_Ann Dorland Goes Misere_
The studio door was opened by a girl he did not know. She was not tall,
but compactly and generously built. He noticed the wide shoulders and
the strong swing of the thighs before he had taken in her face. The
uncurtained window behind her threw her features into shadow, he was
only aware of thick black hair, cut in a square bob, with a bang across
the forehead.
"Miss Phelps is out."
"Oh!--will she be long?"
"Don't know. She'll be in to supper."
"Do you think I might come in and wait?"
"I expect so, if you're a friend of hers."
The girl fell back from the doorway and let him pass. He laid his
hat and stick on the table and turned to her. She took no notice of
him, but walked over to the fireplace and stood with one hand on the
mantelpiece. Unable to sit down, since she was still standing, Wimsey
moved to the modeling-board, and raised the wet cloth that covered the
little mound of clay.
He was gazing with an assumption of great interest at the half-modeled
figure of an old flower-seller, when the girl said:
"I say!"
She had taken up Marjorie Phelps' figurine of himself, and was twisting
it over in her fingers.
"Is this you?"
"Yes--rather good of me, don't you think?"
"What do you want?"
"Want?"
"You've come here to have a look at me, haven't you?"
"I came to see Miss Phelps."
"I suppose the policeman at the corner comes to see Miss Phelps too."
Wimsey glanced out of the window. There _was_ a man at the corner--an
elaborately indifferent lounger.
"I am sorry," said Wimsey, with sudden enlightenment. "I'm really
awfully sorry to seem so stupid, and so intrusive. But honestly, I had
no idea who you were till this moment."
"Hadn't you? Oh, well, it doesn't matter."
"Shall I go?"
"You can please yourself."
"If you really mean that, Miss Dorland, I should like to stay. I've
been wanting to meet you, you know."
"That was nice of you," she mocked. "First you wanted to defraud me,
and now you're trying to----"
"To what?"
She shrugged her wide shoulders.
"Yours is not a pleasant hobby, Lord Peter Wimsey."
"Will you believe me," said Wimsey, "when I assure you that I was never
a party to the fraud. In fact, I showed it up. I did, really."
"Oh, well. It doesn't matter now."
"But do please believe that."
"Very well. If you say so, I must believe it."
She threw herself on the couch near the fire.
"That's better," said Wimsey. "Napoleon or somebody said that you could
always turn a tragedy into a comedy, by sittin' down. Perfectly true,
isn't it? Let's talk about something ordinary till Miss Phelps comes
in. Shall we?"
"What do you want to talk about?"
"Oh, well--that's rather embarrassin'. Books." He waved a vague hand.
"What have you been readin' lately?"
"Nothing much."
"Don't know what I should do without books. Fact, I always wonder what
people did in the old days. Just think of it. All sorts of bothers
goin' on--matrimonial rows and love-affairs--prodigal sons and servants
and worries--and no books to turn to."
"People worked with their hands instead."
"Yes--that's frightfully jolly for the people who can do it. I envy
them myself. You paint, don't you?"
"I try to."
"Portraits?"
"Oh, no--figure and landscape chiefly."
"Oh!... A friend of mine--well, it's no use disguising it--he's a
detective--you've met him, I think...."
"That man? Oh, yes. Quite a polite sort of detective."
"He told me he'd seen some stuff of yours. It rather surprised him, I
think. He's not exactly a modernist. He seemed to think your portraits
were your best work."
"There weren't many portraits. A few figure-studies...."
"They worried him a bit." Wimsey laughed. "The only thing he
understood, he said, was a man's head in oils...."
"Oh, that!--just an experiment--a fancy thing. My best stuff is some
sketches I did of the Wiltshire Downs a year or two ago. Direct
painting, without any preliminary sketch."
She described a number of these works.
"They sound ever so jolly," said Wimsey. "Great stuff. I wish I could
do something of that kind. As I say, I have to fall back on books for
my escape. Reading _is_ an escape to me. Is it to you?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well--it is to most people, I think. Servants and factory hands read
about beautiful girls loved by dark, handsome men, all covered over
with jewels and moving in scenes of gilded splendour. And passionate
spinsters read Ethel M. Dell. And dull men in offices read detective
stories. They wouldn't, if murder and police entered into their lives."
"I don't know," she said. "When Crippen and Le Neve were taken on the
steamer, they were reading Edgar Wallace." Her voice was losing its
dull harshness; she sounded almost interested.
