“_There are two million more females than males in England and Wales!
And this is an awe-inspiring circumstance._”
Gilbert Frankau
“What do you really think of that story?” inquired Parker. He had dropped in to breakfast with Wimsey the next morning, before departing in the Notting Dale direction, in quest of an elusive anonymous letter-writer. “I thought it sounded rather as though our friend had been a bit too cocksure about his grand medical specialising. After all, the old girl might so easily have had some sort of heart attack. She was very old and ill.”
“So she might, though I believe as a matter of fact cancer patients very seldom pop off in that unexpected way. As a rule, they surprise everybody by the way they cling to life. Still, I wouldn’t think much of that if it wasn’t for the niece. She prepared the way for the death, you see, by describing her aunt as so much worse than she was.”
“I thought the same when the doctor was telling his tale. But what did the niece do? She can’t have poisoned her aunt or even smothered her, I suppose, or they’d have found signs of it on the body. And the aunt did die—so perhaps the niece was right and the opinionated young medico wrong.”
“Just so. And of course, we’ve only got his version of the niece and the nurse—and he obviously had what the Scotch call ta’en a scunner at the nurse. We mustn’t lose sight of her, by the way. She was the last person to be with the old lady before her death, and it was she who administered that injection.”
“Yes, yes—but the injection had nothing to do with it. If anything’s clear, that is. I say, do you think the nurse can have said anything that agitated the old lady and gave her a shock that way. The patient was a bit gaga, but she may have had sense enough to understand something really startling. Possibly the nurse just said something stupid about dying—the old lady appears to have been very sensitive on the point.”
“Ah!” said Lord Peter, “I was waiting for you to get on to that. Have you realised that there really is one rather sinister figure in the story, and that’s the family lawyer.”
“The one who came down to say something about the will, you mean, and was so abruptly sent packing.”
“Yes. Suppose he’d wanted the patient to make a will in favour of somebody quite different—somebody outside the story as we know it. And when he found he couldn’t get any attention paid to him, he sent the new nurse down as a sort of substitute.”
“It would be rather an elaborate plot,” said Parker, dubiously. “He couldn’t know that the doctor’s fiancée was going to be sent away. Unless he was in league with the niece, of course, and induced her to engineer the change of nurses.”
“That cock won’t fight, Charles. The niece wouldn’t be in league with the lawyer to get herself disinherited.”
“No, I suppose not. Still, I think there’s something in the idea that the old girl was either accidentally or deliberately startled to death.”
“Yes—and whichever way it was, it probably wasn’t legal murder in that case. However, I think it’s worth looking into. That reminds me.” He rang the bell. “Bunter, just take a note to the post for me, would you?”
“Certainly, my lord.”
Lord Peter drew a writing pad towards him.
“What are you going to write?” asked Parker, looking over his shoulder with some amusement.
Lord Peter wrote:
“Isn’t civilisation wonderful?”
He signed this simple message and slipped it into an envelope.
“If you want to be immune from silly letters, Charles,” he said, “don’t carry your monomark in your hat.”
“And what do you propose to do next?” asked Parker. “Not, I hope, to send me round to Monomark House to get the name of a client. I couldn’t do that without official authority, and they would probably kick up an awful shindy.”
“No,” replied his friend, “I don’t propose violating the secrets of the confessional. Not in that quarter at any rate. I think, if you can spare a moment from your mysterious correspondent, who probably does not intend to be found, I will ask you to come and pay a visit to a friend of mine. It won’t take long. I think you’ll be interested. I—in fact, you’ll be the first person I’ve ever taken to see her. She will be very much touched and pleased.”
He laughed a little self-consciously.
“Oh,” said Parker, embarrassed. Although the men were great friends, Wimsey had always preserved a reticence about his personal affairs—not so much by concealing as by ignoring them. This revelation seemed to mark a new stage of intimacy, and Parker was not sure that he liked it. He conducted his own life with an earnest middle-class morality which he owed to his birth and up-bringing, and, while theoretically recognising that Lord Peter’s world acknowledged different standards, he had never contemplated being personally faced with any result of their application in practice.
“—rather an experiment,” Wimsey was saying a trifle shyly; “anyway, she’s quite comfortably fixed in a little flat in Pimlico. You can come, can’t you, Charles? I really should like you two to meet.”
