‘It is possible,’ Grant said. ‘But if it was she who killed Seaton-Carew, who was it who killed her? And why?’
Nineteen
There,’ said the Chief Inspector frankly, ‘you have me, Sandy! Nice set-out, isn’t it? First we get Mrs Haddington planning as neat a murder as you could wish for; and then we have someone unknown taking careful note of her methods, and coolly copying them to do her in! Banking on us thinking the same person was responsible for both deaths, which we might have if I hadn’t found that fan, and you hadn’t known the trick of that compact. We got motive and means in one fell swoop, as you might say, which is a piece of bad luck for Murderer No. 2. On the face of it, it looks a bit as if this bird was fitted out with a water-tight alibi for the first murder.’
‘That would rule out Poulton,’ said Grant.
‘It would, of course, and we haven’t reached the stage of ruling him out, not by a long chalk. What we’ve got to discover was what possible motive he can have had for wanting to dispose of Mrs Haddington good and quick. If he thought it was she who was giving his wife cocaine, I suppose he might have done it. You’d think, though, that a level-headed chap like him would have wanted some solid proof before committing a pretty nasty murder, let alone the foolhardiness of it!’
‘They say in the City that he is verra canny. It might be that he would bank on us believing he would not be so silly as to have done it.’
‘Yes, I always heard you Highlanders were an imaginative lot,’ commented Hemingway. ‘I’m bound to say I’ve never seen any signs of it in you before, and, if that’s a sample, I hope I never will again! If Poulton committed the second murder, he wasn’t banking on me getting any cockeyed ideas into my head, you can bet your life on that! What’s more, he must have had a damned good reason for doing it. It might be the one I’ve already suggested, and the more I think about that the less it appeals to me; it might be that Mrs Haddington knew of Lady Nest’s habits – which I don’t doubt – and was threatening exposure. If so, why?’
‘Not exposure: blackmail!’
‘Yes, that’s a possibility. He’s a very wealthy man: she may have over-reached herself. I shouldn’t think he’d part readily with any substantial sum. On the other hand, supposing she did demand a young fortune from him, and he’d come to us? What would we have done?’
‘We would have kept his name out, as far as was possible, but these things sometimes leak out, sir, and well you know it!’
Hemingway nodded, but pursed his lips rather dubiously. ‘You may be right. All the same – Well, we’ll see! Meanwhile, as soon as we’ve had a bit of lunch, we’ll pay Dr Westruther another call. He’s got some explaining to do. He wasn’t looking altogether happy at the Inquest this morning, and I’m sure I don’t blame him. Sailing very near the wind, is Dr Westruther.’
When they met again, it was nearly three o’clock, and the Inspector was able to report that his enquiries had elicited the fact that Mr Godfrey Poulton was a passenger on the aeroplane due at Northolt at about four o’clock.
‘Good!’ said Hemingway. ‘This time, perhaps I can get him to be a little more open with me than he was before.’
‘You saw the doctor, sir?’
‘I did. From his face, I should say he’d just as soon a polecat had walked in as me. Luckily I’ve never been one to set much store by popularity, otherwise my feelings might have been hurt. As it was, I was rather glad to see I wasn’t a welcome guest. It encouraged me to be a bit unconventional with him. He’s a slippery customer, but he doesn’t like this case. Talked the usual stuff about his duty to his patients, but when I pointed out to him that when we’d had two murders he was carrying that a bit far, he turned a very nasty colour. What he says, and, I don’t doubt, would swear to, is that he never connected Seaton-Carew’s death with the drug-traffic. Says he wasn’t told who’d given snow to the Haddington girl. Well, that’s quite likely, but I think he put two and two together. What’s shaken him is Mrs Haddington’s death. It’s in the cheaper papers, but he says he only sees The Times. Came as a shock to him. Sat there goggling at me like a hake. He hadn’t a clue, that I’m sure of. She did call him in to prescribe for the girl, and she told him the plain truth. You’ll probably like to know that he doesn’t think there’s been any irremediable harm done. As regards Lady Nest, he was a good deal less forthcoming, but I didn’t press him too hard on that. If Poulton goes on stone-walling, I’ve got enough evidence now to force him to disclose the address of the Home he’s put his wife in. Did I tell you I’d had a crack with Heathcote? He and Cathercott are hot on their trail, and just about as pleased as punch with themselves. Heathcote even spared me a pat on the back, but two chaps less interested in a brace of murders you’d never find! I’m going to have a talk with the AC now. You nip down to Northolt, and catch Poulton as he steps out of the ‘plane! Bring him here – all nice, and civil: wanted for further enquiries. Tell him there have been developments which make it necessary for me to ask him a few more questions, and watch his reactions. There won’t be any, so that won’t take you long!’
It was nearly five o’clock when Inspector Grant ushered Godfrey Poulton into the Chief Inspector’s room. Mr Poulton appeared to be quite unperturbed, merely saying: ‘Good afternoon! I understand you want to ask me some more questions, Chief Inspector? I have no wish, of course, to impede the course of justice, but I should be glad if you would come to the point as quickly as possible! I’m expected at my office.’
