The Beckoning Lady Page 10

  “Prune,” Mr. Campion was uncharacteristically savage, “is about as useless as a gasogene.”

  “A what?”

  “Well then, as useless as any elaborate thing evolved for a specific purpose which no longer exists. A sedan chair, if you like. Prune has been bred, not merely brought up, to be a suitable wife for a man who is no longer produced. She can’t be altered and she can’t be camouflaged. Besides—” he ground his heel into the stones irritably, “—her mother is a Gallantry, and therefore mad, of course, as they all are. Poor silly old thing, taking refuge in strange religions. At a guess, Prune has about one hundred and eighty pounds a year, less tax, to live on, and there’s no sort of job in which she would be at all suitable. She makes me miserable whenever I think of her.”

  “Charlie Luke has a mum too, hasn’t he?”

  “So he says.” In the darkness Mr. Campion grinned. “A power in his life by all accounts. According to him, she’s a C.I.D. Sergeant’s daughter, a Superintendent’s widow, is two jam-pots high, and can smell breath over the telephone. I can’t see her being sympathetic. Oh no, Amanda, I see bother there. Trouble. Tight lips. Broken hearts and God knows what. That sort of chap is liable to have mighty soul-shattering passions. That wretched girl is no darned good to him at all.”

  Amanda sighed and the June moths floated by. “Poor Prune,” she murmured. “I hope they saw the otter. I say Albert, what about Lugg?”

  “Lugg is a witness in this scarifying murder enquiry which everybody is taking a darned sight too calmly. I imagine he’s still with the police.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” said Amanda, “because I heard he was in The Gauntlett with someone else’s old woman. His Knees up Mother Brown is said to be a sight worth drinking Honesty Bull’s dreary beer for.”

  Mr. Campion’s eyes grew wide behind his spectacles and it occurred to him that he had not seen Miss Diane all the evening. He turned to the crisp head so near his own.

  “Dognosed anything else, lieutenant?”

  “Not much. I am in the process of collecting data. The old man whose old woman has been appropriated by Lugg is called rather ominously Old Harry. He’s been working up here on the wherry but he sheered off at six o’clock and Scat told me why. He’s gone with them.”

  “Always the best way.”

  Mr. Campion sounded considerably relieved. “What’s he like? I thought his name was Buller.”

  “So it is. Old Harry Buller. He’s one of those tough little country chaps who have pink cheeks and a way of spreading their eyelids modestly downwards, which means they’re not going to tell you anything they don’t intend to. He’s ‘retired’, and that means he does anything he’s a mind to. He cures rabbit-skins, cuts the odd hedge for favoured customers, helps Minnie shift things about. There’s a lot of shifting about on this estate, there always was. And he’s the only man in the entire county, including the Borough Surveyor, who knows how the Pontisbright sewer is laid. He’s also the bird-catcher. Scat says he’s practically a dog.”

  “Eh?” said Mr. Campion, taken aback.

  Amanda chuckled. She was as gay as he had ever known her.

  “He goes by instinct,” she explained. “Smells things out. He knew Lugg had designs on his girl friend merely by seeing the top of his head over a hedge. It’s all a little indelicate. They must all be in the sixties, if not more.”

  “I don’t know what the old are coming to,” Mr. Campion spoke lightly. “It’s telling them they’ve got to work until they drop, I suppose. Puts ideas in their heads. Anything more about the possible future of the Pontisbright Park Estate?”

  “No. I was on that when you came along, worrying about Luke and wanting your letter posted. You sent something to Pritchard, I saw. What has got to be analysed?”

  Mr. Campion glanced at her in the moonlight. “A small white tablet which I stole from Uncle William’s room.”

  “I see,” she said softly. “And you called the death of the tramp, or whoever he was, scarifying. Does that mean you think he must have something to do with this house?”

  Mr. Campion bowed his head over his loosely clasped hands.

  “I don’t know anything, yet,” he said, “but I just can’t believe that two mysterious killings, taking place within half a mile of each other at approximately the same time, are completely unrelated. Can you?”

  Amanda surveyed the graceful silhouette of The Beckoning Lady against the depthless sky.

