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  The man in the corner appeared to be absorbing, not to say dominating, them.

  Although, of course, he could not hear what was being said, Randall received the impression that they were listening deferentially to the other’s harangue; that their laughter was polite to the point of affectation; and that, in fact, they were behaving like men in the presence of royalty.

  How two such unlikely persons could possibly have come together in such a situation was beyond Guffy’s powers of conjecture. As he watched, both young men suddenly drew out pocket lighters and simultaneously offered the third of the trio the flame.

  Eager-Wright, it seemed, was the favoured one, and the third man bent forward to light his cigarette.

  As Guffy stared, a pale, somewhat vacant face came into view. Sleek yellow hair was brushed back from a high forehead and pale blue eyes were hidden behind enormous horn-rimmed spectacles. The expression upon the face was languid and a little bored. The next instant he had leant back again.

  ‘By George!’ said Mr Randall. ‘Albert Campion!’

  The next moment his shoulders began to heave and he turned a crimson, distorted face to the startled manager.

  ‘You weep!’ the little man ejaculated. ‘You are alarmed – you are amused – yes, no?’

  Guffy clutched at the desk for support, while the little manager danced round him like an excited Pekingese.

  ‘My friend,’ he expostulated, ‘you keep me in suspense. You bewilder me. Do I laugh or am I abased? Is my hotel honoured or is it degraded? Is it the noblesse or is it some racket of malefaction?’

  Guffy controlled himself with an effort. ‘God only knows,’ he said. And then, as the little man’s face fell, he clapped him vigorously on the shoulder. ‘But it’s all right, Fleurey, it’s all right. You know – au fait – quite the thing. Nothing to get distrait about.’

  And then, before the manager could press for further information, the young man had flung himself out of the door and raced down the stairs, still laughing, to the lounge.

  As he went, Guffy reflected upon the beauties of the situation. Albert Campion, of all people, being seriously mistaken by the good Fleurey for minor royalty was a story too magnificent to be lightly dismissed. After all, it might almost be true; that was the beauty of Campion; one never knew where he was going to turn up next – at the Third Levée or swinging from a chandelier, as someone once said.

  As Guffy crossed the vestibule he had time to consider Campion. After all, even he, probably one of that young man’s oldest friends, knew really very little about him. Campion was not his name; but then it is not considered decent for the younger son of such a family to pursue such a peculiar calling under his own title.

  As to the precise nature of the calling Guffy was a little fogged. Campion himself had once described it as ‘Universal Uncle and Deputy Adventurer’. All things considered, that probably summed him up.

  Although what he could possibly be doing at the Beauregard playing prince with two men like Farquharson and Eager-Wright to help him was beyond the scope of Guffy’s somewhat inelastic imagination.

  He hurried across the lounge, his round face beaming, the pricelessness of the joke still uppermost in his mind. He laid a hand on Farquharson’s shoulder and grinned at Campion.

  ‘What ho, your Highness!’ he said, and chuckled.

  His laughter died suddenly, however. The pale vacuous face into which he stared did not alter for an instant, and Eager-Wright’s iron hand closed over his wrist like a vice.

  Farquharson rose hastily to his feet. His face betrayed nothing but consternation. Eager-Wright had risen also, but his warning grip did not slacken.

  Farquharson bowed slightly to Campion. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘may I present the Honourable Augustus Randall, of Monewdon in Suffolk, England?’

  Mr Campion, not a muscle of his face betraying a trace of any emotion save polite indifference, nodded.

  ‘Mr Randall and I have met before, I think,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you will sit here, next to Mr Robinson? Mr Jones should have introduced you.’ He smiled deprecatingly. ‘I am, at the moment, Mr Brown of London.’

  Guffy looked round him in bewilderment, waiting for the explosion of laughter which he felt must be coming at any moment. But on each of the three faces he saw nothing but extreme gravity, and Mr Campion’s pale eyes behind his spectacles were warning and severe.

