Cargo of Eagles Read online

  Mr Campion, who had stiffened involuntarily at the mention of the name, recovered himself and accepted the little instrument.

  ‘He’s retiring, I believe,’ said Morty, his ingenuousness unquestionable, ‘at the end of the year.’

  His passenger grunted. ‘About time too, if he’s as well known as that.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not general knowledge. One of our attaches pointed him out to me at a Test Match when I first came over. I remembered him because I was told he was quite somebody years ago.’ He spoke regretfully. ‘Burn-before-reading top secrets are dead ducks nowadays. It must be tough on these old boys to have their hush-hush departments degenerating into tatting houses all round them. They’re all full of old ladies sticking little silver knives into each other’s backs now. Or so they say.’ He shook his head and changed the subject.’ You know, I can easily imagine this town teeming with sedan chairs and stinking bullies in silk coats, but I’m darned if I can see it as the gaping ruin it must have been only twenty odd years ago. It doesn’t seem possible. It’s so elderly and permanent and—I won’t say pompous—urbane, perhaps.’

  Mr Campion let him chatter. Through the ‘escape and evasion’ glass, an instrument with which he had once been uncomfortably familiar but had now become a mere ‘war surplus store’, he was watching the grim features of one of his oldest and closest friends. He and L. C. Corkran, ‘Elsie’ to his familiars, met seldom nowadays but there had been a time when each had been content to know that his life was in the other’s hands. Morty was right. The old man looked bitter. Mr Campion knew that expression and he kept the glass on him as he came up with the bandstand. He shot a glance at it from force of habit, because of its memories and strode on, his heavy chin thrust out, his shoulders sagging and his eyes down. There was defeat written all over him. As he turned and his face was hidden, Mr Campion raised the glass to the new skyscraper beside the old hotel. Of the nest of windows on the ninth and tenth floors, two had curtains looped back by cautious hands. They dropped into place as the solitary figure advanced.

  Old ladies with silver knives? More accurately dry grey serpents with shiny duct-fed teeth. The thin man shivered and returned the little telescope to its locker.

  ‘How soon can you get back to Saltey?’ he enquired.

  ‘You’ve made up your mind already? Wonderful. I thought you’d have to have a conference or something. I can go down there today, as a matter of fact. Am I still to be investigating the great Saltey Demon? I’m afraid that’s going to turn out to be a dead loss, by the way.’

  ‘I thought it might. What is it? A rustic joke?’

  ‘Sort of. The lady at the pub has been casting round for something to attract visitors ever since she took over the place. She had a yen for one of those God-awful wishing-wells you find all over the West Country. You know the sort of thing. Fling your dime into the water and the local pixies will reward you with a lucky pebble and a picture postcard of the waterfront. She kept worrying to know if Saltey had such a sprite and eventually someone—her husband perhaps, for he’s a local—came forward with this unlikely devil. They tell the tale on Friday nights in walnut time when the moon is full. Or something like that.’

  Mr Campion laughed.

  ‘She must have sold the idea to the local papers because the nationals picked it up a year or two back. I read it somewhere. A coloured Sunday, I think.’

  ‘You told me. Anyway, the legend provides me with a fairly reasonable excuse for hanging round. At the moment I’m the poor young Yankee professor, good for a free pint and folksy tale any day.’

  ‘And no one new has arrived in the village in the past year or so?’

  ‘Only the pub people, or rather the woman. A couple called Wishart. Her name is Dixie and she’s not exactly an intellectual but she means well and she’s a worker. Her husband is not. He’s a man of culture in his odd way—quite a different background, anyhow, I’d say. I think he lived around those parts as a boy. He writes poetry and gets it published or used to.’

  ‘Not H. O. Wishart?’

  ‘That’s the man. He’s about sixty-five now and not the best of value, but he’s in the anthologies. She keeps a Georgian Poetry under the bar counter and trots it out on the least provocation.’

  ‘Beware of me: I cast no shadow when I pass,’ quoted Mr Campion. ‘That’s the chap, isn’t it? A genuine minor poet and a white hope at one time. I didn’t know he was at the inn. Did you say it was called “The Demon”?’

