The China Governess

by Margery Allingham

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Very good, Geraldine. Dominant; that is the word. That’s a very good word. I don’t see why he’s being kept there, though, I really don’t.’

  Mr. Campion drifted towards Mr. Woodfall, who moved back a little.

  ‘The Stalkey Brothers are being very explicit, I suppose?’ Campion murmured the words but Alison heard him from across the room and paused, like some slender bird, her grey eyes penetrating.

  ‘It was I who persuaded Mr. Woodfall to let us employ the Stalkeys again,’ she remarked. ‘In fact I suppose I started the whole wretched business. Eustace was all for letting sleeping dogs lie and now I realize he may have been right, but I expected that we should have an inquiry from Julia’s father and I thought we ought to be ready for it to save embarrassment. I had no idea that old Mr. Stalkey had died and the sons would prove to be so inferior. My recollection of the old man was that he was rather kind and not really too unintelligent.’

  ‘I assure you they are very reliable people.’ If Mr. Woodfall had requested her in so many words to cease being indiscreet, he could hardly have made his meaning more clear. He took a fine antique watch from his waistcoat and consulted it and directed a brief smile at the whole company. ‘I must go,’ he said. ‘If the young man should decide to change his mind and answer perfectly proper police questions, don’t hesitate to call on me and I shall do the best I can.’

  ‘You’re behaving as if you think he did it!’ Julia’s youth betrayed her and Mr. Woodfall shied like a startled pony before the outburst. He became very severe.

  ‘Not I, young lady,’ he said. ‘You don’t either, I hope?’

  ‘No, I know he didn’t.’

  ‘Ah. Was he with you?’ He pounced on the idea hopefully but relapsed into gloom again when she shook her head.

  ‘I just know he couldn’t have done anything so silly.’

  ‘You’re very lucky to be able to speak with such conviction for any man.’ He laughed as he spoke, not unkindly but with that little edge of superiority which is cynicism’s only privilege, and returned to Alison. ‘I must go.’

  ‘Must you? I thought you were staying to lunch.’ Nevertheless she moved to the door with him as she spoke, and his laughing protest that he had two appointments before then in his office, and could see himself out, floated back to them from the passage.

  ‘That reminds me, Eustace.’ Alison spoke as she came hurrying back into the room and took a large, old-fashioned public house menu card from a drawer in the bureau. It was a dog-eared product, the blanks on the printed folder filled with cramped handwriting in violet ink. ‘I always forget to do this,’ she went on, ‘and they do like it early. Let me see. There’s oxtail. Will you like that?’

  Eustace smiled at the visitors.

  ‘We used to have the most frightful bothers about meals,’ he said with the shy charm which was his most attractive attribute. ‘With the vanishing of the domestic it seemed to me that food in the home was destined to be a thing of the past for anyone like myself who is purely an intellectual worker, but I might have known my wonderful sister. Now she merely rings up the Star and Garter down the road, and lo and behold we have luncheon on our own table as we always did.’ He hesitated and his lips, which looked so pink in his beard, twisted wryly. ‘The fare is rather nasty, of course, but one can’t help that.’

  Alison laughed. She was pink and girlish at his praise. ‘Is it the food or the china?’ she inquired. ‘I shall never know. Those very thick, smeary plates with the smudged blue crest are terribly off-putting, but one can’t very well scrape everything off on to Wedgwood, it would get so messy.’

  ‘And cold!’ said Eustace. ‘And there would be two lots of washing up for someone. Oh no, I think we do very well. Yes. I’ll have the oxtail but not peas. I don’t like their plastic peas. I shall stick to onions. They do onions very nicely.’

  ‘Eustace has onions every day of his life and with everything.’ Alison was still gay.

  ‘Better be safe than sorry!’ said Eustace, sounding as if he thought the phrase was original. ‘Now. Who is going to join us? You Geraldine, I know, but how about Julia and Campion?’

