“Who the hell are you?” he demanded of the young man. “What's your game? What are you after in this house?”
“I don't know you,” came the cool answer.
“This is my house,” cried Jackman, slapping his chest. “That is, everything in it is mine. What are you after here? I guess I've got a right to know!”
“Do you think I'm going to tell you?” said the young man smiling.
The girl put herself in front of him as if to protect him from the angry proprietor.
“He's no thief,” she said. “He wants nothing of yours.”
Barron thoroughly angered, cried out: “Maybe he's worse than a thief! Maybe he'll have to answer to a charge of murder!”
It was a sickening blow to the girl. She fell back against her lover's breast paper–white and gasping. “Oh! No! No! ... I never thought ... Oh, it can't be! ... Why, he never started until after the woman ....was
The young man clapped his hand over her mouth.
“I want the truth,” shouted Barron. “And by God! I'm going to get it! ...”
My employer was not going to stand for bull–dozing.
“They have a right to refuse to answer our questions, Inspector,” she said quickly. “Because anything they say may be used against them later. You and I have other ways of arriving at the truth. Have patience for a moment. I have sent for Maggie Dolan.”
Even while she was speaking there was a ring at the front door. One of the detectives ran upstairs to answer it. He returned, bringing the woman who had served Ada Rousseau for so many years. Maggie had thrown on her absurd finery anyhow; and her hat was askew and her homely face puffy with sleep. She looked around blinking and confused.
“What's up ... what's up?” she stuttered.
“Maggie,” said Mme. Storey, “look at this young man and tell us if you have ever seen him before. Think before you answer.”
Maggie gave her hat a shove which sent it over too far on the other side. But none of us laughed; there was an electric tension in the air. The young man stared at her scornfully. Maggie looked at him and dumbly shook her head.
“I don't recollect ...” she began. Then something stirred in her. “Wait a minute! Seems like I seen his face somewheres. ... Yes. Now I've got it! That's the young fella as brought the money to Ada, time she was sick abed and couldn't fetch it herself.”
“Ha!” cried Barron slapping his thigh.
The young fellow stared at Maggie with absolute blankness.
“Are you sure, Maggie?” asked Mme. Storey sternly. “Could you go on the stand and swear to it?”
“Sure I could, Ma'am. Because I was scared when he come. I watched him good. I couldn't be mistaken.”
“What scared you?”
“Because Ada, Ma'am, when she told me he was coming, she said I must bring him upstairs and wait in the room as long as he was there. It would be too good a chance, Ada says, for him to stick a knife in her and save the five hundred a week.”
This piece of testimony came with the force of a thunderbolt. There was complete silence in the kitchen followed by a confused outbreak.
“There's your motive!” shouted Barron.
“That will send you to the chair!” Jackman, the old actor, looked stupidly from one to another with his lip hanging. “I don't get it! I just don't get it!”
The young girl broke down utterly; clung to her lover and hid her face in his breast, convulsed with sobs. He was badly shaken himself, but it was of her he was thinking. The dark head bent low over the blonde one as he tried to find words of comfort to whisper to her.
A distressing business all around. I hated my job. I looked to Mme. Storey to do something, but she seemed to be satisfied that the case was proven. Barron sent one of his men to telephone for a car to take the prisoners to Headquarters. The young fellow made a despairing plea for his girl.
“Let her go back the way she came, sir. You've got me. I'm the principal in this affair. I take the full responsibility.”
The girl jerked her head up. “No! No!” she protested. “I won't leave you! This is my business!”
“She has confessed that she is your accomplice,” said Barron.
The young man turned to my employer.
“Madame Storey ...”
She shook her head compassionately.
“Inspector Barron is the boss,” she said. “I can do nothing.”
We all trooped up to the drawing–room to wait for the car. There was a ring at the door, and my heart sank, but it was not the police; it was Crider come to report the result of his mission. I judged from his pleased face that he had been successful.
“Thank God!” said Mme. Storey. “You found it!”
“Yes, Madam.” He produced a silver key ring with four keys hanging from it. We all stared. I thought Barron's eyes would
pop out of his head. Mme. Storey handed the keys to Maggie. “Do you know these?”
It was a moment or two before the woman could concentrate her scattered faculties. Her eyes widened. “Why sure,” she said. “Them's Ada's keys! This here is the front door; this is the middle drawer of her desk; this is the liquor closet and this the iron–bound trunk in the packing–room. I know them well.”
“Crider,” said Mme. Storey, “tell the Inspector where you found them.”
Everybody waited for the answer as if life hung on it.
In his matter–of–fact way Crider said: “I found them in this fellow Jackman's room, sir. Mme. Storey instructed me to search it while he was out of the way with you here. The keys were hidden in the toe of an old shoe.”
Again that terrific silence. A choking cry was forced from Jackman. He clutched at his throat and pitched headlong to the carpet. A couple of stalwart plain clothes men jerked him to his feet and planted him in an arm–chair. He had not lost consciousness, but his control had gone. His head rolled from side to side on the back of the chair, he writhed and whined and the truth came tumbling out.