‘Good afternoon, sir. I shan’t keep you longer than I need. It really depends on you,’ said Hemingway. ‘Will you sit down?’
Mr Poulton seated himself without hesitation in a deep, leather-covered armchair. He did not seem to be in any way embarrassed by the necessity, thus imposed on him, of being obliged to look up to meet the Chief Inspector’s eyes. He merely glanced at his wrist-watch, and said: ‘Well, what is it?’
‘I think, sir, that you visited Mrs Haddington yesterday afternoon?’
‘I did, yes.’
‘Rather less than half an hour after your departure, sir,’ said Hemingway unemotionally, ‘Mrs Haddington was discovered dead in her boudoir. Strangled with a piece of wire,’ he added.
‘What? ‘ ejaculated Poulton, stiffening suddenly, in a way which made Inspector Grant think that the news came as a shock to him, but which only caused his superior, one of the pillars of an Amateur Dramatic Society, to consider that the exclamation had been well-rehearsed.
‘Yes, sir,’ he said phlegmatically.
‘Good God!’ Poulton paused. His eyes, under their level brows, lifted to the Chief Inspector’s face. ‘I see. I can only tell you that when I left Mrs Haddington she was alive, standing before the electric fire in her boudoir. She had just rung the bell, to summon her butler to show me out.’
‘Did you wait for the butler to appear, sir?’
‘No. I took my leave of Mrs Haddington, and left the room. The butler reached the hall as I was coming down the half-flight of stairs from Mrs Haddington’s sitting-room.’
‘And what, sir, was your reason for paying this call?’
Silence followed this question. Poulton was frowningly studying his finger-tips. After a moment he again looked up. ‘Yes, I see. You are bound to ask me that. I shall make no secret of the fact that my call was not of a friendly nature. Mrs Haddington had been ringing up my house to ask for news of my wife: I went to Charles Street to inform her that my wife was unwell, and that it was my fixed intention to put an end to the intimacy that had hitherto flourished between them.’
‘Yes, sir? And why was that your fixed intention?’
‘I did not care for the connaissance.’
‘That, sir, is not quite a good enough answer.’
Poulton smiled faintly. ‘I suppose not. Very well, Chief Inspector! I see that I must rely upon your discretion. Before she married me, my wife was one of the more prominent members of a set which prided itself on its total disregard for accepted conventions. I do not
propose to divulge any of her indiscretions to you, but I will say, between these walls, that there had been indiscretions. By some means, unknown to me, Mrs Haddington had been put in possession of the details of perhaps the most serious of these. The price of her silence was not money, but sponsorship into the class of Society to which my wife holds the key.’
‘And when, sir, did you discover this?’
‘Not, unfortunately, at the time.’
‘No, sir. Only after Seaton-Carew’s murder, in fact?’
‘Recently,’ amended Poulton.
‘Mr Poulton, I hope you mean to stop fencing with me. I know a lot more than I did two days ago, and you may believe me when I say that I know beyond doubt that Lady Nest is now in a Home, being cured of the drughabit. I also know that it was Seaton-Carew who supplied her with cocaine.’
He encountered a glance as keen and as searching as a surgeon’s scalpel. ‘Have you proof of that?’
‘I have proof that cocaine was found in Seaton-Carew’s flat; I have proof that Lady Nest was not his only victim.’
‘I see.’ Poulton was silent for a moment. ‘I was never sure, myself. I suspected him, but no more.’
Hemingway waited. After a pause, he said: ‘Was this the hold Mrs Haddington had over your wife, sir?’
‘No.’
‘When did you discover that Lady Nest was an – was taking the stuff, sir?’
‘After Seaton-Carew’s murder, and your visit to my house. How much of what I say to you do you propose to make public property?’
‘That will depend on circumstances, sir.’
Poulton smiled faintly. ‘I understand you. I did not murder Mrs Haddington, so I must hope that “circumstance” will not arise. Seaton-Carew’s death came as an appalling shock to my wife. Under the stress of – considerable emotion – she was induced to confide in me. I should add that her nerves have never been robust, and that I did not suspect what you have discovered until an old friend of mine, who is an eminent physician, met her in my house, and – confided to me his suspicion. When the source of her supply was murdered and it seemed probable that you would discover what that source was, I was able to persuade her to go into a Home.’
‘You knew it was Seaton-Carew?’
‘Only on Tuesday night, after his death.’
‘Did Lady Nest also divulge to you that she had been blackmailed by Mrs Haddington?’
‘She did.’ Poulton looked steadily at Hemingway. ‘I visited Mrs Haddington yesterday to inform her that I was in full possession of all the facts of that old scandal, and that I should have no hesitation, in certain eventualities, in placing the matter in the hands of the police. There was no conceivable reason why I should have murdered her, nor did I do so. I have no more to say than that.’
‘At what hour did you leave Charles Street, sir?’
‘At a quarter-to-seven. I was keeping my eye on the time, for I had a ‘plane to catch.’
‘So far as you know, there was no other visitor on the premises?’
‘I saw no one. Mrs Haddington led me into the room she calls her boudoir. No one was present but ourselves.’
