«That's what I'm ashamed of, really,» said Lord Peter. «It is a game to me, to begin with, and I go on cheerfully, and then I suddenly see that somebody is going to be hurt, and I want to get out of it.»
«Yes, yes, I know,» said the detective, «but that's because you're thinking about your attitude. You want to be consistent, you want to look pretty, you want to swagger debonairly through a comedy of puppets or else to stalk magnificently through a tragedy of human sorrows and things. But that's childish. If you've any duty to society in the way of finding out the truth about murders, you must do it in any attitude that comes handy. You want to be elegant and detached? That's all right, if you find the truth out that way, but it hasn't any value in itself, you know. You want to look dignified and consistent — what's that got to do with it? You want to hunt down a murderer for the sport of the thing and then shake hands with him and say, 'Well played — hard luck — you shall have your revenge to-morrow! Well, you can't do it like that. Life's not a football match. You want to be a sportsman. You can't be a sportsman. You're a responsible person.»
«I don't think you ought to read so much theology,» said Lord Peter. «It has a brutalizing influence.»
He got up and paced about the room, looking idly over the bookshelves. Then he sat down again, filled and lit his pipe, and said:
«Well, I'd better tell you about the ferocious and hardened Crimplesham.»
He detailed his visit to Salisbury. Once assured of his bona fides, Mr. Crimplesham had given him the fullest details of his visit to town.
«And I've substantiated it all,» groaned Lord Peter, «and unless he's corrupted half Balham, there's no doubt he spent the night there. And the afternoon was really spent with the bank people. And half the residents of Salisbury seem to have seen him off on Monday before lunch. And nobody but his own family or young Wicks seems to have anything to gain by his death. And even if young Wicks wanted to make away with him, it's rather far-fetched to go and murder an unknown man in Thipps's place in order to stick Crimplesham's eyeglasses on his nose.»
«Where was young Wicks on Monday?» asked Parker.
«At a dance given by the Precentor,» said Lord Peter, wildly. «David — his name is David — dancing before the ark of the Lord in the face of the whole Cathedral Close.»
There was a pause.