"Party traced London; seen Marylebone Friday. Further information from Scotland Yard.—Police-Superintendent Gosling, Ripley."
"Party traced London; seen Marylebone Friday. Further information from Scotland Yard.—Police-Superintendent Gosling, Ripley."
"Good egg!" cried Wimsey. "Now we're gettin' down to it. Stay here, there's a good man, in case anything turns up. I'll run round to the Yard now. They'll send you up dinner, and tell Bunter to give you a bottle of the Chateau Yquem—it's rather decent. So long."
He leapt out of the flat, and a moment later his taxi buzzed away up Piccadilly.
He is dead, and by my hand. It were better that I were dead myself, for the guilty wretch I am.
ADVENTURES OF SEXTON BLAKE
Hour after hour Mr. Parker sat waiting for his friend's return. Again and again he went over the Riddlesdale Case, checking his notes here, amplifying them there, involving his tired brain in speculations of the most fantastic kind. He wandered about the room, taking down here and there a book from the shelves, strumming a few unskillful bars upon the piano, glancing through the weeklies, fidgeting restlessly. At length he selected a volume from the criminological section of the bookshelves, and forced himself to read with attention that most fascinating and dramatic of poison trials—the Seddon Case. Gradually the mystery gripped him, as it invariably did, and it was with a start of astonishment that he looked up at a long and vigorous whirring of the doorbell, to find that it was already long past midnight.
His first thought was that Wimsey must have left his latchkey behind, and he was preparing a facetious greeting when the door opened—exactly as in the beginning of a Sherlock Holmes story—to admit a tall and beautiful young woman, in an extreme state of nervous agitation, with a halo of golden hair, violet-blue eyes, and disordered apparel all complete; for as she threw back her heavy traveling-coat he observed that she wore evening dress, with light green silk stockings and heavy brogue shoes thickly covered with mud.
"His lordship has not yet returned, my lady," said Mr. Bunter, "but Mr. Parker is here waiting for him, and we are expecting him at any minute now. Will your ladyship take anything?"
"No, no," said the vision hastily, "nothing, thanks. I'll wait. Good evening, Mr. Parker. Where's Peter?"
"He has been called out, Lady Mary," said Parker. "I can't think why he isn't back yet. Do sit down."
"Where did he go?"
"To Scotland Yard—but that was about six o'clock. I can't imagine—"
Lady Mary made a gesture of despair.
"I knew it. Oh, Mr. Parker, what am I to do?"
Mr. Parker was speechless.
"Imustsee Peter," cried Lady Mary. "It's a matter of life and death. Can't you send for him?"
"But I don't know where he is," said Parker. "Please, Lady Mary—"
"He's doing something dreadful—he's allwrong," cried the young woman, wringing her hands with desperate vehemence. "I must see him—tell him—Oh! did anybody ever get into such dreadful trouble! I—oh!—"
Here the lady laughed loudly and burst into tears.
"Lady Mary—I beg you—please don't," cried Mr. Parker anxiously, with a strong feeling that he was being incompetent and rather ridiculous. "Please sit down. Drink a glass of wine. You'll be ill if you cry like that. If it is crying," he added dubiously to himself. "Itsoundslike hiccups. Bunter!"
Mr. Bunter was not far off. In fact, he was just outside the door with a small tray. With a respectful "Allow me, sir," he stepped forward to the writhing Lady Mary and presented a small phial to her nose. The effect was startling. The patient gave two or three fearful whoops, and sat up, erect and furious.
"Howdareyou, Bunter!" said Lady Mary. "Go away at once!"
"Your ladyship had better take a drop of brandy," said Mr. Bunter, replacing the stopper in the smelling-bottle, but not before Parker had caught the pungent reek of ammonia. "This is the 1800 Napoleon brandy my lady. Please don't snort so, if I may make the suggestion. His lordship would be greatly distressed to think that any of it should be wasted. Did your ladyship dine on the way up? No? Most unwise, my lady, to undertake a long journey on a vacant interior. I will take the liberty of sending in an omelette for your ladyship. Perhaps you would like a little snack of something yourself, sir, as it is getting late?"
"Anything you like," said Mr. Parker, waving him off hurriedly. "Now, Lady Mary, you're feeling better, aren't you? Let me help you off with your coat."
No more of an exciting nature was said until the omelette was disposed of, and Lady Mary comfortably settled on the Chesterfield. She had by now recovered her poise. Looking at her, Parker noticed how her recent illness (however produced) had left its mark upon her. Her complexion had nothing of the brilliance which he remembered; she looked strained and white, with purple hollows under her eyes.
"I am sorry I was so foolish just now, Mr. Parker," she said, looking into his eyes with a charming frankness and confidence, "but I was dreadfully distressed, and I came up from Riddlesdale so hurriedly."
"Not at all," said Parker meaninglessly. "Is there anything I can do in your brother's absence?"
"I suppose you and Peter do everything together?"
"I think I may say that neither of us knows anything about this investigation which he has not communicated to the other."
"If I tell you, it's the same thing?"
"Exactly the same thing. If you can bring yourself to honor me with your confidence—"
"Wait a minute, Mr. Parker. I'm in a difficult position. I don't quite know what I ought—Can you tell me just how far you've got—what you have discovered?"
Mr. Parker was a little taken aback. Although the face of Lady Mary had been haunting his imagination ever since the inquest, and although the agitation of his feelings had risen to boiling-point during this romantic interview, the official instinct of caution had not wholly deserted him. Holding, as he did, proofs of Lady Mary's complicity in the crime, whatever it was, he was not so far gone as to fling all his cards on the table.
"I'm afraid," he said, "that I can't quite tell you that. You see, so much of what we've got is only suspicion as yet. I might accidentally do great mischief to an innocent person."
"Ah! You definitely suspect somebody, then?"
"Indefinitely would be a better word for it," said Mr. Parker with a smile. "But if you have anything to tell us which may throw light on the matter, I beg you to speak. We may be suspecting a totally wrong person."
"I shouldn't be surprised," said Lady Mary, with a sharp, nervous little laugh. Her hand strayed to the table and began pleating the orange envelope into folds. "What do you want to know?" she asked suddenly, with a change of tone. Parker was conscious of a new hardness in her manner—a something braced and rigid.
He opened his note-book, and as he began his questioning his nervousness left him; the official reasserted himself.
"You were in Paris last February?"
Lady Mary assented.
