Free Below Suspicion by John Dickson Carr

Charlie. She told me so."
    "Oh, Well. After all," and Denham smiled and tried hard to laugh, "there's no reason why she should want to see me. None at all." There was a pause. "You got her address, of course?"
    "No, I'm afraid I didn't. And if you take my tip, Charlie, you'll keep away from that woman. Unless you want a dose of arsenic in your beer."
    "So clever in your foolishness!" murmured Denham, after another pause. "So fooHsh in your cleverness!"
    "Will you tell me," Butler inquired with restraint, "just what this has to do with the sinister poisoning of nine people? And with this woman Lucia Renshaw being accused of killing her husband? Had she any motive for killing him?"
    Denham hesitated.
    "It's true," he admitted, "that they didn't get on very well. . . ."
    "That's not evidence, Charlie. It's merely a definition of maniage. Why do the police suspect her?"
    "Because, apparently, Lucia's the only person who could have done it! And yet. . . ."
    "What, exactly, do you want me to do?"
    "I can't brief you officially, of course. We don't know which way the cat, meaning the police, will jump. But it's only five o'clock now. Could you possibly run out to Hampstead and talk to her before dinner?"
    "I can," Butler assured him heartily. "I can, Charlie; and I'll do more than that. Give me five minutes' talk with the lady, and I'll tell you whether or not she's guilty."
    "Pat," said the other, after a silence during which he put his head in his hands, "I owe more to you than I can ever pay back. No, wait; I mean that! But this last victory of yours—it's unhinged you! Do you set yourself up as God Almighty?"
    "Not at all." Butler looked shocked. "It is merely," he explained with urbanity, as he picked up his hat, "that I am never wrong."
    THE home of the late Richard Renshaw and his wife, called 'Abbot's House/ was in Cannon Row, Hampstead.
    Sweeping up Haverstock Hill and Roslyn Hill, the limousine turned right at the traffic-light opposite Hampstead Underground Station, and up the steep, curving High Street which leads eventually to the Round-pond. But, only a little way up, there is an inconspicuous turning. Making several narrow turns in a short distance, the car emerged into sedate Cannon Row.
    And Patrick Butler, jumping out impetuously, got his first shock.
    "Good God, Charlie! This is—" And he stopped.
    Under a blue-black sky, from which rain or sleet had ceased to fall, the house was set back some forty feet behind a fence of thin overlapping shingleboards painted brown.
    Other houses in Cannon Row were mere dim outlines with dim-yellow lights. But this monstrosity, though not overly large, loomed up in whitish-grey blur because it was faced with stucco and built in that style called Victorian Gothic. On each side of an arched front door were two large full-length bow windows, set one above the other to match. Along the roof-edge ran miniature battlements, with a miniature sham tower at one comer.
    "This is Mrs. Taylor's house," said Butler, with his memory full of ugly images. 'Til swear those are the same trees tapping the front windows on each side!"
    "And why not?" asked Denham.
    "\Vhy not?"
    "Both houses," said Denham, "were built by Mrs. Taylor's grandfather in the middle 'sixties. One at Balham, which was then fashionable. One here, which is still fashionable. This one," he added, "also has a Grierson lock on the back door."
    A raw wind scratched branches in thin tick-a-tack on window-glass. The two houses, at least, were not furnished alike inside. Butler saw this, with relief, when a young maidservant opened the front door.
    But the atmosphere of hysteria, blowing out at them, was as palpable as the signs of disarrangement. Kitty Owen, the maidservant, was eighteen years old and would have been pretty if she had not been so thin. Kitty shied back in terror until Denham mentioned their names.
    "I'm sorry, sir," the maid gulped. "I thought you was more people from the police. But Fm not sure whether you can