"It's a funny thing about this Seaton-Carew," remarked Hemingway, "that he seems to have been a popular sort of a character, and yet he got himself murdered."
"Very funny," agreed Poulton. "Perhaps you are confusing popularity with usefulness. Unattached men, Chief Inspector, are greatly in demand amongst hostesses."
"Ah, very likely!" said Hemingway. "Well, it doesn't seem as though you can help me much, sir, so I won't keep you any longer."
Inspector Grant rose, and opened the door.
"Thank you," said Poulton. "I shall be glad to get to bed. I have a heavy day ahead of me. Good-night!"
The Inspector closed the door behind him, and glanced across at his superior. "You did not press him, Sir."
"No, I'm never one to waste my time. If you were to have given Mr. Godfrey Poulton the choice between having a sewer-rat loose in his house or the late Seaton-Carew, it's my belief he'd have chosen the rat. Make a note of Lady Nest: we'll see what she has to say. I'd better interview this Butterwick now. Fetch him down, Sandy!"
The Inspector lingered. "Would that one have had the time to have committed the murder, you think?"
"Any of them would have had time and to spare. In fact, this is one case where the time-factor isn't going to bother us - or help us either, for that matter! As far as I can make out, it was anything from ten to twenty minutes between Seaton-Carew's being called to the 'phone and Sir Roderick's finding him dead. How long do you reckon it would take you to nip up half a flight of stairs, twist a wire round a bloke's neck, and nip down again?"
"It is in my mind," said the Inspector, "that it would have been a strange thing for him to have gone into a room where he knew a man to be speaking on the telephone."