_Lord Peter Turns A Trick_
Detective-Inspector Parker came to dinner encircled in a comfortable
little halo of glory. The Crate Mystery had turned out well and the
Chief Commissioner had used expressions suggestive of promotion in
the immediate future. Parker did justice to his meal and, when the
party had adjourned to the library, gave his attention to Lord Peter's
account of the Bellona affair with the cheerful appreciation of a
connoisseur sampling a vintage port. Mr. Murbles, on the other hand,
grew more and more depressed as the story was unfolded.
"And what do you think of it?" inquired Wimsey.
Parker opened his mouth to reply, but Mr. Murbles was beforehand with
him.
"This Oliver appears to be a very elusive person," said he.
"Isn't he?" agreed Wimsey, dryly. "Almost as elusive as the famous Mrs.
Harris. Would it altogether surprise you to learn that when I asked a
few discreet questions at Gatti's, I discovered not only that nobody
there had the slightest recollection of Oliver, but that no inquiries
about him had ever been made by Major Fentiman?"
"Oh, dear me!" said Mr. Murbles.
"You forced Fentiman's hand very ingeniously by sending him down with
your private sleuth to Charing Cross," remarked Parker, approvingly.
"Well, you see, I had a feeling that unless we did something pretty
definite, Oliver would keep vanishing and reappearing like the Cheshire
Cat, whenever our investigations seemed to be taking an awkward turn."
"You are intimating, if I understand you rightly," said Mr. Murbles,
"that this Oliver has no real existence."
"Oliver was the carrot on the donkey's nose," said Peter, "my noble
self being cast for the part of the donkey. Not caring for the rôle, I
concocted a carrot of my own, in the person of Sleuths Incorporated.
No sooner did my trusting sleuth depart to his lunch than, lo and
behold! the hue and cry is off again after Oliver. Away goes friend
Fentiman--and away goes Sleuth Number Two, who was there all the time,
neatly camouflaged, to keep his eye on Fentiman. Why Fentiman should
have gone to the length of assaulting a perfect stranger and accuse him
of being Oliver, I don't know. I fancy his passion for thoroughness
made him over-reach himself a bit there."
"But what exactly has Major Fentiman been doing?" asked Mr. Murbles.
"This is a very painful business, Lord Peter. It distresses me beyond
words. Do you suspect him of--er--?"
"Well," said Wimsey, "I knew _something_ odd had happened, you know, as
soon as I saw the General's body--when I pulled the _Morning Post_ away
so easily from his hands. If he had really died clutching it, the rigor
would have made his clutch so tight that one would have had to pry the
fingers open to release it. And then, that knee-joint!"
"I didn't quite follow about that."
"Well, you know that when a man dies, rigor begins to set in after
a period of some hours, varying according to the cause of death,
temperature of the room and a lot of other conditions. It starts in
the face and jaw and extends gradually over the body. Usually it lasts
about twenty-four hours and then passes off again in the same order in
which it started. But if, during the period of rigidity, you loosen one
of the joints by main force, then it doesn't stiffen again, but remains
loose. Which is why, in a hospital, if the nurses have carelessly let a
patient die and stiffen with his knees up, they call in the largest and
fattest person on the staff to sit on the corpse's knees and break the
joints loose again."
Mr. Murbles shuddered distastefully.
"So that, taking the loose knee-joint and the general condition of the
body together, it was obvious from the start that somebody had been
tampering with the General. Penberthy knew that too, of course, only,
being a doctor, he wasn't going to make any indiscreet uproar if he
could avoid it. It doesn't pay, you know."
"I suppose not."
"Well, then, you came round to me, sir, and insisted on making the
uproar. I warned you, you know, to let sleeping dogs lie."
"I wish you had spoken more openly."
"If I had, would you have cared to hush the matter up?"
"Well, well," said Mr. Murbles, polishing his eye-glasses.
