"I'm glad to hear it! What - what do you mean to do now?"

"Pursue my investigations," responded Hemingway promptly.

Her face twitched. "You'd better not hint at these really rather insulting ideas of yours to my husband," she said. "He is old-fashioned in his outlook, and I fear he might resent it - quite violently! That's just a friendly warning!"

"I'm very grateful, my lady."

"You're supposed to be enquiring into a case of murder," she pointed out, still gripping the chairback. "Neither I nor my husband had anything to do with that - indeed, how should we? I suggest you turn your attention to another household. Naturally, I don't wish to say anything against Lilias Haddington, but she is the person most closely linked with Seaton-Carew, not I! I ought perhaps to mention that my husband was barely acquainted with him."

"Yes," said Hemingway, "so he told me. Still, it was quite right of you to tell me, my lady, if you thought perhaps he'd forgotten to."

He then bade her a civil good-morning, to which she made no answer, and withdrew.

He found Inspector Grant in the hall, gravely studying a large oil painting. At a little distance, the butler stood, eyeing him austerely.

"Wester Ross," said the Inspector. "But forbye I know where it was done, it is not good. I would not hang it in my house."

"Well, that's a good job!" returned Hemingway. "You wouldn't have a chance of pinching it, not with Faithful Fido about, you wouldn't. Come on!"

Not by so much as the flicker of an eyelid did the butler betray that this shaft had gone home. He trod majestically to the door, and opened it, and stood impa.s.sively by it until the two detectives had pa.s.sed out of the house. His feelings found expression only in the celerity with which he closed the door behind them.

"Almost shut my heel in it," remarked Hemingway. "Now then, my lad, what did you make of that little outfit?"

"I should not have known what to make of that lady, had I not seen what I did," replied the Inspector. "I am thinking now that we have stepped into a deal of wickedness, perhaps."

"If by that you mean that she looked suspiciously like a drug-addict, I agree with you," retorted Hemingway. "I don't know that it helps us much, though."

"When I was sitting in that room," said Grant, "I cast my eyes over the photographs on the table beside me. There was one with Dan Seaton-Carew signed on it. I recognised it: I had seen that face before."

"Well, of course you had!" said Hemingway, irritated. "You saw it last night!"

"When I saw it last night, I did not recognise it," said Grant. He added apologetically: "It would be some years before the War that I met him, and it was not Seaton-Carew he called himself, but Carew alone. And a man that has been strangled -"

"Spill it, Sandy, spill it!" Hemingway adjured him. "What was he? An old lag?"

"He was not. There was not a thing you could charge him with. I was no more than just made a Sergeant, and set to work with Superintendent Darliston. You will mind that he was given -"

"One of these days you'll drive me nuts!" said Hemingway. "Of course I know! Dangerous Drugs! Was that bird under suspicion?"

"I am telling you: if he was concerned in that droch business, we could not discover it. There was not enough evidence against him to warrant pulling him in for interrogation. He had a sgeul that might have been true. Since then I have never heard tell of him. Indeed, I had forgotten the man until I saw the picture of him in that house."

Hemingway walked on beside him in silence for some fifty yards. "Growing, isn't it?" he said at last. "Ever add two and two together and get five for the answer? No, you wouldn't, because you've got no imagination, but it's what I can see myself doing. All the same, taking your bit of dirt with what I gathered from Lady Nest's way of carrying on, I think this'll bear looking into. When I gave you the Indian sign to clear out, I was backing a hunch. I thought there was a chance Lady Nest might talk, if there was no one but me to listen. She didn't - at least, not as much as I'd have liked; but the hunch was all right. Something Terrible Timothy said put me on to it: I believe she pushed the Haddingtons into society because Mrs. Haddington had a screw on her. Plenty of indiscretions in the Lady Nest's past, I shouldn't wonder. What you tell me makes me ask myself if that mightn't have been it. If Mrs. Haddington knew she was getting drugs from Seaton-Carew - ?"

"Och, mo thruaighe! You never asked that lady if she had had the black put on her?" Grant exclaimed.

"Well, seeing she'd been so open and friendly, I thought I'd take a chance on it," replied Hemingway coolly. "If you're thinking she'll lodge a complaint, you're wrong. She's scared white - particularly of her husband's getting to know anything about it."

The Inspector thought it over for a moment. "If that one knew that his wife was getting drugs - ach, now you have me making two and two five!"

"We won't try to add it up yet. This is a job for Cathercott and his merry men: he can go over Seaton-Carew's flat. Sometimes I think those chaps can smell the stuff."

"If I had recognised the man when I saw him dead, we could have had an officer posted to keep an eye on the flat!"

