The Literary Lord Peter

 

CHAPTER VI

 

Back to the Army Again

 

 

The days have slain the days

And the seasons have gone by,

And brought me the Summer again;

And here on the grass I lie

As erst I lay and was glad

Ere I meddled with right and with wrong.

 

William Morris: The Half of Life Gone

 

 

Mr. MacBride turned out to be a brisk young man, bowler-hatted, with sharp black eyes that seemed to inventory everything they encountered, and a highly regrettable tie. He rapidly summed up the vicar and Mr. Puffett, dismissed them from his calculations, and made a bee-line for the monocle.

 

"'Morning," said Mr. MacBride. "Lord Peter Wimsey, I believe. Very sorry to trouble your lordship. Understand you're stopping here. Fact is, I have to see Mr. Noakes on a little matter of business."

 

"Just so," said Peter, easily. "Any fog in Town this morning?"

 

"Ow naow," replied Mr. MacBride. "Nice clear day."

 

"I thought so. I mean, I thought you must have come from Town. Bred an' bawn in a briar-patch, Brer Fox. But you might, of course, have been elsewhere since then, so I asked the question. You didn't send in your card, I fancy."

 

"Well, you see," explained Mr. MacBride, whose native accents were, indeed—apart from a trifling difficulty with his sibilants—pure Whitechapel, "my business is with Mr. Noakes. Personal and confidential."

 

At this point, Mr. Puffett, finding a long piece of twine on the floor, began to roll it up slowly and methodically, fixing his gaze upon the stranger's face in no very friendly manner.

 

"Well," resumed Peter, "I'm afraid you have had your journey for nothing. Mr. Noakes isn't here. I only wish he was. But you'll probably find him over at Broxford."

 

"Oh, no," said Mr. MacBride again. "That won't work. Not a bit of it." A step at the door made him swing round sharply, but it was only Crutchley, armed with a pail and a broom and shovel. Mr. MacBride laughed. "I've been over to Broxford, and they said I should find him here."

 

"Did they indeed?" said Peter. "That's right, Crutchley. Sweep up this mess and get these papers cleared. Said he was here, did they? Then they were mistaken. He's not here and we don't know where he is."

 

"But," cried Miss Twitterton, "it isn't possible! Not over at Broxford? Then where can he be? It's most worrying. Oh, dear, Mr. Goodacre, can't you suggest something?"

 

"Sorry to make such a dust," said Peter. "We have had a slight domestic accident with some soot. Excellent thing for the flower-beds. Garden pests are said to dislike it. Yes. Well now, this is Mr. Noakes's niece, Miss Twitterton. Perhaps you can state your business to her."

 

"Sorry," said Mr. MacBride, "nothing doing. I've got to see the old gentleman personally. And it's no good trying to put me off, because I know all the dodges." He skipped nimbly over the broom that Crutchley was plying about his feet, and sat down, uninvited, on the settle.

 

"Young man," said Mr. Goodacre, rebukingly, "you had better keep a civil tongue in your head. Lord Peter Wimsey has given you his personal assurance that we do not know where to find Mr. Noakes. You do not suppose that his lordship would tell you an untruth?"

 

His lordship, who had wandered over to a distant what-not, and was hunting through a pile of his personal belongings placed there by Bunter, glanced at his wife and cocked a modest eyebrow.

 

"Oh, wouldn't he, though?" said Mr. MacBride. "There's nobody like the British aristocracy to tell you a good stiff lie without batting an eyelid. His lordship's face would be a fortune to him in the witness-box."

 

"Where," added Peter, extricating a box of cigars from the pile and addressing it in confidence, "it is not unknown."

 

"So you see," said MacBride, "that cock won't fight."

 

He stretched his legs out negligently, to show that he intended to stay where he was. Mr. Puffett, groping about his feet, discovered a stray stub of pencil and put it in his pocket with a grunt.

 

"Mr. MacBride." Peter had returned, box in hand. "Have a cigar. Now then, who do you represent?"

