“In the end bay of the library at the Bellona, sir, tucked inside the blotting-paper.”
“The writing is very weak and straggly.”
“Yes—quite tails off, doesn’t it. As though he had come over faint and couldn’t go on. Or perhaps he was only tired. I must go down and find out if anybody saw him there that evening. But Oliver, curse him! is the man who knows. If only we could get hold of Oliver.”
“We’ve had no answer to our third question in the advertisement. I’ve had letters from several drivers who took old gentlemen to the Bellona that morning, but none of them corresponds with the General. Some had check overcoats, and some had whiskers and some had bowler hats or beards—whereas the General was never seen without his silk hat and had, of course, his old-fashioned long military mustache.”
“I wasn’t hoping for very much from that. We might put in another ad. in case anybody picked him up from the Bellona on the evening or night of the 10th, but I’ve got a feeling that this infernal Oliver probably took him away in his own car. If all else fails, we’ll have to get Scotland Yard on to Oliver.”
“Make careful inquiries at the Club, Lord Peter. It now becomes more than possible that somebody saw Oliver there and noticed them leaving together.”
“Of course. I’ll go along there at once. And I’ll put the advertisement in as well. I don’t think we’ll rope in the B.B.C. It is so confoundedly public.”
“That,” said Mr. Murbles, with a look of horror, “would be most undesirable.”
Wimsey rose to go. The solicitor caught him at the door.
“Another thing we ought really to know,” he said, “is what General Fentiman was saying to Captain George.”
“I’ve not forgotten that,” said Wimsey, a little uneasily. “We shall have—oh, yes—certainly—of course, we shall have to know that.”
IX
Knave High
“Look here, Wimsey,” said Captain Culyer of the Bellona Club, “aren’t you ever going to get finished with this investigation or whatever it is? The members are complaining, really they are, and I can’t blame them. They find your everlasting questions an intolerable nuisance, old boy, and I can’t stop them from thinking there must be something behind it. People complain that they can’t get attention from the porters or the waiters because you’re everlastingly there chatting, and if you’re not there, you’re hanging round the bar, eavesdropping. If this is your way of conducting an inquiry tactfully, I wish you’d do it tactlessly. It’s becoming thoroughly unpleasant. And no sooner do you stop it, than the other fellow begins.”
“What other fellow?”
“That nasty little skulking bloke who’s always turning up at the service door and questioning the staff.”
“I don’t know anything about him,” replied Wimsey, “I never heard of him. I’m sorry I’m being a bore and all that, though I swear I couldn’t be worse than some of your other choice specimens in that line, but I’ve hit a snag. This business—quite in your ear, old bean—isn’t as straightforward as it looks on the surface. That fellow Oliver whom I mentioned to you—”
“He’s not known here, Wimsey.”
“No, but he may have been here.”
“If nobody saw him, he can’t have been here.”
“Well, then, where did General Fentiman go to when he left? And when did he leave? That’s what I want to know. Dash it all, Culyer, the old boy’s a landmark. We know he came back here on the evening of the 10th—the driver brought him to the door, Rogers saw him come in and two members noticed him in the smoking room just before seven. I have a certain amount of evidence that he went into the library. And he can’t have stayed long, because he had his outdoor things with him. Somebody must have seen him leave. It’s ridiculous. The servants aren’t all blind. I don’t like to say it, Culyer, but I can’t help thinking that somebody has been bribed to hold his tongue … Of course, I knew that would annoy you, but how can you account for it? Who’s this fellow you say has been hangin’ round the kitchen?”
“I came across him one morning when I’d been down to see about the wine. By the way, there’s a case of Margaux come in which I’d like your opinion on some day. The fellow was talking to Babcock, the wine steward, and I asked him pretty sharply what he wanted. He thanked me, and said he had come from the railway to inquire after a packing-case that had gone astray, but Babcock, who is a very decent fellow, told me afterwards that he had been working the pump-handle about old Fentiman, and I gathered he had been pretty liberal with his cash. I thought you were up to your tricks again.”
“Is the fellow a sahib?”
“Good God, no. Looks like an attorney’s clerk or something. A nasty little tout.”
“Glad you told me. I shouldn’t wonder if he’s the snag I’m up against. Probably Oliver coverin’ his tracks.”
“Do you suspect this Oliver of something wrong?”
“Well—I rather think so. But I’m damned if I know quite what. I think he knows something about old Fentiman that we don’t. And of course he knows how he spent the night, and that’s what I’m after.”
“What the devil does it matter how he spent the night? He can’t have been very riotous, at his age.”
“It might throw some light on the time he arrived in the morning, mightn’t it?”
“Oh—Well, all I can say is, I hope to God you’ll hurry up and finish with it. This Club’s becoming a perfect beargarden. I’d almost rather have the police in.”
“Keep hopin’. You may get ’em yet.”
“You don’t mean that, seriously?”
“I’m never serious. That’s what my friends dislike about me. Honestly, I’ll try and make as little row as I can. But if Oliver is sending his minions to corrupt your staff and play old harry with my investigations, it’s going
