Dorothy Sayers - The Nine Tailors

The problem of the rope — absurdly overlooked and now absurdly insistent — took such possession of Wimsey that he forgot to join in the Lord’s Prayer; nor had he even wits to spare for a sardonic commentary on the means used by Providence to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world. He was amazed that he had not earlier seized upon the rope as a clue to the labyrinth. For the tying-up of the dead man implied so much.

Where had the rope come from? How had it happened to be handy for the tying-up, and where had that tying taken place? You might kill a man in hot blood, but you did not first tie him. The death of a bound man meant premeditation — a calf roped for the shambles. The rope had been removed before burial; there was a horrid thrift about that…. At this point Wimsey shook himself. There was no need to fancy things; there were plenty of other reasons for the removal of the rope. It had been removed before death. It had been removed and replaced where it came from, lest its absence should arouse suspicion. It had been removed for the same reason that the face had been mutilated — lest anyone finding the body should recognise it. Finally, it had been removed because it bad tied the body to something — and that, perhaps, was the likeliest reason. For the body must have been brought from somewhere — how? Car, lorry, cart, waggon, wheelbarrow, truck…? It reminded one of “Tinker, tailor…”

“Everything very nicely done, Mr. Russell,” said Mrs. Venables.

“Yes’m,” said Mr. Russell. “Very glad you think so, ’m. We done what we could to the best of our ability.”

“I’m sure” said Mrs. Venables, “that if his own people had been here, they couldn’t have wished for anything nicer. ”

“No’m,” agreed Mr. Russell, much gratified, “and it’s a pity they couldn’t a-been present, for there’s no doubt a handsome funeral is a great comfort to them as is left. Of course, it ain’t so grand as a London funeral would be—” He glanced wistfully at Wimsey.

“But much nicer,” said Wimsey, in a ridiculous echo of Mrs. Venables. “You see, it has so much more of the personal touch.”

“That’s very true,” said the undertaker, much encouraged. “Why, I dessay these London men get as much as three or four funerals every week, and it stands to reason as they can’t put the same ’eart into it — let alone not knowing the parties. Well, I’ll be getting along now. There’s someone wants to speak to you, my lord.”

“No,” said Wimsey, firmly, to a gentleman in well-worn tweeds, who approached briskly. “I have no story for the Morning Star. Nor for any other paper. Hop it. I have other things to do.”

“Yes,” added Mrs. Venables, addressing the reporter as though he were an importunate child at a school treat, run away now, the gentleman’s busy. How tiresome these newspapers are! You must get sick to death of them. Come along. I want to introduce you to Hilary Thorpe. Hilary, my dear, how are you? Very sweet of you to come — so trying for you. How is your uncle? This is Lord Peter Wimsey.”

“I’m ever so glad to meet you. Lord Peter. Dad used to read about your cases — he’d have loved to have a talk with you. You know, I think he’d have been frightfully amused to think of being mixed up in one himself — if only it hadn’t been Mother’s grave. I’m glad he didn’t know about that. But it is a mystery, isn’t it? And he was — well, quite a kid about mysteries and things.”

“Was he? I should have thought he’d had about enough of them.”

“You mean about the necklace? That was pretty awful for him, poor dear. Of course, it all happened before I was born, but he often used to talk about it. He always used to say he believed Deacon was the worst of the two men, and that Grand-dad ought never to have had him in the house. It was funny, but I believe he rather took a liking to the other man — the London thief. He only saw him at the trial, of course, but he said he was an amusing beggar and he believed he was telling the truth.”

“That’s dashed interesting.” Lord Peter turned suddenly and savagely on the young man from the Morning Star, who still hovered at a little distance. “See here, my lad, if you don’t make a noise like a hoop and roll away, I shall have something to say to your editor. I will not have this young lady followed about and bothered by you. Go right away, and if you’re good I’ll see you later and tell you any lies you like. See? Now vanish!… Curse the Press!”

“That lad’s a sticker,” said Miss Thorpe. “He badgered poor Uncle nearly out of his senses this morning. That’s Uncle, talking to the Rector. He’s a Civil Servant, and he disapproves of the Press altogether. He disapproves of mysteries, too. It’s rotten for Uncle.”

“I expect he’ll disapprove of me.”

“Yes, he does. He thinks your hobby unsuited to your position in life. That’s why he’s rather carefully avoiding an introduction. Uncle’s a comic old bird, but he isn’t a snob and he’s rather decent, really. Only he’s not a bit like Dad. You and Dad would have got on splendidly. Oh, by the way — you know where Dad and Mother are buried, don’t you? I expect that was the first place you looked at.”

“Well, it was; but I’d rather like to look at it again. You see, I’m wondering just exactly how the — the—”

“How they got the body there? Yes, I thought you’d be wondering that. I’ve been wondering, too. Uncle doesn’t think it’s nice of me to wonder anything of the sort. But it really makes things easier to do a little wondering, I mean, if you’re once interested in a thing it makes it seem less real. That’s not the right word, though.”

“Less personal?”

“Yes; that’s what I mean. You begin to imagine how it all happened, and gradually it gets to feel more like something you’ve made up.”

“H’m!” said Wimsey. “If that’s the way your mind works, you’ll be a writer one day.”

“Do you think so? How funny! That’s what I want to be. But why?”

“Because you have the creative imagination, which works outwards, till finally you will be able to stand outside your own experience and see it as something you have made, existing independently of yourself. You’re lucky.”

“Do you really think so?” Hilary looked excited.

“Yes — but your luck will come more at the end of life than at the beginning, because the other sort of people won’t understand the way your mind works. They will start by thinking you dreamy and romantic, and then they’ll be surprised to discover that you are really hard and heartless. They’ll be quite wrong both times — but they won’t ever know it, and you won’t know it at first, and it’ll worry you.”

“But that’s just what the girls say at school. How did you know?… Though they’re all idiots — mostly, that is.”

“Most people are,” said Wimsey, gravely, “but it isn’t kind to tell them so. I expect you do tell them so. Have a heart; they can’t help it…. Yes, this is the place. Well, you know, it isn’t very much overlooked, is it? That cottage is the nearest — whose is that?”

“Will Thoday’s.”

“Oh, is it?… And after that, there’s only the Wheatsheaf and a farm. Whose is the farm?”

“That’s Mr. Ashton’s place. He’s quite a well-to-do kind of man, one of the churchwardens. I liked him very much when I was a kid; he used to let me ride on the farmhorses.”

“I’ve heard of him: he pulled my car out of the ditch one day — which reminds me. I ought to call and thank him personally.”

“That means you want to ask him questions.”

“If you do see through people as clearly as that, you oughtn’t to make it so brutally plain to them.”