Clouds of Witness Read online

  ‘You just come from Jerry?’ he asked. ‘Fresh toast, please, Fleming. How is he? Enjoyin’ it? I never knew a fellow like Jerry for gettin’ the best possible out of any situation. I’d rather like the experience myself, you know; only I’d hate bein’ shut up and watchin’ the other idiots bunglin’ my case. No reflection on Murbles and you, Biggs. I mean myself – I mean the man who’d be me if I was Jerry. You follow me?’

  ‘I was just saying to Sir Impey,’ said the Duchess, ‘that he really must make Gerald say what he was doing in the garden at three in the morning. If only I’d been at Riddlesdale none of this would have happened. Of course, we all know that he wasn’t doing any harm, but we can’t expect the jurymen to understand that. The lower orders are so prejudiced. It is absurd of Gerald not to realise that he must speak out. He has no consideration.’

  ‘I am doing my very best to persuade him, Duchess,’ said Sir Impey, ‘but you must have patience. Lawyers enjoy a little mystery, you know. Why, if everybody came forward and told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth straight out, we should all retire to the workhouse.’

  ‘Captain Cathcart’s death is very mysterious,’ said the Duchess, ‘though when I think of the things that have come out about him it really seems quite providential, as far as my sister-in-law is concerned.’

  ‘I s’pose you couldn’t get ’em to bring it in “Death by the Visitation of God,” could you, Biggs?’ suggested Lord Peter. ‘Sort of judgement for wantin’ to marry into our family, what?’

  ‘I have known less reasonable verdicts,’ returned Biggs drily. ‘It’s wonderful what you can suggest to a jury if you try. I remember once at the Liverpool Assizes—’

  He steered skilfully away into a quiet channel of reminiscence. Lord Peter watched his statuesque profile against the fire; it reminded him of the severe beauty of the charioteer of Delphi and was about as communicative.

  It was not until after dinner that Sir lmpey opened his mind to Wimsey. The Duchess had gone to bed, and the two men were alone in the library. Peter, scrupulously in evening dress, had been valeted by Bunter, and had been more than usually rambling and cheerful all evening. He now took a cigar, retired to the largest chair, and effaced himself in a complete silence.

  Sir Impey Biggs walked up and down for some half-hour, smoking. Then he came across with determination, brutally switched on a reading-lamp right into Peter’s face, sat down opposite to him, and said:

  ‘Now, Wimsey, I want to know all you know.’

  ‘Do you, though?’ said Peter. He got up, disconnected the reading-lamp, and carried it away to a side-table.

  ‘No bullying of the witness, though,’ he added, and grinned.

  ‘I don’t care so long as you wake up,’ said Biggs, unperturbed. ‘Now then.’

  Lord Peter removed his cigar from his mouth, considered it with his head on one side, turned it carefully over, decided that the ash could hang on to its parent leaf for another minute or two, smoked without speaking until collapse was inevitable, took the cigar out again, deposited the ash entire in the exact centre of the ash-tray, and began his statement, omitting only the matter of the suitcase and Bunter’s information obtained from Ellen.

  Sir Impey Biggs listened with what Peter irritably described as a cross-examining countenance, putting a sharp question every now and again. He made a few notes, and, when Wimsey had finished, sat tapping his note-book thoughtfully.

  ‘I think we can make a case out of this,’ he said, ‘even if the police don’t find your mysterious man. Denver’s silence is an awkward complication, of course.’ He hooded his eyes for a moment. ‘Did you say you’d put the police on to find the fellow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you a very poor opinion of the police?’

  ‘Not for that kind of thing. That’s in their line; they have all the facilities, and do it well.’

  ‘Ah! You expect to find the man, do you?’

  ‘I hope to.’

  ‘Ah! What do you think is going to happen to my case if you do find him, Wimsey?’

  ‘What do I—’

  ‘See here, Wimsey,’ said the barrister, ‘you are not a fool, and it’s no use trying to look like a country policeman. You are really trying to find this man?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Just as you like, of course, but my hands are rather tied already. Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps he’d better not be found?’

