Unnatural Death

Chapter 10 The Will Again

Oh, Miss Evelyn, my dear, oh, poor dear!”

The tall girl in black started, and looked round.

“Why, Mrs. Gulliver- how very, very kind of you to come and meet me!”

“And glad I am to have the chance, my dear, all owing to these kind gentlemen,” cried the landlady, flinging her arms round the girl and clinging to her to the great annoyance of the other passengers pouring off the gangway. The elder of the two gentlemen referred to gently put his hand on her arm, and drew them out of the stream of traffic.

“Poor lamb!” mourned Mrs. Gulliver, “coming all this way by your lonesome and poor dear Miss Bertha in her grave and such terrible things said, and her such a good girl always.”

“It’s poor Mother I’m thinking about,” said the girl. “I couldn’t rest. I said to my husband, ‘I must go,’ I said, and he said, ‘My honey, if I could come with you I would, but I can’t leave the farm, but if you feel you ought to go, you shall, he said.”

“Dear Mr. Cropper- he was always that good and kind,” said Mrs. Gulliver “but here I am, forgittin’ all about the good gentlemen as brought me all this way to see you. This is Lord Peter Wimsey, and this is Mr. Murbles, as put in that unfortnit advertisement, as I truly believes was the beginnin’ of it all. ’Ow I wish I’d never showed it to your poor sister, not but wot I believe the gentleman acted with the best intentions, ’avin’ now seen ’im, which at first I thought ’e was a wrong’un.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Mrs. Cropper, turning with the ready address derived from service in a big restaurant. “Just before I sailed I got a letter from poor Bertha enclosing your ad. I couldn’t make anything of it, but I’d be glad to know anything which can clear up this shocking business. What have they said it is- murder?”

“There was a verdict of natural death at the inquiry,” said Mr. Murbles, “but we feel that the case presents some inconsistencies, and shall be exceedingly grateful for your co-operation in looking into the matter, and also in connection with another matter which may or may not have some bearing upon it.”

“Righto,” said Mrs. Cropper. “I’m sure you’re proper gentlemen, if Mrs. Gulliver answers for you, for I’ve never known her mistaken in a person yet, have I, Mrs. G? I’ll tell you anything I know, which isn’t much, for it’s all a horrible mystery to me. Only I don’t want you to delay me, for I’ve got to go straight on down to Mother. She’ll be in a dreadful way, so fond as she was of Bertha, and she’s all alone except for the young girl that looks after her, and that’s not much comfort when you’ve lost your daughter so sudden.”

“We shall not detain you a moment, Mrs. Cropper,” said Mr. Murbles. “We propose, if you will allow us, to accompany you to London, and to ask a few questions on the way, and then- again with your permission- we should like to see you safely home to Mrs. Gotobed’s house, wherever that maybe.”

“ Christchurch, near Bournemouth,” said Lord Peter. “I’ll run you down straight away, if you like. It will save time.”

“I say, you know all about it, don’t you?” exclaimed Mrs. Cropper with admiration. “Well, hadn’t we better get a move on, or we’ll miss this train?”

“Quite right,” said Mr. Murbles. “Allow me to offer you my arm.”

Mrs. Cropper approving of this arrangement, the party made its way to the station, after the usual disembarkation formalities. As they passed the barrier on to the platform Mrs. Cropper gave a little exclamation and leaned forward as though something had caught her eye.

“What is it, Mrs. Cropper?” said Lord Peter’s voice in her ear. “Did you think you recognised somebody?”

“You’re a noticing one, aren’t you?” said Cropper. “Make a good waiter- you would- not meaning any offence, sir, that’s a real compliment from one who knows. Yes, I did think I saw someone, but it couldn’t be, because the minute she caught my eye she went away.”

“Who did you think it was?”

“Why, I thought it looked like Miss Whittaker, as Bertha and me used to work for.”

“Where was she?”

“Just down by that pillar there, a tall dark lady in a crimson hat and grey fur. But she’s gone now.”

“Excuse me.”

Lord Peter unhitched Mrs. Cropper from his arm, hitched her smartly on to the unoccupied arm of Mr. Murbles, and plunged into the crowd. Mr. Murbles, quite unperturbed by this eccentric behaviour, shepherded the two women into an empty first class carriage which Mrs. Cropper noted, bore a large lable, “Reserved for Lord Peter Wimsey and party.” Mrs. Cropper made some protesting observation about her ticket, but Mr. Murbles merely replied that everything was provided for, and privacy could be more conveniently secured in this way.

“Your friend’s going to be left behind,” said Mrs. Cropper as the train moved out.

“That would be very unlike him,” replied Mr. Murbles, calmly unfolding a couple of rugs and exchanging his old-fashioned top-hat for a curious kind of travelling cap with flaps to it. Mrs. Cropper, in the midst of her anxiety, could not help wondering where in the world he had contrived to purchase this Victorian relic. As a matter of fact, Mr. Murble’s caps were specially made to his own design by an exceedingly expensive West End hatter, who held Mr. Murbles in deep respect as a real gentleman of the old school.

Nothing, however, was seen of Lord Peter for something like a quarter of an hour, when he suddenly put his head in with an amiable smile and said:

“One red-haired woman in a crimson hat; three dark women in black hats; several nondescript women in those pull-on sort of dust-coloured hats; old women with grey hair, various; sixteen flappers without hats- hats on rack, I mean, but none of ’em crimson; two obvious brides in blue hats; innumerable fair women in hats of all colours; one ash-blonde dressed as a nurse, none of ’em our friend as far as I know. Thought I’d best just toddle along the train to make sure. There’s just one dark sort of female whose hat I can’t see because it’s tucked down beside her. Wonder if Mrs. Cropper would mind doin’ a little stagger down the corridor to take a squint at her.”

Mrs. Cropper, with some surprise, consented to do so.

“Right you are. ’Splain later. About four carriages along. Now, look here, Mrs. Cropper, if it should be anybody you know, I’d rather on the whole she didn’t spot you watching her. I want you to walk along behind me, just glancin’ into the compartments but keepin’ your collar turned up. When we come to the party I have in mind, I’ll make a screen for you, what?”

These manoeuvres were successfully accomplished, Lord Peter lighting a cigarette opposite the suspected compartment, while Mrs. Cropper viewed the hatless lady under cover of his raised elbows. But the result was disappointing. Mrs. Cropper had never seen the lady before, and a further promenade from end to end of the train produced no better results.

“We must leave it to Bunter, then,” said his lordship, cheerfully, as they returned to their seats. “I put him on the trail as soon as you gave me the word. Now, Mrs. Cropper, we really get down to business. First of all, we should be glad of any suggestions you may have to make about your sister’s death. We don’t want to distress you, but we have got an idea that there might, just possibly, be something behind it.”

“There’s just one thing, sir -your lordship, I suppose I should say. Bertha was a real good girl- I can answer for that absolutely. There wouldn’t have been any carryings-on with her young man- nothing of that. I know people have been saying all sorts of things, and perhaps, with lots of girls as they are, it isn’t to be wondered at. But, believe me, Bertha wouldn’t go for to do anything that wasn’t right. Perhaps you’d like to see this last letter she wrote me. I’m sure nothing could be nicer and properer from a girl just looking forward to a happy marriage. Now, a girl as wrote like that wouldn’t be going larking about, sir, would she? I couldn’t rest, thinking they was saying that about her.”

Lord Peter took the letter, glanced thorugh it, and handed it reverently to Mr. Murbles.

“We’re not thinking that at all, Mrs. Cropper, though of course we’re very glad to have your point of view, don’t you see. Now, do you think it possible your sister might have been- what shall I say?- got hold of by some woman with a story and all that, and- well – pushed into some position which shocked her very much? Was she cautious and up to the tricks of London people and that?”

And he outlined Parker’s theory of the engaging Mrs. Forrest and the supposed dinner in the flat.

“Well, my lord, I wouldn’t say Bertha was a very quick girl- not as quick as me, you know. She’d always be ready to believe what she was told and give people credit for the best. Took more after her father, like. I’m Mother’s girl, they always said, and I don’t trust anybody further than I can see them. But I’d warned her very careful against taking up with women as talks to a girl in the street, and she did ought to have been on her guard.”

“Of course,” said Peter, “it may been somebody she’d got to know quite well- say, at the restaurant, and she thought she was a nice lady and there’d be no harm in going to see her. Or the lady might have suggested taking her into good service. One never knows.”

“I think she’d have mentioned it in her letters if she’d talked to the lady much, my lord. It’s wonderful what a lot of things she’d find to tell me about the customers. And I don’t think she’d be for going into service again. We got real fed up with service, down in Leahampton.”

“Ah, yes. Now that brings us to quite a different point- the thing we wanted to ask you or your sister about before this sad accident took place. You were in service with this Miss Whittaker whom you mentioned just now. I wonder if you’d mind telling us just exactly why you left. It was a good place, I suppose?”

“Yes, my lord, quite a good place as places go, though of course a girl doesn’t get her freedom the way she does in a restaurant. And naturally there was a good deal of waiting on the old lady. Not as we minded that, for she was a very kind, good lady, and generous too.”

“But when she became so ill, I suppose Miss Whittaker managed everything, what?”

“Yes, my lord; but it wasn’t a hard place- lots of the girls envied us. Only Miss Whittaker was very particular.”

“Especially about the china, what?”

“Ah, they told you about that, then?”

“I told ’em, dearie,” put in Mrs. Gulliver, “I told ’em all about how you come to leave your place and go to London.”

“And it struck us,” put in Mr. Murbles, “that it was, shall we say, somewhat rash of Miss Whittaker to dismiss so competent and, if I may put it so, so well-spoken and personable a pair of maids on so trivial a pretext.”

“You’re right there, sir. Bertha- I told you she was the trusting one- she was quite ready to believe as she done wrong and thought how good it was of Miss Whittaker to forgive her breaking the china, and take so much interest in sending us to London, but I always thought there was something more than met the eye. Didn’t I, Mrs. Gulliver?”

“That you did, dear; something more than meets the eye, that’s what you says to me, and what I agrees with.”

“And did you, in your own mind,” pursued Mr. Murbles, “connect this sudden dismissal with anything which had taken place?”

“Well, I did then,” replied Mrs. Cropper with some spirit. “I said to Bertha- but she would hear nothing of it, taking after her father as I tell you- I said, ‘Mark my words,’ I said, ‘Miss Whittaker don’t care to have us in the house after the row she had with the old lady.’”

“And what row was that?” inquired Mr. Murbles.

“Well, I don’t know as I ought rightly to tell you about it, seeing it’s all over now and we promised to say nothing about it.”

“That, of course,” said Mr. Murbles, checking Lord Peter, who was about to burst in impetuously, “depends upon your own conscience. But, if it will be of any help to you in making up your mind, I may say, in the strictest confidence, that this information may be of the utmost importance to us- in a roundabout way which I won’t trouble you with- in investigating a very singular set of circumstances which have been brought to our notice. And it is just barely possible- again in a very roundabout way- that it may assist us in throwing light on the melancholy tragedy of your sister’s decease. Further than that cannot go at the moment.”

“Well, now,” said Mrs. Cropper, “if that’s so- though, mind you, I don’t what connection there could be- but if you think that’s so, I reckon I’d better come across with it, as my husband would say. After all, I only promised I wouldn’t mention about it to the people in Leahampton, as might have made mischief out of it- and a gossipy lot they is, and no mistake.”

“We’ve nothing to do with the Leahampton crowd,” said his lordship, “and it won’t be passed along unless it turns out to be necessary.”

“Righto. Well, I’ll tell you. One morning early in September Miss Whittaker comes along to Bertha and I, and says, ‘I want you girls to be just handy on the landing outside Miss Dawson’s bedroom,’ she says, ‘because I may want you to come in and witness her signature to a document. We shall want two witnesses,’ she says, ‘and you’ll have to see her sign; but I don’t want to flurry her with a lot of people in the room, so when I give you the tip, I want you to come just inside the door without making a noise, so that you can see her write her name, and then I’ll bring it straight across to you and you can write your names where I show you. It’s quite easy,’ she says, ‘nothing to do but just put your names opposite where you see the word Witnesses.’

“Bertha was always a bit the timid sort-afraid of documents and that sort of thing, and she tried to get out of it. ‘ Couldn’t Nurse sign instead of me?’ she says. That was Nurse Philliter, you know, the red-haired one as was the doctor’s fianceé. She was a very nice woman, and we liked her quite a lot. ‘Nurse has gone out for her walk,’ says Miss Whittaker, rather sharp, ‘I want you and Evelyn to do it,’ meaning me, of course. Well, we said we didn’t mind, and Miss Whittaker goes upstairs to Miss Dawson with a whole heap of papers, and Bertha and I followed and waited on the landing, like she said.”

“One moment,” said Mr. Murbles, “did Miss Dawson often have documents to sign?”

“Yes, sir, I believe so, quite frequently, but they was usually witnessed by Miss Whittaker or the nurse. There was some leases and things of that sort, or so I heard. Miss Dawson had a little house-property. And then there’d be the cheques for the housekeeping, and some papers as used to come from the Bank and be put away in the safe.”

“Share coupons and so on, I suppose,” said Mr. Murbles.

“Very likely, sir, I don’t know much about those business matters. I did have to witness a signature once, I remember, a long time back, but that was different. The paper was brought down to me with the signature ready wrote. There wasn’t any of this to-do about it.”

“The old lady was capable of dealing with her own affairs, I understand?”

“Up till then, sir. Afterwards, as I understood, she made it all over to Miss Whittaker- that was just before she got feeble-like, and was kept under drugs. Miss Whittaker signed the cheques then.”

“The power of attorney,” said Murbles, with a nod. “Well now, did you sign this mysterious paper?”

“No, sir, I’ll tell you how that was. When me and Bertha had been waiting a little time, Miss Whittaker comes to the door and makes us a sign to come in quiet. So we comes and stands just inside the door. There was a screen by the head of the bed, so we couldn’t see Miss Dawson nor she us, but we could see her reflection quite well in a big looking-glass she had on the left side of the bed.”

Murbles exchanged a significant glance with Lord Peter.

“Now be sure you tell us every detail,” said Wimsey, “no matter how small and silly it may sound. I believe this is goin’ to be very excitin’.”

“Yes, my lord. Well, there wasn’t much else, except that just inside the door, on the left-hand side as you went in, there was a little table, where Nurse mostly used to set down trays and things that had to go down, and it was cleared, and a piece of blotting-paper on it and an inkstand and pen, all ready for us to sign with.”

“Could Miss Dawson see that?” asked Murbles.

“No, sir, because of the screen.”

“But it was inside the room.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We want to be quite clear about this. Do you think you could draw- quite roughly- a little plan of the room, showing where the bed was and the screen and the mirror, and so on?”

“I’m not much of a hand at drawing,” said Mrs. Cropper dubiously, “but I’ll try.”

Mr. Murbles produced a notebook and fountain pen, and after a few false starts, the following rough sketch was produced.

“Thank you, that is very clear indeed. You notice, Lord Peter, the careful arrangements to have the document signed in presence of the witnesses, and witnessed by them in the presence of Miss Dawson and of each other. I needn’t tell you for what kind of document that arrangement is indispensable.”

“Was that it, sir? We couldn’t understand why it was all arranged like that.”

“It might have happened,” explained Mr. Murbles, “that in case of some dispute about this document, you and your sister would have had to come into court and give evidence about it. And if so, you would have been asked whether you actually saw Miss Dawson write her signature, and whether you and your sister and Miss Dawson were all in the same room together when you signed your names as witnesses. And if that had happened, you could have said yes, couldn’t you, and sworn to it?”

“0h,yes.”

“And yet, actually, Miss Dawson would have known nothing about your being there.”

“No, sir.”

“That was it, you see.”

“I see now, sir, but at the time Bertha and me couldn’t make nothing of it.”

“But the document, you say, was never signed.”

“No, sir. At any rate, we never witnessed anything. We saw Miss Dawson write her name- at least, I suppose it was her name- to one or two papers, then Miss Whittaker puts another lot in front of her and says, ‘Here’s another little lot, Auntie, some more of those income-tax forms.’ So the old lady says, ‘What are they exactly, dear, let me see?’ So Miss Whittaker says, ‘Oh, only usual things.’ And Miss Dawson says, ‘Dear, dear, what a lot of them. How complicated they do make these things to be sure.’ And we could see that Miss Whittaker was giving her several papers, all laid on top of one another, with just the places for the signatures left showing. So Miss Dawson signs the top one, and then lifts up the paper and looks underneath at the next one, and Miss Whittaker says, ‘They’re all the same,’ as if she was in a hurry to get them signed and done with. But Miss Dawson takes them out of her hand and starts looking through them, and suddenly she lets out a screech, and says, ‘I won’t have it, I won’t have it! I’m not dying yet. How dare you, you wicked girl! Can’t you wait till I’m dead?- You want to frighten me into my grave before my time. Haven’t you got everything you want?’ And Miss Whittaker says, ‘Hush, Auntie, you won’t let me explain-’ and the old lady says, ‘No, I won’t, I don’t want to hear anything about it. I hate the thought of it. I won’t talk about it. You leave me be. I can’t get better if you keep frightening me so.’ And then she begins to take and carry on dreadful, and Miss Whittaker comes over to us looking awful white and says, ‘Run along, you girls,’ she says, ‘my aunt’s taken ill and can’t attend to business. I’ll call you if I want you,’ she says. And I said, ‘Can we help with her, miss?’ and she says, ‘No, it’s quite all right. It’s just the pain come on again. I’ll give her her injection and then she’ll be all right.’ And she pushes us out of the room, and shuts the door, and we heard the poor old lady crying fit to break anybody’s heart. So we went downstairs and met Nurse just coming in, and we told her Miss Dawson was took worse again, and she runs up quick without taking her things off. So we was in the kitchen, just saying it seemed rather funny-like, when Miss Whittaker comes down again and says, ‘It’s all right now, and Auntie’s sleeping quite peaceful, only we’ll have to put off business till another day.’ And she says, ‘Better not say anything about this to anybody, because when the pain comes on Aunt gets frightened and talks a bit wild. She don’t mean what she says, but if people was to hear about it they might think it odd.’ So I up and says, ‘Miss Whittaker,’ I says, ‘me and Bertha was never ones to talk’; rather stiff, I said it, because I don’t hold by gossip and never did. And Miss Whittaker says, ‘That’s quite all right,’ and goes away. And the next day she gives us an afternoon off and a present- ten shillings each, it was, because it was her aunt’s birthday, and the old lady wanted us to have a little treat in her honour.”

“A very clear account indeed, Mrs. Cropper, and I only wish all witnesses were as sensible and observant as you are. There’s just one thing. Did you by any chance get a sight of this paper that upset Miss Dawson so much?”

“No sir- only from a distance, that is, and in the looking-glass. But I think it was quite short- just a few lines of type-writing.”

