The Case of the Late Pig (9 page)

The night was very still, and I heard the rattle in the larynx, the whoop, and even the puff at the end of it.

For a moment I stood still, a prey to all the ridiculous fears of childhood. Then I set off up the hill at a double. The wind whistled in my ears and my heart was thumping.

Suddenly, as I reached the brow, I saw something silhouetted against the grey sky. This was so unexpected that I paused to gape at it. It was a tripod with something else which I at first took to be a small machine-gun, and which turned out to be an old-fashioned telescope mounted upon it.

I approached this cautiously, and had almost reached it when a figure rose up out of the earth beside it and stood waiting for me. He was against what light there was and I could only see his small silhouette. I stopped, and for want of something better, said what must have been the silliest thing in the world in the circumstances. I said ‘Good-day.’

‘And a very good day to you, sir,’ answered one of the most unpleasant voices I have ever heard in all my life.

He came towards me and I recognized him with relief by his peculiar mincing walk.

‘Perhaps I have the advantage of you, sir,’ he began. ‘You are Mr Campion?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And you’re Mr Hayhoe.’

He laughed, a little affected sound.

‘It will serve,’ he murmured. ‘It will serve. I was looking forward to an interview with you today, sir. I was wondering how I could manage it with a certain amount of privacy. This is a most unexpected pleasure. I didn’t expect to find a man of your age wandering about in the dawn. Most young men nowadays prefer to spend the best part of their day in their beds.’

‘You’re up early yourself,’ I said, glancing at the telescope. ‘Waiting to see the sunrise?’

‘Yes,’ he said, and laughed again. ‘That and other things.’

It was a mad conversation up there on the hill at two o’clock in the morning, and it went through my mind that he must be one of those fashionable nature-lovers who rush round the country identifying birds. He soon disabused me of that idea, however.

‘I take it you are making investigations concerning the death of that unfortunate fellow Harris?’ he said. ‘Now, Mr Campion, I can be very useful to you. I wish to make you a proposition. For a reasonable sum, the amount to be settled between us, I will undertake to give you certain very interesting information, information which it would take you a very long time to collect alone and which should lead you to a very successful conclusion of the case. Your professional reputation will be enhanced, and I shall, of course, take none of the kudos. Now, suppose we come to terms.…’

I am afraid I laughed at him. This is the kind of offer which I have had so often. I thought of the cough I had heard.

‘Harris was a relation of yours, I suppose?’ I observed.

He stiffened a little and shrugged his shoulders.

‘A nephew,’ he said, ‘and not a very dutiful one. He was quite a wealthy young man, you see, and I – well as you can imagine, I am not the sort of man who normally spends his holidays in a wretched workman’s hovel or his evenings trapesing about the barren countryside.’

He was rather a terrible old man, but I was glad I had cleared up the mystery of the cough.

It was then that I remembered something. After all, so far, I myself was the only person to connect Roly Peters with Oswald Harris, with the possible exception of Effie Rowlandson, who merely had her suspicions.

‘Let me see,’ I murmured, ‘that was your nephew Rowland Peters, wasn’t it?’

To my intense regret he brushed the inference aside.

‘I have several nephews, Mr Campion, or, rather, I had,’ he said with spurious dignity. ‘I hate to press the point, but I regard this as a business interview. Terms first, if you please. Shall we say five hundred guineas for a complete and private explanation of the whole business? Or, of course, I might split up the lots, as it were.’

While he was rambling on I was thinking, and at this point I had an inspiration.

‘Mr Hayhoe,’ I said, ‘what about the mole?’

A little shrill sound escaped him, but he bit it off instantly.

‘Oh!’ he said, and there was cautiousness and respect in his voice, ‘you know about the mole, do you?’

CHAPTER 10

The Parson’s Dram

I DID NOT
reply. In the circumstances of my extreme ignorance there was very little I could say. I remained silent, therefore, and, I hope, enigmatic. However, he was not to be drawn.

‘I hadn’t thought of the creature myself,’ he said unexpectedly, ‘but there may be something there. It’s a valuable contribution. You seem to be unexpectedly intelligent, if I may say so without offence.’

He sighed and sat down on the grass.

