Strong Poison (18 page)

She had put an advertisement in the papers and had answered many others. Most people appeared to want their secretaries young and cheap. It was discouraging.

Then her own advertisement had brought an answer, from a Miss Climpson, who kept a typing bureau.

It was not what she wanted, but she went. And she found that it was not quite a typing bureau after all, but something more interesting.

Lord Peter Wimsey, mysteriously at the back of it all, had been abroad when Miss Murchison entered the “Cattery,” and she had never seen him till a few weeks ago. This would be the first time she had actually spoken to him. An odd-looking person, she thought, but people said he had brains. Anyhow -

The door was opened by Bunter, who seemed to expect her and showed her at once into a sitting-room lined with bookshelves. There were some fine prints on the walls, an Aubusson carpet, a grand piano, a vast Chesterfield and a number of deep and cosy chairs, upholstered in brown leather. The curtains were drawn, a wood-fire blazed on the hearth, and before it stood a table, with a silver tea-service whose lovely lines were delightful to the eye.

As she entered, her employer uncoiled himself from the depths of an armchair, put down a black-letter folio which he had been studying and greeted her in the cool, husky and rather languid tones which she had already heard in Mr. Urquhart’s office.

“Frightfully good of you to come round, Miss Murchison. Beastly day, isn’t it? I’m sure you want your tea. Can you eat crumpets? Or would you prefer something more up-to-date?”

“Thanks,” said Miss Murchison, as Bunter hovered obsequiously at her elbow, “I like crumpets very much.”

“Oh, good! Well, Bunter, we’ll struggle with the teapot ourselves. Give Miss Murchison another cushion and then you can toddle off. Back at work, I suppose? How’s our Mr. Urquhart?”

“He’s all right.” Miss Murchison had never been a chatty girl. “There’s one thing I wanted to tell you -”

“Plenty of time,” said Wimsey. “Don’t spoil your tea.” He waited on her with a kind of anxious courtesy which pleased her. She expressed admiration of the big bronze chrysanthemums heaped here and there about the room.

“Oh! I’m glad you like them. My friends say they give a feminine touch to the place, but Bunter sees to it, as a matter of fact. They make a splash of colour and all that, don’t you think?”

“The books look masculine enough.”

“Oh, yes – they’re my hobby, you know. Books – and crime, of course. But crime’s not very decorative, is it? I don’t care about collecting hangmen’s ropes and murderers’ overcoats. What are you to do with ’em? Is the tea all right? I ought to have asked you to pour out, but it always seems to me rather unfair to invite a person and then make her do all the work. What do you do when you’re not working, by the way? Do you keep a secret passion for anything?”

“I go to concerts,” said Miss Murchison. “And when there isn’t a concert I put something on the gramophone.”

“Musician?”

“No – never could afford to learn properly. I ought to have been, I daresay. But there was more money in being a secretary.”

“I suppose so.”

“Unless one is absolutely first-class, and I should never have been that. And third class musicians are a nuisance.”

“They have a rotten time, too,” said Wimsey. “I hate to see them in cinemas, poor beasts, playing the most ghastly tripe, sandwiched in with snacks of Mendelssohn and torn-off gobbets of the ‘Unfinished.’ Have a sandwich. Do you like Bach? or only the Moderns?”

He wriggled on to the piano stool.

“I’ll leave it to you,” said Miss Murchison, rather surprised.

“I feel rather like the Italian Concerto this evening. It’s better on the harpsichord, but I haven’t got one here. I find Bach good for the brain. Steadying influence and all that.”

He played the Concerto through, and then, after a few seconds’ pause went on to one of the “Forty-eight.” He played well, and gave a curious impression of controlled power, which, in a man so light and so fantastical in manner, was unexpected and even a little disquieting.

When he had finished, he said, still sitting at the piano:

“Did you make the enquiry about the typewriter?”

“Yes; it was bought new three years ago.”

“Good. I gather, by the way, that you are probably right about Urquhart’s connection with the Megatherium Trust. That was a very helpful observation of yours. Consider yourself highly commended.”

“Thank you.”

“Anything fresh?”

“No – except that the evening after you called at Mr. Urquhart’s office, he stayed on a long time after we had gone, typing something.”

