Yeo shrugged his shoulders.
‘It was only an idea,’ he said. ‘He must have fixed it with a second car somehow. Perhaps they came down in separate buses, as Kummer appeared to be driving the coupé. We’ll have to work on that. There’s a lot of routine inquiries to be made. We’re going to have a busy day. There’s the weapon to find yet. That’s in a ditch or a furze patch, I’ll bet my last dollar. It would be. We must find it, of course. The doctor thought it might have been a spanner. Fancy looking over twenty-five square miles of rough country for a spanner …’
Campion blinked.
‘He may have got rid of it in the same way as he got rid of the bicycle lamp – chucked it away as soon as he had finished with it,’ he suggested meekly.
Yeo stared at him.
‘He might,’ he said. ‘Lord! he’s a fool, isn’t he? I don’t think he knows we’re on the earth. The boys have been looking all round the car, of course, but I’ll make them go over that area with a tooth-comb. I’m beginning to hate this chap. He’s so insulting.’
Inspector Inchcape, who had been listening to the conversation, came to life.
‘I’ll see to it right away,’ he said quickly. ‘You’ll be back, won’t you, Inspector? Our Chief Constable he do like to be in on everything. He’s a wonderful particular gentleman. He and the doctor’ll be down just after eight, I’ll lay a pound.’
‘I’ll be back,’ Yeo promised. ‘Are you ready, Mr Campion?’
They drove out of the quiet little town into the lanes. The sun was climbing swiftly and the light mist over the low-lying meadows promised great heat in the middle day.
When they came to a convenient straight stretch just before the White Walls approach Yeo pulled up.
‘Now, Mr Campion,’ he said. ‘I’ve been waiting to hear from you. I’ve let you see my position pretty clearly, haven’t I? I’m going to get that man. Sooner or later evidence must come in which will get me a warrant. At the moment I can’t stir because the P.P. doesn’t like the idea of us holding him on suspicion, and although I can build up a first-rate case I can’t substantiate every point until Cooling gets his stuff. What I need is the basic plank, the thing that pins it on to him and him only. I want the motive. I shall get him in a day or two, but in the meantime what else is he going to get up to? He’s not particular whom he makes trouble for, is he? Look at Boarbridge.’
Campion shivered a little. He felt cold and strangely dispassionate.
‘Yes,’ he said abruptly and with an authority Yeo had never heard in his voice before. ‘Yes, you’re quite right. Now look here, there’s a masseuse at White Walls, a Miss Edna Finbrough. Get her to go down to the station with you. Don’t rouse her out of bed now. If you do you’ll start the alarm and you must avoid that if you’re going to get your man without trouble. When you get this woman down to Birley on some suitable pretext put her through it. She’s tough but she’s cracking. I’ve seen that for days.’
‘What do we want out of her?’ Yeo was beginning.
But the thin man who seemed suddenly to have become so dry and impersonal went on without hearing him.
‘Tell her you know that she went to a theatrical lodging house on the Monday evening after Chloe Pye died. I’ll give you the address. She made an excuse to go through Miss Pye’s rooms alone and while she was there she ransacked the place for papers. I think she found what she was looking for and took it back to the person who had sent her. That paper was almost certainly destroyed that same night, but she can tell you what was on it, and from her information you will be able to get concrete evidence of the motive you need.’
‘Do you know what the paper was?’
Campion regarded the policeman coldly. He was very controlled and seemed almost callous about the whole subject.
‘I don’t, but I can guess. It was a marriage certificate.’
Yeo whistled and his face looked like a comic mask.
‘A-ah!’ he said. ‘Now you’re talking. That’s something like.’
His companion ignored him.
‘I think Konrad got to know about this marriage and was prepared to use his information. That is why he was killed. You may have some difficulty in getting it out of Miss Finbrough, but she knows.’
‘Like to see her yourself?’
‘No.’ Campion’s tone was sharp. ‘That’s a job for the professional police. That’s all I can give you. I shall be at the house all day. When you’ve found out what you can perhaps you’ll let me know? I’ll stay on the spot until you make the arrest. I should keep Miss Finbrough out of the way until then. Don’t let her communicate with the house.’
