Other mysteries by Dorothy L. Sayers:

Busman’s Honeymoon
Clouds of Witness
The Documents in the Case
The Five Red Herrings
Gaudy Night
Hangman’s Holiday
Have His Carcase
In the Teeth of the Evidence
Lord Peter: A Collection of All the Lord Peter Wimsey Stories
Lord Peter Views the Body
Murder Must Advertise
Strong Poison
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
Whose Body?

Communicated by
Paul Austin Delagardie

I am asked by Miss Sayers to fill up certain lacunae and correct a few trifling errors of fact in her account of my nephew Peter’s career. I shall do so with pleasure. To appear publicly in print is every man’s ambition, and by acting as a kind of running footman to my nephew’s triumph I shall only be showing a modesty suitable to my advanced age.

The Wimsey family is an ancient one—too ancient, if you ask me. The only sensible thing Peter’s father ever did was to ally his exhausted stock with the vigorous French-English strain of the Delagardies. Even so, my nephew Gerald (the present Duke of Denver) is nothing but a beef-witted English squire, and my niece Mary was flighty and foolish enough till she married a policeman and settled down. Peter, I am glad to say, takes after his mother and me. True, he is all nerves and nose—but that is better than being all brawn and no brains like his father and brother, or a bundle of emotions like Gerald’s boy, Saint-George. He has at least inherited the Delagardie brains, by way of safeguard to the unfortunate Wimsey temperament.

Peter was born in 1890. His mother was being very much worried at the time by her husband’s behaviour (Denver was always tiresome, though the big scandal did not break out till the Jubilee year), and her anxieties may have affected the boy. He was a colorless shrimp of a child, very restless and mischievous, and always much too sharp for his age. He had nothing of Gerald’s robust beauty, but he developed what I can best call a kind of bodily cleverness, more skill than strength. He had a quick eye for a ball and beautiful hands for a horse. He had the devil’s own pluck, too: the intelligent sort of pluck that sees the risk before it takes it. He suffered badly from nightmares as a child. To his father’s consternation he grew up with a passion for books and music.

His early school-days were not happy. He was a fastidious child, and I suppose it was natural that his school-fellows should call him “Flimsy” and treat him as a kind of comic turn. And he might, in sheer self-protection, have accepted the position and degenerated into a mere licensed buffoon, if some games-master at Eton had not discovered that he was a brilliant natural cricketer. After that, of course, all his eccentricities were accepted as wit, and Gerald underwent the salutary shock of seeing his despised younger brother become a bigger personality than himself. By the time he reached the Sixth Form, Peter had contrived to become the fashion—athlete, scholar, arbiter elegantiarum—nec pluribus impar. Cricket had a great deal to do with it—plenty of Eton men will remember the “Great Flim” and his performance against Harrow—but I take credit to myself for introducing him to a good tailor, showing him the way about Town, and teaching him to distinguish good wine from bad. Denver bothered little about him—he had too many entanglements of his own and in addition was taken up with Gerald, who by this time was making a prize fool of himself at Oxford. As a matter of fact Peter never got on with his father, he was a ruthless young critic of the paternal misdemeanours, and his sympathy for his mother had a destructive effect upon his sense of humour.

Denver, needless to say, was the last person to tolerate his own failings in his offspring. It cost him a good deal of money to extricate Gerald from the Oxford affair, and he was willing enough to turn his other son over to me. Indeed, at the age of seventeen, Peter came to me of his own accord. He was old for his age and exceedingly reasonable, and I treated him as a man of the world. I established him in trustworthy hands in Paris, instructing him to keep his affairs upon a sound business footing and to see that they terminated with goodwill on both sides and generosity on his. He fully justified my confidence. I believe that no woman has ever found cause to complain of Peter’s treatment; and two at least of them have since married royalty (rather obscure royalties, I admit, but royalty of a sort). Here again, I insist upon my due share of the credit; however good the material one has to work upon it is ridiculous to leave any young man’s social education to chance.

The Peter of this period was really charming, very frank, modest and well-mannered, with a pretty, lively wit. In 1909 he went up with a scholarship to read History at Balliol, and here, I must confess, he became rather intolerable. The world was at his feet, and he began to give himself airs. He acquired affectations, an exaggerated Oxford manner and a monocle, and aired his opinions a good deal, both in and out of the Union, though I will do him the justice to say that he never attempted to patronise his mother or me. He was in his second year when Denver broke his neck out hunting and Gerald succeeded to the title. Gerald showed more sense of responsibility than I had expected in dealing with the estate; his worst mistake was to marry his cousin Helen, a scrawny, over-bred prude, all country from head to heel. She and Peter loathed each other cordially; but he could always take refuge with his mother at the Dower House.

