Coroner's Pidgin

by Margery Allingham

  At first Campion thought she was going to pass him without a sign, but as they neared each other she met his eyes and stopped immediately.

  “Oh, it’s Mr. Campion, isn’t it?” she said. “My dear man, I am so glad to see you here. Now you can bear out everything I’ve been saying.”

  The tone was not quite casual, and he was not sure it did not contain a note of command. It was the last line he expected her to take and it knocked the breath out of him. He stared at her anxiously, but if she noticed the appeal she did not respond. Her smile was still friendly and contented as she passed on with Holly, tall and immaculate, striding behind her.

  “That’s that,” said Oates, as they returned to the Superintendent’s room. Yeo shut the door.

  “She’s got something like a nerve. I could admire a woman like that, you know. Unless . . . ?” He paused, and glanced at the other policeman.

  Mr. Campion considered them both with interest. Yeo, he noticed, was sweating a little.

  “It’s a possibility, of course,” said the Superintendent, “but in view of everything—everything, Mr. Oates, I can’t believe it.”

  The Chief returned to the bewildered Campion. “Just sit down for a moment,” he said. “I want you to answer one or two questions very carefully. In your story you do not mention that you telephoned the police last night to report the discovery of the body, yet you did telephone them, didn’t you?”

  Mr. Campion was unprepared for this inquisitorial approach and he looked at his friend in amazement. Once again it occurred to him that something very much more than an enquiry into an ordinary murder was afoot. Clearly Oates and Yeo had some secret which they were not prepared to share at the moment.

  “I did not ’phone at all, I went to catch my train,” he said.

  “Now, think, Campion.” Oates was persuasive. “It was a thing you ought to have done, a thing you’d do almost instinctively. Someone ’phoned a local police station last night and he gave your name. That was what put us on to the whole thing. Are you sure it was not you?”

  Mr. Campion became slightly amused. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I thought you could do your own dirty work; I had a train to catch.”

  “There you are, you see.” Oates persisted in his new, slightly unconvincing manner. “You’re obsessed by that train. Tell me, how do you think we knew you were ever at your flat yesterday?”

  “You saw it in the old police crystal,” said Campion, whose sense of humour was failing him. “I don’t know. Spies everywhere, I suppose.”

  “No. This is very important. How do you think we knew?”

  “Have you forgotten little Acres, Mr. Campion?” murmured Yeo, sounding as though he thought he was cheating.

  “Little Acres?” Campion was becoming annoyed and his eyes narrowed. Oates was looking at him with incomprehensible coldness.

  “You’ve forgotten,” he said. “You’ve forgotten you spoke to a plain-clothes man on Victoria Station yesterday. You told him where you were going. Can you remember anything about it?”

  Mr. Campion began to understand, and for a moment he was very angry indeed. It was a rare emotion with him, and he kept silent. Oates went on.

  “Probably you can’t. It makes all the difference, Campion. I’ve never believed you’ve ever quite recovered from that business at the beginning of the war. You were working for a week in a state of amnesia. Oh, I know the Foreign Office is very pleased with your work abroad, but to my mind that other case did you a permanent injury. You do see what I’m driving at?”

  The suggestion was so completely unfounded and absurd that Mr. Campion was temporarily silenced. It was true that on the last occasion on which he and Oates had worked together he had, for a short period, lost his memory, but over four years gruelling work had not provoked a return of the trouble. It occurred to him very forcibly that something very odd indeed must be up to make Oates take this line. He smiled.

  “Victoria was like a cup final,” he said. “As I fought my way out I did see a little prehensile snout with a gingery quiff above it. A piping voice hailed me and asked me where I was going, and I told him home to wash. Then the waves of blue and khaki carried him away. I do admit I forgot the incident. The snouty redhead is a plain-clothes man called Acres, I take it.”

  Oates remained suspiciously obstinate. “All the same . . .” he began.

  “All the same,” agreed Mr. Campion firmly, “if you are hoping to infer that I can’t tell the difference between Johnny, Marquess of Carados, and Peter Onyer, and might even when drunk, drowned, or in a coma confuse Eve Snow with Gwenda Onyer, you’re just unlucky. Don’t be silly, old boy. You can’t muck about with the facts, I saw them.”

