Have His Carcase

‘Well, get, a wine-coloured one, then. I’ve always wanted to see you in wine-colour. It suits people with honey-coloured skin. (What an ugly word “skin” is.) “Blossoms of the honey sweet and honey-coloured menuphar”—‘I: always have a quotation for everything — it saves original thinking.’

‘Blast the man!’ said Harriet, left abruptly alone in the blue-plush lounge. Then she suddenly ran out down the steps and leapt upon the Daimler’s running-board.—

‘Port or sherry?’ she demanded. ‘What?’ said Wimsey, taken aback. ‘The frock — port or sherry?’

‘Claret,’ said Wimsey. ‘Chateau Margaux 1893 or thereabouts. I’m not particular to a year or two.’

He raised his hat and slipped in the clutch. As Harriet turned back, a voice, faintly familiar, accosted her:

‘Miss er — Miss Vane? Might I speak to you for a moment?’

It was’ the ‘predatory hag’ whom she had seen the evening before in the dance-lounge of the Resplendent.

Chapter V. The Evidence Of The Betrothed

‘He said, dear mother, I should be his countess;

Today he’d come to fetch me, but with day

I’ve laid my expectation in its grave.’

— The Bride’s Tragedy

Friday 19, June

HARRIET had almost forgotten the woman’s existence, but now the whole off the little episode came back to her, and she wondered how she could have been so stupid. The nervous waiting; the vague, enraptured look, changing gradually to peevish impatience; the inquiry for Mr Alexis; the hasty and chagrined departure from the room. Glancing at the woman’s face now, she saw it so old, so ravaged with grief and fear, that a kind of awkward delicacy made her avert her eyes and answer rather brusquely:

‘Yes, certainly. Come up to my room.’

‘It is very good of you,’ said the woman. She paused a moment and then added, as they walked across to the lift;

‘My name is Weldon Mrs Weldon. I’ve been staying here some time. Mr Greely — the manager, that is knows me very well.’

‘That’s all right,’’ said Harriet. She realised that Mrs Weldon was trying to explain that she was not a confidence-trickster or an hotel-crook or a white-slave agent, and was herself trying to make it clear that she did not suppose Mrs Weldon to be any of these things. She felt shy and this made her speak gruffly. She saw a ‘scene’ looming ahead, and she was not one of those women who enjoy ‘scenes’. She led the way in a glum silence to Number 23, and begged her visitor to sit down.

‘It’s about,’’ said Mrs Weldon, sinking into an armchair and clasping her lean hands over her expensive handbag ‘it’s about Mr Alexis. The chamber-maid told me a horrible story — I went to the manager he wouldn’t tell me anything — I saw you with the police — and all those reporters were talking — they pointed you out — Oh, Miss Vane, please tell me what has happened.’

Harriet cleared her throat and began searching her pockets instinctively for cigarettes.

‘I’m awfully sorry,’ she began. ‘I’m afraid something rather beastly has happened. You see — I happened to be down on the shore yesterday afternoon, and I found a man lying there — dead. And from what they say, I’m dreadfully afraid it was Mr Alexis.’

No use, beating about the bush. This forlorn creature with the dyed hair and haggard, painted face would have to know the truth. She struck a match and kept her eye on the flame.

‘That’s what I heard. Was it, do you know, was it a heart-attack?’

‘Afraid not. No. They — seem to think he — (what was the gentlest form of words?)—‘did it himself.’ (At any rate that avoided the word ‘suicide’.)

‘Oh, he couldn’t have! he couldn’t have! Indeed, Miss Vane, there must be a mistake. He must have had an accident’

Harriet shook her head.

‘But you don’t know how could you? — how impossible it all is. But people shouldn’t say such cruel things. He was so perfectly happy — he couldn’t have done anything like that. Why, he—’ Mrs Weldon stopped, searching Harriet’s face with her famished eyes. ‘I heard them saying something about a razor — Miss Vane! What killed him?’

There were no kindly words’ for this — not even a, long,’ scientific, Latin name.

‘His throat was cut, Mrs Weldon.’

(Brutal Saxon monosyllables.)

‘Oh!’ Mrs Weldon seemed to shrink into a mere set of eyes and bones. ‘Yes — they said — they said — I couldn’t’ hear properly — I didn’t like to ask — and they all seemed so pleased about it.’

‘I know,’ said Harriet. ‘You see these newspaper men it’s what they, live by. They don’t mean anything. It’s bread-and-butter to them. They can’t help it. And they couldn’t possibly know that it meant anything to you.’

‘No, — but it does. But you — you don’t want to make it out worse than it is I can trust you.’

‘You can trust me,’ said Harriet slowly, ‘but really and truly it could not have been an accident. I don’t want to give you the details, but believe me, there’s no possibility of accident.’