Lord Peter Views the Body: A Collection of Mysteries

  ‘I’ll promise to admire them,’ said Peter — ‘use the privilege of early acquaintance and tell her she’s an ass and so on. I’d love to have a view of them. When do they come out of cold storage?’

  ‘Mr Whitehead will bring them up from the Bank the night before,’ said the duchess, ‘and they’ll go into the safe in my room. Come round at twelve o’clock and you shall have a private view of them.’

  ‘That would be delightful. Mind they don’t disappear in the night, won’t you?’

  ‘Oh, my dear, the house is going to be over-run with policemen. Such a nuisance. I suppose it can’t be helped.’

  ‘Oh, I think it’s a good thing,’ said Peter. ‘I have rather an unwholesome weakness for policemen.’

  On the morning of the wedding day, Lord Peter emerged from Bunter’s hands a marvel of sleek brilliance. His primrose-coloured hair was so exquisite a work of art that to eclipse it with his glossy hat was like shutting up the sun in a shrine of polished jet; his spats, light trousers, and exquisitely polished shoes formed a tone-symphony in monochrome. It was only by the most impassioned pleading that he persuaded his tyrant to allow him to place two small photographs and a thin, foreign letter in his breast-pocket. Mr Bunter, likewise immaculately attired, stepped into the taxi after him. At noon precisely they were deposited beneath the striped awning which adorned the door of the Duchess of Medway’s house in Park Lane. Bunter promptly disappeared in the direction of the back entrance, while his lordship mounted the steps and asked to see the dowager.

  The majority of the guests had not yet arrived, but the house was full of agitated people, flitting hither and thither, with flowers and prayer-books, while a clatter of dishes and cutlery from the dining-room proclaimed the laying of a sumptuous breakfast. Lord Peter was shown into the morning-room while the footman went to announce him, and here he found a very close friend and devoted colleague, Detective-Inspector Parker, mounting guard in plain clothes over a costly collection of white elephants. Lord Peter greeted him with an affectionate handgrip.

  ‘All serene so far?” he enquired.

  ‘Perfectly O.K.’

  ‘You got my note?’

  ‘Sure thing. I’ve got three of our men shadowing your friend in Guildford Street. The girl is very much in evidence here. Does the old lady’s wig and that sort of thing. Bit of a coming-on disposition, isn’t she?’

  ‘You surprise me,’ said Lord Peter. ‘No’ — as his friend grinned sardonically — ‘you really do. Not seriously? That would — throw all my calculations out.’

  ‘Oh, no! Saucy with her eyes and her tongue, that’s all.’

  ‘Do her job well?’

  ‘I’ve heard no complaints. What put you on to this?’

  ‘Pure accident. Of course I may be mistaken.’

  ‘Did you receive any information from Paris?’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t use that phrase,’ said Lord Peter peevishly. ‘It’s so of the Yard — yardy. One of these days it’ll give you away.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Parker. ‘Second nature, I suppose.’

  ‘Those are the things to beware of,’ returned his lordship, with an earnestness that seemed a little out of place. ‘One can keep guard on everything but just those second-nature tricks.’ He moved across to the window, which overlooked the tradesmen’s entrance. ‘Hullo!’ he said, ‘here’s our bird.’

  Parker joined him, and saw the neat, shingled head of the French girl from the Gare St Lazare, topped by a neat black bandeau and bow. A man with a basket full of white narcissi had rung the bell, and appeared to be trying to make a sale. Parker gently opened the window, and they heard Célestine say with a marked French accent, ‘No, nossing today, sank you.’ The man insisted in the monotonous whine of his type, thrusting a big bunch of the white flowers upon her, but she pushed them back into the basket with an angry exclamation and flirted away, tossing her head and slapping the door smartly to. The man moved off muttering. As he did so a thin, unhealthy-looking lounger in a check cap detached himself from a lamppost opposite and mouched along the street after him, at the same time casting a glance up at the window. Mr Parker looked at Lord Peter, nodded, and made a slight sign with his hand. At once the man in the check cap removed his cigarette from his mouth, extinguished it, and, tucking the stub behind his ear, moved off without a second glance.

  ‘Very interesting,’ said Lord Peter, when both were out of sight. ‘Hark!’

