Murder Must Advertise

Chapter XVII. Lachrymose Outburst of a Nobleman’s Nephew

That week passed quietly. On Tuesday, Mr. Jollop passed, quite amiably, another of the new “Quotations” series for Nutrax “-And Kissed Again with Tears” (“But Tears, and Fallings-Out, however poetical, are nearly always a sign of Nerve-Strain”); on Wednesday, Green Pastures Margarine was Reduced in Price though Improved in Quality (“It might seem impossible to improve on Perfection but we have done it!”); Sopo adopted a new advertising figure (“Let Susan Sopo do the Dirty Work”); Tomboy Toffee finished up its Cricket Campaign with a huge display containing the portraits of a complete Eleven of Famous Cricketers all eating Tomboy; five people went on holiday; Mr. Prout created a sensation by coming to the office in a black shirt; Miss Rossiter lost a handbag containing her bonus money and recovered it from the Lost Property Office, and a flea was found in the ladies’ cloak-room, causing dire upheaval, some ill-founded accusations and much heart-burning. In the typists’ room, the subject of the flea almost ousted for the moment the juicier and more speculative topic of Mr. Tallboy’s visitor. For, whether by the indiscretion of Tompkin or of the boy at the desk, or of some other person (though not of Mr. Ingleby or Mr. Bredon, who surely knew better), the tale had somehow seeped through.

“And how he does it on his salary I don’t know,” observed Miss Parton. “I do think it’s a shame. His wife’s a nice little woman. You remember, we met her last year at the Garden Party.”

“Men are all alike,” said Miss Rossiter, scornfully. “Even your Mr. Tallboy. I told you, Parton, that I didn’t think old Copley was so much to blame as you thought in that other business, and now perhaps, you’ll believe me. What I say is, if a man does one ungentlemanly thing, he’ll do another. And as for doing it on his salary, how about that fifty pounds in an envelope? It’s pretty obvious where that went to.”

“It’s always obvious where money goes to,” said Miss Mete-yard, sardonically. “The point is, where does it come from?”

“That’s what Mr. Dean used to say,” said Miss Rossiter. “You remember how he used to chip Mr. Tallboy about his stockbrokers?”

“The famous firm of Smith,” said Mr. Garrett. “Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith & Smith Unlimited.”

“Money-lenders, if you ask me” said Miss Rossiter. “Are you going to the cricket-match, Miss Meteyard? In my opinion, Mr. Tallboy ought to resign and leave somebody else to captain it. You can’t wonder that people aren’t keen to play under him, with all these stories going about. Don’t you feel the same, Mr. Bredon?”

“Not a bit of it,” said Mr. Bredon. “Provided the man can captain, I don’t care a bit if he has as many wives as Solomon, and is a forger and swindler into the bargain. What’s it matter?”

“It would matter to me,” said Miss Rossiter.

“How feminine she is,” said Mr. Bredon, plaintively, to the world at large. “She will let the personal element come into business.”

“I dare say,” said Miss Rossiter, “but you bet, if Hankie or Pymmy knew, there’d soon be an end of Mr. Tallboy.”

“Directors are the last people to hear anything about the staff. Otherwise,” said Miss Meteyard, “they wouldn’t be able to stand on their hind legs at the Staff Dinner and shoot off the speeches about cooperation, and all being one happy family.”

“Family quarrels, family quarrels.” Mr. Ingleby waved his hand. “Little children, love one another and don’t be such little nosey-parkers. What’s Hecuba’s bank-balance to you, or yours to Hecuba?”

“Bank-balance? Oh, you mean Mr. Tallboy’s. Well, I don’t know anything, except what little Dean used to say.”

“And how did Dean know so much about it?”

“He was in Mr. Tallboy’s office for a few weeks. Learning the work of other departments, they call it. I expect you’ll be pushed round the office before long, Mr. Bredon. You’ll have to mind your Ps and Q’s in the Printing. Mr. Thrale’s a perfect tartar. Won’t even allow you to slip out for coffee.”

“I shall have to come to you for it.”

