GOYLES
_"--and the moral of that is--" said the Duchess._
ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
A party of four were assembled next morning at a very late breakfast,
or very early lunch, in Lord Peter's flat. Its most cheerful member,
despite a throbbing shoulder and a splitting headache, was undoubtedly
Lord Peter himself, who lay upon the Chesterfield surrounded with
cushions and carousing upon tea and toast. Having been brought home
in an ambulance, he had instantly fallen into a healing sleep, and
had woken at nine o'clock aggressively clear and active in mind. In
consequence, Mr. Parker had been dispatched in a hurry, half-fed
and burdened with the secret memory of last night's disclosures, to
Scotland Yard. Here he had set in motion the proper machinery for
catching Lord Peter's assassin. "Only don't you say anything about the
attack on me," said his lordship. "Tell 'em he's to be detained in
connection with the Riddlesdale case. That's good enough for them." It
was now eleven, and Mr. Parker had returned, gloomy and hungry, and was
consuming a belated omelette and a glass of claret.
Lady Mary Wimsey was hunched up in the window-seat. Her bobbed golden
hair made a little blur of light about her in the pale autumn sunshine.
She had made an attempt to breakfast earlier, and now sat gazing
out into Piccadilly. Her first appearance that morning had been made
in Lord Peter's dressing-gown, but she now wore a serge skirt and
jade-green jumper, which had been brought to town for her by the fourth
member of the party, now composedly eating a mixed grill and sharing
the decanter with Parker.
This was a rather short, rather plump, very brisk elderly lady,
with bright black eyes like a bird's, and very handsome white hair
exquisitely dressed. Far from looking as though she had just taken a
long night journey, she was easily the most composed and trim of the
four. She was, however, annoyed, and said so at considerable length.
This was the Dowager Duchess of Denver.
"It is not so much, Mary, that you went off so abruptly last
night--just before dinner, too--inconveniencing and alarming us very
much--indeed, poor Helen was totally unable to eat her dinner, which
was extremely distressing to her feelings, because, you know, she
always makes such a point of never being upset about anything--I really
don't know why, for some of the greatest men have not minded showing
their feelings, I don't mean Southerners necessarily, but, as Mr.
Chesterton very rightly points out--Nelson, too, who was certainly
English if he wasn't Irish or Scotch, I forget, but United Kingdom,
anyway (if that means anything nowadays with a Free State--such a
ridiculous title, especially as it always makes one think of the Orange
Free State, and I'm sure they wouldn't care to be mixed up with that,
being so very green themselves). And going off without even proper
clothes, and taking the car, so that I had to wait till the 1:15 from
Northallerton--a ridiculous time to start, and such a bad train, too,
not getting up till 10:30. Besides, if you _must_ run off to town, why
do it in that unfinished manner? If you had only looked up the trains
before starting you would have seen you would have half an hour's
wait at Northallerton, and you could quite easily have packed a bag.
It's so much better to do things neatly and thoroughly--even stupid
things. And it was very stupid of you indeed to dash off like that,
to embarrass and bore poor Mr. Parker with a lot of twaddle--though
I suppose it was Peter you meant to see. You know, Peter, if you
will haunt low places full of Russians and sucking Socialists taking
themselves seriously, you ought to know better than to encourage them
by running after them, however futile, and given to drinking coffee
and writing poems with no shape to them, and generally ruining their
nerves. And, in any case, it makes not the slightest difference; I
could have told Peter all about it myself, if he doesn't know already,
as he probably does."
Lady Mary turned very white at this and glanced at Parker, who replied
rather to her than to the Dowager:
"No, Lord Peter and I haven't had time to discuss anything yet."
"Lest it should ruin my shattered nerves and bring a fever to my aching
brow," added that nobleman amiably. "You're a kind, thoughtful soul,
Charles, and I don't know what I should do without you. I wish that
rotten old second-hand dealer had been a bit brisker about takin'
in his stock-in-trade for the night, though. Perfectly 'straor'nary
number of knobs there are on a brass bedstead. Saw it comin', y'know,
an' couldn't stop myself. However, what's a mere brass bedstead? The
great detective, though at first stunned and dizzy from his brutal
treatment by the fifteen veiled assassins all armed with meat-choppers,
soon regained his senses, thanks to his sound constitution and healthy
manner of life. Despite the severe gassing he had endured in the
underground room--eh? A telegram? Oh, thanks, Bunter."