  ‘And Aich.’ Alison was scribbling on a telephone pad. ‘Geraldine, you and I will have the plaice, I expect, and Aich will have the joint whatever it is. A great meat-eater, Aich.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Geraldine drew her beautifully shod feet up on to the sofa beside her as she spoke. Her Italian shoes suggested wealth more discreetly than any other single item he had ever seen, Mr. Campion reflected. ‘What about Mrs. Broome?’ she inquired wistfully. ‘Doesn’t she eat?’

  ‘Nanny Broome does her own catering. She’s not with us up here all the time, you see. She won’t touch anything cooked outside.’ It was evident that Alison saw nothing incongruous in the statement. ‘I pay her extra money and she fends for herself.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Eustace said with apparent seriousness. ‘I don’t think she’s a vegetarian either. Now Julia, my dear, can I tempt you to a dish of oxtail?’

  The girl looked at him with flickering disbelief.

  ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Thank you very much but aren’t we going to do something about Tim?’

  ‘I agree.’ Alison was jotting down the luncheon order as she spoke. ‘But of course there are two schools of thought about whether one should interfere even if one knew quite how. Eustace found the Police most unco-operative when he went down there last night. And then one doesn’t know what Tim’s own attitude is. At the moment we’re relying on Flavia Aicheson. She’s gone down to see the Ebbfield Councillor.’

  Mr. Campion heard the news with dismay. ‘I don’t think the police react very favourably to high-powered pressure from outside,’ he began hesitantly.

  ‘I know! And it’s not easy to get it either!’ Alison’s grey eyes met his own. ‘People want to help one but they don’t feel they ought to. The Councillor, whose name is Cornish, was quite abrupt with poor Aich this morning when she telephoned him. They’re old enemies and Aich took a risk in approaching him, but she regards Tim as a nephew and just put her pride in her pocket and went ahead. When Mr. Cornish said he wouldn’t go to the Turstable Inn station to speak for the boy she just hung up the receiver and went down to fetch him.’

  ‘But why?’ Julia exploded. ‘Why upset the police by getting hold of someone who doesn’t even want to worry them?’

  Alison remained happily unruffled.

  ‘Of course,’ she said kindly. ‘You don’t know, but Tim went to Ebbfield yesterday and saw this man. He happened to mention it when he came in. We’re naturally hoping that they were together at the important time. The only awkward thing seems to be that the boy didn’t make it clear to Mr. Cornish why he had called on him, and so when this query came up the man immediately wondered if the visit had been made on purpose to manufacture an alibi. He seems to be a difficult person with a highly suspicious mind.’

  ‘Wait!’ Eustace spoke from the window where he was standing looking down into the street. ‘Here is Aich getting out of a cab. Ah yes, she’s got the man with her. This must be he. He couldn’t be anything but a firebrand councillor could he? Look. Oh! yes, by George! Yes. This is wonderful. Tim is with them. They’ve got him away. Wait a moment; Mrs. Broome may still be out with that extraordinary wreath. I’ll go and let them in.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Councillor

  MISS AICHESON WAS first into the room. She came striding across the black polished boards which were scattered with fine worn old rugs, and the ancient timbers shook beneath her while the dust motes in the shaft of London sunlight, streaming through diamond panes, danced wildly at her approach. She looked tired but triumphant and she turned to Alison for praise.

  ‘Done it!’ she announced. ‘Tim is on the stairs now. Councillor Cornish is with us, and by the way, dear, I think all the credit ought to go to him.

  ‘Oh splendid! Quite, quite wonderful, Aich.’ Alison Kinnit’s emphasis was nearly gener
ous but her glance wandered at once to the menu in her hand and she almost mentioned it, only thinking better just in time as the Councillor, with Eustace fussing behind him, appeared in the doorway.

  Here in the Well House Councillor Cornish was still a vigorous personality, but this morning there was a new wariness about him and there was caution in the fierce eyes under the shock of grey hair. His astonishment on meeting Alison for the first time was slightly funny. Her thistledown quality appeared to bewilder him, and if he had actually said that he had expected to see a second version of Miss Aicheson he could hardly have made the point more clearly.

  The reaction was not new to Miss Kinnit and she became more feminine than ever, twittering and smiling.

