Coroner's Pidgin Page 4

  “And then Eve and I came barging in,” he said. “God! We never get any older, do we? Life’s very difficult. I believe I’m mad, Campion.”

  He spoke very seriously. It was impossible not to be curious, but Campion had caught a glimpse of the time again.

  “Now’s the time to be as sane as hell, if I may say so, old boy,” he said. “Good-bye, er—happy funeral. Euston, driver.”

  The cab started with a small explosion and as Campion picked himself out of the leathery depths and glanced out of the small window behind his head, he saw Carados going slowly back to the house. The small box of an ambulance still stood where Lugg had left it against the kerb, just outside the empty building which had once been the old Bottle Street Police Station. It looked pathetic and slightly sinister, as ambulances do.

  Campion was still speculating on the exact nature of Johnny Carados’s madness when he noticed that wherever the cab was taking him at the hoppety, rabbit-like speed of the London taxi in a hurry, it was not to Euston Station.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IN THE TAXI Campion peered out of the window at the fast darkening town. He was confused to discover that many of the familiar landmarks had vanished, to leave new squares and avenues of neatly tidied nothingness. But when he suddenly caught sight of the uniquely horrible bronze group depicting Wealth succouring Innocence squatting unscathed against the bland face of the M.O.L.E. Insurance building, in what was presumably still Sabot Lane, he knew he was going astray. He rapped on the glass and shouted:

  “Not Waterloo, Taxi. Euston, my lad. Euston.”

  The driver took no notice whatever, and his fare was trying to slide back the connecting window when he became aware of an eye peering at him through the driving mirror. It was only one eye, and not an attractive one, but there was a shrewdness in it that was unmistakable.

  Mr. Campion was both astounded and aggrieved. He had good reason to believe that all his more recent enemies were on the other side of the Channel, at least, and it seemed very unfair that some of his old ones should not have forgotten him. He noted the time again, and a futile rage possessed him. On attempting to open one of the doors he made a second discovery. Neither had any handles on the inside.

  Since the situation had now become obvious, Campion took steps. He wrapped his coat round his arm, and pulling off a shoe took careful aim at the near-side window. The reinforced glass starred but did not break, and at the same moment the cab swerved sharply through an archway, jolted over the cobbles of an ancient yard, and plunged into the darkness of a building.

  Campion took another swipe at the glass. This time his shoe-heel went all the way, but before he could slip his hand through the hole, the door behind him was jerked open and long arms seized him round the shoulders. He hunched instinctively, making himself wide, but he knew as soon as he felt the grip tighten that the advantage was with the shape in the gloom. He braced himself against the seat, pitching his weight backward on to his adversary, and gained a moment’s advantage. But the next moment the door with the broken glass was swung open, and a pad with a nauseating smell was clamped over his mouth and nose. He struggled violently, aware even in this extremity of a sensation of outrage and injustice. His last conscious thought was that he had missed his train.

  He was still thinking about his train when he opened his eyes again. He was aware of pain and nausea, cold, and a light which was too bright to be borne. This last shot towards him in a long, straight blade from between two dark pillars. It hit him in the eyes, and he closed them.

  Once again he remembered the train, and a sense of desolation spread over him. He had missed it. This was sunlight, the train had gone. Missed it; missed it by hours. He could have wept, he was so angry and so helpless.

  Presently a new procession of pictures began to undulate through his head. These were visions which possessed all the inconsequence of nightmare. He saw Eve Snow sitting on the draining board in the kitchenette in his flat; she was looking at him with her head held on one side and a strange, tragic expression on her attractive but ridiculous face, which was meant only for comedy.

  Then he saw a boy, a pleasant, stalwart boy, in the olive green of an invading army. He looked resolute but puzzled, and desperately unhappy. A second woman jostled the young soldier out of Campion’s waking dream. At first she was only a vague, recumbent outline and his memory focused on small wedge shoes, grey and black, the square toes turned up like a doll’s.

  Through the mist he struggled to comprehend the significance of this final picture. There was something odd here, something very wrong. He ought not to have seen the soles of her shoes, he thought, unless. . . .

