Strong Poison · Chapter 8 (2/3)

“Take it? She wouldn’t give it. Told him she never gave opinions on other authors’ work. Other authors! The impudence of it! Of course she was out of things among us all, but why couldn’t she realise the difference between her mind and his? Of course it was hopeless from the start for Philip to get entangled with that kind of woman. Genius must be served, not argued with. I warned him at the time, but he was infatuated. And then, to want to marry her⁠—”

“Why did he?” asked Wimsey.

“Remains of parsonical upbringing, I suppose. It was really pitiful. Besides, I think that fellow Urquhart did a lot of mischief. Sleek family lawyer⁠—d’you know him?”

“No.”

“He got hold of him⁠—put up to it by the family, I imagine. I saw the influence creeping over Phil long before the real trouble began. Perhaps it’s a good thing he’s dead. It would have been ghastly to watch him turn conventional and settle down.”

“When did this cousin start getting hold of him, then?”

“Oh⁠—about two years ago⁠—a little more, perhaps. Asked him to dinner and that sort of thing. The minute I saw him I knew he was out to ruin Philip, body and soul. What he wanted⁠—what Phil wanted, I mean⁠—was freedom and room to turn about in, but what with the woman and the cousin and the father in the background⁠—oh, well! It’s no use crying about it now. His work is left, and that’s the best part of him. He’s left me that to look after, at least. Harriet Vane didn’t get her finger in that pie, after all.”

“I’m sure it’s absolutely safe in your hands,” said Wimsey.

“But when one thinks what there might have been,” said Vaughan, turning his bloodshot eyes miserably on Lord Peter, “it’s enough to make one cut one’s throat, isn’t it?”

Wimsey expressed agreement.

“By the way,” he said, “you were with him all that last day, till he went to his cousin’s. You don’t think he had anything on him in the way of⁠—poison or anything? I don’t want to seem unkind⁠—but he was unhappy⁠—it would be rotten to think that he⁠—”

“No,” said Vaughan, “no. That I’ll swear he never did. He would have told me⁠—he trusted me in those last days. I shared all his thoughts. He was miserably hurt by that damned woman, but he wouldn’t have gone without telling me or saying goodbye. And besides⁠—he wouldn’t have chosen that way. Why should he? I could have given him⁠—”

He checked himself, and glanced at Wimsey, but, seeing nothing in his face beyond sympathetic attention, went on:

“I remember talking to him about drugs. Hyoscine⁠—veronal⁠—all that sort of thing. He said, ‘If ever I want to go out, Ryland, you’ll show me the way.’ And I would have⁠—if he’d really wanted it. But arsenic! Philip, who loved beauty so much⁠—do you think he would have chosen arsenic?⁠—the suburban poisoner’s outfit? That’s absolutely impossible.”

“It’s not an agreeable sort of thing to take, certainly,” said Wimsey.

“Look here,” said Vaughan, hoarsely and impressively⁠—he had been putting a constant succession of brandies on top of the caviar, and was beginning to lose his reserve⁠—“Look here! See this!” He pulled a small bottle from his breast pocket. “That’s waiting, till I’ve finished editing Phil’s books. It’s a comfort to have it there to look at, you know. Peaceful. Go out through the ivory gate⁠—that’s classical⁠—they brought me up on the classics. These people would laugh at a fellow, but you needn’t tell them I said it⁠—funny, the way it sticks⁠—‘tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore, ulterioris amore’⁠—what’s that bit about the souls thronging thick as leaves in Vallombrosa⁠—no, that’s Milton⁠—‘amorioris ultore⁠—ultoriore’⁠—damn it⁠—poor Phil!”

Here Mr. Vaughan burst into tears and patted the little bottle.

Wimsey, whose head and ears were thumping as though he were sitting in an engine room, got up softly and withdrew. Somebody had begun a Hungarian song and the stove was white-hot. He made signals of distress to Marjorie, who was sitting in a corner with a group of men. One of them appeared to be reading his own poems with his mouth nearly in her ear, and another was sketching something on the back of an envelope, to the accompaniment of yelps of merriment from the rest. The noise they made disconcerted the singer, who stopped in the middle of a bar, and cried angrily:

“Ach! this noise! these interruptions! they are intolerable! I lose myself! Stop! I begin all over again, from the beginning.”

Marjorie sprang up, apologising.

“I’m a brute⁠—I’m not keeping your menagerie in order, Nina⁠—we’re being perfect nuisances. Forgive me, Marya, I’m in a bad temper. I’d better pick up Peter and toddle away. Come and sing to me another day, darling, when I’m feeling better and there is more room for my feelings to expand. Good night, Nina⁠—we’ve enjoyed it frightfully and, Boris, that poem’s the best thing you’ve done, only I couldn’t hear it properly. Peter, tell them what a rotten mood I’m in tonight and take me home.”

“That’s right,” said Wimsey, “nervy, you know⁠—bad effect on the manners and so on.”

“Manners,” said a bearded gentleman suddenly and loudly, “are for the bourgeois.”

“Quite right,” said Wimsey. “Beastly bad form, and gives you repressions in the whatnot. Come on, Marjorie, or we shall all be getting polite.”

