The Literary Lord Peter

 

CHAPTER IX

 

Times and Seasons

 

 

Dost thou know what reputation is?

I'll tell thee—to small purpose, since the instruction

Comes now too late....

You have shook hands with Reputation,

And made him invisible.

 

John Webster: The Duchess of Malfi

 

 

The Rev. Simon Goodacre blinked nervously when confronted by the two officers drawn up, as it were, in battle-array, and Harriet's brief announcement on her way upstairs that he had "something to say to you, Superintendent," did little to set him at ease.

 

"Dear me! Well. Yes. I came back to see if you wanted me for anything. As you suggested, you know, as you suggested. And to tell Miss Twitterton—but I see she is not here—— Well, only that I had seen Lugg about the—er, dear me, the coffin. There must be a coffin, of course—I am not acquainted with the official procedure in such circumstances, but no doubt a coffin will have to be provided?"

 

"Certainly," said Kirk.

 

"Oh, yes, thank you. I had supposed so. I have referred Lugg to you, because I imagine the—the body is no longer in the house."

 

"It's over at the Crown," said the Superintendent. "The inquest will have to be held there."

 

"Oh, dear!" said Mr. Goodacre. "The inquest—oh, yes."

 

"The coroner's officer will give all the usual facilities."

 

"Yes, thank you, thank you. Er—Crutchley spoke to me as I came up the path."

 

"What did he say?"

 

"Well—I think he thinks he might be suspected."

 

"What makes him think that?"

 

"Dear me!" said Mr. Goodacre. "I fear I am putting my foot in it. He didn't say he did think it. I only thought he might think it from what he said. But I assure you, Superintendent, that I can confirm his alibi in every particular. He was at choir practice from 6.30 to 7.30, and then he took me over to Pagford for the whist-drive and brought me back here at 10.30. So, you see——"

 

"That's all right, sir. If an alibi's wanted for them times, you and him's out of it."

 

"I'm out of it?" exclaimed Mr. Goodacre. "Bless my soul, Superintendent——"

 

"Only my joke, sir."

 

Mr. Goodacre seemed to find the joke in but poor taste. He replied, however, mildly:

 

"Yes, yes. Well, I hope I may assure Crutchley that it's all right. He's a young man of whom I have a very high opinion. So keen and industrious. You mustn't attach too much importance to his chagrin about the forty pounds. It's a considerable sum for a man in his position."

 

"Don't you worry about that, sir," said Kirk. "Very glad to have your confirmation of those times."

 

"Yes, yes. I thought I'd better mention it. Now, is there anything else I can do to help?"

 

"Thank you very much, sir; I don't know as there is. You spent Wednesday night at home, I take it, after 10.30?"

 

"Why, of course," said the vicar, not at all relishing this tendency to harp upon his movements. "My wife and my servant can substantiate my statement. But you scarcely suppose——"

 

"We ain't got to supposing things yet, sir. That comes later. This is all rowtine. You didn't call here at any time during the last week, by any chance?"

 

"Oh, no. Mr. Noakes was away."

 

"Oh! you knew he was away, did you, sir?"

 

"No, no. At least, I supposed so. That is to say, yes. I called here on the Thursday morning, but got no answer, so I supposed he was away, as he sometimes was. In fact I fancy Mrs. Ruddle told me so. Yes, that was it."

 

"That the only time you called?"

 

"Dear me, yes. It was only a little matter of a subscription—in fact, that was what I came about to-day. I was passing by, and saw a notice on the gate asking for bread and milk to be delivered, so I supposed he had returned."

 

"Ah, yes. When you came on Thursday, you didn't notice anything funny about the house?"

 

"Goodness me, no. Nothing unusual at all. What would there be to notice?"

 

"Well——" began Kirk; but, after all, what could he expect this short-sighted old gentleman to notice? Signs of a struggle? Finger-prints on a door? Footmarks on the path? Scarcely. Mr. Goodacre would possibly have noticed a full-sized corpse, if he had happened to trip over it, but probably nothing smaller.

 

He accordingly thanked and dismissed the vicar, who, once more observing that he could fully account for Crutchley's movements and his own after half-past six, blundered vaguely out again, murmuring a series of agitated "Good afternoons" as he went.

