***
The newspapers were calling the McGill house in Chestnut Grove ‘the villa Marie Celeste’ before Chief Inspector Charles Luke noticed the similarity between the two mysteries, and that so shook him that he telephoned Albert Campion and asked him to come over.
They met in the Sun, a discreet pub in the suburban High Street, and stood talking in the small bar-parlour which was deserted at that time of day just after opening in the evening.
‘The two stories are alike,’ Luke said, picking up his drink. He was at the height of his career then, a dark, muscular cockney, high cheek-boned and packed with energy and as usual he talked nineteen to the dozen, forcing home his points with characteristic gestures of his long hands. ‘I read the rehash of the Marie Celeste in the Courier this morning and it took me to the fair. Except that she was a ship and twenty-nine Chestnut Grove is a semi-detached suburban house, the two desertion stories are virtually the same, even to the half-eaten breakfast left on the table in each case. It’s uncanny, Campion.’
The quiet, fair man in the horn rims stood listening affably as was his habit. As usual he looked vague and probably ineffectual: in the shadier corners of Europe it was said of him that no one ever took him seriously until just about two hours too late. At the moment he appeared faintly amused. The thumping force of Luke’s enthusiasm always tickled him.
‘You think you know what has happened to the McGill couple, then?’ he ventured.
‘The hell I do!’ The policeman opened his small black eyes to their widest extent. ‘I tell you it’s the same tale as the classic mystery of the Marie Celeste. They’ve gone like a stain under a bleach. One minute they were having breakfast together, like every other married couple for miles and the next they were gone, sunk without trace.’
Mr. Campion hesitated. He looked a trifle embarrassed. ‘As I recall the story of the Marie Celeste it had the simple charm of the utterly incredible,’ he said at last. ‘Let’s see, she was a brig brought into Gib by a prize crew of innocent sailor-men, who had a wonderful tale to tell. According to them she was sighted in mid-ocean with all her sails set, her decks clean, her lockers tidy but not a soul on board. The details were fascinating. There were three cups of tea on the captain’s table still warm to the touch, in his cabin. There was a cat asleep in the galley and a chicken ready for stewing in a pot on the stove.’ He sighed gently. ‘Quite beautiful,’ he said, ‘but witnesses also swore that with no one at the wheel she was still dead on course and that seemed a little much to the court of inquiry, who after kicking it about as long as they could, finally made the absolute minimum award.’
Luke glanced at him sharply.
‘That wasn’t the Courier’s angle last night,’ he said. ‘They called it the “world’s favourite unsolved mystery”.’
‘So they did!’ Mr. Campion was laughing. ‘Because nobody wants a prosaic explanation of fraud and greed. The mystery of the Marie Celeste is just the prime example of the story which really is a bit too good to spoil, don’t you think?’
‘I don’t know. It’s not an idea which occurred to me,’ Luke sounded slightly irritated. ‘I was merely quoting the main outlines of the two tales: eighteen seventy-two and the Marie Celeste is a bit before my time. On the other hand, twenty-nine Chestnut Grove is definitely my business and you can take it from me no witness is being allowed to use his imagination in this inquiry. Just give your mind to the details, Campion…’ He set his tumbler down on the bar and began ticking off each item on his fingers.
‘Consider the couple,’ he said. ‘They sound normal enough. Peter McGill was twenty-eight and his wife Maureen a year younger. They’d been married three years and got on well together. For the first two years they had to board with his mother while they were waiting for a house. That didn’t work out too well so they rented a couple of rooms from Maureen’s married sister. That lasted for six months and they got the offer of this house in Chestnut Grove.’
‘Any money troubles?’ Mr. Campion inquired.
‘No.’ The Chief clearly thought the fact remarkable. ‘Peter seems to be the one lad in the family who had nothing to grumble about. His firm—they’re locksmiths in Aldgate; he’s in the office—are very pleased with him. His reputation is that he keeps within his income and he’s recently had a raise. I saw the senior partner this morning and he’s genuinely worried, poor old boy. He liked the young man and had nothing but praise for him.’
