‘Astonishin’ position for a lawyer, what?’ said Peter.
‘The newspaper,’ said Mr Murbles, acknowledging the pleasantry with a slight unbending of the lips, ‘against these people who profess to cure fifty-nine different diseases with the same pill. Quangle & Hamper produced some of their patients in court to testify to the benefits they’d enjoyed from the cure. To hear Sir Impey handling them was an intellectual treat. His kindly manner goes a long way with the old ladies. When he suggested that one of them should show her leg to the Bench the sensation in court was really phenomenal.’
‘And did she show it?’ inquired Lord Peter.
‘Panting for the opportunity, my dear Lord Peter, panting for the opportunity.’
‘I wonder they had the nerve to call her.’
‘Nerve?’ said Mr Murbles.‘The nerve of men like Quangle & Hamper has not its fellow in the universe, to adopt the expression of the great Shakespeare. But Sir Impey is not the man to take liberties with. We are really extremely fortunate to have secured his help. – Ah, I think I hear him!’
A hurried footstep on the stair indeed announced the learned counsel, who burst in, still in wig and gown, and full of apology.
‘Extremely sorry, Murbles,’ said Sir Impey. ‘We became excessively tedious at the end, I regret to say. I really did my best, but dear old Dowson is getting as deaf as a post, you know, and terribly fumbling in his movements. – And how are you, Wimsey? You look as if you’d been in the wars. Can we bring an action for assault against anybody?’
‘Much better than that,’ put in Mr Murbles; ‘attempted murder, if you please.’
‘Excellent, excellent,’ said Sir Impey.
‘Ah, but we’ve decided not to prosecute,’ said Mr Murbles, shaking his head.
‘Really! Oh, my dear Wimsey, this will never do. Lawyers have to live, you know. Your sister? I hadn’t the pleasure of meeting you at Riddlesdale, Lady Mary. I trust you are fully recovered.’
‘Entirely, thank you,’ said Mary with emphasis.
‘Mr Parker – of course, your name is very familiar. Wimsey, here, can’t do a thing without you, I know. Murbles, are these gentlemen full of valuable information? I am immensely interested in this case.’
‘Not just this moment, though,’ put in the solicitor.
‘Indeed, no. Nothing but that excellent saddle of mutton has the slightest attraction for me just now. Forgive my greed.’
‘Well, well,’ said Mr Murbles, beaming mildly, ‘let’s make a start. I fear, my dear young people, I am old-fashioned enough not to have adopted the modern practice of cocktail-drinking.’
‘Quite right too,’ said Wimsey emphatically. ‘Ruins the palate and spoils the digestion. Not an English custom – rank sacrilege in this old Inn. Came from America – result, prohibition. That’s what happens to people who don’t understand how to drink. God bless me, sir, why, you’re giving us the famous claret. It’s a sin so much as to mention a cocktail in its presence.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Murbles, ‘yes, that’s the Lafite ’75. It’s very seldom, very seldom, I bring it out for anybody under fifty years of age – but you, Lord Peter, have a discrimination which would do honour to one of twice your years.’
‘Thanks very much, sir; that’s a testimonial I deeply appreciate. May I circulate the bottle, sir?’
‘Do, do – we will wait on ourselves, Simpson, thank you. After lunch,’ continued Mr Murbles, ‘I will ask you to try something really curious. An odd old client of mine died the other day, and left me a dozen of ’47 port.’
‘Gad!’ said Peter. ‘ ’47! It’ll hardly be drinkable, will it, sir?’
‘I very greatly fear,’ replied Mr Murbles, ‘that it will not. A great pity. But I feel that some kind of homage should be paid to so notable an antiquity.’
‘It would be something to say that one had tasted it,’ said Peter. ‘Like goin’ to see the divine Sarah, you know. Voice gone, bloom gone, savour gone – but still a classic.’
‘Ah,’ said Mr Murbles. ‘I remember her in her great days. We old fellows have the compensation of some wonderful memories.’
‘Quite right, sir,’ said Peter, ‘and you’ll pile up plenty more yet. But what was this old gentle man doing to let a vintage like that get past its prime?’