‘Good lord no!’ Yeo spoke fervently and the glance he shot at Campion was almost affectionate. ‘This is just what I wanted. If you’re right you’ll have put him just where he ought to be. I told you you had to come down here.’
Campion did not speak and Yeo, whose energy was mounting rather than diminishing after his long night, let in the clutch and roared on down the road.
‘I’ll be along for the woman about eleven,’ he said as he set his passenger down at the drive gates. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be discretion itself. If this comes off I’ll hand it to you. Did he kill the first woman too?’
Campion shrugged his shoulders.
‘I see. It’s like that, is it? We’ll never prove it anyway.’ Yeo was grave and he made a little depreciatory grimace. ‘Nasty business. Hard on the family. Well, we’ve got enough to go on with, God knows. Once he’s inside he may talk. Sometimes they like to, that conceited type. The newspapers are going to have a treat, aren’t they? Well, so long, and thank you.’
Campion came slowly up the drive and saw the white house, like a lovely ship in full sail, in the blazing morning. As he crossed the lawn a bundle in a gaily striped dressing-gown detached itself from a deck chair and came padding towards him. It was Uncle William.
He looked pink and sleepy and pathetic, the wind ruffling his thin curls and his face puckered with weariness and anxiety.
‘Been waitin’ since the dawn,’ he mumbled. ‘Had to. Been prayin’, practically. Every thin’ all right, my boy? Relyin’ utterly on you.’
Campion turned away and went into the house.
27
AT noon, when the garden was sweltering luxuriously in the full heat of the day and the house was peaceful in that odd Sunday quiet which is mysteriously different from the peace of other days, Uncle William let himself into Campion’s room and advanced to the end of the bed.
He stood there for some little time, his hands in the pockets of his white trousers and his shoulders bent dejectedly. He looked more bear-like than ever.
‘Awake, Campion?’
The man on the bed regarded his old friend steadily. His appearance gave no indication that he had slept at all. His eyes were cold and wakeful and the skin was drawn tightly over the bones of his face.
‘Feller came and took Miss Finbrough off to help the police,’ observed Uncle William presently. ‘Didn’t hear the rights of it. Somethin’ about needin’ her assistance. As a masseuse, I suppose. Couldn’t understand it. So many confusin’ things happenin’ all round one.’
His worried old voice trailed away into silence and he padded over to the window and looked out.
‘What’s in the wind?’ he asked at last.
Mr Campion sat up in bed. His impersonal, authoritative mood which Yeo had first noticed earlier in the morning still persisted. To Uncle William, who was a little bewildered by it, he seemed to have suddenly become a stranger.
‘Where is everybody?’ he demanded.
‘Linda’s out there.’ The old man nodded towards the garden. ‘Sock’s gone off in the Bentley and Jimmy and Slippers are practisin’ in the drawin’-room with Mercer playin’ for them, and in a damned condescendin’ fashion, I don’t mind tellin’ you. Jimmy seems to have to keep up his practisin’ all the time. He’s workin’ himself to death, poor feller. When’s this infernal cloud goin’ to lift, Ca
mpion? Upon my soul, it’s a sin to have to think about some things on a day like this. Did the police succeed in findin’ out who the ruffian in Sock’s car was?’
Once again Mr Campion ignored his question and asked another.
‘Where has Sock gone?’
‘To see Eve.’ Uncle William wandered back from the window. ‘We all waited up for the boy last night,’ he explained, his small blue eyes rounding childishly as he made the confidence. ‘He came in dead-beat, had a word or two with Jimmy, and then they both told us the full story in the drawin’-room. He seemed ashamed he’d told the police so much, but, as I said to him, there are times when a man must choose between makin’ serious trouble all round and givin’ a friend away. Then the conscience is the only guide. I told him I was glad to see he had one and I flatter myself I spoke to him like a father.’
He paused.
