Murder Must Advertise

by Dorothy L. Sayers

“Icily regular, splendidly null,” said Bredon, squinting into Miss Rossiter's mirror. “Strange, to think that a whole Whifflets campaign seethes and burgeons behind this solid ivory brow.”

  “Mixed metaphor,” said Miss Meteyard. “Pots seethe, plants burgeon.”

  “Of course; it is a flower of rhetoric culled from the kitchen-garden.”

  “It's no use, Miss Meteyard,” said Ingleby, “you might as well argue with an eel.”

  “Talking of eels,” said Miss Meteyard, abandoning the position, “what's the matter with Miss Hartley?”

  “The hipless wonder? Why?”

  “She came up the other day to inform the world that the police were coming to arrest somebody.”

  “What?” said Willis.

  “You mean, whom?”

  “Whom, then?”

  “Bredon.”

  “Mr. Bredon?” said Miss Parton. “What next, I wonder.”

  “You mean, what for? Why don't you people say what you do mean?”

  Miss Rossiter turned on her chair and gazed at Mr. Bredon's gently twitching mouth.

  “That's funny,” she said. “Do you know, Mr. Bredon, we never told you, but Parton and I thought we saw you actually being arrested one evening, in Piccadilly Circus.”

  “Did you?”

  “It wasn't you, of course.”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, it wasn't. Still, cheer up–it may happen yet. Only I suppose Pymmy doesn't keep his millions in the office safe.”

  “Nor yet in registered envelopes,” said Miss Meteyard, casually.

  “Don't say they're after our Mr. Copley!”

  “I hope not. Bread-and-skilly wouldn't suit him at all.”

  “But what was Bredon being arrested for?”

  “Loitering, perhaps,” said a mild voice in the doorway. Mr. Hankin poked his head round the corner and smiled sarcastically. “I am sorry to interrupt you, but if Mr. Bredon could favour me with his attention for a moment on the subject of Twentyman's Teas–”

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” said Mr. Bredon, springing to attention and allowing himself to be marched off.

  Miss Rossiter shook her head.

  “You mark my words, there's a mystery about Mr. Bredon.”

  “He's a darling,” objected Miss Parton, warmly.

  “Oh, Bredon's all right,” said Ingleby.

  Miss Meteyard said nothing. She went downstairs to the Executive and borrowed the current volume of Who's Who. She ran her finger through the W's, till she came to the entry beginning: “Wimsey, Peter Death Bredon (Lord), D.S.O., born 1890; second s. of Mortimer Gerald Bredon Wimsey, 15th Duke of Denver, and Honoria Lucasta, d. of Francis Delagardie of Bellingham Manor, Bucks. Educ. Eton College and Balliol.” She read it through.

  “So that's it,” said Miss Meteyard to herself. “I thought so. And now what? Does one do anything? I think not. Better leave it alone. But there's no harm in putting out feelers for another job. One's got to look after one's self.”

  Mr. Bredon, unaware that his disguise had been penetrated, gave but a superficial consideration to the interests of Twentyman's Teas. He meekly accepted the instruction to prepare a window-bill with two streamers on the subject of a richer infusion with fewer spoonfuls, and a gentle rebuke in the matter of wasting time in the typists' room. His mind was in Old Broad Street.

  “You are playing for us on Saturday, I see,” said Mr. Hankin, at the conclusion of the interview.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I hope the weather will hold. You have played in first-class cricket, I believe?”

  “A long time ago.”

  “You will be able to show them a bit of style,” said Mr. Hankin, happily. “Style–one sees so little of it nowadays. I am afraid you will find us a scratch lot, and for some reason, several of our best players seem unable to attend this match. A pity. But you will find Mr. Tallboy very good. An excellent all-round man, and quite remarkable in the field.”

  Mr. Bredon said that it was all too rare to find proper attention given to fielding. Mr. Hankin agreed with him.

  “Mr. Tallboy is excellent at all games; it's a pity he can't give more time to them. Personally, I should like to see more organization of the athletic side of our social functions here. But Mr. Pym thinks it would perhaps be too absorbing, and I dare say he is right. Still, I can't help feeling that the cultivation of the team-spirit would do this office good. I don't know whether you, as a newcomer, have noticed a certain tension from time to time–”

  Bredon admitted that he had noticed something of the sort.

