Whose Body? A Lord Peter Wimsey Novel by Dorothy L. Sayers (book suggestions .txt) š
- Author: Dorothy L. Sayers
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Cummings: Well, no, Mr. Bunter, I will say, not as a general rule. He apologized, too, in the morning, and said he would have the cistern seen toāand very necessary, in my opinion, for the air gets into the pipes, and the groaning and screeching as goes on is something awful. Just like Niagara, if you follow me, Mr. Bunter, I give you my word.
Bunter: Well, thatās as it should be, Mr. Cummings. 183 One can put up with a great deal from a gentleman that has the manners to apologize. And, of course, sometimes they canāt help themselves. A visitor will come in unexpectedly and keep them late, perhaps.
Cummings: Thatās true enough, Mr. Bunter. Now I come to think of it, there was a gentleman come in on Monday evening. Not that he came late, but he stayed about an hour, and may have put Sir Julian behindhand.
Bunter: Very likely. Let me give you some more port, Mr. Cummings. Or a little of Lord Peterās old brandy.
Cummings: A little of the brandy, thank you, Mr. Bunter. I suppose you have the run of the cellar here. (He winked at me.)
āTrust me for that,ā I said, and I fetched him the Napoleon. I assure your lordship it went to my heart to pour it out for a man like that. However, seeing we had got on the right tack, I felt it wouldnāt be wasted.
āIām sure I wish it was always gentlemen that come here at night,ā I said. (Your lordship will excuse me, I am sure, making such a suggestion.)
(āGood God,ā said Lord Peter, āI wish Bunter was less thorough in his methods.ā)
Cummings: Oh, heās that sort, his lordship, is he? (He chuckled and poked me. I suppress a portion of his conversation here, which could not fail to be as offensive to your lordship as it was to myself. He went on:) No, itās none of that with Sir Julian. Very few 184 visitors at night, and always gentlemen. And going early as a rule, like the one I mentioned.
Bunter: Just as well. Thereās nothing I find more wearisome, Mr. Cummings, than sitting up to see visitors out.
Cummings: Oh, I didnāt see this one out. Sir Julian let him out himself at ten oāclock or thereabouts. I heard the gentleman shout āGood-nightā and off he goes.
Bunter: Does Sir Julian always do that?
Cummings: Well, that depends. If he sees visitors downstairs, he lets them out himself: if he sees them upstairs in the library, he rings for me.
Bunter: This was a downstairs visitor, then?
Cummings: Oh, yes. Sir Julian opened the door to him, I remember. He happened to be working in the hall. Though now I come to think of it, they went up to the library afterwards. Thatās funny. I know they did, because I happened to go up to the hall with coals, and I heard them upstairs. Besides, Sir Julian rang for me in the library a few minutes later. Still, anyway, we heard him go at ten, or it may have been a bit before. He hadnāt only stayed about three-quarters of an hour. However, as I was saying, there was Sir Julian banging in and out of the private door all night, and a bath at three in the morning, and up again for breakfast at eightāit beats me. If I had all his money, curse me if Iād go poking about with dead men in the middle of the night. Iād find something better to do with my time, eh, Mr. Bunterā 185
I need not repeat any more of his conversation, as it became unpleasant and incoherent, and I could not bring him back to the events of Monday night. I was unable to get rid of him till three. He cried on my neck, and said I was the bird, and you were the governor for him. He said that Sir Julian would be greatly annoyed with him for coming home so late, but Sunday night was his night out and if anything was said about it he would give notice. I think he will be ill-advised to do so, as I feel he is not a man I could conscientiously recommend if I were in Sir Julian Frekeās place. I noticed that his boot-heels were slightly worn down.
I should wish to add, as a tribute to the great merits of your lordshipās cellar, that, although I was obliged to drink a somewhat large quantity both of the Cockburn ā68 and the 1800 Napoleon I feel no headache or other ill effects this morning.
Trusting that your lordship is deriving real benefit from the country air, and that the little information I have been able to obtain will prove satisfactory, I remain.
With respectful duty to all the family,
Obediently yours,
Mervyn Bunter.
āYāknow,ā said Lord Peter thoughtfully to himself, āI sometimes think Mervyn Bunterās pullinā my leg. What is it, Soames?ā
āA telegram, my lord.ā
āParker,ā said Lord Peter, opening it. It said: 186
āDescription recognised Chelsea Workhouse. Unknown vagrant injured street accident Wednesday week. Died workhouse Monday. Delivered St. Lukeās same evening by order Freke. Much puzzled. Parker.ā
āHurray!ā said Lord Peter, suddenly sparkling. āIām glad Iāve puzzled Parker. Gives me confidence in myself. Makes me feel like Sherlock Holmes. āPerfectly simple, Watson.ā Dash it all, though! this is a beastly business. Still, itās puzzled Parker.ā
āWhatās the matter?ā asked the Duke, getting up and yawning.
āMarching orders,ā said Peter, āback to town. Many thanks for your hospitality, old birdāIām feelinā no end better. Ready to tackle Professor Moriarty or Leon Kestrel or any of āem.ā
āI do wish youād keep out of the police courts,ā grumbled the Duke. āIt makes it so dashed awkward for me, havinā a brother makinā himself conspicuous.ā
āSorry, Gerald,ā said the other; āI know Iām a beastly blot on the āscutcheon.ā
āWhy canāt you marry and settle down and live quietly, doinā something useful?ā said the Duke, unappeased.
