_Picture-cards_
"So I've put a man in and had all the things in that cupboard taken
away for examination," said Parker.
Lord Peter shook his head.
"I wish I had been there," he said, "I should have liked to see those
paintings. However----"
"They might have conveyed something to you," said Parker, "you're
artistic. You can come along and look at them any time, of course. But
it's the time factor that's worrying me, you know. Supposing she gave
the old boy digitalin in his B and S, why should it wait all that time
before working? According to the books, it ought to have popped him off
in about an hour's time. It was a biggish dose, according to Lubbock."
"I know. I think you're up against a snag there. That's why I should
have liked to see the pictures."
Parker considered this apparent _non sequitur_ for a few moments and
gave it up.
"George Fentiman--" he began.
"Yes," said Wimsey, "George Fentiman. I must be getting emotional in my
old age, Charles, for I have an unconquerable dislike to examining the
question of George Fentiman's opportunities."
"Bar Robert," pursued Parker, ruthlessly, "he was the last interested
person to see General Fentiman."
"Yes--by the way, we have only Robert's unsupported word for what
happened in that last interview between him and the old man."
"Come, Wimsey--you're not going to pretend that Robert had any interest
in his grandfather's dying before Lady Dormer. On the contrary."
"No--but he might have had some interest in his dying before he made a
will. Those notes on that bit of paper. The larger share was to go to
George. That doesn't entirely agree with what Robert said. And if there
was no will, Robert stood to get everything."
"So he did. But by killing the General then, he made sure of getting
nothing at all."
"That's the awkwardness. Unless he thought Lady Dormer was already
dead. But I don't see how he could have thought that. Or unless----"
"Well?"
"Unless he gave his grandfather a pill or something to be taken at some
future time, and the old boy took it too soon by mistake."
"That idea of a delayed-action pill is the most tiresome thing about
this case. It makes almost anything possible."
"Including, of course, the theory of its being given to him by Miss
Dorland."
"That's what I'm going to interview the nurse about, the minute I can
get hold of her. But we've got away from George."
"You're right. Let's face George. I don't want to, though. Like the
lady in Maeterlinck who's running round the table while her husband
tries to polish her off with a hatchet, I am not gay. George is the
nearest in point of time. In fact he fits very well in point of time.
He parted from General Fentiman at about half-past six, and Robert
found Fentiman dead at about eight o'clock. So allowing that the stuff
was given in a pill----"
"Which it would have to be in a taxi," interjected Parker.
"As you say--in a pill, which would take a bit longer to get working
than the same stuff taken in solution--why then the General might
quite well have been able to get to the Bellona and see Robert before
collapsing."
"Very nice. But how did George get the drug?"
"I know, that's the first difficulty."
"And how did he happen to have it on him just at that time? He couldn't
possibly have known that General Fentiman would run across him just
at that moment. Even if he'd known of his being at Lady Dormer's, he
couldn't be expecting him to go from there to Harley Street."
"He might have been carrying the stuff about with him, waiting for a
good opportunity to use it. And when the old man called him up and
started jawing him about his conduct and all that, he thought he'd
better do the job quick, before he was cut out of the will."
"Um!--but why should George be such a fool, then, as to admit he'd
never heard about Lady Dormer's will? If he had heard of it, we
couldn't possibly suspect him. He'd only to say the General told him
about it in the taxi."
"I suppose it hadn't struck him in that light."
"Then George is a bigger ass than I took him for."
"Possibly he is," said Parker, dryly. "At any rate, I have put a man on
to make inquiries at his home."
"Oh! have you? I say, do you know, I wish I'd left this case alone.
What the deuce did it matter if old Fentiman was pushed painlessly off
a bit before his time? He was simply indecently ancient."
"We'll see if you say that in sixty years' time," said Parker.
"By that time we shall, I hope, be moving in different circles. I shall
be in the one devoted to murderers and you in the much lower and hotter
one devoted for those who tempt others to murder them. I wash my hands
of this case, Charles. There's nothing for me to do now you have come
into it. It bores and annoys me. Let's talk about something else."
Wimsey might wash his hands, but, like Pontius Pilate, he found
society irrationally determined to connect him with an irritating and
unsatisfactory case.
At midnight, the telephone bell rang.
He had just gone to bed, and cursed it.
