The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club lpw-5

by Dorothy L. Sayers

  He went. He never stopped going till he came to Finsbury Park. George was out, and so, of course, was Mrs. Fentiman, but the charwoman said she had heard the Captain mention he was going down to Great Portland Street. Wimsey went in pursuit. A couple of hours spent lounging round show-rooms and talking to car-demonstrators, nearly all of whom were, in one manner or another, his dear old pals, resulted in the discovery that George Fentiman was being taken on by the Walmisley-Hubbard outfit for a few weeks to show what he could do.

  “Oh, he’ll do you all right,” said Wimsey, “he’s a damn fine driver. Oh, lord, yes! He’s all right.”

  “He looks a bit nervy,” said the particular dear old pal attached to the Walmisley-Hubbard show. “Wants bucking up, what? That reminds me. What about a quick one?”

  Wimsey submitted to a mild quick one and then wandered back to look at a new type of clutch. He spun out this interesting interview till one of the Walmisley-Hubbard “shop ’buses” came in with Fentiman at the wheel.

  “Hallo!” said Wimsey, “trying her out?”

  “Yes. I’ve got the hang of her all right.”

  “Think you could sell her?” asked the old pal.

  “Oh, yes. Soon learn to show her off. She’s a jolly decent ’bus.”

  “That’s good. Well, I expect you’re about ready for a quick one. How about it, Wimsey?”

  They had a quick one together. After this, the dear old pal remembered that he must buzz off because he’d promised to hunt up a customer.

  “You’ll turn up to-morrow, then?” he said to George. “There’s an old bird down at Malden wants to have a trial trip. I can’t go, so you can have a shot at him. All right?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Righty-ho! I’ll have the ’bus ready for you at eleven. Cheer-most-frightfully-ho! So long.”

  “Little sunbeam about the house, isn’t he?” said Wimsey.”

  “Rather. Have another?”

  “I was thinking, how about lunch? Come along with me if you have nothing better to do.”

  George accepted and put forward the names of one or two restaurants.

  “No,” said Wimsey, “I’ve got a fancy to go to Gatti’s to-day, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all, that will do splendidly. I’ve seen Murbles, by the bye, and he’s prepared to deal with the MacStewart man. He thinks he can hold him off till it’s all settled up — if it ever is settled.”

  “That’s good,” said Wimsey, rather absently.

  “And I’m damned glad about this chance of a job,” went on George. “If it turns out any good, it’ll make things a lot easier — in more than one way.”

  Wimsey said heartily that he was sure that it would and then relapsed into a silence unusual with him, which lasted all the way to the Strand.

  At Gatti’s he left George in a corner while he went to have a chat with the head-waiter, emerging from the interview with a puzzled expression which aroused even George’s curiosity, full as he was of his own concerns.

  “What’s up? Isn’t there anything you can bear to eat?”

  “It’s all right. I was just wondering whether to have moules marinières or not.”

  “Good idea.”

  Wimsey’s face cleared, and for some time they absorbed mussels from the shell with speechless, though not altogether silent, satisfaction.

  “By the way,” said Wimsey, suddenly. “you never told me that you had seen your grandfather the afternoon before he died.”

  George flushed. He was struggling with a particularly elastic mussel, firmly rooted to the shell, and could not answer for a moment.”

  “How on earth? — confound it all, Wimsey, are you behind this infernal watch that’s being kept on me?”

  “Watch?”

  “Yes, I said watch. I call it a damn rotten thing to do. I never thought for a moment you had anything to do with it.”

  “I haven’t. Who’s keeping a watch on you?”

  “There’s a fellow following me about. A spy. I’m always seeing him. I don’t know whether he’s a detective or what. He looks like a criminal. He came down in the ’bus with me from Finsbury Park this morning. He was after me all day yesterday. He’s probably about now. I won’t have it. If I catch sight of him again I shall knock his dirty little head off. Why should I be followed and spied on? I haven’t done anything. And now you begin.”

  “I swear I’ve nothing to do with anybody following you about. Honestly, I haven’t. I wouldn’t employ a man, anyway, who’d let a bloke see that he was being followed. No. When I start huntin’ you, I shall be as silent and stealthy as a gas-leak. What’s this incompetent bloodhound like to look at?”

  “Looks like a tout. Small, thin, with his hat pulled down over his eyes and an old rain-coat with the collar turned up. And a very blue chin.”

  “Sounds like a stage detective. He’s a silly ass anyway.”

  “He gets on my nerves.”

  “Oh, all right. Next time you see him, punch his head.”

  “But what does he want?”

  “How should I know? What have you been doing?”

  “Nothing, of course. I tell you, Wimsey, I believe there’s some sort of conspiracy going on to get me into trouble, or do away with me, or something. I can’t stand it. It’s simply damnable. Suppose this fellow starts hanging round the Walmisley-Hubbard place. Look nice, won’t it, for the salesman to have a ’tec on his heels all the time? Just as I hoped things were coming right—”

  “Bosh!” said Wimsey. “Don’t let yourself get rattled. It’s probably all imagination, or just a coincidence.”

