 7 On returning to the flat just before lunchtime on the following morning, after a few confirmatory researches in Balum and the neighborhood of Victoria Station, Lord Peter was greeted at the door by Mr. Bunter, who had gone straight home from Waterloo, with a telephone message and a severe and nurse-made-like eye. Lady Swaffham rang up my lord, and said she hoped your lordship had not forgotten you were lunching with her. I have forgotten Bunter, and I mean to forget. I trust you told her I had succumbed to a lethargic encephalitis, suddenly, no flowers by request. Lady Swaffham said, my lord, she was counting on you. She met the Duchess of Denver yesterday. If my sister-in-law's there, I won't go, that's flat, said Lord Peter. I beg your pardon, my lord, the elder Duchess. What's she doing in town? I imagined she came up for the inquest, my lord. Oh, yes, we missed that, Bunter. Yes, my lord, her grace is lunching with Lady Swaffham. Bunter, I can't. I can't, really. Say I'm in bed with whooping-coff and ask my mother to come round after lunch. Very well, my lord. Mrs. Tommy Frail will be at Lady Swaffham's, my lord, and Mr. Milligan. Mr. Who? Mr. John P. Milligan, my lord, and—Good God, Bunter, why didn't you say so before? Have I time to get there before he does? All right, I'm off, with a taxi I can just—not in those trousers, my lord—said Mr. Bunter, blocking the way to the door with deferential firmness. Oh, Bunter! pleaded his lordship. Do let me, just this once. You don't know how important it is. Not on any account, my lord. It would be as much as my place is worth. The trousers are all right, Bunter. Not for Lady Swaffham's, my lord. Besides, your lordship forgets the man that ran against you with a milk-can at Salisbury. And Mr. Bunter laid an accusing finger on a slight stain of grease showing across the light cloth. I wish to God I'd never let you grow into a privileged family retainer, said Lord Peter bitterly, dashing his walking-stick into the umbrella-stand. You've no conception of the mistakes my mother may be making. Mr. Bunter smiled grimly and led his victim away. When an immaculate Lord Peter was ushered rather late for lunch, into Lady Swaffham's drawing-room, the Dowager Duchess of Denver was seated on a sofa, plunged in intimate conversation with Mr. John P. Milligan of Chicago. I'm very pleased to meet you, Duchess. Had been that financier's opening remark. To thank you for your exceedingly kind invitation. I assure you it's a compliment I deeply appreciate. The Duchess beamed at him while conducting a rapid rally of all her intellectual forces. Do come and sit down and talk to me, Mr. Milligan? She said. I do so love talking to great businessmen. Let me see. Is it a railway king you are, or something about to push in the corner? At least, I don't mean that exactly. But that game one used to play with cards, all about wheat and oats. And there was a bull and a bear, too. Or was it a horse? No, a bear, because I remember one always had to try and get rid of it, and it used to get so dreadfully crumpled in torn poor thing, always being handed about. One got to recognize it. And then one had to buy a new pack. So foolish it must seem to you, knowing the real thing, and dreadfully noisy, but really excellent for breaking the ice with rather stiff people who didn't know each other. I'm quite sorry it's gone out. Mr. Milligan sat down. Well now, he said. I guess it's as interesting for us businessmen to meet British aristocrats, as it is for Britishers to meet American railway kings, duchess. And I guess I'll make as many mistakes talking your kind of talk as you would make if you were trying to run a corner and wheat in Chicago. Fancy now. I called that fine lad of yours Lord Whimsy the other day, and he thought I'd mistaken him for his brother. That made me feel rather green. This was an unhoped for lead. The duchess walked warily. Dear boy, she said, I am so glad you met him, Mr. Milligan. Both my sons are a great comfort to me, you know, though, of course, Gerald is more conventional. Just the right kind of person for the house of lords, you know, and a splendid farmer. I can't see Peter down at Denver half so well, though he is always going to all the right things in town, and very amusing sometimes. Poor boy. I was very much gratified by Lord Peter's suggestion, pursued Mr. Milligan, for which I understand you are responsible. And I'll surely be very pleased to come by any day you like, though I think you're flattering me too much. Ah, well, said the duchess. I don't know if you're the best judge of that, Mr. Milligan. Not that I know anything about business myself, she added. I'm rather old-fashioned for these days, you know, and I can't pretend to do more than know a nice man when I see him, for the other things I rely on my son. The accent of the speech was so flattering that Mr. Milligan purred almost audibly and said, Well, duchess, I guess that's where a lady with a real beautiful old-fashioned soul has the advantage of these modern young blather-skites. There aren't many men who wouldn't be nice to her, and even then, if they aren't rock-bottom, she can see through them. But that leaves me where I was, thought the duchess. I believe, she said aloud, that I ought to be thanking you in the name of the vicar of Dukes-Denver for a very munificent check which reached him yesterday for the Church Restoration Fund. He was so delighted and astonished, poor dear man. Oh, that's nothing, said Mr. Milligan. We haven't any fine old crusted buildings like yours over on our side, so it's a privilege to be allowed to drop a little kerosene into the wormholes when we hear of one in the old country suffering from senile decay. So when your lad told me about Dukes-Denver, I took the liberty to subscribe without waiting for the bazaar. I'm sure it was very kind of you, said the duchess. You are coming to the bazaar, then? She continued gazing into his face appealingly. Sure thing, said Mr. Milligan, with great promptness. Lord Peter said you'd let me know for sure about the date, but we can always make time for a little bit of good work, anyhow. Of course, I'm hoping to be able to avail myself of your kind invitation to stop, but if I'm rushed, I'll mend Jenny how to pop over and speak my peace and pop back again. I hope so very much, said the duchess. I must see what can be done about the date. Of course, I can't promise. No, no, said Mr. Milligan heartily. I know what these things are to fix up. And then there's not only me, there's Nat Roth's child and Cadbury, and all the other names your son mentioned, to be consulted. The duchess turned pale at the thought that any one of these illustrious persons might some time turn up in somebody's drawing room, but by this time she had dug herself in comfortably and was even beginning to find her range. I can't say how grateful we are to you, she said. It will be such a treat. Do tell me what you think of saying. Well, began Mr. Milligan. Suddenly everybody was standing up and a penitent voice was heard to say, Really most awfully sorry, you know. Hope you'll forgive me, Lady Swatham, what? Dear lady, could I possibly forget an invitation from you? Fact is, I had to go and see a man down in Salisbury. Absolutely true, ponder my word, and the fellow wouldn't let me get away. I'm simply groveling before you, Lady Swatham. Shall I go and eat my lunch in the corner? Lady Swatham gracefully forgave the culprit. Your dear mother is here, she said. How do, mother? said Lord Peter, uneasily. How do you do, dear? replied the duchess. You really oughtn't to have turned up just yet. Mr. Milligan was just going to tell me what a thrilling speech he's preparing for the bazaar, when you came and interrupted us. Captain at lunch turned, not unnaturally, on the baddicy in quest, the duchess giving a vivid impersonation of Mrs. Thipps, being interrogated by the coroner. Did you hear anything unusual in the night? says the little man, leaning forward and screaming at her, and so crimson in the face, and his ears sticking out so, just like a little cherub in that poem of Tennyson's. Or is a cherub blue? Perhaps it's seraphim, I mean. Anyway you know what I mean, all eyes with little wings on its head, and dear old Mrs. Thipps saying, Of course I have, any time these eighty years, and such a sensation in the court till they found out, she thought, he'd said, Do you sleep without a light? And everybody laughing, and then the coroner said quite loudly, Damn the woman, and she heard that, I can't think why, and said, Don't you get swearing, young man, sitting there in the presence of Providence, as you may say, I don't know what young people are coming to nowadays. And he's sixty if he's a day, you know, said the duchess. By a natural transition Mrs. Tommy Frail referred to the man who was hanged for murdering three brides in a bath. I always thought that was so ingenious, she said, gazing soulfully at Lord Peter. And do you know, as it happened, Tommy had just made me ensure my life, and I got so frightened I gave up my morning bath, and took to having it in the afternoon when he was in the house. I mean, when he was not in the house, not at home, I mean. Dear lady, said Lord Peter reproachfully, I have a distinct recollection that all those brides were thoroughly unattractive. But it was an uncommonly ingenious plan. The first time of asking, only he shouldn't have repeated himself. One demands a little originality in these days, even from murderers, said Lady Swaffham, like dramatists, you know, as so much easier in Shakespeare's time, wasn't it? Always the same girl dressed up as a man, and even that borrowed from Boccaccio at Dante as somebody. I'm sure if I'd been a Shakespeare hero, the very minute I saw a slim-legged young page-boy, I'd have said, odds bodkins, there's that girl again. That's just what happened, as a matter of fact, said Lord Peter. You see, Lady Swaffham, if you ever want to commit a murder, the thing you've got to do is to prevent people from associating their ideas. Most people don't associate anything. Their ideas just roll about like so many dry peas on a tray, make it a lot of noise and go in nowhere. But once you begin, let them string their peas into a necklace. It's going to be strong enough to hang you, what? Dear me! said Mrs. Tommy Frail with a little scream. What a blessing it is none of my friends have any ideas at all. You see, said Lord Peter, balancing a piece of duck on his fork and frowning. It's only in Sherlock Holmes and stories like that, that people think things out logically. Ordinarily, if