"Do you recollect going with Captain Cathcart—oh! by the way, you speak French, I presume?"
"Yes, very fluently."
"As well as your brother—practically without accent?"
"Quite as well. We always had French governesses as children, and mother was very particular about it."
"I see. Well, now, do you remember going with Captain Cathcart on February 6th to a jeweller's in the Rue de la Paix and buying, or his buying for you, a tortoiseshell comb set with diamonds and a diamond-and-platinum cat with emerald eyes?"
He saw a lurking awareness come into the girl's eyes.
"Is that the cat you have been making inquiries about in Riddlesdale?" she demanded.
It being never worth while to deny the obvious, Parker replied, "Yes."
"It was found in the shrubbery, wasn't it?"
"Had you lost it? Or was it Cathcart's?"
"If I said it was his—"
"I should be ready to believe you.Wasit his?"
"No"—a long breath—"it was mine."
"When did you lose it?"
"That night."
"Where?"
"I suppose in the shrubbery. Wherever you found it. I didn't miss it till later."
"Is it the one you bought in Paris?"
"Yes."
"Why did you say before that it was not yours?"
"I was afraid."
"And now?"
"I am going to speak the truth."
Parker looked at her again. She met his eye frankly, but there was a tenseness in her manner which showed that it had cost her something to make her mind up.
"Very well," said Parker, "we shall all be glad of that, for I think there were one or two points at the inquest on which you didn't tell the truth, weren't there?"
"Yes."
"Do believe," said Parker, "that I am sorry to have to ask these questions. The terrible position in which your brother is placed—"
"In which I helped to place him."
"I don't say that."
"I do. I helped to put him in jail. Don't say I didn't, because I did."
"Well," said Parker, "don't worry. There's plenty of time to put it all right again. Shall I go on?"
"Yes."
"Well, now, Lady Mary, it wasn't true about hearing that shot at three o'clock, was it?"
"No."
"Did you hear the shot at all?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"At 11:50."
"What was it, then, Lady Mary, you hid behind the plants in the conservatory?"
"I hid nothing there."
"And in the oak chest on the landing?"
"My skirt."
"You went out—why?—to meet Cathcart?"
"Yes."
"Who was the other man?"
"What other man?"
"The other man who was in the shrubbery. A tall, fair man dressed in a Burberry?"
"There was no other man."
"Oh, pardon me, Lady Mary. We saw his footmarks all the way up from the shrubbery to the conservatory."
"It must have been some tramp. I know nothing about him."
"But we have proof that he was there—of what he did, and how he escaped. For heaven's sake, and your brother's sake, Lady Mary, tell us the truth—for that man in the Burberry was the man who shot Cathcart."
"No," said the girl, with a white face, "that is impossible."
"Why impossible?"
"I shot Denis Cathcart myself."
"So that's how the matter stands, you see, Lord Peter," said the Chief of Scotland Yard, rising from his desk with a friendly gesture of dismissal. "The man was undoubtedly seen at Marylebone on the Friday morning, and, though we have unfortunately lost him again for the moment, I have no doubt whatever that we shall lay hands on him before long. The delay has been due to the unfortunate illness of the porter Morrison, whose evidence has been so material. But we are wasting no time now."
"I'm sure I may leave it to you with every confidence, Sir Andrew," replied Wimsey, cordially shaking hands. "I'm diggin' away too; between us we ought to get somethin'—you in your small corner and I in mine, as the hymn says—or is it a hymn? I remember readin' it in a book about missionaries when I was small. Did you want to be a missionary in your youth? I did. I think most kids do some time or another, which is odd, seein' how unsatisfactory most of us turn out."
"Meanwhile," said Sir Andrew Mackenzie, "if you run across the man yourself, let us know. I would never deny your extraordinary good fortune, or it may be good judgment, in running across the criminals we may be wanting."
"If I catch the bloke," said Lord Peter, "I'll come and shriek under your windows till you let me in, if it's the middle of the night and you in your little night-shirt. And talking of night-shirts reminds me that we hope to see you down at Denver one of these days, as soon as this business is over. Mother sends kind regards, of course."
"Thanks very much," replied Sir Andrew. "I hope you feel that all is going well. I had Parker in here this morning to report, and he seemed a little dissatisfied."
"He's been doing a lot of ungrateful routine work," said Wimsey, "and being altogether the fine, sound man he always is. He's been a damn good friend to me, Sir Andrew, and it's a real privilege to be allowed to work with him. Well, so long, Chief."
He found that his interview with Sir Andrew Mackenzie had taken up a couple of hours, and that it was nearly eight o'clock. He was just trying to make up his mind where to dine when he was accosted by a cheerful young woman with bobbed red hair, dressed in a short checked skirt, brilliant jumper, corduroy jacket, and a rakish green velvet tam-o'-shanter.
"Surely," said the young woman, extending a shapely, ungloved hand, "it's Lord Peter Wimsey. How're you? And how's Mary?"
"B'Jove!" said Wimsey gallantly, "it's Miss Tarrant. How perfectly rippin' to see you again. Absolutely delightful. Thanks, Mary ain't as fit as she might be—worryin' about this murder business, y'know. You've heard that we're what the poor so kindly and tactfully call 'in trouble,' I expect, what?"
"Yes, of course," replied Miss Tarrant eagerly, "and, of course, as a good Socialist, I can't help rejoicing rather when a peer gets taken up, because it does make him look so silly, you know, and the House of Lords is silly, isn't it? But, really, I'd rather it was anybody else's brother. Mary and I were such great friends, you know, and, of course,youdo investigate things, don't you, not just live on your estates in the country and shoot birds? So I suppose that makes a difference."
"That's very kind of you," said Peter. "If you can prevail upon yourself to overlook the misfortune of my birth and my other deficiencies, p'raps you would honor me by comin' along and havin' a bit of dinner somewhere, what?"
"Oh, I'd havelovedto," cried Miss Tarrant, with enormous energy, "but I've promised to be at the club tonight. There's a meeting at nine. Mr. Coke—the Labor leader, you know—is going to make a speech about converting the Army and Navy to Communism. We expect to be raided, and there's going to be a grand hunt for spies before we begin. But look here, do come along and dine with me there, and, if you like, I'll try to smuggle you in to the meeting, and you'll be seized and turned out. I suppose I oughtn't to have told you anything about it, because you ought to be a deadly enemy, but I can't really believe you're dangerous."
