Hemingway shook his head. "No, that's not it. Oh, well! Perhaps I'll remember when I see him."
"He is being detained in the drawing-room, along with Miss Birtley, Mr. Butterwick, Mr. Poulton, and Dr Westruther. Dr. Westruther, being a scorer, was in the library when Seaton-Carew left it, and went up to the drawing-room to inform them there of the cause of the delay in the game before the discovery of the murder. Dr Westruther states that he had not met Seaton-Carew previous to this evening."
"Well, what do you want to go detaining him for?" demanded Hemingway. "A nice temper he'll be in by this time!"
"Properly speaking, I did not detain him. He remained of his own choice, or perhaps Mrs. Haddington asked him to, Miss Haddington being a good deal upset - quite hysterical, she was, at first, but he got her calmed down."
"Thank God for that, at all events! What I'd better do is to see these people, and get rid of those who don't belong here, or we shall have them pitching complaints in about the way they were kept up all night for no reason. What about the servants? Are they sitting up too?"
"Only the butler and the parlourmaid. None of the others was unaccounted for at the time, being in the servants' hall, and the kitchen."
"Sandy, go and talk to them, and pack them off to bed! One last thing before I give your suspects the once-over, Pershore! Anyone know where that bit of picture-wire that was used for the job came from?"
"The wire, Chief Inspector, is part of a coil bought this morning - that is to say, yesterday morning - by Miss Birtley, at Mrs. Haddington's instigation. Some of it she used to make what I understand to be a kind of flowerholder; and the rest she left on a shelf in the cloakroom."
"In full view of any of the gentlemen who went into the cloakroom, I suppose?"
"Yes," said the Inspector, considering it. "Anyone washing his hands, or maybe straightening his tie in the mirror, would be pretty well bound to see it, if she left it where she says she did."