Dorothy L. Sayers - [Lord Peter Wimsey 03]

by Unnatural Death

  “Ha! Well, it’s like this,” said Mr. Towkington, graciously. “Before 1837—”

  “Queen Victoria, I know,” said Peter, intelligently.

  “Quite so. At the time when Queen Victoria came to the throne, the word ‘issue’ had no legal meaning—no legal meaning at all.”

  “You surprise me!”

  “You are too easily surprised,” said Mr. Towkington. “Many words have no legal meaning. Others have a legal meaning very unlike their ordinary meaning. For example, the word ‘daffy-down-dilly.’ It is a criminal libel to call a lawyer a daffy-down-dilly. Ha! Yes, I advise you never to do such a thing. No, I certainly advise you never to do it. Then again, words which are quite meaningless in your ordinary conversation may have a meaning in law. For instance, I might say to a young man like yourself, ‘You wish to leave such-and-such property to so-and-so.’ And you would very likely reply, ‘Oh, yes, absolutely’—meaning nothing in particular by that. But if you were to write in your will, ‘I leave such-and-such property to so-and-so absolutely,’ then that word would bear a definite legal meaning, and would condition your bequest in a certain manner, and might even prove an embarrassment and produce results very far from your actual intentions. Eh, ha! You see?”

  “Quite.”

  “Very well. Prior to 1837, the word ‘issue’ meant nothing. A grant ‘to A. and his issue’ merely gave A. a life estate. Ha! But this was altered by the Wills Act of 1837.”

  “As far as a will was concerned,” put in Mr. Murbles.

  “Precisely. After 1837, in a will, ‘issue’ means ‘heirs of the body’—that is to say, ‘issue ad infinitum.’ In a deed, on the other hand, ‘issue’ retained its old meaning—or lack of meaning, eh, ha! You follow?”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Murbles, “and on intestacy of personal property—”

  “I am coming to that,” said Mr. Towkington.

  “—the word ‘issue’ continued to mean ‘heirs of the body,’ and that held good till 1926.”

  “Stop!” said Mr. Towkington, “issue of the child or children of the deceased certainly meant ‘issue ad infinitum’—but—issue of any person not a child of the deceased only meant the child of that person and did not include other descendants. And that undoubtedly held good till 1926. And since the new Act contains no statement to the contrary, I think we must presume that it continues to hold good. Ha! Come now! In the case before us, you observe that the claimant is not the child of the deceased nor issue of the child of the deceased; nor is she the child of the deceased’s sister. She is merely the grandchild of the deceased sister of the deceased. Accordingly, I think she is debarred from inheriting under the new Act, eh? ha!”

  “I see your point,” said Mr. Murbles.

  “And moreover,” went on Mr. Towkington, “after 1925, ‘issue’ in a will or deed does not mean ‘issue ad infinitum.’ That at least is clearly stated, and the Wills Act of 1837 is revoked on that point. Not that that has any direct bearing on the question. But it may be an indication of the tendency of modern interpretation, and might possibly affect the mind of the court in deciding how the word ‘issue’ was to be construed for the purposes of the new Act.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Murbles, “I bow to your superior knowledge.”

  “In any case,” broke in Parker, “any uncertainty in the matter would provide as good a motive for murder as the certainty of exclusion from inheritance. If Mary Whittaker only thought she might lose the money in the event of her great-aunt’s surviving into 1926, she might quite well be tempted to polish her off a little earlier, and make sure.”

  “That’s true enough,” said Mr. Murbles.

  “Shrewd, very shrewd, ha!” added Mr. Towkington. “But you realise that all this theory of yours depends on Mary Whittaker’s having known about the new Act and its probable consequences as early as October, 1925, eh, ha!”

  “There’s no reason why she shouldn’t,” said Wimsey. “I remember reading an article in the Evening Banner, I think it was, some months earlier—about the time when the Act was having its second reading. That’s what put the thing into my head—I was trying to remember all evening where I’d seen that thing about washing out the long-lost heir, you know. Mary Whittaker may easily have seen it too.”

  “Well, she’d probably have taken advice about it if she did,” said Mr. Murbles. “Who is her usual man of affairs?”

