Unnatural death
“No, I suppose not. Still, I think there’s something in the idea that
the old girl was either accidentally or deliberately startled to death.”
“Yes—and whichever way it was, it probably wasn’t legal murder in that
case. However, I think it’s worth looking into. That reminds me.” He
rang the bell. “Bunter, just take a note to the post for me, would you?”
“Certainly, my lord.”
Lord Peter drew a writing pad towards him.
“What are you going to write?” asked Parker, looking over his shoulder
with some amusement.
Lord Peter wrote:
“Isn’t civilisation wonderful?”
He signed this simple message and slipped it into an envelope.
“If you want to be immune from silly letters, Charles,” he said, “don’t
carry your monomark in your hat.”
“And what do you propose to do next?” asked Parker. “Not, I hope, to
send me round to Monomark House to get the name of a client. I couldn’t
do that without official authority, and they would probably kick up an
awful shindy.”
“No,” replied his friend, “I don’t propose violating the secrets of the
confessional. Not in that quarter at any rate. I think, if you can spare
a moment from your mysterious correspondent, who probably does not
intend to be found, I will ask you to come and pay a visit to a friend
of mine. It won’t take long. I think you’ll be interested. I—in fact,
you’ll be the first person I’ve ever taken to see her. She will be very
much touched and pleased.”
He laughed a little self-consciously.
“Oh,” said Parker, embarrassed. Although the men were great friends,
Wimsey had always preserved a reticence about his personal affairs—not
so much by concealing as by ignoring them. This revelation seemed to
mark a new stage of intimacy, and Parker was not sure that he liked it.
He conducted his own life with an earnest middle-class morality which he
owed to his birth and up-bringing, and, while theoretically recognising
that Lord Peter’s world acknowledged different standards, he had never
contemplated being personally faced with any result of their application
in practice.
“—rather an experiment,” Wimsey was saying a trifle shyly; “anyway,
she’s quite comfortably fixed in a little flat in Pimlico. You can come,
can’t you, Charles? I really should like you two to meet.”
“Oh, yes, rather,” said Parker, hastily, “I should like to very much.
Er—how long—I mean—”
“Oh, the arrangement’s only been going a few months,” said Wimsey,
leading the way to the lift, “but it really seems to be working out
quite satisfactorily. Of course, it makes things much easier for me.”
“Just so,” said Parker.
“Of course, as you’ll understand—I won’t go into it all till we get
there, and then you’ll see for yourself,” Wimsey chattered on, slamming
the gates of the lift with unnecessary violence—“but, as I was saying,
you’ll observe it’s quite a new departure. I don’t suppose there’s ever
been anything exactly like it before. Of course, there’s nothing new
under the sun, as Solomon said, but after all, I daresay all those wives
and porcupines, as the child said, must have soured his disposition a
little, don’t you know.”
“Quite,” said Parker. “Poor fish,” he added to himself, “they _always_
seem to think it’s different.”
“Outlet,” said Wimsey, energetically, “hi! taxi! . . . outlet—everybody
needs an outlet—97A, St. George’s Square—and after all, one can’t really
blame people if it’s just that they need an outlet. I mean, why be
bitter? They can’t help it. I think it’s much kinder to give them an
outlet than to make fun of them in books—and, after all, it isn’t really
difficult to write books. Especially if you either write a rotten story
in good English or a good story in rotten English, which is as far as
most people seem to get nowadays. Don’t you agree?”
Mr. Parker agreed, and Lord Peter wandered away along the paths of
literature, till the cab stopped before one of those tall, awkward
mansions which, originally designed for a Victorian family with
fatigue-proof servants, have lately been dissected each into half a
dozen inconvenient band-boxes and let off in flats.
Lord Peter rang the top bell, which was marked CLIMPSON, and relaxed
negligently against the porch.
“Six flights of stairs,” he explained; “it takes her some time to answer
the bell, because there’s no lift, you see. She wouldn’t have a more
expensive flat, though. She thought it wouldn’t be suitable.”
Mr. Parker was greatly relieved, if somewhat surprised, by the modesty
of the lady’s demands, and, placing his foot on the door-scraper in an
easy attitude, prepared to wait with patience. Before many minutes,
however, the door was opened by a thin, middle-aged woman, with a sharp,
sallow face and very vivacious manner. She wore a neat, dark coat and
skirt, a high-necked blouse and a long gold neck-chain with a variety of
small ornaments dangling from it at intervals, and her iron-grey hair
was dressed under a net, in the style fashionable in the reign of the
late King Edward.
“Oh, Lord Peter! How very nice to see you. Rather an _early_ visit, but
I’m sure you will excuse the sitting-room being a trifle in disorder.
_Do_ come in. The lists are _quite_ ready for you. I finished them last
night. In fact, I was just about to put on my hat and bring them round
to you. I do _hope_ you don’t think I have taken an _unconscionable_
time, but there was a quite _surprising_ number of entries. It is _too_
good of you to trouble to call.”
“Not at all, Miss Climpson. This is my friend, Detective-Inspector
Parker, whom I have mentioned to you.”
