Coroner's Pidgin by Margery Allingham Page B

afternoon for a chat and a sherry. When she left, she did not tell him where she was going. He says he did not ask her.”
    Yeo turned and looked at Stavros with gloomy speculation. “Don’t you want to add anything to that?” he said. “Nothing at all?”
    The Greek grimaced nervously at Campion. “It is never easy to explain one’s exact relations with a woman, is it?” he said.
    Yeo’s homely face cleared hopefully. “We’re all men of the world here, Mr. Stavros,” he said heartily, his fatherliness marred only by a gleam of policemanly embarrassment. “You won’t find us narrow-minded. You just say what you want to.”
    Stavros coloured under his dark skin, and Campion felt profoundly sorry for him. “I loved my wife,” said the man with an effort, “I loved her enough to marry her. Afterwards I still loved her, but not so much. She was not a woman to live with every day.”
    Holly’s glass-cold eyes became contemptuous, while Yeo’s were resigned. They were both married men, and Mrs. Yeo and Mrs. Holly were ladies who could be lived with every day or emphatically not at all. Stavros appeared aware of the impression he was making, but he floundered stoutly on.
    â€œWe lived very contentedly,” he persisted, his round brown eyes fixed on Yeo’s beseechingly. “Sometimes she came to see me, sometimes I visited her, but we did not live in the same house nor did we share the same friends. We were neither of us young, we were not unfaithful.”
    Holly’s head was inclining more and more to one side but Yeo had made up his mind to be sympathetic, and now did his best.
    â€œYes, I can see that,” he said mendaciously, “but surely she’d tell you where she was going?”
    â€œWhy?” The other man seemed astonished, and Yeo was put out of his stride.
    â€œI should have thought you’d have had a right to know,” said Holly primly.
    â€œBut I did not want to know. I did not know where she came from that afternoon; where we each went, what we each did, was not the other’s affair.”
    The constable wrote something in his notebook in a scholarly long-hand, and Campion glanced over his shoulder.
    â€˜Loveless marriage’, he had written, and had drawn a curling line under the words.
    Mr. Campion felt a trifle helpless. Yeo shook his head sadly. “You can’t help us then,” he said. “It’s a great pity, Mr. Stavros. After all, a woman has been foully done to death, and she was your wife.”
    â€œDo you think I do not know that?”
    The whole room was unprepared for the outburst. The man stood before them cracking visibly; his dignity and sophistication were gone, there were tears in his eyes and on his cheeks, and his mouth was ragged and hideous like the mouth of a tragedy mask.
    â€œDo you think I don’t know?” The words came in an ugly broken whisper, and he turned his back on them.
    Yeo, who was by nature the kindest of men, was appalled; his red face became a little blue as he stepped away from his victim, and buttonholed Holly.
    â€œHave you got the full description of the clothes she was wearing when he last saw her?” he muttered, dropping his voice so low that it sounded like a growl.
    â€œYes. That’s been done. I’ve got a note.”
    â€œGood. Well, I think I can leave this to you, Inspector.” Yeo was retreating in bad order, and was not concealing the fact. “He’ll have to identify her, you know, but give him time; don’t hustle him, it’s only a formality. Come on, Campion.”
    He hurried out of the room without a backward glance and paused in the passage to wipe his face.
    â€œThere you are,” he said, “I told you, I don’t understand these damned people. There was no fake about that, he’s genuinely upset.”
    â€œOf course he is, poor chap. He was in love with