“Oh!” said Wimsey, “the letter's gone, has it?” His eyes glinted with excitement. “That's very remarkable. And what's more, Charles, this isn't a Woolworth pencil–it's one of Darling's.”
“I meant Darling's–same thing. Anybody might carry one of them.”
“Ah!” said Wimsey, “but this is where my expert knowledge comes in. Darling's don't sell these pencils–they give them away. Anybody buying more than a pound's worth of goods gets a pencil as a good-conduct prize. You observe that it carries an advertising slogan: IT ISN'T DEAR, IT'S DARLING. (One of Pym's best efforts, by the way.) The idea is that, every time you make a note on your shopping list, you are reminded of the superior economy of purchasing your household goods from Darling's. And a very remarkable firm it is, too,” added his lordship, warming to the subject. “They've carried the unit system to the pitch of a fine art. You can sit on a Darling chair, built up in shilling and sixpenny sections and pegged with patent pegs at sixpence a hundred. If Uncle George breaks the leg, you buy a new leg and peg it in. If you buy more clothes than will go into your Darling chest of drawers, you unpeg the top, purchase a new drawer for half a crown, peg it on and replace the top. Everything done by numbers, and kindness. And, as I say, if you buy enough, they give you a pencil. If you mount up to five pounds' worth, they give you a fountain pen.”
“That's very helpful,” said Parker, sarcastically. “It ought to be easy to identify a criminal who has bought a pound's worth of goods at Darling's within the last six months or so.”
“Wait a bit; I said I had expert knowledge. This pencil–a natty scarlet, as you observe, with gold lettering–didn't come from any of Darling's branches. It's not on the market yet. There are only three places it could have come from: one, from the pencil manufacturer's; two, from Darling's head office; three, from our place.”
“Do you mean Pym's?”
“I do. This is the new pencil design, with an improved propelling mechanism. The old ones only propelled; this repels also, with a handy twist of the what-d'ye-call. Darling's obligingly presented us with half a gross of them to try out.”
Mr. Parker sat up so suddenly that he jarred his shoulder and his head, and groaned dismally.
“I think it highly improbable,” went on Lord Peter, lusciously, “that you have a deadly enemy at the pencil manufacturer's or at Darling's head office. It seems to me much more likely that the gentleman with the cosh, or knuckle-duster, or sand-bag, or lead-piping, in short, the blunt instrument, came from Pym's, guided by the address which, with your usual amiability, you kindly allowed me to give as mine. Observing my name neatly inscribed on the letter-box of Flat 4, he mounted confidently, armed with his cosh, knuckle–”
“Well, I'm dashed!” exclaimed Lady Mary, “do you mean to say that it's really you, you devil, who ought to be lying there mangled and bruised in the place of my afflicted husband?”
“I think so,” said Wimsey, with satisfaction, “I certainly do think so. Particularly as the assailant seems to have walked off with my private correspondence. I know who–or to be grammatical, whom–that letter was from, by the way.”
“Who?” demanded Parker, disregarding the grammatical nicety.
“Why, from Pamela Dean, to be sure. I recognize your description of the envelope.”
“Pamela Dean? The victim's sister?”
“As you say.”
“Willis's young woman?”
“Precisely.”
“But how should he know about the letter?”
“I don't suppose he did. I rather fancy this is the result of a little bit of self-advertisement I put in yesterday afternoon at the office tea-party. I made it clear to all and sundry that I had been experimenting on the roof with a catapult.”
“Did you? Who, exactly, were the all and sundry?”
“The twenty people taking tea and all the other people they mentioned it to.”
“Rather a wide limit.”
“M'm, yes. I thought I might get some reaction. What a pity it reacted on you and not on me.”
“A very great pity,” agreed Mr. Parker, with feeling.
“Still, it might have been worse. We've got three lines to go upon. The people who heard about the catapult. The people who knew, or inquired for, my address. And, of course, the bloke who's lost his pencil. But, I say–” Wimsey broke off with a shout of laughter–“what a shock it must have been for whoever it was when I turned up this morning without so much as a black eye! Why in the name of creation didn't you let me have all the details first thing this morning, so that I could have kept a look-out?”
