“Thank you, Marjorie,” said Wimsey, gravely.
“No, but listen! Have you seen Ann? — I took her away. She’s frightfully queer — and there’s a policeman outside. But whatever she’s done, I couldn’t leave her alone in that awful house. You haven’t come to — to—”
“Marjorie!” said Wimsey, “don’t you ever talk to me again about feminine intuition. You’ve been thinking all this time that that girl was suffering from guilty conscience. Well, she wasn’t. It was a man, my child — a MAN!”
“How do you know?”
“My experienced eye told me as much at the first glance. It’s all right now. Sorrow and sighing have fled away. I am going to take your young friend out to dinner.”
“But why didn’t she tell me what it was all about?”
“Because,” said Wimsey, mincingly, “it wasn’t the kind of thing one woman tells another.”
Chapter XXI
Lord Peter Calls a Bluff
“It is new to me,” said Lord Peter, glancing from the back window of the taxi at the other taxi which was following them, “to be shadowed by the police, but it amuses them and doesn’t hurt us.”
He was revolving ways and means of proof in his mind. Unhappily, all the evidence in favour of Ann Dorland was evidence against her as well — except, indeed, the letter to Pritchard. Damn Penberthy. The best that could be hoped for now was that the girl should escape from public inquiry with a verdict of ‘Not proven.’ Even if acquitted — even if never charged with the murder — she would always be suspect. The question was not one which could be conveniently settled by a brilliant flash of deductive logic, or the discovery of a bloodstained thumb-mark. It was a case for lawyers to argue — for a weighing of the emotional situation by twelve good and lawful persons. Presumably the association could be proved — the couple had met and dined together; probably the quarrel could be proved — but what next? Would a jury believe in the cause of the quarrel?
Would they think it a pre-arranged blind, or perhaps — or mistake it for the falling-out of rogues among themselves? What would they think of this plain, sulky, inarticulate girl, who had never had any real friends, and whose clumsy and tentative graspings after passion had been so obscure, so disastrous?
Penberthy, too — but Penberthy was easier to understand. Penberthy, cynical and bored with poverty, found himself in contact with this girl, who might be so well-off some day. And Penberthy, the physician, would not mistake the need for passion that made the girl such easy stuff to work on. So he carried on — bored with the girl, of course — keeping it all secret, till he saw which way the cat was going to jump. Then the old man — the truth about the will — the opportunity. And then, upsettingly, Robert… Would the jury see it like that?
Wimsey leaned out of the cab window and told the driver to go to the Savoy. When they arrived, he handed the girl over to the cloak-room attendant. “I am going up to change,” he added, and turning, had the pleasure of seeing his sleuth arguing with the porter in the entrance-hall. Bunter, previously summoned by telephone, was already in attendance with his master’s dress clothes. Having changed, Wimsey passed through the hall again. The sleuth was there, quietly waiting. Wimsey grinned at him, and offered him a drink.
“I can’t help it, my lord,” said the detective.
“Of course not; you’ve sent for a bloke in a boiled shirt to take your place, I suppose?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“More power to his elbow. So long.”
He rejoined his charge and they went into the dining-room. Dressed in a green which did not suit her, she was undoubtedly plain. But she had character; he was not ashamed of her. He offered her the menu.
“What shall it be?” he asked. “Lobster and champagne?”
She laughed at him.
“Marjorie says you are an authority on food. I don’t believe authorities on food ever take lobster and champagne. Anyway, I don’t like lobster, much. Surely there’s something they do best here, isn’t there? Let’s have that.”
“You show the right spirit,” said Wimsey. “I will compose a dinner for you.”
He called the head waiter, and went into the question scientifically.
“Huîtres Musgrave—I am opposed on principle to the cooking of oysters — but it is a dish so excellent that one may depart from the rules in its favour. Fried in their shells, Miss Dorland, with little strips of bacon. Shall we try it? — The soup must be tortue vraie, of course. The fish — oh! just a filet de sole, the merest mouthful, a hyphen between the prologue and the main theme.”
“That all sounds delightful. And what is the main theme to be?”
“I think a faisan rôti with Pommes Byron. And a salad to promote digestion. And, waiter — be sure the salad is dry and perfectly crisp. A soufflé glacé to finish up with. And bring me the wine-list.”
They talked. When she was not on the defensive, the girl was pleasant enough in manner; a trifle downright and aggressive, perhaps, in her opinions, but needing only mellowing.
“What do you think of the Romanée Conti?” he asked, suddenly.
“I don’t know much about wine. It’s good. Not sweet, like Sauterne. It’s a little — well — harsh. But it’s harsh without being thin — quite different from that horrid Chianti people always seem to drink at Chelsea parties.”
“You’re right; it’s rather unfinished, but it has plenty of body — it’ll be a grand wine in ten years’ time. It’s 1915. Now, you see. Waiter, take this away and bring me a bottle of the 1908.”
He leaned towards his companion.
“Miss Dorland — may I be impertinent?”
“How? Why?”
“Not an artist, not a bohemian, and not a professional man;—a man of the world.”
“What do you mean by those cryptic words?”
“For you. That is the kind of man who is going to like you very much. Look! that wine I’ve sent away — it’s no good for a champagne-and-lobster sort of person, nor for very young people — it’s too big and rough. But it’s got the essential guts, So have you. It takes a fairly experienced palate to appreciate it. But you and it will come into your own one day. Get me?”
“Do you think so?”
“Yes. But your man won’t be at all the sort of person you’re expecting. You have always thought of being dominated by somebody, haven’t you?”
“Well—”
“But you’ll find that yours will be the leading brain of the two. He will take great pride in the fact. And you will find the man reliable and kind, and it will turn out quite well.”
“I didn’t know you were a prophet.”
“I am, though.”
Wimsey took the bottle of 1908 from the waiter and glanced over the girl’s head at the door. A man in a boiled shirt was making his way in, accompanied by the manager.
“I am a prophet,” said Wimsey. “Listen. Something tiresome is going to happen — now, this minute. But don’t worry. Drink your wine, and trust.”
The manager had brought the man to their table. It was Parker.
“Ah!” said Wimsey, brightly. “You’ll forgive our starting without you, old man. Sit down. I think you know Miss Dorland.”
Parker bowed and sat down.
“Have you come to arrest me?” asked Ann.