“They won’t let Mr. Bredon out of this department for a bit,” said Miss Meteyard. “They’re all up in the air about his Whifflets stunt. Everybody always hoped Dean would do better somewhere else. He was like a favourite book-you liked him so well that you were always yearning to lend him to somebody else.”

“What a savage woman you are,” observed Ingleby, coolly amused. “It’s that kind of remark that gets the university woman a bad name.” He glanced at Willis, who said:

“It isn’t the savagery. It’s the fact that there’s no animosity behind it. You are all like that.”

“You agree with Shaw-whenever you beat your child, be sure that you do it in anger.”

“Shaw’s Irish,” said Bredon. “Willis has put his finger on the real offensiveness of the educated Englishman-that he will not even trouble to be angry.”

“That’s right,” said Willis. “It’s that awful, bleak, blank-” he waved his hands helplessly-“the facade.”

“Meaning Bredon’s face?” suggested Ingleby, mischievously.

“Icily regular, splendidly null,” said Bredon, squinting into Miss Rossiter’s mirror. “Strange, to think that a whole Whifflets campaign seethes and burgeons behind this solid ivory brow.”

“Mixed metaphor,” said Miss Meteyard. “Pots seethe, plants burgeon.”

“Of course; it is a flower of rhetoric culled from the kitchen-garden.”

“It’s no use, Miss Meteyard,” said Ingleby, “you might as well argue with an eel.”

“Talking of eels,” said Miss Meteyard, abandoning the position, “what’s the matter with Miss Hartley?”

“The hipless wonder? Why?”

“She came up the other day to inform the world that the police were coming to arrest somebody.”

“What?” said Willis.

“You mean, whom?”

“Whom, then?”

“Bredon.”

“Mr. Bredon?” said Miss Parton. “What next, I wonder,”

“You mean, what for? Why don’t you people say what you do mean?”

Miss Rossiter turned on her chair and gazed at Mr. Bredon’s gently twitching mouth.

“That’s funny,” she said. “Do you know, Mr. Bredon, we never told you, but Parton and I thought we saw you actually being arrested one evening, in Piccadilly Circus.”

“Did you?”

“It wasn’t you, of course.”

“Well, as a matter of fact, it wasn’t. Still, cheer up-it may happen yet. Only I suppose Pymmy doesn’t keep his millions in the office safe.”

“Nor yet in registered envelopes,” said Miss Meteyard, casually.

“Don’t say they’re after our Mr. Copley!”

“I hope not. Bread-and-skilly wouldn’t suit him at all.”

“But what was Bredon being arrested for?”

“Loitering, perhaps,” said a mild voice in the doorway. Mr. Hankin poked his head round the corner and smiled sarcastically. “I am sorry to interrupt you, but if Mr. Bredon could favour me with his attention for a moment on the subject of Twentyman’s Teas-”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Mr. Bredon, springing to attention and allowing himself to be marched off.

Miss Rossiter shook her head.

“You mark my words, there’s a mystery about Mr. Bredon.”

“He’s a darling,” objected Miss Parton, warmly.

“Oh, Bredon’s all right,” said Ingleby.

Miss Meteyard said nothing. She went downstairs to the Executive and borrowed the current volume of Who’s Who. She ran her finger through the W’s, till she came to the entry beginning: “WlMSEY, Peter Death Bredon (Lord), D.S.O., born 1890; second s. of Mortimer Gerald Bredon Wimsey, 15th Duke of Denver, and Honoria Lucasta, d. of Francis Delagardie of Bellingham Manor, Bucks. Educ. Eton College and Balliol.” She read it through.

“So that’s it,” said Miss Meteyard to herself. “I thought so. And now what? Does one do anything? I think not. Better leave it alone. But there’s no harm in putting out feelers for another job. One’s got to look after one’s self.”

Mr. Bredon, unaware that his disguise had been penetrated, gave but a superficial consideration to the interests of Twentyman’s Teas. He meekly accepted the instruction to prepare a window-bill with two streamers on the subject of a richer infusion with fewer spoonfuls, and a gentle rebuke in the matter of wasting time in the typists’ room. His mind was in Old Broad Street.

