Duplicate Death Read online

  The cat, which had sprung on to his knee, arched its back under his caressing, turned round twice, and settled down, purring loudly.

  ‘Would you say he was a gentleman, sir?’

  ‘I should say he was a high-class bounder,’ promptly replied Timothy. ‘Still, I know what you mean, and I suppose the answer is Yes. I don’t know what school had the rare privilege of rearing him, but unless he was uncommon quick at picking up ways and tricks which can’t possibly be described he was certainly at a decent one. I never heard him mention any relations, nor have I met anyone else of his name. You’d think anyone with a fine double-barrelled name like that would have hundreds of cousins littering the country, wouldn’t you? Not so, but far otherwise! However, one must be fair, and he had no military prefix to his name. It always seemed to me the one thing lacking to complete the picture. Anything more I can tell you about him, or have I been defamatory enough to be going on with?’

  ‘Something seems to tell me that you didn’t like him,’ said Hemingway, with a twinkle.

  ‘I expect your instinct gets pretty highly developed at your job,’ said Timothy. ‘I didn’t. Broadly speaking, I’m in sympathy with his murderer, though I can’t say I’m in favour of strangling people at Bridge-parties. Breaks the evening up so.’

  ‘If you don’t mind my saying so, sir, you’re a cold-blooded young devil!’ said Hemingway frankly. ‘Of course, if you do, I shall have to take it back, but I shall go on thinking it! My next question is what you might call delicate. Who is this Mrs Haddington?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine, Chief Inspector. Widow in comfortable circumstances who gate-crashed Society about eighteen months ago. Previously unknown to Society, according to my Mamma. Said to have lived much abroad. Obvious reason for the gate-crash, one staggeringly beautiful daughter. How it was done, God knows! You wouldn’t call her an attractive type, would you?’

  ‘I would not, sir. Would money do it?’

  ‘It would do a bit. Wouldn’t get her into the houses I’ve seen her in. I’m told she was sponsored by Lady Nest Poulton. They appear to be bosom friends – which is another surprising thing. Lady Nest isn’t exactly choosey, but she usually takes up celebrities, or very amusing types: not dull and rather off-white widows with lovely daughters. The money angle wouldn’t interest her – her husband is rolling in the stuff. Nor is she the kind of woman who has a yen for launching débutantes. But she actually presented Cynthia Haddington last spring, and gave a ball for her. All very obscure.’

  ‘Tell me a little about these Poultons, sir, will you? Lady Nest, now – would she be Lady Nest Ellerbeck that used to get her picture in all the papers when she was a girl?’

  ‘That’s right: Greystoke’s daughter. Went the pace no

  little in the Gay Twenties. Sort of Pocket Venus. Still pretty easy on the eyes, though she must be quite as old as my Mamma. Restless, unsteady type, very Athenian – always seeking some new thing, I mean. Poulton is Big Business. I hardly know him. Seems a quiet, dull sort of a chap. Doesn’t figure much at his wife’s parties. I don’t mean that there’s anything wrong: merely that he’s a man of affairs, and more often than not flying to the States, or the Continent, or somewhere on business.’

  ‘Was Seaton-Carew a friend of the Lady Nest?’

  ‘Yes. Nothing in that: very good man at a party, much cultivated by hostesses.’

  ‘You wouldn’t put it any higher than that, sir?’

  ‘Lord, no! If someone’s told you that she called him Dan-darling, or Dan-my-sweet, dismiss it from your mind! She calls me Timothy-my-lamb on no provo cation whatsoever. It’s her line. Anything more?’

  ‘Dr Westruther?’ said Hemingway.

  ‘Pillar of Harley Street. Sort of bloke who calls female patients Dear lady, and recommends them to take a glass of champagne and a caviare sandwich at eleven every morning.’

  ‘Now, how can you possibly know that?’ expostulated Hemingway. ‘Don’t tell me Lady Harte told you so, because I remember her very well, and if she’s taken to going to fashionable doctors all I can say is that she’s changed a lot in thirteen years!’

