“Bill, Bill,” said Wimsey, shaking a reproachful finger, “I’m afraid this wasn’t honestly come by.”
“Well, sir, if I knowed the owner I’d ’and it over to ’im with the greatest of pleasure. It’s quite good, you see. Sam put the soup in at the ’inges and it blowed the ’ole front clean off, lock and all. It’s small, but it’s a real beauty – new pattern to me, that is. But I mastered it,” said Bill, with unregenerate pride, “in an hour or two.”
“It’d have to be a good bit of work to beat you, Bill”; Wimsey set the lock up before him, and began to manipulate the lob, his fingers moving with micrometer delicacy and his ear bent to catch the fall of the tumblers.
“Lord!” said Bill – this time with no religious intention – “wot a cracksman you’d a-made, if you’d a-given your mind to it – which the Lord in His mercy forbid you should!”
“Too much work in that life for me, Bill,” said Wimsey. “Dash it! I lost it that time.”
He turned the knob back and started over again.
By the time the trotters arrived, Miss Murchison had acquired considerable facility with the more usual types of lock and a greatly enhanced respect for burglary as a profession.
“And don’t you let yourself be ’urried, miss,” was Bill’s final injunction, “else you’ll leave scratches on the lock and do yourself no credit. Lovely bit of work, that, ain’t it, Lord Peter, sir?”
“Beyond me, I’m afraid,” said Wimsey, with a laugh.
“Practice,” said Bill, “that’s all it is. If you’d a-started early enough you’d a-been a beautiful workman.” He sighed. “There ain’t many of ’em now-a-days – glory be! – that can do a real artistic job. It fair goes to my ’eart to see a elegant bit o’ stuff like that blowed all to bits with gelignite. Wot’s gelignite? Any fool can ’andle it as doesn’t mind makin’ a blinkin’ great row. Brutal, I calls it.”
“Now, don’t you get ’ankerin’ back after them things, Bill,” said Mrs. Rumm, reprovingly. “Come along, do, now and eat yer supper. Ef anybody’s goin’ ter do sech a wicked thing as breakin’ safes, wot do it matter whether it’s done artistic or inartistic?”
“Ain’t that jest like a woman? – beggin’ your pardon, miss.”
“Well, you know it’s true,” said Mrs. Rumm.
“I know those trotters look very artistic,” said Wimsey, “and that’s quite enough for me.”
The trotters having been eaten, and “Nazareth” duly sung, to the great admiration of the Rumm family, the evening closed pleasantly with the performance of a hymn, and Miss Murchison found herself walking up the Whitechapel Road, with a bunch of picklocks in her pocket and some surprising items of knowledge in her mind.
“You make some very amusing acquaintances, Lord Peter.”
“Yes – rather a jape, isn’t it? But Blindfold Bill is one of the best. I found him on my premises one night and struck up a sort of an alliance with him. Took lessons from him and all that. He was a bit shy at first, but he got converted by another friend of mine – it’s a long story – and the long and short of it was, he got hold of this locksmith business, and is doing very well at it. Do you feel quite competent about locks now?”
“I think so. What am I to look for when I get the box open?”
“Well,” said Wimsey, “the point is this. Mr. Urquhart showed me what purported to be the draft of a will made five years ago by Mrs. Wrayburn. I’ve written down the gist of it on a bit of paper for you. Here it is. Now the snag about it is that that draft was typed on a machine which, as you tell me, was bought new from the makers only three years ago.”
“Do you mean that’s what he was typing that evening he stayed late at the office?”
“It looks like it. Now, why? If he had the original draft, why not show me that? Actually, there was no need for him to show it to me at all, unless it was to mislead me about something. Then, though he said he had the thing at home, and must have known he had it there, he pretended to search for it in Mrs. Wrayburn’s box. Again, why? To make me think that it was already in existence when I called. The conclusion I drew is that, if there is a will, it’s not along the lines of the one he showed me.”
“It looks rather like that, certainly.”
“What I want you to look for is the real will – either the original or the copy ought to be there. Don’t take it away, but try to memorise the chief points in it, especially the names of the chief legatee or legatees and of the residuary legatee. Remember that the residuary legatee gets everything which isn’t specifically left to somebody else, or anything which falls in by a legatee’s dying before the testatrix. I specially want know whether anything was left to Philip Boyes or if any mention of the Boyes family is made in the will. Failing a will there might be some other interesting document, such as a secret trust, instructing the executor to dispose of the money in some special way. In short, I want particulars of any document which may seem to be of interest. Don’t waste too much time making notes. Carry the provisions in your head if you can and note them down privately when you get away from the office. And be sure you don’t leave those skeleton keys about for people to find.”
Miss Murchison promised to observe these instructions, and, a taxi coming up at the moment, Wimsey put her into it and sped her to her destination.
CHAPTER XIV
Mr. Norman Urquhart glanced at the clock, which stood at 4.15, and called through the open door:
‘Are those affidavits nearly ready, Miss Murchison?”
“I am just on the last page, Mr. Urquhart.”
“Bring them in as soon as you’ve finished. They ought to go round to Hanson’s tonight.”
“Yes, Mr. Urquhart.” Miss Murchison galloped noisily over the keys, slamming the shift-lever over with unnecessary violence and causing Mr. Pond once more to regret the intrusion of female clerks. She completed her page, ornamented the foot of it with a rattling row of fancy lines and dots, threw over the release, spun the roller, twitching the foolscap sheets from under it in vicious haste, flung the carbons into the basket, shuffled the copies into order, slapped them vigorously on all four edges to bring them into symmetry, and bounced with them into the inner office.
“I haven’t had time to read them through,” she announced.
“Very well,” said Mr. Urquhart.
Miss Murchison retired, shutting the door after her. She gathered her belongings together, took out a hand-mirror and unashamedly powdered her rather large nose, stuffed a handful of odds-and-ends into a bulging hand-bag, pushed some papers under her typewriter cover ready for the next day, jerked her hat from the peg and crammed it on her head, tucking wisps of hair underneath it with vigorous and impatient fingers.
Mr. Urquhart’s bell rang – twice.
“Oh, bother!” said Miss Murchison with heightened colour.
She snatched the hat off again, and answered the summons.
“Miss Murchison,” said Mr. Urquhart, with an expression of considerable annoyance, “do you know that you have left out a whole paragraph on the first page of this?”
Miss Murchison flushed still more deeply.
“Oh, have I? I’m very sorry.”
Mr. Urquhart held up a document resembling in bulk that famous one of which it was said that there was not truth enough in the world to fill so long an affidavit.