The Case of the Late Pig

'I'm sure you've made a mistake, Albert,' she said. 'I don't want to be unkind, dear, and I do think you're very clever. But how could Doctor Kingston have killed Harris, or Peters as you call him, when he was in this room playing poker with Leo when the vase fell upon him? You said yourself it couldn't have slipped off by accident.'

The time had come for me to do my parlour trick, and I did my best to perform it in the ancient tradition.

'Poppy,' I said, 'do you remember Kingston coming to see your little maid on the morning of the murder? You took him up yourself, I suppose, and you both had a look at the kid? There was some ice in the water jug by her bed, wasn't there?'

She considered. 'No,' she said. 'He came down, and I gave him a drink with ice in it. That was after I'd turned him into the bathroom to wash his hands. I came down here and he followed me, and after he'd had his drink he took some tablets up to Flossie that he'd forgotten.

'Ah!' I said impressively. 'Was he long following you down?'

She looked up with interest. 'Why, yes, he was,' she said. 'Quite a while, now I think of it.'

Having located my rabbit, as it were, I proceeded to produce it with a flourish.

'Kingston told us he met Harris, alias Pig, on the stairs, and that Pig had a hangover,' I began. 'The first wasn't true, the second was. Pig was in his bedroom when Kingston slipped in to see him, having first got rid of you. Pig was dressed, but he wanted a corpse-reviver and he trusted Kingston, never dreaming that he'd goaded the man too far. After all, people don't go about expecting to be murdered. In his doctor's bag Kingston had some chloral, which is a reputable narcotic when used in moderation. He saw his opportunity. He administered a tidy dose, and sent Pig to sit out on the lawn. He followed him downstairs, and through the lounge windows saw him settle down. I think his original intention was to let him die, and to trust the coroner to suspect a chronic case of dope. But this was risky, and the position of the chair, which was directly beneath the window, put the other idea into his head. If you notice, the windows on each floor in this house are directly above those on the last, and no one who knows the place can have missed the stone urns. They were originally intended to obscure the attic windows from the outside. It was while Kingston was drinking his highball that he had his brainwave. There were two or three solid rectangles of ice in his glass, and he pocketed two of them. Then he told you some story about forgotten tablets and went up to the top floor again, which was deserted at that time of the morning. There he discovered that, as he had suspected, Pig was sitting directly beneath the box-room urn. He knew he was unconscious already, and would remain so. The rest was easy. He took the urn out of its socket and balanced it on its peg half over the ledge. Then he blocked it into position with the two pieces of ice, and went quietly downstairs. The ledge is just below the level of the window-sill, so the chance of anyone who passed the box-room door noticing that the urn was an inch or so out of place was remote. All he had to do, then, was to wait.'

Poppy sat staring at me, her face pale.

'Until the ice melted and the urn fell?' she said. 'How — how ghastly!'

Pussey wagged his head. 'Powerful smart,' he said. 'Powerful smart. If I might ask you, sir, how did you come to think of that?'

'The moss on the ledge was damp when I arrived,' I said. 'The inference did not dawn on me at first, but when I had a highball here the other day I saw the ice and suddenly realized what it meant.'

'Wonderful!' said Whippet, without malice. 'I was after the same fellow, of course, but the alibi put me out.'

Leo stared at him as if he had only just become aware of his existence.

'Mr — er Whippet,' he said, 'very pleased to have you here, of course, my boy. But where do you fit into this extraordinary story? What are you doin' here?'

There was a pause, and they all looked at me as though I was responsible for him. I looked at Whippet.

'His little hands are sore and his snout bleedeth,' I said. 'This is Gilbert Whippet, Junior, son of Q. Gilbert Whippet, of the Mutual Ordered Life Endowment Company, sometimes called the M.O.L.E. It didn't occur to me until that day at "The Feathers", and then I could have kicked myself for missing it. You always were a lazy beast, Whippet.'

He smiled faintly. 'I — er — prefer writing to action, you know,' he said, hesitantly. 'I am sorry, Campion, to have dragged you into this, but at the beginning we had nothing to go on at all except a sort of uneasy suspicion. I couldn't very well approach you direct because — well — er — there was nothing direct about it, so I — er — wrote.'

His voice trailed away.

'Both Lugg and I appreciated your style,' I said.

He nodded gravely. 'It seemed the best way to ensure your interest,' he said calmly. 'Whenever I thought you might be flagging, I wrote again.'