The Case of the Late Pig

He blinked at me. 'Peters' funeral? No, I don't think I remember him. There was an odd sort of girl there, I know, and — '

He paused, and I saw a kind of excitement come into his eyes.

' — I say!' he said.

We were all looking at him, and he became embarrassed, and struggled to change the subject. As soon as the others were talking again, however, he turned to me.

'I've just thought of something,' he said, his voice as eager as a boy's. 'It may be useful. We'll have a chat after dinner, if you don't mind. You didn't know that fellow Peters well, did you?'

'Not intimately,' I said guardedly.

'He wasn't a nice chap,' he said and added, lowering his voice, 'I believe I'm on to something. Can't tell you here.'

He met my eyes, and my heart warmed to him. I like enthusiasm for the chase, or it's an inhuman business.

We did not have an opportunity to talk immediately we broke up, however, because the Inspector in charge of the case came to see Leo while the port was still in circulation, and he excused himself.

Left with Bathwick, Kingston and I had our hands full. He was a red-hot innovator, we discovered. He spoke with passion of the insanitary condition of the thatched cottages and the necessity of bringing culture into the life of the average villager, betraying, I thought, a lack of acquaintance with either the thatched cottage or, of course, the villager in question, who, as every countryman knows, does not exist.

Kingston and I were trying to convince him that the whole point of a village is that it is a sufficiently scattered community for a man to call his soul his own in it without seriously inconveniencing his neighbour, when Pepper arrived to ask me if I would join Sir Leo in the gun-room.

I went into the fine old chamber on the first floor, where Leo does both his writing and his gun cleaning with impartial enthusiasm, to find him sitting at his desk. In front of him was an extremely attractive soul enjoying a glass of whisky. Leo introduced him.

'Inspector Pussey, Campion, my boy. Able feller. Been workin' like a nigger all day.'

I liked Pussey on sight; anyone would.

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

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

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

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

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

'And no one but Sir Leo as a decent alibi?' I said sympathetically. 'I know....'

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

He paused, getting very red.

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

Pussey swallowed.

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

CHAPTER 6. DEPARTED PIG

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

'Eh!' he said at last. 'Conspiracy, eh?'

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

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