Two Lord Peter Wimsey Stories

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Tags: Mystery & Crime

Dorothy L. Sayers

Two Lord Peter Wimsey Stories

Dorothy L. Sayers

(1893–1957)

Two Lord Peter Wimsey Stories

Table of Contents

1. In The Teeth Of The Evidence

2. Absolutely Elsewhere

1. In The Teeth Of The Evidence

A Lord Peter Wimsey Story

“Well, old son,” said Mr. Lamplough, “and what can we do for you today?”

“Oh, some of your whizz-bang business, I suppose,” said Lord Peter Wimsey, seating himself resentfully in the green velvet torture-chair and making a face in the direction of the drill. “Jolly old left-hand upper grinder come to bits on me. I was only eating an omelette, too. Can’t understand why they always pick these moments. If I’d been cracking nuts or chewing peppermint jumbles I could understand it.”

“Yes?” said Mr. Lamplough, soothingly. He drew an electric bulb, complete with mirror, as though by magic out of a kind of Maskelyne-and-Devant contraption on Lord Peter’s left; a trail of flex followed it, issuing apparently from the bowels of the earth. “Any pain?”

“No pain,” said Wimsey irritably, “unless you count a sharp edge fit to saw your tongue off. Point is, why should it go pop like that? I wasn’t doing anything to it.”

“No?” said Mr. Lamplough, his manner hovering between the professional and the friendly, for he was an old Winchester man and a member of one of Wimsey’s clubs, and had frequently met him on the cricket-field in the days of their youth. “Well, if you’ll stop talking half a moment, we’ll have a look at it. Ah!”

“Don’t say ‘Ah!’ like that, as if you’d found pyorrhoea and necrosis of the jaw and were gloating over it, you damned old ghoul. Just carve it out and stop it up and be hanged to you. And, by the way, what have you been up to? Why should I meet an inspector of police on your doorstep? You needn’t pretend he came to have his bridge-work attended to, because I saw his sergeant waiting for him outside.”

“Well, it was rather curious,” said Mr. Lamplough, dexterously gagging his friend with one hand and dabbing cotton-wool into the offending cavity with the other. “I suppose I oughtn’t to tell you, but if I don’t, you’ll get it out of your friends at Scotland Yard. They wanted to see my predecessor’s books. Possibly you noticed that bit in the papers about a dental man being found dead in a blazing garage on Wimbledon Common?”

“Yonk—ugh?” said Lord Peter Wimsey.

“Last night,” said Mr. Lamplough. “Pooped off about nine pipemma, and it took them three hours to put it out. One of those wooden garages—and the big job was to keep the blaze away from the house. Fortunately it’s at the end of the row, with nobody at home. Apparently this man Prendergast was all alone there—just going off for a holiday or something—and he contrived to set himself and his car and his garage alight last night and was burnt to death. In fact, when they found him, he was so badly charred that they couldn’t be sure it was he. So, being sticklers for routine, they had a look at his teeth.”

“Oh, yes?” said Wimsey, watching Mr. Lamplough fitting a new drill into its socket. “Didn’t anybody have a go at putting the fire out?”

“Oh, yes—but as it was a wooden shed, full of petrol, it simply went up like a bonfire. Just a little bit over this way, please. That’s splendid.” Gr-r-r, whizz, gr-r-r. “As a matter of fact, they seem to think it might just possibly be suicide. The man’s married, with three children, and immured and all that sort of thing.” Whizz, gr-r-r, buzz, gr-r-r, whizz. “His family’s down at Worthing, staying with his mother-in-law or something. Tell me if I hurt you.” Gr-r-r. “And I don’t suppose he was doing any too well. Still, of course, he may easily have had an accident when filling up. I gather he was starting off that night to join them.”

“A—ow—oo—oo—uh—ihi—ih?” inquired Wimsey naturally enough.

“How do I come into it?” said Mr. Lamplough, who, from long experience was expert in the interpretation of mumblings. “Well, only because the chap whose practice I took over here did this fellow Prendergast’s dental work for him.” Whizz. “He died, but left his books behind him for my guidance, in case any of his old patients should feel inclined to trust me.” Gr-r-r, whizz. “I’m sorry. Did you feel that? As a matter of fact, some of them actually do. I suppose it’s an instinct to trundle round to the same old place when you’re in pain, like the dying elephants. Will you rinse, please?”

“I see,” said Wimsey, when he had finished washing out chips of himself and exploring his ravaged molar with his tongue. “How odd it is that these cavities always seem so large. I feel as if I could put my head into this one. Still, I suppose you know what you’re about. And are Prendergast’s teeth all right?”

“Haven’t had time to hunt through the ledger, yet, but I’ve said I’ll go down to have a look at them as soon as I’ve finished with you. It’s my lunch-time anyway, and my two o’clock patient isn’t coming, thank goodness. She usually brings five spoilt children, and they all want to sit round and watch, and play with the apparatus. One of them got loose last time and tried to electrocute itself on the X-ray plant next door. And she thinks that children should be done at half-price. A little wider if you can manage it.” Gr-r-r. “Yes, that’s very nice. Now we can dress that and put in a temporary. Rinse please.”

“Yes,” said Wimsey, “and for goodness’ sake make it firm and not too much of your foul oil of cloves. I don’t want bits to come out in the middle of dinner. You can’t imagine the nastiness of caviar flavoured with cloves.”

“No?” said Mr. Lamplough. “You may find this a little cold.” Squirt, swish. “Rinse, please. You may notice it when the dressing goes in. Oh, you did notice it? Good. That shows that the nerve’s all right. Only a little longer now. There! Yes, you may get down now. Another rinse? Certainly. When would you like to come in again?”

“Don’t be silly, old horse,” said Wimsey. “I am coming out to Wimbledon with you straight away. You’ll get there twice as fast if I drive you. I’ve never had a corpse-in-blazing-garage before, and I want to learn.”

There is nothing really attractive about corpses in blazing garages. Even Wimsey’s war experience did not quite reconcile him to the object that lay on the mortuary slab in the police station. Charred out of all resemblance to humanity, it turned even the police surgeon pale, while Mr. Lamplough was so overcome that he had to lay down the books he had brought with him and retire into the open to recover himself. Meanwhile Wimsey, having put himself on terms of mutual confidence and esteem with the police officials, thoughtfully turned over the little pile of blackened odds and ends that represented the contents of Mr. Prendergast’s pockets. There was nothing remarkable about them. The leather note-case still held the remains of a thickish wad of notes—doubtless cash in hand for the holiday at Worthing. The handsome gold watch (obviously a presentation) had stopped at seven minutes past nine. Wimsey remarked on its good state of preservation. Sheltered between the left arm and the body—that seemed to be the explanation.

“Looks as though the first sudden blaze had regularly overcome him,” said the police inspector. “He evidently made no attempt to get out. He’d simply fallen forward over the wheel, with his head on the dashboard. That’s why the face is so disfigured. I’ll show you the remains of the car presently if you’re interested, my lord. If the other gentleman’s feeling better we may as well take the body first.”