Wimsey sketched an arpeggio with his right hand and demanded:

“How do you know how long he stayed and what he was doing if you had all gone?”

“You said you wanted to know of anything, however small, that was in the least unusual. I thought it might be unusual for him to stay on by himself, so I walked up and down Princeton Street and round Red Lion Square till half past seven. Then I saw him put the light out and go home. Next morning I noticed that some papers I had left just inside my typewriter cover had been disturbed. So I concluded that he had been typing.”

“Perhaps the charwoman disturbed them?”

“Not she. She never disturbs the dust, let alone the cover.”

Wimsey nodded.

“You have the makings of a first-class sleuth, Miss Murchison. Very well. In that case, our little job will have to be undertaken. Now, look here – you quite understand that I’m going to ask you to do something illegal?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“And you don’t mind?”

“No. I imagine that if I’m taken up you will pay any necessary costs.”

“Certainly.”

“And if I go to prison?”

“I don’t think it will come to that. There’s a slight risk, I admit – that is, if I’m wrong about what I think is happening -that you might be brought up for attempted theft or for being in possession of safebreaking tools, but that is the most that could happen.”

“Oh! well, it’s all in the game, I suppose.”

“You mean that?”

“Yes.”

“Splendid. Well – you know that deed-box you brought in to Mr. Urquhart’s room the day I was there?”

“Yes, the one marked Wrayburn.”

“Where is it kept? In the outer office, where you could get hold of it?”

“Oh, yes – on a shelf with a lot of others.”

“Good. Would it be possible for you to get left alone in the office any day for, say half an hour?”

“Well – at lunch-time I’m supposed to go out at half-past twelve and come back at half-past one. Mr. Pond goes out then, but Mr. Urquhart sometimes comes back. I couldn’t be certain that he wouldn’t pop out on me. And it would look funny if I wanted to stay on after four-thirty, I expect. Unless I pretended I had made a mistake and wanted to stay and put it right. I could do that. I might come extra early in the morning when the charwoman is there – or would it matter her seeing me?”

“It wouldn’t matter very much,” said Wimsey, thoughtfully. “She’d probably think you had legitimate business with the box. I’ll leave it to you to choose the time.”

“But what am I to do? Steal the box?”

“Not quite. Do you know how to pick a lock?”

“Not in the least, I’m afraid.”

“I often wonder what we go to school for,” said Wimsey. “We never seem to learn anything really useful. I can pick quite a pretty lock myself, but, as we haven’t much time and as you’ll need some rather intensive training, I think I’d better take you to an expert. Should you mind putting your coat on and coming round with me to see a friend?”

“Not at all. I should be delighted.”

“He lives in the Whitechapel Road, but he’s a very pleasant fellow, if you can overlook his religious opinions. Personally, I find them rather refreshing. Bunter! Get us a taxi, will you?”

On the way to the East End, Wimsey insisted upon talking music – rather to Miss Murchison’s disquietude; she began think there was something a little sinister in this pointed refusal to discuss the object of their journey.

“By the way,” she ventured, interrupting something Wimsey was saying about fugal form, “this person we are going to see – has he a name?”

“Now you mention it, I believe he has, but he’s never called by it. It’s Rumm.”

“Not very, perhaps, if he – er – gives lessons in lock-picking.”

“I mean, his name’s Rumm.”

“Oh; what is it then?”

“Dash it! I mean, Rumm is his name.”

“Oh! I beg your pardon.”

“But he doesn’t care to use it, now that he is a total abstainer.”

“Then what does one call him?”

“I call him Bill,” said Wimsey, as the taxi drew up at the entrance to a narrow court, “but when he was at the head of his profession, they called him Blindfold Bill.‘ He was a very great man in his time.”

Paying off the taxi-man (who had obviously taken them for welfare-workers till he saw the size of his tip, and now did not know what to make of them), Wimsey steered his companion down the dirty alleyway. At the far end was a small house, from whose lighted windows poured forth the loud strains of a chorus of voices, supported by a harmonium and other instruments.

“Oh, dear!” said Wimsey, “we’ve struck a meeting. It can’t be helped. Here goes.”

Pausing until the strains of “Glory, glory, glory” had been succeeded by a sound as of fervent prayer, he hammered lustily at the door. Presently a small girl put her head out and, seeing Lord Peter, uttered a shrill cry of delight.

