More Work for the Undertaker Read online

  ‘I’ve seen that before.’ Charlie Luke was thoughtful. ‘It’s been going on for about a week. Maybe it’s just the usual pub acquaintanceship but now I see it with your eyes, so to speak.’ He made horn-rims for himself with his vast expressive hands. ‘Yes, it’s unlikely, isn’t it? I’ve never actually spoken to the old boy before today. Yes, I see they are a rum couple. I’ll look into that.’

  ‘Int’resting neighbourhood you’ve got ’ere,’ put in Lugg in his better-class voice. ‘There’s the chemist’s auntie, for instance, what about ’er?’

  Luke’s response was gratifying. He swung round, his eyes sharp and excited.

  ‘Pa Wilde’s got a new woman, has he?’

  ‘She’s female.’ Mr Lugg didn’t seem prepared to go further. ‘Does ’e often ’ave lady visitors?’

  ‘Now and again.’ Luke was grinning. ‘It’s a local joke. Sometimes, very seldom, a woman comes for a night or so. She’s never the same and always utterly respectable, to look at anyway. Besides, have you seen him, Mr Campion?’

  ‘No. Fun to come. He’s not the type perhaps, is that it?’

  ‘Who is?’ The D.D.I. was both worldly and sad. ‘That’s the one subject on which there’s no rules. He just likes a certain miserable ladylike funereal type and he only likes ’em for about ten minutes. It’s peculiar, but then people are peculiar in that respect. Come to that, he’s a staggering old peculiar himself.’

  ‘Pardon me.’ Mr Lugg had risen and his accent was a tour-de-force. ‘Did you say “funereal”?’

  ‘Yes.’ The D.D.I. seemed taken aback by the elaboration of vowel and consonant. ‘At least, they’re always dressed in black and they usually look a bit tearful, if you know what I mean. I haven’t seen this one.’

  ‘I ’ave. She’s Bella Musgrave.’

  Charlie Luke remained unenlightened and a satisfied smile passed over Lugg’s moon-face.

  ‘O’ course you’re only young,’ he murmured, smugness oozing from him. ‘Now me and my employer ’ere . . .’

  ‘Who is twenty years younger,’ interrupted Mr Campion brutally, ‘are bursting to tell you that she may or may not be a small-time crook whom we once saw sent down for eighteen months in the year of the Great Exhibition or thereabouts. How did the doctor take your analyst’s report?’

  ‘Oh, resigned, you know.’ Luke spoke with sympathy. ‘It wasn’t his fault, as I’ve told him. He told me one thing. You know the younger Miss Palinode, Miss Jessica, the gal from the park? He says she’s been giving the old man at the dairy cups of poppy tea. He’s a patient of the doc’s and suffers from sinus trouble. The doc says he found him pretty well doped and yet he said he’d had nothing but this muck which the old girl gave him for his pain, which it had stopped. The doc says if she’d used the right poppies at the right time of the year the old lad would have had a basinful of raw opium which would have put him out like a light.’

  He hesitated, his dark face troubled.

  ‘There’s enough suspicion there to detain her, but I don’t like it. It sounds so barmy, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about her.’ Mr Campion sounded as if he were making an admission. ‘But I don’t believe she could have made hyoscine from henbane she gathered in the park.’

  ‘No,’ said Luke. ‘I’ll have to follow it up, of course, but it doesn’t sound likely to me. She’s a strange old woman; makes me think of fairy tales, I don’t know why. She . . .’ He broke off and stood listening, and they followed his glance towards the door. It began to open very slowly and cautiously, an inch at a time.

  Miss Jessica in walking-out costume was an unlikely sight in any circumstances, but this opportune arrival was actively disconcerting. As she caught sight of Campion on the other side of the table a smile which was partly shy appeared on her small pointed face.

  ‘So there you are,’ she said. ‘I wanted to get hold of you before I went for my walk. There’s just time. Come along.’

  Charlie Luke was regarding her with open disbelief.

  ‘How did you get here, ma’am?’

  She looked at him directly for the first time.

