He was a big chap, just over forty, with a square capable face.
‘I mean,’ I said, ‘I was at school with an R. I. Peters and when I saw The Times this morning I realized I was coming down this way and I thought I might look in, don’t you know.’
He remained smiling kindly at me as if he thought I was mental and I floundered on.
‘When I got here I felt I couldn’t have come to the right – I mean I felt it must be some other Peters,’ I said.
‘He was a big heavy man,’ he observed thoughtfully. Deep-set eyes, too fat, light lashes, thirty-seven years old, went to a prep. school at Sheepsgate and then on to Totham.’
I was shocked. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s the man I knew.’
He nodded gloomily. ‘A sad business,’ he repeated. ‘He came to me after an appendix operation. Shouldn’t have had it: heart wouldn’t stand it. Picked up a touch of pneumonia on the way down and –’ he shrugged his shoulders, ‘– couldn’t save him, poor chap. None of his people here.’
I was silent. There was very little to say.
‘That’s my place,’ he remarked suddenly, nodding towards the one big house. ‘I take a few convalescents. Never had a death there before. I’m in practice here.’
I could sympathize with him and I did. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him if Peters had let him in for a spot of cash. He had not hinted it but I guessed there was some such matter in his thoughts. However, I refrained; there seemed no point in it.
We stood there chatting aimlessly for some moments, as one does on these occasions, and then I went back to Town. I did not call in at Highwaters after all, much to Lugg’s disgust. It was not that I did not want to see Leo or Janet, but I was inexplicably rattled by Pig’s funeral and by the discovery that it actually was Pig’s. It had been a melancholy little ceremony which had left a sort of ‘half heard’ echo in my ears.
The two letters were identical. I compared them when I got in. I supposed Whippet had seen The Times as I had. Still it was queer he should have put two and two together. And there had been that extraordinary cough and the revolting old fellow in the topper, not to mention the sly-eyed girl.
The worst thing about it was that the incident had recalled Pig to my mind. I turned up some old football groups and had a good look at him. He had a distinctive face. One could see even then what he was going to turn into.
I tried to put him out of my head. After all, I had nothing to get excited about. He was dead. I shouldn’t see him again.
All this happened in January. By June I had forgotten the fellow. I had just come in from a session with Stanislaus Oates at the Yard, where we had been congratulating each other over the evidence in the Kingford shooting business which had just flowered into a choice bloom for the Judge’s bouquet, when Janet rang up.
I had never known her hysterical before and it surprised me a little to hear her twittering away on the phone like a nest of sparrows.
‘It’s too filthy,’ she said. ‘Leo says you’re to come at once. No, my dear, I can’t say it over the phone, but Leo is afraid it’s – Listen, Albert, it’s M for mother, U for unicorn, R for rabbit, D for darling, E for – for egg, R for –’
‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll come.’
Leo was standing on the steps of Highwaters when Lugg and I drove up. The great white pillars of the house, which was built by an architect who had seen the B.M. and never forgotten it, rose up behind him. He looked magnificent in his ancient shootin’ suit and green tweed flowerpot hat – a fine specimen for anybody’s album.
He came steadily down the steps and grasped my hand.
‘My dear boy,’ he said, ‘not a word … not a word.’ He climbed in beside me and waved a hand towards the village. ‘Police station,’ he said. ‘First thing.’
I’ve known Leo for some years and I know that the singleness of purpose which is the chief characteristic in a delightful personality is not to be diverted by anything less than a covey of Mad Mullahs. Leo had one thing in his mind and one thing only. He had been planning his campaign ever since he had heard that I was on my way, and, since I was part of that campaign, my only hope was to comply.
He would not open his mouth save to utter road directions until we stood together on the threshold of the shed behind the police station. First he dismissed the excited bobbies in charge and then paused and took me firmly by the lapel.
‘Now, my boy,’ he said, ‘I want your opinion because I trust you. I haven’t put a thought in your mind, I haven’t told you a particle of the circumstances, I haven’t influenced you in any way, have I?’
