‘Que voulez-vous? All work has its tedious moments, which are repaid by those that are more agreeable. One may say truthfully to mademoiselle what might in another case be a mere politeness.’
‘Don’t bother about me,’ said Harriet. ‘There’s something else I want to talk about. I wanted to ask you about Mr Alexis.’
‘Ce pauvre Alexis! It was mademoiselle who found him, I understand?’
‘Yes. I just wondered what sort of person he was, and why he should have – done away with himself like that.’
‘Ah! that is what we are all wondering. It is, no doubt, the Russian temperament.’
‘I had heard’ – Harriet felt that she must tread cautiously here – ‘that he was engaged to be married.’
‘Oh, yes – to the English lady. That was understood.’
‘Was he happy about it?’
‘Mademoiselle, Alexis was poor and the English lady is very rich. It was advantageous to him to marry her. At first, no doubt, it might offer a little désagrément, but afterwards – you understand, mademoiselle, these matters arrange themselves.’
‘You don’t think that he suddenly felt he couldn’t face it, and took this way out?’
‘That is difficult to say, but – no, I do not think so. He had, after all, only to go away. He was a very good dancer and very popular. He would easily have found another situation, provided his health would permit him to continue.’
‘I wondered whether there was any other attachment to make things more difficult.’
‘From what he said to us, mademoiselle, I know of nothing which could not easily have been arranged.’
‘Women like him, I suppose?’ demanded Harriet, bluntly.
Antoine’s smile was a sufficient answer.
‘There wasn’t any disappointment of any kind?’
‘I did not hear of any. But of course, one does not tell one’s friends everything.’
‘Of course not. I don’t mean to be inquisitive, but it all seems to me rather odd.’
The music stopped.
‘What is the arrangement?’ asked Harriet. ‘Do we go on or have you other engagements?’
‘There is no reason why we should not continue for the next dance. After that, unless mademoiselle wishes to make a special arrangement with the management, I am expected to attend to my other patrons.’
‘No,’ said Harriet, ‘I don’t want to upset things. Is there any reason why you and the two young ladies should not have a little supper with me later on?’
‘None at all. It is very kind; very amiable. Leave it to me, mademoiselle. I will arrange it all. It is natural that mademoiselle should take an interest.’
‘Yes, but I don’t want the manager to think that I’m interrogating his staff behind his back.’
‘N’ayez pas peur, je m’en charge. I will ask you to dance again in a little time, and then I will tell you what I have contrived.’
He handed her back to her table with a smile, and she saw him gather up a vast and billowy lady in a tightly fitting gown and move smoothly away with her, the eternal semi-sensuous smile fixed upon his lips as though it was painted there.
About six dances later, the smile reappeared beside her, and Antoine, guiding her steps through a waltz, informed her that if, at 11.30, when the dancing was over, she would be good enough to seek out a small restaurant a few streets away, he, with Doris and Charis, would be there to meet her. It was only a small restaurant, but very good, and the proprietor knew them very well; moreover, Antoine himself lodged in the little hotel attached to the restaurant and would give himself the pleasure of offering mademoiselle a glass of wine. They would be private there, and could speak quite freely. Harriet assented, with the proviso that she should pay for the supper, and accordingly, shortly before midnight, found herself seated on a red-plush settee beneath a row of gilded mirrors, over a pleasant little supper of the Continental sort.
Doris the blonde and Charis the brunette were only too delighted to discuss the affairs of the late Mr Alexis. Doris appeared to be the official confidante; she could give inside information about her late partner’s affairs of the heart. He had had a girl – oh, yes; but some weeks earlier this connection had come to an end rather mysteriously. It was nothing to do with Mrs Weldon. That matter had been, in Mr Micawber’s phrase, already ‘provided for’. No; it was apparently a breaking-off by mutual consent, and nobody seemed to have been much upset by it. Certainly not Alexis, who, though expressing a great deal of conventional regret, had seemed to be rather pleased about it, as though he had brought off a smart piece of business. And since then, the young lady in question had been seen going about with another man, who was supposed to be a friend of Alexis.
‘And if you ask me,’ said Doris, in a voice whose fundamental cockney was overlaid by a veneer of intense refinement, ‘Alexis pushed her off on to this chap on purpose, to get her out of the way of his other little plans.’
