Have His Carcass lpw-8

by Dorothy L. Sayers

  ‘Splendid fellow!’ said Wimsey. ‘May we ne’er lack a friend or a ‘story to give him. Are you reasonably sober, Sally?’

  Sober?’ exclaimed the journalist indignantly. ‘J’ever know a pressman who wasn’t sober when somebody had a story to give him? I may not be a blasted pussyfoot, but my legs are always steady enough to go after a story, and what more could anybody want?’

  Wimsey pushed his friend gently into position before a’ table in the lounge.

  ‘Here you are, then,’ he said. ‘You take this stuff down and see that it gets a good show in your beastly rag. You can put in trimmings to suit yourself.’

  Hardy glanced up sharply.

  ‘Oh!’ said he. ‘Ulterior motive, eh? Not all pure friendship. Patriotism is not enough. Oh, well! as long as it’s exclusive and news, the motive is imma — imma — damn the word — immaterial.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Wimsey. ‘Now then, take this down. ‘The mystery surrounding’ the horrible tragedy at the Flat-Iron deepens steadily with every effort made to solve it. Far from being a simple case of suicide, as at first seemed probable, the horrible death—”‘

  ‘All right,’ interjected Hardy. ‘I can do that part on my head. What I want is the story.’

  ‘Yes; but work up the mystery part of it. Go on, now: “Lord Peter Wimsey, the celebrated amateur of crime — detection, interviewed by, our special correspondent in his pleasant sitting — room at the Hotel Bellevue

  ‘Is the sitting-room important?’

  ‘The address is. I want them to know where to find me.’

  ‘Right you are. Go ahead.’

  ‘—at the Hotel Bellevue, Wilvercombe, said that while the police still held strongly to the suicide theory, he himself was by no means satisfied. The point that particularly troubled him was that, whereas the deceased wore a full beard and had never been known to shave, the crime was committed—

  ‘Crime?’, ‘Suicide is a crime.’

  ‘So it is. Well?’

  ‘—“committed with an ordinary cut-throat razor, which shows signs of considerable previous hard wear.” Rub that in well, Sally. “The history of this razor has been traced up to a point—”‘

  ‘Who traced it?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Can I say that?’

  ‘If you like.’’

  ‘That makes it better. “Lord Peter Wimsey explained, with his characteristically modest smile, that he had himself been at pains to trace the previous history of the razor, a search which led him—” Where did’ it lead you, Wimsey?’

  ‘I don’t want to tell ’em that. Say that the search covered many hundred miles.’

  ‘All — right. I can make that sound very important. Anything else?’

  ‘Yes. This is the important bit. Get ’em to put it in black lettering — you know.’

  ‘Not my business. Sub-editor. But. I’ll try. Carry on. “Leaning over the table and emphasising the point with an eloquent gesture of his artistic hands, Lord Peter said—”‘

  ‘The trail,” ‘ dictated Wimsey, ‘ “breaks off at the crucial’ point. How did the razor get into the hands, of Paul Alexis? If once I could be satisfied of that, the answer might at once set at rest all my doubt. If Paul Alexis can be proved to have bought the razor, I shall consider the suicide theory to have, been proved up to the hilt. But until that missing link in the chain of evidence is reconstructed, I shall hold that Paul Alexis was foully and brutally murdered, and I shall spare no efforts to bring the murderer to the judgement he has so richly deserved,” How’s that, Sally?’

  ‘Not too bad. I can work that up into something. I shall add, of course, that you, knowing the enormous circulation of the Morning Star, are relying on the wide publicity it will give to this statement to etcetera, etcetera. I might even get them to offer a reward.’

  ‘Why not? Anyway, pitch it to ’em hot and strong, Sally.’

  ‘I will, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. between you and me, would you be satisfied that it was suicide; if the reward was claimed?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Wimsey. ‘Probably not. In fact, I am never satisfied.’

