Whose Body (20 page)

“In fact, it struck Tommy Pringle and his friend that this was something a little out of the way in a workhouse subject?”

“Yes.”

“And if the alimentary canal was so entertaining to these gentlemen I imagine the subject had come by his death shortly after a full meal.”

“Yes—oh, yes—he'd have had to, wouldn't he?”

“Well, I don't know,” said Lord Peter. “That's in your department, you know. That would be your inference, from what they said.”

“Oh, yes. Undoubtedly.”

“Yes; you wouldn't, for example, expect them to make that observation if the patient had been ill for a long time and fed on slops.”

“Of course not.”

“Well, you see, you really know a lot about it. On Tuesday week you were dissecting the arm muscles of a rheumatic middle-aged Jew, of sedentary habits, who had died shortly after eating a heavy meal, of some injury producing spinal hæmorrhage and nervous lesions, and so forth, and who was presumed to come from the workhouse?”

“Yes.”

“And you could swear to those facts, if need were?”

“Well, if you put it that way, I suppose I could.”

“Of course you could.”

Mr. Piggott sat for some moments in contemplation.

“I say,” he said at last, “I did know all that, didn't I?”

“Oh, yes—you knew it all right—like Socrates' slave.”

“Who's he?”

“A person in a book I used to read as a boy.”

“Oh—does he come in
The Last Days of Pompeii
?”

“No—another book—I daresay you escaped it. It's rather dull.”

“I never read much except Henty and Fenimore Cooper at school.... But—have I got rather an extra good memory, then?”

“You have a better memory than you credit yourself with.”

“Then why can't I remember all the medical stuff? It all goes out of my head like a sieve.”

“Well, why can't you?” said Lord Peter, standing on the hearthrug and smiling down at his guest.

“Well,” said the young man, “the chaps who examine one don't ask the same sort of questions you do.”

“No?”

“No—they leave you to remember all by yourself. And it's beastly hard. Nothing to catch hold of, don't you know? But, I say—how did you know about Tommy Pringle being the funny man and——”

“I didn't, till you told me.”

“No; I know. But how did you know he'd be there if you did ask? I mean to say—I say,” said Mr. Piggott, who was becoming mellowed by influences themselves not unconnected with the alimentary canal—“I say, are you rather clever, or am I rather stupid?”

“No, no,” said Lord Peter, “it's me. I'm always askin' such stupid questions, everybody thinks I must mean somethin' by 'em.”

This was too involved for Mr. Piggott.

“Never mind,” said Parker, soothingly, “he's always like that. You mustn't take any notice. He can't help it. It's premature senile decay, often observed in the families of hereditary legislators. Go away, Wimsey, and play us the
Beggar's Opera
, or something.”

“That's good enough, isn't it?” said Lord Peter, when the happy Mr. Piggott had been despatched home after a really delightful evening.

“I'm afraid so,” said Parker. “But it seems almost incredible.”

“There's nothing incredible in human nature,” said Lord Peter; “at least, in educated human nature. Have you got that exhumation order?”

“I shall have it to-morrow. I thought of fixing up with the workhouse people for to-morrow afternoon. I shall have to go and see them first.”

“Right you are; I'll let my mother know.”

“I begin to feel like you, Wimsey, I don't like this job.”

“I like it a deal better than I did.”

“You are really certain we're not making a mistake?”

Lord Peter had strolled across to the window. The curtain was not perfectly drawn, and he stood gazing out through the gap into lighted Piccadilly. At this he turned round:

“If we are,” he said, “we shall know to-morrow, and no harm will have been done. But I rather think you will receive a certain amount of confirmation on your way home. Look here, Parker, d'you know, if I were you I'd spend the night here. There's a spare bedroom; I can easily put you up.”

Parker stared at him.

“Do you mean—I'm likely to be attacked?”

“I think it very likely indeed.”

“Is there anybody in the street?”

“Not now; there was half an hour ago.”

“When Piggott left?”

“Yes.”

“I say—I hope the boy is in no danger.”

“That's what I went down to see. I don't think so. Fact is, I don't suppose anybody would imagine we'd exactly made a confidant of Piggott. But I think you and I are in danger. You'll stay?”

“I'm damned if I will, Wimsey; why should I run away?”

