Police at the Funeral Read Online Free PDF Page A

– 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.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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 olddears 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.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜You know what stupid things people do quarrel about if they don’t like one another.’
    He nodded comprehendingly, and she went on.
    â€˜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