‘Yes,’ he continued, clasping his knees. ‘Thinking it over we ought to go far, you and I, once we can come to an understanding. Now, about this question of terms … I hate to insist upon the subject, but at the moment my financial affairs are in considerable disorder. How far would you be prepared to meet me?’

‘Not to a pound,’ I said flatly, but with politeness. ‘If you know anything about the death of your nephew it’s your obvious duty to go to the police with it.’

Mr Hayhoe shrugged his shoulders. ‘Oh, well,’ he said regretfully, ‘I gave you the opportunity. You can’t deny that.’

I turned away expecting him to call me back, which he did.

‘My dear young man,’ he protested when I had taken a few steps down the hill, ‘don’t be precipitate. Let us talk this thing over reasonably. I have certain information which is of value to you. Why should we quarrel?’

‘If you knew anything of importance,’ I said over my shoulder, ‘you’d hardly dare to talk about it.’

‘Ah, you don’t understand.’ He seemed greatly relieved. ‘My own situation is perfectly safe. I have nothing to lose, everything to gain. My position is simple. I happen to possess an asset which I intend to realize. There are two likely purchasers: one is yourself, and the other is a certain person I need not name. Naturally, I shall dispose to the highest bidder.’

I was growing weary of him. ‘Mr Hayhoe,’ I said, ‘I am tired. I want to go to bed. You are wasting my time. You are also making a fool of yourself. I’m sorry to be so explicit, but there it is.’

He got up. ‘Look here, Campion,’ he said with a complete change of tone, his artificiality dropping from him and a wheedling note taking its place, ‘I could tell you something interesting if I wanted to. The police can pull me in and bully rag me, but they can’t hold me because they’ve nothing on me. I shan’t talk to them and they can’t make me. I can put you on to the right track for a consideration. What’s it worth to you?’

‘At this stage, very little,’ I said. ‘Half a crown, perhaps.’

He laughed. ‘I think I can get more than that,’ he said softly. ‘Very much more. However, I’m not a rich man. Between ourselves, at the moment I’m very short indeed. Suppose we meet tomorrow morning, not quite as early as this? Say, seven o’clock. That gives me a clear twenty-four hours. If I can’t get satisfaction in other quarters, well, I may bate my price a little. What do you say?’

He was an unpleasant piece of work, but I liked him better in this mood.

‘We might have a chat about the mole,’ I conceded ungraciously.

He cocked an eye at me. ‘Very well,’ he agreed. ‘About the mole and – other things. I’ll meet you here, then, at seven o’clock tomorrow morning –’

As I turned away an idea occurred to me.

‘About your other purchaser,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t approach Sir Leo if I were you.’

This time his laugh was spontaneous.

‘You’re not quite so clever as I thought you were,’ he said, and I went off down the hill with something to think about. Quite frankly, until that moment I had not seen him as a possible blackmailer.

At the time I thought I was justified in letting him cook for twenty-four hours, but at that time, as I have said, I did not know the type of person we were up against. Whenever I am apt to get over-pleased with myself, I remember that little chat on the hill-side.

As I came wearily up the drive at Highwaters it was full dawn. The air was magnificent, the sky a translucent blue, and the birds were roaring at one another in undisturbed abandonment.

I suspected the french windows in the dining-room had been left unlatched, and as I went round to them a rather unfortunate thing happened. Janet, who had no business to be awake at such an hour, came out on her balcony and caught me. I looked up to see her staring down at my slinking dinner-jacketed figure with mingled surprise and contempt.

‘Good morning,’ I said innocently.

Two bright spots of colour appeared on her cheeks.

‘I hope you saw Miss Rowlandson home safely,’ she said, and went back to her room before I could explain.

I had a tepid bath and slept for a couple of hours, but I was waiting for Leo when he appeared round about eight o’clock. We went for a stroll round the garden before breakfast, and I put my request to him.

‘Have the feller watched?’ he said. ‘Good idea. I’ll phone down to Pussey. Extraordinary name, Heigh-ho. Must be fictitious. Any reason above general suspicion?’

I told him about the conversation on the hill-top, and at first he wanted to have the man pulled in immediately.

‘I don’t think I would, sir,’ I objected. ‘I don’t see how he can be involved himself, unless he’s playing an incredibly dangerous game. Leave him loose, and he’ll lead us to someone more interesting.’

