"What?" said Parker, sharply, with his foot on the step. "I can't wait, old man. What is it?"
"I—look here, Charles—this is all wrong," pleaded Wimsey. "You may have got the right solution, but the working of the sum's all wrong. Same as mine used to be at school, when I'd looked up the answer in the crib and had to fudge in the middle part. I've been a fool. I ought to have known about Penberthy. But I don't believe this story about bribing and corrupting him, and getting him to do the murder. It doesn't fit."
"Doesn't fit what?"
"Doesn't fit the portrait. Or the books. Or the way Nurse Armstrong described Ann Dorland. Or your description of her. It's a mechanically perfect explanation, but I swear it's all wrong."
"If it's mechanically perfect," said Parker, "that's good enough. It's far more than most explanations are. You've got that portrait on the brain. It's because you're artistic, I suppose."
For some reason, the word "artistic" produces the most alarming reactions in people who know anything about art.
"Artistic be damned!" said Wimsey, spluttering with fury, "it's because I'm an ordinary person, and have met women, and talked to them like ordinary human beings——"
"You and your women," said Parker, rudely.
"Well—I and my women, what about it? One learns something. You're on the wrong tack about this girl."
"I've met her and you haven't," objected Parker. "Unless you're suppressing something. You keep on hinting things. Anyhow, I've met the girl, and she impressed me as being guilty."