“Oh, God, Bunter – don’t break it gently. I can’t bear it. Stab and end the creature – to the heft! What is it?”

“I wished to ask you, my lord, whether your lordship thought of making any changes in your establishment?”

Wimsey laid down his pen and stared at the man.

“Changes, Bunter? When I have just so eloquently expressed to you my undying attachment to the loved routine of coffee, bath, razor, socks, eggs and bacon and the old, familiar faces? You’re not giving me warning, are you?”

“No, indeed, my lord. I should be very sorry to leave your lordship’s service. But I had thought it possible that, if your lordship was about to contract new ties -”

“I knew it was something in the haberdashery line! By all means, Bunter, if you think it necessary. Had you any particular pattern in mind?”

“Your lordship misunderstands me. I referred to domestic ties, my lord. Sometimes when a gentleman reorganizes his household on a matrimonial basis, the lady may prefer to have a voice in the selection of the gentleman’s personal attendant, in which case -”

“Bunter!” said Wimsey, considerably startled, “may I ask where you have contracted these ideas?”

“I ventured to draw an inference, my lord.”

“This comes of training people to be detectives. Have I been nourishing a sleuth-hound on my own hearth-stone? May I ask if you have gone so far as to give a name to the lady?”

“Yes, my lord.”

There was a pause.

“Well?” said Wimsey, in a rather subdued tone, “what about it, Bunter?”

“A very agreeable lady, if I may say so, my lord.”

“It strikes you that way, does it? The circumstances are unusual, of course.”

“Yes, my lord. I might perhaps make so bold as to call them romantic.”

“You may make so bold as to call them damnable, Bunter.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Bunter, in a tone of sympathy.

“You won’t desert the ship, Bunter?”

“Not on any account, my lord.”

“Then don’t come frightening me again. My nerves are not what they were. Here is the note. Take it round and do your best.”

“Very good, my lord.”

“Oh, and, Bunter.”

“My lord?”

“It seems that I am being obvious. I have no wish to be anything of the kind. If you see me being obvious, will you drop a hint?”

“Certainly, my lord.”

Bunter faded gently out, and Wimsey stepped anxiously to the mirror.

“I can’t see anything,” he said to himself. “No lily on my cheek with anguish moist and fever-dew. I suppose, though, it’s hopeless to try and deceive Bunter. Never mind. Business must come first. I’ve stopped one, two, three, four earths. What next? How about this fellow Vaughan?”

When Wimsey had any researches to do in Bohemia, it was his custom to enlist the help of Miss Marjorie Phelps. She made figurines in porcelain for a living, and was therefore usually to be found either in her studio or in some one else’s studio. A telephone-call at 10 a.m. would probably catch her scrambling eggs over her own gas-stove. It was true that there had been passages, about the time of the Bellona Club affair, between her and Lord Peter which made it a little embarrassing and unkind to bring her in on the subject of Harriet Vane, but with so little time in which to pick and choose his tools, Wimsey was past worrying about gentlemanly scruples.

**See The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, published 1928.

He put the call through and was relieved to hear an answering “Hullo!”

“Hullo, Marjorie! This is Peter Wimsey. How goes it?”

“Oh, fine, thanks. Glad to hear your melodious voice again. What can I do for the Lord High Investigator?”

“Do you know one Vaughan, who is mixed up in the Philip Boyes murder mystery?!

“Oh, Peter! Are you on to that? How gorgeous! Which side are you taking?”

“For the defence.”

“Hurray!”

“Why this pomp of jubilee?”

“Well, it’s much more exciting and difficult, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid it is. Do you know Miss Vane, by the way?”

“Yes and no. I’ve seen her with the Boyes-Vaughan crowd.”

“Like her?”

“So-so.”

“Like him? Boyes, I mean?”

“Never stirred a heartbeat.”

“I said, did you like him?”

“One didn’t. One either fell for him or not. He wasn’t the merry bright-eyed pal of the period, you know.”

“Oh! What’s Vaughan?”

“Hanger-on.”

“Oh?”

“House-dog. Nothing must interfere with the expansion of my friend the genius. That sort.”

“Oh!”

“Don’t keep saying ‘Oh!’ Do you want to meet the man Vaughan?”

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Well, turn up to-night with a taxi and we’ll go the rounds. We’re certain to drop across him somewhere. Also the rival gang, if you want them – Harriet Vane’s supporters.”

“Those girls who gave evidence?”

“Yes. You’ll like Eiluned Price, I think, she scorns everything in trousers, but she’s a good friend at a pinch.”

“I’ll come, Marjorie. Will you dine with me?”

“Peter, I’d adore to, but I don’t think I will. I’ve got an awful lot to do.”

“Right-ho! I’ll roll round about nine, then.”

Accordingly, at 9 o’clock, Wimsey found himself in a taxi with Marjorie Phelps, headed for a round of the studios.

“I’ve been doing some intensive telephoning,” said Marjorie, “and I think we shall find him at the Kropotkys’. They are pro-Boyes, Bolshevik and musical, and their drinks are bad, but their Russian tea is safe. Does the taxi wait?”

“Yes, it sounds as if we might want to beat a retreat.”

“Well, it’s nice to be rich. It’s down the court here, on the right, over the Petrovitchs’ stable. Better let me grope first.”

They stumbled up a narrow and encumbered stair, at the top of which a fine confused noise of a piano, strings and the clashing of kitchen utensils announced that some sort of entertainment was in progress.

Marjorie hammered loudly on a door, and, without waiting for an answer, flung it open. Wimsey, entering on her heels, was struck in the face, as by an open hand, by a thick muffling wave of heat, sound, smoke and the smell of frying.

It was a very small room, dimly lit by a single electric bulb, smothered in a lantern of painted glass, and it was packed to suffocation with people, whose silk legs, bare arms and pallid faces loomed at him like glow-worms out of the obscurity. Coiling wreaths of tobacco-smoke swam slowly to and fro in the midst. In one corner an anthracite stove, glowing red and mephitical, vied with a roaring gasoven in another corner to raise the atmosphere to roasting-pitch. On the stove stood a vast and steaming kettle; on a side-table stood a vast and steaming samovar; over the gas, a dim figure stood turning sausages in a pan with a fork, while an assistant attended to something in the oven, which Wimsey, whose nose was selective, identified among the other fragrant elements in this compound atmosphere, and identified rightly, as kippers. At the piano, which stood just inside the door, a young man with bushy red hair was playing something of a Czecho-Slovakian flavour, to a violin obligate by an extremely loose-jointed person of indeterminate sex in a Fair-Isle jumper. Nobody looked round at their entrance. Marjorie picked her way over the scattered limbs on the floor and, selecting a lean young woman in red, bawled into her ear. The young woman nodded and beckoned to Wimsey. He negotiated a passage and was introduced to the lean woman by the simple formula: “Here’s Peter – this is Nina Kropotky.” “So pleased,” shouted Madame Kropotky through the clamour. “Sit by me. Vanya will get you something to drink. It is beautiful, yes? That is Stanislas – such a genius – his new work on the Piccadilly Tube Station – great, n’est-ce pas? Five days he was continually travelling upon the escalator to absorb the tone-values.”

“Colossal!” yelled Wimsey.

“So – you think? Ah! you can appreciate! You understand it is really for the big orchestra. On the piano it is nothing. It needs the brass, the effects, the timpani-b’rrrrrrr! So! But one seizes the form, the outline! Ah! it finishes! Superb! Magnificent!”