Cargo of Eagles Page 4

  ‘In fact I can’t miss him. Bless you, my boy.’

  They shook hands formally.

  ‘This is a very tricky one,’ the thin man confessed as they parted. ‘I’m having to play it with the cards very close to my chest. And between you and me it’s a pretty poor hand.’

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t deal you an ace.’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Mr Campion, ‘and I mean that. But you may have passed me a joker all the same.’

  The door closed gently behind him and after a cautious escape into St James’s he vanished into the merciful anonymity of a taxi.

  The Swallow Café was a long dark room with something of the texture of a doughnut about it: pleasant and padded and a thought sticky. There were pictures of Portofino and Italian peasant pottery and a row of little gilt paper gladiators between two of the light fittings which were shaped like sheaves of lily buds with strong brass stems.

  Mr Campion glanced around for the jar in which the wallet had been found and discovered it at once on a shelf running beside the tables.

  The familiar expresso counter at the far end of the room was deserted and from somewhere behind the wall which backed it a woman’s voice was raised in bitter complaint.

  ‘Ma cammina! Non po’ lasciar’ un posto nuovo fra dieci minuti, sumara. Che impiastra! Che pazzia! . . .’

  It was the slackest time of the day and very few of the tables were occupied but after a first glance round Mr Campion found himself aware of only one customer, a girl who sat in a corner with her back to the rounded end of the counter. She was unself-conscious and at ease, listening to her companion with smiling tolerant interest.

  It was not that she was particularly beautiful. Her quality was grace. It flowed from every bone and curled every line of her into a long casual frond. She was wearing a pale blue suit under a loose white coat and her bag lay on the table with her gloves beside it.

  She was hatless and her hair was dark as polished ebony, her wide mouth, laughing and provocative. The extraordinary wave of intrinsic high fashion and contemporary intelligence drew his attention even before the tinkling door bell had concluded the announcement of his arrival.

  ‘I did but see her passing by,’ thought Mr Campion and it was several seconds until he realised that her companion was Mortimer Kelsey.

  The young man, red faced but shamelessly exuberant, rose to his feet awkwardly as the fixed table pinned his thighs.

  ‘Ah, Mr Campion,’ he said, ‘I didn’t expect to see you. I wonder if you know Dr Dido Jones. She’s going down to Saltey this afternoon and I’m giving her a lift. Won’t you have a coffee with us? Actually we’re waiting for a policeman.’

  3

  The Swallow Café

  IT COULD WELL have been an extremely awkward gathering Morty suspected, but he was too entertained and happy to care. The stale room with its treacly flavour was by no means unpleasant after the damp outside and he was sitting next to Dido Jones which made every other circumstance fade into oblivion.

  The plainclothed Sergeant Throstle who had appeared almost upon Mr Campion’s heels was much as Oates had described him. Like many good policemen of his type his main message seemed to be that he was no fool and, on the whole, kindly meant. He drew up a chair to the narrow end of the table to be sure of conducting the party to his own complete satisfaction.

  It was apparent too that Oates had negotiated Campion’s entry with discretion, conveying that here was someone to be handled as a V.I.P. from a different but possibly interconnected world. Throstle contemplated the boy friend without surprise. How could such a creature as Dr Jones ever expect to be left without a host of hypnotised companions? He wondered idly if her patients ever took their minds off her to consider their ailments.

  On the whole the situation pleased him. He disliked poison pen enquiries but believed that if they had to be handled, the more willing helpers there were on the side of the victim, the easier was his own task. Besides, it was a pleasure to feel that at some time in the future the doctor might be opening wide grateful eyes to express her thanks and to assure him that he was wonderful.

  The centre of attraction, who had engendered a certain amount of unnatural good humour, sat back contentedly in her corner. Each man present was aware of her in a different way and she of him, but as with all natural sirens she did not let the fact worry her.

  Mr Campion brought the party to order by turning to Morty.

  ‘How did you get here?’ he demanded.

  The young man grinned sheepishly. ‘I was going down to Saltey anyway, as we arranged. Now it so happens that I knew Dr Jones had a house down there so I thought I’d ring her up and ask her if by chance she would like a lift. By chance she did.’

  He paused and eyed the older man squarely. ‘Perhaps I ought to say that I ask her that nearly every day. This time I was lucky.’

  Dido smiled, an embracing glance which took in all three men.

  ‘I’m going down to see the solicitor who’s going to show me the house I’ve inherited. He wants to give me the keys. I went there once before with a friend from the hospital but we couldn’t get inside. It was then that I met Morty. This time I thought I’d camp there for a day and find out what it’s really like.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m very glad to see both of you before I go because I’m not at all sure if I ought not to refuse the whole legacy after all those nauseating letters—except that I expect that’s just what they hope I’ll do. What do you think?’

  Sergeant Throstle looked at her sharply but did not speak, for at that moment there was a diversion. The proprietress who had been behind the bar began to serve them. She was a little sallow woman with gold in her ears and at the sides of her mouth and the same shrill voice which Campion had heard as he came in.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting but I ’ave no ’elp,’ she said. ‘I just lost my new girl. I only take ’er on part time and now she runs off. It’s a wonderful world when you can pick and choose, come and go, just as you please before you’re twenty-one. Kids today they jus’ don’ wanta work.’