“I didn't aim to kill her! As God is my judge I didn't mean it! ...
Twenty–five years ago she turned me out. She framed the divorce! ... All these years, wouldn't see me, wouldn't give me a cent! Though I was starving! ... Was that right? Was that right? ... I knew she was collecting five hundred dollars a week on an incriminating letter that she had. And I was her rightful husband. Wasn't I entitled to a part of it? ...
“I brooded on it. Sometimes I didn't have a place to lay my head! She wouldn't give me a cent! ... She drove me crazy! And I made up my mind I would get the letter. I was entitled to it. ... I got a fellow to help me. It was easy. He got her drunk and brought her to me. Why, the poison, the veronal, was in her own handbag. I just poured it in her whiskey.
... I didn't aim to kill her, I tell you. I just wanted to put her out for a while so I could come to the house and get the letter. Once I had it she'd have to treat with me. ... But she died on me and I had to leave her in the park. ...
“I took her keys and came to the house. But I was scared off. In a few days I'd have had the run of the house anyhow. ...”
Inspector Barron shut him off with a gesture of disgust. “This is the lowest wretch I have ever had before me,” he said. “Take him away! Take him away!”
By this time the police car had arrived.
Jackman was yanked to his feet and hustled out.
The young couple, Ralph and Nora, had listened to his story with wondering faces. Barron now turned to them scowling, and the young man threw his arm around the girl.
“What shall I do with these two?” said Barron. “The fellow is a housebreaker just the same. What was he after?”
“He was after the letter too,” said Mme. Storey. “He was acting for the man who has been blackmailed for twenty–five years. He works for that man, and this girl is the man's daughter. When they read of Ada Rousseau's death they feared that the letter would be found, and that they would all be ruined. It was a crime, of course, but surely there was a good deal of justif
ication. Can't you let him go, Inspector?”
“I can't act in the dark,” he said scowling. “I must know what is behind it all.”
“Let's not mention any names,” said Mme. Storey. “As a young man this girl's father had the misfortune to become infatuated with Ada Rousseau. He was foolish enough to write her a letter confessing that he had stolen money from his employer for her sake. She saved the letter for future use. Since that time the stolen money has been paid back a hundred times over, and the writer of the letter has become one of our best citizens. It would be a shame, wouldn't it, to drag him down now? And the innocent with him?”
“How did you learn so much?” demanded Barron.
“Oh, just by a process of deduction,” she said blandly. “Just by piecing all the little bits together.”
“Where is the damned letter anyhow?”
“How should I know? Maybe Ada destroyed it after all. ... Let them go, Inspector,” she went on in her most persuasive voice. “You have the real murderer. This will be a big feather in your cap!”
He looked at her with a sharp inquiry in his eyes.
“I don't want any of the glory of this case,” she said demurely.
Barron let out a breath of relief. “All right,” he said, “I'll take the responsibility of letting them go.” He offered Mme. Storey his hand. “You're a wonderful woman,” he said with the grand condescension of a full–blooded male, “and I count it a privilege to have you working with me!”
“How nice of you,” said Mme. Storey sweetly. She put her foot out and trod on my toe.
“Can I put you down anywhere?” he asked.
“No, thanks,” she said. “You had better go with your prisoner. I'll take these young people home. I want to give them some good advice. I'll be seeing you tomorrow.”
He bowed gallantly and went out with his men. The rest of us followed. Last of all came the Surrogate's clerk, who locked the front door with a padlock, and put fresh seals on it.
Mme. Storey and I shared a taxi with Ralph and Nora. On the way home she would not talk about what had happened, but just made jokes. When we reached her place she made me get out first and open the gate that admits to her maisonette. Standing by the door of the cab, she opened her handbag and produced the letter she had found in Ada Rousseau's tea–caddy. Pressing it into Ralph's hand, she said:
“A little wedding present from a well–wisher.”
She ran in without waiting for them to thank her. As I closed the gate behind her I heard Ralph's joyful voice ring out: “Nora, I have it! We are safe!”
