XII. The Evidence of the Bride's Son

CHAPTER XII

THE EVIDENCE OF THE

BRIDE’S SON

‘How I despise

All such mere men of muscle!’

Death’s Jest-Book

MONDAY, 22 JUNE

WIMSEY LOOKED AT HIS watch. It was half-past one, and he had had no lunch. He remedied the omission, took the car and drove out to Darley. He had to wait for a few moments while the gates were opened at the Halt, and took the opportunity to check up on the police inquiry. He found that the lame gate-keeper knew the mysterious Mr Martin by sight—had, in fact, met him one evening in the bar of the Feathers. A pleasant gentleman, with a hearty way with him. Suffered from some trouble with his eyes, which obliged him to wear dark glasses, but a very nice gentleman for all that. The gate-keeper was quite positive that Mr Martin had not passed through the railway-gates at any time on Thursday—not in any car or cart or on a cycle, that was to say. As for passing on foot, he couldn’t swear to it, and you couldn’t expect it of him.

Here, however, a new witness suddenly came forward. The gate-keeper’s little daughter, Rosie, ‘just going on for five, and a wonderful quick girl for her age,’ as her father proudly remarked, was emphatic that ‘the nasty man with the black glasses’ had not been seen at the railway-gates during the critical period on the Thursday. Rosie knew him and disliked him, for she had seen him in the village the day before and his horrid black glasses had frightened her. She and a small friend had been playing Bluebeard at the railway-gates on Thursday. She knew it was Thursday, because it was market day, when the 10.15 stopped there. She had been Sister Anne on her tower, and had called out to her companion when she saw anybody coming along the road. They had played there from after dinner (12.30 according to the gate-keeper) till nearly tea-time (four o’clock). She was absolutely sure the nasty man had not come through the railway-wickets. If he had, she would have run away.

This seemed to dispose of the last lingering possibility that the mysterious Mr Martin might have left the Feathers rather earlier than he was supposed to have done, walked to the crossing and been picked up by a car on the other side. Wimsey thanked Rosie with grave courtesy, gave her sixpence and drove on.

His next port of call was, of course, the Feathers. The landlord, Mr Lundy, was ready enough with his information. What he had told the inspector was quite right. He had first seen Mr Martin on Tuesday—the 16th, that would be. He had arrived about six o’clock and left his Morgan parked on the village green while he came in and took a glass of mild and bitter and asked the way to Mr Goodrich’s house. Who was Mr Goodrich? Why, Mr Goodrich was the gentleman that owned the land down by Hinks’s Lane, where Mr Martin had been camping. All the land thereabouts belonged to Mr Goodrich.

‘I want to be clear about this,’ said Wimsey. ‘Did Mr Martin come here from the direction of Hinks’s Lane, or which way did he come?’

‘No, sir; he drove in along the Heathbury Road and left his car on the green, same as I said.’

‘Did he come straight in here?’

‘Straight as a swaller to its nest,’ replied Mr Lundy, picturesquely. ‘We was open, you see, sir.’

‘And did he ask anybody about where he could camp? Or did he ask at once for Mr Goodrich?’

‘He didn’t ask no questions at all sir, only that: Where was Mr Goodrich’s house?’

‘He knew Mr Goodrich’s name, then?’

‘Seemingly he did, sir.’

‘Did he say why he wanted to see Mr Goodrich?’

‘No, sir. Just asked the way and drank up his beer and off in the car again.’

‘I understand he had lunch here last Thursday?’

‘That’s right, sir. Came in a big open car with a lady. She set him down here and drove off again, and he came in and set down to lunch.’ He thought it would be about one o’clock, but the girl could tell better than he could.

The girl knew all about it. Yes, as she had already told Inspector Umpelty, Mr Martin had come in about ten minutes to one. He mentioned to her that he had been to Wilvercombe, and thought he would make a change by lunching at the inn. His car, it seemed, had got something the matter with it, and a passing car had picked him up and taken him to Wilvercombe and back. Yes, he had lunched heartily: roast leg of mutton with potatoes and boiled cabbage and a rhubarb pie to follow.

