Whose Body Read Online Free Page B

this.
    “That's your idea, is it, Bunter? Noblesse oblige —for a consideration. I daresay you're right. Then you're better off than I am, because I'd have to behave myself to Lady Worthington if I hadn't a penny. Bunter, if I sacked you here and now, would you tell me what you think of me?”
    “No, my lord.”
    “You'd have a perfect right to, my Bunter, and if I sacked you on top of drinking the kind of coffee you make, I'd deserve everything you could say of me. You're a demon for coffee, Bunter—I don't know how you do it, because I believe it to be witchcraft, and I don't want to burn eternally. You can buy your cross-eyed lens.”
    “Thank you, my lord.”
    “Have you finished in the dining-room?”
    “Not quite, my lord.”
    “Well, come back when you have. I have many things to tell you. Hullo! who's that?”
    The doorbell had rung sharply.
    “Unless it's anybody interestin' I'm not at home.”
    “Very good, my lord.”
    Lord Peter's library was one of the most delightful bachelor rooms in London. Its scheme was black and primrose; its walls were lined with rare editions, and its chairs and Chesterfield sofa suggested the embraces of the houris. In one corner stood a black baby-grand, a wood fire leaped on a wide old-fashioned hearth, and the Sèvres vases on the chimney-piece were filled with ruddy and gold chrysanthemums. To the eyes of the young man who was ushered in from the raw November fog it seemed not only rare and unattainable, but friendly and familiar, like a colourful and gilded paradise in a mediæval painting.
    “Mr. Parker, my lord.”
    Lord Peter jumped up with genuine eagerness.
    “My dear man, I'm delighted to see you. What a beastly foggy night, ain't it? Bunter, some more of that admirable coffee and another glass and the cigars. Parker, I hope you're full of crime—nothing less than arson or murder will do for us to-night. 'On such a night as this—' Bunter and I were just sitting down to carouse. I've got a Dante, and a Caxton folio that is practically unique, at Sir Ralph Brocklebury's sale. Bunter, who did the bargaining, is going to have a lens which does all kinds of wonderful things with its eyes shut, and
    “We both have got a body in a bath, We both have got a body in a bath— For in spite of all temptations To go in for cheap sensations We insist upon a body in a bath—
    “Nothing less will do for us, Parker. It's mine at present, but we're going shares in it. Property of the firm. Won't you join us? You really must put something in the jack-pot. Perhaps you have a body. Oh, do have a body. Everybody welcome.
    “Gin a body meet a body Hauled before the beak, Gin a body jolly well knows who murdered a body and that old Sugg is on the wrong tack, Need a body speak?
    “Not a bit of it. He tips a glassy wink at yours truly and yours truly read the truth.”
    “Ah,” said Parker. “I knew you'd been round to Queen Caroline Mansions. So've I, and met Sugg, and he told me he'd seen you. He was cross, too. Unwarrantable interference, he calls it.”
    “I knew he would,” said Lord Peter, “I love taking a rise out of dear old Sugg, he's always so rude. I see by the Star that he has excelled himself by taking the girl, Gladys What's-her-name, into custody. Sugg of the evening, beautiful Sugg! But what were you doing there?”
    “To tell you the truth,” said Parker, “I went round to see if the Semitic-looking stranger in Mr. Thipps's bath was by any extraordinary chance Sir Reuben Levy. But he isn't.”
    “Sir Reuben Levy? Wait a minute, I saw something about that. I know! A headline: 'Mysterious disappearance of famous financier.' What's it all about? I didn't read it carefully.”
    “Well, it's a bit odd, though I daresay it's nothing really—old chap may have cleared for some reason best known to himself. It only happened this morning, and nobody would have thought anything about it, only it happened to be the day on which he had arranged to attend a most