  ‘Oh, I observe, you know,’ she said. ‘You were not drinking downstairs and I felt you must be here, so I searched until I found you.’ She returned to Campion. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Perfectly,’ he said, crossing over to her. ‘Where are we going?’ He was so much taller than she was that he enhanced her wispy oddity. Her motoring veil was tied a thought more carefully than usual and had been pinned in front to hide the cardboard. But her multitudinous skirts were still arranged in irregular tiers above her battered shoes and corrugated stockings. Today she carried a bag. It was made of a piece of an old waterproof tacked together inexpertly by someone who understood nothing about sewing save the principle. It appeared to contain papers and kitchen waste in equal quantities, since both made attempts to escape from every dubious seam.

  She handed it to Campion before she spoke. It was a charming gesture, feminine and confiding.

  ‘To our solicitor, of course,’ she said. ‘You can’t have forgotten you told me we should help the police and I agreed with you.’

  It came back to Campion that he had said something of the sort before leaving her downstairs in the back kitchen.

  ‘And so you’ve decided to?’ he said. ‘That’s going to be a great help.’

  ‘Oh, but I always intended to. I’ve now seen my brother and my sister and they both agree that the person to give you any information you may require is our solicitor, Mr Drudge.’

  The unusual name passed Luke by, Mr Campion noticed, so he took it that the firm was not unknown to him. The D.D.I. looked both respectful and relieved.

  ‘That’s all we need, confidence, ma’am,’ he was beginning. ‘We’re not out to . . .’

  ‘My confidence is here,’ cut in Miss Jessica, smiling at Campion, but there was no archness in her manner. She remained both a lady and a mind.

  Campion gripped the bag. ‘Splendid,’ he said. ‘We’ll go, shall we, or will you have some lunch first?’

  ‘No thank you, I’ve eaten. I do want to fit this visit in before my afternoon stroll – into the park, you know.’

  She stood aside and let him precede her to the street.

  ‘That unfortunate boy,’ she said, as they went up the cul-de-sac of Edwardes Place together, causing a stir among the more observant of the passers-by. ‘I heard from the cobbler that he’d had an accident. With his machine, I suppose? They are dangerous. And yet, you know, I’ve always felt I’d like to try one.’

  ‘A motor-cycle?’

  ‘Yes. I should look strange, of course, but I know that. There’s a great deal of difference in ignorance and indifference.’ She smoothed the uppermost of her garments, which was a thin summer frock of a fashion long forgotten, and which served as an overall, or perhaps a dust cover, above something thick and knitted.

  ‘All the difference in the world,’ he assured her with complete sincerity. ‘But I’d advise against the motor-bike on other than aesthetic grounds.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Miss Jessica, exhibiting an unexpected squeamishness in view of her performance of the night before. ‘I know. They smell.’

  It was the first illogicality he had noticed in her and he found it comforting.

  ‘Where is this office?’ he inquired. ‘Shall I get a cab?’

  ‘Oh no, it’s just round the corner in the Barrow Road. My father believed in employing local people. They may not be the best, he said, but they are one’s own. Why are you smiling?’

  ‘Was I? I suppose I was thinking it was rather a large town to be parochial in.’

  ‘I don’t think so. London is made up of many villages. We Palinodes have carried one kind of squirearchy to its ridiculous conclusion, that’s all. I shall forgive you anything as long as you never find us sad.’

  ‘I think I find you frightening,’ he said.

  ‘That’s very much better,’ said the youngest Miss
Palinode.

  13. Legal Angle

  THE ELDERLY CLERK who greeted them could not help explaining the grudging deference with which he treated Miss Palinode by mentioning that he remembered her father.

  As they followed him through a vast outer office, which now housed only himself and two girls, Campion prepared himself to deal with a formal patriarch as full of prejudice as a very old gardener. Therefore, when at last they found him, Mr Drudge was a surprise. He sprang up from behind a desk which if not an antique was at least a curio. At first glance it seemed unlikely that he was anywhere near thirty. His camel-cloth waistcoat was gay, and his suede shoes had once been wonderfully conceived. His youthful face displayed frank apple blossom and innocence, qualities enhanced to absurdity by a tremendous sink-brush moustache.

  ‘Oh, hullo, Miss Palinode. Nice of you to blow in. Things a bit umpty at home, I rather suspect. Take a chair. Don’t think I know you, sir,’ he added.

