LORD PETER VIEWS THE BODY
By DOROTHY L. SAYERS
LONDON
VICTOR GOLLANCZ LIMITED
14 Henrietta Street Covent Garden
_First published November 1928_
_Second impression December 1928_
_Third impression (first cheap edition) October 1929_
_Fourth impression February 1930_
_Fifth impression April 1933_
_Sixth impression November 1933_
_Seventh impression September 1934_
_Eighth impression September 1935_
_Ninth impression January 1936_
_Tenth impression September 1936_
_Eleventh impression July 1937_
_Twelfth impression August 1938_
_Thirteenth impression (two shilling edition) July 1939_
_Fourteenth impression March 1940_
_Fifteenth impression November 1940_
_Sixteenth impression July 1941_
_Seventeenth impression (reset) January 1948_
_Eighteenth impression April 1949_
PRINTED AND BOUND IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES
THE STORIES
I. The Abominable History of the Man with Copper Fingers
II. The Entertaining Episode of the Article in Question
III. The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager's Will
IV. The Fantastic Horror of the Cat in the Bag
V. The Unprincipled Affair of the Practical Joker
VI. The Undignified Melodrama of the Bone of Contention
VII. The Vindictive Story of the Footsteps that Ran
VIII. The Bibulous Business of a Matter of Taste
IX. The Learned Adventure of the Dragon's Head
X. The Piscatorial Farce of the Stolen Stomach
XI. The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face
XII. The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba
THE ABOMINABLE HISTORY OF THE MAN WITH COPPER FINGERS
The Egotists' Club is one of the most genial places in London. It is a
place to which you may go when you want to tell that odd dream you had
last night, or to announce what a good dentist you have discovered.
You can write letters there if you like, and have the temperament of a
Jane Austen, for there is no silence room, and it would be a breach of
club manners to appear busy or absorbed when another member addresses
you. You must not mention golf or fish, however, and, if the Hon.
Freddy Arbuthnot's motion is carried at the next committee meeting
(and opinion so far appears very favourable), you will not be allowed
to mention wireless either. As Lord Peter Wimsey said when the matter
was mooted the other day in the smoking-room, those are things you can
talk about anywhere. Otherwise the club is not specially exclusive.
Nobody is ineligible _per se_, except strong, silent men. Nominees are,
however, required to pass certain tests, whose nature is sufficiently
indicated by the fact that a certain distinguished explorer came to
grief through accepting, and smoking, a powerful Trichinopoly cigar as
an accompaniment to a '63 port. On the other hand, dear old Sir Roger
Bunt (the coster millionaire who won the £20,000 ballot offered by the
_Sunday Shriek_, and used it to found his immense catering business
in the Midlands) was highly commended and unanimously elected after
declaring frankly that beer and a pipe were all he really cared for in
that way. As Lord Peter said again: "Nobody minds coarseness but one
must draw the line at cruelty."
On this particular evening, Masterman (the cubist poet) had brought
a guest with him, a man named Varden. Varden had started life as a
professional athlete, but a strained heart had obliged him to cut
short a brilliant career, and turn his handsome face and remarkably
beautiful body to account in the service of the cinema screen. He had
come to London from Los Angeles to stimulate publicity for his great
new film, _Marathon_, and turned out to be quite a pleasant, unspoiled
person--greatly to the relief of the club, since Masterman's guests
were apt to be something of a toss-up.
There were only eight men, including Varden, in the brown room that
evening. This, with its panelled walls, shaded lamps, and heavy
blue curtains was perhaps the cosiest and pleasantest of the small
smoking-rooms, of which the club possessed half a dozen or so. The
conversation had begun quite casually by Armstrong's relating a curious
little incident which he had witnessed that afternoon at the Temple
Station, and Bayes had gone on to say that that was nothing to the
really very odd thing which had happened to him, personally, in a
thick fog one night in the Euston Road.
Masterman said that the more secluded London squares teemed with
subjects for a writer, and instanced his own singular encounter with a
weeping woman and a dead monkey, and then Judson took up the tale and
narrated how, in a lonely suburb, late at night, he had come upon the
dead body of a woman stretched on the pavement with a knife in her side
and a policeman standing motionless near by. He had asked if he could
do anything, but the policeman had only said, "I wouldn't interfere
if I was you, sir; she deserved what she got." Judson said he had
not been able to get the incident out of his mind, and then Pettifer
told them of a queer case in his own medical practice, when a totally
unknown man had led him to a house in Bloomsbury where there was a
woman suffering from strychnine poisoning. This man had helped him in
the most intelligent manner all night, and, when the patient was out
of danger, had walked straight out of the house and never reappeared;
the odd thing being that, when he (Pettifer) questioned the woman, she
answered in great surprise that she had never seen the man in her life
and had taken him to be Pettifer's assistant.
"That reminds me," said Varden, "of something still stranger that
happened to me once in New York--I've never been able to make out
whether it was a madman or a practical joke, or whether I really had a
very narrow shave."
This sounded promising, and the guest was urged to go on with his story.
"Well, it really started ages ago," said the actor, "seven years
it must have been--just before America came into the war. I was
twenty-five at the time, and had been in the film business a little
over two years. There was a man called Eric P. Loder, pretty well known
in New York at that period, who would have been a very fine sculptor if
he hadn't had more money than was good for him, or so I understood from
the people who go in for that kind of thing. He used to exhibit a good
deal and had a lot of one-man shows of his stuff to which the highbrow
people went--he did a good many bronzes, I believe. Perhaps you know
about him, Masterman?"
