“If I knew that,” said Mr. Parker, sourly, “I should be on velvet. All I can tell you is, that it’s coming in by the boatload from somewhere or other, and is being distributed broadcast from somewhere or other. The question is, where? Of course, we could lay hands tomorrow on half a hundred of the small distributors, but where would be the good of that? They don’t know themselves where it comes from, or who handles it. They all tell the same tale. It’s handed to them in the street by men they’ve never seen before and couldn’t identify again. Or it’s put in their pockets in omnibuses. It isn’t always that they won’t tell; they honestly don’t know. And if you did catch the man immediately above them in the scale, he would know nothing either. It’s heartbreaking. Somebody must be making millions out of it.”
“Yes. Well, to go back to Victor Dean. Here’s another problem. He was pulling down six pounds a week at Pym’s. How does one manage to run with the de Momerie crowd on £300 a year? Even if he wasn’t much of a sport, it couldn’t possibly be done for nothing.”
“Probably he lived on Dian.”
“Possibly he did, the little tick. On the other hand, I’ve got an idea. Suppose he really did think he had a chance of marrying into the aristocracy-or what he imagines to be the aristocracy. After all, Dian is a de Momerie, though her people have shown her the door, and you can’t blame them. Put it that he was spending far more than he could afford in trying to keep up the running. Put it that it took longer than he thought and that he had got heavily dipped. And then see what that half-finished letter to Pym looks like in the light of that theory.”
“Well,” began Parker.
“Oh, do step on the gas!” broke in Mary. “How you two darlings do love going round and round a subject, don’t you? Blackmail, of course. It’s perfectly obvious. I’ve seen it coming for the last hour. This Dean creature is looking round for a spot of extra income and he discovers somebody at Pym’s doing something he shouldn’t-the head-cashier cooking the accounts, or the office-boy pilfering from the petty cash, or something. So he says, ‘If you don’t square me, I’ll tell Pym,’ and starts to write a letter. Probably, you know, he never meant that letter to get to Mr. Pym, at all; it was just a threat. The other man stops him for the moment by paying up something on account. Then he thinks: This is hopeless, I’d better slug the little beast.’ So he slugs him. And there you are.”
“Just as simple as that,” said Wimsey.
“Of course it’s simple, only men love to make mysteries.”
“And women love to jump to conclusions.”
“Never mind the generalizations,” said Parker, “they always lead to bad reasoning. Where do I come into all this?”
“You give me your advice, and stand by ready to rally round with your myrmidons in case there’s any roughhousing. By the way, I can give you the address of that house we went to last night. Dope and gambling to be had for the asking, to say nothing of nameless orgies.”
He mentioned the address and the Chief-Inspector made a note of it. “Though we can’t do much,” he admitted. “It’s a private house, belonging to a Major Milligan. We’ve had our eye on it for some time. And even if we could get in on it, it probably wouldn’t help us to what we want. I don’t suppose there’s a soul in that gang who knows where the dope comes from. Still, it’s something to have definite evidence that that’s where it goes. By the way, we got the goods on that couple you helped us to arrest the other night. They’ll probably get seven years.”
“Good. I was pretty nearly had that time, though. Two of Pym’s typists were fooling round and recognized me. I gave them a fishy stare and explained next morning that I had a cousin who closely resembled me. That notorious fellow Wimsey, of course. It’s a mistake to be too well known.”
“If the de Momerie crowd get wise to you, you’ll find yourself in Queer Street,” said Parker. “How did you get so pally with Dian?”
“Dived off a fountain into a fish-pond. It pays to advertise. She thinks I’m the world’s eighth wonder. Absolutely the lobster’s dress-shirt.”
“Well, don’t kill yourself,” said Mary, gently. “We rather like you, and small Peter couldn’t spare his best uncle.”
“It will do you no end of good,” remarked his brother-in-law, callously, “to have a really difficult case for once. When you’ve struggled for a bit with a death that might have been caused by anybody for any imaginable motive, you may be less sniffy and superior about the stray murders all over the country that the police so notoriously fail to avenge. I hope it will be a lesson to you. Have another spot?”
‘Thanks; I’ll try to profit by it. In the meantime, I’ll go on gulling the public and being Mr. Bredon, to be heard of at your address. And let me know of any developments with the Momerie-Milligan lot.”
“I will. Should you care to make one in our next dope-raid?”
“Sure thing. When do you expect it?”
“We’ve had information about cocaine-smuggling on the Essex coast. Worst thing the Government ever did was to abolish the coast-guard service. It doubles our trouble, especially with all these privately-owned motor-boats about. If you’re out for an evening’s fun any time, you could come along-and you might bring that car of yours. It’s faster than anything we’ve got.”
“I see. Two for yourselves and one for me. Right you are. I’m on. Send me a line any time. I cease work at 5.30.”
In the meantime, three hearts were being wrung on Mr. Death Bredon’s account.
Miss Pamela Dean was washing a pair of silk stockings in her solitary flat.
“Last night was rather marvellous… I suppose I oughtn’t to have enjoyed it, with poor old Victor only just buried, the darling… but, of course, I really went for Victor’s sake… I wonder if that detective man will find out anything about it… he didn’t say much, but I believe he thinks there was something funny about Victor being killed like that… anyhow, Victor suspected there was something wrong, and he’d want me to do everything I could to ferret it out… I didn’t know private detectives were like that… I thought they were nasty, furtive little men… vulgar… I like his voice… and his hands… oh, dear! there’s a hole… I’ll have to catch it together before it runs up the instep… and beautiful manners, only I’m afraid he was cross with me for coming to Pym’s… he must be fearfully athletic to climb up that fountain… he swims like a fish… my new bathing-dress… sun-bathing… thank goodness I’ve got decent legs… I’ll really have to get some more stockings, these won’t go on much longer… I wish I didn’t look so washed-out in black… Poor Victor!… I wonder what I can possibly do with Alec Willis… if only he wasn’t such a prig… I don’t mind Mr. Bredon… he’s quite right about that crowd being no good, but then he really knows what he’s talking about, and it isn’t just prejudice… Why will Alec be so jealous and tiresome?… And looking so silly in that black thing… following people about… Incompetent-I do like people to be competent,… Mr. Bredon looks terribly competent… no, he doesn’t exactly look it, but he is… he looks as though he never did anything but go to dinner-parties… I suppose high-class detectives have to look like that… Alec would make a rotten detective… I don’t like ill-tempered men… I wonder what happened when Mr. Bredon went off with Dian de Momerie… she is beautiful… damn her, she’s lovely,… she does drink an awful lot… they say it makes you look old before your time… you get coarse… my complexion’s all right, but I’m not the fashionable type… Dian de Momerie is perfectly crazy about people who do mad things… I don’t like aluminium blondes… I wonder if I could get an aluminium bleach…”