“You are playing for us on Saturday, I see,” said Mr. Hankin, at the conclusion of the interview.

“Yes, sir.”

“I hope the weather will hold. You have played in first-class cricket, I believe?”

“A long time ago.”

“You will be able to show them a bit of style” said Mr. Hankin, happily. “Style-one sees so little of it nowadays. I am afraid you will find us a scratch lot, and for some reason, several of our best players seem unable to attend this match. A pity. But you will find Mr. Tallboy very good. An excellent all-round man, and quite remarkable in the field.”

Mr. Bredon said that it was all too rare to find proper attention given to fielding. Mr. Hankin agreed with him.

“Mr. Tallboy is excellent at all games; it’s a pity he can’t give more time to them. Personally, I should like to see more organization of the athletic side of our social functions here. But Mr. Pym thinks it would perhaps be too absorbing, and I dare say he is right. Still, I can’t help feeling that the cultivation of the team-spirit would do this office good. I don’t know whether you, as a newcomer, have noticed a certain tension from time to time-”

Bredon admitted that he had noticed something of the sort.

“You know, Mr. Bredon,” said Mr. Hankin, a little wistfully, “it is sometimes difficult for the directors to get the atmosphere of situations in the office. You people keep us rather in cotton-wool, don’t you? It can’t be helped, naturally, but I sometimes fancy that there are currents beneath the surface…”

Evidently, thought Bredon, Mr. Hankin had realized that something was on the point of breaking. He felt suddenly sorry for him. His eyes strayed to a strip poster, printed in violent colours and secured by drawing-pins to Mr. Hankin’s notice-board:

EVERYONE EVERYWHERE ALWAYS AGREES

ON THE FLAVOUR AND VALUE OF TWENTYMAN’S TEAS

No doubt it was because agreement on any point was so rare in a quarrelsome world, that the fantastical announcements of advertisers asserted it so strongly and so absurdly. Actually, there was no agreement, either on trivialities like tea or on greater issues. In this place, where from morning till night a staff of over a hundred people hymned the praises of thrift, virtue, harmony, eupepsia and domestic contentment, the spiritual atmosphere was clamorous with financial storm, intrigue, dissension, indigestion and marital infidelity. And with worse things-with murder wholesale and retail, of soul and body, murder by weapon and by poison. These things did not advertise, or, if they did, they called themselves by other names.

He made some vague answer to Mr. Hankin.

At one o’clock he left the office and took a taxi citywards. He was suddenly filled with a curiosity to visit Mr. Tallboy’s stockbroker.

At twenty minutes past one, he was standing on the pavement in Old Broad Street, and his blood was leaping with the excitement which always accompanies discovery.

Mr. Tallboy’s stockbroker inhabited a small tobacconist’s shop, the name over which was not Smith but Cummings.

“An accommodation address,” observed Lord Peter Wimsey. “Most unusual for a stockbroker. Let us probe this matter further.”

He entered the shop, which was narrow, confined and exceedingly dark. An elderly man stepped forward to serve him. Wimsey went immediately to the point.

“Can I see Mr. Smith?”

“Mr. Smith doesn’t live here.”

“Then perhaps you would kindly let me leave a note for him.”

The elderly man slapped his hand on the counter.

“If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it five hundred times,” he snapped irritably. “There’s no Mr. Smith here, and never was, to my knowledge. And if you’re the gentleman that addresses his letters here, I’d be glad if you’d take that for an answer. I’m sick and tired of handing his letters back to the postman.”

“You surprise me. I don’t know Mr. Smith myself, but I was asked by a friend to leave a message for him.”

“Then tell your friend what I say. It’s no good sending letters here. None whatever. Never has been. People seem to think I’ve got nothing better to do than hand out letters to postmen. If I wasn’t a conscientious man, I’d burn the lot of them. That’s what I’d do. Burn ’em. And I will, if it goes on any longer. You can tell your friend that from me.”

“I’m very sorry,” said Wimsey. “There seems to be some mistake.”

