"You still think it was she?" the Inspector said curiously.
"I won't go as far as to say that: I don't know, but I think everything points to her."
"Seall, Chief, with what we have learnt this day, is it still Mrs. Haddington with you?" protested the Inspector. "It was motive you wanted, and which of them has the motive but Poulton?"
"I know," Hemingway replied. He pointed the pencil he was holding at the telephone on his desk. "That's what's sticking in my gullet, Sandy! Has been, from the start. It doesn't matter what we discover about anyone else: I keep on coming back to it."
"Because you have seen prints that are verra like Mrs. Haddington's, on an instrument she would naturally handle?"
"Because I've got a strong notion those prints were made after Miss Birtley had laid down the receiver, and because I never did see how the receiver came to be hanging down, unless it had been deliberately put like that. Now, don't suggest that it got knocked off the table in a struggle, because though I may look gullible, I'm not really gullible at all. Seaton-Carew might have kicked the table over, but he didn't. He never touched the receiver -"
"Could he have grasped the wire?" Grant said doubtfully.
"No, and if he had, he'd have had the whole instrument off the table. But he wouldn't. You let me twist something round your neck, and see what your reaction is so far as you've time to react at all, which wouldn't be very far, according to what Dr Yoxall tells me! You won't grab at telephones: you'll grab at what's round your throat, my lad."
The Inspector was silent. Hemingway rose, and took his overcoat off the stand in one corner of the room. "We won't waste any time," he said. "We'll go along to Charles Street now."
"They will be dressing for dinner!" protested Grant.
"Yes, I don't suppose we shall be at all popular," agreed Hemingway. "I shan't lose any sleep over that. In fact, I'm hoping that's just what they are doing, because we shall be sure of catching them before they go - what's that word of yours? - gallivanting off round the town! Come on!"
Chapter Thirteen
The Inspector had not exaggerated the spirit of unrest brooding over the house in Charles Street. In defiance of her mother's wishes, Cynthia had spent the previous evening with Lord Guisborough, at a night-club; and, returning home in the small hours of the morning, had flung herself into bed without troubling even to remove the make-up from her face. Her mother, coming out of her own bedroom in a trailing velvet dressing-gown, met her on the landing, and exclaimed reproachfully. Cynthia, declaring with far from perfect diction that she refused to be spied upon, went into her room, and slammed the door.
She was awakened at nine o'clock by the underhousemaid who carried a breakfast-tray into her room, and thus provoked a fit of mild hysterics. "Leave me alone!" she commanded. "Take that filthy tray away! I don't want it!"
"Cynthia darling, at least drink some coffee!" said Mrs. Haddington, who had followed the maid into the room. "You'll feel better, and you know you must get up! Miss Spennymoor is coming to fit that frock on you. Put the tray down on the table, Mary! That will do!"
"Oh, blast Miss Spennymoor!" said Cynthia. "And if it's that old frock of yours, I won't wear it, Mummy!"
Mrs. Haddington poured out a cup of coffee, added sugar, and held it out. "Sit up, and drink this!" she said. "Come, childie! To please me!"
Cynthia hoisted herself up reluctantly. "Oh, all right! Where's the milk?"
"You don't want milk," replied Mrs. Haddington, a trifle grimly. "What did you drink last night, Cynthia?"
"Champagne, of course. Lance took me to -"
"Cynthia, I told you not to go out with him, and now I see how right I was! You had far too much to drink, my darling. That shows me what sort of a young man he is! It isn't you I blame, but you know, pet, nothing puts the right kind of man off more quickly than a girl who takes too much to drink! Besides, if people like the Petworths ever saw you - well, you may take it from me that you wouldn't be invited to their parties any more! I want you to drop Lance. Titles aren't everything, and even if they were -"
Cynthia hunched a shoulder. "Good God, as though I cared two hoots about his silly title! I happen to like him! He isn't always trying to improve me - except about his idiotic Communism, of course, and I can always shut him up about that! He'd do simply anything to please me! Why, he even took me to Frinton's last night, and he isn't a member!" She giggled suddenly. "Really, I do think it was lamb-like of him, Mummy, because he shied off it badly, when I said I wanted to go there! He carried it off with a superbly high hand! And those lethal Kenelm Guisboroughs were there, with a stuffy party, and Lance made Kenelm OK him. Kenelm loathed having to do it, too! It was screamingly funny! Lance and I laughed for hours!"
