Duplicate Death (20 page)

Mrs. Haddington blotted the cheque, and turned in her chair to survey Beulah from her heels to her head. "So you actually imagine that you're going to entrap that young man into marriage, do you?" she said. "How very amusing! But something tells me that the Hartes don't go to Holloway for their brides. We shall see!"

Beulah released the mantelshelf, and took a hasty step towards her employer. "Whatever you do, he won't marry Cynthia!" she said.

"Miss Cynthia!" corrected Mrs. Haddington blandly.

"Oh, don't be such a fool! My family is a damned sight better-born than yours, for what that's worth! You're trying to make me lose my temper, but, I warn you, you'd better not! I didn't cut your daughter out with Timothy Harte: he never for one moment thought of her seriously! It can't matter to you if I marry him! There are dozens of men only too anxious to marry her: why can't you let me have just one who prefers me? I'm going to marry him, not because he's well-off, and well-born, and heir to a baronetcy, but because I love him! If you think you can stop me, you were never more mistaken in your life! I'm not a dewy innocent any longer, so don't think it! I've put up with your foul tongue all these months because it suited me to stay in this job, but I won't put up with any interference in my private life! There's very little I won't do, if you goad me to it! If I can't have Timothy, I don't care what becomes of me! So now you know!"

From the doorway Thrimby coughed with extreme deliberation. "I beg your pardon, madam, but I thought Miss Cynthia was here. Lord Guisborough wishes to speak to her on the telephone."

Beulah glared at him, her full lip caught between her teeth. Mrs. Haddington said coolly: "Here is the cheque, Miss Birtley. You will pay the bills tomorrow morning, if you please, before you come to work. Kindly go down to Mrs. Foston and find out from her what shopping has to be done today! Miss Cynthia is resting, Thrimby, I will speak to Lord Guisborough."

Thrimby, recounting this interesting passage later to his colleague, the housekeeper, said impressively: "Mark my words, Mrs. Foston, there's more to that young woman than meets the eye! Well, I've always had my suspicions, right from the start!"

"Well," said Mrs. Foston, who was as goodhumoured as she was stout, "be that as it may, I'm downright sorry for the girl, and that's a fact, Mr.. Thrimby! I've never had any words with her, but, then, Do as you would be done by, is my motto! I shall stay here till the end of the Season, because that's what I promised Mrs. H., but not another moment! Well, it isn't what I've been accustomed to, and that's the truth! Only, in these days, with the best people cutting down their staffs -" She stopped, and sighed. "Well, you know what it is, Mr.. Thrimby!"

"I know," he agreed, echoing her sigh. "Sometimes one wonders what the world is coming to!"

"All this talk about the Workers!" said Mrs. Foston, shaking out a tea-cloth, subjecting it to a minute inspection, and refolding it. "Anyone 'ud think the only people to do a job of work was in factories, or dockyards, or plate-laying! No one bothers about people like you and me, and my brother, who's doing a jobbinggardener's work, because no one can't afford to keep a head-gardener like him, that was always used to have four under him! It makes me tired, Mr.. Thrimby!"

"Ah, well, it's Progress, Mrs. Foston!" said the butler vaguely.

"Yes, and I suppose it's progress that makes any little chit that hasn't had any more training than that canary of mine waltz in here asking as much money as a decent housemaid that's worked her way up from betweenmaid!" said Mrs. Foston tartly. "Something for nothing! That's what people want nowadays. And it's what they get, too, more's the pity! I've no patience with it!"

At this point, Thrimby, well-knowing that his colleague was fairly mounted upon her favourite hobbyhorse, thought it prudent to withdraw, so that Mrs. Foston was left to address the rest of her pithy monologue to the ambient air.

