Strong Poison: Chapter 5 - Miss Climpson's Cattery and the Hunt for a Motive

Lord Peter Wimsey (0:00)

Chapter 5 Well now, said Wimsey, why do people kill people?

SPEAKER_2 (0:06)

He was sitting in Miss Catherine Climpson's private office. The establishment was ostensibly a typing bureau, and indeed there were three efficient female typists who did very excellent work for authors and men of science from time to time. Apparently the business was a large and flourishing one, for work frequently had to be refused on the ground that the staff was working at full pressure. But on other floors of the building, there were other activities. All the employees were women, mostly elderly, but a few still young and attractive. And if the private register in the Steel Safe had been consulted, it would have been seen that all these women were of the class unkindly known as superfluous. There were spinsters with small fixed incomes or no incomes at all, widows without family, women deserted by peripatetic husbands, and living on a restricted alimony, who, previous to their engagement by Miss Climpson, had had no resources but bridge and boarding house gossip. There were retired and disappointed school teachers, out-of-work actresses, courageous people who had failed with hat shops and tea parlours, and even a few bright young things for whom the cocktail party and the nightclub had grown boring.

These women seemed to spend most of their time in answering advertisements, unmarried gentlemen who desired to meet ladies possessed of competences, with a view to matrimony, sprightly sexagenarians who wanted housekeepers for remote country districts, ingenious gentlemen with financial schemes on the lookout for capital, literary gentlemen anxious for female collaborators, plausible gentlemen about to engage talent for productions in the provinces, benevolent gentlemen who could tell people how to make money in their spare time. Gentlemen such as these were very liable to receive applications from members of Miss Climpson's staff. It may have been coincidence that these gentlemen so very often had the misfortune to appear shortly afterwards before the magistrate on charges of fraud, blackmail or attempted procuration, but it is a fact that Miss Climpson's office boasted a private telephone line to Scotland Yard and that few of her ladies were quite so unprotected as they appeared. It is also a fact that the money which paid for the rent and upkeep of the premises might, by zealous inquirers, have been traced to Lord Peter Wimsey's banking account. His lordship was somewhat reticent about this venture of his, but occasionally when he was closeted with Chief Inspector Parker or other intimate friends, referred to it as my cattery.

Miss Climpson poured out a cup of tea before replying. She wore a quantity of little bangles on her spare lace-covered wrists, and they chinked aggressively with every movement.

I really don't know, she said, apparently taking the problem as a psychological one.

Miss Catherine Climpson (2:45)

It is so dangerous as well as so terribly wicked. One wonders that anybody has the effrontery to undertake it, and very often they gain so little by it.

Lord Peter Wimsey (2:59)

That's what I mean, said Wimsey. What do they set out to gain?

Of course, some people seem to do it for the fun of the thing, like that German female. What's her name? Who enjoyed seeing people die?

Miss Catherine Climpson (3:11)

Such a strange taste, said Miss Climpson. No sugar, I think. You know, dear Lord Peter, it has been my melancholy duty to attend many deathbeds, and though a number of them, such as my dear fathers, were most Christian and beautiful, I could not call them fun.

People have very different ideas of fun, of course, and personally, I have never greatly cared for George Roby, though Charlie Chaplin always makes me laugh. Still, you know, there are disagreeable details attending any deathbed, which one would think could hardly be to anybody's taste. However, depraved.

Lord Peter Wimsey (3:54)

I quite agree with you, said Wimsey, but it must be fun, in one sense, to feel that you can control the issues of life and death, don't you know?

Miss Catherine Climpson (4:03)

That is an infringement upon the prerogative of the Creator, said Miss Climpson.

Lord Peter Wimsey (4:08)

But rather jolly to know yourself divine, so to speak, up above the world so high, like a tea-tray in the sky.

I admit the fascination, but for practical purposes, that theory is the devil. I beg your pardon, Miss Climpson. Respect for sacred personages. I mean, it's unsatisfactory, because it would suit one person just as well as another. If I've got to find a homicidal maniac, I may as well cut my throat at once.

Miss Catherine Climpson (4:35)

Don't say that, pleaded Miss Climpson, even in jest. Your work here, so good, so valuable, would be worth living for in spite of the saddest personal disappointments.