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Title: Police at the Funeral
Author: Allingham, Margery [Youngman Carter, Margery Louise]
   (1904-1966)
Date of first publication: 1931
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   London: Heinemann
   [1967 reprint of 1964 edition]
Date first posted: 14 October 2019
Date last updated: 14 October 2019
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1628

This ebook was produced by
Al Haines, Jen Haines, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net


PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

As part of the conversion of the book to its new digital
format, we have made certain minor adjustments in its layout.

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.






POLICE AT THE FUNERAL

by Margery Allingham




TABLE OF CONTENTS

    1. 'Here Lies a Benefactor'
    2. The Luck of Uncle Andrew
    3. 'Something Rather Terrifying...'
    4. 'The Four-Flusher'
    5. Aunt Kitty's Secret Vice
    6. The Grand Manner
    7. The Conjuror
    8. The Observations of Mr Cheetoo
    9. Dirty Linen
    10. Uncle William's Guilty Conscience
    11. And So To Bed
    12. Committee Stage
    13. Man Friday
    14. The Cat in the Bag
    15. The Outside Job
    16. Black Sunday
    17. Open Verdict
    18. Report of the Deputy Coroner
    19. Under the Black Wing
    20. The Devil in the House
    21. The Owner of the Green Hat
    22. In the Morning
    23. A Legacy
    24. Audience
    25. The Token




    To MY SEVEN PATERNAL UNCLES




    _This story, the characters in it, and the bridge in the
    Grantchester Meadows, are figments of the author's imagination,
    and have no reference to real incident, living people or
    topographical facts._





CHAPTER 1
'HERE LIES A BENEFACTOR'


When one man is following another, however discreet may be the pursuer
or the pursued, the act does not often pass unnoticed in the streets of
London.

There were at least four people who realized that Inspector Stanislaus
Oates, only lately promoted to the Big Five, was being followed down
High Holborn by the short, squat, shabby man who yet bore the elusive
air of a forgotten culture about him.

The Inspector walked with his hands in the pockets of his raincoat, his
collar turned up until it almost met the brim of his battered trilby.
His shoulders were hunched, his feet were wet, and his very gait
announced the dejection which he felt.

There was very little to show the casual passer-by that the square man,
who might have been a bookmaker's tout, was following the Inspector. He
himself would have been astounded to know that anyone had guessed that
he was aware of the policeman's existence, but old Mrs Carter, who sells
flowers outside the Provincial Bank, recognized Mr Oates and observed
his trailer, and wondered what he was up to, aloud, to her daughter who
was waiting for the 'late extra' _Evening Standard_ van, and getting her
high-heeled shoes full of water from the stream which was sweeping down
the gutter.

The Commissionaire standing on the steps of the big Anglo-American hotel
saw the two men also, and congratulated himself that nothing much
escaped him. Old Todd, last cabby in the rank before Staple Inn, also
made a note of the spectacle as he sat staring listlessly over his
steel-rimmed glasses waiting for the evening rush, wondering if his one
remaining brake would hold in this blasted rain.

And lastly, the Inspector himself was aware of the circumstance. One is
not a policeman for twenty-five years without becoming peculiarly
sensitive to the fact that one is not alone in one's promenading, and
the silent companion at the discreet distance becomes as real as if he
were at one's side.

Today the Inspector was aware of it and took no notice of it. There were
many people who might have considered that they had sufficient grievance
against him to meditate an attack on Mr Oates, but no one, so far as he
knew, who would risk making such an attempt in broad daylight in the
heart of the city. He squelched on, therefore, through the rain, lost in
his own private depression. That lank, good-tempered man running to fat
only at the stomach was oppressed by nothing more than a mild attack of
dyspepsia coupled with the uncomfortable premonition that his luck was
out and that something unpleasant was going to happen. His was not an
imaginative nature, but a premonition is a premonition, and he had just
joined the Big Five, so that his responsibilities, should anything
difficult turn up, would be by no means decreased. Moreover, there was
the rain, the dyspepsia which had sent him for the walk, and again the
rain.

In the centre of the blinding storm which blew across the Viaduct he
paused and upbraided himself. The vague presence behind him was his
least irritant. Hang it! this rain was soaking him. He was out of the
district of hotels, and thanks to the care of a grandmotherly government
no public-house would be open for another hour and a half. His trouser
legs were flapping clammily against his ankles, and in jerking up his
raincoat collar he had spilt a small waterfall from his hat-brim down
the back of his neck.

There were a thousand and one things he might have done. He could have
taken a taxi back to the Yard or to some restaurant or hotel where he
could have dried at leisure, but his mood was perverse, and he looked
about him aggressively. The rawest constable on this beat, he reflected,
must know of some shelter, some haven in this wilderness of offices
where a man might dry, warm himself, and perhaps smoke a forbidden pipe
in pleasant if dusty privacy.

London, like all great cities which have been built and rebuilt for
upwards of a thousand years, has all sorts of odd corners, little
forgotten patches of valuable land which still belong to the public,
hidden though they are amid great stone masses of private property.
Standing on the Viaduct, Stanislaus Oates cast his mind back over twenty
years to the time when he himself had been a constable in London, raw
from the provinces. Surely he had walked this dreary street on his way
home from a Holborn beat: surely there had been some retreat where he
had polished up the answers for the terrifying oral examination in the
spring, or pencilled an absurdly glorified account of his doings to the
trusting and lovely Marion still down in Dorset.

The buildings around him had changed, but the lie of the land was the
same. Memory returned to him, patchily at first like a landscape seen
through leaves, but suddenly he recollected a musty smell of warm sacks
and hot water-pipes. And then it all came back to him--the dark
passage-way with the shaft of light at the end, the red door in the wall
with the bucket outside and the statue facing it.

Immediately his spirits rose considerably, and he set off, penetrating
farther into the city until a sudden turning brought him face to face
with a narrow archway squeezed in between two palatial wholesalers'
doorways. The paving-stones within the passage were worn narrow strips
set crazily together, and on the whitewashed wall was a small battered
notice half obliterated by dust and further obscured by the shadow,
which stated simply: '_To the Tomb_.'

Down this alley Inspector Stanislaus Oates plunged without hesitation.

After some fifteen yards of tunnel he emerged into a little yard, the
face of which had not altered since he had first known it, nor, for that
matter, for the last hundred years. Here brown-black buildings rose
steep on all four sides, framing a small patch of grey unfriendly sky.
The reason for this peculiar airshaft in the very centre of an ancient
block of buildings took up by far the larger half of the yard and
consisted of a rectangle of sparse yellow grass surrounded by railings,
in the midst of which reposed the stone effigy of a man in doublet and
hose. A tablet at the figure's feet announced to the curious:

    _Sir Thomas Lillyput_
    _He bought this land_
    _His bones wherein to lie_
    _Disturb him not lest ye be stirred_
    _When ye shall come to die_
    _Lord Mayor of London, 1537,_

and underneath, in more modern script:

    _Here lies a benefactor_
    _Let no one move his bones._

The pious or perhaps superstitious magnates of a later London had so far
respected Sir Thomas and his property that they had built their
businesses around him and not directly above or beneath him.

The builder of the block above the passage, however, had utilized the
yard as an entrance for coal since the strictly legal right-of-way was
too narrow to admit of its use as a goods entrance, and the red door
which the Inspector remembered on the right of the effigy led into the
somewhat archaic heating arrangements of the ancient firm who occupied
the east block.

The door was propped open by a bucket as it always had been. To the
Inspector's livening eyes it appeared to be the same bucket, and he
wondered if Old Foxie--the name came back to him with delightful
familiarity--was still stoking. His depression was lifting at every
step, and he advanced jauntily, restraining an absurd inclination to
kick the pail as he passed into the semi-darkness of the furnace-room.

'And this, if I mistake not, Watson, is our client,' said a voice out of
the glom. 'Good Heavens! The Force!'

After his first start of surprise the Inspector swung round to find
himself facing a young man perched insecurely on a pile of dbris in the
warm murky shelter of the stove. A shaft of light from the furnace lit
up the figure, throwing him into sharp relief.

The Inspector had a vision of a lank immaculate form surmounted by a
pale face half obliterated by enormous horn-rimmed spectacles. The final
note of incongruity was struck by an old-fashioned deerstalker cap set
jauntily upon the top of the young man's head.

Chief-Detective Inspector Stanislaus Oates began to laugh. Ten minutes
before he had felt that spontaneous mirth was permanently beyond him.

'Campion!' he said. "Who's after you now?"

The young man struggled down from his throne and held out his hand.

'I'm waiting for a client,' he explained airily. 'I've been here half an
hour already. What are you looking for?'

'Warmth and a little quiet,' said the other querulously. 'This weather
upsets my liver.'

He took off his raincoat, shook it peremptorily and spread it over Mr
Campion's late resting-place. This performance he repeated with his hat
and edged as near to the boiler as he could without burning himself. His
companion regarded him with a faintly amused expression on his slightly
vacuous face.

'Quite the little cop, still, I see,' he said. 'What's the idea? "Old
Bobby revisits the scene of his first arrest"? "The sentimental journey
of a Big Fifth"? I hate to seem inquisitive, Stanislaus, but I'm
expecting a client, as I said before. In fact, when I heard your
footsteps I thought you were the mysterious she and I don't mind telling
you my heart sank.'

The Inspector turned from the furnace and looked at his friend
attentively. 'Why the fancy dress?' he inquired.

Mr Campion removed the monstrous tweed erection from his head and looked
at it lovingly.

'I called in at Belloc's on my way down here,' he observed, 'and I
caught sight of it. They tell me they make one a year for a rural dean,
who wears it for a local ratting gala. I had to have it. Just the thing
in which to interview a romantic client, don't you think?'

The Inspector grinned. The warmth was beginning to percolate into his
bones and his _bonhomie_ was fast returning.

'What an extraordinary chap you are, Campion,' he said. 'I'm never
surprised when you turn up in the most amazing places. I shouldn't have
said there were half a dozen men in London who knew of this little
hide-out. Yet the first time I call here in twenty years I find you
sitting here in fancy dress. How do you do it?'

Campion unbuttoned the flaps of the deerstalker meditatively. 'The
amiable Lugg put me up to it,' he said. 'He's still with me, you
know--bull pup and _femme-de-chambre_ combined. I was looking for some
suitable spot to interview a young lady who has been so grossly
misinformed that she believes I'm a private detective.'

The Inspector knocked out his pipe against the boiler.

'Funny how these ideas get about,' he said. 'What do you call yourself
these days?'

Campion looked at him reprovingly. 'Deputy Adventurer,' he said. 'I
thought of that the other day. I think it sums me up perfectly.'

The Inspector shook his head gravely. 'No more Chalices?' he said. 'You
put the wind up me last time. You'll get into trouble one of these
days.'

The young man beamed. 'Your idea of trouble must be very advanced,' he
murmured.

The Inspector did not smile. 'That's what I mean by trouble,' he
remarked, pointing through the open doorway to the railed-in patch of
grass. 'There'll probably be no one to write "Here lies a Benefactor" at
your feet, though. What is it this time? A scandal in High Life? Or are
you out to crush the spy system?'

'Neither,' said Mr Campion regretfully. 'You find me here, Stanislaus,
indulging in a silly childish desire to impress. Also, incidentally, to
get my own back. I'm meeting a lady here--I've told you that about six
times. You needn't go. I don't know her. In fact, I think you might add
to the tone of the interview. I say, couldn't you go out and borrow a
helmet from one of your boys on point duty? Then she'll know I'm telling
the truth when I introduce you.'

Mr Oates became alarmed. 'If you've got some silly woman coming here,
don't you tell her who I am,' he said warningly. 'What's the idea,
anyhow?'

Mr Campion produced a sheet of thick grey notepaper from his inside
pocket.

'Here's a lawyer's letter,' he said. 'I like to think it cost him
personally six and eightpence. Go on--read it. I'll help you with the
long words.'

The Inspector took the paper and read the letter to himself, forming
each word separately with his lips and emitting an intermittent rumble
as he half spoke the phrases.

    _2, Soul's Court, Queen's Rd.,_
    _Cambridge._


    _My Dear Campion,_

    _I have always imagined it more likely that you would eventually
    come to consult me in a professional capacity than I you.
    However, the Gods of Chance were always capricious as a
    woman--and of course it is a woman for whose sweet silly (in the
    Saxon sense) sake here I am craving your services._

    _You wrote me such an amusing piece of trivia when I announced
    my engagement that I feel sure you have not forgotten the
    incident completely. Still, it is for my fiance, Joyce Blount,
    that I now write you._

    _As perhaps I told you, she is at present--poor child--employing
    herself as a species of professional daughter-cum-companion in
    the house of her great-aunt, a prodigious old Hecuba, widow of
    the late lamented Doctor Faraday, of 'Gnats' (circa 1880). They
    are an elderly family of quite ridiculous proportions and hers
    is an invidious task._

    _This, then, is the thesis. At the moment Joyce is quite
    absurdly worried by the disappearance of her uncle, Andrew
    Seeley, one of the household, who has been absent for about a
    week. I know the man, a veritable type, a sponger, as are most
    of the family, I am afraid. It seems to me to be most probable
    that he won a few pounds on a horse (this somewhat second-hand
    sport was a favourite of his, I know) and has taken the week off
    from his Aunt Faraday's iron discipline._

    _However, Joyce is as obstinate as she is delectable, and since
    she has determined to come to Town tomorrow (Thursday, the
    tenth), to consult some suitable specialist in the matter, I
    felt the least I could do would be to give her your name and
    address and then write to warn you._

    _She has a very romantic nature, I am afraid, and hers is a dull
    life. If you could give her at least the thrill of seeing the
    sleuth himself, perhaps even sleuthing, you would be rendering
    your eternal debtor he who begs always to remain, my dear
    fellow,_

    _Your devoted_,
    _Marcus Featherstone_.


    _P.S.--Were I only in London--[Greek: eithe genoimn] I should
    be absurdly tempted to spy upon the interview._

    _P.P.S.--Gordon, whom you may remember, has at last gone to
    uphold the British Raj in India, as, of course, he will.
    Henderson writes me that he has 'gone into drains', whatever
    that may mean. It sounds typical._

The Inspector folded the letter carefully and returned it to Campion.

'I don't think I should cotton to that chap myself,' he observed. 'Nice
enough, I have no doubt,' he went on hastily. 'But if you're set up in a
witness box with a chap like that chivvying you he makes you look a fool
without getting the case on any further. He thinks he knows everything,
and so he does pretty nearly--about books and dead languages--but has he
the faintest idea of the mental process which resulted in the accused
marrying the plaintiff in 1927 in Chiswick, when he had already married
the first witness in 1903? Not on your life.'

Mr Campion nodded. 'I think you're right,' he said. 'Although Marcus is
a very good solicitor. But cases in Cambridge are usually very
_refeened_, I believe. I wish that girl would turn up if she's coming. I
gave Lugg explicit instructions to send her here the moment she arrived
at Bottle Street. I thought this would provide a peep at the underworld
which would be at once clean, safe and edifying. The kind of girl Marcus
can have persuaded to marry him must be mentally stunted. Besides, her
trouble seems to be absurd. She's lost a very unpleasant uncle--why
worry to look for him? My idea is to sit up on this convenient
structure, array myself in my little ratting cap, and make a few
straightforward comments on Uncle Andrew. The young woman, deeply
impressed, will return to Marcus, repeating faithfully all that she has
seen and heard--that sort always does. Marcus will deduce that I am
rapidly proceeding bin-wards, and he will scratch my name out of his
address book and leave me in peace. How's business?'

The Inspector shrugged. 'Mustn't grumble,' he said. 'Promotion has
always meant trouble, though, as far back as I can remember.'

'Look out,' said Campion suddenly. 'She comes!'

The two men stood listening. Wavering footsteps echoed in the alleyway.
They advanced almost to the yard and then retreated a little way.

'A lame man wearing number nine boots, smoking a cheroot and probably a
chandler's mate by profession,' Campion murmured, putting on his tweed
cap. 'Sounds like "good sensible" shoes anyhow,' he went on more
seriously. 'I hope Marcus hasn't picked a thundering English rose.'

Mr Oates glanced though the slit between the half-open door and the
post. 'Oh,' he said casually, 'it's that bloke.'

Mr Campion raised an inquiring eyebrow.

The Inspector explained. 'I was followed from the Yard today,' he said.
'I forgot all about the man in the rainstorm, to tell you the truth. I
suppose he's been hanging about outside the entrance here ever since I
came in. Probably somebody with a grievance, or some lunatic with an
invention to offer me for detecting the criminally-minded on sight.
You'd be surprised what a lot of that sort of thing I get, Campion. I
suppose I'd better see him.'

The rain had stopped for the time being, although the sky was still cold
and overcast. Stanislaus Oates stepped out into the court, walked to the
mouth of the passage, glanced down at it and then stepped back again
into the shelter of the yard. Campion stood in the doorway of the
boiler-room to watch the comedy, lank and immaculate, the ridiculous
tweed cap perched on the top of his head.

The footsteps sounded again, and a moment later the square man with the
hint of lost respectability about him emerged.

At close quarters he presented a more complex appearance than he had
shown at a distance. His reddish face was puffy, and coarse skin and
deep lines almost obscured the natural regularity of his features. The
suit, which he wore with an air, was grease-spotted and disreputable, a
condition not improved by the fact that at the moment it was practically
soaked. Despite his furtive glance round there was an air of truculence
about him, and he fixed the Inspector firmly with his slightly bloodshot
eyes.

'Mr Oates,' he said, 'I should like to speak to you. I have a piece of
information which may save you and your friends a lot of trouble.'

The Inspector did not reply, but stood waiting for further developments.
The man had revealed a remarkably deep voice and an unexpectedly
educated accent. Interested, Mr Campion advanced incautiously out of his
hiding-place, and the intruder, catching sight of his somewhat
unconventional appearance, broke off abruptly, his jaw dropping.

'I didn't know you had a companion,' he said sullenly.

'Or a witness?' suggested the Inspector dryly.

Mr Campion removed his hat and stepped out into the yard.

'I'll go if you like, Inspector,' he said, and paused abruptly.

All three men stood silent. Down the alleyway echoed the sound of
high-heeled shoes clicking sharply on the stones. Mr Campion's visitor
had arrived.

She came into the yard the next moment, the very antithesis of his
expectations. A tall, slender young woman, smartly dressed in the best
country-town tradition. She was also young, much younger than Campion
had supposed. She looked, as the Inspector remarked afterwards, like
some nice person's kid sister. She was not beautiful. Her mouth was a
little too large, her brown eyes too deeply set, but she was definitely
attractive in her own rather unusual way. Mr Campion was glad that he
had removed his 'ratting cap'. Subconsciously his opinion of his friend
Marcus improved. He stepped forward to meet her, holding out his hand.

'Miss Blount?' he said. 'My name's Campion. I say, I'm awfully sorry I
bothered you to come all this way.'

He got no further. The girl, whose glance had travelled past him to the
other two men, now caught sight of the squat stranger who had something
of such interest to tell the Inspector. An expression of terrified
recognition crept into her face, and the young man was alarmed to see a
wave of pallor rise slowly up her neck and spread. The next moment she
had taken an uncertain step backward, and he caught her arm to steady
her. The Inspector sprang towards them.

'Look out,' he said. 'Bend her head down. She'll be all right in a
minute.'

He was fishing for his flask when the girl straightened herself.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I'm all right. Where is he?'

The two men turned, but of their square acquaintance there was no sign.
Rapidly retreating footsteps down the passage told of his escape. Oates
started after him, but when he reached the end of the alley and looked
up and down the street the evening rush was well under way. The
pavements were crowded, and of the mysterious stranger, the sight of
whom had so startled Mr Featherstone's fiance, there was no trace.




CHAPTER 2
THE LUCK OF UNCLE ANDREW


It was in the taxicab as they were speeding over the slippery road
towards 17A Bottle Street, Mr Campion's Piccadilly address, that Miss
Joyce Blount eyed the young man who sat beside her and the Inspector,
who sat opposite, with the engaging smile of youth, and lied.

'That man who was with you in the yard?' she said in reply to a
tentative question from the Inspector. 'Oh, no, I have never seen him
before in my life.' She looked at them straightly, the colour deepening
a little in her cheeks.

Mr Campion was puzzled, and his pleasant vacuous face wrinkled into a
travesty of deep thought.

'But when you saw him,' he ventured, 'I thought you were going to faint.
And when you--er--recovered you said, "Where is he?"'

The red in the girl's cheeks deepened, but she still smiled at them
innocently, engagingly.

'Oh, no,' she repeated in her clear, slightly childlike voice, 'you must
have made a mistake. Why, I hardly saw him. He conveyed nothing to me.
How could he?' There was a distinct air of finality in her tone, and
there was silence for some moments after she had spoken. The Inspector
glanced at Campion, but young man's eyes were expressionless behind his
enormous spectacles.

The girl seemed to be considering the situation, for after a while she
turned again to Campion.

'Look here,' she said, 'I'm afraid I've made a terrible fool of myself.
I've been dreadfully worried, and I haven't had any food today. I dashed
out without any breakfast this morning, and there wasn't time for lunch,
and--well, what with one thing and another I got a bit giddy, I
suppose.' She paused, conscious that her explanations did not sound very
convincing.

Mr Campion, however, appeared to be quite satisfied. 'It's very
dangerous not to eat,' he said gravely. 'Lugg will minister to you the
moment we get in. I knew a man once,' he continued with great solemnity,
'who omitted to eat for a considerable time through worry and mental
strain and all that sort of thing. So that he quite got out of the way
of it, and when he found himself at a stiff dinner party he was
absolutely flummoxed. Imagine it--soup here, entree there, and oyster
shells in every pocket of his dinner jacket. It was a fiasco.'

The Inspector gazed absently at his friend with an introspective eye,
but the girl, who had no experience of Mr Campion's vagaries, shot him a
quick dubious glance from under her lashes.

'You are the Mr Campion, Marcus's friend, aren't you?' she said
involuntarily.

Campion nodded. 'Marcus and I met in our wild youth,' he said.

The girl laughed, a nervous explosive giggle. 'Not Marcus,' she said.
'Or else he's changed.' She seemed to regret the remark immediately, for
at once she plunged into the one important subject on her mind. 'I came
to ask you to help us,' she said slowly. 'Of course Marcus wrote to you,
didn't he? I'm afraid he may have given you an awfully wrong impression.
He doesn't take it seriously. But it is serious.' Her voice developed a
note of frank sincerity which startled her hearers a little. 'Mr
Campion, you are a sort of private detective, aren't you? I mean--I'd
heard of you before Marcus told me. I know some people in Suffolk--Giles
and Isobel Paget. They're friends of yours, aren't they?'

Mr Campion's habitual expression of contented idiocy vanished. 'They
are,' he said. 'Two of the most delightful people in the world. Look
here, I'd better make a clean breast of it. In the first place, I'm not
a detective. If you want a detective here's Inspector Oates, one of the
Big Five. I'm a professional adventurer--in the best sense of the word.
I'll do anything I can for you. What's the trouble?'

The Inspector, who had been alarmed by Campion's frank introduction of
his official status, had his fears allayed by the girl's next
announcement. She smiled at him disarmingly.

'It--it isn't a matter for the police,' she said. 'You don't mind, do
you?'

He laughed. 'I'm glad to hear it,' he said. 'I'm just an old friend of
Campion's. It sounds to me as if he's the kind of man you want. Here we
are. I'll leave you with your client, Albert.'

Mr Campion waved his hand airily. 'All right,' he said. 'If I get into
serious trouble I'll let you know and you can lock me up until I'm out
of danger.'

The Inspector departed, and as Campion paid the cabby the girl looked
about her. They were in a little cul-de-sac off Piccadilly, standing
outside a police station, but it was the doorway at the side through
which wooden stairs were visible, which bore the number 17A.

'When I was here this afternoon,' she said, 'I was afraid I was coming
to the police station. I was greatly relieved to find that your address
was the flat above it.' She hesitated. 'I--I had a conversation with
someone who told me where to find you. A rather odd person.'

Mr Campion looked contrite. 'He was wearing his old uniform, wasn't he?'
he said. 'He only puts that on when we're trying to impress people.'

The girl looked at him squarely. 'Marcus told you I was a kid with a bee
in my bonnet, didn't he?' she said. 'And you were trying to entertain me
for the day?'

'Don't mock at a great man when he makes a mistake,' said Mr Campion,
escorting her upstairs. 'Even the Prophet Jonah made one awkward slip,
remember. I'm perfectly serious now.'

After two flights the stairs became carpeted and the walls panelled.
They paused at last before a heavy oak door on the third floor. Mr
Campion produced a key, and the girl found herself ushered across a
little hall into a small, comfortably furnished room vaguely reminiscent
of one of the more attractive specimens of college chambers, although
the trophies on the walls were of a variety more sensational than even
the most hopeful undergraduate could aspire to collect.

The girl seated herself in a deep arm-chair before the fire. Mr Campion
pressed a bell.

'We'll have some food,' he said. 'Lugg has a theory that high tea is the
one meal which makes life worth living.'

The girl was about to protest, but at that moment Mr Campion's factotum
appeared. He was a large lugubrious individual, whose pale waste of a
face was relieved by an immense pair of black moustaches. He was in
shirt-sleeves, a fact which seemed to dismay him when he perceived the
girl.

'Lumme, I thought you was alone,' he remarked. He turned to the visitor
with a ghost of a smile. 'You'll excuse me, miss, being in negligee, as
it were.'

'Nonsense,' said Mr Campion, 'you've got your moustache. That's quite a
recent acquisition,' he added, turning to Joyce. 'It does us credit,
don't you think?'

Mr Lugg's expression became even more melancholy than before in his
attempt to hide a childlike gratification.

'It's lovely,' the girl murmured, not knowing quite what was expected of
her.

Mr Lugg almost blushed. 'It's not so dusty,' he admitted modestly.

'High tea?' said Campion inquiringly. 'This lady's had no food all day.
See what you can do, Lugg.'

The lugubrious man's pale face became almost animated. 'Leave it to me,'
he said. 'I'll serve you up a treat.'

An expression of alarm flickered for an instant behind Mr Campion's
enormous spectacles.

'No herrings,' he said.

'All right. Don't spoil it.' Mr Lugg retreated as he grumbled. In the
doorway he paused and regarded the visitor wistfully. 'I suppose _you_
wouldn't care for a tinned 'erring and tomato sauce?' he ventured, but
seeing her involuntary expression he did not wait for an answer, but
shuffled out, closing the door behind him.

Joyce caught Mr Campion's eyes and they both laughed.

'What a delightful person,' she said.

'Absolutely charming when you get to know him,' he agreed. 'He used to
be a burglar, you know. It's the old story--lost his figure. As he says
himself, it cramps your style when your only means of exit are the
double doors in the front hall. He's been with me for years now.'

Once again the girl subjected him to a long penetrating glance. 'Look
here,' she said, 'do you really mean what you said about helping? I'm
afraid something serious has happened--or is going to happen. Can you
help me? Are you--well, I mean--'

Mr Campion nodded. 'Am I a serious practitioner or someone playing the
fool? I know that feeling. But I assure you I'm a first-class
professional person.'

For an instant the pale eyes behind the enormous spectacles were as
grave and steady as her own.

'I'm deadly serious,' he continued. 'My amiable idiocy is mainly
natural, but it's also my stock-in-trade. I'm honest, tidy, dark as next
year's Derby winner, and I'll do all I can. Hadn't you better let me
hear all about it?'

He pulled out the letter from Marcus and glanced at it.

'An uncle of yours has disappeared, hasn't he? And you're worried?
That's the main trouble, isn't it?'

She nodded. 'It sounds quite ordinary, I know, and uncle's old enough to
take care of himself, but it's all very queer really and I've got a sort
of hunch that there's something terribly wrong. It was because I was so
afraid that I insisted on Marcus giving me your address. You see, I feel
we ought to have someone about who is at least friendly towards the
family, and yet who isn't biased by Cambridge ideas and overawed by
great-aunt.'

Campion settled himself opposite her. 'You'll have to explain to me
about the family,' he said. 'They are fairly distant relations of yours,
aren't they?'

She bent forward, her brown eyes strained with the intensity of her
desire to make herself clear.

'You won't be able to remember everyone now, but I'll try to give you
some idea of us as we are at the moment. First of all there's Great-aunt
Caroline Faraday. I can't possibly describe her, but fifty years ago she
was a great lady, wife of Great-uncle Doctor Faraday, Master of
Ignatius. She's been a great lady ever since. She was eighty-four last
year, but is still quite the most live person in the household and she
still runs the show rather grandly, like Queen Elizabeth and the Pope
rolled into one. What Great-aunt Faraday says goes.

'Then there's Uncle William, her son. He's sixty odd, and he lost all
his money in a big company swindle years ago, and had to come back and
live under aunt's wing. She treats him as though he were about seventeen
and it doesn't agree with him.

'Then there's Aunt Julia, his sister, Great-aunt's daughter. She never
married and never really left home. You know how they didn't in those
days.'

Mr Campion began to make hieroglyphics on the back of an envelope he had
taken from his pocket.

'She's in the fifties, I suppose?' he inquired.

The girl looked vague. 'I don't know,' she said. 'Sometimes I think her
older than Great-aunt Faraday. She's--well, she's "spinster of this
parish".'

Mr Campion's eyes were kindly behind his spectacles. 'On the difficult
side?'

Joyce nodded. 'Just a bit. Then there's Aunt Kitty, Aunt Julia's younger
sister. She got married, but when her husband died there wasn't any
money left. So she had to come back home, too. That's how I come in. My
mother was her husband's sister. My people died young and Aunt Kitty
looked after me. When the crash came I got a job, but Great-aunt Faraday
sent for me and I've been a sort of companion to them all for the last
eighteen months. I pay the bills and do the flowers and see about the
linen and read to the family and all that sort of thing. I play Uncle
William at chess, too, sometimes.'

'All the jolly fun, in fact,' murmured Mr Campion.

She laughed. 'I don't mind,' she said.

He consulted the letter again. 'Hold on, where does Uncle Andrew come
in? I see his name is Seeley.'

'I was coming to him. You see, he's hardly a proper uncle at all. He's a
son of Mrs Faraday's younger brother. He lost his money in the same
swindle as Uncle William, and he came to live at home at about the same
time. That must be about twenty years ago.'

'Twenty years?' Mr Campion looked startled. 'Haven't they done anything
at all since then? I say, I beg your pardon, you took me off my
balance.'

Joyce hesitated. 'They were never much good at working,' she said. 'I
don't think so, anyway. I think great-uncle realized it: that's why he
left most of his money to his wife, although she had a large fortune of
her own. There's just one thing I ought to explain before I come to the
important part. When I say great-aunt manages the show, I mean it
literally. The mode of living of the house hasn't altered since she
first set it down about eighteen-seventy. The house is run like
clockwork. Everything is just on time. Everyone has to go to church on
Sunday mornings. Most of us go by car--it's a nineteen hundred and
thirteen Daimler--but we take it in turns to go with great-aunt, who
drives in a victoria in the summer and a brougham in the winter. Old
Christmas, the coachman, is nearly as old as she is. But of course
everyone knows them and the traffic is held up, so they're all right.'

Enlightenment spread over Mr Campion's ignoble face. 'Oho! I've seen
them,' he said, 'I was up at Cambridge with Marcus, you know. I saw the
turn-out then. Heavens, that's years ago!'

'If it was a grey horse,' said Joyce, 'it's the same one. Pecker.
Pecker, the unsurpassable. Well, wait a minute. Where have I got to? Oh,
yes. Well, we all live in Great-uncle Faraday's house in Trumpington
Road, a little way out of the town. It's that big L-shaped house that
stands back on the corner of Orpheus Lane. There's a high wall all round
it. Great-aunt is thinking of having it heightened, because when people
come past it nowadays on buses they can see over.'

'Socrates Close,' said Mr Campion.

She nodded. 'How did you know?'

'One of the sights,' said Mr Campion simply. 'Or it was in my young
days. Yes, that's all fairly clear in my mind. Now we come to Uncle
Andrew.'

The girl took a deep breath. 'It really happened last Saturday week, at
dinner,' she said. 'This is rather awkward to say, but I think you'll
understand. Great-aunt treats the others as dependent children, and
naturally, as they're all rather old and very human, they're inclined to
quarrel in a sulky, old sort of way. That is, all except dear old Aunt
Kitty. She's just sweet and silly and rather helpless. But Aunt Julia
bosses her terribly. She also tries to boss the two men and they seem to
hate her, and they don't like each other at all either, and sometimes
they sulk horribly for days on end. There'd been one of these quarrels
about nothing in the air for about a week, and I think there would have
been an absolute row if it hadn't been for great-aunt, who doesn't allow
rows any more than she allows early morning tea, or the gramophone on
Sundays.

'Well, when we were having dinner--eight courses and all stiff and
solemn, you know--suddenly, just when the atmosphere had become
unbearable, and I thought Uncle William was going to forget himself and
bang Uncle Andrew over the head with a tablespoon--great-aunt or no
great-aunt; and Aunt Julia was on the verge of hysterics, and Aunt Kitty
was crying unobtrusively all over her salad, there was the most colossal
crash, apparently right in the middle of the room, you ever heard in all
your life. Aunt Kitty screamed, like a very small train, and jumped up.
Uncle William forgot himself and said "hell" or "damn" or
something--I've forgotten now. Aunt Julia was just about to settle down
into her hysterics, and Uncle Andrew dropped his fork, when great-aunt
sat up very stiff in her high-backed chair and rapped on the table with
her fingers. She's got hard bony hands, as though she were wearing tiny
ivory thimbles. She said "Sit down, Kitty," very quietly. Then she
turned to Uncle William and said, "Really! You've lived in my house long
enough to know that I will not have obscene words uttered at my table.
Anyhow, all of you ought to know that that clock weight falls down once
every fifteen years." Uncle William said, "Yes, Mother," and no one
spoke at all for the rest of the meal.'

'After dinner you opened the door of the grandfather clock,' said Mr
Campion, 'and you found the clock weight had fallen down. That's how all
we great sleuths sleuth--quickly.'

She nodded. 'There was quite a dent in the wood at the bottom of the
clock. I asked Alice--she's the housemaid, she's been there thirty-five
years--and she said great-aunt was quite right, it was fifteen years
since it fell, and she was the last person who saw the weight before it
disappeared. I know this doesn't sound very important,' she hurried on,
'but I must tell things in their right order or I shall get us both
muddled.'

She was interrupted at this moment by the arrival of Lugg, now
resplendent in a grey woollen cardigan. He wheeled a tea-wagon on which
was a miscellaneous collection of his own favourite delicacies.

'There you are,' he said with pardonable pride. 'Potted shrimp,
gentleman's relish, eggs, and a nice bit of 'am. I made tea. I like
cocoa meself, but I made tea. 'Ope you enjoy it.'

Campion waved him out of the room and he departed, muttering audibly
about ingratitude.

'I see from your description of Socrates Close that Lugg must be kept
out of this,' observed Mr Campion.

Joyce regarded him gravely. 'It would be as well,' she admitted. Over
the meal she continued her story. Her face was animated, but her anxiety
freed her from any suspicion of sensation-mongering.

'Uncle Andrew disappeared on Sunday,' she said. 'If you knew our
household you'd realize that that was extraordinary in itself. Sunday is
the day when Great-aunt Caroline has us under her eye practically the
whole time, and if anyone wanted to slip away unnoticed, Sunday would be
hardly the time to choose. It was my turn to drive in the four-wheeler.
Great-aunt doesn't change to the victoria until the end of May. Of
course we have to start twenty minutes before the others, and they
usually go for a drive round afterwards, so that we get home before
them. On that Sunday Aunt Julia and Aunt Kitty were home already when we
arrived back,' she went on. 'Great-aunt Caroline was rather annoyed at
that, because she thinks the drive does them good. She asked after the
others, and Aunt Julia said that Uncle William and Uncle Andrew were
walking home. That was rather curious in itself, because the two old
dears had been at daggers drawn for over a week. Great-aunt was very
interested. She said she hoped the exercise would do them good, and that
they would learn to live together like gentlemen and not a pair of
militia officers. She was rather annoyed at lunch time when they hadn't
arrived back, although Aunt Kitty and I had made it as late as we could.

'We were half-way through the meal before Uncle William came in. He was
very angry and hot from hurrying, and he seemed very surprised that
Uncle Andrew hadn't got back before him. As far as we could make out
from his story Uncle Andrew had insisted on walking home from church
when William didn't want to, had tried to take a ridiculous roundabout
road--I think Uncle William said through Sheep's Meadows. Finally they
quarrelled about the route.'

She paused and glanced at the young man apologetically.

'You know what stupid things people do quarrel about if they don't like
one another.'

He nodded comprehendingly, and she went on.

'Uncle William was naturally rather reticent about what was said,
because a quarrel of that sort always does sound so stupid when you
retail it afterwards. But apparently it was all Uncle Andrew's fault--or
so Uncle William said. Uncle Andrew wanted to come home via
Grantchester, which is of course an incredibly long way round. Uncle
William was cold and rather hungry, and so after walking along for a bit
quarrelling violently, Uncle William said--or says he said'--she
corrected herself hastily--'--"you go your own damned way, Andrew, and
hang it! I'll go mine." So they parted, and Uncle William came back and
Uncle Andrew didn't. And he hasn't come back yet. He's simply
vanished--there's no sign of him. He can't have gone off because he
hasn't any money. I know that, because he borrowed half-a-crown for the
collection plate from Aunt Kitty, and great-aunt never lets him have
much money anyway, because as soon as he gets it it goes to the
bookmakers.'

'You can't go by that,' said Mr Campion helpfully. 'He may have won
something. People do sometimes.'

'Oh, but he hadn't--not then!' The girl spoke vehemently. 'You see, that
isn't quite all the story. Great-aunt thinks that backing horses is not
only wicked, but rather vulgar, which is slightly more important. So to
save most furious rows all round we used to do all we could to keep
Uncle Andrew's little investments as quiet as possible; otherwise there
was a dreadful scene. He used to lose his temper with great-aunt and sit
snapping out mingy little digs at her until she got really riled and
ordered him to his room as if he'd been a schoolboy. Then he had to go.
It's all rather shocking to you, I suppose,' she added apologetically.

'Not at all,' said Mr Campion politely. 'Carry on.'

'Well, I usually go round the bedrooms every evening to see that Alice
has turned down the beds properly. Of course she always has, but
great-aunt likes me to go. When I went into Uncle Andrew's room on
Sunday night there were two or three letters on his table, ready
stamped, waiting to be posted, and one half-written one that he had been
at work on, I suppose, when the bell for church rang. So you see he
couldn't have meant to go off. You don't go away and leave half your
letters unposted and another unfinished. Anyway, I posted the letters
that were sealed, and shut the blotting-pad over the other one. One of
them was to his bookmaker. I didn't notice the others. When he didn't
come back on Monday morning great-aunt was very stern and tight about
the mouth. "Bad blood, Joyce," she said to me. "No sense of personal
discipline. Tell your Uncle Andrew to come to the drawing-room to see me
the moment he arrives." Aunt Julia and Aunt Kitty preserved a sedate
silence most of the time. I believe Aunt Kitty did say something about
"Poor wayward Andrew", but Aunt Julia was down on her like a ton of
bricks. Uncle William was consciously virtuous. I think he rather enjoys
Uncle Andrew being away. He can be as pompous as he likes without
getting a dig from Uncle Andrew to make him crumple up and look foolish.
By the end of the week, of course, we were all rather alarmed, and on
Sunday, Aunt Julia said something about going to the police and having
an SOS or something broadcast if that could be arranged. But great-aunt
was horrified and Uncle William backed her up. She said that Uncle
Andrew couldn't possibly have lost his memory, because no one even
faintly connected with the Faradays ever had done such a thing. Aunt
said she never had had the police in her house and never would, but that
if Aunt Julia was really alarmed she could write round to all the other
relatives and tactfully inquire if they'd seen Andrew. Aunt Kitty caused
a mild sensation by saying she had already done that, on the Tuesday
after Uncle Andrew had disappeared, and that no one appeared to have
heard of him. So the matter was dropped for the time being.

'Then on Monday...'--the girl was speaking faster now and her cheeks
were very bright, '...two queer things happened. First of all there
was a telegram for Uncle Andrew. Alice brought it straight to me because
that was an arrangement Uncle Andrew had with us so that great-aunt
shouldn't know about the bookmaker. Any telegram that came when he was
out used to be taken straight to me. I opened it, and it said: "Turkey
Carpet won 75-1. Congratulations. Cheque following. Syd."

'As it was from the bookmaker it didn't seem to help much, so I put it
in the drawer of the writing-table in his room. The next morning I had
to look out for the letter.'

She paused and looked at Mr Campion with unflinching youthful eyes. 'It
wasn't just curiosity,' she said, 'and I didn't steam it or anything--I
just opened it. You see, I thought that if the cheque was for a small
amount uncle might be careless about it and not trouble to come back to
collect it if it meant a row with great-aunt. But if it was a large
amount I thought he would have been watching the papers, would realize
how much he'd won and would risk any row that might be coming to him.
The cheque gave me a shock. It was for nearly seven hundred and fifty
pounds. I put it in the drawer with the telegram and I felt much
happier, because I knew--I felt certain--that Uncle would come back
during the day. But in the afternoon an idiotic thing happened that
terrified me somehow, I don't know why. A man came to see to the
grandfather clock. There'd been some delay over it. And the weight had
gone.'

She looked at the young man dubiously. 'I suppose that sounds awfully
trivial?'

Mr Campion, leaning back in his chair, regarded her solemnly through his
spectacles.

'No,' he said. 'No, I quite agree with you. That's rather a beastly
thing to happen. You searched for it, of course? Asked everybody?'

'Oh, yes, of course. We hunted everywhere. But there's no trace of it,
and, you know, they're difficult things to lose.'

Campion nodded. 'This is very interesting,' he said. 'When did you
decide to call in outside help of some sort?'

'Yesterday.' she said. 'I waited all Monday night, and all Tuesday, and
all yesterday morning, and I got more and more frightened. I went to
great-aunt, but she was still adamant about the police. In the end I
persuaded her to let me put the whole thing in Marcus's hands. He was
horribly superior about it, of course, but in the end he put me on to
you and here I am.'

'Ah, Marcus,' said Mr Campion. 'How does he come into it exactly? He's
rather immature to be the family lawyer, isn't he?'

The girl smiled. 'I suppose he is,' she agreed, 'but you mustn't tell
him that. As a matter of fact it's his father, old Hugh Featherstone,
who is great-aunt's real solicitor, but he's very old and so naturally
Marcus does most of the work.'

'I see,' said Mr Campion. 'Why exactly do you want to find Uncle
Andrew?'

The suddenness of his question startled her a little, and she answered
after a moment or two of hesitation.

'I don't, frankly,' she said at last. 'That is, not personally, if you
see what I mean. Uncle Andrew isn't a lovable character. But then nor
are any of them really, except perhaps poor Aunt Kitty, or great-aunt
herself in a terrifying way. The house is quieter without Andrew. But I
want to find him because I'm frightened. I want to know that he's all
right, that something terrible hasn't happened.'

'I see,' said Mr Campion slowly. 'I suppose you've taken some steps--you
made inquiries yourself? You've looked for him? I mean he hasn't
sprained his ankle in a ditch or he isn't staying at the "Boar"?'

She looked at him reproachfully. 'Oh, of course, I've done that,' she
said. 'But I tell you there's absolutely no trace of him. I haven't gone
round making a fuss, you know, because naturally--well, gossip gets
round fast enough in a place like Cambridge without one helping it. I'm
afraid you'll think it rather a cheek of me coming to you with so little
to tell you. But--oh--I don't know--I'm afraid--'

Mr Campion nodded. 'You're afraid that something more serious than an
ordinary accident has happened to him,' he said, and added with
disarming frankness, 'and besides, you've something else on your mind,
haven't you? Now the Inspector isn't here, won't you tell me--who was
the man in the yard who gave you such a shock?'

The girl started and turned to him, the colour very bright in her
cheeks.

'You're right,' she said. 'I was lying to you before. I did recognize
him. But he's nothing to do with this. Please forget all about him.'

Mr Campion did not answer for some moments, but remained staring in
front of him, a completely vacant expression on his face. Then he
glanced up at her.

'You may be right,' he said. 'But I think we ought to start square. I
loathe going into things with my eyes shut.'

She took a deep breath. 'He had nothing to do with it,' she said.
'_Please_ forget him. Are you going to help me or not?'

Mr Campion rose to his feet. She feared that he was debating how to make
a polite refusal without sounding sulky, when Lugg appeared in the
doorway.

'Telegram,' he said. 'The kid's waiting. Any answer?'

Campion tore open the orange envelope and spread out the flimsy sheet of
paper within.

'Hullo,' he said, 'This is from Marcus. A real Cambridge telegram. Must
have cost a fortune. Listen. "_Can you come back with Joyce at once?
Rather terrifying developments here. Would appreciate your professional
assistance in the matter. I am having your room prepared for you in
anticipation. See evening papers. The 'Comet', if I know them.
Marcus._"'

Joyce sprang to her feet and looked over his shoulder.

'Terrifying developments,' she said huskily. 'Oh, what's happened?
What's happened?'

Campion turned to Lugg, who was watching the scene from the doorway with
a certain professional interest.

'No reply,' he said. 'By the way, you might drop out and get a _Comet_.'

'The late special is in the kitchen,' said Mr Lugg majestically. 'And I
think I know what you're lookin' for. 'Arf a tick.'

Two minutes later he returned. ''Ere you are,' he observed, pointing to
a paragraph at the top of a front page column. Joyce and Campion read
the headlines together.

    FAMOUS SCHOLAR'S NEPHEW FOUND
    SHOT DEAD IN RIVER

                 *        *        *        *        *

    MISSING FOR TEN DAYS

                 *        *        *        *        *

    CAMBRIDGE, THURSDAY.
    (From our Special Correspondent.)

    The body of a man, bound hand and foot with cord and with a
    bullet wound in the head, which was taken from the River Granta
    this morning near the University bathing pool, has now been
    identified as that of Mr Andrew Seeley, nephew of the late
    Doctor Faraday, of St Ignatius College. Mr Seeley had been
    missing from his residence on the Trumpington Road for the last
    ten days. The Cambridgeshire Police have not yet decided whether
    to appeal to Scotland Yard in clearing up what may prove to be
    one of the most sensational mysteries of the year.

    The discovery, as reported exclusively in our earlier editions,
    was made by two Indian students of the University.




CHAPTER 3
'SOMETHING RATHER TERRIFYING...'


'If you don't mind pulling up here I'll get out. This is the house, you
see.'

The words were murmured apologetically into Mr Campion's ear as the
elderly Bentley sped down the London Road towards the towers and spires
of a deserted Cambridge out of term. He slowed down obediently and
glanced with curiosity at a great dark house on the opposite side of the
road. From where they sat a large portion of the building was visible
through the decorated iron-work of the drive gates.

Mr Campion's pale face wore an inquiring expression. 'It hasn't altered
outside,' he said.

'Or inside,' said Joyce. 'Does it occur to you,' she added, lowering her
voice a little, 'that there's something rather--rather awful about it?'

Somewhat to her relief the extraordinary young man at her side took her
remark quite seriously, or at any rate he appeared to do so, for he
turned again to the house and sat staring at it thoughtfully for some
moments.

It was in darkness save for the half-circle of light above the front
door, but nevertheless, in spite of the misty twilight of the late
evening, its shape and general details were clearly discernible. Built
some time in the beginning of the last century it was spacious, L-shaped
and gabled. The windows were small, however, and the creeper-covered
walls looked gloomy. The cedars on the lawn in the angle of the building
made fantastic shapes against the night sky. There was nothing
definitely unpleasant about the house, but it had some of the grim
dignity and aloofness of an institution and the sightless expression of
a house in which all the blinds have been drawn.

Mr Campion returned to the girl. 'Are you sure that you want to go in at
once?' he said. 'Why not come down to see Marcus first?'

She shook her head. 'I don't think I will, if you don't mind. They're
all a little helpless. They may need me rather badly, if it's only to
get them all hot-water bottles. Good-bye. Thank you for coming.'

She slipped out of the car before he could stop her, and he watched her
hurry across the road, through the iron gates and down the drive. He
waited until the dark hall door opened, and the sudden rectangle of
light appeared and swallowed her up. Then he let in the clutch and
proceeded down the gentle slope into the town.

A thick mist from the fens had settled over the whole valley. Campion's
big car wound its way carefully through the narrow streets, now ghostly
and deserted, save for a few townsfolk hurrying to their homes to escape
the dank vaporous air. As he drove he was conscious of a vague sense of
disappointment: this was not the Cambridge of term time, the Cambridge
he had known, but a chill medieval city, whose carved stone porticos
encircled only closed doors.

As he turned off Queen's Road and entered Soul's Court he found the
precise tidy little square in darkness also, although every house was
occupied. Here was one of those last remaining fortresses in England
where the modern code of familiarity with one's neighbours had not yet
penetrated. Here shutters were closed, and silence was preserved, not so
much in order to hide one's affairs as from a polite desire not to
embarrass one's acquaintances by obtruding any aspect of one's private
life upon them.

As he pulled up outside Number Two, Soul's Court, the gracious Queen
Anne front was dark as the others. No flicker of light escaped the
old-fashioned wooden shutters across the big lozenge-shaped windows.

He dismounted and pulled the iron bell. Heavy footsteps on the tiles
within brought him to attention and the next moment, as the door swung
open, he was met by that strange individual odour of a well-ordered,
lived-in house, a pleasant mixture of furniture-polish, warmth and
tobacco. The maid who admitted him was a gaunt Cambridgeshire woman well
past middle age, the severity of whose uniform had not been modified by
the recent emancipation of her sex. To modern eyes her starched
embroidered cap had some of the glamour of an archaic head-dress. She
allowed herself a single withered smile in the young man's direction.

'Mr Campion,' she said. 'Mr Marcus is in the dining-room. Cook has set
something cold for you.'

Campion, somewhat startled by the discovery that a decade had made no
change in the Featherstone household, or indeed in the good woman's
appearance, smiled affably and parted with his hat and coat.

'How's the rheumatism?' he said, not daring to risk a guess at her name,
but backing on the ailment.

He was rewarded by a half-hearted flush of pleasure, and a 'still hangs
about me, thank you, sir'. Then she set off down the panelled corridor,
her white apron crackling and her heavy shoes clattering on the coloured
tiles. A moment later Campion found himself confronting his old friend.

Marcus Featherstone rose from a high-backed chair by the fireplace and
advanced to meet him. He was a man of about twenty-eight and of a type
peculiar to his age and upbringing. His big figure was clothed with a
species of prearranged carelessness; so that his suit, although
well-cut, was definitely on the loose side, and his curling
reddish-brown hair was uncontrolled and a little too long for the
fashion. He was not unhandsome in a dry ascetic way, although it was
evident from his manner that he endeavoured to look older than he was.
But at the moment, in spite of his air of faint conscious superiority,
he was frankly in a state of panic. He came across the room and shook
Campion by the hand.

'Hallo, Campion, I'm so glad you came,' he said. 'I'm afraid my molehill
has turned out to be a mountain after all. Have some food, won't you?'
He waved vaguely to the dining table. He spoke jerkily, creating an odd
impression of shyness which was flatly contradicted by his casual
manner.

In the bright light from the enormous crystal chandelier over the table
Mr Campion looked even more vacant and foolish than usual, and when he
spoke his voice was vague and inconclusive.

'I read the papers before I came down,' he said. 'Quite a bad business.'

Marcus glanced at him sharply, but there was no sign of anything but the
utmost gravity in the other's face. He went on, still speaking with that
faint inconsequential air which irritated so many of his acquaintances.

'I left Miss Blount at Socrates Close. A charming girl. Congratulations,
Marcus.'

The over-bright lights, the polished walnut and gleaming silver,
combined with the slightly low temperature of the room, contrived to
foster the extraordinary formality which distinguished this odd reunion.
Campion became more and more vague, and Marcus's natural frigidity
nearly succeeded in silencing him altogether.

Mr Campion partook of some cold ham with ritualistic solemnity, Marcus
attending to his wants with grave politeness, clinging resolutely to the
hard and fast law of etiquette, which demands that a newly-arrived guest
must be instantly fed, preferably upon something cold.

As for Mr Campion, he seemed completely unaware of anything out of the
ordinary in the situation. To be summoned to a catastrophe and met with
cold ham might have been the most usual of his experiences. It was only
after he had finished his meal and accepted reverentially the proffered
cigarette that he glanced up at the other, a polite smile upon his lips,
and remarked in a slightly high-pitched conversational tone: 'Many
murders for the time of year?'

Marcus stared at him and slowly reddened disarmingly.

'Still the same damn fool, Campion,' he said explosively. 'I've had a
feeling you were laughing at me all the time you've been eating.'

'Not at all,' said Mr Campion. 'I was remembering. You got your blue for
deportment, didn't you?'

Marcus permitted himself a smile which humanized him instantly. The next
moment, however, he was his grave and anxious self again.

'Look here,' he said, 'I don't want you to think I've got you down here
under false pretences, but the fact is I'm in a hole'--he hesitated.

Mr Campion waved his hand. 'My dear fellow,' he said deprecatingly, 'of
course I'll do anything I can.'

Marcus looked relieved and, since the rheumatic maid had returned to
clear the table, suggested that they should retire to the privacy of his
study. As they went up the narrow polished oak staircase he turned to
Campion, once more apologetic.