  “It isn’t. I wouldn’t mind betting he’s outside in the street now.”

  “Well, then, we’ll settle his hash when we get outside. Give him in charge for annoying you. Look here, forget him for a bit. Tell me about the old General. How did he seem, that last time you saw him?”

  “Oh, he seemed fit enough. Crusty, as usual.”

  “Crusty, was he? What about?”

  “Private matters,” said George, sullenly.

  Wimsey cursed himself for having started his questions tactlessly. The only thing now was to retrieve the situation as far as possible.

  “I’m not at all sure,” he said, “that relations shouldn’t all be painlessly put away after three-score and ten. Or at any rate segregated. Or have their tongues sterilised, so that they can’t be poisonously interferin’.”

  “I wish they were,” growled George “The old man — damn it all, I know he was in the Crimea, but he’s no idea what a real war’s like. He thinks things can go on just as they did half a century ago. I daresay he never did behave as I do. Anyway, I know he never had to go to his wife for his pocket-money, let alone having the inside gassed out of him. Coming preaching to me — and I couldn’t say anything, because he was so confoundedly old, you know.”

  “Very trying,” murmured Wimsey, sympathetically.

  “It’s all so damned unfair,” said George. “Do you know,” he burst out, the sense of grievance suddenly overpowering his wounded vanity, “the old devil actually threatened to cut me out of the miserable little bit of money he had to leave me if I didn’t ‘reform my domestic behaviour.’ That’s the way he talked. Just as if I was carrying on with another woman or something. I know did have an awful row with Sheila one day, but of course I didn’t mean half I said. She knows that, but the old man took it all seriously.”

  “Half a moment,” broke in Wimsey, “did he say all this to you in the taxi that day?”

  “Yes he did. A long lecture, all about the purity and courage of a good woman, driving round and round Regent’s Park. I had to promise to turn over a new leaf and all that. Like being back at one’s prep. school.”

  “But didn’t he mention anything about the money Lady Dormer was leaving to him?”

  “Not a word. I don’t suppose he knew about it.”

  “I think he did. He’d just come from seeing her, you know, and I’ve a very good idea
she explained matters to him then.”

  “Did she? Well, that rather explains it. I thought he was being very pompous and stiff about it. He said what a responsibility money was, you know, and how he would like to feel that anything he left to me was being properly used and all that. And he rubbed it in about my not having been able to make good for myself — that was what got my goat — and about Sheila. Said I ought to appreciate a good woman’s love more, my boy, and cherish her and so on. As if I needed him to tell me that. But of course if he knew he was in the running for this half-million, it makes rather a difference. By Jove, yes! I expect he would feel a bit anxious at the idea of leaving it all to a fellow he looked on as a waster.”

  “I wonder he didn’t mention it.”

  “You didn’t know grandfather. I bet he was thinking over in his mind whether it wouldn’t be better to give my share to Sheila, and he was sounding me, to see what sort of disposition I’d got. The old fox! Well, I did my best to put myself in a good light, of course, because just at the moment I didn’t want to lose my chance of his two thousand. But I don’t think he found me satisfactory. I say,” went on George, with rather a sheepish laugh, “perhaps it’s just as well he popped off when he did. He might have cut me off with a shilling, eh?”

  “Your brother would have seen you through in any case.”

  “I suppose he would. Robert’s quite a decent sort, really, though he does get on one’s nerves so.”

  “Does he?”

  “He’s so thick-skinned; the regular unimaginative Briton. I believe Robert would cheerfully go through another five years of war and think it all a very good rag. Robert was proverbial, you know, for never turning a hair. I remember Robert, at that ghastly hole at Carency, where the whole ground was rotten with corpses — ugh! — potting those swollen great rats for a penny a time, and laughing at them. Rats. Alive and putrid with what they’d been feeding on. Oh, yes. Robert was thought a damn good soldier.”

  “Very fortunate for him,” said Wimsey.

  “Yes. He’s the same sort as grandfather. They liked each other. Still, Grandfather was very decent about me. A beast, as the schoolboy said, but a just beast. And Sheila was a great favourite of his.”

  “Nobody could help liking her,” said Wimsey, politely.

  Lunch ended on a more cheerful note than it had begun. As they came out into the street, however, George Fentiman glanced round uneasily. A small man in a buttoned-up overcoat and with a soft hat pulled down over his eyes, was gazing into the window of a shop near at hand.

  George strode up to him.

  “Look here, you!” he said. “What the devil do you mean by following me about? You clear off, d’you hear?”

  “I think you are mistaken, sir,” said the man, quietly enough. “I have never seen you before.”

  “Haven’t you, by Jove? Well, I’ve seen you hanging about, and if you do it any more, I’ll give you something to remember me by. D’you hear?”

