CHAPTER VIII

Concerning Crime

“_Society is at the mercy of a murderer who is remorseless,_

_who takes no accomplices and who keeps his head._”

Edmund Pearson, _Murder at Smutty Nose_

_Letter from Miss Alexandra Katherine Climpson to Lord Peter Wimsey._

“Fair View,”

Nelson Avenue,

Leahampton.

12 May, 1927.

My dear Lord Peter,

I have not _yet_ been able to get ALL the information you ask for, as

Miss Whittaker has been away for some weeks, inspecting

_chicken-farms_!! With a view to purchase, I mean of course, and not

in any _sanitary capacity_(!). I _really think_ she means to set up

farming _with Miss Findlater_, though what Miss Whittaker can see in

that very gushing and really _silly_ young woman I cannot think.

However, Miss Findlater has evidently quite a “pash” (as we used to

call it at school) for Miss Whittaker, and I am afraid none of us are

being _flattered_ by such outspoken admiration. I must say, I think it

rather _unhealthy_—you may remember Miss Clemence Dane’s _very clever

book_ on the subject?—I have seen so _much_ of that kind of thing in

my rather WOMAN-RIDDEN existence! It has such a bad effect, as a rule,

upon the _weaker character_ of the two—But I must not take up your

time with my TWADDLE!!

Miss Murgatroyd, who was quite a friend of old _Miss Dawson_, however,

has been able to tell me a _little_ about her past life.

It seems that, until five years ago, Miss Dawson lived in Warwickshire

with her cousin, a Miss Clara Whittaker, Mary Whittaker’s great-aunt

on the _father’s_ side. This Miss Clara was evidently rather a

“character,” as my dear father used to call it. In her day she was

considered very “advanced” and _not quite nice_(!) because she

_refused_ several _good offers_, cut her hair short(!!) and set up in

business for herself as a HORSE-BREEDER!!! Of course, _nowadays_,

nobody would think anything of it, but _then_ the old lady—or _young_

lady as she was when she embarked on this _revolutionary_ proceeding,

was quite a PIONEER.

Agatha Dawson was a school-fellow of hers, and _deeply attached_ to

her. And as a result of this friendship, Agatha’s _sister_, Harriet,

married Clara Whittaker’s brother James! But _Agatha_ did not care

about marriage, any more than _Clara_, and the two ladies lived

together in a big old house, with immense stables, in a village in

Warwickshire—Crofton, I think the name was. Clara Whittaker turned out

to be a remarkably _good business woman_, and worked up a big

connection among the _hunting folk_ in those parts. Her hunters became

quite _famous_, and from a capital of a few thousand pounds with which

she started she made quite a _fortune_, and was a _very rich woman_

before her death! Agatha Dawson never had anything to do with the

_horsey_ part of the business. She was the “domestic” partner, and

looked after the _house_ and the _servants_.

When Clara Whittaker died, she left _all her money_ to Agatha, passing

over her _own family_, with whom she was _not on very good

terms_—owing to the narrow-minded attitude they had taken up about her

horse-dealing!! Her nephew, Charles Whittaker, who was a clergyman,

and the father of _our_ Miss Whittaker, resented very much not getting

the money, though, as he had kept up the feud in a very _un-Christian_

manner, he had really _no right_ to complain, especially as Clara had

built up her fortune _entirely_ by her own exertions. But, of course,

he inherited the _bad, old-fashioned_ idea that women _ought not_ to

be their own mistresses, or make money for themselves, or do what they

liked with their own!

He and his family were the only surviving Whittaker relations, and

when _he and his wife_ were killed in a motor-car accident, Miss

Dawson asked Mary to leave her work as a nurse and make her home with

her. So that, you see, Clara Whittaker’s money was destined to _come

back_ to James Whittaker’s daughter in the end!! Miss Dawson made it

_quite_ CLEAR that this was her intention, provided Mary would come

and _cheer the declining days_ of a lonely old lady!

