The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Sayers Dorothy L

Author:Sayers, Dorothy L. [Sayers, Dorothy L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Crime, Classics, Historical
ISBN: 9781453258880
Goodreads: 15814771
Publisher: Open Road Media Mystery Thriller
Published: 1928-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

The next day came a foreign telegram:

“Making for Sicily. Faint but pursuing.—P. W.”

In reply to this, Mr. Murbles wired:

“Exhumation fixed for day after to-morrow. Please make haste.”

To which Wimsey replied:

“Returning for exhumation.—P. W.”

He returned alone.

“Where is Robert Fentiman?” demanded Mr. Murbles agitatedly.

Wimsey, his hair matted damply and his face white from travelling day and night, grinned feebly.

“I rather fancy,” he said in a wan voice, “that Oliver is at his old tricks again.”

“Again?” cried Mr. Murbles, aghast. “But the letter from your detective was genuine.”

“Oh, yes—that was genuine enough. But even detectives can be bribed. Anyhow, we haven’t seen hide or hair of our friends. They’ve been always a little ahead. Like the Holy Grail, you know, ‘Fainter by day, but always in the night blood-red, and sliding down the blackened marsh, blood-red’—perfectly bloody, in fact. Well, here we are. When does the ceremony take place? Quietly, I take it. No flowers?”

The “ceremony” took place, as such ceremonies do, under the discreet cover of darkness. George Fentiman, who, in Robert’s absence, attended to represent the family, was nervous and depressed. It is trying enough to go to the funeral of one’s friends and relations, amid the grotesque pomps of glass hearses, and black horses, and wreaths, and appropriate hymns “beautifully” rendered by well-paid choristers, but, as George irritably remarked, the people who grumble over funerals don’t realise their luck. However depressing the thud of earth on the coffin-lid may be, it is music compared to the rattle of gravel and thump of spades which herald a premature and unreverend resurrection, enveloped in clouds of formalin and without benefit of clergy.

Dr. Penberthy also appeared abstracted and anxious to get the business over. He made the journey to the cemetery ensconced in the farthest corner of the big limousine, and discussed thyroid abnormalities with Dr. Horner, Sir James Lubbock’s assistant, who had come to help with the autopsy. Mr. Murbles was, naturally, steeped in gloom. Wimsey devoted himself to his accumulated correspondence, out of which one letter only had any bearing on the Fentiman case. It was from Marjorie Phelps, and ran :

“If you want to meet Ann Dorland, would you care to come along to a ‘do’ at the Rushworths’ Wednesday Week? It will be very deadly, because Naomi Rushworth’s new young man is going to read a paper on ductless glands which nobody knows anything about. However, it appears that ductless glands will be ‘news’ in next to no time—ever so much more up-to-date than vitamins—so the Rushworths are all over glands—in the social sense, I mean. Ann D. is certain to be there, because, as I told you, she is taking to this healthy-bodies-for-all stunt, or whatever it is, so you’d better come. It will be company for me!—and I’ve got to go, anyway, as I’m supposed to be a friend of Naomi’s. Besides, they say that if one paints or sculps or models, one ought to know all about glands, because of the way they enlarge your jaw and alter your face, or something.

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