"I'm just an ordinary capitalist, I expect," said Lord Peter, "highly obnoxious."
"Well, come to dinner, anyhow. Idoso want to hear all the news."
Peter reflected that the dinner at the Soviet Club would be worse than execrable, and was just preparing an excuse when it occurred to him that Miss Tarrant might be able to tell him a good many of the things that he didn't know, and really ought to know, about his own sister. Accordingly, he altered his polite refusal into a polite acceptance, and, plunging after Miss Tarrant, was led at a reckless pace and by a series of grimy short cuts into Gerrard Street, where an orange door, flanked by windows with magenta curtains, sufficiently indicated the Soviet Club.
The Soviet Club, being founded to accommodate free thinking rather than high living, had that curious amateur air which pervades all worldly institutions planned by unworldly people. Exactly why it made Lord Peter instantly think of mission teas he could not say, unless it was that all the members looked as though they cherished a purpose in life, and that the staff seemed rather sketchily trained and strongly in evidence. Wimsey reminded himself that in so democratic an institution one could hardly expect the assistants to assume that air of superiority which marks the servants in a West End club. For one thing, they would not be such capitalists. In the dining-room below the resemblance to a mission tea was increased by the exceedingly heated atmosphere, the babel of conversation, and the curious inequalities of the cutlery. Miss Tarrant secured seats at a rather crumby table near the serving-hatch, and Peter wedged himself in with some difficulty next to a very large, curly-haired man in a velvet coat, who was earnestly conversing with a thin, eager young woman in a Russian blouse, Venetian beads, a Hungarian shawl and a Spanish comb, looking like a personification of the United Front of the "Internationale."
Lord Peter endeavored to please his hostess by a question about the great Mr. Coke, but was checked by an agitated "Hush!"
"Pleasedon't shout about it," said Miss Tarrant, leaning across till her auburn mop positively tickled his eyebrows. "It'ssosecret."
"I'm awfully sorry," said Wimsey apologetically. "I say, d'you know you're dipping those jolly little beads of yours in the soup?"
"Oh, am I?" cried Miss Tarrant, withdrawing hastily. "Oh, thank you so much. Especially as the color runs. I hope it isn't arsenic or anything." Then, leaning forward again, she whispered hoarsely:
"The girl next me is Erica Heath-Warburton—the writer, you know."
Wimsey looked with a new respect at the lady in the Russian blouse. Few books were capable of calling up a blush to his cheek, but he remembered that one of Miss Heath-Warburton's had done it. The authoress was just saying impressively to her companion:
"—ever know a sincere emotion to express itself in a subordinate clause?"
"Joyce has freed us from the superstition of syntax," agreed the curly man.
"Scenes which make emotional history," said Miss Heath-Warburton, "should ideally be expressed in a series of animal squeals."
"The D. H. Lawrence formula," said the other.
"Or even Dada," said the authoress.
"We need a new notation," said the curly-haired man, putting both elbows on the table and knocking Wimsey's bread on to the floor. "Have you heard Robert Snoates recite his own verse to the tom-tom and the penny whistle?"
Lord Peter with difficulty detached his attention from this fascinating discussion to find that Miss Tarrant was saying something about Mary.
"One misses your sister very much," she said. "Her wonderful enthusiasm. She spoke so well at meetings. She had such arealsympathy with the worker."
"It seems astonishing to me," said Wimsey, "seeing Mary's never had to do a stroke of work in her life."
"Oh," cried Miss Tarrant, "but shedidwork. She worked for us. Wonderfully! She was secretary to our Propaganda Society for nearly six months. And then she worked so hard for Mr. Goyles. To say nothing of her nursing in the war. Of course, I don't approve of England's attitude in the war, but nobody would say the work wasn't hard."
"Who is Mr. Goyles?"
"Oh, one of our leading speakers—quite young, but the Government are really afraid of him. I expect he'll be here tonight. He has been lecturing in the North, but I believe he's back now."
"I say, do look out," said Peter. "Your beads are in your plate again."
"Are they? Well, perhaps they'll flavor the mutton. I'm afraid the cooking isn't very good here, but the subscription's so small, you see. I wonder Mary never told you about Mr. Goyles. They were soveryfriendly, you know, some time ago. Everybody thought she was going to marry him—but it seemed to fall through. And then your sister left town. Do you know about it?"
"That was the fellow, was it? Yes—well, my people didn't altogether see it, you know. Thought Mr. Goyles wasn't quite the son-in-law they'd take to. Family row and so on. Wasn't there myself; besides, Mary'd never listen tome. Still, that's what I gathered."
"Another instance of the absurd, old-fashioned tyranny of parents," said Miss Tarrant warmly. "You wouldn't think it could still be possible—in post-war times."
"I don't know," said Wimsey, "that you could exactly call it that. Not parents exactly. My mother's a remarkable woman. I don't think she interfered. Fact, I fancy she wanted to ask Mr. Goyles to Denver. But my brother put his foot down."
"Oh, well, what can you expect?" said Miss Tarrant scornfully. "But I don't see what business it was of his."
"Oh, none," agreed Wimsey. "Only, owin' to my late father's circumscribed ideas of what was owin' to women, my brother has the handlin' of Mary's money till she marries with his consent. I don't say it's a good plan—I think it's a rotten plan. But there it is."
"Monstrous!" said Miss Tarrant, shaking her head so angrily that she looked like shock-headed Peter. "Barbarous! Simply feudal, you know. But, after all, what's money?"
"Nothing, of course," said Peter. "But if you've been brought up to havin' it it's a bit awkward to drop it suddenly. Like baths, you know."
"I can't understand how it could have made any difference to Mary," persisted Miss Tarrant mournfully. "She liked being a worker. We once tried living in a workman's cottage for eight weeks, five of us, on eighteen shillings a week. It was amarvellousexperience—on the veryedgeof the New Forest."
"In the winter?"
"Well, no—we thought we'd better notbeginwith winter. But we had nine wet days, and the kitchen chimney smoked all the time. You see, the wood came out of the forest, so it was all damp."
"I see. It must have been uncommonly interestin'."
"It was an experience I shallneverforget," said Miss Tarrant. "One felt socloseto the earth and the primitive things. If only we could abolish industrialism. I'm afraid, though, we shall never get it put right without a 'bloody revolution,' you know. It's very terrible, of course, but salutary and inevitable. Shall we have coffee? We shall have to carry it upstairs ourselves, if you don't mind. The maids don't bring it up after dinner."
