“I think I deserve a little supper in Soho,” said Miss Murchison.
She was humming again as she walked from Cambridge Circus into Frith Street. “What is this beastly tune?” she asked herself abruptly. A little consideration reminded her that it was “Sweeping through the gates, Sweeping through the gates…”
“Bless me!” said Miss Murchison. “Going dotty, that’s what I am.”
CHAPTER XV
Lord Peter congratulated Miss Murchison and gave her a rather special lunch at Rules, where there is a particularly fine old cognac for those that appreciate such things. Indeed, Miss Murchison was a little late in returning to Mr. Urquhart’s office, and in her haste omitted to hand back the skeleton keys. But when the wine is good and the company agreeable one cannot always think of everything.
Wimsey himself, by a great act of self-control, had returned to his own flat to think, instead of bolting away to Holloway Gaol. Although it was a work of charity and necessity to keep up the spirits of the prisoner (it was in this way that he excused his almost daily visits) he could not disguise from himself that it would be even more useful and charitable to get her innocence proved. So far, he had not made much real progress.
The suicide theory had been looking very hopeful when Norman Urquhart had produced the draft of the will; but his belief in that draft had now been thoroughly undermined. There was still a faint hope of retrieving the packet of white powder from the “Nine Rings,” but as the days passed remorselessly on, that hope diminished almost to vanishing-point. It irked him to be taking no action in the matter – he wanted to rush to the Gray’s Inn Road, to cross-question, bully, bribe, ransack every person and place in and about the “Rings” but he knew that the police could do this better than he could.
Why had Norman Urquhart tried to mislead him about the will? He could so easily have refused all information. There must be some mystery about it. But if Urquhart were not, in fact, the legatee, he was playing rather a dangerous game. If the old lady died, and the will was proved, the facts would probably be published – and she might die any day.
How easy it would be, he thought, regretfully, to hasten Mrs. Wrayburn’s death a trifle. She was ninety-three and very frail. An over-dose of something – a shake – a slight shock, even – it did not do to think after that fashion. He wondered idly who lived with the old woman and looked after her…
It was the 30th. of December, and he still had no plan. The stately volumes on his shelves, rank after rank of Saint, historian, poet, philosopher, mocked his impotence. All that wisdom and all that beauty, and they could not show him how to save the woman he imperiously wanted from a sordid death by hanging. And he had thought himself rather clever at that kind of thing. The enormous and complicated imbecility of things was all round him like a trap. He ground his teeth and raged helplessly, striding about the suave, wealthy, futile room. The great Venetian mirror over the fireplace showed him his own head and shoulders. He saw a fair, foolish face, with straw-coloured hair sleeked back; a monocle clinging incongruously under a ludicrously twitching brow; a chin shaved to perfection, hairless, epicene; a rather high collar, faultlessly starched, a tie elegantly knotted and matching in colour the handkerchief which peeped coyly from the breast-pocket of an expensive Savile-Row tailored suit. He snatched up a heavy bronze from the mantelpiece – a beautiful thing, even as he snatched it, his fingers caressed the patina – and the impulse seized him to smash the mirror and smash the face – to break out into great animal howls and gestures.
Silly! One could not do that. The inherited inhibitions of twenty civilised centuries tied one hand and foot in bonds of ridicule. What if he did smash the mirror? Nothing would happen. Bunter would come in, unmoved and unsurprised, would sweep up the débris in a dustpan, would prescribe a hot bath and massage. And next day a new mirror would be ordered, because people would come in and ask questions, and civilly regret the accidental damage to the old one. And Harriet Vane would still be hanged, just the same.
Wimsey pulled himself together, called for his hat and coat, and went away in a taxi to call on Miss Climpson.
“I have a job,” he said to her, more abruptly than was his wont, “which I should like you to undertake yourself. I can’t trust anybody else.”
“How kind of you to put it like that,” said Miss Climpson.
“The trouble is, I can’t in the least tell you how to set about it. It all depends on what you find when you get there. I want you to go to Windle in Westmorland and get hold of an imbecile and paralysed old lady called Mrs. Wrayburn, who lives at a house called Appleford. I don’t know who looks after her, or how you are to get into the house. But you’ve got to do it, and you’ve got to find out where her will is kept, and, if possible, see it.”
“Dear me!” said Miss Climpson.
“And what’s worse,” said Wimsey, “you’ve only got about a week to do it in.”
“That’s a very short time,” said Miss Climpson.
“You see,” said Wimsey, “unless we can give some very good reason for delay, they’re bound to take the Vane case almost first thing next sessions. If I could persuade the lawyers for the defence that there is the least chance of securing fresh evidence, they could apply for a postponement. But at present I have nothing that could be called evidence – only the vaguest possible hunch.”
“I see,” said Miss Climpson. “Well, none of us can do more than our best, and it is very necessary to have faith. That moves mountains, we are told.”
“Then for Heaven’s sake lay in a good stock of it,” said Wimsey, gloomily, “because as far as I can see, this job is like shifting the Himalayas and the Alps, with a spot of frosty Caucasus and a touch of the Rockies thrown in.”
“You may count on me to do my poor best,” replied Miss Climpson, “and I will ask the dear vicar to say a Mass of Special Intention for one engaged in a difficult undertaking. When would you like me to start?”
“At once,” said Wimsey. “I think you had better go just as your ordinary self, and put up at the local hotel – no – a boarding-house, there will be more opportunities for gossip. I don’t know much about Windle, except that there is a boot-factory there and rather a good view, but it’s not a large place, and I should think everybody would know about Mrs. Wrayburn. She is very rich, and was notorious in her time. The person you’ll have to cotton on to is the female – there must be one of some sort – who nurses and waits on Mrs. Wrayburn and is, generally speaking, about her path and about her bed and all that. When you find out her special weakness, drive a wedge into it like one o’clock. Oh! by the way – it’s quite possible the will isn’t there at all, but in the hands of a solicitor-fellow called Norman Urquhart who hangs out in Bedford Row. If so, all you can do is to get the pump to work and find out anything – anything at all – to his disadvantage. He’s Mrs. Wrayburn’s great-nephew, and he goes to see her sometimes.”
Miss Climpson made a note of these instructions.
“And now I’ll tootle off and leave you to it,” said Wimsey. “Draw on the firm for any money you want. And if you need any special outfit, send me a wire.”
On leaving Miss Climpson, Lord Peter Wimsey again found himself a prey to Weltschmerz and self-pity. But it now took the form of a gentle, pervading melancholy. Convinced of his own futility, he determined to do what little good lay in his power before retiring to a monastery or to the frozen wastes of the Antarctic. He taxied purposefully round to Scotland Yard, and asked for Chief-Inspector Parker.