'I expect you're rather accustomed to this sort of thing?' he murmured.
'But I may as well admit that I've got the wind-up.'

'I seldom get more than one body a quarter,' murmured Mr Campion
modestly.

The room they entered was a typical Cambridge study, aesthetically
impeccable, austere, and, save for the two deep arm-chairs before the
fire, slightly uncomfortable. As they entered, a wire-haired fox terrier
of irreproachable breeding, rose from the hearth-rug and came to meet
them with leisurely dignity. Marcus effected an introduction hastily.

'Foon,' he said. 'Written "Featherstonehaugh".'

Somewhat to his host's embarrassment Mr Campion shook hands with the
dog, who seemed to appreciate the courtesy, for he followed them back to
the hearth-rug, waiting for them to be seated before he took up his
position on the rug again, where he sat during the rest of the
proceedings with the same air of conscious breeding which characterized
his master.

Marcus Featherstone presented the unhappy spectacle of a man who has
reduced at least the trivialities of life to a thought-saving if
somewhat rigid code, suddenly confronted by a situation for which even
the best people have no set form of behaviour.

'You see, Campion,' he said suddenly, as they sat down. 'Joyce is in the
thick of it. That's the real snag as far as I'm concerned.'

Campion nodded. 'I quite understand,' he said. 'Fire ahead with the
story. Mr Seeley was a friend of yours, I suppose?'

The other looked up in surprise. 'Hardly,' he said. 'Didn't Joyce
explain? Seeley was a very difficult customer. I don't think he had many
friends. In fact, I can't think of anyone who liked him. That's what
makes it so excessively awkwardly.' He frowned and paused, but after a
moment's hesitation pulled himself together and continued. 'I first
heard about the trouble this afternoon. Old Mrs Faraday sent for my
father, but the governor's away, thank heaven. Cambridge doesn't suit
him in the winter. I went down myself and found the whole house in an
uproar. That is, in a sort of suppressed ferment.'

He leant forward as he spoke, his eyes on the other man's face.

'Mrs Faraday was taking charge herself, of course. There is an amazing
old woman for you, Campion. There were a couple of detective-inspectors
of the Cambridgeshire C.I.D. in the drawing-room when I arrived, and
they were as nervous as a knife-boy at a servants' ball. Roughly, the
facts are these, Campion. The 'Varsity doesn't come up until next
Wednesday, as you know, but there are always one or two Indian students
about out of term time. Two of these men, bug-hunting along the river
bank, found the body in the river in Grantchester Meadows, some way
above the bathing pool. It was caught up in some willow roots and may
have been there for days. That stream is deserted this time of year, and
the weather's been beastly anyhow. They gave the alarm. The police came
along, put the body in the mortuary, and discovered a visiting card that
was still legible in the wallet, also a presentation watch with the name
engraved. That sent them doubling up to Socrates Close of course, and
William Faraday went down to identify the body.'

He paused and smiled grimly. 'It's a most amazing thing,' he went on,
'but Mrs Faraday insisted on driving with him. She sat in the car
outside and waited. Think of it! She's eighty-four, and an autocrat. I'm
frightened of her myself. Then William went on to the police station,
where he made a statement. It was not until we were up at the house that
they told us about the shooting. Until then we thought he had been
drowned.'

Campion sat forward in his chair, his pale eyes vague behind his
spectacles, his tone still inconsequential.

'About the shooting,' he said. 'What happened exactly?'

The other man's expression changed and he grimaced reminiscently. 'He
was shot through the head,' he said. 'I saw the body afterwards. Shot
through the head at very close range. There might have been a simple
explanation for that, of course, but unfortunately he was bound hand and
foot and they can't find a gun. I saw the Chief Constable of the county
today; he's a friend of Father's a delightful old boy, Anglo-Indian
family, a "wallah of the old school, don't you know". Our chat was
completely unofficial, of course, but in confidence he gave me to
understand that there's no doubt about it--it's murder. In fact what he
said was: "It's murder, my boy, and damned unpleasant murder at that."'

A ghost of a smile appeared upon Mr Campion's lips and he lit another
cigarette.

'Look here, Featherstone,' he said. 'I must warn you. I'm no detective,
but of course I'm open to help. What d'you think I can do for you
exactly?'

His host hesitated before replying. 'I'm afraid it's rather a delicate
matter to explain,' he said at length, in his curiously dry voice. 'When
I first asked you to come down I had some vague idea that you might
assist me to prevent a particularly unpleasant scandal. You see,' he
went on, smiling sourly, 'this is one of the few places left in the
world where it's not only considered unfortunate, but atrocious bad
form, to have one of your relations--or clients--mysteriously murdered.
Of course it's quite beyond the bounds of scandal now,' he hurried on,
'but I feel, if I may say so without being offensive, that it would be
very useful for me to have someone I knew who was not bound by the
edicts or--well--scruples of convention to assist the police on our
side. Someone who would hold an intelligent watching brief, someone
utterly trustworthy, and, if you will forgive me, my dear Campion, for
using a revolting term, someone who is a gentleman. In other words,' he
added, unbending suddenly and becoming almost ingenuous, 'the governor
is almost eighty himself and not really capable of the job, and I've got
the wind-up.'

Campion laughed. 'I see,' he said. 'I'm to play my speciality rle--the
handy man about the trouble. I say, I hope the police like me. This
isn't the sort of idea they cotton to as rule. I'm afraid it's
practically impossible to go gaily in "assisting". However, I've got
friends, as Lugg said to the beak. I'll do anything I can for you, but I
must know the full strength. Things look rather hot for Uncle William, I
suppose?'

The other did not reply, and he went on:

'Tell me the worst. I'm a ferret for information. And after all, you
don't want me turning up with the family skeleton in my beak, wagging my
tail and shouting miaow, as it were.'

Marcus took up the poker and jabbed meditatively at a particularly solid
piece of coal. The stiffness had faded out of his manner, leaving him an
oddly defenceless person without his affectations. 'If I didn't know
you, Campion,' he began--'and why you insist on calling yourself that I
can't imagine--I should never dream of putting this to you at all. But
the thing that's frightening me is the family.'

His tone gave the two words an ominous significance.

'There's rank evil there,' he went on unexpectedly, fixing his bright
eyes on the other man's face and speaking with an intense sincerity
which finally removed any trace of his former frigidity. 'There they
are, a family forty years out of date, all vigorous energetic people by
temperament, all, save for the old lady without their fair share of
brains, and herded together in that great mausoleum of a house,
tyrannized over by one of the most astounding personalities I've ever
encountered. Imagine it, Campion, there are stricter rules in that house
than you or I were ever forced to keep at our schools. And there is no
escape.

'You see,' he went on earnestly, 'there's no vent to the suppressed
hatreds, petty jealousies, desires and impulses of any living soul under
that roof. The old lady holds the purse strings and is the first and
final court of appeal. Not one of her dependents can get away without
having to face starvation, since not one of them is remotely qualified
to earn a sixpence.

'Now in that atmosphere, although I don't like to think it, I can't help
imagining that anything might happen.'

'You are certain, in fact,' said Mr Campion, 'that it's one of the
family?'

Marcus did not reply directly. He passed his hand over his hair and
sighed. 'It's terrible,' he said. 'Andrew was not even robbed. If only
someone had stolen his wallet I should feel more helpful. Or if he'd
fallen in the river trying to take a short cut home to score off his
cousin it wouldn't matter much. However, that is all ruled out. I saw
the body. Someone tied him up and then practically blew his head off.
The police hadn't found the gun half an hour before you came. I'm afraid
there's no doubt about it. As the Chief said this afternoon, it's "a
perfectly obvious case of murder".'

'Why?' said Mr Campion.

The other stared at him. 'Well, you can't get away from the evidence,'
he said.

'Oh, no, I didn't mean that. I mean, why should anyone murder him? As
far as I can gather he seems to have been a perfectly normal old
nuisance--just like anyone else's uncle, in fact. And he had no money.
That in itself should have insured him a long life.'

Marcus nodded. 'That's the trouble,' he said. 'Of course there is this
bookmaker's cheque, but the police doctor is convinced that the body had
been in the water at least a week. So that's no good. Over and above
that, he seems to have had nothing but petty debts. That's the whole
point of it: none of the family have any money at all, except the old
lady, who is definitely wealthy. No, there's no motive that I can see.'

'Save, of course,' said Mr Campion, 'the fewer men the greater share of
plunder in the end, so to speak.'

Marcus jabbed again gloomily at the fire.

'Even that's no good,' he said. 'Strictly in confidence, of course,
though I fancy the whole family know this, old Mrs Faraday altered her
will some little time ago. Under the new provisions, Andrew Seeley, her
nephew by marriage, was to receive nothing at all. When she died,
therefore, he must either starve or depend upon the problematic charity
of his cousins. It was his own fault. _De mortuis nil nisi bonum_, you
know, but he wasn't a pleasant customer. A petty cantankerous little
person, a strain of the bounder in him. I've often felt like kicking him
myself. But then, they're not charming, any of them. The old lady has an
element of grandeur about her, and Catherine is quite a kindly soul,
although of course I do hate stupidity in a woman. What really frightens
me is that I can easily imagine myself feeling like murder if I lived in
that house.'

'Julia,' said Mr Campion, who had listened with astonishment to this
recital from the prosaic Marcus. 'How about Julia? She's an unknown
quantity at the moment. I understand from Joyce that she's a spinster
and difficult.'

Marcus considered the matter. 'I've never been able to understand
whether Julia is unfriendly and deep, or merely unfriendly,' he said.
'But to tie a man up, and shoot him, and chuck him in the river when she
was known to have been driving home from church--why, my dear fellow,
don't be ridiculous.'

'I suppose it did happen then?' said Mr Campion dubiously.

Marcus shrugged his shoulders. 'Who can tell?' he said. 'Certainly
William was the last person who saw him alive. I fancy that if the
police found the weapon William would be under lock and key by now.' He
looked up abruptly. Heavy footsteps sounded in the passage outside, and
were followed by a discrete tap on the door. The elderly maid reappeared
carrying a silver tray with a card on it, disapproval manifest on every
line of her face. She presented the tray to Marcus without a word. The
young man took the missive in some surprise, and after glancing at it
handed it to Campion.

    MR WILLIAM R. FARADAY.
    Socrates Close,
    Trumpington Rd, Cambridge.

The proximity of the man they had been discussing was brought home to
them startlingly by the primly engraved name. Campion turned the card
over to discover a few words scrawled in a flamboyant hand cramped to
fit the space.

    'Shall be greatly obliged if you can spare me a few moments.
    W.F.'

Marcus raised his eyebrows as he saw it, and pocketed the card absently.
'Show him up, Harriet,' he said.




CHAPTER 4
'THE FOUR-FLUSHER'


'This is the point to be considered, then,' murmured Mr Campion. 'Is
this "Enter a murderer", or "Innocence appears disguised as Mars"?'

There was no time for comment. Marcus rose to his feet as the door
opened to admit Uncle William.

He came bustling in, a direct contradiction to any of Campion's
preconceived ideas. Mr William Faraday was a shortish, tubby individual
in a dinner-jacket of the 'old gentleman' variety, a man of about
fifty-five, with a pink face, bright greedy little blue eyes,
yellowish-white hair, and a moustache worn very much in the military
fashion, without quite achieving the effect so obviously intended. His
hands were pudgy, and his feet, in their square-toed glac shoes,
somehow enhanced the smug personality of their owner.

He strode briskly across the room, shook hands with Marcus, and turned
to survey Campion, who had also risen. There was a gleam of welcome in
the little blue eyes which changed ludicrously to frank astonishment as
he saw the young man. Involuntarily he put on a pair of pince-nez which
he wore suspended from a broad black ribbon.

Marcus effected the introduction and the old man's surprise increased.

'Campion?' he said. 'Campion? Not the--ah--Campion?'

'One of the family, no doubt,' said that young man idiotically.

Mr Faraday coughed with unnecessary violence. 'How do you do?' he said
conciliatingly, and held out his hand. He then turned to Marcus. 'That
dear girl of yours, Joyce, came in just now,' he observed gustily.
'I--er--gathered from her, don't you know, that you might be in this
evening, and that's why I--er--ventured to call. Thank you, my boy.' He
sank into the chair which Marcus set for him and shouted to Campion, who
was moving politely towards the doorway: 'No, no--don't go, you, sir.
Nothing to conceal. I've come to have a chat with Marcus about this
disgusting scandal.'

The truculence in his tone would have been comic in any other situation,
but his little blue eyes were frightened behind the bluster and he
appeared a slightly pathetic, overheated old person, blowing and fuming
like the proverbial frog.

'This is a bad business, Marcus, my boy,' he continued as the others
resumed their seats, Marcus taking a high chair in the centre of the
group, with Foon at his feet. 'A very bad business. We shall need good
brains to get us out of it without making ourselves the gossip of the
whole county. Extraordinarily typical of Andrew,' he added, with a
sudden startling increase of volume in his tone, 'that he couldn't even
leave this world without making a lot of bother for us all. They kept me
up at the police station talking for about an hour this afternoon.'

He cast an inquiring glance at Mr Campion, and his dubiousness
concerning that young man's possible use in such an emergency was as
apparent as though he had spoken it. He returned to Marcus.

'Well, my boy,' he said, 'since your father hasn't come back yet--and
after all, he's getting on a bit now, isn't he?--what are we going to do
about it? I told the police all I knew, which was damned little, between
ourselves. They didn't seem at all satisfied, to tell you the truth, and
if I hadn't known such a thing was impossible I should have suspected
them of questioning my story, such as it was. Just like Andrew,' he
repeated. 'I can see that fellow looking up from Hades, or wherever he
is, and laughing at the precious uncomfortable situation he's got us all
into.'

Marcus, scandalized by this frank admission of the dislike which had
existed between the two men, coughed warningly. But Uncle William was
not to be detracted from the story he had set himself to tell.

'I don't know if you've told Mr--er--Mr Campion here what I told you up
at the house this afternoon about Andrew's idiotic decision to walk home
from church. I was held up behind, talking to an acquaintance in the
porch--Miss Berry--very pretty girl--and when I came out he'd sent the
car on. Otherwise I should have insisted on driving home, and then this
whole trouble would have been averted, I suppose. Although why the
police think it happened then I don't know; there doesn't seem to be any
evidence on that point. Still, as I say, you know all that, don't you,
about the words I had with the fool? I told the police that, of course.
Most extraordinary! They seemed to think that it was odd that two men of
our age should worry themselves about which was the shorter way home.
But, hang it, as I said to the man--some fearful bounder in uniform--a
fellow doesn't like to be flatly contradicted, whatever his age is.
Besides, _my_ legs were going to suffer. Andrew didn't carry the weight
I do. Bit of a weakling, Andrew. Still, I suppose we must be respectful
to the dead.'

He paused, and sat looking balefully at the two young men before him.
Marcus evidently felt no comment was possible. As for Mr Campion, he
remained grave and inconceivably vacant, his pale face blank and his
long thin hands folded on his knee.

Uncle William trumpeted his next remark. The time had come, he felt, to
get to the point.

'I came down here this evening for three reasons, Marcus,' he said, 'In
the first place there's that dear girl of ours--and yours. I don't think
that at the present time the Close is the place for her. Of course I
have no authority with young people, but I think if you could put your
foot down, my boy, we could get her to go and stay with that pretty
little American friend of hers in the town.'

Marcus was suddenly taken aback by this implication that he had somehow
neglected his duty as a fianc, and Uncle William, feeling that he had
the advantage, continued:

'When I was a young man I wouldn't see the lady whom I had honoured by
asking to become my wife mixed up with a filthy affair like this. See
about it tomorrow. Well, that's one thing. The next is a point I forgot
to tell the police, or rather I started to tell 'em, but they changed
the conversation, don't you know. About the time Andrew was supposed to
have met his end--that seems to me an important point, doesn't it to
you?'

He turned a truculent pink face to Mr Campion. That young man smiled at
him affably.

'Quite,' said Mr Campion. 'By all means.'

'Well'--Uncle William grunted--'they've got it into their heads that
Andrew died, or at any rate, was put in the water, at ten minutes past
one, presumably on the Sunday. They think that because the fellow's
watch stopped at ten minutes past one. Now I told them, or at least I
should have told them if they'd been interested, that the fellow's watch
was always at ten past one--or some other time. The fact was that it was
broken, and always had been. It wasn't a good watch. I don't know why he
had it on him. He hadn't worn it for years. I know, because I used to
twit him about it at one time.'

'You're sure the watch found on him was this particular watch?' said
Marcus suddenly.

'Oh yes. I identified it at the mortuary. Besides, it had his name on
it. Presentation watch. When old Andrew lost his money in a swindling
company twenty years ago the company gave him this watch, and a pack of
compliments besides, and that's all he got for his money. A damned dear
watch, I used to tell him. That used to annoy him.' He smiled for a
moment reflectively. 'There. Well, that settles that, doesn't it?' he
added.

'Then the third thing is rather more serious.' He coughed and looked
about him. It was evident that he felt he had some important revelation
to make. 'If you ask me, it's the most damned obvious thing I ever saw
in my life who did this,' he said.

If he expected to make a sensation by this announcement he was certainly
successful as far as Marcus was concerned. The young man sat bolt
upright, his face white and apprehensive. Uncle William leaned back in
his chair.

'Cousin George,' he said, with a certain amount of satisfaction. 'I
haven't mentioned it before to a soul. A fellow doesn't like to
incriminate a relative--however distant, thank God--and besides that,
there's my mother to consider. She can't bear the fellow. Won't have his
name mentioned. I can quite understand it. He's a blackguard. By the
way, I shall have to ask you both to use your discretion when this
matter comes out, and not let the old lady know I put you on to the
track. My mother's a very strong-minded woman, and even at my age I
shouldn't like to cross her.'

The others still waited expectantly, and he repeated the name.

'Cousin George. George Makepeace Faraday. Son of a dissolute brother of
my father's, and a constant source of embarrassment and a trial to the
family ever since the Governor--God bless him--died.'

Marcus glanced at Campion in bewilderment. 'I've never heard of him,' he
said.

'You wouldn't have.' Uncle William laughed. 'We old families, we have
our secrets, you know, skeletons like everybody else. I expect your
father knows. Don't know who from, though. My mother wouldn't soil her
lips by mentioning the fellow's name. Blackmailing four-flusher if ever
I saw one!'

'You'll have to tell us more about this, sir.' Marcus spoke with some
asperity.

Uncle William cleared his throat. 'Very little to tell, my boy, except
that it's obvious. There was some scandal connected with this fellow.
I'd never heard it. Andrew didn't know either. Of course I very seldom
speak to Catherine or Julia, but I'm sure Catherine's hare-brained and
Julia's too ill-natured to hold any unpleasant information back for two
minutes together. But mother knows, and I expect it's her secret. I had
never heard of the fellow until I came to live at home after my--er--sad
reverse when that damned scoundrel Andrew got me to invest my little all
in one of his infernal companies.' He blew his nose loudly and resumed:

'Then I discovered the fellow had a habit of descending upon the family,
usually more than half-seas over. I don't know what happened at these
visits, but he used to spend half an hour or so shut up with mother and
come out looking as pleased as a couple of fighting cocks. I can only
suppose he blackmails her, or begs damned ingeniously. Whatever it is, I
wouldn't like to try it. I don't know how the fellow gets away with it.'
There was a distinctive note of wistful regret in Uncle William's
querulous tone.

Marcus interposed. 'This is all very interesting, sir,' he ventured,
'but even supposing George Faraday is--er--not a trustworthy person,
what makes you think that he might possibly be the murderer of Mr
Seeley?'

'Because,' said Uncle William triumphantly, 'he called at the house the
day before the Sunday that Andrew got himself killed. I remember it
well, because the clock weight fell down at dinner. Very disturbing.
George walked in almost immediately afterwards, and he had a long
private interview with my mother in the drawing-room before he went off.
But he was still in Cambridge on Sunday, because I saw him from the car
on our way to church. Tight as an owl at eleven o'clock in the morning.
I hope all this won't have to come out. It's a crime here to have any
relatives who aren't actually in the services or the 'Varsity, much less
a barrel-shaped, unshaven object in a shiny blue suit and a bowler hat
who parades the town in the company of a tramp of the most obvious
kind.'

Mr Campion sat up, a glimmer of interest behind his spectacles.
Something in Uncle William's description of his disreputable cousin had
recalled a half-forgotten impression to his memory.

'Mr Faraday,' he said, 'not to put too fine a point upon it, would you
say that this cousin of yours drinks heavily?'

'Like a sponge,' said Uncle William emphatically. 'I've known men like
that before, in South Africa. Stop at nothing, and always come to a bad
end. Invariably wore an Ignatius tie, too, the bounder!'

Mr Campion's expression became almost intelligent. 'Has he got a puffy
red face, bright blue eyes, a faint air of respectability about him, and
a very deep cultured voice? Height about five feet four, inclined to
squareness?' he said.

Uncle William stared at the young man with frank admiration.

''Pon my soul, that's marvellous,' he said. 'I've heard of you detective
people--you know, about being able to tell whether a man a mile off is a
plumber, or a market-gardener, without so much as a pair of
field-glasses. Yes, that's George Faraday to a tee, and especially that
bit about a "faint air of respectability"; but that's misleading--very
misleading. There isn't a white spot in that blackguard's soul. Ah
well,' he added complacently, 'every family has its black sheep.'

Mr Campion glanced slyly at Marcus. That young man looked so startled
that Campion had not the heart to explain this apparent feat of
clairvoyance. Instead, he smiled with beatific satisfaction, and it was
evident that Mr Albert Campion, practitioner in adventure, had gone up
in the company's estimation. In fact, Uncle William became definitely
alarmed.

'Nothing much escapes you, sir,' he said, almost apprehensively.

'Spies everywhere.' The words leapt to Mr Campion's lips, but he
restrained them. 'Has this George Faraday been seen in Cambridge since
that day?' he inquired.

Uncle William leaned forward in his chair and made what he apparently
thought was a dramatic announcement.

'No,' he said. 'Not a sign of the blackguard! Of course,' he went on
dubiously, 'I don't see any motive. I don't see why he should kill
Andrew any more than any of us. Come to that, I don't see why exactly
anyone should kill old Andrew, unless they couldn't stand the sight of
him. And if that's the motive anybody might have done it. No one could
stand the sight of him. Damned unpleasant, cantankerous fellow, Andrew.
I was up at Ignatius with him thirty-five years ago. He muffed his
little-go twice, muffed his finals twice, took up medicine, muffed that,
and had a shot at the Army, but his physique wasn't good enough. Then,
of course, there was nothing left but the church, but he wouldn't think
of it--no consideration for others, or he might be in a comfortable
country living today instead of where he is, lying in the mortuary and
making all this fuss.'

He paused and glanced round him truculently.

'Sorry if I sound hard, but I have no patience with that kind of fellow.
Damned dabbler in everything. When he came into his money he lost it,
and mine too, in some infernal company promoting scheme. Muffed that so
badly that he came out of it with nothing but a presentation watch, and
even that seems to be going to cause more bother than it was ever
worth.' He rose to his feet. 'Well, I've said my say, Marcus, and if you
see fit to hand on this information about George to the police I wish
you'd do it, because I don't want to upset the old lady by blabbing
about the family. I expect you'll come up to the house tomorrow, and
you, sir.'

He turned to Campion. As he shook hands he attempted in the clumsy,
slightly rude manner of the over-bred to placate the young stranger,
whose truly miraculous powers he had just witnessed, for any lack of
attention he might have shown him.

'D'you know, when I first came in, I was rather startled. I didn't
realize that you were--er--er--in a sort of disguise, and it wasn't
until you gave me that exhibition of really remarkable reasoning that I
understood what scientists you fellows are.'

Marcus escorted him to the other, and just before he went he buttonholed
the young man to mutter breathily: 'I may come up and see you some time,
my boy. Little matter I want you to do for me. It'll keep--it'll keep.'

When Marcus returned to the study he found Campion and Foon regarding
the fire, each with the same degree of idle speculation.

'Well,' he said, taking up his place in the group, 'thank God for Cousin
George. That was rather a lucky guess of yours, Campion. How did you
manage it?'

'Astronomy, mostly,' said Mr Campion placidly. 'Judicious advertising
can make _you_ famous. Why go on looking half-witted? Let me be your
father. I saw the fellow once. He has a strong family likeness to
William; that's why I connected him with the old boy's description.'

Marcus looked up inquiringly, but Campion did not make any reference to
the incident in the London courtyard of that afternoon. Instead he put a
question.

'Had you heard of Cousin George before?'

Marcus hesitated. 'I knew there was someone,' he said inconclusively. 'I
heard it from Joyce, as a matter of fact.'

Mr Campion eyed him thoughtfully. He was on delicate ground.

'Any reason why Joyce should want to keep this fellow out of it, by the
way?' he said casually.

Marcus looked surprised. 'I don't think so,' he said. 'Why? I shouldn't
think she'd exchanged half a dozen words with him in her life.' He
sighed with relief. 'I feel thankful for small mercies,' he said. 'There
was no love lost between William and Seeley, as you see, but of course
this bad hat turning up like this rather lets William out, doesn't it?
After all, if nobody had any motive the bad hat stands out as the most
likely, doesn't he?'

'Working on the theory that it's habit that counts, I suppose,' said Mr
Campion, shaking hands suddenly with Foon, who appeared to experience an
urgent desire to do so. 'Well, it may be so.'

But in the back of his mind there remained three definite and
unanswerable questions: Why, if George Faraday had murdered his second
cousin for reasons best known to himself, had he taken the trouble to
follow Inspector Oates to the Lillyput tomb, and what could he have
possibly been going to say to him there? More extraordinary still, why
had he fled at the sight of Joyce Blount? And why, most extraordinary of
all, should she have denied all knowledge of him? Marcus's vivid
description of the possible horrors of repression and depression in
Socrates Close returned to his mind. He wondered, too, why any assassin
should tie a man up before shooting him at such very close quarters. He
moved uneasily in his chair. Mr Campion was not a man who enjoyed
horrors.

And then, of course, the next morning came the appalling news of the
second of the Socrates Close murders.




CHAPTER 5
AUNT KITTY'S SECRET VICE


Mr Campion was not a naturally early riser, and when he descended the
stairs the next morning he found that not only had Marcus preceded him,
but that he was already entertaining a caller in the breakfast-room.
Campion, who was fully aware that this was a most unusual proceeding at
Soul's Court, was somewhat startled to see a bright-eyed, red-haired
little squirrel of a young woman regarding him quizzically over a cup of
coffee. Marcus, less formal than he had ever known him, was
comparatively vivacious. He looked up as Campion came in and introduced
the stranger.

'This is Miss Ann Held, Campion,' he said. 'Ann, this is the man we're
relying on to get us out of all our troubles.'

'For Heaven's sake!' said Miss Ann Held politely. 'How d'you do?'

She was little more than twenty-five, and pretty in animation, if her
features were more unusual than conventionally beautiful. She was so
completely at ease and so startlingly American that Mr Campion
understood the total absence of any stiffness which might have been
occasioned by the unconventional calling hour. As he sat down Miss Held
explained her appearance with ingenuous friendliness.

'I saw the papers this morning,' she said, 'so I came right round to ask
Marcus if there was anything I could do for Joyce. She's one of my best
friends here. You see, there's no phone at that house, and I can't very
well call. They won't want strangers about the place with this terrible
business upon them.'

Marcus chimed in. 'I've been explaining to Ann that I'd be awfully
grateful if she'd ask Joyce to stay with her until this thing is over,'
he said. 'It wasn't a bad idea of William Faraday's.'

Mr Campion made no comment. Uncle William's solicitude for Joyce's
comfort had struck him as remarkable in such a blatantly selfish man.

'I've been telling Marcus,' Miss Held continued, her bright brown eyes
flickering at Campion, 'I'll certainly ask her, but I don't think for a
minute that she'll come. Unless maybe Marcus put his foot down.' She
glanced at the other man and smiled mischievously. 'And I doubt if even
such a product of England's finest educational system would dare do a
thing like that nowadays, with us women getting so wild.'

'Oh, I don't know,' said Mr Campion mildly. 'Marcus has had his moments.
Who supplied the statue of Henry the Eighth in Ignatius Square with one
of the most useful products of a new domestic civilization? A feat,
moreover, which had not been attempted since the time when my venerable
uncle, the Bishop of Devizes, did it in a fog, disguised as Mrs Bloomer,
then visiting the country. The lad has stamina.'

Marcus looked at Campion in scandalized reproach. 'If we're going into
reminiscences,' he said warningly, 'as I sincerely hope we're not, I
could unfold a tale or so.'

Mr Campion looked blandly innocent and Miss Held laughed.

'I just take that as another evidence of Marcus's mania for doing the
right thing,' she said. 'It's more than an instinct with you,
Marcus--it's a passion. Well, we'll leave it that you're to tell Joyce
that I'm dying to see her, which is perfectly true. Of course, I don't
want to butt in, but you know if there's ever anything I can do, the
line's just got to be indicated and I'll be off down it like a rabbit.'

She spoke with perfect sincerity, and Mr Campion beamed upon her
approvingly. As far as he could see, really attractive characters in
this affair were going to be scarce, and it was delightful to find one
at the breakfast-table so unexpectedly on the first morning of his
arrival.

It was at this point that the door of the room was opened with scant
ceremony, and instead of the gaunt and rheumatic Harriet it was Joyce
herself who appeared on the threshold.

At the first sight of her the three young people rose to meet her. She
was incredibly pale and seemed to be on the verge of collapse.

'Why, child, whatever is the matter?' Ann Held put her arm round the
girl's waist and drew her into a chair.

Joyce took a deep breath. 'I'm all right,' she said. 'It's--it's Aunt
Julia.'

Marcus paused in the act of pouring out a cup of coffee for her.
'Julia?' he demanded. 'What's the matter with her?'

'She's dead,' said Joyce explosively, and began to cry.

There was silence in the room for a moment while the other three
assimilated the shock. The practical-minded Ann Held came to the most
natural conclusion.

'Poor dear,' she said. 'I suppose all this business affected her heart.'

Joyce blew her nose violently. 'No,' she said, shaking her head. 'She's
been poisoned, I think. Great-aunt Caroline sent me down to tell you.'

Her voice died away in the room, which seemed suddenly to have become
very cold. The horror of this bald announcement, coming in the very
midst of the drama of Andrew Seeley's death, had, temporarily at any
rate, a numbing effect. This was a development that neither Campion nor
Marcus had considered.

Campion, who had never seen Julia, and was therefore only impersonally
moved by Joyce's announcement, took command of the situation.

'I say,' he said soothingly, 'do you think you could tell us about it?'

Joyce pulled herself together before his quiet matter-of-fact tone and
wiped her eyes.

'I don't know when it happened,' she said. 'Last night, I suppose, or
early this morning. When Alice went to call her at seven o'clock this
morning she was sleeping so soundly that she couldn't wake her. Thinking
she was probably overtired, she let her sleep on. She didn't come down
to breakfast at eight, and afterwards--about half-past--I took her some
food on a tray. As soon as I entered the room I saw she was ill. She was
breathing horribly, making the most dreadful noise, and the whites of
her eyes were showing. I took the food away and sent young
Christmas--that's old Christmas's son, the one who drives the car--down
to fetch Doctor Lavrock. He was rather late coming. They got the message
muddled or something, and the doctor stayed to see another patient on
the way. When he did arrive it was about half-past nine, I suppose. She
must have died practically the moment he came into the room. Aunt Kitty
and I were with her.'

She paused breathlessly and they waited patiently for her to continue.

Joyce went on, eager to get the story out. 'She never spoke and never
seemed to wake up. The breathing just stopped, that was all. The
dreadful part was that great-aunt didn't even know she was ill. You see,
she never gets up until eleven o'clock, and we hadn't thought it was
serious enough to disturb her before.'

'What makes you say it was poisoning?' demanded Marcus suddenly.

'Dr Lavrock,' said Joyce. 'He didn't say so in so many words, but it was
quite obvious what he thought from the first moment he came in. You know
him, don't you, Marcus? This isn't old Lavrock, the "veteran doctor of
Cambridge". This is his second son, the one with the beard. He's known
the family ever since he was a child; nowadays old Lavrock only comes to
see great-aunt, and this one--Henry--looks after the rest of the family.
He took one look at Julia this morning, examined her eyes, and promptly
turned Aunt Kitty, who was practically in hysterics anyhow and in floods
of tears, out of the room.

'Then he turned on me and said quite angrily: "When did you find this
out?" I told him--exactly what I told you. Then he asked me if she'd
been depressed at all lately, and if Uncle Andrew's death had upset her
and--well, I had to tell him that it had simply made no difference to
her at all, and that if anything she was rather acidly glad about it.'
She shuddered. 'It was horrible, with her lying there dead. He asked me
a lot of other questions. If she'd had any breakfast. I told him no. I'd
carried some up to her, and it was then that I'd found her so ill, and
therefore I'd taken it down with me again.

'Then he started asking the most obvious things. Had anyone received a
note from her? And we looked round the room together to see if there was
a note. While we were doing this Alice came in with a message from
Great-aunt Caroline, asking us both to go to her room immediately. The
doctor posted Alice outside Aunt Julia's door with instructions to let
no one go in, and when we got there we found that she'd been talking to
Kitty, and knew practically as much about it as we did. The doctor was
very straightforward, although, of course, he couldn't be snappy with
great-aunt. She took it amazingly calmly, sitting up in her great canopy
bed, in a big lace cap. It was when the doctor said he'd have to report
the matter at once to the coroner's officer that she sent me down here
for your father, Marcus, and if he wasn't back I was to fetch you. She
also said that if Mr Campion was here she'd be very pleased to see him.
I suppose Uncle William must have talked about you to her when he came
in last night.'

She glanced at the other girl.

'You'd better keep away from us, Ann. This is going to be a terrible
scandal. I'm as sure as I'm here that Aunt Julia never committed
suicide. She wasn't that sort. Besides, the last thing she said to me
last night was that I was to see that Ellen--that's the cook--"didn't
let her hysteria over affairs that didn't concern her interfere with the
culinary arrangements, and would I see that the bread sauce was better
made tomorrow than it was this evening." Whatever you do, you mustn't
get mixed up in this.'

Ann snorted. 'Don't talk any more nonsense like that,' she said. 'If you
expect anyone to go high-hat over a misfortune like this, you're on the
wrong track where I'm concerned. I know it's no good asking you to come
and stay with me now, but if at any time of the night or day you want to
get away from it, come right round. I'll never forgive you if there's
anything I can do and you don't ask me.'

While the girls were talking Campion and Marcus prepared for departure.
In the hall the young lawyer caught his friend's eye.

'Joyce thinks it's murder,' he said dryly.

Mr Campion made no comment. In a few moments the girls joined them and
they all piled into the huge old-fashioned car. They dropped Ann in
King's Parade and hurried on. The shock seemed to have silenced Joyce
after her first outburst, for she sat huddled up beside Marcus, who was
driving, and said nothing until they were safely in the drive leading up
to Socrates Close.

In the morning sun the old house looked much less forbidding than it had
done the night before. The virginia creeper and ivy had softened the
severity of the actual building and it was spruce and well-kept in the
Victorian manner, a rarity in these days of expensive labour.

The doctor's runabout stood before the door, and they pulled up short to
avoid it. A plump middle-aged woman in a cap and apron admitted them.
She was a little dishevelled and had evidently been crying. She greeted
Joyce with a watery smile.

'Mrs Faraday isn't down yet, miss,' she said in a whisper. 'She said
would the gentleman wait for her in the morning-room. But Mr William and
his sister are there.'

'That'll be all right, Alice,' Joyce spoke wearily.

The hall they had entered was large and gloomy. Nevertheless, the house
exuded a solid Victorian welcome, a welcome of Turkey carpets and
mediocre oil-paintings in ample gilt frames, of red damask wallpapers
and the sober magnificence of heavy brass ornaments. But to two of the
young people at least all this was subdued into a feeling of oppression:
they knew the history of its inmates, and for them this great
comfortable dwelling was a place of unknown horrors, of strange lumber
from the lives of the family which had lived there ever since it had
been built. To them it was a hot-bed, a breeding ground of those dark
offshoots of the civilized mind which the scientists tell us are the
natural outcome of repressions and inhibitions. To them the old house
was undergoing an upheaval, a volcano of long fermented trouble, and
they were afraid of what they were about to find.

They were taking off their things when the door opposite them opened and
Uncle William's puffy red face appeared in the opening. He came forward
with slightly exaggerated affability.

'I'm glad to see you--both of you,' he said. 'I suppose you've heard our
terrible news? Julia now. Come in, will you? I believe my mother'll be
down in a moment or two. She's upstairs just now talking to Doctor
Lavrock. I suppose the man knows his business.'

He escorted them into a room that would have been sunlit had it not been
for the light Holland blinds drawn down over the two windows which faced
the drive. This, it was evident, was the main family sitting-room.
Originally intended for a breakfast-room, it naturally retained a great
deal of its original furniture. The mahogany breakfast table and
sideboard shone as only well-cared-for mahogany can shine. The glazed
chintz was slightly faded with much washing, and there were dents in the
green leather arm-chairs by the immense marble fireplace which suggested
long use, each by its own particular owner. Here were water-colours,
old-fashioned too, whose nave charm was bringing them rapidly back into
fashion.

Uncle William, in carpet slippers, seemed a shabbier, less bounding
figure in the morning light, and his military air had almost entirely
vanished.

'Here's Kitty,' he said, adding in a bellowed whisper: 'I've been trying
to comfort her, poor creature.'

Aunt Kitty, quite as much flustered by the thought of meeting strangers
red-eyed as by her tragic experience of the morning, rose from a low
chair by the fire. She was a pathetic little woman, much older than her
years, which were less than sixty. She was a fussy little person,
fussily clothed in a black frock with tiny ruffles at the neck and
sleeves. She was, too, the only woman Campion had ever seen in his life
who wore a large gold watch attached by a bow-shaped gold brooch to her
hollow bosom. Her eyes were red, as also was the tip of her nose, the
only part of her face which was not wrinkled. She exuded an air of
down-trodden virtue, an example of one who has carried gentleness to
excess.

She shook hands with Campion without looking at him and turned to
Marcus, her handkerchief much in evidence.

'My dear boy, this is terrible,' she said. 'Poor Julia, last night so
full of strength and vigour, so dominant, such a tower of strength to us
all, and today lying on her bed upstairs--' She swallowed noisily and
the little lace handkerchief went to her eyes again.

The situation, although an awkward one, could have been handled
perfectly by Marcus had it not been for the untimely attitude adopted by
Uncle William.

'Come, come, Kitty,' he said, planting himself squarely in front of the
fire and resuming some of his erstwhile bluster. 'We all know that
Julia's death has been a bit of a shock, but we don't want to be
hypocritical. I won't say I'm not shaken, and I'm sorry, too. Damn it
all, she was my sister. Julia had too much of a dominant personality not
to be missed. But she was an infernally bad-tempered old woman. Let's
face the facts.'

Aunt Kitty took her handkerchief from her eyes and turned upon her
brother. She looked distressingly like a rabbit at bay. Her pale cheeks
were faintly flushed with pink, and her red-rimmed blue eyes gleamed
with righteous indignation as she dragged up the last ounce of spirit in
her composition to meet this outrage upon the decencies.

'Willie!' she said. 'Your own sister! Lying dead on her bed upstairs,
and you speaking of her as you never would have dared to have spoken of
her had she been alive to hear you!'

Uncle William had the grace to look discomforted, but his was not the
temperament to accept these reproaches with dignity or even politeness.
He blew out his cheeks, therefore, raised himself once or twice on his
toes, and blared at Kitty, who was already more than a little astonished
at her own temerity.

'I'd say anything to Julia's face,' he said. 'Always have done. She was
a damned bad-tempered old harpy! And so was Andrew--they were a pair.
This house will be a sight quieter without the two of 'em. Answer that
if you can. And don't call me "Willie".'

Marcus, who was acutely embarrassed by this display of nerves and that
offensive lack of consideration for others which one so often finds in
family emergencies, turned away and contemplated the faded water-colour
of the old gateway at Ignatius, but Mr Campion remained looking at the
brother and sister with his usual expression of friendly stupidity.

Aunt Kitty wavered, but having defied her brother once, she seemed
unable to stop.

'Julia was a _good_ woman,' she said. 'Better than you'll ever be,
William. And I won't listen to you befouling her dear memory. It isn't
as though she'd been buried. What you'll come to, _Willie_, with no
religion to help you, I don't like to think.'

Uncle William exploded. He was liverish, his nerves were on edge, and
like so many men of his type he regarded his immortal soul as something
physical and indecent.

'Call me what you like, Kitty,' he blared, 'but I won't stand hypocrisy.
You can't deny the sort of life Julia led you. You can't deny that she
went out of her way to annoy Andrew and myself with a venomous tongue
and darned greedy habits. Who used to have _The Times_ sent straight up
to her room and kept it there until three o'clock in the afternoon? She
never shut a door after her in her life, and if there was any kind of
offensive muck-raking to be done, she did it.'

Aunt Kitty summoned all her frail forces for one last retort.

'Well,' she said, her little body shaking with wrath at this outrage to
all her instincts, 'at least she never got secretly--_inebriated_.'

Uncle William stood petrified. There was a hunted expression in his
little blue eyes as they glared at her balefully from his flaming face.
When his complete suffocation appeared to be no longer probable, he
recovered his voice on a note clearly louder and higher than he had
intended.

'That's a damned lie!' he said. 'A damned ill-natured lie! A prejudicial
lie. You've got a poisoned mind, my girl. Haven't we got enough trouble
as it is without trying to saddle me with a trumped-up charge--' His
voice cracked and was silent.

Before this tirade Aunt Kitty suddenly crumpled. Sitting down abruptly
in one of the high-backed chairs by the table, her eyes turned up and
her mouth opening, she emitted the horrible pain-filled laugh of
hysteria and sat there rocking to and fro, the tears streaming down her
face, while Uncle William, forgetting himself entirely, shouted at her
in a lunatic attempt to silence her.

It was Mr Campion who stepped forward, and seizing one of the old lady's
hands, smacked it hard; at the same time admonishing her in a tone
utterly unlike his usual inconsequential murmur.

Marcus advanced upon Uncle William with no very clear plan in his mind,
while Joyce assisted Mr Campion.

It was at this psychological moment when the noise was at its height
that the door swept open and Great-aunt Faraday appeared upon the
threshold.

One cannot have an imperious personality for over eighty years without
developing at least traces of the grand manner. Mrs Caroline Faraday,
widow of Dr John Faraday, Master of Ignatius, had the grand manner
itself.

She was an old woman of striking appearance without any of the ugliness
which great age so often brings to a masterful countenance.

It is worthy of note that two seconds after her appearance the room was
in complete silence. She was very small, but surprisingly upright. It
seemed to Mr Campion's fascinated gaze that the major portion of her
body was composed of some sort of complicated structure of whale-bone
beneath her stiff black silk gown. Around her tiny shoulders she wore a
cape of cream rose point, and the soft web was caught at her throat by a
large cornelian brooch. Her serene old face, in which black eyes gleamed
as brightly as ever they had done, was surrounded by a short scarf of
the same lace worn coif-fashion and held in place by a broad black
velvet ribbon.

This display of lace was perhaps her only weakness. She possessed a vast
collection and wore examples from it perpetually. During the whole of
the terrible time which was to follow, Mr Campion, who had an eye for
such things, never saw her wear the same piece twice.

At the moment she held a thin black walking-stick in one hand and a
large blue cup and saucer in the other.

She looked like a small eagle as she stood in the doorway glancing from
one to the other of them standing before her like the naughty children
she considered them.

'Good morning,' she said in a voice which Campion found surprisingly
youthful. 'Tell me, is it necessary to make so much noise defending
yourself, William? I heard you as I came downstairs. Must I remind you
that there is death in the house?'

After an uncomfortable pause Marcus stepped forward. To his relief Mrs
Faraday smiled at him.

'I'm glad you came,' she said. 'Your father is still away, I suppose?
Did you bring Mr Campion?'

There was no wavering. Here was a woman completely in possession of her
faculties.

Marcus ushered Mr Campion forward and the introduction was made. Since
Mrs Faraday had her stick in one hand and the cup and saucer in the
other, she made no attempt to shake hands, but bowed graciously,
granting the young man one of her rare smiles.

'In a minute,' she said, 'I want you both to come into my writing-room.
But before that there is just this matter of the tea-cup. We are all
here, so perhaps it were better if it were made clear now. I have
already spoken to the servants. Will you shut the door, Marcus?'

She advanced into the room, a frail but completely commanding figure.

'Joyce,' she said, 'give me one of the little mats, will you?'

The girl opened a drawer in the sideboard and took out a small circle of
embroidered canvas. When this had been placed over the polished surface
of the table, Great-aunt Caroline put the cup and saucer down upon it.

'That,' she said quietly, but with a distinct touch of reproof in her
tone, 'I found myself in Julia's room. It was just under the bed
valance. I found it with my cane and Alice picked it up. It appears to
have contained tea.'

They were all still upon their feet, and from his position on the old
lady's right Mr Campion was able to see a few dregs and tea-leaves in
the bottom of the cup. The inquisitorial atmosphere rather surprised
him, and he did not at first understand the air of domestic friction,
the hint of a breach in the household routine. Still less was he
prepared for the immediate results of Mrs Faraday's inquiry.

Aunt Kitty, who until now had remained quietly sniffing into her
handkerchief, suddenly burst into piteous and embarrassing tears. She
came forward and stood fidgeting before her mother.

'I did it,' she said tragically. 'I made the tea.'

Great-aunt Caroline remained silent, no third person in the room would
have dared to have spoken, and Aunt Kitty continued humbly.

'Julia liked her cup of tea in the morning,' she said pathetically, 'and
so do I. I got used to it when my poor Robert was alive. He liked it,
too. Julia suggested--no, well, perhaps it wasn't she--but one of us
thought that although morning tea isn't served here we shouldn't be
doing any harm if I bought a little kettle and a small spirit stove from
Boots, and made the tea in my room every morning before Alice brought in
the hot water. We've done this for two years now. Every morning I made
the tea and took a cup in to Julia in my dressing-gown and bedroom
slippers. I took it in to Julia this morning. She--she was quite well
then. Oh, Mamma! if she put anything in her tea and drank it up I never
shall forgive myself, I never shall.'

At the end of this remarkable revelation there was another outburst of
sobbing, in which Joyce vainly tried to comfort her. Great-aunt Caroline
regarded her daughter with a mixture of disapproval, astonishment and
scorn. At last she turned to Joyce.

'My dear,' she said quietly, 'take your aunt up to her room, and if Dr
Lavrock is still in the house, ask him to give her a sedative.'

But Aunt Kitty had not plumbed the depths of her self-abasement yet.
Like many down-trodden people she had a strong, if somewhat misguided,
sense of the dramatic.

'Mother,' she said, 'forgive me. You must say you forgive me. I shan't
be myself again until I know that.'

If old Mrs Faraday had been physically capable of blushing, doubtless
she would have done so. As it was, her finely crumbled skin took on a
deeper shade of ivory and her bright black eyes were embarrassed.

'Catherine, my dear,' she said, 'you are evidently not at all well.
Surreptitious early morning tea is not the matter which is worrying Dr
Lavrock or myself at the moment.' She turned away. 'Marcus, I want you
to carry that cup very carefully for me. Mr Campion, your arm, if you
please. William, you will oblige me by remaining here until I send for
you.'




CHAPTER 6
THE GRAND MANNER


The strange procession wended slowly down the short corridor which led
off the hall to the tiny sun-trap on the south side of the building
which was Mrs Faraday's own private apartment.

Mr Campion seemed fully conscious of the honour which was being
conferred upon him by the old lady, whose yellow-white fingers rested so
lightly upon his arm. Marcus stalked behind them with the tea-cup. Mrs
Faraday raised her stick. 'In here,' she said.

Campion opened the door and stood aside to let her pass. The room they
entered was a perfect Queen Anne sitting-room, totally unexpected in
this Victorian stronghold. The walls were white panelled and hung with
delicate mezzotints. The old rose of the Chinese carpet was echoed in
the brocaded hangings which framed the gentle bow of the window. The old
walnut furniture reflected softly the bright fire in the grate. The
candlesticks were silver and the upholstery covered with needlework. A
beautiful room expressing a taste in direct opposition to the
ostentatious solidity of the rest of the house.

Great-aunt Caroline in her laces seemed the natural owner of such a
period gem. She sat down at the open bureau and turned to face them, one
small ivory hand resting on the fine Italian blotter within.

'I'll have that cup on my desk, Marcus,' she said, 'if you don't mind.
Thank you. Put it here on this piece of notepaper. It takes three years
of polishing to remove a damp ring from walnut. You may sit down,
gentlemen.'

They took up their places obediently on wide Sheraton chairs designed
for a more ample generation.

'And now,' she continued, turning to Campion, 'let me look at you,
Rudolph. You're not much like your dear grandmother, but I can see the
first family in you.'

Mr Campion flushed. The thrust had gone home and there was a faint air
of amusement in the old lady's face when next she spoke.

'My dear boy,' she murmured, 'very old ladies only gossip among
themselves. I shall not expose you. I may say I quite agree with your
people in theory, but, after all, as long as that impossible brother of
yours is alive the family responsibilities are being shouldered, and I
see no reason why you shouldn't call yourself what you like. Emily, the
dowager, and I have corresponded regularly--why, for the last forty-five
years--so I have heard all about you from her.'

Mr Campion faced the discovery of his more intimate affairs with
remarkable equanimity.

'My grandmother and I,' he said, 'are partners in crime, in the eyes of
the family at least. According to my mother, she aids and abets me.'

Great-aunt Caroline nodded. 'I had gathered that,' she said primly. 'Now
to this terrible business. I understand from what I can make of Joyce's
story that Marcus has invited you to assist him in this case. I should
like you to act for me directly, if you will. The spare room will be
prepared for you and the firm of Featherstone will be instructed to pay
you one hundred guineas if you remain in my employ for less than one
month. Be quiet,' she added sharply as Campion opened his mouth to
speak. 'You can refuse afterwards if you wish.'

'I am eighty-four years old. You will understand, therefore, that in an
emergency of this sort I am compelled to use my brain and other people's
energies to protect myself and my household. I must also guard myself
against such emotions as anger, grief or excitement which I have not now
the strength to support.'

She paused and regarded them with a grave placidity, which made her
somehow inhuman. Mr Campion realized that here was a woman of no
ordinary strength of character, and her remoteness might have jarred
upon him had it not been for the sudden illumination of her next remark.

'You see,' she said quietly, 'it is very necessary that someone in this
household should consider things from an intelligent point of view. My
poor children have not been blessed with brains, and that is why I have
to conserve what strength I have in this way. You may think my attitude
towards Julia's terrible death this morning is unnecessarily stoical,'
she went on. 'However, I am past the age when it is proper for one to
preserve the decencies by deceiving oneself. Whether it is because Julia
has lived with me longer than any of my other children, or whether it is
because she resembled my husband's mother, who was an irritatingly
foolish woman in a generation when foolishness was fashionable, I do not
know, but Julia has always struck me as possessing more than her fair
share of stupidity and uncharitableness. So that although I am surprised
and shocked by her death, I am not deeply grieved. At my age death loses
much of its horrifying quality. Have I made all this quite clear?'

'Yes,' said Mr Campion, who had removed his spectacles and with them
most of his air of fatuity. 'I understand. You want me to act as a kind
of buffer between you and the shocks which we can only reasonably
suppose are in store for us all.'

Mrs Faraday shot a swift glance at him. 'Emily is right,' she said. 'You
seem to be a very intelligent young man. I take it we have settled this
first point, then. Now I want you to understand that I have nothing to
conceal--that is from the police. I want to give them every assistance I
possibly can. In my experience nothing is ever gained by vigorous
efforts to hush up trouble. Also, the quicker a thing is over the sooner
it is forgotten. There is this matter of the newspapers, though.
Reporters are beginning to besiege the house already. The servants have
instructions, of course, to say nothing, but I do not consider it good
policy to refuse all information to the newspapers. This, in my
experience, antagonizes them and they are apt to invent far more
suggestive information than any they could possibly glean from oneself.'

Once again she shot that bird-like inquiring glance at her audience, and
appeared satisfied when they nodded their comprehension.

'I don't intend to see these people myself, you know,' she went on,
smiling a little at such an eventuality. 'And of course William
certainly must not see them. I hope you will arrange all that for me,
"_Mr Campion_". You will also attempt to find out who is responsible for
these outrages, although I am not insulting you by suggesting that you
behave like a policeman. However, what I particularly want of you is
information as it arrives, so that I may not be overwhelmed by the
results of it unprepared. And, incidentally, of course,' she went on in
her precise slender voice, 'I need the presence of an intelligent person
in the house from whom we may expect a certain amount of protection.
Because,' she continued, 'it seems to be quite obvious that, if these
two murders emanate from this family, as I believe they do, then there
is only one of us who is safe. In fact, unless some solution is arrived
at it is only a question of time who is to be murdered next.'

Her small voice died away and the two young men sat staring at this
remarkable impersonal old lady as she sat in her gracious little room
making these extraordinary statements.

It is so often that the emotions and the affections outlive the
intellect in the very old that the effect of encountering an exact
inversion of this process is apt to appear startling.

