‘This is an Act of God,’ he said. ‘You’re the man I want to see. Higgleton sent you, I suppose?’
‘Yes.’ Mr Livingstone sat down again and accepted the drink Campion offered him. ‘Old Charlie Higgleton and me are what you’d call friends, although we don’t see much of each other now I’ve retired. On the quiet, I came up for the trial,’ he added confidentially. ‘I like to keep in touch with old times, as it were, and when I see a certain firm was implicated, in which I was interested because of a funny thing which happened in the past, I said to my wife, “I’ll have to go and see that.” And so I came.’
‘Did you get in?’
Mr Livingstone drooped a heavy eyelid.
‘There’s ways and means.’ he said darkly, ‘naming no names, of course. But we – er – we –’ he hesitated.
‘Old blues?’ suggested Mr Campion affably.
Mr Livingstone beamed.
‘Exactly. We police, we stick together and remember old pals. The end come as a real shock to me this afternoon. I thought the youngster was for it.’
He looked at Campion inquiringly, but his host did not rise to the implied question, and after a pause he continued.
‘Well, when I went back to Charlie’s, where I’m staying, and was talking about it and about old times, he remembered you and found your card. I recollected seeing your name in connection with the case, so I hopped on a bus and here I am.’
Mr Campion purred over him.
‘You’re providential,’ he said. ‘Tell me, did Mr Higgleton tell you about our conversation in the spring?’
Mr Livingstone looked pointedly at Lugg, and when that excellent person had been persuaded to leave them he smiled self-consciously at Campion.
‘It’s not a tale to put about,’ he murmured apologetically, ‘but since you was interested I thought I’d like you to hear my side of it. We’re referrin’ to a certain party who disappeared about twenty years ago, aren’t we?’
‘That’s right,’ said Campion. ‘Tom Barnabas was walking down the road from Nemetia Crescent, Streatham, when he vanished.’
‘And was never seen of more,’ added ex-Sergeant Livingstone in a voice so sepulchral that Campion jumped. ‘Well, since you’re interested I may tell you it’s true. It was a sunny May morning with a touch of mist in the air and that shimmery look on the pavements and the trees. Mr Barnabas was walking along the road on the side nearest the wall. Charlie Higgleton saw ’im and went in to get his paper for ’im, and I was standing on the corner on the opposite side of the road. I saw ’im coming and I recognized ’im. I didn’t watch ’im closely, of course – Why should I? I didn’t know ’e was going to walk into the fourth dimension.’
‘Of course not,’ agreed Mr. Campion reasonably.
‘It’s a high wall,’ said his visitor. ‘You’ve seen it, so you know. As high as the top of ’is silk hat. I mention it because him being against it, as it were, he stood out very clear, if you take me.’
Mr Campion nodded comprehendingly and Livingstone went on earnestly.
‘When he was about a hundred yards away from me on the opposite side of the road, and there wasn’t another soul in sight, I looked away from him and glanced into Charlie’s shop. But I could still see Mr Barnabas, although it was only out of the tail of me eye and I wasn’t really lookin’ at him. You follow me?’
‘Perfectly.’
‘Well, ’e vanished,’ said Mr Livingstone, staring at Campion with boot-button eyes.
Mr Campion was suitably impressed.
‘Look here,’ he said, ‘let’s get this right. When you looked once he was there, and when you looked a second time he wasn’t.’
‘No, that was the funny thing,’ said Mr Livingstone. ‘I saw ’im out of the corner of my eye the whole time. I saw ’im go.’
‘Did you, by Jove? Which way?’
‘He went … up,’ said Mr Livingstone.
There was a slightly uncanny silence and Mr Campion rose.
‘Higher than the wall?’ he inquired at last.
‘I think he did. I remember him melting into the foliage above the wall and then ’e was gone. It happened like that.’
He struck one palm noiselessly against the other, an oddly expressive gesture.
