fondly, “dear, dear old bird! How he does hate me, to be sure.”
Chapter II
“Excellent, Bunter,” said Lord Peter, sinking with a sigh into a luxurious armchair. “I couldn’t have done better myself. The thought of the Dante makes my mouth water – and the ‘Four Sons of Aymon.’ And you’ve saved me £60 – that’s glorious. What shall we spend it on, Bunter? Think of it – all ours, to do as we like with, for as Harold Skimpole so rightly observes, £60 saved is £60 gained, and I’d reckoned on spending it all. It’s your saving, Bunter, and properly speaking, your £60. What do we want? Anything in your department? Would you like anything altered in the flat?”
“Well, my lord, as your lordship is so good” – the man-servant paused, about to pour an old brandy into a liqueur glass.
“Well, out with it, my Bunter, you imperturbable old hypocrite. It’s no good talking as if you were announcing dinner – you’re spilling the brandy. The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. What does that blessed darkroom of yours want now?”
“There’s a Double Anastigmat with a set of supplementary lenses, my lord,” said Bunter, with a note almost of religious fervour. “If it was a case of forgery now – or footprints – I could enlarge them right up on the plate. Or the wide-angled lens would be useful. It’s as though the camera had eyes at the back of its head, my lord. Look – I’ve got it here.”
He pulled a catalogue from his pocket, and submitted it, quivering, to his employer’s gaze.
Lord Peter perused the description slowly, the corners of his long mouth lifted into a faint smile.
“It’s Greek to me,” he said, “and £50 seems a ridiculous price for a few bits of glass. I suppose, Bunter, you’d say £750 was a bit out of the way for a dirty old book in a dead language, wouldn’t you?”
“It wouldn’t be my place to say so, my lord.”
“No, Bunter, I pay you £200 a year to keep your thoughts to yourself. Tell me, Bunter, in these democratic days, don’t you think that’s unfair?”
“No, my lord.”
“You don’t. D’you mind telling me frankly why you don’t think it unfair?”
“Frankly, my lord, your lordship is paid a nobleman’s income to take Lady Worthington in to dinner and refrain from exercising your lordship’s undoubted powers of repartee.”
Lord Peter considered this.
“That’s your idea, is it, Bunter? Noblesse oblige – for a consideration. I daresay you’re right. Then you’re better off than I am, because I’d have to behave myself to Lady Worthington if I hadn’t a penny. Bunter, if I sacked you here and now, would you tell me what you think of me?”
“No, my lord.”
“You’d have a perfect right to, my Bunter, and if I sacked you on top of drinking the kind of coffee you make, I’d deserve everything you could say of me. You’re a demon for coffee, Bunter – I don’t want to know how you do it, because I believe it to be witchcraft, and I don’t want to burn eternally. You can buy your cross-eyed lens.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“Have you finished in the dining-room?”
“Not quite, my lord.”
“Well, come back when you have. I have many things to tell you. Hullo! who’s that?”
The doorbell had rung sharply.
“Unless it’s anybody interestin’ I’m not at home.”
“Very good, my lord.”
Lord Peter’s library was one of the most delightful bachelor rooms in London. Its scheme was black and primrose; its walls were lined with rare editions, and its chairs and Chesterfield sofa suggested the embraces of the houris. In one corner stood a black baby grand, a wood fire leaped on a wide old-fashioned hearth, and the Sèvres vases on the chimneypiece were filled with ruddy and gold chrysanthemums. To the eyes of the young man who was ushered in from the raw November fog it seemed not only rare and unattainable, but friendly and familiar, like a colourful and gilded paradise in a mediaeval painting.
“Mr. Parker, my lord.”
Lord Peter jumped up with genuine eagerness.
“My dear man, I’m delighted to see you. What a beastly foggy night, ain’t it? Bunter, some more of that admirable coffee and another glass and the cigars. Parker, I hope you’re full of crime – nothing less than arson or murder will do for us tonight. ‘On such a night as this – ’ Bunter and I were just sitting down to carouse. I’ve got a Dante, and a Caxton folio that is practically unique, at Sir Ralph Brocklebury’s sale. Bunter, who did the bargaining, is going to have a lens which does all kinds of wonderful things with its eyes shut, and
We both have got a body in a bath,
We both have got a body in a bath —
For in spite of all temptations
To go in for cheap sensations
We insist upon a body in a bath —
Nothing less will do for us, Parker. It’s mine at present, but we’re going shares in it. Property of the firm. Won’t you join us? You really must put something in the jack-pot. Perhaps you have a body. Oh, do have a body. Every body welcome.
Gin a body meet a body
Hauled before the beak,
Gin a body jolly well knows who murdered a body and that old Sugg is on the wrong tack,
Need a body speak?
Not a bit of it. He tips a glassy wink to yours truly and yours truly reads the truth.”
“Ah,” said Parker, “I knew you’d been round to Queen Caroline Mansions. So’ve I, and met Sugg, and he told me he’d seen you. He was cross, too. Unwarrantable interference, he calls it.”
“I knew he would,” said Lord Peter. “I love taking a rise out of dear old Sugg, he’s always so rude. I see by the Star that he has excelled himself by taking the girl, Gladys What’s-her-name, into custody. Sugg of the evening, beautiful Sugg! But what were you doing there?”
“To tell you the truth,” said Parker, “I went round to see if the Semitic-looking stranger in Mr. Thipps’s bath was by any extraordinary chance Sir Reuben Levy. But he isn’t.”
“Sir Reuben Levy? Wait a minute, I saw something about that. I know! A headline: ‘Mysterious disappearance of famous financier.’ What’s it all about? I didn’t read it carefully.”
“Well, it’s a bit odd, though I daresay it’s nothing really – old chap may have cleared for some reason best known to himself. It only happened this morning, and nobody would have thought anything about it, only it happened to be the day on which he had arranged to attend a most important financial meeting and do some deal involving millions – I haven’t got all the details. But I know he’s got enemies who’d just as soon the deal didn’t come off, so when I got wind of this fellow in the bath, I buzzed round to have a look at him. It didn’t seem likely, of course, but unlikelier things do happen in our profession. The funny thing is, old Sugg had got bitten with the idea it is him, and is wildly telegraphing to Lady Levy to come and identify him. But as a matter of fact, the man in the bath is no more Sir Reuben Levy than Adolf Beck, poor devil, was John Smith. Oddly enough, though, he would be really extraordinarily like Sir Reuben if he had a beard, and as Lady Levy is abroad with the family, somebody may say it’s him, and Sugg will build up a lovely theory, like the Tower of Babel, and destined so to perish.”
“Sugg’s a beautiful, braying ass,” said Lord Peter. “He’s like a detective in a novel. Well, I don’t know anything about Levy, but I’ve seen the body, and I should say the idea was preposterous upon the face of it. What do you think of the brandy?”
“Unbelievable,