The Return of Mr Campion

by Margery Allingham

  Mr Campion's pleasant face was grim. "Yes, well," he said. "I shouldn't worry any more. I'll get Master Fellows letters back for you, that I promise. Meanwhile, if it's any comfort to you, let me tell you that I've known Thomas since he was four feet high, and if you think any youthful endearments from your young pal Bobby would take his mind off your sister, then, my child, you're insane."

  Jennifer breathed deeply. "Oh, I wasn't afraid of Thomas," she said, "but have you heard of Uncle John?"

  Mr Campion's eyes were opened. "Heaven forgive me!" he said piously. "I actually forgot Uncle john. You poor kid! Of course, you were alarmed. Well, look here, you go home and go to bed and I'll deliver the documents in a plain van tomorrow morning. That's a bet. Any good?"

  When Miss Pelham's powers of expressing her gratitude were partially exhausted a faintly puzzled expression crept into her eyes. "Why did you take so much trouble over it all?" she demanded.

  Campion regarded her seriously. "Who is Sylvia?" he said. "I think she must have been a little girl very like you."

  Later that night the Superintendent sat in Mr Campion's Piccadilly flat and sipped a long drink to which he felt he was justly entitled.

  "Yes, well, we've got him," he said. "The nerve of the fellow! There was nothing in those letters, Campion, nothing at all. I looked at them. Boy Scout stuff. Yet he got two hundred quid out of the kid. What I don't see is how he did it. He swapped envelopes about, that I see, but how did he hit on the right ones to keep? I mean, he could well have picked on some woman who'd simply raise Cain at the first sign of any monkey business."

  Campion leant back in his chair. "My dear chap," he said, "that's where he was so clever. He picked his victims, not his evidence. Whenever a helpless-looking little girl gave him a package that felt like a bundle of love-letters he gave her back a dummy envelope and then examined what he had. If he thought they were interesting he worked his insufferable racket. If they weren't, he handed them back with an apology and some convincing story about a mistake."

  "But these letters weren't what you call interesting," Oates objected. "Far from it."

  "I don't know. They weren't the girl's own, you see, and they weren't from the sister's distinguished fiance with the budding career in the Diplomatic and the irascible Uncle John. Cagliostro heard all the gossip, remember. All he had to do was to find out if Jennifer had read them. When he found she had not, all was plain sailing."

  "Skunk!" said Oates. "Allen called him that and it suits him. We'll put him away all right, without publicity. I say, Campion, forgive a professional question, but what put you onto him?" Campion frowned. "It is written in the ink'," he quoted. "D'you remember that?"

  "Yes, I do. Mrs Allen said it before she committed suicide, didn't she? It still doesn't convey anything to me."

  "Nor me at first," admitted Campion modestly. "But the story of the blackmailed innocent reminded me of Jennifer, and Jennifer reminded me of that damned fortune-teller, so I put two and two together."

  "I'll buy it," said the Superintendent.

  "It's ridiculously simple. When first I looked into the tent I saw a crystal. A fortuneteller of that kind doesn't have a crystal as a rule. He simply holds the envelope, or whatever it is, and goes into a trance. That was just a little oddity that set me thinking, and from crystals, naturally, I went on to ink. In India the fakirs look into a pool of ink instead of a crystal, you know."

  "I didn't. Still, go on." Campion sighed. "You're an impossible person to have to explain thought-processes to," he said. "But if those last words had been 'it is written in the crystal' you'd have automatically thought of fortune-tellers, wouldn't you? Well, then, the ink is sometimes synonymous with the crystal, and when there's a terrified young girl in each situation, well, it sets you wondering. That's all." Oates laughed explosively.

  "In fact, you guessed it. You picked a winning horse with a pin," he said. "My word, Campion, you're lucky! There was no brains in it at all." Mr Campion looked hurt. There are times when he feels it is his destiny to be underestimated by his friends.

