Lord Peter Views the Body Page 5

  ‘I am not, however, unmindful of the fact that your mother is my sister, and you and she my only surviving relatives. I shall accordingly amuse myself by drawing up today a second will, superseding the other and leaving the money to you.

  ‘I have always held that woman is a frivolous animal. A woman who pretends to be serious is wasting her time and spoiling her appearance. I consider that you have wasted your time to a really shocking extent. Accordingly, I intend to conceal this will, and that in such a manner that you will certainly never find it unless by the exercise of a sustained frivolity.

  ‘I hope you will contrive to be frivolous enough to become the heiress of your affectionate

  ‘Uncle Meleager.’

  ‘Couldn’t we use that letter as proof of the testator’s intention, and fight the will?’ asked Mary anxiously.

  ‘ ’Fraid not,’ said Lord Peter. ‘You see, there’s no evidence here that the will was ever actually drawn up. Though I suppose we could find the witnesses.’

  ‘We’ve tried,’ said Miss Marryat, ‘but, as you see, Uncle Meleager was travelling abroad at the time, and he probably got some obscure people in some obscure Italian town to witness it for him. We advertised, but got no answer.’

  ‘H’m. Uncle Meleager doesn’t seem to have left things to chance. And, anyhow, wills are queer things, and so are the probate and divorce wallahs. Obviously the thing to do is to find the other will. Did the clues he speaks of turn up among his papers?’

  ‘We hunted through everything. And, of course, we had the whole house searched from top to bottom for the will. But it was quite useless.’

  ‘You’ve not destroyed anything, of course. Who were the executors of the Primrose League will?’

  ‘Mother and Mr Sands, Uncle Meleager’s solicitor. The will left mother a silver teapot for her trouble.’

  ‘I like Uncle Meleager more and more. Anyhow, he did the sporting thing. I’m beginnin’ to enjoy this case like anything. Where did Uncle Meleager hang out?’

  ‘It’s an old house down at Dorking. It’s rather quaint. Somebody had a fancy to build a little Roman villa sort of thing there, with a verandah behind, with columns and a pond in the front hall, and statues. It’s very decent there just now, though it’s awfully cold in the winter, with all those stone floors and stone stairs and the skylight over the hall! Mother said perhaps you would be very kind and come down and have a look at it.’

  ‘I’d simply love to. Can we start tomorrow? I promise you we’ll be frivolous enough to please even Uncle Meleager, if you’ll do your bit, Miss Marryat. Won’t we, Mary?’

  ‘Rather! And, I say, hadn’t we better be moving if we’re going to the Pallambra?’

  ‘I never go to music halls,’ said Miss Marryat ungraciously.

  ‘Oh, but you must come tonight,’ said his lordship persuasively. ‘It’s so frivolous. Just think how it would please Uncle Meleager.’

  Accordingly, the next day found the party, including the indispensable Mr Bunter, assembled at Uncle Meleager’s house. Pending the settlement of the will question, there had seemed every reason why Mr Finch’s executrix and next-of-kin should live in the house, thus providing every facility for what Lord Peter called the ‘Treasure-hunt’. After being introduced to Mrs Marryat, who was an invalid and remained in her room, Lady Mary and her brother were shown over the house by Miss Marryat, who explained to them how carefully the search had been conducted. Every paper had been examined, every book in the library scrutinised page by page, the walls and chimneys tapped for hiding-places, the boards taken up, and so forth, but with no result.

  ‘Y’know,’ said his lordship, ‘I’m sure you’ve been going the wrong way to work. My idea is, old Uncle Meleager was a man of his word. If he said frivolous, he meant really frivolous. Something beastly silly. I wonder what it was.’

  He was still wondering when he went up to dress. Bunter was putting studs in his shirt. Lord Peter gazed thoughtfully at him, and then enquired:

  ‘Are any of Mr Finch’s old staff still here?’

