«Safe as houses, sir,» said Mr. Bunter, tucking his master's arm under his and walking him off to his bedroom.
Lord Peter allowed himself to be dosed and put to bed without further resistance. Mr. Bunter, looking singularly un-Bunterlike in striped pyjamas, with his stiff black hair ruffled about his head, sat grimly watching the younger man's sharp cheekbones and the purple stains under his eyes.
«Thought we'd had the last of these attacks,» he said. «Been overdoin' of himself. Asleep?» He peered at him anxiously. An affectionate note crept into his voice. «Bloody little fool!» said Sergeant Bunter.
IX
Mr. Parker, summoned the next morning to 110 Piccadilly, arrived to find the Dowager Duchess in possession. She greeted him charmingly.
«I am going to take this silly boy down to Denver for the week-end,» she said, indicating Peter, who was writing and only acknowledged his friend's entrance with a brief nod. «He's been doing too much — running about to Salisbury and places and up till all hours of the night — you really shouldn't encourage him, Mr. Parker, it's very naughty of you — waking poor Bunter up in the middle of the night with scares about Germans, as if that wasn't all over years ago, and he hasn't had an attack for ages, but there! Nerves are such funny things, and Peter always did have nightmares when he was quite a little boy — though very often of course it was only a little pill he wanted; but he was so dreadfully bad in 1918, you know, and I suppose we can't expect to forget all about a great war in a year or two, and, really, I ought to be very thankful with both my boys safe. Still, I think a little peace and quiet at Denver won't do him any harm.»
«Sorry you've been having a bad turn, old man,» said Parker, vaguely sympathetic; «you're looking a bit seedy.»
«Charles,» said Lord Peter, in a voice entirely void of expression, «I am going away for a couple of days because I can be no use to you in London. What has got to be done for the moment can be much better done by you than by me. I want you to take this» — he folded up his writing and placed it in an envelope — «to Scotland Yard immediately and get it sent out to all the workhouses, infirmaries, police stations, Y. M. C. A.'s and so on in London. It is a description of Thipps's corpse as he was before he was shaved and cleaned up. I want to know whether any man answering to that description has been taken in anywhere, alive or dead, during the last fortnight. You will see Sir Andrew Mackenzie personally, and get the paper sent out at once, by his authority; you will tell him that you have solved the problems of the Levy murder and the Battersea mystery» — Mr. Parker made an astonished noise to which his friend paid no attention — «and you will ask him to have men in readiness with a warrant to arrest a very dangerous and important criminal at any moment on your information. When the replies to this paper come in, you will search for any mention of St. Luke's Hospital, or of any person connected with St. Luke's Hospital, and you will send for me at once.»
«Meanwhile you will scrape acquaintance — I don't care how — with one of the students at St. Luke's. Don't march in there blowing about murders and police warrants, or you may find yourself in Queer Street. I shall come up to town as soon as I hear from you, and I shall expect to find a nice ingenuous Sawbones here to meet me.» He grinned faintly.
«D'you mean you've got to the bottom of this thing?» asked Parker.