Have His Carcase (35 page)

Thursday, 25 June

Mr Weldon did not bolt. Wimsey had no difficulty in catching him the folowing

morning, and was rather glad he had waited, for in the meantime he had

received a letter from Chief Inspector Parker.

‘My Dear Peter,

‘What will you want next? I have got a little preliminary information for you, and if

anything fresh turns up I will keep you posted.

‘First of all your Mr Haviland Martin is not a Bolshevik agent. He has had that

account in Cambridge for quite a long time, and owns a small house, complete with

lady, in the outskirts of the town. He took it, I believe, in 1925, and makes his

appearance there from time to time, dark spectacles and all. He was recommended to

the bank by one Mr Henry Weldon, of Leamhurst, Hunts, and there has never been

any trouble with his account – a small one. He is thought to travel in something or

other. All this suggests to me that the gentleman may be leading a double life, but

you can put the Bolshevik theory out of your head.

‘I got hold of Morris, the Bolshevik-wallah, this evening. He doesn’t know of any

Communist or Russian agent who might be knocking about Wilvercombe at the

present time and thinks you have got hold of a mare’s nest.

‘By the way, the Cambridge police, from whom I had to wangle the Martin dope

by telephone, want to know what is up. First Wilvercombe, then me! Fortunately,

knowing their Super pretty well, I was able to get him to put pressure on the bank. I

fancy I left them with the impression that it had something to do with bigamy!

‘Talking of bigamy, Mary sends her love and wants to know whether you are any

nearer committing monogamy yet. She says I am to recommend it to you out of my

own experience, so I do so – acting strictly under orders.

‘Affectionately yours,

‘Charles.’

Thus armed, Wimsey descended on Henry Weldon, who greeted him with his

usual offensive familiarity. Lord Peter bore with this as long as he thought

advisable, and then said, carelessly:

‘By the way, Weldon – you gave Miss Vane quite a turn yesterday

afternoon.’

Henry looked at him rather unpleasantly.

‘Oh! Did I? Wel, I don’t see why you need to come butting in.’

‘I wasn’t referring to your manners,’ said Wimsey, ‘though I admit they are a

bit startling. But why didn’t you mention that you and she had met before?’

‘Met before? For the very simple reason that we never have met before.’

‘Come, come, Weldon. How about last Thursday afternoon at the top of

Hinks’s Lane?’

He turned an ugly colour.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Don’t you? Wel, it’s your own business, of course, but if you want to go

about the country incognito, you ought to get rid of that pattern on your arm. I

understand that these things can be removed. Re-tattooing in flesh-colour is the

simplest method, I believe.’

‘Oh!’ Henry stared for a few moments; then a slow grin spread itself over his

face.

‘So that’s what the little hussy meant when she said she’d seen a snake.

Sharp girl, that, Wimsey. Fancy her spotting that.’

‘Manners, please!’ said Wimsey. ‘You wil kindly refer to Miss Vane in a

proper way and spare me the boring nuisance of pushing your teeth out at the

back of your neck.’

‘Oh, al right, just as you like. But I’d like to see you try.’

‘You wouldn’t see it. It would happen, that’s al. But I’ve no time to waste in

comparative physiology. I want to know what you were doing in Darley in

disguise.’

‘What affair is it of yours?’

‘None; but the police might be interested. Anything that happened last

Thursday interests them at the moment.’

‘Oh! I see. You want to fix something on me. Wel, just as it so happens,

you can’t, so you can put that in your pipe and smoke it. It’s a fact that I came

down here in another name. Why shouldn’t I? I didn’t want my mother to know

I was here.’

‘Why?’

‘Wel, you see, I didn’t like this Alexis business at al. There’s no harm in

admitting that. I’ve said it already and I don’t mind saying it again. I wanted to

find out what was happening. If this marriage was realy going through, I wanted

to stop it.’

