Duplicate Death (24 page)

"I wouldn't think of telling you how to cook cabbages, madam!" Hemingway assured her. "For one thing, I don't know, and for another -"

"I should hope not indeed! It would be a great deal more to the point if you drilled some of your new policemen, let me tell you! In my young days the police were fine, upstanding men, but whenever I come to London now all I see is a lot of young constables, standing about with their chests in and their stomachs out, and their mouths hanging open. I wouldn't even ask one of them for the time! Enough to make my father turn in his grave!"

Reflecting that Mr.. Pickhill's ghost must be the most restless one ever to disturb a cemetery, Hemingway said meekly: "It's a scandal, madam: I've often thought so. But I daresay you wouldn't want to stop me finding out who murdered Mrs. Haddington!"

"Certainly not! Quite apart from my personal feelings I trust I am a good citizen! Good Citizenship was the subject of the last lecture we had at the Women's Conservative Institute, and most interesting! But why prying into my sister's letters, and things, should help you to find out who murdered her is more than I can fathom!

In fact," said Miss Pickhill, obscurely but terrifyingly, "it is all on a par!"

Fortunately, the Chief Inspector was rescued from these deep waters by the entrance of Detective-officer Bagby, who informed him that Miss Haddington had that instant let herself into the house, and was being held in check by Miss Birtley.

Miss Pickhill shuddered, and got up from her chair, saying: "I will come at once! Poor child, she little knows! In the midst of life we are in death! I don't suppose she has ever heard those very true words, for, having been educated in a foreign country, how should she?"

Cynthia Haddington, exquisitely clothed in priMr..ose yellow under a coat of dark mink, and with a close hat of shaded brown and yellow wing-feathers on the back of her shining head, had been coaxed into the diningroom, and was interestedly surveying Mr.. James Kane. She held a cigarette between the fingers of one hand, and dangled a handbag and a pair of long gloves from the other. Only a purist would have described her as drunk. Not even the exaggeratedly high heels of her cutaway shoes caused her to stumble in her walk; and if her eyes seemed slightly blurred, and her inconsequent laugh a little too ready, her speech was perfectly clear. "Oh, are you Timothy's brother?" she said. "How marvellous! Oh, darling-Timothy, why weren't you at June's party? You could have taken me on to dinner somewhere! I got stuck with Philip Arnecliffe, and he was so drunk he let that ghastly Terrington woman tack herself on to us, with the latest boy friend! Too dim, so I said, Definitely not! and came home! Is Mummy livid with me? Honestly, I couldn't face spending the whole evening at home! June's got some marvellous new cocktail you make with absinthe: it makes you feel simply terrific! 0 God, is that you, Aunt Violet?… Who on earth are you?"

Hemingway, to whom the last question was addressed, preserved a tactful silence. He was a trifle stunned by this, his first, sight of Mrs. Haddington's beautiful daughter, for although he had been told that she was a very pretty girl he had not been prepared for quite so much empty loveliness.

Miss Pickhill, managing to soften the sharpness of her habitual tone, said that there was bad news for Cynthia to hear, and suggested that she should accompany her upstairs to her bedroom.

Cynthia stared at her in the blankest incomprehension. "Oh, hell, no, I don't want to trail all the way up to my room!" she protested. "Besides, why should I? No one's coming to dinner! I shall stay as I am." She blinked, as though to clear her vision, and suddenly demanded: "What are you all doing in here, anyway? You haven't had dinner, have you? Where's Mummy?"

Miss Pickhill cleared her throat. "Your dear mother has - has met with an accident, Cynthia!" she said.

"An accident? What's happened?" Cynthia asked, pitching the stub of her cigarette into the grate.

"Oh, dear, I don't know how to tell her!" said Miss Pickhill, sitting down suddenly, and, in the agitation of the moment, sniffing into one of her serviceable gloves, which she held in one hand.

"You tell her, Timothy!" Beulah said, in a low voice. "You'll do it best."

Timothy, who, with Mr.. James Kane, had been attempting in an unobtrusive way, to slide out of the room, cast his betrothed a glance of reproach, but responded to her appeal. He went to Cynthia, and took one of her hands, saying: "There isn't a best way of telling her. You've got to prepare yourself for a shock, Cynthia."

"Gosh, Mummy isn't dead, is she?"

"Yes," replied Timothy. "She is dead."

