Dorothy L. Sayers - [Lord Peter Wimsey 03] (25 page)

“Did you make a note of the names and addresses of the people involved?”

“I did, but, as you will see later on, I could make no use of them. The testatrix was certainly clear-headed enough about the provisions of the will, though she seemed terribly weak, and her voice never rose above a whisper after that one time when she had called to me not to turn on the light.

“At length I finished my notes of the will, and started to draft it out on to the proper form. There were no signs of the servant’s return, and I began to be really anxious. Also the extreme cold—or something else—added to the fact that it was now long past my bed-time, was making me appallingly sleepy. I poured out another stiff little dose of the brandy to warm me up, and went on writing out the will.

“When I had finished I said:

“ ‘How about signing this? We need another witness to make it legal.’

“She said, ‘My servant must be here in a minute or two. I can’t think what has happened to her.’

“ ‘I expect she has missed her way in the fog,’ I said. ‘However, I will wait a little longer. I can’t go and leave you like this.’

“She thanked me feebly, and we sat for some time in silence. As time went on, I began to feel the situation to be increasingly uncanny. The sick woman breathed heavily, and moaned from time to time. The desire for sleep overpowered me more and more. I could not understand it.

“Presently it occurred to me, stupefied though I felt, that the most sensible thing would be to get the taxi-man—if he was still there—to come in and witness the will with me, and then to go myself to find a doctor. I sat, sleepily revolving this in my mind, and trying to summon energy to speak. I felt as though a great weight of inertia was pressing down upon me. Exertion of any kind seemed almost beyond my powers.

“Suddenly something happened which brought me back to myself. Mrs. Mead turned a little over upon the couch and peered at me intently, as it seemed, in the lamplight. To support herself, she put both her hands on the edge of the table. I noticed, with a vague sense of something unexpected, that the left hand bore no wedding-ring. And then I noticed something else.

“Across the back of the fingers of the right hand went a curious scar—as though a chisel or some such thing had slipped and cut them.”

Parker sat upright in his chair.

“Yes,” said Mr. Trigg, “that interests you. It startled me. Or rather, startled isn’t quite the word. In my oppressed state, it affected me like some kind of nightmare. I struggled upright in my chair, and the woman sank back upon her pillows.

“At that moment there came a violent ring at the bell.”

“The servant?”

“No—thank Heaven it was my taxi-driver, who had become tired of waiting. I thought—I don’t quite know what I thought—but I was alarmed. I gave some kind of shout or groan, and the man came straight in. Happily, I had left the door open as I had found it.

“I pulled myself together sufficiently to ask him to witness the will. I must have looked queer and spoken in a strange way, for I remember how he looked from me to the brandy-bottle. However, he signed the paper after Mrs. Mead, who wrote her name in a weak, straggling hand as she lay on her back.

“ ‘Wot next, guv’nor?’ asked the man, when this was done.

“I was feeling dreadfully ill by now. I could only say, ‘Take me home.’

“He looked at Mrs. Mead and then at me, and said, ‘Ain’t there nobody to see to the lady, sir?’

“I said, ‘Fetch a doctor. But take me home first.’

“I stumbled out of the house on his arm. I heard him muttering something about its being a rum start. I don’t remember the drive home. When I came back to life, I was in my own bed, and one of the local doctors was standing over me.

“I’m afraid this story is getting very long and tedious. To cut matters short, it seems the taxi-driver, who was a very decent, intelligent fellow, had found me completely insensible at the end of the drive. He didn’t know who I was, but he hunted in my pocket and found my visiting-card and my latch-key. He took me home, got me upstairs and, deciding that if I was drunk, I was a worse drunk than he had ever encountered in his experience, humanely went round and fetched a doctor.

“The doctor’s opinion was that I had been heavily drugged with veronal or something of that kind. Fortunately, if the idea was to murder me, the dose had been very much under-estimated. We went into the matter thoroughly, and the upshot was that I must have taken about 30 grains of the stuff. It appears that it is a difficult drug to trace by analysis, but that was the conclusion the doctor came to, looking at the matter all round. Undoubtedly the brandy had been doped.

