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The husband, indeed, when appealed to by Lord Peter, showed a little human weakness, but Mrs. Appledore, appearing suddenly in a warm dressing-gown, extricated him from the difficulties into which he was carelessly wandering.
“I am sorry,” she said, “I’m afraid we can’t interfere in any way. This is a very unpleasant business, Mr. – I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name, and we have always found it better not to be mixed up with the police. Of course, if the Thippses are innocent, and I am sure I hope they are, it is very unfortunate for them, but I must say that the circumstances seem to me most suspicious, and to Theophilus too, and I should not like to have it said that we had assisted murderers. We might even be supposed to be accessories. Of course you are young, Mr. – ”
“This is Lord Peter Wimsey, my dear,” said Theophilus mildly.
She was unimpressed.
“Ah, yes,” she said, “I believe you are distantly related to my late cousin, the Bishop of Carisbrooke. Poor man! He was always being taken in by impostors; he died without ever learning any better. I imagine you take after him, Lord Peter.”
“I doubt it,” said Lord Peter. “So far as I know he is only a connection, though it’s a wise child that knows its own father. I congratulate you, dear lady, on takin’ after the other side of the family. You’ll forgive my buttin’ in upon you like this in the middle of the night, though, as you say, it’s all in the family, and I’m sure I’m very much obliged to you, and for permittin’ me to admire that awfully fetchin’ thing you’ve got on. Now, don’t you worry, Mr. Appledore. I’m thinkin’ the best thing I can do is to trundle the old lady down to my mother and take her out of your way, otherwise you might be findin’ your Christian feelin’s gettin’ the better of you some fine day, and there’s nothin’ like Christian feelin’s for upsettin’ a man’s domestic comfort. Good-night, sir – good-night, dear lady – it’s simply rippin’ of you to let me drop in like this.”
“Well!” said Mrs. Appledore, as the door closed behind him.
And —
“I thank the goodness and the grace
That on my birth have smiled,”
said Lord Peter, “and taught me to be bestially impertinent when I choose. Cat!”
Two a.m. saw Lord Peter Wimsey arrive in a friend’s car at the Dower House, Denver Castle, in company with a deaf and aged lady and an antique portmanteau.
“It’s very nice to see you, dear,” said the Dowager Duchess, placidly. She was a small, plump woman, with perfectly white hair and exquisite hands. In feature she was as unlike her second son as she was like him in character; her black eyes twinkled cheerfully, and her manners and movements were marked with a neat and rapid decision. She wore a charming wrap from Liberty’s, and sat watching Lord Peter eat cold beef and cheese as though his arrival in such incongruous circumstances and company were the most ordinary event possible, which with him, indeed, it was.
“Have you got the old lady to bed?” asked Lord Peter.
“Oh, yes, dear. Such a striking old person, isn’t she? And very courageous. She tells me she has never been in a motor-car before. But she thinks you a very nice lad, dear – that careful of her, you remind her of her own son. Poor little Mr. Thipps – whatever made your friend the inspector think he could have murdered anybody?”
“My friend the inspector – no, no more, thank you, Mother – is determined to prove that the intrusive person in Thipps’s bath is Sir Reuben Levy, who disappeared mysteriously from his house last night. His line of reasoning is: We’ve lost a middle-aged gentleman without any clothes on in Park Lane; we’ve found a middle-aged gentleman without any clothes on in Battersea. Therefore they’re one and the same person, Q.E.D., and put little Thipps in quod.”
“You’re very elliptical, dear,” said the Duchess, mildly. “Why should Mr. Thipps be arrested even if they are the same?”
“Sugg must arrest somebody,” said Lord Peter, “but there is one odd little bit of evidence come out which goes a long way to support Sugg’s theory, only that I know it to be no go by the evidence of my own eyes. Last night at about 9.15 a young woman was strollin’ up the Battersea Park Road for purposes best known to herself, when she saw a gentleman in a fur coat and top-hat saunterin’ along under an umbrella, lookin’ at the names of all the streets. He looked a bit out of place, so, not bein’ a shy girl, you see, she walked up to him, and said: ‘Good-evening.’ ‘Can you tell me, please,’ says the mysterious stranger, ‘whether this street leads into Prince of Wales Road?’ She said it did, and further asked him in a jocular manner what he was doing with himself and all the rest of it, only she wasn’t altogether so explicit about that part of the conversation, because she was unburdenin’ her heart to Sugg, d’you see, and he’s paid by a grateful country to have very pure, high-minded ideals, what? Anyway, the old boy said he couldn’t attend to her just then as he had an appointment. ‘I’ve got to go and see a man, my dear,’ was how she said he put it, and he walked on up Alexandra Avenue towards Prince of Wales Road. She was starin’ after him, still rather surprised, when she was joined by a friend of hers, who said: ‘It’s no good wasting your time with him – that’s Levy – I knew him when I lived in the West End, and the girls used to call him Peagreen Incorruptible’ – friend’s name suppressed, owing to implications of story, but girl vouches for what was said. She thought no more about it till the milkman brought news this morning of the excitement at Queen Caroline Mansions; then she went round, though not likin’ the police as a rule, and asked the man there whether the dead gentleman had a beard and glasses. Told he had glasses but no beard, she incautiously said: ‘Oh, then, it isn’t him,’ and the man said: ‘Isn’t who?’ and collared her. That’s her story. Sugg’s delighted, of course, and quodded Thipps on the strength of it.”
“Dear me,” said the Duchess, “I hope the poor girl won’t get into trouble.”
“Shouldn’t think so,” said Lord Peter. “Thipps is the one that’s going to get it in the neck. Besides, he’s done a silly thing. I got that out of Sugg, too, though he was sittin’ tight on the information. Seems Thipps got into a confusion about the train he took back from Manchester. Said first he got home at 10.30. Then they pumped Gladys Horrocks, who let out he wasn’t back till after 11.45. Then Thipps, bein’ asked to explain the discrepancy, stammers and bungles and says, first, that he missed the train. Then Sugg makes inquiries at St. Pancras and discovers that he left a bag in the cloakroom there at ten. Thipps, again asked to explain, stammers worse an’ says he walked about for a few hours – met a friend – can’t say who – didn’t meet a friend – can’t say what he did with his time – can’t explain why he didn’t go back for his bag – can’t say what time he did get in – can’t explain how he got a bruise on his forehead. In fact, can’t explain himself at all. Gladys Horrocks interrogated again. Says, this time, Thipps came in at 10.30. Then admits she didn’t hear him come in. Can’t say why she didn’t hear him come in. Can’t say why she said first of all that she did hear him. Bursts into tears. Contradicts herself. Everybody’s suspicion roused. Quod ’em both.”
“As you put it, dear,” said the Duchess, “it all sounds very confusing, and not quite respectable. Poor little Mr. Thipps would be terribly upset by anything that wasn’t respectable.”
“I wonder what he did with himself,” said Lord Peter thoughtfully. “I really don’t think he was committing a murder. Besides, I believe the fellow has been dead a day or two, though it don’t do to build too much on doctors’ evidence. It’s an entertainin’ little problem.”
“Very curious, dear. But so sad about poor Sir Reuben. I must write a few lines to Lady Levy; I used to know her quite well, you know, dear, down in Hampshire, when she was a girl. Christine Ford, she was then, and I remember so well the dreadful trouble there was about her marrying a Jew. That was before he made his money, of course, in that oil business out in America. The family wanted her to marry Julian Freke, who did so well afterwards and was connected with the family, but she fell in love with this Mr.