“Dear me,” said Mr. Campion blinking. “And the teeth?”
“They were on top of the back of the chair with the spectacles around them and they were both covered with a hat.” Luke laughed abruptly. “My report read like a bit of space fiction,” he continued. “Or it would have done if I hadn’t been darn careful that it didn’t. There was no getting away from it. ‘Gone to lunch in the fourth dimension.’ I shouldn’t have been surprised to have found it pinned up on the door.”
“Delightful.” Mr. Campion sounded appreciative. “Did the lady get the inference?”
Luke grinned. “It seeped through,” he conceded. “At any rate she kept prodding me with long red fingernails and saying, ‘He’s gone! Look! He isn’t there!’ until I took us both in hand. ‘Routine,’ I told her just as the lecturer had told me. ‘That’s what’ll give us the answer—if there is one.’ And I got down to it.” He reseated himself before the fire. “There was quite a bit of work,” he said reminiscently. “The more I found out about the chap the less I seemed to know. He didn’t seem to have been in the habit of eating out anywhere locally. He hadn’t done any cooking at his flat, there was no food or crockery of any description in the place. He’d rented the place just about the same time that he’d started Quips Ltd., which was two years before, and the rent was paid quarterly in advance from the office. No one knew of anyone going in to clean for him, no one in the building seemed to know anything about him, and even the people below couldn’t remember when they had last seen him on the stairs. They also said they never heard him at night and in the daytime they weren’t there themselves. He had very little furniture, few clothes and the only personal items seemed to be a few books of a semi-scientific nature and thousands of comic papers.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Kid’s stuff. Nothing sensational, just funny ha-ha. All very well read. There was nothing much in his wallet by the way except cash, stamps and one or two business letters.” Luke leant back in his chair, his dark face alive with remembered interest. “So it was just solid homework,” he went on. “I always feel I owe that case something. It taught me the meaning of the verb ‘to plod’. I was nine or ten months on it altogether, the work done mostly in between regular jobs. I had no luck. We couldn’t find any firm of dental mechanics which would own to the teeth and as I told you it was the same with the boot. Meanwhile the woman nagged us. The business was booming and she had to tell somebody.” He pushed a long hand through his hair until it stood upright. “It was a worrying time,” he said. “Old Georgie Bull was the C.I.D. Sergeant at that time of day and he didn’t make things any smoother. He was the most miserable old cuss who ever breathed. What with one thing and another I was almost off my feed at the end of the time. And then one day I was sitting in my corner of the C.I.D. room in the old St Mary’s Street Station with the blessed boot on the floor in front of me and I suddenly got the urge to try it on. It fitted like a glove and I walked round the room in it. Caudblimeah! I felt like Cinderella!”
He looked slyly at Campion. “It wasn’t surgical. It was a stage prop. After that, it was easy. I went round to Paynes, the theatrical people, who were the only firm who could have supplied it and got an address out of them. Twenty minutes later I was in a posh dentist’s waiting-room among the reading matter with my parcel and after a bit I was shown into the chamber of horrors. The dentist was standing with his back to me washing his hands as they always are, the blighters and when he turned round I took him by surprise. I just unwrapped my exhibit and we both stood looking at it.
“There are only two kinds of men who become dentists,” he continued. “The ones who love it and ones who get miserable. Think round and you’ll see I’m right. This chap I’m talking about was one of the second kind. He had no limp and his teeth turned in, not out, and he didn’t wear spectacles.
“No one who knew him as Mr. Miller would have recognized him. He had been in successful practice for years and, quite obviously, he was miserable as sin. I understood as soon as I saw him. He’d been making himself a jolly-joke world to hide in some times when things got too gloomy altogether. He let me do all the talking but there was nothing much I could say, of course. There was no charge involved.
