Suzanne Robinson by Just Before Midnight Page B

his notebook before he saw Cheyne. He motioned silently and stepped aside to reveal a man in a leather chair slumped over a heavy walnut desk. An empty bottle of cognac lay beside him. Cheyne had noticed the reek of alcohol the moment he came into the room.
    “That’s Sir Archibald Preston,” Cheyne said quietly. “Didn’t you contact him when I gave you his name?”
    “I had an appointment with him tomorrow morning,” Balfour said, his expression solemn. “It appears you guessed right.”
    “I have several sources whose chief delight in life is keeping abreast of the latest gossip.” Cheyne looked at the body. “Hell.”
    Sir Archibald had been a bushy-browed man with skin the color of vellum. He’d also recently become a connoisseur of music-hall singers. An unremarkable habit among society men that wouldn’t have interested Cheyne ordinarily. Until he learned that the once prudish Sir Archibald was rumored to have indulged in assignations with several women at one time. Even this tidbit hadn’t alarmed him enough to tell Balfour that contacting Sir Archibald was urgent. Evidently at some time during his excursions in the music halls Thurgood had left incriminating evidence of his activities, something that could be held over him.
    “Don’t blame yourself,” Balfour said, regardingCheyne with severity. “Believe me, there’s no way to know if a man will break under this kind of pressure.”
    A man who had been talking to one of the detectives picked up a leather bag and came over to them.
    “I’m finished, Balfour.”
    “Very well, Doctor. It’s suicide, then.”
    “Well, the poor man drank an entire bottle of cognac in the space of a few minutes. He poisoned himself, Superintendent. That much alcohol would kill anyone, but I don’t know if he was aware of it. Unless I can prove otherwise, I shall have to record it as an accident.”
    “Very well,” said Balfour. “Thank you and good evening, Doctor.”
    Cheyne looked at the body again. He could see a bald spot on the top of Preston’s head. Somehow it made the man seem too human, too real to be dead. A muscle twitched in Cheyne’s jaw as he recalled what he’d been doing while this man drank himself to death.
    “You’ll find a series of large withdrawals from his bank account,” Cheyne said.
    “Probably.” Balfour glanced at him. “Sorry to drag you into this, old man, but I’ve little choice, as you see.”
    “I’ve done you little good so far.”
    “You’ve just begun. If there’s any good to come out of this, it’s that we can chalk the death up to accidental overdose of alcohol. No suicide to attract the attention of the papers.”
    Cheyne nodded and glanced around the room. It was a man’s study, full of leather furniture and books on history, the military, and science. These books had been used; they were not kept for show. Sir Archibald had been a complicated man, who had left behind a grieving family.
    After a few more words with Balfour, Cheyne went home. Striding into his entry hall, he whipped off his coat and threw it at Mutton. His hat followed as he headed for the brandy decanter in the drawing room. Pouring himself a large drink, he gulped down half of it. Then he looked at the crystal glass in his hand and hurled it at the fireplace. The glass shattered, and Cheyne had already picked up another to pitch after it when Mutton walked in with the air of an alert bloodhound.
    “Here, here, here, wot’s all this?”
    The second glass splintered against the grate, and the coals hissed. “Bloody hell and damnation!” Cheyne cursed.
    Mutton hurried to the table and picked up the tray of crystal. “No, you don’t, gov’nor. You leave that Waterford be.”
    Cheyne slumped down on the couch in front of the fireplace and buried his face in his hands.
    “Go away.”
    Mutton set the tray down, found an antique Minton dish and began picking up shards of glass. “Wot’s got into you?”
    “A man died tonight, in case