Have His Carcase (55 page)

‘And here’s another thing. Do you notice that the first two paragraphs of the

letter are very casualy coded. The sentences are al run together anyhow, as

though the writer didn’t much care whether Alexis got them right or wrong. But

the minute the good Boris gets down to specific instructions, he starts marking

off the ends of his sentences with extra Q’s and X’s, so as to make sure there

wil be no mistake in decoding. The Flat-Iron loomed much larger in his mind

than Holy Russia and disgruntled Poland.’

‘In fact, you think the letter looks like a lure.’

‘Yes. But it’s difficult to be quite sure, even then, who sent it and why. If

Weldon is at the bottom of it, as we originaly thought, then we are stil

bothered by al these alibis. If it isn’t Weldon, who is it? If we’re realy

investigating a political plot, then who was Alexis? Why should anybody want

to get rid of him? Unless, of course, he genuinely was somebody important,

which seems hard to believe. He can’t ever have imagined himself to be one of

the Russian Imperial house – his age is al wrong. I know we’re always hearing

tales about the Tsarevitch’s having survived the Revolution, but
his
name was

Alexei Nicholaivitch, not Pavlo Alexeivitch. And his age would be quite

different – and besides, there never was any doubt about
his
descent from

Nicholas I. There isn’t any note in any of Alexis’ books anywhere, is there? –

that would tel us who he imagined he might have been.’

‘Not a thing.’

Wimsey gathered up the papers from the table and rose to his feet.

‘I shal hand these over to Glaisher,’ he said. ‘They wil give him something

to think about. I like to see other people doing a spot of work from time to

time. Do you realise that it’s nearly tea-time and we haven’t had any lunch?’

‘Time passes when one is pleasantly occupied,’ said Harriet, sententiously.

Wimsey put his hat and papers down on the table, opened his mouth to

speak, changed his mind, took up his belongings again and marched to the

door.

‘Cheerio!’ he said, amiably.

‘Cheerio!’ replied Harriet.

He went out. Harriet sat looking at the closed door.

‘Wel,’ she said, ‘thank goodness he’s given up asking me to marry him. It’s

much better he should put it out of his mind.’

She must have felt strongly about it, for she repeated the remark several

times.

Wimsey absorbed an anomalous meal in the Gril Room, went round to the

police-station, handed the decoded letter to the Superintendent, whom it

surprised very much, and then ran his car out to Darley. He was stil worried by

the coincidence about Weldon and his absence from Hinks’s Lane during the

crucial period. He approached Mr Polwhistle.

‘Why, yes, my lord,’ said that worthy. ‘The fault was in the H.T. leads al

right. We tried the mag, and she was working top-hole, and there wasn’t

nothing wrong with the plugs, so after we’d fiddled about a bit more, young

Tom here says, “Wel,” he says, “only thing I can think of is the leads,” he says.

Didn’t you, Tom?’

‘That’s right. Me having a motor-bike, and having had trouble with the leads

before, on account of the insulation having got worked through, like, against the

radiator-fins, I said, “How about the H.T. leads?” And Mr Martin, he says,

“That’s an idea,” and before I could say “knife” he whips the leads out of the

clip and gets them off. “Let’s have a look, sir,” I says. “Never mind looking at

the blasted things,” he says, “you can’t do no bloody good” – begging your

pardon – “by looking at ’em,” he says. Shove a new pair in and look smart.”

So I got a bit of H.T. wire out of my bag and I fixes up a new pair of leads and

connects ’em up, and no sooner I done so than up she starts, sweet as a nut.

What I think, my lord, there must have been a fault in the insulation, see? –

what were giving an intermittent short the day before when Mr Martin

complained of bad running and starting, and somehow or other the wires might

ha’ got fused together, and that made a dead short on the Thursday.’

‘Very likely,’ said Wimsey. ‘Did you actualy examine the leads afterwards?’

Tom scratched his head.

