Читать книгу Have His Carcase - Dorothy L. Sayers - Страница 10

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"Well, thou art

A useful tool sometimes, thy tooth works quickly,

And if thou gnawest a secret from the heart

Thou tellest it not again."

Death's Jest-Book

Friday, 19 June

In spite of the horrors she had witnessed, which ought to have driven all sleep away from the eyelids of any self-respecting female, Harriet slept profoundly in her first-floor bedroom (with bathroom, balcony and view over Esplanade) and came down to breakfast with a hearty appetite.

She secured a copy of the Morning Star, and was deep in the perusal of her own interview (with photograph) on the front page, when a familiar voice addressed her:

"Good morning, Sherlock. Where is the dressing-gown? How many pipes of shag have you consumed? The hypodermic is on the dressing-room table."

"How in the world," demanded Harriet, "did you get here?"

"Car," said Lord Peter, briefly. "Have they produced the body?"

"Who told you about the body?"

"I nosed it from afar. Where the carcase is, there shall the eagles be gathered together. May I join you over the bacon-and-eggs?"

"By all means," said Harriet. "Where did you come from?"

"From London—like a bird that hears the call of its mate."

"I didn't——" began Harriet.

"I didn't mean you. I meant the corpse. But still, talking of mates, will you marry me?"

"Certainly not."

"I thought not, but I felt I might as well ask the question. Did you say they had found the body?"

"Not that I know of."

"I don't expect they will, then, for a bit. There's a regular sou'wester blowing great guns. Tiresome for them. Can't have an inquest without a body. You must produce the body, as it says in the Have-His-Carcase Act."

"No, but really," protested Harriet, "how did you hear about it?"

"Salcombe Hardy rang me up from the Morning Star. Said 'my Miss Vane' had found a corpse, and did I know anything about it. I said I knew nothing about it and that Miss Vane was unhappily not mine—yet. So I buzzed off, and here I am. I brought Sally Hardy down with me. I expect that's what he really rang me up for. Smart old bird, Sally—always on the spot."

"He told you where to find me, I suppose."

"Yes—he seemed to know all about it. I was rather hurt. Fancy having to ask the Morning Star where the pole-star of one's own heaven has gone to. Hardy seemed to know all about it. How do these things get into the papers?"

"I rang them up myself," replied Harriet. "First-class publicity, you know, and all that."

"So it is," agreed Wimsey, helping himself lavishly to butter. "Rang 'em up, did you, with all the gory details?"

"Naturally; that was the first thing I thought of."

"You're a woman of business. But does it not, pardon me, indicate a certain coarsening of the fibres?"

"Obviously," said Harriet. "My fibres at this moment resemble coconut matting."

"Without even 'Welcome' written across them. But, look here, beloved, bearing in mind that I'm a corpse-fan, don't you think you might, as man to man, have let me in on the ground-floor?"

"If you put it that way," admitted Harriet, rather ashamed of herself, "I certainly might. But I thought——"

"Women will let the personal element crop in," said Wimsey, acutely. "Well, all I can say is, you owe it to me to make up for it now. All the details, please."

"I'm tired of giving details," grumbled Harriet, perversely.

"You'll be tireder before the police and the newspaper lads have finished with you. I have been staving off Salcombe Hardy with the greatest difficulty. He is in the lounge. The Banner and the Clarion are in the smoking-room. They had a fast car. The Courier is coming by train (it's a nice, respectable, old-fashioned paper), and the Thunderer and the Comet are hanging about outside the bar, hoping you may be persuaded to offer them something. The three people arguing with the commissionaire are, I fancy, local men. The photographic contingent have gone down en masse, packed in a single Morris, to record the place where the body was found, which, as the tide is well up, they will not see. Tell me all, here and now, and I will organise your publicity for you."

"Very well," said Harriet. "I tell thee all, I can no more."

She pushed her plate aside and took up a clean knife.

"This," she said, "is the coast-road from Lesston Hoe to Wilvercombe. The shore bends about like this——" She took up the pepper-pot.

"Try salt," suggested Wimsey. "Less irritatin' to the nasal tissues."

"Thank you. This line of salt is the beach. And this piece of bread is a rock at low-water level."

Wimsey twitched his chair closer to the table.

"And this salt-spoon," he said, with childlike enjoyment, "can be the body."

