“Henry Lupton?” repeated Giles, a little blankly. “You don't mean the hen-pecked brother-in-law? Is he keeping a mistress? How extremely funny!”
“May not be so funny,” said Hannasyde. “That's about the size of it, though. I didn't get much out of Gladys Smith. She said her husband was a commercial traveller, and often away from home. Great air of respectability about the whole thing. Poor devil!”
“Who? Henry? Seems to have found consolation.”
“Not much consolation if it comes to his wife's ears.”
“Well, what's it all about? What have Lupton's peccadilloes to do with Matthews' death?”
“Perhaps nothing. But if you remember, Mr Carrington, Gladys Smith figured in Matthews' diary on May 9th. On the 13th he had an appointment to see Lupton. Doesn't that seem to you to hang together?”
Giles frowned. “Yes, it might, I suppose. Matthews found out about Gladys Smith and threatened Lupton with exposure if he didn't jettison her. Is that what you mean? Was he very fond of his sister?”
“He seems to have been fonder of her than of the rest of his family. And from what I've heard of him a ruthless piece of blackmail like that would have been just about his mark.”
“He looked a bit of a brute,” commented Giles. “I take it Lupton now steps into the role of Chief Suspect, as Kenneth would say. I'm sorry about that: I had some news I hoped would please you.”
“What's that?” Hannasyde asked.
Giles smiled. “Oh, only your friend Randall. He rang me up last night to find out what you were up to—or so I gathered. Anyway, he's meeting us at the Poplars today.”
“What for?” demanded Hannasyde.
Giles shrugged. “Well, he has every right to be present when you go through Matthews' papers. He's one of the executors, you know.”
“Oh, I've no objection,” Hannasyde said. “But I'd like to know why he wants to be there.”
“You'd better ask him,” replied Giles. “I didn't.”
“Quite right,” approved Hannasyde, and relapsed into meditative silence.
Randall's car was not to be seen when they arrived at the Poplars, but the first sound that met their ears when they were admitted into the house was that of Mrs Lupton's voice. A man's hat lying on the table beside a pair of brown leather gloves seemed to indicate that her husband might also be present. Hannasyde looked at the hat without appearing to do so, and turned to greet Miss Harriet Matthews, who came out of the library towards him. She was looking flustered, and annoyed, and spoke in an even more disjointed fashion than usual. “Oh, you've come!” she said. “Well, I'm sure it's nothing to do with me—oh, how do you do, Mr Carrington? I didn't see you!—but I must say I can't see what poor Gregory's private papers have to do with the police, and I consider it most officious—not that anyone pays the least heed to what I say. You needn't think you're going to find anything, because I know perfectly well there's nothing to find, and if there did happen to be any letters about the Brazilian business it proves nothing at all, whatever my sister may have told you to the contrary, as I've no doubt she did!”
Mrs Lupton came out of the library in the middle of this speech, followed by her husband, and said with her customary air of majesty: “Do not make yourself ridiculous, Harriet. Good-morning, gentlemen. I understand you wish to inspect my brother's papers?”
“It has nothing whatever to do with you, Gertrude!” said Miss Matthews excitedly. “I won't be treated like a cypher in my own house! You've no business here at all, behaving as though you were the one who had to be consulted! No one asked you to come, and no one wanted you!”
“Ah, good-morning, Mr Carrington!” cooed a voice from the stairs. Mrs Matthews had made her appearance, and bestowed a gracious smile on Giles, and a more formal one on the Superintendent. “Such a lovely morning, isn't it? Dear Gertrude! What a surprise! And Henry, too!”
Miss Matthews eyed her with smouldering resentment. “Well, you're down very early, Zoë!” she said. “Quite remarkable! Of bourse, none of us can guess why. Oh, no!”
“Perhaps it was not quite wise of me,” agreed Mrs Matthews. “But on a day like this one feels glad to be alive.” Her smile was once more directed towards Giles. I'm afraid they will tell you that I am rather a hopeless old crock, Mr Carrington.”
“If you mean me, Zoë,” said Mrs Lupton witheringly, “I should not tell Mr Carrington anything of the sort. I do not propose to discuss you with him at all, but were I to do so I should not describe you as a hopeless crock, but as a malade imaginaire. Mr Carrington, I believe you are in charge of my brother's keys. Kindly come this way.”
Mrs Matthews gave a shudder. “All these sordid details! I suppose it has to be.”
“Yes, I'm afraid it has,” said Giles in his pleasant way.