"I've never seen any of his things," said the poet, "but I remember
some photographs in _The Art of To-Morrow_. Clever, but rather
overripe. Didn't he go in for a lot of that chryselephantine stuff?
Just to show he could afford to pay for the materials, I suppose."
"Yes, that sounds very like him."
"Of course--and he did a very slick and very ugly realistic group
called Lucina, and had the impudence to have it cast in solid gold and
stood in his front hall."
"Oh, that thing! Yes--simply beastly I thought it, but then I never
could see anything artistic in the idea. Realism, I suppose you'd call
it. I like a picture or a statue to make you feel good, or what's it
there for? Still, there was something very attractive about Loder."
"How did you come across him?"
"Oh, yes. Well, he saw me in that little picture of mine, _Apollo comes
to New York_--perhaps you remember it. It was my first star part. About
a statue that's brought to life--one of the old gods, you know--and how
he gets on in a modern city. Dear old Reubenssohn produced it. Now,
there was a man who could put a thing through with consummate artistry.
You couldn't find an atom of offence from beginning to end, it was all
so tasteful, though in the first part one didn't have anything to wear
except a sort of scarf--taken from the classical statue, you know."
"The Belvedere?"
"I dare say. Well. Loder wrote to me, and said as a sculptor he was
interested in me, because I was a good shape and so on, and would
I come and pay him a visit in New York when I was free. So I found
out about Loder, and decided it would be good publicity, and when my
contract was up, and I had a bit of time to fill in, I went up east and
called on him. He was very decent to me, and asked me to stay a few
weeks with him while I was looking around.
"He had a magnificent great house about five miles out of the city,
crammed full of pictures and antiques and so on. He was somewhere
between thirty-five and forty, I should think, dark and smooth, and
very quick and lively in his movements. He talked very well; seemed
to have been everywhere and have seen everything and not to have any
too good an opinion of anybody. You could sit and listen to him for
hours; he'd got anecdotes about everybody, from the Pope to old Phineas
E. Groot of the Chicago Ring. The only kind of story I didn't care
about hearing from him was the improper sort. Not that I don't enjoy
an after-dinner story--no, sir, I wouldn't like you to think I was a
prig--but he'd tell it with his eye upon you as if he suspected you of
having something to do with it. I've known women do that, and I've seen
men do it to women and seen the women squirm, but he was the only man
that's ever given me that feeling. Still, apart from that, Loder was
the most fascinating fellow I've ever known. And, as I say, his house
surely was beautiful, and he kept a first-class table.
"He liked to have everything of the best. There was his mistress, Maria
Morano. I don't think I've ever seen anything to touch her, and when
you work for the screen you're apt to have a pretty exacting standard
of female beauty. She was one of those big, slow, beautifully moving
creatures, very placid, with a slow, wide smile. We don't grow them in
the States. She'd come from the South--had been a cabaret dancer he
said, and she didn't contradict him. He was very proud of her, and she
seemed to be devoted to him in her own fashion. He'd show her off in
the studio with nothing on but a fig-leaf or so--stand her up beside
one of the figures he was always doing of her, and compare them point
by point. There was literally only one half inch of her, it seemed,
that wasn't absolutely perfect from the sculptor's point of view--the
second toe of her left foot was shorter than the big toe. He used to
correct it, of course, in the statues. She'd listen to it all with
a good-natured smile, sort of vaguely flattered, you know. Though I
think the poor girl sometimes got tired of being gloated over that way.
She'd sometimes hunt me out and confide to me that what she had always
hoped for was to run a restaurant of her own, with a cabaret show and
a great many cooks with white aprons, and lots of polished electric
cookers. 'And then I would marry,' she'd say, 'and have four sons and
one daughter,' and she told me all the names she had chosen for the
family. I thought it was rather pathetic. Loder came in at the end of
one of these conversations. He had a sort of a grin on, so I dare say
he'd overheard. I don't suppose he attached much importance to it,
which shows that he never really understood the girl. I don't think he
ever imagined any woman would chuck up the sort of life he'd accustomed
her to, and if he was a bit possessive in his manner, at least he never
gave her a rival. For all his talk and his ugly statues, she'd got him,
and she knew it.
"I stayed there getting on for a month altogether, having a thundering
good time. On two occasions Loder had an art spasm, and shut himself up
in his studio to work and wouldn't let anybody in for several days on
end. He was rather given to that sort of stunt, and when it was over we
would have a party, and all Loder's friends and hangers-on would come
to have a look at the work of art. He was doing a figure of some nymph
or goddess, I fancy, to be cast in silver, and Maria used to go along
and sit for him. Apart from those times, he went about everywhere, and
we saw all there was to be seen.
"I was fairly annoyed, I admit, when it came to an end. War was
declared, and I'd made up my mind to join up when that happened. My
heart put me out of the running for trench service, but I counted on
getting some sort of a job, with perseverance, so I packed up and went
off.
"I wouldn't have believed Loder would have been so genuinely sorry to
say good-bye to me. He said over and over again that we'd meet again
soon. However, I did get a job with the hospital people, and was sent
over to Europe, and it wasn't till 1920 that I saw Loder again.