“Hullo, Esmeralda Hyacinth,” said Wimsey. “Is Dad in?”

“Yes, sir, please, sir, they’ll be so pleased, will you step in and oh, please?”

“Well?”

“Please, sir, will you sing ‘ Nazareth ’?”

“No, I will not sing ‘ Nazareth ’ on any account, Esmeralda; I’m surprised at you.”

“Daddy says ‘ Nazareth ’ isn’t worldly, and you do sing it so beautiful,” said Esmeralda, her mouth drooping.

Wimsey hid his face in his hands.

“This comes of having done a foolish thing once,” he said. “One never lives it down. I won’t promise, Esmeralda, but we’ll see. But I want to talk business with Dad when the meeting’s over.”

The child nodded; at the same moment, the praying voice within the room ceased, amid ejaculations of “Alleluia!” and Esmeralda, profiting by this momentary pause, pushed open the door and said loudly:

“Here’s Mr. Peter and a lady.”

The room was small, very hot and very full of people. In one corner was the harmonium, with the musicians grouped about it. In the middle, standing by a round table covered with a red cloth, was a stout, square man, with a face like a bull-dog. He had a book in his hand, and appeared to be about to announce a hymn, but, seeing Wimsey and Miss Murchison, he came forward, stretching out a large and hearty hand.

“Welcome one and welcome all!” he said. “Brethren, ’ere is a dear brother and sister in the Lord as is come out of the ’aunts of the rich and the riotous living of the West End to join with us in singing the Songs of Zion. Let us sing and give praise. Alleluia! We know that many shall come from the East and from the West and sit down at the Lord’s feast, while many that thinks theirselves chosen shall be cast into outer darkness. Therefore let us not say, because this man wears a shiny eyeglass, that he is not a chosen vessel, or because this woman wears a di’mond necklace and rides in ’er Rolls-Royce, she will not therefore wear a white robe and a gold crown in the New Jerusalem, nor because these people travels in the Blue Train to the Rivereera, therefore they shall not be seen a-castin’ down their golden crowns by the River of the Water of Life. We ’ears that there talk sometimes in ’ Yde Park o’ Sundays, but it’s bad and foolish and leads to strife and envyings and not to charity. All we like sheep ’ave gone astray and well I may say so, ’avin’ been a black and wicked sinner myself till this ’ere gentleman, for such ’e truly is, laid ’is ’and upon me as I was a-bustin’ of ’is safe and was the instrument under God of turnin’ me from the broad way that leadeth to destruction. Oh, brethren, what a ’appy day that was for me, alleluia! What a shower of blessings come to me by the grace of the Lord! Let us unite now in thanksgiving for ’Eaven’s mercies in Number One ’Undred and Two. (Esmeralda, give our dear friends a ’ymn book).”

“I’m sorry,” said Wimsey to Miss Murchison. “Can you bear it? I fancy this is the final outbreak.”

The harmonium, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer and all kinds of music burst out with a blare which nearly burst the ear-drum, the assembly lifted its combined voices, and Miss Murchison, to her amazement, found herself joining – at first self-consciously and then with a fine fervour in that stirring chant -

“Sweeping through the gates,

Sweeping through the gates of the New Jerusalem,

Washed in the Blood of the Lamb.”

Wimsey, who appeared to find it all very good fun, carolled away happily, without the slightest embarrassment; whether because he was accustomed to the exercise, or merely because he was one of those imperturbably self-satisfied people who cannot conceive of themselves as being out of place in any surroundings, Miss Murchison was unable to determine.

To her relief, the religious exercise came to an end with the hymn, and the company took their leave, with many hand-shakings all round. The musicians emptied the condensed moisture from their wind-instruments politely into the fireplace and the lady who played the harmonium drew the cover over the keys and came forward to welcome the guests. She was introduced simply as Bella and Miss Murchison concluded, rightly, that she was the wife of Mr. Bill Rumm and the mother of Esmeralda.

“Well, now,” said Bill, “it’s dry work preachin’ and singin’ – you’ll take a cup of tea or coffee, now, won’t you?”

Wimsey explained that they had just had tea, but begged that the family might proceed with their own meal.