Dorothy Sayers - Have His Carcass

‘It did not die of a cut throat-’

‘But of an obscure poison, known only to the Bushmen of Central Australia—’

‘And the throat was cut after death-’

‘By a middle-aged man of short temper and careless habits, with a stiff beard and expensive tastes—’

‘Recently returned from China,’ finished up Harriet, triumphantly.

The sergeant, who had gaped, in astonishment at the beginning of this exchange, now burst into a hearty guffaw.

‘That’s very good,’ he said, indulgently. ‘Comic, ain’t it, the stuff these writer-fellows put into their books? Would your lordship like to see the other exhibits?’

Wimsey replied gravely that he should, very much, and the hat, cigarette-case, shoe and handkerchief were produced.

‘H’m,’ said Wimsey. ‘Hat fair to middling, but not exclusive. Cranial capacity on the small side. Brilliantine, ordinary stinking variety. Physical condition pretty fair

‘The ‘The man was a dancer.’

‘I thought we agreed he was a Prime Minister. Hair, dark, curly and rather on the long side. Last year’s hat, reblocked, with new ribbon. Shape, a little more emphatic than is quite necessary. Deduction: not wealthy, but keen on his personal appearance. Do we conclude that the hat belongs to the corpse?’

‘Yes, I think so. The brilliantine corresponds all right.’

‘Cigarette-case — this is different. Fifteen-carat gold, plain and fairly new, with monogram P.A. and containing six de Reszkes. The case is pukka, all right. Probably a gift from some wealthy female admirer.’

‘Or, of course, the cigarette-case appropriate to a Prime Minister.’

‘As you say. Handkerchief — silk, but not from Burlington Arcade. Colour beastly. Laundry-mark—’

‘Laundry-mark’s all right,’ put in the policeman. ‘Wilvercombe Sanitary Steam Laundry, mark O. K. for this fellow Alexis.’

‘Suspicious circumstance,’ said. Harriet, shaking her head. ‘I’ve got three handkerchiefs in my pack with not only the laundry-marks but the initials of total strangers.’

‘It’s the Prime Minister, all right,’ agreed Wimsey, with a doleful nod. ‘Prime Ministers, especially Ruritanian ones, are notoriously careless about their laundry. Now the shoe. Oh, yes. Nearly new. Thin sole. Foul colour and worse shape. Hand-made, so that the horrid appearance is due to malice aforethought. Not the shoe of a man who does much walking. Made, I observe, in Wilvercombe.’

‘That’s O.K., too,’ put in the sergeant. ‘We’ve seen the man. He made that shoe for Mr Alexis all right. Knows him well.’

‘And you took this actually off the foot of the corpse? These are deep waters, Watson. Another man’s handkerchief is nothing, but a Prime Minister in another fellow’s shoes—’

‘You will have your joke, my lord,’ said the sergeant, with another hoot of laughter.

‘I never joke,’ said Wimsey. He brought the lens to bear on the sole of the shoe. ‘Slight traces of salt water here, but none on the uppers. Inference: he walked over the sand when it was very wet, but did not actually wade through salt water. Two or three scratches on the toe-cap, probably got when clambering up the rock. Well, thanks awfully, sergeant. You are quite at liberty to inform Inspector Umpelty of all the valuable deductions we have drawn. Have a drink.’

‘Thank you very much, my lord.’

Wimsey said nothing more till they were in the car again.

‘I’m sorry,’ he then announced, as, they threaded their way through the side-streets, ‘to renounce our little programme of viewing the town. I should have enjoyed that simple pleasure. But unless I start at once, I shan’t get to town and back tonight’

Harriet, who had been preparing to say that she had work to do and could not waste time rubber-necking round Wilvercombe with Lord Peter, experienced an unreasonable feeling of having been cheated.

‘To town?’ she repeated.

‘It will not have escaped your notice,’ said Wimsey, skimming with horrible dexterity between a bath-chair and a butcher’s van, ‘that the matter of the razor requires investigation.’

‘Of course — a visit to the Ruritanian Legation is indicated.’

‘H’m — well; I don’t know that I shall get any farther than Jermyn Street.’

‘In search of the middle-aged man of careless habits?’ ‘Yes, ultimately.’

‘He really exists, then?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t swear’ to his exact age.’

‘Or his habits?’

‘No, they might be the habits of his valet’

‘Or his stiff beard and, short temper?’

‘Well, I think one may be reasonably certain about the beard.’

‘I give in,’ said Harriet, meekly. ‘Please explain.’

Wimsey drew up the car at the entrance to the Hotel Resplendent, and looked at his watch.

‘I can give you ten minutes,’ he remarked, in an aloof tone. ‘Let us take a seat in the lounge and order some refreshment. It is a little early, to be sure, but I always drive more mellowly on a pint of beer. Good. Now, as to the razor.’ You will have observed that it is an instrument of excellent and expensive quality by a first-class maker, and that, in addition to the names of the manufacturer, it is engraved on the reverse side with the mystic word “Endicott”

‘Yes; what is Endicott?’

‘Endicott is, or was, one of the most exclusive hairdressers in the West End. So fearfully exclusive and grand that he won’t even call himself a hairdresser in the snobbish modern way, but prefers to be known by the old-world epithet of “barber”. He will, or would, hardly condescend to shave anybody who has not been, in Debrett for the last three hundred years. Other people, however rich or titled, have the misfortune to find his chairs always occupied and his basins engaged. His shop has the rarefied atmosphere of one of the more aristocratic mid-Victorian clubs. It is said of Endicott’s that a certain peer, who made his money during the War by cornering bootlaces or buttons or something, was once accidentally admitted to one of the sacred chairs by a new assistant who had been most unfortunately taken on with insufficient West End experience during, the temporary war-time, shortage of barbers. After ten minutes in that dreadful atmosphere, his hair froze, his limbs became perfectly petrified, and he had to be removed to the Crystal Palace and placed among the antediluvian monsters.’

‘Well?’

‘Well! Consider first of all the anomaly of the man who buys his razor from Endicott’s and yet wears the regrettable shoes and mass-production millinery found on the corpse. Mind you,’ added Wimsey, ’it is not a question of expense, exactly. The shoes are hand-made — which merely proves that a dancer has to take care of his feet. But could a man who is shaved by Endicott possibly order — deliberately order — shoes of that colour and shape? A thing imagination boggles at,’

‘I’m afraid,’ admitted Harriet, ‘that I have never managed to learn all the subtle rules and regulations about male clothing. That’s why I made Robert Templeton one of those untidy dressers.’

‘Robert Templeton’s clothes have always pained me,’ confessed Wimsey., ‘The one blot on your otherwise fascinating tales. But to leave that distressing subject and come back to the razor. That razor has seen a good deal of hard wear. It has been re-ground a considerable number of times, as you can tell by the edge. Now, a really first-class razor like that needs very little in the way of grinding and setting, provided it is mercifully used and kept carefully stropped. Therefore, either the man who used it was very clumsy and careless about using the strop, or his beard was abnormally stiff, or both — probably both. I visualise him as one of those men who are heavy-handed with tools — you know the kind. Their fountain pens always make blots and their watches get over-wound. They neglect to strop their razors until the strop gets hard and dry, and then they strop them ferociously and jag the edge of the blade. Then they lose their tempers and curse the razor and send it away to be ground and set. The new edge only lasts them for a few weeks and then back the razor goes again, accompanied by a rude message.’