“Did Dian have any opinion on the subject?”
“She said he wasn't a sport. All the same, she seems to have kept him in tow from about the end of November to the end of April–nearly six months, and that's a long time for Dian. I wonder what the attraction was. I suppose the whelp must have had something engaging about him.”
“Is that the sister's story?”
“Yes; but she says that Victor 'had great ambitions.' I don't quite know what she thinks he meant by that.”
“I suppose she realized that Dian was his mistress. Or wasn't she?”
“Must have been. But I rather gather his sister thought he was contemplating matrimony.”
Parker laughed.
“After all,” said Lady Mary, “he probably didn't tell his sister everything.”
“Damned little, I should imagine. She was quite honestly upset by last night's show. Apparently the party Dean took her to wasn't quite so hot. Why did he take her? That's another problem. He said he wanted her to meet Dian, and no doubt the kid imagined she was being introduced to a future-in-law. But Dean–you'd think he'd want to keep his sister out of it. He couldn't, surely, really have wanted to corrupt her, as Willis said.”
“Who is Willis?”
“Willis is a young man who foams at the mouth if you mention Victor Dean, who was once Victor Dean's dearest friend, who is in love with Victor Dean's sister, is furiously jealous of me, thinks I'm tarred with the same brush as Victor Dean, and dogs my footsteps with the incompetent zeal of fifty Watsons. He writes copy about face-cream and corsets, is the son of a provincial draper, was educated at a grammar school and wears, I deeply regret to say, a double-breasted waistcoat. That is the most sinister thing about him–except that he admits to having been in the lavatory when Victor Dean fell downstairs, and the lavatory, as I said before, is the next step to the roof.”
“Who else was in the lavatory?”
“I haven't asked him yet. How can I? It's horribly hampering to one's detective work when one isn't supposed to be detecting, because one daren't ask any questions, much. But if whoever it was knew I was detecting, then whatsoever questions I asked, I shouldn't get any answers. It wouldn't matter if only I had the foggiest notion whom or what I was detecting, but looking among about a hundred people for the perpetrator of an unidentified crime is rather difficult.”
“I thought you were looking for a murderer.”
“So I am–but I don't think I shall ever get the murderer till I know why the murder was done. Besides, what Pym engaged me to do was to look for the irregularity in the office. Of course, murder is an irregularity, but it's not the one I'm commissioned to hunt for. And the only person I can fix a motive for the murder on to is Willis–and it's not the sort of motive I'm looking for.”
“What was Willis's row with Dean?”
“Damn silliest thing in the world. Willis used to go home with Dean at week-ends. Dean lived in a flat with his sister, by the way–no parents or anything. Willis fell in love with sister. Sister wasn't sure about him. Dean took sister to one of Dian's hot parties. Willis found out. Willis, being a boob, talked to sister like a Dutch uncle. Sister called Willis a disgusting, stuck-up, idiotic, officious prig. Willis rebuked Dean. Dean told Willis to go to hell. Loud row. Sister joined in. Dean family united in telling Willis to go and bury himself. Willis told Dean that if he (Dean) persisted in corrupting his (Dean's) sister he (Willis) would shoot him like a dog. His very words, or so I am told.”
“Willis,” said Mary, “appears to think in clichés.”
“Of course he does–that's why he writes such good corset-copy. Anyhow, there it was. Dean and Willis at daggers drawn for three months. Then Dean fell downstairs. Now Willis has started on me. I told off Pamela Dean to take him home last night, but I don't know what came of it. I've explained to her that those hot-stuff parties are genuinely dangerous, and that Willis has some method in his madness, though a prize juggins as regards tact and knowledge of the sex. It was frightfully comic to see old Willis sneaking in after us in a sort of Ku Klux Klan outfit–incredibly stealthy, and wearing the same shoes he wears in the office and a seal-ring on his little finger that one could identify from here to the Monument.”
“Poor lad! I suppose it wasn't Willis who tipped friend Dean down the staircase?”
“I don't think so, Polly–but you never know. He's such a melodramatic ass. He might consider it a splendid sin. But I don't think he'd have had the brains to work out the details. And if he had done it, I fancy he'd have gone straight round to the police-station, smitten the double-breasted waistcoat a resounding blow and proclaimed 'I did it, in the cause of purity.' But against that, there's the undoubted fact that Dean's connection with Dian and Co. definitely came to an end in April–so why should he wait till the end of May to strike the blow? The row with Dean took place in March.”
