Duplicate Death (26 page)

"Begging your pardon," intervened Hemingway, "can you help us, Miss Guisborough, to fix the time when your brother got back to this house this evening?"

"This evening?" She stared at him. "About half-past seven, more or less. Why?"

Hemingway raised his brows at Guisborough. "Well, my lord?"

"I daresay. I don't know. I stopped to have one at a pub on the way."

"Which pub would that be, my lord?"

"Hell, how should I know? Some place in the King's Road!"

"Fancy! What had the Ritz done to offend you?" mocked his sister.

"Oh, shut up!"

Feeling that there was little to be gained by prolonging the interview, Hemingway closed his notebook, and picked up his hat. Guisborough's fiery, dark eyes searched his face. "Why did you want to know? What's happened?" He paused. "Or is it a police mystery?"

"Oh, no, my lord, there's no mystery! You'll very likely read all about it in tomorrow's papers, so I've no objection to telling you that Mrs. Haddington has been murdered."

Whatever Lord Guisborough's reply to this may have been it was lost in the sudden crack of laughter that burst from his sister. She gasped: "Oh, go on! That's too ripe! And who had the nerve to do in that old battle-axe? He has my vote!"

Lord Guisborough grasped her by the shoulders, and gave her a vicious shake. "Stop it!" he commanded. "Stop it, I say! It's not funny! You're tight, Trix!"

She choked, but her laughter ceased. "Well, you needn't look so utter about it! You didn't do it, did you?"

"Of course I didn't do it! Why the hell should I? Pull yourself together, for God's sake!"

She looked at Hemingway. "Is that why you came here? Because Lance - oh, it's too fat-headed! You might as well suspect me! Who really did it?"

"Can't you see he doesn't know?" said Guisborough savagely. "Probably the same man who killed Seaton-Carew!"

"What makes you say that, my lord?" asked Hemingway.

"I don't know. Association of ideas, I suppose. Two murders in the same house."

"I didn't say Mrs. Haddington was murdered in the house," said Hemingway mildly.

Guisborough scowled at him. "You may not have said it, but you asked me when I left the house, so the inference is fairly obvious! I'm not half-witted!"

"True enough," Hemingway agreed. "She was murdered in the house. In her boudoir, just like Mr.. Seaton-Carew."

"Ugh!" exclaimed Miss Guisborough, shuddering. "What a cold-blooded beast! Damn it, I loathed the woman, and everything she stood for, but I didn't wish her as much harm as that! I'm sorry I laughed. What about that kid? Is she all alone there, except for those upstage servants? Look here, Lance, ought we to do something? I mean, I don't mind, if you'd like me to bring her back here, or stay there with her."

Lord Guisborough had apparently no faith in his sister's ability to comfort and support the stricken, for he replied: "Very decent of you, but I don't think I should. There's the secretary, you know - and Cynthia hardly knows you! Besides, she - Well, I don't think it would work!"

"You mean she doesn't like me. Oh, all right! But if you want to go and hold her hand, you go! I can look after this mob."

"No," he said. "No, I'm not going. Not this evening, anyway. She probably knows I lost my temper with her mother, and she might not want to see me, as things are."

"That's all right, my lord," Hemingway said. "Miss Haddington had gone to bed before I left, and she has her aunt with her in any case."

Guisborough looked relieved. "Oh, I'm glad of that!

She'll look after her. Much better if I call on her tomorrow. Leave a message of sympathy, even if she doesn't feel up to seeing me."

"Much better," agreed Hemingway, and took his leave of them both.

When he reached Scotland Yard, he found that Inspector Grant had not yet arrived there. He went up to his room and sent down a message to have certain exhibits brought to him. While he was waiting for them, the buzzer sounded on his desk, and he lifted one of his telephones. The voice of his friend and superior officer, Superintendent Hinckley, assailed his ears.

"Chief Inspector Hemingway?"

"Sir?" said Hemingway.

The voice altered. "Stanley? How's it going?"

"Fine!" said Hemingway. "I've only got two murders on my hands so far. Of course, it's early days yet. I dare say there'll be some more by tomorrow. Who's my successor?"

"Not named. Keep at it! Between you and me and the gatepost, a Certain Person is still backing you. Thought you might like to know. Said he'd bank on you bringing home the bacon, and the worse the mess got the less he wanted to give it to anyone else. That's all!"