Wimsey shuddered at the thought of roast mutton and cabbage on a red-hot June day, and asked when Mr Martin had left the inn.

‘It would be half-past one, sir, by the right time. Our clocks are all ten minutes fast, same as the clock in the bar, that’s set by the wireless every day. I couldn’t say but what Mr Martin might have stopped in the bar on his way out, but half-past one was when he paid me for his lunch. I couldn’t be mistaken about that, sir, because it was my day off and my young man was taking me over to Heathbury on his motor-cycle, and I was watching the clock, as you might say, to see how soon I’d get my work finished with. There wasn’t nobody come in after Mr Martin, so I was able to clear away and get dressed and very pleased I was about it.’

This was clear enough. Mr Martin had certainly not left the Three Feathers earlier than 1.30. Undoubtedly he was not the murderer of Paul Alexis. Nevertheless, having begun his investigation, Wimsey determined to carry it through to the bitter end. Alibis, he reminded himself, were made to be broken. He would suppose that, by means of a magic carpet or other device, Mr Martin had been miraculously wafted from Darley to the Flat-Iron between 1.30 and two o’clock. In that case, did he come back that afternoon, and if so, when? and how?

There were not a great many houses in Darley, and a door-to-door inquiry, though laborious, seemed to be a fairly safe and certain method of answering these questions. He pulled up his socks and set to work. He had no difficulty in getting the villagers to talk. The death of Paul Alexis was a local event of an importance that almost swamped last Saturday’s cricket match, and the revolutionary proposal to turn the disused Quaker meeting-house into a cinema; while the arrival of the Wilvercombe police to make inquiries about the movements of Mr Martin had raised the excitement to fever pitch. Darley felt strongly that, if this kind of thing was going to happen, it might get into the papers again. Darley had actually been in the papers that year already, when Mr Gubbins, the vicar’s warden, had drawn a consolation prize in the Grand National sweep. The sporting half of Darley had been delighted, but envious; the pious half had been quite unable to understand why the vicar had not immediately dismissed Mr Gubbins from his privilege of handing round the plate and sitting on the Church Council, and thought that Mr Gubbins’s action in devoting a tithe of his winnings to the Restoration Fund merely piled hypocrisy on the head of debauchery. But now, with the hope that they might be found to have entertained an angel of darkness unawares, they foresaw all manner of publicity. Wimsey discovered several people who thought that Mr Martin’s manner odd and had not liked his face and who said so, at considerable length. It was, however, only after nearly two hours’ patient research that he discovered somebody who had actually seen Mr Martin on Thursday afternoon. This was, of course, the most obvious person in the village—namely the proprietor of the little tin bungalow that did duty for a garage, and the only reason why Wimsey did not get this information a great deal sooner was that the said proprietor—one Mr Polwhistle—had gone out when he first called upon him, to tackle the internals of a sick petrol-gas engine at a neighbouring farm, leaving behind him only a young woman to attend to the pump.

Mr Polwhistle, when he returned in company of a youthful mechanic, was most discouragingly informative. Mr Martin?—oh, yes. He (Mr Polwhistle) had seen him on Thursday afternoon all right. Mr Martin had come in just upon three o’clock, weren’t it, Tom? Yes, three o’clock—and asked them to come and have a look at his Morgan. They had gone round, and found that the Morgan wouldn’t start, not for toffee. After prolonged investigation and exercise on the starting-handle, they had diagnosed trouble with the ignition. They had taken everything out and looked at it, and eventually it had occurred to Mr Polwhistle that the fault might be in the H.T. lead. On their removing this and putting in a new one, the engine had started up at once, sweet as a nut. There could be no doubt about the time, because Tom had entered it upon his time-sheet; 3 p.m. till 4 p.m.

It was now nearly half-past four, and Wimsey felt that he had a good chance of finding Mr Goodrich at home. He was directed to his house—the big place up the first turning off the Wilvercombe Road—and found the good gentleman and his family gathered about a table well spread with bread and cakes and honey and Devonshire cream.