Taking the body was a long and unpleasant job. Mr. Lamplough, nerving himself with an effort and producing a pair of forceps and a probe, went gingerly over the jaws—reduced almost to their bony structure by the furnace heat to which they had been exposed—while the police surgeon checked entries in the ledger. Mr. Prendergast had a dental history extending back over ten years in the ledger and had already had two or three fillings done before that time. These had been noted at the time when he first came to Mr. Lamplough’s predecessor.

At the end of a long examination, the surgeon looked up from the notes he had been making.

“Well, now,” he said, “let’s check that again. Allowing for renewal of old work, I think we’ve got a pretty accurate picture of the present state of his mouth. There ought to be nine fillings in all. Small amalgam filling in right lower back wisdom tooth; big amalgam ditto in right lower back molar; amalgam fillings in right upper first and second bicuspids at point of contact; right upper incisor crowned—that all right?”

“I expect so,” said Mr. Lamplough, “except that the tight upper incisor seems to be missing altogether, but possibly the crown came loose and fell out.” He probed delicately. “The jaw is very brittle—I can’t make anything of the canal—but there’s nothing against it.”

“We may find the crown in the garage,” suggested the Inspector.

“Fused porcelain filling in left upper canine,” went on the surgeon; “amalgam fillings in left upper first bicuspid and lower second bicuspid and left lower thirteen-year-old molar. That seems to be all. No teeth missing and no artificials. How old was this man, Inspector?”

“About forty-five, Doc.”

“My age. I only wish I had as good a set of teeth,” said the surgeon. Mr. Lamplough agreed with him.

“Then I take it, this is Mr. Prendergast all right,” said the inspector.

“Not a doubt of it, I should say,” replied Mr. Lamplough; “though I should like to find that missing crown.”

“We’d better go round to the house, then,” said the Inspector. “Well, yes, thank you, my lord, I shouldn’t mind a lift in that. Some car. Well, the only point now is, whether it was accident or suicide. Round to the right my lord, and then second on the left—I’ll tell you as we go.”

“A bit out of the way for a dental man,” observed Mr. Lamplough, as they emerged upon some scattered houses near the Common.

The Inspector made a grimace.

“I thought the same, sir, but it appears Mrs. Prendergast persuaded him to come here. So good for the children. Not so good for the practice, though. If you ask me, I should say Mrs. P. was the biggest argument we have for suicide. Here we are.”

The last sentence was scarcely necessary. There was a little crowd about the gate of a small detached villa at the end of a row of similar houses. From a pile of dismal debris in the garden a smell of burning still rose, disgustingly. The Inspector pushed through the gate with his companions, pursued by the comments of the bystanders.

“That’s the Inspector… that’s Dr. Maggs… that’ll be another doctor, him with the little bag… who’s the bloke in the eye-glass?… Looks a proper nobleman, don’t he, Florrie?… Why he’ll be the insurance bloke… Coo! look at his grand car… that’s where the money goes… That’s a Rolls, that is… no, silly, it’s a Daimler… Ow, well, it’s all advertisement these days.”

Wimsey giggled indecorously all the way up the garden path. The sight of the skeleton car amid the sodden and fire-blackened remains of the garage sobered him. Two police constables, crouched over the ruin with a sieve, stood up and saluted.

“How are you getting on, Jenkins?”

“Haven’t got anything very much yet, sir, bar an ivory cigarette-holder. This gentleman”—indicating a stout, bald man in spectacles, who was squatting among the damaged coachwork,—“is Mr. Tolley, from the motor-works, come with a note from the Superintendent, sir.”

“Ah, yes. Can you give any opinion about this, Mr. Tolley? Dr. Maggs you know. Mr. Lamplough, Lord Peter Wimsey. By the way, Jenkins, Mr. Lamplough has been going into the corpse’s dentistry, and he’s looking for a lost tooth. You might see if you can find it. Now, Mr. Tolley?”

“Can’t see much doubt about how it happened,” said Mr. Tolley, picking his teeth thoughtfully. “Regular death-traps, these little saloons, when anything goes wrong unexpectedly. There’s a front tank, you see, and it looks as though there might have been a bit of a leak behind the dash, somewhere. Possibly the seam of the tank had got Strained a bit, or the union had come loose. It’s loose now, as a matter of fact, but that’s not unusual after a fire, Rouse case or no Rouse case. You can get quite a lot of slow dripping from a damaged tank or pipe, and there seems to have been a coconut mat round the controls, which would prevent you from noticing. There’d be a smell, of course, but these little garages do often get to smell of petrol, and he kept several cans of the stuff here. More than the legal amount—but that’s not unusual either. Looks to me as though he’d filled up his tank—there are two empty tins near the bonnet, with the caps loose—got in, shut the door, started up the car, perhaps, and then lit a cigarette. Then, if there were any petrol fumes about from a leak, the whole show would go up in his face—whoosh!”

“How was the ignition?”

“Off. He may never have switched it on, but it’s quite likely he switched it off again when the flames went up. Silly thing to do, but lots of people do do it. The proper thing, of course, is to switch off the petrol and leave the engine running so as to empty the carburettor, but you don’t always think straight when you’re being burnt alive. Or he may have meant to turn off the petrol and been overcome before he could manage it. The tank’s over here to the left, you see.”

“On the other hand,” said Wimsey, “he may have committed suicide and faked the accident.”

“Nasty way of committing suicide.”

“Suppose he’d taken poison first.”

“He’d have had to stay alive long enough to fire the car.”

“That’s true. Suppose he’d shot himself—would the flash from the—no, that’s silly—you’d have found the weapon in the case. Or a hypodermic? Same objection. Prussic acid might have done it—I mean, he might just have had time to take a tablet and then fire the car. Prussic acid’s pretty quick, but it isn’t absolutely instantaneous.”

“I’ll have a look for it anyway,” said Dr. Maggs.

They were interrupted by the constable.

“Excuse me, sir, but I think we’ve found the tooth. Mr. Lamplough says this is it.”

Between his pudgy finger and thumb he held up a small, bony object, from which a small stalk of metal still protruded.

“That’s a right upper incisor crown all right by the look of it,” said Mr. Lamplough. “I suppose the cement gave way with the heat. Some cements are sensitive to heat, some, on the other hand, to damp. Well, that settles it, doesn’t it?”

“Yes—well, we shall have to break it to the widow. Not that she can be in very much doubt, I imagine.”

Mrs. Prendergast—a very much made-up lady with a face set in lines of habitual peevishness—received the news with a burst of loud sobs. She informed them, when she was sufficiently recovered, that Arthur had always been careless about petrol, that he smoked too much, that she had often warned him about the danger of small saloons, that she had told him he ought to get a bigger car, that the one he had was not really large enough for her and the whole family, that he would drive at night, though she had always said it was dangerous, and that if he’d listened to her, it would never have happened.

