The Fashion In Shrouds

by Margery Allingham

  The unexpected development came from Georgia. She was sitting on a corner of the couch under the window, her hands between her knees and her dark head bowed.

  ‘I couldn’t have done anything, could I?’ she demanded, looking up.

  ‘Nothing.’ Dr Juxton-Coltness managed to give the word sympathy as well as conviction.

  Georgia sighed.

  ‘It’s so extraordinary,’ she said. ‘It’s so utterly extraordinary.’

  ‘It’s very terrible.’ Gaiogi substituted the better word with gentle firmness.

  ‘Of course,’ said Georgia sharply. ‘Of course. No one knows that better than I do, Gaiogi. But it is extraordinary too, isn’t it, Val?’

  The fair woman did not reply and she hurried on:

  ‘He didn’t even take anything. He had nothing at all. He didn’t even take a sleeping-powder. I gave him a cachet blanc when I first saw him and he decided not to come down to lunch.’

  She seemed to find something surprising in her own words, for she broke off abruptly and sat up.

  ‘It was that cachet you gave me, Val. I meant to take it myself. But when I saw him it seemed only charitable to hand it over. He took it at once. That’s all he had.’

  Val regarded her steadily. She was cold and slightly contemptuous.

  ‘It was a perfectly ordinary cachet blanc,’ she said.

  ‘My dear, of course it was.’ Georgia was eyeing her. ‘Of course.’ She laughed and covered her face with her hands immediately afterwards. ‘I’m completely off my balance. I only suddenly remembered that that was the only thing he did take, and that you had meant it for me.’

  The words were out of her mouth before she realized their full significance and she looked as startled by them as anyone else in the room.

  Val rose.

  ‘You don’t mean that, do you?’ she said.

  ‘No,’ said Georgia hastily. ‘No. No, of course not.’ But she spoiled the denial a moment afterwards by allowing a glimmer of ill-timed mischief to pass over her face. ‘After all, my pet, why should you want to get rid of me?’

  That was all, but the trouble was made. The little flame flickered and grew. It flared in Gaiogi’s eyes, passed over Wivenhoe’s head, and revealed itself to Juxton-Coltness, who recognized it and retreated hastily, his cautious expression deepening. He coughed.

  ‘Lady Ramillies,’ he began, ‘I’ve been thinking. This is a sudden death, you know, and if Sir Raymond had not been a patient I could never have considered giving a certificate. In that case a post-mortem and an inquest would have been automatic. You realize that, don’t you?’

  Georgia looked at him blankly.

  ‘Don’t you know how he died?’ she said.

  Dr Juxton-Coltness smiled faintly with his small mouth and Gaiogi turned away.

  ‘My dear lady.’ The doctor’s beautiful voice was kind. ‘I am satisfied, but in a case of this sort there are certain formalities which can hardly be ignored. These things are very painful but they have to be endured.’

  Georgia saw Gaiogi’s face.

  ‘Not an inquest,’ she said. ‘Doctor, can’t you have a post-mortem without an inquest? Isn’t that possible?’

  Wivenhoe cleared his throat.

  ‘In such exceptional circumstances, sir,’ he said, ‘couldn’t – I mean, couldn’t the certificate be held up for an hour or two while the P.M. was rushed through?’

  Campion watched the doctor curiously. The man was very tempted. After all, his entire scheme of life was to be obliging to the right people.

  ‘I suppose it might be arranged,’ he was saying dubiously. ‘My partner, Rowlandson Blake, the surgeon, might possibly be persuaded. I don’t know, really. I should have to telephone, of course.’

  It was at that moment that Campion caught sight of Val and her fixed expression and white face sent a thrill of unreasoning alarm trickling down his spine. He moved over to her, and, taking her by the arm, led her out into the little walled garden, lying smug in the warm evening sun. She went with him obediently, her hands clasped limply behind her back, but she did not speak and he missed her direct, confiding glance. They walked over the grass plot in silence and after a while he spoke himself.

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Bad business.’

  ‘Frightful.’

