Wimsey 009 - The Nine Tailors

by Dorothy L. Sayers

  “Not at all,” said Wimsey. “In a quiet place like this, if one doesn’t talk about one’s neighbours, what is there to talk about? And the Thodays are really your only near neighbours, aren’t they? They’re very lucky. I’ll be bound, when Will was laid up, you did a good bit of the nursing, Mrs. Ashton.”

  “Not as much as I’d have liked,” said Mrs. Ashton. “My daughter was took ill at the same time—half the village was down with it, if it comes to that. I managed to run in now and again, of course—’twouldn’t be friendly else—and our girl helped Mary with the cooking. But what with being up half the night—”

  This gave Wimsey his opportunity. In a series of tactful inquiries he led the conversation to the matter of lights in the churchyard. “There, now!” exclaimed Mrs. Ashton. “I always thought as there might be something in that tale as little Rosie Thoday told our Polly. But children do have so many fancies, you never know.”

  “Why, what tale was that?” asked Wimsey.

  “Ugh! foolish nonsense, foolish nonsense,” said Mr. Ashton. “Ghosts and what not.”

  Oh, that’s foolish enough, I dare say,” retorted his lady, “but you know well enough, Luke Ashton, that the child might be telling the truth, ghost or no ghost. You see your lordship, it’s this way. My girl Polly—she’s sixteen now and going out to service next autumn, for whatever people may say and whatever airs they may give themselves, I will maintain there’s nothing like good service to train a girl up to be a good wife, and so I told Mrs. Wallace only last week. It’s not standing behind a counter all day selling ribbons and bathing-dresses (if they call them dresses, with no legs and no backs and next to no fronts neither) will teach you how to cook a floury potato, let alone the tendency to fallen arches and varicose veins. Which,” added Mrs. Ashton triumphantly, “she couldn’t hardly deny, suffering sadly from her legs as she do.”

  Lord Peter expressed his warm appreciation of Mrs. Ashton’s point of view and hinted that she had been about to say that Polly—

  “Yes, of course. My tongue do run on and no mistake, but Polly’s a good girl, though I say it, and Rosie Thoday’s always been a pet of Polly’s, like, ever since she was quite a baby and Polly only seven. Well, then, it was a good time ago, now—when would it be, Luke? End of January, maybe, near enough—it was pretty near dark at six o’clock, so it couldn’t be much later—well, call it end of January—Polly comes on Rosie and Evvie sitting together under the hedge just outside their place, both of them crying. ‘Why, Rosie,’ says Polly, ‘what’s the matter?’ And Rosie says, Nothing, now that Polly’s come and can they walk with her to the Rectory, because their Dad has a message for Rector. Of course, Polly was willin’ enough, but she couldn’t understand what they was cryin’ about, and then, after a bit—for you know how difficult it is to get children to tell you what they’re frightened on—it comes out that they’re afraid to go past the churchyard in the dark. Well, Polly being a good girl, she tells ’em there’s no call to be frighted, the dead being in the arms of our Saviour and not having the power to come out o’ their graves nor to do no harm to nobody. But that don’t comfort Rosie, none the more for that, and in the end Polly makes out that Rosie’s seen what she took to be the spirit of Lady Thorpe a-flittin’ bout her grave. And it seems the night she see her was the night of the funeral.”

  “Dear me,” said Wimsey. “What exactly did she see?”

  “No more than a light, by what Polly could make out. That was one of the nights Will Thoday was very bad, and it seems Rosie was up and about helping her mother—for she’s a good, handy child, is Rosie—and she looks out o’ the window and sees the light just a-rising out of where the grave would be.”

  “Did she tell her mother and father?”

