Have His Carcase (24 page)

‘How professional it looks,’ said Harriet. ‘A nice little set of problems for

Robert Templeton. The only thing I can do much about is interviewing this Leila

person and her new young man. I fancy I might get more out of them than the

police could.’

‘There’s nothing I can do that the police can’t do better,’ said Wimsey,

mournfuly. ‘We’d better go on to the next.’

MRS WELDON

HENRY WELDON

ESDRAS POLLOCK

– PERKINS (of London)

HAVILAND MARTIN

‘And that,’ said Wimsey, triumphantly adding a flourish at the foot of this

schedule, ‘rounds off the inquiry charmingly.’

‘It does.’ Harriet frowned. Then –

‘Have you ever considered this?’ she asked, with a not too steady voice.

She scribbled for a moment.

HARRIET VANE

Things to be Noted

1. Personal characteristics: Once tried for murder of her lover, and acquitted by the skin

of her teeth.

2. May have known Paul Alexis in London.

3. Says she found Alexis dead at 2.10, but can bring no evidence to prove that she did

not see him alive.

4. Took an unconscionable time getting to the Flat-Iron from Lesston Hoe.

5. Took three hours to walk four and a half miles to inform the police.

6. Is the sole witness to the finding of the razor, the time of the death and the conditions

at the Flat-Iron.

7. Was immediately suspected by Perkins, and is probably still suspected by the police,

who have been searching her room.

Wimsey’s face darkened.

‘Have they, by God?’

‘Yes. Don’t look like that. They couldn’t very wel do anything else, could

they?’

‘I’l have something to say to Umpelty.’

‘No. You can spare me that.’

‘But it’s absurd.’

‘It is not. Do you think I have no wits? Do you think I don’t know why you

came galoping down here at five minutes’ notice? Of course it’s very nice of

you, and I ought to be grateful, but do you think I like it?’

Wimsey, with a grey face, got up and walked to the window.

‘You thought I was pretty brazen, I expect, when you found me getting

publicity out of the thing. So I was. There’s no choice for a person like me to

be anything but brazen. Would it have been better to wait til the papers

dragged the juicy bits out of the dust-bin for themselves? I can’t hide my name

– it’s what I live by. If I did hide it, that would only be another suspicious

circumstance, wouldn’t it? But do you think it makes matters any more

agreeable to know that it is only the patronage of Lord Peter Wimsey that

prevent men like Umpelty from being openly hostile?’

‘I have been afraid of this,’ said Wimsey.

‘Then why did you come?’

‘So that you might not have to send for me.’

‘
Oh!
’

There was a strained pause, while Wimsey painfuly recaled the terms of the

message that had originaly reached him from Salcombe Hardy of the
Morning

Star
– Hardy, a little drunk and wholy derisory, announcing over the

telephone, ‘I say, Wimsey, that Vane woman of yours has got herself mixed up

in another queer story.’ Then his own furious and terrified irruption into Fleet

Street, and the violent bulying of a repentant and sentimental Hardy, til the

Morning Star
report was hammered into a form that set the tone for the

comments of the press. Then the return home to find that the Wilvercombe

police were already besieging him, in the politest and most restrained manner,

for information as to Miss Harriet Vane’s recent movements and behaviour.

And finaly, the certainty that the best way out of a bad situation was to brazen

it out – Harriet’s word – even if it meant making a public exhibition of his

feelings, and the annihilation of al the delicate structure of confidence which he

had been so cautiously toiling to build up between this scathed and embittered

woman and himself.

He said nothing, but watched the wreck of his fortune in Harriet’s stormy

eyes.

Harriet, meanwhile, having worked herself up into committing an act of what

she obscurely felt to be injustice, was seized by an unreasonable hatred against

the injured party. The fact that, until five minutes earlier, she had felt perfectly

happy and at ease with this man, before she had placed both him and herself in

an intolerable position, she felt somehow as one more added to the list of his

offences. She looked round for something realy savage to do to him.

‘I suppose you think I haven’t been humiliated enough already, without al

this parade of chivalry. You think you can sit up there al day like King

Cophetua being noble and generous and expecting people to be brought to

your feet. Of course everybody wil say, “Look what he did for that woman –

isn’t it marvelous of him!” Isn’t that nice for you? You think if you go on long