Post After Post-Mortem by E.C.R. Lorac

Author:E.C.R. Lorac
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2022-12-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter IX

Macdonald did not return to London on the Monday night as he had originally intended to do; he had an idea which he wanted to try out, and the report which he received from Detective Reeves seemed to indicate that Upwood, rather than London, was the strategic point for the time being. Reeves had been very successful in “tailing” Brandon, and had run the latter to earth near Moreton-in-the-Marsh. In a wooded lane, about half a mile from the village, stood a small stone cottage belonging to a painter named Flemming, and Reeves had followed Brandon until the latter stopped outside the cottage and had admitted himself with a key.

After a guarded inspection of the cottage from without, Reeves had proceeded to find the nearest neighbours, and by dint of pretending that he was looking for a small house in the neighbourhood (“Something with a nice bit of ground, large enough for chickens,” explained Reeves) the detective had learnt the name of the owner, and the fact that Mr. Flemming often lent his cottage to friends, but it was no use hoping he’d let it or sell it.

“What about the bloke who’s there now?” inquired Reeves. “I didn’t like to stop him and ask him questions. Big fair fellow, looks a nob, and got a car that’s too big for the lane.”

“Mr. Keith that’d be. My girl’s been doing for him. He stops a night or so occasionally.” Reeves’s informant—a farmer in a very small way—looked knowingly at his questioner. “Big fair chap, as you say. Struck me and my missis that he’d a look of some one who’d been in the papers lately. Not the same name, though.”

“Funny you should say that,” said Reeves. “Same thing struck me. Relative, perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” said the farmer. “He’s thinking of joining the Hunt, maybe. Got a bit of a hunter’s eye.”

He chuckled wheezily, and Reeves joined in with a snigger and then added: “I reckon you’re a sportsman. Like to take a bet—five to one in shillings? Easy enough to find out if you’re right about who the bloke is. In my own opinion it’s not the same one. Matter of likeness, that’s all.”

“Tell that to the marines. But how’ll you settle it?”

“Like this: D’you know which night the chap stayed down here? A man can’t be in two places at once if you take me. The other one’s always in the papers.”

“Um…lemme think. To-day’s Monday. He wasn’t down here last week; it’d be the week before. Market day—Thursday—that was it.”

“Not since then?” asked Reeves, and the farmer went on:

“Not to stay at the cottage. Leastways, he’s not had any cleaning nor cooking done; but our Jack saw his car out Upwood way on last Sunday evening, late. That’s a very handsome car he’s got, that is.”

“It is—striking, as you might say,” replied Reeves. “I’ll look into it. Sunday evening, you said—that’d be a week ago yesterday, the 29th?”

“That’d be it.”

“Well, if I find out that the party you thinks he might

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