Lord Peter appeared to read the message with great inward satisfaction,
for his long lips twitched at the corners, and he tucked the slip of
paper away in his pocket-book with a little sigh of satisfaction. He
called to Bunter to take away the breakfast-tray and to renew the
cooling bandage about his brow. This done, Lord Peter leaned back
among his cushions, and with an air of malicious enjoyment launched at
Mr. Parker the inquiry:
"Well, now, how did you and Mary get on last night? Polly, did you tell
him you'd done the murder?"
Few things are more irritating than to discover, after you have been
at great pains to spare a person some painful intelligence, that he
has known it all along and is not nearly so much affected by it as
he properly should be. Mr. Parker quite simply and suddenly lost his
temper. He bounded to his feet, and exclaimed, without the least
reason: "Oh, it's perfectly hopeless trying to do anything!"
Lady Mary sprang from the window-seat.
"Yes, I did," she said. "It's quite true. Your precious case is
finished, Peter."
The Dowager said, without the least discomposure: "You must allow your
brother to be the best judge of his own affairs, my dear."
"As a matter of fact," replied his lordship, "I rather fancy Polly's
right. Hope so, I'm sure. Anyway, we've got the fellow, so now we shall
know."
Lady Mary gave a sort of gasp, and stepped forward with her chin up
and her hands tightly clenched. It caught at Parker's heart to see
overwhelming catastrophe so bravely faced. The official side of him was
thoroughly bewildered, but the human part ranged itself instantly in
support of that gallant defiance.
"Whom have they got?" he demanded, in a voice quite unlike his own.
"The Goyles person," said Lord Peter carelessly. "Uncommon quick work,
what? But since he'd no more original idea than to take the boat-train
to Folkestone they didn't have much difficulty."
"It isn't true," said Lady Mary. She stamped. "It's a lie. He wasn't
there. He's innocent. I killed Denis."
"Fine," thought Parker, "fine! Damn Goyles, anyway, what's he done to
deserve it?"
Lord Peter said: "Mary, don't be an ass."
"Yes," said the Dowager placidly. "I was going to suggest to you,
Peter, that this Mr. Goyles--such a terrible name, Mary dear, I can't
say I ever cared for it, even if there had been nothing else against
him--especially as he would sign himself Geo. Goyles--G. e. o. you
know, Mr. Parker, for George, and I never _could_ help reading it as
Gargoyles--I very nearly wrote to you, my dear, mentioning Mr. Goyles,
and asking if you could see him in town, because there was something,
when I came to think of it, about that ipecacuanha business that made
me feel he might have something to do with it."
"Yes," said Peter, with a grin, "you always did find him a bit
sickenin', didn't you?"
"How can you, Wimsey?" growled Parker reproachfully, with his eyes on
Mary's face.
"Never mind him," said the girl. "If you can't be a gentleman, Peter--"
"Damn it all!" cried the invalid explosively. "Here's a fellow who,
without the slightest provocation, plugs a bullet into my shoulder,
breaks my collar-bone, brings me up head foremost on a knobbly
second-hand brass bedstead and vamooses, and when, in what seems to me
jolly mild, parliamentary language, I call him a sickenin' feller my
own sister says I'm no gentleman. Look at me! In my own house, forced
to sit here with a perfectly beastly headache, and lap up toast and
tea, while you people distend and bloat yourselves on mixed grills and
omelettes and a damn good vintage claret--"
"Silly boy," said the Duchess, "don't get so excited. And it's time for
your medicine. Mr. Parker, kindly touch the bell."
Mr. Parker obeyed in silence. Lady Mary came slowly across, and stood
looking at her brother.
"Peter," she said, "what makes you say that _he_ did it?"
"Did what?"
"Shot--you?" The words were only a whisper.
The entrance of Mr. Bunter at this moment with a cooling draught
dissipated the tense atmosphere. Lord Peter quaffed his potion, had his
pillows rearranged, submitted to have his temperature taken and his
pulse counted, asked if he might not have an egg for his lunch, and lit
a cigarette. Mr. Bunter retired, people distributed themselves into
more comfortable chairs, and felt happier.
