“Of course not,” said Bunter, “but it’s very fortunate as it turns out that Mr. Urquhart should have understood his duty so well. Many’s the case his lordship has seen in which an innocent man has been brought near to the gallows for lack of a simple little precaution like that.”
“And when I think how near Mr. Urquhart was to being away from ’ome at the time,” said Mrs. Pettican, “the thought fair gives me palpitations. Called away, he was, to that tiresome old woman what’s always a-dying and never dies. Why, he’s there now – Mrs. Wrayburn, up in Windle. Rich as Sneezes, she is, by all accounts, and no good to nobody, for she’s gone quite childish, so they say. A wicked old woman she was, too, in ’er day, and ’er other relations wouldn’t ’ave nothink to do with ’er, only Mr. Urquhart, and I don’t suppose ’e wouldn’t, neither, only ’e’s her solicitor and it’s his duty so to do.”
“Duty does not always lie in pleasant places,” commented Mr. Bunter, “as you and I well know, Mrs. Pettican.”
“Them that are rich,” said Hannah Westlock, “find no difficulty about getting their duties performed for them. Which I will make bold to say, Mrs. Wrayburn would not have done if she had been poor, great-aunt or no great-aunt, knowing Mr. Urquhart.”
“Ah!” said Bunter.
“I pass no comments,” said Miss Westlock, “but you and me, Mr. Bunter, know how the world goes.”
“I suppose Mr. Urquhart stands to gain something when the old woman does peg out,” suggested Bunter.
“That’s as may be; he’s not a talker,” said Hannah, “but it stands to reason he wouldn’t be always giving up his time and tearing off to Westmorland for nothing. Though I wouldn’t care myself to put my hand to money that’s wickedly come by. It would not bring a blessing with it, Mr. Bunter.”
“It’s easy talking, my girl, when you ain’t likely to be put in the way of temptation,” said Mrs. Pettican. “There’s many great families in the Kingdom what never would a bin ’eard of if somebody ’adn’t bin a little easier in their ways than what we’ve bin brought up to. There’s skelintons in a many cupboards if the truth was known.”
“Ah!” said Bunter, “I believe you. I’ve seen diamond necklaces and fur coats that should have been labelled Wages of Sin if deeds done in the dark were to be proclaimed upon the house-tops, Mrs. Pettican. And there are families that hold their heads high that wouldn’t ever have existed but for some king or other taking his amusements on the wrong side of the blanket as the old saying goes.”
“They say as some that was high up wasn’t too high to take notice of old Mrs. Wrayburn in her young days,” said Hannah, darkly. “Queen Victoria wouldn’t never allow her to act before the Royal Family – she knew too much about her goings-on.”
“An actress, was she?”
“ And a very beautiful one, they say, though I can’t rightly recollect what her stage name was,” mused Mrs. Pettican. “It was a queer one, I know – ’ Yde Park, or somethink of that. This Wrayburn as she married, ’e was nobody -jest to kiver up the scandal, that’s what he married ’im for. Two children she ’ad – but ’ose I would not take it upon me to say – and they both died in the cholera, which no doubt it was a judgment.”
“That’s not what Mr. Boyes called it,” said Hannah, with a self-righteous sniff. “The devil took care of his own, that was his way of putting it.”
“Ah! he talked careless,” said Mrs. Pettican, “and no wonder, seeing the folks he lived with. But he’d a sobered down in time if he’d bin spared. A very pleasant way he ’ad with ’im when ’e liked. Come in here, he would, and chat upon one thing and another, very amusing-like.”
“You’re too soft with the gentlemen, Mrs. Pettican,” said Hannah. “Anyone as has taking ways and poor health is ewelambs to you.”
“So Mr. Boyes knew all about Mrs. Wrayburn?”
“Oh, yes – it was all in the family, you see, and no doubt Mr. Urquhart would ’a told him more than he’d say to us. Which train did Mr. Urquhart say he was acomin’ by, Hannah?”
“He said dinner for half-past seven. That’ll be the six-thirty, I should think.”