“Poor Arthur was not a good driver. Only last week, when he was taking us down to Worthing, he drove the car right up on a bank in trying to pass a lorry, and frightened us all dreadfully.”

“Ah!” said the Inspector. “No doubt that’s how the tank got strained.” Very cautiously he inquired whether Mr. Prendergast could have had any reason for raking his own life. The widow was indignant. It was true that the practice had been declining of late, but Arthur would never have been so wicked as to do such a thing. Why, only three months ago, he had taken out a life-insurance for £500 and he’d never have invalidated it by committing suicide within the term stipulated by the policy. Inconsiderate of her as Arthur was, and whatever injuries he had done her as a wife, he wouldn’t rob his innocent children.

The Inspector pricked up his ears at the word “injuries.” What injuries?

Oh, well, of course, she’d known all the time that Arthur was carrying on with that Mrs. Fielding. You couldn’t deceive her with all this stuff about teeth needing continual attention. And it was all very well to say that Mrs. Fielding’s house was better run than her own. That wasn’t surprising—a rich widow with no children and no responsibilities, of course she could afford to have everything nice. You couldn’t expect a busy wife to do miracles on such a small housekeeping allowance. If Arthur had wanted things different, he should have been more generous, and it was easy enough for Mrs. Fielding to attract men, dressed up like a fashion plate and no better than she should be. She’d told Arthur that if it didn’t stop she’d divorce him. And since then he’d taken to spending all his evenings in Town, and what was he doing there—

The Inspector stemmed the torrent by asking for Mrs. Fielding’s address.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Mrs. Prendergast. “She did live at Number 57, but she went abroad after I made it clear I wasn’t going to stand any more of it. It’s very nice to be some people, with plenty of money to spend. I’ve never been abroad since our honeymoon, and that was only to Boulogne.”

At the end of this conversation, the Inspector sought Dr. Maggs and begged him to be thorough in his search for prussic acid.

The remaining testimony was that of Gladys, the general servant. She had left Mr. Prendergast’s house the day before at 6 o’clock. She was to have taken a weeks’ holiday while the Prendergasts were at Worthing. She had thought that Mr Prendergast had seemed worried and nervous the last few days, but that had not surprised her, because she knew he disliked staying with his wife’s people. She (Gladys) had finished her work and put out a cold supper and then gone home with her employer’s permission. He had a patient—a gentleman from Australia, or some such place, who wanted his teeth attended to in a hurry before going off on his travels again. Mr. Prendergast had explained that he would be working late, and would shut up the house himself, and she need not wait. Further inquiry showed that Mr. Prendergast had “scarcely touched” his supper, being, presumably, in a hurry to get off. Apparently, then, the patient had been the last person to see Mr. Prendergast alive.

The dentist’s appointment-book was next examined. The patient figured there as “Mr. Williams 5.30”, and the address-book placed Mr. Williams at a small hotel in Bloomsbury. The manager of the hotel said that Mr. Williams had stayed there for a week. He had given no address except “Adelaide”, and had mentioned that he was revisiting the old country for the first time after twenty years and had no friends in London. Unfortunately, he could not be interviewed. At about half-past ten the previous night, a messenger had called, bringing his card, to pay his bill and remove his luggage. No address had been left for forwarding letters. It was not a district messenger, but a man in a slouch hat and heavy dark overcoat. The night-porter had not seen his face very clearly, as only one light was on in the hall. He had told them to hurry up, as Mr. Williams wanted to catch the boat-train from Waterloo. Inquiry at the booking-office showed that a Mr. Williams had actually travelled on that train, being booked to Paris. The ticket had been taken that same night. So Mr. Williams had disappeared into the blue, and even if they could trace him, it seemed unlikely that he could throw much light on Mr. Prendergast’s state of mind immediately previous to the disaster. It seemed a little odd, at first, that Mr. Williams, from Adelaide, staying in Bloomsbury, should have travelled to Wimbledon to get his teeth attended to, but the simple explanation was the likeliest: namely, that the friendless Williams had struck up an acquaintance with Prendergast in a café or some such place, and that a casual mention of his dental necessities had led to a project of mutual profit and assistance.

After which, nothing seemed to be left but for the coroner to bring in a verdict of Death by Misadventure and for the widow to send in her claim to the Insurance Company, when Dr. Maggs upset the whole scheme of things by announcing that he had discovered traces of a large injection of hyoscine in the body, and what about it? The Inspector, on hearing this, observed callously that he was not surprised. If ever a man had an excuse for suicide, he thought it was Mrs. Prendergast’s husband. He thought that it would be desirable to make a careful search among the scorched laurels surrounding what had been Mr. Prendergast’s garage. Lord Peter Wimsey agreed, but committed himself to the prophecy that the syringe would not be found.

Lord Peter Wimsey was entirely wrong. The syringe was found next day, in a position suggesting that it had been thrown out of the window of the garage after use. Traces of the poison were discovered to be present in it. “It’s a slow-working drug,” observed Dr. Maggs. “No doubt he jabbed himself, threw the syringe away, hoping it would never be looked for, and then,, before he lost consciousness, climbed into the car and set light to it. A clumsy way of doing it.”

“A damned ingenious way of doing it,” said Wimsey. “I don’t believe in that syringe, somehow.” He rang up his dentist. “Lamplough, old horse,” he said, “I wish you’d do something for me. I wish you’d go over those teeth again. No—not my teeth; Prendergast’s.”

“Oh, blow it!” said Mr. Lamplough, uneasily.

“No, but I wish you would,” said his lordship.

The body was still unburied. Mr. Lamplough, grumbling very much, went down to Wimbledon with Wimsey, and again went through his distasteful task. This time he started on the left side.

“Lower thirteen-year-old molar and second bicuspid filled amalgam. The fire’s got at those a bit, but they’re all right. First upper bicuspid—bicuspids are stupid sort of teeth—always the first to go. That filling looks to have been rather carelessly put in—not what I should call good work; it seems to extend over the next tooth—possibly the fire did that. Left upper canine, cast porcelain filling on anterior face—”

“Half a jiff,” said Wimsey, “Maggs’s note says ‘fused porcelain.’ Is it the same thing?”

“No. Different process. Well, I suppose it’s fused porcelain—difficult to see. I should have said it was cast, myself, but that’s as may be.”

“Let’s verify it in the ledger. I wish Maggs had put the dates in—goodness knows how far I shall have to hunt back, and I don’t understand this chap’s writing or his dashed abbreviations.”

“You won’t have to go back very far if it’s cast. The stuff only came in about 1928, from America. There was quite a rage for it then, but for some reason it didn’t take on extraordinarily well over here. But some men use it.”

“Oh, then it isn’t cast,” said Wimsey. “There’s nothing here about canines, back to ’28. Let’s make sure; ’27, ’26, ’25, ’24, ’23. Here you are. Canine, something or other.”

