Unnatural Death

Chapter 1 Overheard

But if he thought the woman was being murdered-”

“My dear Charles,” said the young man with the monocle, “it doesn’t do for people, especially doctors, to go about ‘thinking’ things. They may get into frightful trouble. In Pritchard’s case, I consider Dr. Paterson did all he reasonably could by refusing a certificate for Mrs. Taylor and sending that uncommonly disquieting letter to the registrar. He couldn’t help the man’s being a fool. If there had only been an inquest on Mrs. Taylor, Pritchard would probably have been frightened off and left his wife alone. After all, Paterson hadn’t a spark of real evidence. And suppose he’d been quite wrong- what a dustup there’d have been!”

“All the same,” urged the nondescript young man, dubiously extracting a bubbling-hot Helix Pomatia from its shell, and eyeing it nervously before putting it in his mouth, “surely it’s a clear case of public duty to voice one’s suspicions.”

“Of your duty- yes,” said the other. “By the way, it’s not a public duty to eat snails if you don’t like ’em. No, I thought you didn’t. Why wrestle with a harsh fate any longer? Waiter, take the gentleman’s snails away and bring oysters instead… No- as I was saying, it may be part of your duty to have suspicions and invite investigation and generally raise hell for everybody, and if you’re mistaken nobody says much, beyond that you’re a smart, painstaking officer though a little over-zealous. But doctors, poor devils! are everlastingly walking a kind of social tight-rope. People don’t fancy calling in a man who’s liable to bring out accusations of murder on the smallest provocation.”

“Excuse me.”

The thin-faced young man sitting alone at the next table had turned round eagerly.

“It’s frightfully rude of me to break in, but every word you say is absolutely true, and mine is a case in point. A doctor- you can’t have any idea how dependent he is on the fancies and prejudices of his patients. They resent the most elementary precautions. If you dare to suggest a post-mortem, they’re up in arms at the idea of ‘cutting poor dear So-and-so up,’ and even if you only ask permission to investigate an obscure disease in the interests of research, they imagine you’re hinting at something unpleasant. Of course, if you let things go, and it turns out afterwards there’s been jiggery-pokery, the coroner jumps down your throat and the newspapers make a butt of you, and, whichever way it is, you wish you’d never been born.”

“You speak with personal feeling,” said the man with the monocle, with an agreeable air of interest.

“I do,” said the thin-faced man, emphatically. “If I had behaved like a man of the world instead of a zealous citizen, I shouldn’t be hunting about for a new job today.”

The man with the monocle glanced round the little Soho restaurant with a faint smile. The fat man on their right was unctuously entertaining two ladies of the chorus; beyond him, two elderly habitués were showing their acquaintance with the fare at the “Au Bon Bourgeois” by consuming a Tripes à la Mode de Caen (which they do very excellently there) and a bottle of Chablis Moutonne 1916; on the other side of the room a provincial and his wife were stupidly clamouring for a cut off the joint with lemonade for the lady and whisky and soda for the gentleman, while at the adjoining table, the handsome silver-haired proprietor, absorbed in fatiguing a salad for a family party, had for the moment no thoughts beyond the nice adjustment of the chopped herbs and garlic. The head waiter, presenting for inspection a plate of Blue River Trout, helped the monocled man and his companion and retired, leaving them in the privacy which unsophisticated people always seek in genteel tea-shops and never, never find there.

“I feel,” said the monocled man, “exactly like Prince Florizel of Bohemia. I am confident that you, sir, have an interesting story to relate, and shall be greatly obliged if you will favour us with the recital. I perceive that you have finished your dinner, and it will therefore perhaps not be disagreeable to you to rmove to this table and entertain us with your story while we eat. Pardon my Stevensonian manner- my sympathy is none the less sincere on that account.”

“Don’t be an ass, Peter,” said the nondescript man. “My friend is a much rational person than you might suppose to hear him talk,” he added, turning to the stranger, “and if there’s anything you’d like to get off your chest, you may be perfectly certain it won’t go any further.”

The other smiled a little grimly.

“I’ll tell you about it with pleasure if it won’t bore you. It just happens to be a case in point, that’s all.”

“On my side of the argument,” said the man called Peter, with triumph. “Do carry on. Have something to drink. It’s a poor heart that never rejoices. And begin right at the beginning, if you will, please. I have a very trivial mind. Detail delights me. Ramifications enchant me. Distance no object. No reasonable offer refused. Charles here will say the same.”

“Well,” said the stranger, “to begin from the very beginning, I am a medical man, particularly interested in the subject of Cancer. I had hoped, as so many people do, to specialise on the subject, but there wasn’t money enough, when I’d done my exams., to allow me to settle down to research work. I had to take a country practice, but I kept in touch with the important men up here, hoping to be able to come back to it some day. I may say I have quite decent expectations from an uncle, and in the meanwhile they agreed it would be quite good for me to get some all-round experience as a G.P. Keeps one from getting narrow and all that.

“Consequently, when I bought a nice practice at…- I’d better not mention any names, let’s call it X, down Hampshire way, a little country town of 5,000 people- I was greatly pleased to find a cancer case on my list of patients. The old lady-”

“How long ago was this?” interrupted Peter.

“Three years ago. There wasn’t much to be done with the case. The old lady was seventy-two, and had already had one operation. She was a game old girl, though, and was making a good fight of it, with a very tough constitution to back her up. She was not, I should say, and had never been, a woman of very powerful intellect or strong character as far as her dealings with other people went, but she was extremely obstinate in certain ways and was possessed by a positive determination not to die. At this time she lived alone with her niece, a young woman of twenty-five or so. Previously to that, she had been living with another old lady,the girl’s aunt on the other side of the family, who had been her devoted friend since their school days. When this other old aunt died, the girl, who was their only living relative, threw up her job as a nurse at the Royal Free Hospital to look after the survivor- my patient- and they had come and settled down at X about a year before I took over the practice. I hope I am making myself clear.”

“Perfectly. Was there another nurse?”

“Not at that time. The patient was able to get about, visit acquaintances, do light work about the house, flowers and knitting and reading and so on, and to drive about the place- in fact, most of the things that old ladies do occupy their time with. Of course, she had her bad days of pain from time to time, but the niece’s training was quite sufficient to enable her to do all that was necessary.”

“What was the niece like?”

“Oh, a very nice, well-educated, capable girl, with a great deal more brain than her aunt. Self-reliant, cool, all that sort of thing. Quite the modern type. The sort of woman one can trust to keep her head and not forget things. Of course, after a time, the wretched growth made it’s appearance again, as it always does if it isn’t tackled at the very beginning, and another operation became necessary. That was when I had been in X about eight months. I took her up to London, to my own old chief, Sir Warburton Giles, and it was performed very successfully as far as the operation itself went, though it was then only too evident that a vital organ was being encroached upon, and that the end could only be a matter of time. I neednt go into details. Everything was done that could be done. I wanted the old lady to stay in town under Sir Warburton’s eye, but she was vigorously opposed to this. She was accustomed to a country life and could not be happy except in her own home. So she went back to X, and I was able to keep her going with visits for treatment at the nearest large town, where there is an excellent hospital. She rallied amazingly after the operation and eventually was able to dismiss her nurse and go on in the old way under the care of the niece.”

“One moment, doctor,” put in the man called Charles, “you say you took her to Sir Warburton Giles and so on. I gather she was pretty well off.”

“Oh, yes, she was quite a wealthy woman.”

“Do you happen to know whether she made a will?”

“No. I think I mentioned her extreme aversion to the idea of death. She had always refused to make any kind of will because it upset her to think about such things. I did once venture to speak of the subject in the most casual way I could, shortly before she underwent her operation, but the effect was to excite her very undesirably. Also she said, which was quite true, that it was quite unnecessary. ‘You, my dear,’ she said to the niece, ‘are the only kith and kin I’ve got in the world, and all I’ve got will be yours some day, whatever happens. I know I can trust you to remember my servants and my little charities.’ So, of course, I didn’t insist.

“I remember, by the way- but that was a good deal later on and has nothing to do with the story-”

“Please,” said Peter, “all the details.”

“Well, I remember going there one day and finding my patient not so well as I could have wished and very much agitated. The niece told me that the trouble was caused by a visit from her solicitor- a family lawyer from her home town, not our local man. He had insisted on a private interview with the old lady, at the close of which she had appeared terribly excited and angry, declaring that everyone was in a conspiracy to kill her before her time. The solicitor, before leaving, had given no explanation to the niece, but had impressed upon her that if at any time her aunt expressed a wish to see him, she was to send for him at any hour of the day or night and he would come at once.”

“And was he ever sent for?”

“No. The old lady was deeply offended with him, and almost the last bit of business she did for herself was to take her affairs out of his hands and transfer them to the local solicitor. Shortly afterwards, a third operation became necessary, and after this she gradually became more and more of an invalid. Her head began to get weak, too, and she grew incapable of understanding anything complicated, and indeed she was in too much pain to be bothered about business. The niece had a power of attorney, and took over the management of her aunt’s money entirely.”

“When was this?”

“In April, 1925. Mind you, though she was getting a bit ‘gaga’- after all, she was getting on in years- her bodily strength was quite remarkable. I was investigating a new method of treatment and the results were extraordinarily interesting. That made it all the more annoying to me when the surprising thing happened.

“I should mention that by this time we were obliged to have an outside nurse for her, as the niece could not do both the day and night duty. The first nurse came in April. She was a most charming and capable young woman- the ideal nurse. I placed absolute dependence on her. She had been specially recommended to me by Sir Warburton Giles, and though she was not then more than twenty-eight, she had the discretion and judgment of a woman twice her age. I may as well tell you at once that I became deeply attached to this lady and she to me. We are engaged, and had hoped to be married this year- if it hadn’t been for my damned concientiousness and public spirit.”

The doctor grimaced wryly at Charles, who murmured rather lamely that it was very bad luck.

“My fiancée, like myself, took a keen interest in the case- partly because it was my case and partly because she was herself greatly interested in the disease. She looks forward to being of great assistance to me in my life work if I ever get the chance to do anything at it. But that’s by the way.

“Things went on like this till September. Then, for some reason, the patient began to take one of those unaccountable dislikes that feebleminded patients do take sometimes. She got it into her head that the nurse wanted to kill her- the same idea she’d had about the lawyer, you see- and earnestly assured her niece that she was being poisoned. No doubt she attributed her attacks of pain to this cause. Reasoning was useless- she cried out and refused to let the nurse come near her. When that happens, naturally, there’s nothing for it but to get rid of the nurse, as she can do the patient no possible good. I sent my fiancée back to town and wired to Sir Warburton’s Clinic to send me down another nurse.

“The new nurse arrived the next day. Naturally, after the other, she was a second-best as far as I was concerned, but she seemed quite up to her work and the patient made no objection. However, now I began to have trouble with the niece. Poor girl, all this long-drawn-out business was getting on her nerves, I suppose. She took it into her head that her aunt was very much worse. I said that of course she must gradually get worse, but that she was putting up a wonderful fight and there was no cause for alarm. The girl wasn’t satisfied, however, and on one occasion early in November sent for me hurriedly in the middle of the night because her aunt was dying.

“When I arrived, I found the patient in great pain, certainly, but in no immediate danger. I told the nurse to give her a morphia injection, and administered a dose of bromide to the girl, telling her to go to bed and not to do any nursing for the few days. The following day I overhauled the patient very carefully and found that she was doing even better than I supposed. Her heart was exceptionally strong and steady, she was taking nourishment remarkably well and the progress of the disease was temporarily arrested.

“The niece apologised for her agitation, and said she really thought her aunt was going. I said that, on the contrary, I could now affirm positively that she would live for another five or six months. As you know, in cases like hers, one can speak with very fair certainty.

“ ‘In any case,’ I said, ‘I shouldn’t distress yourself too much. Death, when it does come, will be a release from suffering.

“ ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘poor Auntie. I’m afraid I’m selfish, but she’s the only relative I have left in the world.’

“Three days later, I was just sitting down to dinner when a telephone message came. Would I go over at once? The patient was dead.”

“Good gracious!” cried Charles, “it’s perfectly obvious-”

“Shut up, Sherlock,” said his friend, “the doctor’s story is not going to be obvious. Far from it, as the private said when he aimed at the bull’s-eye and hit the gunnery instructor. But I observe the waiter hovering uneasily about us while his colleagues pile up chairs and carry away the cruets. Will you not come and finish the story in my flat? I can give you a glass of very decent port. You will? Good. Waiter, call a taxi… 110A, Piccadilly.”

Chapter 2 Miching Mallecho

The April night was clear and chilly, and a brisk wood fire burned in a welcoming manner on the hearth. The bookcases lined the walls were filled with rich bindings, mellow and glowing in the lamp-light. There was a grand piano, a huge chesterfield piled deep with cushions and two arm-chairs of the build that invites one to wallow. The port was brought in by an impressive manservant and placed on a very beautiful little Chippendale table. Some big bowls of scarlet and yellow parrot tulips beckoned,banner-like, from dark corners.

The doctor had just written his new acquaintance down as an aesthete with a literary turn, looking for the ingredients of a human drama, when the manservant reentered.

“Inspector Sugg rang up, my lord, and left this message, and said would you be good enough to give him a call as soon as you came in.”

“Oh, did he?- well, just get him for me, would you? This is the Worplesham business, Charles. Sugg’s mucked it up as usual. The baker has an alibi- naturally- he would have. Oh, thanks… Hullo! that you, Inspector? What did I tell you?- Oh, routine be hanged. Now, look here. You get hold of that gamekeeper fellow, and find out from him what he saw in the sand-pit… No, I know, but I fancy if you ask him impressively enough he will come across with it. No, of course not- if you ask if he was there, he’ll say no. Say you know he was there and what did he see- and, look here! if he hums and haws about it, say you’re sending a gang down to have the stream diverted… All right. Not at all. Let me know if anything comes of it.”

He put the receiver down.

“Excuse me, Doctor. A little matter of business. Now go on with your story. The old lady was dead, eh? Died in her sleep, I suppose. Passed away in the most innocent manner possible. Everything all ship-shape and Bristol-fashion. No struggle, no wounds, hæmorrhages, or obvious symptoms, naturally, what?”

“Exactly. She had taken some nourishment at 6 o’clock- a little broth and some milk pudding. At eight, the nurse gave her a morphine injection and then went straight out to put some bowls of flowers on the little table on the landing for the night. The maid came to speak to her about some arrangements for the next day, and while they were talking, Miss… that is, the niece- came up and went into her aunt’s room. She had only been there a moment or two when she cried out, ‘Nurse! Nurse!’ The nurse rushed in, and found the patient dead.

“Of course, my first idea was that by some accident a double dose of morphine had been administered- ”

“Surely that wouldn’t have acted so promptly.”

“No- but I thought that a deep coma might have been mistaken for death. However, the nurse assured me that this was not the case, and, as a matter of fact, the possibility was completely disproved, as we were able to count the ampullæ of morphine and found them all satisfactorily accounted for. There were no signs of the patient having tried to move or strain herself, or of her having knocked against anything. The little night table was pushed aside, but that had been done by the niece when she came in and was struck by her aunt’s alarmingly lifeless appearance.”

“How about the broth and the milk pudding?”

“That occurred to me also- not in any sinister way, but to wonder whether she’d been having too much- distended stomach- pressure on the heart, and that sort of thing. However, when I came to look into it, it seemed very unlikely. The quantity was so small, and on the face of it, two hours were sufficient for digestion- if it had been that, death would have taken place earlier. I was completely puzzled, and so was the nurse. Indeed, she was very much upset.”

“And the niece?”

“The niece could say nothing but ‘I told you so, I told you so- I knew she was worse than you thought.’ Well, to cut a long story short, I was so bothered with my pet patient going off like that, that next morning, after I had thought the matter over, I asked for a postmortem.”

“Any difficulty?”

“Not the slightest. A little natural distaste, of course, but no sort of opposition. I explained that I felt sure there must be some obscure morbid condition which I had failed to diagnose and that I should feel more satisfied if I might make an investigation. The only thing which seemed to trouble the niece was the thought of an inquest. I said- unwisely, I suppose, according to general rules- that I didn’t think an inquest would be necessary.”

“You mean you offered to perform the post-mortem yourself.”

“Yes- I made no doubt that I should find a sufficient cause of death to enable me to give a certificate. I had one bit of luck, and that was that the old lady had at some time or other expressed in a general way an opinion in favour of cremation, and the niece wished this to be carried out. This meant getting a man with special qualifications to sign the certificate with me, so I persuaded this other doctor to come and help me to do the autopsy.”

“And did you find anything?”

