Whose Body? A Lord Peter Wimsey Novel by Dorothy L. Sayers (book suggestions .txt) 📗

“Mr. who?”

“Mr. John P. Milligan, my lord, and—”

“Good God, Bunter, why didn’t you say so before? Have I time to get there before he does? All right. I’m off. With a taxi I can just—”

“Not in those trousers, my lord,” said Mr. Bunter, blocking the way to the door with deferential firmness.

“Oh, Bunter,” pleaded his lordship, “do let me—just this once. You don’t know how important it is.”

“Not on any account, my lord. It would be as much as my place is worth.”

“The trousers are all right, Bunter.”

“Not for Lady Swaffham’s, my lord. Besides, your lordship forgets the man that ran against you with a milk-can at Salisbury.”

And Mr. Bunter laid an accusing finger on a slight stain of grease showing across the light cloth.

“I wish to God I’d never let you grow into a privileged family retainer, Bunter,” said Lord Peter, bitterly, dashing his walking-stick into the umbrella-stand. “You’ve no conception of the mistakes my mother may be making.”

Mr. Bunter smiled grimly and led his victim away.

When an immaculate Lord Peter was ushered, rather late for lunch, into Lady Swaffham’s drawing-room, the Dowager Duchess of Denver was seated on 146 a sofa, plunged in intimate conversation with Mr. John P. Milligan of Chicago.

“I’m vurry pleased to meet you, Duchess,” had been that financier’s opening remark, “to thank you for your exceedingly kind invitation. I assure you it’s a compliment I deeply appreciate.”

The Duchess beamed at him, while conducting a rapid rally of all her intellectual forces.

“Do come and sit down and talk to me, Mr. Milligan,” she said. “I do so love talking to you great business men—let me see, is it a railway king you are or something about puss-in-the-corner—at least, I don’t mean that exactly, but that game one used to play with cards, all about wheat and oats, and there was a bull and a bear, too—or was it a horse?—no, a bear, because I remember one always had to try and get rid of it and it used to get so dreadfully crumpled and torn, poor thing, always being handed about, one got to recognise it, and then one had to buy a new pack—so foolish it must seem to you, knowing the real thing, and dreadfully noisy, but really excellent for breaking the ice with rather stiff people who didn’t know each other—I’m quite sorry it’s gone out.”

Mr. Milligan sat down.

“Wal, now,” he said, “I guess it’s as interesting for us business men to meet British aristocrats as it is for Britishers to meet American railway kings, Duchess. And I guess I’ll make as many mistakes talking your kind of talk as you would make if you were tryin’ to 147 run a corner in wheat in Chicago. Fancy now, I called that fine lad of yours Lord Wimsey the other day, and he thought I’d mistaken him for his brother. That made me feel rather green.”

This was an unhoped-for lead. The Duchess walked warily.

“Dear boy,” she said, “I am so glad you met him, Mr. Milligan. Both my sons are a great comfort to me, you know, though, of course, Gerald is more conventional—just the right kind of person for the House of Lords, you know, and a splendid farmer. I can’t see Peter down at Denver half so well, though he is always going to all the right things in town, and very amusing sometimes, poor boy.”

“I was vurry much gratified by Lord Peter’s suggestion,” pursued Mr. Milligan, “for which I understand you are responsible, and I’ll surely be very pleased to come any day you like, though I think you’re flattering me too much.”

“Ah, well,” said the Duchess, “I don’t know if you’re the best judge of that, Mr. Milligan. Not that I know anything about business myself,” she added. “I’m rather old-fashioned for these days, you know, and I can’t pretend to do more than know a nice man when I see him; for the other things I rely on my son.”

The accent of this speech was so flattering that Mr. Milligan purred almost audibly, and said:

“Wal, Duchess, I guess that’s where a lady with a real, beautiful, old-fashioned soul has the advantage of these modern young blatherskites—there aren’t 148 many men who wouldn’t be nice—to her, and even then, if they aren’t rock-bottom she can see through them.”

