Suggs a beautiful, braying ass, said Lord Peter. Hes like a detective in a novel. Well, I dont know anything about Levy, but Ive seen the body, and I should say the idea was preposterous upon the face of it. What do you think of the brandy?
Unbelievable, Wimsey sort of thing makes one believe in heaven. But I want your yarn.
Dyou mind if Bunter hears it, too? Invaluable man, Bunter amazin fellow with a camera. And the odd thing is, hes always on the spot when I want my bath or my boots. I dont know when he develops things I believe he does em in his sleep. Bunter!
Yes, my lord.
Stop fiddling about in there, and get yourself the proper things to drink and join the merry throng.
Certainly, my lord.
Mr. Parker has a new trick: The Vanishing Financier. Absolutely no deception. Hey, presto, pass! and where is he? Will some gentleman from the audience kindly step upon the platform and inspect the cabinet? Thank you, sir. The quickness of the and deceives the heye.
Im afraid mine isnt much of a story, said Parker. Its just one of those simple things that offer no handle. Sir Reuben Levy dined last night with three friends at the Ritz. After dinner the friends went to the theatre. He refused to go with them on account of an appointment. I havent yet been able to trace the appointment, but anyhow, he returned home to his house 9a, Park Lane at twelve oclock.
Who saw him?
The cook, who had just gone up to bed, saw him on the doorstep, and heard him let himself in. He walked upstairs, leaving his greatcoat on the hall peg and his umbrella in the stand you remember how it rained last night. He undressed and went to bed. Next morning he wasnt there. Thats all, said Parker abruptly, with a wave of the hand.
It isnt all, it isnt all. Daddy, go on, thats not half a story, pleaded Lord Peter.
But it is all. When his man came to call him he wasnt there. The bed had been slept in. His pyjamas and all his clothes were there, the only odd thing being that they were thrown rather untidily on the ottoman at the foot of the bed, instead of being neatly folded on a chair, as is Sir Reubens custom looking as though he had been rather agitated or unwell. No clean clothes were missing, no suit, no boots nothing. The boots he had worn were in his dressing-room as usual. He had washed and cleaned his teeth and done all the usual things. The housemaid was down cleaning the hall at half-past six, and can swear that nobody came in or out after that. So one is forced to suppose that a respectable middle-aged Hebrew financier either went mad between twelve and six a.m. and walked quietly out of the house in his birthday suit on a November night, or else was spirited away like the lady in the Ingoldsby Legends, body and bones, leaving only a heap of crumpled clothes behind him.
Was the front door bolted?
Thats the sort of question you would ask, straight off; it took me an hour to think of it. No; contrary to custom, there was only the Yale lock on the door. On the other hand, some of the maids had been given leave to go to the theatre, and Sir Reuben may quite conceivably have left the door open under the impression they had not come in. Such a thing has happened before.
And thats really all?
Really all. Except for one very trifling circumstance.
I love trifling circumstances, said Lord Peter, with childish delight; so many men have been hanged by trifling circumstances. What was it?
Sir Reuben and Lady Levy, who are a most devoted couple, always share the same room. Lady Levy, as I said before, is in Mentonne at the moment for her health. In her absence, Sir Reuben sleeps in the double bed as usual, and invariably on his own side the outside of the bed. Last night he put the two pillows together and slept in the middle, or, if anything, rather closer to the wall than otherwise. The housemaid, who is a most intelligent girl, noticed this when she went up to make the bed, and, with really admirable detective instinct, refused to touch the bed or let anybody else touch it, though it wasnt till later that they actually sent for the police.
Was nobody in the house but Sir Reuben and the servants?
No; Lady Levy was away with her daughter and her maid. The valet, cook, parlourmaid, housemaid and kitchenmaid were the only people in the house, and naturally wasted an hour or two squawking and gossiping. I got there about ten.
What have you been doing since?
Trying to get on the track of Sir Reubens appointment last night, since, with the exception of the cook, his appointer was the last person who saw him before his disappearance. There may be some quite simple explanation, though Im dashed if I can think of one for the moment. Hang it all, a man doesnt come in and go to bed and walk away again mid nodings on in the middle of the night.
He may have been disguised.
I thought of that in fact, it seems the only possible explanation. But its deuced odd, Wimsey. An important city man, on the eve of an important transaction, without a word of warning to anybody, slips off in the middle of the night, disguised down to his skin, leaving behind his watch, purse, cheque-book, and most mysterious and important of all his spectacles, without which he cant see a step, as he is extremely short-sighted. He
That is important, interrupted Wimsey. You are sure he didnt take a second pair?
