Police at the Funeral Read online

  Your devoted,

  Marcus Featherstone.

  P.S. – Were I only in London – I should be absurdly tempted to spy upon the interview.

  P.P.S. – Gordon, whom you may remember, has at last gone to uphold the British Raj in India, as, of course, he will. Henderson writes me that he has ‘gone into drains’, whatever that may mean. It sounds typical.

  The Inspector folded the letter carefully and returned it to Campion.

  ‘I don’t think I should cotton to that chap myself,’ he observed. ‘Nice enough, I have no doubt,’ he went on hastily. ‘But if you’re set up in a witness box with a chap like that chivvying you he makes you look a fool without getting the case on any further. He thinks he knows everything, and so he does pretty nearly – about books and dead languages – but has he the faintest idea of the mental process which resulted in the accused marrying the plaintiff in 1927 in Chiswick, when he had already married the first witness in 1903? Not on your life.’

  Mr Campion nodded. ‘I think you’re right,’ he said. ‘Although Marcus is a very good solicitor. But cases in Cambridge are usually very refeened, I believe. I wish that girl would turn up if she’s coming. I gave Lugg explicit instructions to send her here the moment she arrived at Bottle Street. I thought this would provide a peep at the underworld which would be at once clean, safe and edifying. The kind of girl Marcus can have persuaded to marry him must be mentally stunted. Besides, her trouble seems to be absurd. She’s lost a very unpleasant uncle – why worry to look for him? My idea is to sit up on this convenient structure, array myself in my little ratting cap, and make a few straightforward comments on Uncle Andrew. The young woman, deeply impressed, will return to Marcus, repeating faithfully all that she has seen and heard – that sort always does. Marcus will deduce that I am rapidly proceeding bin-wards, and he will scratch my name out of his address book and leave me in peace. How’s business?’

  The Inspector shrugged. ‘Mustn’t grumble,’ he said. ‘Promotion has always meant trouble, though, as far back as I can remember.’

  ‘Look out,’ said Campion suddenly. ‘She comes!’

  The two men stood listening. Wavering footsteps echoed in the alleyway. They advanced almost to the yard and then retreated a little way.

  ‘A lame man wearing number nine boots, smoking a cheroot and probably a chandler’s mate by profession,’ Campion murmured, putting on his tweed cap. ‘Sounds like “good sensible” shoes anyhow,’ he went on more seriously. ‘I hope Marcus hasn’t picked a thundering English rose.’

  Mr Oates glanced though the slit between the half-open door and the post. ‘Oh,’ he said casually, ‘it’s that bloke.’

  Mr Campion raised an inquiring eyebrow.

  The Inspector explained. ‘I was followed from the Yard today,’ he said. ‘I forgot all about the man in the rainstorm, to tell you the truth. I suppose he’s been hanging about outside the entrance here ever since I came in. Probably somebody with a grievance, or some lunatic with an invention to offer me for detecting the criminally-minded on sight. You’d be surprised what a lot of that sort of thing I get, Campion. I suppose I’d better see him.’

  The rain had stopped for the time being, although the sky was still cold and overcast. Stanislaus Oates stepped out into the court, walked to the mouth of the passage, glanced down at it and then stepped back again into the shelter of the yard. Campion stood in the doorway of the boiler-room to watch the comedy, lank and immaculate, the ridiculous tweed cap perched on the top of his head.

  The footsteps sounded again, and a moment later the square man with the hint of lost respectability about him emerged.

  At close quarters he presented a more complex appearance than he had shown at a distance. His reddish face was puffy, and coarse skin and deep lines almost obscured the natural regularity of his features. The suit, which he wore with an air, was grease-spotted and disreputable, a condition not improved by the fact that at the moment it was practically soaked. Despite his furtive glance round there was an air of truculence about him, and he fixed the Inspector firmly with his slightly bloodshot eyes.

  ‘Mr Oates,’ he said, ‘I should like to speak to you. I have a piece of information which may save you and your friends a lot of trouble.’

  The Inspector did not reply, but stood waiting for further developments. The man had revealed a remarkably deep voice and an unexpectedly educated accent. Interested, Mr Campion advanced incautiously out of his hiding-place, and the intruder, catching sight of his somewhat unconventional appearance, broke off abruptly, his jaw dropping.