"Just so. The next step was to try and find out what had actually
happened to the General on the night of the 10th, and morning of the
11th. And the moment I got round to his flat I was faced with two
entirely contradictory pieces of evidence. First, there was the story
about Oliver, which appeared more or less remarkable upon the face of
it. And secondly, there was Woodward's evidence about the clothes."
"What about them?"
"I asked him, you remember, whether anything at all had been removed
from the clothes after he had fetched them away from the cloak-room
at the Bellona, and he said, nothing. His memory as to other points
seemed pretty reliable, and I felt sure that he was honest and
straightforward. So I was forced to the conclusion that, wherever the
General had spent the night, he had certainly never set foot in the
street the next morning."
"Why?" asked Mr. Murbles. "What did you expect to find on the clothes?"
"My dear sir, consider what day it was. November 11th. Is it
conceivable that, if the old man had been walking in the streets as a
free agent on Armistice Day, he would have gone into the Club without
his Flanders poppy? A patriotic, military old bird like that? It was
really unthinkable."
"Then where was he? And how did he get into the Club? He was there, you
know."
"True; he _was_ there--in a state of advanced rigor. In fact, according
to Penberthy's account, which, by the way, I had checked by the woman
who laid out the body later, the rigor was even then beginning to pass
off. Making every possible allowance for the warmth of the room and so
on, he must have been dead long before ten in the morning, which was
his usual time for going to the Club."
"But, my dear lad, bless my soul, that's impossible. He couldn't have
been carried in there dead. Somebody would have noticed it."
"So they would. And the odd thing is that nobody ever saw him arrive
at all. What is more, nobody saw him leave for the last time on the
previous evening. General Fentiman--one of the best-known figures in
the Club! And he seems to have become suddenly invisible. That won't
do, you know."
"What is your idea, then? That he slept the night in the Club?"
"I think he slept a very peaceful and untroubled sleep that night--in
the Club."
"You shock me inexpressibly," said Mr. Murbles. "I understand you to
suggest that he died--"
"Some time the previous evening. Yes."
"But he couldn't have sat there all night in the smoking-room. The
servants would have been bound to--er--notice him."
"Of course. But it was to somebody's interest to see that they didn't
notice. Somebody who wanted it thought that he hadn't died till the
following day, after the death of Lady Dormer."
"Robert Fentiman."
"Precisely."
"But how did Robert know about Lady Dormer?"
"Ah! That is a point I'm not altogether happy about. George had an
interview with General Fentiman after the old man's visit to his
sister. George denies that the General mentioned anything to him about
the will, but then, if George was in the plot he naturally would deny
it. I am rather concerned about George."
"What had he to gain?"
"Well, if George's information was going to make a difference of half a
million to Robert, he would naturally expect to be given a share of the
boodle, don't you think?"
Mr. Murbles groaned.
"Look here," broke in Parker, "this is a very pretty theory, Peter,
but, allowing that the General died, as you say, on the evening of the
tenth, where was the body? As Mr. Murbles says, it would have been a
trifle noticeable if left about."
"No, no," said Mr. Murbles, seized with an idea. "Repellent as the
whole notion is to me, I see no difficulty about that. Robert Fentiman
was at that time living in the Club. No doubt the General died in
Robert's bedroom and was concealed there till the next morning!"
Wimsey shook his head. "That won't work. I think the General's hat and
coat and things were in Robert's bedroom, but the corpse couldn't have
been. Think, sir. Here is a photograph of the entrance-hall, with the
big staircase running up in full view of the front door and the desk
and the bar-entrance. Would you risk carrying a corpse downstairs in
the middle of the morning, with servants and members passing in and out
continually? And the service stairs would be even worse. They are right
round the other side of the building, with continual kitchen traffic
going on all the time. No. The body wasn't in Robert's bedroom."
"Where, then?"
"Yes, where? After all, Peter, we've got to make this story hold
water."
Wimsey spread the rest of the photographs out upon the table.
