Knave High
"Look here, Wimsey," said Captain Culyer of the Bellona Club, "aren't you ever going to get finished with this investigation or whatever it is? The members are complaining, really they are, and I can't blame them. They find your everlasting questions an intolerable nuisance, old boy, and I can't stop them from thinking there must be something behind it. People complain that they can't get attention from the porters or the waiters because you're everlastingly there chatting, and if you're not there, you're hanging round the bar, eavesdropping. If this is your way of conducting an inquiry tactfully, I wish you'd do it tactlessly. It's becoming thoroughly unpleasant. And no sooner do you stop it, than the other fellow begins."
"What other fellow?"
"That nasty little skulking bloke who's always turning up at the service door and questioning the staff."
"I don't know anything about him," replied Wimsey, "I never heard of him. I'm sorry I'm being a bore and all that, though I swear I couldn't be worse than some of your other choice specimens in that line, but I've hit a snag. This business—quite in your ear, old bean—isn't as straightforward as it looks on the surface. That fellow Oliver whom I mentioned to you——"
"He's not known here, Wimsey."
"No, but he may have been here."
"If nobody saw him, he can't have been here."
"Well, then, where did General Fentiman go to when he left? And when he did leave? That's what I want to know. Dash it all, Culyer, the old boy's a landmark. We know he came back here on the evening of the 10th—the driver brought him to the door, Rogers saw him come in and two members noticed him in the smoking-room just before seven. I have a certain amount of evidence that he went into the library. And he can't have stayed long, because he had his outdoor things with him. Somebody must have seen him leave. It's ridiculous. The servants aren't all blind. I don't like to say it, Culyer, but I can't help thinking that somebody has been bribed to hold his tongue.... Of course, I knew that would annoy you, but how can you account for it? Who's this fellow you say has been hangin' round the kitchen?"
"I came across him one morning when I'd been down to see about the wine. By the way, there's a case of Margaux come in which I'd like your opinion on some day. The fellow was talking to Babcock, the wine steward, and I asked him pretty sharply what he wanted. He thanked me, and said he had come from the railway to inquire after a packing-case that had gone astray, but Babcock, who is a very decent fellow, told me afterwards that he had been working the pump-handle about old Fentiman, and I gathered he had been pretty liberal with his cash. I thought you were up to your tricks again."