More Work for the Undertaker Page 2

  The girl was a little younger and his fleeting impression of her was that she was oddly dressed. Her hair silhouetted against the burning flowers shone with the blue-black sheen of poppy centres. Her face was indistinct, but he was aware of round dark eyes alive with alarm, and, once again to surprise and capture him, he received the same indefinable assertion of intelligence.

  He kept his glass upon them until they gained the sanctuary of the tamarisk clump and vanished, leaving him curious. Yeo’s remark that his intervention in the Palinode affair was ‘intended’ nagged like a prophecy.

  All that week coincidences had occurred to keep the case before his mind. The chance glimpse of these two youngsters was the latest of the baits. He found he wanted to know very much who they were and why they were so afraid of being seen by that unlikely witch on the public bench.

  He hurried away. This time the ancient spell must not be permitted to work. In an hour he must telephone the Great Man and accept with gratitude and modesty the great good fortune his friends and relations had engineered for him.

  He was crossing the street when he caught sight of an elderly limousine with a crested door.

  The great lady, a dowager with a name to conjure with, was waiting for him with the small side window down as he came up and stood bareheaded in the sun before her.

  ‘My dear boy,’ the thin voice had the graciousness of a world two wars away, ‘I caught sight of you and made up my mind to stop and tell you how glad I am. I know it’s a secret but Dorroway came to see me last night and he told me in confidence. So it’s all settled. Your mother would have been very happy.’

  Mr Campion made the necessary gratified noises but there was a bleakness in his eyes which she was too experienced to ignore.

  ‘You’ll enjoy it when you get there,’ she said, reminding him of something someone had once lied about his prep school. ‘After all, it is the last remaining civilized place in the world and the weather is so good for children. And how is Amanda? She’ll fly out there with you, of course. She designs her own aeroplanes, doesn’t she? How clever girls are these days.’

  Campion hesitated. ‘I’m hoping she’ll follow me,’ he said at last. ‘Her work is not unimportant and I’m afraid there may be a great many loose ends to be tied up before she can get away.’

  ‘Indeed?’ The old eyes were shrewd and disapproving. ‘Don’t let her delay too long. It’s vital from a social angle that a Governor’s wife should be with him from the first.’

  He thought she was going to leave him with that, but another idea had occurred to her.

  ‘By the way, I was thinking of that extraordinary servant of yours,’ she said. ‘Tugg, or Lugg. The one with the impossible voice. You must leave him behind. You do understand that, don’t you? Dorroway had quite forgotten him but promised to mention it. A dear faithful creature can be very much misunderstood and do a great deal of harm.

  ‘Don’t be foolish,’ her blue lips moulding the words with deliberation. ‘All your life you’ve squandered your ability helping undeserving people who have got themselves into trouble with the police. Now you have the opportunity to take a place which even your grandfather would have considered suitable. I’m glad to see it happen. Good-bye, and my warmest congratulations. By the way, have the child’s clothes cut in London. They tell me the local style is fanciful and a boy does suffer so.’

  The great car slid away. He walked on slowly, feeling as if he were dragging a ceremonial sword, and was still in the same state of depression when he climbed out of a taxi at the entrance to his flat in Bottle Street, the cul-de-sac which runs off Piccadilly on the northern side.

  The narrow staircase was as familiar and friendly as an old coat, and when his key turned in the lock all the warmth of the sanctuary which had been his ever since he left Cambridge rushed to meet him like a mistress. He saw his sitting-room in detail for the first time for close on twenty years, and its jungle growth of trophies and their associations shocked him. He would not look at them.

  On the desk the telephone squatted patiently and behind it the clock signalled five minutes to the hour. He took himself firmly in hand. The time had come. He crossed the room quickly, his hand outstretched.

  The note lying on the blotter caught his eye because a blue-bladed dagger, a memento of his first adventure which he was in the habit of using as a paper-knife, was stuck into it, pinning it to the board. The sensational trick annoyed him, but the frankly experimental type used in the letter heading and a certain spontaneity in the advertisement matter caught his attention and he bent down to read.

  COURTESY * SYMPATHY * COMFORT in transit

  JAS BOWELS & SON

  (The Practical Undertakers)

  Family Interments

  12 Apron Street,

  w3.