  There was a sound of running feet overhead — a cry — and a general commotion. The two men dashed to the door as the bride, rushing frantically downstairs with her bevy of bridesmaids after her, proclaimed in a hysterical shriek; ‘The diamonds! They’re stolen! They’re gone!’

  Instantly the house was in an uproar. The servants and the caterers’ men crowded into the hall; the bride’s father burst out from his room in a magnificent white waistcoat and no coat; the Duchess of Medway descended upon Mr Parker, demanding that something should be done; while the butler, who never to the day of his death got over the disgrace, ran out of the pantry with a corkscrew in one hand and a priceless bottle of crusted port in the other, which he shook with all the vehemence of a town-crier ringing a bell. The only dignified entry was made by the dowager duchess, who came down like a ship in sail, dragging Célestine with her, and admonishing her not to be so silly.

  ‘Be quiet, girl,’ said the dowager. ‘Anyone would think you were going to be murdered.’

  ‘Allow me, your grace,’ said Mr Bunter, appearing suddenly from nowhere in his usual unperturbed manner, and taking the agitated Célestine firmly by the arm. ‘Young woman, calm yourself.’

  ‘But what is to be done?’ cried the bride’s mother. ‘How did it happen?’

  It was at this moment that Detective-Inspector Parker took the floor. It was the most impressive and dramatic moment in his whole career. His magnificent calm rebuked the clamorous nobility surrounding him.

  ‘Your grace,’ he said, ‘there is no cause for alarm. Our measures have been taken. We have the criminals and the gems, thanks to Lord Peter Wimsey, from whom we received inf —’

  ‘Charles!’ said Lord Peter in an awful voice.

  ‘Warning of the attempt. One of our men is just bringing in the male criminal at the front door, taken red-handed with your grace’s diamonds in his possession.’ (All gazed round, and perceived indeed the check-capped lounger and a uniformed constable entering with the flower-seller between them.) ‘The female criminal, who picked the lock of your grace’s safe, is here! No you don’t,’ he added, as Célestine, amid a torrent of apache language which nobody, fortunately, had French enough to understand, attempted to whip out a revolver from the bosom of her demure black dress. ‘Célestine Berger,’ he continued, pocketing the weapon. ‘I arrest you in the name of the law, and I warn you that anything you say will be taken down and used as evidence against you.’

  ‘Heaven help us,’ said Lord Peter; ‘the roof would fly off the court. And you’ve got the name wrong, Charles. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you Jacques Lerouge, known as Sans-culotte — the youngest and cleverest thief, safe-breaker, and female impersonator that ever occupied a dossier in the Palais de Justice.’

  There was a gasp. Jacques Sans-culotte gave vent to a low oath and cocked a gamin grimace at Peter.

  ‘C’est parfait,’ said he, ‘toutes mes félicitations, milord, what you call a fair cop, hein? And now I know him,’ he added, grinning at Bunter, ‘the so-patient Englishman who stand behind us in the queue at St Lazare. But tell me, please, how you know me, that I may correct it, next time.’

  ‘I have mentioned to you before, Charles,’ said Lord Peter, ‘the unwisdom of falling into habits of speech. They give you away. Now, in France, every male child is brought up to use masculine adjectives about himself. He says: Que je suis beau; But a little girl has it rammed home to her that she is female; she must say: Que je suis belle! It must make it beastly hard to be a female impersonator. When I am at a sta
tion and I hear an excited young woman say to her companion, “Me prends-tu pour un imbécile” — the masculine article arouses curiosity. And that’s that!’ he concluded briskly. ‘The rest was merely a matter of getting Bunter to take a photograph and communicating with our friends of the Sûreté and Scotland Yard.’

  Jacques Sans-culotte bowed again.

  Once more I congratulate milord. He is the only Englishman I have ever met who is capable of appreciating our beautiful language, I will pay great attention in future to the article in question.’

  With an awful look, the Dowager Duchess of Medway advanced upon Lord Peter.

  ‘Peter,’ she said, ‘do you mean to say you knew about this, and that for the last three weeks you have allowed me to be dressed and undressed and put to bed by a young man?’

  His lordship had the grace to blush.

  ‘Duchess,’ he said humbly, ‘on my honour I didn’t know absolutely for certain till this morning. And the police were so anxious to have these people caught red-handed. What can I do to show my penitence? Shall I cut the privileged beast to pieces?’

