The Case of the Late Pig

By Margery Allingham

A man is killed five months after his funeral, in a tale by “one of the greatest mid-20th-century practitioners of the detective novel” (Alexander McCall Smith).

Private detective Albert Campion is summoned to the village of Kepesake to investigate a particularly distasteful death. The body turns out to be that of Pig Peters, freshly killed five months after his own funeral. Soon other corpses start to turn up, just as Peters’s body goes missing. It takes all Campion’s coolly incisive powers of detection to unravel the crime.

The Case of the Late Pig is, uniquely, narrated by Campion himself. In Allingham’s inimitable style, high drama sits neatly beside pitch-perfect black comedy. A heady mix of murder, romance, and the urbane detective's own unglamorous past make this an Allingham mystery not to be missed.

“My very favourite of the four Queens of Crime is Allingham.”—J. K. Rowling

“Margery Allingham deserves to be rediscovered.”—P.D. James

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Apr 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781504087308

Margery Allingham

Margery Louise Allingham is ranked among the most distinguished and beloved detective fiction writers of the Golden Age alongside Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh. Allingham is J.K. Rowling's favourite Golden Age author and Agatha Christie said of Allingham that out of all the detective stories she remembers, Margery Allingham 'stands out like a shining light'. She was born in Ealing, London in 1904 to a very literary family; her parents were both writers, and her aunt ran a magazine, so it was natural that Margery too would begin writing at an early age. She wrote steadily through her school days, first in Colchester and later as a boarder at the Perse School for Girls in Cambridge, where she wrote, produced, and performed in a costume play. After her return to London in 1920 she enrolled at the Regent Street Polytechnic, where she studied drama and speech training in a successful attempt to overcome a childhood stammer. There she met Phillip Youngman Carter, who would become her husband and collaborator, designing the jackets for many of her future books. The Allingham family retained a house on Mersea Island, a few miles from Layer Breton, and it was here that Margery found the material for her first novel, the adventure story Blackkerchief Dick (1923), which was published when she was just nineteen. She went on to pen multiple novels, some of which dealt with occult themes and some with mystery, as well as writing plays and stories – her first detective story, The White Cottage Mystery, was serialized in the Daily Express in 1927. Allingham died at the age of 62, and her final novel, A Cargo of Eagles, was finished by her husband at her request and published posthumously in 1968.

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The Case of the Late Pig

Also By Margery Allingham

Blackkerchief Dick

The White Cottage Mystery

The Crime at Black Dudley

Mystery Mile

Look to the Lady

Police at the Funeral

Sweet Danger

Death of a Ghost

Flowers for the Judge

The Case of the Late Pig

Dancers in Mourning

The Fashion in Shrouds

Black Plumes

Traitor’s Purse

Dance of the Years

Coroner’s Pidgin

More Work for the Undertaker

The Tiger in the Smoke

The Beckoning Lady

Hide My Eyes

The China Governess

The Mind Readers

Cargo of Eagles

The Darings of the Red Rose

Novellas & Short Stories

Mr. Campion: Criminologist

Mr. Campion and Others

Wanted: Someone Innocent

The Casebook of Mr Campion

Deadly Duo

No Love Lost

The Allingham Casebook

The Allingham Minibus

The Return of Mr. Campion

Room to Let: A Radio-Play

Campion at Christmas

Non-Fiction

The Oaken Heart: The Story of an English Village at War

As Maxwell March

Rogue’s Holiday

The Man of Dangerous Secrets

The Devil and Her Son

The Case of the Late Pig

An Albert Campion Mystery

Margery Allingham

For Mr Malcolm Johnson

from Mr Albert Campion

1

The Invitations to the Funeral were Informal

The main thing to remember in autobiography, I have always thought, is not to let any damned modesty creep in to spoil the story. This adventure is mine, Albert Campion’s, and I am fairly certain that I was pretty nearly brilliant in it, in spite of the fact that I so nearly got myself and old Lugg killed, that I hear a harp quintet whenever I consider it.

It begins with me eating in bed.

Lord Powne’s valet took lessons in elocution and since then has read The Times to His Lordship while His Lordship eats his unattractive nut-and-milk breakfast.

