"It's the way he keeps on turning up!" apologised Grant.
"If you mean he was here in the middle of the day, there's no dispute about that: he admitted he was. Are you asking me to believe he lurked in the house till nearly seven o'clock at night? Talk sense! I saw him myself this afternoon!"
"Ach, I did not think it was he! I have wondered if Butterwick too was in this drug-racket, and yet I do not think it. That he is an addict himself is possible, but I saw none of the signs. Moreover, he was wearing his evening dress when I found him, and he would not have had time to have gone home, let alone have changed his clothes if he was in the Opera House for the first ballet."
"Well, unless he's a better actor than what I take him for, I should say he was there in time for the first ballet. I know that type! So that leaves us with Lord Guisborough, who either murdered Mrs. Haddington because she didn't want her daughter to marry him - funny thing, that! I should have thought a chap with a handle to his name was just what she was after! - or because Miss What's-her-name had told her his parents' wedding was just a trifle late."
The Inspector shook his head. "It will not do. He is a foolish, and maybe a violent young man, but lie would not murder anybody for such silly reasons as those. Besides, it was known that he was coming to see Mrs. Haddington! Do you tell me he came with murder in his head?"
"At the moment, I'm not telling you anything. He wouldn't havec had to have had it in his head, though. We do know they had a row, for she told Thrimby not to let him into the house again. If he did it, it was something that happened at that interview which made him decide to bump her off. In which case, he dashed downstairs, grabbed his coat, slammed the door, and nipped up to the boudoir again, which he knew was empty, and -"
"He had no time!" the Inspector ejaculated. "Mrs. Haddington rang to have him shown out, and she herself came to the head of the first flight of stairs!"
"Yes, because his High and Mightiness took such a time to answer the bell! Plenty of time for anyone who knew the house! And then she went up to the girl's room, and Thrimby went down to the basement, and while they were both nicely out of the way, his lordship got to work on the picture. There's only one thing wrong with that reconstruction: there's no motive! Pity! The more I think about it the more I like it! I mean, it would have been quite neat, wouldn't it? We were bound to think the same man committed both murders, and there he was alibi'd up to the ears for the first one, never even under suspicion! Of course, my trouble is I don't know enough about the fun and games they get up to in this precious Russia of his. If I was to discover that they go around murdering their mothers-in-law before ever they get engaged -"
"Mach ist thu!" interrupted the Inspector severely. "Will you not whisht now? You have only the butler's word for it she did not favour the young lord!"
"No, I haven't! The Blonde Bombshell told me so this very day, let alone the row he had with Mrs. Haddington, and her telling Thrimby never to let him in again!"