‘I couldn’t. Not so soon. In fact, never again – now that Paul – But I begged Miss Vane to enjoy herself and not mind about me. It is such a delight to watch her looking so happy.’
Wimsey sat down and did his best to enjoy the spectacle of Harriet’s happiness. As the quick-step came to an end, Antoine, with professional tact, contrived to end his progress in the neighbourhood of their table and then, bowing gracefully, melted away. Harriet, a little flushed, smiled amiably upon Lord Peter.
‘Oh, there you are,’ said his lordship.
Harriet became suddenly conscious that every woman in the room was gazing furtively or with frank interest at Wimsey and herself, and the knowledge exhilarated her.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘here I am. Frivolling. You didn’t know I could do it, did you?’
‘I have always taken it for granted that you could do everything.’
‘Oh, no. I can only do what I like doing.’
‘We’ll see about that.’
The orchestra swung gently into a dreamy tune. Wimsey advanced upon Harriet and steered her competently out into the centre of the room. For the first few bars of the music they had the floor to themselves.
‘At last,’ said Wimsey, ‘we are alone. That is not an original remark, but I am in no condition to invent epigrams. I have been suffering agonies, and my soul is raw. Now that for a brief moment I have you all to myself –’
‘Well?’ said Harriet. She was aware that the wine-coloured frock became her.
‘What,’ said Wimsey, ‘do you make of Mr Henry Weldon?’
‘Oh!’
This was not quite the question Harriet had expected. She hastily collected her ideas. It was very necessary that she should be the perfect unemotional sleuth.
‘His manners are dreadful,’ she said, ‘and I don’t think his brains are much to write home about.’
‘No, that’s just it.’
‘Just what?’
Wimsey countered the question with another.
‘Why is he here?’
‘She sent for him.’
‘Yes, but why is he here. Sudden spasm of filial affection?’
‘She thinks so.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Possibly. Or, more likely, he doesn’t want to get on the wrong side of her. It’s her money, you know.’
‘Quite. Yes. It’s funny that that should only just have occurred to him. He’s very like her, isn’t he?’
‘Very. So much so that he gave me an odd feeling just at first, as though I’d met him somewhere. Do you mean that they are too much alike to hit it off together?’
‘They seem to be getting along all right at present.’
‘I expect he’s glad to be relieved from the prospect of Paul Alexis, and can’t help showing it. He’s not very subtle.’
‘That’s what feminine intuition makes of it, is it?’
‘Bother feminine intuition. Do you find him romantic or obscure?’
‘No; I wish I did. I only find him offensive.’
‘Oh?’
‘And I’d like to know why.’
Silence for a few moments. Harriet felt that Wimsey ought to be saying, ‘How well you dance.’ Since he did not say it, she became convinced that she was dancing like a wax doll with sawdust legs. Wimsey had never danced with her, never held her in his arms before. It should have been an epoch-making moment for him. But his mind appeared to be concentrated upon the dull personality of an East Anglian farmer. She fell a victim to an inferiority complex, and tripped over her partner’s feet.
‘Sorry,’ said Wimsey, accepting responsibility like a gentleman.
‘It’s my fault,’ said Harriet. ‘I’m a rotten dancer. Don’t bother about me. Let’s stop. You haven’t got to be polite to me, you know.’
Worse and worse. She was being peevish and egotistical. Wimsey glanced down at her in surprise and then suddenly smiled.
‘Darling, if you danced like an elderly elephant with arthritis, I would dance the sun and moon into the sea with you. I have waited a thousand years to see you dance in that frock.’
‘Idiot’ said Harriet.
They made the circuit of the room in silence and harmony. Antoine, guiding an enormous person in jade-green and diamonds, swam comet-like into their orbit and murmured into Harriet’s ear across an expanse of fat white shoulder:
‘Qu’est-ce que je vous ai dit? L’élan, c’est trouvé.’
He slid away dexterously, leaving Harriet flushed.
‘What did that blighter say?’