“That’s it,” said Lamplough, coming to look over his shoulder. “Fused porcelain. I must be wrong, then. Easily see by taking it out. The grain’s different, and so is the way it’s put in.”

“How different?”

“Well,” said Mr. Lamplough, “one’s a cast, you see.”

“And the other’s fused. I did grasp that much. Well, go ahead and take it out.”

“Can’t very well; not here.”

“Then take it home and do it there. Don’t you see, Lamplough, how important it is? If it is cast porcelain, or whatever you call it, it can’t have been done in ’23. And if it was removed later, then another dentist must have done it. And he may have done other things—and in that case, those things ought to be there, and they’re not. Don’t you see?”

“I see you’re getting rather agitato,” said Mr. Lamplough; “all I can say is, I refuse to have this thing taken along to my surgery. Corpses aren’t popular in Harley Street.”

In the end, the body was removed, by permission, to the dental department of the local hospital. Here Mr. Lamplough, assisted by the staff dental expert, Dr. Maggs and the police, delicately extracted the filling from the canine.

“If that,” said he triumphantly, “is not cast porcelain I will extract all my own teeth without an anaesthetic and swallow them. What do you say, Benton?”

The hospital dentist agreed with him. Mr. Lamplough, who had suddenly developed an eager interest in the problem, nodded, and inserted a careful probe between the upper right bicuspids, with their adjacent fillings.

“Come and look at this, Benton. Allowing for the action of the fire and all this muck, wouldn’t you have said this was a very recent filling? There, at the point of contact. Might have been done yesterday. And—here—wait a minute. Where’s the lower jaw gone to? Get that fitted up. Give me a bit of carbon. Look at the tremendous bite there ought to be here, with that big molar coming down on to it. That filling’s miles too high for the job. Wimsey—when was this bottom right-hand back molar filled?”

“Two years ago,” said Wimsey.

“That’s impossible,” said the two dentists together, and Mr. Benton added:

“If you clean away the mess, you’ll see it’s a new filling. Never been bitten on, I should say. Look here, Mr. Lamplough, there’s something odd here.”

“Odd? I should say there was. I never thought about it when I was checking it up yesterday, but look at this old cavity in the lateral here. Why didn’t he have that filled when all this other work was done? Now it’s cleaned out you can see it plainly. Have you got a long probe? It’s quite deep and must have given him jip. I say, Inspector, I want to have some of these fillings out. Do you mind?”

“Go ahead,” said the Inspector, “we’ve got plenty of witnesses.”

With Mr. Benton supporting the grisly patient, and Mr. Lamplough manipulating the drill, the filling of one of the molars was speedily drilled out, and Mr. Lamplough said: “Oh, gosh!”—which, as Lord Peter remarked, just showed you what a dentist meant when he said “Ah!”

“Try the bicuspids,” suggested Mr. Benton.

“Or this thirteen-year-old,” chimed in his colleague.

“Hold hard, gentlemen,” protested the Inspector, “don’t spoil the specimen altogether.”

Mr. Lamplough drilled away without heeding him. Another filling came out, and Mr. Lamplough said “Gosh!” again.

“It’s all right,” said Wimsey, grinning, “you can get out your warrant, Inspector.”

“What’s that, my lord?”

“Murder,” said Wimsey.

“Why?” said the Inspector. “Do these gentlemen mean that Mr. Prendergast got a new dentist who poisoned his teeth for him?”

“No,” said Mr. Lamplough; “at least, not what you mean by poisoning. But I’ve never seen such work in my life. Why, in two places the man hasn’t even troubled to clear out the decay at all. He’s just enlarged the cavity and stopped it up again anyhow. Why this chap didn’t get thundering abscesses I don’t know.”

“Perhaps,” said Wimsey, “the stoppings were put in too recently. Hullo! what now?”

“This one’s all right. No decay here. Doesn’t look as if there ever had been, either. But one can’t tell about that.”

“I dare say there never was. Get your warrant out, Inspector.”

“For the murder of Mr. Prendergast? And against whom?”

“No. Against Arthur Prendergast for the murder of one, Mr. Williams, and incidentally, for arson and attempted fraud. And against Mrs. Fielding too, if you like, for conspiracy. Though you mayn’t be able to prove that part of it.”

It turned out, when they found Mr. Prendergast in Rouen, that he had thought out the scheme well in advance. The one thing he had had to wait for had been to find a patient of his own height and build, with a good set teeth and few home ties. When the unhappy Williams had fallen into his clutches, he had few preparations to make. Mrs. Prendergast had to be packed off to Worthing—a journey she was ready enough to take at any time—and the maid given a holiday. Then the necessary dental accessories had to be prepared and the victim invited out to tea at Wimbledon. Then the murder—a stunning blow from behind, followed by an injection. Then, the slow and horrid process of faking the teeth to correspond with Mr. Prendergast’s own. Next, the exchange of clothes and the body carried down and placed in the car. The hypodermic put where it might be overlooked on a casual inspection and yet might plausibly be found if the presence of the drug should be discovered; ready, in the one case, to support a verdict of Accident and, in the second, of Suicide. Then the car soaked in petrol, the union loosened, the cans left about. The garage door and window left open, to lend colour to the story and provide a draught, and finally, light set to the car by means of a train of petrol laid through the garage door. Then, flight to the station through the winter darkness and so by underground to London. The risk of being recognized on the underground was small, in Williams’ hat and clothes and with a scarf wound about the lower part of the face. The next step was to pick up Williams’ luggage and take the boat-train to join the wealthy and enamoured Mrs. Fielding in France. After which, Williams and Mrs. Williams could have returned to England, or not, as they pleased.

“Quite a student of criminology,” remarked, Wimsey, at the conclusion of this little adventure. “He’d studied Rouse and Furnace all right, and profited by their mistakes. Pity he overlooked that matter of the cast porcelain. Makes a quicker job, does it, Lamplough? Well, more haste, less speed. I do wonder, though, at what point of the proceedings Williams actually died.”

“Shut up,” said Mr. Lamplough, “and, by the way, I’ve still got to finish that filling for you.”

2. Absolutely Elsewhere

A Lord Peter Wimsey Story

Lord Peter Wimsey sat with Chief-Inspector Parker, of the C.I.D., and Inspector Henley, of the Baldock police, in the library at “The Lilacs.”

“So you see,” said Parker, “that all the obvious suspects were elsewhere at the time.”

“What do you mean by ‘elsewhere’?” demanded Wimsey, peevishly. Parker had hauled him down to Wapley, on the Great North Road, without his breakfast, and his temper had suffered. “Do you mean that they couldn’t have reached the scene of the murder without travelling at over 186,000 miles a second? Because, if you don’t mean that, they weren’t absolutely elsewhere. They were only relatively and apparently elsewhere.”

