The Tango School Mystery

by Peter Bartram

  Figgis said: "After that business with the pigs, I'll never be able to look a sausage in the face again."

  "But at least you'll be able to hold your head up with His Holiness," I said. "Was he pleased to be reunited with his missing brother?"

  "I don't know about pleased. He's taken the afternoon off to play golf."

  "Rather than stay in the office to thank a reporter who saved his brother's life at a risk to his own."

  "His Holiness said he wanted to improve on his handicap."

  "Which handicap would that be? His failure to act like a normal human being? Has he explained why he disappeared like a phantom in the night when you told him we needed the name of the girl who died when Gervase was driving the car?"

  "In a manner of speaking."

  "I suppose that beats a manner of grunting."

  "He told me he was worried that Delaunay might come after him as well - given that it was a fault in his car that caused the accident. His Holiness thought he'd better find somewhere safe to hide until Felix was out of the way."

  "Felix is out of the way permanently now, thanks to brother Gervase whacking him with the ducking stool."

  "Bad business," Figgis said.

  "No contest there. But I think we'll have to let that matter rest. When Gervase is interviewed by the police, he'll just claim the ducking stool hit Felix by accident. They'd never get the evidence to convict, even with my testimony. I'd just be attacked by Gervase's brief as a journalist in search of a story."

  Figgis sucked on his fag and blew out the smoke. He sighed contentedly.

  He said: "We had a message an hour ago."

  "What kind of message?"

  "This kind of message."

  He picked up a sheet of paper from his in-tray and handed it to me. I read it and looked at Figgis in astonishment.

  "Well, I wasn't expecting that to happen," I said.

  Chapter 26

  The big door with the brass knocker was opened by a butler wearing a black tailcoat.

  He looked closely at us and said: "Mr Crampton? Miss Goldsmith?"

  We nodded.

  It was exactly a week after I'd tussled with Montez as he'd tried to shoot Winston Churchill. A week since Figgis had handed me a piece of paper with a message - and an invitation.

  The butler said: "Come this way. You are expected."

  We stepped inside number 28 Hyde Park Gate, London. The hallway was an impressive room hung with paintings and lit by a crystal chandelier. It was furnished with an elaborate hat stand and a table which held a large pile of newspapers and letters.

  The butler led us down a passage and opened a door. He held the door open and announced us as we walked in: "Mr Colin Crampton and Miss Shirley Goldsmith, Sir Winston."

  Churchill was sitting in an armchair on the far side of the room. He had a cigar lodged in his left hand. He was wearing a blue velvet siren suit and had a pair of half-moon glasses balanced on the end of his nose. He'd been reading a copy of The Times.

  He rested his cigar in an ashtray, flung off his glasses, and levered himself to his feet as we walked across the room.

  His face broke into a beaming smile. He looked like a large baby who'd just had his tummy tickled.

  He said: "I hope you will excuse my peremptory summons through a message to your newspaper, but I wanted to meet the second most intrepid journalist our great Empire has ever produced."

  "The second most?" I said.

  "With unbecoming modesty I am granting myself the first prize. I was a journalist, too, before I entered the rough and tempestuous world of politics. In pursuit of the story, as I believe you call it these days, I was shot at in Cuba and captured by enemy forces in South Africa."

  "But you escaped with your life."

  "As did you, I am delighted to see."

  He turned to Shirley and offered his hand.

  She shook it and said: "Jeez. Never thought I'd meet you. You're not as fat as I'd expected."

  A scowl appeared on Churchill's face, but it disappeared and he grinned. It was like watching a cloud pass briefly across the sun.

  "Everybody thinks I'm not as fat as they expected," he growled. "Including me."

  He gestured towards a sofa and we sat down.

  He said: "I'm told that you often take a modest refreshment of gin and tonic. It is a beverage which has cheered me more than once, but I believe this occasion calls for the finest champagne."

  As if he'd heard the cue, the butler entered with a silver salver. It held an ice bucket with an opened bottle of Pol Roger and three champagne flutes. He put the salver on a table, poured three glasses, and handed two to Shirley and me.