Great-aunt Caroline next turned her attention to Marcus. 'I am not
waiting until your father comes to make my arrangements,' she said,
'because I was calculating your age this morning. You must be nearly
thirty, and I see no reason why you should not be even more useful than
he, who, to my mind, has never really understood the art of growing old.
Besides,' she added, with a touch of grimness in her tone, 'if a man is
not worthy of responsibilities at thirty there is very little likelihood
of his ever attaining to that state. William and Andrew are distressing
examples of this. I remember putting this maxim to Mr Gladstone in this
very room many, many years ago. He said: "Madam: if I admitted that I
should never have become a politician." But after dinner, in the
drawing-room, he told me that I was quite right.'

Just for a moment as she spoke there was a trace of the Caroline Faraday
of the 'eighties, the brilliant hostess who had made her husband, that
bad-tempered but erudite old scholar, the remarkable figure he had been.
It was only for a moment, however; the next instant she was the little
black eagle again, shrewd and impersonal.

'First of all,' she said, 'I must tell you, I suppose in confidence,
that yesterday I had a short talk with my old friend's son, the Chief
Constable of this county, and he promised me that everything should be
done to clear up the mystery of Andrew's death. So that I fancy that
Scotland Yard will have been asked to assist this morning. That is the
first thing. But the important question at the moment is, of course,
poor Julia.'

She was silent for a moment, and they sat waiting.

'Doctor Lavrock,' she said at last, 'who has nothing but longevity in
his family to make him in any way extraordinary, is convinced that it is
suicide. I have no doubt,' she went on placidly, 'that he has a theory
that poor Julia, after having been responsible for Andrew's death, was
overtaken by remorse and committed suicide. Of course, no one but an
unimaginative fool who knew neither of the two people concerned would
credit such an idea for a moment. However,' she added, eyeing the young
men judicially, 'should nothing more occur and the police come to that
conclusion, I see no reason why we should force an alternative upon
them, at least in so far as the question of suicide is concerned.'

Mr Campion leant forward in his chair. 'Mrs Faraday,' he said
diffidently, 'why are you so sure yourself that suicide is not the true
explanation of Miss Julia's death?'

Great-aunt Caroline sighed. 'Julia and Andrew disliked one another
bitterly,' she said, 'and if Andrew had murdered Julia and then
committed suicide, I do not think I should have been so astonished. But
that Julia should kill herself is unthinkable. She clung to life as
though she had ever got anything out of it, poor creature, and she
certainly had not the physique, nor the opportunity, nor even the
strength of character to tie Andrew up and then shoot him and drop him
into the river. She was a year older than Catherine, remember, and a
heavy cumbersome person who was terrified if she so much as got her feet
wet. As to the actual facts, theorizing apart, Doctor Lavrock has
diagnosed acute conium poisoning, and the remains of the dose which
Julia took are probably in that cup. You can see for yourselves that
there is a sediment there.'

She indicated the large blue tea-cup with a small bony hand.

'Doctor Lavrock wanted to take it away with him,' she said, 'but I told
him quite firmly that he could leave it safely in my care, and I would
hand it over to the police immediately they arrived, which should be at
any moment.'

The grim smile which flickered across her lips testified to a battle
won. They did not attempt to speak, and she went on, still speaking
quietly and in the same impersonal tone.

'My inquiries,' she continued, 'some of which you heard, have revealed
one reasonable explanation and one rather curious fact, which may or may
not be interesting. Catherine has confessed, however theatrically, to
the making of early morning tea every morning for the last two years, a
cup of which it was her habit to carry in to Julia, who has the room
next to hers. Alice, the housemaid, it appears, knew of this custom. I
was talking to her upstairs before I came down to find poor William
making that disgraceful scene. Alice, it seems, used to collect the cups
from under the two beds, wash them in the bathroom and return them to
the little cupboard, where Catherine kept her paraphernalia.'

There was a distinct touch of contempt in the old lady's voice on the
last few words and she answered a criticism which she felt might be
passing through their minds.

'Tea-drinking in the early morning has always appeared to me as an
indulgence for which there is nothing but spinelessness as an excuse,'
she said. 'I have never had it served in my house and I never shall.'
Having made herself quite clear upon this point, Aunt Caroline returned
to the more important matter on hand. 'The second fact I have discovered
is strange,' she said. 'Alice, a most reliable and intelligent woman for
her class, tells me she has noticed a sediment in Julia's cup every
morning for the past six months. Therefore, until the dregs in this cup
on my desk are properly analysed by the police, there must remain some
element of doubt as to whether Julia was poisoned in her early morning
tea or not. Also I must assure you that Julia was not in the habit of
taking drugs. That is the sort of secret which no one could keep in a
household like this. Well,' she paused and her quick black eyes rested
on Mr Campion's face, 'may I expect you this evening? We dine at eight.'

Campion rose to his feet. 'I shall be delighted to do all I can, Mrs
Faraday,' he said earnestly. 'But if I am not to be a source of
embarrassment to you I must know at least of the existence of the
pitfalls into which I may stumble. Besides your immediate household, was
there anyone else visiting this house round about the time of Mr
Seeley's disappearance?'

Great-aunt Caroline hesitated and her lips moved ruminatively. Finally
she shrugged her shoulders.

'You have heard already of George Faraday,' she said. 'I was afraid this
would have to come out. Yes, he was in this house the night before
Andrew disappeared. I also saw him in the town when I drove to church
the next morning.'

An unusual sternness had come into the old face.

'I do not wish to have his name mentioned in this case if it can be
avoided,' she said. 'I do not think for a moment that he could have had
any possible interest in Andrew's death. Certainly he could expect no
material benefit from it. The only death which could possibly assist him
in any way is my own. Under my will he receives a small annuity, subject
to his emigrating to Australia and payable only while he stays there. On
the Saturday night before Andrew died he came to borrow money from me
and actually obtained ten pounds. That is all I wish to say about him,
save that he has no permanent address of which I know.'

It was quite clear to both men that any further questioning upon this
point could have only one result, and Mr Campion at least appeared
satisfied. His next question, however, was also of a delicate nature.

'Mr William Faraday...' he began, and hesitated.

Once more Great-aunt Caroline came to his rescue. 'William drinks a
little,' she said, 'and so did Andrew.' She spoke quite calmly and they
suddenly realized that she had reviewed the situation in all its aspects
and was taking them into her confidence as aides and allies, because she
felt that in this way only could she muster enough strength to meet the
storm which had broken over her.

'Neither of them was aware that I had any knowledge of this,' she said.
'William, I fancy, is the worse of the two. There is also the
possibility'--she lowered her voice and spoke with great
deliberation--'that William, who is both physically and mentally
incapable of murder, may know something about Andrew's death, although I
am certain he was not a party to it. But he was about twenty minutes
later for luncheon on the Sunday either than he realized or than he
cares to admit, and he has not yet been able to give me a satisfactory
explanation for this. I shall look forward to seeing your father when he
does arrive, Marcus, and you, Mr Campion, I shall expect to see at my
dinner table this evening.'

This was patently a dismissal, and the young men rose to make their
departure. In the corridor outside Marcus shot a sidelong glance at
Campion.

'What do you make of it?' he murmured.

A faint smile spread over Mr Campion's pale face. 'I hope I suit,' he
whispered.

In the hall they caught a glimpse of a tall, gloomy individual being
shown into the library by the startled Alice, while two of his minions
remained stolidly in the passage. Campion's face lighted up.

'Ah, the Boys in Blue,' he said. 'And Stanislaus Oates at the head of
the inquisition. That's the first piece of luck we've had yet.'




CHAPTER 7
THE CONJUROR


Mr Featherstone, senior, allowed a decent pause to elapse after his
son's narrative came to an end and then, arising from his chair, walked
slowly across his big private office. When he turned, his
extraordinarily handsome face wore an expression of deepest regret. Both
Campion and Marcus, the only other occupants of the room, were startled
by his quiet observation.

'So it's come,' he said. 'I wondered when the bad blood in that family
was going to show. Forty-seven years have I been in practice and it had
to happen at the end of the time. Well, I'll go down and see Mrs Faraday
this afternoon. You say she is taking complete control? An amazing
woman--always has been. She is as shrewd and quick as ever she was, but
I don't think there's a spark of feeling in her body, unless it's for
that little girl of yours, Marcus. It's a disgraceful
business--disgraceful.'

He paused before one of the long windows and looked down upon Regent
Street below. The light falling upon his face revealed still more
clearly his peculiar nobility of countenance. Mr Featherstone senior's
good looks, a secret vanity of his, were largely responsible for his
many years of successful practice, and now, at the age of seventy, he
loomed a tall and prophetic-looking personage. His white hair and beard
were true silver. His eyes were grey like his son's, inclined to
coldness, and he missed a good deal of what passed before him by
refusing steadfastly to wear spectacles. He turned suddenly upon the two
young men.

'You don't remember old Faraday, of course,' he said. 'He would be--let
me see now--a hundred odd if he were still alive. He was the eldest of a
large family and the only one of them who was any good at all. The
others ran right off the rails. John was a learned man. All the goodness
in him seemed to run to that. Quite the opposite of his wife. She has
intelligence, a different matter--never confuse the two.' He paused and
went on slowly: 'I don't think she actually disliked him. She had a very
great respect for him and made a fetish of his importance in a way. Even
nowadays when I go there I'm always afraid I shall sit down by mistake
in that yellow chair in the library.'

Campion looked up inquiringly and Marcus explained.

'I ought to have warned you,' he said. 'In the library at Socrates Close
there's a big yellow brocade-covered chair. Avoid it like the plague. It
was old Faraday's own chair, you see, and as far as I know no one has
ever sat in it since he died, certainly not in Mrs Faraday's presence.
Of course it's a pitfall for the unwary. It ought to be labelled. But,
fortunately, they don't use that room except on state occasions.'

'I will make a note of the yellow peril,' said Mr Campion.

Old Mr Featherstone turned to look dubiously at the young man who had
just spoken.

'You, Campion,' he said. 'I don't know what good Mrs Faraday thinks you
are going to be to her. I don't know what you think you're going to do.
In my experience, and in everyone else's for that matter, the only way
of making an appalling affair like this even bearable is to deal with it
in a routine manner. No amateur jiggery-pokery ever has done anybody any
good.'

Mr Campion accepted this gratuitous insult as if it had been a
compliment of the highest order. He smiled affably.

'I'm to be a buffer. Not an old buffer, you know, but a kind of pad--a
mechanical apparatus for deadening the forces of a concussion, as in
railway carriages. In other words, a sort of private secretary, I
suppose.'

Old Featherstone turned a cold and near-sighted eye in his direction.

'Don't behave as though you came from Oxford, my boy,' he said. 'Both
the 'Varsities engender fools, but thank heaven we endeavour to breed
our own special type.'

Marcus glanced apprehensively at Campion. 'I'm afraid my father is
forgetting your reputation,' he murmured apologetically.

But Featherstone, senior, had no use for any reputation that was under
fifty years old.

'I warn everybody,' he said testily, 'this affair is pitch. And in my
experience, if you touch pitch you get your hands dirty. I am only
concerned in this affair at Socrates Close in an official capacity.
There are times when the best of us must be selfish. Marcus, you're in
it even more deeply. I suppose you can't get Joyce away? She's not
exactly a relative, you know.'

For the first time since Campion had known him a gleam of genuine anger
came into Marcus's eyes.

'Joyce will do what she thinks and I shall abide by her decision,' he
said uncompromisingly.

The old man shrugged his shoulders. 'There's no fool like a young one,'
he observed, 'whatever they say.'

Mr Campion, who was becoming used to family friction by this time, was
prepared for further skirmishes, but the proceedings were cut short by
the entrance of an elderly clerk with the announcement that the car was
waiting. A short period of bustle followed, while the old man was safely
arrayed in his coat and hat and a largish woollen muffler and escorted
safely downstairs into his chariot. Marcus came up the stairs looking
relieved.

'Look here, Campion,' he said, 'd'you mind coming into my room? It's
more comfortable than this one. Father will be gone for hours. By the
way, when do you think this policeman is liable to turn up?'

'Quite soon now,' said Mr Campion, getting up and walking across the
passage with his friend. 'He should have got the note I left almost
immediately, and when he's finished his preliminary investigations he'll
come toddling over here, if I know him. You'll like him. He's one of the
best. I've known him for years. By the way, do you put all those famous
names on the boxes in there to impress the unwary visitor?'

Marcus did not smile. 'That's the only advertising they let us do,' he
said. 'Here we are.'

The room they entered was the smallest of the three which composed the
offices of Featherstone and Featherstone. The house, a converted
Georgian residence, was owned by the firm, and the other businesses in
the building were of an order and propriety to make them suitable
neighbours to such an eminently reputable concern.

It was a square comfortable room, light and airy, lined with panelled
bookcases of polished mahogany and furnished with the same appropriate
wood. Marcus sat down at his desk and Campion took up a position in the
leather arm-chair before the fire.

'We shan't be disturbed in here,' Marcus promised. 'Important visitors
are taken into the old boy's office. It's more impressive. Joyce and Ann
are meeting here at about half-past four. I said I'd give them a cup of
tea.' He passed his hand nervously over his hair. 'This business has
upset everything,' he said. 'It makes you see life from an entirely
different angle somehow, doesn't it?'

'Life in the newspaper sense,' observed Mr Campion, 'is always seen from
this point of view. Uncle William must be regarding himself as "today's
human story" by this time.'

'Muckrakers!' said Marcus savagely. 'I always read the murder cases
myself, but when it comes to seeing people you know in print it's rather
different.'

Campion nodded absently. 'I'd like to know just how that woman came to
poison herself,' he said slowly.

The other man stared at him. 'You think it was suicide?' he said. 'I
thought--?'

Campion shook his head. 'Oh no,' he said. 'That's the last thing I
should say, on the face of it. But it's evident that Miss Faraday took
quite passively a large dose of poison, and this could hardly have been
done by mistake in the ordinary sense of the word. The sort of poisons
that are kept in large quantities in a household are always of the
corrosive kind, spirits of salt, ammonia, carbolic, things quite
definitely "not to be taken". Besides, I've never heard of a suicide in
which the door of the room was not locked. People like to be alone when
they kill themselves. It's a purely personal affair, anyway.'

'Quite,' said Marcus, and was silent.

It was during this pause in the proceedings that the elderly clerk
appeared, to announce that a Mr Oates was inquiring for a Mr Campion.

The two young men sprang to their feet as the Inspector came in. That
lank, slightly melancholy figure looked even more dejected than usual as
he hesitated just inside the door. Campion grinned at him.

'Come for the body?'

The Inspector's slow childlike smile, which altered his entire
personality, dispelled the discomfort of what might otherwise have been
a solemn introduction.

'I got your note, Campion,' he said. 'I'm glad to see you, Mr
Featherstone.' He took off his raincoat and sat down in the chair Marcus
indicated, leaning back gratefully. As he looked at Campion his smile
broadened. 'And I'm glad to see you, too, all things considered,' he
said affably. 'I suppose you're on the right side of the law?'

'I'm not murdering this week, if that's what you suggest,' said Mr
Campion with dignity.

Marcus looked a little shocked by this conversation, and the Inspector
made haste to explain. 'I'm always running into this man in business,'
he said, 'and his position is generally so delicate that I never know
whether I dare admit to his acquaintance or not.' He turned to Campion.
'I hear from Mrs Faraday,' he said, 'that you are her personal
representative, whatever that may mean. Is this true?'

Campion nodded. The Inspector paused, and Marcus, realizing that
whatever the Inspector had to say he had no intention of saying it
before him, tactfully withdrew to his father's office. As the door
closed behind him Stanislaus Oates heaved a sigh of relief and took out
his pipe.

'This being the old lady's representative,' he began cautiously, 'does
that mean you have some secrets to keep?'

'No,' said Mr Campion. 'Apparently I am all out to "apprehend the
perpetrator of this dastardly outrage and bring him to the punishment he
so justly deserves".'

The Inspector grunted. 'On the level?' he demanded.

'Sure. You're O.K. by me, as we say in the Senate,' said Mr Campion
idiotically. 'What do you make of it? Dogged anything up yet?'

The Inspector rubbed his chin unhappily. 'Damn all,' he said. 'I knew my
luck was going to be out. I've been expecting trouble for days. Then
there's that coincidence, me knocking into you with this girl Joyce
Blount yesterday. A genuine coincidence always means bad luck for me;
it's my only superstition.'

Campion sat back in his chair, eyeing his friend owlishly. Now, he felt,
was hardly the time to acquaint the Inspector with the even more
important side of the coincidence in question. Stanislaus Oates went on
grumbling.

'Just because I speak twelve different varieties of Yiddish and can
carry on a conversation with a tight Swede sailor, all of which are
invaluable in the East End, I get promoted and promptly sent down on a
case like this,' he began. 'I tell you, Campion, I can handle an East
Lane harridan with Czech and Chinese blood in her veins, but that Mrs
Faraday is beyond me, you know. She speaks another new language I've got
to learn. I didn't do so badly at first. In fact, when she came into
that great library I thought I was going to like her. But as soon as we
sat down and got started she froze solid--'

'And you sat there in a yellow brocade chair, looking uncomfortable, no
doubt,' said Mr Campion.

'Yes,' admitted the Inspector absently, and sat up a moment later, his
eyes narrowing. 'Here! No monkey tricks, Campion,' he said. 'How d'you
know it was a yellow brocade chair? It looked imposing. That's why I
chose it.'

'Big policeman makes fatal error,' said Mr Campion laughing, and went on
to explain.

'Well I'm hanged,' said the Inspector ruefully. 'But who's to know a
thing like that? It's as bad as a caste system. Oh well, that accounts
for that. How about you? Have you got any line on this yet? This death
this morning, you know, that's murder whatever this doctor fellow says.
Natural inference points to the other sister, the little snivelling one,
Catherine Berry. That doesn't look as though it's going to lead us
anywhere.' He paused and shook his head like a puzzled dog. 'As for the
other case,' he continued, 'it's only reasonable to look toward the
household for a motive. There's William, the pompous pink-faced party,
there's the old lady herself, there's Joyce Blount. Does any of these
look to you like a murderer? Or any of the servants, for that matter?
The whole thing doesn't make sense. I ask you, who's going to tie a man
up and then shoot him, or shoot a man and then tie him up? It's
ridiculous. I had a look round this morning and took the ordinary
depositions. There are one or two interesting things in the house, but
not much in the people.' He frowned, and as Campion did not speak went
on. 'I think I see how that thing this morning was done, but I won't
commit myself until I have proof. Well, this is the first time you and I
have been on a case together, Campion, since nineteen twenty-six. I
don't mind telling you I'm glad to see you.'

'Nicely said,' said Mr Campion. 'What is at the back of your mind? What
are you hoping I'll say?'

The Inspector took out a notebook. 'My shorthand man took down the
verbatim statement,' he said, 'but this is just my own personal stuff.'

'Filled with comic faces, mostly, I see,' said Mr Campion, glancing over
his shoulder.

Stanislaus grunted. 'About this cousin,' he said. 'Cousin George
Makepeace Faraday. I heard about him from William. He was in the
vicinity when the first chap died.'

Mr Campion resumed his chair and leant back. He knew from experience
that it was no use trying to suppress anything of which Stanislaus had
got wind.

'I say,' he said, 'I have no actual proof of this, so I suppose it isn't
much good to the trained mind, but do you remember that fellow who
tackled you yesterday, the fellow who bunked when he saw Miss Blount? I
think that was Cousin George. Didn't you notice how extraordinarily like
William he was?'

The policeman looked at him incredulously. 'That would just make it
impossible,' he said. 'It'd strengthen that coincidence, too, and that
always means trouble. We can verify it, though. There's always the girl.
What's she hiding, anyway? I say, you don't think that she...?'

'My dear man, why should she? She stands to get most of the money in any
case,' said Mr Campion hastily. 'No, there's nothing in that. We're
getting on too fast. There's the scandal connected with this Cousin
George, remember, and a scandal in this crowd is very important, let me
tell you. It may be something that would strike the ordinary man as
comparatively slight. Cousin George may have had rickets as a child, or
T.B., or been divorced. You're looking him up, I suppose?'

'Bowditch is on the job now. He's the bright specimen they've given me
to keep me company.' The Inspector stirred restlessly in his chair. 'Oh,
I know this is going to be a stalemate of a case and these are just the
sort of people who have influence.'

'And that means the workhouse,' said Mr Campion. 'The girl-wife in the
gutter and my godson having to forgo his university career. Sounds like
a film.'

At the mention of his son the Inspector's good temper miraculously
returned.

'Four years old,' he said proudly. 'Sings like anything.' His smile
faded and he returned gloomily to the matter in hand. 'They're a rum lot
up there, Campion,' he said. 'Something very queer in that house. We're
up against a lunatic, of course, one of those "sane" lunatics you can't
spot. I had one down in Stepney last year. Philanthropic doctor chap. It
took me six weeks to spot him, and we should never have fixed it on him
if he hadn't gone right off his head and come across with the whole
story under a little pressure. But the thing I don't like about this
case down here is what I call the conjuring trick element.' He was
leaning forward in his chair, his heavy lids drawn down over his grey
eyes, and Mr Campion, who knew him and liked him, listened attentively.
'When you see a conjuring trick performed,' the Inspector continued, 'a
genuine conjuring trick--you know the sort of thing I mean, a fellow
cutting a woman in two upon the stage or fastening a nigger in a basket
and driving swords through the wickerwork--you are being offered
circumstantial evidence of murder of the most damning kind, and yet no
one is surprised when the lady walks on to the stage or the nigger
climbs out of the basket. Now,' he went on triumphantly, 'the
circumstantial evidence in this case is rather like that, only we know
that the unfortunate man Seeley won't come trotting home from the river,
nor will Miss Julia Faraday drive up to this office this afternoon. Mrs
Catherine Berry carried a cup of tea to her sister this morning. That
sister promptly died from the homely conium poison, traces of which I
have no doubt will be found in the cup. William Faraday went for a walk
with his cousin Andrew Seeley; Andrew Seeley never came back. That's
quite strong circumstantial evidence; not conclusive, but definitely
strong. They quarrelled, too, of course. Now, neither Mrs Berry nor the
man William appeals to me as a probable murderer, but then only about
four per cent of murderers hanged are of the killer type. Cousin George
looked more probable, although I don't see how he could have done it.'

He sighed and regarded Campion thoughtfully.

'You know,' he said, 'where I'm out of my depth again is that I don't
see how these people's minds work. Frankly, we're not used to this sort
of witness in a case. How many murders do we get in this class in
England in a year? It's navvies, whizz-boys, car thieves, small
tradespeople who run off the rails and commit murder, and I can talk to
them. These people are more difficult. I don't see how their minds work.
Even the words they use don't mean the same. For instance, half that old
lady said today when I was sitting in her yellow chair didn't convey
anything to me, yet she's no fool, I can tell that. D'you know who she
reminds me of, Campion? Ever seen Justice Adams on the bench? Why, she
might be him, especially with that lace thing over her head.'

Campion grinned, and the Inspector took a carefully folded piece of
paper out of his wallet and handed it to Campion.

'Here is something you can give me a line on, perhaps,' he said. 'What
does this mean to you? I found it in Andrew Seeley's room, folded in the
blotter in the top drawer of the writing-desk. Miss Blount told me she
put it there when Seeley failed to return home on the Sunday night. Is
there anything in it that I may have missed, or does it mean exactly
what it says it means?'

Campion unfolded the paper. It was a half-finished letter written in a
small tight hand that yet had in it a great many unnecessary flourishes.
The address, 'Socrates Close', was emblazoned at the top of the sheet in
old English print. It was dated Sunday 30 March, and ran:

    _My dear dear Nettie_,

    _It is so long since I have heard from you that I feel almost
    ashamed to intrude myself upon you now. Life here is very
    difficult. I fancy we all get a little more trying as we grow
    older. Aunt's vigour is extraordinary; you would see very little
    difference in her._

    _W. rather alarms me. His health, for I suppose we must call it
    that in all kindliness, is getting worse. I am afraid I irritate
    him. No one is so annoying as the man we do not quite see
    round._

    _When I think of you in your beautiful garden, with Fred smoking
    his pipe on the terrace, I can hardly restrain the impulse to
    pack my things and run down to see you both for the week-end._

    _Now I must be off to church to hear the Reverend P. rasping
    through the lesson--Genesis 42, Joseph and his Brethren--very
    appropriate, if you remember. I shall finish this when I return.
    It is not my week to drive with aunt, thank heaven._

    _Au revoir._

Campion refolded the letter and handed it back to the Inspector, who did
not replace it in his wallet, but sat looking at it, his forehead
puckered.

'Well, it isn't the letter of a suicide,' he said, 'is it? And it isn't
the letter of a man who thought he might be murdered. Do you see
anything else in it?'

'In what way?' inquired Mr Campion cautiously. 'You are not referring to
"your character from your handwriting", by any chance? As far as the
actual matter contained is concerned, it looks as though he was trying
to cadge a free week-end. From the handwriting I should say that he was
in a hurry, had an excitable nature, was conceited, secretive, energetic
and probably a drinker. For further information, read my little pink
book entitled "Character from Characters, or How to tell your Lover by
his Note". But I don't suppose that really helps you?'

The Inspector answered absently. He was still staring at the
half-finished letter in his hand.

'It's not evidence,' he said, 'if that's what you mean. That chap Seeley
must have been a funny bloke. No one seems to have been able to stand
the sight of him. You have a look at his room, too, if you get the
chance. I don't mind you going in. I'm not an imaginative man, but I
didn't cotton to the personality of that room. I wasn't attracted to
Miss Julia's either. But his was more extraordinary. There's a rum taste
about that house altogether. Oh, by the way, there's one other funny
thing about this letter. No one seems to know who it was written to.' He
shook his head. 'Extraordinary family. They don't seem to know anything
about each other.'

'Did you ask Mrs Faraday?' Campion inquired.

Stanislaus Oates nodded. 'I asked her first, because she's mentioned in
the letter, but she couldn't or wouldn't help me. As a matter of fact,
she said she had lived for eighty-four years and had met a great many
ladies in her time and could hardly be expected to remember all their
Christian names. A remark like that shuts you up, you know. Still,' he
added, slipping the letter back into his wallet, 'we've only just begun.
The inquest on Seeley is fixed for tomorrow. That only means formal
evidence of identification. We shall ask for an adjournment. That'll
give us a day or two anyway. I understand the authorities want to get
the whole business over quickly, because the 'Varsity is coming up the
week after next. Funny people they are here! Deputy Coroner in charge
and the coroner's court being distempered, so we've got to hold the
inquest in an assembly room. I don't see why they can't have their
schools or colleges or whatever they are somewhere out in the country.'

Campion began to laugh, and Stanislaus joined him. 'We all get fed up
now and again,' he said. 'I wish I could find out how that conium got
into the teacup this morning. I've gone over the room as well as I
could, but they were taking the body away for the P.M. and that doctor
and the sorrowing relations had tramped all over the room, anyhow. They
didn't like me, but I'm never a popular figure in the picture. However,
as I say, I did my best and I couldn't find anything. There wasn't even
a scrap of paper lying around. Of course, I may find something yet,' he
went on hopefully. 'It's one of those cluttered-up rooms--even the bed
wears petticoats. Still, at the moment it certainly looks as though the
poison was brought into the room in the teacup, in which case it passes
my understanding.' He rose to his feet. 'I'll have to go. Oh, by the
way, that Cousin George. I asked for a photograph of him up at the
house, but they hadn't got one. I must see that girl.'

'She's probably here now,' Campion remarked. 'We're expecting her, and I
think I heard the sound of feminine chattage outside some minutes ago.
Wait a moment.' He rose from his chair and disappeared through the
doorway, to return some little time later with Joyce. She was still
pale, but more self-possessed than she had been in the morning. She
greeted the Inspector with a frigid nod, an expression of candid dislike
in her quiet eyes. The Inspector plunged in manfully.

'Miss Blount,' he said, 'I first had the pleasure of meeting you
yesterday in Tomb Yard, E.C. While we were there a man entered, caught
sight of you, and left hastily. You were a little taken aback by the
sight of him. Do you recall the incident?'

Joyce glanced at Campion, but that young man's expression was blank and
unhelpful. The Inspector was still waiting, and she nodded.

'Yes, I do,' she said.

Stanislaus Oates cleared his throat. 'Now, Miss Blount,' he said, 'think
carefully, was or was not that man George Makepeace Faraday, referred to
at Socrates Close as Cousin George?'

Joyce bit off the little exclamation which had risen to her lips. She
turned appealingly to Campion.

'Must I answer him?' she said.

He smiled at her affably. 'I'm afraid you must,' he said, and added as
the quick colour came into her face, 'Mrs Faraday is convinced that the
police must know all they want to know. Was it Cousin George in the City
yesterday? I'm afraid I'm to blame for the idea. He was so
extraordinarily like William that I couldn't help pretending to be a
real detective last night when I was showing off before Marcus. I
described him and Uncle William recognized him. We want you to give us
proof.'

The girl turned to the Inspector. 'Yes,' she said breathlessly. 'It was
Cousin George. But you mustn't look for him, you mustn't find him. It
would kill Aunt Caroline. Besides, I'm sure he's got nothing to do with
it. Work it out for yourselves, how can he?'




CHAPTER 8
THE OBSERVATIONS OF MR CHEETOO


Even the ineffable 'sacred rite' atmosphere which distinguishes any
afternoon tea in Cambridge failed to make the little gathering any but a
gloomy and dispirited affair on this occasion. After the Inspector's
departure the company had assembled in Marcus's office and tea was
brewed and sipped in silence. Two murders in the family have a sobering
effect upon the most light-hearted, and even the irrepressible Miss Held
was thoughtful and subdued. However, it was she who introduced the
subject of Mr Cheetoo.

'Mr Campion,' she said, 'I don't want to put up any idea that isn't
useful, and if I'm making a monkey of myself you mention it. But
concerning that Indian student who discovered the body; he has told his
story to the police, of course, but it occurred to me that if you would
like to hear it yourself in an unofficial capacity I could fix that up
for you almost right away.'

Mr Campion regarded her with interest. As she sat on the edge of her
chair, a cream bun in her hand, she reminded him irresistibly of a
little squirrel holding a nut.

'I should like it immensely,' he said. 'By the way, I thought there were
two of them.'

'That is so,' she agreed. 'But one went for the police and the other
remained by the body. It was in the paper this morning, as a matter of
fact. That's the way I know about it. I noticed the name Cheetoo
particularly, because during the vac. I've taken over the pups of a
friend of mine, a Britisher taking the same subject as myself. I've got
two years' research work, you know, that's why I'm here.'

Campion nodded with comparative intelligence, and she went on.

'Well, just before I came in here this afternoon I looked up in my
notebook to see how long I had free and I discovered that Mr Cheetoo has
an appointment for half-past five. Now you've never heard a man talk so
much in all your life as this boy. He's so full of himself he can't keep
his mind on his work for a split second, and I'm morally certain I shall
have a verbatim account of that discovery of his, so if you care to come
along and hear it I shall be delighted.'

Marcus glanced across the room questioningly. 'That would be an idea,
Campion,' he said. 'Look here, Joyce and I will wait for you at Soul's
Court. Then you can collect your things and I'll drive you both down to
Socrates Close.'

Thus it came about that Mr Campion found himself walking across Parker's
Piece with Miss Ann Held, in search of the man who found the body. Ann
had rooms in a house in Cheshire Street, the home of two elderly
schoolmistresses, and as they entered the large square hall the cold
academic atmosphere rose up to meet them.

'Notice the odour of emancipation,' murmured Miss Held. 'Come on out of
this ice-box.' She opened the door facing them on the right of the
stairs and Mr Campion followed her into the most charming feminine study
he had ever seen. Here were no framed postcards of Florence, no
monochromes of the Winged Victory and the Perseus, nor did a coloured
reproduction of Ruskin's study as he left it, nor even the Doge, look
down upon him from a severely distempered inglenook. Miss Held had
followed her own taste. Modern American etchings, including two
Rosenbergs, hung on the walls of an airy yellow-papered room. The
furniture was good, sparse, and comfortable. Books lined all one wall,
and the drapery was bright without being noisy. A friendly and unusual
room in which to find a research student.

It was twenty-five minutes past five when they arrived, and Campion was
barely seated before the fire when the maid shared by the scholastic
ladies entered to announce the man he had come to meet.

At first sight Mr Cheetoo was not an attractive person. He seemed to
have embraced European culture with a somewhat indiscriminate zeal. The
ordinary grey flannel trousers of the undergraduate were surmounted by a
tightly-fitting tweed coat of a delicate pea green, a garment which
could have emanated only from Paris. He set his books down upon the
table and bowed stiffly to Ann. She introduced Campion and Mr Cheetoo
repeated his formal gesture.

They had no difficulty in persuading him to talk. He was full of his own
importance and broached the subject himself before he had been in the
room two minutes.

'You have read the papers?' he inquired, looking quickly from one to the
other, a gleam of childlike pride in his eyes, which he did not attempt
to conceal. 'I was the first on the scene. It was I who found the body.'

Ann sat down at the table and he took his place opposite her. But it was
evident that he had no intention of working, and he appeared delighted
when she connived at this arrangement.

'Mr Campion,' she explained, 'is a friend of the family of the dead man,
and he is very anxious to hear all he can about the shocking affair. I
knew you wouldn't mind telling him about your--er--discovery.'

Mr Cheetoo flashed an annihilating grin in Mr Campion's direction.

'I should be glad,' he said. 'I am observant. I am also scientific. I
formed many conclusions. The police did not value them. To my mind they
were not anxious to make clear.'

Mr Campion nodded affably and his pale eyes flickered behind his big
spectacles. This was a type of witness that he recognized, and his heart
leapt.

'You were not alone, Mr Cheetoo,' he said, 'when you made your
discovery?'

'No,' the observant student admitted with some regret. 'But it was I who
remained by the body while my friend went for the police. I am to appear
at the inquest tomorrow. But I have been told that my observations will
not be of interest to the coroner.'

'Too bad,' said Miss Held helpfully.

Mr Cheetoo nodded and turned to Campion. 'You will be interested,' he
said firmly. 'You will appreciate my observations. My friend and I were
walking along the river bank searching for plants. My friend is a
botanical student. As we approached the willow clump immediately beyond
the bridge in the meadows I perceived a blackness beneath the water.
There was also'--he turned apologetically to Ann--'an odour.'

'Quite,' said Mr Campion hastily.

Mr Cheetoo lived up to his reputation for observation. 'I will omit
those details which can be assumed,' he said. 'My friend would not touch
the body. But I,' he continued with pride, 'I am occidental. I am
broad-minded. I pulled the body half out of the water. At first my
friend recoiled; he is not courageous. His imagination is stronger than
his observation. He is also more strict.' He paused.

Mr Campion looked at Ann and was relieved to see that she was not unduly
apprehensive of the unpleasant details which must certainly be coming.
Mr Cheetoo continued.

'I sent my friend for the police and when he had gone I made my
observations. I have the inquiring mind of the investigator. My first
observation was that the man was a tramp. That was my error. The beard,
I now find, grows after the decease has taken place. It was not a
pleasant sight. The top part of the head had been opened and in some
places was not in existence any longer. I particularly observed if there
were powder burns, having read of same in light fiction. But the action
of the water...'

Mr Campion cleared his throat. 'I understand the body was tied up,' he
said.

'I remarked upon that,' replied Mr Cheetoo, unperturbed by the
interruption. 'The legs were securely bound about the ankles with a
length of thin rope. The hands had been tied behind the back, but the
cord had rotted and they were now apart. There was a knot of rope, with
a ragged edge around the right wrist and another about the left. From
this I deduced that the body had been in the water for some time and had
been buffeted by the stream. The loose rope had caught around the willow
roots and had prevented the body from drifting further. You must
understand that this was not a pleasant sight. The corpse had swollen in
the water. The rope was sodden and was already beginning to rot.'

Metaphorically, Mr Campion clung to the rope.

'This cord,' he said, 'what sort of stuff was it? New, save for the
action of the water?'

Mr Cheetoo considered. It was evident that he liked considering.

'Your question is curious,' he said. 'It is what I asked myself. I
touched the rope. It broke easily. This, I said to myself, has been in
use before it was put to this disagreeable purpose. It was of the nature
of a clothes-line.'

Campion glanced apologetically at Ann. 'I say,' he said, 'I wonder if
you'd mind if I asked Mr Cheetoo, purely in the interests of abstract
science of course, if he would be so awfully kind as to demonstrate on
me exactly how this tying was done?'

'Why, certainly not.' Ann looked startled, but not ruffled.

Mr Cheetoo, on the other hand, was frankly delighted. He rose instantly
in preparation. Ann pulled open a drawer in the table, from which she
produced a ball of string.

'I haven't any clothes-line,' she said, 'but I guess you'll be able to
do something with this.'

Mr Cheetoo took the string, which he unwound with an air of sacrificial
solemnity, which would have been comic in any other circumstances and
very nearly succeeded in being so as it was.

'I measured ocularly the amount of rope on the body,' he said, eyeing
Campion sternly. 'There was in my estimation five yards and possibly one
half. The shorter half of the cord was bound about the feet, thus.'

He dived for Mr Campion's legs and had the string round them in an
instant.

'There,' he said, standing back. 'I demonstrated to my friend in exactly
the same way afterwards. You will observe the two feet are held together
tightly, knot in front. The hands were then fastened thus.'

Mr Campion's hands were pinioned and he stood on Ann Held's hearth-rug
inconsequential, smiling and trussed like a chicken. Mr Cheetoo stood
back in triumph.

'Consider the completeness,' he said.

Ann Held's bright eyes were dancing. 'It's certainly effective,' she
said.

'Yes,' said Mr Cheetoo swiftly. 'But not professional. The knots are
ordinary. They were not sailor's knots.'

Mr Campion tried his bonds. 'But when the body was found,' he said, 'the
hands had become free.'

'That is so,' agreed Mr Cheetoo. He darted behind Mr Campion and severed
the string which held his hands. 'Thus,' he said triumphantly. 'The
cord, already rotten no doubt, gave way under the weight of the dead
man's arms. And when I made my discovery he was bound like this.' He
pointed to Campion's two wrists, one of which wore a single noose held
by a slip knot. The left wrist was more securely bound, with three
strands wound about it.

Mr Campion appeared fascinated by this information. 'Allow me to
congratulate you on your powers, Mr Cheetoo,' he said. 'You have the
true investigator's gift. Did you notice anything else about the man you
found?'

Mr Cheetoo considered once again. 'There was the matter of the coat,' he
said. 'The victim wore a heavy blue overcoat buttoned up to his throat.
As if indeed,' he added with portentous solemnity, 'he had been aware of
the storm that was to come upon him and had buttoned himself up against
the elements.'

Campion paused in the process of untying himself. 'His coat was
buttoned?' he said. 'Are you sure?'

For a moment it seemed that Mr Cheetoo was about to consider himself
mortally offended.

'I am the observer,' he said. 'I have the eye. I noticed the coat was
buttoned up to the neck.'

Campion rolled the string neatly into a ball and set it down upon the
table before he replied.

'How very odd,' he said at last. 'And his hat, was that anywhere near?
He had a hat when he left church--a bowler, I believe.'

'Of the hat,' said Mr Cheetoo firmly, 'there was absolutely no sign. I
observed in this morning's paper that it had not yet been discovered.'

These two small points seemed to interest Mr Campion more than any of Mr
Cheetoo's foregoing story. He remained standing on the hearth-rug
staring in front of him, his natural expression intensified.

Mr Cheetoo was also thoughtful. 'From my deductions made upon the spot,'
he said suddenly, 'it occurred to me that this unfortunate did not drift
very far down the stream.'

Once again Mr Campion turned to him. 'Oh?' he said. 'Why?'

'Because,' said Mr Cheetoo, 'of the little footbridge. The water is high
at this time of year. This little bridge creates an eddy which would
have held the body close to it had the unfortunate entered the water at
a point above the bridge. You can see for yourself. I was down there
this morning making further observations. In my opinion, the body was
thrown into the water somewhere between the bridge and the willow clump.
There is no sign of a struggle on the bank, but it is probably ten days
since the crime was committed and we have had much rain. There is also,
nearly always at this time of year, a mist over the low ground near the
river. This is my complete opinion. You are enlightened?'

'Absolutely,' said Mr Campion. 'I could hardly have seen more had I
discovered the body myself.'

'Exactly,' said Cheetoo, and Campion, feeling that he had interrupted
the higher education of his informant long enough, expressed his thanks
all round and gracefully made his departure.

Ann saw him to the door. 'Well, I hope you're in a complete blaze of
understanding,' she murmured.

Campion grinned. 'All seems to have been discovered,' he said. 'He ought
to enjoy himself at the inquest. It certainly is an ill wind...'

But as he walked across the Piece a dozen disturbing thoughts wrestled
in his mind. There were Uncle William's twenty-five unaccounted-for
minutes to consider. Was it just possible that the old man had not
parted with Andrew Seeley, but that he had accompanied him as far as the
river and under cover of a ground mist had tied him up, shot him, hurled
him into the stream and doubled back to Sunday luncheon? Immediately the
circumstances which must have conspired to make such a procedure
possible presented themselves to the young man in all their array of
absurdity. If this supposition were correct, Uncle William must have sat
for one hour and a half in church with fifteen feet of clothes-line
concealed upon him, to say nothing of a revolver. And before tying up
the unfortunate Andrew, Uncle William had presumably buttoned up his
victim's overcoat and purloined his hat.

Mr Campion was discomforted. The Inspector's conjuror was distressingly
in evidence.




CHAPTER 9
DIRTY LINEN


At nine o'clock that evening Mr Campion felt that beside the classical
ordeals by fire and by water there should now be numbered the ordeal by
dinner at Socrates Close. He could quite understand that no ordinary
catastrophe could prevent its solemn ritual taking place, but he
realized that its awe-inspiring progress was not lightened by the
tragedy hanging over the house.

It was a devastating meal.

The dining-room was a large square apartment with crimson damask
wallpaper and red plush curtains. Dark paint and a Turkey carpet did not
tend to brighten the scheme of decoration, and, as Joyce remarked later,
one felt overfed upon entering the room.

The large oval table was a veritable skating-rink of Irish damask, and
upon it there was set out every night a magnificent array of plate, the
cleaning of which occupied the entire life of an unfortunate small boy
in the servants' quarters. It was here that for the first and last time
in his life Mr Campion made the acquaintance of those silver-plated
cornucopias which, in Victorian times, were supplied to the diner filled
with hot water, so that he might warm his spoon before partaking of that
greasy delicacy called thick soup.

On this particular occasion the great room seemed very empty and Campion
realized that the two spaces at the table were made all the more
conspicuous by the fact that the others had not altered what had
evidently been their usual places for many years. Thus, Great-aunt
Faraday sat at the head of the table in a high-backed arm-chair. Her
black taffeta gown was cut with elbow sleeves, although her tiny
forearms were covered by the frill of cream Honiton, which matched her
fichu and the cap she wore.

William sat at the foot of the table, some considerable distance away
from his mother and separated from her by an immense baroque silver
fruit-stand, which miraculously changed into a flower vase at its upper
extremity.

Aunt Kitty sat next to William on his right, while Joyce was immediately
upon Great-aunt Caroline's left. Mr Campion himself had the place of
honour upon his hostess's right, and the rest of the table was
distressingly and pointedly empty.

Aunt Kitty's black evening gown, cut square and unfashionably low in the
manner of 1909 or so, presented an appearance that was positively
funereal, and even Joyce in her simple black dinner frock, emphasized
the solemnity of the occasion.

Mr Campion began to regard his own dinner-jacket as a garment of sorrow
and William's bright pink face as a touch of unwarrantable levity in the
sombre colour scheme.

The long meal, Mrs Beeton's complete Friday menu for April in non-Roman
Catholic households, was depressing rather than fortifying, and
Great-aunt Caroline's hard and fast rules of general conversation almost
defeated Mr Campion's effervescent spirit. In the long silences he had
plenty of time for observation.

There were several minor peculiarities in the setting of this unnerving
ceremony, one of which was the fact that each diner had his own complete
set of condiments, a circumstance which somehow increased the aloofness
of the participants.

Another oddity was of a more cheerful variety.

Directly facing Mr Campion, hung unsuitably beneath a large steel
engraving of Ely Cathedral, was a red plush frame, in which reposed a
coloured enlargement of a photograph of a bewhiskered gentleman in the
regalia of some obscure and patently plebian order or society. Mr
Campion noticed with delight that this gentleman's hand rested upon a
large pewter mug from the top of which there emerged much painted foam.
It was not at all the trophy which one would have associated with
Great-aunt Caroline or her household, and he wondered how it had come
there.

When at last the meal came to an end the company trooped into the great
drawing-room, the famous drawing-room of Socrates Close of the
'eighties. Although its style of decoration had not been altered since
that time it was still a beautiful room. Faded brocades and fussy
ornaments abounded. The furniture was hard, misshapen and uncomfortable.
But like everything that is perfectly in period, it had a charm of its
own.

Aunt Caroline sat down beside an occasional table and turned to Aunt
Kitty.

'I think we will play chess as usual, my dear,' she said.

Aunt Kitty sat down obediently while William advanced solemnly towards a
bureau whose panels displayed two bouquets, painted, Mr Campion felt,
rather by a botanist than a garden lover. From this cupboard William
produced a chessboard and a box of carved ivory men.

Mr Campion realized that he was looking upon a nightly ritual, and
waited, not without apprehension, to see where he himself fitted into
this ceremony.

Uncle William was showing signs of anxiety. He did not sit down, but
stood watching his mother as her tiny white fingers set the red chessmen
into line. At last he spoke.

'I thought Campion and I might smoke a cigar in the library, Mother?' he
said inquiringly.

Great-aunt Faraday raised her little black eyes to her son's face.

'Certainly, William,' she said. 'Mr Campion, if I should have retired by
the time you return, the rising gong rings at a quarter to eight. Have
you everything in your room that you require?'

Mr Campion, who had risen to his feet the moment that she addressed him,
bowed instinctively.

'Everything is most charming,' he said.

Mrs Faraday seemed to consider that he had made the right reply, for she
smiled at him and nodded to William, who, grateful at the release, which
seemed to be unexpected, hustled Campion out of the room.

'The morning-room's more comfortable,' he said in a rumbling whisper.
'Library always reminds me of the governor, God bless him. Never saw him
at his best in the library.'

They crossed the hall, therefore, and entered the morning-room, in which
a bright fire still burned.

'Sorry I can't offer you a drink,' said Uncle William, blowing a little
in his embarrassment. 'The key of the tantalus has been removed again, I
see. When people get old, you know, they get ideas in their heads. I'm
no drinker myself, but--well, anyway, have a cigar.'

He produced a box from the sideboard and when the little ceremony of
lighting up had been completed he sat down again in one of the green
leather arm-chairs and looked across at Campion with hunted little blue
eyes, incongruous in such a large pink face.

'Andrew used to sit in that chair you've got,' he remarked suddenly. 'I
suppose the funeral will take place on Monday? Not a lot of flowers
about at this time of year.' He checked his meandering wits sharply and
took refuge in a suitable sentiment. 'Poor Andrew,' he said, and
coughed.

Mr Campion remained silent, looking more vague than ever in a blue haze
of cigar smoke. Uncle William's thoughts were racing tonight, however,
leading him a fantastic dance from one subject to another, and presently
he spoke again.

'Damn bad-tempered, evil-minded fellow, all the same,' he said angrily.
'No insanity in the family, thank God, or might have suspected a touch
of lunacy--kindest thought.' He paused and added with a grotesque droop
of a baggy eyelid: 'Drank like a sponge, under the rose.'

There was no cosiness in the breakfast-room. The lights were not shaded,
but sprouted unadorned from a brass water-lily floating upside down in
the white expanse of ceiling and their cold blaze presented an
atmosphere of hygienic chill which even the bright fire could not
dispel.

Mr Campion began to understand Marcus's remark of the previous evening:
'If I lived in that house I might easily feel like murder myself.' That
atmosphere of restraint which is so racking in adolescence was here
applied to age, and Campion experienced a fear of stumbling upon some
weak spot where, beneath the rigid bond of repression, human nature had
begun to ferment, to decay, to become vile. There was no telling what
manner of secret lay hidden in the great house rising up over his head,
yet he was acutely conscious of its existence.

He was brought down to earth again by the entrance of the stalwart
Alice, who bore a silver tray with glasses and a decanter and syphon.
She set it down on the table without a word and he noticed that she did
not glance at either of them, but hurried out again as noiselessly as
she had entered. Then he caught sight of the other man's face and humour
was restored.

Uncle William evidently regarded the intrusion as some sort of
apparition. His astonishment was only equalled by his delight, and he
rose to do the honours with an almost childlike satisfaction.

'The old lady doesn't forget when we've got guests in the house, thank
the Lord,' he said, sitting down again with his glass. 'Hang it all!
when a fellow's gone through what we've gone through today he needs a
drink. I'm going out for a walk in a moment. You'll be all right, I
suppose?'

He looked at Campion hopefully and appeared relieved at the other's
hearty reassurance. He swallowed a large whisky and soda and was about
to make some final remark when Joyce reappeared.

'Hullo,' she said in surprise, 'going out?'

Uncle William coughed. 'Thought I'd just have a constitutional,' he
said. 'Haven't had any exercise today. That damned policeman kept me in
all this morning chatting.'

Joyce looked astounded, but she said nothing, and when the old man went
out she took his seat, and Campion noticed that she held a
cigarette-case. He took out his own hastily.

'I say, is this allowed?' he said, as he gave her a light. 'Permit me to
cure you of the tobacco habit in five days. Taken in curry, no one can
tell my secret preparation from garlic.'

Joyce laughed politely. 'This is an indulgence,' she said. 'I'm allowed
to smoke occasionally by a special dispensation. Authority winks its
eye. As a matter of fact it's rather sweet. Every evening after dinner
Great-aunt Caroline tells me I may go upstairs to write my letters. I
didn't understand it at first, but she told me that she had heard that
young people nowadays enjoyed a suitably scented cigarette. It's quite
respectable, you see. Even the Queen smokes sometimes, they say. But she
thought I ought to have my cigarette in private, so as not to set a bad
example to the aunts.' She paused and shot a quick level glance at him.
'It's all rather beastly, isn't it?' she said.

'It's queer,' he said guardedly. 'I suppose this is the last household
in England of its kind?'

The girl shuddered. 'I hope so,' she said. 'Dinner was pretty dreadful,
wasn't it? It's like that every night, only usually, of course, the--the
others are there, too.'

'I enjoyed my dinner,' said Mr Campion valiantly. 'But my etiquette book
rather let me down. It says that light conversation may be effectively
introduced while passing the cruet. In this, of course, I was
frustrated, as we all had our own cruets. Otherwise, no doubt, I should
have been the life and soul of the party.'

Joyce reddened. 'Yes, those salt-cellars are an awful admission of
uncharitableness, aren't they?' she said. 'They were Andrew's fault.
Some time ago, just after I first came, in fact, there was a disgraceful
scene one night when Andrew refused to pass Julia the pepper; pretended
not to hear her. Finally, when she insisted, he sulked like a child and
said she had quite enough in her composition, without adding any more.
Julia appealed to Aunt Caroline and there was a sort of nursery row. The
next day everybody had their own condiments, and it's been like that
ever since. It's one of those silly stupid petty little things that are
a constant source of irritation to the flesh.'

Mr Campion was more shocked than he cared to admit by this slightly
comic revelation, and he took refuge behind a barrier of cigar smoke.
The girl went on holding her cigarette limply in her fingers as she
stared into the fire.

'I suppose you noticed that photograph of Uncle Robert, too?'

'Who?' said Mr Campion, appalled at the possibility of yet another
implicated relative.

A faint smile passed over the girl's face. 'Oh, you needn't be alarmed,'
she said. 'He's safely dead, poor darling. He was Aunt Kitty's husband.
And my mother's brother,' she interpolated a little defiantly. 'That
photograph was taken when he was a young man. It was probably considered
funny then. He was president of some early frothblowers' association, or
something.' She paused and eyed Mr Campion squarely. 'The family always
considered that Aunt Kitty married beneath her. She didn't, though, as a
matter of fact; not in my opinion, anyhow. Uncle Robert was a doctor
with a poor practice. Well, Aunt Kitty kept that photograph and had it
enlarged. Uncle Robert was rather proud of it, I believe, and it used to
hang in his den. And when he died Aunt Kitty brought it here with her.
Nothing would ever have happened about it if Uncle Andrew hadn't found
it. He was like that, you know; always poking about into other people's
things. He saw it on her dressing-table one day and insisted that it
should be hung in the dining-room. He was so clever about it that Aunt
Kitty was rather flattered. It was the first time that anyone had ever
shown any enthusiasm for Uncle Robert and she was pitifully fond of him,
poor darling.' She sighed. 'Everyone else saw, of course, just what
Andrew meant them to see, another evidence of Uncle Robert's vulgarity.
Uncle Andrew used to call it "the mortification" when Aunt Kitty wasn't
in earshot.'

'And no one took it down?' said Mr Campion.

'Well, no. You see, Uncle Andrew had made Aunt Kitty rather proud by
hanging it there. You can see what a silly old dear she is. She doesn't
see half that's going on around her. Great-aunt Caroline never seemed to
notice the photograph, but Andrew enjoyed the annoyance it gave to
everyone else. I know it's wrong to talk about him like this now he's
dead, but you can see the sort of man he was.'

'Not a beautiful soul,' murmured Mr Campion.

