Sweet Danger Page 4

  ‘To-night?’ expostulated Mr Lugg. ‘I’ve got an appointment to-night. I don’t want to leave a bad impression in the place. People get talkin’ and it might look funny.’

  His further expostulations were cut short by a discreet tapping on the outer door. He ambled off to open it, still protesting, and returned a moment or so later to announce that Monsieur Étienne Fleurey was desolate, but could he have a word with Mr Randall?

  Guffy went out in some surprise and was still more astonished to find the little man himself standing on the threshold. He was pink and apologetic, and Guffy, who realized the blow to his dignity which he must have suffered by being forced to attend to anything personally, regarded him enquiringly. The manager could hardly speak.

  ‘Monsieur Randall, I am prostrate with regret. You will accompany me?’

  He led the young man into an unoccupied suite farther down the corridor and closed the door with every show of caution. Having satisfied himself that he could not be overheard, he presented a shining face to his visitor which was adorned with such an expression of woe that all Guffy’s sympathies as well as his curiosity were aroused.

  ‘Monsieur, the situation in which I find myself is, as you would say, putrid. I am annihilated. My world has come to an end. It would be infinitely better if I were dead.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Guffy, not knowing quite what else to say. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘The unspeakable imbecile who complained,’ Monsieur Fleurey continued, tears in his eyes, ‘he has gone. He has departed, crept out of the hotel like a veritable odour, but that is not all. Circumstances which I dare not divulge, circumstances which you, my dear Monsieur Randall, will as a man of honour understand and respect, machinations of fate over which I have no control, compel me to insist that the man Smith return anything which he may have taken – no doubt in some perfectly pardonable error – from the room of this canaille whom we all so justifiably detest.’

  ‘I say,’ said Guffy, trembling between a sense of guilt and a desire to help, ‘this is going to be rather awkward, isn’t it?’

  ‘Awkward? Never in my career have I experienced such a sense of embarrassment such as now overwhelms me! But what can I do? I tell you my entire life, the fortunes of my hotel which are my very existence, depend upon the recovery of a certain’ – Monsieur Fleurey gulped – ‘a certain letter which the man Smith doubtless suspected was one of his own.’

  Guffy made up his mind. Apart from the fact that the little manager appeared to be on the verge of hurling himself weeping at his feet, Mr Randall had very strong ideas concerning the ethics of Mr Lugg’s escapade.

  ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I imagine there’s been some mistake. Suppose in about fifteen minutes or so you search the room occupied by Sniff – I mean your late client. You never know with letters. They slip behind beds, or get tucked under carpets, don’t they?’

  Monsieur Fleurey’s little bright brown eyes met the Englishman’s for a second. Then he seized Guffy’s hand and wrung it.

  ‘Monsieur Randall,’ he said with a gulp which he could not quite repress, ‘you are a veritable hero. The – how shall I say? – the pineapple of your race.’

  Guffy went back to the royal suite and delivered his ultimatum. Mr Lugg was inclined to be truculent, but Campion was instantly obliging.

  ‘That’s rather a good idea on the whole,’ he said. ‘You slip out and throw the letter behind the bed, Lugg. After all, we’ve read it. Don’t be a fool.’

  When the big man had gone off grumbling on his errand he turned again to Guffy.

  ‘I shouldn’t think many things would arouse our friend Étienne so thoroughly, would you?’ he said slowly.

  ‘Rather not. The poor fellow seemed on the verge of suicide.’ Guffy was still amazed.

  Mr Campion moved over to the telephone. ‘Little Albert has had one of his rare and illuminating thoughts,’ he said, and put through a call to Paris.

  After some moments’ rapid conversation in French with some oracle in the capital, he hung up the receiver and faced the trio. There was a curious expression in the pale eyes behind the spectacles, and for the first time that day a faint tinge of colour on the high cheek-bones.