"Thanks, Bob! You're a trump!" said Hemingway flushing slightly.

A decisive click informed him that Superintendent Hinckley had cut short his gratitude. He grinned, and hung up the receiver. When Inspector Grant entered the room some twenty minutes later, he found him frowning at two looped lengths of picture-wire, lying side by side on his desk. He glanced up as the Inspector came in, and a certain intent look in his eyes caused that officer to exclaim: 'Och, you have discovered something! Ciod e?"

"I'm not sure," Hemingway said slowly. "What about you? Have you seen young Butterwick?"

"I have, then, and I questioned him, though it is my belief I had no need to, for it was at the Opera House I found him, and him in his evening clothes. But it is not opera, but ballet they are having there, and for all he swore he was there at the start, he may have been telling me a lie. He was alone."

"The people sitting on either side of him ought to be able to tell you!" Hemingway said.

"Ma seadh! But there were no people sitting beside him, sir. Mrs. Butterwick has a box for the whole season, and there is not one of the attendants can say for sure when he arrived this evening. Whether it was before -" He produced his notebook, and painstakingly read from it -

"Les Presages, or Petrouchka. It was while Petrouchka was on that I reached Covent Garden, sir, and it seemed as though these ballet folk think a great deal of that, for when I asked to have Mr.. Butter-wick brought out to me, they kept saying, In the middle of Petrouchka? as though I had asked to have him fetched out of Kirk. Which," added the Inspector, "I would not do! Indeed, such a stramash was there, with them telling me this Petrouchka would not last above a quarter of an hour more, and would I not wait for the interval, that I said, Gle mhath! and I waited."

"Well, if that's what you said, it's a wonder to me they didn't call in the chap on point-duty!" said Hemingway. "They probably thought you were an Undesirable Alien, and I don't blame them. How did you know Butterwick was at the ballet?"

"Och, that was the worst part of the whole business!" replied the Inspector. "I went to that address in Park Lane when I left you, and at first I could discover nothing, because I found only the servants -just a man and wife, for the housemaid is a daily girl, and had gone home - and neither of them knew where the young man might be, or whether he had been in the flat since he took his tea there, with his mother. And that, I think, was true, for they have the kitchen and the servants' quarters a wee bit apart from the living-rooms of the family, and you get to them through a door, and along a bit passage. Young Mr.. Butterwick has his latch-key, I need not tell you, and there is no valet. However, while I was talking with the manservant, Mrs. Butterwick came in." He smiled. "I can tell you, it was not long before I was thinking I would give you moran taing for that assignment, sir!"

Hemingway sat up with a jerk. "Oh, it wasn't? Now, you just tell me what that means, my lad, because, it isn't the first time you've said it to me tonight, and it's my belief that -"

"Och, it means only Many thanks!" said the Inspector meekly.

His superior regarded him with blatant suspicion. "I'll have to take your word for it at the moment, but the first chance I get I'll ask young Fraser! Well, what next?"

"Whisht, would I lie to you? I am telling you, Chief Inspector, I would sooner face a tigress than that woman! From the moment she knew I was a police-officer, I was in terror of having the eyes torn from my head! Och, it is a baby she had made of that truaghan! But she is afraid for him - verra much she is afraid for him!,

Hemingway grinned. "Came up against mother-love, did you? Poor old Sandy! I've had some! What's she afraid of ?"

"The first murder," Grant replied instantly. "She thought I had come to question her son about that, and such a sgeul as she told me about that is no matter at all, for she was not present, and she knows nothing. Coming to it verra doucely, I asked her where Mr.. Sydney Butterwick would be just then, and she told me there was some man with a name I don't call to mind dancing Petrouchka for the first time, and her son would never miss such a sight. So I got from her the number of her box, and away I went." He paused. "Well, they brought young Butterwick to me in a wee office, when this Petrouchka was finished, and in he came, with his shirt no whiter than his face. You'll remember, sir, the way he carried on when you interrogated him: then it was a great deal of nonsense he talked about psychology, to make you think he was quite at his ease. Tonight it was Dalcroze Eurhythmics, and - now, wait while I get this right! - Cecchetti's Method, and Choreography, till I begged the silly gille to whisht!"

Hemingway nodded. Just like you do me! What did you make of him?"

