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, Idon’tsee, 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—shealways ’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.”
“Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.”Brillat-Savarin
“Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.”
Brillat-Savarin
“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. Ididhave 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.Goodafternoon. 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.”
“Society is at the mercy of a murderer who is remorseless,who takes no accomplices and who keeps his head.”Edmund Pearson,Murder at Smutty Nose
“Society is at the mercy of a murderer who is remorseless,
who takes no accomplices and who keeps his head.”
Edmund Pearson,Murder at Smutty Nose
Letter from Miss Alexandra Katherine Climpson to Lord Peter Wimsey.
“Fair View,”Nelson Avenue,Leahampton.12 May, 1927.My dear Lord Peter,I have notyetbeen able to getALLthe information you ask for, as Miss Whittaker has been away for some weeks, inspectingchicken-farms!! With a view to purchase, I mean of course, and not in anysanitary capacity(!). Ireally thinkshe means to set up farmingwith Miss Findlater, though what Miss Whittaker can see in that very gushing and reallysillyyoung woman I cannot think. However, Miss Findlater has evidently quite a “pash” (as we used to call it at school) for Miss Whittaker, and I am afraid none of us are beingflatteredby such outspoken admiration. I must say, I think it ratherunhealthy—you may remember Miss Clemence Dane’svery clever bookon the subject?—I have seen somuchof that kind of thing in my ratherWOMAN-RIDDENexistence! It has such a bad effect, as a rule, upon theweaker characterof the two—But I must not take up your time with myTWADDLE!!Miss Murgatroyd, who was quite a friend of oldMiss Dawson, however, has been able to tell me alittleabout her past life.It seems that, until five years ago, Miss Dawson lived in Warwickshire with her cousin, a Miss Clara Whittaker, Mary Whittaker’s great-aunt on thefather’sside. This Miss Clara was evidently rather a “character,” as my dear father used to call it. In her day she was considered very “advanced” andnot quite nice(!) because sherefusedseveralgood offers, cut her hair short(!!) and set up in business for herself as aHORSE-BREEDER!!! Of course,nowadays, nobody would think anything of it, butthenthe old lady—oryounglady as she was when she embarked on thisrevolutionaryproceeding, was quite aPIONEER.Agatha Dawson was a school-fellow of hers, anddeeply attachedto her. And as a result of this friendship, Agatha’ssister,Harriet, married Clara Whittaker’s brotherJames! ButAgathadid not care about marriage, any more thanClara, and the two ladies lived together in a big old house, with immense stables, in a village in Warwickshire—Crofton, I think the name was. Clara Whittaker turned out to be a remarkablygood business woman, and worked up a big connection among thehunting folkin those parts. Her hunters became quitefamous, and from a capital of a few thousand pounds with which she started she made quite afortune, and was avery rich womanbefore her death! Agatha Dawson never had anything to do with thehorseypart of the business. She was the “domestic” partner, and looked after thehouseand theservants.When Clara Whittaker died, she leftall her moneyto Agatha, passing over herown family, with whom she wasnot on very good terms—owing to the narrow-minded attitude they had taken up about her horse-dealing!! Her nephew, Charles Whittaker, who was a clergyman, and the father ofourMiss Whittaker, resented very much not getting the money, though, as he had kept up the feud in a veryun-Christianmanner, he had reallyno rightto complain, especially as Clara had built up her fortuneentirelyby her own exertions. But, of course, he inherited thebad, old-fashionedidea that womenought notto be their own mistresses, or make money for themselves, or do what they liked with their own!He and his family were the only surviving Whittaker relations, and whenhe and his wifewere killed in a motor-car accident, Miss Dawson asked Mary to leave her work as a nurse and make her home with her. So that, you see, Clara Whittaker’s money was destined tocome backto James Whittaker’s daughter in the end!! Miss Dawson made itquiteCLEARthat this was her intention, provided Mary would come andcheer the declining daysof a lonely old lady!Mary accepted, and as her aunt—or, to speak moreexactly, her great-aunt—had given up the big old Warwickshire house after Clara’s death, they lived in London for a short time and then moved to Leahampton. As you know, poor old Miss Dawson was then already suffering from theterrible diseaseof which she died, so that Mary did not have to wait very long for Clara Whittaker’s money!!I hope this information will be of someuseto you. Miss Murgatroyd did not, of course, know anything about the rest of the family, but she always understood that there wereno othersurviving relatives, either on the Whittaker or the Dawson side.When Miss Whittaker returns, I hope tosee moreof her. I enclose myaccountfor expenses up to date. I dotrustyou will not consider itextravagant. How are your money-lenders progressing? I was sorry not to see more of thosepoor womenwhose cases I investigated—their stories weresoPATHETIC!I am,Very sincerely yours,Alexandra K. Climpson.P.S.—Iforgotto say that Miss Whittaker has a little motor-car. I do not, of course, know anything about these matters, but Mrs. Budge’s maid tells me that Miss Whittaker’s maid says it is an Austin 7 (is this right?). It is grey, and the number is XX9917.