“Was there a type-writer in the house, by the way?”

“Oh, yes, sir. Miss Whittaker used one quite often for business letters and so on. It used to stand in the sitting-room.”

“Quite so. By the way, do you remember Miss Dawson’s solicitor calling shortly after this?”

“No, sir. It was only a little time later Bertha broke the teapot and we left. Miss Whittaker gave her her month’s warning, but I said no. If she could come down on a girl like that for a little thing, and her such a good worker, Bertha should go at once and me with her. Miss Whittaker said, ‘Just as you like,’ she said- she never was one to stand any backchat. So we went that afternoon. But afterwards I think she was sorry, and came over to see us at Christchurch, and suggested why shouldn’t we try for a better job in London. Bertha was a bit afraid to go so far- taking after Father, as I mentioned, but Mother, as was always the ambitious one, she says, ‘If the lady’s kind enough to give you a good start, why not go? There’s more chances for a girl in Town.’ And I said to Bertha, private-like, afterwards, I says, ‘Depend on it, Miss Whittaker wants to see the back of us. She’s afraid we’ll get talking about the things Miss Dawson said that morning. But, I says, if she’s willing to pay for us to go, why not go, I says. A girl’s got to look out for herself these days, and if we go off to London she’ll give us a better character than what she would if we stayed. And anyway, I said, if we don’t like it we can always come home again.’ So the long and short was, we came to Town, and after a bit we got good jobs with Lyons, what with the good character Miss Whittaker gave us, and I met my husband there and Bertha met her Jim. So we never regretted having taken the chance- not till this dreadful thing happened to Bertha.”

The passionate interest with which her hearers had received this recital must have gratified Mrs. Cropper’s sense of the dramatic. Mr. Murbles was very slowly rotating his hands over one another with a dry, rustling sound- like an old snake, gliding through the long grass in search of prey.

“A little scene after your own heart, Murbles,” said Lord Peter, with a glint under his dropped eyelids. He turned again to Mrs. Cropper.

“This is the first time you’ve told this story?”

“Yes-and I wouldn’t have said anything if it hadn’t been-”

“I know. Now, if you’ll take my advice, Mrs. Cropper, you won’t tell it again. Stories like that have a nasty way of bein’ dangerous. Will you consider it an impertinence if I ask you what your plans are for the next week or two?”

“I’m going to see Mother and get her to come back to Canada with me. I wanted her to come when I got married, but she didn’t like going so far away from Bertha. She was always Mother’s favourite- taking so much after Father, you see. Mother and me was always too much alike to get on. But now she’s got nobody else and it isn’t right for her to be all alone, so I think she’ll come with me. It’s a long journey for an ailing old woman, but I reckon blood’s thicker than water. My husband said, ‘Bring her back first-class, my girl, and I’ll find the money.’ He’s a good sort, is my husband.”

“You couldn’t do better,” said Wimsey, “and if you’ll allow me, I’ll send a friend to look after you both on the train journey and see you safe on to the boat. And don’t stop long in England. Excuse me buttin’ in on your affairs like this, but honestly I think you’d be safer elsewhere.”

“You don’t think that Bertha-?”

Her eyes widened with alarm.

“I don’t like to say quite what I think, because I don’t know. But I’ll see you and your mother are safe, whatever happens.”

“And Bertha? Can I do anything about that?”

“Well, you’ll have to come and see my friends at Scotland Yard, I think, and tell them what you’ve told me. They’ll be interested.”

“And will something be done about it?”

“I’m sure, if we can prove there’s been any foul play, the police won’t rest till it’s been tracked down to the right person. But the difficulty is, you see, to prove that the death wasn’t natural.”

“I observe in to-day’s paper,” said Mr. Murbles, “that the local superintendent is now satisfied that Miss Gotobed came down alone for a quiet picnic and died of a heart attack.”

“That man would say anything,” said Wimsey. “We know from the postmortem that she had recently had a heavy meal- forgive these distressin’ details, Mrs. Cropper- so why the picnic?”

“I suppose they had the sandwiches and the beer-bottle in mind,” said Murbles, mildly.

“I see. I suppose she went down to Epping alone with a bottle of Bass and took out the cork with her fingers. Ever tried doing it, Murbles? No? Well, when they find the corkscrew I’ll believe she went there alone. In the meantime, I hope the papers will publish a few more theories like that. Nothin’ like inspiring criminals with confidence, Murbles- it goes to their heads, you know.”

Chapter 11 CrossRoads

Lord Peter took Mrs. Cropper down to Christchurch and returned to town to have a conference with Mr. Parker. The latter had just listened to his recital of Mrs. Cropper’s story, when the discreet opening and closing of the flat door announced the return of Bunter.

“Any luck?” inquired Wimsey.

“I regret exceedingly to have to inform your lordship that I lost track of the lady. In fact, if your lordship will kindly excuse the expression, I was completely done in the eye.”

“Thank God, Bunter, you’re human after all. I didn’t know anybody could do you. Have a drink.”

“I am much obliged to your lordship. According to instructions, I searched the platform for a lady in a crimson hat and a grey fur, and at length was fortunate enough to observe her making her way by the station entrance towards the big bookstall. She was some way ahead of me, but the hat was very conspicuous, and, in the words of the poet, if I may so express myself, I followed the gleam.”

“Stout fellow.”

“Thank you, my lord. The lady walked into the Station Hotel, which, as you know has two entrances, one upon the platform and the other upon the street. I hurried after her for fear she should give me the slip, and made my way through the revolving doors just in time to see her back disappearing into the Ladies Retiring Room.”

“Whither, as a modest man, you could not follow her. I quite understand.”

“Quite so, my lord. I took a seat in the entrance hall, in a position from which I could watch the door without appearing to do so.”

“And discovered too late that the place had two exits, I suppose. Unusual and distressin’.”

“No, my lord. That was not the trouble. I sat watching for three quarters of an hour, but the crimson hat did not reappear. Your lordship will bear in mind that I had never seen the lady’s face.”

Lord Peter groaned.

“I forsee the end of this story, Bunter. Not your fault. Proceed.”

“At the end of this time, my lord, I felt bound to conclude either that the lady had been taken ill or that something untoward had occurred. I summoned a female attendant who happened to cross the hall and informed her that I had been entrusted with a message for a lady whose dress I described. I begged her to ascertain from the attendant in the Ladies’ Room whether the lady in question was still there. The girl went away and presently returned to say that the lady had changed her costume in the cloakroom and had gone out half an hour previously.”

“Oh, Bunter, Bunter. Didn’t you spot the suitcase or whatever it was when she came out again?”

“Excuse me, my lord. The lady had come in earlier in the day and had left an attaché-case in charge of the attendant. On returning, she had transferred her hat and fur to the attaché-case and put on a small black felt hat and a light-weight raincoat which she had packed there in readiness. So that her dress was concealed when she emerged and she was carrying the attaché-case, whereas, when I first saw her, she had been empty-handed.”

“Everything foreseen. What a woman!”

“I made immediate inquiries, my lord, in the region of the hotel and the station, but without result. The black hat and raincoat were entirely inconspicuous, and no one remembered having seen her. I went to the Central Station to discover if she had travelled by any train. Several women answering to the description had taken tickets for various destinations, but I could get no definite information. I also visited all the garages in Liverpool, with the same lack of success. I am greatly distressed to have failed your lordship.”

“Can’t be helped. You did everything you could do. Cheer up. Never say die. And you must be tired to death. Take the day off and go to bed.”

“I thank your lordship, but I slept excellently in the train on the way up.”

“Just as you like, Bunter. But I did hope you sometimes got tired like other people.”

Bunter smiled discreetly and withdrew.

“Well, we’ve gained this much, anyhow,” said Parker. “We know now that this Miss Whittaker has something to conceal, since she takes such precautions to avoid being followed.”

“We know more than that. We know that she was desperately anxious to get hold of the Cropper woman before anyone else could see her, no doubt to stop her mouth by bribery or by worse means. By the way, how did she know she was coming by that boat?”

“Mrs. Cropper sent a cable, which was read at the inquest.”

“Damn these inquests. They give away all the information one wants kept quiet, and produce no evidence worth having.”

“Hear, hear,” said Parker, with emphasis, “not to mention that we had to sit through a lot of moral punk by the Coroner, about the prevalence of jazz and the immoral behaviour of modern girls in going off alone with young men to Epping Forest.”

“It’s a pity these busy-bodies can’t had up for libel. Never mind. We’ll get the Whittaker woman yet.”

“Always provided it was the Whittaker woman. After all, Mrs. Cropper may have been mistaken. Lots of people do change their hats in cloak-rooms without criminal intention.”

“Oh, of course. Miss Whittaker’s supposed to be in the country with Miss Findlater, isn’t she? We’ll get the invaluable Miss Climpson to pump the girl when they turn up again. Meanwhile; what do you think of Mrs. Cropper’s storyt?”

“There’s no doubt about what happened there. Miss Whittaker was trying to get the old lady to sign a will without knowing it. She gave it to her all mixed up with income-tax papers, hoping she’d put here name to it without reading it. It must have been a will, I think, because that’s the only document I know of which is invalid unless it’s witnessed by two persons in the presence of the testatrix and of each other.”

“Exactly. And since Miss Whittaker couldn’t be one of the witnesses herself, but had to get the two maids to sign, the will must have been in Miss Whittaker’s favour.”

“Obviously. She wouldn’t go to all that trouble to disinherit herself.”

“But that brings us to another difficulty. Miss Whittaker, as next of kin, would have taken all the old lady had to leave in any case. As a matter of fact, she did. Why bother about a will?”

“Perhaps, as we said before, she was afraid Miss Dawson would change her mind, and wanted to get a will made out before- no, that won’t work.”

“No- because, anyhow, any will made later would invalidate the first will. Besides, the old lady sent for her solicitor some time later, and Miss Whittaker put no obstacle of any kind in her way.”

“According to Nurse Forbes, she was particularly anxious that every facility should be given.”

“Seeing how Miss Dawson distrusted her niece, it’s a bit surprising, really, that she didn’t will the money away. Then it would have been to Miss Whittaker’s advantage to keep her alive as long as possible.”

“I don’t suppose she really distrusted her- not to the extent of expecting to be made away with. She was excited and said more than she meant- we often do.”

“Yes, but she evidently thought there’d be other attempts to get a will signed.”

“How do you make that out?”

“Don’t you remember the power of attorney? The old girl evidently thought that out and decided to give Miss Whittaker authority to sign everything for her so that there couldn’t possibly be any jiggery-pokery about papers in future.”

“Of course. Cute old lady. How irritating for Miss Whittaker. And after that very hopeful visit of the solicitor, too. So disappointing. Instead of the expected will, a very carefully planted spoke in her wheel.”

“Yes. But we’re still brought up against the problem, why a will at all?”

“So we are.”

The two men pulled at their pipes for some time in silence.

“The aunt evidently intended the money to go to Mary Whittaker all right,” remarked Parker at last. “She promised it so often- besides, I daresay she was a just-minded old thing, and remembered that it was really Whittaker money which had come to her over the head of the Rev. Charles, or whatever his name was.”

“That’s so. Well, there’s only one thing that could prevent that happening, and that’s-oh, lord! old son. Do you know what it works out at?- The old, old story, beloved of novelists- the missing heir!”

“Good lord yes, you’re right. Damn it all, what fools we were not to think of it before. Mary Whittaker possibly found out that there was some nearer relative left, who would scoop the lot. Maybe she was afraid that if Miss Dawson got to know about it, she’d divide the money or disinherit Mary altogether. Or perhaps she just despaired of hammering the story into the old lady’s head, and so hit on the idea of getting her to make the will unbeknownst to herself in Mary’s favour.”

“What a brain you’ve got, Charles, see here, Miss Dawson may have known all about it, sly old thing, and determined to pay Miss Whittaker out for her indecent urgency in the matter of will-makin’ by just dyin’ intestate in the other chappie’s favour.”

“If she did, she deserved anything she got,” said Parker, rather viciously. “After taking the poor girl away from her job under promise of leaving her the dibs.”

“Teach the young woman not to be so mercenary,” retorted Wimsey, with the cheerful brutality of the man who has never in his life been short of money.

“If this bright idea is correct,” said Parker, “it rather messes up your murder theory, doesn’t it? Because Mary would obviously take the line of keeping her aunt alive as long as possible, in hopes she might make a will after all.”

“That’s true. Curse you, Charles, I see that bet of mine going west. What a blow for friend Carr, too. I did hope I was going to vindicate him and have him played home by the village band under a triumphal arch with ‘Welcome, Champion of Truth!’ picked out in red-white-and-blue electric bulbs. Never mind. It’s better to lose a wager and see the light than walk in ignorance bloated with gold. -Or stop!- why shouldn’t Carr be right after all? Perhaps it’s just my choice of a murderer that’s wrong. Aha! I see a new and even more sinister villain step upon the scene. The new claimant, warned by his minion-”

“What minions?”

“Oh, don’t be so pernickety, Charles, Nurse Forbes, probably. I shouldn’t wonder if she’s in his pay. Where was I? I wish you wouldn’t interrupt.”

“Warned by his minions-” prompted Parker.

“Oh yes- warned by his minions that Miss Dawson is hob-nobbing with solicitors and being tempted into making wills and things, gets the said minions to polish her off before she can do any mischief.”

“Yes, but how?”

“Oh, by one of those native poisons which slay in a split second and defy the skill of the analyst. They are familiar to the meanest writer of mystery stories. I’m not going to let a trifle like that stand in my way.”

“And why hasn’t this hypothetical gentleman brought forward any claim to the property so far?”

“He’s biding his time. The fuss about the death scared him, and he’s lying low till it’s all blown over.”

“He’ll find it much more awkward to dispossess Miss Whittaker now she’s taken possession. Possession is nine points of the law, you know.”

“I know, but he’s going to pretend he wasn’t anywhere near at the time of Miss Dawson’s death. He only read about it a few weeks ago in a sheet of newspaper wrapped round a salmon-tin, and now he’s rushing home from his distant farm in thing-ma-jig to proclaim himself as the long-lost Cousin Tom… Great Scott! that reminds me.”

He plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out a letter.

“This came this morning just as I was going out and I met Freddy Arbuthnot on the doorstep and shoved it into my pocket before I’d read it properly. But I do believe there was something in it about a Cousin Somebody from some godforsaken spot. Let’s see.”

He unfolded the letter, which was in Miss Climpson’s old-fashioned flowing hand, and ornamented with such a variety of underlinings and exclamation marks as to look like an exercise in musical notation.

“Oh, lord!” said Parker.

“Yes, it’s worse than usual, isn’t it?- it must be of desperate importance. Luckily, it’s comparatively short.”

“MY DEAR LORD PETER,

“I heard something this morning which MAY be of use, so I HASTEN communicate it!! You remember I mentioned before that Mrs. Budge’s maid is the SISTER of the present maid at Miss Whittaker’s? WELL!!! The AUNT of these two girls came to pay a visit to Mrs Budge’s girl this afternoon, and was introduced to me- of course, as a boarder at Mrs. Budge’s I am naturally an object of local interest- and, bearing your instructions in mind, I encourage this to an extent I should not otherwise do!!

“It appears that this aunt was well acquainted with a former housekeeper of Miss Dawson’s- before the time of the Gotobed girls, I mean. The aunt is a highly respectable person of FORBIDDING ASPECT! – with a bonnet(!), and to my mind, a most disagreeable CENSORIOUS woman. However!- We got to speaking of Miss Dawson’s death, and this aunt- her name is Timmins- primmed up her mouth and said ‘No unpleasant scandal would surprise me about that family, Miss Climpson. They were most UNDESIRABLY connected! You recollect, Mrs. Budge, that I felt obliged to leave after the appearance of that most EXTRAORDINARY person who announced himself as Miss Dawson’s cousin.’ Naturally, I asked who this might be, not having heard of any other relations! She said that this person, whom she described as a nasty, DIRTY NIGGER (!!!) arrived one morning, dressed up as a CLERGYMAN!!!- and sent her -Miss Timmins- to announce him to Miss Dawson as her COUSIN HALLELUJAH!!! Miss Timmins showed him up, much against her will, she said, into the nice, CLEAN, drawing-room! Miss Dawson, she said, actually came down to see this ‘creature’ instead of sending him about his ‘black business’(!), and as a crowning scandal, asked him to stay to lunch!- ‘with her niece there, too,’ Miss Timmins said, ‘and this horrible blackamoor ROLLING his dreadful eyes at her,’ Miss Timmins said that it ‘regularly turned her stomach’- that was her phrase, and I trust you will excuse it- I understand that these parts of the body are frequently referred to in polite(!) society nowadays. In fact, it appears she refused to cook the lunch for the poor black man-(after all, even blacks are God’s creatures and we might all be black OURSELVES if He had not in His infinite kindness seen fit to favour us with white skins!!)- and walked straight out of the house!!! So that unfortunately she cannot tell us anything further about this remarkable incident! She is certain, however, that the ‘nigger’ had a visiting-card, with the name ‘Rev. H. Dawson’ upon it, and an address in foreign parts. It does seem strange, does it not, but I believe many of these native preachers are called to do splendid work among their own people, and no doubt a MINISTER is entitled to have a visiting-card, even when black!!!

“ In great haste

“Sincerely yours,

“A.K. Climpson”

“God bless my soul,” said Lord Peter, when he had disentangled this screed- “here’s our claimant ready made.”

“With a hide as black as his heart, apparently,” replied Parker. “I wonder where the Rev. Hallelujah has got to-and where he came from. He- er- he wouldn’t be in ‘Crockford,’ I suppose.”

“He would be, probably, if he’s Church of England,” said Lord Peter, dubiously, going in search of that valuable work of reference. “Dawson- Rev. George, Rev. Gordon, Rev. Gurney, Rev. Habbakuk, Rev. Hadrian, Rev. Hammond- no, there’s no Rev. Hallelujah. I was afraid the name hadn’t altogether an established sound. It would be easier if we had an idea what part of the world the gentleman came from. ‘Nigger,’ to a Miss Timmins, may mean anything from a high-caste Bhramin to Sambo and Rastus at the Coliseum- it may even, at a pinch, be an Argentine or an Esquimaux.”

“I suppose other religious bodies have their Crockfords,” suggested Parker, a little hopelessly.

“Yes, no doubt- except perhaps the more exclusive sects- like the Agapemonites and those people who gather together to say OM. Was it Voltaire who said that the English had three hundred and sixty-five religions and only one sauce?”

“Judging from the War Tribunals,” said Parker, “I should say that was an under-statement. And then there’s America – a country, I understand, remarkably well supplied with religions.”

“Too true. Hunting for a single dog collar in the States must be like the proverbial needle. Still, we could make a few discreet inquiries, and meanwhile I’m going to totter up to Crofton with the old ’bus.”

“Crofton?”

