Duplicate Death Read online

  ‘Good-evening, Chief Inspector!’ said Pershore punctiliously. ‘Superintendent Hinckley informed me that he would be despatching you to the scene of the crime. I trust –’

  ‘Well, there’s no need for you to start talking like a newspaper report!’ said Hemingway irritably. ‘What he told you was that he’d be sending me along, because nobody ever heard him talk in that silly style – not outside the witnessbox, that is!’ He put his hat down on the table under the gilded mirror, and struggled out of his overcoat. A glance round the eau-de-nil hall out of his bright, birdlike eyes made him nod approvingly. ‘Very classy!’ he said. ‘Where can we go where we shan’t be interrupted?’

  ‘I have made the dining-room my headquarters, Chief Inspector. The staff has not yet cleared away the refreshments intended for the party that was earlier assembled –’

  ‘You couldn’t have hit on a better place,’ said Hemingway, walking into the dining-room, and warming his hands before the electric radiator. ‘I daresay we shall need some refreshment before we’re through. Now, what’s all this about, Pershore?’

  Pershore, clearing his throat rather pompously, glanced at his voluminous notes, and replied: ‘I should say, Chief Inspector, that it is a clear case. At first sight, it may seem impossible that the crime could have been committed under the circumstances in which it was done; but, pursuant upon my interrogation of several of the persons present in the house, I reached the con clusion that this is a case that pre sents few difficulties –’

  ‘What you want to do is to hire a hall, and give a series of lectures on police work,’ interposed Hemingway. ‘You’ll probably make a lot of money: people will pay to listen to anything! I wouldn’t, of course, but that’s because I have to listen to you, and even the Department wouldn’t expect me to pay for doing what I can’t help. Now, you stop trying to annoy me, and tell me what’s been happening here without any trimmings!’

  The Inspector glared at him, but the exigencies of discipline prevented him from uttering a retort. He said stiffly: ‘The house is rented by a Mrs Lilias Haddington, of whom nothing is known. She resides here with her daughter, Miss Cynthia Haddington, and a staff of six persons. There is also a young woman who is her secretary. She was on the premises at the time, but does not reside here. The murdered man was a Mr Daniel Seaton-Carew, address Haughton House, Jermyn Street. I understand him to have been a close friend of Mrs Haddington. He was one of forty-four persons invited to take part in some sort of a Bridge-game, and had previously dined here in company with Mrs and Miss Haddington, Miss Birtley, who is the secretary, Lord Guisborough, and a Mr Harte. There were two other guests, acting as scorers, one of whom is Dr Theodore Westruther, who was the first to inspect the body. The murdered man was called to the telephone, which is situated in the room known as the boudoir shortly after eleven pm; and some minutes later, nobody being able to state with certainty how many, Mrs Haddington saying about ten, and Miss Birtley putting it rather higher, and no one else admitting to any knowledge of the exact hour at which Mr Seaton-Carew was called to the telephone, which is, of course, possible, if they hadn’t happened to look at the clock –’

  ‘Take a breath!’ advised Hemingway.

  The Inspector found that he had lost the thread of his narrative, and was forced to refer to his notes.

  ‘The murdered man was called to the telephone,’ Hemingway prompted.

  ‘Some minutes later,’ resumed Pershore coldly, ‘Mrs Haddington requested Sir Roderick Vickerstown to go down to the boudoir, and remind Mr Seaton-Carew that they were all waiting for him. Sir Roderick complied with this request, and discovered the body of the murdered man as you will see for yourself, Chief Inspector. I come now to the persons whose movements during the period when the murder may be assumed to have been committed are unaccounted for.’

  ‘No, you don’t. First things first is my motto! I’ll see the body before I get any more confused than what I am already. Take me to the boudoir you talk of !’

  ‘Of course, it is just as you wish, Chief Inspector. I will lead the way,’ said Pershore, suiting the action to the word. ‘Sergeant Bromley arrived shortly before yourself, and is engaged in photographing any finger-prints in the room which may have a bearing on the crime, but nothing, I need hardly say, has been touched since I was called in, and arrived at 11.53 pm.’

  Since it would have been extremely improper for anything to have been touched before the arrival of a representative of Scotland Yard, this unnecessary assurance exasperated the Chief Inspector. He cast a fulminating look at Inspector Pershore’s back, but was interrupted before he could utter the words trembling on his tongue.

  ‘Whisht, now, whisht!’ said Inspector Alexander Grant soothingly.

  ‘I don’t say you’re not right,’ retorted Hemingway, ‘but if you’re telling me to shut up, which I think you are, I’ll put in an adverse report about you, my lad!’

  The Inspector smiled in the way that gave him an odd resemblance to one of the shy stags of his own Highlands, and said no more. They had by this time mounted the stairs to the half-landing. Inspector Pershore opened the door into Mrs Haddington’s sitting-room, and stood aside for Hemingway to enter.

  There were several people in the room. All that remained of Dan Seaton-Carew was seated in the chair beside the telephone-table in the angle between the door and the first of the two long, curtained windows, his face most horribly distorted, and with two strands of picture-wire protruding at the back of his neck. His head had fallen forward on his breast; both his arms hung slackly beside him; one leg was stuck stiffly out before him, its foot under the fragile table which held the telephone; the other bent, so that its foot was against the leg of the chair.

  The Chief Inspector observed him without blenching, glanced round the room, and said cheerfully: ”Evening! No, I mean, good-morning! How’s the kid, Tom?’

  The photographer grinned at him. ‘Going on fine, sir, thank you. Out of quarantine this week.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Hemingway turned from him, and surveyed the still figure in the chair. ‘Well, well!’ he said, scrutinising every detail. ‘The things people will get up to!’

  He spoke in an absent tone, and all but one of his subordinates waited in respectful silence, well-aware that whatever inanities he might utter, his quick brain was anything but inane.

  ‘The murder, as you will see, Chief Inspector,’ said Pershore, ‘was committed by means of a length of ordinary picture-wire, twisted about the neck of the victim by means of a tourniquet, supplied by some instrument unknown. As I see it, the murderer held one end of the wire, and this instrument, or implement, in one hand, say, right, quickly passed the other round the neck of the victim, standing behind him, of course, caught this end under the thumb of the left hand, so that the implement was held, as it were, between the two strands of the wire, and gave the said implement a couple of twists, or maybe more, thus producing death by asphyxiation within –’

  ‘Och, hasn’t he eyes in his head?’ interrupted Grant. ‘Will you not hold your peace, you silly man?’

  ‘– a matter of seconds!’ ended Pershore, swelling with indignation. ‘You’ll observe, Chief Inspector, that the wire is twisted hard up against the neck of the murdered man, and again just below where the strands part, showing that between these two places some implement has been inserted, and later withdrawn.’

  ‘Found?’ asked Hemingway, who did not appear to be paying much attention.

  ‘It has not so far been discovered, Chief Inspector,’ owned Pershore.

  Hemingway’s glance flickered round the room. ‘Nothing here likely to be suitable. Might be almost anything, and won’t do us any good if we did find it. I fancy I see this bird leaving his prints on it! Gone over the wire, Tom? You won’t get anything off it, of course, but we’ve got to try everything.’ He nodded to the photo g rapher. ‘Now then, I want a shot of the whole of this corner of the room first, taking it from about where you are.’

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