Whose Body? A Lord Peter Wimsey Novel
This is a very unpleasant business, Mr.— I’m afraid I didn’t catch
your name, and we have always found it better not to be mixed up with
the police. Of course, _if_ the Thippses are innocent, and I am sure
I hope they are, it is very unfortunate for them, but I must say that
the circumstances seem to me most suspicious, and to Theophilus too,
and I should not like to have it said that we had assisted murderers.
We might even be supposed to be accessories. Of course you are young,
Mr.—”
“This is Lord Peter Wimsey, my dear,” said Theophilus mildly.
She was unimpressed.
“Ah, yes,” she said, “I believe you are distantly related to my late
cousin, the Bishop of Carisbrooke. Poor man! He was always being taken
in by impostors; he died without ever learning any better. I imagine
you take after him, Lord Peter.”
“I doubt it,” said Lord Peter. “So far as I know he is only a
connection, though it’s a wise child that knows its own father. I
congratulate you, dear lady, on takin’ after the other side of the
family. You’ll forgive my buttin’ in upon you like this in the middle
of the night, though, as you say, it’s all in the family, and I’m
sure I’m very much obliged to you, and for permittin’ me to admire
that awfully fetchin’ thing you’ve got on. Now, don’t you worry, Mr.
Appledore. I’m thinkin’ the best thing I can do is to trundle the old
lady down to my mother and take her out of your way, otherwise you
might be findin’ your Christian feelin’s gettin’ the better of you some
fine day, and there’s nothin’ like Christian feelin’s for upsettin’
a man’s domestic comfort. Good-night, sir—good-night, dear lady—it’s
simply rippin’ of you to let me drop in like this.”
“Well!” said Mrs. Appledore, as the door closed behind him.
And—
“I thank the goodness and the grace
That on my birth have smiled,”
said Lord Peter, “and taught me to be bestially impertinent when I
choose. Cat!”
Two a.m. saw Lord Peter Wimsey arrive in a friend’s car at the Dower
House, Denver Castle, in company with a deaf and aged lady and an
antique portmanteau.
* * * * *
“It’s very nice to see you, dear,” said the Dowager Duchess, placidly.
She was a small, plump woman, with perfectly white hair and exquisite
hands. In feature she was as unlike her second son as she was like
him in character; her black eyes twinkled cheerfully, and her manners
and movements were marked with a neat and rapid decision. She wore a
charming wrap from Liberty’s, and sat watching Lord Peter eat cold beef
and cheese as though his arrival in such incongruous circumstances and
company were the most ordinary event possible, which with him, indeed,
it was.
“Have you got the old lady to bed?” asked Lord Peter.
“Oh, yes, dear. Such a striking old person, isn’t she? And very
courageous. She tells me she has never been in a motor-car before. But
she thinks you a very nice lad, dear—that careful of her, you remind
her of her own son. Poor little Mr. Thipps—whatever made your friend
the inspector think he could have murdered anybody?”
“My friend the inspector—no, no more, thank you, Mother—is determined
to prove that the intrusive person in Thipps’s bath is Sir Reuben Levy,
who disappeared mysteriously from his house last night. His line of
reasoning is: We’ve lost a middle-aged gentleman without any clothes on
in Park Lane; we’ve found a middle-aged gentleman without any clothes
on in Battersea. Therefore they’re one and the same person, Q.E.D., and
put little Thipps in quod.”
“You’re very elliptical, dear,” said the Duchess, mildly. “Why should
Mr. Thipps be arrested even if they are the same?”
“Sugg must arrest somebody,” said Lord Peter, “but there is one odd
little bit of evidence come out which goes a long way to support
Sugg’s theory, only that I know it to be no go by the evidence of
my own eyes. Last night at about 9.15 a young woman was strollin’ up
the Battersea Park Road for purposes best known to herself, when she
saw a gentleman in a fur coat and top-hat saunterin’ along under an
umbrella, lookin’ at the names of all the streets. He looked a bit out
of place, so, not bein’ a shy girl, you see, she walked up to him, and
said: ‘Good-evening.’ ‘Can you tell me, please,’ says the mysterious
stranger, ‘whether this street leads into Prince of Wales Road?’ She
said it did, and further asked him in a jocular manner what he was
doing with himself and all the rest of it, only she wasn’t altogether
so explicit about that part of the conversation, because she was
unburdenin’ her heart to Sugg, d’you see, and he’s paid by a grateful
country to have very pure, high-minded ideals, what? Anyway, the old
boy said he couldn’t attend to her just then as he had an appointment.
‘I’ve got to go and see a man, my dear,’ was how she said he put it,
and he walked on up Alexandra Avenue towards Prince of Wales Road. She
was starin’ after him, still rather surprised, when she was joined
by a friend of hers, who said: ‘It’s no good wasting your time with
him—that’s Levy—I knew him when I lived in the West End, and the girls
used to call him Peagreen Incorruptible’—friend’s name suppressed,
owing to implications of story, but girl vouches for what was said. She
thought no more about it till the milkman brought news this morning
of the excitement at Queen Caroline Mansions; then she went round,
though not likin’ the police as a rule, and asked the man there whether
the dead gentleman had a beard and glasses. Told he had glasses but
no beard, she incautiously said: ‘Oh, then, it isn’t him,’ and the
man said: ‘Isn’t who?’ and collared her. That’s her story. Sugg’s
delighted, of course, and quodded Thipps on the strength of it.”
“Dear me,” said the Duchess, “I hope the poor girl won’t get into
trouble.”
