Have His Carcase

by Dorothy L. Sayers

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. Never like ’em when they want pretty girls without experience. Old Uncle Sullivan may be a hard nut, but he ain’t standing for anything of that sort. Told him the girl was fitted up with a job, but he said he’d have a shot at her. She never came to me about it, though, so I suppose she turned him down. If she had come, I’d have put her wise. I ain’t that keen on my commission, and if you ask any of the girls they’ll tell you so. What’s the matter, eh? Has this Vavasour got her into a hole?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Wimsey. ‘She’s still in her mannequin job. But Vavasour – show Mr Sullivan that other photograph, Inspector. Is that the man?’

  Mr Sullivan and Horrocks put their heads together over the photograph of Paul Alexis and shook them simultaneously.

  ‘No,’ said Horrocks, ‘that’s not the man.’

  ‘Nothing like him,’ said Mr Sullivan.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Nothing like him,’ repeated Mr Sullivan with emphasis. ‘How old’s that fellow? Well, Vavasour was forty if he was a day. Hollow-cheeked beggar with a voice like Mother Siegel’s Syrup. Make a good Judas, if you were wanting such a thing.’

  ‘Or a Richard III,’ suggested Mr Horrocks.

  ‘If you read the part smarmy,’ said Mr Sullivan. ‘Can’t see him in Act V, though. All right for the bit with the citizens. You know. Enter Richard above, reading, between two monks. Matter of fact,’ he added, ‘that’s a difficult part to cast for. Inconsistent, to my mind. You mightn’t think it, but I do a bit of reading and thinking now and again, and what I say is, I don’t believe W. Shakespeare had his mind on the job when he wrote that part. Too slimy at the beginning and too tough at the end. It ain’t nature. Not but what the play always acts well. Plenty of pep in it, that’s why. Keeps moving. But he’s made Richard two men in one, that’s what I complain of. One of ’em’s a wormy, plotting sort of fellow and the other’s a bold, bustling sort of chap who chops people’s heads off and flies into tempers. It don’t seem to fit, somehow, eh?’

  Inspector Umpelty began to scrabble with his feet.

  ‘I always think,’ said Wimsey, ‘that Shakespeare meant Richard to be one of those men who are always deliberately acting a part – dramatising things, so to speak. I don’t believe his furies are any more real than his love-making. The scene about the strawberries – that’s clearly all put on.’

  ‘Maybe. But the scene with Buckingham and the clock – eh? Maybe you’re right. It ain’t supposed to be my business to know about Shakespeare, eh? Chorus-ladies’ legs are my department. But I been mixed up with the stage all my life one way and another, and it ain’t all legs and bedroom scenes. That makes you laugh, um? To hear me go on like this. But I tell you what, it makes me sick, sometimes, bein’ in this business. Half these managers don’t want actors and actresses – they want types. When my old father was runnin’ a repertory company it was actors he wanted – fellows who could be Iago one night and Brutus the next and do a bit of farce or genteel comedy in the intervals. But now! If a fellow starts out making his hit with a stammer and an eyeglass he’s got to play stammers and eyeglasses till he’s ninety. Poor old Rosencrantz! He sure was fed-up that you weren’t thinking of playing his Worm for him. As for getting an experienced actor and giving him a show in the part – nix! I’ve got the man that could do it – nice chap – clever as you make ’em. But he made a hit as the dear old silver-haired vicar in Roses Round the Door, and nobody will look at him now, except for silver-haired vicars. It’ll be the end of him as an actor, but who cares? Only old Uncle Sullivan, who’s got to take his bread the side it’s buttered and look pleasant about it, eh?’

  Inspector Umpelty rose to his feet.

  ‘I’m sure we’re much obliged to you, Mr Sullivan,’ he said. ‘We won’t detain you any longer.’

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t do more for you. If ever I see that Vavasour fellow again I’ll let you know. But he’s probably come to grief. Sure it ain’t any trouble for little Kohn?’

  ‘We don’t think so, Mr Sullivan.’

  ‘She’s a good girl,’ insisted Mr Sullivan. ‘I’d hate to think of her going wrong. I know you’re thinkin’ me an old fool.’

  ‘Far from it,’ said Wimsey.

  They were let out through the private door, and picked their way down a narrow staircase in silence.