somebody tells you something out of the way, you just say, buy Jove or House Sad, and leave it at that. And half the time you forget about it, lest something turns up afterwards to drive it home. For instance, Lady Swaffham, I told you when I came in that I'd been down to Salisbury. And that's true, only I don't suppose it impressed you much. And I don't suppose it would impress you much if you read it in the paper tomorrow of a tragic discovery of a dead lawyer down in Salisbury. But if I went to Salisbury again next week, and there was a Salisbury doctor found dead the day after, you might begin to think I was a bird of ill omen for Salisbury residents. And if I went there again the week after, and you heard next day that the sea of Salisbury had fallen vacant suddenly, you might begin to wonder what took me to Salisbury. And why I'd never mentioned before that I had friends down there, don't you see? And you might think of going down to Salisbury yourself, and asking all kinds of people if they happened to see a young man in plum-coloured socks hanging round the bishop's palace. I dare say I should, said Lady Swaffham. Quite. And if you found that the lawyer and the doctor had once upon a time been in business at the Pogelton on the Marsh, when the bishop had been vicar there, you'd begin to remember you'd once heard of me paying a visit to Pogelton on the Marsh a long time ago, and you'd begin to look up the parish registers there and discover I'd been married under an assumed name by the vicar to the widow of a wealthy farmer, who died suddenly of perintitis, as certified by the doctor, after the lawyer had made a will even me all her money. And then you might begin to think I have very good reasons for getting rid of such promising blackmailers as the lawyer, the doctor, and the bishop. Only if I hadn't started an association in your mind, by getting rid of them all in the same place, you'd never have thought of going to Pogelton on the Marsh, and you wouldn't even have remembered I'd ever been there. Were you ever there, Lord Peter? Enquired Mrs. Tommy anxiously. I don't think so, said Lord Peter. The name threads no beads in my mind. But it might any day, you know. But if you were investigating a crime, said Lady Swaffham, you'd have to begin by the usual things, I suppose, finding out what the person had been doing, and who'd been to call, and looking for a motive, wouldn't you? Oh, yes, said Lord Peter, but most of us have such dozens of motives for murder and all sorts of inoffensive people. There's lots of people I'd like to murder, wouldn't you? Heaps, said Lady Swaffham. There's that dreadful—perhaps I'd better not say it, though, for fear you should remember it later on. Well, I wouldn't if I were you, said Peter, amably. You never know. It'd be beastly awkward if the person died suddenly tomorrow. The difficulty with this Battersea case, I guess, said Mr. Milligan, is that nobody seems to have any associations with the gentleman in the bath. So hard on poor Inspector Sugg, said the Duchess. I quite felt for the man, having to stand up there and answer a lot of questions when he had nothing at all to say. Lord Peter applied himself to the duck, having got a little behindhand. Presently, he heard somebody ask the Duchess if she had seen Lady Levy. She is in great distress, said the woman who had spoken, a Mrs. Fremantle. Though she clings to the hope that he will turn up, I suppose you knew him, Mr. Milligan? Know him, I should say, for I hope he's still alive somewhere. Mrs. Fremantle was the wife of an eminent railway director, and celebrated for her ignorance of the world of finance, her faux pa in this connection, and liven the tea parties of City Men's wives. Well, I've dined with him, said Mr. Milligan, good naturedly. I think he and I have done our best to ruin each other, Mrs. Fremantle. If this were the states, he added, I'd be much inclined to suspect myself of having put Sirubin in a safe place. But we can't do business that way in your old country, no ma'am. It must be exciting work doing business in America, said Lord Peter. It is, said Mr. Milligan. I guess my brothers are having a good time there now. I'll be joining them again before long, as soon as I've fixed up a little bit of work for them on this side. Well, you mustn't go till after my bazaar, said the Duchess. Lord Peter spent the afternoon in a vain hunt for Mr. Parker. He ran him down eventually after dinner in Great Ormond Street. Parker was sitting in an elderly, but affectionate armchair, with his feet on the mantelpiece, relaxing his mind with a modern commentary on the epistle to the Glacians. He received Lord Peter with quiet pleasure, though without rapturous enthusiasm, and mixed him a whisky and soda. Peter took up the book his friend had laid down, and glanced over the pages. All these men work with a bias in their minds, one way or another, he said, they find what they are looking for. Oh, they do, agreed the detective. But one learns to discount that almost automatically, you know. When I was at college, I was on the other side. Carnibir and Robertson and Druze, and those people, you know, till I found they were all so busy looking for a burglar whom nobody had ever seen, that they couldn't recognize the footprints of the household, so to speak. Then I spent two years learning to be cautious. Hmm, said Lord Peter. Theology must be good exercise for the brain, then. You're easily the most cautious devil I know. But I say, do go on reading. It's a shame for me to come and root you up in your off-time like this. It's all right, old man, said Parker. The two men sat silent for a little, and then Lord Peter said, Do you like your job? The detective considered the question and replied, Yes, yes, I do. I know it to be useful, and I am fitted to it. I do it quite well. Not with inspiration, perhaps, but sufficiently well to take a pride in it. It is full of variety, and it forces one to keep up to the mark and not get slack. And there's a future to it. Yes, I like it. Why? Oh, nothing, said Peter. It's a hobby to me, you see. I took it up when the bottom of things was rather knocked out for me. Because it was so damned exciting. And the worst of it is, I enjoy it. Up to a point. If it was all on paper, I'd enjoy every bit of it. I love the beginning of a job, when one doesn't know any of the people, and it's just exciting and amusing. But if it comes to really running down a live person and getting him hanged, or even quadded, poor devil, there don't seem if there was any excuse for me button in, since I don't have to make my living by it. And I feel as if I oughtn't ever to find it amusing, but I do. Parker gave this speech his careful attention. I see what you mean, he said. There's old Milligan, for instance, said Lord Peter. On paper, nothing would be funnier than to catch old Milligan out. But he's rather a decent old bird to talk to. Mother likes him. He's taken a fancy to me. It's awfully entertaining going and pumping him with stuff about a bazaar for church expenses. But when he's so jolly pleased about it and that, I feel a worm. Spose old Milligan has cut Levy's throat and plugged him into the Thames. It ain't my business. It's as much yours as anybody's, said Parker. It's no better to do it for money than to do it for nothing. Yes, it is, said Peter stubbornly. Having to live is the only excuse there is for doing that kind of thing. Well, but look here, said Parker. If Milligan has cut poor old Levy's throat for no reason except to make himself richer, I don't see why he should buy himself off by giving a thousand pounds to Duke's Denver church roof, or why he should be forgiven just because he's childishly vain or childishly snobbish. That's a nasty one, said Lord Peter. Well, if you like, even because he has taken a fancy to you. No, but look here, whimsy. Do you think he has murdered Levy? Well, he may have. But do you think he has? I don't want to think so. Because he has taken a fancy to you? Well, that biases me, of course. I dare say it's quite a legitimate bias. You don't think a callous murderer would be likely to take a fancy to you? Well, besides, I've rather taken a fancy to him. I dare say that's quite legitimate, too. You've observed him and made a subconscious deduction from your observations. And the result is, you don't think he did it. Well, why not? You're entitled to take that into account. But perhaps I'm wrong, and he did do it. Then why let your venglorious conceit in your own power of estimating character stand in the way of unmasking the singularly cold-blooded murder of an innocent and lovable man? I know, but I don't feel I'm playing the game somehow. Look here, Peter, said the other with some earnestness. Suppose you get this playing-fields-of-eaten complex out of your system once and for all. There doesn't seem to be much doubt that something unpleasant has happened to Sirubin Levy. Call it murder to strengthen the argument. If Sirubin has been murdered, is it a game? And is it fair to treat it as a game? That's what I'm ashamed of, really, said Lord Peter. It is a game to me, to begin with, and I go on cheerfully. And then I suddenly see that somebody is going to be hurt, and I want to get out of it. Yes, yes I know, said the detective. But that's because you're thinking about your attitude. You want to be consistent. You want to look pretty. You want to swag a debonairly through a comedy of puppets, or else stalk magnificently through a tragedy of human sorrows and things. But that's childish. If you've any duty to society in the way of finding out the truth about murders, you must do it in any attitude that comes handy. You want to be elegant and detached? That's alright. If you find the truth out that way. But it hasn't any value in itself, you know. You want to look dignified and consistent. What's that got to do with it? You want to hunt down a murderer for the sport of the thing and then shake hands with him and say, well played, hard luck, you shall have your revenge tomorrow. Well, you can't do it like that. Life's not a football match. You want to be a sportsman. You can't be a sportsman. You're a responsible person. I don't think you ought to read so much theology, said Lord Peter. It has a brutalizing influence. He got up and paced about the room, looking idly over the book shelves. Then he sat down again, filled and lit his pipe and said, well, I'd better tell you about the ferocious and hardened crimple shum. He detailed his visit to Salisbury. Once assured of his bona fides, Mr. Crimple Shum had given him the fullest details of his visit