Dancers in Mourning

by Margery Allingham

  ‘Oh, we’ve ’ad the police ’ere – I can see by yer face that’s all you’re interested in. There’s a Sergeant stayin’ at the pub down the road as far as I know, but I’ve not let a pack of flatties bother me.’

  He seemed to regard the final statement as a sign of virtue.

  ‘That was what you told me, wasn’t it?’

  Campion sighed. ‘Quite,’ he said. ‘Oh, by the way, perhaps I ought to have mentioned it; if there is a fire while you are here you will act – temporarily, of course – as a fireman. And if the river at the bottom of the garden overflows and floods the lower storey you should become for a brief hour or so a boatman, conveying members of the household to safety as best you can.’

  Lugg was silent for a moment.

  ‘You’re not quite yourself, are you?’ he said at last. ‘Anythin’ up? Fun’s fun, but no need to be spiteful. This is a mad-’ouse, you know. If I was the Inspector I’d arrest the lot, give ’em good food and attention fer a month and ’ang the one ’oo was still crackers at the end of the time.’

  Having delivered himself of this dictum, he returned to the suitcase.

  ‘Serve the boss right for allowin’ the bike in the ’ouse,’ he remarked over his shoulder. ‘I see by the papers they suspect the lamp now. I thought there must be somethink like that by the way they was carryin’ on about the machine. I ban newspapers in the kitchen. I tell ’em I’ve got the inside stuff and everythin’ they want to know they must take from me. I ’ad to do somethin’ like that or they’d all be leavin’, and I don’t want the blarsted ’ousework of a place this size on me ’ands.’

  He paused and glanced sharply towards the door just before someone knocked.

  ‘Come in, Mr Faraday,’ he called out, and added as he opened the door with all the dignity of a better trained man, ‘I knoo it was you, sir. ’Eard you breathin’. ’Ere is Mr Campion – at last.’

  A subdued and almost pallid Uncle William came padding softly into the room.

  ‘My dear boy,’ he said with genuine emotion. ‘My dear boy.’

  Lugg bristled and his small and bright black eyes contained a gleam of jealousy.

  ‘Wot O! the fatted calf,’ he murmured derisively.

  Uncle William, who was slow of perception, did not see the allusion instantly and appeared to think some personal insult was intended. He swung round with parade-ground severity.

  ‘I’ll trouble you to control your tongue, my man. Get out. I want to speak to your master.’

  The fat man by the bedside dropped the sponge-bag he had taken from the case and stood staring, his huge face dark with indignation.

  ‘Be off with you,’ insisted Uncle William with more vigour than impressiveness.

  Lugg looked at Campion and, receiving no hint of encouragement, moved ponderously towards the door.

  When it was actually closing behind him and he had not been recalled he paused and put his head in again.

  ‘If you ’ave not dined, sir, there are a few cold bits on the sideboard in the dining-room,’ he said with tremendous dignity, and, having recovered his self-esteem and achieved the last word, he surged off to his own domain below stairs.

  In the bedroom Uncle William frowned and cast a worried glance behind him.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt the fellow’s feelings,’ he said, ‘but this is no time to stand on ceremony. What a business, Campion! What a terrible business! You probably know more about it than I do, if the truth were told, but I’ve watched some of the effects down here. We’re livin’ in a nightmare, my boy. I’ve woken up from a nap more than once with my heart in my mouth. One can’t forget it even for a moment. It hangs over one’s head day and night. Day and night!’

  He gobbled a little and wiped his face with one of his stiff white handkerchiefs.

  ‘Just when we thought the worst was over bar the shoutin’, and were quietly gettin’ back to normal again, that silly little whipper-snapper calls in for his bicycle and rides off on it to meet his death. When I first heard of it on the Sunday night I own I wasn’t broken-hearted – except for the other poor souls, of course. Konrad always struck me as a weed, and it didn’t upset me to hear that he’d gone to the Great Incinerator. But yesterday, when the London police arrived with the local man and started puttin’ us through it about the bicycle, it came to me in an overwhelmin’ flash that we were back in the mire again, and well over the ankles this time.’