  ‘I say, Val?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What did you give that woman?’

  ‘A cachet blanc.’

  There was a long pause and when Campion spoke again his tone was very casual.

  ‘They’re things in rice-paper cases, aren’t they?’

  ‘You know they are.’ The icy quality in her voice did not warn him, as it might have done. There is nothing like the blood tie to render ordinary sympathetic comprehension void.

  ‘One could open a thing like that?’

  ‘One could, easily.’

  ‘She simply asked for it, I suppose, and you just handed it over?’

  ‘You know exactly what happened. You saw me.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I did. That’s what’s worrying me. I did. Val, you wouldn’t be an utter fool?’

  ‘My God!’ Her outburst startled him and he turned to her so that they faced each other on the turf.

  ‘My dear girl,’ he said, ‘you behaved like an amateur actress registering stealth. It’s no good being angry with me.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ To his relief there was a glimmer of a smile on her mouth, although her eyes were heavy with an old pain which he was embarrassed to recognize and remember. ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated. ‘But it all seems so blazingly silly. I gave Georgia a perfectly ordinary cachet blanc. She asked me if I had any after the party this morning, and I went up to get her one. When I put it into her hand I had one of those dreadful mad thoughts; insane impulses they call them, don’t they? Anyway, it went through my mind that a good dose of cyanide in that thing would silence her beastly, predatory vulgarity for ever. And then, of course, as soon as I’d thought it I looked up and saw your ridiculous face. I felt I was mad and I suppose I shuddered or recoiled, as one would naturally. However, it doesn’t matter. It was only one of those things.’

  Campion was silent and she laughed at him.

  ‘Good heavens, you believe me, don’t you?’

  ‘I? Oh, lord, yes.’ His tone was still troubled. ‘I was only thinking. If they find a good narcotic poison in that chap’s belly you’ll be very awkwardly placed. That woman has a mind like a demented eel; does she always say any mortal thing that comes into her head?’

  ‘Usually, I think.’ Val spoke lightly. ‘It was the fashion to be daring some years ago, and the women who grew up at that period seem to have got it incorporated in their general make-up. The trouble is that when it’s natural like that it becomes a negative thing. When it was deliberate it was a considered decoration, or at least a weapon. Now that it’s natural it’s just an ordinary unbridled tongue. It’s dangerous, of course.’

  ‘Dangerous? My good girl, it’s terrifying. If they find –’

  Val laid a restraining hand on his arm.

  ‘They won’t find anything,’ she said.

  Her complacency was irritating and he shrugged his shoulders and was silent.

  Presently she shuddered. He felt the tremor run through the arm against his side.

  ‘They won’t find anything suspicious,’ she went on quietly. ‘I know that. I’m certain of it. If there was any real danger of that the whole thing would have worked out differently.’

  ‘Do you know what you’re talking about, my sweet?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ He had succeeded in nettling her. ‘I know that Portland-Smith died very conveniently for Georgia, and now Ramillies has done the same thing. I know that it has been proved that Portland-Smith committed suicide, and I know it will be proved that Ramillies died naturally. There’s no danger of a row because danger has been carefully eliminated. It’s all working out. There’s a supersti
tion in the Theatre that everything works out for Georgia. You must never cross Georgia. If you go with her you’re on wheels. This is another evidence of the truth of it, that’s all.’

  Campion frowned at his sister. His masculine mind revolted from this ‘in touch with the stars’ attitude and he said so.

  ‘This is all very fine and large,’ he added, ‘but there’s obviously going to be a P.M. – Georgia brought that on her own head – and if the fellow died unnaturally everybody’s going to know.’

  Val shook her head.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘But, my dear good girl!’ Mr Campion was restraining an impulse to jitter at her with difficulty. No one else in the world save the whole skein of his blood relations had this undignified effect upon him. ‘What do you mean? Do you think that that pompous ass of a doctor is going to risk his reputation saving anybody’s skin? He’ll spaniel round as long as everything is pretty, but did you see him when the first flicker of awkwardness showed? Did you see him?’