  CHAPTER II

  H.R.H. Campion

  ‘NOW THAT THE doors of my palatial suite are safely locked,’ said Mr Campion some sixty minutes later, ‘let us adjourn with all due pomp to the state bedroom, and I will tell you in kingly confidence that “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”’

  He linked his arm through Guffy’s and they walked across the sitting-room into the adjoining bedchamber, whither Eager-Wright and Farquharson had preceded them.

  ‘We’re coming in here because the walls are practically sound-proof,’ Campion explained airily as he swept aside the mosquito net and seated himself upon the great gilt rococo bed.

  Guffy Randall, mystified and truculent, stood before him, Dicky Farquharson lounged upon the dressing-table stool, a glass of beer in his hand, the bottle on the floor at his feet, while Eager-Wright stood by the window grinning broadly.

  Guffy was frankly unamused. He felt he had been made to look an ill-mannered ass and was prepared to accept only the most abject of apologies.

  Farquharson leant forward, his smile wrinkling his forehead until his short, close-cropped curls almost met his eyebrows.

  ‘It’s rather a blessing Guffy has turned up at this particular juncture,’ he said. ‘He’d never have stood the strain of playing the courtier for long. It’s damned hard work, old man,’ he added, grinning at his friend, ‘His Majesty being rather a stickler for etiquette. You haven’t got the bearing at all, if I may say so. Bring the heels together smartly and from the waist – bow!’

  Guffy passed his hand over his forehead. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I’m completely in the dark. I take it you have some purpose in careering about the place behaving in this extraordinary fashion. I don’t want to intrude, of course, but if you could give me a clue it’d help considerably.’

  Mr Campion, sitting cross-legged on the bed, his pale eyes amused behind his enormous spectacles, nodded affably.

  ‘As a matter of fact, you ought to have been in it from the start,’ he said. ‘The army of spies which reports to me daily scoured London for you about three weeks ago.’

  ‘Really?’ Guffy looked up with interest. ‘I was in Oslo with the Guv’nor judging some new sort of dog they’re breeding. I’m sorry about that. Frankly, Campion, I feel this is going to take a bit of explaining. When I dropped in here this morning I found old Fleurey black in the face because he thinks he’s got a pack of confidence tricksters in the place. I took a squint at the suspects for him and I found it was you.’

  ‘Confidence tricksters!’ said Eager-Wright, aghast. ‘I say, that reflects on us rather badly, Farquharson.’

  ‘Oh, he thought also that you might be minor royalty,’ said Guffy with due fairness. ‘He suspects you, Campion, of being the potentate of some little tinpot Balkan state.’

  Farquharson and Eager-Wright exchanged glances, and a faint smile passed over Mr Campion’s pale, foolish, face.

  ‘The good Fleurey is a man of perception,’ he said. ‘You can’t fool a hotel proprietor, Guffy. The man’s absolutely right. You are now in the presence of the Hereditary Paladin of Averna and his entire Court. Not perhaps very impressive, but genuine. That’s the chief charm about us in this business: we’re absolutely bona fide.’

  Guffy’s blue eyes became dark and incredulous. Mr Campion met them gravely. Then he held out his hand.

  ‘Meet Albert, Hereditary Paladin of Averna.’

  ‘Never heard of it,’ said Guffy stolidly.

  ‘You will,’ said Mr Campion. ‘It’s a hell of a place: I’m the king. Farquharson represents the Government of the country. Eag
er-Wright is the Opposition. I suppose you wouldn’t care for an order or two? The Triple Star is natty without being bourgeois.’

  ‘It sounds mad,’ said Guffy. ‘But I’m with you, of course, if there’s anything I can do. I don’t want to be offensive, but it sounds as though you’re collecting for a hospital.’

  Mr Campion’s pale eyes became momentarily grave. ‘Yes, well, there’s always that,’ he said. ‘And before you decide to join us I feel I ought to point out that there’s a distinct possibility that I and all my immediate friends may have to die fighting for my country. I say, Farquharson, have you got the coat?’

  Dicky leant over the back of the stool and pulled a suitcase from under the dressing-table. From its depths he drew out a light travelling ulster and displayed a six-inch tear just under the shoulder.

  ‘A bullet?’ enquired Guffy with interest.

  ‘As we got on the train at Brindisi,’ agreed Mr Campion. ‘We Avernians live dangerously.’

