Whose Body? A Lord Peter Wimsey Novel
“and I only tell you now because Sir Reuben was accidentally seen, and
because I would rather tell you in private than have you ferretting
round here and questioning my servants, Mr. Parker. You will excuse my
frankness.”
“Certainly,” said Parker. “I hold no brief for the pleasantness of my
profession, Sir Julian. I am very much obliged to you for telling me
this. I might otherwise have wasted valuable time following up a false
trail.”
“I am sure I need not ask you, in your turn, to respect this
confidence,” said the doctor. “To publish the matter abroad could only
harm Sir Reuben and pain his wife, besides placing me in no favourable
light with my patients.”
“I promise to keep the thing to myself,” said Parker, “except of
course,” he added hastily, “that I must inform my colleague.”
“You have a colleague in the case?”
“I have.”
“What sort of person is he?”
“He will be perfectly discreet, Sir Julian.”
“Is he a police officer?”
“You need not be afraid of your confidence getting into the records at
Scotland Yard.”
“I see that you know how to be discreet, Mr. Parker.”
“We also have our professional etiquette, Sir Julian.”
* * * * *
On returning to Great Ormond Street, Mr. Parker found a wire awaiting
him, which said: “Do not trouble to come. All well. Returning tomorrow.
Wimsey.”
CHAPTER VII
On returning to the flat just before lunch-time on the following
morning, after a few confirmatory researches in Balham and the
neighbourhood of Victoria Station, Lord Peter was greeted at the
door by Mr. Bunter (who had gone straight home from Waterloo) with a
telephone message and a severe and nursemaid-like eye.
“Lady Swaffham rang up, my lord, and said she hoped your lordship had
not forgotten you were lunching with her.”
“I have forgotten, Bunter, and I mean to forget. I trust you told
her I had succumbed to lethargic encephalitis suddenly, no flowers by
request.”
“Lady Swaffham said, my lord, she was counting on you. She met the
Duchess of Denver yesterday—”
“If my sister-in-law’s there I won’t go, that’s flat,” said Lord Peter.
“I beg your pardon, my lord, the Dowager Duchess.”
“What’s she doing in town?”
“I imagine she came up for the inquest, my lord.”
“Oh, yes—we missed that, Bunter.”
“Yes, my lord. Her Grace is lunching with Lady Swaffham.”
“Bunter, I can’t. I can’t, really. Say I’m in bed with whooping cough,
and ask my mother to come round after lunch.”
“Very well, my lord. Mrs. Tommy Frayle will be at Lady Swaffham’s, my
lord, and Mr. Milligan—”
“Mr. who?”
“Mr. John P. Milligan, my lord, and—”
“Good God, Bunter, why didn’t you say so before? Have I time to get
there before he does? All right. I’m off. With a taxi I can just—”
“Not in those trousers, my lord,” said Mr. Bunter, blocking the way to
the door with deferential firmness.
“Oh, Bunter,” pleaded his lordship, “do let me—just this once. You
don’t know how important it is.”
“Not on any account, my lord. It would be as much as my place is worth.”
“The trousers are all right, Bunter.”
“Not for Lady Swaffham’s, my lord. Besides, your lordship forgets the
man that ran against you with a milk-can at Salisbury.”
And Mr. Bunter laid an accusing finger on a slight stain of grease
showing across the light cloth.
“I wish to God I’d never let you grow into a privileged family
retainer, Bunter,” said Lord Peter, bitterly, dashing his walking-stick
into the umbrella-stand. “You’ve no conception of the mistakes my
mother may be making.”
Mr. Bunter smiled grimly and led his victim away.
When an immaculate Lord Peter was ushered, rather late for lunch, into
Lady Swaffham’s drawing-room, the Dowager Duchess of Denver was seated
on a sofa, plunged in intimate conversation with Mr. John P. Milligan
of Chicago.
* * * * *
“I’m vurry pleased to meet you, Duchess,” had been that financier’s
opening remark, “to thank you for your exceedingly kind invitation. I
assure you it’s a compliment I deeply appreciate.”
The Duchess beamed at him, while conducting a rapid rally of all her
intellectual forces.
“Do come and sit down and talk to me, Mr. Milligan,” she said. “I do
so love talking to you great business men—let me see, is it a railway
king you are or something about puss-in-the-corner—at least, I don’t
mean that exactly, but that game one used to play with cards, all
about wheat and oats, and there was a bull and a bear, too—or was it a
horse?—no, a bear, because I remember one always had to try and get rid
of it and it used to get so dreadfully crumpled and torn, poor thing,
always being handed about, one got to recognise it, and then one had to
buy a new pack—so foolish it must seem to you, knowing the real thing,
and dreadfully noisy, but really excellent for breaking the ice with
rather stiff people who didn’t know each other—I’m quite sorry it’s
gone out.”
Mr. Milligan sat down.
“Wal, now,” he said, “I guess it’s as interesting for us business men
to meet British aristocrats as it is for Britishers to meet American
railway kings, Duchess. And I guess I’ll make as many mistakes talking
your kind of talk as you would make if you were tryin’ to run a corner
in wheat in Chicago. Fancy now, I called that fine lad of yours Lord
Wimsey the other day, and he thought I’d mistaken him for his brother.
That made me feel rather green.”
This was an unhoped-for lead. The Duchess walked warily.
“Dear boy,” she said, “I am so glad you met him, Mr. Milligan. _Both_
my sons are a _great_ comfort to me, you know, though, of course,
Gerald is more conventional—just the right kind of person for the House
of Lords, you know, and a splendid farmer. I can’t see Peter down at
Denver half so well, though he is always going to all the right things
in town, and very amusing sometimes, poor boy.”