“Where Miss Clara Whittaker and Miss Dawson used to live. I’m going to look for the man with the little black bag- the strange, suspicious solicitor, you remember, who came to see Miss Dawson two years ago, and was so anxious that she should make a will. I fancy he knows all there is to know about the Rev. Hallelujah and his claim. Will you come too?”

“Can’t- not without special permission. I’m not officially on this case, you know.”

“You’re on the Gotobed business. Tell the Chief you think they’re connected. I shall need your restraining presence. No less ignoble pressure than that of the regular police force will induce a smoke-dried family lawyer to spill the beans.”

Well, I’ll try- if you’ll promise to drive with reasonable precaution.”

“Be thou as chaste as ice and have a license as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. I am not a dangerous driver. Buck up and get your leave. The snow-white horse-power foams and frets and the blue bonnet- black in this case- is already, in a manner of speaking, over the border.”

“You’ll drive me over the border one of these days,” grumbled Parker, and went to the ’phone to call up Sir Andrew Mackenzie at Scotland Yard.

Crofton is a delightful little old-world village, tucked away amid the maze of criss-cross country roads which fills the triangle of which Coventry, Warwick and Birmingham mark the angles. Through the falling night, “Mrs. Merdle” purred her way delicately round hedge-blinded corners and down devious lanes, her quest made no easier by the fact that Warwick County Council had pitched upon that particular week for a grand repainting of signposts and had reached the preliminary stage of laying a couple of thick coats of gleaming white paint over all the lettering. At intervals the patient Bunter unpacked himself from the back seat and climbed one of these uncommunicative guides to peer at it’s blank surface with a torch- a process which reminded Parker of Alan Quartermaine trying to trace the features of the departed Kings of the Kukuanas under their calcareous shrouds of stalactite. One of the posts turned out to be in the wet-paint stage, which added to the depression of the party. Finally, after several misdirections, blind alleys, and reversings back to the main road, they came to a fourways. The signpost here must have been in extra need of repairs, for it’s arms had been removed bodily; it stood, stark and ghastly- a long, livid finger erected in wild protest to the unsympathetic heavens.

“It’s starting to rain,” observed Parker, conversationally.

“Look here, Charles, if you’re going to bear up cheerfully and be the life and soul of the expedition, say so and have done with it, I’ve got a good, heavy spanner handy under the seat, and Bunter can help bury the body.”

“I think this must be Brushwood Cross,” resumed Parker, who had the map on his knee. “If so, and if it’s not Covert Corner, which I thought we passed half an hour ago, one of those roads leads directly to Crofton.”

“That would be highly encouraging if we only knew which road we were on.”

“We can always try them in turn, and come back if we find we’re going wrong.”

“They bury suicides at crossroads,” replied Wimsey, dangerously.

“There’s a man sitting under that tree,” pursued Parker. “We can ask him.”

“He’s lost his way too, or he wouldn’t be sitting there,” retorted the other. “People don’t sit about in the rain for fun.”

At this moment the man observed their approach and, rising, advanced to meet them with raised, arresting hand.

Wimsey brought the car to a standstill

“Excuse me,” said the stranger, who turned out to be a youth in motor-cycling kit, “but could you give me a hand with my ’bus?”

“What’s the matter with her?”

“Well, she won’t go.”

“I guessed as much,” said Wimsey. “Though why she should wish to linger in a place like this beats me.” He got out of the car, and the youth, diving into the hedge, produced the patient for inspection.

“Did you tumble there or put her there?” inquired Wimsey, eyeing the machine distastefully.

“I put her there. I’ve been kicking the starter for hours but nothing happened, so I thought I’d wait till somebody came along.”

“I see. What is the matter, exactly?”

“I don’t know. She was going beautifully and then she conked out suddenly.”

“Have you run out of petrol?”

“Oh, no. I’m sure there’s plenty in.”

“Plug all right?”

“I don’t know.” The youth looked unhappy. “It’s only my second time out, you see.”

“Oh! well- there can’t be much wrong. We’ll just make sure about the petrol first,” said Wimsey, more cheerfully. He unscrewed the filler-cap and turned his torch upon the interior of the tank. “Seems all right.” He bent over again, whistling, and replaced the cap. “Let’s give her another kick for luck and then we’ll look at the plug.”

The young man, thus urged, grasped the handle-bars, and with the energy of despair delivered a kick which would have done credit to an army mule. The engine roared into life in a fury of vibration, racing heart-trendingly.

“Good God!” said the youth, “it’s a miracle.”

Lord Peter laid a gentle hand on the throttle-lever and the shattering bellow calmed into a grateful purr.

“What did you do to it?” demanded the cyclist.

“Blew through the filler-cap,” said his lordship with a grin. “Air-lock in the feed, old son, that’s all.”

“I’m frightfully grateful.”

“That’s all right. Look here, can you tell us the way to Crofton?”

“Sure. Straight down here. I’m going there, as a matter of fact.”

“Thank Heaven. Lead and I follow, as Sir Galahad says. How far?”

“Five miles.”

“Decent inn?”

“My governor keeps the ‘Fox-and-Hounds.’ Would that do? We’d give you awfully decent grub.”

“Sorrow vanquished, labour ended, Jordan passed. Buzz off, my lad. No, Charles, I will not wait while you put on a Burberry. Back and side go bare, go bare, hand and foot go cold, so belly-god send us good ale enough, whether it be new or old.”

The starter hummed- the youth mounted his machine and led off down the lane after one alarming wobble- Wimsey slipped in the clutch and followed in his wake.

The “Fox-and-Hounds” turned out to be one of those pleasant, old-fashioned inns where everything is upholstered in horse-hair and it is never too late to obtain a good meal of cold roast sirloin and home-grown salad. The landlady, Mrs. Piggin, served the travellers herself. She wore a decent black satin dress and a front of curls of the fashion favoured by the Royal Family. Her round, cheerful face glowed in the firelight, seeming to reflect the radiance of the scarlet-coated huntsmen who galloped and leapt and fell on every wall through a series of sporting prints. Lord Peter’s mood softened under the influence of the atmosphere and the house’s excellent ale, and by a series of inquiries directed to the hunting-season, just concluded, the neighbouring families and the price of horseflesh, he dexterously led the conversation round to the subject of the late Miss Clara Whittaker.

“Oh, dear, yes,” said Mrs. Piggin, “to be sure, we knew Miss Whittaker. Everybody knew her in these parts. A wonderful old lady she was. There’s a many of her horses still in the country. Mr. Cleveland, he bought the best part of the stock, and is doin’ well with them. Fine honest stock she bred, and they all used to say she was a woman of wonderful judgment with a horse- or a man either. Nobody ever got the better of her twice, and very few, once.”

“Ah!” said Lord Peter, sagaciously.

“I remember her well, riding to hounds when she was well over sixty,” went on Mrs. Piggin, “and she wasn’t one to wait for a gap, neither. Now Miss Dawson- that was her friend as lived with her- over at the Manor beyond the stone bridge- she was more timid-like. She’d go by the gates, and we often used to say she’d never be riding at all, but for bein’ that fond of Miss Whittaker and not wanting to let her out of her sight. But there, we can’t all be alike, can we, sir?- and Miss Whittaker was altogether out of the way. They don’t make them like that nowadays. Not but what these modern girls are good goers, many of them, and does a lot of things as would have been thought very fast in the old days, but Miss Whittaker had the knowledge as well. Bought her own horses and physicked ’em and bred ’em, and needed no advice from anybody.”

“She sounds a wonderful old girl,” said Wimsey heartily. “I’d have liked to know her. I’ve got some friends who knew Miss Dawson quite well- when she was living in Hampshire, you know.”

“Indeed, sir? Well, that’s strange, isn’t it? She was a very kind, nice lady. We heard she’d died, too, of this cancer, was it? That’s a terrible thing, poor soul. And fancy you being connected with her, so to speak. I expect you’d be interested in some of our photographs of the Crofton Hunt. Jim?”

“Hullo!”

“Show these gentlemen the photographs of Miss Whittaker and Miss Dawson. They’re acquainted with some friends of Miss Dawson down in Hampshire. Step this way-if you’re sure you won’t take anything more, sir.”

Mrs. Piggin led the way into a cosy little private bar, where a number of hunt looking gentlemen were enjoying a glass before closing-time. Mr. Piggin, stout and genial as his wife, moved forward to do the honours.

“What’ll you have, gentlemen? -Joe, two pints of the winter ale. And fancy you knowing our Miss Dawson. Dear me, world’s a very small place, as I often says to my wife. Here’s the last group as was ever took of them, when the meet was held at the Manor in 1918. Of course, you’ll understand, it wasn’t a regular meet, owing to the War and the gentlemen being away and the horses too- we couldn’t keep things up regular like in the old days. But what with the foxes gettin’ so terrible many, and the packs all going to the dogs- ha! ha!- that’s what I often used to say in this bar- the ’ounds is going the dogs, I says. Very good, they used to think it. There’s many a gentleman has laughed at me sayin’ that- the ’ounds, I says, is goin’ to the dogs- well, as I was sayin’, Colonel Fletcher and some of the older gentlemen, they says, we must carry on somehow, they says, and so they ’ad one or two scratch meets as you might say, just to keep the pack from fallin’ to pieces, as you might say. And Miss Whittaker, she says, ‘ ’Ave the meet at the Manor, Colonel,’ she says, ‘it’s the last meet I’ll ever see, perhaps,’ she says. And so it was, poor lady, for she ’ad a stroke in the New Year. She died in 1922. That’s ’er, sitting in the pony-carriage and Miss Dawson beside ’er. Of course, Miss Whittaker ’ad ’ad to give up riding to ’ounds some years before. She was gettin’ on, but she always followed in the trap, up to the very last. ’Andsome old lady, ain’t she, sir?”

Lord Peter and Parker looked with considerable interest at the rather grim old woman sitting so uncompromisingly upright with the reins in her hand. A dour, weather-beaten old face, but certainly handsome still, with its large nose and straight, heavy eyebrows. And beside her, smaller, plumper and more feminine, was the Agatha Dawson whose curious death had led them to this quiet country place. She had a sweet, smiling face- less dominating than that of her redoubtable friend, but full of spirit and character. Without doubt they had been a remarkable pair of old ladies.

Lord Peter asked a question or two about the family.

“Well, sir, I can’t say as I knows much about that. We always understood as Miss Whittaker had quarrelled with her people on account of comin’ here and settin’ up for herself. It wasn’t usual in them days for girls to leave home the way it is now. But if you’re particularly interested, sir, there’s an old gentleman here as can tell you all about the Whittakers and the Dawsons too, and that’s Ben Cobling. He was Miss Whittaker’s groom for forty years, and he married Miss Dawson’s maid as come with her from Norfolk. Eighty-six ’e was, last birthday, but a grand old fellow still. We thinks a lot of Ben Cobling in these parts. ’Im and his wife lives in the little cottage what Miss Whittaker left them when she died. If you’d like to go round and see them tomorrow, sir, you’ll find Ben’s memory good as ever it was. Excuse me, sir, but it’s time. I must get ’em out of the bar.- Time, gentlemen, please! Three and eightpence, sir, thank you, sir. Hurry up, gentlemen, please. Now then, Joe, look sharp.”

“Great place, Crofton,” said Lord Peter when he and Parker were left alone in a great, low-ceilinged bedroom, where the sheets smelt of lavender. “Ben Cobling’s sure to know all about Cousin Hallelujah. I’m looking forward to Ben Cobling.”

Chapter 12 A Tale of Two Spinsters

The rainy night was followed by a sun-streaked morning. Lord Peter, having wrapped himself affectionately round an abnormal quantity of bacon and eggs, strolled out to bask at the door of the “Fox-and-Hounds.” He filled a pipe slowly and meditated. Within, a cheerful bustle in the bar announced the near arrival of opening time. Eight ducks crossed the road in Indian file. A cat sprang up upon the bench, stretched herself, tucked her hind legs under her and coiled her tail tightly round them as though to prevent them from accidentally working loose. A groom passed, riding a tall bay horse and leading a chestnut with a hogged mane; a spaniel followed them, running ridiculously, with one ear flopped inside out over his foolish head.

Lord Peter said, “Hah!”

The inn-door was set hospitably open by the barman, who said, “Good morning, sir; fine morning, sir,” and vanished within again.

Lord Peter said, “Umph.” He uncrossed his right foot from over his left and straddled happily across the threshold.

Round the corner by the churchyard wall a little bent figure hove into sight – an aged man with a wrinkled face and legs incredibly bowed, his spare shanks enclosed in leather gaiters. He advanced at a kind of brisk totter and civilly bared his ancient head before lowering himself with an audible creak on to the bench beside the cat.

“Good morning, sir,” said he.

“Good morning,” said Lord Peter. “A beautiful day.”

“That it be, sir, that it be,” said the old man, heartily. “When I sees a beautiful May day like this, I pray the Lord spare me to live in this wonderful world of His a few years longer. I do indeed.”

“You look uncommonly fit,” said his lordship, “I should think there was every chance of it.”

“I’m still very hearty, sir, thank you, though I’m eighty-seven next Michaelmas.”

Lord Peter expressed a proper astonishment.

“Yes, sir, eighty-seven, and if it wasn’t for the rheumatics I’d have nothin’ to complain on. I’m stronger maybe than what I look. I knows I’m a bit bent,sir, but that’s the ’osses, sir, more than age. Regular brought up with ’osses I’ve been all my life. Worked with ’em, slept’ with ’em- lived in a stable, you might say,sir.”

“You couldn’t have better company,” said Lord Peter.

“That’s right, sir, you couldn’t. My wife always used to say she was jealous of the ’osses. Said I preferred their conversation to hers. Well, maybe she was right, sir. A ’oss never talks no foolishness, I says to her, and that’s more than you can always say of women, ain’t it, sir?”

“It is indeed,” said Wimsey. “What are you going to have?”

“Thank you, sir, I’ll have my usual pint of bitter. Jim knows. Jim! Always start the day with a pint of bitter, sir. It’s ’olsomer than tea to my mind and don’t fret the coats of the stomach.”

“I daresay you’re right,” said Wimsey. “Now you mention it, there is something fretful about tea. Mr. Piggin, two pints of bitter, please, and will you join us?”

“Thank you, my lord,” said the landlord. “Joe! Two large bitters and a Guiness. Beautiful morning, my lord- ’morning, Mr. Cobling- I see you’ve made each other’s acquaintance already.”

“By Jove! So this is Mr. Cobling. I’m delighted to see you. I wanted particularly to have a chat with you.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“I was telling this gentleman- Lord Peter Wimsey his name is- as you could tell him all about Miss Whittaker and Miss Dawson. He knows friends of Miss Dawson’s.”

“Indeed? Ah! There ain’t much I couldn’t tell you about them ladies. And proud I’d be to do it. Fifty years I was with Miss Whittaker. I come to her as under-groom in old Johnny Blackthorne’s time, and stayed on as head-groom after he died. A rare young lady she was in them days. Deary me. Straight as a switch, with a fine, high colour in her cheeks and shiny black hair- just like a beautiful two-year-old filly she was. And very sperrited. Wonnerful sperrited. There was a many gentlemen as would have been glad to hitch up with her, but she was never broke to harness. Like dirt, she treated ’em. Wouldn’t look at ’em, except it might be the grooms and stablehands in a matter of ’osses. And in the way of business, of course. Well, there is some creatures like that. I ’ad a terrier bitch that way. Great ratter she was. But a business woman- nothin’ else. I tried ’er with all the dogs I could lay ’and to, but it weren’t no good. Bloodshed there was an’ sich a row- you never ’eard. The Lord makes a few on ’em that way to suit ’Is own purposes, I suppose. There ain’t no arguin’ with females.”

Lord Peter said “Ah!”

The ale went down in silence.

Mr. Piggin roused himself presently from contemplation to tell a story of Miss Whittaker in the hunting-field. Mr. Cobling capped this by another. Lord Peter said “Ah!” Parker then emerged and was introduced, and Mr. Cobling begged the privilege of standing a round of drinks. This ritual accomplished, Mr. Piggin begged the company would be his guests for a third round, and then excused himself on the plea of customers to attend to.

He went in, and Lord Peter, by skilful and maddeningly slow degrees, began to work his way back to the history of the Dawson family. Parker- educated at Barrow-in-Furness grammar school and with his wits further sharpened in the London police service- endeavoured now and again to get matters along faster by a brisk question. The result, every time, was to make Mr. Cobling lose the thread of his remarks and start him off into a series of interminable side-tracks. Wimsey kicked his friend viciously on the ankle-bone to keep him quiet, and with endless patience worked the conversation back to the main road again.

At the end of an hour or so, Mr. Cobling explained that his wife could tell them a great deal more about Miss Dawson than what he could, and invited them to visit his cottage. This invitation being accepted with alacrity, the party started off, Cobling explaining to Parker that he was eighty-seven come next Michaelmas, and hearty still, indeed, stronger than he appeared, bar the rheumatics that troubled him. “I’m not saying as I’m not bent,” said Mr. Cobling, “but that’s more the work of the ’osses. Regular lived with ’osses all my life- ”

“Don’t look so fretful, Charles,” murmured Wimsey in his ear, “it must be the tea at breakfast- it frets the coats of the stomach.”

Mrs. Cobling turned out to be a delightful old lady, exactly like a dried up pippin and only two years younger than her husband. She was entranced at getting an opportunity to talk about her darling Miss Agatha. Parker, thinking it necessary to put forward some reason for the inquiry, started on an involved explanation and was kicked again. To Mrs. Cobling, nothing could be more natural than that all the world should be interested in the Dawsons, and she prattled gaily on without prompting.

She had been in the Dawson family service as a girl- almost born in it as you might say. Hadn’t her mother been housekeeper to Mr. Henry Dawson, Miss Agatha’s papa, and to his father before him? She herself had gone to the big house as stillroom maid when she wasn’t but fifteen. That was when Miss Harriet was only three years old- her as afterwards married Mr. James Whittaker. Yes, and she’d been there when the rest of the family was born. Mr. Stephen- him as should have been the heir- ah, dear! only the trouble came and that killed his poor father and there was nothing left. Yes, a sad business that was. Poor Mr. Henry speculated with something- Mrs. Cobling wasn’t clear what, but it was all very wicked and happened in London where there were so many wicked people- and the long and the short was, he lost it all, poor gentleman, and never held up his head again. Only fifty-four he was when he died; such a fine upright gentleman with a pleasant word for everybody. And his wife didn’t live long after him, poor lamb. She was a Frenchwoman and a sweet lady, but she was very lonely in England, having no family and her two sisters walled up in one of them dreadful Romish Convents.

“And what did Mr. Stephen do when the money went?” asked Wimsey.