  He sat down in a chintz-covered arm-chair, which was too small to contain his plump sides with comfort, and remained hunched up, looking down at his red leather house-slippers.

  ‘The police are confused, shouldn’t wonder,’ he remarked presently. ‘Last Friday was the funeral of that silly woman who began this run of bad luck and on the Saturday Jimmy gave up his matinée to put in the best part of a long day on the new show. All the principals came down here on Sunday mornin’ and most of ’em stayed the night to go on with the work over Sunday. It’s goin’ to be a terrible performance, I’m afraid. Didn’t like what I saw of it. Still, that’s neither here nor there. When Inspector Yeo started askin’ me who was in the house at the end of last week I was hard put to it to give him a full answer. I told him he’d never arrive at the truth by the elimination of possible suspects.

  ‘There was a prince here for a night – Friday or Saturday. A Russian feller. Very civil. Seemed to be an old friend of Jimmy’s. Knew him in Paris years ago. Kept me awake half the night with tales of wolf-shootin’.

  ‘The place has been full of people. I said to the police sergeant it’s like lookin’ for a tiger in South America. If he’s there he’s in disguise. And if you accept that he may be any one of the peculiar-lookin’ fellers about.’

  He paused, blew, and raised a worried plump old face to his friend’s.

  ‘We’re in the devil of a hole, Campion,’ he said. ‘Which of us is it? D’you know?’

  He received no answer and bowed his head, so that his misty tonsure, frilled with yellow-white curls, made a sudden and pathetic appearance.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ he said. ‘And I’ll tell you something, Campion. I’m not an obstinate feller by any means, but there is one possibility – only a faint one, mind; but I’m not a fool, I see it – there’s one possibility that I’m shuttin’ my eyes to. Come what may, I’m not goin’ to believe it. Understand?’

  Mr Campion glanced over the garden again.

  ‘I rather thought you might feel like that,’ he said.

  Uncle William looked up sharply. His bright blue eyes were hunted and shifty.

  ‘Why should –’ he began, but thought better of it. ‘No point in fruitless discussion,’ he said. ‘Feel like a rat in a treadmill once you start thinkin’. Tell you what I’ve done. I’ve consulted my heart and made up my mind and I’m stickin’ to my decision. It may not be the right way, but battles have been won on it, my boy. If you don’t mind we won’t mention it again.

  ‘I don’t like the girl goin’ off like this, do you? What’s she up to?’

  Campion swung round from the window.

  ‘What girl?’

  ‘Eve. Didn’t Linda tell you?’ Uncle William seemed put out. ‘What’s Linda holdin’ that back for? Thought she’d get you down here safely first, I suppose. Can’t tell with a woman. Yes, well, Eve’s gone, you know. Went off yesterday afternoon. Got the chauffeur to take her to the station with a small suitcase. The feller said she’d been cryin’. I’ve been sittin’ by the telephone all day, waitin’ for her to ring up. Nothin’ yet.’

  Campion stared at him in fascinated silence. Uncle William dropped his eyes.

  ‘Queer, isn’t it?’ he murmured.

  ‘Very.’ Campion’s tone was sharp. ‘Do the police know about it?’

  ‘No. No, I don’t think they do, as a matter of fact. That is, they don’t realise we don’t know where she is.’

  Campion leant back against the window-ledge.

  ‘You’ll have to explain, you know.’


  Uncle William shrugged his shoulders and stirred uncomfortably.

  ‘Feel I may be makin’ a mountain out of a molehill, don’t you know,’ he observed in a particularly unsuccessful attempt to hide his concern. ‘I’m gettin’ on myself and, realisin’ the girl’s so young, I’m apt to be a bit of an old woman. Very likely Linda feels much the same and doesn’t think it was worth mentionin’.’

  Mr Campion thought of that long, silent drive through the country lanes and wrenched his mind away from the contemplation of it.

  ‘What happened exactly?’ he demanded. ‘When the chauffeur came home he was questioned, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes, well, we saw him comin’ in, don’t you know, and asked him where he’d been.’

  Uncle William managed to sound reluctant without being actually evasive.