“Bosh!” said Peter, “you'd run away all right if you believed me, and why not? You don't believe me. In fact, you're still not certain I'm on the right tack. Go in peace, but don't say I didn't warn you.”

“I won't; I'll dictate a message with my dying breath to say I was convinced.”

“Well, don't walk—take a taxi.”

“Very well, I'll do that.”

“And don't let anybody else get into it.”

“No.”

It was a raw, unpleasant night. A taxi deposited a load of people returning from the theatre at the block of flats next door, and Parker secured it for himself. He was just giving the address to the driver, when a man came hastily running up from a side street. He was in evening dress and an overcoat. He rushed up, signalling frantically.

“Sir—sir!—dear me! why, it's Mr. Parker! How fortunate! If you would be so kind—summoned from the club—a sick friend—can't find a taxi—everybody going home from the theatre—if I might share your cab—you are returning to Bloomsbury? I want Russell Square—if I might presume—a matter of life and death.”

He spoke in hurried gasps, as though he had been running violently and far. Parker promptly stepped out of the taxi.

“Delighted to be of service to you, Sir Julian,” he said; “take my taxi. I am going down to Craven Street myself, but I'm in no hurry. Pray make use of the cab.”

“It's extremely kind of you,” said the surgeon. “I am ashamed——”

“That's all right,” said Parker, cheerily. “I can wait.” He assisted Freke into the taxi. “What number? 24 Russell Square, driver, and look sharp.”

The taxi drove off. Parker remounted the stairs and rang Lord Peter's bell.

“Thanks, old man,” he said. “I'll stop the night, after all.”

“Come in,” said Wimsey.

“Did you see that?” asked Parker.

“I saw something. What happened exactly?”

Parker told his story. “Frankly,” he said, “I've been thinking you a bit mad, but now I'm not quite so sure of it.”

Peter laughed.

“Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. Bunter, Mr. Parker will stay the night.”

“Look here, Wimsey, let's have another look at this business. Where's that letter?”

Lord Peter produced Bunter's essay in dialogue. Parker studied it for a short time in silence.

“You know, Wimsey. I'm as full of objections to this idea as an egg is of meat.”

“So'm I, old son. That's why I want to dig up our Chelsea pauper. But trot out your objections.”

“Well——”

“Well, look here, I don't pretend to be able to fill in all the blanks myself. But here we have two mysterious occurrences in one night, and a complete chain connecting the one with another through one particular person. It's beastly, but it's not unthinkable.”

“Yes, I know all that. But there are one or two quite definite stumbling-blocks.”

“Yes, I know. But, see here. On the one hand, Levy disappeared after being last seen looking for Prince of Wales Road at nine o'clock. At eight next morning a dead man, not unlike him in general outline, is discovered in a bath in Queen Caroline Mansions. Levy, by Freke's own admission, was going to see Freke. By information received from Chelsea workhouse a dead man, answering to the description of the Battersea corpse in its natural state, was delivered that same day to Freke. We have Levy with a past, and no future, as it were; an unknown vagrant with a future (in the cemetery) and no past, and Freke stands between their future and their past.”

“That looks all right——”

“Yes. Now, further: Freke has a motive for getting rid of Levy—an old jealousy.”

“Very old—and not much of a motive.”

“People have been known to do that sort of thing.
[4]
You're thinking that people don't keep up old jealousies for twenty years or so. Perhaps not. Not just primitive, brute jealousy. That means a word and a blow. But the thing that rankles is hurt vanity. That sticks. Humiliation. And we've all got a sore spot we don't like to have touched. I've got it. You've got it. Some blighter said hell knew no fury like a woman scorned.

“Stickin' it on to women, poor devils. Sex is every man's loco spot—you needn't fidget, you know it's true—he'll take a disappointment, but not a humiliation. I knew a man once who'd been turned down—not too charitably—by a girl he was engaged to. He spoke quite decently about her. I asked what had become of her. 'Oh,' he said, 'she married the other fellow,' And then burst out—couldn't help himself. 'Lord, yes!' he cried. 'To think of it—jilted for a Scotchman!' I don't know why he didn't like Scots, but that was what got him on the raw. Look at Freke. I've read his books. His attacks on his antagonists are savage. And he's a scientist. Yet he can't bear opposition, even in his work, which is where any first-class man is most sane and open-minded. Do you think he's a man to take a beating from any man on a side-issue? On a man's most sensitive side-issue? People are opinionated about side-issues, you know. I see red if anybody questions my judgment about a book. And Levy—who was nobody twenty years ago—romps in and carries off Freke's girl from under his nose. It isn't the girl Freke would bother about—it's having his aristocratic nose put out of joint by a little Jewish nobody.

