Unnatural death
the Monday and had not yet returned. She tried to reassure the maid, but
her own heart misgave her. Without any real reason, she was uneasy. She
went round to the church and said her prayers, but her mind was not on
what she was saying. On an impulse, she caught Mr. Tredgold as he
pottered in and out of the Sacristy, and asked if she might come the
next evening to lay a case of conscience before him. So far, so good,
and she felt that a “good walk” might help to clear the cob-webs from
her brain.
So she started off, missing Lord Peter by a quarter of an hour, and took
the train to Guildford and then walked and had lunch in a wayside
tea-shop and walked back into Guildford and so came home, where she
learnt that “Mr. Parker and ever so many gentlemen had been asking for
her all day, and what a dreadful thing, miss, here was Miss Whittaker
and Miss Findlater disappeared and the police out looking for them, and
them motor-cars was such dangerous things, miss, wasn’t they? It was to
be hoped there wasn’t an accident.”
And into Miss Climpson’s mind there came, like an inspiration, the
words, “South Audley Street.”
Miss Climpson did not, of course, know that Wimsey was at Crow’s Beach.
She hoped to find him in Town. For she was seized with a desire, which
she could hardly have explained even to herself, to go and look at South
Audley Street. What she was to do when she got there she did not know,
but go there she must. It was the old reluctance to make open use of
that confession paper. Vera Findlater’s story at first hand—that was the
idea to which she obscurely clung. So she took the first train to
Waterloo, leaving behind her, in case Wimsey or Parker should call
again, a letter so obscure and mysterious and so lavishly underlined and
interlined that it was perhaps fortunate for their reason that they were
never faced with it.
In Piccadilly she saw Bunter, and learned that his lordship was at
Crow’s Beach with Mr. Parker, where he, Bunter, was just off to join
him. Miss Climpson promptly charged him with a message to his employer
slightly more involved and mysterious than her letter, and departed for
South Audley Street. It was only when she was walking up it that she
realised how vague her quest was and how little investigation one can do
by merely walking along a street. Also, it suddenly occurred to her that
if Miss Whittaker was carrying on anything of a secret nature in South
Audley Street, the sight of an acquaintance patrolling the pavement
would put her on her guard. Much struck by this reflection, Miss
Climpson plunged abruptly into a Chemist’s shop and bought a toothbrush,
by way of concealing her movements and gaining time. One can while away
many minutes comparing the shapes, sizes and bristles of toothbrushes,
and sometimes chemists will be nice and gossipy.
Looking round the shop for inspiration, Miss Climpson observed a tin of
nasal snuff labelled with the chemist’s own name.
“I will take a tin of that, too, please,” she said. “What _excellent_
stuff it is—quite _wonderful_. I have used it for _years_ and am really
_delighted_ with it. I recommend it to all my friends, particularly for
_hay fever_. In fact, there’s a friend of mine who often passes your
shop, who told me only _yesterday_ what a _martyr_ she was to that
complaint. ‘My dear,’ I said to her, ‘you have only to get a tin of this
_splendid_ stuff and you will be _quite_ all right _all_ summer.’ She
was so _grateful_ to me for telling her about it. Has she been in for it
yet?” And she described Mary Whittaker closely.
It will be noticed, by the way, that in the struggle between Miss
Climpson’s conscience and what Wilkie Collins calls “detective fever,”
conscience was getting the worst of it and was winking at an amount of
deliberate untruth which a little time earlier would have staggered it.
The chemist, however, had seen nothing of Miss Climpson’s friend.
Nothing, therefore, was to be done but to retire from the field and
think what was next to be done. Miss Climpson left, but before leaving
she neatly dropped her latchkey into a large basket full of sponges
standing at her elbow. She felt she might like to have an excuse to
visit South Audley Street again.
Conscience sighed deeply, and her guardian angel dropped a tear among
the sponges.
Retiring into the nearest tea-shop she came to, Miss Climpson ordered a
cup of coffee and started to think out a plan for honey-combing South
Audley Street. She needed an excuse—and a disguise. An adventurous
spirit was welling up in her elderly bosom, and her first dozen or so
ideas were more lurid than practical.
At length a really brilliant notion occurred to her. She was (she did
not attempt to hide it from herself) precisely the type and build of
person one associates with the collection of subscriptions. Moreover,
she had a perfectly good and genuine cause ready to hand. The church
which she attended in London ran a slum mission, which was badly in need
of funds, and she possessed a number of collecting cards, bearing full
authority to receive subscriptions on its behalf. What more natural than
that she should try a little house-to-house visiting in a wealthy
quarter?
The question of disguise, also, was less formidable than it might
appear. Miss Whittaker had only known her well-dressed and affluent in
appearance. Ugly, clumping shoes, a hat of virtuous ugliness, a
shapeless coat and a pair of tinted glasses would disguise her
sufficiently at a distance. At close quarters, it would not matter if
she was recognised, for if once she got to close quarters with Mary
Whittaker, her job was done and she had found the house she wanted.