"Tell them I'm out," he shouted to Bunter, and cursed again on hearing
the man assure the unknown caller that he would see whether his
lordship had returned. Disobedience in Bunter spelt urgent necessity.
"Well?"
"It is Mrs. George Fentiman, my lord; she appears to be in great
distress. If your lordship wasn't in I was to beg you to communicate
with her as soon as you arrived."
"Punk! they're not on the 'phone."
"No, my lord."
"Did she say what the matter was?"
"She began by asking if Mr. George Fentiman was here, my lord."
"Oh, hades!"
Bunter advanced gently with his master's dressing-gown and slippers.
Wimsey thrust himself into them savagely and padded away to the
telephone.
"Hullo!"
"Is that Lord Peter?--Oh, _good_!" The line sighed with relief--a harsh
sound, like a death-rattle. "Do you know where George is?"
"No idea. Hasn't he come home?"
"No--and I'm frightened. Some people were here this morning...."
"The police."
"Yes ... George ... they found something ... I can't say it all over
the 'phone ... but George went off to Walmisley-Hubbard's with the
car ... and they say he never came back there ... and ... you remember
that time he was so funny before ... and got lost...."
"Your six minutes are up," boomed the voice of the Exchange, "will you
have another call?"
"Yes, please ... oh, don't cut us off ... wait ... oh! I haven't any
more pennies ... Lord Peter...."
"I'll come round at once," said Wimsey, with a groan.
"Oh, thank you--thank you so much!"
"I say--where's Robert?"
"Your six minutes are up," said the voice, finally, and the line went
dead with a metallic crash.
"Get me my clothes," said Wimsey, bitterly--"give me those loathsome
and despicable rags which I hoped to have put off forever. Get me a
taxi. Get me a drink. Macbeth has murdered sleep. Oh! and get me Robert
Fentiman, first."
Major Fentiman was not in town, said Woodward. He had gone back to
Richmond again. Wimsey tried to get through to Richmond. After a long
time, a female voice, choked with sleep and fury, replied. Major
Fentiman had not come home. Major Fentiman kept very late hours. Would
she give Major Fentiman a message when he did come in? Indeed she would
not. She had other things to do than to stay up all night answering the
telephone calls and giving messages to Major Fentiman. This was the
second time that night, and she had told the other party that she could
not be responsible for telling Major Fentiman this, that and the other.
Would she leave a note for Major Fentiman, asking him to go round to
his brother's house at once? Well now, was it reasonable to expect her
to sit up on a bitter cold night writing letters? Of course not, but
this was a case of urgent illness. It would be a very great kindness.
Just that--to go round to his brother's house and say the call came
from Lord Peter Wimsey.
"Who?"
"Lord Peter Wimsey."
"Very well, sir. I beg your pardon if I was a bit short, but really----"
"You weren't, you snobby old cat, you were infernally long," breathed
his lordship inaudibly. He thanked her, and rang off.
Sheila Fentiman was anxiously waiting for him on the doorstep, so that
he was saved the embarrassment of trying to remember which was the
right number of rings to give. She clasped his hand eagerly as she drew
him in.
"Oh! it is good of you. I'm so worried. I say, don't make a noise, will
you? They complain, you know." She spoke in a harassed whisper.
"Blast them, let them complain," said Wimsey, cheerfully. "Why
shouldn't you make a row when George is upset? Besides, if we whisper,
they'll think we're no better than we ought to be. Now, my child,
what's all this? You're as cold as a _pêche Melba_. That won't do. Fire
half out--where's the whisky?"
"Hush! I'm all right, really. George----"
"You're not all right. Nor am I. As George Robey says, this getting up
from my warm bed and going into the cold night air doesn't suit me." He
flung a generous shovelful of coals on the fire and thrust the poker
between the bars. "And you've had no grub. No wonder you're feeling
awful."
Two places were set at the table--untouched--waiting for George. Wimsey
plunged into the kitchen premises, followed by Sheila uttering agitated
remonstrances. He found some disagreeable remnants--a watery stew, cold
and sodden; a basin half-full of some kind of tinned soup; a chill suet
pudding put away on a shelf.
"Does your woman cook for you? I suppose she does, as you're both
out all day. Well, she can't cook, my child. No matter, here's some
Bovril--she can't have hurt that. You go and sit down and I'll make you
some."
"Mrs. Munns----"
"Blow Mrs. Munns!"
"But I must tell you about George."