Mrs. Pettican glanced at the clock and Bunter, taking this as a hint, rose and made his farewells.
“And I ’opes as you’ll come again, Mr. Bunter,” said the Cook, graciously. “The master makes no objections to respectable gentlemen visitors at tea-time. Wednesday is my ’arf-day.”
“Mine is Friday,” added Hannah, “and every other Sunday. If you should be Evangelical, Mr. Bunter, the Rev. Crawford in Judd Street is a beautiful preacher. But maybe you’ll be going out of town for Christmas.”
Mr. Bunter replied that the season would undoubtedly be spent at Duke’s Denver, and departed in a shining halo of vicarious splendour.
CHAPTER X
“Here you are, Peter,” said Chief Inspector Parker, “and here is the lady you are anxious to meet. Mrs. Bulfinch, allow me to introduce Lord Peter Wimsey.”
“Pleased, I am sure,” said Mrs. Bulfinch. She giggled, and dabbed her large, blonde face with powder.
“Mrs. Bulfinch, before her union with Mr. Bulfinch, was the life and soul of the saloon bar at the Nine Rings in Grays Inn Road,” said Mr. Parker, “and well known to all for her charm and wit.”
“Go on,” said Mrs. Bulfinch, “you’re a one, aren’t you? Don’t you pay no attention to him, your lordship. You know what these police fellows are.”
“Sad dogs,” said Wimsey, shaking his head. “But I don’t need his testimonials, I can trust my own eyes and ears, Mrs. Bulfinch, and I can only say that, if I had had the happiness to make your acquaintance before it was too late, it would have been my life-time’s ambition to wipe Mr. Bulfinch’s eye.”
“You’re every bit as bad as he is,” said Mrs. Bulfinch, highly gratified, “and what Bulfinch would say to you I don’t know. Quite upset, he was, when the officer came round to ask me to pop along to the Yard. ‘I don’t like it, Gracie,’ he says, ‘we’ve always bin respectable in this house and no trouble with disorderlies nor drinks after hours, and once you get among them fellows you don’t know the things you may be asked.’ ‘Don’t be so soft,’ I tells him, ‘the boys all know me and they haven’t got nothing against me, and if it’s just to tell them about the gentleman that left the packet behind him at the Rings, I haven’t no objection to tell them, having nothing to reproach myself with. What’d they think,’ I said, ‘if I refused to go? Ten to one they’d think there was something funny about it.’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I’m coming with you.’ ‘Oh, are you?’ I says, ‘and how about the new barman you was going to engage this morning? For,’ I said, ‘serve in the jug and bottle I will not, never having been accustomed to it, so you can do as you like.’ So I came away and left him to it. Mind you, I like him for it. I ain’t saying nothing against Bulfinch, but police or no police, I reckon I know how to take care of myself.”
“Quite so,” said Parker, patiently. “Mr. Bulfinch need feel no alarm. All we want you to do is to tell us, to the best of your recollection, about that young man you spoke of and help us to find the white-paper packet. You may be able to save an innocent person from being convicted, and I am sure your husband could not object to that.”
“Poor thing!” said Mrs. Bulfinch, “I’m sure when I read the account of the trial I said to Bulfinch -”
“Just a moment. If you wouldn’t mind beginning at the beginning, Mrs. Bulfinch, Lord Peter would understand better what you have to tell us.”
“Why, of course. Well, my lord, before I was married I was barmaid at the Nine Rings, as the Chief-Inspector says. Miss Montague I was then – it’s a better name than Bulfinch, and I was almost sorry to say good-bye to it, but there! a girl has to make a lot of sacrifices when she marries and one more or less is nothing to signify. I never worked there but in the saloon bar, for I wouldn’t undertake the four ale business, it not being a refined neighbourhood, though there’s a lot of very nice legal gentlemen drops in of an evening on the saloon side. Well, as I was saying, I was working there up to my marriage, which was last August Bank Holiday, and I remember one evening a gentleman coming in -”