Strong Poison: Chapter 13 - Blindfold Bill's Lockpicking Lesson in Whitechapel

Lord Peter Wimsey (0:00)

Chapter 13

Miss Joan Murchison (0:03)

Miss Murchison felt a touch of excitement in her well-regulated heart as she rang the bell of Lord Peter's flat. It was not caused by the consideration of his title or his wealth or his bachelourhood, for Miss Murchison had been a businesswoman all her life and was accustomed to visiting bachelors of all descriptions without giving a second thought to the matter. But his note had been rather exciting. Miss Murchison was 38 and plain. She had worked in the same financier's office for 12 years. They had been good years on the whole, and it was not until the last two that she had even begun to realise that the brilliant financier who juggled with so many spectacular undertakings was juggling for his life under circumstances of increasing difficulty.

As the pace grew faster, he added egg after egg to those which were already spinning in the air. There is a limit to the number of eggs which can be spun by human hands.

One day, an egg slipped and smashed, then another, then a whole omelette of eggs. The juggler fled from the stage and escaped abroad. His chief assistant blew out his brains, the audience booed, the curtain came down, and Miss Murchison at 37 was out of a job. She had put an advertisement in the papers and had answered many others. Most people appeared to want their secretaries young and cheap. It was discouraging. Then her own advertisement had brought an answer from a Miss Clemson who kept a typing bureau. It was not what she wanted but she went, and she found that it was not quite a typing bureau after all but something more interesting. Lord Peter Wimsey, mysteriously at the back of it all, had been abroad when Miss Murchison entered the Cattery and she had never seen him till a few weeks ago.

This would be the first time she had actually spoken to him. An odd looking person she thought but people said he had brains. Anyhow.

The door was opened by Bunter who seemed to expect her and showed her at once into a sitting room lined with bookshelves. There were some fine prints on the walls, an Oberson carpet, a grand piano, a vast Chesterfield and a number of deep and cosy chairs upholstered in brown leather. The curtains were drawn, a wood fire blazed on the hearth and before it stood a table with a silver tea service whose lovely lines were delightful to the eye. As she entered, her employer uncoiled himself from the depths of an armchair, put down a black letter folio which he had been studying and greeted her with cool, husky and rather languid tones which she had already heard in Mr. Urquhart's office.

Lord Peter Wimsey (2:25)

Frightfully good of you to come round, Miss Murchison. Beastly day, isn't it? I'm sure you want your tea.

Can you eat crumpets? Or would you prefer something more up-to-date?

Miss Joan Murchison (2:36)

Thanks, said Miss Murchison, as Bunter hovered obsequiously at her elbow. I like crumpets very much.

Lord Peter Wimsey (2:43)

Oh, good. Well, Bunter, we'll struggle with the teapot ourselves.

Give Miss Murchison another cushion, and then you can toddle off. Back at work, I suppose. How's our Mr. Urquhart?

Miss Joan Murchison (2:54)

He's all right. Miss Murchison had never been a chatty girl.

There's one thing I wanted to tell you.

Lord Peter Wimsey (3:00)

Plenty of time, said Wimsey. Don't spoil your tea.

Miss Joan Murchison (3:04)

He waited on her with a kind of anxious courtesy which pleased her. She expressed admiration of the big bronze chrysanthemums heaped here and there about the room.

Lord Peter Wimsey (3:12)

Oh, I'm glad you like them.

My friends say they give a feminine touch to the place, but Bunter sees to it as a matter of fact. They make a splash of colour and all that, don't you think?

Miss Joan Murchison (3:24)

The books look masculine enough.

Lord Peter Wimsey (3:26)

Oh, yes. They're my hobby, you know. Books. And crime, of course.

But crime's not very decorative, is it? I don't care about collecting hangman's ropes and murderer's overcoats. What are you to do with them? Is the tea all right? I ought to have asked you to pour out, but it always seems to me rather unfair to invite a person and then make her do all the work. What do you do when you're not working, by the way?

Do you keep a secret passion for anything?

Miss Joan Murchison (3:53)

I go to concerts, said Miss Murchison. And when there isn't a concert, I put something on the gramophone.

Lord Peter Wimsey (3:59)