"He'd written to me before, but I'd had two big pictures to make in
'19, and it couldn't be done. However, in '20 I found myself back in
New York, doing publicity for _The Passion Streak_, and got a note from
Loder begging me to stay with him, and saying he wanted me to sit for
him. Well, that was advertisement that he'd pay for himself, you know,
so I agreed. I had accepted an engagement to go out with Mystofilms
Ltd. in _Jake of Dead Man's Bush_--the dwarfmen picture, you know,
taken on the spot among the Australian bushmen. I wired them that I
would join them at Sydney the third week in April, and took my bags out
to Loder's.
"Loder greeted me very cordially, though I thought he looked older than
when I last saw him. He had certainly grown more nervous in his manner.
He was--how shall I describe it?--more _intense_--more real, in a way.
He brought out his pet cynicisms as if he thoroughly meant them, and
more and more with that air of getting at you personally. I used to
think his disbelief in everything was a kind of artistic pose, but I
began to feel I had done him an injustice. He was really unhappy, I
could see that quite well, and soon I discovered the reason. As we were
driving out in the car I asked after Maria.
"'She has left me,' he said.
"Well, now, you know, that really surprised me. Honestly, I hadn't
thought the girl had that much initiative. 'Why,' I said, 'has she gone
and set up in that restaurant of her own she wanted so much?'
"'Oh! she talked to you about restaurants, did she?' said Loder. 'I
suppose you are one of the men that women tell things to. No. She made
a fool of herself. She's gone.'
"I didn't quite know what to say. He was so obviously hurt in his
vanity, you know, as well as in his feelings. I muttered the usual
things, and added that it must be a great loss to his work as well as
in other ways. He said it was.
"I asked him when it had happened and whether he'd finished the nymph
he was working on before I left. He said, 'Oh, yes, he'd finished that
and done another--something pretty original, which I should like.'
"Well, we got to the house and dined, and Loder told me he was going
to Europe shortly, a few days after I left myself, in fact. The nymph
stood in the dining-room, in a special niche let into the wall. It
really was a beautiful thing, not so showy as most of Loder's work,
and a wonderful likeness of Maria. Loder put me opposite it, so that I
could see it during dinner, and, really, I could hardly take my eyes
off it. He seemed very proud of it, and kept on telling me over and
over again how glad he was that I liked it. It struck me that he was
falling into a trick of repeating himself.
"We went into the smoking-room after dinner. He'd had it rearranged,
and the first thing that caught one's eye was a big settee drawn
before the fire. It stood about a couple of feet from the ground,
and consisted of a base made like a Roman couch, with cushions and
a highish back, all made of oak with a silver inlay, and on top of
this, forming the actual seat one sat on, if you follow me, there was
a great silver figure of a nude woman, fully life-size, lying with
her head back and her arms extended along the sides of the couch. A
few big loose cushions made it possible to use the thing as an actual
settee, though I must say it never was really comfortable to sit on
respectably. As a stage prop. for registering dissipation it would
have been excellent, but to see Loder sprawling over it by his own
fireside gave me a kind of shock. He seemed very much attached to it,
though.
"'I told you,' he said, 'that it was something original.'
"Then I looked more closely at it, and saw that the figure actually was
Maria's, though the face was rather sketchily done, if you understand
what I mean. I suppose he thought a bolder treatment more suited to a
piece of furniture.
"But I did begin to think Loder a trifle degenerate when I saw that
couch. And in the fortnight that followed I grew more and more
uncomfortable with him. That personal manner of his grew more marked
every day, and sometimes, while I was giving him sittings, he would
sit there and tell one of the most beastly things, with his eyes fixed
on one in the nastiest way, just to see how one would take it. Upon my
word, though he certainly did me uncommonly well, I began to feel I'd
be more at ease among the bushmen.
"Well, now I come to the odd thing."
Everybody sat up and listened a little more eagerly.
"It was the evening before I had to leave New York," went on Varden. "I
was sitting----"
Here somebody opened the door of the brown room, to be greeted by a
warning sign from Bayes. The intruder sank obscurely into a large chair
and mixed himself a whisky with extreme care not to disturb the speaker.
"I was sitting in the smoking-room," continued Varden, "waiting for
Loder to come in. I had the house to myself, for Loder had given the
servants leave to go to some show or lecture or other, and he himself
was getting his things together for his European trip and had had to
keep an appointment with his man of business. I must have been very
nearly asleep, because it was dusk when I came to with a start and saw
a young man quite close to me.
"He wasn't at all like a housebreaker, and still less like a ghost. He
was, I might almost say, exceptionally ordinary-looking. He was dressed
in a grey English suit, with a fawn overcoat on his arm, and his soft
hat and stick in his hand. He had sleek, pale hair, and one of those
rather stupid faces, with a long nose and a monocle. I stared at him,
for I knew the front door was locked, but before I could get my wits
together he spoke. He had a curious, hesitating, husky voice and a
strong English accent. He said, surprisingly:
"'Are you Mr. Varden?'
"'You have the advantage of me,' I said.
"He said, 'Please excuse my butting in; I know it looks like bad
manners, but you'd better clear out of this place very quickly, don't
you know.'
"'What the hell do you mean?' I said.
"He said, 'I don't mean it in any impertinent way, but you must realise
that Loder's never forgiven you, and I'm afraid he means to make you
into a hat-stand or an electric-light fitting, or something of that
sort.'
"My God! I can tell you I felt queer. It was such a quiet voice, and
his manners were perfect, and yet the words were quite meaningless!