  ‘That was my good friend Daudet of the Sûreté,’ he said. ‘He knows everything, although this question was simple enough in all conscience. It occurred to me that the only thing that could produce such a state of hysteria in the good Fleurey was the fear of losing his job, of relinquishing the eminent position he has worked so hard to attain. I enquired of Daudet the name of the proprietors of this hotel, and he tells me that this, the Mirifique at Nice, and the Mirabeau at Marseilles are owned by the Société Anonyme de Winterhouse Incorporated. And that interesting little combine, my pretties, is chairmaned and practically owned by that beautiful soul Brett Savanake. D’you know, I really think things are going to begin.’

  CHAPTER IV

  ‘Here’s Mystery’

  ‘ACROSS THE FACE of the East Suffolk Courier and Hadleigh Argus, Fate’s moving finger writes, and not very grammatically either,’ said Mr Campion cheerfully to Guffy, who sat beside him in the back of his venerable Bentley thirty-six hours later.

  Lugg was driving, and by his side Eager-Wright dozed peacefully.

  Campion glanced at the paragraph in the local newspaper they had bought on the way down which had occasioned his remark. Its headline, ‘Mysterious Attack in Suffolk Village’, had caught his attention, and he re-read the few words below for the fourth or fifth time during the journey.

  ‘Miss Harriet Huntingforest, a resident of Pontisbright, near Hadleigh, Suffolk, has been the victim of a remarkable attack by an intruder yesterday, who entered her house and ransacked it without removing anything of value. Miss Huntingforest, who surprised the intruder, courageously ordered him out of the house, but was brutally felled to the ground, which rendered her unconscious. The only description of her assailant with which Miss Huntingforest can furnish the local police officer is that he was of unusual height and the possessor of an extraordinarily pronounced widow’s peak.’

  ‘Pretty, isn’t it?’ he said, handing the paper to Guffy. ‘That’s a sort of sign and portent, a direct message from Providence to say, “Albert, you’re on the right track.”’

  ‘It’s extraordinary,’ said Guffy. ‘I’m glad I came with you. Since Farquharson has had to stay behind to hand in his report, I feel the Court of Averna would be a bit depleted without me. I see myself as a sort of Watson with a club.’

  Mr Campion shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know whether it’s going to be that kind of a party, unfortunately,’ he said. ‘Although I don’t know what on earth Peaky Doyle’s up to, beating up old ladies. Still, we must wait to find that out until we get there – if ever.’ He glanced round him at the desolate country through which they were passing as he spoke.

  The scenery was growing more beautiful and more rural at every mile. Once they had left Framlingham the loneliness was extraordinary. They seemed to have travelled for miles without seeing a soul. Plump little white houses were hidden among great overblown trees; even the fields seemed to have become smaller, and the flint roads were dusty and in places extraordinarily bad.

  Just as he had finished speaking, at a particularly confusing five-way cross, Lugg pulled up the car and turned an exasperated face to his employer.

  ‘Now where are we?’ he demanded.

  ‘How far have you been driving blind?’ countered his employer mildly.

  Mr Lugg had the grace to look startled. ‘I was relying on you,’ he said bitterly. ‘I thought you’d sing out if I was going wrong. I didn’t expect you to sit there like a dummy while we see England first. When I’ve bin in doubt I’ve bin taking the road to the left; and I’ve bin in doubt since we left Ipswich.’

  ‘At that rate,’ said Mr Campion affably, ‘we ought to be just approaching it again. There’s a map in that pocket by the side of you, Guffy. As for you, Lugg, you hop out and have a lo
ok at the signpost.’

  Still grumbling, Mr Lugg obeyed, and came back a moment or so later with the information that the two roads on their right both seemed to lead to a place called Sweethearting, they were headed for Little Dunning, and had apparently come from Little Sweffling.

  ‘There’s nothing but a boy scout mark to show where that road leads to,’ he added, pointing to the remaining way. ‘Probably the poor bloke ’oo wrote the signpost didn’t know and ’adn’t got the energy to go and see. Shall we go and ’ave a look?’

  ‘Boy scout mark?’ enquired Campion, and as Lugg’s great flail of a hand indicated a gate which led into a ploughed field on their right, the young man rose slowly and, climbing out of the car, went over to examine the sign chalked upon its surface.

