Duplicate Death Read online

  ‘Oh, Timothy! Oh, Timothy!’ Beulah sobbed into his shoulder. ‘It wouldn’t have been any use! I was such a little fool ! No one believed me – I didn’t think anyone ever would believe me! I couldn’t bring forward anything to prove I hadn’t done it, and that when I went to that office after hours, it was because he rang me up, and asked me to go there, and get that envelope out of the safe! He said he’d forgotten it, and he’d get into trouble with his uncle, and I was to post it to him – but it was only my word against his, and though I did think that man on the Bench half-believed me, the jury didn’t, and if they didn’t, why should anyone else?’

  Mr Harte made no attempt to unravel this. Producing a large handkerchief, he mopped Beulah’s cheeks with it, and said: ‘You shall tell me all about it, my pet, once we’re through with this mess. Now, you sit up, and stop soaking me to the skin! We shall have my-friend-the-Sergeant, alias Chief Inspector Hemingway, here at any moment, and you don’t want him to find you in floods of tears! And don’t run away with the idea that he’ll arrest you for murder just because you were once convicted of embezzlement: he’s far too downy a bird to do anything of the sort.’

  ‘I haven’t told you the whole of it,’ Beulah said, apparently determined to make a clean breast of every thing. ‘Birtley isn’t my name! At least, it is, but not all of it!’

  ‘Give me a moment to steel myself !’ Timothy begged. ‘Because if it’s Snooks, or something like that –’

  She gave a shaky laugh. ‘No, no! It’s Meriden!’

  ‘And what could be nicer than that? Apart from the fact that the only Meridens I ever heard of are a rather stuffy Warwickshire family, full of Good Form and inhibitions.’

  ‘That’s them,’ Miss Birtley said, into his coat.

  ‘What you mean, my girl,’ said Timothy, ‘is Those are They. I’m sorry, but our engagement is Off ! Half your value for me lay in the fact that you weren’t cluttered up with that kind of relation. Kindly get off my knee!’

  The haste with which Beulah complied with this injunction was due to the reappearance on the scene of Chief Inspector Hemingway. She betook herself to the mirror that hung over the fireplace, and proceeded to repair her damaged complexion, only very occasionally giving a convulsive sob.

  ‘Come in!’ said Timothy. ‘It’ll probably clear the air if I tell you that I know All. So don’t be shy, Chief Inspector! I’ve just been telling our entrancing gaol-bird that you won’t arrest her merely because she got herself into a mess before she had the benefit of my acquain tance, counsel, and support.’

  ‘No, I shan’t,’ replied Hemingway. ‘But I give you fair warning, Miss Birtley, that if you go on treating me as if you thought I was the whole Gestapo rolled into one, I’m liable to get very nasty, and quite likely I shall set Underbarrow on to you for not having reported yourself. So now you know!’

  She turned, a little flushed, and said, with an attempt at a smile: ‘You can’t help being prejudiced against me, and my experience of the police has not been such as to lead me to confide in them.’

  ‘The Chief Inspector will tell you, my love, that there are good and bad policemen,’ said Timothy. ‘Won’t you Hemingway?’

  ‘I shan’t tell her anything of the sort,’ responded Hemingway. ‘The most I’ll say is that some of us are better than others. However, just to show you that Himmler never was what you’d call a great pal of mine, I don’t mind telling you, Miss Birtley, that I think your case could stand a bit of looking-into, and I happen to know that the partnership between Mr Harold Maxstoke and his uncle has been dissolved.’

  Light sprang to her sombre eyes; she exclaimed: ‘Oh, do you think – ?’

  ‘I don’t think anything at all,’ said Hemingway firmly. ‘In fact, I’m not interested, because it wasn’t my case, and the only thing that interests me is homicide. Now, you tell me this! What brought you back to this house tonight?’

  She glanced uncertainly at Timothy, who said at once: ‘Sit down, and answer the kind policeman truthfully, my child!’

  She obeyed, but said reluctantly: ‘It sounds so unlikely!’

  ‘Most of the stories I have to listen to do,’ observed Hemingway. ‘And they’re not always lies either!’

  ‘Well, Mrs Haddington gave me a cheque this morning,’ she said. ‘She does it every week. I have to cash it, and pay all the household bills. I put it in a drawer of this desk, and forgot it. So I came back, because I’m supposed to pay the bills tomorrow morning, before I report for duty here.’

  ‘Can I see the cheque?’

  She hunted in her bag. ‘Yes, it’s here. I haven’t got the books or the bills here: I left them at my digs. If you like to send someone to fetch them, I can tell you just where they are, though! The cheque’s made out for the exact amount.’

  Hemingway took it from her, glanced at it, and handed it back. ‘A Bearer cheque: where do you cash it?’

  ‘At Mrs Haddington’s Branch, in Piccadilly.’

  ‘Well, that seems all right. You’ve got a latch-key for this front door?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When did you let yourself into the house again?’

  ‘I – I don’t know! I never looked at the time!’

  ‘Let’s see if we can work it out! When did you first leave the house?’

  ‘At six o’clock,’ she answered readily. ‘As the clock in the hall was striking. I had finished all I had to do ages before, but Mrs Haddington won’t let me go till six.’

  ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘I walked to Green Park Station, and caught a train to Earl’s Court.’

  ‘You live in Nevern Place, don’t you? Say five to seven minutes walk each end. And then?’

  She frowned in an effort of memory. ‘I lit the gas-fire in my room, and took off my – no, I didn’t! I put the household books, and the loose accounts, into my bureau. It was then that I looked to make sure I’d got the cheque, and found I hadn’t. I carried the books back in my attaché-case, you see. It – it sounds silly, but I thought if I sneaked back here at once, Mrs Haddington would be dressing for dinner, and wouldn’t know anything about it. It was the kind of thing she used to be very unpleasant about, and I should never have heard the end of it if she’d caught me here tomorrow morning collecting the cheque. Wasting my employer’s time through my own thoughtlessness. That sort of thing! So I came back.’

  ‘By tube?’

  ‘Yes, by tube. I – I had a key, and I was able to slip in without anyone hearing, and come into this room.’

  ‘Not too fast!’ said Hemingway. ‘Let’s go back for a

  minute! Before you left the house at six o’clock, did anyone come to see Mrs Haddington?’

  She hesitated. ‘I didn’t see anyone, but I did hear the front door bell ring once or twice.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  Her eyes sought Timothy’s; he said quietly: ‘Don’t be silly, darling! What, if anything, did you hear?’

  ‘It wasn’t anything, really. I thought I recognised Mr Butterwick’s voice. But I may easily have been mistaken! I wasn’t paying much attention!’

  Hemingway nodded. ‘And after that?’

  Again she hesitated. ‘Well, Lord Guisborough arrived! But I knew he was expected: the servants were talking about it earlier in the day. There has been a lot of speculation amongst them about – well, about his intentions! I heard him holding forth – I mean, I heard him talking to Thrimby!’

  ‘Do you know when Mr Butterwick left the house?’ She shook her head. ‘Or when Lord Guisborough left?’

  ‘No. He was still with Mrs Haddington when I myself left: I saw his coat hanging up in the hall.’

  Hemingway glanced down at his own notes. ‘All right. Now let’s get back to your second visit to the house. How long did you have to wait at Earl’s Court for a train?’

  ‘I didn’t. I was lucky – in fact, I had to sprint to catch the train.’

  ‘How long do you reckon the train-journey usually takes yo