they'd had a quarrel – or possibly he was getting tired of her – well, she wouldn't be the first woman to take her life in a fit of desperation.'
'By potassium cyanide in a public restaurant?'
'Yes – if she wanted to be dramatic about it – with him looking on and all. Some people have a feeling for the spectacular. From what I could find out she hadn't much feeling for the conventions – all the precautions were on his side.'
'Any evidence as to whether his wife knew what was going on?'
'As far as we could learn she knew nothing about it.'
'She may have, for all that, Kemp. Not the kind of woman to wear her heart on her sleeve.'
'Oh, quite so. Count them both in as possibles. She for jealousy. He for his career. Divorce would have dished that. Not that divorce means as much as it used to, but in his case it would have meant the antagonism of the Kidderminster clan.'
'What about the secretary girl?'
'She's a possible. Might have been sweet on George Barton. They were pretty thick at the office and there's an idea there that she was keen on him. Actually yesterday afternoon one of the telephone girls was giving an imitation of Barton holding Ruth Lessing's hand and saying he couldn't do without her, and Miss Lessing came out and caught them and sacked the girl there and then – gave her a month's money and told her to go. Looks as though she was sensitive about it all. Then the sister came into a peck of money – one's got to remember that. Looked a nice kid, but you can never tell. And there was Mrs Barton's other boy friend.'
'I'm rather anxious to hear what you know about him?'
Kemp said slowly: 'Remarkably little – but what there is isn't too good. His passport's in order. He's an American citizen about whom we can't find out anything, detrimental or otherwise. He came over here, stayed at Claridge's and managed to strike up an acquaintance with Lord Dewsbury.'
'Confidence man?'
'Might be. Dewsbury seems to have fallen for him – asked him to stay. Rather a critical time just then.'
'Armaments,' said Race. 'There was that trouble about the new tank trials in Dewsbury's works.'
'Yes. This fellow Browne represented himself as interested in armaments. It was soon after he'd been up there that they discovered that sabotage business – just in the nick of time. Browne met a good many cronies of Dewsbury – he seems to have cultivated all the ones who were connected with the armament firms. As a result he's been shown a lot of stuff that in my opinion he ought never to have seen – and in one or two cases there's been serious trouble in the works not long after he's been in the neighbourhood.'
'An interesting person, Mr Anthony Browne?'
'Yes. He's got a lot of charm, apparently, and plays it for all he's worth.'
'And where did Mrs Barton come in? George Barton hasn't anything to do with the armament world?'
'No. But they seem to have been fairly intimate. He may have let out something to her. You know, colonel, none better, what a pretty woman can get out of a man.'
Race nodded, taking the Chief Inspector's words, as meant, to refer to the Counter-Espionage Department which he had once controlled and not as some ignorant person might have thought – to some personal indiscretions of his own.
He said after a minute or two: 'Have you had a go at those letters that George Barton received?'
'Yes. Found them in his desk at his house last night. Miss Marle found them for me.'
'You know I'm interested in those letters, Kemp. What's the expert opinion on them?'
'Cheap paper, ordinary ink – fingerprints show George Barton and Iris Marle handled them – and a horde of unidentified dabs on the envelope, postal employees, etc. They were printed and the experts say by someone of good education in normal health.'
'Good education. Not a servant?'
'Presumably not.'
'That makes it more interesting still.'
'It means that somebody else had suspicions, at least.'
'Someone who didn't go to the police. Someone who was prepared to arouse George's suspicions but who didn't follow the business up. There's something odd there, Kemp. He couldn't have written them himself, could he?'
'He could have. But why?'
'As a preliminary to suicide – a suicide which he intended to look like murder.'
'With Stephen Farraday booked for the hangman's rope? It's an idea – but he'd have made quite sure that everything pointed to Farraday as the murderer. As it is we've nothing against Farraday at all.'
'What about cyanide? Was there any container found?'
'Yes. A small white paper packet under the table. Traces of cyanide crystals inside. No fingerprints on it. In a detective story, of course, it would be some special kind of paper or folded in some special way. I'd like to give these detective story writers a course of routine work. They'd soon learn how most things are untraceable and nobody ever notices anything anywhere!'
Race smiled.
'Almost too sweeping a statement. Did anybody notice anything last night?'
'Actually that's what I'm starting on today. I took a brief statement from everyone last night and I went back to Elvaston Square with Miss Marle and had a look through Barton's desk and papers. I shall get fuller statements from them all today – also statements from the people sitting at the other two tables in the alcoves –' He rustled through some papers – 'Yes, here they are. Gerald Tollington, Grenadier Guards, and the Hon. Patricia Brice- Woodworth. Young engaged couple. I'll bet they didn't see anything but each other. And Mr Pedro Morales – nasty bit of goods from Mexico – even the whites of his eyes are yellow – and Miss Christine Shannon – a gold-digging blonde lovely – I'll bet she didn't see anything – dumber than you'd believe possible except where money is concerned. It's a hundred to one chance that any of them saw anything, but I took their names and addresses on the off chance. We'll start off with the waiter chap, Giuseppe. He's here now. I'll have him sent in.'
Chapter 2
Giuseppe Balsano was a middle-aged man, slight with a rather monkey-like intelligent face. He was nervous, but not unduly so. His English was fluent since he had, he explained, been in the country since he was sixteen and had married an English wife.
Kemp treated him sympathetically.
'Now then, Giuseppe, let's hear whether anything more has occurred to you about this.'
'It is for me very unpleasant. It is I who serve that table. I who pour out the wine. People will say that I am off my head, that I put poison into the wine glasses. It is not so, but that is what people will say. Already, Mr Goldstein says it is better that I take a week away from work – so that people do not ask me questions there and point me out. He is a fair man, and just, and he knows it is not my fault, and that I have been there for many years, so he does not dismiss me as some restaurant owners would do. M. Charles, too, he has been kind, but all the same it is a great misfortune for me – and it makes me afraid. Have I an enemy, I ask myself?'
'Well,' said Kemp at his most wooden, 'have you?'
The sad monkey-face twitched into laughter. Giuseppe stretched out his arms.
'I? I have not an enemy in the world. Many good friends but no enemies.'
Kemp grunted.
'Now about last night. Tell me about the champagne.'
'It was Clicquot, 1928 – very good and expensive wine. Mr Barton was like that – he liked good food and drink – the best.'
'Had he ordered the wine beforehand?'
'Yes. He had arranged everything with Charles.'
'What about the vacant place at the table?'
'That, too, he had arranged for. He told Charles and he told me. A young lady would occupy it later in the