  ‘I didn’t know you had a companion,’ he said sullenly.

  ‘Or a witness?’ suggested the Inspector dryly.

  Mr Campion removed his hat and stepped out into the yard.

  ‘I’ll go if you like, Inspector,’ he said, and paused abruptly.

  All three men stood silent. Down the alleyway echoed the sound of high-heeled shoes clicking sharply on the stones. Mr Campion’s visitor had arrived.

  She came into the yard the next moment, the very antithesis of his expectations. A tall, slender young woman, smartly dressed in the best country-town tradition. She was also young, much younger than Campion had supposed. She looked, as the Inspector remarked afterwards, like some nice person’s kid sister. She was not beautiful. Her mouth was a little too large, her brown eyes too deeply set, but she was definitely attractive in her own rather unusual way. Mr Campion was glad that he had removed his ‘ratting cap’. Subconsciously his opinion of his friend Marcus improved. He stepped forward to meet her, holding out his hand.

  ‘Miss Blount?’ he said. ‘My name’s Campion. I say, I’m awfully sorry I bothered you to come all this way.’

  He got no further. The girl, whose glance had travelled past him to the other two men, now caught sight of the squat stranger who had something of such interest to tell the Inspector. An expression of terrified recognition crept into her face, and the young man was alarmed to see a wave of pallor rise slowly up her neck and spread. The next moment she had taken an uncertain step backward, and he caught her arm to steady her. The Inspector sprang towards them.

  ‘Look out,’ he said. ‘Bend her head down. She’ll be all right in a minute.’

  He was fishing for his flask when the girl straightened herself.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m all right. Where is he?’

  The two men turned, but of their square acquaintance there was no sign. Rapidly retreating footsteps down the passage told of his escape. Oates started after him, but when he reached the end of the alley and looked up and down the street the evening rush was well under way. The pavements were crowded, and of the mysterious stranger, the sight of whom had so startled Mr Featherstone’s fiancée, there was no trace.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE LUCK OF UNCLE ANDREW

  IT WAS IN the taxicab as they were speeding over the slippery road towards 17A Bottle Street, Mr Campion’s Piccadilly address, that Miss Joyce Blount eyed the young man who sat beside her and the Inspector, who sat opposite, with the engaging smile of youth, and lied.

  ‘That man who was with you in the yard?’ she said in reply to a tentative question from the Inspector. ‘Oh, no, I have never seen him before in my life.’ She looked at them straightly, the colour deepening a little in her cheeks.

  Mr Campion was puzzled, and his pleasant vacuous face wrinkled into a travesty of deep thought.

  ‘But when you saw him,’ he ventured, ‘I thought you were going to faint. And when you – er – recovered you said, “Where is he?”’

  The red in the girl’s cheeks deepened, but she still smiled at them innocently, engagingly.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she repeated in her clear, slightly childlike voice, ‘you must have made a mistake. Why, I hardly saw him. He conveyed nothing to me. How could he?’ There was a distinct air of finality in her tone, and there was silence for some moments after she had spoken. The Inspector glanced at Campion, but the young man’s eyes were
expressionless behind his enormous spectacles.

  The girl seemed to be considering the situation, for after a while she turned again to Campion.

  ‘Look here,’ she said, ‘I’m afraid I’ve made a terrible fool of myself. I’ve been dreadfully worried, and I haven’t had any food today. I dashed out without any breakfast this morning, and there wasn’t time for lunch, and – well, what with one thing and another I got a bit giddy, I suppose.’ She paused, conscious that her explanations did not sound very convincing.

  Mr Campion, however, appeared to be quite satisfied. ‘It’s very dangerous not to eat,’ he said gravely. ‘Lugg will minister to you the moment we get in. I knew a man once,’ he continued with great solemnity, ‘who omitted to eat for a considerable time through worry and mental strain and all that sort of thing. So that he quite got out of the way of it, and when he found himself at a stiff dinner party he was absolutely flummoxed. Imagine it – soup here, entrée there, and oyster shells in every pocket of his dinner jacket. It was a fiasco.’

  The Inspector gazed absently at his friend with an introspective eye, but the girl, who had no experience of Mr Campion’s vagaries, shot him a quick dubious glance from under her lashes.

