"You have been having a good gossip, haven't you?" said Hemingway. "Allowing for a bit of exaggeration, I shouldn't wonder if you'd been given a fair picture, though. Did your little pal, Gwenny, say anything about the late Seaton-Carew?"
"She did, but I think that was mostly spite against her mistress. He was paying great attention to Miss Cynthia, and I don't doubt the lass's mother would not like that; but whether she herself was his mistress or not they none of them know, whatever tales they may tell. She has not been that since she came to live in London."
"What do they make of her reaction to his death? She struck me as pretty cool, when I saw her."
"How can one tell with that kind? The servants will have you think she hasn't turned a hair; but the doctor went to see her today, and was with her quite a while, so maybe she is more upset than she will show." He added: "It was Dr Westruther. He will maybe have mentioned it to you?"
"No, he didn't, because I didn't ask him. It doesn't surprise me, though - except that I didn't somehow take him for the sort of chap who trots round to call on his patients, with a little bag in his hand. Still, I daresay he makes her pay through the nose for a visit from him: he's got a very expensive decor to keep up, I can tell you."
"Again the doctor has turned up, Chief."
"They do. If you're thinking that it was him twisted that wire round the late Seaton-Carew's neck, let me tell you that he'd have a lot more classy ways of doing a chap in than that! No, the more I consider the facts, the more I think we'll go round to Charles Street, Sandy, and have a real heart-to-heart with Mrs. Haddington."
"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!"