“One of these modern, Chelsea women. Ugly as sin and hard as nails. Paints things—ugly, skinny prostitutes with green bodies and no clothes on. I suppose she thinks if she can’t be a success as a woman she’ll be a half-baked intellectual. No wonder a man can’t get a decent job these days with these hard-mouthed, cigarette-smoking females all over the place, pretending they’re geniuses and business women and all the rest of it.”
“Oh, come, George! Miss Dorland isn’t doing anybody out of a job; she couldn’t just sit there all day being Lady Dormer’s companion. What’s the harm in her painting things?”
“Why couldn’t she be a companion? In the old days, heaps of unmarried women were companions, and let me tell you, my dear girl, they had a much better time than they have now, with all this jazzing and short skirts and pretending to have careers. The modern girl hasn’t a scrap of decent feeling or sentiment about her. Money—money and notoriety, that’s all she’s after. That’s what we fought the war for—and that’s what we’ve come back to!”
“George, do keep to the point. Miss Dorland doesn’t jazz—”
“I am keeping to the point. I’m talking about modern women. I don’t say Miss Dorland in particular. But you will go taking everything personally. That’s just like a woman. You can’t argue about things in general—you always have to bring it down to someone little personal instance. You will sidetrack.”
“I wasn’t sidetracking. We started to talk about Miss Dorland.”
“You said a person couldn’t just be somebody’s companion, and I said that in the old days plenty of nice women were companions and had a jolly good time—”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Well, I do. They did. And they learned to be decent companions to their husbands, too. Not always flying off to offices and clubs and parties like they are now. And if you think men like that sort of thing, I can tell you candidly, my girl, they don’t. They hate it.”
“Does it matter? I mean, one doesn’t have to bother so much about husband-hunting today.”
“Oh, no! Husbands don’t matter at all, I suppose, to you advanced women. Any man will do, as long as he’s got money—”
“Why do you say ‘you’ advanced women? I didn’t say I felt that way about it. I don’t want to go out to work—”
“There you go. Taking everything to yourself. I know you don’t want to work. I know it’s only because of the damned rotten position I’m in. You needn’t keep on about it. I know I’m a failure. Thank your stars, Wimsey, that when you marry you’ll be able to support your wife.”
“George, you’ve no business to speak like that. I didn’t mean that at all. You said—”
“I know what I said, but you took it all the wrong way. You always do. It’s no good arguing with a woman. No—that’s enough. For God’s sake don’t start all over again. I want a drink. Wimsey, you’ll have a drink. Sheila, tell that girl of Mrs. Munns’s to go round for half a bottle of Johnny Walker.”
“Couldn’t you get it yourself, dear? Mrs. Munns doesn’t like us sending her girl. She was frightfully disagreeable last time.”
“How can I go? I’ve taken my boots off. You do make such a fuss about nothing. What does it matter if old Mother Munns does kick up a shindy? She can’t eat you.”
“No,” put in Wimsey. “But think of the corrupting influence of the jug-and-bottle department on Mrs. Munns’s girl. I approve of Mrs. Munns. She has a motherly heart. I myself will be the St. George to rescue Mrs. Munns’s girl from the Blue Dragon. Nothing shall stop me. No, don’t bother to show me the way. I have a peculiar instinct about pubs. I can find one blindfold in a pea-souper with both hands tied behind me.”
Mrs. Fentiman followed him to the front door.
“You mustn’t mind what George says tonight. His tummy is feeling rotten and it makes him irritable. And it has been so worrying about this wretched money business.”
“That’s all right,” said Wimsey. “I know exactly. You should see me when my tummy’s upset. Took a young woman out the other night—lobster mayonnaise, meringues and sweet champagne—her choice—oh, lord!”
He made an eloquent grimace and departed in the direction of the public house.
When he returned, George Fentiman was standing on the doorstep.
“I say, Wimsey—I do apologize for being so bloody rude. It’s my filthy temper. Rotten bad form. Sheila’s gone up to bed in tears, poor kid. All my fault. If you knew how this damnable situation gets on my nerves—though I know there’s no excuse …”
“ ’S quite all right,” said Wimsey. “Cheer up. It’ll all come out in the wash.”
“My wife—” began George again.
“She’s damned fine, old man. But what it is, you both want a holiday.”
“We do, badly. Well, never say die. I’ll see Murbles, as you suggest, Wimsey.”
Bunter received his master that evening with a prim smirk of satisfaction.
“Had a good day, Bunter?”
“Very gratifying indeed, I thank your lordship. The prints on the walking-stick are indubitably identical with those on the sheet of paper you gave me.”
“They are, are they? That’s something. I’ll look at ’em tomorrow, Bunter—I’ve had a tiring evening.”
VIII
Lord Peter Leads Through Strength
At eleven o’clock the next morning, Lord Peter Wimsey, unobtrusively attired in a navy-blue suit and dark gray tie, suitable for a house of mourning, presented himself at the late Lady Dormer’s house in Portman Square.
“Is Miss Dorland at home?”
“I will inquire, sir.”
“Kindly give her my card and ask if she can spare me a few moments.”
“Certainly, my lord. Will your lordship be good enough to take a seat?”
The man departed, leaving his lordship to cool his heels in a tall, forbidding room, with long crimson curtains, a dark red carpet and mahogany furniture of repellent appearance. After an interval of nearly fifteen minutes, he reappeared, bearing a note upon a salver. It was