  ‘Vavasour, indeed!’ grunted the Inspector. ‘I’d like to know who he is and what he’s up to. Think that fat idiot was in the game?’

  ‘I’m sure he knows nothing about it,’ said Wimsey. ‘And if he says he knows nothing about Vavasour you may be pretty sure he’s not really a producer or anything genuinely theatrical. These people all know one another.’

  ‘Humph! Fat lot of help that is.’

  ‘As you say. I wonder –’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I wonder what made Horrocks think of Richard III.’

  ‘Thought the man looked a bad egg, I suppose. Wasn’t that the fellow who made up his mind to be a villain?’

  ‘He was. But I don’t somehow think Horrocks is quite the man to read villainy in someone’s face. I should say he was quite satisfied with the regrettable practice of type-casting. I’ve got something at the back of my mind, Inspector, and I can’t seem to get it out.’

  The Inspector grunted and tripped over a packing-case as they emerged into the purlieus of Wardour Street.

  XXIV

  THE EVIDENCE OF THE L.C.C TEACHER

  ‘Such lily-livered, meek humanity.’

  Death’s Jest-Book

  Monday, 29 June

  Tuesday, 30 June

  Paul Alexis was buried on the Monday, with many flowers and a large crowd of onlookers. Lord Peter was still in London with the Inspector, but he was suitably represented by Bunter, who had returned from Huntingdonshire that morning and, ever efficient, had brought with him a handsome wreath, suitably inscribed. Mrs Weldon was chief mourner, supported by Henry in solemn black, and the staff of the Resplendent sent a representative contingent and a floral emblem in the shape of a saxophone. The leader of the orchestra, an uncompromising realist, had suggested that the effigy of a pair of dancing-pumps would have been more truly symbolic, but general opinion was against him, and there was, indeed, a feeling that he had been actuated by professional jealousy. Miss Leila Garland made her appearance in restrained and modified weeds, and affronted Mrs Weldon by casting an enormous bunch of Parma violets into the grave at the most affecting moment and being theatrically overcome and carried away in hysterics. The ceremony was fully reported, with photographs, in the National Press, and the dinner-tables of the Resplendent were so crowded that evening that it became necessary to serve a supplementary dinner in the Louis Quinze Saloon.

  ‘I suppose you will be leaving Wilvercombe now,’ said Harriet to Mrs Weldon. ‘It will always have sad memories for you.’

  ‘Indeed, my dear, I shall not. I intend to stay here until the cloud is lifted from Paul’s memory. I know positively that he was murdered by a Soviet gang and it’s simply a disgrace that the police should let this kind of thing go on.’

  ‘I wish you would persuade my mother to leave,’ said Henry. ‘Bad for her health to hang on here. You’ll be leaving yourself, I expect, before long.’

  ‘Probably.’

  There seemed, in fact, to be little for anyone to stay on for. William Bright applied to the police for leave to depart and was accorded it, subject to an undertaking that he would keep them informed of his whereabouts. He promptly retired to his lodgings at Seahampton, packed up, and started a trek northwards. ‘And it’s to be hoped,’ said Superintendent Glaisher, ‘that they’ll keep an eye on him. We can’t follow him through all the counties in England. We’ve nothing against him.’

  Wimsey and the Inspector, returning to Wilvercombe on the Tuesday morning, were greeted with a piece of fresh information.

  ‘We’ve pulled in Perkins,’ said Superintendent Glaisher.

  It appeared that Mr J
ulian Perkins, after leaving Darley and being driven to Wilvercombe in his hired car, had taken the train to Seahampton and resumed his walking-tour at that point. About twenty miles out he had been knocked down by a motor-lorry. As the result, he had lain speechless and senseless for nearly a week in the local hospital. There was nothing in his travelling-pack to indicate his identity, and it was only when he began to sit up and take notice that anything was known about him. As soon as he was well enough for desultory chat, he discovered that his fellow-patients were discussing the Wilvercombe inquest, and he mentioned, with a feeble sense of self-importance, that he had actually been in contact with the young lady who found the body. One of the nurses then called to mind that there had been a broadcast inquiry for somebody called Perkins in connection with that very case. The Wilvercombe police were communicated with, and P.C. Ormond had been sent over to interview Mr Perkins.