  “You know, Mr. Bredon,” said Mr. Hankin, a little wistfully, “it is sometimes difficult for the directors to get the atmosphere of situations in the office. You people keep us rather in cotton-wool, don't you? It can't be helped, naturally, but I sometimes fancy that there are currents beneath the surface....”

  Evidently, thought Bredon, Mr. Hankin had realized that something was on the point of breaking. He felt suddenly sorry for him. His eyes strayed to a strip poster, printed in violent colours and secured by drawing-pins to Mr. Hankin's notice-board:

  EVERY ONE EVERYWHERE ALWAYS AGREES

  ON THE FLAVOUR AND VALUE OF TWENTYMAN'S TEAS

  No doubt it was because agreement on any point was so rare in a quarrelsome world, that the fantastical announcements of advertisers asserted it so strongly and so absurdly. Actually, there was no agreement, either on trivialities like tea or on greater issues. In this place, where from morning till night a staff of over a hundred people hymned the praises of thrift, virtue, harmony, eupepsia and domestic contentment, the spiritual atmosphere was clamorous with financial storm, intrigue, dissension, indigestion and marital infidelity. And with worse things–with murder wholesale and retail, of soul and body, murder by weapon and by poison. These things did not advertise, or, if they did, they called themselves by other names.

  He made some vague answer to Mr. Hankin.

  At one o'clock he left the office and took a taxi citywards. He was suddenly filled with a curiosity to visit Mr. Tallboy's stockbroker.

  At twenty minutes past one, he was standing on the pavement in Old Broad Street, and his blood was leaping with the excitement which always accompanies discovery.

  Mr. Tallboy's stockbroker inhabited a small tobacconist's shop, the name over which was not Smith but Cummings.

  “An accommodation address,” observed Lord Peter Wimsey. “Most unusual for a stockbroker. Let us probe this matter further.”

  He entered the shop, which was narrow, confined and exceedingly dark. An elderly man stepped forward to serve him. Wimsey went immediately to the point.

  “Can I see Mr. Smith?”

  “Mr. Smith doesn't live here.”

  “Then perhaps you would kindly let me leave a note for him.”

  The elderly man slapped his hand on the counter.

  “If I've said it once, I've said it five hundred times,” he snapped irritably. “There's no Mr. Smith here, and never was, to my knowledge. And if you're the gentleman that addresses his letters here, I'd be glad if you'd take that for an answer. I'm sick and tired of handing his letters back to the postman.”

  “You surprise me. I don't know Mr. Smith myself, but I was asked by a friend to leave a message for him.”

  “Then tell your friend what I say. It's no good sending letters here. None whatever. Never has been. People seem to think I've got nothing better to do than hand out letters to postmen. If I wasn't a conscientious man, I'd burn the lot of them. That's what I'd do. Burn 'em. And I will, if it goes on any longer. You can tell your friend that from me.”

  “I'm very sorry,” said Wimsey. “There seems to be some mistake.”

  “Mistake?” said Mr. Cummings, angrily. “I don't believe it's a mistake at all. It's a stupid practical joke, that's what it is. And I'm fed up with it, I can tell you.”

  “If it is,” said Wimsey, “I'm the victim of it. I've been sent right out of my way to deliver a message to somebody who do
esn't exist. I shall speak to my friend about it.”

  “I should, if I were you,” said Mr. Cummings. “A silly, tom-fool trick. You tell your friend to come here himself, that's all. I'll know what to say to him.”

  “That's a good idea,” said Wimsey. “And you tell him off.”

  “You can lay your last penny I shall, sir.” Mr. Cummings, having blown off his indignation, seemed a little appeased. “If your friend should turn up, what name will he give, sir?”

  Wimsey, on the point of leaving the shop, pulled up short. Mr. Cummings, he noticed, had a pair of very sharp eyes behind his glasses. A thought struck him.

  “Look here,” he said, leaning confidentially over the counter. “My friend's name is Milligan. That mean anything to you? He told me to come to you for a spot of the doings. See what I mean?”

  That got home; a red glint in Mr. Cummings' eye told Wimsey as much.

  “I don't know what you are talking about,” was what Mr. Cummings actually said. “I never heard of a Mr. Milligan, and I don't want to. And I don't want any of your sauce, neither.”

