“I’m just off,” said Peter. “Goodbye again, Mrs. Grimethorpe, and a thousand thanks.”
He collected Bunter, rewarded his rescuers suitably, took an affectionate farewell of the enraged farmer, and departed, sore in body and desperately confused in mind.
XIII
Manon
“That one word, my dear Watson, should have told me the whole story, had I been the ideal reasoner which you are so fond of depicting.”
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
“Thank God,” said Parker. “Well, that settles it.”
“It does—and yet again, it doesn’t,” retorted Lord Peter. He leaned back against the fat silk cushion in the sofa corner meditatively.
“Of course, it’s disagreeable having to give this woman away,” said Parker sensibly and pleasantly, “but these things have to be done.”
“I know. It’s all simply awfully nice and all that. And Jerry, who’s got the poor woman into this mess, has to be considered first, I know. And if we don’t restrain Grimethorpe quite successfully, and he cuts her throat for her, it’ll be simply rippin’ for Jerry to think of all his life … Jerry! I say, you know, what frightful idiots we were not to see the truth right off! I mean—of course, my sister-in-law is an awfully good woman, and all that, but Mrs. Grimethorpe—whew! I told you about the time she mistook me for Jerry. One crowded, split second of glorious all-overishness. I ought to have known then. Our voices are alike, of course, and she couldn’t see in that dark kitchen. I don’t believe there’s an ounce of any feeling left in the woman except sheer terror—but, ye gods! what eyes and skin! Well, never mind. Some undeserving fellows have all the luck. Have you got any really good stories? No? Well, I’ll tell you some—enlarge your mind and all that. Do you know the rhyme about the young man at the War Office?”
Mr. Parker endured five stories with commendable patience, and then suddenly broke down.
“Hurray!” said Wimsey. “Splendid man! I love to see you melt into a refined snigger from time to time. I’ll spare you the really outrageous one about the young housewife and the traveller in bicycle-pumps. You know, Charles, I really should like to know who did Cathcart in. Legally, it’s enough to prove Jerry innocent, but, Mrs. Grimethorpe or no Mrs. Grimethorpe, it doesn’t do us credit in a professional capacity. ‘The father weakens, but the governor is firm’; that is, as a brother I am satisfied—I may say lighthearted—but as a sleuth I am cast down, humiliated, thrown back upon myself, a lodge in a garden of cucumbers. Besides, of all defenses an alibi is the most awkward to establish, unless a number of independent and disinterested witnesses combine to make it thoroughly airtight. If Jerry sticks to his denial, the most they can be sure of is that either he or Mrs. Grimethorpe is being chivalrous.”
“But you’ve got the letter.”
“Yes. But how are we going to prove that it came that evening? The envelope is destroyed. Fleming remembers nothing about it. Jerry might have received it days earlier. Or it might be a complete fake. Who is to say that I didn’t put it in the window myself and pretend to find it. After all, I’m hardly what you would call disinterested.”
“Bunter saw you find it.”
“He didn’t, Charles. At that precise moment he was out of the room fetching shaving-water.”
“Oh, was he?”
“Moreover, only Mrs. Grimethorpe can swear to what is really the important point—the moment of Jerry’s arrival and departure. Unless he was at Grider’s Hole before 12:30 at least, it’s immaterial whether he was there or not.”
“Well,” said Parker, “can’t we keep Mrs. Grimethorpe up our sleeve, so to speak—”
“Sounds a bit abandoned,” said Lord Peter, “but we will keep her with pleasure if you like.”
“—and meanwhile,” pursued Mr. Parker, unheeding, “do our best to find the actual criminal?”
“Oh, yes,” said Lord Peter, “and that reminds me. I made a discovery at the Lodge—at least, I think so. Did you notice that somebody had been forcing one of the study windows?”
“No, really?”
“Yes; I found distinct marks. Of course, it was a long time after the murder, but there were scratches on the catch all right—the sort of thing a penknife would leave.”
“What fools we were not to make an examination at the time!”
“Come to think of it, why should you have? Anyhow, I asked Fleming about it, and he said he did remember, now he came to think of it, that on the Thursday morning he’d found the window open, and couldn’t account for it. And here’s another thing. I’ve had a letter from my friend Tim Watchett. Here it is:
My Lord—About our conversation. I have found a Man who was with the Party in question at the Pig and Whistle on the night of the 13th ult. and he tells me that the Party borrowed his bicycle, and same was found afterwards in the ditch where Party was picked up with the Handlebars bent and wheels buckled.
“What do you think of that?”
“Good enough to go on,” said Parker. “At least, we are no longer hampered with horrible doubts.”
“No. And, though she’s my sister, I must say that of all the blithering she-asses Mary is the blitheringest. Taking up with that awful bounder to start with—”
“She was jolly fine about it,” said Mr. Parker, getting rather red in the face. “It’s just because she’s your sister that you can’t appreciate what a fine thing she did. How should a big, chivalrous nature like hers see through a man like that? She’s so sincere and thorough herself, she judges everyone by the same standard. She wouldn’t believe anybody could be so thin and wobbly-minded as Goyles till it was proved to her. And even then she couldn’t bring herself to think ill of him till he’d given himself away out of his own
