‘Who did he think his great-grandmother was, then?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know. He did go on so. He wrote it all down for me one day, but I said to him, “You; make my head ache,” I said, “and besides, from what you say, none of your people were any better than they should have been,” I said, “so I don’t see what you’ve got to boast about. It doesn’t sound very respectable to, me,” I said, “and if princesses with plenty of money can’t keep respectable,” I said, “I don’t see why anybody should put any blame on girls who have to earn their own living.” That’s what I told him.’
‘Very true indeed,’ said, Wimsey. ‘He must have had a bit of a mania about it.’
‘Loopy,’ said Miss Garland, allowing the garment of refinement to slip aside for a’ moment. ‘I mean to say, I think he must have been a little silly about it, don’t you?’
‘He seems to have given more thought to the thing than it was worth. Wrote it all down, did he?’
‘Yes, he did. And then, one day he came bothering about it again. Asked me if I’d still got the paper he’d written. “I’m sure I ‘don’t know? I said. “I’m not so frightfully interested in it as all that” I said.. “Do you think I keep every bit of your.handwriting?” I said, “like the heroines in storybooks?” I said. “Because,” I said, “let me tell you I don’t, I said. “Anything that’s worth keeping, I’ll keep, but not rubbishing bits of paper.”
Wimsey remembered that Alexis had offended Leila towards the end of, their connection by a certain lack of generosity.
“If you want things, kept,” I said, “why don’t you give them: to that old woman that’s so struck on you?” I said. “If you’re going to marry her,” I said, “she’s the right person to give things to,” I said, “if you want them kept,” And he said he particularly didn’t want the paper kept, and I said, “Well, then, what are you worrying about?” I said. So he said, if I hadn’t kept it, that was all right, then, and I said I really didn’t know if I’d kept it or not, and he said, yes, but he wanted the paper burnt and I wasn’t to tell anybody about what he’d said — about his great-grandmother, I mean — and I said. “if you think I’ve nothing better to talk to my friends about than you and your great-grandmother,” I said, “you’re mistaken,” I said. Only fancy! Well, of course,’ after that, we weren’t’ such friends as we had been — at least, I wasn’t, though I will say he always was very fond of me. But I couldn’t stand the way he went on. Silly, I call it.’
‘And had you burnt the paper?’
‘Why, I’m sure I don’t know. You’re nearly as bad as he is, going on about the paper. What does the stupid paper matter, anyhow?’
‘Well,’ said Wimsey, ‘I’m inquisitive about papers. Still, if you’ve burnt it, you’ve burnt it. It’s a pity. If you could have found that paper, it might be worth-’
The beautiful eyes of Leila directed their beams upon him like a pair of swivelling head-lamps rounding a corner on a murky night.
‘Yes?’ breathed Leila.
‘It might be worth having a look at,’ replied Wimsey, coolly. ‘Perhaps if you had a hunt among your odds-and-ends, you know
Leila shrugged her shoulders. This sounded troublesome. ‘I can’t see what you want that old bit of paper for.’ ‘Nor do I, till I-see it. But we might have a shot at looking for it, eh, what?’
He smiled. Leila smiled. She felt she had grasped the idea.
‘What? You and me? Oh, well! but I don’t see that I could exactly take you round to, my place, could I? — I mean to say—’
‘Oh, — that’ll be all right,’ said Wimsey, swiftly. ‘You’re surely not afraid of me. You see, I’m trying to do something, and I want your help.’
‘I’m sure, anything I can do — provided it’s nothing Mr da Soto would object to. He’s a terribly jealous boy, you know.’
‘I should be just the same in his place. Perhaps he would like to come too and help hunt for the paper?’
Leila smiled and said she did not think that would be necessary, and the interview ended, where it was in any case doomed to end, in Leila’s crowded and untidy apartment.
Drawers, bags, boxes, overflowing with intimate and multifarious litter which piled itself on the bed, streamed over the chairs and swirled ankle-deep, upon the floor. Left to herself, Leila would have wearied of the search in ten minutes, but Wimsey, bullying, cajoling, flattering, holding out golden baits, kept her remorselessly to her task. Mr da Soto, arriving suddenly to find Wimsey holding an armful of lingerie, while Leila ferreted among a pile of crumpled bills and picture postcards which had been bundled into the bottom of a trunk, thought the scene was set for a little genteel blackmail and started to bluster Wimsey told him curtly not to be a fool, pushed the lingerie into his reluctant hands and started to hunt through a pile of magazines and gramophone records.
Curiously enough, it was da Soto who found the paper. Leila’s interest in the business seemed rather to cool after his arrival — was it possible that she had had other designs upon Lord Peter, with which Luis’ sulky presence interfered? — whereas da Soto, suddenly tumbling to the notion that the production of the paper might turn out to be of value to somebody, gradually became more and more interested.
‘I wouldn’t be that surprised, honey-bunch,’ he observed, ‘If you left it in one of those story-books you’re always reading, same like you always do with your bus-tickets.’
‘That’s an idea,’ said Wimsey, eagerly.
They turned their attention to a shelf stacked with cheap fiction and penny novelettes. The volumes yielded quite a surprising collection, not only of bus-tickets, but also of cinema-ticket counterfoils, bills, chocolate-papers, envelopes, picture-cards, cigarette-cards and other assorted book markers, and at length da Soto, taking The Girl who gave All by the spine and administering a brisk shake, shot out from between its passionate leaves a folded sheet of writing-paper.
‘What do you say to that?’ he inquired, picking it up quickly. ‘If that isn’t the fellow’s handwriting you can call me a deaf-and-dumb elephant with four left feet’
Leila grabbed the paper from him.
‘Yes, that’s it, all right,’ she observed.’
‘A lot of stuff, if you ask me. I never could make head or tail of it, but if it’s any good to you, you’re welcome to it.’
Wimsey cast a rapid glance at the spidery lines of the family tree which sprawled from top to bottom of the sheet.
‘So that’s who he thought he was. Yes — I’m glad you didn’t chuck this away, Miss Garland. It may clear things up quite a lot.’
Here Mr da Soto was understood to say something about dollars.
‘Ah, yes,’ said Wimsey. ‘It’s lucky it’s me and not Inspector Umpelty, isn’t it? Umpelty might run you in for suppressing important evidence.’ He grinned in da Soto’s baffled face. ‘But I won’t say — seeing that Miss Garland has turned her place upside-down to oblige me — that she mightn’t get a new frock out of it if she’s a good girl. Now, listen to me, my child. When did you say Alexis gave you this?’