Dorothy L. Sayers - [Lord Peter Wimsey 03] (11 page)

“Right you are,” said Wimsey, cheerfully, “just let’s do this little bit and you can get all the virtuous indignation off your chest later on. Round here, I fancy, up this back alley. Step lively and mind the dust-bin. One, two, three, four—here we are! Just keep a look-out for the passing stranger, will you?”

Selecting a back window which he judged to belong to Mrs. Forrest’s flat, Wimsey promptly grasped a drain-pipe and began to swarm up it with the agility of a cat-burglar. About fifteen feet from the ground he paused, reached up, appeared to detach something with a quick jerk, and then slid very gingerly to the ground again, holding his right hand at a cautious distance from his body, as though it were breakable.

And indeed, to his amazement, Parker observed that Wimsey now held a long-stemmed glass in his fingers, similar to those from which they had drunk in Mrs. Forrest’s sitting-room.

“What on earth—?” said Parker.

“Hush! I’m Hawkshaw the detective—gathering fingerprints. Here we come a-wassailing and gathering prints in May. That’s why I took the glass back. I brought a different one in the second time. Sorry I had to do this athletic stunt, but the only cotton-reel I could find hadn’t much on it. When I changed the glass, I tip-toed into the bathroom and hung it out of the window. Hope she hasn’t been in there since. Just brush my bags down, will you, old man? Gently—don’t touch the glass.”

“What the devil do you want finger-prints for?”

“You’re a grateful sort of person. Why, for all you know, Mrs. Forrest is someone the Yard has been looking for for years. And anyway, you could compare the prints with those on the Bass bottle, if any. Besides, you never know when finger-prints mayn’t come in handy. They’re excellent things to have about the house. Coast clear? Right. Hail a taxi, will you? I can’t wave my hand with this glass in it. Look so silly, don’t you know. I say!”

“Well?”

“I saw something else. The first time I went out for the drinks, I had a peep into her bedroom.”

“Yes?”

“What do you think I found in the wash-stand drawer?”

“What?”

“A hypodermic syringe!”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes, and an innocent little box of ampullæ, with a doctor’s prescription headed ‘The injection, Mrs. Forrest. One to be injected when the pain is very severe.’ What do you think of that?”

“Tell you when we’ve got the results of that postmortem,” said Parker, really impressed. “You didn’t bring the prescription, I suppose?”

“No, and I didn’t inform the lady who we were or what we were after or ask her permission to carry away the family crystal. But I made a note of the chemist’s address.”

“Did you?” ejaculated Parker. “Occasionally, my lad, you have some glimmerings of sound detective sense.”

“Society is at the mercy of a murderer who is remorseless, who takes no accomplices and who keeps his head.”

EDMUND PEARSON: MURDER AT SMUTTY NOSE

LETTER FROM MISS ALEXANDRA
Katherine Climpson to Lard Peter Wimsey.

‘FAIR VIEW,’

NELSON AVENUE,

LEAHAMPTON.

12 MAY, 1927.

“MY DEAR LORD PETER,

“I have not
yet
been able to get
ALL
the information you ask for, as Miss Whittaker has been away for some weeks, inspecting
chicken-farms!!
With a view to purchase, I mean, of course, and not in any
sanitary capacity(!).
I
really think
she means to set up farming
with Miss Findlater,
though what Miss Whittaker can see in that very gushing and really
silly
young woman I cannot think. However, Miss Findlater has evidently quite a ‘pash’ (as we used to call it at school) for Miss Whittaker, and I am afraid none of us are above being
flattered
by such outspoken admiration. I must say, I think it rather
unhealthy
—you may remember Miss Clemence Dane’s very
clever book
on the subject?—I have seen so
much
of that kind of thing in my rather
WOMAN-RIDDEN
existence! It has such a bad effect, as a rule, upon the
weaker character
of the two—But I must not take up your time with my
TWADDLE!!

“Miss Murgatroyd, who was quite a friend of old Miss
Dawson,
however, has been able to tell me a
little
about her past life.