Lugg, who in spite of magnificent qualities has elements of an oaf about him, met His Lordship’s valet in the Mayfair mews pub where they cater for gentlemen in the service of gentlemen and was instantly inspired to imitation. Lugg has not taken lessons in elocution, at least not since he left Borstal in the reign of Edward the Seventh. When he came into my service he was a parole man with a stupendous record of misplaced bravery and ingenuity. Now he reads The Times to me when I eat, whether I like it or not.

Since his taste does not run towards the literary in journalism he reads to me the only columns in that paper which do appeal to him. He reads the Deaths.

‘Peters … ’ he read, heaving his shirt-sleeved bulk between me and the light. ‘Know anyone called Peters, cock?’

I was reading a letter which had interested me particularly because it was both flowery and unsigned and did not hear him, so presently he laid down the paper with gentle exasperation.

‘Answer me, can’t you?’ he said plaintively. ‘What’s the good of me trying to give this place a bit of tone if you don’t back me up? Mr Turke says, ’Is Lordship is most attentive during the readings. He chews everything ’e eats forty times before ’e swallers and keeps ’is mind on everything that’s being read to ’im.’

‘So I should think,’ I said absently. I was taken by the letter. It was not the ordinary anonymous filth by any means. ‘PETERS—RI Peters, aged 37, on Thursday the 9th, at Tethering, after a short illness. Funeral, Tethering Church, 2.30 Saturday. No flowers. Friends will accept this as the only intimation.’

Lugg reads horribly and with effect

The name attracted me.

‘Peters?’ I said, looking up from the letter with interest ‘RI Peters … Pig Peters. Is it in there?’

‘Oh, my gawd!’ Lugg threw down the paper in disgust ‘You’re a philistine, that’s what you are, a ruddy phyllis. After a perishing short illness, I keep tellin’ you. Know ’im?’

‘No,’ I said cautiously. ‘Not exactly. Not now.’

Lugg’s great white moon of a face took on an ignoble expression.

‘I get you, Bert,’ he said smugly, tucking his chins into his collarless neck. ‘Not quite our class.’

Although I realise that he is not to be altered, there are things I dare not pass.

‘Not at all,’ I said with dignity. ‘And don’t call me Bert.’

‘All right’ He was magnanimous. ‘Since you’ve asked me, cock, I won’t. Mr Albert Campion to the world: Mr Albert to me. What about this bloke Peters we was discussin’?’

‘We were boys together,’ I said. ‘Sweet downy, blue-eyed little fellows at Botolph’s Abbey. Pig Peters took three square inches of skin off my chest with a rusty penknife to show I was his branded slave. He made me weep till I was sick, and I kicked him in the belly, whereupon he held me over an unlighted gas jet until I passed out.’

Lugg was shocked.

‘There was no doings like that at our college,’ he said virtuously.

‘That’s the evil of State control,’ I said gently, not anxious to appear unkind. ‘I haven’t seen Peters since the day I went into the sicker with carbon monoxide poisoning, but I promised him then I’d go to his funeral.’

He was interested at once.

‘I’ll get out your black suit,’ he said obligingly. ‘I like a funeral—when it’s someone you know.’

I was not really listening to him. I had returned to the letter.

Why should he die? He was so young. There are thousands more fitting than he for the journey. ‘Peters, Peters,’ saith the angel. ‘Peters, Pietro, Piero, come,’ saith the angel. Why? Why should he follow him? He that was so strong, so unprepared, why should he die? The roots are red in the earth and the century creepeth on its way. Why should the mole move backwards?—it is not yet eleven.

It was typewritten on ordinary thin quarto, as are all these things, but it was not misspelt, and the punctuation was meticulous, which was an unusual feature in my experience. I showed it to Lugg.

He read it through laboriously and delivered himself of his judgement with engaging finality.

‘Bit out of the Prayer Book,’ he said. ‘I remember learning it when I was a nipper.’

‘Don’t be an ass,’ I said mildly, but he coloured, and his little black eyes sank into my head.

‘Call me a liar,’ he said truculently. ‘Go on, call me a liar and then I’ll do a bit of talking.’

I know him in these moods and I realised from experience that it was impossible to shake him in a theory of this sort.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘What does it mean?’

‘Nothing,’ he said with equal conviction.

I tried another tack.

‘What’s the machine?’

He was helpful at once.

‘A Royal portable, new or newish, no peculiarities to speak of. Even the E is as fresh as that bit of ’addock you’ve left. Paper’s the ordinary Plantag. They sell reams of it everywhere. Let’s see the envelope. London, WC1,’ he continued after a pause. ‘That’s the old central stamp. Clear, isn’t it? The address is from the telephone book. Chuck it in the fire.’