“If anyone has a right to object it is I, and certainly not my sister-in-law!” snapped Miss Matthews. “Not that I do object. Why should I?”
At this moment Randall Matthews walked into the house. Apparently he was in time to overhear his aunt's remarks, for he said as though he had been taking part in the conversation: “No one has any right to object. Dear me, what can have brought my dear Aunt Gertrude here, I wonder?”
“You don't know what we were talking about!” said Miss Matthews angrily.
“No, but I feel sure my answer was the right one,” replied Randall. His gaze returned to Mrs Lupton. “You are not unexpected, my dear aunt, but, believe me, superfluous.”
“I shall not pretend to be ignorant of your meaning, Randall,” announced Mrs Luton. “In your eyes I've no doubt I am superfluous, but I suppose I am concerned at least as much as you are with my brother's death. If light is shed by his private papers I expect to be told of it.”
“If so singular a phenomenon occurs the whole world shall be told of it,” promised Randall. “Carrington, you have the key to Bluebeard's chamber. Do come and open it!”
A storm of protest broke out at this piece of flippancy. Without paying the least heed to it Randall conducted Giles and Hannasyde to his uncle's study, and waited unconcernedly while the key was fitted into the lock.
As one making civil conversation Hannasyde said: “I'm sorry the ladies should be distressed about this, Mr Matthews. These things are always rather painful for the rest of the family.”
Randall's eyes flickered to his face. “Well, you never know, do you?” he said. “Lots of little things in our lives we should prefer to bury in decent oblivion.”
“Such as, Mr Matthews?”
“I haven't seen my uncle's correspondence yet,” replied Randall sweetly.
Giles turned the key in the wards, and pushed open the door. They went into the study, a square room with a Turkey carpet, and solid furniture. Randall strolled to the window, and opened it, and remained there, his hands in his pockets, and his shoulders propped against the wall. He evinced no interest in the discoveries made by Hannasyde, which were not, indeed, of an interesting nature. There were some bills, many receipts, several typewritten letters referring to Guy Matthews' future in Brazil, and one brief note from Henry Lupton, dated 13th May. Giles, finding it, handed it to Hannasyde without comment.
It seemed to have been written in haste, and began abruptly: “Further to our conversation of even date, I must see you again before doing anything. I trust you have by this time thought better of it, and warn you you will have cause to regret it if you drive me to take desperate action.”
Hannasyde read this through, and was about to fold it up when Randall moved away from the window, and came forward. “Ah, do you mind?” he murmured, and took the letter out of his hand.
“It is of no particular moment,” Hannasyde said, a little shortly.
“I expect that was why you were interested,” said Randall in his most dulcet voice. He read the letter, and gave it back. “Dramatic little man,” he said.
“Do you know to what this letter refers, Mr Matthews?”
“Do you?” smiled Randall.
“Yes, Mr Matthews, I think I do.”
“Then why ask me?” inquired Randall. He glanced down at the drawer Giles had pulled out. “How very disappointing! I'm afraid my uncle must have destroyed his more lurid correspondence.”
The drawer held an untidy collection of oddments. Hannasyde turned over a packet of labels, disclosing a pair of horn-rimmed sun-glasses underneath, a scattering of paper-clips, and a tube of seccotine. For the rest there was a quantity of stamp-paper, some sealing wax, a pen-knife, a bottle of red ink, and a roll of adhesive tape. These articles the Superintendent turned out on to the desk, but there was nothing hidden under them.
Randall was looking at the heterogeneous collection, a slight frown between his eyes.
“The usual odds-and-ends drawer,” said Giles, beginning to put the things back.
Randall's eyes lifted. “As you say,” he agreed politely. “It is all very disheartening.”
The remaining drawers were equally barren of interest. Giles had just closed the last of them when a gentle knock fell on the door, and Henry Lupton looked deprecatingly into the room. “I hope I don't intrude?” he said. “The fact is, my wife would like to know—We only looked in, you see, just to inquire how things were going, and time presses, you know. So if we are not needed—?” He left the end of the sentence unfinished, and looked from Hannasyde to Giles, and back again.
Hannasyde replied:. “Will you come in, Mr Lupton? As a matter of fact, there are one or two questions I want to ask you.”
Henry Lupton, though he closed the door, did not advance farther into the room. He said hurriedly: “Oh, of course! I should be only too glad if there were anything I can answer, but really, you know, I'm as much in the dark as anyone. A most incomprehensible affair! I was only saying so to my wife last night. I was never so shocked in my life as when I heard of it.”