‘Mr Featherstone was a very singular man,’ said Mr Murbles. ‘And yet – I don’t know. He may have been profoundly wise. He had the reputation for extreme avarice. Never bought a new suit, never took a holiday, never married, lived all his life in the same dark, narrow chambers he occupied as a briefless barrister. Yet he inherited a huge income from his father, all of which he left to accumulate. The port was laid down by the old man, who died in 1860, when my client was thirty-four. He – the son, I mean – was ninety-six when he deceased. He said no pleasure ever came up to the anticipation, and so he lived like a hermit – doing nothing, but planning all the things he might have done. He wrote an elaborate diary, containing, day by day, the record of this visionary existence which he had never dared put to the test of actuality. The diary described minutely a blissful wedded life with the woman of his dreams. Every Christmas and Easter Day a bottle of the ’47 was solemnly set upon his table and solemnly removed, unopened, at the close of his frugal meal. An earnest Christian, he anticipated great happiness after death, but, as you see, he put the pleasure off as long as possible. He died with the words, “He is faithful that promised” – feeling to the end the need of assurance. A very singular man, very singular indeed – far removed from the adventurous spirits of the present generation.’
‘How curious and pathetic,’ said Mary.
‘Perhaps he had at some time set his heart on something unattainable,’ said Parker.
‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Mr Murbles. ‘People used to say that the dream-lady had not always been a dream, but that he never could bring himself to propose.’
‘Ah,’ said Sir Impey briskly, ‘the more I see and hear in the courts the more I am inclined to feel that Mr Featherstone chose the better part.’
‘And are determined to follow his example – in that respect at any rate? Eh, Sir Impey!’ replied Mr Murbles, with a mild chuckle.
Mr Parker glanced towards the window. It was beginning to rain.
Truly enough the ’47 port was a dead thing; the merest ghost of its old flame and flavour hung about it. Lord Peter held his glass poised a moment.
‘It is like the taste of a passion that has passed its noon and turned to weariness,’ he said, with sudden gravity. ‘The only thing to do is to recognise bravely that it is dead, and put it away.’ With a determined movement, he flung the remainder of the wine into the fire. The mocking smile came back to his face:
‘What I like about Clive
Is that he is no longer alive—
There is a great deal to be said
For being dead.
What classic pith and brevity in those four lines! – However, in the matter of this case, we’ve a good deal to tell you, sir.’
With the assistance of Parker, he laid before the two men of law the whole train of the investigation up to date, Lady Mary coming loyally up to the scratch with her version of the night’s proceedings.
‘In fact, you see,’ said Peter, ‘this Mr Goyles has lost a lot by not being a murderer. We feel he would have cut a fine, sinister figure as a midnight assassin. But things bein’ as they are, you see, we must make what we can of him as a witness, what?’
‘Well, Lord Peter,’ said Mr Murbles slowly, ‘I congratulate you and Mr Parker on a great deal of industry and ingenuity in working the matter out.’
‘I think we may say we have made some progress,’ said Parker.
‘If only negatively,’ added Peter.
‘Exactly,’ said Sir Impey, turning on him with staggering abruptness. ‘Very negatively indeed. And, having seriously hampered the case for the defence, what are you going to do next?’
‘That’s a nice thing to say,’ crie
d Peter indignantly, ‘when we’ve cleared up such a lot of points for you!’
‘I daresay,’ said the barrister, ‘but they’re the sort of points which are much better left muffled up.’
‘Damn it all, we want to get at the truth!’
‘Do you?’ said Sir Impey drily. ‘I don’t. I don’t care twopence about the truth. I want a case. It doesn’t matter to me who killed Cathcart, provided I can prove it wasn’t Denver. It’s really enough if I can throw reasonable doubt on its being Denver. Here’s a client comes to me with a story of a quarrel, a suspicious revolver, a refusal to produce evidence of his statements, and a totally inadequate and idiotic alibi. I arrange to obfuscate the jury with mysterious footprints, a discrepancy as to time, a young woman with a secret, and a general vague suggestion of something between a burglary and a crime passionel. And here you come explaining the footprints, exculpating the unknown man, abolishing the discrepancies, clearing up the motives of the young woman, and most carefully throwing back suspicion to where it rested in the first place. What do you expect?’
‘I’ve always said,’ growled Peter, ‘that the professional advocate was the most immoral fellow on the face of the earth, and now I know for certain.’
‘Well, well,’ said Mr Murbles, ‘all this just means that we mustn’t rest upon our oars. You must go on, my dear boy, and get more evidence of a positive kind. If this Mr Goyles did not kill Cathcart we must be able to find the person who did.’
