Whose Body (9 page)

“Pleased to meet you, Lord Wimsey,” said Mr. Milligan. “Won't you take a seat?”

“Thanks,” said Lord Peter, “but I'm not a peer, you know—that's my brother Denver. My name's Peter. It's a silly name, I always think, so old-world and full of homely virtue and that sort of thing, but my god-fathers and godmothers in my baptism are responsible for that, I suppose, officially—which is rather hard on them, you know, as they didn't actually choose it. But we always have a Peter, after the third duke, who betrayed five kings somewhere about the Wars of the Roses, though come to think of it, it ain't anything to be proud of. Still, one has to make the best of it.”

Mr. Milligan, thus ingeniously placed at that disadvantage which attends ignorance, manœuvred for position, and offered his interrupter a Corona Corona.

“Thanks, awfully,” said Lord Peter, “though you really mustn't tempt me to stay here burblin' all afternoon. By Jove, Mr. Milligan, if you offer people such comfortable chairs and cigars like these, I wonder they don't come an' live in your office.” He added mentally: “I wish to goodness I could get those long-toed boots off you. How's a man to know the size of your feet? And a head like a potato. It's enough to make one swear.”

“Say now, Lord Peter,” said Mr. Milligan, “can I do anything for you.”

“Well, d'you know,” said Lord Peter, “I'm wonderin' if you would. It's damned cheek to ask you, but fact is, it's my mother, you know. Wonderful woman, but don't realise what it means, demands on the time of a busy man like you. We don't understand hustle over here, you know, Mr. Milligan.”

“Now don't you mention that,” said Mr. Milligan; “I'd be surely charmed to do anything to oblige the Duchess.”

He felt a momentary qualm as to whether a duke's mother were also a duchess, but breathed more freely as Lord Peter went on:

“Thanks—that's uncommonly good of you. Well, now, it's like this. My mother—most energetic, self-sacrificin' woman, don't you see, is thinkin' of gettin' up a sort of a charity bazaar down at Denver this winter, in aid of the church roof, y'know. Very sad case, Mr. Milligan—fine old antique—early English windows and decorated angel roof, and all that—all tumblin' to pieces, rain pourin' in and so on—vicar catchin' rheumatism at early service, owin' to the draught blowin' in over the altar—you know the sort of thing. They've got a man down startin' on it—little beggar called Thipps—lives with an aged mother in Battersea—vulgar little beast, but quite good on angel roofs and things, I'm told.”

At this point, Lord Peter watched his interlocutor narrowly, but finding that this rigmarole produced in him no reaction more startling than polite interest tinged with faint bewilderment, he abandoned this line of investigation, and proceeded:

“I say, I beg your pardon, frightfully—I'm afraid I'm bein' beastly long-winded. Fact is, my mother is gettin' up this bazaar, and she thought it'd be an awfully interestin' side-show to have some lectures—sort of little talks, y'know—by eminent business men of all nations. 'How I did it' kind of touch, y'know—'A Drop of Oil with a Kerosene King'—'Cash Conscience and Cocoa' and so on. It would interest people down there no end. You see, all my mother's friends will be there, and we've none of us any money—not what you'd call money, I mean—I expect our incomes wouldn't pay your telephone calls, would they?—but we like awfully to hear about the people who can make money. Gives us a sort of uplifted feelin', don't you know. Well, anyway, I mean, my mother'd be frightfully pleased and grateful to you, Mr. Milligan, if you'd come down and give us a few words as a representative American. It needn't take more than ten minutes or so, y'know, because the local people can't understand much beyond shootin' and huntin', and my mother's crowd can't keep their minds on anythin' more than ten minutes together, but we'd really appreciate it very much if you'd come and stay a day or two and just give us a little breezy word on the almighty dollar.”

“Why, yes,” said Mr. Milligan, “I'd like to, Lord Peter. It's kind of the Duchess to suggest it. It's a very sad thing when these fine old antiques begin to wear out. I'll come with great pleasure. And perhaps you'd be kind enough to accept a little donation to the Restoration Fund.”

This unexpected development nearly brought Lord Peter up all standing. To pump, by means of an ingenious lie, a hospitable gentleman whom you are inclined to suspect of a peculiarly malicious murder, and to accept from him in the course of the proceedings a large cheque for a charitable object, has something about it unpalatable to any but the hardened Secret Service Agent. Lord Peter temporised.

