The Fashion In Shrouds by Margery Allingham Page B

Ramillies’s voice sounded disappointed in the doorway. ‘Why? What’s the matter now?’ He seemed to have forgotten his flamboyant exit of ten minutes before, and came in jauntily pleased with himself as ever.
    Georgia stood looking at him steadily.
    â€˜Albert Campion says Richard committed suicide. He seems to think there’s no doubt about it.’
    â€˜Oh?’ Ramillies’s casualness was remarkable and Campion wished he knew the man better. From what he had seen of him so far the reaction might mean absolutely anything, even genuine disinterest. Since no one else spoke it came to Ramillies somewhat belatedly that further comment was expected. ‘It’s a long time ago, anyhow,’ he remarked with singularly unhappy effect. ‘There’ll be no ferreting about either, which is one good thing. That’s the one advantage of suicide; everyone knows who did it,’ he ended lamely, and remained looking at his wife.
    Georgia kept her eyes upon him for almost a minute and, having subdued him, turned to Dell.
    â€˜Would you be most terribly kind and drive me home?’
    â€˜Why, yes. Yes, of course.’ He looked a little startled. ‘Of course,’ he repeated. ‘I’d like to.’
    â€˜Bless you,’ said Georgia and smiled at him faintly.
    â€˜Oh, I’ll take you home if you really want to go,’ put in Ramillies without much enthusiasm.
    She drew away from him.
    â€˜I’m not sure if I ever want to speak to you again,’ she said distinctly and went out, taking Dell with her.
    â€˜What on earth did she mean by that?’ demanded Ferdie Paul.
    Ramillies turned to look at him and there was, incongruously, the suggestion of a smile in the many creases round his eyes.
    â€˜God knows, my dear fellow,’ he said. ‘God knows.’

Chapter Five
    THERE IS A distinct difference between the state of believing something to be true and knowing it to be so, with the paid stamp of an official opinion affixed to the knowledge.
    When the embarrassed foreman of the Coroner’s jury stood up in the cool dark village hall at Wellferry and stated that he and his confrerès were convinced that the skeleton found in the bushes at Eves Hall on the Shelley road was the skeleton of Richard Portland-Smith, who had died by his own hand – a hand which had first thrust the barrel of a revolver into his mouth and then pulled the trigger – and that in their considered opinion he must have been of unsound mind at the time to have done such a thing, Mr Campion felt aware of a distinct wave of relief, a comforting confirmation and a full stop, as it were.
    He was sitting beside the man who was his friend and client at the end of a row of church chairs arranged against a wall of the converted army hut, and the scene before him was melancholy and very human. It was a Coroner’s Court in essence, the bare practical bones of that judicial proceeding which has remained sound and useful from far-off simple times. A man had died mysteriously and nine of his countrymen had met together on the common ground of their patrial birth to decide how such a calamity had befallen him. There had been no decoration, no merciful arabesques of judicial pomp to smother the stark proceedings. The witnesses had come to the T-shaped table and muttered their depositions with nervous humility, while the jury had listened stolidly and afterwards shuffled out to the little cloak-room behind the stage on which the Conservative Concerts were held in the spring, and had returned, self-conscious and unhappy, to give their verdict.
    Now the Coroner with the patchy pink face and the unfortunate air of being unaccustomed to his job wriggled in his chair. He glanced shyly at the four pressmen at the far end of the table, almost, it would seem, in the hope of getting a little appreciation from them, or at least some indication that he had been ‘all right’, and