"Don't take on about it! If you're thinking that that curly-headed mistake we saw at the flat was in the racket, your psychology's rotten! Drug-peddling isn't a game for little play-boys. I reckon Seaton-Carew would have been caught years ago, if he'd used that kind of an a.s.sistant."

"Ma seadh! But where, think you, would Mrs. Haddington stand? Mind, there was nothing proved, nor found out against the man!"

"Look here, I don't mind you making two and two five, but when you start making it six you're going too far, Sandy!" expostulated Hemingway. "I don't think Hardfaced Hannah would stand anywhere. This Seaton-Carew bird was a sight too downy to take in a female in his little games. Besides, why should he? What's more, drug-peddling wouldn't get her into all the best houses, under Lady Nest's wing. You don't take up one of the most dangerous crime-rackets just to get into Society, my lad! Yes, I know you're being very cagey about Seaton-Carew, but I've known Jim Darliston any time these past fifteen years, and if he thought Seaton-Carew was worth watching, that's enough for me! We'll get back to the Yard at once, and set Cathercott on to that flat. Meanwhile, did you get Beulah Birtley Meriden's dossier for me?"

"I did, sir. It was one of Underbarrow's cases."

"You don't say! Yes, now I come to think of it, I remember that it was. Ran it hard, did he?"

"It is his way," the Inspector said.

"It is, and one of these days it'll get him into trouble. Go on!"

"The jury were out above an hour," said Grant carefully. "You would say, looking at the evidence, that there was nothing to keep them away so long, but I have had a word with Bingham - you'll mind he was attached to that Division! - and by what he tells me, the Chairman's summing-up left the matter in a good deal of doubt. Now, in Scotland -"

"If you think I'm going to waste my time arguing with you about whether Not Proven is a good thing or not, you're mistaken!" interrupted Hemingway. "Why did the Chairman sum up in the girl's favour?"

"That," said Grant, "I do not know, but from what Bingham was telling me he treated young Mr. Maxstoke rough - verra rough, he treated him, when he stood in the witness-box! I should say that it was with the firm of Maxstoke's the la.s.sie had employment. She was fresh out of one of these Commercial Colleges, and young Mr. Maxstoke took her for his secretary. He is the nephew of Jasper Maxstoke, and at that time he was a partner in the firm, the old man having no sons, and -"

"At that time?"

"I am told," said the Inspector, "that it is a matter of three months since he left the firm. Why, I do not know."

"Sometimes I wonder why I put up with you!" said the exasperated Hemingway. "What was the girl charged with?"

"It was alleged," said Grant, "that she had forged Mr. Harold Maxstoke's signature on various cheques, and cashed them; and it was proved that she had in her possession some bank-notes, of which the numbers had been taken. You would say that it was an open-and-shut case."

"Which means, I suppose, that I shouldn't have said anything of the sort. I don't think I was in Court when this Maxstoke gave his evidence. What sort of a bloke was he?"

"I have not seen him. Sergeant Bingham tells me - but," added the Inspector, with a touch of austerity, "he is a vulgar man, that one! - that he would be the man to pinch and cuddle a la.s.sie! A droch duine, is what he called him."

"That I'll be bound he never did! I don't know what it means, nor I don't want to, but the idea of you putting words like that into poor old Bingham's mouth! The inference being that the whole affair was a plant? Well, I have heard of such things, but not often, and I'm bound to say I didn't take to the fair Beulah. Looked as if she'd murder her own grandmother for sixpence. But one of her fellow-convicts sent her to Seaton-Carew, thinking he could use her; and it looks very much to me as though he pretty soon found out he couldn't - not in the way that was meant, anyhow. Now, that's very interesting, Sandy! If you ask me, drug-peddling wasn't his only racket, not by a long chalk! He didn't want an agent for that! It wouldn't surprise me to learn that he ran a blackmailing business, by way of a side-line. That's where the tie-up between him and Hard-faced Hannah may have come in. I don't say it did, but you want to bear it in mind, as a possibility. If she didn't put the black on Lady Nest, I'll eat my hat! She's got a lot of money, too: much more than she ought to have, in these days, when honest people can't possibly have a lot of money."

"I was not hearing from the servants anything that would bear that out," observed Grant doubtfully.

"I don't suppose you were. What they had to say, by what I can make out, they might as well have kept to themselves, for all the good it's likely to do us. They've none of them been with her above two years, and most of 'em not half as long. She's a bad mistress, but that doesn't make her a criminal."

"It does not. But they think she is not a lady, for all such grand people visit her house."

"One up to you," agreed Hemingway generously. "If they say that, they're right: they always know!"

