CHAPTER NINE
The Indelicate Creature
I
f
the extreme unpopularity of Lady Pethwick produced in her immediate household an emotion more akin to quiet shock than overwhelming grief at her death, the village of Sanctuary seethed with excitement at the news of it, and the most extravagant gossip was rife.
Mr Campion wandered about the vicinity in a quiet, ineffectual fashion, his eyes vague and foolish behind his spectacles, but his ears alert. He learnt within a very short space of time, and on very good authority in every case, that Lady Pethwick had been (a) murdered by Gypsies; (b) confronted by the Devil, who had thereupon spirited her away at the direct instigation of Mrs Munsey; and (c) according to the more prosaic wiseacres, had died in the normal way from drink, drugs, or sheer