Dorothy L. Sayers
(1893–1957)
One of the most singular creations in detective fiction is Dorothy L. Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey, the stylish and urbane English aristocrat who detected with alacrossity in eleven novels and twenty–one short stories. Lord Peter did not detect in a vacuum, however. Sayers peopled his world with a full cast of well–delineated characters: mystery writer Harriet Vane (who later became Wimsey's wife); Detective–Inspector Charles Parker; the efficient Miss Climpson; and, of course, Wimsey's valet, Mr. Bunter. This ongoing cast frequently aided and abetted Lord Peter in his investigations. Harriet Vane, for example, assumed a large role in Have His Carcase (1932) and Gaudy Night (1935); Detective–Inspector Parker (who eventually married Wimsey's sister, the Lady Mary) is of great assistance in Clouds of Witness (1926). In “The Footsteps That Ran,” Mr. Bunter – without whom the Wimsey household would surely grind to a halt – detects alongside His Lordship in a mystery that proves “Jealousy is cruel as the grave.” Ellery Queen considered the story one of the most affecting in Sayers' 1928 collection, Lord Peter Views the Body. Although Sayers adhered firmly to the fair–play conventions of the Golden Age mystery, she chose to create a milieu and characters that were less static than many of her contemporaries'. Lord Peter first appeared (in Whose Body?, 1923) as an attractive but somewhat effete and frivolous young man, but as he evolved he took on larger dimensions, changing in response to the situations and people he encountered. More than just a collection of eccentricities – the monocle, the top hat – he is a thinking and
feeling individual who matures over time. Similarly, Harriet Vane evolves from a brash and somewhat prickly young woman into an admirable character who is more than a match for Wimsey. Sayers' writing is stylish and of high literary quality, and the tales are set against a variety of interesting backgrounds: a trial in the House of Lords (Clouds of Witness); the advertising industry, which Sayers knew well, having worked for an agency (Murder Must Advertise, 1933); bell–ringing (The Nine Tailors, 1934); and an Oxford college (Gaudy Night). While Sayers also created a series of eleven stories about Montague Egg, a commercial traveler in wines and spirits (five of which may be found in the 1939 collection In the Teeth of the Evidence and Other Stories), Lord Peter Wimsey remains her most enduring creation.
THE FOOTSTEPS THAT RAN
LORD PETER WIMSEY AND MR. BUNTER
LONDON, ENGLAND 1928
Mr. Bunter withdrew his head from beneath the focusing cloth.
“I fancy that will be quite adequate, sir,” he said deferentially, “unless there are any further patients, if I may call them so, which you would wish to put on record.”
“Not today,” replied the doctor. He took the last stricken rat gently from the table, and replaced it in its cage with an air of satisfaction. “Perhaps on Wednesday, if Lord Peter can kindly spare your services once again – ”
“What's that?” murmured his lordship, withdrawing his long nose from the investigation of a number of unattractive–looking glass jars. “Nice old dogs,” he added vaguely. “Wags his tail when you mention his name, what? Are these monkey–glands, Hartman, or a southwest elevation of Cleopatra's duodenum?”
“You don't know anything, do you,” said the young physician, laughing. “No use playing your bally–fool–with–an–eyeglass tricks on me, Wimsey. I'm up to them. I was saying to Bunter that I'd be no end grateful if you'd let him turn up again three days hence to register the progress of the specimens – always supposing they do progress, that is.”
“Why ask, dear old thing?” said his lordship. “Always a pleasure to assist a fellow–sleuth, don't you know. Trackin' down murderers – all in the same way of business and all that. All finished? Good egg! By the way, if you don't have that cage mended you'll lose one of your patients – Number 5. The last wire but one is workin' loose – assisted by the intelligent occupant. Jolly little beasts, ain't they? No need of dentists – wish I was a rat – wire much better for the nerves than that fizzlin' drill.”
Dr. Hartman uttered a little exclamation.
“How in the world did you notice that, Wimsey? I didn't think you'd even looked at the cage.”
“Built noticin' – improved by practice,” said Lord Peter quietly. “Anythin' wrong leaves a kind of impression on the eye; brain trots along afterward with the warnin'. I saw that when we came in. Only just grasped it. Can't say my mind was glued on the matter. Shows the victim's improvin', anyhow. All serene, Bunter?”
“Everything perfectly satisfactory, I trust, my lord,” replied the manservant. He had packed up his camera and plates, and was quietly restoring order in the little laboratory, whose fittings – compact as those of an ocean liner – had been disarranged for the experiment.
“Well,” said the doctor, “I am enormously obliged to you, Lord Peter, and to Bunter too. I am hoping for a great result from these experiments, and you cannot imagine how valuable an assistance it will be to me to have a really good series of photographs. I can't afford this sort of thing – yet,” he added, his rather haggard young face wistful as he looked at the great camera, “and I can't do the work at the hospital. There's no time; I've got to be here. A struggling G.P. can't afford to let his practice go, even in Bloomsbury. There are times when even a half–crown visit makes all the difference between making both ends meet and having an ugly hiatus.”
“As Mr. Micawber said,” rep
lied Wimsey, “`Income twenty pounds, expenditure nineteen, nineteen, six – result: happiness; expenditure twenty pounds, ought, six – result: misery. Don't prostrate yourself in gratitude, old bean; nothin' Bunter loves like messin' round with pyro and hyposulphite. Keeps his hand in. All kinds of practice welcome. Fingerprints and process plates spell seventh what–you–may–call–it of bliss, but focal–plane work on scurvy–ridden rodents (good phrase!) acceptable if no crime forthcoming. Crimes have been rather short lately. Been eatin' our heads off, haven't we, Bunter? Don't know what's come over London. I've taken to prying into my neighbor's affairs to keep from goin' stale. Frightened the postman into a fit the other day by askin' him how his young lady at Croydon was. He's a married man, livin' in Great Ormond Street.”
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