Mary accepted, and as her aunt—or, to speak more _exactly_, her

great-aunt—had given up the big old Warwickshire house after Clara’s

death, they lived in London for a short time and then moved to

Leahampton. As you know, poor old Miss Dawson was then already

suffering from the _terrible disease_ of which she died, so that Mary

did not have to wait very long for Clara Whittaker’s money!!

I hope this information will be of some _use_ to you. Miss Murgatroyd

did not, of course, know anything about the rest of the family, but

she always understood that there were _no other_ surviving relatives,

either on the Whittaker or the Dawson side.

When Miss Whittaker returns, I hope to _see more_ of her. I enclose my

_account_ for expenses up to date. I do _trust_ you will not consider

it _extravagant_. How are your money-lenders progressing? I was sorry

not to see more of those _poor women_ whose cases I investigated—their

stories were _so_ PATHETIC!

I am,

Very sincerely yours,

Alexandra K. Climpson.

P.S.—I _forgot_ to say that Miss Whittaker has a little motor-car. I

do not, of course, know anything about these matters, but Mrs. Budge’s

maid tells me that Miss Whittaker’s maid says it is an Austin 7 (is

this right?). It is grey, and the number is XX9917.

Mr. Parker was announced, just as Lord Peter finished reading this

document, and sank rather wearily in a corner of the chesterfield.

“What luck?” inquired his lordship, tossing the letter over to him. “Do

you know, I’m beginning to think you were right about the Bertha Gotobed

business, and I’m rather relieved. I don’t believe one word of Mrs.

Forrest’s story, for reasons of my own, and I’m now hoping that the

wiping out of Bertha was a pure coincidence and nothing to do with my

advertisement.”

“Are you?” said Parker, bitterly, helping himself to whisky and soda.

“Well, I hope you’ll be cheered to learn that the analysis of the body

has been made, and that there is not the slightest sign of foul play.

There is no trace of violence or of poisoning. There was a heart

weakness of fairly long standing, and the verdict is syncope after a

heavy meal.”

“That doesn’t worry me,” said Wimsey. “We suggested shock, you know.

Amiable gentleman met at flat of friendly lady suddenly turns funny

after dinner and makes undesirable overtures. Virtuous young woman is

horribly shocked. Weak heart gives way. Collapse. Exit. Agitation of

amiable gentleman and friendly lady, left with corpse on their hands.

Happy thought motor-car; Epping Forest; _exeunt omnes_, singing and

washing their hands. Where’s the difficulty?”

“Proving it is the difficulty, that’s all. By the way, there were no

finger-marks on the bottle—only smears.”

“Gloves, I suppose. Which looks like camouflage, anyhow. An ordinary

picnicking couple wouldn’t put on gloves to handle a bottle of Bass.”

“I know. But we can’t arrest all the people who wear gloves.”

“I weep for you, the Walrus said, I deeply sympathise. I see the

difficulty, but it’s early days yet. How about those injections?”

“Perfectly O.K. We’ve interrogated the chemist and interviewed the

doctor. Mrs. Forrest suffers from violent neuralgic pains, and the

injections were duly prescribed. Nothing wrong there, and no history of

doping or anything. The prescription is a very mild one, and couldn’t

possibly be fatal to anybody. Besides, haven’t I told you that there was

no trace of morphia or any other kind of poison in the body?”

“Oh, well!” said Wimsey. He sat for a few minutes looking thoughtfully

at the fire.

“I see the case has more or less died out of the papers,” he resumed,

suddenly.

“Yes. The analysis has been sent to them, and there will be a paragraph

to-morrow and a verdict of natural death, and that will be the end of

it.”

“Good. The less fuss there is about it the better. Has anything been

heard of the sister in Canada?”

“Oh, I forgot. Yes. We had a cable three days ago. She’s coming over.”

“Is she? By Jove! What boat?”

