“Oh, I know. I’m not blaming you. People … money oughtn’t to depend on people’s deaths … old people, with no use for their lives … it’s a devil of a temptation. Look here, Wimsey, what are we to do about this woman?”
“The Munns female?”
“Yes. It’s the devil and all she should have got hold of the stuff. If they find out what it’s supposed to be, we shall be blackmailed for the rest of our lives.”
“No,” said Wimsey, “I’m sorry, old man, but the police have got to know about it.”
Robert sprang to his feet.
“My God!—you wouldn’t—”
“Sit down, Fentiman. Yes, I must. Don’t you see I must? We can’t suppress things. It always means trouble. It’s not even as though they hadn’t got their eyes on us already. They’re suspicious—”
“Yes, and why?” burst out Robert, violently. “Who put it into their heads? … For God’s sake don’t start talking about law and justice! Law and justice! You’d sell your best friend for the sake of making a sensational appearance in the witness-box, you infernal little police spy!”
“Chuck that, Fentiman!”
“I’ll not chuck it! You’d go and give away a man to the police—when you know perfectly well he isn’t responsible—just because you can’t afford to be mixed up in anything unpleasant. I know you. Nothing’s too dirty for you to meddle in, provided you can pose as the pious little friend of justice. You make me sick!”
“I tried to keep out of this—”
“You tried!—don’t be a blasted hypocrite! You get out of it now, and stay out—do you hear?”
“Yes, but listen a moment—”
“Get out!” said Robert.
Wimsey stood up.
“I know how you feel, Fentiman—”
“Don’t stand there being righteous and forebearing, you sickening prig. For the last time—are you going to shut up, or are you going to trot round to your policeman friend and earn the thanks of a grateful country for splitting on George? Get on! Which is it to be?”
“You won’t do George any good—”
“Never mind that. Are you going to hold your tongue?”
“Be reasonable, Fentiman.”
“Reasonable be damned. Are you going to the police? No shuffling. Yes or no?”
“Yes.”
“You dirty little squirt,” said Robert, striking out passionately. Wimsey’s return blow caught him neatly on the chin and landed him in the wastepaper basket.
“And now, look here,” said Wimsey, standing over him, hat and stick in hand. “It’s no odds to me what you do or say. You think your brother murdered your grandfather. I don’t know whether he did or not. But the worst thing you can do for him is to try and destroy evidence. And the worst thing you can possibly do for his wife is to make her a party to anything of the sort. And next time you try to smash anybody’s face in, remember to cover up your chin. That’s all. I can let myself out. Goodbye.”
He went round to 12 Great Ormond Street and routed Parker out of bed.
Parker listened thoughtfully to what he had to say.
“I wish we’d stopped Fentiman before he bolted,” he said.
“Yes; why didn’t you?”
“Well, Dykes seems to have muffed it rather. I wasn’t there myself. But everything seemed all right. Fentiman looked a bit nervy, but many people do when they’re interviewed by the police—think of their hideous pasts, I suppose, and wonder what’s coming next. Or else it’s just stage-fright. He stuck to the same tale he told you—said he was quite sure the old General hadn’t taken any pills or anything in the taxi—didn’t attempt to pretend he knew anything about Lady Dormer’s will. There was nothing to detain him for. He said he had to get to his job in Great Portland Street. So they let him go. Dykes sent a man to follow him up, and he went along to Hubbard-Walmisley’s all right. Dykes said, might he just have a look round the place before he went, and Mrs. Fentiman said certainly. He didn’t expect to find anything, really. Just happened to step into the backyard, and saw a bit of broken glass. He then had a look round, and there was the cap of the tablet-bottle in the dustbin. Well, then, of course, he started to get interested, and was just having a hunt through for the rest of it, when old mother Munns appeared and said the dustbin was her property. So they had to clear out. But Dykes oughtn’t to have let Fentiman go till they’d finished going over the place. He phoned through to Hubbard-Walmisley’s at once, and heard that Fentiman had arrived and immediately gone out with the car, to visit a prospective customer in Herts. The fellow who was supposed to be trailing Fentiman got carburetor trouble just beyond St. Albans, and by the time he was fixed, he’d lost Fentiman.”
“Did Fentiman go to the customer’s house?”
“Not he. Disappeared completely. We shall find the car, of course—it’s only a matter of time.”
“Yes,” said Wimsey. His voice sounded tired and constrained.
“This alters the look of things a bit,” said Parker, “doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“What have you done to your face, old man?”
Wimsey glanced at the looking-glass, and saw that an angry red flush had come up on the cheekbone.
“Had a bit of a dustup with Robert,” he said.
“Oh!”
Parker was aware of a thin veil of hostility, drawn between himself and the friend he valued. He knew that for the first time, Wimsey was seeing him as the police. Wimsey was ashamed and his shame made Parker ashamed too.
“You’d better have some breakfast,” said Parker. His voice sounded awkward to himself.
“No—no thanks, old man. I’ll go home and get a bath and shave.”
“Oh, right-oh!”
There was a pause.
“Well, I’d better be going,” said Wimsey.
“Oh, yes,” said Parker again. “Right-oh!”
“Er—cheerio!” said Wimsey at the door.
“Cheerio!” said Parker.
The bedroom door shut. The flat-door shut. The front-door shut.
Parker pulled the telephone towards him and called up Scotland Yard.
The atmosphere of his own office was bracing to Parker when he got down there. For one thing, he was taken aside by a friend and congratulated in conspiratorial whispers.
“Your