He looked at her, and decided that she really must tell him about
George.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bully. One has an ancestral idea that
women must be treated like imbeciles in a crisis. Centuries of the
'women-and-children-first' idea, I suppose. Poor devils!"
"Who, the women?"
"Yes. No wonder they sometimes lose their heads. Pushed into corners,
told nothing of what's happening and made to sit quiet and do nothing.
Strong men would go dotty in the circs. I suppose that's why we've
always grabbed the privilege of rushing about and doing the heroic
bits."
"That's quite true. Give me the kettle."
"No, no. I'll do that. You sit down and--I mean, sorry, _take_ the
kettle. Fill it, light the gas, put it on. And tell me about George."
The trouble, it seemed, had begun at breakfast. Ever since the story
of the murder had come out, George had been very nervy and jumpy, and,
to Sheila's horror, had "started muttering again." "Muttering," Wimsey
remembered, had formerly been the prelude to one of George's "queer
fits." These had been a form of shell-shock, and they had generally
ended in his going off and wandering about in a distraught manner for
several days, sometimes with partial and occasionally with complete
temporary loss of memory. There was the time when he had been found
dancing naked in a field among a flock of sheep and singing to them.
It had been the more ludicrously painful in that George was altogether
tone-deaf, so that his singing, though loud, was like a hoarse and
rumbling wind in the chimney. Then there was a dreadful time when
George had deliberately walked into a bonfire. That was when they had
been staying down in the country. George had been badly burnt, and the
shock of the pain had brought him round. He never remembered afterwards
why he had tried to do these things, and had only the faintest
recollection of having done them at all. The next vagary might be even
more disconcerting.
At any rate, George had been "muttering."
They were at breakfast that morning, when they saw two men coming up
the path. Sheila, who sat opposite the window, saw them first, and
said carelessly: "Hullo! who are these? They look like plainclothes
policemen." George took one look, jumped up and rushed out of the room.
She called to him to know what was the matter, but he did not answer,
and she heard him "rummaging" in the back room, which was the bedroom.
She was going to him, when she heard Mr. Munns open the door to the
policemen and then heard them inquiring for George. Mr. Munns ushered
them into the front room with a grim face on which "police" seemed
written in capital letters. George----
At this point the kettle boiled. Sheila was taking it off the stove to
make the Bovril, when Wimsey became aware of a hand on his coat-collar.
He looked round into the face of a gentleman who appeared not to have
shaved for several days.
"Now then," said this apparition, "what's the meaning of this?"
"Which," added an indignant voice from the door, "I thought as there
was something behind all this talk of the Captain being missing. You
didn't expect him to be missing, I suppose, ma'am. Oh, dear no! Nor
your gentleman friend, neither, sneaking up in a taxi and you waiting
at the door so's Munns and me shouldn't hear. But I'd have you know
this is a respectable house, Lord Knows Who or whatever you call
yourself--more likely one of these low-down confidence fellers, I
expect, if the truth was known. With a monocle too, like that man we
was reading about in the News of the World. And in my kitchen too, and
drinking my Bovril in the middle of the night, the impudence! Not to
speak of the goings-in-and-out all day, banging the front door, and
that was the police come here this morning, you think I didn't know?
Up to something, that's what they've been, the pair of them, and the
captain as he says he is but that's as may be, I daresay he had his
reasons for clearing off, and the sooner you goes after him my fine
madam, the better I'll be pleased, I can tell you."
"That's right," said Mr. Munns--"ow!"
Lord Peter had removed the intrusive hand from his collar with a sharp
jerk which appeared to cause anguish out of all proportion to the force
used.
"I'm glad you've come along," he said. "In fact, I was just going to
give you a call. Have you anything to drink in the house, by the way?"
"Drink?" cried Mrs. Munns on a high note, "the impudence! And if I see
you, Joe, giving drinks to thieves and worse in the middle of the night
in my kitchen, you'll get a piece of my mind. Coming in here as bold as
brass and the captain run away, and asking for drink----"
"Because," said Wimsey, fingering his note-case, "the public houses in
this law-abiding neighborhood are of course closed. Otherwise a bottle
of Scotch----"
Mr. Munns appeared to hesitate.
"Call yourself a man!" said Mrs. Munns.
