Read Online Lord Peter Views the Body by Dorothy L. Sayers - Free Book Online

on.’
        Lord Peter glanced into the miniature impluvium, with its tiling of red, white, and black marble.
        ‘That’s not a very classic design,’ he observed.
        ‘No. Uncle Meleager used to complain about it and say he must have it altered. There was a proper one once, I believe, but it got damaged, and the man before Uncle Meleager had it replaced by some local idiot. He built three bay windows out of the dining-room at the same time, which made it very much lighter and pleasanter, of course, but it looks awful. Now, this tiling is all right; uncle put that in himself.’
        She pointed to a mosaic dog at the threshold, with the motto, ‘Cave canem,’ and Lord Peter recognised it as a copy of a Pompeian original.
        A narrow stair brought them to the ‘attic’, where the Wimseys flung themselves with enthusiasm upon a huge heap of dusty old newspapers and manuscripts. The latter seemed the likelier field, so they started with them. They consisted of a quantity of cross-words in manuscript – presumably the children of Uncle Meleager’s own brain. The square, the list of definitions, and the solution were in every case neatly pinned together. Some (early efforts, no doubt) were childishly simple, but others were difficult, with allusive or punning clues; some of the ordinary newspaper type, others in the form of rhymed distichs. They scrutinised the solutions closely, and searched the definitions for acrostics or hidden words, unsuccessfully for a long time.
        ‘This one’s a funny one,’ said Mary, ‘nothing seems to fit. Oh! it’s two pinned together. No, it isn’t – yes, it is – it’s only been pinned up wrong. Peter, have you seen the puzzle belonging to these clues anywhere?’
        ‘What one’s that?’
        ‘Well, it’s numbered rather funnily, with Roman and Arabic numerals, and it starts off with a thing that hasn’t got any numbers at all:
     
    ‘Truth, poor girl, was nobody’s daughter;
    She took off her clothes and jumped into the water.’
     
        ‘Frivolous old wretch!’ said Miss Marryat.
        ‘Friv – here, gimme that!’ cried Lord Peter. ‘Look here, I say, Miss Marryat, you oughtn’t to have overlooked this.’
        ‘I thought it just belonged to that other square.’
        ‘Not it. It’s different. I believe it’s our thing. Listen:
     
    ‘Your expectation to be rich
    Here will reach its highest pitch. ’
     
    That’s one for you, Miss Marryat. Mary, hunt about. We must find the square that belongs to this.’
        But, though they turned everything upside-down, they could find no square with Roman and Arabic numerals.
        ‘Hang it all!’ said Peter, ‘it must be made to fit one of these others. Look! I know what he’s done. He’s just taken a fifteen-letter square, and numbered it with Roman figures one way and Arabic the other. I bet its fits into that one it was pinned up with.’
        But the one it was pinned up with turned out to have only thirteen squares.
        ‘Dash it all,’ said his lordship, ‘we’ll have to carry the whole lot down, and work away at it till we find the one it does fit.’
        He snatched up a great bundle of newspapers, and led the way out. The others followed, each with an armful. The search had taken some time, and the atrium was in semi-darkness.
        ‘Where shall I take them?’ asked Lord Peter, calling back over his shoulder.
        ‘Hi!’ cried Mary; and, ‘Look where you’re going!’ cried her friend.
        They were too late. A splash and a flounder proclaimed that Lord Peter had walked, like Johnny Head-in-Air, over the edge of the impluvium, papers and all.
        ‘You ass!’ said Mary.
        His lordship scrambled out, spluttering, and Hannah Marryat suddenly burst out into the first laugh Peter had ever heard her give.
     
    ‘Truth, they say, was nobody’s daughter,
    She took off her clothes and fell into the water’
     
    she