The Beckoning Lady Read online

  Mr. Campion stood transfixed, the hairs tingling in his scalp. He knew now what it was that had worried him about the portrait in Minnie’s studio and why he had recognised it. The face had been the dead face in the ditch, and the crumpled paper behind its head had been forms, hundreds and hundreds of screwed-up buff forms.

  “Hell!” said the mildest of men.

  Chapter 8

  LOVE AND THE POLICE

  THE COUNTRY ROUND the Mill at Pontisbright at five o’clock on a June morning was of itself a spell. The near distance was dizzy with haze, the dew beads were thick on the grass, the waters were limpid and ringing, the birds sang with idiotic abandon, the air was scented with animals and a thousand flowers.

  For Charlie Luke, the Londoner, who was wrestling with a whole assault of force of unfamiliar furies most cruelly released within him, it was a merciless fairyland.

  By five he had swum in the pool, been for a walk, examined his car, looked at the telephone, set his watch wrong by the grandfather clock, and made himself a daisy-chain. By six he had repeated the entire performance, save for the chain, which he had had to bury in case anyone found it, and by seven he was hungry, exhausted and resolute.

  He was just going in to start getting breakfast himself, if Lugg did not appear, when he found a small bird’s nest made of green moss and grey lichen. Its fragile valiance astounded him and immediately a wave of terrifying softness passed over him and frightened him out of his wits. Within five seconds he was standing looking at the telephone again. As he looked it began to ring.

  Instantly, now that the living companionship which he had both craved and dreaded was, to put it mildly, superfluous, Lugg and Rupert appeared on the stairs and Choc, apparently assuming that the sound constituted breaking and entering, rushed at the instrument barking like a house dog. By the time Luke could hear anything at all over the wire, he was in such a pitiable state of nervous irritation that it took him some seconds to grasp that the call was from London to himself, and that the C.I.D. Commander was speaking, presumably from his home. He sounded bright, fatherly and explicit.

  “. . . so since you are on the spot you can take over immediately,” he was saying. “Here is the outline.”

  Luke’s training did not let him down, but although the essential notes appeared under his hand on the telephone-pad, someone new within himself stared at them with dismayed surprise.

  “. . . photographs. P.M. this a.m. Identification established. Friend of deceased subsequently interviewed.”

  “Charles . . .?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You see what has happened. The victim was a minor official of the Inland Revenue local collector’s office. That fact must narrow the field considerably. It’s unlikely that you’ll run into much mystery, but, since all these little rural places are much alike, I imagine the Chief Constable is appealing to us so as not to embarrass either himself or his own men rather than from any other reason. Do you see what I mean?”

  “Not exactly, sir.” Luke’s voice was wooden but he had gone white round the eyesockets.

  “You will, Chief, you will.” There was amusement in the voice of authority. “You’re staying with Campion, aren’t you?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “That accounts for it. He seems to have told Pursuivant that you were there and the old gentleman has jumped at the hint. That must mean that they want somebody who has absolutely no personal interest in the place, someone with no local friends, a whipping-boy, in fact, who can shoulder any odium which may be accruing. Now do you see?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You sound very quiet. Are you all right? Good, I think you may find that the whole thing is an open-and-shut case, but if I don’t hear from you by four this afternoon I’ll send you an assistant.”

  Luke’s brain began to work with a jolt like a truck starting up.

  “Meantime, might I have Mr. Campion as an immediate associate, sir?”

  “Campion? I don’t see how I could justify that.”

  “He speaks the language, sir.”

  There was a laugh far away in London. “Oh, it’s like that, is it? I’ve heard it’s very primitive and near the soil.”

  “There’s something disconcerting about the place, sir.” Luke spoke with a dry mouth. “Will you have a word with Mr. Campion now, sir? I should appreciate it very much.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece and swung round on Rupert. “Cut up and tell your father that the house is on fire,” he commanded through his teeth.

  “Is it?” enquired Rupert with delighted interest.

  “It will be,” muttered Luke with suppressed ferocity, “if he’s not down here in ten seconds from now.”