I remembered that madmen are supposed to be extra strong, and edged
towards the bell--and then it came over me with rather a chill that I
was alone in the house.
"'How did you get here?' I asked, putting a bold face on it.
"'I'm afraid I picked the lock,' he said, as casually as though he
were apologising for not having a card about him. 'I couldn't be sure
Loder hadn't come back. But I do really think you had better get out as
quickly as possible.'
"'See here,' I said, 'who are you and what the hell are you driving at?
What do you mean about Loder never forgiving me? Forgiving me what?'
"'Why,' he said, 'about--you _will_ pardon me prancing in on your
private affairs, won't you--about Maria Morano.'
"'_What_ about her, in the devil's name?' I cried. 'What do you know
about her, anyway? She went off while I was at the war. What's it to do
with me?'
"'Oh!' said the very odd young man, 'I beg your pardon. Perhaps I have
been relying too much on Loder's judgment. Damned foolish; but the
possibility of his being mistaken did not occur to me. He fancies you
were Maria Morano's lover when you were here last time.'
"'Maria's lover?' I said. 'Preposterous! She went off with her man,
whoever he was. He must know she didn't go with me.'
"'Maria never left the house,' said the young man, 'and if you don't
get out of it this moment, I won't answer for _your_ ever leaving,
either.'
"'In God's name,' I cried, exasperated, 'what do you mean?'
"The man turned and threw the blue cushions off the foot of the silver
couch.
"'Have you ever examined the toes of this?' he asked.
"'Not particularly,' I said, more and more astonished. 'Why should I?'
"'Did you ever know Loder make any figure of her but this with that
short toe on the left foot?' he went on.
"Well, I did take a look at it then, and saw it was as he said--the
left foot had a short second toe.
"'So it is,' I said, 'but, after all, why not?'
"'Why not, indeed?' said the young man. 'Wouldn't you like to see why,
of all the figures Loder made of Maria Morano, this is the only one
that has the feet of the living woman?'
"He picked up the poker.
"'Look!' he said.
"With a lot more strength than I should have expected from him,
he brought the head of the poker down with a heavy crack on the
silver couch. It struck one of the arms of the figure neatly at the
elbow-joint, smashing a jagged hole in the silver. He wrenched at the
arm and brought it away. It was hollow, and, as I am alive, I tell you
there was a long, dry arm-bone inside it!"
Varden paused, and put away a good mouthful of whisky.
"Well?" cried several breathless voices.
"Well," said Varden, "I'm not ashamed to say I went out of that house
like an old buck-rabbit that hears the man with the gun. There was a
car standing just outside, and the driver opened the door. I tumbled
in, and then it came over me that the whole thing might be a trap, and
I tumbled out again and ran till I reached the trolley-cars. But I
found my bags at the station next day, duly registered for Vancouver.
"When I pulled myself together I did rather wonder what Loder was
thinking about my disappearance, but I could no more have gone back
into that horrible house than I could have taken poison. I left for
Vancouver next morning, and from that day to this I never saw either of
those men again. I've still not the faintest idea who the fair man was,
or what became of him, but I heard in a round-about way that Loder was
dead--in some kind of an accident, I fancy."
There was a pause. Then:
"It's a damned good story, Mr. Varden," said Armstrong--he was a
dabbler in various kinds of handiwork, and was, indeed, chiefly
responsible for Mr. Arbuthnot's motion to ban wireless--"but are you
suggesting there was a complete skeleton inside that silver casting?
Do you mean Loder put it into the core of the mould when the casting
was done? It would be awfully difficult and dangerous--the slightest
accident would have put him at the mercy of his workmen. And that
statue must have been considerably over life-size to allow of the
skeleton being well covered."
"Mr. Varden has unintentionally misled you, Armstrong," said a quiet,
husky voice suddenly from the shadow behind Varden's chair. "The figure
was not silver, but electro-plated on a copper base deposited direct
on the body. The lady was Sheffield-plated, in fact. I fancy the
soft parts of her must have been digested away with pepsin, or some
preparation of the kind, after the process was complete, but I can't be
positive about that."
"Hullo, Wimsey," said Armstrong, "was that you came in just now? And
why this confident pronouncement?"
The effect of Wimsey's voice on Varden had been extraordinary. He had
leapt to his feet, and turned the lamp so as to light up Wimsey's face.
"Good evening, Mr. Varden," said Lord Peter. "I'm delighted to meet you
again and to apologise for my unceremonious behaviour on the occasion
of our last encounter."
Varden took the proffered hand, but was speechless.
"D'you mean to say, you mad mystery-monger, that _you_ were Varden's
Great Unknown?" demanded Bayes. "Ah, well," he added rudely, "we might
have guessed it from his vivid description."
"Well, since you're here," said Smith-Hartington, the _Morning Yell_
man, "I think you ought to come across with the rest of the story."
"Was it just a joke?" asked Judson.
"Of course not," interrupted Pettifer, before Lord Peter had time to
reply. "Why should it be? Wimsey's seen enough queer things not to have
to waste his time inventing them."
"That's true enough," said Bayes. "Comes of having deductive powers and
all that sort of thing, and always sticking one's nose into things that
are better not investigated."
"That's all very well, Bayes," said his lordship, "but if I hadn't just
mentioned the matter to Mr. Varden that evening, where would he be?"