  ‘You are the Mr Campion, Marcus’s friend, aren’t you?’ she said involuntarily.

  Campion nodded. ‘Marcus and I met in our wild youth,’ he said.

  The girl laughed, a nervous explosive giggle. ‘Not Marcus,’ she said. ‘Or else he’s changed.’ She seemed to regret the remark immediately, for at once she plunged into the one important subject on her mind. ‘I came to ask you to help us,’ she said slowly. ‘Of course Marcus wrote to you, didn’t he? I’m afraid he may have given you an awfully wrong impression. He doesn’t take it seriously. But it is serious.’ Her voice developed a note of frank sincerity which startled her hearers a little. ‘Mr Campion, you are a sort of private, detective, aren’t you? I mean – I’d heard of you before Marcus told me. I know some people in Suffolk – Giles and Isobel Paget. They’re friends of yours, aren’t they?’

  Mr Campion’s habitual expression of contented idiocy vanished. ‘They are,’ he said. ‘Two of the most delightful people in the world. Look here, I’d better make a clean breast of it. In the first place, I’m not a detective. If you want a detective here’s Inspector Oates, one of the Big Five. I’m a professional adventurer – in the best sense of the word. I’ll do anything I can for you. What’s the trouble?’

  The Inspector, who had been alarmed by Campion’s frank introduction of his official status, had his fears allayed by the girl’s next announcement. She smiled at him disarmingly.

  ‘It – it isn’t a matter for the police,’ she said. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

  He laughed. ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he said. ‘I’m just an old friend of Campion’s. It sounds to me as if he’s the kind of man you want. Here we are. I’ll leave you with your client, Albert.’

  Mr Campion waved his hand airily. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘If I get into serious trouble I’ll let you know and you can lock me up until I’m out of danger.’

  The Inspector departed, and as Campion paid the cabby the girl looked about her. They were in a little cul-de-sac off Piccadilly, standing outside a police station, but it was the doorway at the side through which wooden stairs were visible, which bore the number 17A.

  ‘When I was here this afternoon,’ she said, ‘I was afraid I was coming to the police station. I was greatly relieved to find that your address was the flat above it.’ She hesitated. ‘I – I had a conversation with someone who told me where to find you. A rather odd person.’

  Mr Campion looked contrite. ‘He was wearing his old uniform, wasn’t he?’ he said. ‘He only puts that on when we’re trying to impress people.’

  The girl looked at him squarely. ‘Marcus told you I was a kid with a bee in my bonnet, didn’t he?’ she said. ‘And you were trying to entertain me for the day?’

  ‘Don’t mock at a great man when he makes a mistake,’ said Mr Campion, escorting her upstairs. ‘Even the Prophet Jonah made one awkward slip, remember. I’m perfectly serious now.’

  After two flights the stairs became carpeted and the walls panelled. They paused at last before a heavy oak door on the third floor. Mr Campion produced a key, and the girl found herself ushered across a little hall into a small, comfortably furnished room vaguely reminiscent of one of the more attractive specimens of college chambers, although the trophies on the walls were of a variety more sensational than even the most hopeful undergraduate could aspire to collect.

  The girl seated herself in a deep arm-chair before the fire. Mr Campion pressed a bell.

  ‘We’ll have some food,’ he said. ‘Lugg has a theory that high tea is the one meal which makes life worth living.’

  The girl was about to protest, but at that moment Mr Campion’s factotum appeared. He was a large lugubrious individual, whose pale waste of a face was relieved by an immense pair of black moustaches. He was in shirt-sleeves, a fact which seemed to dismay him when he perceived the girl.

  ‘Lumme, I thought you was alone,’ he remarked. He turned to the visitor with a ghost of a smile. ‘You’ll excuse me, miss, being in negligee, as it were.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Mr Campion, ‘you’ve got your moustache.’ That’s quite a recent acquisition,’ he added, turning to Joyce. ‘It does us credit, don’t you think?’

  Mr Lugg’s expression became even more melancholy than before in his attempt to hide a childlike gratification.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ the girl murmured, not knowing quite what was expected of her.

  Mr Lugg almost blushed. ‘It’s not so dusty,’ he admitted modestly.