"Of course," said Mr. Munns, "if I was to go in a friendly manner to
Jimmy Rowe at the Dragon, and ask him to give me a bottle of Johnny
Walker as a friend to a friend, and provided no money was to pass
between him and me, that is----"
"A good idea," said Wimsey, cordially.
Mrs. Munns gave a loud shriek.
"The ladies," said Mr. Munns, "gets nervous at times." He shrugged his
shoulders.
"I daresay a drop of Scotch wouldn't do Mrs. Munns's nerves any harm,"
said Wimsey.
"If you dare, Joe Munns," said the landlady, "if you dare to go out at
this time of night, hob-nobbing with Jimmy Rowe and making a fool of
yourself with burglars and such----"
Mr. Munns executed a sudden volte-face.
"You shut up!" he shouted. "Always sticking your face in where you
aren't wanted."
"Are you speaking to me?"
"Yes. Shut up!"
Mrs. Munns sat down suddenly on a kitchen chair and began to sniff.
"I'll just hop round to the Dragon now, sir," said Mr. Munns, "before
old Jimmy goes to bed. And then we'll go into this here."
He departed. Possibly he forgot what he had said about no money
passing, for he certainly took the note which Wimsey absent-mindedly
held out to him.
"Your drink's getting cold," said Wimsey to Sheila.
She came across to him.
"Can't we get rid of these people?"
"In half a jiff. It's not good having a row with them. I'd do it like
a shot, only, you see, you've got to stay on here for a bit, in case
George comes back."
"Of course. I'm sorry for all this upset, Mrs. Munns," she added, a
little stiffly, "but I'm so worried about my husband."
"Husband?" snorted Mrs. Munns. "A lot husbands are to worry about. Look
at that Joe. Off he goes to the Dragon, never mind what I say to him.
They're dirt, that's what husbands are, the whole pack of them. And I
don't care what anybody says."
"Are they?" said Wimsey. "Well, I'm not one--yet--so you needn't mind
what you say to me."
"It's the same thing," said the lady, viciously, "husbands and
parricides, there's not a half-penny to choose between them. Only
parricides aren't respectable--but then, they're easier got rid of."
"Oh!" replied Wimsey, "but I'm not a parricide either--not Mrs.
Fentiman's parricide at any rate, I assure you. Hullo! here's Joe.
Did you get the doings, old man? You did? Good work. Now, Mrs. Munns,
have just a spot with us. You'll feel all the better for it. And why
shouldn't we go into the sitting-room where it's warmer?"
Mrs. Munns complied. "Oh, well," she said, "here's friends all round.
But you'll allow it all looked a bit queer, now, didn't it? And the
police this morning, asking all those questions, and emptying the
dust-bin all over the back-yard."
"Whatever did they want with the dust-bin?"
"Lord knows; and that Cummins woman looking on all the time over the
wall. I can tell you, I was vexed. 'Why, Mrs. Munns,' she said, 'have
you been poisoning people?' she said. 'I always told you,' she said
'your cooking 'ud do for somebody one of these days.' The nasty cat."
"What a rotten thing to say," said Wimsey, sympathetically. "Just
jealousy, I expect. But what did the police find in the dust-bin?"
"Find? Them find anything? I should like to see them finding things
in my dust-bin. The less I see of their interfering ways the better
I'm pleased. I told them so. I said, 'If you want to come upsetting my
dust-bin,' I said, 'you'll have to come with a search-warrant,' I said.
That's the law and they couldn't deny it. They said Mrs. Fentiman had
given them leave to look, so I told them Mrs. Fentiman had no leave to
give them. It was my dust-bin, I told them, not hers. So they went off
with a flea in their ear."
"That's the stuff to give 'em, Mrs. Munns."
"Not but what I'm respectable. If the police come to me in a right and
lawful manner, I'll gladly give them any help they want. I don't want
to get into trouble, not for any number of captains. But interference
with a free-born woman and no search-warrant I will _not_ stand. And
they can either come to me in a fitting way or they can go and whistle
for their bottle."
"What bottle?" asked Wimsey, quickly.
"The bottle they were looking for in my dust-bin, what the captain put
there after breakfast."
Sheila gave a faint cry.
"What bottle was that, Mrs. Munns?"
"One of them little tablet bottles," said Mrs. Munns, "same as you have
standing on the wash-hand stand, Mrs. Fentiman. When I saw the Captain
smashing it up in the yard with a poker----"
"There now, Primrose," said Mr. Munns, "can't you see as Mrs. Fentiman
ain't well?"