“There's another thing. Freke's got another side-issue. He likes crime. In that criminology book of his he gloats over a hardened murderer. I've read it, and I've seen the admiration simply glaring out between the lines whenever he writes about a callous and successful criminal. He reserves his contempt for the victims or the penitents or the men who lose their heads and get found out. His heroes are Edmond de la Pommerais, who persuaded his mistress into becoming an accessory to her own murder, and George Joseph Smith of Brides-in-a-bath fame, who could make passionate love to his wife in the night and carry out his plot to murder her in the morning. After all, he thinks conscience is a sort of vermiform appendix. Chop it out and you'll feel all the better. Freke isn't troubled by the usual conscientious deterrent. Witness his own hand in his books. Now again. The man who went to Levy's house in his place knew the house: Freke knew the house; he was a red-haired man, smaller than Levy, but not much smaller, since he could wear his clothes without appearing ludicrous: you have seen Freke—you know his height—about five-foot-eleven, I suppose, and his auburn mane; he probably wore surgical gloves: Freke is a surgeon; he was a methodical and daring man: surgeons are obliged to be both daring and methodical. Now take the other side. The man who got hold of the Battersea corpse had to have access to dead bodies. Freke obviously had access to dead bodies. He had to be cool and quick and callous about handling a dead body. Surgeons are all that. He had to be a strong man to carry the body across the roofs and dump it in at Thipps's window. Freke is a powerful man and a member of the Alpine Club. He probably wore surgical gloves and he let the body down from the roof with a surgical bandage. This points to a surgeon again. He undoubtedly lived in the neighbourhood. Freke lives next door. The girl you interviewed heard a bump on the roof of the end house. That is the house next to Freke's. Every time we look at Freke, he leads somewhere, whereas Milligan and Thipps and Crimplesham and all the other people we've honoured with our suspicion simply led nowhere.”

“Yes; but it's not quite so simple as you make out. What was Levy doing in that surreptitious way at Freke's on Monday night?”

“Well, you have Freke's explanation.”

“Rot, Wimsey. You said yourself it wouldn't do.”

“Excellent. It won't do. Therefore Freke was lying. Why should he lie about it, unless he has some object in hiding the truth?”

“Well, but why mention it at all?”

“Because Levy, contrary to all expectation, had been seen at the corner of the road. That was a nasty accident for Freke. He thought it best to be beforehand with an explanation—of sorts. He reckoned, of course, on nobody's ever connecting Levy with Battersea Park.”

“Well, then, we come back to the first question: Why did Levy go there?”

“I don't know, but he was got there somehow. Why did Freke buy all those Peruvian Oil shares?”

“I don't know,” said Parker in his turn.

“Anyway,” went on Wimsey, “Freke expected him, and made arrangements to let him in himself, so that Cummings shouldn't see who the caller was.”

“But the caller left again at ten.”

“Oh, Charles! I did not expect this of you. This is the purest Suggery. Who saw him go? Somebody said 'Good-night' and walked away down the street. And you believe it was Levy because Freke didn't go out of his way to explain that it wasn't.”

“D'you mean that Freke walked cheerfully out of the house to Park Lane, and left Levy behind—dead or alive—for Cummings to find?”

“We have Cummings's word that he did nothing of the sort. A few minutes after the steps walked away from the house, Freke rang the library bell and told Cummings to shut up for the night.”

“Then——”

“Well—there's a side door to the house, I suppose—in fact, you know there is—Cummings said so—through the hospital.”

“Yes—well, where was Levy?”

“Levy went up into the library and never came down. You've been in Freke's library. Where would you have put him?”

“In my bedroom next door.”

“Then that's where he did put him.”

“But suppose the man went in to turn down the bed?”

“Beds are turned down by the housekeeper, earlier than ten o'clock.”