"Something unsatisfactory, my lord----"
"About the drippin'! Oh, my head! What's that they say in _Dear
Brutus_, Bunter? 'Hold on to the workbox.' That's right. Hold on to the
drippin'. Beastly slimy stuff to hold on to----Wait!"
There was a pause.
"When I was a kid," said Wimsey, "I used to love to go down into the
kitchen and talk to old cookie. Good old soul she was, too. I can see
her now, gettin' chicken ready, with me danglin' my legs on the table.
_She_ used to pluck an' draw 'em herself. I revelled in it. Little
beasts boys are, ain't they, Bunter? Pluck it, draw it, wash it, stuff
it, tuck its little tail through its little what-you-may-call-it, truss
it, grease the dish----Bunter?"
"My lord!"
"Hold on to the dripping!"
"The bowl, my lord----"
"The bowl--visualise it--what was wrong!"
"It was full, my lord!"
"Got it--got it--_got_ it! The bowl was full--smooth surface. Golly! I
knew there was something queer about it. Now why shouldn't it be full?
Hold on to the----"
"The bird was in the oven."
"Without dripping!"
"Very careless cookery, my lord."
"The bird--in the oven--no dripping, Bunter! Suppose it was never put
in till after she was dead? Thrust in hurriedly by someone who had
something to hide--horrible!"
"But with what object, my lord?"
"Yes, why? That's the point. One more mental association with the bird.
It's just coming. Wait a moment. Pluck, draw, wash, stuff, tuck up,
truss----By God!"
"My lord?"
"Come on, Bunter. Thank Heaven we turned off the gas!"
He dashed through the bedroom, disregarding the doctor and the patient,
who sat up with a smothered shriek. He flung open the oven door and
snatched out the baking-tin. The skin of the bird had just begun to
discolour. With a little gasp of triumph, Wimsey caught the iron ring
that protruded from the wing, and jerked out--the six-inch spiral
skewer.
The doctor was struggling with the excited Brotherton in the doorway.
Wimsey caught the man as he broke away, and shook him into the corner
with a jiu-jitsu twist.
"Here is the weapon," he said.
"Prove it, blast you!" said Brotherton savagely.
"I will," said Wimsey. "Bunter, call in the policeman whom you will
find at the door. Doctor, we shall need your microscope."
* * * * *
In the laboratory the doctor bent over the microscope. A thin layer of
blood from the skewer had been spread upon the slide.
"Well?" said Wimsey impatiently.
"It's all right," said Hartman. "The roasting didn't get anywhere
near the middle. My God, Wimsey, yes, you're right--round corpuscles,
diameter 1/3621--mammalian blood--probably human----"
"Her blood," said Wimsey.
* * * * *
"It was very clever, Bunter," said Lord Peter, as the taxi trundled
along on the way to his flat in Piccadilly. "If that fowl had gone
on roasting a bit longer the blood-corpuscles might easily have been
destroyed beyond all hope of recognition. It all goes to show that the
unpremeditated crime is usually the safest."
"And what does your lordship take the man's motive to have been?"
"In my youth," said Wimsey meditatively, "they used to make me read the
Bible. Trouble was, the only books I ever took to naturally were the
ones they weren't over and above keen on. But I got to know the Song of
Songs pretty well by heart. Look it up, Bunter; at your age it won't
hurt you; it talks sense about jealousy."
"I have perused the work in question, your lordship," replied Mr.
Bunter, with a sallow blush. "It says, if I remember rightly:
'_Jealousy is cruel as the grave_'."
THE BIBULOUS BUSINESS OF A MATTER OF TASTE
"Halte-là!... Attention!... F----e!"
The young man in the grey suit pushed his way through the protesting
porters and leapt nimbly for the footboard of the guard's van as the
Paris-Evreux express steamed out of the Invalides. The guard, with an
eye to a tip, fielded him adroitly from among the detaining hands.
"It is happy for monsieur that he is so agile," he remarked. "Monsieur
is in a hurry?"
"Somewhat. Thank you. I can get through by the corridor?"
"But certainly. The _premières_ are two coaches away, beyond the
luggage-van."