  Chapter XII. The Evidence Of The Bride’s Son

  ‘How I despise

  All such mere men of muscle!’—

  — Death’s Jest-Book

  Monday, 22 June

  WIMSEY looked at his watch. It was half-past one, and he had had no lunch. He remedied the omission, took the car and drove out to Darley. He had to wait for a few moments while the gates were opened at the Halt, and took the opportunity to check up on the police inquiry. He found that the lame gate-keeper knew the mysterious Mr Martin by sight — had, in fact, met him one evening in the bar of the Feathers. A pleasant gentleman, with a hearty way with him. Suffered from some trouble with his eyes, which obliged’; him to wear dark glasses, but a very nice gentleman for all that. The gate-keeper was quite positive that Mr Martin had not passed through the railway-gates, at any time on Thursday — not in. any car or cart or on a cycle, that was to say. As for passing on foot, he couldn’t swear to it, and you couldn’t expect it of him.

  Here, however, a new witness suddenly came forward. The gate-keeper’s little daughter, Rosie, ‘just going on for five, and a wonderful quick girl for her age, as her father proudly remarked, was emphatic that ‘the nasty man with the black glasses had not been seen at the railway-gates during the critical period on the Thursday. Rosie knew him and disliked him, for she had seen him in the village the day before and his horrid black glasses had frightened her. She and a small friend had been ‘playing Bluebeard’ at the railway-gates on Thursday. She knew it was Thursday, because it was market day, when the 10.15 stopped there. She had been Sister Anne on her tower, and had called out to her companion when she saw anybody coming along the road. They had played there from after dinner 02.30 according to the gate-keeper), till nearly tea-time (four o’clock). She was absolutely sure the nasty man had not come through. the railway-wickets. If he had, she would have run away.

  This seemed to dispose of the last’ lingering possibility that the mysterious Mr Martin might have left the Feathers rather earlier than he was supposed to have-done, walked to the crossing and been picked up by a car on, the other side. Wimsey thanked Rosie with grave courtesy, gave her sixpence and drove on.

  His next port, of call was, of course, the Feathers.. The landlord, Mr Lundy, was ready enough with his information. What he had told the inspector was quite right. He had first seen Mr Martin on Tuesday — the 16th, that would be. He had arrived about six o’clock and left his Morgan parked on the village green while he came in and took a glass of mild and-bitter — and asked the way to Mr Goodrich’s house. Who was Mr. Goodrich? Why, Mr Goodrich was the gentleman that owned the land down by Hinks’s Lane, where Mr Martin had been camping’ All the land thereabouts belonged to Mr Goodrich.

  ‘I want to be clear about this,’ said Wimsey. ‘Did Mr: Martin come here from the direction of Hinks’s Lane, or which way did he come?’

  ‘No, sir; he drove,in along the Heathbury Road’ and left his car on the green,’ same as I said.’

  ‘Did he come straight in here?’

  ‘Straight as a swaller to its nest,’ replied Mr Lundy; picturesquely. ‘We was open, you see, sir.’

  ‘And did he ask anybody about where he could camp? Or did he ask at once for Mr Goodrich?’

  ‘He didn’t ask no questions at all sir, only that: Where was Mr Goodrich’s house?’

  ‘He knew Mr Goodrich’s name, then?’

  ‘Seemingly he did, sir.’

  ‘Did he say why he wanted to see Mr Goodrich?’

  ‘No, sir. Just asked the way and drank up his beer and, off in the car again.’

  ‘I understand he had lunch here last Thursday?’

  ‘That’s right, sir., Came in a big open car with a lady.. She set him down here and drove off again, and he came in and set, down to lunch.’’ He thought it would be about one o’cl
ock, but the girl could tell better than he could.

  The, girl knew all about it. Yes, as she had already told Inspector Umpelty, Mr Martin had come in about ten minutes to one. He mentioned to her that he had been to Wilvercombe, and thought he would make a change by lunching at the inn. His car, it seemed, had got something the matter with it, and a passing car had picked him up and taken him to Wilvercombe and back. Yes, he had lunched, heartily: roast leg of mutton with potatoes and boiled cabbage and a rhubarb pie to follow.

  Wimsey shuddered at the thought of roast mutton and cabbage on a red-hot, June day, and asked when Mr Martin had left the inn.

  ‘It would be half-past one, sir, by the right time., Our clocks are all, ten minutes fast, same as the clock in the bar, that’s set by the wireless every day. I couldn’t say but what Mr Martin might have stopped in the bar on his way out, but half-past one was when he paid me for his lunch. I couldn’t be mistaken about that, sir, because it was my day off and my young man was taking me over to Heathbury on his motor-cycle, and I was watching the, clock, as you might say, to see how; soon I’d get my work finished with. There wasn’t nobody come in after, Mr Martin, so I was able to clear away and get, dressed and very pleased I was about it.’