‘Of course I didn’t report it quite like that at the station,’ Mr Campion’s visitor continued in a different tone. ‘We wasn’t used to miracles twenty years ago, and if I’d gone to the Inspector and said I’d seen a big heavy bloke in a top hat, tail coat, white spats and gold-headed cane disappear into thin air in front of me very eyes I’d have been sent to the doctor and never heard the end of it all me born days. So I took the wise course, and you’ll see in my reports that I saw ’im coming along and I looked away, and after that I didn’t notice ’im any more. I thought he must have gone into the shop. It was Charlie Higgleton who stuck to the miracle story, although it was me who saw it. That was a funny road altogether. On the other side of the wall was a garden full of snakes. A woman used to breed ’em. London’s a rum place. I miss it sometimes up there in Norwich. London’s got the fascination of a girl you never quite get to know.’
He made the final remark regretfully and without affectation.
Mr Campion was silent for some time. Finally he looked up.
‘Do you like miracles?’ he inquired.
‘Like ’em?’
‘Do you mind them explained?’
‘Oh, I see what you mean.’ Mr Livingstone had the honesty to hesitate, and his host liked him for it. ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘Yes, I’d like to know what really happened. He wasn’t never seen again, you know.’
Mr Campion went to the cupboard in the bureau and, after rummaging for some time in its depths with his back towards his visitor, he suddenly swung round, his left arm outstretched.
‘Look,’ he commanded.
Mr. Livingstone’s eyes bulged and he sprang to his feet with an exclamation. A particularly murderous-looking knife was sticking through Campion’s forearm with about three inches of crimson blade projecting from the side opposite the hilt.
Mr Campion was apologetic.
‘Sorry to startle you,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d probably seen these things. They sell ’em at the toy-shops. It’s a sort of bracelet, see?’
He took the contraption off his arm and revealed its secret, which was no more mysterious than a half-circle of steel wire connecting the hilt with a three-inch length of painted blade.
Ex-Sergeant Livingstone took a child-like delight in the trick.
‘You startled me!’ he said, chuckling. ‘I thought, “Lummy! ’e’s barmy” before I see you laugh.’
‘Yes, well, there you are. There’s the explanation of your miracle.’ Mr Campion sounded a little regretful.
His visitor was still puzzled.
‘Do you mean it was a trick wall, sir?’ he ventured dubiously. ‘I dare say you know best, sir, but I knew that road pretty well and I’d have known at once if there was anything funny about the wall.’
‘Oh no, not a trick wall,’ said Mr Campion. ‘A trick man.’
‘A trick man, sir?’
‘Yes, look here. Suppose if instead of a solid city gentleman advancing on middle age you’d seen a great strong fellow in shorts and a singlet striding down the road towards you; and if you had read a poster which told you that Mr Tom Barnabas, the vaulting champion of the world, was going to perform; and if, while you were looking at him, he suddenly swung up an enormous right arm, and caught the top of the wall, which was six foot ten high, and pulled himself over it as swiftly and neatly as a dog swallows a chunk of fish, would you still have thought it a miracle? No. You’d have thought what a first-class performance it was.’
Mr Livingstone took some moments to digest this revelation.
‘Was Mr Barnabas a champion vaulter, sir?’ he said. ‘I never heard that.’
‘No,’ said Campion. ‘He wasn’t. That’s why it was such a good trick. I don’t even know if t
here were such things; but he could walk upstairs on his hands and I imagine that he had one or two other accomplishments of a like nature. He also had a sense of theatre and I suspect a touch of humour.’
‘But the snakes …’ protested Mr Livingstone, impressed in spite of himself. ‘The garden on the other side of that wall was full of snakes.’
Mr Campion eyed the ex-Sergeant.
‘I think he was probably very fond of snakes,’ he said. ‘And I think he knew those particular creatures very well.’
‘Well!’ said Mr Livingstone, and was silent.
He sat quiet for some little time and finally glanced up wistfully.
‘You’ve got it,’ he said. ‘I remember now after all these years I caught a glimpse of him turnin’ in the air and I thought he was going up in a sort of spiral. But when I got me head round he was gone. Still,’ he added, taking leave of his miracle with reluctance, ‘what about his belongings, if he disappeared on purpose? He left everything, you know. Money in the bank as well.’