“Possibly, Peter, the sister has been leading you up the garden. The connection may not have stopped when she said it did. She may have kept it up on her own. She may even be a drug-taker or something herself. You never know.”
“No; but generally one can make a shrewd guess. No; I don't think there's anything like that wrong with Pamela Dean. I'll swear her disgust last night was genuine. It was pretty foul, I must say. By the way, Charles, where the devil do these people get their stuff from? There was enough dope floating about that house to poison a city.”
“If I knew that,” said Mr. Parker, sourly, “I should be on velvet. All I can tell you is, that it's coming in by the boat-load from somewhere or other, and is being distributed broadcast from somewhere or other. The question is, where? Of course, we could lay hands tomorrow on half a hundred of the small distributors, but where would be the good of that? They don't know themselves where it comes from, or who handles it. They all tell the same tale. It's handed to them in the street by men they've never seen before and couldn't identify again. Or it's put in their pockets in omnibuses. It isn't always that they won't tell; they honestly don't know. And if you did catch the man immediately above them in the scale, he would know nothing either. It's heart-breaking. Somebody must be making millions out of it.”
“Yes. Well, to go back to Victor Dean. Here's another problem. He was pulling down six pounds a week at Pym's. How does one manage to run with the de Momerie crowd on £300 a year? Even if he wasn't much of a sport, it couldn't possibly be done for nothing.”
“Probably he lived on Dian.”
“Possibly he did, the little tick. On the other hand, I've got an idea. Suppose he really did think he had a chance of marrying into the aristocracy–or what he imagines to be the aristocracy. After all, Dian is a de Momerie, though her people have shown her the door, and you can't blame them. Put it that he was spending far more than he could afford in trying to keep up the running. Put it that it took longer than he thought and that he had got heavily dipped. And then see what that half-finished letter to Pym looks like in the light of that theory.”
“Well,” began Parker.
“Oh, do step on the gas!” broke in Mary. “How you two darlings do love going round and round a subject, don't you? Blackmail, of course. It's perfectly obvious. I've seen it coming for the last hour. This Dean creature is looking round for a spot of extra income and he discovers somebody at Pym's doing something he shouldn't–the head-cashier cooking the accounts, or the office-boy pilfering from the petty cash, or something. So he says, 'If you don't square me, I'll tell Pym,' and starts to write a letter. Probably, you know, he never meant that letter to get to Mr. Pym, at all; it was just a threat. The other man stops him for the moment by paying up something on account. Then he thinks: 'This is hopeless, I'd better slug the little beast.' So he slugs him. And there you are.”
“Just as simple as that,” said Wimsey.
“Of course it's simple, only men love to make mysteries.”
“And women love to jump to conclusions.”
“Never mind the generalizations,” said Parker, “they
always lead to bad reasoning. Where do I come into all this?”
“You give me your advice, and stand by ready to rally round with your myrmidons in case there's any rough-housing. By the way, I can give you the address of that house we went to last night. Dope and gambling to be had for the asking, to say nothing of nameless orgies.”
He mentioned the address and the Chief-Inspector made a note of it. “Though we can't do much,” he admitted. “It's a private house, belonging to a Major Milligan. We've had our eye on it for some time. And even if we could get in on it, it probably wouldn't help us to what we want. I don't suppose there's a soul in that gang who knows where the dope comes from. Still, it's something to have definite evidence that that's where it goes. By the way, we got the goods on that couple you helped us to arrest the other night. They'll probably get seven years.”
“Good. I was pretty nearly had that time, though. Two of Pym's typists were fooling round and recognized me. I gave them a fishy stare and explained next morning that I had a cousin who closely resembled me. That notorious fellow Wimsey, of course. It's a mistake to be too well known.”
“If the de Momerie crowd get wise to you, you'll find yourself in Queer Street,” said Parker. “How did you get so pally with Dian?”
“Dived off a fountain into a fish-pond. It pays to advertise. She thinks I'm the world's eighth wonder. Absolutely the lobster's dress-shirt.”
“Well, don't kill yourself,” said Mary, gently. “We rather like you, and small Peter couldn't spare his best uncle.”
