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“I say, this is terribly good of you, Bunter,” observed the Viscount Saint-George, languidly lighting a cigarette and draping his long person into the chair opposite his uncle’s valet, who coughed discreetly.
“I was pleased to remove you from his lordship’s line of sight,” said Bunter mildly, “but you had best not take me to a locale any more disreputable than this. I have reached the limits of my endurance.”
“But you really think it’s a splendid place, don’t you?” Saint-George looked genuinely hurt. “The chaps at school all talked about it.”
“Oh, it’s all rather sordid, but I suppose one could be in the mood for that sort of thing.”
“Such abominable cheek. You do make love to the occupation, as Uncle Peter would say.”
“Jerry!” A young woman in an offensively bright fuchsia dress appeared from the press of the crowd, her face gleaming with exertion. “Thank God. Has it been so long? I’m here with a horrid set,” she said, sliding into the booth next to the viscount, “Let us pretend we are engaged in an utterly fascinating conversation. This will not be a lie, because you have the most utterly fascinating mannerisms.”
“You can’t imagine how foul it’s been,” she said, as Saint-George half-heartedly ventured a response. “I’m dining with the Honourable Frederick Arbuthnot, who is an appalling person, and his City friends, who have been making vulgar comments to the waiting girls. I am resolved to throw myself out the window and die in the street.”
Bunter, summoning all his powers of professional judgment, endeavored to excuse himself. He made his way to the bar, past legions of aggressively jiving dance partners, two comically large potted ferns, and the disheartening spectacle of the Hon. Freddy Arbuthnot leading his cohorts in a drunken and rousing rendition of La Marseillaise.
From this more distant vantage point, he could observe Lord Saint-George and the girl unobtrusively. She was whispering something in his ear with a conspiratorial air, in a development which Bunter felt could portend no wholesome outcome.
“L'étendard sanglant est levé! L'étendard…I say, is that Bunter? Bunter, old thing, how are you? Does he hear me, do you think?”
“Doubtful,” muttered Bunter darkly, before composing his features into a state of tolerable equanimity.
“That’s Wimsey’s man, you know, the fellow with all the hidden talents. I say, Bunter!”
Like a man facing the guillotine, he turned reluctantly to the smooth, bland visage of his lordship’s erstwhile friend, reddened somewhat by alcohol and enthusiasm.
“Bunter, my dear chap,” said the Hon. Freddy, clapping him on the shoulder with familiarity, “I hadn’t expected to find you in such august company.” He gave a little hiccup which, to Bunter’s horror, resembled a giggle. “How is Wimsey?”
“His lordship remains in good health,” responded Bunter evenly.
“Splendid, splendid. It would be jolly if you would have a drink with us; that is to say, if it wouldn't upset your dignity--”
“Hullo, Freddy,” said Lord Saint-George, materializing at his shoulder with a cheerful air. “Sorry to have driven you away, Bunter. Gillian’s a splendid girl, but she does rather go on. I say, who is that terrifying woman?”
Following his lordship’s gaze, Bunter noted the menacing presence of a squat woman with peroxide curls, dressed in a red satin which one might not consider of the best quality. Her eyes searched ruthlessly through the dark and smoke, as if she might find the object of her pursuit crouching among the incongruous collection of aspidistras.
“I wouldn’t fancy standing in her way,” said the Hon. Freddy. “Poor blighter. A drink, Jerry? And Bunter, of course, although you might as well stand guard.”
At his words, the woman turned and looked at them. Then, with a terrible cry, jabbing her finger at Saint-George, she shouted triumphantly, “It’s ‘im!”
Several couples turned and stared.
“Good Lord! What a beastly thing,” said the viscount. “I apologize, good madam, but I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong—”
“Please don’t make a fuss, your lordship,” said Chief-Inspector Charles Parker, stepping out from the shadows grimly. “We’ll have to take you into custody.”
********
Two hours earlier, Lord Peter Wimsey had been contending with the unenviable problem of how to dispose of one’s troublesome nephew when the love of one’s life was coming to dine. Or rather, when the lady in question had graciously agreed to his offer of the use of his not inconsiderable bibliographical collections on the inner workings of long-abandoned textile mills for her new novel.
