“Oh, easily. But that wouldn’t explain the catapult in Mrs. Johnson’s desk.”
“Nor the attack on me.”
“Not if the same person that killed Dean attacked you too.”
“Meaning that it might have been Willis? I take it that Willis is not the Napoleon of crime, anyhow.”
“Willis isn’t a Napoleon of anything. Nor, I fancy, is the chap with the catapult. If he had been, he’d have had the common sense to use his own catapult and burn it afterwards. As I see him, he is a person of considerable ingenuity but limited foresight; a person who snatches at the first thing that is offered him and does his best with it, but lacks just that little extra bit of consideration that would make the thing a real success. He lies from hand to mouth, as you may say. I dare say I could spot him without much difficulty-but that’s not what you want, is it? You’d rather have the Napoleon of the dope-traffic, wouldn’t you? If he exists, that is.”
“Certainly I should,” said Parker, emphatically.
“That’s what I thought. What, if you come to think of it, is a trifle like an odd murder or assault, compared with a method of dope-running that baffles Scotland Yard? Nothing at all.”
“It isn’t, really,” replied Parker, seriously. “Dope-runners are murderers, fifty times over. They slay hundreds of people, soul and body, besides indirectly causing all sorts of crimes among the victims. Compared with that, slugging one inconsiderable pip-squeak over the head is almost meritorious.”
“Really, Charles! for a man of your religious upbringing, your outlook is positively enlightened.”
“Not so irreligious, either. Fear not him that killeth, but him that hath power to cast into hell. How about it?”
“How indeed? Hang the one and give the other a few weeks in jail-or, if of good social position, bind him over or put him on remand for six months under promise of good behaviour.”
Parker made a wry mouth.
“I know, old man, I know. But where would be the good of hanging the wretched victims or the smaller fry? There would always be others. We want the top people. Take even this man, Milligan, who’s a pest of the first water-with no excuse for it, because he isn’t an addict himself-but suppose we punish him here and now. They’d only start again, with a new distributor and a new house for him to run his show in, and what would anybody gain by that?”
“Exactly,” said Wimsey. “And how much better off will you be, even if you catch the man above Milligan? The same thing will apply.”
Parker made a hopeless gesture.
“I don’t know, Peter. It’s no good worrying about it. My job is to catch the heads of the gangs if I can, and, after that, as many as possible of the little people. I can’t overthrow cities and burn the population.”
“’Tis the Last Judgment’s fire must cure this place,” said Wimsey, “calcine its clods and set its prisoners free. There are times, Charles, when even the unimaginative decency of my brother and the malignant virtue of his wife appear to me admirable. I could hardly say more.”
“You have a certain decency of your own, Peter,” replied Parker, “which I like better, because it is not negative.” Having given voice to this atrocious outburst of sentiment, he became extremely red in the face, and hastened to cover up his lapse from good taste. “But at the present moment I must say you are not being very helpful. You have been investigating a crime-if it is a crime-for some weeks now, and the only tangible result is a broken collar-bone for me. If you could confine yourself to breaking your own collar-bone-”
“It has been broken before now,” said Wimsey, “and in no less good a cause. You shouldn’t shove your beastly collarbone into my affairs.”
At this moment, the telephone-bell rang. It was half-past eight in the morning, and Wimsey had been consuming an early breakfast with his brother-in-law, prior to their departure each to his own place of business. Lady Mary, who had been supplying their bodily necessities and leaving them to their argument, took up the receiver.
“It’s from the Yard, darling. Something about that man Puncheon.”
Parker took the instrument and plunged into an animated discussion, which ended with his saying:
“Send Lumley and Eagles along at once, and tell Puncheon to keep in touch with you. I’m coming.”
“What’s up?” inquired Wimsey.
“Our little friend Puncheon has seen his bloke in dress clothes again,” said Parker, cursing as he tried to get his coat over his damaged shoulder. “Saw him hanging about the Morning Star offices this morning, buying an early paper or something. Been chasing him ever since, apparently. Landed out at Finchley, of all places. Says he couldn’t get on to the ’phone before. I must push off. See you later. Cheerio, Mary dear. Bung-ho, Peter.”
He bounced out in a hurry.
“Well, well,” said Wimsey. He pushed back his chair and sat staring vacantly at the wall opposite, on which hung a calendar. Then, emptying the sugar-bowl on the table-cloth with a jerk, he began, frowning hideously, to built a lofty tower with its contents. Mary recognized the signs of inspiration and stole quietly away to her household duties.
Forty-five minutes afterwards she returned. Her brother had gone, and the banging of the flat-door after him had flung his column of sugar-lumps in disorder across the table, but she could see that it had been a tall one. Mary sighed.
“Being Peter’s sister is rather like being related to the public hangman,” she thought, echoing the words of a lady with whom she had otherwise little in common. “And being married to a policeman is almost worse. I suppose the hangman’s relatives are delighted when business is looking up. Still,” she thought, being not without humour, “one might be connected with an undertaker, and rejoice over the deaths of the righteous, which would be infinitely worse.”
Sergeant Lumley and P.C. Eagles found no Hector Puncheon at the small eating-house in Finchley from which he had telephoned. They did, however, find a message.
“He has had breakfast and is off again,” said the note, written hurriedly on a page torn from the reporter’s notebook. “I will telephone to you here as soon as I can. I’m afraid he knows I am following him.”
“There,” said Sergeant Lumley, gloomily. “That’s an amachoor all over. ’Course ’e lets the bloke know ’e’s bein’ followed. If one of these newspaper fellows was a bluebottle and ’ad to follow an elephant, ’e’d get buzzin’ in the elephant’s ear, same as ’e’d know what ’e was up to.”
P.C. Eagles was struck with admiration at this flight of fancy, and laughed heartily.
“Ten to one ’e’ll lose ’im for keeps, now,” pursued Sergeant Lumley. “Gettin’ us pushed off ’ere without our breakfusses.”
“There ain’t no reason why we shouldn’t have our break-fusses, seein’ as we are here,” said his subordinate, who was of that happy disposition that makes the best of things. “’Ow about a nice pair o’ kippers?”
“I don’t mind if I do,” said the sergeant, “if only we’re allowed to eat ’em in peace. But you mark my words, ’e’ll start ringin’ up again afore we ’as time to swallow a bite. Which reminds me. I better ring up the Yard and stop me lord Parker from traipsin’ up ’ere. ’E mustn’t be put about. Oh, no!”
P.C. Eagles ordered the kippers and a pot of tea. He used his jaws more readily for eating than for talking. The sergeant got his call, and returned, just as the eatables were placed on the table.
“Says, if ’e rings up from anywhere else, we better take a taxi,” he announced. “Save time, ’e says. ’Ow’s ’e think we’re goin’ to pick up a taxi ’ere. Nothing but blinkin’ trams.”