He ate his supper that evening in the cosy little house in Bromley in which Ex-Superintendent Darliston had retired. While this meal was in progress, and Mrs. Darliston sat presiding over a teapot almost as enormous as herself, nothing was talked of but the prospects of the Ex-Superintendent's three sons, the amazing intelligence of his five grandchildren, the iniquitous behaviour of his hens, and the success he had enjoyed at the last local Show with his tomatoes; but when the Ex-Superintendent had let his belt out a hole or two, and had drawn a pipe and an aged pouch from his pocket, his spouse heaved her ma.s.sive form out of her chair, piled all the crockery on a tray, and said: "Well, I'll go and wash up. If Stanley came out here to talk to you about the new greenhouse, Herbert, I didn't marry a policeman, thirty years ago, more fool me! No, I don't want any help, Stanley, thanking you all the same! Just open that door for me, and give over doing the polite!"

So saying, this admirable woman picked up the tray, and sailed off with it to the scullery.

"You can't fool Mother," observed Mr. Darliston. He pushed his pouch across the table. "Here, have a fill of mine! Now, what's eating you, young fellow?"

"Come to pick your brains, Super," said Hemingway.

"Ah!" said Mr. Darliston, leaning back at his ease. "I daresay I've forgotten more than you'll ever know."

"Well, have a shot at remembering, will you, granddad?" retorted Hemingway disrespectfully. "Going on as if you were Methuselah, and me in my first pair of long trousers!"

Mr. Darliston's bulk quivered slightly as he chuckled. He jerked his thumb suggestively towards the beer jug, and invited his guest to unburden himself. He heard the Chief Inspector out in silence, remarking at the end of his discourse: "Yes, I remember young Grant. A good lad: how's he getting on?"

"Fine, for a toddler like him!" said Hemingway. "I'll tell him you remembered him. That'll please him a lot more than it does me. What 1 want you to remember -"

"Slow, but careful," pursued the Ex-Superintendent. "Of course, he owed a lot to the training he had under me. Get on with him all right?"

"I've known worse. In fact, if it wasn't for him breathing that Gaelic of his all over me, I wouldn't have a thing against him."

"Garlic?" repeated Mr. Darliston, staring. "What's he want to eat garlic for? Tell him to stop it!"

"He doesn't eat it: he talks it. At least, that's what he says it is. He's got a shocking outbreak at the moment. They went and gave him Christmas leave, and he jumped on to the first train up to Inverness. By what I can make out, it took him the best part of twenty-four hours to get to this village of his, but he seems to think it was worth it. Never mind him! Do you remember this Seaton-Carew, alias Plain-Carew?"

"Yes, I remember the chap, and I'll tell you this, Stanley: you've got a real slippery customer in him!"

"Well, if he slips out of the mortuary, I'll know you were right. Meanwhile, I'd be glad if you'd tell me if you were playing a hunch when you tailed him, or whether you had any tabs on him?"

"Not to say tabs. Call it a lot of leads. Not one of them led me to his front-door. I could look out my old casebooks, if you like, but they wouldn't tell you much."

"No, that's all right. When you cleared up that particular gang, what became of friend Carew?"

"I don't know. He faded out, and I was under the impression that he skipped over to France."

"Never had any enquiries about him from the Surete?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"I see. Now, I've put Cathercott on to his flat, but drugs aren't my line, and I'd be grateful for a tip or two. Would he be likely to keep the stuff there?"

"He'd probably keep it there, any time he had some to dispose of- though I once met a fellow that used to dump it in a safe-deposit. That's how I caught him: seemed an unnatural sort of thing for a chap to be going two and three times a week to his safe-deposit."

"Could he hide it in a small flat, so as his man wouldn't find it?"

"Easy. If he's been selling it to people like this Lady Nest of yours, it's white drugs he's handling - probably snow, might be heroin, might even be morphia, but that's unlikely. You don't want to go looking for a consignment of hemp, you know. The stuff's worth a blooming sight more than its weight in gold, and the amount he'd have on the premises he could hide pretty well anywhere. Take any cigarettes you find - but Cathercott knows the ropes! Probably handed it over to his customers in neat little packets of powder, anyway. One of the cleverest rogues I ever arrested used to paste chemist's labels on his packets, with Boric Acid written on 'em, and the ends sealed up with red sealing-wax. Life-like, they were."

"That 'ud be more in this bloke's line than handing out boxes of cigarettes," said Hemingway shrewdly. "If that was his trade, it's my belief he'd have done his handing over at all those parties he used to go to. There were no flies on him, and, unless I find he's got a secret deposit for his papers, he's been careful to destroy every last bit of written evidence. I wouldn't be surprised if that was your fault, Super. You went and frightened the poor fellow, and a nice mess that leaves me with!"

