is, is much more to the point. And, then, suppose it’s a wild-goose
chase after all, you’ll have wasted time when you might have been
getting on with the case. There are several things that need doing.”

“Well,” said Parker, silenced but reluctant, “why can’t I go, in that
case?”

“Bosh!” said Lord Peter. “I am retained (by old Mrs. Thipps, for whom
I entertain the greatest respect) to deal with this case, and it’s only
by courtesy I allow you to have anything to do with it.”

Mr. Parker groaned.

“Will you at least take Bunter?” he said.

“In deference to your feelings,” replied Lord Peter, “I will
take Bunter, though he could be far more usefully employed taking
photographs or overhauling my wardrobe. When is there a good train to
Salisbury, Bunter?”

“There is an excellent train at 10.50, my lord.”

“Kindly make arrangements to catch it,” said Lord Peter, throwing
off his bath-robe and trailing away with it into his bedroom. “And,
Parker—if you have nothing else to do you might get hold of Levy’s
secretary and look into that little matter of the Peruvian oil.”

Lord Peter took with him, for light reading in the train, Sir Reuben
Levy’s diary. It was a simple, and in the light of recent facts, rather
a pathetic document. The terrible fighter of the Stock Exchange, who
could with one nod set the surly bear dancing, or bring the savage bull
to feed out of his hand, whose breath devastated whole districts with
famine or swept financial potentates from their seats, was revealed
in private life as kindly, domestic, innocently proud of himself
and his belongings, confiding, generous and a little dull. His own
small economies were duly chronicled side by side with extravagant
presents to his wife and daughter. Small incidents of household routine
appeared, such as: “Man came to mend the conservatory roof,” or “The
new butler (Simpson) has arrived, recommended by the Goldbergs. I
think he will be satisfactory.” All visitors and entertainments were
duly entered, from a very magnificent lunch to Lord Dewsbury, the
Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Dr. Jabez K. Wort, the American
plenipotentiary, through a series of diplomatic dinners to eminent
financiers, down to intimate family gatherings of persons designated
by Christian names or nicknames. About May there came a mention of
Lady Levy’s nerves, and further reference was made to the subject in
subsequent months. In September it was stated that “Freke came to see
my dear wife and advised complete rest and change of scene. She thinks
of going abroad with Rachel.” The name of the famous nerve-specialist
occurred as a diner or luncher about once a month, and it came
into Lord Peter’s mind that Freke would be a good person to consult
about Levy himself. “People sometimes tell things to the doctor,” he
murmured to himself. “And, by Jove! if Levy was simply going round
to see Freke on Monday night, that rather disposes of the Battersea
incident, doesn’t it?” He made a note to look up Sir Julian and turned
on further. On September 18th, Lady Levy and her daughter had left for
the south of France. Then suddenly, under the date October 5th, Lord
Peter found what he was looking for: “Goldberg, Skriner and Milligan to
dinner.”

There was the evidence that Milligan had been in that house. There had
been a formal entertainment—a meeting as of two duellists shaking hands
before the fight. Skriner was a well-known picture-dealer; Lord Peter
imagined an after-dinner excursion upstairs to see the two Corots in
the drawing-room, and the portrait of the oldest Levy girl, who had
died at the age of sixteen. It was by Augustus John, and hung in the
bedroom. The name of the red-haired secretary was nowhere mentioned,
unless the initial S., occurring in another entry, referred to him.
Throughout September and October, Anderson (of Wyndham’s) had been a
frequent visitor.

Lord Peter shook his head over the diary, and turned to the
consideration of the Battersea Park mystery. Whereas in the Levy affair
it was easy enough to supply a motive for the crime, if crime it were,
and the difficulty was to discover the method of its carrying out and
the whereabouts of the victim, in the other case the chief obstacle
to inquiry was the entire absence of any imaginable motive. It was odd
that, although the papers had carried news of the affair from one end
of the country to the other and a description of the body had been sent
to every police station in the country, nobody had as yet come forward
to identify the mysterious occupant of Mr. Thipps’s bath. It was true
that the description, which mentioned the clean-shaven chin, elegantly
cut hair and the pince-nez, was rather misleading, but on the other
hand, the police had managed to discover the number of molars missing,
and the height, complexion and other data were correctly enough stated,
as also the date at which death had presumably occurred. It seemed,
however, as though the man had melted out of society without leaving
a gap or so much as a ripple. Assigning a motive for the murder of
a person without relations or antecedents or even clothes is like
trying to visualize the fourth dimension—admirable exercise for the
imagination, but arduous and inconclusive. Even if the day’s interview
should disclose black spots in the past or present of Mr. Crimplesham,
how were they to be brought into connection with a person apparently
without a past, and whose present was confined to the narrow limits of
a bath and a police mortuary?

“Bunter,” said Lord Peter, “I beg that in the future you will restrain
me from starting two hares at once. These cases are gettin’ to be a
strain on my constitution. One hare has nowhere to run from, and the
other has nowhere to run to. It’s a kind of mental D.T., Bunter. When
this is over I shall turn pussyfoot, forswear the police news, and take
to an emollient diet of the works of the late Charles Garvice.”

It was its comparative proximity to Milford Hill that induced Lord
Peter to lunch at the Minster Hotel rather than at the White Hart
or some other more picturesquely situated hostel. It was not a
lunch calculated to cheer his mind; as in all Cathedral cities, the
atmosphere of the Close pervades every nook and corner of Salisbury,
and no food in that city but seems faintly flavoured with prayer-books.
As he sat sadly consuming that impassive pale substance known to
the English as “cheese” unqualified (for there are cheeses which go
openly by their names, as Stilton, Camembert, Gruyère, Wensleydale
or Gorgonzola, but “cheese” is cheese and everywhere the same), he
inquired of the waiter the whereabouts of Mr. Crimplesham’s office.

The waiter directed him to a house rather further up the street on the
opposite side, adding: “But anybody’ll tell you, sir; Mr. Crimplesham’s
very well known hereabouts.”

“He’s a good solicitor, I suppose?” said Lord Peter.

“Oh, yes, sir,” said the waiter, “you couldn’t do better than trust
to Mr. Crimplesham, sir. There’s folk say he’s old-fashioned, but I’d
rather have my little bits of business done by Mr. Crimplesham than
by one of these fly-away young men. Not but what Mr. Crimplesham’ll
be retiring soon, sir, I don’t doubt, for he must be close on eighty,
sir, if he’s a day, but then there’s young Mr. Wicks to carry on the
business, and he’s a very nice, steady-like young gentleman.”

“Is Mr. Crimplesham really as old as that?” said Lord Peter. “Dear
me! He must be very active for his years. A friend of mine was doing
business with him in town last week.”

“Wonderful active, sir,” agreed the waiter, “and with his game leg,
too, you’d be surprised. But there, sir, I often think when a man’s
once past a certain age, the older he grows the tougher he gets, and
women the same or more so.”

“Very likely,” said Lord Peter, calling up and dismissing the mental
picture of a gentleman of eighty with a game leg carrying a dead
body over the roof of a Battersea flat at midnight. “‘He’s tough,
sir, tough, is old Joey Bagstock, tough and devilish sly,’” he added,
thoughtlessly.

“Indeed, sir?” said the waiter. “I couldn’t say, I’m sure.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Lord Peter; “I was quoting poetry. Very silly
of me. I got the habit at my mother’s knee and I can’t break myself of
it.”

“No, sir,” said the waiter, pocketing a liberal tip. “Thank you
very much, sir. You’ll find the house easy. Just afore you come to
Penny-farthing Street, sir, about two turnings off, on the right-hand
side opposite.”

“Afraid that disposes of Crimplesham-X,” said Lord Peter. “I’m rather
sorry; he was a fine sinister figure as I had pictured him. Still, his
may yet be the brain behind the hands—the aged spider sitting invisible
in the centre of the vibrating web, you know, Bunter.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Bunter. They were walking up the street together.

“There is the office over the way,” pursued Lord Peter. “I think,
Bunter, you might step into this little shop and purchase a sporting
paper, and if I do not emerge from the villain’s lair—say within
three-quarters of an hour, you may take such steps as your perspicuity
may suggest.”

Mr. Bunter turned into the shop as desired, and Lord Peter walked
across and rang the lawyer’s bell with decision.

“The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is my long suit
here, I fancy,” he murmured, and when the door was opened by a clerk he
delivered over his card with an unflinching air.

He was ushered immediately into a confidential-looking office,
obviously furnished in the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign, and
never altered since. A lean, frail-looking old gentleman rose briskly
from his chair as he entered and limped forward to meet him.

“My dear sir,” exclaimed the lawyer, “how extremely good of you to come
in person! Indeed, I am ashamed to have given you so much trouble. I
trust you were passing this way, and that my glasses have not put you
to any great inconvenience. Pray take a seat, Lord Peter.” He peered
gratefully at the young man over a pince-nez obviously the fellow of
that now adorning a dossier in Scotland Yard.

Lord Peter sat down. The lawyer sat down. Lord Peter picked up a glass
paper-weight from the desk and weighed it thoughtfully in his hand.
Subconsciously he noted what an admirable set of finger-prints he was
leaving upon it. He replaced it with precision on the exact centre of
a pile of letters.

“It’s quite all right,” said Lord Peter. “I was here on business. Very
happy to be of service to you. Very awkward to lose one’s glasses, Mr.
Crimplesham.”

“Yes,” said the lawyer, “I assure you I feel quite lost without them.
I have this pair, but they do not fit my nose so well—besides, that
chain has a great sentimental value for me. I was terribly distressed
on arriving at Balham to find that I had lost them. I made inquiries of
the railway, but to no purpose. I feared they had been stolen. There
were such crowds at Victoria, and the carriage was packed with people
all the way to Balham. Did you come across them in the train?”

“Well, no,” said Lord Peter, “I found them in rather an unexpected
place. Do you mind telling me if you recognized any of your
fellow-travellers on that occasion?”

The lawyer stared at him.

“Not a soul,” he answered. “Why do you ask?”

“Well,” said Lord Peter, “I thought perhaps the—the person with whom I
found them might have taken them for a joke.”

The lawyer looked puzzled.

“Did the person claim to be an acquaintance of mine?” he inquired. “I
know practically nobody in London, except the friend with whom I was
staying in Balham, Dr. Philpots, and I should be very greatly surprised
at his practising a jest upon me. He knew very well how distressed I
was at the loss of the glasses. My business was to attend a meeting
of shareholders in Medlicott’s Bank, but the other gentlemen present
were all personally unknown to me, and I cannot think that any of them
would take so great a liberty. In any case,” he added, “as the glasses
are here, I will not inquire too closely into the manner of their
restoration. I am deeply obliged to you for your trouble.”

Lord Peter hesitated.

“Pray forgive my seeming inquisitiveness,” he said, “but I must ask you
another question. It sounds rather melodramatic, I’m afraid, but it’s
this. Are you aware that you have any enemy—anyone, I mean, who would
profit by your—er—decease or disgrace?”

Mr. Crimplesham sat frozen into stony surprise and disapproval.

“May I ask the meaning of this extraordinary question?” he inquired
stiffly.

“Well,” said Lord Peter, “the circumstances are a little unusual. You
may recollect that my advertisement was addressed to the jeweller who
sold the chain.”

“That surprised me at the time,” said Mr. Crimplesham, “but I begin to
think your advertisement and your behaviour are all of a piece.”

“They are,” said Lord Peter. “As a matter of fact I did not expect
the owner of the glasses to answer my advertisement. Mr. Crimplesham,
you have no doubt read what the papers have to say about the Battersea
Park mystery. Your glasses are the pair that was found on the body, and
they are now in the possession of the police at Scotland Yard, as you
may see by this.” He placed the specification of the glasses and the
official note before Crimplesham.

“Good God!” exclaimed the lawyer. He glanced at the paper, and then
looked narrowly at Lord Peter.

“Are you yourself connected with the police?” he inquired.

“Not officially,” said Lord Peter. “I am investigating the matter
privately, in the interests of one of the parties.”

Mr. Crimplesham rose to his feet.

“My good man,” he said, “this is a very impudent attempt, but blackmail
is an indictable offence, and I advise you to leave my office before
you commit yourself.” He rang the bell.

“I was afraid you’d take it like that,” said Lord Peter. “It looks as
though this ought to have been my friend Detective Parker’s job, after
all.” He laid Parker’s card on the table beside the specification, and
added: “If you should wish to see me again, Mr. Crimplesham, before
tomorrow morning, you will find me at the Minster Hotel.”

Mr. Crimplesham disdained to reply further than to direct the clerk who
entered to “show this person out.”

In the entrance Lord Peter brushed against a tall young man who was
just coming in, and who stared at him with surprised recognition.
His face, however, aroused no memories in Lord Peter’s mind, and that
baffled nobleman, calling out Bunter from the newspaper shop, departed
to his hotel to get a trunk-call through to Parker.

Meanwhile, in the office, the meditations of the indignant Mr.
Crimplesham were interrupted by the entrance of his junior partner.

“I say,” said the latter gentleman, “has somebody done something really
wicked at last? Whatever brings such a distinguished amateur of crime
on our sober doorstep?”

“I have been the victim of a vulgar attempt at blackmail,” said the
lawyer; “an individual passing himself off as Lord Peter Wimsey—”

“But that _is_ Lord Peter Wimsey,” said Mr. Wicks, “there’s no
mistaking him. I saw him give evidence in the Attenbury emerald case.
He’s a big little pot in his way, you know, and goes fishing with the
head of Scotland Yard.”

“Oh, dear,” said Mr. Crimplesham.

Fate arranged that the nerves of Mr. Crimplesham should be tried that
afternoon. When, escorted by Mr. Wicks, he arrived at the Minster
Hotel, he was informed by the porter that Lord Peter Wimsey had
strolled out, mentioning that he thought of attending Evensong. “But
his man is here, sir,” he added, “if you’d like to leave a message.”

Mr. Wicks thought that on the whole it would be well to leave a
message. Mr. Bunter, on inquiry, was found to be sitting by the
telephone, waiting for a trunk-call. As Mr. Wicks addressed him the
bell rang, and Mr. Bunter, politely excusing himself, took down the
receiver.

“Hullo!” he said. “Is that Mr. Parker? Oh, thanks! Exchange! Exchange!
Sorry, can you put me through to Scotland Yard? Excuse me, gentlemen,
keeping you waiting.—Exchange! all right—Scotland Yard—Hullo! Is that
Scotland Yard?—Is Detective Parker round there?—Can I speak to him?—I
shall have done in a moment, gentlemen.—Hullo! is that you, Mr. Parker?
Lord Peter would be much obliged if you could find it convenient to
step down to Salisbury, sir. Oh, no, sir, he’s in excellent health,
sir—just stepped round to hear Evensong, sir—oh, no, I think tomorrow
morning would do excellently, sir, thank you, sir.”