  Editor's Note

  Margery Allingham wrote "The Black Tent'" late in 1937. It would appear that when the story was finished she sensed that it was not suitable for the Strand Magazine, which in the thirties was the principal outlet for her longer stories. However, she reworked the story's theme in a much shorter story called "The Definite Article," which appeared in 1939 in the United States, in the anthology Mr Campion and Others.

  Like many other professional writers, Margery Allingham was not inclined to allow a good idea to be wasted. The reworked version, "The Definite Article," was published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. But as her sister Joyce attests, she was herself loyal to the earlier version and in the last year of her life began moves to have it published.

  "The Black Tent," however, did not appear in print in England until 1987, when it was included in an anthology, The Ladykillers.

  Sweet and Low

  "It's a nice day."

  "Beautiful."

  "Been nice all this week."

  "Very."

  "Is that an overreach on your off foreleg?"

  "No. He cut it on a piece of filthy tin in your long meadow. It's practically healed."

  "Oh, sorry. About the tin, I mean. It's a nice day."

  "Beautiful. I'm late for lunch. Goodbye." Susan turned Taffy abruptly and trotted off smartly down the lower road, and that was that.

  She did not look back at the young man who was so long that he seemed to fit into his small open car with difficulty, but was sufficiently feminine to hope that he noticed how flat her shoulders were under her new brown hacking coat.

  When she was certain she had heard the car turn the corner on to the Tipton road she relaxed considerably and permitted Taffy to drop into the leisurely trot he liked best.

  Susan was resolutely against heart-searchings. Her attitude towards Phil Birlingstone was, she reflected, cold, impersonal and a trifle worldly. He could break his neck for all she cared. No; perhaps not actually his neck, but his leg or an arm. Or anyway he could shake himself up a bit and lose some of his wretched superiority. Courage like his was all very well in Susan's opinion. If a man has been born in the saddle well, practically so it's perfectly natural for him to feel more at home on a horse than on his own two enormous feet. But even if he is so incredibly brave and does take jumps in the hunting field that make one go cold inside and does ride a notoriously nappy six-year-old to victory in the point-to-point, leaving the Army struggling like bogged goats at the seventh fence, is there any reason why he should go all condescending to a girl on a very good pony when he finds her scrambling through a patch of furze in an undignified attempt to avoid a three-foot hedge with a ditch on the other side?

  The incident had taken place at the final meet of the season. Susan had been getting on very nicely, with Taffy nosing his way like a pointer among the furze and cautiously feeling every step with his little round hooves before he trusted their combined weight on the spongy clay, when Phil Birlingstone had left the hunt to come after her and, with a face as scarlet as his coat, had bellowed ungallantly:

  "Look out! Look out you little idiot! There's a mass of rabbit-holes in there. You'll kill yourself or your poor beast."

  That in itself had been insulting enough. But when Geraldine Partington-Drew had joined him on her magnificent bay (only eight-fifty, my dear. They positively gave her to me because I could manage her) Susan had tasted mud. They sat towering over her on their great mounts and actually laughed or at least Geraldine had laughed. Phil had merely scowled until Susan backed the protesting Taffy into the open meadow again. Then Geraldine had ridden off, calling to Phil to follow her, and actually, of course, to make them watch her take the jump as cleanly and clearly as a cat.

  Phil had followed her, but not before he had added the final straw. Susan blushed with righteous rage whenever she remembered his words, and that meant she blushed on an average twice a day.


  "I'll go first," he had said. "You won't want me to stand and watch you, will you?" Susan glowered when she remembered it. The impudence, the conceit, the insufferable superiority of the man was incredible.

  She dug her heels into Taffy's fat sides and startled that old gentleman into a canter to relieve her feelings. When they were both in peace and comfort again her indignation settled into calm contempt once more. Geraldine would marry Phil eventually; everybody saw that coming. In her more worldly moments (and when one is twenty one can feel worldly with the assurance that one knows what one is about) Susan was inclined to approve of the match. They were both wealthy, Phil had a title, and Geraldine had thousands and thousands of pounds to make up for a father like Partington-Drew, they were both horse-crazy, both magnificent riders, both utterly fearless, and, even if Geraldine had reached the advanced age of twenty-nine and did look a little like her own mare, especially about the nose, she had heaps of money for clothes and things and often appeared remarkably handsome in the saddle.

