Margery Allingham - Police at the Funeral

'All the jolly fun, in fact,' murmured Mr Campion.

She laughed. 'I don't mind,' she said.

He consulted the letter again. 'Hold on, where does Uncle Andrew come in? I see his name is Seeley.'

'I was coming to him. You see, he's hardly a proper uncle at all. He's a son of Mrs Faraday's younger brother. He lost his money in the same swindle as Uncle William, and he came to live at home at about the same time. That must be about twenty years ago.'

'Twenty years?' Mr Campion looked startled. 'Haven't they done anything at all since then? I say, I beg your pardon, you took me off my balance.'

Joyce hesitated. 'They were never much good at working,' she said. 'I don't think so, anyway. I think great-uncle realized it: that's why he left most of his money to his wife, although she had a large fortune of her own. There's just one thing I ought to explain before I come to the important part. When I say great-aunt manages the show, I mean it literally. The mode of living of the house hasn't altered since she first set it down about eighteen-seventy. The house is run like clockwork. Everything is just on time. Everyone has to go to church on Sunday mornings. Most of us go by car--it's a nineteen hundred and thirteen Daimler--but we take it in turns to go with great-aunt, who drives in a victoria in the summer and a brougham in the winter. Old Christmas, the coachman, is nearly as old as she is. But of course everyone knows them and the traffic is held up, so they're all right.'

Enlightenment spread over Mr Campion's ignoble face. 'Oho! I've seen them,' he said, 'I was up at Cambridge with Marcus, you know. I saw the turn-out then. Heavens, that's years ago!'

'If it was a grey horse,' said Joyce, 'it's the same one. Pecker. Pecker, the unsurpassable. Well, wait a minute. Where have I got to? Oh, yes. Well, we all live in Great-uncle Faraday's house in Trumpington Road, a little way out of the town. It's that big L-shaped house that stands back on the corner of Orpheus Lane. There's a high wall all round it. Great-aunt is thinking of having it heightened, because when people come past it nowadays on buses they can see over.'

'Socrates Close,' said Mr Campion.

She nodded. 'How did you know?'

'One of the sights,' said Mr Campion simply. 'Or it was in my young days. Yes, that's all fairly clear in my mind. Now we come to Uncle Andrew.'

The girl took a deep breath. 'It really happened last Saturday week, at dinner,' she said. 'This is rather awkward to say, but I think you'll understand. Great-aunt treats the others as dependent children, and naturally, as they're all rather old and very human, they're inclined to quarrel in a sulky, old sort of way. That is, all except dear old Aunt Kitty. She's just sweet and silly and rather helpless. But Aunt Julia bosses her terribly. She also tries to boss the two men and they seem to hate her, and they don't like each other at all either, and sometimes they sulk horribly for days on end. There'd been one of these quarrels about nothing in the air for about a week, and I think there would have been an absolute row if it hadn't been for great-aunt, who doesn't allow rows any more than she allows early morning tea, or the gramophone on Sundays.

'Well, when we were having dinner--eight courses and all stiff and solemn, you know--suddenly, just when the atmosphere had become unbearable, and I thought Uncle William was going to forget himself and bang Uncle Andrew over the head with a tablespoon--great-aunt or no great-aunt; and Aunt Julia was on the verge of hysterics, and Aunt Kitty was crying unobtrusively all over her salad, there was the most colossal crash, apparently right in the middle of the room, you ever heard in all your life. Aunt Kitty screamed, like a very small train, and jumped up. Uncle William forgot himself and said "hell" or "damn" or something--I've forgotten now. Aunt Julia was just about to settle down into her hysterics, and Uncle Andrew dropped his fork, when great-aunt sat up very stiff in her high-backed chair and rapped on the table with her fingers. She's got hard bony hands, as though she were wearing tiny ivory thimbles. She said "Sit down, Kitty," very quietly. Then she turned to Uncle William and said, "Really! You've lived in my house long enough to know that I will not have obscene words uttered at my table. Anyhow, all of you ought to know that that clock weight falls down once every fifteen years." Uncle William said, "Yes, Mother," and no one spoke at all for the rest of the meal.'