  ‘Yes, my lord. The cook and the housekeeper. Wonderful old gentleman they say he was, too. Eighty-three, but as up-to-date as you please. Had his wireless in his bedroom, and enjoyed the Savoy bands every night of his life. Followed his politics, and was always ready with the details of the latest big law cases. If a young lady came to see him, he’d like to see she had her hair shingled and the latest style in fashions’. They say he took up cross-words as soon as they came in, and was remarkably quick at solving them, my lord, and inventing them. Took a £10 prize in the Daily Yell for one, and was wonderfully pleased to get it, they say, my lord, rich as he was.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Yes, my lord. He was a great man for acrostics before that, I understood them to say, but, when cross-words came in, he threw away his acrostics and said he liked the new game better. Wonderfully adaptable, if I may say so, he seems to have been for an old gentleman.’

  ‘Was he, by Jove?’ said his lordship absently and then, with sudden energy:

  ‘Bunter, I’d like to double your salary, but I suppose you’d take it as an insult.’

  The conversation bore fruit at dinner.

  ‘What,’ enquired his lordship, ‘happened to Uncle Meleager’s cross-words?’

  ‘Cross-words?’ said Hannah Marryat, knitting her heavy brows. ‘Oh, those puzzle things! Poor old man, he went mad over them. He had every newspaper sent him, and in his last illness he’d be trying to fill the wretched things in. It was worse than his acrostics and his jig-saw puzzles. Poor old creature, he must have been senile, I’m afraid. Of course, we looked through them, but there wasn’t anything there. We put them all in the attic.’

  ‘The attic for me,’ said Lord Peter.

  ‘And for me,’ said Mary. ‘I don’t believe there was anything senile about Uncle Meleager.’

  The evening was warm, and they had dined in the little viridarium at the back of the house, with its tall vases and hanging baskets of flowers and little marble statues.

  ‘Is there an attic here?’ said Peter. ‘It seems such a — well, such an un-attic thing to have in a house like this.’

  ‘It’s just a horrid, poky little hole over the porch,’ said Miss Marryat, rising and leading the way. ‘Don’t tumble into the pond, will you? It’s a great nuisance having it there, especially at night. I always tell them to leave a light on.’

  Lord Peter glanced into the miniature impluvium, with its tiling of red, white, and black marble.

  ‘That’s not a very classic design,’ he observed.

  ‘No. Uncle Meleager used to complain about it and say he must have it altered. There was a proper one once, I believe, but it got damaged, and the man before Uncle Meleager had it replaced by some local idiot. He built three bay windows out of the dining-room at the same time, which made it very much lighter and pleasanter, of course, but it looks awful. Now, this tiling is all right; uncle put that in himself.’

  She pointed to a mosaic dog at the threshold, with the motto, ‘Cave canem,’ and Lord Peter recognised it as a copy of a Pompeian original.

  A narrow stair brought them to the ‘attic’, where the Wimseys flung themselves with enthusiasm upon a huge heap of dusty old newspapers and manuscripts. The latter seemed the likelier field, so they started with them. They consisted of a quantity of crosswords in manuscript — presumably the children of Uncle Meleager’s own brain. The square, the list of definitions, and the solution were in every case neatly pinned together. Some (early efforts, no doubt) were childishly simple, but others were difficult, with allusive or punning clues; some of the ordinary newspaper type, others in the form of rhymed distichs. They scrutinised the solutions closely, and searched the definitions for acrostics or hidden words, unsuccessfully for a long time.

  ‘This one’s a funny one,’ said Mary, ‘nothing seems to fit. Oh! it’s two pinned together. No, it isn’t — yes, it is — it’s only been pinned up wrong. Peter, have you seen th
e puzzle belonging to these clues anywhere?’

  ‘What one’s that?’

  ‘Well, it’s numbered rather funnily, with Roman and Arabic numerals, and it starts off with a thing that hasn’t got any numbers at all:

  ‘Truth, poor girl, was nobody’s daughter.

