“Peter,” said Lady Mary, “I don’t think you ought to sit here exciting Charles with all this speculation. It’ll send his temperature up.”
“So, it will, by Jove! Well, look here, old boy, I’m really fearfully sorry you copped that packet that was meant for me. It’s perfectly damnable luck and I’m dashed thankful it was no worse. I’ll buzz off now. I’ve got to, anyhow. I’ve got a date. So-long.”
Wimsey’s first action after leaving the flat was to ring up Pamela Dean, whom he fortunately found at home. He explained that her letter had been lost in transmission, and asked what was in it.
“Only a note from Dian de Momerie. She wants to know who you are. You seem to have made a remarkable hit.”
“We aim to please,” said Peter. “What have you done about it?”
“Nothing. I didn’t know what you would like me to do.”
“You didn’t give her my address?”
“No. That was what she was asking for. I didn’t want to make another mistake, so I passed it all on to you.”
“Quite right.”
“Well?”
“Tell her-does she know that I’m at Pym’s?”
“No, I was very careful to say absolutely nothing about you. Except your name. I did tell her that, but she seems to have forgotten it.”
“Good. Listen, now. Tell bright Dian that I’m a most mysterious person. You never know where to find me yourself. Hint that I’m probably miles away-in Paris or Vienna, or anything that sounds fruity. You can convey the right impression, I know. Phillips Oppenheim, with a touch of Ethel M. Dell and Elinor Glynn.”
“Oh, yes, I can do that.”
“And you might say that she will probably see me some time when she least expects it. Suggest, if you don’t mind being so vulgar, that I am a sort of yellow-dog dingo, very truly run after and hard to catch. Be stimulating. Be intriguing.”
“I will. Am I at all jealous, by the way?”
“Yes, if you like. Give the impression that you’re sort of putting her off. It’s a hard chase and you’re not keen on competitors.”
“All right. That won’t be difficult.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. I said I could manage that all right.”
“I know you’ll do it beautifully. I rely on you very much.”
“Thank you. How is the enquiry getting on?”
“So-so.”
“Tell me all about it some time, won’t you?”
“Rather! As soon as there’s anything to report.”
“Will you come to tea one Saturday or Sunday?”
“I should love to.”
“I’ll keep you to that.”
“Oh, yes, rather! Well, goodnight.”
“Goodnight-Yellow-dog Dingo.”
“Bung-ho!”
Wimsey put down the receiver. “I hope,” he thought, “she isn’t going to make an awkwardness. You cannot trust these young women. No fixity of purpose. Except, of course, when you particularly want them to be yielding.”
He grinned with a wry mouth, and went out to keep his date with the one young woman who showed no signs of yielding to him, and what he said or did on that occasion is in no way related to this story.
Ginger Joe hoisted himself cautiously up in bed and looked round the room.
His elder brother-not the policeman, but sixteen-year-old Bert, the nosey one-was reassuringly asleep, curled up dog-fashion, and dreaming, no doubt, of motor-cycles. The faint light from the street lamp outlined the passive hump he made in the bedclothes, and threw a wan gleam across Ginger’s narrow bedstead.
From beneath his pillow, Ginger drew out a penny exercise book and a stubby pencil. There was very little privacy in Ginger’s life, and opportunities had to be seized when they occurred. He licked the pencil, opened the book and headed a page in a large, round hand: “Report.”
There he paused. It was desirable to do this thing really creditably, and the exercises in English composition they had given him at school did not seem to help. “My Favourite Book,”
“What I Should Like to Do when I Grow Up,”
“What I Saw at the Zoo”-very good subjects but not of great assistance to a rising young detective. He had once been privileged to take a glimpse at Wally’s note-book (Wally being the policeman), and remembered that the items had all begun somewhat in this fashion: “At 8:30 p.m., as I was proceeding along Wellington Street ”-a good opening, but not applicable to the present case. The style of Sexton Blake, also, though vigorous, was more suited for the narration of stirring adventures than for the compilation of a catalogue of names and facts. And on the top of all this, there was the awkward question of spelling-always a stumbling-block. Ginger felt vaguely that an ill-spelt report would have an untrustworthy appearance.
In this emergency, he consulted his native commonsense, and found it a good guide.
“I better just begin at the beginning,” he said to himself, and, pressing heavily upon the paper and frowning desperately, began to write.
REPORT
by Joseph L. Potts
(aged 14 ½)
On consideration, he thought this needed a little more corroborative detail, and added his address and the date. The report then proceeded:
I had a talk with the boys about the catter (erased) cattapult. Bill Jones says he reckollects of me standing in the Dispatch and Mrs. Johnson collering of the cattapult. Sam Tabbit and George Pyke was there too. What I says to them was as Mr. Bredon give me back the cattapult and it have the bit of leather tore and I wants to know who done it. They all says they never been to Mrs. Johnson’s draw and I think they was tellin the truth sir because Bill and Sam is good sorts and you can always tell if George is fibbing because of the way he looks and he was looking alright. So then I says could it have been any of the others and they says they have not seen none of them with cattapults so I makes out to be very angry and says it’s a pitty a boy can’t have his cattapult confist confiskcated without somebody goes and tears of it. And then Clarence Metcalfe comes along which he is head boy sir and asks what’s up so I tells him and he says if anybody’s been at Mrs. Johnsons draw its very serious. So he gets arsking them all and they all says no but Jack Bolter remembers of Mrs. Johnson leaving her bag on the desk one day and Miss Parton picking it up and taking of it down to the canteen. I says when? And he says it was about two days after my cattapult was confik took away, and the time just after lunch sir. So you see sir it would have been laying there an hour sir when nobody was about.
Now sir about who else was there and might have seen it took. Now I comes to think I remember Mr. Prout was there at the head of the stairs because he passed a remark to Mrs. Johnson and pulled my ear and there was one of the young ladies I think it was Miss Hartley waiting to get a messenger. And after I gone down to Mr. Hornby Sam says as Mr. Wedderburn came along and him and Mrs. Johnson had a bit of a joke about it. But sir I expecks lots of people knew about it because Mrs. Johnson would tell them in the canteen. She is always telling tales on we boys sir I suppose she thinks its funny. This is all I has to report about the cattapult sir. I has not yet made any inquiry about the other matter thinking one was enough at a time or they might think I was asking a lot of questions but I have thought of a plan for that.