“But that leaves me where I was,” thought the Duchess. “I believe,” she said aloud, “that I ought to be thanking you in the name of the vicar of Duke’s Denver for a very munificent cheque which reached him yesterday for the Church Restoration Fund. He was so delighted and astonished, poor dear man.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Mr. Milligan, “we haven’t any fine old crusted buildings like yours over on our side, so it’s a privilege to be allowed to drop a little kerosene into the worm-holes when we hear of one in the old country suffering from senile decay. So when your lad told me about Duke’s Denver I took the liberty to subscribe without waiting for the Bazaar.”

“I’m sure it was very kind of you,” said the Duchess. “You are coming to the Bazaar, then?” she continued, gazing into his face appealingly.

“Sure thing,” said Mr. Milligan, with great promptness. “Lord Peter said you’d let me know for sure about the date, but we can always make time for a little bit of good work anyway. Of course I’m hoping to be able to avail myself of your kind invitation to stop, but if I’m rushed, I’ll manage anyhow to pop over and speak my piece and pop back again.”

“I hope so very much,” said the Duchess. “I must see what can be done about the date—of course, I can’t promise—”

“No, no,” said Mr. Milligan heartily. “I know what 149 these things are to fix up. And then there’s not only me—there’s all the real big men of European eminence your son mentioned, to be consulted.”

The Duchess turned pale at the thought that any one of these illustrious persons might some time turn up in somebody’s drawing-room, but by this time she had dug herself in comfortably, and was even beginning to find her range.

“I can’t say how grateful we are to you,” she said; “it will be such a treat. Do tell me what you think of saying.”

“Wal—” began Mr. Milligan.

Suddenly everybody was standing up and a penitent voice was heard to say:

“Really, most awfully sorry, y’know—hope you’ll forgive me, Lady Swaffham, what? Dear lady, could I possibly forget an invitation from you? Fact is, I had to go an’ see a man down in Salisbury—absolutely true, ’pon my word, and the fellow wouldn’t let me get away. I’m simply grovellin’ before you, Lady Swaffham. Shall I go an’ eat my lunch in the corner?”

Lady Swaffham gracefully forgave the culprit.

“Your dear mother is here,” she said.

“How do, Mother?” said Lord Peter, uneasily.

“How are you, dear?” replied the Duchess. “You really oughtn’t to have turned up just yet. Mr. Milligan was just going to tell me what a thrilling speech he’s preparing for the Bazaar, when you came and interrupted us.”

Conversation at lunch turned, not unnaturally, on the Battersea inquest, the Duchess giving a vivid impersonation 150 of Mrs. Thipps being interrogated by the Coroner.

“‘Did you hear anything unusual in the night?’ says the little man, leaning forward and screaming at her, and so crimson in the face and his ears sticking out so—just like a cherubim in that poem of Tennyson’s—or is a cherub blue?—perhaps it’s a seraphim I mean—anyway, you know what I mean, all eyes, with little wings on its head. And dear old Mrs. Thipps saying, ‘Of course I have, any time these eighty years,’ and such a sensation in court till they found out she thought he’d said, ‘Do you sleep without a light?’ and everybody laughing, and then the Coroner said quite loudly, ‘Damn the woman,’ and she heard that, I can’t think why, and said: ‘Don’t you get swearing, young man, sitting there in the presence of Providence, as you may say. I don’t know what young people are coming to nowadays’—and he’s sixty if he’s a day, you know,” said the Duchess.

By a natural transition, Mrs. Tommy Frayle referred to the man who was hanged for murdering three brides in a bath.

“I always thought that was so ingenious,” she said, gazing soulfully at Lord Peter, “and do you know, as it happened, Tommy had just made me insure my life, and I got so frightened, I gave up my morning bath and took to having it in the afternoon when he was in the House—I mean, when he was not in the house—not at home, I mean.”

“Dear lady,” said Lord Peter, reproachfully, “I 151 have a distinct recollection that all those brides were thoroughly unattractive. But it was an uncommonly ingenious plan—the first time of askin’—only he shouldn’t have repeated himself.”