Randall took out his cigarette-case. “Don't overdo it,” he said, his smile remarkably like a sneer.
Hannasyde turned his head. “I don't think I need keep you any longer, Mr Matthews.”
“I rather fancy that you may discover a need for me,” returned Randall, flicking open his cigarette-lighter. “I may, of course, be wrong, but—no, I'm not wrong.”
The door had opened again, this time without any preliminary warning, and Mrs Lupton sailed into the room. “May I ask what is going on in here?” she said in tones of considerable displeasure. “You are perfectly well aware that I have a busy morning before me, Henry. I must say I should have thought you had time to have delivered my message twice over by now.” She bent her magisterial frown on Hannasyde. “Unless my presence is required I am now leaving,” she announced.
“Certainly,” said Hannasyde. “I want, however, to have a few words with your husband, if you will excuse us for a minute or two.”
“With my husband?” repeated Mrs Lupton. “And pray what have you to say to my husband, Superintendent?”
Henry Lupton, who was looking rather sickly, said: “Well, you see, my dear, the—the Superintendent wants to have a word in private with me, if—if you don't mind.”
“Indeed!” said Mrs Lupton. “I have always understood a husband and wife to be one person.” She again addressed Hannasyde. “You may speak quite freely in front of me, Superintendent. My husband and I have no secrets from each other.”
“It is not a question of secrets, Mrs Lupton,” replied Hannasyde. “It is merely that I prefer —”
“If you have anything to ask my husband, you may ask it in my presence,” interrupted Mrs Lupton. “No doubt I shall be a good deal more competent to answer anything relevant to the affairs of this house than he.”
“I'm afraid you don't understand, Mrs Lupton,” intervened Giles. “Superintendent Hannasyde has to proceed in the—er—customary way. There is no —”
“Henry!” said Mrs Lupton, unheeding. “Will you kindly inform the Superintendent that you have no objection to my presence?”
“Well, my dear, naturally I—naturally I —”
“It is now obvious to us all that he has every objection,” said Randall. “You know, you had very much better withdraw, my dear aunt. I feel sure that Uncle Henry's double life is going to be exposed. My own conviction is that he has been keeping a mistress for years.”
Giles could not forbear casting a quick look from Randall's handsome, mocking face to Henry Lupton's grey one. The little man tried to laugh, but there was no mirth in his eyes. Superintendent Hannasyde remained immovable.
Mrs Lupton flushed. “You forget yourself, Randall. I am not going to stand here and see my husband insulted by your ill-bred notions of what is funny.”
“Oh, I wasn't insulting him,” said Randall. “Why shouldn't he have a mistress? I am inclined to think that in his place—as your spouse, my dear Aunt Gertrude—I should have several.”
Across the room Giles' eyes encountered Hannasyde's for one pregnant moment. It was evident that Randall had at last succeeded in startling the Superintendent.
Mrs Lupton seemed to swell. “You will either apologise for your impertinence, Randall, or I leave this room. Never have I been spoken to in such a manner!”
“Dear aunt!” said Randall, and kissed his fingers to her. Mrs Lupton swept round, and stalked from the room. Randall inhaled a deep breath of tobacco smoke. “I said you might need me,” he remarked, and lounged towards the door.
Henry Lupton said in a strangled voice: “Wait, Randall! What—what do you mean by this—this very questionable joke?”
Randall glanced contemptuously down at him. “My good uncle, I have got you out of one mess: get yourself out of this!” he said, and walked negligently out of the room.
Giles would have followed him, but Lupton, a tinge of colour now in his cheeks, stopped him, saying: “Please don't go, Mr Carrington! I—really, I should prefer you to remain! You are a legal man, and I —”
“I cannot undertake to advise you, Mr Lupton,” Giles said. “I am here merely as the late Mr Matthews' solicitor.”
“Quite, quite! But my position —”
“By all means stay,” interposed Hannasyde. He laid his own letter before Henry Lupton. “Did you write this, Mr Lupton?”
Lupton glanced unhappily at it. “Yes. That is—yes, I wrote it. We—my brother-in-law and I—had a slight disagreement over a—a personal matter. Such things will happen in the best regulated families, you know. I thought it would be best if we met and talked it over. Without prejudice, you know.”
“Did you meet him?” Hannasyde asked.
“No. Oh, no! You see, he died before there was really time.”
“Did he answer your letter, Mr Lupton?”