 

"Well, well," said Kirk. He frowned. "What makes the old gentleman so sure those are the essential times. We don't know they are."

 

"No, sir," said Sellon.

 

"Seems very excited about it. It can't 'ardly be him, though, come to think of it, he's tall enough. He's taller nor what you are—pretty well as tall as Mr. Noakes was, I reckon."

 

"I'm sure," said the constable, "it couldn't be vicar, sir."

 

"Isn't that just what I'm saying? I suppose Crutchley must a-got the idea of the times being important from us questioning him so close about them. It's a hard life," added Mr. Kirk, plaintively. "If you ask questions, you tell the witness what you're after; if you don't ask 'em, you can't find out anything. And just when you think you're getting on to something you come slap up against the Judges' Rules."

 

"Yes, sir," said Sellon, respectfully. He rose as Harriet led Miss Twitterton in, and brought forward another chair.

 

"Oh, please!" exclaimed Miss Twitterton, faintly. "Please don't leave me, Lady Peter."

 

"No, no," said Harriet. Mr. Kirk hastened to reassure the witness.

 

"Sit down, Miss Twitterton; there's nothing to be alarmed about. Now, first of all, I understand you know nothing about your uncle's arrangement with Lord Peter Wimsey—selling the house, I mean, and so on. No. Just so. Now, when had you seen him last?"

 

"Oh! not for"—Miss Twitterton paused and counted the fingers of both hands carefully—"not for about ten days. I looked in last Sunday after morning service. I mean, of course, last Sunday week. I come over, you see, to play the organ for the dear vicar. It's a tiny church, of course, and not many people—nobody in Paggleham plays the organ, and of course I'm delighted to help in any way—and I called on Uncle then and he seemed quite as usual, and—and that's the—the last time I saw him. Oh, dear!"

 

"Were you aware that he was absent from home ever since last Wednesday?"

 

"But he wasn't absent!" exclaimed Miss Twitterton. "He was here all the time."

 

"Quite so," said the Superintendent. "Did you know he was here, and not absent?"

 

"Of course not. He often goes away. He usually tells—I mean, told me. But it was quite an ordinary thing for him to be at Broxford. I mean, if I had known, I shouldn't have thought anything of it. But I didn't know anything about it."

 

"Anything about what?"

 

"About anything. I mean, nobody told me he wasn't here, so I thought he was here—and so he was, of course."

 

"If you'd been told the house was shut up and Mrs. Ruddle couldn't get in, you wouldn't have been surprised or uneasy?"

 

"Oh, no. It often happened. I should have thought he was at Broxford."

 

"You have a key for the front door, haven't you?"

 

"Oh, yes. And the back door, too." Miss Twitterton fumbled in a capacious pocket of the old-fashioned sort. "But I never use the back-door key because it's always bolted—the door, I mean." She pulled out a large key-ring. "I gave them both to Lord Peter last night—off this bunch. I always keep them on the ring with my own. They never leave me. Except last night, of course, when Lord Peter had them."

 

"H'm!" said Kirk. He produced Peter's two keys. "Are these the ones?"

 

"Well, they must be, mustn't they, if Lord Peter gave them to you."

 

"You haven't ever lent the front-door key to anybody?"

 

"Oh, dear no!" protested Miss Twitterton. "Not anybody. If Uncle was away and Frank Crutchley wanted to get in on Wednesday morning, he always came to me and I went over with him and unlocked the door for him. Uncle was ever so particular. And besides, I should want to go myself and see that the rooms were all right. In fact, if Uncle William was at Broxford I used to come over most days."

 

"But on this occasion, you didn't know he was away?"

 

"No, I didn't. That's what I keep on telling you. I didn't know. So of course I didn't come. And he wasn't away."

 

"Exactly. Now, you're sure you've never left these keys about where they might be pinched or borrowed?"

 

"No, never," replied Miss Twitterton, earnestly—as though, thought Harriet, she asked nothing better than to twist a rope for her own neck. Surely she must see that the key to the house was the key to the problem; was it possible for any innocent person to be quite as innocent as that? The Superintendent ploughed on with his questions unmoved.

 

"Where do you keep them at night?"