"Ah, where? That's exactly what we want to know," demanded
Smith-Hartington. "Come on, Wimsey, no shirking; we must have the tale."
"And the whole tale," added Pettifer.
"And nothing but the tale," said Armstrong, dexterously whisking away
the whisky-bottle and the cigars from under Lord Peter's nose. "Get on
with it, old son. Not a smoke do you smoke and not a sup do you sip
till Burd Ellen is set free."
"Brute!" said his lordship plaintively. "As a matter of fact,"
he went on, with a change of tone, "it's not really a story I
want to get about. It might land me in a very unpleasant sort of
position--manslaughter probably, and murder possibly."
"Gosh!" said Bayes.
"That's all right," said Armstrong, "nobody's going to talk. We can't
afford to lose you from the club, you know. Smith-Hartington will have
to control his passion for copy, that's all."
Pledges of discretion having been given all round, Lord Peter settled
himself back and began his tale.
* * * * *
"The curious case of Eric P. Loder affords one more instance of the
strange manner in which some power beyond our puny human wills arranges
the affairs of men. Call it Providence--call it Destiny----"
"We'll call it off," said Bayes; "you can leave out that part."
Lord Peter groaned and began again.
"Well, the first thing that made me feel a bit inquisitive about Loder
was a casual remark by a man at the Emigration Office in New York
where I happened to go about that silly affair of Mrs. Bilt's. He said,
'What on earth is Eric Loder going to do in Australia? I should have
thought Europe was more in his line.'
"'Australia?' I said, 'you're wandering, dear old thing. He told me the
other day he was off to Italy in three weeks' time.'
"'Italy, nothing,' he said, 'he was all over our place to-day, asking
about how you got to Sydney and what were the necessary formalities,
and so on.'
"'Oh,' I said, 'I suppose he's going by the Pacific route, and calling
at Sydney on his way.' But I wondered why he hadn't said so when I'd
met him the day before. He had distinctly talked about sailing for
Europe and doing Paris before he went on to Rome.
"I felt so darned inquisitive that I went and called on Loder two
nights later.
"He seemed quite pleased to see me, and was full of his forthcoming
trip. I asked him again about his route, and he told me quite
distinctly he was going via Paris.
"Well, that was that, and it wasn't really any of my business, and we
chatted about other things. He told me that Mr. Varden was coming to
stay with him before he went, and that he hoped to get him to pose for
a figure before he left. He said he'd never seen a man so perfectly
formed. 'I meant to get him to do it before,' he said, 'but war broke
out, and he went and joined the army before I had time to start.'
"He was lolling on that beastly couch of his at the time, and,
happening to look round at him, I caught such a nasty sort of glitter
in his eye that it gave me quite a turn. He was stroking the figure
over the neck and grinning at it.
"'None of your efforts in Sheffield-plate, I hope,' said I.
"'Well,' he said, 'I thought of making a kind of companion to this,
_The Sleeping Athlete_, you know, or something of that sort.'
"'You'd much better cast it,' I said. 'Why did you put the stuff on so
thick? It destroys the fine detail.'
"That annoyed him. He never liked to hear any objection made to that
work of art.
"'This was experimental,' he said. 'I mean the next to be a real
masterpiece. You'll see.'
"We'd got to about that point when the butler came in to ask should he
make up a bed for me, as it was such a bad night. We hadn't noticed
the weather particularly, though it had looked a bit threatening when
I started from New York. However, we now looked out, and saw that it
was coming down in sheets and torrents. It wouldn't have mattered, only
that I'd only brought a little open racing car and no overcoat, and
certainly the prospect of five miles in that downpour wasn't altogether
attractive. Loder urged me to stay, and I said I would.
"I was feeling a bit fagged, so I went to bed right off. Loder said he
wanted to do a bit of work in the studio first, and I saw him depart
along the corridor.
"You won't allow me to mention Providence, so I'll only say it was a
very remarkable thing that I should have woken up at two in the morning
to find myself lying in a pool of water. The man had stuck a hot-water
bottle into the bed, because it hadn't been used just lately, and the
beastly thing had gone and unstoppered itself. I lay awake for ten
minutes in the deeps of damp misery before I had sufficient strength of
mind to investigate. Then I found it was hopeless--sheets, blankets,
mattress, all soaked. I looked at the arm-chair, and then I had a
brilliant idea. I remembered there was a lovely great divan in the
studio, with a big skin rug and a pile of cushions. Why not finish the
night there? I took the little electric torch which always goes about
with me, and started off.
"The studio was empty, so I supposed Loder had finished and trotted off
to roost. The divan was there, all right, with a screen drawn partly
across it, so I rolled myself up under the rug and prepared to snooze
off.
"I was just getting beautifully sleepy again when I heard footsteps,
not in the passage, but apparently on the other side of the room. I
was surprised, because I didn't know there was any way out in that
direction. I lay low, and presently I saw a streak of light appear from
the cupboard where Loder kept his tools and things. The streak widened,
and Loder emerged, carrying an electric torch. He closed the cupboard
door very gently after him, and padded across the studio. He stopped
before the easel and uncovered it; I could see him through a crack in
the screen. He stood for some minutes gazing at a sketch on the easel,
and then gave one of the nastiest gurgly laughs I've ever had the
pleasure of hearing. If I'd ever seriously thought of announcing my
unauthorised presence, I abandoned all idea of it then. Presently he
covered the easel again, and went out by the door at which I had come
in.
