‘Damn your eyes, how dare you speak to me like that?’ demanded Miss Guisborough furiously.
‘Yes, I thought it wouldn’t be long before we stopped being comrades,’ said Hemingway. ‘When I was a lot younger than what I am now, it was one of my jobs to move your sort along, and try to stop you spoiling everyone’s fun by chucking yourselves in front of leading horses, and a lot of other silly tricks of the same nature. Now, I’ve had a long day, and I’m not in the mood to listen to what they call stump-oratory. You go and fetch that brother of yours, and while I’m talking to him you can tell that crowd in there how to suck eggs! My old grandmother showed me the proper way before you were born!’
Fortunately for the peace of the evening’s enter tainment one of Miss Guisborough’s guests came out of the studio at that moment. He had a pleasant face, but was otherwise distinguished only by his evident predilec tion for good tailors and barbers. He slid an arm round Miss Guisborough’s waist, and demanded to be told what was eating her.
The Chief Inspector answered him. ‘It’s just this, sir! I want a word with Lord Guisborough! I’m Chief Inspector Hemingway, of the Criminal Investigation Department, and I shan’t, I hope, keep his lordship many minutes from his party!’
The newcomer regarded him curiously, but said: ‘Fair enough! I’ll get him for you. Come on, Trixie! you walked off with the beer, you mindless wench!’
He then swept his hostess back into the studio; and in a few moments Lord Guisborough came into the lobby, rocking a little on his heels, but with his eyes bright and intelligent still. ‘Hallo!’ he said. ‘Want me, Ch-chief Inspector?’
‘If you please, my lord!’
Guisborough flung open the door into a small parlour. ‘All right, come in here! M’sister doesn’t like people to call me my lord. I don’t mind it m’self. Funny! Wouldn’t mind living at Guisborough, really. Can’t, of course. Let it to old Letty Guisborough. Cousin, or something. Stinks of money! Kenelm’s one of her pets. That shows you! Daresay she makes him an allowance, but she can’t give him the title! Dam’ funny, that!’ He stopped, seemed to make an effort to collect his slightly scattered wits, and said: ‘What do you want with me?’
‘I think you called on Mrs Haddington this afternoon, didn’t you, my lord?’
‘That’s right. What of it?’ said his lordship, rather belligerently.
‘I should like to know, my lord, what was the purpose of your visit.’ Hemingway saw Guisborough’s eyes fixed on his face, at once wary and suspicious, and added: ‘And what passed between you.’
‘What the hell’s it got to do with you?’
‘Your lordship may take it that it has a lot to do with me.’
‘Bloody cheek! Mrs Haddington didn’t like me taking her daughter out to dance last night, that’s all. Silly old trout!’
‘Was there any sort of a quarrel between you, my lord?’
‘Like hell there was! If you want to know, did I slam out of the house? Yes, I did! And if that’s a crime, it’s the first I’ve heard of it!’
‘At what time would that have been, my lord?’
The wary look was deepening. ‘No idea! Why?’
‘Perhaps you can tell me, my lord, when it was that you entered the house?’
A frown of intense concentration descended on Guisborough’s brow. After a moment for consideration, he replied: ‘About a quarter-to-six, I think.’
‘Was anyone else present when you arrived?’
‘Butterwick. Passed me on the stairs.’
‘Thank you, my lord. And how long do you think you may have been with Mrs Haddington?’
‘You don’t think I kept my eye on the clock, do you? I don’t know.’
‘Where did you go when you left Charles Street, my lord?’ said Hemingway.
‘Came home.’
‘And when did you reach this house?’
‘Look here!’ demanded Guisborough. ‘What’s all this leading up to?’
‘If you’ll answer my question, my lord, perhaps I’ll answer yours.’
‘Damned if I will! I know you policemen! You’re trying to catch me out or something! Minions of aristocratic power, that’s what you are, the whole bloody lot of you! Upholding one law for the rich, and another –’
‘You’ve got that wrong, my lord,’ interrupted Hemingway tartly. ‘It was a Turncock, not the police, and not aristocratic power either!’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ said Guisborough, staring at him.
‘Dickens. He happens to be my favourite writer, that’s all!’
‘Dickens!’ exclaimed Guisborough, in accents of repulsion. ‘What do you suppose I care for him?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know, my lord, but that’s no reason to go about misquoting him!’ retorted Hemingway. ‘What’s more, there’s a time and a place for everything, and this isn’t either the one or the other for Dickens! What I asked you was, when did you get back to this house after you left Charles Street today?’
Guisborough glared at him, but after a few moments he said sullenly: ‘God knows!’
‘I don’t doubt that, my lord. If you can’t remember perhaps Miss Guisborough can help me.’
‘Well, I shouldn’t think I was much more than half an hour with Mrs Haddington.’
‘Thank you. And when you left the house?’
Guisborough passed a hand across his brow, sweeping back the loose lock of black hair that drooped over one eye. ‘What a moment to choose to come and ask me conundrums!’ he said fretfully. ‘Do you want me to remember the names of all the streets between here and Charles Street? Because I don’t!’