  She took off her clothes and jumped into the water.’

  ‘Frivolous old wretch!’ said Miss Marryat.

  ‘Friv — here, gimme that!’ cried Lord Peter. ‘Look here, I say, Miss Marryat, you oughtn’t to have overlooked this.’

  ‘I thought it just belonged to that other square.’

  ‘Not it. It’s different. I believe it’s our thing. Listen:

  ‘Your expectation to be rich

  Here will reach its highest pitch.

  ‘That’s one for you, Miss Marryat. Mary, hunt about. We must find the square that belongs to this.’

  But, though they turned everything upside-down, they could find no square with Roman and Arabic numerals.

  ‘Hang it all!’ said Peter, ‘it must be made to fit one of these others. Look! I know what he’s done. He’s just taken a fifteen-letter square, and numbered it with Roman figures one way and Arabic the other. I bet its fits into that one it was pinned up with.’

  But the one it was pinned up with turned out to have only thirteen squares.

  ‘Dash it all,’ said his lordship, ‘we’ll have to carry the whole lot down, and work away at it till we find the one it does fit.’

  He snatched up a great bundle of newspapers, and led the way out. The others followed, each with an armful. The search had taken some time, and the atrium was in semi-darkness.

  ‘Where shall I take them?’ asked Lord Peter, calling back over his shoulder.

  ‘Hi!’ cried Mary; and, ‘Look where you’re going!’ cried her friend.

  They were too late. A splash and a flounder proclaimed that Lord Peter had walked, like Johnny Head-in-Air, over the edge of the impluvium, papers and all.

  ‘You ass!’ said Mary.

  His lordship scrambled out, spluttering, and Hannah Marryat suddenly burst out into the first laugh Peter had ever heard her give.

  ‘Truth, they say, was nobody’s daughter;

  She took off her clothes and fell into the water’

  she proclaimed.

  ‘Well, I couldn’t take my clothes off with you here, could I?’ grumbled Lord Peter. ‘We’ll have to fish out the papers. I’m afraid they’ve got a bit damp.’

  Miss Marryat turned on the lights, and they started to clear the basin.

  ‘Truth, poor girl —’ began Lord Peter, and suddenly, with a little shriek, began to dance on the marble edge of the impluvium.

  ‘One, two, three, four, five, six —’

  ‘Quite, quite demented,’ said Mary. ‘How shall I break it to mother?’

  ‘Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen!’ cried his lordship, and sat down, suddenly and damply, exhausted by his own excitement.

  ‘Feeling better?’ asked his sister acidly.

  ‘I’m well. I’m all right. Everything’s all right I love Uncle Meleager. Fifteen squares each way. Look at it. Look at it. The truth’s in the water. Didn’t he say so. Oh, frabjous day! Callool callay! I chortle. Mary, what became of those definitions?’

  ‘They’re in your pocket, all damp,’ said Mary.

  Lord Peter snatched them out hurriedly.

  ‘It’s all right, they haven’t run,’ he said. ‘Oh, darling Uncle Meleager. Can you drain the impluvium, Miss Marryat, and find a bit of charcoal. Then I’ll get some dry clothes on and we’ll get down to it. Don’t you see? There’s your missing crossword square — on the floor of the impluvium!’

  It took, however, some time to get the basin emptied, and it was not till next morning that the party, armed with sticks of charcoal, squatted down in the empty impluvium to fill in Uncle Meleager’s cross-word on the marble tiles. Their first difficulty was to decide whether the red squares counted as stops or had to be filled in, but, after a few definitions had been solved, the construction of the puzzle grew apace. The investigators grew steadily hotter and more thickly covered with charcoal, while the attentive Mr Bunter hurried to and fro between the atrium and the library, and the dictionaries piled up on the edge of the impluvium.

  Truth, poor girl, was nobody’s daughter.