“Not a thing. The other man, of course, said I was a fool to kick up a fuss. He thought that as the old lady was certainly dying in any case, it would be quite enough to put in, Cause of death, Cancer; immediate cause, Heart Failure, and leave it at that. But I was a damned conscientious ass, and said I wasn’t satisfied. There was absolutely nothing about the body to explain the death naturally, and I insisted on an analysis.”

“Did you actually suspect-?”

“Well, no, not exactly. But- well, I wasn’t satisfied. By the way, it was very clear at the autopsy that the morphine had nothing to do with it. Death had occurred so soon after the injection that the drug had only partially dispersed from the arm. Now I think it over, I suppose it must have been shock, somehow.”

“Was the analysis privately made?”

“Yes, but of course the funeral was held up and things got round. The coroner heard about it and started to make inquiries, and the nurse, who got it into her head that I was accusing her of neglect or something, behaved in a very unprofessional way and created a lot of talk and trouble.”

“And nothing came of it?”

“Nothing. There was no trace of poison or anything of that sort, and the analysis left us exactly where we were. Naturally, I began to think I had made a ghastly exhibition of myself. Rather against my own professional judgment, I signed the certificate- heart failure following on shock, and my patient was finally got into her grave after a week of worry, without an inquest”

“Grave?

“Oh, yes. That was another scandal. The crematorium authorities, who are pretty particular, heard about the fuss and refused to act in the matter, so the body is filed in the churchyard for reference if necessary. There was a huge attendance at the funeral and a great deal of sympathy for the niece. The next day I got a note from one of my most influential patients, saying that my professional services would no longer be required. The day after that, I was avoided in the street by the Mayor’s wife. Presently I found my practice dropping away from me, and discovered I was getting known as ‘the man who practically accused that charming Miss So-and-so of murder.’ Sometimes it was the niece I was supposed to be accusing. Sometimes it was ‘that nice Nurse- not the flighty one who was dismissed, the other one, you know.’ Another version was, that I had tried to get the nurse into trouble because I resented the dismissal of my fiancée. Finally, I heard a rumour that the patient had discovered me ‘canoodling’- that was the beastly, word- with my fiancée, instead of doing my job, and had done with the old lady myself out of revenge- though why, in that case, I should have refused a certificate, my scandal-mongers didn’t trouble to explain.

“I stuck it out for a year, but my position became intolerable. The practice dwindled to practically nothing, so I sold it, took a holiday to get the taste out of my mouth- and here I am, looking for another opening. So that’s that- and the moral is, Don’t be officious about public duties.”

“The doctor gave an irritated laugh, and flung himself back in his chair.

“I don’t care,” he added, combatantly, “the cats! Confusion to ’em!” and he drained his glass.

“Hear, hear!” agreed his host. He sat for a few moments looking thoughtfully into the fire.

“Do you know,” he said suddenly, “I’m feeling rather interested by this case. I have a sensation of internal gloating which assures me that there is something to be investigated. That feeling has never failed me yet- I trust it never will. It warned me the other day to look into my Income-tax assessment, and I discovered that I had been paying about £900 too much for the last three years. It urged me only last week to ask a bloke who was preparing to drive me over the Horseshoe Pass whether he had any petrol in the tank, and he discovered he had just about a pint- enough to get us nicely halfway round. It’s a very lonely spot. Of course, I knew the man, so it wasn’t all intuition. Still, I always make it a rule to investigate anything I feel like investigating. I believe,” he added, in a reminiscent tone, “I was a terror in my nursery days. Anyhow, curious cases are rather a hobby of mine. In fact, I’m not just being the perfect listener. I have deceived you. I have an ulterior motive, said he, throwing off his side-whiskers and disclosing the well-known hollow jaws of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

“I was beginning to have my suspicions,” said the doctor, after a short pause. “I think you must be Lord Peter Wimsey. I wondered why your face was so familiar, but of course it was in all the papers a few years ago when you disentangled the Riddlesdale Mystery.”

“Quite right. It’s a silly kind of face, of course, but rather disarming, don’t you think? I don’t know that I’d have chosen it, but I do my best with it. I do hope it isn’t contracting a sleuth-like expression, or anything unpleasant. This is the real sleuth- my friend Detective-Inspector Parker of Scotland Yard. He’s the one who really does the work. I make imbecile suggestions and he does the work of elaborately disproving them. Then, by a process of elimination, we find the right explanation, and the world says, ‘My god, what intuition that young man has!’ Well, look here- if you don’t mind, I’d like to have a go at this. If you’ll entrust me with your name and address and the names of the parties concerned, I’d like very much a shot at looking into it.”

The doctor considered a moment, then shook his head.

“It’s very good of you, but I think I’d rather not. I’ve got into enough bothers already. Anyway, it isn’t professional to talk, and if I stirred up any more fuss, I should probably have to chuck this country altogether and end up as one of those drunken ship’s doctors in the South Seas or somewhere, who are always telling their life-history to people and delivering awful warnings. Better to let sleeping dogs lie. Thanks very much, all the same.”

“As you like,” said Wimsey. “But I’ll think it over, and if any useful suggestion occurs to me, I’ll let you know.”

“It’s very good of you,” replied the visitor, absently, taking his hat and stick from the man-servant, who had answered Wimsey’s ring. “Well, good night, and many thanks for hearing me so patiently. By the way, though,” he added, turning suddenly at the door, “how do you propose to let me know when you haven’t got my name and address?”

Lord Peter laughed.

“I’m Hawkshaw, the detective,” he answered, “and you shall hear from me anyhow before the end of the week.”

Chapter 3 Use for Spinsters

What do you really think of that story?” inquired Parker. He had dropped in to breakfast with Wimsey the next morning, before departing in the Notting Dale direction, in quest of an elusive anonymous letter-writer. “I thought it sounded rather as though our friend had been a bit too cocksure about his grand medical specialising. After all, the old girl might so easily have had some sort of heart attack. She was very old and ill.”

“So she might, though I believe as a matter of fact cancer patients very seldom pop off in that unexpected way. As a rule, they surprise everybody by the way they cling to life. Still, I wouldn’t think much of that if it wasn’t for the niece. She prepared the way for the death, you see, by describing her aunt as so much worse than she was.”

“I thought the same when the doctor was telling his tale. But what did the niece do? She can’t have poisoned her aunt or even smothered her, I suppose, or they’d have found signs of it on the body. And the aunt did die- so perhaps the niece was right and the opinionated young medico wrong.”

“Just so. And of course, we’ve only got his version of the niece and the nurse- and he obviously has what the Scotch call ta’en a scunner at the nurse. We musn’t lose sight of her, by the way. She was the last person to be with the old lady before her death, and it was she who administered that injection.”

“Yes, yes- but the injection had nothing to do with it. If any thing’s clear, that is. I say, do you think the nurse can have said anything that agitated the old lady and gave her a shock that way. The patient was a bit gaga, but she may have had sense enough to understand something really startling. Possibly the nurse just said something stupid about dying- the lady appears to have been very sensitive on the point.”

“Ah!”said Lord Peter, “I was waiting for you to get on to that. Have you that there really is one rather sinister figure in the story, and that’s the family lawyer.”

“The one who came down to say something about the will, you mean, and was so abruptly sent packing.”

“Yes. Suppose he’d wanted the patient to make a will in favour of somebody quite different- somebody outside the story as we know it. And when he found he couldn’t get any attention paid to him, he sent the new nurse down as a sort of substitute.”

“It would be rather an elaborate plot,” said Parker, dubiously. “He couldn’t know that the doctor’s fiancée was going to be sent away. Unless he was in league with the niece, of course, and induced her to engineer the change of nurses.”

“That cock won’t fight, Charles. The niece wouldn’t be in league with the lawyer to get herself disinherited.”

“No, I suppose not. Still, I think there’s something in the idea that the old girl was either accidentally or deliberately startled to death.”

“Yes- and whichever way it was, it probably wasn’t legal murder in that case. However, I think it’s worth looking into. That reminds me.” He rang the bell. “Bunter, just take a note to the post for me, would you?”

“Certainly, my lord.”

Lord Peter drew a writing pad towards him.

“What are you going to write?” asked Parker, looking over his shoulder with some amusement.

Lord Peter wrote:

“Isn’t civilisation wonderful?”

He signed this simple message and slipped it into an envelope.

“If you want to be immune from silly letters, Charles,” he said, “don’t carry your monomark in your hat.”

“And what do you propose to do next?” asked Parker. “Not, I hope, to send me round to Monomark House to get the name of a client. I couldn’t do that without authority, and they would probably kick up an awful shindy.”

“No,” replied his friend, “I don’t propose violating the secrets of the confessional. Not in that quarter at any rate. T think, if you can spare a moment from your mysterious correspondent, who probably does not intend to be found, I will ask you to come and pay a visit to a friend of mine. It won’t take long. I think you’ll be interested. I- in fact, you’ll be the first person I’ve ever taken to see her. She will be very much touched and pleased.”

He laughed a little self-consciously.

“Oh,” said Parker, embarrassed. Although the men were great friends, Wimsey had always preserved a reticence about his personal affairs- not so much by concealing as by ignoring them. This revelation seemed to mark a new stage of intimacy, and Parker was not sure that he liked it. He conducted his own life with an earnest middle-class morality which he owed to his birth and up-bringing, and, while theoretically recognising that Lord Peter’s world acknowledged different standards, he had never contemplated being personally faced with any result of their application in practice.

“- rather an experiment,” Wimsey was saying a trifle shyly; “anyway, she’s quite comfortably fixed in a little flat in Pimlico. You can come, can’t you, Charles? I really should like you two to meet.”

“Oh, yes, rather,” said Parker, hastily, “I should like to very much. Er- how long-I mean- ”

“Oh, the arrangement’s only been going a few months,” said Wimsey, leading the way to the lift, “but it really seems to be working out quite satisfactorily. Of course, it makes things much easier for me.”

“Just so,” said Parker.

“Of course, as you’ll understand- I won’t go into it all till we get there, and then you’ll see for yourself,” Wimsey chattered on, slamming the gates of the lift with unnecessary violence- “but, as I was saying, you’ll observe it’s quite a new departure. I don’t suppose there’s ever been anything exactly like it before. I course, there’s nothing new under the sun, as Solomon said, but after all, I daresay all those wives and porcupines, as the child said, must have soured his disposition a little, don’t you know.”

“Quite,” said Parker. “Poor fish,” he added to himself, “they always seem to think it’s different.”

“Outlet,” said Wimsey, energetically, “hi! taxi!… outlet- everybody needs an outlet- 97A, St. George’s Square -and after all, one can’t really blame people if it’s just that they need an outlet. I mean, why be bitter? They can’t help it. I think it’s much kinder to give them an outlet than to make fun of them in books- and, after all, it isn’t really difficult to write books. Especially if you either write a rotten story in good English or a good story in rotten English, which is as far as most people seem to get nowadays. Don’t you agree?”

Mr. Parker agreed, and Lord Peter wandered away along the paths of literature, till the cab stopped before one of those tall, awkward mansions which, originally designed for a Victorian family with fatigue-proof servants, have lately been dissected each into half a dozen inconvenient band-boxes and let off in flats.

Lord Peter rang the top bell, which was marked “CLIMPSON,” and relaxed negligently against the porch.

“Six flights of stairs,” he explained; “it takes her some time to answer the bell, because there’s no lift, you see. She wouldn’t have a more expensive flat, though. She thought it wouldn’t be suitable.”

Mr. Parker was greatly relieved, if somewhat surprised, by the modesty of the lady’s demands, and, placing his foot on the door-scraper in an easy attitude, prepared to wait with patience. Before many minutes, however, the door was opened by a thin, middle-aged woman, with a sharp, sallow face and very vivacious manner. She wore a neat, dark coat and skirt, a high-necked blouse and long gold neck-chain with a variety of small ornaments dangling from it at intervals, and her iron-grey hair was dressed under a net, in the style fashionable in the reign of the late King Edward.

“Oh, Lord Peter! How very nice to see you. Rather an early visit, but I’m sure you will excuse the sitting-room being a trifle in disorder. Do come in. The lists are quite ready for you. I finished them last night. In fact, I was just about to put on my hat and bring them round to you. I do hope you don’t think I have taken an unconscionable time, but there was a quite surprising number of entries. It is too good of you to trouble to call.”

“Not at all, Miss Climpson. This is my friend Detective-Inspector Parker, whom I have mentioned to you.”

“How do you do, Mr. Parker- or ought I to say Inspector? Excuse me if I make mistakes- this is really the first time I have been in the hands of the police. I hope it's not rude of me to say that. Please come up. A great many stairs, I am afraid, but I hope you do not mind. I do so like to be high up. The air is so much better, and you know, Mr. Parker, thanks to Lord Peter’s great kindness, I have such a beautiful, airy view, right over the houses. I think one can work so much better when one doesn’t feel cribbed, cabined and confined, as Hamlet says. Dear me! Mrs. Winbottle will leave the pail on the stairs, and always in that very dark corner. I am continually telling her about it. If you keep close to the banisters you will avoid it nicely. Only one more flight. Here we are. Please overlook the untidiness. I always think breakfast things look so ugly when one has finished with them- almost sordid, to use a nasty word for a nasty subject. What a pity that some of these clever people can’t invent self-cleaning and self-clearing plates, is it not? But please do sit down; I won’t keep you a moment. And I know, Lord Peter, that you will not hesitate to smoke. I do so enjoy the smell of your cigarettes- quite delicious- and you are so very good about extinguishing the ends.”

The little room was, as a matter of fact most exquisitely neat, in spite of the crowded array of knick-knacks and photographs that adorned every available inch of space. The sole evidences of dissipation were an empty eggshell, a used cup and a crumby plate on a breakfast tray. Miss Climpson promptly subdued this riot by carrying the tray on to the landing.

Mr. Parker, a little bewildered, lowered himself cautiously into a small armchair, embellished with a hard, fat little cushion which made it impossible to lean back. Lord Peter wriggled into the window-seat, lit a Sobranie and clasped his hands about his knees. Miss Climpson, seated upright at the table, gazed at him with a gratified air which was positively touching.

“I have gone very carefully into all these cases,” she began, taking up a thick wad of type-script. “I’m afraid, indeed, my notes are rather copious, but I trust the typist’s bill will not be considered too heavy. My handwriting is very clear, so I don’t think there can be any errors. Dear me! such sad stories some of these poor women had to tell me! But I have investigated most fully, with the kind assistance of the clergyman- a very nice man and so helpful- and I feel sure that in the majority of the cases your assistance will be well bestowed. If you would like to go through- ”

“Not at the moment, Miss Climpson,” interrupted Lord Peter, hurriedly. “It’s all right, Charles- nothing whatever do with Our Dumb Friends or supplying Flannel to Unmarried Mothers. I’ll tell you about it later. Just now, Miss Climpson, we want your help on something quite different.”

Miss Climpson produced a business-like notebook and sat at attention.

“The inquiry divides itself into two parts,” said Lord Peter. “The first part I’m afraid, is rather dull. I want you (if you will be so good) to go down to Somerset House and search, or get them to search, through all the death certificates for Hampshire in the month of November, 1925. I don’t know the town and I don’t know the name of the deceased. What you are looking for is the death-certificate of an old lady of 73; cause of death, cancer; immediate cause heart-failure; and the certificate will have been signed by two doctors, one of whom will be ither a Medical Officer of Health, Police Surgeon, Certifying Surgeon under the Factory and Workshops Act, Medical Referee under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, Physician or Surgeon in a big General Hospital, or a man specially appointed by the Cremation authorities. If you want to give any excuse for the search, you can say that you are compiling statistics about cancer; but what you really want is the names of the people concerned and the name of the town”.

“Suppose there are more than one answering to the requirements?”

“That’s where the second part comes in, and where your remarkable tact and shrewdness are going to be so helpful to us. When you have collected all the ‘possibles,’ I shall ask you to go down to each of the towns concerned and make very, very skilful inquiries, to find out which is the case we want to get on to. Of course, you mustn’t appear to be inquiring. You must find some good gossipy lady living in the neighbourhood and just get her to talk in a natural way. You must pretend to be gossipy yourself- it’s not in your nature, I know, but I’m sure you can make a little pretence about it- and find out all you can. I fancy you’ll find it pretty easy if you once strike the right town, because I know for a certainty that there was a terrible lot of ill-natured talk about this particular death, and it won’t have been forgotten yet by a long chalk.”

“How shall I know when it’s the right one?”

