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
for you?’
‘You can, if you will be so good, sir, tell me where I can find Lady Nest Poulton,’ replied Hemingway. ‘I understand she has gone out of town.’
‘Where you can find my wife?’ said Poulton, an inflexion of surprise in his tone. ‘May I know what your business is with her? So far as I am aware, she has no possible connection with your case.’
‘Nevertheless, I should like her address, sir.’
‘I trust you will be able to manage to get on without it.’
‘Am I to understand that you refuse to disclose it, sir, or that you don’t know what it is?’ demanded Hemingway.
‘The first,’ replied Poulton calmly. ‘You have already interrogated my wife once – with what object I am at a loss to know! – and she does not wish to be troubled any further about the affair.’
‘No doubt, sir, but –’
‘Nor do I wish it for her,’ added Poulton. ‘If it were even remotely possible that she could have had something to do with the murder, the position would, of course, be very different, and I should not for a moment withhold her address from you. As it is, I rather think I am within my rights in refusing to disclose it.’
‘No, sir. No one trying to obstruct an officer of the law in the pursuance of his duty is within his rights!’ countered Hemingway promptly.
‘Did I say that? In what way does my wife’s absence from home obstruct you, Chief Inspector?’
‘That’s for me to judge, sir. There are certain questions I wish to put to Lady Nest.’
‘That is unfortunate – but perhaps I can answer your questions?’
‘Perhaps, sir, but I prefer to put them to her ladyship.’
‘I regret, Chief Inspector, I cannot permit you to see her.
It will save time, and, I hope, argument, if I tell you that she is extremely unwell, and in no condition to receive visitors.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, sir. Very sudden, her illness, isn’t it?’
‘No,’ replied Poulton. ‘My wife has been on the verge of a nervous breakdown for weeks. The unfortunate affair in Charles Street merely precipitated a crisis. I am surprised that you should not have seen for yourself that she was far from well yesterday.’
‘I certainly got the impression that her ladyship was not herself,’ said Hemingway rather grimly.
‘I imagine you might,’ was the imperturbable answer. ‘She is a very highly-strung woman, easily upset; and she has for some time been suffering from neurasthenia.’
‘That wasn’t quite what I thought, sir.’
Poulton looked faintly amused. ‘A medical man, Chief Inspector?’
‘No, sir: merely a police-officer! There are certain symptoms we get to recognise in our job.’
‘Really? I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about: it sounds very mysterious! But there is no mystery about my wife’s illness, or about her whereabouts. I will tell you at once that she is in a Nursing Home, and that her doctor has forbidden even me to see her for the next week or so.’ He paused. ‘If you doubt that, I would suggest –’
‘I don’t doubt it, Mr Poulton. I believe Lady Nest is in a Nursing Home, and I believe she isn’t allowed to see anyone. Which forces me to speak more frankly to you than I might have liked to do if I’d been able first to see her ladyship. But what I’ve got to say I don’t think will be a surprise to you – the way things are. When I called on her ladyship yesterday morning, it was pretty plain to me, and to Inspector Grant here, who’s had a good deal of experience in that branch, that she was in the habit of taking drugs.’
‘I believe,’ said Poulton, unmoved, ‘that she takes far more phenacetin than is at all good for her. Ah, yes, and also valerian – but that, I need hardly say, was prescribed for her.’
‘No, sir, not that kind of drug. What we call the White Drugs – cocaine, heroin, morphia. In your wife’s case, cocaine.’
Poulton had been playing idly with a pencil. He laid it down, saying icily: ‘That, Chief Inspector, is an infamous suggestion!’
‘You can take it from me, sir, that it isn’t a charge I’d bring against anyone without very good reason.’
‘It is a charge you may regret having brought against her ladyship!’
‘If I were wrong I should regret it very much. I will tell you now, sir, that a considerable amount of cocaine has been discovered in Seaton-Carew’s flat.’