 

"Always in my bedroom. The keys, and dear Mother's silver tea-pot and Aunt Sophy's cruet that was a wedding-present to grandpa and grandma. I take them up with me every night and put them on the little table by my bed, with the dinner-bell handy in case of fire. And I'm sure nobody could come in when I was asleep, because I always put a deck-chair across the head of the staircase."

 

"You brought the dinner-bell down when you came to let us in," said Harriet, vaguely corroborative. Her attention was distracted by the sight of Peter's face, peering in through the diamond panes of the lattice. She waved him a friendly gesture. Presumably he had walked off his attack of self-consciousness and was getting interested again.

 

"A deck-chair?" Kirk was asking.

 

"To trip up a burglar," explained Miss Twitterton, very seriously. "It's a splendid thing. You see, while he was getting all tangled up and making a noise, I should hear him and ring the dinner-bell out of the window for the police."

 

"Dear me!" said Harriet. (Peter's face had vanished—perhaps he was coming in.) "How dreadfully ruthless of you, Miss Twitterton. The poor man might have fallen over it and broken his neck."

 

"What man?"

 

"The burglar."

 

"But, dear Lady Peter, I'm trying to explain—there never was a burglar."

 

"Well," said Kirk, "it doesn't look as if anybody else could have got at the keys. Now, Miss Twitterton—about these money difficulties of your uncle's——"

 

"Oh, dear, oh dear!" broke in Miss Twitterton, with unfeigned emotion. "I knew nothing about those. It's terrible. It gave me such a shock. I thought—we all thought—Uncle was ever so well off."

 

Peter had come in so quietly that only Harriet noticed him. He remained near the door, winding his watch and setting it by the clock on the wall. Obviously he had come back to normal, for his face expressed only an alert intelligence.

 

"Did he make a will, do you know?" Kirk dropped the question out casually; the tell-tale sheet of paper lay concealed under his note-book.

 

"Oh, yes," said Miss Twitterton, "I'm sure he made a will. Not that it would have mattered, I suppose, because I'm the only one of the family left. But I'm certain he told me he'd made one. He always said, when I was worried about things—of course I'm not very well off—he always said, Now, don't you be in a hurry, Aggie. I can't help you now, because it's all tied up in the business, but it'll come to you after I'm dead."

 

"I see. You never thought he might change his mind?"

 

"Why, no. Who else should he leave it to? I'm the only one. I suppose now there won't be anything?"

 

"I'm afraid it doesn't look like it."

 

"Oh, dear! Was that what he meant when he said it was tied up in the business? That there wasn't any?"

 

"That's what it very often does mean," said Harriet.

 

"Then that's what——" began Miss Twitterton, and stopped.

 

"That's what, what?" prompted the Superintendent.

 

"Nothing," said Miss Twitterton, miserably. "Only something I thought of. Something private. But he said once something about being short and people not paying their bills.... Oh, what have I done? How ever can I explain——?"

 

"What?" demanded Kirk again.

 

"Nothing," repeated Miss Twitterton, hastily. "Only it sounds so silly of me." Harriet received the impression that this was not what Miss Twitterton had originally meant to say. "He borrowed a little sum of me once—not much—but of course I hadn't got much. Oh, dear! I'm afraid it looks dreadful to be thinking about money just now, but... I did think I'd have a little for my old age...and times are so hard...and ...and...there's the rent of my cottage...and..."

 

She quavered on the verge of tears. Harriet said confusedly:

 

"Don't worry. I'm sure something will turn up."

 

Kirk could not resist it. "Mr. Micawber!" he said, with a sort of relief. A faint echo behind him drew his attention to Peter, and he glanced round. Miss Twitterton hunted wildly for a handkerchief amid a pocketful of bast, pencils and celluloid rings for chickens' legs, which came popping out in a small shower.

 

"I'd counted on it—rather specially," sobbed Miss Twitterton. "Oh, I'm sorry. Please don't pay any attention."

 

Kirk cleared his throat. Harriet, who was as a rule good at handkerchiefs, discovered to her annoyance that on this particular morning she had provided herself only with an elegant square of linen, suitable for receiving such rare and joyful drops as might be expected on one's honeymoon. Peter came to the rescue with what might have been a young flag of truce.

 

"It's quite clean," he said, cheerfully. "I always carry a spare."