‘As you like,’ he said. ‘As you like. Prefer the straightforward method myself.’

As it happened, of course, he was perfectly right, but none of us knew that then.

Janet did not appear to breakfast, but I had no time to think about her, for Kingston arrived before the meal was over. He was bubbling with excitement, and looked very young for his forty years as he came striding in, his coarse fair hair dishevelled and his rather lazy eyes unwontedly bright.

‘I’ve found it,’ he announced, before he was well in the room. ‘I’ve been up half the night turning over papers, but I tracked it down in the end. The firm I dealt with in Peters’s affairs was Skinn, Sutain, and Skinn, of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Any good?’

I took the name down, and he looked at me expectantly.

‘I could take the day off and go up and see them for you, if you like,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps you’ll go yourself?’

I didn’t like to damp his enthusiasm, though it occurred to me that his life must be incredibly dull, since he was so anxious to play the detective.

‘Well, no,’ I said. ‘I think it’ll have to wait for the time being. The body’s disappeared, you see.’

‘Really? I say!’ He seemed delighted, and chattered on when I explained. ‘Things are moving, aren’t they? I suppose you’ll have to leave the solicitors for a day or two. Anything I can do? I’ve got to run down to Halt Knights to see my young patient, and there are one or two other people I
ought
to see, but after that I can be at your service entirely.’

‘I’ve got to go down to Poppy’s,’ I said. ‘I’ll come with you, if I may.’

Leo had left us and was on the telephone in the gun-room, talking to Pussey, when I disturbed him a minute or so later. He listened to my rather hurried story with unexpected intelligence.

‘Wait a minute,’ he said, when I had finished. ‘You think there may be some connexion between this feller Peters you knew and Harris, and you want me to get the London people to interview these solicitors with a view to their identifying the body. That right?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘There may not be anything in it, but they might make general inquiries there about the two men, Peters and Harris. What I particularly want to know is where Harris got his money – if he was insured or anything. It’s rather a shot in the dark, I know, but there’s just a chance these people may be useful. I think they’ll have to be handled delicately. I mean, I don’t think it could be done by phone.’

He nodded. ‘All right, my boy. Anything that helps us to get any nearer to this terrible thing, don’t you know.… Pussey’s going to put a man on to that feller, Heigh-ho.’

He paused abruptly, and stood looking at me.

‘Let’s hope he doesn’t lead us to anyone …’

He broke off helplessly.

‘I’m coming down to Halt Knights now,’ I murmured.

He coughed. ‘I’ll follow you down. Don’t alarm her, my boy; don’t alarm her. Can’t bring myself to believe that she’s anything to do with it, poor little woman.’

Kingston was waiting for me in the drive. He was exuberant. The turn affairs were taking seemed to stimulate him.

‘I suppose it’s all in the day’s work for you?’ he said a little enviously, as I climbed in beside him. ‘But nothing ever
happens
down here, and I should be inhuman if I wasn’t interested. It’s rather shocking how the human mind reacts to someone else’s tragedy, isn’t it? I didn’t know Harris, of course, but what I did see of him didn’t attract me. I should say the world’s a better place without him. I saw him just before he died, you know, or at least an hour or so before, and I remember thinking at the time that he constituted a waste of space.’

I was busy with my own problems, but I did not wish to be impolite.

‘When was this?’ I said absently.

He was anxious to tell me.

‘On the stairs at Halt Knights. I was going up to see my little patient with jaundice, and he came staggering down. I never saw a fellow with such a hangover. He brushed past me, his eyes glazed and his tongue hanging out. Didn’t say good morning or anything – you know the type.’

‘That patient of yours,’ I said. ‘She must have been upstairs all through the incident.… ?’

He turned to me in surprise. ‘Flossie?’ he said. ‘Yes, she was; but you’re on the wrong tack there. She’s away at the back of the house in a little top attic. Besides, you must have a look at her. The poor little beast is a bit better now, but a couple of days ago she couldn’t stand, poor kid. However, she may have heard something. I’ll ask her.’

I told him not to bother, and he went on chattering happily, making all sorts of useless suggestions. When I listened to him at all, he had my sympathy. A life that needs a murder to make it interesting must, I thought, be very slow indeed.