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

proclaimed.
        ‘Well, I couldn’t take my clothes off with you here, could I?’ grumbled Lord Peter. ‘We’ll have to fish out the papers. I’m afraid they’ve got a bit damp.’
        Miss Marryat turned on the lights, and they started to clear the basin.
        ‘Truth, poor girl –’ began Lord Peter, and suddenly, with a little shriek, began to dance on the marble edge of the impluvium.
        ‘One, two, three, four, five, six—’
        ‘Quite, quite demented,’ said Mary. ‘How shall I break it to mother?’
        ‘Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen !’ cried his lordship, and sat down, suddenly and damply, exhausted by his own excitement.
        ‘Feeling better?’ asked his sister acidly.
        ‘I’m well. I’m all right. Everything’s all right. I love Uncle Meleager. Fifteen squares each way. Look at it. Look at it. The truth’s in the water. Didn’t he say so. Oh, frabjous day! Calloo! callay! I chortle. Mary, what became of those definitions?’
        ‘They’re in your pocket, all damp,’ said Mary.
        Lord Peter snatched them out hurriedly.
        ‘It’s all right, they haven’t run,’ he said. ‘Oh, darling Uncle Meleager. Can you drain the impluvium, Miss Marryat, and find a bit of charcoal. Then I’ll get some dry clothes on and we’ll get down to it. Don’t you see? There’s your missing cross-word square – on the floor of the impluvium!’
        It took, however, some time to get the basin emptied, and it was not till next morning that the party, armed with sticks of charcoal, squatted down in the empty impluvium to fill in Uncle Meleager’s cross-word on the marble tiles. Their first difficulty was to decide whether the red squares counted as stops or had to be filled in, but, after a few definitions had been solved, the construction of the puzzle grew apace. The investigators grew steadily hotter and more thickly covered with charcoal, while the attentive Mr Bunter hurried to and fro between the atrium and the library, and the dictionaries piled up on the edge of the impluvium.
     
    ‘Truth, poor girl, was nobody’s daughter;
    She took off her clothes and jumped into the water.’
     

     
    Across.
    I.1.        Foolish or wise, yet one remains alone,
            ’Twixt Strength and Justice on a heavenly throne.
    XI.1.        O to what ears the chink of gold was sweet!
            The greed for treasure brought him but defeat.
     
        ‘That’s a hint to us,’ said Lord Peter .
     
    I.2.        One drop of vinegar to two of oil
            Dresses this curly head sprung from the soil.
    X.2.        Nothing itself, it needs but little more
            To be that nothingness the Preacher saw.
    I.3.        Dusty though my fellows be,
            We are a kingly company.
    IV.3.        Have your own will, though here, I hold,
            The new is not a patch upon the old.
    XIV.3.        Any loud cry would do as well,
            Or so the poet’s verses tell.
    I.4.        This is the most unkindest cut of all,
            Except your skill be mathematical.
    X.4.        Little and hid from mortal sight.
            I darkly work to make all light.
    I.5.        The need for this (like that it’s cut off short)
            The building of a tower to humans taught.
    XI.5.        ‘More than mind discloses and more than men believe’
            (A definition by man whom Pussyfoot doth grieve).
    II.6.        Backward observe her turn her way,
            The way of wisdom, wise men say.
    VII 6.        Grew long ago by river’s edge
            Where grows to-day the common sedge.
    XII.6.        One of three by which, they say,
            You’ll know the Cornishmen alway.
    VI.7.        Blow upon blow; five more the vanquished Roman shows;
            And if the foot slip one, on crippled feet one goes.
    I.8.        By this Jew’s work the whole we find,
            In