Murder Must Advertise

Chapter XV. Sudden Decease of a Man in Dress Clothes

Chief-Inspector Parker continued to be disturbed in his mind. There had been another fiasco in Essex. A private motor-boat, suspected of being concerned in the drug-traffic, had been seized and searched without result-except, of course, the undesired result of giving the alarm to the parties concerned, if they were concerned. Further, a fast car, which had attracted attention by its frequent midnight excursions from the coast to the capital, had been laboriously tracked to its destination, and proved to belong to a distinguished member of the diplomatic corps, engaged on extremely incognito visits to a lady established in a popular seaside resort. Mr. Parker, still incapacitated from personal attendance upon midnight expeditions, was left with the gloomy satisfaction of saying that everything always went wrong when he wasn’t there himself. He was also unreasonably annoyed with Wimsey, as the original cause of his incapacity.

Nor had the investigation at the White Swan so far borne very much fruit. For a week in succession, tactful and experienced policemen had draped themselves over its bar, chatting to all and sundry about greyhounds, goats, parrots and other dumb friends of man, without receiving any return in the shape of mysterious packets.

The old man with the parrot-story had been traced easily enough. He was an habitué. He sat there every morning and every afternoon, and had a fund of such stories. The patient police made a collection of them. The proprietor-against whose character nothing could be proved-knew this customer well. He was a superannuated Covent Garden porter, who lived on an old-age pension, and every corner of his inoffensive life was open to the day. This excellent old gentleman, when questioned, recalled the conversation with Mr. Hector Puncheon, but was positive that he had never seen any of the party before, except the two carters, whom he knew well enough. These men also agreed that the gentleman in dress clothes and the little man who had talked about greyhounds were equally unknown to them. It was not, however, unusual for gentlemen in dress clothes to drop in at the Swan by way of a good finish to a lively night-or for gentlemen without dress clothes, either. Nothing threw any light on the mystery of the packet of cocaine.

Parker was, however, roused to some enthusiasm by Wimsey’s report of his conversations with Milligan.

“What incredible luck you do have, Peter. People who, in the ordinary way, would avoid you like the plague, gatecrash into your parties at the psychological moment and offer you their noses to lead them by.”

“Not so much luck, old man,” said Wimsey. “Good guidance, that’s all. I sent the fair Dian an anonymous letter, solemnly warning her against myself and informing her that if she wanted to know the worst about me, she had only to inquire at my brother’s address. It’s a curious thing, but people cannot resist anonymous letters. It’s like free sample offers. They appeal to all one’s lower instincts.”

“You are a devil,” said Parker. “One of these days you’ll get into trouble. Suppose Milligan had recognized you.”

“I prepared his mind to accept a striking resemblance.”

“I wonder he didn’t see through it. Family resemblances don’t usually extend to details of teeth and so on.”

“I never let him get close enough to study details.”

“That ought to have made him suspicious.”

“No, because I was rude to him about it. He believed me all the time, simply because I was rude. Everybody suspects an eager desire to curry favour, but rudeness, for some reason, is always accepted as a guarantee of good faith. The only man who ever managed to see through rudeness was St. Augustine, and I don’t suppose Milligan reads the Confessions. Besides, he wanted to believe in me. He’s greedy.”

“Well, no doubt you know your own business. But about this Victor Dean affair. Do you really believe that the head of this particular dope-gang is on Pym’s staff? It sounds quite incredible.”

“That’s an excellent reason for believing it. I don’t mean in a credo quia impossible sense, but merely because the staff of a respectable advertising agency would be such an excellent hiding-place for a big crook. The particular crookedness of advertising is so very far removed from the crookedness of dope-trafficking.”

“Why? As far as I can make out, all advertisers are dope-merchants.”

“So they are. Yes, now I come to think of it, there is a subtle symmetry about the thing which is extremely artistic. All the same, Charles, I must admit that I find it difficult to go the whole way with Milligan. I have carefully reviewed the staff of Pym’s, and I have so far failed to find any one who looks in the least like a Napoleon of crime.”

“But you seem convinced that the murder of Victor Dean was an inside job. Or do you now think that some stranger was hiding on the roof and did away with Dean because he was on the point of splitting on the gang? I suppose an outsider could get access to Pym’s roof?”

“Oh, easily. But that wouldn’t explain the catapult in Mrs. Johnson’s desk.”

“Nor the attack on me.”

“Not if the same person that killed Dean attacked you too.”

“Meaning that it might have been Willis? I take it that Willis is not the Napoleon of crime, anyhow.”

“Willis isn’t a Napoleon of anything. Nor, I fancy, is the chap with the catapult. If he had been, he’d have had the common sense to use his own catapult and burn it afterwards. As I see him, he is a person of considerable ingenuity but limited foresight; a person who snatches at the first thing that is offered him and does his best with it, but lacks just that little extra bit of consideration that would make the thing a real success. He lies from hand to mouth, as you may say. I dare say I could spot him without much difficulty-but that’s not what you want, is it? You’d rather have the Napoleon of the dope-traffic, wouldn’t you? If he exists, that is.”

