The Case of the Late Pig

It is not easy to describe Poppy. She is over fifty, I suppose, with tight grey curls all over her head, a wide mouth, and enormous blue eyes. That is the easy part. The rest is more difficult. She exudes friendliness, generosity, and a sort of naïve obstinacy. Her clothes are outrageous, vast flowery skirts and bodices embellished with sufficient frills to rig a frigate. However, they suit her personality if not her figure. You see her and you like her and that's all there is to it.

Leo was plainly batty about her.

'Such a horrid little man, Harris,' she said as she gave me my whisky. 'Has Leo told you all about him and me? How he tried to pinch the place.... He has! Oh, well, that's all right. You see how it happened. Still, it's very wrong of someone, very wrong indeed — although, my dear, I'm sure they meant to be kind.'

Leo spluttered. 'Isn't she a dear?' he said.

'I'm not being silly, am I, Albert?' s She looked at me appealingly. 'I did tell them it was dangerous last night. I said quite distinctly "This will lead to trouble" and of course it did.'

I intercepted a startled glance from Leo and sat up with interest. Poppy turned on him.

'Haven't you told him?' she said. 'Oh but you must. It's not fair.'

Leo avoided my eyes. 'I was comin' to that,' he said. 'I've only had Campion down here for half an hour.'

'You were trying to shield them,' said Poppy devastatingly, 'and that's no good. When we've got the truth,' she added naïvely, 'then we can decide how much we're going to tell.'

Leo looked scandalized and would have spoken but she forestalled him.

'It was like this,' she said confidingly, giving my arm a friendly but impersonal pat. 'Two or three of the more hearty old pets hatched up a plot last night. They were going to get Harris drunk and friendly first and then they were going to put the whole thing to him as man to man and in a burst of good fellowship he was going to sign a document they'd prepared, relinquishing the option or whatever it is.'

She paused and eyed me dubiously, as well she might, I thought. As my face did not change she came a little nearer.

'I didn't approve,' she said earnestly. 'I told them it was silly and in a way not quite honest. But they said Harris hadn't been honest with us and of course that was right too, so they sat up in here with him last night. It might have been all right only instead of getting friendly he got truculent, as some people do, and while they were trying to get him beyond that stage he passed out altogether and they had to put him to bed. This morning he had a terrible hangover and went to sleep it off on the lawn. He hadn't moved all the morning when that beastly thing fell on him.'

'Awkward,' murmured Leo. 'Devilish awkward.'

Poppy gave me the names of the conspirators. They were all eminently respectable people who ought to have known a great deal better. It sounded to me as if everybody's uncle had gone undergraduate again and I might have said so in a perfectly friendly way had not Poppy interrupted me.

'Leo's Inspector — such a nice man; he's hoping to get promotion, he tells me — has been through the servants with a toothcomb and hasn't found anything, not even a brain, the poor ducks! I'm afraid there's going to be a dreadful scandal. It must be one of the visitors, you see, and I only have such dear people.'

I said nothing, for at that moment a pudding-faced maid, who certainly did not look as though she had sufficient intelligence to drop an urn or anything else on the right unwanted guest, came in to say that if there was a Mr Campion in the house he was wanted on the telephone.

I took it for granted it was Janet and I went along to the hall with a certain pleasurable anticipation.

As soon as I took up the receiver, however, the exchange said brightly: 'London call.'

Considering I had left the city unexpectedly two hours before with the intention of going to Highwaters, and no one in the world but Lugg and Leo knew that I had come to Halt Knights, I thought there must be some mistake and I echoed her.

'Yes, that's right. London call,' she repeated with gentle patience. 'Hold on. You're through....'

I held on for some considerable time.

'Hullo,' I said at last. 'Hullo. Campion here.'

Still there was no reply, only a faint sigh, and the someone at the other end hung up. That was all.

It was an odd little incident, rather disturbing.

Before going back to the others I wandered upstairs to the top floor to have a look at the parapet. No one was about and most of the doors stood open, so that I had very little difficulty in finding the spot where Pig's urn had once stood.