Hangman's Holiday

Hangman's Holiday

Dorothy L. Sayers

CONTENTS

Author's Note

Introduction

The Image in the Mirror

The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey

The Queen's Square

The Necklace of Pearls

The Poisoned Dow '08

Sleuths on the Scent

Murder in the Morning

One Too Many

Murder at Pentecost

Maher-shalal-hashbaz

The Man Who Knew How

The Fountain Plays

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Every person, incident, institution, firm or whatnot in this book is purely imaginary and is not intended to refer to any actual person, institution, incident, college, firm or whatnot whatsoever.

INTRODUCTION

I came to the wonderful detective novels of Dorothy L. Sayers in a way that would probably make that distinguished novelist spin in her grave. Years ago, actor Ian Carmichael starred in the film productions of a good chunk of them, which I eventually saw on my public television station in Huntington Beach, California. I recall the host of the show reciting the impressive, salient details of Sayers' life and career--early female graduate of Oxford, translator of Dante, among other things--and I was much impressed. But I was even more impressed with her delightful sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, and I soon sought out her novels.

Because I had never been--and still am not today--a great reader of detective fiction, I had not heard of this marvellous character. I quickly became swept up in everything about him: from his foppish use of language to his family relations. In very short order, I found myself thoroughly attached to Wimsey, to his calm and omnipresent manservant Bunter, to the Dowager Duchess of Denver (was ever there a more deliciously alliterative title?), to the stuffy Duke and the unbearable Duchess of Denver, to Viscount St. George, to Charles Parker, to Lady Mary. . . . In Dorothy L. Sayers' novels, I found the sort of main character I loved when I turned to fiction: someone with a 'real' life, someone who wasn't just a hero who conveniently had no relations to mess up the workings of the novelist's plot.

Dorothy L. Sayers, as I discovered, had much to teach me both as a reader and as a future novelist. While many detective novelists from the Golden Age of mystery kept their plots pared down to the requisite crime, suspects, clues, and red herrings, Sayers did not limit herself to so limited a canvas in her work. She saw the crime and its ensuing investigation as merely the framework for a much larger story, the skeleton--if you will--upon which she could hang the muscles, organs, blood vessels and physical features of a much larger tale. She wrote what I like to call the tapestry novel, a book in which the setting is realised (from Oxford, to the dramatic coast of Devon, to the flat bleakness of the Fens), in which throughout both the plot and the subplots the characters serve functions surpassing that of mere actors on the stage of the criminal investigation, in which themes are explored, in which life and literary symbols are used, in which allusions to other literature abound. Sayers, in short, did what I call 'taking no prisoners' in her approach to the detective novel. She did not write down to her readers; rather, she assumed that her readers would rise to her expectations of them.

I found in her novels a richness that I had not previously seen in detective fiction. I became absorbed in the careful application of detail that characterized her plots: whether she was educating me about bell ringing in The Nine Tailors, about the unusual uses of arsenic in Strong Poison, about the beauties of architectural Oxford in Gaudy Night. She wrote about everything from cryptology to vinology, making unforgettable that madcap period between wars that marked the death of an overt class system and heralded the beginning of an insidious one.

What continues to be remarkable about Sayers' work, however, is her willingness to explore the human condition. The passions felt by characters created eighty years ago are as real today as they were then. The motives behind people's behavior are no more complex now than they were in 1923 when Lord Peter Wimsey took his first public bow. Times have changed, rendering Sayers' England in so many ways unrecognizable to today's reader. But one of the true pleasures inherent to picking up a Sayers novel now is to see how the times in which we live alter our perceptions of the world around us, while doing nothing at all to alter the core of our humanity.

When I first began my own career as a crime novelist, I told people that I would rest content if my name was ever mentioned positively in the same sentence as that of Dorothy L. Sayers. I'm pleased to say that that occurred with the publication of my first novel. If I ever come close to offering the reader the details and delights that Sayers offered in her Wimsey novels, I shall consider myself a success indeed.

The reissuing of a Sayers novel is an event, to be sure. As successive generations of readers welcome her into their lives, they embark upon an unforgettable journey with an even more unforgettable companion. In time of dire and immediate trouble, one might well call upon a Sherlock Holmes for a quick solution to one's trials. But for the balm that reassures one about surviving the vicissitudes of life, one could do no better than to anchor onto a Lord Peter Wimsey.

Elizabeth George

Huntington Beach, California

May 27, 2003

THE IMAGE IN THE MIRROR

A Lord Peter Wimsey Story

............

The little man with the cow-lick seemed so absorbed in the book that Wimsey had not the heart to claim his property, but, drawing up the other arm-chair and placing his drink within easy reach, did his best to entertain himself with the Dunlop Book, which graced, as usual, one of the tables in the lounge.

The little man read on, his elbows squared upon the arms of his chair, his ruffled red head bent anxiously over the test. He breathed heavily, and when he came to the turn of the page, he set the thick volume down on his knee and used both hands for his task. Not what is called 'a great reader', Wimsey decided.

When he reached the end of the story, he turned laboriously back, and read one passage over again with attention. Then he laid the book, still open, upon the table, and in so doing caught Wimsey's eye.

'I beg your pardon, sir,' he said in his rather thin Cockney voice, 'is this your book?'

'It doesn't matter at all,' said Wimsey graciously, 'I know it by heart. I only brought it along with me because it's handy for reading a few pages when you're stuck in a place like this for the night. You can always take it up and find something entertaining.'

'This chap Wells,' pursued the red-haired man, 'he's what you'd call a very clever writer, isn't he? It's wonderful how he makes it all so real, and yet some of the things he says, you wouldn't hardly think they could be really possible. Take this story now; would you say, sir, a thing like that could actually happen to a person, as it might be you--or me?'

Wimsey twisted his head round so as to get a view of the page.

'The Plattner Experiment,' he said, 'that's the one about the schoolmaster who was blown into the fourth dimension and came back with his right and left sides reversed. Well, no, I don't suppose such a thing would really occur in real life, though of course it's very fascinating to play with the idea of a fourth dimension.'

'Well--' He paused and looked up shyly at Wimsey. 'I don't rightly understand about this fourth dimension. I didn't know there was such a place, but he makes it all very clear no doubt to them that know science. But this right-and-left business, now, I know that's a fact. By experience, if you'll believe me.'

Wimsey extended his cigarette-case. The little man made an instinctive motion towards it with his left hand and then seemed to check himself and stretched his right across.

'There, you see. I'm always left-handed when I don't think about it. Same as this Plattner. I fight against it, but it doesn't seem any use. But I wouldn't mind that--it's a small thing and plenty of people are left-handed and think nothing of it. No. It's the dretful anxiety of not knowing what I mayn't be doing when I'm in this fourth dimension or whatever it is.'

He sighed deeply.

'I'm worried, that's what I am, worried to death.'

'Suppose you tell me about it,' said Wimsey.

'I don't like telling people about it, because they might think I had a slate loose. But it's fairly getting on my nerves. Every morning when I wake up I wonder what I've been doing in the night and whether it's the day of the month it ought to be. I can't get any peace till I see the morning paper, and even then I can't be sure....

'Well, I'll tell you, if you won't take it as a bore or a liberty. It all began--' He broke off and glanced nervously about the room. 'There's nobody to see. If you wouldn't mind, sir, putting your hand just here a minute--'

He unbuttoned his rather regrettable double-breasted waist-coat, and laid a hand on the part of his anatomy usually considered to indicate the site of his heart.

'By all means,' said Wimsey, doing he was requested.

'Do you feel anything?'

'I don't know that I do,' said Wimsey. 'What ought I to feel? A swelling or anything? If you mean your pulse, the wrist is a better place.'

'Oh, you can feel it there, all right,' said the little man. 'Just try the other side of the chest, sir.'

Wimsey obediently moved his hand across.

'I seem to detect a little flutter,' he said after a pause.

'You do? Well, you wouldn't expect to find it that side and not the other, would you? Well, that's where it is. I've got my heart on the right side, that's what I wanted you to feel for yourself.'

'Did it get displaced in an illness?' asked Wimsey sympathetically.

'In a manner of speaking. But that's not all. My liver's got round the wrong side, too, and my organs. I've had a doctor see it, and he told me I was all reversed. I've got my appendix on my left side--that is, I had till they took it away. If we was private, now, I could show you the scar. It was a great surprise to the surgeon when they told him about me. He said afterwards it made it quite awkward for him, coming left-handed to the operation, as you might say.'

'It's unusual, certainly,' said Wimsey, 'but I believe such cases do occur sometimes.'

'Not the way it occurred to me. It happened in an air-raid.'

'In an air-raid?' said Wimsey, aghast.

'Yes--and if that was all it had done to me I'd put up with it and be thankful. Eighteen I was then, and I'd just been called up. Previous to that I'd been working in the packing department at Crichton's--you've heard of them, I expect--Crichton's for Admirable Advertising, with offices in Holborn. My mother was living in Brixton, and I'd come up to town on leave from the training-camp. I'd been seeing one or two of my old pals, and I thought I'd finish the evening by going to see a film at the Stoll. It was after supper--I had just time to get into the last house, so I cut across from Leicester Square through Covent Garden Market. Well, I was getting along when whallop! A bomb came down it seemed to me right under my feet, and everything went black for a bit.'

'That was the raid that blew up Odham's, I suppose.'

'Yes, it was January 28th, 1918. Well, as I say, everything went right out. Next thing as I knew, I was walking in some place in broad daylight, with green grass all round me, and trees, and water to the side of me, and knowing no more about how I got there than the man in the moon.'

'Good Lord!' said Wimsey. 'And was it the fourth dimension, do you think?'

'Well, no, it wasn't. It was Hyde Park, as I come to when I had my wits about me. I was along the bank of the Serpentine and there was a seat with some women sitting on it, and children playing about.'

'Had the explosion damaged you?'

'Nothing to see or feel, except that I had a big bruise on one hip and shoulder as if I'd been chucked up against something. I was fairly staggered. The air-raid had gone right out of my mind, don't you see, and I couldn't imagine how I came there, and why I wasn't at Crichton's. I looked at my watch, but that had stopped. I was feeling hungry. I felt in my pocket and found some money there, but it wasn't as much as I should have had--not by a long way. But I felt I must have a bit of something, so I got out of the Park by the Marble Arch gate, and went into a Lyons. I ordered two poached on toast and a pot of tea, and while I was waiting I took up a paper that somebody had left on the seat. Well, that finished me. The last thing I remembered was starting off to see that film on the 28th--and here was the date on the paper--January 30th! I'd lost a whole day and two nights somewhere!'

'Shock,' suggested Wimsey. The little man took the suggestion and put his own meaning on it.

'Shock? I should think it was. I was scared out of my life. The girl who brought my eggs must have thought I was barmy. I asked her what day of the week it was, and she said "Friday". There wasn't any mistake.

'Well, I don't want to make this bit too long, because that's not the end by a long chalk. I got my meal down somehow, and went to see a doctor. He asked me what I remembered doing last, and I told him about the film, and he asked whether I was out in the air-raid. Well, then it came back to me, and I remembered the bomb falling, but nothing more. He said I'd had a nervous shock and lost my memory a bit, and that it often happened and I wasn't to worry. And then he said he'd look me over to see if I'd got hurt at all. So he started in with his stethoscope, and all of a sudden he said to me:

'"Why, you keep your heart on the wrong side, my lad!'

'"Do I?" said I. "That's the first I've heard of it."

'Well, he looked me over pretty thoroughly, and then he told me what I've told you, that I was all reversed inside, and he asked a lot of questions about my family. I told him I was an only child and my father was dead--killed by a motor-lorry, he was, when I was a kid of ten--and I lived with my mother in Brixton and all that. And he said I was an unusual case, but there was nothing to worry about. Bar being wrong side round I was sound as a bell, and he told me to go home and take things quietly for a day or two.

'Well, I did, and I felt all right, and I thought that was the end of it, though I'd overstayed my leave and had a bit of a job explaining myself to the R.T.O. It wasn't till several months afterwards the draft was called up, and I went along for my farewell leave. I was having a cup of coffee in the Mirror Hall at the Strand Corner House--you know it, down the steps?'

Wimsey nodded.

'All the big looking-glasses all round. I happened to look into the one near me, and I saw a young lady smiling at me as if she knew me. I saw her reflection, that is, if you understand me. Well, I couldn't make it out, for I had never seen her before, and I didn't take any notice, thinking she'd mistook me for somebody else. Besides, though I wasn't so very old then, I thought I knew her sort, and my mother had always brought me up strict. I looked away and went on with my coffee, and all of a sudden a voice said quite close to me:

'"Hullo, Ginger--aren't you going to say good evening?'

'I looked up and there she was. Pretty, too, if she hadn't been painted up too much.

'"I'm afraid," I said, rather stiff, "you have the advantage of me, miss."

'"Oh, Ginger," says she, "Mr Duckworthy, and after Wednesday night!" A kind of mocking way she had of speaking.

'I hadn't thought so much of her calling me Ginger, because that's what any girl would say to a fellow with my sort of hair, but when she got my name off so pat, I tell you it did give me a turn.

'"You seem to think we're acquainted, miss," said I.

'"Well, I should rather say so, shouldn't you?" said she.

'There! I needn't go into it all. From what she said I found out she thought she'd met me one night and taken me home with her. And what frightened me most of all, she said it had happened on the night of the big raid.

'"It was you," she said, staring into my face a little puzzled like. "Of course it was you. I knew you in a minute when I saw your face in the glass."

'Of course, I couldn't say that it hadn't been. I knew no more of what I'd been and done that night than the babe unborn. But it upset me cruelly, because I was an innocent sort of lad in those days and hadn't ever gone with girls, and it seemed to me if I'd done a thing like that I ought to know about it. It seemed to me I'd been doing wrong and not getting full value for my money either.

'I made some excuse to get rid of her, and I wondered what else I'd been doing. She couldn't tell me farther than the morning of the 29th, and it worried me a bit wondering if I'd done any other queer things.'

'It must have,' said Wimsey, and put his finger on the bell. When the waiter arrived, he ordered drinks for two and disposed himself to listen to the rest of Mr Duckworthy's adventures.

'I didn't think much about it, though,' went on the little man; 'we went abroad and I saw my first corpse and dodged my first shell and had my first dose of the trenches, and I hadn't much time for what they call introspection.

'The next queer thing that happened was in the C.C.S. at Ypres. I'd got a blighty one near Caudry in September during the advance from Cambrai--half buried, I was, in a mine explosion and laid out unconscious near twenty-four hours it must have been. When I came to, I was wandering about somewhere behind the lines with a nasty hole in my shoulder. Somebody had bandaged it up for me, but I hadn't any recollection of that. I walked a long way, not knowing where I was, till at last I fetched up in an aid-post. They fixed me up and sent me down the line to a base hospital. I was pretty feverish, and the next thing I knew, I was in bed with a nurse looking after me. The bloke in the next bed to mine was asleep. I got talking to a chap in the next bed beyond him, and he told me where I was, when all of a sudden the other man woke up and says:

'"My God," he says, "you dirty ginger-haired swine, it's you, is it? What have you done with them vallables?"

'I tell you, I was struck all of a heap. Never seen the man in my life. But he went on at me and made such a row, the nurse came running in to see what was up. All the men were sitting up in bed listening--you never saw anything like it.

'The upshot was, as soon as I could understand what this fellow was driving at, that he'd been sharing a shell-hole with a chap that he said was me, and that this chap and he had talked together a bit and then, when he was weak and helpless, the chap had looted his money and watch and revolver and what not and gone off with them. A nasty, dirty trick, and I couldn't blame him for making a row about it, if true. But I said and stand to it, it wasn't me, but some other fellow of the same name. He said he recognised me--said he and this other chap had been together a whole day, and he knew every feature in his face and couldn't be mistaken. However, it seemed this bloke had said he belonged to the Blankshires, and I was able to show my papers and prove I belonged to the Buffs, and eventually the bloke apologised and said he must have made a mistake. He died, anyhow, a few days after, and we all agreed he must have been wandering a bit. The two divisions were fighting side by side in that dust-up and it was possible for them to get mixd up. I tried afterwards to find out whether by any chance I had a double in the Blankshires, but they sent me back home, and before I was fit again the Armistice was signed, and I didn't take any more trouble.

'I went back to my old job after the war, and things seemed to settle down a bit. I got engaged when I was twenty-one to a regular good girl, and I thought everything in the garden was lovely. And then, one day--up it all went! My mother was dead then, and I was living by myself in lodgings. Well, one day I got a letter from my intended, saying that she had seen me down at Southend on the Sunday, and that was enough for her. All was over between us.

'Now, it was most unfortunate that I'd had to put off seeing her that week-end, owing to an attack of influenza. It's a cruel thing to be ill all alone in lodgings, and nobody to look after you. You might die there all on your own and nobody the wiser. Just an unfurnished room I had, you see, and no attendance, and not a soul came near me, though I was pretty bad. But my young lady she said as she had seen me down at Southend with another young woman, and she would take no excuse. Of course, I said, what was she doing down at Southend without me, anyhow, and that tore it. She sent me back the ring, and the episode, as they say, was closed.

'But the thing that troubled me was, I was getting that shaky in my mind, how did I know I hadn't been to Southend without knowing it? I thought I'd been half sick and half asleep in my lodgings, but it was misty-like to me. And knowing the things I had done other times--well, there! I hadn't any clear recollection one way or another, except fever-dreams. I had a vague recollection of wandering and walking somewhere for hours together. Delirious, I thought I was, but it might have been sleep-walking for all I knew. I hadn't a leg to stand on by way of evidence. I felt it very hard, losing my intended like that, but I could have got over that if it hadn't been for the fear of myself and my brain giving way or something.