'He was a beast,' said the girl with unexpected vehemence. 'Fortunately
the others combined sometimes to keep him quiet. He had a devil, if you
know what I mean,' she went on, speaking earnestly. 'If he had been
allowed to have his own way he would have driven everyone off their
heads. As it was, he moved even the meekest of us to a sort of frenzy of
loathing at times.'

She was silent for some moments and her mouth twitched nervously. It was
evident that she was making up her mind to a confession of some sort.
Suddenly it came.

'I say,' she said, 'I'm terribly frightened. After all, when a thing
like this happens, ordinary family loyalty and restraint and things like
that don't count much, do they? I'm afraid one of us here has gone mad.
I don't know who it is. It might be a servant, it might be--anybody. But
I think they're made in the--well, you know, the modern secret way, and
they've killed Andrew because they couldn't stand him any longer.'

'Aunt Julia?' inquired Mr Campion gently.

She lowered her voice. 'That's it,' she said. 'That's what's terrifying
me. If it was just Andrew, somehow I don't think I should care awfully,
now that I know what's happened to him. But now that Aunt Julia's--been
killed, it shows that the thing I've been afraid of all along has
started. If a lunatic starts killing he goes on, doesn't he? Don't you
see, it may be anyone's turn next?'

Campion glanced at her sharply. This was the second person in the family
who had put forward this suggestion.

'Look here,' he said, 'you'd better go and stay with Ann Held.'

She stared at him, and he wondered whether she was going to laugh or be
angry and was relieved to see her smile.

'Oh no,' she said. 'I'm not afraid for myself. I don't know why it is,'
she went on calmly, 'but I feel that it's all nothing to do with me.
This is the older generation's affair; I just don't count. I feel that
I'm just looking on at something that is working itself out. Oh, I can't
explain!'

Mr Campion threw the stub of his cigar into the fire. 'I say,' he said,
'I ought to have a look at those two bedrooms tonight. Uncle Andrew's
and Aunt Julia's. Do you think you could fix it?'

Joyce glanced at him sharply, a hint of alarm in her eyes. 'We could
sneak up now,' he said. 'There's a good hour before Great-aunt goes up
to bed. Hullo, though, I forgot. The police locked the doors.'

The pale young man before her grinned. 'If you could find me a hairpin,'
he said, 'I don't think we need let that worry us. Don't be alarmed.
I've got permission from my celebrated detective friend, the Arch
Hawk-Eye himself.'

Joyce looked at him in astonishment. 'You don't really mean that, do
you?'

'A hairpin or any piece of wire would do,' said Mr Campion. 'This house
is probably full of hairpins. Aunt Kitty's crowbar variety would do
nicely. Your own are a bit flimsy, I should think.'

Joyce rose to her feet. 'Come on then,' she said. 'I know it sounds
silly, but you'd better creep upstairs, because the servants are rather
alarmed already. There are one or two plain-clothes men still hanging
about the garden, you know, and, anyway, the staff has been put through
a minor inquisition this evening.'

'Too bad,' he sympathized. 'That's the worst of the police. You can't
keep 'em out of the kitchen. It comes of keeping comic papers in the
waiting-room at the Yard, I've no doubt.'

The light in the upper hall was subdued. The plan of the rooms on the
first floor was much the same as below. Thus, Great-aunt Caroline's
bedroom was directly above the drawing-room, with Joyce's room beside it
over the morning-room. There was a bathroom directly above the Queen
Anne sitting-room, and Kitty and Julia had rooms side by side over the
library. In the other branch of the L, William's room, Andrew's room and
the spare room, which had been allotted to Campion, ran side by side
over the dining-room and kitchen, with the service staircase beyond. All
these rooms gave on to a corridor whose windows overlooked the drive.
The servants' rooms and attics were on the second floor.

As they reached the upper hall the girl laid her hand on Campion's arm.

'Wait a minute,' she said. 'I'll get you the hairpin. Aunt Kitty won't
mind me borrowing one of hers.'

Left alone in the softly lighted, thick carpeted hall, with its dark
paint and carved oak furniture, Campion, who was by no means a nervous
man, was seized by a sudden revulsion of feeling which he could not
explain. It was not so much a terror of the unknown as a sense of
oppression brooding over the house, a suffocated feeling as if he were
set down inside a huge tea-cosy with something unclean.

It was evident that the girl experienced much the same feeling, for she
was very pale and inclined to be jumpy when she came out to him a moment
later, a coarse black hairpin in her hand.

'Where first?' she whispered.

'Andrew's room,' murmured Campion. 'Are you coming with me?'

She hesitated. 'Shall I be any use? I don't want to be in the way.'

'You won't be in the way, if you don't mind coming.'

'All right.'

They moved silently down the corridor and the girl paused before the
centre door of the three which led off it.

'Here we are,' she said. 'That's your room on the left and Uncle
William's on the right. This is Andrew's.'

Mr Campion took the hairpin and squatted down before the keyhole.

'This parlour trick of mine must not be taken as representative,' he
said. 'Some people laugh when they see it and some people kick me out of
the house. I don't often do it.'

All the time he was talking his fingers were moving rapidly, and
suddenly a sharp click rewarded his labours and he stood up and regarded
her shamefacedly.

'Don't tell Marcus,' he whispered. 'He's one who wouldn't laugh.'

She smiled at him. 'I know,' she said. 'Who's going in first?'

Mr Campion opened the door slowly and they crept in, closing it silently
behind them. The girl switched on the light and they stood looking about
them. The room had the cold, slightly stale atmosphere of a closed
bedroom in an old-fashioned house. At first sight Campion was startled.
It was so different from what he had expected. Apart from a wall of
bookshelves in the midst of which there was a small writing-desk, the
room might have belonged to a modern hermit. It was large and
inexpressibly bare, with white walls and no carpet, save for a small
jute bath-mat set beside the bed. This was of the truckle variety, and
it looked hard and thinly covered. A simple wooden stand with a small
mirror above it served as a dressing-table and supported some half-dozen
photographs. The simplicity and poverty of the room compared with the
solid comfort of the rest of the house, was startling to the point of
theatricality. A cupboard built into the wall was the only sign of
clothes room, and a huge iron damper covered the fireplace.

The girl caught a glimpse of Campion's face. 'I know what you're
thinking,' she said. 'You feel like everyone else. Andrew liked to play
at being the poor relation. This room is one of his elaborate insults to
the rest of the family. Yet he liked comfort quite as much as anybody,
and for years, I believe, this room was one of the most luxurious
bedrooms in the house. Then, about a year ago, Andrew took it into his
head to have it all changed. The carpet had to be taken up, the walls
stripped and this stage setting of a prison arranged. D'you know,' she
went on angrily, 'he used to bring visitors up here to show them how
badly he was treated. Of course, the rest of the family was livid, but
he was cleverer than they are. He used to make it look as though they
were forcing him to live uncomfortably, which, of course, was absolute
rubbish. He certainly had a most exasperating way.'

Campion crossed to the bookcase and peered in. The volumes were standing
on shelves on which leather dust frills had been nailed. The titles
surprised him. It was quite a large library and appeared to be devoted
to the best-known works of a certain character. Uncle Andrew's taste in
literature appeared to have leant towards classical eroticism, although
the more modern psychologists were also well represented. Mr Campion,
picking up an early treatise on _Sex and the Mind_, found that it had
been the property of a medical library in Edinburgh, purloined,
apparently about thirty years before. He replaced the book on the shelf
and turned back into the room.

As he did so he caught sight of one of the few _objets d'art_ it
contained. This was a relief of the _Laocon_, evidently an ancient
rendering of the famous group in the Vatican. But the carver had put
something of his own into the work: in place of the noble unreality of
the original, there was an imaginative study in horror which, in spite
of its small size, seemed to dominate the apartment. Joyce shuddered.

'I hate that thing,' she said. 'Aunt Kitty used to say it made her
dream, and Andrew wanted to make her hang it in her room--until she got
used to it, he said. He told her a long rigmarole about conquering fear
by willpower, and almost persuaded her to take the thing. Probably he
would have done so if Julia hadn't sailed in to the rescue and put her
foot down. That was the kind of thing she liked doing. Oh, they're all
so petty! Aunt Caroline's strict, but she's strict in a big way.'

Meanwhile Mr Campion continued to wander round the room. He peered into
the clothes cupboard, opened the desk, and finally came to a full stop
before the dressing-table. An exclamation escaped him, and he picked up
a photograph of a clerical personage, a white-haired and benevolent
figure. It was inscribed: '_To my old friend Andrew Seeley, in memory of
our holiday in Prague. Wilfred._'

Joyce looked over Campion's shoulder. 'He's a bishop,' she said. 'Andrew
was secretly very proud of knowing him so well, I think. He used to hint
that they had the wildest holiday together. Why are you staring at it?
Do you know him?'

'I did,' said Mr Campion. 'He's dead, poor old boy. That's my sainted
uncle, the Bishop of Devizes. He wasn't the sort of old bird to go gay
on a holiday in Prague, although he knew more about dry-fly fishing than
any man alive, I believe. But that isn't the really extraordinary thing
about this photograph. The odd thing is that this isn't his handwriting.
It isn't quite his signature. In fact, it's a fake.'

The girl stared at him round-eyed. 'But Andrew said--' she began, and
stopped short, a contemptuous expression spreading over her face.
'That's just like Andrew.'

Mr Campion set the photograph down. 'I don't think there's much more to
be seen here,' he said, 'and we haven't any too much time. Let's go on,
shall we?'

She nodded and they tiptoed out. The relocking ceremony took some
minutes, but Julia's door yielded almost immediately.

Seen directly after the late Uncle Andrew's den, Miss Julia Faraday's
bedroom was an overbearingly cluttered apartment. It was crammed full of
furniture of every possible description, and achieved fussiness without
femininity. The two large windows had three sets of curtains each;
Nottingham lace gave way to frilled muslin and frilled muslin to yellow
damask looped up with great knots of silk cable which looked as though
it would have held a liner. The keynote of the whole scheme of
decoration was drapery.

The fireplace was surrounded with loops of the same yellow damask, and
the bed, the focusing point, the rococo _pice de rsistance_ of the
whole room, was befrilled and befurbelowed until its original shape was
lost altogether.

The bed interested Mr Campion from the beginning, and he stood looking
at it with respectful astonishment.

'They call that an Italian brass bed, for some reason or other,' Joyce
volunteered. 'I think it's because of those wing bits with the curtains
on. You see, they move backwards and forwards and keep the draught out.
Not that there ever is a draught in this house.'

The young man advanced towards the monstrosity and stood with a hand
resting on one of the huge brass knobs which surmounted each post. For
some moments he stood staring in front of him at the tapestry-hung brass
railings beyond the expanse of eiderdown, and he turned and surveyed the
rest of the room.

It was evident to a practised eye that a very thorough search had been
made already. Glancing at the pantechnicon of a wardrobe with its
quadruple doors, he realized that the police must have leapt upon this
as a possible source of discovery, and he knew better than anyone that
to search after a Yard man is so much waste of time. Yet somewhere in
this room there was, he felt sure, some trace of the poison which had
killed Aunt Julia. Joyce broke in upon his meditations.

'You never knew her, did you?' she said. 'All these are photographs of
her.' She pointed to an array of ornamental frames above the
mantelshelf. They were all of them, portraits of the same woman in
various stages of maturity, beginning with a heavy-featured girl laced
uncomfortably into unbecoming garments and progressing gradually into
corpulent middle age. The final portrait showed a grey-haired,
stern-faced woman, whose lines of bad temper from her nose to her mouth
were so deep that even the photographer had been unable to conceal them.

'She'd got much thinner lately,' said Joyce. 'And I think her temper had
got worse, too. She may have been ill. Perhaps--perhaps it was suicide
after all.'

'Perhaps,' agreed Mr Campion. 'That's what we've got to find out before
we go outside this room. In fact, at this point a little elementary
brain-work is indicated. After all, deduction is only adding two and two
together. Look here, how does this sound to you? Aunt Julia was not the
sort of person to take her own life. As far as we know she was poisoned
by conium, which is one of the oldest, simplest forms known to man, and
is simply another name for hemlock. It is also practically tasteless in
tea.' He paused and regarded the girl steadily. 'Now Aunt Julia seems to
have been in the habit of putting something in her tea every morning,'
he said. 'We know that, because Alice had noticed a sediment in the
bottom of her cup every day for the last six months. Therefore it's
quite reasonable to suppose that Aunt Julia put the poison which killed
her into her tea this morning under the impression that it was her usual
dose of something or other. Now, what we have to find out sooner or
later is whether she made a mistake off her own bat or whether someone
intended her to make a mistake.'

Joyce nodded. 'I see,' she said.

'Personally,' said Mr Campion, taking off his glasses, 'I don't see how
it could have been a genuine mistake if the poison was conium. It's
simple enough to get hold of, but it's got to be prepared. However, the
first step is to find out what it was that Aunt Julia put in her tea
every morning. Some sort of patent medicine, obviously. That's Inspector
Oates's idea, I believe. But what it was and where it is is still a
mystery. You see, there's no trace of it. Neither Aunt Kitty nor Alice
had ever heard of her taking anything regularly. Had you?'

Joyce shook her head. 'No. As a matter of fact, great-aunt does the
dispensing for the whole family. There's a medicine chest in her room,
and the only other thing is a first-aid box in the upper hall. What sort
of patent medicine were you thinking of?'

Campion considered. 'Well, some sort of health salts, I suppose. You
know--"Take as much as you dare and leap over the next gate grinning
dangerously"--_vide_ press. The only thing against that theory is that
there aren't any health salts about, no empty tins or packets or
anything. The Inspector has been over this room, and that means that
there is no place large enough to contain a tin, say as large as a fifty
Gold Flake, that has not been explored. They'll probably start on the
rest of the house tomorrow if we don't spot it tonight.'

The girl looked round helplessly. 'It seems such a hopeless job,' she
said. 'We don't even know what we're looking for.' She eyed Campion
curiously. Without his spectacles his appearance had gained at least
fifty per cent in intelligence.

He met her gaze. 'You don't think,' he said slowly, 'that Alice could
have brought anything into the room, do you? After all, she was the only
other person about on this floor at that time of the morning.'

Joyce shook her head vigorously. 'Oh, no. She's such a good soul. She's
the last person in the world to do anything like that. She's been here
thirty years.'

'Alice knows something,' said Mr Campion. 'She just reeks of a secret.
But I don't suppose it's anything to do with this.'

'It isn't.' The girl spoke involuntarily and then flushed scarlet,
realizing that she had betrayed herself.

Just for a moment Mr Campion's pale eyes rested upon her face. Then he
returned to his deductions.

'This patent medicine we're looking for,' he said. 'Since no one has
ever seen it, it must have been hidden by Aunt Julia herself. That gives
us a line. Let us put ourselves in her place. Suppose I am a heavy, lazy
woman lying in bed. A cup of hot tea is brought to me. I wish to take
something from its hiding-place, put it in my tea and return the packet
to concealment in the shortest possible space of time and with the
maximum of comfort. That leads us directly to the bed.'

He sat down on the bedside chair. 'Reconstruction of crime in the French
manner,' he murmured. 'This stuff might be anywhere. Not in the pillows,
not in the mattress; these things are moved every day. If it were small
enough it might be sewn into the hem of the valance.'

He bent down to examine the frill round the bedstead, but shook his head
regretfully.

'No good,' he said. 'No hem at all worth speaking of.' He caught hold of
the thick brass bedpost to pull himself up, and as his fingers closed
round the unusually thick rod an exclamation escaped him. 'Of course!'
he said. 'The hiding-place of my childhood. The squirrel's hole of my
earliest years.'

He pointed dramatically to the big brass knobs at the foot of the bed. A
short hysterical laugh escaped the girl.

'Of course,' she said. 'I had four little ones on my cot. They're
hollow, and they unscrew, don't they? I used to hide bits of slate
pencil in mine.'

Mr Campion was already unscrewing one of the immense ornaments.

'This is most likely the one,' he said. 'The bed-table side, you see.'

The great ball was almost as large as a coconut, and screwed on to a
threaded iron support as thick as a man's two fingers. It turned easily
in his hand. Two or three twists brought it off, and they bent over it
eagerly.

'Shake!' The girl hardly recognized her own voice. 'If there's anything
there it'll rattle.'

He obeyed her, and a hollow knocking rewarded him. 'I don't see how we
get it out,' he began, 'unless--oh, I see.' He put in his finger and
caught the end of a red thread of chemist's string just as it was about
to disappear into the ball. The next moment he had drawn out a wooden
cylinder about three inches long. A little hole had been bored in the
screw lid, the string threaded through and a coloured bead knotted on
each side to prevent it from slipping. He set the brass knob back on its
post, holding his find by the string.

'Look out,' he said. 'Don't touch it. This may be police property now.
They're awfully touchy about people meddling with their exhibits.' He
carried the cylinder under the light on the dressing-table. The blue
wrapper on the box was covered with small print, and they strained their
eyes to read it. Aunt Julia's secret lay revealed.

    _'Thyro-Tissue Reducer. A Pellet a Day Keeps the Scales at Bay.
    One Thyro-Tissue Reducer pellet taken every morning in tea--will
    effectively reduce superfluous flesh. Guaranteed convenient and
    harmless. Thousands of testimonials.'_

Campion and the girl exchanged glances. 'You were right,' she said. 'Was
it a mistake?'

'I don't think it was suicide,' said Mr Campion. 'Look here, I think we
may as well open this.' He took out a handkerchief and protected the
cylinder with it as he unscrewed the lid. The inside of the cylinder
proved enlightening. It held a tube of greaseproof paper folded in
zigzag creases, each fold of which had contained a white pellet. About
half of these were empty.

Campion stood looking at the remaining pellets through the transparent
paper. Finally he replaced them carefully in the box and screwed on the
lid.

'This is it,' he said. 'It'll have to go to an analyst, though I don't
suppose there's the remotest chance of the rest of these being anything
but as convenient and harmless as they're supposed to be. Yet this
morning's dose must have been impregnated by the conium or whatever it
was.'

The girl looked at him with horror and fear in her eyes. 'Then we've
made our discovery?' she said. 'It was murder?'

Mr Campion replaced his spectacles, and, wrapping the box carefully in
his handkerchief, thrust it in his pocket.

'I'm afraid so,' he said. 'And murder by someone who knew what no one in
the house has confessed to knowing--that Aunt Julia was trying to get
her weight down.'




CHAPTER 10
UNCLE WILLIAM'S GUILTY CONSCIENCE


After a fifteen-minute audience with Great-aunt Caroline alone in the
drawing-room, Mr Campion returned to Joyce, who was waiting for him
curled up in an arm-chair before the morning-room fire. She glanced up
as he came in, and he noticed how pale and scared she was. He offered
her a cigarette and lit one himself.

'Do you think that by the time I'm eighty-four I'll be like Mrs
Faraday?' he inquired. 'No, don't say it. She is the most remarkable
person I've ever met. I felt my allegiance to the firm required me to
report our discovery to her before I told Oates. She took it
marvellously. A very grand old bird. Stanislaus is right. She's exactly
like a High Court judge. I say,' he continued, turning on the girl
suddenly, 'I hope I haven't scared you unduly. But I thought you'd
rather be in it, so to speak. After all, an explanation, however
unpleasant, is better than a mystery.'

She nodded vigorously. 'That's how I feel. No, I'm awfully grateful,
honestly I am. I was afraid you were going to be one of those clever
people one reads about who know everything from the beginning and bring
the whole explanation out of their sleeve when they've completed a chain
of evidence, like a conjurer at a children's party.'

Mr Campion shook his head gravely. 'I'm not the conjurer at this party,'
he said, and sat down before the fire. 'Look here,' he went on suddenly,
'as a brother sleuth, what about this secret of Alice's? I don't want to
force anything out of you. I'm only a mother's help in this business.
But at least tell me this. Is Alice's little mystery anything of real
importance, in your own opinion, or is it one of those dark and awful
private worries that really have very little to do with the case?'

For some moments the girl did not answer, but stared fixedly before her,
her brows wrinkled, her eyes troubled.

'I don't know,' she said frankly. 'Maybe you'd better hear it. It's a
silly little thing, really, and may mean nothing at all. Alice told me
this morning, as a matter of fact, when she brought in my hot water, and
I know she hasn't mentioned it to the police. It's only this. The cord
which was used to open and shut the skylight window in the old nursery
upstairs has gone, or at least a great part of it has. One staple has
been pulled out and a large chunk of rope cut off. Alice noticed it the
other day when she went in to see if the room wanted airing. Naturally
she didn't think anything of it then, but when Andrew was found tied up
with clothes-line or something like it she couldn't help remembering the
window cord. She didn't want me to tell the police because she felt it
would just be bringing the suspicion back to the house. That's all it
is.'

Mr Campion was very grave. 'You say there's quite a large bit of rope
left?' he said. 'That's important. I mean the two pieces can be compared
if need be. Look here, since there's no telephone in the house, I think
I'd better go and interview one of those plain-clothes men in the
garden. He probably knows of a police call-box, somewhere about, and I'd
like to have a chat with Stanislaus. It's only about half-past ten now.'

The girl rose to her feet. 'All right,' she said. 'Alice won't get into
trouble, will she, for not telling?'

'Rather not. I give you my solemn promise about that.'

The girl smiled at him. 'I'm glad you came,' she said. 'I don't know
what we should have done without you. I've got to go up now. Aunt
usually goes to bed at about half-past ten, and it's one of my jobs to
put away her laces and lay out the different ones for tomorrow. I'll say
good night to you.'

'Good night,' said Mr Campion. 'Don't be afraid.'

She paused half-way across the room and looked back at him. 'How do you
guess what people are thinking?' she demanded.

Mr Campion adjusted his glasses. 'I was in the Income Tax Department for
years,' he murmured. 'More passages from my sordid past next week.'

A grudging smile spread over her face. 'Forgive me,' she said, 'but
don't you find your manner a--well, a detriment in your business?'

He looked hurt. 'Can a leopard change his spots?' he protested. 'I am as
I am.'

Joyce laughed. 'Good night, Spotty,' she said, and went out.

Campion waited until he heard the drawing-room door close and Great-aunt
Caroline and her niece go safely up the stairs. Then he stepped gently
out into the hall to make his way to the garden.

He had just reached the front door when it opened, and Marcus, followed
by Uncle William, whose face was no longer pink, but a delicate shade of
heliotrope, came into the hall. Both men stopped abruptly when they
caught sight of Campion, and Marcus turned meaningly to his companion.
Beneath the cold, slightly unfriendly stare of the younger man Uncle
William pulled himself together.

'Oh--yes, Campion,' he said. 'I'm very glad to see you. Is my mother in
bed, do you know?' It was very much apparent that something had
occurred. The atmosphere was strained between the two newcomers.
Campion's curiosity was aroused. It looked as though Marcus was forcing
the older man to take the initiative and equally obvious that Uncle
William did so unwillingly.

'Mrs Faraday has only just gone upstairs,' said Campion. 'Do you want to
see her?'

'Oh, good Lord, no!' Uncle William spoke vehemently and shut his mouth
with a snap, glancing at his escort with furtive blue eyes.

Marcus turned to Campion, betraying that he had given up the idea of
persuading Uncle William to open the proceedings.

'Look here,' he said. 'We want to see you alone for some minutes. Is
there anyone in the breakfast-room?' He was taking off his overcoat as
he spoke, and Uncle William imitated him, although somewhat grudgingly.
Campion led the way back to the morning-room and Uncle William followed
him, blinking a little in the bright light.

When Marcus came in he closed the door behind him. His face was
unusually grave, and with sudden misgiving Campion realized that he
looked like a man who had had a shock. Uncle William had also undergone
a deep and subtle change. His bluster had deserted him almost entirely.
He looked older, flabbier, and although there was still a faint
truculence about him, it was the truculence of one who has been found
out rather than one who fears he is about to be.

Marcus cleared his throat nervously. 'Campion,' he said, 'as a
solicitor, I have advised Mr Faraday to bring his story to you. I have
explained to him that I cannot do what he has asked me, but that I feel
that you, in your position as Mrs Faraday's professional adviser in this
business, could probably help him more than anyone else.'

'I like that,' grumbled Uncle William. 'You pretty well forced me to
come here, you know that.'

Marcus turned to him in exasperation, but he spoke patiently as though
to a child.

'As I reminded you before, Mr Faraday,' he said, 'Campion is not a
member of the police, and as a professional man any secret of yours will
be safe with him.'

Uncle William spread out his fat hands. 'All right,' he said. 'But I
don't want to run my head into a noose. I don't know when I've been in
such an awkward position in my whole life. After all, you don't seem to
see that whatever I've done I'm morally as innocent as a new-born babe.
It's my affliction--like a fellow having a gammy leg. Hang it all,
you've only got to do what I ask you, and there's no bother about it.'

Marcus shook his head. 'You don't realize,' he said, 'if you'll forgive
me saying so. You don't see the legal aspect of this at all. Whatever
your personal views of--er--crime and punishment are, the law is very
definite on the subject. I must repeat my request to you. You're in a
very serious position, Mr Faraday.'

'All right,' said Uncle William, still a little sulkily. 'Go on. You
tell him. It seems a pity that a fellow's afflictions should be bandied
about from mouth to mouth. Still, I suppose you know best. Go on,' he
repeated, his little eyes betraying his anxiety. 'Let me hear how you
see it. Strikes me as being one of the most natural things in the
world.'

The young man took a folded paper from his breast pocket and eyed
Campion steadily.

    'Mr Faraday has just brought me this statement which he wishes
    to sign on oath,' he said. 'I will read it to you: _"I, William
    Robert Faraday, hereby declare that I have had something wrong
    with my nerves for the past eighteen months. I am liable to lose
    my memory completely and utterly for short spaces of time, never
    exceeding the half-hour, as far as I know. During these attacks
    I have no recollection of where I am or who I am and do not
    consider myself responsible for any action that I may at these
    times inadvertently commit."_'

Uncle William looked up. 'I don't like that word,' he said, 'say
"_do_".'

'"_Do_",' said Marcus, and made a pencilled alteration. 'This isn't a
legal form, anyhow.'

    _'"I swear the foregoing is the truth, and nothing but the
    truth. Signed. William R. Faraday."'_

'Well then, there you are,' said Uncle William triumphantly. 'That's
clear, isn't it? All you've got to do is to witness that, Marcus, and
date it as I told you. There's nothing dishonest about it. I've been
meaning to come to you about this for months. You date it February;
it'll be all right.'

Marcus flushed. 'But, Mr Faraday,' he said helplessly, 'you must realize
the desperate importance of a move like this at such a time. I don't
mind telling you that if you were anyone else who had come to me with a
request like this I should consider it my duty to throw you out of my
office, and it is only because you have convinced me that these facts
are mainly true that I am down here with you tonight.'

Campion, who had remained throughout the interview standing silent by
one of the high-backed chairs, his inconsequential air more strongly
marked than ever, now sat down and leant back, folding his arms.

'Could you describe these attacks of yours, Mr Faraday?' he said.

Uncle William looked at him belligerently. 'Of course I could,' he said.
'There's nothing much to describe. I just forget, and then, after a bit,
I remember. An attack usually lasts about five to ten minutes, I
believe. There's a name for it. It's called "amnesia" or something. If I
get tired or over-exert myself it's liable to come on.'

Mr Campion seemed perfectly convinced. 'I see,' he said. 'And very
awkward, too. Have you had many of these attacks?'

'No, not a lot,' said Uncle William guardedly. 'Not many. But I'm
getting worse. The first time it happened was last June. By the way,
Marcus, you'd better alter that statement. It's not eighteen months, is
it?'

'No,' said Marcus acidly. 'It's nine.'

'Oh, well'--Uncle William waved his hands--'you lawyer fellows are so
exact. Well, last June I was walking down Petty Cury on a damned hot
day. My mind went blank, and the next thing I knew I was standing
outside the Roman Catholic church with a glass in my hand. I felt an
absolute fool, and, naturally, rather alarmed. I didn't know what to do
with the thing. I noticed one or two people looking at me curiously. The
glass didn't tell me anything; ordinary tumbler, the sort of thing you'd
get in a bar. I put it in my pocket finally and threw it into a field as
I came out of the town. Most unpleasant experience.'

'Most,' said Campion gravely. 'And has it happened since then?'

'Twice,' Uncle William admitted cautiously after some hesitation. 'Once
last Christmas, just when I thought there was nothing in it after all.
We had a dinner party here one night, and when everyone had gone home I
remember walking down to the gate with Andrew to get a breath of fresh
air. I remembered nothing more until I found myself shivering in a cold
bath. It might have killed me. I don't take a cold tub now. When a man
gets to my age he has to look after himself. Penalty of being an old
athlete.'

Marcus, who knew that the sum of Uncle William's athletic prowess was
represented by the silver mug gained at a preparatory school in 1881,
frowned on this unwarrantable assertion, but the older man rattled on.

'I asked Andrew afterwards--cautiously, you know--if he'd noticed
anything odd. He asked me what I meant. He was as drunk as a bargee at
the time, so I don't suppose he did notice anything.'

'And the third time?' said Mr Campion curiously.

'And the third time,' said Uncle William grudgingly, 'was more
unfortunate still. The third time was on the Sunday that Andrew
disappeared--in fact, actually at the time that he did disappear. That's
what makes it so awkward.'

Marcus started violently. 'Mr Faraday!' he protested. 'You didn't tell
me this.'

'I'm not a man who talks about my ailments,' said Uncle William,
betraying a slight thickness of speech which had been vaguely noticeable
throughout the interview. 'Well, there you are. Now you've got it. I
remember standing in the road leading to the Grantchester meadows
arguing with Andrew about the right way to go home--idiotical
subject--quite obvious which was the right way. I remember parting with
him. I was very rattled, don't you know, very upset, to think that a man
could be such a fool. And that's when I lost my memory. When I came to I
was just walking in the front gate, and lunch was practically over.'

'That was twenty-five minutes later than you said in your statement to
the police,' remarked Mr Campion unexpectedly.

Uncle William's cheeks inflated. 'Perhaps so,' he muttered. 'All this
insistence on time is very confusing. Well, there you are. Now you know
all about it.'

Marcus tried vainly to catch Mr Campion's eye, but that young man
remained polite and inconsequential, his eyes hidden behind his
spectacles.

'I hope you won't think me unduly inquisitive, Mr Faraday,' he said,
'but why didn't you tell one of the family of your illness? You were
running a great risk. You might have got run over, for example.'

Uncle William, hunched up in his chair, refused to look at either of
them.

'I don't like talking about family secrets in front of strangers,' he
murmured, 'but, as a matter of fact, my mother is getting old.' He
paused, and taking out a huge pocket handkerchief, blew his nose
violently. 'She gets ideas into her head,' he went on. 'For some time
lately she has suffered from a delusion that--well, not to put too fine
a point upon it, that I drink. Of course,' he continued, his voice
rising gustily, 'I'm not a teetotaller, and in my time--well, there was
a period not so very long ago when I used to get so infuriated living
with a pack of ill-natured fools that I used to drown my sorrows now and
again.' Uncle William managed to convey the impression that he regarded
himself as a man confessing to a past peccadillo with a good grace.
'Well,' he went on, his confidence restored, 'it came home to me, don't
you know, that if I told the family that I had been stricken with this
affliction, having no medical knowledge at all, they might put it down
to my having had a glass or two. Now you see how awkward it was.'

Mr Campion nodded, but it was Marcus who spoke.

'But, my dear sir,' he protested helplessly, 'don't you see the danger
you put yourself in? Haven't you told anyone? Is there no one who can
bear out this story?'

Uncle William rose to his feet. 'Young man,' he said sternly, 'are you
doubting my word?'

Marcus seemed about to point out that he was only human after all when
Mr Campion came to the rescue.

'The state of your health must have alarmed you, Mr Faraday?' he said.
'Didn't you feel like taking medical advice?'

Uncle William turned to him. His racing, muddled thoughts were reflected
in his narrowed eyes.

'Naturally,' he said cautiously. 'But I didn't want to go to old
Lavrock, telling him all my business. I don't say anything against
Lavrock's discretion. He's a good fellow, I have no doubt. But I didn't
want to go to the family doctor.'

'It's a great pity you didn't go to someone,' said Marcus, whose precise
orderly mind was revolted by Uncle William's astounding display of
untidy thinking.

'Oh, but I did,' said the older man petulantly. 'I did.'

Both young men stiffened. 'Who?'

But Uncle William seemed loth to speak.

'For God's sake, man!' Marcus's tone was urgent. 'Don't you see the
importance of this?'

Uncle William shrugged his shoulders. 'Very well, then,' he said. 'It
makes it more awkward than ever, but if you insist--Sir Gordon
Woodthorpe, the Harley Street nerve man.'

Marcus sighed, an expression in which incredulity and relief fought with
one another.

'That makes it feasible, at any rate,' he said. 'When did you go to see
him?'

'End of June,' said Uncle William, still grudgingly. 'We won't go into
what he said. I never believed those fellows know as much as they're
supposed to. Well, that's the truth, but I don't see how it's going to
make any difference. I can't ask him to confirm my visit.'

'Why not?' Marcus's suspicions returned.

"Because,' said Uncle William, with great dignity, picking his words
with elaborate care, 'I thought it prudent to change my name for the
occasion. I haven't been able to pay him either--if you must hear all my
private affairs. Oh, I dare say he'd remember my case,' he went on as
the other opened his mouth to speak. 'But if you think I'm going to
allow you to expose me to a lot of threatening lawyer's letters or
whatever these fellows take refuge behind, you're wrong. I've said all
I'm going to say.' He shut his mouth obstinately and turned away from
them.

'But Mr Faraday, this is murder.' Marcus planted himself before the old
man and repeated the words savagely. 'Murder. Don't you understand?
There's nothing worse than murder. If you persist in carrying on like
this, sir,' he went on, with growing severity, 'you're liable to be
arrested.'

'You sign that paper,' said Uncle William. 'I'll be all right then. I've
been in several tight corners in my life, and always got out of them.
And I shall do the same now. There isn't a man alive who can call
William Faraday a coward.'

'Not to say a fool,' muttered Marcus under his breath.

Uncle William glanced up at him. 'Don't mutter at me, sir,' he said.
'Speak out like a man.'

Marcus appealed to Campion. 'Can you explain to Mr Faraday the gravity
of his situation?' he said. 'I can't.'

'Hang it! I know it's grave,' bellowed Uncle William, with unexpected
violence. 'Haven't I lost a cousin, and a sister? You two seem to forget
this family's bereavements and come here worrying me about doctors. Let
me tell you I've got to give evidence of identification at the inquest
tomorrow, and that's going to be a very painful, trying and tragic
experience. I'm not the man to be worried about petty doctor's bills.'

'Inspector Oates will follow up any evidence, Marcus,' said Mr Campion
unpardonably.

Uncle William looked from one to the other of the two young men, opened
his mouth to speak, but thought better of it. He sat staring at them,
grunting softly to himself like a simmering kettle. Quite suddenly he
gave in.

'I took my old friend Harrison Gregory's name. Gave the club address,
and called on the 27th of June,' he said. 'Now, you know, and I hope
that satisfies you. It makes me look a fool, but then Mother keeps us so
short. She doesn't seem to realize that a man of my age must have a
pound or two.'

Marcus was scribbling the name on the back of an envelope. 'Levett's
Club, isn't it, sir?' he said.

Uncle William grunted. 'Brook Street,' he murmured. 'Country member. Old
Gregory'll be touchy with me. He must have been hearing from that
fellow.' He shook his head regretfully. 'It seemed the best thing to do
at the time.'

Marcus shot a horrified glance at Campion, who seemed to be quite
unmoved by this recital.

'I'll do what I can, sir.' Marcus put the envelope back into his pocket.
'I should destroy this statement, if I were you,' he added, tapping the
sheet of paper upon the table. 'In the circumstances, I think it might
be misleading. Campion, I shall come up to see you in the morning if I
may. Until we can confirm this interview with Sir Gordon Woodthorpe
perhaps this story should be kept from the police, although I realize
that it will have to come out sooner or later. I think Mr Faraday
realizes that, too,' he added, glancing in Uncle William's direction.

Uncle William vouchsafed no reply, neither did he respond to Marcus's
'Good night', but sat sulking in his chair until Mr Campion returned
from the hall whither he had accompanied his friend. Then he rose to his
feet and picked up the statement which Marcus had left upon the table.

'Damned unobliging young pup,' he observed. 'I thought his father might
be an uncivil old fool, but I didn't think the boy would be so
difficult. Oh, well, I suppose I shall have to let him ferret out all
this silly business with the doctor fellow. I don't particularly mind,
of course. I only thought this was the easiest way.' He dropped the
paper into the flames and turned abruptly to Campion. 'That policeman,
Inspector Oates, came back here this evening,' he said. 'It was his
harping on the exact time of the lunch on Sunday that made me realize
that I'd better get this thing done if I was going to do it at all.
That's what made me go to see Marcus this evening. How was I to know he
would put up such a show of obstinacy?'

He paused, and Mr Campion made no comment. Suddenly Uncle William sank
back wearily into his chair. There was something almost pathetic in the
glance he shot at the other man.

'Do _you_ think I'm in a devil of a mess?' he said.

Mr Campion's heart was touched. 'You're in a mess,' he said slowly, 'but
I don't think it's as bad as it looks. I don't know yet. Forgive me for
saying so, but I suppose this story about Sir Gordon Woodthorpe
is--well, _bona fide_?'

'Oh, yes, that's the truth, unfortunately,' said Uncle William, who
seemed to be incapable of grasping the importance of such a helpful
witness. 'Of course,' he continued, with devastating frankness, 'I
couldn't have done it, you know. I couldn't have killed Andrew. I didn't
take a chunk of rope to church with me, I know that.'

His little blue eyes blinked reflectively. 'Figure not being what it
was, I wear a very tight overcoat. Very smart. Why, I can't put a prayer
book in my pocket without it looking like a hip flask. But a great chunk
of rope! Someone would have noticed it. I should have, too. I may be
forgetful, but I'm not feeble-minded, you know.'

It was evident that a great deal of what Uncle William said was
pertinent.

'Of course,' said Mr Campion absently, 'there's very little to prove
that your cousin was killed on the Sunday.'

'Oh, well then,' said Uncle William, with satisfaction, 'that lets me
out altogether. I know what I've been doing ever since then. I haven't
had an attack since that day, thank God, and, besides, the weather's
been so damned bad that I haven't been outside the house half a dozen
times. Between ourselves, it's been so peaceful without Andrew and that
I haven't felt much inclination to leave the fireside.'

'The other thing,' said Mr Campion slowly, 'is the revolver. Ever had a
revolver?'

The old man considered. 'Had one in the service, in the war of course,'
he said. 'I was stationed at Montreuil-sur-Mer--not that it's on the
sea. Inaccurate people, these foreigners. I--er--had a staff job.'

He looked at Campion fiercely, as though warning him not to ask for
further particulars.

'Yes, I had one then. I haven't seen it since. Hang it all, it's not a
thing you want in private life.'

'Quite,' agreed Mr Campion. 'What happened to the one you had?'

'With my kit, I suppose. I seem to remember that I put the whole lot in
a trunk in the old nursery. Yes, that where it would be.'

'Let's go and have a look,' said Mr Campion, to whom the word 'nursery'
had brought back the recollection of Joyce's story of half an hour
before.

'What now?' Uncle William seemed loth to stir. 'I told the Inspector
there wasn't a gun in the house,' he said, 'and never had been. I resent
this police catechizing.'

But Mr Campion was not to be denied. 'They're bound to find it sooner or
later,' he said. 'I think we'd better go and look. I'm afraid they'll be
searching the house tomorrow.'

'Searching the house?' said Uncle William, aghast. 'They can't do a
thing like that. Or has this Labour Government made that possible? I
remember saying to Andrew: "If these blackguards come into power a
gentleman's home won't be his own."'

'Once you call the police into the house--and you have to call them in
in a serious case like this--I think you'll find their powers are very
great. In the nursery, did you say?'

Still grumbling, Uncle William got up. 'All right,' he said. 'But we
shall have to be quiet. The women are asleep, or ought to be. I don't
see why we shouldn't wait till the morning. It's darned cold at the top
of the house. No fires in the bedrooms here unless it's a case of
illness. That's the Spartan rgime of the old school.' He paused
hopefully, but finding Mr Campion adamant, he helped himself to the last
of the whisky and soda from the sideboard, and, tossing it off, led the
way upstairs.

Campion followed his globular panting figure up the staircase into the
darkness of the upper hall. All was silent and a trifle stuffy. Uncle
William turned the corner and climbed the next flight.

The second floor of the house was smaller than the others, a place of
narrow corridors and slanting ceilings.

'Servants sleep that side,' whispered Uncle William, pointing towards
that part of the house that was above Mrs Faraday's room and the front
hall. 'The old nursery is down here. It's really only an attic.' He
switched on a light, which revealed a passage like the one below, three
windows on one side and three doors on the other. Here the carpets were
worn, the paint was scratched and unpolished, and it occurred to
Campion, that it probably looked much the same as it had done in the
days when the young William and Julia had chased one another down it
towards a little wicket gate which barred the exit at the top of the
back stairs.

Uncle William opened the first of the three doors. 'Here we are,' he
said. 'These two rooms have been knocked into one. There was a night
nursery, now used as a lumber-room, at the end.'

As he turned on the light a big dusty room leapt into sight. It was
still furnished with the grim relics of a Victorian nursery. A worn red
carpet covered the floor and brown painted cupboards and a chest of
drawers stood stiffly against the atrocious blue and green wallpaper.
There was a big wire guard over the fireplace and large steel engravings
of a sternly religious character were interspersed by coloured texts on
the walls. It was a depressing room. The iron bars of the windows, while
useful, were hardly ornamental. Instinctively Campion glanced at the
skylight. All was as Joyce described. A piece of cord hung down
forlornly from the dusty window, and it was quite clear that a staple to
which the other end had been attached had been jerked out of its
position. The section of rope which remained was not unlike
clothes-line, being thicker and coarser than the usual window cord.

William did not appear to notice this defect. He stood looking about
him.

'There's the trunk,' he said, pointing to an ancient leather contraption
which stood crazily in one corner beneath a standard globe and a pile of
books. He led the way across the room, treading silently with elaborate
care. Campion followed him, and between them they removed the obstacles
and Uncle William raised the lid of the case.

Campion peered in with interest. A faintly musty aroma greeted them, and
a moth flew out. Upon investigation there appeared a pair of knee boots,
a khaki uniform, a pair of riding breeches, two pairs of slacks, a Sam
Browne belt and a 'brass hat'. Uncle William took the garments out one
by one and laid them on the floor.

'Ah,' he said, as the bottom of the trunk appeared, 'here it is.'

Campion was before him. He picked up the holster and unfastened the
stud. There were a couple of oily rags within, and that was all.

'God bless my soul!' said Uncle William.




CHAPTER 11
AND SO TO BED


Back in the morning-room Uncle William began to show signs of coherent
thought again. The motley of veins on his face had multiplied and he
appeared to be on the point of exhaustion.

'Not a sign of it, Campion,' he said huskily. 'There's some very dirty
work going on here.'

His companion tactfully refrained from observing that so much must have
been obvious for some time, and the older man continued.

'There were some cartridges up here, too,' he said. 'I remember now.
They were lying loose at the bottom of the trunk. I shall get into hot
water, I suppose, when the police hear about this.' He lowered his voice
and peered at Campion, his little blue eyes watery with apprehension.
'Do they know what sort of a bullet killed Andrew?' he said. 'Haven't
you heard? This is terrible--terrible.'

He sat down in his green leather chair and shot a hopeless glance at the
whisky decanter. His worst fears were realized and he turned away again.

'I wish I knew where that blackguard was skulking,' he bellowed
suddenly. 'I thought Scotland Yard could find anyone in a day?' He
pulled himself up. 'Still, I mustn't talk about George, I suppose. Just
because I mentioned his name to that policeman I had half an hour's
pi-jaw from the old lady. Makes me furious,' he went on, his face
suffusing with angry colour. 'Why should I be put to all this worry and
anxiety just to cover up the tracks of a blackmailing scoundrel who's
never done an honest day's work in his life? He must have walked into
the house, got the gun and laid in wait for Andrew. That is, of course,
if Andrew was shot with my gun. That isn't proved yet, is it?'

'It doesn't follow,' said Mr Campion mildly. 'Even if he was shot with
an army bullet, there must be several hundred thousand army service
revolvers kicking about the country.'

Uncle William brightened. 'Yes, that's true,' he said. 'Still, I bet it
was George. Extraordinary way he came in to dinner that Saturday night.
No one let him into the building, you know. He may have been skulking
about the house for hours. That's the sort of ruffian the fellow is.
Treats the place like his own when he's here, though I must say Mother
always gets rid of him. There's a touch of the Amazon about the old lady
still, in spite of her age.'

He paused for a moment, rumbling speculatively. Suddenly he went on
again.

'It turned my stomach over when he came in just after the clock weight
fell. A silly transpontine appearance. Reminded me of the sort of
melodrama I used to see as a boy. And now the old lady's trying to
shield him, that's what annoys me.'

Mr Campion, who possessed the gift of self-effacement to an
extraordinary degree, stood placidly leaning against the mantelpiece
while the old man continued.

'She lives too much in the past,' Uncle William insisted. 'The scandals
of the past matter more to her than any catastrophe that might happen
now. I don't suppose this fellow George holds anything very important
over her, but there's no way of telling. Look at the reason why she cut
Andrew out of her will.'

Mr Campion appeared interested. 'A storm in a teacup?' he inquired.

'I thought so,' Uncle William confided. 'After all, the governor, God
bless him, can't be irritated now. Yet it was that book of Andrew's that
did it. _Hypocrites, or the Mask of Learning._ A rotten title. I told
him so.'

'I've never heard of it,' said Mr Campion.

'You wouldn't,' said Uncle William brutally. 'I don't suppose it sold
half a dozen copies. I told Mother it wasn't worth worrying about, but
she never takes any notice of me. It showed old Andrew's impudence,
though,' he added savagely, 'and it served him right. Fancy a fellow
living on his aunt's charity while he wrote a blackguardly attack on his
dead uncle!'

'An attack on Doctor Faraday?' inquired his companion.

William nodded. 'That's right. Old Andrew noticed that there was a great
boom in memoirs--old wallahs retelling their club stories and getting
their own back generally--and it occurred to him that he might make a
fiver or two by having a smack at the governor. Anyway, he wrote the
thing. Silliest piece of work I ever read, and I'm not a literary man.'

'It was published?' asked Mr Campion.

'Oh, yes. Some little tin-pot firm brought it out. Thought there might
be a sale on the governor's name, I suppose. Andrew got six copies and
nothing else, and yet I should think the publishers were out of pocket.
Even then it wouldn't have mattered,' he continued, with rising
indignation, 'but as soon as he got his six copies old Andrew wrote a
flowery inscription on the fly-leaf of each and presented us all with a
copy. There was one over for the spare room. Mother got Joyce to read
the book to her. A nice little girl that, by the way,' he remarked.
'Only woman of any tact in the whole household. Yes, well, then the fat
was in the fire. I haven't seen Mother so angry since--oh, well, a long
time ago. Of course, in the ordinary way we should have sued for
defamation of family character, I suppose, but you can't get damages
from a relative living on your own charity. Very awkward. Mother took
the only weapon left to her. She sent for old Featherstone and altered
her will. I was reading a book about an Italian fellow who sells beer in
America at the time, I remember. I borrowed a phrase from it. I said to
Andrew, I said: "Laugh that off, won't you." He sat in that chair over
there. I can hear him swearing now.'

'I'd like to see the book,' said Mr Campion.

'Would you?' Uncle William was eager to placate this young man, who, he
realized, was the only person of influence liable to be even remotely
friendly towards him. 'I've got a copy, as a matter of fact. The old
lady destroyed all those she could get hold of, but I kept mine.' He
lowered his voice. 'Between you and me, I believe it was half true. We
Faradays aren't saints. The governor was human, like the rest of us.' He
rose to his feet. 'I expect you'll turn in now?' he said. 'I'll get the
book. You might keep it in your bag. It's got my name in it.'

The two men went upstairs together and Campion stood in the doorway of
Uncle William's room while the old man rummaged among the books which
stood on the shelf beside his bed. Campion got the impression of a vast,
untidy room, as littered and rambling as its owner's mind. He had not
much time for observation, however, for Uncle William returned to him
almost immediately with a slim volume covered with brown paper.

'I labelled it "Omar Khayyam" in case it was noticed on the shelf,' he
murmured. 'Well, good night, and--er--ere, I say.' He laid a heavy hand
on the young man's shoulder, peered into his face and spoke with deadly
earnestness. 'I'm telling you as one man to another. I'm going to cut
out the glass. Not another drink until this business is over.' He nodded
portentously and disappeared into his own room, shutting the door behind
him.

In view of the empty decanter downstairs, Mr Campion felt this statement
somewhat unnecessary. However, he said nothing, but withdrew to his own
room two doors down the passage.

It was now almost midnight, and for a reason which he was loth to admit,
he did not feel like leaving the house until the morning. Anyhow, he
reflected, Stanislaus could do nothing that night.

The guest-room at Socrates Close was one of those large, comfortable
apartments furnished with pieces that no one could possibly have brought
for his own use. An ornate rosewood suite, a misshapen arm-chair, a
remarkable wallpaper upon which the botanist had been at work again, and
an assortment of pictures which took, Mr Campion considered, his
religious beliefs too much for granted, made up an apartment at once
comfortable to the flesh and disturbing to the spirit.

Campion undressed, got into bed, and, switching on the reading lamp,
examined Uncle Andrew's mess of pottage. The inscription on the fly-leaf
was in highly questionable taste in view of the subject matter of the
book.

    _'To my Cousin William Faraday, a true son of his father, and
    from a close study of whose disposition I have gained much of my
    insight into the complex character of the subject of this book.
    With the Author's thanks.'_

There was a frontispiece, an old-fashioned photograph of Doctor John
Faraday. It was not a pleasant face; stern, and unrelieved by any sign
of humour. Long, spoon-shaped side-whiskers increased the narrowness of
the jaw and the mouth was drawn and puckered like the mouth of a string
bag.

Mr Campion began to read. Uncle Andrew's style was not distinguished,
but it had the quality of vituperance. He wrote with an urge and a
spitefulness which made him eminently readable. Campion found himself
amazed that any firm should have risked the publication of such an
attack, and reflected that Andrew had probably represented his influence
with the family as something more than it actually was. Doctor Faraday,
stripped of his academic honours, emerged as a narrow-minded,
self-important man who hid his shortcomings beneath a hypocritical cloak
of sanctity and his wife's charm. Several slightly discreditable stories
of his youth had been unearthed or invented by the industrious Andrew,
and the learned Doctor appeared as little more than a pompous Victorian
humbug with unexpected twists of character for which the modern
psychologists have long and unpleasant names. Andrew knew most of the
names and used them freely.

By the time Mr Campion had read the first three chapters and glanced at
the end, he closed the book feeling a little sorry for the defunct
dignitary, whatever his private character might have been.

He switched out the light and lay down to sleep, having decided to call
upon the Inspector at the earliest possible moment on the morrow.

It was some time later when he woke up suddenly and sat up in bed,
listening. The heavy curtains over the window shut out all light, so
that the darkness was almost tangible, like black cotton wool filling
the house. Campion was one of those people who are immediately in
possession of all their thoughts and faculties the moment they open
their eyes, and a feeling of apprehension seized him instantly. He
caught a fleeting impression of the house as some sick, many-petticoated
creature crouching frightened in the unrelenting darkness. There was now
no sound at all to be heard, yet he knew that something had awakened
him. He had a vague idea that it had been the gentle closing of a door.

For some time he remained where he was, his eyes closed, his ears
strained to catch the least movement. At length, somewhere far off, he
heard wood knocking gently against wood.

He sprang out of bed and crept towards the door, letting himself out
without a sound.

The moonlight was streaming through the windows into the corridor and
the ghostly light was comforting after the appalling blackness of his
room. For an instant he stood rigid. Then something moved in the hall at
the far end of the corridor, a furtive rustling.

He strode swiftly towards it, his feet making no sound on the thick
carpet. Just for a moment it occurred to him that his behaviour was
somewhat questionable for a guest on his first night in the house, but
at the mouth of the corridor he stopped abruptly.

Standing in the centre of the small hall, the moonlight falling directly
upon him, was the pyjama-clad figure of Uncle William. His eyes were
bulging and there was a look of terror upon his face. His right arm was
held stiffly away from him, and Campion, catching sight of it, was
conscious of a sudden shock.

A stain, black in the moonlight, covered the hand and wrist and dripped
terrifyingly from the finger-tips. At the instant that Campion himself
caught sight of this apparition the door of Aunt Kitty's room directly
across the hall burst open and a little tousled figure appeared upon the
threshold. Her eyes lighted upon William, and a thin scream of terror
echoed through the slumbering house.

The old man wheeled round, his hand thrust hastily behind him. He swore
violently, entirely forgetting his erstwhile efforts to keep quiet. The
house echoed with his voice. Doors began to open on the floor above, and
Joyce appeared from her room on the other side of the hall. She was half
asleep, and her hair fell over the shoulders of her dressing-gown.

'What is it? What's the matter? Aunt Kitty, what are you doing?'

The little figure in the fussy flannelette nightgown tottered out into
the moonlight.

'His hand! His hand!' said Aunt Kitty breathlessly. 'Look at his hand!
Someone else has been murdered!' And again the high hysterical shriek
broke from her lips.

