Have His Carcase

‘Oh, along the beach for a bit. Why?’

‘I just wondered if you’d rambled as far as the Flat-Iron?’

‘Four and a half miles? Not likely. As a matter of fact, I haven’t seen the place yet and I don’t want to. Anyway, Thursday’s the day you want to know about. All the details, as they say in the ‘tec stories, eh? I had breakfast about nine o’clock — eggs and bacon, if you want to be particular — and then I thought I’d better see about getting along to Wilvercombe. So I went down to the village and flagged a passing car. That was — let me, see — just after ten o’clock.’

‘Whereabouts was this?’

‘Where the main road enters Darley the Wilvercombe side.’

‘Why didn’t you hire a car in the village?’

‘Have you seen the cars you can hire in the village? If you had, you wouldn’t ask.’

‘Couldn’t you have phoned up a Wilvercombe garage and got them to come out and pick you and the Morgan up?)

‘I could have, but I didn’t. The only garage I knew at Wilvercombe was the place I’d tried the night before, and I knew they weren’t any good. Besides, what’s wrong about taking a lift?’

Nothing, if the driver isn’t afraid about his insurance.’

‘Oh! Well, this one wasn’t. A very decent sort of woman she seemed to be. Drove a big red open Bentley. Made no bones about it at all.’

‘You don’t know her name I suppose?’’

‘I never thought to ask. But I do remember the number of the car — it was a comic one: 01 0101—sort of thing you couldn’t help remembering, — Oi-oi-oi! I’ said to this woman what a funny one it was and we laughed about it, a good bit.’

‘Ha ha!’ said Wimsey, ‘that’s a good one. Oi-oi-oi!’

‘Yes it made us both laugh. I remember saying it was a bit unfortunate having a number like that, because it ‘ud stick in a bobby’s mind. Oi-oi-oi!’ Mr Weldon yodelled

gleefully.

‘So you go to Wilvercombe?’ ‘Yes.’

‘And what did you do there?’

‘The good lady put me down in the Market Square and asked me if I would like to be taken back. So I said that was very kind of her and when would she be leaving. She said she had to go just before-one o’clock because she had an appointment in Heathbury, so I said that would do me all right, and she arranged to meet me in the Market Square again. So then I had a wander round and went down to the Winter Gardens. The chap I’d talked to said that this girl of Alexis had something to do with the Winter Gardens — sung, or something.’

‘She doesn’t, as a matter of fact. Her present young man plays in the orchestra there.’

‘Yes; I know that now. He’d got it all wrong. Anyhow, that’s where I went, and I wasted a good bit of time listening, to a tom-fool classical concert — my God! Bach and stuff at eleven in the morning! and wondering when the real show began.’

‘Were there many people there?

‘Lord, yes — packed with tabbies and invalids! I soon got fed-up and went round to the Resplendent. I wanted to get hold of the people there, only of course I had the luck to run slap-bang into my mother. She was just going out, and I dodged behind one of these silly palm-trees they have there so that she couldn’t see me, and then I thought she might be going off to meet Alexis, so I padded after her.’

‘And did she meet Alexis?’

No; she went to some damned milliner’s place.’

‘How provoking!’

‘I believe you. I waited a bit, and she came out and went to the Winter Gardens. “Hullo!” I said to myself, “what’s all this? Is she on the same tack as I am?” So away I toddled again, and dash it! If it wasn’t the same infernal concert, and if she didn’t sit through it all by herself! I can tell you what they played, too. A thing called the Eroica Symphony. Such stuff!’

‘Tut-tut! How wearisome.’

‘Yes, I was wild,’ I can tell you. And the funny thing was, Mother looked as if she was waiting for somebody because she kept looking round and fidgeting. She sat on right through the programme, but when it came to God Save the King, she chucked it and went back to the Resplendent, looking as sick as a cat when you’ve taken its mouse away. Well, then I looked at my watch, and dashed if it wasn’t twenty to one!’

‘A sad waste of time! So I suppose you had to give up your drive home with the kindly lady in the Bentley?’

‘What, me? Not a bit of it. She was a dashed fine woman. There wasn’t such a devil of a hurry about Alexis. I went back to the Market Square, and there she was and we went home. I think that was all. No, it wasn’t. I bought some collars at a shop near the War Memorial, and I believe I’ve got the bill about me somewhere, if that’s evidence. — Yes, here we are. One stuffs these things into one’s pocket, you know. I’ve got one of the collars on now, if you’d like to look at it.’

‘Oh, no — I believe you.’