“Well, if you can spare the time, I want you to listen to a little story. Mind you, Miss Climpson, when you get to wherever it is, you are not supposed ever to have heard a word of this tale before. But I needn’t tell you that. Now, Charles, you’ve got an official kind of way puttin’ these things clearly. Will you just weigh in and give Miss Climpson the gist of that rigmarole our friend served out to us last night?”

Pulling his wits into order, Mr. Parker accordingly obliged with a digest of the doctor’s story. Miss Climpson listened with great attention, making notes of the dates and details. Parker observed that she showed great acumen in seizing on thesalient points; she asked a number of very shrewd questions, and her grey eyes were intelligent. When he had finished, she repeated the story, and he was able to congratulate her on a clear head and retentive memory.

“A dear old friend of mine used to say that I should have made a very good lawyer,” said Miss Climpson, complacently, “but of course, when I was young, girls didn’t have the education or the opportunities they get nowadays, Mr. Parker. I should have liked a good education, but my dear father didn’t believe in it for women. Very old-fashioned, you young people would think him.”

“Never mind, Miss Climpson,” said Wimsey, “you’ve got just exactly the qualifications we want, and they’re rather rare, so we’re in luck. Now we want this matter pushed forward as fast as possible.”

“I’ll go down to Somerset House at once,” replied the lady, with great energy, “and let you know the minute I’m ready to start for Hampshire.”

“That’s right,” said his lordship, rising. “And now we’ll just make a noise like a hoop and roll away. Oh! and while I think of it, I’d better give you something in hand for travelling expenses and so on. I think you had better be just a retired lady in easy circumstances looking for a nice little place to settle down in. I don’t think you’d better be wealthy- wealthy people don’t inspire confidence. Perhaps you would oblige me by living at the rate of about £800 a year- your own excellent taste and experience will suggest the correct accessories and so on for creating that impression. If you will allow me, I will give you a cheque for £50 now, and when you start on your wanderings you will let me know what you require.”

“Dear me,” said Miss Climpson, “I don’t- ”

“This is a pure matter of business, course,” said Wimsey, rather rapidly, “and you will let me have a note of the expenses in your usual business-like way.”

“Of course.” Miss Climpson was dignified. “And I will give you a proper receipt immediately.”

“Dear, dear,” she added, hunting through her purse, “I do not appear to have any penny stamps. How extremely remiss of me. It is most unusual for me not to have my little book of stamps- so handy I always think they are- but only last night Mrs. Williams borrowed my last stamps to send a very urgent letter to her son in Japan. If you will excuse me a moment-”

“I think I have some,” interposed Parker.

“Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Parker. Here is the twopence. I never allow myself to be without pennies- on account of the bathroom geyser, you know. Such a sensible invention, most convenient, and prevents all dispute about hot water among the tenants. Thank you so much. And now I sign my name across the stamps. That’s right, isn’t it? My dear father would be surprised to find his daughter so business-like. He always said a woman should never need to know anything about money matters, but times have changed so greatly, have they not?”

Miss Climpson ushered them down all six flights of stairs, volubly protesting at their protests, and the door closed behind them.

“May I ask-?” began Parker.

“It is not what you think,” said his lordship, earnestly.

“Of course not,” agreed Parker.

“There, I knew you had a nasty mind. Even the closest of one’s friends turn out to be secret thinkers. They think in private thoughts which they publicly repudiate.”

“Don’t be a fool. Who is Miss Climpson?”

“Miss Climpson,” said Lord Peter, “is a manifestation of the wasteful way in which this country is run. Look at electricity. Look at water-power. Look at the tides. Look at the sun. Millions of power units being given off into space every minute. Thousands of old maids, simply bursting with useful energy, forced by our stupid social system into hydros and hotels and communities and hostels and posts as companions, where their magnificent gossip-powers and units of inquisitiveness are allowed to dissipate themselves or even become harmful to the community, while the ratepayers’ money is spent on getting work for which these women are providentially fitted, inefficiently carried out by ill-equipped policemen like you. My god! it’s enough to make a man write to John Bull. And then bright young men write nasty little patronising books called ‘Elderly Women’ and ‘On the Edge of the Explosion’- and the drunkards make songs upon ’em, poor things.”

“Quite, quite,” said Parker. “You mean that Miss Climpson is a kind of inquiry agent for you.”

“She is my ears and tongue,” said Lord Peter dramatically, “and especially my nose. She asks questions which a young man could not put without a blush. She is the angel that rushes in where fools get a clump on the head. She can smell a rat in the dark. In fact, she is the cat’s whiskers.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” said Parker.

“Naturally- it is mine, therefore brilliant. Just think. People want questions asked. Whom do they send? A man with large flat feet and a notebook- the sort of man whose private life is conducted in a series of inarticulate grunts. I send a lady with a long, woolly jumper on knitting-needles and jingly things around her neck. Of course she asks questions- everyone expects it. Nobody is surprised. Nobody is alarmed. And so-called superfluity is agreeable and usefully disposed of. One of these days they will put up a statue to me, with an inscription:

“ ‘To the Man who Made

Thousands of Superfluous Women

Happy

without Injury to their Modesty

or Exertion to Himself.’”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk so much,” complained his friend. “And how about all those type-written reports? Are you turning philanthropist in your old age?”

“No- no,” said Wimsey, rather hurriedly hailing a taxi. “Tell you about that later. Little private pogrom of my own-Insurance against the Socialist Revolution- when it comes. ‘What did you do with your great wealth, comrade?’ ‘I bought First Editions.’ ‘Aristocrat! à la lanterne!’ ‘Stay, spare me! I took proceedings against 500 moneylenders who oppressed the workers.’ ‘Citizen, you have done well. We will spare your life. You shall be promoted to cleaning out the sewers.’ Voilà! We must move with the times. Citizen taxi-driver, take me to the British Museum. Can I drop you anywhere? No? So long. I am going to collate a 12th century manuscript of Tristan, while the old order lasts.”

Mr. Parker thoughtfully boarded a westward-bound ’bus and was rolled away to do some routine questioning, on his own account, among the female population of Notting Dale. It did not appear to him to be a milieu in which the talents of Miss Climpson could be usefully employed.

Chapter 4 A Bit Mental

Letter from Miss Alexandra Katherine Climpson to Lord Peter Wimsey.

“C/o Mrs. Hamilton Budge,

“ Fairview, Nelson Avenue,

“Leahampton, Hants.

“April 29th, 1921

My Dear Lord Peter,

You will be happy to hear, after my two previous bad shots (!), that I have found the right place at last. The Agatha Dawson certificate is the correct one, and the dreadful scandal about Dr. Carr is still very much alive, I am sorry to say for the sake of human nature. I have been fortunate enough to secure rooms in the very next street to Wellington Avenue where Miss Dawson used to to live. My landlady seems a very nice woman, though a terrible gossip!- which is all to the good!! Her charge for a very pleasant bedroom and sitting-room with full board is 3½ guineas weekly. I trust you will not think this too extravagant, as the situation is just what you wished me to look for. I enclose a careful statement of my expenses up-to-date. You will excuse the mention of underwear, which is, I fear, a somewhat large item! but wool is so expensive nowadays, and it is necessary that every detail of my equipment should be suitable to my (supposed!) position in life. I have been careful to wash the garments through so that they do not look too new, as this might have a suspicious appearance!!

“But you will be anxious for me to (if I may use a vulgar expression) ‘cut the cackle, and come to the horses’(!!). On the day after my arrival, I informed Mrs. Budge that I was a great sufferer from rheumatism (which is quite true, as I have a sad legacy of that kind left me by, alas! my port-drinking ancestors!)- and inquired what doctors there were in the neighbourhood. This at once brought forth a long catalogue, together with a grand panegyric of the sandy soil and healthy situation of the town. I said I should prefer an elderly doctor, as the young men, in my opinion, were not to be depended on. Mrs. Budge heartily agreed with me, and a little discreet questioning brought out the whole story of Miss Dawson’s illness and the ‘carryings on’ (as she termed them) of Dr. Carr and the nurse! ‘I never did trust that first nurse,’ said Mrs. Budge, ‘for all she had her training at Guy’s and ought to have been trustworthy. A sly, red-headed baggage, and it’s my belief that all Dr. Carr’s fussing over Miss Dawson and his visits all day and every day were just to get love-making with Nurse Philliter. No wonder poor Miss Whittaker couldn’t stand it any longer and gave the girl the sake- none too soon, in my opinion. Not quite so attentive after that, Dr. Carr wasn’t- why, up to the last minute, he was pretending the old lady was quite all right, when Miss Whittaker had only said the day before that she felt sure she was going to be taken from us.”

I asked if Mrs. Budge knew Miss Whittaker personally. Miss Whittaker is the niece, you know,

“Not personally, she said, though she had met her in a social way at the vicarage working-parties. But she knew all about it, because her maid was own sister to the maid at Miss Dawson’s. Now is not that a fortunate coincidence, for you know how these girls talk!

“I also made careful inquiries the Vicar, Mr. Tredgold, and was much gratified to find that he teaches sound Catholic doctrine, so that I shall be able to attend the Church (S. Onesimus) without doing violence to my religious beliefs- a thing I could not undertake to do, even in your interests. I am sure you will understand this. As it happens, all is well, and I have written to my very good friend, the Vicar of S. Edfrith’s, Holborn, to ask for an introduction to Mr. Tredgold. By this means, I feel sure of meeting Miss Whittaker before long, as I hear she is quite a ‘pillar of the Church’! I do hope it is not wrong to make use of the Church of God to a worldly end; but after all, you are only seeking to establish Truth and Justice!- and in so good a cause, we may perhaps permit ourselves to be a little bit JESUITICAL!!!

‘This is all I have been able to do as yet, but I shall not be idle, and will write to you again as soon as I have anything to report. By the way, the pillar-box is most conveniently placed just at the corner of Wellington Avenue, so that I can easily run out and post my letters to you myself (away from prying eyes!!)- and just take a little peep at Miss Dawson’s- now Miss Whittaker’s- house, ‘The Grove,’ at the same time.

“Believe me,

“Sincerely yours,

“ALEXANDRA KATHERINE CLIMPSON.”

The little red-headed nurse gave her visitor a quick, slightly hostile look-over.

“It’s quite all right,” he said apologetically, “I haven’t come to sell you soap or gramophones, or to borrow money or enrol you in the Ancient Froth-blowers or anything charitable. I really am Lord Peter Wimsey- I mean, that really is my title, don’t you know, not a Christian name like Sanger’s Circus or Earl Derr Biggers. I’ve come to ask you some questions, and I’ve no real excuse, I’m afraid, for butting in on you- do you ever read the News of the World?”

Nurse Philliter decided that she was to be asked to go to a mental case, and that the patient had come to fetch her in person.

“Sometimes,” she said guardedly.

“Oh- well, you may have noticed my name croppin’ up in a few murders and things lately. I sleuth, you know. For a hobby. Harmless outlet for natural inquisitiveness, don’t you see, which might otherwise strike inward and produce introspection an’ suicide. Very natural, healthy pursuit- not too strenuous, not too sedentary; trains and invigorates the mind.”

“I know who you are now,” said Nurse Philliter, slowly. “You- you gave evidence against Sir Julian Freke. In fact, you traced the murder to him, didn’t you?”

“I did- it was rather unpleasant,” said Lord Peter, simply, “and I’ve got another little job of the same kind in hand now, and I want your help.”

“Won’t you sit down?” said Nurse Philliter, setting the example. “How am I concerned in the matter? ”

“You know Dr. Edward Carr, I think- late of Leahampton- conscientious but a little lackin’ in worldly wisdom- not serpentine at all, as the Bible advises, but far otherwise.

“What!” she cried, “do you believe it was murder,then?”

Lord Peter looked at her a few seconds. Her face was eager, her eyes gleaming curiously under her thick, level brows. She had expressive hands, rather large and with strong, flat joints. He noticed how they gripped the arms of her chair.

“Haven’t the faintest,” he replied, nonchalantly, “but I wanted your opinion.”

“Mine?”- she checked herself. “You know, I am not supposed to give opinions about my cases.”

“You have given it me already,” said his lordship, grinning. “Though possibly I ought to allow for a little prejudice in favour of Dr. Carr’s diagnosis.”

“Well, yes- but it’s not merely personal. I mean, my being engaged to Dr. Carr wouldn’t affect my judgment of a cancer case. I have worked with him on a great many of them, and I know that his opinion is really trustworthy- just as I know that as a motorist, he’s exactly the opposite.”

“Right. I take it that if he says the death was inexplicable, it really was so. That’s one point gained. Now about the old lady herself. I gather she was a little queer towards the end- a bit mental,; think you people call it?”

“I don’t know that I’d say that either. Of course, when she was under morphia, she would be unconscious, or only semi-conscious, for hours together. But up to the time when I left, I should say she was quite- well, quite all there. She was obstinate, you know, and what they call a character, at the best of times.”

“ But Dr. Carr told me she got odd fancies- about people poisoning her?”

The red-haired nurse rubbed her fingers slowly along the arm of the chair, and hesitated.

“If it will make you feel any less unprofessional,” said Lord Peter, guessing what was in her mind, “I may say that my friend Detective-Inspecter Parker is looking into this matter with me, which gives me a sort of right to ask questions.”

“In that case- yes- in that case I think I can speak freely. I never about that poisoning idea. I never saw anything of it- no aversion, I mean, or fear of me. As a rule, a patient will show it, if she’s got any queer ideas about the nurse. Poor Miss Dawson was always kind and affectionate. She kissed me when I went away and gave me a little present, and said she was sorry to lose me.”

“She didn’t show any sort of nervousness about taking food from you?”

“Well, I wasn’t allowed to give her any food that last week. Miss Whittaker said her aunt had taken this funny notion, and gave her all her meals herself.”

“Oh! that’s very interestin’. Was it Miss Whittaker, then, who first mentioned this little excentricity to you?”

“Yes. And she begged me not to say anything about it to Miss Dawson, for fear of agitating her.”

“And did you?”

“I did not. I wouldn’t mention it in any case to a patient. It does no good.”

“Did Miss Dawson ever speak about it to anyone else? Dr. Carr, for instance?”

“No. According to Miss Whittaker, her aunt was frightened of the doctor too, because she imagined he was in league with me. Of course, that story rather lent colour to the unkind things that were said afterwards. I suppose it’s just possible that she saw us glancing at one another or speaking aside, and got the idea that we were plotting something.”

“How about the maids?”

“There were new maids about that time. She probably wouldn’t talk about it to them, and anyhow, I wouldn’t be discussing my patient with her servants.”

“Of course not. Why did the other maids leave? How many were there? Did they all go at once?”

“Two of them went. They were sisters. One was a terrible crockery-smasher, and Miss Whittaker gave her notice, so the other left with her.”

“Ah, well! one can have too much of seeing the Crown Derby rollin’ round the floor. Quite. Then it had nothing to do with- it wasn’t on account of any little-”

“It wasn’t because they couldn’t get along with the nurse, if you mean that,” said Nurse Philliter, with a smile. “They were very obliging girls, but not very bright.”

“Well, now, is there any little odd, out-of-the-way incident you can think of that might throw light on the thing. There was a visit from a lawyer, I believe, that agitated your patient quite a lot. Was that in your time?”

“No, I only heard about it from Dr. Carr. And he never heard the name of the lawyer, what he came about, or anything.”

“A pity,” said his lordship. “I have been hoping great things of the lawyer. There’s such a sinister charm, don’t you think, about lawyers who appear unexpectedly with little bags, and alarm people with mysterious conferences, and then go away leaving urgent messages that if anything happens they are to be sent for. If it hadn’t been for the lawyer, I probably shouldn’t have treated Dr. Carr’s medical problem with the respect it deserves. He never came again, or wrote, I suppose?”

“I don’t know. Wait a minute. I do remember one thing. I remember Miss Dawson having another hysterical attack of the same sort, and saying just what she said then- ‘that they were trying to kill her before her time.’”

“When was that?”

“Oh, a couple of weeks before I left. Miss Whittaker had been up to her with the post, I think, and there were some papers of some kind to sign, and it seems to have upset her. I came in from my walk and found her in a dreadful state. The maids could have told you more about it than I could, really, for they were doing some dusting on the landing at the time and heard her going on, and they ran down and fetched me up to her. I didn’t ask them about what happened myself, naturally- it doesn’t do for nurses to gossip with the maids behind their employers’ backs. Miss Whittaker said that her aunt had had an annoying communication from a solicitor.”

“Yes, it sounds as though there might be something there. Do you remember what the maids were called?”

“What was the name now? A funny one, or I shouldn’t remember it- Gotobed, that was it- Bertha and Evelyn Gotobed. I don’t know where they went, but I daresay you could find out.”

