Whose Body? A Lord Peter Wimsey Novel

“Well, I’m glad the little man has so much of an alibi,” said Lord Peter, “though if you’re only glueing your faith to cadaveric lividity, rigidity, and all the other quiddities, you must be prepared to have some sceptical beast of a prosecuting counsel walk slap-bang through the medical evidence. Remember Impey Biggs defending in that Chelsea tea-shop affair? Six bloomin’ medicos contradictin’ each other in the box, an’ old Impey elocutin’ abnormal cases from Glaister and Dixon Mann till the eyes of the jury reeled in their heads! ‘Are you prepared to swear, Dr. Thingumtight, that the onset of rigor mortis indicates the hour of death without the possibility of error?’ ‘So far as my experience goes, in the majority of cases,’ says the doctor, all stiff. ‘Ah!’ says Biggs, ‘but this is a Court of Justice, Doctor, not a Parliamentary election. We can’t get on without a minority report. The law, Dr. Thingumtight, respects the rights of the minority, alive or dead.’ Some ass laughs, and old Biggs sticks his chest out and gets impressive. ‘Gentlemen, this is no laughing matter. My client – an upright and honourable gentleman – is being tried for his life – for his life, gentlemen – and it is the business of the prosecution to show his guilt – if they can – without a shadow of doubt. Now, Dr. Thingumtight, I ask you again, can you solemnly swear, without the least shadow of doubt, – probable, possible shadow of doubt – that this unhappy woman met her death neither sooner nor later than Thursday evening? A probable opinion? Gentlemen, we are not Jesuits, we are straightforward Englishmen. You cannot ask a British-born jury to convict any man on the authority of a probable opinion.’ Hum of applause.”

“Biggs’s man was guilty all the same,” said Parker.

“Of course he was. But he was acquitted all the same, an’ what you’ve just said is libel.” Wimsey walked over to the bookshelf and took down a volume of Medical Jurisprudence. “‘Rigor mortis – can only be stated in a very general way – many factors determine the result.’ Cautious brute. ‘On the average, however, stiffening will have begun – neck and jaw – 5 to 6 hours after death’ – m’m – ‘in all likelihood have passed off in the bulk of cases by the end of 36 hours. Under certain circumstances, however, it may appear unusually early, or be retarded unusually long!’ Helpful, ain’t it, Parker? ‘Brown-Séquard states … 3½ minutes after death…. In certain cases not until lapse of 16 hours after death … present as long as 21 days thereafter.’ Lord! ‘Modifying factors – age – muscular state – or febrile diseases – or where temperature of environment is high’ – and so on and so on – any bloomin’ thing. Never mind. You can run the argument for what it’s worth to Sugg. He won’t know any better.” He tossed the book away. “Come back to facts. What did you make of the body?”

“Well,” said the detective, “not very much – I was puzzled – frankly. I should say he had been a rich man, but self-made, and that his good fortune had come to him fairly recently.”

“Ah, you noticed the calluses on the hands – I thought you wouldn’t miss that.”

“Both his feet were badly blistered – he had been wearing tight shoes.”

“Walking a long way in them, too,” said Lord Peter, “to get such blisters as that. Didn’t that strike you as odd, in a person evidently well off?”

“Well, I don’t know. The blisters were two or three days old. He might have got stuck in the suburbs one night, perhaps – last train gone and no taxi – and had to walk home.”

“Possibly.”

“There were some little red marks all over his back and one leg I couldn’t quite account for.”

“I saw them.”

“What did you make of them?”

“I’ll tell you afterwards. Go on.”

“He was very long-sighted – oddly long-sighted for a man in the prime of life; the glasses were like a very old man’s. By the way, they had a very beautiful and remarkable chain of flat links chased with a pattern. It struck me he might be traced through it.”

“I’ve just put an advertisement in the Times about it,” said Lord Peter. “Go on.”

“He had had the glasses some time – they had been mended twice.”

“Beautiful, Parker, beautiful. Did you realize the importance of that?”

“Not specially, I’m afraid – why?”

“Never mind – go on.”

“He was probably a sullen, ill-tempered man – his nails were filed down to the quick as though he habitually bit them, and his fingers were bitten as well. He smoked quantities of cigarettes without a holder. He was particular about his personal appearance.”

