Wimsey rang the bell, and Bunter instantly appeared. “Oh, look here, Bunter, will you get the German Ambassador on the ’phone for me?” As Bunter busied himself with the instrument by the bedside, Wimsey turned to the Bishop again. “Well, Mike, I will certainly go if they want me. I shall drive there in the Fendlair, so it won’t take long.”
The Bishop repressed a shudder. “Why do you amateur detectives always drive like lunatics?” he asked plaintively. “You all do — except Trent, of course; he never does anything off-colour. Well, they’ll be glad of your help — if you get there in one piece, that is — and I’m grateful to you myself. I must push off now — got to move the second reading of the Disestablishment Bill in the Lords this afternoon, and I haven’t prepared a line of my stuff yet.”
As the Bishop disappeared, Bunter presented the telephone receiver to Wimsey on a salver. “His Excellency is now at the apparatus, my lord.”
“Hullo, is that Bodo?” Wimsey cried. “Yes, Peter speaking. Heil Hitler. I say, old man, I’m frightfully sorry, but I can’t turn up at your squash this evening. I’ve just heard some very bad news… No, Heil Hitler, it’s nobody you know… Yes, Heil Hitler, very serious. I mean, dead, and all that. I’ve got to go and see about it… That’s kind of you, Bodo. You know I value your sympathy. Thanks hunderttausendmal. Well, Heil Hitler, good-bye.”
During the progress of his toilet, Wimsey cancelled by telephone, with all apologies due, several other appointments. A Sunday luncheon of the Food and Wine Society at Tewkesbury, to test the quality — so praised by Falstaff — of the local mustard. A meeting of the Committee of the Anerithmon Gelasma Yacht Club, called for the purpose of blackballing the Duke of Cheshire. A supper for Miss Ruth Draper, who would give, it was hoped, her impersonation of the Nine Muses discussing the character of Aphrodite.
Wimsey then got into communication with the Spoopendyke Professor of Egyptology in the University of Oxford, and accepted in brief but sympathetic terms his invitation to spend the week-end. Professor Mixer was greatly relieved, he said. He feared that Wimsey must have sacrificed other engagements in order to do Topsy and himself this kindness.
Wimsey burdened his soul with the statement that he had been going to spend the next few days in bringing the catalogue of his library up to date; a thing which could be done at any time.
The Professor of Egyptology met Wimsey at the door of his grey old house of Headington stone, nearly facing the main gateway of Janus. He greeted his visitor with subdued cordiality, his left hand clutching his unkempt beard as he talked.
“It’s very good of you to come, Peter,” he said. “Topsy was anxious to have your opinion, and we are very glad to have you with us, anyhow. But whatever you may find out about the cause of death, you can’t bring back poor Dermot. I thought it better you should stay in college, if you don’t mind. This is a house of sorrow, you see; and you would really be more comfortable in Janus. I’ve got you rooms in the Fellows’ Quad — Simpson’s — he is in the Morea just now. You only want to be careful not to disturb the manuscript of his forthcoming book on the pre-Minoan cultures of the Dodecanese. He has a habit of doing all his writing on the backs of old envelopes, and leaving them all over the floor. So perhaps you’d better not use the study — you might prefer not to in any case, because of course it can’t ever be dusted on account of the envelopes — hasn’t been for years.”
“I shall love staying in Janus,” said Wimsey. “It’s a college I was very seldom in when I was up, and the only experience I had of the Fellows’ Quad was when Jinks was Proctor, and I had to go to his rooms there to see him about my chaining a gorilla to the railings of the Martyrs’ Memorial.”
“Ha! H’m! Just so,” said the Professor. “Perhaps you would like to see the body at once. It is still there, lying just as it was found — in the library.”
“Well, naturally,” Wimsey said with impatience. “Where did you think I thought it was? — in the scullery? Yes, I should like to see it now.”
The Professor led the way to the library, a large, light room on the ground floor, walled with crowded shelves, and smelling slightly of mummified cats. Before the central window was a large writing-table covered with piles of papers in orderly array. On the blotter, Wimsey noted with interest, a very modern book lay open with a part of one of its leaves torn away — a detective story which had murdered sleep for countless readers.
The body lay on the carpet beside the table. Wimsey, mastering the emotion that seized him, knelt down and looked closely at the stocky, well-knit figure, still carefully neat in appearance as Dermot always was in life, and in a natural posture, but that the feet were somewhat drawn up. Those keen eyes were closed now, the mouth too was shut, and there was not a trace of expression on the small, aquiline features. No blood was to be seen, and there was, as Wimsey soon ascertained, no sign of any wound on the body.
Dermot had been in perfect health and excellent spirits up to the time of his death, Professor Mixer said. He himself had been the last to see him alive — at about half-past nine o’clock that morning, when they had exchanged a few words in this same room before the Professor went out to Blackwell’s in quest of a book. Shortly after that his wife, passing the door of the library, had heard Dermot swearing violently within, but she had thought nothing of that.
“You remember, Peter,” the Professor said, “how rough his language often was. He picked up the habit during his time in the mercantile marine, and he seemed quite unable to break himself of it. Topsy, you know, rather admired it really, and I never paid any attention to it; but it cost us the services of an excellent cook, a strict Wesleyan, and sometimes I felt rather uncomfortable about it when I was seeing pupils here.”
“Do you think he could have taught them anything?” Wimsey asked.
“I fear so — yes. I mean, I hope so,” said the Professor with a melancholy shake of the head. “Only last week Lord Torquilstone brought me an essay, and as soon as he entered the room Dermot called out — well, I cannot bring myself to repeat what he said. It was as essentially meaningless as it was deplorably coarse, and Torquilstone was quite taken aback. Then there was another time, when the Vice-Chancellor came to tea with us. We were in the drawing-room upstairs, but I am afraid that he distinctly heard Dermot, who was in this room, blaspheming in the most dreadful terms. In fact, Hoggarty must have heard, because he dropped a piece of muffin into his tea, and then remarked upon the lovely weather that we were having — which was not the case, for it was pouring with rain and very cold for the time of year. I fear I shall be getting quite a bad name in the Hebdomadal Council.”
“And was that — I mean what Topsy heard — the last evidence of his being alive?”
“Yes. It is painful,” the Professor said, “to think that those were in all probability his last words; for I came in about half an hour later, and found him as you see.”
Dinner with Professor Mixer and his wife that evening was not a cheerful affair. Topsy, pale and red-eyed, strangled a sob from time to time, and made hardly a pretence of eating. Her husband, too, could do no more than peck feebly at a half-raw cutlet, while his talk (about the funerary customs which grew up under the Kyksos dynasty) had little of its customary sparkle.
Wimsey, on the other hand, urged on by some impulse which he could neither understand nor control, ate enough of the repulsive meal for all three, while yet he shuddered to think of the probable consequences. He sketched in fancy a lyrical dialogue between himself and his digestion.