“Now one last question, and I want you to forget about Christian kindliness and the law of slander when you answer it. What is Miss Whittaker like?”

An indefinable expression crossed the nurse’s face.

“Tall, handsome, very decided in manner,” she said, with an air of doing strict justice against her will, “an extremely competent nurse- she was at the Royal Free, you know, till she went to live with her aunt. I think she would have made a perfectly wonderful theatre nurse. She did not like me, nor I her, you know, Lord Peter- and it’s better I should be telling you so at once, the way you can take everything I say about her with a grain of charity added- but we both knew good hospital work when we saw it, and respected one another.”

“Why in the world didn’t she like you, Miss Philliter? I really don’t know when I’ve seen a more likeable kind of person, if you’ll ’scuse my mentionin’ it.”

“I don’t know.” The nurse seemed a little embarrassed. “The dislike seemed to grow on her. You- perhaps you heard the kind of things people said in the town when I left?-that Dr. Carr and I-Oh! it really was damnable, and I had the most dreadful interview with Matron when I got back here. She must have spread those stories. Who else could have done it?”

“Well- you did become engaged to Dr. Carr, didn’t you?” said his lordship, gently. “Mind you, I’m not say in’ it wasn’ a very agreeable occurrence and all that, but- ”

“But she said I neglected the patient. I never did. I wouldn’t think of such a thing.”

“Of course not. No. But, do you suppose that possibly getting engaged was an offence in itself? Is Miss Whittal engaged to anyone, by the way?”

“No. You mean, was she jealous? I’m sure Dr. Carr never gave the slightest, not the slightest- ”

“Oh, please,” cried Lord Peter “please don’t be ruffled. Such a nice word, ruffled- like a kitten, I always think – so furry and nice. But even without the least what-d’ye-call-it on Dr. Carr’s side, he’s a very prepossessin’ person and all that. Don’t you think there might be something in it?”

“I did think so once,” admitted Miss Philliter, “but afterwards, when she got him into such awful trouble over the post-mortem, I gave up the idea.”

“But she didn’t object to the post-mortem?”

“She did not. But there’s such a thing as putting yourself in the right in the eyes of your neighbours, Lord Peter, and then going off to tell people all about it at Vicarage tea-parties. I wasn’t there, but you ask someone who was. I know those tea-parties.”

“Well, it’s not impossible. People can be very spiteful if they think they’ve been slighted.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Nurse Philliter thoughtfully. “But,” she added suddenly, “that’s no motive for murdering a perfectly innocent old lady.”

“That’s the second time you’ve used that word,” said Wimsey, gravely. “There’s no proof yet that it was murder.”

“I know that.”

“But you think it was?”

“I do.”

“And you think she did it?”

“Yes.”

Lord Peter walked across to the aspidistra in the bow-window and stroked its leaves thoughtfully. The silence was broken by a buxom nurse who, entering precipitately first and knocking afterwards, announced with a giggle:

“Excuse me, I’m sure, but you’re in request this afternoon, Philliter. Here’s Dr. Carr come for you.”

Dr. Carr followed hard upon his name. The sight of Wimsey struck him speechless.

“I told you I’d be turnin’ up again before long,” said Lord Peter, cheerfully. “Sherlock is my name and Holmes is my nature. I’m delighted to see you, Dr. Carr. Your little matter is well in hand, and seein’ I’m not required any longer I’ll make a noise like a bee and buzz off.”

“How did he get here?” demanded Dr. Carr, not altogether pleased.

“Didn’t you send him? I think he’s very nice,” said Nurse Philliter.

“He’s mad,” saidDr. Carr.

“He’s clever,” said the red-haired nurse.

Chapter 5 Gossip

So you are thinking of coming to live at Leahampton,” said Miss Murgatroyd. “How very nice. I do hope you will be settling down in the parish. We are not too well off for week-day congregations- there is so much indifference and so much Protestantism about. There! I have dropped a stitch. Provoking! Perhaps it was meant as a little reminder to me not to think uncharitably about Protestants. All is well- I have retrieved it. Were you thinking of taking a house, Miss Climpson?”

“I am not quite sure,” replied Miss Climpson. “Rents are so very high nowadays, and I fear that to buy a house would be almost beyond my means. I must look round very carefully, and view the question from all sides. I should certainly prefer to be in this parish- and close to the Church, if possible. Perhaps the Vicar would know whether there is likely to be anything suitable.”

“Yes, he would doubtless be able to suggest omething. It is such a very nice, residential neighbourhood. I am sure you would like it. Let me see- you are staying in Nelson Avenue, I think Mrs. Tredgold said?”

“Yes- with Mrs. Budge at Fairview.”

“I am sure she makes you comfortable. Such a nice woman, though I’m afraid she never stops talking. Hasn’t she got any ideas on the subject? I’m sure if there’s any news going about, Mrs. Budge never fails to hold of it.”

“Well,” said Miss Climpson, seizing the opening with a swiftness which would have done credit to Napoleon, “she did say something about a house in Wellington Avenue which she thought might be to let before long.”

“ Wellington Avenue? You surprise me! I thought I knew almost everybody there. Could it be the Parfitts- really moving at last! They have been talking about for at least seven years, and I really had begun to think it was all talk. Mrs. Peasgood, do you hear that? Miss Climpson says the Parfitts are really leaving that house at last!”

“Bless me,” cried Mrs. Peasgood raising her rather prominent eyes from a piece of plain needlework and focusing them on Miss Climpson like a pair of opera-glasses. “Well, that is news. It must be that brother of hers who was staying with them last week. Possibly he is going to live with them permanently, and that would clinch the matter, course, for they couldn’t get on without another bedroom when the girls come home from school. A very sensibl arrangement, I should think. I believe is quite well off, you know, and it will be a very good thing for those children.I wonder where they will go. I expect it be one of the new houses out on the Winchester Road, though of course that would mean keeping a car. Still, I expect he would want them to do that in any case. Most likely he will have it himself, and let them have the use of it.”

“I don’t think Parfitt was the name,” broke in Miss Climpson hurriedly, ”I’m sure it wasn’t. It was a Miss somebody- a Miss Whittaker, I think, Mrs. Budge mentioned.

“Miss Whittaker?” cried both the ladies in chorus. “0h, no! surely not?”

“I’m sure Miss Whittaker would have told me if she thought of giving up her house,” pursued Miss Murgatroyd. “We are such great friends. I think Mrs. Budge must have run away with a wrong idea. People do build up such amazing stories out of nothing at all.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as that,” put in Mrs. Peasgood, rebukingly. “There may be something in it. I know dear Miss Whittaker has sometimes spoken to me of wanting to take up chicken-farming. I daresay she has not mentioned the matter generally, but then she always confides in me. Depend upon it, that is what she intends to do.”

“Mrs. Budge didn’t actually say Miss Whittaker was moving,” interposed Miss Climpson. “She said, I think, that Miss Whittaker had been left alone by some relation’s death, and she wouldn’t be surprised if she found the house lonely.”

“Ah! that’s Mrs. Budge all over!” said Mrs. Peasgood, nodding ominously. “A most excellent woman, but she sometimes gets hold of the wrong end of the stick. Not but what I’ve often thought the same thing myself. I said to poor Mary Whittaker only the other day, ‘Don’t you find it very lonely in that house, my dear, now that your poor dear Aunt is no more?’ I’m sure it would be a very good thing if she did move, or got someone to live with her. It’s not a natural life for a young woman, all alone like that, and so I told her. I’m one of those that believe in speaking their mind, you know, Miss Climpson.”

“Well, now, so am I, Mrs. Peasgood,” rejoined Miss Climpson promptly, “and that is what I said to Mrs. Budge at the time. I said, ‘Do I understand that was anything odd about the old lady’s death?’- because she had spoken of the peculiar circumstances of the case, and you know, I should not at all like to live in a house which could be called in any way notorious. I should really feel quite uncomfortable about it.” In saying which, Miss Climpson no doubt spoke with perfect sincerity.

“But not at all- not at all,” cried Miss Murgatroyd, so eagerly that Mrs. Peasgood, who had paused to purse up her face and assume an expression of portentous secrecy before replying, was completely crowded out and left at the post. “There never was a more wicked story. The death was natural- perfectly natural, and a most happy release, poor soul, I’m sure, for her sufferings at the last were truly terrible. It was all a scandalous story put about by that young Dr. Carr (whom I’m sure I never liked) simply to aggrandise himself. As though any doctor would pronounce so definitely upon what exact date it would please God to call a poor sufferer to Himself! Human pride and vanity make a most shocking exhibition, Miss Climpson, when they lead us to cast suspicion on innocent people, simply because we are wedded to our own presumptuous opinions. Poor Miss Whittaker! She went through a most terrible time. But it was proved-absolutely proved, that there was nothing in the story at all, and I hope that young man was properly ashamed of himself.

“There may be two opinions about that, Miss Murgatroyd,” said Mrs. Peasgood “I say what I think, Miss Climpson, and in my opinion there should have been an inquest. I try to be up-to-date, and believe Dr. Carr to have been a very able young man, though of course, he was not the kind of old-fashioned family doctor that appeals to elderly people. It was a great pity that nice Nurse Philliter was sent away- that woman Forbes was no more use than a headache- to use my brother’s rather vigorous expression. I don’t think she knew her job, and that’s a fact.”

“Nurse Forbes was a charming person,” snapped Miss Murgatroyd, pink with indignation at being called elderly.

“That may be,” retorted Mrs. Peasgood, “but you can’t get over the fact she nearly killed herself one day by taking nine grains of calomel by mistake for three. She told me that herself, and what she did in one case she might do in another.”

“But Miss Dawson wasn’t given anything,” said Miss Murgatroyd, “and at any rate, Nurse Forbes’ mind was on her patient and not on flirting with the doctor. I’ve always thought that Dr. Carr felt a spite against her for taking his young woman’s place, and nothing would have pleased him better than to get her into trouble.”

“You dont’t mean,” said Miss Climpson, “that he would refuse a certificate and cause all that trouble, just to annoy the nurse. Surely no doctor would dare to do that.”

“Of course not,” said Mrs. Peasgood, “and nobody with with a grain of sense would suppose it for a moment.”

“Thank you very much, Mrs. Peasgood,” cried Miss Murgatroyd, “thank you very much, I’m sure-”

“I say what I think,” said Mrs. Peasgood.

“Then I’m glad I haven’t such uncharitable thoughts,” said Miss Murgatroyd.

“I don’t think your own observations are so remarkable for their charity,” retorted Mrs. Peasgood.

Fortunately, at this moment Miss Murgatroyd, in her agitation, gave a vicious tweak to the wrong needle and dropped twenty-nine stitches at once. The Vicar’s wife, scenting battle from afar, hurried over with a plate of scones, and helped to bring about a diversion. To her, Miss Climpson, doggedly sticking to her mission in life, broached the subject of the house in Wellington Avenue.

“Well, I don’t know, I’m sure,” replied Mrs. Tredgold, “but there’s Miss Whittaker just arrived. Come over to my corner and I’ll introduce her to you, and you can have a nice chat about it. You will like each other so much, she is such keen worker. Oh! and Mrs. Peasgood, my husband is so anxious to have a word you about the choirboys’ social. He is discussing it now with Mrs. Findlater. I wonder if you’d be so very good as to come and give him your opinion? He values it so much.”

This tactfully the good lady parted the disputants and, having deposited Mrs. Peasgood safely under the clerical wing, towed Miss Climpson away to an armchair near the tea-table.

“Dear Miss Whittaker, I so want you to know Miss Climpson. She is a near neighbor of yours- in Nelson Avenue, and I hope we shall persuade her to make her home among us.”

“That will be delightful,” said Miss Whittaker.

The first impression which Miss Climpson got of Mary Whittaker was that she was totally out of place among the tea-tables of S. Onesimus. With her handsome, strongly-marked features and quiet air of authority, she was of the type that “does well” in City offices. She had a pleasant and self-possessed manner, and was beautifully tailored- not mannishly, and yet with a severe fineness of outline that negatived the appeal of a beautiful figure. With her long and melancholy experience of frustrated womanhood, observed in a dreary succession of cheap boarding-houses, Miss Climpson was able to dismiss one theory which had vaguely formed itself in her mind. This was no passionate nature, cramped by association with an old woman and eager to be free to mate before youth should depart. That look she knew well- she could diagnose it with dreadful accuracy at the first glance, in the tone of a voice saying, “How do you do?” But meeting Mary Whittaker’s clear, light eyes under their well-shaped brows, she was struck by a sudden sense of familiarity. She had seen that look before, though the where and the when escaped her. Chatting volubly about her arrival in Leahampton, her introduction to the Vicar and her approval of the Hampshire air and sandy soil, Miss Climpson racked her shrewd brain for a clue. But the memory remained obstinately somewhere at the back of her head. “It will come to me in the night,” thought Miss Climpson confidently, “and meanwhile I won’t say anything about the house; it would seem so pushing on a first acquaintance.”

Whereupon, fate instantly intervened to overthrow this prudent resolve, and very nearly ruined the whole effect of Miss Climpson’s diplomacy at one fell swoop.

The form which the avenging Errinyes assumed was that of the youngest Miss Findlater- the gushing one- who came romping over to them, her hands filled with baby-linen, and plumped down on the end of the sofa beside Miss Whittaker.

“Mary my dear! Why didn’t you tell me? You really are going to start your chicken-farming scheme at once. I’d no idea you’d got on so far with your plans. How could you let me hear it first from somebody else? You promised to tell me before anybody.”

“But I didn’t know it myself,” replied Miss Whittaker, coolly. “Who told you this wonderful story?”

“Why, Mrs. Peasgood said that she heard it from…” Here Miss Findlater was in a difficulty. She had not yet been introduced to Miss Climpson and hardly knew how to refer to her before her face. “This lady” was what a shop-girl would say; “Miss Climpson” would hardly do, as she had, so to speak, no official cognisance of the name; “Mrs. Budge’s new lodger” was obviously impossible in the circumstances. She hesitated- beamed a bright appeal at Miss Climpson and said: “Our new helper- may I introduce myself? I do so detest formality, don’t you, and to belong to the Vicarage work-party is a sort of introduction in itself, don’t you think? Miss Climpson, I believe? How do you do? It is true, isn’t it, Mary?- that you are letting your house to Miss Climpson, and starting a poultry-farm at Alford.”

“Certainly not that I know of. Miss Climpson and I have only just met one another.” The tone of Miss Whitta voice suggested that the first meeting might very willingly be the last so far as she was concerned.

“Oh dear!” cried the youngest Findlater, who was fair and bobbed and rather coltish, “I believe I’ve dropped a brick. I’m sure Mrs. Peasgood understood that it was all settled.” She appealed to Miss Climpson again.

“Quite a mistake!” said that lady energetically, “what must you be thinking of me, Miss Whittaker? Of course I could not possibly have said such a thing. I only happened to mention- in the most casual way, that I was looking- that is, thinking of looking about- for a house in the neighbourhood of the Church- so convenient you know, for Early Services and Saints’ Days- and it was suggested- just suggested, I really forget by whom, that you might, just possibly, at some time, consider letting your house. I assure you, that all.” In saying which, Miss Climpson was not wholly accurate or disingenuous, but excused herself to her conscience on the rather jesuitical grounds that where so responsibility was floating about, it was best to pin it down in the quarter which made for peace. “Miss Murgatroyd,” she added, “put me right at once, for she said you were certainly not thinking of any such thing, or you would have told her before anybody else.”

Miss Whittaker laughed.

“But I shouldn’t,” she said, “I should have told my house-agent. It’s quite true, I did have it in mind, but I certainly haven’t taken any steps.”

“You really are thinking of doing it, then?” cried Miss Findlater. “I do hope so- because, if you do, I mean to apply for a job on the farm! I’m simply longing to get away from all these silly tennis-parties and things, and live close to the Earth and the fundamental crudities. Do you read Sheila Kaye-Smith?”

Miss Climpson said no, but she was very fond of Thomas Hardy.

“It really is terrible, living in a little town like this,” went on Miss Findlater, “so full of aspidistras, you know, and small gossip. You’ve no idea what a dreadfully gossipy place Leahampton is, Miss Climpson. I’m sure, Mary dear, you must have had more than enough of it, with that tiresome Dr. Carr and the things people said. I don’t wonder you’re thinking of getting rid of that house. I shouldn’t think you could ever feel comfortable in it again.”

“Why on earth not?” said Miss Whittaker, lightly. Too lightly? Miss Climpson was startled to recognise in eye and voice the curious quick defensiveness of the neglected spinster who cries out that she has no use for men.