"I waited till I was sure he had gone, and then got up--uncommonly
quietly, I may say. I tiptoed over to the easel to see what the
fascinating work of art was. I saw at once it was the design for the
figure of _The Sleeping Athlete_, and as I looked at it I felt a sort
of horrid conviction stealing over me. It was an idea which seemed to
begin in my stomach, and work its way up to the roots of my hair.
"My family say I'm too inquisitive. I can only say that wild horses
wouldn't have kept me from investigating that cupboard. With the
feeling that something absolutely vile might hop out at me--I was a bit
wrought up, and it was a rotten time of night--I put a heroic hand on
the door knob.
"To my astonishment, the thing wasn't even locked. It opened at once,
to show a range of perfectly innocent and orderly shelves, which
couldn't possibly have held Loder.
"My blood was up, you know, by this time, so I hunted round for
the spring-lock which I knew must exist, and found it without much
difficulty. The back of the cupboard swung noiselessly inwards, and I
found myself at the top of a narrow flight of stairs.
"I had the sense to stop and see that the door could be opened from
the inside before I went any farther, and I also selected a good stout
pestle which I found on the shelves as a weapon in case of accident.
Then I closed the door and tripped with elf-like lightness down that
jolly old staircase.
"There was another door at the bottom, but it didn't take me long to
fathom the secret of that. Feeling frightfully excited, I threw it
boldly open, with the pestle ready for action.
"However, the room seemed to be empty. My torch caught the gleam of
something liquid, and then I found the wall-switch.
"I saw a biggish square room, fitted up as a workshop. On the
right-hand wall was a big switchboard, with a bench beneath it. From
the middle of the ceiling hung a great flood-light, illuminating a
glass vat, fully seven feet long by about three wide. I turned on the
flood-light, and looked down into the vat. It was filled with a dark
brown liquid which I recognised as the usual compound of cyanide and
copper-sulphate which they use for copper-plating.
"The rods hung over it with their hooks all empty, but there was a
packing-case half-opened at one side of the room, and, pulling the
covering aside, I could see rows of copper anodes--enough of them to
put a plating over a quarter of an inch thick on a life-size figure.
There was a smaller case, still nailed up, which from its weight and
appearance I guessed to contain the silver for the rest of the process.
There was something else I was looking for, and I soon found it--a
considerable quantity of prepared graphite and a big jar of varnish.
"Of course, there was no evidence, really, of anything being on the
cross. There was no reason why Loder shouldn't make a plaster cast and
Sheffield-plate it if he had a fancy for that kind of thing. But then I
found something that _couldn't_ have come there legitimately.
"On the bench was an oval slab of copper about an inch and a half
long--Loder's night's work, I guessed. It was an electrotype of
the American Consular seal, the thing they stamp on your passport
photograph to keep you from hiking it off and substituting the picture
of your friend Mr. Jiggs, who would like to get out of the country
because he is so popular with Scotland Yard.
"I sat down on Loder's stool, and worked out that pretty little plot in
all its details. I could see it all turned on three things. First of
all, I must find out if Varden was proposing to make tracks shortly for
Australia, because, if he wasn't, it threw all my beautiful theories
out. And, secondly, it would help matters greatly if he happened to
have dark hair like Loder's, as he has, you see--near enough, anyway,
to fit the description on a passport. I'd only seen him in that Apollo
Belvedere thing, with a fair wig on. But I knew if I hung about I
should see him presently when he came to stay with Loder. And, thirdly,
of course, I had to discover if Loder was likely to have any grounds
for a grudge against Varden.
"Well, I figured out I'd stayed down in that room about as long as
was healthy. Loder might come back at any moment, and I didn't forget
that a vatful of copper sulphate and cyanide of potassium would be
a highly handy means of getting rid of a too-inquisitive guest. And
I can't say I had any great fancy for figuring as part of Loder's
domestic furniture. I've always hated things made in the shape of
things--volumes of Dickens that turn out to be a biscuit-tin, and
dodges like that; and, though I take no overwhelming interest in my own
funeral, I should like it to be in good taste. I went so far as to wipe
away any finger-marks I might have left behind me, and then I went back
to the studio and rearranged that divan. I didn't feel Loder would care
to think I'd been down there.
"There was just one other thing I felt inquisitive about. I tiptoed
back through the hall and into the smoking-room. The silver couch
glimmered in the light of the torch. I felt I disliked it fifty times
more than ever before. However, I pulled myself together and took a
careful look at the feet of the figure. I'd heard all about that second
toe of Maria Morano's.
"I passed the rest of the night in the arm-chair after all.
"What with Mrs. Bilt's job and one thing and another, and the enquiries
I had to make, I had to put off my interference in Loder's little game
till rather late. I found out that Varden had been staying with Loder a
few months before the beautiful Maria Morano had vanished. I'm afraid I
was rather stupid about that, Mr. Varden. I thought perhaps there _had_
been something."
"Don't apologise," said Varden, with a little laugh. "Cinema actors are
notoriously immoral."
"Why rub it in?" said Wimsey, a trifle hurt. "I apologise. Anyway,
it came to the same thing as far as Loder was concerned. Then there
was one bit of evidence I had to get to be absolutely certain.
Electro-plating--especially such a ticklish job as the one I had in
mind--wasn't a job that could be finished in a night; on the other
hand, it seemed necessary that Mr. Varden should be seen alive in New
York up to the day he was scheduled to depart. It was also clear that
Loder meant to be able to prove that a Mr. Varden had left New York
all right, according to plan, and had actually arrived in Sydney.