  * * *

  ‘If you’re Rich, or count the Cost,

  We Understand there’s Someone lost.’

  * * *

  Dr to

  MR MAGERSFONTEIN LUGG,

  c/o A. Campion, Esq.

  12a Bottle Street,

  Piccadilly, w

  DEAR MAGERS,

  If Beatty was alive which she is not more’s the pity as you will be the first to agree she would be writing this instead of me and the Boy.

  We was wondering this dinner time can you get your Governor if you are working for the same one and this reaches you, to give us a bit of a hand in this Palinode kickup which you will have read of in the papers.

  Exhumations as we call them in the Trade are not very nice and bad for business which is not what it was before all this.

  We both think we could do with the help your chap could give us with the police etc. and might be useful ourselves to someone not in the blue if you see what I mean.

  Without disrespect bring him along for a bit of tea and a jaw any day as we do not do much after three-thirty and will do less if this goes on as it may between ourselves.

  Remembering you very kindly and all forgotten I hope.

  Yours truly,

  JAS BOWELS

  As he raised his head from this engaging document there was a movement from the inner doorway behind him and the floor shook a little.

  ‘’Mazing cheek, ain’t it?’ Magersfontein Lugg’s lush personality pervaded the room like a smell of cooking. He was in déshabillé, appearing at first sight to be attired as the hinder part of a pantomime elephant, and was holding out in front of him a mighty woollen undervest. The ‘impossible voice’ to which the great lady had referred so recently was after all only a matter of taste. There was expression and flexibility in that rich rumble which many actors might have sought to imitate in vain.

  ‘Wot a ’orrible man too. Bowels by name and Bowels by nature. I said that when she married ’im.’

  ‘At the actual wedding?’ inquired his employer with interest.

  ‘Over me one ’alf of British champagne.’ He appeared to recall the incident with satisfaction.

  Campion laid a hand on the telephone.

  ‘Who was she? Your only love?’

  ‘Gawd, no! My sis. ’E’s my brother-in-law, the poor worm shoveller. ’Aven’t spoke to ’im for thirty years nor thought of ’im till this come just now.’

  Campion was startled into meeting the eyes of his ancient companion, a thing he had not been able to do for some few weeks.

  ‘’E took it as a compliment.’ The beady eyes peered out from their surrounding folds with a truculence which did not hide the reproach or even the panic lurking there. ‘That’s the kind of bloke Jas is. Come my little trip inside, ’e be’aved as though I’d took ’im with me, sent back me wedding present to Beatt with a few questions not in the taste you and me is accustomed to. I wrote ’im clean off my slate. Now ’e pops up, says by the way me sis is dead some time, which I knew, and asks a favour. It’s a coincidence, that’s all. Would you like me to go outside while you do your bit of telephonin’?’

  The thin man in the spectacles turned away from
the desk.

  ‘Is this a put-up job?’ he inquired briefly.

  The place where Mr Lugg’s eyebrows may once have been rose to meet the naked dome of his skull. He folded his vest with great deliberation.

  ‘Some remarks I do not ’ear,’ he said, achieving dignity. ‘I am just puttin’ my things together. It’s all right. I’ve got my advert wrote out.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘My advert. “Gentleman’s gentleman seeks interesting employment. Remarkable references. Title preferred.” That’s about it. I can’t come with you, cock. I don’t want to see meself an international incident.’

  Mr Campion sat down to re-read the letter.

  ‘When exactly did this arrive?’

  ‘Late post, ten minutes ago. Show you the envelope if you’re suspicious.’

  ‘Could old Renee Roper have put him up to it?’

  ‘She didn’t marry our Beatt to ’im thirty-five years ago, if that’s what you mean.’ Lugg was contemptuous. ‘Don’t be so nervy. ’E’s only a coincidence, the second you’ve ’ad over this Palinode caper. Don’t you get excited, though. There’s no need for it. What’s Jas to you anyway?’

  ‘The third crow, if you’re interested,’ said Mr Campion and, after a while, began to look quietly happy.

  3. Old-fashioned and out of the ordinary

  THE D.D.I. WAS waiting in the upstairs room of the Platelayers Arms, a discreet old-fashioned drinking house in one of the more obscure streets of his district.