 

He stared down at his visitor with an eye so shrewd and a mouth so humorous that Mr. MacBride, accepting the cigar and recognising its quality, pulled himself together, sat up and acknowledged his intellectual equal with a conspiratorial wink.

 

"Macdonald & Abrahams," said Mr. MacBride. "Bedford Row."

 

"Ah, yes. That clannish old North British firm. Solicitors? I thought so. Something to Mr. Noakes's advantage? No doubt. Well, you want him and so do we. So does this lady here...."

 

"Yes, indeed," said Miss Twitterton, "I'm very worried about Uncle. We haven't seen him since last Wednesday, and I'm sure——"

 

"But," pursued Peter, "you won't find him in my house."

 

"Your house?"

 

"My house. I have just purchased this house from Mr. Noakes."

 

"Whew!" exclaimed Mr. MacBride excitedly, blowing out a long jet of smoke. "So that's the nigger in the woodpile. Bought the house, eh? Paid for it?"

 

"Really, really!" cried the vicar, scandalised. Mr. Puffett, struggling into a sweater, remained with arms suspended.

 

"Naturally," said Peter. "I have paid for it."

 

"Skipped, by thunder!" exclaimed Mr. MacBride. His sudden gesture dislodged his bowler from his knee and sent it spinning and skipping to Mr. Puffett's feet. Crutchley dropped the heap of papers he had collected and stood staring.

 

"Skipped?" shrieked Miss Twitterton. "What do you mean by that? Oh, what does he mean, Lord Peter?"

 

"Oh, hush!" said Harriet. "He doesn't really know, any more than we do."

 

"Gone away," explained Mr. MacBride. "Vamoosed. Done a bunk. Skipped with the cash. Is that clear enough? If I've said it to Mr. Abrahams once, I've said it a thousand times. If you don't come down sharp on that fellow Noakes, he'll skip, I said. And he has skipped, ain't it?"

 

"It looks like it, certainly," said Peter.

 

"Skipped?" Crutchley was indignant. "It's easy for you to say skipped. What about my forty pound?"

 

"Oh, Frank!" cried Miss Twitterton.

 

"Ah, you're another of 'em, are you?" said Mr. MacBride, with condescending sympathy. "Forty pounds, eh? Well, what about us? What about our client's money?"

 

"But what money?" gasped Miss Twitterton in an agony of apprehension. "Whose money? I don't understand. What's it all got to do with Uncle William?"

 

"Peter," said Harriet, "don't you think——?"

 

"It's no good," said Wimsey. "It's got to come out."

 

"See this?" said Mr. MacBride. "That's a writ, that is. Little matter of nine hundred pound."

 

"Nine 'undred?" Crutchley made a snatch for the paper as though it were negotiable security for that amount.

 

"Nine hundred pounds!" Miss Twitterton's was the top note in the chorus. Peter shook his head.

 

"Capital and interest," said Mr. MacBride, calmly. "Levy, Levy & Levy. Running five years. Can't wait for ever, you know."

 

"My uncle's business——" began Miss Twitterton. "Oh, there must be some mistake."

 

"Your uncle's business, miss," said Mr. MacBride, bluntly but not altogether unsympathetically, "hasn't got a leg to stand on. Mortgage on the shop and not a hundred pounds' worth of stock in the place—and I don't suppose that's paid for. Your uncle's broke, that's what it is. Broke."

 

"Broke?" exclaimed Crutchley, with passion. "And how about my forty quid what he made me put into his business?"

 

"Well, you won't see that again, Mr. Whoever-you-are," returned the clerk, coolly. "Not without we catch the old gentleman and make him cough up the cash. Even then—might I ask, my lord, what you paid for the house? No offence, but it does make a difference."

 

"Six-fifty," said Peter.

 

"Cheap," said Mr. MacBride, shortly.

 

"So we thought," replied his lordship. "It was valued at eight hundred for mortgage; but he took our offer for cash."

 

"Looking for a mortgage, was he?"

 

"I don't know. I took pains to make sure that there were, in fact, no encumbrances. Further, I did not inquire."

 

"Ha!" said Mr. MacBride. "Well, you got a bargain."