‘Now you ask me,’ he said, ‘I don’t rightly know what happened to them

leads. I recolect seein’ of Mr Martin a-dangling of them in his hand, but

whether he took ’em away or whether he left ’em I couldn’t say for certain.’

‘Ah!’ said Mr Polwhistle, triumphantly, ‘but I can, though. When Mr Martin

went to start up the engine, he pushed them leads into his pocket, careless-like,

and when he puled out his handkercher to wipe the oil off of his fingers, them

leads fals out on the grass. And I picks ’em up, seeing as he wasn’t likely to be

a-wantin’ of ’em and I drops ’em into my little bag, what I always carried,

being a tidy-minded man and thinkin’ as a bit on ’em might come in useful one

day for a motor-bike or such-like. And there they lays to this day, if they ain’t

been used for nothin’ since.’

‘I’d like to have a look at them.’

‘Nothing easier,’ said Mr Polwhistle, producing a smal tool-bag and rooting

among a quantity of miscelaneous odds and ends. ‘Nothing easier, and here

they do be, which just shows you what it is to be a tidy-minded man.’

Wimsey took the pair of leads from his hands.

‘H’m – yes – they seem to be fused together just where they pass under the

clip.’ He jerked the wires apart. ‘Nothing wrong with the insulation, though,

apparently. Hulo! hulo!’

He ran a finger lightly along one of the leads.

‘Here’s your trouble,’ he said.

Mr Polwhistle also ran his finger along and then with-drew it with a hasty

exclamation.

‘That’s pretty sharp,’ he muttered. ‘What is it?’

‘I suggest that it’s the business end of a sewing-needle,’ said Wimsey. ‘Give

us a sharp pen-knife, and we’l soon see.’

When the insulation was opened up the cause of the short-circuit was

abundantly plain. A needle had been passed through the lead and broken off

short, so as to leave no visible trace of its presence. When the two leads were

in place side by side, it was clear that the needle would pass through both, thus

effectively bridging the circuit and shorting the spark.

‘Wel, there now!’ said Mr Polwhistle. ‘To think of that! That’s a nice, dirty

trick to play on a gentleman. Who could a-done it beats me. How was it you

missed seeing them two leads skewered together that way, Tom?’

‘Nobody could positively see it when it was in place,’ said Wimsey. ‘It

would be pushed up under the clip.’

‘And Mr Martin jerking the leads out that sudden,’ put in Tom, ‘it stands to

reason I couldn’t a-seen it. Of course, if I’d had ’em in my hands afterwards –’

He gazed reproachfuly at Mr Polwhistle, who ignored the gaze.

‘It’s a wonder to me,’ said Mr Polwhistle, ‘how you came to think of such a

thing, my lord.’

‘I’ve seen it done before. It’s a very handy way of holding up a motor-cyclist

at the beginning of a race, for example.’

‘And when you came here asking about them leads, did you expect to find

that needle there, my lord?’

‘I didn’t, Tom. I’d made sure I shouldn’t find it. I came here on purpose to

prove it wasn’t there. Look here, you two, don’t say a word about this to

anybody.’

‘Not, my lord? But we did surely ought to find out what young devil it is that

was monkeying about with the gentleman’s car.’

‘No. I’l take the thing up myself if it’s necessary. But it’s possible that this –

trick may have been played by somebody connected with that business up at

the Flat-Iron, and it’s best not talked about. You see? Somebody who didn’t

want Mr Martin to go to Wilvercombe that morning.’

‘I see, my lord. Very good. We won’t say a word. But that’s a queer thing,

none the more for that.’

‘It is,’ said Wimsey, ‘very queer.’

It was rather queerer than Mr Polwhistle quite realised, though a peculiar glint in

Tom’s eye suggested that he at least was beginning to appreciate its ful oddity.

A needle thrust through the H.T. leads of a two-cylinder car does not produce

intermittent firing or erratic running: it stops the ignition dead. Yet on the

Wednesday, Mr Martin’s Morgan had been running (though not wel) up to the

moment of his return to Hinks’s Lane. And to Wimsey, who knew that Martin

was Weldon, the whole thing seemed doubly inexplicable. Why had Weldon

gone out of his way to hire a Morgan for his little trip when, with a tent and

luggage to carry, he would surely have found a larger vehicle more convenient?

