"You horrify me," said Mr. Murbles, gravely. "I have seen many men sent to the gallows for crimes with which I could feel much more sympathy. Thank you, Bunter, thank you. You are quite well, I trust?"
"I am in excellent health, I am obliged to you, sir."
"That's good. Been doing any photography lately?"
"A certain amount, sir. But merely of a pictorial description, if I may venture to call it so. Criminological material, sir, has been distressingly deficient of late."
"Perhaps Mr. Murbles has brought us something," suggested Wimsey.
"No," said Mr. Murbles, holding the Cockburn '80 beneath his nostrils and gently agitating the glass to release the ethers, "no, I can't say I have, precisely. I will not disguise that I have come in the hope of deriving benefit from your trained habits of observation and deduction, but I fear—that is, I trust—in fact, I am confident—that nothing of an undesirable nature is involved. The fact is," he went on, as the door closed upon the retreating Bunter, "a curious question has arisen with regard to the sad death of General Fentiman at the Bellona Club, to which, I understand, you were a witness."
"If you understand that, Murbles," said his lordship, cryptically, "you understand a damn sight more than I do. I did not witness the death—I witnessed the discovery of the death—which is a very different thing, by a long chalk."
"By how long a chalk?" asked Mr. Murbles, eagerly. "That is just what I am trying to find out."
"That's very inquisitive of you," said Wimsey. "I think perhaps it would be better ..." he lifted his glass and tilted it thoughtfully, watching the wine coil down in thin flower-petallings from rim to stem ... "if you were to tell me exactly what you want to know ... and why. After all ... I'm a member of the Club ... family associations chiefly, I suppose ... but there it is."
Mr. Murbles looked up sharply, but Wimsey's attention seemed focussed upon the port.