CHAPTER VI

It was, in fact, inconvenient for Mr. Parker to leave London. He
had had to go and see Lady Levy towards the end of the morning, and
subsequently his plans for the day had been thrown out of gear and his
movements delayed by the discovery that the adjourned inquest of Mr.
Thipps’s unknown visitor was to be held that afternoon, since nothing
very definite seemed forthcoming from Inspector Sugg’s inquiries. Jury
and witnesses had been convened accordingly for three o’clock. Mr.
Parker might altogether have missed the event, had he not run against
Sugg that morning at the Yard and extracted the information from him
as one would a reluctant tooth. Inspector Sugg, indeed, considered Mr.
Parker rather interfering; moreover, he was hand-in-glove with Lord
Peter Wimsey, and Inspector Sugg had no words for the interferingness
of Lord Peter. He could not, however, when directly questioned, deny
that there was to be an inquest that afternoon, nor could he prevent
Mr. Parker from enjoying the inalienable right of any interested
British citizen to be present. At a little before three, therefore, Mr.
Parker was in his place, and amusing himself with watching the efforts
of those persons who arrived after the room was packed to insinuate,
bribe or bully themselves into a position of vantage. The Coroner,
a medical man of precise habits and unimaginative aspect, arrived
punctually, and looking peevishly round at the crowded assembly,
directed all the windows to be opened, thus letting in a stream of
drizzling fog upon the heads of the unfortunates on that side of the
room. This caused a commotion and some expressions of disapproval,
checked sternly by the Coroner, who said that with the influenza about
again an unventilated room was a death-trap; that anybody who chose to
object to open windows had the obvious remedy of leaving the court, and
further, that if any disturbance was made he would clear the court.
He then took a Formamint lozenge, and proceeded, after the usual
preliminaries, to call up fourteen good and lawful persons and swear
them diligently to inquire and a true presentment make of all matters
touching the death of the gentleman with the pince-nez and to give
a true verdict according to the evidence, so help them God. When an
expostulation by a woman juror—an elderly lady in spectacles who kept a
sweet-shop, and appeared to wish she was back there—had been summarily
quashed by the Coroner, the jury departed to view the body. Mr. Parker
gazed round again and identified the unhappy Mr. Thipps and the girl
Gladys led into an adjoining room under the grim guard of the police.
They were soon followed by a gaunt old lady in a bonnet and mantle.
With her, in a wonderful fur coat and a motor bonnet of fascinating
construction, came the Dowager Duchess of Denver, her quick, dark
eyes darting hither and thither about the crowd. The next moment they
had lighted on Mr. Parker, who had several times visited the Dower
House, and she nodded to him, and spoke to a policeman. Before long,
a way opened magically through the press, and Mr. Parker found himself
accommodated with a front seat just behind the Duchess, who greeted him
charmingly, and said: “What’s happened to poor Peter?” Parker began to
explain, and the Coroner glanced irritably in their direction. Somebody
went up and whispered in his ear, at which he coughed, and took another
Formamint.

“We came up by car,” said the Duchess—“so tiresome—such bad roads
between Denver and Gunbury St. Walters—and there were people coming
to lunch—I had to put them off—I couldn’t let the old lady go alone,
could I? By the way, such an odd thing’s happened about the Church
Restoration Fund—the Vicar—oh, dear, here are these people coming
back again; well, I’ll tell you afterwards—do look at that woman
looking shocked, and the girl in tweeds trying to look as if she sat
on undraped gentlemen every day of her life—I don’t mean that—corpses
of course—but one finds oneself being so Elizabethan nowadays—what
an awful little man the coroner is, isn’t he? He’s looking daggers at
me—do you think he’ll dare to clear me out of the court or commit me
for what-you-may-call-it?”

The first part of the evidence was not of great interest to Mr. Parker.
The wretched Mr. Thipps, who had caught cold in gaol, deposed in an
unhappy croak to having discovered the body when he went in to take his
bath at eight o’clock. He had had such a shock, he had to sit down and
send the girl for brandy. He had never seen the deceased before. He had
no idea how he came there.

Yes, he had been in Manchester the day before. He had arrived at St.
Pancras at ten o’clock. He had cloak-roomed his bag. At this point Mr.
Thipps became very red, unhappy and confused, and glanced nervously
about the court.

“Now, Mr. Thipps,” said the Coroner, briskly, “we must have your
movements quite clear. You must appreciate the importance of the
matter. You have chosen to give evidence, which you need not have done,
but having done so, you will find it best to be perfectly explicit.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Thipps faintly.

“Have you cautioned this witness, officer?” inquired the Coroner,
turning sharply to Inspector Sugg.

The Inspector replied that he had told Mr. Thipps that anything he said
might be used agin’ him at his trial. Mr. Thipps became ashy, and said
in a bleating voice that he ’adn’t—hadn’t meant to do anything that
wasn’t right.

This remark produced a mild sensation, and the Coroner became even more
acidulated in manner than before.

“Is anybody representing Mr. Thipps?” he asked, irritably. “No? Did you
not explain to him that he could—that he _ought_ to be represented? You
did not? Really, Inspector! Did you not know, Mr. Thipps, that you had
a right to be legally represented?”

Mr. Thipps clung to a chair-back for support, and said, “No,” in a
voice barely audible.

“It is incredible,” said the Coroner, “that so-called educated people
should be so ignorant of the legal procedure of their own country. This
places us in a very awkward position. I doubt, Inspector, whether I
should permit the prisoner—Mr. Thipps—to give evidence at all. It is a
delicate position.”

The perspiration stood on Mrs. Thipps’s forehead.

“Save us from our friends,” whispered the Duchess to Parker. “If that
cough-drop-devouring creature had openly instructed those fourteen
people—and what unfinished-looking faces they have—so characteristic, I
always think, of the lower middle-class, rather like sheep, or calves’
head (boiled, I mean), to bring in wilful murder against the poor
little man, he couldn’t have made himself plainer.”

“He can’t let him incriminate himself, you know,” said Parker.

“Stuff!” said the Duchess. “How could the man incriminate himself when
he never did anything in his life? You men never think of anything but
your red tape.”

Meanwhile Mr. Thipps, wiping his brow with a handkerchief, had summoned
up courage. He stood up with a kind of weak dignity, like a small white
rabbit brought to bay.

“I would rather tell you,” he said, “though it’s reelly very unpleasant
for a man in my position. But I reelly couldn’t have it thought for a
moment that I’d committed this dreadful crime. I assure you, gentlemen,
I _couldn’t bear_ that. No. I’d rather tell you the truth, though I’m
afraid it places me in rather a—well, I’ll tell you.”

“You fully understand the gravity of making such a statement, Mr.
Thipps,” said the Coroner.

“Quite,” said Mr. Thipps. “It’s all right—I—might I have a drink of
water?”

“Take your time,” said the Coroner, at the same time robbing his remark
of all conviction by an impatient glance at his watch.

“Thank you, sir,” said Mr. Thipps. “Well, then, it’s true I got to St.
Pancras at ten. But there was a man in the carriage with me. He’d got
in at Leicester. I didn’t recognise him at first, but he turned out to
be an old school-fellow of mine.”

“What was this gentleman’s name?” inquired the Coroner, his pencil
poised.

Mr. Thipps shrank together visibly.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,” he said. “You see—that is, you
_will_ see—it would get him into trouble, and I couldn’t do that—no, I
reelly couldn’t do that, not if my life depended on it. No!” he added,
as the ominous pertinence of the last phrase smote upon him, “I’m sure
I couldn’t do that.”

“Well, well,” said the Coroner.

The Duchess leaned over to Parker again. “I’m beginning quite to admire
the little man,” she said.

Mr. Thipps resumed.

“When we got to St. Pancras I was going home, but my friend said no.
We hadn’t met for a long time and we ought to—to make a night of it,
was his expression. I fear I was weak, and let him overpersuade me to
accompany him to one of his haunts. I use the word advisedly,” said Mr.
Thipps, “and I assure you, sir, that if I had known beforehand where we
were going I never would have set foot in the place.

“I cloak-roomed my bag, for he did not like the notion of our being
encumbered with it, and we got into a taxicab and drove to the corner
of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street. We then walked a little way,
and turned into a side street (I do not recollect which) where there
was an open door, with the light shining out. There was a man at a
counter, and my friend bought some tickets, and I heard the man at the
counter say something to him about ‘Your friend,’ meaning me, and my
friend said, ‘Oh, yes, he’s been here before, haven’t you, Alf?’ (which
was what they called me at school), though I assure you, sir”—here Mr.
Thipps grew very earnest—“I never had, and nothing in the world should
induce me to go to such a place again.

“Well, we went down into a room underneath, where there were drinks,
and my friend had several, and made me take one or two—though I am an
abstemious man as a rule—and he talked to some other men and girls
who were there—a very vulgar set of people, I thought them, though
I wouldn’t say but what some of the young ladies were nice-looking
enough. One of them sat on my friend’s knee and called him a slow old
thing, and told him to come on—so we went into another room, where
there were a lot of people dancing all these up-to-date dances. My
friend went and danced, and I sat on a sofa. One of the young ladies
came up to me and said, didn’t I dance, and I said ‘No,’ so she said
wouldn’t I stand her a drink then. ‘You’ll stand us a drink then,
darling,’ that was what she said, and I said, ‘Wasn’t it after hours?’
and she said that didn’t matter. So I ordered the drink—a gin and
bitters it was—for I didn’t like not to, the young lady seemed to
expect it of me and I felt it wouldn’t be gentlemanly to refuse when
she asked. But it went against my conscience—such a young girl as
she was—and she put her arm round my neck afterwards and kissed me
just like as if she was paying for the drink—and it reelly went to
my ’eart,” said Mr. Thipps, a little ambiguously, but with uncommon
emphasis.

Here somebody at the back said, “Cheer-oh!” and a sound was heard as of
the noisy smacking of lips.

“Remove the person who made that improper noise,” said the Coroner,
with great indignation. “Go on, please, Mr. Thipps.”

“Well,” said Mr. Thipps, “about half-past twelve, as I should reckon,
things began to get a bit lively, and I was looking for my friend to
say good-night, not wishing to stay longer, as you will understand,
when I saw him with one of the young ladies, and they seemed to be
getting on altogether too well, if you follow me, my friend pulling the
ribbons off her shoulder and the young lady laughing—and so on,” said
Mr. Thipps, hurriedly, “so I thought I’d just slip quietly out, when I
heard a scuffle and a shout—and before I knew what was happening there
were half-a-dozen policemen in, and the lights went out, and everybody
stampeding and shouting—quite horrid, it was. I was knocked down in
the rush, and hit my head a nasty knock on a chair—that was where I got
that bruise they asked me about—and I was dreadfully afraid I’d never
get away and it would all come out, and perhaps my photograph in the
papers, when someone caught hold of me—I think it was the young lady
I’d given the gin and bitters to—and she said, ‘This way,’ and pushed
me along a passage and out at the back somewhere. So I ran through some
streets, and found myself in Goodge Street, and there I got a taxi and
came home. I saw the account of the raid afterwards in the papers, and
saw my friend had escaped, and so, as it wasn’t the sort of thing I
wanted made public, and I didn’t want to get him into difficulties, I
just said nothing. But that’s the truth.”

“Well, Mr. Thipps,” said the Coroner, “we shall be able to substantiate
a certain amount of this story. Your friend’s name—”

“No,” said Mr. Thipps, stoutly, “not on any account.”

“Very good,” said the Coroner. “Now, can you tell us what time you did
get in?”

“About half-past one, I should think. Though reelly, I was so upset—”

“Quite so. Did you go straight to bed?”

“Yes, I took my sandwich and glass of milk first. I thought it might
settle my inside, so to speak,” added the witness, apologetically, “not
being accustomed to alcohol so late at night and on an empty stomach,
as you may say.”

“Quite so. Nobody sat up for you?”

“Nobody.”

“How long did you take getting to bed first and last?”

Mr. Thipps thought it might have been half-an-hour.

“Did you visit the bathroom before turning in?”

“No.”

“And you heard nothing in the night?”

“No. I fell fast asleep. I was rather agitated, so I took a little dose
to make me sleep, and what with being so tired and the milk and the
dose, I just tumbled right off and didn’t wake till Gladys called me.”

Further questioning elicited little from Mr. Thipps. Yes, the bathroom
window had been open when he went in in the morning, he was sure of
that, and he had spoken very sharply to the girl about it. He was ready
to answer any questions; he would be only too ’appy—happy to have this
dreadful affair sifted to the bottom.

Gladys Horrocks stated that she had been in Mr. Thipps’s employment
about three months. Her previous employers would speak to her
character. It was her duty to make the round of the flat at night, when
she had seen Mrs. Thipps to bed at ten. Yes, she remembered doing so on
Monday evening. She had looked into all the rooms. Did she recollect
shutting the bathroom window that night? Well, no, she couldn’t swear
to it, not in particular, but when Mr. Thipps called her into the
bathroom in the morning it certainly _was_ open. She had not been into
the bathroom before Mr. Thipps went in. Well, yes, it had happened that
she had left that window open before, when anyone had been ’aving a
bath in the evening and ’ad left the blind down. Mrs. Thipps ’ad ’ad a
bath on Monday evening, Mondays was one of her regular bath nights. She
was very much afraid she ’adn’t shut the window on Monday night, though
she wished her ’ead ’ad been cut off afore she’d been so forgetful.

Here the witness burst into tears and was given some water, while the
Coroner refreshed himself with a third lozenge.

Recovering, witness stated that she had certainly looked into all the
rooms before going to bed. No, it was quite impossible for a body
to be ’idden in the flat without her seeing of it. She ’ad been in
the kitchen all evening, and there wasn’t ’ardly room to keep the
best dinner service there, let alone a body. Old Mrs. Thipps sat in
the drawing-room. Yes, she was sure she’d been into the dining-room.
How? Because she put Mr. Thipps’s milk and sandwiches there ready
for him. There had been nothing in there—that she could swear to. Nor
yet in her own bedroom, nor in the ’all. Had she searched the bedroom
cupboard and the box-room? Well, no, not to say searched; she wasn’t
use to searchin’ people’s ’ouses for skelintons every night. So that
a man might have concealed himself in the box-room or a wardrobe? She
supposed he might.

