Whose Body? A Lord Peter Wimsey Novel
Tell me, Bunter, in these democratic days, don’t you think that’s
unfair?”
“No, my lord.”
“You don’t. D’you mind telling me frankly why you don’t think it
unfair?”
“Frankly, my lord, your lordship is paid a nobleman’s income to
take Lady Worthington in to dinner and refrain from exercising your
lordship’s undoubted powers of repartee.”
Lord Peter considered this.
“That’s your idea, is it, Bunter? Noblesse oblige—for a consideration.
I daresay you’re right. Then you’re better off than I am, because I’d
have to behave myself to Lady Worthington if I hadn’t a penny. Bunter,
if I sacked you here and now, would you tell me what you think of me?”
“No, my lord.”
“You’d have a perfect right to, my Bunter, and if I sacked you on top
of drinking the kind of coffee you make, I’d deserve everything you
could say of me. You’re a demon for coffee, Bunter—I don’t want to know
how you do it, because I believe it to be witchcraft, and I don’t want
to burn eternally. You can buy your cross-eyed lens.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“Have you finished in the dining-room?”
“Not quite, my lord.”
“Well, come back when you have. I have many things to tell you. Hullo!
who’s that?”
The doorbell had rung sharply.
“Unless it’s anybody interestin’ I’m not at home.”
“Very good, my lord.”
Lord Peter’s library was one of the most delightful bachelor rooms in
London. Its scheme was black and primrose; its walls were lined with
rare editions, and its chairs and Chesterfield sofa suggested the
embraces of the houris. In one corner stood a black baby grand, a wood
fire leaped on a wide old-fashioned hearth, and the Sèvres vases on
the chimneypiece were filled with ruddy and gold chrysanthemums. To the
eyes of the young man who was ushered in from the raw November fog it
seemed not only rare and unattainable, but friendly and familiar, like
a colourful and gilded paradise in a mediaeval painting.
“Mr. Parker, my lord.”
Lord Peter jumped up with genuine eagerness.
“My dear man, I’m delighted to see you. What a beastly foggy night,
ain’t it? Bunter, some more of that admirable coffee and another glass
and the cigars. Parker, I hope you’re full of crime—nothing less than
arson or murder will do for us tonight. ‘On such a night as this—’
Bunter and I were just sitting down to carouse. I’ve got a Dante, and
a Caxton folio that is practically unique, at Sir Ralph Brocklebury’s
sale. Bunter, who did the bargaining, is going to have a lens which
does all kinds of wonderful things with its eyes shut, and
We both have got a body in a bath,
We both have got a body in a bath—
For in spite of all temptations
To go in for cheap sensations
We insist upon a body in a bath—
Nothing less will do for us, Parker. It’s mine at present, but we’re
going shares in it. Property of the firm. Won’t you join us? You really
must put _something_ in the jack-pot. Perhaps you have a body. Oh, do
have a body. Every body welcome.
Gin a body meet a body
Hauled before the beak,
Gin a body jolly well knows who murdered a
body and that old Sugg is on the wrong tack,
Need a body speak?
Not a bit of it. He tips a glassy wink to yours truly and yours truly
reads the truth.”
“Ah,” said Parker, “I knew you’d been round to Queen Caroline Mansions.
So’ve I, and met Sugg, and he told me he’d seen you. He was cross, too.
Unwarrantable interference, he calls it.”
“I knew he would,” said Lord Peter. “I love taking a rise out of dear
old Sugg, he’s always so rude. I see by the Star that he has excelled
himself by taking the girl, Gladys What’s-her-name, into custody. Sugg
of the evening, beautiful Sugg! But what were _you_ doing there?”
“To tell you the truth,” said Parker, “I went round to see if the
Semitic-looking stranger in Mr. Thipps’s bath was by any extraordinary
chance Sir Reuben Levy. But he isn’t.”
“Sir Reuben Levy? Wait a minute, I saw something about that. I know! A
headline: ‘Mysterious disappearance of famous financier.’ What’s it all
about? I didn’t read it carefully.”
“Well, it’s a bit odd, though I daresay it’s nothing really—old
chap may have cleared for some reason best known to himself. It only
happened this morning, and nobody would have thought anything about
it, only it happened to be the day on which he had arranged to attend a
most important financial meeting and do some deal involving millions—I
haven’t got all the details. But I know he’s got enemies who’d just
as soon the deal didn’t come off, so when I got wind of this fellow
in the bath, I buzzed round to have a look at him. It didn’t seem
likely, of course, but unlikelier things do happen in our profession.
The funny thing is, old Sugg had got bitten with the idea it is him,
and is wildly telegraphing to Lady Levy to come and identify him. But
as a matter of fact, the man in the bath is no more Sir Reuben Levy
than Adolf Beck, poor devil, was John Smith. Oddly enough, though,
he would be really extraordinarily like Sir Reuben if he had a beard,
and as Lady Levy is abroad with the family, somebody may say it’s him,
and Sugg will build up a lovely theory, like the Tower of Babel, and
destined so to perish.”
“Sugg’s a beautiful, braying ass,” said Lord Peter. “He’s like a
detective in a novel. Well, I don’t know anything about Levy, but I’ve
seen the body, and I should say the idea was preposterous upon the face
of it. What do you think of the brandy?”
“Unbelievable, Wimsey—sort of thing makes one believe in heaven. But I
want your yarn.”