“Fair View,”Nelson Avenue,Leahampton.12 May, 1927.
My dear Lord Peter,
I have notyetbeen able to getALLthe information you ask for, as Miss Whittaker has been away for some weeks, inspectingchicken-farms!! With a view to purchase, I mean of course, and not in anysanitary capacity(!). Ireally thinkshe means to set up farmingwith Miss Findlater, though what Miss Whittaker can see in that very gushing and reallysillyyoung woman I cannot think. However, Miss Findlater has evidently quite a “pash” (as we used to call it at school) for Miss Whittaker, and I am afraid none of us are beingflatteredby such outspoken admiration. I must say, I think it ratherunhealthy—you may remember Miss Clemence Dane’svery clever bookon the subject?—I have seen somuchof that kind of thing in my ratherWOMAN-RIDDENexistence! It has such a bad effect, as a rule, upon theweaker characterof the two—But I must not take up your time with myTWADDLE!!
Miss Murgatroyd, who was quite a friend of oldMiss Dawson, however, has been able to tell me alittleabout her past life.
It seems that, until five years ago, Miss Dawson lived in Warwickshire with her cousin, a Miss Clara Whittaker, Mary Whittaker’s great-aunt on thefather’sside. This Miss Clara was evidently rather a “character,” as my dear father used to call it. In her day she was considered very “advanced” andnot quite nice(!) because sherefusedseveralgood offers, cut her hair short(!!) and set up in business for herself as aHORSE-BREEDER!!! Of course,nowadays, nobody would think anything of it, butthenthe old lady—oryounglady as she was when she embarked on thisrevolutionaryproceeding, was quite aPIONEER.
Agatha Dawson was a school-fellow of hers, anddeeply attachedto her. And as a result of this friendship, Agatha’ssister,Harriet, married Clara Whittaker’s brotherJames! ButAgathadid not care about marriage, any more thanClara, and the two ladies lived together in a big old house, with immense stables, in a village in Warwickshire—Crofton, I think the name was. Clara Whittaker turned out to be a remarkablygood business woman, and worked up a big connection among thehunting folkin those parts. Her hunters became quitefamous, and from a capital of a few thousand pounds with which she started she made quite afortune, and was avery rich womanbefore her death! Agatha Dawson never had anything to do with thehorseypart of the business. She was the “domestic” partner, and looked after thehouseand theservants.
When Clara Whittaker died, she leftall her moneyto Agatha, passing over herown family, with whom she wasnot on very good terms—owing to the narrow-minded attitude they had taken up about her horse-dealing!! Her nephew, Charles Whittaker, who was a clergyman, and the father ofourMiss Whittaker, resented very much not getting the money, though, as he had kept up the feud in a veryun-Christianmanner, he had reallyno rightto complain, especially as Clara had built up her fortuneentirelyby her own exertions. But, of course, he inherited thebad, old-fashionedidea that womenought notto be their own mistresses, or make money for themselves, or do what they liked with their own!
He and his family were the only surviving Whittaker relations, and whenhe and his wifewere killed in a motor-car accident, Miss Dawson asked Mary to leave her work as a nurse and make her home with her. So that, you see, Clara Whittaker’s money was destined tocome backto James Whittaker’s daughter in the end!! Miss Dawson made itquiteCLEARthat this was her intention, provided Mary would come andcheer the declining daysof a lonely old lady!
Mary accepted, and as her aunt—or, to speak moreexactly, her great-aunt—had given up the big old Warwickshire house after Clara’s death, they lived in London for a short time and then moved to Leahampton. As you know, poor old Miss Dawson was then already suffering from theterrible diseaseof which she died, so that Mary did not have to wait very long for Clara Whittaker’s money!!
I hope this information will be of someuseto you. Miss Murgatroyd did not, of course, know anything about the rest of the family, but she always understood that there wereno othersurviving relatives, either on the Whittaker or the Dawson side.
When Miss Whittaker returns, I hope tosee moreof her. I enclose myaccountfor expenses up to date. I dotrustyou will not consider itextravagant. How are your money-lenders progressing? I was sorry not to see more of thosepoor womenwhose cases I investigated—their stories weresoPATHETIC!
I am,Very sincerely yours,Alexandra K. Climpson.
P.S.—Iforgotto say that Miss Whittaker has a little motor-car. I do not, of course, know anything about these matters, but Mrs. Budge’s maid tells me that Miss Whittaker’s maid says it is an Austin 7 (is this right?). It is grey, and the number is XX9917.
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?”
“TheStar 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 suspecthimof 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 theNews 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.”