He looked at Campion hopefully and appeared relieved at the other’s hearty reassurance. He swallowed a large whisky and soda and was about to make some final remark when Joyce reappeared.
‘Hullo,’ she said in surprise, ‘going out?’
Uncle William coughed. ‘Thought I’d just have a constitutional,’ he said. ‘Haven’t had any exercise today. That damned policeman kept me in all this morning chatting.’
Joyce looked astounded, but she said nothing, and when the old man went out she took his seat, and Campion noticed that she held a cigarette-case. He took out his own hastily.
‘I say, is this allowed?’ he said, as he gave her a light. ‘Permit me to cure you of the tobacco habit in five days. Taken in curry, no one can tell my secret preparation from garlic.’
Joyce laughed politely. ‘This is an indulgence,’ she said. ‘I’m allowed to smoke occasionally by a special dispensation. Authority winks its eye. As a matter of fact it’s rather sweet. Every evening after dinner Great-aunt Caroline tells me I may go upstairs to write my letters. I didn’t understand it at first, but she told me that she had heard that young people nowadays enjoyed a suitably scented cigarette. It’s quite respectable, you see. Even the Queen smokes sometimes, they say. But she thought I ought to have my cigarette in private, so as not to set a bad example to the aunts.’ She paused and shot a quick level glance at him. ‘It’s all rather beastly, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘It’s queer,’ he said guardedly. ‘I suppose this is the last household in England of its kind?’
The girl shuddered. ‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘Dinner was pretty dreadful, wasn’t it? It’s like that every night, only usually, of course, the – the others are there, too.’
‘I enjoyed my dinner,’ said Mr Campion valiantly. ‘But my etiquette book rather let me down. It says that light conversation may be effectively introduced while passing the cruet. In this, of course, I was frustrated, as we all had our own cruets. Otherwise, no doubt, I should have been the life and soul of the party.’
Joyce reddened. ‘Yes, those salt-cellars are an awful admission of uncharitableness, aren’t they?’ she said. ‘They were Andrew’s fault. Some time ago, just after I first came, in fact, there was a disgraceful scene one night when Andrew refused to pass Julia the pepper; pretended not to hear her. Finally, when she insisted, he sulked like a child and said she had quite enough in her composition, without adding any more. Julia appealed to Aunt Caroline and there was a sort of nursery row. The next day everybody had their own condiments, and it’s been like that ever since. It’s one of those silly stupid petty little things that are a constant source of irritation to the flesh.’
Mr Campion was more shocked than he cared to admit by this slightly comic revelation, and he took refuge behind a barrier of cigar smoke. The girl went on holding her cigarette limply in her fingers as she stared into the fire.
‘I suppose you noticed that photograph of Uncle Robert, too?’
‘Who?’ said Mr Campion, appalled at the possibility of yet another implicated relative.
A faint smile passed over the girl’s face. ‘Oh, you needn’t be alarmed,’ she said. ‘He’s safely dead, poor darling. He was Aunt Kitty’s husband. And my mother’s brother,’ she interpolated a little defiantly. ‘That photograph was taken when he was a young man. It was probably considered funny then. He was president of some early frothblowers’ association, or something.’ She paused and eyed Mr Campion squarely. ‘The family always considered that Aunt Kitty married beneath her. She didn’t, though, as a matter of fact; not in my opinion, anyhow. Uncle Robert was a doctor with a poor practice. Well, Aunt Kitty kept that photograph and had it enlarged. Uncle Robert was rather proud of it, I believe, and it used to hang in his den. And when he died Aunt Kitty brought it here with her. Nothing would ever have happened about it if Uncle Andrew hadn’t found it. He was like that, you know; always poking about into other people’s things. He saw it on her dressing-table one day and insisted that it should be hung in the dining-room. He was so clever about it that Aunt Kitty was rather flattered. It was the first time that anyone had ever shown any enthusiasm for Uncle Robert and she was pitifully fond of him, poor darling.’ She sighed. ‘Everyone else saw, of course, just what Andrew meant them to see, another evidence of Uncle Robert’s vulgarity. Uncle Andrew used to call it “the mortification” when Aunt Kitty wasn’t in earshot.’