‘Anyhow,’ said Biggs, ‘there’s one thing to be thankful for – and that is, that you were still too unwell to go before the Grand Jury last Thursday, Lady Mary’ – Lady Mary blushed – ‘and the prosecution will be building their case on a shot fired at 3 a.m. Don’t answer any questions if you can help it, and we’ll spring it on ’em.’
‘But will they believe anything she says at the trial after that?’ asked Peter dubiously.
‘All the better if they don’t. She’ll be their witness. You’ll get a nasty heckling, Lady Mary, but you mustn’t mind that. It’s all in the game. Just stick to your story and we’ll deliver the goods. See!’ Sir Impey wagged a menacing finger.
‘I see,’ said Mary. ‘And I’ll be heckled like anything. Just go on stubbornly saying, “I am telling the truth now.” That’s the idea isn’t it?’
‘Exactly so,’ said Biggs. ‘By the way, Denver still refuses to explain his movements, I suppose?’
‘Cat-e-gori-cally,’ replied the solicitor. ‘The Wimseys are a very determined family,’ he added, ‘and I fear that, for the present, it is useless to pursue that line of investigation. If we could discover the truth in some other way, and confront the Duke with it, he might then be persuaded to add his confirmation.’
‘Well, now,’ said Parker, ‘we have, as it seems to me, still three lines to go upon. First, we must try to establish the Duke’s alibi from external sources. Secondly, we can examine the evidence afresh with a view of finding the real murderer. And thirdly, the Paris police may give us some light upon Cathcart’s past history.’
‘And I fancy I know where to go next for information on the second point,’ said Wimsey, suddenly. ‘Grider’s Hole.’
‘Whew-w!’ Parker whistled. ‘I was forgetting that. That’s where that bloodthirsty farmer fellow lives, isn’t it, who set the dogs on you?’
‘With the remarkable wife. Yes. See here, how does this strike you? This fellow is ferociously jealous of his wife, and inclined to suspect every man who comes near her. When I went up there that day, and mentioned that a friend of mine might have been hanging about there the previous week, he got frightfully excited and threatened to have the fellow’s blood. Seemed to know who I was referrin’ to. Now, of course, with my mind full of No. 10 – Goyles, you know – I never thought but that he was the man. But supposin’ it was Cathcart? You see, we know now, Goyles hadn’t even been in the neighbourhood till the Wednesday, so you wouldn’t expect what’s-his-name – Grimethorpe – to know about him, but Cathcart might have wandered over to Grider’s Hole any day and been seen. And look here! Here’s another thing that fits in. When I went up there Mrs Grimethorpe evidently mistook me for somebody she knew, and hurried down to warn me off. Well, of course, I’ve been thinkin’ all the time she must have seen my old cap and Burberry from the window and mistaken me for Goyles, but, now I come to think of it, I told the kid who came to the door that I was from Riddlesdale Lodge. If the child told her mother, she must have thought it was Cathcart.’
‘No, no, Wimsey, that won’t do,’ put in Parker; ‘she must have known Cathcart was dead by that time.’
‘Oh, damn it! Yes, I suppose she must. Unless that surly old devil kept the news from her. By Jove; that’s just what he would do if he’d killed Cathcart himself. He’d never say a word to her – and I don’t suppose he would let her look at a paper, even if they took one in. It’s a primitive sort of place.’
‘But didn’t you say Grimethorpe had an alibi?’
‘Yes, but we didn’t really test it.’
‘And how do you suppose he knew Cathcart was going to be in the thicket that night?’
Peter considered.
‘Perhaps he sent for him,’ suggested Mary.
‘That’s right, that’s right,’ cried Peter eagerly. ‘You remember we thought Cathcart must somehow or other have heard from Goyles, making an appointment – but suppose the message was from Grimethorpe, threatening to split on Cathcart to Jerry.’
‘You are suggesting, Lord Peter,’ said Mr Murbles, in a tone calculated to chill Peter’s blithe impetuosity, ‘that, at the very time Mr Cathcart was betrothed to your sister, he was carrying on a disgraceful intrigue with a married woman very much his social inferior.’
‘I beg your pardon, Polly,’ said Wimsey.
‘It’s all right,’ said Mary. ‘I – as a matter of fact, it wouldn’t surprise me frightfully. Denis was always – I mean, he had rather Continental ideas about marriage and that sort of thing. I don’t think he’d have thought that mattered very much. He’d probably have said there was a time and place for everything.’
