Mr Campion & Others Read online

  He was gone for some little time, but seemed pleased with himself when he reappeared. He gave an address in Streatham to the man and clambered back beside his friend.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ he said briefly. ‘We shan’t be too late to interfere, although of course the main mischief is done. Why? That’s what I don’t understand. It couldn’t have been merely to discredit Fielding; that was taking far too long a chance.’

  ‘I wish you’d explain and not talk like the wrong end of a telephone,’ said Oates testily. ‘What have you got from the benighted hole we’ve just left?’

  Campion looked at him as though he had only just remembered his existence.

  ‘The address, of course,’ he said briefly.

  The cab drew up at last in a wide suburban street where each pair of houses was exactly like the next – red brick, white stucco and solid chocolate paint.

  Mr Campion led the way up a short, tiled path to a neat front door and Oates, who had taken one look at the windows with their drawn blinds, followed him hastily, his irritation vanishing.

  A little woman in a dark overall, her grey hair scraped into a tight knot at the back of her head, opened the door to them. Her face was mottled and her eyes red.

  ‘Mr Nowell?’ she echoed in response to Campion’s question, and then, fishing hastily for her handkerchief, she began to cry.

  Mr Campion was very gentle with her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have asked for him like that. He’s dead, isn’t he?’

  She looked up at him sharply. ‘Oh, you’re from the police, are you?’ she said unexpectedly. ‘The doctor told me there’d have to be an inquest, as the death was so sudden. It’s been such a shock. He lodged here so long.’

  She made way for them and they crowded into the little hall. The Superintendent realised they were entering by false pretences, but there seemed to be no point in going into explanations just then.

  ‘When did you find him?’ Campion enquired cautiously.

  ‘Not until this morning when I took up his tea.’ The old woman was anxious to talk. ‘He must have died last night, so the doctor says. He put me through it very carefully. “Well, he was alive at ten o’clock,” I said, “because I spoke to him.” I always go to bed at a quarter to ten and if Mr Nowell was later he didn’t like me to sit up for him. He had his own key and there was always someone to help him up.’

  She paused for breath and Campion nodded encouragingly.

  ‘Well,’ she went on, ‘last night I had just turned out my bedroom light when I heard a motor stop and then the door went. “Is that you, Mr Nowell?” I called. “Yes, Mrs Bell,” he said. “Good night.” A little while afterwards I heard the car drive away.’

  Oates interrupted her. ‘Did the chauffeur come in with him?’

  Mrs Bell turned to him. ‘I don’t know if it was the chauffeur, sir, but somebody did. He was nearly eighty, you know, and it was nothing for the gentleman who brought him home to help him up to his room.’

  ‘Can we see him, please?’ said Mr Campion softly.

  Mrs Bell began to weep again, but afterwards, when they stood bareheaded in the big front bedroom and looked down at the gaunt still figure on the bed, she began to speak quietly and with pride.

  ‘You’re not seeing him as he was at all,’ she said. ‘He was wonderfully handsome with his white hair, his cane and his buttonhole. He used to take a great pride in his appearance. Spend hours and hours and pounds and pounds over it, he would. There was something he used to do with his cheeks to make them stand out more; I don’t know what it was.’

  Campion bent towards her and murmured something. She shook her head dubiously.

  ‘A photograph, sir?’ she repeated. ‘No, that’s a thing I don’t think I ’ave got. He was extraordinarily touchy about having his photograph took, which was funny when he thought so much of himself, if I can say such a thing without meaning to be unkind. Wait a minute, though. I do believe I’ve got a little snapshot I took of him in the garden one day when he didn’t know. I’ll go and get it.’

  As soon as they were alone Campion bent over the man on the bed and raised an eyelid very gently.

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ he said softly. ‘Fielding couldn’t be blamed for not noticing that. It would look like a perfectly normal death to him, thinking he knew the fellow’s age. If we can get your people on to this at once and get ’em to test for morphia sulphate I fancy they’ll get results if they hurry.’

  The Superintendent’s question was cut short by the return of Mrs Bell with a faded snapshot and they adjourned to a little light room at the back of the house.