  ‘I did. Don’t shout at me.’

  ‘Darling, am I shouting?’ The injustice of the accusation took his breath away. ‘You saw him. You know as well as I do that he’s only going to be obliging as far as it suits him, and it doesn’t suit any doctor on earth to hush up anything really serious unless he’s personally involved. It’s an ordinary question of value for risk. If Ramillies was poisoned, as I’m open to bet he was, the P.M. will uncover it and there’ll be an almighty row.’

  ‘I don’t agree with you.’

  Mr Campion breathed deeply.

  ‘Are you getting any fun out of baiting me or are you just not listening?’

  She squeezed his arm and her head touched his shoulder.

  ‘I can’t argue,’ she said. ‘I’m only telling you. However Ramillies died there won’t be a row.’

  ‘If you think that doctor could be bribed I very much doubt it.’

  ‘I don’t think that.’

  ‘Well then, Val, Val darling, put me out of my misery; how’s it going to be done?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said frankly. ‘I just realize that if a P.M. will reveal anything unpleasant or dangerous there won’t be a P.M.’

  ‘But there’s going to be a P.M., woman!’

  ‘Then they won’t find anything.’

  ‘Do you think it was a natural death?’

  She closed her eyes.

  ‘I think someone hoped very much it would happen.’

  Mr Campion sniffed. ‘And administered some dangerous drug unknown to science, no doubt,’ he murmured.

  Val’s expression was infuriatingly vague.

  ‘Perhaps so,’ she agreed absently.

  He looked down at her with a mixture of rage and affection and finally slid an arm round her shoulders.

  ‘You’re a dear little bloody, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Let’s be practical. You’ve got no access to anything dangerous yourself, have you? Nothing anyone could get silly about in case the dangerous drug wasn’t unknown to science after all?’

  Val considered and finally glanced up at him.

  ‘I’ve got about half a pound of morphine crystals at the Park Lane house,’ she said.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘An enormous amount. About half a pound. A little under, perhaps.’

  ‘Don’t play the fool, Val. This is fairly serious.’

  ‘I’m not, my dear. I’m telling you the literal truth. Tante Marthe knows about it. It’s in a drawer at the back of my desk in a big cigarette tin. It’s been there for two years at least.’

  She looked up at him and laughed softly.

  ‘It came over from Lyons in the cardboard cylinder of a roll of taffeta which we hadn’t ordered,’ she said. ‘Rex found there was one odd bale and the silk was put in my office to be returned. Tante Marthe knocked it over and the cap fell off. There were about twenty-five little packets of this stuff inside. We talked it over and decided that it was quite obvious that someone was using us as a cover, and we suspected a woman on the buying side. Naturally we didn’t want a fuss, police in the place and that sort of horror, so we sacked the woman, kept the material and stuck the stuff in a drawer, where it still is, as far as I know.’

  ‘How do you know it was morphine?’

  Val raised her eyebrows.

  ‘I sent a little down to a chemist and asked, naturally.’

  ‘Weren’t they curious?’

  ‘No. I told some likely story about finding it in an old medicine chest I’d bought. I sent very little. And when I had the report I told them they needn’t return it.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mr Campion a trifle blankly. ‘You’re an alarmingly matter-of-fact lot, you business women, aren’t you?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ The depth of bitterness in her voice startled him and he felt again that old bewilderment at her range of thought and her staggering inconsistencies. His common sense reasserted itself.

  ‘Look here,’ he said seriously, ‘I’m going to collect that stuff immediately and you forget you ever had it unless I tell you to come out with the whole story. I hope to God you can substantiate it.’

  ‘All right.’ He had the impression that she was laughing at him a little and he regarded her helplessly.

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ he said. ‘You come roaring to me in Town, making a mountain out of a positive worm-cast, and yet when a situation which is really unpleasant does arise you behave as if I were an over-excited Boy Scout.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m really very grateful.’ The clear high voice sounded flat and she bestirred herself. ‘It’s a question of proportion,’ she said. ‘When I came to you in London I was afraid of losing something really important for always; now I think I have lost it. It’s altered my entire perspective.’