“We were otherwise employed,” said Lady Mary.
“Besides, we didn't think it had anything to do with you.”
“You should have guessed. Wherever trouble turns up, there am I at the bottom of it. But I'll overlook it this time. You have been sufficiently punished, and no one shall say that a Wimsey could not be magnanimous. But this blighter–you didn't manage to mark him, Charles, did you?”
“Afraid not. I got a clutch on his beastly throat, but he was all muffled up.”
“You did that badly, Charles. You should have socked him one. But, as I said before, I forgive you. I wonder if our friend will have another shot at me.”
“Not at this address, I hope,” said Mary.
“I hope not. I'd like to have him under my own eye next time. He must have been pretty smart to get that letter. Why in the world–ah! now I understand.”
“What?”
“Why nobody fainted at the sight of me this morning. He must have had a torch with him. He knocks you down and turns on the torch to see if you're properly dead. The first thing he spots is the letter. He grabs that–why? Because–we'll come back to that. He grabs it and then looks at your classic features. He realizes that he's slugged the wrong man, and at that very moment he hears Mary making a hullabaloo. So he clears. That's perfectly plain now. But the letter? Would he have taken any letter that happened to be there, or did he know the writing? When was that letter delivered? Yes, of course, the 9.30 post. Suppose, when he came in to look for my flat, he saw the letter in the box and recognized whom it was from. That opens up a wide field of speculation, and possibly even offers us another motive.”
“Peter,” said Lady Mary, “I don't think you ought to sit here exciting Charles with all this speculation. It'll send his temperature up.”
“So it will, by Jove! Well, look here, old boy, I'm really fearfully sorry you copped that packet that was meant for me. It's perfectly damnable luck and I'm dashed thankful it was no worse. I'll buzz off now. I've got to, anyhow. I've got a date. So-long.”
Wimsey's first action after leaving the flat was to ring up Pamela Dean, whom he fortunately found at home. He explained that her letter had been lost in transmission, and asked what was in it.
“Only a note from Dian de Momerie. She wants to know who you are. You seem to have made a remarkable hit.”
“We aim to please,” said Peter. “What have you done about it?”
“Nothing. I didn't know what you would like me to do.”
“You didn't give her my address?”
“No. That was what she was asking for. I didn't want to make another mistake, so I passed it all on to you.”
“Quite right.”
“Well?”
“Tell her–does she know that I'm at Pym's?”
“No, I was very careful to say absolutely nothing about you. Except your name. I did tell her that, but she seems to have forgotten it.”
“Good. Listen, now. Tell bright Dian that I'm a most mysterious person. You never know where to find me yourself. Hint that I'm probably miles away–in Paris or Vienna, or anything that sounds fruity. You can convey the right impression, I know. Phillips Oppenheim, with a touch of Ethel M. Dell and Elinor Glyn.”
“Oh, yes, I can do that.”
“And you might say that she will probably see me some time when she least expects it. Suggest, if you don't mind being
so vulgar, that I am a sort of yellow-dog dingo, very truly run after and hard to catch. Be stimulating. Be intriguing.”
“I will. Am I at all jealous, by the way?”
“Yes, if you like. Give the impression that you're sort of putting her off. It's a hard chase and you're not keen on competitors.”
“All right. That won't be difficult.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. I said I could manage that all right.”
“I know you'll do it beautifully. I rely on you very much.”
“Thank you. How is the enquiry getting on?”
“So-so.”
“Tell me all about it some time, won't you?”
“Rather! As soon as there's anything to report.”
“Will you come to tea one Saturday or Sunday?”
“I should love to.”
“I'll keep you to that.”
“Oh, yes, rather! Well, goodnight.”
“Good-night–Yellow-Dog Dingo.”
“Bung-ho!”
Wimsey put down the receiver. “I hope,” he thought, “she isn't going to make an awkwardness. You cannot trust these young women. No fixity of purpose. Except, of course, when you particularly want them to be yielding.”
