Untimely Death

CHAPTER XII. The Price of a Ham

I really believe,” said Pettigrew, “that spring has begun at last.”

“You said that,” Eleanor reminded him, “two weeks ago.”

“Now you mention it, I believe I did. It was the usual false alarm. I should have known better. But this is the real thing. There’s a softness in the air that’s quite unmistakable. Winter’s rains and ruins are over, and all the season-”

“Please, Frank! Not at breakfast!”

“I apologize. Swinburne at breakfast should be left to undergraduates. I will moderate my transports by looking at my post. It should have a thoroughly deadening effect-nothing but bills and circulars, by the look of it.”

He slit open one envelope after another with a resigned expression. Near the bottom of the pile he found something that was neither bill nor circular.

Pettigrew read the letter through in silence. Then he laid it down beside his plate, and sat for a while, looking at nothing in particular, drumming his fingers on the table, wrinkling his nose as was his habit in moods of anxiety or doubt.

“If you’re not going to eat any breakfast,” said Eleanor, reproachfully, “I am. Won’t you cut a slice of ham, or shall I do it myself?”

Pettigrew came out of his abstraction with a jerk.

“No woman is to be trusted with a ham,” he declared. “Particularly a superb specimen like this. Let me do it.”

He went across to the sideboard, carved two slices from the fine ham that was there, and stood back to admire his handiwork. Then he began to laugh quietly. He was still laughing when he returned to the table.

“Is this a private joke?” Eleanor asked, her mouth full of ham. “Or can anyone join in?”

“It has only just dawned on me. Didn’t Mallett send us this ham last week?”

“You know perfectly well he did. It’s twice the size of anything I should have wanted to buy, even if I could afford it.”

“And why, do you think, should he take it into his head to do such a thing, just at this moment?”

“It was simply a kind thought, I suppose.”

“There was no letter with it, was there?”

“Just a card with his name on it and some polite message,” said Eleanor. “You saw it yourself. But Frank, why-”

“It’s the first message of any sort we’ve had from him since we left Exmoor,” Pettigrew persisted. “He’s not sent us so much as a line all that time. Even Mr. Joliffe was good for a threepenny Christmas card, but Mallett was mum. I particularly asked him to let me know what happened about the Gorman inquest, but he never did a thing about it. Why is that, do you imagine?”

“Frank, dear,” said Eleanor gently. “Don’t be cross with me, but I’m afraid that is my fault. You see, you have been sleeping so much better ever since we came home, and I didn’t want you upset. I asked Mr. Mallett not to write.”

“I see. That makes it funnier than ever. He’s not allowed to write, so he says it with hams.”

“But, Frank, I do assure you, there’s been nothing for him to write about. Since the inquest was adjourned all those months ago, nothing whatever has happened. The police have made all sorts of enquiries, of course, and the whole neighbourhood was full of rumours for a time, but nobody was ever arrested over poor Jack Gorman’s death, and little by little the whole thing has died down.”

“You seem to be remarkably well up in the matter,” said Pettigrew. “How is that?”

“Well, as I’d told Mr. Mallett that he wasn’t to bother you with letters, I thought I had better keep an eye on things,” Eleanor explained. “So I asked Hester Greenway to keep me informed. She has really been very helpful. I hope you don’t mind. I wanted to save you being worried.”

“That was a kind thought of yours. But as it happened, I was anxious not to worry you. You needn’t have troubled Hester. I’ve discovered a man at Markhampton who comes from Exmoor and takes in the local paper regularly. Every week I’ve been through it from cover to cover to see if there was any hint of developments in the affair. And there has been none.”

“Well, then…” said Eleanor. “There’s nothing for either of us to worry about, is there? Or-or is there?”

By way of reply, Pettigrew tossed across the table the letter that he had been reading. It bore at the top an imposingly long list of names and an address in Lincoln ’s Inn. It ran:

“Dear Sir,

Re Gorman, decd; Gorman v. Southern Bank Ltd. and Another.

