“I’ve had my suspicions all the time, of course. I told you so, you know. I wonder whether—you don’t think I was wrong to give the certificate, do you?”
“Not unless you suspected anything wrong with the death itself,” said Wimsey. “Have you and Horner noticed anything queer?”
“No. But—oh, well! having patients dug up always makes me worried, you know. It’s easy to make a mistake and one looks an awful fool in court. I’d hate being made to look a fool just at present,” added the doctor with a nervous laugh. “I’m thinking of—great Scott, man! how you startled me!”
Dr. Horner had brought a large, bony hand down on his shoulder. He was a red-faced, jovial man, and he smiled as he held up his bag before them.
“All packed up and ready,” he announced. “Got to be getting back now, aha! Got to be getting back.”
“Have the witnesses signed the labels?” asked Penberthy, rather shortly.
“Yes, yes, quite all right. Both the solicitor johnnies, so they can’t quarrel about that in the witness-box,” replied Horner. “Come along, please—I’ve got to get off.”
They found George Fentiman outside, seated on a tombstone, and sucking at an empty pipe.
“Is it all over?”
“Yes.”
“Have they found anything?”
“Haven’t looked yet,” broke in Horner, genially. “Not at the part which interests you, that is. Leave that for my colleague Lubbock, you know. Soon give you an answer—say, in a week’s time.”
George passed his handkerchief over his forehead, which was beaded with little drops of sweat.
“I don’t like it,” he said. “But I suppose it had to be done. What was that? I thought—I’d swear I saw something moving over there.”
“A cat, probably,” said Penberthy, “there’s nothing to be alarmed at.”
“No,” said George, “but sitting about here, one—fancies things.” He hunched his shoulders, squinting round at them with the whites of his eyeballs showing.
“Things,” he said, “people—going to and fro … and walking up and down. Following one.”
XIV
Grand Slam in Spades
On the seventh morning after the exhumation—which happened to be a Tuesday—Lord Peter walked briskly into Mr. Murbles’ chambers in Staple Inn, with Detective-Inspector Parker at his heels.
“Good morning,” said Mr. Murbles, surprised.
“Good morning,” said Wimsey. “Hark! hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings. He is coming, my own, my sweet, were it ever so airy a tread. He will be here in a quarter of an hour.”
“Who will?” demanded Mr. Murbles, somewhat severely.
“Robert Fentiman.”
Mr. Murbles gave a little ejaculation of surprise.
“I had almost given up hope in that direction,” he said.
“So had I. I said to myself, he is not lost but gone before. And it was so. Charles, we will layout the pièces de conviction on the table. The boots. The photographs. The microscopic slides showing the various specimens. The paper of notes from the library. The outer garments of the deceased. Just so. And Oliver Twist. Beautiful. Now, as Sherlock Holmes says, we shall look imposing enough to strike terror into the guilty breast, though armed in triple steel.”
“Did Fentiman return of his own accord?”
“Not altogether. He was, if I may so express myself, led. Almost, in fact, led on. O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent till, don’t you know. What is that noise in the outer room? It is, it is the cannon’s opening roar.”
It was, indeed, the voice of Robert Fentiman, not in the best of tempers. In a few seconds he was shown in. He nodded curtly to Mr. Murbles, who replied with a stiff bow, and then turned violently upon Wimsey.
“Look here, what’s the meaning of all this? Here’s that damned detective fellow of yours leading me a devil of a dance all over Europe and home again, and then this morning he suddenly turns round and tells me that you want to see me here with news about Oliver. What the devil do you know about Oliver?”
“Oliver?” said Wimsey. “Oh, yes—he’s an elusive personality. Almost as elusive in Rome as he was in London. Wasn’t it odd, Fentiman, the way he always seemed to bob up directly your back was turned? Wasn’t it funny, the way he managed to disappear from places the moment you set foot in ’em? Almost like the way he used to hang about Gatti’s and then give you and me the slip. Did you have a jolly time abroad, old man? I suppose you didn’t like to tell your companion that he and you were chasing a will o’ the wisp?”
Robert Fentiman’s face was passing through phases ranging from fury to bewilderment and back again. Mr. Murbles interrupted.
“Has this detective vouchsafed any explanation of his extraordinary behavior, in keeping us in the dark for nearly a fortnight as to his movements?”
“I’m afraid I owe you the explanation,” said Wimsey, airily. “You see, I thought it was time the carrot was dangled before the other donkey. I knew that if we pretended to find Oliver in Paris, Fentiman would be in honor bound to chase after him. In fact, he was probably only too pleased to get away—weren’t you, Fentiman?”
“Do you mean to say that you invented all this story about Oliver, Lord Peter?”
“I did. Not the original Oliver, of course, but the Paris Oliver. I told the sleuth to send a wire from Paris to summon our friend away and keep him away.”
“But why?”
“I’ll explain that later. And of course you had to go, hadn’t you, old man? Because you couldn’t very well refuse to go without confessing that there was no such person as Oliver?”
“Damnation!” burst out Fentiman, and then suddenly began to laugh. “You cunning little devil! I began to think there was something fishy about it, you know. When that first wire came, I was delighted. Thought the sleuthhound fellow had made a perfectly providential floater, don’t you know. And the longer we kept tootin’ round Europe the better I was pleased. But when the hare started to double back to England, home and