  When she was very frank with herself Susan considered that her own dislike of Miss Partington-Drew was perfectly natural and excusable. In a way it was jealousy. Susan was prepared to admit that and even to condone it.

  Before the Partington-Drews had bought the Old Rectory and turned that white elephant of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners into a glittering palace of hot-water taps, central heating and marble baths, Susan and Taffy had been the pets of the village and the white hope of the horse-loving farmers round about.

  Then it had been only natural for the daughter of Captain Mavis, R.N. of the Grange, and now a hardworking kennel maid to the local vet, to trot in and out of the stable yard at the hall whenever Taffy's minor ailments required the attentions of Lady Birlingstone's elderly groom, the faithful and beloved Henry Branch, who had patently been a horse himself in some previous incarnation, so surely did he divine the slightest equine trouble.

  When Phil had returned from abroad to take up his duties as head of the house on his father's death his eye had quite naturally rested with interest upon the trim little figure on the chestnut pony. There was nothing in that. Most eyes rested on Susan with interest. She was so used to it that it had become ordinary.

  They had got on very well together and Phil had seemed to share the village's interest in her riding. He was about to acquire a couple of hunters and old Lady Birlingstone, who was the sweetest, silliest old darling in Debrett, had thought of asking her son-in-law, Tony March, who knew about thoroughbreds and had a very fine stable of his own away in the north of the county, if he could not pick up a little blood mare which Susan might care to ride sometimes.

  At this period there were discreet bets in the Queen's Head on the chances of a popular wedding at Easter in the following year and everything had looked very exciting for the first time in Susan's young life, when, only three months after Phil's return home, the Partington-Drews had arrived and with them Geraldine.

  Geraldine had not achieved her present position immediately but it had not taken her long, for she treated men as she treated horses; that is to say, with a firm, light hand and indomitable will and tremendous personal courage.

  The village was inclined to jeer at her at first but her stable of four expensive hunters and a prizewinning show jumper had impressed it in spite of itself, and when she had won the Ladies' Race in three out of the four adjacent point-to-points and had hinted that she was taking the jumper to the County's Royal Show it sighed and capitulated.

  Old Henry Branch alone was faithful. When he had first set eyes on Susan and Taffy he had described the ensemble as the prettiest sight I ever see and had remained obstinately of that opinion ever since.

  A little question concerning the confusion of sprain and farsie had settled him with Geraldine for ever. Geraldine had disdained his advice and sent for the vet and had not apologized on finding herself in the wrong. From that time forward he admitted Geraldine could ride but considered her "a proper bouncy lady."

  Of late Mr Branch had been worried. He had set his heart on Miss Susan coming to be the lady of the hall and at one time had been prepared to bet on the eventuality at the rate of three pints to one, but, as the days passed and Miss Geraldine displayed more ingenuity in devising excuses for absorbing all Sir Phil's spare time than Branch had thought to exist in the whole plaguey world of women put together, his spirits sank.

  Miss Susan was evidently not going to make a fight for it and Branch, while respecting her maidenly restraint, regretted the ruthless determination of her rival. Of Sir Phil himself, since he was his employer, he kept his thoughts to himself.

  There were other people besides Branch who were appalled by the seemingly inevitable trend of events and they were not so discreet. Old Lady Birlingstone opened her heart to her daughter Jean.

  "It's not that I mind the girl Geraldine," she said pathetically, rubbing her ear with her gardening glove. "She's quite a nice creature, no doubt, even if she is so masterful and has such a distressing voice. But no woman likes to see her son roped like a like a ..."

  "Steer, Mother," said Jean, who was practical and not unmasterful herself.

