Chapter 1 of 20 · 3891 words · ~19 min read

Part 1

DOROTHY L. SAYERS AND ROBERT EUSTACE

THE DOCUMENTS IN THE CASE

AVON PUBLISHERS OF BARD, CAMELOT AND DISCUS BOOKS

AVON BOOKS A division of The Hearst Corporation 959 Eighth Avenue New York, New York 10019

Published by arrangement with Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. ISBN: 0-380-01143-3

All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, N. Y. 10022.

First Avon Printing, December, 1968 Seventh Printing

AVON TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES, REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA, HECHO EN CHICAGO, U.S.A.

Printed in the USA.

_CONTENTS_

SECTION ONE

Synthesis _page_ 11

SECTION TWO

Analysis _page_ 129

THE DOCUMENTS IN THE CASE

INTRODUCTION

_Paul Harrison to Sir Gilbert Pugh_

[Letter covering the attached documents.] REDGAUNTLET HOTEL, BLOOMSBURY, W.C. 18th March, 1930

DEAR SIR,

I am obliged by your letter of yesterday’s date, and hasten to send you, as requested, the complete dossier of documents. When you have read them, I shall be happy to call upon you at any time convenient to yourself, and give you any further information that may be within my power.

All the points I specially wished to make are, I think, fully covered by my previous letter. But since that letter has now served its original purpose of arousing your interest in the matter, I feel that it would be better forgotten, as far as possible. I would rather you came to the present documents with an entirely open mind. To me, who have been working over them for the last six or seven months, they seem to point clearly to one and only one conclusion, but I suppose it is possible that both Sir James Lubbock and I may be mistaken. You will judge for yourself. I only most earnestly beg of you to give the case your most careful consideration. You will realise that it is of vital importance to me to have the matter fully investigated.

You will, I fear, find some of the letters and statements very diffuse and full of irrelevancies. I thought it best to send the originals, complete and untouched, exactly as they stand. Many of the incidental details, though unimportant in themselves, throw useful sidelights on the situation, and will, I think, help a stranger, like yourself to understand exactly what took place in my late father’s household.

I have arranged the papers, as nearly as possible, in chronological order. My own statement (Number 49) explains fully how the various documents came into my hands.

Trusting to hear further from you in due course,

I am, dear sir, Yours faithfully, PAUL HARRISON

SECTION ONE SYNTHESIS

1. _Agatha Milsom to Olive Farebrother_

15, WHITTINGTON TERRACE, BAYSWATER 9th September, 1928

MY DEAR OLIVE,

Thank you very much for your letter and kind inquiries after my health. I like my new doctor very much indeed. I think he _understands me a great deal better_ than Dr. Coombs, and he has put me on quite a different treatment. He says I am just going through a “difficult phase” at present, and that if only I can hold on and not let things get on top of me for the next year or two I shall come out of it quite all right. But I am not to have a rest-cure! It seems Dr. Coombs was all wrong about that—of course he didn’t exactly _say_ she was wrong, it wouldn’t be professional, but I could see that he _thought_ it! Dr. Trevor says that rest-cures only “turn you in upon yourself,” and that makes things worse. He says I must get right away from myself and my feelings, so as to “sublimate” all these repressed urges and turn them into some other sort of energy. He says it was quite all right to start with to have my dreams and subconscious betrayals analysed, so as to know exactly what was the matter with me, but that _now_ the time has come when I must learn to throw all these bottled-up desires _outwards_, and give them something to do. He explained it all _most_ clearly. I said, “I suppose it is sex, doctor, isn’t it?” (Of course, one gets quite used to asking things perfectly frankly, and one doesn’t mind it a bit.) And he said, well, largely; and, of course, that was a thing most people suffered from one way and another, and in these days one couldn’t always take the obvious and direct way out of a condition of sex-repression, because it would often be socially and economically inconvenient. I said that with two million extra women in this country it didn’t seem possible, certainly, for everybody to get married, and he smiled and said: “My dear Miss Milsom, half my patients come to me because they are not married—and the other half because they are!” We had quite a laugh about it. He is very nice and rather good-looking, but he doesn’t seem to think it necessary for all his patients to fall in love with him, like that odd man I went to see in Wimpole Street, who suffered so dreadfully from halitosis.