Cynthia stared at him, and then at his silent companions. She gave an uncertain laugh. "Oh, don't be so silly! Quite unfunny, darling!"

"Quite," said Timothy steadily.

"But how can she be dead? There was nothing the matter with her at tea-time! You don't mean she's been run over, or anything, do you?"

"Not run over. She's been murdered, Cynthia."

It seemed as though for a moment she scarcely took in what he said. She repeated stupidly: "Murdered? Murdered, like Dan was?"

"Yes, like that."

"But she can't be! She can't be!" Cynthia cried shrilly. "What'll happen to me?"

This exclamation not unnaturally shook her auditors. Miss Pickhill cast her a horrified glance, and then plucked at Mr.. Kane's sleeve, saying in an urgent whisper: "It's the shock! Perhaps a little drop of brandy - just to pull her together! I am an opponent of all forms of intoxicating liquor, but in a case like this - !"

"No, I don't think so," replied Jim.

"I don't believe you!" Cynthia said, pulling her hand out of Timothy's. "You're simply trying to have me on!" He said nothing. She caught her breath, and clutched the lapels of his coat, trying to shake him. "Say it isn't true! You don't understand! I shall have to go and live in Putney, or something ghastly, and I couldn't bear it! Is that why Aunt Violet's here? I won't go with her, I won't, I won't!"

"God, this is too awful!" muttered Beulah.

"Bit tight," Jim said, under his breath. "Good job. Better get her up to bed as soon as you can!"

There seemed, however, to be no immediate prospect of being able to follow out this advice. Cynthia, apparently convinced by now that her mother was indeed dead, was engaged in working herself into a state of alarming hysteria. A spate of words jostled one another on her lips and for a few moments stunned the assembled company into appalled silence. "It's all because I broke my mirror!" she said. "I knew something frightful would happen! Mummy said it was just a superstition, and now you see! Everything's gone wrong, every single thing! First I lost my powder-compact, and Dan said he'd give me another one, but he never did because he was murdered, and then everything was ghastly, and Mummy made me wear black, and was beastly about Lance, and now she's been murdered, and nobody cares about me, or what becomes of me! I wish I'd married that dreary Bill Uffington! I wish I'd married anybody! It's all Mummy's fault I'm not even engaged, because dozens of men have asked me, only she kept on saying I was too young, and could do better if I waited, and now look what's happened!"

"Cynthia!" uttered Miss Pickhill, finding her voice at last. "Be quiet, child! You don't know what you're saying!"

"Go away!" shrieked Cynthia, hurling her handbag at her aunt with more passion than accuracy. "I know what you mean to do! You mean to drag me off to that foul house of yours, and cover me up with antimacassars, and make me go to Church, and I'd rather die! And nothing will ever make me believe it wasn't you who stole my precious compact!" she added, rounding suddenly on Beulah. "It must have been either you or Mapperley, and it was you who said it was the prettiest one you'd ever seen! Mapperley said she didn't like it as well as my gold one, so that shows! Oh, what am I going to do, with only Aunt Violet left? Oh, Mummy! Oh, Dan!" She burst into a fit of wild sobbing, which turned into a succession of screams, when her aunt moved towards her. Neither her aunt's appeals, nor Timothy's stem command to her to Shut up! had the smallest effect; it was left to Mr.. Kane to put a summary end to a scene the echoes of which could probably be heard in Berkeley Square. This he did by limping to the sideboard, pouring out a tumbler of water, and casting it full in Cynthia's face. The shock startled her out of her hysteria; she gave a gasp, stood for a moment in complete silence, and then began to cry in good earnest.

"Take her up to bed!" Jim said imperatively.

Between them, Beulah and Miss Pickhill managed to get her out of the room, and up the stairs. Hemingway said: "Poor young lady! What you might call a highlystrung type. If you'll excuse me, there's a call I want to put through."

He then withdrew to the library, to discover Mr.. Eddleston's home address; and the half-brothers were left alone in the dining-room.

"Well, my God - !"said Mr.. Kane. "The company you do keep, Timothy!"

"You would come!" Timothy retorted savagely. "I told you not to!"

"Yes, but I've got to face Mother!" said Jim. "You know perfectly well she thinks that if I wasn't holding your hand at every critical stage in your career I ought to have been! Look here, Timothy, the whole of this affair's fantastic! Who murdered the woman? Have you any idea?"