“Mistake?” said Mr. Cummings, angrily. “I don’t believe it’s a mistake at all. It’s a stupid practical joke, that’s what it is. And I’m fed up with it, I can tell you.”

“If it is,” said Wimsey, “I’m the victim of it. I’ve been sent right out of my way to deliver a message to somebody who doesn’t exist. I shall speak to my friend about it.”

“I should, if I were you,” said Mr. Cummings. “A silly, tom-fool trick. You tell your friend to come here himself, that’s all. I’ll know what to say to him.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Wimsey. “And you tell him off.”

“You can lay your last penny I shall, sir.” Mr. Cummings, having blown off his indignation, seemed a little appeased. “If your friend should turn up, what name will he give, sir?”

Wimsey, on the point of leaving the shop, pulled up short. Mr. Cummings, he noticed, had a pair of very sharp eyes behind his glasses. A thought struck him.

“Look here,” he said, leaning confidentially over the counter. “My friend’s name is Milligan. That mean anything to you? He told me to come to you for a spot of the doings. See what I mean?”

That got home; a red glint in Mr. Cummings’ eye told Wimsey as much.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” was what Mr. Cummings actually said. “I never heard of a Mr. Milligan, and I don’t want to. And I don’t want any of your sauce, neither.”

“Sorry, old thing, sorry,” said Wimsey.

“And what’s more,” said Mr. Cummings, “I don’t want you. See?”

“I see,” said Wimsey. “I see perfectly. Good-morning.”

“That’s torn it,” he thought. “I’ll have to work quickly now. St. Martin’s-le-Grand comest next, I fancy.”

A little pressure at headquarters produced what was required. The postmen who carried letters to Old Broad Street were found and interrogated. It was quite true that they frequently delivered letters for a Mr. Smith to Mr. Cummings’ shop, and that these letters invariably were returned, and marked “Not known.” Where did they go then? To the Returned Letter Office. Wimsey rang up Pym’s, explained that he was unavoidably detained, and sought the Returned Letter Office. After a little delay, he found the official who knew all about it. The letters for Mr. Smith came regularly every week. They were never returned to the sender in the ordinary course. Why? Because they bore no sender’s name. In fact, they never contained anything but a sheet of blank paper.

Had they last Tuesday’s letter there? No; it had already been opened and destroyed. Would they keep the next one that arrived and send it on to him? Seeing that Lord Peter Wimsey had Scotland Yard behind him, they would. Wimsey thanked the official, and went his way, pondering.

On leaving the office at 5.30, he walked down Southampton Row to Theobald’s Road. There was a newsvendor at the corner. Wimsey purchased an Evening Comet and glanced carelessly through the news. A brief paragraph in the Stop Press caught his eye.

CLUBMAN KILLED IN PICCADILLY

At 3 o’clock this afternoon a heavy lorry skidded and mounted the pavement in Piccadilly, fatally injuring Major “Tod” Milligan, the well-known clubman, who was standing on the kerb.

“They work quickly,” he thought with a shudder. “Why, in God’s name, am I still at large?” He cursed his own recklessness. He had betrayed himself to Cummings; he had gone into the shop undisguised; by now they knew who he was. Worse, they must have followed him to the General Post Office and to Pym’s. Probably they were following him now. From behind the newspaper he cast a swift glance about the crowded streets. Any one of these loitering men might be the man. Absurd and romantic plans flitted through his mind. He would lure his assassins into some secluded spot, such as the Blackfriars subway or the steps beneath Cleopatra’s Needle, and face them there and kill them with his hands. He would ring up Scotland Yard and get a guard of detectives. He would go straight home to his own flat in a taxi (“not the first nor the second that presents itself,” he thought, with a fleeting recollection of Professor Moriarty), barricade himself in and wait-for what? For air-guns?… In this perplexity he suddenly caught sight of a familiar figure-Chief-Inspector Parker himself, apparently taking his early way home, and carrying a fishmonger’s bag in one hand and an attaché case in the other.

He lowered the paper and said, “Hullo!”