“Certainly I should,” said Parker, emphatically.

“That’s what I thought. What, if you come to think of it, is a trifle like an odd murder or assault, compared with a method of dope-running that baffles Scotland Yard? Nothing at all.”

“It isn’t, really,” replied Parker, seriously. “Dope-runners are murderers, fifty times over. They slay hundreds of people, soul and body, besides indirectly causing all sorts of crimes among the victims. Compared with that, slugging one inconsiderable pip-squeak over the head is almost meritorious.”

“Really, Charles! for a man of your religious upbringing, your outlook is positively enlightened.”

“Not so irreligious, either. Fear not him that killeth, but him that hath power to cast into hell. How about it?”

“How indeed? Hang the one and give the other a few weeks in jail-or, if of good social position, bind him over or put him on remand for six months under promise of good behaviour.”

Parker made a wry mouth.

“I know, old man, I know. But where would be the good of hanging the wretched victims or the smaller fry? There would always be others. We want the top people. Take even this man, Milligan, who’s a pest of the first water-with no excuse for it, because he isn’t an addict himself-but suppose we punish him here and now. They’d only start again, with a new distributor and a new house for him to run his show in, and what would anybody gain by that?”

“Exactly,” said Wimsey. “And how much better off will you be, even if you catch the man above Milligan? The same thing will apply.”

Parker made a hopeless gesture.

“I don’t know, Peter. It’s no good worrying about it. My job is to catch the heads of the gangs if I can, and, after that, as many as possible of the little people. I can’t overthrow cities and burn the population.”

“’Tis the Last Judgment’s fire must cure this place,” said Wimsey, “calcine its clods and set its prisoners free. There are times, Charles, when even the unimaginative decency of my brother and the malignant virtue of his wife appear to me admirable. I could hardly say more.”

“You have a certain decency of your own, Peter,” replied Parker, “which I like better, because it is not negative.” Having given voice to this atrocious outburst of sentiment, he became extremely red in the face, and hastened to cover up his lapse from good taste. “But at the present moment I must say you are not being very helpful. You have been investigating a crime-if it is a crime-for some weeks now, and the only tangible result is a broken collar-bone for me. If you could confine yourself to breaking your own collar-bone-”

“It has been broken before now,” said Wimsey, “and in no less good a cause. You shouldn’t shove your beastly collarbone into my affairs.”

At this moment, the telephone-bell rang. It was half-past eight in the morning, and Wimsey had been consuming an early breakfast with his brother-in-law, prior to their departure each to his own place of business. Lady Mary, who had been supplying their bodily necessities and leaving them to their argument, took up the receiver.

“It’s from the Yard, darling. Something about that man Puncheon.”

Parker took the instrument and plunged into an animated discussion, which ended with his saying:

“Send Lumley and Eagles along at once, and tell Puncheon to keep in touch with you. I’m coming.”

“What’s up?” inquired Wimsey.

“Our little friend Puncheon has seen his bloke in dress clothes again,” said Parker, cursing as he tried to get his coat over his damaged shoulder. “Saw him hanging about the Morning Star offices this morning, buying an early paper or something. Been chasing him ever since, apparently. Landed out at Finchley, of all places. Says he couldn’t get on to the ’phone before. I must push off. See you later. Cheerio, Mary dear. Bung-ho, Peter.”

He bounced out in a hurry.

“Well, well,” said Wimsey. He pushed back his chair and sat staring vacantly at the wall opposite, on which hung a calendar. Then, emptying the sugar-bowl on the table-cloth with a jerk, he began, frowning hideously, to built a lofty tower with its contents. Mary recognized the signs of inspiration and stole quietly away to her household duties.

Forty-five minutes afterwards she returned. Her brother had gone, and the banging of the flat-door after him had flung his column of sugar-lumps in disorder across the table, but she could see that it had been a tall one. Mary sighed.

“Being Peter’s sister is rather like being related to the public hangman,” she thought, echoing the words of a lady with whom she had otherwise little in common. “And being married to a policeman is almost worse. I suppose the hangman’s relatives are delighted when business is looking up. Still,” she thought, being not without humour, “one might be connected with an undertaker, and rejoice over the deaths of the righteous, which would be infinitely worse.”

Sergeant Lumley and P.C. Eagles found no Hector Puncheon at the small eating-house in Finchley from which he had telephoned. They did, however, find a message.

“He has had breakfast and is off again,” said the note, written hurriedly on a page torn from the reporter’s notebook. “I will telephone to you here as soon as I can. I’m afraid he knows I am following him.”

