'The young woman informed me that she was a great friend of yours, sir, which was why she took the liberty of calling on you so late.' He spoke sadly, intimating that the rebuke hurt him as much as it did me. He opened the breakfast-room door.
'Yoo-hoo!' said someone inside.
Pepper withdrew and Miss Effie Rowlandson rose to meet me.
'O-oh!' she said, glancing up at me under fluttering lashes, 'you're not really, truly cross, are you?'
I am afraid I looked at her blankly. She was petite, blonde, and girlish, with starry eyes and the teeth of a toothpaste advertisement. Her costume was entirely black save for a long white quill in her hat, and the general effect lay somewhere between Hamlet and Aladdin.
'O-oh, you don't remember me,' she said. 'O-oh, how awful of me to have come! I made sure you'd remember me. I am a silly little fool, aren't I?'
She conveyed that I was a bit of a brute, but that she did not blame me, and life was like that.
'Perhaps you've got hold of the wrong man?' I suggested helpfully.
'O-oh no...' Again her lashes fluttered at me. 'I remember you — at the funeral, you know.' She lowered her voice modestly on the last words.
Suddenly she came back to me with a rush. She was the girl at Peters's funeral. Why I should have forgotten her and remembered the old man, I do not know, save that I recollect feeling that she was not the right person to stare at.
'Ah, yes,' I said slowly. 'I do remember now.'
She clapped her hands and squealed delightedly.
'I knew you would. Don't ask me why, but I just knew it. I'm like that sometimes. I just know things.'
At this point the conversation came to an abrupt deadlock. I was not at my best, and she stood looking at me, a surprisingly shrewd expression in her light grey eyes.
'I knew you'd help me,' she added at last.
I was more than ever convinced that I was not her man, and was debating how to put it when she made a surprising statement.
'He trampled on me,' she said. 'I don't know when I've been so mistaken in a man. Still, a girl does make mistakes, doesn't she, Mr Campion? I see I made a mistake in saying I was such an old friend of yours when we'd only met once — or really only just looked at each other. I know that now. I wouldn't do it again.'
'Miss Rowlandson,' I said, 'why have you come? I — er — I have a right to know,' I added stalwartly, trying to keep in the picture.
She peered at me. 'O-oh, you're hard, aren't you?' she said. 'All men are hard, aren't they? They're not all like him though. O-oh, he was hard! Still,' she added, with a wholly unconvincing attempt at gallant restraint, 'I ought not to talk about him like that, did I, when he's dead — if he is dead. Is he?'
'Who?'
She giggled. 'You're cautious, aren't you? Are all detectives cautious? I like a man to be cautious. Roly Peters, of course. I use to call him Roly-Poly. That used to make him cross. You'd never guess how cross that used to make him. Poor Roly-Poly! It's wrong to laugh when he's dead — if he is dead. Do you know?'
'My dear girl,' I said. 'We went to his funeral, didn't we?'
I suppose I spoke sharply, for her manner changed. She assumed a spurious dignity and sat down, arranging her short black skirts about her thin legs with great care.
'I've come to consult you, Mr Campion,' she said. 'I'm putting all my cards on the table. I want to know if you're satisfied about that funeral?'
'It wasn't much to do with me,' I countered, temporarily taken aback.
'Oh, wasn't it? Well, why was you there? That's pinked you, hasn't it? I'm a straightforward girl, Mr Campion, and I want a straight answer. There was something funny about that funeral, and you know it.'
'Look here,' I said, 'I'm perfectly willing to help you. Suppose you tell me why you think I can.'
She looked at me steadily. 'You've been to a good school, haven't you?' she said. 'I always think it helps a man to have gone to a good school. Then you know he's a gentleman; I always say that. Well, I'll trust you. I don't often. And if you let me down, well, I've been silly again, that's all. I was engaged to marry Roly Peters, Mr Campion, and then he went and died in a hole-and-corner nursing home and left all his money to his brother. If you don't think that's suspicious, I do.'
I hesitated. 'You think it's odd because he left his brother everything?' I began.
Effie Rowlandson interrupted me.
'I think it's funny he died at all, if you ask me,' she said. 'I'd threatened him with a lawyer, I had really. I had the letters and everything.'
I said nothing, and she grew very pink.
'Think what you like about me, Mr Campion,' she said, 'but I've got feelings and I've worked very hard to get married. I think he's done the dirty on me. If he's hiding I'll find him, if it's the last thing I do.'
She sat looking at me like a suddenly militant sparrow.
'I came to you,' she said, 'because I heard you were a detective and I liked your face.'
'Splendid! But why come here?' I demanded. 'Why come to Kepesake, of all places?'
Effie Rowlandson drew a deep breath. 'I'll tell you the truth, Mr Campion,' she said.
Once again her lashes flickered, and I felt that our brief period of plain dealing was at an end.
'I've got a friend in this village, and he's seen my photographs of Roly Peters. He's an old man, known me for years.'
She paused, and eyed me to see if I was with her or against her, and apparently she was reassured, for she went on breathlessly:
'A few days ago he wrote me, this friend of mine did. "There's a gentleman in the village very like a friend of yours," he wrote. "If I were you I'd come and have a look at him. It might be worth your while." I came as soon as I could, and when I got here I found this man I'd come to see had got himself killed only this morning. I heard you were in the village, so I came along.'
I began to follow her. 'You want to identify him?' I said. She nodded resolutely.
'Why come to me? Why not go to the authorities?'
Her reply was disarming. 'Well, you see, I felt I knew you,' she said.
I considered. The advantages of a witness at this juncture were inestimable.
'When can you be down at the police station?'
'I'd like to go now.'
It was late for the country, and I said so, but she was adamant.
'I've made up my mind to it and I shan't sleep if I've got it hanging over me till tomorrow. Take me down now in your car. Go on, you know you can. I am being a nuisance, aren't I? But I'm like that. If I make up my mind to a thing, I fret till I've done it. I should be quite ill by the morning, I should really.'
There was nothing else for it. I knew from experience that it is safest to catch a witness as soon as he appears on the scene.
I rang the bell, and told the girl who answered it to send Lugg round with the car. Then, leaving Miss Rowlandson in the breakfast-room, I went to find Janet.
It was not a very pleasant interview. Janet is a dear girl, but she can be most obtuse. When she went to bed, which she did with some dignity a few minutes after I had located her, I went back to the breakfast-room.
Lugg seemed a little surprised when I appeared with Miss Rowlandson. I tucked her into the back of the car, and climbed into the front seat beside him. He let in the clutch, and as we roared down the drive in fourth he leant towards me.
'Ever see a cat come out of a dawg-kennel?' he murmured, and added when I stared at him: 'Gives you a bit of a turn. That's all.'
We drove on in silence. I began to feel that my friend, Miss Effie Rowlandson, was going to be a responsibility.
It was a strange night with a great moon sailing in an infinite sky. Small odd-shaped banks of cumulus clouds swam over it from time to time, but for the most part it remained bland and bald as the knob on a brass bedstead.