He made no comment while Harriet told her story, only interrupting once or twice with a question about times and distances. He sat drooping above the sketch-map she was laying out among the breakfast-things, his eyes invisible, his long nose seeming to twitch like a rabbit's with concentration. When she had finished, he sat silent for a moment and then said:

"Let's get this clear. You got to the place where you had lunch—when, exactly?"

"Just one o'clock. I looked at my watch."

"As you came along the cliffs, you could see the whole shore, including the rock where you found the body."

"Yes; I suppose I could."

"Was anybody on the rock then?"

"I really don't know. I don't even specially remember noticing the rock. I was thinking about my grub, you see, and I was really looking about at the side of the road for a suitable spot to scramble down the cliff. My eyes weren't focused for distance."

"I see. That's rather a pity, in a way."

"Yes, it is; but I can tell you one thing. I'm quite sure there was nothing moving on the shore. I did give one glance round just before I decided to climb down. I distinctly remember thinking that the beach seemed absolutely and gloriously deserted—a perfect spot for a picnic. I hate picnicking in a crowd."

"And a single person on a lonely beach would be a crowd?"

"For picnicking purposes, yes. You know what people are. The minute they see anyone having a peaceful feed they gather in from the four points of the compass and sit down beside one, and the place is like the Corner House in the rush hour."

"So they do. That must be the symbolism of the Miss Muffet legend."

"I'm positive there wasn't a living soul walking or standing or sitting anywhere within eyeshot. But as to the body's being already on the rock, I wouldn't swear one way or the other. It was a goodish way out, you know, and when I saw it from the beach I took the body for seaweed just at first. I shouldn't make a mental note of seaweed."

"Good. Then at one o'clock the beach was deserted, except possibly for the body, which may have been there making a noise like seaweed. Then you got down the side of the cliff. Was the rock visible from where you had lunch?"

"No, not at all. There is a sort of little bay there—well, scarcely that. The cliff juts out a bit, and I was sitting close up against the foot of the rocks, so as to have something to lean against. I had my lunch—it took about half an hour altogether."

"You heard nothing then? No footsteps or anything? No car?"

"Not a thing."

"And then?"

"Then I'm afraid I dozed off."

"What could be more natural? For how long?"

"About half an hour. When I woke I looked at my watch again."

"What woke you?"

"A sea-gull squawking round after bits of my sandwich."

"That makes it two o'clock."

"Yes."

"Just a minute. When I arrived here this morning it was a bit early for calling on one's lady friends, so I toddled down to the beach and made friends with one of the fishermen. He happened to mention that it was low tide off the Grinders yesterday afternoon at 1.15. Therefore when you arrived, the tide was practically out. When you woke, it had turned and had been coming in for about forty-five minutes. The foot of your rock—which, by the way, is locally named The Devil's Flat-Iron—is only uncovered for about half an hour between tide and tide, and that only at the top of springs, if you understand that expression."

"I understand perfectly, but I don't see what that has to do with it."

"Well, this—that if anybody had come walking along the edge of the water to the rock, he could have got there without leaving any footprints."

"But he did leave footprints. Oh, I see. You're thinking of a possible murderer."

"I should prefer it to be murder, naturally. Shouldn't you?"

"Yes, of course. Well, that's a fact. A murderer might have walked along from either direction, if he did it that way. If he came from Lesston Hoe he must have arrived after me, because I could see the shore as I walked along, and there was no one walking there then. But he could have come at any time from the Wilvercombe side."

"No, he couldn't," said Wimsey. "He wasn't there, you said, at one o'clock."

"He might have been standing on the seaward side of the Flat-Iron."

"So he might. Now, how about the corpse? We can tell pretty closely when he came."

"How?"

"You said there were no wet stains on his shoes. Therefore he went dry-shod to the rock. We only have to find out exactly when the sand on the landward side of the rock is uncovered."

"Of course. How stupid of me. Well, we can easily find that out. Where had I got to?"

"You had been awakened by the cry of a sea-gull."

"Yes. Well, then, I walked round the point of the cliff and out to the rock, and there he was."

"And at that moment there was nobody within sight?"

"Not a single soul, except a man in a boat."

"Yes—the boat. Now, supposing the boat had come in when the tide was out, and the occupant had walked or waded up to the rock——"

"That's possible, of course. The boat was some way out."

