The Fashion In Shrouds by Margery Allingham

it’s ordinary, it’s provincial. D’you know, last week the most fashionable woman in London rushed in to tell me that her husband had thrashed her within an inch of her life and pitched her boy-friend through a first-story window into a holly hedge. She was scandalized but terribly excited.’
    â€˜Dear me,’ said Mr Campion mildly. ‘You matched up her black eye in your new
peau de pêche noire
, I hope? Oh well, you surprise me. The old man must catch up on his homework. Let me get this straight. You seriously think that Sir Raymond Ramillies is capable of making a physical assault on Alan Dell?’
    â€˜I know he’s capable of it,’ said Val bluntly. ‘I’m telling you that I’m haunted by the idea that it’s likely. Naturally I’m bothered because I can’t tell if my worry is reasonable or just some silly physical reaction. I do have to explain things in detail to you. I thought you were so hot on understanding people.’
    â€˜I’ve been cheating all these years. I’m really Alice in Wonderland,’ said Mr Campion humbly. ‘Still, I’m picking up a crumb or two now in my fiddling little way. What am I expected to do? Stand by to plant my body between them to stop the bullet?’
    â€˜Oh, darling, don’t be a lout.’ Val was at her sweedling best. ‘I don’t know what I want. Can’t you see that? Just be about. I’m frightened of Ramillies. I don’t think he’d simply hit out like a Christian, but I think he might do something – something – well, elaborate. That’s the impression he gives me. I’m uneasy with him. After all, there was Portland-Smith, you know.’
    Mr Campion’s eyelids drooped.
    â€˜What about Portland-Smith?’ he said. ‘He committed suicide.’
    â€˜How do you know?’
    â€˜I do. There’s no doubt about it.’
    Val shrugged her shoulders.
    â€˜It was very convenient for Ramillies, wasn’t it?’ she said, sweeping away the facts with a carelessness that left him helpless. ‘There’s been no end of chatter about it in the last few weeks.’
    â€˜Then someone will get into trouble,’ Campion insisted firmly. ‘That’s pure slander.’
    â€˜You can’t have smoke without fire, my dear,’ said Val, and he could have slapped her because she was both unreasonable and quite right. ‘Now I’m going,’ she said. ‘Don’t come down with me. I’m sorry I’ve behaved like a neurotic. You ought to fall in love yourself sometime and get the angle.’
    He did not answer her immediately, but when he looked up his eyes were apologetic.
    â€˜It wouldn’t take me like that, you know,’ he remarked seriously.
    â€˜Evidently not.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜Well, where is she?’ Val’s glance round the room was expressive and she went off, leaving him reflecting that the gentle, conservative dog with his taboos, his conscience and his ideals was a rather pathetic, defenceless animal beside his ruthless, hag-ridden sister, the cat.
    Lugg’s stomach appeared round the doorway.
    â€˜Sex rearin’ its ugly ’ead again, eh?’ he remarked, coming into fuller view. ‘I didn’t ’ear ’er speak because I kep’ in the kitchen like a gent, but you can see it in ’er face, can’t you? Funny, we seem to ’ave struck a patch of it lately. It’s pitch, sex is. Once you touch it it clings to you. Why don’t you sneak off and come on this cruise we’re always talking about? Crime’s vulgar enough, but sex crime is common. There’s no other word for it. ’Oo’s she in love with? ’Andle to ’is name?’
    Mr Campion regarded him with disgust.
    â€˜You turn my stomach,’ he said. ‘I believe if you had a fortune you’d try to buy a title.’
    â€˜No, I