  Twenty minutes later, while Charlie Luke was listening to Superintendent Fred South, to whom a previous call to Sir Leo had directed him, the rest of the family was at breakfast.

  “If you’re going to stay with Charles, Rupert and I will take Lugg, if you can spare him, and go down to The Beckoning Lady at once, don’t you think?” said Amanda. Her brown face was troubled and her eyes watchful. “There’s still a great deal to do, and people are inclined to stay away from that sort of trouble. They can’t possibly put the party off, you see, and at the best of times it’s a rather fantastic operation. Minnie seems to do it with one old woman and a pack of kids.”

  Mr. Campion hesitated. “You think that now is the time to rally, do you?” he murmured. “Perhaps so. What about those chums of yours, Lugg? Do they really know anything?”

  Mr. Lugg, who was standing by the window drinking a cup of coffee, thus epitomising his chosen position as servitor and friend, scratched his bald head thoughtfully.

  “Old Harry knoo more than ’e let on,” he said. “’E’s a funny sort of bloke. Likes a secret, that’s about the size of it. I reckon ’e knoo the stiff was there for some days, and quite likely ’e’s ’ad a look at it, mucking up all the clues. ’E don’t know ’ow it got there, that I’ll take me affydavey.”

  “Why wouldn’t he report it?” enquired Mr. Campion.

  “’Oo can say?” Lugg shrugged his vast shoulders with urbane sophistication. “Didn’t want to be mixed up in nothing so unrefined, per’aps.”

  “In that case he either knew the man or knew someone else who did.” Amanda spoke with the authority of one who knows the terrain. “If he didn’t report it the first time he saw it, he thought that the man could be traced to have had some association with himself or with someone fairly near him. The connection may have been very slight.”

  Mr. Lugg sighed. “That narrers it down to Miss Diane, because old ’Arry ain’t got no relations. ’E told me that ’imself. That’s about wot. Miss D. knoo the chap and was frightened of ’im, ’avin’ seen ’im about, and didn’t tell ’Arry why. When ’Arry found ’im dead ’e pinched ’is papers to find out ’oo ’e was.”

  Mr. Campion blinked before this stream of reasoning.

  “Why did he take them away? Why not read them and put them back?”

  Mr. Lugg regarded him coldly. “Some people like to make a proper job o’ readin’,” he observed. “Not a quick skim-over like a perishin’ show-off flippin’ through The Times noospaper.” An ignoble smile spread over his white moon-face. “She’s a lovely woman,” he remarked. “’Er ’eart’s as big as the barrel she keeps it in. I’d better go down to the ’ouse with the young ’uns and make myself useful.”

  While the meal continued, Charlie Luke remained in the hall at the telephone. When at last the local Superintendent had rung off, he had been able to put through the call which had been on his mind for so long. His powerful body with its heavy shoulders and narrow hips was arched like a cat’s over the instrument, his dark face eager, and his eyes in their odd-shaped sockets tragic. His voice, naked in its disappointment, poured out his explanation and apology.

  “And so you see,” he finished helplessly, “I cannot drive you.”

  “That’s all right.” Prune’s ridiculous drawl sounded so cool an
d remote that an icy drop congealed and fell within him. “Think of me at three o’clock.”

  The final request turned his heart over and the colour rushed into his face and up to his close-cut hair.

  “Then you’ll go without me?”

  “Of course I shall,” said Prune.

  “I’ll see you,” he began, but she had gone. He heard the far-off click as she hung up.

  He wiped the sweat off his forehead as he went in to join the others, but he was exalted. The buoyancy of his step had returned and the black tomcat effect, which was always apparent when he was happy, had reappeared in the lines of his neck and head. His very white teeth were showing when he sat down at the table.

  “If it’s dirty, if it stinks, if not even a mum could love it, send for a cop,” he announced, smiling at Campion ferociously, “and that includes you.”

  Campion nodded. His pale face was very serious. “Thank you,” he said gravely, “thank you for fixing that. I had no idea how I was going to get back on the band wagon. What have they got so far?”

  Luke gave him a long searching stare. “Are your pals involved?”

  “I hope not.”

  “So do I, guv. We’re supposed to be the men come about the bracelets.”

