Duplicate Death (30 page)

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.

" Oh 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 dowers 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 Spennymoor, 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?"

"Easily!" responded Hemingway, in his friendliest tone. "And what was it you were telling Mrs. Haddington about Lord Guisborough?"

"Nothing against him!" Miss Spennymoor assured him. "Only knowing Maisie like I did - that was his mother, you know, and if ever there was a Lad - ! I couldn't hardly fail to know the ins and outs of it all. Because I was dresser to all the girls when she first took up with Hilary Guisborough, and I don't know how it was, but I always had a fancy for Maisie, and she for me, and I often used to visit her."

"After he married her?" suggested Hemingway.

"Oh, and before he did! They used to live in a little flat, Pimlico way, because at that time he'd got some kind of a job. He lost it later, of course, but that was Hilary all over! Well, as the girls used to say, what could you expect of a man with a soppy name like that? Still, I never heard Maisie complain, never once, and, give him his due, he married her within a month of her twins being born, which made it all right, only naturally it isn't a thing anyone would want talked about. Well, is it? Maisie used to feel it a lot, because, say what you like, legitimated isn't the same as being born in wedlock, not however you look at it! Maisie used to say to me that if there was one thing she couldn't bear it was having Hilary's grand relations look down on her twins, which is why I'm sorry I ever mentioned the matter, because they none of them knew anything about Maisie, not till Hilary wrote and told his people he'd been married for years, -and got a couple of kids. They behaved very properly, by all accounts, having Maisie and the twins down to stay, and all, but it was a great strain, and she told me wild horses wouldn't drag her there again, and nor they ever did, because she died before they invited her again. Well, they always say there's a silver lining to every cloud, don't they? But I never ought to have mentioned it to anyone, and I hope you won't repeat it, because it wouldn't be a very nice thing for Lance, and him a lord, to have people saying he'd had to be legitimated!"

This anecdote, though of human interest, was not felt to have contributed anything of marked value to the problem confronting the Chief Inspector. "Though, mind you, Sandy," he said, as, having parted from Miss Spennymoor, he entered the boudoir, "I've always thought it was a bit unfair, the way they just stamp Legitimated on birth certificates. Doing a thing by halves, is what I call it. I daresay Lord Guisborough doesn't like it much, but try as I will I can't fancy that as a motive for murdering Mrs. Haddington. What's more, from what I saw of that sister of his, she'd fair revel in having been born on the wrong side of the blanket, and she seemed to me to be the master-mind of that little party." He glanced round the walls of the boudoir, which were hung with a few dubious water-colours, mounted and framed in gilt. None of them was of sufficient size or weight to have made it necessary to hang them on hooks from the picture-rail. Hemingway pulled on a pair of wash-leather gloves, and began to make a systematic tour, lifting each picture away from, the wall, and peering to see how it was hung. At the third masterpiece - The Isles of the West, from which Inspector Grant had averted his revolted gaze - he paused. He cast one triumphant glance at his assistant, and lifted the picture down, and held it with its back to the assembled company. A piece of string had been knotted to the rings screwed into it: virgin string, as everyone saw at a glance, with not a speck of dust upon it.

"A Chruitheir" uttered Grant, under his breath.

"Very likely!" said Hemingway. "You can get busy on this one, Tom!" He bent to examine the string, and suddenly raised his head. "String!" He turned, and jabbed a finger at the desk. "Top right-hand drawer, Sandy! Also a pair of large scissors in a leather holder!"

"I remember." The Inspector pulled open the drawer, handed the ball of string to his superior, and, more circumspectly, using his handkerchief, picked up the scissors, in their case, and stood waiting for Sergeant Bromley to take them from him.

"Same string - and that means nothing!" said Hemingway, comparing the ball with the string attached to the picture. "Ordinary string, used for tying up parcels." He drew forth a length of tarnished picture-wire from his pocket, uncoiled it, slid the ends through the rings on the back of the frame, lightly twisted them where the strands were already a little unravelled, and observed the result with a critical eye. "As near the same length as the string as makes no odds!" he remarked. "That seems to settle that! Got anything, Tom?"