His man vouches for it that he had only two pairs, one of which was found on his dressing-table, and the other in the drawer where it is always kept.
Lord Peter whistled.
Youve got me there, Parker. Even if hed gone out to commit suicide hed have taken those.
So youd think or the suicide would have happened the first time he started to cross the road. However, I didnt overlook the possibility. Ive got particulars of all todays street accidents, and I can lay my hand on my heart and say that none of them is Sir Reuben. Besides, he took his latchkey with him, which looks as though hed meant to come back.
Have you seen the men he dined with?
I found two of them at the club. They said that he seemed in the best of health and spirits, spoke of looking forward to joining Lady Levy later on perhaps at Christmas and referred with great satisfaction to this mornings business transaction, in which one of them a man called Anderson of Wyndhams was himself concerned.
Then up till about nine oclock, anyhow, he had no apparent intention or expectation of disappearing.
None unless he was a most consummate actor. Whatever happened to change his mind must have happened either at the mysterious appointment which he kept after dinner, or while he was in bed between midnight and 5.30 a.m.
Well, Bunter, said Lord Peter, what do you make of it?
Not in my department, my lord. Except that it is odd that a gentleman who was too flurried or unwell to fold his clothes as usual should remember to clean his teeth and put his boots out. Those are two things that quite frequently get overlooked, my lord.
If you mean anything personal, Bunter, said Lord Peter, I can only say that I think the speech an unworthy one. Its a sweet little problem, Parker mine. Look here, I dont want to butt in, but I should dearly love to see that bedroom tomorrow. Tis not that I mistrust thee, dear, but I should uncommonly like to see it. Say me not nay take another drop of brandy and a Villar Villar, but say not, say not nay!
Of course you can come and see it youll probably find lots of things Ive overlooked, said the other, equably, accepting the proffered hospitality.
Parker, acushla, youre an honour to Scotland Yard. I look at you, and Sugg appears a myth, a fable, an idiot-boy, spawned in a moonlight hour by some fantastic poets brain. Sugg is too perfect to be possible. What does he make of the body, by the way?
Sugg says, replied Parker, with precision, that the body died from a blow on the back of the neck. The doctor told him that. He says its been dead a day or two. The doctor told him that, too. He says its the body of a well-to-do Hebrew of about fifty. Anybody could have told him that. He says its ridiculous to suppose it came in through the window without anybody knowing anything about it. He says it probably walked in through the front door and was murdered by the household. Hes arrested the girl because shes short and frail-looking and quite unequal to downing a tall and sturdy Semite with a poker. Hed arrest Thipps, only Thipps was away in Manchester all yesterday and the day before and didnt come back till late last night in fact, he wanted to arrest him till I reminded him that if the body had been a day or two dead, little Thipps couldnt have done him in at 10.30 last night. But hell arrest him tomorrow as an accessory and the old lady with the knitting, too, I shouldnt wonder.
Well, Im glad the little man has so much of an alibi, said Lord Peter, though if youre only glueing your faith to cadaveric lividity, rigidity, and all the other quiddities, you must be prepared to have some sceptical beast of a prosecuting counsel walk slap-bang through the medical evidence. Remember Impey Biggs defending in that Chelsea tea-shop affair? Six bloomin medicos contradictin each other in the box, an old Impey elocutin abnormal cases from Glaister and Dixon Mann till the eyes of the jury reeled in their heads! Are you prepared to swear, Dr. Thingumtight, that the onset of rigor mortis indicates the hour of death without the possibility of error? So far as my experience goes, in the majority of cases, says the doctor, all stiff. Ah! says Biggs, but this is a Court of Justice, Doctor, not a Parliamentary election. We cant get on without a minority report. The law, Dr. Thingumtight, respects the rights of the minority, alive or dead. Some ass laughs, and old Biggs sticks his chest out and gets impressive. Gentlemen, this is no laughing matter. My client an upright and honourable gentleman is being tried for his life for his life, gentlemen and it is the business of the prosecution to show his guilt if they can without a shadow of doubt. Now, Dr. Thingumtight, I ask you again, can you solemnly swear, without the least shadow of doubt, probable, possible shadow of doubt that this unhappy woman met her death neither sooner nor later than Thursday evening? A probable opinion? Gentlemen, we are not Jesuits, we are straightforward Englishmen. You cannot ask a British-born jury to convict any man on the authority of a probable opinion. Hum of applause.
