Have His Carcase

Of course, yes. He had suspected this witness already that stock character of detective fiction the man who asks the time. Wimsey laughed. Now he felt sure about it. Everything was provided for and the way discreetly paved for the production of this useful witness in case of necessity. Now that the morning alibi had failed to draw the enemy’s fire, the two o’clock alibi would be pushed to the front. Only, this time it would not be cast-iron. It would be a fake. Quite a good fake, very likely, but undoubtedly a fake. And then the shades of the prison-house would begin to close, darkly and coldly over the figure of Mr Henry Weldon.

‘If it were done when it is done, then it were — Weldon,’ said his lordship to himself. ‘If I’m right, then that two o’clock witness will turn up pretty quickly now. And if he does turn up, I’ll know I’m right’

Which was logic after the manner of Mr Weldon.

Chapter XXII. The Evidence Of The Mannequin

‘All honest men, good Melchior, like thyself—

For that thou art, I think, upon my life—

Believe the too.’

— Torrisrnond

Saturday, 27 June;, Sunday, 28 June

HARRIET VANE found herself comfortable enough in the quarters of the late Paul Alexis. A polite letter from her literary agent asking ‘whether the new book would be available for publication in the autumn’—had driven her back to the problem of the town-clock, but she found herself giving it a very divided attention. Compared with the remarkable tangle of the Alexis affair, the plot seemed to be thin and obvious, while the ape-like Robert Templeton began to display a tiresome tendency to talk like Lord Peter Wimsey. Harriet continually found herself putting her work aside—‘to clear’ (as though it were coffee). Novelists who have struck a snag in the working-out of the plot are rather given to handing the problem over in this way to the clarifying action of the sub-conscious. Unhappily, Harriet’s sub-conscious had other coffee to clear and refused quite definitely to deal with the matter of the town-clock. Under such circumstances it is admittedly useless to ask the conscious to take any further steps. When she ought to have been writing, Harriet would sit comfortably in an armchair, reading a volume taken from. Paul Alexis’ book shelf, with the idea of freeing the sub-conscious for its job.

In this way, her conscious imbibed a remarkable amount, of miscellaneous information about the Russian Imperial Court and a still more remarkable amount of ‘romantic narrative about love and war in Ruritanian states. Paul Alexis had evidently had a well-defined taste in fiction. He liked stories about young men of lithe and alluring beauty who, blossoming into perfect gentlemen amid the most unpromising surroundings, turned out to be the heirs to monarchies and, in the last chapter, successfully headed the revolts of devoted loyalists, overthrew the machinations of sinister presidents, and appeared’ on balconies, dressed in blue-and-silver uniforms, to receive the plaudits of their rejoicing and emancipated subjects.

Sometimes they were assisted by brave and beautiful English or American heiresses, who placed their wealth at the disposal of the loyalist party; sometimes they remained faithful despite temptation to brides of their own nationality, and rescued them at the last moment from’ marriages of inconvenience with the sinister presidents or their still more sinister advisers; now and again they were assisted by young Englishmen, Irishmen or Americans with clear-cut profiles and a superabundance of energy, and in every case they went through a series of hair-raising escapes and adventures by land, sea and air. Nobody but the sinister presidents ever thought of anything so sordid as raising money by the usual financial channels or indulging in political intrigue, nor did the greater European powers or the League of Nations ever have anything to say in the matter. The rise and fall of governments appeared to be a private arrangement, comfortably thrashed out among a selection of small Balkan States, vaguely situated and acknowledging no relationships outside the domestic circle. No literature could have been better suited for the release of the sub-conscious; nevertheless, the sub-conscious obstinately refused to work. Harriet groaned in spirit and turned to crosswords, with the aid of Chambers’ Dictionary — that Bible’ of the crossword fan which she found wedged between a paper-covered book printed in Russian and A Bid for the Throne.

Lord Peter Wimsey had also found something to read, which was occupying both his conscious and sub-conscious very pleasantly. It was a letter, dated from Leamhurst in Huntingdonshire, and ran thus:

My Lord,