I still held the letter. Taken in conjunction with the announcement in The Times it had, it seemed to me, definite points of interest. Lugg sniffed at me.

‘Blokes like you who are always getting their selves talked about are bound to get anonymous letters,’ he observed, allowing the critical note in his tone to become apparent. ‘While you remained strictly amateur you was fairly private, but now you keep runnin’ round with the busies, sticking your nose into every bit of blood there is about, and you’re gettin’ talked of. We’ll ’ave women sittin’ on the stairs waitin’ for you to sign their names on piller-cases so they can embroider it if you go on the way you are going. Why can’t you take a quiet couple o’ rooms in a good neighbour’ood and play poker while you wait for your tided relative to die? That’s what a gentleman would do.’

‘If you were female and could cook I’d marry you,’ I said vulgarly. ‘You nag like a stage wife.’

That silenced him. He got up and waddled out of the room, the embodiment of dignified disgust.

I read the letter through again after I had eaten, and it sounded just as light-headed. Then I read The Times announcement.

RI Peters … It was Pig all right. The age fitted in. I remembered him booting us to persuade us to call him ‘Rip’. I thought of us as we were then, Guffy Randall and I and Lofty and two or three others. I was a neat little squirt with sleek white hair and goggles; Guffy was a tough for his age, which was ten and a quarter; and Lofty, who is now holding down his seat in the Peers with a passionate determination more creditable than necessary, was a cross between a small tapir and a more ordinary porker.

Pig Peters was a major evil in our lives at that time. He ranked with Injustice, The Devil, and Latin Prose. When Pig Peters fed the junior study fire with my collection of skeleton leaves I earnestly wished him dead, and, remembering the incident that morning at breakfast, I was mildly surprised to find that I still did.

Apparently, he was, too, according to The Times, and the discovery cheered me up. At twelve he was obese, red, and disgusting, with sandy lashes, and at thirty-seven I had no doubt he had been the same.

Meanwhile there was the sound of heavy breathing in the outer room and Lugg put his head round the door.

‘Cock,’ he said in a tone of diffident friendliness which showed that all was forgiven, ‘I’ve had a squint at the map. See where Tethering is? Two miles west of Kepesake. Going down?’

I suppose it was that which decided me. At Highwaters, in the parish of Kepesake, there lives Colonel Sir Leo Pursuivant, Chief Constable of the county and an extremely nice old boy. He has a daughter, Janet Pursuivant, whom I like still, in spite of everything.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘We’ll drop in at Highwaters on our way back.’

Lugg was in complete agreement. They had a nice piece of home-cured last time he was there, he said.

We went down in state. Lugg wore his flattest bowler, which makes him look like a thug disguised as a plainclothes man, and I was remarkably neat myself.

Tethering was hardly en fête. If you consider three square miles of osier swamp surrounding a ploughed hill on which five cottages, a largish house, and an ancient church crowd on each other’s toes in order to keep out of a river’s uncertain bed you have Tethering pretty accurately in your mind.

The churchyard is overgrown and pathetic and when we saw it in late winter it was a sodden mass of dead cow parsley. It was difficult not to feel sorry for Pig. He always had grand ideas, I remember, but there was nothing of pomp in his obsequies.

We arrived late—it is eighty miles from town—and I felt a trifle loutish as I pushed open the mouldering lich-gate and, followed by Lugg, stumbled over the ragged grass towards the little group by the grave.

The parson was old, and I suspected that he had come on the bicycle I had seen outside the gate, for the skirts of his cassock were muddy.

The sexton was in corduroys and the bearers in dungarees.

The other members of the group I did not notice until afterwards. A funeral is an impressive business even among the marble angels and broken columns of civilisation. Here, out of the world in the rain-soaked silence of a forgotten hillside, it was both grim and sad.

As we stood there in the light shower the letter I had received that morning faded out of my mind. Peters had been an ordinary unlovable sort of twerp, I supposed, and he was being buried in an ordinary unloved way. There was really nothing curious about it.

As the parson breathed the last words of the service, however, an odd thing happened. It startled me so much that I stepped back on Lugg and almost upset him.