  ‘Perspective?’ he ejaculated, resenting the intolerance which she engendered in him without being able to suppress it. ‘Do you know the meaning of the word? Val, you’re an intelligent woman. Your mind works, so do use it, darling. This may be a beastly situation.’

  ‘If there’s a P.M. they won’t find anything,’ she repeated placidly.

  He caught his breath and resisted the impulse to shake her.

  ‘How can you possibly know that?’

  ‘I do. You must leave it at that. Whatever we’re up against it’s not something childish or careless. But I can’t discuss it now. I can’t be bothered with it. As far as I’m concerned it doesn’t matter. I’m full, satiate, with my own personal aspect of this affair. I’ve got to pull myself together and behave, and I’m funking it. Now do you see what I mean by “perspective”?’

  ‘I think you’re off your head,’ said Mr Campion frankly.

  She looked at him with surprise.

  ‘I am,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d explained all that pretty thoroughly. Oh, Albert, my dear good ape, do try and understand. You’re a sensible, reasonable, masculine soul. If you fell in love and something went wrong you’d think it all out like a little gent and think it all quietly away, taking the conventional view and the intelligent path and saving yourself no end of bother because your head plus your training is much stronger than all your emotions put together. You’re a civilized masculine product. But when it happens to me, when it happens to Georgia, our entire world slides round. We can’t be conventional or take the intelligent path except by a superhuman mental effort. Our feeling is twice as strong as our heads and we haven’t been trained for thousands of years. We’re feminine, you fool! I’m trying to use my head constructively: she isn’t. She’s sailing with the tide.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mr Campion furiously, ‘this is damned silly introspective rot. What you need, my girl, is a good cry or a nice rape – either, I should think.’

  Val’s laughter was spiteful.

  ‘There’s a section of your generation who talks about rape as a cure for all ills, like old Aunt Beth used to talk about flannel next to the skin,’ she said witheringly. ‘This mania for sex-to-do-you-good is idiotic
. You’d far better get back to blood-letting or cod-liver oil. No, my dear, you may have the mental discipline, but we’re the realists. At least, we don’t kid ourselves even if we try to put on a decent performance for everyone else. When I heard Ramillies was dead I didn’t think, “Oh, poor man, what a shock for his wife!” I thought, “My God, now Georgia will be able to marry Alan.” I’m still thinking that. And so is she. It’s disgusting and shocking to the sentimental or conventional mind, but at least it’s not false. Georgia may change round suddenly. It all depends on whether she happens to see herself in some new dramatic situation which demands a genuine regret for Ramillies.’

  ‘Hush,’ said Mr Campion and swung her gently round. Georgia was advancing towards them across the grass. She was crying unaffectedly. There were tears on her cheeks and tears swimming in her eyes. She held out her hands to Val with a gesture that was oddly youthful.

  ‘Val darling, where are you? Come and help me. I don’t know what to do. I can’t bear it alone – I can’t! I’ve got to get on to Ferdie in Paris and I’ve got to tell Ray’s half-brother, and there are some old aunts somewhere. Alan’s still down at the hangar. They’re not putting off the flight. There’s no one, no one I can rely on at all. You must come. You must. Whatever you feel about me you can’t desert me. I couldn’t help falling in love any more than you could.’

  Mr Campion stared, wondering if his ears had deceived him. Georgia had flung her arms round Val and was crying like a child.

  ‘Oh, come in,’ she sobbed, ‘do come in! There’s a dreadful nurse there. She seems to think I ought to go up and look at him, and I don’t want to. I’m terrified of him. What shall I do? What shall I do?’

  ‘I’ll come.’ Val sounded very cool and quiet after her revealing outburst of five minutes before, and Campion saw that she looked as comfortingly calm and matter of fact as ever she did.

  ‘When Alan comes he’ll look after everything.’ There was a naïve warning in Georgia’s tearful announcement. ‘But until then you can’t leave me, Val. You can’t. I’ve no one to turn to.’