"I'm quite all right," said Sheila, hastily, pushing away the hair
which clung damply to her forehead. "What was my husband doing?"
"I saw him," said Mrs. Munns, "run out into the back-yard--just after
your breakfast it was, because I recollect Munns was letting the
officers into the house at the time. Not that I knew then who it was,
for, if you will excuse me mentioning of it, I was in the outside
lavatory, and that was how I come to see the Captain. Which ordinarily,
you can't see the dust-bin from the house, my lord I should say, I
suppose, if you really are one, but you meet so many bad characters
nowadays that one can't be too careful--on account of the lavatory
standing out as you may say and hiding it."
"Just so," said Wimsey.
"So when I saw the captain breaking the bottle as I said, and throwing
the bits into the dust-bin, 'Hullo!' I said, 'that's funny,' and I went
to see what it was and I put it in an envelope, thinking, you see, as
it might be something poisonous, and the cat such a dreadful thief as
he is, I never can keep him out of that dust-bin. And when I came in, I
found the police here. So after a bit, I found them poking about in the
yard and I asked them what they were doing there. Such a mess as they'd
made, you never would believe. So they showed me a little cap they'd
found, same as it might be off that tablet-bottle. Did I know where the
rest of it was?' they said. And I said, what business had they got with
the dust-bin at all. So they said----"
"Yes, I know," said Wimsey. "I think you acted very sensibly, Mrs.
Munns. And what did you do with the envelope and things?"
"I kept it," replied Mrs. Munns, nodding her head, "I kept it.
Because, you see, if they _did_ return _with_ a warrant and I'd
destroyed that bottle, where should _I_ be?"
"Quite right," said Wimsey, with his eye on Sheila.
"Always keep on the right side of the law," agreed Mr. Munns, "and
nobody can't interfere with you. That's what I say. I'm a Conservative,
I am. I don't hold with these Socialist games. Have another."
"Not just now," said Wimsey. "And we really must not keep you and Mrs.
Munns up any longer. But, look here! You see, Captain Fentiman had
shell-shock after the War, and he is liable to do these little odd
things at times--break things up, I mean, and lose his memory and go
wandering about. So Mrs. Fentiman is naturally anxious about his not
having turned up this evening."
"Ay," said Mr. Munns, with relish. "I knew a fellow like that. Went
clean off his rocker he did one night. Smashed up his family with a
beetle--a pavior he was by profession, and that's how he came to have
a beetle in the house--pounded 'em to a jelly, he did, his wife and
five little children, and went off and drownded himself in the Regent's
Canal. And, what's more, when they got him out, he didn't remember a
word about it, not one word. So they sent him to--what's that place?
Dartmoor? no, Broadmoor, that's it, where Ronnie True went to with his
little toys and all."
"Shut up, you fool," said Wimsey, savagely.
"Haven't you got feelings?" demanded his wife.
Sheila got up, and made a blind effort in the direction of the door.
"Come and lie down," said Wimsey, "you're worn out. Hullo! there's
Robert, I expect. I left a message for him to come round as soon as he
got home."
Mr. Munns went to answer the bell.
"We'd better get her to bed as quick as possible," said Wimsey to the
landlady. "Have you got such a thing as a hot-water bottle?"
Mrs. Munns departed to fetch one, and Sheila caught Wimsey's hand.
"Can't you get hold of that bottle? Make her give it to you. You can.
You can do anything. Make her."
"Better not," said Wimsey. "Look suspicious. Look here, Sheila, what
_is_ the bottle?"
"My heart medicine. I missed it. It's something to do with digitalin."
"Oh, lord," said Wimsey, as Robert came in.
"It's all pretty damnable," said Robert.
He thumped the fire gloomily; it was burning badly, the lower bars were
choked with the ashes of a day and night.
"I've been having a talk with Frobisher," he added. "All this talk in
the Club--and the papers--naturally he couldn't overlook it."
"Was he decent?"
"Very decent. But of course I couldn't explain the thing. I'm sending
in my papers."
Wimsey nodded. Colonel Frobisher could scarcely overlook an attempted
fraud--not after things had been said in the papers.
"If I'd only let the old man alone. Too late now. He'd have been
buried. Nobody would have asked questions."
"I didn't _want_ to interfere," said Wimsey, defending himself against
the unspoken reproach.
