The Case of the Late Pig (6 page)

I liked Pussey on sight; anyone would.

He was lank and loose-jointed, and had one of those slightly comic faces which are both disarming and endearing, and it was evident that he regarded Leo with that amused affection and admiration which is the bedrock of the co-operation between man and master in rural England.

When I arrived they were both perturbed. I took it that the affair touched them both nearly. It was murder in the home meadow, so to speak. But there was more to it even than that, I found.

‘Extraordinary thing, Campion,’ Leo said when Pepper had closed the door behind me. ‘Don’t know what to make of it at all. Pussey here assures me of the facts, and he’s a good man. Every reason to trust him every time.’

I glanced at the Inspector. He looked proudly puzzled, I thought, like a spaniel which has unexpectedly retrieved a dodo. I waited, and Leo waved to Pussey to proceed. He smiled at me disarmingly.

‘It’s a king wonder, sir,’ he said, and his accent was soft and broad. ‘Seems like we’ve made a mistake somewhere, but where that is I can’t tell you, nor I can’t now. We spent the whole day, my man and I, questioning of people, and this evening we got ’em all complete, as you’d say.’

‘And no one but Sir Leo has a decent alibi?’ I said sympathetically. ‘I know.…’

‘No, sir.’ Pussey did not resent my interruption; rather he welcomed it. He had a natural flair for the dramatic. ‘No,
sir.
Everyone has their alibi, and a good one, sir. The kitchen was eating of its dinner at the time of the – accident, and everyone was present, even the garden boy. Everyone else in the house was in the lounge or in the bar that leads out of it, and has two or three other gentlemen’s word to prove it. There was no strangers in the place, if you see what I mean, sir. All the gentlemen who called on Miss Bellew this morning came for a purpose, as you might say. They all knew each other well. One of ’em couldn’t have gone off and done it unless.…’

He paused, getting very red.

‘Unless what?’ said Leo anxiously. ‘Go on, my man. Don’t stand on ceremony. We’re in lodge here. Unless what?’

Pussey swallowed.

‘Unless
all the other gentlemen knew
, sir,’ he said, and hung his head.

CHAPTER 6

Departed Pig

THERE WAS AN
awkward pause for a moment, not unnaturally. Pussey remained dumb-stricken by his own temerity, I observed a customary diffidence, and Leo appeared to be struggling for comprehension.

‘Eh!’ he said at last. ‘Conspiracy, eh?’

Pussey was sweating. ‘Don’t hardly seem that could be so, sir,’ he mumbled unhappily.

‘I don’t know …’ Leo spoke judicially. ‘I don’t know, Pussey. It’s an idea. It’s an idea. And yet, don’t you know, it couldn’t have been so in this case. They would all have had to be in it, don’t you see, and
I was there
.’

It was a sublime moment. Leo spoke simply and with that magnificent innocence which is as devastating as it is blind. Pussey and I sighed with relief. The old boy had swept away the slender supports of fact and left us with a miracle, but it was worth it.

Leo continued to consider the case.

‘No,’ he said at last. ‘No. Impossible. Quite impossible. We’ll have to think of something else, Pussey. We’ll go over the alibis together. Maybe there’s a loophole somewhere; you never know.’

They settled down to work and I, not wishing to interfere in the Inspector’s province, drifted off to find Kingston. I discovered him in the drawing-room with Janet and Bathwick, who stiffened and bristled as I came in. I wished he wouldn’t. I am not over-sensitive, I hope, but his violent dislike embarrassed me, and I offered him a cigarette on the gift principle. He refused it.

Kingston was as keen to chat as I was, and he suggested
a
cigar on the terrace. In any other drawing-room, with the possible exception of Great-aunt Caroline’s at Cambridge, such a remark might have sounded stilted or at least consciously period, but Highwaters is that sort of house. The late Lady Pursuivant liked her furniture gilt and her porcelain by the ton.

I saw Bathwick shoot him a glance of dog-like gratitude which enhanced my sense of injustice, while Janet smouldered at me across the hearthrug.

We went out through the french windows on to as fine a marble terrace as any you’d find in Hollywood today, and Kingston took my arm.

‘I say,’ he began, ‘that chap Peters …’

It took me back years to the little patch of grass behind the chapel at school and old Guffy taking me by the arm, with the same words uttered in exactly the same tone of mingled excitement and outrage.