  Campion met him there at a few minutes after eight, as the Superintendent promised he should. Over the telephone Yeo had sounded relieved and pleased.

  ‘I knew all along you’d never resist it,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You can’t change your spots. It’s something in a man’s character which draws him to a certain type of happening. I’ve seen it scores of times. You’ve been sent by heaven, let alone Headquarters, to the family Palinode. I’ll get on to Charlie Luke at once. You’d better meet him in that pub they use in Edwardes Place. You’ll take to Charlie.’

  And now, as he came up the wooden stairs and entered the varnished cabin which overhung the huge circular bar, Mr Campion’s pale eyes rested on Bill Luke’s boy. The D.D.I. was a tough. Seated on the edge of the table, his hands in his pockets, his hat over his eyes, his muscles spoiling the shape of his civilian coat, he might well have been a gangster. There was a lot of him, but his compact and sturdy bones tended to disguise his height. He had a live dark face with a strong nose, narrow vivid eyes, and his smile, which was ready, had yet a certain ferocity.

  He got up at once, hand outstretched.

  ‘Glad to see you, sir,’ he said and conveyed distinctly that he hoped to God he was.

  The Divisional Detective Inspector is in sole and complete charge of his own territory until something happens inside it which is so interesting that his Area Superintendent at the Yard feels it his duty to send him help. To that help, despite his superior knowledge of the district, he is always liable to find himself second-in-command. Campion sympathized.

  ‘I hope it’s not as bad as that,’ he said disarmingly. ‘How many Palinode murders have you actually got on your hands so far?’

  The narrow eyes flickered at him and he saw that the man was younger than he had supposed, thirty-four or five at the most, sensationally young for his rank.

  ‘First, what will you drink?’ Luke thumped the humpbacked bell on the table. ‘We’ll get Ma Chubb safely out of earshot and I’ll give you the full strength.’

  The licensee waited upon them herself. She was a quick-eyed, quick-moving little person with a politely worried face and grey hair coiled into intricate patterns under a net.

  She nodded to Campion without looking at him directly and trotted out with the money.

  ‘Well now,’ said Charlie Luke, his eyes snapping and the trace of a country inflexion creeping into his voice, which was as strong and pliant as his shoulders, ‘I don’t know what you’ve heard so far but I’ll rough it out as it’s come to me. It began with poor little old Doctor Smith.’

  Campion had never heard before of this particular Doctor Smith but suddenly he was in the room with them. He took shape like a portrait under a pencil.

  ‘A tallish old boy – well, not so very old, fifty-five, married to a shrew. Overworked. Over-conscientious. Comes out of his flat nagged to a rag in the mornings and goes down to his surgery – room with a shop front like a laundry. Stooping. Back like a camel. Loose trousers, poking at the seat as if God were holding him up by the centre buttons. Head stuck out like a tortoise, waving slightly. Worried eyes. Good chap. Kind. Not as bright as some (no time for it) but professional. Old school, not old school tie. Servant of his calling and don’t forget it. He starts getting poison pen letters. Shakes him.’

  Charlie Luke spoke without syntax or noticeable coherence but he talked with his whole body. When he described Doctor Smith’s back his own arched. When he mentioned the shop front he squared it in with his hands. His tremendous strength, which was physical rather than nervous, poured into the recital, forcing the facts home like a pile-driver.

  Campion was made to share the Doctor’s scandalized anxiety. The man talked like an avalanche.

  ‘Show you the file of filth later,’ he said. ‘This is just the outline.’ He was off again, vigorous muscular mouth pumping out the words, hands rubbing them in. ‘Usual scurrilous stuff. Had a psycho on them. Says of course probably female, but very experienced sexually and not as uneducated as one would think from the spelling. They accused the Doc of conniving at murder. Old lady called Ruth Palinode murdered, buried, no questions asked, Doc to blame. Doc gets wind up slowly. Feels patients may be getting the same letters. Chance remarks seem to mean more than they were ever meant to. Poor old blighter starts thinking. Goes over old woman’s symptoms. Frightened to hell. Tells his wife, who uses it as a handle to torment him. He gets in nervous state, has to go to brother medico, who makes him call us in. The whole thing’s passed to me.’