The young man rewarded his rescuer, and made his way forward, mopping
his face. As he passed the piled-up luggage, something caught his eye,
and he stopped to investigate. It was a suit-case, nearly new, of
expensive-looking leather, labelled conspicuously:
LORD PETER WIMSEY,
Hôtel Saumon d'Or,
Verneuil-sur-Eure
and bore witness to its itinerary thus:
LONDON--PARIS
(Waterloo) (Gare St. Lazare)
via Southampton-Havre
PARIS--VERNEUIL
(Ch. de Fer de l'Ouest)
The young man whistled, and sat down on a trunk to think it out.
Somewhere there had been a leakage, and they were on his trail. Nor
did they care who knew it. There were hundreds of people in London and
Paris who would know the name of Wimsey, not counting the police of
both countries. In addition to belonging to one of the oldest ducal
families in England, Lord Peter had made himself conspicuous by his
meddling with crime detection. A label like this was a gratuitous
advertisement.
But the amazing thing was that the pursuers were not troubling to hide
themselves from the pursued. That argued very great confidence. That he
should have got into the guard's van was, of course, an accident, but,
even so, he might have seen it on the platform, or anywhere.
An accident? It occurred to him--not for the first time, but definitely
now, and without doubt--that it was indeed an accident for them that
he was here. The series of maddening delays that had held him up
between London and the Invalides presented itself to him with an air
of pre-arrangement. The preposterous accusation, for instance, of
the woman who had accosted him in Piccadilly, and the slow process
of extricating himself at Marlborough Street. It was easy to hold a
man up on some trumped-up charge till an important plan had matured.
Then there was the lavatory door at Waterloo, which had so ludicrously
locked itself upon him. Being athletic, he had climbed over the
partition, to find the attendant mysteriously absent. And, in Paris,
was it by chance that he had had a deaf taxi-driver, who mistook the
direction "Quai d'Orléans" for "Gare de Lyon," and drove a mile and a
half in the wrong direction before the shouts of his fare attracted
his attention? They were clever, the pursuers, and circumspect. They
had accurate information; they would delay him, but without taking any
overt step; they knew that, if only they could keep time on their side,
they needed no other ally.
Did they know he was on the train? If not, he still kept the advantage,
for they would travel in a false security, thinking him to be left,
raging and helpless, in the Invalides. He decided to make a cautious
reconnaissance.
The first step was to change his grey suit for another of inconspicuous
navy-blue cloth, which he had in his small black bag. This he did in
the privacy of the toilet, substituting for his grey soft hat a large
travelling-cap, which pulled well down over his eyes.
There was little difficulty in locating the man he was in search of.
He found him seated in the inner corner of a first-class compartment,
facing the engine, so that the watcher could approach unseen from
behind. On the rack was a handsome dressing-case, with the initials P.
D. B. W. The young man was familiar with Wimsey's narrow, beaky face,
flat yellow hair, and insolent dropped eyelids. He smiled a little
grimly.
"He is confident," he thought, "and has regrettably made the mistake of
underrating the enemy. Good! This is where I retire into a _seconde_
and keep my eyes open. The next act of this melodrama will take place,
I fancy, at Dreux."
* * * * *
It is a rule on the Chemin de Fer de l'Ouest that all Paris-Evreux
trains, whether of Grande Vitesse or what Lord Peter Wimsey preferred
to call Grande Paresse, shall halt for an interminable period at Dreux.
The young man (now in navy-blue) watched his quarry safely into the
refreshment-room, and slipped unobtrusively out of the station. In a
quarter of an hour he was back--this time in a heavy motoring-coat,
helmet, and goggles, at the wheel of a powerful hired Peugeot. Coming
quietly on to the platform, he took up his station behind the wall of
the _lampisterie_, whence he could keep an eye on the train and the
buffet door. After fifteen minutes his patience was rewarded by the
sight of his man again boarding the express, dressing-case in hand. The
porters slammed the doors, crying: "Next stop Verneuil!" The engine
panted and groaned; the long train of grey-green carriages clanked
slowly away. The motorist drew a breath of satisfaction, and, hurrying
past the barrier, started up the car. He knew that he had a good eighty
miles an hour under his bonnet, and there is no speed-limit in France.