‘But couldn’t you have done that openly, without blacking your hair and

dressing yourself up in dark spectacles?’

‘Of course I could. I could have burst in on the lovebirds and made a hel of

a row and frightened Alexis off, I dare say. And then what? Had a devil of a

scene with my mother, and been cut off with a shiling, I suppose. No. My idea

was to snoop around and see whether the job was realy being put through,

and, if it was, to get hold of the young blighter and buy him off privately.’

‘You’d have needed some cash to do that,’ said Wimsey, drily.

‘I don’t know about that. I’d heard some stories about a girl down here,

don’t you see, and if my mother got to know about that –’

‘Ah, yes – a qualified form of blackmail. I begin to see the idea. You were

going to pick up information in Wilvercombe about Alexis’ previous

entanglements, and then present him with the choice between having Mrs

Weldon told about it and possibly getting nothing out of it, and taking your cash

in hand and letting his credit as a faithful lover go. Is that it?’

‘That’s it.’

‘And why Darley?’

‘Because I didn’t want to run into the old lady in Wilvercombe. A pair of

specs and a bottle of hair-dye might be al right for the yokels, but to the sharp

eye of mother-love, you understand, they might not be as impenetrable as a

brick wal.’

‘Quite so. Do you mind my asking whether you made any progress with this

delicate investigation?’

‘Not much. I only got to the place on Tuesday evening, and I spent most of

Wednesday tinkering with the car. Those fools at the garage sent it out –’

‘Ah, yes! One moment. Was it realy necessary to hire a car with al that

parade of secrecy?’

‘It was, rather, because my mother would have recognised my own bus. It’s

rather an unusual colour.’

‘You seem to have thought it al out very wel. Did you have no difficulty

about hiring it? – oh, no, how stupid of me! You could give your own name to

the garage, naturaly.’

‘I could, but I didn’t. To be perfectly frank – wel! I don’t mind saying that I

had another name and address al ready to slip into. Sometimes I slip off to

Cambridge on the quiet, see! To visit a lady there.
You
get me. Nice little

woman – devoted and al that. Husband in the background somewhere. He

won’t divorce her, and I’m not worrying. Suits me al right as it is. Only there

again, if my mother got to hear about it – there’s been trouble, one way and

another, and I didn’t want to start it again. We’re right as rain in Cambridge –

Mr and Mrs Haviland Martin – al perfectly respectable, and al that, and it’s

easy enough to slip over when one wants a spot of domestic bliss and so on.

You get me?’

‘I get you. Do you also perambulate Cambridge in disguise?’

‘I stick on the specs when I go to the bank. Some of my good neighbours

keep an account there.’

‘So you had this handy little disguise ready to slip into. I do congratulate you

on the convenience of your arrangements. They realy fil me with admiration,

and I’m sure Mrs Martin must be a very happy woman. It realy-surprises me

that you should be so anxious to pursue Miss Vane with your attentions.’

‘Ah! But when a young lady asks for it – besides, I rather wanted to find out

what the girl – the lady, that is, was after. When your mother’s pretty wel off,

don’t you see, you rather get the idea that people are looking out to make a bit

out of her.’

Wimsey laughed.

‘So you thought you’d vamp Miss Vane and find out. How great minds do

think alike! She had rather the same idea about you. Wondered why you were

so damned anxious to push her and me out of the place. I’m not surprised you

each found the other so easy to talk to. Miss Vane said she was afraid you had

seen through our little plot and were puling her leg. Wel, wel! So now we can

come out into the open and be perfectly frank with one another. So much jolier

and al that, what?’

Henry Weldon looked at Wimsey suspiciously. He had a dim notion that he

had somehow been jockeyed into an absurd position. It was al very wel – that

damned girl and this chattering lunatic of an amateur detective seemed to be

working hand in glove. But it did cross his mind that al this talk about frankness

was a little one-sided.