“It will do you no end of good,” remarked his brother-in-law, callously, “to have a really difficult case for once. When you've struggled for a bit with a death that might have been caused by anybody for any imaginable motive, you may be less sniffy and superior about the stray murders all over the country that the police so notoriously fail to avenge. I hope it will be a lesson to you. Have another spot?”
“Thanks; I'll try to profit by it. In the meantime, I'll go on gulling the public and being Mr. Bredon, to be heard of at your address. And let me know of any developments with the Momerie-Milligan lot.”
“I will. Should you care to make one in our next dope-raid?”
“Sure thing. When do you expect it?”
“We've had information about cocaine-smuggling on the Essex coast. Worst thing the Government ever did was to abolish the coast-guard service. It doubles our trouble, especially with all these privately-owned motor-boats about. If you're out for an evening's fun any time, you could come along–and you might bring that car of yours. It's faster than anything we've got.”
“I see. Two for yourselves and one for me. Right you are. I'm on. Send me a line any time. I cease work at 5.30.”
In the meantime, three hearts were being wrung on Mr. Death Bredon's account.
Miss Pamela Dean was washing a pair of silk stockings in her solitary flat.
“Last night was rather marvellous.... I suppose I oughtn't to have enjoyed it, with poor old Victor only just buried, the darling ... but, of course, I really went for Victor's sake.... I wonder if that detective man will find out anything about it ... he didn't say much, but I believe he thinks there was something funny about Victor being killed like that ... anyhow, Victor suspected there was something wrong, and he'd want me to do everything I could to ferret it out.... I didn't know private detectives were like that ... I thought they were nasty, furtive little men ... vulgar ... I like his voice ... and his hands ... oh, dear! there's a hole ... I'll have to catch it together before it runs up the instep ... and beautiful manners, only I'm afraid he was cross with me for coming to Pym's ... he must be fearfully athletic to climb up that fountain ... he swims like a fish ... my new bathing-dress ... sun-bathing ... thank goodness I've got decent legs ... I'll really have to get some more stockings, these won't go on much longer ... I wish I didn't look so washed-out in black.... Poor Victor!... I wonder what I can possibly do with Alec Willis ... if only he wasn't such a prig.... I don't mind Mr. Bredon ... he's quite right about that crowd being no good, but then he really knows what he's talking about, and it isn't just prejudice.... Why will Alec be so jealous and tiresome?... And looking so silly in that black thing ... following people about.... Incompetent–I do like people to be competent.... Mr. Bredon looks terribly competent ... no, he doesn't exactly look it, but he is ... he looks as though he never did anything but go to dinner-parties.... I suppose high-class detectives have to look like that.... Alec would make a rotten detective.... I don't like ill-tempered men ... I wonder what happened when Mr. Bredon went off with Dian de Momerie ... she is beautiful ... damn her, she's lovely ... she does drink an awful lot ... they say it makes you look old before your time ... you get coarse ... my complexion's all right, but I'm not the fashionable type ... Dian de Momerie is perfectly crazy about people who do mad things ... I don't like aluminium blondes ... I wonder if I could get an aluminium bleach....”
Alec Willis, hammering a rather hard pillow into a more comfortable shape in his boarding-house bedroom, sought slumber in vain:
“Gosh! what a head I had this morning ... that damned, sleek brute!... there's something up between Pamela and him ... helping her with some business of Victor's my foot!... He's out to make trouble ... and going off with that white-headed bitch ... it's a damned insult ... of course Pamela would lick his boots ... women ... put up with anything ... wish I hadn't had all those drinks ... damn this bed! damn this foul place ... I'll have to chuck Pym's ... it isn't safe.... Murder?... anybody interfering with Pamela ... Pamela.... She wouldn't let me kiss her ... that swine Bredon ... down the iron staircase ... get my hands on his throat.... What a hope! damned posturing acrobat ... Pamela ... I'd like to show her ... money, money, money ... if I wasn't so damned hard up ... Dean was a little squirt anyway ... I only told her the truth ... blast all women!... They like rotters ... I haven't paid for that last suit ... oh, hell! I wish I hadn't had those drinks ... I forgot to get any bicarbonate ... I haven't paid for those boots ... all those naked women in the swimming-pool ... black and silver ... he spotted me, damn his eyes!... 'Hullo, Willis!' this morning, as cool as a fish ... dives like a fish ... fish don't dive ... fish don't sleep ... or do they?... I can't sleep ... 'Macbeth hath murdered sleep.' ... Murder ... down the iron staircase ... get my hands on his throat ... oh, damn! damn! damn!...”