  “I can’t believe in murders here at all,” she said. “Everyone is so happy. The party seems to be the only thing that matters. I hate it, Albert. It’s all wrong here.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Mr. Campion. “But the man Choc found wasn’t a tramp by any means. Quite the contrary. A natty figure in his own way. He was certainly murdered, coshed by something quite extraordinarily powerful. I’m finding the whole thing nerve-racking, because by being over-cautious I’ve placed myself neatly outside the enquiry. It will look most unfortunately pointed if I go barging in now.”

  “Of course. That leaves you at the mercy of the local man.” Amanda spoke thoughtfully. “What’s he like?”

  “Nemesis,” said Mr. Campion briefly. “Is this the wagon?”

  Amanda rose to meet the car and there was a hasty consultation in the darkness before she came hurrying back.

  “We’ve got the plug. I’ll just go and fit it and superintend the final items. Then we’ll have a pre-view and go home, shall we?”

  “All right. What about Luke?”

  “The house is dark, but his car has gone. Perhaps he’s run away again.”

  Mr. Campion brightened. “There’s always that possibility,” he said, and wandered across the yard to the kitchen. He had expected to find Minnie and the boys engrossed in their plans for the party, which even to his inexperienced ears had begun to sound a formidable undertaking, but they had finished with that for the day and had got on to Art in capitals, with murder further away than the stars.

  “I have the greatest possible sympathy with the idea,” Westy was saying as he leant his lean weight on the bulging haversack on the table, “and George Meredith here will concede that economy is always a good thing. But I tell you, Minnie, I just don’t think that guy can paint at all.” He shook his yellow thatch and his eyes were grieved. “I find that very disturbing because I like him.”

  George Meredith, Westy’s friend from school, who lived overseas and had therefore been brought home as a matter of course, was a saturnine child, dark browed and silent. He sat across a stool and stared with a fixed expression, either of boredom or bewilderment, straight in front of him, and it occurred to Mr. Campion that the only young people whom their elders invariably find incomprehensible are those brought home by their own offspring. Minnie was talking.

  “Nothing on the canvas at all, you say?” she demanded. “Oh come in, Albert. We’re talking about Jake. He’s showing one or two things with mine in the barn on Saturday, but just lately he’s taken to painting so very small. I did want him to show one decent-sized canvas and he promised he would. I left a space and he’s hung it. But now Westy says there’s nothing on it.”

  The boy seemed as worried as she was. “It’s a plain grey background, just as smooth as he could get it.”

  “And nothing else?” Mr. Campion enquired, interested.

  “Only the snail-shell, stuck on the left-hand corner about two inches from the bottom. He says it’s very important where it goes.”

  “Yes, well, I daresay it is,” said Minnie. “I mean, the whole point of . . . oh dear!” She dabbed her eyes, but her tears were not of laughter. “That boy’s exasperating,” she said with sudden anger, “because he’s got something to say. You’re quite right, Westy, he can’t paint. He can’t even draw. I never met such a kack-handed jackass in all my born days. But that doesn’t matter. The world is full of people who can paint and draw like angels, and who have nothing to say but boring old clichés. Jake really has a sound emotional ide
a, and if he’d only stick it down with the tail of his donkey someone else could make an effort and share. It’s just pride. It’s not even shyness, not even embarrassment over his lack of skill. It’s just straight wicked pride which won’t let him share.”

  There was silence after she had spoken, broken only by an inarticulate squeak from George Meredith, who smothered it hastily, coloured up to the roots of his hair, and resumed his deathless contemplation.

  “I guess George agrees with you, Minnie,” said Westy, exhibiting clairvoyance, “and certainly so do I. But what are we going to do? Because, as it stands, that canvas appears to me as looking kind of uncivil.”

  “Of course it does.” Minnie was angry and her nose had grown sharper. “It’s such a pity,” she went on with exactly the same intonation as Campion had used about Luke. “I saw that snail about a week ago when he started. It had a sort of design about it and the idea was there. But he’s simplified and simplified, saying in effect ‘I shan’t tell ’em this, I shan’t tell ’em that,’ till he’s painted out the whole thing. Oh he is a trying chap. Besides,” she added seriously, “you never know, someone might have bought it, and they could do with the money. Emma’s been working for me like a black all through the year, but she hasn’t earned very much. They wouldn’t stand for it.”