Mr Goodrich, a stout and hearty squire of the old school, was delighted to give any assistance in his power. Mr Martin had turned up at the house at about seven o’clock on the Tuesday evening and had asked permission to camp at the bottom of Hinks’s Lane. Why Hinks’s Lane, by the way? Well, there used to be a cottage there that belonged to an old fellow called Hinks —a regular character—used to read the Bible through regularly every year, and it was to be hoped it did him good, for a graceless old scamp he was and always had been. But that was donkey’s years ago, and the cottage had fallen into disrepair. Nobody ever went down there now, except campers. Mr Martin had not asked for information about camping-grounds; he had asked straight out for permission to camp in Hinks’s Lane, calling it by that name. Mr Goodrich had never set eyes on Mr Martin before, and he (Mr Goodrich) knew pretty well everything that went on in the village. He was almost certain that Mr Martin had never been in Darley before. No doubt somebody had told him about Hinks’s Lane—it was a regular place for campers. They were out of the way down there, and there were no crops for them to damage and no gates for them to leave open, unless they were to go out of their way to trespass on Farmer Newcombe’s pasture on the other side of the hedge. But there was no necessity for them to do so, as it didn’t lead anywhere. The stream that ran through the pasture came out on to the beach only fifty yards away from the camping-ground and was fresh, except, of course, at flood-tide, when it was brackish. Now Mr Goodrich came to think about it, he believed there had been some complaint from Mr Newcombe about a broken hedge, but the story only came through Geary the blacksmith, who was a notorious talker and he (Mr Goodrich) didn’t see that it had anything to do with Mr Martin. Mr Newcombe was not altogether a satisfactory tenant in the matter of repairs to hedges and when there were gaps, animals would sometimes stray through them. Apart from this, he (Mr Goodrich) knew nothing to Mr Martin’s discredit. He seemed to have been quiet enough, and in any case, Hinks’s Lane being out of sight and sound of the village, campers couldn’t make nuisances of themselves down there. Some of them brought gramophones or concertinas or ukuleles, according to their taste and social position, but Mr Goodrich had no objection to their amusing themselves, so long as they didn’t disturb anybody. He never made any charge for camping on his ground—it didn’t hurt him, and he didn’t see why he should take payment for letting the poor devils who lived in town help themselves to a mouthful of fresh air and a drink of water. He usually asked them to leave the place as tidy as they could, and as a rule he had found them pretty decent in this respect.

Wimsey thanked Mr Goodrich and accepted his hospitable invitation to tea. He left at six o’clock, full of buns and cream, with just nice time to pay a visit to the camping-ground and so round off the chapter of Mr Martin. He drove down the stony little lane, and soon found signs of Mr Martin’s recent presence. The land led out upon a flat expanse of rough turf, beyond which a belt of heavy stones and shingle sloped down to the edge of the sea. The tide was about a quarter-full, and the beach became progressively less rough as it neared the water; presumably at low tide there would be a narrow strip of sand left uncovered.

The tracks of the Morgan’s wheels were still faintly visible upon the coarse grass, and there was a patch of oily drippings to show where it had been parked. Close by, there were the holes where the pole and pegs of a small bell-tent had been driven in. There were the ashes of a burnt-out wood fire, and, among them, a ball of greasy newspaper, which had obviously been used to scrub out a frying-pan. Rather reluctantly, Wimsey unfolded the distasteful sheets and glanced at the heading. Thursday’s Morning Star; nothing particularly exciting about that. Careful search among the ashes of the fire revealed no blood-stained fragments of clothing —not so much as a button of a garment—no half-burnt scraps of paper which might have contained a clue to Mr Martin’s real name and address. The only thing that was in any way remarkable was a piece of thinnish rope about three inches long, heavily blackened by the fire. Wimsey pocketed this, for lack of better occupation, and searched further.

Mr Martin had been a tidy camper on the whole, leaving no obviously offensive débris. On the right-hand side of the camping-ground there was, however, the remains of a stunted thorn hedge, surrounding the battered remnants of Hinks’s Cottage. Half buried at the foot of this hedge, Wimsey discovered a repulsive cache, containing a great number of old tins and bottles, some recent and some obviously abandoned by previous campers, the heels of some loaves, the bones from a neck of mutton, an old dixie with a hole in the bottom, half a neck-tie, a safety-razor blade (still sharp enough to cut one’s fingers on) and a very dead gull. An elaborate and back-aching crawl over the whole surface of the camping-ground rewarded the earnest sleuth further with an immoderate quantity of burnt matches, six empty match-boxes of foreign make, the dottles of several pipes, three oat-grains, a broken bootlace (brown), the stalks of about a pound of strawberries, six plum-stones, the stub of a pencil, a drawing-pin business end up, fifteen beer-corks, and an instrument for removing the patent caps of other beer-bottles. The rough grass showed no identifiable footprints.