“There,” said Sergeant Lumley, gloomily. “That’s an amachoor all over. ’Course ’e lets the bloke know ’e’s bein’ followed. If one of these newspaper fellows was a bluebottle and ’ad to follow an elephant, ’e’d get buzzin’ in the elephant’s ear, same as ’e’d know what ’e was up to.”

P.C. Eagles was struck with admiration at this flight of fancy, and laughed heartily.

“Ten to one ’e’ll lose ’im for keeps, now,” pursued Sergeant Lumley. “Gettin’ us pushed off ’ere without our breakfusses.”

“There ain’t no reason why we shouldn’t have our break-fusses, seein’ as we are here,” said his subordinate, who was of that happy disposition that makes the best of things. “’Ow about a nice pair o’ kippers?”

“I don’t mind if I do,” said the sergeant, “if only we’re allowed to eat ’em in peace. But you mark my words, ’e’ll start ringin’ up again afore we ’as time to swallow a bite. Which reminds me. I better ring up the Yard and stop me lord Parker from traipsin’ up ’ere. ’E mustn’t be put about. Oh, no!”

P.C. Eagles ordered the kippers and a pot of tea. He used his jaws more readily for eating than for talking. The sergeant got his call, and returned, just as the eatables were placed on the table.

“Says, if ’e rings up from anywhere else, we better take a taxi,” he announced. “Save time, ’e says. ’Ow’s ’e think we’re goin’ to pick up a taxi ’ere. Nothing but blinkin’ trams.”

“Order the taxi now,” suggested Mr. Eagles, with his mouth full, “so’s to be in readiness, like.”

“And ’ave it tickin’ up the thruppences for nothing? Think they’ll call that legitimate expenses? Not ’arf. ‘You pay that out of your own pocket, my man,’ that’s what they’ll say, the lousy skin-flints.”

“Well, ’ave yer grub,” suggested Mr. Eagles, pacifically.

Sergeant Lumley inspected his kipper narrowly.

“’Ope it’s a good one, that’s all,” he muttered. “Looks oily, it do. ’Ope it’s cooked. Eat a kipper what ain’t properly cooked through and you gets kipper on your breath for the rest of the day.” He forked a large portion into his mouth without pausing to remove the bones, and was obliged to expend a painful minute rescuing them with his fingers. “Tcha! it beats me why Godamighty wanted to put such a lot of bones into them things.”

PC. Eagles was shocked.

“You didn’t oughter question the ways of Godamighty,” he said, reprovingly.

“You keep a civil tongue in your ’ed, my lad,” retorted Sergeant Lumley, unfairly intruding his official superiority into this theological discussion, “and don’t go forgettin’ what’s due to my position.”

“There ain’t no position in the eyes of Godamighty,” said PC. Eagles, stoutly. His father and his sister happened to be noted lights in the Salvation Army, and he felt himself to be on his own ground here. “If it pleases ’Im to make you a sergeant, that’s one thing, but it won’t do you no good when you comes before ’Im to answer to the charge of questionin’ ’Is ways with kippers. Come to think of it, in ’Is sight you an’ me is just the same as worms, with no bones at all.”

“Not so much about worms,” said Sergeant Lumley. “You oughter know better than to talk about worms when a man’s eating his breakfuss. It’s enough to take any one’s appetite away. And let me tell you, Eagles, worm or no worm, if I have any more lip from you-Drat that telephone! What did I tell you?”

He pounded heavily across to the insanitary little cupboard that held the instrument, and emerged in a minute or two, dismally triumphant.

“That’s ’im. Kensington, this time. You ’op out an’ get that taxi, while I settle up ’ere.”

“Wouldn’t the Underground be quicker?”

“They said taxi, so you damn well make it taxi,” said Sergeant Lumley. While Eagles fetched the taxi, the sergeant took the opportunity to finish his kipper, thus avenging his defeat in religious controversy. This cheered him so much that he consented to take the Underground at the nearest suitable point, and they journeyed in comparative amity as far as South Kensington Station, and thence to the point indicated by Hector Puncheon, which was, in fact, the entrance to the Natural History Museum.

There was nobody in the entrance-hall who resembled Hector Puncheon in the least.

“Suppose ’e’s gone on already?” suggested P.C. Eagles.

“Suppose ’e ’as,” retorted the sergeant. “I can’t ’elp that. I told ’im to telephone ’ere if ’e did or to let them know at the Yard. I can’t do no more, can I? I better take a walk round, and you sit ’ere to see as they don’t come out. If they do, you be ready to take up this other bird’s trail and tell Puncheon to set ’ere till I come. An’ don’t let your bird see you talking to Puncheon, neether. And if they comes out and you see me a-follerin’ of them, then you foller on be’ind an’ keep yourself outer sight, see?”