“Shouldn’t think so,” said Lord Peter. “Thipps is the one that’s going
to get it in the neck. Besides, he’s done a silly thing. I got that
out of Sugg, too, though he was sittin’ tight on the information.
Seems Thipps got into a confusion about the train he took back from
Manchester. Said first he got home at 10.30. Then they pumped Gladys
Horrocks, who let out he wasn’t back till after 11.45. Then Thipps,
bein’ asked to explain the discrepancy, stammers and bungles and says,
first, that he missed the train. Then Sugg makes inquiries at St.
Pancras and discovers that he left a bag in the cloakroom there at ten.
Thipps, again asked to explain, stammers worse an’ says he walked about
for a few hours—met a friend—can’t say who—didn’t meet a friend—can’t
say what he did with his time—can’t explain why he didn’t go back for
his bag—can’t say what time he _did_ get in—can’t explain how he got a
bruise on his forehead. In fact, can’t explain himself at all. Gladys
Horrocks interrogated again. Says, this time, Thipps came in at 10.30.
Then admits she didn’t hear him come in. Can’t say why she didn’t hear
him come in. Can’t say why she said first of all that she _did_ hear
him. Bursts into tears. Contradicts herself. Everybody’s suspicion
roused. Quod ’em both.”
“As you put it, dear,” said the Duchess, “it all sounds very confusing,
and not quite respectable. Poor little Mr. Thipps would be terribly
upset by anything that wasn’t respectable.”
“I wonder what he did with himself,” said Lord Peter thoughtfully. “I
really don’t think he was committing a murder. Besides, I believe the
fellow has been dead a day or two, though it don’t do to build too much
on doctors’ evidence. It’s an entertainin’ little problem.”
“Very curious, dear. But so sad about poor Sir Reuben. I must write
a few lines to Lady Levy; I used to know her quite well, you know,
dear, down in Hampshire, when she was a girl. Christine Ford, she was
then, and I remember so well the dreadful trouble there was about her
marrying a Jew. That was before he made his money, of course, in that
oil business out in America. The family wanted her to marry Julian
Freke, who did so well afterwards and was connected with the family,
but she fell in love with this Mr. Levy and eloped with him. He was
very handsome, then, you know, dear, in a foreign-looking way, but he
hadn’t any means, and the Fords didn’t like his religion. Of course
we’re all Jews nowadays, and they wouldn’t have minded so much if he’d
pretended to be something else, like that Mr. Simons we met at Mrs.
Porchester’s, who always tells everybody that he got his nose in Italy
at the Renaissance, and claims to be descended somehow or other from
La Bella Simonetta—so foolish, you know, dear—as if anybody believed
it; and I’m sure some Jews are very good people, and personally I’d
much rather they believed something, though of course it must be very
inconvenient, what with not working on Saturdays and circumcising the
poor little babies and everything depending on the new moon and that
funny kind of meat they have with such a slang-sounding name, and never
being able to have bacon for breakfast. Still, there it was, and it was
much better for the girl to marry him if she was really fond of him,
though I believe young Freke was really devoted to her, and they’re
still great friends. Not that there was ever a real engagement, only
a sort of understanding with her father, but he’s never married, you
know, and lives all by himself in that big house next to the hospital,
though he’s very rich and distinguished now, and I know ever so many
people have tried to get hold of him—there was Lady Mainwaring wanted
him for that eldest girl of hers, though I remember saying at the
time it was no use expecting a surgeon to be taken in by a figure that
was all padding—they have so many opportunities of judging, you know,
dear.”
“Lady Levy seems to have had the knack of makin’ people devoted to
her,” said Peter. “Look at the pea-green incorruptible Levy.”
“That’s quite true, dear; she was a most delightful girl, and they
say her daughter is just like her. I rather lost sight of them when
she married, and you know your father didn’t care much about business
people, but I know everybody always said they were a model couple.
In fact it was a proverb that Sir Reuben was as well loved at home
as he was hated abroad. I don’t mean in foreign countries, you know,
dear—just the proverbial way of putting things—like ‘a saint abroad and
a devil at home’—only the other way on, reminding one of the _Pilgrim’s
Progress_.”
“Yes,” said Peter, “I daresay the old man made one or two enemies.”
“Dozens, dear—such a dreadful place, the City, isn’t it? Everybody
Ishmaels together—though I don’t suppose Sir Reuben would like to be
called that, would he? Doesn’t it mean illegitimate, or not a proper
Jew, anyway? I always did get confused with those Old Testament
characters.”
Lord Peter laughed and yawned.
“I think I’ll turn in for an hour or two,” he said. “I must be back in
town at eight—Parker’s coming to breakfast.”
The Duchess looked at the clock, which marked five minutes to three.
“I’ll send up your breakfast at half-past six, dear,” she said. “I hope
you’ll find everything all right. I told them just to slip a hot-water
bottle in; those linen sheets are so chilly; you can put it out if it’s
in your way.”
CHAPTER IV
“—So there it is, Parker,” said Lord Peter, pushing his coffee-cup
aside and lighting his after-breakfast pipe; “you may find it leads
you to something, though it don’t seem to get me any further with my
bathroom problem. Did you do anything more at that after I left?”
“No; but I’ve been on the roof this morning.”
“The deuce you have—what an energetic devil you are! I say, Parker, I
think this co-operative scheme is an uncommonly good one. It’s much
easier to work on someone else’s job than one’s own—gives one that
delightful feelin’ of interferin’ and bossin’ about, combined with the