“Him? Oh, he went into business-a strange thing that did seem, though I have heard tell as old Barnabas Dawson, Mr. Henry’s grandfather that was, was naught but a grocer or something of that-they do say, don’t they, that from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves is three generations? Still, it was very hard on Mr. Stephen, as had always been brought up to have everything of the best. And engaged to be married to a beautiful lady, too, and a very rich heiress. But it was all for the best, for when she heard Mr. Stephen was a poor man after all, she threw him over, and that showed she had no heart in her at all. Mr. Stephen never married till he was over forty, and then it was a lady with no family at all- not lawful, that is, though she was a dear, sweet girl and made Mr. Stephen a most splendid wife- she did indeed. And Mr. John, he was their only son. They thought the world of him. It was a terrible day when the news came that he was killed in the War. A cruel business that was, sir, wasn’t it?- and nobody the better for it as far as I can see, but all these shocking hard taxes, and the price of everything gone up so, and so many out of work.”

“So he was killed? That must have been a terrible grief to his parents.”

“Yes, sir, terrible. Oh, it was an awful thing altogether, sir, for poor Mr. Stephen as had had so much trouble all his life, he went out of his poor mind and shot hisself. Out of his mind he must have been, sir, to do it- and what was more dreadful still, he shot his dear lady as well. You may remember it, sir. There was pieces in the paper about it.”

“I seem to have some vague recollection of it,” said Peter, quite untruthfully, but anxious not to seem to belittle the local tragedy. “And young John- he wasn’t married, I suppose.”

“No, sir. That was very sad, too. He was engaged to a young lady- a nurse in one of the English hospitals, as we understood, and he was hoping to get back and be married to her on his next leave. Everything did seem to go all wrong together them terrible years.”

The old lady sighed, and wiped her eyes.

“Mr. Stephen was the only son, then?”

“Well, not exactly, sir. There was the darling twins. Such pretty children, but they only lived two days. They come four years after Miss Harriet- her as married Mr. James Whittaker.”

“Yes, of course. That was how the families became connected.”

“Yes, sir. Miss Agatha and Miss Harriet and Miss Clara Whittaker was all at the same school together, and Mrs. Whittaker asked the two young ladies to go and spend their holidays with Miss Clara, and that was when Mr. James fell in love with Miss Harriet. She wasn’t as pretty as Miss Agatha, to my thinking, but she was livelier and quicker- and then, of course, Miss Agatha was never one for flirting and foolishness. Often she used to say to me, ‘Betty,’ she said, ‘I mean to be an old maid and so does Miss Clara, and we’re going to live together and be ever so happy, without any stupid, tiresome gentlemen.’ And so it turned out, sir, as you know, for Miss Agatha, for all she was so quiet, was very determined. Once she’d said a thing, you couldn’t turn her from it-not with reasons, nor with threats, nor with coaxings- nothing! Many’s the time I’ve tried when she was a child- for I used to give a little help in the nursery sometimes, sir. You might drive her into a temper or into the sulks, but you couldn’t make her change her little mind, even then.”

There came to Wimsey’s mind the picture of the stricken, helpless old woman, holding to her own way in spite of he lawyer’s reasoning and her niece’s subterfuge. A remarkable old lady, certainly, in her way.

“I suppose the Dawson family has practically died out, then,” he said.

“Oh, yes, sir. There’s only Miss Mary now- and she’s a Whittaker, of course. She is Miss Harriet’s grand-daughter, Mr. Charles Whittaker’s only child. Shen was left all alone, too, when she went to live with Miss Dawson. Mr. Charles and his wife was killed in one of these dreadful motors- dear, dear- it seemed we was fated to have nothing but one tragedy after another. Just to think of Ben and me outliving them all.”

“Cheer up, Mother,” said Ben, laying his hand on hers. “The Lord have been wonderful good to us.”

“That He have. Three sons we have, sir, and two daughters, and fourteen grandchildren and three great grandchildren. Maybe you’d like to see their pictures, sir.”

Lord Peter said he should like to very much, and Parker made confirmatory noises. The life-histories of all the children and descendants were detailed at suitable length. Whenever a pause seemed discernible, Parker would mutter hopefully in Wimsey’s ear, “How about Cousin Hallelujah?” but before a question could be put, the interminable family chronicle was resumed.

“And for God’s sake, Charles,” whispered Peter, savagely, when Mrs. Cobling had risen to hunt for the shawl which Grandson William had sent home from the Dardanelles, “don’t keep saying Hallelujah at me! I’m not a revival meeting.”

The shawl being duly admired, the conversation turned upon foreign parts, natives and black people generally, following on which, Lord Peter added carelessly:

“By the way, hasn’t the Dawson family got some sort of connections in those foreign countries, somewhere?”

Well, yes, said Mrs. Cobling, in rather a shocked tone. There had been Mr. Paul, Mr. Henry’s brother. But he was not mentioned much. He had been a terrible shock to his family. In fact- a gasp here, and a lowering of the voice- he had turned Papist and become- a monk! (Had he become a murderer, apparently, he could hardly have done worse.) Mr. Henry had always blamed himself very much in the matter.

“How was it his fault?”

“Well, of course, Mr. Henry’s wife- my dear mistress, you see, sir- she was French, as I told you, and of course, she was a Papist. Being brought up that way, she wouldn’t know any better, naturally, and she was very young when she was married. But Mr. Henry soon taught her to be a Christian, and she put away her idolatrous ideas and went to the parish church. But Mr. Paul, he fell in love with one of her sisters, and the sister had been vowed to religion, as they called it, and had shut herself up in a nunnery. And then Mr. Paul had broken his heart and “gone over” to the Scarlet Woman and-again the pause and the hush- become a monk. A terrible to-do it made. And he’d lived to be a very old man, and for all Mrs. Cobling knew was living yet, still in the error of his ways.

“If he’s alive,” murmured Parker, “he’s probably the real heir. He’d be Dawson ’s uncle and her nearest relation.”

Wimsey frowned and returned to the charge.

“Well, it couldn’t have been Mr. Paul I had in mind,” he said, “because this sort of relation of Miss Agatha Dawson’s that I heard about was a real foreigner- in fact a very dark-complexioned man-almost a black man, or so I was told.”

“Black?” cried the old lady- “oh, no, sir- that couldn’t be. Unless- dear Lord a’ mercy, it couldn’t be that, surely! Ben, do you think it could be that? – Old Simon, you know?”

Ben shook his head. “I never heard tell much about him.”

“Nor nobody did,” replied Mrs. Cobling, energetically. “He was a long way back, but they had tales of him in the family. ‘Wicked Simon,’ they called him. He sailed away to the Indies, many years ago, and nobody knew what became of him. Wouldn’t it be a queer thing, like, if he was to have married a black wife out in them parts, and this was his- oh, dear-his grandson it ’ud have to be, if not his great-grandson, for he was Mr. Henry’s uncle, and that’s a long time ago.”

This was disappointing. A grandson of “old Simon’s” would surely be too distant a relative to dispute Mary Whittaker’s title. However:

“That’s very interesting,” said Wimsey. “Was it the East Indies or the West Indies he went to, I wonder?”

Mrs. Cobling didn’t know, but believed it was something to do with America.

“It’s a pity as Mr. Probyn ain’t in England any longer. He could have told you more about the family than what I can. But he retired last year and went away to Italy or some such place.”

“Who was he?”

“He was Miss Whittaker’s soliciter,” said Ben, “and he managed all Miss Dawson’s business, too. A nice gentleman he was, but uncommon sharp- ha, ha! Never gave nothing away. But that’s lawyers all the world over,” added he shrewdly, “take all and give nothing.”

“Did he live in Crofton?”

“No sir, in Croftover Magna, twelve miles from here. Pointer & Winkin have his business now, but they’re young men, and I don’t know much about them.”

Having by this time heard all the Coblings had to tell, Wimsey and Parker gradually disentangled themselves and took their leave.

“Well, Cousin Hallelujah’s a washout,” said Parker.

“Possibly- possibly not. There may be some connection. Still, I certainly think the disgraceful and papistical Mr. Paul is more promising. Obviously Mr. Probyn is the bird to get hold of. You realise who he is?”

“He’s the mysterious solicitor, I suppose.”

“Of course he is. He knows why Miss Dawson ought to have made her will. And we’re going straight off to Croftover Magna to look up Messrs. Pointer & Winkin, and see what they have to say about it.”

Unhappily, Messrs. Pointer & Winkin had nothing to say whatever. Miss Dawkin had withdrawn her affairs from Mr. Probyn’s hands and had lodged all the papers with her new solicitor. Messrs Pointer & Winkin had never had any connection with the Dawson family. They had no objection, however, to furnishing Mr. Probyn’s address- Villa Bianca, Fiesole. They regretted that they could be of no further assistance to Lord Peter Wimsey and Mr. Parker. Good morning.

“Short and sour,” was his lordship’s comment. “Well, well- we’ll have a spot of lunch and write a letter to Mr. Probyn and another to my good friend Bishop Lambert of the Orinoco Mission to get a line on Cousin Hallelujah. Smile, smile, smile. As Ingoldsby says: ‘The breezes are blowing a race, a race! The breezes are blowing- we near the chase!’ Do ye ken John Peel? Likewise, know’st thou the land where blooms the citron-flower? Well, never mind if you don’t- you can always look forward to going there for your honeymoon.”

Chapter 13 Hallelujah

That excellent prelate, Bishop Lambert of the Orinoco Mission, proved to be a practical and kind man. He did not personally know the Rev. Hallelujah Dawson, but thought he might belong to the Tabernacle Mission- a Nonconformist body which was doing a very valuable work in those parts. He would himself communicate with the London Headquarters of this community and let Lord Peter know the result. Two hours later Bishop Lambert’s secretary had duly rung up the Tabernacle Mission and received the very satisfactory information that the Rev. Hallelujah Dawson was in England, and, indeed, available at their Mission House in Stepney. He was an elderly minister living in very reduced circumstances- in fact, the Bishop rather gathered that the story was a sad one.- Oh, not all, pray, no thanks. The Bishop’s poor miserable slave of a secretary did all the work. Very glad to hear from Lord Peter and was he being good? Ha, ha! and when was he coming to dine with the Bishop?

Lord Peter promptly gathered up Parker and swooped down with him upon the Tabernacle Mission, before whose dim and grim frontage Mrs. Merdle’s long black bonnet and sweeping copper exhaust made an immense impression. The small fry of the neighbourhood had clustered about her and were practising horn solos almost before Wimsey had rung the bell. On Parker’s threatening them with punishment and casually informing them that he was a police-officer, they burst into ecstasies of delight, and joining hands, formed a ring-o’-roses round him, under the guidance of a sprightly young woman of twelve years old or thereabouts. Parker made a few harassed darts at them, but the ring only broke up, shrieking with laughter, and reformed, singing. The Mission door opened at the moment, displaying this undignified exhibition to the eyes of a lank young man in spectacles, who shook a long finger disapprovingly and said, “Now, you children,” without the slightest effect and apparently without the faintest expectation of producing any.

Lord Peter explained his errand.

“Oh, come in, please,” said the young man, who had one finger in a book of theology. “I’m afraid your friend- er- this is rather a noisy district.”

Parker shook himself free from his tormentors, and advanced, breathing threatenings and slaughter, to which the enemy responded by a derisive blast of the horn.

“They’ll run those batteries down,” said Wimsey.

“You can’t do anything with the little devils,” growled Parker.

“Why don’t you treat them as human beings?” retorted Wimsey. “Children are creatures of like passions with politicians and financiers. Here, Esmeralda!” he added, beckoning to the ringleader.

The young woman put her tongue out and made a rude gesture, but observing the glint of coin in the outstretched hand, suddenly approached and stood challengingly before them.

“Look here,” said Wimsey, “here’s half a crown- thirty pennies, you know. Any use to you?”

The child promptly proved her kinship with humanity. She became abashed in the presence of wealth, and was silent, rubbing one dusty shoe upon the calf of her stocking.

“You appear,” pursued Lord Peter, “to be able to keep your young friends in order if you choose. I take you, in fact, for a woman of character. Very well, if you keep them from touching my car while I’m in the house, you get this half-crown, see? But if you let ’em blow the horn, I shall hear it. Every time the horn goes, you lose a penny, got that? If the horn blows six times, you only get two bob. If I hear it thirty times, you don’t get anything. And I shall look out from time to time, and if I see anybody mauling the car about or sitting in it, then you don’t get anything. Do I make myself clear?”

“I take care o’ yer car fer ’arf a crahn. An ef the ’orn goes, you docks a copper ’orf of it.”

“That’s right.”

“Right you are, mister. I’ll see none on ’em touches it.”

“Good girl. Now, sir.”

The spectacled young man led them into a gloomy little waiting-room, suggestive of a railway station and hung with Old Testament prints.

“I’ll tell Mr. Dawson you’re here,” said he, and vanished, with the volume of theology still clutched in his hand.

Presently a shuffling step was heard on the coconut matting, and Wimsey and Parker braced themselves to confront the villainous claimant.

The door, however, opened to admit an elderly West Indian, of so humble and inoffensive appearance that the hearts of the two detectives sank into their boots. Anything less murderous could scarcely be imagined, as he stood blinking nervously at them from behind a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, the frames of which had at one time been broken and bound with twine.

The Rev. Hallelujah Dawson was undoubtedly a man of colour. He had the pleasant, slightly aquiline features and brown-olive skin of the Polynesian. His hair was scanty and greyish- not wooly, but closely curled. His stooping shoulders were clad in a threadbare clerical coat. His black eyes, yellow about the whites and slightly protruding, rolled amiably at them, and his smile was open and frank.

“You asked to see me?” he began, in perfect English, but with the soft native intonation. “I think I have not the pleasure-?”

“How do you do, Mr. Dawson? Yes. We are- er- makin’ certain inquiries-er- in connection with the family of the Dawsons of Crofton in Warwickshire, and it has been suggested that you might be able to enlighten us, what? as to their West Indian connections- if you would be so good.”

“Ah, yes!” The old man drew himself up slightly. “I am myself- in a way- a descendant of the family. Won’t you sit down?”

“Thank you. We thought you might be.”

“You do not come from Miss Whittaker?”

There was something eager, yet defensive in the tone. Wimsey, not quite knowing what was behind it, chose the discreeter part.

“Oh, no. We are- preparin’ a work on County Families, don’t you know. Tombstones and genealogies and that sort of thing.”

“Oh!-yes- I hoped perhaps-” the mild tones died away in a sigh. “But I shall be very happy to help you in any way.”

“Well, the question now is, what became of Simon Dawson? We know that he left his family and sailed for the West Indies in- ah!- in seventeen-”

“Eighteen hundred and ten,” said the old man with surprising quickness. “Yes. He got into trouble when he was a lad of sixteen. He took up with bad men older than himself, and became involved in a very terrible affair. It had to do with gaming, and a man was killed. Not in a duel- in those days that would not have been considered disgraceful- though violence is always displeasing to the Lord- but the man was foully murdered and Simon Dawson and his friends fled from justice. Simon fell in with the press gang and was carried off to sea. He served fifteen years and was then taken by a French privateer. Later on he escaped and- to cut a long story short-got away to Trinidad under another name. Some English people there were kind to him and gave him work on their sugar plantation. He did well there and eventually became owner of a small plantation of his own.”

“What was the name he went by?”

“Harkaway. I suppose he was afraid that they would get hold of him as a deserter from the Navy if he went by his own name. No doubt he should have reported his escape. Anyway, he liked plantation life and was quite satisfied to stay where he was. I don’t suppose he would have cared to go home, even to claim his inheritance. And then, there was always the matter of the murder, you know- though I dare say they would not have brought that trouble up against him, seeing he was so young when it happened and it was not his hand that did the awful deed.”

“His inheritance? Was he the eldest son, then?”

“No. Barnabas was the eldest, but he was killed at Waterloo and left no family. Then there was a second son, Roger, but he died of smallpox as a child. Simon was the third son.”

“Then it was the fourth son who took the estate?”

“Yes, Frederick. He was Henry Dawson’s father. They tried, of course, to find out became of Simon, but in those days it was very difficult, you understand, to get information from foreign places, and Simon had quite disappeared. So they had to pass him over.”

“And what happened to Simon’s children?” asked Parker. “Did he any?”

The clergyman nodded, and a deep, dusky flush showed under his dark skin.

“I am his grandson,” he said, simply. “That is why I came over to England. When the Lord called me to feed His lambs among my own people, I was in quite good circumstances. I had the little sugar plantation which had come down to me through my father, and I married and was very happy. But we fell on bad times- the sugar crop failed, and our little flock became smaller and poorer and could not give so much support to their minister. Besides, I was getting too old and frail to do my work- and I have a sick wife, too, and God has blessed us with many daughters, who needed our care. I was in great straits. And then I came upon some old family papers belonging to my grandfather, Simon, and learned that his name was not Harkaway but Dawson, and I thought, maybe I had a family in England and that God would yet raise up a table in the wilderness. Accordingly, when the time came to send a representative home to our London Headquarters, I asked permission to resign my ministry out there and come over to England.”

“Did you get in touch with anybody?”

“Yes. I went to Crofton- which was mentioned in my grandfather’s letters- and saw a lawyer in the town there- a Mr. Probyn of Croftover. You know him?”

“I’ve heard of him.”

“Yes. He was very kind, and very much interested to see me. He showed me the genealogy of the family, and how my grandfather should have been the heir to the property.”

“But the property had been lost by that time, had it not?”

“Yes. And, unfortunately- when I showed him my grandmother’s marriage certificate, he- he told me that it was no certificate at all. I fear that Simon Dawson was a sad sinner. He took my grandmother to live with him, as many of the planters did take women of colour, and he gave her a document which was supposed to be a certificate of marriage signed by the Governor of the country. But when Mr. Probyn inquired into it, he found that it was all a sham, and no such governor had ever existed. It was distressing to my feelings as a Christian, of course- but since there was no property, it didn’t make any actual difference to us.”

“That was bad luck,” said Peter, sympathetically.

“I called resignation to my aid,” said the old Indian, with a dignified little bow. “Mr. Probyn was also good enough to send me with a letter of introduction to Miss Agatha Dawson, the only surviving member of our family.”

“Yes, she lived at Leahampton.”

“She received me in the most charming way, and when I told her who I was- acknowledging, of course, that I had not the slightest claim upon her- she was good enough to make me an allowance of £100 a year, which she continued til her death.”

“Was that the only time you saw her?”

“Oh, yes. I would not intrude upon her. It could not be agreeable to her to have a relative of my complexion continually at her house,” said the Rev. Hallelujah, with a kind of proud humility. “But she gave me lunch and spoke very kindly.”

“And forgive my askin’- hope it isn’t impertinent- but does Miss Whittaker keep up the allowance?”

