‘More people know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows,’ he confided to me in an embarrassed rumble and hurried on so quickly that I took it he did not want the man discussed, which was curious.
‘I want you to be careful with Poppy,’ he said. ‘Charmin’ little woman. Had a lot to put up with the last day or two. Wouldn’t like to see her browbeaten. Kid gloves, Campion. Kid gloves all the way.’
I was naturally aggrieved. I have never been considered brutal, having if anything a mild and affable temperament.
‘It’s ten years since I beat a woman, sir,’ I said.
Leo cocked an eye at me. Facetiae are not his line.
‘Hope you never have,’ he said severely. ‘Your mother – dear sweet lady – wouldn’t have bred a son who could. I’m worried about Poppy, Campion. Poor charmin’ little woman.’
I felt my eyebrows rise. The man who could visualize Poppy as a poor little woman must also, I felt, be able to think of her being actually ill-treated. I like Poppy. Charming she certainly is, but little – no. Leo was confusing the ideal with the conventional, and I might have told him so and mortally offended him had we not come through the trees at that moment to see the house awaiting us.
No English country house is worthy of the name if it is not breathtaking at half past six on a June evening, but Halt Knights is in a street by itself. It is long and low, with fine windows. Built of crushed strawberry brick, the Georgian front does not look out of place against the Norman ruins which rise up behind it and melt into the high chestnuts massed at the back.
As in many East Anglian houses the front door is at the side, so that the lawn can come right up to the house in front.
As we pulled up I was glad to see that the door was open as usual, though the place seemed deserted save for the embarrassed bobby in bicycle clips who stood on guard by the lintel.
I could not understand his acute discomfort until I caught the gleam of a pewter tankard among the candytuft at his feet. Poppy has a great understanding of the creature man.
I touched Leo on the shoulder and made a suggestion and he blinked at me.
‘Oh all right, my boy. Make the examination first if you want to, by all means. This is where the feller was sittin’.’
He led me round to the front of the house where the deck-chairs, looking flimsy and oddly Japanese in their bright colours, straggled along under the windows.
‘The urn,’ he said.
I bent down and pulled aside the couple of sacks which had been spread over the exhibit. As soon as I saw it I understood his depression. It was a large stone basin about two and a half feet high and two feet across and was decorated with amorelli and pineapples. It must have weighed the best part of three hundredweight with the earth it contained, and while I could understand it killing Pig I was amazed that it had not smashed him to pulp. I said so to Leo and he explained.
‘Would have done – would have done, my boy, but only the edge of the rim struck his head where it jutted over the back of the chair. He had a hat on, you know. There’s the chair – nothing much to see.’
He kicked aside another sack and we looked down at a pathetic heap of splintered framework and torn canvas. Leo shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
I walked a little way down the lawn and looked up at the parapet. It is one of those long strips of plastered stone which finish off the flat fronts of Georgian houses and always remind me of the topping of marzipan icing on a very good fruit cake. The little windows of the second floor sit behind it in the sugarloaf roof.
There were seven other urns set along the parapet at equal distances, and one significant gap. There was obviously nothing dangerous about them; they looked as if they had been there for ever.
We went towards the house.
‘There’s one thing I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Our murderer pal seems to have taken a tremendous risk. What an extremely dangerous thing to do.’
Leo looked at me as though I had begun to gibber and I laboured on, trying to make myself clear.
‘I mean,’ I said, ‘surely Harris wasn’t sitting out here entirely alone? Someone might have come up to him to chat. The man who pushed the flowerpot over couldn’t have made certain he was going to hit the right man unless he’d actually climbed out on the parapet to look first, which would have been lunatic.’
Leo grew very red. ‘Harris was alone,’ he said. ‘He was sittin’ out here when we turned up this mornin’ and nobody felt like goin’ to join him, don’t you know. We left him where he was. He ignored us and no one felt like speakin’ to him, so we all went inside. I was playin’ a game of cards in the lounge through this window here when the infernal thing crashed down on him. You may think it childish,’ he added a little shamefacedly, ‘but there you are. The feller was an unmitigated tick.’