It was at this moment that the door of Great-aunt Caroline's room opened
and a figure, infinitesimally small shorn of its petticoats, stepped out
towards them. Great-aunt Caroline's night attire was as dainty as were
all her other clothes. She was swathed in filmy Shetland shawls, and her
little dark face peered out from beneath an immense lace bonnet, which
tied under her chin. Even at such a moment she dominated the entire
proceedings.

'What is all this disturbance?'

The sound of her voice effectively silenced Aunt Kitty, who appeared to
be on the verge of yet another hysterical outburst.

'William, what are you doing? Joyce, go back to your room.'

Uncle William said nothing. He stood goggling, his mouth hanging open,
his hand still thrust behind him, a grotesque absurd gesture in the
circumstances.

'Answer me, sir.' Great-aunt Faraday's voice was as commanding as ever.

Mr Campion started forward, and William, hearing someone behind him,
spun round, revealing his hand to the rest of the group. Campion heard
Joyce's quick intake of breath, and old Mrs Faraday came farther out of
her doorway. Campion caught Uncle William just as he slumped on to the
floor.

'Switch on the light, someone,' he said.

It was Joyce who obeyed him. The light shot up and Campion bent over the
older man with a sigh of relief. There was nothing seriously wrong with
Uncle William, and he was making a valiant effort to pull himself
together.

'I'm all right,' he said thickly. He raised his arm in his attempt to
get up, and his hand came into view again. Instantly the horror was
explained. There was a deep ragged wound from the knuckles to the wrist,
but the terrifying stain which had dripped from the fingers was nothing
but iodine, a whole bottle of which he seemed to have upset over
himself.

It was at this moment that the second incident occurred.

'This I won't have! Madame, you'll catch your death of cold.'

A strident voice from the top of the staircase made them all turn. A
powerful figure in a long white calico gown was striding down upon them.
Campion only just recognized in this commanding form the homely,
pleasant-faced Alice, whom he had last seen bearing sustenance to Uncle
William in the morning-room. Her hair scraped back from her forehead,
was plaited into a tight pigtail, and anger and concern had entirely
altered her face. She turned on the group as if they had been so many
lunatics.

'You'll kill her,' she said fiercely. 'That's what you'll do, dragging
her out on to this cold landing with your screams and noise. Hasn't she
enough to worry her without being disturbed in the middle of the night?
She's the one I'm thinking of.'

'Alice!' Great-aunt Caroline's voice, raised in protest, was lost in
this cyclonic outburst.

Alice strode past Uncle William without glancing in his direction and
now towered above her mistress.

'Will you get into your bed, ma'am?' she demanded.

Great-aunt Faraday did not speak, but neither did she move, and the
other woman, who seemed to have become even larger and more elemental
now that she stood amongst them, picked up her mistress as if she had
been a child and carried her into the darkness of the bedroom beyond.

This move was done with such extraordinary ease that it struck Campion
as being an amazing feat of strength. It was as though Alice had picked
up a recalcitrant kitten in her progress.

As the door of Aunt Faraday's room shut firmly, the general interest
returned to Uncle William. Campion helped him to his feet, where he
stood shaking violently, his mouth still hanging open. The young man
turned to Joyce.

'You get your aunt back to bed,' he murmured. 'I'll see to Mr Faraday.'

The girl nodded and moved over to Aunt Kitty, who was standing
helplessly in the middle of the hall wringing her hands, tears streaming
down her puckered old face.

Campion supported Uncle William back to his room, where he sat on the
edge of his bed swaying backwards and forwards, mumbling unintelligibly.
Had the old man been a woman, Mr Campion would have diagnosed faintness
as result of shock. As it was, he put the seizure down to some hitherto
unsuspected cardiac trouble.

His eye lighted again on the wound and all his apprehension returned. It
was no ordinary scratch, but a deep ragged cut like a knife-thrust that
had gone astray. The iodine had added to its horrific appearance, whilst
staunching the blood. The longer Mr Campion looked at it the more the
unpleasant thought was forced upon his mind that the end of the series
of outrages at Socrates Close had not yet come.

'How did you do that?' he demanded, indicating the wound.

Uncle William thrust his hand behind him. An obstinate gleam shone in
his watery blue eyes.

'Mind your own damned business,' he said, speaking with a viciousness
engendered by fright.

'I'm sorry,' said Campion. 'Well, I suppose you'll be all right now?'

As he turned towards the door, Uncle William thrust out his left hand
appealingly.

'Don't go, for heaven's sake, old man,' he said. 'Must have a drink.
I'll be myself again when I've had a drink. I've had a bit of a shock,
between ourselves. Ask Joyce--yes, that's right, ask Joyce. She'll get
me a brandy. The old lady trusts her with the keys.'

Fortunately for Mr Campion he encountered Joyce in the hall. She was
white and frightened, but eminently practical.

'All right,' she whispered, in response to his request. 'You go back to
him; I'll bring it along. Did he say who attacked him?'

This sudden question, which fitted in so well with his own hastily
formed theories, startled the young man.

'He won't say anything,' he whispered back.

She paused and seemed to be about to speak, but changed her mind and
hurried down the stairs without saying another word. Campion went back
to Uncle William.

He was still seated on the edge of his bed, his unslippered feet resting
on the thick woollen carpet. He looked ill and curiously frightened, but
as he caught sight of Campion he stiffened and forced a smile.

'Made a bit of a fool of myself,' he said with a hopeless attempt at
lightness. 'Always was a believer in iodine--army training, I suppose.
If you hurt yourself, stick on a wad of iodine. It stings, but it's
worth it. Saves no end of trouble afterwards. Unluckily my hand was a
bit unsteady--being half asleep, don't you know--and I spilt the bottle
over myself. I may be getting old--I don't know.'

Campion looked at the wound again. 'You ought to have a bandage on it,'
he remarked. 'It's pretty deep. Is there such a thing in the house?'

'There's one in the first-aid box where I got the iodine.' Uncle William
was blinking at his wounded hand, from which the blood was beginning to
ooze again. 'It's in that oak corner cupboard in the hall. But don't go
and get it and wake the house again, just as I did. There's a
handkerchief in that top drawer; that'll do. Unlucky beggar I am! That
girl's a long time with that drink. Just my luck if there isn't any.
What's the use of living in a non-prohibition country if you don't keep
anything in the house? When I get my money I shall go to America. It'll
be a funny thing to have to go to America to get a drink.'

Mr Campion returned with the handkerchief and was still looking
curiously at the wound, which seemed as though it might be the better
for a few stitches, when Joyce came in, a glass in one hand and a
decanter in the other. Uncle William rose immediately she appeared.

'That's a good girl,' he said. 'That's the only medicine that ever did
me any good. Pour it out for me, will you, my dear? Can't trust this
hand of mine.'

As she gave him the glass she noticed the real extent of the damage for
the first time, and an involuntary exclamation escaped her.

'Oh, how did it happen? Who did it?' she burst out.

Uncle William drained his glass and sat down again on the edge of the
bed. The spirit made him cough, and a healthier colour returned to his
face. As Joyce repeated her question he blinked at her.

'Yes,' he echoed, 'how did it happen? Most extraordinary thing. I've
never liked cats. Filthy, dangerous animals. Great black beast got into
my room. I went to put it out and it scratched me.'

Having got over what he evidently considered to be the hump of his
story, he continued with returning confidence.

'Must have got in from some place outside. I can't think how it managed
it. But it's gone now.'

He glanced about him as if to assure himself that this indeed was the
case. The girl shot an incredulous glance at Campion, who showed no sign
either of conviction or disbelief.

'I said to myself,' Uncle William continued with terrific gusto, 'cat
scratches are poisonous. So I went along to the first-aid box in the
hall, and the rest you know.'

He seemed to consider that this was the end of the matter, but Joyce was
frankly dissatisfied.

'A cat?' she demanded. 'Are you sure?'

In spite of his unsteady hand, Uncle William was helping himself to
another brandy.

'I said a cat, and I mean a cat,' he said with an attempt at dignity.

'But, Uncle William, you can't ask us to believe you if you say things
like that,' Joyce protested. 'How could there be a cat in here?'

'I don't know.' The old man spoke with his back to her. 'I'm only
telling you what I saw. I had my window open at the bottom--there it is,
you can see for yourself. I woke to hear the thing--to hear the
thing--well, to hear the thing. And I hate the creatures. I'm like old
Roberts in that respect. He couldn't bear 'em and I can't bear 'em. I
picked the creature up and I pushed it through the window and it
scratched me. There you are. Isn't that clear? I don't know what you're
making such a fuss about.'

The girl reddened. 'All right,' she said. 'If you'll give me that
handkerchief, Mr Campion, I'll tie his hand up. You'll have to see the
doctor in the morning, Uncle.'

'You leave me alone, my dear. I'll be all right. I've had plenty of cuts
before now.'

Uncle William was still on his dignity, but there was yet a furtive
uneasiness in his eyes. The bandaging complete, a certain embarrassing
argument followed as to whether the brandy should remain or no. A
compromise having been reached, the young people left the old man in bed
with a small tot at his side. In the corridor Joyce turned to Campion.

'What happened?' she whispered.

The young man seemed troubled. 'Look here,' he murmured, 'don't go
downstairs with that stuff. Take it into your room or leave it in the
hall, or something. And when you shut your door behind you, turn the
key.'

Her eyes met his questioningly, but he said no more and she went off,
switching out the light in the hall as she passed into her room.

Campion stood where he was for some moments before he turned and went
back to his bed. As he passed Uncle William's room he heard a faint
sound from within and paused to listen. When he moved on again his face
was very grave and his pale eyes were narrowed.

The sound he had heard was Uncle William quietly locking his door.




CHAPTER 12
COMMITTEE STAGE


Mr Campion lit a cigarette and sank down in a protesting basket-chair
before the fire in the small sitting-room at 'The Three Keys', which
Inspector Oates had engaged for himself to ensure a little privacy: a
personal extravagance which he felt was justified in view of the
sensation which the case was making in the town.

Like all guest-rooms furnished by unimaginative hosts, it presented an
atmosphere of aloof, if not downright grudging, hospitality. Even the
fire kept itself a trifle too much to itself behind the narrow bars of
the little grate.

Campion glanced at the small clock with the loud voice on the
mantelpiece. At any moment now Mr Oates should return from the inquest
on Andrew Seeley. It would be the most formal of formal affairs,
probably little more than a mere notice of adjournment. It was the first
time Campion had felt really alone since his arrival, and he permitted
himself the leisure to reflect that active adventure, however strenuous,
was apt to be less harrowing than taking part in this slow nemesis which
was so obviously engulfing Socrates Close and its occupants.

He was glad to sit back and consider the matter coldly in these neutral
surroundings, for he had felt the atmosphere of the house settling down
upon him, robbing him of his impartiality, drawing him into itself,
forcing him to see life confined within its own tiny boundaries.

Murder had been committed on two occasions. That seemed to be the only
fact that emerged concrete and clear from the hotchpotch of unrelated
incidents, tendencies and motives into which he had plunged. Uncle
William, the obvious culprit, became less and less obvious the longer he
knew him.

The incident of the night before returned to him vividly. Quite plainly
Uncle William had been the victim of an attack. He had also been ill.
The fact that he had refused so obstinately to give any reasonable
account of his assailant was out of character. William was not the sort
of man to shield anyone, nor was he likely to manufacture any incident
so dramatic or so subtle as a faked attack upon himself. Mr Campion
shuddered to think of the kind of ambuscade Uncle William might have
arranged had he ever conceived the idea of such a method of shelving the
suspicion against him. Certainly he would have emerged scatheless,
without the wound in which Doctor Lavrock had put three stitches that
morning.

With the elimination of Uncle William's guilt there remained his fear,
his locked door and that furtive element in the old house which had made
Campion advise Joyce to lock herself in her room and had caused him to
leave his own door half open and to lie awake listening for soft
footsteps in the corridor.

If Uncle William was out of it, whose was the mind behind these lunatic
crimes? The same mind which had conceived the idea of binding a man hand
and foot before shooting the top of his head off?

It was at this point in his meditations that the thought which he had
been resisting subconsciously all the morning forced itself upon him.
Alice: not the red-eyed, pleasant-faced woman who had opened the door to
the police, but the herculean elemental creature in the white calico
nightgown, the being whose fanatical love for her mistress had been so
strikingly displayed during the scene on the landing the night before.
Here was sufficient strength to account for Andrew. Here was the
necessary intimate knowledge of the household, and here also, he felt
unpleasantly sure, was the requisite courage. But, and it was at this
point that his mind jibbed, here was not the madness, the intellectual
cunning. For that he knew he must look to an accomplice, an instigator,
rather.

In the sanctuary of the Inspector's sitting-room he considered Mrs
Caroline Faraday.

Here was a remarkable personality, a woman who at an advanced age
retained her intellect, while possessing no longer any vestige of
emotion.

From a purely altruistic point of view there were several reasons why
the community at Socrates Close, the little world which she governed so
completely, would be better off without Andrew Seeley. When he reflected
upon certain phases of the dead man's character as it had emerged,
Campion was seized by the uncomfortable impression that there were,
almost certainly, many other reasons not quite so obvious. The motive
for Julia's murder was as yet to be found. But she had not been a
pleasant woman. She had been petty, bad-tempered, dogmatic; all
important anti-social crimes in so small and so self-contained a
community.

When one is so near death oneself life loses much of its importance. Mrs
Faraday had said as much only the day before. Was it possible that it
was she who had done these things, using Alice's strength, courage and
blind trust in her mistress as a means?

Campion rose to his feet and threw his cigarette into the fire. Now was
not the time for speculation, he reflected. Conjecture profiteth man
little, and it was with a species of relief that he swung round to face
the doorway as the Inspector came in.

'Hullo, Campion.' Mr Oates's habitual gloom momentarily dispersed. He
folded his raincoat neatly and placed it on the table with his hat on
top of it. 'Adjourned till Tuesday,' he said. 'That old fellow William
Faraday gave evidence of identification. I saw he'd got his hand in a
sling. Anything up?'

'In a way, yes, and in a way, no,' said Mr Campion. 'Do take one of your
own chairs. The wicker contraption is a snare and a delusion. Try the
one with the brass studs.'

The Inspector seated himself and took out his pipe. 'I hope you're not
going to be long unless you've got something important to say,' he said.
'I want to go down and have another look at that stream. I only gave it
the once-over yesterday. It's quite evident to me, if we're going to
make a case of this business, that we've got to get the gun. The first
inquest on the woman is fixed for Monday. I don't see why these coroner
fellows can't do two in a day. I don't suppose they'll adjourn that
longer than Wednesday, unless we offer them a prospect of a trial and a
conviction. I see the newspapers are comparatively quiet. I suppose they
smell an unsatisfactory case.'

'I told a man I know on the _Comet_ in confidence that I didn't think
it'd come to anything,' said Campion.

Stanislaus looked at him sharply. 'Have you found out anything?' he
said.

'Fair do's,' said Mr Campion. 'You know exactly how I stand in this
business. I'm not the clever amateur helping the important policeman.
I've just been asked down for the murder. If it wasn't for Joyce and
Marcus, and possibly Uncle William, I think I should go home.'

Stanislaus put down his pipe. 'Show us it,' he said.

Mr Campion put his hand in his pocket and drew out a small paper bag.
From this he extracted a handkerchief, which he placed upon the table.
Stanislaus rose and stood beside him and bent forward watching, while
Campion unfolded the white cambric handkerchief and exposed the little
wooden cylinder.

'I've opened it,' he said, 'but I used a handkerchief. Any finger-prints
will still be intact, though I'm afraid even in this old-fashioned
household they've all heard about using gloves. If you want to see what
it's like and you don't want to touch it,' he went on, 'here is a
replica. I went to the chemist whose name you will see on the label and
bought myself a packet of Thyro-Tissue Reducer from the gentleman in
charge, who seemed to think I was mad. I didn't make inquiries about
previous purchasers, not wishing to poach, but I ascertained that in his
opinion the stuff is principally an aperient with a large percentage of
starch to give bulk.'

As he spoke he produced a second cylinder from his pocket exactly like
the first.

The Inspector opened it and drew out the zig-zag strip of pellets.

'Where did you find this?' he inquired, pointing to the package in the
handkerchief.

With becoming modesty Mr Campion related his adventure of the night
before. The Inspector frowned when he found that Joyce had been a party
to the discovery, but was quite frankly surprised and delighted when he
heard of the hiding-place.

'No finger-prints on the knob?' he inquired. 'No, I know there weren't.
That place was kept as shiny as a new motor-car. We got all the prints
there were yesterday. How did you hit on it, though? Did the girl put
you up to it?'

Campion shook his head. 'No, you're on the wrong track there. I found it
out all by myself. It was the one place I could think you might not have
looked.'

Stanislaus regarded him with mild surprise. 'Do you often hide things in
bed knobs?' he said.

'Not since I was a child,' said Mr Campion, with dignity. 'There were
brass knobs on my crib. I remember the taste of them still.'

The Inspector grunted. 'My crib hadn't got knobs on,' he said. 'You had
all the advantages. Well, now we're getting somewhere. It struck me at
once that someone must have tampered with some patent flimmery-flammery
the old lady was taking. They say every woman of over forty takes
something. That's why these fellows keep on advertising. You'd be
surprised at the offers I get to say I derive my sparkle from pills and
ointments and whatnot. This is much better,' he repeated, brightening
visibly. 'I think I'll have a look at the exhibit all the same. The
deceased's own finger-prints'll be all over it, of course.'

Holding the cylinder carefully in one handkerchief and unscrewing the
top, his hand protected by another, he peered into the box.

'About half gone,' he announced. 'And she didn't tear off the paper.
That's a bit of luck. If morphine or conium was substituted for the last
one of these pellets there may be some traces of it left. We used to be
rather down on the Home Office chemists at one time, I believe, but
they're very hot fellows now. You'd be surprised. I'll take these, if
you please.'

He gathered the corners of the handkerchief which held the half-empty
cylinder and replaced it carefully in the paper bag.

'Anything else?' he inquired, looking up.

Before speaking, Campion returned to his chair, where he sat blinking
amicably behind his spectacles.

'A fair swop,' he murmured. 'What was the bullet like?'

'Point four five,' said Stanislaus grudgingly. 'And much good may that
do you. The number of unregistered Army Webleys in the country must be
colossal. When we find the actual gun we may be able to spot some slight
irregularity in it which will have shown on the bullet--but what a hope!
As soon as I heard of that coincidence on Thursday I knew I was in for
trouble. If I get a conviction on this case,' he added bitterly, 'I'll
eat my hat--the old brown one I wore when I arrested Summers.'

Campion made no comment, and the Inspector returned to the case.

'What about old Faraday's hand?' he demanded. 'How did that happen? I
don't know if you know it, my lad, but that fellow has twenty-five
minutes to account for, twenty-five mighty important minutes. Not all
the statements about the exact time of that Sunday lunch tally.'

Mr Campion leant back in his chair and considered Uncle William's
position, and, incidentally, his own. At length he stated Uncle
William's case simply, without exaggeration or elimination. When he had
finished the Inspector sat staring at him.

'Not bad,' he said. 'Not at all. It's not enough to take to a jury,
though.'

'I should think not,' said Mr Campion in horror. 'My dear fellow,
consider the situation. There's Sir Gordon Woodthorpe's evidence. He's
bound to remember the case of the man who gave him a false name. Bound
to recognize him, too. Then there's the gun. You've got to find that,
you know. Finally we come to the question of the rope. I suppose you'll
have that window cord compared with the stuff taken off the body?'

'You bet I will.' The Inspector spoke grimly. 'It's a great idea having
you in the house, Campion,' he went on consideringly, 'in spite of your
funny position. However, to return to this chap William. I haven't
examined this story of yours, but the impression with which it leaves me
is not very favourable towards the man. Still, let's have it all. You
know more about him than I do. And after all,' he went on lugubriously,
'if there was ever a case in the world that gave a fellow like myself a
magnificent chance of making a fool of himself, this is it.'

'Well, there's one thing,' said Campion. He was speaking slowly now,
choosing his words with care. 'I told you I saw him putting the iodine
on his hand. After that he practically fainted, or collapsed, anyhow. It
struck me as being extraordinary. The seizure only lasted a minute and I
took it for granted that his heart was not too good. But when I made
tactful inquiries this morning from the doctor who came to stitch up the
cut, I discovered Uncle William's heart was as sound as a bell. So the
question remains--why the collapse?'

'It might have been anything,' said the Inspector, clearly unimpressed
by this line of reasoning. 'If he had staged the whole thing it might
have been part of his verisimilitude.'

The younger man shook his head. 'I haven't made myself clear,' he said.
'I know what I'm telling you is not evidence, but it's a strong
impression and it might be useful. I believe the old boy was frightened
last night, and I also believe that he was slightly--very
slightly--poisoned.'

After staring at him for some seconds in astonishment, Stanislaus
laughed.

'Hand in the dark with poisoned dagger?' he said. 'This is police work,
my lad, not the high-class feudal warfare you've been accustomed to.'

Mr Campion remained unruffled. 'All right,' he said. 'Disregard the
gipsy's warning if you like. But still, continuing my defence of Mr
Faraday--or Uncle William, as I shall always think of him--I rather
fancy that if you make inquiries at every public house on the direct
route from Grantchester Meadows to Socrates Close you will find that on
the Sunday in question Uncle William entered a place of refreshment,
took a drink and departed, probably behaving a little queerly. They're
bound to remember him. He's a local character.'

The Inspector was unimpressed. 'If there's a sound alibi for that
twenty-five minutes, of course, any flimsy case we may have got against
him falls flat,' he said. 'At the least hint of trouble, though, I
suppose the family will brief a good man for the inquest. Do you know,
Campion, in my opinion that's the one point where our judicial system
goes to pieces. In a case like this where there's plenty of money, the
least hint of trouble and you're up against a K.C. But if there's no
money the law takes its course in its own sweet way with some young pup
of a barrister defending at the trial, although there is always a good
man for the Crown. I don't like this case. I wish I was in my own
district. They're first-class fellows down here, but you can see that
they don't like the scandal in the town any more than your young friend
the lawyer does. What gives you the idea that William Faraday visited a
pub on his way home, even supposing this preposterous amnesia story is
true?'

'On the first occasion that Uncle William experienced this distressing
phenomenon,' said Mr Campion, deliberately ignoring the last part of the
Inspector's remark, 'he found himself standing outside the Roman
Catholic church with a glass in his hand. In other words, he had walked
into a public house, ordered a drink and walked out with the glass in
his hand. After all, amnesia is a remote form of paralysis, isn't it?
The mind rejects memory, often because memory is unpleasant. Memory
means restraint. Uncle William loses his memory and loses his
restraints. He satisfies his natural desire. He has his drink.'

'All very pretty,' said the Inspector. 'But you'll have a job
reconciling that with the bath story.'

Mr Campion was silent for some seconds. 'I should like to know how much
the defunct Andrew had to do with that incident,' he said. 'I think we
are both lucky in being spared Andrew's acquaintance, Stanislaus.'

The Inspector grunted. 'If you ask me, we're darned unlucky coming to
this starchy place at all,' he said. 'I wish I was on a good
straightforward burglary. Well, you've brought me a lot of interesting
information and spoilt it by taking all the guts out of it. Wherever we
look we're met by that cussed conjuror. Someone's doing devilish clever
tricks.'

Mr Campion nodded. 'There's something very queer inside that house,' he
said. 'Something very, very queer.'

'Madness,' said the Inspector shortly. 'Madness with an "ism" of some
sort. This is a job for a psychologist, I'm sure of that. That's the
trouble. What a chemist says is evidence. What a psychologist says
isn't. When they tried Palmer, chemical facts seem to have been largely
a matter of opinion: that's where psychology stands today.'

'Returning to the question of fair dealing,' remarked Mr Campion. 'Have
you found Cousin George?'

'That's another impossible job,' the Inspector grumbled. 'We've
published a description and an appeal for him to come forward, but of
course without result. Then he has no known address, no one seems to
know much about him down here, he doesn't seem to have lodged in the
town. All we know is that he was in London on Thursday. I say, no wonder
he was off like a shot when he saw the girl. She behaved rather queerly
about him, though. Personally, I think her behaviour has been rather
queer all along. Oh, I've heard about the scandal,' he went on hastily
before Campion could speak, 'and I realize that that may account for
more in this case than it would in my family, for instance.'

Both men were silent for some time. Then the Inspector relit his pipe.

'All this loose thinking is very irregular, you know,' he said, grinning
suddenly at Campion. 'We shall concentrate on the gun. We've found a
couple of witnesses who heard the shot, by the way. A man and his wife
living in a cottage on the Grantchester Road say they heard a shot at
about five minutes to one p.m. on the Sunday. The man says he went to
the back door, but the meadows were all under a ground mist and he saw
nothing. He says it was a "thick day", whatever that may mean. It seems
to be a local term for spring weather. What a time for a murder, though,
eh? Midday on a Sunday; everybody at home eating.'

'Returning to the question of Cousin George,' persisted Mr Campion, 'I
take it that you don't consider him important?'

Stanislaus Oates scowled. 'Not very,' he said. 'Suppose we do find him?
Suppose that by chance he walks into our arms, what then? We can't
arrest him. We can only ask him where he was on Sunday at the time of
the crime. Unless he's an absolute fool he'll have a satisfactory answer
for that. Besides, why should he have anything to do with it at all? He
wasn't known to have any grudge against Andrew. He was in the house for
about an hour on the night before the first murder, but he hasn't been
seen anywhere near it since. Just because he was in the habit of holding
up his aunt for a pound or two from time to time it doesn't follow that
he was a potential murderer. No, Campion, you can't get away from it.
This was an inside job. There was nothing accidental about either
killing. They were deliberately planned crimes. Someone had good reason
to want both those people out of the way. I may be wrong, but I have a
feeling that that person is still at work. You look out for yourself.
The mind that is responsible for this little lot isn't going to have its
plans upset by any nicely-spoken little gent in horn-rimmed spectacles.
There's your gipsy's warning.'

Mr Campion did not answer for some moments. The Inspector's words had
driven him back in spite of himself to his theory of earlier that
morning.

'I'll come down with you and see the scene of the crime, if you don't
mind,' he said at last, rising to his feet. 'I never like to miss an
opportunity of watching the old war-horse going into action.'

But although they walked for some considerable distance alone together,
Mr Campion said nothing of the question that was weighing on his mind.
Had Mrs Faraday over-estimated her autocracy in her own domain and
ordered the execution of Andrew Seeley for crime or crimes as yet
unknown?




CHAPTER 13
MAN FRIDAY


'It's very irregular you coming along like this,' the Inspector
grumbled. They had turned out of the new road, crossed a maze of narrow
streets and now took the path across the meadows to the river. 'Very
irregular,' he repeated gloomily. 'I don't want to sound ungrateful, old
man,' he added hastily, 'and by all means come along. I only mention it
because there'll be Bowditch down here and one or two other fellows.'

Mr Campion smiled. 'That's all right,' he said. 'I'll efface myself as
much as possible. You go right ahead. Pretend I'm not there. If you do
it well enough the others will think they're seeing things and that
always adds a little fun to the proceedings.'

There were several plain-clothes men on the banks of the Granta and a
uniformed man by the bridge, to say nothing of the one or two hopeful
spectators. The prospect was cold and gloomy and served to emphasize the
melancholy futility of any further proceedings so far as the unfortunate
Andrew Seeley was concerned.

As they approached, one of the raincoated figures came hurrying towards
them. This proved to be Detective-Sergeant Bowditch, the Inspector's
colleague from the Yard. There was a legend in the Force that Bowditch
had been born in a helmet, and he certainly suggested the policeman in
mufti more successfully than any man Mr Campion had ever seen. He was
tall, squarely built, with a red face and a thick soft black moustache.
His small eyes were surrounded by creases and his whole appearance
conveyed a quite unwarrantable cheerfulness.

'Hullo, sir,' he said, and smiled, his face diffused with a delight for
which there was no visible cause. He glanced inquiringly at Campion, but
receiving no explanation for the young man's presence favoured him also
with a welcoming beam. Stanislaus eyed him gloomily.

'Found anything?' he inquired.

'No,' said Mr Bowditch, adding still more cheerfully, 'no. Come down to
have a look?'

He did not seem to expect to receive a reply, and went on. 'We've combed
both banks from the willows to the road, and there's not a sign of
anything. Of course, it's some time since it happened.'

Stanislaus nodded sourly. 'I know,' he said. 'Hullo, what's this?'

The three men glanced down the footpath to where a fourth man was
hurrying towards them, something in his hand. The newcomer turned out to
be a grey-faced sergeant of the local police, bearing a battered green
felt object.

'I found this under some dead leaves in that bit of copse up there,' he
said, pointing to the clump of trees just below the footpath bridge on
the south side of the river. 'I don't know if it's anything of
importance, but it was under a pile of leaves and doesn't seem to have
been there very long.'

Stanislaus took the exhibit with interest. It was the battered relic of
a green trilby hat. Headband and lining were gone and the braid with
which the edge of the brim had been bound was frayed.

'Not the hat the deceased wore to church on the Sunday in question,'
said Mr Bowditch jovially. 'Apart from the fact that the deceased wore a
bowler on that occasion, the condition of this hat precludes any such
eventuality.'

The Inspector's withering glance had the effect of silencing his
subordinate without in any way diminishing his good temper.

'Anything else of interest?' Stanislaus inquired of the finder of the
hat. 'What's in that hut over there?' He pointed to a little shanty
standing among the haze of budding leaves in the copse.

'There's nothing there, sir, save for a few bits of sacks, dead leaves
and so on.' The man was unenthusiastic. 'Seems to have been used as a
storage place for tools and a shelter for the workmen clearing the wood
at some time or other. Shall I verify that, sir?'

'Oh no, no need. I'll come and have a look later. Thank you very much,
Davidson.'

As the man went off, Stanislaus handed over the battered hat to
Bowditch.

'You can take charge of that,' he said. 'I don't think it's anything to
do with this business. I shall make a point of seeing where it was
found, though. You say there's absolutely no sign from the road to the
willows to show where the body was put into the water? Of course it
might have floated down for miles, though the cottager says he heard the
shot from his direction.'

'That's so,' said Mr Bowditch happily. 'But if you'll step along and
have a look at this stream, sir, you'll see right away what occurred to
me.'

As they moved on down the footpath towards the little humpbacked stone
bridge, he continued.

'You'll see,' he said, 'the current is slow at the sides but swift in
the centre. It is also comparatively deep here. Well,' he continued,
still with his smile, 'you see what I mean? In order to get a body to
drift any way you'd have to place it in the swift part of the stream. In
other words, if I was doing it myself I'd drop it over this here bridge.
_If_ I was doing it,' he said, and broke into a roar of laughter, which
he speedily suppressed at an aggrieved glance from Inspector Oates.

There was obviously a good deal of sense in Mr Bowditch's observation.
Mr Campion, considering the scene, came to the same conclusion himself.
He also recollected Mr Cheetoo's dilations on the same subject. There
was, as the observant student had noticed, a strong eddy just below the
bridge which would have held any floating object for some considerable
time if it had not succeeded in sweeping it into the bank. It was
evident that the Inspector himself was inclined to take Mr Bowditch's
line of reasoning, for he devoted his attention for some time to the
bridge.

This was of the stone humpbacked variety, high enough to permit a small
boat to pass beneath it when the river was at its normal level. It was
topped by a low stone parapet on either side, and the surface of this
the Inspector scrutinized carefully. After some moments of earnest
contemplation he turned away regretfully.

'There's nothing,' he said. 'Of course. What can you expect? I suppose
this bridge is used fairly often. Children run along the parapet. There
is no moss, and any traces of mud, blood or dust that might have been
left will have gone long ago in the downpour we've had in the last ten
days. Come on. We'll take a look at the hut.'

The hut, which lay fifteen yards or so from the footpath and possibly
thirty from the bank, turned out to be one of those temporary structures
which clearance men occasionally leave behind them. It was composed
mainly of faggots, and roofed with sticks covered with a sack or two. It
was quite sound, however, and the ground inside was dry and hard. The
Inspector paused at the entrance and peered in.

One or two matted sacks stiff with mud lay in a corner, but for the rest
the place was empty. There was no sign that it had been disturbed since
its constructors had abandoned it.

'No traces of any kind?' the Inspector inquired.

'No footprints,' said Mr Bowditch joyously. 'But then there wouldn't be
on this stuff. There's no reason to suppose that the deceased came up
here, is there?'

The stiff wiry twitch outside the hut betrayed nothing. It did not even
show any traces of their own passage over it, in spite of the dampness
of the ground. The Inspector's gloom increased.

'That hat,' he said, 'where was that found? This is a waste of time,
Bowditch.'

'That's right,' said the red-faced man. 'Still, it's all got to be done.
Never overlook anything, and you can't miss the thing you're looking
for. That's the idea, isn't it? The beautiful hat which our colleague
discovered was located at a point over here. It was buried by somebody,
and I should say he knew best.' He glanced happily at the ruin in his
hand.

They returned to the footpath again and walked on for a dozen yards or
so, pausing at last before a heap of newly-turned leaves, wet and
pungent in the fine rain which had now begun to fall.

'There you are,' he said. 'I think Davidson is right, too. This hadn't
been here very long. It was buried under the leaves, not covered
fairy-tale fashion by robins and such. What does that tell you, sir?'

There was a twinkle in his eye as he spoke, but it was not in the least
disrespectful.

'I don't see why anyone should bury a hat unless they wanted to hide
it,' said the Inspector. 'But that doesn't signify. I've never been on
the scene of any outdoor crime yet where there wasn't someone's old
clothes lying about. Still, as you say, it's funny this thing being
buried. It's not much of a hat, anyhow.'

'You're right.' Mr Bowditch seemed to consider this a moment for
laughter. 'Some lie-about's,' he said. 'That's what that is. The
property of a vagrant, if I might use a contradiction in terms.'

The Inspector silenced him with a look. 'The gun,' he said. 'I must have
that gun. If it's been thrown away it's got to be found. There's the
hat, too. The one the deceased was wearing when he left church. That's
not so important, but it's odd that it hasn't turned up. Size seven and
three-quarters, new, Henry Heath label on the lining. I'm going down to
Socrates Close now if anybody wants me, but if it's the newspaper
fellows let 'em look for me. I don't want this hat bellowed all over the
place as an important clue. Be mysterious if you like.'

Mr Bowditch winked shamelessly at Campion. 'I'll keep the hat under me
hat,' he said. 'Well, good afternoon, sir. If the gun's about we'll get
it. We've taken about a ton of mud out of that river already, and we'll
take another ton if necessary. But it's an unsatisfactory job dragging a
stream that's full of weeds.'

'Do murderers throw away guns near the scene of the crime?' said Mr
Campion mildly, as he and the Inspector went on their way together.

Mr Oates paused to knock out his pipe on his shoe before replying.

'Very often,' he said. 'That's the funny thing about murder. A man may
carry the whole thing through with remarkable ingenuity and then give
himself right away immediately afterwards, just as though he had lost
interest in the crime. It's queer about guns, too. If a man doesn't
carry a gun habitually, and I don't suppose there's one in a thousand in
England who does, his tendency is to chuck it away as soon as he has
used it. He realizes that it is incriminating if found upon him, but
forgets that it can nearly always be traced back to him. I bet the gun
we're after is in that river somewhere. But as old Bowditch pointed out,
it's a devil of a place to drag.'

Mr Campion appeared satisfied, on this point at least. 'If I may be
permitted to say so,' he ventured, after a pause, 'the hat trick excites
my curiosity. You are looking for a bowler hat and you find a venerable
green felt. To my innocent mind this would suggest a swop. But a
murderer would hardly finish off his star turn by coming home in his
victim's hat, unless he was reverting to a time-honoured custom in
bringing back his enemy's head or the nearest thing to it. On the other
hand, if, as seems more probable, some disinterested third party found
Andrew Seeley's new hat, and considering it vastly preferable to his
own--a point no one can deny--discarded the one for the other, why
should he take the trouble to bury his old hat? My experience of
lie-abouts, as your happy friend Mr Bowditch so neatly describes them,
has taught me that their passion for tidiness is not marked, in fact
they are apt to leave any unwanted part of their wardrobe precisely
where they discard it.'

The Inspector grunted. 'Tramps are a law unto themselves,' he said. 'You
never know what they're going to do. But the hat is too slender a clue
to worry about yet. It's got to be noted, of course, but we can't waste
time thinking about it. It's the lucky fellows on the outside, like
yourself, who can enjoy the luxuries of conjecture. It _would_ be a
bowler hat,' he went on, disobeying his own axiom. 'The only hat in the
world, with the possible exception of a topper, which can look old in
five seconds. A spot of dust and a kick made it look like nothing on
earth. A good felt is always a good felt, whatever you do to it, but a
tramp could have gone off in Andrew Seeley's hat without looking in the
least extraordinary.' He sighed. 'That's the worst of this darned case.
For every single thing that's happened there might be half a dozen
explanations. I had a report on the angle of the bullet this morning.
The experts were hampered, of course, by the fact that the head appears
to have been under water for about ten days, but they're smart fellows
and they've got me this much. Hastings is appearing at the inquest, so
there's no reason why I shouldn't tell you. The bullet entered the head
in the very centre of the forehead. It took a slightly upward course,
practically lifting the back of the skull off with it. There were powder
burns on the skin of the forehead and these were pretty bad or they
wouldn't have survived. That means the gun was fired close to, and it
also means that the firer of the shot was probably a little shorter than
Seeley if the dead man was standing up when it happened. But as his feet
were bound that doesn't seem likely, so we're no better off. The really
tantalizing point is that there must have been a lot of blood about
directly after the crime. If the man was shot lying down there must have
been a pool of it, and if he was standing up the murderer must have been
covered with it the moment he started shifting the body. Yet there's no
sign, no trace at all of any blood in the vicinity. If he was carried or
dragged to the bridge as old Bowditch suggests, and it certainly seems
feasible, there must have been a trail of blood. But of course we
mustn't forget the rain, and in spite of the fact that this footpath is
so near the town it doesn't seem to have been used much at the time of
year. Still, there ought to have been traces. Someone ought to have seen
something. I'm advertising for witness. Of course the body may have
floated right down. We shall follow the river up as far as this Byron's
Pool, if need be.' He shook his head. 'As I said, it's no good
conjecturing. We've got to get on with the routine. We'll get out that
little car I've hired and go up to the house.'

'If it isn't rude to ask, in what direction is duty calling you now?'
inquired Mr Campion.

The Inspector seemed surprised at the question. 'That fellow William and
his hand, of course,' he said. 'All new developments must be carefully
watched. I think that's about the first rule in the book. We must find
out how he hurt himself. There is just a chance that he was attacked,
you know, and if so he must be made to talk.'

'Here, I say, no bullying Uncle William,' said Campion in mild alarm.

'Bullying?' The Inspector's expression was bitter. 'It's as much as
we're allowed to do to speak to witnesses these days. But if he tells me
a cock-and-bull story he can go into the witness-box and tell it to the
coroner--and the press.'

'Ho!' said Mr Campion.

'Eh?'

'I said "ho",' repented the young man. 'A vulgar expression meaning
"indeed". Oh, well, I'm sorry about all this. I'll come with you. By the
way, I swore Joyce to secrecy.'

'Good,' conceded the Inspector. 'I'm sorry the girl was in it. Still, I
quite see you couldn't go ferreting about the house on your own. I left
the package for the analysts and the photographers. We shall have a
report in twenty-four hours if we're lucky. Of course,' he went on,
'William is the straight line to follow. He was the only member of the
household out of doors at the time of the first murder, with the
exception of one of the servants. You can't get away from that.'

'Which one of the servants?' said Campion, conscious of an unwonted
feeling of apprehension.

'The big red-faced woman,' said the Inspector. 'I've got her name down.
The housemaid. Been with 'em for thirty years, just like the story
books. She had the day off to go over to her married sister, who lives
at Waterbeach, a mile or two out. Half a moment--I've got it.
Nuddington. Alice Nuddington. She left the house at nine in the morning
and got back at ten at night. We can verify her statement easily. All
these things have got to be attended to.'

Mr Campion did not speak for some moments. The rain was driving in his
face and the wet streets, with their urban drabness even more pronounced
by their comparative desertion, gave the tragedy an air of sordidness
which it did not really possess. The thought of Uncle William, that
bewildered and floundering old reprobate, stirred a sense of compassion
within him, however, and he plodded along by the Inspector's side.

'I must see the clothes that William wore to church,' the Inspector
remarked, more to himself than to his friend. 'A dull routine job, this
tracking of criminals. Murderers are the most unsatisfactory of the lot.
Nine times out of ten you've got no past record to go on. What's the
good of your beautiful filing system then? What's the good of your
organization? This is going to be a darned bad inconclusive business,
you mark my words.'

The Inspector's gloom, which increased even when they climbed into the
two-seater Rover, was in such direct opposition to Mr Bowditch's homeric
cheerfulness that Mr Campion felt called upon to comment upon it.

'I like your friend Bowditch,' he said. 'A happy man, I deduced.'

Mr Oates snorted. 'Bowditch!' he said. 'A nice chap and a good man. But
that smile of his gets on my nerves. I feel I'm wandering about with an
advertisement for fruit salts. I told him this was a murder and not a
music-hall show, and he laughed till he was nearly sick. You can't do
anything with a fellow like that.'

He relapsed into thought, and it was not until they were in sight of the
house that he spoke again.

'There you are,' he said, jerking his hand in the direction of the
creeper-covered building, 'that's where our solution lies. It's someone
underneath that roof. They all know more than they've said, and William
Faraday comes in for special mention. Here we are.'

However, the stolid gloom of Socrates Close, which seemed to be about to
settle upon them once more as they stepped out of the car, was shattered
for once. They entered the porch, the Inspector pulled the bell, and as
the hollow peal sounded within the depths of the domestic quarters a
loud feminine shriek, followed by a burst of hysterical laughter, came
out to them quite clearly from the breakfast-room.

The front door was thrown open to them almost immediately by Marcus
Featherstone, considerably paler than usual, his reddish hair standing
almost upright. Behind him, in the hall near the service corridor, a
little group of excited servants clung together, while the distressing
sounds from the breakfast-room continued.

Marcus seized upon them. 'Come in,' he said. 'I've been trying to phone
you.'

Stanislaus Oates was slightly surprised for once in his life. He stepped
heavily into the hall, Campion following.

'What's the matter?' he demanded.

Marcus shot a harassed glance around him. 'That awful noise in there is
Kitty,' he murmured. 'Joyce is with her, but I'm afraid she's rather
bad. You go back to the kitchen, will you, please, cook,' he added,
turning to the maids. 'There's absolutely nothing to be afraid
of--absolutely nothing. Look here, Inspector, would you mind coming into
the library? You, too, Campion, of course. The fact is, the household
has had a bit of a scare.'

The servants trailed off down the corridor, and Campion and the
Inspector, their curiosity thoroughly aroused, followed Marcus into the
great book-lined room in which poor Uncle William had never seen his
father at his best.

It was a gloomy but imposing apartment, furnished principally by the
enormous carved oak desk set facing the door and a high-backed yellow
brocade chair, which stood behind it. The holland blinds were drawn, and
as they entered Marcus switched on the lights.

When he turned to them he seemed more himself, and, if anything, a
trifle shamefaced. He laughed awkwardly.

'Now I come to show you what has scared the whole household and driven
poor Kitty into screaming hysteria, I feel a bit of a fool,' he said.
'It just goes to show how jumpy everyone is in the house. I pulled the
blinds down again because the maids kept coming in to stare at the
thing. There doesn't seem to be any key to this room.'

As he spoke he moved over to the long narrow window directly behind the
yellow chair and twitched the spring blind, which immediately shot up to
the lintel, revealing a view of the bowling-green and the phenomenon
which had come like a bombshell into the startled household.

In the centre of one of the large panes was a boldly drawn sign in
crimson, simple, entirely inexplicable and certainly presenting a
somewhat startling appearance. It consisted of two small circles one
above the other, followed by a stroke, with an outer circle round the
whole thing, thus:

    [Illustration: Two small circles one above the other, followed
    by a stroke, with an outer circle round the whole thing]

The Inspector stared at it. 'When did this appear?' he demanded.

'I don't know,' said Marcus. 'But they say it wasn't here yesterday, and
it was discovered about fifteen minutes ago by Kitty, who has taken over
Julia's duty of dusting her father's room. The blinds in this room were
not drawn until after you left last night, Inspector, and it was not
entered this morning as far as anyone remembers. Kitty came here with
the duster just now, not having had time before. She pulled up the blind
and discovered it. The unexpected sight frightened her--she seems to
have been on edge anyhow. Her screams brought the household and myself.
I came back from the inquest with William to lunch and--well, there you
are. Everybody is very frightened. It's a queer thing to happen, and I
am afraid they are all very jumpy.'

The Inspector walked gingerly round the yellow chair and peered at the
glass.

'Chalk, on the outside,' he announced. 'The rain's coming the other way
and hasn't touched it. What an extraordinary thing! Someone's playing
the fool. Any marks under the window? I believe there's a flower-bed
here.'

He raised the sash and leaned out. They heard him grunt softly, and the
next moment he was back again, an incredulous expression upon his face.

'Well, what do you make of this?' he said. 'You look here.'

Campion and Marcus accepted his invitation with alacrity. Between the
path which bounded the bowling-green and the wall of the house there was
a narrow flower-bed, and in the centre of this, deep and distinct, as
though it had been made in plaster, was the single imprint of an immense
naked foot.

There was something ludicrous about it. It was a caricature of a
footprint with great splayed-out toes, the whole thing of a size that
impressed one at a glance.

Campion and Marcus looked at one another, the same thought uppermost in
both their minds. Feet like these were not to be hidden. Campion grinned
at the Inspector.

'Looks like one of your boys,' he said. 'Rather overdoing the plain
clothes, I should say.'

Inspector Stanislaus Oates did not return his smile.




CHAPTER 14
THE CAT IN THE BAG


'It's absurd having a place of this size without a phone,' said the
Inspector, walking up the drive after some cursory telephoning from a
neighbouring house. 'Of course that mark and footprint is a joke in very
bad taste on somebody's part, or at least I hope so. These things
usually take the form of anonymous letters. I don't like it when people
start fooling round the premises. I shall have the print photographed
and measured and I shall have a man out to search for others. That's
routine, Mr Featherstone, and probably a waste of valuable time.'

'Suppose it wasn't a joke?' said Mr Campion slowly, his long thin figure
bent slightly forward. 'Suppose it wasn't an evidence of bad taste? Have
you ever seen a mark like that before, Stanislaus? Did it mean anything
to you?'

The Inspector looked at him sharply. He had known the young man long
enough to be sure that these casual remarks that Mr Campion occasionally
let drop were never quite as fatuous as they sounded. He considered the
question seriously, therefore.

'I can't say I have,' he said. 'On the face of it, it looks like a tramp
mark, but none I've ever seen. A regular tramp usually carried two bits
of chalk, one red and one white,' he explained to Marcus. 'They make
signs to warn each other about the neighbourhood. It's a sort of
freemasonry. Of course this thing might be the figure eighteen, but that
doesn't make sense either. Does it convey anything to you, Campion? You
are an encyclopedia of odd information.'

The young man hesitated. 'I may be potty, of course,' he said, 'but I
have a hunch that it's the letter "B". I saw it before once, drawn by a
child. She copied the whole alphabet like that, as though only the
inside whites of the letters registered on her mind. The "A" was a
triangle with a sort of square-cut croquet hoop underneath it, like
this.' He took out an envelope and pencilled the figure on the back of
it, which he held up for them to see.

    [Illustration: A triangle with a sort of square-cut croquet hoop
    underneath it]

Marcus was sceptical, but the Inspector, who was a doting father
himself, was interested immediately.

'Yes, it might be that,' he said. 'I've heard of that before, now you
come to mention it. But it's certainly not a kid in this case. Did you
ever see a footprint like that? I'll have a cast made of it if it's only
as a souvenir.'

By common consent they walked round the side of the house to take
another look at the flower-bed. Stanislaus had previously covered the
footprint with several thicknesses of newspaper, weighed by stones at
the corners.

'A man,' he said, looking at it. 'And rather unusually heavy, I should
say, although, of course, he was putting all his weight upon this foot
to get at the window.'

'It's so extraordinary it being bare,' Marcus burst out almost angrily.
Like many men of his calling, the illogical irritated rather than
attracted him.

The Inspector squatted on the edge of the gravel and peered forward.
Then for the first time that afternoon he grinned.

'He had a sock on,' he said, 'but it doesn't seem to have reached past
his instep. A sort of mitten. There are some shreds of worsted in this
mud, I believe. We'll cover it up again if you don't mind.' He replaced
the paper and straightened himself. 'Looks like old Bowditch's
lie-about,' he said.

'Aha!' said Mr Campion. 'The owner of the green hat. "Mysterious nomad
signals to accomplice within House of Secrets."'

The Inspector paused in the very act of rising as this new explanation,
with all its possibilities, suddenly presented itself to his mind. For a
moment his grey eyes met Campion's speculatively. Then he shook his
head. 'No,' he said, 'that's not worth powder and shot. It's not that
kind of show. Don't worry,' he added, turning to Marcus. 'We shan't
neglect any clues. We shall follow everything up. That's routine--and a
very slow business it is. I shall leave the fancy work to you, Campion,'
he continued, grinning at him mischievously. 'You think as much as you
like, my boy. I called the fellows on guard off last night at about
twelve o'clock, but I'll put them back. We can't have monkey tricks like
this going on, and the last thing I want is to have this household
alarmed unnecessarily. We're all kid-glove men now, you know.'

They entered the house by the side door, which led to a small passage
running parallel to the staircase.

'I came up originally to see Mr William Faraday,' observed the
Inspector, watching the others remove their wet coats. 'Is he about?'

A slightly embarrassed expression appeared in Marcus's eyes.

'Mr Faraday isn't very well, as a matter of fact,' he said. 'He's
upstairs in his room. Is it important?'

The Inspector smiled, but stood his ground. 'I think I'd better see him
if you don't mind,' he said, and added deliberately, 'I don't mind if
you're both present at the interview. A man can always have his lawyer
with him if he's questioned by us nowadays.'

Campion glanced at Marcus. 'As we agreed before the inquest this
morning,' he said, 'I gave the Inspector all the information which Mr
Faraday did not consider relevant at the first inquiry. I feel it would
be in his interests to see the Inspector.'

Marcus's worried expression did not vanish. 'He's up in his room,' he
repeated. 'I'll go and tell him. You'll take off your coat, won't you,
Inspector? I see you're very wet.'

He hurried upstairs, and as Campion helped the Inspector off with his
raincoat the older man chuckled.

'You'll get yourself into hot water,' he observed. 'It looks a bit like
running with the hare and hunting with the hounds, but I suppose you've
got your reasons.'

'The best in the world,' said Campion. 'Based on the time-honoured
theory that when a man is innocent the more he talks the better. My good
man, this old boy has gone through two campaigns, including the Great
War, without killing so much as a rabbit. He's not likely to have begun
now. I admit he may know something, but he's no more guilty than I am.'

The Inspector grunted, but made no other comment, and presently Marcus
reappeared.

'Mr Faraday is in his room,' he said, 'sitting before the fire in his
dressing-gown. He tells me that he still feels very seedy, and although
I advised him to see you, and I told him you were kind enough to say
that Campion and I might be present at the interview, he still doesn't
feel like coming down. I wondered if you would mind seeing him in his
room?'

'Not at all,' said the Inspector, relieved that the news was no worse.
'I'll come up right away.'

Uncle William sat before his bedroom fire in a gaily coloured
dressing-gown. His white hair stood on end and his moustache drooped
dejectedly. He glanced up as they entered, but did not attempt to rise.
He looked older and more pathetic than usual, his toes in his carpet
slippers turned inwards, one pudgy hand resting on his knee and the
other hanging in a black silk sling. He certainly looked ill. His skin
was patchy and his eyes were slightly bloodshot.

Mr Campion caught the Inspector glancing furtively at the old man's feet
and was unable to repress a grin of delight. Uncle William's little fat
pads were quite incapable of being the origin of the colossal mark on
the flower-bed.

The invalid smiled faintly at Campion and nodded brusquely to the
Inspector.

'What's the trouble now?' he said. 'I'm a sick man and I don't want to
be worried any more than I can help. I don't know if you can find
yourselves chairs? I don't resent this intrusion, you know, but I'd like
to get it over as soon as possible.'

They found themselves chairs, and the Inspector went over the points of
Mr Campion's revelations of the morning. On the whole, Uncle William
behaved remarkably well. He admitted to the amnesia and the visit to Sir
Gordon Woodthorpe. He was a little more touchy on the subject of the
gun, but the Inspector was patient, even sympathetic, and Uncle William,
finding that he had a good audience, forgot his trepidation and began to
speak freely.

The interview progressed most favourably, Marcus carrying his client
with real skill over the embarrassing points of his story, and it was
not until the Inspector cleared his throat and, prefacing his question
with a word of apology, that Uncle William's obstinacy began to show.

'That hand of yours, sir,' the Inspector began innocently. 'I understand
that there was a little trouble here last night. I wonder if you would
tell me in your own words how you came to have such a wound?'

For the first time a dangerous expression came into Uncle William's
little bleared eyes.

'A most trivial business,' he said petulantly. 'But I suppose even the
silliest incident becomes important when you people get to work. It was
the most simple thing in the world. I told Campion here and I told my
young niece.' He cleared his throat and regarded the Inspector severely.
'I sleep with my window open at the bottom, don't you know, and late
last night I was awakened by a great hulking cat scratching about the
place. I hate cats, so I hopped out of bed, caught the creature by the
middle and pushed it through the window. In its resentment it scratched
me. I went out to put some iodine on my hand, and unfortunately roused
the house. That's all there is to say.'