  ‘That’s very recent. Dixie got the brewers to change it. Partly because the other pub is called The Angel, and partly on account of the old joke about the Demon. It used to be called “The Foliage”, which she was mistaken enough to think dull.’

  Morty met the other man’s raised eyebrows and laughed. ‘I know. It can only be a contraction of “The Foliate Man”, can’t it? I tell you the place is full of good things. Add that to the Fertility Venus and one or two other items and the shenanigans the wilder teenage gangs get up to along the sea wall don’t seem half as modern as they might.’

  ‘Tearaways? You get them down there?’ The thin man looked interested but Morty shrugged.

  ‘They’re everywhere. They don’t stay. They just swoop down on motor bikes—ton-up types. They tear off their space-man rig-outs and jump in the sea. Then they eat the shop out of cake, drain the pub of shandy and mock champagne and rush off again. That and the occasional orgy.’

  ‘It sound promising.’

  ‘Not really, as it turned out.’ He was a thought sulky as if something still rankled. ‘Little tramps,’ he said suddenly. ‘I went round to the sea wall only a week ago to watch some saddleback gulls and I sat down out of the wind and went to sleep. It was quite early and pretty nippy weather. When I woke up there were some of these kids—they were sixteen or seventeen I suppose—screaming and dancing almost on top of me, dressed in crash helmets and boots and damn all else as far as I could see. Not that I blame them for the boots, the saltings are infested with grass snakes they say, but the point is—they wanted to shock me.’

  He paused. ‘Little tramp,’ he repeated.

  ‘One in particular?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, yes. The ringleader, I think. She was skipping round me like Salome without much in the way of veils, just waiting for the laugh when I opened my eyes. It was all unnatural and wild because it was so early in the year for that sort of thing. I scuttled back to the village and in a minute or two they came roaring past and rode me into a dyke. Seven or eight of them, all scruffy ringlets and black leather, and as high as kites, I’d say. Full of pep pills or worse. Perhaps I’m growing old. Anyhow, they didn’t stay and I haven’t seen a sign of them since. I take it you’re interested in something a little less fancy?’

  His passenger took out his wallet and extracted a photograph.

  ‘That’s someone I’d like you to look for. He’ll be quite a bit older than he is there. His name by the way is Teague—James Teague.’

  Morty studied the picture. It was a head only: the man had been caught by a press photographer, looking over his shoulder. It was a distinctive face, handsome and swarthy in the white-toothed fashion of the early film stars and crowned with sweeping, curls of black hair. He could have been in his mid-thirties, but the outstanding impresson he gave was of youth and that superabundant energy and vivacity which go to make the powerful visual personality. He looked both dangerous and exciting. A violent, magnetic, unpredictable animal.

  ‘Quite a guy.’ The younger man handed back the print. ‘I’ll know him if I see him. It’s not a face you’d miss anywhere, let alone in my little Saltey.’

  His grin held a remembered pleasure and Campion spoke on impulse.

  ‘What is it that attracts you so down there? A woman?’

  A guilty colour suffused Morty’s cheeks.

  ‘Not really,’ he said with dignity. ‘And certainly not that little tramp.’ He paused, amused at himself, before continuing. ‘But in a way you’re right.
I did happen to encounter a dazzler down there the other day. She could become one of your new residents in time, but that’s almost too much to hope for. She’s just inherited a house in the respectable part of the village and there’s some sort of trouble packaged in with the deal. She certainly has something, that one.’ He was staring into the greenery ahead of him and his wide smile twisted.

  ‘I’m crazy,’ he said with the tolerance of a man who cannot quite credit his own absurdity. ‘I’ve only seen her for a few minutes. She came into The Demon with someone who was showing her round. In fact she was only . . .’

  ‘Passing by?’ suggested Mr Campion.

  Morty laughed at himself. ‘And across a crowded room, same like the other song says. Forget it, I’ll recover. I’m to look for the picturesque guy in the photograph. Is that all?’

  ‘Not quite. I’m also interested in a man with a glass eye. If he should appear, get on to me at once.’

