“Thanks very much,” replied Sir Andrew. “I hope you feel that all is going well. I had Parker in here this morning to report, and he seemed a little dissatisfied.”
“He’s been doing a lot of ungrateful routine work,” said Wimsey, “and being altogether the fine, sound man he always is. He’s been a damn good friend to me, Sir Andrew, and it’s a real privilege to be allowed to work with him. Well; so long, Chief.”
He found that his interview with Sir Andrew Mackenzie had taken up a couple of hours, and that it was nearly eight o’clock. He was just trying to make up his mind where to dine when he was accosted by a cheerful young woman with bobbed red hair, dressed in a short checked skirt, brilliant jumper, corduroy jacket, and a rakish green velvet tam-o’-shanter.
“Surely,” said the young woman, extending a shapely, ungloved hand, “it’s Lord Peter Wimsey. How’re you? And how’s Mary?”
“B’Jove!” said Wimsey gallantly, “it’s Miss Tarrant. How perfectly rippin’ to see you again. Absolutely delightful. Thanks, Mary ain’t as fit as she might be—worryin’ about this murder business, y’know. You’ve heard that we’re what the poor so kindly and tactfully call ‘in trouble,’ I expect, what?”
“Yes, of course,” replied Miss Tarrant eagerly, “and, of course, as a good Socialist, I can’t help rejoicing rather when a peer gets taken up, because it does make him look so silly, you know, and the House of Lords is silly, isn’t it? But, really, I’d rather it was anybody else’s brother. Mary and I were such great friends, you know, and, of course, you do investigate things, don’t you, not just live on your estates in the country and shoot birds? So I suppose that makes a difference.”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Peter. “If you can prevail upon yourself to overlook the misfortune of my birth and my other deficiencies, p’raps you would honor me by comin’ along and havin’ a bit of dinner somewhere, what?”
“Oh, I’d have loved to,” cried Miss Tarrant, with enormous energy, “but I’ve promised to be at the club tonight. There’s a meeting at nine. Mr. Coke—the Labor leader, you know—is going to make a speech about converting the Army and Navy to Communism. We expect to be raided, and there’s going to be a grand hunt for spies before we begin. But look here, do come along and dine with me there, and, if you like, I’ll try to smuggle you in to the meeting, and you’ll be seized and turned out. I suppose I oughtn’t to have told you anything about it, because you ought to be a deadly enemy, but I can’t really believe you’re dangerous.”
“I’m just an ordinary capitalist, I expect,” said Lord Peter, “highly obnoxious.”
“Well, come to dinner, anyhow. I do so want to hear all the news.”
Peter reflected that the dinner at the Soviet Club would be worse than execrable, and was just preparing an excuse when it occurred to him that Miss Tarrant might be able to tell him a good many of the things that he didn’t know, and really ought to know, about his own sister. Accordingly, he altered his polite refusal into a polite acceptance, and, plunging after Miss Tarrant, was led at a reckless pace and by a series of grimy shortcuts into Gerrard Street, where an orange door, flanked by windows with magenta curtains, sufficiently indicated the Soviet Club.
The Soviet Club, being founded to accommodate free thinking rather than high living, had that curious amateur air which pervades all worldly institutions planned by unworldly people. Exactly why it made Lord Peter instantly think of mission teas he could not say, unless it was that all the members looked as though they cherished a purpose in life, and that the staff seemed rather sketchily trained and strongly in evidence. Wimsey reminded himself that in so democratic an institution one could hardly expect the assistants to assume that air of superiority which marks the servants in a West End club. For one thing, they would not be such capitalists. In the dining-room below the resemblance to a mission tea was increased by the exceedingly heated atmosphere, the babel of conversation, and the curious inequalities of the cutlery. Miss Tarrant secured seats at a rather crumby table near the serving-hatch, and Peter wedged himself in with some difficulty next to a very large, curly-haired man in a velvet coat, who was earnestly conversing with a thin, eager young woman in a Russian blouse, Venetian beads, a Hungarian shawl and a Spanish comb, looking like a personification of the United Front of the “Internationale.”
Lord Peter endeavored to please his hostess by a question about the great Mr. Coke, but was checked by an agitated “Hush!”
“Please don’t shout about it,” said Miss Tarrant, leaning across till her auburn mop positively tickled his eyebrows. “It’s so secret.”
“I’m awfully sorry,” said Wimsey apologetically. “I say, d’you know you’re dipping those jolly little beads of yours in the soup?”
“Oh, am I?” cried Miss Tarrant, withdrawing hastily. “Oh, thank you so much. Especially as the color runs. I hope it isn’t arsenic or anything.” Then, leaning forward again, she whispered hoarsely:
“The girl next me is Erica Heath-Warburton—the writer, you know.”
Wimsey looked with a new respect at the lady in the Russian blouse. Few books were capable of calling up a blush to his cheek, but he remembered that one of Miss Heath-Warburton’s had done it. The authoress was just saying impressively to her companion:
“—ever know a sincere emotion to express itself in a subordinate clause?”
“Joyce has freed us from the superstition of syntax,” agreed the curly man.
“Scenes which make emotional history,” said Miss Heath-Warburton, “should ideally be expressed in a series of animal squeals.”
“The D. H. Lawrence formula,” said the other.
“Or even Dada,” said the authoress.
“We need a new notation,” said the curly-haired man, putting both elbows on the table