  Sergeant Throstle, being the nearest, collected the cups and distributed them and made no offer to pursue the conversation. He shared them round the table and stirred himself enough sugar to make the mixture thick as molasses.

  ‘It’s these letters which interest you, Mr Campion?’ he said. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’ He smiled at Dido, confiding and confident, conveying that he had the advantage of a longer acquaintanceship. ‘It’s a little off our normal beat as an enquiry but there are one or two aspects about this particular job which are what you might call intriguing. On the face of it, it looks more like conspiracy than the work of an evil minded vixen who’s had her nose put out of joint by a will she didn’t do so well out of.’

  Mr Campion intervened. It was his turn to smile at the doctor. ‘Put me in the picture,’ he said diffidently. ‘I understand that you’ve been left this property by an ex-patient? When did this happen?’

  ‘No patient of mine,’ she said. ‘Old Miss Kytie died about six months ago and I was rather surprised to hear that she even remembered my name. I only saw her about half a dozen times and I certainly never treated her. I’m geriatrics—she was a cardiac.’

  ‘I see. Begin at the beginning, though. When did you first meet her?’

  ‘Early last summer. If it’s important I can probably find the date. She shared a side ward here at St Bots with two other old ladies and one of them, a Miss Ridgeway, was my patient. I knew Miss Kytie to nod to. The old things used to chatter away amongst themselves of course, but when a doctor came to see any one of them the other two were usually very discreet—you know how they are—’

  ‘I can guess, I think. But go on.’

  ‘Well, that was all there was to it. “Good morning. Lovely after the rain, isn’t it? Did you have a good tea party on Friday? Mr Tanner, your favourite clergyman, is coming round this afternoon, so save him some cake.” Nothing more intimate than that. Then one day when I went
in to see Miss Ridgeway unofficially to take her a book she wanted, Miss Kytie had a visitor, a young man who was fairly obviously a solicitor. She was very excited and above herself and insisted on introducing us.’

  She hesitated. ‘She was one of those old fashioned gushers who talk in alternate italics. “Oh, doctor, this is a pleasure. Both you young people are so young. Aren’t they, Miss Ridgeway? So young and so handsome!”’ It was an unexpectedly vivid piece of characterisation. She conjured up a brilliant-eyed harridan clutching a lean bosom, by turns embarrassing, envious and pathetic.

  ‘Oho!’ said Morty laughing. ‘Then she wasn’t just a dear old fairy godmother? I’d imagined something rather cosy but . . .’

  ‘Oh, no. Cosy isn’t quite the right word. The trouble is that I really know very little about her as a person. Except, of course, that it was obvious the moment she opened her mouth that she was living for her will and the fun she could get out of it. Some people do, you know. The three old trolls in the ward clearly spent their days chatting it over and over. But it made Miss Kytie the centre of attraction. She was revelling in it.’

  ‘I can see that.’ Throstle was professional. ‘And she introduced the young man as her solicitor? What was his name? Askew, was it?’

  ‘That’s right. How clever of you.’ Dido flashed her mind-destroying smile at him. ‘She told me all about him to his face. She usually consulted Percy, but this was Hector, the son, who was just as clever as his father and was just a tiny bit more understanding. He always found time to help if one was worried which was so comforting.’

  ‘Was anything said about you inheriting the house at this meeting—even in joke?’

  ‘Oh, no. Of course not. It was simply a lot of arch nonsense about us two young people getting together. They all saw themselves as matchmakers and they were having a real ball.’

  ‘And did you two become acquainted?’

  ‘We did, as a matter of fact. He’s a forceful character—not so young as he looks—and I suppose you could say that he made a pass at me. Anyway, I often seemed to be running into him in the corridor or just outside the hospital. He rather worked at it, you know. At least he got as far as taking me out to dinner.’

  She was perfectly frank but somehow it was not a completely satisfactory explanation. All three men sensed it and Morty felt it his duty to intervene.

  ‘I think, if I may say so,’ he remarked, ‘that Dr Jones is one of those people whom people do fall for on sight.’

  They turned to look at him and he smiled.

  ‘Well, I do,’ he said.

  Throstle opened his mouth to speak and shut it again without making a comment.

  ‘Did you discuss the matter with Miss Kytie at all?’ asked Mr Campion.

  ‘No. In fact I never saw her again. My patient was moved into another ward and I’d almost forgotten her. The next thing I knew was some months later when I had a letter from Hector Askew to say that she was dead and had left me her house and most of the contents. She had a serious heart condition when she was in hospital and it was obvious that the poor thing wasn’t going to last very long.’

  Dido coloured. It was her first sign of embarrassment. ‘The notion that she might have been senile when she made her will simply isn’t true. I don’t think Hector thought so either. I’d say he is a cautious type where business is concerned. It never occurred to me that anyone could think so until those letters started arriving.’