‘I think,’ said Mr Campion, with deliberation, ‘that he only took one piece of luggage into the fourth dimension, and he sent that in advance.’
It was clear that he did not mean to dilate further upon the subject, and Mr Livingstone did not press him. The explanation of his miracle had saddened him and he was subdued.
Gradually, however, his thoughts drifted from the past to the present and he sat up.
‘I’ll be going,’ he said. ‘It’s late. Thank you very much for your information, sir. It’s explained a lot to me. I’m glad you told me, I am really. I wonder if you could tell me one other thing? In the present case the Crown stopped that trial because the police believed there’s been another murder done in exactly the same way as the first, and probably by the same man. Now are they going to hunt out the murderer, or are they going to let the papers think it was a case of suicide done in remorse and leave things alone?’
Campion looked at him, heavy-eyed.
‘My dear chap, I don’t know,’ he said, and his voice was sharp with anxiety. ‘I only wish I did.’
After his visitor had gone he flung himself down in his chair and stared morosely at the carpet, a strange heaviness on his heart. For what he had not told Mike, and what the police were so far attempting to hide from the Press, was the indisputable fact that at eight o’clock that morning, Mr Ritchie Barnabas had paid his bill at his lodgings, divided his personal effects impartially between his landlady and his landlady’s husband, and had gone out ostensibly to take his annual holiday and had vanished as utterly and unobtrusively as his brother had done twenty years before.
CHAPTER XXI
The Spangled Frill
IT WAS SEPTEMBER, and the hot airs of the long summer were beginning to be dispersed by the light breezes which precede the mistral when Mr Campion and Mike stood upon the long concrete platform of the railway station at Avignon and waited for the Paris train.
It was just dusk and inside the walls of the city the plane trees were making high tents against the sky, while down in the place the rival cafés jostled each other off the cobbles, the different colours of the painted chairs alone proclaiming their irregular boundaries.
Both men looked well and exceedingly pleased, with themselves. Mike especially was frankly jubilant, as every now and again he glanced at his wrist-watch.
‘I still think we ought to have gone on to Paris,’ he said. ‘I can’t see why you’re so insistent about staying here. Of course, I am very grateful to you. I shouldn’t have sent that wire by myself. I hope it’ll be all right though: this isn’t exactly a pleasure city.’
‘It’s a lovely town,’ said Mr Campion, with dignity. ‘The French Colchester. When you compare the two you see the essential differences between the French and English temperaments. We’ve had a nice vulgar holiday all over the show, and this is journey’s end, and very nice too.’
Mike grunted, and after a pause glanced at his friend sharply.
‘I don’t want to butt in,’ he said diffidently, ‘but have you had any idea in your mind while we’ve been gadding about?’
‘Idea?’ echoed Mr Campion, a trifle hurt.
‘Well, purpose. All this trip, ever since May, you’ve been jittering around the Continent like an agitated tourist. We’ve avoided the cities, but I should think we’ve visited every second-size town in Italy, Dalmatia and France, stayed about ten minutes and rushed off again. Now at last you’ve settled down in Avignon of all places. Found anything?’
Mr Campion was silent. He did not appear to have heard. Mike hesitated.
‘Don’t think I’m not grateful,’ he went on seriously. ‘I am. I’ve got everything in perspective now and my own troubles don’t quite fill up the landscape any more. I had a line from Curley. Everything seems to have blown over. It seems extraordinary when you think back, but people soon forget. The latest rumpus in our world is the autobiography now. The author’s hiding in a nursing home terrified of all the angry females who haven’t been put in the book.’
He laughed shortly, and Campion, eyeing him, decided that his cure was practically complete.
‘Train’s due,’ he said.
‘Is it?’ Mike swung round and gazed up the track and Mr Campion felt himself forgotten.
The engine came roaring in, and instantly the dozens of recumbent blue figures who had hitherto lain moribund sprang to vociferous life and, amid all the excitement of the arrival of the winners in a motor rally, the daily mid-evening train drew in.
