Dorothy Sayers - The Nine Tailors

“And I said,” put in the Rector, “that we had better send at once for you and for Dr. Baines — and here he is, I see.”

Dr. Baines, a peremptory-looking little man, with a shrewd Scotch face, came briskly up to them. “Good afternoon, Rector. What’s happened here? I was out when your message came, so I — Good Lord!”

A few words put him in possession of the facts, and he knelt down by the graveside.

“He’s terribly mutilated — looks as though somebody had regularly beaten his face in. How long has he been here?”

“That’s what we’d like you to tell us, Doctor.”

“Half a minute, half a minute, sir,” interrupted the policeman. “What day was it you said you buried Lady Thorpe, Harry?”

“January 4th, it were,” said Mr. Gotobed, after a short interval for reflection.

“And was this here body in the grave when you filled it up?”

“Now don’t you be a fool. Jack Priest,” retorted Mr. Gotobed. “’Owever can you suppose as we’d fill up a grave with this here corpus in it? It ain’t a thing as a man might drop in careless like, without noticing. If it was a pocket-knife or a penny-piece, that’d be another thing, but when it comes to the corpus of a full-grown man, that there question ain’t reasonable.”

“Now, Harry, that ain’t a proper answer to my question. I knows my duty.”

“Oh, all right. Well, then, there weren’t no body in that there grave when I filled it up on January 4th — leavin’ out, of course, Lady Thorpe’s body. That was there, I don’t say it wasn’t, and for all I know it’s there still. Unless him as put this here corpus where it is took the other away with him, coffin and all.”

“Well,” said the doctor, “it can’t have been here longer than three months, and so far as I can tell, it hasn’t been there much less. But I’ll tell you that better when you get it out.”

“Three months, eh?” Mr. Hezekiah Lavender had pushed his way to the front. “That ’ud be about the time that stranger chap disappeared — him as was stayin’ at Ezra Wilderspin’s and wanted a job to mend up moty-cars and sich. He had a beard, too, by my recollection.”

“Why, so he had,” cried Mr. Gotobed. “What a head you have on you, Hezekiah! That’s who it is, sure-lie. To think o’ that, now! I always thought that chap was after no good. But who could have gone for to do a thing like this here?”

“Well,” said the doctor. “If Jack Priest has finished with his interrogation, you may as well get the body dug out. Where are you going to put it? It won’t be a very nice thing to keep hanging about.”

“Mr. Ashton have a nice airy shed, sir. If we was to ask him, I dessay he could make shift to move his ploughs out for the time being. And it’s got a decent-sized window and a door with a lock to it.”

“That’ll do well. Dick, run round and ask Mr. Ashton and get him to lend us a cart and a hurdle. How about getting hold of the coroner. Rector? It’s Mr. Compline, you know, over at Leamholt. Shall I ring him up when I get back?”

“Oh, thank you, thank you. I should be very grateful.”

“All right. Can they carry on now. Jack?”

The constable signified his assent, and the digging was resumed. By this time the entire village seemed to have assembled in the churchyard, and it was with the greatest difficulty that the children were prevented from crowding round the grave, since the grown-ups who should have restrained them were themselves struggling for positions of vantage. The Rector was just turning upon them with the severest rebuke he knew how to utter, when Mr. Lavender approached him.

“Excuse me, sir, but did I ought to ring Tailor Paul for that there?”

“Ring Tailor Paul? Well, really, Hezekiah, I hardly know.”

“We got to ring her for every Christian soul dyin’ in the parish,” persisted Mr. Lavender. “That’s set down for us. And seemin’ly he must a-died in the parish, else why should anybody go for to bury him here?”

“True, true, Hezekiah.”

“But as for being’ a Christian soul, who’s to say?”

“That, I fear, is beyond me, Hezekiah.”

“As to being’ a bit behindhand with him,” went on the old man, “that ain’t no fault of ours. We only knowed to-day as he’d died, so it stands to reason we couldn’t ring for him earlier. But Christian — well, there! that’s a bit of a puzzle, that is.”

“We’d better give him the benefit of the doubt, Hezekiah. Ring the bell by all means.”

The old man looked dubious, and at length approached the doctor. “How old?” said the latter, looking round in some surprise. “Why, I don’t know. It’s hard to say. But I should think he was between forty and fifty. Why do you want to know? The bell? Oh, I see. Well, put it at fifty.”

So Tailor Paul tolled the mysterious stranger out with nine strokes and fifty and a hundred more, while Alf Donnington at the Red Cow and Tom Tebbutt at the Wheatsheaf did a roaring trade, and the Rector wrote a letter.

THE SECOND PART

LORD PETER IS CALLED INTO THE HUNT

Hunting is the first part of change ringing which it is necessary to understand.

TROYTE On Change-Ringing.

“MY DEAR LORD PETER (wrote the Rector),—

“Since your delightful visit to us in January, I have frequently wondered, with a sense of confusion, what you must have thought of us for not realising how distinguished an exponent of the methods of Sherlock Holmes we were entertaining beneath our roof. Living so very much out of the world, and reading only The Times and the Spectator, we are apt, I fear, to become somewhat narrow in our interests. It was only when my wife wrote to her cousin Mrs. Smith (whom you may know, perhaps, as she lives in Kensington) and mentioned your stay with us, that we were informed, by Mrs. Smith’s reply, what manner of man our guest was.

“In the hope that you will pardon our lamentable ignorance, I venture to write and ask you to give us some your advice out of your great experience. This afternoon we ‘have been jerked rudely out of the noiseless tenor of our way,’ by a most mysterious and shocking occurrence. On opening the grave of the late Lady Thorpe to receive the body of her husband — whose sad death you no doubt saw in the Obituary columns of the daily press — our sexton was horrified to discover the dead body of a completely strange man, who appears to have come by his end in some violent and criminal manner. His face has been terribly mutilated, and — what seems even more shocking the poor fellow’s hands have been cut right off at the wrists! Our local police have, of course, the matter in hand, but the sad affair is of peculiar and painful interest to me (being in some sort connected with our parish church), and I am somewhat at a loss to know how I, personally, should proceed. My wife, with her usual great practical ability, suggested that we should seek your aid and advice, and Superintendent Blundell of Leamholt, with whom I have just had an interview, most obligingly says that he will give you every facility for investigation should you care to look into the matter personally. I hardly like to suggest to so busy a man that you should actually come and conduct your investigations on the spot, but, in case you thought of doing so, I need not say how heartily welcome you would be at the Rectory.

“Forgive me if this letter is somewhat meandering and confused; I am writing in some perturbation of mind. I may add that our Ringers retain a most pleasant and grateful recollection of the help you gave us with our famous peal, and would, I am sure, wish me to remember them to you. “With kindest regards from my wife and myself,

“Most sincerely yours,