Whose Body? A Lord Peter Wimsey Novel
door, and then went to fetch Levy. It was a nuisance having to get him
downstairs, but I had not liked to make away with him in any of the
ground-floor rooms, in case my servant should take a fancy to poke his
head in during the few minutes that I was out of the house, or while
locking up. Besides, that was a flea-bite to what I should have to
do later. I put Levy on the table, wheeled him across to the hospital
and substituted him for my interesting pauper. I was sorry to have to
abandon the idea of getting a look at the latter’s brain, but I could
not afford to incur suspicion. It was still rather early, so I knocked
down a few minutes getting Levy ready for dissection. Then I put my
pauper on the table and trundled him over to the house. It was now five
past eleven, and I thought I might conclude that the servants were in
bed. I carried the body into my bedroom. He was rather heavy, but less
so than Levy, and my Alpine experience had taught me how to handle
bodies. It is as much a matter of knack as of strength, and I am, in
any case, a powerful man for my height. I put the body into the bed—not
that I expected anyone to look in during my absence, but if they should
they might just as well see me apparently asleep in bed. I drew the
clothes a little over his head, stripped, and put on Levy’s clothes,
which were fortunately a little big for me everywhere, not forgetting
to take his spectacles, watch and other oddments. At a little before
half-past eleven I was in the road looking for a cab. People were just
beginning to come home from the theatre, and I easily secured one at
the corner of Prince of Wales Road. I told the man to drive me to Hyde
Park Corner. There I got out, tipped him well, and asked him to pick
me up again at the same place in an hour’s time. He assented with an
understanding grin, and I walked on up Park Lane. I had my own clothes
with me in a suitcase, and carried my own overcoat and Levy’s umbrella.
When I got to No. 9A there were lights in some of the top windows.
I was very nearly too early, owing to the old man’s having sent the
servants to the theatre. I waited about for a few minutes, and heard it
strike the quarter past midnight. The lights were extinguished shortly
after, and I let myself in with Levy’s key.
It had been my original intention, when I thought over this plan
of murder, to let Levy disappear from the study or the dining-room,
leaving only a heap of clothes on the hearth-rug. The accident of my
having been able to secure Lady Levy’s absence from London, however,
made possible a solution more misleading, though less pleasantly
fantastic. I turned on the hall light, hung up Levy’s wet overcoat and
placed his umbrella in the stand. I walked up noisily and heavily to
the bedroom and turned off the light by the duplicate switch on the
landing. I knew the house well enough, of course. There was no chance
of my running into the man-servant. Old Levy was a simple old man,
who liked doing things for himself. He gave his valet little work,
and never required any attendance at night. In the bedroom I took off
Levy’s gloves and put on a surgical pair, so as to leave no tell-tale
finger-prints. As I wished to convey the impression that Levy had gone
to bed in the usual way, I simply went to bed. The surest and simplest
method of making a thing appear to have been done is to do it. A bed
that has been rumpled about with one’s hands, for instance, never looks
like a bed that has been slept in. I dared not use Levy’s brush, of
course, as my hair is not of his colour, but I did everything else. I
supposed that a thoughtful old man like Levy would put his boots handy
for his valet, and I ought to have deduced that he would fold up his
clothes. That was a mistake, but not an important one. Remembering that
well-thought-out little work of Mr. Bentley’s, I had examined Levy’s
mouth for false teeth, but he had none. I did not forget, however, to
wet his tooth-brush.
At one o’clock I got up and dressed in my own clothes by the light of
my own pocket torch. I dared not turn on the bedroom lights, as there
were light blinds to the windows. I put on my own boots and an old
pair of goloshes outside the door. There was a thick Turkey carpet on
the stairs and hall-floor, and I was not afraid of leaving marks. I
hesitated whether to chance the banging of the front door, but decided
it would be safer to take the latchkey. (It is now in the Thames.
I dropped it over Battersea Bridge the next day.) I slipped quietly
down, and listened for a few minutes with my ear to the letter-box.
I heard a constable tramp past. As soon as his steps had died away
in the distance I stepped out and pulled the door gingerly to. It
closed almost soundlessly, and I walked away to pick up my cab. I
had an overcoat of much the same pattern as Levy’s, and had taken the
precaution to pack an opera hat in my suitcase. I hoped the man would
not notice that I had no umbrella this time. Fortunately the rain
had diminished for the moment to a sort of drizzle, and if he noticed
anything he made no observation. I told him to stop at 50 Overstrand
Mansions, and I paid him off there, and stood under the porch till
he had driven away. Then I hurried round to my own side door and let
myself in. It was about a quarter to two, and the harder part of my
task still lay before me.