  ‘There he is,’ she said proudly. ‘I was lucky to find him. That was taken last summer. He wasn’t going up to town so often then.’

  ‘What did he do in London?’ inquired Mr Campion, holding the photograph down, to the annoyance of the Superintendent.

  Mrs Bell looked uncomfortable. ‘I hardly know,’ she said. ‘He used to tell me he spent his time in his nephew’s office keeping an eye on things, but I think myself he was in a sort of high-class library and was one of those people who sit about making the place look respectable. “Dressing the house,” we used to call it in my stage days.’

  Oates smiled. ‘That’s a funny idea,’ he said. ‘I’ve never heard of it being done in a library.’

  ‘Well, a very expensive tailor’s, then,’ she persisted. ‘I know I thought I saw him sitting in a window in an East End street once. He wasn’t doing anything; only sitting there and looking very nice. I asked him about it, of course, but he got very angry and made me promise never to speak of it again.’

  The front-door bell interrupted her and she hurried out with a word of excuse.

  Oates turned to Campion. ‘I’m in a fog,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to explain.’

  The younger man gave him the snapshot and he stared at the little photograph of a tall, thin, distinguished figure walking down the gravelled path of the tiny garden.

  ‘Old Rosemary!’ ejaculated the Superintendent and raised a bewildered face to his friend’s. ‘Good Lord, Campion, who was that chap in the next room?’

  ‘John Nowell, Sir Charles Rosemary’s understudy at the Thespian Theatre thirty years ago – and ever since, apparently.’

  Mr Campion spoke calmly.

  ‘I admit the idea didn’t seem credible when I first thought of it,’ he went on, ‘but afterwards, when I looked into it, it became obvious. Nowell got his job nearly sixty years ago because he resembled Rosemary; that was when he was twenty. Rosemary was nearly ten years older, but they were the same type and very much alike in feature. Since then Nowell has spent his life in imitating the greater actor. He copied his walk and his mannerisms, and as the two men grew older the simulation became easier. Rosemary resorted to artificial aids to keep young-looking, and Nowell, to the same aids to look like Rosemary.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I get that,’ said the Superintendent testily. ‘But in the name of heaven, why?’

  Mr Campion shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Vanity takes a lot of explaining,’ he said. ‘But Rosemary was a rich man and I think it was worth his while to employ a fellow, already a pensioner of his perhaps, to sit in the Greys and keep the legend of his perennial health alive. If ever Rosemary was prevented from going to the club Nowell took his place. When you think of it, Rosemary’s record at the Greys, all day and every day for twenty years, is much more hard to swallow than this explanation of it.’

  Oates continued to stare at the photograph.

  ‘I grant the looks,’ he said suddenly, ‘now that I’ve seen the chap in the next room, but what happened if he had to talk?’

  ‘He didn’t,’ said Campion. ‘At least, hardly at all. For the last few years Rosemary’s been having moods. On his good days he was his old self. On his bad days he was very nearly speechless with sulkiness. It was these moods that put me on to Nowell, as a matter of fact. Walters told me this morning that on his good days Ros
emary drank whisky and water and on his bad ones whisky and soda. I have met men who’d drink whisky and soup at a pinch, but never one who hadn’t a definite preference in the water or soda controversy when he was in a position to choose. It occurred to me, therefore, that there must be two men, and an understudy naturally came into my mind because the imitation had to be so perfect. So I called at the Curtain offices and was lucky to catch Bellew, who does the old-timers’ gossip. I asked him if Rosemary ever had a regular understudy and he coughed up the name and address immediately.’

  ‘Neat,’ admitted the Superintendent slowly. ‘Very neat. But what are we doing here and where’s the crime?’