‘And no one took it down?’ said Mr Campion.
‘Well, no. You see, Uncle Andrew had made Aunt Kitty rather proud by hanging it there. You can see what a silly old dear she is. She doesn’t see half that’s going on around her. Great-aunt Caroline never seemed to notice the photograph, but Andrew enjoyed the annoyance it gave to everyone else. I know it’s wrong to talk about him like this now he’s dead, but you can see the sort of man he was.’
‘Not a beautiful soul,’ murmured Mr Campion.
‘He was a beast,’ said the girl with unexpected vehemence. ‘Fortunately the others combined sometimes to keep him quiet. He had a devil, if you know what I mean,’ she went on, speaking earnestly. ‘If he had been allowed to have his own way he would have driven everyone off their heads. As it was, he moved even the meekest of us to a sort of frenzy of loathing at times.’
She was silent for some moments and her mouth twitched nervously. It was evident that she was making up her mind to a confession of some sort. Suddenly it came.
‘I say,’ she said, ‘I’m terribly frightened. After all, when a thing like this happens, ordinary family loyalty and restraint and things like that don’t count much, do they? I’m afraid one of us here has gone mad. I don’t know who it is. It might be a servant, it might be – anybody. But I think they’re made in the – well, you know, the modern secret way, and they’ve killed Andrew because they couldn’t stand him any longer.’
‘Aunt Julia?’ inquired Mr Campion gently.
She lowered her voice. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘That’s what’s terrifying me. If it was just Andrew, somehow I don’t think I should care awfully, now that I know what’s happened to him. But now that Aunt Julia’s – been killed, it shows that the thing I’ve been afraid of all along has started. If a lunatic starts killing he goes on, doesn’t he? Don’t you see, it may be anyone’s turn next?’
Campion glanced at her sharply. This was the second person in the family who had put forward this suggestion.
‘Look here,’ he said, ‘you’d better go and stay with Ann Held.’
She stared at him, and he wondered whether she was going to laugh or be angry and was relieved to see her smile.
‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘I’m not afraid for myself. I don’t know why it is,’ she went on calmly, ‘but I feel that it’s all nothing to do with me. This is the older generation’s affair; I just don’t count. I feel that I’m just looking on at something that is working itself out. Oh, I can’t explain!’
Mr Campion threw the stub of his cigar into the fire. ‘I say,’ he said, ‘I ought to have a look at those two bedrooms tonight. Uncle Andrew’s and Aunt Julia’s. Do you think you could fix it?’
Joyce glanced at him sharply, a hint of alarm in her eyes. ‘We could sneak up now,’ he said. ‘There’s a good hour before Great-aunt goes up to bed. Hullo, though, I forgot. The police locked the doors.’
The pale young man before her grinned. ‘If you could find me a hairpin,’ he said, ‘I don’t think we need let that worry us. Don’t be alarmed. I’ve got permission from my celebrated detective friend, the Arch Hawk-Eye himself.’
Joyce looked at him in astonishment. ‘You don’t really mean that, do you?’
‘A hairpin or any piece of wire would do,’ said Mr Campion. ‘This house is probably full of hairpins. Aunt Kitty’s crowbar variety would do nicely. Your own are a bit flimsy, I should think.’
Joyce rose to her feet. ‘Come on then,’ she said. ‘I know it sounds silly, but you’d better creep upstairs, because the servants are rather alarmed already
. There are one or two plain-clothes men still hanging about the garden, you know, and, anyway, the staff has been put through a minor inquisition this evening.’
‘Too bad,’ he sympathized. ‘That’s the worst of the police. You can’t keep ’em out of the kitchen. It comes of keeping comic papers in the waiting-room at the Yard, I’ve no doubt.’
The light in the upper hall was subdued. The plan of the rooms on the first floor was much the same as below. Thus, Great-aunt Caroline’s bedroom was directly above the drawing-room, with Joyce’s room beside it over the morning-room. There was a bathroom directly above the Queen Anne sitting-room, and Kitty and Julia had rooms side by side over the library. In the other branch of the L, William’s room, Andrew’s room and the spare room, which had been allotted to Campion, ran side by side over the dining-room and kitchen, with the service staircase beyond. All these rooms gave on to a corridor whose windows overlooked the drive. The servants’ rooms and attics were on the second floor.