 

(The devil you do, said Harriet to herself; you are too well trained by half.)

 

Miss Twitterton buried her face in the silk and snuffled in a dismal manner, while Joe Sellon studiously consulted the back pages of his shorthand notes. The situation threatened to prolong itself.

 

"Shall you want Miss Twitterton any more, Mr. Kirk?" Harriet ventured, at length. "Because I really think——"

 

"Er—well," said the Superintendent. "If Miss Twitterton wouldn't mind telling us—just as a matter of form, you understand—where she was last Wednesday evening."

 

Miss Twitterton came quite briskly out of the handkerchief.

 

"But Wednesday is always choir practice," she announced, with an air of astonishment that anyone should ask so simple a question.

 

"Ah, yes," agreed Kirk. "And I suppose you'd quite naturally pop in on your uncle when that was over?"

 

"Oh, no!" said Miss Twitterton. "Indeed I didn't. I went home to supper. Wednesday's my busy night, you know."

 

"That so?" said Kirk.

 

"Yes, of course—because of market on Thursday. Why, I had half a dozen fowls to kill and pluck before I went to bed. It made me ever so late. Mr. Goodacre—he's always so kind—he's often said he knew it was inconvenient having the practice on Wednesday, but it happens to suit some of the men better, and so you see——"

 

"Six to kill and pluck," said Kirk, thoughtfully, as though estimating the time that this would take. Harriet looked at the meek Miss Twitterton in consternation.

 

"You don't mean to say you kill them yourself?"

 

"Oh, yes," said Miss Twitterton, brightly. "It's so much easier than you would think, when you're used to it."

 

Kirk burst into a guffaw, and Peter—seeing that his wife was disposed to attach over much importance to the matter—said in an amused tone:

 

"My dear girl, wringing necks is only a knack. It doesn't need strength."

 

He twisted his hands in a quick pantomime, and Kirk, either genuinely forgetting the errand he was on, or of malice prepense, added:

 

"That's right." He tightened an imaginary noose about his own bull neck. "Wring 'em or string 'em up—it's the sharp jerk does it."

 

His head flopped sideways suddenly, sickeningly. Miss Twitterton gave a squeak of alarm; for the first time, perhaps, she realised where all this had to end. Harriet was angry, and her face showed it. Men; when they got together they were all alike—even Peter. For a moment he and Kirk stood together on the far side of a chasm, and she hated them both.

 

"Steady on, Super," said Wimsey; "we're alarming the ladies."

 

"Dear, dear, that'll never do." Kirk was jovial; but the brown ox-eyes were as watchful as the grey. "Well, thank you, Miss Twitterton. I think that's all for the moment."

 

"That's all right then." Harriet got up. "It's all over. Come along and see how Mr. Puffett is getting on with the kitchen chimney." She pulled Miss Twitterton to her feet and steered her out of the room. As Peter opened the door for them, she darted a reproachful glance at him, but, as with Lancelot and Guinevere, their eyes met and hers fell.

 

"Oh, and my lady!" said the Superintendent, unmoved, "would you be so kind as to tell Mrs. Ruddle she's wanted? We must get those times straightened out a bit," he went on, addressing himself to Sellon, who grunted and took out a knife to sharpen his pencil.

 

"Well," said Peter, in a tone almost of challenge, "she was quite frank about that."

 

"Yes, my lord. She knew about it all right. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

 

"Not knowledge—learning!" Peter corrected him peevishly. "A little learning—Alexander Pope."

 

"Is that so?" replied Mr. Kirk, not at all perturbed. "I must make a note of that. Ah! it don't look as though anybody else could have got hold of the keys, but you never know."

 

"I think she was telling the truth."

 

"Reckon there's several kinds of truth, my lord. There's truth as far as you knows it; and there's truth as far as you're asked for it. But they don't represent the whole truth—not necessarily. F'rinstance, I never asked that little lady if she locked up the house after someone else, did I? All I said was, When did you last see your fa—your uncle? See?"

 

"Yes, I see. Personally, I always prefer not to have a key to the house in which they've discovered the body."

 

"There's that about it," admitted Kirk. "But there's circumstances in which you might rather it was you than somebody else, if you take my meaning. And there's times when—— What do you suppose she meant when she said, what had she done? Eh? Maybe it come to her then as she might have left them keys about, accidental on purpose. Or maybe——"

 

"That was about the money."