  She took off her clothes and jumped into the water.’

  Across.

  I.1. Foolish or wise, yet one remains alone,

  Twixt Strength and Justice on a heavenly throne.

  XI.1. O to what ears the chink of gold was sweet!

  The greed for treasure brought him but defeat.

  ‘That’s a hint to us,’ said Lord Peter.

  I.2. One drop of vinegar to two of oil

  Dresses this curly head sprung from the soil.

  X.2. Nothing itself, it needs but little more

  To be that nothingness the Preacher saw.

  I.3. Dusty though my fellows be,

  We are a kingly company.

  IV.3. Have your own will, though here, I hold,

  The new is not a patch upon the old.

  XIV.3. Any loud cry would do as well,

  Or so the poet’s verses tell.

  I.4. This is the most unkindest cut of all,

  Except your skill be mathematical.

  X.4. Little and hid from mortal sight.

  I darkly work to make all light.

  I.5. The need for this (like that it’s cut off short)

  The building of a tower to humans taught.

  XI.5. ‘More than mind discloses and more than men believe’

  (A definition by man whom Pussyfoot doth grieve).

  II.6. Backward observe her turn her way,

  The way of wisdom, wise men say.

  VII.6. Grew long ago by river’s edge

  Where grows to-day the common sedge.

  XII.6. One of three by which, they say,

  You’ll know the Cornishmen alway.

  VI.7. Blow upon blow; five more the vanquished Roman shows;

  And if the foot slip one, on crippled feet one goes.

  I.8. By this Jew’s work the whole we find,

  In a glass clearly, darkly in the mind.

  IX.8. Little by little see it grow

  Till cut off short by hammer-blow.

  VI.9. Watch him go; heel and toe,

  Across the wide Karroo!

  II.10. In expectation to be rich

  Here you reach the highest pitch.

  VII.10. Of this, concerning nothing, much —

  Too often do we hear of such!

  XII.10. O’er land and sea, passing on deadly wings,

  Pain to the strong, to weaklings death it brings.

  I.11 Requests like these, however long they be,

  Stop just too soon for common courtesy.

  XI.11 Caesar, the living dead salute thee here,

  Facing for thy delight tooth, claw, and spear.

  I.12. One word had served, but he in ranting vein

  ‘Lend me your ears’ must mouth o’er Caesar slain.

  X.12. Helical circumvolution

  Adumbrates correct solution.

  I.13. One that works for Irish men

  Both by word and deed and pen.

  ‘That’s an easy one,’ said Miss Marryat.

  IV.13. Seven out of twelve this number makes complete

  As the sun journeys on from seat to seat

  XIV.13.My brothers play with planets; Cicero,

  Master of words, my master is below.

  I.14. Free of her jesses let the falcon fly,

  With sight undimmed into the azure sky.

  X.14. And so you dine with Borgia? Let me lend

  You this as a precaution, my poor friend.

  I.15. Friendship carried to excess

  Got him in a horrid mess.

  XI.15. Smooth and elastic and, I guess,

  The dearest treasure you possess.

  Down

 
1.I. If step by step the Steppes you wander through.

  Many of those in this, of these in those you’ll view.

  ‘Bunter,’ said Lord Peter, ‘bring me a whisky-and-soda!’

  11.I. If me without my head you do,

  Then generously my head renew,

  Or put it to my hinder end —

  Your cheer it shall nor may nor mend.

  1.II Quietly, quietly, ’twixt edge and edge,

  Do this unto the thin end of the wedge.

  10.II ‘Something that hath a reference to my state?’

  Just as you like, it shall be written straight.

  1.III When all is read, then give the world its due,

  And never need the world read this of you.

  ‘That’s a comfort,’ said Lady Mary. ‘It shows we’re on the right lines.’

  4.III. Sing Nunc Dimittis and Magnificat —

  But look a little farther back than that.

  14.III. Here in brief epitome