Dorothy Sayers - The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club

“Frequently,” replied Mr. Murbles. “I was extremely fond of natural history and had a quite remarkable collection (if I may say so at this distance of time) of pond fauna.”

“Did you ever happen to stir up a deuce of a stink in the course of your researches?”

“My dear Lord Peter — you are making me positively uneasy.”

“Oh, I don’t know that you need be. I am only giving you a general warning, you know. Of course, if you wish it, I’ll investigate this business like a shot.”

“It’s very good of you,” said Mr. Murbles.

“Not at all. I shall enjoy it all right. If anything odd comes of it, that’s your funeral. You never know, you know.”

“If you decide that no satisfactory conclusion can be arrived at,” said Mr. Murbles, “we can always fall back on the settlement. I am sure all parties wish to avoid litigation.”

“In case the estate vanishes in costs? Very wise. I hope it may be feasible. Have you made any preliminary inquiries?”

“None to speak of. I would rather you undertook the whole investigation from the beginning.”

“Very well. I’ll start to-morrow and let you know how it gets on.”

The lawyer thanked him and took his departure. Wimsey sat pondering for a short time — then rang the bell for his manservant.

“A new notebook, please, Bunter. Head it ‘Fentiman’ and be ready to come round with me to the Bellona Club tomorrow, complete with camera and the rest of the outfit.”

“Very good, my lord. I take it your lordship has a new inquiry in hand?”

“Yes, Bunter — quite new.”

“May I venture to ask if it is a promising case, my lord?”

“It has its points. So has a porcupine. No matter. Begone, dull care! Be at great pains, Bunter, to cultivate a detached outlook on life. Take example by the bloodhound, who will follow up with equal and impartial zest the trail of a parricide or of a bottle of aniseed.”

“I will bear it in mind, my lord.”

Wimsey moved slowly across to the little black baby grand that stood in the corner of the library.

“Not Bach this evening,” he murmured to himself. “Bach for to-morrow when the grey matter begins to revolve.” A melody of Parry’s formed itself crooningly under his fingers. ‘For man worketh in a vain shadow… he heapeth up riches and cannot tell who shall gather them.’ He laughed suddenly, and plunged into an odd, noisy, and painfully inharmonious study by a modern composer in the key of seven sharps.

Chapter IV

Lord Peter Leads a Club

You are quite sure this suit is all right, Bunter?” said Lord Peter, anxiously.

It was an easy lounge suit, tweedy in texture, and a trifle more pronounced in colour and pattern than Wimsey usually permitted himself. While not unsuitable for town wear, it yet diffused a faint suggestion of hills and the sea…

“I want to look approachable,” he went on, “but on no account loud. I can’t help wondering whether that stripe of invisible green wouldn’t have looked better if it had been a remote purple.”

This suggestion seemed to disconcert Bunter. There was a pause while he visualised a remote purple stripe. At length, however, the palpitating balance of his mind seemed to settle definitely down.

“No, my lord,” he said firmly, “I do not think purple would be an improvement. Interesting — yes; but, if I may so express myself, decidedly less affable.”

“Thank goodness,” said his lordship. “I’m sure you’re right. You always are. And it would have been a bore to get it changed now. You are sure you’ve removed all the newness, eh? Hate new clothes.”

“Positive, my lord. I assure your lordship that the garments have every appearance of being several months old.”

“Oh, all right. Well, give me the malacca with the foot-rule marked on it — and where’s my lens?”

“Here, my lord.” Bunter produced an innocent-looking monocle, which was, in reality, a powerful magnifier. “And the finger-print powder is in your lordship’s right-hand coat-pocket.”

“Thanks. Well, I think that’s all. I’ll go on now, and I want you to follow on with the doings in about an hour’s time.”

The Bellona Club is situated in Piccadilly, not many hundred yards west of Wimsey’s own flat, which overlooks the Green Park. The commissionaire greeted him with a pleased smile.

“Mornin’, Rogers, how are you?”

“Very well, my lord, I thank you.”

“Do you know if Major Fentiman is in the Club, by the way?”

“No, my lord. Major Fentiman is not residing with us at present. I believe he is occupying the late General Fentiman’s flat, my lord.”

“Ah, yes — very sad business, that.”

“Very melancholy, my lord. Not a pleasant thing to happen in the club. Very shocking, my lord.”

“Yes — still, he was a very old man. I suppose it had to be some day. Queer to think of ’em all sittin’ round him there and never noticing eh, what?”

“Yes, my lord. It gave Mrs. Rogers quite a turn when I told her about it.”

“Seems almost unbelievable, don’t it? Sittin’ round all those hours — must have been several hours, I gather, from what the doctor says. I suppose the old boy came in at his usual time, eh?”

“Ah! regular as clock-work, the General was. Always on the stroke of ten. ‘Good-morning, Rogers’, he’d say, a bit stiff-like, but very friendly. And then, ‘Fine morning,’ he’d say, as like as not. And sometimes ask after Mrs. Rogers and the family. A fine old gentleman, my lord. We shall all miss him.”

“Did you notice whether he seemed specially feeble or tired that morning at all?” inquired Wimsey, casually, tapping a cigarette on the back of his hand.

“Why, no, my lord. I beg your pardon, I fancied you knew. I wasn’t on duty that day, my lord. I was kindly given permission to attend the ceremony at the Cenotaph. Very grand sight, it was, too, my lord. Mrs. Rogers was greatly moved.”

“Oh, of course, Rogers — I was forgetting. Naturally, you would be there. So you didn’t see the General to say good-bye, as it were. Still, it wouldn’t have done to miss the Cenotaph. Matthews took your duty over, I suppose.”

“No, my lord. Matthews is laid up with the ’flu, I am sorry to say. It was Weston was at the door all morning, my lord.”

“Weston? Who’s he?”

“He’s new, my lord. Took the place of Briggs. You recollect Briggs — his uncle died and left him a fish-shop.”

“Of course he did; just so. When does Weston come on parade? I must make his acquaintance.”

“He’ll be here at one o’clock, when I go to my lunch, my lord.”

“Oh, right! I’ll probably be here about then. Hallo, Penberthy! You’re just the man I want to see. Had your morning’s inspiration? Or come in to look for it?”

“Just tracking it to its lair. Have it with me.”

“Right you are, old chap — half a mo’ while I deposit my outer husk. I’ll follow you.”

He glanced irresolutely at the hall-porter’s desk, but seeing the man already engaged with two or three inquiries, plunged abruptly into the cloakroom, where the attendant, a bright cockney with a Sam Weller face and an artificial leg, was ready enough to talk about General Fentiman.

“Well, now my lord that’s funny you should ask me that,” he said, when Wimsey had dexterously worked in an inquiry as to the time of the General’s arrival at the Bellona. “Dr. Penberthy was asking the same question; It’s a fair puzzle, that is. I could count on the fingers of one ’and the mornings I’ve missed seein’ the General come in. Wonderful regular, the General was, and him being such a very old gentleman, I’d make a point of being ’andy, to ’elp him off with his overcoat and such. But there! He must a’ come in a bit late, that morning, for I never see him, and I thought at lunch-time, ‘The General must be ill,’ I thinks. And I goes round, and there I see his coat and ’at ’ung up on his usual peg. So I must ’a missed him. There was a lot of gentlemen in and out that morning, my lord, being Armistice Day. A number of members come up from the country and wanting their ’ats and boots attended to, my lord, so that’s how I come not to notice, I suppose.”