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

magnificent as the lighting of the dissecting room here is, is always more trying to the eyes than daylight. Doubtless your own work has to be carried on under even more trying conditions.”

“Yes, sometimes,” said Parker; “but then you see,” he added, “the conditions are, so to speak, part of the work.”

“Quite so, quite so,” said Sir Julian; “you mean that the burglar, for example, does not demonstrate his methods in the light of day, or plant the perfect footmark in the middle of a damp patch of sand for you to analyze.”

“Not as a rule,” said the detective, “but I have no doubt many of your diseases work quite as insidiously as any burglar.”

“They do, they do,” said Sir Julian, laughing, “and it is my pride, as it is yours, to track them down for the good of society. The neuroses, you know, are particularly clever criminals⁠—they break out into as many disguises as⁠—”

“As Leon Kestrel, the Master-Mummer,” suggested Parker, who read railway-stall detective stories on the principle of the busman’s holiday.

“No doubt,” said Sir Julian, who did not, “and they cover up their tracks wonderfully. But when you can really investigate, Mr. Parker, and break up the dead, or for preference the living body with the scalpel, you always find the footmarks⁠—the little trail of ruin or disorder left by madness or disease or drink or any other similar pest. But the difficulty is to trace them back, merely by observing the surface symptoms⁠—the hysteria, crime, religion, fear, shyness, conscience, or whatever it may be; just as you observe a theft or a murder and look for the footsteps of the criminal, so I observe a fit of hysterics or an outburst of piety and hunt for the little mechanical irritation which has produced it.”

“You regard all these things as physical?”

“Undoubtedly. I am not ignorant of the rise of another school of thought, Mr. Parker, but its exponents are mostly charlatans or self-deceivers. ‘Sie haben sich so weit darin eingeheimnisst’ that, like Sludge the Medium, they are beginning to believe their own nonsense. I should like to have the exploring of some of their brains, Mr. Parker; I would show you the little faults and landslips in the cells⁠—the misfiring and short-circuiting of the nerves, which produce these notions and these books. At least,” he added, gazing sombrely at his guest, “at least, if I could not quite show you today, I shall be able to do so tomorrow⁠—or in a year’s time⁠—or before I die.”

He sat for some minutes gazing into the fire, while the red light played upon his tawny beard and struck out answering gleams from his compelling eyes.

Parker drank tea in silence, watching him. On the whole, however, he remained but little interested in the causes of nervous phenomena and his mind strayed to Lord Peter, coping with the redoubtable Crimplesham down in Salisbury. Lord Peter had wanted him to come: that meant, either that Crimplesham was proving recalcitrant or that a clue wanted following. But Bunter had said that tomorrow would do, and it was just as well. After all, the Battersea affair was not Parker’s case; he had already wasted valuable time attending an inconclusive inquest, and he really ought to get on with his legitimate work. There was still Levy’s secretary to see and the little matter of the Peruvian Oil to be looked into. He looked at his watch.

“I am very much afraid⁠—if you will excuse me⁠—” he murmured.

Sir Julian came back with a start to the consideration of actuality.

“Your work calls you?” he said, smiling. “Well, I can understand that. I won’t keep you. But I wanted to say something to you in connection with your present inquiry⁠—only I hardly know⁠—I hardly like⁠—”

Parker sat down again, and banished every indication of hurry from his face and attitude.

“I shall be very grateful for any help you can give me,” he said.

“I’m afraid it’s more in the nature of hindrance,” said Sir Julian, with a short laugh. “It’s a case of destroying a clue for you, and a breach of professional confidence on my side. But since⁠—accidentally⁠—a certain amount has come out, perhaps the whole had better do so.”

Mr. Parker made the encouraging noise which, among laymen, supplies the place of the priest’s insinuating, “Yes, my son?”

“Sir Reuben Levy’s visit on Monday night was to me,” said Sir Julian.

“Yes?” said Mr. Parker, without expression.

“He found cause for certain grave suspicions concerning his health,” said Sir Julian, slowly, as though weighing how much he could in honour disclose to a stranger. “He came to me, in preference to his own medical man, as he was particularly anxious that the matter should be kept from his wife. As I told you, he knew me fairly well, and Lady Levy had consulted me about a nervous disorder in the summer.”

“Did he make an appointment with you?” asked Parker.

“I beg your pardon,” said the other, absently.

“Did he make an appointment?”

“An appointment? Oh, no! He turned up suddenly in the evening after dinner when I wasn’t expecting him. I took him up here and examined him, and he left me somewhere about ten o’clock, I should think.”

“May I ask what was the result of your examination?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“It might illuminate⁠—well, conjecture as to his subsequent conduct,” said Parker, cautiously. This story seemed to have little coherence with the rest of the business, and he wondered whether coincidence was alone responsible for Sir Reuben’s disappearance on the same night that he visited the doctor.

“I see,” said Sir Julian. “Yes. Well, I will tell you in confidence that I saw grave grounds of suspicion, but as yet, no absolute certainty of mischief.”

“Thank you. Sir Reuben left you at ten o’clock?”

“Then or thereabouts. I did not at first mention the matter as it was so very much Sir Reuben’s wish to keep his visit to me secret, and there was no question of accident in the street or anything of that kind, since he reached home safely at midnight.”

“Quite