Spotted Hemlock

murderer.’

‘But this is incredible!’ exclaimed the vicar’s wife. ‘Somebody’s sister murdered… from our village!’

‘Well, that’s only partly true,’ Laura pointed out. ‘Miss Palliser wasn’t exactly a native of Seethe, was she?’

‘All who live and work in Seethe are our flock,’ said the vicar’s wife. ‘How did she come to be murdered?’

‘But that’s what we want to find out,’ said Laura. ‘We particularly want to trace Miss Palliser, who seems to have disappeared. We want to know where she went and what she did during school holidays, for which, I am assured, she was not paid.’

‘I never did see why teachers were paid for school holidays,’ said the vicar’s wife. ‘At least three months in every year are unproductive of education.’

‘The teachers would be nervous wrecks, otherwise,’ retorted Laura, who had been trained for teaching but who had never embraced that profession. ‘Doesn’t that ever occur to their critics?’

‘Beside the point. What about this Miss Palliser? You want to find out where she spent the holidays?’

‘And what did she do besides serve in a shop which I have already visited. Yes, please.’

‘She stood-in during one holiday at a college for gentlemen-farmers, a place called Walborough,’ said Mrs Pock. ‘I do know that. The secretary left, and the term wasn’t finished.’

‘Walborough? You mean Highpepper,’ said Laura excitedly. ‘Think! Think, Mrs Pock!’

But Mrs Pock shook her head.

‘I read all the telegrams, hers and theirs,’ she said definitely. ‘Walborough Agricultural College it was called. She sat-in to take phone calls and the pay was nineteen and sixpence a day.’

‘Where was this place? In which county, I mean.’

‘It was somewhere in Berkshire.’

‘Berkshire?’

‘Yes. They paid her fare there and back. It was all in the telegrams I handled.’

There was nothing more to be gained from Mrs Pock, and Laura fled very soon from the vicar’s wife who literally talked her out of the shop. She returned to the waiting car and said, ‘Ipswich.’ In the train, going back to London, she suddenly threw off the feeling of depression which Mrs Pock had engendered, and said aloud, to the consternation of two women who were sharing her compartment, ‘Blimey! I see it all now! It’s the one thing Mrs Croc. doesn’t know! I bet she’s guessed, but she can’t know! After all, the course at one agricultural college must be much the same as at another.’

chapter fourteen

The Counterfeit Patient

‘ “The pig, with his large fat belly, will have no trouble in supporting himself… I own that I would willingly sacrifice the pig to save the others.”’

Ibid.

« ^ »

The connection seems to me a bit thin,’ said Detective Chief-Inspector Robert Gavin, when he was informed of his wife’s adventures. ‘What makes you think—apart from the coincidence of Carrie Palliser having some connection with this place in Berkshire—this agricultural college, I mean— that what you’ve found out can be of any help over the Calladale affair?’

‘Piggy Basil,’ said Laura. ‘I always connect Berkshire with pigs.’

‘Piggy Basil? Oh, the chap who had Carey’s present job and smashed himself up climbing during the vacation!’

‘If he smashed himself up!’

‘Eh? Oh, don’t be a chump!’

‘I repeat—if he smashed himself up,’ said Laura firmly. ‘When Mrs Croc. begins talking about sending grapes to a hospital, there’s more in it than meets the eye.’

‘Pips.’

‘No, really! I’m perfectly serious. I can read Mrs Croc. like a book and I assure you that she’s suspected Piggy Basil from the word Go. And if you want to know what I think— well, I think his bona fides could bear closer inspection. I feel positively certain in my own mind that it was Piggy who accompanied Norah Coles to that holiday camp.’

Gavin looked thoughtful. Although, equally with Dame Beatrice, he distrusted Laura in the role of sleuth, he felt that, this time, her theory might bear close testing. As it was not, officially, his case, he handed Laura’s idea to the police who were investigating the murder.

‘I wish,’ said Laura to Dame Beatrice, ‘you would depute me to interview this Basil.’I’d turn him inside out in ten minutes. Do we know the name of the hospital?’

‘Certainly, but I go there unaccompanied,’ said Dame Beatrice with finality.

‘All right, then. But I know Scotland a lot better than you do.’

‘But you will not obtain more useful information from your fellow-countrymen than I shall. Believe me, this is not a task to be undertaken by a young woman.’