  "What shall we drink to?" Churchill asked.

  "Death to our enemies?" I suggested.

  "In a spirit of magnanimity, let us make it defeat," he said.

  "Those old fascists didn't seem too magnanimous when they had us cornered and were seconds from finishing us off," Shirley said.

  Churchill made a deep rumbling sound. It seemed to come from the depths of his chest. "In that case, I toast your courage and your continuing good health."

  "And we yours," I said.

  We hoisted our glasses and drank.

  "And now I want you to tell me everything that happened," he said. "Clemmie loves me dearly but these days she allows me so little excitement."

  And so we told him everything.

  He sat in his chair, sipped his champagne, and puffed his cigar. Sometimes he smiled. Sometimes he frowned. Sometimes he growled as though recalling some hideous horror from the past.

  At last we finished our story.

  "Remarkable," he said. "And now I have something for you."

  There was a bell on the table next to his chair and he rang it.

  The door opened and the butler reappeared carrying a book. He crossed the room and handed the book to me.

  It was a copy of My Early Life, the memoirs Churchill had written about his formative years.

  "Thank you," I said.

  Churchill said: "Open the book at the title page and you will see that it is a gift for both of you."

  I opened the book. In what he used to call "my own paw", he'd written: "To Colin Crampton and Shirley Goldsmith. For Courage. 'None but the Brave deserve the Fair'."

  Churchill grinned, but apprehensively. "I hope you both will not regard my use of a quotation from John Dryden as presumptuous."

  "No, sir," we said together.

  He turned to Shirley with a little bow of his head. "Mr Dryden neglected to mention that sometimes the fair are the brave."

  "I expect the old codger had too much on his mind," Shirley said.

  Churchill gave a throaty chuckle. "No doubt you're right."

  He turned towards me. "Do you think you will ever write the memoirs of your own early life?"

  "I haven't ever thought about that," I said.

  "If you do, you will need some new stories with which to embellish the old. Such as the one I am about to offer as a final parting gift and a thank you."

  I smiled. "I understand the terms of trade. This is for my memoirs, not my newspaper."

  Churchill grinned. "You have my point exactly, Mr Crampton. Very well, then. A few weeks ago, a gentleman came to see me. He is one of those men who work in the shadows and whose sombre duty it is to oversee the security of our nation. He told me that a known Nazi, one SS Stabsscharführer Conrad Schwarz, who'd been hiding in Buenos Aires since the end of the war, had smuggled himself into Britain. Naturally, this gentleman was puzzled that one of our enemies, a man who has never renounced the foul creed he served, should have risked his freedom and possibly his life to come to our shores."

  "If this gentleman knew Schwarz was here, why didn't he have him arrested?" I asked.

  Churchill blew on the end of his cigar to revive the tip. "For some time, this gentleman had been concerned that the forces of fascism had been organising underground in our country. We live in troubled times. The government
has been undermined by scandals."

  "Such as the Profumo affair."

  "Yes, such as that… affair," Churchill said. "In such a febrile climate, public opinion is fickle. It seeks a strong man, even if that strong man's views are, judged against the touchstone of common humanity, repellent and repulsive. He believed that undercover forces were planning an event, an outrage, something that would crystallise the genuine unease of so many of our people about the way our affairs have been conducted of late."

  "A coup d'état?" I asked

  "Nothing so crude," Churchill said. "All that is needed is a terrible event, a cataclysm, which makes people fearful for the future. It is when fear strikes that ordinary decent folk are most susceptible to sacrifice their liberty."

  "But as Benjamin Franklin noted, those who give up liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither," I said.

  Churchill nodded and sucked at his cigar. "You are well read, young man. In any event, the gentleman believed that the fascists were planning an outrage that would turn public opinion towards them. He had in mind the example of the Reichstag fire in 1933, when I was warning the world about Nazis, but nobody would listen."

  "Before my time," Shirley said.