  “Not then, she didn’t. She didn’t like to, and I remember well, as a child I was just the same, only with me it was a funny sort of thing that used to groan in the wash-house, which I took to be bears—but as to telling anybody, I’d ha’ died first. And so would Rosie, only that night her father wanted her to go a message to the Rectory and she tried everything to get off doing it, and at last he got angry and threatened to take a slipper to her. Not that he meant it, I don’t suppose,” said Mrs. Ashton, “for he’s a kind man as a rule, but he hadn’t hardly got over his illness and he was fratchety, like, as sick people will be. So then Rosie made up her mind to tell him what she seen. Only that made him angrier still, and he said she was to go and no more nonsense, and never to speak about ghosts, and such like to him again. If Mary had been there, she’d a-gone, but she was out getting his medicine from Dr. Baines, and the ’bus don’t come back till half-past seven and Will wanted the message sent particular, though I forget now what it were. So Polly told Rosie it couldn’t have been Lady Thorpe’s spirit, for that was at rest, and if it had been, Lady Thorpe wouldn’t do harm to a living soul; and she said Rosie must a-seen Harry Gotobed’s lantern. But it couldn’t well a-been that, for by what the child said it was one o’clock in the morning past that Rosie see the light. Dear me an’ all! I’m sure if I’d a-known then what I know now, I’d a-paid more attention to it.”

  Superintendent Blundell was not best pleased when this conversation was repeated to him. “Thoday and his wife had better be careful,” he observed.

  “They told you the exact truth, you know,” said Wimsey.

  “Ah!” said Mr. Blundell. “I don’t like witnesses to be so damned particular about exact truth. They get away with it as often as not, and then where are you? Not but what I did think of speaking to Rosie, but her mother called her away double quick—and no wonder! Besides, I don’t care, somehow, for pumping kids about their parents. I can’t help thinking of my own Betty and Ann.”

  And if that was not quite the exact truth, there was a good deal of truth in it; for Mr. Blundell was a kindly man.

  THE FIFTH PART

  TAILOR PAUL IS CALLED BEFORE WITH A SINGLE

  The canal has been dangerously ignored. Each year of the Republic, our family have reported to the Capital that there were silted channels and weakened dykes in our neighbourhood. My husband and Maida’s father have just interviewed the present President. They were received politely, but their conclusion is that nothing will be done.

  NORA WALN: The House of Exile.

  Lord Peter Wimsey sat in the schoolroom at the Rectory, brooding over a set of underclothing. The schoolroom was, in fact, no longer the schoolroom, and had not been so for nearly twenty years. It had retained its name from the time when the Rector’s daughters departed to a real boarding-school. It was now devoted to Parish Business, but a fragrance of long-vanished governesses still clung about it—governesses with straight-fronted corsets and high-necked frocks with bell sleeves, who wore their hair à la Pompadour. There was a shelf of battered lesson-books, ranging from Little Arthur’s England to Hall & Knight’s Algebra, and a bleached-looking Map of Europe still adorned one wall. Of this room, Lord Peter had been made free, “except,” as Mrs. Venables explained, “on Clothing-Club nights, when I am afraid we shall have to turn you out.”

  The vest and pants were spread upon the table, as though the Clothing Club, in retiring, had left some forlorn flotsam and jetsam behind. They had been washed, but there were still faint discolorations upon them, like the shadow of corruption, and here and there the fabric had rotted away, as the garments of mortality will, when the grave has had its way with them. Wafted in through the open window came the funeral scent of jonquils.

  Wimsey whistled gently as he examined the underclothes, which had been mended with scrupulous and economical care. It puzzled him that Cranton, last seen in London in September, should possess a French vest and pants so much worn and so carefully repaired. His shirt and outer garments—now also clean and folded—lay on a chair close at hand. They, too, were well-worn, but they were English. Why should Cranton be wearing second-hand French underclothes?

  Wimsey knew that it would be hopeless to try tracing the garments through the makers
. Underwear of this mark and quality was sold by the hundred thousand in Paris and throughout the provinces. It lay stacked up outside the great linen-drapers’ shops, marked “Occasions,” and thrifty housewives bought it there for cash. There was no laundry-mark; the washing had doubtless been done at home by the housewife herself or the bonne à tout faire. Holes here and there had been carefully darned; under the armpits, patches of a different material had been neatly let in; the wrists of the vest, frayed with use, had been over-sewn; buttons had been renewed upon the pants. Why not? One must make economies. But they were not garments that anyone would have gone out of his way to purchase, even at a second-hand dealer’s. And it would be hard for even the most active man to reduce his clothes to such a state of senility in four months’ wear.