Well, anyway, he asked me what I was interested in, and I said I’d always had an idea I should like to _write_. He said that was an awfully good idea, and I ought to encourage it by trying my hand at a little sketch or article every day, or by just putting down my observations of people and things as I saw them. I’m sure I get subjects enough in this house, as far as _matrimony_ goes, anyhow. Indeed, my dear, from what I see of men, I’m very glad there are _other_ ways out of my troubles than what Dr. Trevor calls the _direct_ way!! Do you mind, please, not throwing my letters away—just stick them in one of the drawers in my old desk when you’ve finished with them, because I think I might use some of the funny little incidents that happen here to work up into a novel some time. One puts these things down when they are fresh in one’s mind, and then one forgets about them.

Well, we are jogging along here in our usual placid way—with the usual little outbreaks, of course, when a meal goes wrong, as they will sometimes, with all my care. Mr. Harrison is such an expert, you know, that it is very hard for a person with only one pair of hands to keep everything up to his high standard. And, fond though I am, and always shall be, of dear Mrs. Harrison, I do sometimes wish that she was just a _little_ more practical. If anything at all is left to her to do, she is so apt to lose herself in a book or a daydream and forget all about it. She always says she ought to have been born to ten thousand a year—but who of us could not say that? I always feel myself that I was really meant to “sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam”—you remember the games we used to play about being princesses in the Arabian Nights, with a train of a hundred black slaves, carrying alabaster bowls filled with rubies—but alas! life is life and we have to make the best of it. And I do sometimes feel it a little unfair that so _much_ should come upon my shoulders. Women do want romance in their lives, and there is so little of it about. Of course, as you know, I do feel for Mrs. Harrison—her husband is such a dry sort of man and so lacking in sympathy. I do what I can, but that is not the same thing and it is very worrying. I must learn to detach myself. Dr. Trevor says it is very important to cultivate detachment.

When I was shopping this morning I met Mr. Bell, who told me the top maisonnette was let at last—to two young men! I said I hoped they wouldn’t be noisy (though anything would be a relief after that awful woman with her children), and he said they seemed quiet, gentlemanly young fellows. One of them he thinks must be some kind of artist, because they were so interested in the top back room which has a big window with a north light—you know, the one Mr. Harrison always covets so much. Though, of course, it is not nearly so convenient a house as ours in other ways.

I have started on Tom’s stockings. They are going to be _very_ smart. I have worked out an original design for the turnover—a sort of swirly pattern in fawn, brown and black, taken from the coat of the kitchen cat—tabby, you know. Mr. Perry saw it the other day when he called. He thinks I have quite a talent for that kind of thing.

Give my love to Ronnie and Joan. I hope you are taking care of yourself.

Your loving sister, AGGIE

2. _The Same to the Same_

15, WHITTINGTON TERRACE, BAYSWATER 13th September, 1928

DEAR OLIVE,

I really think it is _very unkind_ of you to suggest that I like Dr. Trevor simply because he is a _man_. I am the last person to imagine that a woman doctor is necessarily inferior. Quite the contrary. Other things being equal I much prefer a woman, but if the man happens to be _right_ and the woman _wrong_, it would be absurd not to admit it. I do feel that Dr. Trevor’s treatment is doing me good, and I am not the least little bit prejudiced by the sex question one way or another. I daresay Tom has been airing his opinions, but that does not impress me at all. Men never ever get out of their heads that the whole world centres round their high-mightinesses. I’m not blaming Tom, but _all_ men are self-centred. They can’t help it. Dr. Trevor says that it is a necessary part of their psychological make-up; they have to be self-regarding, just as woman have to be other-regarding—on account of the children and so on. But I do beg you will not take Tom’s pronouncements for Gospel where I am concerned.

I read such a clever article the other day by Storm Jameson, in which she said that all women, in the depths of their hearts, resented men. Now I do think that is so true. It is so maddening, the calm assumption of superiority that a man puts on when he is talking to a woman. We had quite a little dispute the other evening—about Einstein, of all people! Mrs. Harrison started to talk about an interesting account of him in the Sunday paper, but Mr. Harrison only grunted and went on reading something tedious about the Government. However, she went on asking him questions till he simply _had_ to answer, and then he said, quite snubbingly, that he considered the man was a charlatan who was pulling people’s legs with his theories. I said I didn’t think all these professors would believe in him and have him down to lecture and so on if it was just that. So he said, “Just you ask my old friend, Professor Alcock, if you won’t believe me.” Mrs. Harrison said she couldn’t ask Professor Alcock, because she had never seen him, and why didn’t Mr. Harrison sometimes bring somebody interesting to the house? That seemed to annoy him, though I thought it was very much to the point, but, being only a paid subordinate, I said meekly that we were all entitled to our own opinions. So he smiled sarcastically and said that perhaps _some_ of us were better qualified to judge than others, and that the Sunday Press was not always the best guide to knowledge. “But _you_ read the papers,” said Mrs. Harrison. “When I’m given the chance,” said he.