  ‘O.K. Any other distinguishing marks? I mean that sort of thing is very well made these days. I could miss it.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Not this one. He is a tall man with a protuberant real eye and the unequal effect is noticeable—or used to be. That’s what I’m told. Also his own eye is that very bright clear Nordic blue which you find on your own east coast. Difficult to match, you know. The tendency is to get the false one too electric. Should this lad appear Lugg will go to ground, so it will be up to you to keep him in your sights. I take it you’re treating Lugg as a stranger?’

  ‘Oh, yes. We fraternise as man to man in the pub but everyone thinks we met down there. May I ask what we’re supposed to be up to?’

  ‘I’d much rather you didn’t. It may be safer that way. Do you mind?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Morty was polite but astonished. ‘Who am I working for?’

  ‘Me,’ said Mr Campion promptly. ‘Me alone, I’m afraid. And as for me, I’m working for a lady.’

  ‘Her Majesty?’ Morty was a royalist by nature.

  The thin man appeared momentarily embarrassed. ‘Well, no, as a matter of fact,’ he said with uncharacteristic awkwardness. ‘Au contraire, now I come to think of it.’

  2

  The Old Pal’s Act

  MR CAMPION HAD been a member of Puffins, one of the least publicised of London Clubs, for many years and never expected to find himself embarrassed by the fact, but as he hurried down St James’s towards the Georgian portico he felt an unfamiliar discomfort. He passed the place at speed and his sidestep into the alcove which concealed the service entrance to Fitzherbert’s, the Club next door, was furtive.

  He was keeping an appointment with Stanislaus Oates, a retired Assistant Commissioner of Police famous in his day, and the choice of rendezvous was typical of that ingenious old man’s latest phase. Membership of Fitzherbert’s was said still to be decided by heredity and it certainly remained a last stronghold of unregenerate class consciousness and the kind of prejudice which is on the direct route to embalmment.

  On the other hand old Oates, who had risen from the ranks and never suffered from fear of heights, appreciated service, privacy and comfort when he saw them. Fitzherbert’s appealed to him strongly and nowadays, when he came to town from his retreat in the suburbs, he made a point of looking up one of his erstwhile sergeants who had a job in charge of security in the basement there. Often he stayed the whole afternoon and evening, during which time people were liable to drop in to see him. Mr Campion was one of many who were highly dubious of the ethics of such an expedient, but then, as was the case with most other callers, it was he who was seeking help.

  Today he went quickly down the area steps, restrained himself from pulling up his collar, scuttled past cellar and kitchen doors and turned into a third entrance. This was as uninviting as he had been warned to expect and as he came to the end he found himself in a small hall containing six service doors. They were all blank save for one which bore a hand-lettered ticket with the inspired instruction: ‘Try next door’.

  He tapped softly and lifted the card to reveal a metal grille with an interior shutter. It opened at once and a pair of suspicious eyes looked out at him. He murmured his name, the eyes defrosted and he was shown at once into a small butler’s pantry where silver cleaning was in process. A man who was clearly an ex-sergeant, superb in a crested baize apron, motioned him towards an inner room.

  ‘Mr Oates will see you now, sir.’

  But for the fancy dress he could have been back at the Yard again. Mr Campion stepped into a snug apartment whose walls were lined with glass fronted steel grilled cupboards. These were kept lit perpetually for security’s sake and upon their shelves in limpid glory the old Club’s fabled collection of George II silver glittered like a fairy tale, proclaiming without contradiction that it was worth a fortune of anybody’s money. A mahogany table filled the centre of the room and there was a shabby green leather armchair on either side of a garrulous gas fire.

  Oates was dozing in one of these and he opened an eye as Campion appeared. He was growing frail and the discovery hit the newcomer who had not seen him for a year or two. For so long he had regarded that grey man with the mournful bloodhound face and the thick stomach as the finest policeman of them all. To find him grown old at this of all times was a blow he had not envisaged.

  Meanwhile the ex-A.C. was permitting himself a sly little grin at his own cleverness which in his early days he would certainly have kept hidden.

