Lord Peter Views the Body Read Online Free PDF

showed us that we were on the right track, and also that I was going to have a fairly simple job of it.
        ‘You’ve heard all about my interview with Mr Varden. I really don’t think I could improve upon his account. When I’d seen him and his traps safely off the premises, I made for the studio. It was empty, so I opened the secret door, and, as I expected, saw a line of light under the workshop door at the far end of the passage.’
        ‘So Loder was there all the time?’
        ‘Of course he was. I took my little pop-gun tight in my fist and opened the door very gently. Loder was standing between the tank and the switchboard, very busy indeed – so busy he didn’t hear me come in. His hands were black with graphite, a big heap of which was spread on a sheet on the floor, and he was engaged with a long, springy coil of copper wire, running to the output of the transformer. The big packing-case had been opened, and all the hooks were occupied.
        ‘ “Loder!’ I said.
        ‘He turned on me with a face like nothing human. “Wimsey!” he shouted, “what the hell are you doing here?”
        ‘ “I have come,” I said, “to tell you that I know how the apple gets into the dumpling.” And I showed him the automatic.
        ‘He gave a great yell and dashed at the switchboard, turning out the light, so that I could not see to aim. I heard him leap at me – and then there came in the darkness a crash and a splash – and a shriek such as I never heard – not in five years of war – and never want to hear again.
        ‘I groped forward for the switchboard. Of course, I turned on everything before I could lay my hand on the light, but I got it at last – a great white glare from the floodlight over the vat.
        ‘He lay there, still twitching faintly. Cyanide, you see, is about the swiftest and painfullest thing out. Before I could move to do anything, I knew he was dead – poisoned and drowned and dead. The coil of wire that had tripped him had gone into the vat with him. Without thinking, I touched it, and got a shock that pretty well staggered me. Then I realised that I must have turned on the current when I was hunting for the light. I looked into the vat again. As he fell, his dying hands had clutched at the wire. The coils were tight round his fingers, and the current was methodically depositing a film of copper all over his hands, which were blackened with the graphite.
        ‘I had just sense enough to realise that Loder was dead, and that it might be a nasty sort of look-out for me if the thing came out, for I’d certainly gone along to threaten him with a pistol.
        ‘I searched about till I found some solder and an iron. Then I went upstairs and called in Bunter, who had done his ten miles in record time. We went into the smoking-room and soldered the arm of that cursed figure into place again, as well as we could, and then we took everything back into the workshop. We cleaned off every finger-print and removed every trace of our presence. We left the light and the switchboard as they were, and returned to New York by an extremely roundabout route. The only thing we brought away with us was the facsimile of the Consular seal, and that we threw into the river.
        ‘Loder was found by the butler next morning. We read in the papers how he had fallen into the vat when engaged on some experiments in electro-plating. The ghastly fact was commented upon that the dead man’s hands were thickly coppered over. They couldn’t get it off without irreverent violence, so he was buried like that.
        ‘That’s all. Please, Armstrong, may I have my whisky-and-soda now?’
        ‘What happened to the couch?’ enquired Smith-Hartington presently.
        ‘I bought it at the sale of Loder’s things,’ said Wimsey, ‘and got hold of a dear old Catholic priest I knew, to whom I told the whole story under strict vow of secrecy. He was a very sensible and feeling