* * * * *
Mon Souci, the seat of that eccentric and eremitical genius the
Comte de Rueil, is situated three kilometres from Verneuil. It is a
sorrowful and decayed château, desolate at the termination of its
neglected avenue of pines. The mournful state of a nobility without an
allegiance surrounds it. The stone nymphs droop greenly over their
dry and mouldering fountains. An occasional peasant creaks with a
single wagon-load of wood along the ill-forested glades. It has the
atmosphere of sunset at all hours of the day. The woodwork is dry and
gaping for lack of paint. Through the jalousies one sees the prim
_salon_, with its beautiful and faded furniture. Even the last of its
ill-dressed, ill-favoured women has withered away from Mon Souci, with
her inbred, exaggerated features and her long white gloves. But at the
rear of the château a chimney smokes incessantly. It is the furnace
of the laboratory, the only living and modern thing among the old and
dying; the only place tended and loved, petted and spoiled, heir to
the long solicitude which counts of a more light-hearted day had given
to stable and kennel, portrait-gallery and ballroom. And below, in the
cool cellar, lie row upon row the dusty bottles, each an enchanted
glass coffin in which the Sleeping Beauty of the vine grows ever more
ravishing in sleep.
As the Peugeot came to a standstill in the courtyard, the driver
observed with considerable surprise that he was not the count's only
visitor. An immense super-Renault, like a _merveilleuse_ of the
Directoire, all bonnet and no body, had been drawn so ostentatiously
across the entrance as to embarrass the approach of any new-comer. Its
glittering panels were embellished with a coat of arms, and the count's
elderly servant was at that moment staggering beneath the weight of two
large and elaborate suit-cases, bearing in silver letters that could be
read a mile away the legend: "LORD PETER WIMSEY."
The Peugeot driver gazed with astonishment at this display, and grinned
sardonically. "Lord Peter seems rather ubiquitous in this country," he
observed to himself. Then, taking pen and paper from his bag, he busied
himself with a little letter-writing. By the time that the suit-cases
had been carried in, and the Renault had purred its smooth way to the
outbuildings, the document was complete and enclosed in an envelope
addressed to the Comte de Rueil. "The hoist with his own petard touch,"
said the young man, and, stepping up to the door, presented the
envelope to the manservant.
"I am the bearer of a letter of introduction to monsieur le comte," he
said. "Will you have the obligingness to present it to him? My name is
Bredon--Death Bredon."
The man bowed, and begged him to enter.
"If monsieur will have the goodness to seat himself in the hall for a
few moments. Monsieur le comte is engaged with another gentleman, but I
will lose no time in making monsieur's arrival known."
The young man sat down and waited. The windows of the hall looked out
upon the entrance, and it was not long before the château's sleep was
disturbed by the hooting of yet another motor-horn. A station taxi-cab
came noisily up the avenue. The man from the first-class carriage and
the luggage labelled P. D. B. W. were deposited upon the doorstep.
Lord Peter Wimsey dismissed the driver and rang the bell.
"Now," said Mr. Bredon, "the fun is going to begin." He effaced himself
as far as possible in the shadow of a tall _armoire normande_.
"Good evening," said the new-comer to the manservant, in admirable
French, "I am Lord Peter Wimsey. I arrive upon the invitation of
Monsieur le comte de Rueil. Monsieur le comte is at liberty?"
"Milord Peter Wimsey? Pardon, monsieur, but I do not understand. Milord
de Wimsey is already arrived and is with monsieur le comte at this
moment."
"You surprise me," said the other, with complete imperturbability, "for
certainly no one but myself has any right to that name. It seems as
though some person more ingenious than honest has had the bright idea
of impersonating me."
The servant was clearly at a loss.
"Perhaps," he suggested, "monsieur can show his _papiers d'identité_."
"Although it is somewhat unusual to produce one's credentials on the
doorstep when paying a private visit," replied his lordship, with
unaltered good humour, "I have not the slightest objection. Here is my
passport, here is a _permis de séjour_ granted to me in Paris, here my
visiting-card, and here a quantity of correspondence addressed to me
at the Hôtel Meurice, Paris, at my flat in Piccadilly, London, at the
Marlborough Club, London, and at my brother's house at King's Denver.
Is that sufficiently in order?"
The servant perused the documents carefully, appearing particularly
impressed by the _permis de séjour_.
"It appears there is some mistake," he murmured dubiously; "if monsieur
will follow me, I will acquaint monsieur le comte."
They disappeared through the folding doors at the back of the hall, and
Bredon was left alone.
"Quite a little boom in Richmonds to-day," he observed, "each of us
more unscrupulous than the last. The occasion obviously calls for a
refined subtlety of method."
After what he judged to be a hectic ten minutes in the count's library,
the servant reappeared, searching for him.