“One demands a little originality in these days, even from murderers,” said Lady Swaffham. “Like dramatists, you know—so much easier in Shakespeare’s time, wasn’t it? Always the same girl dressed up as a man, and even that borrowed from Boccaccio or Dante or somebody. I’m sure if I’d been a Shakespeare hero, the very minute I saw a slim-legged young page-boy I’d have said: ‘Odsbodikins! There’s that girl again!’”

“That’s just what happened, as a matter of fact,” said Lord Peter. “You see, Lady Swaffham, if ever you want to commit a murder, the thing you’ve got to do is to prevent people from associatin’ their ideas. Most people don’t associate anythin’—their ideas just roll about like so many dry peas on a tray, makin’ a lot of noise and goin’ nowhere, but once you begin lettin’ ’em string their peas into a necklace, it’s goin’ to be strong enough to hang you, what?”

“Dear me!” said Mrs. Tommy Frayle, with a little scream, “what a blessing it is none of my friends have any ideas at all!”

“Y’see,” said Lord Peter, balancing a piece of duck on his fork and frowning, “it’s only in Sherlock Holmes and stories like that, that people think things out logically. Or’nar’ly, if somebody tells you somethin’ out of the way, you just say, ‘By Jove!’ or ‘How sad!’ an’ leave it at that, an’ half the time you forget 152 about it, ’nless somethin’ turns up afterwards to drive it home. F’r instance, Lady Swaffham, I told you when I came in that I’d been down to Salisbury, ’n’ that’s true, only I don’t suppose it impressed you much; ’n’ I don’t suppose it’d impress you much if you read in the paper tomorrow of a tragic discovery of a dead lawyer down in Salisbury, but if I went to Salisbury again next week ’n’ there was a Salisbury doctor found dead the day after, you might begin to think I was a bird of ill omen for Salisbury residents; and if I went there again the week after, ’n’ you heard next day that the see of Salisbury had fallen vacant suddenly, you might begin to wonder what took me to Salisbury, an’ why I’d never mentioned before that I had friends down there, don’t you see, an’ you might think of goin’ down to Salisbury yourself, an’ askin’ all kinds of people if they’d happened to see a young man in plum-coloured socks hangin’ round the Bishop’s Palace.”

“I daresay I should,” said Lady Swaffham.

“Quite. An’ if you found that the lawyer and the doctor had once upon a time been in business at Poggleton-on-the-Marsh when the Bishop had been vicar there, you’d begin to remember you’d once heard of me payin’ a visit to Poggleton-on-the-Marsh a long time ago, an’ you’d begin to look up the parish registers there an’ discover I’d been married under an assumed name by the vicar to the widow of a wealthy farmer, who’d died suddenly of peritonitis, as certified by the doctor, after the lawyer’d made a will leavin’ me all her money, and then you’d begin 153 to think I might have very good reasons for gettin’ rid of such promisin’ blackmailers as the lawyer, the doctor an’ the bishop. Only, if I hadn’t started an association in your mind by gettin’ rid of ’em all in the same place, you’d never have thought of goin’ to Poggleton-on-the-Marsh, ’n’ you wouldn’t even have remembered I’d ever been there.”

“Were you ever there, Lord Peter?” inquired Mrs. Tommy, anxiously.

“I don’t think so,” said Lord Peter; “the name threads no beads in my mind. But it might, any day, you know.”

“But if you were investigating a crime,” said Lady Swaffham, “you’d have to begin by the usual things, I suppose—finding out what the person had been doing, and who’d been to call, and looking for a motive, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” said Lord Peter, “but most of us have such dozens of motives for murderin’ all sorts of inoffensive people. There’s lots of people I’d like to murder, wouldn’t you?”

“Heaps,” said Lady Swaffham. “There’s that dreadful—perhaps I’d better not say it, though, for fear you should remember it later on.”

“Well, I wouldn’t if I were you,” said Peter,