Whose Body? A Lord Peter Wimsey Novel
that dreadful thing lying there in my bath, mother-naked, too, except
for a pair of eyeglasses, I assure you, my lord, it regularly turned
my stomach, if you’ll excuse the expression. I’m not very strong, sir,
and I get that sinking feeling sometimes in the morning, and what with
one thing and another I ’ad—had to send the girl for a stiff brandy,
or I don’t know _what_ mightn’t have happened. I felt so queer, though
I’m anything but partial to spirits as a rule. Still, I make it a rule
never to be without brandy in the house, in case of emergency, you
know?”
“Very wise of you,” said Lord Peter, cheerfully. “You’re a very
far-seein’ man, Mr. Thipps. Wonderful what a little nip’ll do in case
of need, and the less you’re used to it the more good it does you.
Hope your girl is a sensible young woman, what? Nuisance to have women
faintin’ and shriekin’ all over the place.”
“Oh, Gladys is a good girl,” said Mr. Thipps, “very reasonable indeed.
She was shocked, of course; that’s very understandable. I was shocked
myself, and it wouldn’t be proper in a young woman not to be shocked
under the circumstances, but she is reely a helpful, energetic girl in
a crisis, if you understand me. I consider myself very fortunate these
days to have got a good, decent girl to do for me and Mother, even
though she is a bit careless and forgetful about little things, but
that’s only natural. She was very sorry indeed about having left the
bathroom window open, she reely was, and though I was angry at first,
seeing what’s come of it, it wasn’t anything to speak of, not in the
ordinary way, as you might say. Girls will forget things, you know, my
lord, and reely she was so distressed I didn’t like to say too much to
her. All I said was: ‘It might have been burglars,’ I said, ‘remember
that, next time you leave a window open all night; this time it was
a dead man,’ I said, ‘and that’s unpleasant enough, but next time it
might be burglars,’ I said, ‘and all of us murdered in our beds.’ But
the police-inspector—Inspector Sugg, they called him, from the Yard—he
was very sharp with her, poor girl. Quite frightened her, and made her
think he suspected her of something, though what good a body could be
to her, poor girl, I can’t imagine, and so I told the Inspector. He was
quite rude to me, my lord—I may say I didn’t like his manner at all.
‘If you’ve got anything definite to accuse Gladys or me of, Inspector,’
I said to him, ‘bring it forward, that’s what you have to do,’ I said,
‘but I’ve yet to learn that you’re paid to be rude to a gentleman in
his own ’ouse—house.’ Reely,” said Mr. Thipps, growing quite pink on
the top of his head, “he regularly roused me, regularly roused me, my
lord, and I’m a mild man as a rule.”
“Sugg all over,” said Lord Peter. “I know him. When he don’t know what
else to say, he’s rude. Stands to reason you and the girl wouldn’t
go collectin’ bodies. Who’d want to saddle himself with a body?
Difficulty’s usually to get rid of ’em. Have you got rid of this one
yet, by the way?”
“It’s still in the bathroom,” said Mr. Thipps. “Inspector Sugg
said nothing was to be touched till his men came in to move it. I’m
expecting them at any time. If it would interest your lordship to have
a look at it—”
“Thanks awfully,” said Lord Peter. “I’d like to very much, if I’m not
puttin’ you out.”
“Not at all,” said Mr. Thipps. His manner as he led the way along
the passage convinced Lord Peter of two things—first, that, gruesome
as his exhibit was, he rejoiced in the importance it reflected upon
himself and his flat, and secondly, that Inspector Sugg had forbidden
him to exhibit it to anyone. The latter supposition was confirmed by
the action of Mr. Thipps, who stopped to fetch the door-key from his
bedroom, saying that the police had the other, but that he made it a
rule to have two keys to every door, in case of accident.
The bathroom was in no way remarkable. It was long and narrow, the
window being exactly over the head of the bath. The panes were of
frosted glass; the frame wide enough to admit a man’s body. Lord Peter
stepped rapidly across to it, opened it and looked out.
The flat was the top one of the building and situated about the middle
of the block. The bathroom window looked out upon the back-yards of the
flats, which were occupied by various small outbuildings, coal-holes,
garages, and the like. Beyond these were the back gardens of a parallel
line of houses. On the right rose the extensive edifice of St. Luke’s
Hospital, Battersea, with its grounds, and, connected with it by a
covered way, the residence of the famous surgeon, Sir Julian Freke,
who directed the surgical side of the great new hospital, and was, in
addition, known in Harley Street as a distinguished neurologist with a
highly individual point of view.
This information was poured into Lord Peter’s ear at considerable
length by Mr. Thipps, who seemed to feel that the neighbourhood of
anybody so distinguished shed a kind of halo of glory over Queen
Caroline Mansions.
“We had him round here himself this morning,” he said, “about this
horrid business. Inspector Sugg thought one of the young medical
gentlemen at the hospital might have brought the corpse round
for a joke, as you might say, they always having bodies in the
dissecting-room. So Inspector Sugg went round to see Sir Julian this
morning to ask if there was a body missing. He was very kind, was Sir
Julian, very kind indeed, though he was at work when they got there, in
the dissecting-room. He looked up the books to see that all the bodies
were accounted for, and then very obligingly came round here to look at
this”—he indicated the bath—“and said he was afraid he couldn’t help
us—there was no corpse missing from the hospital, and this one didn’t
answer to the description of any they’d had.”
“Nor to the description of any of the patients, I hope,” suggested Lord
Peter casually.