'You may think this is all foolishness and I was just being mixed up with some other fellow of the same name that happened to be very like me. But now I'll tell you something.

'Terrible dreams I got to having about that time. There was one thing as always haunted me--a thing that had frightened me as a little chap. My mother, though she was a good, strict woman, liked to go to a cinema now and again. Of course, in those days they weren't like what they are now, and I expect we should think those old pictures pretty crude if we was to see them, but we thought a lot of them at that time. When I was about seven or eight I should think, she took me with her to see a thing--I remember the name now-- The Student of Prague, it was called. I've forgotten the story, but it was a costume piece, about a young fellow at the university who sold himself to the devil, and one day his reflection came stalking out of the mirror on its own, and went about committing dreadful crimes, so that everybody thought it was him. At least, I think it was that, but I forget the details, it's so long ago. But what I shan't forget in a hurry is the fright it gave me to see that dretful figure come out of the mirror. It was that ghastly to see it, I cried and yelled, and after a time mother had to take me out. For months and years after that I used to dream of it. I'd dream I was looking in a great long glass, same as the student in the picture, and after a bit I'd see my reflection smiling at me and I'd walk up to the mirror holding out my left hand, it might be, and seeing myself walking to meet me with its right hand out. And just as it came up to me, it would suddenly--that was the awful moment--turn its back on me and walk away into the mirror again, grinning over its shoulder, and suddenly I'd know that it was the real person and I was only the reflection, and I'd make a dash after it into the minor, and then everything would go grey and misty round me and with the horror of it I'd wake up all of a perspiration.'

'Uncommonly disagreeable,' said Wimsey. 'That legend of the Doppelganger, it's one of the oldest and the most widespread and never fails to terrify me. When I was a kid, my nurse had a trick that frightened me. If we'd been out, and she was asked if we'd met anybody, she used to say, "Oh, no--we saw nobody nicer than ourselves." I used to toddle after her in terror of coming round a corner and seeing a horrid and similar pair pouncing out at us. Of course I'd have rather died than tell a soul how the thing terrified me. Rum little beam, kids.'

The little man nodded thoughtfully.

'Well,' he went on, 'about that time the nightmare came back. At first it was only at intervals, you know, but it grew on me. At last it started coming every night. I hadn't hardly closed my eyes before there was the long mirror and the thing coming grinning along, always with its hand out as if it meant to catch hold of me and pull me through the glass. Sometimes I'd wake up with the shock, but sometimes the dream went on, and I'd be stumbling for hours through a queer sort of world--all mist and half-lights, and the walls would be all crooked, like they are in that picture of "Dr Caligari". Lunatic, that's what it was. Many's the time I've sat up all night for fear of going to sleep. I didn't know, you see. I used to lock the bedroom door and hide the key for fear--you see, I didn't know what I might be doing. But then I read in a book that sleep-walkers can remember the places where they've hidden things when they were awake. So that was no use.'

'Why didn't you get someone to share the room with you?'

'Well, I did.' He hesitated. 'I got a woman--she was a good kid. The dream went away then. I had blessed peace for three years. I was fond of that girl. Damned fond of her. Then she died.'

He gulped down the last of his whisky and blinked.

'Influenza, it was. Pneumonia. It kind of broke me up. Pretty she was, too....

'After that, I was alone again. I felt bad about it. I couldn't--I didn't like--but the dreams came back. Worse. I dreamed about doing things--well! That doesn't matter now.

'And one day it came in broad daylight....

'I was going along Holborn at lunch-time. I was still at Crichton's. Head of the packing department I was then, and doing pretty well. It was a wet beast of a day, I remember--dark and drizzling. I wanted a hair-cut. There's a barber's shop on the south side, about half way along--one of those places where you go down a passage and there's a door at the end with a mirror and the name written across it in gold letters. You know what I mean.

'I went in there. There was a light in the passage, so I could see quite plainly. As I got up to the mirror I could see my reflection coming to meet me, and all of a sudden the awful dream-feeling came over me. I told myself it was all nonsense and put my hand out to the door-handle--my left hand, because the handle was that side and I was still apt to be left-handed when I didn't think about it.

'The reflection, of course, put out its right hand--that was all right, of course--and I saw my own figure in my old squash hat and burberry--but the face--oh, my God! It was grinning at me--and then just like in the dream, it suddenly turned its back and walked away from me, looking over its shoulder--

'I had my hand on the door, and it opened, and I felt myself stumbling and falling over the threshold.

'After that, I don't remember anything more. I woke up in my own bed and there was a doctor with me. He told me I had fainted in the street, and they'd found some letters on me with my address and taken me home.

'I told the doctor all about it, and he said I was in a highly nervous condition and ought to find a change of work and get out in the open air more.

'They were very decent to me at Crichton's. They put me on to inspecting their outdoor publicity. You know. One goes round from town to town inspecting the hoardings and seeing what posters are damaged or badly placed and reporting on them. They gave me a Morgan to run about in. I'm on that job now.

'The dreams are better. But I still have them. Only a few nights ago it came to me. One of the worst I've ever had. Fighting and strangling in a black, misty place. I'd tracked the devil--my other self--and got him down. I can feel my fingers on his throat now--killing myself.

'That was in London. I'm always worse in London. Then I came up here....

'You see why that book interested me. The fourth dimension . . . it's not a thing I ever heard of, but this man Wells seems to know all about it. You're educated now. Daresay you've been to college and all that. What do you think about it, eh?'

'I should think, you know,' said Wimsey, 'it was more likely your doctor was right. Nerves and all that.'

'Yes, but that doesn't account for me having got twisted round the way I am, now, does it? Legends, you talked of. Well, there's some people think those medeeval johnnies knew quite a lot. I don't say I believe in devils and all that. But maybe some of them may have been afflicted, same as me. It stands to reason they wouldn't talk such a lot about it if they hadn't felt it, if you see what I mean. But what I'd like to know is, can't I get back any way? I tell you, it's a weight on my mind. I never know, you see.'

'I shouldn't worry too much, if I were you,' said Wimsey. 'I'd stick to the fresh-air life. And I'd get married. Then you'd have a check on your movements, don't you see. And the dreams might go again.'

'Yes. Yes. I've thought of that. But--did you read about that man the other day? Strangled his wife in his sleep, that's what he did. Now, supposing I--that would be a terrible thing to happen to a man, wouldn't it? Those dreams....'

He shook his head and stared thoughtfully into the fire. Wimsey, after a short interval of silence, got up and went out into the bar. The landlady and the waiter and the barmaid were there, their heads close together over the evening paper. They were talking animatedly, but stopped abruptly at the sound of Wimsey's footsteps.

Ten minutes later, Wimsey returned to the lounge. The little man had gone. Taking up his motoring-coat, which he had flung on a chair, Wimsey went upstairs to his bedroom. He undressed slowly and thoughtfully, put on his pyjamas and dressing-gown, and then, pulling a copy of the Evening News from his motoring-coat pocket, he studied a front-page item attentively for some time. Presently he appeared to come to some decision, for he got up and opened his door cautiously. The passage was empty and dark. Wimsey switched on a torch and walked quietly along, watching the floor. Opposite one of the doors he stopped, contemplating a pair of shoes which stood waiting to be cleaned. Then he softly tried the door. It was locked. He tapped cautiously.

A red head emerged.

'May I come in a moment?' said Wimsey, in a whisper.

The little man stepped back, and Wimsey followed him in.

'What's up?' said Mr Duckworthy.

'I want to talk to you,' said Wimsey. 'Get back into bed, because it may take some time.'

The little man looked at him, scared, but did as he was told. Wimsey gathered the folds of his dressing-gown closely about him, screwed his monocle more firmly into his eye, and sat down on the edge of the bed. He looked at Mr Duckworthy a few minutes without speaking, and then said:

'Look here. You've told me a queerish story tonight. For some reason I believe you. Possibly it only shows what a silly ass I am, but I was born like that, so it's past praying for. Nice, trusting nature and so on. Have you seen the paper this evening?'

He pushed the Evening News into Mr Duckworthy's hand and bent the monocle on him more glassily than ever.

On the front page was a photograph. Underneath was a panel in bold type, boxed for greater emphasis:

'The police at Scotland Yard are anxious to get in touch with the original of this photograph, which was found in the handbag of Miss Jessie Haynes, whose dead body was found strangled on Barnes Common last Thursday morning. The photograph bears on the back the words "J. H. with love from R. D." Anybody recognising the photograph is asked to communicate immediately with Scotland Yard or any police station.'

Mr Duckworthy looked, and grew so white that Wimsey thought he was going to faint.

'Well?' said Wimsey.

'Oh, God, sir! Oh, God! It's come at last.' He whimpered and pushed the paper away, shuddering. 'I've always known something of this would happen. But as sure as I'm born I knew nothing about it.'

'It's you all right, I suppose?'

'The photograph's me all right. Though how it came there I don't know. I haven't had one taken for donkey's years, on my oath I haven't--except once in a staff group at Crichton's. But I tell you, sir, honest-to-God, there's times when I don't know what I'm doing, and that's a fact.'

Wimsey examined the portrait feature by feature.

'Your nose, now--it has a slight twist--if you'll excuse my referring to it--to the right, and so it has in the photograph. The left eyelid droops a little. That's correct, too. The forehead here seems to have a distinct bulge on the left side--unless that's an accident in the printing.'

'No!' Mr Duckworthy swept his tousled cow-lick aside. 'It's very conspicuous--unsightly, I always think, so I wear the hair over it.'

With the ginger lock pushed back, his resemblance to the photograph was more startling than before.

'My mouth's crooked, too.'

'So it is. Slants up to the left. Very attractive, a one-sided smile, I always think--on a face of your type, that is. I have known such things to look positively sinister.'

Mr Duckworthy smiled a faint, crooked smile.

'Do you know this girl, Jessie Haynes?'

'Not in my right sense, I don't, sir. Never heard of her--except, of course, that I read about the murders in the papers. Strangled--oh, my God!' He pushed his hands out in front of him and stated woefully at them.

'What can I do? If I was to get away--'

'You can't. They've recognised you down in the bar. The police will probably be here in a few minutes. No'--as Duckworthy made an attempt to get out of bed--'don't do that. It's no good, and it would only get you into worse trouble. Keep quiet and answer one or two questions. First of all, do you know who I am? No, how should you? My name's Wimsey--Lord Peter Wimsey--'

'The detective?'

'If you like to call it that. Now, listen. Where was it you lived at Brixton?'

The little man gave the address.

'Your mother's dead. Any other relatives?'

'There was an aunt. She came from somewhere in Surrey, I think. Aunt Susan, I used to call her. I haven't seen her since I was a kid.'

'Married?'

'Yes--oh, yes--Mrs Susan Brown.'

'Right. Were you left-handed as a child?'

'Well, yes, I was, at first. But mother broke me of it.'

'And the tendency came back after the air-raid. And were you ever ill as a child? To have the doctor, I mean?'

'I had measles once, when I was about four.'

'Remember the doctor's name?'

'They took me to the hospital.'

'Oh, of course. Do you remember the name of the barber in Holborn?'

This question came so unexpectedly as to stagger the wits of Mr Duckworthy, but after a while he said he thought it was Biggs or Briggs.

Wimsey sat thoughtfully for a moment, and then said:

'I think that's all. Except--oh, yes! What is your Christian name?'

'Robert.'

'And you assure me that, so far as you know, you had no hand in this business?'

'That,' said the little man, 'that I swear to. As far as I know, you know. Oh, my Lord! If only it was possible to prove an alibi! That's my only chance. But I'm so afraid, you see, that I may have done it. Do you think--do you think they would hang me for that?'

'Not if you could prove you knew nothing about it,' said Wimsey. He did not add that, even so, his acquaintance might probably pass the rest of his life at Broadmoor.

'And you know,' said Mr Duckworthy, 'if I'm to go about all my life killing people without knowing it, it would be much better that they should hang me and be done with it. It's a terrible thing to think of.'

'Yes, but you may not have done it, you know.'

'I hope not, I'm sure,' said Mr Duckworthy. 'I say--what's that?'

'The police, I fancy,' said Wimsey lightly. He stood up as a knock came at the door, and said heartily, 'Come in!'

The landlord, who entered first, seemed rather taken aback by Wimsey's presence.

'Come right in,' said Wimsey hospitably. 'Come in, sergeant; come in, officer. What can we do for you?'

'Don't,' said the landlord, 'don't make a row if you can help it.'

The police sergeant paid no attention to either of them, but stalked across to the bed and confronted the shrinking Mr Duckworthy.

'It's the man all right,' said he. 'Now, Mr Duckworthy, you'll excuse this late visit, but as you may have seen by the papers, we've been looking for a person answering your description, and there's no time like the present. We want--'

'I didn't do it,' cried Mr Duckworthy wildly. 'I know nothing about it--'

The officer pulled out his note-book and wrote: 'He said before any question was asked him, "I didn't do it."'

'You seem to know all about it,' said then sergeant.

'Of course he does,' said Wimsey; 'we've been having a little informal chat about it.'

'You have, have you? And who might you be--sir?' The last word appeared to be screwed out of the sergeant forcibly by the action of the monocle.

'I'm so sorry,' said Wimsey, 'I haven't a card on me at the moment. I am Lord Peter Wimsey.'

'Oh, indeed,' said the sergeant. 'And may I ask, my lord, what you know about this here?'

'You may, and I may answer if I like, you know. I know nothing at all about the murder. About Mr Duckworthy I know what he has told me and no more. I dare say he will tell you, too, if you ask him nicely. But no third degree, you know, sergeant. No Savidgery.'

Baulked by this painful reminder, the sergeant said, in a voice of annoyance:

'It's my duty to ask him what he knows about this.'

'I quite agree,' said Wimsey. 'As a good citizen, it's his duty to answer you. But it's a gloomy time of night, don't you think? Why not wait till the morning? Mr Duckworthy won't run away.'

'I'm not so sure of that.'

'Oh, but I am. I will undertake to produce him whenever you want him. Won't that do? You're not charging him with anything, I suppose?'

'Not yet,' said the sergeant.

'Splendid. Then it's all quite friendly and pleasant, isn't it? How about a drink?'

The sergeant refused this kindly offer with some gruffness in his manner.

'On the waggon?' inquired Wimsey sympathetically. 'Bad luck. Kidneys? Or liver, eh?'

The sergeant made no reply.

'Well, we are charmed to have had the pleasure of seeing you,' pursued Wimsey. 'You'll look us up in the morning, won't you? I've got to get back to town fairly early, but I'll drop in at the police-station on my way. You will find Mr Duckworthy in the lounge, here. It will be more comfortable for you than at your place. Must you be going? Well, good night, all.'

Later, Wimsey returned to Mr Duckworthy, after seeing the police off the premises.

'Listen,' he said, 'I'm going up to town to do what I can. I'll send you up a solicitor first thing in the morning. Tell him what you've told me, and tell the police what he tells you to tell them and no more. Remember, they can't force you to say anything or to go down to the police-station unless they charge you. If they do charge you, go quietly and say nothing. And whatever you do, don't run away, because if you do, you're done for.'

Wimsey arrived in town the following afternoon, and walked down Holborn, looking for a barber's shop. He found it without much difficulty. It lay, as Mr Duckworthy had described it, at the end of a narrow passage, and it had a long mirror in the door, with the name Briggs scrawled across it in gold letters. Wimsey stared at his own reflection distastefully.

'Check number one,' said he, mechanically setting his tie to rights. 'Have I been led up the garden? Or is it a case of fourth dimensional mystery? "The animals went in four by four, vive la compagnie! The camel he got stuck in the door." There is something intensely unpleasant about making a camel of one's self. It goes for days without a drink and its table-manners are objectionable. But there is no doubt that this door is made of looking-glass. Was it always so, I wonder? On, Wimsey, on. I cannot bear to be shaved again. Perhaps a haircut might be managed.'

He pushed the door open, keeping a stern eye on his reflection to see that it played him no trick.

Of his conversation with the barber, which was lively and varied, only one passage is deserving of record.

'It's some time since I was in here,' said Wimsey. 'Keep it short behind the ears. Been redecorated, haven't you?'

'Yes, sir. Looks quite smart, doesn't it?'

'The mirror on the outside of the door--that's new, too, isn't it?'

'Oh, no, sir. That's been there ever since we took over.'

'Has it? Then it's longer ago than I thought. Was it there three years ago?'

'Oh yes, sir. Ten years Mr Briggs has been here, sir.'

'And the mirror too?'

'Oh, yes, sir.'

'Then it's my memory that's wrong. Senile decay setting in. "All, all are gone, the old familiar landmarks." No, thank you, if I go grey I'll go grey decently. I don't want any hair-tonics today, thank you. No, nor even an electric comb. I've had shocks enough.'

It worried him, though. So much so that when he emerged, he walked back a few yards along the street, and was suddenly struck by seeing the glass door of a tea-shop. It also lay at the end of a dark passage and had a gold name written across it. The name was 'The Bridget Tea-shop', but the door was of plain glass. Wimsey looked at it for a few moments and then went in. He did not approach the tea-tables, but accosted the cashier, who sat at a little glass desk inside the door.

Here he went straight to the point and asked whether the young lady remembered the circumstances of a man's having fainted in the doorway some years previously.

The cashier could not say; she had only been there three months, but she thought one of the waitresses might remember. The waitress was produced, and after some consideration, thought she did recollect something of the sort. Wimsey thanked her, said he was a journalist--which seemed to be accepted as an excuse for eccentric questions--parted with half a crown, and withdrew.

His next visit was to Carmelite House. Wimsey had friends in every newspaper office in Fleet Street, and made his way without difficulty to the room where photographs are filed for reference. The original of the 'J. D.' portrait was produced for his inspection.