Weary and hot, Lord Peter gathered his loot together and stretched his cramped limbs. The wind, still blowing heavily in from seaward, was grateful to his perspiring brow, however much it might hold up the Inspector’s salvage operations. The sky was cloudy, but so long as the wind held, there was, he felt, not much likelihood of rain, and he was glad, for he didn’t want rain. A vague possibility was forming itself in his mind, and he wanted to take a walk next day with Harriet Vane. At the moment, he could do no more. He would go back and change and eat and be normal.

He drove back to Wilvercombe.

After a hot bath and the putting-on of a boiled shirt and dinner-jacket, he felt better and telephoned to the Resplendent to ask Harriet to dine with him.

‘I’m sorry, I’m afraid I can’t. I’m dining with Mrs Weldon and her son.’

‘Her son?’

‘Yes; he’s just arrived. Why not come round here after grub and be introduced?’

‘Dunno. What sort of bloke is he?’

‘Oh, yes—he’s here, and would like to meet you very much.’

‘Oh, I see. We are being overheard. I suppose I’d better come and look the blighter over. Is he handsome?’

‘Yes, rather! Come along about a quarter to nine.’

‘Well, you’d better tell him we’re engaged, and then I shan’t be obliged to assassinate him.’

‘You will ? That’s splendid.’

‘Will you marry me?’

‘Of course not. We’ll expect you at 8.45.’

‘All right, and I hope your rabbit dies.’

Wimsey ate his solitary dinner thoughtfully. So this was the son, was it? The one who was out of sympathy with his mother. What was he doing here? Had he suddenly become sympathetic? Or had she sent for him and compelled him to come in, by financial or other pressure? Was he perhaps a new factor in the problem? He was the only son of his mother and she a rich widow. Here at last was a person to whom the removal of Paul Alexis might appear in the light of a god-send. Undoubtedly the man must be looked into.

He went round to the Resplendent after dinner and found the party waiting for him in the lounge. Mrs Weldon, who wore a plain black semi-evening dress and looked her full age in it, greeted Wimsey effusively.

‘My dear Lord Peter! I am so glad to see you. May I introduce my son Henry? I wrote asking him to come and help us through this terrible time, and he has most kindly put his own business aside and come to me. So very sweet of you, Henry dear. I have just been telling Henry how good Mrs Vane has been to me, and how hard you and she are working to clear poor Paul’s memory.’

Harriet had merely been mischievous. Henry was certainly not handsome, though he was a good, sturdy specimen of his type. He stood about five foot eleven—a strongly built, heavyish man with a brick-red all-weather face. Evening dress did not suit him, for the breadth of his shoulders and the shortness of his legs gave him a rather top-heavy appearance ; one would expect him to look his best in country tweeds and leggings. His hair, rather rough and dull in texture, was mouse-coloured, and offered a pregnant suggestion of what his mother’s might once have looked like before it knew the touch of peroxide; indeed, he was, in a curious way, very like his mother, having the same low, narrow forehead and the same long and obstinate chin; though, in the mother the expression was that of a weak, fanciful obstinacy, and, in the son, of stubborn and unimaginative obstinacy. Looking at him, Wimsey felt that he was hardly the sort of man to take kindly to a Paul Alexis for a step-father; he would not sympathise with the sterile romance of any woman who was past the age of child-bearing. Wimsey, summing him up with the man of the world’s experienced eye, placed him at once as a gentleman-farmer, who was not quite a gentleman and not much of a farmer.

