Margery Allingham - Police at the Funeral

Campion laughed. 'I see,' he said. 'I'm to play my speciality rôle--the handy man about the trouble. I say, I hope the police like me. This isn't the sort of idea they cotton to as rule. I'm afraid it's practically impossible to go gaily in "assisting". However, I've got friends, as Lugg said to the beak. I'll do anything I can for you, but I must know the full strength. Things look rather hot for Uncle William, I suppose?'

The other did not reply, and he went on:

'Tell me the worst. I'm a ferret for information. And after all, you don't want me turning up with the family skeleton in my beak, wagging my tail and shouting miaow, as it were.'

Marcus took up the poker and jabbed meditatively at a particularly solid piece of coal. The stiffness had faded out of his manner, leaving him an oddly defenceless person without his affectations. 'If I didn't know you, Campion,' he began--'and why you insist on calling yourself that I can't imagine--I should never dream of putting this to you at all. But the thing that's frightening me is the family.'

His tone gave the two words an ominous significance.

'There's rank evil there,' he went on unexpectedly, fixing his bright eyes on the other man's face and speaking with an intense sincerity which finally removed any trace of his former frigidity. 'There they are, a family forty years out of date, all vigorous energetic people by temperament, all, save for the old lady without their fair share of brains, and herded together in that great mausoleum of a house, tyrannized over by one of the most astounding personalities I've ever encountered. Imagine it, Campion, there are stricter rules in that house than you or I were ever forced to keep at our schools. And there is no escape.

'You see,' he went on earnestly, 'there's no vent to the suppressed hatreds, petty jealousies, desires and impulses of any living soul under that roof. The old lady holds the purse strings and is the first and final court of appeal. Not one of her dependents can get away without having to face starvation, since not one of them is remotely qualified to earn a sixpence.

'Now in that atmosphere, although I don't like to think it, I can't help imagining that anything might happen.'

'You are certain, in fact,' said Mr Campion, 'that it's one of the family?'

Marcus did not reply directly. He passed his hand over his hair and sighed. 'It's terrible,' he said. 'Andrew was not even robbed. If only someone had stolen his wallet I should feel more helpful. Or if he'd fallen in the river trying to take a short cut home to score off his cousin it wouldn't matter much. However, that is all ruled out. I saw the body. Someone tied him up and then practically blew his head off. The police hadn't found the gun half an hour before you came. I'm afraid there's no doubt about it. As the Chief said this afternoon, it's "a perfectly obvious case of murder".'

'Why?' said Mr Campion.

The other stared at him. 'Well, you can't get away from the evidence,' he said.

'Oh, no, I didn't mean that. I mean, why should anyone murder him? As far as I can gather he seems to have been a perfectly normal old nuisance--just like anyone else's uncle, in fact. And he had no money. That in itself should have insured him a long life.'

Marcus nodded. 'That's the trouble,' he said. 'Of course there is this bookmaker's cheque, but the police doctor is convinced that the body had been in the water at least a week. So that's no good. Over and above that, he seems to have had nothing but petty debts. That's the whole point of it: none of the family have any money at all, except the old lady, who is definitely wealthy. No, there's no motive that I can see.'

'Save, of course,' said Mr Campion, 'the fewer men the greater share of plunder in the end, so to speak.'

Marcus jabbed again gloomily at the fire.

'Even that's no good,' he said. 'Strictly in confidence, of course, though I fancy the whole family know this, old Mrs Faraday altered her will some little time ago. Under the new provisions, Andrew Seeley, her nephew by marriage, was to receive nothing at all. When she died, therefore, he must either starve or depend upon the problematic charity of his cousins. It was his own fault. De mortuis nil nisi bonum , you know, but he wasn't a pleasant customer. A petty cantankerous little person, a strain of the bounder in him. I've often felt like kicking him myself. But then, they're not charming, any of them. The old lady has an element of grandeur about her, and Catherine is quite a kindly soul, although of course I do hate stupidity in a woman. What really frightens me is that I can easily imagine myself feeling like murder if I lived in that house.'

'Julia,' said Mr Campion, who had listened with astonishment to this recital from the prosaic Marcus. 'How about Julia? She's an unknown quantity at the moment. I understand from Joyce that she's a spinster and difficult.'

Marcus considered the matter. 'I've never been able to understand whether Julia is unfriendly and deep, or merely unfriendly,' he said. 'But to tie a man up, and shoot him, and chuck him in the river when she was known to have been driving home from church--why, my dear fellow, don't be ridiculous.'

'I suppose it did happen then?' said Mr Campion dubiously.

Marcus shrugged his shoulders. 'Who can tell?' he said. 'Certainly William was the last person who saw him alive. I fancy that if the police found the weapon William would be under lock and key by now.' He looked up abruptly. Heavy footsteps sounded in the passage outside, and were followed by a discrete tap on the door. The elderly maid reappeared carrying a silver tray with a card on it, disapproval manifest on every line of her face. She presented the tray to Marcus without a word. The young man took the missive in some surprise, and after glancing at it handed it to Campion.

MR WILLIAM R. FARADAY.

Socrates Close,

Trumpington Rd, Cambridge.

The proximity of the man they had been discussing was brought home to them startlingly by the primly engraved name. Campion turned the card over to discover a few words scrawled in a flamboyant hand cramped to fit the space.

'Shall be greatly obliged if you can spare me a few moments. W.F.'

Marcus raised his eyebrows as he saw it, and pocketed the card absently. 'Show him up, Harriet,' he said.

'This is the point to be considered, then,' murmured Mr Campion. 'Is this "Enter a murderer", or "Innocence appears disguised as Mars"?'

There was no time for comment. Marcus rose to his feet as the door opened to admit Uncle William.

He came bustling in, a direct contradiction to any of Campion's preconceived ideas. Mr William Faraday was a shortish, tubby individual in a dinner-jacket of the 'old gentleman' variety, a man of about fifty-five, with a pink face, bright greedy little blue eyes, yellowish-white hair, and a moustache worn very much in the military fashion, without quite achieving the effect so obviously intended. His hands were pudgy, and his feet, in their square-toed glacé shoes, somehow enhanced the smug personality of their owner.

He strode briskly across the room, shook hands with Marcus, and turned to survey Campion, who had also risen. There was a gleam of welcome in the little blue eyes which changed ludicrously to frank astonishment as he saw the young man. Involuntarily he put on a pair of pince-nez which he wore suspended from a broad black ribbon.

Marcus effected the introduction and the old man's surprise increased.

'Campion?' he said. 'Campion? Not the--ah--Campion?'

'One of the family, no doubt,' said that young man idiotically.

Mr Faraday coughed with unnecessary violence. 'How do you do?' he said conciliatingly, and held out his hand. He then turned to Marcus. 'That dear girl of yours, Joyce, came in just now,' he observed gustily. 'I--er--gathered from her, don't you know, that you might be in this evening, and that's why I--er--ventured to call. Thank you, my boy.' He sank into the chair which Marcus set for him and shouted to Campion, who was moving politely towards the doorway: 'No, no--don't go, you, sir. Nothing to conceal. I've come to have a chat with Marcus about this disgusting scandal.'