“Now, now,” said Wimsey, “now we’re feeling better, do you think you can answer our question, Mrs. Forrest?”
“May I know, first of all, what right you have to ask it?”
Parker shot an exasperated glance at his friend. This came of giving people time to think.
“Right?” burst in Wimsey. “Right? Of course we’ve a right. The police have a right to ask questions when anything’s the matter. Here’s murder the matter! Right, indeed?”
A curious intent look came into her eyes. Parker could not place it, but Wimsey recognised it instantly. He had seen it last on the face of a great financier as he took up his pen to sign a contract. Wimsey had been called to witness the signature, and had refused. It was a contract that ruined thousands of people. Incidentally, the financier had been murdered soon after, and Wimsey had declined to investigate the matter, with a sentence from Dumas: “Let pass the justice of God.”
“I’m afraid,” Mrs. Forrest was saying, “that in that case I can’t help you. I did have a friend dining with me on the 26th, but he has not, so far as I know, been murdered, nor has he murdered anybody.”
“It was a man, then?” said Parker.
Mrs. Forrest bowed her head with a kind of mocking ruefulness. “I live apart from my husband,” she murmured.
“I am sorry,” said Parker, “to have press you for this gentleman’s name and address.”
“Isn’t that asking rather much? Perhaps if you would give me further details-?”
“Well, you see,” cut in Wimsey again, “if we could just know for certain it wasn’t Lyndhurst. My cousin is frightfully upset, as I said, and that Evelyn girl is making trouble. In fact- of course one doesn’t want it to go any further- but actually Sylvia lost her head very completely. She made a savage attack on poor old Lyndhurst – with a revolver, in fact, only fortunately she is a shocking bad shot. It went over his shoulder and broke a vase- most distressin’ thing- a Famille Rose jar, worth thousands- and of course it was smashed to atoms. Sylvia is really hardly responsible when she’s in a temper. And, we thought, as Lyndhurst was actually traced to this block of flats- if you could give us definite proof it wasn't him, it might calm her down and prevent murder being done, don’t you know. Because they might call it Guilty but Insane, still, it would be awfully awkward havin’ one’s cousin in Broadmoor-a first cousin, and really a very nice woman, when she’s not irritated.”
Mrs. Forrest gradually softened into a faint smile.
“I think I understand the position, Mr. Templeton,” she said, “and if I give you a name, it will be in strict confidence, I presume?”
“Of course, of course,” said Wimsey, “I’m sure it’s uncommonly kind of you.”
“You’ll swear you aren’t spies of my husband’s?” she said quickly. “I am trying to divorce him. How do I know this isn’t a trap?”
“Madam,” said Winsey, with intense gravity, “I swear to you on my honour as a gentleman that I have not the slightest connection with your husband. I have never even heard of him before.”
Mrs. Forrest shook her head.
“I don’t think, after all,” she said, “it would be much good my giving you the name. In any case, if you asked whether he’d been here, he would say no, wouldn’t he? And if you’ve been sent by my husband, you’ve got all the evidence you want already. But I give you my solemn assurance, Mr. Templeton, that I know nothing about your friend, Mr. Lyndhurst-”
“Major Lyndhurst,” put in Wimsey plaintively.
“And if Mrs. Lyndhurst is not satisfied, and likes to come round and see me, I will do my best to satisfy her of the fact. Will that do?”
“Thank you very much,” said Wimsey. “I’m sure it’s as much as any one could expect. You’ll forgive my abruptness, won’t you? I’m rather- er- nervously constituted, and the whole business is exceedingly upsetting. Good afternoon. Come on, Inspector, it’s quite all right- you see it’s quite all right. I’m really much obliged- uncommonly so. Please don’t trouble to see us out.”
He teetered nervously down the narrow hallway, in his imbecile and well-bred way, Parker following with a policeman-like stiffness. No sooner, however, had the flat-door closed behind them than Wimsey seized his friend by the arm and bundled him helter-skelter into the lift.
“I thought we should never get away,” he panted. “Now, quick- how do we get round to the back of these flats?”
“What do you want with the back?” demanded Parker, annoyed. “And I wish you wouldn’t stampede me like this. I’ve no business to let you come with me on a job at all, and if I do, you might have the decency to keep quiet.”
“Right you are,” said Wimsey, cheerfully., “just let’s do this little bit and you can get all the virtuous indignation off your chest later on. Round here, I fancy, up this back alley. Step lively and mind the dust-bin. One, two, three, four- here we are. Just keep a look-out for the passing stranger, will you?”
Selecting a back window which he judged to belong to Mrs. Forrest’s flat, Wimsey promptly grasped a drainpipe and began to swarm up it with the agility of a cat-burglar. About fifteen feet from the ground he paused, reached up, appeared to detach something with a quick jerk, and then slid very gingerly to the ground again, holding his right hand at a cautious distance from his body, as though it were breakable.
And indeed, to his amazement, Parker observed that Wimsey now held a long-stemmed glass in his fingers, similar to those from which they had drunk in Forrest’s sitting-room.
“What on earth-?” said Parker.
“Hush! I’m Hawkshaw the detective-gathering finger-prints. Here we come a-wassailing and gathering prints in May. That’s why I took the glass back. I brought a different one in the second time. Sorry I had to do this athletic stunt, but the only cotton-reel I could find hadn’t much on it. When I changed the glass, I tip-toed into the bathroom and hung it out of the window. Hope she hasn’t been in there since. Just brush my bags down, will you, old man? Gently- don’t touch the glass.”
“What the devil do you want fingerprints for?”
“You’re a grateful sort of person. Why, for all you know, Mrs. Forrest is someone the Yard has been looking for for years. And anyway, you could compare the prints with those on the Bass bottle, if any. Besides, you never know when prints mayn’t come in handy. They’re excellent things to have about the house. Coast clear? Right. Hail a taxi, will you? I can’t wave my hand with this glass in it. Look so silly, don’t you know. I say!”
“Well?”
“I saw something else. The first time I went out for the drinks, I had a peep into her bedroom.”
“Yes?”
“What do you think I found in the wash-stand drawer?”
“What?”
“A hypodermic syringe!”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes, and an innocent little box of ampullæ, with a doctor’s prescription headed ‘The injection, Mrs. Forrest. One to be injected when the pain is very severe.’ What do you think of that?”
“Tell you when we’ve got the results of that post-mortem,” said Parker, really impressed. “You didn’t bring the prescription, I suppose?”
“No, and I didn’t inform the lady who we were or what we were after or ask her permission to carry away the family crystal. But I made a note of the chemist’s address.”
“Did you?” ejaculated Parker “Occasionally, my lad, you have some glimmerings of sound detective sense.”
Chapter 8 Concerning Crime
“Society is at the mercy of a murderer who is remorseless, who takes no accomplices and who keeps his head.”
EDMUND PEARSON: Murder at Smutty Nose
Letter from Miss Alexandra Katherine Climpson to Lord Peter Wimsey.
“ ‘ Fairview,’
“ Nelson Avenue,