 

"It will need a good bit of money spent on it," said Peter. "As a matter of fact, we'd have paid what he wanted if he'd insisted; my wife had a fancy for the place. But he accepted our first offer; ours not to question why. Business is business."

 

"Hum!" said Mr. MacBride, with respect. "And some people think the aristocracy's a soft proposition. Then I gather you're not altogether surprised."

 

"Not in the least," said Peter.

 

Miss Twitterton looked bewildered.

 

"Well, it's all the worse for our client," said Mr. MacBride, frankly. "Six-fifty won't cover us, even if we get it; and now he's gone and beat it with the money."

 

"Given me the slip, the swindlin' old devil!" ejaculated Crutchley, in angry tones.

 

"Steady, steady, Crutchley," implored the vicar. "Remember where you are. Think of Miss Twitterton."

 

"There's the furniture," said Harriet. "That belongs to him."

 

"If it's paid for," said Mr. MacBride, summing up the contents of the room with a contemptuous eye.

 

"But it's dreadful!" cried Miss Twitterton. "I can't believe it! We always thought Uncle was so well off."

 

"So he is," said Mr. MacBride. "Well off out of this. About a thousand miles by this time. Not heard of since last Wednesday? Well, there you are. A nice job, I don't think. Fact is, with all these transport facilities, it's too easy nowadays for absconding debtors to clear out."

 

"See here!" cried Crutchley, losing all control of himself. "You mean to say, even if you find him, I shan't get my forty pounds? It's a damn' disgrace, that's what it is——"

 

"Hold hard," said Mr. MacBride. "He didn't take you into partnership or anything, I suppose? No? Well, that's a bit of luck for you, anyway. We can't come on you for what's missing. You thank your stars you're out of it for your forty pounds. It's all experience, ain't it?"

 

"Curse you!" said Crutchley. "I'll 'ave my forty pounds out o' somebody. Here, you, Aggie Twitterton—you know he promised to pay me. I'll 'ave the law on you! Crooked, swindlin'——"

 

"Come, come," interposed Mr. Goodacre again. "It's not Miss Twitterton's fault. You must not fly into a passion. We must all try to think calmly——"

 

"Quite," said Peter. "Definitely. Let us beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. And talking of temperance, how about a mild spot? Bunter!—Oh, there you are. Have we any drink in the house?"

 

"Certainly, my lord. Hock, sherry, whisky——"

 

Here Mr. Puffett thought well to intervene. Wines and spirits were scarcely in his line.

 

"Mr. Noakes," he observed, in a detached manner, "always kep' a good barrel of beer in the 'ouse. I will say that for him."

 

"Excellent. Strictly speaking, I suppose, Mr. MacBride, it's your client's beer. But if you have no objection——"

 

"Well," conceded Mr. MacBride, "a drop of beer's neither here nor there, is it now?"

 

"A jug of beer, then, Bunter, and the whisky. Oh, and sherry for the ladies."

 

Bunter departed on this mollifying errand, and the atmosphere seemed to grow calmer. Mr. Goodacre seized on the last words to introduce a less controversial topic:

 

"Sherry," he said, pleasantly, "has always appeared to me a most agreeable wine. I was so glad to read in the newspaper that it was coming into its own again. Madeira, too. They tell me that both sherry and madeira are returning to favour in London. And in the Universities. That is a very reassuring sign. I cannot think that these modern cocktails can be either healthful or palatable. Surely not. But I can see no objection to a glass of sound wine now and again—for the stomach's sake, as the Apostle says. It is undoubtedly restorative in moments of agitation, like the present. I am afraid, Miss Twitterton, this has been a sad shock to you."

 

"I couldn't have thought it of Uncle," said Miss Twitterton, sadly. "He has always been so much looked-up to. I simply can't believe it."

 

"I can—easily," said Crutchley, in the sweep's ear.

 

"You never know," said Mr. Puffett, struggling into his top-coat. "I always thought Mr. Noakes was a warm man. Seems like he was 'ot stuff."