  The hearty voice rang out happily.

  ‘No flap on here,’ he said. ‘Pretty damned quiet. Anything I can do?’

  Miss Jessica performed the introductions. It startled Campion to find that she knew exactly who he was himself and what he was doing in the affair. The preciseness and accuracy of her information suggested that a textbook had been her informant. She was watching him, too, and the curl of her lips suggested that she was amused.

  ‘This Mr Drudge is of course the grandson of the Mr Drudge who attended to my father’s affairs,’ she continued placidly. ‘His father died at the end of the war and this Mr Drudge inherited the practice. You may be interested to know that he has a D.F.C. and bar as well as the necessary legal qualifications.’

  ‘Oh, I say, come, come!’ The protest was uttered in a single howl.

  ‘And that his name is Oliver,’ went on Miss Jessica as if there had been no interruption. ‘Or,’ she added devastatingly, ‘Clot.’

  Both men looked at her with some embarrassment and she showed her small teeth in a brief smile.

  ‘A flying term,’ she said. ‘Now you must read these letters, Mr Drudge; one from Evadne and one from Lawrence. Then you can give Mr Campion all the information he may require.’ She placed two chits in his hands. Both had been written on the smallest possible piece of paper and Mr Drudge’s large fingers had some difficulty in negotiating them.

  ‘I say, this is pretty comprehensive, don’t you know,’ he announced at last, peering at her with enormous baby-grey eyes. ‘No offence to you, sir, but these instruct me to bare the soul, so to speak. Not that there’s anything to hide.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Miss Jessica spoke with great satisfaction. ‘I’ve been talking to my brother and sister and we decided to trust Mr Campion implicitly.’

  ‘Don’t know if that’s wise or civil. The poor type has his own loyalties.’ He smiled at Campion disarmingly. ‘However, there’s not a lot to divulge, is there?’

  ‘No, but he may as well know all there is,’ Miss Jessica smoothed her muslin skirt. ‘You see,’ she said to Campion, ‘we are not fools. We are self-centred and we live out of the world . . .’

  ‘Pretty ingenious, if you can do it,’ interposed her legal adviser with apparent envy.

  ‘Quite. But, as I said, we are not utterly unpractical. While my sister Ruth’s death was merely the subject of vulgar suspicion we thought it best to ignore the whole thing. You would be surprised to know how much unnecessary worry a simple policy of polite disinterest can save one. However, since we now see that the matter is more serious than we had hoped, we have decided to protect ourselves as best we can from any mistake the police may make, and the best way to do that is obviously to give them every facility, as indeed Mr Campion has pointed out.’

  She made the little speech with dignity and Clot Drudge, after eyeing her with surprising shrewdness for a moment or so, sighed with relief.

  ‘I care for that,’ he said seriously. ‘Definitely I care for that. Press on, sir, won’t you?’

  Mr Campion sat down.

  ‘I don’t want to intrude into anything which may not be actively helpful,’ he was beginning, when Miss Palinode intervened.

  ‘Of course you don’t. But you would like to see if anyone had a money motive, and I expect you’d like to know if there are other motives still at large. You can look up my sister Ruth’s will at Somerset House, but you don’t know the provisions of mine, or Lawrence’s, or Evadne’s, do you?’

  ‘Oh, I say, hold it,’ Clot Drudge interposed. ‘I don’t think you ought to go as far as that.’

  ‘I disagree. If we don’t give the police the details they may imagine the wrong ones. For charity’s sake, I think we should begin with Edward.’

  ‘Edward rather began things,’ Mr Drudge conceded, caressing his moustache as though to keep it quiet. ‘Wait a moment. I’ll get the griff.’

  He went out and she bent forward confidentially.

  ‘I fancy he may be going to consult his partner.’

  ‘Oh, there’s a partner, is there?’ Campion sounded relieved.

  ‘Yes. Mr Wheeler. Our Mr Drudge only has a few clients as yet, I’m afraid, but he’s highly intelligent. Don’t be misled by his vocabulary. After all, it’s not more extraordinary than the one lawyers customarily use, is it?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ he said, laughing. ‘You get a lot of fun, don’t you?’