‘One of those watertight compartment minds,’ said Wimsey thoughtfully. Mr Parker, despite his long acquaintance with the seamy side of things in London, had his brows set in a gloomy frown of as fierce a provincial disapproval as ever came from Barrow-in-Furness.
‘If you can upset this Grimethorpe’s alibi,’ said Sir Impey, fitting his right-hand finger-tips neatly between the fingers of his left hand, ‘we might make some sort of a case of it. What do you think, Murbles?’
‘After all,’ said the solicitor, ‘Grimethorpe and the servant both admit that he, Grimethorpe, was not at Grider’s Hole on Wednesday night. If he can’t prove he was at Stapley he may have been at Riddlesdale.’
‘By Jove!’ cried Wimsey; ‘driven off alone, stopped somewhere, left the gee, sneaked back, met Cathcart, done him in, and toddled home next day with a tale about machinery.’
‘Or he may even have been to Stapley,’ put in Parker; ‘left early or gone late, and put in the murder on the way. We shall have to check the precise times very carefully.’
‘Hurray!’ cried Wimsey. ‘I think I’ll be gettin’ back to Riddlesdale.’
‘I’d better stay here,’ said Parker. ‘There may be something from Paris.’
‘Right you are. Let me know the minute anything comes through. I say, old thing!’
‘Yes?’
‘Does it occur to you that what’s the matter with this case is that there are too many clues? Dozens of people with secrets and elopements bargin’ about all over the place—’
‘I hate you, Peter,’ said Lady Mary.
11
MERIBAH
‘Oh-ho, my friend! You are gotten into Lob’s pond.’
JACK THE GIANT-KILLER
LORD PETER broke his journey north at York, whither the Duke of Denver had been transferred after the Assizes, owing to the imminent closing-down of Northallerton Gaol. By dint of judic
ious persuasion, Peter contrived to obtain an interview with his brother. He found him looking ill at ease, and pulled down by the prison atmosphere, but still unquenchably defiant.
‘Bad luck, old man,’ said Peter, ‘but you’re keepin’ your tail up fine. Beastly slow business, all this legal stuff, what? But it gives us time, an’ that’s all to the good.’
‘It’s a confounded nuisance,’ said his grace. ‘And I’d like to know what Murbles means. Comes down and tries to bully me – damned impudence! Anybody’d think he suspected me.’
‘Look here, Jerry,’ said his brother earnestly, ‘why can’t you let up on that alibi of yours! It’d help no end, you know. After all, if a fellow won’t say what he’s been doin’—’
‘It ain’t my business to prove anything,’ retorted his grace, with dignity. ‘They’ve got to show I was there, murderin’ the fellow. I’m not bound to say where I was. I’m presumed innocent, aren’t I, till they prove me guilty? I call it a disgrace. Here’s a murder committed, and they aren’t taking the slightest trouble to find the real criminal. I give ’em my word of honour, to say nothin’ of an oath, that I didn’t kill Cathcart – though, mind you, the swine deserved it – but they pay no attention. Meanwhile, the real man’s escapin’ at his confounded leisure. If I were only free, I’d make a fuss about it.’
‘Well, why the devil don’t you cut it short, then?’ urged Peter. ‘I don’t mean here and now to me’ – with a glance at the warder, within earshot – ‘but to Murbles. Then we could get to work.’
‘I wish you’d jolly well keep out of it,’ grunted the Duke. ‘Isn’t it all damnable enough for Helen, poor girl, and mother, and everyone, without you makin’ it an opportunity to play Sherlock Holmes? I’d have thought you’d have had the decency to keep quiet, for the family’s sake. I may be in a damned rotten position, but I ain’t makin’ a public spectacle of myself, by Jove!’
‘Hell!’ said Lord Peter, with such vehemence that the wooden-faced warder actually jumped. ‘It’s you that’s making’ the spectacle! It need never have started, but for you. Do you think I like havin’ my brother and sister dragged through the Courts, and reporters swarmin’ over the place, and paragraphs and news-bills with your name staring at me from every corner, and all this ghastly business, endin’ up in a great show in the House of Lords, with a lot of people togged up in scarlet and ermine, and all the rest of the damnfool jiggery-pokery? People are beginnin’ to look oddly at me in the Club, and I can jolly well hear ’em whisperin’ that “Denver’s attitude looks jolly fishy, b’gad!” Cut it out, Jerry.’