Biggss man was guilty all the same, said Parker.
Of course he was. But he was acquitted all the same, an what youve just said is libel. Wimsey walked over to the bookshelf and took down a volume of Medical Jurisprudence. Rigor mortis can only be stated in a very general way many factors determine the result. Cautious brute. On the average, however, stiffening will have begun neck and jaw 5 to 6 hours after death mm in all likelihood have passed off in the bulk of cases by the end of 36 hours. Under certain circumstances, however, it may appear unusually early, or be retarded unusually long! Helpful, aint it, Parker? Brown-Séquard states 3½ minutes after death. In certain cases not until lapse of 16 hours after death present as long as 21 days thereafter. Lord! Modifying factors age muscular state or febrile diseases or where temperature of environment is high and so on and so on any bloomin thing. Never mind. You can run the argument for what its worth to Sugg. He wont know any better. He tossed the book away. Come back to facts. What did you make of the body?
Well, said the detective, not very much I was puzzled frankly. I should say he had been a rich man, but self-made, and that his good fortune had come to him fairly recently.
Ah, you noticed the calluses on the hands I thought you wouldnt miss that.
Both his feet were badly blistered he had been wearing tight shoes.
Walking a long way in them, too, said Lord Peter, to get such blisters as that. Didnt that strike you as odd, in a person evidently well off?
Well, I dont know. The blisters were two or three days old. He might have got stuck in the suburbs one night, perhaps last train gone and no taxi and had to walk home.
Possibly.
There were some little red marks all over his back and one leg I couldnt quite account for.
I saw them.
What did you make of them?
Ill tell you afterwards. Go on.
He was very long-sighted oddly long-sighted for a man in the prime of life; the glasses were like a very old mans. By the way, they had a very beautiful and remarkable chain of flat links chased with a pattern. It struck me he might be traced through it.
Ive just put an advertisement in the Times about it, said Lord Peter. Go on.
He had had the glasses some time they had been mended twice.
Beautiful, Parker, beautiful. Did you realize the importance of that?
Not specially, Im afraid why?
Never mind go on.
He was probably a sullen, ill-tempered man his nails were filed down to the quick as though he habitually bit them, and his fingers were bitten as well. He smoked quantities of cigarettes without a holder. He was particular about his personal appearance.
Did you examine the room at all? I didnt get a chance.
I couldnt find much in the way of footprints. Sugg & Co. had tramped all over the place, to say nothing of little Thipps and the maid, but I noticed a very indefinite patch just behind the head of the bath, as though something damp might have stood there. You could hardly call it a print.
It rained hard all last night, of course.
Yes; did you notice that the soot on the window-sill was vaguely marked?
I did, said Wimsey, and I examined it hard with this little fellow, but I could make nothing of it except that something or other had rested on the sill. He drew out his monocle and handed it to Parker.
My word, thats a powerful lens.
It is, said Wimsey, and jolly useful when you want to take a good squint at somethin and look like a bally fool all the time. Only it dont do to wear it permanently if people see you full-face they say: Dear me! how weak the sight of that eye must be! Still, its useful.
Sugg and I explored the ground at the back of the building, went on Parker, but there wasnt a trace.
Thats interestin. Did you try the roof?
No.
Well go over it tomorrow. The gutters only a couple of feet off the top of the window. I measured it with my stick the gentleman-scouts vade-mecum, I call it its marked off in inches. Uncommonly handy companion at times. Theres a sword inside and a compass in the head. Got it made specially. Anything more?
Afraid not. Lets hear your version, Wimsey.
Well, I think youve got most of the points. There are just one or two little contradictions. For instance, heres a man wears expensive gold-rimmed pince-nez and has had them long enough to be mended twice. Yet his teeth are not merely discoloured, but badly decayed and look as if hed never cleaned them in his life. There are four molars missing on one side and three on the other and one front tooth broken right across. Hes a man careful of his personal appearance, as witness his hair and his hands. What do you say to that?
Oh, these self-made men of low origin dont think much about teeth, and are terrified of dentists.
True; but one of the molars has a broken edge so rough that it had made a sore place on the tongue. Nothings more painful. Dyou mean to tell me a man would put up with that if he could afford to get the tooth filed?
Well, people are queer. Ive known servants endure agonies rather than step over a dentists doormat. How did you see that, Wimsey?