“I begin again,” said the singer, “from the beginning.”

“Whew!” said Wimsey, on the staircase.

“Yes, I know. I think I’m a perfect martyr to put up with it. Anyway, you’ve seen Vaughan. Nice dopey specimen, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but I don’t think he murdered Philip Boyes, do you? I had to see him to make sure. Where do we go next?”

“We’ll try Joey Trimbles’. That’s the stronghold of the opposition show.”

Joey Trimbles occupied a studio over a mews. Here there was the same crowd, the same smoke, more kippers, still more drinks and still more heat and conversation. In addition there was a blaze of electric light, a gramophone, five dogs and a strong smell of oil paints. Sylvia Marriott was expected. Wimsey found himself involved in a discussion of free love, D. H. Lawrence, the prurience of prudery and the immoral significance of long skirts. In time, however, he was rescued by the arrival of a masculine looking middle-aged woman with a sinister smile and a pack of cards, who proceeded to tell everybody’s fortune. The company gathered around her, and at the same time a girl came in and announced that Sylvia had sprained her ankle and couldn’t come. Everybody said warmly, “Oh, how sickening, poor dear!” and forgot the subject immediately.

“We’ll scoot off,” said Marjorie. “Never mind about saying goodbye. Nobody marks you. It’s good luck about Sylvia, because she’ll be at home and can’t escape us, I sometimes wish they’d all sprain their ankles. And yet, you know, nearly all those people are doing very good work. Even the Kropotky crowd. I used to enjoy this kind of thing myself, once.”

“We’re getting old, you and I,” said Wimsey. “Sorry, that’s rude. But do you know, I’m getting on for forty, Marjorie.”

“You wear well. But you are looking a bit fagged tonight, Peter dear. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing at all but middle age.”

“You’ll be settling down if you’re not careful.”

“Oh, I’ve been settled for years.”

“With Bunter and the books. I envy you sometimes, Peter.”

Wimsey said nothing. Marjorie looked at him almost in alarm, and tucked her arm in his.

“Peter⁠—do please be happy. I mean, you’ve always been the comfortable sort of person that nothing could touch. Don’t alter, will you?”

That was the second time Wimsey had been asked not to alter himself; the first time, the request had exalted him; this time, it terrified him. As the taxi lurched along the rainy Embankment, he felt for the first time the dull and angry helplessness which is the first warning stroke of the triumph of mutability. Like the poisoned Athulf in the Fool’s Tragedy, he could have cried, “Oh, I am changing, changing, fearfully changing.” Whether his present enterprise failed or succeeded, things would never be the same again. It was not that his heart would be broken by a disastrous love⁠—he had outlived the luxurious agonies of youthful blood, and in this very freedom from illusion he recognised the loss of something. From now on, every hour of lightheartedness would be, not a prerogative but an achievement⁠—one more axe or case bottle or fowling piece, rescued, Crusoe fashion, from a sinking ship.

For the first time, too, he doubted his own power to carry through what he had undertaken. His personal feelings had been involved before this in his investigations, but they had never before clouded his mind. He was fumbling⁠—grasping uncertainly here and there at fugitive and mocking possibilities. He asked questions at random, doubtful of his object, and the shortness of the time, which would once have stimulated, now frightened and confused him.

“I’m sorry, Marjorie,” he said, rousing himself, “I’m afraid I’m being damned dull. Oxygen starvation, probably. D’you mind if we have the window down a bit? That’s better. Give me good food and a little air to breathe and I will caper, goat like, to a dishonourable old age. People will point me out, as I creep, bald and yellow and supported by discreet corsetry, into the nightclubs of my great grandchildren, and they’ll say, ‘Look, darling! that’s the wicked Lord Peter, celebrated for never having spoken a reasonable word for the last ninety-six years. He was the only aristocrat who escaped the guillotine in the revolution of 1960. We keep him as a pet for the children.’ And I shall wag my head and display my up-to-date dentures and say, ‘Ah, ha! They don’t have the fun we used to have in my young days, the poor, well regulated creatures!’ ”

“There won’t be any nightclubs then for you to creep into, if they’re as disciplined as all that.”

“Oh, yes⁠—nature will have her revenge. They will slink away from the Government Communal Games to play solitaire in catacombs over a bowl of unsterilised skim milk. Is this the place?”

“Yes; I hope there’s someone to let us in at the bottom, if Sylvia’s bust her leg. Yes⁠—I hear footsteps. Oh, it’s you, Eiluned; how’s Sylvia?”

“Pretty all right, only swelled up⁠—the ankle, that is. Coming up?”

“Is she visible?”

“Yes, perfectly respectable.”

“Good; because I’m bringing Lord Peter Wimsey up, too.”

“Oh,” said the girl. “How do you do? You detect things, don’t you? Have you come for the body or anything?”

“Lord Peter’s looking into Harriet Vane’s business for her.”

“Is he? That’s good. Glad somebody’s doing something about it.” She was a short, stout girl with a pugnacious nose and a twinkle. “What do you say it was? I say he did it himself. He was the self pitying sort, you know. Hullo, Syl⁠—here’s Marjorie, with a bloke who’s going to get Harriet out of jug.”

