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
ane, grinning reminiscently.
Timothy escorted the Chief Inspector to his front door, and returned to find his half-brother filling a pipe. ‘What brings you up to town, Jim?’ he enquired.
‘Business, primarily. Also that!’ Mr Kane jerked his head towards the newspaper. ‘Are you really mixed up in this, Timothy?’
‘I don’t think so. I was present, however. Rather a mess, one way and another.’
Mr Kane grunted, and struck a match. ‘I should have thought we’d had enough murders in the family, I must say.’
‘Too true. Not that this one can be said to be in the family.’
Pressing the glowing tobacco down into the bowl of his pipe with his thumb, Jim Kane glanced shrewdly across at his young relative. ‘Got more than a casual interest in it, haven’t you?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ responded Timothy coolly. ‘I have. The girl I propose to marry is, like myself, one of those who might have committed the murder.’
Mr James Kane was still busy with his pipe. Puffs of smoke arose from it. ‘So that’s serious, is it? I heard something about it from Mother.’
‘Did she tell you it was your duty to come and reason with me?’ asked Timothy, unscrewing another bottle of beer. ‘Beulah didn’t go big with her at all, I’m afraid.’
Jim accepted the glass that was handed to him, and set it down on the mantelshelf behind him. ‘No, she didn’t. Far from it, but don’t run away with the idea that I swallow all Mother says without a tablespoonful of salt, because I know Mother rather better than you do, and that isn’t one of the errors I fall into! All the same, are you quite sure you aren’t making a mistake, old son?’
‘Quite sure,’ said Timothy.
These simple words made it difficult to continue the conversation, but Jim tried his best. ‘Silly question to have asked you. What I mean is, don’t go and do something you’ll regret for the rest of your life!’
‘All right, I won’t.’
Mr Kane recruited his forces with a drink. ‘If you will have it in plain English, don’t make a mésalliance, Timothy! God knows I don’t want to barge into your affairs, but, even allowing for Mother’s exaggerations, this tie-up doesn’t look like the right sort of marriage for you at all! I daresay I sound damned offensive, but do think it over carefully before you do anything rash! Setting aside your own future, you ought to consider Mother, and your Father a bit!’
‘I don’t think Father will worry much,’ said Timothy. ‘He doesn’t, you know. As a matter of fact, I’ve always thought he had more interest in you than in me. Of course, I quite see that it’s disappointing for Mamma. What with you marrying your great-aunt’s companion, and me marrying Mrs Haddington’s secretary – !’
‘Look here!’ exclaimed Jim. ‘Pat may have been Aunt Emily’s companion, but she comes of a good family, and she’s got hordes of relations, all out of the right drawer, let me tell you!’
‘That’s where I score over you,’ said Timothy.
‘Listen, Timothy!’
‘Listen, Jim!’ interrupted Timothy. ‘I love you very much, I love your well-born wife, I even love your extremely exhausting brats! You’re the hell of a nice chap, and I wish you hadn’t lost your leg, but –’
‘Go to the devil!’ said Jim rudely.
‘You’ve taken the words out of my mouth, brother,’ said Timothy. ‘Have some more beer!’
‘Blast you!’ said Jim.
Timothy refilled his glass. ‘What kind of an impressionable ass do you take me for, Jim? Facetiousness apart?’
‘I don’t. I should have said you were pretty hard-boiled, but you seem to have taken a header this time.’
‘I have, but if Mamma gave you the idea that I’ve fallen for a cross between a film-star and an adventuress, get rid of it! So far, I’ve failed to get my intended to name the day; and although I happen to admire her appearance I’m well aware that she wouldn’t stand an earthly in any Beauty Competition.’
‘Oh!’ said Jim, rather blankly. ‘It’s like that, is it?’ He lowered himself into one of the armchairs, and leaned forward to tickle Melchizedek under one ear. ‘I see.’
