Whose Body? A Lord Peter Wimsey Novel
“There is an excellent train at 10.50, my lord.”
“Kindly make arrangements to catch it,” said Lord Peter, throwing
off his bath-robe and trailing away with it into his bedroom. “And,
Parker—if you have nothing else to do you might get hold of Levy’s
secretary and look into that little matter of the Peruvian oil.”
* * * * *
Lord Peter took with him, for light reading in the train, Sir Reuben
Levy’s diary. It was a simple, and in the light of recent facts, rather
a pathetic document. The terrible fighter of the Stock Exchange, who
could with one nod set the surly bear dancing, or bring the savage bull
to feed out of his hand, whose breath devastated whole districts with
famine or swept financial potentates from their seats, was revealed
in private life as kindly, domestic, innocently proud of himself
and his belongings, confiding, generous and a little dull. His own
small economies were duly chronicled side by side with extravagant
presents to his wife and daughter. Small incidents of household routine
appeared, such as: “Man came to mend the conservatory roof,” or “The
new butler (Simpson) has arrived, recommended by the Goldbergs. I
think he will be satisfactory.” All visitors and entertainments were
duly entered, from a very magnificent lunch to Lord Dewsbury, the
Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Dr. Jabez K. Wort, the American
plenipotentiary, through a series of diplomatic dinners to eminent
financiers, down to intimate family gatherings of persons designated
by Christian names or nicknames. About May there came a mention of
Lady Levy’s nerves, and further reference was made to the subject in
subsequent months. In September it was stated that “Freke came to see
my dear wife and advised complete rest and change of scene. She thinks
of going abroad with Rachel.” The name of the famous nerve-specialist
occurred as a diner or luncher about once a month, and it came
into Lord Peter’s mind that Freke would be a good person to consult
about Levy himself. “People sometimes tell things to the doctor,” he
murmured to himself. “And, by Jove! if Levy was simply going round
to see Freke on Monday night, that rather disposes of the Battersea
incident, doesn’t it?” He made a note to look up Sir Julian and turned
on further. On September 18th, Lady Levy and her daughter had left for
the south of France. Then suddenly, under the date October 5th, Lord
Peter found what he was looking for: “Goldberg, Skriner and Milligan to
dinner.”
There was the evidence that Milligan had been in that house. There had
been a formal entertainment—a meeting as of two duellists shaking hands
before the fight. Skriner was a well-known picture-dealer; Lord Peter
imagined an after-dinner excursion upstairs to see the two Corots in
the drawing-room, and the portrait of the oldest Levy girl, who had
died at the age of sixteen. It was by Augustus John, and hung in the
bedroom. The name of the red-haired secretary was nowhere mentioned,
unless the initial S., occurring in another entry, referred to him.
Throughout September and October, Anderson (of Wyndham’s) had been a
frequent visitor.
Lord Peter shook his head over the diary, and turned to the
consideration of the Battersea Park mystery. Whereas in the Levy affair
it was easy enough to supply a motive for the crime, if crime it were,
and the difficulty was to discover the method of its carrying out and
the whereabouts of the victim, in the other case the chief obstacle
to inquiry was the entire absence of any imaginable motive. It was odd
that, although the papers had carried news of the affair from one end
of the country to the other and a description of the body had been sent
to every police station in the country, nobody had as yet come forward
to identify the mysterious occupant of Mr. Thipps’s bath. It was true
that the description, which mentioned the clean-shaven chin, elegantly
cut hair and the pince-nez, was rather misleading, but on the other
hand, the police had managed to discover the number of molars missing,
and the height, complexion and other data were correctly enough stated,
as also the date at which death had presumably occurred. It seemed,
however, as though the man had melted out of society without leaving
a gap or so much as a ripple. Assigning a motive for the murder of
a person without relations or antecedents or even clothes is like
trying to visualize the fourth dimension—admirable exercise for the
imagination, but arduous and inconclusive. Even if the day’s interview
should disclose black spots in the past or present of Mr. Crimplesham,
how were they to be brought into connection with a person apparently
without a past, and whose present was confined to the narrow limits of
a bath and a police mortuary?
“Bunter,” said Lord Peter, “I beg that in the future you will restrain
me from starting two hares at once. These cases are gettin’ to be a
strain on my constitution. One hare has nowhere to run from, and the
other has nowhere to run to. It’s a kind of mental D.T., Bunter. When
this is over I shall turn pussyfoot, forswear the police news, and take
to an emollient diet of the works of the late Charles Garvice.”
* * * * *
It was its comparative proximity to Milford Hill that induced Lord
Peter to lunch at the Minster Hotel rather than at the White Hart
or some other more picturesquely situated hostel. It was not a
lunch calculated to cheer his mind; as in all Cathedral cities, the
atmosphere of the Close pervades every nook and corner of Salisbury,
and no food in that city but seems faintly flavoured with prayer-books.
As he sat sadly consuming that impassive pale substance known to
the English as “cheese” unqualified (for there are cheeses which go
openly by their names, as Stilton, Camembert, Gruyère, Wensleydale
or Gorgonzola, but “cheese” is cheese and everywhere the same), he
inquired of the waiter the whereabouts of Mr. Crimplesham’s office.
The waiter directed him to a house rather further up the street on the
opposite side, adding: “But anybody’ll tell you, sir; Mr. Crimplesham’s
very well known hereabouts.”
