Have His Carcase

At the moment, the understanding between Henry Weldon and his mother seemed, nevertheless, to be excellent.

‘Henry is so delighted,’ said Mrs Weldon, ‘that you are here to help us, Lord Peter. That policeman is so stupid. He doesn’t seem to believe a word I tell him. Of’ course, he’s a very well-meaning, honest man, and most polite, but how can a person like that possibly understand a nature like Paul’s. I knew Paul. So did Henry, didn’t you, dear?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Henry, ‘certainly. Very pleasant fellow.’

‘Henry knows how utterly devoted Paul was to me. You know, don’t you, dear, that he never would have taken his own life and left me like that without a word. It hurts me so when people say such things — I feel I could

‘There, there, Mother,’ muttered Henry, embarrassed by the prospect of emotion and possible break-down in a public place, ‘You ‘must try to beer up. Of course we know Alexis was all right. Damned fond of you — of course, of course. Police are always silly fools. Don’t let ’em worry

you.,

‘No dear, I’m sorry,’ said Mrs. Weldon, dabbing her eyes apologetically with a small handkerchief, u s all been such a shock to me. But I mustn’t be weak and silly. We must all be courageous and work hard to do something about it.’

Wimsey suggested that a spot of something or other might do them all good, and, further, that he and Henry might make a concerted masculine raid on the bar, instructing the waiter to attend upon the ladies. He felt that he could dissect Henry more conveniently in a private interview.

As the two men’s backs disappeared in the direction of the bar, Mrs Weldon turned her anxious eyes on Harriet.

‘How nice — Lord Peter is,’ she, said, ‘and what a comforting thing, it is for us both to have a man to rely on.’

This sentiment was not very well received Harriet averted her gaze from Lord Peter’s back, on which it had been absentmindedly and unaccountably fixed, and frowned; but Mrs Weldon bleated on, unheeding.

‘It’s beautiful how kind everybody is when one is in trouble. Henry and I haven’t always been as close to one another as a mother and son should be. He takes after his father in a great many ways, though people say he is like me to look at, and when he was a little boy he had the dearest golden curls — just like’ mine. But he loves sport and out-door life you can tell that by his looks, can’t you? He’s always out and about, seeing after his farm, and that’s what makes him look a little older than his years. He’s really quite a young man — I was a mere child when I married, as I told you before. — But though, as I say, we haven’t always been as much in harmony as one would have liked, he has been perfectly sweet to me about this sad affair. When I wrote to him and told him how much I felt the dreadful things. they were saying about Paul, he came at once to help me, though I know he must be terribly busy just now. I really feel that poor Paul’s death has brought us closer together.’’

Harriet said that that must be a great comfort to Mrs Weldon. It was the only possible answer.

Henry, meanwhile, had his own view of the matter to put before Lord Peter.

‘Bit of a staggerer for the old lady, this,’ he observed over a glass of Scotch. ‘Takes it hard. Between you and, me, it’s all for the best. How’s a-woman of her age going to be happy with a feller like that? Eh? Don’t like these Popoffsky blighters, anyway, and. she’s fifty-seven if she’s a day. I’m thirty-six myself. Consider I’m well out of it. Makes a chap look a bit of a fool when his mother proposes to give him a twenty-year-old lounge lizard for, a step-papa. Suppose it’s all over the place now. Bet everybody’s grinning at me behind my back. Let ’em grin. All over now, anyway. Suppose the chappie did do himself in, didn’t he?’

‘It looks like it,’ admitted Wimsey.

‘Couldn’t face the prospect, eh? All his own fault. Hard up, I suppose, poor devil! The old girl’s not a bad sort, really. She’d have given the feller a damn good time if he’d stuck to his bargain. But you can’t trust these foreigners. Like collies — lick your boots one minute and bite you the next. Don’t like collies, myself. Give me a good-bull-terrier any day.’

‘Oh, yes: so frightfully British and all; that, what?’

‘Thought I’d better push along and cheer Mother up. Stop all this nonsense about Bolsheviks. Won’t. do to have her wasting her time with these tom-fool notions. Enough to send the old dear clean off her rocker, you know. Once they get those notions in their; heads it’s a job to get rid of ’em. Form of mania, don’t you think, like women’s rights and crystal-gazing?’

Wimsey agreed cautiously that an unreasonable conviction might in process of time, amount to an obsession.