to town. And I've substantiated it all, groaned Lord Peter. And unless he's corrupted half-bollum, there's no chance he spent the night there. And the afternoon was really spent with the bank people. And half the residents of Salisbury seem to have seen him off on Monday before lunch. And nobody but his own family or young wicks seems to have anything to gain by his death. And even if young wicks wanted to make a way with him, it's rather far fetched to go and murder an unknown man in Thipps's place in order to stick crimple shum's eyeglasses on his nose. Where was young wicks on Monday? asked Parker. At a dance given by the presenter, said Lord Peter wildly, David, his name is David, dancing before the Ark of the Lord in the face of the whole cathedral close. There was a pause. Tell me about the inquest, said whimsy. Parker obliged with a summary of the evidence. Do you believe the body could have been concealed in the flat after all? He asked. I know we looked, but I suppose we might have missed something. We might, but Sugg looked as well. Sugg. You do Sugg an injustice, said Lord Peter. If there had been any signs of Thipps's complicity in the crime, Sugg would have found them. Why? Why? Because he was looking for them. He's like your commentators on Galatians. He thinks that either Thipps or Gladys Horrocks or Gladys Horrocks's young man did it. Therefore he found marks on the windowsill where Gladys Horrocks's young man might have come in, or handed something in to Gladys Horrocks. He didn't find any signs on the roof, because he wasn't looking for them. But he went over the roof before me. Yes, but only in order to prove that there were no marks there. He reasons like this. Gladys Horrocks's young man is a Glacier. Glaciers come on ladders. Glaciers have ready access to ladders. Therefore Gladys Horrocks's young man had ready access to a ladder. Therefore Gladys Horrocks's young man came on a ladder. Therefore there will be marks on the windowsill and none on the roof. Therefore he finds marks on the windowsill but none on the roof. He finds no marks on the ground, but thinks he would have found them if the yard didn't happen to be paved with asphalt. Similarly he thinks Mr. Thipps may have concealed the body in the box room or elsewhere. Therefore you may be sure he searched the box room and all the other places for signs of occupation. If there had been any there he would have found them, because he was looking for them. Therefore, if he didn't find them, it's because they weren't there. All right, said Parker. Stop talking, I believe you. He went on to detail the medical evidence. By the way, said Lord Peter, to skip across for a moment to the other case. Has it occurred to you that perhaps Levy was going out to see Frecky on Monday night? He was, he did, said Parker rather unexpectedly, and proceeded to recount his interview with the nerve specialist. Humph! said Lord Peter. I say, Parker, these are funny cases, aren't they? Every line of inquiry seems to peter out. It's awfully exciting up to a point, you know, and then nothing comes of it. It's like rivers getting lost in the sand. Yes, said Parker. And there's another one I lost this morning. What's that? Oh, I was pumping Levy's secretary about his business. I couldn't get much that seemed important except further details about the Argentine and so on. Then I thought I'd just ask round in the city about those Peruvian oil shares, but Levy hadn't even heard of them, so far as I could make out. I routed out the brokers and found a lot of mystery and concealment, as one always does, you know, when somebody's been rigging the market. And at last I found one name at the back of it, but it wasn't Levy's. No, whose was it? Oddly enough Frecky's. It seems mysterious. He bought a lot of shares last week in a secret kind of way. A few of them in his own name, and then quietly sold them out on Tuesday at a small profit. A few hundreds, not worth going to all that trouble about, you wouldn't think. Shouldn't have thought he ever went in for that kind of a gamble. He doesn't, is a rule. That's the funny part of it. Well, you never know, said Lord Peter. People do these things, just to prove to themselves or somebody else that they could make a fortune that way if they liked. I've done it myself in a small way. He knocked out his pipe and rose to go. I say, old man," he said suddenly, as Parker was letting him out. Does it occur to you that Frecky's story doesn't fit in awfully well with what Anderson said about the old boy having been so jolly at dinner on Monday night? Would you be if you thought you'd got anything of that sort? No, I shouldn't," said Parker. But he added with his habitual caution. Some men will jest in the dentist's waiting room. You for one. Well, that's true," said Lord Peter, and went downstairs. End of Chapter 7. CHAPTER VIII. Lord Peter reached home about midnight, feeling extraordinarily wakeful and alert. Something was jigging and worrying in his brain. It felt like a hive of bees stirred up by a stick. He felt as though he were looking at a complicated riddle of which he had once been told the answer, but had forgotten it, and was always on the point of remembering. Somewhere, said Lord Peter to himself. Somewhere I've got the key to these two things. I know I've got it. Only I can't remember what it is. Somebody said it. Perhaps I said it. I can't remember where, but I know I've got it. Go to bed, bunter. I shall sit up a little. I'll just slip on a dressing-gown. Before the fire he sat down with his pipe in his mouth, and his jazz- colored peacocks gathered about him. He traced out this line and that line of investigation, rivers running into the sand. They ran out from the thought of Levy, last seen at ten o'clock in Prince of Wales Road. They ran back from the picture of the grotesque dead man in Mr. Thip's bathroom. They ran over the roof, and were lost, lost in the sand. Rivers running into the sand. Rivers running underground, very far down. Where Alph, the sacred river, ran, through Cavern's measureless to man, down to a sunless sea. By leaning his head down it seemed to Lord Peter that he could hear them, very faintly, lipping and gurgling somewhere in the darkness. But where? He felt quite sure that somebody had told him once, only he had forgotten. He roused himself, threw a log on the fire, and picked up a book, which the indefatigable bunter, carrying on his daily fatigues amid the excitements of special duty, had brought from the Times Book Club. It happened to be Sir Julian Frecky's physiological basis of the conscience, which he had seen reviewed two days before. This ought to send one to sleep, said Lord Peter. If I can't leave these problems to my subconscious, I'll be as limp as a rag to-morrow. He opened the book slowly, and glanced carelessly through the preface. I wonder if that's true about Levy being ill, he thought, putting the book down. It doesn't seem likely, and yet, dash it all, I'll take my mind off it. He read on resolutely for a little. I don't suppose mothers kept up with the Levy's much, was the next important train of thought. Dad always hated self-made people and wouldn't have him at Denver. An old Gerald keeps up the tradition. I wonder if she knew Frecky well in those days. She seems to get on with Milligan. I trust mother's judgment a good deal. She was a brick about that bizarre business. I ought to have warned her. She said something once. He pursued an elusive memory for some minutes till it vanished altogether with a mocking flicker of the tale. He returned to his reading. Presently another thought crossed his mind, aroused by a photograph of some experiment in surgery. If the evidence of Frecky and that man Watts hadn't been so positive, he said to himself, I should be inclined to look into the matter of those shreds of lint on the chimney. He considered this, shook his head, and read with determination. Mind and matter were one thing that was the theme of the physiologist. Matter could erupt as it were into ideas. You could carve passions in the brain with a knife. You could get rid of imagination with drugs and cure an outworn convention like a disease. The knowledge of good and evil is an observed phenomenon attendant upon a certain condition of the brain cells, which is removable. That was one phrase. And again. Conscience in man may, in fact, be compared to the sting of a hive-bee which, so far from conducing to the welfare of its possessor, cannot function, even in a single instance, without occasioning its death. The survival value in each case is thus purely social, and if humanity ever passes from its present phase of social development into that of a higher individualism, as some of our philosophers have ventured to speculate, we may suppose that this interesting mental phenomenon may gradually cease to appear. Just as the nerves and muscles which once controlled the movements of our ears and scalps have, in all save a few backward individuals, become atrophied and of interest only to the physiologist. By Jove, thought Lord Peter idly, that's an ideal doctrine for the criminal, a man who believed that would never—and then it happened—the thing he had been half unconsciously expecting. It happened suddenly, surely, as unmistakably as sunrise. He remembered, not one thing, nor another thing, nor a logical succession of things, but everything—the whole thing, perfect, complete, in all its dimensions as it were and instantaneously, as if he stood outside the world and saw it suspended in infinitely dimensional space. He no longer needed to reason about it or even to think about it. He knew it. There is a game in which one is presented with a jumble of letters and is required to make a word out of them, as thus. C-O-S-S-S-S-R-I. The slow way of solving the problem is to try out all the permutations and combinations in turn, throwing away impossible conjunctions of letters, as S-S-S-I-R-C or S-C-S-R-S-O. Another way is to stare at the incoordinate elements until, by no logical process that the conscious mind can detect, or under some adventitious external stimulus, the combination S-C-I-S-S-O-R-S-Sizzers presents itself with calm certainty. After that, one does not even need to arrange the letters in order. The thing is done. Even so, the scattered elements of two grotesque conundrums flung higgledy-piggledy into Lord Peter's mind, resolved themselves, unquestioned henceforward. A bump on the roof of the end-house. Levy in a welter of cold rain talking to a prostitute in the Battersea Park Road. A single, ruddy hair. Lint bandages. Inspector Sugg calling the great surgeon from the dissecting room of the hospital. Lady Levy with a nervous attack. The smell of carbolic soap. The Duchess's voice. Not really an engagement, only a sort of understanding with her father. Shares in Peruvian oil. The dark skin and curved, fleshy profile of the man in the bath. Dr. Grimbold giving evidence. In my opinion, death did not occur for several days after the blow. India rubber gloves. Even, faintly, the voice of Mr. Appledore. He called on me, sir, with an anti-vivisectionist pamphlet. All these things and many others rang together and made one sound. They swung together, like bells in a steeple, with the deep tenor booming through the clamour. The knowledge of good and evil is a phenomenon of the brain, and is removable, removable, removable. The knowledge of good and evil is removable. Lord Peter Wimsey was not a young man who habitually took himself very seriously, but this time he was frankly appalled. It's impossible, said his reason, feebly. Credo cuia impossibile, said his interior certainty with impervious self-satisfaction. All right, said conscience, instantly allying itself with blind faith. What are you going to do about it? Lord Peter got up and paced the room. Good Lord, he said. Good Lord. He took down who's who from the little shelf over the telephone and sought comfort in its pages. 