“For heaven’s sake, don’t go all Eddington. Humanly speaking, they were elsewhere, and if we’re going to nail one of them we shall have to do it without going into their Fitzgerald contractions and coefficients of spherical curvature. I think, Inspector, we had better have them in one by one, so that I can hear all their stories again. You can check them up if they depart from their original statements at any point. Let’s take the butler first.”

The Inspector put his head out into the hall and said: “Hamworthy.”

The butler was a man of middle age, whose spherical curvature was certainly worthy of consideration. His large face was pale and puffy, and he looked unwell. However, he embarked on his story without hesitation.

“I have been in the late Mr. Grimbold’s service for twenty years, gentlemen, and I have always found him a good master. He was a strict gentleman, but very just. I know he was considered very hard in business matters, but I suppose he had to be that. He was a bachelor, but he brought up his two nephews, Mr. Harcourt and Mr. Neville, and was very good to them. In his private life I should call him a kind and considerate man. His profession? Yes, I suppose you would call him a money-lender.

“About the events of last night, sir, yes. I shut up the house at 7:30 as usual. Everything was done exactly to time, sir,—Mr. Grimbold was very regular in his habits. I locked all the windows on the ground floor, as was customary during the winter months. I am quite sure I didn’t miss anything out. They all have burglar-proof bolts and I should have noticed if they had been out of order. I also locked and bolted the front door and put up the chain.”

“How about the conservatory door?”

“That, sir, is a Yale lock. I tried it, and saw that it was shut. No, I didn’t fasten the catch. It was always left that way, sir, in case Mr. Grimbold had business which kept him in Town late, so that he could get in without disturbing the household.”

“But he had no business in Town last night?”

“No, sir, but it was always left that way. Nobody could get in without the key, and Mr. Grimbold had that on his ring.”

“Is there no other key in existence?”

“I believe”—the butler coughed—“I believe, sir, though I do not know, that there is one, sir,—in the possession of-of a lady, sir, who is at present in Paris.”

“I see. Mr. Grimbold was about sixty years old, I believe. Just so. What is the name of this lady?”

“Mrs. Winter, sir. She lives at Wapley, but since her husband died last month, sir, I understand she has been residing abroad.”

“I see. Better make a note of that, Inspector. Now, how about the upper rooms and the back door?”

“The upper-room windows were all fastened in the same way, sir, except Mr. Grimbold’s bedroom and the cook’s room and mine, sir; but they couldn’t be reached without a ladder, and the ladder is locked up in the tool-shed.”

“That’s all right,” put in Inspector Henley. “We went into that last night. The shed was locked and, what’s more, there were unbroken cobwebs between the ladder and the wall.”

“I went through all the rooms at half-past seven, sir, and there was nothing out of order.”

“You may take it from me,” said the Inspector, again, “that there was no interference with any of the locks. Carry on, Hamworthy.”

“Yes, sir. While I was seeing to the house, Mr. Grimbold came down into the library for his glass of sherry. At 7:45 the soup was served and I called Mr. Grimbold to dinner. He sat at the end of the table as usual, facing the serving-hatch.”

“With his back to the library door,” said Parker, making a mark on a rough plan of the room, which lay before him. “Was that door shut?”

“Oh, yes, sir. All the doors and windows were shut.”

“It looks a dashed draughty room,” said Wimsey. “Two doors and a serving-hatch and two french windows.”

“Yes, my lord; but they are all very well-fitting, and the curtains were drawn.”

His lordship moved across to the connecting door and opened it.

“Yes,” he said; “good and heavy and moves in sinister silence. I like these thick carpets, but the pattern’s a bit fierce.” He shut the door noiselessly, and returned to his seat.

“Mr. Grimbold would take about five minutes over his soup, sir. When he had done, I removed it and put on the fish. I did not have to leave the room; everything comes through the serving-hatch. The wine—that is, the Chablis—was already on the table. That course was only a small portion of turbot, and would take Mr. Grimbold about five minutes again. I removed that, and put on the roast pheasant. I was just about to serve Mr. Grimbold with the vegetables, when the telephone-bell rang. Mr. Grimbold said: ‘You’d better see who it is. I’ll help myself.’ It was not the cook’s business, of course, to answer the telephone.”

“Are there no other servants?”

“Only the woman who comes in to clean during the day, sir. I went out to the instrument, shutting the door behind me.”

“Was that this telephone or the one in the hall?”

“The one in the hall, sir. I always used that one, unless I happened to be actually in the library at the time. The call was from Mr. Neville Grimbold in Town, sir. He and Mr. Harcourt have a flat in Jermyn Street. Mr. Neville spoke, and I recognized his voice. He said: ‘Is that you, Hamworthy? Wait a moment. Mr. Harcourt wants you.’ He put the receiver down and then Mr. Harcourt came on. He said: ‘Hamworthy, I want to run down tonight to see my uncle, if he’s at home.’ I said: ‘Yes, sir, I’ll tell him.’ The young gentlemen often come down for a night or two, sir. We keep their bedrooms ready for them. Mr. Harcourt said he would be starting at once and expected to get down by about half-past nine. While he was speaking I heard the big grandfather-clock up in their flat chime the quarters and strike eight, and immediately after, our own hall-clock struck, and then I heard the Exchange say ‘Three minutes.’ So the call must have come through at three minutes to eight, sir.”

“Then there’s no doubt about the time. That’s a comfort. What next, Hamworthy?”

“Mr. Harcourt asked for another call and said: ‘Mr. Neville has got something to say,’ and then Mr. Neville came back to the ’phone. He said he was going up to Scotland shortly, and he wanted me to send up a country suit and some stockings and shirts that he had left down here. He wanted the suit sent to the cleaner’s first, and there were various other instructions, so that he asked for another three minutes. That would be at 8:03, sir, yes. And about a minute after that, while he was still speaking, the front-door bell rang. I couldn’t very well leave the ’phone, so the caller had to wait, and at five past eight he rang the bell again. I was just going to ask Mr. Neville to excuse me, when I saw Cook come out of the kitchen and go through the hall to the front door. Mr. Neville asked me to repeat his instructions, and then the Exchange interrupted us again, so he rang off, and when I turned round I saw Cook just closing the library door. I went to meet her, and she said: ‘Here’s that Mr. Payne again, wanting Mr. Grimbold. I’ve put him in the library, but I don’t like the looks of him.’ So I said: ‘All right; I’ll fix him,’ and Cook went back to the kitchen.”

“One moment,” said Parker. “Who’s Mr. Payne?”

“He’s one of Mr. Grimbold’s clients, sir. He lives about five minutes away, across the fields, and he’s been here before, making trouble. I think he owes Mr. Grimbold money, sir, and wanted more time to pay.”

“He’s here, waiting in the hall,” added Henley.

“Oh?” said Wimsey. “The unshaven party with the scowl and the ash-plant, and the blood-stained coat?”