“Oh, well,” said Miss Findlater, “I always think it’s a little sad, living where people have died, you know. Dear Miss Dawson-though of course it really was merciful that she should be released- all the same-”

Evidently, thought Miss Climpson, she was turning the matter off. The atmosphere of suspicion surrounding the death had been in her mind, but she shied at referring to it.

“There are very few houses in which somebody hasn’t died sometime or other,” said Miss Whittaker. “I really can’t see why people should worry about it. I suppose it’s just a question of not realising. We are not sensitive to the past lives of people we don’t know. Just as we are much less upset about epidemics and accidents that happen a long way off. Do you really suppose, by the way, Miss Climpson, that this Chinese business is coming to anything? Everybody seems to take it very casually. If all this rioting and Bolshevism was happening in Hyde Park, there’d be a lot more fuss made about it.”

Miss Climpson made a suitable reply. That night she wrote to Lord Peter:

“Miss Whittaker has asked me to tea. She tells me that, much as she would enjoy an active, country life, with something definite to do, she has a deep affection for the house in Wellington Avenue, and cannot tear herself away. She seems very anxious to give this impression. Would it be fair for me to say ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks’? The Prince of Denmark might even add: ‘Let the galled jade wince’- if one can use that expression of a lady. How wonderful Shakespeare is! One can always find a phrase in his works for any situation!”

Chapter 6 Found Dead

You know, Wimsey, I think you’ve found a mare’s nest,” objected Mr. Parker. “I don’t believe there’s the slightest reason for supposing that there was anything odd about the Dawson woman’s death. You’ve nothing to go on but a conceited young doctor’s opinion and a lot of silly gossip.”

“You’ve got an official mind, Charles,” replied his friend. “Your official passion for evidence is gradually sapping your intellect and smothering your instincts. You’re over-civilised, that’s your trouble. Compared with you, I am a child of nature. I dwell among the untrodden ways beside the springs of Dove, a maid whom there are (I am shocked to say) few to praise, likewise very few to love, which is perhaps just as well. I know there is something wrong about this case.”

“How?”

“How?- well, just as I know there is something wrong about that case of reputed Lafite ’76 which that infernal fellow Pettigrew-Robinson had the nerve to try out on me the other night. It has a nasty flavour.”

“Flavour be damned. There’s no indication of violence or poison. There’s no motive for doing away with the old girl. And there’s no possibility of proving anything against anybody.”

Lord Peter selected a Villar y Villar from his case, and lighted it with artistic care.

“Look here,” he said, “will you take a bet about it? I’ll lay you ten to one that Agatha Dawson was murdered, twenty to one that Mary Whittaker did it, and fifty to one that I bring it home to her within the year. Are you on?”

Parker laughed. “I’m a poor man, your Majesty,” he temporised.

“There you are,” said Lord Peter, triumphantly, “you’re not comfortable about it yourself. If you were, you’d have said, ‘It’s taking your money, old chap,’ and closed like a shot, in the happy assurance of certainty.”

“I’ve seen enough to know that nothing is a certainty,” retorted the detective, “But I’ll take you- in- half-crowns,” he added cautiously.

“Had you said ponies,” replied Lord Peter, “I would have taken your alleged poverty into consideration and spared you, but seven-and-sixpence will neither make nor break you. Consequently, I shall proceed to make my statements good.”

“What step do you propose taking?” inquired Parker, sarcastically. “Shall you apply for an exhumation order and search for posion, regardless of the analyst’s report? Or kidnap Miss Whittaker and apply the third-degree in the Gallic manner?”

“Not at all. I am more modern. I shall use up-to-date psychological methods. Like the people in the Psalms, I lay traps; I catch men. I shall let the alleged criminal convict herself.”

“Go on! You are a one, aren’t you?” said Parker, jeeringly.

“I am indeed. It is a well-established psychological fact that criminals cannot let well alone. They- ”

“Revisit the place of the crime?”

“Don’t interrupt, blast you. They take unnecessary steps to cover the traces which they haven’t left, and so invite, seriatim, Suspicion, Inquiry, Proof, Conviction and the Gallows. Eminent legal writers- no, pax! don’t chuck that S. Augustine about, it’s valuable. Anyhow, not to cast the jewels of my eloquence into the pig-bucket, I propose to insert this advertisement in all the morning papers. Miss Whittaker must read some product of our brilliant journalistic age, I suppose. By this means, we shall kill two birds with one stone.”

“Start two hares at once, you mean,” grumbled Parker. “Hand it over.”

“BERTHA and EVELYN GOTOBED, formerly in the service of Miss Agatha Dawson, of ‘The Grove,’ Wellington Avenue, Leahampton, are requested to communicate with J. Murbles, solicitor, of Staple Inn, when they will hear of SOMETHING TO THEIR ADVANTAGE.”

“Rather good, I think, don’t you?” said Wimsey. “Calculated to rouse suspicion in the most innocent mind. I bet you Mary Whittaker will fall for that.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know. That’s what’s so interesting. I hope nothing unpleasant will happen to dear old Murbles. I should hate to lose him. He’s such a perfect type of the family solicitor. Still, a man in his profession must be prepared to take risks.”

“Oh, bosh!” said Parker. “But I agree that it might be as well to get hold of the girls if you really want to find out about the Dawson household. Servants always know everything.”

“It isn’t only that. Don’t you remember that Nurse Philliter said the girls were sacked shortly before she left herself? Now, passing over the odd circumstances of the Nurse’s own dismissal – the story about Miss Dawson’s refusing to take food from her hands, which wasn’t at all borne out by the old lady’s own attitude to her nurse – isn’t it worth considerin’ that these girls should have been pushed off on some excuse just about three weeks after one of those hysterical attacks of Miss Dawson’s? Doesn’t it rather look as though everybody who was likely remember anything about that particular episode had been got out of the way?”

“Well, there was a good reason for getting rid of the girls.”

“Crockery? – well, nowadays it’s not so easy to get good servants. Mistresses put up with a deal more carelessness than they did in the dear dead days beyond recall. Then, about that attack. Why did Miss Whittaker choose just the very moment when the highly-intelligent Nurse Philliter had gone for her walk, to bother Miss Dawson about signin’ some tiresome old lease or other? If business was liable to upset the old girl, why not have a capable person at hand to calm her down?”

“Oh, but Miss Whittaker is a trained nurse. She was surely capable enough to see to her aunt herself.”

“I’m perfectly sure she was a very capable woman indeed,” said Wimsey, with emphasis.

“Oh, all right. You’re prejudiced. But stick the ad. in by all means. It can’t do any harm.”

Lord Peter paused, in the very act of ringing the bell. His jaw slackened, giving his long, narrow face a faintly foolish and hesitant look, reminiscent of the heroes of Mr. P.G. Wodehouse.

“You don’t think-” he began. “Oh! Rats!” He pressed the button. “It can’t do any harm, as you say. Bunter, see that this advertisement appears in the personal columns of all this list of papers, every day until further notice.”

The advertisement made its first appearance on the Tuesday morning. Nothing of any note happened during the week, except that Miss Climpson wrote in some distress to say that the youngest Miss Findlater had at length succeeded in persuading Miss Whittaker to take definite steps about the poultry farm. They had gone away together to look at a business which they had seen advertised in the Poultry News, and proposed to be away for some weeks. Miss Climpson feared that under the circumstances she would not be able to carry on any investigations of sufficient importance to justify her far too generous salary. She had, however, become friendly with Miss Findlater, who had promised to tell her all about their doings. Lord Peter replied in reassuring terms.

On the Tuesday following, Mr. Parker was just wrestling in prayer with his charlady, who had a tiresome habit of boiling his breakfast kippers till they resembled heavily pickled loofahs, when the telephone whirred aggressively.

“Is that you, Charles?” asked Lord Peter’s voice. “I say, Murbles has had a letter about that girl, Bertha Gotobed. She disappeared from her lodgings last Thursday, and her landlady, getting anxious, and having seen the advertisement, is coming to tell us all she knows. Can you come round to Staple Inn at eleven?”

“Dunno,” said Parker, a little irritably. “I’ve got a job to see to. Surely you can tackle it by yourself.”

“Oh, yes!” The voice was peevish. “But I thought you’d like to have some of the fun. What an ungrateful devil you are. You aren’t taking the faintest interest in this case.”

“Well- I don’t believe in it, you know. All right- don’t use language like that -you’ll frighten the girl at the Exchange. I’ll see what I can do. Eleven? -right! -Oh, I say!”

“Cluck!” said the telephone.

“Rung off,” said Parker, bitterly. “Bertha Gotobed. H’m! I could have sworn-”

He reached across to the breakfast table for the Daily Yell, which was propped against the marmalade jar, and read with pursed lips a paragraph whose heavily leaded headlines had caught his eye, just before the interruption of the kipper episode.

“NIPPY” FOUND DEAD IN EPPING FOREST

£5 Note in Handbag.

He took up the receiver again and asked for Wimsey’s number. The manservant answered him.

“His lordship is in his bath, sir. Shall I put you through?”

“Please,” said Parker.

The telephone clucked again. Presently Lord Peter’s voice came faintly, “Hullo!”

“Did the landlady mention where Bertha Gotobed was employed?”

“Yes- she was a waitress at the Corner House. Why this interest all sudden? You snub me in my bed, but, but you woo me in my bath. It sounds like a music-hall song of the less refined sort. Why, oh why?”

“Haven’t you seen the papers?”

“No. I leave these follies till breakfast-time. What’s up? Are we ordered to Shanghai? or have they taken sixpence off the income-tax?”

“Shut up, you fool, it’s serious. You’re too late.”

“What for?”

“Bertha Gotobed was found dead in Epping Forest this morning.”

“Good God! Dead? How? What of?”

“No idea. Poison or something. Or heart failure. No violence. No robbery. No clue, I’m going down to the Yard about it now.”

“God forgive me, Charles. D’you know, I had a sort of awful feeling when you said that ad. could do no harm. Dead. Poor girl! Charles, I feel like a murderer. Oh, damn! and I’m all wet. It does make one feel so helpless. Look here, you spin down to the Yard and tell ’em what you know and I’ll join you there in half a tick. Anyway, there’s no doubt about it now.”

“Oh, but, look here. It may be something quite different. Nothing to do with your ad.”

“Pigs may fly. Use your common sense. Oh! and Charles, does it mention the sister?”

“There was a letter from her on the body by which they identified it. She got married last month and went to Canada.”

“That’s saved her life. She’ll be in absolutely horrible danger, if she comes back. We must get hold of her and warn her. And find out what she knows. Good-bye. I must get some clothes on. Oh, hell!”

Cluck! the line went dead again, and Mr. Parker, abandoning the kippers without regret, ran feverishly out of house and down Lamb’s Conduit Street to catch a diver tram to Westminster.

The Chief of Scotland Yard, Sir Andrew Mackenzie, was a very old friend of Lord Peter’s. He received that agitated young man kindly and listened with attention to his slightly involved story of cancer, wills, mysterious solicitors and advertisments in the agony column.

“It’s a curious coincidence,” he said, indulgently, “and I can understand your feeling upset about it. But you may set your mind at rest. I have the police-surgeon’s report, and he is quite convinced that the death was perfectly natural. No signs whatever of any assault. They will make an examination, course, but I don’t think there is the slightest reason to suspect foul play.”

“But what was she doing in Epping Forest?”

Sir Andrew shrugged gently.

“That must be inquired into, of course, Still- young people do wander about, you know. There’s a fiancé somewhere. Something to do with the railway, I believe. Collins has gone down to interview him. Or she may have been with some other friend.”

“But if the death was natural, no one would leave a sick or dying girl like that?”

“You wouldn’t. But say there had been some running about- some horse-play- and the girl fell dead, as these heart cases sometimes do. The companion may well have taken fright and cleared out. It’s not unheard of.”

Lord Peter looked unconvinced.

“How long has she been dead?”

“About five or six days, our man thinks. It was quite by accident that she was found then at all; it’s quite an unfrequented part of the Forest. A party of young people were exploring with a couple of terriers, and one of the dogs nosed out the body.”

“Was it out in the open?”

“Not exactly. It lay among some bushes- the sort of place where a frolicsome young couple might go to play hide-and-seek.”

“Or where a murderer might go to hide and let the police seek,” Wimsey.

“Well, well. Have it your own way,” said Sir Andrew, smiling. “If it was murder, it must have been a poisoning job, for, as I say, there was not the slightest sign of a wound or a struggle. I’ll let you have the report of the autopsy. In the meanwhile, if you’d like to run down there with Inspector Parker, you can of course have any facilities you want. And if you discover anything, let me know.”

Wimsey thanked him, and collecting Parker from an adjacent office, rushed him briskly down the corridor.

“I don’t like it,” he said, “that is, of course, it’s very gratifying to know that our first steps in psychology have led to action, so to speak, but I wish to God it hadn’t been quite such decisive action. We’d better trot down to Epping straight away, and see the landlady later. I’ve got a new car, by the way, which you’ll like.”

Parker took one look at the slim black monster, with its long rakish body and polished-copper twin exhausts, and decided there and then that the only hope of getting down to Epping without interference was to look as official as possible and wave his police authority under the eyes of every man in blue along the route. He shoe-horned himself into his seat without protest, and was more unnerved than relieved to find himself shoot suddenly ahead of the traffic- not with the bellowing roar of the ordinary racing engine, but in a smooth, uncanny silence.

“The new Daimler Twin-Six,” said Lord Peter, skimming dexterously round a lorry without appearing to look at it. “With a racing body. Specially built… useful…gadgets… no row- hate row…like Edmund Sparkler… very anxious there should be no row… Little Dorrit… remember… call her Mrs. Merdle… for that reason… presently we’ll see what she can do.”

The promise was fulfilled before their arrival at the spot where the body been found. Their arrival made a considerable sensation among the little crowd which business or curiosity had drawn to the spot. Lord Peter was instantly pounced upon by four reporters and a synod of Press photographers whom his presence encouraged in the hope that the mystery might turn out to be a three-column splash after all. Parker, to his annoyance, was photographed in the undignified act of extricating himself from “Mrs. Merdle.” Superintendent Walmisley came politely to his assistance, rebuked the onlookers, and led him to the scene of action.

The body had been already removed to the mortuary, but a depression in the moist ground showed clearly enough where it had lain. Lord Peter groaned faintly as he saw it.

“Damn this nasty warm spring weather,” he said, with feeling, “April showers- sun and water- couldn’t be worse. Body much altered, Superintendent?”

“Well, yes, rather, my lord, especially in the exposed parts. But there’s no doubt about the identity.”

“I didn’t suppose there was. How was it lying?”

“On the back, quite quiet and natural-like. No disarrangement of clothing, or anything. She must just have sat down when she felt herself bad and fallen back.”

“Mnn. The rain has spoilt any footprints or signs on the ground. And it’s grassy. Beastly stuff, grass, eh, Charles?”

“Yes. These twigs don’t seem to have been broken at all, Superintendent.”

“Oh, no,” said the officer, “no signs of a struggle, as I pointed out in my report.”

“No- but if she’d sat down here and fallen back as you suggest, don’t you think her weight would have snapped some of these young shoots?”

The Superintendent glanced sharply at the Scotland Yard man.

“You don’t suppose she was brought and put here, do you, sir?”

“I don’t suppose anything,” retorted Parker, “I merely drew attention to a point which I think you should consider. What are these wheel-marks?”

“That’s our car, sir. We backed it up here and took her up that way.”

“And all this trampling is your men too, I suppose?”

“Partly that, sir, and partly the party as found her.”

“You noticed no other person’s tracks, I suppose?”

“No, sir. But it’s rained considerably this last week. Besides, the rabbits have been all over the place, as you can see, and other creatures too, I fancy. Weasels, or something of that sort.”

“Oh! Well, I think you’d better take a look round. There might be traces of some kind a bit further away. Make a circle, and report anything you see. And you oughtn’t to have let all that bunch of people get so near. Put a cordon round and tell ’em to move on. Have you seen all you want, Peter?”

Wimsey had been poking his stick aimlessly into the bole of an oak-tree at a few yards’ distance. Now he stooped and lifted out a package which had been stuffed into a cleft. The two policemen hurried forward with eager interest, which evaporated somewhat at sight of the find- a ham sandwich and an empty Bass bottle, roughly wrapped up in a greasy newspaper.

“Picnickers,” said Walmisley, with a snort. “Nothing to do with the body, I daresay.”

“I think you’re mistaken,” said Wimsey, placidly. “When did the girl disappear, exactly?”

“She went off duty at the Corner House at five a week ago tomorrow, that’s Wednesday, 27th,” said Parker.