Even at twelve and a half Pig had had several revolting personal habits and one of them was a particularly

Reviews for The Case of the Late Pig

[quondame · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Albert Campion should know that more is going on than the apparent but this is a tale of bungling as much as anything as he sees the body of a man whose funeral he attended months before.

[helenliz_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is unusual. It's narrated in the first person by Albert Campion himself, which is not how the remainder of the series have been written so far. It starts with a funeral in January of Pig Peters, someone who Campion went to school with and at whose hands he suffered being bullied. Come June and there's a body turned up in a country village of some friends of his, and so Campion goes to try and sort it out - only to find that the body appears to be that of Pig himself. This time he has had is head bashed in by a giant flower urn from a parapet - no chance of rising from the dead this time, although the body does go walkabouts at one point - Pig appears to be a particularly active corpse. From the varied range of people present in the environs, Campion has to work out who is what they say they are and who is dissembling. There's a lot of misdirection, and a close call at the end before the villain is exposed.It's entertaining and engaging.

[auntie0nanuuq · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I liked the plot & story, I didn't like how it was written... The writing and going around & around was confusing...Albert Campion's valet, Lugg, reads the Death notices to Campion every morning while Campion has his breakfast. The current notices include a funeral for Pig Perry, a childhood tormentor of Albert and so he attends. Oddly there are few others in attendance, the Vicar, an odd young woman, an older man, and another man whom Albert & Pig also knew as a child.Months go by and Albert is called upon by a friend to investigate the death of a man who was plotting the hostile take-over of a quiet country hotel, a sort of club for the older gentlemen of the town. A drunken man seemingly goes to sleep in a lawn chair and killed when he's hit on the head by a falling cement flower urn which has been in place for hundreds of years!The problem is the man bears an exact resemblance to the late Pig Perry... Could it be that Pig had a brother? During the investigation of the death of Pig's "brother", they odd woman from the funeral turns up as do the others from the funeral. No one it seems is who they purport to be.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Case of the Late Pig by Margery Allingham is the 8th book in her crime series that features the dapper Albert Campion and his personal thug of a valet, Lugg. I was very happy that this outing featured Lugg in a fairly major way, as he always livens up the story.The Pig that is mentioned in the title is an old school rival of Campion’s and the book opens with Lugg reading the obituaries to Campion of which one is for the late R. I. “Pig” Peters. Campion attends his funeral but five months later he receives a call from an old friend and mentor to help solve a murder. When he arrives and examines the body, he finds it is none other than Pig. To complicate matters others who also attended the first Pig funeral arrive in the village and all too soon, Campion finds himself matching wits with a madman that has planned more than a few murders. To make matters even more confusing, Campion is dealing with a number of romantic high-jinks as well.Apparently this is the only book in the series that is actually narrated by Campion himself. It is quite short but there is plenty of action and Allingham delivers this mystery with a light hand and quite a bit of subtle humor. The Case of the Late Pig is a fun addition to the series.

[auntieknickers · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Excellent entry in this series, read a long time ago.

[lahochstetler · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Albert Campion is a gentleman inspector in the style of Dorothy Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey. Here Campion finds himself investigating the death of a former classmate. Pig Peters was a nasty child who grew into a nasty adult. Few people are sorry to see him die, even if he does appear to die twice. Campion attends Peters's funeral after reading a notice in the newspaper. Months later he happens upon a second funeral, also purported to be that of Pig Peters. The second time around Campion views the body in the morgue. It is unmistakably Peters. Who was buried at the first funeral? How did one or two people meet their death? These are the questions Campion sets out to answer. While reading this I was struck by the many similarities between Campion and Lord Peter Wimsey. Both are sons of minor gentry waiting to inherit. Both are dilettantes assisted by faithful valets. I found Campion's valet, Lugg, somewhat difficult to comprehend. He is presented as a large, hulking, almost ogre-like man who dons aprons and makes tea. I was unable to figure out how and why he is with Campion. Presumably this is explained earlier in the series. Jumping into the middle of the series made it somewhat difficult to understand all of the characters' quirks. This book is notable among recent mysteries I've read in that its ending is wholly satisfying. Generally when I read mysteries I enjoy the build-up and then find the ending to be a disappointment. With this book I had the opposite reaction. There were points where I got bored with the build-up, but the ending was full of suspense and intrigue.

[figgles_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Early Campion mystery. Enjoyable but not particularly notable, apart from being told in the firstperson by Albert Campion himself. One for the fans!