As they reached the upper hall the girl laid her hand on Campion’s arm.
‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘I’ll get you the hairpin. Aunt Kitty won’t mind me borrowing one of hers.’
Left alone in the softly lighted, thick carpeted hall, with its dark paint and carved oak furniture, Campion, who was by no means a nervous man, was seized by a sudden revulsion of feeling which he could not explain. It was not so much a terror of the unknown as a sense of oppression brooding over the house, a suffocated feeling as if he were set down inside a huge tea-cosy with something unclean.
It was evident that the girl experienced much the same feeling, for she was very pale and inclined to be jumpy when she came out to him a moment later, a coarse black hairpin in her hand.
‘Where first?’ she whispered.
‘Andrew’s room,’ murmured Campion. ‘Are you coming with me?’
She hesitated. ‘Shall I be any use? I don’t want to be in the way.’
‘You won’t be in the way, if you don’t mind coming.’
‘All right.’
They moved silently down the corridor and the girl paused before the centre door of the three which led off it.
‘Here we are,’ she said. ‘That’s your room on the left and Uncle William’s on the right. This is Andrew’s.’
Mr Campion took the hairpin and squatted down before the keyhole.
‘This parlour trick of mine must not be taken as representative,’ he said. ‘Some people laugh when they see it and some people kick me out of the house. I don’t often do it.’
All the time he was talking his fingers were moving rapidly, and suddenly a sharp click rewarded his labours and he stood up and regarded her shamefacedly.
‘Don’t tell Marcus,’ he whispered. ‘He’s one who wouldn’t laugh.’
She smiled at him. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Who’s going in first?’
Mr Campion opened the door slowly and they crept in, closing it silently behind them. The girl switched on the light and they stood looking about them. The room had the cold, slightly stale atmosphere of a closed bedroom in an old-fashioned house. At first sight Campion was startled. It was so different from what he had expected. Apart from a wall of bookshelves in the midst of which there was a small writingdesk, the room might have belonged to a modern hermit. It was large and inexpressibly bare, with white walls and no carpet, save for a small jute bath-mat set beside the bed. This was of the truckle variety, and it looked hard and thinly covered. A simple wooden stand with a small mirror above it served as a dressing-table and supported some half-dozen photographs. The simplicity and poverty of the room compared with the solid comfort of the rest of the house, was startling to the point of theatricality. A cupboard built into the wall was the only sign of clothes room, and a huge iron damper covered the fireplace.
The girl caught a glimpse of Campion’s face. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said. ‘You feel like everyone else. Andrew liked to play at being the poor relation. This room is one of his elaborate insults to the rest of the family. Yet he liked comfort quite as much as anybody, and for years, I believe, this room was one of the most luxurious bedrooms in the house. Then, about a year ago, Andrew took it into his head to have it all changed. The carpet had to be taken up, the walls stripped and this stage setting of a prison arranged. D’you know,’ she went on angrily, ‘he used to bring visitors up here to show them how badly he was treated. Of course, the rest of the family was livid, but he was cleverer than they are. He used to make it look as though they were forcing him to live uncomfortably, which, of course, was absolute rubbish. He certainly had a most exasperating way.’
Campion crossed to the bookcase and peered in. The volumes were standing on shelves on which leather dust frills had been nailed. The titles surprised him. It was quite a large library and appeared to be devoted to the best-known works of a certain character. Uncle Andrew’s taste in literature appeared to have leant towards classical eroticism, although the more modern psychologists were also well represented. Mr Campion, picking up an early treatise on Sex and the Mind, found that it had been the property of a medical library in Edinburgh, purloined, apparently about thirty years before. He replaced the book on the shelf and turned back into the room.
As he did so he caught sight of one of the few objets d’art it contained. This was a relief of the Laocoön, evidently an ancient rendering of the famous group in the Vatican. But the carver had put something of his own into the work: in place of the noble unreality of the original, there was an imaginative study in horror which, in spite of its small size, seemed to dominate the apartment. Joyce shuddered.
