Dorothy Sayers - Murder Must Advertise

“It would be useless,” said Lord Peter Wimsey in an interview, “in view of the remarkable resemblance between us, to deny that there is a relationship between this man and myself. In fact, he has on various occasions given trouble by impersonating me. If you were to see us together, you would notice that he is the darker of the two; there are also, of course, slight differences of feature; but, when we are seen separately, it is easy to mistake one of us for the other.”

The Death Bredon of the photograph had certainly very much darker hair than the Peter Wimsey; his mouth was set in an unpleasing sneer, and he had that indefinable air of raffish insolence which is the hall-mark of the chevalier d’industrie. The newspaper article wandered on to give various unverifiable details.

“Bredon never went to a university, though he sometimes claims Oxford as his Alma Mater. He was educated at a public school in France where English sports are cultivated. He is a very fine natural cricketer, and was actually playing in a cricket match when arrested through the prompt and intelligent action of Chief-Inspector Parker. Under various names he is well known in the night-clubs of London and Paris. He is said to have met the unfortunate girl, with whose murder he is charged, at the house of the late Major Milligan, who met his death two days ago by being run down by a lorry in Piccadilly. Following representations by the Wimsey family as to his mode of life, he had recently taken a post in a well-known commercial firm, and was supposed to have turned over a new leaf, but…”

And so on, and so forth.

Miss Meteyard sat for a long time with the papers strewn about her, smoking cigarettes, while her coffee got cold. Then she went and had a bath. She hoped it might clear her brain.

The excitement at Pym’s on the Monday morning was indescribable. The Copy Department sat in the typists’ room and did no work at all. Mr. Pym telephoned that he was unwell, and could not come to the office. Mr. Copley was so unnerved that he sat for three hours with a blank sheet of paper before him and then went out for a drink-a thing he had never done in his life. Mr. Willis seemed to be on the verge of nervous collapse. Mr. Ingleby laughed at his colleagues’ agitation and said that it was a grand new experience for them all. Miss Parton burst into tears and Miss Rossiter proclaimed that she had always known it. Mr. Tallboy then enlivened the proceedings by fainting in Mr. Armstrong’s room, thus giving Mrs. Johnson (who was hysterically inclined) useful occupation for half an hour. And Ginger Joe, of the red head and sunny temper, astonished his companions by having a fit of the sulks and then suddenly cuffing Bill’s head for no reason whatever.

At 1 o’clock Miss Meteyard went out to lunch, and read in the Evening Banner that Mr. Death Bredon had appeared before the magistrates at 10 a.m. on the murder charge, and had reserved his defence. At 10.30, Lord Peter Wimsey (picturesquely described as “the second protagonist in this drama of dope and death”) had, while riding in the Row, narrowly escaped injury, owing to his horse’s having been startled by a back-fire from a racing car; the animal had bolted and only Lord Peter’s consummate horsemanship had averted a nasty accident. There was a photograph of Mr. Bredon entering the court at Bow Street in a dark lounge suit and soft hat; there was also a photograph of Lord Peter Wimsey returning from his ride in neat breeches and boots and a bowler; there was, needless to say, no photograph of the metamorphosis of the one gentleman into another, behind the drawn blinds of a Daimler saloon while traversing the quiet squares north of Oxford Street.

On Monday night, Lord Peter Wimsey attended a performance of Say When ! at the Frivolity, companioning a Royal personage.

On Tuesday morning, Mr. Willis arrived at the office late and in a great state of excited importance. He beamed at everybody, presented the typists’ room with a four-pound box of chocolates and an iced cake, and informed the sympathetic Miss Parton that he was engaged to be married. At coffee-time, the name of the lady was known to be Miss Pamela Dean. At 11.30, it was divulged that the ceremony would take place at the earliest possible moment, and at 11.45 Miss Rossiter was collecting subscriptions for a wedding-present. By 2 o’clock, the subscribers were already divided into two opinionated and bitterly hostile factions, the one advocating the purchase of a handsome dining-room clock with Westminster chimes, and the other voting with passion for a silver-plated electric chafing-dish. At 4 o’clock, Mr. Jollop had turned down successively, “Sigh no more, Ladies,” “Oh, Dry those Tears” and “Weeping Late and Weeping Early,” which Mr. Toule had previously passed, and rejected with derision the proposed substitution of “If You have Tears,” “O Say, What are You Weeping For?” and “A Poor Soul Sat Sighing.” Mr. Ingleby, stimulated by a frantic request for new headlines, had flown into a passion because the Dictionary of Quotations had mysteriously disappeared. At 4.30 Miss Rossiter, feverishly typing, had completed “I Weep, I know not Why” and “In Silence and in Tears,” while the distracted Mr. Ingleby was seriously contemplating “In that Deep Midnight of the Mind” (for, as he observed, “they’ll never know it’s Byron unless we tell them”), when Mr. Armstrong sent up word to say that he had persuaded Mr. Jollop to accept the copy of “O Say, What are You Weeping For?” combined with the headline “Flat, Stale, and Unprofitable,” and would Mr. Ingleby kindly verify at once whether it was “Flat, Stale” or “Stale, Flat,” and get the thing re-typed and hand it to Mr. Tallboy immediately.

“Isn’t Mr. Armstrong marvellous?” said Miss Rossiter. “He always finds a way out. Here you are, Mr. Ingleby-I’ve looked it up-it’s ‘Stale, Flat.’ The first sentence will want altering, I suppose. You can’t have this bit about ‘Sometimes you are tempted to ask yourself, in the words of the old game,’ can you?”

“I suppose not,” grunted Ingleby. “Better make it: ‘Sometimes you may be tempted, like Hamlet, to exclaim’-then the whole quote-and go on, ‘yet if anybody were to ask you why-’ and join it up there. That’ll do. Courses of the world, please, not curses.”

“T’chk!” said Miss Rossiter.

“Here’s Wedderburn, panting for his copy. How’s Tallboy, Wedder?”

“Gone home,” said Mr. Wedderburn. “He didn’t want to go, but he’s fagged out. He oughtn’t to have come to the office at all today, but he would do it. Is this the thing?”

“Yes. They’ll want a new sketch, of course.”

“Of course,” said Mr. Wedderburn, gloomily. “How they ever expect things to look right when they chop and change like this-Oh, well! What is it? ‘Picture of Hamlet.’ Have the Studio got a reference for Hamlet?”

“Of course not; they never have anything. Who does these sketches? Pickering? You’d better take him my illustrated Shakespeare with my compliments, and request him not to cover it with Indian ink and rubber solution.”

“All right.”

“And to return it sometime before Christmas.”

Wedderburn grinned and departed on his errand.

About ten minutes later, the telephone tinkled in the typists’ room.

“Yes?” said Miss Rossiter, in mellifluous accents. “Who is it, please?”

“Tallboy speaking,” said the telephone.

“Oh!” Miss Rossiter altered her voice from the tone reserved for clients and directors to a tarter tone (for she was not too well pleased with Mr. Tallboy), modified by the sympathy due to ill-health: