Dorothy L. Sayers - [Lord Peter Wimsey 03] (8 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Revisit the place of the crime?”

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

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

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

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

“In what way?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Cluck!” said the telephone.

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

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

“NIPPY” FOUND DEAD

IN EPPING FOREST

£5 Note in Hand-bag.

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

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

“Please,” said Parker.

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

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

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

“Haven’t you see the papers?”

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

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

“What for?”

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

“Good God! Dead? How? What of?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But what was she doing in Epping Forest?”

Sir Andrew shrugged gently.

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

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

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

Lord Peter looked unconvinced.

“How long has she been dead?”

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

“Was it out in the open?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Superintendent glanced sharply at the Scotland Yard man.

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