“The _Star of Quebec_—due in next Friday.”

“H’m! We’ll have to get hold of her. Are you meeting the boat?”

“Good heavens, no! Why should I?”

“I think someone ought to. I’m reassured—but not altogether happy. I

think I’ll go myself, if you don’t mind. I want to get that Dawson

story—and this time I want to make sure the young woman doesn’t have a

heart attack before I interview her.”

“I really think you’re exaggerating, Peter.”

“Better safe than sorry,” said his lordship. “Have another peg, won’t

you? Meanwhile, what do you think of Miss Climpson’s latest?”

“I don’t see much in it.”

“No?”

“It’s a bit confusing, but it all seems quite straightforward.”

“Yes. The only thing we know now is that Mary Whittaker’s father was

annoyed about Miss Dawson’s getting his aunt’s money and thought it

ought to have come to him.”

“Well, you don’t suspect _him_ of having murdered Miss Dawson, do you?

He died before her, and the daughter’s got the money, anyhow.”

“Yes, I know. But suppose Miss Dawson had changed her mind? She might

have quarrelled with Mary Whittaker and wanted to leave her money

elsewhere.”

“Oh, I see—and been put out of the way before she could make a will?”

“Isn’t it possible?”

“Yes, certainly. Except that all the evidence we have goes to show that

will-making was about the last job anybody could persuade her to do.”

“True—while she was on good terms with Mary. But how about that morning

Nurse Philliter mentioned, when she said people were trying to kill her

before her time? Mary may really have been impatient with her for being

such an unconscionable time a-dying. If Miss Dawson became aware of

that, she would certainly have resented it and may very well have

expressed an intention of making her will in someone else’s favour—as a

kind of insurance against premature decease!”

“Then why didn’t she send for her solicitor?”

“She may have tried to. But after all, she was bed-ridden and helpless.

Mary may have prevented the message from being sent.”

“That sounds quite plausible.”

“Doesn’t it? That’s why I want Evelyn Cropper’s evidence. I’m perfectly

certain those girls were packed off because they had heard more than

they should. Or why such enthusiasm over sending them to London?”

“Yes. I thought that part of Mrs. Gulliver’s story was a bit odd. I say,

how about the other nurse?”

“Nurse Forbes? That’s a good idea. I was forgetting her. Think you can

trace her?”

“Of course, if you really think it important.”

“I do. I think it’s damned important. Look here, Charles, you don’t seem

very enthusiastic about this case.”

“Well, you know, I’m not so certain it is a case at all. What makes you

so fearfully keen about it? You seem dead set on making it a murder,

with practically nothing to go upon. Why?”

Lord Peter got up and paced the room. The light from the solitary

reading-lamp threw his lean shadow, diffused and monstrously elongated,

up to the ceiling. He walked over to a book-shelf, and the shadow

shrank, blackened, settled down. He stretched his hand, and the hand’s

shadow flew with it, hovering over the gilded titles of the books and

blotting them out one by one.

“Why?” repeated Wimsey. “Because I believe this is the case I have

always been looking for. The case of cases. The murder without

discernible means, or motive or clue. The norm. All these”—he swept his

extended hand across the book-shelf, and the shadow outlined a vaster

and more menacing gesture—“all these books on this side of the room are

books about crimes. But they only deal with the abnormal crimes.”

“What do you mean by abnormal crimes?”

“The failures. The crimes that have been found out. What proportion do

you suppose they bear to the successful crimes—the ones we hear nothing

about?”

“In this country,” said Parker, rather stiffly, “we manage to trace and

convict the majority of criminals—”

“My good man, I know that where a crime is known to have been committed,

you people manage to catch the perpetrator in at least sixty per cent of

the cases. But the moment a crime is even suspected, it falls, _ipso

facto_, into the category of failures. After that, the thing is merely a

question of greater or less efficiency on the part of the police. But

how about the crimes which are never even suspected?”

