Mr. Murbles was horror-struck.
“The two-minutes’ silence? — God bless my soul! How abominable! How — how blasphemous! Really, I cannot find words. This is the most disgraceful thing I ever heard of. At the moment when all our thoughts should be concentrated on the brave fellows who laid down their lives for us — to be engaged in perpetrating a fraud — an irreverent crime—”
“Half a million is a good bit of money,” said Parker, thoughtfully.
“Horrible!” said Mr. Murbles.
“Meanwhile,” said Wimsey, “what do you propose to do about it?”
“Do?” spluttered the old solicitor, indignantly. “Do? — Robert Fentiman will have to confess to this disgraceful plot immediately. Bless my soul! To think that I should be mixed up in a thing like this! He will have to find another man of business in future. We shall have to explain matters to Pritchard and apologise — I really hardly know how to tell him such a thing.”
“I rather gather he suspects a good deal of it already,” said Parker, mildly. “Else why should he have sent that clerk of his to spy on you and George Fentiman? I daresay he has been keeping tabs on Robert, too.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Wimsey. “He certainly treated me like a conspirator when I called on him. The only thing that puzzles me now is why he should have suddenly offered to compromise.”
“Probably Miss Dorland lost patience, or they despaired of proving anything,” said Parker. “While Robert stuck to that Oliver story, it would be very hard to prove anything.”
“Exactly,” said Wimsey. “That is why I had to hang on so long, and press Robert so hard about it. I might suspect Oliver to be non-existent, but one can’t prove a negative.”
“And suppose he still sticks to the story now?”
“Oh! I think we can put the wind up him all right,” said Wimsey. “By the time we’ve displayed our proofs and told him exactly what he was doing with himself on November 10th and 11th, he’ll have no more spirit in him than the Queen of Sheba.”
“It must be done at once,” said Mr. Murbles. “And of course this exhumation business will have to be stopped. I will go round and see Robert Fentiman tomorrow — this morning, that is.”
“Better tell him to trot round to your place,” said Wimsey. “I’ll bring all the evidence round there, and I’ll have the varnish on the cabinet analyzed and shown to correspond with the sample I took from the General’s boots. Make it for two o’clock, and then we can all go round and interview Pritchard afterwards.”
Parker supported this suggestion. Mr. Murbles was so wrought up that he would gladly have rushed away to confront Robert Fentiman immediately. It being, however, pointed out to him that Fentiman was in Richmond, that an alarm at this ungodly hour might drive him to do something desperate, and also that all three investigators needed repose, the old gentleman gave way and permitted himself to be taken home to Staple Inn.
Wimsey went round to Parker’s flat in Great Ormond Street to have a drink before turning in, and the session was prolonged till the small hours had begun to grow into big hours and the early workman was abroad.
* * *
Lord Peter, having set the springe for his woodcock, slept the sleep of the just until close upon eleven o’clock the next morning. He was aroused by voices without, and presently his bedroom door was flung open to admit Mr. Murbles, of all people, in a high state of agitation, followed by Bunter, protesting.
“Hallo, sir!” said his lordship, much amazed. “What’s up?”
“We have been outwitted,” cried Mr. Murbles, waving his umbrella, “we have been forestalled! We should have gone to Major Fentiman last night. I wished to do so, but permitted myself to be persuaded against my better judgment. It will be a lesson to me.”
He sat down, panting a little.
“My dear Mr. Murbles,” said Wimsey, pleasantly, “your method of recalling one to the dull business of the day is as delightful as it is unexpected. Anything better calculated to dispel that sluggish feeling I can scarcely imagine. But pardon me — you are somewhat out of breath. Bunter! a whisky-and-soda for Mr. Murbles.”
“Indeed no!” ejaculated the solicitor, hurriedly. “I couldn’t touch it. Lord Peter—”
“A glass of sherry?” suggested his lordship, helpfully.