'One of yours?' he asked.

'Oh, no. Sent out by Scotland Yard. Why? Anything wrong with it?'

'Nothing. I wanted the name of the original photographer, that's all.'

'Oh! Well, you'll have to ask them there. Nothing more I can do for you?'

'Nothing, thanks.'

Scotland Yard was easy. Chief-Inspector Parker was Wimsey's closest friend. An inquiry of him soon furnished the photographer's name, which was inscribed at the foot of the print. Wimsey voyaged off at once in search of the establishment, where his name readily secured an interview with the proprietor.

As he had expected, Scotland Yard had been there before him. All information at the disposal of the firm had already been given. It amounted to very little. The photograph had been taken a couple of years previously, and nothing particular was remembered about the sitter. It was a small establishment, doing a rapid business in cheap portraits, and with no pretensions to artistic refinements.

Wimsey asked to see the original negative, which, after some search, was produced.

Wimsey looked it over, laid it down, and pulled from his pocket the copy of the Evening News in which the print had appeared.

'Look at this,' he said.

The proprietor looked, then looked back at the negative,

'Well, I'm dashed,' he said. 'That's funny.'

'It was done in the enlarging lantern, I take it,' said Wimsey.

'Yes. It must have been put in the wrong way round. Now, fancy that happening. You know, sir, we often have to work against time, and I suppose--but it's very careless. I shall have to inquire into it.'

'Get me a print of it right way round,' said Wimsey.

'Yes, sir, certainly, sir. At once.'

'And send one to Scotland Yard.'

'Yes, sir. Queer it should have been just this particular one, isn't it, sir? I wonder the party didn't notice. But we generally take three or four positions, and he might not remember, you know.'

'You'd better see if you've got any other positions and let me have them too.'

'I've done that already, sir, but there are none. No doubt this one was selected and the others destroyed. We don't keep all the rejected negatives, you know, sir. We haven't the space to file them. But I'll get three prints off at once.'

'Do,' said Wimsey. 'The sooner the better. Quick-dry them. And don't do any work on the prints.'

'No, sir. You shall have them in an hour or two, sir. But it's astonishing to me that the party didn't complain.'

'It's not astonishing,' said Wimsey. 'He probably thought it the best likeness of the lot. And so it would be--to him. Don't you see--that's the only view he could ever take of his own face. That photograph, with the left and right sides reversed, is the face he sees in the mirror every day--the only face he can really recognise as his. "Wad the gods and giftie gie us", and all that.'

'Well, that's quite true, sir. And I'm much obliged to you for pointing the mistake out.'

Wimsey reitereated the need for haste, and departed. A brief visit to Somerset House followed; after which he called it a day and went home.

Inquiry in Brixton, in and about the address mentioned by Mr Duckworthy, eventually put Wimsey on to the track of persons who had known him and his mother. An aged lady who had kept a small greengrocery in the same street for the last forty years remembered all about them. She had the encyclopaedic memory of the almost illiterate, and was positive as to the date of their arrival.

'Thirty-two years ago, if we lives another month,' she said. 'Michaelmas it was they come. She was a nice-looking young woman, too, and my daughter, as was expecting her first, took a lot of interest in the sweet little boy.'

'The boy was not born here?'

'Why, no, sir. Born somewheres on the south side, he was, but I remember she never rightly said where--only that it was round about the New Cut. She was one of the quiet sort and kep' herself to herself. Never one to talk, she wasn't. Why even to my daughter, as might 'ave good reason for bein' interested, she wouldn't say much about 'ow she got through 'er bad time. Chlorryform she said she 'ad, I know, and she disremembered about it, but it's my belief it 'ad gone 'ard with 'er and she didn't care to think overmuch about it. 'Er 'usband--a nice man 'e was, too--'e says to me, "Don't remind 'er of it, Mrs 'Arbottle, don't remind 'er of it." Whether she was frightened or whether she was 'urt by it I don't know, but she didn't 'ave no more children. "Lor!" I says to 'er time and again, "you'll get used to it, my dear, when you've 'ad nine of 'em same as me," and she smiled, but she never 'ad no more, none the more for that.'

'I suppose it does take some getting used to,' said Wimsey, 'but nine of them don't seem to have hurt you, Mrs Harbottle, if I may say so. You look extremely flourishing.'

'I keeps my 'ealth, sir, I am glad to say, though stouter than I used to be. Nine of them does 'ave a kind of spreading action on the figure. You wouldn't believe, sir, to look at me, as I 'ad a eighteen-inch waist when I was a girl. Many's the time me pore mother broke the laces on me, with 'er knee in me back and me 'olding on to the bed-post.'

'One must suffer to be beautiful,' said Wimsey politely. 'How old was the baby, then, when Mrs Duckworthy came to live in Brixton?'

'Three weeks old, 'e was, sir--a darling dear--and a lot of 'air on 'is 'ead. Black 'air it was then, but it turned into the brightest red you ever see--like them carrots there. It wasn't so pretty as 'is ma's, though much the same colour. He didn't favour 'er in the face, neither, nor yet 'is dad. She said 'e took after some of 'er side of the family.'

'Did you ever see any of the rest of the family?'

'Only 'er sister, Mrs Susan Brown. A big, stern, 'ard-faced woman she was--not like 'er sister. Lived in Evesham she did, as well I remembers, for I was gettin' my grass from them at the time. I never sees a bunch o' grass now but what I think of Mrs Susan Brown. Stiff, she was, with a small 'ead, very like a stick o' grass.'

Wimsey thanked Mrs Harbottle in a suitable manner and took the next train to Evesham. He was beginning to wonder where the chase might lead him, but discovered, much to his relief, that Mrs Susan Brown was well known in the town, being a pillar of the Methodist Chapel and a person well respected.

She was upright still, with smooth, dark hair parted in the middle and drawn tightly back--a woman broad in the base and narrow in the shoulder--not, indeed, unlike the stick of asparagus to which Mrs Harbottle had compared her. She received Wimsey with stern civility, but disclaimed all knowledge of her nephew's movements. The hint that he was in a position of some embarrassment, and even danger, did not appear to surprise her.

'There was bad blood in him,' she said. 'My sister Hetty was softer by half than she ought to have been.'

'Ah!' said Wimsey. 'Well, we can't all be people of strong character, though it must be a source of great satisfaction to those that are. I don't want to be a trouble to you, madam, and I know I'm given to twaddling rather, being a trifle on the soft side myself--so I'll get to the point. I see by the register at Somerset House that your nephew, Robert Duckworthy, was born in Southwark, the son of Alfred and Hester Duckworthy. Wonderful system they have there. But of course--being only human--it breaks down now and again--doesn't it?'

She folded her wrinkled hands over one another on the edge of the table, and he saw a kind of shadow flicker over her sharp dark eyes.

'If I'm not bothering you too much--in what name was the other registered?'

The hands trembled a little, but she said steadily:

'I don't understand you.'

'I'm frightfully sorry. Never was good at explaining myself. There were twin boys, weren't there? Under what name did they register the other? I'm sorry to be a nuisance, but it's really rather important.'

'What makes you suppose that there were twins?'

'Oh, I don't suppose it. I wouldn't have bothered you for a supposition. I know there was a twin brother. What became--at least, I do know more or less what became of him--'

'It died,' she said hurriedly.

'I hate to seem contradictory,' said Wimsey. 'Most unattractive behaviour. But it didn't die, you know. In fact, it's alive now. It's only the name I want to know, you know.'

'And why should I tell you anything, young man?'

'Because,' said Wimsey, 'if you will pardon the mention of anything so disagreeable to a refined taste, there's been a murder committed and your nephew Robert is suspected. As a matter of fact, I happen to know that the murder was done by the brother. That's why I want to get hold of him, don't you see. It would be such a relief to my mind--I am naturally nice-minded--if you would help me to find him. Because, if not, I shall have to go to the police, and then you might be subpoena'd as a witness, and I shouldn't like--I really shouldn't like--to see you in the witness-box at a murder trial. So much unpleasant publicity, don't you know. Whereas, if we can lay hands on the brother quickly, you and Robert need never come into it at all.'

Mrs Brown sat in grim thought for a few minutes.

'Very well,' she said, 'I will tell you.'

'Of course,' said Wimsey to Chief-Inspector Parker a few days later, 'the whole thing was quite obvious when one had heard about the reversal of friend Duckworthy's interior economy.'

'No doubt, no doubt,' said Parker. 'Nothing could be simpler. But all the same, you are aching to tell me how you deduced it and I am willing to be instructed. Are all twins wrong-sided? And are all wrong-sided people twins?'

'Yes. No. Or rather, no, yes. Dissimilar twins and some kinds of similar twins may both be quite normal. But the kind of similar twins that result from the splitting of a single cell may come out as looking-glass twins. It depends on the line of fission in the original cell. You can do it artificially with tadpoles and a bit of horsehair.'

'I will make a note to do it at once,' said Parker gravely.

'In fact, I've read somewhere that a person with a reversed inside practically always turns out to be one of a pair of similar twins. So you see, while poor old R.D. was burbling on about the Student of Prague and the fourth dimension, I was expecting the twin-brother.

'Apparently what happened was this. There were three sisters of the name of Dart--Susan, Hester and Emily. Susan married a man called Brown; Hester married a man called Duckworthy; Emily was unmarried. By one of those cheery little ironies of which life is so full, the only sister who had a baby, or who was apparently capable of having babies, was the unmarried Emily. By way of compensation, she overdid it and had twins.

'When this catastrophe was about to occur, Emily (deserted, of course, by the father) confided in her sisters, the parents being dead. Susan was a tartar--besides, she had married above her station and was climbing steadily on a ladder of good works. She delivered herself of a few texts and washed her hands of the business. Hester was a kind-hearted soul. She offered to adopt the infant, when produced, and bring it up as her own. Well, the baby came, and, as I said before, it was twins.

'That was a bit too much for Duckworthy. He had agreed to one baby, but twins were more than he had bargained for. Hester was allowed to pick her twin, and, being a kindly soul, she picked the weaklier-looking one, which was our Robert--the mirror-image twin. Emily had to keep the other, and, as soon as she was strong enough, decamped with him to Australia, after which she was no more heard of.

'Emily's twin was registered in her own name of Dart and baptised Richard. Robert and Richard were two pretty men. Robert was registered as Hester Duckworthy's own child--there were no tiresome rules in those days requiring notification of births by doctors and midwives, so one could do as one liked about these matters. The Duckworthys, complete with baby, moved to Brixton, where Robert was looked upon as being a perfectly genuine little Duckworthy.

'Apparently Emily died in Australia, and Richard, then a boy of fifteen, worked his passage home to London. He does not seem to have been a nice little boy. Two years afterwards, his path crossed that of Brother Robert and produced the episode of the air-raid night.

'Hester may have known about the wrong-sidedness of Robert, or she may not. Anyway, he wasn't told. I imagine that the shock of the explosion caused him to revert more strongly to his natural left-handed tendency. It also seems to have induced a new tendency to amnesia under similar shock-conditions. The whole thing preyed on his mind, and he became more and more vague and somnambulant.

'I rather think that Richard may have discovered the existence of his double and turned it to account. That explains the central incident of the mirror. I think Robert must have mistaken the glass door of the tea-shop for the door of the barber's shop. It really was Richard who came to meet him, and who retired again so hurriedly for fear of being seen and noted. Circumstances played into his hands, of course--but these meetings do take place, and the fact that they were both wearing soft hats and burberries is not astonishing on a dark, wet day.

'And then there is the photograph. No doubt the original mistake was the photographer's, but I shouldn't be surprised if Richard welcomed it and chose that particular print on that account. Though that would mean, of course, that he knew about the wrong-sidedness of Robert. I don't know how he could have done that, but he may have had opportunities for inquiry. It was known in the Army, and rumours may have got round. But I won't press that point.

'There's one rather queer thing, and that is that Robert should have had that dream about strangling, on the very night, as far as one could make out, that Richard was engaged in doing away with Jessie Haynes. They say that similar twins are always in close sympathy with one another--that each knows what the other is thinking about, for instance, and contracts the same illness on the same day and all that. Richard was the stronger twin of the two, and perhaps he dominated Robert more than Robert did him. I'm sure I don't know. Daresay it's all bosh. The point is that you've found him all right.'

'Yes. Once we'd got the clue there was no difficulty.'

'Well, let's toddle round to the Cri and have one.'

Wimsey got up and set his tie to rights before the glass.

'All the same,' he said, 'there's something queer about mirrors. Uncanny, a bit, don't you think so?'

THE INCREDIBLE ELOPEMENT OF LORD PETER WIMSEY

A Lord Peter Wimsey Story

............

'That house, senor?' said the landlord of the little posada. 'That is the house of the American physician, whose wife, may the blessed saints preserve us, is bewitched.' He crossed himself, and so did his wife and daughter.

'Bewitched, is she?' said Langley sympathetically. He was a professor of ethnology, and this was not his first visit to the Pyrenees. He had, however, never before penetrated to any place quite so remote as this tiny hamlet, clinging, like a rock-plant, high up the scarred granite shoulders of the mountain. He scented material here for his book on Basque folk-lore. With tact, he might persuade the old man to tell his story.

'And in what manner,' he asked, 'is the lady bespelled?'

'Who knows?' replied the landlord, shrugging his shoulders. '"The man that asked questions on Friday was buried on Saturday". Will your honour consent to take his supper?'

Langley took the hint. To press the question would be to encounter obstinate silence. Later, when they knew him better, perhaps--

His dinner was served to him at the family table--the oily, pepper-flavoured stew to which he was so well accustomed, and the harsh red wine of the country. His hosts chattered to him freely enough in that strange Basque language which has no fellow in the world, and is said by some to be the very speech of our first fathers in Paradise. They spoke of the bad winter, and young Esteban Arramandy, so strong and swift at the pelota, who had been lamed by a falling rock and now halted on two sticks; of three valuable goats carried off by a bear; of the torrential rains that, after a dry summer, had scoured the bare ribs of the mountains. It was raining now, and the wind was howling unpleasantly. This did not trouble Langley; he knew and loved this haunted and impenetrable country at all times and seasons. Sitting in that rude peasant inn, he thought of the oak-panelled hall of his Cambridge college and smiled, and his eyes gleamed happily behind his scholarly pince-nez. He was a young man, in spite of his professorship and the string of letters after his name. To his university colleagues it seemed strange that this man, so trim, so prim, so early old, should spend his vacations eating garlic, and scrambling on mule-back along precipitous mountain-tracks. You would never think it, they said, to look at him.

There was a knock at the door.

'That is Martha,' said the wife.

She drew back the latch, letting in a rush of wind and rain which made the candle gutter. A small, aged woman was blown in out of the night, her grey hair straggling in wisps from beneath her shawl.

'Come in, Martha, and rest yourself. It is a bad night. The parcel is ready--oh, yes. Dominique brought it from the town this morning. You must take a cup of wine or milk before you go back.'

The old woman thanked her and sat down, panting.

'And how goes all at the house? The doctor is well?'

'He is well.'

'And she?'

The daughter put the question in a whisper, and the landlord shook his head at her with a frown.

'As always at this time of the year. It is but a month now to the Day of the Dead. Jesu-Maria! it is a grievous affliction for the poor gentleman, but he is patient, patient.'

'He is a good man,' said Dominique, 'and a skilful doctor, but an evil like that is beyond his power to cure. You are not afraid, Martha?'

'Why should I be afraid? The Evil One cannot harm me. I have no beauty, no wits, no strength for him to envy. And the Holy Relic will protect me.'

Her wrinkled fingers touched something in the bosom of her dress.

'You come from the house yonder?' asked Langley.

She eyed him suspiciously.

'The senor is not of our country?'

'The gentleman is a guest, Martha,' said the landlord hurriedly. 'A learned English gentleman. He knows our country and speaks our language as you hear. He is a great traveller, like the American doctor, your master.'

'What is your master's name?' asked Langley. It occurred to him that an American doctor who had buried himself in this remote corner of Europe must have something unusual about him. Perhaps he also was an ethnologist. If so, they might find something in common.

'He is called Wetherall.' She pronounced the name several times before he was sure of it.

'Wetherell? Not Standish Wetherall?'

He was filled with extraordinary excitement.

The landlord came to his assistance.

'This parcel is for him,' he said. 'No doubt the name will be written there.'

It was a small package, neatly sealed, bearing the label of a firm of London chemists and addressed to 'Standish Wetherall, Esq., M.D.'

'Good Heavens!' exclaimed Langley. 'But this is strange. Almost a miracle. I know this man. I knew his wife, too--'

He stopped. Again the company made the sign of the cross.

'Tell me,' he said in great agitation, and forgetting his caution, 'you say his wife is bewitched--afflicted--how is this? Is she the same woman I know? Describe her. She was tall, beautiful, with gold hair and blue eyes like the Madonna. Is this she?'

There was a silence. The old woman shook her head and muttered something inaudible, but the daughter whispered:

'True--it is true. Once we saw her thus, as the gentleman says--'

'Be quiet,' said her father.

'Sir,' said Martha, 'we are in the hand of God.'

She rose, and wrapped her shawl about her.

'One moment,' said Langley. He pulled out his note-book and scribbled a few lines. 'Will you take this letter to your master the doctor? It is to say that I am here, his friend whom he once knew, and to ask if I may come and visit him. That is all.'

'You would not go to that house, excellence?' whispered the old man fearfully.

'If he will not have me, maybe he will come to me here.' He added a word or two and drew a piece of money from his pocket. 'You will carry my note for me?'

'Willingly, willingly. But the senor will be careful? Perhaps, though a foreigner, you are of the Faith?'

'I am a Christian,' said Langley.

