«Look here, Wimsey — you've been reading detective stories, you're talking nonsense.»
«No, I ain't,» said Lord Peter, sleepily, «uncommon good incident for a detective story, though, what? Bunter, we'll write one, and you shall illustrate it with photographs.»
«Soap in his — Rubbish!» said Parker. «It was something else — some discoloration — »
«No,» said Lord Peter, «there were hairs as well. Bristly ones. He had a beard.»
He took his watch from his pocket, and drew out a couple of longish, stiff hairs, which he had imprisoned between the inner and the outer case.
Parker turned them over once or twice in his fingers, looked at them close to the light, examined them with a lens, handed them to the impassible Bunter, and said:
«Do you mean to tell me, Wimsey, that any man alive would» —he laughed harshly — «shave off his beard with his mouth open, and then go and get killed with his mouth full of hairs? You're mad.»
«I don't tell you so,» said Wimsey. «You policemen are all alike — only one idea in your skulls. Blest if I can make out why you're ever appointed. He was shaved after he was dead. Pretty, ain't it? Uncommonly jolly little job for the barber, what? Here, sit down, man, and don't be an ass, stumpin' about the room like that. Worse things happen in war. This is only a blinkin' old shillin' shocker. But I'll tell you what, Parker, we're up against a criminal — the criminal — the real artist and blighter with imagination — real, artistic, finished stuff. I'm enjoyin' this, Parker.»
III
Lord Peter finished a Scarlatti sonata, and sat looking thoughtfully at his own hands. The fingers were long and muscular, with wide, flat joints and square tips. When he was playing, his rather hard grey eyes softened, and his long, indeterminate mouth hardened in compensation. At no other time had he any pretensions to good looks, and at all times he was spoilt by a long, narrow chin, and a long, receding forehead, accentuated by the brushed-back sleekness of his tow-coloured hair. Labour papers, softening down the chin, caricatured him as a typical aristocrat.