"It all seems to depend on when the corpse got there. We must find that out."

"You're determined it should be murder."

"Well, suicide seems so dull. And why go all that way to commit suicide?"

"Why not? Much tidier than doing it in your bedroom or anywhere like that. Aren't we beginning at the wrong end? If we knew who the man was, we might find he had left an explanatory note behind him to say why he was going to do it. I daresay the police know all about it by now."

"Possibly," said Wimsey in a dissatisfied tone.

"What's worrying you?"

"Two things. The gloves. Why should anybody cut his throat in gloves?"

"I know. That bothered me too. Perhaps he had some sort of skin disease and was accustomed to wearing gloves for everything. I ought to have looked. I did start to take the gloves off, but they were—messy."

"Um! I see you still retain a few female frailties. The second point that troubles me is the weapon. Why should a gentleman with a beard sport a cut-throat razor?"

"Bought for the purpose."

"Yes; after all, why not? My dear Harriet, I think you are right. The man cut his throat, and that's all there is to it. I am disappointed."

"It is disappointing, but it can't be helped. Hallo! here's my friend the Inspector."

It was indeed Inspector Umpelty who was threading his way between the tables. He was in mufti—a large, comfortable-looking tweed-clad figure. He greeted Harriet pleasantly.

"I thought you might like to see how your snaps have turned out, Miss Vane. And we've identified the man."

"No? Have you? Good work. This is Inspector Umpelty—Lord Peter Wimsey."

The Inspector appeared gratified by the introduction.

"You're early on the job, my lord. But I don't know that you'll find anything very mysterious about this case. Just a plain suicide, I fancy."

"We had regretfully come to that conclusion," admitted Wimsey.

"Though why he should have done it, I don't know. But you never can tell with these foreigners, can you?"

"I thought he looked rather foreign," said Harriet.

"Yes. He's a Russian, or something of that. Paul Alexis Goldschmidt, his name is; known as Paul Alexis. Comes from this very hotel, as a matter of fact. One of the professional dancing-partners in the lounge here—you know the sort. They don't seem to know much about him. Turned up here just over a year ago and asked for a job. Seemed to be a good dancer and all that and they had a vacancy, so they took him on. Age twenty-two or thereabouts. Unmarried. Lived in rooms. Nothing known against him."

"Papers in order?"

"Naturalised British subject. Said to have escaped from Russia at the Revolution. He must have been a kid of about nine, but we haven't found out yet who had charge of him. He was alone when he turned up here, and his landlady doesn't ever seem to have heard of anybody belonging to him. But we'll soon find out when we go through his stuff."

"He didn't leave any letter for the coroner, or anything?"

"We've found nothing so far. And as regards the coroner, that's a bit of a bother, that is. I don't know how long it'll be, miss, before you're wanted. You see, we can't find the body."

"You don't mean to tell me," said Wimsey, "that the evil-eyed doctor and the mysterious Chinaman have already conveyed it to the lone house on the moor?"

"You will have your fun, my lord, I see. No—it's a bit simpler than that. You see, the current sets northwards round the bay there, and with this sou'wester blowing, the body will have been washed off the Flat-Iron. It'll either come ashore somewhere off Sandy Point, or it'll have got carried out and caught up in the Grinders. If that's where it is, we'll have to wait till the wind goes down. You can't take a boat in there with this sea running, and you can't dive off the rocks—even supposing you knew whereabouts to dive. It's a nuisance, but it can't be helped."

"H'm," said Wimsey. "Just as well you took those photographs, Sherlock, or we'd have no proof that there ever had been a body."

"Coroner can't sit on a photograph, though," said the Inspector, gloomily. "Howsomever, it looks like a plain suicide, so it doesn't matter such a lot. Still, it's annoying. We like to get these things tidied up as we go along."

"Naturally," said Wimsey. "Well, I'm sure if anybody can tidy up, you can, Inspector. You impress me as being a man with an essentially tidy mind. I will engage to prophesy, Sherlock, that before lunch-time Inspector Umpelty will have sorted out the dead man's papers, got the entire story from the hotel-manager, identified the place where the razor was bought and explained the mysterious presence of the gloves."

The Inspector laughed.

"I don't think there's much to be got out of the manager, my lord, and as for the razor, that's neither here nor there."

"But the gloves?"