1918. M.D. FRCP FRCS. Doctor on Medicine, Paris. Doctor of Science, Cambridge. Night of Grace, of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. Consulting surgeon of St. Luke's Hospital, Battersea. Born, Grillingham, 16th of March, 1872. Only son of Edward Curson Freckie Esquire of Grill Court, Grillingham. Educated, Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. Colonel, AMS. Late member of the advisory board of the Army Medical Service. Publications. Some notes on the pathological aspects of Genius, 1892. Statistical contributions to the study of infantile paralysis in England and Wales, 1894. Functional disturbances of the nervous system, 1899. Cerebro spinal diseases, 1904. The borderland of insanity, 1906. An examination into the treatment of pauper lunacy in the United Kingdom, 1906. Modern developments in psychotherapy, a criticism, 1910. Criminal lunacy, 1914. The application of psychotherapy to the treatment of shell shock, 1917. An answer to Professor Freud, with a description of some experiments carried out at the base hospital at Amiens, 1919. Structural modifications accompanying the more important neuroses, 1920. Clubs. Whites. Oxford and Cambridge. Alpine, etc. Recreations. Chess. Mountaineering. Fishing. Address. 82 Harley Street and St. Luke's House, Prince of Wales Road, Battersea Park, SW 11. He flung the book away. Confirmation, he groaned, as if I needed it. He sat down again, and buried his face in his hands. He remembered quite suddenly how, years ago, he had stood before the breakfast table at Denver Castle, a small, peeky boy in blue knickers with a thunderously beating heart. The family had not come down. There was a great silver urn with a spirit lamp under it, and an elaborate coffee pot boiling in a glass dome. He had twitched the corner of the tablecloth, twitched it harder, and the urn moved ponderously forward, and all the teaspoons rattled. He seized the tablecloth in a firm grip and pulled his hardest. He could feel now the delicate and awful thrill as the urn and the coffee machine, and the whole of a sevre breakfast service, had crashed down in one stupendous ruin. He remembered the horrified face of the butler, and the screams of a lady guest. A log broke across, and sank into a fluff of white ash. A belated motor-lory rumbled past the window. Mr. Bunter, sleeping the sleep of the true and faithful servant, was aroused in the small hours by a hoarse whisper. Mr. Bunter! Yes, my lord, said Bunter, sitting up and switching on the light. Put that light out, damn you, said the voice. Listen, over there, listen. Can't you hear it? It's nothing, my lord, said Mr. Bunter, hastily getting out of bed and catching hold of his master. It's all right, you get to bed quick, and I'll fetch you a drop of bromide, while you're all shivering, you've been sitting up too late. Hush! No, no, it's the water, said Lord Peter, with chattering teeth. It's up to their wastes down there, poor devils, but listen, can't you hear it? Tap, tap, tap. They're mining us, but I don't know where. I can't hear. I can't listen, you. There it is again. We must find it. We must stop it. Listen. Oh, my god, I can't hear. I can't hear anything for the noise of the guns. Can't they stop the guns? Oh, dear, said Mr. Bunter to himself. No, no, it's all right, Major. Don't you worry. But I hear it, protested Peter. So do I, said Mr. Bunter, stoutly. Very good hearing, too, my lord. That's our own sappers at work in the communication trench. Don't you fret about that, sir? Lord Peter grasped his wrist with a feverish hand. Our own sappers, he said, sure of that? Certain of it, said Mr. Bunter cheerfully. They'll bring down the tower, said Lord Peter. To be sure they will, said Mr. Bunter, and very nice, too. You just come and lay down a bit, sir. They've come to take over this section. You're sure it's safe to leave it, said Lord Peter. Safe as houses, sir, said Mr. Bunter, tucking his master's arm under his, and walking him off to his bedroom. Lord Peter allowed himself to be dosed and put to bed without further resistance. Mr. Bunter, looking singularly un-Bunter-like in striped pajamas, with his stiff black hair ruffled about his head, sat grimly watching the younger man's sharp cheekbones and the purple stains under his eyes. Thought we'd had the last of these attacks, he said, being overdoing of himself. A sleep? He peered at him anxiously. An affectionate note crept into his voice. Bloody little fool, said Sergeant Bunter. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Kristen Hughes. Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers. Chapter 9 Mr. Parker, summoned the next morning to one-ten Piccadilly, arrived to find the Dowager Duchess in possession. She greeted him charmingly. I am going to take this silly boy down to Denver for the weekend, she said, indicating Peter, who was writing and only acknowledged his friend's entrance with a brief nod. He's been doing too much, running about to Salisbury in places and up till all hours of the night. You really shouldn't encourage him, Mr. Parker. It's very naughty of you. Waking poor Bunter up in the middle of the night with scares about Germans. As if that wasn't all over years ago. And he hasn't had an attack for ages. But there, nerves are such funny things. And Peter always did have nightmares when he was quite a little boy. Though very often, of course, it was only a little pill he wanted. But he was so dreadfully bad in 1918, you know. And I suppose we can't expect to forget all about a great war in a year or two. And really, I ought to be very thankful with both my boys safe. Still, I think a little peace and quiet at Denver won't do him any harm. Sorry you've been having a bad turn, old man, said Parker, vaguely sympathetic. You're looking a bit seedy. Charles, said Peter in a voice entirely void of expression. I am going away for a couple of days, because I can be of no use to you in London. What has got to be done for the moment can be much better done by you than by me. I want you to take this. He folded up his writing and placed it in an envelope. To Scotland Yard immediately and get it sent out to all the workhouses, infirmaries, police stations, YMCA's and so on in London. It is a description of Thips's corpse as he was before he was shaved and cleaned up. I want to know whether any man answering to that description has been taken in anywhere, alive or dead, during the last fortnight. You will see Sir Andrew McKenzie personally, and get the paper sent out at once by his authority. You will tell him that you have solved the problems of the Levy murder and the Battersea mystery. Mr Parker made an astonish noise to which his friend paid no attention. And you will ask him to have men in readiness with a warrant to arrest a very dangerous and important criminal at any moment on your information. When the replies to this paper come in, you will search for any mention of St Luke's Hospital, or of any person connected with St Luke's Hospital, and you will send for me at once. Meanwhile, you will scrape acquaintance, I don't care how, with one of the students at St Luke's. Don't march in there blowing about murderers and police warrants, or you may find yourself in Queer Street. I shall come up to town as soon as I hear from you, and I shall expect to find nice ingenious saw-bones here to meet me. He grinned faintly. Do you mean you've got to the bottom of this thing? asked Parker. Yes, I may be wrong. I hope I am, but I know I'm not. You won't tell me? Do you know, said Peter? Honestly, I'd rather not. I say I may be wrong, and I'd feel as if I'd libeled the Archbishop of Canterbury. Well, tell me, is it one mystery or two? One. You talked of the Levy murder. Is Levy dead? God, yes! said Peter with a strong shudder. The Duchess looked up from where she was reading the Tatler. Peter, she said, is that your view coming on again? Whatever you two are chattering about, you'd better stop at once if it excites you. Besides, it's about time to be off. All right, mother, said Peter. He turned to Bunter, standing respectfully in the door with an overcoat and suitcase. You understand what you have to do, don't you? He said. Perfectly, thank you, my lord. The car is just arriving, your grace. With Mrs. Thipps inside it, said the Duchess, she'll be delighted to see you again, Peter. You remind her so of Mr. Thipps. Good morning, Bunter. Good morning, your grace. Parker accompanied them downstairs. When they had gone he looked blankly at the paper in his hand. Then, remembering that it was Saturday and there was need for haste, he hailed a taxi. Scotland Yard, he cried. Tuesday morning saw Lord Peter and a man in a velveteen jacket, swishing merrily through seven acres of turnip tops, streaked yellow with early frosts. A little way ahead, a sinuous undercurrent of excitement among the leaves proclaimed the unseen, yet ever near presence of one of the Duke of Denver's setter pups. Presently, a partridge flew up with a noise like a police rattle, and Lord Peter accounted for it very creditably for a man who, a few nights before, had been listening to imaginary German sappers. The setter bounded foolishly through the turnips and fetched back the dead bird. Good dog, said Lord Peter. Encouraged by this, the dog gave a sudden ridiculous gamble and barked. Its ear tossed inside out over its head. Heal, said the man in velveteen violently. The animal sidled up, ashamed. Full of a dog that, said the man in velveteen. Can't keep quiet. Too nervous, my Lord. One of old black lass's pups. Dear me, said Peter, is the old dog still going? No, my Lord, we had to put her away in the spring. Peter nodded. He always proclaimed that he hated the country and was thankful to have nothing to do with the family estates. But this morning he enjoyed the crisp air and the wet leaves washing darkly over his polished boots. At Denver, things moved in an orderly way. No one died sudden and violent deaths except aged setters and partridges to be sure. He sniffed up the autumn smell with appreciation. There was a letter in his pocket which had come by the morning post. But he did not intend to read it just yet. Parker had not wired. There was no hurry. He read it in the smoking room after lunch. His brother was there dozing over the times. A good clean Englishman, sturdy and conventional, rather like Henry the Eighth in his youth. Gerald, 16th Duke of Denver. The Duke considered his cadet rather degenerate and not quite good form. He disliked his taste for police court news. The letter was from Mr. Bunter. 