Gaudy Night

“What did she say happened?”

“Why, she was putting away the deck chairs in the loggia about half-past nine, when somebody seized her round the neck from behind and frog’s-marched her off to the cellar. She said it was a woman, and very strong-”

“She was,” said Harriet. “I can bear witness to that. Grip like steel. And a most unfeminine vocabulary.”

“A

“I wish to goodness,” said Harriet, “I’d been a trifle more efficient.” She pondered a moment. “I wonder why she didn’t stay to finish me off.”

“Lord Peter wondered that, too. He said he thought she must either have thought you were dead, or been alarmed by the blood and finding she’d got the wrong person. When you went limp, she’d probably feel about and she’d know you were not Miss de Vine-short hair and no spectacles, you see-and she’d hurry off to get rid of any bloodstains before somebody came along. At least, that was his theory. He looked pretty queer about it.”

“Is he here now?”

“No; he had to go back… Something about getting an early ’plane from Croydon. He rang up and made a great to-do, but apparently it was all settled and he had to go. If any of his prayers are heard, I shouldn’t think anybody in the Government would have a whole place in his body this morning. So I comforted him with hot coffee and he went off, leaving orders that neither you nor Miss de Vine nor A

“Poor old Peter!” said Harriet. “He never seems to get a night’s rest.”

“Meanwhile, the Warden is valiantly issuing an unconvincing statement to the effect that somebody played a foolish practical Joke on A

The next day brought Lord Saint-George. “My turn to visit the sick,” he said. “You’re a nice, restful aunt for a fellow to adopt, I don’t think. Do you realize that you’ve done me out of a di

“Yes,” said Harriet. “It’s a pity-Perhaps I’d better tell the Dean. You might be able to identify-”

“ Now don’t you start laying plots,” said he, “or your temperature will go up. You leave it to Uncle. He says he’ll be back tomorrow, by the way, and the evidence is rolling in nicely and you’re to keep quiet and not worry. Honour bright. Had him on the ’phone this morning. He’s all of a doodah. Says anybody could have done his business in Paris, only they’ve got it into their heads he’s the only person who can get on the right side of some tedious old mule or other who has to be placated or conciliated or something. As far as I can make out, some obscure journalist has been assassinated and somebody’s trying to make an international incident of it. Hence the pyramids. I told you Uncle Peter had a strong sense of public duty; now you see it in action.”

“Well, he’s quite right.”

“What an u

“Doing fine. It was more the cut than the bump, I think.”

“Scalp-wounds do bleed, don’t they? Completely pig-like. Still, it’s as well you’re not a ‘corpse in the case with a sad, swelled face.’ You’ll be all right when they get the stitches out. Only a bit convict-like that side of the head. You’ll have to be cropped all round to even matters up and Uncle Peter can wear your discarded tresses next his heart.”

“Come, come,” said Harriet. “He doesn’t date back to the seventies.”

“He’s aging rapidly. I should think he’d nearly got to the sixties by now. With beautiful, golden side-whiskers. I really think you ought to rescue him before his bones start to creak and the spiders spin webs over his eyes.”

“You and your uncle,” said Harriet, “should be set to turn phrases for a living.”

22

O no, there is no end: the end is death and madness! As I am never better than when I am mad: then methinks I am a brave fellow; then I do wonders: but reason abuseth me, and there’s the torment, there’s the hell. At the last, sir, bring me to one of the murderers: were he as strong as Hector, thus would I tear and drag him up and down.

– BEN JONSON

Thursday. A heavy, gloomy and depressing Thursday, pouring down uninteresting rain from a sky like a grey box-lid. The Warden had called a meeting of the Senior Common Room for half-past two-an unconsoling hour. All three invalids were up and about again. Harriet had exchanged her bandages for some very unbecoming and unromantic strappings, and had not exactly a headache, but the sensation that a headache might begin at any moment. Miss de Vine looked like a ghost. A

It was understood that Lord Peter Wimsey would attend the S.C.R. meeting in order to lay certain information before the staff. Harriet had received from him a brief and characteristic note, which said:

“Congratulations on not being dead yet. I have taken your collar away to have my name put on.”

She had already missed the collar. And she had had, from Miss Hillyard, a strangely vivid little picture of Peter, standing at her bedside between night and dawn, quite silent, and twisting the thick strap over and over in his hands. All morning she had expected to see him; but he arrived only at the last moment so that their meeting took place in the Common Room, under the eyes of all the dons. He had driven straight from Town without changing his suit, and above the dark cloth his head had the bleached look of a faint water-colour. He paid his respects politely to the Warden and the Senior dons before coming over and taking her hand.

“Well, and how are you?”

“Not too bad, considering.”

“That’s good.”

He smiled and went to sit by the Warden. Harriet, at the opposite side of the table, slipped into a place beside the Dean. Everything that was alive in him lay in the palm of her hand, like a ripe apple. Dr. Baring was asking him to begin and he was doing so, in the flat voice of a secretary reading the minutes of a company meeting. He had a sheaf of papers before him, including (Harriet noticed) her dossier, which he must have taken away on the Monday morning. But he went on without referring to so much as a note, addressing himself to a bowl filled with marigolds that stood on the table before him.