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

“Sugg’s a beautiful, braying ass,” said Lord Peter. “He’s like a detective in a novel. Well, I don’t know anything about Levy, but I’ve seen the body, and I should say the idea was preposterous upon the face of it. What do you think of the brandy?”

“Unbelievable, Wimsey⁠—sort of thing makes one believe in heaven. But I want your yarn.”

“D’you mind if Bunter hears it, too? Invaluable man, Bunter⁠—amazin’ fellow with a camera. And the odd thing is, he’s always on the spot when I want my bath or my boots. I don’t know when he develops things⁠—I believe he does ’em in his sleep. Bunter!”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Stop fiddling about in there, and get yourself the proper things to drink and join the merry throng.”

“Certainly, my lord.”

“Mr. Parker has a new trick: The Vanishing Financier. Absolutely no deception. Hey, presto, pass! and where is he? Will some gentleman from the audience kindly step upon the platform and inspect the cabinet? Thank you, sir. The quickness of the ’and deceives the heye.”

“I’m afraid mine isn’t much of a story,” said Parker. “It’s just one of those simple things that offer no handle. Sir Reuben Levy dined last night with three friends at the Ritz. After dinner the friends went to the theatre. He refused to go with them on account of an appointment. I haven’t yet been able to trace the appointment, but anyhow, he returned home to his house⁠—9a, Park Lane⁠—at twelve o’clock.”

“Who saw him?”

“The cook, who had just gone up to bed, saw him on the doorstep, and heard him let himself in. He walked upstairs, leaving his greatcoat on the hall peg and his umbrella in the stand⁠—you remember how it rained last night. He undressed and went to bed. Next morning he wasn’t there. That’s all,” said Parker abruptly, with a wave of the hand.

“It isn’t all, it isn’t all. Daddy, go on, that’s not half a story,” pleaded Lord Peter.

“But it is all. When his man came to call him he wasn’t there. The bed had been slept in. His pyjamas and all his clothes were there, the only odd thing being that they were thrown rather untidily on the ottoman at the foot of the bed, instead of being neatly folded on a chair, as is Sir Reuben’s custom⁠—looking as though he had been rather agitated or unwell. No clean clothes were missing, no suit, no boots⁠—nothing. The boots he had worn were in his dressing-room as usual. He had washed and cleaned his teeth and done all the usual things. The housemaid was down cleaning the hall at half-past six, and can swear that nobody came in or out after that. So one is forced to suppose that a respectable middle-aged Hebrew financier either went mad between twelve and six a.m. and walked quietly out of the house in his birthday suit on a November night, or else was spirited away like the lady in the Ingoldsby Legends, body and bones, leaving only a heap of crumpled clothes behind him.”

“Was the front door bolted?”

“That’s the sort of question you would ask, straight off; it took me an hour to think of it. No; contrary to custom, there was only the Yale lock on the door. On the other hand, some of the maids had been given leave to go to the theatre, and Sir Reuben may quite conceivably have left the door open under the impression they had not come in. Such a thing has happened before.”

“And that’s really all?”

“Really all. Except for one very trifling circumstance.”

“I love trifling circumstances,” said Lord Peter, with childish delight; “so many men have been hanged by trifling circumstances. What was it?”

“Sir Reuben and Lady Levy, who are a most devoted couple, always share the same room. Lady Levy, as I said before, is in Mentonne at the moment for her health. In her absence, Sir Reuben sleeps in the double bed as usual, and invariably on his own side⁠—the outside⁠—of the bed. Last night he put the two pillows together and slept in the middle, or, if anything, rather closer to the wall than otherwise. The housemaid, who is a most intelligent girl, noticed this when she went up to make the bed, and, with really admirable detective instinct, refused to touch the bed or let anybody else touch it, though it wasn’t till later that they actually sent for the police.”

“Was nobody in the house but Sir Reuben and the servants?”

“No; Lady Levy was away with her daughter and her maid. The valet, cook, parlourmaid, housemaid and kitchenmaid were the only people in the house, and naturally wasted an hour or two squawking and gossiping. I got there about ten.”

“What have you been doing since?”

“Trying to get on the track of Sir Reuben’s appointment last night, since, with the exception of the cook, his ‘appointer’ was the last person who saw him before his disappearance. There may be some quite simple explanation, though I’m dashed if I can think of one for the moment. Hang it all, a man doesn’t come in and go to bed and walk away again ‘mid nodings on’ in the middle of the night.”

“He may have been disguised.”

“I thought of that⁠—in fact, it seems the only possible explanation. But it’s deuced odd, Wimsey. An important city man, on the eve of an important transaction, without a word of warning to anybody, slips off in the middle of the night, disguised down to his skin, leaving behind his watch, purse, chequebook, and⁠—most mysterious and important of all⁠—his spectacles, without which he can’t see a step, as he is extremely shortsighted. He⁠—”

“That is important,” interrupted Wimsey. “You are sure he didn’t take a second pair?”

“His man vouches for it that he had only two pairs, one of which was found on his dressing-table, and the other in the drawer where it is always kept.”

Lord Peter whistled.

“You’ve got me there, Parker. Even if he’d gone out to commit suicide he’d have taken