"Now, Polly, old girl," said Peter, "cut out the sob-stuff. I
accidentally ran into this Goyles chap last night at your Soviet Club.
I asked that Miss Tarrant to introduce me, but the minute Goyles heard
my name, he made tracks. I rushed out after him, only meanin' to have a
word with him, when the idiot stopped at the corner of Newport Court,
potted me, and bunked. Silly-ass thing to do. I knew who he was. He
couldn't help gettin' caught."
"Peter--" said Mary in a ghastly voice.
"Look here, Polly," said Wimsey. "I did think of you. Honest injun, I
did. I haven't had the man arrested. I've made no charge at all--have
I, Parker? What did you tell 'em to do when you were down at the Yard
this morning?"
"To detain Goyles pending inquiries, because he was wanted as a witness
in the Riddlesdale case," said Parker slowly.
"He knows nothing about it," said Mary, doggedly now. "He wasn't
anywhere near. He is innocent of _that_!"
"Do you think so?" said Lord Peter gravely. "If you know he is
innocent, why tell all these lies to screen him? It won't do, Mary. You
know he was there--and you think he is guilty."
"No!"
"Yes," said Wimsey, grasping her with his sound hand as she shrank
away. "Mary, have you thought what you are doing? You are perjuring
yourself and putting Gerald in peril of his life, in order to shield
from justice a man whom you suspect of murdering your lover and who has
most certainly tried to murder me."
"Oh," cried Parker, in an agony, "all this interrogation is horribly
irregular."
"Never mind him," said Peter. "Do you really think you're doing the
right thing, Mary?"
The girl looked helplessly at her brother for a minute or two. Peter
cocked up a whimsical, appealing eye from under his bandages. The
defiance melted out of her face.
"I'll tell the truth," said Lady Mary.
"Good egg," said Peter, extending a hand. "I'm sorry. I know you like
the fellow, and we appreciate your decision enormously. Truly, we do.
Now, sail ahead, old thing, and you take it down, Parker."
"Well, it really all started years ago with George. You were at the
Front then, Peter, but I suppose they told you about it--and put
everything in the worst possible light."
"I wouldn't say that, dear," put in the Duchess. "I think I told Peter
that your brother and I were not altogether pleased with what he had
seen of the young man--which was not very much, if you remember. He
invited himself down one weekend when the house was very full, and
he seemed to make a point of consulting nobody's convenience but his
own. And you know, dear, you even said yourself you thought he was
unnecessarily rude to poor old Lord Mountweazle."
"He said what he thought," said Mary. "Of course, Lord Mountweazle,
poor dear, doesn't understand that the present generation is accustomed
to discuss things with its elders, not just kow-tow to them. When
George gave his opinion, he thought he was just contradicting."
"To be sure," said the Dowager, "when you flatly deny everything a
person says it does sound like contradiction to the uninitiated. But
all I remember saying to Peter was that Mr. Goyles's manners seemed
to me to lack polish, and that he showed a lack of independence in his
opinions."
"A lack of independence?" said Mary, wide-eyed.
"Well, dear, I thought so. What oft was thought and frequently
much better expressed, as Pope says--or was it somebody else? But
the worse you express yourself these days the more profound people
think you--though that's nothing new. Like Browning and those quaint
metaphysical people, when you never know whether they really mean their
mistress or the Established Church, so bridegroomy and biblical--to
say nothing of dear S. Augustine--the Hippo man, I mean, not the one
who missionized over here, though I daresay he was delightful too,
and in those days I suppose they didn't have annual sales of work and
tea in the parish room, so it doesn't seem quite like what we mean
nowadays by missionaries--he knew all about it--you remember about that
mandrake--or is that the thing you had to get a big black dog for?
Manichee, that's the word. What was his name? Was it Faustus? Or am I
mixing him up with the old man in the opera?"
"Well, anyway," said Mary, without stopping to disentangle the
Duchess's sequence of ideas, "George was the only person I really cared
about--he still is. Only it did seem so hopeless. Perhaps you didn't
say much about him, mother, but Gerald said _lots_--dreadful things!"
"Yes," said the Duchess, "he said what he thought. The present
generation does, you know. To the uninitiated, I admit, dear, it does
sound a little rude."
Peter grinned, but Mary went on unheeding.