  Wimsey shook his head.

  “I don’t think she’d have asked him,” he objected. “Not if she was wise, that is. You see, if she did, and he said she probably wouldn’t get anything unless Miss Dawson either made a will or died before January, 1926, and if after that the old lady did unexpectedly pop off in October, 1925, wouldn’t the solicitor-johnnie feel inclined to ask questions? It wouldn’t be safe, don’t y’know. I ’xpect she went to some stranger and asked a few innocent little questions under another name, what?”

  “Probably,” said Mr. Towkington. “You show a remarkable disposition for crime, don’t you, eh?”

  “Well, if I did go in for it, I’d take reasonable precautions,” retorted. Wimsey. “ ’S wonderful, of course, the tom-fool things murderers do do. But I have the highest opinion of Miss Whittaker’s brains. I bet she covered her tracks pretty well.”

  “You don’t think Mr. Probyn mentioned the matter,” suggested Parker, “the time he went down and tried to get Miss Dawson to make her will.”

  “I don’t,” said Wimsey, with energy, “but I’m pretty certain he tried to explain matters to the old lady, only she was so terrified of the very idea of a will she wouldn’t let him get a word in. But I fancy old Probyn was too downy a bird to tell the heir that her only chance of gettin’ the dollars was to see that her great-aunt died off before the Act went through. Would you tell anybody that, Mr. Towkington?”

  “Not if I knew it,” said that gentleman, grinning.

  “It would be highly undesirable,” agreed Mr. Murbles.

  “Anyway,” said Wimsey, “we can easily find out. Probyn’s in Italy—I was going to write to him, but perhaps you’d better do it, Murbles. And, in the meanwhile, Charles and I will think up a way to find whoever it was that did give Miss Whittaker an opinion on the matter.”

  “You’re not forgetting, I suppose,” said Parker, rather dryly, “that before pinning down a murder to any particular motive, it is usual to ascertain that a murder has been committed? So far, all we know is that, after a careful postmortem analysis, two qualified doctors have agreed that Miss Dawson died a natural death.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t keep on saying the same thing, Charles. It bores me so. It’s like the Raven never flitting which, as the poet observes, still is sitting, still is sitting, inviting one to heave the pallid bust of Pallas at him and have done with it. You wait till I publish my epoch-making work: The Murderer’s Vade-Mecum, or 101 Ways of Causing Sudden Death. That’ll show you I’m not a man to be trifled with.”

  “Oh, well!” said Parker.

  But he saw the Chief Commissioner next morning and reported that he was at last disposed to take the Dawson case seriously.

  CHAPTER XV

  TEMPTATION OF ST. PETER

  PIERROT: “Scaramel, I am tempted.”

  SCARAMEL: “Always yield to temptation.”

  L. HOUSMAN: PRUNELLA

  AS PARKER CAME OUT from the Chief Commissioner’s room, he was caught by an officer.

  “There’s been a lady on the phone to you,” he said. “I told her to ring up at 10:30. It’s about that now.”

  “What name?”

  “A Mrs. Forrest. She wouldn’t say what she wanted.”

  “Odd,” thought Parker. His researches in the matter had been so unfruitful that he had practically eliminated Mrs. Forrest from the Gotobed mystery—merely keeping her filed, as it were, in the back of his mind for future reference. It occurred to him, whimsically, that she had at length discovered the absence of one of her wine-glasses and was ringing him up in a professional capacity. His
conjectures were interrupted by his being called to the telephone to answer Mrs. Forrest’s call.

  “Is that Detective-Inspector Parker?—I’m so sorry to trouble you, but could you possibly give me Mr. Templeton’s address?”

  “Templeton?” said Parker, momentarily puzzled.

  “Wasn’t it Templeton—the gentleman who came with you to see me?”

  “Oh, yes, of course—I beg your pardon—I—the matter had slipped my memory. Er—you want his address?”

  “I have some information which I think he will be glad to hear.”

  “Oh, yes. You can speak quite freely to me, you know, Mrs. Forrest.”

  “Not quite freely,” purred the voice at the other end of the wire, “you are rather official, you know. I should prefer just to write to Mr. Templeton privately, and leave it to him to take up with you.”