And then, in his last year at Oxford, Peter fell in love with a child of seventeen and instantly forgot everything he had ever been taught. He treated that girl as if she was made of gossamer, and me as a hardened old monster of depravity who had made him unfit to touch her delicate purity. I won’t deny that they made an exquisite pair—all white and gold—a prince and princess of moonlight, people said. Moonshine would have been nearer the mark. What Peter was to do in twenty years’ time with a wife who had neither brains nor character nobody but his mother and myself ever troubled to ask, and he, of course, was completely besotted. Happily, Barbara’s parents decided that she was too young to marry; so Peter went in for his final Schools in the temper of a Sir Eglamore achieving his first dragon; laid his First-Class Honours at his lady’s feet like the dragon’s head, and settled down to a period of virtuous probation.

Then came the War. Of course the young idiot was mad to get married before he went. But his own honourable scruples made him mere wax in other people’s hands. It was pointed out to him that if he came back mutilated it would be very unfair to the girl. He hadn’t thought of that, and rushed off in a frenzy of self-abnegation to release her from the engagement. I had no hand in that; I was glad enough of the result, but I couldn’t stomach the means.

He did very well in France; he made a good officer and the men liked him. And then, if you please, he came back on leave with his captaincy in ’16, to find the girl married—to a hard-bitten rake of a Major Somebody, whom she had nursed in the V.A.D. hospital, and whose motto with women was catch ’em quick and treat ’em rough. It was pretty brutal; for the girl hadn’t had the nerve to tell Peter beforehand. They got married in a hurry when they heard he was coming home, and all he got on landing was a letter, announcing the fait accompli and reminding him that he had set her free himself.

I will say for Peter that he came straight to me and admitted that he had been a fool. “All right,” said I, “you’ve had your lesson. Don’t go and make a fool of yourself in the other direction.” So he went back to his job with (I am sure) the fixed intention of getting killed; but all he got was his majority and his D.S.O. for some recklessly good intelligence work behind the German front. In 1918 he was blown up and buried in a shell-hole near Caudry, and that left him with a bad nervous breakdown, lasting, on and off, for two years. After that, he set himself up in a flat in Piccadilly, with the man Bunter (who had been his sergeant and was, and is, devoted to him), and started out to put himself together again.

I don’t mind saying that I was prepared for almost anything. He had lost all his beautiful frankness, he shut everybody out of his confidence, including his mother and me, adopted an impenetrable frivolity of manner and a dilettante pose, and became, in fact, the complete comedian. He was wealthy and could do as he chose, and it gave me a certain amount of sardonic entertainment to watch the efforts of post-war feminine London to capture him. “It can’t,” said one solicitous matron, “be good for poor Peter to live like a hermit.” “Madam,” said I, “if he did, it wouldn’t be.” No; from that point of view he gave me no anxiety. But I could not but think it dangerous that a man of his ability should have no job to occupy his mind, and I told him so.

In 1921 came the business of the Attenbury Emeralds. That affair has never been written up, but it made a good deal of noise, even at that noisiest of periods. The trial of the thief was a series of red-hot sensations, and the biggest sensation of the bunch was when Lord Peter Wimsey walked into the witness-box as chief witness for the prosecution.

That was notoriety with a vengeance. Actually, to an experienced intelligence officer, I don’t suppose the investigation had offered any great difficulties; but a “noble sleuth” was something new in thrills. Denver was furious; personally, I didn’t mind what Peter did, provided he did something. I thought he seemed happier for the work, and I liked the Scotland Yard man he had picked up during the run of the case. Charles Parker is a quiet, sensible, well-bred fellow, and has been a good friend and brother-in-law to Peter. He has the valuable quality of being fond of people without wanting to turn them inside out.

The only trouble about Peter’s new hobby was that it had to be more than a hobby, if it was to be any hobby for a gentleman. You cannot get murderers hanged for your private entertainment. Peter’s intellect pulled him one way and his nerves another, till I began to be afraid they would pull him to pieces. At the end of every case we had the old nightmares and shell-shock over again. And then Denver, of all people—Denver, the crashing great booby, in the middle of his fulminations against Peter’s degrading and notorious police activities, must needs get himself indicted on a murder charge and stand his trial in the House of Lords, amid a blaze of publicity which made all Peter’s efforts in that direction look like damp squibs.

Peter pulled his brother out of that mess, and, to my relief, was human enough to get drunk on the strength of it. He now admits that his “hobby” is his legitimate work for society, and has developed sufficient interest in public affairs to undertake small diplomatic jobs from time to time under the Foreign Office. Of late he has become a little more ready to show his feelings, and a little less terrified of having any to show.

His latest eccentricity has been to fall in love with that girl whom he cleared of the charge of poisoning her lover. She refused to marry him, as any woman of character would. Gratitude and a humiliating inferiority complex are no foundation for matrimony; the position was false from the start. Peter had the sense, this time, to take my advice. “My boy,” said I, “what was wrong for you twenty years back is right now. It’s not the innocent young things that need gentle handling—it’s the ones that have been frightened and hurt. Begin again from the beginning—I warn you that you will need all the self-discipline you have ever learnt.”

