" protested Thirsk, drawing a cigarette from the packet. "Only it's so indistinct no one could stand up in a Court of Law and swear to it!"

The Inspector raised his eyes from the photographs, both now held fan-shaped in his hand. "You are thinking that there is an impression of Mrs. Haddington's finger, superimposed on Miss Birtley's third and fourth fingers," he said. "I am of Thirsk's opinion: I would not care to swear to it. The whole is verra much blurred."