  “Sorry, old thing, sorry,” said Wimsey.

  “And what's more,” said Mr. Cummings, “I don't want you. See?”

  “I see,” said Wimsey. “I see perfectly. Good-morning.”

  “That's torn it,” he thought. “I'll have to work quickly now. St. Martin's-le-Grand comest next, I fancy.”

  A little pressure at head-quarters produced what was required. The postmen who carried letters to Old Broad Street were found and interrogated. It was quite true that they frequently delivered letters for a Mr. Smith to Mr. Cummings' shop, and that these letters invariably were returned, and marked “Not known.” Where did they go then? To the Returned Letter Office. Wimsey rang up Pym's, explained that he was unavoidably detained, and sought the Returned Letter Office. After a little delay, he found the official who knew all about it.

  The letters for Mr. Smith came regularly every week. They were never returned to the sender in the ordinary course. Why? Because they bore no sender's name. In fact, they never contained anything but a sheet of blank paper.

  “Had they last Tuesday's letter there?” No; it had already been opened and destroyed. Would they keep the next one that arrived and send it on to him? Seeing that Lord Peter Wimsey had Scotland Yard behind him, they would. Wimsey thanked the official, and went his way, pondering.

  On leaving the office at 5.30, he walked down Southampton Row to Theobald's Road. There was a newsvendor at the corner. Wimsey purchased an Evening Comet and glanced carelessly through the news. A brief paragraph in the Stop Press caught his eye.

  CLUBMAN KILLED IN PICCADILLY

  At 3 o'clock this afternoon a heavy lorry skidded and mounted the pavement in Piccadilly, fatally injuring Major “Tod” Milligan, the well-known clubman, who was standing on the kerb.

  “They work quickly,” he thought with a shudder. “Why, in God's name, am I still at large?” He cursed his own recklessness. He had betrayed himself to Cummings; he had gone into the shop undisguised; by now they knew who he was. Worse, they must have followed him to the General Post Office and to Pym's. Probably they were following him now. From behind the newspaper he cast a swift glance about the crowded streets. Any one of these loitering men might be the man. Absurd and romantic plans flitted through his mind. He would lure his assassins into some secluded spot, such as the Blackfriars subway or the steps beneath Cleopatra's Needle, and face them there and kill them with his hands. He would ring up Scotland Yard and get a guard of detectives. He would go straight home to his own flat in a taxi (“not the first nor the second that presents itself,” he thought, with a fleeting recollection of Professor Moriarty), barricade himself in and wait–for what? For air-guns?... In this perplexity he suddenly caught sight of a familiar figure–Chief-Inspector Parker himself, apparently taking his early way home, and carrying a fishmonger's bag in one hand and an attaché case in the other.

  He lowered the paper and said, “Hullo!”

  Parker stopped. “Hullo!” he replied, tentatively. He was obviously not quite certain whether he was being hailed by Lord Peter Wimsey or by Mr. Death Bredon. Wimsey strode forward and relieved him of the fish-bag.

  “Well met. You come most carefully upon your cue, to prevent me from being murdered. What's this, lobster?”

  “No, turbot,” said Parker, placidly.

  “I'm coming to eat it with you. They will hardly attack both of us. I've made a fool of myself and given the game away, so we may as well be open and cheerful about it.”

  “Good. I'd like to feel cheerful.”

  “What's wrong? Why so early home?”

  “Fed-up. The Yelverton Arms is a wash-out, I'm afraid.”

  “Did you raid it?”

  “Not yet. Nothing happened during the morning, but during the lunch-hour crush, Lumley saw something being smuggled into a fellow's hands by a chap who looked like a tout. They stopped the fellow and searched him. All they found was some betting-slips. It's quite possible that nothing is timed to happen before this evening. If nothing turns up, I'll have the place searched. Just before closing-time will be best. I'm going down there myself. Thought I'd step home for an early supper.”

  “Right. I've got something to tell you.”

  They walked to Great Ormond Street in silence.

  “Cummings?” said Parker, when Wimsey had told his tale. “Don't know anything about him. But you say he knew Milligan's name?”

  “He certainly did. Besides, here's the proof of it.”

  He showed Parker the stop-press item.

  “But this fellow, Tallboy–is he the bird you're after?”

