‘Hullo,’ he said, ‘do you always leave the front door open?’ Then, catching sight of Ernie, he added with apparent irrelevancy: ‘O – my – aunt!’
‘I’m just off, sir.’ Indeed, Ernie was already moving towards the door. ‘I come up ’ere visitin’. Same as you, I ’ope,’ he added, cocking an eye slyly at his host.
Campion chuckled. ‘Shut the door behind you,’ he said pointedly. ‘And remember always to look at the watermark.’
‘What’s that?’ said Inspector Oates suspiciously. But already the door had closed behind the fleeting figure of the car thief, and they were alone.
Campion introduced Val, and poured the detective a whisky-and-soda. The man from Scotland Yard lounged back in his chair.
‘What are you doing with that little rat?’ he demanded, waving his hand in the direction of the door through which Mr Ernest Walker had so lately disappeared. He turned to Val apologetically: ‘Whenever I come up to see this man,’ he said, ‘I find someone on our books having a drink in the kitchen or sunning himself on the mat. Even this man is an unreformed character.’
‘Steady,’ said Mr Campion. ‘The name of Lugg is sacred. I’m awfully glad you’ve turned up, old bird,’ he went on. ‘You’re just the man I want. Do you by any chance know of a wealthy, influential man-about-the-underworld called “The Daisy”?’
‘Hanged in Manchester the twenty-seventh of November, 1928,’ said the man from Scotland Yard promptly. ‘Filthy case. Body cut in pieces, and whatnot. I remember that execution. It was raining.’
‘Wrong,’ said Mr Campion. ‘Guess again. I mean a much more superior person. Although,’ he added despondently, ‘it’s a hundred to one on his being an amateur.’
‘There are fifty-seven varieties of Daisy that I know of,’ said Mr Oates, ‘if you use it as a nickname. But they’re small fry – very small fry, all of ’em. What exactly are you up to now? Or is it a State Secret again?’
He laughed, and Val began to like this quiet, homely man with the twinkling grey eyes.
‘Well, I’m taking the short road, as a matter of fact,’ said Mr Campion, and added, as his visitor looked puzzled, ‘as opposed to the long one, if you get my meaning.’
The Inspector was very silent for some moments. Then he sighed and set down his glass. ‘You have my sympathy,’ he said. ‘If you go playing with fire, my lad, you’ll get burnt one of these days. What help do you expect from me?’
‘Don’t you worry,’ said Mr Campion, ignoring the last question. ‘I shall live to be present at my godson’s twenty-first. Nineteen years hence, isn’t it? How is His Nibs?’
For the first time the Inspector’s face became animated. ‘Splendid,’ he said. ‘Takes that Mickey Mouse you sent him to bed with him every night. I say, you understand I’m here utterly unofficially,’ he went on hurriedly. ‘Although if you haven’t already lost whatever you’re looking after why not put it in our hands absolutely, and leave it at that?’ He paused. ‘The trouble with you,’ he added judicially, ‘is that you’re so infernally keen on your job. You’ll get yourself into trouble.’
Mr Campion rose to his feet. ‘Look here, Stanislaus,’ he said, ‘you know as well as I do that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the police are the only people in the world to protect a man and his property. But the hundredth time, when publicity is fatal, and the only way out is a drastic spot of eradication, then the private individual has to get busy on his own account. What I want to talk to you about, however, is this. You see that suitcase over there?’ He pointed to the new fibre suitcase resting upon a side table. ‘That,’ he said, ‘has got to be protected for the next few days. What it contains is of comparatively small intrinsic value, but the agents of our friends of the long road are after it. And once they get hold of it a very great State treasure will be in jeopardy. Do you follow me?’
The Inspector considered. ‘Speaking officially,’ he said, ‘I should say: “My dear sir, put it in a bank, or a safe deposit, or the cloakroom of a railway station – or give it to me and I’ll take it to the Yard”.’
‘Quite,’ said Mr Campion. ‘But speaking as yourself, personally, to an old friend who’s in this thing up to the hilt, then what?’
‘Then I’d sit on it,’ said the Inspector shortly. ‘I wouldn’t take it outside this door. This is about the safest place in London. You’re over a prominent police station. I’d have a Bobby on the doorstep, a couple in old Rodriguez’s cookshop, and a plain-clothes man on the roof. You can hire police protection, you know.’
