"A trunk?"
"In sections. And I can't help feeling that would be a wee bit drastic." He spread out that morning's Clarion so that the shrieking black print screamed up from the table. The trunk murder was still front-page news after three days, it having been discovered that the legs in the case belonged to two different persons; a complication which put the present case hors concurs in the trunk-murder class.
"What's horrible about murder," Mr. Macallan said reflectively, "is not that it happens, but that it happens to your Aunt Agnes, if you follow me. Hi! Miss! A cup of coffee for my friend here. Brother Johnny goes to the war and gets killed and it is all very sad, but no one is shocked-civilisation being what it is. But if someone bumps Aunt Agnes off on her way home one night that is a shock. That sort of thing just doesn't happen to people you know."
"It must be worse when someone you know bumps off someone's Aunt Agnes."
"Ay," said Mr. Macallan, shooting an extra spoonful of sugar into his half-cold coffee and stirring it vigorously. "I've seen some of that. Families, you know. It's always the same: they just can't believe it. Their Johnny. That is the horror in murder. The domesticity of it." He took out his cigarette case and offered it. "And how do you like being Clare's white-headed boy? Are you glad to be back?"
"You can't imagine how glad."
"After that fine free life in Arizona or Texas or wherever it was? You mean you actually prefer this?" Mr. Macallan jerked his head at the Westover front filled with placid shoppers. And, as Brat nodded: "Mercy-be-here! I can hardly credit it."
"Why? Don't you like the place?"
Mr. Macallan looked down at the southern English walking about in their southern English sunshine, and metaphorically spat. "They're so satisfied with themselves I can't take my eyes off them," he said.
"Satisfied with their lot, you mean? Why not?"