Free Cargo of Eagles by Margery Allingham

gently she took hold of Hector Askew’s shoulders and leant his body back against the cushions. His eyes were wide open and his head lolled awkwardly to one side. It did not need expert knowledge to tell either of them that he was dead, but it was some minutes before Dr Jones straightened her back and looked her companion in the face.
    â€˜I thought he must have had a seizure of some sort,’ she said.‘But he hasn’t. I think he’s been shot. Very silly of me not to spot it straight away.’
    Suddenly her composure broke and Morty held out his arms to her. The fact that she was human enough to weep and be afraid was the one comfort he found in an ugly world.

5
The Company at The Demon
    THE INVESTIGATION OF homicide in England is subject to the same considerations which control most other enterprises in contemporary life. This means that laws of economics and the shortage of manpower put a limit on the time and staff which can be devoted to any one problem.
    The chain of enquiries into the death of Hector Askew began with P.C. Simmonds, who was just starting an evening meal in his cottage when the news reached him, and ran from him to his superior at Nine Ash, thence to Chelmsford and finally to Scotland Yard. The possible connection between the murder and the poison pen outbreak was remarked with commendable speed and Sergeant Throstle found himself seconded to a murder squad to which he did not properly belong, under the leadership of Superintendent Gravesend, an officer who delighted in being called dynamic when his activities were noticed by the Press. By midnight there were five official cars parked outside the Angel and the inn itself did unexpectedly good business until it closed its doors to the general public with stop watch precision.
    Dido spent an uncomfortable night in an attic bedroom at The Demon and slept fitfully. The Superintendent and his team did not sleep at all, nor did they expect to. The modern intensive system of enquiry, which is to work with unremitting pressure until a case is broken, had found a high priest in Gravesend. He guarded his reputation with the care of a gardener watching over a rare plant, for it was his intention to retire early and to move on to better paid appointments.
    Throstle disliked him dispassionately but the situation was out of his control.
    By Sunday evening The Hollies had been searched from junk room to tool shed and before nightfall every inch of the overgrown garden and the copse beyond it had been trampled, beaten, prodded and given the appearance of an area recently tenanted by a battalion of cantankerous livestock. Nothing of any consequence was discovered.
    Hector Askew, it was established, had arrived at Saltey at about four o’clock on the afternoon of Friday, some two and a half hours before his appointment with Dido. He had left his car outside the Angel and gone directly to the house, where he had apparently unlocked all three outer doors and opened two windows at the back. But he had not been seen alive since he had walked up the drive. The transistor was his property and he was in the habit of using it to obtain racing results.
    No one had heard an identifiable shot and this was not remarkable since two young men admitted spending their afternoon shooting at rooks and three motor cyclists had rushed through the village headed for Mob’s Bowl without benefit of silencer.
    By Tuesday evening three hundred and twelve grudging statements had been taken, signed, co-ordinated, corroborated and their makers temporarily eliminated. Askew had died at some time between five and six as a result of a shot from a 3.8 pistol which had not been discovered.
    On Thursday in the early evening the Superintendent sat in P.C. Simmonds’ office parlour and looked morosely from his official report to his private notes. He had drawn a complete blank and no amount of detail or of word spinning could change the fact. Saltey had treated him and his