"Only what I've gathered from the , questions Hemingway asked Beulah. If you rule out Beulah, and the servants, everything seems to point to Godfrey Poulton. Apparently, he was the last person to see her alive. Butterwick - you don't know him: Seaton-Carew's boy-friend - Guisborough, and Poulton all came to see her this afternoon, in that order. I don't know why, or what happened. And I can't see the ghost of a reason for either Butterwick or Guisborough to have murdered her. If, as I've rather suspected, Mrs. Haddington had been blackmailing Lady Nest, that gives Poulton a motive - but, good God, he must be mad to do it bang on top of the first murder! And I'm damned if I see why he murdered Seaton-Carew, unless Seaton-Carew was joined with Mrs. Haddington in the blackmailing business. Even then - ! Well, it doesn't make sense! He's one of those who could have murdered Seaton-Carew; so's young Butterwick - who, incidentally, is just the sort of neurotic who might have done it, in a fit of jealousy! Guisborough couldn't possibly have had anything to do with the first murder, and why he should suddenly burst in and strangle Mrs. Haddington, in exact imitation of the first death, is more than I can fathom! The only motive he's got, as far as I know, is that Mrs. Haddington didn't favour his suit, and if you think this is a good way of promoting it, all I can say is, it's too far-fetched for me!

He's an overbalanced, tiresome sort of a chap, frothing over with half-baked political ideas, but he's not by any means mad."

"Well, Poulton is most certainly not mad!" said Jim. "I don't know him well, but his reputation in the City is for long-headedness. Unexcitable chap, too. Don't bite my head off! - I'm not trying to be offensive! - but just where does Beulah stand in this imbroglio?"

"You can take it from me she didn't do it. Unless I miss my bet, she all unwittingly provided herself with an alibi. That's being checked up on at this moment. I don't think she quite grasped what Hemingway was after, but I did. If the man he's sent off to her digs finds there what she says he will - and he will! - I think the time factor will let her out. She couldn't possibly have got here from Earl's Court a minute before she says she did. And, I ask you, Jim, is it likely that she'd go all the way to Earl's Court, if she meant to slip back into the house and murder her employer? How was she to know in which room Mrs. Haddington would be, too? The likeliest bet, at that hour, would be her bedroom, with her maid in attendance! Would even a lunatic go looking into all the possible rooms in a house teeming with servants? It doesn't make sense!"

"No," Jim agreed. "But unless there's a homicidal maniac sculling about, none of it makes sense! I can just swallow Poulton's murdering someone who was blackmailing his wife - though I find that difficult, because from what I know of him he'd be far more likely to settle a blackmailer's hash in some equally ruthless but strictly legal fashion - but I can't swallow his murdering the blackmailer's partner two days later! I don't know your pal Guisborough, but I suppose, if he's crazy about that afflictive girl, and Mrs. Haddington was an effective bar to matrimony - the kid's only nineteen, isn't she? - he might have thought it would be a clever thing to murder the woman in exactly the same way the first chap was murdered, banking on Hemingway thinking that the same man must have done both deeds."

"You know, Jim, that's definitely good!" Timothy said thoughtfully. "The only snag is that it requires a coldblooded type to think of it, let alone carry it out, and Guisborough isn't that type. Far more down Poulton's street, but of course the theory doesn't fit him, because he's already a suspect for the first murder. Guisborough's an impulsive chap, and, to do him justice, I don't think he'd murder a woman with the object of marrying her daughter! He might commit a murder in the heat of the moment, but I honestly don't see him coolly plotting a crime like this."

"All right, what's your theory?"

Timothy was frowning. "I haven't really got one. The whole thing seems to hinge on the first murder, and I haven't a clue who did that. There were five people who could have killed Seaton-Carew: Mrs. Haddington, Poulton, Butterwick, Beulah, and me. You can rule Beulah and me out, and you can also rule out Mrs. Haddington. I thought at one moment that things were pointing her way. No real reason, but what Beulah told me about that wretched coil of wire made it look slightly fishy. Well, that theory seems to have ended in a pretty nasty blind alley. We're left with Poulton and Butterwick - and, of the two, Butterwick's my fancy for the first murder, and Poulton for the second. And that combination doesn't add up, look at it how you may!"

"Hold on a minute! Didn't you tell me that the doctor's movements weren't entirely accounted for that evening?"

"No, hang it all, Jim, you must draw the line somewhere! Do you see a fashionable physician strangling a man in the middle of a Bridge-party?"