"Oh, I know. I'm not blaming you. People ... money oughtn't to depend
on people's deaths ... old people, with no use for their lives ... it's
a devil of a temptation. Look here, Wimsey, what are we to do about
this woman?"
"The Munns female?"
"Yes. It's the devil and all she should have got hold of the stuff. If
they find out what it's supposed to be, we shall be blackmailed for the
rest of our lives."
"No," said Wimsey, "I'm sorry, old man, but the police have got to know
about it."
Robert sprang to his feet.
"My God!--you wouldn't----"
"Sit down, Fentiman. Yes, I must. Don't you see I must? We can't
suppress things. It always means trouble. It's not even as though they
hadn't got their eyes on us already. They're suspicious----"
"Yes, and why?" burst out Robert, violently. "Who put it into their
heads?... For God's sake don't start talking about law and justice!
Law and justice! You'd sell your best friend for the sake of making a
sensational appearance in the witness-box, you infernal little police
spy!"
"Chuck that, Fentiman!"
"I'll not chuck it! You'd go and give away a man to the police--when
you know perfectly well he isn't responsible--just because you can't
afford to be mixed up in anything unpleasant. I know you. Nothing's too
dirty for you to meddle in, provided you can pose as the pious little
friend of justice. You make me sick!"
"I tried to keep out of this----"
"You tried!--don't be a blasted hypocrite! You get out of it now, and
stay out--do you hear?"
"Yes, but listen a moment----"
"Get out!" said Robert.
Wimsey stood up.
"I know how you feel, Fentiman----"
"Don't stand there being righteous and forebearing, you sickening
prig. For the last time--are you going to shut up, or are you going to
trot round to your policeman friend and earn the thanks of a grateful
country for splitting on George? Get on! Which is it to be?"
"You won't do George any good----"
"Never mind that. Are you going to hold your tongue?"
"Be reasonable, Fentiman."
"Reasonable be damned. Are you going to the police? No shuffling. Yes
or no?"
"Yes."
"You dirty little squirt," said Robert, striking out passionately.
Wimsey's return blow caught him neatly on the chin and landed him in
the wastepaper basket.
"And now, look here," said Wimsey, standing over him, hat and stick in
hand. "It's no odds to me what you do or say. You think your brother
murdered your grandfather. I don't know whether he did or not. But the
worst thing you can do for him is to try and destroy evidence. And the
worst thing you can possibly do for his wife is to make her a party to
anything of the sort. And next time you try to smash anybody's face
in, remember to cover up your chin. That's all. I can let myself out.
Good-bye."
* * * * *
He went round to 12 Great Ormond Street and rousted Parker out of bed.
Parker listened thoughtfully to what he had to say.
"I wish we'd stopped Fentiman before he bolted," he said.
"Yes; why didn't you?"
"Well, Dykes seems to have muffed it rather. I wasn't there myself.
But everything seemed all right. Fentiman looked a bit nervy, but
many people do when they're interviewed by the police--think of their
hideous pasts, I suppose, and wonder what's coming next. Or else it's
just stage-fright. He stuck to the same tale he told you--said he was
quite sure the old General hadn't taken any pills or anything in the
taxi--didn't attempt to pretend he knew anything about Lady Dormer's
will. There was nothing to detain him for. He said he had to get to
his job in Great Portland Street. So they let him go. Dykes sent a
man to follow him up, and he went along to Hubbard-Walmisley's all
right. Dykes said, might he just have a look round the place before
he went, and Mrs. Fentiman said certainly. He didn't expect to find
anything, really. Just happened to step into the back-yard, and saw
a bit of broken glass. He then had a look round, and there was the
cap of the tablet-bottle in the dust-bin. Well, then, of course, he
started to get interested, and was just having a hunt through for the
rest of it, when old mother Munns appeared and said the dust-bin was
her property. So they had to clear out. But Dykes oughtn't to have
let Fentiman go till they'd finished going over the place. He 'phoned
through to Hubbard-Walmisley's at once, and heard that Fentiman had
arrived and immediately gone out with the car, to visit a prospective
customer in Herts. The fellow who was supposed to be trailing Fentiman
got carburetor trouble just beyond St. Albans, and by the time he was
fixed, he'd lost Fentiman."
"Did Fentiman go to the customer's house?"
"Not he. Disappeared completely. We shall find the car, of course--it's
only a matter of time."