Miss Tarrant settled her bill and returned, thrusting a cup of coffee into his hand. It had already overflowed into the saucer, and as he groped his way round a screen and up a steep and twisted staircase it overflowed quite an amount more.
Emerging from the basement, they almost ran into a young man with fair hair who was hunting for letters in a dark little row of pigeon-holes. Finding nothing, he retreated into the lounge. Miss Tarrant uttered an exclamation of pleasure.
"Why, thereisMr. Goyles," she cried.
Wimsey glanced across, and at the sight of the tall, slightly stooping figure with the untidy fair hair and the gloved right hand he gave an irrepressible little gasp.
"Won't you introduce me?" he said.
"I'll fetch him," said Miss Tarrant. She made off across the lounge and addressed the young agitator, who started, looked across at Wimsey, shook his head, appeared to apologize, gave a hurried glance at his watch, and darted out by the entrance. Wimsey sprang forward in pursuit.
"Extraordinary," cried Miss Tarrant, with a blank face. "He says he has an appointment—but he can't surely be missing the—"
"Excuse me," said Peter. He dashed out, in time to perceive a dark figure retreating across the street. He gave chase. The man took to his heels, and seemed to plunge into the dark little alley which leads into the Charing Cross Road. Hurrying in pursuit, Wimsey was almost blinded by a sudden flash and smoke nearly in his face. A crashing blow on the left shoulder and a defeaning report whirled his surroundings away. He staggered violently, and collapsed on to a second-hand brass bedstead.
A man was taken to the Zoo and shown the giraffe. After gazing at it a little in silence: "I don't believe it," he said.
Parker's first impulse was to doubt his own sanity; his next, to doubt Lady Mary's. Then, as the clouds rolled away from his brain, he decided that she was merely not speaking the truth.
"Come, Lady Mary," he said encouragingly, but with an accent of reprimand as to an over-imaginative child, "you can't expect us to believe that, you know."
"But you must," said the girl gravely; "it's a fact. I shot him. I did, really. I didn't exactly mean to do it; it was a—well, a sort of accident."
Mr. Parker got up and paced about the room.
"You have put me in a terrible position, Lady Mary," he said. "You see, I'm a police-officer. I never imagined—"
"It doesn't matter," said Lady Mary. "Of course you'll have to arrest me, or detain me, or whatever you call it. That's what I came for. I'm quite ready to go quietly—that's the right expression, isn't it? I'd like to explain about it, though, first. Of course I ought to have done it long ago, but I'm afraid I lost my head. I didn't realize that Gerald would get blamed. I hoped they'd bring it in suicide. Do I make a statement to you now? Or do I do it at the police-station?"
Parker groaned.
"They won't—they won't punish me so badly if it was an accident, will they?" There was a quiver in the voice.
"No, of course not—of course not. But if only you had spoken earlier! No," said Parker, stopping suddenly short in his distracted pacing and sitting down beside her. "It's impossible—absurd." He caught the girl's hand suddenly in his own. "Nothing will convince me," he said. "It's absurd. It's not like you."
"But an accident—"
"I don't mean that—you know I don't mean that. But that you should keep silence—"
"I was afraid. I'm telling you now."
"No, no, no," cried the detective. "You're lying to me. Nobly, I know; but it's not worth it. No man could be worth it. Let him go, I implore you. Tell the truth. Don't shield this man. If he murdered Denis Cathcart—"
"No!" The girl sprang to her feet, wrenching her hand away. "There was no other man. How dare you say it or think it! I killed Denis Cathcart, I tell you, and youshallbelieve it. I swear to you that there was no other man."
Parker pulled himself together.
"Sit down, please. Lady Mary, you are determined to make this statement?"
"Yes."
"Knowing that I have no choice but to act upon it?"
"If you will not hear it I shall go straight to the police."
Parker pulled out his note-book. "Go on," he said.
With no other sign of emotion than a nervous fidgeting with her gloves, Lady Mary began her confession in a clear, hard voice, as though she were reciting it by heart.
"On the evening of Wednesday, October 13th, I went upstairs at half-past nine. I sat up writing a letter. At a quarter past ten I heard my brother and Denis quarrelling in the passage. I heard my brother call Denis a cheat, and tell him that he was never to speak to me again. I heard Denis run out. I listened for some time, but did not hear him return. At half-past eleven I became alarmed. I changed my dress and went out to try and find Denis and bring him in. I feared he might do something desperate. After some time I found him in the shrubbery. I begged him to come in. He refused, and he told me about my brother's accusation and the quarrel. I was very much horrified, of course. He said where was the good of denying anything, as Gerald was determined to ruin him, and asked me to go away and marry him and live abroad. I said I was surprised that he should suggest such a thing in the circumstances. We both became very angry. I said 'Come in now. Tomorrow you can leave by the first train.' He seemed almost crazy. He pulled out a pistol and said that he'd come to the end of things, that his life was ruined, that we were a lot of hypocrites, and that I had never cared for him, or I shouldn't have minded what he'd done. Anyway, he said, if I wouldn't come with him it was all over, and he might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb—he'd shoot me and himself. I think he was quite out of his mind. He pulled out a revolver; I caught his hand; we struggled; I got the muzzle right up against his chest, and—either I pulled the trigger or it went off of itself—I'm not clear which. It was all in such a whirl."
She paused. Parker's pen took down the words, and his face showed growing concern. Lady Mary went on:
"He wasn't quite dead. I helped him up. We struggled back nearly to the house. He fell once—"
"Why," asked Parker, "did you not leave him and run into the house to fetch help?"
Lady Mary hesitated.
"It didn't occur to me. It was a nightmare. I could only think of getting him along. I think—I think I wanted him to die."
There was a dreadful pause.
"He did die. He died at the door. I went into the conservatory and sat down. I sat for hours and tried to think. I hated him for being a cheat and a scoundrel. I'd been taken in, you see—made a fool of by a common sharper. I was glad he was dead. I must have sat there for hours without a coherent thought. It wasn't till my brother came along that I realized what I'd done, and that I might be suspected of murdering him. I was simply terrified. I made up my mind all in a moment that I'd pretend I knew nothing—that I'd heard a shot and come down. You know what I did."
"Why, Lady Mary," said Parker, in a perfectly toneless voice, "why did you say to your brother 'Good God, Gerald, you've killed him'?"