I whistled. The clouds were blowing up.
‘When you say “all of you”, who do you mean?’ I asked.
He looked wretched.
‘About a dozen of us,’ he said. ‘All absolutely above suspicion. Let’s go in.’
As soon as we set foot on the stone flags of the entrance hall and sniffed the sweet cool fragrance of old wood and flowers which is the true smell of your good country house, Poppy appeared, fat, gracious, and welcoming as always.
‘Why, ducky,’ she said as she took my hands, ‘how very nice to see you. Leo, you’re a lamb to send for him. Isn’t it awful? Come and have a drink.’
She piloted us down the broad stone corridor to the big white-panelled lounge with the deep, comfortable, chintz-covered chairs, chattering the whole time.
It is not easy to describe Poppy. She is over fifty, I suppose, with tight grey curls all over her head, a wide mouth, and enormous blue eyes. That is the easy part. The rest is more difficult. She exudes friendliness, generosity, and a sort of naïve obstinacy. Her clothes are outrageous, vast flowery skirts and bodices embellished with sufficient frills to rig a frigate. However, they suit her personality if not her figure. You see her and you like her and that’s all there is to it.
Leo was plainly batty about her.
‘Such a horrid little man, Harris,’ she said as she gave me my whisky. ‘Has Leo told you all about him and me? How he tried to pinch the place … He has! Oh, well, that’s all right. You see how it happened. Still, it’s very wrong of someone, very wrong indeed – although, my dear, I’m sure they meant to be kind.’
Leo spluttered. ‘Isn’t she a dear?’ he said.
‘I’m not being silly, am I, Albert?’ She looked at me appealingly. ‘I did tell them it was dangerous last night. I said quite distinctly “This will lead to trouble” and of course it did.’
I intercepted a startled glance from Leo and sat up with interest. Poppy turned on him.
‘Haven’t you told him?’ she said. ‘Oh but you must. It’s not fair.’
Leo avoided my eyes. ‘I was comin’ to that,’ he said. ‘I’ve only had Campion down here for half an hour.’
‘You were trying to shield them,’ said Poppy devastatingly, ‘and that’s no good. When we’ve got the truth,’ she added naïvely, ‘then we can decide how much we’re going to tell.’
Leo looked scandalized and would have spoken but she forestalled him.
‘It was like this,’ she said confidingly, giving my arm a friendly but impersonal pat. ‘Two or three of the more hearty old pets hatched up a plot last night. They were going to get Harris drunk and friendly first and then they were going to put the whole thing to him as man to man and in a burst of good fellowship he was going to sign a document they’d had prepared, relinquishing the option or whatever it is.’
She paused and eyed me dubiously, as well she might, I thought. As my face did not change she came a little nearer.
‘I didn’t approve,’ she said earnestly. ‘I told them it was silly and in a way not quite honest. But they said Harris hadn’t been honest with us and of course that was right too, so they sat up in here with him last night. It might have bee
n all right only instead of getting friendly he got truculent, as some people do, and while they were trying to get him beyond that stage he passed out altogether and they had to put him to bed. This morning he had a terrible hangover and went to sleep it off on the lawn. He hadn’t moved all the morning when that beastly thing fell on him.’
‘Awkward,’ murmured Leo. ‘Devilish awkward.’
Poppy gave me the names of the conspirators. They were all eminently respectable people who ought to have known a great deal better. It sounded to me as if everybody’s uncle had gone undergraduate again and I might have said so in a perfectly friendly way had not Poppy interrupted me.
‘Leo’s Inspector – such a nice man; he’s hoping to get promotion, he tells me – has been through the servants with a toothcomb and hasn’t found anything, not even a brain, the poor ducks! I’m afraid there’s going to be a dreadful scandal. It must be one of the visitors, you see, and I only have such dear people.’
I said nothing, for at that moment a pudding-faced maid, who certainly did not look as though she had sufficient intelligence to drop an urn or anything else on the right unwanted guest, came in to say that if there was a Mr Campion in the house he was wanted on the telephone.