‘What other little plans?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know. But he had something up his sleeve these last few weeks. Very grand he was about it; I’m sure one was almost afraid to speak to his high-mightiness. “You’ll see,” he said, “just you wait a little bit.” “Well, I’m sure,” I said, “I have no wish to intrude. You can keep your secrets,” I said, “for I don’t want to know them.” It’s my belief he was up to some game or other. Whatever it was, he was like a dog with two tails about it.’
Mrs Weldon too, thought Harriet, had said the same thing. Alexis was going to have some news for her – though Mrs Weldon had put her own interpretation on the remark. Harriet put out another feeler of inquiry.
‘Marriage-licence?’ said Charis. ‘Oh, no! he wouldn’t be putting up any flags about that. He couldn’t very well like the idea of marrying that dreadful old woman. Well, it serves her right now. She’s got left. I think that sort of thing is disgusting.’
‘I am sorry for her,’ said Antoine.
‘Oh, you are always sorry for people. I do think it’s beastly. I think these horrible fat men are beastly, too, always pawing a girl about. If Greely wasn’t a decent sort, I’d chuck the whole thing, but I will say he does see to it that they behave themselves. But an old woman—’ Charis, superb in her vigorous youth, expressed contempt by voice and gesture.
‘I suppose,’ suggested Harriet, ‘that Alexis wanted to feel safe and settled financially. I mean, a dancer can’t go on dancing all his life, can he? Particularly if he isn’t very strong.’
She spoke with hesitation, but to her relief Antoine immediately and emphatically agreed with her.
‘You are right. While we are young and gay it is all very good. But presently the head grows bald, the legs grow stiff, and – finish! The manager says, “It is all very well, you are a good dancer, but my clients prefer a younger man, hein? Then good-bye the first-class establishment. We go, what you call, down the hill. I tell you, it is a great temptation when somebody comes and says, “Look! You have only to marry me and I will make you rich and comfortable for life.” And what is it? Only to tell lies to one’s wife every night instead of to twenty or thirty silly old ladies. Both are done for money – where is the difference?’
‘Yes, I suppose we shall all come to it,’ said Charis, with a grimace. ‘Only, from the way Alexis talked, you’d think he’d have wanted a little more poetry about it. All that rubbish about his noble birth and fallen fortunes – like something out of those stories he was so potty about. Quite a hero of romance, according to him. Always wanted to take the spot-light, did Mr Paul Alexis. You’d think he did the floor a favour by dancing on it. And then the fairy prince comes down to marrying an old woman for her money.’
‘Oh, he wasn’t so bad,’ protested Doris. ‘You oughtn’t to talk that way, dear. It’s not so easy for we dancers, the way everybody treats us like dirt. Though they’re willing enough to take advantage of you if you give them half a chance. Why shouldn’t Alexis, or any of us, get a bit of our own back? Anyhow, he?
??s dead, poor boy, and you oughtn’t to run him down.’
‘Ah, voilà!’ said Antoine. ‘He is dead. Why is he dead? One does not cut one’s throat pour s’amuser.’
‘That’s another thing,’ said Charis, ‘that I can’t quite make out. The minute I heard about it, I said to myself, “That’s not like Alexis,” He hadn’t the nerve to do a thing like that. Why, he was terrified of pricking his little finger. You needn’t frown, dear, Alexis was a regular namby-pamby, and if he was dead ten times over it wouldn’t make any difference. You used to laugh at him yourself. “I cannot climb that step-ladder, I am afraid to fall.” “I do not like to go to the dentist, he might pull my teeth out.” “Do not shake me when I am cutting the bread, I might cut my fingers.” “Really, Mr Alexis,” I used to say to him, “anybody would thing you were made of glass.” ’
‘I know what mademoiselle is thinking,’ said Antoine, his melancholy mouth curling. ‘She thinks: “Voilà! that is the gigolo. He is not a man, he is a doll stuffed with sawdust.” He is bought, he is sold, and sometimes there is an unpleasantness. Then the English husband, he say, “Well, what can you expect? This fellow, he is a nasty piece of work. He lives on foolish women and he does not play the cricket.” Sometimes it is not very nice, but one must live. Que voulez-vous? Ce n’ast pas rigolo que d’être gigolo.’