“Only by telephone. Just to let me know that he couldn't manage an appointment.” He gave a nervous laugh. “I was very much annoyed at the time—well, my brother-in-law had a sort of manner that rather put one's back up, if you know what I mean.”
Hannasyde said in his measured way: “Mr Lupton, I want you to realise one thing. Except in so far as they may have a bearing on this case I am not concerned with your private affairs. Nor, I can assure you, have I any desire to make wanton trouble in your family circle. But when I went through the late Mr Matthews' papers at his office, with Mr Carrington here, I found the name and address of a lady calling herself Gladys Smith. You will understand that I had of course to follow this up. I called on Mrs Smith at her flat yesterday, and what I saw and heard there were sufficient to convince me that you are—intimately acquainted with her.”
Henry Lupton looked towards Giles for support, and getting none said in a blustering voice: “Well, and what if I am? I should like to know what bearing it can have on this case?”
“That is what I also want to know, Mr Lupton.” Hannasyde left a pause, but Henry Lupton said nothing, and after a minute he continued: “You had an appointment to see your brother-in-law on Monday, 13th May.”
Lupton moved uneasily in his chair. “Yes, certainly I had. But this is—is quite ridiculous! There is no reason why you should drag in Mrs Smith's name.”
“Are you going to tell me, Mr Lupton, that your appointment with the late Mr Matthews had no bearing on Mrs Smith—whose name and address I found in his diary?”
It was evident that Henry Lupton hardly knew what to reply. He mumbled something about consulting his solicitor, seemed to think better of it, and chancing to catch sight of his own letter to Gregory Matthews, said with a good deal of agitation: “I didn't poison him, if that's what you suspect! Yes, yes, I know very well what's in your mind, and I admit I was a fool to write that letter. That ought to convince you—for I never dreamed that anything like this would happen.”
“I don't suspect anything,” said Hannasyde calmly. “But it is obvious to me that at the time of his death you were on bad terms with Gregory Matthews; equally obvious that the existence of Mrs Smith had something to do with that. I think Mr Carrington, in the absence of your own solicitor, would advise you to be frank with me.”
Giles said nothing, but Henry Lupton, dropping his head into his hands, groaned, and answered: “Of course I've no desire to obstruct the police. Naturally I—I appreciate your position, Superintendent, but my own is—is extremely equivocal. My wife has no suspicion—I have my daughters to consider, and my whole object is to is to—”
“Please understand, Mr Lupton, that I am not here to investigate public morals,” said Hannasyde coldly. “I can only tell you in all honesty that your relations with Mrs Smith are more likely to become known through a refusal on your part to be frank with me than through a voluntary statement made to me now.”
“Yes,” agreed Lupton unhappily. “I see that, of course. I suppose you'll make inquiries, and it'll get round.” He gave a shudder, and lifted his head. “I have known Mrs Smith for a number of years,” he said, not meeting Hannasyde's gaze. “I needn't go into all that, need I? My work takes me about the country a good deal. I—there has always been plenty of opportunity without creating suspicion. I've been very careful. I don't know how my brother-in-law found out. It's a mystery to me. But he did find out. He asked me to call at his office. I'd no idea—I thought it odd, but he was a strange man, and it didn't cross my mind… anyway, I went, and he taxed me with—with my connection with Mrs Smith.” His face twitched. He clasped his hands tightly on his knee, and said in a constricted voice: “He knew all about it. He even knew when I'd last been with her, and how they thought—the other people in the block, I mean—that I was a commercial traveller. He must have made the most minute inquiries. It was no use denying it. He knew everything - oh, things one wouldn't have thought he could know! He - was very unpleasant about it.” He broke off, and turned with a kind of appeal towards Giles. “You knew him, Carrington. It's no good trying to explain to the Superintendent. No one who was unacquainted with Gregory would understand.”
“I didn't know him well,” Giles answered.
“You must have seen the type of man he was. Power! That's what he liked! He didn't care about my wife, you know. Not enough to make him threaten me with exposure. That wasn't it. It was - a cruel streak in his nature. They're all of them like that, the Matthews, in a way. He wanted to pull the strings and see the puppets dance. Well, I told him he couldn't do that with me. I - I have danced, often, in - in minor things, but this was different. I don't want you to think of it as a mere sordid intrigue, because I swear it's not like that. Mrs Smith - well, she's just the same as a wife to me. I'd marry her if I could, but, you see, it's all so impossible. There are my daughters, for one thing, and my position, and - and my wife, of course. I've even got a grandson. One can't, you know. But that's what I meant when I wrote that.” He pointed to the letter, lying on the desk before Hannasyde.