At the moment, the understanding between Henry Weldon and his mother seemed, nevertheless, to be excellent

‘Henry is so delighted,’ said Mrs Weldon, ‘that you are here to help us, Lord Peter. That policeman is so stupid. He doesn’t seem to believe a word I tell him. Of course, he’s a very well-meaning, honest man, and most polite, but how can a person like that possibly understand a nature like Paul’s. I knew Paul. So did Henry, didn’t you, dear?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Henry, ‘certainly. Very pleasant fellow.’

‘Henry knows how utterly devoted Paul was to me. You know, don’t you, dear, that he never would have taken his own life and left me like that without a word. It hurts me so when people say such things—I feel I could —’

‘There, there, Mother,’ muttered Henry, embarrassed by the prospect of emotion and possible break-down in a public place. ‘You must try to bear up. Of course we know Alexis was all right. Damned fond of you—of course, of course. Police are always silly fools. Don’t let ’em worry you.’

‘No dear, I’m sorry,’ said Mrs Weldon, dabbing her eyes apologetically with a small handkerchief. ‘It’s all been such a shock to me. But I mustn’t be weak and silly. We must all be courageous and work hard to do something about it.’

Wimsey suggested that a spot of something or other might do them all good, and, further, that he and Henry might make a concerted masculine raid on the bar, instructing the waiter to attend upon the ladies. He felt that he could dissect Henry more conveniently in a private interview.

As the two men’s backs disappeared in the direction of the bar, Mrs Weldon turned her anxious eyes on Harriet.

‘How nice Lord Peter is,’ she said, ‘and what a comforting thing it is for us both to have a man to rely on.’

This sentiment was not very well received; Harriet averted her gaze from Lord Peter’s back, on which it had been absentmindedly and unaccountably fixed, and frowned; but Mrs Weldon bleated on, unheeding.

‘It’s beautiful how kind everybody is when one is in trouble. Henry and I haven’t always been as close to one another as a mother and son should be. He takes after his father in a great many ways, though people say he is like me to look at, and when he was a little boy he had the dearest golden curls—just like mine. But he loves sport and out-door life—you can tell that by his looks, can’t you? He’s always out and about, seeing after his farm, and that’s what makes him look a little older than his years. He’s really quite a young man—I was a mere child when I married, as I told you before. But though, as I say, we haven’t always been as much in harmony as one would have liked, he has been perfectly sweet to me about this sad affair. When I wrote to him and told him how much I felt the dreadful things they were saying about Paul, he came at once to help me, though I know he must be terribly busy just now. I really feel that poor Paul’s death has brought us closer together.’

Harriet said that that must be a great comfort to Mrs Weldon. It was the only possible answer.

Henry, meanwhile, had his own view of the matter to put before Lord Peter.

‘Bit of a staggerer for the old lady, this,’ he observed over a glass of Scotch. ‘Takes it hard. Between you and me, it’s all for the best. How’s a woman of her age going to be happy with a feller like that? Eh? Don’t like these Popoffsky blighters, anyway, and she’s fifty-seven if she’s a day. I’m thirty-six myself. Consider I’m well out of it. Makes a chap look a bit of a fool when his mother proposes to give him a twenty-year-old lounge lizard for a step-papa. Suppose it’s all over the place now. Bet everybody’s grinning at me behind my back. Let ’em grin. All over now, anyway. Suppose the chappie did do himself in, didn’t he?’

‘It looks like it,’ admitted Wimsey.

‘Couldn’t face the prospect, eh? All his own fault. Hard-up, I suppose, poor devil! The old girl’s not a bad sort, really. She’d have given the feller a damn good time if he’d stuck to his bargain. But you can’t trust these foreigners. Like collies—lick your boots one minute and bite you the next. Don’t like collies, myself. Give me a good bull-terrier any day.’

‘Oh, yes—so frightfully British and all that, what?’

‘Thought I’d better push along and cheer Mother up. Stop all this nonsense about Bolsheviks. Won’t do to have her wasting her time with these tom-fool notions. Enough to send the old dear clean off her rocker, you know. Once they get those notions in their heads it’s a job to get rid of ’em. Form of mania, don’t you think, like women’s rights and crystal-gazing?’

Wimsey agreed cautiously that an unreasonable conviction might, in process of time, amount to an obsession.