‘No, sir,’ I said truthfully.
He seemed satisfied, I thought, because he grunted.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now, come in here.’
He led me into a room, bare save for the trestle table in the centre, and drew back the sheet from the face of the thing that lay upon it.
‘Now,’ he said triumphantly, ‘now, Campion, what d’you think of this?’
I said nothing at all. Lying on the table was the body of Pig Peters, Pig Peters unmistakable as Leo himself, and I knew without touching his limp, podgy hand that he could not have been dead more than twelve hours at the outside.
Yet in January … and this was June.
CHAPTER 2
Decent Murder
NOT UNNATURALLY THE whole thing was something of a shock to me and I suppose I stood staring at the corpse as though it were a beautiful view for some considerable time.
At last Leo grunted and cleared his throat.
‘Dead, of course,’ he said, no doubt to recall my attention. ‘Poor feller. Damnable cad, though. Ought not to say it of a dead man, perhaps, but there you are. Truth must out.’
Leo really talks like this. I have often thought that his conversation, taken down verbatim, might be worth looking at. Just then I was more concerned with the matter than the form, however, and I said, ‘You knew him, then?’
Leo grew red round the jawbone and his white moustache pricked up.
‘I’d met the feller,’ he murmured, conveying that he thought it a shameful admission. ‘Had a most unpleasant interview with him only last night, I don’t mind telling you. Extremely awkward in the circumstances. Still, can’t be helped. There it is.’
Since there was a considerable spot of mystery in the business already I saw no point in overburdening Leo’s mind by adding my little contribution to it just then.
‘What was he calling himself?’ I inquired with considerable guile.
Leo had very bright blue eyes which, like most soldiers’, are of an almost startling innocence of expression.
‘Masqueradin’, eh?’ he said. ‘Upon my soul, very likely! Never thought of it. Untrustworthy customer.’
‘I don’t know anything,’ I said hastily. ‘Who is he, anyway?’
‘Harris,’ he said unexpectedly and with contempt. ‘Oswald Harris. More money than was good for him and the manners of an enemy non-commissioned officer. Can’t put it too strongly. Terrible feller.’
I looked at the dead man again. Of course it was Pig all right: I should have known him anywhere – and it struck me then as odd that the boy should really be so very much the father of the man. It’s a serious thought when you look at some children.
Still, there was Pig and he was dead again, five months after his funeral, and Leo was growing impatient.
‘See the wound?’ he demanded.
He has a gift for the obvious. The top of the carrotty head was stove in, sickeningly, like a broken soccer ball, and the fact that the skin was practically unbroken made it somehow even more distressing. It was such a terrific smash that it seemed incredible that any human arm could have delivered the blow. It looked to me as if he had been kicked through a felt hat by a cart-horse and I said so to Leo.
He was gratified.
‘Damn nearly right, my boy,’ he said with comforting enthusiasm. ‘Remarkable thing. Don’t mind admitting don’t follow this
deducin’ business myself, but substitute an urn for a cart-horse and you’re absolutely right. Remind me to tell Janet.’
‘An urn?’
‘Geranium urn, stone,’ he explained airily. ‘Big so-called ornamental thing. Must have seen ’em, Campion. Sometimes have cherry pie in ’em. Madness to keep ’em on the parapet. Said so myself more than once.’
I was gradually getting the thing straight. Apparently Pig’s second demise had been occasioned by a blow from a stone flower-pot falling on him from a parapet. It seemed pretty final this time.
I looked at Leo. We were both being very decent and non-committal, I thought.
‘Any suggestion of foul play, sir?’ I asked.
He hunched his shoulders and became very despondent.
‘’Fraid so, my boy,’ he said at last. ‘No way out of it. Urn was one of several set all along the parapet. Been up to inspect ’em myself. All firm as the Rock of Gibraltar. Been there for years. Harris’s urn couldn’t have hopped off the ledge all by itself, don’t you know. Must have been pushed by – er – human hands. Devilish situation in view of everything. Got to face it.’