  He was so long away that Guffy, his curiosity aroused, went to join him and found him looking down at a round patch on the wood where the old and dirty surface had been scraped away. In the centre of the white wood thus displayed was a mark in red chalk. It was carefully made and consisted of a cross surmounted by a cedilla.

  Mr Campion was frowning. ‘How extraordinary!’ he said. ‘It must be a coincidence, of course. Ever seen that mark before, Guffy? It’s probably the most ancient symbol in the world.’

  Eager-Wright, who had now joined the group, looked puzzled.

  ‘I have seen it somewhere before,’ he said. ‘What is it? A tramp sign?’

  Campion shook his head. ‘No. It’s most odd.’ There was a new inflexion in his voice, and they regarded him with interest. He stretched out his hand and rubbed the chalk gently. ‘It’s a perfect example of the ancient God-help-us mark,’ he said slowly. ‘Frankly, my dear old birds, you’ve no idea how ancient it is. It’s probably the sign that the Children of Israel chalked up on their doors in times of persecution. The Ancient Britons used it when the Norse pirates swept down upon them. At the time of the Black Death you could find it on practically every door and house wall. The last time I saw it, it was scribbled upon a piece of corrugated iron in a devastated area in France after the war. You can never tell where it’s going to turn up. It isn’t an appeal to a Christian god, even. The symbol of the cross is much older than Christianity, of course. Usually this thing is found in terrorized districts, rather than in places where the danger has already struck. It’s a sort of – well, it’s a fear sign. It’s very remarkable to find it here.’

  ‘If we could find a “public”,’ said Mr Lugg, on whom the phenomenon had made little or no impression, ‘we could ask our way. Then we should feel we were getting somewhere, and we wouldn’t be wasting our time any’ow.’

  There was no gainsaying the wisdom of this remark, and they trooped back to the car thoughtfully. The green countryside looked very peaceful and lovely in the late afternoon sun, but there was no telling what cloud might hang over this gentle unspoiled area, what secret might be hidden in its lush meadows or behind the branches of its leafy overhanging trees.

  It was eight o’clock in the evening when Lugg, who seemed to have developed a beer-divining gift, steered the ancient Bentley slowly down the hill into the wide valley in which the village of Pontisbright lay. The main bulk of the place was built round two sides of a square heath comprising some twenty acres of gorse and heather, interspersed with short wiry grass. The principal road, down which they came, skirted one side of the heath and dipped suddenly, to swerve at right angles at the base of the valley and struggle off northward, leaving upon its left a small winding river by the side of which was an old white mill with a largish house attached.

  The occupants of the car made a note of the mill. This, then, was the home of the Fittons, the children of a pretender to the Pontisbright title.

  On the opposite side of the road from the mill was a considerable strip of woodland, and they guessed that the site of the original Pontisbright Hall must have been somewhere here.

  They caught a glimpse of another house set squarely in the far corner of the wood, a structure whose white walls and slate roof looked curiously out of place in comparison with the antiquity around.

  Lugg turned at right angles to the main road and brought the Bentley up with great pride before the entrance of one of the most delightful inns in a county famous for its hostelries.

  The ‘Gauntlett’ was shaped like an E without the centre stroke, and in the recess screened by its yellow walls was a cobbled yard, very fresh and clean. A row of benches bordered the yard and a large sign hung from a post planted in the cobbles. The ruddy painted board was much faded, but the outline of a great mailed fist was just discernible on a blue ground.

  The building was thatched, and its latticed windows were set crazily in the walls among the clematis which covered them.

  The bar door was open, and two old men sat drinking beer in the last rays of the sun. They looked up with interest in their little watery eyes as the big car appeared. It was evident that the arrival of visitors was doomed to cause a certain amount of commotion. Startled faces appeared at the lower windows and the chatter from within died down.

  Mr Lugg sniffed as he clambered out and held the door open for his passengers to alight.

  ‘Pretty as a picture, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Look lovely covered with snow. Let us ’ope,’ he added solemnly, ‘that the quality of the beer don’t make it all a mockery.’