Accordingly, a false Mr. Varden was to depart with Varden's papers
and Varden's passport, furnished with a new photograph duly stamped
with the Consular stamp, and to disappear quietly at Sydney and be
retransformed into Mr. Eric Loder, travelling with a perfectly regular
passport of his own. Well, then, in that case, obviously a cablegram
would have to be sent off to Mystofilms Ltd., warning them to expect
Varden by a later boat than he had arranged. I handed over this part
of the job to my man, Bunter, who is uncommonly capable. The devoted
fellow shadowed Loder faithfully for getting on for three weeks, and at
length, the very day before Mr. Varden was due to depart, the cablegram
was sent from an office in Broadway, where, by a happy providence (once
more) they supply extremely hard pencils."
"By Jove!" cried Varden, "I remember now being told something about
a cablegram when I got out, but I never connected it with Loder. I
thought it was just some stupidity of the Western Electric people."
"Quite so. Well, as soon as I'd got that, I popped along to Loder's
with a picklock in one pocket and an automatic in the other. The good
Bunter went with me, and, if I didn't return by a certain time, had
orders to telephone for the police. So you see everything was pretty
well covered. Bunter was the chauffeur who was waiting for you, Mr.
Varden, but you turned suspicious--I don't blame you altogether--so all
we could do was to forward your luggage along to the train.
"On the way out we met the Loder servants _en route_ for New York in a
car, which showed us that we were on the right track, and also that I
was going to have a fairly simple job of it.
"You've heard all about my interview with Mr. Varden. I really don't
think I could improve upon his account. When I'd seen him and his traps
safely off the premises, I made for the studio. It was empty, so I
opened the secret door, and, as I expected, saw a line of light under
the workshop door at the far end of the passage."
"So Loder was there all the time?"
"Of course he was. I took my little pop-gun tight in my fist and
opened the door very gently. Loder was standing between the tank and
the switchboard, very busy indeed--so busy he didn't hear me come in.
His hands were black with graphite, a big heap of which was spread on
a sheet on the floor, and he was engaged with a long, springy coil
of copper wire, running to the output of the transformer. The big
packing-case had been opened, and all the hooks were occupied.
"'Loder!' I said.
"He turned on me with a face like nothing human. 'Wimsey!' he shouted,
'what the hell are you doing here?'
"'I have come,' I said, 'to tell you that I know how the apple gets
into the dumpling.' And I showed him the automatic.
"He gave a great yell and dashed at the switchboard, turning out the
light, so that I could not see to aim. I heard him leap at me--and then
there came in the darkness a crash and a splash--and a shriek such as I
never heard--not in five years of war--and never want to hear again.
"I groped forward for the switchboard. Of course, I turned on
everything before I could lay my hand on the light, but I got it at
last--a great white glare from the flood-light over the vat.
"He lay there, still twitching faintly. Cyanide, you see, is about the
swiftest and painfullest thing out. Before I could move to do anything,
I knew he was dead--poisoned and drowned and dead. The coil of wire
that had tripped him had gone into the vat with him. Without thinking,
I touched it, and got a shock that pretty well staggered me. Then I
realised that I must have turned on the current when I was hunting for
the light. I looked into the vat again. As he fell, his dying hands
had clutched at the wire. The coils were tight round his fingers, and
the current was methodically depositing a film of copper all over his
hands, which were blackened with the graphite.
"I had just sense enough to realise that Loder was dead, and that it
might be a nasty sort of look-out for me if the thing came out, for I'd
certainly gone along to threaten him with a pistol.
"I searched about till I found some solder and an iron. Then I went
upstairs and called in Bunter, who had done his ten miles in record
time. We went into the smoking-room and soldered the arm of that
cursed figure into place again, as well as we could, and then we took
everything back into the workshop. We cleaned off every finger-print
and removed every trace of our presence. We left the light and the
switchboard as they were, and returned to New York by an extremely
round-about route. The only thing we brought away with us was the
facsimile of the Consular seal, and that we threw into the river.
"Loder was found by the butler next morning. We read in the papers
how he had fallen into the vat when engaged on some experiments in
electro-plating. The ghastly fact was commented upon that the dead
man's hands were thickly coppered over. They couldn't get it off
without irreverent violence, so he was buried like that.
"That's all. Please, Armstrong, may I have my whisky-and-soda now?"
"What happened to the couch?" enquired Smith-Hartington presently.
"I bought it in at the sale of Loder's things," said Wimsey, "and got
hold of a dear old Catholic priest I knew, to whom I told the whole
story under strict vow of secrecy. He was a very sensible and feeling
old bird; so one moonlight night Bunter and I carried the thing out in
the car to his own little church, some miles out of the city, and gave
it Christian burial in a corner of the graveyard. It seemed the best
thing to do."
THE ENTERTAINING EPISODE OF THE ARTICLE IN QUESTION
The unprofessional detective career of Lord Peter Wimsey was regulated
(though the word has no particular propriety in this connection) by a
persistent and undignified inquisitiveness. The habit of asking silly
questions--natural, though irritating, in the immature male--remained
with him long after his immaculate man, Bunter, had become attached
to his service to shave the bristles from his chin and see to the due
purchase and housing of Napoleon brandies and Villar y Villar cigars.