“Finally I just put it to him. I said ‘Is this your property, sir?’ He said, ‘Yes. Take it away, there’s a good fellow. I—I’ve done with it—rather. Will that be all right?’ I said it was nothing to do with us and it wasn’t. He saw me to the door. just as I went out he paused and looked at me like a wistful kid. ‘Don’t let her find me,’ he said softly. ‘She spoilt everything. At first it was such a wonderful escape but I saw it leading irrevocably to a stronger prison than ever. I had to get away from her and I went so utterly. I thought I’d made that so clear.”’
Mr. Campion got up.
“What a sad story,” he said.
“Not really.” Luke was grinning. “When I got back to the station I went up to old George who was sitting looking out of the window scowling like a wet weekend and I edged up to him very close.
“‘Sarge,’ I said softly. ‘You’ve always said you wanted to retire. Would you be interested in a nice flourishing foolproof little business with someone really efficient to run it? It would cheer you up you know; no end.’”
The Lying-In-State
How the body of the young Emir of Eulistahn came to lie in state in the vaults of the Norfolk Street Safe Deposit is one of London’s secrets. The city takes its overseas visitors far more seriously than most of them suspect. Under a blank exterior there lurks an almost fanatical determination to oblige the poor lunatics however absurd their requirements. All it insists upon is the exercise of a modicum of common sense.
On this occasion it was the famous, if slightly ramshackle Alderton’s Hotel which did the insisting. The Emir’s entourage was composed of his black-bearded uncle, his doctor, two private secretaries and the best part of half a dozen valets and cooks.
His death occurred very suddenly, less than two hours after his arrival in Britain to attend a Royal wedding and the first reaction of his staff was to insist that he must lie in state for two days in the centre of his private drawing-room overlooking the park. Even this could have been arranged had it not been for the value of the state jewelry with which protocol demanded the corpse should be arrayed.
Actually, Mr. Sydney Robbins, who was the manager of Aldertons, had won a minor tussle about this very jewelry before the party arrived in London at all.
He was one of those placid businessmen who appear to have been knitted rather loosely out of woolly good nature until something arises to threaten their interests when they become opaque-eyed and quite incredibly obstinate. Therefore, when the Emir’s Second Secretary, who was young, slim and olive-skinned, had first arrived earlier in the month to make the original booking and had mentioned, in an impeccable Oxford accent, the question of adequate protection for the Diamond Shawl, the Pigeon’s Egg Rings, the Five Emerald Stars and the Black Pearl, Mr. Robbins put his foot down at once.
He pointed out that the Emir would be only one of five foreign Royalties honouring the hotel and whereas the security arrangements were adequate for most eventualities this occasion was a little out of the ordinary. He then recommended the Norfolk Street Safe Deposit as he always did in similar circumstances.
The Second Secretary protested that His Highness was bringing the jewels to wear, first at the Reception and Ball and, next day, at the Abbey, and he mentioned several illustrious sponsors. But he was no match for Mr. Robbins when it came to discreet name dropping and in the end he listened meekly to the merits of the Safe Deposit.
Everything Mr. Robbins said about the place was quite true. It was a British Institution, it was used by the highest in the land, all personnel were appointed on a basis of heredity and safety and discretion were indeed guaranteed. In the midst of a covetous world it lay inviolate a nest of five steel chambers deep in the yellow London clay.
A great deal of legend
surrounded its contents. At least two South American dictators were said to prefer it to Switzerland for the safe keeping of certain negotiable items; the secret recipes of two sauces and one world-famous liqueur were certainly there, for their advertisers said so, and connoisseurs were always criticizing the Stanoway family for hiding the rarest of all art treasures in its darkness; three little studies for the ‘Mona Lisa’, only a few inches square made in sanguine and said to be as fresh and lovely as the day Leonardo drew them. Yet the Stanoways were poor, one would have thought. The first Countess had laid waste most of the family fortune before her lord divorced her in one of the bitterest suits on record and the second poor lady, her son who was the heir, and his young sister were kept busy exhibiting the mansion at five shillings a time. But the Leonardos remained out of sight to add to the covetous dreams of wealthy collectors.