‘I hate that thing,’ she said. ‘Aunt Kitty used to say it made her dream, and Andrew wanted to make her hang it in her room – until she got used to it, he said. He told her a long rigmarole about conquering fear by willpower, and almost persuaded her to take the thing. Probably he would have done so if Julia hadn’t sailed in to the rescue and put her foot down. That was the kind of thing she liked doing. Oh, they’re all so petty! Aunt Caroline’s strict, but she’s strict in a big way.’
Meanwhile Mr Campion continued to wander round the room. He peered into the clothes cupboard, opened the desk, and finally came to a full stop before the dressing-table. An exclamation escaped him, and he picked up a photograph of a clerical personage, a white-haired and benevolent figure. It was inscribed: ‘To my old friend Andrew Seeley, in memory of our holiday in Prague. Wilfred.’
Joyce looked over Campion’s shoulder. ‘He’s a bishop,’ she said. ‘Andrew was secretly very proud of knowing him so well, I think. He used to hint that they had the wildest holiday together. Why are you staring at it? Do you know him?’
‘I did,’ said Mr Campion. ‘He’s dead, poor old boy. That’s my sainted uncle, the Bishop of Devizes. He wasn’t the sort of old bird to go gay on a holiday in Prague, although he knew more about dry-fly fishing than any man alive, I believe. But that isn’t the really extraordinary thing about this photograph. The odd thing is that this isn’t his handwriting. It isn’t quite his signature. In fact, it’s a fake.’
The girl stared at him round-eyed. ‘But Andrew said—’ she began, and stopped short, a contemptuous expression spreading over her face. ‘That’s just like Andrew.’
Mr Campion set the photograph down. ‘I don’t think there’s much more to be seen here,’ he said, ‘and we haven’t any too much time. Let’s go on, shall we?’
She nodded and they tiptoed out. The relocking ceremony took some minutes, but Julia’s door yielded almost immediately.
Seen directly after the late Uncle Andrew’s den, Miss Julia Faraday’s bedroom was an overbearingly cluttered apartment. It was crammed full of furniture of every possible description, and achieved fussiness without femininity. The two large windows had three sets of curtains each; Nottingham lace gave way to frilled muslin and frilled muslin to yellow damask looped up with great knots of silk cable which looked as though it would have held a liner. The keynote
of the whole scheme of decoration was drapery.
The fireplace was surrounded with loops of the same yellow damask, and the bed, the focusing point, the rococo pièce de résistance of the whole room, was befrilled and befurbelowed until its original shape was lost altogether.
The bed interested Mr Campion from the beginning, and he stood looking at it with respectful astonishment.
‘They call that an Italian brass bed, for some reason or other,’ Joyce volunteered. ‘I think it’s because of those wing bits with the curtains on. You see, they move backwards and forwards and keep the draught out. Not that there ever is a draught in this house.’
The young man advanced towards the monstrosity and stood with a hand resting on one of the huge brass knobs which surmounted each post. For some moments he stood staring in front of him at the tapestry-hung brass railings beyond the expanse of eiderdown, and he turned and surveyed the rest of the room.
It was evident to a practised eye that a very thorough search had been made already. Glancing at the pantechnicon of a wardrobe with its quadruple doors, he realized that the police must have leapt upon this as a possible source of discovery, and he knew better than anyone that to search after a Yard man is so much waste of time. Yet somewhere in this room there was, he felt sure, some trace of the poison which had killed Aunt Julia. Joyce broke in upon his meditations.
‘You never knew her, did you?’ she said. ‘All these are photographs of her.’ She pointed to an array of ornamental frames above the mantelshelf. They were all of them portraits of the same woman in various stages of maturity, beginning with a heavy-featured girl laced uncomfortably into unbecoming garments and progressing gradually into corpulent middle age. The final portrait showed a grey-haired, stern-faced woman, whose lines of bad temper from her nose to her mouth were so deep that even the photographer had been unable to conceal them.
Police at the Funeral Page 11
