“I’ve no doubt she did it, and I don’t blame her,” said Captain Tommy Bates, “perfectly foul blighter. Has his photograph on the dust cover of his books, you know, that’s the sort of squit he was. Wonderful, the rotters these highbrow females will fall for. The whole lot of ’em ought to be poisoned like rats. Look at the harm they do to the country.”
“But he was a very fine writer,” protested Mrs. Featherstone, a lady in her thirties, whose violently compressed figure suggested that she was engaged in a perpetual struggle to compute her weight in terms of the first syllables of her name rather than the last. “His books are positively Gallic in their audacity and restraint. Audacity is not rare—but that perfect concision of style is a gift which—”
“Oh, if you like dirt,” interrupted the Captain, rather rudely.
“I wouldn’t call it that,” said Mrs. Featherstone. “He is frank, of course, and that is what people in this country will not forgive. It is part of our national hypocrisy. But the beauty of the writing puts it all on a higher plane.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have the muck in the house,” said the Captain, firmly. “I caught Hilda with it, and I said, ‘Now you send that book straight back to the library.’ I don’t often interfere, but one must draw the line somewhere.”
“How did you know what it was like?” asked Wimsey, innocently.
“Why, James Douglas’ article in the Express was good enough for me,” said Captain Bates. “The paragraphs he quoted were filthy, positively filthy.”
“Well, it’s a good thing we’ve all read them,” said Wimsey. “Forewarned is forearmed.”
“We owe a great debt of gratitude to the press,” said the Dowager Duchess, “so kind of them to pick out all the plums for us and save the trouble of reading the books, don’t you think, and such a joy for the poor dear people who can’t afford seven-and-sixpence, or even a library subscription, I suppose, though I’m sure that works out cheaply enough if one is a quick reader. Not that the cheap ones will take those books for I asked my maid, such a superior girl and so keen on improving her mind, which is more than I can say for most of my friends, but no doubt it is all due to free education for the people and I suspect her in my heart of voting Labour though I never ask because I don’t think it’s fair, and besides, if I did, I couldn’t very well take any notice of it, could I?”
“Still, I don’t suppose the young woman murdered him on that account,” said her daughter-in-law. “From all accounts she was just as bad as he was.”
“Oh, come,” said Wimsey, “you can’t think that, Helen. Damn it, she writes detective stories and in detective stories virtue is always triumphant. They’re the purest literature we have.”
“The devil is always ready to quote scripture when it pays him to do so,” said the younger Duchess, “and they say the wretched woman’s sales are going up by leaps and bounds.”
“It’s my belief,” said Mr. Harringay, “that the whole thing is a publicity stunt gone wrong.” He was a large, jovial man, extremely rich and connected with the City. “You never know what these advertising fellows are up to.”
“Well, it looks like a case of hanging the goose that lays the golden eggs this time,” said Captain Bates, with a loud laugh. “Unless Wimsey means to pull off one of his conjuring tricks.”
“I hope he does,” said Miss Titterton. “I adore detective stories. I’d commute the sentence to penal servitude on condition that she turned out a new story every six months. It would be much more useful than picking oakum or sewing mailbags for the post office to mislay.”
“Aren’t you being a bit previous?” suggested Wimsey, mildly. “She’s not convicted yet.”
“But she will be next time. You can’t fight facts, Peter.”
“Of course not,” said Captain Bates. “The police know what they’re about. They don’t put people into the dock if there isn’t something pretty shady about ’em.”
Now this was a fearful brick, for it was not so many years since the Duke of Denver had himself stood his trial on a mistaken charge of murder. There was a ghastly silence, broken by the Duchess, who said icily: “Really, Captain Bates!”
“What? eh? Oh, of course, I mean to say, I know mistakes do happen sometimes, but that’s a very different thing. I mean to say, this woman, with no morals at all, that is, I mean—”
“Have a drink, Tommy,” said Lord Peter, kindly. “You aren’t quite up to your usual standard of tact today.”
“No, but do tell us, Lord Peter,” cried Mrs. Dimsworthy, “what the creature is like. Have you talked to her? I thought she had rather a nice voice, though she’s as plain as a pancake.”
“Nice voice, Freakie? Oh, no,” said Mrs. Featherstone. “I should have called it rather sinister. It absolutely thrilled me, I got shudders all the way down my spine. A genuine frisson. And I think she would be quite attractive, with those queer, smudgy eyes, if she were properly dressed. A sort of femme fatale, you know. Does she try to hypnotise you, Peter?”
“I saw in the papers,” said Miss Titterton, “that she had had hundreds of offers of marriage.”
“Out of one noose into the other,” said Harringay, with his noisy laugh.
“I don’t think I should care to marry a murderess,” said Miss Titterton, “especially one that’s been trained on detective stories. One would be always wondering whether there was anything funny about the taste of the coffee.”
“Oh, these