 

"So it was. And maybe she thought of something else she'd done as wasn't much use to her nor anybody, as it turned out. Something she was hiding there, if you ask me. If she'd been a man, I'd a-got it out of her fast enough—but women! They get howling and sniffing and you can't do nothing with them."

 

"True," said Peter; and felt in his turn a momentary resentment against the whole sex, including his wife. After all, hadn't she, more or less, ticked him off in the matter of neck-wringing? And the lady who now entered rubbing her hands on her apron and crying in self-important tones, "Did you want me, mister?"—there was nothing in her to thrill to music the silent string of chivalry. Kirk, however, knew where he was with the Mrs. Ruddles of this life and attacked the position confidently.

 

"Yes. We wanted to fix up a bit more exactly about the time of this murder. Now, Crutchley says he saw Mr. Noakes alive and well on Wednesday evening about twenty-past six. You'd gone home by then, I suppose?"

 

"Yes, I had. I only came to Mr. Noakes mornings. I wasn't in the 'ouse after dinner-time."

 

"And you came up next morning and found the place shut up?"

 

"That's right. I knocks 'ard on both doors—'im bein' a bit deaf I allus knocks 'ard, and then I gives a shout, like, under 'is bedroom winder, and then I knocks again and nothing come of it, and I says, Drat the man, I says, 'e's gone off to Broxford. Thinkin' he'd took the 10 o'clock bus the night before. There! I says, 'e might a-told me, and me not paid for last week, neither."

 

"What else did you do?"

 

"Nothing. There wasn't nothing to do. Only tell the baker and milkman not to call. And the noospaper. And leave word at the post-office to bring 'is letters down to me. Only there wasn't no letters, only two, and they was bills, so I didn't send 'em on."

 

"Ah!" said Peter. "That's the right way with bills. There, as the poet ungrammatically observes, there let them lay, like the goose with the golden eggs."

 

Mr. Kirk found this quotation confusing and refused to pursue it.

 

"Didn't you think of sending over to Miss Twitterton? She usually came down when Mr. Noakes was away. You must have been surprised not to see her."

 

"It ain't my place to go sendin' for people if they don't choose to come," said Mrs. Ruddle. "If Mr. Noakes 'ad wanted Aggie Twitterton, he could a-told her. Leastways, that's how I thought about it. 'Im bein' dead, I see now, o' course, he couldn't, but I wasn't to know that, was I? And I was inconvenienced enough, not 'avin' 'ad me money—you don't expect me to go sendin' two miles for people, as if I 'adn't enough to do without that. Nor wasting good stamps on 'em, neither. And what's more," said Mrs. Ruddle, with some energy, "I says to meself, if 'e ain't said nothing to me about goin', maybe 'e ain't told Aggie Twitterton, neither—and I ain't one to interfere in other folks' business, and don't you think it."

 

"Oh!" said Kirk. "Mean to say you thought he might have had some reason for wanting to leave the place quiet like?"

 

"Well, he might and he mightn't. That's the way I looked at it. See? Of course, there was my week's money—but there wasn't no 'urry for that. Aggie Twitterton 'ud a-paid me if I arst 'er."

 

"Of course," said Kirk. "I suppose you didn't think of asking her on Sunday when she came over to play the organ in church?"

 

"Me?" said Mrs. Ruddle, quite affronted. "I'm chapel. They're out and gone by the time we finish. Not but what I 'ave been to church now and again, but there ain't nothing to show for it. Up and down, up and down, as if one's knees wasn't wore out with scrubbing on week-days, and a pore little bit of a sermon with no 'eart in it. Mr. Goodacre's a very kind gentleman and friendly to all, I ain't sayin' a word agin' 'im, but I'm chapel and always was, and that's the other end of the village, which by the time I was back here, they've all gone 'ome and Aggie Twitterton on 'er bicycle. So you see, I couldn't ketch 'er, not if I wanted ever so."

 

"Of course you couldn't," said Kirk. "All right. Well, you didn't try to let Miss Twitterton know. I suppose you mentioned in the village that Mr. Noakes was away?"

 

"I dare say I did," admitted Mrs. Ruddle. "It wasn't nothing out o' the way."