If I had been in Mrs. Harrison’s place I should have taken warning from the way he rattled _The Times_, but one cannot expect old heads on young shoulders—or perhaps mature heads would be fairer to myself. But she is perhaps a little tactless now and again, poor girl, and said if she didn’t read the papers how was she to improve her mind? Of course, I knew exactly what the answer would be—the virtues of the old-fashioned domestic woman and the perpetual chatter of the modern woman about things which were outside her province. It is the fatal subject, and somehow or other it always seems to crop up. Mrs. Harrison was very much hurt, and said of course she knew she couldn’t possibly come up to the perfections of Mrs. Harrison No. 1. Then, of course, the fat was in the fire. It was just like a woman to take it personally. Mrs. Harrison began to cry, and he said, “Please don’t make a scene,” and went out and slammed the door.

What I wanted to do was just to go up to Mr. Harrison and say, “Now do be a little human. Make a fuss of her. Let her cry if she wants to and then make it up and be friends.” But he isn’t the kind of person you can very well say things to. He would think it impertinent of me. And it’s true that it never pays to interfere between husband and wife. But if only he would listen to me, I know I could put matters right. In my kind of life one gets plenty of experience—lookers-on see most of the game, you know—and Mrs. Harrison would be so ready to attach herself to him, if only he would give her the chance. Often and often I’ve known her work herself up for hours to make an appeal to his feelings, but he receives it so coldly. Somehow it never seems to be the right moment. He is always absorbed in his painting or his natural history or something. How true it is that men live for Things and women for People! To pin one’s heart to a Person always means suffering in this world, if one has an acutely-sensitive nature. You are to be congratulated, Olive, on not being sensitive. Temperament is a great gift, but a very unhappy one, as I know so well from my own experience. I really _admire_ Mrs. Harrison—she never loses hope, but goes on, day after day, trying to be brave and devoted and to keep up her interest in life. And she has such a vivid alert mind—she is keen on everything, even on things like Einstein, which are so very modern and difficult. But I do not see how one can go on being keen about things with so _very_ little encouragement.

No, my dear! No men for me! It’s different for you, I know. You have the children, and I’m sure Tom is attentive in his man’s way—but Mr. Harrison is such a _stick_. And then, of course, he is a lot older than she is.

So you see you are quite wrong in your ideas about me. Naturally, I am interested in the new tenants, because, after all, we share the front hall and the staircase with them, and it does make a difference whether people are pleasant neighbours or not, but that is all! By the way, it’s quite true that one of them is an artist. We saw the men carrying in the lay-figure this morning—a life-sized one. It came out of the van not wrapped up at all—a most naked and indecent sight—and was carried up the path by Carter Paterson’s man, looking like the rape of the Sabines! You should have seen the heads popping out of the windows all down the street! Quite an excitement in our calm neighbourhood.

I am just turning the heel of the first stocking, tell Tom, and hope to get the pair done before you go down to Norfolk. Mr. Perry is the vicar—I’m sure I have told you about him before. Such a nice man, only rather High Church, but not at all bigoted. I always enjoy a chat with him.

I must stop now and get the joint in the oven for dinner. His lordship is coming in to prepare his special mushroom dish with his own fair hand!! So you see we have a treat to look forward to!

Ever your loving sister, AGGIE

3. _The Same to the Same_

15, WHITTINGTON TERRACE, BAYSWATER 20th September, 1928

DEAR OLIVE,

You ought to thank your lucky stars, my dear, that you _are_ the sort of person for whom “a good husband” is enough. But then, of course, Mother never brought us up to be brainy. We always lived so quietly at home, and what you’ve never had you don’t miss, as the saying goes. I can’t say I should have cared for an office job myself, though perhaps it would have been better for my health if I had had something to occupy my mind. But I am really feeling much better now, and I am getting free of that dreadful sensation of being obliged to go back and see if I really have done things when I know perfectly well I have. I know you say everybody feels like that sometimes, but you don’t know what it’s like to be _compelled_ to do it! The other night I got the idea that I had left the beef out on the kitchen table, and though I really remembered quite clearly shutting it up in the meat-safe, I simply _had_ to creep downstairs in my dressing-gown and make sure, otherwise I shouldn’t have got a wink of sleep. Still, that has been the only relapse for about a fortnight now.

