Dorothy Sayers - Whose Body?

He flung the book away. «Confirmation!» he groaned. «As if I needed it!»

He sat down again and buried his face in his hands. He remembered quite suddenly how, years ago, he had stood before the breakfast table at Denver Castle — a small, peaky boy in blue knickers, with a thunderously beating heart. The family had not come down; there was a great silver urn with a spirit lamp under it, and an elaborate coffee-pot boiling in a glass dome. He had twitched the corner of the tablecloth — twitched it harder, and the urn moved ponderously forward and all the teaspoons rattled. He seized the tablecloth in a firm grip and pulled his hardest — he could feel now the delicate and awful thrill as the urn and the coffee machine and the whole of a Sevres breakfast service had crashed down in one stupendous ruin — he remembered the horrified face of the butler, and the screams of a lady guest.

A log broke across and sank into a fluff of white ash. A belated motor-lorry rumbled past the window.

Mr. Bunter, sleeping the sleep of the true and faithful servant, was aroused in the small hours by a hoarse whisper, «Bunter!»

«Yes, my lord,» said Bunter, sitting up and switching on the light.

«Put that light out, damn you!» said the voice. «Listen — over there — listen — can't you hear it?»

«It's nothing, my lord,» said Mr. Bunter, hastily getting out of bed and catching hold of his master; «it's all right, you get to bed quick and I'll fetch you a drop of bromide. Why, you're all shivering — you've been sitting up too late.»

«Hush! no, no — it's the water,» said Lord Peter with chattering teeth, «it's up to their waists down there, poor devils. But listen! can't you hear it? Tap, tap, tap — they're mining us — but I don't know where — I can't hear — I can't. Listen, you! There it is again — we must find it — we must stop it… Listen! Oh, my God! I can't hear — I can't hear anything for the noise of the guns. Can't they stop the guns?»

«Oh, dear!» said Mr. Bunter to himself. «No, no — it's all right, Major — don't you worry.»

«But I hear it,» protested Peter.

«So do I,» said Mr. Bunter stoutly; «very good hearing, too, my lord. That's our own sappers at work in the communication trench. Don't you fret about that, sir.»

Lord Peter grasped his wrist with a feverish hand.

«Our own sappers,» he said; «sure of that?»

«Certain of it,» said Mr. Bunter, cheerfully.

«They'll bring down the tower,» said Lord Peter.

«To be sure they will,» said Mr. Bunter, «and very nice, too. You just come and lay down a bit, sir — they've come to take over this section.»

«You're sure it's safe to leave it?» said Lord Peter.

«Safe as houses, sir,» said Mr. Bunter, tucking his master's arm under his and walking him off to his bedroom.

Lord Peter allowed himself to be dosed and put to bed without further resistance. Mr. Bunter, looking singularly un-Bunterlike in striped pyjamas, with his stiff black hair ruffled about his head, sat grimly watching the younger man's sharp cheekbones and the purple stains under his eyes.

«Thought we'd had the last of these attacks,» he said. «Been overdoin' of himself. Asleep?» He peered at him anxiously. An affectionate note crept into his voice. «Bloody little fool!» said Sergeant Bunter.

Mr. Parker, summoned the next morning to 110 Piccadilly, arrived to find the Dowager Duchess in possession. She greeted him charmingly.

«I am going to take this silly boy down to Denver for the week-end,» she said, indicating Peter, who was writing and only acknowledged his friend's entrance with a brief nod. «He's been doing too much — running about to Salisbury and places and up till all hours of the night — you really shouldn't encourage him, Mr. Parker, it's very naughty of you — waking poor Bunter up in the middle of the night with scares about Germans, as if that wasn't all over years ago, and he hasn't had an attack for ages, but there! Nerves are such funny things, and Peter always did have nightmares when he was quite a little boy — though very often of course it was only a little pill he wanted; but he was so dreadfully bad in 1918, you know, and I suppose we can't expect to forget all about a great war in a year or two, and, really, I ought to be very thankful with both my boys safe. Still, I think a little peace and quiet at Denver won't do him any harm.»

«Sorry you've been having a bad turn, old man,» said Parker, vaguely sympathetic; «you're looking a bit seedy.»

«Charles,» said Lord Peter, in a voice entirely void of expression, «I am going away for a couple of days because I can be no use to you in London. What has got to be done for the moment can be much better done by you than by me. I want you to take this» — he folded up his writing and placed it in an envelope — «to Scotland Yard immediately and get it sent out to all the workhouses, infirmaries, police stations, Y. M. C. A.'s and so on in London. It is a description of Thipps's corpse as he was before he was shaved and cleaned up. I want to know whether any man answering to that description has been taken in anywhere, alive or dead, during the last fortnight. You will see Sir Andrew Mackenzie personally, and get the paper sent out at once, by his authority; you will tell him that you have solved the problems of the Levy murder and the Battersea mystery» — Mr. Parker made an astonished noise to which his friend paid no attention — «and you will ask him to have men in readiness with a warrant to arrest a very dangerous and important criminal at any moment on your information. When the replies to this paper come in, you will search for any mention of St. Luke's Hospital, or of any person connected with St. Luke's Hospital, and you will send for me at once.»

«Meanwhile you will scrape acquaintance — I don't care how — with one of the students at St. Luke's. Don't march in there blowing about murders and police warrants, or you may find yourself in Queer Street. I shall come up to town as soon as I hear from you, and I shall expect to find a nice ingenuous Sawbones here to meet me.» He grinned faintly.

«D'you mean you've got to the bottom of this thing?» asked Parker.

«Yes. I may be wrong. I hope I am, but I know I'm not.»

«You won't tell me?»

«D'you know,» said Peter, «honestly I'd rather not. I say I may be wrong — and I'd feel as if I'd libelled the Archbishop of Canterbury.»

«Well, tell me — is it one mystery or two?»

«One.»

«You talked of the Levy murder. Is Levy dead?»

«God — yes!» said Peter, with a strong shudder.

The Duchess looked up from where she was reading the Tatler .

«Peter,» she said, «is that your ague coming on again? Whatever you two are chattering about, you'd better stop it at once if it excites you. Besides, it's about time to be off.»

«All right, Mother,» said Peter. He turned to Bunter, standing respectfully in the door with an overcoat and suitcase. «You understand what you have to do, don't you?» he said.

«Perfectly, thank you, my lord. The car is just arriving, your Grace.»

«With Mrs. Thipps inside it,» said the Duchess. «She'll be delighted to see you again, Peter. You remind her so of Mr. Thipps. Good-morning, Bunter.»

«Good-morning, your Grace.»

Parker accompanied them downstairs.

When they had gone he looked blankly at the paper in his hand — then, remembering that it was Saturday and there was need for haste, he hailed a taxi.

«Scotland Yard!» he cried.

Tuesday morning saw Lord Peter and a man in a velveteen jacket swishing merrily through seven acres of turnip-tops, streaked yellow with early frosts. A little way ahead, a sinuous undercurrent of excitement among the leaves proclaimed the unseen yet ever-near presence of one of the Duke of Denver's setter pups. Presently a partridge flew up with a noise like a police rattle, and Lord Peter accounted for it very creditably for a man who, a few nights before, had been listening to imaginary German sappers. The setter bounded foolishly through the turnips, and fetched back the dead bird.