‘What’s the joke?’ said Peter. The tottering cards immediately slid apart, and he damned them fretfully. Then; his face suddenly relaxed, and the familiar, sidelong smile lifted the corner of his mouth.

‘I was seeing the funny side of it,’ said Harriet, apologetically. ‘This looks not like a nuptial.’

‘True, O God!’ said he, ruefully. He got up and came over to her. ‘I rather think,’ he observed in a detached and dubious manner, ‘I am behaving like a lout.’

‘Do you? Then all I can say is, your notion of loutishness is exceedingly feeble and limited. You simply don’t know how to begin.’

He was not comforted by her mockery. ‘I didn’t mean things to be like this,’ he said, lamely.

‘My dear cuckoo-’

‘I wanted it all to be wonderful for you.’

She waited for him to find his own answer to this, which he did with disarming swiftness.

‘That’s vanity, I suppose. Take pen and ink and write it down. His lordship is in the enjoyment of very low spirits, owing to his inexplicable inability to bend Providence to his own designs.’

‘Shall I tell your mother so?*

‘Are you writing to her? Good Lord, I never thought about it, but I’m dashed glad you did. Poor old Mater, she’ll be horribly upset about it all. She’d got it firmly into her head that to be married to her white-headed boy meant an untroubled Elysium, world without end, amen. Strange, that one’s own mother should know so little about one.’

‘Your mother is the most sensible woman I ever met. She has a much better grasp of the facts of life than you have.’ Has she?’

‘Yes, of course. By the way, you don’t insist on a husband’s rights to read his wife’s letters?’

‘Great heavens, no!’ said Peter, horrified.

‘I’m glad of that. It mightn’t be good for you. Here’s Bunter coming back; we may get some tea. Mrs Ruddle is in such a state of excitement that she has probably boiled the milk and put the tea-leaves into the sandwiches. I ought to have stood over her till she’d finished.’

‘Blow Mrs Ruddle!’

‘By all means-but I expect Bunter is doing that already.’ The precipitate entry of Mrs Ruddle with the tea-tray gave weight to the supposition.

‘Which,’ said Mrs Ruddle, setting down her burden with a rattle on a small table before the fire, ‘I’d a-brought it before, if it wasn’t the policeman from Broxford come abusting in, jest as I was makin’ of the toast. Me ‘eart come into me mouth, thinkin’ summink ‘orrible ‘ ad ‘appened.

But it ain’t only summingses from the coroner. Quite a bunch of ‘em ‘e ‘ad in ‘is ‘and, and these ‘ere is yours.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Peter, breaking the seal. ‘They’ve been pretty quick. “To wit-To Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey. By virtue of a Warrant under the Hand and Seal of John Perkins”-all right, Mrs Ruddle, you needn’t wait.’

‘Mr Perkins the lawyer, that is,’ explained Mrs Ruddle. ‘A very nice gentleman, so I’m told, though I ain’t never seen ‘im to speak to.’

‘ “… one of His Majesty’s coroners for the said county of Hertfordshire to be and appear before him on Thursday the tenth day of October”… you’ll see him and hear him tomorrow all right, Mrs Ruddle… “at 11 o’clock in the forenoon precisely at the Coroner’s Court at the Crown Inn situate in the parish of Paggleham in the said County; then I and there to give Evidence and be examined on. His Majesty’s behalf, touching the death of William Noakes, and a not to depart without leave.”’

I ‘That’s all very fine,’ observed Mrs Ruddle, ‘but ‘oo’s to give my Bert ‘is dinner? Twelve o’clock’s ‘is time, and I ain’t a-goin’ to see my Bert go ‘ungry, not for King George nor nobody.’

‘Bert will have to get on without you, I’m afraid,’ said Peter, solemnly. ‘You see what it says: “Herein fail not at your peril.”’

‘Lor’ now,’ said Mrs Ruddle. ‘Peril of what, I should like to know?’

‘Prison,’ said Peter, in an awful voice.

‘Me go to prison?’ cried Mrs Ruddle, in great indignation. ‘That’s a nice thing for a respectable woman.’