The impassive countenance before him betrayed nothing either of surprise or of alarm. Poulton was still frowning. ‘Indeed! I was too little acquainted with the man to know whether that was to be expected or not. I am quite sure my wife can have known nothing of it. You seem to imagine that he and she were close friends: they were not. This misapprehension, coupled with her ladyship’s neurasthenic condition, has led you to assume that Seaton-Carew had been supplying her with drugs. I perceive, of course, that if that had been true I should have had an excellent motive for strangling the fellow. I may add, in view of this disclosure, that I have every sympathy for the man who did strangle him! That, however, is beside the point. You may search my house with my goodwill; and I recommend you to call on my wife’s medical attendant. You have already met him: he is Dr Theodore Westruther. Pray ask him to explain to you the nature of my wife’s illness! Now, since I am reasonably certain that you do not, on these fantastic grounds, hold a warrant for my arrest, I am going to request you to leave. I am a very busy man, and I have neither the leisure nor the inclination to listen to police theories which are nothing short of insulting! Good-morning, gentlemen!’
When he stood upon the pavement outside the block of offices, the Inspector wiped his brow. ‘Phew!’ he breathed.
‘Good, wasn’t he?’ said Hemingway, bright-eyed and appreciative. ‘Carried on from the start as if we’d come to sell him a vacuum-cleaner he didn’t want. Playing it very boldly, and very coolly. He had one advantage: he knew we’d be coming to question him. Something tells me you wouldn’t easily catch that chap on the wrong foot.’
‘Well,’ said Grant, thinking it over. ‘He behaved as you would expect a decent man to behave if he was told his wife was a drug-addict, when she was no such thing.’
‘Lifelike!’ agreed Hemingway. ‘Even down to inviting me to search his house! Though that was overdoing it a bit, perhaps.’
‘He told you the name of her doctor. It’s queer that one should turn up again. Will you see him?’
‘I must, of course. He won’t tell me a thing, beyond a string of long words I shan’t understand, but it wouldn’t do for me not to see him.’
‘I was thinking that it is a waste of time. He will cover up for his patient.’
‘I know that. And if I didn’t go and see him, what would happen? – Did you question the doctor? – No. – Why not? – Because I knew he’d only tell me a pack of lies. You can just see me falling into that one, can’t you?’
‘There is that, of course,’ admitted the Inspector. ‘But will you tell me this? – If Mr Poulton knew that his lady was taking drugs, why is it only now that he puts her in a Home to be cured of it? You would say it was a verra bad moment to choose, for it would be bound to make us suspicious.’
‘I wouldn’t say anything of the sort. In her state, she’d be liable to give herself away, not to mention him. He knows very well she’d break up under close questioning. What’s more, her source of supply has dried up, and that’s going to send her pretty well haywire. He’s running far less risk this way than if he let her traipse around on the loose. I daresay it was Seaton-Carew’s death that persuaded her to consent to go and be cured, too. You can’t go shoving people into hospital to be cured of the drug habit without they do consent, you know.’
‘I do, of course.’
‘And furthermore,’ Hemingway continued, ‘he may well have hoped we shouldn’t search Seaton-Carew’s flat, or, if we did search it, that we shouldn’t find any of the stuff. I wonder if the fellow had any on him, the night he was done in? Lady Nest wasn’t under the influence w
hen we saw her: she was hungry for it. Quite possible that he was to have slipped over a little packet to her during the evening. Whoever murdered him would have had plenty of time to have slid his fingers into his breast-pocket, and taken out any little parcel he found there.’
‘It is a theory,’ said Grant. ‘You would never prove it.’
‘There’s quite a few things that go to build up a case that never get proved,’ replied Hemingway. ‘We’d better bite off a bit of lunch now; and after that you can go and see whether you can prove Beulah Birtley was telling the truth when she said Mrs Haddington had been in that cloakroom after she left the wire there. I don’t suppose Mrs H. encourages her servants to stop in bed a minute longer than they need, and if that housemaid’s been having this forty-eight hour ‘flu, she’ll very likely be on view again by now. I don’t need you in Harley Street, and I’ll go back to the Yard when I’m through there. I want to have a careful look at one or two of the exhibits. Come on!’