"Whisht, would I lie to you? I am telling you, Chief Inspector, I would sooner face a tigress than that woman! From the moment she knew I was a police-officer, I was in terror of having the eyes torn from my head! Och, it is a baby she had made of that truaghan! But she is afraid for him - verra much she is afraid for him!,
Hemingway grinned. "Came up against mother-love, did you? Poor old Sandy! I've had some! What's she afraid of ?"
"The first murder," Grant replied instantly. "She thought I had come to question her son about that, and such a sgeul as she told me about that is no matter at all, for she was not present, and she knows nothing. Coming to it verra doucely, I asked her where Mr.. Sydney Butterwick would be just then, and she told me there was some man with a name I don't call to mind dancing Petrouchka for the first time, and her son would never miss such a sight. So I got from her the number of her box, and away I went." He paused. "Well, they brought young Butterwick to me in a wee office, when this Petrouchka was finished, and in he came, with his shirt no whiter than his face. You'll remember, sir, the way he carried on when you interrogated him: then it was a great deal of nonsense he talked about psychology, to make you think he was quite at his ease. Tonight it was Dalcroze Eurhythmics, and - now, wait while I get this right! - Cecchetti's Method, and Choreography, till I begged the silly gille to whisht!"
Hemingway nodded. Just like you do me! What did you make of him?"
"It is hard to say. There is verra little doubt in my mind he thought I had come to question him about the first murder, for it was of that he talked, until I asked him to tell me what time it was when he reached the Opera House. I am bound to say that he looked scared for his life when I put that to him, and when, later on, I told him what it was I was enquiring about, he gave a sgiamh, and fainted away!"
"Good God!" ejaculated Hemingway.
"You may well say so!" agreed Grant. "When he came round, och, I thought he was going to weep! But a wee dram pulled him together, and he swore to me that all he went to Charles Street for was to ask Mrs. Haddington why she had told lies about him to us. Forbye, he remembered that he went past Lord Guisborough on the stairs. He rushed from the house, leaving his walkingstick behind him. There were all sorts of times he gave me, but the truth is he does not know when he left Charles Street. According to his tale, he went home to Park Lane, and changed into his evening-dress, and came in a taxi to Covent Garden just in time to get to his box before the curtain rose on the first ballet. And whether he was speaking the truth to me or not I cannot tell. For there is no knowing how to take him! For all he fainted under my eyes, no sooner did he hear the bell ringing for the end of the interval than he was in a fret to get back to his box for fear he would miss the last ballet!"
"Might have been in a fret to get away from you," Hemingway said. "However, it doesn't seem to me as though he had any reason for killing Mrs. Haddington, so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt for the moment."
"It might be that she was killed - though I will not say it was by Butterwick, mind! - because she knew too much about the first murder," Grant pointed out.
"It might," Hemingway agreed. "Always a possibility."