‘Yes,’ said Bunter. ‘The fact is, I heard there-might be a vacancy for a gentleman’s personal attendant, at No. 17, and I thought I’d like to know what the family was like before applying for it.
‘Oh, I see. Yes, You’d find it a nice family. Quiet. No children. Mrs Morecambe is a nice lady. Good-looking in her time, I should say. Used to be on the stage, I’m told, but that must have been a good long time ago. Two maids kept and everything quite as you might wish to find it.’—
Bunter expressed his gratitude and left the shop to send a telegram to Lord Peter —
The chase was ended.
Chapter XXXI. The Evidence Of The Haberdasher’s Assistant
‘Ha! well! what next?
You are the cupbearer of richest joy—
But it was a report, a lie.’
— The Second Brother
Monday, 6 July
‘I Look at it this way,’ said Superintendent Glaisher. ‘If this here Bright is Morecambe, and Mrs Morecambe is in cahoots with Weldon, then, likewise, Weldon and Bright so to call him are in cahoots together.’
‘Undoubtedly,’ said Wimsey, ‘but if you think that this identification is going to make life one grand, sweet song for you, you are mistaken. All it has done so far is to bust up every conclusion we have so far come to.’
‘Yes, my lord; undoubtedly the thing still has a hitch in it. Still, every little helps, and this time we’ve got more than a little to go on with. Suppose we work out where we stand., First of all, if Bright is Morecambe, he isn’t a hairdresser; therefore he had no legitimate call to buy that razor; therefore his tale about the razor is all eyewash, like we always thought it was, therefore, humanly speaking there’s not much doubt that Paul Alexis didn’t commit suicide, but was murdered.’
‘Exactly,’ said Wimsey, ‘and since we have devoted a great deal of time and thought to the case on the assumption that it was a murder, it’s a convenience to know that the assumption is probably correct.’
‘So it is. Well, now, if Weldon and Morecambe are both in this together, it’s likely that the motive for the murder is what we.thought—,getting hold of Mrs W.’s money — or isn’t it?’
‘It’s likely,’ agreed Wimsey.
‘Then what’s all this Bolshevik business got to do with it?’ demanded Inspector Umpelty.
‘Lots,’ said Wimsey. ‘Look here; I’m going to offer you two more identifications. First of all, I suggest that Morecambe was the bearded friend who came to stay with Weldon at Fourways Farm at the end of February. And secondly, I suggest that Morecambe was the bearded gentleman who approached Mr Sullivan of Wardour Street and asked him for the photograph of a Russian-looking girl. It is interesting that Mr Horrock’s cultivated theatrical mind should have associated him immediately with Richard III.’
Inspector Umpelty looked puzzled, but the Superintendent smacked his hand on the table.
‘The hunchback!’ he cried.
‘Yes — but they seldom play, Richard as a real hunchback nowadays. A slight suggestion of crookedness is what they usually give you — just that scarcely perceptible twistiness of shoulder that Morecambe has about him.’
‘Of course, that’s plain enough, now we know about the beard,” said Glaisher. ‘But why the photograph?’
‘Let’s try and put the story together in the right order, as far as we’ve got it,’ suggested Wimsey. ‘First of all, here is Weldon, over head and ears in debt, and raising money against his expectations from his mother. Very well. Now, early this year, Mrs Weldon comes to Wilvercombe, and begins to take a great deal of interest in Paul Alexis. In February, she definitely announces that she means to marry Alexis, and possibly she is foolish enough to admit that, if she does marry him, she will leave him all her money. Almost immediately after this announcement, Morecambe comes to stay at Weldon’s farm. And within a week or two, the strange coded letters with the foreign stamps begin to arrive for Alexis.’
‘That’s clear enough.’
‘Now, Alexis has always hinted to people that there is a mystery about his birth. He fancies that he is of noble Russian descent. I suggest that the first letter-’
‘One minute, my lord. Who do you suppose wrote those letters?’
‘I think Morecambe wrote them, and got them posted by some friend in Warsaw. As I see it, Morecambe is the brains of the conspiracy. He writes his first letter, no doubt in plain English, hinting at Imperialist activities in Russia and grandiose prospects for Paul Alexis, if he can prove his descent — but, of course, there must be complete secrecy about the whole thing.’
‘Why the secrecy?’
To preserve the romantic atmosphere; Alexis, poor egg, swallows this, hook, line and sinker. He promptly writes back telling the so-called Boris everything he knows; or imagines about himself. The code is henceforth used, of course, to keep Alexis in the proper frame of mind and give him a nice toy to play with. Then, from the little bits of family tradition that Alexis supplies, Boris” (that is, Morecambe) builds up a, suitable genealogical fantasy to fit in with these data, and outlines a marvellous plot to place Alexis to break off with Mrs Weldon on the grounds that reads books about Russian history, and obligingly assists his murderer to bait and arm the trap. Eventually, Boris tells him that the conspiracy is nearly ready to take effect; and that is when we find Alexis indulging in mysterious hints and prophecies of his forthcoming apotheosis.’
‘Just a minute,’ said Glaisher. ‘I should have thought that the simplest way for Morecambe would have been to get Alexis to break off with Mrs Waldron on the grounds that he had to go to Russia and be a Tsar. Surely that would have attained the object of the plot without bumping off the poor little blighter.’
‘Well, would it?’ said Wimsey. ‘In the first place, I rather imagine that Mrs Weldon’s romantic reaction to a notion of that kind would have been to hand over large sums of money to Alexis for the Imperial war-chest; which would hardly have suited Messrs Weldon and Morecambe. Secondly, if Alexis did break off the engagement and they trusted to that what would happen next? They couldn’t go on for the remainder of all their lives writing code-letters about imaginary conspiracies. Some time or other, Alexis would wake up to the fact that the plot was never going to materialise. He would tell Mrs Weldon and in all probability the status quo would be restored. And the lady would be bound to talk, and they didn’t want talk. Whether her fiance really was the unacknowledged Tsar of all the Russias. No; the safest way was to tell Alexis to keep the whole thing absolutely secret, and then, when the time came, they could wipe him out finally and completely.’
‘Yes — I see that.’
‘Now we come to Leila Garland. I don’t think there is any doubt that Alexis deliberately pushed her off on to our conceited young friend, da Soto — though naturally neither da Soto nor she would admit that possibility for a moment. I fancy Antoine has got the right idea about that; he is probably an observer of considerable experience in these matters. Leila would be a very dangerous person if she were allowed to know anything about the pretended plot. She would be bound to talk, and they didn’t want talk. We’ve got to remember that the object of all this business was to stage a suicide. Young emperors, on the point of leading successful revolutions do not commit suicide. To tell Leila about the plot was to tell the world: therefore, Leila must be got rid of, because, if she remained closely in contact with Alexis, it would be almost impossible to keep her in ignorance.’