  "Steer, is it?" repeated Lady Birlingstone vaguely. "Well, anyway, I don't like to sec him rushed. He's slow. His father was. Susan is so pretty, Jean. I thought she was beginning to care for him. He had a snapshot of her on Taffy I found it in a suit I sent to the jumble sale. I took it out, of course. Villagers do jump to conclusions so quickly. I put the snapshot on Phil's dressing-table, as a little hint, you know, but the next morning it was in the grate all torn up. I was so sorry."

  "Is he now carting round a snap of the acquisitive Geraldine?" inquired the forthright Jean, standing with her hands in her jodhpurs pockets.

  "Oh, no. She gave him a big photograph." Lady Birlingstone rubbed the mud off her ear with her handkerchief and looked worried. "He can't carry that about. It's meant to be framed. He's put it in his shirt drawer, right at the bottom. I don't know if he's hiding it from us or from himself. She'll get him, Jean, I know it. I've seen it happen over and over again. It's not that men are exactly weak, but they are lazy and they don't like to be rude, and what with one thing and another they get pushed this way and that and are hustled and bothered until they can't see any way out of the difficulty except to ... to ..."

  "Gather up their heels and pop over the fence," supplemented Jean thoughtfully. "I know. I've seen Geraldine do that in the hunting field. Well, darling, we must see what can be done. I'll talk to Tony."

  Talking to Tony was Jean's favorite expedient when in doubt and Lady Birlingstone gave her blessing brightly. "I wish you would, dear," she said. She had great faith in her son-in-law.

  Tony March was not altogether unworthy of his mother-in-law's trust. At least he was always prepared to do something, and, if his ideas were occasionally a trifle school boyish, he certainly carried them out with devotion and a strict attention to detail. Aided by his enthusiastic young wife, he gave the matter his earnest attention.

  Meanwhile, Susan went on her proud and worldly way mercifully unconscious of the forces gathering to her assistance.

  She did not hear about Sweet and Low until Geraldine met her in the dentist's waiting-room nearly a month after Lady Birlingstone's appeal to her married daughter. It was not the best time to talk horses to anyone but Geraldine was never tactful.

  "Hello," she said as Susan came in, treading resolutely, her mind on local anesthetics. "I haven't seen you for years. What have you been doing? Hiding?"

  "No," said Susan, trying not to be pleased that Miss Partington-Drew still looked very raw about the nose and cheekbones although hunting was long since over, "just living."

  "I know." Geraldine had a loud, resonant voice and a tendency to accentuate the operative word. "My dear, one does nothing, absolutely nothing, except ride. I don't see a soul save Phil." Susan winced and could have kicked herself. She had an insane temptation to say "Phil who?", but, since even Geraldine could not be exp
ected to be quite obtuse, she saved her face in time.

  "I'm taking Bitter Aloes, my mare, to Minstree Show on the nineteenth," said Geraldine, who was apparently as nonchalant before the dentist's chair as she was in the hunting field. "It's a first-class rehearsal. All the intelligent people use it. There are some nice Irish horses coming over." Susan, who had ridden in the Pony class at the Minstree Show until she had been superannuated at the age of fourteen, nodded wisely. "The jumping there's pretty hot, nearly up to the Royal standard," she murmured. Miss Partington-Drew laughed.

  "Still, I think we may pull it off," she said, and was doubly irritating because she was probably perfectly right. "Bitter Aloes is very good, you know. Of course I haven't the faintest idea what Phil has up his sleeve."

  Susan pricked up her ears. It was distressing to hear news from the hall in this roundabout way. In the old days a new horse would have called forth a celebration at which her presence would have been indispensable. Geraldine was sufficiently feminine to sense a hit.

  "Didn't you know?" she said. "I thought everyone heard everything in villages. Tony March has bought a new show jumper, Sweet and Low. They say he's marvelous. Phil is to ride him at Minstree and as far as I can hear we shall fight it out between us. It ought to be tremendous fun. Phil is going to stay with the Marchs at Benley. Their place is only six or seven miles from Minstree."

  "I know," said Susan, who had known the house since childhood. "I shall be there," she added primly.

  "Will you? What with? Your little pony?" Geraldine did not exactly sneer, Susan had to admit that, but she did laugh a little and Susan blushed.