“He’s a good solicitor, I suppose?” said Lord Peter.
“Oh, yes, sir,” said the waiter, “you couldn’t do better than trust
to Mr. Crimplesham, sir. There’s folk say he’s old-fashioned, but I’d
rather have my little bits of business done by Mr. Crimplesham than
by one of these fly-away young men. Not but what Mr. Crimplesham’ll
be retiring soon, sir, I don’t doubt, for he must be close on eighty,
sir, if he’s a day, but then there’s young Mr. Wicks to carry on the
business, and he’s a very nice, steady-like young gentleman.”
“Is Mr. Crimplesham really as old as that?” said Lord Peter. “Dear
me! He must be very active for his years. A friend of mine was doing
business with him in town last week.”
“Wonderful active, sir,” agreed the waiter, “and with his game leg,
too, you’d be surprised. But there, sir, I often think when a man’s
once past a certain age, the older he grows the tougher he gets, and
women the same or more so.”
“Very likely,” said Lord Peter, calling up and dismissing the mental
picture of a gentleman of eighty with a game leg carrying a dead
body over the roof of a Battersea flat at midnight. “‘He’s tough,
sir, tough, is old Joey Bagstock, tough and devilish sly,’” he added,
thoughtlessly.
“Indeed, sir?” said the waiter. “I couldn’t say, I’m sure.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Lord Peter; “I was quoting poetry. Very silly
of me. I got the habit at my mother’s knee and I can’t break myself of
it.”
“No, sir,” said the waiter, pocketing a liberal tip. “Thank you
very much, sir. You’ll find the house easy. Just afore you come to
Penny-farthing Street, sir, about two turnings off, on the right-hand
side opposite.”
“Afraid that disposes of Crimplesham-X,” said Lord Peter. “I’m rather
sorry; he was a fine sinister figure as I had pictured him. Still, his
may yet be the brain behind the hands—the aged spider sitting invisible
in the centre of the vibrating web, you know, Bunter.”
“Yes, my lord,” said Bunter. They were walking up the street together.
“There is the office over the way,” pursued Lord Peter. “I think,
Bunter, you might step into this little shop and purchase a sporting
paper, and if I do not emerge from the villain’s lair—say within
three-quarters of an hour, you may take such steps as your perspicuity
may suggest.”
Mr. Bunter turned into the shop as desired, and Lord Peter walked
across and rang the lawyer’s bell with decision.
“The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is my long suit
here, I fancy,” he murmured, and when the door was opened by a clerk he
delivered over his card with an unflinching air.
He was ushered immediately into a confidential-looking office,
obviously furnished in the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign, and
never altered since. A lean, frail-looking old gentleman rose briskly
from his chair as he entered and limped forward to meet him.
“My dear sir,” exclaimed the lawyer, “how extremely good of you to come
in person! Indeed, I am ashamed to have given you so much trouble. I
trust you were passing this way, and that my glasses have not put you
to any great inconvenience. Pray take a seat, Lord Peter.” He peered
gratefully at the young man over a pince-nez obviously the fellow of
that now adorning a dossier in Scotland Yard.
Lord Peter sat down. The lawyer sat down. Lord Peter picked up a glass
paper-weight from the desk and weighed it thoughtfully in his hand.
Subconsciously he noted what an admirable set of finger-prints he was
leaving upon it. He replaced it with precision on the exact centre of
a pile of letters.
“It’s quite all right,” said Lord Peter. “I was here on business. Very
happy to be of service to you. Very awkward to lose one’s glasses, Mr.
Crimplesham.”
“Yes,” said the lawyer, “I assure you I feel quite lost without them.
I have this pair, but they do not fit my nose so well—besides, that
chain has a great sentimental value for me. I was terribly distressed
on arriving at Balham to find that I had lost them. I made inquiries of
the railway, but to no purpose. I feared they had been stolen. There
were such crowds at Victoria, and the carriage was packed with people
all the way to Balham. Did you come across them in the train?”
“Well, no,” said Lord Peter, “I found them in rather an unexpected
place. Do you mind telling me if you recognized any of your
fellow-travellers on that occasion?”
The lawyer stared at him.
“Not a soul,” he answered. “Why do you ask?”
“Well,” said Lord Peter, “I thought perhaps the—the person with whom I
found them might have taken them for a joke.”
The lawyer looked puzzled.
“Did the person claim to be an acquaintance of mine?” he inquired. “I
know practically nobody in London, except the friend with whom I was
staying in Balham, Dr. Philpots, and I should be very greatly surprised
at his practising a jest upon me. He knew very well how distressed I
was at the loss of the glasses. My business was to attend a meeting
of shareholders in Medlicott’s Bank, but the other gentlemen present
were all personally unknown to me, and I cannot think that any of them
would take so great a liberty. In any case,” he added, “as the glasses
are here, I will not inquire too closely into the manner of their
restoration. I am deeply obliged to you for your trouble.”
Lord Peter hesitated.
“Pray forgive my seeming inquisitiveness,” he said, “but I must ask you
another question. It sounds rather melodramatic, I’m afraid, but it’s
this. Are you aware that you have any enemy—anyone, I mean, who would
profit by your—er—decease or disgrace?”
Mr. Crimplesham sat frozen into stony surprise and disapproval.