110 Piccadilly, W.I. My Lord. I write. Mr. Bunter had been carefully educated and knew that nothing is more vulgar than a careful avoidance of beginning a letter with the first person singular, as your Lordship directed, to inform you of the result of my investigations. I experience no difficulty in becoming acquainted with Sir Julian Frecky's man-servant. He belongs to the same club as the honourable Frederick O'Buthnot's man, who is a friend of mine, and was very willing to introduce me. He took me to the club yesterday, Sunday evening, and we dined with the man, whose name is John Cummings, and afterwards I invited Cummings to drinks and a cigar in the flat. Your Lordship will excuse me doing this, knowing that it is not my habit, but it has always been my experience that the best way to gain a man's confidence is to let him suppose that one takes advantage of one's employer. I always suspected Bunter of being a student of human nature, commented Lord Peter. I gave him the best old port. The deuce you did, said Lord Peter, having heard you and Mr. O'Buthnot talk over it. Hmm! said Lord Peter. Its effects were quite equal to my expectations as regards the principal matter in hand. But I very much regret to state that the man had so little understanding of what was offered to him, that he smoked a cigar with it. One of your Lordship's vila-vila's. You will understand that I made no comment on this at the time, but your Lordship will sympathise with my feelings. May I take this opportunity of expressing my grateful appreciation of your Lordship's excellent taste in food, drink, and dress? It is, if I may say so, more than a pleasure. It is an education to valet and buttle your Lordship. Lord Peter bowed his head gravely. What on earth are you doing, Peter? Sitting there gnawing and grinning like a whatchuma call it. Demanded the duke coming suddenly out of a snooze. Someone writing pretty things to you what? Charming things, said Lord Peter. The duke eyed him doubtfully. Hope to goodness you don't go and marry a chorus beauty. He muttered inwardly and returned to the times. Over dinner I had set myself to discover Cummings' tastes and found them to run in the direction of the musical stage. During his first glass I drew him out in this direction, your Lordship having kindly given me opportunities of seeing every performance in London, and I spoke more freely than I should consider becoming in the ordinary way, in order to make myself pleasant to him. I may say that his views on women and the stage were such as I should have expected from a man who would smoke with your Lordship's port. With the second glass I introduced the subject of your Lordship's inquiries. In order to save time I will write our conversation in the form of a dialogue, as nearly as possible as it actually took place. Cummings. You seem to get many opportunities of seeing a bit of life, Mr. Bunter. Bunter. One can always make opportunities if one knows how. Cummings. Ah, it's very easy for you to talk, Mr. Bunter. You're not married for one thing. Bunter. I know better than that, Mr. Cummings. Cummings. So do I, now, when it's too late. He sighed heavily and I filled up his glass. Bunter. Does Mrs. Cummings live with you at Battersea? Cummings. Yes, her and me, we do for my governor. Such a life. Not but what there's a char comes in by the day. But what's a char? I can tell you it's dull all by ourselves in that damned Battersea suburb. Bunter. Not very convenient for the halls, of course. Cummings. I believe you. It's all right for you here in Piccadilly, right on the spot as you might say, and I daresay your governors often out all night, eh? Bunter. Oh, frequently, Mr. Cummings. Cummings. And I daresay you take the opportunity to slip off yourself every so often, eh? Bunter. Well, what do you think, Mr. Cummings? Cummings. That's it, there you are. But what's a man to do with a nagging fool of a wife and a blasted scientific doctor for a governor as sits up all night cutting up dead bodies and experimenting with frogs? Bunter. But surely he goes out sometimes. Cummings. Not often, and always back before twelve. And the way he goes on if he rings the bell and you ain't there, I give you my word, Mr. Bunter. Bunter. Temper? Cummings. No, but looking through you nasty like, as if you was on that operating table of his and he was going to cut you up. Nothing a man could rightly complain of, you understand, Mr. Bunter. Just nasty looks. Not, but what I will say he's very correct. Apologize as if he's been inconsiderate. But what's the good of that when he's been gone and lost you your night's rest? Bunter. How does he do that? Keeps you up late, you mean? Cummings. Not him, far from it. House locked up and household to bed at half past ten. That's his little rule. Not but what I'm glad enough to go as a rule, it's that dreary. Still, when I do go to bed, I like to go to sleep. Bunter. What does he do? Walk about the house? Cummings. Doesn't he, all night, in and out of the private door to the hospital? Bunter. You don't mean to say, Mr. Cummings. A great specialist like Sir Julian Frecky does night work at the hospital. Cummings. No, no, he does his own work. Research work, as you may say. Cuts people up. They say he's very clever. Could take you and me to pieces like a clock, Mr. Bunter, and put us together again. Bunter. Do you sleep in the basement, then, to hear him so plain? Cummings. No, our bedroom's at the top. But Lord, what's that? He'll bang the door so you can hear him all over the house. Bunter. Ah, many's the time I've had to speak to Lord Peter about that. And talking all night. And baths. Cummings. Baths? You may well say that, Mr. Bunter. Baths? Me and my wife sleep next to the cistern-room. Noise fit to wake the dead, all hours. When do you think he choose to have a bath? No later than last Monday night, Mr. Bunter. Bunter. But I've known them to do it at two in the morning, Mr. Cummings. Cummings. Have you now? Well, this was at three. Three o'clock in the morning we was waked up. I give you my word. Bunter. You don't say so, Mr. Cummings. Cummings. He cuts up diseases, you see, Mr. Bunter. And then he don't like to go to bed till he's washed the basilises off, if you understand me. Very natural, too, I dare say. But what I say is the middle of the nights no time for a gentleman to be occupying his mind with diseases. Bunter. These great men have their own way of doing things. Cummings. Well, all I can say is, it isn't my way. I could believe that your lordship, Cummings, has no signs of greatness about him, and his trousers are not what I would wish to see in a man of his profession. Bunter. Is he habitually as late as that, Mr. Cummings? Cummings. Well, no, Mr. Bunter. I will say not as a general rule. He apologized, too, in the morning, and said he would have the cistern seen, too, and very necessary in my opinion, for the air gets into the pipes, and the groaning and screeching as goes on is something awful. Just like Niagara, if you follow me, Mr. Bunter, I give you my word. Bunter. Well, that's as it should be, Mr. Cummings. One can put up with a great deal from a gentleman that has the manners to apologize. And, of course, sometimes they can't help themselves. A visitor will come in unexpectedly and keep them late, perhaps. Cummings. That's true enough, Mr. Bunter. Now I come to think of it, there was a gentleman come in on Monday evening. Not that he came late, but he stayed about an hour, and may have put Sir Julian behind hand. Bunter. Very likely. Let me give you some more port, Mr. Cummings, or a little of Lord Peter's old brandy. Cummings. A little of the brandy, thank you, Mr. Bunter. I suppose you have the run of the seller here. He winked at me. Trust me for that, I said. And I fetched him the Napoleon. I assure your Lordship it went to my heart to pour it out for a man like that. However, seeing we had got on the right track, I felt it wouldn't be wasted. I'm sure I wish it was always gentlemen that come here at night. I said, Your Lordship will excuse me, I am sure, making such a suggestion. Good God! said Lord Peter. I wish Bunter was less thorough in his methods. Cummings. Oh, he's that sort, his Lordship, is he? He chuckled and poked me. I suppress a portion of his conversation here, which could not fail to be as offensive to your Lordship as it was to myself. He went on. No, it's none of that with Sir Julian. Very few visitors at night and always gentlemen, and going early as a rule, like the one I mentioned. Bunter. Just as well. There's nothing I find more wearersome, Mr. Cummings, than sitting up to see visitors out. Cummings. Oh, I didn't see this one out. Sir Julian let him out himself at ten o'clock or thereabouts. I heard the gentleman shout good night and off he goes. Bunter. Does Sir Julian always do that? Cummings. Well, that depends. If he sees visitors downstairs, he lets them out himself. If he sees them upstairs in the library, he rings for me. Bunter. This was a downstairs visitor, then. Cummings. Oh, yes. Sir Julian opened the door to him, I remember. He happened to be working in the hall. Though now I come to think of it, they went up to the library afterwards. That's funny. I know they did because I happened to go up the hall with coals, and I heard them