“Yes,” said Mr. Piggott, “but I bet you most people would find it jolly difficult to remember, even if you asked ’em things. I should—of course, I know I’m a bit of a fool, but then, most people are, ain’t they? You know what I mean. Witnesses ain’t detectives, they’re just average idiots like you and me.”
“Quite so,” said Lord Peter, smiling as the force of the last phrase sank into its unhappy perpetrator; “you mean, if I were to ask you in a general way what you were doin’—say, a week ago today, you wouldn’t be able to tell me a thing about it offhand?”
“No—I’m sure I shouldn’t.” He considered. “No. I was in at the Hospital as usual, I suppose, and, being Tuesday, there’d be a lecture on something or the other—dashed if I know what—and in the evening I went out with Tommy Pringle—no, that must have been Monday—or was it Wednesday? I tell you, I couldn’t swear to anything.”
“You do yourself an injustice,” said Lord Peter gravely. “I’m sure, for instance, you recollect what work you were doing in the dissecting-room on that day, for example.”
“Lord, no! not for certain. I mean, I daresay it might come back to me if I thought for a long time, but I wouldn’t swear to it in a court of law.”
“I’ll bet you half-a-crown to sixpence,” said Lord Peter, “that you’ll remember within five minutes.”
“I’m sure I can’t.”
“We’ll see. Do you keep a notebook of the work you do when you dissect? Drawings or anything?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Think of that. What’s the last thing you did in it?”