Have His Carcase

I think he started it by offering me a cigarette. It was one of those Russian ones, with a paper tube to it. He spoke friendly, and, I don’t know how it was, I found myself telling him all about the fix I was in. You know how it is, my lord. Sometimes you’ll get talking to a stranger where you wouldn’t to anybody you knew. It struck me he didn’t feel so very happy himself, and we had a long talk about the general damnableness of life. He said he was a Russian and an exile and told me about the hard times he’d had as a kid, and a lot of stuff about “Holy Russia” and the Soviet. Seems as if he took it to heart a lot. And women and all that — seemed as though he’d had some trouble with his best girl. And then he said he only wished his difficulties could be solved as easy as mine, and how I ought to pull myself together and make a fresh start. “You give me that razor,” he said, ‘and go away and think it over.” So I said the razor was my livelihood, such as it was, and he laughed and said, “In the mood you’re in, it’s more likely to be your deathlihood.” A funny way he had of talking, quick and sort of poetic, you know. So he gave me some money — five pounds it was, in Treasury notes — and I gave him the razor. “What’ll you do with that, sir?” I said, “it’s no good to you..: “I’ll find a use for it, he said, “never you fear. And he laughed and put it away in his pocket. Then he got up and said, “Funny we should drop across one another tonight,” and something about “two minds with but a single thought”. And he clapped me on the shoulder and told me to buck up and gave me a pleasant nod and away he went, and that’s the last I saw of him. I wish I’d known what he wanted with the razor, or I. wouldn’t have given it to him, but there, how was I to know, I ask you, gentlemen?’ ‘Sounds like Paul Alexis, right enough,’ said Wimsey, thoughtfully.

‘He didn’t actually say who he was, I suppose?’ suggested Hardy.

‘No, he didn’t; but he said he was a professional dancing partner at one of the hotels, and wasn’t it one hell of a life for a man that ought to be a prince in his own country making love to ugly old women at twopence-halfpenny a time. Very bitter lie sounded.’

‘Well,’ said Wimsey, ‘we’re very much obliged to you, Mr Bright. That seems to clear the whole thing up’ quite satisfactorily. I think you’ll have to let the police know, about it.’

Mr Bright looked uneasy at the mention of the police.

‘Better come along now and get it over,’ said Wimsey, jumping to his feet. ‘You can’t very well get out of it, and, hang it all, man! there’s nothing in it for anybody to worry you about.’

The hairdresser agreed, reluctantly, and fastened his pale eyes on Sally Hardy.

‘It all sounds O. K. to me,’ said the latter, ‘but we’ll have to check up on your story, you know, old man. You might have invented it. But if the cops can prove what you say about yourself — it’s their business, really — then there’ll be a good, fat cheque for you, that ought to keep you going

for some time, if you’ll steer clear of that — er little weakness of yours. The great thing,’ added Sally, reaching for the whisky, ’is never to let weaknesses interfere with business.’

He poured himself out a stiff peg and, as an afterthought, mixed another for the hairdresser.

Superintendent Glaisher was delighted with Bright’s story, and so was Inspector Umpelty, who had clung to the suicide theory all along.

‘We’ll soon get this business cleared up,’ said the latter, confidently. ‘We’ll check up on this Bright lad’s movements, but they’re probably right enough. They fit in O.K. with what that man said at Seahampton. And we’ll keep an eye on Bright. He’s had to give us an address and his promise to stay in Wilvercombe, because, of course, he’ll be wanted for the inquest when we get an’ inquest. The body’s bound to turn up soon. I can’t understand why it’s not been found before this. It’s been five days in the water now, and it can’t stay there for ever. They float first, you know, and then they sink, but they have to come up again when the gases start to form. I’ve seen ’em blown up like balloons. It must have got caught, somewhere, that’s about the way of, it; but we’ll be dragging the bay near the Grinders again this afternoon, and we’re sure to get something before long. I’ll be glad when we do. Makes one feel kind of foolish to be carrying, on an investigation without a body to show for it.’

‘Satisfied?’ asked Hardy, as Wimsey returned from the police-station. He had telephoned his story to Town and was absorbing; a little refreshment afters his labours.

‘I ought to be,’ replied his lordship. ‘The only thing that worries me, Sally, is that if I’d wanted to invent a story to fit this case, that is exactly the story I should have invented. I wonder where Mr Bright was at two o’clock on, Thursday afternoon.’

‘What an obstinate devil you are,’ said Mr Hardy. ‘Fact is, you’re so damned keen on a murder, you smell murder everywhere. Forget it.’