Mr. Eagles saw clearly-as indeed he well might, for he knew quite as much about his duties as Sergeant Lumley. But the worm still rankled in the sergeant’s breast. Mr. Eagles strolled over to a case of humming-birds and gazed at it with absorbed interest, while Mr. Lumley went heavily up the steps, looking as much as possible like a country cousin bent on seeing the sights.

He had been in the entrance-hall about ten minutes, and had almost exhausted the humming-birds, when he saw something reflected in the glass case which made him sidle softly round so as to command a view of the staircase. A portly person in an overcoat and a top-hat was coming slowly down, one hand thrust deep into his overcoat pocket, the other swinging carelessly at his side. P.C. Eagles looked past him up the stair; there was no sign, either of Hector Puncheon or of Sergeant Lumley, and for a moment the constable hesitated. Then something caught his eye. In the gentleman’s left-hand overcoat pocket was a folded copy of the Morning Star.

There is nothing unusual about seeing a gentleman with a copy of the Morning Star. The readers of that great organ periodically write to the editor, giving statistics of the number of passengers on the 8.15 who read the Morning Star in preference to any other paper, and their letters are printed for all to read. Nevertheless, P.C. Eagles determined to take the risk. He scribbled a hasty note on the back of an envelope and walked across to the doorkeeper.

“If you see my friend that came in with me,” he said, “you might give him that and tell him I can’t wait any longer. I got to get along to my work.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the gentleman in the overcoat pass out through the swing-door. Unobtrusively, he followed him.

Upstairs, at the top of a dark staircase barred by a trestle bearing the words “No Entrance,” Sergeant Lumley was bending anxiously over the inanimate form of Hector Puncheon. The reporter was breathing heavily in a way the sergeant did not like, and there was a nasty contused wound on his temple.

“Trust your amachoors to make a mess of it,” reflected Sergeant Lumley, bitterly. “I only ’ope as that Eagles ’as got ’is ’ead screwed on the right way. But there you are. I can’t be in two places at once.”

The man in the overcoat walked quietly down the street towards the Underground Station. He did not look back. A few yards behind him, P.C. Eagles sauntered casually along in his wake. His eyes were on his quarry. Neither of them saw a third man, who emerged from nowhere in particular and followed a few yards behind P.C. Eagles. No passer-by gave so much as a second glance to the little procession as it crossed Cromwell Road and debouched upon the station.

The man in the overcoat glanced at the taxi-rank; then he seemed to change his mind. For the first time, he looked back. All he saw was P.C. Eagles purchasing a newspaper, and in this sight there was nothing alarming. The other follower he could not have seen, because, like the Spanish Fleet, he was not yet in sight, though P.C. Eagles might have seen him, had he been looking in his direction. The gentleman appeared to reject the notion of a taxi and turned into the station entrance. Mr. Eagles, his eyes apparently intent upon a headline about Food-Taxes, wandered in after him, and was in time to follow his example in taking a ticket for Charing Cross. Pursued and pursuer entered the lift together, the gentleman walking across to the farther gate, Eagles remaining modestly on the hither side. There were already about half a dozen people, mostly women, in the lift, and just as the gate was shutting, another man came in hurriedly. He passed Eagles and took up a central position among the group of women. At the bottom of the shaft, they all emerged in a bunch, the strange man pressing rather hastily past the man in the overcoat, and leading the way towards the platform, where an eastward-bound train was just running in.

What exactly happened then, P.C. Eagles was not quite clear about at the time, though, in the light of after events he saw plainly one or two things that were not obvious to him then. He saw the third man standing close to the edge of the platform, carrying a thin walking-stick. He saw the man in the overcoat walk past him and then suddenly stop and stagger in his walk. He saw the man with the stick fling out his hand and grasp the other by the arm, saw the two waver together on the edge and heard a shriek from a woman. Then both toppled together under the advancing train.

Through the uproar, Eagles shouldered his way.

‘“Ere,” he said, “I’m an officer of the law. Stand aside, please.”

They stood aside, with the exception of a porter and another man, who were hauling out something between the train and the platform. An arm came up, and then a head-then the battered body of the third man, the one who had had the walking-stick. They laid him down on the platform bruised and bloody.

“Where’s the other?”

“Gone, poor chap.”

“Is that one dead?”

“Yes.”

“No, he ain’t.”

“Oh, Betty, I’m going to faint.”

“He’s all right-see! He’s opening his eyes.”

“Yes, but how about the other?”

“Do stop shoving.”

“Look out, that’s a policeman.”

“That’s the live rail down there.”

“Where’s a doctor? Send for a doctor.”

“Stand back, please. Stand right back.”

“Why don’t they shut off the electricity?”

“They have. That feller ran off to do it.”

“How’ll they get ’im out without moving the train?”

“Expect he’s all in little bits, pore chap.”

“That one tried to save ’im.”

“Looked as if he was took ill, or drunk-like.”

“Drunk, this time in the morning?”

“They ought to give ’im brandy.”