“Of course, we went round to look at the house next day. It was all shut up, and the local milkman informed us that the occupiers had been away for a week and were not expected home for another ten days. We got into communication with them, but they appeared to be perfectly genuine, ordinary people, and they declared they knew nothing whatever about it. They were accustomed to go away every so often, just shutting the house and not bothering about a caretaker or anything. The man came along at once, naturally, to investigate matters, but couldn’t find that anything had been stolen or disturbed, except that a pair of sheets and some pillows showed signs of use, and a scuttle of coal had been used in the sitting-room. The coal-cellar, which also contained the electric meter, had been left locked and the meter turned off before the family left—they apparently had a few grains of sense—which accounts for the chill darkness of the house when I entered it. The visitor had apparently slipped back the catch of the pantry window—one of the usual gimcrack affairs—with a knife or something, and had brought her own lamp, siphon and brandy. Daring, but not really difficult.

“No Mrs. Mead or Miss Grant was to be heard of anywhere, as I needn’t tell you. The tenants of the house were not keen to start expensive inquiries—after all, they’d lost nothing but a shilling’s worth of coals—and on consideration, and seeing that I hadn’t actually been murdered or anything, I thought it best to let the matter slide. It was a most unpleasant adventure.”

“I’m sure it was. Did you ever hear from Miss Grant again?”

“Why, yes. She rang me up twice—once, after three months, and again only a fortnight ago, asking for an appointment. You may think me cowardly, Mr. Parker, but each time I put her off. I didn’t quite know what might happen. As a matter of fact, the opinion I formed in my own mind was that I had been entrapped into that house with the idea of making me spend the night there and afterwards blackmailing me. That was the only explanation I could think of which would account for the sleeping-draught. I thought discretion was the better part of valour, and gave my clerks and my housekeeper instructions that if Miss Grant should call at any time I was out and not expected back.”

“H’m. Do you suppose she knew you had recognised the scar on her hand?”

“I’m sure she didn’t. Otherwise she would hardly have made advances to me in her own name again.”

“No. I think you are right. Well, Mr. Trigg, I am much obliged to you for this information, which may turn out to be very valuable. And if Miss Grant should ring you up again—where did she call from, by the way?”

“From call-boxes, each time. I know that, because the operator always tells one when the call is from a public box. I didn’t have the calls traced.”

“No, of course not. Well, if she does it again, will you please make an appointment with her, and then let me know about it at once? A call to Scotland Yard will always find me.”

Mr. Trigg promised that he would do this, and Parker took his leave.

“And now we know,” thought Parker as he returned home, “that somebody—an odd unscrupulous somebody—was making inquiries about great-nieces in 1925. A word to Miss Climpson, I fancy, is indicated—just to find out whether Mary Whittaker has a scar on her right hand, or whether I’ve got to hunt up any more solicitors.”

The hot streets seemed less oppressively oven-like than before. In fact, Parker was so cheered by his interview that he actually bestowed a cigarette-card upon the next urchin who accosted him.

“There’s not a crime

But takes its proper change out still in crime

If once rung on the counter of this world.”

E. B. BROWNING:
AURORA LEIGH

“There is nothing good or evil save in the will.”

EPICTETUS

“Y
OU WILL NOT, I
imagine, deny,” observed Lord Peter, “that very odd things seem to happen to the people who are in a position to give information about the last days of Agatha Dawson. Bertha Gotobed dies suddenly, under suspicious circumstances; her sister thinks she sees Miss Whittaker lying in wait for her at Liverpool docks; Mr. Trigg is inveigled into a house of mystery and is semi-poisoned. I wonder what would have happened to Mr. Probyn, if he had been careless enough to remain in England.”

“I deny nothing,” replied Parker. “I will only point out to you that during the month in which these disasters occurred to the Gotobed family, the object of your suspicions was in Kent with Miss Vera Findlater, who never left her side.”

“As against that undoubted snag,” rejoined Wimsey, “I bring forward a letter from Miss Climpson, in which—amid a lot of rigmarole with which I will not trouble you—she informs me that upon Miss Whittaker’s right hand there is a scar, precisely similar to the one which Mr. Trigg describes.”

