Have His Carcase (25 page)

enough I ought to be touched and softened. Wel, you’re mistaken, that’s al. I

suppose every man thinks he’s only got to go on being superior and any woman

wil come tumbling into his arms. It’s disgusting.’

‘Thank you,’ said Wimsey. ‘I may be everything you say – patronising,

interfering, conceited, intolerable and al the rest of it. But do give me credit for

a little inteligence. Do you think I don’t know al that? Do you think it’s

pleasant for any man who feels about a woman as I do about you, to have to

fight his way along under this detestable burden of gratitude? Damn it, do you

think I don’t know perfectly wel that I’d have a better chance if I was deaf,

blind, maimed, starving, drunken or dissolute, so that
you
could have the fun of

being magnanimous? Why do you suppose I treat my own sincerest feelings like

something out of a comic opera, if it isn’t to save myself the bitter humiliation of

seeing you try not to be utterly nauseated by them? Can’t you understand that

this damned dirty trick of fate has robbed me of the common man’s right to be

serious about his own passions? Is that a position for any man to be proud of?’

‘Don’t talk like that.’

‘I wouldn’t, if you didn’t force me. And you might have the justice to

remember that you can hurt me a damned sight more than I can possibly hurt

you.’

‘I know I’m being horribly ungrateful –’

‘Hel!’

Al endurance has its limits, and Wimsey had reached his.

‘Grateful! Good God! Am I never to get away from the bleat of that filthy

adjective? I don’t want gratitude. I don’t want kindness. I don’t want

sentimentality. I don’t even want love – I could make you give me that – of a

sort. I want common honesty.’

‘Do you? But that’s what I’ve always wanted – I don’t think it’s to be got.’

‘Listen, Harriet. I do understand. I know you don’t want either to give or to

take. You’ve tried being the giver, and you’ve found that the giver is always

fooled. And you won’t be the taker, because that’s very difficult, and because

you know that the taker always ends by hating the giver. You don’t want ever

again to have to depend for happiness on another person.’

‘That’s true. That’s the truest thing you ever said.’

‘Al right. I can respect that. Only you’ve got to play the game. Don’t force

an emotional situation and then blame me for it.’

‘But I don’t want any situation. I want to be left in peace.’

‘Oh! but you are not a peaceful person. You’l always make trouble. Why

not fight it out on equal terms and enjoy it? Like Alan Breck, I’m a bonny

fighter.’

‘And you think you’re sure to win.’

‘Not with my hands tied.’

‘Oh! – wel, al right. But it al sounds so dreary and exhausting,’ said

Harriet, and burst idioticaly into tears.

‘Good Heavens!’ said Wimsey, aghast. ‘Harriet! darling! angel! beast!

vixen! don’t say that.’ He flung himself on his knees in a frenzy of remorse and

agitation. ‘Cal me anything you like, but not dreary! Not one of those things

you find in clubs! Have this one, darling, it’s much larger and quite clean. Say

you didn’t mean it! Great Scott! Have I been boring you interminably for

eighteen months on end? A thing any right-minded woman would shudder at. I

know you once said that if anybody ever married me it would be for the sake of

hearing me piffle on, but I expect that kind of thing pals after a bit. I’m babbling

– I know I’m babbling. What on earth am I to do about it?’

‘Ass! Oh, it’s not fair. You always make me laugh. I can’t fight – I’m so

tired. You don’t seem to know what being tired is. Stop. Let go. I won’t be

bulied. Thank God! there’s the telephone.’

‘Damn the telephone!’

‘It’s probably something very important.’

She got up and went to the instrument, leaving Wimsey on his knees,

looking, and feeling, sufficiently absurd.

‘It’s you. Somebody wants you over at the Belevue.’

‘Let him want.’

‘Somebody come in answer to the thing in the
Morning Star
.’

‘Good lord!’

Wimsey shot across the room and snatched the receiver.

‘That you, Wimsey? Thought I’d know where to get you. This is Saly

Hardy. There’s a felow here claiming the reward. Hurry up! He won’t come

across without you, and I’ve got my story to think of. I’ve got him here in your

sitting-room.’

