Lord Peter Views the Body: A Collection of Mysteries

by Dorothy L. Sayers

  He smiled a little grimly to himself as they came up under the trees to the spot where the phantom coach had passed him. As they passed the gate through which the ingenious apparition had vanished, he indulged himself by pointing it out, and was rewarded by hearing a snarl from Haviland. At the well-remembered fork, he took the right-hand turning into Frimpton and drove steadily for six miles or so, till a warning shout from Mr Frobisher-Pym summoned him to look out for the turning up to Mortimer’s.

  Mr Mortimer’s house, with its extensive stabling and farm buildings, stood about two miles back from the main road. In the darkness Wimsey could see little of it; but he noticed that the ground-floor windows were all lit up, and, when the door opened to the magistrate’s imperative ring, a loud burst of laughter from the interior gave evidence that Mr Mortimer was not taking his misdoings too seriously.

  ‘Is Mr Mortimer at home?’ demanded Mr Frobisher-Pym, in the tone of a man not to be trifled with.

  ‘Yes, sir. Will you come in, please?’

  They stepped into a large, old-fashioned hall, brilliantly lit, and made cosy with a heavy oak screen across the door. As Wimsey advanced, blinking, from the darkness, he saw a large, thick-set man, with a ruddy face, advancing with hand outstretched in welcome.

  ‘Frobisher-Pym! By Jove! how decent of you to come over! We’ve got some old friends of yours here. Oh!’ (in a slightly altered tone) ‘Burdock! Well, well —’

  ‘Damn you!’ said Haviland Burdock, thrusting furiously past the magistrate, who was trying to hold him back. ‘Damn you, you swine! Chuck this bloody farce. What have you done with the body?’

  ‘The body, eh?’ said Mr Mortimer, retreating in some confusion.

  ‘Yes, curse you! Your friend Hubbard’s split. It’s no good denying it. What the devil do you mean by it? You’ve got the body here somewhere. Where is it? Hand it over!’

  He strode threateningly round the screen into the lamplight. A tall, thin man rose up unexpectedly from the depths of an armchair and confronted him.

  ‘Hold hard, old man!’

  ‘Good God! said Haviland, stepping heavily back on Wimsey’s toes. ‘Martin!’

  ‘Sure,’ said the other. ‘Here I am. Come back like a bad halfpenny. How are you?’

  ‘So you’re at the bottom of this!’ stormed Haviland. ‘I might have known it. You damned, dirty hound! I suppose you think it’s decent to drag your father out of his coffin and tote him about the country like a circus. It’s degrading. It’s disgusting. It’s abominable. You must be perfectly dead to all decent feeling. You don’t deny it, I suppose?’

  ‘I say, Burdock!’ expostulated Mortimer.

  ‘Shut up, curse you!’ said Haviland. ‘I’ll deal with you in a minute. Now, look here, Martin, I’m not going to stand any more of this disgraceful behaviour. You’ll give up that body, and —’

  ‘Just a moment, just a moment,’ said Martin. He stood, smiling a little, his hands thrust into the pockets of his dinner-jacket. This éclaircissement seems to be rather public. Who are all these people? Oh, it’s the vicar, I see. I’m afraid we owe you a little explanation, vicar. And, er —’

  ‘This is Lord Peter Wimsey,’ put in Mr Frobisher-Pym, ‘who discovered your — I’m afraid, Burdock, I must agree with your brother in calling it your disgraceful plot.’

  ‘Oh, Lord!’ said Martin. ‘I say, Mortimer, you didn’t know you were up against Lord Peter Wimsey, did you? No wonder the cat got out of the bag. The man’s known to be a perfect Sherlock. However, I seem to have got home at the crucial moment, so there’s no harm done. Diana, this is Lord Peter Wimsey — my wife.’

  A young and pretty woman in a black evening dress greeted Wimsey with a shy smile, and turned deprecatingly to her brother-in-law.

  ‘Haviland, we want to explain —’

  He paid no attention to her.

  ‘Now then, Martin, the game’s up.’

  ‘I think it is, Haviland; But why make all this racket?’