“Is there? That does seem to connect Miss Whittaker pretty definitely with the Trigg business. But is it your theory that she is trying to polish off all the people who know anything about Miss Dawson? Rather a big job, don’t you think, for a single-handed female? And if so, why is Dr. Carr spared? and Nurse Philliter? and Nurse Forbes? And the other doctor chappie? And the rest of the population of Leahampton, if it comes to that?”

“That’s an interesting point which had already occurred to me. I think I know why. Up to the present, the Dawson case has presented two different problems, one legal and one medical—the motive and the means, if you like that better. As far as opportunity goes, only two people figure as possibles—Miss Whittaker and Nurse Forbes. The Forbes woman had nothing to gain by killin’ a good patient, so for the moment we can wash her out.

“Well now, as to the medical problem—the means. I must say that up to now that appears completely insoluble. I am baffled, Watson (said he, his hawk-like eyes gleaming angrily from under the half-closed lids). Even I am baffled. But not for long! (he cried, with a magnificent burst of self-confidence). My Honour (capital H) is concerned to track this Human Fiend (capitals) to its hidden source, and nail the whited sepulchre to the mast even though it crush me in the attempt! Loud applause. His chin sank broodingly upon his dressing-gown, and he breathed a few guttural notes into the bass saxophone which was the cherished companion of his solitary hours in the bathroom.”

Parker ostentatiously took up the book which he had laid aside on Wimsey’s entrance.

“Tell me when you’ve finished,” he said, caustically.

“I’ve hardly begun. The means, I repeat, seems insoluble—and so the criminal evidently thinks. There has been no exaggerated mortality among the doctors and nurses. On that side of the business the lady feels herself safe. No. The motive is the weak point—hence the hurry to stop the mouths of the people who knew about the legal part of the problem.”

“Yes, I see. Mrs. Cropper had started back to Canada, by the way. She doesn’t seem to have been molested at all.”

“No—and that’s why I still think there was somebody on the watch in Liverpool. Mrs. Cropper was only worth silencing so long as she had told nobody her story. That is why I was careful to meet her and accompany her ostentatiously to Town.”

“Oh, rot, Peter! Even if Miss Whittaker had been there—which we know she couldn’t have been—how was she to know that you were going to ask about the Dawson business? She doesn’t know you from Adam.”

“She might have found out who Murbles was. The advertisement which started the whole business was in his name, you know.”

“In that case, why hasn’t she attacked Murbles or you?”

“Murbles is a wise old bird. In vain are nets spread in his sight. He is seeing no female clients, answering no invitations, and never goes out without an escort.”

“I didn’t know he took it so seriously.”

“Oh, yes. Murbles is old enough to have learnt the value of his own skin. As for me—have you noticed the remarkable similarity in some ways between Mr. Trigg’s adventure and my own little adventurelet, as you might say, in South Audley Street?”

“What, with Mrs. Forrest?”

“Yes. The secret appointment. The drink. The endeavour to get one to stay the night at all costs. I’m positive there was something in that sugar, Charles, that no sugar should contain—see Public Health (Adulteration of Food) Acts, various.”

“You think Mrs. Forrest is an accomplice?”

“I do. I don’t know what she has to gain by it—probably money. But I feel sure there is some connection. Partly because of Bertha Gotobed’s £5 note; partly because Mrs. Forrest’s story was a palpable fake—I’m certain the woman’s never had a lover, let alone a husband—you can’t mistake real inexperience; and chiefly because of the similarity of method. Criminals always tend to repeat their effects. Look at George Joseph Smith and his brides. Look at Neill Cream. Look at Armstrong and his tea-parties.”

“Well, if there’s an accomplice, all the better. Accomplices generally end by giving the show away.”

“True. And we are in a good position because up till now I don’t think they know that we suspect any connection between them.”

“But I still think, you know, we ought to get some evidence that actual crimes have been committed. Call me finicking, if you like. If you
could
suggest a means of doing away with these people so as to leave no trace, I should feel happier about it.”