  ‘Thank you, thank you. We are all so very relieved.’ Her intelligent eyes met his own gratefully. ‘I’m just ordering lunch. You will join us, won’t you?’

  ‘I? No, really!’ He sounded appalled. ‘Thank you very much of course, but I only want to have a word with the young man.’ He was preparing to explain further when an interruption occurred. Tim had arrived. He glanced round the room, caught sight of Julia and walked over to her, his face dark as a storm.

  ‘Darling!’ he exploded. ‘I did so pray that you’d have the good sense to keep right out of this! Why didn’t you do what I told you?’ He was on edge and his protest was unreasonably savage.

  The colour rushed into Julia’s face, Eustace made a deprecating cluck, and everyone was startled by the Councillor, who turned on the speaker.

  ‘Don’t shut her out when she’s backing you up!’ he exclaimed violently. Realizing his interference was outrageous, he tried to cover it. He smiled at Julia, rubbed his ear and shot a sidelong, slightly sheepish smile at Timothy.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Can I meet the young lady?’

  It was a direct apology, and Tim relaxed.

  ‘I do beg your pardon,’ he said quickly. ‘Yes, of course. I’m afraid I was surprised to see her here. Julia, this is Councillor Cornish but for whom I should be in jug, I suppose.’

  ‘Would you? That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Is there anywhere where we could have a word on our own?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Timothy looked surprised but acquiescent and the unexpected objection came from Eustace.

  He came forward, smiling, so smooth in his old-fashioned way that both the Councillor and Tim appeared clumsy beside it.

  ‘You two mustn’t shut any of us out,’ he said gently. ‘We want to hear all about it. We’ve been sitting here completely in the dark, consumed by a most natural curiosity. I know a little about the fire because I’ve read the report in the Telegraph, but that’s all. Why did you decide to keep so silent, my boy? Our solicitor was most anxious to be present at any interrogation. Why didn’t you co-operate?’

  Tim shrugged his shoulders. He looked tall and big-boned standing there, his face, which was still scarred, pale and stiff with fatigue. He eyed Eustace and laughed. ‘Because I was sulking, I suppose.’

  ‘But was that wise?’ Eustace was at his mildest, innocently inquiring without a trace of malice.

  ‘No. It was silly. But they made me absolutely furious.’

  ‘You’re talking about the police?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Eustace jerked his chin up and his neat beard looked sharp.

  ‘They have a very fine reputation,’ he said gravely and his eyes were reproachful rather than severe.

  ‘Well, they got my goat.’ Timothy was being factual. ‘Probably I was in the wrong, but to drag me out in the middle of the night and keep me in a smelly office while two highpowered thugs told me I must know what I’d done, and would I “come clean”, for hours and hours on end seemed high-handed.’

  ‘But you could have told them where you’d been.’

  ‘If they’d been polite about it I should have, but they were excited because it was such a damned awful fire. They knew Ron Stalkey had been right about his beating me up, because they could see my face, and so they assumed that everything else he’d said about me setting light to his blessed office was probably true. The whole inference was so insulting and so silly, I’m afraid I just wouldn’t play.’

  Eustace was both hurt and amazed.

  ‘But Tim,’ he said. ‘You’re a civilized, intelligent young man. The police couldn’t have behaved as you represent. Not the British police . . .’

  The young man opened his mouth and shut it again and a sullen shadow settled over his eyes. At the same time there was a smothered sound from the Councillor, and as everybody turned to look at him it was discovered that he was laughing.

  Eustace’s glance grew cold.

  ‘You don’t agree with me?’ he said so charmingly and with such disarming diffidence that the unobservant could have been misled.

  ‘Of course I don’t!’ The Councillor checked himself. ‘I mean I’m afraid I don’t. I’m inclined to think that the young man has summed up the position pretty accurately. After all, the police are men. Only a nation which can honestly believe that by putting a boy in a helmet it can turn him into something between a guardian angel and a St. Bernard dog overnight could make the British Force what it is today, the worst used, worst paid, most sentimentalized-over body in creation.’