  “Hallo!” said Wimsey, who had stopped to speak to the commissionaire, “what’s up — Here, you, wait a moment!”

  But at sight of Wimsey, the man had slipped like an eel among the roaring Strand traffic, and was lost to view.

  George Fentiman turned to his companion triumphantly.

  “Did you see that? That lousy little beggar! Made off like a shot when I threatened him. That’s the fellow who’s been dogging me about for three days.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Wimsey, “but it was not your prowess, Fentiman. It was my awful aspect that drove him away. What is it about me? Have I a front like Jove to threaten and command? Or am I wearing a repulsive tie?”

  “He’s gone, anyway.”

  “I wish I’d had a better squint at him. Because I’ve got a sort of idea that I’ve seen those lovely features before, and not so long ago, either. Was this the face that launched a thousand ships? No, I don’t think it was that.”

  “All I can say is,” said George, “that if I see him again, I’ll put such a face on him that his mother won’t know him.”

  “Don’t do that. You might destroy a clue. I — wait a minute — I’ve got an idea. I believe it must be the same man who’s been haunting the Bellona and asking questions. Oh, Hades! and we’ve let him go. And I’d put him down in my mind as Oliver’s minion. If ever you see him again, Fentiman, freeze on to him like grim death. I want to talk to him.”

  Chapter X

  Lord Peter Forces a Card

  “Hallo!”

  “Is that you, Wimsey? Hallo! I say, is that Lord Peter Wimsey. Hallo! I must speak to Lord Peter Wimsey. Hallo!”

  “All right. I’ve said hallo. Who’re you? And what’s the excitement?”

  “It’s me. Major Fentiman. I say—is that Wimsey?”

  “Yes. Wimsey speaking. What’s up?”

  “I can’t hear you.”

  “Of course you can’t if you keep on shouting. This is Wimsey. Good morning. Stand three inches from the mouthpiece and speak in an ordinary voice. Do not say hallo! To recall the operator, depress the receiver gently two or three times.”

  “Oh, shut up! don’t be an ass. I’ve seen Oliver.”

  “Have you, where?”

  “Getting into a train at Charing Cross.”

  “Did you speak to him?”

  “No — it’s maddening. I was just getting my ticket when I saw him passing the barrier. I tore down after him. Some people got in my way, curse them. There was a Circle train standing at the platform. He bolted in and they clanged the doors. I rushed on, waving and shouting, but the train went out. I cursed like anything.”

  “I bet you did. How very sickening.”

  “Yes, wasn’t it? I took the next train—”

  “What for?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I thought I might spot him on a platform somewhere.”

  “What a hope! You didn’t think to ask where he’d booked for?”

  “No. Besides, he probably got the ticket from an automatic.”

  “Probably. Well, it can’t be helped, that’s all. He’ll probably turn up again. You’re sure it was he?”

  “Oh, dear, yes. I couldn’t be mistaken. I’d know him anywhere. I thought I’d just let you know.”

  “Thanks awfully. It encourages me extremely. Charing Cross seems to be a haunt of his. He ’phoned from there on the evening of the tenth, you know.”

  “So he did.”

  “I’ll tell you what we’d better do, Fentiman. The thing is getting rather serious. I propose that you should go and keep an eye on Charing Cross station. I’ll get hold of a detective—”

  “A police detective?”

  “Not necessarily. A private one would do. You and he can go along and keep watch on the station for, say a week. You must describe Oliver to the detective as best you can, and you can watch turn and turn about.”

  “Hang it all, Wimsey — it’ll take a lot of time. I’ve gone back to my rooms at Richmond. And besides, I’ve got my own duties to do.”

  “Yes, well, while you’re on duty the detective must keep watch.”

  “It’s a dreadful grind, Wimsey.” Fentiman’s voice sounded dissatisfied.

  “It’s half a million of money. Of course, if you’re not keen—”

  “I am keen. But I don’t believe anything will come of it.”

  “Probably not; but it’s worth trying. And in the meantime, I’ll have another watch kept at Gatti’s.”

  “At Gatti’s?”

  “Yes. They know him there. I’ll send a man down—”

  “But he never comes there now.”

  “Oh, but he may come again. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t. We know now that he’s in town, and not gone out of the country or anything. I’ll tell the management that he’s wanted for an urgent business matter, so as not to make unpleasantness.”

  “They won’t like it.”

  “Then they’ll have to lump it.”

  “Well, all right. But, look here—I’ll do Gatti’s.
”

  “That won’t do. We want you to identify him at Charing Cross. The waiter or somebody can do the identifying at Gatti’s. You say they know him.”

  “Yes, of course they do. But—”

  “But what? — By the way, which waiter is it you spoke to. I had a talk with the head man there yesterday, and he didn’t seem to know anything about it.”

  “No — it wasn’t the head waiter. One of the others. The plump, dark one.”