  ‘Racket! I like that. You take your own father’s body out of its coffin —’

  ‘No, no, Haviland. I knew nothing about it. I swear that. I only got the news of his death a few days ago. We were right out in the wilds, filming a show in the Pyrenees, and I came straight back as soon as I could get away. Mortimer here, with Rawlinson and Hubbard, staged the whole show by themselves. I never heard a word about it till yesterday morning in Paris, when I found his letter waiting at my old digs. Honestly, Haviland, I had nothing to do with it. Why should I? I didn’t need to.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, if I’d been here, I should only have had to speak to stop the funeral altogether. Why on earth should I have gone to the trouble of stealing the body? Quite apart from the irreverence and all that. As it is, when Mortimer told me about it, I must say I was a bit revolted at the idea, though I appreciated the kindness and the trouble they’d been to on my account. I think Mr Hancock has most cause for wrath, really. But Mortimer has been as careful as possible, sir — really he has. He has placed the old governor quite reverently and decently in what used to be the chapel, and put flowers round him and so on. You will be quite satisfied, I’m sure.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Mortimer. ‘No disrespect intended, don’t you know. Come and see him.’

  ‘This is dreadful,’ said the vicar helplessly.

  ‘They had to do the best they could, don’t you see, in my absence,’ said Mortimer. ‘As soon as I can, I’ll make proper arrangements for a suitable tomb — above ground, of course. Or possibly cremation would fit the case.’

  ‘What!’ gasped Haviland. ‘Do you mean to say you imagine I’m going to let my father stay unburied, simply because of your disgusting greed about money?’

  ‘My dear chap, do you think I’m going to let you put him underground, simply to enable you to grab my property?’

  ‘I’m the executor of his will, and I say he shall be buried, whether you like it or not!’

  ‘And I’m an executor too — and I say he shan’t be buried. He can be kept absolutely decently above ground, and he shall be.’

  ‘But hear me,’ said the vicar, distracted between these two disagreeable and angry young men.

  ‘I’ll see what Graham says about you,’ bawled Haviland.

  ‘Oh, yes — the honest lawyer, Graham,’ sneered Martin. ‘He knew what was in the will, didn’t he? I suppose he didn’t mention it to you, by any chance?’

  ‘He did not,’ retorted Haviland. ‘He knew too well the sort of skunk you were to say anything about it. Not content with disgracing us with your miserable, blackmailing marriage —’

  ‘Mr Burdock, Mr Burdock —’

  ‘Take care, Haviland!’

  ‘You have no more decency —’

  ‘Stop it!’

  ‘Than to steal your father’s body and my money so that you and your damned wife can carry on your loose-living, beastly ways with a parcel of film-actors and chorus-girls —’

  ‘Now then, Haviland. Keep your tongue off my wife and my friends. How about your own? Somebody told me Winnie’d been going the pace pretty well — next door to bankruptcy, aren’t you, with the gees and the tables and God knows what! No wonder you want to do your brother out of his money. I never thought much of you, Haviland, but by God —’

  ‘One moment!’

  Mr Frobisher-Pym at last succeeded in asserting himself, partly through the habit of authority, and partly because the brothers had shouted themselves breathless.

  ‘One moment, Martin. I will call you so, because I have known you a long time, and your father too. I understand your anger at the things Haviland has said. They were unpardonable, as I am sure he will realise when he comes to his right mind. But you must remember that he has been, greatly shocked and upset — as we all have been — by this very very painful business. And it is not fair to say that Haviland has tried to “do you out” of anything. He knew nothing about this iniquitous will, and he naturally saw to it that the fu
neral arrangements were carried out in the usual way. You must settle the future amicably between you, just as you would have done had the will not been accidentally mislaid. Now, Martin — and Haviland too — think it over. My dear boys, this scene is simply appalling. It really must not happen. Surely the estate can be divided up in a friendly manner between you. It is horrible that an old man’s body should be a bone of contention between his own sons, just over a matter of money.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Martin. ‘I forgot myself. You’re quite right, sir. Look here, Haviland, forget it I’ll let you have half the money —’

  ‘Half the money! But it’s all mine. You’ll let me have half? How damned generous! My own money!’

  ‘No, old man. It’s mine at the moment. The governor’s not buried yet, you know. That’s right, isn’t it, Mr Frobisher-Pym?’

  ‘Yes; the money is yours, legally, at this moment. You must see that, Haviland. But your brother offers you half, and —’

  ‘Half! I’m damned if I’ll take half. The man’s tried to swindle me out of it I’ll send for the police, and have him put in gaol for robbing the Church. You see if I don’t. Give me the telephone.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Wimsey. ‘I don’t want to butt in on your family affairs any more than I have already, but I really don’t advise you to send for the police.’

