Have His Carcase

The waiter escaped. Harriet saw him exchange a word and a shrug with the head waiter, Lips and eyebrows were eloquent. Harriet felt annoyed. Did one come to this, then, if one did not marry? Making a public scorn of one’s self before the waiters? She glanced again at the woman, who was rising to leave the lounge. She wore a wedding-ring. Marriage did not save one, apparently. Single, married, widowed, divorced, one came to the same end. She shivered a little, and suddenly felt fed-up with the lounge and the dance-floor. She finished her coffee and retired to the smaller lounge, where three stout women were engaged in an interminable conversation about illness, children and servants. ‘Poor Muriel — quite an invalid since the birth of her last baby…. I spoke quite firmly, I said, “Now you quite understand, if you leave before your month you, will be liable to me for the money.” Twelve guineas a week, and the surgeon’s fee was a hundred guineas…. Beautiful boys, both of them, but with Ronnie at Eton and Wilfred at Oxford…. They oughtn’t to let boys run up these bills…,’my dear, pounds thinner, I hardly knew her, but I wouldn’t care to… some kind of electric heat treatment, too marvellous… and what with rates and taxes and all this terrible unemployment.

… You can’t argue with nervous dyspepsia, but it makes things very difficult… left me high and dry with the house full of people, these girls have no gratitude.’

‘And these,’ thought Harriet, ‘are the happy ones, I suppose. Well, dash it! How about that town-clock?’

Chapter IV. The Evidence Of The Razor

‘Well, thou art

A useful tool sometimes, thy tooth works quickly,

And if thou gnawest a secret from the heart

Thou tellest it not again.’

— Death’s Jest-Book

Friday, 19 June

IN SPITE of the horrors she had witnessed, which ought to have driven all sleep away from the eyelids of any self-respecting female, Harriet slept profoundly in her first-floor bedroom (with bathroom, balcony and view over Esplanade) and came down to breakfast with a hearty appetite.

She secured a copy of the Morning Star, and was deep in the perusal of her own interview (with photograph) on the front page, when a familiar voice addressed her

‘Good morning, ‘ Sherlock. Where is the dressing-gown? How many pipes of shag have you consumed? The hypodermic is on the dressing-room table!’

‘How in the world,’ demanded Harriet, ‘did you get here?’

‘Car,’ said Lord Peter, briefly. ‘Have they produced the body?’

‘Who told you about the body?’

‘I nosed it from afar. Where the carcase is, there shall be eagles gathered together. May I join you over the bacon-and-eggs?’

‘By all means,’ said Harriet. ‘Where did you come from?’

‘From London — like a bird that hears the call of its mate.’ ‘I didn’t-’ began Harriet.

‘I didn’t mean you. I meant the corpse. But still, talking of mates, will you marry me?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘I thought not, but I felt I might as well ask the question.. Did you say they, had found the body?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘I don’t expect they will, then, for a bit. There’s a regular sou’wester blowing great guns. Tiresome for them. Can’t have an inquest without a body. ‘You must produce, the body, as it says in the Have-His-Carcase Act.’

‘No, but really,’ protested Harriet, ‘how did you hear about it?’

‘Salcombe Hardy rang me up from, the Morning Star. Said “my Miss Vane” had found a corpse, and did I know, anything about it. I said I knew nothing about it and that Miss Vane was unhappily not mine — yet. So I buzzed off, and here I am. I brought Sally Hardy down with me. I expect that’s what he really rang me. up for. Smart old bird, Sally always on the spot.’

‘He told you where to find me, I suppose.’

‘Yes — he seemed to know all about it. I was rather hurt. Fancy having to ask the Morning Star where the pole-star of one’s own heaven has, gone to. Hardy seemed to know all about it. How do these things get into the papers?’

‘l rang them up myself,’ replied Harriet. ‘First-class publicity, you know, and all that.’

‘So it is,’ agreed Wimsey, helping himself lavishly to butter. ‘Rang ’em up, did you, with all the gory details?’

‘Naturally; that was the first thing I thought of.’

‘You’re a woman of business. But does it not, pardon me, indicate a certain coarsening of the fibres?’

‘Obviously,’ said Harriet. ‘My fibres at this moment resemble coconut matting.’

‘Without even “Welcome” written across; them. But, look here, beloved, bearing in mind that I’m a corpse-fan, don’t you think you might, as man to man, have let me in on the ground-floor?’

‘If you put it that way,’ admitted Harriet, rather ashamed of herself, ‘I certainly might. But I thought-’

‘Women will let the personal element creep in,’ said Wimsey, acutely. ‘Well, all I can say is, you owe it to me to make up for it now. All the details, please.’