“Well, no- I- perhaps I should not expect it, but it would have made a great difference to our circumstances. And Miss Dawson rather led me to hope that it might be continued. She told me that she did not like the idea of making a will, but, she said, ‘It is not necessary at all, Cousin Hallelujah, Mary will have all my money when I am gone, and she can continue the allowance on my behalf.’ But perhaps Miss Whittaker did not get the money after all?”

“Oh, yes, she did. It is very odd. She may have forgotten about it.”

“I took the liberty of writing her a few words of spiritual comfort when her aunt died. Perhaps that did not please her. Of course I did not write again. Yet I am loath to believe that she has hardened her heart against the unfortunate. No doubt there is some explanation.”

“No doubt,” said Lord Peter, “Well, I’m very grateful to you for your kindness. That has quite cleared up the little matter of Simon and his descendants. I’ll just make a note of the names and dates, if I may.”

“Certainly. I will bring you the paper which Mr. Probyn kindly made out for me, showing the whole of the family. Excuse me.”

He was not gone long, and soon reappeared with a genealogy, neatly typed out on a legal-looking sheet of blue paper.

Dawson Pedigree Chart

Wimsey began to note down the particulars concerning Simon Dawson and his son, Bosun, and his grandson Hallelujah. Suddenly he put his finger on an entry further along.

“Look here, Charles,” he said. “Here is our Father Paul- the bad boy who turned R.C. and became a monk.”

“So he is. But- he’s dead, Peter- died in 1922, three years before Agatha Dawson.”

“Yes. We must wash him out. Well, these little setbacks will occur.”

They finished their notes, bade farewell to the Rev. Hallelujah, and emerged to find Esmeralda valiantly defending Mrs. Merdle against all comers. Lord Peter handed over the half-crown and took delivery of the car.

“The more I hear of Mary Whittaker,” he said, “the less I like her. She might at least have given poor old Cousin Hallelujah his hundred quid.”

“She’s a rapacious female,” agreed Parker. “Well, anyway, Father Paul’s safely dead, and Cousin Hallelujah is illegitimately descended. So there’s an end of the long-lost claimant from overseas.”

“Damn it all!” cried Wimsey, taking both hands from the steering-wheel and scratching his head, to Parker’s extreme alarm, “that strikes a familiar chord. Now where in thunder have I heard those words before?”

Chapter 14 Sharp Quillets of the Law

Murbles is coming round to dinner tonight, Charles,” said Wimsey. “I wish you’d stop and have grub with us too. I want to put all this family history business before him.”

“Where are you dining?”

“Oh, at the flat. I’m sick of restaurant meals. Bunter does a wonderful bloody steak and there are new peas and potatoes and genuine English grass. Gerald sent it up from Denver specially. You can’t buy it. Come along. Ye olde English fare, don’t you know, and a bottle of what Pepys calls Ho Bryon. Do you good.”

Parker accepted. But he noticed that, even when speaking on his beloved subject of food, Wimsey was vague and abstracted. Something seemed to be worrying at the back of his mind, and even when Mr. Murbles appeared, full of mild legal humour, Wimsey listened to him with extreme courtesy indeed, but with only half his attention.

They were partly through dinner when, apropos of nothing, Wimsey suddenly brought his fist down on the mahogany with a crash that startled even Bunter, causing him to jerk a great crimson splash of the Haut Brion over the edge of the glass upon the tablecloth.

“Got it!” said Lord Peter.

Bunter in a low shocked voice begged his lordship’s pardon.

“Murbles,” said Wimsey, without heeding him, “isn’t there a new Property Act?”

“Why yes,” said Mr. Murbles, in some surprise. He had been in the middle of a story about a young barrister and a Jewish pawnbroker when the interruption occurred, and was a little put out.

“I knew I’d read that sentence somewhere- you know, Charles- doing away with the long-lost claimant from overseas. It was in some paper or other about a couple of years ago, and it had to do with the new Act. Of course it said what a blow it would be to romantic novelists. Doesn’t the Act wash out claims of distant relatives, Murbles?”

“In a sense, it does,” replied the solicitor. “Not, of course, in the entailed property, which has its own rules. But I understand you to refer to ordinary personal property or real estate not entailed.”

“Yes- what happens to that, now, if the owner of the property dies without a will?”

“It is rather a complicated matter,” began Mr. Murbles.

“Well, look here, first of all-before the jolly old Act was passed, the next of kin got it all, didn’t he- no matter if he was only a seventh cousin fifteen times removed?”

“In a general way, that is correct. If there was husband or wife- ”

“Wash out the husband and wife. Suppose the person is unmarried and has no near relations living. It would have gone-”

“To the next-of-kin, whoever that was, if he or she could be traced.”

“Even if you had to burrow back to William the Conqueror to get at the relationship?”

“Always supposing you could get a clear record back to so very early a date,” replied Murbles. “It is, of course, in the highest degree improbable-”

“Yes, yes, I know, sir. But what happens now in such a case?”

“The new Act makes inheritance on intestacy very much simpler,” said Mr. Murbles, setting his knife and fork together, placing both elbows on the table and laying the index-finger of his right hand against his left thumb in a gesture of tabulation.

“I bet it does,” interpolated Wimsey. “I know what an Act to make things simpler means. It means that the people who drew it up don’t understand it themselves and that every one of its clauses needs a law-suit to disentangle it. But do go on.”

“Under the new Act,” pursued! Murbles, “one half of the property goes to the husband and wife, if living, and subject to his or her life-interest, then all to the children equally. But if there be no spouse and no children, then it goes to the father or mother of the deceased. If father and mother are both dead, then everything goes to the brothers and sisters of the whole blood who are at the time, but if any brother or dies before the intestate, then to his or her issue. In case there are no brothers or sisters of the- ”

“Stop, stop! you needn’t go any further. You’re absolutely sure of that? It goes to the brothers’ or sisters’ issue?”

“Yes. That is to say, if it were you that died intestate and your brother Gerald and your sister Mary were already dead, your money would be equally divided among your nieces and nephews.”

“Yes, but suppose they were all dead too- suppose I’d gone tediously on living on till I’d nothing left but great-nephews and great-nieces- would they inherit?”

“Why-why, yes, I suppose they would,” said Mr. Murbles, with less certainty, however. “Oh, yes, I think they they would,”

“Clearly they would,” said Parker, a little impatiently, “if it says to the issue of the deceased’s brothers and sisters.”

“Ah! but we must not be precipitate,” said Mr. Murbles, rounding upon him. “To the lay mind, doubtless, the word ‘issue’ appears a simple one. But in law”- (Mr. Murbles, who up till this point had held the index-finger of the right-hand poised against the ring-finger of the left, in recognition of the claims of the brothers and sisters of the half-blood, now placed his left palm upon the table and wagged his right index-finger admonishingly in Parker’s direction)- “in law the word may bear one of two, or indeed several interpretations, according to the nature of the document in which it occurs and the date of the document.”

“But in the new Act-” urged Lord Peter.

“I am not, particularly,” said Mr. Murbles, “a specialist in the law concerning property, and I should not like to give a decided opinion as to its interpretation, all the more as, up to the present, no case has come before the Courts bearing on the present issue- no pun intended, ha, ha, ha! But my immediate and entirely tentative opinion- which, however, I should advise you not to accept without the support of some weightier authority- would be, I think, that issue in this case means issue ad infinitum, and that therefore the great-nephews and great-nieces would be entitled to inherit.”

“But there might be another opinion?”

“Yes- the question is a complicated one- ”

“What did I tell you?” groaned Peter. “I knew this simplifying Act would cause a shockin’ lot of muddle.”

“May I ask,” said Murbles, why you want to know all this?”

“Why, sir,” said Wimsey, taking from his pocket-book the genealogy of the Dawson family which he had received from the Rev. Hallelujah Dawson, “here is the point. We have always talked about Mary Whittaker as Agatha Dawson’s niece; she was always called so and she speaks of the old lady as her aunt. But if you look at this, you will see that actually she is no nearer to her than great-niece: she was the grand-daughter of Agatha’s sister Harriet.”

“Quite true,” said Mr. Murbles, “but still, she was apparently the nearest surviving relative, and since Agatha Dawson died in 1925, the money passed without any question to Mary Whittaker under the old Property Act. There’s no ambiguity there.”

“No,” said Wimsey, “none whatever, that’s the point. But- ”

“Good God!” broke in Parker, “I see what you’re driving at. When did the new Act come into force, sir?”

“In January, 1926,” replied Mr. Murbles.

“And Miss Dawson died, rather unexpectedly, as we know, in November, 1925,” went on Peter. “But supposing she had lived, as the doctor fully expected her to do, until February or March, 1926- are you absolutely positive, sir, that Mary Whittaker would have inherited then?”

Mr. Murbles opened his mouth to speak- and shut it again. He rubbed his hands very slowly the one over the other. He removed his eyeglasses and resettled them more firmly on his nose. Then:

“You are quite right, Lord Peter,” he said in a grave tone, “this is a very serious and important point. Much too serious for me to give an opinion on. If I understand you rightly, you are suggesting that any ambiguity in the interpretation of the new Act might provide an interested party with good and sufficient motive for hastening the death of Agatha Dawson.”

“I do mean exactly that. Of course, if the great-niece inherits anyhow, the old lady might as well die under the new Act as under the old. But if there was any doubt about it- how tempting, don’t you see, to give her a little push over the edge, so as to make her die in 1925. Especially as she couldn’t live long anyhow, and there were no other relatives to be defrauded.”

“That reminds me,” put in Parker, “suppose the great-niece is excluded from inheritance, where does the money go?”

“It goes to the Duchy of Lancaster- or in other words, to the Crown.”

“In fact,” said Wimsey, “to no one in particular. Upon my soul, I really can’t see that it’s very much of a crime to bump a poor old thing off a bit previously when she’s sufferin’ horribly, just to get the money she intends you to have. Why the devil should the Duchy of Lancaster have it? Who cares about the Duchy of Lancaster? It’s like defrauding the Income Tax.”

“Ethically,” observed Mr. Murbles, “there may be much to be said for your point of view. Legally, I am afraid, murder is murder, however frail the victim or convenient the result.”

“And Agatha Dawson didn’t want to die,” added Parker, “she said so.”

“No,” said Wimsey, thoughtfully, “and I suppose she had a right to an opinion.”

“I think,” said Mr. Murbles, “that before we go any further, we ought to consult a specialist in this branch of the law. I wonder whether Towkington is home. He is quite the ablest authority I could name. Greatly as I dislike that modern invention, the telephone, I think it might be advisable to ring him up.”

Mr. Towkington proved to be at home and at liberty. The case of the great-niece was put to him over the ’phone. Towkington, taken at a disadvantage without his authorities, and hazarding an opinion on the spur of the moment, thought that in all probability the niece would be excluded from the succession under the new Act. But it was an interesting point, and he would be glad of an opportunity to verify his references. Would not Mr. Murbles come round and talk it over with him? Mr. Murbles explained that he was at that moment dining with two friends who were interested in the question. In that case would not the two friends also come and see Mr. Towkington?

“Towkington has some very excellent port,” said Mr. Murbles, in a cautious aside, and clapping his hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone.

“Then why not go and try it?” said Wimsey cheerfully.

“It’s only as far as Gray’s Inn,” continued Mr. Murbles.

“All the better,” said Lord Peter.

Mr. Murbles released the telephone and thanked Mr. Towkington. The party would start at once for Gray’s Inn. Mr. was heard to say, “Good, good,” in a hearty manner before ringing off.

On their arrival at Mr. Towkington’s chambers the oak was found to be hospitably unsported, and almost before they could knock, Mr. Towkington himself flung open the door and greeted them in a loud and cheerful tone. He was a large, square man with a florid face and a harsh voice. In court, he was famous for a way of saying “Come now,” as a preface to tying recalcitrant witnesses into tight knots, which he would then proceed to slash open with a brilliant confutation. He knew Wimsey by sight, expressed himself delighted to meet Inspector Parker, and bustled his guests into the room with jovial shouts.

“I’ve been going into this little matter while you were coming along,” he said. “Awkward, eh? ha! Astonishing thing that people can’t say what they mean when they draw Acts, eh? ha! Why do you suppose it is, Lord Peter, eh? ha! Come now!”

“I suspect it’s because Acts are drawn up by lawyers,” said Wimsey with a grin.

“To make work for themselves, eh? I daresay you’re right. Even lawyers must live, eh? ha! Very good. Well now, Murbles, let’s just have this case again, in greater detail, d’you mind?”

Mr. Murbles explained the matter again, displaying the genealogical table and putting forward the point as regards a possible motive for murder.

“Eh, ha!” exclaimed Mr. Towk much delighted, “that’s good- very good- your idea, Lord Peter? Very ingenious. Too ingenious. The dock at the Old Bailey is peopled by gentlemen who are too ingenious. Ha! Come to a bad end one of these days, young man. Eh? Yes-well, now, Murbles, the question here turns on the interpretation of the word ‘issue’-you grasp that, eh, ha! Yes. Well, you seem to think it means issue ad infinitum. How do you make that out, come now?”

“I didn’t say I thought it did; I said I thought it might,” remonstrated Mr. Murbles mildly. “The general intention of the Act appears to be to exclude any remote kin where the common ancestor is further back than the grandparents- not to cut off the descendants of the brothers and sisters.”

“Intention?” snapped Mr. Towkington. “I’m astonished at you, Murbles! The law has nothing to do with good intentions. What does the Act say? It says, ‘To the brothers and sisters of the whole blood and their issue.’ Now, in the absence of any new definition, I should say that the word is here to be construed as before the Act it was construed on intestacy- in so far, at any rate, as it refers to personal property. which I understand the property in question be, eh?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Murbles.

“Then I don’t see that you and your great-niece have a leg to stand on- come now!”

“Excuse me,” said Wimsey, “but d’you mind- I know lay people are ignorant nuisances- but if you would be so good as to explain what the beastly word did or does mean, it would be frightfully helpful, don’t you know.”

“Ha! Well, it’s like this,” said Towkington, graciously. “Before 1837-”

“Queen Victoria, I know,” said Peter intelligently.

“Quite so. At the time when Victoria came to the throne, the word ‘issue’ had no legal meaning- no legal meaning at all.”

“You surprise me!”

“You are too easily surprised,” said Mr. Towkington. “Many words have no legal meaning. Others have a meaning very unlike their ordinary meaning. For example, the word ‘daffy-down-dilly.’ It is a criminal libel to call a lawyer a daffy-down-dilly. Ha! Yes, I advise you never to do such a thing.No, I certainly advise you never to do it. Then again, words which are quite meaningless in your ordinary conversation may have a meaning in law. For instance, I might say to a young man like yourself, ‘You wish to leave such-and-such property to so-and-so.’ And you would very likely reply, ‘Oh, yes, absolutely’- meaning nothing in particular by that. But if you were to write in your will, ‘I leave such-and-such property to so-and-so absolutely,’ then that word would bear a definite legal meaning, and would condition your bequest in a certain manner, and might even prove an embarrassment and produce results very far from your actual intentions. Eh, ha! You see?”

“Quite.”

“Very well. Prior to 1837, in a will, the word ‘issue’ meant nothing. A grant ‘to A. and his issue ’merely gave A. a life estate. Ha! But this was altered by the Wills Act of 1837.”

“As far as a will was concerned,” put in Mr. Murbles.

“Precisely. After 1837, in a will, ‘issue’ means ‘heirs of the body’- that is to say, ‘issue ad infinitum.’ In a deed, on the other hand, ‘issue’ retained its old meaning- or lack of meaning, eh, ha! You follow?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Murbles, “and on intestacy of personal property-”

“I am coming to that,” said Mr. Towkington.

“- the word ‘issue’ continued to mean ‘heirs of the body,’ and that held good till 1926.”

“Stop!” said Mr. Towkington, “issue of the child or children of the deceased certainly meant ‘issue ad infinitum- but- issue of any person not a child of the deceased only meant the child of that person and did not include other descendants. And that undoubtedly held good till 1926. And since the new Act contains no statement to the contrary, I think we must presume that it continues to hold good. Ha! Come now! In the case before us, you observe that the claimant is not the child of the deceased nor issue of the child of the deceased; nor is she the child of the deceased’s sister. She is merely the grandchild of the deceased sister of the deceased. Accordingly, I think she is debarred from inheriting under the new Act, eh? ha!

“I see your point,” said Mr. Murbles.

“And moreover,” went on Mr. Towkington, “after 1925, ‘issue’ in a will or deed does not mean ‘issue ad infinitum.’That at least is clearly stated, and the Wills Act of 1837 is revoked on that point. Not that that has any direct bearing on the question. But it may be an indication of the tendency of modern interpretation, and might possibly affect the mind of the court in deciding how the word ‘issue’ was to be construed for the purposes of the new Act.”

“Well,” said Mr. Murbles, “I bow to your superior knowledge.”

“In any case,” broke in Parker, “any uncertainty in the matter would provide as good a motive for murder as the certainty of exclusion from inheritance. If Mary Whittaker only thought she might lose the money in the event of her great-aunt’s surviving into 1926, she might quite well be tempted to polish her off a little earlier, and make sure.”

“That’s true enough,” said Murbles.

“Shrewd, very shrewd, ha!” added Mr. Towkington. “But you realise that all this theory of yours depends on Mary Whittaker’s having known about the new Act and its probable consequences as early as October, 1925, eh, ha!”

“There’s no reason why she shouldn’t,” said Wimsey. “I remember reading an article in the Evening Banner, I think it was, some months earlier- about the time when the Act was having its second reading. That’s what put the thing into my head- I was trying to remember all evening where I’d seen that thing about washing out the long-lost heir, you know. Mary Whittaker may easily have seen it too.”

“Well, she’d probably have taken advice about it if she did,” said Mr. Murbles. “Who is her usual man of affairs?”

Wimsey shook his head.

“I don’t think she’d have asked him,” he objected. “Not if she was wise, that is. You see, if she did, and he said she probably wouldn’t get anything unless Miss Dawson either made a will or died before January, 1926, and if after that the old lady did unexpectedly pop off in October, 1925, wouldn’t the solicitor-johnnie feel inclined to ask questions? It wouldn’t be safe, don’t y’know. I ’xpect she went to some stranger and asked a few innocent little questions under another name, what?”

“Probably,” said Mr. Towkington. “You show a remarkable disposition for crime, don’t you, eh?”

“well, if I did go in for it, I’d take reasonable precautions,” retorted Wimsey. “ ’S wonderful, of course, the tom-fool things murderers do do. But I have the highest opinion of Miss Whittaker’s brains. I bet she covered her tracks pretty well.”

“You don’t think Mr. Probyn mentioned the matter,” suggested Parker, “the time he went down and tried to get Miss Dawson to make her will.”

“I don’t,” said Wimsey, with energy, “But I’m pretty certain he tried to explain matters to the old lady, only she was so terrified of the very idea of a will she wouldn’t let him get a word in. But I fancy old Probyn was too downy a bird to tell the heir that her only chance of gettin’ the dollars was to see that her great-aunt died off before the Act went through. Would you tell anybody that, Mr. Towkington?”