My first step was so to alter the appearance of my subject as to
eliminate any immediate suggestion either of Levy or of the workhouse
vagrant. A fairly superficial alteration was all I considered
necessary, since there was not likely to be any hue-and-cry after the
pauper. He was fairly accounted for, and his deputy was at hand to
represent him. Nor, if Levy was after all traced to my house, would
it be difficult to show that the body in evidence was, as a matter of
fact, not his. A clean shave and a little hair-oiling and manicuring
seemed sufficient to suggest a distinct personality for my silent
accomplice. His hands had been well washed in hospital, and though
calloused, were not grimy. I was not able to do the work as thoroughly
as I should have liked, because time was getting on. I was not sure
how long it would take me to dispose of him, and moreover, I feared
the onset of _rigor mortis_, which would make my task more difficult.
When I had him barbered to my satisfaction, I fetched a strong sheet
and a couple of wide roller bandages, and fastened him up carefully,
padding him with cotton wool wherever the bandages might chafe or leave
a bruise.
Now came the really ticklish part of the business. I had already
decided in my own mind that the only way of conveying him from the
house was by the roof. To go through the garden at the back in this
soft wet weather was to leave a ruinous trail behind us. To carry
a dead man down a suburban street in the middle of the night seemed
outside the range of practical politics. On the roof, on the other
hand, the rain, which would have betrayed me on the ground, would stand
my friend.
To reach the roof, it was necessary to carry my burden to the top
of the house, past my servants’ room, and hoist him out through the
trap-door in the box-room roof. Had it merely been a question of
going quietly up there myself, I should have had no fear of waking the
servants, but to do so burdened by a heavy body was more difficult.
It would be possible, provided that the man and his wife were soundly
asleep, but if not, the lumbering tread on the narrow stair and the
noise of opening the trap-door would be only too plainly audible.
I tiptoed delicately up the stair and listened at their door. To my
disgust I heard the man give a grunt and mutter something as he moved
in his bed.
I looked at my watch. My preparations had taken nearly an hour, first
and last, and I dared not be too late on the roof. I determined to
take a bold step and, as it were, bluff out an alibi. I went without
precaution against noise into the bathroom, turned on the hot and cold
water taps to the full and pulled out the plug.
My household has often had occasion to complain of my habit of using
the bath at irregular night hours. Not only does the rush of water
into the cistern disturb any sleepers on the Prince of Wales Road
side of the house, but my cistern is afflicted with peculiarly loud
gurglings and thumpings, while frequently the pipes emit a loud
groaning sound. To my delight, on this particular occasion, the cistern
was in excellent form, honking, whistling and booming like a railway
terminus. I gave the noise five minutes’ start, and when I calculated
that the sleepers would have finished cursing me and put their heads
under the clothes to shut out the din, I reduced the flow of water to
a small stream and left the bathroom, taking good care to leave the
light burning and lock the door after me. Then I picked up my pauper
and carried him upstairs as lightly as possible.
The box-room is a small attic on the side of the landing opposite to
the servants’ bedroom and the cistern-room. It has a trap-door, reached
by a short, wooden ladder. I set this up, hoisted up my pauper and
climbed up after him. The water was still racing into the cistern,
which was making a noise as though it were trying to digest an iron
chain, and with the reduced flow in the bathroom the groaning of the
pipes had risen almost to a hoot. I was not afraid of anybody hearing
other noises. I pulled the ladder through on to the roof after me.
Between my house and the last house in Queen Caroline Mansions there
is a space of only a few feet. Indeed, when the Mansions were put up,
I believe there was some trouble about ancient lights, but I suppose
the parties compromised somehow. Anyhow, my seven-foot ladder reached
well across. I tied the body firmly to the ladder, and pushed it over
till the far end was resting on the parapet of the opposite house. Then
I took a short run across the cistern-room and the box-room roof, and
landed easily on the other side, the parapet being happily both low and
narrow.
The rest was simple. I carried my pauper along the flat roofs,
intending to leave him, like the hunchback in the story, on someone’s
staircase or down a chimney. I had got about half-way along when I
suddenly thought, “Why, this must be about little Thipps’s place,” and
I remembered his silly face, and his silly chatter about vivisection.
It occurred to me pleasantly how delightful it would be to deposit my
parcel with him and see what he made of it. I lay down and peered over
the parapet at the back. It was pitch-dark and pouring with rain again
by this time, and I risked using my torch. That was the only incautious
thing I did, and the odds against being seen from the houses opposite
were long enough. One second’s flash showed me what I had hardly dared
to hope—an open window just below me.
I knew those flats well enough to be sure it was either the bathroom
or the kitchen. I made a noose in a third bandage that I had brought
with me, and made it fast under the arms of the corpse. I twisted it
into a double rope, and secured the end to the iron stanchion of a
chimney-stack. Then I dangled our friend over. I went down after him
myself with the aid of a drain-pipe and was soon hauling him in by
Thipps’s bathroom window.
By that time I had got a little conceited with myself, and spared a
few minutes to lay him out prettily and make him shipshape. A sudden
inspiration suggested that I should give him the pair of pince-nez
which I had happened to pick up at Victoria. I came across them in my
pocket while I was looking for a penknife to loosen a knot, and I saw
what distinction they would lend his appearance, besides making it more
misleading. I fixed them on him, effaced all traces of my presence as