‘Who is he, and where’s he come from?’

‘Seahampton. Says his name’s Bright.’

‘Bright? By jove, yes, I’l come along right away. Hear that, my child? The

man Bright has materialised! See you this afternoon at 3.30.’

He bolted out like a cat that hears the cry of ‘Meat, meat!’

‘Oh! what a fool I am,’ said Harriet. ‘What an utter, driveling fool! And I

haven’t done a stroke of work since Wednesday.’

She puled out the manuscript of
The Fountain-Pen Mystery
, unscrewed

her own pen, and sank into an idle reverie.

XIV

THE EVIDENCE OF THE THIRD BARBER

‘Not for him

Blooms my dark Nightshade, nor doth Hemlock brew

Murder for cups within her cavernous root.

Not him is the metal blessed to kill,

Nor lets the poppy her leaves fall for him.

To heroes such are sacred. He may live,

As long as ’tis the Gout and Dropsy’s pleasure.

He wished to play at suicide.’

Death’s Jest-Book

Tuesday, 23 June

On the doorstep of the Hotel Belevue, Wimsey encountered Bunter.

‘The person that was asking for your lordship is in your lordship’s sitting-

room,’ said Bunter. ‘I had the opportunity of observing him when he was

inquiring for your lordship at the reception-counter, but I did not introduce

myself to his notice.’

‘You didn’t, eh?’

‘No, my lord. I contented myself with privately informing Mr Hardy of his

presence. Mr Hardy is with him at present, my lord.’

‘You always have a good reason for your actions, Bunter. May I ask why

you have adopted this policy of modest self-effacement?’

‘In case of your lordship’s subsequently desiring to have the person placed

under surveilance,’ suggested Bunter, ‘it appeared to me to be preferable that

he should not be in a position to recognise me.’

‘Oh!’ said Wimsey. ‘Am I to infer that the person presents a suspicious

appearance? Or is this merely your native caution breaking out in an acute

form? Wel, perhaps you’re right. I’d better go up and interview the bloke.

How about the police, by the way? We can’t very wel keep this from them,

can we?’

He reflected for a moment.

‘Better hear the story first. If I want you, I’l ’phone down to the office. Have

any drinks gone up?’

‘I fancy not, my lord.’

‘Strange self-restraint on Mr Hardy’s part. Tel them to bring up a bottle of

Scotch and a siphon and some beer, for malt does more than Milton can to

justify God’s ways to man. At the moment there seem to be a good many things

that cal for justification, but perhaps I shal feel better about them when I’ve

heard what Mr Bright has to tel me. Have at it!’

The moment Wimsey’s eyes fel upon the visitor in his sitting-room he felt an

interior conviction that his hopes were in a fair way to be realised. Whatever the

result, he had, at any rate, been upon the right track in the matter of the razor.

Here were the sandy hair, the smal stature, the indefinite crookedness of

shoulder so graphicaly described by the Seahampton hairdresser. The man was

dressed in a shabby reach-me-down suit of blue serge, and held in his hands a

limp felt hat, considerably the worse for wear. Wimsey noticed the soft skin and

wel-kept finger-nails, and the general air of poverty-stricken gentility.

‘Wel, Mr Bright,’ said Hardy, as Wimsey entered, ‘here is the gentleman

you want to see. Mr Bright won’t come across with his story to anybody but

you, Wimsey, though, as I have explained to him, if he’s thinking of claiming the

Morning Star
reward, he’l have to let me in on it.’

Mr Bright glanced nervously from one man to the other, and passed the tip

of his tongue once or twice across his palid lips.

‘I suppose that’s only fair,’ he said, in a subdued tone, ‘and I can assure you

that the money is a consideration. But I am in a painful position, though I

haven’t done any wilful harm. I’m sure if I had ever thought what the poor

gentleman was going to do with the razor –’

‘Suppose we begin from the beginning,’ said Wimsey, throwing his hat upon

a table and himself into a chair. ‘Come in! Oh, yes, drinks. What wil you take,

Mr Bright?’

