“No, I only knew his work.”
“Clever fellow. Nice fellow, too. I shall miss him. You a Cambridge man?”
“John’s.”
“Thought so. I was at Caius. Long before your time, though. Well, why not sit down. Have a cigarette. Have we got any cigarettes, Alice?”
“You gave the last to that tramp yesterday,” Mrs. Fawkes said. “I haven’t been to the shops yet. Perhaps Mr. Tuke smokes a pipe. Or cigars.”
Being assured that cigars were permitted in the drawingroom—shag, said Mrs. Fawkes, was often smoked there, and clung terribly to the curtains—Harvey passed his case to the Vicar. The latter, as they all sat down, remained poised on the edge of his chair with an air of impermanence. His head cocked to one side, he was staring with critical interest at the caller. “Will you be here at Christmas?” he inquired suddenly. “It is most improbable.”
“Pity. I’m thinking of running a small miracle play. We shall want a Devil. You’re just the man. Well, about poor Shearsby. What can I do for you?”
“I gathered at the local pub that you saw more of him than anybody else here.”
“I saw a good deal of him. He’d lived in France, you know. I was at Grenoble in my student days, and then curate at Cannes. That gave us something to talk about.”
“A link between you, as Hopkins said.”
The Vicar chuckled. “I believe Twitchell makes up those sayings of his as he goes along. Well, then Shearsby used to talk books. He borrowed most of mine. Hadn’t many himself—he got away from France with what he could carry in a haversack, and about twopence farthing. Not a writer yourself, are you? Look more like a lawyer.”
“I am a lawyer. In the Department of Public Prosecutions. Hence, in a way, my interest in Shearsby—which, however, is quite unofficial. And I’ve met what is left of his family.” Mr. Fawkes raised his tufts of eyebrows. “Public Prosecutions, eh? What is there about Shearsby to interest you? Oh, I know the police have raked it all up again. Fellow called Oake, from Cotfold, has been here. But there’s no mystery about it. The inquest cleared it up. The poor chap was practically blind at night, and he was always forgetting his torch, or finding his battery had run down.”
“It has more to do with his background,” Mr. Tuke replied vaguely. “Did he ever talk about his relations?”
“He mentioned some cousins. I’ve met one of them. Mortimer Shearsby. He came to the inquest, and handled the funeral.” The Vicar’s round pink face grew a shade pinker. “And a nice way he handled it, too!” he said explosively, bounding in his chair. “Insufferable prig! Typical little provincial snob. And as mean as——”
“M-m-morris ? ”
“Twitchell again, eh? Yes, I think I’ve heard that one. Well, he’s right. This insupportable bounder kept moaning about being out of pocket over the funeral expenses. Sold every stick of poor Shearsby’s stuff to pay for ’em, and then buried him like a pauper. I offered to pay myself. I did pay for an obituary notice in the Argus. Waste of money, says this skinflint. Puffed up pomposity!” said Mr. Fawkes, bouncing again. “Some sort of analytical chemist. Full of himself. Work of the greatest national importance. Stuff and nonsense! He’s with Imperial Sansil, making sham silk stockings. He cracked some ponderous joke about the name of this village.”
“He’s not making them now, my dear,” Mrs. Fawkes put in. “And even sham silk stockings would be work of the greatest national importance. All the same, Mr. Mortimer Shearsby was just a little complacent. He talked of his cousin as though writers were rather disreputable. And he lectured me about my garden.”
“Did he want you to stick a few stone imps and frogs about?” Harvey inquired.
“He did, Mr. Tuke. So you know him?”
“We have met. I believe both the Mortimer Shearsbys came to see their cousin a month or two ago?”
“They did,” said the Vicar. “I didn’t see them. He told me. He said he wondered why. He wasn’t much interested in his family, and he couldn’t stick that inflated ass, anyway.”
“Did he ever comment on any of his other cousins?”
“Comment? No. He only mentioned them casually.”
“Or refer to some money that was coming to him?”
“Oh, yes, he talked about that. His great-grandmother, wasn’t it?” He said he was content to grub along now, because he wouldn’t have to wait much longer. Then he’d be able to write the sort of stuff he wanted to write. Poor fellow!”
“A tragic business,” Harvey agreed. “Did he happen to speak recently of meeting another relative whom he’d supposed to be dead?”
The Vicar’s energetic nod made his white plume dance. “Yes, he did. Let me see, when was it? A couple of months ago. He’d been to London, and he met this chap there.”
“Did he mention the name?”
“No. I think I assumed it was Shearsby too.”
“Did he say how they came to meet, or anything about the man?”
Mr. Fawkes shook his head. “No. He merely said that an odd thing had happened—he’d run across some cousin of sorts who was supposed to have died abroad fifteen or twenty years ago. It was just a casual remark. I’d asked if he’d had a good time in London, or something of the kind. He didn’t go into details, and he never mentioned it again.”
Mr. Tuke’s hopes, which had risen, were being dashed again, but he persisted.
“I should be grateful if you would search your memory, Mr. Fawkes, for anything, however trifling, that Shearsby told you about this meeting.”
The Vicar’s very blue eyes looked inquisitively at the visitor. They narrowed as his bristling white brows contracted in an effort of recollection.
“I told that policeman all I knew, which wasn’t much. Shearsby seemed rather amused. He seemed to think his other cousins might be annoyed if they heard the news. But I gathered they were not to hear it. This—er—resurrection was to be very hush-hush, for some reason. He’d promised not to tell the others.
