To M. J. DEAR JIM: This book is your fault. If it had not been for your brutal insistence, Lord Peter would never have staggered through to the end of this enquiry. Pray consider that he thanks you with his accustomed suavity. Yours ever, D. L. S.
I
«Oh, damn!» said Lord Peter Wimsey at Piccadilly Circus. «Hi, driver!»
The taxi man, irritated at receiving this appeal while negotiating the intricacies of turning into Lower Regent Street across the route of a 19 'bus, a 38-B and a bicycle, bent an unwilling ear.
«I've left the catalogue behind,» said Lord Peter deprecatingly, «uncommonly careless of me. D'you mind puttin' back to where we came from?»
«To the Savile Club, sir?»
«No — 110 Piccadilly — just beyond — thank you.»
«Thought you was in a hurry,» said the man, overcome with a sense of injury.
«I'm afraid it's an awkward place to turn in,» said Lord Peter, answering the thought rather than the words. His long, amiable face looked as if it had generated spontaneously from his top hat, as white maggots breed from Gorgonzola.
The taxi, under the severe eye of a policeman, revolved by slow jerks, with a noise like the grinding of teeth.