I stood looking down at the glass in my hand, twirling the ice round and round in the amber liquid, and it was then that I had the whole case under my nose.
Unfortunately, I only saw half of it.
CHAPTER 11
‘Why Drown Him?’
I WAS STILL working it out when Poppy laid her hand upon my arm. I turned to find her plump face flushed and anxious.
‘Albert,’ she murmured confidentially, ‘I can’t talk now because Kingston’s just coming down, but there’s something I want to say to you. Ssh! There he is.’
She turned back to the bar and began to bustle among the glasses. Kingston came in, cheerfully superior.
‘She’s all right now,’ he said, grinning at Poppy, ‘or will be in a day or two. Don’t let her eat too much grease. Like to come up and see her, Campion?’
Poppy raised her eyebrows at him, and he explained. She began to laugh at us.
‘The child hasn’t the strength, and she hasn’t the wits,’ she said. ‘And if she had she wouldn’t do it. She’s a good little girl, our Flossie. Flossie, indeed! I’ve never heard of anything so futile.’
Kingston was very insistent, however, and his anxiety to keep in the picture might easily have been exasperating if there had been anything pressing to be done. As it was, I went upstairs with him through a maze of corridors and unexpected staircases until we found the little attic under the roof at the far end of the house from the box-room.
As soon as I met Flossie I saw they were right. Her little yellow face was pathetic and disinterested. Kingston asked her questions – Had she heard anything? Had she been out of the room? Had anything unusual happened on the day before? – and she answered ‘No, sir’ to them all with the weary patience of the really ill.
We left her and went along to have another look at the box-room. It was just as I had left it. Kingston was tremendously knowing and important. Evidently he fancied himself in his new rôle.
‘There’s a scratch there,’ he said, pointing to the one I had already noticed. ‘Does that tell you anything, Campion? It looks fairly new, doesn’t it? How about getting some finger-prints?’
I looked at the rough cast sadly, and led him away.
We got rid of him at last. He offered to drive me down to the Police Station, but I refused, explaining that Leo was coming to pick me up. I caught sight of Poppy as I spoke, and saw her turn colour.
We stood in the window together and watched Kingston’s car disappear down the drive. She sighed.
‘They’re bored,’ she said. ‘They’re all bored, poor darlings. He’s a nice boy, he doesn’t want to be a ghoul; but it’ll all give him something to talk about when he goes to see his patients. It must be terrible going to see people every day if you haven’t got anything to tell them, don’t you think?’
‘Yes,’ I said dubiously. ‘I suppose it is. What have you got to tell me, by the way?’
She did not answer me immediately, but the colour came into her face, and she looked like some large guilty baby faced with confession.
‘I had a few words with Leo yesterday,’ she began at last. ‘Not that I mind, of course, although it does do to keep in with one’s clients, and – er – friends. I can see that I’ve annoyed him. I told him a silly lie, and then I didn’t like to explain. You can see that happening, can’t you?’
She paused and eyed me.
‘I can,’ I said cheerfully.
‘The stupid thing is that it doesn’t matter,’ she went on, playing with her rings. ‘People down here are terrible snobs, Albert.’
I didn’t quite follow her, and I said so.
‘Oh well, it’s Hayhoe,’ she said explosively. ‘An awful little bounder, Albert, but probably quite human, and he’s got to live, like anybody else, hasn’t he?’
‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to get this straight. Is Hayhoe a friend of yours?’
‘Oh no, not a friend.’ She brushed the term away irritably. ‘But he came to me for help last week.’
I was inspired.
‘Did he borrow money?’
‘Oh no!’ She was shocked. ‘He was very hard up, poor man. He told me his story, and I may have lent him a pound or two. But you wouldn’t say he’d borrowed money. You see, Ducky, it was like this – he came to me about two days after that wretched man Harris settled here. I was just beginning to find out the sort of man Harris was when this poor old chap came along, asked to see me privately, and told me the whole thing. Harris was his nephew, you see, and there’d been a lot of jiggery-pokery going on, and somehow – I forget quite how – this little tick Harris had done the old man out of all his money. He wanted to see him on the quiet to get it back, and he wanted me to help him. I let him into Harris’s room –’
‘You what!’ I said aghast.