‘No, my lord, I don’t want that at all. Did you take a taxi, or had you your own car, perhaps?’
‘I suppose you think that just because I’ve got a title I’m one of the idle rich?’ said Guisborough jeeringly. ‘Well, you’re wrong! I walked!’
‘All the way?’
‘Yes, all the way! And if I didn’t happen to like walking I should have taken a ‘bus! If my – if anyone’s been telling you that the title makes any difference to me, it’s a damned lie!’
At this moment the door opened to admit Trix Guisborough, who stood leaning against it, and demanded how much longer the Chief Inspector meant to keep her brother away from the party.
‘Just as little time as I need, miss – Comrade, I should say!’
Guisborough jumped up from his chair. ‘Oh, do, for God’s sake drop that!’ he shouted. ‘You only do it to annoy me!’
Correctly divining that this remark was addressed not to him, but to Miss Guisborough, Hemingway preserved a discreet silence.
‘Before you allowed yourself to be seduced by visions of power, and rank, it didn’t annoy you!’ Miss Guisborough retorted. ‘You’re a rotten renegade, Lance!’
‘Begging your pardon,’ intervened Hemingway, ‘can you help us, Miss Guisborough, to fix the time when your brother got back to this house this evening?’
‘This evening?’ She stared at him. ‘About half-past seven, more or less. Why?’
Hemingway raised his brows at Guisborough. ‘Well, my lord?’
‘I daresay. I don’t know. I stopped to have one at a pub on the way.’
‘Which pub would that be, my lord?’
‘Hell, how should I know? Some place in the King’s Road!’
‘Fancy! What had the Ritz done to offend you?’ mocked his sister.
‘Oh, shut up!’
Feeling that there was little to be gained by prolonging the interview, Hemingway closed his notebook, and picked up his hat. Guisborough’s fiery, dark eyes searched his face. ‘Why did you want to know? What’s happened?’ He paused. ‘Or is it a police mystery?’
‘Oh, no, my lord, there’s no mystery! You’ll very likely read all about it in tomorrow’s papers, so I’ve no objection to telling you that Mrs Haddington has been murdered.’
Whatever Lord Guisborough’s reply to this may have been it was lost in the sudden crack
of laughter that burst from his sister. She gasped: ‘Oh, go on! That’s too ripe! And who had the nerve to do in that old battle-axe? He has my vote!’
Lord Guisborough grasped her by the shoulders, and gave her a vicious shake. ‘Stop it!’ he commanded. ‘Stop it, I say! It’s not funny! You’re tight, Trix!’
She choked, but her laughter ceased. ‘Well, you needn’t look so utter about it! You didn’t do it, did you?’
‘Of course I didn’t do it! Why the hell should I? Pull yourself together, for God’s sake!’
She looked at Hemingway. ‘Is that why you came here? Because Lance – oh, it’s too fat-headed! You might as well suspect me! Who really did it?’
‘Can’t you see he doesn’t know?’ said Guisborough savagely. ‘Probably the same man who killed Seaton-Carew!’
‘What makes you say that, my lord?’ asked Hemingway.
‘I don’t know. Association of ideas, I suppose. Two murders in the same house.’
‘I didn’t say Mrs Haddington was murdered in the house,’ said Hemingway mildly.
Guisborough scowled at him. ‘You may not have said it, but you asked me when I left the house, so the inference is fairly obvious! I’m not half-witted!’
‘True enough,’ Hemingway agreed. ‘She was murdered in the house. In her boudoir, just like Mr Seaton-Carew.’
‘Ugh!’ exclaimed Miss Guisborough, shuddering. ‘What a cold-blooded beast! Damn it, I loathed the woman, and everything she stood for, but I didn’t wish her as much harm as that! I’m sorry I laughed. What about that kid? Is she all alone there, except for those up-stage servants? Look here, Lance, ought we to do something? I mean, I don’t mind, if you’d like me to bring her back here, or stay there with her.’
Lord Guisborough had apparently no faith in his sister’s ability to comfort and support the stricken, for he replied: ‘Very decent of you, but I don’t think I should. There’s the secretary, you know – and Cynthia hardly knows you! Besides, she – Well, I don’t think it would work!’
‘You mean she doesn’t like me. Oh, all right! But if you want to go and hold her hand, you go! I can look after this mob.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I’m not going. Not this evening, anyway. She probably knows I lost my temper with her mother, and she might not want to see me, as things are.’
‘That’s all right, my lord,’ Hemingway said. ‘Miss Haddington had gone to bed before I left, and she has her aunt with her in any case.’
Guisborough looked relieved. ‘Oh, I’m glad of that! She’ll look after her. Much better if I call on her tomorrow. Leave a message of sympathy, even if she doesn’t feel up to seeing me.’
‘Much better,’ agreed Hemingway, and took his leave of them both.