Well, he has tried. I don’t think I have ever seen such patience. The girl has brains and character and honesty; but he has got to teach her how to take, which is far more difficult than learning to give. I think they will find one another, if they can keep their passions from running ahead of their wills. He does realise, I know, that in this case there can be no consent but free consent.

Peter is forty-five now, it is really time he was settled. As you will see, I have been one of the important formative influences in his career, and on the whole, I feel he does me credit. He is a true Delagardie, with little of the Wimseys about him except (I must be fair) that underlying sense of social responsibility which prevents the English landed gentry from being a total loss, spiritually speaking. Detective or no detective, he is a scholar and a gentleman; it will amuse me to see what sort of shot he makes at being a husband and father. I am getting an old man, and have no son of my own (that I know of); I should be glad to see Peter happy. But as his mother says, “Peter has always had everything except the things he really wanted,” and I suppose he is luckier than most.

Paul Austin Delagardie

“But if he thought the woman was being murdered—”

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

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

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

“Excuse me.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The other smiled a little grimly.

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

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

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

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

“How long ago was this?” interrupted Peter.

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

“Perfectly. Was there another nurse?”

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

“What was the niece like?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And was he ever sent for?”

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

“When was this?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The doctor had just written his new acquaintance down as an æsthete with a literary turn, looking for the ingredients of a human drama, when the man-servant re-entered.

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

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

He put the receiver down.

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

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

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

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

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

“How about the broth and the milk pudding?”

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

“And the niece?”

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

“Any difficulty?”

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

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

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

“And did you find anything?”

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

“Did you actually suspect—?”

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

“Was the analysis privately made?”

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

“And nothing came of it?”

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

“Grave?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The doctor considered a moment, then shook his head.

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

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

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

Lord Peter laughed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Certainly, my lord.”

Lord Peter drew a writing pad towards him.

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

Lord Peter wrote:

“Isn’t civilisation wonderful?”

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

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

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

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

He laughed a little self-consciously.

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

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

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

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

“Just so,” said Parker.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I think I have some,” interposed Parker.

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

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

“May I ask—?” began Parker.

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

“Of course not,” agreed Parker.

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

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

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

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

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

“That’s not a bad idea,” said Parker.

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

“‘To the Man who Made
Thousands of Superfluous Women
Happy
without Injury to their Modesty
or Exertion to Himself.’”

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

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

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

Letter from Miss Alexandra Katherine Climpson to Lord Peter Wimsey.

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

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

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

“Sometimes,” she said, guardedly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And did you?”

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

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

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

“How about the maids?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“When was that?”

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

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

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

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

An indefinable expression crossed the nurse’s face.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I know that.”

“But you think it was?”

“I do.”

“And you think she did it?”

“Yes.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He’s mad,” said Dr. Carr.

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

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

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

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

“Yes—with Mrs. Budge at Fairview.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That will be delightful,” said Miss Whittaker.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Miss Whittaker laughed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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.”

“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 man-servant 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 seen the papers?”

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

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

“What for?”

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

“Good God! Dead? How? What of?”

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

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

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

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

“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 shoe-horned himself into his seat without protest, and was more unnerved than relieved to find himself shoot suddenly ahead of the traffic—not with the bellowing roar of the ordinary racing engine, but in a smooth, uncanny silence.

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

The promise was fulfilled before their arrival at the spot where the body 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?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Well, she went off duty at the Corner House at five a week ago to-morrow, that’s Wednesday, 27th,” said Parker.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh, yes, my lord, certainly.”

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

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

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

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

Mrs. Gulliver’s voice moaned on and on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Which crime, by the way?”

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

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

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

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

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

“That’s important, anyhow.”

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

“Did you see the lady?”

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

“A service flat?”

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

“Doesn’t anybody ever see her?”

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

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

“Drives a Renault Four-seater, dark green with tapestry doings. Garages just round the corner. I’ve seen the man, and he says the car was out on the night of the 27th. Went out at 11:30. Returned about 8 the next morning.”

“How much petrol had been used?”

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

“A Bradenham ham?”

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

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

“No; I should think there was a man.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Very much.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Through a Commission Agent?”

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

“Could you remember which day it was?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“On the 26th?” she faltered. “I can’t—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Murder?”

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

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

“It was a man, then?” said Parker.

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

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

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

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

Mrs. Forrest gradually softened into a faint smile.

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

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

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

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

Mrs. Forrest shook her head.

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

“Major Lyndhurst,” put in Wimsey, plaintively.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What on earth—?” said Parker.

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

“What the devil do you want finger-prints for?”

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

“Well?”

