He wondered what Umpelty was doing. He had heard the story of his excursion to town with Wimsey, and felt that this had only plunged matters into a still deeper obscurity. Then there was the tiresomeness about Bright. Bright was reported to be working his way towards London. It was going to be a job keeping an eye on him — especially as Glaisher was rather hard put to it to find a good reason for the surveillance. After all, what had Bright done? He was, an unsatisfactory character and he had said it was high tide when it was, in fact, low tide — in every other respect he appeared to have been telling the exact truth. Glaisher realised that he was making himself unpopular with the — police of half-a-dozen counties, on very insufficient grounds.
He dismissed the case from his mind and applied himself to a quantity of routine business connected with, petty theft and motoring offences, and so got through the evening. But after his, supper he found the problem of Paul Alexis gnawing at his brain again. Umpelty had reported the result of a few routine inquiries about Perkins, of which the only interesting fact was that Perkins was a member of the Soviet Club and was reported to have Communist sympathies.
Just the sort of sympathies he would have, thought Glaisher: it was always these week, mild, timid-looking people who yearned for revolution and bloodshed. But, taken in connection, with the cipher letters, the matter assumed a certain importance, He wondered how soon the photographs of the letters found on Alexis would come to hand. He fretted, was short with his wife, trod on the cat, and decided to go, round to the Bellevue and look up Lord Peter Wimsey.
Wimsey was out, and a little further inquiry led Glaisher to Mrs Lefranc’s, where he found; not only Wimsey, but also Inspector Umpelty, seated with Harriet in the bedsitting-room that had once housed Paul Alexis, all three, apparently engaged in a Missing Word Competition. Books were strewn about the place, and Harriet, with Chambers’s Dictionary in her hand, was reading out words to her companions.
‘Hullo, Super!’ exclaimed Wimsey. ‘Come along! I’m sure our hostess will be delighted to see you. We are making discoveries.
‘Are you, indeed, my lord? Well, so have we — at least, that lad, Ormond, has been rummaging about, as you might say.’
He plunged into his story. He was glad to try it, on somebody else. Umpelty grunted. Wimsey took a map and a sheet of paper and began figuring out distances and times. They discussed it, They argued about the speed of the mare. Wimsey was inclined to think that he might have underestimated it. He would borrow the animal — make a test.
Harriet said nothing.
‘And what do you think?’ Wimsey asked her, suddenly.
‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ said Harriet.
Glaisher laughed.
‘Miss Vane’s intuition, as they call it, is against it,’ said he.’
‘It’s not intuition,’ retorted Harriet. ‘here’s no such thing. It’s common sense. It’s artistic sense, if you like. All those theories — they’re all wrong. They’re artificial — they smell of the lamp.’
Glaisher laughed again.
‘That’s beyond me, that is.’
‘You men,’ said Harriet, ‘have let yourselves be carried away by all these figures and time-tables and you’ve lost sight of what you’re really dealing with. But it’s all machine-made.. It cracks at every joint. It’s like — like a bad plot, built up round an idea that won’t work. You’ve got it into your heads that you must get Weldon and the horse and Perkins into it somehow or other; and when you come up against an inconsistency, you say: “Oh, well — we’ll get over that somehow. We’ll make him do this. We’ll make him do that.” But you can’t make people; do things to suit you — not in real life. Why are you obliged to bring all these people into it at all?’
‘You won’t deny that there’s a good deal that needs explaining,’ said Umpelty.
‘Of course there’s a lot that needs explaining, but your explanations are more incredible than the problem. It’s not possible that anyone should plan a murder like that. You’ve made them too ingenious in one way and too silly in another. Whatever the explanation is, it must be simpler that that, — bigger — not so cramped. Can’t you see what I mean? You’re simply making up a case, that’s all.’
‘I see what you mean,’ said Wimsey.
‘I daresay it is a bit complicated,’ admitted Glaisher, ‘but if we don’t make, up a case against Weldon and Bright and Perkins, or two of them, or one of them — whom are we to make up a case against? Against Bolshies? Well, but this Perkins is a Bolshie, — or a Communist, anyhow, and if he’s in it, then Weldon must be, because of their mutual alibi.’ —
‘Yes, I know; but your whole case is like that. First you want Weldon to be guilty, because of getting his mother’s money, so you say that Perkins must be his accomplice because he’s giving an alibi for Weldon. Now you want Perkins to be guilty because he’s a Communist, and so you say Weldon must be the accomplice, because he’s giving an alibi for Perkins. But it’s simply impossible that both those theories should be true. And how did Weldon and Perkins get to know one another?’
We haven’t finished making inquiries yet.’
‘No but it does seem unlikely, doesn’t it? A Council School teacher from the Tottenham Court Road and a Huntingdonshire farmer. What form? What likelihood? And as for Bright, you have nothing — nothing to connect him with either, of them. And if his story’s true, then there’s, not an atom of proof that Alexis didn’t kill himself. And in any case, if you want to prove murder, you’ve got to connect Bright’ with whoever did it, and you certainly haven’t found the least trace of communication between him and either Weldon or Perkins.’
‘Has Bright been receiving any letters?’ asked Wimsey of Umpelty.
‘Not’ a line, not since he turned up here, anyway.’
‘As for Perkins,’ said Glaisher, ‘we’ll soon get a line on him. Of course, his getting knocked down and laid up like that must have puzzled his accomplices just as much as it puzzled us. There may be a whole correspondence waiting for him at some accommodation address, under another name, in some town or other.’
‘You’ will insist on its being Perkins,’ protested Harriet. ‘You really think Perkins rode a horse bare-backed along the beach and cut a man’s throat to the bone with a razor?’
‘Why not?’ said Umpelty. ‘Does he look like it?’
“‘Do I look like it, said the Knave. Which he certainly did not, being made entirely of cardboard.” I’ve never seen the bloke, but I admit that his description isn’t encouraging.’ Wimsey grinned. ‘But then, you know, friend Henry took me for something in the night-club line,’
Harriet glanced briefly at his lean limbs and springy build.
‘You needn’t fish,’ she said, coldly. ‘We all know that your appearance of langour is assumed and that you are really capable of tying pokers into knots with your artistic fingers. Perkins is flabby and has a neck like a. chicken and those flip-flop hands.’ She turned to Glaisher. ‘I can’t see Perkins in the role of a desperado. Why, your original case against me was a better one.’
Glaisher blinked, but took the thrust stolidly.
‘Yes, miss. It had a lot to; be said for it, that had.’ ‘Of course. Why did you give it up, by the way?’