  ‘How do you like my office? I spotted its value as soon as I saw that peephole in the outer door,’ he said proudly. ‘It makes the perfect interview room, don’t it? Just the spot for a quiet jaw. We’re much more comfortable down here than we would be upstairs, you know.’

  Mr Campion could not have agreed with him more, if only in view of the fact that neither of them were members, and he said so with mild reproof.

  Oates grunted. ‘Move with the times, my boy. The Old Pal’s Act isn’t confined to you public school types above stairs now. You’ve taught the rest of us the drill. Jessop and I are a cell of our own down here. If I’m caught, by the way, I’m an insurance man come to see no one has hocked the trophies. That ought to cover me, don’t you think?’

  His visitor regarded him in astonishment. The recklessness inherent in age had unleashed an unsuspected impish streak in his old friend.

  ‘I don’t know what you’ll be, Albert.’

  ‘I do,’ said Mr Campion with feeling. ‘Now, any news of James Teague?’

  To his relief the mischief in Oates’ eyes faded and his frown grew cold.

  ‘They’ve still not found him. It’s not Luke’s fault. There’s so much efficiency at the old place today that a routine job like keeping an eye on a released prisoner is almost too simple for the clever beggars.’

  Mr Campion who had brightened a little at the mention of Superintendent Charles Luke, whom he admired, relapsed into anxiety.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it of them,’ he said. ‘They knew it was important. To lose him within a matter of hours seems inept. I made certain the press would have got on to it.’

  ‘Would you? I think they’ve forgotten him. Remember that paper was very short at the time, so he didn’t quite make his fair share of headlines. He’s been inside a long time and he earned no remission. A bad prisoner in his early days and a trouble maker—two attempted escapes and a warder beaten up.’

  ‘I gathered that.’ Mr Campion sat down in the other armchair. ‘I was out of the country at the time, so I’ve been looking it up. There doesn’t seem to have been an appeal.’

  ‘No. His counsel—that was old Ted Edwards K.C.—boxed clever over his good war record, hinted at shock, tried for a reprieve instead, and made it.’

  Oates was talking with the authority of a man who had been there. ‘It was a wicked business. Teague was so reckless that you could say he was mad. He led this boarding party on to Christoff’s yacht the Clymene on the high seas and shot the mate in cold blood in the course of the raid. Murder and pir
acy—they called it Pirracy in court for some reason—almost the only two crimes we still take seriously. He was an uncomplicated villain, a natural killer with practical wartime experience. It was only old Lord Pendleton’s horror of capital punishment which saved him from hanging. He got a hell of a sentence and he deserved every day of it.’

  ‘And now you think he’s forgotten?’

  The prim mouth smiled. ‘Well, he’s not the news he was, is he? We’ve had a lot of spectacular violence since Jimmy Teague. I didn’t expect crowds round the prison gates.’

  Mr Campion was not satisfied. ‘He was very colourful,’ he murmured. ‘Irresistible to women and all that. Could only be killed by a silver bullet, and used them himself in case anyone else had the same theory. You knew that tale, I suppose? I know he had no family but you’d have thought someone would have turned up if only because some of the loot was never recovered.’

  ‘Loot?’ Oates cocked an eyebrow. ‘That’s an unlikely interest—for you. Well, well. Who’s left? As I recall it there were only four men on the pirate craft. She was some sort of Air Sea Rescue launch called the Lily Marina. Two are dead. Teague was caught and only Target Burrows got clean away out of the country . . . .’ He paused. ‘Or at least that’s what Chief Inspector Yeo and I thought at the time and we should have known.’

  ‘Burrows was the one-eyed man?’

  ‘The engineer. A sly feckless fellow by all accounts, and a bully when he had the chance. Always making irritating jokes of the sort that would be called “sick” these days. One of his wife’s boy friends got so wild with him one night that he shot straight at his face with the kid’s airgun and knocked his eye out. Burrows nearly killed the man but the neighbours called him “Target” after that. What a brutal race we are, Campion! I often think that.’

  His visitor ignored the digression. ‘Surely the police must still be interested where the man goes unless they’ve written off the stuff?’