"Le Neve was reading it," said Wimsey, "but I've never believed she
knew about the murder. I think she was fighting desperately to know
nothing about it--reading horrors, and persuading herself that nothing
of that kind had happened, or could happen, to her. I think one might
do that, don't you?"
"I don't know," said Ann Dorland. "Of course, a detective story keeps
your brain occupied. Rather like chess. Do you play chess?"
"No good at it. I like it--but I keep on thinking about the history
of the various pieces, and the picturesqueness of the moves. So I get
beaten. I'm not a player."
"Nor am I. I wish I were."
"Yes--that would keep one's mind off things with a vengeance. Draughts
or dominoes or patience would be even better. No connection with
anything. I remember," added Wimsey, "one time when something perfectly
grinding and hateful had happened to me. I played patience all day.
I was in a nursing home--with shell-shock--and other things. I only
played one game, the very simplest ... the demon ... a silly game with
no ideas in it at all. I just went on laying it out and gathering
it up ... hundred times in an evening ... so as to stop thinking."
"Then you too...."
Wimsey waited; but she did not finish the sentence.
"It's a kind of drug, of course. That's an awfully trite thing to say,
but it's quite true."
"Yes, quite."
"I read detective stories too. They were about the only thing I could
read. All the others had the war in them--or love ... or some damn
thing I didn't want to think about."
She moved restlessly.
"You've been through it, haven't you?" said Wimsey, gently.
"Me?... well ... all this ... it isn't pleasant, you know ... the
police ... and ... and everything."
"You're not really worried about the police, are you?"
She had cause to be, if she only knew it, but he buried this knowledge
at the bottom of his mind, defying it to show itself.
"Everything's pretty hateful, isn't it?"
"Something's hurt you ... all right ... don't talk about it if you
don't want to ... a man?"
"It usually is a man, isn't it?"
Her eyes were turned away from him, and she answered with a kind of
shamefaced defiance.
"Practically always," said Wimsey. "Fortunately, one gets over it."
"Depends what it is."
"One gets over everything," repeated Wimsey, firmly. "Particularly if
one tells somebody about it."
"One can't always tell things."
"I can't imagine anything really untellable."
"Some things are so beastly."
"Oh, yes--quite a lot of things. Birth is beastly--and death--and
digestion, if it comes to that. Sometimes when I think of what's
happening inside me to a beautiful _suprème de sole_, with the caviare
in boats, and the _croûtons_ and the jolly little twists of potato and
all the gadgets--I could cry. But there it is, don't you know."
Ann Dorland suddenly laughed.
"That's better," said Wimsey. "Look here, you've been brooding over
this and you're seeing it all out of proportion. Let's be practical and
frightfully ordinary. Is it a baby?"
"Oh, no!"
"Well--that's rather a good thing, because babies, though no doubt
excellent in their way, take a long time and come expensive. Is it
blackmail?"
"Good heavens, no!"
"Good. Because blackmail is even longer and more expensive than babies.
Is it Freudian, or sadistic, or any of those popular modern amusements?"
"I don't believe you'd turn a hair if it was."
"Why should I?--I can't think of anything worse to suggest, except what
Rose Macaulay refers to as 'nameless orgies.' Or diseases, of course.
It's not leprosy or anything?"
"What a mind you've got," she said, beginning to laugh. "No, it isn't
leprosy."
"Well, what _did_ the blighter do?"
Ann Dorland smiled faintly: "It's nothing, really."
"If only Heaven prevents Marjorie Phelps from coming in," thought
Wimsey, "I'm going to get it now.... It must have been something, to
upset you like this," he pursued aloud, "you're not the kind of woman
to be upset about nothing."
"You don't think I am?" She got up and faced him squarely. "He said ...
he said ... I imagined things ... he said ... he said I had a mania
about sex. I suppose you would call it Freudian, really," she added
hastily, flushing an ugly crimson.
"Is that all?" said Wimsey. "I know plenty of people who would take
that as a compliment.... But obviously you don't. What exact form of
mania did he suggest...?"
"Oh, the gibbering sort that hangs round church doors for curates," she
broke out, fiercely. "It's a lie. He did--he _did_--pretend to--want me
and all that. The beast!... I can't tell you the things he said ... and
I'd made such a fool of myself...."
She was back on the couch, crying, with large, ugly, streaming tears,
and snorting into the cushions. Wimsey sat down beside her.
"Poor kid," he said. This, then, was at the back of Marjorie's
mysterious hints, and those scratchcat sneers of Naomi Rushworth's. The
girl had wanted love-affairs, that was certain; imagined them perhaps.
There had been Ambrose Ledbury. Between the normal and the abnormal,
the gulf is deep, but so narrow that misrepresentation is made easy.
