Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers Read Free Book Online Page B

round their lecture notes. They've a sort of board-school idea that everybody ought to paddle his own canoe.”
    Bredon thanked Garrett again.
    “And if I were you,” continued Garrett, “I wouldn't mention Dean to Willis at all. There's some kind of feeling–I don't know quite what. Anyway, I just thought I'd warn you.”
    Bredon thanked him with almost passionate gratitude.
    “It's so easy to put your foot in it in a new place, isn't it? I'm really most frightfully obliged to you.”
    Clearly Mr. Bredon was a man of no sensibility, for half an hour later he was in Willis's room, and had introduced the subject of the late Victor Dean. The result was an unequivocal request that Mr. Bredon would mind his own business. Mr. Willis did not wish to discuss Mr. Dean at all. In addition to this, Bredon became aware that Willis was suffering from an acute and painful embarrassment, almost as though the conversation had taken some indecent turn. He was puzzled, but persisted. Willis, after sitting for some moments in gloomy silence, fidgeting with a pencil, at last looked up.
    “If you're on Dean's game,” he said, “you'd better clear out. I'm not interested.”
    He might not be, but Bredon was. His long nose twitched with curiosity.
    “What game? I didn't know Dean. Never heard of him till I came here. What's the row?”
    “If you didn't know Dean, why bring him up? He went about with a gang of people I didn't care about, that's all, and from the look of you, I should have said you belonged to the same bright crowd.” [Pg 42]
    “The de Momerie crowd?”
    “It's not much use your pretending you don't know all about it, is it?” said Willis, with a sneer.
    “Ingleby told me Dean was a hanger-on of that particular bunch of Bright Young People,” replied Bredon, mildly. “But I've never met any of them. They'd think me terribly ancient. They would, really. Besides, I don't think they're nice to know. Some of them are really naughty. Did Mr. Pym know that Dean was a Bright Young Thing?”
    “I shouldn't think so, or he'd have buzzed him out double quick. What business is Dean of yours, anyway?”
    “Absolutely none. I just wondered about him, that's all. He seems to have been a sort of misfit here. Not quite imbued with the Pym spirit, if you see what I mean.”
    “No, he wasn't. And if you take my advice, you'll leave Dean and his precious friends alone, or you won't make yourself too popular. The best thing Dean ever did in his life was to fall down that staircase.”
    “Nothing in life became him like the leaving it? But it seems a bit harsh, all the same. Somebody must have loved him. 'For he must be somebody's son,' as the dear old song says. Hadn't he any family? There is a sister, at least, isn't there?”
    “Why the devil do you want to know about his sister?”
    “I don't. I just asked, that's all. Well, I'd better tootle off, I suppose. I've enjoyed this little talk.”
    Willis scowled at his retreating form, and Mr. Bredon went away to get his information elsewhere. As usual, the typists' room was well informed.
    “Only the sister,” said Miss Parton. “She's something to do with Silkanette Hosiery. She and Victor ran a little flat together. Smart as paint, but rather silly, I thought, the only time I saw her. I've an idea our Mr. Willis was a bit smitten in that direction at one time, but it didn't seem to come to anything.”
    “Oh, I see,” said Mr. Bredon, much enlightened. [Pg 43]
    He went back to his own room and the guard-books. But his attention wandered. He paced about, sat down, got up, stared out of the window, came back to the desk. Then, from a drawer, he pulled out a sheet of paper. It bore a list of dates in the previous year, and to each date was appended a letter of the alphabet, thus:
    Jan.
7
G
“
14
O?
“
21
A
“
28
P
Feb.
5
G
    There were other papers in the desk in the same handwriting–presumably Victor Dean's–but this list seemed to interest Mr. Bredon unaccountably. He