Marcus seemed worried and Campion regretful, but the Inspector showed no
change of expression whatsoever. He jotted down some hieroglyphics in
his private note-book and then glanced up.

'Can I see the hand, sir?' he said.

Uncle William blew out his cheeks. 'That's rather
irregular--er--officer, isn't it?' he demanded.

The Inspector ignored the gratuitous insult, and Campion experienced a
return of the admiration he had always felt for this quiet, grave man
with the penetrating grey eyes.

'I'd like to see it, sir.' The Inspector's tone was at once respectful
and commanding.

For one moment it looked as though Uncle William was about to refuse
point-blank, but Marcus tactfully stepped forward.

'Perhaps I can help you with the bandage?'

The old man looked up balefully. 'All right,' he said. 'Have it your own
way. But if you get into trouble from old Lavrock don't blame me. He
told me I was lucky not to have cut an artery, and I didn't know,' he
added, muttering the words under his breath, 'that it was considered
etiquette for a lawyer to assist the police in jockeying his unfortunate
client in the very midst of a bereavement.'

'It's a lawyer's duty to do all he can to protect his client's
interests, sir,' said Marcus, with some asperity.

'Huh!' said Uncle William ungraciously.

By this time the outer bandages had been removed, and with consummate
care Marcus lifted off the strip of oiled silk which lay beneath. When
he came to the lint matters proved more difficult, and it was not until
warm water had been procured and gently applied that the wound lay
revealed.

Stanislaus rose to examine it, and a certain sternness became evident in
his manner.

'Three stitches, I see,' he said. 'One single cut. Thank you, Mr
Faraday. That's all I want to see, Mr Featherstone.'

Uncle William, in spite of his indisposition, was quite sufficiently in
possession of his wits to know that this display of his wound had not
strengthened his story. He devoted himself ostentatiously to the
business of rebandaging, and it was some considerable time before the
wrappings were arranged to his satisfaction.

Meanwhile the Inspector waited, patient and polite. Finally, however,
his moment came.

'Would you mind telling me once more, sir, how you got that cut?'

A high-pitched squawk of exasperation escaped Uncle William. 'Am I to
spend the rest of my life repeating the story of a perfectly ordinary
incident?' he said bitterly. 'Are you in the full possession of your
senses, sir? I told you, a cat came into my room last night and it
scratched me. I don't know what this country is coming to. Damned
incompetence, where-ever you go.'

The Inspector remained unruffled. 'Describe the cat,' he said
resignedly.

Uncle William blustered, but none of the three men looked at him, and
finally he took the plunge.

'Quite a large cat,' he said. 'Darkish. I didn't go examining it, don't
you know. It was my idea to get it out of the room--not to make a pet of
it.'

Still no one spoke, and he continued, floundering further and further
into the morass.

'I've seen cats like it in South Africa. Very fierce and rather large.'

'Known to you?' The Inspector's tone was impersonal.

Uncle William was crimson, but he stuck to his guns.

'How d'you mean-known to me?' he demanded belligerently. 'I don't go
about making the acquaintance of stray cats. No, I'd never seen it in my
life before as far as I know. Does that satisfy you?'

'Was your light on or off when you picked the cat up?' said the
Inspector, writing busily.

'Off,' returned Uncle William triumphantly.

'How did you know it was a cat?' said the Inspector stolidly. Apart from
the fact that he now omitted the word 'sir', he gave no sign of his
growing irritation.

Uncle William's blue eyes were glassy. 'Eh?' he ejaculated.

'How did you know it was a cat?' the Inspector repeated.

Uncle William blew up. Much subterranean rumbling was followed by an
explosion in a much higher key than he or anyone else had expected.

'Because it mewed at me!' he bellowed. 'Said "Meeow, meeow," like that.
I don't know what you think you're doing, coming here and asking these
damfool questions. Featherstone, you're a rotten lawyer if you can't
protect me from this sort of thing. I'm a sick man in no condition to be
badgered by a pack of imbeciles.'

Marcus cleared his throat. 'Mr Faraday,' he began gently, 'in my
official capacity I must advise you to tell the Inspector all you know.
In your own interests, it is imperative that the police should hear the
whole truth.'

This interruption had a quietening effect upon Uncle William without in
any way lessening his obstinacy. He continued to grumble.

'I don't know why you can't take a plain statement,' he said. 'The whole
thing is nothing to do with you, anyhow. I knew it was a cat because it
mewed and because I felt its fur, I suppose. It may not have been a cat.
It may have been a young tiger, for all I know.' He laughed bitterly at
his own joke.

'You're not sure if it was a cat,' said the Inspector, with some
satisfaction, and wrote again in his book. 'Are you sure it was an
animal?'

Uncle William, having once erupted, seemed to have spent most of his
power.

'Whatever it was, I put it out of the window,' he said shortly.

The Inspector rose, crossed to the window and looked out. It was a
straight drop to the flower-bed beneath. He said nothing, but returned
to his seat.

Uncle William began to mutter again. 'You know, Inspector,' he said, 'I
get the impression that you don't believe a word I say. That's my story,
and I'll stick to it. Very insulting to be disbelieved in one's own
house.'

Mr Oates chose to ignore this remark. 'Can you give me the address of
your doctor, sir?' he said.

'What the devil for?' said Uncle William, his little eyes opening wide.
'He won't tell you much. Doctors don't blab, you know. Still, I'll tell
you something to save you bullying him. He is as stupid about the cat as
you are. Asked me if it was a one-clawed cat, silly fool. His name is
Lavrock, if you must worm out the whole of my private affairs. That's
all I've got to say.'

The Inspector rose to his feet. 'Very well, sir,' he said. 'I may as
well warn you that you'll probably have to tell the coroner all this. He
may feel that it has some bearing on the case.'

Marcus also rose. 'Inspector,' he said, 'you won't go for a moment or
two, will you? I should like to have a word with my client before you're
out of reach.'

For the first time during the interview a smile appeared on Mr Oates's
face.

'I shall be about the house for some time, Mr Featherstone,' he said.

He and Campion left Marcus with his recalcitrant client, and when they
reached the corridor the Inspector paused.

'I'd like to go up to that attic now,' he said. 'I shall want to see
that cord and the gun holster.'

'I'm sorry about Uncle William,' murmured Mr Campion. 'You haven't seen
him at his best.'

The Inspector snorted. 'Witnesses like that make me feel vicious,' he
said. 'If I didn't feel that I might not be able to produce this
evidence in court I'd have a damned good mind to run him in, telling me
a pack of lies like that. That's a knife wound, probably a sharp
pen-knife, by the look of it. He's shielding someone, of course, in
which case he probably knows who did the whole thing.'

Campion shook his head. 'I don't think he knows,' he said. 'But there's
always the chance he thinks he does.'

'Take me to the attic,' said the Inspector, with decision. 'Routine;
that's the only way to get anywhere. We all fall back on it in the end.'




CHAPTER 15
THE OUTSIDE JOB


It was almost three o'clock when the Inspector, who had made the library
his headquarters, neared the end of his investigations at Socrates Close
for the day. Mr Bowditch and a police photographer had completed their
work on the footprint, and now stood beside the Inspector contemplating
an array of shoes on the ground before them. Stanislaus had procured a
pair from every member of the household, including the two Christmases,
father and son, who lived in a small cottage on the edge of the estate.

At the moment matters were at a deadlock. The Inspector was depressed,
the photographer puzzled and the irrepressible Bowditch quite unable to
restrain his amusement.

'Well,' he said, 'we've got a metric photograph and we've got a plaster
cast. Here are the measurements. It doesn't look as though Cinderella is
among this lot.' He indicated the row of shoes before them. 'There isn't
one here that isn't nearly an inch out in both dimensions.'

Stanislaus grumbled. 'I suppose we ought to have a barefoot parade,' he
said, 'and I would if the discrepancy was the other way about. But it's
useless to pretend that anyone could have a foot like that without it
being known.'

Bowditch laughed noisily. 'That's a fact,' he said. 'Even old Tubby Lane
at Bow Street hasn't got trotters like that. It looks to me like
something out of the Natural History Museum.'

Stanislaus frowned. 'I suppose there's no doubt at all about it being
genuine?' he suggested.

But Bowditch was convinced upon this point. 'Oh, no, that's real all
right,' he said. 'You can see the nail marks quite clearly, and there's
a thread or two of blue worsted in the heel of the cast. You'll find
that's a real foot all right, whatever you might be led to believe. And
what a foot! It's the first time I've come across anything so funny in
the whole of my official life.'

The Inspector scowled. He was still contemplating the shoes. 'The
nearest in size are these over here,' he remarked. 'They belong to young
Christmas. You'd better go over and have a look at his feet, Bowditch.
Take some measurements. Don't laugh; behave like a policeman.'

The prospect of possibly seeing the original of the print in the flesh
was too much for Mr Bowditch. His face grew redder and his small blue
eyes filled with unshed tears of laughter.

'I'm there already,' he said. 'You'd better come along, governor,' he
added, turning to the photographer. 'We'll have them photographed, and
framed.'

'Consummate imbecile,' said the Inspector to Campion as the door closed
behind the hopeful Bowditch and his assistant. 'I don't mind a man
having a sense of humour, but that fellow carries on like a halfpenny
comic.'

Mr Campion made no direct comment. 'Do you still think it was a joke?'
he ventured after a pause.

'I don't think,' said the Inspector bitterly. 'I gave that up when I
discovered the mess it gets one into. As if we hadn't got enough trouble
already without some flatfooted fool complicating things by scribbling
on the window-pane! All these shoes can go back now. Come in!'

His last remark was occasioned by a gentle tapping on the door. Marcus
entered in response to his invitation. The young man looked weary and
considerably aggrieved. He raised his eyebrows at the array of footwear,
but did not remark upon it, a circumstance which endeared him to the
Inspector.

'I'm tremendously sorry,' he said, 'but Mr Faraday sticks to his story
about the cat.'

The Inspector grunted. 'Did you point out to him that he would be on
oath in the coroner's court?' he said.

'Yes,' Marcus admitted. 'But he seems to believe in the story. But,
after all this incident hardly comes into your province, does it?'

Oates did not answer immediately. The thrust had gone home.

'You haven't got to protect Mr Faraday from me, Mr Featherstone,' he
remarked presently. 'If he needs to be protected from anyone it's
himself.'

It was Mr Campion who took the news of Uncle William's obstinacy to
heart.

'I see I shall have to go on a pub-crawl on Uncle William's behalf,' he
said, with a meaning glance towards the Inspector. 'Marcus, there's a
job for you and me. You've written to Sir Gordon Woodthorpe, of course?'

Marcus, who had answered this question once before, glanced at his
friend in astonishment, but he caught sight of the Inspector's face and
answered immediately.

'Of course,' he said.

The Inspector's depression increased. 'I shall leave that mark on the
window for the time being,' he said. 'You can reassure the household.
There'll be a couple of plain-clothes men in the garden tonight.'

'Then you're inclined to think this thing's not a hoax, Inspector?' said
Marcus, jumping at any straw which pointed away from the awkward subject
of Uncle William.

In spite of the natural police dislike of lay questioning, Mr Oates did
not snub him. On the contrary, he answered civilly, albeit
non-committally.

'I am quite satisfied that the foot that made the print on the bed
outside could not have worn any of the shoes here,' he said. 'I can't
say any more than that.'

Mr Campion, who had moved to the window and now stood looking at the red
chalk sign thoughtfully, spoke without turning round.

'Supposing for one moment that it's all perfectly genuine?' he said.
'It's clearly a message of some sort to someone inside. Following this
line of reasoning, where do we arrive? At two interesting conclusions.
One, that the writer did not know the house, because this room, as you
know, is hardly ever used, and two, that he is only friendly with one
member of the household, since otherwise he would surely have come to
call in the ordinary way.'

He wheeled round and faced them, a slight inoffensive figure against the
window-panes.

'A message like this must necessarily be very simple,' he said, 'and I
suggest to you, Stanislaus, that it means one of three things--"Come and
meet at the usual place", or "Something has been done", or, more simply,
"I am on the scene again".'

'No one in the household admits to ever having seen that mark before,
and there's only one known prevaricator in the place,' said the
Inspector viciously.

Further conversation was interrupted by the return of Bowditch. He was
slightly crestfallen.

'Not a hope,' he said. 'I measured his right foot. Length, twelve and
three-quarters, width across the ball nearly five inches. Now this cast,
you know, is thirteen and a quarter by six and a tenth.' He mentioned
the figures with pride. 'Harrison's going over the garden looking for
any other tracks,' he added. 'But it's all this short well-kept grass,
and there was rain in the night, so it's not easy. It's only the house
that protects the print we have got.'

Mr Oates nodded. 'All right,' he said resignedly. 'Well, I must be
getting back.'

Campion escorted the Inspector and his jovial aide to their car, Marcus
tactfully remaining in the library.

'Got all your bits and pieces?' Campion inquired as he helped the
policeman into his raincoat. 'Rope, and what not?'

'I have,' said Stanislaus shortly. 'And you're not as bright as you
think you are, my lad. Here's a thing you ought to have found out.' He
took a key from his pocket and placed it in the young man's hand. 'That
belongs to your own door,' he said. 'But it also fits any lock on the
first floor. All those locks are alike and the keys are interchangeable.
I didn't notice it yesterday, but I ought to have guessed. Lots of
houses are like that. Good-bye.'

Mr Campion pocketed the key, not in the least discomforted. 'I shall
come and see you tomorrow,' he said, 'to hear all the news, always
supposing some great flat-footed monster hasn't devoured me, of course.'

The Inspector snorted and switched on his engine. 'You're all alike, you
untrained youngsters,' he said. 'You all go for the picturesque. That's
a hoax, you'll find, I bet.'

'I'll take you,' said Campion.

'All right. I'll go my limit--five bob.'

'Done,' said the younger man. He returned to the house and Marcus met
him in the hall. He was worried and still aggrieved by the turn events
had taken.

'That mark on the window, Campion,' he said. 'What exactly does it mean?
Is there any explanation for it?'

They wandered back to the library. 'Well, there's only one obvious
inference, isn't there?' said Mr Campion, pulling down the blinds. 'And
that is that there is someone else on the scene. The footmark means what
it meant to Robinson Crusoe; there's a Man Friday about.'

Marcus brightened. 'If you ask me, that's something to be thankful for,'
he said. 'William's attitude alarms me. I don't know why he of all
people should try to make things more difficult.'

'Uncle William is a very attractive bad old hat,' said Mr Campion.
'Stanislaus is only taking this attitude because it's the orthodox
police attitude. They always take the most obvious line and follow it
up. If it leads them nowhere they abandon it and take the next most
obvious, and so on. That's why they're practically inescapable in the
end.'

'But you,' Marcus persisted, 'what do you think?'

Mr Campion was silent. His own theorizing had been partially forgotten
in the excitement of the past two hours. Now, however, his face grew
grave as the possibilities of the case returned to him. Marcus was still
waiting for an answer, and he was only saved from an embarrassing
situation by a knock on the door behind them.

'Mr Campion, may I trouble you for your arm?'

It was Great-aunt Caroline, frail and vivid as ever, in a magnificent
Maltese cap and fichu. She smiled at Marcus.

'You will find Joyce in the morning-room,' she said. 'I wish you would
go and talk to her. I am afraid she has had a very trying afternoon with
poor Catherine.'

These instructions were delivered with grace and something of regal
condescension. The next moment Mr Campion found himself escorting the
old lady to her sitting-room. He had to stoop a little to allow her
small hand to rest comfortably upon his forearm.

Great-aunt Caroline did not speak until she was safely seated in her
high-backed walnut chair, with Campion standing on the hearth-rug before
her. She sat regarding him approvingly, her little bright eyes resting
on his face, a slightly amused smile on her mouth.

'Emily is quite right,' she said. 'You are a clever young man. I am very
pleased with you. You are handling this disturbing business very well,
especially poor William. Poor William is a very difficult man--a very
silly man--yet some of my husband's brothers were quite as foolish as
he. The police, of course, still suspect him.' She glanced at the young
man sharply and Mr Campion met her gaze.

'I think they do,' he said, and hesitated.

She smiled at him. 'My dear young man,' she said, 'I shall say nothing,
whatever you tell me.'

Mr Campion took off his spectacles and for the first time a little
weariness was apparent in his face. He returned her smile.

'I shall remember that,' he said, and added quietly, 'my position here
is invidious, as you know, and things are a little awkward. But this
morning I obtained what I am perfectly certain will turn out to be
positive proof of Mr Faraday's innocence. I haven't told this to anyone
yet, and I do not want to, since I thought it might work out best for
all concerned if the police went on in their own way at the moment.'

The old lady's expression was inscrutable. 'That's very good news,' she
said. 'I won't ask you any more than that. By the way, I am afraid I
have been guilty of an indiscretion; concealing evidence.'

Her smile deepened at the expression on his face, and she continued in
her soft small voice.

'I have a letter here which came for Andrew some two or three days after
his disappearance. I ought to have handed it over to the police, I know,
but fortunately I took the precaution of reading it first, and as the
writer has some little position in the world to keep up, and the letter
did not seem to be very important, I thought it a pity that she should
be dragged into this affair. So I kept the note, but it has been
weighing on my conscience. Here it is.'

She unlocked a tiny drawer in the bureau and drew out a thick white
envelope addressed to 'Andrew Seeley, Esq.', in a precise feminine hand.
Great-aunt Caroline unfolded the sheet it contained with little bony
fingers almost as white as the paper itself.

'I don't know if you follow the scholastic world at all,' she said, 'but
the writer of this letter is Miss Margaret Lisle-Chevreuse, Principal of
the Templeton College for Women at York, one of the finest posts in the
country. You will understand that hers is a position to which any sort
of notoriety would be most injurious. She is a maiden lady, of course,
and since I remember her here about twenty-five years ago she is now, I
suppose, almost fifty. Perhaps you will read the letter. I think it
speaks for itself. I had never any idea that she knew Andrew at all
well.'

Mr Campion took the paper with a certain amount of embarrassment and
began to read.

    _My dear Andy,--I was startled to see your handwriting among my
    letters this morning. My dear man, you have made a very handsome
    apology, although why you should think I needed one after
    fifteen years I cannot imagine. I am delighted to hear that you
    are coming up North and I do most sincerely look forward to
    seeing you again. You say I shall see a very great change in
    you: I dread to think of the change you will certainly see in
    me. No, I do not still wear my hair bound round my ears! My dear
    girls would think I had taken leave of my senses if I suddenly
    changed back to that style._

    _As for the rest of your letter, what can I possibly say? There
    was a time when I thought you had broken my heart, but as we
    grow older these things became mercifully fainter._

    _Wait until you see me._

    _I cannot tell you how happy I was to get your letter. I had not
    forgotten you._

    _I am sorry to hear that your life with your cousins is not a
    happy one. Relatives are always difficult._

    _However, as you say, there is a good deal of our lives left.
    Come to see me the moment you arrive, my dear friend._


    _Affectionately yours,_
    _Margaret_.

As he finished reading, Mr Campion folded the letter thoughtfully
between his fingers. Aunt Caroline came to his rescue.

'She will have seen about his death in the papers, poor soul,' she said.
'Poor unfortunate Andrew! He seems to have been on the verge of behaving
like a gentleman for once in his life--unless he was thinking of his
future. But we mustn't be uncharitable. I hope you don't blame me for
not turning this over to the police, "Mr Campion". What shall we do with
it?'

The young man glanced meaningly at the dancing fire. The old lady
nodded.

'I think so, too,' she said.

When the last remnants of the envelope and its contents had been
consumed by the flames, Mrs Faraday sighed.

'As you grow older, young man,' she said, 'you will find that not the
least surprising thing in life is the fact that every man, however
unworthy, can engender an undying spark of affection in the heart of
some unlikely woman. Well, I have nothing more to confess. I am very
relieved by what you have to tell me concerning poor William. You see, I
happen to know, beyond any doubt whatever, that he is not guilty.'

The last words were spoken with such conviction that Mr Campion started.
The little old lady sat looking up at him, her black eyes smiling and
very shrewd.

'Good-bye until dinner,' she said. 'Would you mind sending Alice in to
me? I am afraid this bell is out of order. I don't know how I should get
on without Alice.'




CHAPTER 16
BLACK SUNDAY


Aunt Caroline's indomitable spirit took her to church on the following
morning in spite of the fact that she must have been well aware that her
appearance would cause a certain amount of unwelcome interest from the
gaping populace. Both Uncle William and Aunt Kitty kept to their beds to
avoid the ordeal, but Campion and Joyce accompanied the old lady
willy-nilly.

As Campion followed the dominant figure up the aisle to her pew he heard
a faint stir among the congregation, the rustle of prayer-books, the
swish of skirts. But Great-aunt Caroline progressed slowly and stiffly,
no expression at all upon her face, her black stick scraping on the
stones.

It was a nightmare service for Joyce, and she was grateful for Mr
Campion's presence. He acquitted himself perfectly, finding the places
in Aunt Caroline's prayer-book as though to the manner born. This was
all the more extraordinary, for he was hardly aware of the proceedings
in that great impersonal church. His mind was occupied by a theory so
startling and terrifying that he dared hardly consider it. Ever since
that moment in the night when he had awakened with the idea ready made
in his mind and had lain piecing together the jigsaw fragments of the
problem, the theory had fascinated him. At the moment it was too
nebulous to be spoken. He could see the expression of shocked
incredulity on Stanislaus Oates's face were such an eventuality pointed
out to him. And yet, if it were true, if this monstrous notion were
something more than a night thought, then he shuddered at the
realization of the danger to all beneath the haunted roof of Socrates
Close.

Marcus Featherstone was waiting for them at the house when they
returned. Uncle William, also, had recovered sufficiently to put in an
appearance. The two men were sitting in front of the fire in the
morning-room when Joyce and Campion came in. It was evident that their
conversation had not been pleasant. Uncle William was sulky, sitting
hunched up in his chair sucking disconsolately at an empty pipe, while
Marcus, on whom the strain of the past three days was beginning to tell,
was still flushed with exasperation.

He rose eagerly as they came in and went over to the girl and kissed
her, an involuntary caress which startled them both nearly as much as it
shocked Uncle William. Joyce was delighted, and Campion made a mental
note of the fact that the disaster, however terrible, was at least
rousing Marcus from that superior lethargy which had been so apparent in
his letter. Uncle William, sensing an advantage, made use of it.

'I suppose you must embarrass everybody?' he remarked. 'Kissing before
lunch is like drinking before breakfast, damned bad taste. The whole
morale of this house seems to be in jeopardy. Once we old families start
going downhill we go down pretty fast. Well, I suppose Mother got all
the notoriety she wanted in church this morning. I wasn't going to be a
party to it. I stayed in bed to get out of it. Matter of fact, I've a
good mind to go to bed and stay there until this whole thing's been
cleared up.'

Campion noticed that he had dispensed with his sling this morning, and,
reducing the bandage to a minimum, kept his hand in his pocket as much
as possible.

'This young fool,' the old man went on, indicating Marcus with a jerk of
his unrepentant head, 'has been trying to chivvy me into telling some
cock-and-bull story about being attacked. He says he's been to see
Lavrock. Julia was poisoned. Goodness knows how much conium was found in
the poor girl. If Lavrock had been a decent fellow I should have thought
he might have kept that to himself.'

'Mr Faraday'--Marcus's face was crimson--'I told you that in confidence,
in an earnest and I am afraid foolhardy attempt to convince you of the
danger of your position. The information was given me in confidence, and
I particularly asked you to respect mine.'

'More fool you,' said Uncle William unpardonably. 'When a man's beset by
suspicious fools he's a fool himself if he respects any man's
confidence. The whole conduct of this case has been a scandal. You'll
find yourself in a very bad position when it's all over, my boy. Your
reputation will suffer.'

Marcus opened his mouth to reply, but thought better of it and permitted
Joyce to lead him out of the room.

Uncle William chuckled. 'That's put him in his place,' he said. 'He's
supposed to be our lawyer, not a prosecuting counsel. Well, Campion,' he
went on, his sudden bravado vanishing, 'what's going to happen to me?'

Mr Campion looked at him regretfully. 'That cat story,' he said. 'That's
bad, you know.'

'Best I could think of, my boy, in the time,' said Uncle William
unexpectedly.

'Well, it's not too late,' Campion observed.

Uncle William hesitated. Then he cocked an eye in the young man's
direction.

'Fact of it is, I'm blessed if I know what it was,' he said slowly. 'I
was a bit tight at the time. Something let out at me, I know that. On
the whole, I think I'll stick to the cat. I'd tell you if I knew what it
was,' he added ingenuously, 'but I don't. As I told you, there's
something queer going on here. I've been made fool enough in this
business already. And I've learnt one thing: if you make a statement,
stick to it. There's going to be the devil to pay over that specialist
fellow. No, if I said it was a cat, a cat it was. That's my last word.
Oh, Lord, here's Kitty,' he went on half under his breath, as the door
opened. 'I can't stand a snivelling woman.' And with singular
ungraciousness he got up and walked out, pushing past his faded little
sister, who turned and looked after him, indignation in her pale eyes.

Mr Campion remained on the hearth-rug and Aunt Kitty stood hesitating
just inside the room, apparently trying to make up her mind whether to
brave the devil she knew not, or to follow the one she did. She wore the
same flat-breasted black frock in which Campion had first seen her. Her
eyes were red-rimmed and watery and the thin curls round her face were
dampish and dejected. At length she decided to come in.

She closed the door behind her, and keeping her eyes modestly
groundward, advanced towards the fireplace and stooped to poke the
blazing coals.

From where he stood Campion could see her face. She was mumbling, her
lips together as though forcing herself to speak. Quite suddenly she
straightened and turned upon him with that air of drama which he had
noticed in her before. She stood trembling, a curious little figure in
her neat black, her crumpled cheeks flushed and the poker clasped firmly
in her hand.

'Mr Campion,' she said, 'Mr Campion, you're not the police, are you?'

He did not smile. Behind his spectacles his eyes were watching every
changing line in her face.

'No,' he said gravely. 'I am here on behalf of Mrs Faraday. Is there
anything I can do for you?'

Aunt Kitty's courage seemed to be about to fail her again, but she
recovered herself.

'You mustn't believe a word William says,' she went on breathlessly. 'I
ought not to talk like this. I know he's my brother, but he's not to be
believed.'

She paused and then fired another unexpected question at him.

'Do you believe in the supernatural, Mr Campion? I mean,' she went on,
taking a step nearer and speaking with terrifying intensity, 'do you
believe in the power of Evil?'

'Yes,' said Mr Campion.

Aunt Kitty seemed satisfied, for she nodded reassuringly to herself.

'You ought to be afraid to stay here,' she remarked. 'I'm not afraid,
not really, because I'm a religious woman, and I've got the armour of
religion to protect and help me. But the others haven't, and there is no
way of escape for the wicked. They shall perish, just as Andrew
perished. But,' she continued, the poker trembling in her hand, 'Evil
doesn't perish. The active spirit of Evil is abroad. It's in this
house.' She lowered her voice. 'Did you see that mark on the window in
the library? That's the beginning. When I saw it I recognized it. Andrew
told me once that if he died first he would come back and haunt us.
Well,' she finished triumphantly, 'he's doing it.'

Mr Campion, who had stood many ordeals in his life, wiped his forehead
with his handkerchief, but Aunt Kitty's tongue was loosed.

'I couldn't go to church this morning,' she said, 'because I felt that
as soon as I set foot in that sacred building the contamination which I
have suffered here would show in black upon my face. This house is Evil.
William says a cat attacked him. That was no cat, Mr Campion. William
was attacked in his sleep. In the darkness Lucifer stretched out his
hand and made a mark upon him, warning him.'

She was nearly exhausted now, but the prophetic fire still flickered.

'If William turned his heart and confessed that an Evil power struck him
in the dark he might be saved yet,' she said. 'But he won't. He likes to
think it was something tangible, something of this world. He likes to
think it was an animal, a poor dumb thing. Andrew was a wicked man, Mr
Campion. I sometimes think,' she added, her voice sinking again to a
whisper, 'that Andrew was possessed. No, it's not the police we need in
this house. It's the clergy. This sinful building should be exorcised.
When a man dies of fever they have the house fumigated. When the wrath
of God overtakes Andrew we do nothing except call in the police to find
out who His agent was. I'm a silly old woman, I know, but I'm warning
you, young man. You keep away from here. Andrew brought Evil into the
house and the black wing is over it still.'

She stopped and suddenly became aware of the poker in her hand. Its
presence seemed to embarrass her, and she dropped it noisily into the
fireplace. The clatter it made brought her to earth.

'Oh,' she said, with a guilty glance towards the door, 'I ought not to
have done that. Mother does so dislike a noise.'

She took out her handkerchief and dabbed her eyes with it. The
metamorphosis was complete. From a sibyl in prophetic ecstasy she had
become once again the down-trodden poor relation.

Mr Campion never quite forgave himself for his next remark.

'And your sister?' he murmured.

Aunt Kitty burst into tears. 'Poor misguided Julia,' she whispered, 'she
was only selfish.' And added, with terrible inconsequentiality, 'God is
a jealous God.'

The luncheon gong relieved the tension, and after an agonizing meal Mr
Campion once more visited Great-aunt Caroline.

She received him in her little sitting-room, as usual, and listened to
his request in amused silence.

'You want me to leave my house?' she said at last, when he had finished.
'Certainly not. My dear young man, at my age physical danger, that is to
say the danger of death, is ever present wherever I am. I ceased to
worry about that long ago. In fact,' she went on unexpectedly, 'my
position now is that of someone waiting on a platform for a train
already overdue. No, I am afraid that whatever you tell me I shall
remain where I am.'

Campion took his defeat calmly. He looked very young, standing on the
hearth-rug before her. He had removed his spectacles and all trace of
his lackadaisical and inconsequential manner had vanished.

'If I were only sure,' he said, 'it would be different. I should insist.
But I am not sure. There is an explanation of this affair which
frightens me. If it is the truth, no one in this house is safe. As it
is, you will see that I can't possibly make any accusation, now, but I
beg you to leave yourself.'

Great-aunt Caroline sat back in her chair, her hands folded.

'No one in this house is safe,' she repeated. 'Almost my exact words to
you, young man, if you remember. But I shall not stir, and you may do as
you please about the others. Personally, until you are certain I should
let them remain where they are. If Nemesis is to overtake them, you
know, it will. However, I feel rather differently about Joyce. Does she
come within the scope of your rather sweeping suggestion?'

'Certainly,' said Campion emphatically.

'Then Joyce shall go,' said the old lady with decision. 'If you will
send her to me I will see that she raises no objections. She will want
to stay with Miss Held, I suppose: a charming girl, quite unusually
intelligent. And you yourself, Mr Campion--what a curious name that is;
I wonder why you chose it?--what do you propose to do?'

Campion looked hurt. 'I remain where I am, if I may,' he said. 'But I
wish you would go yourself. I suppose it's no use my reopening the
subject?'

Her small mouth set in a firm obstinate line. 'None whatever,' she said
shortly.

Mr Campion realized that he had heard the literal truth.




CHAPTER 17
OPEN VERDICT


The gaiety and warmth of Ann Held's unacademic study seemed only
half-hearted when its owner and Mr Campion sat one on either side of the
fire at half-past five on Monday, waiting for Marcus and Joyce to return
from the inquest on Aunt Julia. Ann, who had cheerfully shouldered half
Joyce's troubles, smiled at the bespectacled young man opposite her.

'Of course I'm awfully glad to have you,' she said, 'but why didn't you
stay for the verdict?'

Campion turned a mournful face towards her. 'I couldn't bear
Stanislaus's cold and slightly unchristian attitude any longer,' he
said. 'He's an old friend of mine, and contrary to the best traditions
of the amateur sleuth, I have put my foot in it rather badly with him.
It's most unfair, too,' he went on. 'I gave him the broadest possible
hint; in fact I told him that if he visited every public-house between
the Grantchester meadows footpath and Socrates Close he would find Uncle
William's alibi. But just because I didn't go further and mention that I
had already interviewed the redoubtable Mrs Finch, of "The Red Bull",
who had assured me that she could state on her oath that Mr William
Faraday, dazed and a little queer, had entered her establishment at
fifteen minutes to one and left it in an aimless fashion half an hour
later, he is quite ridiculously annoyed with me. I consider myself
down-trodden. Did you ever read a book called _Misunderstood_?'

Ann Held began to laugh. 'I always thought that child deserved all he
got,' she remarked.

'He did,' said Mr Campion. 'So do I. That's where the tragedy comes in.
They're late,' he went on. 'The jury must have taken longer to make up
their minds than I expected. The coroner is a first-class man. He knows
what he is about, and he seems to be able to write faster than most of
his tribe.'

'I don't see what that has to do with it,' said Miss Held.

He enlightened her. 'Everything said in the court is taken down by the
coroner in longhand. That's why witnesses are encouraged to be short and
snappy. We are extremely lucky to get this inquest over in one day,' he
added, 'although of course there was precious little evidence of any
kind to be given.'

Ann curled up in her chair. 'This is a most remarkable business,' she
said, 'and of course I'm an outsider, so I may easily make a fool of
myself. But it seems to me that this is obviously a matter for--well, a
medico psychologist, or whatever you call them.'

Mr Campion stretched his long thin legs to the blaze and the firelight
flickered on his spectacles.

'It is,' he said. 'But what's the good of that? The difficulty about
psychology is that it hasn't any rules. I mean, if one person can
imagine the state of mind in which another might perform certain acts,
then those acts are sound psychology. In other words, given a person's
batty enough, there is nothing he or she may not do. That's as far as
anyone seems to have got at present.'

'Batty,' said Ann Held. 'You've said it. I suppose they'll bring this in
a verdict of murder.'

'Oh, no,' said Mr Campion. 'At least, I hope not. No one will be more
surprised than my ex-friend Inspector Oates if they do. Of course they
may do anything. There's a problem in psychology for you. Why does the
collective mind of twelve men work more irrationally, more prejudicially
than that of any of those same twelve men taken separately? Hullo, here
they are.'

He swung round in his chair and rose as Joyce and Marcus entered. Joyce
looked exhausted, and she sank wearily into a chair. Campion looked
inquiringly at Marcus.

'Open verdict?' he asked.

The young man nodded. 'Yes. "The deceased met her death by conium
poisoning, but there is not sufficient evidence to show whether it was
self-administered or not." They were away for some time. I think there
was a strong vote in favour of suicide, Ann, you're a heroine to put up
with us like this.'

'You sit down,' said his hostess. 'I'm making tea. Joyce, you look all
in.'

There was a welcome pause while the little brass kettle on the hob was
persuaded to boil and the tea brewed. Joyce took off her hat and passed
her hand over her hair.

'It's wonderful to be back here after that terrible room,' she said. 'I
hadn't realized it was going to be so public, and I loathed the people
who came to watch. What's it got to do with them, anyhow? They tell me I
shan't be needed tomorrow. I'm so glad. Ann, I don't know what I should
do without you.'

Miss Held smiled at her across the teacups. 'Mr Campion was saying they
are lucky to get it over so soon,' she remarked.

'We are,' said Marcus. 'By the way, I thought the coroner was splendid.
He's a first-class man.' He paused, recalling the scene to his mind.
'Uncle William came out unexpectedly well,' he remarked. 'I hope he has
the same luck tomorrow when the inquest on Andrew is resumed.'

'It is extraordinary,' said Joyce slowly, 'what a different person Uncle
William is in public. It's just as though he's able to put over the
impression one always feels he's trying to create at home.'

Marcus smiled sourly. 'He'll have Campion to thank if he doesn't make an
extremely awkward impression tomorrow at the inquest on Andrew,' he
said. 'But I think that alibi will save his bacon altogether. By the
way, I had a line from Sir Gordon Woodthorpe this morning. He's going to
be a very decent old boy over the business. Uncle William really has
been a first-class lunatic. Still, it's the alibi which is really
important. It's rather odd that the police, by concentrating on the time
of Seeley's murder, have punctured what case they had against William
completely. Why did you wait until today to tell the Inspector,
Campion?'

'That's what Stanislaus says,' said that young man regretfully. 'In
fact, he's very rude about it. Yet I gave him every hint I could. You
see, I wanted him to concentrate on Uncle William, because,' he added
slowly, 'I believe that Uncle William has the key to the whole problem
in his hand if he could only realize it.'

The three looked at him questioningly, but he offered no further
explanation, and something in his manner prevented them from pressing
him. Joyce shivered.

'When that expert gave evidence that there had been a trace of conium in
Aunt Julia's cup, I was waiting for a verdict of murder,' she said.
'Then of course that long rigmarole about the patent medicine we found
came out. That cleared Aunt Kitty. But they didn't say they had found
any trace of conium in the paper which held the medicine.'

'No,' said Marcus. 'That's why there wasn't a murder verdict. There
wasn't any trace. But it doesn't take much imagination to see that that
was the way the stuff was administered. The drug must have been soaked
into one of the pellets which was then recoated. It probably looked
exactly like the others.'

Joyce nodded. There was a far-away look in her brown eyes.

'Albert,' she said, 'we're all being indiscreet, and thank goodness it
doesn't matter here. Did you ever find out about the rope?'

He nodded. 'It was identical,' he said. 'This isn't to be broadcast, of
course, although it'll all come out tomorrow. Yes, it was obviously the
same stuff. That takes us straight back to the house again. We haven't
accounted for the clock weight yet, either.'

The girl leant back and closed her eyes. 'I'm ashamed to say it,' she
said, 'but when Aunt Faraday insisted that I should leave the house
yesterday I was glad. I never thought I was a funk before, but I am.
That ludicrous footmark, the attack on Uncle William, the dreadful
atmosphere of something dark and awful going on right under one's nose,
it got me down. Poor Aunt Kitty! Is she all right? She looked so little
and helpless in the box.'

'I think of all the people in that house,' said Mr Campion judicially,
'Aunt Kitty's position is the safest. But I'm glad you're out of it.'

Once again they looked at him inquiringly, and it was Ann Held who put
the question.

'When?' she said. 'When will you know?'

To their astonishment he rose to his feet and strode restlessly up and
down the room. Neither Marcus nor Joyce had ever seen him so agitated
before.

'I don't know,' he said. 'My theory is only a theory. I have no proof. I
have only an idea that came in the night. Look here, my children, I must
go back. I shall see you all tomorrow.'

Marcus followed him to the doorway. 'I say,' he said anxiously, 'it's
not a thing I advise, of course, but if you need a revolver...'

Campion shook his head. 'Thanks, old boy, I have one,' he said. 'To tell
you the truth, there's only one thing I could have to make me feel
really safe.'

'And that?' inquired Marcus eagerly.

'Suits of armour and solitary confinement for four,' said Mr Campion.




CHAPTER 18
REPORT OF THE DEPUTY CORONER


    _This is the report of the Deputy Coroner (Mr W. T. Thomas)
    sitting in the temporary Cambridge coroner's court, directing
    the jury in the inquest of the body of Andrew Seeley, of
    Socrates Close, Trumpington Road Cambridge, at the conclusion of
    the third day of the hearing, Friday, the 18th of April._

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, we are here to inquire into the death
of Andrew Seeley, 61 years of age, of Socrates Close, Trumpington Road,
Cambridge, whose body was taken from the River Granta on 10 April last.

We have heard the evidence of various witnesses summoned to this court,
and we must agree, I think, with Inspector Oates, of Scotland Yard, when
he tells us that we have heard all the available evidence to help you to
arrive at your decision.

We know that Andrew Seeley had been missing from his home since Sunday,
29 March, when he attended morning service in the company of his aunt,
Mrs Faraday, his niece by marriage, Miss Blount, and his three cousins,
Mrs Berry, Miss Julia Faraday, and Mr William Faraday, all of the same
address.

Now, the unfinished letter which has been read to you indicates quite
clearly that the deceased had every intention and expectation of
returning to finish it after the service. With reference to this letter,
there is one point about it which may have appeared to some of you as
extraordinary. The intended recipient has not been traced. But you must
remember that Mr Seeley does not seem to have been a man who talked much
about his friends or his personal affairs, and it is quite conceivable
that he should have correspondents of whom the rest of the household
knew nothing. I must say here that I am surprised and a little shocked
to hear that this person, who, unless she is abroad or otherwise
prevented from reading the newspapers, must have recognized herself as
the one addressed in this letter, which has been widely published,
should not have come forward in spite of police appeals. However, this
is a small point, and we must not let it confuse us as to the main
issue.

We have heard evidence to show that Andrew Seeley did not drive home
with his three cousins as had apparently been his intention before
entering the church. You have heard the deposition of John Christmas,
stating that the deceased instructed him to drive the two ladies, Mrs
Berry and Miss Julia Faraday, home in the car, as the deceased and his
cousin, William Faraday, had decided to walk. He has gone on to say that
these instructions astonished him, as they were contrary to custom. You
will remember that you have heard that the habit was not for the car to
proceed directly home, but to take a roundabout route in order to arrive
at the same time as the slower horse carriage, in which Mrs Caroline
Faraday chose to drive with her great-niece companion, Miss Joyce
Blount. So you will see that should the two men have decided to walk
straight home, they would have arrived not much later than the rest of
the party.

We now come to the evidence of William Faraday, cousin of the deceased,
and I ask you to consider this very carefully.

We know that the service concluded at half-past twelve. William Faraday
has told us that he accompanied his cousin as far as Coe Fen Lane,
leading to Sheep's Meadows. Here, he tells us, there was a thick ground
mist, a fact which has been borne out by other witnesses. He has also
said that he suggested to his cousin that they should return, pointing
out that the route they were taking was an extremely roundabout one.
This, he says, his cousin refused to admit, and they quarrelled.

Mr Faraday then went on to tell us that he turned back alone and
remembers coming out on to the road by the Leys school. There, he
states, he was seized by an attack of amnesia, a complaint from which he
has suffered intermittently for some time. You have heard expert
evidence in support of this statement, although no one has come forward
who has actually seen Mr Faraday under the influence of the malady
before the date in question. However, that does not of itself make his
statement untrue. Indeed, we know that he visited a very famous doctor
as far back as June of last year and described his case.

Continuing William Faraday's evidence we come to some very important
points. I must ask you to make particular note of the times mentioned.
Mr Faraday says he remembered no more after the attack seized him until
he found himself walking into the gates of his home in Trumpington Road
at a time which the evidence of the rest of the family shows to have
been 1.35 p.m.

There I want to leave Mr Faraday's evidence for a moment.

The next part of this tragic story which we have to consider is the
discovery of the body of Andrew Seeley by two students whose evidence
you have heard. You have had medical evidence which shows that the
deceased met his death as the result of a bullet wound in the head. You
have also heard experts who have told you that in their opinion the shot
was fired at close range. The bullet taken from the body has been proved
to be one discharged from a .45 revolver, the type of weapon which was
used in the army during the late war, and of which there are, no doubt,
many examples still unregistered in this country.

The medical evidence has also shown that the body had probably remained
in the water for some considerable time. Doctor Hastings, of the Home
Office, has told us that in his opinion death took place before the body
was put into the water, and that as nearly as can be ascertained, it had
remained immersed for a period not less than eleven days and not more
than fourteen. Now Andrew Seeley was last seen on Sunday, 30 March.
This, you will see, is twelve days before the discovery of his injured
body in the river.

We now come to the evidence of Stanley Waybridge, of Ladysmith Cottages,
Grantchester Road, who has told us that on Sunday, 30 March last, he was
just about to sit down to the midday meal which his wife had set upon
the table, remarking that she was five minutes early and thus
providentially fixing the time in his mind as 12.55, when he heard a
shot from the direction of the river. Being naturally interested and
surprised to hear such a noise on a Sunday, he went to his back door to
see if he could catch a glimpse of the firer of the shot. But, he has
told us, and his statement coincides with that of William Faraday, there
was a thick ground mist rising to a height of five or six feet in the
valley and over the river, and he saw no one. His wife called to him
that his meal was becoming cold, and he returned to it, not unnaturally
forgetting the entire incident until nearly a fortnight later, when the
body was discovered.

Now, I must warn you that there is no proof that the shot which Stanley
Waybridge and his wife heard was the same shot which killed Andrew
Seeley, but you must also remember that although the police have made
unremitting inquiries no one has been found who heard any other shot in
that vicinity on the Sunday in question, or indeed on any of the three
subsequent days. Doctor Hastings has said that the condition of the body
is consistent with death having taken place at this time. I think it is
safe, therefore, for us to agree that at least the probability is that
this was the fatal shot which Stanley Waybridge heard at five minutes to
one o'clock.

This brings us to the conclusion that if our surmise is correct, Andrew
Seeley met his death somewhere in the near vicinity of the river within
ten minutes of his arrival there, presuming he walked straight to that
place after leaving the church. Mr Faraday has told you that in his
opinion it was about ten or twelve minutes after they left church that
he parted from his cousin. Witnesses have come forward to show that
these two men, William Faraday and the deceased, were seen turning into
Coe Lane together at the time stated, but no one seems to have
encountered either of them on the lonely footpath between the lane and
the river. Nor will you, as residents of Cambridge, find anything
remarkable in this. The town is empty at this time of year, and most
people who had been abroad in the morning would be hurrying to their
homes for luncheon and not walking in the meadows, more especially as
the weather was damp and misty.

Yet there can be no doubt that Andrew Seeley encountered somebody, for
here we come to what is, perhaps, the most remarkable feature of this
strange and terrible history. When Andrew Seeley's body was found, it
was not only wounded in the head, Ladies and Gentlemen, but it was
bound. Police witnesses have shown you exactly how. It is this binding
which precludes any suggestion that Mr Seeley had taken his own life,
even had the half-finished letter he left behind him not been sufficient
to cast a grave doubt in our minds on the likelihood of this
eventuality.

Whoever accompanied or met Andrew Seeley on that Sunday afternoon bound
him and afterwards brutally shot him. Now this is no sudden emotional
crime. Whoever killed Andrew Seeley must have premeditated the act. The
rope which bound the body has been exhibited to you, together with a
portion of skylight cord brought by the police from an attic in the
deceased's home, easily accessible to anyone in the household. We have
heard the evidence of experts upon this subject, and we have compared
the two pieces of cord ourselves. I think it is reasonable to admit that
there is no difference in the texture, or the gauge, of these two
pieces, when we make due allowance for the time that the one has been
immersed in water.

In this long and difficult inquiry we have been confronted again and
again by evidence which has pointed in one direction. But we must not
blind ourselves to the fact that this evidence has in every case been
purely circumstantial, and when we come to examine direct and proven
fact we are faced with a wide gulf between those facts and the
explanation which the circumstantial evidence would seem to bring most
naturally into our minds.

To continue with the evidence which Mr Featherstone, solicitor acting
for the Faraday family, has felt it right to produce.

Mrs Finch, proprietress of 'The Red Bull' hotel in Knox Street, has come
forward and has told you positively and upon oath that William Faraday
entered her establishment, betraying every symptom of the malady from
which he says he suffers, at--and this is important, Ladies and
Gentlemen--fifteen minutes to one on the Sunday in question, and
remained there until fifteen minutes past, behaving in a way which she
has described to us as absent-minded. I have questioned this witness
carefully before you, and I think we must agree that she has said
nothing, nor has she behaved in any way which could lead us to believe
that her evidence is not reliable. Alfred Robins, the potboy employed by
Mrs Finch at 'The Red Bull' hotel, is a witness whose story corroborates
his employer's in every detail. And we also have to consider the
evidence of Frederick Shepherd, builder's clerk, of Grey Street, who has
told us that he entered the saloon bar of 'The Red Bull' hotel at ten
minutes to one on the Sunday, to find a man at the bar whom he took to
be tipsy, and with whom he had a drink. When asked if he could identify
this man in the court, you will remember that he unhesitatingly picked
out William Faraday.

Now I feel it is only just to interpolate here an inference, which has
occurred to me, and which may also have occurred to you. The process of
tying up a man, even if he has been previously stunned, or perhaps shot,
and of lifting that body, is an arduous undertaking and would leave, one
may legitimately suppose, signs upon the clothing and hands of anyone
who had performed such an act. Moreover, the wound which the deceased
sustained was of a very grievous nature, and there would be a
considerable amount of blood in the vicinity of his body after it had
been made. I feel that we must ask ourselves, could any man have lifted
or moved such a body without becoming stained? Each of the three
witnesses produced by Mr Featherstone has told you upon oath that at
five minutes to one on the Sunday Mr Faraday was immaculately dressed,
and that he looked, as Mrs Finch described him, as though he came
straight from church.

We now come to the question of the weapon. Mr Faraday reported to the
police through his solicitor that he had at one time been the possessor
of a revolver of the same calibre as that from which the fatal shot was
fired. William Faraday's revolver was stored, with his old army uniform,
in an unlocked trunk in the same attic from which the police have
procured the window cord. The police have searched for this revolver and
found it to be missing. I should like to dwell upon the point that Mr
Faraday made the statement voluntarily. The trunk was kept unlocked. It
was within reach of all in the household, and yet the person who removed
it might have been reasonably assured that the loss would not be
discovered for months, and possibly for years.

No weapon has been found. Inspector Oates has told you of the lengths to
which the police, in their zeal, have gone to discover it, without
success. Neither of these two revolvers, then--for it has not been shown
that they are identical--has been produced.

Ladies and Gentlemen, you have now to consider your verdict. But before
you retire I should like to remind you of one thing: this is not a
police court. We are here only to decide in what manner this unfortunate
man met his death. That is, the cause of death alone is our concern. If
you find upon the evidence that he was murdered, you must say so. If you
consider that you have not heard enough evidence to show either in what
manner, or by whose hand, he died, then you must bring in a verdict
coinciding with that view. But if you are agreed that the evidence has
clearly indicated the man or woman who is responsible for this cruel
and, as far as we know, motiveless crime, then it is your solemn duty to
point him out. Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, you may retire to
consider your verdict.

                 *        *        *        *        *

After a deliberation of only twenty minutes the jury brought in a
verdict of 'Wilful Murder by Person or Persons Unknown.'




CHAPTER 19
UNDER THE BLACK WING


The coroner had departed and the jury had shuffled out after him, having
delivered their verdict. Stolid officials shepherded the spectators out
of the court by the public entrance, but the principal actors remained
in the centre of the slightly stuffy room, waiting to make their exit
from a side door, where Mr Campion's car was awaiting them. The Faraday
automobile was drawn up at the public entrance, so that the idle crowd
which always collects on such occasions might be misled and wait in vain
for the victims of their insatiable curiosity.

It was while Uncle William, pink and slightly triumphant, was still
surrounded by congratulatory acquaintances, that Joyce and Mr Campion,
who were standing talking to Marcus, noticed simultaneously the florid
and unexpected face of Cousin George peering at them over the heads of
the other spectators in the slowly moving group at the back of the
court. Moreover, it was at the very moment that Mr Fred Shepherd,
builder's clerk, of Grey Street, was shaking Uncle William vigorously by
the hand, and the old man was trying to appear grateful without being
unduly friendly, that he also caught sight of his cousin. His little
blue eyes dilated, he blew out his cheeks, and he left the startled Mr
Shepherd very suddenly indeed, pushing his way over to Marcus.

The unexpected length and severity of the ordeal which the inquest had
proved, had told upon them all, more especially upon Uncle William, who
had certainly borne the brunt of the coroner's careful questioning. Now
that it was over, although the mystery seemed no nearer solution, they
all felt that at least there was some respite from the tension of the
past week, and, a moment before George's appearance, thankfulness had
almost reached the point of rejoicing in the little group. Even the
Inspector seemed relieved. He had made his peace with Mr Campion on the
second day of the hearing, and now strolled over to join him. As he did
so he caught a glimpse of the startled expression upon Joyce's face, and
followed the direction of her glance across the hall, until he too saw
the heavy red face and little dark eyes of George Makepeace Faraday.

The man met his gaze for an instant, and then turned abruptly and
disappeared among the out-going crowd.

The Inspector darted after him, but the chairs and benches which lay in
his path impeded his progress, and by the time he came out into the
evening sunshine the man had vanished, just as he had vanished before,
after his precipitate flight from Tomb Yard. Hampered by the mob, the
Inspector gave up any idea of a chase and returned to join the others.

When he found the family again they were standing in a group in the side
entrance, waiting to enter Campion's venerable Bentley. Campion detached
himself from the others to speak to the Inspector.

'I say,' he said, coming up, 'did you see that fellow?'

'I did,' said the Inspector bitterly. 'But he was too sharp for me
again. I'd like to have a word with that customer--and I shall. If he's
back in the town we ought to find him easily enough.'

Campion nodded, but he did not speak, and the Inspector went on
regretfully.

'This inquest hasn't got us anywhere, you know,' he said. 'This'll be
another case for the Black List against the police if we don't look out.
It's too bad.'

He was speaking softly, although there was not much danger of being
overheard. He looked gloomy and dejected, and if Mr Campion had not had
sufficient troubles of his own he would have been sorry for him.

'What are they going to do now?' the Inspector demanded, jerking his
head towards the three others.

'Mrs Faraday has ordered us all to return to dinner,' said Campion.
'Miss Blount is returning to the house tonight, very much against my
advice. How about you; are you leaving the town?'

'Are you?' said Stanislaus.

The young man shook his head wearily. 'No,' he said. 'Not for a little
while. To tell you the truth, I daren't. I have a feeling that the
really important part of this affair is going to begin at any moment
now.' He paused and glanced at the other man inquiringly from behind his
big spectacles.