“And this is the Evening Views of Wednesday, 27th,” said Wimsey. “Late Final edition. Now that edition isn’t on the streets till about 6 o’clock. So unless somebody brought it down and had supper here, it was probably brought by the girl herself or her companion. It’s hardly likely that anyone would come and picnic here afterwards, not with the body there. Not that bodies need necessarily interfere with one’s enjoyment of one’s food. À guerre comme à la guerre. But for the moment there isn’t a war on.”

“That’s true, sir. But you’re assuming the death took place on the Wednesday or Thursday. She may have been somewhere else- living with someone in town or anywhere.”

“Crushed again,” said Wimsey. “Still, it’s a curious coincidence.”

“It is, my lord, and I’m very glad you found the things. Will you take charge of ’em, Mr. Parker, or shall I?”

“Better take them along and put them with the other things,” said Parker, extending his hand to take them from Wimsey, whom they seemed to interest quite disproportionately. “I fancy his lordship’s right and that the parcel came here along with the girl. And certainly that certainly looks as if she didn’t come alone. Possibly that young man of hers was with her. Looks like the old, old story. Take care of that bottle, old man, it may have finger-prints on it.”

“You can have the bottle,” Wimsey. “May we ne’er lack a friend or a bottle to give him, as Dick Swiveller says. But I earnestly beg that before you caution your respectable young railway clerk that anything he says may be taken down and used against him, you will cast your eye, and your nose, upon this ham sandwich.”

“What’s wrong with it?” inquired Parker.

“Nothing. It appears to be in astonishingly good preservation, thanks to this admirable oak-tree. The stalwart oak- for so many centuries Britain ’s bulwark against the invader! Heart of oak are our ships- not hearts, by the way, as it is usually misquoted. But I am puzzled by the incongruity between the sandwich and the rest of the outfit.”

“It’s an ordinary ham sandwich, isn’t it?”

“Oh, gods of the wine-flask and the board, how long? how long?- it is a ham sandwich, Goth, but not an ordinary one. Never did it see Lyons ’ kitchen, or the counter of the multiple store or the delicatessen shop in the back street. The pig that was sacrificed to make this dainty tit-bit fattened in no dull style, never knew the daily ration of pig-wash or the not unmixed rapture of the domestic garbage-pail. Observe the hard texture, the deep brownish tint of the lean; rich fat, yellow as a Chinaman’s cheek; the dark spot where the black treacle cure has soaked in, to make a dish fit to lure Zeus from Olympus. And tell me, man of no discrimination and worthy to be fed on boiled cod all the year round, tell me how it comes that your little waitress and her railway clerk come down to Epping Forest to regale themselves on sandwiches made from coal-black, treacle-cured Bradenham ham, which long ago ran as a young wild boar about the woodlands, till death translated it to an incorruptible and more glorious body? I may add that it costs about 3s. a pound uncooked- an argument which you allow to be weighty.”

“That’s odd, certainly,” said Parker. “I imagine that only rich people-”

“Only rich people or people who understand eating as a fine art,” said Wimsey. “The two classes are by no means identical, though they occasionally overlap.”

“It may be very important,” said Parker, wrapping the exhibits up carefully. “We’d better go along now and see the body.”

The examination was not a very pleasant matter, for the weather had been damp and warm and there had certainly been weasels. In fact, after a brief glance, Wimsey left the two policemen to carry on alone, and devoted his attention to the dead girl’s handbag. He glanced through the letter from Evelyn Gotobed- (now Evelyn Cropper)- and noted down the Canadian address. He turned the cutting of his own advertisement out of an inner compartment, and remained for some time in consideration of the £5 note which lay, folded up, side by side with a 10s. Treasury note, 7s. 8d. in silver and copper, a latch-key and a powder compacte.

“You’re having this note traced, Walmisley, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, my lord, certainly.”

“And the latch-key, I imagine, belongs to the girl’s lodgings.”

“No doubt it does. We have asked her landlady to come and identify the body. Not that there’s any doubt about it, just as a matter of routine. She may give us some help. Ah!”- the Superintendent peered out of the mortuary door -“I think this must be the lady.”

The stout and motherly woman who emerged from a taxi in charge of a youthful policeman, identified the body without difficulty, and amid many sobs; as that of Bertha Gotobed. “Such a nice young lady,” she mourned. “What a terrible thing, oh, dear! who would go to do a thing like that? I’ve been in such a state of worriment ever since she didn’t come home last Wednesday. I’m sure many’s the time I’ve said to myself I wished I’d had my tongue cut before I ever showed her that wicked advertisement. Ah, I see you’ve got there, sir. A dreadful thing it is that people should be luring young girls away with stories about something to their advantage. A sinful old devil- calling himself a lawyer, too! When she didn’t come back and didn’t come back I wrote to the wretch, telling him I was on his track and was coming round to have the law on him as sure as my name’s Dorcas Gulliver. He wouldn’t have got round me- not that I’d be the bird he was looking for, being sixty-one come MidSummer Day- and so I told him.”

Lord Peter’s gravity was somewhat upset by this diatribe against the highly respectable Mr. Murbles of Staple Inn, whose own version of Mrs. Gulliver’s communication had been decently expurgated. “How shocked the old boy must have been,” he murmured to Parker. “I’m for it next time I see him.”

“Mrs. Gulliver’s voice moaned on and on.

“Such respectable girls, both of them, and Miss Evelyn married to that nice young man from Canada. Deary me, it will be a terrible upset for her. And there’s poor John Ironsides, was to have married Miss Bertha, the poor lamb, this very Whitsuntide as ever is. A very steady, respectable man- a clerk on the Southern, which he always used to say, joking like, ‘Slow but safe, like the Southern- that’s me, Mrs. G.’ T’ch, t’ch- who’d a believed it? And it’s not as if she was one of the flighty sort. I give her a latch-key gladly, for she’d sometimes be on late duty, but never any staying out after her time. That’s why it worried me so, her not coming back. There’s many nowadays as would wash one’s hands and glad to be rid of them, knowing what they might be up to. No. When the time past and she didn’t come back, I said, Mark my words, I said, she’s bin kidnapped, I said, by that Murbles.”

“Had she been long with you, Mrs. Gulliver?” asked Parker.

“Not above a fifteen month or so, she hadn’t, but bless you, I don’t have to know a young lady fifteen days to know if she’s a good girl or not. You gets to know by the look of ’em almost, when you’ve’ad my experience.”

“Did she and her sister come to you together?”

“They did. They come to me when they was lookin’ for work in London. And they could a’ fallen into a deal worse hands I can tell you, two young things from the country, and them that fresh and pretty looking.”

“They were uncommonly lucky, I’m sure, Mrs. Gulliver,” said Lord Peter, “and they must have found it a great comfort to be able to confide in you and your good advice.”

“Well, I think they did,” said Mrs. Gulliver, “not that young people seems to want much guidance from them as is older. Train up a child and away she go, as the Good Book says. But Miss Evelyn, that’s now Mrs. Cropper- she’d this London idea put into her head, and up they comes with the idea of bein’ made ladies of, havin’ only been in service before, though what’s the difference between serving in one of them tea-shops at the beck of all the nasty tagrag and bobtail and serving in a lady’s home, I don’t see, except that you works harder and don’t get your meals so comfortable. Still, Miss Evelyn, she was always the go-ahead one of the two, and she did very well for herself, I will say, meetin’ Mr. Cropper as used to take his breakfast regular at the Corner House every morning and took a liking to the girl in the most honourable way.”

“That was very fortunate. Have you any idea what gave them the notion of coming to town?”

“Well, now, sir, it’s funny you should ask that, because it was a thing I never could understand. The lady as they used to be in service with, down in the country, she put it into Miss Evelyn’s head. Now, sir, wouldn’t you think that with good service that ’ard to come by, she’d have done all she could to keep them with her? But no! There was a bit of trouble day, it seems, over Bertha- this poor girl here, poor lamb- it do break one’s ’eart to see her like that, don’t it, sir? -over Bertha ’avin’ broke an old teapot- a very valuable one by all accounts, and the lady told ’er she couldn’t put up with ’avin’ her things broke no more. So she says: ‘You’ll ’ave to go,’ she says, ‘but,’ she says, ‘I’ll give you a very good character and you’ll soon get a good place. And I expect Evelyn’ll want to go with you,’ she says, ‘so I’ll have to find someone else to do for me,’ she says. ‘But,’ she says ‘why not go to London? You’ll do better there and have a much more interesting life than what you would at home,’ she says. And the end of it was, she filled ’em up so with stories of how fine a place London was and how grand situations was to be had for the asking, that they was mad to go, and she give them a present of money and behaved very handsome, take it all round.”

“Hm,” said Wimsey, “she seems to have been very particular about her teapot. Was Bertha a great crockery-breaker?”

“Well, sir, she never broke nothing of mine. But this Miss Whittaker- that was the name – she was one of these opiniated ladies, as will ’ave their own way in everythink. A fine temper she ’ad, or so poor Bertha said, though Miss Evelyn- her as is now Mrs. Cropper- she always ’ad an idea as there was somethink at the back of it. Miss Evelyn was always the sharp one, as you might say. But there, sir, we all ’as our peculiarities, don’t we? It’s my own belief as the lady had somebody of her own choice as she wanted to put in the place of Bertha- that’s this one- and Evelyn- as is now Mrs. Cropper, you understand me- she jest trampled up an excuse, as they say, to get rid of ’em.”

“Very possibly,” said Wimsey. “I suppose, Inspector, Evelyn Gotobed- ”

“Now Mrs. Cropper,” put in Mrs. Gulliver with a sob.

“Mrs. Cropper, I should say- has been communicated with?”

“Oh, yes, my lord. We cabled her at once.”

“Good. I wish you’d let me know when you hear from her.”

“We shall be in touch with Inspector Parker, my lord, of course.”

“Of course. Well, Charles, I’m going to leave you to it. I’ve got a telegram to send. Or will you come with me?”

“Thanks, no,” said Parker. “To frank, I don’t like your methods of driving. Being in the Force, I prefer to keep on the windy side of the law.”

“Windy is the word for you,” said Peter, “I’ll see you in Town, then.

Chapter 7 Ham and Brandy

Well,” said Wimsey, as Parker was ushered in that same evening by Bunter, “have you got anything fresh?”

“Yes, I’ve got a new theory of the crime, which knocks yours into a cocked hat. I’ve got evidence to support it, too.”

“Which crime, by the way?”

“Oh, the Epping Forest business. I don’t believe the old Dawson person was murdered at all. That’s just an idea of yours.”

“I see. And you’re now going to tell me that Bertha Gotobed was got hold of by the White Slave people.”

“How did you know?” asked Parker, a little peevishly.

“Because Scotland Yard have two maggots which crop up whenever anything happens to a young woman. Either it’s White Slavery or Dope Dens- sometimes both. You are going to say it’s both.”

“Well, I was, as a matter of fact. It often is, you know. We’ve traced the £5 note.”

“That’s important, anyhow.”

“Yes. It seems to me to be the clue to the whole thing. It is one of a series paid out to a Mrs. Forrest, living in South Audley Street. I’ve been round to make some inquiries.”

“Did you see the lady?”

“No, she was out. She usually is, I’m told. In fact, her habits seem to be expensive, irregular and mysterious. She has an elegantly furnished flat over a flower-shop.”

“A service flat?”

“No. One of the quiet kind, with a lift you work yourself. She only turns up occasionally, mostly in the evenings, spends a night or two and departs. Food ordered in from Fortnum & Mason’s. Bills paid promptly by note or cheque. Cleaning done by an elderly female who comes in about eleven, by which time Mrs. Forrest has usually gone out.”

“Doesn’t anybody ever see her?”

“Oh, dear, yes! The people in the flat below and the girl at the flower-shop were able to give me quite a good description of her. Tall, over-dressed, musquash and those abbreviated sort of shoes with jewelled heels and hardly any uppers-you know the sort of thing. Heavily peroxided; strong aroma of orifan wafted out upon the passer-by; powder too white for the fashion and mouth heavily obscured with sealing-wax red; eyebrows painted black to startle, not deceive; fingernails a monument to Kraska- the pink variety.”

“I’d no idea you studied the Woman’s Page to such good purpose, Charles.”

“Drives a Renault Four-seater, dark green with tapestry doings. Garages just round the corner. I’ve seen the man, and he says the car was out on the night of the 27th. Went out at 11.30. Returned about 8 the next morning.”

“How much petrol had been used?”

“We worked that out. Just about enough for a run to Epping and back. What’s more, the charwoman says that there had been supper for two in the flat that night and three bottles of champagne drunk. Also, there is a ham in the flat.”

“A Bradenham ham?”

“How do you expect the charwoman to know that? But I think it probably is, as I find from Fortnum & Mason’s that a Bradenham ham was delivered to Forrest’s address about a fortnight ago.

“That sounds conclusive. I take it think Bertha Gotobed was inveigled th for some undesirable purpose by Mrs. Forrest, and had supper with her- ”

“No; I should think there was a man.”

“Yes, of course. Mrs. F. brings parties together and leaves them to it. The poor girl is made thoroughly drunk- and then something untoward happens.”

“Yes- shock, perhaps, or a shot of dope.”

“And they bustle her off and get rid her. It’s quite possible. The post-mortem may tell us something about it. Yes, Bunter, what is it?”

“The telephone, my lord, for Mr. Parker.”

“Excuse me,” said Parker, “I asked the people at the flower-shop to ring me up here, if Mrs. Forrest came in. If she’s there, would you like to come round with me?”

“Very much.”

Parker returned from the telephone with an air of subdued triumph.

“She’s just gone up to her flat. Come along. We’ll take a taxi- not that death-rattle of yours. Hurry up, I don’t want to miss her.”

The door of the flat in South Audley Street was opened by Mrs. Forrest in person. Wimsey recognised her instantly from the description. On seeing Parker’s card she made no objection whatever to letting them in, and led the way into a pink and mauve sitting-room, obviously furnished by contract from a Regent Street establishment.

“Please sit down. Will you smoke? And your friend?”

“My colleague, Mr. Templeton,” said Parker, promptly.

Mrs. Forrest’s rather hard eyes appeared to sum up in a practised manner the difference between Parker’s seven guinea “fashionable lounge suiting, tailored in our own workrooms, fits like a made-to-measure suit,” and his “colleague’s” Savile Row outlines, but beyond a slight additional defensivess of manner she showed no disturbance. Parker noted the glance. “She’s summing us up professionally,” was his mental comment, “and she’s not quite sure whether Wimsey’s an outraged brother or husband or what. Never mind. Let her wonder. We may get her rattled.”

“We are engaged, Madam,” he began, with formal severity, “on an inquiry relative to certain events connected with the 26th of last month. I think you were in town at that time?”

Mrs. Forrest frowned slightly in the effort to recollect. Wimsey made a mental note that she was not as young as her bouffant apple-green frock made her appear. She was certainly nearing the thirties and her eyes were mature and aware.

“Yes, I think I was. Yes, certainly. I was in town for several days about that time. How can I help you?”

“It is a question of a certain bank-note which has been traced to your possession,” said Parker, “a £5 note numbered x/y58929. It was issued to you by Lloyds Bank in payment of a cheque on the 19th.”

“Very likely. I can’t say I remember the number, but I think I cashed a cheque about that time. I can tell in a moment by my cheque-book.”

“ I don’t think it’s necessary. But it would help us very much if you can recollect to whom you paid it.”

“Oh, I see. Well, that’s rather difficult. I paid my dressmaker’s about that time- no, that was by cheque. I paid cash to the garage, I know, and I think there was a £5 in that. Then I dined at Verry’s with a woman friend- that took the second £5, I remember, but there was a third. I drew out £25- three fives and ten ones.Where did the third note go? Oh, of course, how stupid of me! I put it on a horse.”

“Through a Commission Agent?”

“No. I had nothing much to do one day so I went down to Newmarket. I put £5 on some creature called Brighteye or Attaboy or some name like that, at 50 to 1. Of course the wretched animal didn’t w they never do. A man in the train gave me the tip and wrote the name down for me. I handed it to the nearest bookie I saw-a funny little grey-haired man with a hoarse voice- and that was the last I saw of it.”

“Could you remember which day it was?”

“I think it was Saturday. Yes, I’m sure it was.”

“Thank you very much, Mrs. Forrest. It will be a great help if we can trace the notes. One of them has turned up since in- other circumstances.”

“May I know what the circumstanc are, or is it an official secret?”