  “I see.” Parker’s brain worked briskly. It might be inconvenient to have Mrs. Forrest writing to Mr. Templeton at 110A, Piccadilly. The letter might not be delivered. Or, if the lady were to take it into her head to call and discovered that Mr. Templeton was not known to the porter, she might take alarm and bottle up her valuable information.

  “I think,” said Parker, “I ought not, perhaps, to give you Mr. Templeton’s address without consulting him. But you could phone him—”

  “Oh, yes, that would do. Is he in the book?”

  “No—but I can give you his private number.”

  “Thank you very much. You’ll forgive my bothering you.”

  “No trouble at all.” And he named Lord Peter’s number.

  Having rung off, he waited a moment and then called the number himself.

  “Look here, Wimsey,” he said, “I’ve had a call from Mrs. Forrest. She wants to write to you. I wouldn’t give the address, but I’ve given her your number, so if she calls and asks for Mr. Templeton, you will remember who you are, won’t you?”

  “Righty-ho! Wonder what the fair lady wants.”

  “It’s probably occurred to her that she might have told a better story, and she wants to work off a few additions and improvements on you.”

  “Then she’ll probably give herself away. The rough sketch is frequently so much more convincing than the worked-up canvas.”

  “Quite so. I couldn’t get anything out of her myself.”

  “No. I expect she’s thought it over and decided that it’s rather unusual to employ Scotland Yard to ferret out the whereabouts of errant husbands. She fancies there’s something up, and that I’m a nice soft-headed imbecile whom she can easily pump in the absence of the official Cerberus.”

  “Probably. Well, you’ll deal with the matter. I’m going to make a search for that solicitor.”

  “Rather a vague sort of search, isn’t it?”

  “Well, I’ve got an idea which may work out. I’ll let you know if I get any results.”

  Mrs. Forrest’s call duly came through in about twenty minutes’ time. Mrs. Forrest had changed her mind. Would Mr. Templeton come round and see her that evening—about 9 o’clock, if that was convenient? She had thought the matter over and preferred not to put her information on paper.

  Mr. Templeton would be very happy to come round. He had no other engagement. It was no inconvenience at all. He begged Mrs. Forrest not to mention it.

  Would Mr. Templeton be so very good as not to tell anybody about his visit? Mr. Forrest and his sleuths were continually on the watch to get Mrs. Forrest into trouble, and the decree absolute was due to come up in a month’s time. Any trouble with the King’s Proctor would be positively disastrous. It would be better if Mr. Templeton would come by Underground to Bond Street, and proceed to the flats on foot, so as not to leave a car standing outside the door or put a taxi-driver into a position to give testimony against Mrs. Forrest.

  Mr. Templeton chivalrously promised to obey these directions.

  Mrs. Forrest was greatly obliged, and would expect him at nine o’clock.

  “Bunter!”

  “My lord.”

  “I am going out tonight. I’ve been asked not to say where, so I won’t. On the other hand, I’ve got a kind of feelin’ that it’s unwise to disappear from mortal ken, so to speak. Anything might happen. One might have a stroke, don’t you know. So I’m going to leave the address in a sealed envelope. If I don’t turn up before tomorrow mornin’, I shall consider myself absolved from all promises, what?”

  “Very good, my lord.”

  “And if I’m not to be found at that address, there wouldn’t be any harm in tryin’—say Epping Forest, or Wimbledon Common.”

  “Quite so, my lord.”

  “By the way, you made the photographs of those fingerprints I brought you some time ago?”

  “Oh, yes, my lord.”

  “Because possibly Mr. Parker may be wanting them presently for some inquiries he will be making.”

  “I quite understand, my lord.”

  “Nothing whatever to do with my excursion tonight, you understand.”

  “Certainly not, my lord.”

  “And now you might bring me Christie’s catalogue. I shall be attending a sale there and lunching at the club.”

  And, detaching his mind from crime, Lord Peter bent his intellectual and financial powers to outbidding and breaking a ring of dealers, an exercise very congenial to his mischievous spirit.