  Wimsey stared at the lawyer with such honest astonishment as actually to disarm him.

  ‘Remember this,’ said the latter earnestly, ‘that if once the police get hold of a thing or a person it’s no use relying on my, or Murble’s, or anybody’s professional discretion. Everything’s raked out into the light of common day, and very common it is. Here’s Denver accused of murder, and he refuses in the most categorical way to give me the smallest assistance.’

  ‘Jerry’s an ass. He doesn’t realise—’

  ‘Do you suppose,’ broke in Biggs, ‘I have not made it my business to make him realise? All he says is, “They can’t hang me; I didn’t kill the man, though I think it’s a jolly good thing he’s dead. It’s no business of theirs what I was doing in the garden.” Now I ask you, Wimsey, is that a reasonable attitude for a man in Denver’s position to take up?’

  Peter muttered something about ‘Never had any sense.’

  ‘Had anybody told Denver about this other man?’

  ‘Something vague was said about footsteps at the inquest, I believe.’

  ‘That Scotland Yard man is your personal friend, I’m told?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So much the better. He can hold his tongue.’

  ‘Look here, Biggs, this is all damned impressive and mysterious, but what are you gettin’ at? Why shouldn’t I lay hold of the beggar if I can?’

  ‘I’ll answer that question by another.’ Sir Impey leaned forward a little. ‘Why is Denver screening him?’

  Sir Impey Biggs was accustomed to boast that no witness could perjure himself in his presence undetected. As he put the question, he released the other’s eyes from his, and glanced down with finest cunning at Wimsey’s long, flexible mouth and nervous hands. When he glanced up again a second later he met the eyes passing, guarded and inscrutable, through all the changes expressive of surprised enlightenment; but by that time it was too late; he had seen a little line at the corner of the mouth fade out, and the fingers relax ever so slightly. The first movement had been one of relief.

  ‘B’Jove!’ said Peter, ‘I never thought of that. What sleuths you lawyers are. If that’s so, I’d better be careful, hadn’t I? Always was a bit rash. My mother says—’

  ‘You’re a clever devil, Wimsey,’ said the barrister. ‘I may be wrong, then. Find your man by all means. There’s just one other thing I’d like to ask. Whom are you screening?’

  ‘Look here, Biggs,’ said Wimsey, ‘you’re not paid to ask that kind of question here, you know. You can jolly well wait till you get into court. It’s your job to make the best of the stuff we serve up to you, not to give us the third degree. Suppose I murdered Cathcart myself—’

  ‘You didn’t.’

  ‘I know I didn’t, but if I did I’m not goin’ to have you askin’ questions and lookin’ at me in that tone of voice. However, just to oblige you, I don’t mind sayin’ plainly that I don’t know who did away with the fellow. When I do I’ll tell you.’

  ‘You will?’

  ‘Yes, I will, but not till I’m sure. You people can make such a little circumstantial evidence go such a damn long way, you might hang me while I was only in the early stages of suspectin’ myself.’

  ‘H’m!’ said Biggs. ‘Meanwhile, I tell you candidly, I am taking the line that they can’t make out a case.’

  ‘Not proven, eh? Well, anyhow, Biggs, I swear my brother shan’t hang for lack of my evidence.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Biggs, adding inwardly: ‘but you hope it won’t come to that
.’

  A spurt of rain splashed down the wide chimney and sizzled on the logs.

  ‘Craven Hotel,

  ‘Strand, WC.,

  ‘Tuesday.