‘He said I danced better with you than with him.’
‘Curse his impudence!’ Wimsey scowled over the heads of the intervening couples at Antoine’s elegant back.
‘Tell me now,’ said Harriet. The ending of the dance had found them on the opposite side of the room from the Weldons, and it seemed natural to sit down at the nearest table. ‘Tell me, what is biting you about Henry Weldon?’
‘Henry Weldon?’ Wimsey jerked his mind back from an immense distance. ‘Yes, of course. Why is he here? Not to worm himself into his mother’s good graces, surely?’
‘Why not? Now is his time. Alexis is disposed of and he sees his opportunity. Now that he has nothing to lose by it, he can afford to come along and be frightfully sympathetic and help to investigate things and be filial and affectionate and so on.’
‘Then why is he trying to drive me out of the place?’
‘You?’
‘Me.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Weldon went out of his way in the bar this evening to be as offensive as he possibly could, without using actual violence or bad language. He informed me, in an indirect but unmistakable manner, that I was poking my nose in where I was not wanted, exploiting his mother for my private ends and probably sucking up to her for her money. In fact, he drove me to the indescribable vulgarity of reminding him who I was and why I did not require anybody’s money.’
‘Why didn’t you sock him one over the jaw?’
‘It was a temptation. I felt that you would love me better if I did. But you would not, in your calmer moments, really wish me to put my love before my detective principles.’
‘Certainly not. But what’s his idea?’
‘Oh, that’s clear enough. He made it very clear. He wants it to be understood that this detecting business is to stop, and that Mrs Weldon is to be restrained from lavishing time and money in pursuit of non-existent Bolsheviks.’
‘I can understand that. He’s looking to inherit the money.’
‘Of course. But if I were to go and tell Mrs Weldon the things he’s been saying to me, she’d probably disinherit him. And where would be the use of all this display of sympathy then?’
‘I knew he was a stupid man.’
‘He evidently thinks it very important to stop all these inquiries. So much so that he’s prepared, not only to risk my splitting on him, but also to spend an indefinite time here hanging round his mother to see that she doesn’t make inquiries on her own.’
‘Well, I daresay he has nothing else to do.’
‘Nothing else to do? My dear girl, he’s a farmer.’
‘Well?’
‘And this is June.’
‘What about it?’
‘Why isn’t he attending to his hay-making?’
‘I didn’t think of that.’
‘About the last weeks of the year that any decent farmer would be willing to waste are the weeks from hay to harvest. I can understand his running over for a day, but he seems to be prepared to make a session of it. This Alexis business has become so important that he’s ready to chuck everything, come down to a place he detests and hang about interminably in a hotel in attendance on a mother with whom he has never had very much in common. I think it’s funny.’
‘Yes, it is rather funny.’
‘Has he ever been here before?’
‘No. I asked him when we met. It’s the kind of thing one does ask people. He sa
id he hadn’t. I expect he kept away while all the Alexis business was going on – he’d hate it.’
‘And content himself with forbidding the banns at a distance?’
‘Yes – though it doesn’t seem the most effective way.’
‘No? But the banns have been fairly effectively forbidden, haven’t they?’
‘Yes. But – are you casting Henry for the part of the murderer?’
‘I should like to. But I don’t feel I can, somehow.’
‘No?’
‘No. That’s why I wanted to find out whether you thought Henry was subtle. You don’t, and I agree with you. I don’t think Henry has the brains to have murdered Paul Alexis.’
XIII
EVIDENCE OF TROUBLE SOMEWHERE
‘Fool, would thy virtue shame and crush me down;
And make a grateful blushing bond-slave of me?’