 

"You told us," put in Peter, "that he'd gone by the bus at 10 o'clock."

 

"So I thought 'e 'ad," said Mrs. Ruddle.

 

"And that would seem natural, so there would be no inquiries. Did anybody call for Mr. Noakes during the week?"

 

"Only Mr. Goodacre. I see him on Thursday morning, poking about the place, and he sees me and hollers out, 'Is Mr. Noakes away?' 'That's right,' I says, 'gone over to Broxford,' I says. And he says, 'I'll call another day,' he says. I don't remember as nobody come after him."

 

"Then last night," resumed Kirk, "when you let this lady and gentleman in, did you find everything as usual?"

 

"That's right. Exceptin' 'is dirty supper things on the table where 'e'd left them. 'E allus 'ad 'is supper at 'ar-par-seven reg'lar. Then 'e'd set in the kitchen with the paper till 'e come in 'ere for the noos at 9.30. Very reg'lar 'e was, a very reg'lar sort of man."

 

Kirk beamed. This was the kind of information he was looking for.

 

"So he'd had his supper. But his bed hadn't been slept in?"

 

"No, it 'adn't. But of course I put on clean sheets for the lady and gentleman. I 'ope I knows what's proper. Them," explained Mrs. Ruddle, anxious to make things clear, "wos the week-before's sheets, wot wos all dried and ready Wednesday, but I couldn't take 'em in, along of the 'ouse bein' shet up. So I 'ad them all put aside neat in me kitchen, and I didn't 'ave to do more than put them to the fire a minnit and there they wos, all aired and fit for the King and Queen of England."

 

"That helps us a lot," said Kirk. "Mr. Noakes ate his supper at 7.30, so presumably he was alive then." He glanced at Peter, but Peter was offering no further embarrassing suggestions about murderers who ate their victims' suppers, and the Superintendent was encouraged to proceed. "He didn't go to bed, so that gives us—— When did he usually go to bed, Mrs. Ruddle, do you know?"

 

"Eleven o'clock, Mr. Kirk, reg'lar as clockwork, 'e'd switch off the wireless and I'd see 'is candle go upstairs to bed. I can see 'is bedroom from my back winder, plain enough."

 

"Ah! now, Mrs. Ruddle, just you cast your mind back to Wednesday night. Do you recollect seeing his candle go upstairs to bed?"

 

"Well, there!" exclaimed Mrs. Ruddle, "now you comes to mention of it, Mr. Kirk, I did not. Which I remember saying to my Bert only the next day, 'There,' I says, 'if I'd only kep' awake, I mighter known 'e'd gone off, alonger seein' 'is bedroom winder dark. But there!' I says, 'I was that wore out, I dropped off the moment me 'ead was on the piller.'"

 

"Oh, well," said Kirk, disappointed, "it don't really matter. Seeing as his bed wasn't slept in, it's likely he was downstairs when——"

 

(Thank God! thought Peter. Not in my lady's chamber.)

 

Mrs. Ruddle interrupted with a sharp screech.

 

"Oh, lor' Mr. Kirk! There now!"

 

"Have you thought of something?"

 

Mrs. Ruddle had, and her expression, as her eyes wandered from Kirk to Sellon and then to Peter, indicated that it was not only important but alarming.

 

"Why, of course. I dunno how it didn't come into me 'ead before, but I been that moithered with all these dretful things a-'appenin'. 'Course, come to think of it, if 'e wasn't off by the 'bus, then 'e must a-been dead afore 'ar-pas'-nine."

 

The constable's hand paused in its note-taking. Kirk said sharply:

 

"What makes you think that?"

 

"W'y, 'is wireless wasn't a-workin', and I says to Bert——"

 

"Just a minute. What's all this about the wireless?"

 

"W'y, Mr. Kirk, if Mr. Noakes 'ad been 'ere alive, 'e wouldn't a-missed the 9.30 noos, not if it wos ever so. 'E set great store by the last noos, pore soul—though wot good it done 'im I don't know. And I recollects sayin' to Bert last Wednesday night as ever was, 'Funny thing,' I says, 'Mr. Noakes ain't got 'is wireless goin' to-night. That ain't like 'im,' I says."

 

 

(Continued)