"Yes," said Wimsey. His voice sounded tired and constrained.
"This alters the look of things a bit," said Parker, "doesn't it?"
"Yes."
"What have you done to your face, old man?"
Wimsey glanced at the looking-glass, and saw that an angry red flush
had come up on the cheekbone.
"Had a bit of a dust-up with Robert," he said.
"Oh!"
Parker was aware of a thin veil of hostility, drawn between himself
and the friend he valued. He knew that for the first time, Wimsey was
seeing him as the police. Wimsey was ashamed and his shame made Parker
ashamed too.
"You'd better have some breakfast," said Parker. His voice sounded
awkward to himself.
"No--no thanks, old man. I'll go home and get a bath and shave."
"Oh, right-oh!"
There was a pause.
"Well, I'd better be going," said Wimsey.
"Oh, yes," said Parker again. "Right-oh!"
"Er--cheerio!" said Wimsey at the door.
"Cheerio!" said Parker.
The bedroom door shut. The flat door shut. The front door shut.
Parker pulled the telephone towards him and called up Scotland Yard.
* * * * *
The atmosphere of his own office was bracing to Parker when he got down
there. For one thing, he was taken aside by a friend and congratulated
in conspiratorial whispers.
"Your promotion's gone through," said the friend. "Dead certainty. The
Chief's no end pleased. Between you and me, of course. But you've got
your Chief-Inspectorship all right. Damn good."
Then, at ten o'clock, the news came through that the missing
Walmisley-Hubbard had turned up. It had been abandoned in a remote
Hertfordshire lane. It was in perfectly good order, the gear-lever in
neutral and the tank full of petrol. Evidently, Fentiman had left it
and wandered away somewhere, but he could not be far off. Parker made
the necessary arrangements for combing out the neighborhood. The bustle
and occupation soothed his mind. Guilty or insane or both, George
Fentiman had to be found; it was just a job to be done.
The man who had been sent to interview Mrs. Munns (armed this time
with a warrant) returned with the fragments of the bottle and tablets.
Parker duly passed these along to the police analyst. One of the
detectives who was shadowing Miss Dorland rang up to announce that a
young woman had come to see her, and that the two had then come out
carrying a suit-case and driven away in a taxi. Maddison, the other
detective, was following them. Parker said, "All right; stay where
you are for the present," and considered this new development. The
telephone rang again. He thought it would be Maddison, but it was
Wimsey--a determinedly brisk and cheerful Wimsey this time.
"I say, Charles. I want something."
"What?"
"I want to go and see Miss Dorland."
"You can't. She's gone off somewhere. My man hasn't reported yet."
"Oh! Well, never mind her. What I really want to see is her studio."
"Yes? Well, there's no reason why you shouldn't."
"Will they let me in?"
"Probably not. I'll meet you there and take you in with me. I was
going out any way. I've got to interview the nurse. We've just got hold
of her."
"Thanks awfully. Sure you can spare the time?"
"Yes. I'd like your opinion."
"I'm glad somebody wants it. I'm beginning to feel like a pelican in
the wilderness."
"Rot! I'll be round in ten minutes."
"Of course," explained Parker, as he ushered Wimsey into the studio,
"we've taken away all the chemicals and things. There's not much to
look at, really."
"Well, you can deal best with all that. It's the books and paintings
I want to look at. H'm! Books, you know, Charles, are like lobster
shells, we surround ourselves with 'em, then we grow out of 'em and
leave 'em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development."
"That's a fact," said Parker. "I've got rows of school-boy stuff at
home--never touch it now, of course. And W. J. Locke--read everything
he wrote once upon a time. And Le Queux, and Conan Doyle, and all that
stuff."
"And now you read theology. And what else?"
"Well, I read Hardy a good bit. And when I'm not too tired, I have a go
at Henry James."
"The refined self-examinations of the infinitely-sophisticated. 'M-m.
Well now. Let's start with the shelves by the fireplace. Dorothy
Richardson--Virginia Woolf--E. B. C. Jones--May Sinclair--Katherine
Mansfield--the modern female writers are well represented, aren't they?
Galsworthy. Yes. No J. D. Beresford--no Wells--no Bennett. Dear me,
quite a row of D. H. Lawrence. I wonder if she reads him very often."
He pulled down "Women in Love" at random, and slapped the pages open
and shut.