  ‘MY DEAR WIMSEY, – A line as I promised, to report progress, but it’s precious little. On the journey up I sat next to Mrs Pettigrew-Robinson, and opened and shut the window for her and looked after her parcels. She mentioned that when your sister roused the household on Thursday morning she went first to Mr Arbuthnot’s room – a circumstance which the lady seemed to think odd, but which is natural enough when you come to think of it, the room being directly opposite the head of the staircase. It was Mr Arbuthnot who knocked up the Pettigrew-Robinsons, and Mr P. ran downstairs immediately. Mrs P. then saw that Lady Mary was looking very faint, and tried to support her. Your sister threw her off – rudely, Mrs P. says – declined “in a most savage manner” all offers of assistance, rushed to her own room, and locked herself in. Mrs Pettigrew-Robinson listened at the door “to make sure,” as she says, “that everything was all right,” but, hearing her moving about and slamming cupboards, she concluded that she would have more chance of poking her finger into the pie downstairs, and departed.

  ‘If Mrs Marchbanks had told me this, I admit I should have thought the episode worth looking into, but I feel strongly that if I were dying I should still lock the door between myself and Mrs Pettigrew-Robinson. Mrs P. was quite sure that at no time had Lady Mary anything in her hand. She was dressed as described at the inquest – a long coat over her pyjamas (sleeping suit was Mrs P.’s expression), stout shoes, and a woolly cap, and she kept these garments on throughout the subsequent visit of the doctor. Another odd little circumstance is that Mrs Pettigrew-Robinson (who was awake, you remember, from 2 a.m. onwards) is certain that just before Lady Mary knocked on Mr Arbuthnot’s door she heard a door slam somewhere in the passage. I don’t know what to make of this – perhaps there’s nothing in it, but I just mention it.

  ‘I’ve had a rotten time in town. Your brother-in-law-elect was a model of discretion. His room in Albany is a desert from a detecting point of view; no papers except a few English bills and receipts, and invitations. I looked up a few of his inviters, but they were mostly men who had met him at the club or knew him in the Army, and could tell me nothing about his private life. He is known at several night-clubs. I made the round of them last night – or, rather, this morning. General verdict: generous but impervious. By the way, poker seems to have been his great game. No suggestion of anything crooked. He won pretty consistently on the whole, but never very spectacularly.

  ‘I think the information we want must be in Paris. I have written to the Sûreté and the Crédit Lyonnais to produce his papers, especially his account and cheque-book.

  ‘I’m pretty dead with yesterday’s and today’s work. Dancing all night on top of a journey is a jolly poor joke. Unless you want me, I’ll wait here for the papers, or I may run over to Paris myself.

  ‘Cathcart’s books here consist of a few modern French novels of the usual kind, and another copy of Manon with what the catalogues call “curious” plates. He must have had a life somewhere, mustn’t he?

  ‘The enclosed bill from a beauty specialist in Bond Street may interest you. I called on her. She says he came regularly every week when he was in England.

  ‘I drew quite blank at King’s Fenton on Sunday – oh, but I told you that. I don’t think the fellow ever went there. I wonder if he slunk off up into the moor. Is it worth rummaging about, do you think? Rather like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay. It’s odd about that diamond cat. You’ve got nothing out of the household, I suppose? It doesn’t seem to fit No. 10, somehow – and yet you’d think somebody would have heard about it in the village if it had been lost. Well, so long,

  ‘Yours ever,

  ‘CH. PARKER.’

  4

  – AND HIS DAUGHTER, MUCH-AFRAID

  ‘The women also looked pale and wan.’

  THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS

  MR BUNTER brought Parker’s letter up to Lord Peter in bed on the Wednesday morning. The house was almost deserted, everybody having gone to attend the police-court proceedings at Northallerton. The thing would be purely formal, of course, but it seemed only proper that the family should be fully represented. The Dowager Duchess, indeed, was there – she had promptly hastened to her son’s side and was living heroically in furnished lodgings, but the younger Duchess thought her mother-in-law more energetic than dignified. There was no knowing what she might do if left to herself. She might even give an interview to a newspaper reporter. Besides, at these moments of crisis a wife’s right place is at her husband’s side. Lady Mary was ill, and nothing could be said about that, and if Peter chose to stay smoking cigarettes in his pyjamas while his only brother was undergoing public humiliation, that was only what might be expected. Peter took after his mother. How that eccentric strain had got into the family her grace could easily guess; the Dowager came of a good Hampshire family, but there was foreign blood at the roots of her family tree. Her own duty was clear, and she would do it.