Harriet blushed.
‘I wasn’t thinking that,’ she said.
‘But you were, mademoiselle, and it is very natural.’
‘Antoine doesn’t play cricket,’ put in Doris, kindly, ‘but he plays tennis and swims very well.’
‘It is not me that is in question,’ said Antoine. ‘And truly, I cannot understand this business of throat-cutting. It is not reasonable. Why did Alexis go all that distance away? He never walked; he found the walking fatigued him. If he had decided to suicide himself, he would have done it at home.’
‘And he’d have taken some sleeping-stuff,’ said Doris, nodding her golden head. ‘I know that, because he showed it to me once, when he was in one of his blue fits. “That is my way out of the bad world,” he said, and he talked a lot of poetry. I told him not to be silly – and of course, in half an hour he had got over it. He was like that. But cutting his throat with a razor – no!’
‘That’s awfully interesting,’ said Harriet. ‘By the way,’ she went on, remembering her conversation with Wimsey, ‘did he have anything the matter with his skin? I mean, did he always have to wear gloves, or anything of that sort?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Antoine. ‘The gigolo must not have things the matter with his skin. That would not do at all. Alexis had very elegant hands. He was vain of them.’
‘He said his skin was sensitive, and that’s why he didn’t shave,’ put in Doris.
‘Ah, yes! I can tell you about that,’ Antoine took up his cue. ‘When he came here about a year ago he asked for a job. Mr Greely he say to me, “See him dance.” Because, you see, mademoiselle, the other dancer had just left us, all of a sudden, comme ça – without the proper notice. I see him dance and I say to Mr Greely, “That is very good.” The manager say, “Very well, I take you on trial for a little time, but I must not have the beard. The ladies will not like it. It is unheard of, a gigolo with a beard,” Alexis say, “But if I shave the beard I come out all over buttons.” ’
‘Pimples?’ suggested Harriet.
‘Yes, pardon, pimples. Well, the gigolo with the pimples, that is unheard of also, you understand. “Well,” say the manager, “you can come a little time with the beard till we are suited, but if you want to stay, you remove the beard.” Very well, Alexis come and dance, and the ladies are delighted. The beard is so distinguished, so romantic, so unusual. They come a very long distance express to dance with the beard. Mr Greely say, “It is good. I was mistaken. You stay and the beard stay too. My God! What will these ladies want next? The long whiskers, perhaps? Antoine,” he say to me, “you grow the long whiskers and maybe you get off still better.” But me, no! God has not given me the hair to make whiskers.’
‘Did Alexis have a razor at all?’
‘How should I know? If he knew that the shaving made the pimples, he must have tried to shave, n’est-ce pas? But as to the razor, I cannot tell. Do you know, Doris?’
‘Me? I like that. Alexis never was my fancy-man. But I’ll ask Leila Garland. She ought to know.’
‘Sa maîtresse,’ explained Antoine. ‘Yes, ask her, Doris. Because evidently that is of a considerable importance. I have not thought of that, mon dieu!’
‘You’ve told me a lot of interesting things,’ said Harriet. ‘I’m very much obliged to you. And I’d be still more obliged if you didn’t mention that I’d been asking you, because, what with the newspaper reporters and so on—’
‘Oh!’ said Antoine. ‘Listen, mademoiselle, you must not think that because we are the dolls that are bought and sold we have neither eyes nor ears. This gentleman that arrived this morning – do you think we do not know who he is? This Lord Peter, so celebrated, he does not come here for nothing, hein? It is not for nothing he talks to you and asks questions. He is not interested because a foreign dancer has cut his throat in a tantrum. No. But, equally, we know how to be discreet. Ma foi, if we did not, we should not keep our jobs, you understand. We tell you what we know, and the lady who writes the romans-policiers and the lord who is connaisseur in mysteries, they make the investigations. But we say nothing. It is our business to say nothing. That is understood.’
‘That’s right,’ said Charis. ‘We won’t let on. Not that there’s a great deal to tell anybody. We’ve had the police asking questions, of course, but they never believe anything one says. I’m sure they all think it’s something to do with Leila. These policemen always think that if anything happens to a fellow, there must be a girl at the bottom of it.’