"Not kept very well dusted, are they? But they have been read. Compton
Mackenzie--Storm Jameson--yes--I see."
"The medical stuff is over here."
"Oh!--a few text-books--first steps in chemistry. What's that tumbled
down at the back of the book-case? Louis Berman, eh? _The Personal
Equation_. And here's _Why We Behave Like Human Beings_. And Julian
Huxley's essays. A determined effort at self-education here, what?"
"Girls seem to go in for that sort of thing nowadays."
"Yes--hardly nice, is it? Hullo!"
"What?"
"Over here by the couch. This represents the latest of our
lobster-shells, I fancy. Austin Freeman, Austin Freeman, Austin
Freeman--bless me! she must have ordered him in wholesale. _Through
the Wall_--that's a good 'tec story, Charles--all about the third
degree--Isabel Ostrander--three Edgar Wallaces--the girl's been
indulging in an orgy of crime!"
"I shouldn't wonder," said Parker, with emphasis. "That fellow Freeman
is full of plots about poisonings and wills and survivorship, isn't he?"
"Yes"--Wimsey balanced _A Silent Witness_ gently in his hand, and
laid it down again. "This one, for instance, is all about a bloke who
murdered somebody and kept him in cold storage till he was ready to
dispose of him. It would suit Robert Fentiman."
Parker grinned.
"A bit elaborate for the ordinary criminal. But I daresay people do get
ideas out of these books. Like to look at the pictures? They're pretty
awful."
"Don't try to break it gently. Show us the worst at once.... Oh, lord!"
"Well, it gives _me_ a pain," said Parker. "But I thought perhaps that
was my lack of artistic education."
"It was your natural good taste. What vile color, and viler drawing."
"But nobody cares about drawing nowadays, do they?"
"Ah! but there's a difference between the man who can draw and won't
draw, and the man who can't draw at all. Go on. Let's see the rest."
Parker produced them, one after the other. Wimsey glanced quickly at
each. He had picked up the brush and palette and was fingering them as
he talked.
"These," he said, "are the paintings of a completely untalented person,
who is, moreover, trying to copy the mannerisms of a very advanced
school. By the way, you have noticed, of course, that she has been
painting within the last few days, but chucked it in sudden disgust.
She has left the paints on the palette, and the brushes are still stuck
in the turps, turning their ends up and generally ruining themselves.
Suggestive, I fancy. The--stop a minute! Let's look at that again."
Parker had brought forward the head of the sallow, squinting man which
he had mentioned to Wimsey before.
"Put that up on the easel. That's very interesting. The others, you
see, are all an effort to imitate other people's art, but this--this is
an effort to imitate nature. Why?--it's very bad, but it's meant for
somebody. And it's been worked on a lot. Now what was it made her do
that?"
"Well, it wasn't for his beauty, I should think."
"No?--but there must have been a reason. Dante, you may remember,
once painted an angel. Do you know the limerick about the old man of
Khartoum?"
"What did he do?"
"He kept two black sheep in his room. They remind me (he said) of two
friends who are dead. But I cannot remember of whom."
"If that reminds you of anybody you know, I don't care much for your
friends. I never saw an uglier mug."
"He's not beautiful. But I think the sinister squint is chiefly due to
bad drawing. It's very difficult to get eyes looking the same way, when
you can't draw. Cover up one eye, Charles--not yours, the portrait's."
Parker did so.
Wimsey looked again, and shook his head.
"It escapes me for the moment," he said. "Probably it's nobody I know
after all. But, whoever it is, surely this room tells you something."
"It suggests to me," said Parker, "that the girl's been taking more
interest in crimes and chemistry stuff than is altogether healthy in
the circumstances."
Wimsey looked at him for a moment.
"I wish I could think as you do."
"What _do_ you think?" demanded Parker, impatiently.
"No," said Wimsey. "I told you about that George business this morning,
because glass bottles are facts, and one mustn't conceal facts. But I'm
not obliged to tell you what I think."
"You don't think, then, that Ann Dorland did the murder?"
"I don't know about that, Charles. I came here hoping that this room
would tell me the same thing that it told you. But it hasn't. It's told
me different. It's told me what I thought all along."
"A penny for your thoughts, then," said Parker, trying desperately to
keep the conversation on a jocular footing.
"Not even thirty pieces of silver," replied Wimsey, mournfully.
Parker stacked the canvasses away without another word.