Hannasyde picked it up. “The phrase, you will have cause to regret it if you drive me to take desperate action - that meant that you were seriously contemplating divorce, Mr Lupton?”
“Yes, I think I meant that. I don't know. I was terribly worried. I couldn't see my way out of the trouble. I wrote that to try and frighten him. I thought he might hesitate to push me too far if he knew I was prepared to stand by Gladys, and let everything else go to the devil. After all he wouldn't want an open scandal in the family, and it wasn't as though my wife suffered in any way through Mrs Smith.”
“I quite understand that,” said Hannasyde. “You asked him for a second interview, but he refused it, didn't he?”
Henry Lupton nodded, and gulped. “Yes, he refused it. That was the last time I spoke to him. On the morning of the day he died, just over the telephone. He rang me up from his office. I never saw him again.”
“At what time did he ring you up, Mr Lupton?”
“Oh, quite early! Not later than eleven.”
“I see. And what did you do then?”
Lupton stared at him. “Nothing. That is, I was at my office, you see. I had my work. I couldn't do anything.”
“You didn't make any attempt to see Mr Matthews—during lunch-time, for instance?”
“No. It wouldn't have been any use. I knew Gregory. I had lunch by myself. I wanted time to think.”
“Where did you lunch, Mr Lupton?”
“At my usual place. It's a quiet little restaurant called the Vine. They know me there. I'm sure they'll be able to bear me out.”
“And after lunch?”
“I went back to the office, of course. As a matter of fact, I left earlier than I generally do. Well, before tea.”
“Where did you go?”
“To Golders Green. I wanted to see Mrs Smith.”
“Ah, yes,” Hannasyde said suavely. “You naturally wished to discuss the matter with her.”
“Well, no. No, actually I didn't speak of it. I meant to, but—but I still hoped there might be some way of getting round it, and—you see, we never spoke of my—my home-life. And I didn't want to upset Gladys. I haven't told her anything about what's happened. Just that we have had a death in the family.”
“Oh!” said Hannasyde. “At what hour did you leave Mrs Smith?”
“I don't really know. I was home in time for dinner. I mean, I went straight home from Golders Green.”
“And after dinner?”
“We had some people in for Bridge. I didn't leave the house again until next day, when we came here.”
“Thank you.” Hannasyde was jotting something down in his notebook. His tone conveyed nothing.
Lupton looked anxiously at him. “I don't know if there's anything more you want to know, or if I can go? My wife will be —”
“No, there is nothing more at present,” said Hannasyde.
Henry Lupton got up. “Then—?”
“By all means,” said Hannasyde.
The little man withdrew, and Giles came away from the window, where he had been standing, and said: “Poor devil! What a mess to have got himself into! You don't like his story?”
“I don't like his alibi.”
“Which one? Oh, Gladys Smith! I should think he probably did go there. Vague idea of seeking comfort. Rather pathetic.”
“Anyway, she'll swear he was with her,” Hannasyde said.
“Probably, but I don't quite see how he could have come here at that hour without being seen by some of the household, if that's what you're driving at.”
“Easily,” said Hannasyde, with a touch of scorn. “There are more ways of getting into this house than by the front-door, Mr Carrington. There's a garden-door, for instance, which opens out of a cloakroom on to a path at the side of the house. Anyone would use that door if he wanted to be unobserved. The backstairs come down just by the cloakroom. He would only have to choose his moment. The family and the servants would all be having tea. He might reasonably bank on the coast's being clear.”
“Yes, but what would have been the use?” asked Giles. “Matthews wasn't at home then. Into what would he have dropped his poison?”
“I'm thinking of that bottle of tonic—so providentially smashed,” said Hannasyde.
Giles wrinkled his brow. “Would he have known where it was kept? And how could he have arranged to smash it?”
“He might have known. Simple enough to smash it when he came round next morning with his wife.”
“Oh!” said Giles doubtfully. “Think it's quite in keeping with his character? Such a weak little man!”
“He was feeling desperate, Mr Carrington. He admitted that himself. I should say this Gladys Smith is about the biggest thing in his life.”
“Divorce seems to me to be a solution more likely to appeal to him than murder,” said Giles.
Hannasyde shook his head decidedly. “I don't agree with you. He wouldn't face up to that sort of a scandal. Probably fond of his daughters too. If he did the murder it was because he thought he could get clean away with it. He couldn't have got clean away with a divorce—not with that wife. There'd have been the hell of a row.”
