Lord Peter Views the Body Read Online Free PDF Page A

  ‘Well, I figured out I’d stayed down in that room about as long as was healthy. Loder might come back at any moment, and I didn’t forget that a vatful of copper sulphate and cyanide of potassium would be a highly handy means of getting rid of a too-inquisitive guest. And I can’t say I had any great fancy for figuring as part of Loder’s domestic furniture. I’ve always hated things made in the shape of things – volumes of Dickens that turn out to be a biscuit-tin, and dodges like that; and, though I take no overwhelming interest in my own funeral, I should like it to be in good taste. I went so far as to wipe away any finger-marks I might have left behind me, and then I went back to the studio and rearranged that divan. I didn’t feel Loder would care to think I’d been down there.
        ‘There was just one other thing I felt inquisitive about. I tiptoed back through the hall and into the smoking-room. The silver couch glimmered in the light of the torch. I felt I disliked it fifty times more than ever before. However, I pulled myself together and took a careful look at the feet of the figure. I’d heard all about that second toe of Maria Morano’s.
        ‘I passed the rest of the night in the arm-chair after all.
        ‘What with Mrs Bilt’s job and one thing and another, and the enquiries I had to make, I had to put off my interference in Loder’s little game till rather late. I found out that Varden had been staying with Loder a few months before the beautiful Maria Morano had vanished. I’m afraid I was rather stupid about that, Mr Varden. I thought perhaps there had been something.’
        ‘Don’t apologise,’ said Varden, with a little laugh. ‘Cinema actors are notoriously immoral.’
        ‘Why rub it in?’ said Wimsey, a trifle hurt. ‘I apologise. Anyway, it came to the same thing as far as Loder was concerned. Then there was one bit of evidence I had to get to be absolutely certain. Electro-plating – especially such a ticklish job as the one I had in mind – wasn’t a job that could be finished in a night; on the other hand, it seemed necessary that Mr Varden should be seen alive in New York up to the day he was scheduled to depart. It was also clear that Loder meant to be able to prove that a Mr Varden had left New York all right, according to plan, and had actually arrived in Sydney. Accordingly, a false Mr Varden was to depart with Varden’s papers and Varden’s passport furnished with a new photograph duly stamped with the Consular stamp, and to disappear quietly at Sydney and be retransformed into Mr Eric Loder, travelling with a perfectly regular passport of his own. Well, then, in that case, obviously a cablegram would have to be sent off to Mystofilms Ltd., warning them to expect Varden by a later boat than he had arranged. I handed over this part of the job to my man, Bunter, who is uncommonly capable. The devoted fellow shadowed Loder faithfully for getting on for three weeks, and at length, the very day before Mr Varden was due to depart, the cablegram was sent from an office in Broadway, where, by a happy providence (once more) they supply extremely hard pencils.’
        ‘By Jove!’ cried Varden, ‘I remember now being told something about a cablegram when I got out, but I never connected it with Loder. I thought it was just some stupidity of the Western Electric people.’
        ‘Quite so. Well, as soon as I’d got that, I popped along to Loder’s with a picklock in one pocket and an automatic in the other. The good Bunter went with me, and, if I didn’t return by a certain time, had orders to telephone for the police. So you see everything was pretty well covered. Bunter was the chauffeur who was waiting for you, Mr Varden, but you turned suspicious – I don’t blame you altogether – so all we could do was to forward your luggage along to the train.
        ‘On the way out we met the Loder servants en route for New York in a car, which