“Did you examine the room at all? I didn’t get a chance.”

“I couldn’t find much in the way of footprints. Sugg & Co. had tramped all over the place, to say nothing of little Thipps and the maid, but I noticed a very indefinite patch just behind the head of the bath, as though something damp might have stood there. You could hardly call it a print.”

“It rained hard all last night, of course.”

“Yes; did you notice that the soot on the window-sill was vaguely marked?”

“I did,” said Wimsey, “and I examined it hard with this little fellow, but I could make nothing of it except that something or other had rested on the sill.” He drew out his monocle and handed it to Parker.

“My word, that’s a powerful lens.”

“It is,” said Wimsey, “and jolly useful when you want to take a good squint at somethin’ and look like a bally fool all the time. Only it don’t do to wear it permanently – if people see you full-face they say: ‘Dear me! how weak the sight of that eye must be!’ Still, it’s useful.”

“Sugg and I explored the ground at the back of the building,” went on Parker, “but there wasn’t a trace.”

“That’s interestin’. Did you try the roof?”

“No.”

“We’ll go over it tomorrow. The gutter’s only a couple of feet off the top of the window. I measured it with my stick – the gentleman-scout’s vade-mecum, I call it – it’s marked off in inches. Uncommonly handy companion at times. There’s a sword inside and a compass in the head. Got it made specially. Anything more?”

“Afraid not. Let’s hear your version, Wimsey.”

“Well, I think you’ve got most of the points. There are just one or two little contradictions. For instance, here’s a man wears expensive gold-rimmed pince-nez and has had them long enough to be mended twice. Yet his teeth are not merely discoloured, but badly decayed and look as if he’d never cleaned them in his life. There are four molars missing on one side and three on the other and one front tooth broken right across. He’s a man careful of his personal appearance, as witness his hair and his hands. What do you say to that?”

“Oh, these self-made men of low origin don’t think much about teeth, and are terrified of dentists.”

“True; but one of the molars has a broken edge so rough that it had made a sore place on the tongue. Nothing’s more painful. D’you mean to tell me a man would put up with that if he could afford to get the tooth filed?”

“Well, people are queer. I’ve known servants endure agonies rather than step over a dentist’s doormat. How did you see that, Wimsey?”

“Had a look inside; electric torch,” said Lord Peter. “Handy little gadget. Looks like a matchbox. Well – I daresay it’s all right, but I just draw your attention to it. Second point: Gentleman with hair smellin’ of Parma violet and manicured hands and all the rest of it, never washes the inside of his ears. Full of wax. Nasty.”

“You’ve got me there, Wimsey; I never noticed it. Still – old bad habits die hard.”

“Right oh! Put it down at that. Third point: Gentleman with the manicure and the brilliantine and all the rest of it suffers from fleas.”

“By Jove, you’re right! Flea-bites. It never occurred to me.”

“No doubt about it, old son. The marks were faint and old, but unmistakable.”

“Of course, now you mention it. Still, that might happen to anybody. I loosed a whopper in the best hotel in Lincoln the week before last. I hope it bit the next occupier!”

“Oh, all these things might happen to anybody – separately. Fourth point: Gentleman who uses Parma violet for his hair, etc., etc., washes his body in strong carbolic soap – so strong that the smell hangs about twenty-four hours later.”

“Carbolic to get rid of the fleas.”

“I will say for you, Parker, you’ve an answer for everything. Fifth point: Carefully got-up gentleman, with manicured, though masticated, finger-nails, has filthy black toe-nails which look as if they hadn’t been cut for years.”

“All of a piece with habits as indicated.”

“Yes, I know, but such habits! Now, sixth and last point: This gentleman with the intermittently gentlemanly habits arrives in the middle of a pouring wet night, and apparently through the window, when he has already been twenty-four hours dead, and lies down quietly in Mr. Thipps’s bath, unseasonably dressed in a pair of pince-nez. Not a hair on his head is ruffled – the hair has been cut so recently that there are quite a number of little short hairs stuck on his neck and the sides of the bath – and he has shaved so recently that there is a line of dried soap on his cheek —”

“Wimsey!”

“Wait a minute – and dried soap in his mouth.”

Bunter got up and appeared suddenly at the detective’s elbow, the respectful man-servant all over.