  It was now clear enough, of course, why no reply to the S.O.S. message had been received from either Mr Perkins himself or from his associates at the time of broadcasting. It was now also made clear why nobody had made any inquiry about Mr Perkins’s disappearance. Mr Perkins was a teacher in an L.C.C. School, and had been granted leave of absence for one term on account of his health. He was unmarried, and an orphan with no near relations, and he lived in a hostel in the neighbourhood of Tottenham Court Road. He had left the hostel in May, announcing that he was going on a tramping holiday and would have no settled address. He would write from time to time, telling the staff of the hostel where to forward letters. As it happened, no letters had arrived for him since the last time he had written (on the 29th May, from Taunton). Consequently, nobody had thought to make any inquiry about him, and the S.O.S. which mentioned only his surname had left it doubtful whether the Mr Perkins wanted by the police was the Mr Julian Perkins of the hostel. In any case, since nobody knew where he was supposed to be, there was no information that anybody could have supplied. The police got into touch with the hostel and had Mr Perkins’s mail sent down. It consisted of an advertisement from a cheap tailor, an invitation to secure a last-minute chance in the Irish Sweep, and a letter from a pupil, all about Boy Scout activities.

  Mr Julian Perkins seemed to be an unlikely sort of criminal, but one never knew. He was interviewed, propped up in bed in his little red hospital jacket, with his anxious and unshaven face surrounded with bandages, from which his large horn-rimmed glasses looked out with serio-comic effect.

  ‘So you abandoned your trip and walked back to Darley with this young lady,’ said Constable Ormond. ‘Now, why did you do that, sir?’

  ‘I wanted to do my best to help the young lady.’

  ‘Quite so, sir, very natural. But as a matter of fact, of course, you couldn’t help her much.’

  ‘No.’ Mr Perkins fumbled with the sheet. ‘She said something about going along to look for the body, but of course – I didn’t see that I was called upon to do that. I’m not a strong man; besides, the tide was coming in. I thought—’

  P.C. Ormond waited patiently.

  Mr Perkins suddenly relieved his mind with an outburst of confession.

  ‘I didn’t like to go on along that road, and that’s the truth. I was afraid the murderer might be lurking about somewhere.’

  ‘Murderer, eh? What made you think it was a case of murder?’

  Mr Perkins shrank among his pillows.

  ‘The young lady said it might be. I’m not a very courageous person, I’m afraid. You see, since my illness, I’ve been nervous – nervous, you know. And I’m not physically strong. I didn’t like the idea at all.’

  ‘I’m sure you can’t be blamed for that, sir.’ The policeman’s bluff heartiness seemed to alarm Mr Perkins, as though he detected something false in the ring of it.

  ‘So when you came to Darley you felt that the young lady was in good hands and needed no further protection. So you went away without saying goodbye.’

  ‘Yes. Yes. I – I didn’t want to be mixed up in anything, you know. In my position it isn’t nice. A teacher has to be careful. And besides—’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  Mr Perkins had another confessional outburst.

  ‘I’d been thinking it over. I thought it was all rather queer. I wondered if the young lady – one hears of such things – suicide pacts and so on – You see? I felt that I didn’t want to be associated with that kind of thing. I am rather timid by nature, I admit, and really not strong since my illness, and what with one thing and another—’

  P.C. Ormond, who had a touch of imagination and a strong, though elementary, sense of humour, smothered a grin behind his hand. He suddenly saw Mr Perkins, terrified, hobbling on his blistered feet between the devil and the deep sea; fleeing desperately from the vision of a homicidal maniac at the Flat-Iron only to be pursued by the nightmare that he was travelling in company with a ruthless and probably immoral murderess.

  He licked his pencil and started again.

  ‘Quite so, sir. I see your point. Very disagreeable situation. Well, now – just as a matter of routine, you know, sir, we’ve got to check up on the movements of everybody who passed along the coast-road that day. Nothing to be alarmed at.’ The pencil happened to be an indelible one and left an unpleasant taste in the mouth. He passed a pink tongue along his purple-stained lips, looking, to Mr Perkins’s goblin-haunted imagination, like a very large dog savouring a juicy bone. ‘Whereabouts might you have been round about two o’clock, sir?’

