Lord Peter Views the Body · The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager’s Will (2/3)

A narrow stair brought them to the “attic,” where the Wimseys flung themselves with enthusiasm upon a huge heap of dusty old newspapers and manuscripts. The latter seemed the likelier field, so they started with them. They consisted of a quantity of crosswords in manuscript⁠—presumably the children of Uncle Meleager’s own brain. The square, the list of definitions, and the solution were in every case neatly pinned together. Some (early efforts, no doubt) were childishly simple, but others were difficult, with allusive or punning clues; some of the ordinary newspaper type, others in the form of rhymed distichs. They scrutinised the solutions closely, and searched the definitions for acrostics or hidden words, unsuccessfully for a long time.

“This one’s a funny one,” said Mary, “nothing seems to fit. Oh! it’s two pinned together. No, it isn’t⁠—yes, it is⁠—it’s only been pinned up wrong. Peter, have you seen the puzzle belonging to these clues anywhere?”

“What one’s that?”

“Well, it’s numbered rather funnily, with Roman and Arabic numerals, and it starts off with a thing that hasn’t got any numbers at all:

“Truth, poor girl, was nobody’s daughter;

She took off her clothes and jumped into the water.”

“Frivolous old wretch!” said Miss Marryat.

“Friv⁠—here, gimme that!” cried Lord Peter. “Look here, I say, Miss Marryat, you oughtn’t to have overlooked this.”

“I thought it just belonged to that other square.”

“Not it. It’s different. I believe it’s our thing. Listen:

“ ‘Your expectation to be rich

Here will reach its highest pitch.’

“That’s one for you, Miss Marryat. Mary, hunt about. We must find the square that belongs to this.”

But, though they turned everything upside-down, they could find no square with Roman and Arabic numerals.

“Hang it all!” said Peter, “it must be made to fit one of these others. Look! I know what he’s done. He’s just taken a fifteen-letter square, and numbered it with Roman figures one way and Arabic the other. I bet it fits into that one it was pinned up with.”

But the one it was pinned up with turned out to have only thirteen squares.

“Dash it all,” said his lordship, “we’ll have to carry the whole lot down, and work away at it till we find the one it does fit.”

He snatched up a great bundle of newspapers, and led the way out. The others followed, each with an armful. The search had taken some time, and the atrium was in semidarkness.

“Where shall I take them?” asked Lord Peter, calling back over his shoulder.

“Hi!” cried Mary; and, “Look where you’re going!” cried her friend.

They were too late. A splash and a flounder proclaimed that Lord Peter had walked, like Johnny Head-in-Air, over the edge of the impluvium, papers and all.

“You ass!” said Mary.

His lordship scrambled out, spluttering, and Hannah Marryat suddenly burst out into the first laugh Peter had ever heard her give.

“Truth, they say, was nobody’s daughter;

She took off her clothes and fell into the water”

she proclaimed.

“Well, I couldn’t take my clothes off with you here, could I?” grumbled Lord Peter. “We’ll have to fish out the papers. I’m afraid they’ve got a bit damp.”

Miss Marryat turned on the lights, and they started to clear the basin.

“Truth, poor girl⁠—” began Lord Peter, and suddenly, with a little shriek, began to dance on the marble edge of the impluvium.

“One, two, three, four, five, six⁠—”

“Quite, quite demented,” said Mary. “How shall I break it to mother?”

“Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen!” cried his lordship, and sat down, suddenly and damply, exhausted by his own excitement.

“Feeling better?” asked his sister acidly.

“I’m well. I’m all right. Everything’s all right. I love Uncle Meleager. Fifteen squares each way. Look at it. Look at it. The truth’s in the water. Didn’t he say so. Oh, frabjous day! Calloo! callay! I chortle. Mary, what became of those definitions?”

“They’re in your pocket, all damp,” said Mary.

Lord Peter snatched them out hurriedly.

“It’s all right, they haven’t run,” he said. “Oh, darling Uncle Meleager. Can you drain the impluvium, Miss Maryat, and find a bit of charcoal. Then I’ll get some dry clothes on and we’ll get down to it. Don’t you see? There’s your missing crossword square⁠—on the floor of the impluvium!”

It took, however, some time to get the basin emptied, and it was not till next morning that the party, armed with sticks of charcoal, squatted down in the empty impluvium to fill in Uncle Meleager’s crossword on the marble tiles. Their first difficulty was to decide whether the red squares counted as stops or had to be filled in, but, after a few definitions had been solved, the construction of the puzzle grew apace. The investigators grew steadily hotter and more thickly covered with charcoal, while the attentive Mr. Bunter hurried to and fro between the atrium and the library, and the dictionaries piled up on the edge of the impluvium.

