Dorothy Sayers - Busman’s Honeymoon

‘There!’ exclaimed Mr Puffett, triumphantly. ‘You can’t say as I didn’t warn yer.’

Peter opened his mouth to reply, when the sight of Bunter, snorting and blind, and black as any Nubian Venus, struck him speechless with ecstasy.

‘Oh, dear!’ cried Miss Twitterton. She fluttered round, making helpless little darts at the swaddled shape that was the vicar. ‘Oh, dear, dear, dear! Oh, Frank! Oh, goodness!’

‘Peter!’ panted Harriet

‘I knew it!’ said Peter. ‘Whoop! I knew it!! You blasphemed the aspidistra and something awful has come down that chimney!’

‘Peter! It’s Mr Goodacre in the sheet!’

‘Whoop!’ said Peter again. He pulled himself together and joined Mr Puffett in unwinding the clerical cocoon; while Mrs Ruddle and Crutchley led away the unfortunate Bunter.

Mr Goodacre emerged in some disorder.

‘Not hurt, sir, I hope?’ inquired Peter with grave concern.

‘Not at all, not at all,’ replied the vicar, rubbing his shoulder. ‘A little arnica will soon put that to rights!’ He smoothed his scanty hair with his hands and fumbled for his glasses. ‘I trust the ladies were not unduly alarmed by the explosion. It appears to have been effective.’

‘Remarkably so,’ said Peter. He pulled a pampas grass from the drain-pipe and poked delicately among the debris, while Harriet, flicking soot from the vicar, was reminded of Alice dusting the White King. ‘It’s surprising the things you find in old chimneys.’

‘No dead bodies, I trust,’ said the vicar.

‘Only ornithological specimens. And two skeleton bats. And eight feet or so of ancient chain, as formerly worn by the mayors of Paggleham.’

‘Ah!’ said Mr Goodacre, filled with antiquarian zeal, ‘an old pot-chain, very likely.’

“That’s what it’ll be,’ concurred Mr Puffett. ‘’Ung up on one of them ledges, as like as not. See ’ere! ’Ere’s a bit of one o’ they roasting-jacks wot they used in the old days. Look, see! That’s the cross-bar and the wheel wot the chain went over, like. My grannie had one, the dead spit of this.’

‘Well,’ said Peter, ‘we seem to have loosened things up a bit, anyhow. Think you can get your rods through the pot now?’

‘If,’ said Mr Puffett, darkly, ‘the pot’s still there.’ He dived beneath the chimney-breast, whither Peter followed him. ‘Mind your ’ead, me lord-there might be some more loose bricks. I will say as you can see the sky if you looks for it, which is more than you’d see this morning.’

‘Excuse me, my lord!’

‘Hey?’ said Peter. He crawled out and straightened his back, only to find himself nose to nose with Bunter, who appeared to have undergone a rough but effective cleansing. He looked his servitor up and down. ‘By god, Bunter, my Bunter, I’m revenged for the scullery pump.’

The shadow of some powerful emotion passed over Bunter’s face; but his training held good.

“The individual at the door, my lord, is inquiring for Mr Noakes. I have informed him that he is not here, but he refuses to take my word for it.’

‘Did you ask if he would see Miss Twitterton? What does he want?’

‘He says, my lord, that his business is urgent and personal.’ Mr Puffett, feeling his presence a little intrusive, whistled thoughtfully, and began to collect his rods together and secure them with string.

‘What sort of an “individual”, Bunter?’

Mr Bunter lightly shrugged his shoulders and spread forth his palms.

‘A financial individual, my lord, to judge by his appearances.’ said Mr Puffett, sotto voce.

‘Name of Moses?’

‘Name of MacBride, my lord.’

‘A distinction without a difference. Well, Miss Twitterton, will you see this financial Scotsman?’

‘Oh, Lord Peter, I really don’t know what to say. I know nothing about Uncle William’s business. I don’t know if he’d like me to interfere. If only Uncle-’

‘Would you rather I tackled the bloke?’

‘It’s too kind of you. Lord Peter. I’m sure I oughtn’t to bother you. But with Uncle away and everything so awkward-and gentlemen always understand so much better about business, don’t they, Lady Peter? Dear me!’

‘My husband will be delighted,’ said Harriet She was wickedly tempted to add, ‘He knows everything about business,’ but was fortunately forestalled by the gentleman himself.

‘Nothing delights me more,’ pronounced his lordship, ‘than minding other people’s business. Show him in. And, Bunter! Allow me to invest you with the Most Heroic Order of the Chimney, for attempting a rescue against overwhelming odds.’

‘Thank you, my lord,’ said Mr Bunter, woodenly, stooping his neck to the chain and meekly receiving the roasting-jack in his right hand. ‘I am much obliged. Will there be anything further?’

‘Yes. Before you go-take up the bodies. But the soldiers may be excused from shooting. We have had enough of that for one morning.’

Mr Bunter bowed, collected the skeletons in the dustpan and departed. But as he passed behind the settle, Harriet saw him unwind the chain and drop it unobtrusively into the drain-pipe, setting the roasting-jack upright against the wall. A gentleman might have his joke; but a gentleman’s gentleman has his position to keep up. One could not face inquisitive Hebrews in the character of the Mayor of Paggleham and Provincial Grand Master of the Most Heroic Order of the Chimney.

Mr MacBride turned out to be a brisk young man, bowler-hatted, with sharp black eyes that seemed to inventory everything they encountered, and a highly regrettable tie. He rapidly summed up the vicar and Mr Puffett, dismissed them from his calculations, and made a bee-line for the monocle.

‘Morning,’ said Mr MacBride. ‘Lord Peter Wimsey, I believe. Very sorry to trouble your lordship. Understand you’re stopping here. Fact is, I have to see Mr Noakes on a little matter of business.’

‘Just so,’ said Peter, easily. ‘Any fog in Town this morning?’

‘Ow naow,’ replied Mr MacBride. ‘Nice clear day.’

‘I thought so. I mean, I thought you must have come from Town. Bred an’ bawn in a briar-patch, Brer Fox. But you might, of course, have been elsewhere since then, so I asked the question. You didn’t send in your card, I fancy.’

‘Well, you see,’ explained Mr MacBride, whose native accents were, indeed-apart from a trifling difficulty with his sibilants-pure Whitechapel, ‘my business is with Mr Noakes. Personal and confidential.’

At this point, Mr Puffett, finding a long piece of twine on the floor, began to roll it up slowly and methodically, fixing his gaze upon the stranger’s face in no very friendly manner.

‘Well,’ resumed Peter, ‘I’m afraid you have had your journey for nothing. Mr Noakes isn’t here. I only wish he was. But you’ll probably find him over at Broxford.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Mr MacBride again. ‘That won’t work. Not a bit of it.’ A step at the door made him swing round sharply, but it was only Crutchley, armed with a pail and a broom and shovel. Mr MacBride laughed. ‘I’ve been over to Broxford, and they said I should find him here.’

‘Did they indeed?’ said Peter. ‘That’s right, Crutchley.

Sweep up this mess and get these papers cleared. Said he was here, did they? Then they were mistaken. He’s not here and we don’t know where he is.’