‘That’s just what I mean. You’ve got the word—obsession, that’s it. Well, I don’t want the old lady to go wasting her time and money on an obsession. Look here, Wimsey, you’re a sound sort of fellow—brainy and all that—can’t you put off this Bolshevik idea? She’s taken a notion that you and that Vane girl are encouraging her. Now, take it from me, old man, that kind of thing won’t do at all.’

Lord Peter delicately raised his eyebrows.

‘Of course,’ pursued Mr Weldon, ‘I see your game all right. You’re nuts on this kind of thing and it’s all a darn good advertisement, and it gives you a jolly good excuse for barging round with the girl. That’s quite all right. But it’s not quite the game to go playing my mother up, if you see what I mean. So I thought I’d just give you a hint. You won’t take offence?’

‘I am quite ready,’ said Lord Peter, ‘to take anything I am offered.’

Mr Weldon looked puzzled for a moment and then burst into a hearty laugh.

‘That’s good,’ he said, ‘dashed good. What was yours? Martell Three-Star? Here, Johnnie, same again for this gentleman.’

‘Thank you, no,’ said Wimsey. You misunderstood me.’

‘Oh, come—another little spot won’t do you any harm. No? Oh, well, if you won’t, you won’t. Mine’s a Scotch-and-soda. Well, now, we understand one another, eh?’

‘Oh, yes. I think I understand you perfectly.’

‘Good. Glad to have this chance of putting you wise. Whole thing’s a nuisance, of course. Suppose we shall be stuck here now till they’ve found the body and held an inquest. Don’t like these beastly watering-places. Suits you all right, I daresay. I like a bit more open air and none of this jazz and dinner-jackets.’

‘Quite right,’ said Wimsey.

‘You think so, eh? I was putting you down for something more in the West End line. But I suppose you’re a bit of a sportsman, too? Huntin’, fishin’, that sort of thing, eh?’

‘I hunted pretty regularly with the Quorn and the Pytchley at one time, and I shoot and fish a bit,’ said Wimsey. ‘After all, I was brought up in the country, you know. My people have a place in the shires, and our headquarters is down in Norfolk—Duke’s Denver, on the borders of the Fen country.’

‘Oh, yes, of course. You’re Denver’s brother. Never seen the place, but I live in that part of the world myself—Huntingdonshire, not far from Ely.’

‘Oh, yes; I know that part pretty well. Fruit-farming country and all that. Flattish, of course, but uncommonly good sort of soil.’

‘Nothing in farming these days,’ grumbled Mr Weldon. ‘Look at all this Russian wheat they’re dumpin’ in. As if things weren’t bad enough already, with wages what they are, and taxes, and rates and tithe and insurance. I’ve got fifty acres of wheat. By the time it’s harvested I daresay it’ll have cost me £9 an acre. And what shall I get for it? Lucky if I get five. How this damned Government expects the farmer to carry on, I don’t know. Damned if I don’t feel like chucking it altogether sometimes and clearing out of this bloody country. Nothing much to stick round here for. I’m not married, thank God! Too much sense. If you take my advice you’ll do likewise. You must be pretty smart to have escaped so long. Look as if you did yourself pretty well, too. Luckily your brother’s still a youngish man. Death-duties and all that. Cripple a place, don’t they? But I always thought he was a pretty warm man, for a duke. How’s he manage it?’

Wimsey explained that the Denver income was not derived from the Denver estate, which was a liability rather than an asset.

‘Oh, I see. Well, you’re lucky. Takes a man all he can do to get his living off the land these days.’

‘Yes; I suppose you have to stick to it uncommonly closely. Up early and late. Nothing escapes the master’s eye. That sort of thing, what?’

‘Oh, yes—yes.’

‘It must be trying to be obliged to leave things and come down to Wilvercombe. How long do you think you’ll be here?’

‘Eh? Oh, I don’t know. Depends on this inquest, doesn’t it? I’ve left a man in charge, of course.’

‘Just so. Hadn’t we better get back and join the ladies?’

‘Ah!’ Mr Weldon dug his elbow into Lord Peter’s ribs. ‘Ladies, eh? You be careful, my boy. Getting to the dangerous age, aren’t you? If you ain’t careful, you’ll find yourself booked one of these days.’

