She wrote a long letter to Lord Peter, detailing her plans. Bunter, she knew, had left 110A Piccadilly, so, after considerable thought, she addressed it to Lord Peter Wimsey, c/o Inspector Parker, The Police-Station, Crow’s Beach. There was, of course, no Sunday post from Town. However, it would go with the midnight collection.
On the Monday morning she set out early, in her old clothes and her spectacles, for South Audley Street. Never had her natural inquisitiveness and her hard training in third-rate boarding-houses stood her in better stead. She had learned to ask questions without heeding rebuffs- to be persistent, insensitive and observant. In every flat she visited she acted her natural self, with so much sincerity and such limpet-like obstinacy that she seldom came away without a subscription and almost never without some information about the flat and it’s inmates.
By tea-time, she had done one side of the street and nearly half the other, without result. She was just thinking of going to get some food, when she caught sight of a woman, about a hundred yards ahead, walking briskly in the same direction as herself.
Now it is easy to be mistaken in faces, but almost impossible not to recognise a back. Miss Climpson’s heart gave a bound. “Mary Whittaker!” she said to herself, and started to follow.
The woman stopped to look into a shop window. Miss Climpson hesitated to come closer. If Mary Whittaker was at large, then- why then the kidnapping had been done with her own consent. Puzzled, Miss Climpson determined to play a waiting game. The woman went into the shop. The friendly chemist’s was almost opposite. Miss Climpson decided that this was the moment to reclaim her latchkey. She went in and asked for it. It had been set aside for her and the assistant produced it at once. The woman was still in the shop over the way. Miss Climpson embarked upon a long string of apologies and circumstantial details about her carelessness. The woman came out. Miss Climpson gave her a longish start, brought the conversation to a close, and fussed out again, replacing the glasses which she had removed for the chemist’s benefit.
The woman walked on without stopping, but she looked into the shop windows from to time. A man with a fruiterer’s barrow removed his cap as she passed and scratched his head. Almost at once, the woman turned quickly and came back. The fruiterer picked up the handles of his barrow and trundled it away into a side street. The woman came straight on, and Miss Climpson was obliged to dive into a doorway and pretend to be tying a bootlace, to avoid a face to face encounter.
Apparently the woman had only forgotten to buy cigarettes. She went into a tobacconist’s and emerged again in a minute or two, passing Miss Climpson again. That lady had dropped her bag and was agitatedly sorting its contents. The woman passed her without a glance and went on. Miss Climpson, flushed from stooping, followed again. The woman turned in at the entrance to a block of flats next door to a florist’s. Miss Climpson was hard on her heels now, for she was afraid of losing her.
Mary Whittaker- if it was Mary Whittaker- went straight through the hall to the lift, which was one of the kind worked by the passenger. She stepped and shot up. Miss Climpson- gazing at the orchids and roses in the florist’s window- watched the lift out of sight. Then, with her subscription card prominently in her hand, she too entered the flats.
There was a porter on duty in a little glass case. He at once spotted Miss Climpson as a stranger and asked politely if he could do anything for her. Miss Climpson, selecting a name at random from the list of occupants in the entrance, asked which was Mrs. Forrest’s flat. The man replied that it was on the fourth floor, and stepped forward to bring the lift down for her. A man, to whom he had been chatting, moved quietly from the glass case and took up a position in the doorway. As the lift ascended, Miss Climpson noticed that the fruiterer had returned. His barrow now stood just outside.
The porter had come up with her, and pointed out the door of Mrs. Forrest’s flat. His presence was reassuring. She wished he would stay within call till she had concluded her search of the building. However, having asked for Mrs. Forrest, she must begin there. She pressed the bell.
At first she thought the flat was empty, but after ringing a second time she heard steps. The door opened, and a heavily over-dressed and peroxided lady made her appearance, whom Lord Peter would at once- and embarrassingly- have recognised.
“I have come,” said Miss Climpson, wedging herself briskly in at the doorway with the skill of the practised canvasser, “to try if I can enlist your help for our Mission Settlement. May I come in? I am sure you-”
“No thanks,” said Mrs. Forrest shortly, and in a hurried, breathless tone, as if there was somebody behind her who she was anxious should not overhear her, “I’m not interested in Missions.”
She tried to shut the door. But Miss Climpson had seen and heard enough.
“Good gracious!” she cried, staring. “why, it’s- ”
“Come in.” Mrs. Forrest caught her by the arm almost roughly and pulled her over the threshold, slamming the door behind them.
“How extraordinary!” said Miss Climpson, “I hardly recognised you, Miss Whittaker, with your hair like that.”
“You!” said Mary Whittaker. “You- of all people!” They sat facing one another in the sitting-room with its tawdry pink silk cushions. “I knew you were a meddler. How did you get here? Is there anyone with you?”
“No- yes- I just happened,” began Miss Climpson vaguely. One thought was uppermost in her mind. “How did you get free? What happened? Who killed Vera?” She knew she was asking her questions crudely and stupidly. “Why are you disguised like that?”
“Who sent you?” reiterated Mary Whittaker.
“Who is the man with you?” pursued Miss Climpson. “Is he here? Did he do the murder?”
“What man?”
“The man Vera saw leaving your flat. Did he-?”
“So that’s it. Vera told you. The liar. I thought I had been quick enough.”
Suddenly, something which had been troubling Miss Climpson for weeks crystallised and became plain to her. The expression in Mary Whittaker’s eyes. A long time ago, Miss Climpson had assisted a relative to run a boarding-house, and there had been a young man who paid his bill by cheque. She had had to make a certain amount of unpleasantness about the bill, and he had written the cheque unwillingly, sitting, with her eye upon him, at the little plush-covered table in the drawing-room. Then he had gone away- slinking out with his bag when no one was about. And the cheque had come back, like the bad penny that it was. A forgery. Miss Climpson had had to give evidence. She remembered now the odd, defiant look with which the young man had taken up his pen for his first plunge into crime. And to-day she was seeing it again- an unattractive mingling of recklessness and calculation. It was with the look which had once warned Wimsey and should have warned her. She breathed more quickly.
“Who was the man?”
“The man?” Mary Whittaker laughed suddenly. “A man called Templeton- no friend of mine. It’s really funny that you should think he was a friend of mine. I would have killed him if I could.”
“But where is he? What are you doing? Don’t you know that everybody is looking for you? Why don’t you- ”