Parker stopped. “Hullo!” he replied, tentatively. He was obviously not quite certain whether he was being hailed by Lord Peter Wimsey or by Mr. Death Bredon. Wimsey strode forward and relieved him of the fish-bag.

“Well met. You come most carefully upon your cue, to prevent me from being murdered. What’s this, lobster?”

“No, turbot,” said Parker, placidly.

“I’m coming to eat it with you. They will hardly attack both of us. I’ve made a fool of myself and given the game away, so we may as well be open and cheerful about it.”

“Good. I’d like to feel cheerful.”

“What’s wrong? Why so early home?”

“Fed-up. The Yelverton Arms is a wash-out, I’m afraid.”

“Did you raid it?”

“Not yet. Nothing happened during the morning, but during the lunch-hour crush, Lumley saw something being smuggled into a fellow’s hands by a chap who looked like a tout. They stopped the fellow and searched him. All they found was some betting-slips. It’s quite possible that nothing is timed to happen before this evening. If nothing turns up, I’ll have the place searched. Just before closing-time will be best. I’m going down there myself. Thought I’d step home for an early supper.”

“Right. I’ve got something to tell you.”

They walked to Great Ormond Street in silence.

“Cummings?” said Parker, when Wimsey had told his tale. “Don’t know anything about him. But you say he knew Milligan’s name?”

“He certainly did. Besides, here’s the proof of it.”

He showed Parker the stop-press item.

“But this fellow, Tallboy-is he the bird you’re after?”

“Frankly, Charles, I don’t understand it. I can’t see him as the Big Bug in all this business. If he were, he’d be too well-off to get into difficulties with a cheap mistress. And his money wouldn’t be coining to him in fifty-pound instalments. But there’s a connection. There must be.”

“Possibly he’s only a small item in the account.”

“Possibly. But I can’t get over Milligan. According to his information, the whole show was run from Pym’s.”

“Perhaps it is. Tallboy may be merely the cat’s paw for one of the others. Pym himself-he’s rich enough, isn’t he?”

“I don’t think it’s Pym. Armstrong, possibly, or even quiet little Hankie. Of course, Pym’s calling me in may have been a pure blind, but I don’t somehow think he has quite that kind of brain. It was so unnecessary. Unless he wanted to find out, through me, how much Victor Dean really knew. In which case, he’s succeeded,” added Wimsey, ruefully. “But I can’t believe that any man would be such a fool as to put himself in the power of one of his own staff. Look at the opportunities for blackmail! Twelve years’ penal servitude is a jolly threat to hold over a man. Still-blackmail. Somebody was being blackmailed, that’s almost a certainty. But Pym can’t have slugged Dean; he was in conference at the time. No, I think we must acquit Pym.”

“What I don’t quite see,” said Lady Mary, “is why Pym’s is brought into it at all. Somebody at Pym’s is one thing, but if you say that the show is ‘run from Pym’s,’ it suggests something quite different-to me, anyhow. It sounds to me as though they were using Pym’s organization for something-doesn’t it to you?”

“Well, it does,” agreed her husband. “But how? And why? What has advertising got to do with it? Crime doesn’t want to advertise, far from it.”

“I don’t know,” said Wimsey, suddenly and softly. “I don’t know.” His nose twitched, rabbit-fashion. “Pymmy was saying only this morning that to reach the largest number of people all over the country in the shortest possible time, there was nothing like a press campaign. Wait a second, Polly-I’m not sure that you haven’t said something useful and important.”

“Everything I say is useful and important. Think it over while I go and tell Mrs. Gunner how to cook turbot.”

“And the funny thing is,” said Parker, “she seems to like telling Mrs. Gunner how to cook turbot. We could perfectly well afford more servants-”

“My dear old boy,” said Wimsey. “Servants are the devil. I don’t count my man Bunter, because he’s exceptional, but it’s a treat to Polly to kick the whole boiling out of the house at night. Don’t you worry. When she wants servants, she’ll ask for them.”

