“Mare’s nest? Then what knocked Puncheon out? A kick from the mare’s heel?”
“Perhaps Mountjoy merely got fed up with him. You’d get fed up yourself if you were pursued all over London by a Puncheon.”
“Possibly. But I shouldn’t knock him out and leave him to his fate. I should give him in charge. How is Puncheon?”
“Still unconscious. Concussion. He seems to have got a violent blow on the temple and a nasty crack on the back of the head.”
“Um. Knocked up against the wall, probably, when Mountjoy got him with the cosh.”
“No doubt you’re right.”
“I am always right. I hope you are keeping an eye on the man Garfield.”
“He won’t move for a bit. Why?”
“Well-it’s odd that Mountjoy should have been snuffed out so inconveniently for you.”
“You don’t suppose that Garfield had anything to do with it? Why, the man was nearly killed himself. Besides, we’ve looked into him. He’s a well-known Harley Street man, with a large West-end practice.”
“Among the dope-maniacs, perhaps?”
“He specialized in nervous complaints.”
“Exactly.”
Parker whistled.
“That’s what you think, is it?”
“See here,” said Wimsey, “your grey matter isn’t functioning as it ought. Are you tired at the end of the day? Do you suffer from torpor and lethargy after meals? Try Sparkle-tone, the invigorating vegetable saline that stimulates while it cleanses. Some accidents are too accidental to be true. When a gentleman removes his tailor’s tab and takes the trouble to slice his hatter’s imprint away with a razor, and goes skipping, for no reason at all, from Finchley to South Kensington Museum in his dress suit at unearthly hours in the morning, it’s because he has something to hide. If he tops up his odd behaviour by falling under a train without the smallest apparent provocation, it’s because somebody else is interested in getting the things hidden, too. And the more risks somebody else takes in the process, the more certain it is that the thing is worth hiding.”
Parker looked at him and grinned quietly.
“You’re a great guesser, Peter. Would you be surprised to hear that you’re not the only one?”
“No, I shouldn’t. You’re holding something out on me. What is it? A witness to the assault, what? Somebody who was on the platform? Somebody you weren’t inclined to pay much attention to? You old leg-puller, I can see it in your face. Out with it now-who was it? A woman. A hysterical woman. A middle-aged, hysterical spinster. Am I right?”
“Curse you, yes.”
“Go on, then. Tell me all about it.”
“Well, when Eagles took the depositions of the witnesses at the station, they all agreed that Mountjoy had walked several paces past Garfield and then suddenly staggered; that Garfield had caught him by the arm and that both had fallen together. But this female, Miss Eliza Tebbutt by name, 52, unmarried, housekeeper, living in Kensington, says that she was standing a little way beyond them both and that she distinctly heard what she describes as a ‘dreadful voice’ say, ‘Punch away, you’re for it!’ That Mountjoy immediately stopped as though he had been shot, and that Garfield ‘with a terrible face,’ took him by the arm and tripped him up. It may increase your confidence in this good lady when you hear that she is subject to nervous disorders, has once been confined in a mental home and is persuaded that Garfield is a prominent member of a gang whose object is to murder all persons of British birth and establish the supremacy of the Jews in England.”
“Jews in England be damned. Because a person has a monomania she need not be wrong about her facts. She might have imagined or invented a good deal, but she couldn’t possibly imagine or invent anything so fantastic as ‘Punch away,’ which is obviously her mishearing of the name ‘Mountjoy.’ Garfield’s your man-though I admit that you’re going to have some difficulty in fixing anything on him. But if I were you, I’d have his premises searched-if it isn’t too late by now.”
“I’m afraid it probably is too late. We didn’t get any sense out of Miss Tebbutt for an hour or so; by which time the heroic Dr. Garfield had, naturally, telephoned both to his home and to his consulting room to explain what had happened to him. Still, we’ll keep an eye on him. The immediate matter of importance is Mountjoy. Who was he? What was he up to? Why did he have to be suppressed?”
“It’s pretty clear what he was up to. He was engaged in the dope traffic and he was suppressed because he had been fool enough to let Puncheon recognize and follow him. Somebody must have been on the watch; this gang apparently keeps tabs on all its members. Or the wretched Mountjoy may have asked for help and been helped out of the world as the speediest method of disposing of the difficulty. It’s a pity Puncheon can’t talk-he could tell us whether Mountjoy had telephoned or spoken to anybody during his dash round town. Anyhow, he made a mistake, and people who make mistakes are not permitted to survive. The odd thing, to my mind, is that you heard nothing of any visit to the flat. You’d rather expect the gang to have made some sort of investigation there, just to make sure. I suppose those servants are to be trusted?”
“I think so. We’ve made inquiries. They’ve all got good histories. The commissionaire has an army pension and an excellent record. The valet and chambermaid are highly respectable-nothing whatever against them,”
“H’m. And you’ve found nothing but a packet of cigarette-papers. Handy, of course, for wrapping up a grain or so of cocaine but, in themselves, no proof of anything.”
“I thought you’d see the significance of the cigarette-papers.”
“I am not yet blind or mentally deficient.”
“But where is the dope?”
“The dope? Really, Charles! He was going to fetch the dope when friend Puncheon butted in. Haven’t you yet grasped that this is part of the Milligan crowd and that Friday is their day for distributing dope? The Milligans get it on Friday and give house-parties on Friday night and Saturday, when it goes into the hands of the actual addicts. Dian de Momerie told me so.”
“I wonder,” said Parker, “why they stick to one day? It must add to the risk.”
“It’s obviously an integral part of the system. The stuff comes into the country-say on Thursdays. That’s your part of the story. You don’t seem to have done much about that, by the way. It is taken to-somewhere or the other-that night. Next day it is called for by the Mountjoys and sent on to the Milligans, none of whom probably knows any of the others by sight. And by Saturday the whole lot is pushed out and everybody has a happy week-end.”
“That sounds plausible. It certainly explains why we found no trace of anything either in the flat or on Mountjoy’s body. Except cigarette-papers. By the way, is that right? If Mountjoy has the cigarette-papers, he ought to be the one who distributes to the addicts.”
“Not necessarily. He gets it himself in bulk-done up as Bicarbonate of Soda or what not. He divides it into small packets and parcels them out-so many to Milligan, so many to the next retailer and so forth; when, or how, I don’t know. Nor do I know how the payments are worked.”
“Glad to hear there’s something you don’t know.”
“I said I didn’t know; not that I couldn’t guess. But I won’t bother you with guesses. All the same, it’s rather surprising that Garfield & Co. left that flat alone.”
“Perhaps Garfield meant to go there afterwards, if he hadn’t got knocked out.”
“No; he’d not leave it so late. Tell me again about the flat.”
Parker patiently repeated the account of his visit and the interviews with the servants. Before he was half-way through, Wimsey had sat up in his chair and was listening with fascinated attention.
“Charles! What imbeciles we are! Of course, that’s it!”