"I'm not sure," Hemingway said slowly. "What about you? Have you seen young Butterwick?"
"I have, then, and I questioned him, though it is my belief I had no need to, for it was at the Opera House I found him, and him in his evening clothes. But it is not opera, but ballet they are having there, and for all he swore he was there at the start, he may have been telling me a lie. He was alone."
"The people sitting on either side of him ought to be able to tell you!" Hemingway said.
"Ma seadh! But there were no people sitting beside him, sir. Mrs. Butterwick has a box for the whole season, and there is not one of the attendants can say for sure when he arrived this evening. Whether it was before -" He produced his notebook, and painstakingly read from it -
"Les Presages, or Petrouchka. It was while Petrouchka was on that I reached Covent Garden, sir, and it seemed as though these ballet folk think a great deal of that, for when I asked to have Mr.. Butter-wick brought out to me, they kept saying, In the middle of Petrouchka? as though I had asked to have him fetched out of Kirk. Which," added the Inspector, "I would not do! Indeed, such a stramash was there, with them telling me this Petrouchka would not last above a quarter of an hour more, and would I not wait for the interval, that I said, Gle mhath! and I waited."
"Well, if that's what you said, it's a wonder to me they didn't call in the chap on point-duty!" said Hemingway. "They probably thought you were an Undesirable Alien, and I don't blame them. How did you know Butterwick was at the ballet?"
"Och, that was the worst part of the whole business!" replied the Inspector. "I went to that address in Park Lane when I left you, and at first I could discover nothing, because I found only the servants -just a man and wife, for the housemaid is a daily girl, and had gone home - and neither of them knew where the young man might be, or whether he had been in the flat since he took his tea there, with his mother. And that, I think, was true, for they have the kitchen and the servants' quarters a wee bit apart from the living-rooms of the family, and you get to them through a door, and along a bit passage. Young Mr.. Butterwick has his latch-key, I need not tell you, and there is no valet. However, while I was talking with the manservant, Mrs. Butterwick came in." He smiled. "I can tell you, it was not long before I was thinking I would give you moran taing for that assignment, sir!"
Hemingway sat up with a jerk. "Oh, it wasn't? Now, you just tell me what that means, my lad, because, it isn't the first time you've said it to me tonight, and it's my belief that -"
"Och, it means only Many thanks!" said the Inspector meekly.
His superior regarded him with blatant suspicion. "I'll have to take your word for it at the moment, but the first chance I get I'll ask young Fraser! Well, what next?"