“Clear all this lot out,” said Eagles. “This one’ll do all right. The other’s done for, I suppose.”

“Smashed all to blazes. ’Orrible.”

“Then you can’t do him any good. Clear the station and get an ambulance and another police officer.”

“Right you are.”

“This one’s coming round,” put in the man who had helped to haul the victim up. “How are you feeling now, sir?”

“Bloody,” said the rescued man, faintly. Then, seeming to realize where he was, he added,

“What happened?”

“Why, sir, a poor gentleman fell off the platform and took you over with him,”

“Yes, of course. Is he all right?”

“Afraid he’s badly knocked about, sir. Ah!” as somebody ran up with a flask. “Take a pull at this, sir. Gently, you. Lift his head up. Don’t jerk him. Now then.”

“Ah!” said the man. “That’s better. All right. Don’t fuss. My spine’s all right and I don’t think anything’s broken to speak of.” He moved his arms and legs experimentally.

“Doctor’ll be here in a minute, sir.”

“Doctor be damned. I’m a doctor myself. Limbs all correct. Head apparently sound, though it aches like hell. Ribs-not so sure about those. Something gone there, I’m afraid. Pelvis intact, thank goodness.”

“Very glad to hear that,” said Eagles.

“It’s the footboard of the train that got me, I fancy. I remember being rolled round and round like a pat of butter between two whatsinames,” said the stranger, whose damaged ribs did not seem to impede his breathing altogether. “And I saw the wheels of the train get slower and stop, and I said to myself: ‘This is it. You’re for it, my lad. Time’s stopped and this is Eternity.’ But I see I was mistaken.”

“Happily so, sir,” said Eagles.

“Wish I’d been able to stop that other poor devil, though.”

“I’m sure you did your best, sir.” Eagles produced his notebook. “Excuse me, sir, but I’m a police-officer, and if you could manage to tell me just how it occurred-”

“Damned if I know myself,” replied the other. “All I know is, I was standing just about here when the fellow passed me.”

He paused, catching his breath a little. “I noticed he was looking rather queer. Heart subject, I should think. He suddenly stopped and staggered and then came towards me. I caught hold of his arm and then he lurched over with all his weight and dragged me over with him. And then I can’t remember anything but the noise of the train and the tremendous size of its wheels and the feeling of having the breath squeezed out of me. I must have dropped him, I suppose.”

“And no wonder,” said Eagles, sympathetically.

“My name’s Garfield,” went on the rescuer, “Dr. Herbert Garfield.” He gave an address in Kensington and another in Harley Street. “I think I see one of my professional brethren arriving, and he’ll probably say I’m not to talk.” He grinned faintly. “Anyhow, I shall be filed for reference for the next few weeks, if you want more information.”

PC. Eagles thanked Dr. Garfield, and then turned to the body of the man in the overcoat, which had by now been disentangled from between the wheels of the train and laid upon the platform. It was an unpleasant sight. Even Eagles, accustomed as he was to casualties, felt a violent distaste for the necessary job of searching the dead man’s pockets for evidence of identity. Curiously enough, he found none in the shape of visiting cards or papers. There was a note-case with a few pound-notes, a silver cigarette-case filled with a popular brand of Turks, a little loose change, an unmarked handkerchief, and an H.T. &V. latch-key. Moreover-and this pleased him very much-in the overcoat pocket was a little rubber cosh, such as is sold for use against motor-bandits. He was in the act of hunting over the suit for the tailor’s tab, when he was hailed by a local inspector of police, who had arrived with the ambulance.

Eagles was relieved to have the support of a colleague. He knew that he ought to get in touch with Sergeant Lumley and with Scotland Yard. An hour’s energetic action on the part of all resulted in a happy reunion at the nearest police-station, where, in fact, Lumley had already arrived, after depositing the unconscious Mr. Puncheon in hospital. Chief-Inspector Parker came hot-foot to Kensington, heard the statements of Lumley and Eagles, reviewed the scene of the disaster and the remains of the mysterious man in dress clothes, and was annoyed. When a man whom you have been elaborately chasing all over London has the impudence to be killed just as you are on the point of catching him, and turns out to have no tailor’s name on his clothes and nothing to identify him by; when, moreover, he has thoughtlessly permitted his face to be smashed into pulp by an electric train, so that you cannot usefully circulate his photograph for recognition, your satisfaction in feeling that there is something wrong about him is cancelled by the thought of the weary work that his identification is going to involve.

“There’s nothing for it,” said Chief-Inspector Parker, “but his laundry-mark, I suppose. And, of course, his dentistry, if any.”

Irritatingly enough, the deceased turned out to have an excellent set of teeth and at least three laundry-marks. Nor were his shoes helpful, being ready-made, though by an excellent and much-advertised firm. In fact, the wretched man had gone to meet his Maker in Parley’s Footwear, thus upholding to the last the brave assertion that, however distinguished the occasion, Parley’s Footwear will carry you through.

