“Lady Levy seems to have had the knack of makin’ people devoted to her,” said Peter. “Look at the pea-green incorruptible Levy.”
“That’s quite true, dear; she was a most delightful girl, and they say her daughter is just like her. I rather lost sight of them when she married, and you know your father didn’t care much about business people, but I know everybody always said they were a model couple. In fact it was a proverb that Sir Reuben was as well loved at home as he was hated abroad. I don’t mean in foreign countries, you know, dear—just the proverbial way of putting things—like ‘a saint abroad and a devil at home’—only the other way on, reminding one of the _Pilgrim’s Progress_.”
“Yes,” said Peter, “I daresay the old man made one or two enemies.”
“Dozens, dear—such a dreadful place, the City, isn’t it? Everybody Ishmaels together—though I don’t suppose Sir Reuben would like to be called that, would he? Doesn’t it mean illegitimate, or not a proper Jew, anyway? I always did get confused with those Old Testament characters.”
“I think I’ll turn in for an hour or two,” he said. “I must be back in town at eight—Parker’s coming to breakfast.”
The Duchess looked at the clock, which marked five minutes to three.
“I’ll send up your breakfast at half-past six, dear,” she said. “I hope you’ll find everything all right. I told them just to slip a hot-water bottle in; those linen sheets are so chilly; you can put it out if it’s in your way.”
“—So there it is, Parker,” said Lord Peter, pushing his coffee-cup aside and lighting his after-breakfast pipe; “you may find it leads you to something, though it don’t seem to get me any further with my bathroom problem. Did you do anything more at that after I left?”
“No; but I’ve been on the roof this morning.”
“The deuce you have—what an energetic devil you are! I say, Parker, I think this co-operative scheme is an uncommonly good one. It’s much easier to work on someone else’s job than one’s own—gives one that delightful feelin’ of interferin’ and bossin’ about, combined with the glorious sensation that another fellow is takin’ all one’s own work off one’s hands. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, what? Did you find anything?”
“Not very much. I looked for any footmarks of course, but naturally, with all this rain, there wasn’t a sign. Of course, if this were a detective story, there’d have been a convenient shower exactly an hour before the crime and a beautiful set of marks which could only have come there between two and three in the morning, but this being real life in a London November, you might as well expect footprints in Niagara. I searched the roofs right along—and came to the jolly conclusion that any person in any blessed flat in the blessed row might have done it. All the staircases open on to the roof and the leads are quite flat; you can walk along as easy as along Shaftesbury Avenue. Still, I’ve got some evidence that the body did walk along there.”