After listening for half an hour the Emir’s Second Secretary gave way gracefully and negotiations were hurried through. At Norfolk Street the Second Secretary hired a small casket in his own name in Vault 4 where the smaller containers were kept and as decreed, received its key with the number of the box engraved upon it. He then walked back and forth three times before a panel of scrutineers and had it explained to him that the mere physical possession of the key meant nothing. The depositor must always come himself whenever the box was opened. The jewels were solemnly handed over and the Chief Custodian assured him that at any time of the day or night one of the keepers of Vault 4, who now knew him by sight, would be waiting for him. These were the unvarying rules of the establishment.
The Second Secretary left, but a few weeks later all his happy arrangements were violently upset.
The blow fell on the eve of the wedding for the sickly young Emir arrived at the hotel in a state of collapse and died almost at once. He had it seemed, defied his doctors’ advice and a bad air trip had proved fatal.
It was a great shock, said the black-bearded uncle, but no doubt the will of Heaven. As for earth and Eulistahn in particular, custom decreed that the body must lie in state ‘for a setting and rising of the sun’ with all the jewels and regalia. A strong police guard, say twenty chosen men, must be arranged at once.
Mr. Robbins was appalled. It was against his whole philosophy to disoblige distinguished guests but at such a moment it was impossible.
It was the Second Secretary who came to his rescue, and his words burst on the distracted manager with the blessing of water in a desert.
Instead of taking the jewels to the Emir, why not take the Emir to the jewels? Have the lying-in-state in the vaults? Mr. Robbins trembled with relief. It was unconventional but reasonable. Ludicrous even but practical.
“Could it be arranged?” murmured the Second Secretary.
“Leave it to me,” said Mr. Robbins briefly.
Within an hour the Emir’s frail body was taken to the Safe Deposit and carried into Vault 4 by his own people. They laid it reverently upon a table moved down from the Chief Custodian’s room and the Second Secretary, accompanied by the keeper on duty unlocked the steel box and took out the leather jewel cases. Then, as the official withdrew discreetly to the doorway, the uncle assisted by a doctor and a valet arrayed the body in its traditional glory. From his position the Safe Deposit man saw the gleam of stones. When the ritual was complete everybody retired to the anteroom and the keeper locked the door of the vault. For the rest of the night the four privileged members of the Emir’s household took turns two at a time to keep watch from the keeper’s bench while the official himself retired to the far end of the apartment where he could see but not overhear.
The Safe Deposit made only one stipulation in the whole business. No publicity. Since the same request was echoed by the Emir’s suite and had also been made by Mr. Robbins on behalf of the hotel, there was no difficulty about it.
In the dawn next day when Norfolk Street was empty, a motor hearse drew up outside the Safe Deposit, a coffin was carried in and presently brought out again. The Emir’s uncle shook hands with the Chief Custodian and the Second Secretary paid the dues. Mr. Robbins too was formally thanked and presented with a signed portrait of the late Emir.
The rest of the day was devoted to the wedding and no one in London was permitted to think of anything else. Mr. Robbins forgot about the Emir and indeed, in the flurry of three hundred departures, he had little time to recall him during the following week, but some ten days later when the hotel was its dull discreet self again his eyes rested on the portrait of the young Emir and he wondered who his successor might be.
For all up-to-date information he had long ceased to rely upon the printed word. He had a very good friend on the central switchboard of the British News Service and on impulse he dialed her number. As usual she had the answer at her fingertips. Cool and efficient her lovely voice came back to him with authority.
“Eulistahn? It hasn’t existed for some time. Don’t you remember Ernst Bey took over all that corner last year. Emir? Oh, no. That title has been extinct for a generation. Can I help you?”
Mr. Robbins hung up very slowly and sat still. From a spot just above the nape of his neck a sliver of ice ran smoothly down his spine. He put out his hand to telephone the Safe Deposit but withdrew it cautiously, and from that moment his life became a nightmare of apprehension. Yet gradually the days passed and no whisper reached him and after a while he gave up waking in the night and sweating although the question remained in his ming. Seven months crept by and still there was no inquiry, no scandal. The Emir and his retinue could have been as insubstantial and meaningless as a dream.