  Mr Perkins’s mouth dropped open.

  ‘I – I – I –’ he began, quavering.

  A nurse, hovering near, intervened.

  ‘I hope you won’t have to be long, constable,’ she said, acidly. ‘I can’t have my patient upset. Take a sip of this, No. 22, and you must try not to get excited.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Mr Perkins sipped and regained his colour. ‘As a matter of fact I can tell you exactly where I was at two o’clock. It’s very fortunate that that should be the time. Very fortunate. I was at Darley.’

  ‘Oh, indeed,’ said Mr Ormond, ‘that’s very satisfactory.’

  ‘Yes, and I can prove it. You see, I’d come along from Wilvercombe. I bought some calamine lotion there, and I daresay the chemist would remember me. My skin is very sensitive, you know, and we had a little chat about it. I don’t know just where the shop was, but you could find out. No; I don’t know quite what time that would be. Then I walked on to Darley. It’s four miles. It would take me a bit over an hour, you know, so I must have started from Wilvercombe about one o’clock.’

  ‘Where did you stay the night before?’

  ‘In Wilvercombe. At the Trust House. You’ll find my name there all right.’

  ‘Rather a late start, wasn’t it, sir?’

  ‘Yes, it was; but I didn’t sleep very well. I was rather feverish. Sunburn, you know; it takes me that way. It does some people. I come out in a rash – most painful. I told you my skin was sensitive. It was the hot sun that last week. I hoped it would get better, but it got worse, and shaving was an agony, really an agony. So I stayed in bed till ten and had a late breakfast at eleven, and got to Darley about two o’clock. I know it was two o’clock, because I asked a man there the time.’

  ‘Did you indeed, sir? That was very fortunate. We ought to be able to substantiate that.’

  ‘Oh, yes. You’d find him easily enough. It wasn’t in the village itself. It was outside. It was a gentleman that was camping in a tent. At least, I call him a gentleman, but I can’t say he behaved like one.’

  P.C. Ormond almost jumped. He was a young man, unmarried and full of enthusiasms, and he had fallen into a state of worshipping admiration for Lord Peter Wimsey. He worshipped his clothes, his car and his uncanny skill in prediction. Wimsey had said that the gold would be found on the body; and lo! it was so. He had said that, as soon as the inquest had established the time of death, Henry Weldon would turn out to have an alibi for two o’clock, and here was the alibi arriving as true to time as moon and
tide. He had said that this new alibi would turn out to be breakable. P.C. Ormond set out with determination to break it.

  He asked, rather suspiciously, why Mr Perkins had inquired the time of a casual stranger and not in the village.

  ‘I didn’t think about it in the village. I didn’t stop anywhere there. When I got out of it I began to think about my lunch. I’d looked at my watch a mile or so back and it said five-and-twenty to two, and I thought I’d push along to the shore and have my meal there. When I looked at it again it still said five-and-twenty to two, and I found it had stopped, so I knew time must be getting on. I saw a kind of little lane going down towards the sea, so I turned down that way. There was an open space at the foot of it with a motor-car and a little tent, and a man doing something to the car. I hailed him and asked what the time was. He was a big man with dark hair and a red face, and he wore coloured spectacles. He told me it was five minutes to two. I set my watch going and thanked him and then I just said something pleasant about what a nice camping-place he had found. He grunted rather rudely, so I thought perhaps he was put out by his car being out of order, so I just asked him – most politely – whether there was anything wrong. That was all. I can’t think why he should have taken offence but he did. I expostulated with him and said I only asked out of politeness and to know if I could help him in any way, and he called me a very vulgar name and –’ Mr Perkins hesitated and blushed.

  ‘Well?’ said P.C. Ormond.

  ‘He – I am sorry to say he forgot himself so far as to assault me,’ said Mr Perkins.

  ‘Oh! what did he do?’

  ‘He – kicked me,’ said Mr Perkins, his voice rising up into a squeak, ‘on my – that is to say, from behind.’

  ‘Indeed!’

  ‘Yes, he did. Of course, I did not retaliate. It would not have been – fitting. I just walked away and told him that I hoped he would feel ashamed of himself when he thought it over. I regret to say that he ran at me after that, and I thought it would be better not to associate with such a person any longer. So I went away and had my lunch on the beach.’