  ‘I’m in it,’ said Guffy stoutly. ‘I say, though, where is this place Averna? Ought I to have heard of it?’

  ‘Well, no. Its greatest asset is that very few people ever have heard of it.’ Mr Campion’s precise tone was still light, but Guffy, who knew him well, realized that he was now approaching the serious. ‘To be quite honest,’ he went on, ‘it’s not very hot, as kingdoms go. To begin with, the area’s about eight hundred, I should say.’

  ‘Square miles?’ said Guffy, impressed.

  ‘Acres,’ said Mr Campion modestly. ‘That includes the castle, of course, but not the rockery. I also hold dominion over the left half of a beautiful mountain about four thousand feet high, and the right half of a much loftier affair. Included in this not very desirable property is running water, cold, five hundred yards of sea coast, a truffle plantation, and quite half a dozen subjects, all of whom now have a signed photograph of myself in court dress and five hundred cigarettes. My levée was a stout affair. It was only my personal charm which retained me my throne, although no doubt the uniforms helped. Our red and gold ones are rather good; you must see them.’

  Guffy sat down. ‘I’m awfully sorry,’ he said, ‘but it just doesn’t sound true. Suppose you tell me about it plainly and simply, as though I were a child.’

  ‘It’s not a simple story,’ said Mr Campion. ‘However, if you make your mind receptive, put your trust in me and try to grasp one fact at a time, I’ll explain. First of all the history of Averna is important, and it goes like this. It all began with a man called Peter the Hermit, who went out to do a bit of crusading in 1090. He took a friend with him called Walter the Moneyless, who seems to have been about as hopeless as his name, and they went off with a rabble and had a frightful time coming through Dalmatia. They expected to be fed miraculously – ravens, and whatnot, you know – but the notion wasn’t sound, and they finally came to a sticky end on the plains of Asia Minor. You can find all that in any history book, probably not so lucidly put.

  ‘But now we come to more specialized information. With these two birds was a fearfully tough egg called Lambert of Vincennes, who not unnaturally got fed up at half-time and came back. He parted from the other two enthusiasts in the mountains on the Dalmatian coast and had rather a thin time at first. But he had the pioneer spirit all right, furnished himself with a wife – some early Hungarian beauty, no doubt – and with her took refuge in a sort of pocket in the mountains, a pleasant valley with trees and a stream and large protecting walls of rock all round. In fact, my present kingdom.’

  Guffy nodded understandingly. ‘All clear, so far,’ he said.

  Mr Campion continued with dignity. ‘These two and their followers settled down in the valley for a bit and then the old boy made plans for getting home. The only thing against the valley was, and is, for that matter, that it’s a most difficult place to get out of. Once you’re in it you’re in it, and if the crops fail or the stream runs dry the situation can be most unpleasant. Also, there’s no social life.

  ‘Mrs Lambert and most of the others were left behind while Lambert and a couple of friends set out for home. The extraordinary thing is that they got there. But, home politics being what they were at the time, the Lambert estates had been sequestered and the unfortunate fellow couldn’t raise enough money to get back to his valley again. He turned up in England and was received kindly as a sort of holy man. But no one felt like exploring at the time, and finally he died in despair, commending his kingdom, in which no one quite believed, to the English Crown.

  ‘It seems to have been a sort of standard anecdote until 1190, when Richard the First set out to do his own bit of crusading, and then a detachment under a delightful soul called Edward the Faithful left the main expedition in Tuscia, cut across Romandiola to Ancona, and across the Adriatic – whatever it was then called – to a place called Ragusa, where the Dinaric Alps run down to the sea.’

