“It depends on the housemaid,” answered Giles.
Hannasyde picked up the pipe, and slipped it into his pocket. “I'll see the hall-porter, Hemingway,” he said. “Ask him to come up, will you?”
Giles smiled. “I take it you'd like me to stay? - to be sure that I don't get to Chelsea ahead of you?”
“Quite right, I would,” answered Hannasyde. “Not that I think you'd do that, but at this stage I'm taking no risks. Would you have said that Roger Vereker was likely to commit suicide?”
“No, I shouldn't,” said Giles. “He certainly complained that it got on his nerves to have detectives cropping up at every turn, but he didn't appear to me to be particularly alarmed. However, I didn't see very much of him, so I may be wrong.”
“I don't think you are wrong,” Hannasyde said slowly. “Do you remember the day he told me that preposterous story of how he went to Monte Carlo? I have a vivid recollection of him saying: "Do I look the kind of man who'd shoot himself. Of course I don't."”
“Yes, I remember that,” Giles replied. “But you never know with a man who drinks as much as he did. That cartridge-case is more to the point, and I think it argues an unaccustomed hand. Had I done this, for instance, I should have looked carefully for that case after firing the shot.”
“People don't always keep their heads under such circumstances. If they did there would be more unsolved mysteries.”
“True, but didn't we decide some time ago that the murderer in this case must have been a very cool customer?”
“Assuming the murderer of Arnold Vereker and the murderer of Roger Vereker to have been one and the same person?” said Hannasyde a little ruefully. “I haven't much doubt of that myself, but whether I shall ever prove it is another matter. Where, by the way, were you last night?”