‘Fine,’ said Mr Campion. ‘How do you feel about that, Val? You stay up here with the suitcase with a small police force all round you, while I go down to Sanctuary and make an intensive effort to get a line on The Daisy?’
Val nodded. ‘I’ll do anything you like,’ he said. ‘I’m completely in your hands. There’s one thing, though. You’ve only got four days. Next Wednesday is the second.’
‘That’s so,’ said Mr Campion. ‘Well, four days, then. Can you fix up the bodyguard, Stanislaus?’
‘Sure.’ The Inspector picked up the telephone, and after ten minutes’ intensive instruction set it down again. ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘Endless official forms saved you. It’ll cost you a bit. Money no object, I suppose, though? By the way,’ he added, ‘hasn’t an order come through to give you unofficially any assistance for which you may ask?’
Campion shot him a warning glance and he turned off the remark hastily. ‘I probably dreamt it,’ he said. He looked at Val curiously, but the boy had not noticed the incident.
‘That’s settled, then,’ said Mr Campion. ‘I’ll wait till you’re all fixed up, and go back to Sanctuary tomorrow morning. You’ll find everything you want here, Val. I suppose it’ll be all right with your pater?’
Val grinned. ‘Oh, Lord, yes,’ he said. ‘He seems to have taken you for granted since the first time he heard of you, which is rather odd, but still – the whole thing’s incomprehensible. I’ve ceased to marvel.’
The Inspector rose and stood beside his friend. ‘Take care,’ he said. ‘Four days isn’t long to nail down a chosen expert of Les Inconnus and write full-stop after his name. And besides,’ he added with unmistakable gravity, ‘I should hate to see you hanged.’
Mr Campion held out his hand. ‘A sentiment which does you credit, kind sir,’ he said. But there was a new solemnity beneath the lightness of his words, and the pale eyes behind the horn-rimmed spectacles were hard and determined.
CHAPTER 15
Pharisees’ Clearing
—
WHEN Mr Campion sailed down the drive of the Tower at about ten o’clock the next morning, Penny met him some time before he reached the garage. She came running across the sunlit lawn towards him, her yellow hair flopping in heavy braids against her cheeks.
Campion stopped the car and she sprang on to the running-board. He noticed immediately a certain hint of excitement in her manner, and her first words were not reassuring.
‘I’m so glad you’ve come,’ she said. ‘Something terrible has happened to Lugg.’
Mr Campion took off his spectacles as though to see her better.
‘You’re joking,’ he said hopefully.
‘Of course I’m not.’ Penny’s blue eyes were dark and reproachful. ‘Lugg’s in bed in a sort of fit. I haven’t called the doctor yet, as you said on the phone last night that you’d be down early.’
Mr Campion was still looking at her in incredulous amazement. ‘What do you mean? A sort of fit?’ he said. ‘Apoplexy or something?’
Penny looked uncomfortable and seemed to be debating how much to say. Eventually she took a deep breath and plunged into the story.
‘It happened about dawn,’ she said. ‘I woke up hearing a sort of dreadful howling beneath my window. I looked out, and there was Lugg outside on the lawn. He was jumping about like a maniac and bellowing the place down. I was just going down myself when Branch, whose room is over mine, you know, scuttled out and fetched him in. No
one could do anything with him. He was gibbering and raving, and very puffed.’ She paused. ‘It may seem absurd to say so, but it looked to me like hysterics.’
Mr Campion replaced his glasses. ‘What an extraordinary story,’ he said. ‘I suppose he hadn’t found the key to the wine cellars, by any chance?’
‘Oh, no, it wasn’t anything like that.’ Penny spoke with unusual gravity. ‘Don’t you see what happened? He’d been down to Pharisees’ Clearing. He saw what Aunt Di saw.’
Her words seemed to sink into Mr Campion’s brain slowly. He sat motionless in the car in the middle of the drive staring in front of him.
‘My hat,’ he said at last. ‘That’s a step in the right direction, if you like. I only meant to keep the old terror occupied. I had no idea there’d be any serious fun toward.’
He started the car and crawled slowly forward, the girl beside him.
‘Albert,’ she said severely, ‘you didn’t tell him to go down there at night, did you? Because, if so, you’re directly responsible for this. You didn’t believe me when I told you there was something fearful there. You seem to forget that it killed Aunt Di.’