  “I don’t know,” said Oates desperately. “I don’t know. The mind plays tricks. I’ve never felt the same myself since that business four years ago. I was unconscious for a week and you were out on your feet for three or more. It’s no good, Campion, we can’t afford to take your unsupported word for it at this juncture. I mean,” he added awkwardly, “we don’t want to, just at the moment.”

  The younger man got up with care.

  “You’re right. I shall go away and nurse myself,” he said. “This is a job for somebody else. I can have my luggage, I suppose?”

  “No, I don’t want you to do that.” Oates was still speaking very carefully. “I don’t want you to leave London for a day or two. You can get at these people much more easily than we can.”

  Mr. Campion’s smile became genuinely amused. “Scotland Yard employs mental defective,” he suggested.

  “Scotland Yard holds material witness, if not accessory after the fact,” said Oates. “I tell you frankly, if this is what I think it is, it’s a most unpleasant, difficult incident in one of the most extraordinary crimes I’ve yet met, and if this good lady is lying, as you suggest, then it’s going to be very awkward.”

  “I think she’s lying, and I think I know why,” said Campion carefully. “She’s lying because she doesn’t know it’s serious.”

  “She was told,” Yeo repeated.

  “Yes, I know. But even so, it hasn’t registered. This is a woman who is absolutely sound and wide-awake in her own sphere, but murder is outside that sphere. She’s never come up against anything remotely like it.”

  Oates sniffed. “She’s got a lot of nerve and she admits moving the body. If she’s lied as well, I don’t see why she shouldn’t have done the whole thing.”

  “Nor do I,” agreed Campion, “except that I don’t see why. Also I don’t see how she could possibly have arranged my kidnapping. I don’t see the point of that, either, unless she had some good reason for not making her statement before this morning, and in that case who ‘phoned the police last night?”

  “Why should your kidnapping have anything to do with the case at all?” enquired Oates. “As I see it that was something entirely fortuitous.”

  “That’s what I think,” put in Yeo, looking up. “That incident must be something separate. That’s revenge; someone who had a grudge against Mr. Campion was lying in wait for him.” He cocked an eye at Campion. “You don’t think so?” he suggested.

  The tall, thin figure by the chair shrugged his shoulders. “Not a very good revenge,” he observed mildly. “Why should anyone carry a man off to one garage, put him out, and then carry him off to another where he leaves him after strewing his belongings all over the place. He irritates him possibly, but he doesn’t do him much harm.”

  “All the same, it doesn’t seem reasonable to me that the Carados Square lot could have had anything to do with it,” Yeo persisted, “and they’re the people in whom we are primarily interested. They’re all being interviewed, of course. The first thing is to make certain where the killing took place, and if they are all going to lie like troopers, that isn’t going to be so simple with Lugg out of the way.”

  Mr. Campion wheeled round. “Lugg out of the way?” he enquired.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.” Yeo was apologetic.
“He seems to have taken the ambulance back to the Depot last night, fed his pig, and then vanished. We shall pull him in eventually, of course, but meanwhile there’s just the two conflicting statements, yours and Lady Carados’s.”

  “Here, Campion, where are you going?” Oates demanded.

  Mr. Campion, who was already in the passage, put his head round the door again. “To find him,” he said, “‘you didn’t tell me it was serious.”

  He came out into the watery sunlight in evil mood. He was dirty and stiff from his night’s adventure, exasperated with Oates for what appeared to be an easy if ingenious temporary way out of an admittedly awkward position, and genuinely alarmed for Lugg. He turned out of the gateway, and was walking along considering his next move when an elegant khaki-clad figure dropped into step at his side. He looked round to find Peter Onyer’s narrow, dark eyes on a level with his own. Campion was not pleased to see him, not that he had any aversion to the man himself whom he knew but slightly, but he had no desire to find himself running with both hare and hounds. He had experienced that nightmare before.

  “I take it you’ve been waiting for me?” he said acidly.