“I was vurry much gratified by Lord Peter’s suggestion,” pursued
Mr. Milligan, “for which I understand you are responsible, and I’ll
surely be very pleased to come any day you like, though I think you’re
flattering me too much.”
“Ah, well,” said the Duchess, “I don’t know if you’re the best judge of
that, Mr. Milligan. Not that I know anything about business myself,”
she added. “I’m rather old-fashioned for these days, you know, and I
can’t pretend to do more than know a nice _man_ when I see him; for the
other things I rely on my son.”
The accent of this speech was so flattering that Mr. Milligan purred
almost audibly, and said:
“Wal, Duchess, I guess that’s where a lady with a real, beautiful,
old-fashioned soul has the advantage of these modern young
blatherskites—there aren’t many men who wouldn’t be nice—to her, and
even then, if they aren’t rock-bottom she can see through them.”
“But that leaves me where I was,” thought the Duchess. “I believe,”
she said aloud, “that I ought to be thanking you in the name of the
vicar of Duke’s Denver for a very munificent cheque which reached him
yesterday for the Church Restoration Fund. He was so delighted and
astonished, poor dear man.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Mr. Milligan, “we haven’t any fine old
crusted buildings like yours over on our side, so it’s a privilege to
be allowed to drop a little kerosene into the worm-holes when we hear
of one in the old country suffering from senile decay. So when your
lad told me about Duke’s Denver I took the liberty to subscribe without
waiting for the Bazaar.”
“I’m sure it was very kind of you,” said the Duchess. “You are coming
to the Bazaar, then?” she continued, gazing into his face appealingly.
“Sure thing,” said Mr. Milligan, with great promptness. “Lord Peter
said you’d let me know for sure about the date, but we can always make
time for a little bit of good work anyway. Of course I’m hoping to
be able to avail myself of your kind invitation to stop, but if I’m
rushed, I’ll manage anyhow to pop over and speak my piece and pop back
again.”
“I hope so very much,” said the Duchess. “I must see what can be done
about the date—of course, I can’t promise—”
“No, no,” said Mr. Milligan heartily. “I know what these things are to
fix up. And then there’s not only me—there’s all the real big men of
European eminence your son mentioned, to be consulted.”
The Duchess turned pale at the thought that any one of these
illustrious persons might some time turn up in somebody’s drawing-room,
but by this time she had dug herself in comfortably, and was even
beginning to find her range.
“I can’t say how grateful we are to you,” she said; “it will be such a
treat. Do tell me what you think of saying.”
“Wal—” began Mr. Milligan.
Suddenly everybody was standing up and a penitent voice was heard to
say:
“Really, most awfully sorry, y’know—hope you’ll forgive me, Lady
Swaffham, what? Dear lady, could I possibly forget an invitation from
you? Fact is, I had to go an’ see a man down in Salisbury—absolutely
true, ’pon my word, and the fellow wouldn’t let me get away. I’m simply
grovellin’ before you, Lady Swaffham. Shall I go an’ eat my lunch in
the corner?”
Lady Swaffham gracefully forgave the culprit.
“Your dear mother is here,” she said.
“How do, Mother?” said Lord Peter, uneasily.
“How are you, dear?” replied the Duchess. “You really oughtn’t to
have turned up just yet. Mr. Milligan was just going to tell me what
a thrilling speech he’s preparing for the Bazaar, when you came and
interrupted us.”
Conversation at lunch turned, not unnaturally, on the Battersea
inquest, the Duchess giving a vivid impersonation of Mrs. Thipps being
interrogated by the Coroner.
“‘Did you hear anything unusual in the night?’ says the little man,
leaning forward and screaming at her, and so crimson in the face
and his ears sticking out so—just like a cherubim in that poem of
Tennyson’s—or is a cherub blue?—perhaps it’s a seraphim I mean—anyway,
you know what I mean, all eyes, with little wings on its head. And
dear old Mrs. Thipps saying, ‘Of course I have, any time these eighty
years,’ and _such_ a sensation in court till they found out she thought
he’d said, ‘Do you sleep without a light?’ and everybody laughing, and
then the Coroner said quite loudly, ‘Damn the woman,’ and she heard
that, I can’t think why, and said: ‘Don’t you get swearing, young man,
sitting there in the presence of Providence, as you may say. I don’t
know what young people are coming to nowadays’—and he’s sixty if he’s
a day, you know,” said the Duchess.
* * * * *
By a natural transition, Mrs. Tommy Frayle referred to the man who was
hanged for murdering three brides in a bath.
“I always thought that was so ingenious,” she said, gazing soulfully
at Lord Peter, “and do you know, as it happened, Tommy had just made
me insure my life, and I got so frightened, I gave up my morning bath
and took to having it in the afternoon when he was in the House—I mean,
when he was _not_ in the house—not at home, I mean.”
“Dear lady,” said Lord Peter, reproachfully, “I have a distinct
recollection that all those brides were thoroughly unattractive. But
it was an uncommonly ingenious plan—the first time of askin’—only he
shouldn’t have repeated himself.”
“One demands a little originality in these days, even from murderers,”
said Lady Swaffham. “Like dramatists, you know—so much easier in
Shakespeare’s time, wasn’t it? Always the same girl dressed up as
a man, and even that borrowed from Boccaccio or Dante or somebody.
I’m sure if I’d been a Shakespeare hero, the very minute I saw a
slim-legged young page-boy I’d have said: ‘Odsbodikins! There’s that
girl again!’”
“That’s just what happened, as a matter of fact,” said Lord Peter. “You
see, Lady Swaffham, if ever you want to commit a murder, the thing