Dorothy Sayers - Busman’s Honeymoon

‘But,’ cried Miss Twitterton, ‘it isn’t possible! Not over at Broxford? Then where can he be? It’s most worrying. Oh, dear, Mr Goodacre, can’t you suggest something?’

‘Sorry to make such a dust,’ said Peter. ‘We have had a slight domestic accident with some soot. Excellent thing for the flower-beds. Garden pests are said to dislike it. Yes. Well now, this is Mr Noakes’s niece. Miss Twitterton. Perhaps you can state your business to her.’

‘Sorry,’ said Mr MacBride, ‘nothing doing. I’ve got to see the old gentleman personally. And it’s no good trying to put me off, because I know all the dodges.’ He skipped nimbly over tin broom that Crutchley was plying about his feet, and sat down, uninvited, on the settle.

‘Young man,’ said Mr Goodacre, rebukingly, ‘you had better keep a civil tongue in your head. Lord Peter Wimsey has given you his personal assurance that we do not know where to find Mr Noakes. You do not suppose that his lordship would tell you an untruth?’

His lordship, who had wandered over to a distant whatnot, and was hunting through a pile of his personal belongings placed there by Bunter, glanced at his wife and cocked a modest eyebrow.

‘Oh, wouldn’t he, though?’ said Mr MacBride. “There’s nobody like the British aristocracy to tell you a good stiff lie without batting an eyelid. His lordship’s face would be a fortune to him in the witness-box.’

‘Where,’ added Peter, extricating a box of cigars from the pile and addressing it in confidence, ‘it is not unknown.’

‘So you see,’ said MacBride, ‘that cock won’t fight.’

He stretched his legs out negligently, to show that he intended to stay where he was. Mr Puffett, groping about his feet, discovered a stray stub of pencil and put it in his pocket with a grunt

‘Mr MacBride.’ Peter had returned, box in hand. ‘Have a cigar. Now then, who do you represent?’

He stared down at his visitor with an eye so shrewd and a mouth so humorous that Mr MacBride, accepting the cigar and recognising the quality, pulled himself together, sat up and acknowledged his intellectual equal with a conspiratorial wink.

‘Macdonald &. Abrahams,’ said Mr MacBride. ‘Bedford Row.’

‘Ah, yes. That clannish old North British firm. Solicitors? I thought so. Something to Mr Noakes’s advantage? No doubt. Well, you want him and so do we. So does this lady here…’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Miss Twitterton, ‘I’m very worried about Uncle. We haven’t seen him since last Wednesday, and I’m sure-’

‘But,’ pursued Peter, ‘you won’t find him in my house.’

‘Your house?’

‘My house. I have just purchased this house from Mr Noakes.’

‘Whew!’ exclaimed Mr MacBride excitedly, blowing out a long jet of smoke. ‘So that’s the nigger in the woodpile. Bought the house, eh? Paid for it?’

‘Really, really!’ cried the vicar, scandalised. Mr Puffett, struggling into a sweater, remained with arms suspended.

‘Naturally,’ said Peter. ‘I have paid for it.’

‘Skipped, by thunder!’ exclaimed Mr MacBride. His sudden gesture dislodged his bowler from his knee and sent it spinning and skipping to Mr Puffett’s feet. Crutchley dropped the heap of papers he had collected and stood staring.

‘Skipped?’ shrieked Miss Twitterton. ‘What do you mean by that? Oh, what does he mean. Lord Peter?’

‘Oh, hush!’ said Harriet ‘He doesn’t really know, any more than we do.’

‘Gone away,’ explained Mr MacBride. ‘Vamoosed. Done a bunk. Skipped with the cash. Is that clear enough? If I’ve said it to Mr Abrahams once, I’ve said it a thousand times. If you don’t come down sharp on that fellow Noakes, he’ll skip, I said. And he has skipped, ain’t it?’

‘It looks like it, certainly,’ said Peter.