This ingenuous exposition of what afforded her cherished daughter amusement appeared to daunt Mrs. Haddington. She said nothing; so Cynthia added: "If you can get Lance to forget the starving millions, and you easily can, he's too sweet for words! Of course, he isn't half as good-looking as Timothy, but Timothy wouldn't have the guts to muscle into a club he didn't belong to, and, anyway, it isn't me Timothy's after!"
Mrs. Haddington was a hardheaded woman, but she had her blind spot. It was inconceivable to her that any man, beholding her daughter, could look twice at any other female. She said sharply: "Nonsense! If he isn't after you, why does he come here? You seem to forget that I found you practically in his arms yesterday afternoon!"
"Yes, wasn't it dear and cherishing of him?" agreed Cynthia, nibbling a slice of thin toast. "Darling Mummy, you're too dim! Timothy's mad cats on Beulah Birtley! I don't say I couldn't have had him, if I'd wanted him, because honestly I do think I could cut the Birtley girl out, don't you? - but I'm practically certain Lance is far more my type!"
Uncomfortable recollections chased one another through Mrs. Haddington's memory. She said angrily: "That gaol-bird! Designing little bitch! I'll soon settle her hash! But it's rubbish, my pet! No man would look at her while you were present! I've no doubt she's trying her best to catch him, but I'll soon put a stop to that!"
"Oh, hell, who cares?" said Cynthia, relaxing into her enormous, lace-edged pillows. "I don't want him! I'd sooner have Lance! Besides, you won't stop it. She had dinner with him last night, at Armand's. Moira was there, and she saw them."
"Did she?" said Mrs. Haddington. Her thin lips were close-gripped for a moment. She glanced down at her daughter, hesitated, and then said lightly: "Never mind that! I want you to get up now, my pet, and come down to my boudoir for Miss Spennymoor to fit that dress on you."
This mildly-worded request precipitated a minor crisis. Cynthia, whose fancy had prompted her to spray herself idly with scent from a cut-glass flagon, was goaded into hurling this expensive toy into the tiled grate, where it was shattered. However, this ebullition of temper had the happy effect of inducing her to get up, because not even she could remain in an atmosphere so redolent with the perfumes of Araby as to make her head swim. In a mood of sulky tearfulness, she presently descended the stairs to the boudoir, where Miss Spennymoor was patiently awaiting her.
She allowed herself to be divested of her frock, and to have her mother's old Good Black Wool cast over her head, merely saying fretfully: "I look hellish in black, and it doesn't fit me anywhere!"
"It's only for the funeral, my pet!" Mrs. Haddington soothed her. Just stand still and let Miss Spennymoor see what has to be done! Darling child, don't stand on one leg!"
"Oh, Mummy, I haven't got to go to the funeral, have I?" wailed Cynthia. "I simply won't! It's too dreary for words, and I know Dan would say I needn't! 0 God, I feel too septic in this frightful thing! Take it off me!"
Miss Spennymoor, clucking amiably, said: "Oh, dear, fancy you saying that, Miss Haddington, when I was only thinking how sweet you look! They do say a blonde always looks her best in black, don't they? Of course, it'll be very different when I've taken it in the wee-est bit. Distinguished, I should call it! Let me just slip a few pins in, and you'll be s
urprised! Now, I'm quite partial to a funeral myself. Well, it takes all sorts to make a world, doesn't it? Weddings, now! I don't know how it is, but if ever I want a good cry I go and watch one of those grand weddings they have at St Margaret's! But funerals are different! - Oh, quite different they are! Of course, it makes anyone think, when they lower the coffin into the ground, but you want to look on the bright side, and ten to one it was a happy release, like it was for my poor mother, when Dad died, and once the coffin's out of the house it's surprising the difference it makes. More like a beanfeast than a funeral, my Dad's funeral was. Such a jollification as we had! No one wouldn't have guessed Mother had been up half the night, boiling the ham! Not, of course, that it's the same here, you not having the coffin in the house, but I'm sure the gentleman will have a lovely funeral, all the same!"
Ignoring this well-meant consolation, Cynthia said: "Mummy, if Lance saw me in this thing, he'd have a fit!"
"Dear child, if I were you I wouldn't be guided by that young man's ideas of what is proper!"