‘What about the girl?’
‘She’s another good type. Steady, reliable, kept on at her job as a typist until a few months ago when her husband decided she should retire to enjoy the new house and maybe raise a family. She certainly did her housework. The place is like a new pin now and they’ve been gone six days.’
For the first time Mr. Campion’s eyes darkened with interest.
‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘but the police seem to have come into this disappearance very quickly. Surely six days is no time for a couple to be missing. What are you looking for, Charles? A body?’
Luke shrugged. ‘Not officially,’ he said, ‘but one doesn’t have to have a nasty mind to wonder. We came into the inquiry quickly because the alarm was given quickly. The circumstances were extraordinary and the family got the wind up. That’s the explanation of that.’ He paused and stood for a moment hesitating. ‘Come along and have a look,’ he said, and his restless personality was a live thing in the confined space. ‘We’ll come back and have the other half of this drink after you’ve seen the set-up—I’ve got something really recherché here. I want you in on it.’
Mr. Campion, as obliging as ever, followed him out into the network of trim little streets lined with bandbox villas each set in a nest of flower garden. Luke was still talking.
‘It’s just down the end here and along to the right,’ he said, nodding towards the end of the avenue. ‘I’ll give you the outline as we go. On the twelfth of June last Bertram Heskith, a somewhat overbright specimen who is the husband of Maureen’s elder sister—the one they lodged with two doors down the road before number twenty-nine became available—dropped round to see them as he usually did just before eight in the morning. He came in at the back door which was standing open and found a half-eaten breakfast for two on the table in the smart new kitchen. No one was about so he pulled up a chair and sat down to wait.’ Luke’s long hands were busy as he talked and Mr. Campion could almost see the bright little room with the built-in furniture and the pot of flowers on the window ledge.
‘Bertram is a toy salesman and one of a large family,’ Luke went on. ‘He’s out of a job at the moment but is not despondent. He’s a talkative man, a fraction too big for his clothes now and he likes his noggin but he’s sharp enough. He’d have noticed at once if there had been anything at all unusual to see. As it was he poured himself a cup of tea out of the pot under the cosy and sat there waiting, reading the newspaper which he found lying open on the floor by Peter McGill’s chair. Finally it occurred to him that the house was very quiet and he put his head round the door and shouted up the stairs. When he got no reply he went up and found the bed unmade, the bathroom still warm and wet with steam and Maureen’s everyday hat and coat lying on a chair with her familiar brown handbag upon it. Bertram came down, examined the rest of the house and went on out into the garden. Maureen had been doing the laundry before breakfast. There was linen, almost dry, on the line and a basket lying on the green under it but that was all. The little rectangle of land was quite empty.’
As his deep voice ceased he gave Campion a sidelong glance.
‘And that my lad is that,’ he said. ‘Neither Peter nor Maureen have been seen since. When they didn’t show up Bertram consulted the rest of the family and after waiting for two days they went to the police.’
‘Really?’ Mr. Campion was fascinated despite himself. ‘Is that all you’ve got?’
‘Not quite, but the rest is hardly helpfu
l,’ Luke sounded almost gratified. ‘Wherever they are they’re not in the house or garden. If they walked out they did it without being seen which is more of a feat than you’d expect because they had interested relatives and friends all round them and the only things that anyone is sure they took with them are a couple of clean linen sheets. “Fine winding sheets” one lady called them.’
Mr. Campion’s brows rose behind his big spectacles.
‘That’s a delicate touch,’ he said. ‘I take it there is no suggestion of foul play? It’s always possible, of course.’
‘Foul play is becoming positively common in London, I don’t know what the old town is up to,’ Luke said gloomily, ‘but this set-up sounds healthy and happy enough. The McGills seem to have been pleasant normal young people and yet there are one or two little items which make you wonder. As far as we can find out Peter was not on his usual train to the city that morning but we have one witness, a third cousin of his, who says she followed him up the street from his house to the corner just as she often did on weekday mornings. At the top she went one way and she assumed that he went the other as usual but no one else seems to have seen him and she’s probably mistaken. Well now, here we are. Stand here for a minute.’
