This was an unhoped-for lead. The Duchess walked warily.
«Dear boy,» she said, «I am so glad you met him, Mr. Milligan. Both my sons are a great comfort to me, you know, though, of course, Gerald is more conventional — just the right kind of person for the House of Lords, you know, and a splendid farmer. I can't see Peter down at Denver half so well, though he is always going to all the right things in town, and very amusing sometimes, poor boy.»
«I was very much gratified by Lord Peter's suggestion,» pursued Mr. Milligan, «for which I understand you are responsible, and I'll surely be very pleased to come any day you like, though I think you're flattering me too much.»
«Ah, well,» said the Duchess, «I don't know if you're the best judge of that, Mr. Milligan. Not that I know anything about business myself,» she added. «I'm rather old-fashioned for these days, you know, and I can't pretend to do more than know a nice man when I see him; for the other things I rely on my son.»
The accent of this speech was so flattering that Mr. Milligan purred almost audibly, and said:
«Well, Duchess, I guess that's where a lady with a real, beautiful, old-fashioned soul has the advantage of these modern young blatherskites — there aren't many men who wouldn't be nice — to her, and even then, if they aren't rock-bottom she can see through them.»
«But that leaves me where I was,» thought the Duchess. «I believe,» she said aloud, «that I ought to be thanking you in the name of the vicar of Duke's Denver for a very munificent cheque which reached him yesterday for the Church Restoration Fund. He was so delighted and astonished, poor dear man.»
«Oh, that's nothing,» said Mr. Milligan, «we haven't any fine old crusted buildings like yours over on our side, so it's a privilege to be allowed to drop a little kerosene into the worm-holes when we hear of one in the old country suffering from senile decay. So when your lad told me about Duke's Denver I took the liberty to subscribe without waiting for the Bazaar.»
«I'm sure it was very kind of you,» said the Duchess. «You are coming to the Bazaar, then?» she continued, gazing into his face appealingly.
«Sure thing,» said Mr. Milligan, with great promptness. «Lord Peter said you'd let me know for sure about the date, but we can always make time for a little bit of good work anyway. Of course I'm hoping to be able to avail myself of your kind invitation to stop, but if I'm rushed, I'll manage anyhow to pop over and speak my piece and pop back again.»
«I hope so very much,» said the Duchess. «I must see what can be done about the date — of course, I can't promise — »
«No, no,» said Mr. Milligan heartily. «I know what these things are to fix up. And then there's not only me — there's Nat Rothschild and Cadbury, and all the other names your son mentioned, to be consulted.»
The Duchess turned pale at the thought that any one of these illustrious persons might some time turn up in somebody's drawing-room, but by this time she had dug herself in comfortably, and was even beginning to find her range.
«I can't say how grateful we are to you,» she said, «it will be such a treat. Do tell me what you think of saying.»
«Well —» began Mr. Milligan.
Suddenly everybody was standing up and a penitent voice was heard to say:
«Really, most awfully sorry, y'know — hope you'll forgive me, Lady Swaffham, what? Dear lady, could I possibly forget an invitation from you? Fact is, I had to go an' see a man down in Salisbury — absolutely true, 'pon my word, and the fellow wouldn't let me get away. I'm simply grovellin' before you, Lady Swaffham. Shall I go an' eat my lunch in the corner?»
Lady Swaffham gracefully forgave the culprit.
«Your dear mother is here,» she said.
«How do, Mother?» said Lord Peter, uneasily.
«How are you, dear?» replied the Duchess. «You really oughtn't to have turned up just yet. Mr. Milligan was just going to tell me what a thrilling speech he's preparing for the Bazaar, when you came and interrupted us.»
Conversation at lunch turned, not unnaturally, on the Battersea inquest, the Duchess giving a vivid impersonation of Mrs. Thipps being interrogated by the Coroner.
«“Did you hear anything unusual in the night?” says the little man, leaning forward and screaming at her, and so crimson in the face and his ears sticking out so — just like a cherubim in that poem of Tennyson's — or is a cherub blue? — perhaps it's seraphim I mean — anyway, you know what I mean, all eyes, with little wings on its head. And dear old Mrs. Thipps saying, “Of course I have, any time these eighty years”, and such a sensation in court till they found out she thought he'd said, “Do you sleep without a light?” and everybody laughing, and then the Coroner said quite loudly, “Damn the woman”, and she heard that, I can't think why, and said: “Don't you get swearing, young man, sitting there in the presence of Providence, as you may say. I don't know what young people are coming to nowadays” — and he's sixty if he's a day, you know,» said the Duchess.
By a natural transition, Mrs. Tommy Frayle referred to the man who was hanged for murdering three brides in a bath.
«I always thought that was so ingenious,» she said, gazing soulfully at Lord Peter, «and do you know, as it happened, Tommy had just made me insure my life, and I got so frightened, I gave up my morning bath and took to having it in the afternoon when he was in the House — I mean, when he was not in the house — not at home, I mean.»
«Dear lady,» said Lord Peter, reproachfully, «I have a distinct recollection that all those brides were thoroughly unattractive. But it was an uncommonly ingenious plan — the first time of askin' — only he shouldn't have repeated himself.»
«One demands a little originality in these days, even from murderers,» said Lady Swaffham. «Like dramatists, you know — so much easier in Shakespeare's time, wasn't it? Always the same girl dressed up as a man, and even that borrowed from Boccaccio or Dante or somebody. I'm sure if I'd been a Shakespeare hero, the very minute I saw a slim-legged young page-boy I'd have said: “Ods-bodikins! There's that girl again!” »
«That's just what happened, as a matter of fact,» said Lord Peter. «You see, Lady Swaffham, if ever you want to commit a murder, the thing you've got to do is to prevent people from associatin' their ideas. Most people don't associate anythin' — their ideas just roll about like so many dry peas on a tray, makin' a lot of noise and goin' nowhere, but once you begin lettin' 'em string their peas into a necklace, it's goin' to be strong enough to hang you, what?»
«Dear me!» said Mrs. Tommy Frayle, with a little scream, «what a blessing it is none of my friends have any ideas at all!»
«Y'see,» said Lord Peter, balancing a piece of duck on his fork and frowning, «it's only in Sherlock Holmes and stories like that, that people think things out logically. Or'nar'ly, if somebody tells you somethin' out of the way, you just say, “By Jove!” or “How sad!” an' leave it at that, an' half the time you forget about it, 'nless somethin' turns up afterwards to drive it home. F'r instance, Lady Swaffham, I told you when I came in that I'd been down to Salisbury, 'n' that's true, only I don't suppose it impressed you much; 'n' I don't suppose it'd impress you much if you read in the paper to-morrow of a tragic discovery of a dead lawyer down in Salisbury, but if I went to Salisbury again next week 'n' there was a Salisbury doctor found dead the day after, you might begin to think I was a bird of ill omen for Salisbury residents; and if I went there again the week after, 'n' you heard next day that the see of Salisbury had fallen vacant suddenly, you might begin to wonder what took me to Salisbury, an' why I'd never mentioned before that I had friends down there, don't you see, an' you might think of goin' down to Salisbury yourself, an' askin' all kinds of people if they'd happened to see a young man in plum-coloured socks hangin' round the Bishop's Palace.»