  “Who is ‘they’?” murmured Mr. Campion involuntarily.

  Minnie looked at him. “Oh, people,” she said vaguely. “Well boys, it’s another long day tomorrow. You must hit the hay. They’re sleeping in the Indian camp,” she explained to Campion. “It’s jolly comfortable up there and not so stuffy as the house. Besides, we’re so short of bedrooms. Ready now?”

  “All set.”

  Westy kissed her good-night, and so did George Meredith, much to her astonishment, making a thorough job of it so that her cheek showed a white circle after the caress. He said nothing, however, but strode off after his friend into the glittering night.

  “They’re done,” said Minnie, laughing. “I wonder if that boy’s any relation?”

  “To reality?” enquired Mr. Campion with interest. “It does speak, I suppose?”

  “Oh, I imagine so, or Westy would have told me. He’s a very thoughtful child. That boy is getting used to us. He’s rather nice and very intelligent. Not everyone of that age would have grasped all that about Jake. So often people just sneer as if the man was mad.” She stood up. “Well now, let’s creep up and peep at Rupert. I do want to slip over to the studio, and he’ll be alone in the house except for Annabelle and Choc.”

  She was leading him through the dark rooms as she spoke and lowered her voice to a whisper as they gained the stairs, but as they reached the landing she paused abruptly. The door of her room showed slivers of light round the frame.

  “Mercy on the child, he’s lit a candle,” she ejaculated, and hurried in, Campion behind her.

  The soft light spread feebly over the small room, making the bed a pool of colour in the dark surround. On it, stretched diagonally across its wide expanse, in an attitude of utter comfort and content, was a sleeping sandy man. His compact and powerful body was fully clad save for his jacket, and his cheek was cradled against his shirt-clad arm. He had removed his shoes, and his feet, in discreetly checkered socks, were folded over one another on Minnie’s print dress for the party.

  “Tonker!” Minnie stood staring at the apparition. “When did you come back? Tonker, wake up.”

  He opened one eye, as blue as a sugar bag, and smiled with singular sweetness.

  “Hullo, Minnie darling. I’m having a zizz.”

  “Tonker! What have you done with the child? Where is he? Tonker, wake up.”

  A delighted giggle behind them settled the main problem. Rupert, with Choc behind him, came in from the larger room whose fresh decorations Emma had displayed so proudly earlier in the day. As soon as he saw that Tonker was still asleep he put his own head down on the edge of the bed and closed his eyes. Choc sat down heavily and began to pant. Minnie picked up her dress, shook it out, and hung it round the post.

  “How silly of Emma to leave it on the bed,” she said unreasonably. “Wake up, Tonker, here’s Albert.”

  “Where?”

  He sat straight up out of sleep and looked about him. “Hallo Campion. How are you? Sorry I couldn’t get in this morning, but that moke of Minnie’s is worse than useless. No idea of pressing on at all. Well, this is good, eh?” He slid off the bed, found his shoes and jacket, and paused for a moment to look down at Rupert, who by this time was lacing his own shoes.

  “Good-morning,” he said.

  “Many happy reorientations,” said Rupert unexpectedly, and they both roared with laughter.

  “Our thought for the day,” said Tonker. “Well now, supper, eh Minnie?”

  She looked at him and laughed, her eyes dancing with amusement.

  “We’ve had ours, you old cad. What would you like?”

  Tonker turned to Rupert. “It’s up to you, really, old boy,” he said. “What would you like? It’s late, so we’d better have something light. They do omelettes very well here. We’ll start with melon, Minnie, then an omelette, and I shall be quite content with a touch of cheese.”

  “A touch of cheese is all you deserve,” she said firmly. “Where’s the whisky?”

  “That’s right.” Tonker appreciated the reminder. “With great forethought, and aware that we might have guests, I procured a single bot. Where is it? There’s only one drink gone. Boy!”

  “Many happy reorientations,” said Rupert.

