_The Cards On The Table_
There was nobody in the library at the Bellona Club; there never is.
Wimsey led Penberthy into the farthest bay and sent a waiter for two
double whiskies.
"Here's luck!" he said.
"Good luck," replied Penberthy. "What is it?"
"Look here," said Wimsey. "You've been a soldier. I think you're a
decent fellow. You've seen George Fentiman. It's a pity, isn't it?"
"What about it?"
"If George Fentiman hadn't turned up with that delusion of his," said
Wimsey, "you would have been arrested for the murder this evening. Now
the point is this. When you are arrested, nothing, as things are, can
prevent Miss Dorland's being arrested on the same charge. She's quite a
decent girl, and you haven't treated her any too well, have you? Don't
you think you might make things right for her by telling the truth
straight away?"
Penberthy sat with a white face and said nothing.
"You see," went on Wimsey, "if once they get her into the dock, she'll
always be a suspected person. Even if the jury believe her story--and
they may not, because juries are often rather stupid--people will
always think there was 'something in it.' They'll say she was a very
lucky woman to get off. That's damning for a girl, isn't it? They might
even bring her in guilty. You and I know she isn't--but--you don't
want the girl hanged, Penberthy, do you?"
Penberthy drummed on the table.
"What do you want me to do?" he said at last.
"Write a clear account of what actually happened," said Wimsey. "Make a
clean job of it for these other people. Make it clear that Miss Dorland
had nothing to do with it."
"And then?"
"Then do as you like. In your place I know what I should do."
Penberthy propped his chin on his hands and sat for some minutes
staring at the works of Dickens in the leather-and-gold binding.
"Very well," he said at last. "You're quite right. I ought to have done
it before. But--damn it!--if ever a man had rotten luck....
"If only Robert Fentiman hadn't been a rogue. It's funny, isn't it?
That's your wonderful poetic justice, isn't it? If Robert Fentiman had
been an honest man, I should have got my half-million, and Ann Dorland
would have got a perfectly good husband, and the world would have
gained a fine clinic, incidentally. But as Robert was a rogue--here we
are....
"I didn't intend to be such a sweep to the Dorland girl. I'd have been
decent to her if I'd married her. Mind you, she did sicken me a bit.
Always wanting to be sentimental. It's true, what I said--she's a bit
cracked about sex. Lots of 'em are. Naomi Rushworth, for instance.
That's why I asked her to marry me. I had to be engaged to somebody,
and I knew she'd take any one who asked her....
"It was so hideously easy, you see ... that was the devil of it. The
old man came along and put himself into my hands. Told me with one
breath that I hadn't a dog's chance of the money, and in the next,
asked me for a dose. I just had to put the stuff into a couple of
capsules and tell him to take them at 7 o'clock. He put them in his
spectacle-case, to make sure he wouldn't forget them. Not even a bit of
paper to give me away. And the next day I'd only to get a fresh supply
of the stuff and fill up the bottle. I'll give you the address of the
chemist who sold it. Easy?--it was laughable ... people put such power
in our hands....
"I never meant to get led into all this rotten way of doing things--it
was just self-defense. I still don't care a damn about having killed
the old man. I could have made better use of the money than Robert
Fentiman. He hasn't got two ideas in his head, and he's perfectly happy
where he is. Though I suppose he'll be leaving the Army now.... As
for Ann, she ought to be grateful to me in a way. I've secured her the
money anyhow."
"Not unless you make it clear that she had no part in the crime,"
Wimsey reminded him.
"That's true. All right. I'll put it all on paper for you. Give me half
an hour, will you?"
"Right you are," said Wimsey.
He left the library and wandered into the smoking-room. Colonel
Marchbanks was there, and greeted him with a friendly smile.
"Glad you're here, Colonel. Mind if I come and chat to you for a
moment?"
"By all means, my dear boy. I'm in no hurry to get home. My wife's
away. What can I do for you?"
Wimsey told him, in a lowered voice. The Colonel was distressed.
