Duplicate Death ih-3

by Джорджетт Хейер

  "I'm not doubting that, miss, but I should like to see it."

  Rather unexpectedly, Miss Pickhill took her niece's part. "There is no need to be hysterical, Cynthia, but I'm bound to say I can see no reason why you should want to look at a powder-compact, Chief Inspector!"

  "No, madam, very likely not. Come, miss! Mr.. Eddleston here will tell you that you mustn't try to obstruct me in the performance of my duty."

  "But it has nothing to do with you! Look, I'll put it back in Mummy's box, and Mr.. Eddleston can keep it! I don't mind doing that!"

  "Miss Haddington," said Hemingway, "I don't want to make things any more unpleasant for you than what they are already, but if you don't give me that compact I shall have to. You see, I'm going to inspect it, whether you want me to or not, and it will be very much better for you to give it to me without any more fuss."

  She began to cry again, but when Hemingway unclasped her fingers from about the compact she only feebly resisted.

  Inspector Grant said: "Will you give it to me, if you please, sir?"

  He took it from Hemingway, and walked over to the window with it, standing there with his back to the room, his head a little bent. After a moment, he glanced over his shoulder. Hemingway went to him, while Miss Pickhill and Mr.. Eddleston stared at him. Cynthia had collapsed on the day-bed, and was sobbing into one of its opulent cushions. The Inspector said nothing at all, but showed Hemingway the compact, lying in the palm of his hand. He had opened it, but no little powder-puff and mirror were disclosed. A very small quantity of white powder was all that met Hemingway's gaze. He looked up questioningly, and the Inspector nodded, shut the case, and opened it again, this time revealing mirror, puff, and powder-filter. Hemingway turned from him.

  "Miss Haddington," he said, "I want to have a word with you. Now, I think it would be best if I saw you privately, but if you wish it you may have your aunt or Mr.. Eddleston with you."

  She raised her head, gazing up at him out of terrified, tear-drowned eyes. "What are you going to do to me?"

  "I'm going to ask you one or two questions, miss, and you may take it from me that if you answer me truthfully you've got nothing to be afraid of."

  She seemed to be undecided; Miss Pickhill exclaimed: "I demand to be told what all this means!"

  "No, no, don't!" shrieked Cynthia. "Please don't!"

  "No, miss, I've no wish to do so. Suppose we were to go down to the drawing-room -just you and me, and Inspector Grant?"

  "I think," said Mr.. Eddleston, clearing his throat, "that I ought to be present, Chief Inspector, if you wish to question Miss Haddington on any serious matter."

  "I have no objection to your presence, sir."

  "No, no, I don't want him!" Cynthia said. "I'll go with you, if you swear you aren't going to do anything to me!"

  "No, miss, I'm not going to do anything to you at all."

  "Well!" said Miss Pickhill. "I'm sure I don't know what the world is coming to! I consider this most extraordinary!"

  Nobody paid any attention to this, Hemingway merely opening the door for Cynthia to pass out of the room, and Mr.. Eddleston looking as though he were uncertain what to do.

  A fire was burning in the drawing-room, and Hemingway suggested to Cynthia that she should sit down beside it. She seemed relieved by this humane invitation, but poised herself on the very edge of one of the deep armchairs, and, for once in her life, sat bolt upright. Her eyes watched the two detectives warily, with something in them of a child caught out in wrongdoing.

  Hemingway said: "Now, miss, we won't beat about the bush. I know just what you've been up to and very wrong of you it was, which I'll be bound you know already, for I think Mr.. Seaton-Carew warned you that there would be bad trouble if anyone found out you had cocaine in your possession, didn't he?"

  She gave a frightened nod, catching her breath on a sob.

  "When did he start giving you the stuff?"

  "I don't know. I only tried it for f-fun, at first! Only I felt so marvellous afterwards - It's my nerves!"

  "It precious soon would be, if you went on at that game!" said Hemingway dryly. "What made Mr.. Seaton-Carew give it to you at all?"

  "Oh, I don't know! It was the night of the Gem Ball, and I felt so bloody, and I looked haggish, and my head was splitting, and Dan was utterly divine to me! Actually, he always rather bored me before - I mean, definitely old, and uncle-ish, besides being Mummy's boy-friend, which made me choke him off, on account of its being so dim to get a Thing about one's Mother's boy-friend! Of course, I just didn't know him properly, because really he utterly understood about my nerves, and always being tired to death, and he was too cherishing!" Her eyes filled. "It's awful now he's dead! I can't bear it! Mummy never understood a bit, but Dan did!"

  "When did he give you that powder-compact?"

  "Oh, it was a Christmas present! He made me promise not to use it unless I felt absolutely finished, and he swore he wouldn't refill it till Easter, but I expect he would have, if I'd been nice to him, because, if you want to know, he had a complete yen for me!"

  "I don't doubt it," Hemingway said, more dryly still. "When did your mother discover that you were taking drugs, Miss Haddington?"

  "Mummy never knew a thing about it!" she exclaimed. "She couldn't have known!"

  He gave her an appraising look. "No! Well, when did you lose the compact, miss?"

  "It was the day of that ghastly Bridge-party. I don't know when Mummy found it, because she hadn't the least idea - reallyy she hadn't! I can't think why she locked it up in her jewel-box! Unless she wanted to get back on me for going out with Lance Guisborough, when she said I wasn't to, which is quite likely, because she simply loathed him, God knows why!"

  "I see. Now, I understand that Dr Westruther called here yesterday, at lunch-time, miss. Did you see him?"

  "Yes, he gave me a prescription for my nerves."

  "Wasn't what he gave you a prescription for someone who'd been taking dangerous drugs?"

