Free The Longer Bodies by Gladys Mitchell Page B

complete assurance.
    â€˜Companion,’ squealed old Mrs Puddequet, justly incensed at being deprived of her legitimate prey, ‘don’t be a fool! The boy on the right is not attending!’
    â€˜No, Mrs Puddequet,’ responded Miss Caddick soothingly, ‘but we must think of habeas corpus! And now you are a little fatigued. Will you not return to the house and rest awhile?’
    Great-aunt Puddequet snorted with contempt at this eminently reasonable proposal.
    â€˜The inspector and the sergeant will be here again this afternoon. The inquest is on Monday. I have sent Mrs Hobson five pounds. The statue of the little mermaid was retrieved from the deep by Grandnephew Malpas Yeomond this morning. I love my love with an M because he was murdered. Pippa Passes,’ she observed, with startling emphasis and great satisfaction. Miss Caddick, a serious student of what she herself always termed English Literature, not knowing what to make of this surprising
te deum
, compromised with her intelligence by smiling with vague pleasure and nodding her neat head to indicate that she recognized the title of the mentioned poem; then, taking firm hold of her courage, she turned the bathchair in the direction of the house, while the reporters made swift tracks for what they were already calling the Fatal Mere.
    It was Great-aunt Puddequet’s custom when something caused her particular pleasure to murmur in reverent tones, ‘God’s in His Heaven. All’s right with the world.’ When her conscience informed her, however, that her joy was ill-founded or was the result of envy, hatred, malice or any other of the virile human emotions which her generation classed among the seven deadly sins, she was in the habit of remarking in a loud and cheerful voice, ‘Pippa Passes.’
    This meant the same thing as the quotation, was a code rendering of a great spiritual truth, and possessed, in common with most other codes, the inestimable advantage of being uninterpretable by the chance hearer.
    Having delivered her mistress over to the company of Amaris Cowes, who had promised to teach her a new version of the game of Patience, Miss Caddick went in search of Joseph Herring.
    The Scrounger was cleaning out the rabbit-hutches. Old Mrs Puddequet’s pets were nibbling some early spring greens at his feet. The new arrival, previous name unknown, seemed to have settled down without trouble, and, like his companions, was making brisk headway with the succulent provender.
    â€˜Oh, Herring,’ said Miss Caddick, ‘you are to go up to the house and put away the bathchair. Mrs Puddequet will not require it again until after lunch. You will please go at once.’
    Joe regarded her sourly.
    â€˜Ho?’ he observed truculently. ‘I will, will I? And what about the b— rabbits? Am I to give over cleanin’ of ’em out? You know best, of course.’
    He readdressed himself to the good work, and whistled insolently.
    â€˜Herring,’ replied Miss Caddick, ‘you know how Mrs Puddequet dislikes the sight of the bathchair when it is not in use. I am only repeating her orders.’
    She turned and walked away. Joe scooped up a shovelful of sawdust and scattered it liberally about the hutch he had been cleaning. Then he took a handful of straw and proceeded to wipe his hands on it.
    Miss Caddick, at the gate of the kitchen garden, looked back at him. Joe caught her eye, and, avoiding it again, bent and picked up the rabbits, which he gently replaced in the hutches.
    Then he looked up again, but Miss Caddick had disappeared.
    â€˜Ho! So you’ve spotted the noo one, have you?’ he remarked savagely to himself. He glared defiantly at the currant bushes, and then spat with great accuracy into the half-coconut which his enemy had hung for a bird bowl on the low branch of a neighbouring apple tree.
III
    â€˜The only thing is,’ said old Mrs Puddequet shrilly, ‘that you