  Lord Peter was awake, and looked rather fagged, as though he had been sleuthing in his sleep. Mr Bunter wrapped him solicitously in a brilliant Oriental robe, and placed the tray on his knees.

  ‘Bunter,’ said Lord Peter rather fretfully, ‘your café au lait is the one tolerable incident in this beastly place.’

  ‘Thank you, my lord. Very chilly again this morning, my lord, but not actually raining.’

  Lord Peter frowned over his letter.

  ‘Anything in the paper, Bunter?’

  ‘Nothing urgent, my lord. A sale next week at Northbury Hall – Mr Fleetwhite’s library, my lord – a Caxton Confession Amantis—’

  ‘What’s the good of tellin’ me that when we’re stuck up here for God knows how long? I wish to heaven I’d stuck to books and never touched crime. Did you send those specimens up to Lubbock?’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ said Bunter gently. Dr Lubbock was the ‘analytical gentleman.’

  ‘Must have facts,’ said Lord Peter, ‘facts. When I was a small boy I always hated facts. Thought of ’em as nasty, hard things, all knobs. Uncompromisin’.’

  ‘Yes, my lord. My old mother—’

  ‘Your mother, Bunter? I didn’t know you had one. I always imagined you were turned out ready-made so to speak. ’Scuse me. Infernally rude of me. Beg your pardon, I’m sure.’

  ‘Not at all, my lord. My mother lives in Kent, my lord, near Maidstone. Seventy-five, my lord, and an extremely active woman for her years, if you’ll excuse my mentioning it. I was one of seven.’

  ‘That is an invention, Bunter. I know better. You are unique. But I interrupted you. You were goin’ to tell me about your mother.’

  ‘She always says, my lord, that facts are like cows. If you look them in the face hard enough they generally run away. She is a very courageous woman, my lord.’

  Lord Peter stretched out his hand impulsively, but Mr Bunter was too well trained to see it. He had, indeed, already begun to strop a razor. Lord Peter suddenly bundled out of bed with a violent jerk and sped across the landing to the bathroom.

  Here he revived sufficiently to lift up his voice in ‘Come unto these Yellow Sands.’ Thence, feeling in a Purcellish mood, he passed to ‘I attempt from Love’s Sickness to Fly,’ with such improvement of spirits that, against all custom, he ran several gallons of cold water into the bath and sponged himself vigorously. Wherefore, after a rough towelling, he burst explosively from the bathroom, and caught his shin somewhat violently against the lid of a large oak chest which stood at the head of the staircase – so violently, indeed, that the lid lifted with the shock and shut down with a protesting bang.

  Lord Peter stopped to say something expressive and to caress his leg softly with the palm of his hand. Then a thought struck him. He set down his towels, soap, sponge, loofah, bath-brush, and other belongings, and quietly lifted the lid of the chest.


  Whether, like the heroine of Northanger Abbey, he expected to find anything gruesome inside was not apparent. It is certain that, like her, he beheld nothing more startling than certain sheets and counterpanes neatly folded at the bottom. Unsatisfied, he lifted the top one of these gingerly and inspected it for a few moments in the light of the staircase window. He was just returning it to its place, whistling softly the while, when a little hiss of indrawn breath caused him to look up with a start.

  His sister was at his elbow. He had not heard her come, but she stood there in her dressing-gown, her hands clutched together on her breast. Her blue eyes were dilated till they looked almost black and her skin seemed nearly the colour of her ash-blonde hair. Wimsey stared at her over the sheet he held in his arms, the terror in her face passed over into his, stamping them suddenly with the mysterious likeness of blood-relationship.

  Peter’s own impression was that he stared ‘like a stuck pig’ for about a minute. He knew, as a matter of fact, that he had recovered himself in a fraction of a second. He dropped the sheet into the chest and stood up.