With the exception of Mrs. Foston, who stated that she preferred to say nothing; and of M. Gaston, the chef, who professed a sublime indifference to anything that occurred beyond the confines of the realm over which he reigned, Mrs. Haddington's servants were at one in declaring that murders were not what they had been accustomed to, or could put up with. The head housemaid, recruiting her strength with a cup of Bovril, informed her subordinate, who had brought this sustaining beverage up to her sick-bed, that strangled corpses were not what she would call nice; and the parlourmaid, tendering her notice to her employer, said that Mr.. Seaton-Carew's murder had unsettled her. The kitchenmaid, who was an orphan, said that her auntie didn't want her to stay no longer in a house where there were such unnatural goings-on; and would no doubt have followed the parlourmaid's example had she not been too much frightened of M. Gaston to give notice without his consent. This, since she was the least stupid scullion who had been allotted to him, was withheld, M. Gaston maintaining with Gallic fervour that what took place abovestairs was no concern of his or hers. Margie, a biddable girl, was quite cowed by his eloquence; and the rest of the staff, while deprecating the laxity of M. Gaston's outlook, said that anyone had to remember that he was French.

Notwithstanding the outrage to their finer feelings, it could not be denied that the servants derived no small degree of excitement, and even enjoyment, from the murder. Not only did it afford them an endless topic for discussion; but it rendered them interesting in the eyes of less experienced friends and relations, and it provided them with a series of not wholly disagreeable thrills. It even furnished the under-housemaid with an excuse for smashing Mrs. Haddington's early-morning teapot, and for forgetting to draw the curtains in her bathroom. Elsie, arising shakily from her sick-bed, might declare that Inspector Grant's desire to interrogate her had materially prejudiced her chances of recovery from influenza, but his visit made her instantly important, and not for the world would she have forgone it. Thrimby, listening-in, in the pantry, to a brief conversation on the telephone between his mistress and Lord Guisborough, was able to depress these pretensions by assuming the air of an informed person, and by throwing out such doubtful phrases as Hamlet warned his friends never to utter.

Altogether, it was a rewarding day for the staff, even the visit of Dr Westruther being invested with a sinister significance. It was vain for the prosaic housekeeper to point out that the doctor's visit was not unprecedented; the fact that he was closeted with Mrs. Haddington for nearly an hour was enough to give rise to speculation; for, as Miss Mapperley so sapiently observed, it stood to reason that if all the old girl wanted was a sedative for her lacerated nerves it wouldn't have taken about twenty minutes to have given her a prescription. Hard upon the heels of the doctor came the Inspector, and although his descent into the basement caused the kitchenmaid to come over ever so queer in the scullery, it afforded everyone else considerable gratification, for, while his visit conferred distinction upon the servants' hall, he was not found to be above his company, accepting cups of tea with compliments and thanks, and chatting in the easiest way with even such lowly persons as the charwoman, who came in to help the kitchenmaid with the Rough Work. In fact, so agreeable did he make himself that even his lilting speech, at first considered peculiarly laughable, was finally adjudged to enhance his charm; and when the tea-cloth was spread in the servants' hall Mrs. Foston was moved to produce from the store-cupboard a jar of honey, which she felt to be a peculiarly Scotch conserve. If anything was needed to insure the Inspector's popularity by this time, it was supplied by the tact with which he leaped into the breach caused by the underhousemaid's social lapse in reading aloud the inscription on the jar, which declared the contents to be Finest Flower Honey, the product of unequivocally English bees. Elsie, who had tottered downstairs with the firm intention of coming over faint, emerged triumphant from her interview with him, and was able to inform her fellows that she had ascertained from him that the Inquest on poor Mr.. Seaton-Carew would be held on the following day. No one else had quite liked to ask him this vital question, but although everyone was grateful to Elsie for discovering the date and the locality, not even the precarious state of her health saved her from being recommended by Miss Mapperley not to carry on as though she thought she was Mata Hari.

Hardly had the Inspector departed, than a mild sensation was caused by the arrival of Mr.. Sydney Butter-wick. This, in itself, was not a matter of great moment, but piquancy was added to his visit by the fact, reported by the parlourmaid, that he had demanded speech with Mrs. Haddington on the telephone, earlier in the day, and, upon being asked if he would leave a message, had replied hotly that he would not leave a message, and had rung off abruptly. Having had no instructions to exclude Mr.. Butterwick, Thrimby showed him upstairs into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Haddington, having finished tea half an hour earlier, was attempting to convince her daughter that it would be both inadvisable and improper for her to put in an appearance at a cocktailparty that evening. Cynthia had just informed her that if the slightest restraint were placed upon her she would go mad, when Mr.. Butterwick stalked into the room, also in a febrile condition. Disregarding the conventions, he burst into speech even before Thrimby had announced his name, uttering in trembling accents: "I want a word with you, Mrs. Haddington!"