  Lord Peter thrust his fingers into his hair till the sleek yellow locks stood upright. “Bless his heart!” thought Mrs. Venables, looking in upon him through the window. She had conceived a warm maternal affection for her guest. “Would you like a glass of milk, or a whisky-and-soda, or a cup of beef-tea?” she suggested, hospitably. Wimsey laughed and thanked her, but declined.

  “I hope you won’t catch anything from those dreadful old clothes,” said Mrs. Venables. “I’m sure they can’t be healthy.”

  “Oh I don’t expect to get anything worse than brain-fever,” said Wimsey. “I mean”—seeing Mrs. Venables look concerned—“I can’t quite make out about these underthings. Perhaps you can suggest something.” Mrs. Venables came in, and he laid his problem before her.

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” said Mrs. Venables, gingerly examining the objects before her. “I’m afraid I’m not a Sherlock Holmes. I should think the man must have had a very good, hard-working wife, but I can’t say more.”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t explain why he should get his things in France. Especially as everything else is English. Except, of course, the ten-centime piece, and they’re common enough in this country.”

  Mrs. Venables, who had been gardening and was rather hot, sat down to consider the question. “The only thing I can think of,” she said, “is that he got his English clothes as a disguise—you said he came here in disguise, didn’t you? But, of course, as nobody would see his underneaths, he didn’t bother to change them.”

  “But that would mean that he came from France.”

  “Perhaps he did. Perhaps he was a Frenchman. They often wear beards, don’t they?”

  “Yes; but the man I met wasn’t a Frenchman.”

  “But you don’t know he was the man you met. He may be somebody quite different.”

  “Well, he may,” said Wimsey, dubiously.

  “He didn’t bring any other clothes with him, I suppose ?”

  “No; not a thing. He was just a tramping out-of-work. Or he said he was. All he brought was an old British trenchcoat, which he took with him, and a toothbrush. He left that behind him. Can we wangle a bit of evidence out of that? Can we say that he must have been murdered because, if he had merely wandered away, he would have taken his toothbrush with him? And if he was the corpse, where is his coat? For the corpse had no coat.”

  “I can’t imagine,” replied Mrs. Venables, “and that reminds me, do be careful when you go down the bottom of the garden. The rooks are building and they are so messy. I should wear a hat if I were you. Or there’s always an old umbrella in the summer-house. Did he leave his hat behind too?”

  “In a sense he did,” said Wimsey. “We’ve found that, in rather a queer place. But it doesn’t help us much.”

  “Oh!” said Mrs. Venables, “how tiresome it all is. I’m sure you’ll wear your brains right out with all these problems. You mustn’t overdo yourself. And the butcher says he has some nice calf’s liver to-day, only I don’t know if you can eat it. Theodore is very fond of liver-and-bacon, though I always think it’s rather rich. And I’ve been meaning to say, it’s very good of that nice manservant of yours to clean the silver and brass so beautifully, but he really shouldn’t have troubled. I’m quite used to giving Emily a hand with it. I hope it isn’t very dull for him here. I understand he’s a great acquisition in the kitchen and extraordinarily good at music-hall imitations. Twice as good as the talkies, Cook says.”

  “Is he indeed?” said Wimsey. “I had no idea of it. But what I don’t know about Bunter would fill a book.”

  Mrs. Venables bustled away, but her remarks remained in Wimsey’s mind. He put aside the vest and pants, filled a pipe and wandered down the garden, pursued by Mrs. Venables with an ancient and rook-proof linen hat, belonging to the Rector. The hat was considerably too small for him, and the fact that he immediately put it on, with expressions of gratitude, may attest the kind heart which, despite the poet, is frequently found in close alliance with coronets; though the shock to Bunter’s system was severe when his master suddenly appeared before him, wearing this grotesque headgear, and told him to get the car out and accompany him on a short journey.

  “Very good, my lord,” said Bunter. “Ahem! there is a fresh breeze, my lord.”

  “All the better.”

  “Certainly, my lord. If I may venture to say so, the tweed cap or the grey felt would possibly be better suited to the climatic conditions.”

