Unnatural death
“Is that you, Charles?” asked Lord Peter’s voice. “I say, Murbles has
had a letter about that girl, Bertha Gotobed. She disappeared from her
lodgings last Thursday, and her landlady, getting anxious, and having
seen the advertisement, is coming to tell us all she knows. Can you come
round to Staple Inn at eleven?”
“Dunno,” said Parker, a little irritably. “I’ve got a job to see to.
Surely you can tackle it by yourself.”
“Oh, yes!” The voice was peevish. “But I thought you’d like to have some
of the fun. What an ungrateful devil you are. You aren’t taking the
faintest interest in this case.”
“Well—I don’t believe in it, you know. All right—don’t use language like
that—you’ll frighten the girl at the Exchange. I’ll see what I can do.
Eleven?—right!—Oh, I say!”
“Cluck!” said the telephone.
“Rung off,” said Parker, bitterly. “Bertha Gotobed. H’m! I could have
sworn—”
He reached across to the breakfast-table for the _Daily Yell_, which was
propped against the marmalade jar, and read with pursed lips a paragraph
whose heavily leaded headlines had caught his eye, just before the
interruption of the kipper episode.
“NIPPY” FOUND DEAD
IN EPPING FOREST
—
£5 Note in Hand-bag.
—
He took up the receiver again and asked for Wimsey’s number. The
man-servant answered him.
“His lordship is in his bath, sir. Shall I put you through?”
“Please,” said Parker.
The telephone clucked again. Presently Lord Peter’s voice came faintly,
“Hullo!”
“Did the landlady mention where Bertha Gotobed was employed?”
“Yes—she was a waitress at the Corner House. Why this interest all of a
sudden? You snub me in my bed, but you woo me in my bath. It sounds like
a music-hall song of the less refined sort. Why, oh why?”
“Haven’t you seen the papers?”
“No. I leave those follies till breakfast-time. What’s up? Are we
ordered to Shanghai? or have they taken sixpence off the income-tax?”
“Shut up, you fool, it’s serious. You’re too late.”
“What for?”
“Bertha Gotobed was found dead in Epping Forest this morning.”
“Good God! Dead? How? What of?”
“No idea. Poison or something. Or heart failure. No violence. No
robbery. No clue. I’m going down to the Yard about it now.”
“God forgive me, Charles. D’you know, I had a sort of awful feeling when
you said that ad. could do no harm. Dead. Poor girl! Charles, I feel
like a murderer. Oh, damn! and I’m all wet. It does make one feel so
helpless. Look here, you spin down to the Yard and tell ’em what you
know and I’ll join you there in half a tick. Anyway, there’s no doubt
about it now.”
“Oh, but, look here. It may be something quite different. Nothing to do
with your ad.”
“Pigs _may_ fly. Use your common sense. Oh! and Charles, does it mention
the sister?”
“Yes. There was a letter from her on the body, by which they identified
it. She got married last month and went to Canada.”
“That’s saved her life. She’ll be in absolutely horrible danger, if she
comes back. We must get hold of her and warn her. And find out what she
knows. Good-bye. I _must_ get some clothes on. Oh, hell!”
Cluck! the line went dead again, and Mr. Parker, abandoning the kippers
without regret, ran feverishly out of the house and down Lamb’s Conduit
Street to catch a diver tram to Westminster.
The Chief of Scotland Yard, Sir Andrew Mackenzie, was a very old friend
of Lord Peter’s. He received that agitated young man kindly and listened
with attention to his slightly involved story of cancer, wills,
mysterious solicitors and advertisements in the agony column.
“It’s a curious coincidence,” he said, indulgently, “and I can
understand your feeling upset about it. But you may set your mind at
rest. I have the police-surgeon’s report, and he is quite convinced that
the death was perfectly natural. No signs whatever of any assault. They
will make an examination, of course, but I don’t think there is the
slightest reason to suspect foul play.”
“But what was she doing in Epping Forest?”
Sir Andrew shrugged gently.
“That must be inquired into, of course. Still—young people _do_ wander
about, you know. There’s a fiancé somewhere. Something to do with the
railway, I believe. Collins has gone down to interview him. Or she may
have been with some other friend.”
“But if the death was natural, no one would leave a sick or dying girl
like that?”
“_You_ wouldn’t. But say there had been some running about—some
horse-play—and the girl fell dead, as these heart cases sometimes do.
The companion may well have taken fright and cleared out. It’s not
unheard of.”
Lord Peter looked unconvinced.
“How long has she been dead?”
“About five or six days, our man thinks. It was quite by accident that
she was found then at all; it’s quite an unfrequented part of the
Forest. A party of young people were exploring with a couple of
terriers, and one of the dogs nosed out the body.”
“Was it out in the open?”
“Not exactly. It lay among some bushes—the sort of place where a
frolicsome young couple might go to play hide-and-seek.”
“Or where a murderer might go to play hide and let the police seek,”
said Wimsey.
“Well, well. Have it your own way,” said Sir Andrew, smiling. “If it was
murder, it must have been a poisoning job, for, as I say, there was not
the slightest sign of a wound or a struggle. I’ll let you have the
report of the autopsy. In the meanwhile, if you’d like to run down there
with Inspector Parker, you can of course have any facilities you want.
And if you discover anything, let me know.”
Wimsey thanked him, and collecting Parker from an adjacent office,
rushed him briskly down the corridor.