To his mind, this was a most promising development. He had suggested the use of his library in an off-hand manner, bracing himself for the blow of her polite rebuff, and his worst fears were confirmed at her look of guarded discomfort.
“Look here, Harriet,” he had said hastily, “You mustn’t think—I mean, I shouldn’t want you to have to feel grateful to me, again. I offer it merely in the spirit of scholarly solidarity, you see.”
To his utter shock, however, she had not declined. The prospect of Miss Vane coming to peruse his books naturally unearthed the feeble hope that she might condescend to dine with him, a speculation to which Bunter responded with his accustomed equability.
“I shall inform the chef, my lord,” he said. He paused carefully, as his lordship considered the manifold possibilities now unfolding before him.
“Yes, Bunter?” Wimsey inquired, disturbed from his reverie.
“I hope your lordship will not consider it insolent to inquire as to your intentions regarding Lord Saint-George.”
“Ah,” he said. “I had nearly forgotten that dreadful martyrdom—which must, of course, run its course. I don’t suppose he could find some disreputable locale to squirrel himself away in for the evening?”
“I believe the viscount had expressed his desire to compose several letters this evening.”
“Letters? To whom, one shudders to ask? Well, perhaps you could lure him away from his mysterious correspondences and take him to the Talkies tonight, Bunter. One can hardly have him barging in and revealing all my familial ignominy in one evening.”
“I shall endeavor to occupy his lordship in whatever manner I can devise.”
“I was only joking about the Talkies, Bunter. You needn’t look so terrified. But please, I humbly beg you to remove my comely and callow nephew from Miss Vane’s line of sight.”
“I only wonder, my lord, who shall wait on you this evening?”
“Oh, it shan’t matter. I think we shall have sandwiches.”
Bunter winced, almost imperceptibly.
********
The suggestion of sandwiches had occurred to Lord Peter in a flash of inspiration, as he considered the awkwardness of a formal supper. He had met Harriet so often on neutral ground—in the best restaurants in London, they had conversed pleasantly but dispassionately, his own voice ringing hollow with forced jocundity. But here, in his house, they could hardly sit across from one another at a table covered by a spotless white tablecloth, where all passion came to expire under the crushing yoke of polite conversation.
So, then. Sandwiches. A suitably bohemian choice, and consequently one which did not require the services of a butler. From this day forth, he thought solemnly, he would consider sandwiches the most ardent of foods.
He played Scarlatti and Purcell, cursing the loss of his harpsichord, and then considered playing Fauré when she arrived; rightfully coming to his senses, he closed the lid decisively and sat down to wait.
“Miss Harriet Vane, my lord.”
And then there was Harriet, smiling uncertainly, her dress a rather fetching dark red shade which ignited all vain and lascivious hope.
“This is very kind of you, Peter.”
“Oh, not kind at all,” he said airily. Bunter wordlessly accepted her coat. “Rather selfish, in fact. The truth is that I merely sought to opportunity to display my collection of incunabula.”
“I say, really?” she asked, raising a dark eyebrow. “I would be quite interested.”
“I am entirely in earnest. Shall you view the fifteeners? I am the author, as you may not be aware, of a few trifling publications on the subject.”
“O, brave new world. If you must know, I was made aware—or rather, I discovered your expertise. In fact, Notes on the Collecting of Incunabula has now found a home on my desk, under the mounds of vaguely illiterate reader’s mail and unsolicited suggestions from my editor. I’m sorry, that must sound terribly churlish.”
“On the contrary; I find you radiant. Did you look me up? How delightful. I am always enthused to learn that I inspire further queries. Shall we go in?”
“I had come for the textile mills, but I suppose I might neglect my duty for the moment. It’s rather mired—the book, that is—and to be quite honest, I’ve developed something of a dislike for the thing, which is never a promising sign. Although of course, you hadn’t asked.”
She seemed in a frivolous mood. Furthermore, Wimsey was entirely confident in the over-awing powers of his unique 1489 Caxton folio of “The Four Sons of Aymon.” With cheerful complacency, he led the way.