upstairs. Besides, Sir Julian rang for me in the library a few minutes later. Still, anyway, we heard him go at ten, or it may have been a bit before. He hadn't only stayed about three quarters of an hour. However, as I was saying, there was Sir Julian banging in and out of the private door all night, and a bath at three in the morning, and up again for breakfast at eight, it beats me. If I had all his money, curse me if I'd go poking about with dead men in the middle of the night, if it was a nice live girl now, Mr. Bunter. I need not repeat any more of his conversation, as it became unpleasant and incoherent, and I could not bring him back to the events of Monday night. I was unable to get rid of him till three. He cried on my neck, and said I was the bird and you were the governor for him. He said that Sir Julian would be greatly annoyed with him for coming home so late. But Sunday night was his night out, and if anything was said about it he would give notice. I think he will be ill-advised to do so, as I feel he is not a man I could conscientiously recommend if I were in Sir Julian Frecky's place. I noticed that his boot heels were slightly worn down. I should wish to add as a tribute the great merit of your lordship's cellar, that although I was obliged to drink a somewhat large quantity, both of the Cockburn 68 and the 1800 Napoleon, I feel no headache or other ill-effects this morning. Trusting that your lordship is driving real benefit from the country air, and that the little information I have been able to obtain will prove satisfactory, I remain, with respectful duty to all the family, their ladieships, obediently yours, Mervyn Bunter. You know, said Lord Peter, thoughtfully to himself, I sometimes think Mervyn Bunter's pulling my leg. What is its homes? A telegram, my lord. Parker, said Lord Peter, opening it. It said, description recognized Chelsea Workhouse. Unknown vagrant, injured street accident Wednesday week. Died Workhouse Monday. Delivered St. Luke's same evening by Order Frecky. Much puzzled, Parker. Hooray! said Lord Peter, suddenly sparkling. I'm glad I've puzzled Parker. Gives me confidence in myself. Makes me feel like Sherlock Holmes. Perfectly simple, Watson. Dash it all, though. This is a beastly business. Still, it's puzzled Parker. What's the matter? asked the Duke, getting up and yawning. Marching orders, said Peter. Back to town. Many thanks for your hospitality, old bird. I'm feeling no end better. Ready to tackle Professor Moriarty or Leon Castro or any of them. I do wish you'd keep out of the police courts. Grumbled the Duke. It makes it so dashed awkward for me, having a brother making himself conspicuous. Sorry, Gerald, said the other. I know I'm a beastly blot on the scuncheon. Why can't you marry and settle down and live quietly, doing something useful? said the Duke, unappeased. Because that was a wash-out, as you perfectly well know, said Peter. Besides, he added cheerfully, I'm being no end useful. You may come to want me yourself, you never know. When anybody comes blackmailing you, Gerald, or your first deserted wife turns up unexpectedly from the West Indies, you'll realise the pull of having a private detective in the family. Delicate private business arranged with tact and discretion, investigations undertaken, divorce evidence as specialty, every guarantee. Come now. Ass! said Lord Denver, throwing the newspaper violently into his armchair. When do you want the car? Almost at once. I say, Jerry, I'm taking mother up with me. Why should she be mixed up in it? Well, I want her help. I call it most unsuitable, said the Duke. The Dowager Duchess, however, made no objection. I used to know her quite well, she said, when she was Christine Ford. Why, dear? Because, said Lord Peter, there's a terrible piece of news to be broken to her about her husband. Is he dead, dear? Yes, and she will have to come and identify him. Poor Christine! Under very revolting circumstances, mother. I'll come with you, dear. Thank you, mother, you're a brick. Do you mind getting your things on straight away and coming up with me? I'll tell you about it in the car. End of Chapter 9. WHO'S BODY? Chapter 10. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Kara Schellenberg. WHO'S BODY? by Dorothy L. Sayers. Chapter 10. Mr. Parker, a faithful, though doubting, Thomas, had duly secured his medical student. A large young man, like an overgrown puppy, with innocent eyes and a freckled face. He sat on the Chesterfield before Lord Peter's library fire, bewildered in equal measure by his errand, his surroundings, and the drink which he was absorbing. His palette, though untutored, was naturally a good one, and he realized that even to call this liquid a drink, the term ordinarily used by him to designate cheap whiskey, post-war beer, or a dubious glass of claret in a Soho restaurant, was a sacrilege. This was something outside normal experience, a genie in a bottle. The man called Parker, whom he had happened to run across the evening before in the public house at the corner of Prince of Wales Road, seemed to be a good sort. He had insisted on bringing him round to see this friend of his who lived splendidly in Piccadilly. Parker was quite understandable. He put him down as a government servant, or perhaps something in the city. The friend was embarrassing. He was a lord, to begin with, and his clothes were a kind of rebuke to the world at large. He talked the most fatuous nonsense, certainly, but in a disconcerting way. He didn't dig into a joke and get all the fun out of it. He made it in passing, so to speak, and skipped away to something else before your retort was ready. He had a truly terrible man-servant, the sort you read about in books, who froze the marrow in your bones with silent criticism. Parker appeared to bear up under the strain, and this made you think more highly of Parker. He must be more habituated to the surroundings of the great city than you would think to look at him. You wondered what the carpet had cost on which Parker was carelessly spilling cigar ash. Your father was an upholsterer, Mr. Pigot, of Pigot and Pigot, Liverpool, and you knew enough about carpets to know that you couldn't even guess at the price of this one. When you moved your head on the bulging silk cushion in the corner of the sofa, it made you wish you shaved more often and more carefully. The sofa was a monster, but even so it hardly seemed big enough to contain you. This Lord Peter was not very tall. In fact, he was rather a small man, but he didn't look undersized. He looked right. He made you feel that to be six-foot-three was rather vulgarly assertive. You felt like mother's new drawing-room curtains, all over great big blobs. But everybody was very decent to you, and nobody said anything you couldn't understand or sneered at you. There were some frightfully deep-looking books on the shelves all round, and you had looked into a great folio d'anté which was lying on the table, but your hosts were talking quite ordinarily and rationally about the sort of books you read yourself, clinking good love stories and detective stories. You had read a lot of those and could give an opinion, and they listened to what you had to say, though Lord Peter had a funny way of talking about books, too, as if the author had confided in him beforehand and told him how the story was put together and which bit was written first. It reminded you of the way Old Frecky took a body to pieces. The thing I object to in detective stories, said Mr. Piggott, is the way fellows remember every bloomin' thing that's happened to him within the last six months. They're always ready with their time of day, and it was rainin' or not, and what they were doin' on such and such a day. Reel it all off like a page of poetry. But it ain't like that in real life, do you think so, Lord Peter? Lord Peter smiled, and young Piggott, instantly embarrassed, appealed to his earlier acquaintance. You know what I mean, Parker, come now, one day's so like another, I'm sure I couldn't remember—well, I might remember yesterday, perhaps—but I couldn't be certain about what I was doin' last week if I was to be shot for it. No, said Parker, and evidence given in police statements sounds just as impossible, but they don't really get it like that, you know. I mean, a man doesn't just say. Last Friday I went out at ten o'clock a.m. to buy a mutton chop. As I was turning into Mortimer Street, I noticed a girl of about twenty-two, with black hair and brown eyes, wearing a green jumper, check-skirt, Panama hat and black shoes, riding a royal sunbeam cycle at about ten miles an hour, turning the corner by the Church of St. Simon and St. Jude on the wrong side of the road, riding towards the marketplace. It amounts to that, of course, but it's really warmed out of him by a series of questions. And in short stories, said Lord Peter, it has to be put in statement form, because the real conversation would be so long and twaddly and tedious, and nobody would have the patience to read it. Writers have to consider their readers, if any, you see. Yes, said Mr. Piggott. But I bet you most people would find it jolly difficult to remember, even if you asked them things. I should. Of course I know I'm a bit of a fool, but then most people are, ain't they? You know what I mean. Witnesses ain't detectives, they're just average idiots like you and me. Quite so, said Lord Peter, smiling as the force of the last phrase sank into its unhappy perpetrator. You mean, if I were to ask you in a general way what you were doing, say, a week ago today, you wouldn't be able to tell me a thing about it off hand? No, I'm sure I shouldn't. He considered. No. I was in at the hospital, as usual, I suppose, and, being Tuesday, there'd be a lecture on something or the other—dashed, if I know what. And in the evening I went out with Tommy Pringle. No, that must have been Monday, or was it Wednesday? I tell you, I couldn't swear to anything. You do yourself an injustice, said Lord Peter gravely. I'm sure, for instance, you recollect what work you were doing in the dissecting room on that day, for example. Lord, no. Not for certain. I mean, I daresay it might come back to me if I thought for a long time, but I wouldn't swear to it in a court of law. I'll bet you half a crown to sixpence, said Lord Peter, that you'll remember within five minutes. I'm sure I can't. We'll see. Do you keep a notebook of the work you do when you dissect, drawings, or anything? Oh, yes. Think of that. What's the last thing you did in it? That's easy, because I only did it this morning. It was leg