"It is hard to say. There is verra little doubt in my mind he thought I had come to question him about the first murder, for it was of that he talked, until I asked him to tell me what time it was when he reached the Opera House. I am bound to say that he looked scared for his life when I put that to him, and when, later on, I told him what it was I was enquiring about, he gave a sgiamh, and fainted away!"

"Good God!" ejaculated Hemingway.

"You may well say so!" agreed Grant. "When he came round, och, I thought he was going to weep! But a wee dram pulled him together, and he swore to me that all he went to Charles Street for was to ask Mrs. Haddington why she had told lies about him to us. Forbye, he remembered that he went past Lord Guisborough on the stairs. He rushed from the house, leaving his walkingstick behind him. There were all sorts of times he gave me, but the truth is he does not know when he left Charles Street. According to his tale, he went home to Park Lane, and changed into his evening-dress, and came in a taxi to Covent Garden just in time to get to his box before the curtain rose on the first ballet. And whether he was speaking the truth to me or not I cannot tell. For there is no knowing how to take him! For all he fainted under my eyes, no sooner did he hear the bell ringing for the end of the interval than he was in a fret to get back to his box for fear he would miss the last ballet!"

"Might have been in a fret to get away from you," Hemingway said. "However, it doesn't seem to me as though he had any reason for killing Mrs. Haddington, so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt for the moment."

"It might be that she was killed - though I will not say it was by Butterwick, mind! - because she knew too much about the first murder," Grant pointed out.

"It might," Hemingway agreed. "Always a possibility."

"You do not think it?" Grant said, eyeing him shrewdly.

"Who said I don't think it?" Hemingway retorted. "What you want to do, Sandy, is to keep an open mind! Now, you take a look at Exhibits 1 and 2, and tell me if anything strikes you about them!"

The Inspector frowned down at the lengths of wire on the desk. "Picture-wire, both," he said. "But one is older than the other, for it is tarnished. They got no distinguishable prints from the second one?"

"None at all." Hemingway picked up a short length of twine, and held it out. Just take this, Sandy!" He set his elbow on the table, holding his forearm vertically. "I want you to imitate our interesting murders round my wrist. You can use that ruler for your tourniquet, and there's no need to go to extremes! Just show me how you'd set about the job, if you were going to bump anyone off like that!"

The Inspector looked faintly surprised, but he obediently slipped the twine round Hemingway's arm, held the two ends in his left hand, and with his right inserted the ruler above his grip, and gave it a couple of twists. He paused then, glancing enquiringly down at his chief. Hemingway nodded. "That's enough. Let go! Now do it again!"

The Inspector's brow creased. He said nothing, however, but faithfully repeated his performance.

"So that's the way you'd do it every time, is it?" said Hemingway. "So would Carnforth. Young Thirsk, on the other hand, does it my way!"

"Your way?"

"We use our right hands for the grip, and our left for the tourniquet. Thus, my lad, we get the twist from left to right, and you get it from right to left - same like Operator Number One."

The Inspector uttered an exclamation, and looked quickly down at the wires on the desk. "Mo thruaighe! I never noticed it! Is one a left-handed man, then?"

"No, not necessarily. None of us four's left-handed. It's all according to taste. Some find it natural to do it one way, some prefer the other. Try doing it my way!"

The Inspector obeyed, but slowly. He said: "It is not just natural to me - but I could do it!"

"Could, but wouldn't. Well, I think that's about enough for today - and not so bad, either! You get off home now. I don't want you at the Inquest tomorrow: once we're through with Sir Roderick Vickerstown and the doctor, I shall ask for an adjournment. You go to Poulton's offices, and see what you can discover there! I'll see you here, after the Inquest: I'm not meeting this Eddleston chap till twelve o'clock, in Charles Street."

The Inspector picked up his hat, saying with his fugitive smile: "You always say, do you not, that when a case becomes so tangled there is no solving it something will break?"

"I daresay, because it's perfectly true! Why I wasn't made a Superintendent years ago I shall never know! These two bits of wire, Sandy, show how the best laid plans of mice and men can gang agley!"

"Ma seadh!" said the Inspector, his hand on the doorknob. "But where you learned that Lowland accent I know not!" Upon which Parthian shot he circumspectly withdrew, closing the door softly behind him.