  ‘High tea?’ said Campion inquiringly. ‘This lady’s had no food all day. See what you can do, Lugg.’

  The lugubrious man’s pale face became almost animated. ‘Leave it to me,’ he said. ‘I’ll serve you up a treat.’

  An expression of alarm flickered for an instant behind Mr Campion’s enormous spectacles.

  ‘No herrings,’ he said.

  ‘All right. Don’t spoil it.’ Mr Lugg retreated as he grumbled. In the doorway he paused and regarded the visitor wistfully. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t care for a tinned ‘erring and tomato sauce?’ he ventured, but seeing her involuntary expression he did not wait for an answer, but shuffled out, closing the door behind him.

  Joyce caught Mr Campion’s eyes and they both laughed.

  ‘What a delightful person,’ she said.

  ‘Absolutely charming when you get to know him,’ he agreed. ‘He used to be a burglar, you know. It’s the old story – lost his figure. As he says himself, it cramps your style when your only means of exit are the double doors in the front hall. He’s been with me for years now.’

  Once again the girl subjected him to a long penetrating glance. ‘Look here,’ she said, ‘do you really mean what you said about helping? I’m afraid something serious has happened – or is going to happen. Can you help me? Are you – well, I mean—’

  Mr Campion nodded. ‘Am I a serious practitioner or someone playing the fool? I know that feeling. But I assure you I’m a first-class professional person.’

  For an instant the pale eyes behind the enormous spectacles were as grave and steady as her own.

  ‘I’m deadly serious,’ he continued. ‘My amiable idiocy is mainly natural, but it’s also my stock-in-trade. I’m honest, tidy, dark as next year’s Derby winner, and I’ll do all I can. Hadn’t you better let me hear all about it?’

  He pulled out the letter from Marcus and glanced at it.

  ‘An uncle of yours has disappeared, hasn’t he? And you’re worried? That’s the main trouble, isn’t it?’

  She nodded. ‘It sounds quite ordinary, I know, and uncle’s old enough to take care of himself, but it’s all very queer really and I’ve got a sort of hunch that there’s something terribly wrong. It was because I was so afraid that I insisted on Marcus giving me your address. Yo
u see, I feel we ought to have someone about who is at least friendly towards the family, and yet who isn’t biased by Cambridge ideas and overawed by greataunt.’

  Campion settled himself opposite her. ‘You’ll have to explain to me about the family,’ he said. ‘They are fairly distant relations of yours, aren’t they?’

  She bent forward, her brown eyes strained with the intensity of her desire to make herself clear.

  ‘You won’t be able to remember everyone now, but I’ll try to give you some idea of us as we are at the moment. First of all there’s Great-aunt Caroline Faraday. I can’t possibly describe her, but fifty years ago she was a great lady, wife of Great-uncle Doctor Faraday, Master of Ignatius. She’s been a great lady ever since. She was eighty-four last year, but is still quite the most live person in the household and she still runs the show rather grandly, like Queen Elizabeth and the Pope rolled into one. What Great-aunt Faraday says goes.

  ‘Then there’s Uncle William, her son. He’s sixty odd, and he lost all his money in a big company swindle years ago, and had to come back and live under aunt’s wing. She treats him as though he were about seventeen and it doesn’t agree with him.

  ‘Then there’s Aunt Julia, his sister, great-aunt’s daughter. She never married and never really left home. You know how they didn’t in those days.’

  Mr Campion began to make hieroglyphics on the back of an envelope he had taken from his pocket.

  ‘She’s in the fifties, I suppose?’ he inquired.

  The girl looked vague. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I think her older than Great-aunt Faraday. She’s – well, she’s “spinster of this parish”.’

  Mr Campion’s eyes were kindly behind his spectacles. ‘On the difficult side?’

  Joyce nodded. ‘Just a bit. Then there’s Aunt Kitty, Aunt Julia’s younger sister. She got married, but when her husband died there wasn’t any money left. So she had to come back home, too. That’s how I come in. My mother was her husband’s sister. My people died young and Aunt Kitty looked after me. When the crash came I got a job, but Great-aunt Faraday sent for me and I’ve been a sort of companion to them all for the last eighteen months. I pay the bills and do the flowers and see about the linen and read to the family and all that sort of thing. I play Uncle William at chess, too, sometimes.’