“I admit,” said Parker, “I was glad myself when the kids were old enough to dispense with a resident nurse. But look here, Peter, it seems to me you’ll be wanting a resident nurse yourself, if you want to avoid nasty accidents.”

“That’s just it. Here I am. Why? What are they keeping me for? Something unusually nasty?”

Parker moved quietly across to the window and peered out from a little gap in the short net blind.

“He’s there, I think. A repellent-looking young man in a check cap, playing with a Yo-Yo on the opposite pavement. Playing darned well, too, with a circle of admiring kids round him. What a grand excuse for loitering. There he goes. Three-leaf clover, over the falls, non-stop lift, round the world. Quite masterly. I must tell Mary to have a look at him and take a lesson. You’d better sleep here tonight, old man.”

“Thanks. I think I will.”

“And stop away from the office tomorrow.”

“I should, in any case. I’ve got to play in a cricket match at Brotherhood’s. Their place is down at Romford.”

“Cricket-match be damned. I don’t know, though. It’s nice and public. Provided the fast bowler doesn’t knock you out with a swift ball, it may be as safe as anywhere else. How are you going?”

“Office charabanc.”

“Good. I’ll see you round to the starting-point.”

Wimsey nodded. Nothing further was said about dope or danger until supper was over and Parker had departed for the Yelverton Arms. Then Wimsey gathered up a calendar, the telephone directory, a copy of the official report on the volume retrieved from Mountjoy’s flat, a scribbling-block and a pencil, and curled himself up on the couch with a pipe.

“You don’t mind, do you, Polly? I want to brood.”

Lady Mary dropped a kiss on the top of his head.

“Brood on, old thing. I won’t disturb you. I’m going up to the nursery. And if the telephone rings, take care it isn’t the mysterious summons to the lonely warehouse by the river, or the bogus call to Scotland Yard.”

“All right. And if the door-bell rings, beware of the disguised gas-inspector and the plain-clothes cop without a warrant-card. I need scarcely warn you against the golden-haired girl in distress, the slit-eyed Chink or the distinguished grey-haired man wearing the ribbon of some foreign order.”

He brooded.

He took from his pocket-book the paper he had removed, weeks earlier, from Victor Dean’s desk, and compared the dates with the calendar. They were all Tuesdays. After a little further cogitation, he added the date of the previous Tuesday week, the day when Miss Vavasour had called at the office and Tallboy had borrowed his pen to address a letter to Old Broad Street. To this date he appended the initial-“T”. Then, his mind working slowly backwards, he remembered that he had come to Pym’s on a Tuesday, and that Tallboy had come into the typists’ room for a stamp. Miss Rossiter had read out the name of his addressee-what had the initial been? “K”, of course. He wrote this down also, Then with rather more hesitation, he looked up the date of the Tuesday preceding Mr. Puncheon’s historic adventure at the White Swan, and wrote “W?”

So far, so good. But from “K” to “T” there were nine letters-there had not been nine weeks. Nor should “W” have come between “K” and “T”. What was the rule governing the letter-sequence? He drew thoughtfully at his pipe and sank into a reverie that was almost a pipe-dream, till he was aroused by a very distinct sound of yells and conflict from the floor above. Presently the door opened and his sister appeared, rather flushed.

“I’m sorry, Peter. Did you hear the row? Your young namesake was being naughty. He heard Uncle Peter’s voice and refused to stay in bed. He wants to come down and see you.”

“Very flattering,” said Wimsey.

“But very exhausting,” said Mary. “I do hate disciplining people. Why shouldn’t he see his uncle? Why should uncle be busy with dull detective business when his nephew is so much more interesting?”

“Quite so,” said Wimsey. “I have often asked myself the same question. I gather that you hardened your heart.”

“I compromised. I said that if he was a good boy and went back to bed, Uncle Peter might come up to say good night to him.”

“And has he been a good boy?”

“Yes. In the end. That is to say, he is in bed. At least, he was when I came down.”

“Very well,” said Wimsey, putting down his paraphernalia. “Then I will be a good uncle.”

He mounted the stairs obediently and found Peterkin, aged three, technically in bed. That is to say, he was sitting bolt upright with the blankets cast off, roaring lustily.