The door of the Pullman burst open and Campion heard Mike’s ‘Gina’ above the parrot-house hubbub all round him.
She stepped out, radiant and coolly excited, and Campion, who had a proper respect for any woman who could end a twelve-hour summer journey in a Paris-Sud train looking as though she had stepped out of a bandbox rather than an ash-pit, admired her elegance.
She did not see him at first. Mike absorbed her complete attention.
‘I got your wire,’ she was saying as Campion drifted up to them.
Mike held her at arm’s length, his eyes eloquent, although his words were hardly inspired.
‘And you came?’
‘I came,’ she said quietly, and he caught his breath as she linked her arm through his.
Mr Campion shook hands hastily and said he was going to the circus. They watched him stride off, a long, thin, inoffensive figure, personable, but by no means arresting.
‘We owe him a lot, that one,’ the girl remarked quietly.
‘Too much,’ said Mike fervently. ‘I daren’t think of it. Look here, sweetheart, you’ve got to hurry. The chef of the hotel is waiting for you. He tells me he is a man of perception. I’m afraid he may come and cry over us.’
She laughed and they stepped out of the station together, and climbed into the crazy old voiture which was to carry them into the walled city.
Mr Campion crossed the bridge over the wide, lazy Rhone, reflecting idiotically that the new bridge was better than the old Pont d’Avignon of the nursery rhyme because there was enough of it to reach to the other side.
It was a magnificent dusky evening, the air soft and tainted by the wine-presses and jubilant with the excitement of autumn, which is so much more comfortable than the excitement of spring.
In the fields on the other bank of the river, on the road to Villeneuve, the cirque was already established. It was not a grand affair, designed to attract the tourisme, but a little noisy jollification for the natives now that the visitors had gone and left a few spare centimes behind them.
There was one big tent, five or six side-shows mainly of the freak variety, and a cluster of painted living-wagons. Electric light bulbs strung on yards of dangerous cable sprawled everywhere and the Provençal en tout famille laughed and joked about the frankly comic sides of ordinary life which seem to be so very offensive if one is not amused.
The show in the big tent would not begin for half an hour, and Campion, having seen the spider lady and the
tallest Ethiopian in the world, found himself outside the largest of the living-wagons. This was a slightly baroque affair, decorated with the Queen of Sheba on one side and a view of Naples on the other, and glittered with brass rails and several varieties of scroll-work. A man sat upon the steps reading a newspaper by the light of a festoon of coloured bulbs draped over the wagon.
He was a large man, still tough at sixty and very fine to look at, in spite of a pink shirt, stiff collar, tight black trousers and Texan sombrero. There were two diamond rings on his fingers and his shoes were English hand-sewn.
He looked up at Campion, who saw his face and rejoiced.
‘M’sieu?’ he inquired.
Campion presented him with his card. The stranger took it between an enormous finger and thumb and sat looking at it thoughtfully for some time. Campion bent forward.
‘I came to tell you,’ he said quietly in French, ‘that John Widdowson killed his cousin Paul Brande, and afterwards, when he was discovered, was found dead in his bath. The general opinion in England now is that he committed suicide.’
‘And the police? What do they think?’
‘The police,’ explained Mr Campion, ‘preserve an open mind. There is one whom they would interview if they found him, but I do not think they are looking for him. As long as he does not reappear …’ he shrugged his shoulders expressively.
The man rose to his feet and held out his hand.
‘How d’you do?’ he said in English. ‘Let me introduce you to Madame.’
He went slowly up the steps and bent his head to enter the caravan. He was extremely tall, a giant of a man, with the long supple muscles of an acrobat. Campion caught a few of the murmured words within.
‘un véritable ami … absolument. C’est lui … le jeune homme luimême. Ne vous inquiétez pas.’
There was a rustle and Madame appeared. She was large, dark and gracious, wearing a trifle too much jewellery for camping, perhaps, but she gave Mr Campion her hand and flashed her black eyes at him and he liked her, snakes, diamonds and all.
They entertained him on the steps. It was a warm night, and it occurred to Campion that she might just possibly keep her more favourite pets in the caravan.
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