‘Thank you, sir. I won’t keep you any longer now,’ said Hemingway.
The Inspector, having shown Poulton out, said: ‘Och, you have let him go, but he is a canny one!’
‘I can pick him up any time I want to,’ Hemingway replied shortly. ‘I want those two lengths of wire, Sandy! Send down for them!’
But the gleaming brass wire which had been twisted round Seaton-Carew’s neck occupied him for only a minute. Over the other, older, length, he pored for an appreciable space of time, his magnifying-glass steadily focused on its ends. He said suddenly: ‘Come here, Sandy, and take a look! Would you say this wire has been used to hang a picture with?’
The Inspector studied it intently. ‘You are right!’ he said. ‘The ends have been straightened, but you can see where the kink was, for the strands are untwisted just there. What might that mean?’
Hemingway leaned back in his chair, his eyes narrowed. ‘That’s what I’m wondering. That it was taken off a picture seems certain. Where was the picture?’
‘Mo chreach! It might be anywhere!’
‘Yes, it might be anywhere, if the second murder was premeditated. If it wasn’t, then I say that picture was in all probability hanging in Mrs Haddington’s house.’ He paused. ‘And, putting two and two together, most likely in that sitting-room of hers! We can but try! Get me through to Bromley, Sandy! I shall want him.’
When the two police-cars drew up in Charles Street, their drivers were unable to park them in front of Mrs Haddington’s house, since a raking sports-model was already occupying most of the available space there. ‘Terrible Timothy!’ surmised Hemingway.
They were admitted, not by Thrimby, but by the parlourmaid, who showed no disposition to linger in their vicinity. Informed by Hemingway that he wished merely to go up to the boudoir, she shuddered in a marked way, and said that anyone could say what they liked, but go into the boudoir she would not. She added that she had always been sensitive, right from a child, producing in corroboration of this statement Mother’s apparently oft-repeated remark that she was too sensitive to live. She then withdrew to the nether regions, there to regale her companions with a graphic description of her symptoms on opening the door to the police.
The Chief Inspector, followed by his various assistants, proceeded up the stairs. He had been aware of a shadowy figure hovering on the half-landing, and when he reached the head of the flight he found Miss Spennymoor, shrinking nervously back against the wall, a black garment over one arm, and in her other hand an incongruous bouquet of Parma violets. He paused, recalling that he had seen her earlier in the day. Miss Spennymoor, prefixing her words with a gasp, hurried into speech.
‘I hope you’ll pardon me! Reely, I didn’t hardly know what to do, for I was just coming downstairs, only, of course, when I saw you in the hall I stepped back, for one doesn’t like to intrude at such a time, does one? But I should be very upset if you was to think I was hanging about for no reason! No, I was coming downstairs to ask Miss Birtley what I could be getting on with, because Miss Pickhill asked me if I would run her up something to wear at once, and got the material and all, so naturally I said I should be pleased to, but it ought to be fitted on her, and reely I don’t like to set another stitch till I’m sure! Such a kind lady – well, reely, no one could be more considerate, and I should like to have her mourning-dress made nice. Quite overcome I was, when she said I might work in the dining-room, with a nice fire, and one of the maids to bring me a cup of tea. Well, anyone appreciates things like that, don’t they? So I just popped up to fit the dress, and I said to the maid, I’ll carry the flowers up to Miss Cynthia, I said, not knowing that Miss Pickhill had taken her off to the dentist not twenty minutes ago. They say it never rains but it pours, don’t they? It came on after lunch, and oil of cloves didn’t do a bit of good, nor anything else, poor young lady! Not that it’s anything to wonder at, for with all the upset, and getting the police in on top of it – not that I mean anything personal, but there it is! Well, it’s bound to create a lot of talk, isn’t it? And then the butler going off duty, like he has, without so much as a by your leave – ! Enough to give anyone the toothache, as I said to Mrs Foston, for reely one hardly knows what the world is coming to, what with the maids creating, and that Frenchman walking out of the house with not so much as a moment’s warning!’
Hemingway managed to stem the tide of this eloquence by saying: ‘Chronic, isn’t it! I think I saw you here this morning, didn’t I, Miss…?’
‘Spennymoor is the name,’ disclosed Miss Spenny moor, blushing faintly. She added: ‘Court Dressmaker! You are looking at this lovely bunch of violets. They’re not mine, of course. Oh dear me, no! They’re for poor Miss Cynthia. Lord Guisborough left them with his own hands, just after Miss Cynthia had gone off to the dentist, it must have been, though I never heard her go, the door being
shut. I was just about to go upstairs to find Miss Pickhill when he called, and as soon as I heard his voice, of course I slipped back into the dining-room at once, for although I don’t suppose for a moment he’d recognise me, not after all these years, you can’t be too careful, can you? And, though I’m sure I never meant to say anything, perhaps I was the wee-est bit indiscreet, talking to Mrs Haddington the other day. Well, I knew his poor mother. Oh, ever so well I knew her! And when I got to remembering old times – well, anyone’s tongue will run away with them, won’t it?’