  “Oh, not very long.” It was typical of Onyer to assume an apology. “I came down with Edna Carados and a lad from the Home Office. They’ve gone back now with an Inspector. She said you were here, though, so I thought I’d wait and collect you.”

  “Decent of you,” said Campion.

  “Not at all. I wanted to see you.” He lowered his sleek, handsome head a little. “It’s a most unfortunate business; Edna’s so impulsive, she’s quite old, too. She doesn’t understand what she can or can’t do.”

  “She can’t get away with murder,” said Campion brutally, “if she’s a hundred and two. She must know that.”

  “Murder?” Onyer stopped in his tracks, pulling Campion round to face him. There was no colour in his cheeks, and his graceful elegance dropped from him like a garment leaving the essential, intelligent core of the man exposed. It might have been the discovery that a guilty secret had been uncovered, but Campion was inclined to diagnose straight astonishment.

  “Was that woman Moppet . . . ? I mean, do the police suggest . . . ? Good God, how did she die?”

  Mr. Campion told him. He whistled, and as they walked on together, made a very extraordinary remark.

  “I knew there would be hell to pay over this wedding,” he said, adding presently, and as if he were thinking of something else, “women do do such incredible things, don’t they? I think we’d better go along there at once, Campion. Do you mind?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  APART FROM THE fact that half the house was down, the famous eau-de-Nile drawing-room full of unexpected furniture from other rooms, and no one looked in the least bored, Mr. Campion felt that nothing very fundamental had changed when he and Peter Onyer walked in on Johnny Carados’s reassembled household. They were all there except Eve, all a little older, all intensely anxious, but all infinitely more competent to deal with any situation for being once again together. It was a little before noon, and sherry was in circulation.

  But below the chatter the atmosphere of tension was very noticeable. Johnny sat at the piano playing scraps of Scarlatti. He was wearing the trousers of his uniform, but his torso was covered by a remarkable, multi-coloured brocaded jacket, with a quilted collar; a garment which belonged to a fashion dead for thirty years. He sat with his chin thrust out, and his eyes half closed. His short fingers were delicate on the notes but there was a surliness about him out of keeping with his fancy dress. To all appearances he was unconscious to the rest of the room.

  In a corner on the floor and shut in by a sort of playpen of chairs, sat Ricky Silva. His plump babyishness was encased in the battle-dress of a private of the British Army, but his bare feet were in sandals, and his gentle eyes were fixed on a box of scraps of coloured silk which he was matching and contrasting with earnest interest. As usual he was absorbed in himself and completely unconscious of the picture he presented.

  Gwenda Onyer, sandy and petitely graceful, like a whippet, was talking to Captain Gold on the couch before the fire; her fawn head bent and she did not look up as the others came in. Dolly Chivers, a picture of brisk usefulness, was heartily busy with the glasses.

  Onyer advanced purposefully. He was unhappy but determined, and he took the drink which Dolly thrust into his hand without looking at it.

  “I say,” he said. “Just a moment, everybody. There’s something I think you’d all better know.”

  Johnny brought his music to a sudden end.

  “The Moppet was murdered,” he said, “don’t tell us again, old boy. She was murdered and my dear mother can’t quite remember exactly where she found the corp’. Don’t repeat it, we’ve got that far.”

  He began to play again, more vigorously this time, and over in his corner Ricky laid a cerise ribbon across a piece of rust-red satin and paused, his eyes half closed, to admire the swear. Onyer shrugged his shoulders and drank his sherry.

  “As long as you know,” he said. “We’re waiting for the police, I suppose, or have they been?”

  “We imagine they’re on their way, Peter.” Gwenda spoke quietly from the couch. She had a restrained, semi-tragic note in her voice which made Campion look at her sharply, wondering if she could possibly be enjoying the situation.

  “Gwenda was at Number Twenty when Lady Carados came back with the Inspector,” said Dolly, briefly making everything clear. “She found out a little of what had happened, and came back to tell us. It seems Lady Carados has altered her story a little since that A.R.P. man disappeared.”

  “She means well,” said Captain Gold, revealing an unexpectedly deep voice for so small a man, “but then she always does.”

