Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers Read Free Book Online Page A

Umpelty.
    ‘Very good of him,’ answered Harriet, amused.
    Within a very few minutes the car deposited her at one of those monster
    seaside palaces which look as though they had been designed by a German
    manufacturer of children’s cardboard toys. Its glass porch was crowded with
    hothouse plants, and the lofty dome of its reception-hal was supported on gilt

    pilasters rising out of an ocean of blue plush. Harriet tramped heedlessly
    through its spacious splendours and demanded a large single bedroom with
    private bath, on the first floor, and overlooking the sea.
    ‘Ai’m afraid,’ said the receptionist, casting a languid glance of disfavour at
    Harriet’s knapsack and shoes, ‘that al our rooms are engaged.’
    ‘Surely not,’ said Harriet, ‘so early in the season. Just ask the manager to
    come and speak to me for a moment.’ She sat down with a determined air in
    the nearest wel-stuffed armchair and, hailing a waiter, demanded a cocktail.
    ‘Wil you join me, Inspector?’
    The Inspector thanked her, but explained that a certain discretion was due to
    his position.
    ‘Another time, then,’ said Harriet, smiling, and dropping a pound-note on the
    waiter’s tray, with a somewhat ostentatious display of a wel-filed note-case.
    Inspector Umpelty grinned faintly as he saw the receptionist beckon to the
    water. Then he moved gently across to the desk and spoke a few words.
    Presently the assistant-receptionist approached Harriet with a deprecating
    smile.
    ‘We find, madam, that we can efter al accommodate you. An American
    gentleman has informed us thet he is vacating his room on the first floor. It
    overlooks the Esplanade. Ai think you wil find it quaite satisfactory.’
    ‘Has it a private bath?’ demanded Harriet, without enthusiasm.
    ‘Oh, yes, madam. And a belcony.’
    ‘Al right,’ said Harriet, ‘What number? Twenty-three. It has a telephone, I
    suppose? Wel, Inspector, you’l know where to find me, won’t you?’
    She grinned a friendly grin at him.
    ‘Yes, miss,’ said Inspector Umpelty, grinning also. He had his private cause
    for amusement. If Harriet’s note-case had ensured her reception at the
    Resplendent, it was his own private whisper of ‘friend of Lord Peter Wimsey’
    that had produced the view over the sea, the bath and the balcony. It was just
    as wel that Harriet did not know this. It would have annoyed her.

    Curiously enough, however, the image of Lord Peter kept intruding upon her
    mind while she was telephoning her address to the Morning Star , and even

    while she was working her way through the Resplendent’s expensive and
    admirable dinner. If the relations between them had not been what they were, it
    would have been only fair to ring him up and tel him about the corpse with the
    cut throat. But under the circumstances, the action might be misinterpreted.
    And, in any case, the thing was probably only the dulest kind of suicide, not
    worth bringing to his attention. Not nearly so complicated and interesting a
    problem, for instance, as the central situation in The Fountain-Pen Mystery . In
    that absorbing mystery, the vilain was at the moment engaged in committing a
    crime in Edinburgh, while constructing an ingenious alibi involving a steam-
    yacht, a wireless time-signal, five clocks and the change from summer to winter
    time. (Apparently the cut-throat gentleman had come from the Wilvercombe
    direction. By road? by train? Had he walked from Darley Halt? If not, who had
    brought him?) Realy, she must try and concentrate on this alibi. The town-
    clock was the great difficulty. How could that be altered? And altered it must
    be, for the whole alibi depended on its being heard to strike midnight at the
    appropriate moment. Could the man who looked after it be made into an
    accomplice? Who did look after town-hal clocks? (Why gloves? And had she
    left her own finger-prints on the razor?) Was it, after al, going to be necessary
    to go to Edinburgh? Perhaps there was