The Case of the Late Pig

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 going 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 sittin'. 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.'

'Who?' I said, feeling I was losing the thread of the argument.

Leo grunted. 'That feller we met in the drive at Poppy's place. Can't get him out of my mind.'

'I think I've seen him before,' I said.

'Oh?' Leo looked at me suspiciously. 'Where? Where was that?'

'Er — at a funeral somewhere,' I said, not wishing to be more explicit.

Leo blew his nose. 'Just where you'd expect to see him,' he said unreasonably, and we turned into the drive of Highwaters.

Janet came hurrying down the steps as we pulled up.

'Oh, darling, you're so late,' she murmured to Leo and, turning to me, held out her hand. 'Hello, Albert,' she said, a little coldly, I thought.

I can't describe Janet as I saw her then. She was, and is, very lovely.

I still like her.

'Hello,' I said flatly, and added idiotically because I felt I ought to say something else: 'Give us to drink, Ambrosia, and sweet Barm — '

She turned away from me and addressed Leo.

'You really must go and dress, pet. The Vicar's here, all of a twitter, poor boy. The whole village is seething with excitement, he says, and Miss Dusey sent up to say that "The Marquis" is full of newspaper men. She wants to know if it's all right. Has anything turned up?'

'No, no, m'dear,' Leo spoke absently and kissed her, unexpectedly, I felt sure.

He seemed to think the caress a little surprising himself, for he coughed as though to cover, or at least to excuse it, and hurried into the house, leaving her standing, dark-haired and attractive, on the step beside me.

'He's worried, isn't he?' she said under her breath, and then went on, as though she had suddenly remembered who I was, 'I'm afraid you must go and dress at once. You've only got ten minutes. Leave the car here and I'll send someone to take it round.'

I have known Janet, on and off, for twenty-three years. When I first saw her she was bald and pinkly horrible. I was almost sick at the sight of her, and was sent out into the garden until I had recovered my manners. Her formality both hurt and astonished me, therefore.

'All right,' I said, anxious to be accommodating at all costs. 'I won't wash.'

She looked at me critically. She has very fine eyes, like Leo's, only larger.

'I should,' she said gently. 'You show the dirt, don't you? — like a white fur.'

I took her hand. 'Friends, eh?' I said anxiously.

She laughed, but not very naturally.

'My dear, of course. Oh, by the way, your friend called at about half past six, but didn't stay. I said I expected you for dinner.'

'Lugg,' I said apprehensively, a great light dawning upon me. 'What's he done?'

'Oh, not Lugg.' She spoke with contempt. 'I like Lugg. Your girl-friend.'

The situation was getting out of hand.

'It's all a lie,' I said. 'There is no other woman. Did she leave a name?'

'She did.' There was grimness and I thought spite in Janet's tone. 'Miss Effie Rowlandson.'

'Never heard of her,' I said honestly. 'Was she a nice girl?'

'No,' said Janet explosively, and ran into the house.

I went into Highwaters alone. Old Pepper, pottering about in the hall doing the odd jobs that butlers do do, seemed pleased to see me, and I was glad of that. After a gracious though formal greeting, 'A letter for you, sir,' he said, in the same way as a man might say, 'I am happy to present you with a medal.' 'It came this morning, and I was about to readdress it and send it on to you, when Sir Leo informed me that we were to expect you this evening.'

He retired to his private cubby-hole at the back of the hall and returned with an envelope.

'You are in your usual room, sir, in the east wing,' he said, as he came up. 'I will send George with your cases immediately. It wants but seven minutes before the gong.'

I glanced at the envelope in my hand as he was sauntering off, and I suppose I hiccuped or something, for he glanced round at me with kindly concern.

'I beg your pardon, sir?'

'Nothing, Pepper,' I said, confirming his worst fears, and, tearing open the envelope, I read the second anonymous letter as I went up to my room. It was as neatly typed and precisely punctuated as the first had been, quite a pleasure to read.