“Dear, dear,” she added, hunting through her purse, “I do not appear to have any penny stamps. How extremely remiss of me. It is most unusual for me not to have my little book of stamps—so handy I always think they are—but only last night Mrs. Williams borrowed my last stamps to send a very urgent letter to her son in Japan. If you will excuse me a moment—”
“I think I have some,” interposed Parker.
“Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Parker. Here is the twopence. I never allow myself to be without pennies—on account of the bathroom geyser, you know. Such a very sensible invention, most convenient, and prevents all dispute about hot water among the tenants. Thank you so much. And now I sign my name across the stamps. That’s right, isn’t it? My dear father would be surprised to find his daughter so businesslike. He always said a woman should never need to know anything about money matters, but times have changed so greatly, have they not?”
Miss Climpson ushered them down all six flights of stairs, volubly protesting at their protests, and the door closed behind them.
“May I ask—?” began Parker.
“It is not what you think,” said his lordship, earnestly.
“Of course not,” agreed Parker.
“There, I knew you had a nasty mind. Even the closest of one’s friends turn out to be secret thinkers. They think in private thoughts which they publicly repudiate.”
“Don’t be a fool. Who is Miss Climpson?”
“Miss Climpson,” said Lord Peter, “is a manifestation of the wasteful way in which this country is run. Look at electricity. Look at waterpower. Look at the tides. Look at the sun. Millions of power units being given off into space every minute. Thousands of old maids, simply bursting with useful energy, forced by our stupid social system into hydros and hotels and communities and hostels and posts as companions, where their magnificent gossip-powers and units of inquisitiveness are allowed to dissipate themselves or even become harmful to the community, while the ratepayers’ money is spent on getting work for which these women are providentially fitted, inefficiently carried out by ill-equipped policemen like you. My god! it’s enough to make a man write to John Bull. And then bright young men write nasty little patronising books called ‘Elderly Women,’ and ‘On the Edge of the Explosion’—and the drunkards make songs upon ’em, poor things.”
“Quite, quite,” said Parker. “You mean that Miss Climpson is a kind of inquiry agent for you.”
“She is my ears and tongue,” said Lord Peter, dramatically, “and especially my nose. She asks questions which a young man could not put without a blush. She is the angel that rushes in where fools get a clump on the head. She can smell a rat in the dark. In fact, she is the cat’s whiskers.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” said Parker.
“Naturally—it is mine, therefore brilliant. Just think. People want questions asked. Whom do they send? A man with large flat feet and a notebook—the sort of man whose private life is conducted in a series of inarticulate grunts. I send a lady with a long, woolly jumper on knitting-needles and jingly things round her neck. Of course she asks questions—everyone expects it. Nobody is surprised. Nobody is alarmed. And so-called superfluity is agreeably and usefully disposed of. One of these days they will put up a statue to me, with an inscription:
“ ‘To the Man who Made Thousands of Superfluous Women Happy Without Injury to their Modesty or Exertion to Himself.’ ”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk so much,” complained his friend. “And how about all those typewritten reports? Are you turning philanthropist in your old age?”
“No—no,” said Wimsey, rather hurriedly hailing a taxi. “Tell you about that later. Little private pogrom of my own—Insurance against the Socialist Revolution—when it comes. ‘What did you do with your great wealth, comrade?’ ‘I bought First Editions.’ ‘Aristocrat! à la lanterne!’ ‘Stay, spare me! I took proceedings against 500 moneylenders who oppressed the workers.’ ‘Citizen, you have done well. We will spare your life. You shall be promoted to cleaning out the sewers.’ Voila! We must move with the times. Citizen taxi-driver, take me to the British Museum. Can I drop you anywhere? No? So long. I am going to collate a 12th century manuscript of Tristan, while the old order lasts.”
Mr. Parker thoughtfully boarded a westward-bound bus and was rolled away to do some routine questioning, on his own account, among the female population of Notting Dale. It did not appear to him to be a milieu in which the talents of Miss Climpson could be usefully employed.
IV
A Bit Mental
“A babbled of green fields.”
King Henry V
Letter from Miss Alexandra Katherine Climpson to Lord Peter Wimsey.
℅ Mrs. Hamilton Budge,
Fairview, Nelson Avenue,
Leahampton, Hants..
My dear Lord Peter,
You will be happy to hear, after my two previous bad shots (!), that I have found the right place at last. The Agatha Dawson certificate is the correct one, and the dreadful scandal about Dr. Carr is still very much alive, I am sorry to say for the sake of human nature. I have been fortunate enough to secure rooms in the very next street to Wellington Avenue, where Miss Dawson used to live. My landlady seems a very nice woman, though a terrible gossip!—which is all to the good!! Her charge for a very pleasant bedroom and sitting-room with full board is 3½ guineas weekly. I trust you will not think this too extravagant, as the situation is just what you wished me to look for. I enclose a careful statement of my expenses up-to-date. You will excuse the mention of underwear, which is, I fear, a somewhat large item! but wool is so expensive nowadays, and it is necessary that every detail of my equipment should be suitable to my (supposed!) position in life. I have been careful to wash the garments