muscles. Yes, who was the subject? An old woman of sorts died of pneumonia. Yes. Turn back the pages of your drawing book in your mind. What came before that? Oh, some animals. Still legs. I'm doing motor muscles at present. Yes. That was old Cunningham's demonstration on comparative anatomy. I did a rather good thing of hair's legs and of frogs, and rudimentary legs on a snake. Yes. Which day does Mr. Cunningham lecture? Friday. Friday. Yes. Turn back again. What comes before that? Mr. Pigot shook his head. Do your drawings of legs begin on the right hand page or the left hand page? Can you see the first drawing? Yes. Yes. I can see the date written at the top. It's a section of a frog's hind leg on the right hand page. Yes. Think of the open book in your mind's eye. What is opposite to it? This demanded some mental concentration. Something round, colored. Oh, yes. It's a hand. Yes. You went on from the muscles of the hand and arm to leg and foot muscles. Yes. That's right. I've got a set of drawings of arms. Yes. Did you make those on the Thursday? No. I'm never in the dissecting room on Thursday. On Wednesday, perhaps? Yes. I must have made them on Wednesday. Yes. I did. I went in there after we'd seen those tetanus patients in the morning. I did them on Wednesday afternoon. I know I went back because I wanted to finish them. I worked rather hard, for me. That's why I remember. Yes. You went back to finish them. When had you begun them, then? Why, the day before. The day before. That was Tuesday, wasn't it? I've lost count. Yes. The day before Wednesday. Yes. Tuesday. Yes. Were they a man's arms or a woman's arms? Oh, a man's arms. Yes. Last Tuesday, a week ago today, you were dissecting a man's arms in the dissecting room. Sixpence, please. I jove. Wait a moment. You know a lot more about it than that. You've no idea how much you know. You know what kind of a man he was. Oh, I never saw him complete, you know. I got there a bit late that day, I remember. I'd asked for an arm, especially, because I was rather weak in arms and watts. That's the attendant. Had promised to save me one. Yes. You have arrived late and found your arm waiting for you. You are dissecting it, taking your scissors and slitting up the skin and pinning it back. Was it very young, fair skin? Oh, no. No. Ordinary skin, I think, with dark hairs on it. Yes, that was it. Yes. A lean, stringy arm, perhaps, with no extra fat anywhere? Oh, no. I was rather annoyed about that. I wanted a good muscular arm, but it was rather poorly developed, and the fat got in my way. Yes. A sedentary man who didn't do much manual work. That's right. Yes. You dissected the hand, for instance, and made a drawing of it. You would have noticed any hard calluses. Oh, there was nothing of that sort. No. But should you say it was a young man's arm, firm young flesh and limber joints? No, no. No. Old and stringy, perhaps. No. Middle-aged, with rheumatism. I mean, there was a chalky deposit in the joints, and the fingers were a bit swollen. Yes. A man about fifty. About that. Yes. There were other students at work on the same body. Oh, yes. Yes. And they made all the usual sort of jokes about it. I expect so. Oh, yes. You can remember some of them. Who was your local funny man, so to speak? Tommy Pringle. What was Tommy Pringle doing? Can't remember. Whereabouts was Tommy Pringle working? Over by the instrument cupboard, by Sink Sea. Yes. Get a picture of Tommy Pringle in your mind's eye. Pigot began to laugh. I remember now. Tommy Pringle said the old Sheenee. Why did he call him a Sheenee? I don't know, but I know he did. Perhaps he looked like it. Did you see his head? No. Who had the head? I don't know. Oh, yes I do, though. Old frecky bagged the head himself, and little bounceable bins was very cross about it, because he'd been promised a head to do with old screwger. I see. What was Sir Julian doing with the head? He called us up and gave us a jaw on spinal hemorrhage and nervous lesions. Yes. Well, go back to Tommy Pringle. Tommy Pringle's joke was repeated, not without some embarrassment. Quite so. Was that all? No. The chap who was working with Tommy said that sort of thing came from overfeeding. I deduce that Tommy Pringle's partner was interested in the elementary canal. Yes, and Tommy said, if he'd thought they'd feed you like that, he'd go to the workhouse himself. Then the man was a pauper from the workhouse. Well, he must have been, I suppose. Are workhouse paupers usually fat and well-fed? Well, no. Come to think of it, not as rule. In fact, it struck Tommy Pringle and his friend that this was something a little out of the way in a workhouse subject. Yes. And if the elementary canal was so entertaining to these gentlemen, I imagine the subject had come by his death shortly after a full meal. Yes. Oh, yes. He'd have had to, wouldn't he? Well, I don't know, said Lord Peter. That's in your department, you know. That would be your inference from what they said. Oh, yes. Undoubtedly. Yes. You wouldn't, for example, expect them to make that observation if the patient had been ill for a long time and fed on slops. Of course not. Well, you see, you really know a lot about it. On Tuesday week you were dissecting the arm muscles of a rheumatic middle-aged Jew of sedentary habits who had died shortly after eating a heavy meal of some injury producing spinal hemorrhage and nervous lesions and so forth, and who was presumed to come from the workhouse. Yes. And you could swear to those facts if need were. Well, if you put it that way, I suppose I could. Of course you could. Mr. Piggott sat for some moments in contemplation. I say, he said at last, I did know all that, didn't I? Oh, yes. You knew it all right, like Socrates' slave. Who's he? A person in a book I used to read as a boy. Oh, does he come in the last days of Pompeii? No, another book. I dare say you escaped it. It's rather dull. I never read much except Henty and Fenimore Cooper at school, but have I got rather an extra good memory then? You have a much better memory than you credit yourself with. Then why can't I remember all the medical stuff? It all goes out of my head like a sieve. Well, why can't you? said Lord Peter, standing on the hearth rug and smiling down at his guest. Well, said the young man, the chaps who examine one don't ask the same sort of questions you do. No. No. They leave you to remember all by yourself, and it's beastly hard. Nothing to catch hold of, don't you know? But I say, how did you know about Tommy Pringle being the funny man, and... I didn't till you told me. No, I know, but how did you know he'd be there if you did ask? I mean to say, I say, said Mr. Piggott, who was becoming mellowed by influences themselves not unconnected with the elementary canal. I say, are you rather clever, or am I rather stupid? No, no, said Lord Peter, it's me. I'm always asking such stupid questions. Everybody thinks I must mean something by them. This was too involved for Mr. Piggott. Never mind, said Parker, soothingly. He's always like that. You mustn't take any notice. He can't help it. It's premature senile decay, often observed in the families of hereditary legislators. Go away, whimsy, and play us the beggars opera or something. That's good enough, isn't it? said Lord Peter, when the happy Mr. Piggott had been dispatched home after a really delightful evening. I'm afraid so, said Parker. But it seems almost incredible. There's nothing incredible in human nature, said Lord Peter, at least in educated human nature. Have you got that exhumation order? I shall have it tomorrow. I thought of fixing up with the workhouse people for tomorrow afternoon. I shall have to go and see them first. Right you are. I'll let my mother know. I begin to feel like you, whimsy. I don't like this job. I like it a deal better than I did. You are really certain we're not making a mistake? Lord Peter had strolled across to the window. The curtain was not perfectly drawn, and he stood gazing out through the gap into lighted Piccadilly. At this he turned round. If we are, he said, we shall know tomorrow, and no harm will have been done. But I rather think you will receive a certain amount of confirmation on your way home. Look here, Parker. Do you know, if I were you, I'd spend the night here. There's a spare bedroom. I can easily put you up. Parker stared at him. Do you mean I'm likely to be attacked? I think it very likely indeed. Is there anybody in the street? Not now. There was, half an hour ago. When Piggot left? Yes. I say. I hope the boy is in no danger. That's what I went down to see. I don't think so. Fact is, I don't suppose anybody would imagine we'd exactly made a confident of Piggot. But I think you and I are in danger. You'll stay? I'm damned if I will, whimsy. Why should I run away? Bosh, said Peter. You'd run away all right if you believed me, and why not? You don't believe me. In fact, you're still not certain I'm on the right tack. Go in peace, but don't say I didn't warn you. I won't. I'll dictate a message with my dying breath to say I was convinced. Well, don't walk. Take a taxi. Very well, I'll do that. And don't let anybody else get into it. No. It was a raw, unpleasant night. A taxi deposited a load of people returning from the theatre at the block of flats next door, and Parker secured it for himself. He was just giving the address to the driver, when a man came hastily running up from a side street. He was in evening dress and an overcoat. He rushed up, signalling frantically. Sir, sir, dear me, why it's Mr. Parker, how fortunate, if you would be so kind, summoned from the club, a sick friend, can't find a taxi, everybody going home from the theatre. If I might share your cab, you are returning to Bloomsbury. I want Russell Square. If I might presume, a matter of life and death. He spoke in hurried gasps, as though he had been running violently and far. Parker promptly stepped out of the taxi. Delighted to be of service to you, Sir Julian, he said, Take my taxi. I am going down to Craven Street myself, but I am in no hurry. Pray make use of the cab. It's extremely kind of you, said the surgeon. I am ashamed. That's all right, said Parker cheerily. I can wait. He assisted Frecky into the taxi. What number? 24 Russell Square driver and look sharp. The taxi drove off. Parker remounted the stairs and rang Lord Peter's bell. Thanks, old man, he said. I'll stop the night after all. Come in, said whimsy. Did you see that? asked Parker. I saw something. What happened exactly? Parker told his story. Frankly, he said, I've been thinking you a bit mad, but now I'm not quite so sure of it. Peter laughed. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. Bunter, Mr. Parker will stay the night. Look here, whimsy. Let's have another look at this business. Where's that letter? Lord Peter produced Bunter's essay and dialogue. Parker studied it for a short time in silence. You know, whimsy, I'm as full of objections to this idea as an egg is of meat. So my old son, that's why I want to dig up our Chelsea pauper, but trot out your objections. Well, well, look here, I don't pretend to be able to fill in all the blanks myself, but here we have two mysterious occurrences in one night, and a complete chain connecting the one with another through one particular person. It's beastly, but it's not unthinkable. Yes, I know all that, but there are one or two quite definite stumbling blocks. Yes, I know, but see here, on the one hand, Levy disappeared after being last seen looking for Prince of Wales Road at nine o'clock. At eight next morning a dead man, not unlike him in general outline, is discovered in a bath in Queen Caroline Mansions. Levy, by Frecky's own admission, was going to see Frecky. By information received from Chelsea Workhouse, a dead man, answering to the description of the Battersea corpse in its natural state, was delivered that same day to Frecky. We have Levy with a past and no future as it were, an unknown vagrant with a future in the cemetery, and no past, and Frecky stands between their future and their past. That looks all right. Yes, now further. Frecky has a motive for getting rid of Levy, an old jealousy. Very old, and not much of a motive. People have been known to do that sort of thing. Footnote. Lord Peter was not without authority for his opinion. With respect to the alleged motive, it is of great importance to see whether there was a motive for committing such a crime, or whether there was not, or whether there is an improbability of its having been committed so strong as not to be overpowered by positive evidence. But if there can be any motive which can be assigned, I am bound to tell you that the inadequacy of that motive is of little importance. We know, from the experience of criminal courts, that atrocious crimes of this sort have been committed from very slight motives, not merely from malice and revenge, but to gain a small pecuniary advantage, and to drive off for a time pressing difficulties. L. C. J. Campbell summing up in Reg versus Palmer Shorthand Report, page 308, C. C. C., May 1856, C. S. Pa. 5, Italics Mein, D. L. S. End footnote. You are thinking that people don't keep up old jealousies for twenty years or so. Perhaps not. Not just primitive, brute jealousy. That means a word and a blow. But the thing that rankles is hurt vanity. That sticks. Humiliation. And we've all got a sore spot we don't like to have touched. I've got it. You've got it. Some blighter said hell knew no fury like a woman scorned. Sticking it on to women, poor devils. Sex is every man's loco spot. You needn't fidget. You know it's true. He'll take a disappointment, but not a humiliation. I knew a man once who'd been turned down, not too charitably, by a girl he was engaged to. He spoke quite decently about her. I asked what had become of her. Oh! he said. She married the other fellow. And then burst out. Couldn't help himself. Lord yes, he cried. I think of it. Jilted for a scotchman. I don't know why he didn't like Scots, but that was what got him on the raw. Look at Frecky. I've read his books. His attacks on his antagonists are savage, and he's a scientist, yet he can't bear opposition, even in his work, which is where any first-class man is most sane and open-minded. Do you think he's a man to take a beating from any man on a side issue? On a man's most sensitive side issue? People are opinionated about side issues, you know. I see red if anybody questions my judgment about a book. And Levy, who was nobody twenty years ago, romps in and carries off Frecky's girl from under his nose. It isn't the girl Frecky would bother about. It's having his aristocratic nose put out of joint by a little Jewish nobody. There's another thing. Frecky's got another side issue. He likes crime. In that criminology book of his he gloats over a hardened murderer. I've read it, and I've seen the admiration simply glaring out between the lines whenever he writes about a callous and successful criminal. He reserves his contempt for the victims or the penitents, or the men who lose their heads and get found out. His heroes are Edmund de la Pomeré, who persuaded his mistress into becoming an accessory to her own murder, and George Joseph Smith of brides in a bath fame who could make passionate love to his wife in the night and carry out his plot to murder her in the morning. After all, he thinks conscience is a sort of vermaform appendix. Chop it out, and you'll feel all the better. Frecky isn't troubled by the usual conscientious deterrent. Witness his own hand in his books. Now again, the man who went to Levy's house in his place knew the house. Frecky knew the house. He was a red-haired man, smaller than Levy, but not much smaller, since he could wear his clothes without appearing ludicrous. You have seen Frecky. You know his height. About five foot eleven, I suppose, and his auburn mane. He probably wore surgical gloves. Frecky is a surgeon. He was a methodical and daring man. Surgeons are obliged to be both daring and methodical. Now take the other side. The man who got hold of the Battersea corpse had to have access to dead bodies. Frecky obviously had access to dead bodies. He had to be cool and quick and callous about handling a dead body. Surgeons are all that. He had to be a strong man to carry the body across the roofs and dump it in at Thip's window. Frecky is a powerful man and a member of the Alpine Club. He probably wore surgical gloves and he let the body down from the roof with a surgical bandage. This points to a surgeon again. He undoubtedly lives in the neighborhood. Frecky lives next door. The girl you interviewed heard a bump on the roof of the end house. That is the house next to Frecky's. Every time we look at Frecky, he leads somewhere, whereas Milligan and Thip's and Cripplesham and all the other people we've honored with our suspicion simply lead nowhere. Yes, but it's not quite so simple as you make out. What was Levy doing in that surreptitious way at Frecky's on Monday night? Well, you have Frecky's explanation. Rot, whimsy. You said yourself it wouldn't do. Excellent. It won't do. Therefore, Frecky was lying. Why should he lie about it, unless he had some object in hiding the truth? Well, but why mention it at all? Because Levy, contrary to all expectation, had been seen at the corner of the road. That was a nasty accident for Frecky. He thought it best to be beforehand with an explanation of sorts. He reckoned, of course, on nobody's ever connecting Levy with Battersea Park. Well, then we come back to the first question. Why did Levy go there? I don't know, but he was got there somehow. Why did Frecky buy all those Peruvian oil shares? I don't know, said Parker in his turn. Anyway, went on whimsy. Frecky expected him, and made arrangement to let him in himself so that Cummings shouldn't see who the caller was. But the caller left again at ten. Oh, Charles, I did not expect this of you. This is the purest sugary. Who saw him go? Somebody said, good night, and walked away down the street, and you believe it was Levy because Frecky didn't go out of his way to explain that it wasn't. Do you mean that Frecky walked cheerfully out of the house to Park Lane and left Levy behind, dead or alive, for Cummings to find? We have Cummings' word that he did nothing of the sort. A few minutes after the steps walked away from the house, Frecky rang the library bell, and told Cummings to shut up for the night. Then, well, there's a side door to the house, I suppose. In fact, you know there is. Cummings said so, through the hospital. Yes, well, where was Levy? Levy went up to the library, and never came down. You've been in Frecky's library, where would you have put him? In my bedroom next door. Then that's where he did put him. But suppose the man went in to turn down the bed. Beds are turned down by the housekeeper, earlier than ten o'clock. Yes, but Cummings heard Frecky about the house all night. He heard him go in and out two or three times. He'd expect him to do that, anyway. Do you mean to say Frecky got all that job finished before three in the morning? Why not? Quick work. Well, call it quick work. Besides, why three? Cummings never saw him again till he called him for eight o'clock breakfast. But he was having a hard time. I don't say he didn't get back from Park Lane before three, but I don't suppose Cummings went and looked through the bathroom keyhole to see if he was in the bath, Parker considered again. How about Krimpelschirm's Ponce-nay, he asked? That is a bit mysterious, said Lord Peter. And why Thipps' bathroom? Why indeed? Pure accident, perhaps, or pure devilry? Do you think all this elaborate scheme could have been put together in a night, Wimsy? Far from it. It was conceived as soon as that man who bore a superficial resemblance to Levy came into the workhouse. He had several days. I see. Frecky gave himself away at the inquest. He and Grimbold disagreed about the length of the man's illness. If a small man, comparatively speaking, like Grimbold, presumes to disagree with a man like Frecky, it's because he is sure of his ground. Then, if your theory is sound, Frecky made a mistake. Yes, a very slight one. He was guarding the man's illness. And he had no idea what was going to happen to him. A very slight one. He was guarding with unnecessary caution against starting a train of thought in the mind of anybody, say the workhouse doctor. Up till then he'd been reckoning on the fact that people don't think a second time about anything. A body, say. That's once been accounted for. What made him lose his head? A chain of unforeseen accidents. Levy's having been recognized. My mother's son having foolishly advertised in the times his connection with the Battersea end of the mystery. Detective Parker, whose photograph has been a little prominent in the illustrated press lately, seen sitting next door to the Duchess of Denver at the inquest. His aim in life was to prevent the two ends of the problem from linking up. And there were two of the links literally side by side. Many criminals are wrecked by over-caution. Parker was silent. End of chapter 10. Read by Kara Schellenberg, www.kray.org, on February 9, 2007, in Oceanside, California.