“Financially, all to the good, eh?”
“Oh, yes—but frankly I don’t know whether these artificial sales do very much good to an author’s reputation in the long run. Up like a rocket, down like the stick, you know. When Miss Vane is released—”
“I am glad you say ‘when.’ ”
“I am not allowing myself to contemplate any other possibility. But when that happens, public interest will be liable to die down very quickly. I am, of course, securing the most advantageous contracts I possibly can at the moment, to cover the next three or four books, but I can only really control the advances. The actual receipts will depend on the sales, and that is where I foresee a slump. I am, however, doing well with serial rights, which are important from the point of view of immediate returns.”
“On the whole, as a business man, you are not altogether glad that this has happened?”
“Taking the long view, I am not. Personally, I need not say that I am extremely grieved, and feel quite positive that there is some mistake.”
“That’s my idea,” said Wimsey.
“From what I know of your lordship, I may say that your interest and assistance are the best stroke of luck Miss Vane could have had.”
“Oh, thanks—thanks very much. I say—this arsenic book—you couldn’t let me have a squint at it, I suppose?”
“Certainly, if it would help you.” He touched a bell. “Miss Warburton, bring me a set of galleys of Death in the Pot. Trufoot’s are pushing publication on as fast as possible. The book was still unfinished when the arrest took place. With rare energy and courage, Miss Vane has put the finishing touches and corrected the proofs herself. Of course, everything had to go through the hands of the prison authorities. However, we were anxious to conceal nothing. She certainly knows all about arsenic, poor girl. These are complete, are they, Miss Warburton? Here you are. Is there anything else?”
“Only one thing. What do you think of Messrs. Grimsby & Cole?”
“I never contemplate them,” said Mr. Challoner. “Not thinking of doing anything with them, are you, Lord Peter?”
“Well, I don’t know that I am—seriously.”
“If you do, read your contract carefully. I won’t say, bring it to us—”
“If ever I do publish with Grimsby & Cole,” said Lord Peter, “I’ll promise to do it through you.”
VII
Lord Peter Wimsey almost bounced into Holloway Prison next morning. Harriet Vane greeted him with a kind of rueful smile.
“So you’ve reappeared?”
“Good lord, yes! Surely you expected me to. I fancied I’d left that impression. I say—I’ve thought of a good plot for a detective story.”
“Really?”
“Top hole. You know, the sort people bring out and say, ‘I’ve often thought of doing it myself, if I could only find time to sit down and write it.’ I gather that sitting down is all that is necessary for producing masterpieces. Just a moment, though. I must get through my business first. Let me see—” He made believe to consult a notebook. “Ah, yes? Do you happen to know whether Philip Boyes made a will?”
“I believe he did, when we were living together.”
“In whose favour?”
“Oh, in mine. Not that he had much to leave, poor man. It was chiefly that he wanted a literary executor.”
“Are you, in point of fact, his executrix now?”
“Good heavens! I never thought of that. I took it for granted he would have altered it when we parted. I think he must have, or I should have heard about it when he died, shouldn’t I?”
She looked candidly at him, and Wimsey felt a little uncomfortable.
“You didn’t know he had altered it, then? Before he died, I mean?”
“I never thought a word more about it, as a matter of fact. If I had thought—of course I should have assumed it. Why?”
“Nothing,” said Wimsey. “Only I’m rather glad the will wasn’t brought up at the thingummy bob.”
“Meaning the trial? You needn’t be so delicate about mentioning it. You mean, if I had thought I was still his heir, I might have murdered him for his money. But it didn’t amount to a hill of beans, you know. I was making four times as much as he was.”
“Oh, yes. It was only this silly plot I’d got in my mind. But it is rather silly, now I come to think of it.”
“Tell me.”
“Well, you see—” Wimsey choked a little, and then rattled his idea out with an exaggerated lightness.
“Well—it’s about a girl (or a man would do, but we’ll call it a girl) who writes novels—crime stories, in fact. And she has a—a friend who also writes. Neither of them bestsellers, you see, but just ordinary novelists.”
“Yes? That’s a kind of thing that might happen.”
“And the friend makes a will, leaving his money—receipts from books and so on—to the girl.”
“I see.”
“And the girl—who has got rather fed up with him, you know, thinks of a grand scoop, that will make both of them bestsellers.”
“Oh, yes?”
“Yes. She polishes him off by the same method she has used in her latest crime thriller.”
“A daring stroke,” said Miss Vane, with grave approval.
“Yes. And of course, his books immediately become bestsellers. And she grabs the pool.”
“That’s really ingenious. An entirely new motive for murder—the thing I’ve been looking for for years. But don’t you think it would be a little dangerous? She might even be suspected of the murder.”
“Then her books would become bestsellers, too.”
“How true that is! But possibly she wouldn’t live to enjoy the profits.”
“That, of course,” said Wimsey, “is the snag.”
“Because, unless she were suspected and arrested and tried, the scoop would only half come off.”
“There you are,” said Wimsey. “But, as an experienced mystery monger, couldn’t you think of a
