This very day, probably, a Select Committee of lords was sitting “to inspect the Journals of this House upon former trials of peers in criminal cases, in order to bring the Duke of Denver to a speedy trial, and to report to the House what they should think proper thereupon.” There they were: moving that an address be presented to His Majesty by the lords with white staves, to acquaint His Majesty of the date proposed for the trial; arranging for fitting up the Royal Gallery at Westminster; humbly requesting the attendance of a sufficient police force to keep clear the approaches leading to the House; petitioning His Majesty graciously to appoint a Lord High Steward; ordering, in sheeplike accordance with precedent, that all lords be summoned to attend in their robes; that every lord, in giving judgment, disclose his opinion upon his honor, laying his right hand upon his heart; that the Sergeant-at-Arms be within the House to make proclamations in the King’s name for keeping silence—and so on, and on, unendingly. And there, jammed in the window-sash, was the dirty little bit of paper which, discovered earlier, would have made the whole monstrous ceremonial unnecessary.
Wimsey’s adventure in the bog had unsettled his nerves. He sat down on the bed and laughed, with the tears streaming down his face.
Mr. Bunter was speechless. Speechlessly he produced a razor—and to the end of his days Wimsey never knew how or from whom he had so adequately procured it—and began to strop it thoughtfully upon the palm of his hand.
Presently Wimsey pulled himself together and staggered to the window for a little cooling draught of moor air. As he did so, a loud hullabaloo smote his ear, and he perceived, in the courtyard below, Farmer Grimethorpe striding among his dogs; when they howled he struck at them with a whip, and they howled again. Suddenly he glanced up at the window, with an expression of such livid hatred that Wimsey stepped hurriedly back as though struck.
While Bunter shaved him he was silent.
The interview before Lord Peter was a delicate one; the situation, however one looked at it, unpleasant. He was under a considerable debt of gratitude to his hostess; on the other hand, Denver’s position was such that minor considerations really had to go to the wall. His lordship had, nevertheless, never felt quite such a cad as he did while descending the staircase at Grider’s Hole.
In the big farm kitchen he found a stout country woman, stirring a pot of stew. He asked for Mr. Grimethorpe, and was told that he had gone out.
“Can I speak to Mrs. Grimethorpe, please?”
The woman looked doubtfully at him, wiped her hands on her apron, and, going into the scullery, shouted, “Mrs. Grimethorpe!” A voice replied from somewhere outside.
“Gentleman wants see tha.”
“Where is Mrs. Grimethorpe?” broke in Peter hurriedly.
“I’ t’dairy, recken.”
“I’ll go to her there,” said Wimsey, stepping briskly out. He passed through a stone-paved scullery, and across a yard, in time to see Mrs. Grimethorpe emerging from a dark doorway opposite.
Framed there, the cold sunlight just lighting upon her still, dead-white face and heavy, dark hair, she was more wonderful than ever. There was no trace of Yorkshire descent in the long, dark eyes and curled mouth. The curve of nose and cheekbones vouched for an origin immensely remote; coming out of the darkness, she might have just risen from her far tomb in the Pyramids, dropping the dry and perfumed grave-bands from her fingers.
Lord Peter pulled himself together.
“Foreign,” he said to himself matter-of-factly. “Touch of Jew perhaps, or Spanish, is it? Remarkable type. Don’t blame Jerry. Couldn’t live with Helen myself. Now for it.”
He advanced quickly.
“Good morning,” she said, “are you better?”
“Perfectly all right, thank you—thanks to your kindness, which I do not know how to repay.”
“You will repay any kindness best by going at once,” she answered in her remote voice. “My husband does not care for strangers, and ’twas unfortunate the way you met before.”
“I will go directly. But I must first beg for the favor of a word with you.” He peered past her into the dimness of the dairy. “In here, perhaps?”
“What do you want with me?”
She stepped back, however, and allowed him to follow her in.
“Mrs. Grimethorpe, I am placed in a most painful position. You know that my brother, the Duke of Denver, is in prison, awaiting his trial for a murder which took place on the night of October 13th?”
Her face did not change. “I have heard so.”
“He has, in the most decided manner, refused to state where he was between eleven and three on that night. His refusal has brought him into great danger of his life.”
She looked at him steadily.
“He feels bound in honor not to disclose his whereabouts, though I know that, if he chose to speak, he could bring a witness to clear him.”
“He seems to be a very honorable man.” The cold voice wavered a trifle, then steadied again.
“Yes. Undoubtedly, from his point of view, he is doing the right thing. You will understand, however, that, as his brother, I am naturally anxious to have the matter put in its proper light.”
“I don’t understand why you are telling me all this. I suppose, if the thing is disgraceful, he doesn’t want it known.”
“Obviously. But to us—to his wife and young son, and to his sister and myself—his life and safety are matters of the first importance.”
“Of more importance than