“That’s him, my lord,” said the butler. “Well, sir,”—he turned to Parker again, “I started to go along to the library, when it come over me sudden-like that I’d never taken in the claret—Mr. Grimbold would be getting very annoyed. So I went back to my pantry—you see where that is, sir,—and fetched it from where it was warming before the fire. I had a little hunt then for the salver, sir, till I found I had put down my evening paper on top of it, but I wasn’t more than a minute, sir, before I got back into the dining-room. And then, sir”—the butler’s voice faltered—“then I saw Mr. Grimbold fallen forward on the table, sir, all across his plate, like. I thought he must have been took ill, and I hurried up to him and found—found he was dead, sir, with a dreadful wound in his back.”

“No weapon anywhere?”

“Not that I could see, sir. There was a terrible lot of blood. It made me feel shockingly faint, sir, and for a minute I didn’t hardly know what to do. As soon as I could think of anything, I rushed over to the serving-hatch and called Cook. She came hurrying in and let out an awful scream when she saw the master. Then I remembered Mr. Payne and opened the library door. He was standing there, and he began at once, asking how long he’d have to wait. So I said: ‘Here’s an awful thing! Mr. Grimbold has been murdered!’ and he pushed past me into the dining-room, and the first thing he said was: ‘How about those windows?’ He pulled back the curtain of the one nearest the library, and there was the window standing open. ‘This is the way he went,’ he said, and started to rush out. I said, ‘No, you don’t’—thinking he meant to get away, and I hung on to him. He called me a lot of names, and then he said: ‘Look here, my man, be reasonable. The fellow’s getting away all this time. We must have a look for him.’ So I said, ‘Not without I go with you.’ And he said, ‘All right.’ So I told Cook not to touch anything but to ring up the police, and Mr. Payne and I went out after I’d fetched my torch from the pantry.”

“Did Payne go with you to fetch it?”

“Yes, sir. Well, him and me went out and we searched about in the garden, but we couldn’t see any footprints or anything, because it’s an asphalt path all round the house and down to the gate. And we couldn’t see any weapon, either. So then he said: ‘We’d better go back and get the car and search the roads,’ but I said: ‘No, he’ll be away by then,’ because it’s only a quarter of a mile from our gate to the Great North Road, and it would take us five or ten minutes before we could start. So Mr. Payne said: ‘Perhaps you’re right’ and came back to the house with me. Well, then, sir, the constable came from Wapley, and after a bit, the Inspector here and Dr. Crofts from Baldock, and they made a search and asked a lot of questions, which I answered to the best of my ability, and I can’t tell you no more, sir.”

“Did you notice,” asked Parker, “whether Mr. Payne had any stains of blood about him?”

“No sir,—I can’t say that he had. When I first saw him, he was standing in here, right under the light, and I think I should have seen it if there was anything, sir. I can’t say fairer than that.”

“Of course you’ve searched this room, Inspector, for bloodstains or a weapon or for anything such as gloves or a cloth, or anything that might have been used to protect the murderer from bloodstains?”

“Yes, Mr. Parker. We searched very carefully.”

“Could anybody have come downstairs while you were in the dining-room with Mr. Grimbold?”

“Well, sir, I suppose they might. But they’d have to have got into the house before half-past seven, sir, and hidden themselves somewhere. Still, there’s no doubt it might have happened that way. They couldn’t come down by the back stairs, of course, because they’d have had to pass the kitchen, and Cook would have heard them, the passage being flagged, sir, but the front stairs—well, I don’t know hardly what to say about that.”

“That’s how the man got in, depend upon it,” said Parker. “Don’t look so distressed, Hamworthy. You can’t be expected to search all the cupboards in the house every evening for concealed criminals. Now I think I had better see the two nephews. I suppose they and their uncle got on together all right?”

“Oh, yes, sir. Never had a word of any sort. It’s been a great blow to them, sir. They were terribly upset when Mr. Grimbold was ill in the summer—”

“He was ill, was he?”

“Yes, sir, with his heart, last July. He took a very bad turn, sir, and we had to send for Mr. Neville. But he pulled round wonderfully, sir,—only he never seemed to be quite such a cheerful gentleman afterwards. I think it made him feel he wasn’t getting younger, sir. But I’m sure nobody ever thought he’d be cut off like this.”

“How is his money left?” asked Parker.

“Well, sir, that I don’t know. I believe it would be divided between the two gentlemen, sir—not but what they have plenty of their own. But Mr. Harcourt would be able to tell you, sir. He’s the executor.”

“Very well, we’ll ask him. Are the brothers on good terms?”

“Oh, yes, indeed, sir. Most devoted. Mr. Neville would do anything for Mr. Harcourt-and Mr. Harcourt for him, I’m sure. A very pleasant pair of gentlemen, sir. You couldn’t have nicer.”

“Thanks, Hamworthy. That will do for the moment, unless anybody else has anything to ask?”

“How much of the pheasant was eaten, Hamworthy?”

“Well, my lord, not a great deal of it—I mean, nothing like all of what Mr. Grimbold had on his plate. But he’d ate some of it. It might have taken three or four minutes or so to eat what he had done, my lord, judging by what I helped him to.”

“There was nothing to suggest that he had been interrupted, for example, by somebody coming to the windows, or of his having got up to let the person in?”

“Nothing at all, my lord, that I could see.”

“The chair was pushed in close to the table when I saw him,” put in the Inspector, “and his napkin was on his knees and the knife and fork lying just under his hands, as though he had dropped them when the blow came. I understand that the body was not disturbed.”

“No sir, I never moved it—except, of course, to make sure that he was dead. But I never felt any doubt of that, sir, when I saw that dreadful wound in his back. I just lifted his head and let it fall forward again, same as before.”

“All right, then, Hamworthy. Ask Mr. Harcourt to come in.”

Mr. Harcourt Grimbold was a brisk-looking man of about thirty-five. He explained that he was a stockbroker and his brother Neville an official in the Ministry of Public Health, and that they had been brought up by their uncle from the ages of eleven and ten respectively. He was aware that his uncle had had many business enemies, but for his own part he had received nothing from him but kindness.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you much about this terrible business, as I didn’t get here till 9:45 last night, when, of course, it was all over.”

“That was a little later than you hoped to be here?”

“Just a little. My tail-lamp went out between Welwyn Garden City and Welwyn, and I was stopped by a bobby. I went to a garage in Welwyn, where they found that the lead had come loose. They put it right, and that delayed me for a few minutes more.”

“It’s about forty miles from here to London?”

“Just over. In the ordinary way, at that time of night, I should reckon an hour and a quarter from door to door. I’m not a speed merchant.”

“Did you drive yourself?”

“Yes. I have a chauffeur, but I don’t always bring him down here with me.”

“When did you leave London?”

“About 8:20, I should think. Neville went round to the garage and fetched the car as soon as he’d finished telephoning, while I put my toothbrush and so on in my bag.”

“You didn’t hear about the death of your uncle before you left?”