‘Well, I showed him where it was, and let him go upstairs. That was some days ago. There was an awful row, and poor little Hayhoe came running out with a flea in his ear, since when he’s never been near the place – until last night, when Leo happened to see him. I didn’t want to explain the whole story – because there’s no point in that man getting into a row when he wasn’t even near the house yesterday morning – and so I was short with Leo, and he is cross. Put it all straight for me, Albert. Have another drink.’
I refused the one and promised to my best with the other.
‘How do you know Hayhoe wasn’t about yesterday morning?’ I said.
She looked at me as though I was an imbecile.
‘Well, I know what goes on in my own house, I hope,’ she said. ‘I know it’s the fashion round here to think I’m a dear silly old fool, but I’m not completely demented. Besides, everybody’s been questioned. That doesn’t come into it.’
‘Why did Hayhoe come down here yesterday?’
‘In the evening? Well’ – she was hesitant again – ‘it’s difficult to explain. He came to tell me that he knew how I felt being surrounded by snobby, county people in a trouble like this, and he offered his help as a man of the world.’
She was thoughtful for a moment or two.
‘I really think he came to get a drink, if you ask me,’ she added with that touch of the practical which always redeems her.
‘Did you lend him any more money?’ I murmured diffidently.
‘Only half a crown,’ she said. ‘Don’t tell Leo. He thinks I’m such a fool.’
My mind went back to Bathwick, and in the end she took me out and showed me the little path through the kitchen garden which led down to the Vicarage stile. It was a quiet little path, almost entirely hidden by the foliage of the fruit trees. As we came back, I turned to her.
‘Look here,’ I said, ‘I know the police have badgered your staff about the events of yesterday morning, and I don’t want to rattle them again, but do you think you could find out by unobtrusive, gossipy questioning if there was anybody pottering about the upper storeys some little time before the accident? Bathwick could have come back, you see, quite easily.’
‘A parson!’ said Poppy. ‘Well …! You don’t think …? Oh, Albert, you can’t!’
‘Of course not,’ I said hastily. ‘I only wondered if he could have got upstairs. It’d be interesting, that’s all.’
‘I’ll find out,’ she said with decision.
I thanked her and added a warning note about the law of slander.
‘Don’t tell me,’ she said, and added, brightening, ‘Is that the car?’
We hurried down to meet it, Poppy patting her tight grey curls as she went. But it was Lugg in the Lagonda and not Leo who pulled up outside the front door. He beckoned to me mysteriously, and as I hurried up I saw that his great moon of a face betrayed unusual excitement.
‘’Op in,’ he commanded. ‘The General wants you down at the station. Got something there for you.’
‘Have they found the body?’
He seemed disappointed. ‘Got your second-sight outfit workin’ again, I see,’ he said. ‘Morning, ma’am.’
He leered at Poppy over my shoulder as he spoke, out of deference, I felt sure, to the memory of myriad past beers.
‘I’m awfully sorry,’ I explained to her. ‘I’ve got to go. Leo’s waiting for me down at the police station. Something’s turned up. I’ll send him along when the excitement’s over.’
She patted my arm. ‘Do,’ she said earnestly. ‘Do. He’s a pet, Albert. One of the very best. Tell him I’ve been silly and I’m sorry, but – but he’s not to mention it when he sees me.’
I climbed in beside Lugg. ‘Where was it?’ I demanded as we raced off.
‘In the river. Calm as you please. Bloke in a fishin’ boat picked it up. If we ’ad your magic sea-shell ’ere p’raps that could tell us somethin’.’
I was not listening to him. I was thinking of Whippet. Whippet and the anonymous letters, Whippet and Effie Rowlandson, and now Whippet and his extraordinary guess – if it was a guess. I couldn’t imagine where he fitted into the picture. He upset all my calculations. I decided I must have a chat with him.
