The Case of the Late Pig

She looked at me steadily. 'You've been to a good school, haven't you?' she said. 'I always think it helps a man to have gone to a good school. Then you know he's a gentleman; I always say that. Well, I'll trust you. I don't often. And if you let me down, well, I've been silly again, that's all. I was engaged to marry Roly Peters, Mr Campion, and then he went and died in a hole-and-corner nursing home and left all his money to his brother. If you don't think that's suspicious, I do.'

I hesitated. 'You think it's odd because he left his brother everything?' I began.

Effie Rowlandson interrupted me.

'I think it's funny he died at all, if you ask me,' she said. 'I'd threatened him with a lawyer, I had really. I had the letters and everything.'

I said nothing, and she grew very pink.

'Think what you like about me, Mr Campion,' she said, 'but I've got feelings and I've worked very hard to get married. I think he's done the dirty on me. If he's hiding I'll find him, if it's the last thing I do.'

She sat looking at me like a suddenly militant sparrow.

'I came to you,' she said, 'because I heard you were a detective and I liked your face.'

'Splendid! But why come here?' I demanded. 'Why come to Kepesake, of all places?'

Effie Rowlandson drew a deep breath. 'I'll tell you the truth, Mr Campion,' she said.

Once again her lashes flickered, and I felt that our brief period of plain dealing was at an end.

'I've got a friend in this village, and he's seen my photographs of Roly Peters. He's an old man, known me for years.'

She paused, and eyed me to see if I was with her or against her, and apparently she was reassured, for she went on breathlessly:

'A few days ago he wrote me, this friend of mine did. "There's a gentleman in the village very like a friend of yours," he wrote. "If I were you I'd come and have a look at him. It might be worth your while." I came as soon as I could, and when I got here I found this man I'd come to see had got himself killed only this morning. I heard you were in the village, so I came along.'

I began to follow her. 'You want to identify him?' I said. She nodded resolutely.

'Why come to me? Why not go to the authorities?'

Her reply was disarming. 'Well, you see, I felt I knew you,' she said.

I considered. The advantages of a witness at this juncture were inestimable.

'When can you be down at the police station?'

'I'd like to go now.'

It was late for the country, and I said so, but she was adamant.

'I've made up my mind to it and I shan't sleep if I've got it hanging over me till tomorrow. Take me down now in your car. Go on, you know you can. I am being a nuisance, aren't I? But I'm like that. If I make up my mind to a thing, I fret till I've done it. I should be quite ill by the morning, I should really.'

There was nothing else for it. I knew from experience that it is safest to catch a witness as soon as he appears on the scene.

I rang the bell, and told the girl who answered it to send Lugg round with the car. Then, leaving Miss Rowlandson in the breakfast-room, I went to find Janet.

It was not a very pleasant interview. Janet is a dear girl, but she can be most obtuse. When she went to bed, which she did with some dignity a few minutes after I had located her, I went back to the breakfast-room.

Lugg seemed a little surprised when I appeared with Miss Rowlandson. I tucked her into the back of the car, and climbed into the front seat beside him. He let in the clutch, and as we roared down the drive in fourth he leant towards me.

'Ever see a cat come out of a dawg-kennel?' he murmured, and added when I stared at him: 'Gives you a bit of a turn. That's all.'

We drove on in silence. I began to feel that my friend, Miss Effie Rowlandson, was going to be a responsibility.

It was a strange night with a great moon sailing in an infinite sky. Small odd-shaped banks of cumulus clouds swam over it from time to time, but for the most part it remained bland and bald as the knob on a brass bedstead.

Kepesake, which is a frankly picturesque village by day, was mysterious in the false light. The high trees were deep and shadowy and hid the small houses, while the square tower of the church looked squat and menacing against the transparent sky. It was a secret village through which we sped on what I for one felt was our rather ghastly errand.

When we pulled up outside the cottage which is also the Police Station, there was only a single light in an upstairs room, and I leant over the back of my seat.

'Are you sure you wouldn't rather leave it until the morning?' I ventured.

She answered me through clenched teeth. 'No, thank you, Mr Campion. I've made up my mind to go through with it. I've got to know.'

I left them in the car and went down the path to rouse someone. Pussey himself came out almost at once, and was wonderfully obliging considering he had been on the point of going to bed. We conferred in whispers out of deference to the darkness.