"George had simply _no_ money. He'd really given everything he had
to the Labor Party one way and another, and he'd lost his job in the
Ministry of Information: they found he had too much sympathy with the
Socialists abroad. It was awfully unfair. Anyhow, one couldn't be a
burden on him; and Gerald was a beast, and said he'd absolutely stop
my allowance if I didn't send George away. So I did, but of course it
didn't make a bit of difference to the way we both felt. I will say for
mother she was a bit more decent. She said she'd help us if George got
a job; but, as I pointed out, if George got a job we shouldn't _need_
helping!"
"But, my dear, I could hardly insult Mr. Goyles by suggesting that he
should live on his mother-in-law," said the Dowager.
"Why not?" said Mary. "George doesn't believe in those old-fashioned
ideas about property. Besides, if you'd given it to me, it would be
_my_ money. We believe in men and women being equal. Why should the one
always be the bread-winner more than the other?"
"I can't imagine, dear," said the Dowager. "Still, I could hardly
expect poor Mr. Goyles to live on unearned increment when he didn't
believe in inherited property."
"That's a fallacy," said Mary, rather vaguely. "Anyhow," she added
hastily, "that's what happened. Then, after the war, George went to
Germany to study Socialism and Labor questions there, and nothing
seemed any good. So when Denis Cathcart turned up, I said I'd marry
him."
"Why?" asked Peter. "He never sounded to me a bit the kind of bloke for
you. I mean, as far as I could make out, he was Tory and diplomatic
and--well, quite crusted old tawny, so to speak, I shouldn't have
thought you had an idea in common."
"No; but then he didn't care twopence whether I had any ideas or not. I
made him promise he wouldn't bother me with diplomats and people, and
he said no, I could do as I liked, provided I didn't compromise him.
And we were to live in Paris and go our own ways and not bother. And
anything was better than staying here, and marrying somebody in one's
own set, and opening bazaars and watching polo and meeting the Prince
of Wales. So I said I'd marry Denis, because I didn't care about him,
and I'm pretty sure he didn't care a half-penny about me, and we should
have left each other alone. I did so want to be left alone!"
"Was Jerry all right about your money?" inquired Peter.
"Oh, yes. He said Denis was no great catch--I do wish Gerald wasn't
so vulgar, in that flat, early-Victorian way--but he said that, after
George, he could only thank his stars it wasn't worse."
"Make a note of that, Charles," said Wimsey.
"Well, it seemed all right at first, but, as things went on, I got more
and more depressed. Do you know, there was something a little alarming
about Denis. He was so extraordinarily reserved. I know I wanted
to be left alone, but--well, it was uncanny! He was correct. Even
when he went off the deep end and was passionate--which didn't often
happen--he was correct about it. Extraordinary. Like one of those odd
French novels, you know, Peter: frightfully hot stuff, but absolutely
impersonal."
"Charles, old man!" said Lord Peter.
"M'm?"
"That's important. You realize the bearing of that?"
"No."
"Never mind. Drive on, Polly."
"Aren't I making your head ache?"
"Damnably; but I like it. Do go on. I'm not sprouting a lily with
anguish moist and fever-dew, or anything like that. I'm getting really
thrilled. What you've just said is more illuminating than anything I've
struck for a week."
"Really!" Mary stared at Peter with every trace of hostility vanished.
"I thought you'd never understand that part."
"Lord!" said Peter. "Why not?"
Mary shook her head. "Well, I'd been corresponding all the time
with George, and suddenly he wrote to me at the beginning of this
month to say he'd come back from Germany, and had got a job on the
_Thunderclap_--the Socialist weekly, you know--at a beginning screw of
£4 a week, and wouldn't I chuck these capitalists and so on, and come
and be an honest working woman with him. He could get me a secretarial
job on the paper. I was to type and so on for him, and help him get
his articles together. And he thought between us we should make £6 or
£7 a week, which would be heaps to live on. And I was getting more
frightened of Denis every day. So I said I would. But I knew there'd
be an awful row with Gerald. And really I was rather ashamed--the
engagement had been announced and there'd be a ghastly lot of talk and
people trying to persuade me. And Denis might have made things horribly
uncomfortable for Gerald--he was rather that sort. So we decided the
best thing to do would be just to run away and get married first, and
escape the wrangling."