  This was clear enough. Mr Martin had certainly not left the Three Feathers earlier than 1.30. Undoubtedly he was not the murderer of Paul Alexis. Nevertheless, having begun his investigation, Wimsey determined to carry it through to the bitter end. Alibis, he reminded himself, were made to be broken. He would; suppose that, by means of a magic carpet or other device, Mr Martin had been miraculously wafted from Darley to the Flat-Iron between 1.30 and two o’clock.’ In that, case, did he come back that afternoon, and if so, when? and how?

  There were not a great many houses in Darley, and a door-to-door inquiry, though laborious, seemed to be a fairly safe and certain method of answering these questions. He pulled up his socks and set to work.’ He had no difficulty in getting the villagers to talk. The death of Paul Alexis was a local event of an importance that almost swamped last Saturday’s cricket match, and the revolutionary proposal to turn the disused Quaker meeting-house into a cinema; while the arrival of the Wilvercombe police to make inquiries about the movements of Mr Martin had raised the excitement to fever pitch. Darley felt strongly that, if this kind of thing was going to happen, it might get, into the papers again. Darley had actually been in the papers that year already, when Mr Gubbins, the vicar’s warden, had drawn a consolation prize in the Grand National sweep. The sporting half of Darley had been delighted, but envious; the pious half had been quite unable to understand why’ the vicar had not immediately dismissed Mr Gubbins from his privilege of handing round the plate and sitting on the Church Council, and thought that Mr Gubbins’s action in devoting a tithe of his winnings to the Restoration Fund merely piled hypocrisy on the head of debauchery. But now, with the hope that they might be found to have entertained an angel of darkness unawares, they foresaw all manner of publicity. Wimsey discovered several people who thought that Mr Martin’s manner odd and had not liked his face and who said so, at considerable length. It was, however, only after nearly two hours patient research that he discovered somebody who had actually seen Mr Martin on Thursday afternoon. This was, of course, the most obvious person in the village — namely the proprietor of the little tin bungalow that did duty for a garage, and the only reason why Wimsey did not get this information a great deal sooner was that the said proprietor — one, Mr Polwhistle had gone out when he first called upon him, to tackle the internals of a sick petrol-gas engine at a neighbouring farm, leaving behind him only a young woman to attend to the pump.

  Mr Polwhistle, when he returned in company of a youthful mechanic; was, most discouragingly informative. Mr Martin? — oh, yes. He (Mr Polwhistle) had seen him on Thursday afternoon all right. Mr Martin had come in — just upon three o’clock, weren’t it, Tom? Yes,’ three o’clock and asked them to come and have a look at his Morgan. They had gone round, and found that the Morgan wouldn’t start, not for toffee. After prolonged investigation and exercise on the starting-handle, they had diagnosed trouble with the ignition. They had taken everything out and looked at it, and eventually it had occurred to Mr Polwhistle that the fault might be in the H.T. lead. On their removing this and putting in a new one, the engine had started up at once, sweet as a nut. There could be no doubt about the time, because Tom had entered it upon his time-sheet; 3 p. m. till 4 p.m.

  It was now nearly half-past four, and Wimsey felt that he had a good chance of finding Mr Goodrich at home. He was directed to his house — the big place up the first turning off the Wilvercombe Road — and found the good gentleman and his family gathered about a table well spread with bread and cakes and honey and Devonshire cream.