Parker hesitated. He rather wished, now, that he had demanded point-blank at the start how Mrs. Forrest’s £5 note come to be found on the dead body of the waitress at Epping. Taken by surprise, the woman might have got flustered. Now he had let her entrench herself securely behind this horse story. Impossible to follow up the history of a bank-note handed to an unknown bookie at a race-meeting. Before he could speak, Wimsey broke in for the first time, in a high, petulant voice which quite took his friend aback.

“You’re not getting anywhere with all this,” he complained. “I don’t care a continental curse about the beastly note, and I’m sure Sylvia doesn’t.”

“Who is Sylvia?” demanded Mrs. Forrest with considerable amazement.”

“Who is Sylvia? What is she?” gabbled Wimsey irrepressibly. “Shakespeare always has the right word, hasn’t he? But, God bless my soul, it’s no laughing matter. It’s very serious and you’ve no business to laugh at it. Sylvia is very much upset, and the doctor is afraid it may have an effect on her heart. You may not know it, Mrs. Forrest, but Sylvia Lyndhurst is my cousin. And what she wants to know, and what we all want to know- don’t interrupt me, Inspector, all this shilly-shallying doesn’t get us anywhere- I want to know, Mrs Forrest, who was it dining here with you on the night of April 26th. Who was it? Who was it? Can you tell me that?”

This time, Mrs. Forrest was visibly taken aback. Even under the thick coat of powder they could see the red flush up into her cheeks and ebb away, while her eyes took on an expression of something more than alarm- a kind of vicious fury, such as one may see in those of a cornered cat.

“On the 26th?” she faltered, “I can’t-”

“I knew it!” cried Wimsey. “And that girl Evelyn was sure of it too. Who was it, Mrs. Forrest? Answer me that!”

“There- there was no one,” said Mrs. Forrest, with a thick gasp.

“Oh, come, Mrs. Forrest, think again,” said Parker, taking his cue promptly, “you aren’t going to tell us that you accounted by yourself for three bottles of Veuve Clicquot and two people’s dinners.”

“Not forgetting the ham,” put in Wimsey with fussy self-importance, “the Bradenham ham specially cooked and sent up by Fortnum & Mason. Now, Mrs. Forrest-”

“Wait a moment. Just a moment. I’ll tell you everything.”

The woman’s hands clutched at the pink silk cushions, making little hot, tight creases. “I- would you mind getting me something to drink? In the dining-room, through there- on the sideboard.”

Wimsey got up quickly and disappeared into the next room. He took rather a long time, Parker thought. Mrs. Forrest was lying back in a collapsed attitude, but her breathing was more controlled, and she was, he thought, recovering her wits, “Making up a story,” he muttered savagely to himself. However, he could not, without brutality, press her at the moment.

Lord Peter, behind the folding doors, was makng a good deal of noise, chinking the glasses and fumbling about. However, before very long, he was back.

“’Scuse my taking such a time,” he apologized, handing Mrs. Forrest a glass of brandy and soda. “Couldn’t find the syphon. Always was a bit wool-gathering, y’know. All my friends say so. Starin’ me in the face all the time, what? And then I sloshed a lot of soda on the sideboard. Hand shakin’. Nerves all to pieces and so on. Feelin’ better? That’s right. Put it down. That’s the stuff to pull you together. How about another little one, what? Oh, rot, it can’t hurt you. Mind if I have myself? I’m feelin’ a bit flustered. Upsettin’, delicate business and all Just another spot. That’s the idea.”

He trotted out again, glass in hand while Parker fidgeted. The presence of amateur detectives was sometimes an embarrassment. Wimsey clattered in again, this time, with more common sense, bringing decanter, syphon three glasses, bodily, on a tray.

“Now, now,” said Wimsey, “now we’re feeling better, do you think you can answer our question, Mrs. Forrest?”

“May I know, first of all, what right you have to ask it?”

Parker shot an exasperated glance at his friend. This came of giving people time to think.

“Right?” burst in Wimsey. “Right? Of course we’ve a right. The police have a right to ask questions when anything’s the matter. Here’s murder the matter! Right, indeed?”

A curious intent look came into her eyes. Parker could not place it, but Wimsey recognised it instantly. He had seen it last on the face of a great financier as he took up his pen to sign a contract. Wimsey had been called to witness the signature, and had refused. It was a contract that ruined thousands of people. Incidentally, the financier had been murdered soon after, and Wimsey had declined to investigate the matter, with a sentence from Dumas: “Let pass the justice of God.”

“I’m afraid,” Mrs. Forrest was saying, “that in that case I can’t help you. I did have a friend dining with me on the 26th, but he has not, so far as I know, been murdered, nor has he murdered anybody.”

“It was a man, then?” said Parker.

Mrs. Forrest bowed her head with a kind of mocking ruefulness. “I live apart from my husband,” she murmured.

“I am sorry,” said Parker, “to have press you for this gentleman’s name and address.”

“Isn’t that asking rather much? Perhaps if you would give me further details-?”

“Well, you see,” cut in Wimsey again, “if we could just know for certain it wasn’t Lyndhurst. My cousin is frightfully upset, as I said, and that Evelyn girl is making trouble. In fact- of course one doesn’t want it to go any further- but actually Sylvia lost her head very completely. She made a savage attack on poor old Lyndhurst – with a revolver, in fact, only fortunately she is a shocking bad shot. It went over his shoulder and broke a vase- most distressin’ thing- a Famille Rose jar, worth thousands- and of course it was smashed to atoms. Sylvia is really hardly responsible when she’s in a temper. And, we thought, as Lyndhurst was actually traced to this block of flats- if you could give us definite proof it wasn't him, it might calm her down and prevent murder being done, don’t you know. Because they might call it Guilty but Insane, still, it would be awfully awkward havin’ one’s cousin in Broadmoor-a first cousin, and really a very nice woman, when she’s not irritated.”

Mrs. Forrest gradually softened into a faint smile.

“I think I understand the position, Mr. Templeton,” she said, “and if I give you a name, it will be in strict confidence, I presume?”

“Of course, of course,” said Wimsey, “I’m sure it’s uncommonly kind of you.”

“You’ll swear you aren’t spies of my husband’s?” she said quickly. “I am trying to divorce him. How do I know this isn’t a trap?”

“Madam,” said Winsey, with intense gravity, “I swear to you on my honour as a gentleman that I have not the slightest connection with your husband. I have never even heard of him before.”

Mrs. Forrest shook her head.

“I don’t think, after all,” she said, “it would be much good my giving you the name. In any case, if you asked whether he’d been here, he would say no, wouldn’t he? And if you’ve been sent by my husband, you’ve got all the evidence you want already. But I give you my solemn assurance, Mr. Templeton, that I know nothing about your friend, Mr. Lyndhurst-”

“Major Lyndhurst,” put in Wimsey plaintively.

“And if Mrs. Lyndhurst is not satisfied, and likes to come round and see me, I will do my best to satisfy her of the fact. Will that do?”

“Thank you very much,” said Wimsey. “I’m sure it’s as much as any one could expect. You’ll forgive my abruptness, won’t you? I’m rather- er- nervously constituted, and the whole business is exceedingly upsetting. Good afternoon. Come on, Inspector, it’s quite all right- you see it’s quite all right. I’m really much obliged- uncommonly so. Please don’t trouble to see us out.”

He teetered nervously down the narrow hallway, in his imbecile and well-bred way, Parker following with a policeman-like stiffness. No sooner, however, had the flat-door closed behind them than Wimsey seized his friend by the arm and bundled him helter-skelter into the lift.

“I thought we should never get away,” he panted. “Now, quick- how do we get round to the back of these flats?”

“What do you want with the back?” demanded Parker, annoyed. “And I wish you wouldn’t stampede me like this. I’ve no business to let you come with me on a job at all, and if I do, you might have the decency to keep quiet.”

“Right you are,” said Wimsey, cheerfully., “just let’s do this little bit and you can get all the virtuous indignation off your chest later on. Round here, I fancy, up this back alley. Step lively and mind the dust-bin. One, two, three, four- here we are. Just keep a look-out for the passing stranger, will you?”

Selecting a back window which he judged to belong to Mrs. Forrest’s flat, Wimsey promptly grasped a drainpipe and began to swarm up it with the agility of a cat-burglar. About fifteen feet from the ground he paused, reached up, appeared to detach something with a quick jerk, and then slid very gingerly to the ground again, holding his right hand at a cautious distance from his body, as though it were breakable.

And indeed, to his amazement, Parker observed that Wimsey now held a long-stemmed glass in his fingers, similar to those from which they had drunk in Forrest’s sitting-room.

“What on earth-?” said Parker.

“Hush! I’m Hawkshaw the detective-gathering finger-prints. Here we come a-wassailing and gathering prints in May. That’s why I took the glass back. I brought a different one in the second time. Sorry I had to do this athletic stunt, but the only cotton-reel I could find hadn’t much on it. When I changed the glass, I tip-toed into the bathroom and hung it out of the window. Hope she hasn’t been in there since. Just brush my bags down, will you, old man? Gently- don’t touch the glass.”

“What the devil do you want fingerprints for?”

“You’re a grateful sort of person. Why, for all you know, Mrs. Forrest is someone the Yard has been looking for for years. And anyway, you could compare the prints with those on the Bass bottle, if any. Besides, you never know when prints mayn’t come in handy. They’re excellent things to have about the house. Coast clear? Right. Hail a taxi, will you? I can’t wave my hand with this glass in it. Look so silly, don’t you know. I say!”

“Well?”

“I saw something else. The first time I went out for the drinks, I had a peep into her bedroom.”

“Yes?”

“What do you think I found in the wash-stand drawer?”

“What?”

“A hypodermic syringe!”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes, and an innocent little box of ampullæ, with a doctor’s prescription headed ‘The injection, Mrs. Forrest. One to be injected when the pain is very severe.’ What do you think of that?”

“Tell you when we’ve got the results of that post-mortem,” said Parker, really impressed. “You didn’t bring the prescription, I suppose?”

“No, and I didn’t inform the lady who we were or what we were after or ask her permission to carry away the family crystal. But I made a note of the chemist’s address.”

“Did you?” ejaculated Parker “Occasionally, my lad, you have some glimmerings of sound detective sense.”

Chapter 8 Concerning Crime

Letter from Miss Alexandra Katherine Climpson to Lord Peter Wimsey.

“ ‘ Fairview,’

“ Nelson Avenue,

“Leahampton.

“12 May, 1927.

MY DEAR LORD PETER,

“I have not yet been able to get ALL the information you ask for, as Miss Whittaker has been away for some weeks, inspecting chicken farms!! With a view to purchase, I mean, of course, and not in any sanitary capacity (!). I really think she means to set up farming with Miss Findlater, though what Miss Whittaker can see in that very gushing and really silly young woman I cannot think. However, Miss Findlater has evidently quite a ‘pash’ (as we used to call it at school) for Miss Whittaker, and I am afraid none of us are above being flattered by such outspoken admiration. I must say, I think it rather unhealthy- you may remember Miss Clemence Dane’s very clever book on the subject?- I have seen so much of that kind of thing in my rather WOMAN-RIDDEN existence! It has such a bad effect, as a rule, upon the weaker character of the two- But I must not take up your time with my TWADDLE!!

“Miss Murgatroyd, who was quite a friend of old Miss Dawson, however, has been able to tell me a little about her past life.

“It seems that, until five years ago, Miss Dawson lived in Warwickshire with her cousin, a Miss Clara Whittaker, Mary Whittaker’s great-aunt on the father’s side. This Miss Clara was evidently rather a ‘character,’ as my dear father used to call it. In her day she was considered very ‘advanced’ and not quite nice(!) because she refused several good offers, cut her hair SHORT(!!!) and set up in business for herself as a HORSE-BREEDER!!! Of course, nowadays, nobody would think anything of it, but then the old lady-or young lady as she was when she embarked on this revolutionary proceeding, was quite a PIONEER.

“Agatha Dawson was a school-fellow of hers, and deeply attached to her. And as a result of this friendship, Agatha’s sister, HARRIET, married Clara Whittaker’s brother JAMES! But Agatha did not care about marriage, any more than Clara, and the two ladies lived together in a big old house, with immense stables, in a village in Warwickshire- Crofton, I think the name was. Clara Whittaker turned out to be a remarkably good business woman, and worked up a big ‘connection’ among the hunting folk in those parts. Her hunters became quite famous, and from a capital of a few thousand pounds with which she started she made quite a fortune, and was a very rich woman before her death! Agatha Dawson never had anything to do with the horsey part of the business. She was the ‘domestic’ partner, and looked after the house and the servants.

“When Clara Whittaker died, she left all her money to AGATHA, passing over her own family, with whom she was not on very good terms- owing to the narrow minded attitude they had taken up about her horse-dealing!! Her nephew, Charles Whittaker, who was a clergyman, and the father of our Miss Whittaker, resented very much not getting the money, though, as he had kept up the feud in a very un-Christian manner, he had really no right to complain, especially as Clara had built up her fortune entirely by her own exertions. But, of course, he inherited the bad, old-fashioned idea that women ought not to be their own mistresses, or make money for themselves, or do what they liked with their own!

“He and his family were the only surviving Whittaker relations, and when he and his wife were killed in a motor-car accident, Miss Dawson asked Mary to leave her work as a nurse and make her home with her. So that, you see, Clara Whittaker’s money was destined to come back to James Whittaker’s daughter in the end!! Miss Dawson made it quite CLEAR that this was her intention, provided Mary would come and cheer the declining days of a lonely old lady!

“Mary accepted, and as her aunt- or, to speak more exactly, her great-aunt- had given up the big old Warwickshire house after Clara’s death, they lived in London for a short time and then moved to Leahampton. As you know, poor old Miss Dawson was then already suffering from the terrible disease of which she died, so that Mary did not have to wait very long for Clara Whittaker’s money!!

“I hope this information will be of some use to you. Miss Murgatroy did not, of course, know anything about the rest of the family, but always understood that there were no other surviving relatives, either on the Whittaker or the Dawson side.

“When Miss Whittaker returns, I hope to see more of her. I enclose my account for expenses up to date. I do trust you will not consider it extravagant. How are your money-lenders progressing? I was sorry not to see more of those poor women whose cases I investigated- their stories were so PATHETIC!

“I am,

“Very sincerely yours,

“ALEXANDRA K. CLIMPSON.”

“P.S.- I forgot to say that Miss Whittaker has a little motor-car. I do not, of course, know anything about these matters, but Mrs. Budge’s maid tells me that Miss Whittaker’s maid says it is an Austen 7 (is this right?). It is grey, and the number is XX9917.”

Mr. Parker was announced, just as Lord Peter finished reading this document, and sank rather wearily in a corner of the chesterfield.

“What luck?” inquired his lordship, tossing the letter over to him. “Do you know, I’m beginning to think you were right about the Bertha Gotobed business, and I’m rather relieved. I don’t believe one word of Mrs. Forrest’s story, for reasons of my own, and I’m now hoping that the wiping out of Bertha was a pure coincidence and nothing to do with my advertisement.”

“Are you?” said Parker, bitterly, helping himself to whisky and soda. “Well, I hope you’ll be cheered to learn that the analysis of the body has been made, and that there is not the slightest sign of foul play. There is no trace of violence or of poisoning. There was a heart weakness of fairly long standing and the verdict is syncope after a heavy meal.”

“That doesn’t worry me,” said Wimsey. “We suggested shock, you know. Amiable gentleman met at flat of friendly lady suddenly turns funny after dinner and makes undesirable overtures. Virtuous young woman is horribly shocked. Weak heart gives way. Collapse. Exit. Agitation of amiable gentleman and friendly lady, left with corpse on their hands. Happy thought: motor-car; Epping Forest; exeunt omnes, singing and washing their hands. Where’s the difficulty?”

“Proving it is the difficulty, that’s all. By the way, there were no finger-marks on the bottle- only smears.”

“Gloves, I suppose. Which looks like camouflage, anyhow. An ordinary picnicking couple wouldn’t put on gloves to handle a bottle of Bass.”

“I know. But we can’t arrest all the people who wear gloves.”

“I weep for you, the Walrus said, I deeply sympathise. I see the difficulty, but it’s early days yet. How about those injections?”

“Perfectly O.K. We’ve interrogated the chemist and interviewed the doctor. Mrs. Forrest suffers from violent neuralgic pains, and the injections were duly prescribed. Nothing wrong there, and no history of doping or anything. The prescription is a very mild one, and couldn’t possibly be fatal to anybody. Besides, haven’t I told you that there was no trace of morphia or any other kind of poison in the body?”

“Oh, well!” said Wimsey. He sat for a few minutes looking thoughtfully at the fire.

“I see the case has more or less died out of the papers,” he resumed, suddenly.