  “Good Lord, have they got as much evidence as that already?”

  “No.” Without thinking, Luke was eating as if he had never eaten before. “No, to me it didn’t sound as if they’d got enough to shop pussy. But they seemed quietly confident. They’ve got an identification and a statement from a friend, who seems to have opened his mouth even wider than a friend usually does, which is saying a deal. The Super, whose name is South, is meeting us at the local Copper Shop in twenty minutes. He says you can tell me the preliminaries. Can you tell me about him?”

  Mr. Campion rose from the table and pottered round the room, looking for cigarettes.

  “He’s finishing his time quietly in the country, which would indicate that someone hasn’t liked him,” he said slowly, “and he’s one of the I’m-your-pal contingent.”

  Luke grimaced. “Smile—smile—got yer!” he remarked, illustrating the phrase with a graphic movement of his long hands. “One of the Central Office’s older models, like Sailor Harris I suppose. I hate those chaps. They get us clean boys a bad name.”

  “South,” said Mr. Campion seriously, “makes Sailor look like a cricketer.”

  “Christmas!” Luke crossed his fingers. “Let’s hope all our chums are nice innocent people. Who are also deaf mutes,” he added as an afterthought. “We’ll get going in my car, shall we?”

  He came back a moment or so later with a request to Lugg.

  “I wonder if you’d send this wire to my mum for me,” he said, placing a sheet from the telephone-pad and three shillings on the table. “It’s her birthday, and she likes a card. So long.”

  Lugg took up the message and pocketed the coin. “Sentimental lot these cops,” he remarked affably to Amanda as the door closed behind the Chief Inspector. “‘Luke, twenty-four Linden Lea, London S.W. thirty-three.’ Listen to this. ‘I have got my eye on you, Nipper.’ That should bring a lump to the old lady’s larynx. I’ll send this over the phone and then we’ll get straight down there, shall we?”

  Amanda said nothing. She was looking at a piece of paper which she had found in an empty milk bottle by the kitchen step. The handwriting was round and school-boyish in the tradition of the new education, and the message was in the form of a question.

  “Why was the P.C. up all night looking on the Battus Dump without his uniform?”

  There was no signature, but the oily smudge on the paper was sufficient to suggest that Scat, son of Scatty, was following the family tradition. Amanda looked across at her own son, who was stacking plates without being asked.

  “When is a policeman not a policeman?” she enquired.

  “When he takes his clothes off,” said Rupert, licking the marmalade spoon. “Then he’s just an ordinary silly old man.”

  Chapter 9

  THE HELPFUL OFFICIAL

  A SILENT GROUP of men climbed out of the two cars in the drive of The Beckoning Lady shortly after half-past ten. Mr. Campion and Luke, who had followed behind the police car, were in anxious mood and Luke particularly was wary. Superintendent Fred South alone was smiling happily. His horrible hat was worn well on the back of his head, his tight sportscoat was open and he looked the kindest and jolliest of countrymen.

  “I’ll leave my chaps here, Chief,” he suggested, his eyes full of merry unspoken hints. “No need to frighten the poor lady with a football crowd. Let’s go round the back, too. I always go round the back.” He burst into a cloud of little giggles and led them unprotesting to the kitchen door.

  Minnie received them on the concrete platform outside the window of Uncle William’s deserted room. She was seated on a low stool, shelling peas with Westy and George Meredith to help her. There was a half-hundredweight sack of them on the stone beside her and both she and the boys each had a small basin which they emptied into a huge punchbowl of blue china which stood in the centre of the group. It was warm in the sun, and just below them, at the foot of a flowery bank, the river ran golden water. She glanced sharply at Campion and he noticed with dismay that her face was drawn and set.

  “I’m so sorry I can’t get up,” she said, smiling politely at Luke. “If I do I shall spill all these. Boys, will you be lambs and go down to the village to get the table-silver? You know where it is. Mrs. Claude has been cleaning it for us, bless her. Oh, of course, you took it to her. Well, go and get it, and take it into the studio.”

  Fred South beamed. “You put it all out as piece-work, do you, ma’am?” he asked, seating himself in Westy’s place. “That’s a good idea.”

