Poulton had been playing idly with a pencil. He laid it down, saying icily: "That, Chief Inspector, is an infamous suggestion!"
"You can take it from me, sir, that it isn't a charge I'd bring against anyone without very good reason."
"It is a charge you may regret having brought against her ladyship!"
"If I were wrong I should regret it very much. I will tell you now, sir, that a considerable amount of cocaine has been discovered in Seaton-Carew's flat."
The impassive countenance before him betrayed nothing either of surprise or of alarm. Poulton was still frowning. "Indeed! I was too little acquainted with the man to know whether that was to be expected or not. I am quite sure my wife can have known nothing of it. You seem to imagine that he and she were close friends: they were not. This misapprehension, coupled with her ladyship's neurasthenic condition, has led you to assume that Seaton-Carew had been supplying her with drugs. I perceive, of course, that if that had been true I should have had an excellent motive for strangling the fellow. I may add, in view of this disclosure, that I have every sympathy for the man who did strangle him! That, however, is beside the point. You may search my house with my goodwill; and I recommend you to call on my wife's medical attendant. You have already met him: he is Dr Theodore Westruther. Pray ask him to explain to you the nature of my wife's illness! Now, since I am reasonably certain that you do not, on these fantastic grounds, hold a warrant for my arrest, I am going to request you to leave. I am a very busy man, and I have neither the leisure nor the inclination to listen to police theories which are nothing short of insulting! Good morning, gentlemen!"
When he stood upon the pavement outside the block of offices, the Inspector wiped his brow. "Phew!" he breathed.
"Good, wasn't he?" said Hemingway, bright-eyed and appreciative. "Carried on from the start as if we'd come to sell him a vacuum-cleaner he didn't want. Playing it very boldly, and very coolly. He had one advantage: he knew we'd be coming to question him. Something tells me you wouldn't easily catch that chap on the wrong foot."
"Well," said Grant, thinking it over. "He behaved as you would expect a decent man to behave if he was told his wife was a drug-addict, when she was no such thing."
"Lifelike!" agreed Hemingway. "Even down to inviting me to search his house! Though that was overdoing it a bit, perhaps."
"He told you the name of her doctor. It's queer that one should turn up again. Will you see him?"