 

"Gone off with my forty quid!" Automatically, Crutchley picked up the papers from the floor. "And never paid me only 2 per cent, neither, the old thief! I never did like that wireless business."

 

"Ah!" said Mr. Puffett. He caught at a loose end of string dangling from among the papers and reeled it out on his fingers, so that they looked absurdly like a stout maiden lady and her companion engaged in winding knitting wool. "Safe bind, safe find, Frank Crutchley. You can't be too careful where you puts your money. Pick it up where you finds it and put it away careful, same as I does this bit of twine, and there it is, 'andy when you wants it." He stowed the string away in a remote pocket.

 

To this piece of sententiousness, Crutchley returned no answer. He went out, giving place to Bunter, who, with an inscrutable face, was balancing upon a tin tray a black bottle, a bottle of whisky, an earthenware jug, the two tumblers of the night before, three cut-glass goblets (one with a chipped foot), a china mug with a handle and two pewter pots of different sizes.

 

"Good lord!" said Peter. (Bunter's eyes lifted for a moment like those of a scolded spaniel.) "These must be the Baker Street Irregulars; the chief thing is that they all have a hole in the top. I am told that Mr. Woolworth sells a very good selection of glassware. In the meantime, Miss Twitterton, will you take sherry as a present from Margate or toss off your Haig in a tankard?"

 

"Oh!" said Miss Twitterton. "I'm sure there are some in the chiffonier—— Oh, thank you so much, but at this time in the morning—and then they would need dusting, because Uncle didn't use them—— Well, I really don't know——"

 

"It'll do you good."

 

"I think you need a little something," said Harriet.

 

"Oh, do you, Lady Peter? Well—if you insist—— Only sherry, then, and only a little of that—— Of course, it isn't really so early any longer, is it?—Oh, please, really, I'm sure you're giving me far too much!"

 

"I assure you," said Peter, "you will find it as mild as your own parsnip wine." He handed her the mug gravely, and poured a small quantity of sherry into a tumbler for his wife, who accepted it with the remark:

 

"You are a master of meiosis."

 

"Thank you, Harriet. What's your poison, padre?"

 

"Sherry, thank you, sherry. Your health, my dear young people." He clinked the tumbler solemnly against Miss Twitterton's mug, taking her by surprise. "Take courage, Miss Twitterton. Things mayn't be as bad as they seem."

 

"Thank you," said Mr. MacBride, waving away the whisky. "I'll wait for the beer if it's all the same to you. No spirits in office hours is my motto. I'm sure it's no pleasure to me, bringing all this unfortunate disturbance into a family. But business is business, ain't it, your lordship? And we've got our clients to consider."

 

"You're not to blame," said Peter. "Miss Twitterton realises that you are only doing your rather unpleasant duty. They also serve who only serve writs, you know."

 

"I'm sure," cried Miss Twitterton, "if we could only find Uncle, he would explain everything."

 

"If we could find him," agreed Mr. MacBride, meaningly.

 

"Yes," said Peter, "much virtue in if. If we could find Mr. Noakes——" The door opened, and he dismissed the question with an air of relief. "Ah! Beer, glorious beer!"

 

"Excuse me, my lord." Bunter stood on the threshold empty-handed. "I'm afraid we have found Mr. Noakes."

 

"Afraid you've found him?" Master and man stared at one another, and Harriet, reading the unspoken message in their eyes, came up to Peter and laid a hand on his arm.

 

"For God's sake, Bunter," said Wimsey, with a strained note in his voice, "don't say you've found—— Where? Down the cellar?"

 

The voice of Mrs. Ruddle broke the tension like the wail of a banshee:

 

"Frank! Frank Crutchley! It's Mr. Noakes!"

 

"Yes, my lord," said Bunter.

 

Miss Twitterton, unexpectedly quick-witted, sprang to her feet. "He's dead! Uncle's dead!" The mug rolled from her hands to crash on the hearth-stone.

 

"No, no," said Harriet, "they can't mean that."

 

"Oh, no, impossible," said Mr. Goodacre. He looked appealingly at Bunter, who bent his head.

 

"I am very much afraid so, sir."