In this extremity, Mr. Parker-perhaps stimulated by the thought of Messrs. Parley’s advertising-rang up Pym’s Publicity and desired to speak with Mr. Bredon.

That gentleman was closeted with Mr. Armstrong when the call came through. Whifflets were causing trouble. The sales of Whifflets had been considerably affected by the publicity methods of a rival brand, Puffin Cigarettes. The manufacturers of Puffins had had a brain-wave. They were giving away aeroplanes. In every packet of Puffins they enclosed a coupon, bearing the name of a component part of a popular little touring ’plane, suitable for amateur use. When you had collected your complete set of parts (numbering one hundred) you sent up your coupons, together with a brief essay on the importance of air-mindedness for British boys. The writer of the best essay each day became the recipient of a private ’plane, and a course of free instruction enabling him or her to take out an air-pilot’s certificate. This happy scheme was supported by heavy advertising of a modern and stimulating kind: “The Future is with the Air-Minded”- “The Highest Flight in Modern Cigarette Manufacture”- “Puff Puffins, and Reach the Height of your Ambition”-and so forth. If you were incapacitated, by reason of age or infirmity, from enjoying the ownership of an aeroplane, you received instead a number of shares in the new issue of the Aeroplane Company involved. The scheme had the support of several notable airmen, whose faces, adorned with flying helmets, stared and grinned from every page of the press in conjunction with their considered opinions that Puffins were doing a valuable work in helping to establish British Supremacy in the Air.

Whifflets were upset. They demanded, with some annoyance, why Pym’s had not had this brilliant idea first. They clamoured for an aeroplane scheme of their own, with a larger plane and a hangar to keep it in. Mr. Armstrong pointed out to them that the sole result of this would be to confuse the public mind between Whifflets and Puffins, which were already quite sufficiently similar in quality and appearance to confuse anybody.

“They’re all alike,” he said to Bredon, not meaning the cigarettes, but the manufacturers. “They follow each other like sheep. If Whifflets use large heads of film-stars, Puffins want to come out with still larger heads of still more important stars. If Gasperettes give away timepieces, Puffins follow on with grandfather clocks and Whifflets with chronometers. If Whifflets announce that they don’t damage the lungs, Puffins claim that they strengthen the pulmonary system and Gasperettes quote doctors who recommend them in cases of tuberculosis. They will try to snatch each other’s thunder-and what happens? The public smoke them all in turn, just as they did before.”

“Isn’t that a good thing for trade?” asked Mr. Bredon, innocently. “If one of them got all the sales, the others would go bankrupt.”

“Oh, no, they wouldn’t,” said Mr. Armstrong. “They’d merely amalgamate. But it would be bad for us, because then they’d all use the same agency.”

“Well, what about it, then?” queried Bredon.

“We’ve got to cope. We must head them off aeroplanes. For one thing, the boom won’t last. The country isn’t ready to be cluttered up with aeroplanes, and fathers of families are beginning to complain about it. Even today, few fathers care about having private aeroplanes delivered to their daughters in quiet suburban areas. What we want is a new scheme, on similar lines but with more family appeal. But it must boost Britain. We’ve got to have the patriotic note.”

It was in that moment, and while Chief-Inspector Parker was arguing over the line with the office telephonist, that Mr. Death Bredon conceived that magnificent idea that everybody remembers and talks about today-the scheme that achieved renown as “Whiffling Round Britain”-the scheme that sent up the sales of Whifflets by five hundred per cent in three months and brought so much prosperity to British Hotel-keepers and Road and Rail Transport. It is not necessary to go into details. You have probably Whiffled yourself. You recollect how it was done. You collected coupons for everything-railway fares, charabancs, hotel-bills, theatre-tickets-every imaginable item in the holiday programme. When you had collected enough to cover the period of time you wished to spend in travelling, you took your coupons with you (no sending up to Whifflets, nothing to post or fill in) and started on your tour. At the railway station you presented coupons entitling you to so many miles of first-class travel and received your ticket to the selected town. You sought your hotel (practically all the hotels in Britain fell eagerly in with the scheme) and there presented coupons entitling you to so many nights’ board and lodging on special Whifflet terms. For your charabanc outings, your seabathing, your amusements, you paid in Whifflet coupons. It was all exceedingly simple and trouble-free. And it made for that happy gregariousness which is the joy of the travelling middle-class. When you asked for your packet of Whifflets in the bar, your next-door neighbour was almost sure to ask, “Are you Whiffling too?” Whiffling parties arranged to Whiffle together, and exchanged Whifflet coupons on the spot. The great Whifflers’ Club practically founded itself, and Whifflers who had formed attachments while Whiffling in company, secured special Whifflet coupons entitling them to a Whifflet wedding with a Whifflet cake and their photographs in the papers. When this had happened several times, arrangements were made by which Whiffler couples could collect for a Whifflet house, whose Whifflet furniture included a handsome presentation smoking cabinet, free from advertising matter and crammed with unnecessary gadgets. After this, it was only a step to a Whifflet Baby. In fact, the Whifflet Campaign is and remains the outstanding example of Thinking Big in Advertising. The only thing that you cannot get by Whiffling is a coffin; it is not admitted that any Whiffler could ever require such an article.

