Free Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers Page A

a move on, old thing."
    They crossed the drive, passed the cottage and then, leaving the road, followed the paling across some open grass fields. It was not long before they found, what they sought. From one of the iron spikes above them dangled forlornly a strip of material. With Parker's assistance Wimsey scrambled up in a state of almost lyric excitement.
    "Here we are," he cried. "The belt of a Burberry! No sort of precaution here. Here are the toe-prints of a fellow sprinting for his life. He tore off his Burberry! he made desperate leaps-one, two, three-at the palings. At the third leap he hooked it on to the spikes. He scrambled up, scoring long, scrabbling marks on the paling. He reached the top. Oh, here's a bloodstain run into this crack. He tore his hands. He dropped off. He wrenched the coat away, leaving the belt clinging-"
    "I wish you'd drop off," grumbled Parker, "You're breaking my collarbone."
    Lord Peter dropped off obediently, and stood there holding the belt between his fingers. His narrow grey eyes wandered restlessly over the field. Suddenly he seized Parker's arm and marched briskly in the direction of the wall on the farther side-a low erection of unmortared stone in the fashion of the country. Here he hunted along like a terrier, nose foremost, the tip of his tongue caught absurdly between his teeth, then jumped over, and, turning to Parker, said: "Did you ever read The Lay of the Last Minstrel? "
    "I learnt a good deal of it at school," said Parker. "Why?"
    "Because there was a goblin page-boy in it," said Lord Peter, "who was always yelling 'Found! Found! Found!' at the most unnecessary moments. I always thought him a terrible nuisance, but now I know how he felt. See here."
    Close under the wall, and sunk heavily into the narrow and muddy lane which ran up here at right angles to the main road, was the track of a sidecar combination.
    "Very nice too," said Mr. Parker approvingly.
    "New Dunlop type on the front wheel. Old tyre on the back. Gaiter on the side-car tyre. Nothing could be better. Tracks come in from the road and go back to the road. Fellow shoved the machine in here in case anybody of an inquisitive turn of mind should pass on the road and make off with it, or take its number. Then he went round on shank's mare to the gap he'd spotted in the daytime and got over. After the Cathcart affair he took fright, bolted into the preserve, and took the shortest way to his bus, regardless. Well, now."
    He sat down on the wall, and, drawing out his notebook, began to jot down a description of the man from the data already known.
    "Things begin to look a bit more comfortable for old Jerry," said Lord Peter. He leaned on the wall and began whistling softly, but with great accuracy, that elaborate passage of Bach which begins "Let Zion's children."
     
***
     
    "I wonder," said the Hon. Freddy Arbuthnot, "what damn silly fool invented Sunday afternoon." He shovelled coals on to the library fire with a vicious [missing] waking Colonel Marchbanks, who said, "Eh?"
    "Don't you grumble, Freddy," said Lord Peter, who had been occupied for some time in opening and shutting all the drawers of the writing-table in a thoroughly irritating manner, and idly snapping to and fro the catch of the French window. "Think how dull old Jerry must feel. S'pose I'd better write him a line."
    He returned to the table and took a sheet of paper.
    "Do people use this room much to write letters in, do you know?"
    "No idea," said the Hon. Freddy. "Never write 'em myself. Where's the point of writin' when you can wire? Encourages people to write back, that's all. I think Denver writes here when he writes anywhere, and I saw the Colonel wrestlin' with pen and ink a day or two ago, didn't you, Colonel?" (The Colonel grunted, answering to his name like a dog that wags its tail in its sleep.) "What's the matter? Ain't there any ink?"
    "I only wondered," replied Peter placidly. He slipped a paper-knife under the top sheet of the