"Oh, and before he did! They used to live in a little flat, Pimlico way, because at that time he'd got some kind of a job. He lost it later, of course, but that was Hilary all over! Well, as the girls used to say, what could you expect of a man with a soppy name like that? Still, I never heard Maisie complain, never once, and, give him his due, he married her within a month of her twins being born, which made it all right, only naturally it isn't a thing anyone would want talked about. Well, is it? Maisie used to feel it a lot, because, say what you like, legitimated isn't the same as being born in wedlock, not however you look at it! Maisie used to say to me that if there was one thing she couldn't bear it was having Hilary's grand relations look down on her twins, which is why I'm sorry I ever mentioned the matter, because they none of them knew anything about Maisie, not till Hilary wrote and told his people he'd been married for years, -and got a couple of kids. They behaved very properly, by all accounts, having Maisie and the twins down to stay, and all, but it was a great strain, and she told me wild horses wouldn't drag her there again, and nor they ever did, because she died before they invited her again. Well, they always say there's a silver lining to every cloud, don't they? But I never ought to have mentioned it to anyone, and I hope you won't repeat it, because it wouldn't be a very nice thing for Lance, and him a lord, to have people saying he'd had to be legitimated!"
This anecdote, though of human interest, was not felt to have contributed anything of marked value to the problem confronting the Chief Inspector. "Though, mind you, Sandy," he said, as, having parted from Miss Spennymoor, he entered the boudoir, "I've always thought it was a bit unfair, the way they just stamp Legitimated on birth certificates. Doing a thing by halves, is what I call it. I daresay Lord Guisborough doesn't like it much, but try as I will I can't fancy that as a motive for murdering Mrs. Haddington. What's more, from what I saw of that sister of his, she'd fair revel in having been born on the wrong side of the blanket, and she seemed to me to be the master-mind of that little party." He glanced round the walls of the boudoir, which were hung with a few dubious water-colours, mounted and framed in gilt. None of them was of sufficient size or weight to have made it necessary to hang them on hooks from the picture-rail. Hemingway pulled on a pair of wash-leather gloves, and began to make a systematic tour, lifting each picture away from, the wall, and peering to see how it was hung. At the third masterpiece - The Isles of the West, from which Inspector Grant had averted his revolted gaze - he paused. He cast one triumphant glance at his assistant, and lifted the picture down, and held it with its back to the assembled company. A piece of string had been knotted to the rings screwed into it: virgin string, as everyone saw at a glance, with not a speck of dust upon it.
"A Chruitheir" uttered Grant, under his breath.
"Very likely!" said Hemingway. "You can get busy on this one, Tom!" He bent to examine the string, and suddenly raised his head. "String!" He turned, and jabbed a finger at the desk. "Top right-hand drawer, Sandy! Also a pair of large scissors in a leather holder!"
"I remember." The Inspector pulled open the drawer, handed the ball of string to his superior, and, more circumspectly, using his handkerchief, picked up the scissors, in their case, and stood waiting for Sergeant Bromley to take them from him.
"Same string - and that means nothing!" said Hemingway, comparing the ball with the string attached to the picture. "Ordinary string, used for tying up parcels." He drew forth a length of tarnished picture-wire from his pocket, uncoiled it, slid the ends through the rings on the back of the frame, lightly twisted them where the strands were already a little unravelled, and observed the result with a critical eye. "As near the same length as the string as makes no odds!" he remarked. "That seems to settle that! Got anything, Tom?"
"Yes, but I can't tell you yet if the prints are the same as any we took on Tuesday, sir. I'll have to take 'em back to the Department."
Hemingway nodded. "Do that now. Rush it!" He rehung the picture on the wall, and turned, holding out a gloved hand for the scissors. Inspector Grant gave them to him, and he drew them gently out of their coloured leather sheath. "Of course, you can't say with any certainty how a pair of large scissors comes by its scratches," he remarked. He handed the scissors to Bromley. "Go over them carefully, Tom!"
"I will, of course, sir," said the Sergeant, receiving them tenderly. "But if you can see your way through this case - well!"
The Chief Inspector, his gaze travelling slowly round the room, vouchsafed no response to this. His mind was plainly elsewhere; and it was not until a few moments after the Finger-print unit had departed that Grant ventured to address him.