Lugg was sulking. ‘It seems to be a funny place we’ve come to,’ he said. ‘First they bang a chap on ’is ’ead and then they chuck ’im in the river … some persons aren’t never satisfied, reelly.’
I sat up. That was the point that had been bothering me all along. Why the river, where the corpse was almost certain to be found, sooner or later?
By the time we arrived at the little mortuary the obvious had sunk in. Leo was there and Pussey, and with them the two excited fishermen, who had made the discovery. I took Leo on one side, but he would not listen to me immediately. He was bubbling.
‘It’s an outrage,’ he said. ‘It’s a disgraceful thing. It shocks me, Campion. In my own village! There was no point in it. Wanton mischief.’
‘D’you think so?’ I said, and I made a certain suggestion.
He stood looking at me and his blue eyes were incredulous. For a policeman, Leo has an amazing faith in the innate decency of his fellow men.
‘We want an old man,’ I said. ‘Someone with the necessary skill, of course, but someone you can trust to hold his tongue. Anyone locally do?’
He considered. ‘There’s old Professor Farringdon over at Rushberry,’ he said at last. ‘He did something of the sort for us some time ago. But you can see for yourself that the cause of death is obvious. Are we justfied in having an autopsy?’
‘In the case of violent death one’s always justified in having an autopsy,’ I pointed out.
He nodded. ‘When you saw the body yesterday, did you notice anything then to put such an idea in your head?’
‘No,’ I said truthfully. ‘No, I didn’t. But this makes all the difference. Water has a peculiar property, hasn’t it?’
He put his head on one side.
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Well, it washes things,’ I said, and I went off to find Whippet.
CHAPTER 12
The Disturbing Element
I HAD ALMOST reached the car when I remembered something which had slipped my mind in the excitement of the moment. I hurried back and sought out Pussey.
‘Don’t you worry, sir. We’ve put a man on him,’ he said reassuringly in reply to my question.
I still hesitated. ‘Hayhoe is slippery,’ I ventured, ‘and also it’s most important that he’s not alarmed.’
Pussey was not offended, but he seemed to think that I was a little fussy.
‘Young Birkin’ll follow him and he won’t know it no more than if he was being trailed by a ferret,’ he said. ‘You can set your mind at rest.’
All this was very comforting, and I was going off again when Leo buttonholed me. He was still dubious about the necessity of an autopsy, and in the end I had to go back and take another look at Pig’s pathetic body. There were one or two interesting signs when we looked for them, and in the end I left him convinced.
By this time it was comparatively late, and I arrived at ‘The Feathers’ just before two o’clock. The landlady, a typical East-Anglian, gaunt of body and reticent of speech, was not helpful. It took me some time to get it into her head that it was Whippet I wanted to see.
‘Oh,’ she said at last, ‘a fair young gentleman, soft-spoken like, almost a natural, as you might say. Well, he’s not here.’
‘But he slept here last night,’ I persisted.
‘Yes, yes, so he did, and that’s the truth now,’ she agreed, ‘but he’s not here now.’
‘Is he coming back?’
‘I couldn’t say.’
It occurred to me that Whippet must have told her to keep quiet, and this was extremely unlike him. My interest in him grew.
There was no sign of Miss Rowlandson, either. She, too, appeared to have gone out. But whether they went together or separately the landlady was not prepared to tell me.
In the end I had to go back to Highwaters unsatisfied. I was late for lunch, of course, and Pepper served me alone in the dining-room, sorrow and disappointment apparent in every line of his sleek body.
What with one thing and another I was falling headlong in his estimation.
When the meal was over he turned to me.
‘Miss Janet is in the rose garden, sir,’ he said, conveying clearly that, murder or no murder, he thought a guest owed a certain deference to his hostess.
I took the rebuke meekly and went out to make amends. It was one of those vivid summer days which are hot without being uncomfortable. The garden was ablaze with flowers and the air serene and peaceful.
