“It’s very good of you, but I think I’d rather not. I’ve got into enough bothers already. Anyway, it isn’t professional to talk, and if I stirred up any more fuss, I should probably have to chuck this country altogether and end up as one of those drunken ship’s doctors in the South Seas or somewhere, who are always telling their life-history to people and delivering awful warnings. Better to let sleeping dogs lie. Thanks very much, all the same.”
“As you like,” said Wimsey. “But I’ll think it over, and if any useful suggestion occurs to me, I’ll let you know.”
“It’s very good of you,” replied the visitor, absently, taking his hat and stick from the man-servant, who had answered Wimsey’s ring. “Well, good night, and many thanks for hearing me so patiently. By the way, though,” he added, turning suddenly at the door, “how do you propose to let me know when you haven’t got my name and address?”
Lord Peter laughed.
“I’m Hawkshaw, the detective,” he answered, “and you shall hear from me anyhow before the end of the week.”
CHAPTER III
A Use for Spinsters
“There are two million more females than males in England and Wales! And this is an awe-inspiring circumstance.” Gilbert Frankau
“What do you really think of that story?” inquired Parker. He had dropped in to breakfast with Wimsey the next morning, before departing in the Notting Dale direction, in quest of an elusive anonymous letter-writer. “I thought it sounded rather as though our friend had been a bit too cocksure about his grand medical specialising. After all, the old girl might so easily have had some sort of heart attack. She was very old and ill.”
“So she might, though I believe as a matter of fact cancer patients very seldom pop off in that unexpected way. As a rule, they surprise everybody by the way they cling to life. Still, I wouldn’t think much of that if it wasn’t for the niece. She prepared the way for the death, you see, by describing her aunt as so much worse than she was.”
“I thought the same when the doctor was telling his tale. But what did the niece do? She can’t have poisoned her aunt or even smothered her, I suppose, or they’d have found signs of it on the body. And the aunt did die—so perhaps the niece was right and the opinionated young medico wrong.”