Clouds of Witness. Дороти Ли Сэйерс

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СКАЧАТЬ He is accustomed to water his animals in a certain pond lying a little off the road about twelve miles south of Ripley. On this occasion he saw that one of them appeared to be in difficulties. On going to the rescue, he found the animal entangled in a motor-cycle, which had been driven into the pond and abandoned. With the assistance of a couple of workmen he extricated the machine. It is a Douglas, with dark-grey side-car. The number-plates and licence-holder have been carefully removed. The pond is a deep one, and the outfit was entirely submerged. It seems probable, however, that it could not have been there for more than a week, since the pond is much used on Sundays and Mondays for the watering of cattle. The police are making search for the owner. The front tyre of the bicycle is a new Dunlop, and the side-car tyre has been repaired with gaiter. The machine is a 1914 model, much worn."

      "That seems to strike a chord," said Lord Peter musingly. He consulted a time-table for the time of the next train to Ripley, and ordered the car.

      "And send Bunter to me," he added.

      That gentleman arrived just as his master was struggling into an overcoat.

      "What was that thing in last Thursday's paper about a number-plate, Bunter?" inquired his lordship.

      Mr. Bunter produced, apparently by legerdemain, a cutting from an evening paper:

      " Number-plate Mystery

      " The Rev. Nathaniel Foulis, of St. Simon's, North Fellcote, was stopped at six o'clock this morning for riding a motor-cycle without number-plates. The reverend gentleman seemed thunderstruck when his attention was called to the matter. He explained that he had been sent for in great haste at 4 A.M. to administer the Sacrament to a dying parishioner six miles away. He hastened out on his motorcycle, which he confidingly left by the roadside while executing his sacred duties. Mr. Foulis left the house at 5.30 without noticing that anything was wrong. Mr. Foulis is well known in North Fellcote and the surrounding country, and there seems little doubt that he has been the victim of a senseless practical joke. North Fellcote is a small village a couple of miles north of Ripley."

      "I'm going to Ripley, Bunter," said Lord Peter.

      "Yes, my lord. Does your lordship require me?"

      "No," said Lord Peter, "but-who has been lady's maiding my sister, Bunter?"

      "Ellen, my lord-the housemaid."

      "Then I wish you'd exercise your powers of conversation on Ellen."

      "Very good, my lord."

      "Does she mend my sister's clothes, and brush her skirts, and all that?"

      "I believe so, my lord."

      "Nothing she may think is of any importance, you know, Bunter."

      "I wouldn't suggest such a thing to a woman, my lord. It goes to their heads, if I may say so."

      "When did Mr. Parker leave for town?"

      "At six o'clock this morning, my lord."

* * *

      Circumstances favoured Mr. Bunter's inquiries. He bumped into Ellen as she was descending the back stairs with an armful of clothing. A pair of leather gauntlets was jerked from the top of the pile, and, picking them up, he apologetically followed the young woman into the servants' hall.

      "There," said Ellen, flinging her burden on the table, "and the work I've had to get them, I'm sure. Tantrums, that's what I call it, pretending you've got such a headache you can't let a person into the room to take your things down to brush, and, as soon as they're out of the way, 'opping out of bed and trapesing all over the place. 'Tisn't what I call a headache, would you, now? But there! I daresay you don't get them like I do. Regular fit to split, my head is sometimes-couldn't keep on my feet, not if the house was burning down. I just have to lay down and keep laying-something cruel it is. And gives a person such wrinkles in one's forehead."

      "I'm sure I don't see any wrinkles," said Mr. Bunter, "but perhaps I haven't looked hard enough." An interlude followed, during which Mr. Bunter looked hard enough and close enough to distinguish wrinkles. "No," said he, "wrinkles? I don't believe I'd see any if I was to take his lordship's big microscope he keeps up in town."

      "Lor' now, Mr. Bunter," said Ellen, fetching a sponge and a bottle of benzine from the cupboard, "what would his lordship be using a thing like that for, now?"

      "Why, in our hobby, you see, Miss Ellen, which is criminal investigation, we might want to see something magnified extra big-as it might be handwriting in a forgery case, to see if anything's been altered or rubbed out, or if different kinds of ink have been used. Or we might want to look at the roots of a lock of hair, to see if it's been torn out or fallen out. Or take bloodstains, now; we'd want to know if it was animal's blood or human blood, or maybe only a glass of port."

      "Now is it really true, Mr. Bunter," said Ellen, laying a tweed skirt out upon the table and unstoppering the benzine, "that you and Lord Peter can find out all that?"

      "Of course, we aren't analytical chemists," Mr. Bunter replied, "but his lordship's dabbled in a lot of things-enough to know when anything looks suspicious, and if we've any doubts we send to a very famous scientific gentleman." (He gallantly intercepted Ellen's hand as it approached the skirt with a benzene-soaked sponge.) "For instance, now, here's a stain on the hem of this skirt, just at the bottom of the side-seam. Now, supposing it was a case of murder, we'll say, and the person that had worn this skirt was suspected, I should examine that stain." (Here Mr. Bunter whipped a lens out of his pocket.) "Then I might try it at one edge with a wet handkerchief." (And suited the action to the word.) "And I should find you see, that it came off red. Then I should turn the skirt inside-out, I should see that the stain went right through, and I should take my scissors" (Mr. Bunter produced a small, sharp pair) "and snip off a tiny bit of the inside edge of the seam, like this" (he did so) "and pop it into a little pill-box, so" (the pill-box appeared magically from an inner pocket), "and seal it up both sides with a wafer, and write on the top 'Lady Mary Wimsey's skirt,' and the date. Then I should sent it straight off to the analytical gentleman in London, and he'd look through his microscope, and tell me right off that it was rabbit's blood, maybe, and how many days it had been there, and that would be the end of that," finished Mr. Bunter triumphantly, replacing his nail-scissors and thoughtlessly pocketing the pill-box with its contents.

      "Well, he'd be wrong, then," said Ellen, with an engaging toss of the head, "because it's bird's blood, and not rabbit's at all, because her ladyship told me so; and wouldn't it be quicker just to go and ask the person than get fiddling round with your silly old microscope and things?"

      "Well, I only mentioned rabbits for an example," said Mr. Bunter. "Funny she should have got a stain down there. Must have regularly knelt in it."

      "Yes. Bled a lot, hasn't it, poor thing? Somebody must 'a' been shootin' careless-like. 'Twasn't his grace, or yet the Captain, poor man. Perhaps it was Mr. Arbuthnot. He shoots a bit wild sometimes. It's a nasty mess, anyway, and it's so hard to clean off, being it so long. I'm sure I wasn't thinking about cleaning anything the day the poor Captain was killed; and then the Coroner's inquest-'orrid, it was-and his grace being took off like that! Well, there, it upset me. I suppose I'm a bit sensitive. Anyhow, we was all at sixes and sevens for a day or two, and then her ladyship shuts herself up in her room and won't let me go near the wardrobe. 'Ow!' she says, 'do leave that wardrobe door alone. Don't you know it squeaks, and my head's so bad and my nerves so bad I can't stand it,' she says. 'I was only going to brush your skirts, my lady,' I says. 'Bother my skirts,' says her ladyship, 'and do go away, Ellen. I shall scream if I see you fidgeting about there. You get on my nerves,' she says. Well, I didn't see why I should go on, not after being spoken to like that. It's very nice to be a ladyship, and all your tempers СКАЧАТЬ