Read Online Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers - Free Book Online

their engagement by Miss Climpson, had had no resources but bridge and boardinghouse gossip. There were retired and disappointed school-teachers; out-of-work actresses; courageous people who had failed with hat-shops and tea-parlours; and even a few Bright Young Things, for whom the cocktail-party and the night-club had grown boring. These women seemed to spend most of their time in answering advertisements. Unmarried gentlemen who desired to meet ladies possessed of competences, with a view to matrimony; sprightly sexagenarians, who wanted housekeepers for remote country districts; ingenious gentlemen with financial schemes on the look-out for capital; literary gentlemen, anxious for female collaborators; plausible gentlemen about to engage talent for productions in the provinces; benevolent gentlemen, who could tell people how to make money in their spare time – gentlemen such as these were very liable to receive applications from members of Miss Climpson’s staff. It may have been coincidence that these gentlemen so very often had the misfortune to appear shortly afterwards before the magistrate on charges of fraud, blackmail or attempted procuration, but it is a fact that Miss Climpson’s office boasted a private telephone line to Scotland Yard, and that few of her ladies were quite so unprotected as they appeared. It is also a fact that the money which paid for the rent and upkeep of the premises might, by zealous enquirers, have been traced to Lord Peter Wimsey’s banking account. His lordship was somewhat reticent about this venture of his, but occasionally, when closeted with ChiefInspector Parker or other intimate friends, referred to it as “My Cattery.”
    Miss Climpson poured out a cup of tea before replying. She wore a quantity of little bangles on her spare, lace-covered wrists, and they chinked aggressively with every movement.
    “I really don’t know,” she said, apparently taking the problem as a psychological one, “it is so dangerous, as well as so terribly wicked, one wonders that anybody has the effrontery to undertake it. And very often they gain so little by it.”
    “That’s what I mean,” said Wimsey, “what do they set out to gain? Of course, some people seem to do it for the fun of the thing, like that German female, what’s her name, who enjoyed seeing people die.”
    “Such a strange taste,” said Miss Climpson. “No sugar, I think? – You know, dear Lord Peter, it has been my melancholy duty to attend many deathbeds, and, though a number of them – such as my dear father’s – were most Christian and beautiful, I could not call them fun. People have very different ideas of fun, of course, and personally I have never greatly cared for George Robey, though Charlie Chaplin always makes me laugh – still, you know, there are disagreeable details attending any deathbed which one would think could hardly be to anybody’s taste, however depraved.”
    “I quite agree with you,” said Wimsey. “But it must be fun, in one sense, to feel that you can control the issues of life and death, don’t you know.”
    “That is an infringement upon the prerogative of the Creator,” said Miss Climpson.
    “But rather jolly to know yourself divine, so to speak. Up above the world so high, like a tea-tray in the sky. I admit the fascination. But for practical purposes that theory is the devil – I beg your pardon, Miss Climpson, respect for sacred personages – I mean, it’s unsatisfactory, because it would suit one person just as well as another. If I’ve got to find a homicidal maniac, I may as well cut my throat at once.”
    “Don’t say that,” pleaded Miss Climpson, ”even in jest. Your work here – so good, so valuable – would be worth living for in spite of the saddest personal disappointments. And I have known jokes of that kind turn out very badly, in the most surprising ways. There was a young man we used to know, who was given to talking in a sadly random way – a long