  The grim old mouth relaxed a little.

  ‘After all,’ said the dowager duchess, with the delightful consciousness that she was going to shock her daughter-in-law, ‘there are very few women of my age who could make the same boast. It seems that we die as we have lived, my dear.’

  For indeed the Dowager Duchés of Medway had been notable in her day.

  The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager’s Will

  ‘YOU LOOK A LITTLE worried, Bunter,’ said his lordship kindly to his manservant. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  The valet’s face brightened as he released his employer’s grey trousers from the press.

  ‘Perhaps your lordship could be so good as to think,’ he said hopefully, ‘of a word in seven letters with S in the middle, meaning two.’

  ‘Also,’ suggested Lord Peter thoughtlessly.

  ‘I beg your lordship’s pardon. T-w-o. And seven letters.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Lord Peter. ‘How about that bath?’

  ‘It should be just about ready, my lord.’

  Lord Peter Wimsey swung his mauve silk legs lightly over the edge of the bed and stretched appreciatively. It was a beautiful June that year. Through the open door he saw the delicate coils of steam wreathing across a shaft of yellow sunlight. Every step he took into the bathroom was a conscious act of enjoyment. In the husky light tenor he carolled a few bars of ‘Maman, dites-moi.’ Then a thought struck him, and he turned back.

  ‘Bunter.’

  ‘My lord?’

  ‘No bacon this morning. Quite the wrong smell.’

  ‘I was thinking of buttered eggs, my lord.’

  ‘Excellent. Like primroses. The Beaconsfield touch,’ said his lordship approvingly.

  His song died into a rapturous crooning as he settled into the verbena-scented water. His eyes roamed vaguely over the pale blue-and-white tiles of the bathroom walls.

  Mr Bunter had retired to the kitchen to put the coffee on the stove when the bell rang. Surprised, he hastened back to the bedroom. It was empty. With increased surprise, he realised that it must have been the bathroom bell. The words ‘heart-attack’ formed swiftly in his mind, to be displaced by the still more alarming thought, ‘No soap.’ He opened the door almost nervously.

  ‘Did you ring, my lord?’ he demanded of Lord Peter’s head, alone visible.

  ‘Yes,’ said his lordship abruptly, ‘Ambsace.’

  ‘I beg your lordship’s pardon?’

  ‘Ambsace. Word of seven letters. Meaning two. With S in the middle. Two aces. Ambsace.’

  Bunter’s expression became beatified.

  ‘Undoubtedly correct,’ he said, pulling a small sheet of paper from his pocket, and entering the word upon it in pencil. ‘I am extremely obliged to your lordship. In that case the “indifferent cook in six letters ending with red” must be Alfred.’

  Lord Peter waved a dismissive hand.

  On re-entering his bedroom, Lord Peter was astonished to see his sister Mary seated in his own particular chair and consuming his buttered eggs. He greeted her with a friendly acerbity, demanding why she look him up at that unearthly hour.

  ‘I’m riding with Freddy Arbuthnot,’ said her ladyship, ‘as you might see by my legs, if you were really as big a Sherlock as you make out.’

  ‘Riding,’ replied her brother, “I had already deduced, though I admit that Freddy’s name was not writ large, to my before-breakfast eye, upon the knees of your breeches. But why this visit?’

  ‘Well, because you were on the way,’ said Lady Mary, ‘and I’m booked up all day, and I want you to come and dine at the Soviet Club with me tonight.’

  ‘Good God, Mary, why? You know I hate the place. Cooking’s beastly, the men don’t shave, and the conversation gets my goat. Besides, last time I went there, your friend Goyles plugged me in the shoulder. I thought you’d chucked the Soviet Club.’

  ‘It isn’t me. It’s Hannah Marryat.’

  ‘What, the intense young woman with the badly bobbed hair and the brogues?’

  ‘Well, she’s never been able to afford a good hairdresser. That’s just what I want your help about.’

  ‘My dear child, I can’t cut her hair for her. Bunter might. He can do most things.’

  ‘Silly. No. But she’s got — that is, she used to have — an uncle, the very rich, curmudgeony sort, you know, who never gave anyone a penny. Well, he’s dead, and they can’t find his will.’

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t make one.’

  ‘Oh, yes, he did. He wrote and told her so. But the nasty old thing hid it, and it can’t be found.’