  ‘I try to be rational. Now about Edward. Not to put too fine a point upon it, he was a gambler. He had vision and he had courage, but not judgement.’

  ‘An unfortunate combination.’

  ‘I suppose so. But,’ she added with an unexpected flash in her intelligent eyes, ‘you’ve no idea how exciting it was. Consolidated Resins, for instance: one day we were worth hundreds of thousands. Lawrence was going to endow a library. And the next day, just when we’d got used to it, we were almost penniless. Old Mr Drudge used to get so angry. I’m not at all sure that the strain didn’t bring on the trouble which killed him. But Edward was magnificent. He put his faith in Dengies, and then there was always the Filippino Fashions.’

  ‘Crikey!’ said Mr Campion with a sort of awe. ‘Did he touch Bulimias?’

  ‘Now that’s a name I remember,’ she admitted. ‘And something Sports. And Gold Gold Gold United; that was such an interesting name. And then there was the Brownie Mine Company. What’s the matter? You look quite pale.’

  ‘Passing faintness,’ said Mr Campion, pulling himself together. ‘Your brother sounds to me to have had a gift. He went by the prospectuses, I suppose?’

  ‘Oh no. He was very informed. He worked very hard. He just chose the wrong shares. Evadne and Lawrence lost faith in him and they kept seven thousand pounds each. I went on longer. Edward died worth seventy-five pounds in cash and one hundred thousand pounds in various shares.’

  ‘Nominal value?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Oh, he left them to various people. None of them are saleable at the moment, I am afraid.’

  The lean man in the horn-rims sat looking at her for a moment or so.

  ‘Well, it was a performance,’ he said at last. ‘Did he keep faith in these ventures? Did he hope they’d recover?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said softly. ‘I used to wonder if he knew they were valueless, or if he still thought of them as money. He was used to being rich, you see. There’s a great deal in being used to a thing. I’m afraid he died just in time.’ There was a moment’s silence before she said suddenly: ‘To the uninformed Edward’s will might look as if he’d died wealthy. All our wills suggest that we have money. That is why I wanted you to come here and learn the facts.’

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘You’ve all made little presents of a thousand or so Gold Gold Gold United to kind old friends everywhere, have you?’

  ‘We’ve shown that we would have looked after our people if we had been able,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘Dear me. And is there any hope at all of any of these securities gai
ning value?’

  Miss Jessica looked a little hurt. ‘Not all the companies are in liquidation yet,’ she said. ‘Mr Drudge watches them for us, but he says Edward was very thorough. That’s a joke, of course.’

  Campion thought it wisest not to comment. Mr Edward Palinode appeared to have had a genius for finance in reverse.

  The office clock on the wall struck the half-hour and Miss Jessica rose.

  ‘I don’t want to miss my walk,’ she said blandly. ‘I like to be on my seat by the path just after three. I’ll leave you to the documents if you don’t mind.’

  He crossed the room to open the door for her, and as he handed her her bag a spray of wilted leaves sprouting out of it reminded him of something.

  ‘Don’t,’ he said gently, ‘don’t doctor the locals. No more poppy tea.’

  She did not look at him and the hand which took the bag trembled.

  ‘Oh, I have been wondering about that . . .’ she said. ‘But I haven’t broken my rule. I always taste everything first.’ She glanced up, her eyes earnest and imploring. ‘You don’t believe I killed him, do you, not even by mistake?’

  ‘No,’ he said stoutly. ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ she said and sounded unexpectedly relieved.

  A few moments later Mr Drudge returned with a folder. He was making a not unpleasant whirring sound under his breath, a fact of which he appeared happily unaware.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘Oh, she’s faded, has she? Not a bad idea. Lets one loosen up a bit. Well, I’ve been chinning with the old Skip and he says “Bang on, jolly good show, first ray of light they’ve shown.” Here’s the essential gen. Miss Evadne and Lawrence have both got two hundred and ten per a. from gilt-edged three per C’s. Poor little Jess in the trimmings has forty-eight quid. Forty-eight, mind you, in the same stock; not a hell of a lot of ackers. When Miss Ruth died her net negotiable assets were seventeen shillings and ninepence, a Breeches bible, and a garnet necklace, which we hocked to pay for her funeral. No one’s killing them off for the money in it. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?’