"Yes, but I can't tell you yet if the prints are the same as any we took on Tuesday, sir. I'll have to take 'em back to the Department."

Hemingway nodded. "Do that now. Rush it!" He rehung the picture on the wall, and turned, holding out a gloved hand for the scissors. Inspector Grant gave them to him, and he drew them gently out of their coloured leather sheath. "Of course, you can't say with any certainty how a pair of large scissors comes by its scratches," he remarked. He handed the scissors to Bromley. "Go over them carefully, Tom!"

"I will, of course, sir," said the Sergeant, receiving them tenderly. "But if you can see your way through this case - well!"

The Chief Inspector, his gaze travelling slowly round the room, vouchsafed no response to this. His mind was plainly elsewhere; and it was not until a few moments after the Finger-print unit had departed that Grant ventured to address him.

"If the murder was committed with the wire from that picture, it was not Poulton that did it!" he said.

Hemingway's eyes came to rest on his face. "Oh, wasn't it?" he said. "Why not?"

"Och, would he take down the picture and remove the wire from it under the poor lady's very eyes?" demanded the Inspector.

"Certainly not. What makes you so sure she was in this room with him the whole time he was here?"

The Inspector stared at him. "But - !" He was silent, suddenly, frowning over it.

"Going a bit too fast, Sandy. All we know is what Thrimby and Poulton himself told us. According to Thrimby, he arrived here at about 6.25; according to both of them, he left at a quarter-to-seven. That gave him twenty minutes, during which time only he and Mrs. Haddington knew what happened. We have only his word for it they were together in the boudoir throughout. I admit, it doesn't seem likely she'd have left the room, but she might have: we don't know."

"Well," said the Inspector slowly, "supposing she left him to fetch something - it would not have given him much time, would it?"

"No, it wouldn't, and one would say he'd have wanted a bit of time to find that string - if it was that string and those scissors which were used! I don't say I think it was Poulton, but I do say it's still a possibility, and one we won't lose sight of. Setting him aside for the moment, who are we left with? I don't think it was Miss Birtley: I've considered her case carefully, and I don't see how she could have got to Earl's Court and back in the time. There's young Butterwick, who dashed out of the house leaving his stick behind him; and there's Lord Guisborough, who also went off in a rage, slamming the door behind him. Neither was actually seen to leave the premises; either, I suppose, could have concealed himself somewhere - in the cloakroom, say - until the coast was clear, and then slipped up to this room, and waited for Mrs. Haddington to come in. Look at those windows! They're both in slight embrasures, and you see how the thick curtains would shut off the whole embrasure. Plenty of room for a man to stand behind them, and I'll bet they were drawn by tea-time. Now tell me what possible reason either of those two can have for murdering Mrs. Haddington, and we shall both be happy! And don't say Guisborough did it because she flung his birth in his teeth, and he was touchy, because I don't like tall stories, and never did!"

"It could not have been the doctor?" Inspector Grant said doubtfully.

"You've got him on the brain!"

"It's the way he keeps on turning up!" apologised Grant.

"If you mean he was here in the middle of the day, there's no dispute about that: he admitted he was. Are you asking me to believe he lurked in the house till nearly seven o'clock at night? Talk sense! I saw him myself this afternoon!"

"Ach, I did not think it was he! I have wondered if Butterwick too was in this drug-racket, and yet I do not think it. That he is an addict himself is possible, but I saw none of the signs. Moreover, he was wearing his evening dress when I found him, and he would not have had time to have gone home, let alone have changed his clothes if he was in the Opera House for the first ballet."

"Well, unless he's a better actor than what I take him for, I should say he was there in time for the first ballet. I know that type! So that leaves us with Lord Guisborough, who either murdered Mrs. Haddington because she didn't want her daughter to marry him - funny thing, that! I should have thought a chap with a handle to his name was just what she was after! - or because Miss What's-her-name had told her his parents' wedding was just a trifle late."