The news that the Earl of Stanoway was permitting the world to see the ‘Mona Lisa’ studies after all and the usual controversy about whether he should be allowed to sell them across the Atlantic broke in the spring of the following year. Naturally there was gossip.
People remembered the story of how the first Countess at the time of her divorce had taken the drawings and placed them in the Safe Deposit. ‘Enclosed with this letter is the key of the box,’ she had written. ‘So don’t accuse me of robbing you. Whenever you want the drawings, come round and apologize and we’ll go together and get them from the vaults. You see, without me, they just won’t let you in. It’s as simple as that, my dear man. Just apologize and then you can go to hell.’
Mr. Robbins heard the gossip and tried hard to put two and two together, but with no result until one day, his eye lighted on a paragraph in one of the more frivolous of the news magazines. It was no more than a caption under a laughing picture of a young brother and sister in fancy dress, the boy dark, the girl very fragile and both curiously familiar to Mr. Robbins.
‘Recently much in the news because of the proposed sale of a family treasure, Viscount Bluebrooke, son and heir of The Earl of Stanoway, and his sister Lady Sarah are both of an age when there is no greater fun than the stage. They are said to be quite ruthless in the furtherance of their hobby and, I am told, even Lord Stanoway was compelled to grow a vast black beard to suit a recent part. The family motto is in old French and can be translated: “Without Impudence I take My Own”.’
Mr. Robbins looked at the somewhat fuzzy portrait of the young Emir and then at the girl in the magazine. After that he tore them both up into very small pieces.
The Pro and the Con
Mr. Campion, stepping out of the cold sunlight of the Monte Carlo square into the dim warmth of the Casino vestibule, saw a plain good-tempered female face which reminded him for some reason he could not instantly trace of beautiful food.
He glanced at the woman curiously. She was square and respectable and would have been a natural part of the landscape at any country church féte, but here, among a cosmopolitan crowd on a late afternoon in the height of the Cote D’Azur season, she was as out of place as a real dandelion in a bouquet of wax orchids.
She did not see him and he moved on, completed the usual formalities, and wandered into the Grande Salle. He did not cross to the tables but stood watching for a m
oment, his long thin figure hidden in the shadow of the columns. It was a scene he knew well but one which never failed to thrill him. Apart from the usual large percentage of tourists and wealthy regular visitors there were the professional gamblers, earnest folk with systems, and, of course, the strange and rather terrible old ladies, avid behind their makeup.
However, it was not at these that Mr. Campion gazed with such benevolent interest. Here and there among the throng he saw a face he recognized. A woman with grey hair and the carriage of a duchess caught his attention and he raised his eyebrows. He had not known that Mrs. Marie Peeler, alias Edna Marie James, alias the Countesse de Richechamps Lisieux, was out of Holloway already.
There were others to interest him also. At one of the chemin tables he noticed a large man with very blue eyes and the stamp of the Navy about him sitting beside a very pretty girl and her father. Mr. Campion eyed father and daughter sympathetically and hoped they could afford so expensive an acquaintance.
He had been playing his private game of ‘spot the crook’ for some minutes before he saw Digby Sellers. The man came lounging across the room, his hands in his pockets, his sharp bright eyes peering inquisitively from beneath carefully lowered lids. Considered dispassionately, Mr. Campion decided, even for a third-rate con man his technique was bad. In spite of his unobtrusive clothes he looked at first glance exactly what he was, a fishy little person, completely untrustworthy. Campion marveled at his success in an overcrowded profession and glanced round for the other figure who should have accompanied him.
Tubby Bream had been Digby Sellers’s partner in crime for so many years that the police of two continents had come to regard them as inseparable. Bream, Mr. Campion knew, was generally considered to have the brains of the act. At the moment he was nowhere to be seen and Campion missed that solid, respectable figure with the unctuous manner and the fatherly smile.
The Allingham Case-Book Page 12