  “I say, Johnny, you must get some sense into her. It’s serious, you know.” Onyer’s appeal was urgent and once again Carados took his hands from the piano.

  “Don’t be a mug, Pete,” he said, lazily, “when did I ever have any control over mother? She’s decided how to save us and save us she will, no doubt. By the way, we’ve had other excitements. The wedding is postponed, the Admiral says so, he’s full of good ideas. He’s going to get everything shipshape, he and I are going to clear up the trouble, uncover the mystery, and get the whole thing straightened out. ‘Pronto’, I think he said, Gwenda, didn’t he?”

  He turned as he spoke, and catching sight of Campion smiled with genuine welcome. “Hullo. Nice to see you, just the man we want. Got any ideas?”

  “I collected him from Police Headquarters,” Onyer remarked warningly.

  “They picked you up, did they, Campion?” Johnny was not waiting for replies. “My poor chap, what trying friends you’ve got.”

  “Johnny dear.” Gwenda’s yellow eyes peered at him over the back of the couch. “Johnny, do be sensible, we don’t know what to do, darling.”

  “If the Admiral is in this as well as your mother, we’re in for hell’s delight, leaving the police out of it,” said Onyer seriously. “What line is he taking?”

  “Action.” Johnny’s mouth curled, but his eyes remained gloomy. “Straight from the shoulder, go-in-and-win action. He’s in the house now, you know.”

  “’Strewth,” said Major Onyer, “where?”

  “Downstairs ’phoning ‘someone with authority’—at the Admiralty, I suppose. He doesn’t know it’s murder yet. He came in just after Gwenda broke it to us and no one had the nerve to tell him. The suicide had got him down. He rushed over, postponed the marriage, leaving me here in Aunt Carados’s wedding token, and is now getting his big guns on to the job. I think he’ll get us all hanged, what do you think, Campion?”

  The thin man in the horn-rimmed spectacles sat down. He had bullied Onyer into letting him call in at his Club and was now comparatively neat and clean, but he was still weary. He looked at his host with interest.

  “It’s a wedding present, is it?” he enquired.

  “The wrap?” Johnny jerked at
the lapel of his brocaded coat. “Yes, from a thrifty aunt. Something my late uncle had by him and thought too precious to wear. I’m not sure he wasn’t right.”

  “I should like to do a room for it,” said Ricky looking up from his corner. “Something Edwardian in green, and a rather hot red.”

  “Oh, don’t. Don’t play the fool,” Gwenda burst out wretchedly. “You’re all so terrified you’re just sitting about being silly.”

  “That’s where you happen to be wrong, my dear girl.” Ricky’s full, childish lips narrowed spitefully and his soft eyes were near tears and annoyance. “I simply don’t feel it’s anything whatever to do with me, that’s all.”

  There certainly was an irritating smugness in his voice but no one was prepared for the irritation it produced in Gwenda.

  “How you dare, Ricky,” she said, leaning up on the couch, her cheeks flushing and her hair a little untidy. “You’re just the same; always trying to shirk responsibilities. You who wept and howled in rage like a baby only last week because you were so afraid that when Johnny got married and the family split up there’d be no place for you any more.”

  “I didn’t. You’re a beast, Gwenda. My God, how I loathe you. I didn’t. I didn’t weep or—or howl.” The man was on the verge of weeping now, and in any other circumstances must have made a supremely comic figure standing amid his coloured silks, every line in his plump body strained and his face crimson.

  Johnny sat looking at him gloomy-eyed, but with the little muscles at the corners of his mouth twitching still.

  “Oh, be quiet, Ricky,” said Onyer laughing.

  “I shan’t. You always take her part.” His childishness was extraordinary, but there was no silencing him. “She’s practically accusing me and I don’t see why she should. If anybody really hated the idea of this marriage, she did, and you too, Peter. You both swore it would be the end of everything and you’re both of you quite capable of staging this perfectly revolting thing to get your own way. In fact, everybody in this room is. Old Gee-gee Gold had as much to lose as anybody. Besides what about Eve? She’s been looking like death lately. If Johnny’s decided to let us all down I don’t see why you should decide that I was the one to do something about it.”