“D’you mind if Bunter hears it, too? Invaluable man, Bunter—amazin’
fellow with a camera. And the odd thing is, he’s always on the spot
when I want my bath or my boots. I don’t know when he develops things—I
believe he does ’em in his sleep. Bunter!”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Stop fiddling about in there, and get yourself the proper things to
drink and join the merry throng.”
“Certainly, my lord.”
“Mr. Parker has a new trick: The Vanishing Financier. Absolutely no
deception. Hey, presto, pass! and where is he? Will some gentleman from
the audience kindly step upon the platform and inspect the cabinet?
Thank you, sir. The quickness of the ’and deceives the heye.”
“I’m afraid mine isn’t much of a story,” said Parker. “It’s just one
of those simple things that offer no handle. Sir Reuben Levy dined last
night with three friends at the Ritz. After dinner the friends went to
the theatre. He refused to go with them on account of an appointment. I
haven’t yet been able to trace the appointment, but anyhow, he returned
home to his house—9a, Park Lane—at twelve o’clock.”
“Who saw him?”
“The cook, who had just gone up to bed, saw him on the doorstep, and
heard him let himself in. He walked upstairs, leaving his greatcoat on
the hall peg and his umbrella in the stand—you remember how it rained
last night. He undressed and went to bed. Next morning he wasn’t there.
That’s all,” said Parker abruptly, with a wave of the hand.
“It isn’t all, it isn’t all. Daddy, go on, that’s not _half_ a story,”
pleaded Lord Peter.
“But it _is_ all. When his man came to call him he wasn’t there. The
bed had been slept in. His pyjamas and all his clothes were there,
the only odd thing being that they were thrown rather untidily on
the ottoman at the foot of the bed, instead of being neatly folded
on a chair, as is Sir Reuben’s custom—looking as though he had been
rather agitated or unwell. No clean clothes were missing, no suit,
no boots—nothing. The boots he had worn were in his dressing-room
as usual. He had washed and cleaned his teeth and done all the usual
things. The housemaid was down cleaning the hall at half-past six, and
can swear that nobody came in or out after that. So one is forced to
suppose that a respectable middle-aged Hebrew financier either went mad
between twelve and six a.m. and walked quietly out of the house in his
birthday suit on a November night, or else was spirited away like the
lady in the ‘Ingoldsby Legends,’ body and bones, leaving only a heap of
crumpled clothes behind him.”
“Was the front door bolted?”
“That’s the sort of question you _would_ ask, straight off; it took me
an hour to think of it. No; contrary to custom, there was only the Yale
lock on the door. On the other hand, some of the maids had been given
leave to go to the theatre, and Sir Reuben may quite conceivably have
left the door open under the impression they had not come in. Such a
thing has happened before.”
“And that’s really all?”
“Really all. Except for one very trifling circumstance.”
“I love trifling circumstances,” said Lord Peter, with childish
delight; “so many men have been hanged by trifling circumstances. What
was it?”
“Sir Reuben and Lady Levy, who are a most devoted couple, always share
the same room. Lady Levy, as I said before, is in Mentonne at the
moment for her health. In her absence, Sir Reuben sleeps in the double
bed as usual, and invariably on his own side—the outside—of the bed.
Last night he put the two pillows together and slept in the middle, or,
if anything, rather closer to the wall than otherwise. The housemaid,
who is a most intelligent girl, noticed this when she went up to make
the bed, and, with really admirable detective instinct, refused to
touch the bed or let anybody else touch it, though it wasn’t till later
that they actually sent for the police.”
“Was nobody in the house but Sir Reuben and the servants?”
“No; Lady Levy was away with her daughter and her maid. The valet,
cook, parlourmaid, housemaid and kitchenmaid were the only people in
the house, and naturally wasted an hour or two squawking and gossiping.
I got there about ten.”
“What have you been doing since?”
“Trying to get on the track of Sir Reuben’s appointment last night,
since, with the exception of the cook, his ‘appointer’ was the last
person who saw him before his disappearance. There may be some quite
simple explanation, though I’m dashed if I can think of one for the
moment. Hang it all, a man doesn’t come in and go to bed and walk away
again ‘mid nodings on’ in the middle of the night.”
“He may have been disguised.”
“I thought of that—in fact, it seems the only possible explanation.
But it’s deuced odd, Wimsey. An important city man, on the eve of an
important transaction, without a word of warning to anybody, slips
off in the middle of the night, disguised down to his skin, leaving
behind his watch, purse, cheque-book, and—most mysterious and important
of all—his spectacles, without which he can’t see a step, as he is
extremely short-sighted. He—”
“That _is_ important,” interrupted Wimsey. “You are sure he didn’t take
a second pair?”
“His man vouches for it that he had only two pairs, one of which was
found on his dressing-table, and the other in the drawer where it is
always kept.”
Lord Peter whistled.
“You’ve got me there, Parker. Even if he’d gone out to commit suicide
he’d have taken those.”
“So you’d think—or the suicide would have happened the first time he
started to cross the road. However, I didn’t overlook the possibility.
I’ve got particulars of all today’s street accidents, and I can lay my
hand on my heart and say that none of them is Sir Reuben. Besides, he
took his latchkey with him, which looks as though he’d meant to come
back.”
“Have you seen the men he dined with?”
“I found two of them at the club. They said that he seemed in the best
of health and spirits, spoke of looking forward to joining Lady Levy
later on—perhaps at Christmas—and referred with great satisfaction to
this morning’s business transaction, in which one of them—a man called
Anderson of Wyndham’s—was himself concerned.”
“Then up till about nine o’clock, anyhow, he had no apparent intention