“Oh, yes, my lord.”
“Because possibly Mr. Parker may be wanting them presently for some inquiries he will be making.”
“I quite understand, my lord.”
“Nothing whatever to do with my excursion to-night, you understand.”
“Certainly not, my lord.”
“And now you might bring me Christie’s catalogue. I shall be attending a sale there and lunching at the club.”
And, detaching his mind from crime, Lord Peter bent his intellectual and financial powers to outbidding and breaking a ring of dealers, an exercise very congenial to his mischievous spirit.
Lord Peter duly fulfilled the conditions imposed upon him, and arrived on foot at the block of flats in South Audley Street. Mrs. Forrest, as before, opened the door to him herself. It was surprising, he considered, that, situated as she was, she appeared to have neither maid nor companion. But then, he supposed, a chaperon, however disarming of suspicion in the eyes of the world, might prove venal. On the whole, Mrs. Forrest’s principle was a sound one: no accomplices. Many transgressors, he reflected, had
“died because they never knew
These simple little rules and few.
Mrs. Forrest apologised prettily for the inconvenience to which she was putting Mr. Templeton.
“But I never know when I am not spied upon,” she said. “It is sheer spite, you know. Considering how my husband has behaved to me, I think it is monstrous-don’t you?”
Her guest agreed that Mr. Forrest must be a monster, jesuitically, however, reserving the opinion that the monster might be a fabulous one.
“And now you will be wondering why I have brought you here,” went on the lady. “Do come and sit on the sofa. Will you have whiskey or coffee?”
“Coffee, please.”
“The fact is,” said Mrs. Forrest, “I’ve had an idea since I saw you. I-you know, having been much in the same position myself” (with a slight laugh) “I felt so much for your friend’s wife.”
“Sylvia,” put in Lord Peter with commendable promptitude. “Oh, yes. Shocking temper and so on, but possibly some provocation. Yes, yes, quite. Poor woman. Feels things- extra sensitive- highly-strung and all that, don’t you know.”
“Quite so.” Mrs. Forrest nodded her fantastically turbanned head. Swathed to the eyebrows in gold tissue, with only two flat crescents of yellow hair plastered over her cheek-bones, she looked, in an exotic smoking-suit of embroidered tissue, like a young prince out of the Arabian Nights. Her heavily ringed hands busied themselves with the coffee-cups.
“Well – I felt that your inquiries were really serious, you know, and though, as I told you, it had nothing to do with me, I was interested and mentioned the matter in a letter to- to my friend, you see, who was with me that night.”
“Just so,” said Wimsey, taking the cup from her, “yes- er- that was very- er- it was kind of you to be interested.”
“He-my friend- is abroad at the moment. My letter had to follow him, and I only got his reply today.”
Mrs. Forrest took a sip or two of coffee as though to clear her recollection.
“His letter rather surprised me. He reminded me that after dinner he had felt the room rather close, and had opened the sitting-room window- that window, there- which overlooks South Audley Street. He noticed a car standing there- a small closed one, black or dark blue or some such colour. And while he was looking idly at it- the way one does, you know- he saw a man and woman come out of this block of flats- not this door, but one or two along to the left- and get in and drive off. The man was in evening dress and he thought it might have been your friend.”
Lord Peter, with his coffee-cup at his lips, paused and listened with great attention.
“Was the girl in evening dress, too?”
“No- that struck my friend particularly. She was in just a plain little dark suit, with a hat on.”
Lord Peter recalled to mind as nearly as possible Bertha Gotobed’s costume. Was this going to be real evidence at last?
“Th- that’s very interesting,” he stammered. “I suppose your friend couldn’t give any more exact details of the dress?”
“No,” replied Mrs. Forrest, regretfully, “but he said the man’s arm was round the girl as though she was feeling tired or unwell, and he heard him say, ‘That’s right- the fresh air will do you good.’ But you’re not drinking your coffee.”
“I beg your pardon-” Wimsey recalled himself with a start. “I was dreamin’- puttin’ two and two together, as you might say. So he was along here at the time- the artful beggar. Oh, the coffee. D’you mind if I put this away and have some without sugar?”
“I’m so sorry. Men always seem to take sugar in black coffee. Give it to me-I’ll empty it away.”
“Allow me.” There was no slop-basin on the little table, but Wimsey quickly got up and poured the coffee into the window-box outside. “That’s all right. How about another cup for you?”
“Thank you- I oughtn’t to take it really, it keeps me awake.”
“Just a drop.”
“Oh, well, if you like.” She filled both cups and sat sipping quietly. “Well- that’s all, really, but I thought perhaps I ought to let you know.”
“It was very good of you,” said Wimsey.
They sat talking a little longer- about plays in Town (“I go out very little, you know, it’s better to keep oneself out of the limelight on these occasions”), and books (“I adore Michael Arlen”). Had she read Young Men in Love yet? No- she had ordered it from the library. Wouldn’t Mr. Templeton have something to eat or drink? Really? A brandy? A liqueur?
No thank you. And Mr. Templeton felt he really ought to be slippin’ along now.
“No- don’t go yet- I get so lonely, these long evenings.”
There was a desperate kind of appeal in her voice. Lord Peter sat down again.
She began a rambling and rather confused story about her “friend.” She had given up so much for the friend. And now that her divorce was really coming off, she had a terrible feeling that perhaps the friend was not as affectionate as he used to be. It was very difficult for a woman, and life was very hard.
And so on.
As the minutes passed, Lord became uncomfortably aware that she was watching him. The words tumbled out- hurriedly, yet lifelessly, like a set task, but her eyes were the eyes of a person who expects something. Something alarming, he decided, yet something she was determined to have. It reminded him of a man waiting for an operation- keyed up to it- knowing that it will do him good- yet shrinking from it with all his senses.
He kept up his end of the fatuous conversation. Behind a barrage of small-talk, his mind ran quickly to and fro, analysing the position, getting the range…
Suddenly he became aware that she was trying-clumsily, stupidly and as though in spite of herself- to get him to make love to her.
The fact itself did not strike Wimsey as odd. He was rich enough, well-bred enough, attractive enough and man of the world enough to have received similar invitations fairly often in his thirty-seven years of life. And not always from experienced women. There had been those who sought experience as well as those qualified to bestow it. But so awkward an approach by a woman who admitted to already possessing a husband and a lover was a phenomenon outside his previous knowledge.
Moreover, he felt that the thing would be a nuisance. Mrs. Forrest was handsome enough, but she had not a particle of attraction for him. For all her make-up and her somewhat outspoken costume, she struck him as spinsterish-even epicene. That was the thing which puzzled him during their previous interview. Parker- a young man of rigid virtue and limited wordly knowledge-was not sensitive to these emanations. But Wimsey had felt her as something essentially sexless, even then. And he felt it even more strongly now. Never had he met a woman in whom “the great It,” eloquently hymned by Mrs. Elinor Glyn, was so completely lacking.