‘It is very kind of your lordship,’ murmured Mr Bright, with humility, ‘but I’m

afraid I – the fact is, when I saw that piece in the paper I came away rather

hurriedly. In fact, without my breakfast. I – that is to say – I am rather sensitive

to alcohol taken upon an empty stomach.’

‘Bring up some sandwiches,’ said Wimsey to the waiter. ‘It is very good of

you, Mr Bright, to have put yourself to so much inconvenience in the interests of

justice.’

‘Justice?’

‘I mean, in order to help us with this inquiry. And of course, you must alow

us to refund your expenses.’

‘Thank you, my lord. I won’t say no. In fact, I am not in a position to refuse.

I won’t disguise that my means are very limited. As a matter of fact,’ went on

Mr Bright, with more frankness in the absence of the waiter, ‘as a matter of

fact, I had to go without any food in order to pay for my ticket. I don’t like

making this confession. It’s very humiliating for a man who once had a

flourishing business of his own. I hope you won’t think, gentlemen, that I have

been accustomed to this kind of thing.’

‘Of course not,’ said Wimsey. ‘Bad times may happen to anybody. Nobody

thinks anything of that nowadays. Now, about this razor. By the way, your ful

name is –?’

‘Wiliam Bright, my lord. I’m a hairdresser by profession. I used to have a

business up Manchester way. But I lost money by an unfortunate speculation –’

‘Whereabouts in Manchester?’ put in Salcombe Hardy.

‘In Massingbird Street. But it’s al been puled down now. I don’t know if

anybody would remember about it, I’m sure. It was before the War.’

‘Any War record?’ asked Hardy.

‘No.’ The hairdresser blushed painfuly. ‘I’m not a robust man. I couldn’t get

passed for active service.’

‘Al right,’ said Wimsey. ‘About the razor. What are you doing now?’

‘Wel, my lord, I am, as you might say, an itinerant hairdresser. I go from one

place to the other, especialy seaside towns during the season, and take

temporary posts.’

‘Where did you work last?’

The man glanced up at him with his hunted eyes.

‘I haven’t had anything, realy, for a long time. I tried to get work in

Seahampton. In fact, I’m stil trying. I went back there last Wednesday after

trying Wilvercombe and Lesston Hoe. I had a week’s employment in Lesston

Hoe. Ramage’s is the name of the place. I had to leave there –’

‘What for?’ Hardy was brusque.

‘There was trouble with a customer –’

‘Theft?’

‘Certainly not. He was a very quick-tempered gentleman. I had the

misfortune to cut him slightly.’

‘Drunk and incompetent, eh?’ said Hardy.

The smal man seemed to shrink together.

‘They said so, but on my word of honour –’

‘What name were you going by there?’

‘Walters.’

‘Is Bright your real name?’

Under the lash of Hardy’s brutality, the story came out in al its sordid

triviality. Alias after alias. A week’s trial here and there, and then dismissal on

the same humiliating grounds. Not his fault. A glass of spirits affected him more

than it did the ordinary person. Simpson was his real name, but he had used a

great many since then. But to each name, the same reputation had stuck. It was

his sad weakness, which he had tried hard to overcome.

Hardy poured himself out a second glass of whisky, and carelessly left the

bottle on the window-sil, out of Mr Bright’s reach.

‘In the matter of the razor,’ said Wimsey, patiently.

‘Yes, my lord. I got that razor in Seahampton, from the place where I tried

to get work. Merryweather, the name was. I needed a new razor, and he was

wiling to sel this one cheap.’

‘You’d better describe the razor,’ suggested Hardy.

‘Yes, sir. It was a Sheffeld blade with a white handle, and it came originaly

from a retailer in Jermyn Street. It was a good razor, but a bit worn. I came on

to Wilvercombe, but there was nothing doing here, except that Moreton, down

on the Esplanade, said he might be requiring help later on. Then I went to

Lesston Hoe. I told you about that. After trying one or two other places there, I

came back here and tried Moreton again, but he had just engaged somebody.

He would tel you about it if you asked him. There was nothing doing anywhere

else. I grew very low in my spirits.’

Mr Bright paused and licked his lips again.