Fen Country Read Free

for the life of him he was unable to take his aunt’s words seriously. Of course, there had been old ladies whose companions had murdered them for their money. But apparently Aunt Fancy wasn’t well off these days, and—No, no; ridiculous.
    They ate and drank and talked politely, and presently George rose to take his leave. The invitation to stay, he noted, was not renewed; and he was steadfast in avoiding his aunt’s eye. Persecution mania, he reflected, as he walked back to the village: poor old thing.
    But he always wondered, looking back on it afterward, how far he had really, in his inmost heart, believed that.
    Since it was impossible for him to get back to Oxford that night, he had booked a room at the village inn, intending to make the journey in the morning. But in actual fact it was forty-eight hours or more before he reappeared at his college.
    “So there I was, sir, stuck with it,” he told his tutor. “Aunt Fancy smothered with her own pillow during the night, the cottage burgled, policemen and lawyers to see, the body to identify—what with one thing and another, I was lucky to get away as soon as I did.”
    “My dear George,” said the tutor, whose name was Gervase Fen, “there’s no need to apologize. Without wishing to be unkind, I may say that all this is vastly more entertaining than your opinions on The Merchant of Venice. Of course, I’m very sorry about your aunt—”
    “That’s all right, sir,” George interrupted him. “I can’t say I’m all that cut up about it—except, of course, for the fact that I deliberately ignored her appeal for help; that’s not so funny. No, the point about it is that I’d never seen the old lady before, and she wasn’t really my aunt even—she was my stepfather’s sister—so naturally I don’t feel—”
    “Just so. Am I right in thinking that she was your only remaining relative?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Natural enough, then, that she should remember you in her will.”
    “Well, sir, not quite so natural as all that. You see, when my stepfather was alive she quarreled with him violently. And she’s never once written to me till just the other day, when she asked me to come and see her; so I certainly wasn’t expecting to inherit anything from her.”
    “Yes. Interesting. Let me get this straight, now. As I understand it, your aunt went out to Kenya some forty years ago and remained there solidly up till last month, when she embarked for England. Incidentally, why the move? Any particular reason?”
    “I gather she was running out of cash, sir. And if she’d got to pocket her pride and live on a more modest scale she preferred it to be in England, among strangers.”
    “I see. But in that case your inheritance—”
    “Life insurance, sir: there’s a big sum to come in life insurance. The companion—Miss Preedy—gets half, and I get the other half. ” George hesitated; then burst out: “Look here, sir, who do you think did the murder? Was it a burglar? Or was it Miss Preedy?”
    “Neither,” said Fen promptly. “Have you a photograph of your aunt?”
    George shook his head, bewildered. “I haven’t, l’m afraid. But—”
    “Then we must rely,” Fen interposed, “on Dawkins—an ex-pupil of mine. For some years now Dawkins has been living and working in Nairobi. Also, he is an indefatigable diner-out. You can take it from me that there is no one more likely to be able to give me the facts about your aunt and Miss Preedy than Dawkins.”
    Fen rose. “The cablegram service is quick,” he observed, “so I think that if you were to come back in, say, a couple of hours—”
    And two hours later the reply had, in fact, arrived. “ FANCY LOOMIS FAIRLY DEAF, ” George read with astonishment, “ PREEDY NOT DEAF AT ALL GREETINGS DAWKINS. But what does it mean, sir?” George demanded helplessly.
    Fen grunted. “We shall have to confirm it by wiring photographs to Kenya,” he said, “and I’ve already rung up the police, and