Another hesitant pause.
"I never said that. I said, 'Good God, Gerald, he's killed, then.' I never meant to suggest anything but suicide."
"You admitted to those words at the inquest?"
"Yes—" Her hands knotted the gloves into all manner of shapes. "By that time I had decided on a burglar story, you see."
The telephone bell rang, and Parker went to the instrument. A voice came thinly over the wire:
"Is that 110 Piccadilly? This is Charing Cross Hospital. A man was brought in tonight who says he is Lord Peter Wimsey. He was shot in the shoulder, and struck his head in falling. He has only just recovered consciousness. He was brought in at 9:15. No, he will probably do very well now. Yes, come round by all means."
"Peter has been shot," said Parker. "Will you come round with me to Charing Cross Hospital? They say he is in no danger; still—"
"Oh, quick!" cried Lady Mary.
Gathering up Mr. Bunter as they hurried through the hall, detective and self-accused rushed hurriedly out into Pall Mall, and, picking up a belated taxi at Hyde Park Corner, drove madly away through the deserted streets.
"—and the moral of that is—" said the Duchess.
ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
A party of four were assembled next morning at a very late breakfast, or very early lunch, in Lord Peter's flat. Its most cheerful member, despite a throbbing shoulder and a splitting headache, was undoubtedly Lord Peter himself, who lay upon the Chesterfield surrounded with cushions and carousing upon tea and toast. Having been brought home in an ambulance, he had instantly fallen into a healing sleep, and had woken at nine o'clock aggressively clear and active in mind. In consequence, Mr. Parker had been dispatched in a hurry, half-fed and burdened with the secret memory of last night's disclosures, to Scotland Yard. Here he had set in motion the proper machinery for catching Lord Peter's assassin. "Only don't you say anything about the attack on me," said his lordship. "Tell 'em he's to be detained in connection with the Riddlesdale case. That's good enough for them." It was now eleven, and Mr. Parker had returned, gloomy and hungry, and was consuming a belated omelette and a glass of claret.
Lady Mary Wimsey was hunched up in the window-seat. Her bobbed golden hair made a little blur of light about her in the pale autumn sunshine. She had made an attempt to breakfast earlier, and now sat gazing out into Piccadilly. Her first appearance that morning had been made in Lord Peter's dressing-gown, but she now wore a serge skirt and jade-green jumper, which had been brought to town for her by the fourth member of the party, now composedly eating a mixed grill and sharing the decanter with Parker.
This was a rather short, rather plump, very brisk elderly lady, with bright black eyes like a bird's, and very handsome white hair exquisitely dressed. Far from looking as though she had just taken a long night journey, she was easily the most composed and trim of the four. She was, however, annoyed, and said so at considerable length. This was the Dowager Duchess of Denver.
"It is not so much, Mary, that you went off so abruptly last night—just before dinner, too—inconveniencing and alarming us very much—indeed, poor Helen was totally unable to eat her dinner, which was extremely distressing to her feelings, because, you know, she always makes such a point of never being upset about anything—I really don't know why, for some of the greatest men have not minded showing their feelings, I don't mean Southerners necessarily, but, as Mr. Chesterton very rightly points out—Nelson, too, who was certainly English if he wasn't Irish or Scotch, I forget, but United Kingdom, anyway (if that means anything nowadays with a Free State—such a ridiculous title, especially as it always makes one think of the Orange Free State, and I'm sure they wouldn't care to be mixed up with that, being so very green themselves). And going off without even proper clothes, and taking the car, so that I had to wait till the 1:15 from Northallerton—a ridiculous time to start, and such a bad train, too, not getting up till 10:30. Besides, if youmustrun off to town, why do it in that unfinished manner? If you had only looked up the trains before starting you would have seen you would have half an hour's wait at Northallerton, and you could quite easily have packed a bag. It's so much better to do things neatly and thoroughly—even stupid things. And it was very stupid of you indeed to dash off like that, to embarrass and bore poor Mr. Parker with a lot of twaddle—though I suppose it was Peter you meant to see. You know, Peter, if you will haunt low places full of Russians and sucking Socialists taking themselves seriously, you ought to know better than to encourage them by running after them, however futile, and given to drinking coffee and writing poems with no shape to them, and generally ruining their nerves. And, in any case, it makes not the slightest difference; I could have told Peter all about it myself, if he doesn't know already, as he probably does."
Lady Mary turned very white at this and glanced at Parker, who replied rather to her than to the Dowager:
"No, Lord Peter and I haven't had time to discuss anything yet."
"Lest it should ruin my shattered nerves and bring a fever to my aching brow," added that nobleman amiably. "You're a kind, thoughtful soul, Charles, and I don't know what I should do without you. I wish that rotten old second-hand dealer had been a bit brisker about takin' in his stock-in-trade for the night, though. Perfectly 'straor'nary number of knobs there are on a brass bedstead. Saw it comin', y'know, an' couldn't stop myself. However, what's a mere brass bedstead? The great detective, though at first stunned and dizzy from his brutal treatment by the fifteen veiled assassins all armed with meat-choppers, soon regained his senses, thanks to his sound constitution and healthy manner of life. Despite the severe gassing he had endured in the underground room—eh? A telegram? Oh, thanks, Bunter."
Lord Peter appeared to read the message with great inward satisfaction, for his long lips twitched at the corners, and he tucked the slip of paper away in his pocket-book with a little sigh of satisfaction. He called to Bunter to take away the breakfast-tray and to renew the cooling bandage about his brow. This done, Lord Peter leaned back among his cushions, and with an air of malicious enjoyment launched at Mr. Parker the inquiry:
"Well, now, how did you and Mary get on last night? Polly, did you tell him you'd done the murder?"
Few things are more irritating than to discover, after you have been at great pains to spare a person some painful intelligence, that he has known it all along and is not nearly so much affected by it as he properly should be. Mr. Parker quite simply and suddenly lost his temper. He bounded to his feet, and exclaimed, without the least reason: "Oh, it's perfectly hopeless trying to do anything!"
Lady Mary sprang from the window-seat.
"Yes, I did," she said. "It's quite true. Your precious case is finished, Peter."
The Dowager said, without the least discomposure: "You must allow your brother to be the best judge of his own affairs, my dear."
"As a matter of fact," replied his lordship, "I rather fancy Polly's right. Hope so, I'm sure. Anyway, we've got the fellow, so now we shall know."
