The Beckoning Lady by Margery Allingham

But we must wait for the doctor to tell us. There’s a hole in the poor bloke’s head as big as a house and we can’t think what it was done with.” He stepped back and his glance ran up and down and round and about where the light was slowly turning to gold, on to the cobbles by the door and back into the barn behind them. On every loose and heavy object, a bootscraper, a spade by the gate, a hoe-head lying in the grass, it paused and rested for a while. “We just can’t think at all,” he said.
    â€œAny hope of identification?”
    Instantly the smiling eyes met his own. “Hope?” South enquired softly. “There’s always a hope, Mr. Campion, even though every scrap of paper on the fellow has been taken away by some wicked thieving person. His money wasn’t touched. He had two pounds three shillings and fivepence on him, but he hadn’t a watch and he hadn’t a baccy-poke, and there were no shreds of tobacco in the linings of his pockets. I wonder if I could bother you for a cigarette, Mr. Campion?”
    The thin man produced his case gravely and offered it to him. “Sailors,” he said. “Or I have some Laymans.”
    South was still grinning, but he was disappointed. “Thank you very much,” he said helping himself. “I usually smoke Blue Zephyrs,” he added shamelessly.
    â€œThen you do yourself proud,” murmured Mr. Campion, still very seriously. “The telephone number you want, Superintendent, is Whitehall A-B-A-B, extension two hundred. They’ll tell you anything you want to know about me. Ask after Jean.”
    The countryman’s grin grew broader and broader and his dancing eyes were merrily abashed.
    â€œThat’s one little job done then,” he said meaningly.“How was I to know? Well now, what do you think that is then, Mr. Campion, that dead feller?”
    â€œI haven’t the faintest idea and I can’t imagine. To the best of my belief I’ve never seen him before.”
    â€œHa,” said Fred South, “I have.” He took off his green pork-pie hat to scratch his thinning crown. “Blow me, I can’t think where.”
    â€œWill it be possible to take prints?”
    He nodded, laughing and twinkling with implied confiding. “Surely. He’s nowhere near as far gone as we thought. The doctor says about a week, and he’s never very far wrong. Wonderful nose for a corpse, the doctor. But I don’t think we shall find this fellow’s picture in the library. If I see a wicked man alive or dead, and I ought to know him, I get a kind of pricking here.” He held up his solid red thumb. “I don’t know why. I had an old granny who could do the same kind of thing. A terrible old woman she was. This chap’ll come back to me sooner or later.”
    â€œAre you sure you’ve seen him?”
    Fred South nodded again and swayed a little on the balls of his feet. Innuendoes and hidden meanings, each presented with smiles and chuckles, seemed to shoot out of him like sparks. The thin man found him terrifying.
    â€œI’ve seen the fellow,” South said when he had finished giggling. “I’ve seen him and I’ve got something against him. Yet I don’t think he’s a client of ours. I may be wrong, but I don’t think so. I’ll have him cleaned up and I’ll pore over him.”
    â€œI wish you luck,” said Mr. Campion. “Do you want to see anybody else here?”
    â€œNo.” The Superintendent was shaking his head in helpless mirth over some joke which he clearly felt they shared. “No, I just wanted to find out if everybody who was here about a week ago is still here and intends to remain here, and I can best do that in the kitchen, I think.” His glance slid to Lugg and he creaked a little as if he was suppressing roars of laughter. “No need to disturb thedistinguished lady painter, nor