In reply to a woman juror—well, yes, she was walking out with a young
man. Williams was his name, Bill Williams,—well, yes, William Williams,
if they insisted. He was a glazier by profession. Well, yes, he ’ad
been in the flat sometimes. Well, she supposed you might say he was
acquainted with the flat. Had she ever—no, she ’adn’t, and if she’d
thought such a question was going to be put to a respectable girl she
wouldn’t ’ave offered to give evidence. The vicar of St. Mary’s would
speak to her character and to Mr. Williams’s. Last time Mr. Williams
was at the flat was a fortnight ago.

Well, no, it wasn’t exactly the last time she ’ad seen Mr. Williams.
Well, yes, the last time was Monday—well, yes, Monday night. Well,
if she must tell the truth, she must. Yes, the officer had cautioned
her, but there wasn’t any ’arm in it, and it was better to lose her
place than to be ’ung, though it was a cruel shame a girl couldn’t
’ave a bit of fun without a nasty corpse comin’ in through the window
to get ’er into difficulties. After she ’ad put Mrs. Thipps to bed,
she ’ad slipped out to go to the Plumbers’ and Glaziers’ Ball at the
“Black Faced Ram.” Mr. Williams ’ad met ’er and brought ’er back. ’E
could testify to where she’d been and that there wasn’t no ’arm in it.
She’d left before the end of the ball. It might ’ave been two o’clock
when she got back. She’d got the keys of the flat from Mrs. Thipps’s
drawer when Mrs. Thipps wasn’t looking. She ’ad asked leave to go, but
couldn’t get it, along of Mr. Thipps bein’ away that night. She was
bitterly sorry she ’ad be’aved so, and she was sure she’d been punished
for it. She had ’eard nothing suspicious when she came in. She had gone
straight to bed without looking round the flat. She wished she were
dead.

No, Mr. and Mrs. Thipps didn’t ’ardly ever ’ave any visitors; they kep’
themselves very retired. She had found the outside door bolted that
morning as usual. She wouldn’t never believe any ’arm of Mr. Thipps.
Thank you, Miss Horrocks. Call Georgiana Thipps, and the Coroner
thought we had better light the gas.

The examination of Mrs. Thipps provided more entertainment than
enlightenment, affording as it did an excellent example of the game
called “cross questions and crooked answers.” After fifteen minutes’
suffering, both in voice and temper, the Coroner abandoned the
struggle, leaving the lady with the last word.

“You needn’t try to bully me, young man,” said that octogenarian with
spirit, “settin’ there spoilin’ your stomach with them nasty jujubes.”

At this point a young man arose in court and demanded to give evidence.
Having explained that he was William Williams, glazier, he was sworn,
and corroborated the evidence of Gladys Horrocks in the matter of
her presence at the “Black Faced Ram” on the Monday night. They had
returned to the flat rather before two, he thought, but certainly later
than 1.30. He was sorry that he had persuaded Miss Horrocks to come out
with him when she didn’t ought. He had observed nothing of a suspicious
nature in Prince of Wales Road at either visit.

Inspector Sugg gave evidence of having been called in at about
half-past eight on Monday morning. He had considered the girl’s manner
to be suspicious and had arrested her. On later information, leading
him to suspect that the deceased might have been murdered that night,
he had arrested Mr. Thipps. He had found no trace of breaking into
the flat. There were marks on the bathroom window-sill which pointed
to somebody having got in that way. There were no ladder marks or
footmarks in the yard; the yard was paved with asphalt. He had examined
the roof, but found nothing on the roof. In his opinion the body had
been brought into the flat previously and concealed till the evening by
someone who had then gone out during the night by the bathroom window,
with the connivance of the girl. In that case, why should not the
girl have let the person out by the door? Well, it might have been so.
Had he found traces of a body or a man or both having been hidden in
the flat? He found nothing to show that they might _not_ have been so
concealed. What was the evidence that led him to suppose that the death
had occurred that night?

At this point Inspector Sugg appeared uneasy, and endeavoured to retire
upon his professional dignity. On being pressed, however, he admitted
that the evidence in question had come to nothing.

_One of the jurors_: Was it the case that any finger-marks had been
left by the criminal?

Some marks had been found on the bath, but the criminal had worn gloves.

_The Coroner_: Do you draw any conclusion from this fact as to the
experience of the criminal?

_Inspector Sugg_: Looks as if he was an old hand, sir.

_The Juror_: Is that very consistent with the charge against Alfred
Thipps, Inspector?

The Inspector was silent.

_The Coroner_: In the light of the evidence which you have just
heard, do you still press the charge against Alfred Thipps and Gladys
Horrocks?

_Inspector Sugg_: I consider the whole set-out highly suspicious.
Thipps’s story isn’t corroborated, and as for the girl Horrocks, how do
we know this Williams ain’t in it as well?

_William Williams_: Now, you drop that. I can bring a ’undred witnesses—

_The Coroner_: Silence, if you please. I am surprised, Inspector, that
you should make this suggestion in that manner. It is highly improper.
By the way, can you tell us whether a police raid was actually carried
out on the Monday night on any Night Club in the neighbourhood of St.
Giles’s Circus?

_Inspector Sugg_ (sulkily): I believe there was something of the sort.

_The Coroner_: You will, no doubt, inquire into the matter. I seem to
recollect having seen some mention of it in the newspapers. Thank you,
Inspector, that will do.

Several witnesses having appeared and testified to the characters of
Mr. Thipps and Gladys Horrocks, the Coroner stated his intention of
proceeding to the medical evidence.

“Sir Julian Freke.”

There was considerable stir in the court as the great specialist
walked up to give evidence. He was not only a distinguished man,
but a striking figure, with his wide shoulders, upright carriage and
leonine head. His manner as he kissed the Book presented to him with
the usual deprecatory mumble by the Coroner’s officer, was that of a
St. Paul condescending to humour the timid mumbo-jumbo of superstitious
Corinthians.

“So handsome, I always think,” whispered the Duchess to Mr. Parker;
“just exactly like William Morris, with that bush of hair and beard
and those exciting eyes looking out of it—so splendid, these dear men
always devoted to something or other—not but what I think socialism is
a mistake—of course it works with all those nice people, so good and
happy in art linen and the weather always perfect—Morris, I mean, you
know—but so difficult in real life. Science is different—I’m sure if I
had nerves I should go to Sir Julian just to look at him—eyes like that
give one something to think about, and that’s what most of these people
want, only I never had any—nerves, I mean. Don’t you think so?”

“You are Sir Julian Freke,” said the Coroner, “and live at St. Luke’s
House, Prince of Wales Road, Battersea, where you exercise a general
direction over the surgical side of St. Luke’s Hospital?”

Sir Julian assented briefly to this definition of his personality.

“You were the first medical man to see the deceased?”

“I was.”

“And you have since conducted an examination in collaboration with Dr.
Grimbold of Scotland Yard?”

“I have.”

“You are in agreement as to the cause of death?”

“Generally speaking, yes.”

“Will you communicate your impressions to the Jury?”

“I was engaged in research work in the dissecting room at St. Luke’s
Hospital at about nine o’clock on Monday morning, when I was informed
that Inspector Sugg wished to see me. He told me that the dead body of
a man had been discovered under mysterious circumstances at 59 Queen
Caroline Mansions. He asked me whether it could be supposed to be a
joke perpetrated by any of the medical students at the hospital. I was
able to assure him, by an examination of the hospital’s books, that
there was no subject missing from the dissecting room.”

“Who would be in charge of such bodies?”

“William Watts, the dissecting-room attendant.”

“Is William Watts present?” inquired the Coroner of the officer.

William Watts was present, and could be called if the Coroner thought
it necessary.

“I suppose no dead body would be delivered to the hospital without your
knowledge, Sir Julian?”

“Certainly not.”

“Thank you. Will you proceed with your statement?”

“Inspector Sugg then asked me whether I would send a medical man round
to view the body. I said that I would go myself.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I confess to my share of ordinary human curiosity, Mr. Coroner.”

Laughter from a medical student at the back of the room.

“On arriving at the flat I found the deceased lying on his back in
the bath. I examined him, and came to the conclusion that death had
been caused by a blow on the back of the neck, dislocating the fourth
and fifth cervical vertebrae, bruising the spinal cord and producing
internal haemorrhage and partial paralysis of the brain. I judged the
deceased to have been dead at least twelve hours, possibly more. I
observed no other sign of violence of any kind upon the body. Deceased
was a strong, well-nourished man of about fifty to fifty-five years of
age.”

“In your opinion, could the blow have been self-inflicted?”

“Certainly not. It had been made with a heavy, blunt instrument
from behind, with great force and considerable judgment. It is quite
impossible that it was self-inflicted.”

“Could it have been the result of an accident?”

“That is possible, of course.”

“If, for example, the deceased had been looking out of the window, and
the sash had shut violently down upon him?”

“No; in that case there would have been signs of strangulation and a
bruise upon the throat as well.”

“But deceased might have been killed through a heavy weight
accidentally falling upon him?”

“He might.”

“Was death instantaneous, in your opinion?”

“It is difficult to say. Such a blow might very well cause death
instantaneously, or the patient might linger in a partially paralyzed
condition for some time. In the present case I should be disposed
to think that deceased might have lingered for some hours. I base my
decision upon the condition of the brain revealed at the autopsy. I may
say, however, that Dr. Grimbold and I are not in complete agreement on
the point.”

“I understand that a suggestion has been made as to the identification
of the deceased. _You_ are not in a position to identify him?”

“Certainly not. I never saw him before. The suggestion to which you
refer is a preposterous one, and ought never to have been made. I was
not aware until this morning that it had been made; had it been made to
me earlier, I should have known how to deal with it, and I should like
to express my strong disapproval of the unnecessary shock and distress
inflicted upon a lady with whom I have the honour to be acquainted.”

_The Coroner_: It was not my fault, Sir Julian; I had nothing to
do with it; I agree with you that it was unfortunate you were not
consulted.

The reporters scribbled busily, and the court asked each other what was
meant, while the jury tried to look as if they knew already.

“In the matter of the eyeglasses found upon the body, Sir Julian. Do
these give any indication to a medical man?”

“They are somewhat unusual lenses; an oculist would be able to speak
more definitely, but I will say for myself that I should have expected
them to belong to an older man than the deceased.”

“Speaking as a physician, who has had many opportunities of observing
the human body, did you gather anything from the appearance of the
deceased as to his personal habits?”

“I should say that he was a man in easy circumstances, but who had only
recently come into money. His teeth are in a bad state, and his hands
shows signs of recent manual labour.”

“An Australian colonist, for instance, who had made money?”

“Something of that sort; of course, I could not say positively.”

“Of course not. Thank you, Sir Julian.”

Dr. Grimbold, called, corroborated his distinguished colleague in every
particular, except that, in his opinion, death had not occurred for
several days after the blow. It was with the greatest hesitancy that he
ventured to differ from Sir Julian Freke, and he might be wrong. It was
difficult to tell in any case, and when he saw the body, deceased had
been dead at least twenty-four hours, in his opinion.

Inspector Sugg, recalled. Would he tell the jury what steps had been
taken to identify the deceased?

A description had been sent to every police station and had been
inserted in all the newspapers. In view of the suggestion made by Sir
Julian Freke, had inquiries been made at all the seaports? They had.
And with no results? With no results at all. No one had come forward
to identify the body? Plenty of people had come forward; but nobody
had succeeded in identifying it. Had any effort been made to follow
up the clue afforded by the eyeglasses? Inspector Sugg submitted that,
having regard to the interests of justice, he would beg to be excused
from answering that question. Might the jury see the eyeglasses? The
eyeglasses were handed to the jury.

William Watts, called, confirmed the evidence of Sir Julian Freke with
regard to dissecting-room subjects. He explained the system by which
they were entered. They usually were supplied by the workhouses and
free hospitals. They were under his sole charge. The young gentlemen
could not possibly get the keys. Had Sir Julian Freke, or any of the
house surgeons, the keys? No, not even Sir Julian Freke. The keys had
remained in his possession on Monday night? They had. And, in any case,
the inquiry was irrelevant, as there was no body missing, nor ever had
been? That was the case.

The Coroner then addressed the jury, reminding them with some
asperity that they were not there to gossip about who the deceased
could or could not have been, but to give their opinion as to the
cause of death. He reminded them that they should consider whether,
according to the medical evidence, death could have been accidental
or self-inflicted, or whether it was deliberate murder, or homicide.
If they considered the evidence on this point insufficient, they could
return an open verdict. In any case, their verdict could not prejudice
any person; if they brought it in “murder,” all the whole evidence
would have to be gone through again before the magistrate. He then
dismissed them, with the unspoken adjuration to be quick about it.

Sir Julian Freke, after giving his evidence, had caught the eye of the
Duchess, and now came over and greeted her.

“I haven’t seen you for an age,” said that lady. “How are you?”

“Hard at work,” said the specialist. “Just got my new book out. This
kind of thing wastes time. Have you seen Lady Levy yet?”

“No, poor dear,” said the Duchess. “I only came up this morning, for
this. Mrs. Thipps is staying with me—one of Peter’s eccentricities,
you know. Poor Christine! I must run round and see her. This is Mr.
Parker,” she added, “who is investigating that case.”

“Oh,” said Sir Julian, and paused. “Do you know,” he said in a low
voice to Parker, “I am very glad to meet you. Have you seen Lady Levy
yet?”

“I saw her this morning.”

“Did she ask you to go on with the inquiry?”

“Yes,” said Parker; “she thinks,” he added, “that Sir Reuben may be
detained in the hands of some financial rival or that perhaps some
scoundrels are holding him to ransom.”

“And is that _your_ opinion?” asked Sir Julian.

“I think it very likely,” said Parker, frankly.

Sir Julian hesitated again.

“I wish you would walk back with me when this is over,” he said.

“I should be delighted,” said Parker.

At this moment the jury returned and took their places, and there was a
little rustle and hush. The Coroner addressed the foreman and inquired
if they were agreed upon their verdict.

“We are agreed, Mr. Coroner, that deceased died of the effects of a
blow upon the spine, but how that injury was inflicted we consider that
there is not sufficient evidence to show.”

Mr. Parker and Sir Julian Freke walked up the road together.

“I had absolutely no idea until I saw Lady Levy this morning,” said the
doctor, “that there was any idea of connecting this matter with the
disappearance of Sir Reuben. The suggestion was perfectly monstrous,
and could only have grown up in the mind of that ridiculous police
officer. If I had had any idea what was in his mind I could have
disabused him and avoided all this.”

“I did my best to do so,” said Parker, “as soon as I was called in to
the Levy case—”

“Who called you in, if I may ask?” inquired Sir Julian.