  ‘The long and the short of it was that there was a certain amount of general surprise when we heard the girl had gone off without a word. Someone ran up to her room to see if she’d left a note and when we found she hadn’t we were all standin’ about, worried, and then Jimmy, who was down here after waitin’ to see the police, suddenly seemed to remember that he knew about it. He said she’d be back today. The Sergeant didn’t ask for her this mornin’ when he came round and no one mentioned her bein’ away. There’s so many people comin’ and goin’ the police can’t keep track of it all unless they come out into the open and keep the house under general arrest.’

  He drew a deep breath and blinked uneasily.

  ‘I asked Jimmy straight out where she was and he said he thought she was stayin’ with a woman friend in Bayswater. Linda knew the name and after Jimmy had gone to town she rang the woman up. But Eve wasn’t with her and hadn’t been.’

  His voice trailed away.

  Campion digested the somewhat disturbing story.

  ‘Was she in the habit of going off up to town at a moment’s notice and staying the night with friends?’

  ‘Not without a word to anyone, my dear fellow.’ Uncle William sounded shocked. ‘There’s a funny thing for anyone to do. Monstrous in a girl of seventeen or so. I’m worried about her, Campion. She wrote that note I found in the bird’s-nest all right.’

  ‘Oh, she did? Whom to?’

  ‘I never found out.’ He reported the failure regretfully. ‘Couldn’t keep my eyes on the tree all day. It was still there on Saturday. On the Sunday mornin’, too. But on Monday I was prowlin’ round early, tryin’ to get my mind accustomed to the new catastrophe, when I caught a glimpse of someone in the woods ahead of me. I knew it was Eve by her pink dress. Presently she came past with her face screwed up and tears in her eyes, and when I said “Good mornin”’ or somethin’ equally footlin’ she didn’t look at me. When I got to the nest it was empty, but there were small fragments of the note scattered over the grass. Shouldn’t have noticed them if I hadn’t been lookin’ for them. They were quite dry and it had showered heavily in the night, so I took it that she’d only just torn the paper up.’

  For an instant a shy twinkle appeared in his eyes.

  ‘Rather neat work,’ he murmured. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘Very.’ Campion was properly impressed. ‘Has Sock been down here?’

  ‘Several times. Run off his feet, poor lad. Don’t know when he sleeps. Extraordinary thing! Have you noticed it, Campion? If a feller’s under twenty-seven no one ever thinks he needs rest of any kind. Jimmy’s not a hard man, but he looks on Sock as a sort of messenger-boy on wings. You don’t think the girl would run off to Sock, do you? I mean, two young people on their own. No restraint. No curbin’. Monstrous.’

  Campion passed his hand over his hair.

  ‘Who’s in the house now, besides ourselves and Lugg?’

  ‘Only Linda and Miss Finbrough. Jimmy will be down in an hour or two and heaven knows whom he’ll bring with him. Mercer’s at his own cottage, in bed. Poisoned, silly feller.’

  ‘Poisoned?’

  Uncle William chuckled.

  ‘Caught a cold comin’ home on Friday night,’ he said with malicious amusement. ‘Serve him right. Ought to have gone to the funeral. Terrible feller to have anythin’ the matter with him. There were we, worried, nervous, distraught, and there was he fidgetin’ about a cold comin’ on. On Sunday I lost my temper with him. I told him to go to bed early and take somethin’ hot and keep himself to himself instead of whinin’ about the place doin’ nothin’ except scatterin’ infection. What did the silly feller do then but wait until the last moment, when we were all thunderin’ upset, havin’ heard of the news of the rumpus on the wireless at nine o’clock, and then go down to the kitchen here to borrow a bottle of ammoniated quinine from the cook. He took it home, wearin’ my ulster without a by-your-leave, and sent his man for a spoon. Naturally the feller, not knowin’ what was wanted, brought the first one he saw, and Mercer took a tablespoonful in half a tumbler of water. The sensible dose is half to a whole teaspoonful.

  ‘Well, he went to bed, woke up half deaf and blind, and let out a howl for a doctor. I saw the medical man.’ He smiled at the recollection of the meeting. ‘He called it cinchonism, and Mercer’s still laid up. Better now, though. Saw him today. Told me the cracklin’ in his ears was dying off a bit. Still, he’s very sorry for himself, stupid feller.’