āBecause that was a wash-out as you perfectly well know,ā said Peter; ābesides,ā he added cheerfully, āIām beinā no end useful. You may come to want me yourself, you never know. When anybody comes blackmailinā you, Gerald, or your first deserted wife turns up unexpectedly from the West Indies, youāll realize the pull of havinā a private detective in the 187 family. āDelicate private business arranged with tact and discretion. Investigations undertaken. Divorce evidence a specialty. Every guarantee!ā Come, now.ā
āAss!ā said Lord Denver, throwing the newspaper violently into his armchair. āWhen do you want the car?ā
āAlmost at once. I say, Jerry, Iām taking Mother up with me.ā
āWhy should she be mixed up in it?ā
āWell, I want her help.ā
āI call it most unsuitable,ā said the Duke.
The Dowager Duchess, however, made no objection.
āI used to know her quite well,ā she said, āwhen she was Christine Ford. Why, dear?ā
āBecause,ā said Lord Peter, āthereās a terrible piece of news to be broken to her about her husband.ā
āIs he dead, dear?ā
āYes; and she will have to come and identify him.ā
āPoor Christine.ā
āUnder very revolting circumstances, Mother.ā
āIāll come with you, dear.ā
āThank you, Mother, youāre a brick. Dāyou mind gettinā your things on straight away and cominā up with me? Iāll tell you about it in the car.ā 188
Mr. Parker, a faithful though doubting Thomas, had duly secured his medical student: a large young man like an overgrown puppy, with innocent eyes and a freckled face. He sat on the Chesterfield before Lord Peterās library fire, bewildered in equal measure by his errand, his surroundings and the drink which he was absorbing. His palate, though untutored, was naturally a good one, and he realized that even to call this liquid a drinkāthe term ordinarily used by him to designate cheap whisky, post-war beer or a dubious glass of claret in a Soho restaurantāwas a sacrilege; this was something outside normal experience: a genie in a bottle.
The man called Parker, whom he had happened to run across the evening before in the public-house at the corner of Prince of Wales Road, seemed to be a good sort. He had insisted on bringing him round to see this friend of his, who lived splendidly in Piccadilly. Parker was quite understandable; he put him down as a government servant, or perhaps something in the City. The friend was embarrassing; he was a lord, to begin with, and his clothes were a kind of rebuke to the world at large. He talked the most fatuous nonsense, certainly, but in a disconcerting way. He didnāt dig into a joke and get all the fun out of it; he made it in passing, so to speak, and skipped 189 away to something else before your retort was ready. He had a truly terrible man-servantāthe sort you read about in booksāwho froze the marrow in your bones with silent criticism. Parker appeared to bear up under the strain, and this made you think more highly of Parker; he must be more habituated to the surroundings of the great than you would think to look at him. You wondered what the carpet had cost on which Parker was carelessly spilling cigar ash; your father was an upholstererāMr. Piggott, of Piggott & Piggott, Liverpoolāand you knew enough about carpets to know that you couldnāt even guess at the price of this one. When you moved your head on the bulging silk cushion in the corner of the sofa, it made you wish you shaved more often and more carefully. The sofa was a monsterābut even so, it hardly seemed big enough to contain you. This Lord Peter was not very tallāin fact, he was rather a small man, but he didnāt look undersized. He looked right; he made you feel that to be six-foot-three was rather vulgarly assertive; you felt like Motherās new drawing-room curtainsāall over great big blobs. But everybody was very decent to you, and nobody said anything you couldnāt understand, or sneered at you. There were some frightfully deep-looking books on the shelves all round, and you had looked into a great folio Dante which was lying on the table, but your hosts were talking quite ordinarily and rationally about the sort of books you read yourselfāclinking good love stories and detective stories. You had read a lot of those, and could give an opinion, and they 190 listened to what you had to say, though Lord Peter had a funny way of talking about books, too, as if the author had confided in him beforehand, and told him how the story was put together, and which bit was written first. It reminded you of the way old Freke took a body to pieces.
āThing I object to in detective stories,ā said Mr. Piggott, āis the way fellows remember every bloominā thing thatās happened to āem within the last six months. Theyāre always ready with their time of day and was it raininā or not, and what were they doinā on such anā such a day. Reel it all off like a page of poetry. But one aināt like that in real life, dāyou think so, Lord Peter?ā Lord Peter smiled, and young Piggott, instantly embarrassed, appealed to his earlier acquaintance. āYou know what I mean, Parker. Come now. One dayās so like another, Iām sure I couldnāt rememberāwell, I might remember yesterday, pārāaps, but I couldnāt be certain about what I was doinā last week if I was to be shot for it.ā
āNo,ā said Parker, āand evidence given in police statements sounds just as impossible. But they donāt really get it like that, you know. I mean, a man doesnāt just say, āLast Friday I went out at 10 a.m. to buy a mutton chop. As I was turning into Mortimer Street I noticed a girl of about twenty-two with black hair and brown eyes, wearing a green jumper, check skirt, Panama hat and black shoes, riding a Royal Sunbeam Cycle at about ten miles an hour turning the corner by the Church of St. Simon and St. Jude on the wrong side of the road riding 191 towards the market place!ā It amounts to that, of course, but itās really wormed out of him by a series of questions.ā
āAnd in short stories,ā said Lord Peter, āit has to be put in statement form, because the real conversation would be so long and twaddly and tedious, and nobody would have the patience to read it. Writers have to consider their readers, if any, yāsee.ā
āYes,ā said Mr. Piggott, ābut I bet you most people would find it jolly difficult to remember, even if you asked āem things. I shouldāof course, I know Iām a bit of a fool, but then, most people are, aināt they? You know what I mean. Witnesses aināt detectives, theyāre just average idiots like you and me.ā
āQuite so,ā said Lord Peter, smiling as the force of the last phrase sank into its unhappy perpetrator; āyou mean, if I were to ask you in a general way what you were doināāsay, a week ago today, you wouldnāt be able to tell me a thing about it offhand?ā
āNoāIām
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