“Right.”
Wimsey went out, leaving him to it, and joined Woodward and Bunter, who were conversing in the next room. A glance told Wimsey that this was the General’s bedroom.
On a table beside the narrow iron bedstead was an old-fashioned writing-desk. Wimsey took it up, weighed it in his hands a moment and then took it to Robert Fentiman in the other room. “Have you opened this?” he asked.
“Yes — only old letters and things.”
“You didn’t come across Oliver’s address, I suppose?”
“No. Of course I looked for that.”
“Looked anywhere else? Any drawers? Cupboards? That sort of thing?”
“Not so far,” said Fentiman, rather shortly.
“No telephone memorandum or anything — you’ve tried the telephone-book, I suppose?”
“Well, no — I can’t very well ring up perfect strangers and—”
“And sing ’em the Froth-Blowers’ Anthem? Good God, man, anybody’d think you were chasing a lost umbrella, not half a million of money. The man rang you up, so he may very well be on the ’phone himself. Better let Bunter tackle the job. He has an excellent manner on the line; people find it a positive pleasure to be tr-r-roubled by him.”
Robert Fentiman greeted this feeble pleasantry with an indulgent grin, and produced the telephone directory, to which Bunter immediately applied himself. Finding two-and-a-half columns of Olivers, he removed the receiver and started to work steadily through them in rotation. Wimsey returned to the bedroom. It was in apple-pie order — the bed neatly made, the wash-hand apparatus set in order, as though the occupant might return at any moment, every speck of dust removed — a tribute to Woodward’s reverent affection, but a depressing sight for an investigator.
Wimsey sat down, and let his eye rove slowly from the hanging wardrobe, with its polished doors, over the orderly line of boots and shoes arranged on their trees on a small shelf, the dressing table, the washstand, the bed and the chest of drawers which, with the small bedside table and a couple of chairs, comprised the furniture.
“Did the General shave himself, Woodward?”
“No, my lord; not latterly. That was my duty, my lord.”
“Did he brush his own teeth, or dental plate, or whatever it was?”
“Oh, yes, my lord. General Fentiman had an excellent set of teeth for his age.”
Wimsey fixed his powerful monocle into his eye, and carried the toothbrush over to the window. The result of the scrutiny was unsatisfactory. He looked round again.
“Is that his walking-stick?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“May I see it?”
Woodward brought it across, carrying it after the manner of a well-trained servant, by the middle. Lord Peter took it from him in the same manner, suppressing a slight, excited smile. The stick was a heavy malacca, with a thick crutch-handle of polished ivory, suitable for sustaining the feeble steps of old age.
The monocle came into play again, and this time its owner gave a chuckle of pleasure.
“I shall want to take a photograph of this stick presently, Woodward. Will you be very careful to see that it is not touched by anybody beforehand?”
“Certainly, my lord.”
Wimsey stood the stick carefully in its corner again, and then, as though it had put a new train of ideas into his mind, walked across to the shoe-shelf.
“Which were the shoes General Fentiman was wearing at the time of his death?”
“These, my lord.”
“Have they been cleaned since?”
Woodward looked a trifle stricken.
“Not to say cleaned, my lord. I just wiped them over with a duster. They were not very dirty, and somehow — I hadn’t the heart — if you’ll excuse me, my lord.”
“That’s very fortunate.” Wimsey turned them over and examined the soles very carefully, both with the lens and with the naked eye.
With a small pair of tweezers, taken from his pocket, he delicately removed a small fragment of pile — apparently from a thick carpet — which was clinging to a projecting brad, and stored it carefully away in an envelope. Then, putting the right shoe aside, he subjected the left to a prolonged scrutiny, especially about the inner edge of the sole. Finally he asked for a sheet of paper, and wrapped the shoe up as tenderly as though it had been a piece of priceless Waterford glass.
“I should like to see all the clothes General Fentiman was wearing that day — the outer garments, I mean — hat, suit, overcoat and so on.”
The garments were produced, and Wimsey went over every inch of them with the same care and patience, watched by Woodward with flattering attention.
“Have they been brushed?”
“No, my lord — only shaken out.”
This time Woodward offered no apology, having grasped dimly that polishing and brushing were not acts which called for approval under these unusual circumstances.
“You see,” said Wimsey, pausing for a moment to note an infinitesimally small ruffling of the threads on the left-hand trouser leg, “we might be able to get some sort of a clew from the dust on the clothes, if any — to show us where the General spent the night. If — to take a rather unlikely example — we were to find a lot of sawdust, for instance, we might suppose that he had been visiting a carpenter. Or a dead leaf might suggest a garden or a common, or something of that sort. While a cobweb might mean a wine-cellar, or — or a potting-shed — and so on. You see?”
“Yes, my lord” (rather doubtfully).
“You don’t happen to remember noticing that little tear — well, it’s hardly a tear — just a little roughness. It might have caught on a nail.”
“I can’t say I recollect it, my lord. But I might have overlooked it.”
“Of course. It’s probably of no importance. Well — lock the things up carefully. It’s just possible I might have to have the dust extracted and analyzed. Just a moment — Has anything been removed from these clothes? The pockets were emptied, I suppose?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“There was nothing unusual in them?”
“No, my lord. Nothing but what the General always took out with him. Just his handkerchief, keys, money and cigar case.”
“H’m. How about the money?”
“Well, my lord — I couldn’t say exactly as to that. Major Fentiman has got it all. There was two pound notes in his notecase, I remember. I believe he had two pounds ten when he went out, and some loose silver in the trouser pocket. He’d have paid his taxi-fare and his lunch at the Club out of the ten-shilling note.”
“That shows he didn’t pay for anything unusual, then, in the way of train or taxis backwards and forwards, or dinner, or drinks.”