"Quite so," said Peter. "Besides, it would look rather well in the
paper, wouldn't it? 'PEER'S DAUGHTER WEDS SOCIALIST--ROMANTIC
SIDE-CAR ELOPEMENT--"£6 A WEEK PLENTY," SAYS HER LADYSHIP.'"
"Pig!" said Lady Mary.
"Very good," said Peter, "I get you! So it was arranged that
the romantic Goyles should fetch you away from Riddlesdale--why
Riddlesdale? It would be twice as easy from London or Denver."
"No. For one thing he had to be up North. And everybody knows one in
town, and--anyhow, we didn't want to wait."
"Besides, one would miss the Young Lochinvar touch. Well, then, why at
the unearthly hour of 3 a.m.?"
"He had a meeting on Wednesday night at Northallerton. He was going to
come straight on and pick me up, and run me down to town to be married
by special license. We allowed ample time. George had to be at the
office next day."
"I see. Well, I'll go on now, and you stop me if I'm wrong. You went up
at 9:30 on Wednesday night. You packed a suit-case. You--did you think
of writing any sort of letter to comfort your sorrowing friends and
relations?"
"Yes, I wrote one. But I--"
"Of course. Then you went to bed, I fancy, or, at any rate, turned the
clothes back and lay down."
"Yes. I lay down. It was a good thing I did, as it happened--"
"True, you wouldn't have had much time to make the bed look probable
in the morning, and we should have heard about it. By the way, Parker,
when Mary confessed her sins to you last night, did you make any notes?"
"Yes," said Parker, "if you can read my shorthand."
"Quite so," said Peter. "Well, the rumpled bed disposes of your story
about never having gone to bed at all, doesn't it?"
"And I thought it was such a good story!"
"Want of practice," replied her brother kindly.
"You'll do better next time. It's just as well, really, that it's so
hard to tell a long, consistent lie. _Did_ you, as a matter of fact,
hear Gerald go out at 11:30, as Pettigrew-Robinson (damn his ears!)
said?"
"I fancy I did hear somebody moving about," said Mary, "but I didn't
think much about it."
"Quite right," said Peter. "When I hear people movin' about the house
at night, I'm much too delicate-minded to think anything at all."
"Of course," interposed the Duchess, "particularly in England, where
it is so oddly improper to think. I will say for Peter that, if he can
put a continental interpretation on anything, he will--so considerate
of you, dear, as soon as you took to doing it in silence and not
mentioning it, as you so intelligently did as a child. You were really
a very observant little boy, dear."
"And still is," said Mary, smiling at Peter with surprising
friendliness.
"Old bad habits die hard," said Wimsey. "To proceed. At three o'clock
you went down to meet Goyles. Why did he come all the way up to the
house? It would have been safer to meet him in the lane."
"I knew I couldn't get out of the lodge-gate without waking Hardraw,
and so I'd have to get over the palings somewhere. I might have
managed alone, but not with a heavy suit-case. So, as George would have
to climb over, anyhow, we thought he'd better come and help carry the
suit-case. And then we couldn't miss each other by the conservatory
door. I sent him a little plan of the path."
"Was Goyles there when you got downstairs?"
"No--at least--no, I didn't see him. But there was poor Denis's body,
and Gerald bending over it. My first idea was that Gerald had killed
George. That's why I said, 'O God! you've killed him!" (Peter glanced
across at Parker and nodded.) "Then Gerald turned him over, and I saw
it was Denis--and then I'm sure I heard something moving a long way
off in the shrubbery--a noise like twigs snapping--and it suddenly
came over me, where was George? Oh, Peter, I saw everything then, so
clearly. I saw that Denis must have come on George waiting there,
and attacked him--I'm sure Denis must have attacked him. Probably he
thought it was a burglar. Or he found out who he was and tried to drive
him away. And in the struggle George must have shot him. It was awful!"
Peter patted his sister on the shoulder. "Poor kid," he said.
"I didn't know what to do," went on the girl. "I'd so awfully little
time, you see. My one idea was that nobody must suspect anybody had
been there. So I had quickly to invent an excuse for being there
myself. I shoved my suit-case behind the cactus-plants to start with.