  He opened his eyes again. That was right; there was something wrong with her, very wrong. She was dead, he remembered now. Her name was Moppet somebody, and she was dead.

  He stirred as the shaft of light broadened, and he saw that the twin pillars were walking towards him, stout blue pillars they were, very dignified and solid. He tried to sit up and a policeman bent over him.

  “Feeling better, sir?” he enquired. “The ambulance is on its way, but the Chief said we were to wait for him.”

  Campion blinked at the man, and turning stiffly, looked about him. He was in a small garage, through the half-open doorway of which bright sunlight streamed. There was no car about, nor yet any sign of one. The place had been used as a storeroom for some time; there were old picture frames against the wall and a heap of electric-light fittings, and some decorative iron-work in the foreground. Between him and the door was a pile of débris, which he took some time to recognize as portions of his own luggage; its contents were strewn about the floor as if some mad Customs official had made hay there.

  Campion eyed the policeman. “Did you do that?” he enquired.

  “No, sir! Nothing’s been touched since I found you, except that I opened your collar and propped you up. I got your name from your papers in your wallet. You’ve still got plenty of money there, sir; you don’t seem to have been robbed. I’ve got a glass of water here. Will you have some?”

  Campion was sitting up sipping, when once again the sunlit shaft was disturbed as a melancholy, elderly person in a flapping raincoat came striding in. There were a couple of other figures behind him, but at the entrance they dropped back, and he came on in, alone.

  The Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department, Stanislaus Oates, was never a wit, nor was gaiety his province, and Campion’s first impression on seeing his long face after three years’ absence was that the world catastrophe had cheered the old boy up. At any rate, a faint sad smile spread over his drawn face as he recognized his friend, and his cold eyes roved over the scene of desolation.

  “Hallo, Campion,” he said. “Got yourself a welcome home, I see.”

  “A pity the Police Department didn’t assist in the festivities.” The lean wreck in the corner spoke acidly.

  “Oh. I don’t know. I don’t know.” Oates was still glancing about him, his inquisitive eyes taking in everything. “What are you grumbling at—you’ve been found, haven’t you?”

  “Where am I?”

  “Number twenty-seven, Goldhawk Mews, North, One—what’s left of it. This is practically the only building with a roof for a mile. Is that where you thought you were?”

  “No. They put me out on the other side of London.”

  “Humph.” Oates continued his terrier-like sniffing, and finally sat down suddenly on an upturned suitcase. He looked hard at the other man. “Well, how are you?” he enquired.

  Campion told him.

  “I see. Like to see the Doc?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I want to catch a train. Any objection?”

  “Well. . . .” The Chief scratched his ear with the same earnest misgiving with which Campion remembered him scratching it when a mere Superintendent. “That rather depends, don’t you know. As a matter of fact, Campion, I’m supposed to be holding you. You looked in at that flat of yours yesterday, I believe.”

&
nbsp; “Yes.” Campion’s pale eyes narrowed. “Yes, I did.”

  “Ah, well, there you are, you see.” The Chief’s seat was low and he rubbed his knees, which were stiffening in their unusual position. “We found a corpse there, you know. A woman. She had been murdered. I’d just got the report on the P.M. when this constable ’phoned up to tell us you had been found.”

  Campion stared at him. In that moment it was the girl he thought of first, the pretty girl who was so young and so much in love with the man she was not going to marry. The girl with the old-fashioned father, the conscientious girl who had followed her ambulance. This was going to hit her as hard as anybody.

  “Murdered? Are you sure?” he asked stupidly.

  “As sure as I am that you’ve got to talk,” said the Chief.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JUST FOR A moment as they came through the city Mr. Campion forgot his train. It was a moist, grey-and-yellow morning with a hint of sun behind the mist and great, round drops of moisture dripping silently from the plane trees. The river was busy and warm, and the hollow bellows from the tugs sounded sadly through the traffic’s noise. The old sense of haste was there, too. The police chauffeur drove purposefully; there was work to be done, people to see, points to be raised, mystery to be unravelled; he was home again.

