Duplicate Death Read online

  ‘I have no objection, since I assume that –’ Mr Poulton paused, allowing his eye to fall upon the chair by the telephone. ‘Precisely,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, no, that’s all right!’ Hemingway said, under standing his cryptic utterance. ‘I don’t think I shall be keeping you for many minutes either, sir.’ He saw that Poulton was looking at his second-in-command, and said: ‘Inspector Grant. Sit down, sir! I understand you left the library at some time during Mr Seaton-Carew’s absence from it. I think I have all that in Inspector Pershore’s notes. Was the deceased a friend of yours?’

  Poulton shrugged. ‘Hardly that. I suppose I’ve met him half a dozen times.’

  The Chief Inspector, before entering the drawing-room, had read Pershore’s voluminous notes, and he had an excellent memory for relative detail. ‘Did he visit your house, sir?’

  ‘I daresay,’ Poulton replied, his heavy-lidded eyes

  dwelling indifferently on the Chief Inspector’s face. ‘My wife entertains a great deal, but I am a very busy man, and I am not invariably present at her parties.’

  ‘Quite so, sir. Mr Seaton-Carew was Lady Nest’s friend rather than yours?’

  ‘It would be more accurate to say that he was an acquaintance of hers. My wife originally met him through her friendship with Mrs Haddington.’

  ‘Were you on good terms with him, sir?’

  Again Poulton shrugged. ‘Certainly – though that’s a somewhat exaggerated way of describing it. If you mean, had I quarrelled with him – No. If, on the other hand, you mean, did I like the man? Again, no.’

  ‘It’s a funny thing about this Seaton-Carew,’ remarked Hemingway, ‘that he seems to have been a popular sort of a character, and yet he got himself murdered.’

  ‘Very funny,’ agreed Poulton. ‘Perhaps you are confusing popularity with usefulness. Unattached men, Chief Inspector, are greatly in demand amongst hostesses.’

  ‘Ah, very likely!’ said Hemingway. ‘Well, it doesn’t seem as though you can help me much, sir, so I won’t keep you any longer.’

  Inspector Grant rose, and opened the door.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Poulton. ‘I shall be glad to get to bed. I have a heavy day ahead of me. Good-night!’

  The Inspector closed the door behind him, and glanced across at his superior. ‘You did not press him, sir.’

  ‘No, I’m never one to waste my time. If you were to have given Mr Godfrey Poulton the choice between having a sewer-rat loose in his house or the late Seaton-Carew, it’s my belief he’d have chosen the rat. Make a note of Lady Nest: we’ll see what she has to say. I’d better interview this Butterwick now. Fetch him down, Sandy!’

  The Inspector lingered. ‘Would that one have had the time to have committed the murder, you think?’

  ‘Any of them would have had time and to spare. In fact, this is one case where the time-factor isn’t going to bother us – or help us either, for that matter! As far as I can make out, it was anything from ten to twenty minutes between Seaton-Carew’s being called to the ‘phone and Sir Roderick’s finding him dead. How long do you reckon it would take you to nip up half a flight of stairs, twist a wire round a bloke’s neck, and nip down again?’

  ‘It is in my mind,’ said the Inspector, ‘that it would have been a strange thing for him to have gone into a room where he knew a man to be speaking on the telephone.’

  ‘You mean you think it would have put Seaton-Carew on his guard. It might, and it mightn’t. Of course, if Seaton-Carew had reason to think Poulton wanted to do him in, I agree that you’d expect to find some sign of a struggle. Supposing he hadn’t? Supposing this Poulton-bird walked in, just said, “Excuse me!” as though he’d just come to fetch something?’

  ‘Och, mo thruaighe! ‘ exclaimed the Inspector. ‘What would he have come there to fetch, tell me that?’

  ‘By the time Seaton-Carew had thought that one up,’ retorted Hemingway, ‘the wire was round his throat! Mind, I don’t say it happened like that, but even if it didn’t there’s no need for you to make those noises, which I take to be highly insubordinate. Go and fetch that pansy down to me!’