"Look for yourselves," he said. "Here is the end bay of the library,
where the General was sitting making notes about the money he was
to inherit. A very nice, retired spot, invisible from the doorway,
supplied with ink, blotter, writing-paper and every modern convenience,
including the works of Charles Dickens elegantly bound in morocco. Here
is a shot of the library taken from the smoking-room, clean through
the ante-room and down the gangway--again a tribute to the convenience
of the Bellona Club. Observe how handily the telephone cabinet is
situated, in case--"
"The telephone cabinet?"
"Which, you will remember, was so annoyingly labeled 'Out of Order'
when Wetheridge wanted to telephone. I can't find anybody who remembers
putting up that notice, by the way."
"Good God, Wimsey. Impossible. Think of the risk."
"What risk? If anybody opened the door, there was old General Fentiman,
who had gone in, not seeing the notice, and died of fury at not being
able to get his call. Agitation acting on a weak heart and all that.
Not _very_ risky, really. Unless somebody was to think to inquire about
the notice, and probably it wouldn't occur to any one in the excitement
of the moment."
"You're an ingenious beast, Wimsey."
"Aren't I? But we can prove it. We're going down to the Bellona Club to
prove it now. Half-past eleven. A nice, quiet time. Shall I tell you
what we are going to find inside that cabinet?"
"Finger-prints?" suggested Mr. Murbles, eagerly.
"Afraid that's too much to hope for after all this time. What do you
say, Charles?"
"I say we shall find a long scratch on the paint," said Parker, "where
the foot of the corpse rested and stiffened in that position."
"Holed it in one, Charles. And that, you see, was when the leg had to
be bent with violence in order to drag the corpse out."
"And as the body was in a sitting position," pursued Parker, "we shall,
of course, find a seat inside the cabinet."
"Yes, and, with luck, we _may_ find a projecting nail or something
which caught the General's trouser-leg when the body was removed."
"And possibly a bit of carpet."
"To match the fragment of thread I got off the corpse's right boot? I
hope so."
"Bless my soul," said Mr. Murbles. "Let us go at once. Really, this is
most exciting. That is, I am profoundly grieved. I hope it is not as
you say."
They hastened downstairs and stood for a few moments waiting for a taxi
to pass. Suddenly Wimsey made a dive into a dark corner by the porch.
There was a scuffle, and out into the light came a small man, heavily
muffled in an overcoat, with his hat thrust down to his eyebrows in the
manner of a stage detective. Wimsey unbonneted him with the air of a
conjuror producing a rabbit from a hat.
"So it's you, is it? I thought I knew your face. What the devil do you
mean by following people about like this?"
The man ceased struggling and glanced sharply up at him with a pair of
dark, beady eyes.
"Do you think it wise, my lord, to use violence?"
"Who is it?" asked Parker.
"Pritchard's clerk. He's been hanging round George Fentiman for days.
Now he's hanging round me. He's probably the fellow that's been hanging
round the Bellona. If you go on like this, my man, you'll find yourself
hanging somewhere else one of these days. Now, see here. Do you want me
to give you in charge?"
"That is entirely as your lordship pleases," said the clerk, with a
cunning sneer. "There is a policeman just round the corner, if you wish
to attract publicity."
Wimsey looked at him for a moment, and then began to laugh.
"When did you last see Mr. Pritchard? Come on, out with it! Yesterday?
This morning? Have you seen him since lunch-time?"
A shadow of indecision crossed the man's face.
"You haven't? I'm sure you haven't! Have you?"
"And why not, my lord?"
"You go back to Mr. Pritchard," said Wimsey, impressively, and shaking
his captive gently by the coat-collar to add force to his words, "and
if he doesn't countermand your instructions and call you off this
sleuthing business (which, by the way, you do very amateurishly), I'll
give you a fiver. See? Now, hop it. I know where to find you and you
know where to find me. Good-night and may Morpheus hover over your
couch and bless your slumbers. Here's our taxi."