‘It wasn’t as if the girl had done anythin’ really wrong, you see,’ he added, neatly destroying his argument at a stroke. ‘Sock’s attracted to her. He didn’t actually say so, but I could see it with half an eye. So that’s that. What a time for a lovers’ quarrel, Campion! One can’t expect women to be considerate, I know, but fancy runnin’ off like that without a word when we were all so worried about somethin’ else! If the girl wasn’t so young I’d call her a hussy. Even so I didn’t see quite why she chose that particular moment to clear out, did you? Sock wasn’t quite up to the mark last night and I didn’t care to press him. She’d had words with Jimmy, I understood. Don’t know what about: do you?’
‘Some other man, I think.’ Campion spoke absently.
‘So I gathered. But I didn’t see who if it wasn’t Sock.’
Campion dragged his mind away from the all-engulfing disaster which was so quickly approaching and tried to remember his conversation with Sock Petrie in the Lagonda before they had passed the shabby blue coupé.
‘She went off Sock and had a soulful affair with someone unlikely,’ he said. ‘Either Sutane found out about it and put his foot down, or, since that note of hers was left uncollected for so long, perhaps the man faded away on his own account.’
‘And the poor little girl felt the world had come to an end,’ cut in Uncle William happily. ‘That sounds more like the truth to me. It would account for her refusin’ to come home. That’s it, Campion, depend upon it. A blow at the pride. Known it drive a young girl off her head before now. Poor creature! Who is the whipper-snapper? Far too big for his boots. I’m an old man but –’
‘No,’ said Campion, and added firmly: ‘I shouldn’t.’
The belligerent light died out of Uncle William’s eyes, albeit a trifle reluctantly.
‘Perhaps not,’ he said. ‘I was forgettin’. Make matters worse, of course. Still, it’s a pity we don’t know who he is,’ he added wistfully, looking at his plump fists. ‘Feel I’d like to do somethin’ useful, you know. Suspense is gettin’ us all under the weather. It’s like a storm blowin’ up. These dear people are bein’ heroic. They’re forcin’ themselves to carry on. Jimmy looks like a skeleton and Linda’s walkin’ about like one of those dead workers in Haiti – what-d’ye-call-’em? – zombies.’
Campion took hold of himself.
‘Oh yes,’ he said quietly, ‘I want to talk to you about Linda. Before she married, where did she live?’
‘With her mother, naturally.’ Uncle William seemed to consider the question superfluous. ‘The old lady was the sister of the feller who owned this house. She has her little estate down in Devon. Very pretty place, I believe. There’s money in that family, you know. Linda goes to stay with her sometimes and takes the child. What d’you want to know for?’
Campion shrugged his shoulders.
‘Idle curiosity,’ he said. ‘I wondered what her background was, that was all.’
The old man was silent for a long time.
‘If you’re worryin’ about all this publicity breakin’ Jimmy financially, she’s got a home to go to,’ he said at last, and his eyes, meeting Campion’s own, dropped furtively. ‘I’ve made up my own mind and I’m stickin’ to it,’ he added with apparent irrelevance. ‘I told you that in this very room days ago. Linda’s taken a fancy to you.’
Mr Campion stiffened.
‘I don’t think so.’
Uncle William became the Man of the World, circa 1910. It was his third happiest role, but one which he particularly enjoyed. His blue eyes became shrewd and tolerant.
‘When a woman’s lonely – nice woman, trustworthy, sensible, capable of controllin’ the team she’s drivin’ – then these harmless little affairs do her good, cheer her up, keep her young,’ he said surprisingly. ‘They mean nothin’. She thinks of them as she thinks of the ornaments in her hair. The same with a man. It flatters him and keeps him a boy at heart. As long as they mind their manners and steer clear of sentimentality it’s a good thing. After many years of experience I can honestly say I approve of it. Spice of life, you know. I don’t like the dish drenched, but a modicum here and there improves the meal.’
Campion sat looking at him and once again Uncle William was conscious of him as a stranger.
‘I don’t know if that’s your view, my boy,’ he added with hasty capitulation. ‘Bachelor’s view.’
Campion laughed.
‘“If you haven’t got the temperament philandering isn’t pleasure,” Guv’nor,’ he said. ‘That’s a quotation from Don Marquis, probably the one philosophic poet of the generation. As far as I remember he said it apropos of Lancelot and Guinevere, which makes it a very enlightening remark.’
Uncle William looked mystified and uncomfortable.