Somewhat grudgingly the Inspector gave him the information he desired.

'I shan't go up tonight,' he said. 'And if you get a line on anything,
for heaven's sake let me know. No more monkey tricks behind my
back--hints or no hints.'

'Right,' said Campion. 'And you come across if you have any conversation
with Cousin George.'

Oates scowled. 'He's no use to us really,' he said. He sighed. 'What a
rotten unsatisfactory case this is! I knew it would be the moment I
spotted that coincidence at the beginning. I'm not a superstitious man,
but you can't help noticing queer things when they happen over and over
again. If I had my way about this case I'd write "Act of God" across the
docket and shut it up in a drawer.' He stopped abruptly, alarmed at the
expression which passed across his friend's face. 'What's up!' he
demanded.

'That's one of my own pet superstitions,' said Mr Campion. 'Look here,
when shall I see you again? Tomorrow, I hope?'

'I shall be here,' said the Inspector. 'I wish you'd come across with
this airy-fairy theory of yours. What's rattling you?'

Mr Campion's reply was entirely unexpected. 'I say, Stanislaus,' he
said, 'what's the penalty for arson?'

The Inspector did not reply, and Campion turned away. He seemed fagged
out and worried. The Inspector drew him back again.

'What's on your mind?' he insisted.

Campion sighed. 'I don't know that I shall ever be able to convince you
of it,' he said, 'but I tell you I would rather take that carload of
people to East Lane on Saturday night than back to that house. I've
waited five days, but I've a feeling that if it's coming, it's coming
tonight.'

'I don't follow you,' said the Inspector grumpily. 'But if you're
expecting another attack from the same source you're on the wrong track.
Whoever is responsible for this lot will wait for another six months or
so now, you mark my words.'

'We're up against something you never dreamed of,' said Mr Campion. 'See
you tomorrow.' And he strode out to the car, where the others awaited
him impatiently.

Marcus and Uncle William sat in the back. They were both weary, both a
little apprehensive. Joyce, a bright spot of colour burning in her
cheeks, sat in front next to Campion. They drove slowly through the
town. The 'Varsity had officially returned the day before, and the place
had sprung to life. Young men in amazing motor-cars filled the streets,
bicycles had become a menace, and battered 'squares' and ragged gowns
were everywhere. As they emerged into the long broad sweep of
Trumpington Road, Joyce sighed with relief and spoke.

'Oh, I'm glad it's all over,' she said. 'Did you--did you see Cousin
George? I'm afraid he'll be at home when we get there. It's just like
him to turn up and worry Aunt Caroline for money at a time like this.
He's bound to come, don't you think?'

Mr Campion looked at her dubiously. 'I say,' he said, 'do you think it's
wise, quite apart from Cousin George, to have come back to the house so
soon? Why not make up your mind to stay with Ann for another day or so?'

The girl shook her head. 'No, I'm all right now,' she said. 'I don't
want to burden Ann any more than I can help. She's been so very
sporting, bearing with me all this week. Besides, I've sent my things
back. I shall stay at Socrates tonight.'

She could see he was disappointed, and hastened to vindicate herself.

'I've been away five days,' she said. 'I went as soon as you insisted,
but nothing happened, did it? Besides, if Cousin George does come I
shall be a great help to Great-aunt Caroline, and she needs someone,
poor darling.'

Mr Campion made no reply, and they continued down the road and turned
into the gate in silence.

Alice admitted them. She was smiling, and her red face shone above her
severe black afternoon frock and stiff white apron. It was evident that
the news of the verdict which Mr Featherstone, senior, had just brought
to the house, had already percolated to the domestic quarters.

'Mrs Faraday is in the drawing-room,' said Alice. 'Mr Featherstone and
Mrs Kitty are with her. She said for you to go in.'

The great drawing-room, which caught the last rays of the evening sun,
was much brighter than Campion had expected. Great-aunt Faraday sat bolt
upright in her chair by the fireplace, a frail but luxurious creature in
her magnificent laces. Aunt Kitty sat beside her, an insignificant
pathetic little body. The strain of giving evidence had told upon her,
and her webby eyelids fluttered nervously.

Featherstone, senior, who looked older than both of them, his natural
air of monumental ruin even more pronounced than usual, sat opposite and
at a distance at which they must have appeared a mere blur to him. He
rose unsteadily to his feet as Joyce entered, the others following her.

Aunt Kitty, who could be relied upon to do the embarrassing thing,
bounced up with a squeal of excitement, tripped across the room, threw
her arms around the uneasy bulk of Uncle William's shoulders and burst
out hysterically: 'Dear, dear Willie! Safe at last! Safe!'

Uncle William, who was very much on edge already, drew back from her.

'Don't be a fool, Kitty,' he muttered testily. 'I've been made a
scapegoat in this affair, I know that, but I'm not going to be treated
to it for the rest of my life, thank you.' He stalked past her and sat
down.

Aunt Kitty looked hurt and a little frightened now that she found
herself alone in the middle of the room. She stood fluttering until
Joyce put an arm round her and led her to a settee on the opposite side
of the fireplace to Great-aunt Caroline.

Old Featherstone cleared his throat. 'Well,' he began in his deep and
somewhat too musical voice, 'as I have been telling Mrs Faraday, I think
we are all to be congratulated. We have, of course, to be very grateful
to the woman Finch and her employee. We were lucky to get hold of them,
more especially as we received no help in that direction from you, Mr
Faraday.'

Uncle William scowled at him. 'I was ill, I tell you,' he said. 'Nobody
seems to realize that. I was very ill. I still am very ill. This affair
might have been the death of me. Not one of you seems to have grasped
that.'

'Oh, but we have, Willie. That's what has been frightening us.' Aunt
Kitty had spoken before Joyce could stop her, and it was, unfortunately,
only too obvious what she meant.

Uncle William exploded. 'I like that!' he said. 'Twelve perfect
strangers have told the world quite plainly that I'm as innocent as a
new-born babe and yet the moment I come back into this house I'm accused
by my own sister. Not one of you here has any sympathy except Campion.
And I don't know why you're congratulating yourself, Featherstone. It
was Campion who found you all your witnesses. Remarkable! He deduced
where I'd been when I didn't know myself.'

'William.' Great-aunt Caroline, who had sat very still during this
interlude, her sharp black eyes taking in the varying expressions of the
little group, now stirred herself. 'William,' she repeated, 'now is not
the time for ingratitude. If you are not thankful for your deliverance,
I am. Come and sit here by me, if you please.'

Uncle William went. He muttered to himself a little and the words
'scapegoat' and 'disgusting exhibition' were distinctly audible, but
finally he sat down.

Great-aunt Caroline smiled at old Featherstone. 'I am very grateful to
you,' she said. 'You have been a very true old friend. Now, I want you
all to sit down, for I have something to say before we go in to dinner.'

Marcus glanced sharply at Campion. The same thought was in both their
minds. Surely Great-aunt Caroline should be acquainted with Cousin
George's presence in the town? However, the opportunity passed, for the
old lady was already speaking again.

'I am very glad that this inquest has ended as it has,' she began, 'and
I am very grateful to all of you who have helped us. But there is a
point of which I feel we must not lose sight. It is this: this terrible
affair is not yet at an end, and the odium which has fallen upon this
house is still as strong as though some one of us had been arrested.'

'Oh, Mama, how can you?--how can you?' Aunt Kitty burst into tears.

Great-aunt Caroline turned to her regretfully. 'Don't be foolish,
Catherine,' she said. 'Sensibility is very charming, but at this time it
is out of place. These are facts, and we must face them. A verdict of
murder against someone unknown has been passed upon Andrew's body.
Therefore until that murderer is found and brought to justice, this
house, and everyone in it, will remain under a cloud. I have already
told this to Mr Featherstone, and he quite agrees with me. Dinner will
be served informally this evening, rather earlier than usual. If anyone
wishes to talk to me I shall be in my writing-room. Mr Featherstone,
will you give me your arm?'

The old man rose ponderously to his feet and, very conscious that he
made a picture of distinguished old-fashioned gallantry which needed
only Mrs Faraday to complete it, offered her his arm.

They had advanced perhaps three paces when the blow fell. There was a
shrill burst of protest from the hall outside, followed by a man's
strident tones. The next moment the white door of the sacred
drawing-room at Socrates Close was shattered open, and Cousin George,
followed by a flustered and dishevelled Alice, precipitated himself into
the room.

Old Featherstone, who could not see the intruder's features, was perhaps
the only member of the company who did not receive a distinct physical
shock.

Cousin George, not quite sure of himself in Tomb Yard, had not presented
an attractive personality: but Cousin George with the whip hand, Cousin
George truculent and with a drunken gleam in his small eyes, was a
revolting specimen. Even Great-aunt Caroline stopped in her tracks,
silent and trembling. Aunt Kitty screamed. Cousin George waved to her.
Then he strode into the room, slamming the door in Alice's face.

'Hallo, Kitty, here's the devil again,' he said, revealing an
unexpectedly deep voice and educated accent. He glanced round the room
at the company. No one spoke or moved. The man was exultant, and he made
a peculiarly unpleasant figure in his grease-spotted blue suit, with his
coarse red face, sagging mouth and general air of leering satisfaction.

'Sit down, everybody,' he said thickly. 'Bring out the fatted calf. The
Prodigal returns.'

Aunt Caroline stiffened herself for the effort. 'George,' she said, 'you
will come to my writing-room and speak to me there, if you please.'

Cousin George laughed loudly and unpleasantly. 'Sorry, Aunt,' he said as
he lounged against the closed door with considerable theatrical effect,
'sorry, but this is where the formula begins to differ. No hustling me
into a back room. George has returned in force. George is going to be
made a great fuss of. In fact, George is going to stay.'

There was a snort and a rustle from the back of the room as Uncle
William, who, to do him justice, was not a complete coward, sailed into
battle. He planted himself squarely in front of the intruder, who
appeared to be enjoying himself immensely, and thrust his pink face
close to the other man's.

'You infernal blackguard!' he said, his voice leaping out of control.
'We've had enough of you. You get out of this house. And to save the
police trouble, call at the station on your way out of the town. They're
looking for you, I don't mind telling you.'

Cousin George's amusement increased. He put his head back until it
rested on the wood and, still smiling insolently into the old man's
face, he opened his mouth and used a single epithet the like of which
had never before defiled the stately precincts of Socrates Close, and
then, while the frozen silence was still tingling, he raised his arm and
caught the pink face so near his own a flip with the back of his hand,
so that Uncle William tottered back livid with astonishment and the
sudden pain.

Campion and Marcus leapt forward simultaneously, and Cousin George was
pinioned before he realized what had happened. The man was as strong as
an ox, but his captors were young, and, Mr Campion at least, by no means
unpractised. Realizing himself helpless, the intruder began to laugh.

'All right,' he said. 'Chuck me out. You'll regret it to the day of your
death.'

Old Featherstone, who had only just grasped who the newcomer was, and
being fearful for his dignity if not for his balance, peered round him
helplessly. Finally he cleared his throat.

'Marcus, my boy,' he said, 'move away from that door, will you? Mrs
Faraday and I were just going out.'

Uncle William, who was rumbling ferociously, hovered in the centre of
the room, uncertain whether to attack verbally or physically, when
Cousin George spoke again.

'You'll be sorry if you don't let me speak,' he said. 'I've got you by
the short hairs. You send your lawyer away, Aunt, and listen to me.'

To the complete astonishment of most of her hearers, Aunt Caroline
seemed to give way.

'Mr Campion, Marcus,' she said, 'you will oblige me by coming over here.
George, sit down. What have you to say?'

The man's triumph was insufferable, and although the young men obeyed
the old lady, it was evident that they did so grudgingly. Freed, Cousin
George shook himself.

'Thank you,' he drawled. 'Now sit down, all of you. Keep old Foxy here
if you like, Aunt, but remember you have yourself to blame if you don't
like him hearing what I say.'

Aunt Caroline's attitude surprised everyone. She returned to her chair
by the fire almost meekly. Old Featherstone stepped after her and stood
gracefully by her side. Although he could see very little of the
proceedings, at least he could hear, and he had the satisfaction of
knowing that he looked magnificent.

Cousin George threw himself into the most comfortable chair in the room
and began to speak with spirituous and theatrical arrogance.

'This is funny,' he said. 'You don't know how funny you all are. _I'm_
going to laugh now. This is where I step in and sit pretty for the rest
of my life. No more fobbing me off with a few pounds, Aunt. I'm back to
stay this time. You're all going to sit up and dance while I call the
tune. And you,' he added, wagging a none-too-clean forefinger at Uncle
William, 'you pompous old humbug, you're going to run round me like a
spaniel if I want you to.'

He took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it, quite conscious of the
sensation he was causing, and enjoying it to the full. Both Uncle
William and Aunt Kitty, who knew that the smell of tobacco had never
before permeated the drawing-room, were aghast at this desecration, and
they turned to their mother appealingly.

Great-aunt Caroline sat quite still, no muscle of her face moving; only
her black eyes, which never left her nephew's face, seemed alive.

Cousin George spat a shred of chewed tobacco on to the Chinese carpet
and ground his muddy heel into the soft pile with flagrant delight.

'I've looked forward to this,' he said. 'Now it's come. I've got you
just where I want you. Are you going to keep the lawyers here, Aunt?'

'Yes.' Aunt Caroline's voice was perfectly composed, but her icy tone
could not quell Cousin George, who was more than a little drunk, both
with liquor and his own elation. He sniffed.

'Right; here goes. The police have been looking for me, haven't they? I
should have been down before if I'd known that, but I didn't. And why?
Because I was "inside". I got out this morning and read about the
inquest. I read about Julia, too. She's gone, has she? Well, that's a
stroke of luck I didn't expect. Who's that man?' He pointed to Campion.
'I've seen him before. If he's something to do with the police, all the
worse for you, Aunt. Shall I go on?'

'Yes,' said Great-aunt Caroline again.

Cousin George shrugged his shoulders. 'Well, here I am, here I
stay--_j'y suis, j'y reste_. Not one of you is going to raise a finger
to turn me out of this house. Because if you do,' he added, lowering his
voice, 'I shall tell all I know, and you'll have a murder trial in the
family before you know where you are. You've come in for a bit of
publicity already, but that's nothing to the stink I'll raise. You see,
I happened to follow Andrew from church on Sunday, the thirteenth of
March. It won't be circumstantial evidence; it'll be an eye-witness
account.'

He paused and looked about him. There was deadly silence in the room.
His words had electrified the company. Great-aunt Caroline alone
appeared to be perfectly unmoved.

'You will explain, George,' she said.

Cousin George shook his head. 'You don't catch me like that. You know
and I know that I've got you all just like that.' He thrust out his
hand, the fingers extended, and slowly clenched it. 'As long as I'm
comfortable I shall say nothing,' he went on. 'I know what suits me. You
see,' he added, a tremor of satisfaction in his voice, 'it's one of you.
You all know that. And I know which one it is. Now let's hear your airs
and graces. William, ring that bell over there and tell the maid to get
me some whisky.'

All eyes were turned upon Uncle William, and he shot an imploring glance
towards his mother, but Great-aunt Caroline nodded, and humbly Uncle
William rose and pulled the bell.

It was capitulation.

Cousin George laughed noisily. 'That's it,' he said. 'I'm going to make
you do that often.'

When the startled Alice appeared it was he who gave the order.

'Whisky and soda,' he said, before anyone else could speak, 'and make it
snappy.'

The woman shot a scandalized glance at her mistress, but receiving
Great-aunt Caroline's nod, she hurried out.

Cousin George leant back. 'Murder trials arouse public interest in
oneself, don't they, Aunt?' he drawled. 'I think I could place a short
intimate biography of myself with several great newspapers should I be
compelled to tell all I know about old Andrew. Don't you think so?'

The immediate result of this comparatively innocent remark was
extraordinary. Great-aunt Caroline stiffened.

'Mr Featherstone,' she said, 'you would oblige me by excusing yourself
from my table tonight. Since you are such an old friend, I know I may
ask you this.'

Old Featherstone bent forward, and although he lowered his voice, its
rumblings echoed quite clearly through the room.

'Dear lady.' he said, 'this is blackmail, you know. There's a very
severe penalty for blackmail.'

'Yes,' said Cousin George casually from the depths of his chair. 'But so
few people prosecute, do they, old Foxy? This family won't prosecute me,
don't you worry. You run along and do what you're told.'

The old man would have spoken again, but Great-aunt Caroline laid a hand
on his arm, so that he thought better of it, and, with a bow to his
client and her household and a stony near-sighted stare for Cousin
George, he strode out of the door. Alice, returning with a tray, stood
aside for him to pass.

Cousin George's comment was cut short, no doubt, by the appearance of
this refreshment, which he insisted upon having on the floor by his
chair. When the woman had gone out he sat with his glass in his hand,
his legs straddled out before him.

'Do the tame puppies remain?' he said, pointing to Campion and Marcus.

Marcus was livid and the muscles of his jaw throbbed visibly. Mr
Campion, on the other hand, appeared almost imbecile, a mask of affable
stupidity covering his personality completely.

'If you prefer it, no,' said Great-aunt Caroline.

Cousin George surveyed the two young men with an insolent stare.

'I don't care who hears what I've got to say,' he said. 'I know what I
know, and I've got a witness to prove it. I've got the whip hand. I've
got to be bribed not to tell all I know to the police. I should have
been here before, only, as I say, I got a bit drunk and beat up a
policeman last Thursday, so they put me in for seven days. One of the
Faradays of Socrates Close drunk and disorderly--that's a paragraph for
the local paper! Perhaps you'd like to write it out for me, William. Or
perhaps you'd like to save your energy. I'm going to keep you busy in
future. Yes, Aunt, I think you can turn these two lounge lizards out to
grass. The family and I must get better acquainted. A little
heart-to-heart talk will show us all where we stand. Oh, and by the way,
neither of you need trouble to send for the police. I saw them as soon
as I arrived in Cambridge this afternoon. They were quite satisfied as
to my movements. If everything isn't arranged satisfactorily here I
shall pay them another visit. I said I held the ace; I do.'

He poured himself out another drink and raised his glass provocatively
to William.

'They drew out all the evidence against you at the inquest, and you got
off,' he said. 'But that doesn't mean that everyone's satisfied. Why,
it's obvious to the whole world that one of you did it, and I'm in the
happy position of knowing which one. However, since you are my own flesh
and blood, rather than turn you over to the police, I'll keep you in
order myself.'

Great-aunt Caroline, whose composure was almost trance-like, turned to
Campion and Marcus.

'I should like you both,' she said, 'to take Joyce into the
breakfast-room and wait there for a little while. Joyce, dear, please
tell Alice to lay another place at the dinner-table. She will have seen
that Mr Featherstone has gone and may not be aware that Cousin George is
staying.'

'Tell her to prepare a room for me,' said Cousin George. 'I'll have old
Andrew's. I bet he knew how to make himself comfortable. I'll want a
fire in it and a bottle of whisky on the mantelpiece. These are the only
things I insist upon. Now then, clear out. I have something to say to my
dear relations.'

But Aunt Kitty, whose frail nerves had stood up against this ordeal so
valiantly, now gave way completely. She darted into the centre of the
room like a small terrified rabbit.

'The spirit of Evil!' she shouted hysterically. 'The spirit of Evil is
abroad! Another fiend has been sent to torment us. Oh! Oh! Oh!'

Each of the three final exclamations was uttered in a tone higher and
more piercing than the last. She swayed uncertainly for some seconds,
and finally collapsed upon the floor, sobbing and kicking like a maniac.
The sight was distressing and a little terrifying.

For the first time since his arrival Cousin George was discomforted. He
drew his feet away from the abject figure, and picking up his glass put
the siphon under his arm. Then, with a decanter in his free hand, he
turned towards the door.

'I can't stand this,' he said. 'I shall be in the library until you've
pulled yourself together sufficiently to listen to me intelligently.
I'll have my food served to me pronto on old Uncle John's desk. And from
henceforward, remember that room is my room. I'm master of this house
now.'

Mr Campion opened the door, and as Cousin George stared at him he bent
forward and spoke softly.

'Pull up the blinds when you go into the library,' he murmured. 'You'll
see there's a message for you on one of the window-panes.'

The man stared at him, but Campion said no more, and finally Cousin
George stumbled out into the passage.




CHAPTER 20
THE DEVIL IN THE HOUSE


'If it wasn't for old Harrison Gregory, damn me! I'd go up and sleep at
the club,' said Uncle William.

He was striding up and down the morning-room, his plump hands clasped
behind his back, his short white hair standing on end and his moustache
bristling.

The other two occupants of the room were also on their feet. Mr Campion
leant against the mantelpiece so vague and ineffectual that he appeared
to be hardly alive. Marcus stood by the window farthest away from the
first, his chin sunk upon his breast, his hands thrust deep into his
pockets. The unshaded bulbs in the brass water-lily calyx shed an
unfriendly glare, and the whole house breathed an atmosphere of tension
that was well-nigh unbearable. The door was closed, but even its thick
wooden panels could not keep out the sounds which emanated from the
library where Cousin George sat in the late Master of Ignatius's chair
spilling spirit and soda water over the sacred desk and bellowing
commands from time to time.

He had insisted that the door of the library should remain open, and his
insulting comments leapt after every flying figure which flitted past
his blurred line of vision on the way to the stairs or the front door.

The quiet old house was seething. Fifty-year-old customs had been swept
ruthlessly aside, habits of a lifetime were shattered, and it seemed as
though the very furniture protested against this desecration of its
calm.

Uncle William, who had received one of the most violent shocks of his
career at the end of a long period of stress, was beside himself. He had
reached the stage when he could not bear to remain still. A major
revolution in the country would probably have had much the same effect
upon him.

Dinner had been a fiasco. Aunt Kitty had not appeared and had remained
in her room, where even now Joyce was attempting to get her off to
sleep. Cousin George, also, had mercifully decided to stay in the
library, where he criticized loudly the food that was brought to him.
Great-aunt Caroline had not been present either, and this perhaps had
shaken the morale of the household more than anything else could have
done. Except in times of illness, Mrs Faraday had taken the head of her
table since the day of her husband's funeral in 1896.

Uncle William burst out again. 'I can't understand Mother,' he said. 'If
she won't let us chuck him out, why won't she let us send for the
police? The fellow comes here with a cock-and-bull story and she takes
it seriously. Really, you would almost think she believed in it.'

Marcus shrugged his shoulders. 'Somehow the bounder put up a very
convincing story,' he remarked.

Uncle William stopped in his tracks, and his little blue eyes seemed to
be on the verge of popping out of his head.

'Do you mean to say...?' he began, and his voice trailed into
silence. He turned to Campion. 'Do _you_ think George knows anything?'
he demanded. 'Good heavens, do you mean to tell me that you think
someone in this house--one of us--put old Andrew out of the way, and
Julia? I mean, after all that's come out at the inquest?' He sat down
suddenly on one of the small chairs by the table. 'God bless my soul!'

Marcus straightened himself and lounged restlessly down the length of
the room.

'I think it's a great pity Mrs Faraday won't send for the police,' he
said. 'A great pity, and rather extraordinary.'

'Mother's old,' said Uncle William, jumping to his feet. 'I think I
shall go out and call the police myself. That'll be heaping coals of
fire upon their heads after the disgusting way they treated me. I tell
you, George is appalling,' he went on, his voice rising unexpectedly.
'Coming here, behaving like a--drunken anarchist in a house of sorrow.
Assaulting people,' he added, rubbing his cheek angrily. 'If it hadn't
been for Mother I'd have taken a dog-whip to the fellow, old as I am.
Yes, I shall go for the police. I'd like to see that fellow taken out of
here in handcuffs, Faraday or no Faraday,' he added vindictively. 'Yes,
well, I've made up my mind. I'm going.'

'No,' murmured Mr Campion.

Uncle William turned a baleful eye upon him. 'What's that, sir?'

'No,' said Mr Campion again. 'Don't do that. There's all this mystery to
be solved. You let him stay here.'

Uncle William threw himself down in his chair again. 'Oh, well,' he said
resignedly, 'badger me. Everybody badgers me. Hullo, what's that?'

His last remark was occasioned by an extra loud remark from the library.
Marcus strode to the door and threw it open just as Joyce, the colour
flaming in her cheeks, came hurrying in. Across the hall Cousin George's
voice, thick and inexpressibly vulgar, came clearly to them.

'Don't be a little stiff. Come and let me have a look at you. Sorry I
can't get up. You're the only thing worth looking at in this ----
household.'

Marcus, whose carefully cultured languor and sophistication had
undergone such a ruthless battering during the last few days, received
his final blow. His shoulders stiffened and his head went down. Joyce,
who saw his face, threw up an arm, checking for an instant his
precipitate rush, an instant that gave Campion time to get across the
room and haul his friend back.

'Not yet,' he pleaded, 'not yet.'

Joyce shut the door and put her back against it. Marcus, like all men
who are very seldom angry, was pig-headed in his wrath. His face had
become a dusky red and his eyes were blinded slits.

'I'm sorry,' he said huskily. 'I can't stand that chap. I shall break
his neck. Get out of my way.'

Joyce began to cry. Apparently she did not realize it, for the tears
rolled down her cheeks, and she made no attempt to hide them.

'Don't,' she said. 'Don't make any more trouble. Don't! Don't!'

Uncle William, who had observed this incident with interest, his mind
seizing upon it as a relief from his own mental chaos, now rose to a
height of which no one had suspected him capable. He produced an immense
stiff white handkerchief, and pushing past the two young men, dabbed the
girl's face with it.

'There, there, my dear,' he said. 'Come along, come along. We'll soon
have the bounder under lock and key--and probably hanged. There, there.'

This intervention saved the situation. Uncle William's persistent belief
that the arrest of Cousin George would solve all their difficulties had
a humorous element in it which even at this most trying stage of the
proceedings appealed to them irresistibly. Marcus put an arm round the
girl's shoulders and led her across the room to the fireplace.

Mr Campion and Uncle William remained near the door. 'Poor little
thing,' said Uncle William huskily. 'Damned shame. If the fellow hadn't
got our name I'd see him hanged with pleasure.'

Mr Campion made no comment, for at this moment the door again opened and
Alice entered. She shut the door firmly behind her, and, taking a deep
breath, burst out with her complaint.

''Tisn't right, sir. You've got to stop it. She's in there,' she said.

They stared at her, uncomprehending, and Joyce hurried forward.

'Who's in where, Alice? What's the matter?'

'The mistress, Miss.' The woman was nearly in tears. 'She's gone in to
that--that person alone, and he's not in a fit state, Miss. You can see
that for yourselves. Why, he might kill her.' She opened the door and
pointed across the hall. 'There. You can see, she's gone in and shut the
door.'

Uncle William took advantage of her invitation. He peered across the
hall. The library door was visible from the breakfast-room threshold,
and he could see that it was indeed shut. He returned to the room.

'It's a fact,' he said. 'What ought we to do about it? I suppose she
knows what she's doing, and if she does, she won't thank us for
interfering. But I don't know...'

'I've listened,' said Alice shamelessly. 'I've listened at the door. You
can hear her talking to him quietly. I heard him swear, too. I'm sure it
was that, although I couldn't catch the word. I'd go in myself, only you
know how wilful the mistress is.' She paused questioningly.

Instinctively they turned towards Campion. 'Wait,' he said. 'It's all we
can do. This, I fancy, is Mrs Faraday's idea. After all, if she cannot
manage Cousin George, no one can.'

'By Jove, you're right there,' said Uncle William, brightening up.
'Leave him to Mother. You mark my words, he'll come skulking out of that
room with his tail between his legs like the cur he is.'

Alice appeared unsatisfied, but receiving no assistance from the others,
she relinquished her idea of interrupting the interview. She planted
herself in the doorway.

'If you'll excuse me, Miss,' she murmured, 'I'll wait here. Then if she
calls or anything I can go straight in. And if she comes out I can dodge
back without her seeing me.'

Fifteen terrible minutes passed. Conversation had ceased and the
morning-room was cold and silent. Uncle William sat hunched up in one
green arm-chair, Joyce curled up in the other, with Marcus perched on
the arm. Mr Campion lounged by the bookcase and Alice stood half in and
half out of the open door.

After what seemed an eternity Uncle William stirred. 'About time that
yob came skulking out,' he said, 'isn't it? Another five minutes and I
shall send for the police. What do we pay rates for if a fellow can walk
into your house and behave like an animal?'

Alice moved silently back from the door. 'Someone's coming,' she
murmured.

They all listened intently. From across the hall had come the metallic
click of the library latch. The question in all their minds would be
answered in a moment now: Who would come out of the library, who would
remain in possession? Who had triumphed?

And then, shattering all their hopes, Cousin George's voice, thicker and
more indistinct than before, was heard shouting: 'I've got you! You
can't shift me, whichever way you turn.' And then, coming towards them
over the tiles, they heard the sharp click-clack of Great-aunt Faraday's
cane.

With great presence of mind Alice picked up a flower bowl from the
sideboard and stood back to allow her mistress to enter. Then she moved
silently out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Great-aunt Faraday paused just inside the door and stood looking at them
as they rose. She was still wonderfully composed, although the hand
which held her cane trembled a little. She had changed her frock; her
stiff black gown was the one which she usually wore in the evenings and
her cap and fichu were of fine needle-point. She tapped the ground with
her stick.

'I will have a chair here, Marcus,' she said. 'Just here. I am tired of
standing.'

When she was safely seated in her somewhat peculiar position a yard or
so inside the doorway, she surveyed her audience and nodded to them to
sit down.

'William,' she said, 'would you be so good as to go into my writing-room
and wait there for me. I shall like a word with you before I go to bed.'

Uncle William rose with a good grace, all things considered, and went
off, reserving his muttered protest until he was outside the room. When
he had gone the old lady cleared her throat.

'George will remain here tonight,' she said. 'However, as I feel I owe
you all a little explanation, I thought I would have a word with you
before retiring. George, as you have heard, has come here with an
extraordinary story. I allowed him to remain because I know him well
enough to realize that, odious as he is, he is not a complete fool, and
I feared that he would not take such a dangerous line as this unless he
had some information to lend weight to his threats. I have just been
talking to him,' she continued. 'I waited until this moment to do so
because it occurred to me that the more drunk he became the more likely
he would be to betray himself. Unfortunately, I think he has a stronger
will than I gave him credit for. He is also very drunk indeed, and apart
from getting anything out of him, I am afraid the interview has only
served to convince me that the creature knows a great deal.'

Joyce sprang up. 'You don't mean that you think he really did see who
killed Uncle Andrew?' she demanded.

Great-aunt Caroline nodded. 'Yes, my dear,' she said simply, 'I do.'

The effect of this gentle statement was startling in the extreme.

'Well, let's get the police,' said Marcus. 'They'll make him talk, if he
really does know anything.'

The old lady shook her head. 'My dear boy,' she said, her small voice
surprisingly calm after the excitement in his own, 'not yet. The police
cannot detain George, and I feel that we owe it to ourselves to hear
what he knows before the officials get hold of him.'

'Then you think...?' Joyce's voice trailed away.

The old lady shot her a swift bird-like glance.

'George remains in this house tonight, my dear,' she said. 'Tomorrow,
when he is sober, I shall talk to him again. Until then I do not want
the police even to know that he is here. For,' she went on deliberately,
'should the unthinkable occur and we find ourselves involved in a murder
trial, I see no way of preventing him from making all the capital he can
out of any scandal he may be able to lay his hands upon, and that, I am
afraid, is well within his power.'

'But, Mrs Faraday'--Marcus's tone was scandalized--'nothing is worse
than murder, surely?'

A grim expression spread over old Mrs Faraday's face. 'That is a matter
of opinion, Marcus,' she said. 'Now, there are several things I want you
to do for me. In the first place, I should consider it a great favour if
you would consent to stay in this house tonight.'

Marcus was astonished. 'Why, certainly, if you wish it, Mrs Faraday,' he
said.

Great-aunt Caroline nodded to him. She appeared satisfied.

'Joyce, my dear,' she said, 'I want you to sleep in my room. The bed in
the alcove has been made up. Marcus, you will have Joyce's room. No
doubt William can lend you everything you require. And then,' she went
on solemnly, 'if you and Mr Campion would take George up to his
room--that is, Andrew's old room--I should be very grateful. I shall go
to bed now. Joyce, will you come with me? First of all, run along and
tell William I'll see him in the morning instead of tonight, and then
ask Alice to prepare your room for Marcus.'

As Joyce went out the old lady turned once again to the young men.

'Even in the midst of tribulation such as this, a thought of general
philosophy may occur to one,' she said unexpectedly. 'If either of you
should be forced to listen to one of those misguided enthusiasts who
decry the niceties of our conventional system--remember George. There
are no doubt many other people in the world quite as wicked as he is,
but a modicum of manners prevents them from making such a deplorable
display. Now, I am afraid I have given you a most unpleasant task, but I
feel that, unhampered by William, the two of you may be able to get
George to his room, by whatever method you may think fit, which is more
than I or anyone else in the house could possibly do. I shall go to my
room now, and perhaps in fifteen minutes' time you will be good enough
to make your first attempt. Good night.'

Mr Campion held the door open for her, and was rewarded. Mrs Faraday
stopped and smiled at him.

'Don't worry,' she said. 'This is the only shock from which you could
not have protected me. I am very grateful for your presence here.'

'My hat,' said Marcus as Campion closed the door, 'I'm itching to get my
hands on that chap. I suppose we couldn't accidentally tip him over the
banisters? He doesn't know anything, do you think so?'

Mr Campion took off his spectacles. 'It's the best thing that ever
happened if he does,' he said. 'We shan't be able to do much with him
tonight, but we'll have a shot in the morning. I'm afraid old Stanislaus
is going to be angry with me again. I'm glad you're going to stay the
night. I have a feeling that something is going to happen.'

'Something else?' said Marcus.

Campion nodded, but did not speak, for at this moment the door opened
again and Uncle William returned. If Great-aunt Caroline had hoped that
he would take himself directly to bed, she had underestimated him. He
had come back prepared for war.

'Now that Mother's gone to bed, let's have a go at that fellow,' he
said, bounding into the room, his pink face glistening. 'I don't know
what the old lady thinks she's doing trying to get me out of the way.
I'm not as young as I used to be, but I'm not the man I was in the mess
at Jo'burg if I can't put that blackguard under the table! _In vino
veritas_, you know. We'll have the truth out of him.'

Marcus looked at Campion, and the expression upon his face was so comic
that the other nearly laughed. Uncle William went on.

'I've been thinking it over,' he said. 'At last we're up against
something we can deal with, something tangible, instead of all this
poking about in the dark. Suppose I go in and have it out with him?'

Mr Campion hastily changed the subject. 'I say, I have only one pair of
pyjamas with me,' he remarked. 'Can you lend Marcus a pair? He's staying
the night.'

Faced with an even more simple problem than the eviction of Cousin
George, Uncle William was at home.

'Certainly, my boy,' he said. 'Come up and I'll get you all you want.'

'You go and look him out some things,' suggested Campion. 'He's having
Joyce's room. She's sleeping with Mrs Faraday.'

'I'll find you everything,' said Uncle William. 'Pyjamas, dressing-gown,
shaving tackle. Be delighted.'

The moment his rotund form had disappeared up the staircase Campion
turned to Marcus.

'Come on,' he said. 'Now or never.' And together they bore down upon
Cousin George.

It was as well, Mr Campion considered as they entered the study of the
late Dr Faraday of Ignatius for the purpose of putting Cousin George to
bed, that the dead do not turn in their graves.

Cousin George, his collar and tie unloosed, his swollen face purple and
sagging, wallowed across the desk which now had a surface like a
four-ale bar on a Saturday night. He barely raised an eyelid as they
entered, but as they advanced upon him he threw out his hand in an
unwieldy gesture which wiped a soda-water siphon on to the ground.

'What's the matter?' he demanded.

'Bed,' said Campion clearly in his ear, and nodding to Marcus, he
suddenly gripped the man beneath the arm and jerked him to his feet.

Cousin George struggled, and the strength of the man surprised his
captors. They were both determined, however, and in a few moments he
found himself borne precipitately towards the door. He began to swear,
revealing a vocabulary which indicated that he had travelled
extensively.

'Shut up,' said Marcus, suddenly taking the initiative. With a
viciousness for which Mr Campion had not given him credit, he caught the
two ends of Cousin George's tie, and, jerking them round the back of the
man's neck, wound the silk about his wrist until he had a strangle-hold.
Cousin George's voice grew fainter and he began to cough and gasp
painfully.

'Don't kill him,' protested Campion.

'He's all right,' said Marcus. 'Come on.'

The stairs were negotiated with comparatively little difficulty, and at
length the struggling group came to a stop outside Andrew's room. Marcus
released his hold on the man's neck and threw open the door.

'Now then,' he said, 'in he goes.'

Cousin George was shot unceremoniously into the room, Campion switched
on the light, and they closed the door upon him. The key, left by the
thoughtful Alice, confronted them, projecting from the outside lock.
Marcus turned it and thrust it into his pocket just as a furious
onslaught from within echoed throughout the house.

Uncle William, with a pair of unexpectedly vituperant pyjamas over his
arm, put his head out of his door.

'Oh, I missed it,' he said. 'Never mind. There's tomorrow.'

Mr Campion straightened himself. 'I expect he'll make a din for half an
hour or so,' he said, raising his voice against the pandemonium. 'We had
better get to bed. We can't do much till the morning.'

Uncle William nodded. 'By far the most sensible thing to do,' he agreed.
'Come along, Marcus. I'll show you your room.'

It was at this moment that it occurred to Cousin George to sing the more
obscene verses of a well-known chanty at the top of his voice.




CHAPTER 21
THE OWNER OF THE GREEN HAT


Mr Campion sat on the end of his bed watching the moonlight streaming
into his room through the wide-open window. The house was at last in
silence and darkness. Cousin George had made the night hideous for a
good hour after he had been locked safely in his room, and a shaken
household had lain awake quaking in its beds while unexpurgated versions
of various nautical and military ballads, punctuated by violent crashes
of furniture and crockery, resounded through the house.

Gradually Cousin George had wearied of singing and had taken to shouting
profanities and libels on his relatives at the top of his voice. Finally
these also had ceased, and after much trampling a last stupendous crash
had jarred the stately precincts of Socrates Close and silence had
fallen, profound and soothing. Slowly the house had dropped off to
sleep. Mr Campion alone sat watching.

The plain-clothes men had been removed from the garden two or three days
before. Mr Oates's belief in his friend's intuition had not been
sufficiently strong to warrant so expensive a guard.

Mr Campion sat silent in the moonlight. He had taken off his spectacles
and also his coat and waistcoat. He wore a pullover tucked into his
trousers, which were suspended by a belt. His sleeves were rolled up,
and he had removed his watch and his signet ring. Arrayed thus, he had
been sitting motionless on the end of his bed for perhaps two hours.
Through the open window he could hear the chimes from the Roman Catholic
church quite clearly.

He had just heard the clock strike a quarter to three, and the moonlight
was waning, when he heard the sound which made him slip off his bed and
creep stealthily to the window. Keeping close to the curtain, he waited,
listening. The sound came again, a husky breathy whisper.

It was nearer now, and suddenly he made out the words, simple ludicrous
words, but in the night strangely terrifying.

'Old Bee.... Old Bee.... Old Bee....'

Campion stretched out a hand and gripped the sill, and then, exerting a
slow and even force, he drew himself silently out into the opening of
the window and peered down.

The garden was still faintly lit by the waning moonlight, and the strip
of grass beneath his window was clear. He noticed that there was still a
light in George's room, but no sound issued therefrom. As he waited, his
ears strained, he heard the whisper again, this time much closer.

'Old Bee.... Old Bee....'

Then, even as he watched, a dark shape detached itself from the shadows
beneath George's window, and the young man caught a glimpse of an
uncouth stooping figure, doubly grotesque in the deceptive light. It
might have been human, it might have been a gorilla fantastically
clothed, but Campion saw it with a welcome quickening of his pulse. He
leapt up on to the sill and stood for a moment poised above the
apparition.

The figure on the ground twisted round and raised a white blur of a face
to the window. In a moment he was off, streaking through the garden, a
fantastic figure bounding along like a great black balloon on the end of
a string.

Campion dropped to the ground, falling on his hands and knees upon the
wet turf. He was on his feet again chasing after the fugitive, who led
him unerringly towards the little gate into the lane at the far end of
the kitchen garden. For so large a creature the quarry developed an
extraordinary turn of speed, but Campion, his blood whipped by the cold
air and his nerves strained by the hours of waiting, gained upon him,
and on the stretch of rough grass before the gate he overtook the flying
figure, and, hurling himself upon it, brought it heavily to the ground.

The stranger grunted, and the next moment Campion was seized in a steel
grip and dragged ignominiously over his opponent's head. The mysterious
visitor, whoever he was, was not a negligible adversary. However, Mr
Campion seemed to have achieved some of Marcus's viciousness, and he
felt his pent-up wrath concentrating upon this tangible enemy. He
scrambled to his feet and caught the stranger round the legs in a rugger
tackle just as he was about to make his escape, and it was at this point
that Campion made the interesting discovery that the other's feet were
bare.

The figure slumped to the ground again, Campion on top of him, and two
immense hands came up out of the darkness and gripped the young man by
the throat. In this moment of partial suffocation Campion realized with
thankfulness that his opponent was unarmed. He struck out savagely, his
knuckles coming into contact with a hard and stubbly chin. The stranger
grunted and swore softly. Until now he had been terrifyingly silent.

Although he was lying upon his back his grip on Campion's throat did not
relax, and he was revealing an almost simian strength. The grip was
becoming a strangle-hold when Campion lurched forward, driving his knee
into the other man's wind. The hold on his throat relaxed and the man
doubled up, gasping.

He was by no means beaten, however. He rained unscientific blows with
his huge flails of arms, battering the young man's lean sides and
unprotected head. Campion straddled himself across the great body, and
exerting every ounce of his strength, drove punch after punch into the
man's face. He was fighting like a maniac, and the other, although he
certainly possessed the greater strength, was evidently out of training.
Gradually the rain of flail blows slackened, and Campion, driving his
knee steadily into the other's wind, had him gasping and writhing like a
fish out of water. Without relinquishing his position, Campion bent
forward.

'Had enough?' he whispered.

'Yus,' said the voice huskily, and relapsed into breathless grunting.

'You're Old Bee, aren't you?' said Mr Campion, risking yet another shot
in the dark.

'I'm no one,' said the man suddenly, and exerting an unexpected reserve
of strength, pitched his captor on to the turf again, at the same time
catching him a blow on the side of the head which made the bones of his
skull crunch together.

It did not knock him out, however. Through a maze of eddying blackness
Campion lurched back and caught the panting creature just as he rose
again to the attack. This time luck rather than judgment favoured him.
He stumbled, cannoning into the other and catching him in the pit of the
stomach with his head. His opponent let out a roar and doubled up.
Campion wriggled from beneath the choking mass, which threatened to
suffocate him, and staggered to his feet at the precise moment that a
third figure loomed up out of the half darkness and turned a torch full
upon his face.

'Hullo, sir, what's up?'

It was young Christmas, whose cottage faced on to the lane at the corner
of the garden, not twenty yards distant. Campion pulled himself together
with an effort. He was still dizzy, but his purpose remained clear in
his mind.

'Bring that torch over here,' he said breathlessly. 'Let's see what
we've got.'

Young Christmas, a large, raw-boned young man of thirty or so, advanced
cautiously towards the writhing object on the ground and turned his
torch full upon it. Mr Campion's antagonist lay revealed.

He made an extraordinary spectacle lying spreadeagled upon the ground,
gasping as though his last hour had come. He was a shortish man,
powerfully built, with immense arms. His face was surrounded by creases
of fat and almost covered with a short, stubbly beard of indeterminate
hue, while his long matted hair was plentifully flecked with grey. For
the rest, he was indescribably dirty, and blackened lips and broken nose
did not add to the charm of his appearance. He was dressed in ragged
green-black garments, none of which made any pretence of fitting him.
But it was at his feet, sticking out from beneath his ragged trouser
legs, that young Christmas was staring.

'Lumme!' he said. 'Look at 'em. It's him!'

One glance at the monstrous extremities half covered by the remnants of
odd socks was sufficient. Here, without doubt was the origin of the
print upon the flower-bed.

The sight of these feet seemed to restore Mr Campion's mental balance.

'Here, I say,' he said, 'can you let me bring this fellow into your
place? I fancy he's going to have a good deal to say.'

'Why, yes, sir, I'll get a light.' Young Mr Christmas was a little
startled, but eminently obliging. 'I 'eard a bit of a noise, sir,' he
said, 'so I come out to see what was up. What about this chap 'ere?'

'I'll bring him in,' said Mr Campion grimly.

Seated in a chair by the side of Mr Christmas's table, and seen by the
light of a swinging oil lamp, the intruder looked even less
prepossessing than he had done in the garden. His small, grey-green eyes
shifted furtively from side to side, and he stirred uncomfortably, half
rubbing, half scratching the injured portions of his unpleasant self
somewhere within the rag-bag drapery which was his costume.

'I wasn't doing anything,' he began, revealing the familiar mendicant
whine. 'You didn't ought to 'ave touched me. I can get you into trouble
for this.'

'Shut up,' said Mr Campion from the sink where he had been putting his
head under the pump, and from which he now emerged rubbing himself
vigorously with a towel. 'Is your father about, Christmas?' he murmured.
'I don't want to wake him if we can help it.'

'Oh, no, sir, that's all right. It'll take more than this to disturb the
old 'un.' Young Christmas seemed convinced on this point, and Mr Campion
was satisfied.

Their visitor, who was growing momentarily more and more disturbed,
began to whine again.

'I can 'ave the police on yer if yer touch me again,' he said.

'I am the police,' said Mr Campion fiercely. 'Ever heard of a
plain-clothes man? Well, here is one. You're under arrest, and if you
don't talk I'll see that you're strung up. You're wanted. We've been
waiting for you.'

A crafty light appeared in the stranger's face. 'You can't tell me,' he
said. 'I know a "busy" when I see one. I 'aven't been on the road for
thirty years without gettin' inside once or twice. You're no policeman.
Besides,' he added triumphantly, 'I know every "busy" from 'ere to
York.'

'I am Chief Detective Inspector Campion of Scotland Yard,' said the
young man brusquely. 'I am down here to investigate the murder of Andrew
Seeley on a footbridge over the Granta on Sunday 30 March. I have reason
to believe that you are the man I want. But I am going to give you a
chance, although your confederate has already been arrested. He has told
his story, and unless yours tallies with it in every detail, you'll find
yourself in the dock before you know where you are.'

The man who had listened to this harangue in silence and had clearly
understood about half of it, sucked in his breath noisily.

'You 'aven't cautioned me yet,' he said suspiciously.

'Cautioned you?' said Mr Campion, with consummate contempt. 'We Scotland
Yard men don't behave like lock-up sergeants. You're coming across with
all you know and you're coming across immediately. Ever heard of the
third degree?'

'I got a friend,' the other answered sullenly. 'A proper gentleman 'oo
knows about these things. And 'e says the third degree ain't allowed any
longer. I can 'ave my lawyer if I like.'

'Your friend George Faraday is under lock and key,' said Mr Campion
truthfully. 'That's where his erroneous information has taken him. Look
here, my man, do you want another fight?'

The young man's threatening attitude, together with his uncanny
knowledge of his visitor's acquaintance, had their effect. The
disreputable old bundle fidgeted uneasily.

'Do you want another thrashing?' the young man repeated, entirely
disregarding the other's anthropoid physique.

'No,' said the stranger. 'And I'm not sayin' nothin', see?'

Mr Campion consulted young Christmas's washing book, which he had taken
from a shelf by the sink.

'Let me see, we have your name,' he said. 'Address none. Alias Old Bee.'

'That's not an alias,' said the bundle, falling into the trap. That's a
sort of nickname--you know, among friends. I'm Thomas Beveridge, and I'm
registered at Warley Workhouse in Kent, and there's nothin' known
against me.'

'We know all about that,' said Mr Campion, having apparently appointed
Mr Christmas, junior, as a member of His Majesty's Police Force. 'Now
then, before I take you down to the station I'll have your statement
here. You are charged, together with George Makepeace Faraday, whose
statement we already have, with wilfully murdering Andrew Seeley by
shooting him, afterwards binding his body and hurling it into the River
Granta. Now what have you got to say?'

It was Mr Campion's manner, together with the terrifying and unfounded
charge brought so suddenly against him, which undermined Mr Beveridge's
morale.

'I never!' he said indignantly. ''Ere, you got this all wrong. George
never told you that.'

'The police draw their own conclusions,' said Mr Campion loftily. 'Are
you coming clean or have I got to beat it out of you?'

'I'd like a cup o' coffee,' said Mr Beveridge unexpectedly. 'I've been
man'andled--that's wot. And I'd like my boots, too. I took 'em orf by
the gate--wishin' not to disturb anyone. Can't say fairer than that, can
I?'

'Fetch me that bit of bike tyre,' said Campion to young Mr Christmas.

''Ere!' protested Mr Beveridge hastily, 'wait a minute. Wait a minute. I
'aven't said I won't say nothin'.'

Mr Campion raised his hand with a magnificently conceding gesture, and
young Christmas, who was proving himself a resourceful assistant,
stopped in his tracks and returned to the table.

Mr Beveridge spread out his immense and dirty hands. 'I don't know
anythink, and I want my boots,' he said. 'Matter of fact, I was at
Norwich that Sunday.'

'What?' said Mr Campion, with scorn. 'Don't waste my time, my man.' He
leant across the table and his hard, grey eyes fixed his victim's. 'You
dare to put forward a statement like that when you came into this garden
tonight wearing the hat of the murdered man?'

This unparalleled piece of bluff was Mr Beveridge's last straw. He
crumpled.

'I didn't kill 'im,' he said. 'George and I didn't touch the gun till
afterwards, that's a fact.'

Mr Campion heaved a sigh of relief and consulted the washing book again.

'I suppose you realize,' he said coldly, 'that you've said either too
much or not quite enough?' The great form in the little wooden chair
shivered and his dirty eyelids drooped.

'All right,' he said. 'I'll tell you. But it wasn't me--so 'elp me Gawd,
it wasn't George nor me.'




CHAPTER 22
IN THE MORNING


After Alice had placed the can of hot water on the washstand and
carefully covered it with a towel, she crossed the room, pulled up the
blind and paused at the end of Marcus Featherstone's bed. Having allowed
him sufficient time to awaken and recall his unhappy thoughts, she made
her announcement.

'Mr Campion isn't in his room, sir. His bed hasn't been slept in. I
thought perhaps I'd better tell you instead of Mr William. And old Mr
Christmas, the mistress's coachman, came into the kitchen just before I
came upstairs, to say that his son must have got up and dressed in the
night, for there's no sign of him.'

Marcus sat up in bed in Uncle William's voluminous and exotic pyjamas
and reviewed the situation.

'Campion gone?' he said. 'Half a minute and I'll put on a dressing-gown
and come along.'

He slipped on the multi-coloured bathrobe, another evidence of Uncle
William's hospitality, and followed the woman across the hall and down
the corridor to Mr Campion's room. No one else seemed to be stirring.
George and William's rooms were silent, and apart from the cheerful
domestic clatter below stairs the house was still sleeping.

Alice led the way into Campion's room. It was neat. Campion's
portmanteau lay on the luggage-rack, his dressing-gown hung over the
monstrous arm-chair, and apart from the fact that the window was wide
open at the bottom and the bed was unslept in, there was nothing out of
the ordinary to be seen.

Marcus looked round sleepily. 'What an extraordinary thing,' he said.
'Oh, well, Alice, I suppose he knows what he's doing. How about Mr
George Faraday? Have you been in to him yet?'

'No, sir. The door was locked. I've knocked, but I can't make him hear.
I expect he's sleeping heavy after--well, after last night, sir.'

'Very likely,' agreed Marcus grimly. 'Wait a minute. I put the key in my
pocket, I think. Mr Campion and I locked him in last night. Look here,
you go and mix him up a stiff Worcester sauce and I'll get the key.'

'Oh, don't you trouble, sir. All the keys on this floor fit. I'll mix Mr
George the same as Mr Andrew used to have.'

'I'll wait for you here,' said Marcus. 'I think I had better take it
in.'

As the woman went off down the corridor to the service stairs he
strolled over to Campion's window and stood looking out. He was a man
who hated mysteries, and he felt unduly resentful at what he could only
feel was an unnecessary piece of theatre. After all, there was no reason
why Campion shouldn't have said he was going out. In one way, Marcus was
glad. It would give him an opportunity to wake the nauseous George
himself. No man is at his best on the morning after such an indulgence,
and Marcus was young enough to enjoy the prospect of seeing Cousin
George a little sorry for himself, and perhaps, even, of using a little
unnecessary force in waking him.

When Alice returned with a tray, on which stood a glass containing an
unappetizing brown concoction, he took it from her, and detaching the
key from Campion's room, fitted it in the lock of George's door. He
knocked and listened. There was no response from within, and he knocked
again. Receiving no reply, it was with some satisfaction that he turned
the key, and, throwing open the door, went in, Alice at his elbow.

He was confronted by the yellow gleam of electric light, and his
irritation increased. He thrust out his hand and switched off the
current as a smothered scream from Alice made him spin round to find her
staring horror-stricken at the sight before them.