‘Oh, I daresay I shall manage to keep my head out of the noose.’

‘Out of the—oh, yes—the matrimonial noose. Yes. Ha, ha! All right. I suppose we’d better go.’

Mr Weldon turned away from the bar rather abruptly. Wimsey, reflecting that the ability to swallow insult is a necessary part of the detective’s make-up, restrained the temptation to connect his toe with Mr Weldon’s rather massive hinder-end, and followed, ruminating.

A message from the waiter informed him that the ladies had adjourned into the dance-lounge. Henry growled, but was relieved to find that his mother was, after all, not dancing. She was watching Harriet who, clad in claret-colour, was revolving smoothly in the practised arm of Antoine. Wimsey politely begged Mrs Weldon to favour him, but she shook her head.

‘I couldn’t. Not so soon. In fact, never again—now that Paul—but I begged Miss Vane to enjoy herself and not mind about me. It is such a delight to watch her looking so happy.’

Wimsey sat down and did his best to enjoy the spectacle of Harriet’s happiness. As the quick-step came to an end, Antoine, with professional tact, contrived to end his progress in the neighbourhood of their table and then, bowing gracefully, melted away. Harriet, a little flushed, smiled amiably upon Lord Peter.

‘Oh, there you are,’ said his lordship.

Harriet became suddenly conscious that every woman in the room was gazing furtively or with frank interest at Wimsey and herself, and the knowledge exhilarated her.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘here I am. Frivolling. You didn’t know I could do it, did you?’

‘I have always taken it for granted that you could do everything.’

‘Oh, no. I can only do what I like doing.’

‘We’ll see about that’

The orchestra swung gently into a dreamy tune. Wimsey advanced upon Harriet and steered her competently out into the centre of the room. For the first few bars of the music they had the floor to themselves.

‘At last,’ said Wimsey, ‘we are alone. That is not an original remark, but I am in no condition to invent epigrams. I have been suffering agonies, and my soul is raw. Now that for a brief moment I have you all to myself—’

‘Well?’ said Harriet. She was aware that the wine-coloured frock became her.

‘What,’ said Wimsey, ‘do you make of Mr Henry Weldon?’

‘Oh!’

This was not quite the question Harriet had expected. She hastily collected her ideas. It was very necessary that she should be the perfect unemotional sleuth.

‘His manners are dreadful,’ she said, ‘and I don’t think his brains are much to write home about.’

‘No, that’s just it’

‘Just what?’

Wimsey countered the question with another.

‘Why is he here?’

‘She sent for him.’

‘Yes, but why is he here. Sudden spasm of filial affection?’

‘She thinks so.’

“Do you think so?’

‘Possibly. Or, more likely, he doesn’t want to get on the wrong side of her. It’s her money, you know.’

‘Quite. Yes. It’s funny that that should only just have occurred to him. He’s very like her, isn’t he?’

‘Very. So much so that he gave me an odd feeling just at first, as though I’d met him somewhere. Do you mean that they are too much alike to hit it off together?’

‘They seem to be getting along all right at present.’

‘I expect he’s glad to be relieved from the prospect of Paul Alexis, and can’t help showing it. He’s not very subtle.’

‘That’s what feminine intuition makes of it, is it?’

‘Bother feminine intuition. Do you find him romantic or obscure?’

‘No; I wish I did. I only find him offensive.’

‘Oh?’

‘And I’d like to know why.’

Silence for a few moments. Harriet felt that Wimsey ought to be saying, ‘How well you dance.’ Since he did not say it, she became convinced that she was dancing like a wax doll with sawdust legs. Wimsey had never danced with her, never held her in his arms before. It should have been an epoch-making moment for him. But his mind appeared to be concentrated upon the dull personality of an East Anglian farmer. She fell a victim to an inferiority complex, and tripped over her partner’s feet.

‘Sorry,’ said Wimsey, accepting responsibility like a gentleman.

‘It’s my fault,’ said Harriet. ‘I’m a rotten dancer. Don’t bother about me. Let’s stop. You haven’t got to be polite to me, you know.’