“Oh, yes, rather,” said Parker, hastily, “I should like to very much. Er—how long—I mean—”
“Oh, the arrangement’s only been going a few months,” said Wimsey, leading the way to the lift, “but it really seems to be working out quite satisfactorily. Of course, it makes things much easier for me.”
“Just so,” said Parker.
“Of course, as you’ll understand—I won’t go into it all till we get there, and then you’ll see for yourself,” Wimsey chattered on, slamming the gates of the lift with unnecessary violence—“but, as I was saying, you’ll observe it’s quite a new departure. I don’t suppose there’s ever been anything exactly like it before. Of course, there’s nothing new under the sun, as Solomon said, but after all, I daresay all those wives and porcupines, as the child said, must have soured his disposition a little, don’t you know.”
“Quite,” said Parker. “Poor fish,” he added to himself, “they always seem to think it’s different.”
“Outlet,” said Wimsey, energetically, “hi! taxi! . . . outlet—everybody needs an outlet—97A, St. George’s Square—and after all, one can’t really blame people if it’s just that they need an outlet. I mean, why be bitter? They can’t help it. I think it’s much kinder to give them an outlet than to make fun of them in books—and, after all, it isn’t really difficult to write books. Especially if you either write a rotten story in good English or a good story in rotten English, which is as far as most people seem to get nowadays. Don’t you agree?”
Mr. Parker agreed, and Lord Peter wandered away along the paths of literature, till the cab stopped before one of those tall, awkward mansions which, originally designed for a Victorian family with fatigue-proof servants, have lately been dissected each into half a dozen inconvenient band-boxes and let off in flats.
Lord Peter rang the top bell, which was marked CLIMPSON, and relaxed negligently against the porch.
“Six flights of stairs,” he explained; “it takes her some time to answer the bell, because there’s no lift, you see. She wouldn’t have a more expensive flat, though. She thought it wouldn’t be suitable.”
Mr. Parker was greatly relieved, if somewhat surprised, by the modesty of the lady’s demands, and, placing his foot on the door-scraper in an easy attitude, prepared to wait with patience. Before many minutes, however, the door was opened by a thin, middle-aged woman, with a sharp, sallow face and very vivacious manner. She wore a neat, dark coat and skirt, a high-necked blouse and a long gold neck-chain with a variety of small ornaments dangling from it at intervals, and her iron-grey hair was dressed under a net, in the style fashionable in the reign of the late King Edward.
“Oh, Lord Peter! How very nice to see you. Rather an early visit, but I’m sure you will excuse the sitting-room being a trifle in disorder. Do come in. The lists are quite ready for you. I finished them last night. In fact, I was just about to put on my hat and bring them round to you. I do hope you don’t think I have taken an unconscionable time, but there was a quite surprising number of entries. It is too good of you to trouble to call.”
“Not at all, Miss Climpson. This is my friend, Detective-Inspector Parker, whom I have mentioned to you.”
“How do you do, Mr. Parker—or ought I to say Inspector? Excuse me if I make mistakes—this is really the first time I have been in the hands of the police. I hope it’s not rude of me to say that. Please come up. A great many stairs, I am afraid, but I hope you do not mind. I do so like to be high up. The air is so much better, and you know, Mr. Parker, thanks to Lord Peter’s great kindness, I have such a beautiful, airy view, right over the houses. I think one can work so much better when one doesn’t feel cribbed, cabined and confined, as Hamlet says. Dear me! Mrs. Winbottle will leave the pail on the stairs, and always in that very dark corner. I am continually telling her about it. If you keep close to the banisters you will avoid it nicely. Only one more flight. Here we are. Please overlook the untidiness. I always think breakfast things look so ugly when one has finished with them—almost sordid, to use a nasty word for a nasty subject. What a pity that some of these clever people can’t invent self-cleaning and self-clearing plates, is it not? But please do sit down; I won’t keep you a moment. And I know, Lord Peter, that you will not hesitate to smoke. I do so enjoy the smell of your cigarettes—quite delicious—and you are so very good about extinguishing the ends.”
The little room was, as a matter of fact, most exquisitely neat, in spite of the crowded array of knick-knacks and photographs that adorned every available inch of space. The sole evidences of dissipation were an empty eggshell, a used cup and a crumby plate on a breakfast tray. Miss Climpson promptly subdued this riot by carrying the tray bodily on to the landing.
Mr. Parker, a little bewildered, lowered himself cautiously into a small arm-chair, embellished with a hard, fat little cushion which made it impossible to lean back. Lord Peter wriggled into the window-seat, lit a Sobranie and clasped his hands above his knees. Miss Climpson, seated upright at the table, gazed at him with a gratified air which was positively touching.