This seemed to satisfy her. She took the letter and the money, and secured them, together with the parcel, in a remote pocket. Then she walked to the door, strongly and rapidly for all her bent shoulders and appearance of great age.

Langley remained lost in thought. Nothing could have astonished him more than to meet the name of Standish Wetherall in this place. He had thought that episode finished and done with over three years ago. Of all people! The brilliant surgeon in the prime of life and reputation, and Alice Wetherall, that delicate piece of golden womanhood--exiled in this forlorn corner of the world! His heart beat a little faster at the thought of seeing her again. Three years ago, he had decided that it would be wiser if he did not see too much of that porcelain loveliness. That folly was past now--but still he could not visualise her except against the background of the great white house in Riverside Drive, with the peacocks and the swimming-pool and the gilded tower with the roof-garden. Wetherall was a rich man, the son of old Hiram Wetherall the automobile magnate. What was Wetherall doing here?

He tried to remember. Hiram Wetherall, he knew, was dead, and all the money belonged to Standish, for there were no other children. There had been trouble when the only son had married a girl without parents or history. He had brought her from 'somewhere out west'. There had been some story of his having found her, years before, as a neglected orphan, and saved her from something or cured her of something and paid for her education, when he was still scarcely more than a student. Then, when he was a man over forty and she a girl of seventeen, he had brought her home and married her.

And now he had left his house and his money and one of the finest specialist practices in New York to come to live in the Basque country--in a spot so out of the way that men still believed in Black Magic, and could barely splutter more than a few words of bastard French or Spanish--a spot that was uncivilised even by comparison with the primitive civilisation surrounding it. Langley began to be sorry that he had written to Wetherell. It might be resented.

The landlord and his wife had gone out to see to their cattle. The daughter sat close to the fire, mending a garment. She did not look at him, but he had the feeling that she would be glad to speak.

'Tell me, child,' he said gently, 'what is the trouble which afflicts these people who may be friends of mine?'

'Oh!' she glanced up quickly and leaned across to him, her arms stretched out over the sewing in her lap. 'Sir, be advised. Do not go up there. No one will stay in that house at this time of the year, except Tomaso, who has not all his wits, and old Martha, who is--'

'What?'

'A saint--or something else,' she said hurriedly.

'Child,' said Langley again, 'this lady when I knew--'

'I will tell you,' she said, 'but my father must not know. The good doctor brought her here three years ago last June, and then she was as you say. She was beautiful. She laughed and talked in her own speech--for she knew no Spanish or Basque. But on the Night of the Dead--'

She crossed herself.

'All-Hallows Eve,' said Langley softly.

'Indeed, I do not know what happened. But she fell into the power of the darkness. She changed. There were terrible cries--I cannot tell. But little by little she became what she is now. Nobody sees her but Martha and she will not talk. But the people say it she is not a woman at all that lives there now.'

'Mad?' said Langley.

'It is not madness. It is--enchantment. Listen. Two years since on Easter Day--is that my father?'

'No, no.'

'The sun had shone and the wind came up from the valley. We heard the blessed church bells all day long. That night there came a knock at the door. My father opened and one stood there like Our Blessed Lady herself, very pale like the image in the church and with a blue cloak over her head. She spoke, but we could not tell what she said. She wept and wrung her hands and pointed down the valley path, and my father went to the stable and saddled the mule. I thought of the flight from bad King Herod. But then--the American doctor came. He had run fast and was out of breath. And she shrieked at sight of him.'

A great wave of indignation swept over Langley. If the man was brutal to his wife, something must be done quickly. The girl hurried on.

'He said--Jesu-Maria--he said that his wife was bewitched. At Easter-tide the power of the Evil One was broken and she would try to flee. But as soon as the Holy Season was over, the spell would fall on her again, and therefore it was not safe to let her go. My parents were afraid to have touched the evil thing. They brought out the Holy Water and sprinkled the mule, but the wickedness had entered into the poor beast and she kicked my father so that he was lame for a month. The American took his wife away with him and we never saw her again. Even old Martha does not always see her. But every year the power waxes and wanes--heaviest at Hallow-tide and lifted again at Easter. Do not go to that house, senor, if you value your soul! Hush! they are coming back.'

Langley would have liked to ask more, but his host glanced quickly and suspiciously at the girl. Taking up his candle, Langley went to bed. He dreamed of wolves, long, lean and black, running on the scent of blood.

Next day brought an answer to his letter:

'Dear Langley,--Yes, this is myself, and of course I remember you well. Only too delighted to have you come and cheer our exile. You will find Alice somewhat changed, I fear, but I will explain our misfortunes when we meet. Our house-hold is limited, owing to some kind of superstitious avoidance of the afflicted, but if you will come along about half-past seven, we can give you a meal of sorts. Martha will show you the way.

'Cordially,

Standish Wetherall.'

The doctor's house was small and old, stuck halfway up the mountain-side on a kind of ledge in the rock-wall. A stream, unseen but clamorous, fell echoing down close at hand. Langley followed his guide into a dim, square room with a great hearth at one end, and drawn close before the fire, an armchair with wide, sheltering ears. Martha, muttering some sort of apology, hobbled away and left him standing there in the half-light. The flames of the wood fire, leaping and falling, made here a gleam and there a gleam, and, as his eyes grew familiar with the room, he saw that in the centre was a table laid for a meal, and that there were pictures on the walls. One of these struck a familiar note. He went close to it and recognised a portrait of Alice Wetherall that he had last seen in New York. It was painted by Sargent in his happiest mood, and the lovely wild-flower face seemed to lean down to him with the sparkling smile of life.

A log suddenly broke and fell into the hearth, flaring. As though the little noise and light had disturbed something, he heard, or thought he heard, a movement from the big chair before the fire. He stepped forward, and then stopped. There was nothing to be seen, but a noise had begun; a kind of low, animal muttering, extremely disagreeable to listen to. It was not made by a dog or a cat, he felt sure. It was a sucking, slobbering sound that affected him in a curiously sickening way. It ended in a series of little grunts or squeals, and then there was silence.

Langley stepped backwards towards the door. He was positive that something was in the room with him that he did not care about meeting. An absurd impulse seized him to run away. He was prevented by the arrival of Martha, carrying a big, old-fashioned lamp, and behind her, Wetherall, who greeted him cheerfully.

The familiar American accents dispelled the atmosphere of discomfort that had been gathering about Langley. He held out a cordial hand,

'Fancy meeting you here,' said he.

'The world is very small,' replied Wetherall.' 'I am afraid that is a hardy bromide, but I certainly am pleased to see you,' he added, with some emphasis.

The old woman had put the lamp on the table, and now asked if she could bring in the dinner. Wetherall replied in the affirmative, using a mixture of Spanish and Basque which she seemed to understand well enough.

'I didn't know you were a Basque scholar,' said Langley.

'Oh, one picks it up. These people speak nothing else. But of course Basque is your speciality, isn't it?'

'Oh, yes.'

'I daresay they have told you some queer things about us. But we'll go into that later. I've managed to make the place reasonably comfortable, though I could do with a few more modern conveniences. However, it suits us.'

Langley took the opportunity to mumble some sort of inquiry about Mrs Wetherall.

'Alice? Ah, yes, I forgot--you have not seen her yet.' Wetherall looked hard at him with a kind of half-smile. 'I should have warned you. You were--rather an admirer of my wife in the old days.'

'Like everyone else,' said Langley.

'No doubt. Nothing specially surprising about it, was there? Here comes dinner. Put it down, Martha, and we will ring when we are ready.'

The old woman set down a dish upon the table, which was handsomely furnished with glass and silver, and went out. Wetherall moved over to the fireplace, stepping sideways and keeping his eyes oddly fixed on Langley. Then he addressed the armchair.

'Alice! Get up, my dear, and welcome an old admirer of yours. Come along. You will both enjoy it. Get up.'

Something shuffled and whimpered among the cushions. Wetherall stooped, with an air of almost exaggerated courtesy, and lifted it to its feet. A moment, and it faced Langley in the lamplight.

It was dressed in a rich gown of gold satin and lace, that hung rucked and crumpled upon the thick and slouching body. The face was white and puffy, the eyes vacant, the mouth drooled open, with little trickles of saliva running from the loose corners. A dry fringe of rusty hair clung to the half-bald scalp, like the dead wisps on the head of a mummy.

'Come, my love,' said Wetherall. 'Say how do you do to Mr Langley.'

The creature blinked and mouthed out some inhuman sounds. Wetherall put his hand under its forearm, and it slowly extended a lifeless paw.

'There, she recognises you all right. I thought she would. Shake hands with him, my dear.'

With a sensation of nausea, Langley took the inert hand. It was clammy and coarse to the touch and made no attempt to return his pressure. He let it go; it pawed vaguely in the air for a moment and then dropped.

'I was afraid you might be upset,' said Wetherall, watching him. 'I have grown used to it, of course, and it doesn't affect me as it would an outsider. Not that you are an outsider--anything but that--eh? Premature senility is the lay name for it, I suppose. Shocking, of course, if you haven't met it before. You needn't mind, by the way, what you say. She understands nothing.'

'How did it happen?'

'I don't quite know. Came on gradually. I took the best advice, naturally, but there was nothing to be done. So we came here. I didn't care about facing things at home where everybody knew us. And I didn't like the idea of a sanatorium. Alice is my wife, you know--sickness or health, for better, for worse, and all that. Come along; dinner's getting cold.'

He advanced to the table, leading his wife, whose dim eyes seemed to brighten a little at the sight of food.

'Sit down, my dear, and eat your nice dinner. (She understands that, you see.) You'll excuse her table-manners, won't you? They're not pretty, but you'll get used to them.'

He tied a napkin round the neck of the creature and placed food before her in a deep bowl. She snatched at it hungrily, slavering and gobbling as she scooped it up in her fingers and smeared face and hands with the gravy.

Wetherall drew out a chair for his guest opposite to where his wife sat. The sight of her held Langley with a kind of disgusted fascination.

The food--a sort of salmis--was deliciously cooked, but Langley had no appetite. The whole thing was an outrage, to the pitiful woman and to himself. Her seat was directly beneath the Sargent portrait, and his eyes went helplessly from the one to the other.

'Yes,' said Wetherall, following his glance. 'There is a difference, isn't there?' He himself was eating heartily and apparently enjoying his dinner. 'Nature plays sad tricks upon us.'

'Is it always like this?'

'No; this is one of her bad days. At times she will be--almost human. Of course these people here don't know what to think of it all. They have their own explanation of a very simple medical phenomenon.'

'Is there any hope of recovery?'

'I'm afraid not--not of a permanent cure. You are not eating anything.'

'I--well, Wetherall, this has been a shock to me.'

'Of course. Try a glass of burgundy. I ought not to have asked you to come, but the idea of talking to an educated fellow-creature once again tempted me, I must confess.'

'It must be terrible for you.'

'I have become resigned. Ah, naughty, naughty!' The idiot had flung half the contents of her bowl upon the table. Wetherall patiently remedied the disaster, and went on:

'I can bear it better here, in this wild place where everything seems possible and nothing unnatural. My people are all dead, so there was nothing to prevent me from doing as I liked about it.'

'No. What about your property in the States?'

'Oh, I run over from time to time to keep an eye on things. In fact, I am due to sail next month. I'm glad you caught me. Nobody over here knows how we're fixed, of course. They just know we're living in Europe.'

'Did you consult no American doctor?'

'No. We were in Paris when the first symptoms declared themselves. That was shortly after that visit you paid to us.' A flash of some emotion to which Langley could not put a name made the doctor's eyes for a moment sinister. 'The best men on this side confirmed my own diagnosis. So we came here.'

He rang for Martha, who removed the salmis and put on a kind of sweet pudding.

'Martha is my right hand,' observed Wetherall. 'I don't know what we shall do without her. When I am away, she looks after Alice like a mother. Not that there's much one can do for her, except to keep her fed and warm and clean--and the last is something of a task.'

There was a note in his voice which jarred on Langley. Wetherall noticed his recoil and said:

'I won't disguise from you that it gets on my nerves sometimes. But it can't be helped. Tell me about yourself. What have you been doing lately?'

Langley replied with as much vivacity as he could assume, and they talked of indifferent subjects till the deplorable being which had once been Alice Wetherall began to mumble and whine fretfully and scramble down from her chair.

'She's cold,' said Wetherall. 'Go back to the fire, my dear.'

He propelled her briskly towards the hearth, and she sank back into the armchair, crouching and complaining and thrusting out her hands towards the blaze. Wetherall brought out brandy and a box of cigars.

'I contrive just to keep in touch with the world, you see,' he said. 'They send me these from London. And I get the latest medical journals and reports. I'm writing a book, you know, on my own subject; so I don't vegetate. I can experiment, too--plenty of room for a laboratory, and no Vivisection Acts to bother one. It's a good country to work in. Are you staying here long?'

'I think not very.'

'Oh! If you had thought of stopping on, I would have offered you the use of this house while I was away. You would find it more comfortable than the posada, and I should have no qualms, you know, about leaving you alone in the place with my wife--under the peculiar circumstances.'

He stressed the last words and laughed. Langley hardly knew what to say.

'Really, Wetherall--'

'Though, in the old days, you might have liked the prospect more and I might have liked it less. There was a time, I think, Langley, when you would have jumped at the idea of living alone with-- my wife.'

Langley jumped up.

'What the devil are you insinuating, Wetherall?'

'Nothing, nothing. I was just thinking of the afternoon when you and she wandered away at a picnic and got lost. You remember? Yes, I thought you would.'

'This is monstrous,' retorted Langley. 'How dare you say such a thing--with that poor soul sitting there--?'

'Yes, poor soul. You're a poor thing to look at now, aren't you, my kitten?'

He turned suddenly to the woman. Something in his abrupt gesture seemed to frighten her, and she shrank away from him.

'You devil!' cried Langley. 'She's afraid of you. What have you been doing to her? How did she get in this state? I will know!'

'Gently,' said Wetherall. 'I can allow for your natural agitation at finding her like this, but I can't have you coming between me and my wife. What a faithful fellow you are, Langley. I believe you still want her--just as you did before when you thought I was dumb and blind. Come now, have you got designs on my wife, Langley? Would you like to kiss her, caress her, take her to bed with you--my beautiful wife?'

A scarlet fury blinded Langley. He dashed an inexpert fist at the mocking face. Wetherall gripped his arm, but he broke away. Panic seized him. He fled stumbling against the furniture and rushed out. As he went he heard Wetherall very softly laughing.

The train to Paris was crowded. Langley, scrambling in at the last moment, found himself condemned to the corridor. He sat down on a suitcase and tried to think. He had not been able to collect his thoughts on his wild flight. Even now, he was not quite sure what he had fled from. He buried his head in his hands.

'Excuse me,' said a polite voice.

Langley looked up. A fair man in a grey suit was looking down at him through a monocle.

'Fearfully sorry to disturb you,' went on the fair man. 'I'm just tryin' to barge back to my jolly old kennel. Ghastly crowd, isn't it? Don't know when I've disliked my fellow-creatures more. I say, you don't look frightfully fit. Wouldn't you be better on something more comfortable?'

Langley explained that he had not been able to get a seat. The fair man eyed his haggard and unshaven countenance for a moment and then said:

'Well, look here, why not come and lay yourself down in my bin for a bit? Have you had any grub? No? That's a mistake. Toddle along with me and we'll get hold of a spot of soup and so on. You'll excuse my mentioning it, but you look as if you'd been backing a system that's come unstuck, or something. Not my business, of course, but do have something to eat.'

Langley was too faint and sick to protest. He stumbled obediently along the corridor till he was pushed into a first-class sleeper, where a rigidly correct manservant was laying out a pair of mauve silk pyjamas and a set of silver-mounted brushes.

'This gentleman's feeling rotten, Bunter,' said the man with the monocle, 'so I've brought him in to rest his aching head upon thy breast. Get hold of the commissariat and tell 'em to buzz a plate of soup along and a bottle of something drinkable.'

'Very good, my lord.'

Langley dropped, exhausted, on the bed, but when the food appeared he ate and drank greedily. He could not remember when he had last made a meal.

'I say,' he said, 'I wanted that. It's awfully decent of you. I'm sorry to appear stupid. I've had a bit of a shock.'

'Tell me all,' said the stranger pleasantly.

The man did not look particularly intelligent, but he seemed friendly, and above all, normal. Langley wondered how the story would sound.

'I'm an absolute stranger to you,' he began.

'And I to you,' said the fair man. 'The chief use of strangers is to tell things to. Don't you agree?'

'I'd like--' said Langley. 'The fact is, I've run away from something. It's queer--it's--but what's the use of bothering you with it?'

The fair man sat down beside him and laid a slim hand on his arm.

'Just a moment,' he said. 'Don't tell me anything if you'd rather not. But my name is Wimsey--Lord Peter Wimsey--and I am interested in queer things.'

It was in the middle of November when the strange man came to the village. Thin, pale and silent, with his great black hood flapping about his face, he was surrounded with an atmosphere of mystery from the start. He settled down, not at the inn, but in a dilapidated cottage high up in the mountains, and he brought with him five mule-loads of mysterious baggage and a servant. The servant was almost as uncanny as the master; he was a Spaniard and spoke Basque well enough to act as an interpreter for his employer when necessary; but his words were few, his aspect gloomy and stern, and such brief information as he vouchsafed, disquieting in the extreme. His master, he said, was a wise man; he spent all his time reading books; he ate no flesh; he was of no known country; he spoke the language of the Apostles and had talked with blessed Lazarus after his return from the grave; and when he sat alone in his chamber by night, the angels of God came and conversed with him in celestial harmonies.

