Strong Poison: Chapter 16 - Miss Climpson, a Spiritualist Nurse, and a Fake Seance

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Chapter 16 Mr. Crofts, excusably enough, said, I told you so. Sir Impey Biggs observed curtly, Very unfortunate. To chronicle Lord Peter Wimsey's daily life during the ensuing week would be neither kind nor edifying. An enforced inactivity will produce irritable symptoms in the best of men. Nor did the imbecile happiness of Chief Inspector Parker and Lady Mary Wimsey tend to soothe him, Accompanied as it was by tedious demonstrations of affection for himself. Like the man in Max Beerbohm's story, Wimsey hated to be touching. He was only moderately cheered by hearing from the industrious Freddy Arbuthnot that Mr Norman Urquhart was found to be more or less deeply involved in the disasters of the Megatherium Trust. Miss Kitty Climpson, on the other hand, was living in what she herself liked to call a whirl of activity. A letter, written the second day after her arrival in Windle, furnishes us with a wealth of particulars. Hillside View, Windle, Westmoreland, January 1st, 1930 My dear Lord Peter, I feel sure you will be anxious to hear, at the earliest possible moment, how things are going, and though I have only been here one day, I really think I have not done so badly, all things considered.

My train got in quite late on Monday night, after a most dreary journey, with a lugubrious wait at Preston, though thanks to your kindness in insisting that I should travel first class, I was not really at all tired. Nobody can realize what a great difference these extra comforts make, especially when one is getting on in years, and after the uncomfortable travelling which I had to endure in my days of poverty, I feel that I am living in almost sinful luxury. The carriage was well heated, indeed too much so, and I should have liked the window down, but that there was a very fat business man, muffled up to the eyes in coats and woolly waistcoats who strongly objected to fresh air. Men are such hothouse plants nowadays, are they not? Quite unlike my dear father, who would never permit a fire in the house before November 1st or after March 31st, even though the thermometer was at freezing point. I had no difficulty in getting a comfortable room at the station hotel late as it was. In the old days, an unmarried woman arriving alone at midnight with a suitcase would hardly have been considered respectable. What a wonderful difference one finds today.

I am grateful to have lived to see such changes, because whatever old-fashioned people may say about the greater decorum and modesty of women in Queen Victoria's time, those who can remember the old conditions know how difficult and humiliating they were. Yesterday morning, of course, my first object was to find a suitable boarding house in accordance with your instructions, and I was fortunate enough to hit upon this house at the second attempt. It is very well run and refined, and there are three elderly ladies who are permanent boarders here, and are well up in all the gossip of the town so that nothing could be more advantageous for our purpose.

As soon as I had engaged my room, I went out for a little voyage of discovery. I found a very helpful policeman in the high street, and asked him where to find Mrs. Wrayburn's house. He knew it quite well and told me to take the omnibus, and it would be a penny ride to the fisherman's arms, and then about five minutes walk. So I followed his directions, and the bus took me right into the country to a crossroads with the fisherman's arms at the corner. The conductor was most polite and helpful and showed me the way, so I had no difficulty in finding the house. It is a beautiful old place standing in its own grounds. Quite a big house built in the 18th century, with an Italian porch and a lovely green lawn with a cedar tree and formal flower beds, and in summer must be really a garden of Eden.

I looked at it from the road for a little time. I did not think this would be at all peculiar behaviour if anybody saw me, because anybody might be interested in such a fine old place. Most of the blinds were down as though the greater part of the house were uninhabited, and I could not see any gardener or anybody about. I suppose there is not very much to be done in the garden this time of the year.

One of the chimneys was smoking, however, so there were some signs of life about the place. I took a little walk down the road and then turned back and passed the house again, and this time I saw a servant just passing round the corner of the house, but of course she was too far off for me to speak to. So I took the omnibus back again and had lunch at Hillside View so as to make acquaintance with my fellow boarders. Naturally, I did not want to seem too eager all at once, so I said nothing about Mrs. Wrayburn's house at first, but just talked generally about Windle. I had some difficulty in parrying the questions of the good ladies, who wondered very much why a stranger had come to Windle at this time of year, but without telling many actual untruths I think I left them with the impression that I had come into a little fortune and was visiting the Lake District to find a suitable spot in which to settle next summer.