Never before had Thrimby longed so much for an excuse to linger! He could find none. The tea-table had been removed; on this bleak February afternoon he had drawn the curtains in all the sitting-rooms at four o'clock; the fire was burning brightly in the hearth; there did not seem even to be an ashtray that needed emptying. He was forced to withdraw to the landing, and even, two minutes later, to his own domain, because Cynthia, seizing the opportunity to escape from her mother's authority, came out of the drawing-room, and very nearly surprised him on the stairs. All he was able to report to Mrs. Foston was that Mr.. Butterwick had demanded of Mrs. Haddington what the devil she had meant by telling the police lies about him; and that when she had replied in freezing accents that she was at a loss to understand what he meant, he had exclaimed: "You know damned well what I mean! And what I should like to know is why you're so anxious to cast suspicion on me for Dan's death!"

A quarter of an hour later, while Mr.. Butterwick was still closeted with Mrs. Haddington, Thrimby opened the front door to another visitor. This was Lord Guisborough, and since Thrimby had listened to his conversation on the telephone with Mrs. Haddington that morning, he had been expecting him. Lord Guisborough had rung up to suggest to Cynthia that they should spend another evening together, to which Mrs. Haddington had replied that she was anxious to have a little chat with him, and would be glad if he could make it convenient to call on her at some time during the course of the afternoon. An assignation had been arranged for a quarter-to-six. Mrs. Foston, nodding darkly, said that Madam was going to bring his lordship to the point, and not before it was time; but Miss Mapperley maintained that the old so-and-so was more likely to tick him off for keeping Miss Cynthia out until all hours.

Since his lordship wore no hat, his black locks were tossed into more than ordinary confusion, a fact that seemed to trouble him no more than his lack of gloves or walking-stick. He refused to allow Thrimby to help him to take off his overcoat, favouring him instead with a short dissertation on the Equality of Men, which made Thrimby despise him more than ever. He was even misguided enough to say that Thrimby need not trouble to announce him to his hostess, but this revolting suggestion Thrimby was able to ignore, merely by preceding his lordship to the staircase.

At this moment, a door opened on the landing above, and Mr.. Butterwick's voice was heard assuring Mrs. Haddington that nothing would induce him ever again to enter her house. He came charging down the stairs, and almost collided with Thrimby on the half-landing. After swearing at him, he perceived Lord Guisborough, mounting the first flight in his wake, flushed, muttered a confused greeting, and brushed past him on his way down to the hall. Thrimby, only hesitating for a moment, proceeded on his stately way, threw open the door into the drawing-room, and announced his lordship.

"Ah, Lord Guisborough! So glad you were able to spare me a few minutes!" said Mrs. Haddington, rising from the sofa, and holding out her hand.

Plainly, no drama was to be looked for during this visit. Thrimby withdrew, prepared, if necessary, to assist Mr.. Butterwick to put on his coat. However, by the time he reached the ground-floor, there was no other sign of Mr.. Butterwick than his malacca walking-cane, which, in his agitation, he appeared to have left behind him. Thrimby went back to the basement, and disposed himself comfortably in his pantry to peruse the evening paper. He was startled hardly more than half an hour later by hearing the front door slammed with sufficient violence almost to shake the house. An instant later, the drawing-room bell rang insistently. Thrimby pulled himself out of his chair, straightened his hair and his tie, and climbed the stairs to the ground-floor. He did not hurry, because he was a man of portly habit and he had, besides, his dignity to consider. He was hailed-from the half-landing by his employer, who demanded whether it took him all day to answer the bell. Without giving him time to reply, she said, in her most cutting tone: "Lord Guisborough has let himself out. Kindly remember that I am not, in future, at home to his lordship! If he should ring up at any time you will say that neither I nor Miss Cynthia can come to the telephone. Do you clearly understand me?"

"1 hrimby was far from understanding what could have been the cause of so sudden a change of face, but he merely bowed, and said: "Certainly, madam."

"And tell Miss Birtley I wish to see her before she leaves!"

"Miss Birtley, madam, left a quarter of an hour ago, at six o'clock," said Thrimby.