[eat_read_knit · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A short but very entertaining whodunnit: amateur sleuth Albert Campion is rather surprised to come across the freshly-murdered corpse of a man whose funeral he attended several months before (well, you would be, wouldn't you?) and sets out to investigate. The writing is tight and well-paced, the characterisation solid, and the denouement a lovely mixture of the blindingly obvious and the wholly unexpected.

[alexthehunn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Allingham writes with humor as she lets her little mysteries unfold. This book is no exceptions. We find the urge to complete the story irresistable, reading this slim volume cover to cover in a single day. Enjoy!

[bcquinnsmom · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I believe this is the only one in the series so far which has Mr. Albert Campion as the narrator of the story.Campion is reading the newspaper one morning and learns of the possible death of one of his old school fellows. He decides to attend the funeral to see if this is indeed that person, and comes across some rather odd people there. Six months later, he is in the same little village, where a man has just died. Albert goes to look at the dead man and guess what? It's the same man whose funeral he had attended 6 months earlier! So now he must get down to the bottom of things and figure what's going on.This is one of the better Campion mysteries; I didn't see the end coming until the last couple of chapters. I love this series, and if you follow the series, I think you'll agree this is one of the better ones. Very straightforward and the use of Campion as narrator worked well.recommended

[jargoneer · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A very English detective story set between the wars. Allingham, and her sleuth Albert Campion, are one of the mainstays of the classic English detective story. All the traits are there - Campion is the usual fop, who is not quite as foppish as he seems; Lugg, his valet, is a thug with a heart of gold; Campion knows all the right people and visits all the nicest houses. In this one, Campion investigates the murder of 'Pig', a school bully turned nasty businessman. To say more could possibly reveal too much. To criticise this book for not having any deeper meaning would be like criticising Plato for not writing detective stories. It is an easy read, relatively well-plotted, although with supporting characters that are cliches (was this written before they became cliches?) and the murderer is slightly too easy to spot. It's a National Trust detective novel, and if thats what you like you will enjoy this novel. If you want grit, psychology, and reality, don't bother.

[rocalisa_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In January, the combination of an obituary in The Times and an anonymous letter featuring a mole, send Campion and Lugg to a funeral. The deceased is an old school mate (friend would not be an appropriate term) of Campion's; Rowland Peters, more commonly known as Pig. By July, Campion has forgotten the incident. When he is called to the village of Kepesake to investigate the death of the disagreeable Oswald Harris, who had a stone geranium urn dropped on his head, he is startled to find the dead many to be none other than Pig himself, who is supposed to have been dead for six months rather than less than twenty four hours. Campion's investigation becomes more confusing and frankly creepy as time progresses, as the body is stolen then found, the local doctor tries of assist with almost ghoulish glee and interpersonal relationships get complicated, not to mention Lugg and Campion both being in danger of losing their lives. For a little book (only 138 pages in my edition), this one sure packs in a lot. I believe this was the first Campion story I ever read, and I wasn't sure if it was going to live up to my memories. One the whole, it did. I could remember how the murder was done (and ingeniously too), and I was pretty sure about who did it and some of the why. Even so, I enjoyed the story all over again, and found myself awaiting the end in a state of slightly nervous uncertainty despite my foreknowledge. The tale is told in the first person from Campion's point of view, but while pleasant, this was also a little disappointing. He remained the same enigmatic character he always is, not really letting us into his thought processes. Instead, there are hints - 'it was then that I had the whole case under my nose' - but no development of his understanding. Instead, we get an explanation at the end as usual. I still couldn't tell if Campion was being deliberately or naturally vague when he was telling me about it, for example, and I found that something of a waste of the first person narrative. All the same, it's a fun story with a lovely set of characters. Leo and all the other men rallying around Poppy is a delight, and the villains are suitably villainous. Whippet is rather vague, but he's little more than the plot device to keep the story going - and admits such himself - so perhaps that was deliberate. I did have a feeling there was more of an explanation of why Janet was out of sorts with Campion, but now I can't decide it I missed it on this reading or if I'm mixing it up with another book. How many girls does Campion have strewn behind him anyway? This is a good place to pick up Campion's adventures if anyone is looking for a place to start. Not too long, featuring Lugg as well as Campion, and with a clever plot and satisfactory resolution. A good little tale, indeed.