“No. They didn’t think of ringing me up, I gather, till after I had started. The police tried to get Neville later on, but he’d gone round to the club, or something. I ’phoned him myself after I got here, and he came down this morning.”

“Well, now, Mr. Grimbold, can you tell us anything about your late uncle’s affairs?”

“You mean his will? Who profits, and that kind of thing? Well, I do, for one, and Neville, for another. And Mrs. —. Have you heard of a Mrs. Winter?”

“Something, yes.”

“Well, she does, for a third. And then, of course, old Hamworthy gets a nice little nest-egg, and the cook gets something, and there is a legacy of £500 to the clerk at my uncle’s London office. But the bulk of it goes to us and to Mrs. Winter. I know what you’re going to ask—how much is it? I haven’t the faintest idea, but I know it must be something pretty considerable. The old man never let on to a soul how much he really was worth, and we never bothered about it. I’m turning over a good bit, and Neville’s salary is a heavy burden on a long-suffering public, so we only had a mild, academic kind of interest in the question.”

“Do you suppose Hamworthy knew he was down for a legacy?”

“Oh, yes—there was no secret about that. He was to get £100 and a life-interest in £200 a year, provided, of course, he was still in my uncle’s service when he—my uncle, I mean—died.”

“And he wasn’t under notice, or anything?”

“N-no. No. Not more than usual. My uncle gave everybody notice about once a month, to keep them up to the mark. But it never came to anything. He was like the Queen of Hearts in Alice—he never executed nobody, you know.”

“I see. We’d better ask Hamworthy about that, though. Now, this Mrs. Winter. Do you know anything about her?”

“Oh, yes. She’s a nice woman. Of course, she was Uncle William’s mistress for donkey’s years, but her husband was practically potty with drink, and you could scarcely blame her. I wired her this morning and here’s her reply, just come.”

He handed Parker a telegram, despatched from Paris, which read: “Terribly shocked and grieved. Returning immediately. Love and sympathy. Lucy.”

“You are on friendly terms with her, then?”

“Good Lord, yes. Why not? We were always damned sorry for her. Uncle William would have taken her away with him somewhere, only she wouldn’t leave Winter. In fact, I think they had practically settled that they were to get married now that Winter has had the grace to peg out. She’s only about thirty-eight, and it’s time she had some sort of show in life, poor thing.”

“So, in spite of the money she hadn’t really very much to gain by your uncle’s death?”

“Not a thing. Unless, of course, she wanted to marry somebody younger, and was afraid of losing the cash. But I believe she was honestly fond of the old boy. Anyhow, she couldn’t have done the murder, because she’s in Paris.”

“H’m!” said Parker. “I suppose she is. We’d better make sure, though. I’ll ring through to the Yard and have her looked out for at the ports. Is this ’phone through to the Exchange?”

“Yes,” said the Inspector. “It doesn’t have to go through the hall ’phone; they’re connected in parallel.”

“All right. Well, I don’t think we need trouble you further, at the moment, Mr. Grimbold. I’ll put my call through, and after that we’ll send for the next witness… Give me Whitehall 1212, please… I suppose the time of Mr. Harcourt’s call from town has been checked, Inspector?”

“Yes, Mr. Parker. It was put in at 7:57 and renewed at 8 o’clock and 8:03. Quite an expensive little item. And we’ve also checked up on the constable who spoke to him about his lights and the garage that put them right for him. He got into Welwyn at 9:05 and left again about 9:15. The number of the car is right, too.”

“Well, he’s out of it any case, but it’s just as well to check all we can… Hullo, is that Scotland Yard? Put me through to Chief-Inspector Hardy. Chief-Inspector Parker speaking.”

As soon as he had finished with his call, Parker sent for Neville Grimbold. He was rather like his brother only a little slimmer and a little more suave in speech, as befitted a Civil Servant. He had nothing to add, except to confirm his brother’s story and to explain that he had gone to a cinema from 8:20 to about 10 o’clock, and then on to his club, so that he had heard nothing about the tragedy till later in the evening.

The cook was the next witness. She had a great deal to say, but nothing very convincing to tell. She had not happened to see Hamworthy go to the pantry for the claret, otherwise she confirmed his story. She scouted the idea that somebody had been concealed in one of the upper rooms, because the daily woman, Mrs. Crabbe, had been in the house till nearly dinner-time, putting camphor-bags in all the wardrobes: and, anyhow, she had no doubt but what “that Payne” had stabbed Mr. Grimbold—“a nasty, murdering beast.” After which, it only remained to interview the murderous Mr. Payne.

Mr. Payne was almost aggressively frank. He had been treated very harshly by Mr. Grimbold. What with exorbitant usury and accumulated interest added to the principal, he had already paid back about five times the original loan, and now Mr. Grimbold had refused him any more time to pay, and had announced his intention of foreclosing on the security, namely, Mr. Payne’s house and land. It was all the more brutal because Mr. Payne had every prospect of being able to pay off the entire debt in six months’ time, owing to some sort of interest or share in something or other which was confidently expected to turn up trumps. In his opinion, old Grimbold had refused to renew on purpose, so as to prevent him from paying—what he wanted was the property. Grimbold’s death was the saving of the situation, because it would postpone settlement till after the confidently-expected trumps had turned up. Mr. Payne would have murdered old Grimbold with pleasure, but he hadn’t done so, and in any case he wasn’t the sort of man to stab anybody in the back, though, if the money-lender had been a younger man, he, Payne, would have been happy to break all his bones for him. There it was, and they could take it or leave it. If that old fool, Hamworthy, hadn’t got in his way, he’d have laid hands on the murderer all right—if Hamworthy was a fool, which he doubted. Blood? yes, there was blood on his coat. He had got that in struggling with Hamworthy at the window. Hamworthy’s hands had been all over blood when he made his appearance in the library. No doubt he had got it from the corpse. He, Payne, had taken care not to change his clothes, because, if he had done so, somebody would have tried to make out that he was hiding something. Actually, he had not been home, or asked to go home, since the murder. Mr. Payne added that he objected strongly to the attitude taken up by the local police, who had treated him with undisguised hostility. To which Inspector Henley replied that Mr. Payne was quite mistaken.

“Mr. Payne,” said Lord Peter, “will you tell me one thing? When you heard the commotion in the dining-room, and the cook screaming, and so on, why didn’t you go in at once to find out what was the matter?”

“Why?” retorted Mr. Payne. “Because I never heard anything of the sort, that’s why. The first thing I knew about it was seeing the butler-fellow standing there in the doorway, waving his bloody hands about and gibbering.”

“Ah!” said Wimsey. “I thought it was a good, solid door. Shall we ask the lady to go in and scream for us now, with the dining-room window open?”

The Inspector departed on this errand, while the rest of the company waited anxiously to count the screams. Nothing happened, however, till Henley put his head in and asked, what about it?

“Nothing,” said Parker.