  “Eh? Oh! Possibly you are right, Bunter. Pray restore this excellent hat to its proper place, and, if you should see Mrs. Venables, give her my compliments and say that I found its protection invaluable. And, Bunter, I rely upon you to keep a check upon your Don Juan fascinations and not strew the threshold of friendship with the wreckage of broken hearts.”

  “Very good, my lord.”

  On returning with the grey felt, Bunter found the car already out and his lordship in the driving-seat.

  “We are going to try a long shot, Bunter, and we will begin with Leamholt.”

  “By all means, my lord.”

  They sped away up the Fenchurch Road, turned left along the Drain, switchbacked over Frog’s Bridge without mishap and ran the twelve or thirteen miles to the little town of Leamholt. It was market day, and the Daimler had to push her way decorously through droves of sheep and pigs and through groups of farmers, who stood carelessly in the middle of the street, disdaining to move till the mudguards brushed their thighs. In the centre of one side of the market-place stood the post-office.

  “Go in here, Bunter, and ask if there is any letter here for Mr. Stephen Driver, to be left till called for.”

  Lord Peter waited for some time, as one always waits when transacting business in rural post-offices, while pigs lurched against his bumpers and bullocks blew down his neck. Presently, Bunter returned, having drawn a blank despite a careful search conducted by three young ladies and the postmaster in person.

  “Well, never mind,” said Wimsey. “Leamholt is the post town, so I thought we ought to give it the first chance. The other possibilities are Holport and Walbeach, on this side of the Drain. Holport is a long way off and rather unlikely. I think we will try Walbeach. There’s a direct road from here—at least, as direct as any fen road ever is.... I suppose God could have made a sillier animal than a sheep, but it is very certain that He never did.... Unless it’s cows. Hoop, there, hup! hup! get along with you, Jemima!”

  Mile after mile the flat road reeled away behind them. Here a windmill, there a solitary farm-house, there a row of poplars strung along the edge of a reed-grown dyke. Wheat, potatoes, beet, mustard and wheat again, grassland, potatoes, lucerne, wheat, beet and mustard. A long village street with a grey and ancient church tower, a redbrick chapel, and the Vicarage set in a little oasis of elm and horse-chestnut, and then once more dyke and windmill, wheat, mustard and grassland. And as they went, the land flattened more and more, if a flatter flatness were possible, and the windmills became more numerous, and on the right hand the silver streak of the Wale River came back into view, broader now, swollen with the water of the Thirty-foot and of Harper’s Cut and St. Simon’s Eau, and winding and spreading here and there, with a remembrance of its ancient leisur
e. Then, ahead of the great circle of the horizon, a little bunch of spires and roofs and a tall tree or so, and beyond them the thin masts of shipping. And so, by bridge and bridge the travellers came to Walbeach, once a great port, but stranded now far inland with the silting of the marshes and the choking of the Wale outfall; yet with her maritime tradition written unerringly upon her grey stones and timber warehouses, and the long lines of her half-deserted quays.

  Here, at the post-office in the little square. Lord Peter waited in the pleasant hush that falls on country towns where all days but market days are endless sabbaths. Bunter was absent for some time, and, when he emerged, did so with a trifle less than his usual sedateness, while his usually colourless face was very slightly flushed about the cheekbones.

  “What luck?” inquired Wimsey, genially. To his surprise, Bunter replied by a hasty gesture enjoining silence and caution. Wimsey waited till he had taken his place in the car and altered his question to:

  “What’s up?”

  “Better move on quickly, my lord,” said Bunter, “because while the manoeuvre has been attended with a measure of success, it is possible that I have robbed His Majesty’s Mails by obtaining a postal packet under false pretences.”

  Long before this handsome period had thundered to its close, the Daimler was running down a quiet street behind the church.

  “What have you been doing, Bunter?”

  “Well, my lord, I inquired, as instructed, for a letter addressed to Mr. Stephen Driver, poste restante, which might have been lying here some time. When the young person inquired how long a time, I replied, according to our previous arrangement, that I had intended to visit Walbeach a few weeks ago, but had been prevented from doing so, and that I understand that an important letter had been forwarded to me at this address under a misapprehension.”