"Ah, well," he said, "you've done the best thing, to my mind. I look at
these matters from a soldier's point of view, of course. Much better to
make a clean job of it all. Dear, dear! Sometimes, Lord Peter, I think
that the War has had a bad effect on some of our young men. But then,
of course, all are not soldiers by training, and that makes a great
difference. I certainly notice a less fine sense of honor in these days
than we had when I was a boy. There were not so many excuses made then
for people; there were things that were done and things that were not
done. Nowadays men--and, I am sorry to say, women too--let themselves
go in a way that is to me quite incomprehensible. I can understand a
man's committing murder in hot blood--but poisoning--and then putting
a good, ladylike girl into such an equivocal position--no! I fail to
understand it. Still, as you say, the right course is being taken at
last."
"Yes," said Wimsey.
"Excuse me for a moment," said the Colonel, and went out.
When he returned, he went with Wimsey into the library. Penberthy had
finished writing and was reading his statement through.
"Will that do?" he asked.
Wimsey read it, Colonel Marchbanks looking over the pages with him.
"That is quite all right," he said. "Colonel Marchbanks will witness it
with me."
This was done. Wimsey gathered the sheets together and put them in
his breast-pocket. Then he turned silently to the Colonel, as though
passing the word to him.
"Dr. Penberthy," said the old man, "now that that paper is in Lord
Peter Wimsey's hands, you understand that he can only take the course
of communicating with the police. But as that would cause a great deal
of unpleasantness to yourself and to other people, you may wish to take
another way out of the situation. As a doctor, you will perhaps prefer
to make your own arrangements. If not----"
He drew out from his jacket-pocket the thing which he had fetched.
"If not, I happen to have brought this with me from my private locker.
I am placing it here, in the table-drawer, preparatory to taking it
down into the country to-morrow. It is loaded."
"Thank you," said Penberthy.
The Colonel closed the drawer slowly, stepped back a couple of paces
and bowed gravely. Wimsey put his hand on Penberthy's shoulder for a
moment, then took the Colonel's arm. Their shadows moved, lengthened,
shortened, doubled and crossed as they passed the seven lights in the
seven bays of the library. The door shut after them.
"How about a drink, Colonel?" said Wimsey.
They went into the bar, which was just preparing to close for the
night. Several other men were there, talking over their plans for
Christmas.
"I'm getting away south," said Tin-Tummy Challoner. "I'm fed up with
this climate and this country."
"I wish you'd look us up, Wimsey," said another man. "We could give you
some very decent shooting. We're having a sort of house-party; my wife,
you know--must have all these young people round--awful crowd of women.
But I'm getting one or two men who can play bridge and handle a gun,
and it would be a positive charity to see me through. Deadly season,
Christmas. Can't think why they invented it."
"It's all right if you've got kids," interrupted a large, red-faced man
with a bald head. "The little beggars enjoy it. You ought to start a
family, Anstruther."
"All very well," said Anstruther, "you're cut out by nature to dress
up as Father Christmas. I tell you, what with one thing and another,
entertaining and going about, and the servants we have to keep in a
place like ours, it's a job to keep things going. If you know of a good
thing, I wish you'd put me on to it. It's not as though----"
"Hullo!" said Challoner, "what was that?"
"Motor-bike, probably," said Anstruther. "As I was saying, it's not as
though----"
"Something's happened," broke in the red-faced man, setting down his
glass.
There were voices, and the running to and fro of feet. The door was
flung open. Startled faces turned towards it. Wetheridge burst in, pale
and angry.
"I say, you fellows," he cried, "here's another unpleasantness.
Penberthy's shot himself in the library. People ought to have more
consideration for the members. Where's Culyer?"
Wimsey pushed his way out into the entrance-hall. There, as he had
expected, he found the plainclothes detective who had been told off to
shadow Penberthy.
"Send for Inspector Parker," he said. "I have a paper to give him. Your
job's over; it's the end of the case."