This was terrifying news. The few dozen villagers avoided the little cottage, especially at night-time; and when the pale stranger was seen coming down the mountain path, folded in his black robe and bearing one of his magic tomes beneath his arm, the women pushed their children within doors, and made the sign of the cross.

Nevertheless, it was a child that first made the personal acquaintance of the magician. The small son of the Widow Etcheverry, a child of bold and inquisitive disposition, went one evening adventuring into the unhallowed neighbourhood. He was missing for two hours, during which his mother, in a frenzy of anxiety, had called the neighbours about her and summoned the priest, who had unhappily been called away on business to the town. Suddenly, however, the child reappeared, well and cheerful, with a strange story to tell.

He had crept up close to the magician's house (the bold, wicked child, did ever you hear the like?) and climbed into a tree to spy upon the stranger (Jesu-Maria!) and he saw a light in the window, and strange shapes moving about and shadows going to and fro within the room. And then there came a strain of music so ravishing it drew the very heart out of his body, as though all the stars were singing together. (Oh, my precious treasure! The wizard has stolen the heart out of him, alas! alas!) Then the cottage door opened and the wizard came out and with him a great company of familiar spirits. One of them had wings like a seraph and talked in an unknown tongue, and another was like a wee man, no higher than your knee, with a black face and a white beard, and he sat on the wizard's shoulder and whispered in his ear. And the heavenly music played louder and louder. And the wizard had a pale flame all about his head, like the pictures of the saints. (Blessed St James of Compostella, be merciful to us all! And what then?) Why then he, the boy, had been very much frightened and wished he had not come, but the little dwarf spirit had seen him and jumped into the tree after him, climbing--oh! so fast! And he had tried to climb higher and had slipped and fallen to the ground. (Oh, the poor, wicked, brave, bad boy!)

Then the wizard had come and picked him up and spoken strange words to him and all the pain had gone away from the places where he had bumped himself (Marvellous! marvellous!), and he had carried him into the house. And inside, it was like the streets of Heaven, all gold and glittering. And the familiar spirits had sat beside the fire, nine in number, and the music had stopped playing. But the wizard's servant had brought him marvellous fruits in a silver dish, like fruits of Paradise, very sweet and delicious, and he had eaten them, and drunk a strange, rich drink from a goblet covered with red and blue jewels. Oh, yes--and there had been a tall crucifix on the wall, big, big, with a lamp burning before it and a strange sweet perfume like the smell in church on Easter Day.

(A crucifix? That was strange. Perhaps the magician was not so wicked after all. And what next?)

Next, the wizard's servant had told him not to be afraid, and had asked his name and his age and whether he could repeat his Paternoster. So he had said the prayer and the Ave Maria and part of the Credo, but the Credo was long and he had forgotten what came after 'ascendit in caelum.' So the wizard had prompted him and they had finished saying it together. And the wizard had pronounced the sacred names and words without flinching and in the right order, so far as he could tell. And then the servant had asked further about himself and his family, and he had told about the death of the black goat and about his sister's lover, who had left her because she had not so much money as the merchant's daughter. Then the wizard and his servant had spoken together and laughed, and the servant had said: 'My master gives this message to your sister: that where there is no love there is no wealth, but he that is bold shall have gold for the asking.' And with that, the wizard had put forth his hand into the air and taken from it--out of the empty air, yes, truly--one, two, three, four, five pieces of money and given them to him. And he was afraid to take them till he had made the sign of the cross upon them, and then, as they did not vanish or turn into fiery serpents, he had taken them, and here they were!

So the gold pieces were examined and admired in fear and trembling, and then, by grandfather's advice, placed under the feet of the image of Our Lady, after a sprinkling with Holy Water for their better purification. And on the next morning, as they were still there, they were shown to the priest, who arrived, tardy and flustered upon his last night's summons, and by him pronounced to be good Spanish coin, whereof one piece being devoted to the Church to put all right with Heaven, the rest might be put to secular uses without peril to the soul. After which, the good padre made his hasty way to the cottage, and returned, after an hour, filled with good reports of the wizard.

'For, my children,' said he, 'this is no evil sorcerer, but a Christian man, speaking the language of the Faith. He and I have conversed together with edification. Moreover, he keeps very good wine and is altogether a very worthy person. Nor did I perceive any familiar spirits or flaming apparitions; but it is true that there is a crucifix and also a very handsome Testament with pictures in gold and colour. Benedicite, my children. This is a good and learned man.'

And away he went back to his presbytery; and that winter the chapel of Our Lady had a new altar-cloth.

After that, each night saw a little group of people clustered at a safe distance to hear the music which poured out from the wizard's windows, and from time to time a few bold spirits would creep up close enough to peer through the chinks of the shutters and glimpse the marvels within.

The wizard had been in residence about a month, and sat one night after his evening meal in conversation with his servant. The black hood was pushed back from his head, disclosing a sleek poll of few hairs, and a pair of rather humorous grey eyes, with a cynical droop of the lids. A glass of Cockburn 1908 stood on the table at his elbow and from the arm of his chair a red-and-green parrot gazed unwinkingly at the fire.

'Time is getting on, Juan,' said the magician. 'This business is very good fun and all that--but is there anything doing with the old lady?'

'I think so, my lord. I have dropped a word or two here and there of marvellous cures and miracles. I think she will come. Perhaps even tonight.'

'Thank goodness! I want to get the thing over before Wetherall comes back, or we may find ourselves in Queer Street. It will take some weeks, you know, before we are ready to move, even if the scheme works at all. Damn it, what's that?'

Juan rose and went into the inner room, to return in a minute carrying the lemur.

'Mickey has been playing with your hair-brushes,' he said indulgently. 'Naughty one, be quiet! Are you ready for a little practice, my lord?'

'Oh, rather, yes! I'm getting quite a dab at this job. If all else fails, I shall try for an engagement with Maskelyne.'

Juan laughed, showing his white teeth. He brought out a set of billiard-balls, coins and other conjuring apparatus, palming and multiplying them negligently as he went. The other took them from him, and the lesson proceeded.

'Hush!' said the wizard, retrieving a ball which had tiresomely slipped from his fingers in the very act of vanishing. 'There's somebody coming up the path.'

He pulled his robe about his face and slipped silently into the inner room. Juan grinned, removed the decanter and glasses, and extinguished the lamp. In the firelight the great eyes of the lemur gleamed strongly as it hung on the back of the high chair. Juan pulled a large folio from the shelf, lit a scented pastille in a curiously shaped copper vase and pulled forward a heavy iron cauldron which stood on the hearth. As he piled the logs about it, there came a knock. He opened the door, the lemur running at his heels.

'Whom do you seek, mother?' he asked, in Basque.

'Is the Wise One at home?'

'His body is at home, mother; his spirit holds converse with the unseen. Enter. What would you with us?'

'I have come, as I said--ah, Mary! Is that a spirit?'

'God made spirits and bodies also. Enter and fear not.'

The old woman came tremblingly forward.

'Hast thou spoken with him of what I told thee?'

'I have. I have shown him the sickness of thy mistress--her husband's sufferings--all.'

'What said he?'

'Nothing; he read in his book.'

'Think you he can heal her?'

'I do not know; the enchantment is a strong one; but my master is mighty for good.'

'Will he see me?'

'I will ask him. Remain here, and beware thou show no fear, whatever befall.'

'I will be courageous,' said the old woman, fingering her beads.

Juan withdrew. There was a nerve-shattering interval. The lemur had climbed up to the back of the chair again and swung, teeth-chattering, among the leaping shadows. The parrot cocked his head and spoke a few gruff words from his corner. An aromatic steam began to rise from the cauldron. Then, slowly into the red light, three, four, seven white shapes came stealthily and sat down in a circle about the hearth. Then, a faint music, that seemed to roll in from leagues away. The flame flickered and dropped. There was a tall cabinet against the wall, with gold figures on it that seemed to move with the moving firelight.

Then, out of the darkness, a strange voice chanted in an unearthly tongue that sobbed and thundered.

Martha's knees gave under her. She sank down. The seven white cats rose and stretched themselves, and came sidling slowly about her. She looked up and saw the wizard standing before her, a book in one hand and a silver wand in the other. The upper part of his face was hidden, but she saw his pale lips move and presently he spoke, in a deep, husky tone that vibrated solemnly in the dim room:

The great syllables went rolling on. Then the wizard paused, and added, in a kinder tone:

'Great stuff, this Homer. "It goes so thunderingly as though it conjured devils". What do I do next?'

The servant had come back, and now whispered in Martha's ear.

'Speak now,' he said. 'The master is willing to help you.'

Thus encouraged, Martha stammered out her request. She had come to ask the Wise Man to help her mistress, who lay under an enchantment. She had brought an offering--the best she could find, for she had not liked to take anything of her master's during his absence. But here were a silver penny, an oat-cake, and a bottle of wine, very much at the wizard's service, if such small matters could please him.

The wizard, setting aside his book, gravely accepted the silver penny, turned it magically into six gold pieces and laid the offering on the table. Over the oat-cake and the wine he showed a little hesitation, but at length, murmuring:

'Ergo omnis longo solvit se Teucria luctu'

(a line notorious for its grave spondaic cadence), he metamorphosed the one into a pair of pigeons and the other into a curious little crystal tree in a metal pot, and set them beside the coins. Martha's eyes nearly started from her head, but Juan whispered encouragingly:

'The good intention gives value to the gift. The master is pleased. Hush!'

The music ceased on a loud chord. The wizard, speaking now with greater assurance, delivered himself with fair accuracy of a page or so from Homer's Catalogue of the Ships, and, drawing from the folds of his robe his long white hand laden with antique rings, produced from mid-air a small casket of shining metal, which he proffered to the suppliant.

'The master says,' prompted the servant, 'that you shall take this casket, and give to your lady of the wafers which it contains, one at every meal. When all have been consumed, seek this place again. And remember to say three Aves and two Paters morning and evening for the intention of the lady's health. Thus, by faith and diligence, the cure may be accomplished.'

Martha received the casket with trembling hands.

'Tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore,' said the wizard, with emphasis. 'Poluphloisboio thalasses. Ne plus ultra. Valete. Plaudite.'

He walked away into the darkness, and the audience was over.

'It is working, then?' said the wizard to Juan.

The time was five weeks later, and five more consignments of enchanted wafers had been ceremoniously dispatched to the grim house on the mountain.

'It is working,' agreed Juan. 'The intelligence is returning, the body is becoming livelier and the hair is growing again.'

'Thank the Lord! It was a shot in the dark, Juan, and even now I can hardly believe that anyone in the world could think of such a devilish trick. When does Wetherall return?'

'In three weeks' time.'

'Then we had better fix our grand finale for today fortnight. See that the mules are ready, and go down to the town and get a message off to the yacht.'

'Yes, my lord.'

'That will give you a week to get clear with the menagerie and the baggage. And--I say, how about Martha? Is it dangerous to leave her behind, do you think?'

'I will try to persuade her to come back with us.'

'Do. I should hate anything unpleasant to happen to her. The man's a criminal lunatic. Oh, lord! I'll be glad when this is over. I want to get into a proper suit of clothes again. What Bunter would say if he saw this--'

The wizard laughed, lit a cigar and turned on the gramophone.

The last act was duly staged a fortnight later.

It had taken some trouble to persuade Martha of the necessity of bringing her mistress to the wizard's house. Indeed, that supernatural personage had been obliged to make an alarming display of wrath and declaim two whole choruses from Euripides before gaining his point. The final touch was put to the terrors of the evening by a demonstration of the ghastly effects of a sodium flame--which lends a very corpse-like aspect to the human countenance, particularly in a lonely cottage on a dark night, and accompanied by incantations and the 'Danse Macabre' of Saint-Satins.

Eventually the wizard was placated by a promise, and Martha departed, bearing with her a charm, engrossed upon parchment, which her mistress was to read and thereafter hang about her neck in a white silk bag.

Considered as a magical formula, the document was perhaps a little unimpressive in its language, but its meaning was such as a child could understand. It was in English, and ran:

'You have been ill and in trouble, but your friends are ready to cure you and help you. Don't be afraid, but do whatever Martha tells you, and you will soon be quite well and happy again.'

'And even if she can't understand it,' said the wizard to his man, 'it can't possibly do any harm.'

The events of that terrible night have become legend in the village. They tell by the fireside with bated breath how Martha brought the strange, foreign lady to the wizard's house, that she might be finally and for ever freed from the power of the Evil One. It was a dark night and a stormy, with the wind howling terribly through the mountains.

The lady had become much better and brighter through the wizard's magic--though this, perhaps, was only a fresh glamour and delusion--and she had followed Martha like a little child on that strange and secret journey. They had crept out very quietly to elude the vigilance of old Tomaso, who had strict orders from the doctor never to let the lady stir one step from the house. As for that, Tomaso swore that he had been cast into an enchanted sleep--but who knows? There may have been no more to it than over-much wine. Martha was a cunning woman, and, some said, little better than a witch herself.

Be that as it might, Martha and the lady had come to the cottage, and there the wizard had spoken likewise. Yes--she who for so long had only grunted like a beast, had talked with the wizard and answered him. Then the wizard had drawn strange signs upon the floor round about the lady and himself. And when the lamp was extinguished, the signs glowed awfully, with a pale light of their own. The wizard also drew a circle about Martha herself, and warned her to keep inside it. Presently they heard a rushing noise, like great wings beating, and all the familiars leaped about, and the little white man with the black face ran up the curtain and swung from the pole. Then a voice cried out: 'He comes! He comes!' and the wizard opened the door of the tall cabinet with gold images upon it, that stood in the centre of the circle, and he and the lady stepped inside it and shut the doors after them.

The rushing sound grew louder and the familiar spirits screamed and chattered--and then, all of a sudden, there was a thunder-clap and a great flash of light and the cabinet was shivered into pieces and fell down. And lo and behold! the wizard and the lady had vanished clean away and were never more seen or heard of.

This was Martha's story, told the next day to her neighbours. How she had escaped from the terrible house she could not remember. But when, some time after, a group of villagers summoned up courage to visit the place again, they found it bare and empty. Lady, wizard, servant, familiars, furniture, bags and baggage--all were gone, leaving not a trace behind them, except a few mysterious lines and figures traced on the floor of the cottage.

This was a wonder indeed. More awful still was the disappearance of Martha herself, which took place three nights afterwards.

Next day, the American doctor returned, to find an empty hearth and a legend.

'Yacht ahoy!'

Langley peered anxiously over the rail of the Abracadabra as the boat loomed out of the blackness. When the first passenger came aboard, he ran hastily to greet him.

'Is it all right, Wimsey?'

'Absolutely all right. She's a bit bewildered, of course--but you needn't be afraid. She's like a child, but she's getting better every day. Bear up, old man--there's nothing to shock you about her.'

Langley moved hesitatingly forward as a muffled female figure was hoisted gently on board.

'Speak to her,' said Wimsey. 'She may or may not recognise you. I can't say.'

Langley summoned up his courage. 'Good evening, Mrs Wetherall,' he said, and held out his hand.

The woman pushed the cloak from her face. Her blue eyes gazed shyly at him in the lamplight--then a smile broke out upon her lips.

'Why, I know you--of course I know you. You're Mr Langley. I'm so glad to see you.'

She clasped his hand in hers.

'Well, Langley,' said Lord Peter, as he manipulated the syphon, 'a more abominable crime it has never been my fortune to discover. My religious beliefs are a little ill-defined, but I hope something really beastly happens to Wetherall in the next world. Say when!

'You know, there were one or two very queer points about that story you told me. They gave me a line on the thing from the start.

'To begin with, there was this extraordinary kind of decay or imbecility settlin' in on a girl in her twenties--so conveniently, too, just after you'd been hangin' round the Wetherall home and showin' perhaps a trifle too much sensibility, don't you see? And then there was this tale of the conditions clearin' up regularly once a year or so--not like any ordinary brain-trouble. Looked as if it was being controlled by somebody.

'Then there was the fact that Mrs Wetherall had been under her husband's medical eye from the beginning, with no family or friends who knew anything about her to keep a check on the fellow. Then there was the determined isolation of her in a place where no doctor could see her and where, even if she had a lucid interval, there wasn't a soul who could understand or be understood by her. Queer, too, that it should be a part of the world where you, with your interests, might reasonably be expected to turn up some day and be treated to a sight of what she had turned into. Then there were Wetherall's well-known researches, and the fact that he kept in touch with a chemist in London.

'All that gave me a theory, but I had to test it before I could be sure I was right. Wetherall was going to America, and that gave me a chance; but of course he left strict orders that nobody should get into or out of his house during his absence. I had, somehow, to establish an authority greater than his over old Martha, who is a faithful soul, God bless her! Hence, exit Lord Peter Wimsey and enter the magician. The treatment was tried and proved successful--hence the elopement and the rescue.

'Well, now, listen--and don't go off the deep end. It's all over now. Alice Wetherall is one of those unfortunate people who suffer from congenital thyroid deficiency. You know the thyroid gland in your throat--the one that stokes the engine and keeps the old brain going. In some people the thing doesn't work properly, and they turn out cretinous imbeciles. Their bodies don't grow and their minds don't work. But feed 'em the stuff, and they come absolutely all right--cheery and handsome and intelligent and lively as crickets. Only, don't you see, you have to keep feeding it to 'em, otherwise they just go back to an imbecile condition.

'Wetherall found this girl when he was a bright young student just learning about the thyroid. Twenty years ago, very few experiments had been made in this kind of treatment, but he was a bit of a pioneer. He gets hold of the kid, works a miraculous cure, and, bein' naturally bucked with himself, adopts her, gets her educated, likes the look of her, and finally marries her. You understand, don't you, that there's nothing fundamentally unsound about those thyroid deficients. Keep 'em going on the little daily dose, and they're normal in every way, fit to live an ordinary life and have ordinary healthy children.