He had paused on the pavement of a narrow residential street, shady with plane trees and lined with pairs of pleasant little houses, stone-dashed and bay-windowed, in a style which is now a little out of fashion.
‘The next gate along here belongs to the Heskiths’,’ he went on, lowering his voice a tone or so. ‘We’ll walk rather quickly past there because we don’t want any more help from Bertram at the moment. He’s a good enough chap but he sees himself as the watchdog of his sister-in-law’s property and the way he follows me round makes me self-conscious. His house is number twenty-five—the odd numbers are on this side—twenty-nine is two doors along. Now number thirty-one which is actually adjoined to twenty-nine on the other side is closed. The old lady who owns it is in hospital; but in thirty-three there live two sisters, who are aunts of Peter’s. They moved there soon after the young couple. One is a widow.’ Luke sketched a portly juglike silhouette with his hands, ‘and the other is a spinster who looks like two yards of pump-water. Both are very interested in their nephew and his wife but whereas the widow is prepared to take a more or less benevolent view of her young relations, the spinster, Miss Dove, is apt to be critical. She told me Maureen didn’t know how to lay out the money and I think that from time to time she’d had a few words with the girl on the subject. I heard about the “fine linen sheets” from her. Apparently she’d told Maureen off about buying anything so expensive but the young bride had saved up for them and she’d got them.’ He sighed. ‘Women are like that,’ he said. ‘They get a yen for something and they want it and that’s all there is to it. Miss Dove says she watched Maureen hanging them out on the line early in the morning of the day she vanished. There’s one upstairs window in her house from which she can just see part of the garden at twenty-nine if she stands on a chair and clings to the sash.’ He grinned. ‘She happened to be doing just that at about half past six on the day the McGills disappeared and she insists she saw them hanging there. She recognised them by the crochet on the top edge. They’re certainly not in the house now. Miss Dove hints delicately that I should search Bertram’s home for them.’
Mr. Campion’s pale eyes had narrowed and his mouth was smiling.
‘It’s a peach of a story,’ he murmured. ‘A sort of circumstantial history of the utterly impossible. The whole thing just can’t have happened. How very odd, Charles. Did anyone else see Maureen that morning? Could she have walked out of the front door and come up the street with the linen over her arm unnoticed? I am not asking would she but could she?’
‘No.’ The Chief made no bones about it. ‘Even had she wanted to, which is unlikely, it’s virtually impossible. There are the cousins opposite, you see. They live in the house with the red geraniums over there. Directly in front of number twenty-nine are some sort of distant relatives of Peter’s. A father, mother, five marriageable daughters—it was one of them who says she followed Peter up the road that morning. Also there’s an old Irish granny who sits up in bed in the window of the front room all day. She’s not very reliable—for instance she can’t remember if Peter came out of the house at his usual time that day—but she would have noticed if Maureen had done so. No one saw Maureen that morning except Miss Dove, who, as I told you, watched her hanging linen on the line. The paper comes early; the milkman heard her washing machine from the scullery door when he left his bottles but he did not see her.’
‘What about the postman?’
‘He’s no help. He’s a new man on the round and can’t even remember if he called at twenty-nine. It’s a long street and, as he says, the houses are all alike. He gets to twenty-nine about seven-twenty-five and seldom meets anybody at that door. He wouldn’t know the McGills if he saw them, anyhow. Come on in, Campion, take a look round and see what you think.’
Mr. Campion followed his friend down the road and up a narrow garden path to where a uniformed man stood on guard before the front door. He was aware of a flutter behind the curtains in the house opposite as they appeared and a tall thin woman with a determinedly blank expression walked down the path of the next house but one and bowed to Luke meaningly as she paused at her gate for an instant before going back.
