Have His Carcase

‘Met before? For the very simple reason that we never have met before.’

‘Come, come, Weldon. How about last Thursday afternoon at the top of Hinks’s Lane?’ He turned an ugly colour.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’

‘Don’t you? Well, it’s your own, business, of course, but if you want to go about the country incognito, you ought to get rid of that pattern on your arm. I understand that these things can be removed. Re-tattooing in flesh-colour is the simplest method, I believe.’

‘Oh!’ Henry stared for a few moments; then a slow grin, spread itself over his face.

‘So that’s what the little hussy meant when she said she’d seen a snake. Sharp girl, that, Wimsey. Fancy her spotting that’

‘Manners, please!’ said Wimsey. ‘You will kindly refer to Miss Vane in a proper, way and spare me the boring nuisance’ of pushing your teeth out at the back of your neck.’

‘Oh, all right, just as you like. But I’d like to see you try—’

‘You wouldn’t see it. It would happen, that’s all. But I’ve no time to waste in comparative physiology. I want to know what you were doing in Darley in disguise.’

‘What affair is it of yours?’

‘None; but the police might be interested. Anything that happened last Thursday interests them at the moment

‘Oh! I see. You want to fix something on me. Well, just as it so happens, you can’t, so you can put that in your pipe and smoke it. It’s a fact that I came down here in another name. Why shouldn’t I? — I didn’t want my mother to know I was here:

‘Why?’

‘Well, you see, I didn’t like this Alexis business at all. There’s no harm in admitting that I’ve said it already and I don’t mind saying it again. I wanted to find out what was happening. If this marriage was really going through, I wanted to stop it.’

‘But couldn’t you have done that openly, without blacking your hair and dressing yourself up in dark spectacles?’

‘Of course I could. I could’ have burst in on the lovebirds and made a hell of a row and frightened Alexis off, I dare say. And then what? Had a devil of a scene with my mother, and been cut off with a shilling, I suppose. No. My idea was to snoop around and see whether the job was really being put, through, and, if it was, to get hold of the young blighter and buy him off privately.’

‘You’d have needed some cash to do that,’ said Wimsey; drily.

‘I don’t know about that. I’d heard some stories about a girl down here, don’t you see, and if my mother got to know about that—’

‘Ah, yes — a qualified form of blackmail. I begin to see the idea. You were going to pick up information in Wilvercombe about Alexis’ previous entanglements, and then present him with the choice between having Mrs Weldon told’ about it and possibly getting nothing out of it, and taking your cash in hand and letting his credit as a faithful lover go. Is that it?’

‘That’s it.’

‘And why Darley?’

Because I didn’t want to run into the old lady in Wilvercombe. A pair of specs and a bottle of hair-dye might be all right for the yokels, but to the sharp eye of mother-love, you understand, they might not be as impenetrable as a brick wall.’

‘Quite so. Do you mind my asking whether you made any progress with this delicate investigation?’

‘Not much. I only got to the place on Tuesday evening, and I spent most, of Wednesday tinkering with the car. Those fools at the garage sent it out-’

‘Ah, yes! One moment. Was it really necessary to hire a car with all that parade of secrecy?’

‘It was, rather, because my mother would have recognised my own bus. It’s rather an unusual colour.’

‘You seem to have thought it all out very well. Did you have no difficulty about hiring it? — oh, no, how stupid, of me! You could give your own name to the garage, naturally.’

‘I could, but, I didn’t. To be perfectly frank — well! I don’t mind saying that I had another name and address all ready to slip into. Sometimes I slip off to Cambridge on the quiet, see! To visit a lady there. You get me. Nice little woman — devoted and all that. Husband in the background somewhere. He won’t divorce her, and I’m not worrying. Suits me all right as it is. Only there again, if my, mother got to hear about it — there’s been trouble, one way and another, and I didn’t want to start it again. We’re right as rain in Cambridge — Mr and Mrs Haviland Martin — all perfectly respectable, and all that, and it’s easy enough to slip over when one wants a spot of domestic bliss and so on. You get me?’

‘I get you. Do you also perambulate Cambridge in disguise?’

‘I stick on the specs when I go to the bank. Some of my good neighbours keep an account there.’

‘So you had this handy little disguise ready to slip into.

I do congratulate you on the convenience of your arrangements. They really fill me with admiration, and I’m sure Mrs Martin must be a very happy woman. It really surprises me that you should be so anxious to pursue Miss Vane with your attentions.’