‘Surely you could get a friend to see to Bert’s dinner,’ suggested Harriet

‘Well,’ said Mrs Ruddle, dubiously, ‘maybe Mrs ‘Odges would oblige. But I’m thinkin’ she’ll want to come and ‘ear wot’s going on at the ‘quest. But there! I dessay I could make a pie tonight and leave it out for Bert.’ She retreated thoughtfully to the door, returning to say, in a hoarse whisper: ‘Will I ‘ave to tell ‘im about the paraffin?’

‘I shouldn’t think so.’

‘Oh!’ said Mrs Ruddle. ‘Not as there’s anything wrong in borrowin’ a drop of paraffin, w’en it’s easy replaced. But them there pleecemen do twist a woman’s words so.’

‘I shouldn’t think you need worry,’ said Harriet. ‘Shut the door, please, as you go out.’

‘Yes, my lady,’ said Mrs Ruddle; and vanished with unexpected docility.

‘If I know anything about Kirk,’ said Peter, ‘they’ll adjourn the inquest, so it shouldn’t take very long.’

‘No. I’m glad John Perkins has been so prompt-we shan’t get such a crowd of reporters and people.’

‘Shall you mind the reporters very much?’

‘Not nearly as much as you will. Don’t be so tragic about it, Peter. Make up your mind that the joke’s on us, this time.’

‘It’s that, right enough. Helen’s going to make a grand cockadoodle over this.’

‘Well, let her. She doesn’t look as though she got much fun out of life, poor woman. After all, she can’t alter the facts. I mean, here I am, you know, pouring out tea for you ~ from a chipped spout, admittedly-but I’m here.’

‘I don’t suppose she envies you that job. I’m not exactly Helen’s cup of tea.’

‘She’d never enjoy any tea-she’d always be thinking about the chips.’

‘Helen doesn’t allow chips.’

‘No-she’d insist on silver-even if the pot was empty.

Have some more tea. I can’t help its dribbling into the saucer. It’s the sign of a generous nature, or an overflowing heart, or something.’

Peter accepted the tea and drank it in silence. He was still dissatisfied with himself. It was as though he had invited the woman of his choice to sit down with him at the feast of life, only to discover that his table had not been reserved for him. Men, in these mortifying circumstances, commonly find fault with the waiter, grumble at the food and irritably reject every effort to restore pleasantness to the occasion. From the worst exhibitions of injured self-conceit, his good manners were sufficient to restrain him. but the mere fact that he knew himself to be in fault made it all the more difficult for him to recover spontaneity. Harriet watched his inner conflict sympathetically. If both of them had been ten years younger, the situation would have resolved itself in a row, tears and reconciling embraces; but for them, that path was plainly marked, no exit. There was no help for it; he must get out of his sulks as best he could. Having inflicted her own savage moods upon him for a good five years, she

‘ was in no position to feel aggrieved; compared with herself, indeed, he was making a pretty good showing.

He pushed the tea-things aside and lit cigarettes for both of them. Then, rubbing fretfully upon the old sore, he said:

‘You show commendable patience with my bad temper.’

‘Is that what you call it? I’ve seen tempers in comparison with which you’d call that a burst of heavenly harmony.’

‘Whatever it is, you are trying to natter me out of it.’

‘Not at all.’ (Very well, he was asking for it; better use shock tactics and carry the place by assault.) ‘I’m only trying to tell you, in the nicest possible manner, that, provided I were with you, I shouldn’t greatly mind being deaf, dumb, halt, blind and imbecile, afflicted with shingles and whooping-cough, in an open boat without clothes or food, with a thunderstorm coming on. But you’re being painfully stupid about it.’

‘Oh, my dear!’ he said, desperately, and with a very red face, ‘what the devil am I to say to that? Except that I shouldn’t mind anything either. Only I can’t help feeling that it’s I that have somehow been idiot enough to launch the infernal boat, call up the storm, strip you naked, jettison the cargo, strike you lame and senseless and infect you with whooping-cough and-what was the other thing?’