Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers

arrived just as his master was struggling into an overcoat.
    "What was that thing in last Thursday's paper about a number-plate, Bunter?" inquired his lordship.
    Mr. Bunter produced, apparently by legerdemain, a cutting from an evening paper:
     
    " Number-plate Mystery
    " The Rev. Nathaniel Foulis, of St. Simon's, North Fellcote, was stopped at six o'clock this morning for riding a motor-cycle without number-plates. The reverend gentleman seemed thunderstruck when his attention was called to the matter. He explained that he had been sent for in great haste at 4 A.M. to administer the Sacrament to a dying parishioner six miles away. He hastened out on his motorcycle, which he confidingly left by the roadside while executing his sacred duties. Mr. Foulis left the house at 5.30 without noticing that anything was wrong. Mr. Foulis is well known in North Fellcote and the surrounding country, and there seems little doubt that he has been the victim of a senseless practical joke. North Fellcote is a small village a couple of miles north of Ripley. "
     
    "I'm going to Ripley, Bunter," said Lord Peter.
    "Yes, my lord. Does your lordship require me?"
    "No," said Lord Peter, "but-who has been lady's maiding my sister, Bunter?"
    "Ellen, my lord-the housemaid."
    "Then I wish you'd exercise your powers of conversation on Ellen."
    "Very good, my lord."
    "Does she mend my sister's clothes, and brush her skirts, and all that?"
    "I believe so, my lord."
    "Nothing she may think is of any importance, you know, Bunter."
    "I wouldn't suggest such a thing to a woman, my lord. It goes to their heads, if I may say so."
    "When did Mr. Parker leave for town?"
    "At six o'clock this morning, my lord."
     
***
     
    Circumstances favoured Mr. Bunter's inquiries. He bumped into Ellen as she was descending the back stairs with an armful of clothing. A pair of leather gauntlets was jerked from the top of the pile, and, picking them up, he apologetically followed the young woman into the servants' hall.
    "There," said Ellen, flinging her burden on the table, "and the work I've had to get them, I'm sure. Tantrums, that's what I call it, pretending you've got such a headache you can't let a person into the room to take your things down to brush, and, as soon as they're out of the way, 'opping out of bed and trapesing all over the place. 'Tisn't what I call a headache, would you, now? But there! I daresay you don't get them like I do. Regular fit to split, my head is sometimes-couldn't keep on my feet, not if the house was burning down. I just have to lay down and keep laying-something cruel it is. And gives a person such wrinkles in one's forehead."
    "I'm sure I don't see any wrinkles," said Mr. Bunter, "but perhaps I haven't looked hard enough." An interlude followed, during which Mr. Bunter looked hard enough and close enough to distinguish wrinkles. "No," said he, "wrinkles? I don't believe I'd see any if I was to take his lordship's big microscope he keeps up in town."
    "Lor' now, Mr. Bunter," said Ellen, fetching a sponge and a bottle of benzine from the cupboard, "what would his lordship be using a thing like that for, now?"
    "Why, in our hobby, you see, Miss Ellen, which is criminal investigation, we might want to see something magnified extra big-as it might be handwriting in a forgery case, to see if anything's been altered or rubbed out, or if different kinds of ink have been used. Or we might want to look at the roots of a lock of hair, to see if it's been torn out or fallen out. Or take bloodstains, now; we'd want to know if it was animal's blood or human blood, or maybe only a glass of port."
    "Now is it really true, Mr. Bunter," said Ellen, laying a tweed skirt out upon the table and unstoppering the benzine, "that you and Lord Peter can find out all that?"
    "Of course, we aren't analytical chemists," Mr. Bunter replied, "but his lordship's dabbled in a lot of things-enough to know when anything looks suspicious, and if we've any doubts we send to