He grinned with a wry mouth, and went out to keep his date with the one young woman who showed no signs of yielding to him, and what he said or did on that occasion is in no way related to this story.
Ginger Joe hoisted himself cautiously up in bed and looked round the room.
His elder brother–not the policeman, but sixteen-year-old Bert, the nosey one–was reassuringly asleep, curled up dog-fashion, and dreaming, no doubt, of motor-cycles. The faint light from the street lamp outlined the passive hump he made in the bed-clothes, and threw a wan gleam across Ginger's narrow bedstead.
From beneath his pillow, Ginger drew out a penny exercise book and a stubby pencil. There was very little privacy in Ginger's life, and opportunities had to be seized when they occurred. He licked the pencil, opened the book, and headed a page in a large, round hand: “Report.”
There he paused. It was desirable to do this thing really creditably, and the exercises in English composition they had given him at school did not seem to help. “My Favourite Book,” “What I Should Like to Do when I Grow Up,” “What I Saw at the Zoo”–very good subjects but not of great assistance to a rising young detective. He had once been privileged to take a glimpse at Wally's note-book (Wally being the policeman), and remembered that the items had all begun somewhat in this fashion: “At 8.30 p.m., as I was proceeding along Wellington Street”–a good opening, but not applicable to the present case. The style of Sexton Blake, also, though vigorous, was more suited for the narration of stirring adventures than for the compilation of a catalogue of names and facts. And on the top of all this, there was the awkward question of spelling–always a stumbling-block. Ginger felt vaguely that an ill-spelt report would have an untrustworthy appearance.
In this emergency, he consulted his native commonsense, and found it a good guide.
“I better just begin at the beginning,” he said to himself, and, pressing heavily upon the paper and frowning desperately, began to write.
“Report
by Joseph L. Potts
(aged 14½)”
On consideration, he thought this needed a little more corroborative detail, and added his address and the date. The report then proceeded:
I had a talk with the boys about the catter (erased) catapult. Bill Jones says he reckollects of me standing in the Dispatch and Mrs. Johnson collaring of the catapult. Sam Tabbit and George Pyke was there too. What I says to them was as Mr. Bredon give me back the catapult and it have the bit of leather tore and I wants to know who done it. They all says they never been to Mrs. Johnson's draw and I think they was tellin the truth sir because Bill and Sam is good sorts and you can always tell if George is fibbing because of the way he looks and he was looking alright. So then I says could it have been any of the others and they says they have not seen none of them with catapults so I makes out to be very angry and says it's a potty a boy can't have his catapult confist confiskcated without somebody goes and tears of it. And then Clarence Metcalfe comes along which he is head boy sir and asks what's up so I tells him and he says if anybody's been at Mrs. Johnsons draw its very serious. So he gets arsking them all and they all says no but Jack Bolter remembers of Mrs. Johnson leaving her bag on the desk one day and Miss Parton picking it up and taking of it down to the canteen. I says when? And he says it was about two days after my catapult was confik took away, and the time just after lunch sir. So you see sir it would have been laying there an hour sir when nobody was about.
Now sir about who else was there and might have seen it took. Now I comes to think I remember Mr. Prout was there at the head of the stairs because he passed a remark to Mrs. Johnson and pulled my ear and there was one of the young ladies I think it was Miss Hartley waiting to get a messenger. And after I gone down to Mr. Hornby Sam says as Mr. Wedderburn came along and him and Mrs. Johnson had a bit of a joke about it. But sir I expecks lots of people knew about it because Mrs. Johnson would tell them in the canteen. She is always telling tales on we boys sir I suppose she thinks its funny.
This is all I has to report about the catapult sir. I has not yet made any inquiry about the other matter thinking one was enough at a time or they might think I was askin a lot of questions but I have thought of a plan for that.
Yours respeckfully
J. Potts.
“What the devil are you doing there, Joe?”
Ginger, too absorbed in his report to have kept a proper look-out upon Bert, started violently, and thrust the exercise book under his pillow.