'After dinner you opened the door of the grandfather clock,' said Mr Campion, 'and you found the clock weight had fallen down. That's how all we great sleuths sleuth--quickly.'

She nodded. 'There was quite a dent in the wood at the bottom of the clock. I asked Alice--she's the housemaid, she's been there thirty-five years--and she said great-aunt was quite right, it was fifteen years since it fell, and she was the last person who saw the weight before it disappeared. I know this doesn't sound very important,' she hurried on, 'but I must tell things in their right order or I shall get us both muddled.'

She was interrupted at this moment by the arrival of Lugg, now resplendent in a grey woollen cardigan. He wheeled a tea-wagon on which was a miscellaneous collection of his own favourite delicacies.

'There you are,' he said with pardonable pride. 'Potted shrimp, gentleman's relish, eggs, and a nice bit of 'am. I made tea. I like cocoa meself, but I made tea. 'Ope you enjoy it.'

Campion waved him out of the room and he departed, muttering audibly about ingratitude.

'I see from your description of Socrates Close that Lugg must be kept out of this,' observed Mr Campion.

Joyce regarded him gravely. 'It would be as well,' she admitted. Over the meal she continued her story. Her face was animated, but her anxiety freed her from any suspicion of sensation-mongering.

'Uncle Andrew disappeared on Sunday,' she said. 'If you knew our household you'd realize that that was extraordinary in itself. Sunday is the day when Great-aunt Caroline has us under her eye practically the whole time, and if anyone wanted to slip away unnoticed, Sunday would be hardly the time to choose. It was my turn to drive in the four-wheeler. Great-aunt doesn't change to the victoria until the end of May. Of course we have to start twenty minutes before the others, and they usually go for a drive round afterwards, so that we get home before them. On that Sunday Aunt Julia and Aunt Kitty were home already when we arrived back,' she went on. 'Great-aunt Caroline was rather annoyed at that, because she thinks the drive does them good. She asked after the others, and Aunt Julia said that Uncle William and Uncle Andrew were walking home. That was rather curious in itself, because the two old dears had been at daggers drawn for over a week. Great-aunt was very interested. She said she hoped the exercise would do them good, and that they would learn to live together like gentlemen and not a pair of militia officers. She was rather annoyed at lunch time when they hadn't arrived back, although Aunt Kitty and I had made it as late as we could.

'We were half-way through the meal before Uncle William came in. He was very angry and hot from hurrying, and he seemed very surprised that Uncle Andrew hadn't got back before him. As far as we could make out from his story Uncle Andrew had insisted on walking home from church when William didn't want to, had tried to take a ridiculous roundabout road--I think Uncle William said through Sheep's Meadows. Finally they quarrelled about the route.'

She paused and glanced at the young man apologetically.

'You know what stupid things people do quarrel about if they don't like one another.'

He nodded comprehendingly, and she went on.

'Uncle William was naturally rather reticent about what was said, because a quarrel of that sort always does sound so stupid when you retail it afterwards. But apparently it was all Uncle Andrew's fault--or so Uncle William said. Uncle Andrew wanted to come home via Grantchester, which is of course an incredibly long way round. Uncle William was cold and rather hungry, and so after walking along for a bit quarrelling violently, Uncle William said--or says he said'--she corrected herself hastily--'--"you go your own damned way, Andrew, and hang it! I'll go mine." So they parted, and Uncle William came back and Uncle Andrew didn't. And he hasn't come back yet. He's simply vanished--there's no sign of him. He can't have gone off because he hasn't any money. I know that, because he borrowed half-a-crown for the collection plate from Aunt Kitty, and great-aunt never lets him have much money anyway, because as soon as he gets it it goes to the bookmakers.'