Dorothy Sayers - The Nine Tailors

“Oh!” said Wimsey, “that reminds me. Before you came, we were just going to look at the place where Deacon hid those jolly old emeralds. The Rector solved the cipher—”

“Him?”

“He. So, just for fun, and by way of shutting the stable door after the steed was stolen, we’re going to climb up aloft and have a hunt among the cherubims. In fact, the Rector is down at the church, champing his bit at this very moment. Shall we go?”

“Sure — though I haven’t a lot of time to waste.”

“I don’t suppose it will take long.”

The Rector had procured the sexton’s ladder and was already up in the south aisle roof, covering himself with cobwebs as he poked about vaguely among the ancient oak.

“The servants sat just about here,” he said, as Wimsey came in with the Superintendent. “But now I come to think of it, we had the painters up here last year, and they ought to have found anything there was to be found.”

“Perhaps they did,” said Wimsey; and Mr. Blundell uttered a low moan.

“Oh, I hope not. I really think not. They are most honest men.” Mr. Venables came down from the ladder. “Perhaps you had better try. I am not clever about these things.”

“Beautiful old work this is,” said his lordship. “All pegged together. There’s a lot of this old rafter work down at Duke’s Denver, and when I was a kid I made rather a pretty cache for myself in a corner of the attic. Used to keep tiddly-winks counters in it and pretend it was a pirate’s hoard. Only it was a dickens of a job getting them out again. I say! Blundell! do you remember that wire hook you found in the corpse’s pocket?”

“Yes, my lord. We never made out what that was for.”

“I ought to have known,” said Wimsey. “I made a thing very like it for the pirate’s hoard.” His long fingers were working over the beams, gently pulling at the thick wooden pegs which held them together. “He must have been able to reach it from where he sat. Aha! what did I tell you? This is the one. Wriggle her gently and out she comes. Look!”

He wrenched at one of the pegs, and it came out in his hand. Originally, it had passed right through the beam and must have been over a foot in length, tapering from the size of a penny-piece at one end to something over half-an-inch at the other. But at some time it had been sawn off about three inches from the thick end.

“There you are,” said Wimsey. “An old schoolboy cache originally, I expect. Some kid got pushing it from the other end and found it was loose. Probably shoved it clean out. At least, that’s what I did, up in the attic. Then he took it home and sawed six inches or so out of the middle of it. Next time he comes to church he brings a short rod with him. He pushes the thin end back again into place’ with the rod, so that the hole doesn’t show from the other side. Then he drops in his marbles or whatever he wanted to hide, and plugs up the big end again with this. And there he is, with a nice little six-inch hidey-hole where nobody would ever dream of looking for it. Or so he thinks. Then — perhaps years afterwards — along comes friend Deacon. He’s sitting up here one day, possibly a little bored with the sermon (sorry, padre!). He starts fidgeting with the peg, and out it comes — only three inches of it. Hullo, says he, here’s a game! Handy place if you wanted to pop any little thing away in a hurry. Later on, when he does want to pop his little shiners away in a hurry, he thinks of it again. Easy enough. Sits here all quiet and pious, listening to the First Lesson. Puts his hand down at his side, slips out the plug, slides the emeralds out of his pocket, slips them into the hole, pops back the plug. All over before his reverence says ‘Here endeth.’ Out into the sunshine and slap into the arms of our friend the Super here and his merry men. ‘Where are the emeralds?’ they say. ‘You can search me,’ says he. And they do, and they’ve been searching ever since.”

“Amazing!” said the Rector. Mr. Blundell uttered a regrettable expression, remembered his surroundings and coughed loudly.

“So now we see what the hook was for,” said Wimsey. “When Legros, or Cobbleigh, whichever you like to call him, came for the loot—”

“Stop a minute,” objected the Superintendent. “That cipher didn’t mention anything about a hole, did it? It only mentioned cherubims. How did he know he needed a hook to get necklaces out of cherubims?”

“Perhaps he’d had a look at the place first. But of course, we know he did. That must have been what he was doing when Potty Peake saw him and Thoday in the church. He spotted the place then, and came back later. Though why he should have waited five days I couldn’t tell you. Possibly something went wrong. Anyway, back he came, armed with his hook, and hitched the necklace out. Then, just as he was coming down the ladder, the accomplice took him from behind, tied him up, and — and then — and then did away with him by some means we can’t account for.”

The Superintendent scratched his head.

“You’d think he might have waited for a better place to do it in, wouldn’t you, my lord? Putting him out here in the church, and all that bother of burying him and what not. Why didn’t he go while the going was good, and shove Cobbleigh into the dyke or something on the way home?”

“Heaven knows,” said Wimsey. “Anyhow, there’s your hiding-place and there’s the explanation of your hook.”

He thrust the end of his fountain pen into the hole. “It’s quite a deep — no, by Jove, it’s not! it’s only a shallow hole after all, not much longer than the peg. We can’t, surely, have made a mistake. Where’s my torch? Dash it! (Sorry, padre). Is that wood? or is it—? Here, Blundell, find me a mallet and a short, stout rod or stick of some kind — not too thick. We’ll have this hole clear.”

“Run across to the Rectory and ask Hinkins,” suggested Mr. Venables, helpfully.

In a few minutes’ time, Mr. Blundell returned, panting, with a short iron bar and a heavy wheel-spanner. Wimsey had shifted the ladder and was examining the narrow end of the oaken peg on the east side of the beam. He set one end of the bar firmly against the peg and smote lustily with the spanner. An ecclesiastical bat, startled from its resting-place by the jar, swooped out with a shriek, the tapered end of the peg shot smartly through the hole and out at the other side, and something else shot out with it — something that detached itself in falling from its wrapping of brown paper and cascaded in a flash of green and gold to the Rector’s feet.

“Bless my heart!” cried Mr. Venables.

“The emeralds!” yelled Mr. Blundell. “The emeralds, by God! And Deacon’s fifty pounds with them.”

“And we’re wrong, Blundell,” said Lord Peter. “We’ve been wrong from start to finish. Nobody found them. Nobody killed anybody for them. Nobody deciphered the cryptogram. We’re wrong, wrong, out of the hunt and wrong!”

“But we’ve got the emeralds,” said the Superintendent.

III.

A SHORT TOUCH OF STEDMAN’S TRIPLES

(Five Parts)

840

By the Part Ends

561234

341562

621345

451623

231456

Treble the Observation.

Call her the last whole turn, out quick, in slow, the second half turn and out slow. Four times repeated.

(TROYTE)

THE FIRST PART

THE QUICK WORK

The work of each bell is divided in three parts, viz. the quick work, dodging, and slow work.

TROYTE On Change-Ringing.

Lord Peter Wimsey passed a restless day and night and was very silent the next day at breakfast.

At the earliest possible moment he got his car and went over to Leamholt.