“Hullo!” said Wimsey, shocked.

The roaring ceased.

“What is all this?” Wimsey traced the course of a fat, down-rolling drop with a reproachful finger. “Tears, idle tears? Great Scott!”

“Uncle Peter! I got a naeroplane.” Peterkin tugged violently at the sleeve of a suddenly unresponsive uncle. “Look at my naeroplane, Uncle! Naeroplane, naeroplane!”

“I beg your pardon, old chap,” said Wimsey, recollecting himself. “I wasn’t thinking. It’s a beautiful aeroplane. Does it fly?… Hi! you needn’t get up and show me now. I’ll take your word for it.”

“Mummie make it fly.”

It flew very competently, effecting a neat landing on the chest of drawers. Wimsey watched it with vague eyes.

“Uncle Peter!”

“Yes, son, it’s splendid. Listen, would you like a speedboat?”

“What’s peed-boat?”

“A boat that will run in the water-chuff, chuff-like that.”

“Will it float in my barf?”

“Yes, of course. It’ll sail right across the Round Pond.”

Peterkin considered.

“Could I have it in my barf wiv’ me?”

“Certainly, if Mummie says so.”

“I’d like a boat in my barf.”

“You shall have one, old man.”

“When, now?”

‘Tomorrow.”

“Weally tomowwow?”

“Yes, promise.”

“Say thank-you, Uncle Peter.”

“Fank-you, Uncle Peter. Will it be tomowwow soon?”

“Yes, if you lie down now and go to sleep.”

Peterkin, who was a practically-minded child, shut his eyes instantly, wriggled under the bed-clothes, and was promptly tucked in by a firm hand.

“Really, Peter, you shouldn’t bribe him to go to sleep. How about my discipline?”

“Discipline be blowed,” said Peter, at the door.

“Uncle!”

“Good night!”

“Is it tomowwow yet?”

“Not yet. Go to sleep. You can’t have tomorrow till you’ve been to sleep.”

“Why not?”

“It’s one of the rules.”

“Oh! I’m asleep now, Uncle Peter.”

“Good. Stick to it.” Wimsey pulled his sister out after him and shut the nursery door.

“Polly, I’ll never say kids are a nuisance again.”

“What’s up? I can see you’re simply bursting with something.”

“I’ve got it! Tears, idle Tears. That kid deserved fifty speedboats as a reward for howling.”

“Oh, dear!”

“I couldn’t tell him that, though, could I? Come downstairs, and I’ll show you something.”

He dragged Mary at full speed into the sitting-room, took up his list of dates and jabbed at it with a jubilant pencil.

“See that date? That’s the Tuesday before the Friday on which coke was being served out at the White Swan. On that Tuesday, the Nutrax headline was finally passed for the following Friday. And what,” asked Wimsey, rhetorically, “was that headline?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. I never read advertisements.”

“You should have been smothered at birth. The headline was, ‘Why Blame the Woman?’ You will note that it begins with a ‘W.’ White Swan also begins with a ‘W.’ Got that?”

“I think so. It seems fairly simple.”

“Just so. Now on this date, the Nutrax headline was Tears, idle Tears’-a quotation from the poets.”

“I follow you so far.”

“This is the date on which the headline was passed for press, you understand.”

“Yes.”

“Also a Tuesday.”

“I have grasped that.”

“On that same Tuesday, Mr. Tallboy, who is group-manager for Nutrax, wrote a letter addressed to T. Smith, Esq.’ You get that?”

“Yes.”

“Very good. That advertisement appeared on a Friday.”

“Are you trying to explain that these advertisements are all passed for press on a Tuesday and all appear on a Friday?”

“Exactly.”

“Then why not say so, instead of continually repeating yourself?”

“All right. But now perpend. Mr. Tallboy has a habit of sending letters on a Tuesday, addressed to a Mr. Smith-who, by the way, doesn’t exist.”

“I know. You told us all about that. Mr. T. Smith is Mr. Cummings; only Mr. Cummings denies it.”