“It seems that, until five years ago, Miss Dawson lived in Warwickshire with her cousin, a Miss Clara Whittaker, Mary Whittaker’s great-aunt on the
father’s
side. This Miss Clara was evidently rather a ‘character,’ as my dear father used to call it. In her day she was considered very ‘advanced’ and
not quite nice(!)
because she
refused
several
good offers,
cut her hair
SHORT(!!)
and set up in business for herself as a
HORSE-BREEDER!!!
Of course,
nowadays,
nobody would think anything of it, but
then
the old lady—or
young
lady as she was when she embarked on this
revolutionary
proceeding, was quite a
PIONEER.

“Agatha Dawson was a school-fellow of hers, and
deeply attached
to her. And as a result of this friendship, Agatha’s
sister,
HARRIET,
married Clara Whittaker’s
brother
JAMES!
But
Agatha
did not care about marriage, any more than
Clara,
and the two ladies lived together in a big old house, with immense stables, in a village in Warwickshire—Crofton, I think the name was. Clara Whittaker turned out to be a remarkably
good business woman,
and worked up a big ‘connection’ among the
hunting folk
in those parts. Her hunters became quite
famous,
and from a capital of a few thousand pounds with which she started she made quite a
fortune,
and was a
very rich woman
before her death! Agatha Dawson never had anything to do with the
horsey
part of the business. She was the ‘domestic’ partner, and looked after the
house
and the
servants.

“When Clara Whittaker died, she left
all her money
to
AGATHA,
passing over her
own family,
with whom she was not
on
very
good terms
—owing to the narrow-minded attitude they had taken up about her horse-dealing!! Her nephew, Charles Whittaker, who was a clergyman, and the father of
our
Miss Whittaker, resented very much not getting the money, though, as he had kept up the feud in a very
un-Christian
manner, he had really
no
right to complain, especially as Clara had built up her fortune
entirely
by her own exertions. But, of course, he inherited the
bad, old-fashioned
idea that women
ought not
to be their own mistresses, or make money for themselves, or do what they liked with their own!

“He and his family were the only surviving Whittaker relations, and when
he and his wife
were killed in a motor-car accident, Miss Dawson asked Mary to leave her work as a nurse and make her home with her. So that, you see, Clara Whittaker’s money was destined to
come back
to James Whittaker’s daughter in the end!! Miss Dawson made it
quite
CLEAR
that this was her intention, provided Mary would come and
cheer the declining days
of a lonely old lady!

“Mary accepted, and as her aunt—or, to speak more
exactly,
her great-aunt—had given up the big old Warwickshire house after Clara’s death, they lived in London for a short time and then moved to Leahampton. As you know, poor old Miss Dawson was then already suffering from the
terrible disease
of which she died, so that Mary did not have to wait very long for Clara Whittaker’s money!!

“I hope this information will be of some
use
to you. Miss Murgatroyd did not, of course, know anything about the rest of the family, but she always understood that there were
no other
surviving relatives, either on the Whittaker or the Dawson side.

“When Miss Whittaker returns, I hope to
see more
of her. I enclose my
account
for expenses up to date. I do
trust
you will not consider it
extravagant.
How are your money-lenders progressing? I was sorry not to see more or those poor
women
whose cases I investigated—their stories were
so
PATHETIC!

I AM,

VERY SINCERELY YOURS,

ALEXANDRA K. CLIMPSON.”

“P.S.—I
forgot
to say that Miss Whittaker has a little motor-car. I do not, of course, know anything about these matters, but Mrs. Budge’s maid tells me that Miss Whittaker’s maid says it is an Austen 7 (is this right?). It is grey, and the number is XX9917.”

Mr. Parker was announced, just as Lord Peter finished reading this document, and sank rather wearily in a corner of the chesterfield.

“What luck?” inquired his lordship, tossing the letter over to him. “Do you know, I’m beginning to think you were right about the Bertha Gotobed business, and I’m rather relieved. I don’t believe one word of Mrs. Forrest’s story, for reasons of my own, and I’m how hoping that the wiping out of Bertha was a pure coincidence and nothing to do with my advertisement.”

