THE QUEEN IS OUT
It is doubtful which occurrence was disagreeable to the senior members
of the Bellona Club—the grotesque death of General Fentiman in their
midst or the indecent neurasthenia of his grandson. Only the younger men
felt no sense of outrage; they knew too much. Dick Challoner—known to
his intimates as Tin-Tummy Challoner, owing to the fact that he had been
fitted with a spare part after the second battle of the Somme—took the
gasping Fentiman away into the deserted library for a stiffener. The
Club Secretary hurried in, in his dress-shirt and trousers, the
half-dried lather still clinging to his jaws. After one glance he sent
an agitated waiter to see if Dr Penberthy was still in the Club. Colonel
Marchbanks laid a large silk handkerchief reverently over the rigid face
in the armchair and remained quietly standing. A little circle formed
about the edge of the hearth-rug, not quite certain what to do. From
time to time it was swelled by fresh arrivals, whom the news had greeted
in the hall as they wandered in. A little group appeared from the bar.
‘What, old Fentiman?’ they said. ‘Good God, you don’t say so. Poor old
blighter. Heart gone at last, I suppose’; and they extinguished cigars
and cigarettes, and stood by, not liking to go away again.
Dr Penberthy was just changing for dinner. He came down hurriedly,
caught just as he was going out to an Armistice dinner, his silk hat
tilted to the back of his head, his coat and muffler pushed loosely
open. He was a thin, dark man with the abrupt manner which distinguishes
the Army Surgeon from the West End practitioner. The group by the fire
made way for him, except Wimsey, who hung rather foolishly upon the big
elbow-chair, gazing in a helpless way at the body.
Penberthy ran practised hands quickly over neck, wrists and knee-joints.
‘Dead several hours,’ he pronounced sharply. ‘_Rigor_ well
established—beginning to pass off.’ He moved the dead man’s left leg in
illustration; it swung loose at the knee. ‘I’ve been expecting this.
Heart very weak. Might happen any moment. Anyone spoken to him today?’
He glanced round interrogatively.
‘I saw him here after lunch,’ volunteered somebody. ‘I didn’t speak.’
‘I thought he was asleep,’ said another.
Nobody remembered speaking to him. They were so used to old General
Fentiman, slumbering by the fire.
‘Ah, well,’ said the doctor. ‘What’s the time? Seven?’ He seemed to make
a rapid calculation. ‘Say five hours for _rigor_ to set in—must have
taken place very rapidly—he probably came in at his usual time, sat
down and died straight away.’
‘He always walked from Dover Street,’ put in an elderly man. ‘I told him
it was too great an exertion at his age. You’ve heard me say so,
Ormsby.’
‘Yes, yes, quite,’ said the purple-faced Ormsby. ‘Dear me, just so.’
‘Well, there’s nothing to be done,’ said the doctor. ‘Died in his sleep.
Is there an empty bedroom we can take him to, Culyer?’
‘Yes, certainly,’ said the Secretary. ‘James, fetch the key of number
sixteen from my office and tell them to put the bed in order. I suppose,
eh, doctor?—when the _rigor_ passes off we shall be able to—eh?’
‘Oh, yes, you’ll be able to do everything that’s required. I’ll send the
proper people in to lay him out for you. Somebody had better let his
people know—only they’d better not show up till we can get him more
presentable.’
‘Captain Fentiman knows already,’ said Colonel Marchbanks. ‘And Major
Fentiman is staying in the Club—he’ll probably be in before long. Then
there’s a sister, I think.’
‘Yes, old Lady Dormer,’ said Penberthy, ‘she lives round in Portman
Square. They haven’t been on speaking terms for years. Still, she’ll
have to know.’
‘I’ll ring them up,’ said the Colonel. ‘We can’t leave it to Captain
Fentiman, he’s in no fit state to be worried, poor fellow. You’ll have
to have a look at him, doctor, when you’ve finished here. An attack of
the old trouble—nerves, you know.’
‘All right. Ah! is the room ready, Culyer? Then we’ll move him. Will
somebody take his shoulders—no, not you, Culyer’ (for the Secretary had
only one sound arm), ‘Lord Peter, yes, thank you—lift carefully.’
Wimsey put his long, strong hands under the stiff arms; the doctor
gathered up the legs; they moved away. They looked like a dreadful
little Guy Fawkes procession, with that humped and unreverend manikin
bobbing and swaying between them.
The door closed after them, and a tension seemed removed. The circle
broke up into groups. Somebody lit a cigarette. The planet’s tyrant,
dotard Death, had held his grey mirror before them for a moment and
shown them the image of things to come. But now it was taken away again.
The unpleasantness had passed. Fortunate, indeed, that Penberthy was the
old man’s own doctor. He knew all about it. He could give a certificate.
No inquest. Nothing undesirable. The members of the Bellona Club could
go to dinner.
Colonel Marchbanks turned to go through the far door towards the
library. In a narrow ante-room between the two rooms there was a
convenient telephone-cabinet for the use of those members who did not
wish to emerge into the semi-publicity of the entrance-hall.
‘Hi, Colonel! not that one. That instrument’s out of order,’ said a man
called Wetheridge, who saw him go. ‘Disgraceful, I call it. I wanted to
use the phone this morning, and—oh! hallo! the notice has gone. I
suppose it’s all right again. They ought to let one know.’
Colonel Marchbanks paid little attention to Wetheridge. He was the Club
grumbler, distinguished even in that fellowship of the dyspeptic and
peremptory—always threatening to complain to the committee, harassing
the secretary and constituting a perennial thorn in the sides of his
fellow-members. He retired, murmuring, to his chair and the evening
paper, and the Colonel stepped into the telephone-cabinet to call up
Lady Dormer’s house in Portman Square.
Presently he came out through the library into the entrance-hall, and
met Penberthy and Wimsey just descending the staircase.
‘Have you broken the news to Lady Dormer?’ asked Wimsey.
‘Lady Dormer is dead,’ said the Colonel. ‘Her maid tells me she passed
quietly away at half-past ten this morning.’
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