"Goodness, no!" said Miss Spennymoor, a trifle thickly. She removed several pins from her mouth. "You'll excuse me, but naturally I know who you are alluding to. I knew his mother very well, as I told you, Mrs. Haddington, only the other day. Oh, very well I knew poor Maudie Stratton! If ever there was a One - ! Quite set on calling her baby Lancelot, she was! She'd read a poem about some Lancelot or other, which that Hilary of hers gave her, and it quite took her fancy, though why it should of is more than I can tell you, because all the fellow could find to say when he saw the girl in the poem, all stiff and stark in a boat, was that she'd got a lovely face. Well, that's all very well, and, of course I daresay he looked ever so nice himself, in a helmet and all, and riding on a horse - because a horse does give a man tone, doesn't it? I always think so if ever I get the time to go into Hyde Park, which I do sometimes. Still, looks aren't everything, and I call it highly unnatural for anyone to go barmy about a fellow that went round singing Tirra-lirra, which is all this Lancelot did, by what I could made out. Laughable, I call it! But there it was! Nothing would do for Maudie but she must call her baby Lancelot! Never doubted it would be a boy, which I said to her was downright tempting providence, and so it was, because what must she do but go and have split twins! Laugh! I thought I should have died! If you'd turn round, Miss Cynthia, I could see if it's hanging straight!"
Mrs. Haddington, who had listened in stony silence to these recollections, caught her eye at this point, and gave her what the little dressmaker afterwards described as A Look. Miss Spennymoor, covered in confusion, coughed, said hastily: "But I mustn't run on, must I?" and, in her agitation, stuck a pin into Cynthia's tender flesh. By the time that sensitive damsel had been soothed into sullen quiescence, all thought of Lord Guisborough and his romantically-minded parent had been banished from Miss Spennymoor's mind, and she continued her task in chastened silence.
Miss Spennymoor had scarcely withdrawn to the seclusion of the sewing-room on the second floor when Beulah came into the boudoir, to lay before her employer the sum total of the weekly bills. Mrs. Haddington's eyes narrowed; she said: "I'll check it against the books."
Beulah flushed. "Certainly! I have them here!"
"Trot along, darling!" Mrs. Haddington told her daughter, in quite another voice. "I shouldn't racket about today, if I were you. Why don't you ring up Betty, and see if she'd like to go for a walk in the Park with you, and come back here to luncheon? Wouldn't that be rather nice?"
"No, hellish!" responded Cynthia frankly. "I'm going to lie down! I feel bloody!"
With these elegant words, she walked out of the room neglecting to shut the door behind her.
Mrs. Haddington seated herself at her desk, and held out her hand for the weekly accounts. In silence, Beulah laid a pile of books and bills before her, together with her own epitome.
"Your total appears to be correct," Mrs. Haddington said, after a pause.
"No, is it really?" retorted Beulah. "I quite thought I was getting away with a halfpenny!"
"I advise you not to be impertinent, my good girl. You won't find that it pays in this house!" Mrs. Haddington took out her cheque-book from a drawer, and dipped a pen in the silver inkpot. "There is something else I wish to say to you. I understand that you were dining with Mr.. Harte last night, at Armand's?"
"Well?" Beulah shot at her.
The pen travelled slowly across the cheque-form. "I need hardly ask, I suppose, whether Mr.. Harte is aware of your somewhat unusual history?" said Mrs. Haddington bitingly.
The flush had faded from Beulah's cheeks, leaving them very white. "I don't know what business that is of yours!" she said.
"It is very much my business. Mr.. Harte met you under my roof, and I could not reconcile it with my conscience not to drop a word of timely warning in his ear."
Beulah put out a hand to grip the edge of the mantelshelf. "I see the idea, of course!" she said breathlessly. "Recoiling in disgust from me, Timothy is to fall into your daughter's arms! I'm afraid he won't do it: his taste doesn't run to brainless blondes!" She stopped, and added quickly: "I'm sorry! I oughtn't to have said that!"
Mrs. Haddington blotted the cheque, and turned in her chair to survey Beulah from her heels to her head. "So you actually imagine that you're going to entrap that young man into marriage, do you?" she said. "How very amusing! But something tells me that the Hartes don't go to Holloway for their brides. We shall see!"
Beulah released the mantelshelf, and took a hasty step towards her employer. "Whatever you do, he won't marry Cynthia!" she said.
"Miss Cynthia!" corrected Mrs. Haddington blandly.