At the age of thirty-two his sister Mary christened him Elephant's
Child. It was his idiotic enquiries (before his brother, the Duke of
Denver, who grew scarlet with mortification) as to what the Woolsack
was really stuffed with that led the then Lord Chancellor idly to
investigate the article in question, and to discover, tucked deep
within its recesses, that famous diamond necklace of the Marchioness
of Writtle, which had disappeared on the day Parliament was opened and
been safely secreted by one of the cleaners. It was by a continual and
personal badgering of the Chief Engineer at 2LO on the question of "Why
is Oscillation and How is it Done?" that his lordship incidentally
unmasked the great Ploffsky gang of Anarchist conspirators, who were
accustomed to converse in code by a methodical system of howls,
superimposed (to the great annoyance of listeners in British and
European stations) upon the London wave-length and duly relayed by 5XX
over a radius of some five or six hundred miles. He annoyed persons of
more leisure than decorum by suddenly taking into his head to descend
to the Underground by way of the stairs, though the only exciting
things he ever actually found there were the bloodstained boots of the
Sloane Square murderer; on the other hand, when the drains were taken
up at Glegg's Folly, it was by hanging about and hindering the plumbers
at their job that he accidentally made the discovery which hanged that
detestable poisoner, William Girdlestone Chitty.
Accordingly, it was with no surprise at all that the reliable Bunter,
one April morning, received the announcement of an abrupt change of
plan.
They had arrived at the Gare St. Lazare in good time to register
the luggage. Their three months' trip to Italy had been purely for
enjoyment, and had been followed by a pleasant fortnight in Paris. They
were now intending to pay a short visit to the Duc de Sainte-Croix in
Rouen on their way back to England. Lord Peter paced the Salle des Pas
Perdus for some time, buying an illustrated paper or two and eyeing
the crowd. He bent an appreciative eye on a slim, shingled creature
with the face of a Paris _gamin_, but was forced to admit to himself
that her ankles were a trifle on the thick side; he assisted an elderly
lady who was explaining to the bookstall clerk that she wanted a map of
Paris and not a _carte postale_, consumed a quick cognac at one of the
little green tables at the far end, and then decided he had better go
down and see how Bunter was getting on.
In half an hour Bunter and his porter had worked themselves up to
the second place in the enormous queue--for, as usual, one of the
weighing-machines was out of order. In front of them stood an agitated
little group--the young woman Lord Peter had noticed in the Salle des
Pas Perdus, a sallow-faced man of about thirty, their porter, and the
registration official, who was peering eagerly through his little
_guichet_.
"Mais je te répète que je ne les ai pas," said the sallow man heatedly.
"Voyons, voyons. C'est bien toi qui les as pris, n'est-ce-pas? Eh bien,
alors, comment veux-tu que je les aie, moi?"
"Mais non, mais non, je te les ai bien donnés là-haut, avant d'aller
chercher les journaux."
"Je t'assure que non. Enfin, c'est évident! J'ai cherché partout, que
diable! Tu ne m'as rien donné, du tout, du tout."
"Mais puisque je t'ai dit d'aller faire enrégistrer les bagages! Ne
faut-il pas que je t'aie bien remis les billets? Me prends-tu pour un
imbécile? Va! On n'est pas dépourvu de sens! Mais regarde l'heure! Le
train part à 11 h. 20 m. Cherche un peu, au moins."
"Mais puisque j'ai cherché partout--le gilet, rien! Le jacquet rien,
rien! Le pardessus--rien! rien! rien! C'est toi----"
Here the porter, urged by the frantic cries and stamping of the queue,
and the repeated insults of Lord Peter's porter, flung himself into the
discussion.
"P't-être qu' m'sieur a bouté les billets dans son pantalon," he
suggested.
"Triple idiot!" snapped the traveller, "je vous le demande--est-ce
qu'on a jamais entendu parler de mettre des billets dans son pantalon?
Jamais----"
The French porter is a Republican, and, moreover, extremely ill-paid.
The large tolerance of his English colleague is not for him.
"Ah!" said he, dropping two heavy bags and looking round for moral
support. "Vous dîtes? En voila du joli! Allons, mon p'tit, ce n'est pas
parce qu'on porte un faux col qu'on a le droit d'insulter les gens."
The discussion might have become a full-blown row, had not the young
man suddenly discovered the missing tickets--incidentally, they were in
his trousers-pocket after all--and continued the registration of his
luggage, to the undisguised satisfaction of the crowd.
"Bunter," said his lordship, who had turned his back on the group and
was lighting a cigarette, "I am going to change the tickets. We shall
go straight on to London. Have you got that snapshot affair of yours
with you?"
"Yes, my lord."
"The one you can work from your pocket without anyone noticing?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Get me a picture of those two."
"Yes, my lord."
"I will see to the luggage. Wire to the Duc that I am unexpectedly
called home."
"Very good, my lord."
Lord Peter did not allude to the matter again till Bunter was putting
his trousers in the press in their cabin on board the _Normannia_.
Beyond ascertaining that the young man and woman who had aroused
his curiosity were on the boat as second-class passengers, he had
sedulously avoided contact with them.
"Did you get that photograph?"
"I hope so, my lord. As your lordship knows, the aim from the
breast-pocket tends to be unreliable. I have made three attempts, and
trust that one at least may prove to be not unsuccessful."
"How soon can you develop them?"
"At once, if your lordship pleases. I have all the materials in my suit
case."