  ‘Well, it’s murder, you know,’ said Mr Campion diffidently. ‘Yesterday morning someone gave that poor chap in there a shot of something in his whisky and soda under the impression that he was giving it to Rosemary. Nowell dropped into a coma at the club and young Fielding the surgeon, seeing that he was pretty far gone, took him home. In the cab he died. Morphia sulphate produces very much the same symptoms as the sudden cardiac collapse of the aged, and Fielding, thinking it was a clear case, left the body with Rosemary’s man at the Dover Street flat, phoned Sir Edgar Philipson and went away like a polite little medico. When Philipson got there, of course, he saw Rosemary himself, who was perfectly fit. I imagine Nowell’s body remained at Dover Street all day and in the evening, when Mrs Bell was thought likely to be in bed, the valet, probably aided by Rosemary’s chauffeur, brought it down here. They took it up to his room, as they’d often done before, and went away.’

  ‘But the voice?’ protested the Superintendent. ‘He spoke to the landlady; she said so.’

  Campion glanced at him. ‘I think,’ he said slowly, ‘old Rosemary must have come down here, too, just in case. After copying him so long, Nowell’s voice was a replica of Rosemary’s, you see.’

  ‘At ninety?’ exclaimed the Superintendent. ‘A nerve like that at ninety?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Mr Campion. ‘It takes a bit of nerve to get to ninety, I should say.’

  Oates glanced towards the door. ‘She’s a long time,’ he said. ‘I wonder if that was the coroner’s officer …’

  He went out on to the narrow landing with Campion behind him and appeared just as Mrs Bell opened the door of the front bedroom and showed a white-faced man out.

  ‘I can’t tell you any more, sir,’ she was saying stiffly. ‘Perhaps you’ll ask the police gentlemen here?’

  She got no further. With an inarticulate cry the stranger swung round and the light from the landing window fell upon his face. It was Arthur March. He stood staring at Campion, his eyes narrowed and the knotted veins standing out on his temples.

  ‘You – you interfering swine!’ he said suddenly and sprang.

  Campion only just met the attack in time. As the man’s fingers closed round his throat he jerked his knee upward and caught his opponent in the wind. March collapsed against the flimsy balustrade, which gave beneath the sudden weight and sent him sprawling on to the stairs below, Campion after him.

  A vigorous pounding on the hall door announcing the arrival of the coroner’s officer added to the general confusion, and the Superintendent, with an energy surprising in one of his somewhat dyspeptic appearance, pounced down upon the two scuffling on the stairs.

  It was nearly three hours later when Mr Campion sat in the Superintendent’s office at Scotland Yard and expostulated mildly.

  ‘It’s all very well to arrest him on the assault charge,’ he was saying, ‘but you can’t hold him. You cannot prove the attempted murder of Rosemary or the actual murder of Nowell.’

  Stanislaus Oates sat at his desk, his hands crossed on his waistcoat. He was very pleased.

  ‘Think not?’ he enquired.

  ‘Well,’ said Mr Campion judicially, ‘I hate to dampen your enthusiasm, but what have you got? Walters can swear that March met him in the lounge yesterday morning and persuaded him to let him take the old man’s refresher over to him, as he wanted an excuse to have a word with the old boy, who was in a bad humour. There’s opportunity there, I know, but that’s not much in court. Then you can show that March spotted his error and, by much the same process of reasoning as mine, arrived at Nowell’s. And you can prove that he attacked me. But that’s your whole case. He’ll go scot-free. After all, why should March want to kill Rosemary? Because the old boy’s grand-daughter wouldn’t marry him?’

  ‘That’s not so absurd as you think, my boy,’ Oates was avuncular. ‘As a matter of fact, if Denise Warren had married Arthur March, Rosemary would never have been attacked.’

  Mr Campion stared at him and the Superintendent continued contentedly:

  ‘Do you remember a meal we had together at Benjamin’s chop-house to celebrate my promotion?’

  ‘Perfectly. You were very tight and made an exhibition of us.’

  ‘Not at all.’ Oates was scandalised. ‘I was observant and informative. I observed Miss Warren break off her engagement with the grandson of Rosemary’s old friend, Sir Joshua March, and I tried to inform you of certain facts and you wouldn’t listen to me. Do you remember me telling you that you amateurs don’t collect enough data? Do you remember me telling you about company law?’

  ‘It comes back to me,’ admitted Mr Campion.

  The Superintendent was mollified.