  ‘You don’t, eh? What the hell’s it got to do with you?’

  ‘Well,’ said Wimsey deprecatingly, ‘if this will business comes into court, I shall probably have to give evidence, because I was the bird who found the thing, don’t you see?’

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘Well, then. They might ask how long the will was supposed to have been where I found it.’

  Haviland appeared to swallow something which obstructed his speech.

  ‘What about it, curse you!’

  ‘Yes. Well, you see, it’s rather odd when you come to think of it I mean, your late father must have hidden that will in the bookcase before he went abroad. That was — how long ago? Three years? Five years?’

  ‘About four years.’

  ‘Quite. And since then your bright caretaker has let the damp get into the library, hasn’t she? No fires, and the window getting broken and so on. Ruinous to the books. Very distressin’ to anybody like myself, you know. Yes. Well, supposin’ they asked that question about the will — and you said it had been there in the damp for four years. Wouldn’t they think it a bit funny if I told ’em that there was a big damp stain like a grinning face on the end of the bookshelf, and a big, damp, grinning face on the jolly old Nüremberg Chronicle to correspond with it, and no stain on the will which had been sittin’ for four years between the two?’

  Mrs Haviland screamed suddenly, ‘Haviland! You fool! You utter fool!’

  ‘Shut up!’

  Haviland snapped round at his wife with a cry of rage, and she collapsed into a chair, with her hand snatched to her mouth.

  ‘Thank you, Winnie,’ said Martin ‘No, Haviland — don’t trouble to explain. Winnie’s given the show away. So you knew — you knew about the will, and you deliberately hid it away and let the funeral go on. I’m immensely obliged to you — nearly as obliged as I am to the discreet Graham. Is it fraud or conspiracy or what, to conceal wills? Mr Frobisher-Pym will know.’

  ‘Dear, dear!’ said the magistrate. ‘Are you certain of your facts, Wimsey?’

  ‘Positive,’ said Wimsey, producing the Nüremberg Chronicle from under his arm. ‘Here’s the stain — you can see it yourself. Forgive me for having borrowed your property, Mr Burdock. I was rather afraid Mr Haviland might think this little discrepancy over in the still watches of the night, and decide to sell the Chronicle, or give it away, or even think it looked better without its back pages and cover. Allow me to return it to you, Mr Martin — intact. You will perhaps excuse my saying that I don’t very much admire any of the roles in this melodrama. It throws, as Mr Picksniff would say, a sad light on human nature. But I resent extremely the way in which I was wangled up to that bookshelf and made to be the bright little independent witness who found the will. I may be an ass, Mr Haviland Burdock, but I’m not a bloody ass. Good night I will wait in the car till you are all ready.’

  Wimsey stalked out with some dignity.

  Presently he was followed by the vicar and by Mr Frobisher-Pym.

  ‘Mortimer’s taking Haviland and his wife to the station,’ said the magistrate. They’re going back to town at once. You can send their traps off in the morning, Hancock. We’d better make ourselves scarce.’

  Wimsey pressed the self-starter.

  As he did so, a man ran hastily down the steps and came up to him. It was Martin.

  ‘I say,’ he muttered. ‘You’ve done me a good turn — more than I deserve, I’m afraid. You must think I’m a damned swine. But I’ll see the old man decently put away, and I’ll share with Haviland. You mustn’t judge him too hardly, either. That wife of his is an awful woman. Run him over head and ears in debt. Bust up his business. I’ll see it’s all squared up. See? Don’t want you to think us too awful.’

  ‘Oh, right-ho!’ said Wimsey.

  He slipped in the clutch, and faded away into the wet, white fog.

  The Vindictive Story of the Footsteps That Ran

  MR BUNTER WITHDREW HIS head from beneath the focusing cloth.

  ‘I fancy that will be quite adequate, sir,’ he said deferentially, ‘unless there are any further patients, if I may call them so, which you would wish put on record.’

  ‘Not today,’ replied the doctor. He took the last stricken rat gently from the table, and replaced it in its cage with an air of satisfaction. ‘Perhaps on Wednesday, if Lord Peter can kindly spare your services once again —’

  ‘What’s that?’ murmured his lordship, withdrawing his long nose from the investigation of a number of unattractive-looking glass jars. ‘Nice old dog,’ he added vaguely. ‘Wags his tail when you mention his name, what? Are these monkey-glands, Hart-man, or a south-west elevation of Cleopatra’s duodenum?’

