Duplicate Death Read online

  Inspector Grant was well-acquainted with his chief, but this made him gasp. ‘There is no evidence! Thoir ort, you are joking!’

  ‘It’s my belief,’ said Hemingway severely, ‘that when you cough that nasty Gaelic of yours at me you’re just handing me out a slice of damned cheek, banking on me not understanding a word of it! One of these days I’ll learn the language, and then you’ll precious soon find yourself reduced to the ranks, my lad! There isn’t any evidence – not what you could call evidence! – against any of them: that’s the trouble. You take this Haddington dame! She had a row with Seaton-Carew earlier in the evening –’

  ‘So also did Miss Birtley.’

  ‘That’s so, and don’t you run away with the idea that I’ve

  ruled her out, because I haven’t! But she doesn’t so far seem to have had any motive at all for strangling the chap.’

  ‘It might be that she was afraid he would tell Mr Harte she had been in prison.’

  ‘It might,’ conceded Hemingway. ‘Now tell me what that bird had to gain by telling Terrible Timothy any thing at all about her!’

  ‘That,’ said Grant, ‘I do not know.’

  ‘No, nor anyone else. At this rate, there must be quite a few people she’ll have to bump off. If you ask me, it was a darned sight more likely Mrs Haddington would be the one to split to Terrible Timothy. He wouldn’t be a bad catch for that daughter of hers: not at all bad! As far as I remember, his father was very comfortably off, besides being a baronet. Leave the Birtley girl out of it for the moment! What have we against Hard-faced Hannah? She had a quarrel with Seaton-Carew; he was known to have been her lover; there doesn’t seem to have been much doubt that he was running after her daughter; she knew he was being rung-up that evening; she knew when the call came through; she had the opportunity to commit the murder; and her account of her movements is uncorroborated. In fact, the more I think of it, the more I think I’m a fool not to pinch her at once.’

  ‘Seadh! But there are others! There is young Mr Butterwick!’

  ‘That’s why I haven’t pinched her,’ said Hemingway brazenly. ‘Did you see him this afternoon?’

  ‘I did, and och, I don’t know at all what to make of him! He is afraid for his life, that is sure; but at one moment he will be weeping like a caileag, and the next in such a fury that he looks fit to murder anyone! It was no more than a hint that I gave him, that, according to Mrs Haddington, he had been only twice to that house, and each time to a large party, when it is not likely he would have heard the telephone-bell ring. He went so white I thought he would have fainted; and so angry he was he could barely speak. He said he had dined with the Haddingtons once, and he had clearly heard the bell. He said I should ask myself why Mrs Haddington had told us such lies. He said we were fools to think he would have murdered his friend, speaking of that man in such terms as would have made you blush, sir! He said he would go mad, perhaps, and those may have been the only true words he spoke! It did not take him more than five minutes to prove to me it was Mrs Haddington, and Miss Birtley, and Mr Poulton, and Mr Harte that had murdered Seaton-Carew. And then, the silly creature, he would have me believe it was all wicked lies that he had quarrelled with his friend that very evening! Och, there was no dealing with him at all!’

  ‘No, he’s difficult,’ agreed Hemingway, scratching his chin. ‘You never know where you are with neurotics. I’m bound to say, though I don’t fancy him much.’

  ‘He has more motive than any other.’

  ‘I’m not so sure of that. It’ll depend on what Cathercott finds in that flat. Yes, come in!’

  Inspector Cathercott himself walked into the room, heavily wrapped in a hairy overcoat, and with a muffler wound round the lower part of his face. He pulled this away from his mouth, and said, setting a neat package down on the desk: ‘You win, Chief ! Take a look at that! Two of ‘em!’

  ‘Snow?’ Hemingway said. ‘Good man! Where did you find it?’

  ‘Several of the books in that glass-fronted case were hollow dummies. I might have got on to ‘em quicker if it hadn’t been for that safe! Clever operator, this Seaton-Carew. I’m sorry he’s dead: I’d liked to have had him here for half an hour! But,’ said Cathercott, looking like a terrier on the scent of a rat, ‘I think this may have given me a line on the little gang we’ve been after for the past four months!’

  ‘Is that going to help me?’ demanded Hemingway.

  Cathercott glanced indifferently down at him. ‘Help you? Oh, this murder of yours! No, sir, I shouldn’t think so. With any luck this little lot may lead us to the boys who are bringing the stuff into the country. I’ll be making a report on this find to Superintendent Heathcote first thing in the morning.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘He’ll be interested – very much interested!’

  ‘I’m sure he will,’ said Hemingway. ‘You can go home to bed, and put some oil of cloves in that tooth of yours, George! You’ve done very nicely, and you don’t want to go writing reports at this hour of night!’

  ‘Well, if you don’t want me any more, I’ll be off,’ Cathercott said, picking up his treasured package. ‘Unless I miss my bet, it’s snow all right. Enough here to keep your friend at the Ritz for months! Good-night, sir! ‘Night, Sandy!’

  ‘Talk of one-track minds!’ said Hemingway, as the door shut behind Cathercott. ‘Little details like murder don’t mean a thing to him! Well, now, Sandy, we’ve got a highly significant angle on the case. We’ll pay another call on Lady Nest Poulton in the morning!’

  ‘Not on Mrs Haddington?’ said the Inspector, with the glimmer of a smile.

  ‘No, because I’ve not got a one-track mind!’ retorted Hemingway.

  But when he arrived at the house in Belgrave Square next day, he was met by the intelligence that her ladyship was not at home.

  ‘If you mean she isn’t receiving callers, just take my card up to her, will you?’ said Hemingway.

  The butler said, in a voice carefully devoid of ignoble triumph, that her ladyship left town on the previous evening. He regretted that he was unable to give the Chief Inspector her address, or to inform him when she would return. He suggested that these questions should rather be put to Mr Poulton.

  ‘Oh, so he’s not gone out of town too?’

  ‘No,’ said the butler, raising his brows.

  ‘Is he at home?’

  ‘Mr Poulton is never at home during the day. You will find him at his office, Chief Inspector. Would there be anything further you would like to ask me?’

  ‘Yes: Mr Poulton’s City address!’

  This was vouchsafed, and the two detectives returned to the waiting car. As it moved eastward, Grant said slowly: ‘It does not seem right to me that she should have gone away from her home just now, and not a word of it said to you yesterday!’

  ‘No reason why she should have said anything to me: she isn’t under suspicion. But you’re quite right, Sandy: it smells remarkably fishy! She must know that husband of hers isn’t by any means in the clear. Nice moment for her to be jaunting off to the country! Well, we’ll see what our poker-faced friend has got to say about it.’

  Godfrey Poulton, at first declared by a competent secretary to be in conference, did not keep his visitors waiting long in the outer office. They were ushered in a few minutes into a large, turkey-carpeted room. Here, at a large kneehole desk, sat Godfrey Poulton. He was speaking into one of the telephones on the desk, and merely nodded to his visitors, and made a slight gesture towards a couple of chairs. He did not show any signs of discomposure, but watched the detectives absently, while he listened to what was being said to him at the other end of the wire.

  ‘Very well… I’m sorry: no!… I could give you – ‘ He glanced down at the open diary before him – ‘twenty minutes, at 11.45 tomorrow morning.… Yes? I shall expect you at that hour, then. Good-bye!’ He laid down the instrument, and said: ‘I don’t want to be disturbed until these gentlemen leave, Miss Methwold. Good-morning, Chief Inspector! What can I do