  ‘Is the will in her favour?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who’s the next of kin?’

  ‘She and her mother are the only members of the family left.’

  ‘Well, then, she’s only got to sit tight and she’ll get the goods.’

  ‘No — because the horrid old man left two wills, and, if she can’t find the latest one, they’ll prove the first one. He explained that to her carefully.’

  ‘Oh, I see. H’m. By the way I thought the young woman was a Socialist.’

  ‘Oh, she is. Terrifically so. One really can’t help admiring her. She has done some wonderful work —’

  ‘Yes, I dare say. But in that case I don’t see why she need be so keen on getting uncle’s dollars.’

  Mary began to chuckle.

  ‘Ah! But that’s where Uncle Meleager —’

  ‘Uncle what?’

  ‘Meleager. That’s his name. Meleager Finch.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Yes — well, that’s where he’s been so clever. Unless she finds the new will, the old will comes into force and hands over every penny of the money to the funds of the Primrose League.’

  Lord Peter gave a little yelp of joy.

  ‘Good for Uncle Meleager! But, look here, Mary, I’m a Tory, if anything. I’m certainly not a Red. Why should I help to snatch the good gold from the Primrose Leaguers and hand it over to the Third International? Uncle Meleager’s a sport. I take to Uncle Meleager.’

  ‘Oh, but Peter, I really don’t think she’ll do that with it. Not at present, anyway. They’re awfully poor, and her mother ought to have some frightfully difficult operation or something, and go and live abroad, so it really is ever so important they should get the money. And perhaps Hannah wouldn’t be quite so Red if she’d ever had a bean of her own. Besides, you could make it a condition of helping her that she should go and get properly shingled at Bresil’s.’

  ‘You are a very cynically-minded person,’ said his lordship. ‘However, it would be fun to have a go at Uncle M. Was he obliging enough to give any clues for finding the will?’

  ‘He wrote a funny sort of letter, which we can’t make head or tail of. Come to the club tonight and she’ll show it to you.’

  ‘Right-ho! Seven o’clock do? And we could go on and
see a show afterwards. Do you mind clearing out now? I’m going to get dressed.’

  Amid a deafening babble of voices in a low-pitched cellar, the Soviet Club meets and dines. Ethics and sociology, the latest vortices of the Whirligig school of verse, combine with the smoke of countless cigarettes to produce an inspissated atmosphere, through which flat, angular mural paintings dimly lower upon the revellers. There is painfully little room for the elbows, or indeed for any part of one’s body. Lord Peter — his feet curled under his chair to avoid the stray kicks of the heavy brogues opposite him — was acutely conscious of an unbecoming attitude and an overheated feeling about the head. He found it difficult to get any response from Hannah Marryat. Under her heavy, ill-cut fringe her dark eyes gloomed sombrely at him. At the same time he received a strong impression of something enormously vital. He had a sudden fancy that if she were set free from self-defensiveness and the importance of being earnest, she would exhibit unexpected powers of enjoyment. He was interested, but oppressed. Mary, to his great relief, suggested that they should have their coffee upstairs.

  They found a quiet corner with comfortable chairs.

  ‘Well, now,’ said Mary encouragingly.

  ‘Of course you understand,’ said Miss Marryat mournfully, ‘that if it were not for the monstrous injustice of Uncle Meleager’s other will, and mother being so ill, I shouldn’t take any steps. But when there is £250,000, and the prospect of doing real good with it —’

  ‘Naturally,’ said Lord Peter, ‘it isn’t the money you care about, as the dear old bromide says, it’s the principle of the thing. Right you are! Now supposin’ we have a look at Uncle Meleager’s letter.’

  Miss Marryat rummaged in a very large handbag and passed the paper over.

  This was Uncle Meleager’s letter, dated from Sienna twelve months previously.

  ‘My dear Hannah, — When I die — which I propose to do at my own convenience and not at that of my family — you will at last discover my monetary worth. It is, of course, considerably less than you had hoped, and quite fails, I assure you, adequately to represent my actual worth in the eyes of the discerning. I made my will yesterday, leaving the entire sum, such as it is, to the Primrose League — a body quite as fatuous as any other in our preposterous state, but which has the advantage of being peculiarly obnoxious to yourself. This will will be found in the safe in the library.