  ‘Did you know it’s a common practice among small companies to raise money on large life insurances taken out on behalf of a member of the firm for the express purpose of such money-raising?’

  ‘Yes, I had heard of it. But it’s usually a partner who insures his life, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not always. That’s the point.’ Oates was beaming. ‘If the partners are none of them particularly good risks they often insure a junior member of the firm, or sometimes an outside person altogether who happens to be “a good risk”, as they call it. Now look here, Campion …’ Oates leant across the desk. ‘When Allan March and Son – the first Sir Joshua was the son in those days – were in low water sixty-odd years ago they wanted to take out a sixty-thousand-pound policy in order to borrow upon it. Allan March was an old man and Joshua was a heart subject. They needed someone who was a good risk, you see, because the sum was so large that it was necessary to get the premium as low as possible. Rosemary and Joshua were friends and in those days Rosemary was something of a marvel. His constitution was wonderful, his habits were temperate, and also he had a strong publicity value.’

  He paused and Campion nodded.

  ‘Go on. I’m following.’

  ‘Well, March and Son approached the Mutual Ordered Life Endowment, which was a young firm then, one of the first of the flashy, advertising insurance companies, and they agreed to take the risk at an extremely low premium because of the publicity and because, of course, the fellow was a pretty good life. Rosemary agreed to stand for his part in the business; that is, he agreed to have himself insured for friendship’s sake and because the Marches were in a bad way. But as a sort of gesture he made a stipulation. “If I live to ninety,” he said, “the policy reverts to me.” It was a joke at the time, because the heavier Victorians didn’t usually reach anywhere near that age, and, anyway, it was the immediate loan which interested everyone. However, they agreed to it and it was all duly signed and sealed.’

  ‘Had March and Son kept up the insurance?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ The Superintendent was watching Campion’s face as he spoke. ‘I don’t suppose it’s been convenient for them to repay the sum they’d borrowed on that policy, or that, since the premium was so low, they could have bought a loan more cheaply. But you see the situation now. I’d have told you all this back in the summer if you’d listened. It’s a clear case, isn’t it?’

  Mr Campion blinked. ‘If old Rosemary died before his ninetieth birthday, then,’ he said at last, ‘the residue of the sixty thousand went to March and Son; but if he lives until after tomorrow it will pass into his own estate and go to Denise Warren.’

&n
bsp; ‘Tomorrow’s the ninetieth birthday, is it?’ said Oates. ‘March was cutting it pretty fine. I suppose he hoped the girl would come back to him and he’d get the cash through her. Well, my lad, what have you got to say now?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Mr Campion affably. ‘Nothing, except that it wasn’t company law, was it? It sounds more like insurance to me.’

  Oates shrugged his shoulders. ‘You may be right,’ he said airily. ‘I’m not a dictionary and I didn’t go to a night school. Still,’ he added with a chuckle, ‘we like to feel we do a little, you know, we professionals. You amateurs have your uses now and again, but when it comes to the groundwork we’ve got you licked every time.’

  Mr Campion grinned at him. ‘I really think you believe that, you old sinner,’ he said.

  6

  The White Elephant

  MR CAMPION, PILOTING, his companion through the crowded courtyard at Burlington House, became aware of the old lady in the Daimler, partly because her chauffeur almost ran over him and partly because she gave him a stare of such vigorous and personal disapproval that he felt she must either know him very well indeed or have mistaken him for someone else entirely.

  Juliet Fysher-Sprigge, who was leaning on his arm with all the weariness of a two-hour trek round the Academy’s Summer Exhibition, enlightened him.

  ‘We were not amused, were we?’ she said. ‘Old-fashioned people have minds that are just too prurient, my dear. After all, I have known you for years, haven’t I, and I’m not even married to Philip. Besides, the Academy is so respectable. It isn’t as though she’d seen me sneaking out of the National Gallery.’

  Mr Campion handed her into a taxicab.

  ‘Who was she?’ he enquired, hoisting his lank form in after her.

  Juliet laughed. Her laughter was one of her most charming attributes, for it wiped the sophistication from her débutante’s face and left her the schoolgirl he had known three years before.