"Well, my lord, I expect the only person that could tell us about that is the poor blighter himself, and he's dead. But as regards the papers, you're dead right. I'm going along there now." He paused, doubtfully, and looked from Harriet to Wimsey and back again.

"No," said Wimsey. "Set your mind at rest. We are not going to ask to come with you. I know that the amateur detective has a habit of embarrassing the police in the execution of their duty. We are going out to view the town like a perfect little lady and gentleman. There's only one thing I should like to have a look at, if it isn't troubling you too much—and that's the razor."

The Inspector was very willing that Lord Peter should see the razor. "And if you like to comerlongerme," he added kindly, "you'll dodge all these reporters."

"Not me!" said Harriet. "I've got to see them and tell them all about my new book. A razor is only a razor, but good advance publicity means sales. You two run along; I'll follow you down."

She strolled away in search of the reporters. The Inspector grinned uneasily.

"No flies on that young lady," he observed. "But can she be trusted to hold her tongue?"

"Oh, she won't chuck away a good plot," said Wimsey, lightly. "Come and have a drink."

"Too soon after breakfast," objected the Inspector.

"Or a smoke," suggested Wimsey.

The Inspector declined.

"Or a nice sit-down in the lounge," said Wimsey, sitting down.

"Excuse me," said Inspector Umpelty, "I must be getting along. I'll tell them at the Station about you wanting to look at the razor.... Fair tied to that young woman's apron-strings," he reflected, as he shouldered his bulky way through the revolving doors. "The poor mutt!"

Harriet, escaping half an hour later from Salcombe Hardy and his colleagues, found Wimsey faithfully in attendance.

"I've got rid of the Inspector," observed that gentleman, cheerfully. "Get your hat on and we'll go."

Their simultaneous exit from the Resplendent was observed and recorded by the photographic contingent, who had just returned from the shore. Between an avenue of clicking shutters, they descended the marble steps, and climbed into Wimsey's Daimler.

"I feel," said Harriet, maliciously, "as if we had just been married at St. George's, Hanover Square."

"No, you don't," retorted Wimsey. "If we had, you would be trembling like a fluttered partridge. Being married to me is a tremendous experience—you've no idea. We'll be all right at the police-station, provided the Super doesn't turn sticky on us."

Superintendent Glaisher was conveniently engaged, and Sergeant Saunders was deputed to show them the razor.

"Has it been examined for finger-prints?" asked Wimsey.

"Yes, my lord."

"Any result?"

"I couldn't exactly say, my lord, but I believe not."

"Well, anyway, one is allowed to handle it." Wimsey turned it over in his fingers, inspecting it carefully, first with the naked eye and secondly with a watchmaker's lens. Beyond a very slight crack on the ivory handle, it showed no very striking peculiarities.

"If there's any blood left on it, it will be hanging about the joint," he observed. "But the sea seems to have done its work pretty thoroughly."

"You aren't suggesting," said Harriet, "that the weapon isn't really the weapon after all?"

"I should like to," said Wimsey. "The weapon never is the weapon, is it?"

"Of course not; and the corpse is never the corpse. The body is, obviously, not that of Paul Alexis——"

"But of the Prime Minister of Ruritania——"

"It did not die of a cut throat——"

"But of an obscure poison, known only to the Bushmen of Central Australia——"

"And the throat was cut after death——"

"By a middle-aged man of short temper and careless habits, with a stiff beard and expensive tastes——"

"Recently returned from China," finished up Harriet, triumphantly.

The sergeant, who had gaped in astonishment at the beginning of this exchange, now burst into a hearty guffaw.

"That's very good," he said, indulgently. "Comic, ain't it, the stuff these writer-fellows put into their books? Would your lordship like to see the other exhibits?"

Wimsey replied gravely that he should, very much, and the hat, cigarette-case, shoe and handkerchief were produced.

"H'm," said Wimsey. "Hat fair to middling, but not exclusive. Cranial capacity on the small side. Brilliantine, ordinary stinking variety. Physical condition pretty fair——"

"The man was a dancer."

"I thought we agreed he was a Prime Minister. Hair, dark, curly and rather on the long side. Last year's hat, re-blocked, with new ribbon. Shape, a little more emphatic than is quite necessary. Deduction: not wealthy, but keen on his personal appearance. Do we conclude that the hat belongs to the corpse?"