“He denies it, said the King. Leave out that part. The point is that Mr. Smith isn’t always Mr. T. Smith. Sometimes he’s other kinds of Mr. Smith. But on the day that the Nutrax headline began with a T,’ Mr. Smith was Mr. T. Smith.”

“And what sort of Mr. Smith was he on the day that the Nutrax headline began with a ‘W?”

“Unfortunately I don’t know. But I can guess that he was Mr. W. Smith. In any case, on this date here, which was the day I came to Pym’s, the Nutrax headline was ‘Kittle Cattle.’ On that day, Mr. Smith-”

“Stop! I can guess this one. He was Mr. K. Smith.”

“He was. Kenneth, perhaps, or Kirkpatrick, or Killarney. Killarney Smith would be a lovely name.”

“And was coke distributed the next Friday from the King’s Head?”

“I’m betting my boots it was. What do you think of that?”

“I think you want a little more evidence on that point. You don’t seem to have any instance where you can point to the initial, the headline, and the pub. All together.”

“That’s the weak point,” confessed Wimsey. “But look here. This Tuesday which I now write down is the date on which the great Nutrax row occurred, and the headline was altered at the last moment on Thursday night. On the Friday of that week, something went wrong with the supply of dope to Major Milligan. It never turned up.”

“Peter, I do believe you’ve got hold of something.”

“Do you, Polly? Well, so do I. But I wasn’t sure if it would sound plausible to anybody but me. And, look here! I remember another day.” Wimsey began to laugh. “I forget which date it was, but the headline was simply a blank line and an exclamation mark, and Tallboy was horribly peeved about it. I wonder what they did that week. I should think they took the initial of the sub-head. What a joke!”

“But how is it worked, Peter?”

“Well, I don’t know the details, but I imagine it’s done this way. On the Tuesday, as soon as the headline is decided, Tallboy sends an envelope to Cummings’ shop addressed to A. Smith, Esq., or B. Smith, Esq., according to the initial of the headline. Cummings looks at it, snorts at it and hands it back to the postman. Then he informs the head distributing agent, or agents. I don’t know how. Possibly he advertises too, because the great point of this scheme, as I see it, is to have as little contact as possible between the various agents. The stuff is run across on Thursday, and the agent meets it and packets it up as Bicarbonate of Soda, or something equally harmless. Then he gets the London Telephone Directory and looks up the next pub. on the list whose name begins with the letter of which Cummings has advised him. As soon as the pub. opens on Friday morning, he is there. The retail agents, if we may call them so, have meanwhile consulted the Morning Star and the Telephone Directory. They hasten to the pub. and the packets are passed to them. The late Mr. Mountjoy must have been one of these gentry.”

“How does the wholesaler recognize the retailer?”

“There must be some code or other, and our battered friend Hector Puncheon must have given the code-word by accident. We must ask about that. He’s a Morning Star man, and it may be something to do with the Morning Star. Mountjoy, by the way, evidently believed in being early on the job, because he seems to have made a practice of getting his copy of the paper the second it was off the machine, which accounts for his having been in full working order at 4.30 a.m. in Covent Garden, and hanging round Fleet Street again in the small hours of the following Friday. He must have given the code-signal, whatever it was; Puncheon may remember about it. After that, he would make his supply up into smaller packets (hence his supply of cigarette-papers) and proceed with the distribution according to his own taste and fancy. Of course, there are a lot of things we don’t know yet. How the payments are made, for instance. Puncheon wasn’t asked for money. Tallboy seems to have got his particular share in Currency Notes. But that’s a detail. The ingenuity of the thing is that the stuff is never distributed twice from the same place. No wonder Charles had difficulty with it. By the way, I’ve sent him to the wrong place tonight, poor devil. How he must be cursing me!”

Mr. Parker cursed solidly enough on his return.

“It’s entirely my fault,” said Wimsey, blithely. “I sent you to the Yelverton Arms. You ought to have been at the Anchor or the Antelope. But we’ll pull it off next week-if we live so long.”

“If,” said Parker, seriously, “we live so long.”