Read Online Striding Folly by Dorothy L. Sayers - Free Book Online Page B

and occasionally naked female figures; but delirious lacquer cabinets and hall-tables are new to me.’
        ‘As you say, sir,’ agreed the policeman, ‘and I see you believe me so far. But here’s something else, what you mayn’t find so easy. There was a man laying in that hall, sir, as sure as I sit here and he was dead. He was a big man and clean-shaven, and he wore evening dress. Somebody had stuck a knife into his throat. I could see the handle of it – it looked like a carving knife, and the blood had run out, all shiny, over the marble squares.’
        The policeman looked at Peter, passed his handkerchief over his forehead, and finished the fourth glass of champagne.
        ‘His head was up against the end of the hall table,’ he went on, ‘and his feet must have been up against the door, but I couldn’t see anything quite close to me, because of the bottom of the letter-box. You understand, sir, I was looking through the wire cage of the box, and there was something inside – letters, I suppose that cut off my view downwards. But I see all the rest – in front and a bit of both sides; and it must have been regularly burnt in upon me brain, as they say, for I don’t suppose I was looking more than a quarter of a minute or so. Then all the lights went out at once, same as if somebody has turned off the main switch. So I looks round, and I don’t mind telling you I felt a bit queer. And when I looks round, lo and behold! my bloke in the muffler had hopped it.’
        ‘The devil he had,’ said Peter.
        ‘Hopped it,’ repeated the policeman, ‘and there I was. And just there, sir, is where I made my big mistake, for I thought he couldn’t a’ got far, and I started off up the street after him. But I couldn’t see him, and I couldn’t see nobody. All the houses was dark, and it come over me what a sight of funny things may go on, and nobody take a mite o’ notice. The way I’d shouted and banged on the door, you’d a’ thought it’d a’ brought out every soul in the street, not to mention that awful yelling. But there – you may have noticed it yourself, sir. A man may leave his ground-floor windows open, or have his chimney a’ fire, and you may make noise enough to wake the dead, trying to draw his attention, and nobody give no heed. He’s fast asleep, and the neighbours say, “Blast that row, but, it’s no business of mine,” and stick their ’eads under the bedclothes.’
        ‘Yes,’ said Peter. ‘London’s like that.’
        ‘That’s right, sir. A village is different. You can’t pick up a pin there without somebody coming up to ask where you got it from – but London keeps itself to itself . . . Well, something’ll have to be done, I thinks to myself, and I blows me whistle. They heard that all right. Windows started to go up all along the street. That’s London, too.’
        Peter nodded. ‘London will sleep through the last trump. Puddley-in-the-Rut and Doddering-in-the-Dumps will look down their noses and put on virtuous airs. But God, who is never surprised, will say to his angel, “Whistle up ’em, Michael, whistle ’em up; East and West will rise from the dead at the sound of the policeman’s whistle”.’
        ‘Quite so, sir,’ said P.C. Burt; and wondered for the first time whether there might not be something in this champagne stuff after all. He waited for a moment and then resumed:
        ‘Well, it so happened that just when I sounded my whistle, Withers – that’s the man on the other beat – was in Audley Square, coming to meet me. You know, sir, we has times for meeting one another, arranged different-like every night; and twelve o’clock in the square was our rendy-voos tonight. So up he comes in, you might say, no time at all, and finds me there, with everyone a’ hollering at me from the windows to know what was up. Well, naturally, I didn’t want the whole bunch of ’em running out into the street and our man