Note sull'episodio
After a celebratory lunch at Rules, Lord Peter Wimsey takes stock and finds little progress. His faith in Urquhart's draft will is gone, the Nine Rings packet is still missing, and it is December 30 with no plan. Pacing his book lined room, he catches his own reflection in the Venetian mirror, a fair and foolish face with a monocle, and nearly smashes it with a bronze. Instead he sends Miss Climpson to Windle in Westmorland to reach the paralysed Mrs. Wrayburn at Appleford and find her will within about a week.
Then, in a gentler mood of melancholy, he goes to Scotland Yard and demands to know Chief Inspector Parker's intentions toward his sister Lady Mary. Parker protests that a policeman cannot presume, and Wimsey tells him he is making Mary unhappy after five years of mooning. Only then does Parker reveal his own news: the police have found the white paper packet from the Nine Rings, traced it through one of the barmen, identified it, and analysed it. The chapter ends as Parker, looking like a man breaking bad news, prepares to say what was inside.
- Wimsey's grim thought of how easy it would be to hasten the death of a frail 93 year old
- His instruction to Miss Climpson to stay at a boarding house for the gossip and find the nurse's weakness
- Miss Climpson asking the vicar for a special intention for someone on a difficult undertaking
- Wimsey's suggested proposal lines, from a spot of matrimony to going down on one knee
- Parker exploding at the idea that he could be making Lady Mary unhappy