Lady Mary gave a sort of gasp, and stepped forward with her chin up and her hands tightly clenched. It caught at Parker's heart to see overwhelming catastrophe so bravely faced. The official side of him was thoroughly bewildered, but the human part ranged itself instantly in support of that gallant defiance.
"Whom have they got?" he demanded, in a voice quite unlike his own.
"The Goyles person," said Lord Peter carelessly. "Uncommon quick work, what? But since he'd no more original idea than to take the boat-train to Folkestone they didn't have much difficulty."
"It isn't true," said Lady Mary. She stamped. "It's a lie. He wasn't there. He's innocent. I killed Denis."
"Fine," thought Parker, "fine! Damn Goyles, anyway, what's he done to deserve it?"
Lord Peter said: "Mary, don't be an ass."
"Yes," said the Dowager placidly. "I was going to suggest to you, Peter, that this Mr. Goyles—such a terrible name, Mary dear, I can't say I ever cared for it, even if there had been nothing else against him—especially as he would sign himself Geo. Goyles—G. e. o. you know, Mr. Parker, for George, and I nevercouldhelp reading it as Gargoyles—I very nearly wrote to you, my dear, mentioning Mr. Goyles, and asking if you could see him in town, because there was something, when I came to think of it, about that ipecacuanha business that made me feel he might have something to do with it."
"Yes," said Peter, with a grin, "you always did find him a bit sickenin', didn't you?"
"How can you, Wimsey?" growled Parker reproachfully, with his eyes on Mary's face.
"Never mind him," said the girl. "If you can't be a gentleman, Peter—"
"Damn it all!" cried the invalid explosively. "Here's a fellow who, without the slightest provocation, plugs a bullet into my shoulder, breaks my collar-bone, brings me up head foremost on a knobbly second-hand brass bedstead and vamooses, and when, in what seems to me jolly mild, parliamentary language, I call him a sickenin' feller my own sister says I'm no gentleman. Look at me! In my own house, forced to sit here with a perfectly beastly headache, and lap up toast and tea, while you people distend and bloat yourselves on mixed grills and omelettes and a damn good vintage claret—"
"Silly boy," said the Duchess, "don't get so excited. And it's time for your medicine. Mr. Parker, kindly touch the bell."
Mr. Parker obeyed in silence. Lady Mary came slowly across, and stood looking at her brother.
"Peter," she said, "what makes you say thathedid it?"
"Did what?"
"Shot—you?" The words were only a whisper.
The entrance of Mr. Bunter at this moment with a cooling draught dissipated the tense atmosphere. Lord Peter quaffed his potion, had his pillows rearranged, submitted to have his temperature taken and his pulse counted, asked if he might not have an egg for his lunch, and lit a cigarette. Mr. Bunter retired, people distributed themselves into more comfortable chairs, and felt happier.
"Now, Polly, old girl," said Peter, "cut out the sob-stuff. I accidentally ran into this Goyles chap last night at your Soviet Club. I asked that Miss Tarrant to introduce me, but the minute Goyles heard my name, he made tracks. I rushed out after him, only meanin' to have a word with him, when the idiot stopped at the corner of Newport Court, potted me, and bunked. Silly-ass thing to do. I knew who he was. He couldn't help gettin' caught."
"Peter—" said Mary in a ghastly voice.
"Look here, Polly," said Wimsey. "I did think of you. Honest injun, I did. I haven't had the man arrested. I've made no charge at all—have I, Parker? What did you tell 'em to do when you were down at the Yard this morning?"
"To detain Goyles pending inquiries, because he was wanted as a witness in the Riddlesdale case," said Parker slowly.
"He knows nothing about it," said Mary, doggedly now. "He wasn't anywhere near. He is innocent ofthat!"
"Do you think so?" said Lord Peter gravely. "If you know he is innocent, why tell all these lies to screen him? It won't do, Mary. You know he was there—and you think he is guilty."
"No!"
"Yes," said Wimsey, grasping her with his sound hand as she shrank away. "Mary, have you thought what you are doing? You are perjuring yourself and putting Gerald in peril of his life, in order to shield from justice a man whom you suspect of murdering your lover and who has most certainly tried to murder me."
"Oh," cried Parker, in an agony, "all this interrogation is horribly irregular."
"Never mind him," said Peter. "Do you really think you're doing the right thing, Mary?"
The girl looked helplessly at her brother for a minute or two. Peter cocked up a whimsical, appealing eye from under his bandages. The defiance melted out of her face.
"I'll tell the truth," said Lady Mary.
"Good egg," said Peter, extending a hand. "I'm sorry. I know you like the fellow, and we appreciate your decision enormously. Truly, we do. Now, sail ahead, old thing, and you take it down, Parker."
"Well, it really all started years ago with George. You were at the Front then, Peter, but I suppose they told you about it—and put everything in the worst possible light."
"I wouldn't say that, dear," put in the Duchess. "I think I told Peter that your brother and I were not altogether pleased with what he had seen of the young man—which was not very much, if you remember. He invited himself down one weekend when the house was very full, and he seemed to make a point of consulting nobody's convenience but his own. And you know, dear, you even said yourself you thought he was unnecessarily rude to poor old Lord Mountweazle."
"He said what he thought," said Mary. "Of course, Lord Mountweazle, poor dear, doesn't understand that the present generation is accustomed to discuss things with its elders, not just kow-tow to them. When George gave his opinion, he thought he was just contradicting."
"To be sure," said the Dowager, "when you flatly deny everything a person says it does sound like contradiction to the uninitiated. But all I remember saying to Peter was that Mr. Goyles's manners seemed to me to lack polish, and that he showed a lack of independence in his opinions."
"A lack of independence?" said Mary, wide-eyed.
"Well, dear, I thought so. What oft was thought and frequently much better expressed, as Pope says—or was it somebody else? But the worse you express yourself these days the more profound people think you—though that's nothing new. Like Browning and those quaint metaphysical people, when you never know whether they really mean their mistress or the Established Church, so bridegroomy and biblical—to say nothing of dear S. Augustine—the Hippo man, I mean, not the one who missionized over here, though I daresay he was delightful too, and in those days I suppose they didn't have annual sales of work and tea in the parish room, so it doesn't seem quite like what we mean nowadays by missionaries—he knew all about it—you remember about that mandrake—or is that the thing you had to get a big black dog for? Manichee, that's the word. What was his name? Was it Faustus? Or am I mixing him up with the old man in the opera?"
