Poulton smiled faintly. "I suppose not. Very well, Chief Inspector! I see that I must rely upon your discretion. Before she married me, my wife was one of the more prominent members of a set which prided itself on its total disregard for accepted conventions. I do not propose to divulge any of her indiscretions to you, but I will say, between these walls, that there had been indiscretions. By some means, unknown to me, Mrs. Haddington had been put in possession of the details of perhaps the most serious of these. The price of her silence was not money, but sponsorship into the class of Society to which my wife holds the key."
"And when, sir, did you discover this?"
"Not, unfortunately, at the time."
"No, sir. Only after Seaton-Carewzs murder, in fact?"
"Recently," amended Poulton.
"Mr.. Poulton, I hope you mean to stop fencing with me. I know a lot more than I did two days ago, and you may believe me when I say that I know beyond doubt that Lady Nest is now in a Home, being cured of the drug-habit. I also know that it was Seaton-Carew who supplied her with cocaine."
He encountered a glance as keen and as searching as a surgeon's scalpel. "Have you proof of that?"
"I have proof that cocaine was found in Seaton-Carew's flat; I have proof that Lady Nest was not his only victim."
"I see." Poulton was silent for a moment. "I was never sure, myself. I suspected him, but no more."
Hemingway waited. After a pause, he said: "Was this the hold Mrs. Haddington had over your wife, sir?"