I covered Pig’s body. I was sorry for him in a way, of course, but he seemed to have retained his early propensities for making trouble.
Leo sighed. ‘Thought you’d have to agree with me,’ he said.
I hesitated. Leo is not one of the great brains of the earth, but I could hardly believe that he had dragged me down from London to confirm his suspicion that Pig had died from a bang on the head. I took it that there was more to come – and there was, of course; no end of it, as it turned out.
Leo stubbed a bony forefinger into my shoulder.
‘Like to have a talk with you, my boy,’ he said. ‘One or two private matters to discuss. Have to come out some time. We ought to go down to Halt Knights and have a look at things.’
The light began to filter in.
‘Was P – was Harris killed at Halt Knights?’
Leo nodded. ‘Poor Poppy! Decent little woman, you know, Campion. Never a suspicion of – er – anything of this sort before.’
‘I should hope not,’ I said, scandalized, and he frowned at me.
‘Some of these country clubs –’ he began darkly.
‘Not murder,’ I said firmly and he relapsed into despondency.
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he agreed. ‘Let’s go down there. Drop in for a drink before dinner.’
As we went out to the car I considered the business. To understand Halt Knights is to know Kepesake, and Kepesake is a sort of county paradise. It is a big village, just far enough from a town and a main road to remain exclusive without having to be silly about it. It has a Norman church, a village cricket green with elms, three magnificent pubs, and a population of genuine country folk of proper independent views. It lies in a gentle valley on the shores of an estuary and is protected by a ring of modest little estates all owned by dear good fellers, so Leo says. The largest of these estates is Halt Knights.
At one period there was a nobleman at the Knights who owned the whole village, which had been left him by an ancestress who had had it, so the name would suggest, from a boy-friend off to the Crusades. Changing times and incomes drove out the nobleman and his heirs; hence the smaller estates.
The house and some nine hundred acres of meadow and salting remained a millstone round somebody’s neck until Poppy Bellew retired from the stage and, buying it up, transformed that part of it which had not collapsed into the finest hotel and country pub in the kingdom.
Being a naturally expansive person of untiring energy, she did not let the nine hundred acres worry her but laid down an eighteen hole golf course and reserved the rest for anything anyone might think of. It occurred to some intelligent person that there was a very fine point-to-point course there somewhere and at the time Pig got the urn on his head there had been four meetings there in each of five consecutive springs.
It was all very lazy and homely and comfortable. If anyone who looked as if he might spoil the atmosphere came along somehow Poppy lost him. It was really very simple. She wanted to keep open house and the people round about were willing to pay their own expenses, or that was how it seemed to work out.
Leo’s story was interesting. I could understand Pig getting himself killed at Halt Knights, but not how he managed to stay there long enough for it to happen.
Meanwhile Leo had reached the car and was looking at Lugg with mistrust. Leo’s ideas of discipline are military and Lugg’s are not. I foresaw an impasse.
‘Ah, Lugg,’ I said with forced heartiness, ‘I’m going to drive Sir Leo on to Halt Knights. You’d better go back to Highwaters. Take a bus or something.’
Lugg stared at me and I saw rebellion in his eyes. His feet have been a constant source of conversation with him of late.
‘A bus?’ he echoed, adding ‘sir’ as a belated afterthought as Leo’s eyes fell upon him.
‘Yes,’ I said foolishly. ‘One of those big green things. You must have seen them about.’
He got out of the car heavily and with dignity and so far demeaned himself as to hold the door open for Leo, but me he regarded under fat white eyelids with a secret, contemplative expression.
‘Extraordinary feller, your man,’ said Leo as we drove off. ‘Keep an eye on him, my dear boy. Save your life in the war?’
‘Dear me, no!’ I said in some astonishment. ‘Why?’
He blew his nose. ‘I don’t know. Thought just crossed my mind. Now to this business, Campion. It’s pretty serious and I’ll tell you why.’ He paused and added so soberly that I started: ‘There are at least half a dozen good fellers, including myself, who were in more than half a mind to put that feller out of the way last night. One of us must have lost his head, don’t you know. I’m being very frank with you, of course.’