Worse and worse. She was being peevish and egotistical. Wimsey glanced down at her in surprise and then suddenly smiled.

‘Darling, if you danced like an elderly elephant with arthritis, I would dance the sun and moon into the sea with you. I have waited a thousand years to see you dance in that frock.’

‘Idiot,’ said Harriet.

They made the circuit of the room in silence and harmony. Antoine, guiding an enormous person in jade-green and diamonds, swam comet-like into their orbit and murmured into Harriet’s ear across an expanse of fat white shoulder:

‘Qu’est-ce que je vous ai dit? L’élan, c’est trouvé.’

He slid away dexterously, leaving Harriet flushed.

‘What did that blighter say?’

‘He said I danced better with you than with him.’

‘Curse his impudence!’ Wimsey scowled over the heads of the intervening couples at Antoine’s elegant back.

‘Tell me now,’ said Harriet The ending of the dance had found them on the opposite side of the room from the Weldons, and it seemed natural to sit down at the nearest table. Tell me, what is biting you about Henry Weldon?’

‘Henry Weldon?’ Wimsey jerked his mind back from an immense distance. ‘Yes, of course. Why is he here? Not to worm himself into his mother’s good graces, surely?’

‘Why not? Now is his time. Alexis is disposed of and he sees his opportunity. Now that he had nothing to lose by it, he can afford to come along and be frightfully sympathetic and help to investigate things and be filial and affectionate and so on.’

‘Then why is he trying to drive me out of the place?’

‘You?’

‘Me.’

“How do you mean?’

‘Weldon went out of his way in the bar this evening to be as offensive as he possibly could, without using actual violence or bad language. He informed me, in an indirect but unmistakable manner, that I was poking my nose in where I was not wanted, exploiting his mother for my private ends and probably sucking up to her for her money. In fact, he drove me to the indescribable vulgarity of reminding him who I was and why I did not require anybody’s money.’

‘Why didn’t you sock him one over the jaw?’

‘It was a temptation. I felt that you would love me better if I did. But you would not, in your calmer moments, really wish me to put my love before my detective principles.’

‘Certainly not. But what’s his idea?’

‘Oh, that’s clear enough. He made it very clear. He wants it to be understood that this detecting business is to stop, and that Mrs Weldon is to be restrained from lavishing time and money in pursuit of non-existent Bolsheviks.’

‘I can understand that. He’s looking to inherit the money.’

‘Of course. But if I were to go and tell Mrs Weldon the things he’s been saying to me, she’d probably disinherit him.’

‘And where would be the use of all this display of sympathy then?’

‘I knew he was a stupid man.’

‘He evidently thinks it very important to stop all these inquiries. So much so that he’s prepared, not only to risk my splitting on him, but also to spend an indefinite time here hanging round his mother to see that she doesn’t make inquiries on her own.’

‘Well, I daresay he has nothing else to do.’

‘Nothing else to do? My dear girl, he’s a farmer.’

‘Well?’

‘And this is June.’

‘What about it?’

‘Why isn’t he attending to his hay-making?’

‘I didn’t think of that.’

‘About the last weeks of the year that any decent farmer would be willing to waste are the weeks from hay to harvest. I can understand his running over for a day, but he seems to be prepared to make a session of it. This Alexis business has become so important that he’s ready to chuck everything, come down to a place he detests and hang about interminably in an hotel in attendance on a mother with whom he has never had very much in common. I think it’s funny.’

‘Yes, it is rather funny.’

‘Has he ever been here before?’

‘No. I asked him when we met. It’s the kind of thing one does ask people. He said he hadn’t. I expect he kept away while all the Alexis business was going on—he’d hate it.’

‘And content himself with forbidding the banns at a distance?’

“Yes—though it doesn’t seem the most effective way.’

‘No? But the banns have been fairly effectively forbidden, haven’t they?’

‘Yes. But—are you casting Henry for the part of the murderer?’

‘I should like to. But I don’t feel I can, somehow.’

‘No?’

‘No. That’s why I wanted to find out whether you thought Henry was subtle. You don’t, and I agree with you. I don’t think Henry has the brains to have murdered Paul Alexis.’