‘But that,’ said Antoine, ‘is a compliment.’
VIII
THE EVIDENCE OF THE SECOND BARBER
‘Send him back again,
An unmasked braggart to his bankrupt den.’
Letter from Göttingen
Saturday, 20 June Sunday, 21 June
Wimsey, sleek with breakfast, sunshine and sentiment, strolled peacefully upon the close-clipped lawn of the George at Stamford, pausing now and again to inhale the scent of a crimson rose, or to marvel at the age and extent of the wisteria, trailing its lacy tendrils along the grey stone wall. He had covenanted with himself to interview Colonel Belfridge at eleven o’clock. By that time, both of them would have digested their breakfasts and be ready for a small, companionable spot of something. He had a pleasurable interior certainty that he was on the track of a nice, difficult, meaty problem, investigated under agreeable conditions. He lit up a well-seasoned pipe. Life felt good to him.
At ten minutes past eleven, life felt slightly less good. Colonel Belfridge, who looked as though he had been designed by H. M. Bateman in a moment of more than ordinary inspiration, was extremely indignant. It seemed to him that it was an ungentlemanly action to go and interrogate a man’s barber, hr’rm, about a man’s personal belongings, and he resented the insinuation that a man could possibly be mixed up, hr’rm, in the decease of a damned dago, hr’rm, in an adjectival four-by-three watering-place like Wilvercombe. Wimsey ought to be ashamed, hr’rm, woof! of interfering in what was properly the business of the police, dammit, sir! If the police didn’t know their own damned business, what did we pay rates and taxes for, tell me that, sir!
Wimsey apologised for worrying Colonel Belfridge, and protested that a man must take up some sort of hobby.
The Colonel intimated that golf, or, hr’rm, breeding spaniels would be a more seemly amusement for a gentleman.
Wimsey said that, having engaged in a spot of intelligence work during the War, he had acquired a kind of taste for that kind of thing.
The Colonel pounced on this remark immediately, turned Wimsey’s war-record inside out, discovered a number of military experiences common to both of them, a
nd presently found himself walking with his visitor down the pansy-edged path of his little garden to display a litter of puppies.
‘My dear boy,’ said Colonel Belfridge, ‘I shall only be too happy to help you in any way I can. You’re not in a hurry, are you? Stay to lunch, and we can talk it over afterwards. Mabel!’ – in a stentorian shout.
A middle-aged woman appeared in the back doorway and waddled hastily down the path towards them.
‘Gentleman for lunch!’ bawled the Colonel. ‘And decant a bottle of the ’04. Carefully now, dammit! I wonder, now,’ he added, turning to Wimsey, ‘if you recollect a fellow called Stokes.’
It was with very great difficulty that Wimsey detached the Colonel’s mind from the events of the Great War and led it back to the subject of razors. Once his attention was captured, however, Colonel Belfridge proved to be a good and reliable witness.
He remembered the pair of razors perfectly. Had a lot of trouble with those razors, hr’rm, woof! Razors were not what they had been in his young days. Nothing was, sir, dammit! Steel wouldn’t stand up to the work. What with these damned foreigners and mass-production, our industries were going to the dogs. He remembered, during the Boer War –
Wimsey, after a quarter of an hour, mentioned the subject of razors.
‘Ha! yes,’ said the Colonel, smoothing his vast white moustache down and up at the ends with a vast, curving gesture. ‘Ha, hr’rm, yes! The razors, of course. Now, what do you want to know about them?’
‘Have you still got them, sir?’
‘No, sir, I have not. I got rid of them, sir. A poor lot they were, too. I told Endicott I was surprised at his stocking such inferior stuff. Wanted re-setting every other week. But it’s the same story with all of ’em. Can’t get a decent blade anywhere nowadays. And we shan’t sir, we shan’t, unless we get a strong Conservative Government – I say, a strong Government, sir, that will have the guts to protect the iron and steel industry. But will they do it? No, damme, sir – they’re afraid of losing their miserable votes. Flapper votes! How can you expect a pack of women to understand the importance of iron and steel? Tell me that, ha, hr’rm!’