 

Crutchley, thrusting him aside, burst in. "What's happened? What's Ma Ruddle shouting about? Where's——?"

 

"I knew it, I knew it!" shrieked Miss Twitterton, recklessly. "I knew something terrible had happened! Uncle's dead and all the money's gone!"

 

She burst into a fit of hiccupping laughter, made a dart towards Crutchley, who recoiled with a gasp, broke from the vicar's supporting hand and flung herself hysterically into Harriet's arms.

 

"Here!" said Mr. Puffett, "let's 'ave a look."

 

He made for the door, cannoning into Crutchley. Bunter profited by the confusion to fling the door to and set his back against it.

 

"Wait a minute," said Bunter. "Better not touch anything."

 

As if the words were a signal for which he had been waiting, Peter took up his cold pipe from the table, knocked it out on his palm and flung the crushed ashes upon the tray.

 

"Perhaps," said Mr. Goodacre, as one who hopes against hope, "he has only fainted." He rose eagerly. "We might be able to assist him——"

 

His voice trailed away.

 

"Dead some days," said Bunter, "from the looks of him, sir." His eye was still on Peter.

 

"Has he got the money on him?" inquired MacBride. The vicar, unheeding, flung another question, like a wave, against the stone wall of Bunter's impassivity:

 

"But how did it happen, my man? Did he fall down the stairs in a fit?"

 

"Cut his throat, more likely," said Mr. MacBride.

 

Bunter, still looking at Peter, said with emphasis: "It isn't suicide." Feeling the door thrust against his shoulder, he moved aside to admit Mrs. Ruddle.

 

"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" cried Mrs. Ruddle. Her eyes gleamed with a dismal triumph. "'Is pore 'ead's bashed in something shocking!"

 

"Bunter!" said Wimsey, and spoke the word at last: "Are you trying to tell us that this is murder?"

 

Miss Twitterton slid from Harriet's arms to the floor.

 

"I couldn't say, my lord; but it looks most unpleasantly like it."

 

"Get me a glass of water, please," said Harriet.

 

"Yes, my lady. Mrs. Ruddle! Glass of water—sharp!"

 

"Very well," said Peter, mechanically pouring water into a goblet and giving it to the charwoman. "Leave everything as it is. Crutchley, you'd better go for the police."

 

"If," said Mrs. Ruddle, "if it's the perlice you're wanting, there's young Joe Sellon—that's the constable, a-standing at my gate this very minnit a-yarning with my Albert. I seen 'im not five minutes agone, and if I knows anything o' them boys when they gits talking——"

 

"The water," said Harriet. Peter stalked over to Crutchley, carrying with him a stiff peg of neat spirits.

 

"Take this and pull yourself together. Then run over to the cottage and get this chap Sellon or whatever his name is. Quick."

 

"Thank you, my lord." The young man jerked himself from his daze and swallowed the whisky at a gulp. "It's a bit of a shock."

 

He went out. Mr. Puffett followed him.

 

"I suppose," said Mr. Puffett, nudging Bunter gently in the ribs, "you didn't manage to get that beer up afore—eh? Oh, well—there's worse happens in war."

 

"She's better now, pore thing," said Mrs. Ruddle. "Come on, don't give way now, there's a dear. What you want is a nice lay-down and a cupper tea. Shall I take 'er upstairs, me lady?"

 

"Do," said Harriet. "I'll come in a moment."

 

She let them go and turned to Peter, who stood motionless, staring down at the table. Oh, my God! she thought, startled by his face, he's a middle-aged man—the half of life gone—he mustn't——

 

"Peter, my poor dear! And we came here for a quiet honeymoon!"

 

He turned at her touch and laughed ruefully.

 

"Damn!" he said. "And damn! Back to the old grind. Rigor mortis and who-saw-him-last, blood-prints, finger-prints, footprints, information received and it-is-my-dooty-to-warn-you. Quelle scie, mon dieu, quelle scie!"

 

A young man in a blue uniform put his head in at the door.

 

"Now then," said Police-constable Sellon, "wot's all this?"