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total lack of figure. But all the sense went out of society with the House of Lords’ veto. I except you, Peter. You have talents. It is a pity you do not employ them in politics.’
        ‘Dear lady, God forbid.’
        ‘Perhaps you are right, as things are. There were giants in my day. Dear Dizzy. I remember so well, when his wife died, how hard we all tried to get him – Medway had died the year before – but he was wrapped up in that stupid Bradford woman, who had never even read a line of one of his books, and couldn’t have understood ’em if she had. And now we have Abcock standing for Midhurst, and married to Sylvia!’
        ‘You haven’t invited me to the wedding, duchess dear. I’m so hurt,’ sighed his lordship.
        ‘Bless you, child, I didn’t send out the invitations, but I suppose your brother and that tiresome wife of his will be there. You must come, of course, if you want to. I had no idea you had a passion for weddings.’
        ‘Hadn’t you?’ said Peter. ‘I have a passion for this one. I want to see Lady Sylvia wearing white satin and the family lace and diamonds, and to sentimentalise over the days when my fox-terrier bit the stuffing out of her doll.’
        ‘Very well, my dear, you shall. Come early and give me your support. As for the diamonds, if it weren’t a family tradition, Sylvia shouldn’t wear them. She has the impudence to complain of them.’
        ‘I thought they were some of the finest in existence.’
        ‘So they are. But she says the settings are ugly and old-fashioned, and she doesn’t like diamonds, and they won’t go with her dress. Such nonsense. Whoever heard of a girl not liking diamonds? She wants to be something romantic and moonshiny in pearls. I have no patience with her.’
        ‘I’ll promise to admire them,’ said Peter – ‘use the privilege of early acquaintance and tell her she’s an ass and so on. I’d love to have a view of them. When do they come out of cold storage?’
        ‘Mr Whitehead will bring them up from the Bank the night before,’ said the duchess, ‘and they’ll go into the safe in my room. Come round at twelve o’clock and you shall have a private view of them.’
        ‘That would be delightful. Mind they don’t disappear in the night, won’t you?’
        ‘Oh, my dear, the house is going to be over-run with policemen. Such a nuisance. I suppose it can’t be helped.’
        ‘Oh, I think it’s a good thing,’ said Peter. ‘I have rather an unwholesome weakness for policemen.’
     
    On the morning of the wedding-day, Lord Peter emerged from Bunter’s hands a marvel of sleek brilliance. His primrose-coloured hair was so exquisite a work of art that to eclipse it with his glossy hat was like shutting up the sun in a shrine of polished jet; his spats, light trousers, and exquisitely polished shoes formed a tone-symphony in monochrome. It was only by the most impassioned pleading that he persuaded his tyrant to allow him to place two small photographs and a thin, foreign letter in his breast-pocket. Mr Bunter, likewise immaculately attired, stepped into the taxi after him. At noon precisely they were deposited beneath the striped awning which adorned the door of the Duchess of Medway’s house in Park Lane. Bunter promptly disappeared in the direction of the back entrance, while his lordship mounted the steps and asked to see the dowager.
        The majority of the guests had not yet arrived, but the house was full of agitated people, flitting hither and thither, with flowers and prayer-books, while a clatter of dishes and cutlery from the dining-room proclaimed the laying of a sumptuous breakfast. Lord Peter was shown into the morning-room while the footman went to announce him, and here he found a very close friend and devoted colleague, Detective-Inspector Parker, mounting guard in plain clothes over a costly collection of white elephants. Lord Peter greeted him with an