‘I hoped you might. You fell for a lot of Lovelies before you took a similar header over Pat, who wasn’t a patch on any of them as far as looks went. So, if you’ve finished coming the elder brother, we can go on from there. If not, we’ll discuss the weather.’
‘All right,’ Jim said. ‘Go on from there!’
‘There isn’t really very much to tell you,’ Timothy said reflectively. ‘I can set your mind at rest on one point. In spite of her often atrocious manners, she is indisputably a lady. No, blast it, she isn’t! She’s a gentlewoman! As far as her background goes, I only know that her mother was an Italian, and her father was an English artist. Since I’ve never heard of him, and since he demonstrably left his daughter without a penny, I deduce that he was a very poor artist. But since he seems to have supported a wife and a child in moderate comfort I also deduce that he had some private means – possibly an allowance from his family, which died with him. I do know that when her mother died, Beulah went to live with an uncle and aunt, on her father’s side of the family. For some reason, undivulged, she broke with them; and has been earning her own living ever since.’
‘Hasn’t she told you why she broke with them?’
‘No.’ Timothy stirred the fire with one foot, and watched the flames leap up. He glanced down at his half-brother. ‘I’m being very frank about this, Jim.’
‘Yes, all right! Go on!’
‘I’d a lot rather not, but I’ve a pretty good idea of what Mamma probably told you, and you’d better have the true picture presented to you. At some time or other, Beulah took a knock. I don’t know what it was, but it put a crust on her. She’s scared white of something, and tries to hide it under a general air of belligerence. Seems to have taken Mamma in all right. Told you Beulah was an adventuress, didn’t she?’
‘Well, I don’t know that she actually said –’
‘Cut it out! We both know Mamma! If Beulah’s out to entrap me and my money and my prospective title, she’s going to work in a weird way to achieve her ends! She knows damned well I’d get a special licence and marry her tomorrow, if she’d consent. All she does is to try to choke me off.’
‘Any idea why?’
Timothy shrugged. ‘Oh, same line of talk you’ve been handing out! New style in adventuresses!’
‘You needn’t keep on harping on that theme: she obviously isn’t an adventuress. I never thought she was: you aren’t nearly a big enough catch for an adventuress! But what I do think, Timothy, little though you may like it, is that she doesn’t sound the girl your fond relations would wish you to marry.’
‘My fond relations –’
‘Yes, I know! We can all of us go to hell. I’ll take that as read. You’ve been perfectly frank with me, and I’ll be equally frank with you. I don’t like the sound of this carefully shrouded background. Without wanting to hand out a lot of drip about Perfect Love and Perfect Trust, I do strongly advise you not to plunge into matrimony with a girl who conceals her past and her family from you!’
Timothy was silent for a moment; then he said abruptly: ‘I’d like you to meet her. Are you going home today, or are you staying in town?’
‘I’ve got a room at the club. So likely I’d bolt for home in the middle of this imbroglio you’ve got yourself into, isn’t it?’
A smile of considerable affection was bestowed upon him. ‘You great fool, what do you think you can do?’ asked Timothy.
‘I can run down to Berkshire, and dissuade Mother from taking the first train up to town!’ said Jim grimly.
‘If ever I spoke of you in opprobrious terms, I take them all back!’ said Timothy. ‘You’re a tower of strength, Jim!’
‘Get out!’ said his ungrateful half-brother. ‘You said this Beulah of yours was implicated in the murder: were you serious?’
‘She knew Seaton-Carew, she disliked him, she had
the opportunity to murder him. She’s implicated to that extent. Like several others, including me.’
‘Could she have done it? I don’t mean, did she: I’ll accept that she didn’t: but could any woman?’
‘Easily,’ replied Timothy. ‘I know one or two neat ways of doing a man in, but I rather think this has ‘em beat. I saw the body, and I saw how the trick had been worked. No strength required. Hold your arm up! I’ll show you. All I need is a handkerchief, and – and – this ruler will do, for purposes of demonstration.’ He cast his folded handkerchief round Jim’s wrist, applied the ruler, and turned it twice.