We are acting as London agents for Messrs. Bulford and Langrish of Wiveliscombe on behalf of the Plaintiff in the above matter. It is an action shortly to be heard in the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice in which the Plaintiff claims (inter alia) a declaration that John Richard Gorman, deceased, predeceased Gilbert Amos Gorman, deceased. We are given to understand that you may be in a position to assist the Plaintiff. We should accordingly esteem it a favour if you would attend at our office at a date convenient to yourself in the near future when our Mr. Fitzgibbon could take a proof of evidence from you.

We would add that this letter is written on the advice of Mr. Manktelow of counsel (who is, we believe, personally known to you) and that he has further advised us to secure your attendance, if necessary, by sub poena ad testificandum. We trust, however, that you will not oblige us to resort to this expedient.

With apologies for troubling you in this matter, we remain,

Your obedient servants,

Harkness, Fitzgibbon, Blandy amp; Co. ”

Eleanor read the letter through twice before handing it back.

“I don’t see what this has got to do with the Southern Bank,” she remarked.

“Oh, they’re only in the action because they’re trustees or executors of a will, or something like that. I’m not worrying about them.”

“Then all this nonsense about deceased and predeceased. I don’t understand it.”

“I understand only too well. Gilbert Gorman died on -I forget the date, but it was a Sunday-the day I was laid up in bed at Sallowcombe. At least-obviously one must be careful in these matters-that was the day the news of his death came to Sallowcombe. But from what I overheard on the telephone, I think we can assume he did die on that Sunday.”

“And Jack died on Monday night or Tuesday morning. That’s what the coroner said. Isn’t that final?”

“Obviously it isn’t, as someone is trying to get the Chancery Court to say something different.”

“Why should they?”

“There could be quite a number of reasons for that. Suppose Jack was Gilbert’s next of kin, for instance… No, it can’t be quite as simple as that. But does it matter? The point is, someone is trying to prove that Jack died first.”

“But I thought we’d decided that he didn’t. I mean…”

There was an embarrassed pause before Pettigrew spoke again.

“Has it occurred to you,” he said, “what sort of a figure I should cut in the witness-box, explaining to a Chancery judge that I had been indulging in- what did you call it?- precognition?”

“But if that’s what you had been doing-”

Pettigrew put his coffee cup down with a clatter.

“I’ve been quietening my conscience all this time by telling myself that it didn’t matter,” he said. “Jack’s body turned up in due course and the coroner sat on him and no harm was done. Now it seems that it does matter, and harm may have been done. It’s a judgment on me for shirking my plain duty as a citizen and trying to hide behind a lot of psychological mumbo-jumbo. I’m going to be made to look ridiculous, and serve me right.”

“But, Frank, is anybody going to believe your story against all the other evidence? Surely it’s much more likely that you should have been mistaken than everyone else?”

“If my evidence stood alone, this case would never have been brought. Obviously, it doesn’t. That’s where Mallett’s ham comes in. He’s the man responsible for the whole business, and the ham was his way of apologizing for landing me in this mess.”

“Really, Frank! You’re imagining things.”

“I’m certainly not. I’m beginning to remember them, though. The day after the inquest, Mallett said he had to go to Wiveliscombe. He didn’t go in his own car. Someone called for him. The next day he was out all day. I thought at the time that he was sheepish and silent about where he’d been and what he was doing. It’s perfectly obvious. He was the only available person with the knowledge and the intelligence to ferret this matter out. Someone took him to see these solicitors at Wiveliscombe and from then on he was employed by them to cook up this case. He must have felt rather uncomfortable having us in the house all the time.”

“I thought he seemed quite relieved when we went,” Eleanor remarked. “That would explain it. But that was nearly six months ago. Why has it taken all this time to bring it to court?”

“All this time? Good heavens, woman, this is a Chancery suit. It’s the nearest thing to greased lightning in my experience. What I can’t make out is how it has got to this stage so quickly.”