********
“Jerry, darling, are you hurt? What are they doing to you?”
“I’m quite smashing, really,” said Lord Saint-George. “Except—and I should not want you to take this in the wrong spirit, Gillian—I think someone has just tried to assassinate me.”
“Excuse me, miss,” said Bunter briskly, endeavoring to separate the viscount from the inconsolable Gillian. He laid his hand on Chief Inspector Parker’s arm, ignoring the stares and the Hon. Frederick Arbuthnot calling out loudly, “I say, has there been a robbery?”
“The essentials of the circumstance will be sorted out later,” said Bunter, suppressing his overwhelming indignation. “But in the interim, I trust you will adequately explain your motives for arresting his lordship’s nephew in a public nightclub.”
“Look here,” said Chief Inspector Parker. “This lady”—he indicated the woman in red silk, who was examining Lord Saint-George with ferocious animosity—“claims that the viscount has stolen rather valuable jewelry from her establishment. I came myself, for Lord Peter’s sake. I would have informed him first, of course, but I can’t seem to get through. Now, if you will only allow us to proceed…”
Saint-George protested loudly. Fighting a pounding headache and the growing urge to throttle someone, Bunter gloomily contemplated the disagreeable prospect of disturbing his lordship’s evening with the news that his nephew had been arrested for theft.
“If you do not object,” said Bunter quietly, “I will accompany you to the station.”
*******
“Ah! This is marvelous.”
“It’s the 1623 quarto,” said Lord Peter self-effacingly. “Rather outside my period of specialization, but—”
“Webster was much possessed by death, and saw the skull beneath the skin?”
“Yes.” He spoke abstractly, absorbed with the scent of her hair; the startling whiteness of the exposed skin on the back of her neck; her downcast eyelashes, fluttering slightly with concentration.
“I saw a rather unsatisfactory production a few months ago,” said Harriet thoughtfully. “I suppose it was technically adequate, but one left wearing a superior smile.”
“‘Second-rate Duchess of Malfi leaves patrons smiling at the door.’ I should like to read your reviews in the Sunday papers. ”
She flushed at that, and he wondered why he always felt obligated to insert this jaunty glibness into their exchanges. Harriet was unimpressed, he knew, although never censorious; she merely looked at him with vague distaste, as she had on the first day he had proposed to her.
Oh, are you another of them? That makes forty-seven.
“Peter?” But she did not find him distasteful now, he reminded himself hastily; she was wearing a scarlet frock, admiring his books, and smiling tentatively at him. One had to take these things as they came.
“Yes, beloved?”
“It appears that the sandwiches have arrived.”
And indeed, at the sight of an exquisite silver tray of several different varieties of sandwiches cut into delightful shapes, he thanked the gods for Bunter.
“These are delicious,” said Harriet happily, as they settled down to eat. “But I really should at least select which books I plan to poach from you this evening.”
“Shall you unburden all your literary travails to me? I am most accommodating.”
She sighed. “It’s the most beastly thing when one is a writer who doesn’t want to write at the moment—I mean, there’s nothing wrong with the book on the face of it, but I have somehow created an entirely unwieldy cast of characters, the most tolerable of whom I don’t care for at all and with whom I would rather not spend a vexing afternoon coaxing the next three paragraphs to life, and others upon whom I wish bodily harm. And that was quite an unpleasant speech,” she concluded, selecting a handsome cucumber sandwich.
He shook his head. “I didn’t find it so at all. ‘For her discourse, it is so full of rapture, you only will begin then to be sorry when she doth end her speech, and wish in wonder she held it less vain-glory to talk much, than your penance to hear her.’ A rather macabre fellow, Webster, but surprisingly eloquent, when one gets past the blood running all over the footlights.”
“That’s rather sweet of you, Peter.”
“Her days are practiced in such noble virtue,” he said softly, “That sure her nights, nay more, her very sleeps, are more in heaven than other ladies' shrifts.”