‘That chap Peters …’

‘Yes?’ I said encouragingly.

Kingston hesitated. ‘This is the nature of a confession,’ he began unexpectedly, and I fancy I stared at him, for he coloured and laughed. ‘Oh, I didn’t rob the blighter,’ he said. ‘But I took down his will for him. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. He came down to my place to recuperate after appendicitis, you know. He made the arrangements himself by letter, and on the way down he picked up a chill and developed roaring pneumonia and died in spite of everything. He came to me because I was fairly inexpensive, you know. Someone in the district recommended him, he said, and mentioned a chap I knew slightly. Well, when he was very ill he had a lucid period, and he sent for me and said he wanted to make a will. I wrote it down, and he signed it.’

Kingston paused and fidgeted.

‘I’m telling you this because I know about you,’ he went on at last. ‘I’ve heard about you from Janet, and I know Sir Leo called you down on this Harris business. Well, Campion, as a matter of fact, I altered the will a bit.’

‘Did you though?’ I said foolishly.

He nodded. ‘Not in substance, of course,’ he said, ‘but in form. I had to. As he dictated it it ran something like this: “To that unspeakable bounder and unjailed crook, my brother, born Henry Richard Peters – whatever he may be calling himself now – I leave all I possess at the time of my death, including everything that may accrue to my estate after I die. I do this not because I like him, am sorry for him, or sympathize in any way with any nefarious business in which he may be engaged, but simply because he is the son of my mother, and I know of no one else.”’

Kingston hesitated, and regarded me solemnly in the moonlight.

‘I didn’t think it was decent,’ he said. ‘A thing like that can cause a lot of trouble. So I cleaned up the wording a bit. I simply made it clear that Mr Peters wanted everything to go to his brother, and left it at that. He signed it and died.’

He smoked for a moment or so in silence, and I waited for him to continue.

‘As soon as I saw Harris he reminded me of someone,’ he said, ‘and tonight at dinner, when you reminded me of that funeral, I realized who it was. Peters and Harris had a great deal in common. They were made of the same sort of material, if you see what I mean, and had the same colouring. Peters was larger and had more fat on him, but the more I think about it the stronger the likeness becomes. You see what I’m driving at, Campion? This man Harris may well be the legatee’s brother.’

He laughed apologetically.

‘Now I’ve said it it doesn’t sound so very exciting,’ he said.

I did not answer him at once. I knew perfectly well that the Peters in the mortuary was my Peters, and if there was a brother in the business, I took it that it was he who had been Kingston’s patient. It confirmed my earlier suspicions that Pig had been up to something characteristically fishy before retribution in the flower-pot had overtaken him.

‘I sent the will along to his solicitors,’ Kingston continued. ‘I took all instructions about the funeral and so on from them, and they paid my account. I’ve got their name at home; I’ll let you have it. Tomorrow morning do?’

I assured him it would, and he went on:

‘I was down at the Knights this morning when it happened,’ he said, not without a certain pride. ‘We were playing poker. I’d just netted a queen-pot when I heard the thud and we all rushed out. There was nothing to be done, of course. Have you seen the body?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I haven’t examined it yet. Was that the first time you’d seen Harris?’

‘Oh, Lord, no! He’s been there all the week. I’ve had to go along there every day to see Flossie Gage, one of the maids. She’s had jaundice. I didn’t talk to Harris much because – well, none of us did, you know. He was an offensive type. That incident with Bathwick showed you the type he was.’

‘Bathwick?’

‘Oh, didn’t you hear about that?’ Kingston warmed to me. Like most country doctors he relished a spot of gossip. ‘It had its humorous side in a way. Bathwick is an earnest soul, as you may have noticed.’

I agreed, and he chuckled and hurried on:

‘Harris talked about a dance hall and a bathing beach he was going to build on that bit of land which runs down to the creek on the far side of the cricket pitch. Bathwick heard the gossip and was appalled by it. It didn’t fit into his own
scheme
for Kepesake’s development, which is more on welfare lines – communal kitchens and superintended crèches, and so on. He rushed down to see Harris in a panic, and I believe there was a grand scene. Harris had a sort of sense of humour and took a delight in teasing old Bathwick, who has none. They were in the lounge at the Knights, and Bill Duchesney and one or two other people were there, so Harris had an audience and let himself go. Bill told me Bathwick went off at last with his eyes bulging. Harris had promised him dancing houris, secret casinos, and God knows what else, until the poor chap saw his dream yokel walking straight out of the church clinic on one side of the road into the jaws of hell on the other. Bill tried to soothe the Vicar, I believe, but he said he was scared out of his wits and shocked to the marrow. You see the sort of fellow Harris was. He liked to show off. There was no need for him to tease old Bathwick, who’d be quite a good chap if he wasn’t so solemn. However, that’s not the point. The question is, who killed Harris? I’ll bring down that solicitor’s name, and any papers I can find first thing in the morning, shall I?’