  He took a breath and a gulp of whisky and water.

  ‘“Good God, boy!” he says to me, “it may have been arsenic. I never thought of poison.” “Well, Doc,” I said to him, “it may have been wind. Anyway it’s worrying somebody. We’ll find out and that’ll settle it.” Now we go to Apron Street.’

  ‘I’m with you,’ said Mr Campion, trying not to sound breathless. ‘That’s the Palinode house, is it?’

  ‘Not yet. Got to get the street roughed in. Street important. Narrow little way. Small shops either side. Old Brotherhood chapel, now the Thespis Rep Theatre, highbrow, harmless, one end; Portminster Lodge, the Palinode house, the other. The district’s gone down like a drunk in thirty years and the Palinodes with it. Now a dear old variety gal turned lodging-house keeper owns their house. Mortgage fell in, she inherited, her own place got bombed, so she moved over with some of her old boarders and took the Palinode family in her stride.’

  ‘Miss Roper’s an old acquaintance of mine.’

  ‘Is she, though?’ The bright eyes widened from slits to diamonds. ‘Then you can tell me something. Could she have written the letters?’

  Campion’s brows rose up behind his spectacles.

  ‘I don’t know her sufficiently well to say,’ he murmured. ‘I should have guessed that she was the last person in the world not to have signed her name.’

  ‘Oh, so should I. I love her.’ Luke spoke earnestly. ‘But you never know, do you?’ He thrust out a great hand. ‘Think of it. Woman alone, happy life gone, nothing but drudgery, boredom, hatred very likely of toffee-nosed old scroungers. Perhaps they turn on the “my good woman” when it’s her perishing house.’

  He paused. ‘Don’t think I blame her,’ he said with simple earnestness. ‘Everybody’s mind has its dregs. As I see it, it’s the circumstances which stir ’em up. I’m not shooting at the poor old blossom, I just want to know. She might have wanted to turn the whole gang of ’em out and not known quite how to do it, or she migh
t have fallen for the Doc and wanted to hurt him. She’s old for that, of course.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Who might have written ’em? About five hundred. Any one of the Doc’s patients. He’s got a very funny manner when that basket of a wife of his has been at him, and they’re all ill to start with, aren’t they? Now there’s the street. I can’t take you through it house by house or we’ll be here all night. Drink up, sir. But I’ll give you the smell of it. There’s a grocer’s and ironmonger’s on the corner opposite the theatre. He’s a country chap gone Cockney fifty years ago. He runs his place as if it were a trading post somewhere. Tick unlimited. Gets into trouble, keeps the cheese too near the paraffin and hasn’t been the same man since his wife died. He’s known the Palinodes all his life. Their father helped him when he was starting and but for him some of them would starve at the end of a quarter, I fancy.

  ‘Next door to the grocer is the coal office, he’s new. Then we come to the Doc’s outfit. Then there’s the greengrocers. They’re okay. Big family of girls. Paint all over their faces and dirt all over their hands. And then, Mr Campion, there’s the chemist.’

  He had been keeping his voice down but the strength of it even when suppressed was liable to set the panelling vibrating. The sudden silence as he paused was grateful.

  ‘Chemist of interest?’ encouraged his listener, who found himself fascinated by the performance.

  ‘Pa Wilde would be interesting if he was only on the pictures,’ said Charlie Luke. ‘What a shop, eh! What an emporium! Ever heard of Old Ma Appleyard’s Dynamite Cough Cure and Intestine Controller? Of course you haven’t, but your grandpa used to bung himself up with it, I bet. And you can still buy it there if you want to, in the original wrapping. He’s got dozens of little drawers of muck, smell of old lady’s bedroom enough to knock you back, and old Pa Wilde in the middle of it looking like auntie’s ruin with his dyed hair, collar like this’ – he strained his chin upwards and made his eyes bulge – ‘little black tie, striped trousers. When old Joey and Pantaloon Bowels dug up Miss Ruth Palinode and we all stood round in the cold waiting for Sir Doberman to get his damned jars loaded, I must say I started thinking about Pa Wilde. I don’t say he administered whatever it was but I bet it came from there.’