Free Lord Peter Views the Body by Dorothy L. Sayers Page A

all you know,’ said Lord Peter. ‘I was brought up religious, I was. It’s Vulgate, that’s what that is. You’re quite right, of course, but, as Uncle Meleager says, we must “look a little further back than that”. Here you are. Now, then.’
        ‘But it doesn’t say what chapter.’
        ‘So it doesn’t. I mean, nor it does.’
        ‘And, anyhow, all the chapters are too short.’
        ‘Damn! Oh! Here, suppose we just count right on from the beginning – one, two, three—’
        ‘Seventeen in chapter one, eighteen, nineteen – this must be it.’
        Two fair heads and one dark one peered excitedly at the small print, Bunter hovering decorously on the outskirts.
     
    ‘O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the steep place.’
     
        ‘Oh, dear!’ said Mary, disappointed, ‘that does sound rather hopeless. Are you sure you’ve counted right? It might mean anything .’
        Lord Peter scratched his head.
        ‘This is a bit of a blow,’ he said. ‘I don’t like Uncle Meleager half as much as I did. Old beast!’
        ‘After all our work!’ moaned Mary.
        ‘It must be right,’ cried Miss Marryat. ‘Perhaps there’s some kind of an anagram in it. We can’t give up now!’
        ‘Bravo!’ said Lord Peter. ‘That’s the spirit. ’Fraid we’re in for another outburst of frivolity, Miss Marryat.’
        ‘Well, it’s been great fun,’ said Hannah Marryat.
        ‘If you will excuse me,’ began the deferential voice of Bunter.
        ‘I’d forgotten you, Bunter,’ said his lordship. ‘Of course you can put us right – you always can. Where have we gone wrong?’
        ‘I was about to observe, my lord, that the words you mention do not appear to agree with my recollection of the passage in question. In my mother’s Bible, my lord, it ran, I fancy, some-what differently.’
        Lord Peter closed the volume and looked at the back of it.
        ‘Naturally,’ he said, ‘you are right again, of course. This is a Revised Version. It’s your fault, Miss Marryat. You would have a Revised Version. But can we imagine Uncle Meleager with one? No. Bring me Uncle Meleager’s Bible.’
        ‘Come and look in the library,’ cried Miss Marryat, snatching him by the hand and running. ‘Don’t be so dreadfully calm.’
        On the centre of the library table lay a huge and venerable Bible – reverend in age and tooled leather binding. Lord Peter’s hands caressed it, for a noble old book was like a song to his soul. Sobered by its beauty, they turned the yellow pages over.
     
    ‘In the clefts of the rocks, in the secret places of the stairs.’
     
        ‘Miss Marryat,’ said his lordship, ‘if your Uncle’s will is not concealed in the staircase, then – well, all I can say is, he’s played a rotten trick on us,’ he concluded lamely.
        ‘Shall we try the main staircase, or the little one up to the porch?’
        ‘Oh, the main one, I think. I hope it won’t mean pulling it down. No. Somebody would have noticed if Uncle Meleager had done anything drastic in that way. It’s probably quite a simple hiding-place. Wait a minute. Let’s ask the housekeeper.’
        Mrs Meakers was called, and perfectly remembered that about nine months previously Mr Finch had pointed out to her a ‘kind of a crack like’ on the under surface of the staircase, and had had a man in to fill it up. Certainly, she could point out the exact place. There was the mark of the plaster filling quite clear.
        ‘Hurray!’ cried Lord Peter. ‘Bunter – a chisel or something. Uncle Meleager, Uncle Meleager, we’ve got you! Miss Marryat, I think yours should be the hand to strike the blow. It’s your staircase, you know – at least, if we find the will, so if any destruction has to be done it’s up to you.’
        Breathless they stood round, while with a few blows the new plaster flaked off, disclosing a