When he reached Scotland Yard, he found that Inspector Grant had not yet arrived there. He went up to his room and sent down a message to have certain exhibits brought to him. While he was waiting for them, the buzzer sounded on his desk, and he lifted one of his telephones. The voice of his friend and superior officer, Superintendent Hinckley, assailed his ears.
‘Chief Inspector Hemingway?’
‘Sir?’ said Hemingway.
The voice altered. ‘Stanley? How’s it going?’
‘Fine!’ said Hemingway. ‘I’ve only got two murders on my hands so far. Of course, it’s early days yet. I daresay there’ll be some more by tomorrow. Who’s my successor?’
‘Not named. Keep at it! Between you and me and the gatepost, a Certain Person is still backing you. Thought you might like to know. Said he’d bank on you bringing home the bacon, and the worse the mess got the less he wanted to give it to anyone else. That’s all!’
‘Thanks, Bob! You’re a trump!’ said Hemingway flushing slightly.
A decisive click informed him that Superintendent Hinckley had cut short his gratitude. He grinned, and hung up the receiver. When Inspector Grant entered the room some twenty minutes later, he found him frowning at two looped lengths of picture-wire, lying side by side on his desk. He glanced up as the Inspector came in, and a certain intent look in his eyes caused that officer to exclaim: ‘Och, you have discovered something! Ciod e?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Hemingway said slowly. ‘What about you? Have you seen young Butterwick?’
‘I have, then, and I questioned him, though it is my belief I had no need to, for it was at the Opera House I found him, and him in his evening clothes. But it is not opera, but ballet they are having there, and for all he swore he was there at the start, he may have been telling me a lie. He was alone.’
‘The people sitting on either side of him ought to be able to tell you!’ Hemingway said.
‘Ma seadh! But there were no people sitting beside him, sir. Mrs Butterwick has a box for the whole season, and there is not one of the attendants can say for sure when he arrived this evening. Whether it was before –’ He produced his notebook, and painstakingly read from it – ‘Les Présages, or Petrouchka. It was while Petrouchka was on that I reached Covent Garden, sir, and it seemed as though these ballet folk think a great deal of that, for when I asked to have Mr Butterwick brought out to me, they kept saying, In the middle of Petrouchka? as though I had asked to have him fetched out of Kirk. Which,’ added the Inspector, ‘I would not do! Indeed, such a stramash was there, with them telling me this Petrouchka would not last above a quarter of an hour more, and would I not wait for the interval, that I said, Gle mhath! and I waited.’
‘Well, if that’s what you said, it’s a wonder to me they didn’t call in the chap on point-duty!’ said Hemingway. ‘They probably thought you were an Undesirable Alien, and I don’t blame them. How did you know Butterwick was at the ballet?’
‘Och, that was the worst part of the whole business!’ replied the Inspector. ‘I went to that address in Park Lane when I left you, and at first I could discover nothing, because I found only the servants – just a man and wife, for the housemaid is a daily girl, and had gone home – and neither of them knew where the young man might be, or whether he had been in the flat since he took his tea there, with his mother. And that, I think, was true, for they have the kitchen and the servants’ quarters a wee bit apart from the living-rooms of the family, and you get to them through a door, and along a bit passage. Young Mr Butterwick has his latch-key, I need not tell you, and there is no valet. However, while I was talking with the manservant, Mrs Butterwick came in.’ He smiled. ‘I can tell you, it was not long before I was thinking I would give you moran taing for that assignment, sir!’
Hemingway sat up with a jerk. ‘Oh, it wasn’t? Now, you just tell me what that means, my lad, because, it isn’t the first time you’ve said it to me tonight, and it’s my belief that –’
‘Och, it means only Many thanks!’ said the Inspector meekly.
His superior regarded him with blatant suspicion. ‘I’ll have to take your word for it at the moment, but the first chance I get I’ll ask young Fraser! Well, what next?’
‘Whisht, would I lie to you? I am telling you, Chief Inspector, I would sooner face a tigress than that woman! From the moment she knew I was a police-officer, I was in terror of having the eyes torn from my head! Och, it is a baby she had made of that truaghan! But she is afraid for him – verra much she is afraid for him!’
Hemingway grinned. ‘Came up against mother-love, did you? Poor old Sandy! I’ve had some! What’s she afraid of ?’
‘The first murder,’ Grant replied instantly. ‘She thought I had come to question her son about that, and such a sgeul as she told me about that is no matter at all, for she was not present, and she knows nothing. Coming to it verra doucely, I asked her where Mr Sydney Butterwick would be just then, and she told me there was some man with a name I don’t call to mind dancing Petrouchka for the first time, and her son would never miss such a sight. So I got from her the number of her box, and away I went.’ He paused. ‘Well, they brought young Butterwick to me in a wee office, when this Petrouchka was finished, and in he came, with his shirt n
o whiter than his face. You’ll remember, sir, the way he carried on when you interrogated him: then it was a great deal of nonsense he talked about psychology, to make you think he was quite at his ease. Tonight it was Dalcroze Eurhythmics, and – now, wait while I get this right! – Cecchetti’s Method, and Choreography, till I begged the silly gille to whisht!’