“Yes. The analysis has been sent to them, and there will be a paragraph tomorrow and a verdict of natural death, and that will be the end of it.”

“Good. The less fuss there is about it the better. Has anything been heard of the sister in Canada?”

“Oh, I forgot. Yes. We had a cable three days ago. She’s coming over.”

“Is she? By Jove! What boat?”

“The Star of Quebec- due in next Friday.”

“H’m! We’ll have to get hold of her. Are you meeting the boat?”

“Good heavens, no! Why should I?”

“I think someone ought to. I’m reassured- but not altogether happy; I think I’ll go myself, if you don’t mind. I want to get that Dawson story- and this time I want to make sure the young woman doesn’t have a heart attack before I interview her.”

“I really think you’re exaggerating, Peter.”

“Better safe than sorry,” said his lordship. “Have another peg, won’t you? Meanwhile, what do you think of Miss Climpson’s latest?”

“I don’t see much in it.”

“No?”

“It’s a bit confusing, but it all seems quite straightforward.”

“Yes. The only thing we know now is that Mary Whittaker’s father was annoyed about Miss Dawson’s getting his aunt’s money and thought it ought to have come to him.”

“Well, you don’t suspect him of having murdered Miss Dawson, do you? He died before her, and the daughter’s got the money anyhow.”

“Yes, I know. But suppose Miss Dawson had changed her mind? She might have quarrelled with Mary Whittaker and wanted to leave her money elsewhere.”

“Oh, I see- and been put out of the way before she could make a will?”

“Isn’t it possible?”

“Yes, certainly. Except that all the evidence we have goes to show that will-making was about the last job anybody could persuade her to do.”

“True- while she was on good terms with Mary. But how about that morning Nurse Philliter mentioned, when she said people were trying to kill her before her time? Mary may really have been impatient with her for being such an unconscionable time a-dying. If Miss Dawson became aware of that, she would certainly have resented it and may very well have expressed an intention of making her will in someone else’s favor- as a kind of insurance against premature decease!”

“Then why didn’t she send for her solicitor?”

“She may have tried to. But after all, she was bed-ridden and helpless, Mary may have prevented the message from being sent.”

“That sounds quite plausible.”

“Doesn’t it? That’s why I want Evelyn Cropper’s evidence. I’m perfectly certain those girls were packed off because they had heard more than they should. Or why such enthusiasm over sending them to London?”

“Yes. I thought that part of Mrs. Gulliver’s story was a bit odd. I say, what about the other nurse?”

“Nurse Forbes? That’s a good idea. I was forgetting her. Think you can her?”

“Of course, if you really think it important.”

“I think it’s damned important. Look here, Charles, you don’t seem very enthusiastic about this case.”

“Well, you know, I’m not so certain it isa case at all. What makes you so fearfully keen about it? You seem dead set on making it a murder, with practically nothing to go upon. Why?”

“Lord Peter got up and paced the room. The light from the solitary reading-lamp threw his lean shadow, diffused and monstrously elongated, up to the ceiling. He walked over to a book-shelf, and the shadow shrank, blackened, settled down. He stretched his hand, and the hand’s shadow flew with it, hovering over the gilded titles of the books and blotting them out one by one.

“Why?” repeated Wimsey. “Because I believe this is the case I have always been looking for. The case of cases. The murder without discernible means, or motive clue. The norm. All these”- he swept his extended hand across the book-shelf and the shadow outlined a vaster and more menacing gesture- “all these books on this side of the room are about crimes. But they only deal with the abnormal crimes.”

“What do you mean by abnormal crimes?”

“The failures. The crimes that have been found out. What proportion do you suppose they bear to the successful crimes- the ones we hear nothing about?”

“In this country,” said Parker, rather stiffly, “we manage to trace and convict the majority of criminals- ”

“My good man, I know that where a crime is known to have been committed, you people manage to catch the perpetrator in at least sixty per cent of the cases. But the moment a crime is even suspected, it falls, ipso facto, into the category of failures. After that, the thing is merely a question of greater or lesser efficiency on the part of the police. But how about the crimes which are never even suspected?”

Parker shrugged his shoulders.

“How can anybody answer that?”

“Well- one may guess. Read any newspaper to-day. Read the News of the World, now that the Press has been muzzled, read the divorce court lists. Wouldn’t they give you the idea that marriage is a failure? Isn’t the sillier sort of journalism packed with articles to the same effect? And yet, looking round among the marriages you know of personally, aren’t the majority of them a success, in a hum-drum, undemonstrative sort of way? Only you don’t hear of them. People don’t bother to come into court and explain that they dodder along very comfortably on the whole, thank you. Similarly, if you read all the books on this shelf, you’d come to the conclusion that murder was a failure. But bless you, it’s always the failures that make the noise. Successfull murderers don’t write to the papers about it. They don’t even join in imbecile symposia to tell an inquisitive world ‘What Murder means to me,’ or ‘How I became a Successful Poisoner.’ Happy murderers, like happy wives, keep quiet tongues. And they probably bear just about the same proportion to the failures as the divorced couples do to the happily mated.”

“Aren’t you putting it rather high?”

“I don’t know. Nor does anybody. That’s the devil of it. But you ask any doctor, when you’ve got him in an unbuttoned, well-lubricated frame of mind, if he hasn’t often had grisly suspicions which he could not and dared not take steps to verify. You see by our friend Carr what happens when one doctor is a trifle more courageous than the rest.”

“Well, he couldn’t prove anything.”

“I know. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to be proved. Look at the scores and scores of murders that have unproved and unsuspected till the fool murderer went too far and did something silly which blew up the whole show. Palmer, for instance. His wife brother and mother-in-law and various illegitimate children, all peacefully put away- till he made the mistake of polishing Cook off in that spectacular manner. Look at George Joseph Smith. Nobody’d have thought of bothering any more about those first two wives he drowned. It was only when he did it the third time that he aroused suspicion. Armstrong, too, is supposed to have got away with many more crimes than he was tried for- it was being clumsy over Martin and the chocolates that stirred up the hornets’ nest in the end. Burke and Hare were convicted of murdering an old woman, and then brightly confessed that they’d put away sixteen people in two months and no one a penny the wiser.”

“But they were caught.”

“Because they were fools. If you murder someone in a brutal, messy way, or poison someone who has previously enjoyed rollicking health, or choose the very day after a will’s been made in your favour to extinguish the testator, or go on killing everyone you meet till people begin to think you’re first cousin to a upas tree, naturally you’re found out in the end. But choose somebody old and ill, in circumstances where the benefit to yourself isn’t too apparent, and use a sensible method that looks like natural death or accident, and don’t repeat your effects too often, and you’re safe. I swear all the heart-diseases and gastric enteritis and influenzas that get certified are not nature’s unaided work. Murder’s so easy, Charles, so damned easy- even without special training.”

Parker looked troubled.

“There’s something in what you say. I’ve heard some funny tales myself. We all do, I suppose. But Miss Dawson- ”

“Miss Dawson fascinates me, Charles. Such a beautiful subject. So old and ill. So likely to die soon. Bound to die before long. No near relations to make inquiries. No connections or old friends in the neighbourhood. And so rich. Upon my soul, Charles, I lie in bed licking my lips over ways and means of murdering Miss Dawson.”

“Well, anyhow, till you can think of one that defies analysis and doesn’t seem to need a motive, you haven’t found the right one,” said Parker, practically, rather revolted by this ghoulish conversation.

“I admit that,” replied Lord Peter, “but that only shows that as yet I’m merely a third-rate murderer. Wait till I’ve perfected my method and then I’ll show you- perhaps. Some wise old buffer has said that each of us holds the life of one other person between his hands- but only one, Charles, only one.”

Chapter 9 The Will

Hullo! hullo- ullo! oh, operator, shall I call thee bird or but a wandering voice… Not at all, I had no intention of being rude, my child, that was a quotation from the poetry of Mr. Wordsworth… well, ring him again… thank you, is that Dr. Carr?… Lord Peter Wimsey speaking… oh, yes… yes… aha!… not a bit of it… We are about to vindicate you and lead you home, decorated with triumphal wreaths of cinnamon and senna-pods… No, really… we’ve come to the conclusion that the thing is serious… Yes… I want Nurse Forbes’ address… Right, I’ll hold on… Luton?… oh, Tooting, yes, I’ve got that… Certainly, I’ve no doubt she’s a tartar but I’m the Grand Panjandrum with the little round button a-top… Thanks awfully… cheer-frightfully-ho! oh! I say!- hullo!- I say, she doesn’t do Maternity work, does she? Maternity work? – M for Mother-in-law -Maternity?- No- You’re sure?… It would be simply awful if she did and came along… I couldn’t possibly produce a baby for her… As long as you’re quite sure… Right- right- yes- not for the world- nothing to do with you at all. Goodbye, old thing, goodbye.”

Peter hung up, whistling cheerfully, and called for Bunter.

“My lord?”

“What is the proper suit to put on,, when one is an expectant father?”

“I regret, my lord, to have seen no recent fashions in paternity wear. I should say, my lord, whichever suit your lordship fancies will induce a calm and cheerful frame of mind in the lady.”

“Unfortunately I don’t know the lady. She is, in fact, only the figment of an over-teeming-brain. But I think the garments should express bright hope, sel congratulation, and a tinge of tender anxiety.”

“A newly married situation, my lord, I take it. Then I would suggest the lounge suit in pale grey- the willow-pussy cloth, my lord- with a dull amethyst tie and socks and a soft hat. I would not recommend a bowler, my lord. The anxiety expressed in a bowler hat would be rather of the financial kind.”

“No doubt you are right, Bunter. And I will wear those gloves that got so unfortunately soiled yesterday at Charing Cross. I am too agitated to worry about a clean pair.”

“Very good, my lord.”

“No stick, perhaps.”

“Subject to your lordship’s better judgment, I should suggest that a stick may be suitably handled to express emotion.”

“You are always right, Bunter. Call me a taxi, and tell the man to drive to Tooting.”

Nurse Forbes regretted very much. She would have liked to oblige Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe, but she never undertook maternity work. She wondered who could have misled Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe, by giving him her name.

“Well, y’know, I can’t say I was misled,” said Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe, dropping his walking-stick and retrieving it with an ingenuous laugh. “Miss Murgatroyd- you know Miss Murgatroyd of Leahampton, I think- yes- she-that is- I heard about you through her” (this was a fact), “and she said what a charming person- excuse my repeatin’ these personal remarks, won’t you? -charmin’ person you were and all that, and how nice it would be if we could persuade you to come, don’t you see. But she said she was afraid perhaps you didn’t do maternity work. Still, y’know, I thought it was worth tryin’, what? Being’ so anxious, what?- about my wife, that is, you see. So necessary to have someone young and cheery at these- er- critical times, don’t you know. Maternity nurses often such ancient and ponderous sort of people-if you don’t mind my sayin’ so. My wife’s highly nervous- naturally- first effort and all that- doesn’t like middle-aged people tramplin’ round -you see the idea?”

Nurse Forbes, who was a bony woman of about forty, saw the point perfect and was very sorry she really could not see her way to undertaking the work.

“It was very kind of Miss Murgatroyd,” she said. “Do you know her well? Such a delightful woman, is she not?”

The expectant father agreed.

“Miss Murgatroyd was so very much impressed by your sympathetic way- don’t you know- of nursin’ that poor lady, Miss Dawson, y’know. Distant connection of my own, as a matter of fact- er, yes- somewhere about fifteenth cousin twelve times removed. So nervous, wasn’t she? A little bit eccentric, like the rest of the family, but a charming lady, don’t you think?”

“I became very much attached to her,” said Nurse Forbes. “When she was in possession of her faculties, she was a most pleasant and thoughtful patient. Of course, she was in great pain, and we had to keep her under morphia a great part of the time.”

“Ah, yes! poor old soul! I sometimes think, Nurse, it’s a great pity we aren’t allowed to just to help people off, y’know, when they’re so far gone. After all, they’re practically dead already, as you might say. What’s the point of keepin’ them sufferin’ on like that?”

Nurse Forbes looked rather sharply at him.

“I’m afraid that wouldn’t do,” she said, “though one understands the lay person’s point of view, of course. Dr. Carr was not of your opinion,” she added, a little acidly.

“I think all that fuss was simply shockin’,” said the gentleman warmly. “Poor old soul! I said to my wife at the time, why couldn’t they let the poor old thing rest. Fancy cuttin’ her about, when obviously she’d just mercifully gone off in a natural way! My wife quite agreed with me. She was quite upset about it, don’t you know.”

“It was very distressing to everybody concerned,” said Nurse Forbes, “and of course, it put me in a very awkward position. I ought not to talk about it, but as you are one of the family, you will quite understand.”

“Just so. Did it ever occur to you, Nurse”- Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe leaned forward, crushing his soft hat between his hands in a nervous manner- “that there might be something behind all that?”

Nurse Forbes primmed up her lips.

“You know,” said Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe, “there have been cases of doctors tryin’ to get rich old ladies to make wills in their favour. You don’t think-eh?”

Nurse Forbes intimated that it was not her business to think things.

“No, of course not, certainly not. But as man to man- I mean, between you and me, what?- wasn’t there a little- er- friction, perhaps, about sending for the solicitor-johnnie, don’t you know? Of course, my Cousin Mary- I call her cousin, so to speak, but it’s no relation at all, really- of course, I mean, she’s an awfully nice girl and all that sort of thing, but I’d got a sort of idea perhaps she wasn’t altogether keen on having the will-making wallah sent for, what?”

“Oh, Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe, I’m sure you’re quite wrong there. Miss Whittaker was most anxious that her aunt should have every facility in that way. In fact- I don’t think I’m betraying any confidence in telling you this- she said to me, ‘If at any time Miss Dawson should express a wish to see a lawyer, be sure you send for him at once.’ And so, of course, I did.”

“You did? And didn’t he come, then?”

“Certainly he came. There was no difficulty about it at all.”

“That just shows, doesn’t it? how wrong some of these gossipy females can be! Excuse me, but y’know, I’d got absolutely the wrong impression about the thing. I’m quite sure Mrs. Peasgood said that no lawyer had been sent for.”

“I don’t know what Mrs. Peasgood could have known about it,” said Nurse Forbes with a sniff, “her permission was not asked in the matter.”

“Certainly not- but you know how these ideas get about. But, I say- if there was a will, why wasn’t it produced?”

“I didn’t say that, Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe. There was no will. The lawyer came to draw up a power of attorney, so that Miss Whittaker could sign cheques and so on for her aunt. That was very necessary, you know, on account of the old lady’s failing powers.”

“Yes- I suppose she was pretty woolly towards the end.”

“Well, she was quite sensible when I took over from Nurse Philliter in September, except, of course, for that fancy she had about poisoning.”

“She really was afraid of that?”

“She said once or twice, ‘I’m not go to die to please anybody, Nurse.’ She had great confidence in me. She got on better with me than with Miss Whittaker, to tell you the truth, Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe. But during October, her mind began to give way altogether, and she rambled a lot. She used to wake up sometimes all in a fright and say, ‘Have they passed it yet, Nurse?’ – just like that. I’d say, ‘No, they haven’t got that far yet,’ and that would quiet her. Thinking of her hunting days, I expect she was. They often go back like that, you know, when they’re being kept under drugs. Dreaming, like, they are, half the time.”

“Then in the last month or so, I suppose she could hardly have made a will, even if she had wanted to.”

“No, I don’t think she could have managed it then.”

“But earlier on, when the lawyer was there, she could have done so if she had liked.”

“Certainly she could.”

“But she didn’t?”

“Oh, no. I was there with her all the time, at her particular request.”

“I see. Just you and Miss Whittaker.”

“Not even Miss Whittaker most of the time. I see what you mean, Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe, but indeed you should clear your mind of any unkind suspicions of Miss Whittaker. The lawyer and Miss Dawson and myself were alone together for nearly an hour, while the clerk drew up the necessary papers in the next room. It was all done then, you see, because we thought that a second visit would be too much for Miss Dawson. Miss Whittaker only came in quite at the end. If Miss Dawson had wished to make a will, she had ample opportunity to do so.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” said Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe, rising to go. “These little doubts are so apt to make unpleasantness in families, don’t you know. Well, I must be toddlin’ now. I’m frightfully sorry you can’t come to us, Nurse- my wife will be so disappointed. I must try to find somebody else equally charmin’ if possible. Goodbye.”

Lord Peter removed his hat in the taxi and scratched his head thoughtfully.

“Another good theory gone wrong,” he murmured. “Well, there’s another string to the jolly old bow yet. Cropper first and then Crofton- that’s the line to take, I fancy.”