“Well, the household first of all, and then Sir Reuben’s uncle, Mr.
Levy of Portman Square, wrote to me to go on with the investigation.”

“And now Lady Levy has confirmed those instructions?”

“Certainly,” said Parker in some surprise.

Sir Julian was silent for a little time.

“I’m afraid I was the first person to put the idea into Sugg’s head,”
said Parker, rather penitently. “When Sir Reuben disappeared, my first
step, almost, was to hunt up all the street accidents and suicides and
so on that had turned up during the day, and I went down to see this
Battersea Park body as a matter of routine. Of course, I saw that the
thing was ridiculous as soon as I got there, but Sugg froze on to the
idea—and it’s true there was a good deal of resemblance between the
dead man and the portraits I’ve seen of Sir Reuben.”

“A strong superficial likeness,” said Sir Julian. “The upper part of
the face is a not uncommon type, and as Sir Reuben wore a heavy beard
and there was no opportunity of comparing the mouths and chins, I can
understand the idea occurring to anybody. But only to be dismissed at
once. I am sorry,” he added, “as the whole matter has been painful to
Lady Levy. You may know, Mr. Parker, that I am an old, though I should
not call myself an intimate, friend of the Levys.”

“I understood something of the sort.”

“Yes. When I was a young man I—in short, Mr. Parker, I hoped once to
marry Lady Levy.” (Mr. Parker gave the usual sympathetic groan.) “I
have never married, as you know,” pursued Sir Julian. “We have remained
good friends. I have always done what I could to spare her pain.”

“Believe me, Sir Julian,” said Parker, “that I sympathize very much
with you and with Lady Levy, and that I did all I could to disabuse
Inspector Sugg of this notion. Unhappily, the coincidence of Sir
Reuben’s being seen that evening in the Battersea Park Road—”

“Ah, yes,” said Sir Julian. “Dear me, here we are at home. Perhaps
you would come in for a moment, Mr. Parker, and have tea or a
whisky-and-soda or something.”

Parker promptly accepted this invitation, feeling that there were other
things to be said.

The two men stepped into a square, finely furnished hall with a
fireplace on the same side as the door, and a staircase opposite. The
dining-room door stood open on their right, and as Sir Julian rang the
bell a man-servant appeared at the far end of the hall.

“What will you take?” asked the doctor.

“After that dreadfully cold place,” said Parker, “what I really want is
gallons of hot tea, if you, as a nerve specialist, can bear the thought
of it.”

“Provided you allow of a judicious blend of China in it,” replied
Sir Julian in the same tone, “I have no objection to make. Tea in the
library at once,” he added to the servant, and led the way upstairs.

“I don’t use the downstairs rooms much, except the dining-room,” he
explained as he ushered his guest into a small but cheerful library
on the first floor. “This room leads out of my bedroom and is more
convenient. I only live part of my time here, but it’s very handy for
my research work at the hospital. That’s what I do there, mostly. It’s
a fatal thing for a theorist, Mr. Parker, to let the practical work get
behindhand. Dissection is the basis of all good theory and all correct
diagnosis. One must keep one’s hand and eye in training. This place
is far more important to me than Harley Street, and some day I shall
abandon my consulting practice altogether and settle down here to cut
up my subjects and write my books in peace. So many things in this life
are a waste of time, Mr. Parker.”

Mr. Parker assented to this.

“Very often,” said Sir Julian, “the only time I get for any research
work—necessitating as it does the keenest observation and the faculties
at their acutest—has to be at night, after a long day’s work and by
artificial light, which, magnificent as the lighting of the dissecting
room here is, is always more trying to the eyes than daylight.
Doubtless your own work has to be carried on under even more trying
conditions.”

“Yes, sometimes,” said Parker; “but then you see,” he added, “the
conditions are, so to speak, part of the work.”

“Quite so, quite so,” said Sir Julian; “you mean that the burglar, for
example, does not demonstrate his methods in the light of day, or plant
the perfect footmark in the middle of a damp patch of sand for you to
analyze.”

“Not as a rule,” said the detective, “but I have no doubt many of your
diseases work quite as insidiously as any burglar.”

“They do, they do,” said Sir Julian, laughing, “and it is my pride, as
it is yours, to track them down for the good of society. The neuroses,
you know, are particularly clever criminals—they break out into as many
disguises as—”

“As Leon Kestrel, the Master-Mummer,” suggested Parker, who read
railway-stall detective stories on the principle of the ’busman’s
holiday.

“No doubt,” said Sir Julian, who did not, “and they cover up their
tracks wonderfully. But when you can really investigate, Mr. Parker,
and break up the dead, or for preference the living body with the
scalpel, you always find the footmarks—the little trail of ruin or
disorder left by madness or disease or drink or any other similar
pest. But the difficulty is to trace them back, merely by observing
the surface symptoms—the hysteria, crime, religion, fear, shyness,
conscience, or whatever it may be; just as you observe a theft or a
murder and look for the footsteps of the criminal, so I observe a fit
of hysterics or an outburst of piety and hunt for the little mechanical
irritation which has produced it.”

“You regard all these things as physical?”

“Undoubtedly. I am not ignorant of the rise of another school of
thought, Mr. Parker, but its exponents are mostly charlatans or
self-deceivers. ‘_Sie haben sich so weit darin eingeheimnisst_’
that, like Sludge the Medium, they are beginning to believe their own
nonsense. I should like to have the exploring of some of their brains,
Mr. Parker; I would show you the little faults and landslips in the
cells—the misfiring and short-circuiting of the nerves, which produce
these notions and these books. At least,” he added, gazing sombrely at
his guest, “at least, if I could not quite show you today, I shall be
able to do so tomorrow—or in a year’s time—or before I die.”

He sat for some minutes gazing into the fire, while the red light
played upon his tawny beard and struck out answering gleams from his
compelling eyes.

Parker drank tea in silence, watching him. On the whole, however, he
remained but little interested in the causes of nervous phenomena and
his mind strayed to Lord Peter, coping with the redoubtable Crimplesham
down in Salisbury. Lord Peter had wanted him to come: that meant,
either that Crimplesham was proving recalcitrant or that a clue wanted
following. But Bunter had said that tomorrow would do, and it was just
as well. After all, the Battersea affair was not Parker’s case; he had
already wasted valuable time attending an inconclusive inquest, and he
really ought to get on with his legitimate work. There was still Levy’s
secretary to see and the little matter of the Peruvian Oil to be looked
into. He looked at his watch.

“I am very much afraid—if you will excuse me—” he murmured.

Sir Julian came back with a start to the consideration of actuality.

“Your work calls you?” he said, smiling. “Well, I can understand that.
I won’t keep you. But I wanted to say something to you in connection
with your present inquiry—only I hardly know—I hardly like—”

Parker sat down again, and banished every indication of hurry from his
face and attitude.

“I shall be very grateful for any help you can give me,” he said.

“I’m afraid it’s more in the nature of hindrance,” said Sir Julian,
with a short laugh. “It’s a case of destroying a clue for you, and a
breach of professional confidence on my side. But since—accidentally—a
certain amount has come out, perhaps the whole had better do so.”

Mr. Parker made the encouraging noise which, among laymen, supplies the
place of the priest’s insinuating, “Yes, my son?”

“Sir Reuben Levy’s visit on Monday night was to me,” said Sir Julian.

“Yes?” said Mr. Parker, without expression.

“He found cause for certain grave suspicions concerning his health,”
said Sir Julian, slowly, as though weighing how much he could in
honour disclose to a stranger. “He came to me, in preference to his
own medical man, as he was particularly anxious that the matter should
be kept from his wife. As I told you, he knew me fairly well, and Lady
Levy had consulted me about a nervous disorder in the summer.”

“Did he make an appointment with you?” asked Parker.

“I beg your pardon,” said the other, absently.

“Did he make an appointment?”

“An appointment? Oh, no! He turned up suddenly in the evening after
dinner when I wasn’t expecting him. I took him up here and examined
him, and he left me somewhere about ten o’clock, I should think.”

“May I ask what was the result of your examination?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“It might illuminate—well, conjecture as to his subsequent conduct,”
said Parker, cautiously. This story seemed to have little coherence
with the rest of the business, and he wondered whether coincidence was
alone responsible for Sir Reuben’s disappearance on the same night that
he visited the doctor.

“I see,” said Sir Julian. “Yes. Well, I will tell you in confidence
that I saw grave grounds of suspicion, but as yet, no absolute
certainty of mischief.”

“Thank you. Sir Reuben left you at ten o’clock?”

“Then or thereabouts. I did not at first mention the matter as it was
so very much Sir Reuben’s wish to keep his visit to me secret, and
there was no question of accident in the street or anything of that
kind, since he reached home safely at midnight.”

“Quite so,” said Parker.

“It would have been, and is, a breach of confidence,” said Sir Julian,
“and I only tell you now because Sir Reuben was accidentally seen, and
because I would rather tell you in private than have you ferretting
round here and questioning my servants, Mr. Parker. You will excuse my
frankness.”

“Certainly,” said Parker. “I hold no brief for the pleasantness of my
profession, Sir Julian. I am very much obliged to you for telling me
this. I might otherwise have wasted valuable time following up a false
trail.”

“I am sure I need not ask you, in your turn, to respect this
confidence,” said the doctor. “To publish the matter abroad could only
harm Sir Reuben and pain his wife, besides placing me in no favourable
light with my patients.”

“I promise to keep the thing to myself,” said Parker, “except of
course,” he added hastily, “that I must inform my colleague.”

“You have a colleague in the case?”

“I have.”

“What sort of person is he?”

“He will be perfectly discreet, Sir Julian.”

“Is he a police officer?”

“You need not be afraid of your confidence getting into the records at
Scotland Yard.”

“I see that you know how to be discreet, Mr. Parker.”

“We also have our professional etiquette, Sir Julian.”

On returning to Great Ormond Street, Mr. Parker found a wire awaiting
him, which said: “Do not trouble to come. All well. Returning tomorrow.
Wimsey.”

CHAPTER VII

On returning to the flat just before lunch-time on the following
morning, after a few confirmatory researches in Balham and the
neighbourhood of Victoria Station, Lord Peter was greeted at the
door by Mr. Bunter (who had gone straight home from Waterloo) with a
telephone message and a severe and nursemaid-like eye.

“Lady Swaffham rang up, my lord, and said she hoped your lordship had
not forgotten you were lunching with her.”

“I have forgotten, Bunter, and I mean to forget. I trust you told
her I had succumbed to lethargic encephalitis suddenly, no flowers by
request.”

“Lady Swaffham said, my lord, she was counting on you. She met the
Duchess of Denver yesterday—”

“If my sister-in-law’s there I won’t go, that’s flat,” said Lord Peter.

“I beg your pardon, my lord, the Dowager Duchess.”

“What’s she doing in town?”

“I imagine she came up for the inquest, my lord.”

“Oh, yes—we missed that, Bunter.”

“Yes, my lord. Her Grace is lunching with Lady Swaffham.”

“Bunter, I can’t. I can’t, really. Say I’m in bed with whooping cough,
and ask my mother to come round after lunch.”

“Very well, my lord. Mrs. Tommy Frayle will be at Lady Swaffham’s, my
lord, and Mr. Milligan—”

“Mr. who?”

“Mr. John P. Milligan, my lord, and—”

“Good God, Bunter, why didn’t you say so before? Have I time to get
there before he does? All right. I’m off. With a taxi I can just—”

“Not in those trousers, my lord,” said Mr. Bunter, blocking the way to
the door with deferential firmness.

“Oh, Bunter,” pleaded his lordship, “do let me—just this once. You
don’t know how important it is.”

“Not on any account, my lord. It would be as much as my place is worth.”

“The trousers are all right, Bunter.”

“Not for Lady Swaffham’s, my lord. Besides, your lordship forgets the
man that ran against you with a milk-can at Salisbury.”

And Mr. Bunter laid an accusing finger on a slight stain of grease
showing across the light cloth.

“I wish to God I’d never let you grow into a privileged family
retainer, Bunter,” said Lord Peter, bitterly, dashing his walking-stick
into the umbrella-stand. “You’ve no conception of the mistakes my
mother may be making.”

Mr. Bunter smiled grimly and led his victim away.

When an immaculate Lord Peter was ushered, rather late for lunch, into
Lady Swaffham’s drawing-room, the Dowager Duchess of Denver was seated
on a sofa, plunged in intimate conversation with Mr. John P. Milligan
of Chicago.

“I’m vurry pleased to meet you, Duchess,” had been that financier’s
opening remark, “to thank you for your exceedingly kind invitation. I
assure you it’s a compliment I deeply appreciate.”

The Duchess beamed at him, while conducting a rapid rally of all her
intellectual forces.

“Do come and sit down and talk to me, Mr. Milligan,” she said. “I do
so love talking to you great business men—let me see, is it a railway
king you are or something about puss-in-the-corner—at least, I don’t
mean that exactly, but that game one used to play with cards, all
about wheat and oats, and there was a bull and a bear, too—or was it a
horse?—no, a bear, because I remember one always had to try and get rid
of it and it used to get so dreadfully crumpled and torn, poor thing,
always being handed about, one got to recognise it, and then one had to
buy a new pack—so foolish it must seem to you, knowing the real thing,
and dreadfully noisy, but really excellent for breaking the ice with
rather stiff people who didn’t know each other—I’m quite sorry it’s
gone out.”

Mr. Milligan sat down.

“Wal, now,” he said, “I guess it’s as interesting for us business men
to meet British aristocrats as it is for Britishers to meet American
railway kings, Duchess. And I guess I’ll make as many mistakes talking
your kind of talk as you would make if you were tryin’ to run a corner
in wheat in Chicago. Fancy now, I called that fine lad of yours Lord
Wimsey the other day, and he thought I’d mistaken him for his brother.
That made me feel rather green.”

This was an unhoped-for lead. The Duchess walked warily.

“Dear boy,” she said, “I am so glad you met him, Mr. Milligan. _Both_
my sons are a _great_ comfort to me, you know, though, of course,
Gerald is more conventional—just the right kind of person for the House
of Lords, you know, and a splendid farmer. I can’t see Peter down at
Denver half so well, though he is always going to all the right things
in town, and very amusing sometimes, poor boy.”

“I was vurry much gratified by Lord Peter’s suggestion,” pursued
Mr. Milligan, “for which I understand you are responsible, and I’ll
surely be very pleased to come any day you like, though I think you’re
flattering me too much.”

“Ah, well,” said the Duchess, “I don’t know if you’re the best judge of
that, Mr. Milligan. Not that I know anything about business myself,”
she added. “I’m rather old-fashioned for these days, you know, and I
can’t pretend to do more than know a nice _man_ when I see him; for the
other things I rely on my son.”

