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

hostel. It was not a lunch calculated to cheer his mind; as in all Cathedral cities, the atmosphere of the Close pervades every nook and corner of Salisbury, and no food in that city but seems faintly flavoured with prayer-books. As he sat sadly consuming that impassive pale substance known to the English as “cheese” unqualified (for there are cheeses which go openly by their names, as Stilton, Camembert, Gruyère, Wensleydale or Gorgonzola, but “cheese” is cheese and everywhere the same), he inquired of the waiter the whereabouts of Mr. Crimplesham’s office.

The waiter directed him to a house rather further up the street on the opposite side, adding: “But anybody’ll tell you, sir; Mr. Crimplesham’s very well known hereabouts.”

“He’s a good solicitor, I suppose?” said Lord Peter.

“Oh, yes, sir,” said the waiter, “you couldn’t do better than trust to Mr. Crimplesham, sir. There’s folk say he’s old-fashioned, but I’d rather have my little bits of business done by Mr. Crimplesham than by one of these flyaway young men. Not but what Mr. Crimplesham’ll be retiring soon, sir, I don’t doubt, for he must be close on eighty, sir, if he’s a day, but then there’s young Mr. Wicks to carry on the business, and he’s a very nice, steady-like young gentleman.”

“Is Mr. Crimplesham really as old as that?” said Lord Peter. “Dear me! He must be very active for his years. A friend of mine was doing business with him in town last week.”

“Wonderful active, sir,” agreed the waiter, “and with his game leg, too, you’d be surprised. But there, sir, I often think when a man’s once past a certain age, the older he grows the tougher he gets, and women the same or more so.”

“Very likely,” said Lord Peter, calling up and dismissing the mental picture of a gentleman of eighty with a game leg carrying a dead body over the roof of a Battersea flat at midnight. “ ‘He’s tough, sir, tough, is old Joey Bagstock, tough and devilish sly,’ ” he added, thoughtlessly.

“Indeed, sir?” said the waiter. “I couldn’t say, I’m sure.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Lord Peter; “I was quoting poetry. Very silly of me. I got the habit at my mother’s knee and I can’t break myself of it.”

“No, sir,” said the waiter, pocketing a liberal tip. “Thank you very much, sir. You’ll find the house easy. Just afore you come to Penny-farthing Street, sir, about two turnings off, on the right-hand side opposite.”

“Afraid that disposes of Crimplesham-X,” said Lord Peter. “I’m rather sorry; he was a fine sinister figure as I had pictured him. Still, his may yet be the brain behind the hands⁠—the aged spider sitting invisible in the centre of the vibrating web, you know, Bunter.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Bunter. They were walking up the street together.

“There is the office over the way,” pursued Lord Peter. “I think, Bunter, you might step into this little shop and purchase a sporting paper, and if I do not emerge from the villain’s lair⁠—say within three-quarters of an hour, you may take such steps as your perspicuity may suggest.”

Mr. Bunter turned into the shop as desired, and Lord Peter walked across and rang the lawyer’s bell with decision.

“The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is my long suit here, I fancy,” he murmured, and when the door was opened by a clerk he delivered over his card with an unflinching air.

He was ushered immediately into a confidential-looking office, obviously furnished in the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign, and never altered since. A lean, frail-looking old gentleman rose briskly from his chair as he entered and limped forward to meet him.

“My dear sir,” exclaimed the lawyer, “how extremely good of you to come in person! Indeed, I am ashamed to have given you so much trouble. I trust you were passing this way, and that my glasses have not put you to any great inconvenience. Pray take a seat, Lord Peter.” He peered gratefully at the young man over a pince-nez obviously the fellow of that now adorning a dossier in Scotland Yard.

Lord Peter sat down. The lawyer sat down. Lord Peter picked up a glass paperweight from the desk and weighed it thoughtfully in his hand. Subconsciously he noted what an admirable set of fingerprints he was leaving upon it. He replaced it with precision on the exact centre of a pile of letters.

“It’s quite all right,” said Lord Peter. “I was here on business. Very happy to be of service to you. Very awkward to lose one’s glasses, Mr. Crimplesham.”

“Yes,” said the lawyer, “I assure you I feel quite lost without them. I have this pair, but they do not fit my nose so well⁠—besides, that chain has a great sentimental value for me. I was terribly distressed on arriving at Balham to find that I had lost them. I made inquiries of the railway, but to no purpose. I feared they had been stolen. There were such crowds at Victoria, and the carriage was packed with people all the way to Balham. Did you come across them in the train?”

“Well, no,” said Lord Peter, “I found them in rather an unexpected place. Do you mind telling me if you recognized any of your fellow-travellers on that occasion?”

The lawyer stared at him.

“Not a soul,” he answered. “Why do you ask?”

“Well,” said Lord Peter, “I thought perhaps the⁠—the person with whom I found them might have taken them for a joke.”

The lawyer looked puzzled.

“Did the person claim to be an acquaintance of mine?” he inquired. “I know practically nobody in London, except the friend with whom I was staying in Balham, Dr. Philpots, and I should be very greatly surprised at his practising a jest upon me. He knew very well how distressed I was at the loss of the glasses. My business was to attend a meeting of shareholders in Medlicott’s Bank, but the other gentlemen present were all personally unknown to me, and I cannot think that any of them would take so great a liberty. In any case,” he