“How on earth is his handwriting going to tell you when he pegged out?”
“That’s my secret, dash it all! Have you been down to Gatti’s?”
“Yes. They seem to know Oliver fairly well by sight, but that’s all. He lunched there fairly often, say once a week or so, but they don’t remember seeing him since the eleventh. Perhaps he’s keeping under cover. However, I’ll haunt the place a bit and see if he turns up.”
“I wish you would. His call came from a public box, so that line of inquiry peters out.”
“Oh, bad luck!”
“You’ve found no mention of him in any of the General’s papers?”
“Not a thing, and I’ve gone through every bit and scrap of writing in the place. By the way, have you seen George lately?”
“Night before last. Why?”
“He seems to me to be in rather a queer state. I went round last night and he complained of being spied on or something.”
“Spied on?”
“Followed about. Watched. Like the blighters in the ’tec stories. Afraid all this business is getting on his nerves. I hope he doesn’t go off his rocker or anything. It’s bad enough for Sheila as it is. Decent little woman.”
“Thoroughly decent,” agreed Wimsey, and very fond of him.”
“Yes. Works like billy-oh to keep the home together and all that. Tell you the truth, I don’t know how she puts up with George. Of course, married couples are always sparring and so on, but he ought to behave before other people. Dashed bad form, being rude to your wife in public. I’d like to give him a piece of my mind.”
“He’s in a beastly galling position,” said Wimsey. “She’s his wife and she’s got to keep him, and I know he feels it very much.”
“Do you think so? Seems to me he takes it rather as a matter of course. And whenever the poor little woman reminds him of it, he thinks she’s rubbing it in.”
“Naturally, he hates being reminded of it. And I’ve heard Mrs. Fentiman say one or two sharp things to him.”
“I daresay. Trouble with George is, he can’t control himself. He never could. A fellow ought to pull himself together and show a bit of gratitude. He seems to think that because Sheila has to work like a man she doesn’t want the courtesy and — you know, tenderness and so on — that a woman ought to get.”
“It always gives me the pip,” said Wimsey, “to see how rude people are when they’re married. I suppose it’s inevitable. Women are funny. They don’t seem to care half so much about a man’s being honest and faithful — and I’m sure your brother’s all that — as for their opening doors and saying thank-you. I’ve noticed it lots of times.”
“A man ought to be just as courteous after marriage as he was before,” declared Robert Fentiman, virtuously.
“So he ought, but he never is. Possibly there’s some reason we don’t know about,” said Wimsey. “I’ve asked people, you know — my usual inquisitiveness — and they generally just grunt and say that their wives are sensible and take their affection for granted. But I don’t believe women ever get sensible, not even through prolonged association with their husbands.”
The two bachelors wagged their heads, solemnly.
“Well, I think George is behaving like a sweep,” said Robert, “but perhaps I’m hard on him. We never did get on very well. And anyhow, I don’t pretend to understand women. Still, this persecution-mania, or whatever it is, is another thing. He ought to see a doctor.”
“He certainly ought. We must keep an eye on him. If I see him at the Bellona I’ll have a talk to him and try and get out of him what it’s all about.”
“You won’t find him at the Bellona. He’s avoided it since all this unpleasantness started. I think he’s out hunting for jobs. He said something about one of those motor people in Great Portland Street wanting a salesman. He can handle a car pretty well, you know.”
“I hope he gets it. Even if it doesn’t pay very well it would do him a world of good to have something to do with himself. Well, I’d better be amblin’ off. Many thanks, and let me know if you get hold of Oliver.”
“Oh, rather!”
Wimsey considered a few moments on the doorstep, and then drove straight down to New Scotland Yard, where he was soon ushered in to Detective Inspector Parker’s office.
Parker, a square-built man in the late thirties, with the nondescript features which lend themselves so excellently to detective purposes, was possibly Lord Peter’s most intimate — in some ways his only intimate friend. The two men had worked out many cases together and each respected the other’s qualities, though no two characters could have been more widely different. Wimsey was the Roland of the combination — quick, impulsive, careless and an artistic jack-of-all-trades. Parker was the Oliver — cautious, solid, painstaking, his mind a blank to art and literature and exercising itself, in spare moments, with Evangelical theology. He was the one person who was never irritated by Wimsey’s mannerisms, and Wimsey repaid him with a genuine affection foreign to his usually detached nature.
“Well, how goes it?”
“Not so bad. I want you to do something for me.”
“Not really?”
“Yes, really, blast your eyes. Did you ever know me when I didn’t? I want you to get hold of one of your handwriting experts to tell me if these two fists are the same.”
He put on the table, on the one hand the bundle of used cheques, and on the other the sheet of paper he had taken from the library at the Bellona Club.
Parker raised his eyebrows.
“That’s a very pretty set of finger-prints you’ve been pulling up there. What is it? Forgery?”
“No nothing of that sort. I just want to know whether the same bloke who wrote these cheques made the notes too.”
Parker rang a bell, and requested the attendance of Mr. Collins.
“Nice fat sums involved, from the looks of it,” he went on, scanning the sheet of notes appreciatively. “£150,000 to R., £300,000 to G. — lucky G. — who’s G? £20,000 here and £50,000 there. Who’s your rich friend, Peter?”
“It’s that long story I was going to tell you about when you’d finished your crate problem.”
“Oh, is it? Then I’ll make a point of solving the crate without delay. As a matter of fact, I’m rather expecting to hear something about it before long. That’s why I’m here, dancing attendance on the ’phone. Oh, Collins, this is Lord Peter Wimsey, who wants very much to know whether these two handwritings are the same.”
The expert took up the paper and the cheques and looked them over attentively.
“Not a doubt about it, I should say, unless the forgery has been astonishingly well done. Some of the figures, especially, are highly characteristic. The fives, for instance and the threes, and the fours, made all of a piece with the two little loops. It’s a very old-fashioned handwriting, and made by a very old man, in not too-good health, especially this sheet of notes. Is that the old Fentiman who died the other day?”
“Well, it is, but you needn’t shout about it. It’s just a private matter.”
“Just so. Well, I should say you need have no doubt about the authenticity of that bit of paper, if that’s what you are thinking of.”
“Thanks. That’s precisely what I do want to know. I don’t think there’s the slightest question of forgery or anything. In fact, it was just whether we could look on these rough notes as a guide to his wishes. Nothing more.”
“Oh, yes, if you rule out forgery, I’d answer for it any day that the same person wrote all these cheques and the notes.”
“That’s fine. That checks up the results of the finger-print test too. I don’t mind telling you, Charles,” he added, when Collins had departed, “that this case is getting damned interesting.”
At this point the telephone rang, and Parker, after listening for some time, ejaculated “Good work!” and then, turning to Wimsey,
“That’s our man. They’ve got him. Excuse me if I rush off. Between you and me, we’ve pulled this off rather well. It may mean rather a big thing for me. Sure we can’t do anything else for you? Because I’ve got to get to Sheffield. See you tomorrow or next day.”