It is not to be supposed that the great Whiffle-Way, in all its comprehensive perfection, sprang fully armed from Mr. Bredon’s brain when Mr. Armstrong uttered the words, Family Appeal. All that then happened was a mental association with the phrase Family Hotel, coupled with a faint consciousness of inner illumination. He replied, humbly, “Yes, I see; I’ll try to work out something,” gathered up some sheets of paper on which Mr. Armstrong had scribbled a few illegible notes and a thing that looked like a hedgehog, and made his way out. He had taken six steps down the passage when the idiotic slogan: “If that’s what you want, you can Whiffle for it,” took possession of his brain; two steps further on, this repellent sentence had recast itself as: “All you Want by Whiffling,” and on the threshold of his own room, the first practical possibility of Whiffledom struck him like a sledge-hammer. Fired with excitement, he hurled himself at his desk, snatched a scribbling-block, and had written the word “WHIFFLE” in capitals an inch high, when Miss Rossiter arrived with the message that Mr. Parker urgently requested Mr. Bredon to ring him up on the Whitehall number. Lord Peter Wimsey was so intimately in the skin of Mr. Death Bredon that he said: “Damn!” loudly and heartily.

Nevertheless, he obeyed the call, presented himself with leave of absence on urgent private business, and went down to Scotland Yard, where he surveyed the clothes and effects of the man in the dress suit.

“No doubt we shall end by having to circularize the laundries,” said Parker. “Perhaps a photograph in some of the London and provincial papers would be as well. I loathe newspapers, but they do advertise one’s requirements, and some of these laundry-marks may come from outside London…”

Wimsey looked at him.

“Advertisement, my dear Charles, may be desirable in the case of laundries, but for people like ourselves it does not exist. A gentleman whose clothes are so well cut, and who yet deprives his tailor of the credit for them is, like ourselves, not of the advertising sort. This, I see, is his top-hat, mysteriously uninjured.”

“It had rolled beyond the train, on to the farther line.”

“Quite. Here again the maker’s golden imprint has been removed. How absurd, Charles! One does not-at least, you and I and this gentleman do not-consider the brand to be the guarantee of quality. For us, the quality guarantees the brand. There are two hatters in London who could have made this hat, and you have doubtless already observed that the crown is markedly dolichocephalic, while the curve of the brim is also characteristic. It is a thought behind the present fashion; yet the article is undoubtedly of recent manufacture. Send one of your sleuths to each of these two establishments and ask for the customer with the elongated head who has a fancy for this type of brim. Do not waste your time on laundry-marks, which are, at best, tedious and, at worst, deceptive.”

“Thanks,” said Parker. “I thought you might be able to put your finger either on the hatter or the tailor.”

The first hatter they visited proved to be the right man. He directed their researches to the flat of a Mr. Horace Mountjoy, who lived in Kensington. They armed themselves with a search-warrant and visited the flat.

Mr. Mountjoy, they ascertained from the commissionaire, was a bachelor of quiet habits, except that he was frequently out rather late at night. He lived alone, and was waited upon and valeted by the staff belonging to the block of flats.

The commissionaire came on duty at 9 o’clock. There was no night porter. Between 11 p.m. and 9 a.m. the outer door was locked and could be opened by the tenants with their own keys, without disturbing him in his basement flat. He had seen Mr. Mountjoy go out the previous evening at about 7.45, in evening dress. He had not seen him return. Withers, the valet, would probably be able to say whether Mr. Mountjoy had been in that night.

Withers was able to say positively that he had not. Nobody had entered Mr. Mountjoy’s flat but himself, and the chambermaid who did the rooms. The bed had not been slept in. That was nothing unusual with Mr. Mountjoy. He was frequently out all night, though he generally returned to breakfast at 9.30.

Parker displayed his official card, and they went upstairs to a flat on the third floor. Withers was about to open the door with his pass-key, which, as he explained, he was accustomed to use in the mornings, to avoid disturbing the tenants, but Parker stopped him and produced the two keys which had been taken from the corpse. One of them fitted the lock and established, without much doubt, that they had come to the right place.