  Oates was quiet. It is rare for a man who has begun his career as a police constable to end it as Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department, but the miracle does occur. The grey man wore his honour stoutly; if he knew he had enemies he also knew just how much they mattered, enough to make him watch his step, not enough to cramp his style.

  At this moment by carrying Campion off personally he was breaking one of the prime rules of police etiquette, which is rigid and considerable, and although he did this he was careful not to question him until they were safely in the Senior Superintendent’s room overlooking the glassy river.

  Superintendent Yeo was waiting for them, and Campion’s sense of home-coming was made acute by the sight of that square, bullet-headed man. He regarded the circular dark eyes and the snub nose which lent the full face such a misleading air of comedy, with affection and respect. Yeo was a policeman in a thousand, but he was a policeman in soul; he was dependable, exact, conventional and tenacious, but he liked Mr. Campion and, moreover, admired him if somewhat against his will. He came forward now with genuine welcome.

  “I’m glad to see you,” he said, sounding as though he meant it. “You’ve landed head first in something pretty hot, I’m afraid. What’s he got, Mr. Oates?”

  “I don’t know yet.” The Chief’s cold eyes rested lazily on the Superintendent’s face. “I thought we’d hear him together.”

  Yeo coloured with satisfaction, and he expanded. “That’s just what I’d like,” he said, “just the plain story. We can take the statement later. There’s been an awkward little development, and I’ll want your advice, Mr. Oates. But at the moment a straight tale would help. It’s a straight case of murder and it fits in with the other matter.”

  He checked himself abruptly as though he had said too much, and added cheerfully:

  “You look all in, Mr. Campion. Sit down over here, will you?”

  “What about the Inspector in charge,” said Oates. “That’s Holly, isn’t it?”

  “Holly’s got his hands full at the moment, sir.” Yeo looked uncomfortable and Oates became studiously incurious.

  “Right,” he said, seating himself, “now then, Campion, no omissions and no theories. Just the straight facts.”

  Mr. Campion was not a fool nor had he any illusions about the true place wherein his loyalty lay. There are some crimes which are serious and murder is not the least of them. Oates was right, the time to talk had arrived.

  He went through the events of the previous evening very carefully, and the others sat watching him, Oates with approval, Yeo with growing concern. From time to time they made notes and when Campion had reached the end of the kidnapping, an episode which struck him as more fantastic the more he came to consider it, the Superintendent was fidgeting.

  “This is going to be very awkward,” he said suddenly, “very awkward indeed.”

  It was an unexpected comment, and when they stared at him he turned to the Chief.

  “We had the Assistant Commissioner in just after you left, Mr. Oates,” he said. “He didn’t want to influence you in any way, of course, but as far as I could see he was in a bit of a fix himself. It appears the Minister had ’phoned him to say that a lady who was a very old friend of his had come to him with a story which she felt she ought to tell the police. She appears to have acted insanely, he said, but he also said he was sure she couldn’t have realized what she was doing, so he was sending her along at once with a secretary of his. Everyone is a bit hot and bothered, if you ask me.”

  Oates swore a little. It was not his habit and Yeo was placatory. “I know, Mr. Oates, you won’t have interference, and of course you’re right, but if I may say so in this case I don’t think the gentlemen could have done much less for her. They both acted in a strictly proper way and they have put her into our hands. She’s not the sort of person you’d expect to be mixed up in this sort of thing. It’s the Dowager Lady Carados. She’s not the ordinary sort of party you’d expect to be found in a Police Court.”

  “How true,” agreed Mr. Campion fervently. “Have you had her up yet?”

  “She’s here now,” said Yeo. “Holly’s got her downstairs. She’s made her statement, and the trouble is, it’s not quite the same as yours, Mr. Campion. The differences are rather serious, as a matter of fact.”

  Oates sighed. “Oh my Gawd, these silly old women,” he said wearily.