Miss Climpson rose from the table, paid her bill and hurried out to buy
the glasses, remembering that it was Saturday. Having secured a pair
which hid her eyes effectively without looking exaggeratedly mysterious,
she made for her rooms in St. George’s Square, to choose suitable
clothing for her adventure. She realised, of course, that she could
hardly start work till Monday—Saturday afternoon and Sunday are hopeless
from the collector’s point of view.
The choice of clothes and accessories occupied her for the better part
of the afternoon. When she was at last satisfied she went downstairs to
ask her landlady for some tea.
“Certainly, miss,” said the good woman. “Ain’t it awful, miss, about
this murder?”
“What murder?” asked Miss Climpson, vaguely.
She took the _Evening Views_ from her landlady’s hand, and read the
story of Vera Findlater’s death.
Sunday was the most awful day Miss Climpson had ever spent. An active
woman, she was condemned to inactivity, and she had time to brood over
the tragedy. Not having Wimsey’s or Parker’s inside knowledge, she took
the kidnapping story at its face value. In a sense, she found it
comforting, for she was able to acquit Mary Whittaker of any share in
this or the previous murders. She put them down—except, of course, in
the case of Miss Dawson, and that might never have been a murder after
all—to the mysterious man in South Audley Street. She formed a nightmare
image of him in her mind—blood-boltered, sinister, and—most horrible of
all—an associate and employer of debauched and brutal assassins. To Miss
Climpson’s credit be it said that she never for one moment faltered in
her determination to track the monster to his lurking-place.
She wrote a long letter to Lord Peter, detailing her plans. Bunter, she
knew, had left 110A Piccadilly, so, after considerable thought, she
addressed it to Lord Peter Wimsey, c/o Inspector Parker, The
Police-Station, Crow’s Beach. There was, of course, no Sunday post from
Town. However, it would go with the midnight collection.
On the Monday morning she set out early, in her old clothes and her
spectacles, for South Audley Street. Never had her natural
inquisitiveness and her hard training in third-rate boarding-houses
stood her in better stead. She had learned to ask questions without
heeding rebuffs—to be persistent, insensitive and observant. In every
flat she visited she acted her natural self, with so much sincerity and
such limpet-like obstinacy that she seldom came away without a
subscription and almost never without some information about the flat
and its inmates.
By tea-time, she had done one side of the street and nearly half the
other, without result. She was just thinking of going to get some food,
when she caught sight of a woman, about a hundred yards ahead, walking
briskly in the same direction as herself.
Now it is easy to be mistaken in faces, but almost impossible not to
recognise a back. Miss Climpson’s heart gave a bound. “Mary Whittaker!”
she said to herself, and started to follow.
The woman stopped to look into a shop window. Miss Climpson hesitated to
come closer. If Mary Whittaker was at large, then—why then the
kidnapping had been done with her own consent. Puzzled, Miss Climpson
determined to play a waiting game. The woman went into the shop. The
friendly chemist’s was almost opposite. Miss Climpson decided that this
was the moment to reclaim her latchkey. She went in and asked for it. It
had been put aside for her and the assistant produced it at once. The
woman was still in the shop over the way. Miss Climpson embarked upon a
long string of apologies and circumstantial details about her
carelessness. The woman came out. Miss Climpson gave her a longish
start, brought the conversation to a close, and fussed out again,
replacing the glasses which she had removed for the chemist’s benefit.
The woman walked on without stopping, but she looked into the shop
windows from time to time. A man with a fruiterer’s barrow removed his
cap as she passed and scratched his head. Almost at once, the woman
turned quickly and came back. The fruiterer picked up the handles of his
barrow and trundled it away into a side street. The woman came straight
on, and Miss Climpson was obliged to dive into a doorway and pretend to
be tying a bootlace, to avoid a face to face encounter.
Apparently the woman had only forgotten to buy cigarettes. She went into
a tobacconist’s and emerged again in a minute or two, passing Miss
Climpson again. That lady had dropped her bag and was agitatedly sorting
its contents. The woman passed her without a glance and went on. Miss
Climpson, flushed from stooping, followed again. The woman turned in at
the entrance to a block of flats next door to a florist’s. Miss Climpson
was hard on her heels now, for she was afraid of losing her.
Mary Whittaker—if it was Mary Whittaker—went straight through the hall
to the lift, which was one of the kind worked by the passenger. She
stepped in and shot up. Miss Climpson—gazing at the orchids and roses in
the florist’s window—watched the lift out of sight. Then, with her
subscription card prominently in her hand, she too entered the flats.
There was a porter on duty in a little glass case. He at once spotted
Miss Climpson as a stranger and asked politely if he could do anything
for her. Miss Climpson, selecting a name at random from the list of
occupants in the entrance, asked which was Mrs. Forrest’s flat. The man
replied that it was on the fourth floor, and stepped forward to bring
the lift down for her. A man, to whom he had been chatting, moved
quietly from the glass case and took up a position in the doorway. As
the lift ascended, Miss Climpson noticed that the fruiterer had
returned. His barrow now stood just outside.
The porter had come up with her, and pointed out the door of Mrs.
Forrest’s flat. His presence was reassuring. She wished he would stay
within call till she had concluded her search of the building. However,
having asked for Mrs. Forrest, she must begin there. She pressed the
bell.