Mr Campion looked hurt. ‘Your Aunt Diana and my friend Magersfontein Lugg are rather different propositions,’ he said. ‘I only told him to improve the shining hour by finding out what it was down there. I’ll go and see him at once. What does Branch say about it?’
‘Branch is very discreet,’ murmured Penny. ‘Look here, you’d better leave the car here and go straight up.’
Mr Campion raced up the narrow staircase at the back of the house which led to the servants’ quarters, the expression of hurt astonishment still on his face. He found Branch on guard outside Mr Lugg’s door. The little old man seemed very shaken and his delight at seeing Campion was almost pitiful.
‘Oh, sir,’ he said, ‘I’m so glad you’ve come. It’s all I can do to keep ’im quiet. If ’e shouts much louder we shan’t ’ave a servant left in the ’ouse by tonight.’
‘What happened?’ said Mr Campion, his hand on the door knob.
‘I doubt not ’e went down to Pharisees’ Clearing, sir.’ The Suffolk accent was very apparent in the old man’s voice, and his gravity was profound. Mr Campion opened the door and went in.
The room was darkened, and there was a muffled wail from a bed in the far corner. He walked across the room, pulled up the blind, and let a flood of sunshine into the apartment. Then he turned to face the cowering object who peered at him wildly from beneath the bed quilt.
‘Now, what the hell?’ said Mr Campion.
Mr Lugg pulled himself together. The sight of his master seemed to revive those sparks of truculence still left in his nature. ‘I’ve resigned,’ he said at length.
‘I should hope so,’ said Campion bitterly. ‘The sooner you clear out and stop disgracing me the better I shall like it.’
Mr Lugg sat up in bed. ‘Gawd, I ’ave ’ad a night,’ he said weakly. ‘I nearly lost me reason for yer, and this is ’ow yer treat me.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Campion. ‘I go and leave you in a respectable household, and you bellow the place down in the middle of the night and generally carry on like an hysterical calf elephant.’
The bright sunlight combined with the uncompromising attitude of his employer began to act like a tonic upon the shaken Lugg.
‘I tell yer what, mate,’ he said solemnly, ‘I lost me nerve. And so ’ud you if you’d seen what I seen. Lumme, what a sight!’
Mr Campion remained contemptuous. ‘A couple of owls hooted at you, I suppose,’ he observed. ‘And you came back and screamed the place down.’
‘A couple o’ blood-curdling owls,’ said Mr Lugg solemnly. ‘And some more. I’ll tell you what. You spend the night in that wood and I’ll take you to Colney ’Atch in the morning. That thing killed Lady Pethwick, the sight of it, that’s what it did. And she wasn’t no weakling, let me tell yer. She was a strong-minded woman. A weak-minded one would ’ave burst.’
In spite of his picturesque remarks there was an underlying note of deadly seriousness in Mr Lugg’s husky voice, and his little black eyes were frankly terror-stricken. Secretly Mr Campion was shocked. He and Lugg had been through many terrifying experiences together, and he knew that as far as concrete dangers were concerned his aide’s nerves were of iron.
‘Just what are you driving at?’ he said, with more friendliness than before. ‘A white lady with her head under her arm tried to get off with you, I suppose?’
Mr Lugg glanced about him fearfully.
‘No jokin’ with the supernatural,’ he said. ‘You may laugh now, but you won’t later on. What I saw down in that wood last night was a monster. And what’s more, it’s the monster that chap in the pub was tellin’ me about. The one they keep in the secret room.’
‘Shut up,’ said Campion. ‘You’re wrong there. I told you to forget that.’
‘All right, clever,’ said Mr Lugg sulkily. ‘But what I saw wasn’t of this world, I can tell you that much. For Gawd’s sake come off yer perch and listen to this seriously or I’ll think I’ve gone off me onion.’
Such an appeal from the independent, cocksure Lugg was too much for Campion. He softened visibly.
‘Let’s have it,’ he suggested. ‘Animal, vegetable, or mineral?’
Mr Lugg opened his mouth to speak, and shut it again, his eyes bulging, as he attempted to recall the scene of his adventure.