As a matter of fact, we have had quite a lot of thrills this week—very good for us—occupies our minds, you know. The upstairs tenants have arrived!! Two young men—the artist and a poet! They came in the day before yesterday, and oh, my dear, the bumpings and noises! They brought a grand piano—I only hope they won’t be playing it all night, because I’m simply good for nothing if I don’t get my sleep before midnight—and there’s a gramophone as well. Why can’t people be content with the wireless, which shuts down at a reasonable hour?

I haven’t properly seen the poet yet, except that he’s rather tall and dark and thin. I’ve only caught glimpses of him running in and out of the front door, but the artist came in the first night after dinner to ask about the coal bunkers. He is quite exciting looking—very young—not more than twenty-four or five, I should say, with a lot of thick hair and one of those rather sulky-handsome faces. He has very nice manners, and didn’t address _all_ his conversation to Mr. and Mrs. Harrison and leave me out in the cold, as most of these young men do. Mr. Harrison, even, was quite gracious to him and offered him a drink, and he stayed talking for quite a little while. His name is Lathom, and he has very little money and has to take afternoon classes in an Art-school, but, of course, that is only to make money until he gets recognised. He has exhibited pictures in Manchester (I think he said), and some other places up north, but he didn’t talk much about his work. He seems nice and modest about it. I think Mr. Harrison is rather pleased that there should be an artist in the house. He started laying down the law about art at once, in his usual way, and brought out some of his water-colours for Mr. Lathom to look at. Mr. Lathom said they were very nice indeed, which rather surprised me, because I always think they are rather wishy-washy. However, I suppose he couldn’t very well have said anything else, as he was drinking Mr. Harrison’s whiskey and had never seen him till that moment.

Mrs. Harrison seemed rather nervous all the time, and she said afterwards she thought Mr. Lathom was quite a pleasant young man, but she did wish George wouldn’t inflict his painting on everybody. It must be very humiliating to be ashamed of one’s husband’s manners.

I have a dreadful confession to make about Tom’s stockings! With all my care, one of the turn-overs has come out slightly larger and looser than the other. It is so tiresome! Why should one’s knitting vary so from day to day? I suppose as long as one is a human being and not a machine one must get variations in one’s work, but I thought I had been so careful. I simply can’t face unpicking it all, and it isn’t really very noticeable. Tell Tom, if he can manage to put up with the trifling difference for a few weeks, it will probably even itself up in the wash.

I went out to Virginia Water on Sunday on a ’bus and had a lovely walk. I have been trying to put down my impressions in a little sketch. Dr. Trevor thinks it is quite good, and says I must certainly persevere. He says my power of _feeling_ things so intensely ought to make me a really good writer, when I have mastered the technique of putting it down on paper.

Best love to you all. Give the children each a hug from their Auntie. I hope you are keeping free from colds.

Your affectionate sister, AGGIE

4. _The Same to the Same_

15, WHITTINGTON TERRACE, BAYSWATER 29th September, 1928

DEAREST OLIVE,

I am so glad Tom finds he can wear the stockings all right. Yes, I am a wee bit proud of the pattern. And there’s one thing about it—it’s quite original. He couldn’t have bought anything like it in a shop, and that’s something in these machine-made days! Mr. Perry was tremendously impressed with the finished result, and he said that if I cared to do that sort of thing as a little business proposition, he thought he could get me quite a number of commissions among his parishioners. I was rather relieved, because he introduced the subject so delicately, I was afraid he was going to ask me to make him a present of a pair!—which would have seemed rather pointed, especially as he is unmarried! Anyway, I said I should like very much to do it, only, of course, I couldn’t undertake to do any big orders against time. I haven’t the leisure, for one thing—and besides, inventing patterns is artistic work and can’t be done to order. Mr. Perry _quite_ understood, and asked how much I should charge, so I said ten shillings a pair. I think that is fair, don’t you? They take ten ounces of double-knitting, not counting the small amount of coloured wool for the tops, and then there is my work to be considered, and the invention. You would have to pay _at least_ fifteen shillings for anything of the same quality in a shop. I dare say with practice I shall be able to get both legs the same.