“Are you?” said Parker, bitterly, helping himself to whisky and soda. “Well, I hope you’ll be cheered to learn that the analysis of the body has been made, and that there is not the slightest sign of foul play. There is no trace of violence or of poisoning. There was a heart weakness of fairly long standing, and the verdict is syncope after a heavy meal.”

“That doesn’t worry me,” said Wimsey. “We suggested shock, you know. Amiable gentleman met at flat of friendly lady suddenly turns funny after dinner and makes undesirable overtures. Virtuous young woman is horribly shocked. Weak heart gives way. Collapse. Exit. Agitation of amiable gentleman and friendly lady, left with corpse on their hands. Happy thought: motor-car; Epping Forest;
exeunt omnes,
singing and washing their hands. Where’s the difficulty?”

“Proving it is the difficulty, that’s all. By the way, there were no finger-marks on the bottle—only smears.”

“Gloves, I suppose. Which looks like camouflage, anyhow. An ordinary picnicking couple wouldn’t put on gloves to handle a bottle of Bass.”

“I know. But we can’t arrest all the people who wear gloves.”

“I weep for you, the Walrus said, I deeply sympathise: I see the difficulty, but it’s early days yet. How about those injections?”

“Perfectly O.K. We’ve interrogated the chemist and interviewed the doctor. Mrs. Forrest suffers from violent neuralgic pains, and the injections were duly prescribed. Nothing wrong there, and no history of doping or anything. The prescription is a very mild one, and couldn’t possibly be fatal to anybody. Besides, haven’t I told you that there was no trace of morphia or any other kind of poison in the body?”

“Oh, well!” said Wimsey. He sat for a few minutes looking thoughtfully at the fire.

“I see the case has more or less died out of the papers,” he resumed, suddenly.

“Yes. The analysis has been sent to them, and there will be a paragraph tomorrow and a verdict of natural death, and that will be the end of it.”

“Good. The less fuss there is about it the better. Has anything been heard of the sister in Canada?”

“Oh, I forgot. Yes. We had a cable three days ago. She’s coming over.”

“Is she? By Jove! What boat?”

“The
Star of Quebec
—due in next Friday.”

“H’m! We’ll have to get hold of her. Are you meeting the boat?”

“Good heavens, no! Why should I?”

“I think someone ought to. I’m reassured—but not altogether happy. I think I’ll go myself, if you don’t mind. I want to get that Dawson story—and this time I want to make sure the young woman doesn’t have a heart attack before I interview her.”

“I really think you’re exaggerating, Peter.”

“Better safe than sorry,” said his lordship. “Have another peg, won’t you? Meanwhile, what do you think of Miss Climpson’s latest?”

“I don’t see much in it.”

“No?”

“It’s a bit confusing, but it all seems quite straightforward.”

“Yes. The only thing we know now is that Mary Whittaker’s father was annoyed about Miss Dawson’s getting his aunt’s money and thought it ought to have come to him.”

“Well, you don’t suspect
him
of having murdered Miss Dawson, do you? He died before her, and the daughter’s got the money, anyhow.”

“Yes, I know. But suppose Miss Dawson had changed her mind? She might have quarrelled with Mary Whittaker and wanted to leave her money elsewhere.”

“Oh, I see—and been put out of the way before she could make a will?”

“Isn’t it possible?”

“Yes, certainly. Except that all the evidence we have goes to show that will-making was about the last job anybody could persuade her to do.”

“True—while she was on good terms with Mary. But how about that morning Nurse Philliter mentioned, when she said people were trying to kill her before her time? Mary may really have been impatient with her for being such an unconscionable time a-dying. If Miss Dawson became aware of that, she would certainly have resented it and may very well have expressed an intention of making her will in someone else’s favour—as a kind of insurance against premature decease!”

“Then why didn’t she send for her solicitor?”

“She may have tried to. But after all, she was bed-ridden and helpless. Mary may have prevented the message from being sent.”

“That sounds quite plausible.”

“Doesn’t it? That’s why I want Evelyn Cropper’s evidence. I’m perfectly certain those girls were packed off because they had heard more than they should. Or why such enthusiasm over sending them to London?”