“That’s a hint to us,” said Lord Peter.

“That’s an easy one,” said Miss Marryat.

“Bunter,” said Lord Peter, “bring me a whisky-and-soda!”

“That’s a comfort,” said Lady Mary. “It shows we’re on the right lines.”

“That makes that point about the squares clear,” said Mary.

“I think it’s even more significant,” said her brother.

The most remarkable part of the search⁠—or so Lord Peter thought⁠—was its effect on Miss Marryat. At first she hovered disconsolately on the margin, aching with wounded dignity, yet ashamed to dissociate herself from people who were toiling so hard and so cheerfully in her cause.

“I think that’s so-and-so,” Mary would say hopefully.

And her brother would reply enthusiastically, “Holed it in one, old lady. Good for you! We’ve got it this time, Miss Marryat”⁠—and explain it.

And Hannah Marryat would say with a snort:

“That’s just the childish kind of joke Uncle Meleager would make.”

Gradually, however, the fascination of seeing the squares fit together caught her, and, when the first word appeared which showed that the searchers were definitely on the right track, she lay down flat on the floor and peered over Lord Peter’s shoulder as he grovelled below, writing letters in charcoal, rubbing them out with his handkerchief and mopping his heated face, till the Moor of Venice had nothing on him in the matter of blackness. Once, half scornfully, half timidly, she made a suggestion; twice, she made a suggestion; the third time she had an inspiration. The next minute she was down in the mélée, crawling over the tiles flushed and excited, wiping important letters out with her knees as fast as Peter could write them in, poring over the pages of Roget, her eyes gleaming under her tumbled black fringe.

Hurried meals of cold meat and tea sustained the exhausted party, and towards sunset Peter, with a shout of triumph, added the last letter to the square.

They crawled out and looked at it.

“All the words can’t be clues,” said Mary. “I think it must be just those four.”

“Yes, undoubtedly. It’s quite clear. We’ve only got to look it up. Where’s a Bible?”

Miss Marryat hunted it out from the pile of reference books. “But that isn’t the name of a Bible book,” she said. “It’s those things they have at evening service.”

“That’s all you know,” said Lord Peter. “I was brought up religious, I was. It’s Vulgate, that’s what it is. You’re quite right, of course, but, as Uncle Meleager says, we must ‘look a little further back than that.’ Here you are. Now, then.”

“But it doesn’t say what chapter.”

“So it doesn’t. I mean, nor it does.”

“And, anyhow, all the chapters are too short.”

“Damn! Oh! Here, suppose we just count right on from the beginning⁠—one, two, three⁠—”

“Seventeen in chapter one, eighteen, nineteen⁠—this must be it.”

Two fair heads and one dark one peered excitedly at the small print, Bunter hovering decorously on the outskirts.

“O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the steep place.”

“Oh, dear!” said Mary, disappointed, “that does sound rather hopeless. Are you sure you’ve counted right? It might mean anything.”

Lord Peter scratched his head.

“This is a bit of a blow,” he said. “I don’t like Uncle Meleager half as much as I did. Old beast!”

“After all our work!” moaned Mary.

“It must be right,” cried Miss Marryat. “Perhaps there’s some kind of an anagram in it. We can’t give up now!”

“Bravo!” said Lord Peter. “That’s the spirit. ’Fraid we’re in for another outburst of frivolity, Miss Marryat.”

“Well, it’s been great fun,” said Hannah Marryat.

“If you will excuse me,” began the deferential voice of Bunter.

“I’d forgotten you, Bunter,” said his lordship. “Of course you can put us right⁠—you always can. Where have we gone wrong?”

“I was about to observe, my lord, that the words you mention do not appear to agree with my recollection of the passage in question. In my mother’s Bible, my lord, it ran, I fancy, somewhat differently.”

Lord Peter closed the volume and looked at the back of it.

“Naturally,” he said, “you are right again, of course. This is a Revised Version. It’s your fault, Miss Marryat. You would have a Revised Version. But can we imagine Uncle Meleager with one? No. Bring me Uncle Meleager’s Bible.”

“Come and look in the library,” cried Miss Marryat, snatching him by the hand and running. “Don’t be so dreadfully calm.”

On the centre of the library table lay a huge and venerable Bible⁠—reverend in age and tooled leather binding. Lord Peter’s hands caressed it, for a noble old book was like a song to his soul. Sobered by its beauty, they turned the yellow pages over:

“In the clefts of the rocks, in the secret places of the stairs.”

“Miss Marryat,” said his lordship, “if your Uncle’s will is not concealed in the staircase, then⁠—well, all I can say is, he’s played a rotten trick on us,” he concluded lamely.