“Produce him instantly!” was the reply from within. The door opened upon a small bed-sitting room, furnished with the severest simplicity, and inhabited by a pale, spectacled young woman in a Morris chair, her bandaged foot stretched out upon a packing case.

“I can’t get up, because, as Jenny Wren said, my back’s bad and my leg’s queer. Who’s the champion, Marjorie?”

Wimsey was introduced, and Eiluned Price immediately inquired, rather truculently:

“Can he drink coffee, Marjorie? Or does he require masculine refreshment?”

“He’s perfectly godly, righteous and sober, and drinks anything but cocoa and fizzy lemonade.”

“Oh! I only asked because some of your male belongings need stimulating, and we haven’t got the wherewithal, and the pub’s just closing.”

She stumped over to a cupboard, and Sylvia said:

“Don’t mind Eiluned; she likes to treat ’em rough. Tell me, Lord Peter, have you found any clues or anything?”

“I don’t know,” said Wimsey. “I’ve put a few ferrets down a few holes, I hope something may come up the other end.”

“Have you seen the cousin yet⁠—the Urquhart creature?”

“Got an appointment with him for tomorrow. Why?”

“Sylvia’s theory is that he did it,” said Eiluned.

“That’s interesting. Why?”

“Female intuition,” said Eiluned, bluntly. “She doesn’t like the way he does his hair.”

“I only said he was too sleek to be true,” protested Sylvia. “And who else could it have been? I’m sure it wasn’t Ryland Vaughan; he’s an obnoxious ass, but he is genuinely heartbroken about it all.”

Eiluned sniffed scornfully, and departed to fill a kettle at a tap on the landing.

“And whatever Eiluned thinks, I can’t believe Phil Boyes did it himself.”

“Why not?” asked Wimsey.

“He talked such a lot,” said Sylvia. “And he really had too high an opinion of himself. I don’t think he would have wilfully deprived the world of the privilege of reading his books.”

“He would,” said Eiluned. “He’d do it out of spite, to make the grownups sorry. No, thanks,” as Wimsey advanced to carry the kettle, “I’m quite capable of carrying six pints of water.”

“Crushed again!” said Wimsey.

“Eiluned disapproves of conventional courtesies between the sexes,” said Marjorie.

“Very well,” replied Wimsey, amiably. “I will adopt an attitude of passive decoration. Have you any idea, Miss Marriott, why this over sleek solicitor should wish to make away with his cousin?”

“Not the faintest. I merely proceed on the old Sherlock Holmes basis, that when you have eliminated the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be true.”

“Dupin said that before Sherlock. I grant the conclusion, but in this case I question the premises. No sugar, thank you.”

“I thought all men liked to make their coffee into syrup.”

“Yes, but then I am very unusual. Haven’t you noticed it?”

“I haven’t had much time to observe you, but I’ll count the coffee as a point in your favour.”

“Thanks frightfully. I say⁠—can you people tell me just what was Miss Vane’s reaction to the murder?”

“Well⁠—” Sylvia considered a moment. “When he died⁠—she was upset, of course⁠—”

“She was startled,” said Miss Price, “but it’s my opinion she was thankful to be rid of him. And no wonder. Selfish beast! He’d made use of her and nagged her to death for a year and insulted her at the end. And he was one of your greedy sort that wouldn’t let go. She was glad, Sylvia⁠—what’s the good of denying it?”

“Yes, perhaps. It was a relief to know he was finished with. But she didn’t know then that he’d been murdered.”

“No. The murder spoilt it a bit⁠—if it was a murder, which I don’t believe. Philip Boyes was always determined to be a victim, and it was very irritating of him to succeed in the end. I believe that’s what he did it for.”

“People do do that kind of thing,” said Wimsey, thoughtfully. “But it’s difficult to prove. I mean, a jury is much more inclined to believe in some tangible sort of reason, like money. But I can’t find any money in this case.”

Eiluned laughed.

“No, there never was much money, except what Harriet made. The ridiculous public didn’t appreciate Phil Boyes. He couldn’t forgive her that, you know.”

“Didn’t it come in useful?”

“Of course, but he resented it all the same. She ought to have been ministering to his work, not making money for them both with her own independent trash. But that’s men all over.”

“You haven’t much opinion of us, what?”

“I’ve known too many borrowers,” said Eiluned Price, “and too many that wanted their hands held. All the same, the women are just as bad, or they wouldn’t put up with it. Thank Heaven, I’ve never borrowed and never lent⁠—except to women, and they pay back.”

“People who work hard usually do pay back, I fancy,” said Wimsey, “⁠—except geniuses.”

“Women geniuses don’t get coddled,” said Miss Price, grimly, “so they learn not to expect it.”

“We’re getting rather off the subject, aren’t we?” said Marjorie.

“No,” replied Wimsey, “I’m getting a certain amount of light on the central figures in the problem⁠—what journalists like to call the protagonists.” His mouth gave a wry little twist. “One gets a lot of illumination in that fierce light that beats upon a scaffold.”

“Don’t say that,” pleaded Sylvia.