"Oh, don't be such a fool! My family is a damned sight better-born than yours, for what that's worth! You're trying to make me lose my temper, but, I warn you, you'd better not! I didn't cut your daughter out with Timothy Harte: he never for one moment thought of her seriously! It can't matter to you if I marry him! There are dozens of men only too anxious to marry her: why can't you let me have just one who prefers me? I'm going to marry him, not because he's well-off, and well-born, and heir to a baronetcy, but because I love him! If you think you can stop me, you were never more mistaken in your life! I'm not a dewy innocent any longer, so don't think it! I've put up with your foul tongue all these months because it suited me to stay in this job, but I won't put up with any interference in my private life! There's very little I won't do, if you goad me to it! If I can't have Timothy, I don't care what becomes of me! So now you know!"
From the doorway Thrimby coughed with extreme deliberation. "I beg your pardon, madam, but I thought Miss Cynthia was here. Lord Guisborough wishes to speak to her on the telephone."
Beulah glared at him, her full lip caught between her teeth. Mrs. Haddington said coolly: "Here is the cheque, Miss Birtley. You will pay the bills tomorrow morning, if you please, before you come to work. Kindly go down to Mrs. Foston and find out from her what shopping has to be done today! Miss Cynthia is resting, Thrimby, I will speak to Lord Guisborough."
Thrimby, recounting this interesting passage later to his colleague, the housekeeper, said impressively: "Mark my words, Mrs. Foston, there's more to that young woman than meets the eye! Well, I've always had my suspicions, right from the start!"
"Well," said Mrs. Foston, who was as goodhumoured as she was stout, "be that as it may, I'm downright sorry for the girl, and that's a fact, Mr.. Thrimby! I've never had any words with her, but, then, Do as you would be done by, is my motto! I shall stay here till the end of the Season, because that's what I promised Mrs. H., but not another moment! Well, it isn't what I've been accustomed to, and that's the truth! Only, in these days, with the best people cutting down their staffs -" She stopped, and sighed. "Well, you know what it is, Mr.. Thrimby!"
"I know," he agreed, echoing her sigh. "Sometimes one wonders what the world is coming to!"
"All this talk about the Workers!" said Mrs. Foston, shaking out a tea-cloth, subjecting it to a minute inspection, an
d refolding it. "Anyone 'ud think the only people to do a job of work was in factories, or dockyards, or plate-laying! No one bothers about people like you and me, and my brother, who's doing a jobbinggardener's work, because no one can't afford to keep a head-gardener like him, that was always used to have four under him! It makes me tired, Mr.. Thrimby!"
"Ah, well, it's Progress, Mrs. Foston!" said the butler vaguely.
"Yes, and I suppose it's progress that makes any little chit that hasn't had any more training than that canary of mine waltz in here asking as much money as a decent housemaid that's worked her way up from betweenmaid!" said Mrs. Foston tartly. "Something for nothing! That's what people want nowadays. And it's what they get, too, more's the pity! I've no patience with it!"
At this point, Thrimby, well-knowing that his colleague was fairly mounted upon her favourite hobbyhorse, thought it prudent to withdraw, so that Mrs. Foston was left to address the rest of her pithy monologue to the ambient air.
With the exception of Mrs. Foston, who stated that she preferred to say nothing; and of M. Gaston, the chef, who professed a sublime indifference to anything that occurred beyond the confines of the realm over which he reigned, Mrs. Haddington's servants were at one in declaring that murders were not what they had been accustomed to, or could put up with. The head housemaid, recruiting her strength with a cup of Bovril, informed her subordinate, who had brought this sustaining beverage up to her sick-bed, that strangled corpses were not what she would call nice; and the parlourmaid, tendering her notice to her employer, said that Mr.. Seaton-Carew's murder had unsettled her. The kitchenmaid, who was an orphan, said that her auntie didn't want her to stay no longer in a house where there were such unnatural goings-on; and would no doubt have followed the parlourmaid's example had she not been too much frightened of M. Gaston to give notice without his consent. This, since she was the least stupid scullion who had been allotted to him, was withheld, M. Gaston maintaining with Gallic fervour that what took place abovestairs was no concern of his or hers. Margie, a biddable girl, was quite cowed by his eloquence; and the rest of the staff, while deprecating the laxity of M. Gaston's outlook, said that anyone had to remember that he was French.
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