  ‘Oh lord, no! I had that from quite another source: one of the Old Guard – not at Mrs Haddington’s party! Are you fancying Westruther in the rôle of Chief Suspect? What a

  singularly fragrant thought!’

  ‘I’m not, but, according to the evidence, it was he who went up to the drawing-room from the library to explain how it was that the game was being held up.’

  ‘Pausing on the way to strangle Seaton-Carew. Why?’

  ‘I can’t think,’ said Hemingway calmly. ‘He says he hadn’t ever met him before.’

  ‘I think the better of him. Half a shake! What price Sir Roddy? He it was who discovered the body, wasn’t it? Now, there’s a line for you!’

  ‘When you kept on getting under my feet in the Kane case, sir,’ said Hemingway, with some asperity, ‘you may have driven me dotty, but at least you took it seriously, not as if it was a roaring farce! I don’t say you haven’t been helpful, because you have, up to a point, but I can see it’s high time I left!’

  ‘Oh, don’t go!’ Timothy begged, his very blue eyes wickedly mocking. ‘If it’s because you heard the door-bell, stay put. I told Kempsey to say I was out. Nobody but tradesmen would call on me at this hour, anyway. I’m one of the world’s workers, I am.’

  He was wrong. A halting step sounded, the door was opened, and Mr James Kane limped into the room.

  ‘Hallo, Jim!’ exclaimed Timothy, rising from his chair to the intense discomfort of Melchizedek. ‘Now, this really is a reunion! Meet your old friend Sergeant Hemingway, now masquerading under the guise of a Chief Inspector!’

  ‘Then you were at that party!’ said James Kane, casting upon the table a copy of that same periodical which had caught the Chief Inspector’s eye earlier in the morning. ‘You bloody little pest, Timothy! I could scrag you! For God’s sake, Hemingway, clap him into a cell at Canon Row, and keep him there! How are you? I can’t say, considering the circumstances, that I’m glad to meet you here, but it’s nice to see you not looking a day older! Is my blasted half-brother one of the suspects?’

  ‘Well, sir, I’m bound to say that he is!’ replied Hemingway, wringing his hand.

  Ten

  You don’t mean to tell me it’s all in the papers already, Jim?’ said Timothy incredulously.

  ‘I don’t know about all, but quite enough!’ said Mr James Kane. ‘You aren’t mentioned, but you can bet your life Mother will guess you were there!’

  Timothy, who had picked up the newspaper, and was interestedly reading the fatal paragraphs, retorted: ‘Mamma doesn’t take in a rag like this! If you hadn’t such a low taste in literature –’

  ‘Thanks very much, this is Nanny’s chosen organ! How that woman knows what she does know beats me!’ “Oh, Daddy, aren’t these Uncle Timothy’s friends? I thought you’d like to see what it says here about them!” Like hell I would! You’d better tell me the worst, and be done with it! Who is this Seaton-Carew, and are you really implicated, or not?’

  ‘Of course I am!’ said Timothy indignantly. ‘I’ve got no alibi, I didn’t like the fellow, and the Serg – I mean, the Chief Inspector, says I’m cold-blooded! So stop thinking you’re the only member of the family who can be suspected of brutal murder! Such side! The only thing that stops our old friend arresting me here and now is my low cunning in using picturewire instead of a knife. Come to think of it, I believe I’ve still got that lovely weapon somewhere.’ He cast a look around the room. ‘I don’t say I could put my hand on it, but –’

  ‘No, that I’ll be bound you couldn’t, sir!’ said Hemingway. He turned to Jim Kane. ‘I wish I could stay and have a bit of a crack with you, sir, but I can’t, and in any case you’ll be wanting to talk to Mr Harte, so I’ll say goodbye. He hasn’t changed much: I keep thinking of that burglar alarm he fixed up outside your door!’

  ‘Wretched brat!’ said Mr K