  Eustace regarded him with frank amazement.

  ‘Good Heavens!’ he said. ‘You consider there should be an enquiry do you?’

  Something of the same sullenness which Eustace’s reactions evoked in Timothy appeared in the Councillor.

  ‘I am not to be drawn,’ he said cagily, ‘but I feel it might help if this country sometimes ceased to consider the police either through motorists’ goggles or rose-coloured spectacles. As it is, ninety-nine per cent of them have chips on their shoulders. Since I don’t want my affairs dealt with by chaps who feel like that if I can possibly help it, I keep away from the police as much as I can.’ He paused and laughed again. ‘If one’s forced to talk to them, go to the top. The chaps at the top in the police are all men with something remarkable about them. They’ve got to be. They’re the people who’ve been through the process without cracking.’

  ‘You amaze me,’ Eustace conveyed very nicely that he did not believe a word of it. ‘But at the same time I don’t see why Timothy refused to help. That is the point which mystifies me. I should have said that Timothy was the most courteous and obliging lad in the world. Why Tim? Why didn’t you tell them where you had been?’

  On the other side of the room Mr. Campion, who had been standing quietly by the window effacing himself with his usual success, began to find the conversation painful. This purely mental approach to what was after all a most acutely emotional problem, at least for Timothy, was getting under his skin and he turned to Geraldine Telpher who was sitting listening, her head bent and her gaze fixed on her folded hands.

  ‘How is the child?’ he murmured. ‘May one ask?’

  He was startled by her reaction. She was taken by surprise and the grey Kinnit eyes which met his own were dilated for an instant. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, embarrassed. ‘I shouldn’t have asked you so suddenly.’

  ‘Not at all.’ She became herself again, calm and intelligent. ‘It’s very kind of you. It’s only that sometimes I find I’m not quite as brave as I think I am. Then I panic. She’s just the same, thank you. Still unconscious. This is the second year.’

  Mr. Campion was appalled. ‘I had no idea. How old is she?’

  ‘Nine. It’s tragic, isn’t it?’ Her voice was intentionally inexpressive and he felt compelled to continue the conversation until she had recovered.

  ‘Where is she? In hospital?’

  ‘Yes. In St. Joseph of Arimathaea’s. In a public ward!’ Her smile was very wry. ‘It’s ironic but it can’t be helped and she knows nothing. I was told that her only hope was to come to London to be seen by Sir Peter Phyffe. He’s one of those dedicated men who won’t take private patients and so there she is, poor baby.’ She sighed and looked away. ‘
It was a car accident, her governess was driving.’

  Mr. Campion murmured his sympathy. ‘You’re very convenient here for St. Joseph’s,’ he said consolingly.

  ‘I know. Isn’t it wonderful. Just behind us. That’s why I’m so grateful to Eustace and Alison for asking me to stay. They really are wonderful, aren’t they?’

  Mr. Campion felt himself to be no judge of that point. Alison was still hovering with her alarming looking menu, while on the other side of the room Eustace was quietly persisting in trying to get a rational explanation for Timothy’s behaviour.

  ‘You seem to understand the boy rather better than I do, on this occasion at any rate,” he was saying to the Councillor, a touch of acidity appearing in his voice for the first time. ‘I’m very glad you do and we’re all eternally grateful to you for coming forward like this – I won’t say “to substantiate his story”, but anyway to give him a complete alibi.’

  The Councillor looked at him without moving his head. As he had been staring at the floor it was a sharp upward glance through his fierce brows, very characteristic and effective. Eustace paused abruptly, colour in his cheeks.

  ‘I take it that you have?’ he demanded.

  ‘I was wondering,’ the Councillor said frankly. ‘That is why I came here to talk to the young man himself. The Police have let him go for the time being but that hardly means that they’ve lost interest in him. All I’ve done is to convince them that he was with me in Ebbfield during the period when the crime was almost certain to have been committed. “Almost” is not “quite” though, and arson is a notoriously difficult business to bring home to anybody. Do you see what I mean?’