“Never you mind,” he said, nervously. “It's private.”
“Oh, is it?”
Bert flung the bed-clothes aside and advanced, a threatening figure.
“Writing poitry?” he demanded, with contempt.
“It's nothing to do with you,” retorted Ginger. “You leave me be.”
“'And that there book over,” said Bert.
“No, I won't.”
“You won't, won't you?”
“No, I won't. Get out!”
Ginger clasped the document with agitated hands.
“I'm going to 'ave a look–leggo!”
Ginger was a wiry child for his years and spirited, but his hands were hampered by the book, and the advantages of height, weight and position were with Bert. The struggle was noisy.
“Let me go, you beastly great bully.”
“I'll teach you to call names! Cheeky little beast.”
“Ow!” wailed Ginger. “I won't, I won't, I tell you! it's private!”
Whack! wallop!
“Nah then!” said a stately voice, “wot's all this?”
“Wally, tell Bert to leave me be.”
“He didn't oughter cheek me. I only wanted ter know wot he was doin', sittin' up writin' poitry w'en he oughter a-bin asleep.”
“It's private,” persisted Ginger. “Really and truly, it's frightfully private.”
“Can't yer leave the kid alone?” said P. C. Potts, magisterially, “makin' all this noise. You'll wake Dad and then you'll both get a 'iding. Now both of you 'op back to bed or I'll 'ave ter take you up for disturbing the peace. And you did oughter be asleep, Joe, and not writing poitry.”
“It ain't poitry. It's something I was doing for a gentleman at the office and he said I wasn't to tell nobody.”
“Well, see here,” said Wally Potts, extending a vast official fist. “You 'and over that there book to me, see? I'll put it away in my drawer and you can 'ave it again in the morning. And now go to sleep for goodness' sake, both on yer.”
“You won't read it, will yer, Wally?”
“All right, I won't read it if you're so bloomin' perticler.”
Ginger, reluctant but confident of Wally's honour, reluctantly released the exercise-book.
“That
's right,” said Wally, “and if I 'ear any more larkin' about you're for it, both of yer. See wot I mean?”
He stalked away, gigantic in his striped pyjamas.
Ginger Joe, rubbing the portions of himself which had suffered in the assault, rolled the bed-clothes about him and took comfort in telling himself a fresh instalment of that nightly narrative of which he was both author and hero.
“Bruised and battered, but unshaken in his courage, the famous detective sank back on his straw pallet in the rat-ridden dungeon. In spite of the pain of his wounds, he was happy, knowing that the precious documents were safe. He laughed to think of the baffled Crime King, gnashing his teeth in his gilded oriental saloon. 'Foiled yet again, Hawkeye!' growled the villainous doctor, 'but it will be my turn next!' Meanwhile....”
The life of a detective is a hard one.
CHAPTER VIII
CONVULSIVE AGITATION OF AN ADVERTISING AGENCY
It was on the Friday of the week in which all these stirring incidents occurred that Pym's Publicity, Ltd. became convulsed by the Great Nutrax Row, which shook the whole office from the highest to the lowest, turned the peaceful premises into an armed camp and very nearly ruined the Staff Cricket Match against Brotherhood's, Ltd.
The hardworking and dyspeptic Mr. Copley was the prime mover of all the trouble. Like most fomenters of schism, he acted throughout with the best intentions–and indeed, when one looks back upon the disturbance in the serene perspective of distance and impartiality, it is difficult to see what he could have done, other than what he did. But as Mr. Ingleby observed at the time, “It isn't what Copley does, it's the way he does it”; and in the heat and fury of the battle, when the passions of strong men are aroused, judgment easily becomes warped.
The thing started in this way:
At a quarter past six on the Thursday evening, the office was deserted, except for the cleaners and Mr. Copley, who, by an altogether exceptional accident, was left working overtime upon a rush series of cut-price advertisements for Jamboree Jellies. He was getting along nicely, and hoped to be through by half-past six and home in good time for 7.30 supper, when the telephone in the Dispatching rang violently and insistently.