‘Spanish feller?’ he observed, feeling no doubt that the operative word, which he particularly disliked, had a continental origin. ‘Sorry I interfered, my boy. One stumbles across things and makes the mistake of rememberin’ ’em. Fact is I keep leapin’ on any subject which will take my mind off the trouble. Dare say you do, too. Don’t care what happens to my show – I’m past that. I’m simply holdin’ my breath and prayin’ for a bit of peace for myself and my friends. When’s it goin’ to end? That’s what I want to know, Campion. When’s it goin’ to end? Well, I know you’d tell me if you could. Since you can’t I’ll go down and potter until lunch-time.’
He padded off on plump crimson-shod feet and Campion got up and dressed slowly. He had ceased to consider his own personal part in the heart-breaking and irrevocable business. That problem had been faced and settled in his own flat when Linda had made her final appeal to him.
Since then he had found it possible to consider the miserable programme which circumstance and the unalterable part of his character had laid down for him by going through it steadily with one half of his conscious mind shut down. That there were flaws in this arrangement he discovered only too soon. He found himself doing unexpected things, making unreasonable detours, avoiding meetings, all to save himself the emotional reactions which he would ordinarily have experienced had he not taken his original precaution of mental semi-anaesthesia.
This morning, for instance, he found that he was dressing himself with extraordinary deliberation and not out of any particular desire for sartorial elegance. When the explanation did occur to him it shocked him. It was not pleasant to find that he was aiming to be late for lunch, so late that he might unobtrusively avoid eating Sutane’s food at Sutane’s table.
The discovery of this primitive taboo, with its physical reaction which decreed that he should not be hungry in spite of his neglected breakfast, left him both startled and irritated. It was like finding one half of himself suddenly under new management.
He pulled himself together impatiently. Yet when Lugg came surging in half an hour later he was still in his shirtsleeves.
The temporary butler was aggressively cheerful.
‘Another corpse yisterday, I ’ear,’ he remarked, sitting down to rest his feet. ‘Quite an outin’ for you, ain’t it? Enjoyin’ yerself? There’s a bunch o’ narks at either end
of the lane, by the way. Does that mean anythink or is it just you showin’ orf?’
His employer did not turn his head and, receiving no encouragement, Mr Lugg was silent for a moment or so. When the hush became oppresssive to him, however, he made a further attempt at small talk.
‘This is life, ain’t it?’ he observed with relish. ‘A certain amount o’ class, but still free and easy. I’m like a duck in water ’ere, you know.’
Campion knotted his tie with careful neatness.
‘We shall probably both be leaving tonight,’ he said without looking round. ‘Don’t mention it to anyone. Simply get everything ready.’
The fat man did not blink. His small eyes rested on the tall figure silhouetted against the light.
It was a moment of great sadness.
Finally, Lugg sighed.
‘I knew it,’ he said heavily. ‘I felt it comin’ on. As soon as I saw you in the passage last week I thought to myself, ’Ullo, I thought. It’s a funny thing, ain’t it, ’ow you take to a place?’ he went on, philosophic resignation in his thick voice. ‘I’d git sick of it in time, but up till now I’ve took a pride in the drawin’-room and I’ve bin interested in trainin’ my young mate. She’s on the three-card trick now. Comin’ along a treat. We’ll go after she’s gone to bed, eh? We don’t want a bloomin’ cryin’ set-out. You’ve made up yer mind to go today? It’s a lovely day.’
His wistfulness was pathetic and Campion felt sudden sympathy for him.
‘I’m afraid so,’ he murmured. ‘The party’s over. Sorry.’
Lugg heaved his mountainous shoulders.
‘I’ll take me tailcoat,’ he remarked. ‘I ’ad it sent from the stores on your account. Largest they ’ad. Ten bob extra. It wouldn’t fit anybody else. Make them look funny. You might ask all these people to dinner one night and I could wear it then, eh?’
Campion glanced out of the open window at the dancing garden.
‘I shouldn’t hope for that, Lugg,’ he said. ‘Take the coat by all means, if you want it. And now clear out, old boy, will you? I’m not in chatty mood.’
Dancers in Mourning Page 29