“I have gone very carefully into all these cases,” she began, taking up a thick wad of type-script. “I’m afraid, indeed, my notes are rather copious, but I trust the typist’s bill will not be considered too heavy. My handwriting is very clear, so I don’t think there can be any errors. Dear me! such sad stories some of these poor women had to tell me! But I have investigated most fully, with the kind assistance of the clergyman—a very nice man and so helpful—and I feel sure that in the majority of the cases your assistance will be well bestowed. If you would like to go through—”
“Not at the moment, Miss Climpson,” interrupted Lord Peter, hurriedly. “It’s all right, Charles—nothing whatever to do with Our Dumb Friends or supplying Flannel to Unmarried Mothers. I’ll tell you about it later. Just now, Miss Climpson, we want your help on something quite different.”
Miss Climpson produced a business-like notebook and sat at attention.
“The inquiry divides itself into two parts,” said Lord Peter. “The first part, I’m afraid, is rather dull. I want you (if you will be so good) to go down to Somerset House and search, or get them to search, through all the death-certificates for Hampshire in the month of November, 1925. I don’t know the town and I don’t know the name of the deceased. What you are looking for is the death-certificate of an old lady of 73; cause of death, cancer; immediate cause, heart failure; and the certificate will have been signed by two doctors, one of whom will be either a Medical Officer of Health, Police Surgeon, Certifying Surgeon under the Factory and Workshops Act, Medical Referee under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, Physician or Surgeon in a big General Hospital, or a man specially appointed by the Cremation authorities. If you want to give any excuse for the search, you can say that you are compiling statistics about cancer; but what you really want is the names of the people concerned and the name of the town.”
“Suppose there are more than one answering to the requirements?”
“Ah! that’s where the second part comes in, and where your remarkable tact and shrewdness are going to be so helpful to us. When you have collected all the ‘possibles,’ I shall ask you to go down to each of the towns concerned and make very, very skilful inquiries, to find out which is the case we want to get on to. Of course, you mustn’t appear to be inquiring. You must find some good gossipy lady living in the neighbourhood and just get her to talk in a natural way. You must pretend to be gossipy yourself—it’s not in your nature, I know, but I’m sure you can make a little pretense about it—and find out all you can. I fancy you’ll find it pretty easy if you once strike the right town, because I know for a certainty that there was a terrible lot of ill-natured talk about this particular death, and it won’t have been forgotten yet by a long chalk.”
“How shall I know when it’s the right one?”
“Well, if you can spare the time, I want you to listen to a little story. Mind you, Miss Climpson, when you get to wherever it is, you are not supposed ever to have heard a word of this tale before. But I needn’t tell you that. Now, Charles, you’ve got an official kind of way of puttin’ these things clearly. Will you just weigh in and give Miss Climpson the gist of that rigmarole our friend served out to us last night?”
Pulling his wits into order, Mr. Parker accordingly obliged with a digest of the doctor’s story. Miss Climpson listened with great attention, making notes of the dates and details. Parker observed that she showed great acumen in seizing on the salient points; she asked a number of very shrewd questions, and her grey eyes were intelligent. When he had finished, she repeated the story, and he was able to congratulate her on a clear head and retentive memory.
“A dear old friend of mine used to say that I should have made a very good lawyer,” said Miss Climpson, complacently, “but of course, when I was young, girls didn’t have the education or the opportunities they get nowadays, Mr. Parker. I should have liked a good education, but my dear father didn’t believe in it for women. Very old-fashioned, you young people would think him.”
“Never mind, Miss Climpson,” said Wimsey, “you’ve got just exactly the qualifications we want, and they’re rather rare, so we’re in luck. Now we want this matter pushed forward as fast as possible.”
“I’ll go down to Somerset House at once,” replied the lady, with great energy, “and let you know the minute I’m ready to start for Hampshire.”
“That’s right,” said his lordship, rising. “And now we’ll just make a noise like a hoop and roll away. Oh! and while I think of it, I’d better give you something in hand for traveling expenses and so on. I think you had better be just a retired lady in easy circumstances looking for a nice little place to settle down in. I don’t think you’d better be wealthy—wealthy people don’t inspire confidence. Perhaps you would oblige me by living at the rate of about £800 a year—your own excellent taste and experience will suggest the correct accessories and so on for creating that impression. If you will allow me, I will give you a cheque for £50 now, and when you start on your wanderings you will let me know what you require.”