  “Frankly, Charles, I don't understand it. I can't see him as the Big Bug in all this business. If he were, he'd be too well-off to get into difficulties with a cheap mistress. And his money wouldn't be coming to him in fifty-pound instalments. But there's a connection. There must be.”

  “Possibly he's only a small item in the account.”

  “Possibly. But I can't get over Milligan. According to his information, the whole show was run from Pym's.”

  “Perhaps it is. Tallboy may be merely the cat's paw for one of the others. Pym himself–he's rich enough, isn't he?”

  “I don't think it's Pym. Armstrong, possibly, or even quiet little Hankie. Of course, Pym's calling me in may have been a pure blind, but I don't somehow think he has quite that kind of brain. It was so unnecessary. Unless he wanted to find out, through me, how much Victor Dean really knew. In which case, he's succeeded,” added Wimsey, ruefully. “But I can't believe that any man would be such a fool as to put himself in the power of one of his own staff. Look at the opportunities for blackmail! Twelve years' penal servitude is a jolly threat to hold over a man. Still–blackmail. Somebody was being blackmailed, that's almost a certainty. But Pym can't have slugged Dean; he was in conference at the time. No, I think we must acquit Pym.”

  “What I don't quite see,” said Lady Mary, “is why Pym's is brought into it at all. Somebody at Pym's is one thing, but if you say that the show is 'run from Pym's,' it suggests something quite different–to me, anyhow. It sounds to me as though they were using Pym's organization for something–doesn't it to you?”

  “Well, it does,” agreed her husband. “But how? And why? What has advertising got to do with it? Crime doesn't want to advertise, far from it.”

  “I don't know,” said Wimsey, suddenly and softly. “I don't know.” His nose twitched, rabbit-fashion. “Pymmy was saying only this morning that to reach the largest number of people all over the country in the shortest possible time, there was nothing like a press campaign. Wait a second, Polly–I'm not sure that you haven't said something useful and important.”

  “Everything I say is useful and important. Think it over while I go and tell Mrs. Gunner how to cook turbot.”

  “And the funny thing is,” said Parker, “she seems to like telling Mrs. Gunner how to cook turbot. We could perfectly well a
fford more servants–”

  “My dear old boy,” said Wimsey. “Servants are the devil. I don't count my man Bunter, because he's exceptional, but it's a treat to Polly to kick the whole boiling out of the house at night. Don't you worry. When she wants servants, she'll ask for them.”

  “I admit,” said Parker, “I was glad myself when the kids were old enough to dispense with a resident nurse. But look here, Peter, it seems to me you'll be wanting a resident nurse yourself, if you want to avoid nasty accidents.”

  “That's just it. Here I am. Why? What are they keeping me for? Something unusually nasty?”

  Parker moved quietly across to the window and peered out from a little gap in the short net blind.

  “He's there, I think. A repellent-looking young man in a check cap, playing with a Yo-Yo on the opposite pavement. Playing darned well, too, with a circle of admiring kids round him. What a grand excuse for loitering. There he goes. Three-leaf clover, over the falls, non-stop lift, round the world. Quite masterly. I must tell Mary to have a look at him, and take a lesson. You'd better sleep here tonight, old man.”

  “Thanks. I think I will.”

  “And stop away from the office tomorrow.”

  “I should, in any case. I've got to play in a cricket match at Brotherhood's. Their place is down at Romford.”

  “Cricket-match be damned. I don't know, though. It's nice and public. Provided the fast bowler doesn't knock you out with a swift ball, it may be as safe as anywhere else. How are you going?”

  “Office charabanc.”

  “Good. I'll see you round to the starting-point.”

  Wimsey nodded. Nothing further was said about dope or danger until supper was over and Parker had departed for the Yelverton Arms. Then Wimsey gathered up a calendar, the telephone directory, a copy of the official report on the volume retrieved from Mountjoy's flat, a scribbling-block and a pencil, and curled himself up on the couch with a pipe.

  “You don't mind, do you, Polly? I want to brood.”

  Lady Mary dropped a kiss on the top of his head.

  “Brood on, old thing. I won't disturb you. I'm going up to the nursery. And if the telephone rings, take care it isn't the mysterious summons to the lonely warehouse by the river, or the bogus call to Scotland Yard.”