Free Lord Peter Views the Body by Dorothy L. Sayers

      The path to Hades in a youngster’s stead.
    6.IX.           Long since, at Nature’s call, they let it drop,
            Thoughtlessly thoughtful for our next year’s crop.
    2.X.           To smallest words great speakers greatness give;
            Here Rome propounded her alternative.
    7.X.           We heap up many with toil and trouble,
            And find that the whole of our gain is a bubble.
    12.X.        Add it among the hidden things—
            A fishy tale to light it brings.
    1.XI.           ‘Lions,’ said a Gallic critic, ‘are not these.’
            Benevolent souls – they’d make your heart’s blood freeze.
    11.XI.        An epithet for husky fellows.
            That stand, all robed in greens and yellows.
    1.XII.           Whole without holes behold me here,
            My meaning should be wholly clear.
    10.XII.        Running all around, never setting foot to floor,
            If there isn’t one in this room, there may be one next door.
    1.XIII.           Ye gods! think also of that goddess’ name
            Whose might two hours on end the mob proclaim.
    4.XIII.           The Priest uplifts his voice on high,
            The choristers make their reply.
    14.XIII.        When you’ve guessed it, with one voice
            You’ll say it was a golden choice.
    1.XIV.           Shall learning die amid a war’s alarms?
            I, at my birth, was clasped in iron arms.
    10.XIV.        At sunset see the labourer now
            Loose all his oxen from the plough.
    1.XV.           Without a miracle it cannot be—
            At this point, Solver, bid him pray for thee!
    11.XV.        Two thousand years ago and more
            (Just as we do to-day),
            The Romans saw these distant lights—
            But, oh? How hard the way!
     
    The most remarkable part of the search – or so Lord Peter thought – was its effect on Miss Marryat. At first she hovered disconsolately on the margin, aching with wounded dignity, yet ashamed to dissociate herself from people who were toiling so hard and so cheerfully in her cause.
        ‘I think that’s so-and-so,’ Mary would say hopefully.
        And her brother would reply enthusiastically, ‘Holed it in one, old lady. Good for you! We’ve got it this time, Miss Marryat’ – and explain it.
        And Hannah Marryat would say with a snort:
        ‘That’s just the childish kind of joke Uncle Meleager would make.’
        Gradually, however, the fascination of seeing the squares fit together caught her, and, when the first word appeared which showed that the searchers were definitely on the right track, she lay down flat on the floor and peered over Lord Peter’s shoulder as he grovelled below, writing letters in charcoal, rubbing them out with his handkerchief and mopping his heated face, till the Moor of Venice had nothing on him in the matter of blackness. Once, half scornfully, half timidly, she made a suggestion; twice, she made a suggestion; the third time she had an inspiration. The next minute she was down in the mélée, crawling over the tiles flushed and excited, wiping important letters out with her knees as fast as Peter could write them in, poring over the pages of Roget, her eyes gleaming under her tumbled black fringe.
        Hurried meals of cold meat and tea sustained the exhausted party, and towards sunset Peter, with a shout of triumph, added the last letter to the square.
        They crawled out and looked at it.
        ‘All the words can’t be clues,’ said Mary. ‘I think it must be just those four.’
        ‘Yes, undoubtedly. It’s quite clear. We’ve only got to look it up. Where’s a Bible?’
        Miss Marryat hunted it out from the pile of reference books. ‘But that isn’t the name of a Bible book,’ she said. ‘It’s those things they have at evening service.’
        ‘That’s