Dian de Momerie was dancing:
“My God! I'm bored.... Get off my feet, you clumsy cow.... Money, tons of money ... but I'm bored.... Can't we do something else?... I'm sick of that tune ... I'm sick of everything ... he's working up to get all mushy ... suppose I'd better go through with it ... I was sozzled last night ... wonder where the Harlequin man went to ... wonder who he was ... that little idiot Pamela Dean ... these women ... I'll have to make up to her, I suppose, if I'm ever to get his address ... I got him away from her, any old how ... wish I hadn't been so squiffy ... I can't remember ... climbing up the fountain ... black and silver ... he's got a lovely body ... I think he could give me a thrill ... my God! how bored I am ... he's exciting ... rather mysterious ... I'll have to write to Pamela Dean ... silly little fool ... expect she hates me ... rather a pity I chucked little Victor ... fell downstairs and broke his silly neck ... damn good riddance ... ring her up ... she's not on the 'phone ... so suburban not to be on the 'phone ... if this tune goes on, I shall scream ... Milligan's drinks are rotten ... why does one go there?... Must do something ... Harlequin ... don't even know his name.... Weedon ... Leader ... something or other ... oh, hell! perhaps Milligan knows ... I can't stand this any longer ... black and silver ... thank God! that's over!”
All over London the lights flickered in and out, calling on the public to save its body and purse: SOPO SAVES SCRUBBING–NUTRAX FOR NERVES–CRUNCHLETS ARE CRISPER–EAT PIPER PARRITCH–DRINK POMPAYNE–ONE WHOOSH AND IT'S CLEAN–OH, BOY! IT'S TOMBOY TOFFEE–NOURISH NERVES WITH NUTRAX–FARLEY'S FOOTWEAR TAKES YOU FURTHER–IT ISN'T DEAR, IT'S DARLING–DARLING'S FOR HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES–MAKE A
LL SAFE WITH SANFECT–WHIFFLETS FASCINATE. The presses, thundering and growling, ground out the same appeals by the million: ASK YOUR GROCER–ASK YOUR DOCTOR–ASK THE MAN WHO'S TRIED IT–MOTHER'S! GIVE IT TO YOUR CHILDREN–HOUSEWIVES! SAVE MONEY–HUSBANDS! INSURE YOUR LIVES–WOMEN! DO YOU REALIZE?–DON'T SAY SOAP, SAY SOPO! Whatever you're doing, stop it and do something else! Whatever you're buying, pause and buy something different! Be hectored into health and prosperity! Never let up! Never go to sleep! Never be satisfied. If once you are satisfied, all our wheels will run down. Keep going–and if you can't, Try Nutrax for Nerves!
Lord Peter Wimsey went home and slept.
CHAPTER VI
SINGULAR SPOTLESSNESS OF A LETHAL WEAPON
“You know,” said Miss Rossiter to Mr. Smayle, “our newest copy-writer is perfectly potty.”
“Potty?” Mr. Smayle, showing all his teeth in an engaging smile, “you don't say so, Miss Rossiter? How, potty?”
“Well, loopy,” explained Miss Rossiter. “Goofy. Blah. He's always up on the roof, playing with a catapult. I don't know what Mr. Hankin would say if he knew.”
“With a catapult?” Mr. Smayle looked pained. “That doesn't seem quite the thing. But we in other spheres, Miss Rossiter, always envy, if I may say so, the happy youthful spirit of the copy-department. Due, no doubt,” added Mr. Smayle, “to the charming influence of the ladies. Allow me to get you another cup of tea.”
“Thanks awfully, I wish you would.” The monthly tea was in full swing, and the Little Conference Room was exceedingly crowded and stuffy. Mr. Smayle edged away gallantly in pursuit of tea, and against the long table, presided over by Mrs. Johnson (the indefatigable lady who ruled the Dispatching, the office-boys and the first-aid cupboard) found himself jostled by Mr. Harris of the Outdoor Publicity.
“Pardon, old fellow,” said Mr. Smayle.