  Mr Goodrich, a stout and hearty squire of the old school, was delighted to give any assistance in his power. Mr Martin had turned up at the house at about seven o’clock on the Tuesday evening and had asked permission to camp at the bottom of Hinks’s Lane. Why Hinks’s Lane, by the way? Well, there used to be a cottage there that belonged to an old fellow called Hinks — a regular character — used to read the Bible through regularly every year, and it was to be hoped it did him good, for a graceless old scamp he was and always had been. But that was donkey’s years ago, and the cottage had fallen into disrepair. Nobody ever went down there now, except campers. Mr Martin had not asked for information about camping-grounds; he had asked straight out for permission to camp in Hinks’s Lane, calling it by that name. Mr Goodrich had never set eyes on Mr Martin before, and he (Mr Goodrich) knew pretty well everything that went on in the village. He was almost certain that Mr Martin had never been in Darley before. No doubt somebody had told him about Hinks’s Lane — it was a regular place for campers. They were out of the way down there, and there were no crops for them to damage and no gates for them to leave open, unless they were to go out of their way to trespass on Farmer Newcombe’s pasture on the other side of the hedge. But there was no necessity for them to do so, as it didn’t lead anywhere. The stream that ran through the pasture came out on to the beach only fifty yards away from the camping-ground and was fresh, except, of course, at flood-tide, when it was brackish. Now Mr Goodrich came to think about it, he believed there had been some complaint from Mr Newcombe about a broken hedge, but the story only came through Geary the blacksmith, who was a notorious talker and he (Mr Goodrich) didn’t see that it had anything to do with Mr Martin. Mr Newcombe was not altogether a satisfactory-tenant in the matter of repairs to hedges and when there were gaps, animals would sometimes stray through them. Apart from this, he (Mr Goodrich) knew nothing to Mr Martin’s discredit. He seemed to have been quiet enough, and in any case, Hinks’s Lane being out of sight and sound of the village, campers couldn’t make nuisances of themselves down there. Some of them brought gramophones or concertinas or ukuleles, according to their taste and social position, but Mr Goodrich had no objection to their amusing themselves, so long as they didn’t disturb anybody. He never made any charge for camping on his ground — it didn’t hurt him, and he didn’t see why lie should take payment for letting the poor devils who lived in town help themselves to a mouthful of fresh air and a drink of water. He usually asked them to leave the place as tidy as they could, and as a rule he had found them pretty decent in this respect.

  Wimsey thanked Mr Goodrich and accepted his hospitable invitation to tea. He left at six o’clock, full of buns and cream, with just nice time to pay at visit to the camping-ground and so round off the chapter of Mr Martin. He drove down the stony little lane, and soon found signs of Mr Martin’s recent presence. The land led out upon a flat expanse of rough turf, beyond which a belt of heavy stones and shingle sloped down to the edge of the sea. The tide was about a quarter-full, and the beach became progressively less rough as it neared the water; presumably at low tide there would be a narrow strip of sand left uncovered.

  The tracks of the Morgan’s wheels were still faintly visible
upon the coarse grass, and there was a patch of oily drippings to show where it had been parked. Close by, there were the holes where the pole and pegs of a small bell-tent had been driven in., There were the ashes of a burnt-out wood fire, and, among them, a ball of greasy newspaper, which had obviously been used to scrub out a frying-pan. Rather reluctantly, Wimsey unfolded the distasteful sheets and glanced at the heading. Thursday’s Morning Star; nothing particularly exciting about that. Careful search among the ashes of the fire revealed no blood-stained fragments of clothing — not so much as a button of a garment — no half-burnt scraps of paper which might have contained a clue to Mr Martin’s real name and address. The only thing that was in any way remarkable was a piece of thinnish rope about three inches long, heavily blackened by the fire. Wimsey pocketed this, for lack of better occupation, and searched further.

  Mr Martin had been a tidy camper on the whole, leaving no obviously offensive debris. On the right-hand side of the camping-ground’ there was, however, the remains of a stunted thorn hedge, surrounding the battered remnants of Hinks’s Cottage. Half buried at the foot of this hedge, Wimsey discovered a repulsive cache, containing a great number of old tins and bottles, some recent and some obviously abandoned by previous campers, the heels of some loaves, the bones from a neck of mutton, an old dixie with a hole in the bottom, half a neck-tie, a safety-razor blade (still sharp enough to cut one’s fingers on) and a very dead gull. An elaborate and back-aching crawl over the whole surface of the camping-ground rewarded the earnest sleuth further with an immoderate quantity of burnt matches, six empty match-boxes of foreign make, the dottles of several pipes, three oat-grains, a broken bootlace (brown), the stalks of about a pound of strawberries, six-plum-stones, the stub of a pencil, a drawing-pin business end up, fifteen beer-corks, and an instrument for removing the patent caps of other beer-bottles. The rough grass showed no identifiable footprints