"Well, anyway," said Mary, without stopping to disentangle the Duchess's sequence of ideas, "George was the only person I really cared about—he still is. Only it did seem so hopeless. Perhaps you didn't say much about him, mother, but Gerald saidlots—dreadful things!"
"Yes," said the Duchess, "he said what he thought. The present generation does, you know. To the uninitiated, I admit, dear, it does sound a little rude."
Peter grinned, but Mary went on unheeding.
"George had simplynomoney. He'd really given everything he had to the Labor Party one way and another, and he'd lost his job in the Ministry of Information: they found he had too much sympathy with the Socialists abroad. It was awfully unfair. Anyhow, one couldn't be a burden on him; and Gerald was a beast, and said he'd absolutely stop my allowance if I didn't send George away. So I did, but of course it didn't make a bit of difference to the way we both felt. I will say for mother she was a bit more decent. She said she'd help us if George got a job; but, as I pointed out, if George got a job we shouldn'tneedhelping!"
"But, my dear, I could hardly insult Mr. Goyles by suggesting that he should live on his mother-in-law," said the Dowager.
"Why not?" said Mary. "George doesn't believe in those old-fashioned ideas about property. Besides, if you'd given it to me, it would bemymoney. We believe in men and women being equal. Why should the one always be the bread-winner more than the other?"
"I can't imagine, dear," said the Dowager. "Still, I could hardly expect poor Mr. Goyles to live on unearned increment when he didn't believe in inherited property."
"That's a fallacy," said Mary, rather vaguely. "Anyhow," she added hastily, "that's what happened. Then, after the war, George went to Germany to study Socialism and Labor questions there, and nothing seemed any good. So when Denis Cathcart turned up, I said I'd marry him."
"Why?" asked Peter. "He never sounded to me a bit the kind of bloke for you. I mean, as far as I could make out, he was Tory and diplomatic and—well, quite crusted old tawny, so to speak, I shouldn't have thought you had an idea in common."
"No; but then he didn't care twopence whether I had any ideas or not. I made him promise he wouldn't bother me with diplomats and people, and he said no, I could do as I liked, provided I didn't compromise him. And we were to live in Paris and go our own ways and not bother. And anything was better than staying here, and marrying somebody in one's own set, and opening bazaars and watching polo and meeting the Prince of Wales. So I said I'd marry Denis, because I didn't care about him, and I'm pretty sure he didn't care a half-penny about me, and we should have left each other alone. I did so want to be left alone!"
"Was Jerry all right about your money?" inquired Peter.
"Oh, yes. He said Denis was no great catch—I do wish Gerald wasn't so vulgar, in that flat, early-Victorian way—but he said that, after George, he could only thank his stars it wasn't worse."
"Make a note of that, Charles," said Wimsey.
"Well, it seemed all right at first, but, as things went on, I got more and more depressed. Do you know, there was something a little alarming about Denis. He was so extraordinarily reserved. I know I wanted to be left alone, but—well, it was uncanny! He was correct. Even when he went off the deep end and was passionate—which didn't often happen—he was correct about it. Extraordinary. Like one of those odd French novels, you know, Peter: frightfully hot stuff, but absolutely impersonal."
"Charles, old man!" said Lord Peter.
"M'm?"
"That's important. You realize the bearing of that?"
"No."
"Never mind. Drive on, Polly."
"Aren't I making your head ache?"
"Damnably; but I like it. Do go on. I'm not sprouting a lily with anguish moist and fever-dew, or anything like that. I'm getting really thrilled. What you've just said is more illuminating than anything I've struck for a week."
"Really!" Mary stared at Peter with every trace of hostility vanished. "I thought you'd never understand that part."
"Lord!" said Peter. "Why not?"
Mary shook her head. "Well, I'd been corresponding all the time with George, and suddenly he wrote to me at the beginning of this month to say he'd come back from Germany, and had got a job on theThunderclap—the Socialist weekly, you know—at a beginning screw of £4 a week, and wouldn't I chuck these capitalists and so on, and come and be an honest working woman with him. He could get me a secretarial job on the paper. I was to type and so on for him, and help him get his articles together. And he thought between us we should make £6 or £7 a week, which would be heaps to live on. And I was getting more frightened of Denis every day. So I said I would. But I knew there'd be an awful row with Gerald. And really I was rather ashamed—the engagement had been announced and there'd be a ghastly lot of talk and people trying to persuade me. And Denis might have made things horribly uncomfortable for Gerald—he was rather that sort. So we decided the best thing to do would be just to run away and get married first, and escape the wrangling."
"Quite so," said Peter. "Besides, it would look rather well in the paper, wouldn't it? 'Peer's Daughter Weds Socialist—Romantic Side-car Elopement—"£6 a Week Plenty," says Her Ladyship.'"
"Pig!" said Lady Mary.
"Very good," said Peter, "I get you! So it was arranged that the romantic Goyles should fetch you away from Riddlesdale—why Riddlesdale? It would be twice as easy from London or Denver."
"No. For one thing he had to be up North. And everybody knows one in town, and—anyhow, we didn't want to wait."
"Besides, one would miss the Young Lochinvar touch. Well, then, why at the unearthly hour of 3 a.m.?"
"He had a meeting on Wednesday night at Northallerton. He was going to come straight on and pick me up, and run me down to town to be married by special license. We allowed ample time. George had to be at the office next day."
"I see. Well, I'll go on now, and you stop me if I'm wrong. You went up at 9:30 on Wednesday night. You packed a suit-case. You—did you think of writing any sort of letter to comfort your sorrowing friends and relations?"
"Yes, I wrote one. But I—"
"Of course. Then you went to bed, I fancy, or, at any rate, turned the clothes back and lay down."
"Yes. I lay down. It was a good thing I did, as it happened—"
"True, you wouldn't have had much time to make the bed look probable in the morning, and we should have heard about it. By the way, Parker, when Mary confessed her sins to you last night, did you make any notes?"
"Yes," said Parker, "if you can read my shorthand."
"Quite so," said Peter. "Well, the rumpled bed disposes of your story about never having gone to bed at all, doesn't it?"
"And I thought it was such a good story!"
"Want of practice," replied her brother kindly.