  He paused and looked at his friend apologetically. ‘I’m sorry to trot out all this history,’ he said, ‘but it’s absolutely necessary if you’re going to get a clear idea of what we’re up to. To carry on with Edward the Faithful: he discovered Lambert’s kingdom eventually, and wasn’t very impressed by it. There were no members of the original party alive, and Edward seems to have taken a dislike to the place. But he set up the royal standard and claimed it formally from two lizards and a bear, as far as I can make out. Matters weren’t improved when someone started a rumour, based on abstruse and erroneous calculations, that the valley was the scene of the incident between Cain and Abel. That settled it as far as Edward was concerned. He christened it Averna and bunked back to England. Later on, when he handed in his report to Richard, the king appears to have been frightfully amused. He rewarded Edward, but presented the kingdom as a kind of royal snub to a perfectly mad family called Huntingforest, the ancestors of the Earls of Pontisbright. Two of these lads died on expeditions to this kingdom, and I imagine that Richard laughed like fun – or his heirs did – the humour of the period tending that way.

  ‘Finally, when any of the family became a little uppish the reigning king used to suggest a trip out to see the old family possession.’

  Guffy grinned, and Mr Campion heartened and went on with his harangue.

  ‘No one got much out of it,’ he said, ‘until about 1400, when Giles, the Fifth Earl, actually went out there, set up as Hereditary Paladin and built a castle. To him we are indebted for most of the present palaver. He had a crown made, drew up articles – the deeds of the place, as it were, and had ’em signed and ratified by Henry the Fourth. After this everything settled down normally. Most of the Pontisbrights preferred to stay at home, and the family, whose estates in the midlands had dwindled, were given others in East Anglia and became quite important people, in with the Governments and that sort of thing. A few adventurous members of the family looked in at Averna when they made the grand tour, and “Hereditary Paladin” was mentioned in the family titles on state occasions, but the place was not attractive and of no value, and no one took much notice of it.

  ‘The last time it came into any sort of prominence was in 1814, after the rearrangement of Europe. Then the fifteenth Earl of Pontisbright was quietly financed by the British Government to enable him to buy his estate secretly from Metternich, the great real estate pedlar of that time, so that no row over the little bit of land could lead to any fighting which might possibly involve us.

  ‘Then in the Crimea the last earl was killed, and the line came to an end. There you have it in a nutshell, or at least most of it.’

  He rose from the bed as he finished speaking and wandered down the room, his long thin figure looking somehow very modern and prosaic after his story.

  Guffy was still puzzled. ‘I’ve assimilated all that,’ he said, ‘and I may be a complete fool, but I still don’t see how you came into it. I thought your family name was –’ He hesitated. Mr Campion’s real name was one of the few subjects which were taboo in his presence.

  ‘Ah, well, now we come t
o the difficult bit.’ Campion regarded his friend mildly from behind his spectacles. ‘About eight or nine months ago you either do or you don’t remember there was a minor earthquake in that part of the world. Nothing much happened, but it shook up a bit of Italy and broke a few windows in Belgrade. No one thought any exciting damage had been done for a long time until Eager-Wright, holidaying in the Bosnian Alps, discovered there had been a certain amount of recent disturbance among the great ones. Chunks of rock had been hurled about, and that sort of thing. Well, then, this is frightfully important and the whole crux of the matter generally: he discovered on behalf of the British Government that with very little help from a man like Farquharson, Averna could be made a pretty useful spot. You see, roughly it’s like this. Until last year Averna was a small oval patch of land entirely surrounded by rock, save for a single narrow tunnel through which a mountain stream ran out to the sea. I believe one of the early Pontisbrights attempted to shoot down this tunnel and never emerged at the other end. But now, since the spot of bother last year, the tunnel is no longer a tunnel, but an open cleft in the rocks, the sea has come up, and Averna now has a minute coast line – quite five or six hundred yards, I should say. Farquharson as the expert has had a look at it, and in his opinion it would now be comparatively simple to carry on the good work done by the earthquake and turn the place into a marvellous natural harbour at a cost of approximately two and sixpence as the politician thinks.’

  Guffy’s round eyes grew rounder. The significance of the harangue was beginning to dawn upon him.

  Farquharson leant forward. ‘That isn’t all, Randall,’ he said. ‘There’s every evidence that on the land behind the castle there’s an untapped oilfield. It was discovered, I imagine, years ago, but of course the incredible difficulties of transport made it valueless. Even now I doubt whether it’s a commercial proposition to export; but who wants to export it if ships can take it in on the spot? You see the situation now, don’t you?’