'Nobody, naturally, knew anything about this thyroid business except the girl herself and her husband. All goes well till you come along. Then Wetherall gets jealous--'

'He had no cause.'

Wimsey shrugged his shoulders.

'Possibly, my lad, the lady displayed a preference--we needn't go into that. Anyhow, Wetherall did get jealous and saw a perfectly marvellous revenge in his power. He carried his wife off to the Pyrenees, isolated her from all help, and then simply sat back and starved her of her thyroid extract. No doubt he told her what he was going to do, and why. It would please him to hear her desperate appeals--to let her feel herself slipping back day by day, hour by hour, into something less than a beast--'

'Oh, God!'

'As you say. Of course, after a time, a few months, she would cease to know what was happening to her. He would still have the satisfaction of watching her--seeing her skin thicken, her body coarsen, her hair fall out, her eyes grow vacant, her speech die away into mere animal noises, her brain go to mush, her habits--'

'Stop it, Wimsey.'

'Well, you saw it all yourself. But that wouldn't be enough for him. So, every so often, he would feed her the thyroid again and bring her back sufficiently to realise her own degradation--'

'If only I had the brute here!'

'Just as well you haven't. Well then, one day--by a stroke of luck--Mr Langley, the amorous Mr Langley, actually turns up. What a triumph to let him see--'

Langley stopped him again.

'Right-ho! but it was ingenious, wasn't it? So simple. The more I think of it, the more it fascinates me. But it was just that extra refinement of cruelty that defeated him. Because, when you told me the story, I couldn't help recognising the symptoms of thyroid deficiency, and I thought, "Just supposing"--so I hunted up the chemist whose name you saw on the parcel, and, after unwinding a lot of red tape, got him to admit that he had several times sent Wetherall consignments of thyroid extract. So then I was almost sure, don't you see.

'I got a doctor's advice and a supply of gland extract, hired a tame Spanish conjurer and some performing cats and things, and barged off complete with disguise and a trick cabinet devised by the ingenious Mr Devant. I'm a bit of a conjurer myself, and between us we didn't do so badly. The local superstitions helped, of course, and so did the gramophone records. Schubert's "Unfinished" is first class for producing an atmosphere of gloom and mystery, so are luminous paint and the remnants of a classical education.'

'Look here, Wimsey, will she get all right again?'

'Right as ninepence, and I imagine that any American court would give her a divorce on the grounds of persistent cruelty. After that--it's up to you!'

Lord Peter's friends greeted his reappearance in London with mild surprise.

'And what have you been doing with yourself?' demanded the Hon. Freddy Arbuthnot.

'Eloping with another man's wife,' replied his lordship. 'But only,' he hastened to add, 'in a purely Pickwickian sense. Nothing in it for yours truly. Oh, well! Let's toddle round to the Holborn Empire, and see what George Robey can do for us.'

THE QUEEN'S SQUARE

A Lord Peter Wimsey Story

............

PLAN OF THE BALL-ROOM

A, Stair to Dressing-room and Gallery; B, Stair to Gallery; C, Stair to Musicians' Gallery only; D, Settee where Joan Carstairs sat; E, Settee where Jim Playfair sat; F, Where Waits stood; G, Where Ephraim Dodd sat; H, Guests' 'Sir Roger'; J, Servants' 'Sir Roger'; X X, Hanging Lanterns; O O O O, Arcading.

'You Jack o' Di'monds, you Jack o' Di'monds,' said Mark Sambourne, shaking a reproachful head, 'I know you of old.' He rummaged beneath the white satin of his costume, panelled with gigantic oblongs and spotted to represent a set of dominoes. 'Hang this fancy rig! Where the blazes has the fellow put my pockets? You rob my pocket, yes, you rob-a my pocket, you rob my pocket of silver and go-ho-hold. How much do you make it?' He extracted a fountain-pen and a cheque-book.

'Five-seventeen-six,' said Lord Peter Wimsey. 'That's right, isn't it, partner?' His huge blue-and-scarlet sleeves rustled as he turned to Lady Hermione Creethorpe, who, in her Queen of Clubs costume, looked a very redoubtable virgin, as, indeed, she was.

'Quite right,' said the old lady, 'and I consider that very cheap.'

'We haven't been playing long,' said Wimsey apologetically.

'It would have been more, Auntie,' observed Mrs Wrayburn, 'if you hadn't been greedy. You shouldn't have doubled those four spades of mine.'

Lady Hermione snorted, and Wimsey hastily cut in:

'It's a pity we've got to stop, but Deverill will never forgive us if we're not there to dance Sir Roger. He feels strongly about it. What's the time? Twenty past one. Sir Roger is timed to start sharp at half-past. I suppose we'd better tootle back to the ballroom.'

'I suppose we had,' agreed Mrs Wrayburn. She stood up, displaying her dress, boldly patterned with red and black points of a backgammon board. 'It's very good of you,' she added, as Lady Hermione's voluminous skirts swept through the hall ahead of them, 'to chuck your dancing to give Auntie her bridge. She does so hate to miss it.'

'Not at all,' replied Wimsey. 'It's a pleasure. And in any case I was jolly glad of a rest. These costumes are dashed hot for dancing in.'

'You make a splendid Jack of Diamonds, though. Such a good idea of Lady Deverill's, to make everybody come as a game. It cuts out all those wearisome pierrots and columbines.' They skirted the south-west angle of the ballroom and emerged into the south corridor, lit by a great hanging lantern in four lurid colours. Under the arcading they paused and stood watching the floor, where Sir Charles Deverill's guests were fox-trotting to a lively tune discoursed by the band in the musicians' gallery at the far end. 'Hullo, Giles!' added Mrs Wrayburn, 'you look hot.'

'I am hot,' said Giles Pomfret. 'I wish to goodness I hadn't been so clever about this infernal costume. It's a beautiful billiard-table, but I can't sit down in it.' He mopped his heated brow, crowned with an elegant green lamp-shade. 'The only rest I can get is to hitch my behind on a radiator, and as they're all in full blast, it's not very cooling. Thank goodness, I can always make these damned sandwich boards an excuse to get out of dancing.' He propped himself against the nearest column, looking martyred.

'Nina Hartford comes off best,' said Mrs Wrayburn. 'Waterpolo--so sensible--just a bathing-dress and a ball; though I must say it would look better on a less Restoration figure. You playing-cards are much the prettiest, and I think the chess-pieces run you close. There goes Gerda Bellingham, dancing with her husband--isn't she too marvellous in that red wig? And the bustle and everything--my dear, so attractive. I'm glad they didn't make themselves too Lewis Carroll; Charmian Grayle is the sweetest White Queen--where is she, by the way?'

'I don't like that young woman,' said Lady Hermione; 'she's fast.'

'Dear lady!'

'I've no doubt you think me old-fashioned. Well, I'm glad I am. I say she's fast, and, what's more, heartless. I was watching her before supper, and I'm sorry for Tony Lee. She's been flirting as hard as she can go with Harry Vibart--not to give it a worse name--and she's got Jim Playfair on a string, too. She can't even leave Frank Bellingham alone, though she's staying in his house.'

'Oh, I say, Lady H!' protested Sambourne, 'you're a bit hard on Miss Grayle. I mean, she's an awfully sporting kid and all that.'

'I detest that word "sporting",' snapped Lady Hermione. 'Nowadays it merely means drunk and disorderly. And she's not such a kid either, young man. In three years' time she'll be a hag, if she goes on at this rate.'

'Dear Lady Hermione,' said Wimsey, 'we can't all be untouched by time, like you.'

'You could,' retorted the old lady, 'if you looked after your stomachs and your morals. Here comes Frank Bellingham--looking for a drink, no doubt. Young people today seem to be positively pickled in gin.'

The fox-trot had come to an end, and the Red King was threading his way towards them through a group of applauding couples.

'Hullo, Bellingham!' said Wimsey. 'Your crown's crooked. Allow me.' He set wig and head-dress to rights with skilful fingers. 'Not that I blame you. What crown is safe in these Bolshevik days?'

'Thanks,' said Bellingham. 'I say, I want a drink.'

'What did I tell you?' said Lady Hermione.

'Buzz along, then, old man,' said Wimsey. 'You've got four minutes. Mind you turn up in time for Sir Roger.'

'Right you are. Oh, I'm dancing it with Gerda, by the way. If you see her, you might tell her where I've gone to.'

'We will. Lady Hermione, you're honouring me, of course?'

'Nonsense! You're not expecting me to dance at my age? The Old Maid ought to be a wallflower.'

'Nothing of the sort. If only I'd had the luck to be born earlier, you and I should have appeared side by side, as Matrimony. Of course you're going to dance it with me--unless you mean to throw me over for one of these youngsters.'

'I've no use for youngsters,' said Lady Hermione. 'No guts. Spindle-shanks.' She darted a swift glance at Wimsey's scarlet hose. 'You at least have some suggestion of calves. I can stand up with you without blushing for you.'

Wimsey bowled his scarlet cap and curled wig in deep reverence over the gnarled knuckles extended to him.

'You make me the happiest of men. We'll show them all how to do it. Right hand, left hand, both hands across, back to back, round you go and up the middle. There's Deverill going down to tell the band to begin. Punctual old bird, isn't he? Just two minutes to go.... What's the matter, Miss Carstairs? Lost your partner?'

'Yes--have you seen Tony Lee anywhere?'

'The White King? Not a sign. Nor the White Queen either, I expect they're together somewhere.'

'Probably. Poor old Jimmie Playfair is sitting patiently in the north corridor, looking like Casabianca.'

'You'd better go along and console him,' said Wimsey, laughing.

Joan Carstairs made a face and disappeared in the direction of the buffet, just as Sir Charles Deverill, giver of the party, bustled up to Wimsey and his companions, resplendent in a Chinese costume patterned with red and green dragons, bamboos, circles and characters, and carrying on his shoulder a stuffed bird with an enormous tail.

'Now, now,' he exclaimed, 'come along, come along, come along! All ready for Sir Roger. Got your partner, Wimsey? Ah, yes, Lady Hermione--splendid. You must come and stand next to your dear mother and me, Wimsey. Don't be late, don't be late. We want to dance it right through. The waits will begin at two o'clock--I hope they will arrive in good time. Dear me, dear me! Why aren't the servants in yet? I told Watson--I must go and speak to him.'

He darted away, and Wimsey, laughing, led his partner up to the top of the room, where his mother, the Dowage Duchess of Denver, stood waiting, magnificent as the Queen of Spades.

'Ah! here you are,' said the Duchess placidly. 'Dear Sir Charles--he was getting quite flustered. Such a man for punctuality--he ought to have been a Royalty. A delightful party, Hermoine, isn't it? Sir Roger and the waits--quite medieval--and a Yule-log in the hall, with the steam-radiators and everything--so oppressive!'

'Tumty, tumty, tiddledy, tumty, tumty, tiddledy,' sang Lord Peter, as the band broke into the old tune. 'I do adore this music. Foot it featly here and these--oh! there's Gerda Bellingham. Just a moment! Mrs Bellingham--hi! your royal spouse awaits your Red Majesty's pleasure in the buffet. Do hurry him up. He's only got half a minute.'

The Red Queen smiled at him, her pale face and black eyes startlingly brilliant beneath her scarlet wig and gown.

'I'll bring him up to scratch all right,' she said, and passed on, laughing.

'So she will,' said the Dowager. 'You'll see that young man in the Cabinet before very long. Such a handsome couple on a public platform, and very sound, I'm told, about pigs, and that's so important, the British breakfast-table being what it is.'

Sir Charles Deverill, looking a trifle heated, came hurrying back and took his place at the head of the double line of guests, which now extended three-quarters of the way down the ballroom. At the lower end, just in front of the Musicians' Gallery, the staff had filed in, to form a second Sir Roger, at right angles to the main set. The clock chimed the half-hour. Sir Charles, craning an anxious neck, counted the dancers.

'Eighteen couples. We're two couples short. How vexatious! Who are missing?'

'The Bellinghams?' said Wimsey. 'No, they're here. It's the White King and Queen, Badminton and Diabolo.'

'There's Badminton!' cried Mrs Wrayburn, signally frantically across the room. 'Jim! Jim! Bother! He's gone back again. He's waiting for Charmian Grayle.'

'Well, we can't wait any longer,' said Sir Charles peevishly. 'Duchess, will you lead off?'

The Dowager obediently threw her black velvet train over her arm and skipped away down the centre, displaying an uncommonly neat pair of scarlet ankles. The two lines of dancers, breaking into the hop-and-skip step of the country dance, jigged sympathetically. Below them, the cross lines of black and white and livery coats followed their example with respect. Sir Charles Deverill, dancing solemnly down after the Duchess, joined hands with Nina Hartford from the far end of the line. Tumty, tumty, tiddledy, tumty, tumty, tiddledy . . . the first couple turned outward and led the dancers down. Wimsey, catching the hand of Lady Hermione, stooped with her beneath the arch and came triumphantly up to the top of the room, in a magnificent rustle of silk and satin. 'My love,' sighed Wimsey, 'was clad in the black velvet, and I myself in cramoisie.' The old lady, well pleased, rapped him over the knuckles with her gilt sceptre. Hands clapped merrily.

'Down we go again,' said Wimsey, and the Queen of Clubs and Emperor of the great Mahjongg dynasty twirled and capered in the centre. The Queen of Spades danced up to meet her Jack of Diamonds. 'Bézique,' said Wimsey; 'double Bézique,' as he gave both his hands to the Dowager. Tumty, tumty, tiddledy. He again gave his hand to the Queen of Clubs and led her down. Under their lifted arms the other seventeen couples passed. Then Lady Deverill and her partner followed them down--then five more couples.

'We're working nicely to time,' said Sir Charles, with his eye on the clock. 'I worked it out at two minutes per couple. Ah! here's one of the missing pairs.' He waved an agitated arm. 'Come into the centre--come along--in here.'

A man whose head was decorated with a huge shuttlecock, and Joan Carstairs, dressed as a Diabolo, had emerged from the north corridor. Sir Charles, like a fussy rooster with two frightened hens, guided and pushed them into place between two couples who had not yet done their 'hands across', and heaved a sigh of relief. It would have worried him to see them miss their turn. The clock chimed a quarter to two.

'I say, Playfair, have you seen Charmian Grayle or Tony Lee anywhere about?' asked Giles Pomfret of the Badminton costume. 'Sir Charles is quite upset because we aren't complete.'

'Not a sign of 'em. I was supposed to be dancing this with Charmian, but she vanished upstairs and hasn't come down again. Then Joan came barging along looking for Tony, and we thought we'd better see it through together.'

'Here are the waits coming in,' broke in Joan Carstairs. 'Aren't they sweet? Too-too-truly-rural!'

Between the columns on the north side of the ballroom the waits could be seen filing into place in the corridor, under the command of the Vicar. Sir Roger jigged on his exhausting way. Hands across. Down the centre and up again. Giles Pomfret, groaning, scrambled in his sandwich-boards beneath the lengthening arch of hands for the fifteenth time. Tumty, tiddledy. The nineteenth couple wove their way through the dance. Once again, Sir Charles and the Dowager Duchess, both as fresh as paint, stood at the top of the room. The clapping was loudly renewed; the orchestra fell silent; the guests broke up into groups; the servants arranged themselves in a neat line at the lower end of the room; the clock struck two; and the Vicar, receiving a signal from Sir Charles, held his tuning-fork to his ear and gave forth a sonorous A. The waits burst shrilly into the opening bars of 'Good King Wenceslas'.

It was just as the night was growing darker and the wind blowing stronger that a figure came thrusting its way through the ranks of the singers, and hurried across to where Sir Charles stood; Tony Lee, with his face as white as his costume.

'Charmian . . . in the tapestry room . . . dead . . . strangled.'

Superintendent Johnson sat in the library, taking down the evidence of the haggard revellers, who were ushered in upon him one by one. First, Tony Lee, his haunted eyes like dark hollows in a mask of grey paper.

'Miss Grayle had promised to dance with me the last dance before Sir Roger; it was a fox-trot. I waited for her in the passage under the musicians' gallery. She never came. I did not search for her. I did not see her dancing with anyone else. When the dance was nearly over, I went out into the garden, by way of the service door under the musicians' stair. I stayed in the garden till Sir Roger de Coverley was over--'

'Was anybody with you, sir?'

'No, nobody.'

'You stayed alone in the garden from--yes, from 1.20 to past 2 o'clock. Rather disagreeable, was it not, sir, with the snow on the ground?' The Superintendent glanced keenly from Tony's stained and sodden white shoes to his stained face.

'I didn't notice. The room was hot--I wanted air. I saw the waits arrive at about 1.40--I daresay they saw me. I came in a little after 2 o'clock--'

'By the service door again, sir?'

'No; by the garden door on the other side of the house, at the end of the passage which runs along beside the tapestry room. I heard singing going on in the ballroom and saw two men sitting in the little recess at the foot of the staircase on the left-hand side of the passage. I think one of them was the gardener. I went into the Tapestry Room--'

'With any particular purpose in mind, sir?'

'No--except that I wasn't keen on rejoining the party. I wanted to be quiet.' He paused; the Superintendent said nothing. 'Then I went into the tapestry room. The light was out. I switched it on and saw--Miss Grayle. She was lying close against the radiator. I thought she had fainted. I went over to her and found she was--dead. I only waited long enough to be sure, and then I went into the ballroom and gave the alarm.'

'Thank you, sir. Now, may I ask, what were your relations with Miss Grayle?'

'I--I admired her very much.'

'Engaged to her, sir?'

'No, not exactly.'

'No quarrel--misunderstanding--anything of that sort?'

'Oh, no!'