"Monsieur le comte's compliments, and would monsieur step this way?"
Bredon entered the room with a jaunty step. He had created for
himself the mastery of this situation. The count, a thin, elderly
man, his fingers deeply stained with chemicals, sat, with a perturbed
expression, at his desk. In two arm-chairs sat the two Wimseys. Bredon
noted that, while the Wimsey he had seen in the train (whom he mentally
named Peter I) retained his unruffled smile, Peter II (he of the
Renault) had the flushed and indignant air of an Englishman affronted.
The two men were superficially alike--both fair, lean, and long-nosed,
with the nondescript, inelastic face which predominates in any assembly
of well bred Anglo-Saxons.
"Mr. Bredon," said the count, "I am charmed to have the pleasure of
making your acquaintance, and regret that I must at once call upon you
for a service as singular as it is important. You have presented to me
a letter of introduction from your cousin, Lord Peter Wimsey. Will you
now be good enough to inform me which of these gentlemen he is?"
Bredon let his glance pass slowly from the one claimant to the other,
meditating what answer would best serve his own ends. One, at any rate,
of the men in this room was a formidable intellect, trained in the
detection of imposture.
"Well?" said Peter II. "Are you going to acknowledge me, Bredon?"
Peter I extracted a cigarette from a silver case. "Your confederate
does not seem very well up in his part," he remarked, with a quiet
smile at Peter II.
"Monsieur le comte," said Bredon, "I regret extremely that I cannot
assist you in the matter. My acquaintance with my cousin, like your
own, has been made and maintained entirely through correspondence on
a subject of common interest. My profession," he added, "has made me
unpopular with my family."
There was a very slight sigh of relief somewhere. The false
Wimsey--whichever he was--had gained a respite. Bredon smiled.
"An excellent move, Mr. Bredon," said Peter I, "but it will hardly
explain----Allow me." He took the letter from the count's hesitating
hand. "It will hardly explain the fact that the ink of this letter of
recommendation, dated three weeks ago, is even now scarcely dry--though
I congratulate you on the very plausible imitation of my handwriting."
"If _you_ can forge my handwriting," said Peter II, "so can this Mr.
Bredon." He read the letter aloud over his double's shoulder.
"'Monsieur le comte--I have the honour to present to you my friend
and cousin, Mr. Death Bredon, who, I understand, is to be travelling
in your part of France next month. He is very anxious to view your
interesting library. Although a journalist by profession, he really
knows something about books.' I am delighted to learn for the first
time that I have such a cousin. An interviewer's trick, I fancy,
monsieur le comte. Fleet Street appears well informed about our family
names. Possibly it is equally well informed about the object of my
visit to Mon Souci?"
"If," said Bredon boldly, "you refer to the acquisition of the de Rueil
formula for poison gas for the British Government, I can answer for
my own knowledge, though possibly the rest of Fleet Street is less
completely enlightened." He weighed his words carefully now, warned by
his slip. The sharp eyes and detective ability of Peter I alarmed him
far more than the caustic tongue of Peter II.
The count uttered an exclamation of dismay.
"Gentlemen," he said, "one thing is obvious--that there has been
somewhere a disastrous leakage of information. Which of you is the Lord
Peter Wimsey to whom I should entrust the formula I do not know. Both
of you are supplied with papers of identity; both appear completely
instructed in this matter; both of your handwritings correspond with
the letters I have previously received from Lord Peter, and both of
you have offered me the sum agreed upon in Bank of England notes. In
addition, this third gentleman arrives endowed with an equal facility
in handwritings, an introductory letter surrounded by most suspicious
circumstances, and a degree of acquaintance with this whole matter
which alarms me. I can see but one solution. All of you must remain
here at the château while I send to England for some elucidation of
this mystery. To the genuine Lord Peter I offer my apologies, and
assure him that I will endeavour to make his stay as agreeable as
possible. Will this satisfy you? It will? I am delighted to hear it.
My servants will show you to your bedrooms, and dinner will be at
half-past seven."
* * * * *
"It is delightful to think," said Mr. Bredon, as he fingered his glass
and passed it before his nostrils with the air of a connoisseur, "that
whichever of these gentlemen has the right to the name which he assumes
is assured to-night of a truly Olympian satisfaction." His impudence
had returned to him, and he challenged the company with an air. "Your
cellars, monsieur le comte, are as well known among men endowed with
a palate as your talents among men of science. No eloquence could say
more."
