"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 him 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 civiclass="underline" 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.
"What." ejaculated Poulton, stiffening suddenly, in a way which made Inspector Grant think that the news camee as a shock to him, but which only caused his superior, one of the pillars of an Amateur Dramatic Society, to consider that the exclamation had been wellrehearsed.
"Yes, sir," he said phlegmatically.
"Good God!" Poulton paused. His eyes, under their level brows, lifted to the Chief Inspector's face. "I see. I can only tell you that when I left Mrs. Haddington she was alive, standing before the electric fire in her boudoir. She had just rung the bell, to summon her butler to show me out."
"Did you wait for the butler to appear, sir?"
"No. I took my leave of Mrs. Haddington, and left the room. The butler reached the hall as I was coming down the half-flight of stairs from Mrs. Haddington's sittingroom."
"And what, sir, was your reason for paying this call?"
Silence followed this question. Poulton was frowningly studying his finger-tips. After a moment he again looked up. "Yes, I see. You are bound to ask me that. I shall make no secret of the fact that my call was not of a friendly nature. Mrs. Haddington had been ringing up my house to ask for news of my wife: I went to Charles Street to inform her that my wife was unwell, and that it was my fixed intention to put an end to the intimacy that had hitherto flourished between them."
"Yes, sir? And why was that your fixed intention?"
"I did not care for the connaissance."
"That, sir, is not quite a good enough answer."
Poulton smiled faintly. "I suppose not. Very well, Chief Inspector! I see that I must rely upon your discretion. Before she married me, my wife was one of the more prominent members of a set which prided itself on its total disregard for accepted conventions. I do not propose to divulge any of her indiscretions to you, but I will say, between these walls, that there had been indiscretions. By some means, unknown to me, Mrs. Haddington had been put in possession of the details of perhaps the most serious of these. The price of her silence was not money, but sponsorship into the class of Society to which my wife holds the key."
"And when, sir, did you discover this?"
"Not, unfortunately, at the time."
"No, sir. Only after Seaton-Carewzs murder, in fact?"
"Recently," amended Poulton.
"Mr.. Poulton, I hope you mean to stop fencing with me. I know a lot more than I did two days ago, and you may believe me when I say that I know beyond doubt that Lady Nest is now in a Home, being cured of the drug-habit. I also know that it was Seaton-Carew who supplied her with cocaine."
He encountered a glance as keen and as searching as a surgeon's scalpel. "Have you proof of that?"
"I have proof that cocaine was found in Seaton-Carew's flat; I have proof that Lady Nest was not his only victim."
"I see." Poulton was silent for a moment. "I was never sure, myself. I suspected him, but no more."
Hemingway waited. After a pause, he said: "Was this the hold Mrs. Haddington had over your wife, sir?"
"No."
"When did you discover that Lady Nest was an - was taking the stuff, sir?"
"After Seaton-Carew's murder, and your visit to my house. How much of what I say to you do you propose to make public property?"
"That will depend on circumstances, sir."
Poulton smiled faintly. "I understand you. I did not murder Mrs. Haddington, so I must hope that "circumstance" will not arise. Seaton-Carew's death came as an appalling shock to my wife. Under the stress of'- considerable emotion - she was induced to confide in me. I should add that her nerves have never been robust, and that I did not suspect what you have discovered until an old friend of mine, who is an eminent physician, met her in my house, and - confided to me his suspicion. When the source of her supply was murdered and it seemed probable that you would discover what that source was, I was able to persuade her to go into a Home."