The room was in chaos. Books, garments, bedclothes were strewn
recklessly over the floor. In the midst of them, lying face downwards,
his body contorted in the most horrible and unnatural position, was
Cousin George.

There was no doubt that he was dead. His body seemed to have been
petrified in the midst of some terrible convulsion.

Marcus, dazed and a little sick, stepped forward unsteadily, and as he
bent over the body there came to him the strong unmistakable smell of
bitter almonds. He drew back and turned to Alice, who, white-faced and
grim, had closed the door behind her with commendable presence of mind.
She laid her fingers to her lips.

'Hush, sir,' she whispered. 'Don't frighten the house. What is it?'

'He's dead,' said Marcus stupidly.

'I can see that,' said Alice. 'How did he come by it?'

'Poison, I think,' he said huskily. 'I don't know. We must get the
police, Alice. Good God! Another murder!'

The realization of it came to him in a sudden chaotic vision. The whole
ghastly procession of the law presented itself to his mind: the police
in the house again, the endless questioning, the inquest, the Press
campaign, Kitty in the witness-box, William in the witness-box, Joyce
and Campion, all of them questioned, cross-questioned, perhaps even
suspected.

Alice's voice cut into his jumble of thoughts. 'You mustn't frighten the
mistress. What shall we do, sir?'

'Telephone to the police station,' said Marcus. 'Inspector Oates is
still in the town, I believe. Yes, that's right, Alice, telephone.'

'We haven't got the machine in the house, sir. Shall I go down to Mrs
Palfrey's? We've been borrowing hers lately.'

This trivial difficulty sobered the young man more quickly, perhaps,
than anything else would have done. He began to think clearly.

'Look here,' he said, 'we'll relock this door and I'll go and dress. You
go down to Mrs Palfrey's and ring up the police. Inspector Redgrave is
in charge, I expect, at this time. Ask him if Inspector Oates is still
in the town, and if so tell him from me that I should be very much
obliged if he would come down here, as something most unexpected has
occurred. If you are sure that no one of the Palfrey household is within
earshot, tell him what has happened. Anyway, get him to see that he must
come at once. Can you do that?'

She nodded, and he felt suddenly grateful for her wonderful stolidity.
She turned on the electric light.

'What are you doing that for?'

'We'll leave it just as it was if you don't mind, sir. Come along.'

He followed her out of the room, relocked the door, and returned the key
to Campion's room.

'I'll go and dress now, then,' he said, and stopped abruptly. Alice had
already gone.

As he struggled into his clothes he experienced that sudden clarity of
mind which so often comes just before the nerves reach their
breaking-point. Another murder had been committed. Therefore a murderer
was at large. In the business of the inquest he had rather lost sight of
this all-important point, but the question remained. If Uncle William
had no stain upon his character, who had? George had come to the house
with a story which no one but Mrs Caroline Faraday appeared to have
believed. George had made an accusation. He had stated that he knew who
had murdered Andrew. Now he was dead. Was it possible that Julia's
hitherto motiveless murder could be explained by the fact that she knew
something? The ranks were getting thin.

He found himself reviewing Kitty's position, and then old Mrs Faraday's.
The older woman alone had credited George's story, yet she had been
driving home in her four-wheeler with Joyce at the time when Andrew was
presumed to have met his death. The same excuse applied to Kitty. Even
though Julia was dead, there was still young Christmas to prove that she
had not left the car from the time she had come out of church to the
moment when he set her down at Socrates Close.

Marcus's mind returned to William. Mrs Finch, of 'The Red Bull', had
proved to everyone's satisfaction where William had been at the time of
Uncle Andrew's death, if Andrew had died from the shot which the
cottager on the Granchester Road had heard. But supposing Andrew had not
died at that time? Then the whole exasperating problem began all over
again.

And now there was another murder. It never occurred to Marcus to put any
other construction upon the fate of the terrible twisted thing in the
wrecked room. He felt dizzy. His orderly mind revolted at the
inexplicable. His father's words returned to him with startling force:
'I wondered when the bad blood in that family was going to tell.' What
bad blood? Whose bad blood? It was as though the old house was cracking
up under his eyes.

This, then, was what Campion had been afraid of. Yes, and where was he?
It was not like Campion to disappear, to go off without any word of
explanation. He struggled into his coat and went downstairs.

As he entered the hall he ran into Alice. She seemed relieved to see
him.

'Oh, sir,' she said breathlessly, 'I was just coming up. I've been on
the phone. Inspector Redgrave is coming down right away, and so is
Inspector Oates. And, oh, sir, I spoke to Mr Campion.'

'Campion? Where?' said Marcus in astonishment.

'Oh the phone, sir. He was at the police station. Mrs Palfrey's maid was
in the hall, so I didn't like to say what had happened, but when the
Inspector realized I was hesitating, he said "Wait a minute", and then I
heard Mr Campion's voice. And oh, sir'--she looked at Marcus with
genuine mystification in her brown eyes--'Mr Campion seemed to expect
something, for he said "Quick, Alice, who is it?" And so I just said "Mr
George, sir."'

'Yes,' said Marcus eagerly. 'What did Campion say?'

'He said "Thank God", sir,' said Alice.




CHAPTER 23
A LEGACY


Marcus was still in the hall when Inspector Oates's red two-seater,
followed by the official police car, drew up outside the front door, and
Campion, backed by Oates, Inspector Redgrave and the police doctor, came
hurrying in. In spite of his apprehension and the cold feeling of doom
which had taken possession of him, Marcus was a little shocked by Mr
Campion's appearance. He wore a raincoat much too large for him,
smacking strongly of the police, which was buttoned up to his throat,
and he was the possessor also of a remarkably fine black eye. For the
rest, he was hatless and his fair hair was dishevelled.

There was something in his manner, however, which suggested triumph
rather than despair. He took Marcus's arm.

'Who knows yet?' he said.

'No one except Alice and I,' said Marcus.

'That's splendid. Where did it happen? In his room?'

Marcus nodded. He was bewildered. As Alice had said, it was rather as
though Mr Campion had expected this appalling development.

Inspector Oates, he noticed, did not share Mr Campion's air of
suppressed satisfaction. He came forward now and spoke quietly.

'If you'll go first, Mr Featherstone, we'll go straight up to the room.
The household will have to be told immediately, but I don't want to
alarm anyone.'

As they mounted the stairs Marcus turned to Campion. 'Where have you
been?' he whispered.

'Brawling,' said Mr Campion. 'I don't want to raise your hopes, but I
think we know now. I'll tell you about it later.'

He stumbled on the top stair, and Marcus, suddenly catching sight of his
face by the light of the upper hall, realized that he was almost
dropping with fatigue.

As the procession came to a full stop outside George's room, Uncle
William's door opened, and a pink and military figure in a
dragon-infested dressing-gown appeared upon the threshold. For some
seconds he stared in astonishment, but as he caught sight of the
Inspector fitting a key into George's door an expression of satisfaction
spread over his face.

'So you've seen the wisdom of my suggestion at last and sent for the
police,' he said. 'It's high time that fellow was under lock and key,
the drunken scoundrel. God bless my soul, Campion. What have you done to
your face? Had a scrap with the bounder?'

With his hand on the door the Inspector paused irresolute. He had no
liking for William, and now, he felt, was no time for explanations.

'I shall have to ask you to remain in your room, sir, for a few minutes
at any rate,' he said, adopting his most official tone, 'and I should
like to have a few words with you later.'

Uncle William stared at him, his pink face growing slowly puce with
indignation.

'D'you realize you're ordering me about in my own house?' he said. 'I
didn't know the police could bully a man in his own house at eight
o'clock in the morning. You attend to your duty, my man. There's your
quarry, in there.'

He retreated into his room, slamming the door behind him.

The Inspector sighed, and turned the key in the lock of George's room.
The little procession followed him. He paused just inside the door and
the others edged in behind him. Not until the door was closed did he
speak.

'Is this exactly how you found him?'

'Exactly,' said Marcus. 'I didn't go much nearer than this. You
see--well, can't you smell anything?'

'Cyanide,' said the little doctor, who stood on the Inspector's right.
'It's very strong. Tell it a mile off. Precious little I can do for you,
Inspector. Can I make my examination right away, or do you want to take
photographs?'

Stanislaus Oates turned to Campion. 'Here's your chance, my lad,' he
said. 'If you're right, prove it now.'

Campion stepped forward cautiously, avoiding the dbris with which the
floor was littered.

A sudden frenzied knocking on the door checked him as Aunt Kitty's
voice, shrill and imperative, came to them through the panelling.

'What is it? What's happened? I demand to know.'

Campion turned to Marcus. 'Go and quieten her, there's a good chap,' he
said. 'And don't let her get in, for God's sake.'

Marcus had no choice but to obey, and he went unwillingly from the room.
Inspector Redgrave edged the door open for him and held it firm, so that
any sudden rush from the distracted woman without might be withstood.

As Marcus came out into the corridor Aunt Kitty fell into his arms. Her
blue woollen dressing-gown was fastened up to her throat, and it seemed
that she had been alarmed in the midst of her hairdressing, for although
the front curls were released from their papers and neatly arranged, the
back was in disarray.

'Marcus,' she said, 'what's happened? What are they doing to George?'

Gently, but exerting a certain amount of force nevertheless, Marcus led
the old lady back towards her room, doing his best to calm her piteous
outbursts. As they passed William's door his choleric face appeared
again. Seeing no more formidable person than Marcus and his sister, he
emerged and joined them.

'If that scoundrel is putting up any opposition,' he began, 'I'd be glad
to do anything I could. What's happened, my boy? Won't the ruffian
stir?'

Marcus was debating what would be the best way to break the news, which
after all must come out sooner or later, when Great-aunt Caroline's door
opened and Joyce came hurrying out.

'What's the matter?' she demanded. 'What's happened? Great-aunt wants to
know.'

They were standing in the upper hall now, and Aunt Kitty would be denied
no longer.

'I must know,' she said. 'Some other horror is upon us. I can feel it. I
warned that young man....' She began to cry again.

'Oh, Aunt Kitty, darling!' There was a hint of exasperation in Joyce's
voice, but she put an arm round the older woman soothingly. 'Now then,
Marcus,' she said, 'what is it?'

'Cousin George is dead,' said Marcus baldly, forgetting his intention to
break the news gently.

'Dead?' said Uncle William, his jaw dropping open. 'Good God!' It took
him some seconds to assimilate this information, but when the first
shock was over he suddenly smiled. 'Fell down in a drunken fit, I'll be
bound,' he said. 'And serve him right. Damned good job. Save us no end
of trouble.'

Aunt Kitty, who held the belief of her generation that death immediately
sanctified the most unredeemed of rogues, began to sob afresh. Joyce
caught Marcus's arm just as he was turning away.

'Is that true?' she demanded. 'Did he die naturally, or...?'

'Poisoned, I think,' said Marcus, whose finesse had left him entirely.
'Don't be frightened.'

The girl drew back from him, her face working. 'Another,' she said
huskily. 'Where's it going to end?'

'Eh?' said Uncle William, whose slower wits had only just grasped the
inference of Marcus's last remark. 'Poisoned? You don't mean to say that
someone gave the fellow a dose of something? Not another mystery? This
is too much. It's damnable. Someone'll get into a lot of trouble for
this.' He stopped abruptly, his mouth hanging open. 'Good God!' he said
again.

Aunt Kitty emitted a sound which indicated that she would have screamed
had she had sufficient strength to do so. But chronic hysteria is
exhausting and, having dwelt in that state for well-nigh a fortnight,
her nerves were numbed, and she hung limply on Joyce's arm crying
weakly, strands of thin grey hair straggling over her blue
dressing-gown.

A heavy step behind them in the corridor made them turn to find
Inspector Redgrave approaching them, his good-tempered, square-cut face
alight with friendly interest.

'Mr William Faraday and Mr Marcus Featherstone,' he said, 'we should be
very much obliged if you would step along to the bedroom down here,
gentlemen. Inspector Oates has a question to ask.'

Marcus shot an inquiring glance at Joyce, and she nodded. 'We'll be all
right,' she said.

The atmosphere of the late Uncle Andrew's bedroom was singular for a
chamber of death. Inspector Oates, his grey face flushed, stood in the
centre of the room looking down at something which the doctor held in a
white handkerchief. Cousin George's body lay upon the bed covered with a
sheet. But the atmosphere was not the one of constraint and terror which
Marcus expected. The faint air of triumph, of finality, which had been
noticeable in Campion's demeanour earlier that morning was here
intensified. It had spread to the others. Nor was Cousin George the
object of interest which one might have expected in the circumstances.

As Marcus and William entered, the Inspector was speaking, and they
caught his last words.

'Well, we know now,' he was saying. 'There's just this last point. Ah,
Mr Faraday, here you are.'

Uncle William, who was bearing up wonderfully considering the shock he
had just received, stumbled into the room, his gaze resting fascinated
upon the shapeless mass on the bed.

Campion, who had been seated listlessly in a chair on the far side of
the room, now rose. At a sign from the Inspector he spoke.

'Uncle William,' he said, forgetting in his eagerness the more
ceremonious form of address, 'we are on the last lap of this mystery,
and we appeal to you, all of us, for your assistance and co-operation.'

This was hardly the way Inspector Oates would have put it, but he was
forced to admit that it probably saved a lot of time. Uncle William rose
like a salmon to a fly.

'My boy,' he said warmly, 'you can count on me. This is a bad
business--a very bad business. George was a bounder. Ought to have been
hanged. But I don't like to see him lying dead under my own roof, poor
fellow.'

'That cat,' said Mr Campion wearily. 'You were in here, in your Cousin
Andrew's room, weren't you, when it scratched you?'

Uncle William's little round eyes flickered as his mind fluttered round
the possible ramifications contained in this direct question. However,
as he said himself, when beaten Uncle William was a sportsman.

'Yes,' he said. 'Not to put too fine a point upon it, I was.'

'When you came in here that night, letting yourself in with the key from
your own door, you did not turn on the light, did you?' the tired voice
continued.

'No,' said Uncle William cautiously.

'Exactly what happened, then?' said Mr Campion.

Uncle William hesitated and glanced about him, and Inspector Oates made
haste to reassure him.

'No word of what you tell us will ever go beyond this room, I give you
my word, sir,' he said.

It was unfortunately typical of Uncle William that he should accept this
extraordinarily handsome concession as though he were conferring the
favour and not the policeman.

'Very proper,' he said. 'Well, to tell you the truth, Campion, my boy, I
was a bit rattled that night, if you remember, and when a man's rattled
he needs a drink. I believe I said something to you about it just before
I went to bed?'

'You did,' said Mr Campion, tactfully refraining from reminding him of
the exact nature of his remark.

'Good,' said Uncle William, and paused, considering how best to get over
the more delicate parts of his story. 'After I had undressed,' he began
at last, 'I felt I must have a night-cap. I knew that the decanter
downstairs was empty, and I didn't want to go stumbling about waking the
household, don't you know. Then I suddenly remembered that old Andrew,
my cousin, who was a bit of a toper, between ourselves, had a parcel of
trick books among this lot over here.' He waved his hand to the bookcase
opposite him. 'They were brought from America and were made to conceal
cigarettes and flasks and other odds and ends.'

He paused, gratified. The others were listening to him with breathless
attention.

'In one of these copies,' he continued, 'that big brown book over there,
I think, Andrew used to keep a spot of brandy. There's a sort of box
inside the book, if you understand me. Well, it just occurred to me that
old Andrew might possibly have left something in that flask, and
realizing that he wouldn't need it any more, poor fellow, I thought I'd
come in and get it. The key of my door fits this door, so I let myself
in quietly. I didn't switch the light on because I didn't want to alarm
the policemen who I understood were posted in the garden. The curtains
were drawn, but you never know when a chink's going to show.'

He glanced at them belligerently, on guard for any sign of a smile, but
they were all much too interested in his story.

'You came in here in the dark, then,' said Campion. 'Did you go over to
the bookcase?'

'Yes,' admitted Uncle William. 'I thought I could find it in the dark. I
knew where it was, you see. I came quietly across the room, like this.'

He imitated his progress, advancing gingerly towards the bookcase. When
he was within a couple of feet of it he stopped and turned to them.

'Of course I don't know what happened,' he said. 'That's the trouble.
For the life of me I can't imagine what happened, as I told Campion. I
thought the room was empty, but as I put out my hand something caught
me. Most uncanny experience, all alone in here in the dark. I confess I
retreated. I remember shutting the door and locking it behind me,
thinking that I'd catch the fellow prisoner, don't you know. Then there
was that business with the iodine. And the next morning I looked in here
and found this room empty. So I took it for granted it was a cat in
here,' he finished lamely, adding brusquely, 'I don't believe in the
supernatural.'

'Did you have another look for the whisky, sir?' said Inspector Oates.

'No,' said Uncle William. 'My experience put me off it, don't you know.
It was brandy, as a matter of fact. Still here, I expect.'

He bent down to take a huge volume labelled 'De Quincey's Essays' from
the extreme end of the lowest shelf. The author's name was just visible
below the fringe of scalloped leather. His plump fingers were within an
inch of the volume when Mr Campion's lean arm shot forward and caught
the older man under the wrist, knocking it into the air.

'Here you are, Stanislaus,' he said.

Uncle William, speechless with annoyance and astonishment, was astounded
to see the two Inspectors hurry forward and bend down eagerly as Campion
caught hold of the leather frill and ripped it sideways. The substance
was old and tore easily, and as it fell away a murmur of astonishment
escaped the little audience. Campion showed his discovery with
justifiable pride.

'Simple, isn't it?' he said. 'Almost childish. And, as it happens, very
effective.'

Projecting point downwards from the under side of the upper shelf and
driven firmly into the wood was the small blade of a pen-knife, razor
sharp and hitherto hidden behind the frill. The trap was so arranged
that anyone stretching out a hand to take the book must run the back of
his wrist on to the knife.

'Look out,' said Campion sharply, as the doctor bent down to touch it
with his hand. 'If you take that to your laboratory, sir,' he went on,
'I think you'll find traces of an alkaline poison on it. Mr Faraday was
intended to come back for the contents of this book a little earlier
than he actually did, in which case the air would not have had so long
to weaken the potency of the bacillus, or whatever it is.'

'Eh?' said Uncle William. 'Someone set a trap for me? Good Lord, might
have killed me!'

'No doubt that was the idea, sir,' said Inspector Redgrave soberly.

Marcus, who had been watching the whole incident like a man in a
nightmare, now experienced all the sensations of waking up. He felt his
eyes slowly peeling open. Then he said huskily: 'The murderer is dead?'

'George!' said Uncle William triumphantly.

Mr Campion looked at him queerly. 'No,' he said. 'Andrew. Andrew died
and left us all a legacy.'




CHAPTER 24
AUDIENCE


Great-aunt Faraday, seated among the pillows in her enormous Louis XV
bed, might easily have been its original owner, in her fine Brussels
night bonnet and rose-coloured quilted silk jacket. She sat bolt
upright, as usual, her hands folded on the linen.

Mr Campion stood before her at the foot of the bed. He had done his best
to repair his appearance, but he still looked deadly tired, and there
was, of course, no disguising the black eye.

'Andrew,' said Mrs Faraday. 'How very remarkable. And yet, how extremely
likely. Sit down, young man, and tell me all about it.'

Campion brought a little gilt chair from the other side of the room and
set it so that he sat looking at the old lady over an expanse of
embroidered counterpane. Mrs Faraday beckoned him closer.

'On my left side, if you please,' she said. 'Although I never confess
it, I am slightly deaf in my right ear.'

Campion did as he was told, and when he had settled himself to her
satisfaction she spoke again.

'I can understand it perhaps even better than you can,' she said.
'Andrew was a very extraordinary man. He was insane, of course, in a
very strange and terrible way. I do not care for the modern
psychologists, so I cannot tell you the new names for the old disorders,
but you have only to look at Andrew's bedroom to see that he was not
normal, and that he would go to any length, at whatever discomfort to
himself, to inflict a little pain upon others. But it is not for me to
tell you. Let me hear the whole story from the time that this
explanation first occurred to you.'

Campion, who was nearly exhausted but still valiant, composed his
thoughts, and putting them into the shortest possible words, did exactly
as she told him.

'You put me on to it,' he said, 'when you gave me that letter from Miss
Lisle-Chevreuse to read. Until then I was floundering. I knew that there
was some great obvious explanation right under my nose, but I couldn't
see it. The Inspector, with his straightforward methodical procedure,
made me feel ashamed. He was getting somewhere, however slowly; while I
was fluttering round in circles.

'Then I read that letter, and it seemed to me to be a piquant piece of
irony that the lady should have written to Andrew practically accepting
what must have been an offer of marriage at the very time that he was
lying dead in the River Granta. She had answered immediately, therefore
he must have written to her on the day of his death. Then there was the
bookmaker's cheque and Andrew's unusually heavy plunge. Frankly, I
suspected them.'

Mrs Faraday nodded. 'I understand,' she said. 'Go on.'

'It then occurred to me,' said the young man slowly, 'that all the
evidence which pointed so strongly to Andrew's death being by murder was
of this dramatic and sensational kind--the half-finished letter, the
body bound with the window-cord which was so easily identifiable. It was
as though fate had suddenly become theatrically minded.'

'Quite,' agreed Mrs Faraday.

Campion continued. 'Once having arrived at that point,' he said, 'it was
natural, of course, to suspect that fate of being human, and since the
only person who could have manufactured the evidence was Andrew I began
to suspect him.' He paused and looked at the old lady gravely. 'I could
not at first imagine the mind of a man who, having decided to kill
himself, would yet go to the time and trouble of preparing death-traps
for those he left behind. But neither could I imagine the mind of a man
who could write a whole book for the purpose of annoying those with whom
he lived. I felt he might get the idea, but the writing of a book is a
long and tedious business, and the man who carried such a thing through
was obviously no ordinary person.'

At the mention of Andrew's book a chilly light had come into Mrs
Faraday's eyes.

'Andrew was an odious creature,' she said. 'More odious even, I think,
than George. But Andrew, having more brains, was a better dissembler and
less of an animal.'

'Then there was Julia,' said Mr Campion diffidently. 'You convinced me
that she was not a suicide. Then Joyce and I discovered the patent
medicine, and it was obvious how murder could have been done. The
arrangement of the capsules in the zigzag paper made it possible for the
murderer to ensure that the attempt upon his victim would take place
upon any future date he cared to choose. Since Julia only took one
capsule a day, he had only to count the days and replace one of the
capsules with his poisonous compound.

'Joyce had previously told me that Andrew was a man who enjoyed prying
into other people's affairs, and it dawned upon me that this
idiosyncrasy of Julia's would be just the sort of secret he might light
upon. He probably knew already that Kitty took the tea in every morning,
and it would be obvious to him that this idea gave him an excellent
chance of destroying Julia, whom he loathed, and of casting a most
unwarrantable suspicion upon the unfortunate Kitty.' He paused to take
breath. 'When I reached this point in my calculations I was helpless. I
felt you ought to leave the house, and I am afraid the police will
insist upon that now, for a time at least. You see, I thought that if I
was right there was no telling where these death-traps would end.
Naturally I could make no accusation until I was sure, and at that point
I had no proof of any sort.

'Then there was this question of William's hand. You have heard how that
happened. But William was under the impression that someone or something
had stabbed at him. That threw my conjectures out altogether. It was not
until George arrived yesterday and said that he had actually seen Andrew
die that I realized that there was a chance of ever proving my theory at
all.'

Great-aunt Caroline's little black eyes were fixed on the young man's
face, and he marvelled at the calmness with which she accepted the
extraordinary story he was unravelling.

'George mentioned a second witness,' Campion went on slowly, 'and
that gave me my strongest hope. As soon as that sign appeared on the
library window I guessed that someone from outside, probably a tramp,
was trying to communicate with someone he believed to be inside the
house. William had said that he saw George in the company of a tramp
on the day of Andrew's death. I didn't pay much attention to it at
the time because...'

A grim smile spread over the old lady's face. 'Because poor William is
apt to describe any ill-dressed person as a tramp,' she said. 'Yes, I
quite see that. Go on.'

'Well,' said Mr Campion, 'last night it was obvious that this mysterious
person was not in communication with George because George had been in
retirement for the past few days. It was also obvious that the tramp was
in the vicinity of this house, so I pinned my hope on the supposition
that the tramp was watching this house, had seen George arrive and would
attempt to get into touch with him during the night. It was a wild
chance, but I sat up waiting for him, and he came. Then I interviewed
him.'

'So I see,' said the old lady, glancing sharply to Mr Campion's injured
eye. 'I am really very grateful to you.'

'I considered it a privilege,' said Campion gallantly.

The black eye flickered and a faint smile spread over the little ivory
face.

'You have many more brains than is usual in your family,' said Mrs
Faraday. 'And yet you have a great deal of their charm. It is hardly
fair. You had a lot of trouble with this person?'

'Not so much as he had with me,' said Mr Campion modestly. 'By a series
of vulgar methods, which I won't describe, I persuaded him to tell me
the more pertinent of his experiences--a most extraordinary yarn. It
seems that this man--his name is Beveridge, an example of work-house
humour, he tells me--entered Cambridge with George on the Saturday
before Andrew's death. Beveridge had known George for some time, and
seems to have had an immense admiration for him.'

'There was a flashy quality about George,' said Mrs Faraday
unexpectedly. 'I can understand him being a triton among minnows. Go
on.'

'On Sunday morning,' Campion continued, 'these two were seen by the
members of the household who went to church by car reeling down the
Trumpington Road. This, according to Beveridge, was intentional upon
George's part, and was calculated to annoy William and Andrew--William
especially, for whom George seems to have had an extraordinary dislike.
Later, however, at about eleven o'clock when the hostelries opened,
George and Beveridge became genuinely merry, but not actually drunk.
Anyhow, according to Beveridge, and it sounds credible, they saw William
and Andrew walking down Trumpington Road and were going to cross the
road to accost them when the cousins turned off down the new road.
Beveridge and George followed at a discreet distance, and when the
others stopped to argue and William turned back alone they actually
spoke to him. But William, who must have been in the throes of his
attack, stared at them vacantly and wandered on. George was startled by
this, according to Beveridge, and they continued their pursuit of
Andrew, very probably with the idea of getting money out of him.

'When they reached the meadows and were about fifty yards behind him in
the mist, Andrew began to behave very peculiarly, and George, guessing
that something was afoot, began to go carefully, shadowing him instead
of attempting to overtake him. Beveridge's explanation is not very
lucid, but apparently what happened was that Andrew suddenly disappeared
once he had crossed the foot-bridge. They could not see very well,
naturally, and they were hurrying on to find him when he suddenly
reappeared, bearing a coil of rope in one hand and something they could
not see in the other. They had only just time to take refuge behind a
large clump of osiers, practically on the river-bank, and Beveridge
swears that neither he nor George had any idea of what was happening
until Andrew's bowler hat came skimming through the mist, landing almost
at their feet.

'The next thing they made out was Andrew's shadowy figure standing on
the bridge parapet over the stream. He was stooping down. Beveridge says
he thought he was tying up his shoes, although he knows now that he was
tying his feet together. He then took a gun from his side pocket and,
according to Beveridge's story, before they fully realized that they
were seeing a fellow-man committing suicide, there was an explosion, and
he pitched forward into the stream, throwing up a shower of water which
actually splashed them.'

Mrs Faraday, who had been listening to this recital with her eyes
downcast, now looked up.

'But I understood that Andrew's hands were bound,' she said.

Campion nodded. 'That's where he was so clever. They were bound. That is
to say, there was a piece of rope tied round each wrist. If only the
body had been found sooner we might have wondered at the fact that they
were still not tied together, but after being so long in the water it
seemed only natural to suppose just what Andrew wanted us to
suppose--that the cord had broken some considerable time after death.'

'Very ingenious,' said the old lady. 'And typical of a certain kind of
insanity. I think Andrew was an ingenious man without being clever. All
through his life he ruined his chances by mistaking this gift of
ingenuity for intelligence. He lost his money in a scheme which looked
ingenious, and yet would never have deceived a really intelligent
investor.' She nodded to herself. 'He was always an odd, bitter
creature,' she said, 'and the older he grew the more of a misogynist he
became. Finally, he was attracted by the more specious of the modern
psychologists, whose explanations appealed to him. About a year ago I
disinherited him for an offence which was quite unforgivable, and I fear
that this may have driven him to think of suicide, for now I come to
consider it he had certainly very little to live for. His violent
anti-social mania, coupled with this diabolical ingenuity, probably
drove him to consider these appalling crimes which he had not the
courage to commit if he remained alive.'

'But,' said Campion, unable to restrain the question which had worried
him from the beginning, 'where is the satisfaction in a crime like this?
He left these traps, we know, but if he were dead, what fun could he get
out of their success?'

Mrs Faraday pursed up her lips. 'It is an illustration,' she said, 'of a
certain type of mentality which you, as a healthy-minded being, may find
it difficult to grasp. However, you must take it from me; Andrew had one
extraordinary defect. He was so mentally short-sighted that he was not
capable of foreseeing the most ordinary consequences of his actions
other than the immediate effect at which he was aiming. I think his
insanity lay largely in the possession of this peculiar blind spot.'

'But he planned these murders so cleverly,' protested Mr Campion.

'Yes,' said Mrs Faraday. 'But if you come to consider his plan as a
whole, it was extraordinarily ragged and inconclusive. He set out to
devise a colossal scheme that would bring death and disaster to this
whole household, and to a certain extent he was successful. Yet consider
it coldly, as I am afraid I do. His own death was designed to throw
suspicion on William, Julia's death upon Kitty. How ridiculous! Why
should William and Kitty decide upon independent murders within a few
days of one another? Each of these diabolical ingenuities of Andrew's
might have succeeded alone, but taken together they weaken each other.
Then this elementary death-trap for William in the bookcase. Andrew does
not seem to have made up his mind whether he wished William hanged or
poisoned. His whole mind was taken up with the ingenuities of his crime;
that is why he was only successful in the primary stages which are
unfortunately ineradicable. Moreover,' she continued, speaking slowly
and gently as though Campion were a child, 'and this, I think, is a very
significant point, while Andrew was planning his crime he had the
sensation of knowing that the house and everyone in it was in his power.
Once the crimes were committed he would be in danger of being hoist with
his own petard.'

She paused and regarded him shrewdly.

'Yes, I understand,' he said. 'And yet, how nearly the whole thing
failed at the beginning. His most important ingenuity miscarried, you
see, the ingenuity of the gun.'

'Of course,' said Mrs Faraday, 'I interrupted in the middle of your
story. You were telling me that Andrew's body had just fallen into the
water.'

'Yes,' said Mr Campion, jerking his mind back with an effort to the more
concrete facts of the history, a feat which presented no difficulty to
the remarkable old lady sitting propped up among the pillows. 'Beveridge
says that he and George rushed forward on to the bridge. They peered
over the parapet and just made out Andrew's body slipping slowly down
the river. They were debating what they should do, thinking that it was
just an ordinary case of suicide, when George noticed something caught
under the parapet on the opposite side of the narrow bridge. He picked
it up and found to his astonishment that it was a heavy Service
revolver, through the stock-ring of which a piece of fine cord had been
knotted. He pulled in about twelve feet of this cord from the river and
discovered tied on the other end a long cylindrical weight from a
grandfather clock.'

'The opposite side of the bridge?' inquired Great-aunt Caroline.

'Yes,' said Campion. 'Directly across the footway from the parapet on
which Andrew had stood. He had hung the weight over the bridge, you see,
so that after he had fired and the muscles of his hand had relaxed the
gun would be jerked out of his hand and across the bridge into the river
on the other side, thus preventing any chance of the gun being found
with the body and giving the show away.'

'And yet the revolver caught,' observed the old lady. 'How?'

'Beveridge says the cord became imprisoned between two stones,' Campion
explained. 'George seems to have taken in the situation at a glance.
Beveridge says he thought there were money-making possibilities in the
knowledge of such a secret. Of course, he dared not risk carrying the
gun away, but if it remained where it was Andrew's death would be no
secret. George was a little drunk at the time, and recklessness seems to
have been his strong point. He picked up the gun and the weight and,
winding the cord round them, like a child's skipping-rope, remarked--so
Beveridge says--"Always make it more difficult!" Then he whirled the
bundle round his head and pitched it as far as he could up into the
trees on the other side of the river. The missile was naturally
extremely heavy, so that it did not go very far, but the cord became
unwound in mid-air and the whole thing caught in the branches of an elm,
about half a dozen yards from the bank. The weight, being the heavier,
pulled the gun up into a crotched branch where it stuck, as black as the
wood itself, while the weight hung down on the cord in the thick ivy
which covers the trunk. Your chauffeur, Beveridge and I found it at five
o'clock this morning when we went down to look for it. No wonder the
police didn't spot it. It took us about half an hour when we knew where
it was.'

'Very clever,' said Great-aunt Caroline. 'Of Andrew, I mean. That clock
weight fell down in the middle of dinner on the Saturday before he
disappeared. He must have taken it immediately. I remember he went out
late that night.' She was silent for some moments, staring in front of
her, her eyes narrowed, her hands folded peacefully on the coverlet. 'I
suppose you wonder why I kept Andrew in the house after disinheriting
him?' she remarked suddenly. 'But I think I was justified. I had one
distressing relative who was liable to blackmail me for small sums at
any moment in George. I did not wish to create another in Andrew.
Although he had no hold of any kind over me, you understand,' she
remarked. 'I wished to be spared the possibility of unpleasant scenes.
Besides,' she added, fixing Campion sternly, 'you may have noticed that
I have a certain amount of authority over everyone under my roof. I was
wrong about Andrew. I should have realized he was mad.'

She stirred restlessly among her embroidered pillows.

'Tell me,' she murmured pathetically, 'is it really necessary for me to
leave this house while the place is ransacked by inquisitive policemen?
Poor Hugh Featherstone will do me the honour of inviting me to his home,
I know that; but I am old and do not want to leave my beautiful bedroom,
which gives me a sense of well-being every time I look at it.'

Campion glanced round the magnificent period apartment. It was a
wonderful room.

'I am sorry,' he said regretfully. 'But a thorough search must be made.
You never know in a case like this; consider the unfortunate George.
That was a sheer accident.'

'Yes,' said Great-aunt Caroline, suddenly grave, 'he was poisoned with
cyanide, wasn't he? That must have been just wanton wickedness on
Andrew's part.'

'That was ingenious too,' said Mr Campion. 'We were amazed at first,
because, you know, cyanide has such a very distinctive smell. In the
ordinary way you would think no man in his senses would get as far as
putting it into his mouth by mistake. Cyanide, or prussic acid, is one
of the most deadly poisons. People have died from the fumes of it, I
believe. Fortunately, however, in George's case, the explanation was
quite obvious. There was a pipe-rack on Andrew's dressing-table. I
noticed it myself when Joyce and I were examining the room. It contained
five extremely filthy blackened pipes and very good new one, a
temptation to any man. I don't know if you have noticed,' he added, 'the
way a man picks up a pipe and sucks it vigorously to make sure the stem
is clear? It's a sort of involuntary movement.'

'I have,' said Great-aunt Faraday. 'A very disgusting habit. I dislike
tobacco in any form and in a pipe particularly.'

'Well,' said Mr Campion apologetically, 'a pipe is practically the only
thing a man puts straight into his mouth. This new pipe in Andrew's rack
had a vulcanite mouthpiece which unscrewed. The wooden part of the stem
of the pipe was practically filled with finely powdered cyanide. The
Inspector thinks there was probably some piece of easily removable fluff
or wool sticking out of the actual mouthpiece, which a man would
naturally flick out with his fingers. This obstruction was sufficient to
keep the smell of the cyanide in the pipe. A few charred fragments of
tobacco in the bowl served the same purpose. After removing the wool, or
whatever it was, and knocking out the ash, the natural impulse would be
to put the pipe in the mouth and suck vigorously. George must have
fallen straight into the trap. I don't know who Andrew intended it for,
but I fancy he thought of the idea--another ingenuity--and could not
resist trying it. He does not seem to have liked anyone, though it is
certainly to his credit that, as far as we know, he made no attempt upon
you or Joyce.'

'How could he hurt us more than by leaving us with this chaos?'
Great-aunt Caroline said acidly. 'Andrew was not clever, but he had
intuitions. If Marcus had been of my generation--delightful boy though
he is--he might have thought twice about marrying a girl who had been
involved in such a public scandal, however innocently. But times are
changing rapidly. I don't think Andrew realized that.'

She was silent for some moments, and Mr Campion began to wonder if his
audience was at an end, but presently he became aware that she was
looking at him speculatively.

'Mr Campion,' she said, '--I have grown used to that name, I quite like
it--I have said that George blackmailed me. I think enough of you not to
want you to believe that I have anything in my family of which I am
ashamed. I shall tell you about George.'

There was something in her tone which told Mr Campion that he was being
greatly honoured.

'George,' said Great-aunt Caroline, 'was the son of my husband's brother
Joseph.' The little black eyes grew hard. 'A despicable character, and a
disgrace to his family. This person was shipped off to the colonies many
years ago. He returned with a certain amount of money and a wife. They
lived in Newmarket, quite near us, you see. She was a peculiar-looking
woman and of a very definite type, which we in those days chose to
ignore. They had a child, a girl, and when that child was born the
rumours that had been rife about the mother, were proved beyond a doubt.
By some horrible machination of heredity the stain in the woman's blood
had come out.' She lowered her voice. 'The child was a blackmoor.'

Mr Campion had a vision of the painful stir in a Society of sixty years
before.

Great-aunt Caroline stiffened. 'They left, of course, and the
disgraceful business was hushed up. But to my own and to my husband's
horror, although the first child died, these criminal people had a
second. That child was George. You may consider,' she went on after a
pause, 'that I am foolish in remembering, in feeling it so strongly, but
George bears our name and he is always threatening to reveal his
half-caste blood, of which he is not in the least ashamed. I admit there
is no stain in our side of the family, but people are malicious and
notoriously careless in working out relationships, and--a touch of the
tarbrush! It is unthinkable.'

As she sat up stiffly, her high lace bonnet adding to her dignity, Mr
Campion understood what it was that she considered worse than murder. He
said nothing. He felt very honoured by her confidence.

Presently she went on. 'That is why I am afraid poor Joyce may have
given a strange impression by her attitude towards George. You see, she
knows this story. Considering her to be by far the most intelligent
person of my household, I explained the matter to her in case, in event
of my death, the story should come as a shock to her. There, young man,
you have the whole explanation.'

Campion hesitated. There was still one point which was bothering him.

'Mrs Faraday,' he said, 'you told me a week ago that you were sure that
William was innocent. But you couldn't have known about Mrs Finch at the
time. Forgive me, but how were you sure?'

He feared for one terrible moment that she might be offended, but she
looked up at him, a half-humorous smile playing about her mouth.

'Since you have done so much deduction yourself, young man,' she said,
'my reasoning should appeal to you, simple as it is. You may have
noticed hanging in the hall downstairs an old panama hat with a
turned-up brim. That hat belonged to Andrew. Since you know William, it
will not strike you as absurd that this hat was a bone of contention
between him and Andrew. Little things may please little minds; they also
annoy them. I have known Andrew sulk for a whole day because he had seen
William pottering in the garden in that old hat, and William insisted
upon wearing it whenever he could get hold of it simply because he liked
to be contrary. Andrew did not like the panama worn in the garden, so
William always put it on to go out there. Now, when Andrew disappeared,
and during the ten days in which he was still missing, William wore this
hat in the garden every day. I could see him from my window pottering
among the flower-beds, where he does a great deal of damage, they tell
me. But after Andrew's body was discovered, although I have seen William
several times in the garden, he has never worn the old panama, but has
appeared in his own grey trilby, a thing I have never seen him wear in
the garden before in my life. I understood the repugnance he felt for
the panama. There is a primitive strain in us all, which makes us a
little afraid of the clothes of the dead. So you see, I knew that
Andrew's death had come as a surprise to William.'

Campion looked at her admiringly. 'I think you're the cleverest woman
I've ever met,' he said.

The old lady gave him her hand. 'You are a very good boy,' she said. 'I
don't want you to desert me for a little while yet. I shall be very much
out of my element in Hugh Featherstone's great barn of a house. You
never knew his wife, did you? Such an unyielding, academic soul. I
always felt her beds might be hard. Then there'll be the reporters
again. There'll have to be an inquest on George.'

Her appeal was gracious and ineffably feminine.

'I shall stay,' he said. 'You can leave it all to me.' She leant back
among her pillows and sighed faintly. Campion, assuming that the
interview was at an end, rose and made for the door. Great-aunt
Caroline's fine clear voice came to him from the depths of the great
pink and gold bed.

'Heredity is a very extraordinary thing,' it said. 'I have always
thought that I was a much more intelligent person than your grandmother,
dear Emily.'




CHAPTER 25
THE TOKEN


It was six o'clock in the evening, over a fortnight later, when the
family had been reinstated in a thoroughly overhauled Socrates Close,
when Mr Campion approached his Bentley to set out once again for London.
He was giving the Inspector a lift, and had arranged to go down to the
town to fetch him. Stanislaus Oates had revisited Cambridge for a couple
of days at the finish of the affair.

Campion was alone. His adieux had been made. Great-aunt Caroline had
given him his last audience. Ann had been visited, and he had received a
benison from Joyce and Marcus. Young Christmas had brought the Bentley
round to the front door, treating the old car with awe, as well he
might, since it was a good six years younger than the Faraday Daimler.

Campion was just about to enter his chariot when a bright pink face,
surmounted by a short fringe of stubbly white hair, peered out of the
darkness of the porch and Uncle William trotted down the steps towards
him.

'My boy, my boy!' he said. 'I thought I'd missed you. Just wanted to
have a word with you, you know. I'd like to tell you how grateful I am,
for one thing. We Faradays aren't very grateful as a rule, but I am. You
got us out of a devil of a mess and I don't mind admitting it. I can't
say more than that.'

'Not at all,' said Mr Campion, rather embarrassed by this entirely
unexpected tribute.

Uncle William shook his head. 'You can't fool me,' he said. 'Things
looked bad at one time. Why, I might have been murdered! A fellow can't
overlook a thing like that.' A faint smile spread over his face. 'I was
right all along, as a matter of fact. I thought I'd like to remind you.
D'you remember what I said to you the first time I saw you, when we were
sitting in Marcus's study? What a damned uncomfortable house that is, by
the way. I said, "There's Andrew lying in the mortuary making all this
fuss"--and he was. I was plumb right. Well, good-bye, my boy. I'm
grateful. Any time you want a quiet week-end, don't forget us.'

Mr Campion checked a wild impulse to laugh with commendable fortitude.

'Thank you,' he said gravely. 'Good-bye, sir.'

Uncle William shook hands vigorously. 'No need to "sir" me, my boy. You
called me "Uncle William" once and I liked it. Glad to have you in the
family.' He hesitated. There was plainly something on his mind. At last
it came. 'I'd like to make you a little present,' he said awkwardly. 'It
isn't much--haven't got much. But I've heard Marcus say that you've got
a wonderful collection of curios. I've got a little thing here that I
brought back from my travels many years ago. If you'll accept it I shall
be very proud.'

Campion, who had some experience of grateful clients and their gifts,
was conscious of a strong feeling of apprehension, but he had formed an
affection for Uncle William and adopted therefore a suitable expression
of modest eagerness. Uncle William was watching him anxiously.

'Got it just in here,' he said. 'Come and have a look.'

His excitement was pathetic, and Campion climbed out of the car,
devoutly hoping that the Inspector would grant him a few minutes' grace.
He followed Uncle William up the steps to the porch.

There, on the wooden seat, was a large glass case, and in it, reposing
on an uncomfortable bed of conches and dried seaweed, was one of the
familiar 'mermaid skeletons' which unscrupulous fishermen compose from
monkeys' skulls and torsos and the bones of tropical fish. This ancient
fraud was now indicated by Uncle William with pride.

'Bought it off a fellow in Port Said,' he said. 'Struck me as being
remarkable then. Does still. Will you take it? I've had it for thirty
years. Haven't got anything else of interest.'

Mr Campion seemed overcome. 'It's awfully good of you,' he began
nervously.

'Then you take it, my boy.' Uncle William's delight was childlike. 'I
put all my things out on my bed,' he went on confidentially. 'Looked at
'em. Chose that. Couldn't give you anything I'd like better myself.'

Mr Campion accepted the gift in the spirit in which it was made, and
together he and Uncle William hoisted the unwieldy trophy into the back
of the Bentley. They then shook hands again.

Mr Campion had just started the engine when Uncle William recollected
his other mission.

'Here, wait a minute,' he said. 'I nearly forgot. Mother told me to give
you this. You're not to open it until you get home. I think she thinks
you're a child. Still, we must humour the old lady. Here you are.'

He slipped a packet into the young man's hand and stepped back from the
car.

'I shall see you when you come down for the young people's wedding,' he
shouted. 'That'll be coming along in the summer. Hope to be able to read
you the first chapter of my memoirs by then. I'm writing 'em, you know.
That newspaper fellow put the idea into my head, only he wanted me to
write 'em for his newspaper--right in the middle of all this business. I
didn't thank the fellow for his impertinence at the time, but afterwards
it occurred to me that a recently-bound book would bring credit to us
all. It'll give me something to do. Shan't have many people to talk to
while Kitty's in that nursing home. Still, perhaps it's as well. I've
got to look after myself. I'm still under the doctor, you know.' His
little blue eyes flickered. 'I shall stick to my nightcap whatever he
says. Good-bye, my boy. If there's ever anything I can do for you let me
know.'

'Good-bye,' said Mr Campion. He let in the clutch and drove slowly out
of the gates of the quiet old house, lying peaceful and innocent in the
evening light. Uncle William stood on the steps and waved his
handkerchief.

Stanislaus Oates was inclined to be truculent at the delay, but the
sight of the 'mermaid' restored his good humour to such an extent that
Mr Campion felt it had justified itself already.

'What's the penalty for speeding with a Chief-Detective Inspector in the
front seat?' he inquired as they struck the open road to Bishop's
Stortford and the City.

'Death,' said the Inspector solemnly. 'Same as with any other passenger.
Take it easy. I want to lean back and feel at peace with the world once
more.'

'I don't know what you've got to grumble about,' said Campion. 'You've
come out of this very well. My godson will be able to read all about his
father in the enthusiastic Press. The Press had a good innings, by the
way. I say, did it ever occur to you, Stanislaus, that your coincidence
hunch was quite justified? If you and I hadn't both chosen Tomb Yard for
a rendezvous on that particular Thursday you would have had a
conversation with Cousin George. He would have tried to sell you the
first rights in his little mystery story. You would have got it all out
of him without paying, and the riddle of Andrew's death would have been
solved on the day that his body was found.'

Stanislaus considered this remark gravely. 'Very likely,' he admitted at
last. 'Of course, you can't put too much faith in that old blackguard
Beveridge's story, although it went down so well at the inquest. That
fellow George had a nerve, if a half of what Beveridge says is true.
Fancy hiding the gun and then singling me out--probably because I'd just
got promotion--to come and tell his rotten story to. He thought we might
strike a deal, I suppose. I got the kudos, he got the cash.'

'Ingenuity seems to run in the family,' remarked Mr Campion. 'Beveridge
is an interesting character, too. I think, perhaps his intense
admiration for George was the most extraordinary thing about him.'

'Oh, I don't know,' said the Inspector. 'That flashy type does appeal to
a simple imagination. What does strike me as extraordinary is that the
old devil should have had the nerve to pinch the dead man's hat. I know
he tore out the lining--I know he battered it. But fancy seeing a man
commit suicide, watching your friend destroy the evidence to make it
look as much like murder as possible, and then rolling jauntily off in
the corpse's bowler, only pausing to bury your old hat under a heap of
leaves a few hundred yards down the path!'

'I can understand Beveridge doing it,' said Campion, 'but not George
standing for it. I suppose he was pretty well oiled.'

'Must have been,' grumbled the Inspector, 'to chuck that gun where he
did. I thought old Bowditch would have a fit when he heard where it was
all the time. That stopped him laughing,' he added viciously. 'By the
way, you were quite right about that footprint. I owe you five
shillings. And that makes me about four and ninepence out of pocket, I
don't mind telling you. Even you've come off better. You've got a
mermaid.'

'Modest though I am, I should like to point out that I was right about
the "B" too,' said Mr Campion. 'Extraordinary what a long time it took
the jury to see that,' he continued. 'Even when Beveridge explained it
himself. Oh, and by the way, Stanislaus, to reopen an old and a sore
subject, why didn't you follow up Uncle William's alibi at the very
beginning? When I hinted it so plainly?'

'Because I was dead sure it didn't exist,' said Stanislaus after a
pause. 'This is a very exceptional case. You wouldn't have come out of
it so well if it wasn't. I didn't follow up William's alibi because I
was more than certain he hadn't got one.'

'You thought he'd done it?' said Mr Campion in astonishment.

'I _knew_ he'd done it,' said the Inspector. 'If this had been an
ordinary case he would have done it. You don't have clever lunatics
providing false evidence, or half-false evidence, which is worse, in
every case you come across, or where would you be? You might as well go
bughouse yourself and leave it at that. I'm sorry I was wild with you at
the time, Campion, but when you came out with that pub-keeper I felt I
was getting past my job. Of course, you know,' he went on eagerly, 'even
at the finish I didn't quite believe it, although that last cyanide
murder was pretty convincing. It had got the right mixture of cleverness
and lunacy--an elaborate, ingenious scheme to kill any old person who
happened to be about. But, of course, afterwards, when we went into it
and followed up Seeley's movements, found he'd been a medical student,
discovered the retort and a couple of saucepans in the potting shed, and
finally got the chemist who sold him the cyanide, it was different.'

'He distilled the conium himself, I suppose?' said Campion. 'Simply
boiled a lot of hemlock down? We shall never be able to prove that.
Still, I don't suppose it was difficult.'

'It wasn't,' said the Inspector. 'You heard old Hastings at the inquest.
He said it wasn't. It probably gave Andrew something to do. Must be a
terrible life idling about in a house like that.'

Mr Campion nodded. 'Typical of him to pick on conium,' he observed.
'State poison of Athens. They killed Socrates with it, didn't they?'

'I don't know about Socrates,' said the Inspector. 'It made a mess of
Socrates Close. It was so simple; that's what scared me. So was the
cyanide. Anyone can get hold of cyanide in England by talking about
wasps' nests and signing their name in a book. No, the only thing Seeley
seems to have made a hash of in the poison line was the stuff on the
knife. Hastings told me he thought it was some sort of a snake poison,
probably scraped off one of those poison arrows people bring back with
them from the Gold Coast. He couldn't locate it. It was very slight. But
he said there was something there.'

'What a blessing he didn't put an extra dose of his home-distilled
conium in the brandy flask and leave it at that,' said Mr Campion,
appalled at the sudden thought.

'Not ingenious enough,' said the Inspector. 'These little extra stunts
of his were all afterthoughts--little clever ideas he didn't want to
waste. I say, look out, Campion. No blinding! It's a beautiful evening.
Let's take our time.'

The young man slowed down obligingly. 'One more point and my mind will
be at rest,' he said. 'Surely Uncle Andrew didn't go to church with a
coil of rope, a revolver and a clock weight concealed upon him? Where
did he hide them until he was ready for them? I understand how he got
rid of his cousin. Uncle William is the kind of man who could be relied
upon to jib at walking a couple of miles out of his way, and I should
think Andrew was a past master at picking a quarrel with him. But where
exactly did he put his paraphernalia?'

'In the shed by the river,' said the Inspector. 'I haven't dwelt on this
point much, because I felt we ought to have noticed something, even if
the scent was ten days' old. But I tell you in confidence we took a
brick out of the river, and not one that belonged to the bridge, and I
think that brick was the original weight intended for the revolver. But
then the clock weight fell down in the middle of dinner and called
attention to itself, so to speak. Obviously it occurred to him as being
an improvement on the brick. Oh well, it's all cleared up now, but it's
been a harassing month. I'm on quite a nice little job in Stepney at the
moment. Clean case of coining. Seems like a breath of fresh air.'

Mr Campion did not answer, and presently, as they approached the
outskirts of the City, the Inspector spoke again.

'You never would have thought it, would you?' he remarked. 'They seemed
such nice people.'

But Mr Campion was lost in his own thoughts.

It was not until he was back at his own flat in Bottle Street, with Lugg
hovering round him like an excited hen with a lost chick, that he
remembered the package which Uncle William had thrust into his hand as
he left Socrates Close. He took it out of his pocket now and began to
unwrap it slowly. Lugg watched with interest.

'Another souvenir?' he said, dubiously. 'You'll have a job to beat that
lot in the hall. You ought to have took me with you.'

'That's where you're wrong,' said his master feelingly. 'Be quiet a
minute.'

'Touchy, ain't yer?' the big man protested.

Campion ignored him. He had removed the wrappings and there now lay
revealed a small wooden box of Tunbridge Wells ware. He picked it up
admiringly and lifted the lid. As he caught sight of the contents an
exclamation escaped him, and Lugg, who was peering under his arm, was
silent with respectful astonishment.

On a nest of quilted pink silk lay a heart-shaped miniature. It was a
delicately lovely piece of work, the frame set with small rubies and
brilliants.

On the ivory was a portrait of a girl.

Her sleek black hair was parted in the centre and arranged in small
curls on either side of her face. Her dark eyes were grave and large,
her small nose straight, her lips smiled. She was very beautiful.

It took Mr Campion some time to realize that he held an early portrait
of Mrs Caroline Faraday.






[End of Police at the Funeral, by Margery Allingham]