Jerry was taken up with the body and didn't notice--you know, Jerry
never _does_ notice things till you shove them under his nose. But
I knew if there'd been a shot Freddy and the Marchbankses must have
heard it. So I pretended I'd heard it too, and rushed down to look
for burglars. It was a bit lame, but the best thing I could think of.
Gerald sent me up to alarm the house, and I had the story all ready by
the time I reached the landing. Oh, and I was quite proud of myself for
not forgetting the suit-case!"
"You dumped it into the chest," said Peter.
"Yes. I had a horrible shock the other morning when I found you looking
in."
"Nothing like the shock I had when I found the silver sand there."
"Silver sand?"
"Out of the conservatory."
"Good gracious!" said Mary.
"Well, go on. You knocked up Freddy and the Pettigrew-Robinsons. Then
you had to bolt into your room to destroy your farewell letter and take
your clothes off."
"Yes. I'm afraid I didn't do that very naturally. But I couldn't expect
anybody to believe that I went burglar-hunting in a complete set of
silk undies and a carefully knotted tie with a gold safety-pin."
"No. I see your difficulty."
"It turned out quite well, too, because they were all quite ready to
believe that I wanted to escape from Mrs. Pettigrew-Robinson--except
Mrs. P. herself, of course."
"Yes; even Parker swallowed that, didn't you, old man?"
"Oh, quite, quite so," said Parker gloomily.
"I made a dreadful mistake about that shot," resumed Lady Mary. "You
see, I explained it all so elaborately--and then I found that nobody
had heard a shot at all. And afterwards they discovered that it had all
happened in the shrubbery--and the time wasn't right, either. Then at
the inquest I _had_ to stick to my story--and it got to look worse and
worse--and then they put the blame on Gerald. In my wildest moments I'd
never thought of that. Of course, I see now how my wretched evidence
helped."
"Hence the ipecacuanha," said Peter.
"I'd got into such a frightful tangle," said poor Lady Mary, "I thought
I had better shut up altogether for fear of making things still worse."
"And did you still think Goyles had done it?"
"I--I didn't know what to think," said the girl. "I don't know. Peter,
who else _could_ have done it?"
"Honestly, old thing," said his lordship, "if he didn't do it, I don't
know who did."
"He ran away, you see," said Lady Mary.
"He seems rather good at shootin' and runnin' away," said Peter grimly.
"If he hadn't done that to you," said Mary slowly, "I'd never have
told you. I'd have died first. But of course, with his revolutionary
doctrines--and when you think of red Russia and all the blood spilt in
riots and insurrections and things--I suppose it does teach a contempt
for human life."
"My dear," said the Duchess, "it seems to me that Mr. Goyles shows no
especial contempt for his own life. You must try to look at the thing
fairly. Shooting people and running away is not very heroic--according
to _our_ standards."
"The thing I don't understand," struck in Wimsey hurriedly, "is how
Gerald's revolver got into the shrubbery."
"The thing _I_ should like to know about," said the Duchess, "is, was
Denis really a card-sharper?"
"The thing _I_ should like to know about," said Parker, "is the
green-eyed cat."
"Denis _never_ gave me a cat," said Mary. "That was a tarradiddle."
"Were you ever in a jeweler's with him in the Rue de la Paix?"
"Oh, yes; heaps of times. And he gave me a diamond and tortoiseshell
comb. But never a cat."
"Then we may disregard the whole of last night's elaborate confession,"
said Lord Peter, looking through Parker's notes, with a smile. "It's
really not bad, Polly, not bad at all. You've quite a talent for
romantic fiction--no, I mean it! Just here and there you need more
attention to detail. For instance, you _couldn't_ have dragged that
badly wounded man all up the path to the house without getting blood
all over your coat, you know. By the way, did Goyles know Cathcart at
all?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"Because Parker and I had an alternative theory, which would clear
Goyles from the worst part of the charge, anyhow. Tell her, old man; it
was your idea."
Thus urged, Parker outlined the blackmail and suicide theory.
"That sounds plausible," said Mary--"academically speaking, I mean; but
it isn't a bit like George--I mean, blackmail is so _beastly_, isn't
it?"
"Well," said Peter, "I think the best thing is to go and see Goyles.
Whatever the key to Wednesday night's riddle is, he holds it. Parker,
old man, we're nearing the end of the chase."