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

“Yes?”

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

“What?”

“A hypodermic syringe!”

“Really?”

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

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

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

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

Letter from Miss Alexandra Katherine Climpson to Lord Peter Wimsey.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is she? By Jove! What boat?”

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

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

“Good heavens, no! Why should I?”

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

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

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

“I don’t see much in it.”

“No?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Isn’t it possible?”

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

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

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

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

“That sounds quite plausible.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What do you mean by abnormal crimes?”

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

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

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

Parker shrugged his shoulders.

“How can anybody answer that?”

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

“Aren’t you putting it rather high?”

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

“Well, he couldn’t prove anything.”

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

“But they were caught.”

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

Parker looked troubled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“My lord?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Very good, my lord.”

“No stick, perhaps.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

The expectant father agreed.

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

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

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

Nurse Forbes looked rather sharply at him.

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

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

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

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

Nurse Forbes primmed up her lips.

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

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

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

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

“You did? And didn’t he come, then?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“She really was afraid of that?”

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

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

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

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

“Certainly she could.”

“But she didn’t?”

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

“I see. Just you and Miss Whittaker.”

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

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

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

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

NOTE—A genealogical table is printed at the end of the book

“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 beginin’ 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 you 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 may be.”

“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 some 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 Mrs. 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. Gulliver 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 label, “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 that 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. Murbles’ 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 manœuvres 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 good 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 through 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 plausible 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 all 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 have 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 think 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 some light on the melancholy tragedy of your sister’s decease. Further than that I cannot go at the moment.”

“Well, now,” said Mrs. Cropper, “if that’s so—though, mind you, I don’t see 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 fiancée. 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 Mr. 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.”

Mr. 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 Mr. 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?”

“Oh, 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, and 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 the 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 typewriting.”

“I see. Was there a typewriter 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 back-chat. 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 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 post-mortem 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 Mr. 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.”

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 out 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 foresee 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 cloak-room 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 anybody 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 be 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 any criminal intentions.”

“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 story?”

“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 the income-tax papers, hoping she’d put her 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 very 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. Or, 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 minions—”

“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 god-forsaken spot. Let’s see.”

He unfolded the letter, which was written 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.”

“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 Brahmin to Sambo and Raustus 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 jolly 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 horsepower 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 the 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 its blank surface with a torch—a process which reminded Parker of Alan Quartermain 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 its 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 to 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 cross-roads,” 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-rendingly.

“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 hunting-looking gentlemen were enjoying a final glass before closing-time. 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, the 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, like, 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 to 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 to-morrow, sir, you’ll find Ben’s memory as 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.”

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 church-yard 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 He’ll 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 am 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 ’olesomer than tea to my mind and don’t fret the coats of the stomach.”

“I dare say 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 Guinness. 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 headgroom 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 anklebone 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, Mr. 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 alive 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 nought but a grocer or something of that—and 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 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 her 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. She 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 car, “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 Agatha 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 she 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 solicitor,” 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 wash-out,” 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 Dawson 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.”

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 at 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 takes 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 an 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 woolly, 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’s Dawson’s father. They tried, of course, to find out what 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 have 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 into 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 till 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.

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?”

“Murbles is coming round to dinner to-night, 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, a propos 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 when the interruption occurred, and was a little put out.

“I knew I’d read that sentence somewhere—you know, Charles—about 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 the claims of distant relatives, Murbles?”

“In a sense, it does,” replied the solicitor. “Not, of course, in the case of 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 making 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 a 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 Mr. 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 Mr. 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 the father and mother are both dead, then everything goes to the brothers and sisters of the whole blood who are living at the time, but if any brother or sister 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 already dead too—suppose I’d gone tediously 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 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 that 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 Mr. Murbles, “exactly 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 was 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, till 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 a very 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 the 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 at 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. Mr. Towkington, taken at a disadvantage without his authorities, and hazarding an opinion on the spur of the moment, thought that in all probability the great-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 round and see Mr. Towkington?

“Towkington has some very excellent port,” said Mr. Murbles, in a cautious aside, and clapping his hand over the mouth-piece 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. Towkington 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. Towkington, 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 to 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 awful 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 Mr. Towkington, graciously. “Before 1837—”

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

“Quite so. At the time when Queen 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 legal 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, 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’ meant ‘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 Mr. 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 tomfool 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 undesirable,” 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 Murderer’s Vade-Mecum, or 101 Ways of Causing Sudden Death. That’ll show you 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.

As Parker came out from the Chief 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 that he had practically eliminated Mrs. 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 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 Mrs. 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 that 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 Cerberus.”

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

“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 to-morrow 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 finger-prints 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

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 whisky or coffee?”

“Coffee, please.”

“The fact is,” said Mrs. Forrest, “that 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 to-day.”

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 Peter 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 worldly 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 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 round 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.