"Well," said Mr. Darliston, reaching out his hand for the beer jug, "I don't blame you for wanting to pinch the man that murdered him, Stanley, because that's your job; but I've seen something of the horrors him and vermin like him batten on, and what I say is that whoever did him in did a good job, and ought properly to be given a medal. In fact," he added, refilling the Chief Inspector's gla.s.s, "it's those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds which make me believe in h.e.l.l! If I didn't think they were roasting down there, I wouldn't be able to sleep o' nights!"

Chapter Twelve.

The Chief Inspector, reaching London again shortly after nine o'clock, betook himself to Scotland Yard, and found Inspector Grant awaiting him patiently in his office. He was seated at the desk, studying a dossier, but he rose when his chief came in, and closed the file. "I thought maybe you would be looking in," he remarked.

"I will say this for you, Sandy: you're a conscientious bloke!" said Hemingway, hanging up his hat and overcoat. "Got anything for me?"

"Verra little, I am afraid. Cathercott was on the telephone a while back. He was wanting to know if you would have him continue searching, or if it was a mare's nest he was looking for. They found a safe, hidden in a verra unusual place, and it cost them a deal of trouble to open it. There was two or three hundred pounds in banknotes in it, and some bonds, and never a sniff of snow, nor a speck to show there had ever been any there. Och, the truaghan! What with the toothache he has had all day, and the pains he took to get the safe open; and then nothing to reward him, it's a fine temper he is in! There was a secret drawer in the desk, too, which Sergeant Cringleford found, and bare as the palm of your hand when they got that open!"

Hemingway grinned, but he said: "Did you tell him to keep on at it?"

"I did, the duine bochd, but it went to my heart! If he had had it, would Seaton-Carew not have kept the stuff in the hidden safe?"

"I don't know. You'd think so, but old Darliston's just been warning me he was a d.a.m.ned slippery customer. It would be a smart trick to install a secret safe, just to put chaps like Cathercott off the scent. Did you say there were two or three hundred pounds in it? I suppose Cathercott was so busy sniffing for drugs he never noticed a nasty smell of rat. I would have. What did the fellow want with all that amount of money in the flat? Planning a midnight flit, in case we got after him?"

"Well," said the Inspector mildly, "it is not an offence to keep money by you!"

"No, and if he ran a big estate, no doubt he would have a lot of cash in his safe from time to time, so as he could pay wages, and such-like. If you can tell me what he should want with a great wad of bank-notes in a small flat in town, you'll be clever! Did you check up on what the Birtley girl said about Mrs. Haddington having kicked up a row because of some towel or other in that cloakroom?"

"I was not able. The girl she would have spoken to, if she spoke at all, is the head housemaid, and she has been ill with the influenza since two days. You would not have me push my way into the la.s.sie's bedroom!"

"Quite right! You can't be too careful," agreed his incorrigible superior. "Nice thing it would be if we had members of the Department getting compromised!"

"I am susceptible to the influenza," said Inspector Grant austerely. "Not but what I would have taken the risk, if I had thought it proper."

"All right, all right!" said Hemingway soothingly. "It'll have to be checked up on, but I'm bound to say it wouldn't have been at all proper. One subject throwing a handful of mud at another isn't anything to get excited about. Not but what there's quite a lot about Mrs. Haddington I could bear to have explained to me. If I could believe that a dame who looks to me to have about as much pa.s.sion in her as a cod-fish would murder the boy-friend because he got off with her daughter, I think I'd pinch her."

Inspector Grant was well-acquainted with his chief, but this made him gasp. "There is no evidence! Thoir ort, you are joking!"

"It's my belief," said Hemingway severely, "that when you cough that nasty Gaelic of yours at me you're just handing me out a slice of d.a.m.ned cheek, banking on me not understanding a word of it! One of these days I'll learn the language, and then you'll precious soon find yourself reduced to the ranks, my lad! There isn't any evidence - not what you could call evidence! - against any of them: that's the trouble. You take this Haddington dame! She had a row with Seaton-Carew earlier in the evening -"

"So also did Miss Birtley."

"That's so, and don't you run away with the idea that I've ruled her out, because I haven't! But she doesn't so far seem to have had any motive at all for strangling the chap."

"It might be that she was afraid he would tell Mr. Harte she had been in prison."

"It might," conceded Hemingway. "Now tell me what that bird had to gain by telling Terrible Timothy anything at all about her!"

"That," said Grant, "I do not know."