  Mr Sydney Butterwick, ushered into the boudoir a few minutes later, flinched perceptibly, but seemed to have himself fairly well in hand. His face still bore traces of the emotions which had ravaged it, but he was able to smile, albeit a little nervously, at Hemingway, and to assure him that if he could possibly be of assistance to the police they could count upon his cooperation.

  ‘I was devoted to Dan!’ he said. ‘Utterly devoted to him! I suppose anyone will tell you that. In some ways, you know, he was rather a marvellous person. Slow extravert, of course, and I’m definitely a quick extravert, but with a certain amount of overlap, if you know what I mean. I suppose you might call me an intuitive extravert. I’d better tell you at once that I wasn’t in the least blind about Dan! In fact, I recognised and accepted him for what he was. In some ways, I do absolutely agree that he was just a handsome brute, and I shan’t deny for one moment that I used to quarrel with him quite terribly. As a matter of fact he upset me rather poignantly tonight, and it’s the most ghastly thought that the last time I saw him I was furious with him! Well, not so much furious as wounded. Of course, I know I take things to heart too much: my type always does – I don’t know if you’ve read Jung?’

  Inspector Grant’s gaze shifted to the Chief Inspector’s face. The Chief Inspector had two hobbies: one was the Drama; and the other, which he pursued to the awe, amusement, and exasperation of his colleagues, was Psychology. He had listened amiably to Mr Butterwick’s flow of words, but at this challenge he lost patience. ‘Yes, and Wendt, Münsterburg, Freud, and Rosanoff as well!’ he replied tartly. ‘That’s how I know you don’t belong to the Autistic Type. I haven’t had time yet to decide whether you’re Anti-Social, or Cyclothymic, but I daresay I’ll make up my mind about that presently.’

  This unexpected rejoinder threw Sydney off his balance. He said, with a titter: ‘How marvellous to meet a policeman interested in psychology! I think I’m definitely the AntiSocial, or Hysteric Type. I mean, I haven’t a single illusion about myself. It’s fatal not to face up to oneself, isn’t it? For instance, although I adore Michael Angelo I do realise that that’s probably an expression of empathy-wish, in the same way that –’

  ‘Sit down, sir!’ said Hemingway.

  Sydney obeyed him, passing a hand over his waving fair locks, and then mechanically straightening his tie. ‘Do ask me any questions you like!’ he invited. ‘I shall answer them absolutely honestly!’

  ‘That’s very sensible of you, sir,’ said the Chief Inspector dryly. ‘Suppose you were to tell me, as a start, what was the cause of your quarrel with Mr Seaton-Carew last night?’

  ‘He had hurt me,’ replied Sydney simply.

  ‘How did he manage to do that?’

  ‘I hadn’t seen him for three days, and he wouldn’t speak to me on the telephone. That was the sort of thing he used to do, when he was in that mood. Teasing me, you know, but not really meaning to hurt. He told me once that I took life

  too hard, and I suppose it was true, but –’

  ‘You thought he was sick of you, didn’t you?’ interrupted Hemingway ruthlessly.

  ‘Oh – ! Not really!’

  Hemingway glanced at the notes under his hand. ‘You said to him, I suppose that means you’re fed up with me! and he replied, All right, I am! Is that correct, sir?’

  The colour rushed up to the roots of Sydney’s hair. He exclaimed in a trembling voice: ‘How do I know what I said? I suppose you got that out of that little bitch of a Haddington girl!’

  ‘Do you, sir? Why?’

  ‘I’ve no doubt Cynthia Haddington imagines that just because he took a little notice of her Dan was in love with her!’ said Sydney, trembling slightly, and quite ignoring the Chief Inspector’s question. ‘Well, he wasn’t! He wasn’t! And if she’s stuffed you up with some tale of my being jealous of her, it just makes me want to laugh!