  “I bully my friends to do it,” she said, laughing. “I’m so grateful to Amanda, Albert. She’s slaving on that wretched wherry. Rupert is with the twins in the dining-room. Emma is icing cake there. I never feel a party’s a party without little pink cakes. Lugg is spud-bashing, as he calls it, with Dinah, and old Harry is in the back kitchen cooking hams. He has some secret way of doing it which is terrific. Pinky should be here soon, too. She’s going to do the flowers. It’s a dreadful set-out, but everybody’s being so good.”

  Mr. Campion motioned Luke to George Meredith’s seat and sat down himself on the edge of the platform.

  “Tonker, I take it, is still in bed doing the cross-word puzzle?” he suggested.

  Minnie’s characteristic snort escaped her. “I’m afraid he is, the old cad,” she said. “Do you want to see him?”

  “In a little while, ma’am. We just want to have a word with you first.” The Superintendent was twinkling at her and Luke cleared his throat warningly.

  “We want to talk to you about Leonard Terence Dennis Ohman, Mrs. Cassands,” he began gravely. “I have to tell you that his dead body has been found not far from here. Did you know him?”

  Minnie nodded. “Poor Little Doom,” she said unexpectedly. “He’s been lying out there for a week and we never knew. I don’t know what I shall do without him.”

  The reaction took Luke out of his stride and there was a moment’s silence in which Minnie blew her long nose and then, observing Westy’s empty basin, proffered it to South with a handful of pea-pods.

  “How did you know he was dead!” Luke demanded.

  “My charlady told me this morning. It’s all over the village. Oh, you mustn’t blame anybody,” she said, intercepting the reproachful glance he cast towards the local man, and handing him George Meredith’s basin by way, no doubt, of appeasement. “News does get about. They say he was killed, murdered, but I can’t believe that.”

  “Why not?” Absentmindedly, Luke began to shell peas himself.

  “Because I don’t see why anybody should. He was a bit of a bore, perhaps, but no one could have wished him any harm.”

  Fred South picked a maggot out of a pea-pod and flicked it into the flowers.

  “Yo
u knew what his job was, did you ma’am?”

  “Indeed I did. He collected Income Tax.”

  “Why did you call him Little Doom?”

  “I always have. We called him that twenty-five years ago. It was something to do with his signature.”

  “Twenty-five years . . .?” All three men were regarding her in astonishment.

  Minnie went on shelling peas. “It must be quite that,” she said thoughtfully. “When I first knew him he was the rent collector of the studios in Clerkenwell. He collected for the whole estate.”

  Luke sat back abruptly and felt in his breast pocket for a document.

  “That’s right,” he agreed at last. “He came to this part of the country in 1942 when London was being pasted.” He glanced up and smiled at her. “This is a statement made by a Mr. Henry Angel, who is a retired insurance agent. He lives in the road where Ohman lodged and seems to be the only person who knew him well. They played chess together at a club. Angel says here ‘Ohman came to this town in the war and secured a temporary post in the Inland Revenue Collector’s office, which was short-handed at the time. He had a very modest job with them until the January of this year, when he became redundant and left . . .’”

  “Really!” Minnie was astounded. “I didn’t know he’d lost his job. He didn’t tell me. But then perhaps he wouldn’t.”

  Luke hesitated. “He appears to have confided very thoroughly in Angel, Mrs. Cassands,” he said at last. “It says here that Ohman was in the habit of writing letters for you. Is that true?”

  She met his stare with eyes as sharp as his own. “Suppose I tell it,” she suggested. “Then you can see if the stories agree. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  He sighed and smiled. “It would help,” he said.

  “Well then—” Minnie’s fingers moved faster and faster among the pea-shucks “—I hadn’t seen or heard of Little Doom for quite twenty years, until he turned up here one morning saying that he had come from the Department of Inland Revenue and waving a demand for five thousand pounds odd. The whole thing was a shock to me, because I hadn’t very much money and until that instant I had not known that the fifteen thousand pounds which my husband had given me eighteen months before to pay our debts in back-taxes with wasn’t real money. I mean, I hadn’t known one couldn’t pay anything with it.”