Was it another coincidence that he should have particularly asked for a two-

cylinder vehicle, which could be put completely out of action with one sewing-

needle? True, a Morgan pays a smaler tax than a four-wheeled car, but then,

Weldon was not paying the tax. It might cost a little less to hire, but, under the

circumstances, why should Weldon skimp himself on a week’s carhire?

And yet – and yet – whichever way you took it, it was obviously to

everybody’s interest to get Mr Weldon away to Wilvercombe, and not keep

him hanging about Hinks’s Lane. Could it be a coincidence that some practical

joker had chosen to put the Morgan out of action at that particular moment?

Surely not. But then, who had done it? Somebody who wanted a witness at

Darley? Somebody who did not want Weldon to carry out his investigations in

Wilvercombe? And why had Weldon complained of bad running the day

before? Another coincidence? An intermittent choke, perhaps, which had

blown itself out since? Perhaps.

One thing was certain: that Henry Weldon, arriving incognito in dyed hair and

dark spectacles to carry on a bit of detective work on his own, had contrived

to involve himself in a tangle of coincidence and conjecture which looked

almost like the work of a malignant and interfering demon.

Another thing seemed certain, too: that every theory Wimsey had so far

formed about the case was utterly and madly wide of the mark.

XXX

THE EVIDENCE OF THE GENTLEMAN’S GENTLEMAN

‘Just so they crossed, and turned, and came again.’

The Second Brother

Saturday, 4 July

Mr. Mervyn Bunter sat in the bedroom of a cheap hotel in Bloomsbury,

keeping his eye on a rather dusty window, adorned with a rather grubby

curtain, which he could see just across a very dingy courtyard. It was Mr

Bunter’s fourth residence in as many days, and he felt that, if this went on much

longer, it would be very difficult for him to keep out of view. His first night had

been spent in the street, watching the door of a common lodging-house in the

Whitechapel district. Thence he had folowed his quarry to a gloomy little

boarding-house in Brixton. On this occasion he had found a night’s lodging over

a tobacconist’s opposite, and by dint of returning very late and getting up very

early, had contrived to keep on Mr Bright’s trail the folowing morning. The

chase had then led him al round the more dreary parts of London, folowing a

continual succession of trams and omnibuses. This had been very difficult. Once

or twice he had ventured on the same vehicle with Bright, but a dread of being

spotted had obliged him to do most of his sleuthing in taxis, which, in that part

of the town, were apt to be hard to find and painfuly conspicuous when found.

The night had been dismaly spent in the crypt of St Martin’s-in-the-Fields.

Now here they were, and Bunter hoped that the ordeal would not last much

longer. He had bought himself a suit of horrible cheap serge, which it gave him

acute agony to wear, and he had also purchased a disgusting bowler of curly

shape and heavy quality – also a check cap, a soft hat and a subfusc overcoat.

Each day he had endeavoured to alter his appearance by successively assuming

these repelent garments, carrying the others about with him in paper parcels,

until at last he had felt that the perpetual presence of a man with a paper parcel

would alarm the fugitive, and had relieved his arm and his mind by depositing

the loathly bowler under the table in an eating-house and leaving it to its fate.

Now, with a pair of pyjamas in one pocket of the overcoat and a razor and

tooth-brush in the other along with the cap, he sat, felt hat in hand, ready to dart

out as soon as Bright showed any signs of moving.

During these last four hours, Bright had merely wandered. He had entered no

hairdresser’s shop and had made no attempt to get work. He seemed to be

merely filing in time, or else deliberately confusing his trail. He had gone to a

Talkie once or twice, had visited the British Museum, sat for a whole afternoon

on a bench in Hyde Park. He had spoken to nobody, except to bus-

conductors, tram-conductors, waitresses and other harmless, necessary