"Look here." He put a comforting arm round Ann's heaving shoulders.
"This fellow--was it Penberthy, by the way?"
"How did you know?"
"Oh!--the portrait, and lots of things. The things you liked once, and
then wanted to hide away and forget. He's a rotter, anyway, for saying
that kind of thing--even if it was true, which it isn't. You got to
know him at the Rushworth's, I take it--when?"
"Nearly two years ago."
"Were you keen on him then?"
"No. I--well, I was keen on somebody else. Only that was a mistake too.
He--he was one of those people, you know."
"They can't help themselves," said Wimsey, soothingly. "When did the
change-over happen?"
"The other man went away. And later on, Dr. Penberthy--oh! I don't
know! He walked home with me once or twice, and then he asked me to
dine with him--in Soho."
"Had you at that time told any one about this comic will of Lady
Dormer's?"
"Of course not. How could I? I never knew anything about it till after
she died."
Her surprise sounded genuine enough.
"What did you think? Did you think the money would come to you?"
"I knew that some of it would; Auntie told me she would see me provided
for."
"There were the grandsons, of course."
"Yes; I thought she would leave most of it to them. It's a pity she
didn't, poor dear. Then there wouldn't have been all this dreadful
bother."
"People so often seem to lose their heads when they make wills. So
you were a sort of dark horse at that time. H'm. Did this precious
Penberthy ask you to marry him?"
"I thought he did. But he says he didn't. We talked about founding his
clinic; I was to help him."
"And that was when you chucked painting for books about medicine and
first-aid classes. Did your aunt know about the engagement?"
"He didn't want her told. It was to be our secret, till he got a better
position. He was afraid she might think he was after the money."
"I daresay he was."
"He made out he was fond of me," she said, miserably.
"Of course, my dear child; your case is not unique. Didn't you tell any
of your friends?"
"No." Wimsey reflected that the Ledbury episode had probably left
a scar. Besides--did women tell things to other women? He had long
doubted it.
"You were still engaged when Lady Dormer died, I take it?"
"As engaged as we ever were. Of course, he told me that there was
something funny about the body. He said you and the Fentimans were
trying to defraud me of the money. I shouldn't have minded for
myself--it was more money than I should have known what to do with. But
it would have meant the clinic, you see."
"Yes, you could start a pretty decent clinic with half a million. So
that was why you shot me out of the house."
He grinned--and then reflected a few moments.
"Look here," he said, "I'm going to give you a bit of a shock, but
it'll have to come sooner or later. Has it ever occurred to you that it
was Penberthy who murdered General Fentiman?"
"I--wondered," she said, slowly. "I couldn't think--who else--But you
know they suspect _me_?"
"Oh, well--_cui bono_ and all that--they couldn't overlook you. They
have to suspect every possible person, you know."
"I don't blame them at all. But I didn't, you know."
"Of course not. It was Penberthy. I look at it like this. Penberthy
wanted money; he was sick of being poor, and he knew you would be
certain to get _some_ of Lady Dormer's money. He'd probably heard about
the family quarrel with the General, and expected it would be the lot.
So he started to make your acquaintance. But he was careful. He asked
you to keep it quiet--just in case, you see. The money might be so
tied up that you couldn't give it to him, or you might lose it if you
married, or it might only be quite a small annuity, in which case he'd
want to look for somebody richer."
"We considered those points when we talked it over about the clinic."
"Yes. Well, then, Lady Dormer fell ill. The General went round and
heard about the legacy that was coming to him. And then he toddled
along to Penberthy, feeling very groggy, and promptly told him all
about it. You can imagine him saying: 'You've got to patch me up
long enough to get the money.' That must have been a nasty jar for
Penberthy."
"It was. You see, he didn't even hear about my twelve thousand."
"Oh?"
"No. Apparently what the General said was, 'If only I last out poor
Felicity, all the money comes to me. Otherwise it goes to the girl and
my boys only get seven thousand apiece.' That was why----"
"Just a moment. When did Penberthy tell you about that?"
"Why, later--when he said I was to compromise with the Fentimans."
"That explains it. I wondered why you gave in so suddenly. I thought,
then, that you--Well, anyhow, Penberthy hears this, and gets the
brilliant idea of putting General Fentiman out of the way. So he gives
him a slow-working kind of a pill----"
"Probably a powder in a very tough capsule that would take a long time
to digest."
"Good idea. Yes, very likely. And then the General, instead of heading
straight for home, as he expected, goes off to the Club and dies there.