The accent of this speech was so flattering that Mr. Milligan purred
almost audibly, and said:

“Wal, Duchess, I guess that’s where a lady with a real, beautiful,
old-fashioned soul has the advantage of these modern young
blatherskites—there aren’t many men who wouldn’t be nice—to her, and
even then, if they aren’t rock-bottom she can see through them.”

“But that leaves me where I was,” thought the Duchess. “I believe,”
she said aloud, “that I ought to be thanking you in the name of the
vicar of Duke’s Denver for a very munificent cheque which reached him
yesterday for the Church Restoration Fund. He was so delighted and
astonished, poor dear man.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Mr. Milligan, “we haven’t any fine old
crusted buildings like yours over on our side, so it’s a privilege to
be allowed to drop a little kerosene into the worm-holes when we hear
of one in the old country suffering from senile decay. So when your
lad told me about Duke’s Denver I took the liberty to subscribe without
waiting for the Bazaar.”

“I’m sure it was very kind of you,” said the Duchess. “You are coming
to the Bazaar, then?” she continued, gazing into his face appealingly.

“Sure thing,” said Mr. Milligan, with great promptness. “Lord Peter
said you’d let me know for sure about the date, but we can always make
time for a little bit of good work anyway. Of course I’m hoping to
be able to avail myself of your kind invitation to stop, but if I’m
rushed, I’ll manage anyhow to pop over and speak my piece and pop back
again.”

“I hope so very much,” said the Duchess. “I must see what can be done
about the date—of course, I can’t promise—”

“No, no,” said Mr. Milligan heartily. “I know what these things are to
fix up. And then there’s not only me—there’s all the real big men of
European eminence your son mentioned, to be consulted.”

The Duchess turned pale at the thought that any one of these
illustrious persons might some time turn up in somebody’s drawing-room,
but by this time she had dug herself in comfortably, and was even
beginning to find her range.

“I can’t say how grateful we are to you,” she said; “it will be such a
treat. Do tell me what you think of saying.”

“Wal—” began Mr. Milligan.

Suddenly everybody was standing up and a penitent voice was heard to
say:

“Really, most awfully sorry, y’know—hope you’ll forgive me, Lady
Swaffham, what? Dear lady, could I possibly forget an invitation from
you? Fact is, I had to go an’ see a man down in Salisbury—absolutely
true, ’pon my word, and the fellow wouldn’t let me get away. I’m simply
grovellin’ before you, Lady Swaffham. Shall I go an’ eat my lunch in
the corner?”

Lady Swaffham gracefully forgave the culprit.

“Your dear mother is here,” she said.

“How do, Mother?” said Lord Peter, uneasily.

“How are you, dear?” replied the Duchess. “You really oughtn’t to
have turned up just yet. Mr. Milligan was just going to tell me what
a thrilling speech he’s preparing for the Bazaar, when you came and
interrupted us.”

Conversation at lunch turned, not unnaturally, on the Battersea
inquest, the Duchess giving a vivid impersonation of Mrs. Thipps being
interrogated by the Coroner.

“‘Did you hear anything unusual in the night?’ says the little man,
leaning forward and screaming at her, and so crimson in the face
and his ears sticking out so—just like a cherubim in that poem of
Tennyson’s—or is a cherub blue?—perhaps it’s a seraphim I mean—anyway,
you know what I mean, all eyes, with little wings on its head. And
dear old Mrs. Thipps saying, ‘Of course I have, any time these eighty
years,’ and _such_ a sensation in court till they found out she thought
he’d said, ‘Do you sleep without a light?’ and everybody laughing, and
then the Coroner said quite loudly, ‘Damn the woman,’ and she heard
that, I can’t think why, and said: ‘Don’t you get swearing, young man,
sitting there in the presence of Providence, as you may say. I don’t
know what young people are coming to nowadays’—and he’s sixty if he’s
a day, you know,” said the Duchess.

By a natural transition, Mrs. Tommy Frayle referred to the man who was
hanged for murdering three brides in a bath.

“I always thought that was so ingenious,” she said, gazing soulfully
at Lord Peter, “and do you know, as it happened, Tommy had just made
me insure my life, and I got so frightened, I gave up my morning bath
and took to having it in the afternoon when he was in the House—I mean,
when he was _not_ in the house—not at home, I mean.”

“Dear lady,” said Lord Peter, reproachfully, “I have a distinct
recollection that all those brides were thoroughly unattractive. But
it was an uncommonly ingenious plan—the first time of askin’—only he
shouldn’t have repeated himself.”

“One demands a little originality in these days, even from murderers,”
said Lady Swaffham. “Like dramatists, you know—so much easier in
Shakespeare’s time, wasn’t it? Always the same girl dressed up as
a man, and even that borrowed from Boccaccio or Dante or somebody.
I’m sure if I’d been a Shakespeare hero, the very minute I saw a
slim-legged young page-boy I’d have said: ‘Odsbodikins! There’s that
girl again!’”

“That’s just what happened, as a matter of fact,” said Lord Peter. “You
see, Lady Swaffham, if ever you want to commit a murder, the thing
you’ve got to do is to prevent people from associatin’ their ideas.
Most people don’t associate anythin’—their ideas just roll about like
so many dry peas on a tray, makin’ a lot of noise and goin’ nowhere,
but once you begin lettin’ ’em string their peas into a necklace, it’s
goin’ to be strong enough to hang you, what?”

“Dear me!” said Mrs. Tommy Frayle, with a little scream, “what a
blessing it is none of my friends have any ideas at all!”

“Y’see,” said Lord Peter, balancing a piece of duck on his fork and
frowning, “it’s only in Sherlock Holmes and stories like that, that
people think things out logically. Or’nar’ly, if somebody tells you
somethin’ out of the way, you just say, ‘By Jove!’ or ‘How sad!’
an’ leave it at that, an’ half the time you forget about it, ’nless
somethin’ turns up afterwards to drive it home. F’r instance, Lady
Swaffham, I told you when I came in that I’d been down to Salisbury,
’n’ that’s true, only I don’t suppose it impressed you much; ’n’ I
don’t suppose it’d impress you much if you read in the paper tomorrow
of a tragic discovery of a dead lawyer down in Salisbury, but if I went
to Salisbury again next week ’n’ there was a Salisbury doctor found
dead the day after, you might begin to think I was a bird of ill omen
for Salisbury residents; and if I went there again the week after,
’n’ you heard next day that the see of Salisbury had fallen vacant
suddenly, you might begin to wonder what took me to Salisbury, an’
why I’d never mentioned before that I had friends down there, don’t
you see, an’ you might think of goin’ down to Salisbury yourself, an’
askin’ all kinds of people if they’d happened to see a young man in
plum-coloured socks hangin’ round the Bishop’s Palace.”

“I daresay I should,” said Lady Swaffham.

“Quite. An’ if you found that the lawyer and the doctor had once upon
a time been in business at Poggleton-on-the-Marsh when the Bishop
had been vicar there, you’d begin to remember you’d once heard of me
payin’ a visit to Poggleton-on-the-Marsh a long time ago, an’ you’d
begin to look up the parish registers there an’ discover I’d been
married under an assumed name by the vicar to the widow of a wealthy
farmer, who’d died suddenly of peritonitis, as certified by the doctor,
after the lawyer’d made a will leavin’ me all her money, and _then_
you’d begin to think I might have very good reasons for gettin’ rid of
such promisin’ blackmailers as the lawyer, the doctor an’ the bishop.
Only, if I hadn’t started an association in your mind by gettin’ rid
of ’em all in the same place, you’d never have thought of goin’ to
Poggleton-on-the-Marsh, ’n’ you wouldn’t even have remembered I’d ever
been there.”

“_Were_ you ever there, Lord Peter?” inquired Mrs. Tommy, anxiously.

“I don’t think so,” said Lord Peter; “the name threads no beads in my
mind. But it might, any day, you know.”

“But if you were investigating a crime,” said Lady Swaffham, “you’d
have to begin by the usual things, I suppose—finding out what the
person had been doing, and who’d been to call, and looking for a
motive, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” said Lord Peter, “but most of us have such dozens of motives
for murderin’ all sorts of inoffensive people. There’s lots of people
I’d like to murder, wouldn’t you?”

“Heaps,” said Lady Swaffham. “There’s that dreadful—perhaps I’d better
not say it, though, for fear you should remember it later on.”

“Well, I wouldn’t if I were you,” said Peter, amiably. “You never know.
It’d be beastly awkward if the person died suddenly tomorrow.”

“The difficulty with this Battersea case, I guess,” said Mr. Milligan,
“is that nobody seems to have any associations with the gentleman in
the bath.”

“So hard on poor Inspector Sugg,” said the Duchess. “I quite felt for
the man, having to stand up there and answer a lot of questions when he
had nothing at all to say.”

Lord Peter applied himself to the duck, having got a little behindhand.
Presently he heard somebody ask the Duchess if she had seen Lady Levy.

“She is in great distress,” said the woman who had spoken, a Mrs.
Freemantle, “though she clings to the hope that he will turn up. I
suppose you knew him, Mr. Milligan—know him, I should say, for I hope
he’s still alive somewhere.”

Mrs. Freemantle was the wife of an eminent railway director, and
celebrated for her ignorance of the world of finance. Her _faux pas_ in
this connection enlivened the tea parties of City men’s wives.

“Wal, I’ve dined with him,” said Mr. Milligan, good-naturedly. “I think
he and I’ve done our best to ruin each other, Mrs. Freemantle. If this
were the States,” he added, “I’d be much inclined to suspect myself of
having put Sir Reuben in a safe place. But we can’t do business that
way in your old country; no, ma’am.”

“It must be exciting work doing business in America,” said Lord Peter.

“It is,” said Mr. Milligan. “I guess my brothers are having a good
time there now. I’ll be joining them again before long, as soon as I’ve
fixed up a little bit of work for them on this side.”

“Well, you mustn’t go till after my bazaar,” said the Duchess.

Lord Peter spent the afternoon in a vain hunt for Mr. Parker. He ran
him down eventually after dinner in Great Ormond Street.

Parker was sitting in an elderly but affectionate armchair, with his
feet on the mantelpiece, relaxing his mind with a modern commentary
on the Epistle to the Galatians. He received Lord Peter with quiet
pleasure, though without rapturous enthusiasm, and mixed him a
whisky-and-soda. Peter took up the book his friend had laid down and
glanced over the pages.

“All these men work with a bias in their minds, one way or other,” he
said; “they find what they are looking for.”

“Oh, they do,” agreed the detective; “but one learns to discount that
almost automatically, you know. When I was at college, I was all on
the other side—Conybeare and Robertson and Drews and those people,
you know, till I found they were all so busy looking for a burglar
whom nobody had ever seen, that they couldn’t recognise the footprints
of the household, so to speak. Then I spent two years learning to be
cautious.”

“Hum,” said Lord Peter, “theology must be good exercise for the brain
then, for you’re easily the most cautious devil I know. But I say,
do go on reading—it’s a shame for me to come and root you up in your
off-time like this.”

“It’s all right, old man,” said Parker.

The two men sat silent for a little, and then Lord Peter said:

“D’you like your job?”

The detective considered the question, and replied:

“Yes—yes, I do. I know it to be useful, and I am fitted to it. I do it
quite well—not with inspiration, perhaps, but sufficiently well to take
a pride in it. It is full of variety and it forces one to keep up to
the mark and not get slack. And there’s a future to it. Yes, I like it.
Why?”

“Oh, nothing,” said Peter. “It’s a hobby to me, you see. I took it up
when the bottom of things was rather knocked out for me, because it was
so damned exciting, and the worst of it is, I enjoy it—up to a point.
If it was all on paper I’d enjoy every bit of it. I love the beginning
of a job—when one doesn’t know any of the people and it’s just exciting
and amusing. But if it comes to really running down a live person and
getting him hanged, or even quodded, poor devil, there don’t seem as if
there was any excuse for me buttin’ in, since I don’t have to make my
livin’ by it. And I feel as if I oughtn’t ever to find it amusin’. But
I do.”

Parker gave this speech his careful attention.

“I see what you mean,” he said.

“There’s old Milligan, f’r instance,” said Lord Peter. “On paper,
nothin’ would be funnier than to catch old Milligan out. But he’s
rather a decent old bird to talk to. Mother likes him. He’s taken a
fancy to me. It’s awfully entertainin’ goin’ and pumpin’ him with stuff
about a bazaar for church expenses, but when he’s so jolly pleased
about it and that, I feel a worm. S’pose old Milligan has cut Levy’s
throat and plugged him into the Thames. It ain’t my business.”

“It’s as much yours as anybody’s,” said Parker; “it’s no better to do
it for money than to do it for nothing.”

“Yes, it is,” said Peter stubbornly. “Havin’ to live is the only excuse
there is for doin’ that kind of thing.”

“Well, but look here!” said Parker. “If Milligan has cut poor old
Levy’s throat for no reason except to make himself richer, I don’t see
why he should buy himself off by giving £1,000 to Duke’s Denver church
roof, or why he should be forgiven just because he’s childishly vain,
or childishly snobbish.”

“That’s a nasty one,” said Lord Peter.

“Well, if you like, even because he has taken a fancy to you.”

“No, but—”

“Look here, Wimsey—do you think he _has_ murdered Levy?”

“Well, he may have.”

“But do you think he has?”

“I don’t want to think so.”

“Because he has taken a fancy to you?”

“Well, that biases me, of course—”

“I daresay it’s quite a legitimate bias. You don’t think a callous
murderer would be likely to take a fancy to you?”

“Well—besides, I’ve taken rather a fancy to him.”

“I daresay that’s quite legitimate, too. You’ve observed him and made
a subconscious deduction from your observations, and the result is, you
don’t think he did it. Well, why not? You’re entitled to take that into
account.”

“But perhaps I’m wrong and he did do it.”

“Then why let your vainglorious conceit in your own power of estimating
character stand in the way of unmasking the singularly cold-blooded
murder of an innocent and lovable man?”

“I know—but I don’t feel I’m playing the game somehow.”

“Look here, Peter,” said the other with some earnestness, “suppose you
get this playing-fields-of-Eton complex out of your system once and
for all. There doesn’t seem to be much doubt that something unpleasant
has happened to Sir Reuben Levy. Call it murder, to strengthen the
argument. If Sir Reuben has been murdered, is it a game? and is it fair
to treat it as a game?”