“All very well,” objected Giles, “but he couldn't have been sure that by killing Matthews he was protecting himself. Matthews might have told someone else. In fact, he did. That young sweep, Randall, wasn't drawing a bow at a venture. He knew.”
“He knew, yes, but, if you noticed, Lupton was amazed that he knew. He probably believed Matthews had so far kept the secret to himself.” He picked up Lupton's letter, and placed it in his pocket-book. Then he looked thoughtfully at the desk, and pulled open one of the drawers, and frowned. It was the odds-and-ends drawer. “I wish—I wish very much that I knew what Mr Randall Matthews found to interest him amongst this collection,” he said.
“Was he interested? I didn't notice.”
“I'm nearly sure he was. But whether it was in something which he saw, or in something which he expected to see, and didn't, I don't know. Setting aside his duties as executor—which I don't fancy would worry him much—why did he want to be here when we went through his uncle's papers? What did he think we should find?”
“Perhaps the very thing we did find. That letter of Lupton's.”
Hannasyde considered this for a moment. “It might have been that. It's quite probable, if old Matthews had taken him into his confidence. But what is there in this drawer?”
“You may be right in thinking it is something which is not in the drawer.”
“I may. There is just one thing that strikes me as unusual: there's practically no old correspondence, either here or at Matthews' office.”
“Some men habitually tear up letters as soon as they've answered them,” said Giles. “Are you suggesting that someone's been at work amongst Matthews papers?”
“I'm suggesting nothing,” replied Hannasyde. “But it does seem to me that if Matthews destroyed all his letters himself, it must have amounted to a mania with him.”
“The fell hand of Randall,” said Giles, with an amused look.
Hannasyde smiled reluctantly. “I know you think I've got him on the brain. I ought to tell you that I can't find that he came anywhere near this place between May 12th and May 15th.” He added ruefully: “You're quite right: I am suspicious of him, and I'm suspicious of his alibis. They're so good that they might have been created on purpose. But I tell you frankly, Mr Carrington, I don't see how he can possibly have committed this murder.”
“You sound regretful,” said Giles, laughing.
“No, not that. Just plain worried. Groping about in a fog, and all the time I've got an uneasy feeling I'm on the wrong track. If I could only discover the medium through which the poison was administered! It may have been the whiskey-and-soda Guy Matthews poured out for his uncle; Matthews may have bathed his scratched hand with poisoned lotion—but all the lotion I found in this house was a brand-new bottle of Pond's Extract with the paper sealing the cork down still intact. It may have been the tonic—and the bottle was smashed. I've racked my brains to think of something else—something that might have been doctored at any time, perhaps days before Matthews' death. Well, I thought of aspirin tablets, but he didn't use drugs. Hemingway put all the servants through a hair-sieve, so to speak, but he couldn't discover that Matthews had eaten or drunk anything the rest of the family hadn't, barring that whiskey, and the tonic.” He broke off, and rose. “Well, it's no use sitting and talking to you about it, Mr Carrington. I've got to get on with the job, and I've no doubt you're itching to get back to town.”
“I don't know about itching, exactly, but I certainly ought to go,” said Giles, glancing at his watch. “I'm glad I don't leave Lupton in the role of Chief Suspect,” he added with a twinkle. “I'm sorry for the poor wretch.”
“Oh, he's a suspect all right,” Hannasyde answered. “I shall have to check up closely on him. But it's too clever, Mr Carrington. If Lupton did it, it must have been on the spur of the moment, and because he was desperate. Well, I may be wrong, but it doesn't look like that to me. It's been carefully planned, this murder, down to the very poison that was used. The ordinary man doesn't hit on a thing like nicotine on the spur of the moment.”
“I see. You think research is indicated.”
“I do. Research, and a cool, clever brain,” said Hannasyde, putting his pocket-book away, and moving across the thick carpet to the door. He opened it, and nearly collided with Miss Matthews. “I beg your pardon!”
She was holding a bowl of flowers between her hands, and said in her hurried way: “Oh, what a start you gave me, Superintendent! Just going to replenish my flowers. I always do it in the cloakroom, because it makes such a mess.”
She ended on one of her breathless, inane laughs, and sped on through the baize-door at the end of the passage. The two men's eyes met. “She was listening,” said Giles softly.
“Yes,” replied Hannasyde non-commitally. “She has a reputation for being extremely inquisitive.”