"Not," said Mrs. Kane, with dignity, "because I was in the least anxious about you, but I thought I should either have to come to town myself, or go mad, if it went on much longer! All I had to go on were those lurid reports in the papers, and a letter from your mother which I couldn't make head or tail of!"
"I rang you up every night!" said Mr.. Kane indignantly.
"Yes, darling, and every time I asked you anything, you said you couldn't talk over the telephone!" retorted the wife of his bosom, with some asperity.
"Well, I couldn't. I did tell you there wasn't anything for you to worry about!"
"That was when I looked out the trains to London," said Mrs. Kane grimly. "And if it hadn't been for Cook having to go home to nurse her mother, I should have come up, let me tell you!"
"Oh, my God, has the Cook left?"
"She's coming back. At least, that's what she says. Anyway, Nanny and I can manage! Never mind about that! What actually happened? Tell me all about it!"
"I don't think there's anything much to tell, really," said the maddening male reflectively. "It was easy to see Hemingway never suspected young Timothy for as much as a split second, which is what mattered, as far as we're concerned. I only stood by because of Beulah. At one time it did look a bit as though she might have had a hand in the affair, and I thought, if that was so, Timothy would need a bit of support."
"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Kane, schooled into patience by thirteen years of marriage.
"Of course, he couldn't possibly have had anything to do with Mrs. Haddington's murder," pursued Mr.. Kane, licking his buttery fingers in a very vulgar way. "Matter of fact, Hemingway did a pretty neat bit of detection, taken all round. I should think, myself, that Guisborough must have been a bit unhinged. I mean, from what Timothy told me about the way he nattered about the Equality of Man, you wouldn't have expected him to have cared two hoots whether he had a title or not! What's more, if he'd stopped to think, he must have realised that the whole thing might have come out at any moment! I mean, you never know when you may have to produce your birth-certificate, do you? He might have wanted to apply for a passport, or something - though, I suppose, as a matter of fact, that wouldn't have mattered much, because the authorities wouldn't have been worrying about whether he was legitimate or only legitimated! Still - ! Young Timothy put Hemingway on to that, all unbeknownst. Then Hemingway got Guisborough's finger-prints, as soon as he heard the prints on the picture-frame didn't belong to any of the suspects for the first murder, and after that it was all U.P.! Silly young fool seems to have come badly unstuck when he was arrested. Nasty business, whichever way you look at it! Main spring of both murders, one nit-witted blonde!"