Superintendent Johnson looked at him again, and again said nothing, but his experienced mind informed him:

'He's lying.'

Aloud he only thanked and dismissed Tony. The White King stumbled drearily out, and the Red King took his place.

'Miss Grayle,' said Frank Bellingham, 'is a friend of my wife and myself; she was staying at our house. Mr Lee is also our guest. We all came in one party. I believe there was some kind of understanding between Miss Grayle and Mr Lee--no actual engagement. She was a very bright, lively, popular girl. I have known her for about six years, and my wife has known her since our marriage. I know of no one who could have borne a grudge against Miss Grayle. I danced with her the last dance but two--it was a waltz. After that came a fox-trot and then Sir Roger. She left me at the end of the waltz; I think she said she was going upstairs to tidy. I think she went out by the door at the upper end of the ballroom. I never saw her again. The ladies' dressing-room is on the second floor, next door to the picture-gallery. You reach it by the staircase that goes up from the garden-passage. You have to pass the door of the tapestry room to get there. The only other way to the dressing-room is by the stair at the east end of the ballroom, which goes up to the picture-gallery. You would then have to pass through the picture-gallery to get to the dressing-room. I know the house well; my wife and I have often stayed here.'

Next came Lady Hermione, whose evidence, delivered at great length, amounted to this:

'Charmian Grayle was a minx and no loss to anybody. I am not surprised that someone has strangled her. Women like that ought to be strangled. I would cheerfully have strangled her myself. She has been making Tony Lee's life a burden to him for the last six weeks. I saw her flirting with Mr Vibart tonight on purpose to make Mr Lee jealous. She made eyes at Mr Bellingham and Mr Playfair. She made eyes at everybody. I should think at least half a dozen people had very good reason to wish her dead.'

Mr Vibart, who arrived dressed in a gaudy Polo costume, and still ludicrously clutching a hobby-horse, said that he had danced several times that evening with Miss Grayle. She was a damn sportin' girl, rattlin' good fun. Well, a bit hot, perhaps, but, dash it all, the poor kid was dead. He might have kissed her once or twice, perhaps, but no harm in that. Well, perhaps poor old Lee did take it a bit hard. Miss Grayle liked pulling Tony's leg. He himself had liked Miss Grayle and was dashed cut-up about the whole beastly business.

Mrs Bellingham confirmed her husband's evidence. Miss Grayle had been their guest, and they were all on the very best of terms. She felt sure that Mr Lee and Miss Grayle had been very fond of one another. She had not seen Miss Grayle during the last three dances, but had attached no importance to that. If she had thought about it at all, she would have supposed Miss Grayle was sitting out with somebody. She herself had not been up to the dressing-room since about midnight, and had not seen Miss Grayle go upstairs. She had first missed Miss Grayle when they all stood up for Sir Roger.

Mrs Wrayburn mentioned that she had seen Miss Carstairs in the ballroom looking for Mr Lee, just as Sir Charles Deverill went down to speak to the band. Miss Carstairs had then mentioned that Mr Playfair was in the north corridor, waiting for Miss Grayle. She could say for certain that the time was then 1.28. She had seen Mr Playfair himself at 1.30. He had looked in from the corridor and gone out again. The whole party had then been standing up together, except Miss Grayle, Miss Carstairs, Mr Lee and Mr Playfair. She knew that, because Sir Charles had counted the couples.

Then came Jim Playfair, with a most valuable piece of evidence.

'Miss Grayle was engaged to me for Sir Roger de Coverley. I went to wait for her in the north corridor as soon as the previous dance was over. That was at 1.25. I sat on the settee in the eastern half of the corridor. I saw Sir Charles go down to speak to the band. Almost immediately afterwards, I saw Miss Grayle come out of the passage under the musicians' gallery and go up the stairs at the end of the corridor. I called out: "Hurry up! they're just going to begin." I do not think she heard me; she did not reply. I am quite sure I saw her. The staircase has open banisters. There is no light in that corner except from the swinging lantern in the corridor, but that is very powerful. I could not be mistaken in the costume. I waited for Miss Grayle till the dance was half over; then I gave it up and joined forces with Miss Carstairs, who had also mislaid her partner.'

The maid in attendance on the dressing-room was next examined. She and the gardener were the only two servants who had not danced Sir Roger. She had not quitted the dressing-room at any time since supper, except that she might have gone as far as the door. Miss Grayle had certainly not entered the dressing-room during the last hour of the dance.

The Vicar, much worried and distressed, said that his party had arrived by the garden door at 1.40. He had noticed a man in a white costume smoking a cigarette in the garden. The waits had removed their outer clothing in the garden passage and then gone out to take up their position in the north corridor. Nobody had passed them till Mr Lee had come in with his sad news.

Mr Ephraim Dodd, the sexton, made an important addition to this evidence. This aged gentleman was, as he confessed, no singer, but was accustomed to go round with the waits to carry the lantern and collecting-box. He had taken a seat in the garden passage 'to rest me pore feet.' He had seen the gentleman come in from the garden 'all in white with a crown on 'is 'ead.' The choir were then singing 'Bring me flesh and bring me wine.' The gentleman had looked about a bit, 'made a face, like,' and gone into the room at the foot of the stairs. He hadn't been absent 'more nor a minute,' when he 'come out faster than he gone in,' and had rushed immediately into the ballroom.

In addition to all this, there was, of course, the evidence of Dr Pattison. He was a guest at the dance, and had hastened to view the body of Miss Grayle as soon as the alarm was given. He was of opinion that she had been brutally strangled by someone standing in front of her. She was a tall, strong girl, and he thought it would have needed a man's strength to overpower her. When he saw her at five minutes past two he concluded that she must have been killed within the last hour, but not within the last five minutes or so. The body was still quite warm, but, since it had fallen close to the hot radiator, they could not rely very much upon that indication.

Superintendent Johnson rubbed a thoughtful ear and turned to Lord Peter Wimsey, who had been able to confirm much of the previous evidence and, in particular, the exact times at which various incidents had occurred. The Superintendent knew Wimsey well, and made no bones about taking him into his confidence.

'You see how it stands, my lord. If the poor young lady was killed when Dr Pattison says, it narrows it down a good bit. She was last seen dancing with Mr Bellingham at--call it 1.20. At 2 o'clock she was dead. That gives us forty minutes. But if we're to believe Mr Playfair, it narrows it down still further. He says he saw her alive just after Sir Charles went down to speak to the band, which you put at 1.28. That means that there's only five people who could possibly have done it, because all the rest were in the ballroom after that, dancing Sir Roger. There's the maid in the dressing-room; between you and me, sir, I think we can leave her out. She's a little slip of a thing, and it's not clear what motive she could have had. Besides, I've known her from a child, and she isn't the sort to do it. Then there's the gardener; I haven't seen him yet, but there again, he's a man I know well, and I'd as soon suspect myself. Well now, there's this Mr Tony Lee, Miss Carstairs, and Mr Playfair himself. The girl's the least probable, for physical reasons, and besides, strangling isn't a woman's crime--not as a rule. But Mr Lee--that's a queer story, if you like. What was he doing all that time out in the garden by himself?'

'It sounds to me,' said Wimsey, 'as if Miss Grayle had given him the push and he had gone into the garden to eat worms.'

'Exactly, my lord; and that's where his motive might come in.'

'So it might,' said Wimsey, 'but look here. There's a couple of inches of snow on the ground. If you can confirm the time at which he went out, you ought to be able to see, from his tracks, whether he came in again before Ephraim Dodd saw him. Also, where he went in the interval and whether he was alone.'

'That's a good idea, my lord. I'll send my sergeant to make inquiries.'

'Then there's Mr Bellingham. Suppose he killed her after the end of his waltz with her. Did anyone see him in the interval between that and the fox-trot?'

'Quite, my lord. I've thought of that. But you see where that leads. It means that Mr Playfair must have been in a conspiracy with him to do it. And from all we hear, that doesn't seem likely.'

'No more it does. In fact, I happen to know that Mr Bellingham and Mr Playfair were not on the best of terms. You can wash that out.'

'I think so, my lord. And that brings us to Mr Playfair. It's him we're relying on for the time. We haven't found anyone who saw Miss Grayle during the dance before his--that was the foxtrot. What was to prevent him doing it then? Wait a bit. What does he say himself? Says he danced the fox-trot with the Duchess of Denver.' The Superintendent's face fell, and he hunted through his notes again. 'She confirms that. Says she was with him during the interval and danced the whole dance with him. Well, my lord, I suppose we can take Her Grace's word for it.'

'I think you can,' said Wimsey, smiling. 'I've known my mother practically since my birth, and have always found her very reliable.'

'Yes, my lord. Well, that brings us to the end of the fox-trot. After that, Miss Carstairs saw Mr Playfair waiting in the north corridor. She says she noticed him several times during the interval and spoke to him. And Mrs Wrayburn saw him there at 1.30 or thereabouts. Then at 1.45 he and Miss Carstairs came and joined the company. Now, is there anyone who can check all these points? That's the next thing we've got to see to.'

Within a very few minutes, abundant confirmation was forthcoming. Mervyn Bunter, Lord Peter's personal man, said that he had been helping to take refreshments along to the buffet. Throughout the interval between the waltz and the fox-trot, Mr Lee had been standing by the service door beneath the musicians' stair, and half-way through the fox-trot he had been seen to go out into the garden by way of the servants' hall. The police-sergeant had examined the tracks in the snow and found that Mr Lee had not been joined by any other person, and that there was only the one set of his footprints, leaving the house by the servants' hall and returning by the garden door near the tapestry room. Several persons were also found who had seen Mr Bellingham in the interval between the waltz and the fox-trot, and who were able to say that he had danced the fox-trot through with Mrs Bellingham, Joan Carstairs had also been seen continuously throughout the waltz and the fox-trot, and during the following interval and the beginning of Sir Roger. Moreover, the servants who had danced at the lower end of the room were positive that from 1.29 to 1.45 Mr Playfair had sat continuously on the settee in the north corridor, except for the few seconds during which he had glanced into the ballroom. They were also certain that during that time no one had gone up the staircase at the lower end of the corridor, while Mr Dodd was equally positive that, after 1.40, nobody except Mr Lee had entered the garden passage or the tapestry room.

Finally, the circle was closed by William Hoggarty, the gardener. He asserted with the most obvious sincerity that from 1.30 to 1.40 he had been stationed in the garden passage to receive the waits and marshal them to their places. During that time, no one had come down the stair from the picture-gallery or entered the Tapestry Room. From 1.40 onwards, he had sat beside Mr Dodd in the passage and nobody had passed him except Mr Lee.

These points being settled, there was no further reason to doubt Jim Playfair's evidence, since his partners were able to prove his whereabouts during the waltz, the fox-trot and the intervening interval. At 1.28 or just after, he had seen Charmian Grayle alive. At 2.00 she had been found dead in the tapestry room. During that interval, no one had been seen to enter the room, and every person had been accounted for.

At 6 o'clock, the exhausted guests had been allowed to go to their rooms, accommodation being provided in the house for those who, like the Bellinghams, had come from a distance, since the Superintendent had announced his intention of interrogating them all afresh later in the day.

This new inquiry produced no result. Lord Peter Wimsey did not take part in it. He and Bunter (who was an expert photographer) occupied themselves in photographing the ballroom and adjacent rooms and corridors from every imaginable point of view, for, as Lord Peter said, 'You never know what may turn out to be relevant.' Late in the afternoon they retired together to the cellar, where with dishes, chemicals and safe-light hastily procured from the local chemist, they proceeded to develop the plates.

'That's the lot, my lord,' observed Bunter at length, sloshing the final plate in the water and tipping it into the hypo. 'You can switch the light on now, my lord.'

Wimsey did so, blinking in the sudden white glare.

'A very hefty bit of work,' said he. 'Hullo! What's that plateful of blood you've got there?'

'That's the red backing they put on these plates, my lord, to obviate halation. You may have observed me washing it off before inserting the plate in the developing-dish. Halation, my lord, is a phenomenon--'

Wimsey was not attending.

'But why didn't I notice it before?' he demanded. 'That stuff looked to me exactly like clear water.'

'So it would, my lord, in the red safe-light. The appearance of whiteness is produced,' added Bunter sententiously, 'by the reflection of all the available light. When all the available light is red, red and white are, naturally, indistinguishable. Similarly, in a green light--'

'Good God!' said Wimsey. 'Wait a moment, Bunter, I must think this out.... Here! damn those plates--let them be. I want you upstairs.'

He led the way at a canter to the ballroom, dark now, with the windows in the south corridor already curtained and only the dimness of the December evening filtering through the high windows of the clerestory above the arcading. He first turned on the three great chandeliers in the ballroom itself. Owing to the heavy oak panelling that rose to the roof at both ends and all four angles of the room, these threw no light at all upon the staircase at the lower end of the north corridor. Next, he turned on the light in the four-sided hanging lantern, which hung in the north corridor above and between the two settees. A vivid shaft of green light immediately flooded the lower half of the corridor and the staircase; the upper half was bathed in strong amber, while the remaining sides of the lantern showed red towards the ballroom and blue towards the corridor wall.

Wimsey shook his head.

'Not much room for error there. Unless--I know! Run, Bunter, and ask Miss Carstairs and Mr Playfair to come here a moment.'

While Bunter was gone, Wimsey borrowed a step-ladder from the kitchen and carefully examined the fixing of the lantern. It was a temporary affair, the lantern being supported by a hook screwed into a beam and lit by means of a flex run from the socket of a permanent fixture at a little distance.

'Now, you two,' said Wimsey, when the two guests arrived, 'I want to make a little experiment. Will you sit down on this settee, Playfair, as you did last night. And you, Miss Carstairs--I picked you out to help because you're wearing a white dress. Will you go up the stairs at the end of the corridor as Miss Grayle did last night. I want to know whether it looks the same to Playfair as it did then--bar all the other people, of course.'

He watched them as they carried out this manoeuvre. Jim Playfair looked puzzled.

'It doesn't seem quite the same, somehow. I don't know what the difference is, but there is a difference.'

Joan, returning, agreed with him.

'I was sitting on that other settee part of the time,' she said, 'and it looks different to me. I think it's darker.'

'Lighter,' said Jim.

'Good!' said Wimsey. 'That's what I wanted you to say. Now, Bunter, swing that lantern through a quarter-turn to the left.'

The moment this was done, Joan gave a little cry.

'That's it! That's it! The blue light! I remember thinking how frosty-faced those poor waits looked as they came in.'

'And you, Playfair?'

'That's right,' said Jim, satisfied. 'The light was red last night. I remember thinking how warm and cosy it looked.'

Wimsey laughed.

'We're on to it, Bunter. What's the chessboard rule? The Queen stands on a square of her own colour. Find the maid who looked after the dressing-room, and ask her whether Mrs Bellingham was there last night between the fox-trot and Sir Roger.'

In five minutes Bunter was back with his report.

'The maid says, my lord, that Mrs Bellingham did not come into the dressing-room at that time. But she saw her come out of the picture-gallery and run downstairs towards the tapestry room just as the band struck up Sir Roger.'

'And that,' said Wimsey, 'was at 1.29.'

'Mrs Bellingham?' said Jim. 'But you said you saw her yourself in the ballroom before 1.30. She couldn't have had time to commit the murder.'

'No, she couldn't,' said Wimsey. 'But Charmian Grayle was dead long before that. It was the Red Queen, not the White, you saw upon the staircase. Find out why Mrs Bellingham lied about her movements, and then we shall know the truth.'

'A very sad affair, my lord,' said Superintendent Johnson, some hours later. 'Mr Bellingham came across with it like a gentleman as soon as we told him we had evidence against his wife. It appears that Miss Grayle knew certain facts about him which would have been very damaging to his political career. She'd been getting money out of him for years. Earlier in the evening she surprised him by making fresh demands. During the last waltz they had together, they went into the tapestry room and a quarrel took place. He lost his temper and laid hands on her. He says he never meant to hurt her seriously, but she started to scream and he took hold of her throat to silence her and--sort of accidentally--throttled her. When he found what he'd done, he left her there and came away, feeling, as he says, all of a daze. He had the next dance with his wife. He told her what had happened, and then discovered that he'd left the little sceptre affair he was carrying in the room with the body. Mrs Bellingham--she's a brave woman--undertook to fetch it back. She slipped through the dark passage under the musicians' gallery--which was empty--and up the stair to the picture-gallery. She did not hear Mr Playfair speak to her. She ran through the gallery and down the other stair, secured the sceptre and hid it under her own dress. Later, she heard from Mr Playfair about what he saw, and realised that in the red light he had mistaken her for the White Queen. In the early hours of this morning, she slipped downstairs and managed to get the lantern shifted round. Of course, she's an accessory after the fact, but she's the kind of wife a man would like to have. I hope they let her off light.'

'Amen!' said Lord Peter Wimsey.

THE NECKLACE OF PEARLS

A Lord Peter Wimsey Story

............

Sir Septimus Shale was accustomed to assert his authority once in the year and once only. He allowed his young and fashionable wife to fill his house with diagrammatic furniture made of steel; to collect advanced artists and anti-grammatical poets; to believe in cocktails and relativity and to dress as extravagantly as she pleased; but he did insist on an old-fashioned Christmas. He was a simple-hearted man, who really liked plum-pudding and cracker mottoes, and he could not get it out of his head that other people, 'at bottom,' enjoyed these things also. At Christmas, therefore, he firmly retired to his country house in Essex, called in the servants to hang holly and mistletoe upon the cubist electric fittings; loaded the steel sideboard with delicacies from Fortnum & Mason; hung up stockings at the heads of the polished walnut bedsteads; and even, on this occasion only, had the electric radiators removed from the modernist grates and installed wood fires and a Yule log. He then gathered his family and friends about him, filled them with as much Dickensian good fare as he could persuade them to swallow, and, after their Christmas dinner, set them down to play 'Charades' and 'Clumps' and 'Animal, Vegetable and Mineral' in the drawing-room, concluding these diversions by 'Hide-and-Seek' in the dark all over the house. Because Sir Septimus was a very rich man, his guests fell in with this invariable programme, and if they were bored, they did not tell him so.