Everything in the flat was in perfect order. There was a desk in the sitting-room, containing a few bills and some note-paper, but its drawers were all unlocked and it appeared to hold no secrets. Nor was there anything remarkable about the bedroom or the small dining-room. In the bathroom was a little cupboard containing the usual toilet articles and household medicines. Parker made a rapid inventory of these, pausing for a few minutes over a packet labelled “Bicarbonate of Soda,” but touch and taste soon assured him that this contained exactly what it purported to contain. The only thing that could be considered in the slightest degree out of the ordinary in the whole establishment was the presence (also in the bathroom cupboard) of several packets of cigarette papers.

“Did Mr. Mountjoy roll his own cigarettes?”

“I never saw him do so,” replied Withers. “He smoked Turkish Abdullas as a rule.”

Parker nodded and impounded the cigarette-papers. A further search disclosed no loose tobacco. A number of boxes of cigars and cigarettes were retrieved from the dining-room sideboard. They looked innocent and a few, which Parker promptly slit open, proved to contain excellent tobacco and nothing else. Parker shook his head.

“You’ll have to go through everything very carefully, Lumley.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And letters by the first post?”

“There were none.”

“Any visitors today?”

“No, sir. Not unless you count the man from the post-office.”

“Oh? What did he want?”

“Nothing,” replied Withers, “except to bring the new telephone directory.” He indicated the two clean volumes which lay upon the sitting-room desk.

“Oh!” said Parker. This did not sound promising. “Did he come into the room?”

“No, sir. He knocked at the door when Mrs. Trabbs and I were both here. Mrs. Trabbs was sweeping, sir, and I was brushing Mr. Mountjoy’s lounge suit. I took the books in, sir, and handed him out the old ones.”

“I see. All right. And beyond sweeping and brushing and so on, you disturbed nothing?”

“No, sir.”

“Anything in the waste-paper basket?”

“I could not say, sir. Mrs. Trabbs would know.”

Mrs. Trabbs, produced, said there had been nothing in the waste-paper basket except a wine-merchant’s circular. Mr. Mountjoy wrote very little and did not receive many letters.

Satisfied that there had been no interference with the flat since the occupant had left the night before, Parker turned his attention to the wardrobe and chest of drawers, where he found various garments, all properly marked with the names of the tailor or shirt-maker responsible for them. He noticed that all were by first-class artists in their own line. Another silk hat, similar to the one now resting at Scotland Yard, but with sweat-band and crown undisfigured, was found in a hat-box; there were also several felt hats and a bowler, all by first-class makers.

“Mr. Mountjoy was a rich man?”

“He appeared to be in very easy circumstances, sir. He did himself well; the best of everything. Especially during the last year or so.”

“What was his profession?”

“I think he was a gentleman of independent means. I never heard of him being engaged in any business.”

“Did you know that he had a silk hat from which the maker’s name had been removed?”

“Yes, sir. He was very angry about it. Said that some friend of his had damaged the hat for a rag. I offered several times to get it put right, sir, but when he had cooled down he said it didn’t matter. It wasn’t a hat he very often used, sir. And besides, he said, why should he be a walking advertisement for his hatter?”

“Did you know that his dress suit had also lost his tailor’s tab?”

“Had it indeed, sir? No, I can’t say I noticed it.”

“What sort of man was Mr. Mountjoy?”

“A very pleasant gentleman, sir. I’m very sorry to hear he has met with such a sad accident.”

“How long has he lived here?”

“Six or seven years, I believe, sir. I’ve been here four years myself.”

“When was the practical joke played on his silk hat?”

“About eighteen months ago, sir, if I remember rightly.”

“As long ago as that? I fancied the hat looked newer.”

“Well, sir, as I say, he didn’t wear it above once or twice a week, sir. And Mr. Mountjoy didn’t trouble about the fashion of his hats. There was one particular shape he fancied, and he had all his hats specially made to that pattern.”

Parker nodded. He knew this already from the hatter and from Wimsey, but it was well to check matters up. He reflected that he had never yet caught Wimsey tripping in any fact pertaining to dress.

“Well,” he said, “as you may have guessed, Withers, there will have to be an inquiry about Mr. Mountjoy’s death. You had better say as little as possible to any outside person. You will give me all the keys of the flat, and I shall be leaving the police in charge here for a day or two.”

“Very good, sir.”

Parker waited to ascertain the name and address of the proprietor of the flats, and left Lumley to his investigations. From the proprietor he gained very little information. Mr. Mountjoy, of no profession, had taken the flat six years previously. He had paid his rent regularly. There had been no complaints. Nothing was known of Mr. Mountjoy’s friends or relations. It was regrettable that so good a tenant should have come to so sudden and sad an end. It was much to be hoped that nothing would transpire of a scandalous nature, as those flats had always been extremely respectable.

Parker’s next visit was to Mr. Mountjoy’s bank. Here he encountered the usual obstructive attitude, but eventually succeeded in getting access to the books. There was a regular income of about a thousand a year derived from sound investments. No irregularities. No mysterious fluctuations. Parker came away with an easy impression that Mr. Hector Puncheon had discovered a mare’s nest.