‘Oh yes, rather!’ he replied, vaguely; adding rather anxiously: ‘No need to

tel my mother al about this, eh? She wouldn’t like it.’

‘Possibly not,’ said Wimsey. ‘But you see – the police, what? I don’t quite

see – British justice – duties of a citizen and al that, don’t you know. I can’t

prevent Miss Vane from going to Inspector Umpelty, can I? Free agent and so

on – and she’s not over and above pleased with you, from what I can make

out.’

‘Oh, I don’t mind the police.’ Henry’s face cleared. ‘I’ve nothing to hide

from
them
, you know. Not a bit. Rather not. Look here, old man – if I tel you

al about it, couldn’t you just tip them off and get ’em to leave me alone. You’re

damned thick with that Inspector felow – if you tel him I’m al right he’l take it

from you.’

‘Oh, yes! Good felow, the Inspector. Not his business to betray

confidences. There’s no reason whatever, so far as I can see, that Mrs Weldon

should know anything about it. We men must stick together.’

‘That’s right!’ Undeterred by experience, Mr Weldon instantly entered into

another aliance, offensive and defensive. ‘Wel, look here. I came along to

Darley on Tuesday evening and got permission to camp in Hinks’s Lane.’

‘You knew the place pretty wel, I gather.’

‘Never been there in my life; why?’

‘Sorry – I thought you meant you knew about Hinks’s Lane before you got

there.’

‘Eh? Oh! Oh, I see what you mean. I got it from some chap I met in a pub in

Heathbury. Don’t know his name.’

‘Oh, quite!’

‘I got in some stores and so on and settled in. Then, next day – that was

Wednesday – I thought I’d better make a start on my inquiries. Stop a bit. That

wasn’t til the afternoon. I just loafed round in the morning – it was a grand day,

and I was tired with trekking across country, especialy as the car hadn’t been

going any too wel. After lunch I had a go at it. It took me a devil of a time to

start the bus, but I got her to go at last, and ran over to Wilvercombe. I went

first of al to the registrar’s and found that there was no marriage-notice put up

there, so I folowed that up by a round of the churches. There was nothing there

either, but of course that proved nothing very much, because they might be

going to get married in London or somewhere by licence or even by special

licence.

‘The next thing I did was to get the address of this chap Alexis from the

people at the Resplendent. I took good care to dodge the old lady. I rang up

the management with a story about a parcel that had gone to the wrong

address, and got it out of them. Then I went round to the address they gave me,

and tried to pump the old woman there, but she wasn’t having any. However,

she said I might find Alexis in a restaurant she told me about. I went round; he

wasn’t there, but I got talking with a felow who dropped in – some dago, I

don’t know his name, and he said something which made me think I could find

out what I wanted at the Winter Gardens.’

Henry paused.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘this must look pretty fishy to you – me hanging round

there asking about Alexis, and then al this business happening next day, but that

was exactly what I did. Wel, I went back to where I’d left the car, and had

more trouble with it than ever – I began to curse the fool who’d hired it out to

me, and I thought I’d better take it to a garage. Wel, naturaly, having once

been started and warmed up, it went al right, and the garage people couldn’t

find anything wrong with it. They undid a few things and tightened a few things

and charged me half a crown and that was al. By the time they’d finished, I

was getting fed up, and thought I’d better take the beastly thing home while she

was running. So I went back to Darley, with the engine missing al the way.

After that, I went for a walk and that was the end of that day, except that I

dropped in a bit later for a pint at the Feathers.’

‘Which way did you walk?’

‘Oh, along the beach for a bit. Why?’

‘I just wondered if you’d rambled as far as the Flat-Iron?’

‘Four and a half miles? Not likely. As a matter of fact, I haven’t seen the

place yet and I don’t want to. Anyway, Thursday’s the day you want to know

about. Al the details, as they say in the ’tec stories, eh? I had breakfast about

nine o’clock – eggs and bacon, if you want to be particular – and then I thought