‘I’m blowed if I know,’ he said at last. ‘You see, I was sittin’ out in the clearing, like you said, smoking me pipe and wishin’ it wasn’t so quiet like, when I ’eard a sort of song – not church music, you know, but the sort of song an animal might sing, if you take me. I sat up, a bit rattled naturally. And then, standin’ in the patch of light where the moon nipped in through the trees, I see it.’ He paused dramatically. ‘As filfy a sight as ever I clapped eyes on in all me born days. A great thin thing with little short legs and ’orns on its ’ead. It come towards me, and I didn’t stay, but I tell yer what – I smelt it. Putrid, it was, like somethink dead. I lost me ’ead completely and come up to the ’ouse at forty miles an hour yelping like a puppy dawg. I expec’ I made a bit of a fool of meself,’ he added regretfully. ‘But it ’ud put anyone into a ruddy funk, that would.’
Mr Campion perched himself on the edge of the bedrail. Lugg was glad to see that his animosity had given place to interest.
‘Horns?’ he said. ‘Was it a sort of animal?’
‘No ordin’ry animal,’ said Lugg with decision. ‘I’ll tell yer what, though,’ he conceded, ‘it was like a ten-foot ’igh goat walkin’ on its ’ind legs.’
‘This has an ancient and fishlike smell,’ said Mr Campion. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t a goat?’
‘You’re trying to make me out a fool. I tell you this thing was about nine foot ’igh and it ’ad ’uman ’ands – because I saw ’em. Standin’ out black against the sky.’
Mr Campion rose to his feet. ‘Lugg, you win,’ he said. ‘I apologize. Now get up. And remember, whatever you do, don’t breathe a word of this to the other servants. And if they know you saw a ghost, well, it was nothing to do with the room, see? Don’t you breathe a word about that. By the way, I met a friend of yours in Town. Ernie Walker.’
‘Don’t you ’ave nothin’ to do with ’im.’ The last vestige of Mr Lugg’s hysteria disappeared. ‘No soul above ’is work – that’s the sort of bloke Ernie is. A dirty little shark ’oo’d squeal on ’is Ma for a packet o’ damp fags.’
Mr Campion grinned. ‘It seems as if you can’t see a ghost in the place without my getting into bad company in your absence, doesn’t it?’ he said affably. ‘Now get up and pretend you’ve had a bilious attack.’
‘Oi, that’s not quite the article,’ said Mr Lugg shocked. ‘’Eart attack, if you don’t mind. I ’ave my feelings, same as you do.’
Campion went out and stood for a moment on the landing, the inane expression upon his face more strongly marked than ever. He went
to Sir Percival’s sanctum on the first floor, and remained there for twenty minutes or so. When he came out again he was more thoughtful than ever. He was about to set off downstairs when a figure which had been curled up on the windowsill at the far end of the corridor unfolded itself and Penny came towards him.
‘Well?’ she said. ‘I hope you’re convinced about Lugg now.’
To her astonishment Mr Campion linked her arm through his.
‘You are now, my dear Madam, about to become my Doctor Watson,’ he said. ‘You will ask the inane questions, and I shall answer them with all that scintillating and superior wisdom which makes me such a favourite at all my clubs. They used to laugh when I got up to speak. Now they gag me. But do I care? No, I speak my mind. I like a plain man, a straightforward man, a man who calls a spade a pail.’
‘Stop showing off,’ said Penny placidly, as they emerged into the garden. ‘What are you going to do?’
Mr Campion stopped and regarded her seriously. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘you haven’t quarrelled with Beth or anything?’
‘Of course not. Why? I was on the phone to her last night. She naturally wanted to know all about Val staying in Town. They seem to have got on astoundingly well together, you know.’
‘Quite old friends, in fact,’ said Mr Campion. ‘I noticed that yesterday. Oh, I’m not so bat-eyed as you think. A youthful heart still beats beneath my nice new chest-protector and the locket containing the old school cap. No, I only asked about Beth because we are now going to visit her father, who is a very distinguished person in spite of the fact that he is a friend of mine. I ought to have told you that before, but there you are.’
‘Be serious,’ the girl begged. ‘You seem to forget that I don’t know as much about things as you do.’
‘We’re going to see Professor Cairey,’ continued Mr Campion. ‘Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards but via the footpath. You see,’ he went on as they set off across the lawn, ‘you’re getting a big girl now, and you may be useful. The situation is roughly this. I’ve got three days before Val’s birthday. Three days in which to spot the cause of the trouble and settle up with him. The only line I’ve got on the gent in question is that his pet name is “The Daisy”.’
Look to the Lady Page 13