"You'll do better next time. It's just as well, really, that it's so hard to tell a long, consistent lie.Didyou, as a matter of fact, hear Gerald go out at 11:30, as Pettigrew-Robinson (damn his ears!) said?"
"I fancy I did hear somebody moving about," said Mary, "but I didn't think much about it."
"Quite right," said Peter. "When I hear people movin' about the house at night, I'm much too delicate-minded to think anything at all."
"Of course," interposed the Duchess, "particularly in England, where it is so oddly improper to think. I will say for Peter that, if he can put a continental interpretation on anything, he will—so considerate of you, dear, as soon as you took to doing it in silence and not mentioning it, as you so intelligently did as a child. You were really a very observant little boy, dear."
"And still is," said Mary, smiling at Peter with surprising friendliness.
"Old bad habits die hard," said Wimsey. "To proceed. At three o'clock you went down to meet Goyles. Why did he come all the way up to the house? It would have been safer to meet him in the lane."
"I knew I couldn't get out of the lodge-gate without waking Hardraw, and so I'd have to get over the palings somewhere. I might have managed alone, but not with a heavy suit-case. So, as George would have to climb over, anyhow, we thought he'd better come and help carry the suit-case. And then we couldn't miss each other by the conservatory door. I sent him a little plan of the path."
"Was Goyles there when you got downstairs?"
"No—at least—no, I didn't see him. But there was poor Denis's body, and Gerald bending over it. My first idea was that Gerald had killed George. That's why I said, 'O God! you've killed him!" (Peter glanced across at Parker and nodded.) "Then Gerald turned him over, and I saw it was Denis—and then I'm sure I heard something moving a long way off in the shrubbery—a noise like twigs snapping—and it suddenly came over me, where was George? Oh, Peter, I saw everything then, so clearly. I saw that Denis must have come on George waiting there, and attacked him—I'm sure Denis must have attacked him. Probably he thought it was a burglar. Or he found out who he was and tried to drive him away. And in the struggle George must have shot him. It was awful!"
Peter patted his sister on the shoulder. "Poor kid," he said.
"I didn't know what to do," went on the girl. "I'd so awfully little time, you see. My one idea was that nobody must suspect anybody had been there. So I had quickly to invent an excuse for being there myself. I shoved my suit-case behind the cactus-plants to start with. Jerry was taken up with the body and didn't notice—you know, Jerry neverdoesnotice things till you shove them under his nose. But I knew if there'd been a shot Freddy and the Marchbankses must have heard it. So I pretended I'd heard it too, and rushed down to look for burglars. It was a bit lame, but the best thing I could think of. Gerald sent me up to alarm the house, and I had the story all ready by the time I reached the landing. Oh, and I was quite proud of myself for not forgetting the suit-case!"
"You dumped it into the chest," said Peter.
"Yes. I had a horrible shock the other morning when I found you looking in."
"Nothing like the shock I had when I found the silver sand there."
"Silver sand?"
"Out of the conservatory."
"Good gracious!" said Mary.
"Well, go on. You knocked up Freddy and the Pettigrew-Robinsons. Then you had to bolt into your room to destroy your farewell letter and take your clothes off."
"Yes. I'm afraid I didn't do that very naturally. But I couldn't expect anybody to believe that I went burglar-hunting in a complete set of silk undies and a carefully knotted tie with a gold safety-pin."
"No. I see your difficulty."
"It turned out quite well, too, because they were all quite ready to believe that I wanted to escape from Mrs. Pettigrew-Robinson—except Mrs. P. herself, of course."
"Yes; even Parker swallowed that, didn't you, old man?"
"Oh, quite, quite so," said Parker gloomily.
"I made a dreadful mistake about that shot," resumed Lady Mary. "You see, I explained it all so elaborately—and then I found that nobody had heard a shot at all. And afterwards they discovered that it had all happened in the shrubbery—and the time wasn't right, either. Then at the inquest Ihadto stick to my story—and it got to look worse and worse—and then they put the blame on Gerald. In my wildest moments I'd never thought of that. Of course, I see now how my wretched evidence helped."
"Hence the ipecacuanha," said Peter.
"I'd got into such a frightful tangle," said poor Lady Mary, "I thought I had better shut up altogether for fear of making things still worse."
"And did you still think Goyles had done it?"
"I—I didn't know what to think," said the girl. "I don't know. Peter, who elsecouldhave done it?"
"Honestly, old thing," said his lordship, "if he didn't do it, I don't know who did."
"He ran away, you see," said Lady Mary.
"He seems rather good at shootin' and runnin' away," said Peter grimly.
"If he hadn't done that to you," said Mary slowly, "I'd never have told you. I'd have died first. But of course, with his revolutionary doctrines—and when you think of red Russia and all the blood spilt in riots and insurrections and things—I suppose it does teach a contempt for human life."
"My dear," said the Duchess, "it seems to me that Mr. Goyles shows no especial contempt for his own life. You must try to look at the thing fairly. Shooting people and running away is not very heroic—according toourstandards."
"The thing I don't understand," struck in Wimsey hurriedly, "is how Gerald's revolver got into the shrubbery."
"The thingIshould like to know about," said the Duchess, "is, was Denis really a card-sharper?"
"The thingIshould like to know about," said Parker, "is the green-eyed cat."
"Denisnevergave me a cat," said Mary. "That was a tarradiddle."
"Were you ever in a jeweler's with him in the Rue de la Paix?"
"Oh, yes; heaps of times. And he gave me a diamond and tortoiseshell comb. But never a cat."
"Then we may disregard the whole of last night's elaborate confession," said Lord Peter, looking through Parker's notes, with a smile. "It's really not bad, Polly, not bad at all. You've quite a talent for romantic fiction—no, I mean it! Just here and there you need more attention to detail. For instance, youcouldn'thave dragged that badly wounded man all up the path to the house without getting blood all over your coat, you know. By the way, did Goyles know Cathcart at all?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"Because Parker and I had an alternative theory, which would clear Goyles from the worst part of the charge, anyhow. Tell her, old man; it was your idea."
Thus urged, Parker outlined the blackmail and suicide theory.
"That sounds plausible," said Mary—"academically speaking, I mean; but it isn't a bit like George—I mean, blackmail is sobeastly, isn't it?"
"Well," said Peter, "I think the best thing is to go and see Goyles. Whatever the key to Wednesday night's riddle is, he holds it. Parker, old man, we're nearing the end of the chase."