“I don’t like it,” he said, “that is, of course, it’s very gratifying to
know that our first steps in psychology have led to action, so to speak,
but I wish to God it hadn’t been quite such decisive action. We’d better
trot down to Epping straight away, and see the landlady later. I’ve got
a new car, by the way, which you’ll like.”
Mr. Parker took one look at the slim black monster, with its long rakish
body and polished-copper twin exhausts, and decided there and then that
the only hope of getting down to Epping without interference was to look
as official as possible and wave his police authority under the eyes of
every man in blue along the route. He shoe-horned himself into his seat
without protest, and was more unnerved than relieved to find himself
shoot suddenly ahead of the traffic—not with the bellowing roar of the
ordinary racing engine, but in a smooth, uncanny silence.
“The new Daimler Twin-Six,” said Lord Peter, skimming dexterously round
a lorry without appearing to look at it. “With a racing body. Specially
built . . . useful . . . gadgets . . . no row—hate row . . . like Edmund
Sparkler . . . very anxious there should be no row . . . Little
Dorrit . . . remember . . . call her Mrs. Merdle . . . for that
reason . . . presently we’ll see what she can do.”
The promise was fulfilled before their arrival at the spot where the
body had been found. Their arrival made a considerable sensation among
the little crowd which business or curiosity had drawn to the spot. Lord
Peter was instantly pounced upon by four reporters and a synod of Press
photographers, whom his presence encouraged in the hope that the mystery
might turn out to be a three-column splash after all. Parker, to his
annoyance, was photographed in the undignified act of extricating
himself from “Mrs. Merdle.” Superintendent Walmisley came politely to
his assistance, rebuked the onlookers, and led him to the scene of
action.
The body had been already removed to the mortuary, but a depression in
the moist ground showed clearly enough where it had lain. Lord Peter
groaned faintly as he saw it.
“Damn this nasty warm spring weather,” he said, with feeling. “April
showers—sun and water—couldn’t be worse. Body much altered,
Superintendent?”
“Well, yes, rather, my lord, especially in the exposed parts. But
there’s no doubt about the identity.”
“I didn’t suppose there was. How was it lying?”
“On the back, quite quiet and natural-like. No disarrangement of
clothing, or anything. She must just have sat down when she felt herself
bad and fallen back.”
“M’m. The rain has spoilt any footprints or signs on the ground. And
it’s grassy. Beastly stuff, grass, eh, Charles?”
“Yes. These twigs don’t seem to have been broken at all,
Superintendent.”
“Oh, no,” said the officer, “no signs of a struggle, as I pointed out in
my report.”
“No—but if she’d sat down here and fallen back as you suggest, don’t you
think her weight would have snapped some of these young shoots?”
The Superintendent glanced sharply at the Scotland Yard man.
“You don’t suppose she was brought and put here, do you, sir?”
“I don’t suppose anything,” retorted Parker, “I merely drew attention to
a point which I think you should consider. What are these wheel-marks?”
“That’s our car, sir. We backed it up here and took her up that way.”
“And all this trampling is your men too, I suppose?”
“Partly that, sir, and partly the party as found her.”
“You noticed no other person’s tracks, I suppose?”
“No, sir. But it’s rained considerably this last week. Besides, the
rabbits have been all over the place, as you can see, and other
creatures too, I fancy. Weasels, or something of that sort.”
“Oh! Well, I think you’d better take a look round. There might be traces
of some kind a bit further away. Make a circle, and report anything you
see. And you oughtn’t to have let all that bunch of people get so near.
Put a cordon round and tell ’em to move on. Have you seen all you want,
Peter?”
Wimsey had been poking his stick aimlessly into the bole of an oak-tree
at a few yards’ distance. Now he stooped and lifted out a package which
had been stuffed into a cleft. The two policemen hurried forward with
eager interest, which evaporated somewhat at sight of the find—a ham
sandwich and an empty Bass bottle, roughly wrapped up in a greasy
newspaper.
“Picnickers,” said Walmisley, with a snort. “Nothing to do with the
body, I daresay.”
“I think you’re mistaken,” said Wimsey, placidly. “When did the girl
disappear, exactly?”
“Well, she went off duty at the Corner House at five a week ago
to-morrow, that’s Wednesday, 27th,” said Parker.
“And this is the _Evening Views_ of Wednesday, 27th,” said Wimsey. “Late
Final edition. Now that edition isn’t on the streets till about 6
o’clock. So unless somebody brought it down and had supper here, it was
probably brought by the girl herself or her companion. It’s hardly
likely anyone would come and picnic here afterwards, not with the body
there. Not that bodies need necessarily interfere with one’s enjoyment
of one’s food. À la guerre comme à la guerre. But for the moment there
isn’t a war on.”
“That’s true, sir. But you’re assuming the death took place on the
Wednesday or Thursday. She may have been somewhere else—living with
someone in town or anywhere.”
“Crushed again,” said Wimsey. “Still, it’s a curious coincidence.”
“It is, my lord, and I’m very glad you found the things. Will you take
charge of ’em, Mr. Parker, or shall I?”
“Better take them along and put them with the other things,” said
Parker, extending his hand to take them from Wimsey, whom they seemed to
interest quite disproportionately. “I fancy his lordship’s right and
that the parcel came here along with the girl. And that certainly looks
as if she didn’t come alone. Possibly that young man of hers was with
her. Looks like the old, old story. Take care of that bottle, old man,
it may have finger-prints on it.”