“No, no — nothing, thanks. A shocking thing has occurred. We are left—”
“Better and better. A shock is exactly what I feel to need. My café-au-lait, Bunter — and you may turn the bath on. Now, sir — out with it. I am fortified against anything.”
“Robert Fentiman,” announced Mr. Murbles, impressively, “has disappeared.”
He thumped his umbrella.
“Good God!” said Wimsey.
“He has gone,” repeated the solicitor. “At ten o’clock this morning I attended in person at his rooms in Richmond — in person—in order to bring him the more effectually to a sense of his situation. I rang the bell. I asked for him. The maid told me he had left the night before. I asked where he had gone. She said she did not know. He had taken a suit-case with him. I interviewed the landlady. She told me that Major Fentiman had received an urgent message during the evening and had informed her that he was called away. He had not mentioned where he was going nor how soon he would return. I left a note addressed to him, and hastened back to Dover Street. The flat there was shut up and untenanted. The man Woodward was nowhere to be found. I then came immediately to you. And I find you—”
Mr. Murbles waved an expressive hand at Wimsey, who was just taking from Bunter’s hands a chaste silver tray, containing a Queen Anne coffee-pot and milk-jug, a plate of buttered toast, a delicate china coffee-cup and a small pile of correspondence.
“So you do,” said Wimsey. “A depraved sight, I am afraid. H’m! It looks very much as though Robert had got wind of trouble and didn’t like to face the music.”
He sipped his café-au-lait delicately, his rather bird-like face cocked sideways. “But why worry? He can’t have got very far.”
“He may have gone abroad.”
“Possibly. All the better. The other party won’t want to take proceedings against him over there. Too much bother — however spiteful they may feel. Hallo! Here’s a writing I seem to recognise. Yes. It is my sleuth from Sleuths Incorporated. Wonder what he wants. I told him to go home and send the bill in. — Whew!”
“What is it?”
“This is the bloke who chased Fentiman to Southampton. Not the one who went on to Venice after the innocent Mr. Postlethwaite; the other. He’s writing from Paris. He says:
‘MY LORD,
While making a few inquiries at Southampton pursuant to the investigation with which your lordship entrusted me’ (what marvellous English those fellows write, don’t they? Nearly as good as the regular police), ‘I came, almost accidentally’ (‘almost’ is good) ‘upon a trifling clue which led me to suppose that the party whom I was instructed by your lordship to keep under observation had been less in error than we were led to suppose, and had merely been misled by a confusion of identity natural in a gentleman not scientifically instructed in the art of following up suspected persons. In short’ (thank God for that!) ‘in short, I believe that I have myself come upon the track of O.’ (These fellows are amazingly cautious; he might just as well write Oliver and have done with it), ‘and have followed the individual in question to this place. I have telegraphed to the gentleman your friend’ (I presume that means Fentiman) ‘to join me immediately with a view to identifying the party. I will of course duly acquaint your lordship with any further developments in the case, and believe me’—
and so forth. Well, I’m damned!”
“The man must be mistaken, Lord Peter.”
“I jolly well hope so,” said Wimsey, rather red in the face. “It’ll be a bit galling to have Oliver turning up, just when we’ve proved so conclusively that he doesn’t exist. Paris! I suppose he means that Fentiman spotted the right man at Waterloo and lost him on the train or in the rush for the boat. And got hold of Postlethwaite instead. Funny. Meanwhile, Fentiman’s off to France. Probably taken the 10.30 boat from Folkestone. I don’t know how we’re to get hold of him.”
“How very extraordinary,” said Mr. Murbles. “Where does that detective person write from?”
“Just ‘Paris,’” said Wimsey. “Bad paper and worse ink. And a small stain of vin ordinaire. Probably written in some little café yesterday afternoon. Not much hope there. But he’s certain to let me know where they get to.”
“We must send some one to Paris immediately in search of them,” declared Mr. Murbles.
“Why?”
“To fetch Major Fentiman back.”
“Yes, but look here, sir. If there really is an Oliver after all, it rather upsets our calculations, doesn’t it?”
Mr. Murbles considered this.