“Not if I knew it,” said that gentleman, grinning.

“It would be highly undesireable,” agreed Mr. Murbles.

“Anyway,” said Wimsey, “we can easily find out. Probyn’s in Italy – I was going to write to him, but perhaps you’d better do it, Murbles. And, in the meanwhile, Charles and I will think up a way to find whoever it was that did give Miss Whittaker an opinion on the matter.”

“You’re not forgetting, I suppose,” said Parker, rather dryly, “that before pinning down a murder to any particular motive, it is usual to ascertain that a murder has been committed? So far, all we know is that, after a careful post-mortem analysis, two qualified doctors have agreed that Miss Dawson died a natural death.”

“I wish you wouldn’t keep on saying the same thing, Charles. It bores me so. It’s like the Raven never flitting which, as the poet observes, still is sitting, still is sitting, inviting one to heave the pallid bust of Pallas at him and have done with it. You wait till I publish my epoch-making work: The Murder’s Vade-Mecum, or 101 Ways of Causing Sudden Death. That’ll show you that I’m not a man to be trifled with.”

“Oh, well!” said Parker.

But he saw the Chief Commissioner next morning and reported that he was at last disposed to take the Dawson case seriously.

Chapter 15 Temptation of St. Peter

As Parker came out from the Commissioner’s room, he was caught by an officer.

“There’s been a lady on the ’phone to you,” he said. “I told her to ring up at 10.30. It’s about that now.”

“What name?”

“A Mrs. Forrest. She wouldn’t say what she wanted.”

“Odd,” thought Parker. His researches in the matter had been so unfruitful he had practically eliminated Forrest from the Gotobed mystery- merely keeping her filed, as it were, in the back of his mind for future reference. It occurred to him, whimsically, that she had at length discovered the absence of one of her wine-glasses and was ringing him up in a professional capacity. His conjectures were interrupted by his being called to the telephone to answer Mrs. Forrest’s call.

“Is that Detective-Inspector Parker?- I’m so sorry to trouble you, but could you possibly give me Mr. Templeton’s address?”

“Templeton?” said Parker, momentarily puzzled.

“Wasn’t it Templeton- the gentleman who came with you to see me?”

“Oh, yes, of course- I beg your pardon-I- the matter had slipped my memory. Er- you want his address?”

“I have some information which I think he will be glad to hear.”

“Oh, yes. You can speak quite freely to me, you know, Mrs. Forrest.”

“Not quite freely,” purred the voice at the other end of the wire, “you are rather official, you know. I should prefer just to write to Mr. Templeton privately, and leave it to him to take up with you.”

“I see.” Parker’s brain worked briskly. It might be inconvenient to have Forrest writing to Mr. Templeton at 110A, Piccadilly. The letter might not be delivered. Or, if the lady were to take it into her head to call and discovered that Mr. Templeton was not known to the porter, she might take alarm and bottle up her valuable information.

“I think,” said Parker, “I ought not, perhaps, to give you Mr. Templeton’s address without consulting him. But you could ’phone him-”

“Oh, yes, that would do. Is he in the book?”

“No- but I can give you his private number.”

“Thank you very much. You’ll forgive my bothering you.”

“No trouble at all.” And he named Lord Peter’s number.

Having rung off, he waited a moment and then called the number himself.

“Look here, Wimsey,” he said, “I’ve had a call from Mrs. Forrest. She wants to write to you. I wouldn’t give the address, but I’ve given her your number, so if she calls and asks for Mr. Templeton, you will remember who you are, won’t you?”

“Righty-ho! Wonder what the fair lady wants.”

“It’s probably occurred to her that she might have told a better story, and she wants to work off a few additions and improvements on you.”

Then she’ll probably give herself away. The rough sketch is frequently so much more convincing than the worked-up canvas.”

“Quite so. I couldn’t get anything out of her myself.”

“No. I expect she’s thought it over and decided it’s rather unusual to employ Scotland Yard to ferret out the whereabouts of errant husbands. She fancies there’s something up, and that I’m a nice soft-headed imbecile whom she can easily pump in the absence of the official Cerebrus.”

“Probably. Well, you’ll deal with the matter. I’m going to make a search for that soliciter.”

“Rather a vague sort of search, isn’t it?”

“Well, I’ve got an idea which may work out. I’ll let you know if I get any results.”

Mrs. Forrest’s call duly came through in about twenty minutes’ time. Mrs. Forrest had changed her mind. Would Mr. Templeton come round and see her that evening- about 9 o’clock, if that was convenient? She had thought the matter over and preferred not to put her information on paper.

Mr. Templeton would be very happy to come round. He had no other engagement It was no inconvenience at all. He begged Mrs. Forrest not to mention it.

Would Mr. Templeton be so very good as not to tell anybody about his visit? Mr. Forrest and his sleuths were continually on the watch to get Mrs. Forrest into trouble, and the decree absolute was due to come up in a month’s time. Any trouble with the King’s Proctor would be positively disastrous. It would be better if Mr. Templeton would come by Underground to Bond Street, and proceed to the flats on foot, so as not to leave a car standing outside the door or put a taxi-driver into a position to give testimony against Mrs. Forrest.

Mr. Templeton chivalrously promised to obey these directions.

Mrs. Forrest was greatly obliged, and would expect him at nine o’clock.

“Bunter!”

“My lord.”

“I am going out to-night. I’ve been asked not to say where, so I won’t. On the other hand, I’ve got a kind of feelin’ that it’s unwise to disappear from mortal ken, so to speak. Anything might happen. One might have a stroke, don’t you know. So I’m going to leave the address in a sealed envelope. If I don’t turn up before tomorrow mornin’, I shall consider myself absolved from all promises, what?”

“Very good, my lord.”

“And if I’m not to be found at that address, there wouldn’t be any harm in tryin’-say Epping Forest, or Wimbledon Common.”

“Quite so, my lord.”

“By the way, you made the photographs of those fingerprints I brought you some time ago?”

“Oh, yes, my lord.”

“Because possibly Mr. Parker may be wanting them presently for some inquiries he will be making.”

“I quite understand, my lord.”

“Nothing whatever to do with my excursion to-night, you understand.”

“Certainly not, my lord.”

“And now you might bring me Christie’s catalogue. I shall be attending a sale there and lunching at the club.”

And, detaching his mind from crime, Lord Peter bent his intellectual and financial powers to outbidding and breaking a ring of dealers, an exercise very congenial to his mischievous spirit.

Lord Peter duly fulfilled the conditions imposed upon him, and arrived on foot at the block of flats in South Audley Street. Mrs. Forrest, as before, opened the door to him herself. It was surprising, he considered, that, situated as she was, she appeared to have neither maid nor companion. But then, he supposed, a chaperon, however disarming of suspicion in the eyes of the world, might prove venal. On the whole, Mrs. Forrest’s principle was a sound one: no accomplices. Many transgressors, he reflected, had

“died because they never knew

These simple little rules and few.

Mrs. Forrest apologised prettily for the inconvenience to which she was putting Mr. Templeton.

“But I never know when I am not spied upon,” she said. “It is sheer spite, you know. Considering how my husband has behaved to me, I think it is monstrous-don’t you?”

Her guest agreed that Mr. Forrest must be a monster, jesuitically, however, reserving the opinion that the monster might be a fabulous one.

“And now you will be wondering why I have brought you here,” went on the lady. “Do come and sit on the sofa. Will you have whiskey or coffee?”

“Coffee, please.”

“The fact is,” said Mrs. Forrest, “I’ve had an idea since I saw you. I-you know, having been much in the same position myself” (with a slight laugh) “I felt so much for your friend’s wife.”

“Sylvia,” put in Lord Peter with commendable promptitude. “Oh, yes. Shocking temper and so on, but possibly some provocation. Yes, yes, quite. Poor woman. Feels things- extra sensitive- highly-strung and all that, don’t you know.”

“Quite so.” Mrs. Forrest nodded her fantastically turbanned head. Swathed to the eyebrows in gold tissue, with only two flat crescents of yellow hair plastered over her cheek-bones, she looked, in an exotic smoking-suit of embroidered tissue, like a young prince out of the Arabian Nights. Her heavily ringed hands busied themselves with the coffee-cups.

“Well – I felt that your inquiries were really serious, you know, and though, as I told you, it had nothing to do with me, I was interested and mentioned the matter in a letter to- to my friend, you see, who was with me that night.”

“Just so,” said Wimsey, taking the cup from her, “yes- er- that was very- er- it was kind of you to be interested.”

“He-my friend- is abroad at the moment. My letter had to follow him, and I only got his reply today.”

Mrs. Forrest took a sip or two of coffee as though to clear her recollection.

“His letter rather surprised me. He reminded me that after dinner he had felt the room rather close, and had opened the sitting-room window- that window, there- which overlooks South Audley Street. He noticed a car standing there- a small closed one, black or dark blue or some such colour. And while he was looking idly at it- the way one does, you know- he saw a man and woman come out of this block of flats- not this door, but one or two along to the left- and get in and drive off. The man was in evening dress and he thought it might have been your friend.”

Lord Peter, with his coffee-cup at his lips, paused and listened with great attention.

“Was the girl in evening dress, too?”

“No- that struck my friend particularly. She was in just a plain little dark suit, with a hat on.”

Lord Peter recalled to mind as nearly as possible Bertha Gotobed’s costume. Was this going to be real evidence at last?

“Th- that’s very interesting,” he stammered. “I suppose your friend couldn’t give any more exact details of the dress?”

“No,” replied Mrs. Forrest, regretfully, “but he said the man’s arm was round the girl as though she was feeling tired or unwell, and he heard him say, ‘That’s right- the fresh air will do you good.’ But you’re not drinking your coffee.”

“I beg your pardon-” Wimsey recalled himself with a start. “I was dreamin’- puttin’ two and two together, as you might say. So he was along here at the time- the artful beggar. Oh, the coffee. D’you mind if I put this away and have some without sugar?”

“I’m so sorry. Men always seem to take sugar in black coffee. Give it to me-I’ll empty it away.”

“Allow me.” There was no slop-basin on the little table, but Wimsey quickly got up and poured the coffee into the window-box outside. “That’s all right. How about another cup for you?”

“Thank you- I oughtn’t to take it really, it keeps me awake.”

“Just a drop.”

“Oh, well, if you like.” She filled both cups and sat sipping quietly. “Well- that’s all, really, but I thought perhaps I ought to let you know.”

“It was very good of you,” said Wimsey.

They sat talking a little longer- about plays in Town (“I go out very little, you know, it’s better to keep oneself out of the limelight on these occasions”), and books (“I adore Michael Arlen”). Had she read Young Men in Love yet? No- she had ordered it from the library. Wouldn’t Mr. Templeton have something to eat or drink? Really? A brandy? A liqueur?

No thank you. And Mr. Templeton felt he really ought to be slippin’ along now.

“No- don’t go yet- I get so lonely, these long evenings.”

There was a desperate kind of appeal in her voice. Lord Peter sat down again.

She began a rambling and rather confused story about her “friend.” She had given up so much for the friend. And now that her divorce was really coming off, she had a terrible feeling that perhaps the friend was not as affectionate as he used to be. It was very difficult for a woman, and life was very hard.

And so on.

As the minutes passed, Lord became uncomfortably aware that she was watching him. The words tumbled out- hurriedly, yet lifelessly, like a set task, but her eyes were the eyes of a person who expects something. Something alarming, he decided, yet something she was determined to have. It reminded him of a man waiting for an operation- keyed up to it- knowing that it will do him good- yet shrinking from it with all his senses.

He kept up his end of the fatuous conversation. Behind a barrage of small-talk, his mind ran quickly to and fro, analysing the position, getting the range…

Suddenly he became aware that she was trying-clumsily, stupidly and as though in spite of herself- to get him to make love to her.

The fact itself did not strike Wimsey as odd. He was rich enough, well-bred enough, attractive enough and man of the world enough to have received similar invitations fairly often in his thirty-seven years of life. And not always from experienced women. There had been those who sought experience as well as those qualified to bestow it. But so awkward an approach by a woman who admitted to already possessing a husband and a lover was a phenomenon outside his previous knowledge.

Moreover, he felt that the thing would be a nuisance. Mrs. Forrest was handsome enough, but she had not a particle of attraction for him. For all her make-up and her somewhat outspoken costume, she struck him as spinsterish-even epicene. That was the thing which puzzled him during their previous interview. Parker- a young man of rigid virtue and limited wordly knowledge-was not sensitive to these emanations. But Wimsey had felt her as something essentially sexless, even then. And he felt it even more strongly now. Never had he met a woman in whom “the great It,” eloquently hymned by Mrs. Elinor Glyn, was so completely lacking.

Her bare shoulder was against him now, marking his broadcloth with white patches of powder.

Blackmail was the first explanation that occurred to him. The next move would be for the fabulous Mr. Forrest, or someone representing him, to appear suddenly in the doorway, aglow with virtuous wrath and outraged sensibilities.

“A very pretty little trap,” thought Wimsey, adding aloud, “Well, I really must be getting along.”

She caught him by the arm.

“Don’t go.”

There was no caress in the touch-only a kind of desperation.

He thought, “If she really made a practice of this, she would do it better.”

“Truly,” he said, “I oughtn’t to stay any longer. It wouldn’t be safe for you.”

“I’ll risk it.” she said.

A passionate woman might have said it passionately. Or with a brave gaiety. Or challengingly. Or alluringly. Or mysteriously.

She said it grimly. Her fingers dug at his arm.

“Well, damn it all, I’ll risk it,” thought Wimsey. “I must and will know what it’s all about.”

“Poor little woman.” He coaxed into his voice the throaty, fatuous tone of the man who is preparing to make an amorous fool of himself.

He felt her body stiffen as he slipped his arm around her, but she gave a little sigh of relief.

He pulled her suddenly and violently to him and kissed her mouth with a practised exaggeration of passion.

He knew then. No one who has ever encountered it can ever again mistake that awful shrinking, that uncontrollable revulsion of the flesh against a caress that is nauseous. He thought for a moment that she was going to be actually sick.

He released her gently, and stood up- his mind in a whirl, but somehow triumphant. His first instinct had been right, after all.

“That was very naughty of me,” he said, lightly. “You made me forget myself. You will forgive me, won’t you?”

She nodded, shaken.

“And I really must toddle. It’s gettin’ frightfully late and all that. Where’s my hat? Ah, yes, in the hall. Now, good-bye, Mrs. Forrest, an’ take care of yourself. An’ thank you ever so much for telling me about what your friend saw.”

“You are really going?”

She spoke as though she had lost all hope.

“In God’s name,” thought Wimsey, “what does she want? Does she suspect that Mr. Templeton is not everything that he seems? Does she want me to stay the night so that she can get a look at the laundry-mark on my shirt? Should I suddenly save the situation for her by offering her Lord Peter Wimsey’s visiting-card?”

His brain toyed freakishly with the thought as he babbled his way to the door. She let him go without further words.

As he stepped into the hall he turned and looked at her. She stood in the middle of the room, watching him, and on her face was such a fury of fear and rage as turned his blood to water.

Chapter 16 A Cast-iron Alibi

Miss Whittaker and the youngest Miss Findlater had returned from their expedition. Miss Climpson, most faithful of sleuths, and carrying Lord Peter’s letter of instructions in the pocket of her skirt like a talisman, had asked the youngest Miss Findlater to tea.

As a matter of fact, Miss Climpson had become genuinely interested in the girl. Silly affectation and gush, and a parrot-repetition of the shibboleths of the modern school were symptoms that the experienced spinster well understood. They indicated, she thought, a real unhappiness, a real dissatisfaction with the narrowness of life in a country town. And besides this, Miss Climpson felt sure that Vera Findlater was being “preyed upon,” as she expressed it to herself, by the handsome Mary Whittaker. “It would be a mercy for the girl,” thought Miss Climpson, “if she could form a genuine attachment to a young man. It is natural for a schoolgirl to be schwärmerisch- in a young woman of twenty-two it is thoroughly undesirable. That Whittaker woman encourages it- she would, of course. She likes to have someone to admire her and run her errands. And she prefers it to be a stupid person, who will not compete with her. If Mary Whittaker were to marry, she would marry a rabbit.” (Miss Climpson’s active mind quickly conjured up a picture of the rabbit- fair-haired and a little paunchy, with a habit of saying, “I’ll ask the wife.” Miss Climpson wondered why Providence saw fit to create such men. For Miss Climpson, men were intended to be masterful, even though wicked or foolish. She was a spinster made and not born- a perfectly womanly woman.)

“But,” thought Miss Climpson, “Mary Whittaker is not of the marrying sort. She is a professional woman by nature. She has a profession, by the way, but she does not intend to go back to it. Probably nursing demands too much sympathy- and one is under the authority of the doctors. Mary Whittaker prefers to control the lives of chickens. ‘Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.’ Dear me! I wonder if it is uncharitable to compare a fellow-being to Satan. Only in poetry, of course- I daresay that makes it not so bad. At any rate, I am certain that Mary Whittaker is doing Vera Findlater no good.”

Miss Climpson’s guest was very ready to tell about their month in the country. They had toured round at first for a few days, and then they had heard of a delightful poultry farm which was for sale, near Orpington in Kent. So they had gone down to have a look at it, and found that it was to be sold in about a fortnight’s time. It wouldn’t have been wise, of course, to take it over without some inquiries, and by the greatest good fortune they found a dear little cottage to let, furnished, quite close by. So they had taken it for a few weeks, while Miss Whittaker “looked round” and found out about the state of the poultry business in that district, and so on. They had enjoyed it so, and it was delightful keeping house together, right away from all the silly people at home.

“Of course, I don’t mean you, Miss Climpson. You come from London and are so much more broadminded. But I simply can’t stick the Leahampton lot, nor can Mary.”

“It is very delightful,” said Miss Climpson, “to be free from the conventions, I’m sure- especially if one is in company with a kindred spirit.”

“Yes-of course Mary and I are tremendous friends, though she is so much cleverer than I am. It’s absolutely settled that we’re to take the farm and run it together. Won’t it be wonderful?”

“Won’t you find it rather dull and lonely- just you two girls together? You musn’t forget you’ve been accustomed to see quite a lot of young people in Leahampton. Shan’t you miss the tennis-parties, and the young men, and so on?”

“Oh, no! If you only knew what a stupid lot they are! Anyway, I’ve no use for men!” Miss Findlater tossed her head. “They haven’t got any ideas. And they always look on women as sort of pets or playthings. As if a woman like Mary wasn’t worth fifty of them! You should have heard that Markham man the other day- talking politics to Mr. Tredgold, so that nobody could get a word in edgeways, and then saying, ‘I’m afraid this is a very dull subject of conversation for you, Miss Whittaker,’ in his condescending way. Mary said in that quiet way of hers, ‘Oh, I think the subject is anything but dull, Mr. Markham.’ But he was so stupid he couldn’t even grasp that and said, ‘One doesn’t expect ladies to be interested in politics, you know. But perhaps you are one of the modern young ladies who want the flapper’s vote.’ Ladies, indeed! Why are men so insufferable when they talk about ladies?”