I took it for granted it was Janet and I went along to the hall with a certain pleasurable anticipation.
As soon as I took up the receiver, however, the exchange said brightly: ‘London call.’
Considering I had left the city unexpectedly two hours before with the intention of going to Highwaters, and no one in the world but Lugg and Leo knew that I had come to Halt Knights, I thought there must be some mistake and I echoed her.
‘Yes, that’s right. London call,’ she repeated with gentle patience. ‘Hold on. You’re through.…’
I held on for some considerable time.
‘Hullo,’ I said at last. ‘Hullo. Campion here.’
Still there was no reply, only a faint sigh, and the someone at the other end hung up. That was all.
It was an odd little incident, rather disturbing.
Before going back to the others I wandered upstairs to the top floor to have a look at the parapet. No one was about and most of the doors stood open, so that I had very little difficulty in finding the spot where Pig’s urn had once stood.
It had been arranged directly in front of a boxroom window and must, I thought, have obscured most of the light. When I came to look at the spot I saw that any hopeful theory I might have formed concerning a clumsy pigeon or a feather-brained cat was out of the question. The top of the parapet was covered with lichen save for the square space where the foot of the urn had stood. This was clear and brown save for the bodies of a few dead bugs of the kind one gets under stones, and in the centre of it there was a little slot, some three inches wide and two deep, designed to hold some sort of stone peg incorporated in the bottom of the urn all for safety’s sake.
There was no question of the fall being accidental, therefore. Someone both strong and determined must have lifted the heavy thing up before pushing it out.
There was nothing unusual about the vacant space, as far as I could see, save that the lichen at the edge of the parapet was slightly damp. How important that was I did not dream.
I went down again to the lounge. I am a naturally unobtrusive person and I suppose I came in quietly, because neither Leo nor Poppy seemed to hear me, and I caught his words, which were loud and excited.
‘My dear lady, believe me, I don’t want to butt into your private affairs – nothing’s farther from my mind – but it was a natural question. Hang it all, Poppy, the feller was a bounder, and there he was striding out of this place as though it belonged to him. However, don’t tell me who he was if you’d rather not.’
Poppy faced him. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes were bright with tears of annoyance.
‘He came from the village to – to sell some tickets for a – a whist drive,’ she said, all in one breath, and I, looking at her, wondered if she could have been such a very great actress after all, since she couldn’t tell a lie better than that.
Then, of course, I realized who they were talking about.
CHAPTER 4
Among the Angels
I COUGHED DISCREETLY, and Leo turned round to glance at me guiltily. He looked miserable.
‘Ah!’ he said absently, but with a valiant attempt to make normal conversation. ‘Ah, Campion, not bad news, I hope?’
‘No news at all,’ I said truthfully.
‘Oh, well, that’s good. That’s good, my boy,’ he bellowed suddenly, getting up and clapping me on the shoulder with unnecessary fervour. ‘No news is good news. We always say that, don’t we? Well, Poppy, ought to go now, m’dear. People to dinner, you know. Good-bye. Come along, Campion. Glad you had good news.’
The old boy was frankly blethering, and I was sorry for him. Poppy was still annoyed. Her cheeks were very pink and her eyes were tearful.
Leo and I went out.
I made him come on to the lawn again where I had another look at the urn. The peg was intact. It protruded nearly two and a half inches from the flat surface of the stand.
Leo was very thoughtful when I pointed it out to him, but his mind could hardly have been on his work, for I had to explain the primitive arrangement to him twice before he saw any significance in it.
As we drove off under the trees he looked at me.
‘Kittle-cattle,’ he said sadly.
We drove back on to the main road in silence. I was glad of the spot of quiet because I took it that a little constructive thinking was overdue. I am not one of these intellectual sleuths, I am afraid. My mind does not work like an adding machine, taking the facts in neatly one by one and doing the work as it goes along. I am more like the bloke with the sack and spiked stick. I collect all the odds and ends I can see and turn out the bag at the lunch hour.