Another charming and traditional custom which he followed was that of presenting to his daughter Margharita a pearl on each successive birthday--this anniversary happening to coincide with Christmas Eve. The pearls now numbered twenty, and the collection was beginning to enjoy a certain celebrity, and had been photographed in the Society papers. Though not sensationally large--each one being about the size of a marrowfat pea--the pearls were of very great value. They were of exquisite colour and perfect shape and matched to a hair's-weight. On this particular Christmas Eve, the presentation of the twenty-first pearl had been the occasion of a very special ceremony. There was a dance and there were speeches. On the Christmas night following, the more restricted family party took place, with the turkey and the Victorian games. There were eleven guests, in addition to Sir Septimus and Lady Shale and their daughter, nearly all related or connected to them in some way: John Shale, a brother, with his wife and their son and daughter Henry and Betty; Betty's fiancé, Oswald Truegood, a young man with parliamentary ambitions; George Comphrey, a cousin of Lady Shale's, aged about thirty and known as a man about town; Lavinia Prescott, asked on George's account; Joyce Trivett, asked on Henry Shale's account; Richard and Beryl Dennison, distant relations of Lady Shale, who lived a gay and expensive life in town on nobody precisely knew what resources; and Lord Peter Wimsey, asked, in a touching spirit of unreasonable hope, on Margharita's account. There were also, of course, William Norgate, secretary to Sir Septimus, and Miss Tomkins, secretary to Lady Shale, who had to be there because, without their calm efficiency, the Christmas arrangements could not have been carried through.

Dinner was over--a seemingly endless succession of soup, fish, turkey, roast beef, plum-pudding, mince-pies, crystallised fruit, nuts and five kinds of wine, presided over by Sir Septimus, all smiles, by Lady Shale, all mocking deprecation, and by Margharita, pretty and bored, with the necklace of twenty-one pearls gleaming softly on her slender throat. Gorged and dyspeptic and longing only for the horizontal position, the company had been shepherded into the drawing-room and set to play 'Musical Chairs' (Miss Tomkins at the piano), 'Hunt the Slipper' (slipper provided by Miss Tomkins), and 'Dumb Crambo' (costumes by Miss Tomkins and Mr William Norgate). The back drawing- room (for Sir Septimus clung to these old-fashioned names) provided an admirable dressing-room, being screened by folding doors from the large drawing-room in which the audience sat on aluminium chairs, scrabbling uneasy toes on a floor of black glass under the tremendous illumination of electricity reflected from a brass ceiling.

It was William Norgate who, after taking the temperature of the meeting, suggested to Lady Shale that they should play at something less athletic. Lady Shale agreed and, as usual, suggested bridge. Sir Septimus, as usual, blew the suggestion aside.

'Bridge? Nonsense! Nonsense! Play bridge every day of your lives. This is Christmas time. Something we can all play together. How about "Animal, Vegetable and Mineral"?'

This intellectual pastime was a favourite with Sir Septimus; he was rather good at putting pregnant questions. After a brief discussion, it became evident that this game was an inevitable part of the programme. The party settled down to it, Sir Septimus undertaking to 'go out' first and set the thing going.

Presently they had guessed among other things Miss Tomkins's mother's photograph, a gramophone record of 'I want to be happy' (much scientific research into the exact composition of records, settled by William Norgate out of the Encyclopaedia Britannica), the smallest stickleback in the stream at the bottom of the garden, the new planet Pluto, the scarf worn by Mrs Dennison (very confusing, because it was not silk, which would be animal, or artificial silk, which would be vegetable, but made of spun glass--mineral, a very clever choice of subject), and had failed to guess the Prime Minister's wireless speech--which was voted not fair, since nobody could decide whether it was animal by nature or a kind of gas. It was decided that they should do one more word and then go on to 'Hide-and-Seek.' Oswald Truegood had retired into the back room and shut the door behind him while the party discussed the next subject of examination, when suddenly Sir Septimus broke in on the argument by calling to his daughter.

'Hullo, Margy! What have you done with your necklace?'

'I took it off, Dad, because I thought it might get broken in "Dumb Crambo." It's over here on this table. No, it isn't. Did you take it, mother?'

'No, I didn't. If I'd seen it, I should have. You are a careless child.'

'I believe you've got it yourself, Dad. You're teasing.'

Sir Septimus denied the accusation with some energy. Everybody got up and began to hunt about. There were not many places in that bare and polished room where a necklace could be hidden. After ten minutes' fruitless investigation, Richard Dennison, who had been seated next to the table where the pearls had been placed, began to look rather uncomfortable.

'Awkward, you know,' he remarked to Wimsey.

At this moment, Oswald Truegood put his head through the folding-doors and asked whether they hadn't settled on something by now, because he was getting the fidgets.

This directed the attention of the searchers to the inner room. Margharita must have been mistaken. She had taken it in there, and it had got mixed up with the dressing-up clothes somehow. The room was ransacked. Everything was lifted up and shaken. The thing began to look serious. After half an hour of desperate energy it became apparent that the pearls were nowhere to be found.

'They must be somewhere in these two rooms, you know,' said Wimsey. 'The back drawing-room has no door and nobody could have gone out of the front drawing-room without being seen. Unless the windows--'

No. The windows were all guarded on the outside by heavy shutters which it needed two footmen to take down and replace. The pearls had not gone out that way. In fact, the mere suggestion that they had left the drawing-room at all was disagreeable. Because--because--

It was William Norgate, efficient as ever, who coldly and boldly faced the issue.

'I think, Sir Septimus, it would be a relief to the minds of everybody present if we could all be searched.'

Sir Septimus was horrified, but the guests, having found a leader, backed up Norgate. The door was locked, and the search was conducted--the ladies in the inner room and the men in the outer.

Nothing resulted from it except some very interesting information about the belongings habitually carried about by the average man and woman. It was natural that Lord Peter Wimsey should possess a pair of forceps, a pocket lens and a small folding foot-rule--was he not a Sherlock Holmes in high life? But that Oswald Truegood should have two liver-pills in a screw of paper and Henry Shale a pocket edition of The Odes of Horace was unexpected. Why did John Shale distend the pockets of his dress-suit with a stump of red sealing-wax, an ugly little mascot and a five-shilling piece? George Comphrey had a pair of folding scissors, and three wrapped lumps of sugar, of the sort served in resaurants and dining-cars--evidence of a not uncommon form of kleptomania; but that the tidy and exact Norgate should burden himself with a reel of white cotton, three separate lengths of string and twelve safety-pins on a card seemed really remarkable till one remembered that he had superintended all the Christmas decorations. Richard Dennison, amid some confusion and laughter, was found to cherish a lady's garter, a powder-compact and half a potato; the last-named, he said, was a prophylactic against rheumatism (to which, he was subject), while the other objects belonged to his wife. On the ladies' side, the more striking exhibits were a little book on palmistry, three invisible hair-pins and a baby's photograph (Miss Tomkins); a Chinese trick cigarette-case with a secret compartment (Beryl Dennison); a very private letter and an outfit for mending stocking-ladders (Lavinia Prescott); and a pair of eyebrow tweezers and a small packet of white powder, said to be for headaches (Betty Shale). An agitating moment followed the production from Joyce Trivett's handbag of a small string of pearls--but it was promptly remembered that these had come out of one of the crackers at dinner-time, and they were, in fact, synthetic. In short, the search was unproductive of anything beyond a general shamefacedness and the discomfort always produced by undressing and re-dressing in a hurry at the wrong time of the day.

It was then that somebody, very grudgingly and haltingly, mentioned the horrid word 'Police.' Sir Septimus, naturally, was appalled by the idea. It was disgusting. He would not allow it. The pearls must be somewhere. They must search the rooms again. Could not Lord Peter Wimsey, with his experience of--er--mysterious happenings, do something to assist them?

'Eh?' said his lordship. 'Oh, by Jove,--yes--by all means, certainly. That is to say, provided nobody supposes--eh, what? I mean to say, you don't know that I'm not a suspicious character, do you, what?'

Lady Shale interposed with authority.

'We don't think anybody ought to be suspected,' she said, 'but, if we did, we'd know it couldn't be you. You know far too much about crimes to want to commit one.'

'All right,' said Wimsey. 'But after the way the place has been gone over--' He shrugged his shoulders.

'Yes, I'm afraid you won't be able to find any footprints,' said Margharita. 'But we may have overlooked something.'

Wimsey nodded.

'I'll try. Do you all mind sitting down on your chairs in the outer room and staying there. All except one of you--I'd better have a witness to anything I do or find. Sir Septimus--you'd be the best person, I think.'

He shepherded them to their places and began a slow circuit of the two rooms, exploring every surface, gazing up to the polished brazen ceiling and crawling on hands and knees in the approved fashion across the black and shining desert of the floors. Sir Septimus followed, staring when Wimsey stared, bending with his hands upon his knees when Wimsey crawled, and puffing at intervals with astonishment and chagrin. Their progress rather resembled that of a man taking out a very inquisitive puppy for a very leisurely constitutional. Fortunately, Lady Shale's taste in furnishing made investigation easier; there were scarcely any nooks or corners where anything could be concealed.

They reached the inner drawing-room, and here the dressing-up clothes were again minutely examined, but without result. Finally, Wimsey lay down flat on his stomach to squint under a steel cabinet which was one of the very few pieces of furniture which possessed short legs. Something about it seemed to catch his attention. He rolled up his sleeve and plunged his arm into the cavity, kicked convulsively in the effort to reach farther than was humanly possible, pulled out from his pocket and extended his folding foot-rule, fished with it under the cabinet and eventually succeeded in extracting what he sought.

It was a very minute object--in fact, a pin. Not an ordinary pin, but one resembling those used by entomologists to impale extremely small moths on the setting-board. It was about three-quarters of an inch in length, as fine as a very fine needle, with a sharp point and a particularly small head.

'Bless my soul!' said Sir Septimus. 'What's that?'

'Does anybody here happen to collect moths or beetles or anything?' asked Wimsey, squatting on his haunches and examining the pin.

'I'm pretty sure they don't,' replied Sir Septimus. 'I'll ask them.'

'Don't do that.' Wimsey bent his head and stared at the floor, from which his own face stared meditatively back at him.

'I see,' said Wimsey presently. 'That's how it was done. All right, Sir Septimus. I know where the pearls are, but I don't know who took them. Perhaps it would be as well--for everybody's satisfaction--just to find out. In the meantime they are perfectly safe. Don't tell anyone that we've found this pin or that we've discovered anything. Send all these people to bed. Lock the drawing-room door and keep the key, and we'll get our man--or woman--by breakfast-time.'

'God bless my soul,' said Sir Septimus, very much puzzled.

Lord Peter Wimsey kept careful watch that night upon the drawing-room door. Nobody, however, came near it. Either the thief suspected a trap or he felt confident that any time would do to recover the pearls. Wimsey, however, did not feel that he was wasting his time. He was making a list of people who had been left alone in the back drawing-room during the playing of 'Animal, Vegetable or Mineral.' The list ran as follows.

Sir Septimus Shale

Lavinia Prescott

William Norgate

Joyce Trivett and Henry Shale (together, because they had claimed to be incapable of guessing anything unaided)

Mrs Dennison

Betty Shale

George Comphrey

Richard Dennison

Miss Tomkins

Oswald Truegood.

He also made out a list of the persons to whom pearls might be useful or desirable. Unfortunately, this list agreed in almost all respects with the first (always excepting Sir Septimus) and so was not very helpful. The two secretaries had both come well recommended, but that was exactly what they would have done had they come with ulterior designs; the Dennisons were notorious livers from hand to mouth; Betty Shale carried mysterious white powders in her handbag, and was known to be in with a rather rapid set in town; Henry was a harmless dilettante, but Joyce Trivett could twist him round her little finger and was what Jane Austen liked to call 'expensive and dissipated'; Comphrey speculated; Oswald Truegood was rather frequently present at Epsom and Newmarket--the search for motives was only too fatally easy.

When the second housemaid and the under-footman appeared in the passage with household implements, Wimsey abandoned his vigil, but he was down early to breakfast. Sir Septimus with his wife and daughter were down before him, and a certain air of tension made itself felt. Wimsey, standing on the hearth before the fire, made conversation about the weather and politics.

The party assembled gradually, but, as though by common consent, nothing was said about pearls until after breakfast, when Oswald Truegood took the bull by the horns.

'Well now!' said he. 'How's the detective getting along? Got your man, Wimsey?'

'Not yet,' said Wimsey easily.

Sir Septimus, looking at Wimsey as though for his cue, cleared his throat and dashed into speech.

'All very tiresome,' he said, 'all very unpleasant. Hr'mr. Nothing for it but the police, I'm afraid. Just at Christmas, too. Hr'rm. Spoilt the party. Can't stand seeing all this stuff about the place.' He waved his hand towards the festoons of evergreens and coloured paper that adorned the walls. 'Take it all down, eh, what? No heart in it. Hr'rm. Burn the lot.'

'What a pity, when we worked so hard over it,' said Joyce.

'Oh, leave it, Uncle,' said Henry Shale. 'You're bothering too much about the pearls. They're sure to turn up.'

'Shall I ring for James?' suggested William Norgate.

'No,' interrupted Comphrey, 'let's do it ourselves. It'll give us something to do and take our minds off our troubles.'

'That's right,' said Sir Septimus. 'Start right away. Hate the sight of it.'

He savagely hauled a great branch of holly down from the mantelpiece and flung it, crackling, into the fire.

'That's the stuff,' said Richard Dennison. 'Make a good old blaze!' He leapt up from the table and snatched the mistletoe from the chandelier. 'Here goes! One more kiss for somebody before it's too late.'

'Isn't it unlucky to take it down before the New Year?' suggested Miss Tomkins.

'Unlucky be hanged. We'll have it all down. Off the stairs and out of the drawing-room too. Somebody go and collect it.'

'Isn't the drawing-room locked?' asked Oswald.

'No. Lord Peter says the pearls aren't there, wherever else they are, so it's unlocked. That's right, isn't it, Wimsey?'

'Quite right. The pearls were taken out of these rooms. I can't yet tell you how, but I'm positive of it. In fact, I'll pledge my reputation that wherever they are, they're not up there.'

'Oh, well,' said Comphrey, 'in that case, have at it! Come along, Lavinia--you and Dennison do the drawing-room and I'll do the back room. Well have a race.'

'But if the police are coming in,' said Dennison, 'oughtn't everything to be left just as it is?'

'Damn the police!' shouted Sir Septimus. 'They don't want evergreens.'

Oswald and Margharita were already pulling the holly and ivy from the staircase, amid peals of laughter. The party dispersed. Wimsey went quietly upstairs and into the drawing-room, where the work of demolition was taking place at a great rate, George having bet the other two ten shillings to a tanner that they would not finish their part of the job before he finished his.

'You mustn't help,' said Lavinia, laughing to Wimsey. 'It wouldn't be fair.'

Wimsey said nothing, but waited till the room was clear. Then he followed them down again to the hall, where the fire was sending up a great roaring and spluttering, suggestive of Guy Fawkes night. He whispered to Sir Septimus, who went forward and touched George Comphrey on the shoulder.

'Lord Peter wants to say something to you, my boy,' he said.

Comphrey started and went with him a little reluctantly, as it seemed. He was not looking very well.

'Mr Comphrey,' said Wimsey, 'I fancy these are some of your property.' He held out the palm of his hand, in which rested twenty-two fine, small-headed pins.

'Ingenious,' said Wimsey, 'but something less ingenious would have served his turn better. It was very unlucky, Sir Septimus, that you should have mentioned the pearls when you did. Of course, he hoped that the loss wouldn't be discovered till we'd chucked guessing games and taken to "Hide-and-Seek''. Then the pearls might have been anywhere in the house, we shouldn't have locked the drawing-room door, and he could have recovered them at his leisure. He had had this possibility in his mind when he came here, obviously, and that was why he brought the pins, and Miss Shale's taking off the necklace to play "Dumb Crambo" gave him his opportunity.

'He had spent Christmas here before, and knew perfectly well that "Animal, Vegetable and Mineral" would form part of the entertainment. He had only to gather up the necklace from the table when it came to his turn to retire, and he knew he could count on at least five minutes by himself while we were all arguing about the choice of a word. He had only to snip the pearls from the string with his pocket-scissors, burn the string in the grate and fasten the pearls to the mistletoe with the fine pins. The mistletoe was hung on the chandelier, pretty high--it's a lofty room--but he could easily reach it by standing on the glass table, which wouldn't show footmarks, and it was almost certain that nobody would think of examining the mistletoe for extra berries. I shouldn't have thought of it myself if I hadn't found the pin which he had dropped. That gave me the idea that the pearls had been separated and the rest was easy. I took the pearls off the mistletoe last night--the clasp was there, too, pinned among the holly-leaves. Here they are. Comphrey must have got a nasty shock this morning. I knew he was our man when he suggested that the guests should tackle the decorations themselves and that he should do the back drawing-room--but I wish I had seen his face when he came to the mistletoe and found the pearls gone.'

'And you worked it all out when you found the pin?' said Sir Septimus.

'Yes; I knew then where the pearls had gone to.'

'But you never even looked at the mistletoe.'

'I saw it reflected in the black glass floor, and it struck me then how much the mistletoe berries looked like pearls.'

THE POISONED DOW '08