“I think men are apt to be jealous of women,” replied Miss Climpson, thoughtfully, “and jealousy does make people rather peevish and ill-mannered. I suppose that when one would like to despise a set of people and yet has a horrid suspicion that one can’t genuinely despise them, it makes one exaggerate one’s contempt for them in conversation. That is why, my dear, I am always very careful not to speak sneeringly about men-even though they often deserve it, you know. But if I did, everybody would think I was an envious old maid, wouldn’t they?”

“Well, I mean to be an old maid, anyhow,” retorted Miss Findlater. “Mary and I have quite decided that. We’re interested in things, not in men.”

“You’ve made a good start at finding out how it’s going to work,” said Miss Climpson. “Living with a person for a month is an excellent test. I suppose you had somebody to do the housework for you.”

“Not a soul. We did every bit of it, and it was great fun. I’m ever so good at scrubbing floors and laying fires and things, and Mary’s a simply marvellous cook. It was such a change from having the servants always bothering round like they do at home. Of course, it was quite a modern, labour-saving cottage-it belongs to some theatrical people, think.”

“And what did you do when you weren’t inquiring into the poultry business?”

“Oh, we ran round in the car and saw places and attended markets. Markets are frightfully amusing, with all the funny old farmers and people. Of course, I’d often been to markets before, but Mary made it all so interesting- and then, too, we were picking up hints all the time for our own marketing later on.”

“Did you run up to Town at all?”»

“No.”

“I should have thought you’d have taken the opportunity for a little jaunt.”

“Mary hates Town.”

“I thought you rather enjoyed a run up now and then.”

“I’m not keen. Not now. I used to think I was, but I expect that was only the sort of spiritual restlessness one gets when one hasn’t an object in life. There’s nothing in it.”

Miss Findlater spoke with the air of a disillusioned rake, who has sucked life’s orange and found it dead sea fruit. Miss Climpson did not smile. She was accustomed to the role of confidante.

“So you were together- just you two- all the time?”

“Every minute of it. And we weren’t bored with one another a bit.”

“I hope your experiment will prove very successful,” said Miss Climpson. “But when you really start on your life together, don’t you think it would be wise to arrange for a few breaks in it? A little change of companionship is good for everybody. I’ve known so many happy friendships spoilt by people seeing too much of one another.”

“They couldn’t have been real friendships, then,” asserted the girl, dogmatically. “Mary and I are absolutely happy together.”

“Still,” said Miss Climpson, “if you don’t mind an old woman giving you a word of warning, I should be inclined not to keep the bow always bent. Suppose Miss Whittaker, for instance, wanted to go off and have a day in Town on her own, say- or go to stay with friends-you would have to learn not to mind that.”

“Of course I shouldn’t mind. Why-” she checked herself. “I mean, I’m quite sure that Mary would be every bit as loyal to me as I am to her.”

“That’s right,” said Miss Climpson. “The longer I live, my dear, the more certain I become that jealousy is the most fatal of feelings. The Bible calls it ‘cruel as the grave,’ and I’m sure that is so. Absolute loyalty, without jealousy, is the essential thing.”

“Yes. Though naturally one would hate to think that the person one was really friends with was putting another person in one’s place… Miss Climpson, you do believe, don’t you, that a friendship ought to be ‘fifty-fifty’?”

“That is the ideal friendship, I suppose,” said Miss Climpson thoughtfully, “but I think it is a very rare thing. Among women, that is. I doubt very much if I’ve ever seen an example of it. Men, I believe, find it easier to give and take in that way- probably because they have so many outside interests.”

“Men’s friendships- oh yes! I know one hears a lot about them. But half the time, I don’t believe they’re real friendships at all. Men can go off for years and forget all about their friends. And they don’t really confide in one another. Mary and I tell each other all our thoughts and feelings. Men seem just content to think each other good sorts without ever bothering about their inmost selves.”

“Probably that’s why their friendships last so well,” replied Miss Climpson. “They don’t make such demands on one another.”

“But a great friendship does make demands,” cried Miss Findlater eagerly. “It’s got to be just everything to one. It’s wonderful the way it seems to colour all one’s thoughts. Instead of being centred in oneself, one’s centred in the other person. That’s what Christian love means- one’s ready to die for the other person.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Miss Climpson. “I once heard a sermon about that from a most splendid priest- and he said that that kind of love might become idolatry if one wasn’t very careful. He said that Milton ’s remark about Eve- you know, ‘he for God only, she for God in him’- was not congruous with Catholic doctrine. One must get the proportions right, and it was out of proportion to see everything through the eyes of another fellow-creature.”

“One must put God first, of course,” said Miss Findlater, a little formally. “But if the friendship is mutual- that was the point- quite unselfish on both sides, it must be a good thing.”

“Love is always good, when it’s the right kind,” agreed Miss Climpson, “but I don’t think it ought to be too possessive. One has to train oneself- ” she hesitated, and went on courageously- “and in any case, my dear, I can’t help feeling that it is more natural- more proper, in a sense- for a man and a woman to be all in all to one another than for two persons of the same sex. Er- after all, it is a- a fruitful affection,” said Miss Climpson, boggling a trifle at this idea, “and- and all that, you know, and I am sure that when the right MAN come along for you- ”

“Bother the right man!” cried Miss Findlater crossly. “I do hate that kind of talk. It makes one feel dreadful- like a prize cow or something. Surely, we have got beyond that point of view in these days.”

Miss Climpson perceived that she had let her honest zeal outrun her detective discretion. She had lost the goodwill of her informant, and it was better to change the conversation. However, she could assure Lord Peter now of one thing. Whoever the woman was that Mrs. Cropper had seen at Liverpool, it was not Miss Whittaker. The attached Miss Findlater, who had never left her friend’s side, was sufficient guarantee of that.

Chapter 17 The Country Lawyer’s Story

Letter from Mr. Probyn, retired Solicitor, of Villa Bianca, Fiesole, to Mr. Murbles, Solicitor, of Staple Inn

“Private and confidential.

“Dear Sir,

I was much interested in your letter relative to the death of Miss Agatha Dawson, late of Leahampton, and will do my best to answer inquiries as briefly as possible always, of course, on the understanding that all information as to the affairs of my late client will be treated as strictly confidential. I make an exception, of course, in favour of the police officer you mention in connection with the matter.

“You wish to know (1) whether Miss Agatha Dawson was aware that it might possibly prove necessary, under the provisions of the new Act, to make a testamentary disposition in order to ensure that her great-niece, Miss Mary Whittaker, should inherit her personal property. (2) Whether I ever urged her to make this testamentary disposition and what her reply was. (3) Whether I had made Miss Mary Whittaker aware of the situation in which she might be placed, supposing her great-aunt to die intestate later than December 31,1925.

“In the course of the Spring of 1925, my attention was called by a learned friend to the ambiguity of the wording of certain clauses in the Act, especially in respect of the failure to define the precise interpretation to be placed on the word ‘Issue.’ I immediately passed in review the affairs of my various clients, with a view to satisfying myself that proper dispositions had been made in each case to avoid misunderstanding and litigation in case of intestacy. I at once realised that Miss Whittaker’s inheritance of Miss Dawson’s property entirely depended on the interpretation given to the clauses in question. I was aware that Miss Dawson was extremely averse from making a will, owing to that superstitious dread of decease we meet with so frequently in our profession. However, I thought it my duty to make her understand the question and to do my utmost to get a will signed. Accordingly, I went to Leahampton and laid the matter before her. This was on March 14th, or thereabouts- I am not certain to the precise day.”

“Unhappily, I encountered Miss Dawson at a moment when her opposition to the obnoxious idea of making a will was at its strongest. Her doctor had informed her that a further operation would become necessary in the course of the next few weeks, and I could have selected no more unfortunate occasion for intruding the subject of death upon her mind. She resented any such suggestion- there was a conspiracy, she declared, to frighten her into dying under the operation. It appears that that very tactless practitioner of hers had frightened her with a similar suggestion before her previous operation. But she had come through that and she meant to come through this, if only people would not anger and alarm her.

“Of course, if she had died under the operation, the whole question would have settled itself and there would have been no need of any will. I pointed out that the very reason why I was anxious for the will to be made was that I fully expected her to live on into the following year, and I explained the provisions of the Act once more, as clearly as I could. She retorted that in that case I had no business to come and trouble her about the question at all. It would be time enough when the Act passed.

“Naturally, the fool of a doctor insisted that she was not to be told what her disease was- they always do- and she was convinced that the next operation would make all right and that she would live for years. When I ventured to insist- giving as my reason that we men of law always preferred to be on the safe and cautious side, she became exceedingly angry with me, and practically ordered me out of the house. A few days afterwards I received a letter from her, complaining of my impertinence, saying that she could no longer feel any confidence in a person who treated her with such inconsiderate rudeness. At her request, I forwarded all her private papers in my possession to Mr. Hodgson of Leahampton, and I have not held any communication with any member of the family since that date.

“This answers your first and second questions. With regard to the third: I certainly did not think it proper to inform Miss Whittaker that her inheritance might depend upon her great-aunt’s either making a will or else dying before December 31, 1925. While I know nothing to the young lady’s disadvantage, I have always held it inadvisable that persons should know too exactly how much they stand to gain by the unexpected decease of other persons. In case of any unforeseen accident, they may find themselves in an equivocal position, where the fact of possessing such knowledge might- if made public- be highly prejudicial to their interests. The most I thought it proper to say was that if at any time Miss Dawson should express a wish to see me, I should like to be sent for without delay. Of course, the withdrawal of Miss Dawson’s affairs from my hands put it out of my power to interfere any further.

“In October, 1925, feeling that my health was not what it had been, I retired from business and came to Italy. In this country the English papers do not always arrive regularly, and I missed the announcement of Miss Dawson’s death. That it should have occurred so suddenly and under circumstances somewhat mysterious, is certainly interesting.

“You say further that you would be glad of my opinion on Miss Agatha Dawson’s mental condition at the time when I last saw her. It was perfectly clear and competent-in so far as she was ever competent with business. She was in no way gifted to grapple with legal problems, and I had extreme difficulty in getting her to understand what the trouble was with regard to the Property Act. Having been brought up all her life to the idea that property went of right to the next of kin, she found it inconceivable that this state of things should ever alter. She assured me that the law would never permit the Government to pass such an Act. When I had reluctantly persuaded her that it would, she was quite sure that no court would be wicked enough to interpret the Act so as to give the money to anybody but Miss Whittaker, when she was clearly the proper person to have it. ‘Why should the Duchy of Lancaster have any rights to it?’ she kept on saying. ‘I don’t even know the Duke of Lancaster.’ She was not a particularly sensible woman, and in the end I was not at all sure that I had made her comprehend the situation- quite apart from the dislike she had of pursuing the subject. However, there is no doubt that she was then quite compos mentis. My reason for urging her to make the will before her final operation was, of course, that I feared she might subsequently lose the use of her faculties, or- which comes to the same thing from a business point of view- have to be kept continually under the influence of opiates.

“Trusting that you will find here the information you require,

“I remain,

“ Yours faithfully,

THOS. PROBYN

Mr. Murbles read this letter twice, very thoughtfully. To even his cautious mind, the thing began to look like the makings of a case. In his neat, rlderly hand, he wrote a little note to Detective Inspector Parker, begging him to call at Staple Inn at his earliest convenience

Mr. Parker, however, was experiencing nothing at that moment but inconvenience. He had been calling on solicitors for two whole days, and his soul sickened at the sight of a brass plate. He glanced at the long list in his hand, and distastefully counted up the scores of names that still remained unticked.

Parker was one of those methodical, painstaking people whom the world could so ill spare. When he worked with Wimsey on a case, it was an understood thing that anything lengthy, intricate, tedious and soul-destroying was done by Parker. He sometimes felt that it was irritating of Wimsey to take this so much for granted. He felt so now. It was a hot day. The pavements were dusty. Pieces of paper blew about the streets. Buses were grilling outside and stuffy inside. The Express Dairy, where Parker was eating lunch, seemed full of the odours of fried plaice and boiling tea-urns. Wimsey, he knew, was lunching at his club, before running down with Freddy Arbuthnot to see the New Zealanders at somewhere or other. He had seen him- a vision of exquisite pale grey, ambling gently along Pall Mall. Damn Wimsey! Why couldn’t he have let Miss Dawson rest quietly in her grave? There she was, doing no harm to anybody- and Wimsey must insist on prying into her affairs and bringing the inquiry to such a point that Parker simply had to take official notice of it. Oh well! he supposed he must go on with these infernal solicitors.

He was proceeding on a system of his own, which might or might not prove fruitful. He had reviewed the subject of the new Property Act, and decided that if and when Miss Whittaker had become aware of its possible effect on her own expectations, she would at once consider taking legal advice.

Her first thought would no doubt be to consult a solicitor in Leahampton, and unless she already had the idea of foul play in her mind, there was nothing to deter her from doing so. Accordingly, Parker’s first move had been to run down to Leahampton and interview the three firms of solicitors there. All three were able to reply quite positively that they had never received such an inquiry from Miss Whittaker, or from anybody, during the year 1925. One solicitor, indeed- the senior partner of Hodgson & Hodgson, to whom Miss Dawson had entrusted her affairs after her quarrel with Mr. Probyn- looked a little oddly at Parker when he heard the question.

“I assure you, Inspector.” he said, “that if the point had been brougt to my notice in such a way, I should certainly have remembered it, in the light of subsequent events.”

“The matter never crossed your mind, I suppose,” said Parker, “when the question arose of winding up the estate and proving Miss Whittaker’s claim to it?”

“I can’t say it did. Had there been any question of searching for next-of-kin it might- I don’t say it would- have have occurred to me. But I had a very clear history of the family connections from Mr. Probyn, the death took place nearly two months before the Act came into force, and the formalities all went through more or less automatically. In fact, I never thought about the Act one way or the other in that connection.”

Parker said he was not surprised to hear it, and favoured Mr. Hodgson with Mr. Towkington’s learned opinion on the subject, which interested Mr. Hodgson very much. And that was all he got at Leahampton, except that he fluttered Miss Climpson very much by calling upon her and hearing all about her interview with Vera Findlater. Miss Climpson walked to the station with him, in the hope that they might meet Miss Whittaker- I am sure you would be interested to see her-but they were unlucky. On the whole, thought Parker, it might be just as well. After all, though he would like to see Miss Whittaker, he was not particularly keen on her seeing him, especially in Miss Climpson’s company. “By the way,” he said to Miss Climpson, “you had better explain me in some way to Mrs. Budge, or she may be a bit inquisitive.”

“But I have,” replied Miss Climpson with an engaging giggle, “when Mrs. Budge said there was a Mr. Parker to see me, of course I realised at once that she mustn’t know who you were, so I said, quite quickly, ‘Mr. Parker! Oh, that must be my nephew Adolphus.’ You don’t mind being Adolphus, do you? It’s funny, but that was the only name that came into my mind at the moment. I can’t think why, for I’ve never known an Adolphus.’

“Miss Climpson,” said Parker solemnly, “you are a marvellous woman, and I wouldn’t mind even if you’d called me Marmaduke.”

So here he was, working out his second line of inquiry. If Miss Whittaker did not go to a Leahampton solicitor, to whom would she go? There was Mr. Probyn, of course, but he did not think she would have selected him. She would not have known him at Crofton, of course- she had never actually lived with her great-aunts. She had met him the day he came down to Leahampton to see Miss Dawson. He had not then taken her into his confidence about the object of his visit, but she must have known from what her aunt said that it had to do with the making of a will. In the light of her new knowledge she would guess that Mr. Probyn had then had the Act in his mind, and had not thought fit to trust her with facts. If she asked him now, he would probably reply that Miss Dawson’s affairs were no longer in his hands, and refer her to Mr. Hodgson. And besides, if she asked the question and anything were to happen-Mr. Probyn might remember it. No, she would not have approached Mr. Probyn.

What then?

To the person who has anything to conceal- to the person who wants to lose his identity as one leaf among the leaves of a forest- to the person who asks no more than to pass by and be forgotten, there is one name above others which promises a haven of safety and oblivion. London. Where no one knows his neighbour. Where shops do not know their customers. Where physicians are suddenly called to unknown patientswhom they never see again. Where you may lie dead in your house for months together unmissed and unnoticed until the gas-inspector comes to look at the meter. Where strangers are friendly and friends are casual. London, whose rather untidy and grubby bosom is the repository of so many odd secrets. Discreet, incurious all-enfolding London.

Not that Parker put it that way to himself. He merely thought, “Ten to one she’d try London. They mostly think they’ re safer there.”

Miss Whittaker knew London, of course. She had trained at the Royal Free. That meant she would know Bloomsbury better than any other district. For nobody knew better than Parker how rarely Londoners move out of their own particular little orbit. Unless, of course, she had at some time during her time at the hospital been recommended to a solicitor in another quarter, the chances were that she would have gone to a solicitor in the Bloomsbury or Holborn district.

Unfortunately for Parker, this is a quarter which swarms with solicitors. Gray’s Inn Road, Gray’s Inn itself, Bedford Row, Holborn, Lincoln’s Inn- the brass plates grow all about as thick as blackberries.

Which is why Parker was feeling so hot, tired, and fed-up that June afternoon.

With an impatient grunt he pushed away his eggy plate, paid-at-the-desk-please, and crossed the road towards Bedford Row, which he had marked down as his portion for the afternoon.

He started at the first solicitor’s he came to, which happened to be the office of one J. F. Trigg. He was lucky. The youth in the outer office informed him that Mr. Trigg had just returned from lunch, was disengaged, and would see him. Would he walk in?

Mr. Trigg was a pleasant, fresh-faced man in his early forties. He begged Mr. Parker to be seated and asked what he could do for him.

For the thirty-seventh time, Parker started on the opening gambit which he had devised to suit his purpose.

“I am only temporarily in London, Mr. Trigg, and finding I needed legal advice. I was recommended to you by a man in a restaurant. He did give me his name but it has escaped me, and anyway, it’s of no great importance, is it? The point is this. My wife and I have come up to see her great-aunt, who is in a very bad way. In fact, she isn’t expected to live.