“That’s what I’m ashamed of, really,” said Lord Peter. “It _is_ a game
to me, to begin with, and I go on cheerfully, and then I suddenly see
that somebody is going to be hurt, and I want to get out of it.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” said the detective, “but that’s because you’re
thinking about your attitude. You want to be consistent, you want to
look pretty, you want to swagger debonairly through a comedy of puppets
or else to stalk magnificently through a tragedy of human sorrows and
things. But that’s childish. If you’ve any duty to society in the way
of finding out the truth about murders, you must do it in any attitude
that comes handy. You want to be elegant and detached? That’s all
right, if you find the truth out that way, but it hasn’t any value
in itself, you know. You want to look dignified and consistent—what’s
that got to do with it? You want to hunt down a murderer for the sport
of the thing and then shake hands with him and say, ‘Well played—hard
luck—you shall have your revenge tomorrow!’ Well, you can’t do it like
that. Life’s not a football match. You want to be a sportsman. You
can’t be a sportsman. You’re a responsible person.”

“I don’t think you ought to read so much theology,” said Lord Peter.
“It has a brutalizing influence.”

He got up and paced about the room, looking idly over the bookshelves.
Then he sat down again, filled and lit his pipe, and said:

“Well, I’d better tell you about the ferocious and hardened
Crimplesham.”

He detailed his visit to Salisbury. Once assured of his bona fides, Mr.
Crimplesham had given him the fullest details of his visit to town.

“And I’ve substantiated it all,” groaned Lord Peter, “and unless he’s
corrupted half Balham, there’s no doubt he spent the night there. And
the afternoon was really spent with the bank people. And half the
residents of Salisbury seem to have seen him off on Monday before
lunch. And nobody but his own family or young Wicks seems to have
anything to gain by his death. And even if young Wicks wanted to make
away with him, it’s rather far-fetched to go and murder an unknown man
in Thipps’s place in order to stick Crimplesham’s eyeglasses on his
nose.”

“Where was young Wicks on Monday?” asked Parker.

“At a dance given by the Precentor,” said Lord Peter, wildly.
“David—his name is David—dancing before the ark of the Lord in the face
of the whole Cathedral Close.”

There was a pause.

“Tell me about the inquest,” said Wimsey.

Parker obliged with a summary of the evidence.

“Do you believe the body could have been concealed in the flat after
all?” he asked. “I know we looked, but I suppose we might have missed
something.”

“We might. But Sugg looked as well.”

“Sugg!”

“You do Sugg an injustice,” said Lord Peter; “if there had been any
signs of Thipps’s complicity in the crime, Sugg would have found them.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because he was looking for them. He’s like your commentators on
Galatians. He thinks that either Thipps, or Gladys Horrocks, or Gladys
Horrocks’s young man did it. Therefore he found marks on the window
sill where Gladys Horrocks’s young man might have come in or handed
something in to Gladys Horrocks. He didn’t find any signs on the roof,
because he wasn’t looking for them.”

“But he went over the roof before me.”

“Yes, but only in order to prove that there were no marks there. He
reasons like this: Gladys Horrocks’s young man is a glazier. Glaziers
come on ladders. Glaziers have ready access to ladders. Therefore
Gladys Horrocks’s young man had ready access to a ladder. Therefore
Gladys Horrocks’s young man came on a ladder. Therefore there will
be marks on the window sill and none on the roof. Therefore he finds
marks on the window sill but none on the roof. He finds no marks on
the ground, but he thinks he would have found them if the yard didn’t
happen to be paved with asphalt. Similarly, he thinks Mr. Thipps may
have concealed the body in the box-room or elsewhere. Therefore you may
be sure he searched the box-room and all the other places for signs of
occupation. If they had been there he would have found them, because
he was looking for them. Therefore, if he didn’t find them it’s because
they weren’t there.”

“All right,” said Parker, “stop talking. I believe you.”

He went on to detail the medical evidence.

“By the way,” said Lord Peter, “to skip across for a moment to the
other case, has it occurred to you that perhaps Levy was going out to
see Freke on Monday night?”

“He was; he did,” said Parker, rather unexpectedly, and proceeded to
recount his interview with the nerve-specialist.

“Humph!” said Lord Peter. “I say, Parker, these are funny cases, ain’t
they? Every line of inquiry seems to peter out. It’s awfully exciting
up to a point, you know, and then nothing comes of it. It’s like rivers
getting lost in the sand.”

“Yes,” said Parker. “And there’s another one I lost this morning.”

“What’s that?”

“Oh, I was pumping Levy’s secretary about his business. I couldn’t get
much that seemed important except further details about the Argentine
and so on. Then I thought I’d just ask round in the City about those
Peruvian Oil shares, but Levy hadn’t even heard of them so far as I
could make out. I routed out the brokers, and found a lot of mystery
and concealment, as one always does, you know, when somebody’s been
rigging the market, and at last I found one name at the back of it. But
it wasn’t Levy’s.”

“No? Whose was it?”

“Oddly enough, Freke’s. It seems mysterious. He bought a lot of shares
last week, in a secret kind of way, a few of them in his own name, and
then quietly sold ’em out on Tuesday at a small profit—a few hundreds,
not worth going to all that trouble about, you wouldn’t think.”

“Shouldn’t have thought he ever went in for that kind of gamble.”

“He doesn’t as a rule. That’s the funny part of it.”

“Well, you never know,” said Lord Peter; “people do these things just
to prove to themselves or somebody else that they could make a fortune
that way if they liked. I’ve done it myself in a small way.”

He knocked out his pipe and rose to go.

“I say, old man,” he said suddenly, as Parker was letting him out,
“does it occur to you that Freke’s story doesn’t fit in awfully well
with what Anderson said about the old boy having been so jolly at
dinner on Monday night? Would you be, if you thought you’d got anything
of that sort?”

“No, I shouldn’t,” said Parker; “but,” he added with his habitual
caution, “some men will jest in the dentist’s waiting-room. You, for
one.”

“Well, that’s true,” said Lord Peter, and went downstairs.

CHAPTER VIII

Lord Peter reached home about midnight, feeling extraordinarily wakeful
and alert. Something was jigging and worrying in his brain; it felt
like a hive of bees, stirred up by a stick. He felt as though he were
looking at a complicated riddle, of which he had once been told the
answer but had forgotten it and was always on the point of remembering.

“Somewhere,” said Lord Peter to himself, “somewhere I’ve got the key to
these two things. I know I’ve got it, only I can’t remember what it is.
Somebody said it. Perhaps I said it. I can’t remember where, but I know
I’ve got it. Go to bed, Bunter, I shall sit up a little. I’ll just slip
on a dressing-gown.”

Before the fire he sat down with his pipe in his mouth and his
jazz-coloured peacocks gathered about him. He traced out this line and
that line of investigation—rivers running into the sand. They ran out
from the thought of Levy, last seen at ten o’clock in Prince of Wales
Road. They ran back from the picture of the grotesque dead man in Mr.
Thipps’s bathroom—they ran over the roof, and were lost—lost in the
sand. Rivers running into the sand—rivers running underground, very far
down—

     Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
     Through caverns measureless to man
     Down to a sunless sea.

By leaning his head down, it seemed to Lord Peter that he could hear
them, very faintly, lipping and gurgling somewhere in the darkness. But
where? He felt quite sure that somebody had told him once, only he had
forgotten.

He roused himself, threw a log on the fire, and picked up a book which
the indefatigable Bunter, carrying on his daily fatigues amid the
excitements of special duty, had brought from the Times Book Club.
It happened to be Sir Julian Freke’s “Physiological Bases of the
Conscience,” which he had seen reviewed two days before.

“This ought to send one to sleep,” said Lord Peter; “if I can’t leave
these problems to my subconscious I’ll be as limp as a rag tomorrow.”

He opened the book slowly, and glanced carelessly through the preface.

“I wonder if that’s true about Levy being ill,” he thought, putting the
book down; “it doesn’t seem likely. And yet—Dash it all, I’ll take my
mind off it.”

He read on resolutely for a little.

“I don’t suppose Mother’s kept up with the Levys much,” was the next
importunate train of thought. “Dad always hated self-made people and
wouldn’t have ’em at Denver. And old Gerald keeps up the tradition. I
wonder if she knew Freke well in those days. She seems to get on with
Milligan. I trust Mother’s judgment a good deal. She was a brick about
that bazaar business. I ought to have warned her. She said something
once—”

He pursued an elusive memory for some minutes, till it vanished
altogether with a mocking flicker of the tail. He returned to his
reading.

Presently another thought crossed his mind aroused by a photograph of
some experiment in surgery.

“If the evidence of Freke and that man Watts hadn’t been so positive,”
he said to himself, “I should be inclined to look into the matter of
those shreds of lint on the chimney.”

He considered this, shook his head and read with determination.

Mind and matter were one thing, that was the theme of the physiologist.
Matter could erupt, as it were, into ideas. You could carve passions in
the brain with a knife. You could get rid of imagination with drugs and
cure an outworn convention like a disease. “The knowledge of good and
evil is an observed phenomenon, attendant upon a certain condition of
the brain-cells, which is removable.” That was one phrase; and again:

“Conscience in man may, in fact, be compared to the sting of a
hive-bee, which, so far from conducing to the welfare of its possessor,
cannot function, even in a single instance, without occasioning its
death. The survival-value in each case is thus purely social; and
if humanity ever passes from its present phase of social development
into that of a higher individualism, as some of our philosophers have
ventured to speculate, we may suppose that this interesting mental
phenomenon may gradually cease to appear; just as the nerves and
muscles which once controlled the movements of our ears and scalps
have, in all save a few backward individuals, become atrophied and of
interest only to the physiologist.”

“By Jove!” thought Lord Peter, idly, “that’s an ideal doctrine for the
criminal. A man who believed that would never—”

And then it happened—the thing he had been half-unconsciously
expecting. It happened suddenly, surely, as unmistakably, as sunrise.
He remembered—not one thing, nor another thing, nor a logical
succession of things, but everything—the whole thing, perfect,
complete, in all its dimensions as it were and instantaneously; as
if he stood outside the world and saw it suspended in infinitely
dimensional space. He no longer needed to reason about it, or even to
think about it. He knew it.

There is a game in which one is presented with a jumble of letters and
is required to make a word out of them, as thus:

     C O S S S S R I

The slow way of solving the problem is to try out all the permutations
and combinations in turn, throwing away impossible conjunctions of
letters, as:

     S S S I R C

or

     S C S R S O

Another way is to stare at the inco-ordinate elements until, by no
logical process that the conscious mind can detect, or under some
adventitious external stimulus, the combination:

     S C I S S O R S

presents itself with calm certainty. After that, one does not even need
to arrange the letters in order. The thing is done.

Even so, the scattered elements of two grotesque conundrums, flung
higgledy-piggledy into Lord Peter’s mind, resolved themselves,
unquestioned henceforward. A bump on the roof of the end house—Levy
in a welter of cold rain talking to a prostitute in the Battersea
Park Road—a single ruddy hair—lint bandages—Inspector Sugg calling
the great surgeon from the dissecting-room of the hospital—Lady
Levy with a nervous attack—the smell of carbolic soap—the Duchess’s
voice—“not really an engagement, only a sort of understanding with her
father”—shares in Peruvian Oil—the dark skin and curved, fleshy profile
of the man in the bath—Dr. Grimbold giving evidence, “In my opinion,
death did not occur for several days after the blow”—india-rubber
gloves—even, faintly, the voice of Mr. Appledore, “He called on me,
sir, with an anti-vivisectionist pamphlet”—all these things and many
others rang together and made one sound, they swung together like bells
in a steeple, with the deep tenor booming through the clamour:

“The knowledge of good and evil is a phenomenon of the brain, and is
removable, removable, removable. The knowledge of good and evil is
removable.”

Lord Peter Wimsey was not a young man who habitually took himself very
seriously, but this time he was frankly appalled. “It’s impossible,”
said his reason, feebly; “_credo quia impossibile_,” said his interior
certainty with impervious self-satisfaction. “All right,” said
conscience, instantly allying itself with blind faith, “what are you
going to do about it?”

Lord Peter got up and paced the room: “Good Lord!” he said. “Good
Lord!” He took down “Who’s Who” from the little shelf over the
telephone and sought comfort in its pages:

     FREKE, Sir Julian, Kt. _cr._ 1916; G.C.V.O. _cr._ 1919;
     K.C.V.O. 1917; K.C.B. 1918; M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.C.S.,
     Dr. en Méd. Paris; D. Sci. Cantab.; Knight of Grace of
     the Order of S. John of Jerusalem; Consulting Surgeon
     of St. Luke’s Hospital, Battersea. _b._ Gryllingham,
     16 March, 1872, _only son_ of Edward Curzon Freke,
     Esq., of Gryll Court, Gryllingham. _Educ._ Harrow and
     Trinity Coll., Cambridge; Col. A.M.S.; late Member
     of the Advisory Board of the Army Medical Service.
     _Publications_: Some Notes on the Pathological Aspects
     of Genius, 1892; Statistical Contributions to the
     Study of Infantile Paralysis in England and Wales,
     1894; Functional Disturbances of the Nervous System,
     1899; Cerebro-Spinal Diseases, 1904; The Borderland
     of Insanity, 1906; An Examination into the Treatment
     of Pauper Lunacy in the United Kingdom, 1906; Modern
     Developments in Psycho-Therapy: A Criticism, 1910;
     Criminal Lunacy, 1914; The Application of Psycho-Therapy
     to the Treatment of Shell-Shock, 1917; An Answer to
     Professor Freud, with a Description of Some Experiments
     Carried Out at the Base Hospital at Amiens, 1919;
     Structural Modifications Accompanying the More Important
     Neuroses, 1920. _Clubs_: White’s; Oxford and Cambridge;
     Alpine, etc. _Recreations_: Chess, Mountaineering,
     Fishing. _Address_: 282, Harley Street and St. Luke’s
     House, Prince of Wales Road, Battersea Park, S.W.11.

He flung the book away. “Confirmation!” he groaned. “As if I needed it!”

He sat down again and buried his face in his hands. He remembered quite
suddenly how, years ago, he had stood before the breakfast table at
Denver Castle—a small, peaky boy in blue knickers, with a thunderously
beating heart. The family had not come down; there was a great silver
urn with a spirit lamp under it, and an elaborate coffee-pot boiling
in a glass dome. He had twitched the corner of the tablecloth—twitched
it harder, and the urn moved ponderously forward and all the teaspoons
rattled. He seized the tablecloth in a firm grip and pulled his
hardest—he could feel now the delicate and awful thrill as the urn
and the coffee machine and the whole of a Sèvres breakfast service had
crashed down in one stupendous ruin—he remembered the horrified face of
the butler, and the screams of a lady guest.