“That's awfully decent of you,” he said. “I'm sure they'd be no end grateful. But you'd better not give it to me, you know. I might spend it, or lose it. I'm not very reliable, I'm afraid. The vicar's the right person—the Rev. Constantine Throgmorton, St. John-before-the-Latin-Gate Vicarage, Duke's Denver, if you like to send it there.”

“I will,” said Mr. Milligan. “Will you write it out now for a thousand pounds, Scoot, in case it slips my mind later?”

The secretary, a sandy-haired young man with a long chin and no eyebrows, silently did as he was requested. Lord Peter looked from the bald head of Mr. Milligan to the red head of the secretary, hardened his heart and tried again.

“Well, I'm no end grateful to you, Mr. Milligan, and so'll my mother be when I tell her. I'll let you know the date of the bazaar—it's not quite settled yet, and I've got to see some other business men, don't you know. I thought of askin' someone from one of the big newspaper combines to represent British advertisin' talent, what?—and a friend of mine promises me a leadin' German financier—very interestin' if there ain't too much feelin' against it down in the country, and I'll have to find somebody or other to do the Hebrew point of view. I thought of askin' Levy, y'know, only he's floated off in this inconvenient way.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Milligan, “that's a very curious thing, though I don't mind saying, Lord Peter, that it's a convenience to me. He had a cinch on my railroad combine, but I'd nothing against him personally, and if he turns up after I've brought off a little deal I've got on, I'll be happy to give him the right hand of welcome.”

A vision passed through Lord Peter's mind of Sir Reuben kept somewhere in custody till a financial crisis was over. This was exceedingly possible, and far more agreeable than his earlier conjecture; it also agreed better with the impression he was forming of Mr. Milligan.

“Well, it's a rum go,” said Lord Peter, “but I daresay he had his reason. Much better not inquire into people's reasons, y'know, what? Specially as a police friend of mine who's connected with the case says the old johnnie dyed his hair before he went.”

Out of the tail of his eye, Lord Peter saw the red-headed secretary add up five columns of figures simultaneously and jot down the answer.

“Dyed his hair, did he?” said Mr. Milligan.

“Dyed it red,” said Lord Peter. The secretary looked up. “Odd thing is,” continued Wimsey, “they can't lay hands on the bottle. Somethin' fishy there, don't you think, what?”

The secretary's interest seemed to have evaporated. He inserted a fresh sheet into his looseleaf ledger, and carried forward a row of digits from the preceding page.

“I daresay there's nothin' in it,” said Lord Peter, rising to go. “Well, it's uncommonly good of you to be bothered with me like this, Mr. Milligan; my mother'll be no end pleased. She'll write you about the date.”

“I'm charmed,” said Mr. Milligan, “very pleased to have met you.”

Mr. Scoot rose silently to open the door, uncoiling as he did so a portentous length of thin leg, hitherto hidden by the desk. With a mental sigh Lord Peter estimated him at six-foot-four.

“It's a pity I can't put Scoot's head on Milligan's shoulders,” said Lord Peter, emerging into the swirl of the city, “and what
will
my mother say?”

M
E
. P
ARKER
was a bachelor, and occupied a Georgian but inconvenient flat at No. 12
A
Great Ormond Street, for which he paid a pound a week. His exertions in the cause of civilisation were rewarded, not by the gift of diamonds, rings from empresses or munificent cheques from grateful Prime Ministers, but by a modest, though sufficient, salary, drawn from the pockets of the British taxpayer. He awoke, after a long day of arduous and inconclusive labour, to the smell of burnt porridge. Through his bedroom window, hygienically open top and bottom, a raw fog was rolling slowly in, and the sight of a pair of winter pants, flung hastily over a chair the previous night, fretted him with a sense of the sordid absurdity of the human form. The telephone bell rang, and he crawled wretchedly out of bed and into the sitting-room, where Mrs. Munns, who did for him by the day, was laying the table, sneezing as she went.

Mr. Bunter was speaking.

“His lordship says he'd be very glad, sir, if you could make it convenient to step round to breakfast.”

If the odour of kidneys and bacon had been wafted along the wire, Mr. Parker could not have experienced a more vivid sense of consolation.

“Tell his lordship I'll be with him in half an hour,” he said, thankfully, and plunging into the bathroom, which was also the kitchen, he informed Mrs. Munns, who was just making tea from a kettle which had gone off the boil, that he should be out to breakfast.

“You can take the porridge home for the family,” he added, viciously, and flung off his dressing-gown with such determination that Mrs. Munns could only scuttle away with a snort.