The two Lord Peters murmured assent.
"I am the more pleased by your commendation," said the count, "that it
suggests to me a little test which, with your kind co-operation, will,
I think, assist us very much in determining which of you gentlemen
is Lord Peter Wimsey and which his talented impersonator. Is it not
matter of common notoriety that Lord Peter has a palate for wine almost
unequalled in Europe?"
"You flatter me, monsieur le comte," said Peter II modestly.
"I wouldn't like to say unequalled," said Peter I, chiming in like a
well-trained duet; "let's call it fair to middling. Less liable to
misconstruction and all that."
"Your lordship does yourself an injustice," said Bredon, addressing
both men with impartial deference. "The bet which you won from Mr.
Frederick Arbuthnot at the Egotists' Club, when he challenged you to
name the vintage years of seventeen wines blindfold, received its due
prominence in the _Evening Wire_."
"I was in extra form that night," said Peter I.
"A fluke," laughed Peter II.
"The test I propose, gentlemen, is on similar lines," pursued the
count, "though somewhat less strenuous. There are six courses ordered
for dinner to-night. With each we will drink a different wine, which
my butler shall bring in with the label concealed. You shall each in
turn give me your opinion upon the vintage. By this means we shall
perhaps arrive at something, since the most brilliant forger--of whom I
gather I have at least two at my table to-night--can scarcely forge a
palate for wine. If too hazardous a mixture of wines should produce a
temporary incommodity in the morning, you will, I feel sure, suffer it
gladly for this once in the cause of truth."
The two Wimseys bowed.
"_In vino veritas_," said Mr. Bredon, with a laugh. He at least was
well seasoned, and foresaw opportunities for himself.
"Accident, and my butler, having placed you at my right hand,
monsieur," went on the count, addressing Peter I, "I will ask you to
begin by pronouncing, as accurately as may be, upon the wine which you
have just drunk."
"That is scarcely a searching ordeal," said the other, with a smile. "I
can say definitely that it is a very pleasant and well-matured Chablis
Moutonne; and, since ten years is an excellent age for a Chablis--a
real Chablis--I should vote for 1916, which was perhaps the best of the
war vintages in that district."
"Have you anything to add to that opinion, monsieur?" enquired the
count, deferentially, of Peter II.
"I wouldn't like to be dogmatic to a year or so," said that gentleman
critically, "but if I must commit myself, don't you know, I should say
1915--decidedly 1915."
The count bowed, and turned to Bredon.
"Perhaps you, too, monsieur, would be interested to give an opinion,"
he suggested, with the exquisite courtesy always shown to the plain man
in the society of experts.
"I'd rather not set a standard which I might not be able to live up
to," replied Bredon, a little maliciously. "I know that it is 1915, for
I happened to see the label."
Peter II looked a little disconcerted.
"We will arrange matters better in future," said the count. "Pardon
me." He stepped apart for a few moments' conference with the butler,
who presently advanced to remove the oysters and bring in the soup.
The next candidate for attention arrived swathed to the lip in damask.
"It is your turn to speak first, monsieur," said the count to Peter II.
"Permit me to offer you an olive to cleanse the palate. No haste, I
beg. Even for the most excellent political ends, good wine must not be
used with disrespect."
The rebuke was not unnecessary, for, after a preliminary sip, Peter II
had taken a deep draught of the heady white richness. Under Peter I's
quizzical eye he wilted quite visibly.
"It is--it is Sauterne," he began, and stopped. Then, gathering
encouragement from Bredon's smile, he said, with more aplomb, "Château
Yquem, 1911--ah! the queen of white wines, sir, as what's-his-name
says." He drained his glass defiantly.
The count's face was a study as he slowly detached his fascinated gaze
from Peter II to fix it on Peter I.
"If I had to be impersonated by somebody," murmured the latter gently,
"it would have been more flattering to have had it undertaken by a
person to whom all white wines were _not_ alike. Well, now, sir, this
admirable vintage is, of course, a Montrachet of--let me see"--he
rolled the wine delicately upon his tongue--"of 1911. And a very
attractive wine it is, though, with all due deference to yourself,
monsieur le comte, I feel that it is perhaps slightly too sweet to
occupy its present place in the menu. True, with this excellent
_consommé marmite_, a sweetish wine is not altogether out of place,
but, in my own humble opinion, it would have shown to better advantage
with the _confitures_."