Whose Body?, Dorothy L. Sayers [good summer reads .txt] 📗

“Five foot ten,” said Lord Peter, “and not an inch more.” He peered dubiously at the depression in the bed clothes, and measured it a second time with the gentleman-scout’s vade-mecum. Parker entered this particular in a neat pocketbook.

“I suppose,” he said, “a six-foot-two man might leave a five-foot-ten depression if he curled himself up.”

“Have you any Scotch blood in you, Parker?” inquired his colleague, bitterly.

“Not that I know of,” replied Parker. “Why?”

“Because of all the cautious, ungenerous, deliberate and cold-blooded devils I know,” said Lord Peter, “you are the most cautious, ungenerous, deliberate and cold-blooded. Here am I, sweating my brains out to introduce a really sensational incident into your dull and disreputable little police investigation, and you refuse to show a single spark of enthusiasm.”

“Well, it’s no good jumping at conclusions.”

“Jump? You don’t even crawl distantly within sight of a conclusion. I believe if you caught the cat with her head in the cream-jug you’d say it was conceivable that the jug was empty when she got there.”

“Well, it would be conceivable, wouldn’t it?”

“Curse you,” said Lord Peter. He screwed his monocle into his eye, and bent over the pillow, breathing hard and tightly through his nose. “Here, give me the tweezers,” he said presently. “Good heavens, man, don’t blow like that, you might be a whale.” He nipped up an almost invisible object from the linen.

“What is it?” asked Parker.

“It’s a hair,” said Wimsey grimly, his hard eyes growing harder. “Let’s go and look at Levy’s hats, shall we? And you might just ring for that fellow with the churchyard name, do you mind?”

Mr. Graves, when summoned, found Lord Peter Wimsey squatting on the floor of the dressing-room before a row of hats arranged upside down before him.

“Here you are,” said that nobleman cheerfully. “Now, Graves, this is a guessin’ competition⁠—a sort of three-hat trick, to mix metaphors. Here are nine hats, including three top-hats. Do you identify all these hats as belonging to Sir Reuben Levy? You do? Very good. Now I have three guesses as to which hat he wore the night he disappeared, and if I guess right, I win; if I don’t, you win. See? Ready? Go. I suppose you know the answer yourself, by the way?”

“Do I understand your lordship to be asking which hat Sir Reuben wore when he went out on Monday night, your lordship?”

“No, you don’t understand a bit,” said Lord Peter. “I’m asking if you know⁠—don’t tell me, I’m going to guess.”

“I do know, your lordship,” said Mr. Graves, reprovingly.

“Well,” said Lord Peter, “as he was dinin’ at the Ritz he wore a topper. Here are three toppers. In three guesses I’d be bound to hit the right one, wouldn’t I? That don’t seem very sportin’. I’ll take one guess. It was this one.”

He indicated the hat next the window.

“Am I right, Graves⁠—have I got the prize?”

“That is the hat in question, my lord,” said Mr. Graves, without excitement.

“Thanks,” said Lord Peter, “that’s all I wanted to know. Ask Bunter to step up, would you?”

Mr. Bunter stepped up with an aggrieved air, and his usually smooth hair ruffled by the focusing cloth.

“Oh, there you are, Bunter,” said Lord Peter; “look here⁠—”

“Here I am, my lord,” said Mr. Bunter, with respectful reproach, “but if you’ll excuse me saying so, downstairs is where I ought to be, with all those young women about⁠—they’ll be fingering the evidence, my lord.”

“I cry your mercy,” said Lord Peter, “but I’ve quarrelled hopelessly with Mr. Parker and distracted the estimable Graves, and I want you to tell me what fingerprints you have found. I shan’t be happy till I get it, so don’t be harsh with me, Bunter.”

“Well, my lord, your lordship understands I haven’t photographed them yet, but I won’t deny that their appearance is interesting, my lord. The little book off the night table, my lord, has only the marks of one set of fingers⁠—there’s a little scar on the right thumb which makes them easy recognised. The hairbrush, too, my lord, has only the same set of marks. The umbrella, the toothglass and the boots all have two sets: the hand with the scarred thumb, which I take to be Sir Reuben’s, my lord, and a set of smudges superimposed upon them, if I may put it that way, my lord, which may or may not be the same hand in rubber gloves. I could tell you better when I’ve got the photographs made, to measure them, my lord. The linoleum in front of the washstand is very gratifying indeed, my lord, if you will excuse my mentioning it. Besides the marks of Sir Reuben’s boots which your lordship pointed out, there’s the print of a man’s naked foot⁠—a much smaller one, my lord, not much more than a ten-inch sock, I should say if you asked me.”

Lord Peter’s face became irradiated with almost a dim, religious light.

“A mistake,” he breathed, “a mistake, a little one, but he can’t afford it. When was the linoleum washed last, Bunter?”

“Monday morning, my lord. The housemaid did it and remembered to mention it. Only remark she’s made yet, and it’s to the point. The other domestics⁠—”

His features expressed disdain.

“What did I say, Parker? Five-foot-ten and not an inch longer. And he didn’t dare to use the hairbrush. Beautiful. But he had to risk the top-hat. Gentleman can’t walk home in the rain late at night without a hat, you know, Parker. Look! what do you make of it? Two sets of fingerprints on everything but the book and the brush, two sets of feet on the linoleum, and two kinds of hair in the hat!”

He lifted the top-hat to the light, and extracted the evidence with tweezers.

“Think of it, Parker⁠—to remember the hairbrush and forget the hat⁠—to remember his fingers all the time, and to make that one careless step on the telltale linoleum. Here they are, you see, black hair and tan hair⁠—black hair in the bowler and the panama, and black