“It’s a well-built house,” said Wimsey. “I suppose any sound coming through the window would be muffled by the conservatory. Well, Mr. Payne, if you didn’t hear the screams it’s not surprising that you didn’t hear the murderer. Are those all your witnesses, Charles? Because I’ve got to get back to London to see a man about a dog. But I’ll leave you with two suggestions with my blessing. One is, that you should look for a car, which was parked within a quarter of a mile of this house last night, between 7:30 and 8:15; the second is, that you should all come and sit in the dining-room tonight, with the doors and windows shut, and watch the french windows. I’ll give Mr. Parker a ring about eight. Oh, and you might lend me the key of the conservatory door. I’ve got a theory about it.”

The Chief Inspector handed over the key, and his lordship departed.

The party assembled in the dining-room was in no very companionable mood. In fact, all the conversation was supplied by the police, who kept up a chatty exchange of fishing reminiscences, while Mr. Payne glowered, the two Grimbolds smoked cigarette after cigarette, and the cook and the butler balanced themselves nervously on the extreme edges of their chairs. It was a relief when the telephone-bell rang.

Parker glanced at his watch as he got up to answer it. “Seven-fifty-seven,” he observed, and saw the butler pass his handkerchief over his twitching lips. “Keep your eye on the windows.” He went out into the hall.

“Hullo!” he said.

“Is that Chief-Inspector Parker?” asked a voice he knew well. “This is Lord Peter Wimsey’s man speaking from his lordship’s rooms in London. Would you hold the line a moment? His lordship wishes to speak to you.”

Parker heard the receiver set down and lifted again. Then Wimsey’s voice came through: “Hullo, old man? Have you found that car yet?”

“We’ve heard of a car,” replied the Chief Inspector cautiously, “at a Road-House on the Great North Road, about five minutes’ walk from the house.”

“Was the number ABJ 28?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“I thought it might be. It was hired from a London garage at five o’clock yesterday afternoon and brought back just before ten. Have you traced Mrs. Winter?”

“Yes, I think so. She landed from the Calais boat this evening. So apparently she’s O.K.”

“I thought she might be. Now, listen. Do you know that Harcourt Grimbold’s affairs are in a bit of a mess? He nearly had a crisis last July, but somebody came to his rescue—possibly Uncle, don’t you think? All rather fishy, my informant saith. And I’m told, very confidentially, that he’s got badly caught over the Biggars-Whitlow crash. But of course he’ll have no difficulty in raising money now, on the strength of Uncle’s will. But I imagine the July business gave Uncle William a jolt. I expect—”

He was interrupted by a little burst of tinkling music, followed by the eight silvery strokes of a bell.

“Hear that? Recognize it? That’s the big French clock in my sitting-room… What? All right, Exchange, give me another three minutes. Bunter wants to speak to you again.”

The receiver rattled, and the servant’s suave voice took up the tale.

“His lordship asks me to ask you, sir, to ring off at once and go straight into the dining-room.”

Parker obeyed. As he entered the room, he got an instantaneous impression of six people, sitting as he had left them, in an expectant semi-circle, their eyes strained toward the french windows. Then the library door opened noiselessly and Lord Peter Wimsey walked in.

“Good God!” exclaimed Parker, involuntarily. “How did you get here?” The six heads jerked round suddenly.

“On the back of the light waves,” said Wimsey, smoothing back his hair. “I have travelled eighty miles to be with you, at 186,000 miles a second.”

“It was rather obvious, really,” said Wimsey, when they had secured Harcourt Grimbold (who fought desperately) and his brother Neville (who collapsed and had to be revived with brandy). “It had to be those two; they were so very much elsewhere—almost absolutely elsewhere. The murder could only have been committed between 7:57 and 8:06, and there had to be a reason for that prolonged ’phone-call about something that Harcourt could very well have explained when he came. And the murderer had to be in the library before 7:57, or he would have been seen in the hall—unless Grimbold had let him in by the French window, which didn’t appear likely.

“Here’s how it was worked. Harcourt set off from town in a hired car about six o’clock, driving himself. He parked the car at the Road-House, giving some explanation. I suppose he wasn’t known there?”

“No; it’s quite a new place; only opened last month.”

“Ah! Then he walked the last quarter-mile on foot, arriving here at 7:45. It was dark, and he probably wore galoshes, so as not to make a noise coming up the path. He let himself into the conservatory with a duplicate key.”

“How did he get that?”

“Pinched Uncle William’s key off his ring last July, when the old boy was ill. It was probably the shock of hearing that his dear nephew was in trouble that caused the illness. Harcourt was here at the time—you remember it was only Neville that had to be ‘sent for’—and I suppose Uncle paid up then, on conditions. But I doubt if he’d have done as much again—especially as he was thinking of getting married. And I expect, too, Harcourt thought that Uncle might easily alter his will after marriage. He might even have founded a family, and what would poor Harcourt do then, poor thing? From every point of view, it was better that Uncle should depart this life. So the duplicate key was cut and the plot thought out, and Brother Neville who would ‘do anything for Mr. Harcourt,’ was roped in to help. I’m inclined to think that Harcourt must have done something rather worse than merely lose money, and Neville may have troubles of his own. But where was I?”

“Coming in at the conservatory door.”

“Oh, yes—that’s the way I came tonight. He’d take cover in the garden and would know when Uncle William went into the dining-room, because he’d see the library light go out. Remember, he knew the household. He came in, in the dark, locking the outer door after him, and waited by the telephone until Neville’s call came through from London. When the bell stopped ringing, he lifted the receiver in the library. As soon as Neville had spoken his little piece, Harcourt chipped in. Nobody could hear him through these sound-proof doors, and Hamworthy couldn’t possibly tell that his voice wasn’t coming from London. In fact, it was coming from London, because, as the ’phones are connected in parallel, it could only come by way of the Exchange. At eight o’clock, the grandfather clock in Jermyn Street struck—further proof that the London line was open. The minute Harcourt heard that, he called on Neville to speak again, and hung up under cover of the rattle of Neville’s receiver. Then Neville detained Hamworthy with a lot of rot about a suit, while Harcourt walked into the dining-room, stabbed his uncle, and departed by the window. He had five good minutes in which to hurry back to his car and drive off—and Hamworthy and Payne actually gave him a few minutes more by suspecting and hampering one another.”

“Why didn’t he go back through the library and conservatory?”

“He hoped everybody would think that the murderer had come in by the window. In the meantime, Neville left London at 8:20 in Harcourt’s car, carefully drawing the attention of a policeman and a garage man to the licence number as he passed through Welwyn. At an appointed place outside Welwyn he met Harcourt, primed him with his little story about tail-lights, and changed cars with him. Neville returned to town with the hired ’bus; Harcourt came back here with his own car. But I’m afraid you’ll have a little difficulty in finding the weapon and the duplicate key and Harcourt’s blood-stained gloves and coat. Neville probably took them back, and they may be anywhere. There’s a good, big river in London.”

The End

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