‘I wish you would,’ I said trying not to sound too eager. ‘Thanks for telling me.’

‘Not at all. I wish I could be really helpful. It’s so seldom anything happens down here.’ He laughed awkwardly. ‘That’s a bit naïve, isn’t it?’ he murmured. ‘But you’ve no idea how dull the country is for a fairly intelligent man, Campion.’

We went back to the drawing-room. Janet and Bathwick were listening to the wireless, but she got up and switched it off as we appeared, and Bathwick sighed audibly at the sight of me.

Leo looked in after a bit, but he was plainly preoccupied, and he excused himself soon after. Not unnaturally the party broke up early. Kingston went home, taking the
reluctant
and smouldering cleric with him, and Janet and I wandered out on the terrace. It was warm and moonlit and rather exotic, what with night-scented stocks in the garden below and nightingales in the ilex.

‘Albert.…’ said Janet.

‘Yes?’

‘You’ve some very peculiar friends, haven’t you?’

‘Oh, you meet all kinds of people at school,’ I said defensively, my mind still clinging to Peters. ‘It’s like knowing a lot of eggs. You can’t tell which one is going to grow into something definitely offensive.’

She drew a long breath and her eyes glinted in the faint light.

‘I didn’t know you went to a co-ed,’ she said witheringly. ‘That accounts for you, I suppose.’

‘In a way,’ I agreed mildly. ‘I remember Miss Marshall. What a topping Head she was, to be sure. Such a real little sport on the hockey field. Such a demon for impositions. Such a regular little whirlwind with the birch.’

‘Shut up,’ said Janet unreasonably. ‘How d’you like Bathwick?’

‘A dear fellow,’ I said dutifully. ‘Where does he live?’

‘At the Vicarage, just behind the Knights. Why?’

‘Has he a nice garden?’

‘Quite good. Why?’

‘Does his garden adjoin the Knights’ garden?’

‘The vicarage garden runs up to the chestnut copse at the back of Poppy’s place. Why?’

‘I like to know a man’s background,’ I said. ‘He’s rather keen on you, isn’t he?’

She did not answer me, and I fancied she considered the question to be in bad taste. To my astonishment I felt her shiver at my side.

‘Albert,’ she said in a very small voice, ‘do you know who did this beastly murder?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘You think you’ll find out?’ She was almost whispering.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ll find out.’

She put her hand in mine. ‘Leo’s very fond of Poppy,’ she murmured.

I held her hand closely. ‘Leo has no more idea who killed Harris than a babe unborn,’ I said.

She shivered again. ‘That makes it worse, doesn’t it? It’ll be such a dreadful shock for him when he – he has to know.’

‘Poppy?’ I said.

Janet clung to my arm. ‘They’d all shield her, wouldn’t they?’ she said unsteadily. ‘After all, she had most to lose. Go back to Town, Albert. Give it up. Don’t find out.’

‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘Forget it for now.’

We walked on in silence for a little. Janet wore a blue dress and I said I liked it. She also wore her hair in a knot low on her neck, and I said I liked that, too.

After a while she paid me a compliment. She said I was an eminently truthful person, and she was sorry to have doubted my word in a certain matter of the afternoon.

I forgave her readily, not to say eagerly. We turned back towards the french windows and had just decided not to go in after all, when something as unforeseen as it was unfortunate occurred. Pepper came out, blowing gently. He begged our pardons, he said, but a Miss Effie Rowlandson had called to see Mr Campion and he had put her in the breakfast-room.

CHAPTER 7

The Girl Friend

AS I FOLLOWED
Pepper through the house, I ventured to question him.

‘What’s she like, Pepper?’

He turned and eyed me with a glance which conveyed clearly that he was an old man, an experienced man, and that dust did not affect his eyesight.