A log broke across and sank into a fluff of white ash. A belated
motor-lorry rumbled past the window.

Mr. Bunter, sleeping the sleep of the true and faithful servant, was
aroused in the small hours by a hoarse whisper, “Bunter!”

“Yes, my lord,” said Bunter, sitting up and switching on the light.

“Put that light out, damn you!” said the voice. “Listen—over
there—listen—can’t you hear it?”

“It’s nothing, my lord,” said Mr. Bunter, hastily getting out of bed
and catching hold of his master; “it’s all right, you get to bed quick
and I’ll fetch you a drop of bromide. Why, you’re all shivering—you’ve
been sitting up too late.”

“Hush! no, no—it’s the water,” said Lord Peter with chattering teeth;
“it’s up to their waists down there, poor devils. But listen! can’t you
hear it? Tap, tap, tap—they’re mining us—but I don’t know where—I can’t
hear—I can’t. Listen, you! There it is again—we must find it—we must
stop it.... Listen! Oh, my God! I can’t hear—I can’t hear anything for
the noise of the guns. Can’t they stop the guns?”

“Oh, dear!” said Mr. Bunter to himself. “No, no—it’s all right,
Major—don’t you worry.”

“But I hear it,” protested Peter.

“So do I,” said Mr. Bunter stoutly; “very good hearing, too, my lord.
That’s our own sappers at work in the communication trench. Don’t you
fret about that, sir.”

Lord Peter grasped his wrist with a feverish hand.

“Our own sappers,” he said; “sure of that?”

“Certain of it,” said Mr. Bunter, cheerfully.

“They’ll bring down the tower,” said Lord Peter.

“To be sure they will,” said Mr. Bunter, “and very nice, too. You just
come and lay down a bit, sir—they’ve come to take over this section.”

“You’re sure it’s safe to leave it?” said Lord Peter.

“Safe as houses, sir,” said Mr. Bunter, tucking his master’s arm under
his and walking him off to his bedroom.

Lord Peter allowed himself to be dosed and put to bed without further
resistance. Mr. Bunter, looking singularly un-Bunterlike in striped
pyjamas, with his stiff black hair ruffled about his head, sat grimly
watching the younger man’s sharp cheekbones and the purple stains under
his eyes.

“Thought we’d had the last of these attacks,” he said. “Been overdoin’
of himself. Asleep?” He peered at him anxiously. An affectionate note
crept into his voice. “Bloody little fool!” said Sergeant Bunter.

CHAPTER IX

Mr. Parker, summoned the next morning to 110 Piccadilly, arrived to
find the Dowager Duchess in possession. She greeted him charmingly.

“I am going to take this silly boy down to Denver for the week-end,”
she said, indicating Peter, who was writing and only acknowledged his
friend’s entrance with a brief nod. “He’s been doing too much—running
about to Salisbury and places and up till all hours of the night—you
really shouldn’t encourage him, Mr. Parker, it’s very naughty of
you—waking poor Bunter up in the middle of the night with scares about
Germans, as if that wasn’t all over years ago, and he hasn’t had an
attack for ages, but there! Nerves are such funny things, and Peter
always did have nightmares when he was quite a little boy—though very
often of course it was only a little pill he wanted; but he was so
dreadfully bad in 1918, you know, and I suppose we can’t expect to
forget all about a great war in a year or two, and, really, I ought to
be very thankful with both my boys safe. Still, I think a little peace
and quiet at Denver won’t do him any harm.”

“Sorry you’ve been having a bad turn, old man,” said Parker, vaguely
sympathetic; “you’re looking a bit seedy.”

“Charles,” said Lord Peter, in a voice entirely void of expression,
“I am going away for a couple of days because I can be no use to you
in London. What has got to be done for the moment can be much better
done by you than by me. I want you to take this”—he folded up his
writing and placed it in an envelope—“to Scotland Yard immediately and
get it sent out to all the workhouses, infirmaries, police stations,
Y.M.C.A.’s and so on in London. It is a description of Thipps’s corpse
as he was before he was shaved and cleaned up. I want to know whether
any man answering to that description has been taken in anywhere, alive
or dead, during the last fortnight. You will see Sir Andrew Mackenzie
personally, and get the paper sent out at once, by his authority; you
will tell him that you have solved the problems of the Levy murder and
the Battersea mystery”—Mr. Parker made an astonished noise to which his
friend paid no attention—“and you will ask him to have men in readiness
with a warrant to arrest a very dangerous and important criminal at any
moment on your information. When the replies to this paper come in, you
will search for any mention of St. Luke’s Hospital, or of any person
connected with St. Luke’s Hospital, and you will send for me at once.

“Meanwhile you will scrape acquaintance—I don’t care how—with one of
the students at St. Luke’s. Don’t march in there blowing about murders
and police warrants, or you may find yourself in Queer Street. I shall
come up to town as soon as I hear from you, and I shall expect to find
a nice ingenuous Sawbones here to meet me.” He grinned faintly.

“D’you mean you’ve got to the bottom of this thing?” asked Parker.

“Yes. I may be wrong. I hope I am, but I know I’m not.”

“You won’t tell me?”

“D’you know,” said Peter, “honestly I’d rather not. I say I _may_ be
wrong—and I’d feel as if I’d libelled the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

“Well, tell me—is it one mystery or two?”

“One.”

“You talked of the Levy murder. Is Levy dead?”

“God—yes!” said Peter, with a strong shudder.

The Duchess looked up from where she was reading the _Tatler_.

“Peter,” she said, “is that your ague coming on again? Whatever you two
are chattering about, you’d better stop it at once if it excites you.
Besides, it’s about time to be off.”

“All right, Mother,” said Peter. He turned to Bunter, standing
respectfully in the door with an overcoat and suitcase. “You understand
what you have to do, don’t you?” he said.

“Perfectly, thank you, my lord. The car is just arriving, your Grace.”

“With Mrs. Thipps inside it,” said the Duchess. “She’ll be delighted
to see you again, Peter. You remind her so of Mr. Thipps. Good-morning,
Bunter.”

“Good-morning, your Grace.”

Parker accompanied them downstairs.

When they had gone he looked blankly at the paper in his hand—then,
remembering that it was Saturday and there was need for haste, he
hailed a taxi.

“Scotland Yard!” he cried.

Tuesday morning saw Lord Peter and a man in a velveteen jacket swishing
merrily through seven acres of turnip-tops, streaked yellow with early
frosts. A little way ahead, a sinuous undercurrent of excitement among
the leaves proclaimed the unseen yet ever-near presence of one of
the Duke of Denver’s setter pups. Presently a partridge flew up with
a noise like a police rattle, and Lord Peter accounted for it very
creditably for a man who, a few nights before, had been listening to
imaginary German sappers. The setter bounded foolishly through the
turnips, and fetched back the dead bird.

“Good dog,” said Lord Peter.

Encouraged by this, the dog gave a sudden ridiculous gambol and barked,
its ear tossed inside out over its head.

“Heel,” said the man in velveteen, violently. The animal sidled up,
ashamed.

“Fool of a dog, that,” said the man in velveteen; “can’t keep quiet.
Too nervous, my lord. One of old Black Lass’s pups.”

“Dear me,” said Peter, “is the old dog still going?”

“No, my lord; we had to put her away in the spring.”

Peter nodded. He always proclaimed that he hated the country and
was thankful to have nothing to do with the family estates, but this
morning he enjoyed the crisp air and the wet leaves washing darkly over
his polished boots. At Denver things moved in an orderly way; no one
died sudden and violent deaths except aged setters—and partridges, to
be sure. He sniffed up the autumn smell with appreciation. There was a
letter in his pocket which had come by the morning post, but he did not
intend to read it just yet. Parker had not wired; there was no hurry.

He read it in the smoking-room after lunch. His brother was there,
dozing over the _Times_—a good, clean Englishman, sturdy and
conventional, rather like Henry VIII in his youth; Gerald, sixteenth
Duke of Denver. The Duke considered his cadet rather degenerate, and
not quite good form; he disliked his taste for police-court news.

The letter was from Mr. Bunter.

               110, Piccadilly,
                             W.1.

     My Lord:

     I write (Mr. Bunter had been carefully educated and knew
     that nothing is more vulgar than a careful avoidance of
     beginning a letter with the first person singular) as
     your lordship directed, to inform you of the result of
     my investigations.

     I experienced no difficulty in becoming acquainted with
     Sir Julian Freke’s man-servant. He belongs to the same
     club as the Hon. Frederick Arbuthnot’s man, who is a
     friend of mine, and was very willing to introduce me.
     He took me to the club yesterday (Sunday) evening, and
     we dined with the man, whose name is John Cummings,
     and afterwards I invited Cummings to drinks and a
     cigar in the flat. Your lordship will excuse me doing
     this, knowing that it is not my habit, but it has
     always been my experience that the best way to gain a
     man’s confidence is to let him suppose that one takes
     advantage of one’s employer.

     (“I always suspected Bunter of being a student of human
     nature,” commented Lord Peter.)

     I gave him the best old port (“The deuce you did,” said
     Lord Peter), having heard you and Mr. Arbuthnot talk
     over it. (“Hum!” said Lord Peter.)

     Its effects were quite equal to my expectations as
     regards the principal matter in hand, but I very much
     regret to state that the man had so little understanding
     of what was offered to him that he smoked a cigar with
     it (one of your lordship’s Villar Villars). You will
     understand that I made no comment on this at the time,
     but your lordship will sympathize with my feelings.
     May I take this opportunity of expressing my grateful
     appreciation of your lordship’s excellent taste in food,
     drink and dress? It is, if I may say so, more than a
     pleasure—it is an education, to valet and buttle your
     lordship.

Lord Peter bowed his head gravely.

“What on earth are you doing, Peter, sittin’ there noddin’ an’ grinnin’
like a what-you-may-call-it?” demanded the Duke, coming suddenly out of
a snooze. “Someone writin’ pretty things to you, what?”

“Charming things,” said Lord Peter.

The Duke eyed him doubtfully.

“Hope to goodness you don’t go and marry a chorus beauty,” he muttered
inwardly, and returned to the _Times_.

Over dinner I had set myself to discover Cummings’s tastes, and found
them to run in the direction of the music-hall stage. During his first
glass I drew him out in this direction, your lordship having kindly
given me opportunities of seeing every performance in London, and I
spoke more freely than I should consider becoming in the ordinary way
in order to make myself pleasant to him. I may say that his views on
women and the stage were such as I should have expected from a man who
would smoke with your lordship’s port.

With the second glass I introduced the subject of your lordship’s
inquiries. In order to save time I will write our conversation in the
form of a dialogue, as nearly as possible as it actually took place.

_Cummings_: You seem to get many opportunities of seeing a bit of life,
Mr. Bunter.

_Bunter_: One can always make opportunities if one knows how.

_Cummings_: Ah, it’s very easy for you to talk, Mr. Bunter. You’re not
married, for one thing.

_Bunter_: I know better than that, Mr. Cummings.

_Cummings_: So do I—_now_, when it’s too late. (He sighed heavily, and
I filled up his glass.)

_Bunter_: Does Mrs. Cummings live with you at Battersea?

_Cummings_: Yes, her and me we do for my governor. Such a life! Not but
what there’s a char comes in by the day. But what’s a char? I can tell
you it’s dull all by ourselves in that d—d Battersea suburb.

_Bunter_: Not very convenient for the Halls, of course.

_Cummings_: I believe you. It’s all right for you, here in Piccadilly,
right on the spot as you might say. And I daresay your governor’s often
out all night, eh?

_Bunter_: Oh, frequently, Mr. Cummings.

_Cummings_: And I daresay you take the opportunity to slip off yourself
every so often, eh?

_Bunter_: Well, what do _you_ think, Mr. Cummings?

_Cummings_: That’s it; there you are! But what’s a man to do with a
nagging fool of a wife and a blasted scientific doctor for a governor,
as sits up all night cutting up dead bodies and experimenting with
frogs?

_Bunter_: Surely he goes out sometimes.

_Cummings_: Not often. And always back before twelve. And the way he
goes on if he rings the bell and you ain’t there. I give you _my_ word,
Mr. Bunter.

_Bunter_: Temper?

_Cummings_: No-o-o—but looking through you, nasty-like, as if you was
on that operating table of his and he was going to cut you up. Nothing
a man could rightly complain of, you understand, Mr. Bunter, just nasty
looks. Not but what I will say he’s very correct. Apologizes if he’s
been inconsiderate. But what’s the good of that when he’s been and gone
and lost you your night’s rest?

_Bunter_: How does he do that? Keeps you up late, you mean?

_Cummings_: Not him; far from it. House locked up and household to bed
at half-past ten. That’s his little rule. Not but what I’m glad enough
to go as a rule, it’s that dreary. Still, when I _do_ go to bed I like
to go to sleep.

_Bunter_: What does he do? Walk about the house?

_Cummings_: Doesn’t he? All night. And in and out of the private door
to the hospital.

_Bunter_: You don’t mean to say, Mr. Cummings, a great specialist like
Sir Julian Freke does night work at the hospital?

_Cummings_: No, no; he does his own work—research work, as you may
say. Cuts people up. They say he’s very clever. Could take you or me to
pieces like a clock, Mr. Bunter, and put us together again.

_Bunter_: Do you sleep in the basement, then, to hear him so plain?

_Cummings_: No; our bedroom’s at the top. But, Lord! what’s that? He’ll
bang the door so you can hear him all over the house.

_Bunter_: Ah, many’s the time I’ve had to speak to Lord Peter about
that. And talking all night. And baths.

_Cummings_: Baths? You may well say that, Mr. Bunter. Baths? Me and my
wife sleep next to the cistern-room. Noise fit to wake the dead. All
hours. When d’you think he chose to have a bath, no later than last
Monday night, Mr. Bunter?

_Bunter_: I’ve known them to do it at two in the morning, Mr. Cummings.

_Cummings_: Have you, now? Well, this was at three. Three o’clock in
the morning we was waked up. I give you _my_ word.

_Bunter_: You don’t say so, Mr. Cummings.

_Cummings_: He cuts up diseases, you see, Mr. Bunter, and then he
don’t like to go to bed till he’s washed the bacilluses off, if you
understand me. Very natural, too, I daresay. But what I say is, the
middle of the night’s no time for a gentleman to be occupying his mind
with diseases.

_Bunter_: These great men have their own way of doing things.

_Cummings_: Well, all I can say is, it isn’t my way.

(I could believe that, your lordship. Cummings has no signs of
greatness about him, and his trousers are not what I would wish to see
in a man of his profession.)