  "Hitler used the Reichstag fire as an excuse to clamp down on civil liberties in Germany," I said.

  "You are correct," Churchill growled. "But he was not the first to use a manufactured outrage as a reason for persecution. In the fourth century the enemies of the Christians burnt the palace of the Roman emperor Diocletian. They blamed the fire on the Christians. Their persecution which followed was cruel and terrible. The gentleman believed the fascists had learnt their history too well and were planning a similar outrage. He had evidence which suggested they planned to assassinate me."

  "I bet that bludger Maundsley was behind it all," Shirley said.

  Churchill grinned. "The gentleman had information that several were involved in the plot and that Schwarz, a skilled sniper, would be the instrument of execution. But he believed more were involved and he had a plan to collect the evidence so that he could convict as many as possible - and cauterise the threat to our liberties for which we have fought so long and so hard. I was asked whether I would be prepared to play a part in this plan. Naturally, I agreed."

  I leaned forward. "Are you saying that your visit to the Misses Thompson school was planned as a set-up?"

  "A set-up. The Americans have such a colourful way with our language. I approve. But, to answer your question, yes. We seemingly fed information accidentally through the man Potter. Of course, the main players were carefully monitored in the days leading up to the visit. The plan was to arrest all the participants at the critical moment. But it is always the unexpected which undermines even the best laid plans. We did not expect Schwarz to shoot Potter. After he'd done so, he went to ground. The watchers could not find him. The gentleman came back to me crestfallen. He said we would have to abandon the plan, but I insisted we continue. I said that Schwarz would show himself at the critical moment. Once he was arrested, the fascists' whole conspiracy would collapse like a house of cards and the security forces could arrest them at leisure."

  "But it didn't work out like that," I said.

  "No, it did not. There was an error in communication which meant the empty flat where Schwarz lurked with his rifle was not searched. But thanks to your timely intervention, my funeral will not yet take place. I am very much obliged to you, Mr Crampton. And to you, Miss Goldsmith."

  Churchill shifted uncomfortably on his chair. He levered himself up.

  "And now, I fear, it is time for my afternoon nap. Once again, my profound thanks to you both. I wish you a very good day."

  The door opened and the butler came in. Churchill took his arm and walked slowly from the room.

  Frank Figgis trotted across the newsroom and stopped by my desk.

  It was nine o'clock on the day after my meeting with Churchill. The newsroom was gearing up for the first deadline of the day.

  "Well?" Figgis said.

  "Well, what?" I said.

  "Well, what did Sir Winston say to you yesterday?"

  "Just thanked me for my help."

  "Is there a story in it?"

  "I wouldn't think so. He was talking about Diocletian most of the time."

  "Who?"

  "Nobody you know."

  "So you haven't got any copy for me?" Figgis said.

  "Not at the moment."

  "Then it's just as well that I've got this for you."

  He handed me a sheet of paper.

  "Today's list at Hove Magistrates' Court," he said.

  I glanced down it.

  "The biggest thing here is the shoplifting of a pair of knickers from Debenham's."

  "That's what I thought. But at least there won't be anything about stolen waxworks from Louis Tussaud's. They got back Marilyn Monroe and Winston Churchill with a few bullet holes in him, didn't they?"

  "Yes, but the cops never traced Yuri Gagarin, the first man to circle the earth in space."

  "I don't suppose you'll hear any more about that," Figgis said.

  He turned and trotted back to his office.

  But Figgis was wrong about the waxwork.

  Epilogue

  Shirley looped her arm through mine, cuddled closer, and said: "I just love these winter markets."

  It was Christmas Eve, three months after our meeting with Winston Churchill. We were strolling around Brighton's London Road market. The air was crisp and cold. A few lazy snowflakes were falling. A busker with an accordion was playing Frosty the Snowman.

  Shirley was wrapped up warm in a fake fur coat. Her blonde hair cascaded from a Cossack-style matching hat. The lights from the market stalls made her face seem luminous and her blue eyes shone with happiness. She looked more beautiful than I'd ever seen her.