"Yes, I think so. The brilliantine corresponds all right."

"Cigarette-case—this is different. Fifteen-carat gold, plain and fairly new, with monogram P.A. and containing six de Reszkes. The case is pukka, all right. Probably a gift from some wealthy female admirer."

"Or, of course, the cigarette-case appropriate to a Prime Minister."

"As you say. Handkerchief—silk, but not from Burlington Arcade. Colour beastly. Laundry-mark——"

"Laundry-mark's all right," put in the policeman. "Wilvercombe Sanitary Steam Laundry; mark O.K. for this fellow Alexis."

"Suspicious circumstance," said Harriet, shaking her head. "I've got three handkerchiefs in my pack with not only the laundry-marks but the initials of total strangers."

"It's the Prime Minister, all right," agreed Wimsey, with a doleful nod. "Prime Ministers, especially Ruritanian ones, are notoriously careless about their laundry. Now the shoe. Oh, yes. Nearly new. Thin sole. Foul colour and worse shape. Hand-made, so that the horrid appearance is due to malice aforethought. Not the shoe of a man who does much walking. Made, I observe, in Wilvercombe."

"That's O.K. too," put in the sergeant. "We've seen the man. He made that shoe for Mr. Alexis all right. Knows him well."

"And you took this actually off the foot of the corpse? These are deep waters, Watson. Another man's handkerchief is nothing, but a Prime Minister in another fellow's shoes—"

"You will have your joke, my lord," said the sergeant, with another hoot of laughter.

"I never joke," said Wimsey. He brought the lens to bear on the sole of the shoe. "Slight traces of salt water here, but none on the uppers. Inference: he walked over the sand when it was very wet, but did not actually wade through salt water. Two or three scratches on the toe-cap, probably got when clambering up the rock. Well, thanks awfully, sergeant. You are quite at liberty to inform Inspector Umpelty of all the valuable deductions we have drawn. Have a drink."

"Thank you very much, my lord."

Wimsey said nothing more till they were in the car again.

"I'm sorry," he then announced, as they threaded their way through the side-streets, "to renounce our little programme of viewing the town. I should have enjoyed that simple pleasure. But unless I start at once, I shan't get to town and back to-night."

Harriet, who had been preparing to say that she had work to do and could not waste time rubber-necking round Wilvercombe with Lord Peter, experienced an unreasonable feeling of having been cheated.

"To town?" she repeated.

"It will not have escaped your notice," said Wimsey, skimming with horrible dexterity between a bath-chair and a butcher's van, "that the matter of the razor requires investigation."

"Of course—a visit to the Ruritanian Legation is indicated."

"H'm—well; I don't know that I shall get any farther than Jermyn Street."

"In search of the middle-aged man of careless habits?"

"Yes, ultimately."

"He really exists, then?"

"Well, I wouldn't swear to his exact age."

"Or his habits?"

"No, they might be the habits of his valet."

"Or his stiff beard and short temper?"

"Well, I think one may be reasonably certain about the beard."

"I give in," said Harriet meekly. "Please explain."

Wimsey drew up the car at the entrance to the Hotel Resplendent, and looked at his watch.

"I can give you ten minutes," he remarked, in an aloof tone. "Let us take a seat in the lounge and order some refreshment. It is a little early, to be sure, but I always drive more mellowly on a pint of beer. Good. Now, as to the razor. You will have observed that it is an instrument of excellent and expensive quality by a first-class maker, and that, in addition to the name of the manufacturer, it is engraved on the reverse side with the mystic word 'Endicott.'"

"Yes; what is Endicott?"

"Endicott is, or was, one of the most exclusive hairdressers in the West End. So fearfully exclusive and grand that he won't even call himself a hairdresser in the snobbish modern way, but prefers to be known by the old-world epithet of 'barber.' He will, or would, hardly condescend to shave anybody who has not been in Debrett for the last three hundred years. Other people, however rich or titled, have the misfortune to find his chairs always occupied and his basins engaged. His shop has the rarefied atmosphere of one of the more aristocratic mid-Victorian clubs. It is said of Endicott's that a certain peer, who made his money during the War by cornering bootlaces or buttons or something, was once accidentally admitted to one of the sacred chairs by a new assistant who had been most unfortunately taken on with insufficient West-end experience during the temporary war-time shortage of barbers. After ten minutes in that dreadful atmosphere, his hair froze, his limbs became perfectly petrified, and he had to be removed to the Crystal Palace and placed among the antediluvian monsters."