“Well, now, the old lady has been very fond of my wife, don’t you see? and it has always been an understood thing that Mrs. Parker was to come into her money when she died. It’s quite a tidy bit, and we have been- I won’t say looking forward to it, but in a kind of mild way counting on it as something for us to retire upon later on. You understand. There aren’t any other relations at all, so though the old lady has often talked about making a will, we didn’t worry much, one way or the other, because we took it for granted my wife would come in for anything there was. But we were talking to a friend yesterday, and he took us rather aback by saying that there was a new law or something, and that if my a wife’s great-aunt hadn’t made a will we shouldn’t get anything at all. I think he said it would all go to the Crown. I didn’t think that could be right and told him so, but my wife is a bit nervous- there are the children to be considered, you see- and she urged me to get legal advice, because her great-aunt may go off at any minute and we don’t know whether there is a will or not. Now, how does a great-niece stand under the new arrangements?

“The point has not been made very clear,” said Mr. Trigg, “but my advice to you is to find out whether a will has been made, and if not, to get one made without delay if the testatrix is capable of making one. Otherwise I think there is a very real danger of your wife’s losing her inheritance.”

“You seem quite familiar with the question,” said Parker, with a smile; “I suppose you are always being asked it since this new Act came in?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘always.’ It is comparatively rare for a great-niece to be left as sole next-of-kin.”

“Is it? Well, yes, I should think it must be. Do you remember being asked that question in the summer of 1925, Mr. Trigg?”

A most curious expression came over the solicitor’s face- it looked almost like alarm.

“What makes you ask that?”

“You need have no hesitation in answering,” said Parker, taking out his official card. “I am a police officer and have a good reason for asking. I put the legal point to you first as a problem of my own, because I was anxious to have your professional opinion first.”

“I see. Well, Inspector, in that case I suppose I am justified in telling you all about it. I was asked that question in June, 1925.”

“Do you remember the circumstances?”

“Clearly. I am not likely to forget them- or rather, the sequel to them.”

“That sounds interesting. Will you tell the story in your own way and with all the detail you can remember?”

“Certainly. Just a moment.” Mr. Trigg put his head out into the outer office. “Badcock, I am engaged with Mr. Parker and can’t see anybody. Now, Mr. Parker, I am at your service. Won’t you smoke?”

Parker accepted the invitation and lit up his well-worn briar, while Mr. Trigg, rapidly smoking cigarette after cigarette, unfolded his remarkable story.

Chapter 18 The London Lawyer’s Story

I think,” said Mr. Trigg, “that it was on the 15th or 16th June, 1925, that a lady called to ask almost exactly the same question that you have done- only that she represented herself as inquiring on behalf of a friend whose name she did not mention. Yes- I think I can describe her pretty well. She was tall and handsome, with a very clear skin, dark hair and blue eyes- an attractive girl. I remember that she had very fine brows, rather straight, and not much colour in her face, and she was dressed in something summery but very neat. I should think it would be called an embroidered linen dress- I am not an expert on those things- and a shady white hat of panama straw.”

“Your recollection seems very clear,” said Parker.

“I have rather a good memory; besides, I saw her on other occasions, as you shall hear.

“At this first visit she told me- much as you did- that she was only temporarily in Town, and had been casually recommended to me. I told her I should not like to answer her question off-hand. The Act, you may remember, had only recently passed its Final Reading, and I was by no means up in it. Besides, from just skimming through it, I had convinced myself that various important questions were bound to crop up.

“I told the lady- Miss Grant was the name she gave, by the way- that I should like to take counsel’s opinion before giving her any advice, and asked if she could call again the following day. She said she could, rose and thanked me, offering her hand. In taking it, I happened to notice rather an odd scar, running across the backs of all the fingers- rather as though a chisel or something had slipped at some time. I noticed it quite idly, of course, but it was lucky for me I did.

“Miss Grant duly turned up the next day. I had looked up a very learned friend in the interval, and gave her the same opinion that I gave you just now. She looked rather concerned about it- in fact, almost more annoyed than concerned.

“ ‘It seems rather unfair,’ she said; ‘that people’s family money should go away to the Crown like that. After all, a great-niece is quite a near relation, really.’

“I replied that, provided the great-niece could call witnesses to prove deceased had always had the intention of leaving her the money, the Crown would, in all probability, allot the estate or a suitable portion of it, in accordance with the wishes of the deceased. It would, however, lie entirely within the discretion of the court to do so or not, and, of course, if there had been any quarrel or dispute about the matter at any time, the judge might take an unfavourable view of the great-niece’s application.

“‘In any case,’ I added, ‘I don’t know that the great-niece is excluded under the Act- I only understand that she may be. In any case, there are still six months before the Act comes into force, and many things may happen before then.’

‘You mean that Auntie may die,’ she said, ‘But she’s not really dangerously ill- only mental, as Nurse calls it.’

“Anyhow, she went away then after paying my fee, and I noticed that the ‘friend’s great-aunt’ had suddenly become ‘Auntie,’ and decided that my client felt a certain personal interest in the matter.”

“I fancy she had,” said Parker. “When did you see her again?”

“Oddly enough, I ran across her in the following December. I was having a quick and early dinner in Soho, before going on to a show. The little place I usually patronise was very full, and I had to sit at a table where a woman was already seated. As I muttered the usual formula about ‘Was anybody sitting there,’ she looked up, and I promptly recognized my client.

“‘Why, how do you do, Miss Grant?” I said.

“‘I beg your pardon,’ she replied, rather stiffly. ‘I think you are mistaken.’

“ ‘I beg your pardon,’ said I, stiffer still, ‘my name is Trigg, and you came to consult me in Bedford Row last June. But if I am intruding, I apologise and withdraw.’”

“She smiled then, and said, ‘I’m sorry, I did not recognise you for the moment.

“I obtained permission to sit at her table.

“By way of starting a conversation, I asked whether she had taken any further advice in the matter of the inheritance. She said no, she had been quite content with what I had told her. Still to make conversation, I inquired whether the great-aunt had made a will after all. She replied, rather briefly, that it had not been necessary, the the old lady had died. I noticed that she was dressed in black, and was confirmed in my opinion that she herself was the great-niece concerned.

“We talked for some time, Inspector, and I will not conceal from you that I found Miss Grant a very interesting personality. She had an almost masculine understanding. I may say I am not the sort of a man who prefers women to be brainless. No, I am rather modern in that respect. If ever I was to take a wife, Inspector, I should wish her to be an intelligent companion.”

Mr. Parker said Mr. Trigg’s attitude did him great credit. He also made the mental observation that Mr. Trigg would probably not object to marrying a young woman who had inherited money and was unencumbered with relations.

“It is rare,” went on Mr. Trigg, “to find a woman with a legal mind. Miss Grant was unusual in that respect. She took a great interest in some case or other that was prominent in the newspapers at the time-I forget now what it was- and asked me some remarkably sensible and intelligent questions. I must say that I quite enjoyed our conversation. Before dinner was over, we had got on to more personal topics, in the course of which I happened to mention that I lived in Golder’s Green.”

“Did she give you her own address?”

“She said she was staying at the Peveril Hotel in Bloomsbury, and that she was looking for a house in Town. I said that I might possibly hear of something out Hampstead way, and offered my professional services in case she should require them. After dinner I accompanied her back to her hotel, and bade her goodbye in the lounge.”

“She was really staying there, then?”

“Apparently. However, about a fortnight later, I happened to hear of a house in Golder’s Green that had fallen vacant suddenly. It belonged, as a matter of fact, to a client of mine. In persuance of my promise, I wrote to Miss Grant at the Peveril. Receiving no reply, I made inquiries there, and found that she had left the hotel the day after our meeting, leaving no address. In the hotel register, she had merely given her address as Manchester. I was somewhat disappointed, but thought no more about the matter.

“About a month later- on January 26th, to be exact, I was sitting at home reading a book, preparatory to retiring to bed. I should say that I occupy a flat, or rather maisonette, in a small house which has been divided to make two establishments. The people on the ground floor were away at that time, so that I was quite alone in the house. My housekeeper only comes in by the day. The telephone rang- I noticed the time. It was a quarter to eleven. I answered it, and a woman’s voice spoke, begging me to come instantly to a certain house on Hampstead Heath, to make a will for someone who was at the point of death.

“Did you recognise the voice?”

“No. It sounded like a servant’s voice. At any rate, it had a strong cockney accent. I asked whether to-morrow would not be time enough, but the voice urged me to hurry or it might be too late. Rather annoyed, I put my things on and went out. It was a most unpleasant night, cold and foggy. I was lucky enough to find a taxi on the nearest rank. We drove to the address, which we had great difficulty in finding, as everything was pitch-black. It turned out to be a small house in a very isolated position on the Heath- in fact, there was no proper approach to it. I left the taxi on the road, about a couple of hundred yards off, and asked the man to wait for me, as I was very doubtful of ever finding another taxi in that spot at that time of night. He grumbled a good deal, but consented to wait if I promised not to be very long.

“I made my way to the house. At first I thought it was quite dark, but presently I saw a faint glimmer in a ground-floor room. I rang the bell. No answer, though I could hear it trilling loudly. I rang again and knocked. Still no answer. It was bitterly cold. I struck a match to be sure I had come to the right house, and then I noticed that the front door was ajar.

“I thought that perhaps the servant who had called me was so much occupied with her sick mistress as to be unable to leave her to come to the door. Thinking that in that case I might be of assistance to her, I pushed the door open and went in. The hall was perfectly dark, and I bumped against an umbrella-stand in entering. I thought I heard a faint voice calling or moaning, and when my eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, I stumbled forward and saw a dim light coming from a door on the left.”

“Was that the room which you had seen to be illumined from outside?”

“I think so. I called out, ‘May I come in?’ and a very low, weak voice replied, ‘Yes, please.’ I pushed the door open and entered a room furnished as a sitting room. In one corner there was a couch, on which some bed-clothes appeared to have been hurriedly thrown to enable it to be used as a bed. On the couch lay a woman, all alone.

“I could only dimly make her out. There was no light in the room except a small oil-lamp, with a green shade so tilted as to keep the light from the sick woman’s eyes. There was a fire in the grate, but it had burnt low. I could see, however, that the woman’s head and face were swarthed in white bandages. I put out my hand and felt for the electric switch, but she called out:

“ ‘No light, please- it hurts me.’”

“How did she see you put your hand to the switch?”

“Well,” said Mr. Trigg, “that was an odd thing. She didn’t speak, as a matter of fact, till I had actually clicked the switch down. But nothing happened. The light didn’t come on.”

“Really?”

“No. I supposed that the bulb had been taken away or had gone phut. However, I said nothing, and came up to the bed. She said in a sort of half-whisper, ‘Is that the lawyer?’

“I said. ‘Yes,’ and asked what I could do for her.

“She said, ‘I have had a terrible accident. I can’t live. I want to make my will quickly.’ I asked whether there was nobody with her. ‘Yes, yes,’ she said in a hurried way, ‘my servant will be back in a moment. She has gone to look for a doctor.’ ‘But,’ I said, ‘couldn’t she have rung up? You are not fit to be left alone.’ ‘We couldn’t get through to one,’ she replied, ‘It’s all right. She will be here soon. Don’t waste time. I must make my will.’ She spoke in a dreadful, gasping way, and I felt that the best thing would be to do what she wanted, for fear of agitating her. I drew a chair to the table where the lamp was, got out my fountain pen and a printed will-form with which I had provided myself, and expressed myself ready to receive her instructions.

“Before beginning, she asked me to give her a little brandy and water from a dcanter which stood on the table. I did so, and she took a small sip, which seemed to revive her. I placed the glass near her hand, and at her suggestion mixed another glass for myself. I was very glad of it, for, as I said, it was a beast of a night, and the room was cold. I looked round for some extra coals to put on the fire, but could see none.”

“That,” said Parker, ”is extremely interesting and suggestive.”

“I thought it queer at the time. But the whole thing was queer. Anyway, I then said I was ready to begin. She said ‘you may think I am a little mad, because my head has been so hurt. But I am quite sane. But he shan’t have a penny of the money.’ I asked her if someone had attacked her. She replied, ‘My husband. He thinks he has killed me. But I am going to live long enough to will the money away.’ She then said that her name was Mrs. Marion Mead, and proceeded to make a will, leaving her estate, which amounted to about £10,000, among various legatees, including a daughter and three or four sisters. It was rather a complicated will, as it included various devices for tying up the daughter’s money in a trust, so as to prevent her from ever handing over any of it to the father.”

“Did you make a note of the names and addresses of the people involved?”

“I did, but, as you will see later on, I could make no use of them. The testatrix was certainly clear-headed enough about the provisions of the will, though she seemed terribly weak, and her voice never rose above a whisper after that one time when she had called to me not to turn on the light.

“At length I finished my notes of the will, and started to draft it out on to the proper form. There were no signs of the servant’s return, and I began to be really anxious. Also the extreme cold- or something else- added to the fact that it was now long past my bed-time, was making me appallingly sleepy. I poured out another stiff little dose of the brandy to warm me up, and went on writing out the will.

When I had finished I said:

“‘How about signing this? We need another witness to make it legal.’

“She said, ‘My servant must be here in a minute or two. I can’t think what has happened to her.’

“‘I expect she has missed her way in the fog,’ I said. ‘However, I will wait a little longer. I can’t go and leave you like this.’

“She thanked me feebly, and we sat for some time in silence. As time went on, I began to feel the situation to be increasingly uncanny. The sick woman breathed heavily, and moaned from time to time. The desire for sleep overpowered me more and more. I couldn’t understand it.

“Presently it occurred to me, stupified though I felt, that the most sensible thing would be to get the taxi-man- if he was still there- to come in and witness the will with me, and then to go myself to find a doctor. I sat, sleepily revolving this in my mind, and trying to summon energy to speak. I felt as though a great weight of inertia was pressing down upon me. Exertion of any kind seemed almost beyond my powers.”

“Suddenly something happened which brought me back to myself. Mrs. Mead turned a little over upon the couch and peered at me intently, as it seemed, in the lamplight. To support herself, she put both her hands on the edge of the table. I noticed, with a vague sense of something unexpected, that the left hand bore no wedding-ring. And then I noticed something else.

“Across the back of the fingers of the right hand went a curious scar-as though a chisel or some such thing had slipped and cut them.”

Parker sat upright in his chair.

“Yes,” said Mr. Trigg, “that interests you. It startled me. Or rather, startled isn’t quite the word. In my oppressed state it affected me like some kind of nightmare. I struggled upright in my chair, and the woman sank back upon her pillows.

“At that moment there came a violent ring at the bell.”

“The servant?”

“No, thank Heaven it was my taxi-driver, who had become tired of waiting. I thought-I don’t quite know what I thought-but I was alarmed. I gave some kind of shout or groan, and the man came straight in. Happily, I had left the door open as I found it.

“I pulled myself together sufficiently to ask him to witness the will. I must have looked queer and spoken in a strange way, for I remember how he looked from me to the brandy bottle. However, he signed the paper after Mrs. Mead, who wrote her name in a weak, straggling hand as she lay on her back.

“ ‘Wot next, guv’nor?’ asked the man, when this was done.

“I was feeling dreadfully ill by now. I could only say, ‘Take me home.’

“He looked at Mrs. Mead and then at me, and said, ‘Ain’t there nobody to see to the lady, sir?’

“I said, ‘Fetch a doctor. But take me home first.’

“I stumbled out of the house on his arm. I heard him muttering something about it’s being a rum start. I don’t remember the drive home. When I came back to life, I was in my own bed, and one of the local doctors was standing over me.

“I’m afraid this story is getting very long and tedious. To cut matters short, it seems the taxi-driver, who was a very decent, intelligent fellow, had found me completely insensible at the end of the drive. He didn’t know who I was, but he hunted in my pocket and found my visiting-card and my latchkey. He took me home, got me upstairs and, deciding that if I was drunk, I was a worse drunk than he had ever encountered in his experience, humanely went round and fetched a doctor.

“The doctor’s opinion was that I had been heavily drugged with veronal or something of that kind. Fortunately, if the idea was to murder me, the dose had been very much under-estimated. We went into the matter thoroughly, and the upshot was that I must have taken about 30 grains of the stuff. It appears that it is a difficult drug to trace by analysis, but that was the conclusion the doctor came to, looking at the matter all round. Undoubtedly the brandy had been doped.

Of course we went round to look at the house next day. It was all shut up, and the local milkman informed us that the occupiers had been away for a week and were not expected home for another ten days. We got into communication with them, but they appeared to be perfectly ordinary people, and they declared they knew nothing whatever about it. They were accustomed to go away every so often, just shutting the house and not bothering about a caretaker or anything. The man came along at once, naturally, to investigate matters, but couldn’t find that anything had been stolen or disturbed, except that a pair of sheets and some pillows showed signs of use, and a scuttle of coal had been used in the sitting-room. The coal-cellar, which also contained the electric meter, had been left locked and the meter turned off before the family left- they apparently had a few grains of sense-which accounts for the chill darkness of the house when I entered it. The visitor had apparently slipped back the catch of the pantry window- one of the usual gimcrack affairs- with a knife or something, and had brought her own lamp, siphon and brandy. Daring, but not really difficult.

“No Mrs. Mead or Miss Grant was to be heard of anywhere, as I needn’t tell you. The tenants of the house were not keen to start expensive inquiries- after all, they’d lost nothing but a shilling’s worth of coals- and on consideration, and seeing that I hadn’t actually been murdered or anything, I thought it best to let the matter slide. It was a most unpleasant adventure.”

“I’m sure it was. Did you ever hear from Miss Grant again?”

“Why, yes. She rang me up twice- once, after three months, and again only a fortnight ago, asking for an appointment. You may think me cowardly, Mr. Parker, but each time I put her off. I didn’t quite know what might happen. As a matter of fact, the opinion I formed in my own mind was that I had been entrapped into that house with the idea of making me spend the night there and afterwards blackmailing me. That was the only explanation I could think of which would account for the sleeping-draught. I thought discretion was the better part of valour, and gave my clerks and my housekeeper instructions that if Miss Grant should call at any time I was out and not expected back.”

“H’m. Do you suppose she knew you had recognized the scar on her hand?”

“I’m sure she didn’t. Otherwise she would hardly have made advances to me in her own name again.”

“No, I think you are right. Well, Mr. Trigg, I am much obliged to you for this information, which may turn out to be very valuable. And if Miss Grant should ring you up again- where did she call from, by the way?”

“From call-boxes, each time. I know that, because the operator always one when the call is from a public box. I didn’t have the calls traced.”

“No, of course not. Well, if she does it again, will you please make an appointment with her, and then let me know about it at once? A call to Scotland Yard will always find me.”

Mr. Trigg promised that he would do this, and Parker took his leave.

“And now we know,” thought Parker as he returned home, “that somebody- an odd unscrupulous somebody- was making inquiries about great-nieces in 1925. A word to Miss Climpson, I fancy, is indicated- just to find out whether Mary Whittaker has a scar on her right hand, or whether I’ve got to hunt up any more solicitors.”

The hot streets seemed less oppressively oven-like than before. In fact, Parker was so cheered by his interview that he actually bestowed a cigarette-card upon the next urchin who accosted him.