“How do you do, Mr. Parker—or ought I to say Inspector? Excuse me if I
make mistakes—this is really the first time I have been in the hands of
the police. I hope it’s not rude of me to say that. Please come up. A
great many stairs, I am afraid, but I hope you do not mind. I do so like
to be _high up_. The air is so much better, and you know, Mr. Parker,
thanks to Lord Peter’s great kindness, I have such a _beautiful, airy_
view, right over the houses. I think one can work so much _better_ when
one doesn’t feel cribbed, cabined and confined, as Hamlet says. Dear me!
Mrs. Winbottle _will_ leave the pail on the stairs, and always in that
very dark corner. I am _continually_ telling her about it. If you keep
close to the banisters you will avoid it nicely. Only one more flight.
Here we are. Please overlook the untidiness. I always think breakfast
things look so _ugly_ when one has finished with them—almost sordid, to
use a nasty word for a nasty subject. What a pity that some of these
clever people can’t invent _self-cleaning_ and _self-clearing_ plates,
is it not? But please _do_ sit down; I won’t keep you a moment. And I
know, Lord Peter, that you will not hesitate to smoke. I do so enjoy the
smell of your cigarettes—quite delicious—and you are so _very_ good
about extinguishing the ends.”
The little room was, as a matter of fact, most exquisitely neat, in
spite of the crowded array of knick-knacks and photographs that adorned
every available inch of space. The sole evidences of dissipation were an
empty eggshell, a used cup and a crumby plate on a breakfast tray. Miss
Climpson promptly subdued this riot by carrying the tray bodily on to
the landing.
Mr. Parker, a little bewildered, lowered himself cautiously into a small
arm-chair, embellished with a hard, fat little cushion which made it
impossible to lean back. Lord Peter wriggled into the window-seat, lit a
Sobranie and clasped his hands above his knees. Miss Climpson, seated
upright at the table, gazed at him with a gratified air which was
positively touching.
“I have gone _very_ carefully into all these cases,” she began, taking
up a thick wad of type-script. “I’m afraid, indeed, my notes are rather
_copious_, but I trust the typist’s bill will not be considered too
heavy. My handwriting is very clear, so I don’t think there can be any
errors. Dear me! such _sad_ stories some of these poor women had to tell
me! But I have investigated most fully, with the kind assistance of the
clergyman—a very nice man and so helpful—and I feel sure that in the
majority of the cases your assistance will be _well bestowed_. If you
would like to go through—”
“Not at the moment, Miss Climpson,” interrupted Lord Peter, hurriedly.
“It’s all right, Charles—nothing whatever to do with Our Dumb Friends or
supplying Flannel to Unmarried Mothers. I’ll tell you about it later.
Just now, Miss Climpson, we want your help on something quite
different.”
Miss Climpson produced a business-like notebook and sat at attention.
“The inquiry divides itself into two parts,” said Lord Peter. “The first
part, I’m afraid, is rather dull. I want you (if you will be so good) to
go down to Somerset House and search, or get them to search, through all
the death-certificates for Hampshire in the month of November, 1925. I
don’t know the town and I don’t know the name of the deceased. What you
are looking for is the death-certificate of an old lady of 73; cause of
death, cancer; immediate cause, heart failure; and the certificate will
have been signed by two doctors, one of whom will be either a Medical
Officer of Health, Police Surgeon, Certifying Surgeon under the Factory
and Workshops Act, Medical Referee under the Workmen’s Compensation Act,
Physician or Surgeon in a big General Hospital, or a man specially
appointed by the Cremation authorities. If you want to give any excuse
for the search, you can say that you are compiling statistics about
cancer; but what you really want is the names of the people concerned
and the name of the town.”
“Suppose there are more than one answering to the requirements?”
“Ah! that’s where the second part comes in, and where your remarkable
tact and shrewdness are going to be so helpful to us. When you have
collected all the ‘possibles,’ I shall ask you to go down to each of the
towns concerned and make very, very skilful inquiries, to find out which
is the case we want to get on to. Of course, you mustn’t appear to be
inquiring. You must find some good gossipy lady living in the
neighbourhood and just get her to talk in a natural way. You must
pretend to be gossipy yourself—it’s not in your nature, I know, but I’m
sure you can make a little pretense about it—and find out all you can. I
fancy you’ll find it pretty easy if you once strike the right town,
because I know for a certainty that there was a terrible lot of
ill-natured talk about this particular death, and it won’t have been
forgotten yet by a long chalk.”
“How shall I know when it’s the right one?”
“Well, if you can spare the time, I want you to listen to a little
story. Mind you, Miss Climpson, when you get to wherever it is, you are
not supposed ever to have heard a word of this tale before. But I
needn’t tell you that. Now, Charles, you’ve got an official kind of way
of puttin’ these things clearly. Will you just weigh in and give Miss
Climpson the gist of that rigmarole our friend served out to us last
night?”
Pulling his wits into order, Mr. Parker accordingly obliged with a
digest of the doctor’s story. Miss Climpson listened with great
attention, making notes of the dates and details. Parker observed that
she showed great acumen in seizing on the salient points; she asked a
number of very shrewd questions, and her grey eyes were intelligent.
When he had finished, she repeated the story, and he was able to
congratulate her on a clear head and retentive memory.
“A dear old friend of mine used to say that I should have made a very
good lawyer,” said Miss Climpson, complacently, “but of course, when I
was young, girls didn’t have the education or the _opportunities_ they
get nowadays, Mr. Parker. I should have liked a good education, but my
dear father didn’t believe in it for women. Very old-fashioned, you