At this grisly hint Mr. Thipps turned pale.
“I didn’t hear Inspector Sugg inquire,” he said, with some agitation.
“What a very horrid thing that would be—God bless my soul, my lord, I
never thought of it.”
“Well, if they had missed a patient they’d probably have discovered it
by now,” said Lord Peter. “Let’s have a look at this one.”
He screwed his monocle into his eye, adding: “I see you’re troubled
here with the soot blowing in. Beastly nuisance, ain’t it? I get it,
too—spoils all my books, you know. Here, don’t you trouble, if you
don’t care about lookin’ at it.”
He took from Mr. Thipps’s hesitating hand the sheet which had been
flung over the bath, and turned it back.
The body which lay in the bath was that of a tall, stout man of
about fifty. The hair, which was thick and black and naturally curly,
had been cut and parted by a master hand, and exuded a faint violet
perfume, perfectly recognisable in the close air of the bathroom. The
features were thick, fleshy and strongly marked, with prominent dark
eyes, and a long nose curving down to a heavy chin. The clean-shaven
lips were full and sensual, and the dropped jaw showed teeth stained
with tobacco. On the dead face the handsome pair of gold pince-nez
mocked death with grotesque elegance; the fine gold chain curved over
the naked breast. The legs lay stiffly stretched out side by side; the
arms reposed close to the body; the fingers were flexed naturally. Lord
Peter lifted one arm, and looked at the hand with a little frown.
“Bit of a dandy, your visitor, what?” he murmured. “Parma violet and
manicure.” He bent again, slipping his hand beneath the head. The
absurd eyeglasses slipped off, clattering into the bath, and the noise
put the last touch to Mr. Thipps’s growing nervousness.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he murmured, “it makes me feel quite faint, it
reely does.”
He slipped outside, and he had no sooner done so than Lord Peter,
lifting the body quickly and cautiously, turned it over and inspected
it with his head on one side, bringing his monocle into play with
the air of the late Joseph Chamberlain approving a rare orchid. He
then laid the head over his arm, and bringing out the silver matchbox
from his pocket, slipped it into the open mouth. Then making the
noise usually written “Tut-tut,” he laid the body down, picked up
the mysterious pince-nez, looked at it, put it on his nose and looked
through it, made the same noise again, readjusted the pince-nez upon
the nose of the corpse, so as to leave no traces of interference for
the irritation of Inspector Sugg; rearranged the body; returned to
the window and, leaning out, reached upwards and sideways with his
walking-stick, which he had somewhat incongruously brought along with
him. Nothing appearing to come of these investigations, he withdrew his
head, closed the window, and rejoined Mr. Thipps in the passage.
Mr. Thipps, touched by this sympathetic interest in the younger son
of a duke, took the liberty, on their return to the sitting-room, of
offering him a cup of tea. Lord Peter, who had strolled over to the
window and was admiring the outlook on Battersea Park, was about to
accept, when an ambulance came into view at the end of Prince of Wales
Road. Its appearance reminded Lord Peter of an important engagement,
and with a hurried “By Jove!” he took his leave of Mr. Thipps.
“My mother sent kind regards and all that,” he said, shaking hands
fervently; “hopes you’ll soon be down at Denver again. Good-bye, Mrs.
Thipps,” he bawled kindly into the ear of the old lady. “Oh, no, my
dear sir, please don’t trouble to come down.”
He was none too soon. As he stepped out of the door and turned towards
the station, the ambulance drew up from the other direction, and
Inspector Sugg emerged from it with two constables. The Inspector spoke
to the officer on duty at the Mansions, and turned a suspicious gaze on
Lord Peter’s retreating back.
“Dear old Sugg,” said that nobleman, fondly, “dear, dear old bird! How
he does hate me, to be sure.”
CHAPTER II
“Excellent, Bunter,” said Lord Peter, sinking with a sigh into a
luxurious armchair. “I couldn’t have done better myself. The thought
of the Dante makes my mouth water—and the ‘Four Sons of Aymon.’ And
you’ve saved me £60—that’s glorious. What shall we spend it on, Bunter?
Think of it—all ours, to do as we like with, for as Harold Skimpole so
rightly observes, £60 saved is £60 gained, and I’d reckoned on spending
it all. It’s your saving, Bunter, and properly speaking, your £60.
What do we want? Anything in your department? Would you like anything
altered in the flat?”
“Well, my lord, as your lordship is so good”—the man-servant paused,
about to pour an old brandy into a liqueur glass.
“Well, out with it, my Bunter, you imperturbable old hypocrite. It’s
no good talking as if you were announcing dinner—you’re spilling the
brandy. The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of
Esau. What does that blessed darkroom of yours want now?”
“There’s a Double Anastigmat with a set of supplementary lenses, my
lord,” said Bunter, with a note almost of religious fervour. “If it
was a case of forgery now—or footprints—I could enlarge them right up
on the plate. Or the wide-angled lens would be useful. It’s as though
the camera had eyes at the back of its head, my lord. Look—I’ve got it
here.”
He pulled a catalogue from his pocket, and submitted it, quivering, to
his employer’s gaze.
Lord Peter perused the description slowly, the corners of his long
mouth lifted into a faint smile.
“It’s Greek to me,” he said, “and £50 seems a ridiculous price for a
few bits of glass. I suppose, Bunter, you’d say £750 was a bit out of
the way for a dirty old book in a dead language, wouldn’t you?”
“It wouldn’t be my place to say so, my lord.”
“No, Bunter, I pay you £200 a year to keep your thoughts to yourself.