  She looked startled. "No!"

  "Are you quite sure of that, miss? Didn't Dr Westruther ask you certain questions about the length of time you'd been -"

  "No, no, no! I swear he didn't! He just went over me like they do, and said I had been overdoing things, and he was going to give me some dope or other which would make me feel utterly different, and Mummy said we'd go to some marvellous place he knew of, where I could ride, and get absolutely fit before the Season starts - and he never said one single word about - about that! I promise you he didn't!"

  "Very well, miss. Don't get all worked-up! You take the doctor's medicine, and I daresay you'll find, after a bit, that you don't hanker after that filthy drug any more. I don't know if Mr.. Seaton-Carew told you this, but in case he didn't, I will! It's an offence against the law to have that kind of drug in your possession. You could get into very serious trouble, let alone ending up as a hopeless addict - and if you'd ever seen anyone in that state, believe you me, you'd take good care never to let the habit get a hold on you! I'm not going to take any steps, because I can see you're only a kid that didn't know any better, and I've got a pretty good idea that now Mr.. Seaton-Carew's dead, you don't know how to get hold of the stuff. What I am going to do, and I know you won't like it, is to tell your aunt." Cynthia uttered a shriek of dismay. "No, don't start to carry on, miss! It's my belief Miss Pickhill's very fond of you: I wouldn't mind betting she'll do everything she can to help you - and it's that or worse! You wouldn't want to be prosecuted, would you?"

  "You promised!" panted Cynthia.

  "Yes, I know I did, and I'll keep it, if I can. But you've got to pull up, and maybe it won't be easy, not at first. And if you didn't pull up - well, then, it wouldn't rest with me any longer, but you'd wake up to find yourself in a Home, undergoing the sort of treatment you wouldn't like at all, with a prosecution looming on top of that!"

  The warning frightened Cynthia so much that she only cowered in her chair. Hemingway then left her, and, encountering Mi
ss Pickhill on the landing, took her into the boudoir, and embarked on an extremely trying half-hour with her. However, after running the gamut of shock, horror, revulsion and condemnation, the good lady dissolved into tears, saying into a large linen handkerchief: "I blame my sister! Anyone could have seen with half an eye the child was never robust, and what did she do but drag her from party to party? Over and over again did I tell her that she was heading for trouble, and now we see how right I was! If I have to devote the rest of my life to her, I shall cure her! No principles, of course! Brought up in that Godless way! It doesn't bear thinking of!"

  "Och, I am sorry for the lassie!" said Grant, as they passed out of the house.

  "Well, I'm not!" said Hemingway. "A proper little detrimental, that's what she is, and she's getting off lightly! Sandy, what we've discovered this morning is nobody's business! Haven't I told you, time and again, that when a case gets properly gummed up something'll break?"

  "You have," agreed the Inspector gravely. "Now, I have not had the opportunity to look at that fan you gave me. What is it you have in your head?"

  "You'll see!" Hemingway said. "We're going to do a little experiment with that fan and a bit of wire, my lad!"

  "Ah!" said the Inspector. "I thought it would be that, maybe." He added, with a half-smile: "You have always believed it was Mrs. Haddington murdered Seaton-Carew, have you not?"

  "I never believe anything until I get proof," replied Hemingway. "But what I've got is flair!"

  "I have heard you say so," meekly responded his subordinate.

  The experiment, conducted in the Chief Inspector's room, with a length of wire and Mrs. Haddington's fan, caused the cautious Gael to say: 'Gle mhath! I do not doubt it was the fan she used for her tourniquet. That -" he pointed to where Cynthia's compact lay - "gives us the motive, which before we never had. But what possessed that man to give snow to a bit lassie like yon?"

  Hemingway shrugged. "I daresay we shall never know. My guess is that he fell heavily for her, and she wasn't having any. He didn't give her much of the stuff — just enough to make her dependent on him. May have meant to break her of it, once he had her where he wanted her; may not have cared, as long as he did have her. You ought to know what effect the stuff would be likely to have! Only he reckoned without her mother. Now, you may think Miss Pickhill's nothing more than a pain in the neck, but that's because you haven't got flair! I got a lot of very valuable information out of Miss Pickhill, and the most important was that the late Mrs. Haddington pretty well doted on that daughter of hers. All right! Nobody knew better, if you were to ask me, than Mrs. Haddington what becomes of people who get the drug habit. Don't you run away with the idea that she was a plaster-saint! She wasn't! She knew what Seaton-Carew's little racket was, and cashed in on it! She knew the signs all right, and I'd be willing to stake a month's pay she spotted them in the fair Cynthia! It wouldn't surprise me if I had proof given me - which I shan't have, the way things are — that she'd made up her mind to eliminate the boy-friend long before that party of hers." He paused. "No, I'm wrong there. Didn't that silly girl say she only lost the compact on the day of the party? All the same, Mrs. Haddington may have had her suspicions before that. Why else did she pinch the compact? For what we can't doubt she did! She found what she was looking for, and she knew there was only one thing to be done: wipe out Seaton-Carew!

  And she was longheaded enough to see that she couldn't have a better opportunity than at her own Bridge-party! I daresay she got the idea as soon as he told her he was expecting a 'phone-call. She was clever enough to have staged that, I daresay, but maybe she didn't. Lots of other ways of getting him away from the rest of the party. As for the wire, I always did think it must have been she who took it out of the cloakroom. Whether she did that only to tidy the place, which seems likely; or whether she did it with the murder in her mind is another of the things we shall never know. Bit of both, perhaps."

  "It is possible," Grant said. "But if it was she who killed Seaton-Carew, who was it who killed her? And why?"

  Chapter 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 hi
m 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.