Harriet looked at the table and then at him, offering a small smile which left the rest of her face strangely unaffected, and ran a hand through her hair uneasily, putting another hand to her mouth. He watched her movements with a careful, nearly voyeuristic interest. She had chosen to come here. Perhaps she wanted…and yes, in that moment, he understood that she would: her dark hair spread out on the pillow, her white throat arched back, her hands stroking his face with an air of apology, her eyes avoiding his.
I’ll live with you, if you like, but I won’t marry you.
So, then, he would remain polite and unthreatening, and make only facile pronouncements of his deepest feelings. And why? Because she would not forgive him, and he would not meet her eyes.
“Let all sweet ladies break their flattering glasses and dress themselves in her!” he finished, with a dramatic flourish. Harriet laughed and accorded the leading man a round of applause.
The telephone rang.
*******
“It is bad enough,” said Lord Peter, “that my nephew has been carousing indiscreetly in a house of ill repute. But theft—it crosses all bounds and sense of shame.”
He peered through the slightly ajar door separating the study from the library, where Harriet was examining the bookshelves. “Dash it all!” he muttered. “All right. I’m on my way.”
He set the telephone back on the hook, cursing his dissolute nephew, the London Metropolitan Police, and his own ill luck.
“Peter, are you all right? You look quite ill.”
“Dashed unpleasant thing,” he said, with a smooth joviality that he did not quite feel. “I’m dreadfully sorry, but I may have to cut our evening short.”
“Well, I’ll take these, then,” she said, gesturing to the books in her arms.
“Yes, that would be jolly. And keep them as long as you like.”
The stood rather awkwardly opposite one another, the evening suddenly reduced to a formal transaction.
“Shall I walk you out, then?”
“Oh, that’s not necessary.”
He saw her to her cab, in any case. It was drizzling lightly. He paid the cabbie and watched the car until it disappeared among the darkened streets, feeling morose.
All her particular worth, grows to this sum; she stains the time past, lights the time to come.
“Damn!”
********
“Look here, uncle, I know how this must seem to you. But I swear upon the souls of all our forbearers that I took nothing from the woman.”
Bunter had entered many police stations in his lordship’s service, but none under such ignominious circumstances. And now, having successfully bailed out Lord Saint-George from the custody of the state, he could not recall witnessing a more uncomfortable taxi journey.
Lord Peter kneaded his temples with a long-suffering air. “Do you deny, Gherkins, that you have encountered some financial difficulties? Bunter informed me of your mysterious correspondences.”
“Well, I suppose I am short, but isn’t one always a bit hard-up at this time of the month, after the Derby? I had not thought to write to the Governor about it. And I certainly did not feel the need to go about pilfering brothels, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”
“I suspect that you would rather pilfer a thousand brothels than write to Gerald for assistance,” said Peter severely, “but let’s leave that off for now. I could not at all blame Charles for acting as he did, given that no less than four separate eyewitness accounts confirmed reports of you exiting Madame Angevine’s establishment with a rather valuable ruby necklace. I suppose all of these individuals have been engaged in a conspiracy against you?”
“Ah, that. Well, I did leave with a necklace, but certainly not a stolen one. I told the good lady of my—ahem—difficulties, and she said, ‘Darling boy, take this, and don’t say another word about it.’ Well, I thought that was terribly admirable of her, but the next thing I know, I’ve been dragged through the streets and publicly indicted for robbery! It’s enough to make a fellow ill. And in fact, I have quite an upset stomach.”
“What do you think, Bunter,” asked Peter, exhaling sharply after the recounting of this incredibly tale. “What could incite such malice against my poor, virtuous nephew?”
“I cannot imagine,” said Bunter carefully. “Only I am inclined to believe that his lordship is telling the truth.” Lord Saint-George looked at him with an expression of boundless gratitude.
“Yes, I am as well,” said Peter thoughtfully. “And as Freddy informed me, he knows a chappie who can sort this out. We shall consult in the morning. In the meantime…” He gave a gesture of helplessness.
The cab halted outside 110A Piccadilly. As they stepped out of the car, Saint-George looking decidedly deflated, Bunter leaned over to whisper in his lordship’s ear.
“May I inquire as to whether your meeting with Miss Vane concluded satisfactorily?”
“Nothing concluded, Bunter. Nothing at all.”