  Yeo cleared his throat. “There are two main discrepancies,” he said. “In Mr. Campion’s statement he records that he understood from the man Lugg that the body had come originally from Number Three, Carados Square, which is the house of the Marquess of Carados, where it had been found in the owner’s bed just before he was due home on leave. However, Lady Carados deposes that it came from her own house, Number Twenty, on the other side of the square. I must say she’s got it very circumstantial. She says it was in a basement room which before the war was used as a footman’s sleeping quarters. There’s still a bed there. In her opinion the woman was a vagrant, and as the basement door is always unlocked in the daytime and there is only one maid left who is frequently upstairs, Her Ladyship says she doesn’t see that it is at all unlikely that the woman should have walked in on her own. That’s her story, anyway. She’s got it quite clear in her own mind, I will say that for her.”

  “The first vagrant I knew to have a black silk nightshirt,” said Oates. “Go on.”

  Yeo glanced appealingly at Campion. “We mustn’t forget this first point is open to question,” he said. “Mr. Campion admits that his version is based on hearsay, but this second point is more difficult. Mr. Campion has just said that Lady Carados ’phoned her son and that he came along, bringing Miss Evangeline Snow and his social secretary, Miss Dorothy Chivers, with him, and that between them Lord Carados and Miss Chivers identified the body as a Mrs. Moppet Lewis whom Carados said he’d not seen for five years. That’s her name, certainly, but I don’t see it gets us much forrader.”

  “Lady Carados has got this very differently,” he said. “According to her, when she ’phoned her son he wasn’t there, but she was answered by a Major Peter Onyer who used to be an adviser to Carados. According to her story it was Onyer and his wife who came round with Miss Chivers and she says that neither of them had ever seen the woman before. That’s point-blank, isn’t it? We shall take statements from them all, of course.”

  “The fools,” Campion burst out helplessly. “The silly, silly fools. They don’t realize it’s murder.”

  “She does,” said Yeo unexpectedly. “We told her that at once, we’ve been very careful.”

  “Then she’s mad,” said Campion. “You treated her with more consideration than you did me, by the w
ay. How did this wretched woman die?”

  “She was smothered,” said Oates, before Yeo could speak. “She was given a strong opiate, and then when she was all out a soft cushion or pillow was held firmly over her face until she stopped breathing. Roder-Whyte did the P.M. and he’s got it very clear as usual. The cause of death was suffocation and there was fluff and stuff in the larynx. Anybody might have done it.”

  “Anybody,” echoed Yeo. “Not a lot of strength was required, you see, it just needed nerve.”

  Campion shivered. The homeliness of the method and the deliberation it required were very unpleasant. “When was this?” he enquired.

  “According to Roder-Whyte, some time on Monday evening,” said Oates. “About twenty-four hours before you saw her.”

  “You were on the water then, Mr. Campion.” It was clear that Yeo intended the information to be reassuring and Campion grinned at him.

  “Yes,” he said, “that’s right. It’s the Coroner’s pidgin and yours. Not mine, thank God. I catch my train now, don’t I?”

  “No.” Oates spokely flatly, adding as he turned to Yeo: “I think it’ll be enough if they just meet each other accidentally in the passage. Don’t you? No need to make a set-out about it.”

  Mr. Campion objected vigorously, but without hope of success. Yeo spoke briefly to Inspector Holly on the house ’phone and soon afterwards they went downstairs.

  The two witnesses met in the main corridor by an arrangement which had been made many times before. Campion and his two guardians turned the corner at the exact moment when Lady Carados and Chief Inspector Holly came out of a door at the far end of the alley. For some seconds the two parties advanced slowly towards each other. In spite of his discomfort, Campion was curious to see Lady Carados. He was not sure when it was that she first noticed him, afterwards he was inclined to think that recognition must have been instantaneous. She came on briskly, her carriage splendid and her head, which was still lovely, held high so that they could see her smile. It was a gracious smile, happily self-confident; the smile of a woman who knew she was at her best, there was nothing even brave about it, she looked as if she had had a satisfactory interview with a properly attentive listener.