“Well, it’s a good thing we’ve all read them,” said Wimsey. “Forewarned is forearmed.”
“We owe a great debt of gratitude to the press,” said the Dowager Duchess, “so kind of them to pick out all the plums for us and save the trouble of reading the books, don’t you think, and such a joy for the poor dear people who can’t afford seven-and-sixpence, or even a library subscription, I suppose, though I’m sure that works out cheaply enough if one is a quick reader. Not that the cheap ones will take those books for I asked my maid, such a superior girl and so keen on improving her mind, which is more than I can say for most of my friends, but no doubt it is all due to free education for the people and I suspect her in my heart of voting labour though I never ask because I don’t think it’s fair, and besides, if I did, I couldn’t very well take any notice of it, could I?”
“Still, I don’t suppose the young woman murdered him on that account,” said her daughter-in-law. “From all accounts she was just as bad as he was.”
“Oh, come,” said Wimsey, “you can’t think that, Helen. Damn it, she writes detective stories and in detective stories virtue is always triumphant. They’re the purest literature we have.”
“The devil is always ready to quote scripture when it pays him to do so,” said the younger Duchess, “and they say the wretched woman’s sales are going up by leaps and bounds.”
“It’s my belief,” said Mr. Harringay, “that the whole thing is a publicity stunt gone wrong.” He was a large, jovial man, extremely rich and connected with the City. “You never know what these advertising fellows are up to.”
“Well, it looks like a case of hanging the goose that lays the golden eggs this time,” said Captain Bates, with a loud laugh. “Unless Wimsey means to pull off one of his conjuring tricks.”
“I hope he does,” said Miss Titterton. “I adore detective stories. I’d commute the sentence to penal servitude on condition that she turned out a new story every six months. It would be much more useful than picking oakum or sewing mail-bags for the post-office to mislay.”
“Aren’t you being a bit previous?” suggested Wimsey, mildly. “She’s not convicted yet.”
“But she will be next time. You can’t fight facts, Peter.”
“Of course not,” said Captain Bates. The police know what they’re about. They don’t put people into the dock if there isn’t something pretty shady about ’em,”
Now this was a fearful brick, for it was not so many years since the Duke of Denver had himself stood his trial on a mistaken charge of murder. There was a ghastly silence, broken by the Duchess, who said icily: “Really, Captain Bates!”
“What? eh? Oh, of course, I mean to say, I know mistakes do happen sometimes, but that’s a very different thing. I mean to say, this woman, with no morals at all, that is, I mean -”
“Have a drink, Tommy,” said Lord Peter, kindly. “You aren’t quite up to your usual standard of tact today.”
“No, but do tell us, Lord Peter,” cried Mrs. Dimsworthy, “what the creature is like. Have you talked to her? I thought she had rather a nice voice, though she’s as plain as a pancake.”
“Nice voice, Freakie? Oh, no,” said Mrs. Featherstone. “I should have called it rather sinister. It absolutely thrilled me, I got shudders all the way down my spine. A genuine frisson. And I think she would be quite attractive, with those queer, smudgy eyes, if she were properly dressed. A sort of femme fatale, you know. Does she try to hypnotise you, Peter?”
“I saw in the papers,” said Miss Titterton, “that she had had hundreds of offers of marriage.”
“Out of one noose into the other,” said Harringay, with his noisy laugh.
“I don’t think I should care to marry a murderess,” said Miss Titterton, “especially one that’s been trained on detective stories. One would be always wondering whether there was anything funny about the taste of the coffee.”
“Oh, these people are all mad,” said Mrs. Dimsworthy. “They have a morbid longing for notoriety. It’s like the lunatics who make spurious confessions and give themselves up for crimes they haven’t committed.”
“A murderess might make quite a good wife,” said Harringay. “There was Madeleine Smith, you know – she used arsenic too, by the way – she married somebody and lived happily to a respectable old age.”
“But did her husband live to a respectable old age?” demanded Miss Titterton. “That’s more to the point, isn’t it?”
“Once a poisoner, always a poisoner, I believe,” said Mrs. Featherstone. “It’s a passion that grows upon you – like drink or drugs.”
“It’s the intoxicating sensation of power,” said Mrs. Dimsworthy. “But, Lord Peter, do tell us -”
“Peter!” said his mother, “I do wish you’d go and see what’s happened to Gerald. Tell him his tea is getting cold. I think he’s in the stables talking to Freddy about thrush or cracked heels or something, so tiresome the way horses are always getting something the matter with them. You haven’t trained Gerald properly, Helen, he used to be quite punctual as a boy. Peter was always the tiresome one, but he’s becoming almost human in his old age. It’s that wonderful man of his who keeps him in order, really a remarkable character and so intelligent, quite one of the old sort, you know, a perfect autocrat, and such manners too. He would be worth thousands to an American millionaire, most impressive, I wonder Peter isn’t afraid he’ll give warning one of these days, but I really believe he is positively attached to him, Bunter attached to Peter, I mean, though the other way on would be true too, I’m sure Peter pays more attention to his opinion than he does to mine.”
Wimsey had escaped, and was by now on his way to the stables. He met Gerald, Duke of Denver, returning, with Freddy Arbuthnot in tow. The former received the Dowager’s message with a grin.
“Got to turn up, I suppose,” he said. “I wish nobody had ever invented tea. Ruins your nerves and spoils your appetite for dinner.”
“Beastly sloppy stuff,” agreed the Hon. Freddy. “I say, Peter, I’ve been wanting to get hold of you.”
“Same here,” said Wimsey, promptly. “I’m feelin’ rather exhausted with conversation. Let’s wander through the billiard-room and build our constitutions up before we face the barrage.”
“Today’s great thought,” said Freddy, enthusiastically. He pattered happily after Wimsey into the billiard-room, and flung himself down in a large chair. “Great bore, Christmas, isn’t it? All the people one hates most gathered together in the name of goodwill and all that.”
“Bring a couple of whiskies,” said Wimsey to the footman. “And, James, if anybody asks for Mr. Arbuthnot or me, you rather think we have gone out. Well, Freddy, here’s luck! Has anything transpired, as the journalists say?”
“I’ve been sleuthing like stink on the tracks of your man,” said Mr. Arbuthnot. “Really, don’t you know, I shall soon be qualified to set up in your line of business. Our financial column, edited by Uncle Buthie – that sort of thing. Friend Urquhart has been very careful, though, bound to be – respectable family lawyer and all that. But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.”
“Are you sure, Freddy?”
“Well, not to say sure. But this man, you see, owes me one, so to speak, for having warned him off the Megatherium before the band began to play, and he thinks, if he can get hold of the chappie that knows, not the fellow that told him, you understand, but the other one, that he might be able to get something out of him, don’t you see, especially if I was able to put this other chappie in the way of something or the other, what?”
“And no doubt you have secrets to sell.”
“Oh, well, I daresay I could make it worth this other chappie’s while, because I’ve got an idea, through this other fellow that my bloke knows, that the chappie is rather up against it, as you might say, through being caught short on some Airways stock, and if I was to put him in touch with Goldberg, don’t you see, it might get him out of a hole and so on. And Goldberg will be all right, because, don’t you see, he’s a cousin of old Levy’s, who was murdered, you know, and all these Jews stick together like leeches and as a matter of fact, I think it’s very fine of them.”