Death’s Jest-Book
Tuesday, 23 June
Lord Peter Wimsey, reading his Morning Star over the eggs and bacon, felt better than he had done for some weeks. The Morning Star had come up to scratch nobly, and was offering £100 reward for information about the razor that had slain Paul Alexis. Bunter, returning from his fruitless journey to Eastbourne, had come on to join his master at Wilvercombe, bringing with him a fresh supply of shirts, collars, and other garments. Harriet Vane had danced with Lord Peter in a wine-coloured frock. Wimsey considered, rightly, that when a woman takes a man’s advice about the purchase of clothes, it is a sign that she is not indifferent to his opinion. Various women, at various times and in various quarters of the globe, had clothed themselves by Wimsey’s advice and sometimes also at his expense – but then, he had fully expected them to do so. He had not expected it of Harriet, and was as disproportionately surprised and pleased as if he had picked up a sovereign in the streets of Aberdeen. Like all male creatures, Wimsey was a simple soul at bottom.
Not only had he this satisfactory past and present to contemplate; he anticipated an interesting day. Harriet had consented to walk with him that afternoon from the Flat-Iron to Darley in search of clues. Low water being billed to take place at 4.45, they had arranged to drive out to the Flat-Iron, arriving there at 3.30. After a little light refreshment, the expedition would set out, searching conscientiously for whatever the shore might have to show them, while Bunter brought the car back by the road to Hinks’s Lane; after which all three would return to their base at Wilvercombe in their original formation. It was all very clear, except that Harriet did not see – and said as much – what clues were likely to remain on the open shore after nearly a week of exceptionally high tides. She admitted, however, that she needed exercise and that walking was better exercise than most.
And – most immediate of pleasant things to look forward to – Harriet had further agreed to receive Lord Peter Wimsey after breakfast at the Resplendent, for a conference. It was necessary, in Wimsey’s opinion, that the progress made so far should be tabulated and brought into some sort of order. Ten o’clock was the hour fixed for this meeting, and Wimsey was lingering lovingly over his bacon and eggs, so as to leave no restless and unfilled moment in his morning. By which it may be seen that his lordship had reached that time of life when a man can extract an Epicurean enjoyment even from his own passions – the halcyon period between the self-tormenting exuberance of youth and the fretful carpe diem of approaching senility.
The great wind had fallen at last. It had rained a little during the night, but now the sky was fair again, with only the gentlest of breezes ruffling the blue expanse of sea that was visible from the Bellevue’s dining-room windows. Inspector Umpelty had been out with his helpers to explore the Grinders at four o’clock that morning, and had just looked in on Wimsey to say that they had found nothing yet.
‘And why it hasn’t come ashore somewhere before this, I don’t know,’ he grumbled. ‘We’ve had a look-out kept all along the coast from Fishy Ness right up to Seahampton and on both sides of the estuary. Must have got hooked up with something. If we don’t get it within another week, we’ll have to give it up. Can’t waste public money fishing for drowned dagoes. The ratepayers grumble enough as it is, and we can’t keep the witnesses hanging round here for ever. Well, so long. We shall have another shot at low tide.’
At ten o’clock Wimsey and his collaborator sat down before a neat pile of scribbling paper. Harriet was inclined to be brief and businesslike.
‘What system are we going to adopt about this? Do you favour the Michael Finsbury method by double entry as in The Wrong Box? Or one of those charts made out in columns, with headings for “Suspect”, “Alibi”, “Witnesses”, “Motive” and so on, worked out in percentages?’
‘Oh, don’t let’s have anything that means ruling a lot of lines and doing arithmetic. Let’s behave like your Robert Templeton, and make a schedule of Things to be Noted and Things to be Done. That only means two columns.’
‘Very well, I’m glad you approve of it. I always make Templeton start with the corpse.’
‘Right. Here goes –’
PAUL ALEXIS (GOLDSCHMIDT)
‘How professional it looks,’ said Harriet. ‘A nice little set of problems for Robert Templeton. The only thing I can do much about is interviewing this Leila person and her new young man. I fancy I might get more out of them than the police could.’
‘There’s nothing I can do that the police can’t do better,’ said Wimsey, mournfully. ‘We’d better go on to the next.’