  I said: "If they ever got round to making a film of that book Dr Zhivago, you'd be great in the part of Lara Antipova."

  She nudged me in the ribs. "You're crazy, reporter boy."

  But I could tell she'd enjoyed the compliment.

  I said: "This is the first time we'll have been able to spend the whole of Christmas together."

  "Yeah! No more stories to cover until the New Year."

  "Unless something big breaks."

  "Don't even think about it."

  I raised my hands in surrender. "I'm not, I promise."

  We passed a stall loaded with turkeys and geese.

  I said: "I wonder how Captain Wellington Blunt will enjoy his first Christmas in prison as a lifer."

  "Not a lot, I hope," Shirley said. "And that Unity Box-Hartley won't have much fun in Holloway, either."

  "They got what they deserved," I said. "But it's Dolores Esteban I feel sorry for. She was forced into helping Montez. He told her that her old Ma and Pa back in Buenos Aires could have a difficult time if she didn't play ball by giving him cover."

  "As her partner in the Tango Academy?"

  "She was scared witless by the Nazi - especially after she discovered his reputation. When the cops searched the office at the academy they found three sniper's rifles and enough ammunition to gun down a regiment. No wonder the office door was always locked."

  Shirley said: "At least, now she can rebuild her business free from the monster."

  I nodded. "Perhaps we should take some tango dancing lessons there."

  Shirley's hair flicked from side to side as she shook her head. "Count me out, buster. I'm a twist girl. If it's a contest between Dolores and Chubby Checker, I'll choose Chubby every time."

  I shrugged. "You win," I said.

  "I usually do."

  We passed a stall selling Christmas decorations. There were baubles and tinsel and streamers to hang from the Christmas tree. They sparkled in the lights.

  Shirley said: "Seeing those decorations reminds me. I think we deserve some Christmas candles to put in the window. I think I saw a stall selling them on the other side of the market."<
br />
  We jostled through the crowds. The stall was one I'd not seen before. It was run by a small man with a pencil moustache and a squint in his left eye. He was bundled up in an anorak and had a scarf wrapped around the lower part of his face. A light covering of snowflakes had gathered on the top of his flat cap.

  I said: "He looks like he's dressed for robbing a bank rather than selling candles."

  We threaded our way through shoppers towards the stall.

  Shirley picked up one of the candles: "Hey, Colin, look at these. They're really cute. They're made in the shape of little space rockets."

  I took a closer look. Shirl was right. The candle's wick came out of the rocket's nose cone.

  The stall-holder sauntered towards us. "A tanner each," he said. "Or you can have three for one and threepence."

  "We'll take three," Shirley said.

  The stall-holder reached for a paper bag and put the candles inside it. He handed the bag to Shirley.

  I said: "I've never seen these before. Where do they come from?"

  The stall-holder squinted at me. "Couldn't say, guv'nor."

  "You must have some idea."

  "All I know is that my normal candle supplier told me he'd come into an unexpected supply of wax and could let me have them cheap."

  "Well I think they're out of this world," Shirley said.

  I thought about the Tussaud's waxwork of Yuri Gagarin. The cops hadn't recovered it. Now never would.

  "Out of this world," I said. "Yes, I suppose that's not a bad way to describe them."

  Acknowledgements

  Bringing out a book involves a lot of work by a lot of people. So, first, an enormous thank you to Barney Skinner who formatted the book for publication and designed the fantastic cover. Thanks also to Frank Duffy who brought to life the main characters from the Crampton of the Chronicle series in her illustrations. You can see them on the Colin Crampton website at www.colincrampton.com.

  I'd like to say a very special thank you for the hard work of those members of the Crampton of the Chronicle Advanced Team who read the manuscript, and made helpful comments and corrections. So thanks to (in alphabetical order) Jaquie Fallon, Andrew Grand, Jenny Jones, Doc Kelley, Andy Mayes, Christopher Roden and Chris Youett. Any errors that remain are mine and mine alone!