As I walked down the grass path between the lavender hedges I heard the sound of voices, and something familiar about one of them caught my attention. Two deck-chairs were placed side by side on the rose lawn with their backs to me, and I heard Janet laugh.
At the sound of my approach her companion rose, and as I saw his head and shoulders appearing over the back of the chair I experienced an odd sensation which was half relief and half an unwarrantable exasperation. It was Whippet himself. Very cool and comfortable he looked, too, in his neat white flannels. His opening words were not endearing.
‘Campion! Found you at last,’ he said. ‘Er – good. I’ve been searching for you, my dear fellow, searching all over the place. Here and there.’
He moved a languid hand about a foot in either direction.
‘I’ve been busy,’ I said gracelessly. ‘Hello, Janet.’
She smiled up at me. ‘This is a nice friend of yours,’ she said with slightly unnecessary accent on the first word. ‘Do sit down.’
‘That’s right, do,’ Whippet agreed. ‘There’s a chair over there,’ he added, pointing to a pile on the other end of the lawn.
I fetched it, opened it, and sat down opposite them. Whippet watched me put it up with interest.
‘Complicated things,’ he observed.
I waited for him to go on, but he seemed quite content to lie basking in the sun, with Janet, looking very lovely in white furbelows at his side.
I began boldly. ‘It’s been found, you know – in the river.’
He nodded. ‘So I heard in the village. The whole place is terribly shaken by the tragedy, don’t you think? Extraordinary restless spirit pervades the place – have you noticed it?’
He was infuriating, and again I experienced that desire to cuff him which I had felt so strongly on our first adult meeting.
‘You’ve got rather a lot to explain yourself,’ I said, wishing that Janet would go away.
To my surprise he answered me intelligently.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know. That’s why I’ve been looking for you. There’s Miss Rowlandson, for one thing. She’s terribly upset. She’s gone down to the Vicarage now. I didn’t know what to advise.’
‘The Vicarage?’ I echoed. ‘What on earth for?’ Janet, I noticed, was sitting up with interest.
‘Oh, help, you know,’ said Whippet vaguely. ‘When in doubt in a village one always goes to the parson, doesn’t one? Good works and that sort of thing. Oh, yes – and that
reminds me, what about this? It came this morning. As soon as I saw it, I thought “Campion ought to have a look at this; this’ll interest Campion”. Have you had one?’
He took a folded sheet of typing-paper out of his wallet as he spoke, and handed it to me.
‘The same postmark as the others,’ he said. ‘Funny, isn’t it? I didn’t know anyone knew I was staying at “The Feathers”, except you, and – well, I mean you’d hardly have the time, would you, even if you –’
His voice trailed away into silence, and I read the third anonymous letter. This one was very short, typed on the same typewriter and with the same meticulous accuracy:
‘Although the skinner is at hand his ease is in the earth.
‘He waiteth patiently. Peace and hope are in his warm heart.
‘He foldeth his hands upon his belly.
‘Faith is his that can remove the mountain or his little hill.’
And that was all.
‘Do you make anything of it?’ I inquired at last.
‘No,’ said Whippet. ‘No.’
I read it through again.
‘Who’s the “he”?’ I asked.
Whippet blinked at me. ‘One can’t really say, can one? I took it to be the mole. “His little hill”, you know.’
Janet laughed. ‘I suppose you both know what you’re talking about?’ she said.
Whippet rose. ‘I fancy I ought to go, now that I’ve found Campion and cleared all this up. Thank you for allowing me to inflict myself upon you, Miss Pursuivant. You’ve been most kind.’
I let him say good-bye, and then insisted on escorting him to the gates myself.
‘Look here, Whippet,’ I said, as soon as we were out of earshot, ‘you’ll have to explain. What are you doing in this business at all? Why are you here?’
He looked profoundly uncomfortable. ‘It’s that girl, Effie, Campion,’ he said. ‘She’s got a strong personality, you know. I met her at Pig’s funeral, and she sort of collected me. When she wanted me to drive her down here yesterday I came.’
The Case of the Late Pig Page 8