MRS WELDON
HENRY WELDON
ESDRAS POLLOCK
– PERKINS (of London)
HAVILAND MARTIN
‘And that,’ said Wimsey, triumphantly adding a flourish at the foot of this schedule, ‘rounds off the inquiry charmingly.’
‘It does.’ Harriet frowned. Then –
‘Have you ever considered this?’ she asked, with a not too steady voice. She scribbled for a moment.
HARRIET VANE
Things to be Noted
1. Personal characteristics: Once tried for murder of her lover, and acquitted by the skin of her teeth.
2. May have known Paul Alexis in London.
3. Says she found Alexis dead at 2.10, but can bring no evidence to prove that she did not see him alive.
4. Took an unconscionable time getting to the Flat-Iron from Lesston Hoe.
5. Took three hours to walk four and a half miles to inform the police.
6. Is the sole witness to the finding of the razor, the time of the death and the conditions at the Flat-Iron.
7. Was immediately suspected by Perkins, and is probably still suspected by the police, who have been searching her room.
Wimsey’s face darkened.
‘Have they, by God?’
‘Yes. Don’t look like that. They couldn’t very well do anything else, could they?’
‘I’ll have something to say to Umpelty.’
‘No. You can spare me that.’
‘But it’s absurd.’
‘It is not. Do you think I have no wits? Do you think I don’t know why you came galloping down here at five minutes’ notice? Of course it’s very nice of you, and I ought to be grateful, but do you think I like it?’
Wimsey, with a grey face, got up and walked to the window.
‘You thought I was pretty brazen, I expect, when you found me getting publicity out of the thing. So I was. There’s no choice for a person like me to be anything but brazen. Would it have been better to wait till the papers dragged the juicy bits out of the dust-bin for themselves? I can’t hide my name – it’s what I live by. If I did hide it, that would only be another suspicious circumstance, wouldn’t it? But do you think it makes matters any more agreeable to know that it is only the patronage of Lord Peter Wimsey that prevent men like Umpelty from being openly hostile?’
‘I have been afraid of this,’ said Wimsey.
‘Then why did you come?’
‘So that you might not have to send for me.’
; ‘Oh!’
There was a strained pause, while Wimsey painfully recalled the terms of the message that had originally reached him from Salcombe Hardy of the Morning Star – Hardy, a little drunk and wholly derisory, announcing over the telephone, ‘I say, Wimsey, that Vane woman of yours has got herself mixed up in another queer story.’ Then his own furious and terrified irruption into Fleet Street, and the violent bullying of a repentant and sentimental Hardy, till the Morning Star report was hammered into a form that set the tone for the comments of the press. Then the return home to find that the Wilvercombe police were already besieging him, in the politest and most restrained manner, for information as to Miss Harriet Vane’s recent movements and behaviour. And finally, the certainty that the best way out of a bad situation was to brazen it out – Harriet’s word – even if it meant making a public exhibition of his feelings, and the annihilation of all the delicate structure of confidence which he had been so cautiously toiling to build up between this scathed and embittered woman and himself.
He said nothing, but watched the wreck of his fortune in Harriet’s stormy eyes.
Harriet, meanwhile, having worked herself up into committing an act of what she obscurely felt to be injustice, was seized by an unreasonable hatred against the injured party. The fact that, until five minutes earlier, she had felt perfectly happy and at ease with this man, before she had placed both him and herself in an intolerable position, she felt somehow as one more added to the list of his offences. She looked round for something really savage to do to him.
‘I suppose you think I haven’t been humiliated enough already, without all this parade of chivalry. You think you can sit up there all day like King Cophetua being noble and generous and expecting people to be brought to your feet. Of course everybody will say, “Look what he did for that woman – isn’t it marvellous of him!” Isn’t that nice for you? You think if you go on long enough I ought to be touched and softened. Well, you’re mistaken, that’s all. I suppose every man thinks he’s only got to go on being superior and any woman will come tumbling into his arms. It’s disgusting.’