A 19 'bus deposited him in Piccadilly only fifteen minutes later than his rather sanguine impulse had prompted him to suggest, and Mr. Bunter served him with glorious food, incomparable coffee, and the
Daily Mail
before a blazing fire of wood and coal. A distant voice singing the “et iterum venturus est” from Bach's Mass in B minor proclaimed that for the owner of the flat cleanliness and godliness met at least once a day, and presently Lord Peter roamed in, moist and verbena-scented, in a bathrobe cheerfully patterned with unnaturally variegated peacocks.

“Mornin', old dear,” said that gentleman; “beast of a day, ain't it? Very good of you to trundle out in it, but I had a letter I wanted you to see, and I hadn't the energy to come round to your place. Bunter and I've been makin' a night of it.”

“What's the letter?” asked Parker.

“Never talk business with your mouth full,” said Lord Peter, reprovingly; “have some Oxford marmalade—and then I'll show you my Dante; they brought it round last night. What ought I to read this morning, Bunter?”

“Lord Erith's collection is going to be sold, my lord. There is a column about it in the
Morning Post
. I think your lordship should look at this review of Sir Julian Freke's new book on
The Physiological Bases of the Conscience
in the
Times Literary Supplement
. Then there is a very singular little burglary in the
Chronicle
, my lord, and an attack on titled families in the
Herald
—rather ill-written, if I may say so, but not without unconscious humour which your lordship will appreciate.”

“All right, give me that and the burglary,” said his lordship.

“I have looked over the other papers,” pursued Mr. Bunter, indicating a formidable pile, “and marked your lordship's after-breakfast reading.”

“Oh, pray don't allude to it,” said Lord Peter, “you take my appetite away.”

There was silence, but for the crunching of toast and the crackling of paper.

“I see they adjourned the inquest,” said Parker presently.

“Nothing else to do,” said Lord Peter, “but Lady Levy arrived last night, and will have to go and fail to identify the body this morning for Sugg's benefit.”

“Time, too,” said Mr. Parker shortly.

Silence fell again.

“I don't think much of your burglary, Bunter,” said Lord Peter. “Competent, of course, but no imagination. I want imagination in a criminal. Where's the
Morning Post
?”

After a further silence, Lord Peter said: “You might send for the catalogue, Bunter; that Apollonios Rhodios
[3]
might be worth looking at. No, I'm damned if I'm going to stodge through that review, but you can stick the book on the library list if you like. His book on crime was entertaining enough as far as it went, but the fellow's got a bee in his bonnet. Thinks God's a secretion of the liver—all right once in a way, but there's no need to keep on about it. There's nothing you can't prove if your outlook is only sufficiently limited. Look at Sugg.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Parker. “I wasn't attending. Argentines are steadying a little, I see.”

“Milligan,” said Lord Peter.

“Oil's in a bad way. Levy's made a difference there. That funny little boom in Peruvians that came on just before he disappeared has died away again. I wonder if he was concerned in it. D'you know at all?”

“I'll find out,” said Lord Peter, “what was it?”

“Oh, an absolutely dud enterprise that hadn't been heard of for years. It suddenly took a little lease of life last week. I happened to notice it because my mother got let in for a couple of hundred shares a long time ago. It never paid a dividend. Now it's petered out again.”

Wimsey pushed his plate aside and lit a pipe.

“Having finished, I don't mind doing some work,” he said. “How did you get on yesterday?”

“I didn't,” replied Parker. “I sleuthed up and down those flats in my own bodily shape and two different disguises. I was a gas-meter man and a collector for a Home for Lost Doggies, and I didn't get a thing to go on, except a servant in the top flat at the Battersea Bridge Road end of the row who said she thought she heard a bump on the roof one night. Asked which night, she couldn't rightly say. Asked if it was Monday night, she thought it very likely. Asked if it mightn't have been that high wind on Saturday night that blew my chimney-pot off, she couldn't say but what it might have been. Asked if she was sure it was on the roof and not inside the flat, said to be sure they did find a picture tumbled down next morning. Very suggestible girl. I saw your friends, Mr. and Mrs. Appledore, who received me coldly, but could make no definite complaint about Thipps except that his mother dropped her h's, and that he once called on them uninvited, armed with a pamphlet about anti-vivisection. The Indian colonel on the first floor was loud, but unexpectedly friendly. He gave me Indian curry for supper and some good whiskey, but he's a sort of hermit, and all
he
could tell me was that he couldn't stand Mrs. Appledore.”