  ‘You don’t know anything, do you?’ said the young physician, laughing. ‘No use playing your bally-fool-with-an-eyeglass tricks on me, Wimsey. I’m up to them. I was saying to Bunter that I’d be no end grateful if you’d let him turn up again three days hence to register the progress of the specimens — always supposing they do progress, that is.’

  ‘Why ask, dear old thing?’ said his lordship. ‘Always a pleasure to assist a fellow-sleuth, don’t you know. Trackin’ down murderers — all in the same way of business and all that. All finished? Good egg! By the way, if you don’t have that cage mended you’ll lose one of your patients — Number 5. The last wire but one is workin’ loose — assisted by the intelligent occupant. Jolly little beasts, ain’t they? No need of dentists — wish I was a rat — wire much better for the nerves than that fizzlin’ drill.’

  Dr Hartman uttered a little exclamation.

  ‘How in the world did you notice that, Wimsey? I didn’t think you’d even looked at the cage.’

  ‘Built noticin’ — improved by practice,’ said Lord Peter quietly. ‘Anythin’ wrong leaves a kind of impression on the eye; brain trots along afterwards with the warnin’. I saw that when we came in. Only just grasped it. Can’t say my mind was glued on the matter. Shows the victim’s improvin’, anyhow. All serene, Bunter?’

  ‘Everything perfectly satisfactory, I trust, my lord,’ replied the manservant. He had packed up his camera and plates, and was quietly restoring order in the little laboratory, whose fittings — compact as those of an ocean liner — had been disarranged for the experiment.

  ‘Well,’ said the doctor, ‘I am enormously obliged to you, Lord Peter, and to Bunter too. I am hoping for a great result from these experiments, and you cannot imagine how valuable an assistance it will be to me to have a really good series of photographs. I can’t afford this sort of thing — yet,’ he added, his rather haggard young face wistful as he looked at the great camer
a, ‘and I can’t do the work at the hospital. There’s no time; I’ve got to be here. A struggling G.P. can’t afford to let his practice go, even in Bloomsbury. There are times when even a half-crown visit makes all the difference between making both ends meet and having an ugly hiatus.’

  ‘As Mr Micawber said,’ replied Wimsey, “Income twenty pounds, expenditure nineteen, nineteen, six — result: happiness; expenditure twenty pounds, ought, six — result: misery.” Don’t prostrate yourself in gratitude, old bean; nothin’ Bunter loves like messin’ round with pyro and hyposulphite. Keeps his hand in. All kinds of practice welcome. Finger-prints and process plates spell seventh what-you-may-call-it of bliss, but focal-plane work on scurvy-ridden rodents (good phrase!) acceptable if no crime forthcoming. Crimes have been rather short lately. Been eatin’ our heads off, haven’t we, Bunter? Don’t know what’s come over London. I’ve taken to prying into my neighbour’s affairs to keep from goin’ stale. Frightened the postman into a fit the other day by askin’ him how his young lady at Croydon was. He’s a married man, livin’ in Great Ormond Street.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t really. But he lives just opposite to a friend of mine — Inspector Parker, and his wife — not Parker’s; he’s unmarried; the postman’s, I mean — asked Parker the other day whether the flyin’ shows at Croydon went on all night Parker, bein’ flummoxed, said “No,” without thinkin’. Bit of a giveaway, what? Thought I’d give the poor devil a word in season, don’t you know. Uncommonly thoughtless of Parker.’

  The doctor laughed. ‘You’ll stay to lunch, won’t you?’ he said. ‘Only cold meat and salad, I’m afraid. My woman won’t come Sundays. Have to answer my own door. Deuced unprofessional, I’m afraid, but it can’t be helped.’

  ‘Pleasure,’ said Wimsey, as they emerged from the laboratory and entered the dark little flat by the back door. ‘Did you build this place on?’

  ‘No,’ said Hartman, ‘the last tenant did that. He was an artist. That’s why I took the place. It comes in very useful, ramshackle as it is, though this glass roof is a bit sweltering on a hot day like this. Still, I had to have something on the ground floor, cheap, and it’ll do till times get better.’