  “Save it,” roared Tonker. “Wait till we get another punter. Meanwhile, did you observe, you silly little chump, what I did with the whisky?”

  “You took it under the bed,” said Rupert.

  “So I did.” Tonker retrieved it and handed it to him. “You carry that, and remember that the whole success of the evening depends on the care you take of it.” He turned to Campion. “Get ’em used to handling the bottle young,” he said, “then the feel of it doesn’t drive ’em MAD later on.”

  “Rupert is Albert’s son,” Minnie murmured.

  “Well of course he is,” Tonker said without a tremor. “He told me his name and I knew he wasn’t a brother. Too young. Supper now, eh?”

  “Tonker,” demanded Mr. Campion, “why did you take the whisky under the bed?”

  “Because . . .” his famous bronchial laugh which invariably ended in a dangerous high-pitched wheeze, escaped him, “I did feel a fool! I came home, looked about and saw you, Minnie and Amanda entertaining the dreariest man bar none that I have ever met. And so I came up here to have a quiet zizz, nap, or buzz-session, until he went away. I was awakened by twitterings on the landing and, not wishing to enter into a lot of laborious explanations, I slid quietly under the bed, having the forethought to take the bottle I had so kindly brought for you all with me. The next thing I knew was that your wife and mine had bunged this nice but redundant child in my place, and there was a ruddy great dog sniffing at me under the hangings.”

  “So you turned Rupert out and got back on the bed.” Minnie sounded less horrified than she meant to. “You told me you weren’t coming back until the party. You are disgusting. You’re so selfish, Tonker, I’m ashamed of you.”

  “Not at all.” He was outraged. “I made the child supremely comfortable, with rich pillows and eiderdowns, upon one bed, and did the same for the dog on the other. I shared my thought for the day with them, and I showed them where the electric light switch was, an item which, I may add, I am not permitted to possess myself. Then I left them and we all three appear to have had a very pleasant and refreshing zizz. Unfortunately we are now all starving.”

  “Oh all right, get on,” she conceded, “but what you think you’re doing, coming home unexpectedly and crawling under the bed, I do not know, or what Albert will think.”

  “Good God,” said Tonker, “if a man can’t crawl under his wife’s bed, where can he crawl? And as to what Albert may think, it is as not
hing to me.”

  He had reached the inner kitchen by this time and now sat down at the head of the scrubbed table, motioning the father and son to stools on either side of him. He still looked remarkably like the caricature in the bedroom, Mr. Campion noted; powerful, sand-coloured, compact and truculent. A waving striped tail would have been surprising but not extraordinary.

  Minnie, who had been looking weary, seemed to have been injected with new life by his arrival.

  “Put the bottle on the table, dear, very carefully,” she said to Rupert. “The glasses are here and the plates are there, and I’ll get the water and the frying-pan. No Albert, stay where you are and talk. I shan’t be a moment.”

  The bustle was considerable. The two zizzers made it clear that for them at any rate the evening was only beginning.

  “Seen the pictures?” Tonker demanded.

  “Not yet.” Mr. Campion found he was apologising.

  “Splendid, I’ll show ’em to you. You must see the secret stuff, too. I think the woman’s got something.” He was pouring the drinks carefully. “For boys, water,” he said to Rupert. “In ten years’ time come to me and I’ll initiate you into a very important mystery. Until then, stick to water, or milk if you must, so that your palate remains virgin for the ceremony. Above all, never touch green sherbet. Green sherbet is death to the taste-buds.”

  “You be quiet, Tonker,” said Minnie, “and eat this.” She had produced an omelette, apparently by conjury, and now gave Rupert a small one also. “How about you, Albert?”

  “My dear, I’ve just eaten.”

  “I should make the effort, Campion,” Cassands advised earnestly. “It’s going to be a long night. Minnie, about the blow-out on Saturday, have you got any glübalübali?”

  “Oh, Tonker, those awful things again . . . are you going to revive them?” She was standing by the stove, her hands on her hips, her coarse apron hanging in stiff folds over the printed gown.

  “The Augusts want them. Keep one back, because we shall never see them again. Are there any, anywhere?”

  “I think there’s six in the granary, gold-painted. They’ll be a bit black by now.”