  Mr Campion ignored this pious wish and led the way into the bar, where they interviewed the landlord. This worthy turned out to be a stocky, rather startled little man in shirtsleeves and a cloth cap. He seemed very dubious about providing them with accommodation, and they got the impression that he was genuinely put out by their unexpected arrival. Finally, however, he fell a victim to Guffy’s powers of persuasion, and his wife, a large, red-faced woman, who shared her husband’s faintly scared expression, conducted them upstairs to big unspoiled Tudor bedrooms.

  As it was too late to go visiting, the personnel of the Court of Averna contented themselves with an evening devoted to deliberately casual enquiry. Eager-Wright and Guffy joined the dart players in the bar, while Mr Campion engaged Mr Bull, the landlord, at shove-ha’penny on the taproom table, polished to glass by long years of eager play.

  The landlord was a past master with the five coins, and at sixpence a game was quite content to beat the harmless-looking young man from London until closing time and after.

  Shove-ha’penny is a great leveller, and as the evening wore on, Mr Bull and Mr Campion reached a state of amity which might have been achieved only by years of different fostering. Mellowed, Mr Bull revealed a streak of conscious virtue which his acquaintances somewhat naturally discredited instantly from his very insistence upon it.

  ‘I wouldn’t cheat you,’ he said to Mr Campion, fixing the young man with a softening eye. ‘I wouldn’t cheat you, because that wouldn’t be right. When I pick up my glass I might flip a coin into the bed with my sleeve.’ He illustrated the point with remarkable dexterity. ‘But I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it because that’d be cheating and that wouldn’t be right.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do it either,’ said Mr Campion, feeling that he was called upon to make some sort of echo to this important statement.

  The landlord depressed his chin until it disappeared into the folds of his neck.

  ‘Very likely not,’ he said. ‘Very likely you wouldn’t. And very likely you couldn’t, either. Takes a bit of practising, that does. There’s some people in this house now’ – he nodded to an innocent-looking old man swigging beer in a corner – ‘who’ve been trying to do it for fifty years and never have, not without being caught. But I tell you what,’ he went on, breathing hops and confidence into Mr Campion’s ear, ‘there’s one man you want to be careful of at shove-ha’penny, and that’s Scatty Williams. Scatty Williams is a clever one.’

  Mr Campion appeared to be momentarily off his game. ‘Sounds an attractive bird,’ he ventured.

  ‘Bird?’ said the landlord, and spat. ‘He’s just an ordinary old man. Looks a bit like a
bird, now you come to say so. Bit like a duck. Bald head and a long yeller nose. Not bright yeller, mind you; about the colour of these walls.’

  Mr Campion glanced at the mellowed plaster and his mental picture of Scatty Williams grew from the merely interesting to the fantastic.

  ‘He works up at the mill,’ continued the landlord. ‘Him and Miss Amanda practically run the business.’

  Mr Campion’s expression became vacant almost to the point of imbecility and he watched the landlord carefully as he stepped back and screwed up his eyes preparatory to taking a shot into the top bed.

  ‘She’s a one with the wireless,’ Mr Bull remarked without further explanation. ‘That’s what the mill’s mostly used for nowadays. They’ve got electric light down there.’

  It had not occurred to Mr Campion before that the mill might be a running concern, and his interest in the Fitton family grew.

  ‘I shouldn’t have thought there was enough grain around here to support a mill,’ he said stupidly.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Mr Bull. ‘No, there’s very little corn. I don’t suppose Miss Amanda mills twenty sacks in a year. She runs a dynamo. Charges up wireless batteries. She told me she could put me up a light outside the house here. Said she’d write my name in lights if I liked. Seems funny, and that’s a fact. So it is now.’

  His opponent refrained from pointing out that as apparently the entire population of Pontisbright gathered at the ‘Gauntlett’ already, not much purpose would be served by any such ambitious scheme, but his interest in Miss Amanda Fitton increased.

  ‘She’s clever for her age,’ was Mr Bull’s next remark, ‘and I’m not trying to deceive you. Even if there was any reason for it I wouldn’t do that. But I reckon she must bring in quite thirty pounds a year, and her only seventeen. Of course they work hard for it, her and Scatty, but they get it.’