‘Skipped?’ Crutchley was indignant. ‘It’s easy for you to say skipped. What about my forty pound?’

‘Oh, Frank!’ cried Miss Twitterton.

‘Ah, you’re another of ’em, are you?’ said Mr MacBride, with condescending sympathy. ‘Forty pounds, eh? Well, what about us? What about our client’s money?’

‘But what money?’ gasped Miss Twitterton in an agony of apprehension. “Whose money? I don’t understand. What’s it all got to do with Uncle William?’

‘Peter,’ said Harriet, ‘don’t you think-?’

‘It’s no good,’ said Wimsey. ‘It’s got to come out.’

‘See this?’ said Mr MacBride. “That’s a writ, that is. Little matter of nine hundred pound.’

‘Nine ’undred?’ Crutchley made a snatch for the paper as though it were negotiable security for that amount

‘Nine hundred pounds.’ Miss Twitterton’s was the top note in the chorus. Peter shook his head.

‘Capital and interest,’ said Mr MacBride, calmly. ‘Levy, Levy & Levy; Running five years. Can’t wait for ever, you know.’

‘My uncle’s business-’ began Miss Twitterton. ‘Oh, there must be some mistake.’

‘Your uncle’s business, miss,’ said Mr MacBride, bluntly but not altogether unsympathetically, ‘hasn’t got a leg to stand on. Mortgage on the shop and not a hundred pounds’ worth of stock in the place-and I don’t suppose that’s paid for. Your uncle’s broke, that’s what it is. Broke.’

‘Broke?’ exclaimed Crutchley, with passion. ‘And how about my forty quid what he made me put into his business?’

‘Well, you won’t see that again, Mr Whoever-you-are,’ returned the clerk, coolly. ‘Not without we catch the old gentleman and make him cough up the cash. Even then might I ask, my lord, what you paid for the house? No offence, but it does make a difference.’

‘Six-fifty,’ said Peter.

‘Cheap,’ said Mr MacBride, shortly.

‘So we thought,’ replied his lordship. ‘It was valued at eight hundred for mortgage; but he took our offer for cash.’

‘Looking for a mortgage, was he?’

‘I don’t know. I took pains to make sure that there were, in fact, no encumbrances. Further, I did not inquire.’

‘Ha!’ said Mr MacBride. ‘Well, you got a bargain.’

‘It will need a good bit of money spent on it,’ said Peter. ‘As a matter of fact, we’d have paid what he wanted if he’d insisted; my wife had a fancy for the place. But he accepted our first offer; ours not to question why. Business is business.’

‘H’m!’ said Mr MacBride, with respect. ‘And some people think the aristocracy’s a soft proposition. Then I gather you’re not altogether surprised.’

‘Not in the least,’ said Peter.

Miss Twitterton looked bewildered.

‘Well, it’s all the worse for our client,’ said Mr MacBride, frankly. ‘Six-fifty won’t cover us, even if we get it; and he’s gone and beat it with the money.’

‘Given me the slip, the swindlin’ old devil!’ ejaculated Crutchley, in angry tones.

‘Steady, steady, Crutchley,’ implored the vicar. ‘Remember where you are. Think of Miss Twitterton.’

‘There’s the furniture,’ said Harriet. ‘That belongs to him.’

‘If it’s paid for,’ said Mr MacBride, summing up the contents of the room with a contemptuous eye.’

‘But it’s dreadful!’ cried Miss Twitterton. ‘I can’t believe it! We always thought Uncle was so well off.’

‘So he is,’ said Mr MacBride. ‘Well off out of this. About a thousand miles by this time. Not heard of since last Wednesday? Well, there you are. A nice job, I don’t think. Fact is, with all these transport facilities, it’s too easy nowadays for absconding debtors to clear out.’

‘See here!’ cried Crutchley, losing all control of himself. ‘You mean to say, even if you find him, I shan’t get my forty pounds? It’s a damn’ disgrace, that’s what it is.’