"Well?"

"Well! Consider first of all the anomaly of the man who buys his razor from Endicott's and yet wears the regrettable shoes and mass-production millinery found on the corpse. Mind you," added Wimsey, "it is not a question of expense, exactly. The shoes are hand-made—which merely proves that a dancer has to take care of his feet. But could a man who is shaved by Endicott possibly order—deliberately order—shoes of that colour and shape? A thing imagination boggles at."

"I'm afraid," admitted Harriet, "that I have never managed to learn all the subtle rules and regulations about male clothing. That's why I made Robert Templeton one of those untidy dressers."

"Robert Templeton's clothes have always pained me," confessed Wimsey. "The one blot on your otherwise fascinating tales. But to leave that distressing subject and come back to the razor. That razor has seen a good deal of hard wear. It has been re-ground a considerable number of times, as you can tell by the edge. Now, a really first-class razor like that needs very little in the way of grinding and setting, provided it is mercifully used and kept carefully stropped. Therefore, either the man who used it was very clumsy and careless about using the strop, or his beard was abnormally stiff, or both—probably both. I visualise him as one of those men who are heavy-handed with tools—you know the kind. Their fountain pens always make blots and their watches get over-wound. They neglect to strop their razors until the strop gets hard and dry, and then they strop them ferociously and jag the edge of the blade. Then they lose their tempers and curse the razor and send it away to be ground and set. The new edge only lasts them for a few weeks then back the razor goes again, accompanied by a rude message."

"I see. Well, I didn't know all that. But why did you say the man was middle-aged?"

"That was rather guess-work. But I suggest that a young man who had so much difficulty with his razor would be more likely to change over to a safety and use a new blade every few days. But a man of middle-age would not be so likely to change his habits. In any case, I'm sure that razor has had more than three years' hard wear. And if the dead man is only twenty-two now, and has a full beard, then I don't see how he could very well have worn the blade down to that extent, with any amount of grinding and setting. We must find out from the hotel manager here whether he was already wearing the beard when he came a year ago. That would narrow the time down still further. But the first thing to do is to trace old Endicott and find out from him whether it was possible for one of his razors to have been sold later than 1925."

"Why 1925?"

"Because that was the date at which old Endicott sold his premises and retired with varicose veins and a small fortune."

"And who kept on the business?"

"Nobody. The shop is now a place where you buy the most recherché kind of hams and potted meats. There were no sons to carry on—the only young Endicott was killed in the Salient, poor chap. Old Endicott said he wouldn't sell his name to anybody. And anyhow, Endicott's without an Endicott wouldn't be Endicott's. So that was that."

"But he might have sold the stock?"

"That's what I want to find out. I'll have to be off now. I'll try and be back to-night, so don't worry."

"I'm not worrying," retorted Harriet, indignantly. "I'm perfectly happy."

"Splendid. Oh! While I'm about it, shall I see about getting a marriage-licence?"

"Don't trouble, thank you."

"Very well; I just thought I'd ask. I say, while I'm away, how would it be if you put in some good work with the other professional dancers here? You might get hold of some gossip about Paul Alexis."

"There's something in that. But I'll have to get a decent frock if there is such a thing in Wilvercombe."

"Well, get a wine-coloured one, then. I've always wanted to see you in wine-colour. It suits people with honey-coloured skin. (What an ugly word 'skin' is.) 'Blossoms of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured menuphar'—I always have a quotation for everything—it saves original thinking."

"Blast the man!" said Harriet, left abruptly alone in the blue-plush lounge. Then she suddenly ran out down the steps and leapt upon the Daimler's running-board.

"Port or sherry?" she demanded.

"What?" said Wimsey, taken aback.

"The frock—port or sherry?"

"Claret," said Wimsey. "Château Margaux 1893 or thereabouts. I'm not particular to a year or two."

He raised his hat and slipped in the clutch. As Harriet turned back, a voice, faintly familiar, accosted her:

"Miss—er—Miss Vane? Might I speak to you for a moment?"

It was the "predatory hag" whom she had seen the evening before in the dance-lounge of the Resplendent.