‘Miss Dove,’ said Luke unnecessarily, as he opened the door. Number twenty-nine had few surprises for Mr. Campion. It was almost exactly as he had imagined it. The furniture in the hall and front room was new and sparse, leaving plenty of room for future acquisitions but the kitchen-dining-room was well lived in and conveyed a distinct personality. Someone without much money, who had yet liked nice things, had lived there. He or she, and he suspected it was a she, had been generous, too, despite her economies, if the ‘charitable’ calendars and the packets of gipsy pegs bought at the door were any guide. The breakfast-table had been left as Bertram Heskith had found it and his cup was still there beside a third plate.
The thin man wandered through the house without comment, Luke at his heels. The scene was just as stated. There was no sign of hurried flight, no evidence of packing, no hint of violence. The dwelling was not so much untidy as in the process of being used. There was a pair of man’s pyjamas on the stool in the bathroom and a towel hung over the basin to dry. The woman’s handbag on the coat on a chair in the bedroom contained the usual miscellany, and two pounds three shillings, some coppers and a set of keys. Mr. Campion looked at everything, the clothes hanging neatly in the cupboard, the dead flowers still in the vases but the only item which appeared to hold his attention was the wedding group which he found in a silver frame on the dressing-table. He stood before it for a long time, apparently fascinated, yet it was not a remarkable picture. As is occasionally the case in such photographs the two central figures were the least dominant characters in the entire group of vigorous, laughing guests. Maureen timid and gentle, with a slender figure and big dark eyes, looked positively scared of her own bridesmaids while Peter, although solid and with a determined chin, had a panic-stricken look about him which contrasted with the cheerful assured grin of the best man.
‘That’s Heskith,’ said Luke. ‘You can see the sort of chap he is—not one of nature’s great outstanding success types but not the man to go imagining things. When he says he felt the two were there that morning, perfectly normal and happy as usual, I believe him.’
‘No Miss Dove here?’ said Campion still looking at the group.
‘No. That’s her sister though deputising for the bride’s mother. And that’s the girl from opposite, the one who thinks she saw Peter go up the road.’ Luke put a forefinger over the face of the third bridesmaid. ‘There’s another sister here and the rest are cousins. I understand the pic doesn’t do the bride justice. Everybody says she was a good-natured pretty girl…’ He corrected himself. ‘Is, I mean
.’
‘The bridegroom looks a reasonable type to me,’ murmured Mr. Campion. ‘A little apprehensive, perhaps.’
‘I wonder.’ Luke spoke thoughtfully. ‘The Heskiths had another photo of him and perhaps it’s more marked in that, but don’t you think there’s a sort of ruthlessness in that face, Campion? It’s not quite recklessness, more like decision. I knew a sergeant in the war with a face like that. He was mild enough in the ordinary way but once something shook him he acted fast and pulled no punches whatever. Well, that’s neither here nor there. Come and inspect the linen line, and then, Heaven help you, you’ll know just about as much as I do.’
He led the way out to the back and stood for a moment on the concrete path which ran under the kitchen window separating the house from the small rectangle of shorn grass which was all there was of a garden.
A high rose hedge, carefully trained on rustic fencing, separated it from the neighbours on the right; at the bottom there was a garden shed and a few fruit trees and, on the left, greenery in the neglected garden of the old lady who was in hospital had grown up high so that a green wall screened the lawn from all but the prying eyes of Miss Dove, who, even at that moment, Mr. Campion suspected, was standing on a chair and clinging to a sash to peer at them.
Luke indicated the empty line slung across the green. ‘I had the linen brought in,’ he said. ‘The Heskiths were worrying and there seemed no earthly point in leaving it out to rot.’
‘What’s in the shed?’
‘A spade and fork and a hand-mower,’ said the Chief promptly. ‘Come and look. The floor is beaten earth and if it’s been disturbed in thirty years I’ll eat my ticket. I suppose we’ll have to fetch it up in the end but we’ll be wasting our time.’
Mr. Campion went over and glanced into the tarred wooden hut. It was tidy and dusty and the floor was dry and hard. Outside a dilapidated pair of steps leaned against the six-foot brick wall which marked the boundary.
Miraculous Mysteries Page 33