  Linda did not appear when they went downstairs and Campion was grateful to her for her forbearance. A still reproachful Lugg brought Uncle William his half-decanter and set it down before him without a word. The old man sat looking at the golden-brown liquid in the cut glass for a long time. Campion thought his mind had wandered from it, when he suddenly bounced to his feet.

  ‘Don’t think I will,’ he announced. ‘Got to keep the mind clear. Don’t drink as I used to – nothin’ like. Still, can’t sit lookin’ at it. Put it away in the music-room in my cupboard. Come for a turn in the air.’

  He stowed the whisky away, his plump hands infinitely gentle, and they went out into the warm scented garden. They were still strolling on the lawn when the Bentley’s headlights drew great fingers across the dark grass.

  Sutane was alone. They saw his slender, rackety figure silhouetted against the beam as he sprang out and came towards them.

  ‘Campion!’ he said. ‘Good man. Knew you wouldn’t desert me. Eve back, Uncle William?’

  ‘No.’ The old man’s tone was unwontedly brusque. ‘Understood you were goin’ to find her and tell her to come home at once.’

  Sutane did not answer immediately, and they had difficulty in keeping up with him. As they ascended the steps to the brightly-lit hall Campion glanced at his face and was startled by what he saw there. Every superfluous gramme of flesh had gone, leaving it an oddly vivacious death’s head with the powerful, vigorous nerves almost apparent.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Sutane spoke lightly. ‘That’s right. So I was. But the theatre’s in such a hysterical state. Two deaths in the cast, you see, and they’re a superstitious lot. I forgot all about it.’

  He glanced at Campion obliquely and his dull, intelligent eyes were smiling and confiding.

  ‘She’ll turn up tomorrow, won’t she?’ he said.

  23

  THE sleeping house was bright and a little stuffy in the early morning when Mr Campion came quietly downstairs at half past six. The brilliant sunshine which even in the country seems so much cleaner at that hour than at any other in the day burst in through the curtains, making little patches of vivid colour on stone floor and carpet, while outside the gilded tops of the trees were dancing in the morning wind.

  Campion had surveyed the cloakroom and the hot, sunbathed lounge with some care before he became conscious of a quiet scuffling in the drawing-room and put his head in to find Mr Lugg and his assistant already at their housework.

  Clad in a singlet and a pair of ancient grey-black trousers, a luggage strap about his middle and disreputable carpet-slippers upon his bare feet, the temporary butler was dusting the china in the Georgian wall-cupboard, while a galvanic little bundle in p
yjamas and a red dressing-gown scrubbed away with a rubber at the polished parquet floor. They were both engrossed in their work. Sarah’s tight pigtails were screwed up on her small round head and her grunts and squeaks betrayed both concentration and considerable effort.

  ‘Go on, git right in the corners. I don’t want to ’ave to go over it after you.’ Lugg spoke over his shoulder as he rubbed a great thumb over the delicate face of a Dresden milkmaid. ‘Pretty stuff, this,’ he observed. ‘Not of great value, you know, and it makes a lot of work. But I like it. Little dolls, that’s what these are. Toys reelly.’

  Campion waited with commendable caution until the fragile group was back in its place again before he spoke.

  ‘Good morning,’ he ventured.

  Lugg swung round. ‘Gawd! you give me a turn,’ he said reproachfully. ‘What on earth are you up to now? I ’ave to git up in the dawn to git the work done in comfort and peace, but you needn’t. The drawin’-room I always see to meself. I don’t let a maid touch it. That means gitting up early so that I’m not seen about in me slacks. It lowers yer dignity if you’re seen comfortable.

  ‘Go on, git on with it!’ he added to his aide, who was listening to the conversation with apprehensive eyes. ‘’E ain’t yer nurse. She ’elps me do the floors because I ain’t so nippy on me knees,’ he explained, returning to Campion. ‘What’s the good of ’er sittin’ up in bed waitin’ for the ’ouse to wake? Much better make ’erself useful. You ain’t tired, are you, chum?’

  Sarah shook her head contemptuously, and Campion, realising that his presence was constraining a conversation between two persons whose minds were singularly of an age, left them and went back to his quiet investigations.