_Bunter_: Is he habitually as late as that, Mr. Cummings?

_Cummings_: Well, no, Mr. Bunter, I will say, not as a general rule.
He apologized, too, in the morning, and said he would have the cistern
seen to—and very necessary, in my opinion, for the air gets into the
pipes, and the groaning and screeching as goes on is something awful.
Just like Niagara, if you follow me, Mr. Bunter, I give you _my_ word.

_Bunter_: Well, that’s as it should be, Mr. Cummings. One can put up
with a great deal from a gentleman that has the manners to apologize.
And, of course, sometimes they can’t help themselves. A visitor will
come in unexpectedly and keep them late, perhaps.

_Cummings_: That’s true enough, Mr. Bunter. Now I come to think of
it, there _was_ a gentleman come in on Monday evening. Not that he
came late, but he stayed about an hour, and may have put Sir Julian
behindhand.

_Bunter_: Very likely. Let me give you some more port, Mr. Cummings. Or
a little of Lord Peter’s old brandy.

_Cummings_: A little of the brandy, thank you, Mr. Bunter. I suppose
you have the run of the cellar here. (He winked at me.)

“Trust me for that,” I said, and I fetched him the Napoleon. I assure
your lordship it went to my heart to pour it out for a man like that.
However, seeing we had got on the right tack, I felt it wouldn’t be
wasted.

“I’m sure I wish it was always gentlemen that come here at night,”
I said. (Your lordship will excuse me, I am sure, making such a
suggestion.)

(“Good God,” said Lord Peter, “I wish Bunter was less thorough in his
methods.”)

_Cummings_: Oh, he’s that sort, his lordship, is he? (He chuckled and
poked me. I suppress a portion of his conversation here, which could
not fail to be as offensive to your lordship as it was to myself. He
went on:) No, it’s none of that with Sir Julian. Very few visitors at
night, and always gentlemen. And going early as a rule, like the one I
mentioned.

_Bunter:_ Just as well. There’s nothing I find more wearisome, Mr.
Cummings, than sitting up to see visitors out.

_Cummings:_ Oh, I didn’t see this one out. Sir Julian let him out
himself at ten o’clock or thereabouts. I heard the gentleman shout
“Good-night” and off he goes.

_Bunter:_ Does Sir Julian always do that?

_Cummings:_ Well, that depends. If he sees visitors downstairs, he lets
them out himself: if he sees them upstairs in the library, he rings for
me.

_Bunter:_ This was a downstairs visitor, then?

_Cummings:_ Oh, yes. Sir Julian opened the door to him, I remember. He
happened to be working in the hall. Though now I come to think of it,
they went up to the library afterwards. That’s funny. I know they did,
because I happened to go up to the hall with coals, and I heard them
upstairs. Besides, Sir Julian rang for me in the library a few minutes
later. Still, anyway, we heard him go at ten, or it may have been a bit
before. He hadn’t only stayed about three-quarters of an hour. However,
as I was saying, there was Sir Julian banging in and out of the private
door all night, and a bath at three in the morning, and up again for
breakfast at eight—it beats me. If I had all his money, curse me if
I’d go poking about with dead men in the middle of the night. I’d find
something better to do with my time, eh, Mr. Bunter—

I need not repeat any more of his conversation, as it became unpleasant
and incoherent, and I could not bring him back to the events of Monday
night. I was unable to get rid of him till three. He cried on my neck,
and said I was the bird, and you were the governor for him. He said
that Sir Julian would be greatly annoyed with him for coming home so
late, but Sunday night was his night out and if anything was said about
it he would give notice. I think he will be ill-advised to do so, as I
feel he is not a man I could conscientiously recommend if I were in Sir
Julian Freke’s place. I noticed that his boot-heels were slightly worn
down.

I should wish to add, as a tribute to the great merits of your
lordship’s cellar, that, although I was obliged to drink a somewhat
large quantity both of the Cockburn ’68 and the 1800 Napoleon I feel no
headache or other ill effects this morning.

Trusting that your lordship is deriving real benefit from the country
air, and that the little information I have been able to obtain will
prove satisfactory, I remain.

With respectful duty to all the family,

     Obediently yours,
       MERVYN BUNTER.

“Y’know,” said Lord Peter thoughtfully to himself, “I sometimes think
Mervyn Bunter’s pullin’ my leg. What is it, Soames?”

“A telegram, my lord.”

“Parker,” said Lord Peter, opening it. It said:

     “Description recognised Chelsea Workhouse. Unknown
     vagrant injured street accident Wednesday week. Died
     workhouse Monday. Delivered St. Luke’s same evening by
     order Freke. Much puzzled. Parker.”

“Hurray!” said Lord Peter, suddenly sparkling. “I’m glad I’ve puzzled
Parker. Gives me confidence in myself. Makes me feel like Sherlock
Holmes. ‘Perfectly simple, Watson.’ Dash it all, though! this is a
beastly business. Still, it’s puzzled Parker.”

“What’s the matter?” asked the Duke, getting up and yawning.

“Marching orders,” said Peter, “back to town. Many thanks for your
hospitality, old bird—I’m feelin’ no end better. Ready to tackle
Professor Moriarty or Leon Kestrel or any of ’em.”

“I do wish you’d keep out of the police courts,” grumbled the Duke.
“It makes it so dashed awkward for me, havin’ a brother makin’ himself
conspicuous.”

“Sorry, Gerald,” said the other; “I know I’m a beastly blot on the
’scutcheon.”

“Why can’t you marry and settle down and live quietly, doin’ something
useful?” said the Duke, unappeased.

“Because that was a wash-out as you perfectly well know,” said Peter;
“besides,” he added cheerfully, “I’m bein’ no end useful. You may come
to want me yourself, you never know. When anybody comes blackmailin’
you, Gerald, or your first deserted wife turns up unexpectedly from
the West Indies, you’ll realize the pull of havin’ a private detective
in the family. ‘Delicate private business arranged with tact and
discretion. Investigations undertaken. Divorce evidence a specialty.
Every guarantee!’ Come, now.”

“Ass!” said Lord Denver, throwing the newspaper violently into his
armchair. “When do you want the car?”

“Almost at once. I say, Jerry, I’m taking Mother up with me.”

“Why should she be mixed up in it?”

“Well, I want her help.”

“I call it most unsuitable,” said the Duke.

The Dowager Duchess, however, made no objection.

“I used to know her quite well,” she said, “when she was Christine
Ford. Why, dear?”

“Because,” said Lord Peter, “there’s a terrible piece of news to be
broken to her about her husband.”

“Is he dead, dear?”

“Yes; and she will have to come and identify him.”

“Poor Christine.”

“Under very revolting circumstances, Mother.”

“I’ll come with you, dear.”

“Thank you, Mother, you’re a brick. D’you mind gettin’ your things
on straight away and comin’ up with me? I’ll tell you about it in the
car.”

CHAPTER X

Mr. Parker, a faithful though doubting Thomas, had duly secured his
medical student: a large young man like an overgrown puppy, with
innocent eyes and a freckled face. He sat on the Chesterfield before
Lord Peter’s library fire, bewildered in equal measure by his errand,
his surroundings and the drink which he was absorbing. His palate,
though untutored, was naturally a good one, and he realized that
even to call this liquid a drink—the term ordinarily used by him to
designate cheap whisky, post-war beer or a dubious glass of claret in
a Soho restaurant—was a sacrilege; this was something outside normal
experience: a genie in a bottle.

The man called Parker, whom he had happened to run across the evening
before in the public-house at the corner of Prince of Wales Road,
seemed to be a good sort. He had insisted on bringing him round to
see this friend of his, who lived splendidly in Piccadilly. Parker
was quite understandable; he put him down as a government servant, or
perhaps something in the City. The friend was embarrassing; he was
a lord, to begin with, and his clothes were a kind of rebuke to the
world at large. He talked the most fatuous nonsense, certainly, but
in a disconcerting way. He didn’t dig into a joke and get all the fun
out of it; he made it in passing, so to speak, and skipped away to
something else before your retort was ready. He had a truly terrible
man-servant—the sort you read about in books—who froze the marrow in
your bones with silent criticism. Parker appeared to bear up under
the strain, and this made you think more highly of Parker; he must be
more habituated to the surroundings of the great than you would think
to look at him. You wondered what the carpet had cost on which Parker
was carelessly spilling cigar ash; your father was an upholsterer—Mr.
Piggott, of Piggott & Piggott, Liverpool—and you knew enough about
carpets to know that you couldn’t even guess at the price of this one.
When you moved your head on the bulging silk cushion in the corner of
the sofa, it made you wish you shaved more often and more carefully.
The sofa was a monster—but even so, it hardly seemed big enough to
contain you. This Lord Peter was not very tall—in fact, he was rather
a small man, but he didn’t look undersized. He looked right; he made
you feel that to be six-foot-three was rather vulgarly assertive; you
felt like Mother’s new drawing-room curtains—all over great big blobs.
But everybody was very decent to you, and nobody said anything you
couldn’t understand, or sneered at you. There were some frightfully
deep-looking books on the shelves all round, and you had looked into
a great folio Dante which was lying on the table, but your hosts were
talking quite ordinarily and rationally about the sort of books you
read yourself—clinking good love stories and detective stories. You had
read a lot of those, and could give an opinion, and they listened to
what you had to say, though Lord Peter had a funny way of talking about
books, too, as if the author had confided in him beforehand, and told
him how the story was put together, and which bit was written first. It
reminded you of the way old Freke took a body to pieces.

“Thing I object to in detective stories,” said Mr. Piggott, “is the way
fellows remember every bloomin’ thing that’s happened to ’em within
the last six months. They’re always ready with their time of day and
was it rainin’ or not, and what were they doin’ on such an’ such a
day. Reel it all off like a page of poetry. But one ain’t like that in
real life, d’you think so, Lord Peter?” Lord Peter smiled, and young
Piggott, instantly embarrassed, appealed to his earlier acquaintance.
“You know what I mean, Parker. Come now. One day’s so like another, I’m
sure I couldn’t remember—well, I might remember yesterday, p’r’aps, but
I couldn’t be certain about what I was doin’ last week if I was to be
shot for it.”

“No,” said Parker, “and evidence given in police statements sounds
just as impossible. But they don’t really get it like that, you know. I
mean, a man doesn’t just say, ‘Last Friday I went out at 10 a.m. to buy
a mutton chop. As I was turning into Mortimer Street I noticed a girl
of about twenty-two with black hair and brown eyes, wearing a green
jumper, check skirt, Panama hat and black shoes, riding a Royal Sunbeam
Cycle at about ten miles an hour turning the corner by the Church of
St. Simon and St. Jude on the wrong side of the road riding towards the
market place!’ It amounts to that, of course, but it’s really wormed
out of him by a series of questions.”

“And in short stories,” said Lord Peter, “it has to be put in statement
form, because the real conversation would be so long and twaddly and
tedious, and nobody would have the patience to read it. Writers have to
consider their readers, if any, y’see.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Piggott, “but I bet you most people would find it
jolly difficult to remember, even if you asked ’em things. I should—of
course, I know I’m a bit of a fool, but then, most people are, ain’t
they? You know what I mean. Witnesses ain’t detectives, they’re just
average idiots like you and me.”

“Quite so,” said Lord Peter, smiling as the force of the last phrase
sank into its unhappy perpetrator; “you mean, if I were to ask you in a
general way what you were doin’—say, a week ago today, you wouldn’t be
able to tell me a thing about it offhand?”

“No—I’m sure I shouldn’t.” He considered. “No. I was in at the Hospital
as usual, I suppose, and, being Tuesday, there’d be a lecture on
something or the other—dashed if I know what—and in the evening I
went out with Tommy Pringle—no, that must have been Monday—or was it
Wednesday? I tell you, I couldn’t swear to anything.”

“You do yourself an injustice,” said Lord Peter gravely. “I’m sure, for
instance, you recollect what work you were doing in the dissecting-room
on that day, for example.”

“Lord, no! not for certain. I mean, I daresay it might come back to me
if I thought for a long time, but I wouldn’t swear to it in a court of
law.”

“I’ll bet you half-a-crown to sixpence,” said Lord Peter, “that you’ll
remember within five minutes.”

“I’m sure I can’t.”

“We’ll see. Do you keep a notebook of the work you do when you dissect?
Drawings or anything?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Think of that. What’s the last thing you did in it?”

“That’s easy, because I only did it this morning. It was leg muscles.”

“Yes. Who was the subject?”

“An old woman of sorts; died of pneumonia.”

“Yes. Turn back the pages of your drawing book in your mind. What came
before that?”

“Oh, some animals—still legs; I’m doing motor muscles at present. Yes.
That was old Cunningham’s demonstration on comparative anatomy. I did
rather a good thing of a hare’s legs and a frog’s, and rudimentary legs
on a snake.”

“Yes. Which day does Mr. Cunningham lecture?”

“Friday.”

“Friday; yes. Turn back again. What comes before that?”

Mr. Piggott shook his head.

“Do your drawings of legs begin on the right-hand page or the left-hand
page? Can you see the first drawing?”

“Yes—yes—I can see the date written at the top. It’s a section of a
frog’s hind leg, on the right-hand page.”

“Yes. Think of the open book in your mind’s eye. What is opposite to
it?”

This demanded some mental concentration.

“Something round—coloured—oh, yes—it’s a hand.”

“Yes. You went on from the muscles of the hand and arm to leg- and
foot-muscles?”

“Yes; that’s right. I’ve got a set of drawings of arms.”

“Yes. Did you make those on the Thursday?”

“No; I’m never in the dissecting-room on Thursday.”

“On Wednesday, perhaps?”

“Yes; I must have made them on Wednesday. Yes; I did. I went in there
after we’d seen those tetanus patients in the morning. I did them on
Wednesday afternoon. I know I went back because I wanted to finish ’em.
I worked rather hard—for me. That’s why I remember.”

“Yes; you went back to finish them. When had you begun them, then?”

“Why, the day before.”

“The day before. That was Tuesday, wasn’t it?”

“I’ve lost count—yes, the day before Wednesday—yes, Tuesday.”

“Yes. Were they a man’s arms or a woman’s arms?”

“Oh, a man’s arms.

“Yes; last Tuesday, a week ago today, you were dissecting a man’s arms
in the dissecting-room. Sixpence, please.”

“By Jove!”

“Wait a moment. You know a lot more about it than that. You’ve no idea
how much you know. You know what kind of man he was.”

“Oh, I never saw him complete, you know. I got there a bit late that
day, I remember. I’d asked for an arm specially, because I was rather
weak in arms, and Watts—that’s the attendant—had promised to save me
one.”