Cyril Hare - Untimely Death aka He Should Have Died Hereafter

There was no answer to his question, but the silence that succeeded it seemed charged with meaning. Tom looked at Dick and Dick at Tom and the expression on their faces told Mallett that he had stumbled on the meaning of the whole strange little episode.

“It might make a difference and it mightn’t.” Tom’s voice was quiet and reflective. “From what Mr. Bulford says, it seems that it might. That’s just the point.”

“And who may Mr. Bulford be?”

“He’s the lawyer up to Wiveliscombe. Would you like to go to Wiveliscombe to-morrow and have a word with him? I could run you up in my car-it won’t cost you a penny.”

“Why on earth should I want to talk to your lawyer -or he to me?”

“Now look here, Mr. Mallett,” said Dick persuasively. “You heard what I told that fool of a coroner just now. There’s been a fiddle over this business-or looks like there has. And if so, there’s enquiries to be made-that’s what Mr. Bulford says. You can forget about your Betty friend-he don’t count. There’s someone else behind all this and we want to know who. And we reckon you’re the chap to find out. It’s your sort of work, isn’t it? There’s fifty pounds in it for you, all for asking a few questions. Now, what do you say?”

Mallett was tugging at his moustache ends until it felt that the hair must come out at the roots-a sign, in him, of intense emotion. Had he but known it, his sensations at that moment were very much the same as those experienced by Pettigrew a few days before, at the sound of the hunting horn. Only in his case the memories evoked were far more recent, and for that reason more compelling. He could think of a dozen reasons why he should turn a deaf ear to the offer, but…

“I don’t mind going to Wiveliscombe with you tomorrow,” he said. “Mind you, I make no promises- none whatever. Is that understood?”

“That’s understood, all right, Mr. Mallett.”

“One other thing, before we go any further. If I should undertake this enquiry, and if anything should come of it, it will be no use asking me to stop halfway. I shall find out all I can. And if what I find out seems likely to disclose a criminal offence, then I go straight to the police, no matter who the criminal may turn out to be, and it will be too late to ask me to hush it up. Is that also understood?”

For the life of him, Mallett could not have said why he spoke with so much vehemence, especially as he had not even decided to accept the commission which had been offered him in such vague terms. But there was a streak of melodrama in him, and to his own ears, at least, it sounded most impressive. One at least of his hearers was impressed. Dick’s face was solemn as he answered, “Yes, sir, I accept that.”

Tom was not quite so ready with his reply, and there was a gleam of what could have been amusement in his heavy face as he said, “Surely, Mr. Mallett, surely. We’ll call for you to-morrow about ten, then?”

I really believe,” said Pettigrew, “that spring has begun at last.”

“You said that,” Eleanor reminded him, “two weeks ago.”

“Now you mention it, I believe I did. It was the usual false alarm. I should have known better. But this is the real thing. There’s a softness in the air that’s quite unmistakable. Winter’s rains and ruins are over, and all the season-”

“Please, Frank! Not at breakfast!”

“I apologize. Swinburne at breakfast should be left to undergraduates. I will moderate my transports by looking at my post. It should have a thoroughly deadening effect-nothing but bills and circulars, by the look of it.”

He slit open one envelope after another with a resigned expression. Near the bottom of the pile he found something that was neither bill nor circular.

Pettigrew read the letter through in silence. Then he laid it down beside his plate, and sat for a while, looking at nothing in particular, drumming his fingers on the table, wrinkling his nose as was his habit in moods of anxiety or doubt.

“If you’re not going to eat any breakfast,” said Eleanor, reproachfully, “I am. Won’t you cut a slice of ham, or shall I do it myself?”

Pettigrew came out of his abstraction with a jerk.

“No woman is to be trusted with a ham,” he declared. “Particularly a superb specimen like this. Let me do it.”

He went across to the sideboard, carved two slices from the fine ham that was there, and stood back to admire his handiwork. Then he began to laugh quietly. He was still laughing when he returned to the table.

“Is this a private joke?” Eleanor asked, her mouth full of ham. “Or can anyone join in?”

“It has only just dawned on me. Didn’t Mallett send us this ham last week?”

“You know perfectly well he did. It’s twice the size of anything I should have wanted to buy, even if I could afford it.”

“And why, do you think, should he take it into his head to do such a thing, just at this moment?”

“It was simply a kind thought, I suppose.”

“There was no letter with it, was there?”

“Just a card with his name on it and some polite message,” said Eleanor. “You saw it yourself. But Frank, why-”

“It’s the first message of any sort we’ve had from him since we left Exmoor,” Pettigrew persisted. “He’s not sent us so much as a line all that time. Even Mr. Joliffe was good for a threepenny Christmas card, but Mallett was mum. I particularly asked him to let me know what happened about the Gorman inquest, but he never did a thing about it. Why is that, do you imagine?”

“Frank, dear,” said Eleanor gently. “Don’t be cross with me, but I’m afraid that is my fault. You see, you have been sleeping so much better ever since we came home, and I didn’t want you upset. I asked Mr. Mallett not to write.”

“I see. That makes it funnier than ever. He’s not allowed to write, so he says it with hams.”

“But, Frank, I do assure you, there’s been nothing for him to write about. Since the inquest was adjourned all those months ago, nothing whatever has happened. The police have made all sorts of enquiries, of course, and the whole neighbourhood was full of rumours for a time, but nobody was ever arrested over poor Jack Gorman’s death, and little by little the whole thing has died down.”

“You seem to be remarkably well up in the matter,” said Pettigrew. “How is that?”

“Well, as I’d told Mr. Mallett that he wasn’t to bother you with letters, I thought I had better keep an eye on things,” Eleanor explained. “So I asked Hester Greenway to keep me informed. She has really been very helpful. I hope you don’t mind. I wanted to save you being worried.”

“That was a kind thought of yours. But as it happened, I was anxious not to worry you. You needn’t have troubled Hester. I’ve discovered a man at Markhampton who comes from Exmoor and takes in the local paper regularly. Every week I’ve been through it from cover to cover to see if there was any hint of developments in the affair. And there has been none.”

“Well, then…” said Eleanor. “There’s nothing for either of us to worry about, is there? Or-or is there?”

By way of reply, Pettigrew tossed across the table the letter that he had been reading. It bore at the top an imposingly long list of names and an address in Lincoln ’s Inn. It ran:

“Dear Sir,

Re Gorman, decd; Gorman v. Southern Bank Ltd. and Another.

We are acting as London agents for Messrs. Bulford and Langrish of Wiveliscombe on behalf of the Plaintiff in the above matter. It is an action shortly to be heard in the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice in which the Plaintiff claims (inter alia) a declaration that John Richard Gorman, deceased, predeceased Gilbert Amos Gorman, deceased. We are given to understand that you may be in a position to assist the Plaintiff. We should accordingly esteem it a favour if you would attend at our office at a date convenient to yourself in the near future when our Mr. Fitzgibbon could take a proof of evidence from you.