“Dear me,” said Miss Climpson, “I don’t—”
“This is a pure matter of business, of course,” said Wimsey, rather rapidly, “and you will let me have a note of the expenses in your usual business-like way.”
“Of course.” Miss Climpson was dignified. “And I will give you a proper receipt immediately.
“Dear, dear,” she added, hunting through her purse, “I do not appear to have any penny stamps. How extremely remiss of me. It is most unusual for me not to have my little book of stamps—so handy I always think they are—but only last night Mrs. Williams borrowed my last stamps to send a very urgent letter to her son in Japan. If you will excuse me a moment—”
“I think I have some,” interposed Parker.
“Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Parker. Here is the twopence. I never allow myself to be without pennies—on account of the bathroom geyser, you know. Such a very sensible invention, most convenient, and prevents all dispute about hot water among the tenants. Thank you so much. And now I sign my name across the stamps. That’s right, isn’t it? My dear father would be surprised to find his daughter so business-like. He always said a woman should never need to know anything about money matters, but times have changed so greatly, have they not?”
Miss Climpson ushered them down all six flights of stairs, volubly protesting at their protests, and the door closed behind them.
“May I ask—?” began Parker.
“It is not what you think,” said his lordship, earnestly.
“Of course not,” agreed Parker.
“There, I knew you had a nasty mind. Even the closest of one’s friends turn out to be secret thinkers. They think in private thoughts which they publicly repudiate.”
“Don’t be a fool. Who is Miss Climpson?”
“Miss Climpson,” said Lord Peter, “is a manifestation of the wasteful way in which this country is run. Look at electricity. Look at water-power. Look at the tides. Look at the sun. Millions of power units being given off into space every minute. Thousands of old maids, simply bursting with useful energy, forced by our stupid social system into hydros and hotels and communities and hostels and posts as companions, where their magnificent gossip-powers and units of inquisitiveness are allowed to dissipate themselves or even become harmful to the community, while the ratepayers’ money is spent on getting work for which these women are providentially fitted, inefficiently carried out by ill-equipped policemen like you. My god! it’s enough to make a man write to John Bull. And then bright young men write nasty little patronising books called ‘Elderly Women,’ and ‘On the Edge of the Explosion’—and the drunkards make songs upon ’em, poor things.”
“Quite, quite,” said Parker. “You mean that Miss Climpson is a kind of inquiry agent for you.”
“She is my ears and tongue,” said Lord Peter, dramatically, “and especially my nose. She asks questions which a young man could not put without a blush. She is the angel that rushes in where fools get a clump on the head. She can smell a rat in the dark. In fact, she is the cat’s whiskers.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” said Parker.
“Naturally—it is mine, therefore brilliant. Just think. People want questions asked. Whom do they send? A man with large flat feet and a notebook—the sort of man whose private life is conducted in a series of inarticulate grunts. I send a lady with a long, woolly jumper on knitting-needles and jingly things round her neck. Of course she asks questions—everyone expects it. Nobody is surprised. Nobody is alarmed. And so-called superfluity is agreeably and usefully disposed of. One of these days you will put up a statue to me, with an inscription:
“‘To the Man who Made Thousands of Superfluous Women Happy without Injury to their Modesty or Exertion to Himself.’”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk so much,” complained his friend. “And how about all those type-written reports? Are you turning philanthropist in your old age?”
“No—no,” said Wimsey, rather hurriedly hailing a taxi. “Tell you about that later. Little private pogrom of my own—Insurance against the Socialist Revolution—when it comes. ‘What did you do with your great wealth, comrade?’ ‘I bought First Editions.’ ‘Aristocrat! à la lanterne!’ ‘Stay, spare me! I took proceedings against 500 money-lenders who oppressed the workers.’ ‘Citizen, you have done well. We will spare your life. You shall be promoted to cleaning out the sewers.’ Voilà! We must move with the times. Citizen taxi-driver, take me to the British Museum. Can I drop you anywhere? No? So long. I am going to collate a 12th century manuscript of Tristan, while the old order lasts.”
Mr. Parker thoughtfully boarded a westward-bound ’bus and was rolled away to do some routine questioning, on his own account, among the female population of Notting Dale. It did not appear to him to be a milieu in which the talents of Miss Climpson could be usefully employed.