  Lord Peter duly fulfilled the conditions imposed upon him, and arrived on foot at the block of flats in South Audley Street. Mrs. Forrest, as before, opened the door to him herself. It was surprising, he considered, that, situated as she was, she appeared to have neither maid nor companion. But then, he supposed, a chaperon, however disarming of suspicion in the eyes of the world, might prove venal. On the whole, Mrs. Forrest s principle was a sound one: no accomplices. Many transgressors, he reflected, had

  “died because they never knew

  These simple little rules and few.”

  Mrs. Forrest apologised prettily for the inconvenience to which she was putting Mr. Templeton.

  “But I never know when I am not spied upon,” she said. “It is sheer spite, you know. Considering how my husband has behaved to me, I think it is monstrous—don’t you?”

  Her guest agreed that Mr. Forrest must be a monster, jesuitically, however, reserving the opinion that the monster might be a fabulous one.

  “And now you will be wondering why I have brought you here,” went on the lady. “Do come and sit on the sofa. Will you have whisky or coffee?”

  “Coffee, please.”

  “The fact is,” said Mrs. Forrest, “that I’ve had an idea since I saw you. I—you know, having been much in the same position myself” (with a slight laugh) “I felt so much for your friend’s wife.”

  “Sylvia,” put in Lord Peter with commendable promptitude. “Oh, yes. Shocking temper and so on, but possibly some provocation. Yes, yes, quite. Poor woman. Feels things—extra sensitive—highly-strung and all that, don’t you know.”

  “Quite so.” Mrs. Forrest nodded her fantastically turbanned head. Swathed to the eyebrows in gold tissue, with only two flat crescents of yellow hair plastered over her cheek-bones, she looked, in an exotic smoking-suit of embroidered tissue, like a young prince out of the Arabian Nights. Her heavily ringed hands busied themselves with the coffee-cups.

  “Well—I felt that your inquiries were really serious, you know, and though, as I told you, it had nothing to do with me, I was interested and mentioned the matter in a letter to—to my friend, you see, who was with me that night.”

  “Just so,” said Wimsey, taking the cup from her, “yes—er—that was very—er—it was kind of you to be interested.”

  “He—my friend—is abroad at the moment. My letter had to follow him, and I only got his reply today.”

  Mrs. Forrest took a sip or two of coffee as though to clear her recollection.

  “His letter rather surprised me. He reminded me that after dinner he had felt the room rather close, and had opened the sitting-room wind
ow—that window, there—which overlooks South Audley Street. He noticed a car standing there—a small closed one, black or dark blue or some such colour. And while he was looking idly at it—the way one does, you know—he saw a man and woman come out of this block of flats—not this door, but one or two along to the left—and get in and drive off. The man was in evening dress and he thought it might have been your friend.”

  Lord Peter, with his coffee-cup at his lips, paused and listened with great attention.

  “Was the girl in evening dress, too?”

  “No—that struck my friend particularly. She was in just a plain little dark suit, with a hat on.”

  Lord Peter recalled to mind as nearly as possible Bertha Gotobed’s costume. Was this going to be real evidence at last?

  “Th—that’s very interesting,” he stammered. “I suppose your friend couldn’t give any more exact details of the dress?”

  “No,” replied Mrs. Forrest, regretfully, “but he said the man’s arm was round the girl as though she was feeling tired or unwell, and he heard him say, ‘That’s right—the fresh air will do you good.’ But you’re not drinking your coffee.”

  “I beg your pardon—” Wimsey recalled himself with a start. “I was dreamin’—puttin’ two and two together, as you might say. So he was along here all the time—the artful beggar. Oh, the coffee. D’you mind if I put this away and have some without sugar?”

  “I’m so sorry. Men always seem to take sugar in black coffee. Give it to me—I’ll empty it away.”

  “Allow me.” There was no slop-basin on the little table, but Wimsey quickly got up and poured the coffee into the window-box outside. “That’s all right. How about another cup for you?”

  “Thank you—I oughtn’t to take it really, it keeps me awake.”

  “Just a drop.”

  “Oh, well, if you like.” She filled both cups and sat sipping quietly. “Well—that’s all, really, but I thought perhaps I ought to let you know.”

  “It was very good of you,” said Wimsey.