I pulled the car up by the side of the road. We were on the long straight stretch above the ‘Dog and Fowl’.
‘I’d like to hear about it,’ I said.
He came out with it quietly and damningly in his pleasant worried voice. It was an enlightening tale in view of the circumstances.
Two of the estates nearby had become vacant in the past year and each had been bought anonymously through a firm of London solicitors. No one thought much of it at the time but the blow had fallen about a week before our present conversation. Leo, going down to Halt Knights for a game of bridge and a drink, also had found the place in an uproar and Pig, of all people, installed. He was throwing his weight about and detailing his plans for the future of Kepesake, which included a hydro, a dog-racing track, and a cinema-dance-hall with special attractions to catch motorists from the none too far distant industrial town.
Taken on one side, Poppy had broken down and made a confession. Country ease and country hospitality had proven expensive, and she, not wishing to depress her clients, who were also her nearest and dearest friends, had accepted the generous mortgage terms which a delightful gentleman from London had arranged, only to find that his charming personality had been but the mask to cloak the odious Pig, who had decided to foreclose at the precise moment when a few outstanding bills had been paid with the greater part of the loan.
Leo, who justified his name if ever man did, had padded forth gallantly to the rescue. He roared round the district, collected a few good souls of his own kidney, held a meeting, formed a syndicate, and approached the entrenched Pig armed with money and scrupulously fair words.
From that point, however, he had met defeat. Pig was adamant. Pig had all the money he required. Pig wanted Kepesake – and a fine old silver sty he was going to make of it.
Leo’s solicitor, summoned from Norwich, had confirmed his client’s worst fears. Poppy had trusted the charming gentleman too well. Pig had an option to purchase.
Realizing that with money, Halt Knights, and the two adjoining estates Pig could lay waste Kepesake, and their hearts with it, Leo and his friends had tried other methods. As Leo pointed out, men will
fight for their homes. There is a primitive love inspired by tree and field which can fire the most correct heart to flaming passion.
Two or three of Halt Knights’ oldest guests were asked by Pig to leave. Leo and most of the others stolidly sat their ground, however, and talk was high but quiet, while plots abounded.
‘And then this morning, don’t you know,’ Leo finished mildly, ‘one of the urns on the parapet crashed down on the feller as he sat sleepin’ in a deck-chair under the lounge window. Devilish awkward, Campion.’
I let in the clutch and drove on without speaking. I thought of Kepesake and its gracious shadowy trees, its sweet meadows and clear waters, and thought what a howling shame it was. It belonged to these old boys and their children. It was their sanctuary, their little place of peace. If Pig wanted to make more money, why in heaven’s name should he rot up Kepesake to do it? There are ten thousand other villages in England. Well, they’d saved it from Pig at any rate, or at least one of them had. So much looked painfully apparent.
Neither of us spoke until we turned in under the red Norman arch which is the main drive gate to the Knights. There Leo snorted.
‘Another bounder!’ he said explosively.
I looked at the little figure mincing down the drive towards us and all but let the car swerve on to the turf. I recognized him immediately, principally by the extraordinary sensation of dislike he aroused in me. He was a thoroughly unpleasant old fellow, affected and conceited, and the last time I had seen him he had been weeping ostentatiously into a handkerchief with an inch-wide black border at Pig’s first funeral. Now he was trotting out of Halt Knights as if he knew the place and was very much at home there.
CHAPTER 3
‘That’s where he Died’
HE LOOKED AT me with interest and I think he placed me, for I was aware of two beady bright eyes peering at me from beneath Cairn eyebrows.
Leo, on the other hand, received a full salute from him, a wave of the panama delivered with one of those shrugs which attempt old-world grace and achieve the slightly sissy.
Leo gobbled and tugged perfunctorily at his own green tweed.
The Case of the Late Pig Page 2