So far, I had netted one or two things. I had satisfied myself that Pig had been murdered; that is to say, whoever had killed him had done so intentionally, but not, I thought, with much premeditation. This seemed fairly obvious, since it was not reasonable to suppose that anyone could have insisted on him sitting just in that one spot, or made absolutely certain that he would stay there long enough to receive the urn when it came.
Considering the matter, I fancied some impulsive fellow had happened along to find the stage set, as it were; Pig sitting, porcine and undesirable, under the flower pot, and, not being able to curb the unworthy instinct, had trotted upstairs and done the necessary shoving all in the first fierce flush of inspiration.
Having arrived at this point, it struck me that the actual identification of the murderer must depend upon a process of elimination after an examination of alibis, and this, I thought, was definitely a job for the Inspector. After all, he was the young hopeful out for promotion.
The real trouble, I foresaw, would be the question of proof. Since finger-prints on the rough cast would be too much to hope for, and an eye-witness would have come forward before now, it was in pinning the crime down that I imagined the real snag would arise.
Perhaps I ought to mention here that at that moment I was absolutely wrong. I was wrong not only about the position of the snag but about everything else as well. However, I had no idea of it then. I leant back in the Lagonda with Leo at my side, and drove through the yellow evening light thinking of Pig and his two funerals, past and present.
At that time, and I was hopelessly mistaken, of course, I was inclined to think that Pig’s murderer was extraneous to the general scheme. The clever young gentleman from London innocently looked forward to a nice stimulating civil mystery with the criminal already under lock and key in the mortuary, and this in spite of the telephone call and Poppy’s unpleasant visitor. Which proves to me now that the balmy country air had gone to my head.
I was sorry for Leo and Poppy and the over-zealous old gentlemen who had come so disastrously to the aid of Halt Knights. I sympathized with them over the scandal and
the general rumpus. But at that moment I did not think that the murder itself was by any means the most exciting part of the situation.
Of course, had I known of the other odds and ends that the gods had in the bag for us, had I realized that the unpleasant Old Person with the Scythe was just sitting up in the garden resting on his laurels and getting his breath for the next bit of gleaning, I should have taken myself in hand, but I honestly thought the fireworks were over and that I had come in at the end of the party and not, as it turned out, at the beginning.
As we drove down the narrow village street past ‘The Swan’, I asked Leo a question as casually as I could.
‘D’you know Tethering, sir?’ I said. ‘There’s a nursing home there, isn’t there?’
‘Eh?’ He roused himself with a jerk from his unhappy meditations. ‘Tethering? Nursin’ home? Oh, yes, excellent place – excellent. Run by young Brian Kingston. A good feller. Very small, though, very small – the nursin’ home, not Kingston. You’ll like him. Big feller. Dear chap, Comin’ to dinner tonight. Vicar’s comin’ too,’ he added as an afterthought. ‘Just the five of us. Informal, you know.’
Naturally, I was interested.
‘Has Kingston had the place long?’
Leo blinked at me. He seemed to wish I wouldn’t talk.
‘Oh, several years. Father used to practise there years ago. Left the son a large house and he, bein’ enterprisin’ chap, made a goin’ concern of it. Good doctor – wonderful doctor. Cured my catarrh.’
‘You know him well, then?’ I asked, feeling sorry to intrude upon his thoughts but anxious to get on with the inquiry.
Leo sighed. ‘Fairly well,’ he said. ‘Well as one knows anyone, don’t you know. Funny thing, I was playin’ a hand with him and two other fellers this mornin’ when that confounded urn fell on that bounder outside and made all this trouble. Came right down past the window where we were sitting’. Terrible thing.’
‘What were you playing? Bridge?’
Leo looked scandalized. ‘Before lunch? No, my dear boy. Poker. Wouldn’t play bridge before lunch. Poker, that’s what it was. Kingston had a queen-pot and we were settlin’ up, thinkin’ about lunch, when there was a sort of shadow past the window, and then a sort of thud that wasn’t an ordinary thud. Damned unpleasant. I didn’t like the look of him, did you? Looked a dangerous fellow, I thought, the sort of feller one’d set a dog on instinctively.’
The Case of the Late Pig Page 3
