“I see. Well, it’s very nice of you.”
“I wish you wouldn’t sound as if you thought it was rather funny. I know I’ve got a silly face, but I can’t help that. As a matter of fact, I’d like somebody I could talk sensibly to, who would make life interesting. And I could give you a lot of plots for your books, if that’s any inducement.”
“But you wouldn’t want a wife who wrote books, would you?”
“But I should; it would be great fun. So much more interesting than the ordinary kind that is only keen on clothes and people. Though of course, clothes and people are all right too, in moderation. I don’t mean to say I object to clothes.”
“And how about the old oaks and the family plate?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t be bothered with them. My brother does all that. I collect first editions and incunabulae, which is a little tedious of me, but you wouldn’t need to bother with them either unless you liked.”
“I don’t mean that. What would your family think about it?”
“Oh, my mother’s the only one that counts, and she likes you very much from what she’s seen of you.”
“So you had me inspected?”
“No – dash it all, I seem to be saying all the wrong things today. I was absolutely stunned that first day in court, and I rushed off to my mater, who’s an absolute dear, and the kind of person who really understands things, and I said, ‘Look here! here’s the absolutely one and only woman, and she’s being put through a simply ghastly awful business and for God’s sake come and hold my hand!’ You simply don’t know how foul it was.”
“That does sound rather rotten. I’m sorry I was brutal. But, by the way, you’re bearing in mind, aren’t you, that I’ve had a lover?”
“Oh, yes. So have I, if it comes to that. In fact, several. It’s the sort of thing that might happen to anybody. I can produce quite good testimonials. I’m told I make love rather nicely – only I’m at a disadvantage at the moment. One can’t be very convincing at the other end of a table with a bloke looking in at the door.”
“I will take your word for it. But, ‘however entrancing it is to wander unchecked through a garden of bright images, are we not enticing your mind from another subject of almost equal importance?’ It seems probable -”
“And if you can quote Kai Lung, we should certainly get on together.”
“It seems very probable that I shall not survive to make the experiment.”
“Don’t be so damned discouraging,” said Wimsey. “I have already carefully explained to you that this time I am investigating this business. Anybody would think you had no confidence in me.”
“People have been wrongly condemned before now.”
“Exactly; simply because I wasn’t there.”
“I never thought of that.”
“Think of it now. You will find it very beautiful and inspiring. It might even help to distinguish me from the other forty-six, if you should happen to mislay my features, or anything. Oh, by the way – I don’t positively repel you or anything like that, do I? Because, if I do, I’ll take my name off the waiting-list at once.”
“No,” said Harriet Vane, kindly and a little sadly. “No, you don’t repel me.”
“I don’t remind you of white slugs or make you go gooseflesh all over?”
“Certainly not.”
“I’m glad of that. Any minor alterations, like parting the old mane, or growing a tooth-brush, or cashiering the eyeglass, you know, I should be happy to undertake, if it suited your ideas.”
“Don’t,” said Miss Vane, “please don’t alter yourself in any particular.”
“You really mean that?” Wimsey flushed a little. “I hope it doesn’t mean that nothing I could do would make me even passable. I’ll come in a different set of garments each time, so as to give you a good all-round idea of the subject. Bunter – my man, you know – will see to that. He has excellent taste in ties, and socks, and things like that. Well, I suppose I ought to be going. You – er – you’ll think it over, won’t you, if you have a minute to spare. There’s no hurry. Only don’t hesitate to say if you think you couldn’t stick it at any price. I’m not trying to blackmail you into matrimony, you know. I mean, I should investigate for the fun of the thing, whatever happened, don’t you see.”
“It’s very good of you -”
“No, no, not at all. It’s my hobby. Not proposing to people, I don’t mean, but ivestigating things. Well, cheer-frightfully- ho and all that. And I’ll call again, if I may.”
“I will give the footman orders to admit you,” said the prisoner, gravely; “you will always find me at home.”
Wimsey walked down the dingy street with feeling of being almost light-headed.
“I do believe I’ll pull it off – she’s sore, of course – no wonder, after that rotten brute – but she doesn’t feel repelled – one couldn’t cope with being repulsive – her skin is like honey – she ought to wear deep red – and old garnets – and lots of rings, rather old-fashioned ones – I could take a house, of course – poor kid, I would damn well work to make it up to her – she’s got a sense of humour too – brains – one wouldn’t be dull – one would wake up, and there’d be a whole day for jolly things to happen in – and then one would come home and go to bed – that would be jolly, too – and while she was writing, I could go out and mess round, so we shouldn’t either of us be dull – I wonder if Bunter was right about this suit – it’s a little dark, I always think, but the line is good -”
He paused before a shop window to get a surreptitious view of his own reflection. A large coloured window-bill caught his eye: -
GREAT SPECIAL OFFER
ONE MONTH ONLY
“Oh, God!” he said softly, sobered at once. “One month – four weeks – thirty-one days. There isn’t much time. And I don’t know where to begin.”
CHAPTER V
“Well now,” said Wimsey, “why do people kill people?”
He was sitting in Miss Katharine Climpson’s private office. The establishment was ostensibly a typing bureau, and indeed there were three efficient female typists who did very excellent work for authors and men of science from time to time. Apparently the business was a large and flourishing one, for work frequently had to be refused on the ground that the staff was working at full pressure. But on other floors of the building there were other activities. All the employees were women – mostly elderly, but a few still young and attractive – and if the private register in the steel safe had been consulted, it would have been seen that all these women were of the class unkindly known as “superfluous.” There were spinsters with small fixed incomes, or no incomes at all; widows without family; women deserted by peripatetic husbands and living on a restricted alimony, who previous to their engagement by Miss Climpson, had had no resources but bridge and boardinghouse gossip. There were retired and disappointed school-teachers; out-of-work actresses; courageous people who had failed with hat-shops and tea-parlours; and even a few Bright Young Things, for whom the cocktail-party and the night-club had grown boring. These women seemed to spend most of their time in answering advertisements. Unmarried gentlemen who desired to meet ladies possessed of competences, with a view to matrimony; sprightly sexagenarians, who wanted housekeepers for remote country districts; ingenious gentlemen with financial schemes on the look-out for capital; literary gentlemen, anxious for female collaborators; plausible gentlemen about to engage talent for productions in the provinces; benevolent gentlemen, who could tell people how to make money in their spare time – gentlemen such as these were very liable to receive applications from members of Miss Climpson’s staff. It may have been coincidence that these gentlemen so very often had the misfortune to appear shortly afterwards before the magistrate on charges of fraud, blackmail or attempted procuration, but it is a fact that Miss Climpson’s office boasted a private telephone line to Scotland Yard, and that few of her ladies were quite so unprotected as they appeared. It is also a fact that the money which paid for the rent and upkeep of the premises might, by zealous enquirers, have been traced to Lord Peter Wimsey’s banking account. His lordship was somewhat reticent about this venture of his, but occasionally, when closeted with ChiefInspector Parker or other intimate friends, referred to it as “My Cattery.”