Dorothy Sayers - The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club

“Very good, my lord.”

“Oh, and, Culyer, by the way. Dr. Penberthy sent a female in to lay the General out, didn’t he? D’you happen to remember when she arrived?”

“About nine o’clock the next morning, I think.”

“Have you got her name, by any chance?”

“I don’t think so. But I know she came from Merritt’s, the undertakers — round Shepherd’s Market way. They’d probably put you on to her.”

“Thanks frightfully, Culyer. I’ll make myself scarce now. Carry on, Bunter.”

Wimsey thought for a moment; then strolled across to the smoking-room, exchanged a mute greeting with one or two of the assembled veterans, picked up the Morning Post, and looked round for a seat. The great arm-chair with ears still stood before the fire, but some dim feeling of respect for the dead had left it vacant. Wimsey sauntered over to it, and dropped lazily into its well-sprung depths.

A veteran close at hand looked angrily at him and rustled the Times loudly.

Wimsey ignored these signals, barricading himself behind his paper. The veteran sank back again, muttering something about “young men” and “no decency.”

Wimsey sat on unmoved, and paid no attention, even when a man from The Twaddler came in, escorted by the Secretary, to take photographs of the smoking-room. A few sensitives retired before this attack. Wetheridge waddled away with a grumbling protest into the library. It gave Wimsey considerable satisfaction to see the relentless camera pursue him into that stronghold.

It was half-past twelve before a waiter approached Lord Peter to say that Mr. Culyer would be glad to speak to him for a moment. In the office, Bunter reported his job done, and was despatched to get some lunch and a fresh supply of plates.

Wimsey presently went down to the dining-room, where he found Wetheridge already established, getting the first cut off the saddle of mutton, and grumbling at the wine. Wimsey went deliberately over, greeted him heartily, and sat down at the same table.

Wetheridge said it was beastly weather. Wimsey agreed amiably. Wetheridge said it was scandalous, seeing what one paid for one’s food in this place, that one couldn’t get anything fit to eat. Wimsey, who was adored by chef and waiters alike for his appreciation of good food, and had been sent the choicest cut without having to ask for it, sympathised with this sentiment too. Wetheridge said he had been chased all over the Club that morning by an infernal photographer fellow, and that one got no peace these days with all this confounded publicity. Wimsey said it was all done for advertisement, and that advertisement was the curse of the age. Look at the papers — nothing but advertisements from cover to cover. Wetheridge said that in his time, by gad, a respectable Club would have scorned advertisements, and that he could remember the time when newspapers were run by gentlemen for gentlemen. Wimsey said that nothing was what it had been; he thought it must be due to the War.

“Infernal slackness, that’s what it is,” said Wetheridge. “The service in this place is a disgrace. That fellow Culyer doesn’t know his job. This week it’s the soap. Would you believe it, there was none — actually none — in the bathroom yesterday. Had to ring for it. Made me late for dinner. Last week it was the telephone. Wanted to get through to a man down in Norfolk. Brother was a friend of mine — killed on the last day of the War, half an hour before the guns stopped firing — damnable shame — always ring up on Armistice Day, say a few words, don’t you know — hr’rm!”

Wetheridge, having unexpectedly displayed this softer side of his character, relapsed into a snorting silence.

“Couldn’t you get through, sir?” inquired Wimsey, with feeling. Anything that had happened at the Bellona Club on Armistice Day was of interest to him.

“I got through all right,” said Wetheridge, morosely. “But, confound it all, I had to go down to the cloak-room to get a call from one of the boxes there. Didn’t want to hang about the entrance. Too many imbeciles coming in and out. Exchanging silly anecdotes. Why a solemn national occasion should be an excuse for all these fools meeting and talking rot, I don’t know.”

“Beastly annoyin’. But why didn’t you tell ’em to put the call through to the box by the library?”

“Aren’t I telling you? The damned thing was out of order. Damned great notice stuck across it as cool as you please—‘Instrument out of order.’ Just like that. No apology. Nothing. Sickening, I call it. I told the fellow at the switchboard it was a disgrace. And all he said was, he hadn’t put the notice up, but he’d draw attention to the matter.”

“It was all right in the evening,” said Wimsey, “because I saw Colonel Marchbanks using it.”

“I know it was. And then, dashed if we didn’t get the fool thing ringing, ringing at intervals all the next morning. Infuriating noise. When I told Fred to stop it, he just said it was the Telephone Company testing the line. They’ve no business to make a row like that. Why can’t they test it quietly, that’s what I want to know?”

Wimsey said telephones were an invention of the devil. Wetheridge grumbled his way through to the end of lunch, and departed. Wimsey returned to the entrance-hall, where he found the assistant commissionaire on duty, and introduced himself.

Weston, however, was of no assistance. He had not noticed General Fentiman’s arrival on the eleventh. He was not acquainted with many of the members, having only just taken over his new duties. He thought it odd that he should not have noticed so very venerable a gentleman, but the fact remained that he had not. He regretted it extremely. Wimsey gathered that Weston was annoyed at having lost a chance of reflected celebrity. He had missed his scoop, as the reporters say.

Nor was the hall-porter any more helpful. The morning of November 11th had been a busy one. He had been in and out of his little glass pigeonhole continually, shepherding guests into various rooms to find the members they wanted, distributing letters and chatting to country members who visited the Bellona seldom and liked to “have a chat with Piper” when they did. He could not recollect seeing the General. Wimsey began to feel that there must have been a conspiracy to overlook the old gentleman on the last morning of his life.

“You don’t think he never was here at all, do you, Bunter?” he suggested. “Walkin’ about invisible and tryin’ hard to communicate, like the unfortunate ghost in that story of somebody or other’s?”

Bunter was inclined to reject the psychic view of the case. “The General must have been here in the body, my lord, because there was the body.”

“That’s true,” said Wimsey. “I’m afraid we can’t explain away the body. S’pose that means I’ll have to question every member of this beastly Club separately. But just at the moment I think we’d better go round to the General’s flat and hunt up Robert Fentiman. Weston, get me a taxi, please.”

Chapter VI

A Card of Re-Entry

The door of the little flat in Dover Street was opened by an elderly manservant, whose anxious face bore signs of his grief at his master’s death. He informed them that Major Fentiman was at home and would be happy to receive Lord Peter Wimsey. As he spoke, a tall, soldierly man of about forty-five came out from one of the rooms and hailed his visitor cheerily.

“That you, Wimsey? Murbles told me to expect you. Come in. Haven’t seen you for a long time. Hear you’re turning into a regular Sherlock. Smart bit of work that was you put in over your brother’s little trouble. What’s all this? Camera? Bless me, you’re going to do our little job in the professional manner, eh? Woodward, see that Lord Peter’s man has everything he wants. Have you had lunch? Well, you’ll have a spot of something, I take it, before you start measuring up the footprints. Come along. We’re a bit at sixes and sevens here, but you won’t mind.”