Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers Read Free Book Online Page A

camouflage—but one doesn’t always know for what.”
    “There must be something behind it,” said Miss Barton, “because he’s obviously very intelligent. But is it only intelligence, or is there any genuine feeling?”
    “I shouldn’t,” said Harriet, gazing thoughtfully into her empty coffee-cup, “accuse him of any lack of feeling. I’ve seen him very much upset, for instance, over convicting a sympathetic criminal. But he is realty rather reserved, in spite of that deceptive manner.”
    “Perhaps he’s shy,” suggested Phoebe Tucker, kindly. “People who talk a lot often are. I think they are very much to be pitied.”
    “Shy?” said Harriet. “Well, hardly. Nervy, perhaps—that blessed word covers a lot. But he doesn’t exactly seem to call for pity.”
    “Why should he?” said Miss Barton. “In a very pitiful world, I don’t see much need to pity a young man who has everything he can possibly want.” He must be a remarkable person if he has that,” said Miss de Vine, with a gravity that her eyes belied.
    “And he’s not so young as all that,” said Harriet. “He’s forty-five.” (This was Miss Barton’s age.)
    “I think it’s rather an impertinence to pity people,” said the Dean.
    “Hear, hear!” said Harriet. “Nobody likes being pitied. Most of us enjoy self-pity, but that’s another thing.”
    “Caustic,” said Miss de Vine, “but painfully true.”
    “But what I should like to know,” pursued Miss Barton, refusing to be diverted, “is whether this dilettante gentleman does anything, outside his hobbies of detecting crimes and collecting books, and, I believe playing cricket in his off-time?”
    Harriet, who had been congratulating herself upon the way in which she was keeping her temper, was seized with irritation.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “Does it matter? Why should he do anything else?” Catching murderers isn’t a soft job, or a sheltered job. It takes a lot of time and energy, and you may very easily get injured or killed. I dare say he does it for fun, but at any rate, he does do it. Scores of people must have as much reason to thank him as I have. You can’t call that nothing.”
    “I absolutely agree,” said the Dean. “I think one ought to be very grateful to people who do dirty jobs for nothing, whatever their reason is.”
    Miss Fortescue applauded this. “The drains in my weekend cottage got stopped up last Sunday, and a most helpful neighbour came and unstopped them. He got quite filthy in the process and I apologised profusely, but he said I owed him no thanks, because he was inquisitive and liked drains. He may not have been telling the truth, but even if he was, I certainly had nothing to grumble about.”
    “Talking of drains,” said the Bursar—
    The conversation took a less personal and more anecdotal turn (for there is no chance assembly of people who cannot make lively conversation about drains), and after a little time, Miss Barton retired to bed. The Dean breathed a sigh of relief.
    “I hope you didn’t mind too much,” she said. “Miss Barton is the most terribly downright person, and she was determined to get all that off her chest. She is a splendid person, but hasn’t very much sense of humour. She can’t bear anything to be done except from the very loftiest motives.”
    Harriet apologised for having spoken so vehemently.
    “I thought you took it all wonderfully well. And your Lord Peter sounds a most interesting person. But I don’t see why you should be forced to discuss him, poor man”
    “If you ask me,” observed the Bursar, “we discuss everything a great deal too much in this university. We argue about this and that and why and wherefore, instead of getting the thing done.”
    “But oughtn’t we to ask what things we want done,” objected the Dean. Harriet grinned at Betty Armstrong, hearing the familiar academic wrangle begin. Before ten minutes had passed, somebody had introduced the word