"If you mean the Inspector who dealt with my case -"
"I do, and that's all we'll say about him. He's all right in his way, but it isn't my way, and the sooner you tumble to that the better we'll get on together."
"I expect this is the velvet glove?" said Beulah. "I didn't murder Mrs. Haddington - and that's all!"
The door opened at that moment to admit Grant. He spoke in a low voice to his chief.
"Oh, he's turned up, has he? Yes, let him come in! I've got no objection. Just a moment: I want a word with you!" He took the Inspector by the arm, and led him out into the hall. Here he found Timothy and his brother, divesting themselves of their coats. He said: "Now, what is all this? How many more people are going to walk in here? Anyone 'ud think it was a soiree, or something! Good-evening, Mr.. Kane! And who might it have been who sent for you, may I ask?"
"Sorry if you object," said Jim, "but I was with my brother when Miss Birtley rang up, and, all things considered, I thought I'd come along with him."
" Just to take care of him, I suppose? Yes, you never know what I might take it into my head to do to him, do you? Not but what I should have thought he was very well able to take care of himself - too well! If you want to have a word with Miss Birtley, Mr.. Harte, you'll find her in there." He jerked his head towards the library, adding, as Timothy passed him: "And if you can convince her that the silliest thing she can do is to refuse to answer my questions, I shall be quite glad she sent for you!"
"I'll wait for you, Timothy," Jim said.
"All right, but I've already told you there's not the slightest need," Timothy replied over his shoulder.
"I take it that the extraordinary story Miss Birtley told my brother was true?" Jim said, as the library door shut behind Timothy.
"If she told him that Mrs. Haddington had been murdered, it was true enough, sir. If you like to wait in the dining-room, there's a fire burning there."
"Very well. I don't know how seriously you took my brother's lack of alibi for that other affair, but I imagine this new development lets him out, doesn't it?"
"Well, he certainly didn't commit this murder," said Hemingway. "If it's any comfort to you, sir, I don't propose to waste any time asking him what he was doing this afternoon. For one thing, it's a safe bet you'd swear blind you were with him all day, and I've got enough on my hands without trying to prove you're grossly deceiving me."
Jim laughed, and limped into the dining-room. The Chief Inspector turned to Grant. "Go and pull Poulton in, Sandy! No charge: take him along to the Yard, to answer a few questions! I've got quite enough on him to warrant that. Treat him kindly, and let him kick his heels there till I come. That won't hurt him!"
Chapter Fifteen
In the library, Beulah, looking up defensively when the door opened, flew into young Mr.. Harte's arms. "Timothy! Oh God, what am I going to do?"
Mr.. Harte, trained by circumstance to act coolly in emergency, promptly cast a damper on what he correctly diagnosed to be rising hysteria. "Hallo, ducky!" he said, kissing his betrothed with great affection. "Don't knock me over! Have you got any face-powder in your bag?"
"Yes, of course, but -"
"Well, put some on your nose!" begged Mr.. Harte. "Begin as you mean to go on! What a heedless wench you are! Don't you know that the whole art of keeping a young husband happy is always to appear dainty in his eyes? That singularly repulsive adjective, let me inform you, embraces everything from face-powder to -"
"Thanks, I can fill in the rest for myself!" interrupted Beulah, slightly revived by this bracing treatment. "Don't laugh at me! I've never been in such a jam in my life! I was here, Timothy! I had a row with her this morning, which Thrimby overheard; and I had no business to be here!"
"Clearly booked for the scaffold. Calm yourself, my love!"
She drew herself out of his hold. "There's worse. I've never told you. I meant - but it's no use! If I don't tell you, that policeman will! You'd better hear it from me!"
"Hold all your horses!" commanded Mr.. Harte. "I don't deny that I should like to know exactly what is your grim past, but if you're labouring under the delusion that Hemingway will disclose some hideous secret to me, or to any other layman, rid yourself of it! He won't."
She opened her handbag, and took out her handkerchief. Having blown her nose with considerable violence, she said in a choked voice: "You're so incredibly nice! Your brother practically told me I was a filthy cad not to confide in you, and I suppose he was right."
"The only thing that deters me from instantly bursting off to offer Jim his choice between pistols and swords is my conviction that he never said anything of the sort," returned Timothy.
"Oh, he didn't say it in so many words, but that was what he meant! Well, here it is! - I'm a gaol-bird!"
The effect of this pronouncement was not quite what she had expected. She had been prepared to see Mr.. Harte make a chivalrous attempt to conceal his feelings; she had been prepared to see him recoil. What she had never visualised was that he would sink into a chair by the desk, drop his head in his hand, and utter in shaken accents: "But what a line! No, really, darling, it's terrific!"
"It's true!" she said desperately.
"Oh, no, I can't bear it! What did they jug you for, my sweet? Manslaughter, due to furious driving?"
"Forgery and embezzlement!" she shot at him.
That made him raise his head. He looked at her for a moment, and held out his hand. Almost without meaning to, she put one of her own hands into it. He pulled her down on to his knee. "My poor precious! Tell me all about it, then!" he said.
Instead of obeying this injunction, Beulah subsided on to his chest, and cried and cried. Mr.. Harte very wisely confined his remarks to such soothing utterances as Never mind! and There, there! at the same time rubbing his cheek against her already tousled locks, and patting her in a comforting way. This very sensible treatment presently had its effect: Beulah stopped weeping, and said in an exhausted whisper: "I didn't do it! I didn't do it, Timothy!"
"Look, ducky, don't start me off again!" begged Mr.. Harte. "You don't have to tell me that! Who on earth did you have to defend you?"
"I f-forget. I applied for legal aid, and they gave me an elderly man. They said he was a soup, or something."
"My darling, you need say no more! I have the whole picture!" Timothy said. "This is the first time in my legal career when I've wished I'd chosen to be an Old Bailey Tub-thumper! If only I could have defended you - !"
"Oh, Timothy! Oh, Timothy!" Beulah sobbed into his shoulder. "It wouldn't have been any use! I was such a little fool! No one believed me - I didn't think anyone ever would believe me! I couldn't bring forward anything to prove I hadn't done it, and that when I went to that office after hours, it was because he rang me up, and asked me to go there, and get that envelope out of the safe! He said he'd forgotten it, and he'd get into trouble with his uncle, and I was to post it to him - but it was only my word against his, and though I did think that man on the Bench half-believed me, the jury didn't, and if they didn't, why should anyone else?"
Mr.. Harte made no attempt to unravel this. Producing a large handkerchief, he mopped Beulah's cheeks with it, and said: "You shall tell me all about it, my pet, once we're through with this mess. Now, you sit up, and stop soaking me to the skin! We shall have my-friend-the Sergeant, alias Chief Inspector Hemingway, here at any moment, and you don't want him to find you in floods of tears! And don't run away with the idea that he'll arrest you for murder just because you were once convicted of embezzlement: he's far too downy a bird to do anything of the sort."
"I haven't told you the whole of it," Beulah said, apparently determined to make a clean breast of everything. "Birtley isn't my name! At least, it is, but not all of it!"