  Throstle leant forward over the table. ‘These letters,’ he said. ‘I’ve got photostats of them here, by the way, Mr Campion. They’re rather unusual. I’d say they were written by at least three separate hands and possibly seven. Now this suggests conspiracy, especially as they are addressed to various different persons, the hospital authorities and so on. Different postmarks too. Some from Saltey, some from London. Thinking it over, you still have no idea who any of them could be?’

  She regarded him with astonishment.

  ‘I still assume that they must be people who had hoped to inherit themselves. Who else?’

  ‘Do you know of any?’

  ‘Not yet. According to Hector she had no living next of kin if you cut out really distant cousins. She was over eighty. His firm were her only advisers and they’ve been in the business so long that they seem to have the whole district in their pocket. She left quite a lot, one way and another, apart from the house. Several people did far better than I. But I’ve been trying to find out about your point. I rang Hector as soon as he wrote me and I said that I hoped I wouldn’t be depriving someone with a better right. He said certainly not—I was no more likely or unlikely than any of the other heirs. Apparently she was always changing her will and altering the bequests as her old friends died off or she quarrelled with them. Hector assured me—and he was absolutely positive about this—that this was the first occasion since he’d had anything to do with it when everybody concerned was well looked after. What he said was “As her wills went this was a very good specimen—probably the best”.’

  ‘You get the house and most of the contents,’ said Throstle. ‘Now someone must have been in line for that before you—or thought they were. You’ve no idea who you superseded?’

  ‘No.’ Dido hit the table with the flat of her hand and Morty placed his own deliberately over it.

  ‘I think I do,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘It’s the talk of Saltey. Although I’m very much a foreigner down there, I’ve been told all about it twenty times by the locals who use The Demon, where I’m staying, as their social headquarters. Miss Kytie lived in the Forty Angels hamlet all her life and she’d been the local heiress ever since her brother died in the thirties. I really didn’t pay much attention till Dido appeared on the scene. The old girl seems to have been very careful, not to say downright skinflint mean and a bit of a mischief maker into the bargain. She used to play up one person against another and her will has been the one subject of interest in Saltey for years. ‘Quack, quack, quack. “She will, you know. She won’t, you know. Leave it all to a cats’ home, that’s what she’ll do, mark my words”.’

  ‘Now I can’t swear to it but my belief is that the person who was disinherited in favour of Dr Jones got a much more valuable piece of property in exchange—half the land he farms, in fact. He’s a local character called Jonah Woodrose who seems to be a distant relative of everyone in the place but no more a bona fide heir than Dido. My impression is that they were both used one after the other by the old lady to annoy somebody else. She did it all the time by hints and nods and accepting favours whenever some toady offered them.’

  ‘Who would this somebody else be?’ said Throstle.

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea, any more than I can work out who in the village is related to who. There seems to have been a period, not very long ago, when even the bicycle was unknown. That name Woodrose, for example—it’s wonderful when you come to work it out.’

  Mr Campion sighed audibly. The sound was so unexpected that it surprised everyone and they stared at him. He had the grace to look embarrassed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, laughing. ‘I was thinking that “they’re all distant relations” are fatal last words. There is absolutely no tangle on earth that is so inextricable and frustrating as the English country family dispute. Time doesn’t come into it. Characters live and die and never see the beginning or the end. A rural Jarndice v. Jarndice can take a century. If this turns out to be one of those none of us will ever see the last of it. And meantime, of course, there isn’t a moment to spare.’

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth it was evident that he regretted them.

  ‘I was thinking,’ he said lamely, ‘that you two have got quite a journey before you.’

  As a performance it lacked his usual adroitness and Morty was clearly surprised. He glanced at Dido who gathered up her bag and gloves. Throstle, like a chairman who hopes to conclude a meeting with some semblance of having made progress turned to Campion.

  ‘I’d like you
to glance over these photostats and give me your expert opinion. We’d all appreciate that, I think?’ He produced a large buff envelope from the folio on the floor by his chair and placed it on the table.

  ‘I’d like to say one thing about them before I go.’ Dido spoke with professional dignity and a touch of anger coloured her cheek. ‘In the letters which were sent to me and in one of the others I was accused of influencing a senile patient. Miss Kytie certainly wasn’t senile when I saw her and I’ve taken the trouble to investigate her medical history right up to the time she died. Senility is a real condition. Geriatrics is my subject, so I should know. It doesn’t just mean having white hair and blue rings round the irises of the eyes. It’s a marked state of mental deterioration capable of being accurately observed and recorded. In fact she was a little over-bright. In spite of her heart she actually died of a cerebral thrombosis and you can take it from me that up to that moment she was probably quite as sharp and on the ball as she’d ever been. Certainly Hector thinks so and I’d say he was an expert, with his sort of experience. He won’t be very pleased if I keep him waiting. Shall we go, Morty?’

  Throstle stood up to let them escape from the confining table.

  ‘How were you going to get down there if Mr Kelsey hadn’t popped up with his car?’

  ‘Oh, I have one of my own,’ she said. ‘I just felt I’d like the company.’

  As they went out of the café, Throstle turned to Campion. ‘If she’s going to meet one young man it’s funny to take another. What would you make of that? Does she just hypnotise every man in sight to provide an escort? Or do you smell a quarrel?’

  ‘It could be.’