At this moment the door opened to admit Trix Guisborough, who stood leaning against it, and demanded how much longer the Chief Inspector meant to keep her brother away from the party. "Just as little time as I need, miss - CoMr..ade, I should say!"
Guisborough jumped up from his chair. "Oh, do, for God's sake drop that!" he shouted. "You only do it to annoy me!"
Correctly divining that this remark was addressed not to him, but to Miss Guisborough, Hemingway preserved a discreet silence.
"Before you allowed yourself to be seduced by visions of power, and rank, it didn't annoy you!" Miss Guisborough retorted. "You're a rotten renegade, Lance!"
"Begging your pardon," intervened Hemingway, "can you help us, Miss Guisborough, to fix the time when your brother got back to this house this evening?"
"This evening?" She stared at him. "About half-past seven, more or less. Why?"
Hemingway raised his brows at Guisborough. "Well, my lord?"
"I daresay. I don't know. I stopped to have one at a pub on the way."
"Which pub would that be, my lord?"
"Hell, how should I know? Some place in the King's Road!"
"Fancy! What had the Ritz done to offend you?" mocked his sister.
"Oh, shut up!"
Feeling that there was little to be gained by prolonging the interview, Hemingway closed his notebook, and picked up his hat. Guisborough's fiery, dark eyes searched his face. "Why did you want to know? What's happened?" He paused. "Or is it a police mystery?"
"Oh, no, my lord, there's no mystery! You'll very likely read all about it in tomorrow's papers, so I've no objection to telling you that Mrs. Haddington has been murdered."
Whatever Lord Guisborough's reply to this may have been it was lost in the sudden crack of laughter that burst from his sister. She gasped: "Oh, go on! That's too ripe! And who had the nerve to do in that old battle-axe? He has my vote!"
Lord Guisborough grasped her by the shoulders, and gave her a vicious shake. "Stop it!" he commanded. "Stop it, I say! It's not funny! You're tight, Trix!"
She choked, but her laughter ceased. "Well, you needn't look so utter about it! You didn't do it, did you?"
"Of course I didn't do it! Why the hell should I? Pull yourself together, for God's sake!"
She looked at Hemingway. "Is that why you came here? Because Lance - oh, it's too fat-headed! You might as well suspect me! Who really did it?"
"Can't you see he doesn't know?" said Guisborough savagely. "Probably the same man who killed Seaton-Carew!"
"What makes you say that, my lord?" asked Hemingway.
"I don't know. Association of ideas, I suppose. Two murders in the same house."
"I didn't say Mrs. Haddington was murdered in the house," said Hemingway mildly.
Guisborough scowled at him. "You may not have said it, but you asked me when I left the house, so the inference is fairly obvious! I'm not half-witted!"
"True enough," Hemingway agreed. "She was murdered in the house. In her boudoir, just like Mr.. Seaton-Carew."
"Ugh!" exclaimed Miss Guisborough, shuddering. "What a cold-blooded beast! Damn it, I loathed the woman, and everything she stood for, but I didn't wish her as much harm as that! I'm sorry I laughed. What about that kid? Is she all alone there, except for those upstage servants? Look here, Lance, ought we to do something? I mean, I don't mind, if you'd like me to bring her back here, or stay there with her."
Lord Guisborough had apparently no faith in his sister's ability to comfort and support the stricken, for he replied: "Very decent of you, but I don't think I should. There's the secretary, you know - and Cynthia hardly knows you! Besides, she - Well, I don't think it would work!"
"You mean she doesn't like me. Oh, all right! But if you want to go and hold her hand, you go! I can look after this mob."
"No," he said. "No, I'm not going. Not this evening, anyway. She probably knows I lost my temper with her mother, and she might not want to see me, as things are."
"That's all right, my lord," Hemingway said. "Miss Haddington had gone to bed before I left, and she has her aunt with her in any case."
Guisborough looked relieved. "Oh, I'm glad of that!
She'll look after her. Much better if I call on her tomorrow. Leave a message of sympathy, even if she doesn't feel up to seeing me."
"Much better," agreed Hemingway, and took his leave of them both.
When he reached Scotland Yard, he found that Inspector Grant had not yet arrived there. He went up to his room and sent down a message to have certain exhibits brought to him. While he was waiting for them, the buzzer sounded on his desk, and he lifted one of his telephones. The voice of his friend and superior officer, Superintendent Hinckley, assailed his ears.
"Chief Inspector Hemingway?"
"Sir?" said Hemingway.
The voice altered. "Stanley? How's it going?"
"Fine!" said Hemingway. "I've only got two murders on my hands so far. Of course, it's early days yet. I dare say there'll be some more by tomorrow. Who's my successor?"
"Not named. Keep at it! Between you and me and the gatepost, a Certain Person is still backing you. Thought you might like to know. Said he'd bank on you bringing home the bacon, and the worse the mess got the less he wanted to give it to anyone else. That's all!"
"Thanks, Bob! You're a trump!" said Hemingway flushing slightly.
A decisive click informed him that Superintendent Hinckley had cut short his gratitude. He grinned, and hung up the receiver. When Inspector Grant entered the room some twenty minutes later, he found him frowning at two looped lengths of picture-wire, lying side by side on his desk. He glanced up as the Inspector came in, and a certain intent look in his eyes caused that officer to exclaim: "Och, you have discovered something! Ciod e?"
"I'm not sure," Hemingway said slowly. "What about you? Have you seen young Butterwick?"
"I have, then, and I questioned him, though it is my belief I had no need to, for it was at the Opera House I found him, and him in his evening clothes. But it is not opera, but ballet they are having there, and for all he swore he was there at the start, he may have been telling me a lie. He was alone."
"The people sitting on either side of him ought to be able to tell you!" Hemingway said.
"Ma seadh! But there were no people sitting beside him, sir. Mrs. Butterwick has a box for the whole season, and there is not one of the attendants can say for sure when he arrived this evening. Whether it was before -" He produced his notebook, and painstakingly read from it -
"Les Presages, or Petrouchka. It was while Petrouchka was on that I reached Covent Garden, sir, and it seemed as though these ballet folk think a great deal of that, for when I asked to have Mr.. Butter-wick brought out to me, they kept saying, In the middle of Petrouchka? as though I had asked to have him fetched out of Kirk. Which," added the Inspector, "I would not do! Indeed, such a stramash was there, with them telling me this Petrouchka would not last above a quarter of an hour more, and would I not wait for the interval, that I said, Gle mhath! and I waited."
"Well, if that's what you said, it's a wonder to me they didn't call in the chap on point-duty!" said Hemingway. "They probably thought you were an Undesirable Alien, and I don't blame them. How did you know Butterwick was at the ballet?"
"Och, that was the worst part of the whole business!" replied the Inspector. "I went to that address in Park Lane when I left you, and at first I could discover nothing, because I found only the servants -just a man and wife, for the housemaid is a daily girl, and had gone home - and neither of them knew where the young man might be, or whether he had been in the flat since he took his tea there, with his mother. And that, I think, was true, for they have the kitchen and the servants' quarters a wee bit apart from the living-rooms of the family, and you get to them through a door, and along a bit passage. Young Mr.. Butterwick has his latch-key, I need not tell you, and there is no valet. However, while I was talking with the manservant, Mrs. Butterwick came in." He smiled. "I can tell you, it was not long before I was thinking I would give you moran taing for that assignment, sir!"