Parker shrugged his shoulders.

“How can anybody answer that?”

“Well—one may guess. Read any newspaper to-day. Read the _News of the

World_. Or, now that the Press has been muzzled, read the divorce court

lists. Wouldn’t they give you the idea that marriage is a failure? Isn’t

the sillier sort of journalism packed with articles to the same effect?

And yet, looking round among the marriages you know of personally,

aren’t the majority of them a success, in a hum-drum, undemonstrative

sort of way? Only you don’t hear of them. People don’t bother to come

into court and explain that they dodder along very comfortably on the

whole, thank you. Similarly, if you read all the books on this shelf,

you’d come to the conclusion that murder was a failure. But bless you,

it’s always the failures that make the noise. Successful murderers don’t

write to the papers about it. They don’t even join in imbecile symposia

to tell an inquisitive world ‘What Murder means to me,’ or ‘How I became

a Successful Poisoner.’ Happy murderers, like happy wives, keep quiet

tongues. And they probably bear just about the same proportion to the

failures as the divorced couples do to the happily mated.”

“Aren’t you putting it rather high?”

“I don’t know. Nor does anybody. That’s the devil of it. But you ask any

doctor, when you’ve got him in an unbuttoned, well-lubricated frame of

mind, if he hasn’t often had grisly suspicions which he could not and

dared not take steps to verify. You see by our friend Carr what happens

when one doctor is a trifle more courageous than the rest.”

“Well, he couldn’t prove anything.”

“I know. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to be proved. Look at the

scores and scores of murders that have gone unproved and unsuspected

till the fool of a murderer went too far and did something silly which

blew up the whole show. Palmer, for instance. His wife and brother and

mother-in-law and various illegitimate children, all peacefully put

away—till he made the mistake of polishing Cook off in that spectacular

manner. Look at George Joseph Smith. Nobody’d have thought of bothering

any more about those first two wives he drowned. It was only when he did

it the third time that he aroused suspicion. Armstrong, too, is supposed

to have got away with many more crimes than he was tried for—it was

being clumsy over Martin and the Chocolates that stirred up the hornets’

nest in the end. Burke and Hare were convicted of murdering an old

woman, and then brightly confessed that they’d put away sixteen people

in two months and no one a penny the wiser.”

“But they _were_ caught.”

“Because they were fools. If you murder someone in a brutal, messy way,

or poison someone who had previously enjoyed rollicking health, or

choose the very day after a will’s been made in your favour to

extinguish the testator, or go on killing everyone you meet till people

begin to think you’re first cousin to a upas tree, naturally you’re

found out in the end. But choose somebody old and ill, in circumstances

where the benefit to yourself isn’t too apparent, and use a sensible

method that looks like natural death or accident, and don’t repeat your

effects too often, and you’re safe. I swear all the heart-diseases and

gastric enteritis and influenzas that get certified are not nature’s

unaided work. Murder’s so easy, Charles, so damned easy—even without

special training.”

Parker looked troubled.

“There’s something in what you say. I’ve heard some funny tales myself.

We all do, I suppose. But Miss Dawson—”

“Miss Dawson fascinates me, Charles. Such a beautiful subject. So old

and ill. So likely to die soon. Bound to die before long. No near

relations to make inquiries. No connections or old friends in the

neighbourhood. And so rich. Upon my soul, Charles, I lie in bed licking

my lips over ways and means of murdering Miss Dawson.”

“Well, anyhow, till you can think of one that defies analysis and

doesn’t seem to need a motive, you haven’t found the right one,” said

Parker, practically, rather revolted by this ghoulish conversation.

“I admit that,” replied Lord Peter, “but that only shows that as yet I’m

merely a third-rate murderer. Wait till I’ve perfected my method and

then I’ll show you—perhaps. Some wise old buffer has said that each of

us holds the life of one other person between his hands—but only one,

Charles, only one.”