And then Robert----"
He explained in detail what Robert had done, and resumed.
"Well, now--Penberthy was in a bad fix. If he drew attention at the
time to the peculiar appearance of the corpse, he couldn't reasonably
give a certificate. In which case there would be a post-mortem and an
analysis, and the digitalin would be found. If he kept quiet, the money
might be lost and all his trouble would be wasted. Maddenin' for him,
wasn't it? So he did what he could. He put the time of the death as
early as he dared, and hoped for the best."
"He told me he thought there would be some attempt to make it seem
later than it really was. I thought it was _you_ who were trying
to hush everything up. And I was so furious that of course I told
Mr. Pritchard to have a proper inquiry made and on no account to
compromise."
"Thank God you did," said Wimsey.
"Why?"
"I'll tell you presently. But Penberthy now--I can't think why _he_
didn't persuade you to compromise. That would have made him absolutely
safe."
"But he did! That's what started our first quarrel. As soon as he heard
about it, he said I was a fool not to compromise. I couldn't understand
his saying that, since he himself had said there was something wrong.
We had a fearful row. That was the time I mentioned the twelve thousand
that was coming to me anyway."
"What did he say?"
"'I didn't know that.' Just like that. And then he apologized and said
that the law was so uncertain, it would be best to agree to divide the
money anyhow. So I rang up Mr. Pritchard and told him not to make any
more fuss. And we were friends again."
"Was it the day after that, that Penberthy--er--said things to you?"
"Yes."
"Right. Then I can tell you one thing: he would never have been so
brutal if he hadn't been in fear of his life. Do you know what had
happened in between?"
She shook her head.
"I had been on the phone to him, and told him there was going to be an
autopsy."
"Oh!"
"Yes--listen--you needn't worry any more about it. He knew the poison
would be discovered, and that if he was known to be engaged to you,
he was absolutely bound to be suspected. So he hurried to cut the
connection with you--purely in self-defense."
"But why do it in that brutal way?"
"Because, my dear, he knew that that particular accusation would be the
very last thing a girl of your sort would tell people about. He made it
absolutely impossible for you to claim him publicly. And he bolstered
it up by engaging himself to the Rushworth female."
"He didn't care how _I_ suffered."
"He was in a beast of a hole," said Wimsey, apologetically. "Mind you,
it was a perfectly diabolical thing to do. I daresay he's feeling
pretty rotten about it."
Ann Dorland clenched her hands.
"I've been so horribly ashamed----"
"Well, you aren't any more, are you?"
"No--but----" A thought seemed to strike her. "Lord Peter--I can't
_prove_ a word of this. Everybody will think I was in league with him.
And they'll think that our quarrel and his getting engaged to Naomi was
just a put-up job between us to get us both out of a difficulty."
"You've got brains," said Wimsey, admiringly. "_Now_ you see why I
thanked God you'd been so keen on an inquiry at first. Pritchard can
make it pretty certain that you weren't an accessory before the fact,
anyhow."
"Of course--so he can. Oh, I'm so glad! I _am_ so glad." She burst into
excited sobs and clutched Wimsey's hand. "I wrote him a letter--right
at the beginning--saying I'd read about a case in which they'd proved
the time of somebody's death by looking into his stomach, and asking if
General Fentiman couldn't be dug up."
"Did you? Splendid girl! You _have_ got a head on your shoulders!...
No, I observe that it's on my shoulders. Go on. Have a real, good
howl--I feel rather like howling myself. I've been quite worried about
it all. But it's all right now, isn't it?"
"I am a fool ... but I'm so thankful you came."
"So am I. Here, have a hanky. Poor old dear!... Hullo! there's
Marjorie."
He released her and went out to meet Marjorie Phelps at the door.
"Lord Peter! Good lord!"
"Thank you, Marjorie," said Wimsey, gravely.
"No, but listen! Have you seen Ann?--I took her away. She's frightfully
queer--and there's a policeman outside. But whatever she's done,
I couldn't leave her alone in that awful house. You haven't come
to--to----"
"Marjorie!" said Wimsey, "don't you ever talk to me again about
feminine intuition. You've been thinking all this time that that girl
was suffering from guilty conscience. Well, she wasn't. It was a man,
my child--a MAN!"
"How do you know?"
"My experienced eye told me as much at the first glance. It's all right
now. Sorrow and sighing have fled away. I am going to take your young
friend out to dinner."
"But why didn't she tell me what it was all about?"
"Because," said Wimsey, mincingly, "it wasn't the kind of thing one
woman tells another."